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Today's
Stories
February 14/15, 2004
Stan Goff
Beloved Haiti
February 13, 2004
Alan Maass
Kevin
Cooper's Fight to Live
Karyn Strickler
McCarthyism in the Sierra Club
Annie Higgins
On
a Street in America
Adam Federman
Democratic Snipers Target Nader
Mike Whitney
George W. Faces the Nation
Brian Cloughley
Our Imperial Leader Has Spoken
Website of the Day
Lying Action Figure Doll
February 12, 2004
Ray McGovern
George
Tenet's Spin Cycle
Robert Jensen
Bush's
Nuclear Hypocrisy
Saul Landau
Elegy to the Salton Sea
February
11, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Hail, Kerry: Senator Facing-Both-Ways
Steve Perry
Bush
v. Bush?
February
10, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
Inquisition in Iowa
Ron Jacobs
Politics and the Beatles: Don't
You Know You Can Count Me Out (In)
Elizabeth
Schulte
The Many Faces of John Kerry
Mickey
Z
Meet the Oxmans: "The Rich
Shouldn't Sleep at Night Either"
February
9, 2004
Michael
Donnelly
Will Skull and Bones Really Change
CEOs? Inside John Kerry's Closet
Chris Floyd
Smells Like Team Spirit: the Bush
B-Boys Replay Their Greatest Hits
Bill
Christison
What's Wrong with the CIA?
Dr. Susan
Block
Janet Jackson's Mammary Moment:
Boob Tube Super Bowl
February
7/8, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
Offending Valerie: Dealing with
Jewish Self-Absorption
Jeff Ballinger
No Sweat Shopping
Dave
Lindorff
Spray and Pray in Iraq: a Marine
in Transit
Alexander
Cockburn
McNamara: the Sequel
February
6, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Are the Kurds in the Way?
Joanne
Mariner
Anita Bryant's Legacy
Saul
Landau
Happiness and Botox
Kurt Nimmo
Horror Non-fiction: A How-To Guide
from Perle and Frum
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Real Intelligence Failure:
Our Own
February
5, 2004
Benjamin
Shepard
Turning NYC into a Patriot Act Free
Zone
Khury
Petersen-Smith
A Report from Occupied Iraq: "We Don't Want Army USA"
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2003
Teresa
Josette
The Exeuctioner's Pslam? Christian Nation? Yeah, Right
David Krieger
Why Dr. King's Message on Vietnam is Relevant to Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
Monkey Business: Of Recess and Evolution in Georgia Schools
Norman
Solomon
The Deadly Lies of Reliable Sources
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Presenting President Edwards!
February
4, 2004
Brian
McKinlay
Bush's Australian Deputy: Howard's
Last Round Up?
Mark
Gaffney
Ariel Sharon's Favorite Senator: Ron Wyden and Israel
Judith
Brown
Palestine and the Media
Frederick
B. Hudson
Moseley-Braun and the Butcher: Campaign for Justice or Big Oil's
Junta?
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's Independent Commission: Exonerating
the Spooks
M.
Junaid Alam
Philly School Workers Fight for Fair Contract
Fran Shor
Whose Boob Tube?
Kevin
Cooper
This is Not My Execution and I Will Not Claim It
February
3, 2004
Alan
Maass
The
Dems' New Mantra: What They Really Mean by "Electability"
Nick
Halfinger
How the Other Half Lives: Embedded
in Iraq
Rahul
Mahajan
Our True Intelligence Failure
Neve Gordon
The Only Democracy in the Middle East?
Laura
Carlsen
Mexico: Two Anniversaries; Two Futures
Terry
Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Powell from the Boobs & Body Parts
Fairness Campaign
Hammond
Guthrie
Investigating the Meaningless
Website
of the Day
Waging Peace
February
2, 2004
Gary
Leupp
The Buddhist Nun in Tom Ridge's Jail
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Manners of Their Deaths: Capital Punishment in a Smoke-Free
Environment
Tom
Wright
The Prosecution of Captain Yee
Winslow
Wheeler
Inside the Bush Defense Budget
Lee Ballinger
Janet Jackson's Naked Truth
Leonard
Pitts, Jr
For Blacks, the Game of Justice is
Rigged
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Hollow Candidate:
The Trouble with Howard Dean
Website
of the Day
Resistance:
In the Eye of the American Hegemon
Jan. 31 / Feb 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
January 30, 2004
Saul
Landau
Cuba High on Neo-Con Hit List
Michael
Donnelly
Bush's Second Front: The War in
the Woods
Elaine
Cassel
Worse Than Jacko: Child Abuse at Gitmo
David Vest
More Halliburton News, Brought to You by Halliburton
Mike
Whitney
The Kay Report: Still Defending Aggression
David
Miller
The Hutton Whitewash
Sam
Husseini
How Many People Must Die Because of This "Mistake",
Senator Kerry?
January 29, 2004
Patricia
Nelson Limerick
John Ehrlichman, Environmentalist
Ron
Jacobs
Homeland Security and "Legalized"
Immigration
Rahul Mahajan
New Hampshire v. Iraq
Greg
Weiher
Bush Calls for Preemptive Strike on
Moon and Mars
Norman
Solomon
The State of the Media Union
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Does NH Mean Anything?
January
28, 2004
Kathy
Kelly
Bearing Witness Against Teachers of
Torture and Assassination
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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Weekend
Edition
February 14 / 15, 2004
License to Browse?
Tupac, the Patriot Act and
Me
By CHRISTINA HUGHES
as told to Greg Weiher
OK, so my thirteen-year-old daughter, who is in
eighth grade at a public school, has to write a paper for Black
History Month on a famous African-American. Everyone in her class
drew names, and she got Tupac Shakur (I am not making this up).
We don't have that much material on Tupac laying around the house,
so I took her to the public library to do some research.
I haven't been to the public library
in quite a while, so I was a little surprised to find that the
card catalogue appears to have gone the way of the corset and
the AMC Gremlin. Of course, everything is done by computer now.
That only makes sense, except that in the old days you'd find
most of your best sources for a report just by poking around
in the relevant section of the card catalogue. You can't do that
any more.
In our local library you have to use
the computerized catalogue, but you can't even get the terminal
to talk to you unless you have a library card. This is another
difference between the new system and the old card catalogue.
So, I went to speak to the librarian.
I complained a little about the fact
that you can't even browse through the holdings of the (supposedly)
public library if you don't have a library card. The librarian
pointed out to me, in a way that said, "I know you are a
wack job, but I am a kind person and wish you no harm,"
that a library card costs nothing. All you have to do is fill
out a form and you can have one on the spot.
Of course, the form includes things like
your social security number, your driver's license number, and
your address. Furthermore, once you have the card, the way you
communicate with the computer system of the library is through
your bar code. For instance, you type in your bar code to gain
access to the library's catalogue. Which means that from that
point on, everything that you look at can be traced back to you
through that same bar code. This is also a little different from
the old-fashioned card catalogue.
You might want to give this a little
thought. Under the American Patriot Act, it is quite possible
that you, too, are unwittingly contributing to your own secret
dossier. If your public library uses things like bar codes and
requires that you provide your social security number, and your
explorations through the catalogue veer off however briefly into
the kinky or the politically suspect, you could be called upon
one day to defend yourself. Why did you inquire about a book
on Karl Marx? On militant Islam? On learning to fly? On PeeWee
Herman?
As a result of my support for my daughter's
quest for knowledge, the library now has an indelible record
of the fact that I, a thirty-four year old, middle-class, white
female, born in Midland, Texas, and living in Houston, employed
at the University of Houston (read "pointy-headed liberal
academic"), and sometime PTA dissident, spent over half
an hour making repeated queries about Tupac Shakur, gangsta,
felon, convicted sex abuser, and author of the plaintive lyric
"Fuck the World." Taken out of context, through the
mystic agency of my bar code, this might lead the authorities
to assume that I harbor the same sentiments that Tupac so poignantly
expressed in his classic "Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.:"
Yo Law! Is it cool if a nigga just get
fucked up for this one? Yeah Mr. Fuck-a-cop is back and I still
don't give a fuck you know what I'm sayin?
As a result of my researches on my daughter's
behalf I learned that Tupac represents the hyper-masculinity
that black men adopt to compensate for the inhuman environment
of the ghetto. (I am forced to wonder, what accounts for George
W. "bring-'em-on" Bush?)
Another result is that I find myself
imagining a darkened room in a remote corner of the basement
of the Justice Department. The dim glow of a computer screen
silhouettes a slightly slumped, unrecognizable figure fixedly
scrolling through columns of data and jotting down notes. I can
hear him humming, "Let the Eagle Soar." I step a little
closer, and then a little closer still. At this distance I can
see the man's green visor and I can just make out his features.
It's John Ashcroft. He begins to jot furiously.
I can't make out what he's writing. I
take two more steps in his direction and crane my neck. And then,
on the pad in front of him, I see clearly: "Alert FBI, compile
list of associated names, notify airport security, explore possible
existence of sleeper cell . . . Christina Hughes, Houston, Texas,
self-indicted Shakurvian, probable terrorist."
I'm just waiting for the midnight knock
at my door.
Tina Hughes
is a political scientist and a research associate in the Center
for Public Policy at the University of Houston.
Greg Weiher
is a political scientist and a free-lance writer living in Houston,
Texas. He can be reached at gweiher@uh.edu.
Weekend
Edition Features for February 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
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