Farewell Melanie Mattson

Blogger Melanie Mattson, Dead at 53

Melanie was my dear friend.

Born July 18, 1954, died June 27, 2008 at her home in Falls Church, Virginia. The word is only now getting out, and I so don't want to know why.

For over a month I've been calling and calling to no answer. We used to talk two or three times a week.

A former front-pager at DailyKos, a co-founder of the FluWiki, a theologian and a bassoonist, Melanie was lovely in every way. From her blog, Bump in the Beltway, to her wonderful holiday recipes which I posted last year, Melanie was a class act.

Melanie was a close friend; I don't know what to say. This hasn't been a good year. We lost Steve, and now we lose Melanie. I am certain had she had health care coverage, she would still be alive.

I've spent the last hour reading over old emails between us. She was an amazing writer, a good person, and a good friend.

I'll miss her.

American Street
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Pogge
Suburban Guerrilla
Effect Measure

Update: 11:20 AM

Her death is tentatively being reported as a heart attack, although other reports suggest the root cause likely was her pancreatitis. Pancreatitis -- her long-term health issue -- made it extraordinarily difficult for Melanie to eat or maintain nourishment.

It would not be inconsistent with pancreatitis for her to have a heart attack, due to electrolyte abnormalities brought on by fluid imbalances, vomiting, poor intake, and other medical indignities.

Melanie was in poor health and without health care. Like so many of the Americans she passionately wrote about, and deeply cared for and loved.

Tat Tvam Asi.

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Breaking: Jesse Helms Dies

Former 5-Term U.S. Senator Jesse Helmes (R-NC) Dies At 86

According to ABC News in Raleigh, NC, Helms died July 4.

Happy Birthday America.

Reuters

Helms, a blunt-talking product of the Old South, was known as "Senator No" for opposing just about anything that obstructed his conservative view of the world.

Jesse Helms in an undated file image. photo REUTERS/Robert Padgett.

ABC News, Raleigh, NC.

Helms was born in Monroe, NC where his father, called "Big Jesse," served as chief of police. Jesse and Dot Helms are the parents of three children: Jane, Nancy of Raleigh, and Charles Helms of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. They have seven grandchildren.

Helms never obtained a university degree. He attended Wingate Junior College (now Wingate University) and Wake Forest University but did not graduate. He held honorary degrees from some universities including Bob Jones University, Grove City College, Campbell University, and Wingate University.

In North Carolina Helms was a polarizing figure, and he freely admitted that many people in the state strongly disliked him: "They (the Democrats) could nominate Mortimer Snerd and he'd automatically get 45 percent of the vote." Helms was particularly popular among older, conservative constituents and was considered one of the last "Old South" politicians to have served in the Senate. However, he also considered himself a voice of conservative youth, whom he hailed in the dedication of his autobiography. He is widely credited with helping to move North Carolina from a one-party state dominated by the Democratic Party into a competitive two-party state that usually votes Republican in presidential elections. Under Helms' banner, many conservative Democrats in eastern North Carolina switched parties and began to vote increasingly Republican.

Because of recurring health problems, including bone disorders, prostate cancer and heart disease, Helms did not seek re-election in 2002. His Senate seat was won by Elizabeth Dole, wife of long-time colleague and former Senator Bob Dole. Helms remains to date the longest-serving popularly-elected U.S. senator in North Carolina history.

Mother Jones

His agenda is driven by a lifelong opposition to democracy and diversity. In his first months as Foreign Relations chair, Helms called for tougher sanctions against Cuba, accused Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide of unleashing "vigilance committees," and moved to gut support for developing nations. On the home front, he introduced a bill to eliminate all affirmative action programs, which he denounced as "reverse discrimination at the hands of ruthless bureaucrats."

How did someone so mean-spirited end up in a position to act on his divisive politics? For the most part, Helms wins political battles by keeping the spotlight on the morality plays he stages. To hear conservatives tell it, Helms is a personal friend of Jesus Christ, a populist defender of the little guy, and a bitter opponent of big government.

Shifting the spotlight reveals a different Helms. A former bank lobbyist whose fundraising machine has been fined for breaking federal campaign laws, Helms favors a big-spending, activist government--one that aids those in economic power. He voted to bail out the savings and loan industry, for example, and has seldom met a big-ticket missile system he didn't like. By contrast, he has voted to slash school lunches for impoverished children, medical care for disabled veterans, prescription drugs for the elderly, and wages for working families (see "On the record," below).

"Looking at the record, people ought to understand that Helms is not representing them on the great majority of issues," says Rep. Melvin Watt, a North Carolina Democrat. "They perceive that he stands up for the little guy, but he really stands up for rich people rather than poor and working-class people."

* * * *

"Most North Carolinians are not as conservative as Jesse Helms," says Paul Luebke, a state representative and author of Tar Heel Politics. "But by presenting himself as a man of courage, willing to stand up against 'tax-and-spend liberals,' homosexuality, and so forth, Helms commands respect."

But respect only goes so far--so the Helms campaign hedges its bets by cheating. In 1986, the Federal Election Commission penalized the North Carolina Congressional Club $10,000 and ordered it to reorganize, saying it had illegally subsidized Helms' 1984 campaign. Last year, a decade after the race, the FEC penalized the Helms for Senate committee $25,000 for accepting $700,000 in illegal contributions. And in 1992, the Helms campaign and the Congressional Club settled a Justice Department complaint over a pre-election mailing of postcards falsely threatening 125,000 black voters with jail if they went to the polls.

There's more...

Helms is on my personal list of 10 worst Americans EVAH.

This one gets no forgiveness from me.

His family gets no condolences. They knew. They knew and rode his racism, perversions, and lust for revenge for every imagined slight and wrong done to him, into power, money and status. They didn't walk away.

Millions of people died and millions more suffered brutally in the United States and abroad because of this foul, evil, sick and twisted man. His family can rot with him in hell.

I hated that fuck.

He's dead and I am glad.


Update: 11:20 AM

Pam's House Blend

Here are some quaint quotes from the former U.S. Senator, collected by the Raleigh N&O, which also has a timeline of his career:

"Unless our Negro citizens submit more easily than we predict they will, North Carolina does not have the simple choice between segregated schools and integrated schools. Our only choice is between integrated public schools and free-choice private schools. ... The decision will have been made by a very small minority of people who are hell-bent on forced integration.""

"To rob the Negro of his reputation of thinking through a problem in his own fashion is about the same as trying to pretend that he doesn't have a natural instinct for rhythm and for singing and dancing."
- Helms responding in 1956 to criticism that a fictional black character in his newspaper column was offensive.

"I shall always remember the shady streets, the quiet Sundays, the cotton wagons, the Fourth of July parades, the New Year's Eve firecrackers. I shall never forget the stream of school kids marching uptown to place flowers on the Courthouse Square monument on Confederate Memorial Day."
- Helms writing in 1956 on life in his hometown of Monroe, N.C.

Pam Spaulding :: Bye, Jesse, you left quite a legacy "The New York Times and Washington Post are both infested with homosexuals themselves. Just about every person down there is a homosexual or lesbian."
-- 1995

"The University of Negroes and Communists"
-- Reference to the University of North Carolina devised by Mr. Helms when he worked for Willis Smith's 1950 U.S. Senate campaign.

"Your tax dollars are being used to pay for grade-school classes that teach our children that CANNIBALISM, WIFE-SWAPPING and MURDER of infants and the elderly are acceptable behavior."
-- Fund raising mailer, 1996

"All Latins are volatile people. Hence, I was not surprised at the volatile reaction."
-- After Mexicans protested his visit in 1986

"Homosexuals are weak, morally sick wretches."
-- 1995 radio broadcast

"She's a damn lesbian. I am not going to put a lesbian in a position like that. If you want to call me a bigot, fine."
-- Explaining why he was opposing the appointment of a woman for a cabinet post.

"They should ask their parents if it would be all right for their son or daughter to marry a Negro."
-- In response to Duke University students holding a vigil after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, 1968

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“The Mick”

Rest In Peace, Harlem's George Carlin—1937-2008


We knew we weren't going to have him for long very early in the game.

George Carlin. comedian, monologuist , and member of the “Willie, Mickey and the Duke” troika of dazzling comedy talent of the sea-changing 1970's has passed away—although, as Hubris says downpage a touch—“What (are we) thinking? George hasn't passed way, we didn't 'lose him'. He didn't go to the other side. He's dead.”

Which is a perfectly apt, Carlin-esque way of summing it up.

George Carlin IS dead. And we should thank our lucky, brick wall-backdropped stars that we had his talent for as long as we did. By my count, he'd suffered at least three heart attacks (that we knew of) and kept bouncing back from those should-have-been-life-stealing-episodes to bring us the funny, make us think—and yeah, give everyone who listened a little lesson on writing with wit in the english language. And mind you, those debilitating health issues didn't just crop up as he wizened into a raging old lion trodding the comedy circuit boards. No. He was just shy of forty and at the peak of his popularity when he first dodged death's swinging scythe pointed at his fragile heart, and basically called the black-clad ender of things, word number six—“Motherfucker”—to his face, and then proceeded to keep on steppin'. He would duck and slide away from that bastard's blade at least two more times we knew of, and still he returned to entertain and challenge us again and again.

I referred to him up-page here as “a member of the “Willie, Mickey and the Duke” troika of dazzling comedy talent of the sea-changing 1970's”, and he absolutely was—with Richard Pryor as Willie Mays, Carlin as Mickey Mantle, and the great Robert Klein as Duke Snider. If you don't get that reference, it's to the great trio of Hall of Fame major-league center-fielders who all played here in New York during the halcyon 1950s and were immortalized in the song, “Willie Mickey and the Duke”. If that's too “in” for ya, think of heavyweight boxing in the seventies when it was ruled by colossi like Ali, Frazier and Foreman. Pryor, Carlin and Klein were like those three in the comedy world—dominant, mega-talented forces who changed the game for everyone who followed in their wake. Now, only Klein remains. But if you're a comedy newcomer, or managed to be unlucky enough to miss 'em when they—and particularly George Carlin were hurling thunderbolts of laughter from the heavens, you need to understand just how good these three were and how their work changed the game.

Pryor, who I have discussed at length before, was the most protean talent of the three in my mind. For all of his unfortunate bacchanalian excesses, there may have never been a more all-around gifted comedian and yes, no-holds-barred social commentator. A rubber-face and body, a keen intellect and sense of unsparing anyone for their transgressions—especially including himself, and finally, a sense of verbal rhythm that made him the “Charlie Parker” of the comedy game—were the formidable weapons Pryor brought to the stage, and no one as far as I can see, ever outgunned him. You throw in as an extra his having perhaps the most tuned-in observational powers of regular folks ever bestowed by the creator on a funny person and you get the magic that was him—so much more than dirty words and a bushy 'fro as some liked to discount him as—he was damn near a Will Rogers 2.0, tearing away the veil of false propriety on America's issues of race, sex, class,and justice. He did this not by impersonating the famous, but rather—by channeling the voices of WASPS, winos, and women. Dogs, doctors and Dracula. An old, Black man, a young spotted giraffe, and even a horny spider monkey on the loose in the palm tree fronds canopying Hollywood. And tapping into ALL of those people, animals and more, (yes, he even personified a heart attack trying to kill him), he soared to prominence in the early seventies. But he wasn't alone...

The Bronx's own Robert Klein also came down the pike, and he too was a student of the observational school. But Klein was effectively the first, great, post Borscht-Belt, post-Goodman/Cheney/Schwerner Jewish comic. Relying on the old archetypes of irony and self-deprecation, he flipped the script in dealing with subjects as Joe McCarthy, the stupidity of cold-war excesses and of course, his beloved whipping post of Watergate, in which he took on a president in ways the late Vaughn Meader could only hint at. He took the old cadences of the Catskills and ran the new subversive material through them, while also subtly mocking the style to boot. It was unabashedly “Noo Yawk”-ey, yet it had a deciely college-educated vibe running through it as well, and his exasperation with the world he grew up in, only to see it replaced with the crazier world he was now an adult in only heightened the laughs. His work was finely-crafted and yet...had that corduroy-ed college professor prowling the stage at the lecture hall vibe, riffing on history and seeming to discover some wild, new shit right there in front of you as he spoke and fairly explodied with new energy to “hip” you to his breakthrough. What a time that was.

And we come to the great Carlin, (who was from what he joked was “White Harlem”, aka West 121st Street—the “Morningside Heights” section of the nabe)...who may have been the best pure wordsmith of the three. I am hard-pressed to think of another comedian who worked harder at perfecting his craft than George Carlin did. In his peak years, he Pryor and Klein ALL busted their asses coming up with new material, but it was Carlin who chiseled at the marble more, with finer tools and then buffed it to a glowing finish better than any of 'em. He workshopped his material so hard as he toured the country, and with such a discerning eye for pacing, and just the right phrasing and even intonation, that by the time you saw him at a big venue of on one of his annual HBO specials, you were watching something pretty damned close to stand-up perfection.

You see, every comedian's goal/wish/dream/necessity is to come up with “a fresh fifteen” every three months or so. A “fresh fifteen” being a new, and solid fifteen minutes of new material—staggered in such a way that at the end of every year, you'd end up with a different hour's worth of stand-up than you had the previous year. (Ostensibly so that when you hit spots on “the circuit” for the second time within a year's cycle, you're not booed off the stage for bending ears with the same old stuff) That's a damned hard thing to come up with, that whole new hour—but it starts with that supremely difficult “fresh fifteen” every three months, and Carlin was fucking superhuman at this. He would work from a handful of index cards when starting a new quarter's worth of material, stuff he painstakingly wrote himself, testing it, floating it and then honing it or ditching it based on the audience's reaction. He crafted his sets with an architect's eye almost, with special attention to pacing—when to run for twenty seconds breathlessly, and then, when to pause for a long beat, and hit with that one-liner with the vocal curl up at the end.

Which would of course, push the verbal boulder down the mountainside to start the next run of funny anew.

Where Pryor was an improvisational wizard, springing new additions from his basic outline of things, Carlin wrote these perfect pocket symphonies of comedy. Arranged just so, and when performed by the master—himself, they were quite simply brilliant. Especially when mated with that well-honed stream-of-consciousness, slightly buzzed delivery of his. (He would abandon much of that “stoner” timing as his work got sharper in tone over the years.)

And that goes without even dipping into the nature of the material itself—another observational genius, he—Carlin was also an unabashed observer of language itself. Playing with it, noting it's foibles and inherent silliness in how we fuck it up every damned day. Not to mention his constant highlighting of words' power, and how we as a society constantly mis-ascribe power to certain words to make points beyond the words' meaning.

Thus, we get Carlin's most infamous and subversive bit—“The Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television”. You know 'em...

“Shit, piss, fuck, c*nt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits.

The routine itself is damn near a doctoral dissertation on the words and the hypocrisy of the so-called “affronted” so outraged by their use. It's a masterful piece of wordplay, timing and knife-edged in way that simultaneously draws the guffaws while ridiculing the posers who would stand in judgment. It also drew the ire of those posers who held power in media here in America, placing Carlin right where he wanted to be—diametrically opposite them, but also NOT exactly where he wanted to be—which was in a fucking courtroom with these stodgy bastards fighting this shit out like some property-line case in Levittown. Carlin, something of a Lenny Bruce acolyte (who yes, was there in the club the night Bruce was arrested on obscenity charges, and in defending Bruce wound up going downtown with him in the same cop car!) believed whole-heartedly in using language to challenge, and did so with that bit. However, in the most classic case of “You can't fight City Hall”, not only did the powers-that-be use all of their “oomph” to keep their verbal ban in place, but they then ascribed huge fines for broadcast outlets that dared flout said ban—fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for usage “on-air”. I know from that ban close-up. The radio station I worked at for years here in NY had on the wall of the Master Control room (and still does to this day) an ‘Olde English” scroll featuring the calligraphed words you must not ever fucking say displayed in plain view, lest you bankrupt the joint with fines. The ironic thing was that their fighting Carlin on this only gave him that much more fame, and in the end—respect—and it only helped him far more than it ever hurt him. Folks don't give a shit about the “rightness” of the government in it's crusade for morals per se—they remember Carlin's routine, and that cadence of how he rolled those words off the tongue—“Shit, piss, fuck, c*nt, cocksucker, motherfucker and...tits.”, and how he stuck it to the man.

And of course, he'd have the ultimate last laugh in doing his routines unexpurgated on TV whenever he wanted thanks to the birth of Cable which didn't have to hew to the FCC's whips and thus gave Carlin (and other envelope-pushing funnymen) bigger audiences than ever with his perennial one-man shows, centered around his anti-bullshit mantra. He tackled with rough hands society's hang-ups over sex, religion and violence, while brutally making light of our superficial ways of dealing with the supposedly bad outgrowths of those things. He railed—far longer than I ever thought he would, considering his repeatedly failing heart—against those hypocrisies and was damn near as sharp now at it as he was at his youthful peak.

Maybe even sharper.

Having worked professionally in comedy for twenty years, I can say with no doubt that this is a loss of huge proportions for the biz. He was a professional's professional, and cared enough about the craft to keep honing his shit, and never gave in to the temptation to be a lazy-ass, and fall back on lame-ass material because he didn't respect his audience—the ultimate stand-up no-no that some so-called “pros” shittily engage in, as noted by one of my favorite bloggers, Mark Evanier:

It's just the nature of comedy to deflate the privileged and the powerful. It was the Marx Brothers tormenting Margaret Dumont, not the other way around. Lately, Dennis Miller seems to be trying to reverse this principle. I used to really like Miller, though not all the time. One of the "not" times came after I saw him perform years ago at the MGM Grand in Vegas. Rita Rudner was the opening act and she was funny and fresh and giving it her all. Miller came out next and did horribly dated “topical” material — nothing I hadn't heard him do a dozen times — with an attitude of, “Gimme my check and let me get out of here.”

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What struck me when I saw Miller on with Leno the other night was that given the state of the world right now, a comic who decides to not joke about the President really hasn't got a lot to say. He started his Tonight Show spot by hauling out his joke about Michael Jackson and George Hamilton officially crossing on the pigmentation chart. It's a joke that has now been rerun more often than the I Love Lucy about John Wayne's footprints and one that really shows its age. I suspect that were it not for Miller and that joke, George Hamilton would not have been mentioned on network television in the last decade.

That's a disease that afflicts many of today's comics—be they big names or guys booked at “The Yuk-Yuk Hut” on Route 11. There's an ugly laziness there, and sadly now—minus the borderline-crazed professionalism of a George Carlin, there's one less person working to point to as a sterling example of “how it should be done”. It's no mere coincidence that in the first year of NBC's Saturday Night (the show's REAL name at first before the change to a bunch of things ending with “Saturday Night Live”), he, Klein and Pryor would be guest hosts, and that Carlin himself would host the very first episode . “Willie, Mickey and the Duke” indeed. And damned if he didn't hit some serious tape-meausre shots like “The Mick” did when he prowled the stage with a mic.

He was a giant. A pro's pro, and as someone who also values the weight and worth of “the word”, I shall especially miss him, as we all should. Because I think we're all a little bit dumber, and a little less brave without his needling, cranky and “How could we not notice this?” presence.

“Sigh!” I guess I'll have to find “a place for my stuff” all by myself now. Damn.

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Breaking: NBC's Tim Russert Dead

Apparent Heart Attack Fells Russert at 58

Tim Russert died today.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tim Russert, host of NBC's "Meet the Press" and its Washington bureau chief collapsed and died at work Friday after suffering an apparent heart attack. He was 58 Russert, of Buffalo, N.Y., took the helm of the Sunday news show in December 1991 and turned it into the most widely watched program of its type in the nation. His signature trait there was an unrelenting style of questioning, sparing none of the politicians, business giants and even sports figures who appeared on his show.

Washington Post

Russert, 58, collapsed while recording voiceovers for his Sunday morning interview program, NBC reported. He was initially reported to have suffered a heart attack while working in his office on Washington's Nebraska Avenue, but the network said later only that he was "stricken at the bureau" and subsequently died. Further details were not immediately available.

Russert served as NBC's Washington bureau chief and the host of "Meet the Press," the top-rated Sunday talk show, which had an enormous influence on politics and was marked by his aggressive style of interrogation. As a frequent commentator on the "Today" show, "NBC Nightly News" and other shows, Russert wielded such clout that when he declared that Sen. Barack Obama had wrapped up the Democratic nomination last month, his pronouncement was treated as a news event in itself.

Russert's television career was marked by a voracious appetite for politics and a shrewd understanding of how politicians interact with the media. He also wrote a book about his father, titled "Big Russ and Me." Last week, he moved Big Russ to a nursing facility.

Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw gave MSNBC viewers the news of Russert's death at 3:40 p.m. (GNB Note: Video available at Washington Post.)

Brokaw said Russert had just returned from a family trip to Italy with his wife, writer Maureen Orth. They were celebrating the graduation of their son, Luke, from Boston College this spring, Brokaw said.

Russert served as host of "Meet the Press" longer than any other person and was "one of the premier political analysts and journalists of his time," Brokaw said. He began hosting "Meet the Press" in 1991.

Tributes to Russert began pouring in as news of his death circulated.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said: "Tim was a warm and gracious family man with a great zest for life and an unsurpassed passion for his work. His rise from working-class roots to become a well-respected leader in political journalism is an inspiration to many. Tim asked the tough questions the right way and was the best in the business at keeping his interview subjects honest."

Russert was born May 7, 1950, in Buffalo, N.Y., the son of Irish American parents. His father was a World War II veteran who worked two blue-collar jobs while raising four children in a working-class neighborhood in South Buffalo. Raised as a staunch Roman Catholic, Russert attended Buffalo's Jesuit Canisius High School and went on to study law at Cleveland State University.

He got his start in New York Democratic politics, working on the political campaigns of Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Gov. Mario Cuomo. He served as chief of staff to Moynihan from 1977 to 1982 and was a counselor in Cuomo's Albany office from 1983 to 1984.

Russert was hired by NBC's Washington bureau in 1984 and became the network's Washington bureau chief four years later.

Tim Russert speaks to the crowd during the Democratic presidential debate
between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama in Cleveland on February 26, 2008.
photo Mark Duncan/AP.

I really like what Jane Hamsher says in her obit.

Firedoglake

Dave Winer said that "the Internet destabilizes every hierarchy it contacts." Russert stood as a symbol of an institutional journalistic hierarchy for many of us, and bloggers right and left railed against him mightily. He took arrows on behalf of many who practiced the journalism of his era, and stood his ground.

He is survived by his father, who is in his late 80s. Condolences to all his friends and family.

Well said.

In addition to his father, Russert is also survived by Maureen Orth (his wife), and a college-aged son.

Traditional journalists (broadcast and print) have not and can not and the vast majority of them will never successfully meet the opportunity (to them it's a threat; not even rising to the level of a challenge, let alone an opportunity) of the Internet.

They simply don't get it.

Russert was no exception.

The question I wonder about is, was Russert the way he was because he simply had too much invested in defending the media and traditions in which he was so successful, or was he the way he was because he was that way?

My guess -- with Russert (I'd say the opposite for O'Reilly) -- is the former. Which is one of the nicest assessments I have to say about Russert. It means he could have, might have, broken free.

If only.

Now we'll never know.

My condolences to his family.

Updated 8:10 PM.

Driftglass' obit. *smiles*

Sweet.

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Final Theme Song

DrBopperTHP asks a great question:

What specific song do you want played at your funeral as your "final theme song?"

My favorite tune of all time is Vienna Teng's Lullaby For A Stormy Night (live version; poor recording).

However when it happens I'll be dead. I have no wishes for those who are there except my ashes's eventually being released on both Mt. Lemon (north of Tuscon) and Mt. Rainer. No marker; let my body return to the earth.

I love music, so whatever music is there -- except religious hymns, other than classic music such as Bach -- would be fine. What might be even better is simply paying attention to the music of the birds, the trees and the wind. Just being present would be perfect.

Followed by everyone going somewhere and having a big-ass party. With lots of Margaritas. 'Cause otherwise people might think life and death was fracking serious. *laughs*



How about you? Do you have a song you want played at your memorial?

We're taking last requests.

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Of Parting Seas, Chariot Races, Buried America, and Guns That Shall Not be Pried.

Charlton Heston—1923-2008

We saw the passing of legendary Hollywood actor Charlton Heston this past weekend at the age of 84. He was one of the very last of the remaining mega-stars of Tinseltown's studio-era with a career spanning 53 years, from his initial film appearance in 1950's Dark City all the way through to his 2003 voice work for an animated “Ben Hur”.

He was by all accounts a true professional in his craft—insisting on performing much of his Moses role in 1956's “The Ten Commandments” barefoot even though his feet would not be seen and he risked injury for the rugged exterior work, and spending four weeks learning how to drive a chariot (from the legendary stuntman Yakima Canutt) so that at least 80% of what you saw of him in the chariot races in “Ben-Hur” was actually him being whipped about the custom-built arena at Italy's Cinécitta Studios.

There were few actors of his time—a long time at that, who participated in as many landmark films as Heston. From the blockbusters like the eye-popping “Commandments” and “Hur” and the four-sequel spawning “Planet Of The Apes”, to his unlikely turn as a Welles-ian hero in the Hollywood giant's last great exposing of celluloid—1958's closing of the book on Film Noir, “Touch Of Evil” (Playing a Mexican policeman!). Heston's specialty was playing motivationally uncomplicated leads on single-minded quests. His job was NOT to do depth, but rather, to convey strength while searching. His imposing physicality helped with this. An almost comic-bookishly square jaw and a strapping six-foot-three of swimmerly sinew, Heston boasted the easy athleticism of his peers Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas—albeit without their same ability to switch from scenery-chewing to delicately subtle actorly shadings.

The Heston performance range was not wide. But deployed properly, playing piousness, blunt-force heroism and overweening anguish, he could be magnetic onscreen with his easy physical attractiveness holding the eye while his stentorian voice anchored the ear.

There was a certain vainness to his onscreen presentation. Look at the way he seems to consciously flex his bare arms in the in-cabin master shots in 1959's “The Wreck Of The Mary Deere”. It borders on an upstaging his co-star, the God-like leading man of the previous three decades, Gary Cooper. But it comes off as harmless fun because it was Heston—an actor so damned comfortable in his well-toned body that you forgave him for his preening excesses and his occasional over-willingness to share it with the viewer.

He was not subtle. He couldn't be and filmgoers in turn didn't ask of it from him. Broad, rough strokes was how he painted his characters on-screen. Save for his measured take in the post-modern western, 1968's Will Penny, a subtle character shading rarely seen from Heston. Unglamorous and just a touch a-moral, it was in my mind perhaps his finest, most actorly performance on film.

He was bankable. A strong-jawed pro who wouldn't “muck up” things with high-falutin' emotional shadings, and while he wasn't a subtle craftsman, he was a workman—filling out a career with gobs of work when called, from the aspiring “Agony And The Ecstasy” and El Cid” to the gummy, plain popcorn of “Earthquake” and “Airport '75”.

He simply entertained. And in his later years, as that easy physicality faded, he played stern-eyed patriarchs onscreen and lent his still powerful voice to voice work in narrations.

Of course, Heston's being an unsubtle man would manifest itself in his life outside his performance persona. In the sixties, he was an open and proud Hollywood Liberal, marching in Dr. King's 1963 March on Washington and espousing many of the feel-good liberal ideals of the time. And like folks like Frank Sinatra and Dennis Hopper, Heston would shift radically from Liberal to Right Wing supporter and apologist as exidenced by his over-the-top (Hey, to thyself be true...) vocal backing and presidency of the National Rifle Association from 1998 o 2003. It was at the 2000 NRA national convention where he famously waved a blunderbuss overhead and fairly growled while nearly spitting bits of curtain and set materials that the Clinton administration would have to take away his Second Amendment rights “From his cold, dead hands”.

Sadly, it is that last, unfortunate, broad play to the audience and cameras that many will remember him for—a man rushing backwards as the world pushed ahead. He would utter a variety of retrograde statements as the roles grew thin and the star began to wane in brightness. Bitter remarks about affirmative action, gun-nuttery, the first Gulf War and an embrace of the worst elements of the wingnut religious right would follow, hopelessly skewing the perception of the man as a whole.

A debilitating bout with Alzheiemer's Disease would ironically be the thing that claimed the uncomplicated Heston's life this past Saturday evening.

Film buffs will remember his booming line readings of such classic bits of scriptwork:

“You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!”

Soylent Green is made of PEOPLE!”

“You gave me this staff to rule over scorpions and serpants. God has made it a staff to rule over kings”

and of course...

“Take your stinking paws off me, you damn, dirty ape!”

As I said...he was entertaining. An annoying political changeling, but still in that classic popcorn-y way, an entertaining performer.

Let us look to his work for what it was—fun—and understand his politics for what it was too. Retrograde yes, but in the end as much a goofy show as his most excessive performances.

Bid adieu to a star and offer condolences to his family and loved ones.

There's more...

What's In A Number?

“Sure Hope There's A Bottomless Pretzel Bowl In Hell!”

It was last April when I began a post on “The Math” of Iraq's awful, destructive numbers thusly:

"Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas." —Albert Einstein, 1935

"Math class is tough!" —Teen Talk Barbie, 1992

"You may end up with a different math, but you're entitled to your math. I'm entitled to 'THE' math." —Karl Rove, November 2006

In that post, I crunched, deconstructed, re-processed and then ground out the brutal numericals as best I could—even using mathematical anecdotal evidence offered by a family member with some hands-on experience in dealing (in a law-enforcement manner) with “bad” numbers.

But let's go back to Iraq's numbers--and ugly numbers they are. Look past if you can for a moment at the simple U.S. forces casualty number of 3,317 dead and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead. Hard as that may be, let's focus on some of the other hard numbers of this war.

25,000,000.
That's the approximate number of Iraq's population.

150,000.
That's the approximate number of U.S. forces presently in Iraq.

Now, in spite of my aversion to hard math, I do enjoy the minutiae of statistics. It's probably from the sports nut in me. But in all seriousness, some of the numericals involving Iraq are plain, old riveting. The above numbers are examples of it. A few years ago, I sat with a cousin of mine, a former (as of now) NYPD Internal Affairs Detective. It was around the time of the trial for the cops involved in the Amadou Diallo shooting, and I noticed an oddly ramped-up police presence as we rode around.

"They're getting ready for people to spazz the f*ck out, huh?", I opined.

"Total waste of time.", my cousin said ruefully. "If things really got stupid, we couldn't do a Goddamned thing to stop it. It's a show. An expensive, overtime-sucking show."

"That's kinda rough.", I said.

"It's f*cking reality. Eight million people versus 35,000 cops?", he mused. "Please. You saw what happened in L.A. LAPD couldn't do sh*t. They booked. The numbers couldn't work. And it ain't like they actually had everybody in town in the streets buggin'. You can't really police a big number like that when they wanna tear sh*t up. What's it? Ten million people over there? Say five percent get froggy and jumped--that's like...half a million people--versus 10,000 officers--maybe 6,000 on call at any given moment. 6,000 versus half a million. You see why that sh*t went down the way it did? That's why Five-O couldn't do a damn thing when stuff blew up in the 60's. Or even now. Yeah, 35,000 NYPD's gonna stop eight million people. Or let's keep it real--20-25,000 cops--real cops on peak call are gonna shut down half-a-million people out for blood. It's cosmetic. Fighting the numbers is f*cking cosmetic."

It is now a year from that time. The reported U.S. casualties in Iraq were as of that day, April 20th...3317.

The total today, April 1st, 2008? 4012 Just about 700 more soldiers dead since that day. Averaging about two soldiers a day, blown to bits, shot down in streets, captured and tortured to death...mutilated till the heart simply spares the body by saying...enough, and mercifully gives out.

And for what? The hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens snuffed out? Blown up, phosphorus scalded and bulldozed en masse into ignominious, lime-dusted trenches. For them? Their lone freedom is from life itself.

Is it the remaining populace...who want us out of there in the absolute worst way? To where a sizable percentage of the country's twenty-five million people support the efforts of the militarized thousands who pick our troops off like so much ripe fruit? What exactly are we doing for them? What is that positive thing that we can look on with pride?

Was it taking down Saddam Hussein? How long ago was that, pray tell? Five years ago this month? Captured him that winter? “Mission Accomplished” was declared that Spring. Happy Crocus Day...War is over!

And ninety percent of the U.S. military casualties have occured since that “victory”.

For what?...the deaths of 4000 American soldiers.

A number denigrated by the soul-dead, no-skin-in-the-game cheerleaders for this abominable conflict. Some like to say that all things being relative, the figure's not so bad, while others simply pooh-pooh the carnage and callously blurt a “So?” when confronted with the people's discontent with the wastefulness of the conflict.

What's four thousand lives gone, really? I mean, what's in a number, really?

If you took every Major League baseball player who appeared in a game last year—just under a thousand players, and every NFL gridder, from Tom Brady to the most obscure “suicide squadder” whose cleats brushed turf for a down—some 1700 players, then threw in every NBA rim-hanger, brick-tosser and superstar—about 500 people and finally topped it off with the total of all whose feet cleaved ice professionally for the NHL las t year—about 950 padded, gap-toothed zoomers, put them all in an arena at once and then caved the roof in while setting the place ablaze...you'd end up with about 4,100 dead. Not a far cry at all from the senseless Iraq total thus far.

Or perhaps...perhaps if you sold out the world-famous Apollo Theatre in Harlem for three straight nights, but instead of a stunning show, had a team of assassins simply mow down everyone seated in the theatre. Fill 1400-plus seats three times over and have those people blown away and tou get to 4000 easily.

My high school graduating class consisted of 508 students. Multiply that by eight and you're at...4000 yet again.

Let's take a page from the poison book of our “So?”-spouting vice president if you will for a moment and link 9-11 to Iraq, shall we? Take the number of people killed at the World Trade Canter on September 11th, and then add to that ghastly total another 300 firefighters.

Then add 300 more policemen.

And then, tack on 300 more civilians to the death list and you're right there again—at the heart-sinking and un-magical 4000 number.

When you put it in that perspective, it's not such a piddling number, is it?

That question's really for our tough-guy veep—the flightless bird and defenseless friend-shooting Mr. Cheney.

But people like him and his “boss”, and the oleaginous Michael O'Hanlon, the wattle-full-of-deceit Fred Kagan, and the “Stratego™-is-like-real-life” believing Victor Davis Hanson see lost American lives as blurry, non-corporeal haze. Vapors and dust to be burned off with the light of never-ending, hubris-driven war.

These are people. Real people in that 4000 who are dead...and gone, and will speak no more. Individuals with as much to give as anyone else, only to be sacrificed as human fucking kindling to stoke a senselessly burning fire.

I've seen Steven Spielberg's “Saving Private Ryan” maybe four times. But I've only watched its frightful first twenty minutes once. The film didn't depict those carried off in death's bottomless satchel as the typical faceless wave of falling bodies in costume department camo.

You remember those awful deaths individually.

The soldier blown in half as Tom Hanks is dragging him across the beach to “safety”.

The poor bastard who takes a fatal bullet to the forehead after cheating death moments before thanks to his then still-on-his-head helmet.

The beach's radio operator, frantically dialing for back-up one second, and then—little more than a blast-emptied skull a moment later.

Every death is an individual one, no matter how those who wish to wave away and downplay them as a collective, faceless lump of sacrifice to an unnameable “greater good” may try to. Parts yes, of that bigger than you think it is “4000” number, but individuals nonetheless.

Like Sgt. Matt Maupin of Batavia, Ohio. Captured four years ago in Iraq and classified as missing ever since. Up until this past weekend that is—when his remains were found and identified.

Just one of four thousand. Or five thousand. Or hey, why not TEN thousand if the likes of the dangerously flawed John Sidney McCain should ascend to power and opts to make this a “Hundred Years War 2.0”.

I said it this weekend when that death was added to the scrolling tally...

“Just...Goddamn the waste of it all. How do people sleep at night behind this out-of-control meat-grinder of a war?”

Those who cheered. Who signed off. Who to this very day will NOT see it for the historical clusterfuckery that it is. I realize now that these people don't sleep. To sleep you must be alive. And these people are dead. Soul-dead as a hunk of petrified wood or a shard of rough brick in a pile of refuse. They may close their eyes and lay down to “rest”, but it is a vampire's rest.

And 4,000 lives sucked away is nothing to them at all. A mere apéritif...before an eternity if there is such a thing as “Karma”, of dining hopefully as bellowed in the movie “300”...in hell.

There's more...

Children and Others Dying in Iraq Recently

Babies and children reported as killed by U.S. Troops. Hilla, Iraq.
photo found at Gorilla's Guides, March 27, 2008.

How Many Dead Babies Does It Take
To Make Us Quit Killing Them?

Want to know what's REALLY happening in Iraq?

Read Gorilla's Guide. Read Iraq Today.

Hold on to your stomach...and your heart.

Oh... one more note.

I am copying over almost five full days directly over from Gorilla's Guide. This isn't how one normally does these things. In case anyone isn't clear, I have enormous respect for Gorilla's Guide, and for copyright law. (Go read the Gorilla’s Guides For The Perplexed. Their reference articles on Islam, and their briefings on what the frack is going on will blow you away. That's in addition to their daily journalism, to which I am introducing you here.)

Copyright law depends on a balancing test. Among other factors, it requires a transformative effect or usage. If after having been stuck inside of the U.S. media machine (including progressive blogs) you are not transformed out the ass by reading THIS, almost five days of THIS, I urge you to keep reading it till you are. Seriously. (And yes, I know that's almost certainly not what was meant when the law was written. Besides, black-letter law doesn't say “transformative”; it's case-law which does. It was just too good a line to pass up. *smiles*) None the less I am serious in my intent, which is causing a transformation for each of us. And there, GNB Media is allowed to copy the material to facilitate teaching, especially considering the other parts of the traditional four-pronged balancing test.

Consider this a transformative introduction, a genuine education in the amazing breadth and range of non-U.S. sources of journalism. But today isn't only about getting outside of U.S. journalism. I intend to cause a shift in you, you, and you, the lurker over in the corner, such that all of you are left having deeply confronted what I've been confronting, what I keep demanding of myself that I confront over and over again, every couple of weeks...

We are killing children.

Look at that photo. LOOK.

Some nice young man -- the “troops” -- followed orders, and dropped a bomb right into the middle of a crowded housing project or neighborhood.

• Brooklyn.
• Manhattan.
• Houston.
• Detroit.
• San Francisco.
• Little Rock.
• Tucson.
• Los Angeles.
• Chicago.
• Kansas City.
• St. Louis.
• Seattle.
• Miami.
• Portland.
• Atlanta.
• San Diego.
• Tulsa.
• Boston.
• Dallas.
• Salt Lake City.
• Denver.
• Sacramento.
• Reno.
• New Orleans.
• Nashville.
• Palm Beach.
• Or even Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Wait... I said too many places and the horror went away... poof, that fast.

Look at the photo again please.

This happens daily. Nice young men in uniform kill children, kill babies.

Here are the last five days in Iraq, partially represented from one website. All I'm posting up is one photograph. You're not watching the video, not having to listen to the families morn, listen or watch the little ones scream in pain, not seeing the few doctors remaining work frantically to try and keep the kids alive, failing.

As you read through this, please imagine this happening to your family, your children, your brothers and sisters, your mother and father, your aunts and uncles, your best friends, the people you work with if only they weren't all out of work because your office or factory is destroyed, plus it's too dangerous to get to work. Imagine please, it is your family dying, fighting to eat, struggling to stay alive as bombs, missiles and guns go off.

Here are five days in Iraq (one-website, one photo, no sound.)

*breathe*

Gorilla's Guide

March 27

Baghdad:

By midday March 26th 2008 - hospitals in Baghdad reported civilians casualties from the American attacks on Sadr city as 20 dead 239 wounded. Mostly women and children. Such as the boy you see to the left. Many of the wounded are not expected to survive.

The Americans continue to prevent both doctors and ambulances from entering Sadr city.

They are also preventing ambulances from leaving the city.

Normally very reliable sources say the Americans have fired on ambulances and other vehicles trying to take wounded out of the city.

Two Soldiers from the American army still trying to subjugate Irak were killed in Baghdad.

Missile attacks on the green zone wounded 3 or 5 Americans depending on who you believe.

Mortar attacks in Nle and al-Resala killed 7 and wounded 23.

The green zone also is being shelled.

In Karrada 4 were killed and 5 wounded by mortar attacks. Another person was killed by shooting, 5 were wounded in that shooting attack.

UPDATE: Karrada is under curfew and there are very heavy forces to try to stop people attacking it and the homes of the SIIC leadership there.

UPdate: At least 2 further people were killed in ongoing American attacks on Sadr city this afternoon evening reports of wounded vary the minimum number is 8.

There are massive demonstations throughout Baghdad against the Americans and the puppet government in the green zone.

There has been major incidents of violence in the following districts - al-Amil, Fudhailiya, al-Hurriyah, Iskhan, Kamiliya, Mashtal, al-Rustumiyah Sadr, City, al Shula, al-Shurta, Ur, Washash. Many incidents in rest of Baghdad and outlyingh areas also.

UPDATE The Americans and the Badr brigade are trying to stop people getting into or out of Khazimiyah.

Sources: Radio reports & Team members.

Gunmen attacked the home of the commander of logistics for GZG forces and burnt it to the ground, the report says the family were rescued by GZG special forces.

The Guardian is reporting that a British SAS soldier was killed in Baghdad.

In a show of force Mahdi army fighters in the “New Baghdad” area completely cut off the main highway and main roads. Our member who live in area says that this was done as a warning of what they would do if attacked.

UPDATE There is fighting in al-Shula Mahdi army fighters stormed the GZG checkpoint controlling access to the district forcing the GZG “elite” troops and police to flee. The American outpost there is under attack.

UPDATE: GZG spokesmen in Baghdad say that 66 GZG troops and five gzg officers have been killed so far.

UPDATE: The American base in . al-Rustumiyah (SothEast Baghdad) is coming under repeated attack.

UPDATE Local sources confirm Aswat al Irak fighting throughout ALL northest Baghdad. UPDATE 2 Locals confirmed several GZG vehicles seized and set alight. Figfting described by them as “intensifying” contradicting Aswat al Iraks report that heavy American air presence calmed the situation down..

UPDATE Sources in al-Shula say that many police stations and checkpoints have been stormed an overrun we do not have reports of police survivors.

UPDATE GZG is trying to impose curfews they appear to have little success in this.

UPDATE GZG Baghdad spokesman saying 19 dead and 307 wounded.

Babil Governorate:

More than 60 people allegedly all armed were killed in the American aerial bombardment of Al-Askari and Nader in central Hilla but there is a problem:

The problem is that it is a lie. It a STUPID lie. It’s the sort of STUPID LIE that only an American military spokesman would tell.

Were you stupid enough to believe anything the Americans are saying about them knowingly killing women and children?

The attack was by Apache aircraft on al-Askari, Ahmed Nader and Muhaizem neighbourhoods.

Gunmen like the children in the screen grab with caption from the Sadrist site nahrainet [that you see at the top of this post -- Jesse.]

Al Askari, Ahmed Nader, and Muhaizem are all heavily populated areas.

It is physically impossible to heavily bombard a densely populated civilian area without killing a lot civilians.

The Americans killed a lot of civilians.

Civilians like the women and children you see to the left. The caption incidentally cites “dozens” of dead women and children.

Eyewitness accounts speak of seeing 25 bodies, including many women and children. They also talk of 35 people being evacauted as seriously wounded and that again many if not most of these were women and children. Two doctors in the local hospital who refused to be identified said to one of our local correspondents that many of these were expected to die.

According to local people the scale of destruction is enormous, they speak of families being wiped out, there are reports of 6 houses turned to rubble, many other houses rendered uninhabitable and of multiple secondary explosions from the fuel tanks in cars.

It is worth noting that an American base is nearby. It is also worth noting that the local police are members of the Badr brigade and that they have repeatedly been reported as committing serious atrocities in the three neighbourhoods which are very deprived even by present day Iraki standards and are overwhelmingly Sadrist.

UPDATE: The GZG governor is trying negotiate with Sadrist leadership in Hilla. Local sources the fighting is as heavy as ever.

And according to the the American spokesman the people killed were 60 gunmen.

March 27 -- evening

Ali Ibn Laith. Born December 14 1999 - Killed March 27 2008

Son of our much missed colleague Laith and his wife, last remaining brother to our greatly loved colleague Mohammed Ibn Laith and his sister.

O God! Pardon our living and our dead, the present and the absent, the young and the old, the males and the females.

There will be no further postings tonight.

[Note:A Child's Death in Iraq -- Jesse]

March 29

Witnesses to the battle for Basra describe scenes in the city

‘I told her she was mother to a martyr’

As fighting between the Shia Mahdi army and the Iraqi national army continued yesterday, witnesses described scenes in the city to Ghaith Abdul-Ahad.

“Yesterday we were in the street and saw a black car coming. They stopped and two men opened the boot. They dragged out an Iraqi soldier and threw him in the street and they drove away.”

“He was a young soldier dressed in a military uniform, he had a bullet hole in his head and there was blood on his face - even his boots were covered with blood.

“We found his ID card, his name was Ahmad Raad al-Helfy. We went through his mobile phone and found a number marked “mum”, we dialled and an old women answered. I told her that her son had died and that she was the mother of a martyr; she started screaming and wailing.”

Said Abu Saleh, 30

“The situation is very difficult in Basra, all the side streets are controlled by the Mahdi army. Even if the army has lots of tanks, the Mahdi fighters are controlling the streets. The fighters are driving in captured Iraqi Humvees and waving new guns.”

Resident of Hayyaniya, a stronghold of the Mahdi army

“Our fighters are being targeted not by the Iraqi government but by government militias working for Moqtada al-Sadr’s rivals in the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council. They are a executing a very well-drawn plan. They are trying to exterminate the Sadrists and cut and isolate the movement before the September local elections. The Sadrists are the only Shia resistance movement against the occupiers [Americans] and we have wide popularity.

“We are going through a battle of existence. We will fight to the end; we either survive this or we are finished.

“We have captured lots of their vehicles, machine guns and mortars. We have new rocket-propelled grenades we got from their supply trucks. Our fighters know how to use the side streets as their battle space.”

Sheikh Ali al-Sauidi, a senior commander in the Mahdi army speaking in a telephone interview

Source: Witnesses to the battle for Basra describe scenes in the city | World news | The Guardian

See also: We’re fighting for survival, says Mahdi army commander for a fuller account.

March 30

British and US forces drawn into battle for Basra - Middle East, World - The Independent

So far Mr Sadr has not formally ended his ceasefire, declared in August last year and renewed in February. Ever since he fought the US marines in two battles in Najaf in 2004, he has been averse to direct military confrontation with the Americans or his Shia rivals when backed by the US. But as Mr Maliki’s military offensive falters, his commanders are increasingly looking to the US and Britain for support. If US and British forces engage in direct military action on a wide scale with the Sadrist militia, then Mr Sadr could call for a general uprising, which would engulf all of Shia Iraq in war. The Mehdi Army already controls half of Baghdad.

Read in full: British and US forces drawn into battle for Basra - Middle East, World - The Independent

More March 30

Police refuse to support Iraqi PM’s attacks on Mehdi Army - The Independent

US and British forces are increasingly playing a supporting role in the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s stalled offensive against the Mehdi Army militia. American aircraft launched air strikes in Basra yesterday and fought militiamen on the streets in Baghdad while British advisers have also been assisting Iraqi troops in Basra.

Mr Maliki retreated from his demand that militiamen hand over their weapons by yesterday and extended the deadline to 8 April. This is a tacit admission that the Iraqi army and police have failed to oust the Mehdi Army from any of its strongholds in the capital and in southern Iraq. The Iraqi army has either met stubborn resistance from Mehdi Army fighters or soldiers and police have refused to fight or changed sides. “We did not expect the fight to be this intense,” said the officer from a 300-strong commando unit that has been pinned down in the Tamimiyah district in Basra, where the supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Mehdi Army, have strong support.

The officer said four of his men were killed and 15 wounded in the fighting. “Some of the men told me that they did not want to go back to the fight until they have better support and more protection,” he added. The Interior Ministry threatened that the men would be court-martialled for refusing to fight. Government troops arriving in Basra complain that they are being fired on by local police loyal to Mr Sadr. Members of one police unit had fist fights with their officers after they refused to join the battle.

Continue reading ‘Police refuse to support Iraqi PM’s attacks on Mehdi Army - The Independent’

Basrah "surge" update March 29 2008 - March 30 2008

Overview Basrah:

There is extremely intense fighting still going on in Basrah. After a relatively calm morning - 8 people killed and 7 were wounded in an airstrike by the Americans on al-Tak in al-Hussein, an area the GZG said on Friday they had control of - GZG troops assisted by Badr militia and British artillery made efforts to dislodge Mahdi army fighters from their positions. These appear to have failed according to local reports the Mahdi army seem to have withdrawn to prepared defensive positions. The GZG “defence” minister says they cleared Mahdi army fighters from Al-Ashar, Tanouma, Shatt Al-Arab, al-Zubair. The efforts by GZG forces to recapture the bridge at Qurnah also are reported to have failed. This means that the GZG attemts to reinforce are not working which perhaps explains his comment that they were surprised by the weaponry being used by Mahdi army fighters and therefore are bringing up heavier weaponry to try to dislodge the Mahdi army. He and other spokesmen are saying that GZG forces will fight on until they have “cleared Basrah of criminal elements”. Maliki has gone as far as to say that the JAM are “worse than al Qaeda”.

Residents in al Taminmiyah say that GZG forces are making announcements demanding they leave their homes and that afraid of being caught up in an assault many have complied. Other residents report that GZG troops attempted an incursion and are now trapped there are similar reports from Zubair and al-Ashar. There are widespread reports of defections by GZG police and army to the Mahdi army. Mahdi army has also allowed journalists to speak to captured GZG police and army soldiers.

A bombing raid on Sunday night by the Americans seriously wounded 7 people and cause the collapse of two houses. UPDATE: 10 killed 7 wouned

Overview Baghdad:

Political:

In his interview with al-Jazeera al-Sadr made the following key points:

• He would never accept the American occupation of Irak.
• Politics and religion are inseparable this does not mean that the Sadrists are a political party - they will never be that.
• The role of the clergy is to observe and advise the government.
• That all Irakis Sunni and Shia alike should resist the American attempts to occupy Irak.
• That he had rejected and denounced sectarian killings repeatedly.
• That sectarian (and ethnic) killing would always take place for as long as the Americans were in Irak.
• That he personally had told Iranian supreme leader Khamenei that Iranian interference in Irak would not be tolerated.
• That the struggle in Irak was both political and sectarian that it was political at government level and sectarian and street level.
• That at the political level Sadrist representatives in the GZG “parliament” routinely voted with the “Sunni” parties.

UPDATE AL-Sadr has explicitly told his supporters not to give their weapons to GZG forces that they may only give their weapons to a government that expels the Americans.

UPDATE The GZG have sent a delegation to Najaf to negotiate with the Sadrists.

Hospitals in Sadr city said that by noon Friday, 39 people were killed and 389 others injured since the outbreak of fighting and airstrikes on Sadr City. By noon Saturday the casualty levels had gone up to 75 dead and 500 wounded. GZG Health ministry officials update that figure on Sunday morning to 125 dead and 892 wounded.

The spokesman for GZG Baghdad Operations Command finally got around to admitting that the “surge” spokesman has been kidnapped - he was responding to questions about the tape released of him pleading with Maliki to end the current operation.

Fighting broke out after midnight in Abu D’sheer.

The curfew has been tightened and extended indefinitely.

Other Governorates

Fighting continues in Karbala. (Local GZG security forces deny this saying that what is happening is a series of raids.) There is sporadic fighting. The Dawa party HQ in al Salam was attacked by fighters using RPGs. Fighting also continues in Diwaniyah.

Site News: Many of us are running low on fuel for our generators. This means very light or no posting from Monday. The subscribers edition will continue to be produced as normal.

March 31

The big news is the al-Sadr’s “Stand Down” —more accurately termed Maliki’s “climb down” follow this link or click the image below to see the original text of al-Sadr’s declaration. There will be plenty of statements and counter statements and a lot of misinformation especially in the Western media and the pro-government Iraki media. This is my “take” on the matter.

Text of the declaration:

Based upon our responsibilities under the law [shariah] and for the sparing of Iraki blood and for the protection of the reputability of the Iraqi people, and for their unity both in terms of people and in terms of territory, and in preparation for its independence and liberation from the armies of oppression; and in order to put out the fires of fitna which the occupier and his followers wish to keep burning between Iraki brothers, we call upon the beloved Iraki people to measure up to their responsibility and their cognisance of law in sparing bloodshed and preserving peace in Irak, and its stability and independence.

The following is resolved:

1. Ending armed manifestations in Basra governorate and all the other governorates.
2. Ending of attacks and illegal arbitrary detentions.
3. Demand that the government apply the law on general amnesty, and release all prisoners who have not had charges confirmed against them, in particular prisoners belonging to the Sadrist current.
4. We announce that we will repudiate those who carry weapons and target the government and service agencies and institutions, or the offices of political parties.
5. Cooperation with government agencies to bring about security and to charge criminals, according to due process of law.
6. We reassert that the Sadrist movement does not possess heavy weapons.
7. Efforts [meaningful efforts are to be made] for the return to their residential areas of those who were forced out as a result of security incidents.
8. We demand respect for human rights by the government in all of its security activities.
9. Working [meaningful efforts are to be made] towards the realisation of development and service projects in all governorates.

The first thing that must be said is that these are exactly the same demands that al-Sadr has been making for months. He reiterated them again when the fighting started. Maliki has been forced to accept every single one of them. I wonder how he managed to delude himself that the spectacularly misnamed “Saulat al-Forsan” (Charge of the Knights) would succeed.

Basrah is the country’s economic lung and the Mahdi army, the Badr Brigade, and Virtue (Fadhila) party all have a heavily armed presence there. Politically it is arguable whether it is the Virtue party or the Sadrists who are likely to do best in the forthcoming elections both are likely to do very well indeed, the SIIC is unlikely to do well, they will be lucky if the retain and significant presence.

The Mahdi Army was well-prepared:

The Mahdi army took the lessons of recent events to heart. Since the fighting in Karbala followed by further recent operations to reduce if not eliminate, their presence the Mahdi army have been digging in and preparing a defense in depth in Basrah. They plainly also planned to interdict the arrival of reinforcements for GZG troops once the fighting which everyone could see was coming got underway. They succeeded in their goals:

• They successfully prevented attempt after attempt after attempt to retake the Qurnah bridge.
• Far from being dislodged from their strongholds they successfully carried out a very difficult military operation — a tactical retreat under heavy fire to ready prepared defensive positions.
• They successfully counter-attacked repeatedly.

During several of those counter-attacks they captured and/or destroyed heavy weaponry from GZG forces they also on several occasions cut off and then destroyed attacking forces.

We can now confirm that in regard to al Taminmiyah the reports from residents in this earlier posting “Other residents report that GZG troops attempted an incursion and are now trapped there are similar reports from Zubair and al-Ashar“turns out to have been no more than the truth and that the same is true of Zubair and al-Ashar.

The GZG defense minister admitted that his forces were unprepared either for the ferocity with which the Mahdi army fought or for the sophistication of much of their weaponry. Nor were they prepared for the combination of a simple refusal to fight by many of the soldiers coupled with wholesale defections.

That was not all they were unprepared for. The South erupted. That is a dramatic way of saying that the Mahdi Army successfully opened a number of new fronts in the fighting, Nasiriya, Karbala, Hilla, Diwaniyah, and Kut all saw very fierce fighting. Apart from the benefit to its fighters in Basrah there was the added benefit of reducing the pressure on its fighters in Karbala. They successfully seized Kut - they remain in control of that city for the moment, and in Nasiriyah, Dawa’s heartland, they not only seized ground they laid siege to the governor in his palace and the large number of GZG troops who were protecting him. Every time those troops tried to effect a breakout they were easily beaten back. Desperate negotiations ensued before the final Mahdi army assault, and the governor remains alive, and under siege, - for now.

As to what happens next on these secondary fronts it is hard to tell. My guess, and it is no more than an educated guess, is that the Mahdi army will gradually cede partial control of Kut and the other cities once the local GZG authorities demonstrate good faith. The problem of course lies in those two words “good faith” - at no point have Dawa and SIIC ever done so and I find it difficult to believe GZG officials loyal to those parties will do so now. I hope to be proved wrong in this but I am not optimistic. The fact that operations by GZG forces are continuing in several places including in Basrah makes me even less optimistic.

Let us get back to what we know instead of guesswork. It is clear that the GZG was also unprepared for the ferocity of the fight back in Baghdad. The Mahdi army not only were not dislodged they succeeded in gaining territory and will not lightly give it up. A measure of how desperate the situation was the GZG in Baghdad can be found in the fact that they had to massively reinforce Karrada and prevent all access to Kazhimiya. They had to get the Americans to help them besiege Sadr city. They lost badly in al-Shula. Baghdad did not see the wholesale defections of Basrah but there were enough of them including among elite units - army and police, to make the GZG military leadership very doubtful of their men.

Another measure of GZG desperation is that they used peshmerga forces in Basrah (and in Baghdad). I find it hard to find the words to describe how thoroughly hated the Peshmerga regiments have made themselves in the central and southern governorates. They see themselves as entitled to exact every piece of revenge they possibly can at every possible opportunity and do so. This may be understandable but it is very bad tactics.

What happens next? I do not know. But on past performance we can expect a lot of chest thumping from the GZG and from the Americans. We can also expect a lot of “incidents” of varying severity from the GZG side - probing attacks in other words.

What of Maliki - the man whose arrogance and disastrous lack of judgement has drastically weakened the GZG. What will happen to him?

Who cares …

Saba Ali Ihsaan,
Baghdad,
Irak

Fuck war.

Killing is wrong.

There's more...

A Child's Death in Iraq

It's so, so time to leave.

I don't know how anyone can read this and argue for anything, except that it is time to leave. I truly don't.