TRUFFULAUT #12

http://home.earthlink.net/~truffulaut/id23.html

1 May 2004

Sometimes I fear events will outpace Truffulaut, but I try to maintain a bit of restraint. This week, for example, I deliberately waited until May 1 just so I could say I was celebrating May Day. If need be, I might even find a May Pole to dance around.

Beginning as Beltane (http://www3.kumc.edu/diversity/ethnic_relig/beltane.html), May Day has been celebrated in England for centuries.

A little over one hundred years ago, it became International Labor Day everywhere except in the USA -- because of the Haymarket Square Riot (http://www.prairieghosts.com/haymarket.html) in Chicago in 1886. It seems quaint now, but men worked 10-12 hours, six days a week, for very little pay. During a protest over police treatment of workers striking for an eight-hour day and a living wage, someone threw a pipe bomb, killing a policeman. Recovering quickly, the police opened fire on the laborers and hundreds were arrested, beaten, and interrogated.

Many of us may remember that the USSR, always an enemy of the trade union movement (http://www.nobel.se/peace/laureates/1983/walesa-bio.html), co-opted May Day for its own purposes
(http://uploader.wuerzburg.de/gym-fkg/schule/fachber/englisch/joel/strophe5/udssr.jpg).

We learned our lesson from these horrifying events, and now no American would even dream of treating anyone inhumanely, especially not in the workplace, and all American workers enjoy reasonable working hours and earn enough to provide all families with a decent standard of living (http://www.epionline.org/index_lw.cfm). Santa Claus told me that the Moon is made out of Green Cheese.

May the festivities begin...

CONDOLEEZZA RICE CLAIMS PREVENTING 9/11 WOULD HAVE REQUIRED A LOT OF OVERTIME PAY

http://www.theonion.com/opinion/index.php?issue=4017

ECONOMY

DENMARK LEADS E-COMMERCE USE

We are not just being out-sourced, we are being out-governed and out-marketed.

The United States was ranked sixth and Japan 25th, but can only improve if e-commerce in the two biggest economies in the world is given a helping hand by their governments, the survey found... "Smart government initiatives are contributing to the steady rise of the northern European countries, Singapore, Hong Kong and Korea, and the relative stagnation of such e-enabled but uncoordinated markets as the United States."

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/04/20/world.online.ap/index.html

MAJOR FOREIGN HOLDERS OF TREASURY SECURITIES

I have been telling people our national debt is owned mostly by China and Japan, but as far as official government treasury securities go, I was off a bit -- it's Japan at number one and China at number two. Even if you add Hong Kong and Taiwan to that of Mainland China (not an unreasonable action), China still comes in at number two, although a very robust number two.

http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt

IRAQ PROCUREMENT 2004 MEET THE BUYERS

The reconstruction of Iraq is one of the biggest projects to have been undertaken in over 50 years. May 2003 saw the UN Security Council provide the US and UK with a mandate to take control of Iraq and to use the revenue generated by the export of oil to rebuild the country. This move ended all economic sanctions imposed on Iraq since the Gulf War in the early nineties. The reconstruction of Iraq -- planned to take place over the next five years -- is expected to cost in excess of $100 billion. At least half of this figure will account for projects to be sub-contracted to outside companies. Windrush Communications (http://www.w-global.net/), the official global communication partners of The Arab-British Chamber of Commerce (http://www.abcc.org.uk/index_flash.html) is proud to present an exclusive opportunity for international companies to meet the key Iraqi business leaders and decision makers. On 26-28 April 2004, a high-level delegation will hold a forum in central London.

http://www.iraqprocurement.com/

MEDIA

TAKE BACK THE MEDIA!

Take Back The Media is a cooperative project by progressive American citizens.

This site has tons of disturbing and quite well made videos and other animations that have not yet been aired on your TV (cable, satellite, or antenna).

http://www.takebackthemedia.com/

WEBSITE REGISTRATION

If you do not like registering at various sites (and the numbers are growing), try:

http://bugmenot.com/

After typing in a website, it provides an anonymous name and password to that URL; it only works for free sites. Truffulaut usually registers because I do not want a life filled with fear: "A life lived in fear is a life half-lived."

(http://imdb.com/title/tt0105488/combined).

WOMAN LOSES HER JOB OVER COFFINS PHOTO

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001909527_coffin22m.html

The photos themselves are (at last glimpse), still available for viewing, if you so desire. Some of the photographs are from the Challenger disaster. Web traffic can be fairly high.

http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/coffin_photos/dover/

COMEDIANS ON THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/04/22/politics0659EDT0475.DTL&type=printable

MORE SOURCES

For those of us who want to dig deeper into news abt resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict peacefully, some of our Birkenstock-wearing (http://www.birkenstock.com/), latté-sipping, hippie friends in Vermont have assembled an impressive list of links.

http://www.vtjp.org/links/newslinks.htm

STREAMING TELEVISION

Truffulaut only recently stumbled across this site, but it seems to be in fairly good working order. For example, I watched abt 20 minutes of Irish Parliament live. They were apparently arguing abt what rights non-Irish citizens have in Ireland under the Irish Constitution, words that must be music to the Irish saints who died for independence.

http://www.humanitas-international.org/newstran/streaming-tv.htm

RELIGION?

RELIGIOUS STUDIES

Just for a moment, I considered the prospect of the separation of Church and Truffulaut but quickly discarded the notion after realizing that l'état, çe n'est pas moi. Unlike Napoleon, I am not the State and have never wanted to be, nor do I have any food items named after me. What food and religion might possibly have to do with each other is a topic for another day...
Randi Rhodes (http://airamericaradio.com/pub/prg4about.htm) noted that President Eisenhower had warned us abt the military-industrial complex. She went on to say that apparently we now have to be wary of a military industrial Messiah complex.

IF RELIGION WERE AN APPENDIX

Fundamentalist suicide bombers, pedophilic priests, same-sex marriages, Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" -- if religion's an appendix, it's one on the verge of rupturing and causing havoc on the rest of the body politic... [Elizabeth] Castelli says, "We have a president in the White House who routinely quotes the Bible and rationalizes political decisions through recourse to that kind of biblical authority. So, it matters, whether or not you believe in the Bible, how this person is reading the Bible and using it."

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0415/meyer.php

THEIR BELIEFS ARE BONKERS, BUT THEY ARE AT THE HEART OF POWER

To understand what is happening in the Middle East, you must first understand what is happening in Texas... when Bush asked Ariel Sharon to pull his tanks out of Jenin in 2002, he received 100,000 angry e-mails from Christian fundamentalists, and never mentioned the matter again.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1195568,00.html

WHILE AMERICA FESTERS, OTHERS HEAL AND TRAIN

Schools to teach UK's six main religions -- Pupils should also consider secular philosophies, such as humanism "in considering ultimate questions and ethical issues, the report adds.

It makes our "Right Wing Fanatical Christians Only" club look a bit silly, doesn't it?

http://education.independent.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=515677

WAR or PEACE?

FORGOTTEN VICTIMS OF US NUCLEAR TESTING

It may be illegal to mention Al-Jazeera (check out the editorial cartoons), but it often carries news items not carried elsewhere.

"The Bikini tragedy isn't finished yet," he [Matashichi Ohishi] says. "It is still making people ill and there is no comprehensive ban on nuclear tests. It's important that people like me don't let people forget what happened 50 years ago still affects all of us today."

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C028D7CF-BEC1-4B5B-88CF-11C5DBD87211.htm

HOW DO YOU ASK A MAN TO BE THE LAST MAN TO DIE IN VIETNAM?

Following is the statement John Kerry made before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 23, 1971.

http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Manifestos/VVAW_Kerry_Senate.html

http://pages.xtn.net/~wingman/docs/kerryst.htm

KERRY ASKS QUESTIONS ABOUT DESERTER-IN-CHIEF

John Kerry is much more polite than Truffulaut is; "deserter-in-chief" is my phrase, not his.

http://johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0427b.html

Beneath my palm trees, by the river side,

I sat a-weeping: in the whole world wide

There was no one to ask me why I wept, --

And so I kept

Brimming the water-lily cups with tears

Cold as my fears.

from "Endymion," by John Keats

ONE WORLD, ONE LOVE, ONE KOREA?

The "electrically-triggered dynamite" and the traumatic injury done to North Korea reminded me once again that we are all together. I am not obsessed with mayhem, but even if I were, there is nowhere that is rid of it entirely. When humans first photographed our entire planet, blue against the infinite blackness

(http://apod.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/lg_earthrise_apollo8.gif),

it was very apparent that national boundaries are purely imaginary. We are all together, like it or not.

평화

TRUFFULAUT