Category: Media

Posted on

The Artist is Ripped Off

“In the role-playing activity Starving Artist, for example, groups of students are encouraged to come up with an idea for a musical act, write lyrics and design a CD cover only to be told by a volunteer teacher their work can be downloaded free. According to the lesson, the volunteer would then “ask them how they felt when they realized that their work was stolen and that they would not get anything for their efforts.” NY Times, Sep 25, 2003

What is hilarious about this little scenario, of course, is that it is a complete fantasy. It is a comic fantasy. The most hilarious part is where they convince the students that they would actually have received any of the money that should have been paid for the CDs.

A real world scenario would run thusly: the students come up with an idea for a musical act, write lyrics and music and create a CD cover, and get signed by a major record label.

While in the recording studio, the producer, assigned by the record label, makes some suggestions for the arrangement of their best songs.  Then, of course, he convinces them to give him a co-writing credit.

Their CD sells very well because it is played on the radio– for free– and they perform on television promoting the CD– for free. They have a big advance from the record company and sign a complicated contract they don’t understand. They spend all their money in one year.

The next year, their accountants –played by a volunteer teacher, if you will– tell them they are broke.

They find out that the record company has been deducting all the expenses of recording, packaging, shipping, and promoting their CD against all their royalties. They find out that a whopping bill came from an image consultant hired by the record company on their behalf and at their expense. Then they find out that the image consultant actually works for the record company for a pittance.  They find out that the image consultant, sound engineer, label designer, photographer, and graphic artist all did the same work for several other artists signed to the same record label but who didn’t sell very many CDs at all.

They find out that they owe the record company millions of dollars.  They find out that the producer has collected a huge chunk of their song-writing royalties.

They write and compose a follow-up CD.  This time, the producer brings in a “rhythm consultant” who also takes a co-writing credit.  A record company executive doesn’t like it and demands changes. He wants it to be more pop, less art. The students don’t like the changes at all and demand artistic freedom. The record company tells them that they must change their music or they will not be allowed to release the record. Nor will they be released from their contract and allowed to switch labels to work with a producer who understands what they are trying to do.

Their CD is released on Spotify.  It is downloaded 100,000 times.  They receive a payment from Spotify of $12.53.

They find out that their work was stolen and they would not get anything for their efforts.

Now they know what it feels like to have their hard work stolen from them.

You may now resume downloading.

Posted on

Snipers and Lynch

Sniper teams from the West Virginia State Police were positioned along the route of Private Lynch’s motorcade, and staff from the state’s Division of Natural Resources patrolled the Little Kanawha River, which flows beside the park where Private Lynch appeared. NY Times, July 22, 2003

This was for a personal appearance by Jessica Lynch, the hero of the mighty war against Saddam Hussein. Jessica Lynch single-handedly fought off an entire division of well-armed fanatic Iraqi Mujahideen before repairing her Hummer while it was being sabotaged by a Greenpeace activist and driving a wounded Shiite cleric to the hospital where she set up a foundation to care for his children.

I mean, Jessica Lynch, whose truck rolled over and who was injured and taken to a hospital where she was treated well until the marines were able to rescue her and take her to an American hospital where she could be treated even better.

I like Jessica Lynch. She is on my “Not Sold Out” list because she refused to cooperate with the fanatic capitalist media exploiters who wanted to embellish her story just a little.

But they didn’t need to embellish this part. Yes, there were police snipers positioned along the motorcade route because, I suppose, some absolutely idiotic administrator with the West Virginia State Police actually believed that Saddam Hussein might try to assassinate Jessica Lynch.

[Added December 2003:]

Have you gone to see Peter Pan yet? You ought to, really.

Posted on

Complexity as War on the Consumer

There are two ways to cheat consumers. One is to simply lie to them. This method is fraught with peril, however. After all, there are still a few laws around that protect consumers from something called “fraud”, which is a fancy word for “lies”. And nobody likes to be called a liar.

And nobody needs to lie. The second method is safer, and just as effective.

Make it so difficult and annoying to exercise your rights as a consumer (or patient, or citizen) that most people will just give up and go away.

Complexity is your friend. Complexity is your ally. Complexity is a blunt force instrument of such potency that entire industries and professions have sprung up from it’s forehead like the children of Zeus: lawyers.

We see it in everything from operating manuals to software to insurance policies to health care agreements to employment contracts to amusement park disclaimers. We see it in the forms you fill out to claim the “benefits” you are entitled to under insurance policies or government funded entitlements. You even see it on every piece of software you run on your computer– the EULA (End User Legal Agreement) which means nothing to almost every person who clicks on “yes, I agree”. They don’t know what they are agreeing to. It doesn’t matter that they don’t know what they are agreeing to. The point is that there is a lot verbiage in there can be roughly translated as “you have no rights whatsoever”.

It’s a good turf on which to choose your battle. You will always have allies among those who believe the common folk should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, take a course or two in American law, or lay out $15,000 for lawyers. And you have many other allies among similarly interested corporations and government functionaries who know very well that they might be in the wrong but count on the numbing effect to make you go away.

Some companies even ask you to sign employment agreements that are absolutely illegal because they abridge rights that are guaranteed to every employee under state or provincial law. For example, the organization I work for, Christian Horizons, asks employees to agree that any “wrongful dismissal” issues will be settled by an arbitrator appointed by— guess who?– Christian Horizons. In reality, if you were “wrongfully” dismissed, you retain every right to bring your case to the Labour Relations Board of Ontario, no matter what you signed. I’m not worried because I happen to work for a good, ethical organization, but I still disagree with that provision of the employment agreement.

In this province, you cannot sign an agreement giving your employer a right to cheat you.

Why is there no Greenpeace or World Wildlife Federation or Amnesty International for understandability? We are trying to preserve the environment, unusual species, and the ozone. Why doesn’t someone form an organization to protect language from similar exploitation and abuse?

Complexity is more than a strategy to diminish our rights. It is an assault. To be human is to use language. The highest achievements of humanity, of nation, of history, of culture, is expressed in language. The most intimate human feelings, the great principles of morality and ethics, and even our spiritual aspirations are expressed in language. To pervert, twist, and abuse language, is to abuse humanity.

The strategy of these corporate lawyer hucksters is not really to express complex legal and contractual details. The real purpose is to express nothing, and thus, everything. You might have a right, you might not. The agreement might stand up in court, but more likely, it won’t.

Judges are not entirely stupid. Sometimes they say what everyone thinks: nobody reads those things and nobody understands them. Sometimes, however, they will say, “You should have read the agreement carefully.”

Yes, yes: here on page 59, paragraph 113c, section iii, it says that you accept liability for all damage caused by misuse intentional or not, or actions construed as misuse for the purposes of this agreement as specified in section ii, paragraph 78, notwithstanding any non-specified damages resulting from uses construed to be within specified actionable exceptions deemed applicable”.

But most people don’t know that judges will sometimes rule against these agreements. They assume that if they sign some kind of complex agreement, they are bound to observe the terms. Sometimes they are. It doesn’t matter. The lawyers enter the picture, like a long row of fat, disease-ridden can-can dancers, and the performance begins.

You don’t have to get to court, or to any kind of judgment or agreement. You just have to realize that it will cost you enormous sums of money to even make a contest of it.

The solution is quite simple. There should be a law that specifies that all contractual agreements, warranties, and conditions must be written in plain and understandable English. A panel of grade six teachers should be set up to review any questionable documents. This panel should be empowered to declare null and void any agreement that is not understandable by a reasonable person with a reasonable degree of effort. A consideration will be the fact that the average person is inundated with dozens or hundreds of these agreements every year, and can’t possibly spend every waking hour reviewing them all to see if he or she is in full compliance.

Added May 1, 2003:

The RIAA recently sued four students for facilitating the sharing of pirated music files on their university networks. However, as usual, it is reported that they plan to settle out of court. So they are using the potential complexity and inconvenience of court action to club the students into submission, without actually having to prove their case in court.

Wise decision on their part: they might not win. I have yet to read or hear of a single court case like this in which the RIAA actually won a judicial decision saying that copying of music for personal use is illegal.

I thought, at first, that this would be one– but of course! The inevitable out-of-court settlement!

Posted on

The Televisionization of the Internet

You probably don’t think of our society as Totalitarian. A Totalitarian society is a society that is rule by a pernicious doctrine to which all societal functions must be subordinated to one exclusive purpose.

By golly, we’re free to live as we choose, in our society. Aren’t we?

Suppose I wanted to come up with a new type of communication network that combined the functionality of the telephone, television, and radio, into one powerful medium, with one small proviso. The proviso is this: no commercial use of the medium is allowed. None whatsoever. No advertising, no selling, no profiteering. The system would be created and run by volunteers only.

There’s a lot of technical obstacles, of course. But probably not as many as you think. But there is one overwhelming obstacle: our society is totalitarian and will not stand for a non-commercial communications network.

Think that analysis is a little extreme? No television network will allow Adbusters to run their advertisements criticizing advertisers and the consumerist lifestyle. They won’t accept the money, they won’t run the ads. You can sell gas-guzzling cars, unproven pharmaceutical products, and booze, and even scantily-clad women, but you can’t challenge the fundamental religion of our society: consumerism.

And now the internet. When it started, it was beautiful, free, clean, and amazing. Have you browsed around the net lately? All you see is advertising, on every single damn site. And if you aren’t seeing advertising on the site itself, you are getting whacked via e-mail, or in the browser frames, or with pop-up windows.

You might think it’s merely a case of a lot of internet users deciding to try to make a few bucks. But that’s not all it is. Why on earth should your browser permit a pop-up ad? Why should it enable such a function? Why should it be difficult or impossible to turn off that function? Microsoft and Netscape design the browsers. They have incorporated features into the browser to guarantee that you will be whacked every time you go on the internet.

And Microsoft has designed the operating system to encourage the user to become a passive drooling idiot, gushing over the little animations and sound effects playing on his computer, while relinquishing control over his eyeballs and ears to the corporate politburos of America.

The internet is the largest single source of pollution. It is so bad, that for the first time since I first went “on-line” way back in the early 1990’s, I am seriously considering getting off.

Posted on

Woodward the Intern

Bob Woodward– he of “All the President’s Men” fame– used to be a journalist. He’ll probably be honored forever for his celebrated expose– with Carl Bernstein– of the Watergate scandal.

He probably doesn’t know why.

He is now an iconographer of the worst sort. He belongs to the Barbara Walters school of pseudo-journalists who think that it is better to write fawning little laudatory tracts from the inside, than incisive, perceptive, important news from the outside.

Bob Woodward is in. He is invited to join President Bush and Cheney and the whole gang in the White House for an “insider” look at the presidency of George W. That’s like getting an “insider” account of the 9/11 bombings from Osama Bin Laden– if he really even had anything to do with it.*

The Bush administration, which, believe it or not, still has few holdovers from the Nixon era, must love the irony of it all, tee hee. Just imagine– one of the most famous journalists on the planet, known primarily for his role in bringing down the Nixon White House, gives his imprimatur of approval to a president that is as far to the right of Nixon as McGovern was to his left.

If George W. Bush had any real character, of course, he would have invited a reporter with acuity and objectivity, to see that he really is, ahem, doing a good job. Democrats sometimes like to do this, because, after all, they are the party of tolerance and diversity. That’s why Clinton had David Gergen on his staff for a while. That’s why President Bartlett on West Wing brought in Ainsley as Sam Seaborne’s nemesis for a while. (Why is it that you just know that a similar show with a Republican president and republican sensibilities would never bring in a liberal to ensure diversity of opinion? Because they believe they’re always right, that’s why.)

Instead, Bush, having established to his satisfaction that Woodward was politically sympathetic, and eager to please, invited the little toady, a naïve little fawn, an intern, for heaven’s sake, into the oval office for what can only be described as journalistic fellatio. Woodward’s stained dress is his “casual” and coy references to files marked “Top Secret” left within his view, and the flattering portrait of the president and his staff as personable, patriotic, and steely-eyed with determination to do something noble, be it whacking the Iraqi’s or giving billions of dollars in tax rebates to the rich.

I don’t mind Woodward fawning over Bush and writing pornographic iconography (pornography of the political mind). I do mind him continuing to pass himself off as a journalist on CNN and other talk shows, and acting as if he has any kind of objectivity left.

Woodward, take off the dress. It’s time to go home.

* I know some people will think it is pretty strange when I say “if he even had anything to do with it”. I’ll repeat it: if he even had anything to do with it.

If you are at all familiar with Nazi history, you know about the concept of the big lie. The idea is that any idea, no matter how ridiculous, can be sold to the general population as unquestionable truth by simply repeating it over and over again, no matter what anyone says.

That is what has happened with Osama Bin Laden. He is absolutely regarded as the mastermind behind 9/11 even though no proof has ever been adduced to that effect. Without a doubt, he approved of the attack. Without a doubt, he hates the United States. Without a doubt, he supports terrorist activities against Israel and the United States, and Western Civilization altogether.

But that is not proof that he orchestrated or financed or designed the attack on the World Trade Centre, and it bothers me, even if it doesn’t bother anyone else, that he would be hanged on the spot in the U.S. if he was ever found there and no one would mind at all

Posted on

School Portrait Pimps

What is going on here?

Your kid has to go to school. It’s required by law. It doesn’t matter whether your kid goes to a private school or public school, he or she is required by law to be there until he or she is 16.

So, while we’ve got your kid, we’re going to take an assembly-line picture and you have to buy it.

You don’t actually have to buy it. I lied. You can choose to be “different’ and disappoint your child and not buy it or you can buy it. If you’re poor, you might not buy it because it is fairly expensive, especially if you take the “package”. If you take a picture with your own camera, it might cost you fifty cents. But the school photographers charge a lot more than that for a basic print. And, of course, they always offer you packages.  You can’t just pick the one you want: you must buy the package that contains the one you want.  They offer you these little wallet-sized photos that your kids can hand out to all their friends and you can mail to your relatives. Buy it. And you can buy the deluxe glamour photo if you want. That’s really expensive.

The portrait pimps operate extremely efficiently. They are not interested in getting a personalized shot of your kid. They don’t want to waste any time at all following your kid around to see what she does, who her friends are, or which piece of playground equipment is her favorite. No, the kids are marched into a room,– assembly line style– and snapped in about 45 seconds. They are snapped in front of a cookie-cutter non-descript amorphous background. The photos are printed for everyone even if you don’t ask to see the larger prints. They are sent home– the teachers have to get the photos to the kids and force them to take them home. You have to see them. Your kids see them. Your kids friends see them. Buy.

I saw a really remarkable set of school photographs once. They were photos I would have liked to have. It was taken at Calvin Memorial Christian School in the early 1960’s. The photos were taken of each student at their desks or in their classrooms at an activity. Then they were all printed on one 5 X 7, in black and white. It was an amazing photo. You were immediately struck by the diversity of poses and expressions. It was filled with character and revelation and colour, even though it was black and white.

You can just imagine what the Portrait Studio Pimps would think of that. Lord almighty! You’d have to go into each classroom with a camera and think about each of 20 or 25 or 30 shots. You’d have to take time to do it right. You have to compose the shot, set the aperture and shutter speed, focus, aim, and shoot.  It must have also taken more time to print. And then, of course, you lose the rubber-stamp enlargements that are so lucrative to sell to the fond parents.

The company that comes in to take and sell the photos does not have any competition. I questioned the idea once when I was a teacher in Chatham I was told that it would be impractical to have numerous companies compete. The school negotiates with and chooses a vendor and they have exclusive access to the students and teachers for that year.

Does it even matter? Are you happy about the fact that your child is photographed in exactly the same style, with the same background, and the same lighting, as 40 million other children in every town, city, and hicksville on the entire continent?

Of course, it does have the unintended bizarre side effect of collectivizing public memory of school children. The image of our children at school is that frozen, bland, colourless portrait photo of an awkward nervous kid sitting in front of a strange cameraman because the teacher told him or her to. It’s almost like a tattoo or a uniform or, yes, a rubber stamp. Approved. Collectivized. A certified consumer.

Why is it impractical? Because the photo studios don’t want to ask parents first if they want to have a picture taken of their children in front of a colourless, characterless backdrop and if they would be willing to pay $50 for a “package” of prints. If they did that, some parents might reasonably say “no”. By forcing all students to have shots taken and then handing out the pictures at school and forcing the children to take them home, you have to believe, you guarantee much higher sales. Of course it’s practical. It just doesn’t guarantee enough profits to the company selling the photos.

Why do schools allow this?  The yearbook.  Yes, they get the standardized cookie-cutter roster shots of every kid in every class for the yearbook.  Indispensable.

I always feel bullied by this system. I don’t like cookie-cutter photos, and I don’t like them being shoved down my throat by people who care as much about your kid as they do about photography– nil. I think the schools should take the upper hand here and start dictating terms. Stop using the cookie-cutter approach. Get out there into the classrooms on the new “annual photography day” and start taking pictures of students doing what they do at school, studying, listening, interacting, being smart-alecks, getting stumped, whatever. Use digital cameras so film cost is not an issue, and students can pick the best shot to use for their “official” school photo.

October 13, 2002

The technical quality of school portraits is not very bad, usually. The faces are well-lit, and a large format camera is usually used, so the pictures are sharp and accurate. For many families in the 1960’s, it might well be the best technical photos they have.

But with the vastly increased popularity of 35mm cameras, however, that little niche is no longer quite so prominent, and I suspect a lot of families no longer bother with the school portraits. They take their own very good pictures.

The newer digital cameras offer excellent picture quality and would allow school photographers to take as many shots as they need to to get a good one. They can load them all onto a computer and then print out exactly as many as parents request, instead trying to shove “packages” down our throats.

 

Posted on

Barbie Barbs

“My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be,” Handler wrote in a 1994 autobiography. “Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices.”

Ruth Handler, the inventor of the Barbie doll in 1959, quoted in NY Times, Sunday April 28, 2002.

Another example of how “spin” works. You define a nuclear missile as a “peace-keeper”, and a bill that increases pollution as “the Clear Skies Act”. And you define a toy that glorifies unrealistic body shapes and conspicuous consumption as something that is all about giving women “choices”.

The idea of the Barbie Doll was not well-received by Mattel’s male executives, but it became a hit and made a fortune for Mattel, especially once it got the idea of selling outfits and accessories to go with the doll. In other words, it became a training tool for little girls: acquire and acquire and acquire.

How ironic is it that, later in life, after suffering from breast cancer, Handler created a new, more satisfactory prosthetic breast, which she called “Nearly Me” and later sold the company for $1 million.

2013-10: I recently saw a Facebook link to a mother who found a “solution” to the horrible, horrible problem of naked Barbies in the toy box. The “solution” is to paint “bathing suits” on the Barbie dolls. That way Barbie would never be naked.

Of course, Barbie is doll. She is never naked. But you know how little girls are: one minute they forget to put Barbies expensive clothing back on, along with the accessories, and the next they are twerking at the MTV awards.

Posted on

JAGged Little Pill

According to the New York Times (March 31, 2002), the television program “JAG” (I’ve never watched it) has become a mouthpiece for the Pentagon, lovingly rendering noble soldiers and officers wisely and bravely enacting foreign policy on behalf of an adoring citizenry.

Star David Elliot says, “we send our scripts to our liaison and they weigh in on it,” he said, referring to Paul Strub, the Pentagon’s liaison with the entertainment industry. Mr. Elliott said the show hesitated to anger its Pentagon contacts, “because they certainly lend a great deal of production value that we couldn’t buy.” That “production value” is government funded military installations and equipment that are used in the series.

“JAG” reflects the pro-military sensibility of Mr. Bellisario, 66, a former staff sergeant in the Marines. He said that he believed military tribunals, not an international court, were the best way to mete out justice to terrorists, and that he wanted to show that such tribunals would not be kangaroo courts.

“I want to show people that the tribunals are not what many people feared they would be, which is that they would be nothing more than a necktie party, that they would have no foundation in law, that this was a way of taking these people and killing them,” Mr. Bellisario said. “I wanted to show that we still have a system of justice.” Personally, though, he said he believed “they should all be taken out and blown up.”

The JAG episode thrills viewers with a tribunal lynching party of a real Qaeda implicated in the WTC bombing. In real life, we haven’t caught a single suspect yet. Not one. Most of them, apparently, escaped into Pakistan where General Musharraf (98% approval rating in the latest “poll”) pretends to be trying to round them up, while testing nuclear missiles to use on India.

At $62 billion, the most expensive fruitless prosecution in history.

But what really concerns me is this. Bush is the Republican President, a member of the party that believes that welfare is a corrosive handout that increases lassitude and dependency, and that the government should stay out of business let the free enterprise system work it’s magic unencumbered.

So why are they subsidizing Hollywood movies and television programs like JAG? It’s a bailout. It’s propaganda. It’s a government handout. It’s created dependencies and laziness and lassitude. Make those entertainment moguls get off their fat butts and build their own sets and special effects! Stop these massive government hand-outs and subsidies immediately, so that the taxpayer’s money can be used for legitimate purposes. Like building more prisons.

Posted on

Mel Lastman and the Bikers

Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino nearly had a fit when he heard that Mayor Mel Lastman went down to a local hotel that was hosting a biker’s convention and shook hands with a member of a motorcycle gang.

Didn’t he know, by golly, that these bikers are criminals? What the hell was he doing shaking hands and smiling with a gang of known felons?

My question is, what was Julian Fantino doing sitting on his duff while known criminals were frequenting a Toronto bar? Why didn’t he get into his new police helicopter, race down to the hotel, and arrest them? Quick– before they hurt the mayor!

Possibly because the police didn’t happen to have any evidence that any one of these particular persons shaking the hands of the mayor had actually committed a crime.

In other words, these were merely unsavory characters, with whom respectable men– like Julian Fantino– would never associate.

Fantino knows that some members of biker gangs commit crimes. He also knows very well that some do not, just as we know that not all business executives cheat and lie and then sell off their stocks and retire with millions in ill-gotten gains. But I’ll bet Mayor Lastman doesn’t get any flack for shaking hands with Enron executives.

Mel Lastman should never have apologized. He should have said, look Fantino, if you have evidence that these people committed crimes, go ahead and arrest them. If you don’t, then respect the fact that like any other citizen they are entitled to the assumption of innocence, and to visit our fair city and spend their tourist dollars here like any other tourist.

The image of a supposedly respectable public person shaking hands with a felon, though, calls to mind an image from last year: Margaret Thatcher embracing Augusto Pinochet, Chile’s dictator and torturer-general.

I don’t care if you call it “stereo-typing” or “profiling” or any other euphemism for prejudice. It’s wrong. Fantino is the one who should apologize. His statement is the one that should be garnering loads of disapproval from the so-called liberal media.

Posted on

National Hysterical Orgasm

We are safe.

This is probably the least popular opinion I’ve ever posted here but I think the whole continent has gone nuts. And I mean really nuts. This is not just a case of the public or politicians getting a little carried away with paranoia and hysteria. It’s just a matter of idiocy on a grand scale. The world has not changed. We are safe.

What’s really going on? There was a massively successful terrorist attack on New York City. A lot of people were killed and a lot of property was damaged. That, folks, is about all we know so far. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. You think I’m nuts? What about the anthrax? What about the new threats? What about Saddam—isn’t he pointing his Scud missiles at us right now?

Everything aside from the initial attack is hype. CNN, which packages news about war, death, and destruction as entertainment, talks about nothing else. The only real news here is that otherwise rational people have completely lost their senses.

How often, for example, do you hear the actual number of dead? 10,000? 8,000? 5,000? It is closer to 4,000. That’s a big number, but it’s not 30,000, which is the number of body bags New York officials initially requested. Who made that judgment? Why hasn’t he been sacked?

It is getting comical. President Bush attends a ballgame in New York and we are given to understand that the holy and sacred Vice-President is being safely stowed away, in a Tupperware container somewhere near Camp David, I presume. It is an “undisclosed” location. Cheney himself probably doesn’t know where it is. Are we supposed to be reassured that the deputy sidekick of the unelected president of the United States is safe? For what? Comic relief? We’re supposed to be relieved that if something happens to George W., Dick Cheney will be in charge???

The anthrax? Do you know how many people have died from anthrax? Four. But we are going to spend about a billion dollars preventing a fifth victim.

What the hell does anyone really know about the anthrax attacks? The government is trying to set the all-time record in dissimulation and disinformation, but the bottom line is that nobody has brought forward even the slightest evidence that the anthrax letters came from anyone other than your usual all-American crackpot. I’m not saying that it’s not possible that some Islamic fundamentalist is behind it. I don’t think it’s likely, myself, but, unlike our noble leaders, I’m willing to admit that I don’t know. Until the FBI has some kind of proof, it is not only stupid but actually irresponsible to go around pointing the finger at anyone.

Every year, tens of thousands of people die at work and on the highway. But what is everyone terrified of now? Anthrax. Nobody is organizing massive numbers of safe-driving clinics, but everyone’s putting on rubber gloves when they handle the mail! How many people get injured or killed in hunting accidents, or accidents involving all-terrain vehicles, or fires, or incorrectly prescribed medicines? Way, way more than will be killed by terrorists in the foreseeable future.

According to the United Nations, 11 million children die every year of preventable causes. [NY Times, March 14, 2002] Nobody, yet, has sounded the alarm.

An actress– whom I never heard of– stated that she no longer opened her mail because of the anthrax scare. Aside from the absurdity of Osama Bin Laden targeting some second-rate unknown Hollywood actress, instead of, for example, Fort Benning, you have to realize that she didn’t say that her mail wasn’t being opened. In other words, good heavens, I’ll have my secretary risk her life instead…

President Bush and other officials have publicly linked the anthrax letters to Osama Bin Laden, while admitting there is no proof. This has the effect of focusing American anger even more intensely on a subject who seems more credibly linked to other terrorist acts. You get a muddying of emotions and intellect here. You get arguments in favor of harsh action against Afghanistan linked to vague feelings of hysteria towards the anthrax threat.

And what on earth is going on in Afghanistan? I thought there was a plan? The trouble is that most of the terrorists who crashed the planes into the World Trade Centre come from Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. According to Seymour Hersh and others, the Saudi Royal Family has been less than cooperative.

What’s really going on here? Not much, since the attack itself. But there are a lot of people with a lot of reasons why they want this “crisis” to be hyped as much as possible. From the cop putting in over-time guarding buildings that are absurdly unlikely to be targets of anyone, to the generals and the military suppliers who have enormous profits and power at stake.

I just watched a press conference in Washington at which the Mayor and various cronies discussed their response to the possibility of anthrax contamination at the local postal sorting stations. They are modeling their presentation on Giuliani’s highly regarded press conferences in New York. The people behind the mayor all look so very self-important and responsible. They’d like us to believe they are our noble leaders and fully in charge and competent. I’m starting to think there’s a bit of a contest here to get on TV and get your five minutes of fame and maybe get more funding and more staff for your department.

CNN, at this very moment, is using talcum powder to demonstrate that anthrax spores can leak through an envelope. Highly scientific. You go, oh my god, the powder is getting out! It’s everywhere! Run, run for your lives!

In London, Ontario, officials are searching the bags of three-year-olds attending the Children’s Museum. I’m sorry—with all due respect, I think these officials are idiots. Do they imagine Osama Bin Laden sitting in his cave in the mountains of Afghanistan and wondering if the suicide bomber he sent to the Children’s Museum in London, Ontario made it through yet?

In Peterborough, Ontario, an idiot school board cancelled a class trip to Holland to take part in a United Nations Conference.

Why? Because of the terrorism! What terrorism? What terrorism!? Are you mad! It’s everywhere. Planes are falling out of the sky! Bombs exploding everywhere! Anthrax in all the postal outlets…..

No. It’s hysteria, plain and simple, and God keep us out of the hands of hysterics. When a group of parents– with better sense than most–decided to send their children to the conference anyway (with proper chaperones and liability insurance) the school board, in a snit, decided to punish them by ordering teachers to give these students zeros for all assignments and tests missed.  How dare you make us look hysterical and paranoid?!

Well, you could argue that it’s simply good and wise to have more security than we used to have. The problem is that if you convince everyone to get hysterical, they lose all sense of reasonableness and proportion. Thousands of people die every year in this country, of disease, accident, neglect, and murder. We have accrued a widely shared body of wisdom about the relative immediacy and causes of these deaths. In a few short weeks, we have thrown all this common sense out the window. We go home and watch the cheesy and disreputable CNN and come to the conclusion that Osama Bin Laden is after us.

Now CNN is bringing on a professional “headhunter” to tell us which vocations are most at risk from terrorist attack.

I am getting roundly sick of idiot conservatives who see this whole crisis as an excuse to get rid of civil liberties and engorge the defense department with new high-tech toys. And I’m really getting fed up with conservatives who regard anyone who disagrees with their own personal views on how the war against Bin Laden should be run as patsies. “Oh, so you want to do nothing!” I don’t know of any liberal who wants to do nothing, but if you don’t go along with the current incoherent policies, conservatives can’t stand the thought that something not involving big explosions and blood-letting should even be considered.

The festering sore of the administration’s current policies is Saudi Arabia. It is becoming increasingly obvious to some that the Saudi’s may not only have provided 15 of the 19 hijackers, but they may actually have been paying off Osama Bin Laden for years.

Look, it’s not that complicated. Osama Bin Laden’s terrorists are not standing outside in Afghanistan waiting for American bombs to fall on them. Most of them are probably not even in Afghanistan. So you have the U.S. bombing one of the poorest and most unfortunate nations on earth. And you have the U.S. snuggling up to authoritarian leaders in Syria, Jordan, Iran, and Pakistan, all of whom faced potential insurgencies in their own nations.

Real police work…. How come the FBI can’t trace those letters? When they talk about funding needs for the agency, the bravado about how new, expensive technologies will enable them to magically apprehend criminals before they even commit a crime is invigorating. The reality, obviously, is more like Inspector Clouseau.

Some people have questioned the idea of bombing a country that is already in a state of near-collapse. Some conservatives have angrily retorted, basically, “how dare you?” Regardless of the strategic value of the bombing runs, and regardless of the fact that we are probably created an entire new generation of suicide-bombers among those very angry victims, you can’t ignore the fact that we have an immense military-industrial complex in the U.S. that is absolutely in lust with power and money. There hasn’t been a good war in a decade, while the military has been stockpiling weapons and delivery systems with unbridled but frustrated passion. This opportunity, for them, is a godsend, and I would wager that the desire of the military to use up as many bombs as possible and make frantic pitches for new weapons systems and more money, is without restraint.