Thursday, July 10, 2003

A-ha! African Oil QUOTE OF THE DAY The day will come when after harnessing space, the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire. - - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955, French paleontologist and philosopher) KNOW YOUR HISTORY - JULY 10th 1962 -- US government rejects Soviet proposal of complete & general disarmament. RHINO HERE: The folks at MoveOn are asking for our help again. Last month they rallied their million plus members to contact key Congress members with calls, emails, letters & petitions thereby forcing the Senate Commerce Committee to endorse legislation to overturn FCC rule changes that allow big media to get dramatically bigger. That effort effectively changed the debate on media ownership in America. Now let's win it. The new legislation will roll back the worst of the rule changes & force the FCC to change the way it does business. There are already 38 sponsors in the Senate & they expect to get a majority of senators on board. Rhino's calling his senators today! How 'bout you? Let's jam the phone lines delivering a simple message: "We want a media that is diverse, competitive and engaged with the local concerns of the communities where we live. But we can only have that if Senators support S.1046 and S.1264, the measures that will overturn FCC rule changes that benefit only big media." AND IF YOU'RE NOT ON MoveOn's ACTION ALERT LIST, WHY NOT?? SIGN UP AT: http://www.moveon.org/keepmeposted/ Speaking of the media, today I offer a potpourri of recent media related news items with links. Then the BOTTOM LINE on shrub in Africa. An Alternative to the 'En-Bed-Ed' Media! UK Guardian to Publish Weekly Magazine in the US! From NYMetro.com: "Still, when, during a coffee break, Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian's editor, said to me, in a most offhanded way, 'We're coming to America,' I assumed he was talking about a personal visit. 'Well, let's definitely get together,' I politely said. 'No,' he said. 'We're bringing the Guardian to America. We're going to publish an American version'... Then, during the next break in the conference, Rusbridger took me across the street to his office and showed me the prototype for the new American Guardian. Its tentative form is as a weekly magazine, quite unlike any other weekly magazine that has been started in the U.S. in the past generation. Not only is it about politics (Rusbridger is looking to launch in the winter to cover the presidential-primary season), but the magazine -- meant to be 60 percent derived from the Guardian itself, with the rest to come from American contributors -- has a great deal of text unbroken by design elements." http://nymetro.com/nymetro/news/media/columns/medialife/n_8938/ Dixie Chicks Star in Senate Radio Consolidation Hearing AdAge.com reports: "During a Senate hearing on radio consolidation, senators grilled a radio industry executive about his decision to pull songs by the country band the Dixie Chicks from the air for a month... The committee's chairman, John McCain, R-Ariz., sharply questioned Cumulus Media CEO Lewis W. Dickey Jr. if he felt his decision ban the Dixie Chicks from all of Cumulus' country music stations demonstrated the political danger present in having too few owners of the nation's media... Sen. McCain said that while individual stations have the right to pull songs, the decision by Cumulus (as well as by another media company, Cox Communications) to pull songs chainwide from its stations was a 'total contradiction' of statements made by media executives that they were serving local markets. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., suggested Mr. Dickey's decision smacked of Nazism and McCarthyism rather than of free speech." http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=38249 Panel OKs California state secrecy measure Source: Los Angeles Times - A Davis administration bill in California that would let state agencies block public access to plans for use in potential terrorist attacks was approved by a state Senate committee Tuesday over warnings that it would deny citizens information they might need in a homeland emergency. Administration officials argue that it is in the best interests of Californians to keep the information secret because its release might tip off potential terrorists to possible weaknesses in public facilities, such as freeway bridges, government buildings and dams. But opponents of the bill charge it would go too far and suppress access to information that could affect public safety, such as evacuation routes from a city struck by terrorists. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-secret9jul09.story Major newspaper stokes gay marriage debate Source: Reuters, via Yahoo!  - With Massachusetts' top court poised to issue a ruling that could make the state the first to allow gay marriages, New England's leading newspaper on Tuesday came out in favor of same-sex unions. In an editorial entitled "For Gay Marriage," The Boston Globe added its voice to those seeking to give gay and lesbian couples the same rights as heterosexuals. Gay marriages are forbidden in the United States, although one state, Vermont, allows same-sex civil unions. Newspaper Stokes Debate RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE is some UK Guardian coverage of shrub's trip to Africa. Any surprise there's oil in the equation? But before you wade into that story, check the reporting of shrub's visit to Goree Island, Senegal, where the island's residents were rounded up, herded into a football stadium & kept confined until shrub finished his speech & departed. A paranoia stark in contrast to Bill Clinton's visit in '98, according to former Mayor Urbain Alexandre Diagne: "When Clinton came, he shook hands, people danced." On Goree Island, Bush Visit Sparks Anger Bush Visit Sparks Anger 7:29:57 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - Oil And Terrorism Drive The Presidential Tour Oil And Terrorism Drive The Presidential Tour by Julian Borger, The Guardian, 7/7/03 President Bush's trip to Africa this week signals a recent strategic decision to increase America's military presence to bolster what Washington now sees as two important national interests on the continent - the supply of oil and the struggle against terrorism.   On the eve of departure, General James Jones, the commander of the US European command with responsibility for African operations, said the US was trying to negotiate the long-term use of a "family" of military bases across the continent. This would include big installations for up to 5,000-strong brigades "that could be robustly used for a significant military presence," Gen Jones told the New York Times. It would also involve smaller, lightly equipped bases available in times of crisis to special forces or marines.  The bases would not only be established in north African states such as Algeria, where Islamic extremism is already a potent force, but also in sub-Saharan African nations such as Mali.  Gen Jones has also predicted a much bigger role for the navy and marines in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea... IT'S ALL AT: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,992913,00.html "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. 6:53:56 AM    comment

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