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New World Notes News

Vol. 3, No. 12 — March 19, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #107, March 23:

Airport Security and Related Scams

Precursor and spiritual ancestor of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA): Mack Sennett's The Keystone Kops.

Executive summary

Twenty years ago, airports and commercial aircraft were scenes of Orwellian mind-control (hear George Carlin in this installment). And those were the good old days! After 9/11, the police state–fortunately run by the Keystone Kops–seized our airports (hear Jimmy Tingle, Michael Parenti). As we lead up to the preposterous Underwear Bomber scam of last Christmas (hear me, Jim Hightower, & Jon Stewart), we hear from student Nicholas George, busted for trying to carry “learn Arabic” flash cards onto a plane. It is to laugh–and the show does (between screams of outrage).

Notes and Credits

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for “What, me worry?”) of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford. Feedback to kdowst at hotmail period com.

http://www.jimmytingle.com/
http://www.michaelparenti.org/

Maidenform bra ad, apparently from 1963. Somehow, the extremely long-running "I Dreamed ..." ad campaign never tried, "I dreamed I blew up an airliner with PETN explosives in my Maidenform bra ... and panties." A pity.

• Michael Parenti audio from his public lecture of November 4, 2009, at the University of Hartford, recorded by moi
• Jon Stewart audio from a video at The Huffington Post
• Nicholas George audio from a video produced by ACLU: Flying With a Foreign Language.
• News story–Airport Absurdity–from Russia Today, ca.February 10, 2010
• Jim Hightower essay–condensed by me for radio–fromCommon Dreams, January 6, 2010
• Jimmy Tingle’s airport-security sketch from Tingle’s 2009 album, Jimmy Tingle for President

Coming Soon – Tuesday debut dates shown:

• March 30 – False-Flag Operations: An Intruduction
• April 6 – False-Flag Operations, Part 2

Terrorist suspect Nicholas George, here cleverly disguised as a harmless backpacker and college student. The TSA, Philadelphia Police, and FBI were too smart to fall for that old trick. George was busted for trying to carry basic-Arabic-vocabulary "flash cards" onto a commercial flight. Why do you think they call them "flash" cards, eh?! Good work, officers! Mack Sennett would be proud.

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

• Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford, CT) & http://wwuh.org/
• Saturdays, 5:00 to 5:30 PM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs, CT) &http://www.whus.org/
• Saturdays, 7:00-7:30 PM, KRFP-FM 92.5, Radio Free Moscow (Moscow, ID) & http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/
• Any time: Listen to or download any installment … or subscribe to a podcast … at A-Infos Radio Project:http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New+World+Notes

Populist commentator Jim Hightower. The former Texas state official (State Agriculture Commissioner) can recognize a scam-- such as full-body scanners in airports--when he smells one.

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New World Notes News

Vol. 3, No. 11 — March 11, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #106, March 16 & 20:

The Second Coming
(in American Imagination
and Popular Culture)

Nike sportswear ad.

In brief:

Artists & social critics have used the idea of the Second Coming of Christ as a metaphor to highlight social ills. (Bumper sticker: “Christ has come … and boy, is He p***ed!”) We hear & look at 4 works of art that do this: Lenny Bruce’s famous “Christ and Moses” routine, a Langston Hughesstory featuring the Harlem character “Simple,” W.B. Yeats’s poem “The Second Coming,” and The Police’s song “Synchronicity II”–which is pretty much Yeats’s poem, updated & set to music.

Is that Dick Cheney, in the brown suit?

This week’s song

• The Police, Synchronicity II (1983)

Notes and credits

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for “aegis”) of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford. Feedback to kdowst at hotmail period com .

“Simple Prays a Prayer”–which I condense for broadcast–is from the Langston Hughes anthology, The Best of Simple. Support your public library!

Coming Soon

• March 23 – Airport Security & Related Scams
• March 30 – False-Flag Operations: An Introduction

Irish poet and visionary William Butler Yeats

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

• Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford, CT) &http://wwuh.org/
• Saturdays, 5:00 to 5:30 PM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs, CT) &http://www.whus.org/. Note new time!
• Saturdays, 7:00-7:30 PM, KRFP-FM 92.5, Radio Free Moscow (Moscow, ID) & http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/
• Any time: Listen to or download any installment … or subscribe to a podcast … at A-Infos Radio Project: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New+World+Notes

Langston Hughes in Harlem

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New World Notes News

Vol. 3, No. 10 — March 5, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #105, March. 9:

Psychopaths With Occam’s Razor

Exeutive summary

Hierarchies (government, military, & Wall Street) become top-heavy with psychopaths–all of whom are capable of harming others without feeling the slightest guilt, empathy, or remorse. The Official Explanation of each outrage they commit is always convoluted. The principle of “Occam’s Razor” posits that (all else equal) simpler explanations are more likely to be true than explanations worthy of Rube Goldberg. An example of the latter is the Official Story of why there was no air defense on 9-11-2001.

Here’s a simple, Occam-friendly explanation of U.S. foreign policy since 1990: The psychopaths are running the show for their own benefit.

In this program, various observers discuss the decade-long genocidal sanctions against the Iraqi people (1990s, mostly under Clinton), Jewish Nazi-collaborator George Soros, 9/11, and General S.L.A. Marshall’s groundbreaking discovery ofsoldiers’ extreme reluctance to kill other humans, even “enemy” troops.

We even end on a note of hope and optimism. After all, the normals still outnumber the psychopaths 20-to-1, and the psychos haven’t yet succeeded in grabbing complete control of the Internet!

The Anti-occam: Rube Goldberg (1883-1970)

Goldberg's soup-cooling machine

And the winners are . . .

Rube Goldberg Award-winning byzantine Official Explanationsinclude

• How 2 airplanes caused 3 steel skyscrapers to collapse, each onto its own footprint, at near-freefall speed, while mimicking every characteristic of a controlled implosion
• Why, on 9-11-2001, there was no air defense of “the Homeland” and no missile defense of the Pentagon
• How giving a trillion dollars to private Wall Street corporations–no strings attached–will create jobs and reduce home foreclosures
• Why U.S. forces are killing people in AfghanistaN

Notes and credits

Thanks to James Corbett (http://www.corbettreport.com/ — episode #113) for the audio on George Soros. Thanks to Tereza Coraggio (http://www.thirdparadigm.org/) for the article by Dr. Kevin Barrett, “Twilight of the Psychopaths.” Regular podcasts by both Corbett & Coraggio are archived on radio4all.net.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for “counter”) of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford. Feedback to kdowst at hotmail period com.

See last week’s installment (#104) for more on psychopaths in power (and the predictable results).

On the show I’ve condensed–and in the process toned down –Kevin Barrett’s essay, “Twilight of the Psychopaths.” Here’s the full text (in .pdf).

As Clinton's Secretary of State, Madeline Albright (then a brunette) famously defended, on TV, the Administration's murder of 500,000 Iraqi children by its oppressive regime of sanctions. The equal number of adult civilians murdered didn't bear mentioning. Here, in February 2004, she arrives in Berkeley to plug her published memoirs. And no, the sign on the window isn't exaggerated, inflammatory rhetoric. Even so, the buck stops with her boss, the Psychopath-in-Chief. Apologies to Sassacus, Black Elk, & Sitting Bull.

Coming Soon

• March 16 – The Second Coming (in American imagination & popular culture)
• March 23 – Airport Security & Other Scams

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

• Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford, CT) & http://wwuh.org/
• Saturdays, 5:00 to 5:30 PM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs, CT) &http://www.whus.org/. Note new time!
• Saturdays, 7:00-7:30 PM, KRFP-FM 92.5, Radio Free Moscow (Moscow, ID) & http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/
• Any time: Listen to or download any installment … or subscribe to a podcast … at A-Infos Radio Project:http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New+World+Notes

Could a teenaged Jew in Hungary, ca. 1944, actively assist the Nazi Occupiers in robbing other Jews of their wealth and shipping them off to extermination camps . . . and--decades later--feel not the slightest guilt or remorse? Easy as goulash to a psychopath!

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New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 9 — February 27, 2010

This Week on New World Notes: Radio pgm. #104, March 2:

Hannibal Lecter To Replace
Dodd in Senate,
or:
Psychopaths: An Introduction

Executioner’s summary:

Psychopaths are quite common. Most are not hands-on killers. They differ from us in their lack of conscience, inability to imagine others’ pain, and total lack of remorse for harm they cause. With these advantages, they rise to the top of hierarchies; and hierarchies become top-heavy with psychopaths. Which explains a good deal of U.S. domestic and foreign policy. Drs. Susan Rosenthal, Michael Parenti, K. Dowst–& redneck social commentator Joe Bageant–explore the implications.

This week’s song
James McMurtry, Dancin’ in the Ruins of the Realm

Notes and credits
The passage by Dr. Susan Rosenthal is read by Lyn Gerry, rebroadcast from an installment of her Unwelcome Guests radio program (see link under “Worth a Look,” in the gray sidebar; the URL is below). Thanks to Lyn & the Unwelcome Guests Collective.

The passage is from Chapter 2 of Rosenthal’s 2006 book, Power and Powerlessness. The book is available–in some cases without charge–in 3 ways: (1) printed & bound, (2) by Internet download, (3) read aloud in its entirely over several installments of “Unwelcome Guests.”

http://www.susanrosenthal.com/

http://www.unwelcomeguests.org/

Joe Bageant’s “Bass Boats and Queer Marriage” is here:http://www.counterpunch.org/bageant01152010.html

The hour-long “Corbett Report” podcast has a couple of interesting installments on the same subject: #

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(“Our Leaders Are Psychopaths”) & #

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(“Meet George Soros”).

For more fun, see LA Weekly online’s “12 Consumer Products That Should Not Have Exploded But Did: Recall-a-rama” (April 1, 2009). Of course they include the Pinto, a.k.a. “the barbecue that seats four.“

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for “Freedom of Information Act”) of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford. Feedback to kdowst at hotmail period com.

Free weekly NWN email newsletter on request.

Coming Soon

• March 9 – Psychopaths With Occam’s Razor. The Official Explanations of, say, why the U.S. is invading Afghanistan … or of what happened on 9-11-2001 … are of baroque complexity. The principle of “Occam’s Razor” suggests that simpler explanations are more likely than Rube Goldberg fantasies to be true. Could “psychopathocracy” be part of a simpler & better explanation?
• March 16 – The Second Coming (in American consciousness & popular culture)

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New World Notes News

Vol. 3 No. 8 — February 21, 2010

Resisting Violence: Kathy Kelly

Last week’s installment, “Not ALL Christians Are Evil,” started off by whacking the Institutional Church–Protestant Division.  This week’s starts off by whacking the Roman Catholic Division.  Outraged Catholic listeners are asked not to turn off the radio the instant they hear the late Cardinal Spellman described as a “fascist warmonger.” Please wait for the “However, . . . .”

This “encore presentation” (with minor revisions) celebrates and features the great American and Catholic antiwar activist Kathy Kelly.  She tells a touching and funny story about ordinary citizens fighting against the U.S. War Machine . . . and winning. The hero(ine)s of the story happen to be ordinary citizens of Ireland.  But who’s to say it wouldn’t work just as well at home?

Kelly says almost nothing about her religious beliefs–which, however, clearly underlie her antiwar crusade.  Imagine!  Two weeks in a row we’ve managed to turn up some people (two of them still alive!) who believe that Christianity requires something other than killing “evildoers,” stealing oil, and persecuting homosexuals! Who’d a’ thunk?!

(l. to r.:) Kathy Kelly, Australian Catholic Worker activist Ciaron O'Reilly, and the five Pitstop Ploughshares, outside the courthouse, Dublin, 2006.

For details and photos, please see the blog entry for the original incarnation of this installment: http://newworldnotes.blogspot.com/2008/11/resisting-violence-kathy-kelly.html .  Note that the links to the audio file on that old page are to the unrevised, lower-audio-fidelity version (installment #39), of December 2008.

Listeners in central Connecticut–and all others–who wish to hear the updated version of the program (installment #103) can listen online or download an MP3 audio file for later listening.  You’ll find links on the main page of New World Notes’ Web site.

This Tuesday, noon to 1 PM, on WWUH 91.3:

Special Hour-Long Live Show

In this special broadcast for Pledge Marathon Week, regular but brief appeals for money will punctuate a potpourri of insightful political/social commentary by a range of voices.  You’ll hear none of these voices on corporate-controlled radio or TV stations–neither the overtly commercial stations nor the ones dependent on grants from Cargill, Exxon Mobil, and other social ils.  Plus we’ll have a reflection or two by me and a couple of songs (not by me).

Black Agenda Report Senior Columnist Margaret Kimberley

Pledges of support to any noncommercial, alternative, community-based radio station arealways in good taste.  Pledges of support to WWUH made by telephone while New World Notes is broadcasting–noon to 1 PM (Eastern) this Tuesday, February 23–are even nicer, as I’ll be able to thank you on-air . . . unless you prefer to remain anonymous. A tally is made of the amount pledged by phone during each show–and the loser has to buy beer and pizza for the other 67 volunteer staff members.  No, just kidding about the beer and pizza.

The phone number for pledges is 1 – 800 – 444 – WWUH  ( – 9984).  You can also pledge online at http://wwuh.org/ or else print out a form and mail in a check (same Internet address).

Words and voices included in this Tuesday’s show come from people including

• the late the Rt. Hon. Robin Cook, MP–a high official in Tony Blair’s Labour government–brilliantly denouncing the U.K.’s imminent invasion of Iraq and resigning from the Government (March 17, 2003).  Ends with the first-everstanding ovation in the House of Commons.  Then the next day they voted for war.  Cook died in 2005
• Margaret Cook–Robin’s estranged divorced wife at the time of the resignation–in a stunning new appreciation marking the Chilcot Inquiry, titled, “I’m So Proud of You, Robin Cook” (February 7, 2010)
• Margaret Kimberley on the Obama administration claiming the right–and attempting–to assassinate U.S. citizens (Don’t the 5th and 12th Amendments sort of discourage this sort of thing?)
• Jello Biafra, in the summer of 2008, predicting almost exactly what an Obama presidency would be like.  Jello’s batting average: .980.  He failed to imagine assassinating American citizens or the magnitude of the strings-free giveaway of the nation’s wealth to Wall Street
• Michael Parenti, from a phone interview with me last October, discussing the realagenda of U.S. foreign policy
• Comedians Jimmy Tingle and George Carlin, proving that you can be serious and funny too.  And that even the darkest tragedy can use a little Comic Relief. Yes, we do lighten up from time to time . . . at frequent intervals!
• 3 Vietnam Veterans–Greg Payton, Susan Schnall, and David Kline– recalling their and other GIs’ rebellion against an evil and unnecessary war
• urban poet Benjamin Zephaniah, showing the ill effects of bad media choice, in “(I’ve Been Listening to the) Rong Radio Station”–performed in the back of a cab driving around west London.  Listener, beware!  Don’t let this happen to you!

Some of these voices are “encore performances” (a.k.a. reruns) from earlier installments. Some are new to the show.  Some may appear in future regular installments.  You heard it here first!

Next Week: NWN # 104: Hannibal Lecter To Replace Dodd in Senate; OR: Psychopaths–An Introduction

Robin Cook, denouncing the imminent Iraq War and resigning from Blair's Labour Government, March 17, 2003. His speech prompted the first-ever standing ovation in the House of Commons. "Principled resignation" is another bit of eccentric British behavior unknown in the upper ranks of American government. Compare Colin Powell.

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

·         Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford, CT) &http://wwuh.org/

·         Saturdays, 6:30 to 7:00 PM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs, CT) & http://www.whus.org/

·         Saturdays, 7:00-7:30 PM, KRFP-FM 92.5, Radio Free Moscow (Moscow, ID) &http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/

·         Any time: Listen to or download any installment … or subscribe to a podcast … at A-Infos Radio Project: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New+World+Notes

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New World Notes News

Vol. 3 No. 7 — February 14, 2010

This Week on New World Notes, radio program #102, February 16:

Not ALL Christians Are Evil!

How to destroy a religion: Establish it as the official religion of your empire, elect yourself Pope, then appoint the bishops yourself. Worked for Constantine (shown), ca. 313. Detail from mosaic at Hagia Sophia, Constantinople, ca. 1000.

Executioners’ summary

Organized Religion (O.R.) has served Mammon & Mars well, while diverting its customers from virtuous thoughts & actions. (“Episcopal” DOES mean “overlooking”!) What killed O.R. for me–by age 10–was the Required Weekly Perjury, a.k.a. reciting the “Apostles’ Creed.”  A few Believers, though, actually try to enact the teachings of their religion’s founders and thereby do much good in the world.  We’ll hear two speak: veteran CIA analyst Ray McGovern and M.L. King, Jr (from Riverside Church antiwar speech).

A few details

McGovern lucidly shows the oily roots of the Bush-Obama invasion of Afghanistan. Parts of his talk are funny–for instance when he recreates a discussion he had with a burgher of a rich Milwaukee suburb, on whether or not saving a dollar a gallon on gas is worth a half-dozen dead American soldiers a week. And on how many Commandments the State Department and Pentagon have broken by the time the gasoline reaches the pump.

Martin Luther King’s hour-long speech in April 1967 contained, among other delights, a lucid history of the Vietnam conflict (not rebroadcast here), a fine discussion of how a Christian should respond to Communist revolutionaries, and a stirring denunciation of the Administration’s policies of defunding programs that helped the poor (“both black and white”) at home in order to pay for more bullets, napalm, bombs, and bombers to kill (primarily) innocent peasants abroad. Does any of this sound at all familiar?

One sign of the quality and power of King’s speech: it was strongly denounced by almost all of the corporate-controlled American media!
Notes and credits

Thanks to Seattle’s Mike McCormick for the talk by Ray McGovern–which I yanked from a half-hour interview on Mike’s radio program, Mind Over Matters (November 2009).

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for “table”) of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford. Feedback to kdowst at hotmail period com

Owing to time constraints, only Christians reached the mic today. They don’t hold the patent on virtue.  Just to toss off a few names that come immediately to mind, let’s acknowledge the faith-based good works of Jews Howard Zinn, Rabbi Michael Lerner, journalist Amira Haas, and the hundreds of “Refusers” in the Israeli military, among many others.

Moslems–apart from “terrorists”–receive scant attention in America, but two that come immediately to mind are Malcolm X (see note on Photo #5, below) and the Grand Ayatollah Sistani. The latter was responsible more than anybody for bringing to Iraq whatever measure of democracy it enjoys today–bringing it in the face of determined opposition by  the U.S.-installed Coalition Provisional Authority, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the administration named after W Bush.

27-year veteran CIA analyst--now social activist--Ray McGovern.

Detail from "Expulsion From the Garden of Eden." Artist: Bolton Morris (1920-2004); Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Media, Pennsylvania.

This week’s song: Bye Bye Birdie Original Cast, Hymn For a Sunday Evening (1960)

For written commentary, photos & other graphics, videos, great links, and an archive of past installments, please see this show’s Web site: http://newworldnotes.blogspot.com .

Coming soon – Tuesday debut dates shown:

·         February 23 on WWUH 91.7 – Special hour-long live show for Pledge Marathon week

·         February 23 elsewhere & on the Web – Resisting Violence: Kathy Kelly(rerun, with new introduction)

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

·         Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford, CT) &http://wwuh.org/

·         Saturdays, 6:30 to 7:00 PM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs, CT) & http://www.whus.org/

·         Saturdays, 7:00-7:30 PM, KRFP-FM 92.5, Radio Free Moscow (Moscow, ID) &http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/

·         Any time: Listen to or download any installment … or subscribe to a podcast … at A-Infos Radio Project: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New+World+Notes

Delivering his address, "Beyond Vietnam," at a "Clergy and Laypersons Concerned ..." antiwar rally, Riverside Church, Manhattan, April 4, 1967--one year, to the day, before his assassination.

With Malcolm X, March 26, 1964--11 months before Malcolm's assassination. The two leaders' paths had already begun to converge. Following his conversion to Sunni Islam and his pilgrimage to Mecca, Malcolm adopted the racial inclusivenesss of King's approach. For his part, King came to adopt more of Malcolm's willingness to oppose and confront established power including the national government--as we can plainly hear in his great speech at Riverside Church. IMHO, this is King's finest speech. Each man died at age 39. In each case, elements of the National Security State either connived in the assassination (Malcolm) or else pulled the trigger (MLK).

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New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 6 — February 6, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #101, Feb. 9:

The Top Ten

Top quotation of the decade #5

Executive summary

Let the corporate media fret about the Top 10 fashion blunders, TV bloopers, waist-trimming foods, tennis players, and the like. We’ll read or play recordings discussing the Top 10

• quotations, 2000-2009
• reasons to visit New Zealand
• high-level political sex scandals (Bill & Monica didn’t even make the list!); and . . . this ya gotta hear . . .
• military combat rifles.

I added a few footnotes here and there, but –honest!–I didn’t make any of this stuff up.

This week’s song

• Jeanne C. Riley, Harper Valley PTA (1968)

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key (2009)

Top high-level sex scandal #5: JFK & Marilyn Monroe. Is that Dean Martin on the far left? The President also enjoyed the favors of Angie Dickinson (actress), Inga Arvad (journalist), Blaze Starr (stripper), Judith Exner Campbell (mistress to Mob boss), and two White House secretaries affectionately called "Fiddle" and "Faddle." And they complained about Clinton!

Notes and Credits

New Zealand and combat rifles from videos available on YouTube. David Rosen, “America’s Top Ten Sex Scandals,” CounterPunch, August 1, 2007. David Sirota, “A Decade’s Top Ten Quotations,” Common Dreams, January 1, 2010.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for “gun”) of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford. Feedback to kdowst at hotmail period com.

Each site has its quirks and blind sides . . . but for consistently fine analysis, commentary, and (in the latter case) news–all from a Progressive perspective–you won’t go wrong with CounterPunch (www.counterpunch.org) and Common Dreams (www.commondreams.org). Each updated daily, each free, each with very unobtrusive (CP) or no (C.D.) advertising.

Fearless Prediction (a propos de rien), here placed on the record:Venezuela gets it next. Before Iran. You read it here first!

Free subscription to weekly New World Notes email newsletter upon request.

Top sex scandal #6: Two prominent politicians and diplomats of the mid- 19th century-- James Buchanan and William Rufus King--were house- mates and long-term intimate companions ... intimate enough to attract the mockery of their peers. After serving six weeks as Vice President (1853, under Pierce), King died of tuberculosis and hence was unable to act as First Lady during Buchanan's presidency (1857-1861). Historians still hotly debate who was the worst President ever: Pierce or Buchanan? For a century and a half after Buchanan, Americans have resolutely refused to elect another homosexual or another Pennsylvanian as President. Daguerreotype of King by Matthew Brady.

Coming Soon

• February 16 – Not All Christians Are Evil
• February 23 on WWUH – Live, hour-long program (Pledge Marathon)
• February 23 elsewhere – Resisting Violence: Kathy Kelly

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

• Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford, CT) &http://wwuh.org/
• Saturdays, 6:30 to 7:00 PM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs, CT) &http://www.whus.org/
• Saturdays, 7:00-7:30 PM, KRFP-FM 92.5, Radio Free Moscow (Moscow, ID) & http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/
• Any time: Listen to or download any installment … or subscribe to a podcast … at A-Infos Radio Project: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New+World+Notes

Top combat rifle #4: M-1 Garand. The WWII-era soldier holds a "clip," which holds eight .30-'06 cartridges for the rifle. By now, armies have largely replaced big, heavy, powerful battle rifles such as the M-1 (Garand is the name of the model's inventor) with smaller, handier, and less-powerful "assault rifles." While assault weapon is a meaningless if scary-sounding term concocted by the Gun-Ban Lobby to frighten the uninformed, assault rifle is a real type of rifle.

April 17, 2004. Flanked by NRA Executive VP Wayne LaPierre (left) and NRA President Kayne Robinson, Vice President Cheney admires the new Model 2003A2 U.S. Army Assault Rifle. The '03A2 is slated to replace the current standard, the ageing M-16, by the end of 2011. A Marine Corps sniper version now in late development--the Model 2003A3--features a longer barrel, collapsible ramrod, and a telescopic sight engraved with verses from the New Testament. Yes, I'm pulling your leg about the Model 2003A2 & 'A3. The rifle shown is a new flintlock "Kentucky long rifle"--the sort of gun used by Daniel Boone's uncle. In 2004, the Vice President accidentally shot and injured a friend and hunting partner. Why the NRA would give the man a firearm escapes me!

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New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No.5 — January 30, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #100, Feb. 2:

Merchants of Fear

Executive summary

Governments get citizens to act against their interets (e.g.,by going to war) by scaring them bleepless. We’ll hear a talk by historian Howard Zinn*, quoting Hermann Goering on the subject . . . a “public service” announcement and program warning of the imminent threat of terrorist attacks, which could be launched by anybody (from 2009!) . . . a warning from Postmaster General John E. Potter (2001) on the signs an envelope iin your mailbox could be full of anthrax. Plus a digression on an earlier P.G.’s comic anti-smut crusade.

Notes and Credits

Why the big increase in scary terrorism warnings in late 2009? Is this a prelude to a fake “trigger incident,” followed by a war on Syria or Iran? (Or is Venezuela the next on the list?)

Don’t miss Postmaster Potter’s unintentionally hilarious list of 7 warning signs of an envelope containing anthrax in your mailbox. One is, “It comes from someone you don’t know or are not expecting to hear from.” And goes downhill from there.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for “first floor”) of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford. Feedback to kdowst at hotmail period com.

This week’s song

• Buffalo Springfield, For What It’s Worth

Coming Soon

• February 9 – The Top Ten
• February 16 – Not All Christians Are Evil!

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

• Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford, CT) & http://wwuh.org/
• Saturdays, 6:30 to 7:00 PM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs, CT) &http://www.whus.org/
• Saturdays, 7:00-7:30 PM, KRFP-FM 92.5, Radio Free Moscow (Moscow, ID) & http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/
• Any time: Listen to or download any installment … or subscribe to a podcast … at A-Infos Radio Project:http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New+World+Notes

A note on the painting

“Whittling” was painted by (formerly local) artist David Weinholtz and published in our blog entry and newsletter for October 28, 2008–a week before the national election. A few words by me accompanied it:

Let’s hope or pray that next year Whittling will require
updating, and the updating will require more than just
painting out the elephant and painting in a donkey.

So much for hoping and praying. What’s left?

* Coda:

I just learned–after writing all of the above, and weeks after recording this program–that Howard Zinn died, at age 87, on January 27. For decades, Zinn has been a strong voice advocating democracy, justice, peace, . . . and the importance of learning history. His loss is a hard blow to us who share his values and to the great causes he struggled to advance. R.I.P.

Lenny Bruce and The Meaning of Obscenity

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New World Notes News

Vol. 3, No. 4 — January 23, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #99, Jan. 26:

Lenny Bruce and
The Meaning of Obscenity

Pink-collar summary

“I learned the truth from Lenny Bruce,”
– Paul Simon, “A Simple, Desultory Philippic”

“This show is all about Lenny Bruce. Well, not just about Lenny. It’s also about obscenity, American-style. Dirty words, oral sex, and the fatal stabbing of two women–one in Brentwood, one in the Bates Motel. All of the above, and Lenny Bruce too, are intricately connected.”

Featuring a handful of Lenny’s greatest routines, recorded 1963-64. (Sorry: no room this week for “Christ and Moses.” Soon, though!)

OOPS!

Owing to technical difficulties–that’s bureaucracy-speak for “I screwed up”–station WWUH in West Hartford, CT, was unable to air NWN #98 (“Cheap Junk and the Deindustrialization of America”) last week. They did have #100, “Merchants of Fear,” on hand and so played that. Next week, when the rest of the world is enjoying “Merchants of Fear,” people in central Connecticut can settle for “Cheap Junk.” Sorry ’bout that!

This week’s songs

• Incidental music: The Trashmen, Surfin’ Bird
• Outro: Supertramp, Goodbye, Stranger

Coming Soon

• February 2 on WWUH – Cheap Junk and The Deindustrialization of America — Welcome to the Third World! (Hope you had your shots!)
• February 2 elsewhere – Merchants of Fear

Nicole Brown Simpson, June 12, 1994. What makes the photo especially sad, to me, is the riot of flowers, blooming away in mindless vitality, quite unaware of the dead woman at the bottom of the stairs. "Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse / Scratches its innocent begind on a tree" (Auden, Musee des Beaux Arts).

Notes & Credits

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for “long-suffering sighs”) of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford. Feedback to kdowst at hotmail period com.

Free subscription to weekly New World Notes email newsletter upon request.

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

• Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford, CT) & http://wwuh.org/
• Saturdays, 6:30 to 7:00 PM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs, CT) &http://www.whus.org/
• Saturdays, 7:00-7:30 PM, KRFP-FM 92.5, Radio Free Moscow (Moscow, ID) & http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/
• Any time: Listen to or download any installment … or subscribe to a podcast … at A-Infos Radio Project:http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New+World+Notes

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New World Notes News

Vol. 3, No. 3 — January 16, 2010

Annie Leonard (from NWN #48, "The Story of STUFF")

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #98, Jan. 19:

Cheap Junk and
The Deindustrialization of America

Workers’ summary

We explore the connections among ubiquitous cheap junk merchandise, domestic unemployment and poverty, starvation wages abroad, pollution everywhere, the destruction of the environment, the deindustrialization and Third-World-ization of America, and the ever-increasing wealth of the already-rich. Was there a vote on all this that somehow I missed? Includes unflattering words on G.E. by labor leader Marie Lausch and an equally unflatttering discussion of IKEA from Ellen Ruppel Shell‘s book, Cheap: The High Price of Discount Culture.

Marie Lausch at UCONN, November 14, 2009

This week’s song

• Anne Feeney, Brave New Christmas

Coming Soon – Tuesday debut dates on WWUH shown:

• January 26 – Lenny Bruce and the Meaning of Obscenity
• February 2 – Merchants of Fear (Installment #100!)

Ellen Ruppel Shell

Credits

• Connecticut United Electrical Workers Union president Marie Lausch recorded by me at a symposium on converting Connecticut to a peacetime economy held at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, November 14, 2009.
• Shell passage as reprited by the Toronto Globe & Mail, July 19, 2009, condensed for radio by me.
• New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for “radar”) of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford. Feedback to kdowst at hotmail period com

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

• Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford, CT) & http://wwuh.org/
• Saturdays, 6:30 to 7:00 PM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs, CT) &http://www.whus.org/
• Saturdays, 7:00-7:30 PM, KRFP-FM 92.5, Radio Free Moscow (Moscow, ID) & http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/
• Any time: Listen to or download any installment … or subscribe to a podcast … at A-Infos Radio Project:http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New+World+Notes