sparrow chat

Some may see little to compare between the recent launch of a violent video game and the wars in the Middle East. After all, the bloodthirsty slaying and criminal activities indulged by gaming fans around the world, as Grand Theft Auto Four hits the computer scene, are ethereal and unreal. It can surely have little to do with the real world, when blood and guts are only made of pixels.

Or, can it?

Most gamers recoil in horror at any suggestion video games can impact violent crime statistics. Just because it’s fun to kill and torture people in cyberspace doesn’t necessarily make it fun in reality, but how far does it go towards dulling the sensitivities, presenting an aura of thuggery as an okay idea?

No-one knows, because no-one’s done the research. Yet the military has been using video games as training elements for years.^[1] Presumably, they must have some effect in persuading young soldiers to kill?

It’s interesting to note how the top-rankers on Western culture’s scale of antisocial behavior – violence and sex – have evolved in America. Europe, generally, is far more tolerant of sexual activity and soft pornography than its transatlantic neighbor but considers, at least gratuitous violence, as an unacceptable symptom of a sick society. This is not to suggest that French or Italian kids don’t play violent video games, merely that society’s emphasis is different.

While the reason for strict suppression of natural sexual urges in the young is fairly easy to identify in American society (it’s way behind Europe in evolving from its strong Calvinistic indoctrinations) the almost heros-ian treatment of violence as something acceptable and to be encouraged is less easy to comprehend, until one realizes that attitudes towards both sex and violence emanate from the same religious root.

America is not enamored of violence for it’s own sake. The foundations of this love-affair began years ago, in a great American ideal: the triumph of ‘Good’ over ‘Evil’, as preached to the early settlers by fire and brimstone pastors from makeshift pulpits all across the territory, and exported to the Americas, ironically, from Europe.

This ideal helped combat the gun-toting lawlessness of the early American West, and was later oft-immortalized by Hollywood as a representation of good always conquering evil, usually after a bitter struggle. Later, as America advanced towards superpower-ship, the ideal was fermented and poured out to the masses to be drunk as a heady elixir of righteousness and power. America was not just king of the world, but a moral crusader leading the planet to a better future, overlooked and egged-on by a God that had become America’s very own.

Two savage world wars in Europe, and particularly the later one that terrorized civilians throughout the continent, helped cast the yoke of strangulating religion from the masses, most of whom questioned a God that could sit back and allow such suffering. For America, however, they were just foreign wars. It seemed God was good to America, protecting its civilians from the dastardly goings-on across the Atlantic.

Violence, in the pursuit of righteousness, was obviously acceptable to God, and America forged ahead with plans to ensure it stayed that way.

Militarism became just another part of American religion. Like its sidekick, Israel, America was prepared to use violence in almost any form, and to any degree, to further its righteous empire. The British utilized a similar policy some hundred years before, and in the name of the self-same God.

Today, God and US violence walk the same path, holding hands. America is heaven-bent on bringing its God to the Middle East, whether they want it or not, and the death toll is of no importance.

Dead soldiers are heroes; dead Iraqis are collateral damage. A plethora of violent TV shows, movies, video games, assisted by patriotic chants and indoctrinal schooling – all watched over and blessed by the great American God – will help ensure a plentiful supply of suitably programmed ‘heroes’ to swell the ranks prepared to kill, torture, and maim for the cause: the God-given ideal of American ‘Superpower’ righteousness.

Were America to lift its head, albeit briefly, and peruse the path of history, it would note a vast number of other nations gone down that road before. Most are long, long gone. Without exception, they all looked to their God.

It seems when the die are cast, and the bets are lost, the God invested in so heavily takes off to find another host.

All that’s left is a screen that reads: “GAME OVER”.

^{[1] “War games: Military training goes high-tech”, CNN, November 23rd 2001.}

Filed under: God’s video games

Posted under Sparrow Chat

Two great current affairs programs aired interesting shows this week. The first, from Frontline, explored the lessons America could learn from other health systems around the world, and compared them to the ailing service provided – for a price – in the US.^[1] The film is delivered by T.R. Reid, described by the Washington Post as:

“….a former chief of The Washington Post’s London, Tokyo and Rocky Mountain bureaus……[who]……also had stints covering Congress, national politics and four presidential elections for the paper. He is the author of eight books — three in Japanese — most recently “The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy.”"

Don’t think from this that Reid is biased towards European healthcare systems. The arguments for and against are delivered succinctly and without bias.

Bill Moyers Journal devoted its whole hour-long program to an interview with Jeremiah Wright, the retired pastor whose sound-bites the US media have used to whip up a political frenzy over Barack Obama.^[2] Wright delivered an intelligent and logical assessment, provided an hour of serious intellectual argument, and left one with, if nothing else, a realization of the deadly power of the media to use sound-bites as a means of twisting and distorting facts. Underneath the ‘hellfire and brimstone’ imagery, Wright comes across as a peace-loving and serious Christian whose belief in the message of Jesus Christ is both accurate and unshakable, which is more than can be said for many who have condemned him, while still professing that faith yet holding no allegiance to its true teachings. Anyone lulled by the media into believing this man is just another ignorant religious black hellraiser needs to watch this program.

Both shows are available for viewing online at the links below.

^{[1] “Sick Around The World”, Frontline PBS}

^{[2] “Bill Moyer’s Journal – Rev. Jeremiah Wright Interview”}

Filed under: Great American television

Posted under Sparrow Chat

The world seems to be sinking ever deeper into a desperate state. Iraq and Afghanistan are adrift in the doldrums of death and suffering, poorer nations cry out for food, Robert Mugabe rules his evil empire in Zimbabwe beating and imprisoning all who stand in his way, and over all hangs the specter of global warming, nuclear terrorism, and prohibitive oil prices.

There’s no doubt the blame for much of the mess we find ourselves in today, lies with politicians and world leaders, but can we hang it all on them or should we, perhaps, look a little closer to home?

I was reading an article in the Times Online today regarding the situation in Zimbabwe. The piece itself was well written, and factual, and as I came to the end my eyes drifted casually to the “Comments” section, now so prevalent in these online resources since the advent of blogs. I was taken aback by the viciousness and contemptuous hatred of some commentators, not towards the subject matter of the article, but to responses from fellow reviewers.

In fact, the snipes weren’t about Zimbabwe directly, but over whether the US, or Europe, should intervene. Surprisingly, while one Brit slagged off the US and its citizens for lack of action, a Canadian reviled Europe and Europeans in general for also sitting back doing nothing.

It caused me to ponder how frequently I peruse similar “Comments” sections, not in the small personal blogs where such acrimony is thankfully relatively rare, but on the big, institutional, media websites where, sadly, it’s prevalent.

I realized I’d long ago given up browsing these areas just for that reason. Vitriol abounds in the online press, not from its writers but through its readers. The opportunity to “have a go” at another person for daring to express a contrary opinion is, it seems, just too good to miss.

Of course, such interaction isn’t limited to newspaper “Comments” sections. Examples are readily available from almost every aspect of human life. We find it in spectator sport, religious organizations, even in shopping malls, and most of all in the American media, where it’s used as a grotesque form of entertainment. Anyone who’s ever watched Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly lose his cool and verbally assault a guest not in tune with his own opinion, will know exactly what I mean.

I’m not suggesting it’s wrong to address another’s viewpoint when it’s directly opposed to one’s own. The fault occurs when we deride and insult that person, or their country of birth, or some other aspect of their being, simply because they dare to hold an opposing perspective.

After 9/11, George W Bush made a speech to the world in which he denounced three other nations as an “Axis of Evil”. Not one of those three had any involvement in the 9/11 attacks, yet Bush denounced them for holding opposing views to that of the American social system.

Our leaders are quick to try and turn us against those they see as “enemies”, even when those nations have neither the ability nor desire to attack us.

Should we, then, blame our leaders for teaching us to assault those who dare to be different? I think not. Politicians don’t teach us anything. They just mirror our behavior. They have to, or they’d never make it into office.

It is we, the people, who elect them, and we choose those we consider most like ourselves. George W Bush was elected because many considered he was “one of us”, not one of those starchy, distant beings many politicians rapidly become. When George W Bush aroused support for attacking the people of Iraq, 84% of Americans were solidly behind him, and woe betide anyone ‘unpatriotic’ enough to suggest it was a wrong decision. And they stayed there – until matters went badly wrong.

Recently, Barack Obama was personally attacked by the media and his opponents for the crime of ‘elitism’. He dared to tell his perceived truth about the problems facing many small-town Americans. Yet we all suffer from the crime of ‘elitism’ – every one of us. Whenever we make a personal assault, whether verbal or physical, on another human being we are expressing elitism – our own sense of superiority; the feeling we generate that somehow the other person is inferior to ourselves.

Until we lose this need to bolster our own insecurities by making others look small and insignificant, we can hardly expect our politicians to behave in a proper and responsible way.

Or, to put it differently, while we behave like mindless hooligans, we’ll continue to elect mindless hooligans. Not only that, our media will continue to provide us with entertainment fit only for mindless hooligans.

Filed under: Less hate, more tolerance

Posted under Sparrow Chat

Eighty-two year old, legendary auto executive Lee Iacocca has a question for every American: Where have all the leaders gone?

Here’s an excerpt from his book, courtesy of Al Devito at “Vineyard Views”.

Iacocca’s opinion of George W Bush concurs with Sparrow Chat’s:

“Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with what’s happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can’t even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, “Stay the course.”

Stay the course? You’ve got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I’ll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I’m getting senile, that I’ve gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don’t need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we’re fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That’s not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I’ve had enough. How about you?

I’ll go a step further. You can’t call yourself a patriot if you’re not outraged. This is a fight I’m ready and willing to have.

My friends tell me to calm down. They say, “Lee, you’re eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people.” I’d love to—as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I’m going to speak up because it’s my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I’ll tell you how I see it, and it’s not pretty, but at least it’s real. I’m hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don’t vote because they don’t trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us.

Who Are These Guys, Anyway?

Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them—or at least some of us did. But I’ll tell you what we didn’t do. We didn’t agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn’t agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that’s a dictatorship, not a democracy.

And don’t tell me it’s all the fault of right-wing Republicans or liberal Democrats. That’s an intellectually lazy argument, and it’s part of the reason we’re in this stew. We’re not just a nation of factions. We’re a people. We share common principles and ideals. And we rise and fall together.

Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action and make us stand taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of Lincoln? What happened to the courageous, populist party of FDR and Truman? There was a time in this country when the voices of great leaders lifted us up and made us want to do better. Where have all the leaders gone?

The Test of a Leader

I’ve never been Commander in Chief, but I’ve been a CEO. I understand a few things about leadership at the top. I’ve figured out nine points—not ten (I don’t want people accusing me of thinking I’m Moses). I call them the “Nine Cs of Leadership.” They’re not fancy or complicated. Just clear, obvious qualities that every true leader should have. We should look at how the current administration stacks up. Like it or not, this crew is going to be around until January 2009. Maybe we can learn something before we go to the polls in 2008. Then let’s be sure we use the leadership test to screen the candidates who say they want to run the country. It’s up to us to choose wisely.

So, here’s my C list:

A leader has to show CURIOSITY. He has to listen to people outside of the “Yes, sir” crowd in his inner circle. He has to read voraciously, because the world is a big, complicated place. George W. Bush brags about never reading a newspaper. “I just scan the headlines,” he says. Am I hearing this right? He’s the President of the United States and he never reads a newspaper? Thomas Jefferson once said, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.” Bush disagrees. As long as he gets his daily hour in the gym, with Fox News piped through the sound system, he’s ready to go.

If a leader never steps outside his comfort zone to hear different ideas, he grows stale. If he doesn’t put his beliefs to the test, how does he know he’s right? The inability to listen is a form of arrogance. It means either you think you already know it all, or you just don’t care. Before the 2006 election, George Bush made a big point of saying he didn’t listen to the polls. Yeah, that’s what they all say when the polls stink. But maybe he should have listened, because 70 percent of the people were saying he was on the wrong track. It took a “thumping” on election day to wake him up, but even then you got the feeling he wasn’t listening so much as he was calculating how to do a better job of convincing everyone he was right.

A leader has to be CREATIVE, go out on a limb, be willing to try something different. You know, think outside the box. George Bush prides himself on never changing, even as the world around him is spinning out of control. God forbid someone should accuse him of flip-flopping. There’s a disturbingly messianic fervor to his certainty. Senator Joe Biden recalled a conversation he had with Bush a few months after our troops marched into Baghdad. Joe was in the Oval Office outlining his concerns to the President—the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanded Iraqi army, the problems securing the oil fields. “The President was serene,” Joe recalled. “He told me he was sure that we were on the right course and that all would be well. ‘Mr. President,’ I finally said, ‘how can you be so sure when you don’t yet know all the facts?’” Bush then reached over and put a steadying hand on Joe’s shoulder. “My instincts,” he said. “My instincts.” Joe was flabbergasted. He told Bush, “Mr. President, your instincts aren’t good enough.” Joe Biden sure didn’t think the matter was settled. And, as we all know now, it wasn’t.

Leadership is all about managing change—whether you’re leading a company or leading a country. Things change, and you get creative. You adapt. Maybe Bush was absent the day they covered that at Harvard Business School.

A leader has to COMMUNICATE. I’m not talking about running off at the mouth or spouting sound bites. I’m talking about facing reality and telling the truth. Nobody in the current administration seems to know how to talk straight anymore. Instead, they spend most of their time trying to convince us that things are not really as bad as they seem. I don’t know if it’s denial or dishonesty, but it can start to drive you crazy after a while. Communication has to start with telling the truth, even when it’s painful. The war in Iraq has been, among other things, a grand failure of communication. Bush is like the boy who didn’t cry wolf when the wolf was at the door. After years of being told that all is well, even as the casualties and chaos mount, we’ve stopped listening to him.

A leader has to be a person of CHARACTER. That means knowing the difference between right and wrong and having the guts to do the right thing. Abraham Lincoln once said, “If you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” George Bush has a lot of power. What does it say about his character? Bush has shown a willingness to take bold action on the world stage because he has the power, but he shows little regard for the grievous consequences. He has sent our troops (not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens) to their deaths—for what? To build our oil reserves? To avenge his daddy because Saddam Hussein once tried to have him killed? To show his daddy he’s tougher? The motivations behind the war in Iraq are questionable, and the execution of the war has been a disaster. A man of character does not ask a single soldier to die for a failed policy.

A leader must have COURAGE. I’m talking about balls. (That even goes for female leaders.) Swagger isn’t courage. Tough talk isn’t courage. George Bush comes from a blue-blooded Connecticut family, but he likes to talk like a cowboy. You know, My gun is bigger than your gun. Courage in the twenty-first century doesn’t mean posturing and bravado. Courage is a commitment to sit down at the negotiating table and talk.

If you’re a politician, courage means taking a position even when you know it will cost you votes. Bush can’t even make a public appearance unless the audience has been handpicked and sanitized. He did a series of so-called town hall meetings last year, in auditoriums packed with his most devoted fans. The questions were all softballs.

To be a leader you’ve got to have CONVICTION—a fire in your belly. You’ve got to have passion. You’ve got to really want to get something done. How do you measure fire in the belly? Bush has set the all-time record for number of vacation days taken by a U.S. President—four hundred and counting. He’d rather clear brush on his ranch than immerse himself in the business of governing. He even told an interviewer that the high point of his presidency so far was catching a seven-and-a-half-pound perch in his hand-stocked lake.

It’s no better on Capitol Hill. Congress was in session only ninety-seven days in 2006. That’s eleven days less than the record set in 1948, when President Harry Truman coined the term do-nothing Congress. Most people would expect to be fired if they worked so little and had nothing to show for it. But Congress managed to find the time to vote itself a raise. Now, that’s not leadership.

A leader should have CHARISMA. I’m not talking about being flashy. Charisma is the quality that makes people want to follow you. It’s the ability to inspire. People follow a leader because they trust him. That’s my definition of charisma. Maybe George Bush is a great guy to hang out with at a barbecue or a ball game. But put him at a global summit where the future of our planet is at stake, and he doesn’t look very presidential. Those frat-boy pranks and the kidding around he enjoys so much don’t go over that well with world leaders. Just ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who received an unwelcome shoulder massage from our President at a G-8 Summit. When he came up behind her and started squeezing, I thought she was going to go right through the roof.

A leader has to be COMPETENT. That seems obvious, doesn’t it? You’ve got to know what you’re doing. More important than that, you’ve got to surround yourself with people who know what they’re doing. Bush brags about being our first MBA President. Does that make him competent? Well, let’s see. Thanks to our first MBA President, we’ve got the largest deficit in history, Social Security is on life support, and we’ve run up a half-a-trillion-dollar price tag (so far) in Iraq. And that’s just for starters. A leader has to be a problem solver, and the biggest problems we face as a nation seem to be on the back burner.

You can’t be a leader if you don’t have COMMON SENSE. I call this Charlie Beacham’s rule. When I was a young guy just starting out in the car business, one of my first jobs was as Ford’s zone manager in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. My boss was a guy named Charlie Beacham, who was the East Coast regional manager. Charlie was a big Southerner, with a warm drawl, a huge smile, and a core of steel. Charlie used to tell me, “Remember, Lee, the only thing you’ve got going for you as a human being is your ability to reason and your common sense. If you don’t know a dip of horseshit from a dip of vanilla ice cream, you’ll never make it.” George Bush doesn’t have common sense. He just has a lot of sound bites. You know—Mr.they’ll-welcome-us-as-liberators-no-child-left-behind-heck
-of-a-job-Brownie-mission-accomplished Bush.

Former President Bill Clinton once said, “I grew up in an alcoholic home. I spent half my childhood trying to get into the reality-based world—and I like it here.”

I think our current President should visit the real world once in a while.

The Biggest C is Crisis

Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It’s easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else’s kids off to war when you’ve never seen a battlefield yourself. It’s another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. Where was George Bush? He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when he heard about the attacks. He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face. It’s all on tape. You can see it for yourself. Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and immediately going on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn’t safe to return to the White House. He basically went into hiding for the day—and he told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker. We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our wits, waiting for our leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay, and there was nobody home. It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero.

That was George Bush’s moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when he’d regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq—a road his own father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush didn’t listen to Daddy. He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being faith based, not reality based. If that doesn’t scare the crap out of you, I don’t know what will.

A Hell of a Mess

So here’s where we stand. We’re immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We’re running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We’re losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you’ve got to ask: “Where have all the leaders gone?” Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We’ve spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.

Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm. Everyone’s hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn’t happen again. Now, that’s just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you’re going to do the next time.

Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when “the Big Three” referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen—and more important, what are we going to do about it?

Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.

I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn’t elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don’t you guys show some spine for a change?

Had Enough?

Hey, I’m not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I’m trying to light a fire. I’m speaking out because I have hope. I believe in America. In my lifetime I’ve had the privilege of living through some of America’s greatest moments. I’ve also experienced some of our worst crises—the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s this: You don’t get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it’s building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That’s the challenge I’m raising in this book. It’s a call to action for people who, like me, believe in America. It’s not too late, but it’s getting pretty close. So let’s shake off the horseshit and go to work. Let’s tell ‘em all we’ve had enough.”

^{Excerpted from Where Have All the Leaders Gone?. Copyright © 2007 by Lee Iacocca. All rights reserved.}

Filed under: More Americans like this, please

Posted under Sparrow Chat

Thank you George Walker Bush. Thank you, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair.

For making your sins our sins, thank you.

Below is the narrative that accompanies this short video:

“The women of Iraq have disappeared. Five years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, women’s secular freedoms – once the envy of women across the Middle East – have been snatched away because militant Islam is rising across the country. Across Iraq, a bloody and relentless oppression of women has taken hold. Many women had their heads shaved for refusing to wear a scarf or have been stoned in the street for wearing make-up. Others have been kidnapped and murdered for crimes that are being labelled simply as “inappropriate behaviour”. The insurrection against the fragile and barely functioning state has left the country prey to extremists whose notion of freedom does not extend to women. In Basra, where Mehdi Army retains a stranglehold, women insist the situation is at its worst. Here they are forced to live behind closed doors only to emerge, concealed behind scarves, hidden behind husbands and fathers. Even wearing a pair of trousers is considered an act of defiance, punishable by death. One Basra woman, known only as Dr Kefaya, was working in the women and children’s hospital unit at the city university when she started receiving threats from extremists. She defied them. Then, one day a man walked into the building and murdered her.

Behind the wave of insurgent attacks, the violence against women who dare to challenge the Islamic orthodoxy is growing. Fatwas banning women from driving or being seen out alone are regularly issued. Infiltrated by militia, the police are unwilling or unable to crack down on the fundamentalists. Ms Alebadi said: “After the fall of the regime, the religious extremist parties came out on to the streets and threatened women. Although the extremists are in the minority, they control powerful positions, so they control Basra.” To venture on the streets today without a male relative is to risk attack, humiliation or kidnap. A journalist, Shatta Kareem, said: “I was driving my car one day when someone just crashed into me and drove me off the road. If a woman is seen driving these days it is considered a violation of men’s rights.”"

Filed under: Bush’s war

Posted under Sparrow Chat

One of the primary causes of rising food prices throughout the world is the cost of crude oil. Neo-con World Bank president Robert Zoellick – hastily transplanted to the position by George W Bush when Wolfowitz crept away in shame – says it’s all down to Third World countries suddenly eating too much. But he’s wrong, of course. This is a crisis in the making five years, not the decades necessary for emerging economies to make a serious difference.

In fact, food shortages have come about so rapidly in Asia that no-one heard about them in the West until a few months ago.

So who, or what, is to blame?

Look at any graph of oil prices from 2003 to present day and you’d need an Abrams tank to negotiate the curve. In 2002, gas price at the pump was $1.35. Today, it’s $3.55….and rising. The Iraq war (Bush’s War) began in March 2003, as did the rise in oil prices. Today, the Iraq war (Bush’s War) continues to create mayhem in the Middle East, and the price of oil goes ever higher.

In 2002, George W Bush set in motion a crazy, unregulated system supposedly to create “……5.5 million more [minority] homeowners by 2010……”.^[1] To achieve this goal, he let loose the financial institutions on what we now know as the “Great Sub-Prime Mortgage Fiasco”. The resulting crisis was enough to tip America into a full-scale recession, and send banks and finance houses around the world into meltdown.

As a result, investors moved their money, large-scale, into the safer commodities markets, causing more pressure on food prices already under siege from crude oil hikes.

In January 2007, George W Bush mandated a seven-fold rise in the use of ethanol from corn and other vegetable matter by 2017^[2]. Such criminal irresponsibility in the face of surging oil prices, and knowing full well the state of the economy (which, at the time he was declaring as ‘good and healthy’) indicates Bush’s true interest in the world outside the United States.

Put simply, he has none, and is prepared to sacrifice thousands of non-American lives to starvation, in the pursuit of corporate wealth.

Bush’s reasoning behind increasing ethanol production was, by his own admission, to do away with US reliance on Middle Eastern oil (after all, Iraq’s oilfields weren’t exactly fulfilling the neo-con dream) but his doing so made it painfully obvious where the markets would end up. Farmers in the Mid-West moved over to ethanol-corn production en masse, creating the equivalent of yet another world recession, only this time in food.

When the American Mid-West can’t provide enough corn to feed its people and its animals, the whole world suffers.

The American vulture media has once again found something to feast upon. A few quick shots of Haitians rioting over food shortages switch rapidly to the appalling news that from today, Sam’s Club and other major retailers are limiting customers to only four 50lb bags of Basmati rice at one time. How long can this nation’s populace endure such horrendous hardship?

The media consumes every spare moment of late with ghastly tales of rocketing fuel prices, a sinking economy, Americans made homeless by bad mortgage deals, and the possibility of much worse to come. Yet, it never, ever, asks the question: who is to blame for it all?

Can there be anywhere else that the buck stops – other than at the desk of the one man responsible for the predicament faced by the world today? The leader of the nation that has created and maintains this crisis.

When asked about these present catastrophes, George W Bush and his minions repeatedly make vague reference to a ‘downturn in world markets’. They’re not lying. What they forget to mention is the ‘downturn’ results directly from their own failed policies; policies designed to make them extremely wealthy, America even more of a dictator state ruling the world, and greed the driving force that is leading this earth to the brink of disaster.

Today, the price of oil rose another three dollars. Analysts announced it was due directly to an incident in the Persian Gulf when an American vessel fired towards small boats in the area.^[3]

Clear evidence, then, of the cause of spiraling oil prices. One minor incident is all it takes to up the price – at three dollars a shot.

The only other question left unanswered by the American media is – who gets those three dollars per barrel?

^{[1] “One Heckuva Job”, Sparrow Chat, March 13th, 2008}

^{[2] “Ethanol Industry Gets a Boost From Bush”, Washington Post, January 25th, 2007}

^{[3] “Oil near $119 after report of Iranian boat firing”, MSNBC, April 25th, 2008}

Filed under: Oil, food, and Ethanol

Posted under Sparrow Chat

It’s always been a policy at Sparrow Chat to answer individual comments, where time allows. With regard to the comments relating to the post below, I would like to take this opportunity, on the main page, to whole-heartedly (no pun intended) thank all of you who have left comments, and those who have emailed, sympathizing with our recent troubles and wishing me well for the future.

I am now fully recovered and feel in the best of health, indeed ten years younger than the old bugger who had begun to puff and blow each time he got out of his chair, less than one week ago. Such crises are a warning, however, and while I lived an active life until 2002, when I moved to America, I have slowly drifted into a more sedentary lifestyle, spending far too much time in front of the computer, and too little outside in the real world.

For me, it’s not easy living in Illinois, with its hot, humid summers and man-eating mosquitoes, quickly followed by the searing cold of mid-western winters. I once kept fit by climbing Welsh mountains and hiking trails, but there are no mountains in Illinois, and the only trails are through miles of cornfields and traveled by farm machinery.

In three years, we will move to either Maine or Upper Michigan, where the winters may be hard but the scenery wonderful, and the summers gentle. Until then, I must do whatever I can to stay fit and healthy.

This means there must be some minor changes at Sparrow Chat. Much as I enjoy commenting on your comments, I have decided that in future I will only do so when the content warrants it. After all, my greatest pleasure is reading them. Similarly, I endeavor to comment on many of the posts you write, even if only to add my own support for a view or observation. In future I will only comment when I feel I have something pertinent to add.

All writers appreciate feedback, and comments help provide that, but one of the best blogs on the internet, in my opinion, receives hardly any comments at all and yet must be read widely. I’m referring, of course, to the excellent “Vineyard Views” of one of my earliest blogging pals, Al DeVito.

Hopefully, by denying myself these simple pleasures I will leave time to keep fit and still write Sparrow Chat fairly regularly. One thing I can promise all my blogging friends out there, I’ll still be reading. So if you don’t hear from me quite so regularly, don’t assume I’m no longer perusing your pages.

Remember, you can’t escape me, I have your site feeds!

Once again, thank you all.

Filed under: Good friends

Posted under Sparrow Chat

With the possible exception of the cemetery, almost any place would be a welcome escape if it prevented the viewing – the humiliation – of the United State’s three presidential candidates, as portrayed on a popular wrestling program last Monday evening.^[1]

Presumably, there must be many Americans who find this kind of thing amusing, enlightening, perhaps even an aid to resolution for those last-minute undecideds?

Frankly, to this more-conservative liberal, it sets the seal on how low America has allowed itself to sink, while still screaming from the rooftops of its ‘superlative’ world status.

I was spared all this hype, apart from a brief few moments caught on a recording of last night’s Daily Show, because I was in the hospital. Not wishing to bore with minute detail, but suffice to say I arrived at the ER with chest pains and within twenty-four hours my coronary artery was being fitted with a stent, following diagnosis of a 99% blockage.

It happens to thousands of people every week. There’s nothing unusual about it. Frankly, though, it gave me cause to speculate. You see, I’ve always kept reasonably fit; lived an outdoor lifestyle, never allowed my body an excess of things not good for it. Rarely has alcohol been abused, usually sticking to the occasional glass or two of red wine, even less frequent measure of good Scotch whisky. I don’t smoke. There is no whisper of genetic heart defect within my ancestry. In fact, most doctors would agree I was the most unlikely candidate for coronary artery disease.

I even, meticulously, swallowed a low-dose aspirin daily – just to err on the side of caution.

Consequently, when even the slightest exertion brought on a stinging pain behind the breastbone, I wrestled with it; told myself it could only be due to that one problem from which my body has ever suffered: esophageal acid reflux.

I was fortunate; a caring wife, insisting she drive me to the ER, “NOW!” cheated the Grim Reaper as cardiologists rapidly diagnosed a condition they colloquially refer to as the “Widow-Maker”. I was weeks, possibly only days away from a massive, and likely fatal, heart-attack.

It happens to thousands of people every week. I’ve known friends die from it, so suddenly they’re there one moment, gone the next.

I was fortunate. Had I listened solely to my own irresponsible, “That can’t ever happen to me,” I may not be writing these words now.

The truth is it can happen to anyone, however fit, however healthy their lifestyle, however free of heart disease their family tree.

If in doubt, get checked out. It’s a corny slogan, but it’s a damn sight more corny to die when you don’t have to.

You can do as I did, and Obama, Clinton, and McCain: hang about stupidly wrestling, or you can behave as the good US president would, by making when necessary a firm, positive, and right decision.

^{[1] “A Smackdown Among Presidential Candidates?” YouTube.}

Filed under: On the ropes

Posted under Sparrow Chat