Please Watch These

If you ever, EVER take advice from me about anything, please watch these two clips.

The first one comes from Boy1 Via Aunt3 (a cryptic scoring system that only a few people in the world will understand). But it gives me so much hope. And so much happiness. And if you make it through the Jon Stewart one, watch the TalkingPointsMemo guy. These people are thoughtful. They are articulate. And they understand the game being played, and how to engage in that game.

You will be a better person, and better able to participate in a democracy if you watch this half hour PBS show.

Next up is Hometown Baghdad. I've had the great pleasure to meet and speak with one of the producers on this program (I wish I could expand on that thought, but it would violate my no-proper-nouns clause in the blog)

This, represents for me, all that is great about journalism in the new world of the Internet. It portrays the humanity of people living in Iraq, and disabuses us of that easy notion that they are all numbers on an ever growing death count. Even more so because they are SO MUCH like me. And they are strong and interesting... anyway, another reason that this week, the Bush Junta isn't rattling my cage. You know why? Because greatness does exist in the face of everything they have come up with, and we will overcome. Voices from Iraq that matter.

And, just so you don't think I have lost my sense of outrage: Glenn Beck is on a Straight Roll these days. The CNN commentator, last week compared America leaving Iraq to the moral equivalent of Slavery. (and I'm not paraphrasing here. he said exactly that).

And now, this week, he is playing my least favorite card ever: that someone is basically the same as Hitler. But who, might you ask, raised Glenn's Ire? Check this out:

"Al Gore's not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them," Beck is careful to explain. "It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax. The goal is the United Nations running the world. That is the goal. Back in the 1930s, the goal was get rid of all of the Jews and have one global government ... You got to have an enemy to fight. And when you have an enemy to fight, then you can unite the entire world behind you, and you seize power. That was Hitler's plan. His enemy: the Jew. Al Gore's enemy, the U.N.'s enemy: global warming ... Then you get the scientists -- eugenics. You get the scientists -- global warming. Then you have to discredit the scientists who say, 'That's not right.' And you must silence all dissenting voices. That's what Hitler did."

Damn James. Thats some harsh words. Remember Jon Stewart. Remember Jon Stewart.