A RESPONSE TO SALIM LAMRANI'S ARTICLE
Good friend and fellow traveler (to Cuba) Ted Henken has some pretty insightful responses to Salim's article. Check it out!

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA'S COVERAGE OF CUBA
Here's something that I saw today that is very interesting. The main premise is the notion that the role of the mainstream media is not to offer objective information to citizens but to defend the established political, economic and social order through diverse effective means such as propaganda, disinformation and censorship and that the role of the alternative media is to build a wall against the manipulation of reality.

It looks at Cuba, which it says is the "textbook case that should be studied at any center for the research of disinformation, because it has reached an unimaginable level of sophistication." It criticizes "the enormous difference between the ideological representation spread by the Western media and the reality inside the country," claiming that the mainstream media's "toxicity toward the Cuban problem is so effective that it has contaminated even the most progressive sectors of the developed world."
(PROGRESO WEEKLY)

MARIJUANA AND JESUS LINKED IN STUDY
"Jesus was almost certainly a cannabis user and an early proponent of the medicinal properties of the drug, according to a study of scriptural texts published this month. The study suggests that Jesus and his disciples used the drug to carry out miraculous healings."
(GUARDIAN, unearthed by Whythe Holt)

CHRIS MATHEWS' QUEER VIEWS
"On his TV show Friday Chris Matthews suggested that maybe liberals or gays were responsible for a series of terrible church burnings in central Alabama.

(see the video here)

That's a rather startling jump, since it is the black community, liberals, gays, and other progressives who, as the oppressed, often make common cause here. If one had to jump at conclusions before learning the facts, one would assume - certainly we Southerners would assume - that it was the product of racial hatred directed at churches as they are the soul of the black community.

That has been the history of our region and any fool - except, apparently, Mathews - would know that. He might remember, for example, the Birmingham church bombing that killed four little girls. The churches have been attacked by bigots because they are the unifying element of the black community and because they were the lead instrument in the struggle for civil rights.

And its not just ancient (1960s) history. The Alabama church burnings of a few years back were by some young people whose anger was driven by racial hatred. But, then, that doesn't really fit into his progromme, does it?

Mathews seems to have a fascination with homosexuality. Reminds me of Terry Dolan, the homophobic founder of the National Conservative Political Action Committee who died of AIDS. He used to proudly say that "the shriller you are the easier it is to raise money", or in Mathews' pathetic case, "get attention".
So, just to put this into persective:

1) It is way too early to tell who is responsible for the church burnings and what motivated them.

2) Mathews is entitled to be as big a homophobic bigot as he wants to be.

3) I am free not to view him or buy the products of the people who advertise on his show.

4) The people who listen must demand, at the very least, some semblance of connection to his stream-of-thought musings. (OPEN LETTER MEDIA, unearthed by Joel Sogol)

BETTY FRIEDAN IS DEAD
"Betty Friedan, the writer, thinker and activist who almost single-handedly revived feminism with her 1963 book 'The Feminine Mystique,' died of congestive heart failure yesterday, her 85th birthday, at her home in Washington."
(WASHINGTON POST)