The best summation of the CW I've read

Obama has won the Wyoming caucuses. Already HRC is spinning this as another state that is little so not a big deal that she lost it. The following diary from Granny Doc at Kos is the best explanation I've seen of some really confusing events. Well, confusing if you listen to the MSM and can't count.

1. Barack Obama won the delegate race in Texas by picking up 4 more delegates than Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton did NOT win Texas, inspite of CNN's constant repetition of her "3 state sweep" meme. The results of last Tuesday were Clinton 2 states (Ohio and Rhode Island), and Obama 2 (Vermont and Texas). Each candidate won one large and one small state. It was a tie.

(I am using a technique of small words, oft repeated, because they keep telling us how complicated it is, how we don't understand, and how unfair this damned caucus process is. In other words they're stupid so we must be stupid too.)

2. NAFTA-gate is a prime example of chanting the media line, having settled on a script and being unwilling to adjust that script, in spite of the many conflicting bits of information that keep leaking out of the Canadian Government. Senator Obama's unpaid campaign economic advisor told the Canadian consulate that the Senator was not going to abandon NAFTA, but would require renegotation of several aspects of the treaty.

Someone took some variant of "minutes" of that conversation which were then leaked as a "memo" at the instigation of a fellow in the Prime Minister's office. When challenged PM Stephen Harper denied any intentions to interfer with the US elections. Turns out that was not true. Those minutes were written to contain statements that all of the principals have denied, but served to give a boost to uninformed voters who favor the Clinton campaign.

3. The Clinton campaign has cast this primary as one of experience. Senator Clinton has no more experience with the day to day details of running the Executive Office than any other Presidential spouse. Standing around with Chelsea while dance groups perform in exotic costumes, staying in palaces, and using the military and Secret Service agencies in droves to protect their persons, and generally making her way around the stage of public appearances, is NOT experience in executive management. It does provide diplomatic experience, however. Maybe Hillary could be made Ambassador to Urdustan?

Hillary Clinton has brow beaten the media into recasting her failures as success. Hillary Clinton does not lead in the popular vote, she did not win Michigan, as she was the only name on the ballot, and her name recognition in Florida (in early January) does not constitute a "win". Given that tens of thousands of voters did not participate in either state since they knew that the primaries, and subsequent delegate selections, would not count at the convention, to claim these as wins is the height of arrogance. Senator Clinton spins reality with the same lack of respect for truth as George Bush. And, the media continues to repeat her fantasies, unquestioningly.

5. Hillary Clinton is the ultimate example of the "old politics". She brings nothing new to the table. She has been in the pocket of big pharma, the health insurance industry, and the MIC for the past 20 years. She has taken much of her financing from these industries, and she will not be able to effect change that cuts off the spigot to the contracts, activities, and control of the legislative agenda, that these power players demand. Her compaign is working valiently to conceal and distort this record, and present Ms. Clinton as an agent of "change". Can't happen, media. Get out there and track down her real history. Not just the spin of Penn and Wolfson.

You are failing us once again.

You screwed around with your love affair with George Bush, destroyed Al Gore, and are directly responsible for the past 7 years of horror. It's on your head. But, you can redeem yourselves, if you revert to journalism, rather than these Heather infatuations that float your boat.

I couldn't have said it better.

Reason 2,335,000 not to vote for this Man

"It's harder and harder trying to do the Lord's work in the city of Satan," McCain said of Washington.

ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iE2JCSH5p9r2GBkQWS9TWAMzmuvQD8V8QK2O1

Womenfolk in the Cowboy State?

Ok first comment, and it will be snarky, I freely admit, but here goes. The Cowboy State? More recent connotations of the word have made that nickname cringe-worthy since the Napoleon of Crime-Master of Disaster-Darth Sidious himself has risen to power. His foreign policy certainly is cowboy. The Democratic party in the home state of Dick Chaney is actually going to matter and is energized for the Democratic process. And even more shocking, energized to vote for either a bi-racial man with a Muslim dad, or a patrician white woman with a husband like Bill. A husband with a past.

I am not a Hillary supporter for many reasons, but I am heartened to see that we are past the days of Geraldine Ferraro. I was not old enough to vote then, but I have a long memory...nearly photographic. I recall how the press and the people treated her. Ferraro was a brilliant woman, an ex-teacher, a lawyer, District Attorney with the Special Victims Bureau, and three term congresswoman. In congress, she served on the Public Works Committee, the Budget Committee, and the Post Office Committee. She served a term as the Secretary of the House Democratic Caucus, the first woman in that position. She was the Chairwoman of the Platform Committee for the 1984 DNC Convention. A serious candidate with real experience.

So what happened? Redneck men and their womenfolk appearing all over newscasts saying they couldn't vote for a woman because she couldn't be tough enough with the Soviets, by virtue of being a woman. Then Red Dawn. Chinese paratroopers dropping in on Kansas! Be very afraid of a girl answering the big red phone!!! These people were unaware of Iron Lady Thatcher, Indira Gandi, And Golda Meir. One guy who to my shame, was in NJ, said something like well, making the excuse that those women were foreign and raised tougher some bullshit like that.

But what seemed the most unfair was that she like other female candidates, Jeanine Piro for example, was held responsible not simply for everything she herself did, but for her husband as well. Ferraro's husband John Zaccaro, had a past. And questions were raised about his real estate business-possible mob connections and tax returns. Men running for office are not expected-if their wives have an actual job, to know everything she does, everyone she does business with, and every dime she spends. Apparently they believe women monitor their men to such an obsessive extent that there NO way a wife can be fooled by her husband.

Following this line of illogic...wouldn't that make us not only castrating bitches, something GAF was called by Ma Barker-Barbara Bush. I would call her a she-wolf but I like wolves, and after Micsha, and the Bush Administration's call for mob hits on wolves this week, I just can't. Wouldn't this mean that WE were the smarter sex then?

As of now Obama is far ahead. Something I'm pretty happy about. But I'm very glad Bill isn't the anchor around her leg pulling her under, and that's there's very little snickering about a woman in, near around the Oval Office. Go Cowboy State!

Now we know why it took 40 years to get out of the desert

Tue Mar 4, 7:02 AM ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) - High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week.

Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy.

"As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics," Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.

Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the "burning bush," suggested Shanon, who said he himself has dabbled with such substances.

"The Bible says people see sounds, and that is a clasic phenomenon," he said citing the example of religious ceremonies in the Amazon in which drugs are used that induce people to "see music."

He mentioned his own experience when he used ayahuasca, a powerful psychotropic plant, during a religious ceremony in Brazil's Amazon forest in 1991. "I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations," Shanon said.

He said the psychedelic effects of ayahuasca were comparable to those produced by concoctions based on bark of the acacia tree, that is frequently mentioned in the Bible.

Most ancient religions employed some form of mind-altering substances to help mystics explore the the spirit world. This was commonplace. What's amazing here-other than the wealth of High Moses jokes, is that the likelihood of Judeo-Christian prophets-mystics-leaders doing this as well is surprising to anyone! Though we don't really teach history well, now do we? Rock on, Moses. Say hi to Jerry Garcia for me, eh?

Radio is dead.

Yeah, like we all didn't know that. I forgot that I had my clock set to radio for some mad reason and not Ipod, and heard the most god-awful tripe the last two mornings. How sad. The choices offered the public narrow more and more each year as Clear Channel, and its ilk goggle up stations and dictate what is allowed airplay.

When I was a teacher my kids would come downstairs into my art room and when they were well-behaved, we would wind up discussing music. This was mostly afterschool projects with gifted students, i.e. the art club. They would get me to put on CD's that they were curious about. I introduced some of them to Elvis Costello and Nirvana, and The Cult. One kid told me he found out about The Who because of CSI. They were only eleven and twelve but I was horrified that their initial exposure to many of the Golden Gods of Rock, and Rap, and New Wave, and Alternative, and Reggae. I had to explain what Ska was, and that Gwen Stefani did not invent it. I had to inform them that Rick James was so much more than the SuperFreak, I'm Rick James, bitch guy. They were unaware that Rap did not begin with Biggie. The only student of mine who knew all of this stuff...his father and favorite aunt were in the music industry.

We're going backwards. If we weren't bands like The Mars Volta would be household names.

This is my friend Tad's band, East Village Pharmacy. I went to see them first out of curiosity and wound up loving the originality of the show. They are playing again at the end of the month. Reggae, Ska, and Reggaeton from a band from Minnesota.

You can check them out.

www.eastvillagepharmacy.com/videos.html

Raised by Wolves

No I'm not talking about Bush, or his far too numerous relations. Who would have expected rich, malevolent WASPs to have such large families? Ma Barker-Barbara Bush gave birth to five? I'm referring to everyone's favorite offensive crazy lady, Mischa Defonseca. My friend Brooke e-mailed me with a good question: Wouldn't the wolves have made a snack of her before sundown? No, as crazy as it seems there are many instances of wolves, and other animals taking in human children. However, the habits of the wolf pack certainly would have left their mark on a seven year old child in their care. Think Tarzan. And by the way, for those who haven't read the books, Tarzan was most accurately portrayed in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984). Tarzan was taught to speak by the French explorers who found him on the Escarpment so after Apish (Apese?), his first language was French. Christopher Lambert's accent was totally in character, Johnny Weissmuller's "Me Tarzan-you Jane!" was not. Though, unfortunately these real-life Feral Children are usually about as proficient with language as in Weissmuller's portrayal.

I found this on FeralChildren.com :

Wolf children

There are a large number of wolf children in the list, in particular from India. One explanation is that women with young children or babies would leave their infants at the edge of a field while working, and wolves would emerge from the forest and steal them.

Specifically, it's believed that a she-wolf whose cubs have been killed (and this is the specific theory put forward in the sources for Kamala and Amala) might be attracted to human babies, her maternal instincts all-powerful.

So it seems wolves might have adopted her, if she was less annoying then she is now. I had a dog whose breed had a great deal of Arctic wolf in them. My Andrew even howled at the moon-from the tip of the diving board of my pool though. He had a real affinity for babies, picking them up if they fell over toddling, watching them anxiously when they swam, even getting in to swim with them. He once tried to drag me up by my suit when I spent too much time for his comfort swimming underwater. He would however find other wolf-doggy activities to occupy his time if you annoyed him. In my opinion, the wolves would have abandoned her.


I was incorrect, last post when I said that this God-awful book was first published by foolish Europeans. They certainly ran with the defective ball, 30,000 copies in France and Italy, a French film,and I swear-an opera in Italy. Barnum was right about us...the original foolish publishers were in Massachusetts. Amazingly, incredibly, she starts out telling her story in a temple, suckering a really gullible rabbi and congregation.

This article in Slate. com perfectly sums up what I feel, the more I read about this woman. Why did it take so long for her to be called out for her lies? Don't we research anything anymore? Are we so afraid of being called bigots that any story dealing with the Holocaust is accepted? Allowing things like this to go unchallenged insults all those who suffered and died.

www.slate.com/id/2185493/pagenum/all/#page_start

So was Mme. Defonseca Romulus, or Remus? Mowgli maybe?

I was taking a break at work today, and came across the most insane story I have read this week. I laughed out loud then had to read part of this ridiculous article to my friend, Shaun so he would stop looking at me funny. I saw on CNN.com the headline: Author: My best-selling Holocaust book is a hoax. I thought, well, OK, another James Frey. Umm...no. This woman wrote a Holocaust memoir that seems like it should have appeared in the pages of the Onion. How this book was EVER published as anything but fiction is proof that it is not just American publishers who are gullible fools. Shame on them for not having researchers with more than two working brain cells.

Oh, and Mischa exploiting a tragedy is vile, and Kipling, and the ancient Romans got there before you and their versions were laughable is well. Shame on you as well even though you are clearly quite mad.

Author: My best-selling Holocaust

book is a hoax

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- A Belgian writer has admitted that she made up her best-selling "memoir" depicting how, as a Jewish child, she lived with a pack of wolves in the woods during the Holocaust, her lawyers said Friday.

Misha Defonseca's book, "Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years," has been made into a French film.

Misha Defonseca's book, "Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years," was translated into 18 languages and made into a feature film in France.

Her two Brussels-based lawyers, siblings Nathalie and Marc Uyttendaele, said the author acknowledged her story was not autobiographical and that she did not trek 1,900 miles as a child across Europe with a pack of wolves in search of her deported parents during World War II.

"I ask forgiveness to all who felt betrayed," Defonseca said, according to a written statement the lawyers gave to The Associated Press.

Defonseca, 71, now lives in Dudley, Massachusetts. Her husband, Maurice, told The Boston Globe on Thursday that she would not comment.

Defonseca wrote in her book that Nazis seized her parents when she was a child, forcing her to wander the forests and villages of Europe alone for four years. She claimed she found herself trapped in the Warsaw ghetto, killed a Nazi soldier in self-defense and was adopted by a pack of wolves that protected her.

In the statement, Defonseca acknowledged the story she wrote was a fantasy and that she never fled her home in Brussels during the war to find her parents.

Defonseca says her real name is Monique De Wael and that her parents were arrested and killed by Nazis as Belgian resistance fighters, the statement said.

"This story is mine. It is not actually reality, but my reality, my way of surviving," the statement said.

"I ask forgiveness to all who felt betrayed. I beg you to put yourself in my place, of a 4-year-old girl who was very lost," the statement said.

The statement said her parents were arrested when she was 4 and she was taken care of by her grandfather and uncle. She said she was poorly treated by her adopted family, called a "daughter of a traitor" because of her parents' role in the resistance, which she said led her to "feel Jewish."

She said there were moments when she "found it difficult to differentiate between what was real and what was part of my imagination."

Nathalie Uyttendaele said she and her brother contacted the author last weekend to show her material discovered by Belgian daily Le Soir, which questioned her story.

"We gave her this information and it was very difficult. She was confronted with a reality that is different from what she has been living for 70 years," Nathalie Uyttendaele said.

Pressure on the author to defend the accuracy of her book had grown in recent weeks.

"I'm not an expert on relations between humans and wolves but I am a specialist of the persecution of Jews and they (Defonseca's family) can't be found in the archives," Belgian historian Maxime Steinberg told RTL television. "The De Wael family is not Jewish nor were they registered as Jewish."

Defonseca had been asked to write the book by U.S. publisher Jane Daniel in the 1990s, after Daniel heard the writer tell the story in a Massachusetts synagogue.

Daniel and Defonseca fell out over profits received from the best-selling book, which led to a lawsuit. In 2005, a Boston court ordered Daniel to pay Defonseca and her ghost writer Vera Lee $22.5 million.

Lee, of Newton, Massachusetts, said she was shocked to hear Defonseca made up the story.

"She always maintained that this was truth as she recalled it, and I trusted that that was the case," Lee said.

Defonseca's lawyers said Daniel has not yet paid the court-ordered sum.

Daniel said Friday she would try to get the judgment overturned. She said she could not fully research Defonseca's story before it was published because the woman claimed she did not know her parents' names, her birthday or where she was born.

"There was nothing to go on to research," she said.