TRUFFULAUT #22

http://home.earthlink.net/~truffulaut/id34.html

 

17 September 2004

 

Feel free to pass this on to anyone. 

TRUFFULAUT #1 (http://home.earthlink.net/~truffulaut/id10.html) is an introduction to my motives and to myself.  Positive comments are welcome (http://home.earthlink.net/~truffulaut/id17.html). 

 

 

HOW YOU CAN HELP DISPLACE THE RULING JUNTA

DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE

Victory is within our grasp; we only need two more Democratic seats to retake the Senate.

http://www.dscc.org/join

HOUSE DEMOCRATIC CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE

I like Nancy Pelosi much better than Tom DeLay.

http://www.hdcc.org/

AUSTIN FOR CHANGE

You are needed now!  Call 477-7500.

Join the Travis County Democratic Party Coordinated Campaign to help elect John Kerry and quality Democratic candidates up and down the ballot all throughout Travis County!

http://www.austinforchange.com/

 

 

DID PEOPLE ONCE COMMUNICATE WITHOUT PCs & CELL PHONES?

Yes, they did.  To commemorate yet another dirty trick by the Republican Lies, Slander, and Distortion machine (GOP LSD), today's issue of Truffulaut uses the Times New Roman font.

Times Roman is a body text, serifed typeface designed for The Times by Stanley Morison in 1932.  Its readability and economical use of space caused it to be used extensively in American newspapers during World War II to save paper.  It remains one of the most widely used typefaces.  The differences between Times Roman and Times New Roman are mostly a trademark* issue.  Although there are subtle stylistic and spacing differences, they are invisible in body typefaces at normal reading distances.

http://www.fact-index.com/t/ti/times_roman.html

During WWII, the American Linotype company, in a generous spirit of Allied camaraderie, applied for registration of the trademark name "Times Roman" as its own, not Monotype's or The Times', and received the registration in 1945.  In the 1980s, all this was revisited when some entrepreneurs, desirous of gaining the rights to use the name, applied to *Rupert Murdoch, who owned The Times; separately, a legal action was also initiated to clarify the right of Monotype to use the name in the U.S., despite Linotype's registration.

http://www.truetype.demon.co.uk/articles/times.htm

 

 

IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE (1935)

Interestingly, this novel by Pulitzer-prize winning author Sinclair Lewis, who was also the first American to win a Nobel Prize in Literature, is out of print.  I do not know why it is out of print.  You can buy it on amazon.com at prices ranging from $40.50 to $125.  It describes how fascism can take hold in the USA; hence the title.  Also interesting is that it was published four years before Adolf Hitler became of Chancellor of Germany; it was published sixty-six years before the inauguration of the person in Our White House -- for those of you who revel in superstition, were it published sometime in the summer, it might be a case of 666.  I digress.  Many of today's events make it clear that it can indeed happen here.  Truffulaut is unreservedly curious, and I have found an Australian link that will allow you to read It Can't Happen Here online:

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/l/lewis/sinclair/happen/

SINCLAIR LEWIS - WIKIPEDIA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Lewis

SINCLAIR LEWIS SOCIETY

http://www.english.ilstu.edu/separry/sinclairlewis/aboutus.html

 

 

POLITICS

BUSH SUPPORTERS VERSUS REALITY

As Walter Kerr said, "He has delusions of adequacy."

On Thursday, September 2, 2004, the squatter occupying Our White House spoke at the Republican National Convention in New York City and made many erroneous statements, perhaps none more vividly illustrated than, "We have led, many have joined, and America and the world are safer."

If Russia is part of the "world," then he was totally mistaken, for at the very same that he was speaking, hostages were being slaughtered in Beslan (one of many unsafe places to be this year).

 

America and the world are safer.  The siege is another grim reminder of the length to which terrorists will go to threaten the civilized world.  I looked Vladimir Putin in the eye and was able to get a sense of his soul.  Saddam is no longer a threat.  I fell off my bicycle, and I choked on a pretzel.

 

WORLD LEADERS CONDEMN SCHOOL SLAUGHTER

World leaders expressed horror at the bloody climax of Russia's hostage crisis today, saying the barbaric attack on school children showed terrorists have sunk to new lows.

http://breaking.examiner.ie/story.asp?j=86588775&p=865893xx&n=86589377&x=

DEFENSELESS TARGETS

...when she felt her hope running out, her little boy rescued her.  Timur massaged her feet and kissed her, and told her stories about all the water and juice they would drink when it was finally over.  "He was so good to me," Kasumova says.  Like the other children of Beslan, Timur became a soldier that day.

http://www.time.com/time/europe/html/040913/story.html?cnn=yes

 

CONVENTION OF HATE

This can only be one man's opinion, that of someone who has lived 70 years, starting in a New England mill town, then college and military service in Cold War Germany, followed by 45 years and counting as a reporter through several wars in Asia and lots of political combat both domestic and foreign.  I have come to the conviction, after following closely the actions of both Kerry and Bush, that Senator Kerry is more fit and qualified to be president than the man who presently holds the office.

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0436/schanberg.php

 

U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT UNCOVERS FURTHER EVIDENCE OF SQUATTERS DERELICTION

"The regulations must be followed," adds James Currie, a retired colonel and author of an official history of the Army Reserve.  "Clearly, if you were the average poor boy who got drafted and sent into the active force," he says, "they weren't going to let you out before you had completed your obligation." 

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040920/usnews/20guard.htm

 

 

GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR

Many moons ago in Dr Strangelove, Kong (played by Slim Pickens) said, "I got a fair idea of the kind of personal emotions that some of you fellows may be thinking.  Heck, I reckon you wouldn't even be human beings if you didn't have some pretty strong personal feelings about nuclear combat." 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0055.html

 

Just because we don't talk about it as much as we used to does not make it less of a threat, although people who shop for books or express displeasure with neo-cons and Dominionists are a much greater threat, according to our mammaphobic Lost-to-a-Dead-Man Attorney General.  The USA has withdrawn from many international arms control treaties, saying that they are relics of the Cold War.  Hydrogen bombs are also relics of the Cold War.  Relics can do a lot of damage.

 

RUSSIA PLANS STRIKE-FIRST POLICY

A top Russian general has warned Russia could launch preemptive strikes on terror bases anywhere in the world...  But isn't the USA the only superpower in the world?  Are we responsible for a bad precedent?  Or is that "bad President?"  Is this evidence of how much safer America and the world are?  Are there any terror bases in the USA?

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,10707990%255E401,00.html

 

NORTH KOREA

Some have suggested that the first American ambassador to North Korea ought to be Ralph Nader because he hates corporations so much, but I think he is in enough pain already.

CIA Factbook

North Korea's long-range missile development and research into nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and massive conventional armed forces are of major concern to the international community.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/kn.html

Official website of the Peoples' Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea)

...the history of Modern Korea means the energetic fighting of the Korean people to defend their freedom and national sovereignty.

http://www.korea-dpr.com/

 

ISRAEL

I shudder to think what would happen to Israel, the Middle East, and the rest of the world if it had any natural resources.

The Israeli Government's Official Website by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

On the occasion of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, celebrated this year on September 15-17, we would like to wish our readers a healthy and happy year, and a year of peace.

http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/

The Third Temple's Holy Of Holies:  Israel's Nuclear Weapons

"This is the end of the Third Temple" -- attributed to Moshe Dayan during the Yom Kippur War.  This paper is a history of the Israeli nuclear weapons program drawn from a review of unclassified sources.  Israel began its search for nuclear weapons at the inception of the state in 1948.

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cpc-pubs/farr.htm

Embassy of Israel in Washington DC

One cannot ignore the intensity of the feelings that exist on both sides of the conflict in the Middle East.  Feelings of deep anger and frustration exist on Israel's side as well.  But, there is a huge difference between feeling anger and frustration, on the one hand, and promoting a culture of hatred, on the other.

http://www.israelemb.org/

 

UNITED NATIONS

The United Nations is the embodiment of the dreams of many American patriots who fought for its ideals repeatedly.

Peace and Security through Disarmament

Recent events had inspired demands for new efforts to strengthen the effectiveness of arms control and disarmament agreements, and to revitalize the multilateral disarmament machinery.

http://disarmament.un.org:8080/

http://www.un.org/webcast/index.asp -- live webcast

 

CAMPAIGN FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT (CND)

We do not really need to have enough weapons to render the Earth uninhabitable for centuries, do we?

...campaigns non-violently to rid the world of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction and to create genuine security for future generations.

http://www.cnduk.org/

 

 

IN A LIGHTER VEIN

HEAR REAL LIVE RIGHT-WING SPEAKERS

Warning: may not be suitable for children.  I enjoyed it.  http://mediamatters.org/static/B9H9NWi74j6cJmGMdD18y0/rws.html

 

PEACE GIRL

Brighten the corner where you are. 

http://sa.nextwish.org/Unsorted/War%20Photos/Peace%20girl.jpg

 

WARD SUTTON

Sutton is published in the Village Voice.  You can Receive an alert every time Sutton Impact is posted by submitting your e-mail address in the space provided beneath the cartoon.  Sutton is very funny and well worth the price -- free.  Free is the only price that is equal for all.

http://www.villagevoice.com/sutton/

 

 

 

PAX

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