The following is an email sent to Senator Arlen Specter, (D?) PA, regarding a "guest opinion" I found over at Iowahawk. Upon further review, I have my doubts about who wrote the "guest opinion" attributed to Specter and Kathleen Sebelius. Regardless of authorship, I have no regrets about sending this to the party flipping, overburdened senator who's official website mentions the bulk of emails he receives ("tens of thousands") and who publically states that he does not have enough time to handle reading all the legislation he has to be familiar with.


Mr. Arlen Specter,

Now I know you're going to want to stop reading after you read the next sentence but in the midst of what I know is a very busy schedule, please continue. I just read your "Crisis of Confidence" guest column and after reading it three times, I have to say, I think it's time you left office.

I worked in the service industry for years, mostly restaurants and a couple bars. I had to take breaks from it, because it was too much to handle. I'd start putting myself above the customer. It was about me, not about my service. It ceased to be about the customer, or in your case, the constituent. If I didn't get a tip, I'd fill with a vitriolic hate that mirrored what I just read in your writing.

Mr. Specter, sir, it is NOT ABOUT YOU. Thank you for your hard work over the years, I'm sure you have done some good and I'm not saying you're incapable of continuing to do good, but you are in serious need of an attitude adjustment or a change of scenery.

I read your comments about "big voter," and I must say that I think I understand how hard it is to be trying your best only to have it not be good enough. But when I read your statement, "It's time for us to get out our pitchforks and tell the Outside-the-Beltway gang that we're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it any more. We are the little guy [...]", all I could think about was how you should to keep a diary instead of plastering your opinion all over the internet and God only knows where else.

You're not the little guy.

When I read your statement, "We are the people who get up every day, work hard, and play inside the rules [...]", It raised a little bit of respect for the hard work you, and other hard working representatives do. I do respect the idea of representative government but when you continued with, "[...] And if one of us accidentally plays outside one of those rules, then, by golly, the rest of us will make sure to modify that rule so he's still playing inside the rules." You lost me. That sir sounds like an abuse of power waiting to happen. It sounds like a variation on croneyism.

It also sounds like more legislation. If you don't have time to manage the legislation that you do have, should you really be making more to bend the rules to fit?

So far as my government classes have taught me, this country was founded with the idea of checks and balances on our government. One of those checks and balances is the voice of the people you're supposed to be representing.

I was a young man in 1994, but I know that republicans took over the majority in our representative bodies. Remember, back when you were a republican? I found your references to surviving "the horrors of November 1994" a little laughable. As laughable as your switching parties for reasons of electability (How much will your platform be changing?).

I barely even understand what you mean when you mention designing "important safety net protections, such as revolving doors, redistricting, earmarks, and franking privileges." From what I know revolving doors refer to jumping between the public and private sector, which according to my knowledge brings the Cheney/Halliburton fiasco to mind and is something I oppose. Redistricting seems like either a cheap ploy to maintain public office or a method of designing a constituency (the latter of those two isn't necessarily a bad thing if accurate representation is the result). I don't see how franking privilages (which I understand to have something to do with basically free postage for official representative business) has anything to do with staying in office. Earmarking was a hot button this last election season, and I'm not sure what you're referring to when you mention it. All of that aside, I am of the belief that being a representative shouldn't be seen as a career but instead as service.

Then you continued, "And we're tired of getting pushed around the town hall by the likes of you, Big Voter." Mr. Specter, respectfully, you are the voice of the voter and if the voter isn't happy with your actions, what recourse does he have? If you're too busy to read legislation, perhaps you're too busy to keep up with your "tens of thousands of emails," perhaps "big voter" is feeling silenced and unheard; without other options. A town hall shouldn't be a photo op, it should be a place for interaction between representative and represented, if you're properly representing your constituents, it might be both.

In the end, I do agree with you on your conclusion that "democracy means that voters get the government they deserve." If the voting population of your district re-elects you, they do deserve you, but sir, if you don't deserve them perhaps you are in the wrong line of work.

Sincerely,
Samuel Robert Osborne
(just another voice in the cacophony)

Iran & America

Oh golly.

I had a dream the other night that the little city that I live in turned into a third world nightmare. Suburbans with AK-47 wielding thugs hanging off the outside, their faces wrapped in Keffiyahs. Little dictatorial warlords clashing over religious principles. Leaders choosing to impose their idea and will on the rather herdlike general populace.

They came into my apartment. I was afraid for my life. I felt helpless to reisist. I was so glad it wasn't real, but it is. Just not for me.

That's not Iran, though it reminds me of what western media shows me of places like Somalia. I hear from a Somalian that I met, who has family there, that it's not ALL like that. But he conceded that parts of it certainly are.

Watching and reading what little is available on what is happening/happened in Iran is disturbing. Videos like this one tell a story that is as inspiring as it is horrifying; a crowd around a bleeding man wielding cellphones like vultures is the only reality that is escaping the confines of the media lock down.

I'd like to assume that only the worst is getting out. Haven't we (as a united, world-wide people) realized that you can't snuff out the human spirit? and that if you (the person trying to snuff it out) sincerely try you will only be limited the amount that escapes, not whether or not the escape happens at all.

With the media shut down, the information coming out of Iran is on cellphones and the internet. With no one to regulate or interpret the information the chaos of the protests and riots is being held within Iran like an induction layer. It's not stopping it, it's not even really limiting it, the act of media black out is giving no room for expansion - it's seems like a pressure cooker over there.

And the official government stance is that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won in a landslide and that the west (particularly the U.S.) is meddling in Iranian affairs. That western media has no information on voter fraud, even as they make every attempt to cover the civil unrest.

It's a media black out! The internet is maintaining the only semblance of free speech and they (the unelected theocratic government of Iran) are doing everything they can to shut that down too. Seems to me that these people (the Iranians) want their voices heard, but they aren't rallying against the clerics who seem to be considered to be behind the contested election and it's possibly fraudulent results...

Have their silenced voices brought about a blind, unfocused rage? or is there something we're not being told/shown?

Rage. Rage against the dieing of the light.

My heart and prayers go out to the people of Iran - may the truth of their voices be heard, and may there rage find its true target.

Good People Do Good Things

Flipped on Fox and friends this morning and I was shown a very short segment about this story: Store owner gives would-be robber bread and $40.

There was not a single mention of religion in the Fox coverage.

No Lies: Sometimes I just Want to Start Choking My Fellow Man

Violence, deception, corruption, intrigue:

The fantastic products of the sensationalist experience alive and well in North America. Carefully nurtured from in the fair and balanced to the left and right extremes.

Murder, fanaticism, religion and media:

The Usual Suspects.

I spent the morning watching morning news. Every time I do this I can't explain away how the rest of America manages to make it through their day. The inane banter and banal wit crosses the boundaries of both channel and opinion. In other words... WTF?

Since morning news chaps my hide so severely, I'd rather watch Fox News than be disappointed in my hope for actually bring informed by the news. Ever since Kilmeade's walkout, and subsequent rebuttal, I hope beyond hope that I'll get to see another Fox & Friends breakdown. Hope to no avail. The same vanilla news over every channel, the only difference is what they harp on. Mediocrity punctuated by commercials.

I can't stand commercials and absolutely refuse to wait patiently for Fox & Friends to return. I head up a channel (Charter in my area has 90 percent of the news within seven channels) to MSNBC and find them talking about Bob Woodward. Whoever they had on to talk about Woodward explained how he gets the dirt on Washington that nobody else can. He leverages what he knows against everybody.

Like an avalanche, or snowball. Described thusly: he brings you (an alleged player in whatever he's trying to expose) over to his house for dinner and tells you what he knows, then explains that you can either work with him or pray he never finds everything out. When it comes to the Bush administration, he had unprecedented access to memos and even W. Bush (the younger) himself through extensive interviews.

No president likes what he has to say, it's like they work with him to lesson the blow. Here's a like to his bibliography on Amazon.com. No link to the guest on the Morning Joe website.

(Correction, it was Gabriel Sherman from "The New Republic")

* * *

Being as that it is the start of summer and I am currently without a day job, I have the ability to get side tracked when modern man must typically go to work. So I read some excerpts from "State of Denial" by Bob Woodward on Google Books. I found what I could read of it's opening two chapters to be enthralling, like saltines w/o any fluids: salty and good, but ultimately too dry to continue without incentive. No doubt another fine bathroom reader destined to bring me fines from the local library.

Lately, I've been reading Matt Taibbi and recommend you do the same. After being blown away by "The Great Derangement," which I found to be the anti-conspiracy theorists guide to conspiracy theorists/religious fanatics/the government, I started "Spanking the Donkey." While "Derangement" has an evergreen, almost timeless feel, "Spanking the Donkey" keeps making me which I read it when it came out. If you consider yourself an American read "The Great Derangement," if you like Taibbi's work, read "Spanking the Donkey."

Here's a promotional movie put together by his publisher: The Great Derangement. I recommend listening to it as opposed to watching as the vocal track serves like reading the back cover of the book while the video seems to be an overboard distraction.

He makes a point about how Americans no longer have an agreed upon fact-set (and if you're listening to the rhetoric coming out of Iran - holocaust/9-11 - possibly the world). Between the 9/11 truth movement, Fox News White America (FxNWA), the End-Times religious right and the Media Elite, nobody seems to know what's really going on but they're more than happy to talk about it; if they do, they're not talking about it or somebody's not buying it.

We are living in a world without truth. Facts are being used by both sides. The names of experts are being attributed to facts as widely spaced as the views they are made to appear to support. Anybody who agrees with one fact set is either a wack-job or an insider - depending on the standpoint of the viewer. We might as well be living in a kaleidoscope.

* * *

Brian Williams Interview with Iran's publicly elected President Ahmadinejad from July 2008, and subsequent appearance on "The Daily Show."

Ahmadinejad's blog, BBC profile and Wiki.

1953: American involvement in Iranian politics, from the Iranian Chamber Society; and a root of the modern problems between American and Iran as explained by Stephen Kinzer.

* * *

The situation between Iran and the United States is strained and tenuous at best. In this disjuntled world of the disinformed, how important does it become to get everyone's opinion? Especially those people who we disagree with or don't see eye to eye with. We're all people.

An Iranian Journalist speaks out against an anti-American tradition; Mazdak Ali Nazari may not speak for the entirety of the Iranian people - but who are we judge a people divided?

What if Iran is not some monolithic enemy of everything?

* * *

Killings with Religoius motives?

Muslim Convert Assaults Army Recruiters Office in Arkansas; Note differences between AP and Fox report. Also, Abortionist Slain in Kansas Church; and AP report on suspect.

Over the past decade the media mainstream has fed the American people a steady diet of varying aspects of carefully selected information. Perhaps not propaganda per se, but certainly a curriculum. For the third time (?) in fifty years (JFK, Watergate, 9/11) the menu has consisted of primarily magic marker. Choosing to black out the official reports of critical instances/turning-points in US culture.

When the truth is too sensitive to be revealed is it any wonder that the worst will be assumed? No wonder there isn't a set of facts we can all agree on when we're not given all the information - or not all the information at once or in one place.

* * *

Sure, the major news networks are all parlaying the same vanilla news, but as they focus on differing aspects the important stories lose their finer points. By polarizing the facts, the truth becomes easily obscured:

If Iran is a Shi'ite state, think of the USA as a Christian state. Think of it this way: Islam is the second largest religion in the world (behind Christianity), how many non-practicing Christians are there in America... How about Muslims in Iran? Does it make you a Christian just because you live in a Christian state? Violence in the name of God (or a god/goddess) isn't an invention of the modern age - if anything it's a holdover from a previous one - it has certainly been around longer than anyone alive today.

Operative terms in the two killings with possible religious implications depend on the place they are obtained from. Fair and balanced with a media elite bias refers to the killing of the doctor in church in terms of the Christian fanaticism it sees behind the shooting, the fact that he was an abortion doctor who was one of the few remaining late term abortionists in America is used to add to their argument placing the Christian fanatic outside the norm. Duh, fanaticism is seldom normal.

But this is a two way street. Fair and balanced with the FxNWA slant likes to tell this story keying on the Dr. who still performed late term abortions aspect, marginalizing or simply leaving out that the act was done in the church, allegedly by a radical Christian. Where is my 'Christia-fascist' phrase to coin?

And while fair and balanced with the FxNWA bend tells the story of the recruiter slayings keying on the Islamic convert angle (playing up the enemy in our midst tension), media elite likes to just mention his religion in passing and leave us with the unjust war taste in the mouth.

Though both stories are getting airtime on all stations the focus is very different. As of this morning, I have yet to see the panels of experts though I can't believe it's not coming. A pastor who will re-frame the actions of a misguided, poorly adjusted individual acting outside the confines of his faith, a "moderate" muslim scholar who will be called upon for the same; a sociologist will show the dangers of religion and a lawyer/ex-cop/Homeland Security spokesperson/Dick Cheney will let us know the dangers of worldwide Islamic fundamentalism.

Some "Technotronic" lyrics comes to mind, something along the lines of "Pump up the jam, pump it up, a pump it up yo pump it."

The real world doesn't have a shared reality anymore. Our opinions are being sold to us like advertisement. People who are scripted to appear to think like we're supposed to (varying by our socio/political/religious groups and TV habits) are all mangling the facts. Through commercial funded mass media (not media elite, but including it) the subjective experience has taken on the feel of groupthink. Meanwhile, the shared experience (which includes dialogue and compromise) is being largely ignored.

That said, the so-called blogosphere has just as much B.S. and little to no regulation (compared to objective journalism). So don't think I'm just rallying against mainstream media. I am of the opinion that the blogosphere is a part of the internet, which I see as another aspect of mass media.

A fine example of this lack of regulation can be found in Rick Moran the proprietor of rightwingnuthouse.com and a regular contributor to americanthinker.com and to a lesser extent yabbadabbahubbado.com.

In my perusing this morning I was looking into the assault on the recruiter(s) in Arkansas and found this article. Which oddly echoes statements made by Mike Malloy regarding FxNWA anchor(s) and specifically Bill O'Reilly in relation to the shooting of Dr. George Tiller (see anti-bio here).

Meh, but what really caught my eye was another of Moran's essays for americanthinker.com, regarding the here-to unreleased torture photos. Besides the fact that he seems to backtrack on who is running who and how from start to finish, the third paragraph from the end gives us an unattributed quote regarding a lesson in humility.

I immediately posted a comment regarding what I felt were asshole fingers used in print. By which I mean using quotation marks to quote an opinion held by the author and imply the opinion of another (in this case, the President of the USA or one of his "leftist allies"). In passing conversation asshole fingers have many uses but they have no place in print journalism, adding confusing murk to already unregulated editorial.

I have since sent him an email via the only method seemingly available, and look forward to more information regarding the origination of his quote, "teach us a lesson in humility," which appears to be attributed to the President or someone very close to him. God willing, I will be able to post his response though I seldom have any luck getting a reply from form based emails.

* * *

Ok, now that all that agitation is put away I can get back to where all this started. Obama's transformation from radical-partyboy to ascetic-scholar during his time at Columbia University. About half an hour after the Bob Woodward segment of Morning Joe, Richard Wolffe came on for this segment. Around the 4:20 mark of the clip, Wolffe (author of "Renegade: The making of a President" which I have not, but hope to soon read) describes Obama as Disciplined and cool under fire," and refers to his "self made character" as galvanizing through reading and writing and during his education at Columbia where he was "running and even fasting; not talking to anyone."

This segment made me instantly interested in his time at Columbia. The first thing I found out is that it is shrouded in secrecy. His transcripts have not been released, and the only real information that is readily available comes from his (Obama's) book "Dreams from My Father."

The best information that I found easily accessable on the interwebs comes from an election era Barack Obama as Obama the Marxist Muslim" site, theobamafile.com. Which is more than happy to give all sorts of information regarding his college friends (from partiers to leftist radicals to muslims and any awkward combinations there-of). One such friend, who's family Obama reportedly stayed with is described by theobamafile.com as a "radical muslim," who runs (with his family), chandoo.com. The site, at the time of publishing, was in a period of revamping and down for an unstated amount of time.

theobamafile.com's claims of anti-semetic and anti-american rhetoric on the site couldn't be confirmed or denied at the time of publishing (6/2/2009). The site was last cached by google on May 27, 2009. Aboutus.org and whois searches were similarly fruitless.

* * *

and there you have it. Who knows? Pay attention.