The Horror of Stalingrad and insults against history
Salon has an interesting article which does a great job of exposing the horror of Stalingrad, as against the theme-park version of it that occupies most of Enemy at the Gates.
Surgeon General Reports Women’s Smoking is on the Increase
In some rather distressing news, a Surgeon General's report has found that the number of women smokers has increased. There is some excellent work by Jean Kilbourne on how tobacco advertising targets women.
“Crack Baby” epidemics and other convenient fictions
In a stunning development, studies have revealed that drug war rhetoric about crack babie
might just be overblown and based more on anti-black sentiment than on reality. What a shocker!
Mediocrity Elevated, Bamboozled Ignored
Salon's complete list of this year's Oscar winners poses the musical question: Why in God's name did Gladiator win Best Picture?! In actuality, Best Picture should have been Spike Lee's Bamboozled, but, well, the Spike Lee
bit will tell you why it wasn't even nominated...
King George End-runs Congressional Review on Global Gag Rule
Salon.com Politics | Bush to impose new abortion limits -- JACKASS! Bush has decided to try to reissue the global gag rule in a form that cannot be overridden by the will of Congress (i.e., the people's representatives). I can only hope that people remember this thuggish, Napoleonic streak of Bush's come 2004...
P.S. Why does Bush continue to repeat that It is my conviction that taxpayer funds should not be used to pay for abortions or advocate or actively promote abortion either here or abroad?
It's already against the law for this to happen. What Bush is complaining about is taxpayer funds which are earmarked not to go towards abortion, going to family planning groups which also do provide abortion advocacy or abortion services. If Bush is going to say that that constitutes U.S. money going to abortion, then why the hell don't faith-based initiatives
constitute giving taxpayer money for evangelism? (Answer: they don't, and neither does giving taxpayer money to family planning services constitute using taxpayer money for abortions). Bush is either (a) stupid, (b) lying, or (c) crazy. The sad thing is I really can't rule out any of them.