Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
Now Available!
Today's Stories
June 26 / 27, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Venezuela: the Gang's All Here
June 25, 2004
Stephen
Gowans
US to North Korea: "Trust Us"
Saul Landau
2006 Pentagon Budget as Sacrilege: Bush
Invests the National Treasure in Death and Destruction
Amir
Butler
Iraq: the Deadly Embrace
Jack McCarthy
Another Times Plagiarism Scandal? Did
Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News?
Greg
Bates
Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader
June 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
John
Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links
Patrick Cockburn
A
Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing
Death Threats
Harry Browne
On
the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe
Bill Kaufman
Another
Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush,
Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did
They Tell?
Rick Gioimbetti
Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence?
John Chuckman
Call Center ID Hypocrisy
Diane Johnstone
Kerry
and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"
June 23, 2004
Laura Carlsen
Bush
and Castro Face Off
Dave Zirin
Barry
Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism"
Kurt Nimmo
From
Saddam, With Love
Patricia Wolff
Foundation Wars
Mahboob A. Khawaja
"They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son"
Patrick Cockburn
The
Pretense of an Independent Iraq
Website of the Day
The Road to Abu Ghraib
June 22, 2004
Dave Lindorff
The
Meaning of Putin's Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption
Ron Jacobs
Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq?
Vanessa Jones
Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings
Mickey Z
An Open Letter to the People of Iraq
John L. Hess
Clinton Exhales
Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity
Committee for Pacho Cortés
An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés
Bruce Jackson
Saying
No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz's Colleagues Refused to Testify
Website of the Day
From Boot Camp to Boot Hill
June 21,
2004
Gary Leupp
Putin's Helpful Remarks
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos
Upon Chaos
Cockburn
/ Khan
Saddam May Face Death Penalty
Uri
Avnery
Irreversible Mental Damage
June 19
/ 20, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid
and Isolated
Bruce
Anderson
Frozen Gringos
Diane
Christian
Morality and Death: a Meditation on
Bush and Blake
Walter
A. Davis
Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib
Josh
Frank
How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother Nature
Col. Dan
Smith
Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis in Sudan
Brian
Cloughley
A Profound Disruption of the Senses
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Timken Plant, a Year Later
Prudence
Crowther
Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me!
Poets'
Basement
Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert
Kathy
Kelly
Dying to See Their Kids
June 18,
2004
Chris
Floyd
Blood Victory
Dave Zirin
Danielle Green, Basketball Player &
Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Christian Question in American Politics
Gary
Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
June
14, 2004
John
Stanton / Wayne Madsen
Torture, Inc: Oliver North Joins
the Party
Kathy
Kelly
Requiems: What Happens When Compassion Dies?
Bruce
Jackson
Bush Gets Testy About Torture
Lee
Sustar
Strikers Defy Visteon's Company Thugs
Kurt
Nimmo
The Desperate Censors: the Republican Plot to Kill Farhenheit
9/11
Jim
Davis
Hard Right Nativism
Eliot
Katz
Death and War
Uri
Avnery
The Nightmare Comes True
Website
of the Day
Instruments of Statecraft
June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
| Weekend
Edition
June 26 / 27, 2004
Adventures
in Fuel Efficiency
My Harrowing
Escape
By
BEN TRIPP
One
of the most unpleasant dilemmas facing us average Americans today is
that of our individual impact on the environment. I say ‘average
American’, because for the people who buy Hummers, Escalades,
or Panzerkampfwagen VI Tigers, environmental impact is not an unpleasant
dilemma. Parking may be an issue. But for them, the environment is just
an inadequately paved area adjacent to the road. The average American
is somebody who gets a multiple of three miles per gallon. The average
American is aware they’re living an unsustainable life, but hasn’t
much idea how to fix it. As an average American, I have grappled with
this aspect of my own existence — and lost.
Certain
aspects of my lifestyle were easy to bring in line with an environmentally
responsible approach. For example, to reduce water consumption, I sneak
over to my neighbor’s house and use their toilet, and to further
conserve water, I don’t flush. I recycle dozens of liquor bottles
per week, as well as any trash that can’t be repurposed, such
as spent uranium fuel rods. Did you know you can shingle your roof with
old soda cans? Flatten them with that old Panzer that’s been gathering
dust in the garage. You see?
Almost
anything that can’t be recycled can be repurposed. Two brothers
in Maine recently turned an aircraft carrier they found at the landfill
into a perfectly serviceable tomato frame, and what’s even more
amazing, the thing still keeps perfect time! But even the lowest of
low-impact folks needs a car.
Until
a couple of years ago, my grandfather rode a horse everywhere he needed
to go. He rode it back and forth from one end of the swimming pool to
the other, because they were trapped down there. Fine and dandy, but
if Grandpa (we called him ‘Grinks’ or ‘Ftnoogwub’)
ever decided to go to the Federal Building downtown, where would he
park the horse? It was lame in its off hind leg, but never got the handicapped
license plate, so the poor brute (I mean the horse) would have ended
up in some six-dollar-an-hour lot, ten blocks away. Horse not work.
If the bus doesn’t run past your house, you need a car. Seeing
as my neighbors don’t leave the keys in their car any more, I
had to go buy one. So I bought an extremely fuel-efficient car.
If
you are not familiar with the Fiat Cinquecento, you are a boob. This
diminutive automobile, last manufactured in 1975, is primarily known
through its frequent use in circuses. Fifty clowns jump out of it, then
two of them carry it out of the ring. This venerable machine gets about
fifty miles to the gallon, even in the condition mine is in. It seats
four people, assuming the ones in the back seat are bilateral amputees
or were born without buttocks. I have wedged four people and a dog into
the car, but if anyone had gotten an erection during the trip we all
would have been crushed to death. It’s not a spacious vehicle.
The secret to its fuel efficiency, apart from its small size, is its
extremely conservative engine design. The Fiat 500 (Cinquecento is merely
the Italian word for ‘twelve’, but because of Roman numerals
it comes out to ‘500’) generates, in the prime of its youth,
twenty-four horsepower. It can attain speeds of up to forty-five miles
per hour assuming a stiff tail wind and perfectly level ground. Once
the 500 attains this velocity, generally after a trifling quarter of
an hour, it sounds exactly like a sewing machine chewing up a piece
of sheet metal.
Mind
you, this is a specimen in top form.
Mine,
a 1973 500R originally from Sicily, has seen better days, and by the
looks of it, the better days ended before the Schism of Rome. I recently
decided to introduce some pollution into the environment by changing
the oil. This had not occurred since the first Godfather movie. Removing
a thatch of beard hairs from the undercarriage(the original owner was
a widow), I removed the plug in the oil pan. A liquid resembling roofing
compound poured out, and also a couple of circus clowns. Then I noticed
the battery was leaking, releasing sulfuric acid into the ground. Naturally
I then decided to degrease the engine and see what else was amiss. The
degreaser you could defoliate Cambodia with. It turned out I needed
to install assorted parts, fluids, and greases, the offcastings of which
amounted to three trash bags full of stuff they wouldn’t take
in Yucca Flats. So not only is my lawn now a superfund site, the car
still won’t run. My attempt at fuel efficiency was a complete
bust. Not to worry — I may be an average American, but I still
have Grumpa Blurpy’s horse.
Ben Tripp is a screenwriter and cartoonist, who lives in
a large human settlement 100 miles south of Bakersfield, which we cannot
name for security reasons. Ben also has a lot of outrageously priced
crap for sale here. A collection of Tripp's essays, Square in
the Nuts, will be published this summer. If his writing starts to grate
on your nerves, buy some and maybe he'll flee to Mexico. If all else
fails, he can be reached at: credel@earthlink.net
Weekend Edition June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto and Runnymede
Team CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax--Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links / |