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19111 [lbo-talk] White House: payola for Armstrong Williams -- rank: 1000

USA Today - January 7, 2005 Education Dept. paid commentator to promote law By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same. Williams on being paid to boost NCLB: "I wanted to do it because it's something I believe in." The campaign, part of an effort to prom ...

Document Size:	8265
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Jan 7 12:35:17 PST 2005

19112 [lbo-talk] Gore Vidal: Lincoln Was, Like, Totally Gay -- rank: 1000

W. Kiernan wrote: >Jeez I guess I really suck, I'm only a lousy 23 percent. Of course, >no one has ever given me flowers. > >You aren't going to unsubscribe me, are you? :-( Heavens no - and a gay male S/m top I know came in at 24%! As Liza pointed out, the test, if it measures anything at all, seems to be measuring gender normativity, which isn't the same as preference. But really, folks, I'm stunned I'm at the top of the list's league tables so far. Can't anyone beat my 63%? Doug

Document Size:	5171
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Jan 7 11:57:56 PST 2005

19113 [lbo-talk] manna for catastrophists -- rank: 1000

Andy F wrote: >But I didn't see how he came to these: > >....Category I initiatives need to be followed by a >second set of policy measures that we will call >Category II. These initiatives are crucial to the long >run political-economic stability of the U.S. economy. > >1. Increase U.S. defense spending... >...3. Reduce minimum wage in U.S. by 50%.... > > > > >Is that just a personal grocery list or something? It has a nationalist/authoritarian feel, th ...

Document Size:	5192
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Jan 7 11:31:13 PST 2005

19114 [lbo-talk] kvetching about Sontag's relation to the closet -- rank: 1000

Window Media newspapers, January 7, 2005 http://www.houstonvoice.com/2005/1-7/view/editorial/edit.cfm Don't settle like Sontag Before faulting the media for 'straight-washing' the personal life of author Susan Sontag, consider how we all rationalize keeping one foot in the closet. By Chris Crain, executive editor SUSAN SONTAG HAS been described as a radical intellectual who challenged mainstream thought, particularly in parochial America - what we now refer to as "the red states." She ...

Document Size:	11195
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Jan 7 08:49:55 PST 2005

19115 [lbo-talk] new radio product -- rank: 1000

Finally, after a long postscript-writing and holiday merrymaking, five shows have been freshly posted to my radio archive <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html>. They are: December 30, 2004 Leslie McCall, professor of sociology & women's studies at Rutgers, on inequality in the U.S. December 23, 2004 Maya Rockeymoore of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, on Social Security privatization's risk to black Americans * Merrill Goozner, author of The $800 Million Pill, on t ...

Document Size:	6959
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 6 16:27:46 PST 2005

19116 [lbo-talk] manna for catastrophists -- rank: 1000

R wrote: >At 01:17 PM 1/6/2005, you wrote: >>[Pacific Investment Management (Pimco) is the largest holder of >>bonds in the world. This dude, who's not speaking offically for >>Pimco, thinks we're on the verge of a real smashup.] >> >><http://www.pimco.com/LeftNav/Latest+Publications/2004/Dialynas+Paper.html> >> >>[...] >> >>Moreover, restructuring the global economy will require a dramatic >>reduction in American living standa ...

Document Size:	5472
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 6 14:16:07 PST 2005

19117 [lbo-talk] Marxism and Contingency (was The Ontology of Two Chairs) -- rank: 1000

[bounced because some appended stuff boosted length over the limit - here's the core of it] Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 13:40:25 -0800 (PST) From: Manjur Karim <piashkarim at yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Charles, I didn't mean that Marxism is deterministic in a simple sense. There were contradictory moments of structure and agency in Marx's own texts. In his best moments, Marx recognized that capitalism will not fall under the weight of its own structural contradictions, unless mediated/ ...

Document Size:	7276
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 6 13:54:49 PST 2005

19118 [lbo-talk] manna for catastrophists -- rank: 1000

[Pacific Investment Management (Pimco) is the largest holder of bonds in the world. This dude, who's not speaking offically for Pimco, thinks we're on the verge of a real smashup.] <http://www.pimco.com/LeftNav/Latest+Publications/2004/Dialynas+Paper.html> [...] Moreover, restructuring the global economy will require a dramatic reduction in American living standards. [...] The reduction of America's debt requires an extreme reversal of personal privileges. The time for extreme sacrifice in ...

Document Size:	6790
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 6 13:17:41 PST 2005

19119 [lbo-talk] Bush: least popular president ever inaugurated? -- rank: 1000

<http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/12/21/unpopular/> Back by unpopular demand Come next month, Bush's Inauguration Day approval ratings may be the worst of any president in modern-day history. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Eric Boehlert Dec. 21, 2004 | Republicans like to brag about the sweeping mandate that President Bush received on Election Day. But as he prepares for his second term, Bush approaches Inauguration Day with historically weak job-approval ratings, according to a series ...

Document Size:	11161
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 6 10:52:59 PST 2005

19120 [lbo-talk] Chicago Trib ombud: "Gary Webb had it mostly right" -- rank: 1000

Chicago Tribune - January 6, 2005 Dangers of questioning government actions Published January 6, 2005 It has been almost a month since he died and I haven't been able to get Gary Webb out of my mind. You remember Gary Webb, don't you? He's the investigative reporter who in 1996 produced a series of stories for the San Jose Mercury News called "Dark Alliance," on the connections between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Nicaraguan contras, the right-wing opposition to the leftist ...

Document Size:	8844
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 6 10:46:35 PST 2005

19121 [lbo-talk] R.I.P. Billy James Hargis -- rank: 1000

Michael Pugliese wrote: >st8 Wouldn't that be "state"? Shouldn't "straight" be "str8"?

Document Size:	4616
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 5 18:26:40 PST 2005

19122 [lbo-talk] Zionism & Anti-Semitism, proportionate -- rank: 1000

Samuel Waite wrote: >Yeah, I remember Cockburn writing about it in The >Nation a while back. Finkelstein mentioned legal >threats at one of his lectures, which is perhaps why >it's not being put out by UC Press instead of the New >Press. It's a story of the Verso diaspora. Colin Robinson, former editorial director of Verso, is now the publisher at the New Press. Niels Hooper, who took over as head of Verso's New York office after they squeezed out Colin, is now a history editor a ...

Document Size:	5380
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 5 16:29:43 PST 2005

19123 [lbo-talk] Re: Atheistic religions -- rank: 1000

Carl Remick wrote: >What about the Holy Ghost, the Rodney Dangerfield of the Trinity? >I've never been clear on the HG's job description, but He/She/It is >often depicted as a dove, which right off the bat would seem to make >the HG more congenial company than the other two Almighties. An early 1970s National Lampoon had the HG fluttering around, with the complaint: "Hey, ladies. Be kind to me. I haven't gotten any in almost 2000 years!" But rejecting the Holy Ghost is the ...

Document Size:	5138
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 5 14:38:17 PST 2005

19124 [lbo-talk] Zionism & Anti-Semitism, proportionate -- rank: 1000

Samuel Waite wrote: >Norman Finkelstein's upcoming book Beyond Chutzpah >promises to address the "new antisemitism" at length. The book was initially supposed to be a hit on Alan Dershowitz, to be called Letters to an Old Shyster. With the expansion of the topic, the title was changed - which is too bad, because it's a great one. Doug

Document Size:	5019
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 5 11:40:51 PST 2005

19125 [lbo-talk] Re: Gore Vidal: Lincoln Was, Like, Totally Gay -- rank: 1000

Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: >No wonder that my wife's kids think I'm gay. Either that, or it's because you're European. Just ask any red-blooded red-stater - Europe is stuffed to the gills with fags. Doug

Document Size:	4927
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 5 10:54:21 PST 2005