I know you're right Adam, but it is still quite disturbing. Every day I go to cnn.com and check out what is hapening in the world. I look over all the stories on the main page and think to myself, oh, so this is what is happening in the world. Then I go check out the BBC and say, oh, so this is happening in the world. Next I round it off with Google news and in the end they all make you believe that the stories they show are the most important things happening in the world. In reality in picking what they think we "want" to know they are spoon feeding us what they whink we "should" know. It's true that the news is a business but it is strange to think that our conception of the world should be held in the hands of a hand full of editors and a few corporations. Especially as that number becomes smaller and smaller. It just seems to be screaming conflict of interests to me. But then again I guess it's nice that it's not controlled by a totalitarian regime, could be worse I suppose.

Holy shit you guys, you've been busy! Any way, my new nick name is Front Page Prairie, because I've had two feature articles on the front page of the newspaper last week. and I think I've had 4 or 5 articles put in it. I'm currently working on a few articles, one that's about how hardee's is offering a new bunless hamburger so low-carb health crazies can "eat smart" and another one about how e-mail misuse and abuse in the work place costs companies millions every year. Hey, and as far as saying the media should cover the car bombings and killings more, you have to realize that what goes on TV and what goes in the newspaper is what the media people think will be the most interesting to their audience. I mean, we all of us were talking about it when Saddam got caught. We all stopped and looked at the story... because that's compelling to us. It's foolish and idealistic to think that the media is anything other that a business, a business that is supposed to tell the truth (although that's not always the case), but only the truth of stories that they think will sell to people. The media HAS been covering the killings and car bombings in Iraq before Saddam's capture. The reason they didn't cover the police bombing nearly as much is that people just weren't interested! Seeing Saddam looking like a grizzly bear and having doctors stick tongue depressors in his mouth is way more compelling to the majority of Americans than hearing about the same old story in Iraq. The media told the story that was new and the most interesting to the American public. When Americans eventually decide that they're fed up with the war and are tired of the violence, then newspapers will report the violence more prominently because people will want to hear it. Right now they just plain don't... and telling people news they have no interest in hearing is not gonna sell any newspapers. It sucks but that's the way it is...

C is for cookie, that's good enough for me.

What, no love for da cookie?
Sounds like the cookie monster's up to his old tricks!

i have to block a whopping thirty-one cookies before blogger lets me alone.
umm... what exactly is a cookie?

edit: there were another eleven before i was allowed to view my own post. why??

Wow. Miss a few days and you have to read a michner novel's worth of bloggggs. I'm in Pensylvania now. Living with my aunt and uncle and cousin trying to help them build this house although it seems to rain, snow or ice every other day. My thumb is purple because i keep hitting it with the hammer. I like living here. The tv is never on except for about 5 minutes when we heard Saddam was caught. It was turned off quickly after aunt Joan observed how much it had changed the "atmosphere." Living in a trailer in the woods is interesting. You become very, very consious of the weather, and your feet are always cold. After working all day, i put on old records from the collection and they enjoy it as much as i. People rarely listen to thier old records. I wonder why.
Sunday night we had a interesting experience at a place called "Christmas Magic" we were taken to at the urging of some younger cousins who are not quite the woods-dwelling hippy type. At a state park in York, PA, many volunteers spend 3 months setting up i don't know how many thousands of christmas lights and displays on a trail through the woods. I have never seen anything so horrendously tacky in my entire life. In the middle of it all was a big advertisement for Saturn cars complete with displays of some new Saturns. It was too ridiculous to get mad at. In fact we had a good time lauging at it all until we came to a clearing with a beautiful view of the area-- beautiful until Aunt Joan pointed out the giant cooling towers of Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the distance. If that dosen't hit home the point of what is wrong with ALL THIS, i don't know what will. Dinnertime. peace.

People, people, people. I think you guys are getting bogged down in the whole 'glass is half empty' deal. Just because people are sheep when it comes to buying things around Christmas time doesn't mean you all can't have a nice time with your own families as individuals. Saddam may not be coordinating the attacks directly, but he is the figurehead or the rallying point to many of those still resisting good democratic change in Iraq. His capture and trial could prove to be the first major vicotry in winning over the Iraqis from fear so they can move on with their lives. I also have a movie I would like to share with you guys: The Last Samurai. In this movie Tom Cruise plays an American soldier who is being payed money to wipe out the remnants of the Japanese Samurai in the 1870s. Cruise's character is a Civil War and Indian War vet, so he knows about brutality and it eats away at him until he is captured by the Samurai. As their prisoner, he his knocked down not once but five different times by a warrior who could easily kill him. The American soldier always gets back up after being knocked down. And in the end the Japanese Samurai, who number among the greatest warriors in history, give him thier respect and friendship. He falls in with them and fights for their cause. Awesome movie. My point about this story is that no matter what people do to us as Americans or what we do to ourselves, we can always get back up and try again. That's the definition of being your best in my book and I think it is an American trait as much as it is a human one because here we encourage trying your best to be your best. We do not brutalize those different from us on a genocidal scale as Huessein did. As for Christmas, it is as I said. Just commune with your family and have fun because in the end you will never ever change people's perceptions about Christmas all you can do is have your own view.

First off, no one is going to argue that it isn't great that we finally apprehended Saddam. Michael Moore never said anything to the contrary. I also think Bush said what he needed to say. What Moore does however is put everything into perspective. The American people have short memories and the only way we are ever going to learn from our mistakes is to stay educated and not lose sight of how those mistakes began. I thought it was awfully ironic that almost all the pictures of celebrating Iraqi's that I say in the papers and on TV we're those celebrating outside of the communist party headquarters. It is quite ironic that America supported the rise of the Ba'ath party to keep the evil communists at bay, you know the same people whom we now join in celebration. This is not a bad thing, infact it is an excellent thing just ironic. In truth we caught a old flea ridden man who has been running from hole to hole for the last few months and I hope it brings some confort to the Iraqi people to bring down such a symbol. Perhaps it is not the administration that upsets me at this moment but it is what Sam said. There have been 3 car bombs in Iraq the last 2 days that didn't even come close to making the front page of any newspaper. I just hope it is true that the media will let us move on to events that continue to kill people every day. I have a feeling that in the comming weeks there will be an overload of coverage about where and how Saddam will be put on trial and not enough on what we are going to do to improve the situation in Iraq. One final note. Giving credit where credit is due is one thing, but to say suddenly, "you know what they caught Saddam, I take back everything I've said, the Bush administration is doing swell" I don't buy it. Our soldiers did well and something went our way and that's great, but no real policy changes have been made so any changing perspectives on the Iraq situation based soley on the capture of Saddam just don't make sense. I don't think any Democratic candidates have said anything negative about this, well, except Liberman, but hes just a sourpuss.

forgive me for sounding like one of the Democratic contenders here, but i'm glad we got the guy. congrats to all involved. i think the White House has handled the whole affair rather well. Bush has said many times that this isn't the end of things, and that by no means should we assume Iraq will now pose no problems for us. the attacks will go on, but i'd have to agree with the administration & others that the capture of Saddam is going to be of great psychological value to many people. he was something of a lurking shadow, and whether he had any control over insurgent movements or not, there were surely plenty of people who thought he did. if he's under lock & key, that's going to be a load off manymany minds. i don't think much of a case can be made, whatever the viewpoint, that his capture is in any way negative. if people choose to ignore the cautionings of various leaders, then that's their own fault.
i don't see why so many people are reluctant to take the stance that the Bush administration is handling this quite well. Moore skirts the issue and returns to criticizing our past connections to him. fine & good. we've been unbelievably wrongheaded in our past dealings with Iraq. it's true. but at present, we've done a dandy job of chasing down a wanted man. cheers all around. it bothers me that people think giving credit where credit is due somehow makes the Dems look bad. all they need to say is something along these lines: "yup, they're doing an ok job... after a war we never should have started!" the problem is that so many people view any credit-giving as complete validation of The Other Side. sheesh.

Sorry it's so long, I just wanted everyone to be able to read this.

We Finally Got Our Frankenstein... and He Was In a Spider Hole! -- by Michael Moore
December 14, 2003
Thank God Saddam is finally back in American hands! He must have really missed us. Man, he sure looked bad! But, at least he got a free dental exam today. That's something most Americans can't get.
America used to like Saddam. We LOVED Saddam. We funded him. We armed him. We helped him gas Iranian troops.
But then he screwed up. He invaded the dictatorship of Kuwait and, in doing so, did the worst thing imaginable -- he threatened an even BETTER friend of ours: the dictatorship of Saudi Arabia, and its vast oil reserves. The Bushes and the Saudi royal family were and are close business partners, and Saddam, back in 1990, committed a royal blunder by getting a little too close to their wealthy holdings. Things went downhill for Saddam from there.
But it wasn't always that way. Saddam was our good friend and ally. We supported his regime. It wasn’t the first time we had helped a murderer. We liked playing Dr. Frankenstein. We created a lot of monsters -- the Shah of Iran, Somoza of Nicaragua, Pinochet of Chile -- and then we expressed ignorance or shock when they ran amok and massacred people. We liked Saddam because he was willing to fight the Ayatollah. So we made sure that he got billions of dollars to purchase weapons. Weapons of mass destruction. That's right, he had them. We should know -- we gave them to him!
We allowed and encouraged American corporations to do business with Saddam in the 1980s. That's how he got chemical and biological agents so he could use them in chemical and biological weapons. Here's the list of some of the stuff we sent him (according to a 1994 U.S. Senate report):

* Bacillus Anthracis, cause of anthrax.
* Clostridium Botulinum, a source of botulinum toxin.
* Histoplasma Capsulatam, cause of a disease attacking lungs, brain, spinal cord, and heart.
* Brucella Melitensis, a bacteria that can damage major organs.
* Clostridium Perfringens, a highly toxic bacteria causing systemic illness.
* Clostridium tetani, a highly toxigenic substance.
And here are some of the American corporations who helped to prop Saddam up by doing business with him: AT&T, Bechtel, Caterpillar, Dow Chemical, Dupont, Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM (for a full list of companies and descriptions of how they helped Saddam, go to: www.laweekly.com/ink/03/23/news-crogan.php )
We were so cozy with dear old Saddam that we decided to feed him satellite images so he could locate where the Iranian troops were. We pretty much knew how he would use the information, and sure enough, as soon as we sent him the spy photos, he gassed those troops. And we kept quiet. Because he was our friend, and the Iranians were the "enemy." A year after he first gassed the Iranians, we reestablished full diplomatic relations with him!
Later he gassed his own people, the Kurds. You would think that would force us to disassociate ourselves from him. Congress tried to impose economic sanctions on Saddam, but the Reagan White House quickly rejected that idea -- they wouldn’t let anything derail their good buddy Saddam. We had a virtual love fest with this Frankenstein whom we (in part) created.
And, just like the mythical Frankenstein, Saddam eventually spun out of control. He would no longer do what he was told by his master. Saddam had to be caught. And now that he has been brought back from the wilderness, perhaps he will have something to say about his creators. Maybe we can learn something... interesting. Maybe Don Rumsfeld could smile and shake Saddam's hand again. Just like he did when he went to see him in 1983 (you can find a photo at: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/ )
Maybe we never would have been in the situation we're in if Rumsfeld, Bush, Sr., and company hadn't been so excited back in the 80s about their friendly monster in the desert.
Meanwhile, anybody know where the guy is who killed 3,000 people on 9/11? Our other Frankenstein?? Maybe he's in a mouse hole.
So many of our little monsters, so little time before the next election.
Stay strong, Democratic candidates. Quit sounding like a bunch of wusses. These bastards sent us to war on a lie, the killing will not stop, the Arab world hates us with a passion, and we will pay for this out of our pockets for years to come. Nothing that happened today (or in the past 9 months) has made us ONE BIT safer in our post-9/11 world. Saddam was never a threat to our national security.
Only our desire to play Dr. Frankenstein dooms us all.

Yours,
Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com

who are we to tell people that what they think is good is really bad? we are the people who care about the rest of the world. i'm trying my hardest to shed my ethnocentric upper-middle class mindset and really be aware of what's going on in other parts of the world to other people. or what's going on downtown or on the east side of town, where there are large amounts of poverty. 'cause fuck, if people don't care about other people, we're all screwed in the end. people are what matters. as for what we can do ... we have to lead good lives and tell others about how good it makes us feel. about how it isn't so hard to only buy certain things, to only shop occasionally, to think about where these things are coming from ...
you can't force change on people. you can only show them why they want to change.

as for saddam, i have so many things i could say. first of all, i want to yell at the guy who wrote an editorial in today's paper here who said that democrats are screwed now because they have nothing to whine about anymore. bullshit. but more than that, this reminds me of a movie i just saw. anyone seen Brotherhood of the Wolf? there is a beast plaguing a part of france, killing lots of people, and they aren't having any luck catching it or killing it. it's become a huge thing that people all over have heard about, and something has to be done. so the king sends in a military guy who kills a wolf and tells a taxidermist to do what he has to do to make this wolf look like the monstrous beast that everyone has been describing. the military guy takes it back to paris, and they have this big affair where they show the "beast" that they hunted down. the taxidermist (our hero, a wonderfully complicated guy) is all upset because the problem isn't actually solved. however, someone explains that now that they've supposedly caught the beast, no one outside the region will pay any attention to the matter even if more people continue to be killed.
now, i'm not saying that the government faked hussein's capture. what i am saying, though, is that they are making a big spectacle out of having caught him. very likely a spectacle for the purpose of making people forget about the fact that there is still fighting out there. he didn't seem to be actually organizing anything, which means that the people who are leading the fighting in iraq are still able to go at it. is this all a nicely organized affair made to distract us from the real problems?

i think the type of captalism we have now is related to the generally non-regulatory nature of our governing citizens and the growing selfishness and laziness of our other citizens. i don't know if this self-centeredness stemmed from advertising or if it went the other way around. i just know that right now, many people don't bother thinking anything through, like the consequences of where they do their purchasing. nor are there as many people interested in their local or national governments. they're interested in the immediate benefit they reap from buying cheap and fast, which is all that's ever advertised: your hectic, stressful life that makes waiting even an extra 5 minutes for something intolerable. (because we feel good and productive if we're too busy to have fun.)
no one bothers to look critically at the way things are being run because, looking at their own lives, most people think they've got it pretty good. (who knows if it's true.) and if they've got it pretty good, why change anything? and don't they have a point? don't fix what ain't broken-- or, more correctly, don't fix the break that ain't bothering you. who are we to tell people that what they think is good is really bad? what are we all screaming about, anyway?
don't get me wrong. i'm disappointed with people, frustrated. but i don't know where to begin combatting this. what do you say to people who just don't care?
and hey.... how's about that Saddam catch, huh?

word Homeslice!