Last night on Discovery Times, There was a documentary by Thomas J Friedman, “Does Europe Hate Us?” However, this is something I have been thinking about since I lived in the UK when I was in the military in the early 90’s. I am currently doing business in Africa and spend as much time as possible in Europe.

I think that this could fuel a series of shows on Open Source. There are so many points at which the “US as a dominate power” is under serious decline. This show pointed at the legislation being passed in the EU that is putting pressure on US companies and the rest of the world. It goes much further. The world has become very tired of the USA being the ten ton gorilla that demands to have things its way.

At the same time, the USA needs to start to consider the status quo. For instance, the US has been footing the bill in the UN and in NATO, During the Cold War, the US had a lot of leverage, so that “expenditure” had many non-monetary benefits… However, as this trend of “rebellion” against the US grows, we need to start to revaluate our commitment to others.

This is a very fine balance that needs to be achieved. Unfortunately, there is no clear way to determine what is right or wrong or good or bad or …..

On another side, there is a huge problem that most Americans do not have any understanding about the true dynamics that exist in the world. I firmly believe that most Americans have such a false sense of security and complacency about the future, that is very dangerous.

The other key issue that plays in to this is the serious impact that the War on Terrorism, US double standard on many issues (Trade, Israel, Nuclear non-proliferation, humanitarian aid, human rigths, etc) that are severely undermining the respect and influence of that the USA really has around the world. All of these issues, are creating a complex web that needs to be mapped out in order for us to really undstand how the future of the USA will look.

Sincerely, Gohikesomething

This is not a local story:

This morning’s zinger via Georgia10 of DailyKos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/3/26/213412/778

BOSTON –Citing increased concerns about the quality of drugs entering the United States from Canada, federal authorities have stepped up seizures of the prescriptions and sent strongly worded legal warnings to consumers, including some in Massachusetts, who have ordered the discounted drugs. [...]
The government crackdown marks a shift in policy for the Bush administration, which has rarely acted against individuals who buy drugs from Canada, reports The Boston Sunday Globe.

The stricter enforcement policy began Nov. 17, and applies only to mail-order shipments, not to U.S. citizens who cross into Canada to pick up their drugs, Hollinger said.

Salem-resident Nancy Popkin was among the consumers who recently received a letter. She has been ordering the osteoporosis treatment Fosamax from Canadian pharmacies for years and said she was surprised when she received a form letter in the mail from the Department of Homeland Security rather than her usual shipment of 12 tablets. The letter said her medication had been seized because “virtually all” drugs imported by individuals into the United States are unapproved for consumption here or are dispensed without a valid prescription.

read the rest here: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/03/26/feds_crack_down_on_imported_prescriptions/

Also see: Sen. Nelson seeks probe of Canadian drug seizures

Daytona Beach News-Journal

February 26, 2006

The lifeline for Donald Health and his wife — mail-order heart medications from Canada — has been cut off for more than a month, and Florida’s U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson thinks it could be the Bush administration playing politics with people’s health.

At the storefront where Heath, 76, a DeBary resident, orders his prescription medicines from Canada, he’s been told that his is one of a number of orders delayed. He said workers there told him it’s part of a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol crackdown designed to convince seniors to abandon north-of- the-border drug deals and sign up for Medicare’s prescription plan.

Read the rest here: http://www.nelsonforsenate.com/newsroom/mediaclips/?id=13

Now many citizen groups are fighting against relocation plans, that will exand base development in some areas. Residents of the Japanese city of Iwakuni voted overwhelmingly against the expansion of a local US military base, though the national government said it will not recognize the results of the vote.

In a 1999 poll, 63% of Japanese surveyed said they wanted to reduce US bases.

This begs the question, is it time for the US to grant Japan its feedom?

Here is a good back-grounder on the issue.
http://www.jca.apc.org/wsf_support/2004doc/WSFJapUSBaseRepoFinalAll.html

Here is some recent news on the the anti-U.S. military base movement
http://www.japan-press.co.jp/2469/anti-base%20struggle.html

One possible contact would be Pau Arenson, who leads the tokyo progressive website. He could probably put you in touch with an appropriate guest.
paul@tokyoprogressive.org
http://www.tokyoprogressive.org/

Another contact:
Scott Marshall
mailto:scott@rednet.org

He wrote a piece for the People’s Weekly World
U.S. military bases cast shadow across Japan
http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/4890/1/142/

A PLAN is commonly understood as a set of steps to get from point A to point B. We can assume that point A is our current situation. If I accept that a set of steps has been determined to lead us from here to “victory.” Although I would be very interested to find out just what those steps might be, I understand that letting us all in on the details could complicate matters. The question I find MYSELF much more interested in is the definition of point B.

What are we AIMING toward? What would victory in Iraq LOOK LIKE??

It would be great to discuss the landscape and direction of such sites, as well as their impact on culture and the like.

Thanks for your great program,

Timothy K. Price

Thanks for your great program,

Timothy K. Price

Before Cool (B.C.) there was Lord Buckley (born Richard Myrle Buckley, April 5, 1906 in Tuolumne, California). The original viper, the Hall of Fame Hipster, the baddest beatnik, the first flower child, premier white rapper and gospel comic was best known for his “hipsemantic” retellings of Bible stories, Shakespeare soliloquies, history, legend and classic poetry in the 1950s.

Warp speed to the 1930s, ‘40s and beyond in a scattershot career that carried him from the dance marathons and Capone’s murkiest Windy City dives to Swing Era tours with Woody Herman and Gene Krupa, the jazz chapels of New York’s 52nd Street appearances with Ed Sullivan’s U.S.O. troupe and popular television program, bebop’s first stages and vaudeville’s last. Somewhere along the way, Buckley (as true to the tradition of jazz royalty as Duke Ellington, Count Basie and King Oliver) had become a Lord, creating a kingdom in miniature replete with his own peculiar sense of protocol and a lifestyle that might conservatively be described as libertine.

Buckley assumed the manner of an English nobleman, becoming a most immaculately hip aristocrat with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, twirling his Daliesque mustache and gracefully drawing on his omnipresent Lucky Strike — his massive frame cloaked in a tuxedo, a fresh carnation attached smartly to the lapel.

By 1950 he had fully developed the style he had been honing for twenty years, taking the persona of “His Lordship” wherever he swung. Campy bits were de-emphasized and in their place were the classic Lord Buckley raps recasting incidents from history and mythology into a patois cross-pollinating scat singing, black jive talk and the King’s English. This odd alchemy often yielded spectacular results such as “The Nazz” (as in Nazzarene), a cool Gospel of Christ and his disciples, which revealed Buckley’s gifts and power in all their raging glory.

In addition to “The Nazz,” Buckley employed his distinctive and compelling brogue to celebrate Gandhi (“The Hip Gahn”), Spanish explorer Alvar Nunez Cabaza de Vaca (“The Gasser”), The Old Testament (“Jonah and the Whale”) ancient Rome (“Nero”), Edgar Allen Poe (“Po’ Eddie and the Bugbird”), Albert Einstein (“The Hip Einie”), William Shakespeare (“Willie The Shake” and “Hipsters, Flipsters and Finger-Poppin’ Daddies”), Charles Dickens (“Scrooge”) Abraham Lincoln (“Gettysburg Address”) and the Marquis de Sade (“The Bad Rapping of. . . “).

Buckley’s choice to hipify the classics was no mere gimmick. By taking tales with which his audience was already familiar he showed how the spirit of the old heroes and heels contained contemporary meaning and importance. He infused his tales with visionary qualities and definite, if sometimes subtle, points of view. As he said in his hip version of the “Gettysburg Address”: “all Cats and Kitties, red, white or blue, are created level in front – that means the same, ya dig.”

Alternately, Lord Buckley developed other forms of presentation which drew on elements of Americana (“The Train”), pathology (“Murder”), psychology (“Subconcsious Mind”), politics (“Governor Slugwell” and “H-Bomb”), sexuality (“Chastity Belt”), and transcendence (“God’s Own Drunk”).

Capturing the post-World War II exuberance of bebop and the Beats, Buckley anticipated the civil rights struggles by a decade and hippies by two. The subtextual essence embedded in Buckley’s best both satirically condemn social ills and identify enlightening solutions. Even today, if given the chance, Buckley could raise the hackles of both the Religious Right and/or the Politically Correct for all the wrong reasons.

Since his still mysterious death in 1960 (coming on the heels of an arrest by the N.Y.P.D. vice squad for an alleged cabaret card violation), Buckley’s name and routines have been magically invoked by the modern hipnoscente like a sorcerer’s talisman with titles like “The Nazz� acquiring a Kabbalistic power for succeeding generations of admirers, including artists as diverse and important as Dylan, Robin Williams, Jerry Garcia, Ken Kesey, David Amram, Eric Bogosian, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Bill T. Jones, James Taylor, Sly Stone, Frank Zappa, Jimmy Buffett, Robert Dick and Ken Kesey.

Like most underground heroes and neglected visionaries, Lord Buckley’s reputation and artistic contributions have gained power through the decades. No graffiti appeared on the New York City subway walls or subterranean commode stalls across America sounding a phoenix-like rise from the ashes as the message “Bird Lives� had. But, like Charlie Parker, Lord Buckley had boldly crossed the ill-defined frontier from icon to myth, taking the language of his art and investing it with new intensity, color and significance.

For more visit Lord Buckley On-line:
http://www.lordbuckley.com

Best,
Abe

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020406I.shtml

and:

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,16559,1589967,00.html

Cheers.

You can study human populations, which intergrade rather uniformly all around the globe (with some obvious geographical exceptions) but there’s not a whit of merit in the notion that you can study ‘race’ – because ‘race’ doesn’t exist in any meaningful scientific way.

Its only relevance is social. And it’s arbitrary

Thus, I reckon Jonathan Marks might provide a fascinating angle for an upcoming ‘Race & Class in America’ program.

See the reviews at the Amazon link provided above, and another @ http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/petto.html

Now, when do we get our next edition of the Suggest A Show thread?
Nudge.
Prod.
Poke.

ROS staff: whichever of you working on the next Iran show will want to give this a listen for the excellence of the several expert guests, any or many of whom you might want to invite onto ROS.

Sorry for the rant.

Henery Waxman seems like a good choice for a guest and also if you check out Halliburton Watch on the web you’ll get lots of info and ideas.