Readers' Comments

it is so sad and frustrating when the west
fail see the connection between the problem
in afghanistan, the war in iraq, the situation
in the west bank, and the 9/11 disaster, and
look at them as separate incidences that can
be treated separately.

invariably, the bottom-line solution put forth
is for the arabs, or whoever, to see things
the way the west sees them. 'if only they
would realize how much better our way of life in the west is, things would be much better.' everyone 'must move closer to american, or western, values". we expect the others to change their way of
life rather than everyone simply accepting everyone else's way of life as a different, but equally valid, equally fulfilling way of life.

we live in one world, yet all of us are different. we all want the same things - a better, safer world; a brighter future for our children; freedom to practice our own religions and to extend our respective wings; peace.

we are all different creeds, different colors, different cultures, one world.

A few more comments:

First, if there is anything that life has taught me, it is that very many of these religious people are very strongly steeped in what I can only call as "showmanship." (It is contrary to the ACTUAL teachings of Jesus, as Jesus taught to not do things to be seen of men, and also that others can be known "by their fruits." Unless we are talking about Fruit of the Loom, fruits are not labels.)

This "showmanship" that has become such a strong part of very many peoples' religion is nothing but a shell. I was going to say more about this but I forgot what it was. Oh well, that is the jist. In fact, it is really a con game and they don't even realize that is what they are doing. They themselves are conned that this is religion, or some kind of expectation of God himself.

Secondly, about a week or so ago I had a dream which I think pretty well sums up the condition of our world today, or at least our nation and particular society:

It was about a puppeteer and a puppet. The puppeteer was of course, more or less obscurred.

What I saw in this dream was first the puppeteer. There were no strings, but rather he had something like a cattle prod in his hand by which he wielded manipulation and a sort of "get-on-with-it" type of duress.

The puppeteer (in my dream) was a very skinny and smallish human-like creature dressed entirely in a black leotard, head to toe, to obscure his identity. He was black all over (presumably because of his leotard) and therefore looked somewhat like an ant, but his physique was otherwise human-like. (For whatever that means.) (Perhaps the puppeteer represents money, or money is part of what it symbolizes, since obviously we live in a "dollar dictatorship" today, the dollar forever being "the bottom line.")

His "puppet" had no strings attached, but was rather ruled by duress. He was a taller, plumpish older man with gray hair and he was being prodded onto an auditorium stage by the skinny little, black-dressed puppeteer. His white hair looked like it might very well be a wig, and not only that, it looked like it was made to look like the white-haired wig of a founding father of the nation. It was like he was dressed to imply he was of some traditional ilk, like a phoney antique or such.

Anyway all I saw in this brief momentary dream was the two characters, first the skinny, black-dressed human-like creature quickly weilding the black prod back and forth, then I saw that he was directing this other guy like a puppet onto an auditorium stage to speak to some mass of people. He was being directed and prodded by the obscurred skinny black-dressed thing, which people were not necessarily going to notice.

As an analogy, this is so very depictive and true of so very much of our world circumstance/s and condition today. It was only a brief momentary dream, but a picture paints a thousand words to anyone who is not blind.

Okay --- totally different subject but now I've gotta go and like take a moment to reflect on the life of Steve Irwin, dare-devil that he was, and yet I'd bet that from where ever he is now, he feels his life was worth it. Will he linger on earth to haunt the daylights out of falsehood? Or proceed immediately on to a better place? These are questions I cannot answer.

What a scam.

Here people are all ballistic about "abortionists" being here and there and everywhere, around every corner and under every rock.

Well maybe they are, since most people wouldn't talk about this aspect of their lives.

But this is what gets me:

There are people walking the earth who have NOTHING to do with this subject --- never have. And yet, if their belief system is not unambiguously "in lock step" (as someone once put it) with certain political guidelines, then guess what? THEY ARE THEN LABELED "AN ABORTIONIST!"

This reminds me of how the Bible says that when Jesus died (an analogy to having his honor and reputation marred among people), he was crucified with a thief next to him.

Okay I am not accusing women who have had abortions of being thieves or even "sinners" necessarily, and particularly because things like rape or incest might have been involved, or other circumstances that we might only know what we would really do if we were in those sorts of dire circumstances.

But having to have an abortion does indicate that something went wrong or awry --- that something started must for whatever reasons be stopped, or a likelihood that someone somewhere was not a perfect saint. Or at least according to my traditional belief system that is what it indicates. And it is easy to judge others from the outside looking in.

Anyway this is just absolutely absurd the way masses of people have been convinced that people are "abortionists" who have never even given the subject a whole lot of thought, BECAUSE THEY HAVE NOT HAD TO GIVE THE SUBJECT A WHOLE LOT OF THOUGHT and it is not a part of their lives. But for purposes of political convenience, they must be labeled "abortionists" since their beliefs are not unambiguously in lock step with some agenda someone somewhere wrote up, and got it preached in pulpits everywhere.

Now back in the olden days (like when I was growing up), they didn't have to invent psuedo sins like this. Every one pretty well knew what sin was, and it usually had to do with things like being socially irresponsible, or sociopathic, etc.

Now we have got this whole pardon the expression nuveau nigger thing going. (I mean I want to say, "I am a nuveau nigger" --- even though I am not black. Did someone once say "Ich bin ein nigger?") Okay JFK was not a Berliner, but he nevertheless said "Ich bin ein Berliner" to show that he emphasized with the Berliners in their predicament.

Today we have got the whole second-class citizen thing going on again --- whether or not a person is black. People think it is okay to treat other people LIKE SCUM if they are not in lock step with their own religious or political beliefs. It is towards everyone who is not in political lock-step with certain people who sit around and devise religious agendas, with which to entertain and spook the masses about psuedo sins and all, such as having an ambiguous or not fully developed opinion on a certain subject one has never had to think about, except perhaps just a bit in an ivory tower.

Life experience, and often hardship, is what brings about honed priorities, or even beliefs about life. But no --- we just get our beliefs spoon-fed to us from pulpits. As a society, we often have no respect for the shoulders on which we stand. We just want to plunder and commandeer and superimpose our own supposed "higher agenda" and use the new-found juicy plum to substantiate our youthful dream fantasies of what we think reality should be. While I don't want to presume to know about fate (especially when I am only like a microbe in comparison to the earth's diameter), sometimes it seems little wonder that fate would be offended.

These modern-day problems (or phenomena or dilemmas --- whatever your term of preference) are not things to point at other people and say gee I'm so glad it's you and not me. These are social problems and/or phenomena for which everyone bears the brunt. If a child is not properly raised because he or she only has one parent, and that child therefore has to learn to steal to survive or eat, and continues the habit(of stealing, like when under certain duresses) --- well then we all end up bearing the brunt of this. This second class citizen stuff is not going to fly. Not with me anyway. I am tired of religious snobbery. Some snobbery in life is inevitable, but this religious snobbery is starting to stink to high hell and so help me God I will not be a part of it.

This sums up the army's dilemma nicely. Given the seriousness of its endeavours in Iraq, there is no doubt that good communications are called for. However, one has to wonder what defines 'good communications' in the circumstances and what expectations will be set as a result. The military wants to build support among persistently skeptical Arab audiences, but doesn't want its story diluted by Arab opinion, which is a simple fact of life if it wants to engage with the Arab media.

Carrington Malin, Dubai-based PR consultant

A church that practices the faith of loving everyone just like Jesus promoted, is causing a problem? Firstly, we have a church that promotes love without a "but . . .". Secondly, has ABC and NBC seen the television shows and advertisements that they allow to be aired? So let's see if I have this right, the words of Jesus are not permitted, but using sex and nakendness to sell everything is the standard? Maybe the pharmacuetical companies can come up with a drug for stupidness.

It is an interesting perspective you have put forth with which to judge Congress, but the simplicity with which you judge obscures recognition of some successes and accomplishments that Congress might well deserve.

Depicting the whole Congress as a ‘do nothing’ Congress based purely on the number of days they went to work in the Capitol overlooks a number of realities about the job they do (or are sent to Washington to do). If the number of days at work was an indication of success then anyone working anywhere would be successful based on the number of days they worked, period. Of course we know that some people accomplish more than others in the same time span and not everyone is capable of accomplishing identical work under the same circumstances. So there is a bit of a flaw in your logic: it may not be appropriate to look at Congress’ attendance schedule to determine if it has accomplished anything.

They are politicians and have the responsibility of meeting with and reporting to their constituents so the district work period that you seem to question is, if they are doing their job, part of the job. A Representative may have to find a way to report to 500,000 people and may have only fifty miles in one direction or another to travel to those meetings. A fairly awesome task but think about a Senator who has to traverse the whole state to make contacts. One of our Senators in Florida, for example, was in my immediate area twice last spring alone. One visit was a political fundraiser and the other was a boat trip to observe and sample degraded estuary water-a matter he brought up recently in a bill the Senate was considering. Figure his travel time to and from his home office (4 hours) the time at the fundraiser (4 or 5 hours) and the time on the river (3 or 4 hours) along with residual meetings, press questions and speeches and you can see that the Senator picked up a couple of days work addressing problems in this area of the State alone. In the course of a 30 day recess do they all spend every day meeting and greeting? Of course not. They might even slip in a day or two of golf as many people do on their time off.

On a purely statistical level you might inform your readers that the Senate in particular can meet for days on end and even weeks but does so such that all of that time is considered one day despite it spanning days or weeks and you might consider as work days time when there is no floor action but plenty of committee action. Finally, considering that they don’t all go home when the legislative business for the day is completed, there are plenty of meetings, fundraisers and other activities in Washington that continue on into the evenings and weekends. Days can run long so the stats you relied on may not take into account the totals of a few 12 or 16 hour days or longer each week adding to the time on the job.

My greatest concern with the accuracy of your depiction is that it does not take into account quality and volume of work accomplished. Without digging through pages of statistics and relying on my memory of past Congresses, it has been fairly consistent going back to the 103rd Congress, and perhaps further back, that around 4,000 bills are introduced each year, give or take, and usually 200 to 300 become public law. Now, you could argue that the new laws have no merit and therefore nothing of substance was accomplished but then you would find (in the current political scenario) anywhere from 30% to 70% of the American people disagreeing with you.

Finally, I don’t know where you are physically located or have spent time but if you did spend some time on Capitol Hill you might have noticed it is far from a lazy, do-nothing atmosphere. Meet and interview a few legislators and you might see the level of energy they try to maintain. For an outside, authoritative conclusion of Member’s energy level you might want to read the late Meg Greenfield’s book Washington in which she makes a pretty good case from her decades on the Washington Post and dealing with Members, that most who aspire to Capitol Hill are the over-achievers in life, not slackers.

Robert McElroy, Publisher
TheWeekInCongress.com

...is completely of a piece with the notion of beauty pageants for six-year-olds -- which, when you think of it, are bound to attract pervs.

Soooo . . . Kansas Health Dept., do you also inform parents that the innoculations that you are giving their babies contains mercury and may cause autism, or that the aspirin you are giving them may cause internal bleeding, or that the high blood pressure meds you are giving can cause strokes, heart attacks and diabetes. Do you also inform your prospective abortion patient that by not having any children that they can expect to live 10 years longer. Did you also tell your prospective patient that the increase in breast cancer is not actually from the abortion, that it is possibly from never having breast fed. So while you are researching that, do some research on the sad facts of children brought up in homes where they are not wanted. Shame on you for wishing that on a child.

How do they figure into this?

Thanks to Bob Burton for calling my attention to earlier articles about Roche's full PR press for Herception. Of particular interest is an article in PR Week UK ("[http://www.prweek.com/uk/search/article/521600// Analysis: The drug buoyed by patient power]," October 13, 2005, sub req'd):

Tonic Life Communications CEO Scott Clark, who was involved in global pre-launch work for Herceptin at his previous agency, concurs: 'This is one of those legacy campaigns, perhaps in the top three in the past decade, that has had genuine impact. If people are sceptical of the power of PR, Roche has a clear case study on how a good story can move markets and mindsets.' ...

Roche uses Ketchum to handle UK PR for the drug. Sébastien Desprez, associate director at the agency, can now reflect on an 'onslaught' of interest. He describes Barbara Clark, with whom Roche says it has only dealt reactively (supplying her with product information, and so on), as 'amazing at orchestrating PR'.

Separately, Fighting for Herceptin (FfH), established by a group of Staffordshire women, has also caught the media's attention. Porter Novelli has, it emerges, been advising FfH for the past month and has a four-strong team on the pro bono account. PN UK healthcare head Rebecca Hunt, who left a job at Roche earlier this year, says: 'I got to know FfH founder Dorothy Griffiths when I was at Roche, and we kept in touch. When Barbara Clark made the news I saw FfH was banging the drum too, and I asked Dorothy if she wanted any professional PR support.'

Another article, by Anne Hall in BMJ, gives a journalist's view of the Herceptin PR push ("[http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/321/7261/644 Ads: Not Another Magic Bullet]," September 9, 2000):

When a public relations company asked me to a press briefing in Milan to hear about this new drug [Herceptin], I hesitated. ...

Dr Paul Ellis, a consultant oncologist at Guy's Hospital, London, also thought that the story should be told. "This is the first targeted treatment for breast cancer," he said, "which has real clinical benefits for the patients we see every day in the clinic. It represents a whole new era of cancer care, and for me that is truly exciting."

Dr Ellis was paid an honorarium of $1000 by the makers or trastuzumab to go to Milan, but said "I was certainly not there as a hired hand for the drug company."

The honorarium, he said, was "normal practice for any clinician attending such a meeting, and takes into account our time away from our families and the overnight stay."

I don't know the poster to who you're responding, heck, I don't know you.

But one of the reasons I keep coming back to Sourcewatch and affiliates is the goal of blowing away the smokescreen generated by the noise machine.

I think you're probably correct, as I've quoted you on the subject line. The only thing needed for a successful conjob as they pulled off is establishing control of our perception long enough to manage through the critical decision period. Doesn't matter if the assertion is true since it's only gotta float long enough to tweak Americans' perceptions in the 'right' direction.

That's why so many thank God for our short attention span. Hell, remember Scanlon's prescription for the 'wackos' Reed delivered to their services, God's a great tool too!

I think some people didn't get the followup message about not needing to resolve the allegations: Hey, it's over. 'Mission accomplished!'

ePluribus Media. Genuinely homegrown, want to help research, edit, fact-check or write? Just talk about it in the ePluribus Community.

What exactly does the FCC expect the broadcasters to say? "No we didn't"?
Thats like the police doing an investigation on themselves.

The "Corporate" Broadcasters will deny as did Big Oil when asked if they were price gouging.

Obviously the Government thinks we are stupid and we must be if we allow these white washes to continue.

David