(Berkeley CA) Oct. 9. Under ordinary circumstances, it would be up to folks like Joe Eaton of the Berkely Daily Planet to write one of his columns about the fact that the Yellow-billed Magpie (AKA Pica nuttali) is in danger because of the fact that the West Nile Virus is causing an alarming number of that species to die, but these are not ordinary times and the topic deserves mention for a variety of reasons.
Somebody has got to care. Obviously The Four Hundred Million Dollar Man (AKA Rush L.) won’t give a hoot (15 yard penalty bad ornithology pun) about the bird in danger of extinction because his billionaire buddies won’t make one damn cent more if they live or if they all die.
The bird, according to Eaton, can only be seen inside the state of California and thus is a niche topic even for the bird watchers in other areas. So why should readers of this web site outside the state of California care about it? There’s only so many causes a body can accommodate and with the threat to democracy that the fall election carries, shouldn’t this be a column about the “round up the usual suspects” topics that are of great importance?
Heck, didn’t John McCain say that he can solve multiple problems simultaneously? If he can do that, why can’t liberals multitask while coping with the tsunami of problems in the world?
Since John McCain excels at being disingenuous, maybe he was adding one more fib to the pile when he bragged about being the omnipotent problem solver?
The plight of the Yellow-billed Magpie is proven to be even more dangerous when Eaton points out that the government agencies that can deal with that specific problem are facing budget cuts. Similarly the large daily newspapers are trying to cover more and more news stories with smaller staffs.
Naomi Wolf and Daniel Ellsberg are speaking in Berkeley Monday, October 13, at the First Congressional Church.
The classic film, “The Battleship Potemkin” will be playing at the Pacific Film Archive on Friday.
Doctors Without Borders will recreate a Refugee Camp in San Francisco at Little Marina Green Park from October 15 to the 19.
Do you honestly think that Rush Limbaugh would see any of these items as worthy of a serious mention on his program? If you are willing to bet that if his comedy writers (do any of Jay Leno’s writers do any freelance moonlighting for el Rushbo?) don’t give him a zinger on these topics he won’t say one damn word about them, then you have a strong hint as to what the media and journalism will be like if the conservatives have their way and crush liberal topics and all dissent.
Somebody has got to care. You must be one of those “somebodys” if you came to this website and have read this column this far.
Back in the Sixties wasn’t the advice: “Give a damn!”
What goes around, comes around only now, it is: “Give a damn, while you still can.”
Donate to the websites that speak to you on the issues you care about. Send the URL’s that say something you believe to all the members of your posse. There’s a retired colonel in Germany who supports Bush in a major (another one of those lousy puns again?) way and sending him the links to the stories and websites (such as the Brad blog?) probably aren’t going to cause him to switch his allegiance from Nixon to Kennedy, but what the heck, he always did like to hear the dissenting point of view, so I continue to send them to him.
Jack Weinberg is credited for coining the phrase: “Never trust anyone over thirty.”
Now, the disk jockey will play Country Joe and the Fish’s hit “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5btZWbViPA>Fixin’ to Die Rag” and we’ll rush on out of here. Have a “start singin’” type week.
