Death

I would have subtitled this video "America's New Civil War".

From the production company :
The New York Times and the Washington Post have recently reported on the "System of Neglect," namely, the state of immigration detention center conditions. As told by her sister June Everett, watch the story of Sandra Kenley, a 52- year-old grandmother, who after living in the U.S. legally for 33 years, was subjected to these very conditions and died in immigration detention.

Yesterday I wrote the following about Hillary Rodham Clinton :

Shameless.

Despicable.

Unfit to be President of the United States.

My words hit the front pages of both Daily Kos and The Moderate Voice. By evening Keith Olbermann had the following to say about Hillary Clinton's latest "gaffe" :

The most important part of the transcript is after the jump :

That is all.

Go read the amazing homage written in the Wall Street Journal by his father :

When an unarmed journalist is killed, we are reminded of both the freedoms that we treasure in our society, and how vulnerable we all are to forces that threaten those freedoms.

But this still does not explain the attention given to Danny's tragedy. After all, 30 other journalists were killed in 2002, and 118 journalists have been killed in Iraq alone since that war began.

The shocking element in Danny's murder was that he was killed, not for what he wrote or planned to write, but for what he represented -- America, modernity, openness, pluralism, curiosity, dialogue, fairness, objectivity, freedom of inquiry, truth and respect for all people. In short, each and every one of us was targeted in Karachi in January of 2002.

It's not a touchy feely homage, but a reminder that Daniel Pearl's blood is in all our hands, especially the media :

One of the things that saddens me most is that the press and media have had an active, perhaps even major role in fermenting hate and inhumanity. It was not religious fanaticism alone.

This was first brought to my attention by the Pakistani Consul General who came to offer condolences at our home in California. When we spoke about the anti-Semitic element in Danny's murder she said: "What can you expect of these people who never saw a Jew in their lives and who have been exposed, day and night, to televised images of Israeli soldiers targeting and killing Palestinian children."

At the time, it was not clear whether she was trying to exonerate Pakistan from responsibility for Danny's murder, or to pass on the responsibility to European and Arab media for their persistent de-humanization of Jews, Americans and Israelis. The answer was unveiled in 2004, when a friend told me that photos of Muhammad Al Dura were used as background in the video tape of Danny's murder.

[...]

The Pakistani Consul was right. The media cannot be totally exonerated from responsibility for Daniel's murder, as well as for the "tsunami of hate" that has swept the world and continues to rise.

Go read the whole thing.

And here it is, you're moment of Zen : Monty Python and the Holy Grail's "Im' not dead yet" bit :

Sad but true story : I have been an oddball most of my life but especially after "discovering" at age 11 or 12 Monty Python. Remember, I grew up in Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricans don't do Monty Python. So for me to quote this movie and laugh hysterically among a group of cuchifrito loving gwannabes was, well, seen as just plain old weird.

So anyway, the thing is that when I first met the father of my children, I remember clearly turning to my roommate who happened to be Puerto Rican, and telling her, "OMFG, he looks like a cuter Eric Idle". And yes, there was much consternation and glazing of eyes and "you're so fucking weird, Liza".

It's been almost 20 years since I first said that ... and no, I think he waaaaay better looking than Eric Idle; unfortunately not as funny. Well, maybe a little.

When I first began writing this, I was tucked into bed at seven p.m., hoping to be asleep soon. As I take my notes from last night and begin to type them into the computer, it is 4:34 a.m., and I've been awake for an hour. The headaches that have been dogging me for months have intensified their barking in the past couple of weeks. Pain and nausea are paired, and the pain in my face simply changes shape when I swallow the Vidodin I was prescribed on Friday. I have been trying other pain medications—and they haven't been working—so strung out from pain, I broke down and accepted the doctor's offer to write a small script for opiates until I can get in for my CT scan, which is scheduled for later this morning. (My history with opiates is not a good one.) The Vicodin has made me feel sleepy and sick—and relieves the grinding ache in my head for only 45 minutes or so.

I could pop these pills every hour, chasing the dragon of relief, but ironically, the Vicodin gives me a headache—it's in a different part of my head—a pressure that feels as if the inside of my skull is a pneumatic piece of rubber dangerously overinflated. I'm not really having a lot of fun with this, but distraction seems my only real coping mechanism. And so, I've been reading and reading. By my count, five books in a month, plus who knows how many magazine articles, online articles, and blog entries.

When I lay in bed, I clutch a large teddy to myself. It's an infantile reaction to my loss, but it helps. When I lie in that position, on my side, my legs pulled up in a semi-fetal position, I can almost feel Yves tucked up against me. When we were laying in bed, that night, that only night that we were together, he wrapped himself around me, his chest against my back, and he said, "I think this was the most perfect sleeping position ever invented. Because it allows me to kiss the back of your neck like this." And then he sent shivers down my spine as his lips brushed underneath my ear. He didn't stop there. He kissed the place where my neck met my shoulder, and then trailed his lips, in tiny increments that thrilled me not only with the sensation of the kiss but with the anticipation of the next, he moved his lips all the way down to the small of my back, and then turned me toward him so that he could kiss my belly. "I love this belly," he said.

I don't often find men with whom I'm sexually compatible. Of course, I find men who are perfectly content to fuck me, or be fucked, but, magazine bravado to the contrary, I don't often find men for whom sex is a passion. Certain men touch you as if they are you; so closely have they familiarized themselves with the female body that it's as if they've become female themselves. And no, the men who claim that they are lesbians are not the ones I'm talking about either. I'm fascinated by the inherent insecurity and shallowness I've encountered in men who consider themselves to be modern-day Casanovas. And there are other men who are so intimidated by women's bodies that they they never fully give themselves over to love-making. In fact, I've been told by more than one of those types of men that I'm too much woman, that I'm too voracious, or have too much of a sexual appetite for them. So, finding a man who has a passion for sex but is not a "dog" and who is secure giving himself completely over to the experience of making a woman happy is a rare, and wondrous, thing. Another thing to be pissed at the universe about.

While I understand the importance of mourning, dignity, and paying respect to the dead, I believe that if you died on Decemeber 26th, then your-not- wishing-to-be-President-but-Speaker-of-the-House- soul has already risen up to that great rotunda in the sky. And as such, your body should already be buried or cremated.

The money wasted on these burials slays me. The United States contains so many people that are hungry, homeless, and uninsured that the money spent seems like a slap in the face to the living who suffer these indignities. Our governemnt tells us they can't afford to feed everybody, but they sure can afford to bury the hell outta someone.

Even James Brown's solid gold casket offends me. Who the fuck needs a solid gold casket?
He's the Godfather of Soul! He should be keepin' it real, even in the afterlife. (I am also not one for mythologizing the dead so I just have to mention the fact that James Baby shot up an insurance seminar because he thought someone used his office bathroom. Also, he endorsed Richard Nixon for President. I guess Nixon's resignation was "Payback! Hey hey hey!")

Of course, you are not suppose to point out that the money could be better spent or that the dead might have done some awful things because it is "disrespectful".

And I agree. The truth almost always disrespects those who benefit from the waste and the lies.