March 30th, 2006
Can you believe that this clown is even sitting on our nation’s highest court? That gesture, that gesture is not a simple waving of the hand to say hello. No, that’s Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, as he left mass on Sunday, responding to a journalist that asked him if he would recuse himself from an upcoming case before the Supreme Court. The judge made it plainly clear that he couldn’t care less about his critics; moreover, judge Scalia,
more or less, told the journalists to go blow herself.
Since judge Scalia so ably communicated his displeasure of his critics, the Boston Herald went to press with the story and subsequently published the image that you see on this page — by the way, Peter Smith, a freelance photographer and an assistant professor of photojournalism at Boston University, whom captured judge Scalia blowing off critics, was fired by the church for releasing the image. Here’s how Peter Smith describes what he saw:
Smith was working as a freelance photographer for the Boston archdiocese’s weekly newspaper at a special Mass for lawyers Sunday when a Herald reporter asked the justice how he responds to critics who might question his impartiality as a judge given his public worship.
“The judge paused for a second, then looked directly into my lens and said, ‘To my critics, I say, ‘Vaffanculo,’ ” punctuating the comment by flicking his right hand out from under his chin, Smith said.
The Italian phrase means “(expletive) you.” [ Boston Herald, March 30, 2006 ]
That’s right, one of the nine judges of the Supreme Court, the conservative bulwark, in fact, is telling his critics to go screw themselves. All right, all right, granted, so it’s hard to get all worked up about a hand gesture, even when accompanied with a well delivered vaffanculo by judge Scalia; after all, our vice-president “I-shot-a-man-in-the-face”-“go-fuck-yourself”-Cheney has set the bar kinda low.
Does any body still remember Bush’s campaign pledge back in 2000:
The ability to restore honor and integrity to the White House - The moment that usually draws the greatest applause in Mr Bush’s campaign speeches comes when the Republican nominee talks about bringing dignity and character back to the White House.
What a joke the Bush Administration and the entire culture it ushered in has turned out to be.
March 30th, 2006
Check out this beautiful photo gallery of Israeli girls serving their compulsory military service:
Rachel Papo’s images achieve everything that she set out to do:
I decided to portray female soldiers in Israel during their mandatory military service as a way for me to revisit my own experience. I served as a photographer in the Israeli Air Force between 1988-1990. It was a period marked by continuous depression and extreme loneliness, and at the time I was too young to understand these emotions. Through a series of images showing female soldiers in army bases and outside, individually or in groups, I attempt to reveal a facet of this experience that is generally overlooked by the global community.
Rather than portraying the soldier as heroic, confident, or proud, my images disclose a complexity of emotions. The soldier is often caught in a transient moment of self-reflection, uncertainty, a break from her daily reality, as if questioning her own identity and state of contradiction. She is a soldier in uniform but at the same time she is a teenage girl who is trying to negotiate between these two extreme dimensions. She is in an army base surrounded by hundreds like her, but underneath the uniform there is an individual that wishes to be noticed.
March 30th, 2006
82 days after being kidnapped in Iraq, journalists Jill Carroll has been released! All the best to her and her family.
American journalist Jill Carroll, abducted in early January by gunmen in Baghdad, was released to a Sunni Arab political party in the capital Thursday morning after 82 days in captivity.
“I was treated very well. That’s important people know that,” she said in an interview broadcast by the Iraqi Islamic Party. “They never said they would hit me, never threatened me in any way. I was just happy to be free, and I want to be with my family.” [Washington Post, March 30, 2006]
March 30th, 2006
Recently we’ve seen the Bush Administration and its supporters go after journalists for, in the war supporters’ minds, focusing too much on the negative news coming out of Iraq and neglecting all the good that’s going in that country following the invasion. Now, god knows I’ve criticized journalists, mainly so-called TV-journalists, though for entirely different reasons, such as, failing to do their watchdog duty PRIOR to the invasion (when it was plainly clear that our country was not getting the straight story from the republican White House on why they were forcing us into a war of choice). However, to even suggest that what is now occurring in Iraq is the press’ fault is absurd and nothing less than self-delusion. Then again, Bush supporters, and conservatives in general, are not known for their level-headed and well reasoned thinking — just remember the overly rosy predictions made before the war when, for example, Cheney mentioned that US forces would be greeted as liberators with petals and candy. In response to criticism coming from the republican White House and from its conservative media surrogates, some journalists have stepped forward to confront their critics and remind them that this has been one of the deadliest wars for journalists with over 40 dead, and many more wounded.
Of course, the real aim of such criticism coming from this republican administration and its supporters is to distract the American public from the utter mess that Bush’s war of choice in Iraq has wrought in that country. Aside from the 2,325 American and the over 30,000 Iraqi dead since the start of the war, daily life in Iraq has been anything but the la la-land that that Cheney painted before the start of the war. Just to give you a taste what Liberated Iraq™ looks like see this video here and this other one here.
The videos show one side of the story, a side of the story that the Bush White House and his conservative supporters don’t want Americans to even think about. Meanwhile, half way around the world, Iraqis in their now liberated country must deal with disconcerting messages like this streaming across their TVs:
Here’s the translation:
“The Ministry of Defense requests that civilians do not comply with the orders of the army or police on nightly patrols unless they are accompanied by coalition forces working in that area.”
The source of this message is Riverbed, a girl living in Iraq that’s maintained a blog since the start of the war, where she routinely posts what daily life is like in Iraq.
In the post where she provides the message quoted above, she goes on to describe what she and her cousin did after they read that message as it scrolled across the bottom of their TV:
We discussed it today as it was repeated on another channel.
“So what does it mean?” My cousin’s wife asked as we sat gathered at lunch.
“It means if they come at night and want to raid the house, we don’t have to let them in.” I answered.
“They’re not exactly asking your permission,” E. pointed out. “They break the door down and take people away- or have you forgotten?”
“Well according to the Ministry of Defense, we can shoot at them, right? It’s trespassing-they can be considered burglars or abductors…” I replied.
The cousin shook his head, “If your family is inside the house- you’re not going to shoot at them. They come in groups, remember? They come armed and in large groups- shooting at them or resisting them would endanger people inside of the house.”
“Besides that, when they first attack, how can you be sure they DON’T have Americans with them?” E. asked.
We sat drinking tea, mulling over the possibilities. It confirmed what has been obvious to Iraqis since the beginning- the Iraqi security forces are actually militias allied to religious and political parties.
But it also brings to light other worrisome issues. The situation is so bad on the security front that the top two ministries in charge of protecting Iraqi civilians cannot trust each other. The Ministry of Defense can’t even trust its own personnel, unless they are “accompanied by American coalition forces”.
It really is difficult to understand what is happening lately. We hear about talks between Americans and Iran over security in Iraq, and then American ambassador in Iraq accuses Iran of funding militias inside of the country. Today there are claims that Americans killed between 20 to 30 men from Sadr’s militia in an attack on a husseiniya yesterday. The Americans are claiming that responsibility for the attack should be placed on Iraqi security forces (the same security forces they are constantly commending).
All of this directly contradicts claims by Bush and other American politicians that Iraqi troops and security forces are in control of the situation. Or maybe they are in control- just not in a good way.
Of course, to hear the Bush Administration tell it, Iraq is just fine, nothing to see here, move along, move along.
