Today's Stories

May 17 / 18, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The View from the Crusaders' Castle

Andy Worthington
Gitmo Trials: Betrayal, Backsliding and Boycotts

May 16, 2008

Stephen Soldz
Involuntary Drugging of Detainees

Jonathan Cook
Police Attack Al-Nakba March

Paul Craig Roberts
Lies of Aggression

Christopher Brauchli
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Pharmacy

James L. Secor
Olympic Torch China: the View from Shaoxing

Franklin Lamb
Did Hezbollah Thwart a Bush/Olmert Attack on Beirut?

Linn Washington, Jr.
The Price of Protecting Racist Cops

Dave Lindorff
What West Virginia Means

May 15, 2008

Stan Cox
Big Brother Close Up

Jeff Halper
Rethinking Israel After 60 Years

Greg Moses
Living for the Children of Palestine

John Ross
Why Mexican Justice is a Euphemism

Ron Jacobs
Go to Work, Go to Jail

Binoy Kampmark
Indian Jailbirds: the Case of Binayak Sen

Eve Spangler
We Should Not Celebrate Dispossession

Martha Rosenberg
Meat Wars with South Korea

Website of the Day
Idaho Wolf Killers

May 14, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Oil Wars

Reza Fiyouzat
Torture, a Bully's Creed

Felice Pace
California Water Politics: Of Dams and Water Buffaloes

Hamdan A. Yousuf / Dania S. Ahmed
A Generation Defined by War

Robert Weitzel
Hillary's "Final Solution" to the Persian Problem

Ralph Nader
You're Either with the American People or the Big Auto Bosses

Dave Lindorff
Hillary, McCain and the Stupid Vote

Missy Comley Beattie
White Heaven: Hillary's W. Virginia Idyll

Neve Gordon
Israel as a Site of Struggle

Dr. Susan Block
A Washington Witch Hanging

Website of the Day
Hillary's Downfall

May 13, 2008

David Rosen
Sexual Terrorism: the Sadistic Side of Bush's War on Terror

Alan Farago
Nuclear Florida: Beachfront Reactors in an Age of Rising Sea Levels?

Saul Landau
The Crisis at Home

Saree Makdisi
Forget the Two-State Solution

Paul Craig Roberts
How Empires Fall

Andy Worthington
Gitmo's Suicide Bomber

Brother Bede Vincent
The Problem with Rev. Wright--There are Too Few Like Him

Linda Mamoun
Marketing Ethnic Cleansing

David Macaray
The Myth That Won't Die

Website of the Day
Burning the Future: Coal in America

May 12, 2008

St. Clair / Frank
The Pentagon's Toxic Legacy

Ziga Vodovnik
Rebels Against Tyranny: an Interview with Howard Zinn on Anarchism

Gary Leupp
Why All of Our Efforts Won't Stop an Attack on Iran

Frankln Lamb
Choufeit's Bloody Pentacost

Suzanne Baroud
The Ambition of Hillary Clinton

Martha Rosenberg
Farmer Ernie's Chamber of Horrors

Dave Zirin
The Boss's Boycott

Carl Finamore
I Ain't Gonna Work No More

Peter Morici
Recession Watch

Richard Rhames
The Third Way to Nowhere

Website of the Day
The Untold Story of Black New Orleans

May 10 / 11, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Real Clear Numbers: 101,000 Casualties a Year

Franklin Lamb
Hezbollah Eases Up and Beirut Opens Its Shutters

Ciara Gilmartin
A Surge in Iraqi Detainees

Diane Farsetta
Inside a Nuclear Industry Soirée

Kent Paterson
Mother's Day in Ciudad Juarez

Alan Farago
The Social Engineers

Rannie Amiri
Beirut on the Brink

Patrick Irelan
Bolivia, Morales and the Red Ponchos

Robert Fantina
The Lexicon Legacy of George W. Bush

Nikolas Kozloff
El Salvador 2009: Another Feather in the Cap of Chavez?

George Ciccariello-Maher
The Yumare Massacre, 22 Years On

David Yearsley
Bacharach at 80

Ron Jacobs
Rosa Luxemburg's Shock Doctrine

John Holt
Can Yellowstone Survive?

David Michael Green
It's So Over

Ben Terrall
Dealing Sleep

Kim Nicolini
The Best Film of the Bush Era?

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Orloski, Frisella, Gladstone-Gelman

May 9, 2008

Franklin Lamb
A Wild Day in Beirut

Andy Worthington
The Afghans of Gitmo

Benjamin Dangl
Polarizing Bolivia

Mark A. Huddle
Remembering Mildred Loving, an Unsung Hero of the Civil Rights Movement

David Macaray
Hollywood Gives SAG the Brush Off

Dave Lindorff
Team Clinton: Going Down Ugly

C.G. Estabrook
The Way We Live Now

Matt Kosko
McCain, Clinton, Obama and the Wages of Lesser-Evilism

Robert Weissman
Big Business is not the Solution to Global Poverty

Michael Dickinson
Jailing the Joint

Website of the Day
The Role of Third Parties in the U.S.A.

May 8, 2008

Sharon Smith
Rockefeller Family Fables

Saul Landau
The NATO Axiom

Laura Carlsen
A Primer on Plan Mexico

Binoy Kampmark
Food Riots are Coming to the U.S.

Kenneth Couesbouc
China's Paper Feet

Liaquat Ali Khan
Pakistan's Constitutional Shenanigans

Franklin Lamb
Blindsided, Hezbollah Mulls Its Response

Sen. Russ Feingold
Government in Secret

George Wuerthner
The Problems with Conservation Easements

Richard W. Behan
A Brief Exposé of a Fraudulent War

Adam Federman
Marching for Sean Bell

Website of the Day
State of the Air

May 7, 2008

Winslow T. Wheeler
Drowning in Dollars

Joanne Mariner
Torture After Dark

Col. Dan Smith
It's Lying and It's Murder: How KBR Electrocuted US Troops

Brian M. Downing
Reports From Foreign Provinces

Andy Worthington
Who are the Prisoners Released with Sami al-Haj?

John Stauber
Pentagon Propaganda Documents Go Online, But Will the Media Ever Report on Them?

Christopher Brauchli
Outsourcing Tax Collection

Nelson P. Valdés
Cinco de Mayo and Cinco de Agosto: Mexican History and Manufactured Identities

Rep. Keith Ellison
High Court Deals Blow to Voting Rights

Dan Bacher
Undam the Klamath, Mr. Buffett!

Website of the Day
Green Porno

May 6, 2008

Pam Martens
The Obama Bubble Agenda

Nikolas Kozloff
U.S. is Promoting Secession in Bolivia

Marjorie Cohn
Under U.S. Law Torture is Always Illegal

Ralph Nader
America's Pay-or-Die Health Care System

Yigal Bronner
Archaeologists for Hire

Brian Cloughley
No Laws for Bush America

Jacob Hornberger
Killing Enemies Without Trial

Walter Brasch
People Who Don't Need People

Paul Krassner
An Open Letter to Michael Moore

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Running Mates from the Imaginary Plane

Website of the Day
Some People

May 5, 2008

Pam Martens
Obama's Money Cartel

Conn Hallinan
The Syrian Affair

Corey D. B. Walker
The End of Politics

Uri Avnery
Crusader Anxiety: Israel at 60

Dave Zirin
Refocusing Olympic Protest

Corporate Crime Reporter
Wiist's Crusade Against Corporations

Robert Jensen
The Selling and Shaping of Our Souls

Daniel White
What People Want to Hear About in Austin, Texas

Benjamin Dangl
May Day Raid on General Dynamics

Website of the Day
McCain's Pastor of Hate: "Starve. I Don't Care. Starve."

May 3 / 4, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Has Rev. Wright Cost Obama the Presidency?

Nikolas Kozloff
The Shameful Failure of the Black Congressional Caucus

Diane Farsetta
What the Pentagon Pundits Were Selling on the Side

Tariq Ali
New Labour is Dead

Harry Browne
The USA's Other Island: Irish Leaders and the War on Terror

Wajahat Ali
Pakistan's New Daughter of Destiny? An Exclusive Interview with Fatima Bhutto

David Yearsley
A Challenge to Jeffrey Eugenides

Greg Moses
Salamat, Riad Hamad

William Blum
Rev. Wright, the CIA and the AIDS Thing

Robert Fantina
The Rhetoric of John McCain

Fred Gardner
The Greatest Story Never Told

Dave Lindorff
Blame It On Paraguay: The Bush Family's Bad Real Estate Deal

Seth Sandronsky
Standardizing Learning

Binoy Kampmark
Brown, Boris and the British Council Elections

Howard Lisnoff
The Lost First Amendment

Daniel Cassidy
Slanguage: Paddy Works on the Erie

Bill Moyers
Shrink-Wrapping the Theology of Rev. Wright

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
John Holt / Akbar Khan

Website of the Weekend
Ed Abbey, Patron Saint of the Walker's Rights Movement

May 2, 2008

Andrew Cockburn
Secret Bush "Finding" Widens Covert War on Iran

David Isenberg
The Return of Limited Nuclear War?

Vijay Prashad
Driven to Terror: the Case of the Lackawana Six

William Blum
Spies Without Borders

David Macaray
Shutting Down the West Coast Ports: the ILWU's May Day Strike

Rannie Amiri
Is Sadr City Becoming the Next Gaza?

William James Martin
The Carter Coup

Stephanie Westbrook
As Italy Lurches Rightward, a Ray of Hope from Vicenza

Linn Washington, Jr.
A Battle Over Murals in Parisian Ghettos

Anthony Papa
How the Byrne Fund Corrupts Cops and Destroys Lives

Website of the Day
The Serota Petition

May 1, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Fed Sinks the Dollar

Behzad Yaghmaian
Blaming the Yuan for the Deficit with China

Wajahat Ali
The Dark Knight: the Real Rise of Obama

Dedrick Muhammad
Senator Obama, Please Come to Your Senses

Cynthia McKinney
Police in America Can Kill Some People With Impunity

Corporate Crime Reporter
Farm Broadcaster Fired After Ripping Monsanto's Goon Squads

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The Speech That Might Have Been

Reza Fiyouzat
Stop Obliterating Yourself!

Leigh Saavedra
Suspending the Federal Gas Tax

Tom Semioli
Hollywood Hypocrite: an Open Letter to Michael Moore

Website of the Day
Why Won't McCain Release His Medical Records?

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You're Welcom to My Frequent Flier Miles

My Last Flight

By PAUL QUINNETT

The commercial airlines may not be trying to kill me, but I need convincing. You see, I'm a 68-year-old grandpa with high blood pressure and zero patience. One more flight delay could kill me. As impractical as it seems, I would just like to get where I'm going on time. Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison and left with no bitterness; I wait 15 minutes at a security gate and I crack a molar.

Where intelligent travelers caught in long airport queues retreat into their Bose headphones, I-Pods, and Wall Street Journals, I still try to count to ten to keep from blowing up. If I don't quit flying some bystander is going to post a clip of my head exploding on U-Tube.

I don't care if TSA staff takes liberties with their body searches, or if my pilot is flying loaded on Viagra and pain pills while packing a pistol, I just want to get where I'm going before I die of old age.

If commercial flying is stressful on those of us with high blood pressure, imagine what it's doing to folks with, say, a touch of claustrophobia. At 6'3' 230 pounds, I'm small compared to some of my fellow and sister passengers. So when we are all packed in and buckled up trading viruses inside a sardine ca., I mean, 737, it looks like the arrangements were made by Slave Ships Inc. - except on slave ships you had reasonably good chance of dying in transit.

I fly to fly fish. I fly to get to and from fun. Now I'm a mental case. You can spot me in most any airport waiting area; I'm the one who looks like a geriatric version of Jack Nicholson in Cuckoo's Nest right after a double dose of ECT.

Consider that on the last leg of a particularly aggravating four-time-zone, thrice-delayed flight, I was so unraveled I stumbled into the women's restroom at Boston's Logan Airport. Head down and dazed, just as I reached for the zipper on my fly I looked up to note a serious shortage of urinals and way too many cross-dressers for a men's room.

Eyes popped all around, including mine.

Ladies of all ages stopped adjusting skirts and makeup and turned to full time glaring. My BP spiking, I turned cherry red, spun a Louie, and hiked out of there double time. An attractive blood on her way in caught my eye and cracked, 'I feel your pain.'

The commercial airline industry feels my pain, too. Flight crews now attend mandatory Apology School, lest they fall victim to mutiny. While still trying to kill me, some airlines are trying to make extra nice.

For example, on a recent trip home from the Bahamas, and after only a few hours of sleep because the Bahamas Air flight into Ft. Lauderdale was delayed four hours the night before, and our luggage was lost, and we had an early morning flight, which meant my wife and I spent four hours in a $200 room (that's $50 an hour which, if you are governor on date may seem like a good deal, but when you are married 48 years is just plain aggravating), a U.S. Airways ticket agent shrunk my exploding head with the words, 'You're flight has been cancelled, but if we hurry, I can get you out in 20 minutes, but the only seats we have left are first class. Will that work?'

He must have noticed the Nicholson smile. When he put the boarding passes into my hand I wept a 'thank you' and, over my wife's protest, tried to kiss him.

Flying was not always like this.

Flying used to be fun, if a bit adventurous.

A good flight was one that didn't fall out of the sky, and flight delays were quite acceptable.

On a cross-Pacific prop-driven flight to serve an Army tour in Japan in 1960, we landed to refuel on Wake Island. The GIs were de-planed so we could have lunch and poke around the old WWII gun emplacements. With refueling complete, and as I climbed the stairs back into the plane for the final the two-thousand-mile hop to Japan, I overhead a crew member say to the pilot, 'There's oil leaking from number two, maybe we ought to look into that.'

A capital idea in my view, we were again ordered off the plane and told to be ready to re-board at any moment. The three hour delay allowed me to wade in some nearby tide pools and enjoy a beautiful place I would never see again. We made it to Yokohama just fine.

On my return flight home two years later I was boarding a chartered Flying Tigers prop-driven military transport to San Francisco by way of Anchorage, Alaska. I asked the flight attendant, 'What's the flight time to Anchorage?'

'I don't know,' she grinned, 'We've never made it.'

But we did make it, and with our senses of humor in tact. Other than the old Alaska Airline pilot excuse for late departures - 'Sorry for the delay folks, but our baggage crushing machine is broken down so we are having to crush your baggage by hand' - there's very little humor left in the flight crews these days. I feel sorry for them. I wish they could all get a nice pay raise and be able to go off their antidepressants.

In spite of all the current frustrations, I'm happy to report that I have enjoyed the same number of take offs as landings - something all pilots will tell you is the preferred flight plan. Safety is up, terrorist threats down. Except for grandmothers with blue hair wearing suspicious shawls and with first names like Elsie, hardly anyone needs to be body-searched anymore. Even the security queues are moving briskly.

But I've taken my last flight. To move things along here, I would like to offer any interested party my huge cache of frequent flier miles in trade for, say, a wee bottle of a single malt scotch.

Paul Quinnett lives in Cheney, Washington. He can be reached at: pquinnett@mindspring.com

 

 

 

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