[This is only a tiny victory from our side, because we're on the side of truth and justice. It is a major rebuke to the administration, because they are doing a bad thing, and when when someone is in the wrong, they cannot afford even the slightest derivation from their party line. We question ourselves as a matter of steering our course. They do not dare to question themselves about anything, because once they do, their intellectual conceit crumbles like a house of cards.]
everything below copyright the AP
***
In Loss for Bush, Supreme Court Blocks War-Crimes Trials at Guantanamo
The Associated Press
Thursday 29 June 2006
Washington - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees.
The ruling, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and Geneva conventions.
The case focused on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a bodyguard and driver for Osama bin Laden. Hamdan, 36, has spent four years in the U.S. prison in Cuba. He faces a single count of conspiring against U.S. citizens from 1996 to November 2001.
Two years ago, the court rejected Bush's claim to have the authority to seize and detain terrorism suspects and indefinitely deny them access to courts or lawyers. In this followup case, the justices focused solely on the issue of trials for some of the men.
The vote was split 5-3, with moderate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joining the court's liberal members in ruling against the Bush administration. Chief Justice John Roberts, named to the lead the court last September by Bush, was sidelined in the case because as an appeals court judge he had backed the government over Hamdan.
"All the Stones the Builders Rejected" 
(And some days it takes more Stones than others...) Where Mythical Bestiary meets Contemporary Culture and Chews On Its Leg Until Covered with Slobber.
Showing posts with label Guantanamo Bay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guantanamo Bay. Show all posts
MARY JANE WATSON, MAY PARKER HELD AT GUANTANAMO WITHOUT HABEAS CORPUS: ACLU Seeks Release of Dissidents' Relatives
Yes, there are otaku lurking at the NYT, and the horribly artsy (therefore acceptable to New Yorkers) Chris Ware can go screw himself. Or bore himself to death. Myself, I'll always love watching the Archetypes wrestle with the Zeitgeist. I hear the Zeitgeist is getting a couple of evil sidekicks, Weltsmerch and Schadenfreude:
From The New York Times, February 20, 2006
THE BATTLE OUTSIDE RAGING, SUPERHEROES DIVE IN
By GEORGE GENE GUSTINES
".... America's current real-world political issues will wind themselves into the lives of the heroes of Marvel Comics in "Civil War," a seven-issue limited monthly series set to begin in May. In the series, the beliefs of many well-known Marvel characters, including Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man and Spider-Man, will be challenged. ...
"Civil War" provides problems in spades. The story opens with a reckless fight between a novice group of heroes (filming a reality television show) and a cadre of villains. The battle becomes quite literally explosive, killing some of the superheroes and many innocent bystanders. That crystallizes a government movement to register all super-powered beings as living weapons of mass destruction. The subsequent Registration Act will divide the heroes into two camps, one led by Captain America, the other by Iron Man. Along the way, Marvel will unveil its version of Guantánamo Bay, enemy combatants, embedded reporters and more. The question at the heart of the series is a fundamental one: "Would you give up your civil liberties to feel safer in the world?"
".... As deeply entangled in current United States politics as the new Marvel series seem, "Civil War" and the accompanying "Front Line" series won't be written by Americans. Mark Millar, a popular comics writer who is Scottish and lives in Glasgow is writing "Civil War"; Paul Jenkins, a British writer who lives in Atlanta and had a lengthy run on "Spider-Man," is writing "Front Line."
".... Mr. Millar said the story would cause a "seismic shift" in the Marvel heroes: "Before the civil war, the Marvel universe was a certain way. After the civil war, the heroes are employed by the government." But don't think that gives away the ending. "Some people refuse to do it," he said, "and those guys are performing an illegal act by doing so."
***
[--do the words, "Spider-Man: Threat or Menace?" strike a familiar note? As the most human of heroes, fighting for the little people and not ideologies, I'm sure that Spidey, bless him, will find himself bucking authority for the sake of some victim of "collateral damage", and get booted out of Stark Tower with the rest of the Mets fans. -- M.]
***
"Mr. Jenkins's "Civil War: Front Line" will explore the ramifications of the events in the main series and more. "I have absolute carte blanche to take on the political landscape as it exists in America and all around the world," he said in a telephone interview.
"Mr. Jenkins will be telling some of his stories through the viewpoint of two embedded reporters. One works for a left-leaning newspaper, The Alternative. The other works for The Daily Bugle, whose fictional publisher, J. Jonah Jameson, Mr. Jenkins likened to Rupert Murdoch. Jameson has an agenda and pushes his embedded reporter to meet it.
"Mr. Jenkins will be doing some embedding of his own, using, in part, actual war letters and diaries, including "The Diary of Anne Frank" to tell the parallel story of a frightened young mutant girl in Manhattan, and the World War I poem, "Futility," by Wilfred Owen, to chronicle the last moments of a hero's life.
"Are these stories getting too heavy for comics readers looking to shut out real-world tensions?
"Not really, say the Marvel writers. "Civil War," Mr. Millar said, will work on two levels: "At the core, it's one half of the Marvel heroes vs. the other half." But, he added: "The political allegory is only for those that are politically aware. Kids are going to read it and just see a big superhero fight."
***
There's a part of me that still believes in Truth and Justice, and despite what television says, that doesn't always include the "American Way".
To give credit where credit is due, DC and Frank Miller covered these conflicts back in the 80s, when Batman used kryptonite to beat the mortal shit out of Superman for protecting a Reagan lookalike: "Keep talking, Clark; you've always known just what to say. 'Yes'-- You always say 'Yes'-- to anyone with a badge, or a flag. Just like your parents taught you. My parents taught me a different lesson, lying on this street, shaking in deep shock, dying for no reason at all." One thinks of the recent photographs-- I'm not going to post them, you can hunt them down yourself if you need to be taught that lesson over again-- of children screaming over their parents' body parts in Iraq, and parents trying desperately to put their broken children back together.
People who don't read comics, but are interested in this war of ideals, or the intersection of human reality with fantasy are encouraged to start with Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross' "Marvels". A recent New Yorker cartoon showed a grumpy old man growling past a bookstore, "Now we have to pretend to read GRAPHIC novels, too?"
From The New York Times, February 20, 2006
THE BATTLE OUTSIDE RAGING, SUPERHEROES DIVE IN
By GEORGE GENE GUSTINES
".... America's current real-world political issues will wind themselves into the lives of the heroes of Marvel Comics in "Civil War," a seven-issue limited monthly series set to begin in May. In the series, the beliefs of many well-known Marvel characters, including Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man and Spider-Man, will be challenged. ...
"Civil War" provides problems in spades. The story opens with a reckless fight between a novice group of heroes (filming a reality television show) and a cadre of villains. The battle becomes quite literally explosive, killing some of the superheroes and many innocent bystanders. That crystallizes a government movement to register all super-powered beings as living weapons of mass destruction. The subsequent Registration Act will divide the heroes into two camps, one led by Captain America, the other by Iron Man. Along the way, Marvel will unveil its version of Guantánamo Bay, enemy combatants, embedded reporters and more. The question at the heart of the series is a fundamental one: "Would you give up your civil liberties to feel safer in the world?"
".... As deeply entangled in current United States politics as the new Marvel series seem, "Civil War" and the accompanying "Front Line" series won't be written by Americans. Mark Millar, a popular comics writer who is Scottish and lives in Glasgow is writing "Civil War"; Paul Jenkins, a British writer who lives in Atlanta and had a lengthy run on "Spider-Man," is writing "Front Line."
".... Mr. Millar said the story would cause a "seismic shift" in the Marvel heroes: "Before the civil war, the Marvel universe was a certain way. After the civil war, the heroes are employed by the government." But don't think that gives away the ending. "Some people refuse to do it," he said, "and those guys are performing an illegal act by doing so."
***
[--do the words, "Spider-Man: Threat or Menace?" strike a familiar note? As the most human of heroes, fighting for the little people and not ideologies, I'm sure that Spidey, bless him, will find himself bucking authority for the sake of some victim of "collateral damage", and get booted out of Stark Tower with the rest of the Mets fans. -- M.]
***
"Mr. Jenkins's "Civil War: Front Line" will explore the ramifications of the events in the main series and more. "I have absolute carte blanche to take on the political landscape as it exists in America and all around the world," he said in a telephone interview.
"Mr. Jenkins will be telling some of his stories through the viewpoint of two embedded reporters. One works for a left-leaning newspaper, The Alternative. The other works for The Daily Bugle, whose fictional publisher, J. Jonah Jameson, Mr. Jenkins likened to Rupert Murdoch. Jameson has an agenda and pushes his embedded reporter to meet it.
"Mr. Jenkins will be doing some embedding of his own, using, in part, actual war letters and diaries, including "The Diary of Anne Frank" to tell the parallel story of a frightened young mutant girl in Manhattan, and the World War I poem, "Futility," by Wilfred Owen, to chronicle the last moments of a hero's life.
"Are these stories getting too heavy for comics readers looking to shut out real-world tensions?
"Not really, say the Marvel writers. "Civil War," Mr. Millar said, will work on two levels: "At the core, it's one half of the Marvel heroes vs. the other half." But, he added: "The political allegory is only for those that are politically aware. Kids are going to read it and just see a big superhero fight."
***
There's a part of me that still believes in Truth and Justice, and despite what television says, that doesn't always include the "American Way".
To give credit where credit is due, DC and Frank Miller covered these conflicts back in the 80s, when Batman used kryptonite to beat the mortal shit out of Superman for protecting a Reagan lookalike: "Keep talking, Clark; you've always known just what to say. 'Yes'-- You always say 'Yes'-- to anyone with a badge, or a flag. Just like your parents taught you. My parents taught me a different lesson, lying on this street, shaking in deep shock, dying for no reason at all." One thinks of the recent photographs-- I'm not going to post them, you can hunt them down yourself if you need to be taught that lesson over again-- of children screaming over their parents' body parts in Iraq, and parents trying desperately to put their broken children back together.
People who don't read comics, but are interested in this war of ideals, or the intersection of human reality with fantasy are encouraged to start with Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross' "Marvels". A recent New Yorker cartoon showed a grumpy old man growling past a bookstore, "Now we have to pretend to read GRAPHIC novels, too?"
COMMONPLACE BOOK, EXCERPTS for DECEMBER 2005
Solace for the Magpie Mind.
[A "Commonplace Book" is a collection of random quotations, favorite authors, conversations, clippings, or scribbles on a bathroom wall. Entries are not considered a Rorschach test. Additions will be woven into the main body, with initials to credit the contributor.]
****
****
I know just enough about myself to know I cannot settle for one of those simplifications which indignant people seize upon to make understandable a world too complex for their comprehension. Astrology, health food, flag waving, bible thumping, Zen, nudism, nihilism -- all of these are grotesque simplifications which small dreary people adopt in the hope of thereby finding The Answer, because the very concept that maybe there is no answer, never has been, never will be, terrifies them. (John D. MacDonald)
****
“It is pretty obvious that the debasement of the human mind caused by a constant flow of fraudulent advertising is no trivial thing. There is more than one way to conquer a country.” (Raymond Chandler)
****
"We're looking with intensity at the next generation, trying to engage them early. We need people who will stand up and say, 'This is not acceptable in the 21st century.' Right now, this is not a battle we're winning." (Jennifer Parmelee on a video game, “Food Force”, developed for the World Food Program.)
****
I see more genuine sociability between the races in Mississippi than I see in Michigan. No question.
-- Jim Harrison
****
It's a tonic to find real readers because they just read massively.
-- Jim Harrison
****
Research by Jay D. Wexler, a law professor at Boston University, using transcripts of oral arguments at the United States Supreme Court. Story here.
****
I never saw any of them again - except the cops. No way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them. (Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye)
****
Her eyes rounded. She was puzzled. She was thinking. I could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother to her. (Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep)
****
On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. (Raymond Chandler, "Red Wind")
****
Education is something which should be apart from the necessities of earning a living, not a tool therefore. It needs contemplation, fallow periods, the measured and guided study of the history of man's reiteration of the most agonizing question of all: Why? Today the good ones, the ones who want to ask why, find no one around with any interest in answering the question, so they drop out, because theirs is the type of mind which becomes monstrously bored at the trade-school concept. (John D. MacDonald)
****
"Jack Kirby was a master of his craft, and he produced outrageous, wacky shit like this with such certainty and skill that you either had to embrace it or just stop reading comics altogether because you suck." Dave’s Long Box
****
“The appeal is meant to raise money for UNICEF projects in Burundi, Congo and Sudan, Henon said. However, because of its graphic and disturbing scenes, this cartoon is not for everyone. The advertisement is aimed at an adult audience and is shown only after 9 p.m. to avoid upsetting youngsters.
The video is peacefully introduced by birds, butterflies and happy Smurfs playing and singing their theme song when suddenly, out of the sky, bombs rain down onto their forest village, scattering Papa Smurf and the rest as their houses are set ablaze.
The bombs kill Smurfette, leaving the orphaned Baby Smurf weeping. The ad ends with the text "don't let war destroy the children's world.’... UNICEF traditionally uses real-life images of playing and laughing children but decided to change it for something that would shock people, Henon said.
‘The public is not easily motivated to do things for humanitarian causes and certainly not when it involved Africa or children in war,’ he said.... ‘We see so many images that we don't really react anymore,’ said Julie Lamoureux, account director at Publicis, an advertising agency that drew up the campaign for UNICEF Belgium. ‘In 35 seconds we wanted to show adults how awful war is by reaching them within their memories of childhood.’" (News Story)
****
“When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character, emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has over the ball.” (Raymond Chandler)
****
Bill and Emily Hanavan at Christmas.
According to the National Oceanography Center in Britain, the flow of the Gulf Stream has been reduced by 30 percent since 1957. This is caused by freshwater flooding into the North Atlantic from the melting of the Arctic and Greenland ice caps.
****
“The number of Guantanamo Bay prisoners taking part in a hunger strike that began nearly five months ago has surged to 84 since Christmas Day, the U.S. military said on Thursday....The prisoner population, which the Pentagon says numbers about 500, is believed to be uniformly Muslim. Only nine have been charged with any crime....The detainees began the strike in early August after the military reneged on promises to bring the prison into compliance with the Geneva Conventions, their lawyers said. Detainees are willing to starve to death to demand humane treatment and a fair hearing on whether they must stay, the lawyers said.
Most of the detainees were captured in Afghanistan and have been held for nearly four years.”
--Reuters news story, Dec 30, 2005
****
“The streets were dark with something more than night.”
-- Raymond Chandler
****
I don't find anything perceptually accurate or agreeable or sensical about the media view of American culture.
-- Jim Harrison
****
The fact is, the media never gets off the interstate unless there's a major explosion.
-- Jim Harrison
****
Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it.— Raymond Chandler, "The Simple Art of Murder”
****
I asked a French critic a couple of years ago why my books did so well in France. He said it was because in my novels people both act and think. I got a kick out of that.
-- Jim Harrison
****
You spend all your life trying to do something they put people in asylums for.
-- Henry Fielding
See Also: Commonplace Book 1
[A "Commonplace Book" is a collection of random quotations, favorite authors, conversations, clippings, or scribbles on a bathroom wall. Entries are not considered a Rorschach test. Additions will be woven into the main body, with initials to credit the contributor.]
****
****
I know just enough about myself to know I cannot settle for one of those simplifications which indignant people seize upon to make understandable a world too complex for their comprehension. Astrology, health food, flag waving, bible thumping, Zen, nudism, nihilism -- all of these are grotesque simplifications which small dreary people adopt in the hope of thereby finding The Answer, because the very concept that maybe there is no answer, never has been, never will be, terrifies them. (John D. MacDonald)
****
“It is pretty obvious that the debasement of the human mind caused by a constant flow of fraudulent advertising is no trivial thing. There is more than one way to conquer a country.” (Raymond Chandler)
****
"We're looking with intensity at the next generation, trying to engage them early. We need people who will stand up and say, 'This is not acceptable in the 21st century.' Right now, this is not a battle we're winning." (Jennifer Parmelee on a video game, “Food Force”, developed for the World Food Program.)
****
I see more genuine sociability between the races in Mississippi than I see in Michigan. No question.
-- Jim Harrison
****
It's a tonic to find real readers because they just read massively.
-- Jim Harrison
****
Research by Jay D. Wexler, a law professor at Boston University, using transcripts of oral arguments at the United States Supreme Court. Story here.****
I never saw any of them again - except the cops. No way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them. (Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye)
****
Her eyes rounded. She was puzzled. She was thinking. I could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother to her. (Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep)
****
On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. (Raymond Chandler, "Red Wind")
****
Education is something which should be apart from the necessities of earning a living, not a tool therefore. It needs contemplation, fallow periods, the measured and guided study of the history of man's reiteration of the most agonizing question of all: Why? Today the good ones, the ones who want to ask why, find no one around with any interest in answering the question, so they drop out, because theirs is the type of mind which becomes monstrously bored at the trade-school concept. (John D. MacDonald)
****
"Jack Kirby was a master of his craft, and he produced outrageous, wacky shit like this with such certainty and skill that you either had to embrace it or just stop reading comics altogether because you suck." Dave’s Long Box
****
“The appeal is meant to raise money for UNICEF projects in Burundi, Congo and Sudan, Henon said. However, because of its graphic and disturbing scenes, this cartoon is not for everyone. The advertisement is aimed at an adult audience and is shown only after 9 p.m. to avoid upsetting youngsters.
The video is peacefully introduced by birds, butterflies and happy Smurfs playing and singing their theme song when suddenly, out of the sky, bombs rain down onto their forest village, scattering Papa Smurf and the rest as their houses are set ablaze.
The bombs kill Smurfette, leaving the orphaned Baby Smurf weeping. The ad ends with the text "don't let war destroy the children's world.’... UNICEF traditionally uses real-life images of playing and laughing children but decided to change it for something that would shock people, Henon said.
‘The public is not easily motivated to do things for humanitarian causes and certainly not when it involved Africa or children in war,’ he said.... ‘We see so many images that we don't really react anymore,’ said Julie Lamoureux, account director at Publicis, an advertising agency that drew up the campaign for UNICEF Belgium. ‘In 35 seconds we wanted to show adults how awful war is by reaching them within their memories of childhood.’" (News Story)
****
“When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character, emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has over the ball.” (Raymond Chandler)
****
Bill and Emily Hanavan at Christmas.
According to the National Oceanography Center in Britain, the flow of the Gulf Stream has been reduced by 30 percent since 1957. This is caused by freshwater flooding into the North Atlantic from the melting of the Arctic and Greenland ice caps.
****
“The number of Guantanamo Bay prisoners taking part in a hunger strike that began nearly five months ago has surged to 84 since Christmas Day, the U.S. military said on Thursday....The prisoner population, which the Pentagon says numbers about 500, is believed to be uniformly Muslim. Only nine have been charged with any crime....The detainees began the strike in early August after the military reneged on promises to bring the prison into compliance with the Geneva Conventions, their lawyers said. Detainees are willing to starve to death to demand humane treatment and a fair hearing on whether they must stay, the lawyers said.
Most of the detainees were captured in Afghanistan and have been held for nearly four years.”
--Reuters news story, Dec 30, 2005
****
“The streets were dark with something more than night.”
-- Raymond Chandler
****
I don't find anything perceptually accurate or agreeable or sensical about the media view of American culture.
-- Jim Harrison
****
The fact is, the media never gets off the interstate unless there's a major explosion.
-- Jim Harrison
****
Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it.— Raymond Chandler, "The Simple Art of Murder”
****
I asked a French critic a couple of years ago why my books did so well in France. He said it was because in my novels people both act and think. I got a kick out of that.
-- Jim Harrison
****
You spend all your life trying to do something they put people in asylums for.
-- Henry Fielding
See Also: Commonplace Book 1
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