Duty to Warn

Count our blessings, an act the eternally pessimistic American left usually shuns on the grounds that it might indicate we've made some headway in progress toward the good, the true and the beautiful.

            First, let's look back. This year was a pretty good year. Who can complain about a span of time in which both William Bennett and Rush Limbaugh, outed respectively as a compulsive gambler and a drug addict, were installed themselves in the public stocks amid the derision of the citizenry? Some say that they've both winched themselves out of the mud, with Bennett's sessions in Las Vegas and Limbaugh's steady diet of OxyContin already faded in the public mind. I don't think so. There's nothing so enjoyable as the plight of a professional moralizer caught in the wrong part of town.

Recently, the U.S. government officially acknowledged the presence of a lame cow slaughtered in Washington State that had the degenerative disease, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE). This disease is caused by the prion, a recently understood biological concept, and represents a new threat to public health. The beef industry is guilty of distributing and actually speeding the evolution of this disease due to their grossly inhumane feeding and slaughtering practices. The majority of people are complicit in this crime because they pay to run the factory farms, slaughterhouses and rendering plants that dominate cattle farming today regardless of their inhumane nature.

No doubt Lenny Bruce would have laughed with at least a tinge of bitterness if -- like millions of Americans -- he picked up a newspaper the day before Christmas 2003 and read that he’d been “pardoned” by the governor of New York for an obscenity conviction.

In their own time, people who are stubbornly ahead of it usually get a lot more grief than accolades. And decades later -- in this case, 39 years after Bruce’s bust for a nightclub performance and 37 years after his death -- the belated praise from on high is predictably insufferable.

The New York Times lead sentence on Dec. 24 called Bruce “the potty-mouthed wit who turned stand-up comedy into social commentary.” Actually, far from being “potty-mouthed” in an emblematic way, Lenny Bruce was a Fool in the Shakespearean sense, jousting with a society dominated by various aspiring Lears -- and quite a few Elmer Gantrys.

I'm two states removed from California, and I don't know who I'd have supported in San Francisco's recent runoff election for mayor. But I know this: democracy lost.

Gavin Newsom won by a 53% to 47% margin, while his $3.8 million budget dwarfed that of  his opponent, Matt Gonzalez, by a 10 to 1 margin. Gonzalez won about nine times as many votes per dollar spent and even Newsom's supporters would be hard-pressed to deny that money made the difference.

Though the race officially was non-partisan, Newsom is a Democrat and Gonzalez is Green. Democratic celebrities Bill Clinton and Al Gore stumped for Newsom, and the party brought in resources that overwhelmed Gonzalez' volunteer-driven campaign. Ironically, Gonzalez won support from the majority of Democratic voters, while Newsom was the clear favorite of Republicans (and was endorsed by the Republican party previously).

Please note I avoid the phrase "Happy Holidays." Can we please deep-six this trite "non-denominational" greeting, designed to alert the world that those uttering the salutation are sensitive people aware that the recipients of the greeting might not be Christians but Jews or Muslims who have a low opinion of J. Christ and no desire to celebrate his birthday? The Muslims think Christ was not divine, and the Jewish sacred writings say likewise, and that for the sin of getting ideas above his station J.C. is being pickled in excrement for all eternity.  

            But my Jewish friends say "Happy Hannukah," with no nonsense about saying "Happy holidays" out of sensitivity to the fact that the festival of Hanukah is derived from the Maccabees' triumph over the bestial forces of Hellenism in 165 B.C., said Hellenism being in its neo-Platonic guise, one of the central components of the Christian religion. An irony is that there's no mention of Hanukah in the Torah but only in the Books of the Maccabees, an annex to the Bible.

The P.U.-litzer Prizes were established more than a decade ago to give recognition to the stinkiest media performances of the year.

     As usual, I have conferred with Jeff Cohen, founder of the media watch group FAIR, to sift through the large volume of entries. In view of the many deserving competitors, we regret that only a few can win a P.U.-litzer.

     And now, the twelfth annual P.U.-litzer Prizes, for the foulest media performances of 2003:

MEDIA MOGUL OF THE YEAR -- Lowry Mays, CEO of Clear Channel

     While some broadcasters care about their programming, the CEO of America’s biggest radio company (with more than 1,200 stations) admits he cares only about the ads. The Clear Channel boss told Fortune magazine in March: “If anyone said we were in the radio business, it wouldn’t be someone from our company. We’re not in the business of providing news and information. We’re not in the business of providing well-researched music. We’re simply in the business of selling our customers products.”

LIBERATING IRAQ PRIZE -- Tom Brokaw

I hadn't seen Jackson Browne in five years and I was really excited. The last time I did see him, all I can clearly remember was the beautiful gold trimmed bouquet of white flowers that Jackson had given me. This was the first gift Jackson gave me; I had no idea that it wouldn't be the last.

Men and women more than two and three times my age filled the lobby. I tried to listen into random conversations, but all the noise seemed to blend together. In the ocean of people, the attire varied; fan-wear of Jackson Browne, extremely fancy clothes, and sweatshirts. Most fans were in line for overpriced beer, probably asking them selves the same questions. What could they expect from the new acoustic tour? Would Jackson still be the same now as he was thirty years ago?

The auditorium was completely black. Jackson appeared onstage, a white light directly on him, and everything fell silent as he strummed his guitar; a shiver ran down my back. Browne sounded full and his voice was beautiful and all that interrupted him were his excited fans.

" Play 'The Patriot!' "

ANNAPOLIS, Maryland, December 12th —  An internal memo has just surfaced suggesting e-vote manufacturer Diebold planned to overcharge the state of Maryland and make voter printouts "prohibitively expensive".

  An employee named "Ken" wrote the Jan. 3 letter suggesting the company charge Maryland "out the yin" if legislators insisted on printouts.

  Referring to a University of Maryland study critical of the company's machines, he added: "[The State of Maryland] already bought the system. At this point they are just closing the barn door. Let's just hope that as a company we are smart enough to charge out the yin if they try to change the rules now and legislate voter receipts."  

He goes on to say "...any after-sale changes should be prohibitively expensive."

  Delegate Karen S. Montgomery dropped the bombshell on Thursday amid negotiations with Diebold over its touchscreen voting machines.

It's a wrap for Howard Dean's drive to be the Democratic presidential nominee. Unless the former Vermont governor has souvenirs of malodorous corruption in those famous sealed files from his gubernatorial stints in Montpelier, or once ran a version of Michael Jackson's Neverland in the Green Mountain state, he's got it all sewn up. Al Gore's endorsement earlier this week was only the icing on the cake.

            Dick Gephardt and John Kerry will wanly struggle on, but defeat stares them harshly in the face, in Iowa and New Hampshire and beyond. John Edwards and Wesley Clark are struggling. Dennis Kucinich, Al Sharpton and Carol Mosely Brown never stood a chance. Joe Lieberman's campaign is also on Death Row, with inmates kept awake at night by the Connecticut senator's plaintive bleats of betrayal by Gore.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Up against the campaign of a wealthy businessman who outspent him nearly 10-to-1, a strong progressive candidate nearly won the runoff election last Tuesday to become this city’s mayor. Some national news stories depicted the strong showing for Matt Gonzalez as a big surprise. But it shouldn’t perplex anyone when vigorous grassroots organizing combines with a sound strategy to get breakthrough results.

     Local elections in San Francisco are officially nonpartisan, and ballots don’t indicate party affiliations. But the contenders spoke openly of their party labels. The Democrat in the race, Gavin Newsom, became so worried that Bill Clinton and Al Gore flew in to campaign for him. In contrast, Green Party member Gonzalez relied on several thousand active volunteers.

     Contrary to all the conventional media wisdom, the Gonzalez campaign surged to receive 47.4 percent of the votes.