Thursday, June 30, 2005

Stay The Course?


Mr. President if this was your daughter would it still be worth it? Would you still stay the course?

O'Reilly



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Wednesday, June 29, 2005

NOVAK


"Soon I will not need the help of the empire, I can rule the Death Star without the several battalions of storm troopers promised me by Lord Vader (Karl Rove) and I can carry out my evil scheme of eliminating every Democrat in the universe."

- Robert Novak

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

The Stepford Voters









Coming To An Iraqi Army Base near you...

Bush and the Taste of Chinese Oil

You can understand if Bush is upset what with China wanting to take a chunk out of the U.S. oil market.

President Bush: Hey Karl, ya think we can make a deal with them chins over there, I mean hell, they can't take our oil we stole it fair and square. Shit we can't go to war with China can we?

Karl Rove: Just shut up George, would you?

Monday, June 27, 2005


I listen to Bob Kincaid. He's the only guy out there willing to call me what I am, a gosh darn idiot unworthy of anything outside of manual labor. Man I tell ya, that Bob hit it right on the head when he said Repiglican.


www.headonradio.com

Sunday, June 26, 2005

The Leviathan Dips His Wing

The shit scream has rung through the gates of the White House and the people of the United States have felt its echo, soon, the campaign will begin. Both sides of the aisle, the two old parties will vie in the storm of insults, half-truths, outright lies, and sound bites to hand in hand dissuade any talk of a third party. The poor will get lied to, the middle class will get lied to and the wealthy, the one percent that is mentioned every campaign will sit idly by knowing the outcome before the first vote is counted. There will be no voter reform, there will be onlookers at campaign headquarters, and the shrill squeal of debate will fill the air like Willy Loman being broken on the rack. The media will descend on New Hampshire and the states in the south will wonder if this is the year the candidates will actually care what they have to say.


- Chris Mansel

Jailing The Torch, Feeding The Flame

Distinguishing between whom you associate with based on social status is at the core of the conservative view, relation does not base on income but the democratic view does. Together they work together to misalign the nation from democracy to fascism. The idea of the citizen being on equal status with all others has been lost to access and affordability.
The poor of this nation operate on a completely different level, a level kept balanced by the swallowing of pride and the lack of genuine shame.

I am the nothingness
the sun is my grave
and my absence is
beingness

- Georges Bataille

While surfacing their anger only remotely the poor maintain a civil balance and continue as they have always done, to seek more compelling arguments than servitude or belief. The lime in the river does not hide the dead or mask the smell. The poor after all were employed to place the victims there by chemical waste. It is never the worker that decides where or how to pollute but the management who profit from the actions of others.
The media that serves both parties can be found reading over the shoulders of the poor and compiling that data into polls to be used for circulation.

“This is not your house, you’re a man of the wilds.”

- Carlos German Belli

The balance of power often mentioned is the result of the scales being held up by a woman, lady justice, whose blindfold shields her from the weight. With a calculation such as this being considered is it no wonder that the distribution of wealth is often leaning toward those that do the counting?

- Chris Mansel

Friday, June 24, 2005

Fraud Task Sepulcher

When policy decisions are left to whom ever you manage to employ on your staff, the nation cringes at the delight politicians swerve about the senate floor reading the prepared remarks of another. When opinion outweighs the actual wording, when time constraint prevents the actual reading of the bill up for vote, the nation is lost in a muddy birth of paper and ink. When the presidency is advised by an unselected official there is no accountability in that relationship.

- Chris Mansel


“Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.”


Henry Thoreau, Walden

Thursday, June 23, 2005

The Failing Departing Crowd

There are three kinds of conservatives. One is the close party member not unlike the Gestapo, the second is the Hitler Youth, those that were born into the ideology and never looked back. The third is the propagandist. The men who you saw on the sidewalks and were have age to join the army and did not, the shopkeepers and the printers. They were the ones who stayed behind to guard the fatherland and help load the bodies of Jews into the trucks and train cars. However, it is of no use comparing George Bush to Hitler. Hitler did not have to defend himself as Bush does. Hitler did not have to worry about another party in the congress or the senate disrupting his orders. As bad as the administration of George W. Bush is it is still not as bad as it could be.
Yesterday I mentioned that thanks to John Conyers I have new belief in the Democratic Party, well let me explain that remark. I have faith in what the Party used to be and could be again, not what it is today. The Democratic Party of today resembles more of a new conservative party, a slightly watered down version of a compassionate conservative. The right-wing media has spoon fed the liberal voter for years with its terms like liberal, or neo-con, or even staunch conservative. What the Democrats have not understood is that by allowing the right wing to tell us how to speak they have controlled what we say. They have railed against issues and made us defend them. When we should be more worried about the hungry of the world they trot out social security then later abandon it after the harm is done. We get ourselves into wars with the express purpose of building up defense contractors, lining the pockets of the wealthily. The right wing has no concern for the poor Vietnamese, the poor Iraqi, or the desolate citizens of Panama.
Don’t believe what a conservative tells you; don’t immediately jump into their argument because this is just what they want you to do. Allow their rhetoric to simply undermine itself. Egg them on if you will but choose the ground on which you care the most not the ones they want to argue about. If you play their game you will lose not only your soul but also the case it came in.
- Chris Mansel

Long Live The Ghost

A ghost prowls the streets of heaven clanging a scythe on the gates, his hat is slightly to one side and his voice ravaged by years of alcohol and drugs. He screams loud, “Get out here, goddamn it! Wake up you swine, George Bush raped your mothers with his grandfather’s cock!”

The ghost tears through heaven sending gravel down to the earth causing enormous dust clouds in the desert outside of Las Vegas. He screams at the top of his lungs into a loudspeaker, “God, I know you’re here somewhere, you can’t let this shit drag on anymore! Bolton was sent by the devil, he hides the scars of a pedophile under that mustache! Send your agents to cripple the bastard, sever every nerve in his hind legs! Bloody up his hair and photograph him in his underwear! Send it to the new Nazi Pope!”

By now everyone in heaven is awake and startled at the reality crushing through they’re silence. The wind rages through the hole where the bullet escaped the ghosts body and sends a shrill cry onto the earth. And then just as soon as it began the noise stopped and there was an eerie silence. The only sound heard was the clinking of ice in a glass, the igniting of a propane torch and the smell of marijuana in the air.


- Chris Mansel

The State of the Blog (Celebrity Status)

Just because planes are no longer slamming into buildings doesn’t mean that the terror is over. The real terror begins when it becomes public that the administration was complicit in the attacks. The terror begins when we face the truth that our government has prolonged the war on terror ruthlessly taking thousands of lives in the name of greed.
The underground news organizations of the past, the short wave broadcasts, the letters smuggled out of countries and into the hands of brave magazine publishers are over. Today there are broadcasts of the guilt sprayed across a sea of ones and zeros like targets painted on an electron. The blogger is the new resistance movement but even that has been fortified by greed. The successful blogs have garnered attention and thus have begun to believe more in themselves than in the message. It is not more important to be featured on this radio show or that television news broadcast, face time as they call it in the industry the bloggers are supposed to be fighting against, the message, the truth is what matters and to be seduced by the make-up chair, the readership or the hits on a website is to get away from the central idea, the originator of the movement which has collapsed into a internet form of the Nielsen ratings system.


- Chris Mansel

Monday, June 20, 2005

Shakespeare's Demons on Pennsylvania Avenue

It’s a defining time, a prostrate regurgitation of fear, hatred, and greed not seen since the days of Rome. Shakespeare must have known he would die violently after facing the crowds at each performance but he didn’t. Neither will George Bush. Like a dolphin running through the propellers of a large sea going vessel it will only be slightly scared and swim away to feast on all those smaller then itself. If forensics can teach the world of politics anything it would be that depravity when worn close to the soul could reduce the number of dead with the slightest miscalculation, the biggest lie and the narrowest exchange of data.
A large anvil shaped heart-pouring blood situated in the middle of the stars on the American flag shows the weight of despair in our nation, however, when flown upside down as it should be in a time of crisis it ponders the feeling of listlessness and the gravity of our situation. Forced servitude by reserve troops and its affect on local economies is dwindling what is left of the job market. Unemployed workers everywhere looked forward to troops being deployed in Iraq for the hope of being hired as replacements for companies but as the Wal-Marts of the world will do, they operate without replacing those that are missing and make it harder on those who are left behind.
Shakespeare must have foreseen the oncoming disaster of the America’s when he wrote his play King Lear. No longer a world power but a desperate thug looking for yet another score, our form of democracy has fallen under the spell of a regime so harsh as to kill and eat their own when the need of the greater whole is compromised. The whole being the select few who have their pick of the animals, the shearing of the flock.


- Chris Mansel


O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life’s as cheap as beast’s . . .

You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!

If it be you that stir these daughters’ hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
And let not women’s weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man’s cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,

No, I’ll not weep.
I have full cause of weeping, but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or ere I’ll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!


- William Shakespeare, King Lear

The State of the Blog (Celebrity Status)

Just because planes are no longer slamming into buildings doesn’t mean that the terror is over. The real terror begins when it becomes public that the administration was complicit in the attacks. The terror begins when we face the truth that our government has prolonged the war on terror ruthlessly taking thousands of lives in the name of greed.
The underground news organizations of the past, the short wave broadcasts, the letters smuggled out of countries and into the hands of brave magazine publishers are over. Today there are broadcasts of the guilt sprayed across a sea of ones and zeros like targets painted on an electron. The blogger is the new resistance movement but even that has been fortified by greed. The successful blogs have garnered attention and thus have begun to believe more in themselves than in the message. It is not more important to be featured on this radio show or that television news broadcast, face time as they call it in the industry the bloggers are supposed to be fighting against, the message, the truth is what matters and to be seduced by the make-up chair, the readership or the hits on a website is to get away from the central idea, the originator of the movement which has collapsed into a internet form of the Nielsen ratings system.


- Chris Mansel

Sunday, June 19, 2005

State Sponsored Terrorism (Buy America)

I watched a video entitled, Scenes of Israeli Massacre in Qana 1996 at this website this evening, http://informationclearinghouse.info/israel_terror_video_index_01_19_03.htm
In the video an official attempting to clear the dead away picks up the body of a baby whose head has been blown off. You see the neck and the blood have virtually exploded from gunfire or a bomb. It is chilling and as the site says you will not see this kind of reality on American news shows.
So everyone who says that they would not react the way the Palestinians have should ask themselves how would they react if the American military opened fire in your neighborhood and leveled the houses to make way for other people to build their houses on your land or to provide a road to service another segment of society. Pick up your own child with their head blown apart and tell me you wouldn’t be driven to near madness.
Salute the American flag that provides weapons, vote for the democratic or republican parties that have funded this terrorism for years, and revel in the thought that this terror is taking place across an ocean, in another country your tax dollars pay to terrorize and ethnically cleanse. Do that and we’ll get together every four years and wave signs at a convention, we’ll wear buttons and make speeches and talk about how much better it will be if our candidate wins.

- Chris Mansel

All Purpose Liberal Travel: Serving Up The Conservative Since 2005

Travel agency business created to sell one-way vacation tickets to Aruba for the GOP. The price for their travel will be pro-rated according to their voting record.
Pundits can just pay a flat fee, however they’re on air comments will be taken into consideration as well as their cumulative total of appearances on Fox network. For investor information please contact the Mansel Report for future updates.

- Chris Mansel

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

(One professional torturer to another.)

Torturer One: Investigation…shit, what are they going to investigate that they don’t already know about? All I ever hear about is Gitmo and Iraq, they don’t ever mention us, and just how can they if they don’t know we exist.

Torturer Two: I don’t know, maybe they can torture Powell and get the info out of him. (Laughs)

Torturer One: In the next room screams echo out. A Marine walks by and salutes forgetting himself and gets a piercing glare from the two men.


- Chris Mansel

Karl Rove and the Pretty hate Machine

The Mansel Report has written some fictional pieces in the past and some of them have seemed to the author that they could or might happen. Sometimes they are just a bit scary. The other day the Mansel Report wrote a piece about Karl Rove entitled, Karl Rove: Bishop to Rook, Queen to Pawn. In this piece I described the incredibly organized effort led by Karl Rove to discredit the Clinton family and to smear the name of Hillary Clinton so that she could not seek the presidency. In this piece I describe Karl Rove conceiving a headline to send to Matt Drudge also I mention an unnamed source. I read the Drudge Report today and see a headline about a book that suggests that Bill Clinton raped his wife Hillary and that assault eventually gave birth to their daughter Chelsea.
Ed Klein, the author of this book is slanderous, libel and criminal for the price of defamation all a part of the hate machine of Karl Rove, the genius behind the suffering, the architect of the new Fascist state.
The worst part about this story is a line by Matt Drudge that proves he is a disciple of the hate machine that is the Republican Party, “The rape claim is just the beginning of Klein’s alleged revelations, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.” Just when you thought that nothing, nothing could surprise you about these deviants they have outdone themselves. That the Mansel Report could foresee such a thing occurring just shows you the power of an idea and how a party that would defile its own person to ruin another can use it for corrupt means.

- Chris Mansel

The Concoction Resembles The Cure/Disease (for Jake Berry)

Despair. Troubling thoughts and startling moments, nightmares and the far worse waking thoughts that seem to go on forever, that’s what I feel when I look at this country under the control of the Republican Party. Who thought to call them parties I don’t know but one thing I do know is this, it only feels like a party when you’re on the inside. Everyone else is either a server or watching from the wings.
I was overcome with an intense depression tonight as I thought of what to write. It had been coming on for most of the day as it usually does but tonight was different. I am so proud that you are reading this my good friends and that we together share a belief that things could be better given time and reason.
You see the headlines and you watch the reports on television and you know that neither one is speaking to you. You know that this is someone else’s idea of what matters. Filtered through the table in a boardroom, through an editor, through a typist, a printer and a camera crew somehow a story gets out. But by the time it gets to the reader or the viewer, even on live television, the message is distorted. Marshall McLuhan was right and all else is wrong. “The medium is the message”, he wrote and took you and I by the mind and showed us the path lit by the horrors of a future digital age. As George Bataille wrote,

Higher
than the dark top of the sky
higher
in a mad opening
a trail of light
is the halo of death


- Chris Mansel

The Decline and Withering of the Conservative American Government

What more arcane can be besides a press conference in the house of the people? Regular citizens aren’t allowed to enter, a corporation or company send in their representatives to ask the questions that they want an answer to.

New York Times Reporter: Mr. President, is it true that your daughters have become sexual hoodlums and have been known to engage in sexual contact with the secret service aides, submitting them to sodomy and alcoholic reproach?

President Bush: How do you get in here? I am not going to talk about my family. I won’t answer this…uh, I won’t dicktify..I mean dignify it.

New York Times Reporter: That’s all good and fine Mr. President, but what of Karl Rove’s engaging in unspeakable acts of greed and homosexuality with you and members of your cabinet?

President Bush panics and shrugs his sheriff like shoulders and looks around. Scott McClellan steps up to the microphone:

Scott McClellan: Karl Rove does not hold an official position in the White House…

Arizona News Reporter: McClellan it’s a new age, better get used to it. A new reality, you conservatives have tried to abandon the constitution and it has happened. You won’t wake up from this nightmare.

Scott McClellan: If these kinds of comments continue I will clear the room!

McClellan waves a hand at an aide and a call is placed to the secret service. Several men in suits come into the room adjusting their earpieces and checking their weapons. Together they grab McClellan and walk him to the middle of the room. McClellan is forced under the needle of a truth serum and begins exposing the administration for its lies. CNN carries the events live.
The President storms off into the oval office only to be met by a chorus of insults from his speakerphone. The voice is that of his father.

Former President Bush: What in the hell are you doing down there in Washington Georgie? I just received a subpoena from the war crimes tribunal and Bandar just called me sounding like that guy in Scarface, he even said, “You don’t fuck me, George. You should never try to fuck me George.” You’re written off you coke head! Do you hear me?
The President cuts off the line and orders his helicopter to abandon his post.

- Chris Mansel

Friday, June 17, 2005

The Devil and Mr. Jones

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Gnawing The Brick Down To The Powder

The organizing class of the state of Maryland will now come to order the voice said through the loud speaker. A rustling of wing tip shoes and a sliding of folding chairs ring out through the large hall as Tucker Carlson takes the stage.

Tucker Carlson: Now you know that the democratic syphilis-like disease of inhumanity has stained the good name of America here and abroad…what we want to do here is to educate you on the finer points of political sabotage and to rid this earth of the Clinton. Now as much as we would like to just walk up behind them and do a good old’ double tap in the back of the head we can’t. We’re not Robert Novak, at least I’m not, and G. Gordon Liddy is in radio now and keeping his hands clean.

The crowd comes to order and laughs wickedly at Carlson’s remarks. NAMBLA brochures that were placed on each seat are browsed and the smoking lamp is lit. Outside in the foyer are booths set up from every major lobby in the country. Congressional leaders reek of liquor and several members of the Supreme Court are hidden behind bullet proof glass analyzing the pickings personally before anyone else, a kind of preview of sorts.

Tom Selleck takes the stage.

Tom Selleck: I just wanted to say that I appreciate the treatment I have gotten from those gathered and to say that I support the ruination of the Clinton as much as any of you. I was just talking to Sean Hannity the other day that as you know was attacked on The View by that knuckle-dragging lesbian Rosie O’Donnell, an immigrant name if I ever heard one, as I was when she still had a show, and Hannity said to me that we must use the open-mindedness of the liberal voter to our advantage. We must show them in some demonic way that a vote for the right is license to do as you want in this administration. (applause) A vote for the right is the pleasure in knowing you won’t be indicted by judges that we appoint. (applause) You will be rewarded in the private sector for what you do in the public sector. (applause) So I say to you today that I support the ruination of the Clinton. Thanks so much.


To be continued


- Chris Mansel

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Domestic Pathetic

President Bush: Karl, Jeb signed a state of alert down there with that Arlene storm. Everybody is going on about story about helping Africa, and no one has mentioned unemployment in a while now.

Karl Rove: You can be assured that Syria will keep attention off domestic issues for a while now.

President Bush: Yea, Karl and I get to meet with that porn chick. Dang, I wish Condi would make one. You think she’d be interested in one of them manage a trios?

Karl Rove: If she wants to be named Frist’s running mate she will.


- Chris Mansel

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Karl Rove: Bishop To Rook, Queen To Pawn

In a downtown office building in the state of Virginia a man sits in front of a computer screen and accesses the records of every citizen who voted in the 2004 election. He categorizes by race, income, and party affiliation.

In a office located inside the White House Karl Rove plays around with a headline that he will send to Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report. His phone rings and he takes the call.

Karl Rove: Yea…

Unnamed Source: We have organized half of the party, everyone has their marching orders.

Karl Rove: Good, tell Bay Buchanan next time she appears on CNN not to look like some sort of holocaust victim with an upside down bird’s nest on her head.

Unnamed Source: Yes sir, consider it done. We are also having success diverting Tsunami funds to the smear campaign against the Clintons. The special account is being accesses readily by those in the field.

Karl Rove: You just make damn sure that they pace themselves and get the stories where they belong. The worst thing that can happen is the same kind of goddamn fervor that almost sank us in 2000.

Unnamed Source: I have the names sorted by census and party. Do you still want me to send my findings to the off shore address?

Karl Rove: Of course, but send a reminder to Katherine Harris. She has to mention family, funding, and faith. The three F’s will get her elected otherwise she is banished for good.

Unnamed Source: Yes sir.



- Chris Mansel

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Behind The Scenes

Sean Hannity behind the scenes would feature pit bull wrestling and a wall of newspaper cutouts of democratic congressional leaders with targets painted on their faces.

Rush Limbaugh behind the scenes would feature an ivory jar overflowing with pills prescribed by four separate doctors.

Dick Cheney behind the scenes would feature dark skinned Arab citizens choking on the acrid smoke of his limousine as he revved the engine in hopes of crossing the highway unscathed.

Pat Robertson behind the scenes would feature rape kits mailed out in gross to clergymen and lawmakers to educate the parishioners on how to hide evidence of rape.

Karl Rove behind the scenes would feature a life size bust of Jesus Christ being crucified beneath an upside down John the Baptist on the same hunk of wood.


- Chris Mansel

Karl Rove: Bishop to Rook, Queen to Pawn

In a downtown office building in the state of Virginia a man sits in front of a computer screen and accesses the records of every citizen who voted in the 2004 election. He categorizes by race, income, and party affiliation.

In a office located inside the White House Karl Rove plays around with a headline that he will send to Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report. His phone rings and he takes the call.

Karl Rove: Yea…

Unnamed Source: We have organized half of the party, everyone has their marching orders.

Karl Rove: Good, tell Bay Buchanan next time she appears on CNN not to look like some sort of holocaust victim with an upside down bird’s nest on her head.

Unnamed Source: Yes sir, consider it done. We are also having success diverting Tsunami funds to the smear campaign against the Clintons. The special account is being accesses readily by those in the field.

Karl Rove: You just make damn sure that they pace themselves and get the stories where they belong. The worst thing that can happen is the same kind of goddamn fervor that almost sank us in 2000.

Unnamed Source: I have the names sorted by census and party. Do you still want me to send my findings to the off shore address?

Karl Rove: Of course, but send a reminder to Katherine Harris. She has to mention family, funding, and faith. The three F’s will get her elected otherwise she is banished for good.

Unnamed Source: Yes sir.



- Chris Mansel

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Paralysis

Democracy without capitalism is communism. At the heart of communism is a wonderful idea. The idea of everyone being equal, the simple pure act of sharing is a beautiful thought. I don’t see why the ideal couldn’t come about if the masses stood as one instead of groups. The two parties that have operated, from their inception, from the guidance of others, have destroyed whatever democracy was first intended; its starry sky has passed like harvest moon. When the individual became more important than the masses democracy laid its head upon a stone and with its own hand swung the ax.

- Chris Mansel

Monday, June 06, 2005

The Prisoners Discredit Their Own Suffering

“When money speaks, the truth is silent.” – A Russian proverb


I just don’t see any hope for this country if it continues down the path it is on. The corporations who control the press who control the networks who approve or disapprove each word that is uttered leads the citizens of the u.s. awry with hardly a wave of its hand. It is all consuming the dread and mockery of anything good. The ferocity of the public to feed off the blood that is poured into the water is disgusting. They didn’t know to recognize the blood until the Democratic Party had to shed its blood in the same way the Republicans do. The Democratic Party is missing in non-action.
Still no one, neither party reflects the suffering in this country. There is no legislation anywhere that looks out for communities like Libby, Montana. There is no meaningful work being down to combat the savage wrecking of our environment. Both parties will claim they do this or that but it all ends up the same election promise. The candidates will tell you they will fight for this or that but it is all due to the money they receive from lobbyists and the ever-ruining art of compromise. To make some of these compromises politicians should have to come face to face with the citizens they are affecting. Politics in Washington mirrors the scripted town hall meetings, the scripted debates.
Just for a second forget about poverty. Forget about education it’s easy, politicians do. Consider a new uncontrollable strain of HIV hitting the shores of Mexico or California. You can make a movie about smallpox and say what if. You can portray a nuclear blast, or asteroids hitting the planet. Those are what if situations. A new strain of HIV is a when situation, a where situation. It is very likely to happen.
You hear the term living wage being mentioned often. There is no living wage for the poorer people of this country. When you are young you are told to get a good education and that will suffice as you grow into adulthood. You will get a good job with an education and raise a family. How many times have you met a college graduate working for hardly a living wage? Often I imagine. In this new century we are often reminded of the past when we look around us. Our elderly will be glad to tell you that they have seen a situation like this before. The great depression tried its best to starve or kill off an entire generation. Poverty was the killer then and poverty still kills today, but you don’t hear it mentioned do you? Politicians who look for our best interest could very well be the caring arms around our throat.

- Chris Mansel

Bucket of Blood

Where are the signs of death are they on the white house lawn? Is it in the manicured shrubs, the steel gate surrounding the property? It can’t be in the guardhouse you have to pass through to get in, that wouldn’t look good. No, the sign of death is flown into the United States in the form of coffins that are covered in American flags that you cannot photograph, imagine the symbol of America, democracy cannot be photographed.
For every grain of sand, microscopic sand in the wounds of each American soldier there is a heartbroken and wrecked family somewhere else. Maybe they get a photograph of what their son or daughter, or husband or mom’s day was like in Iraq. Maybe they got emails or photos. What they do get due to the greed of a certain individual in Washington is tremendous loss. Loss that ends a family name or insures that a child will never be able to look at a funeral again and not be reminded of his time sitting in that folding chair in front of a coffin, a tremendous loss for a child. A burning opportunity for a man who already has enough money to last a lifetime, can you imagine that obscenity? Where are the signs of death? They are littered across every ballot box, every counting machine. Do you have blood on your hands?

- Chris Mansel

Thursday, June 02, 2005

An American Scoundrel

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Wednesday, June 01, 2005

WFP Dwindling Funds Affect returnees

WFP Dwindling Funds Affect Returnees

The New Times (Kigali)
NEWS

May 31, 2005 Posted to the web June 1, 2005

By Joan WanguiKigali


The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are increasingly concerned about the deteriorating conditions of tens of thousands of refugees and returnees in Rwanda, as WFP runs out of funds to provide them with food aid.
In a press release, the WFP says it urgently requires US$5.5 million to provide 9,000 tonnes of food assistance to some 60,000 people until the end of this year.
Food stock to feed 54,000 refugees, mainly from the DRC, Burundi, and thousands of returnees is quickly running out and, by June, according to the release, the WFP will have exhausted all its cereals.
'The impact of this is terrible," Maarit Hirvonen, the WFP Country Director in Rwanda said, adding that, "The refugees depend entirely on our food for their survival."
Hirvonen said WFP is doing all it can to channel all available resources into the life-saving operation.
"We are even taking loans from partner agencies but the sources for any extra food are getting scarce. Without WFP food aid, life in the camps would be totally unsustainable," he is quoted in the release as saying.
According to the release, lack of resources in March caused the WFP to reduce the amount of food provided to refugees by 30%.
'This had serious nutritional consequences. The condition could be worse as the number of refugees from the DRC have increased from 35,000 to 53, 000,' the release states in part.
It also indicates that increased malnutrition has been reported in crowded camps in the hilltop, where refugees also face harsh cold weather and limited facilities.
'To the school- going children, the condition is unbearable as there are fewer and fewer going to school as they are too weak to sit in classes,' the release indicates.
Meanwhile, the UNHCR representative in Rwanda, Panos Moumtzis, also says that domestic violence, crime and prostitution within the camps is on the rise, with implications of HIV/Aids infection for the community.
Reports show that during the last three years, about 25,000 Rwandans have returned each year. A monthly average of between 1,000 and 2,000 returned early this year.
But there is hope as donors led by the US with US$3.5 million, have given financial support for WFP Rwanda operations. Among other donors are Japan (US$1.7 m), Canada ($254,000) and Germany (US$989,000).



Copyright © 2005 The New Times. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).

Stir It Up

Just a day after Memorial Day and the celebrating is over. A new story breaks about the suspected deep throat and the news wires and television erupt over his identity. Pundits get face time on television and the required stand-up message from the family is read. But in South Africa on Memorial Day over 6,000 people died of AIDS. In Iraq a child was too terrified to tell his parents about the soldier he saw poking a weapon into a car. In the streets of America a man sits in a truck on the Arizona border and waits for a man to cross the fence and illegally detain him at gunpoint until the authorities arrive. A woman dies trying to give birth by herself. Where is the holiday from suffering? If they could pick a day would it be observed? If a day off from work is all the public wants from Memorial day, Martin Luther King day, or New Year’s day then give them a day off. Give them every day they want off with pay and let an immigrant who doesn’t take a work day for granted do their work. This immigrant who came to America to escape starvation, or to escape torture, who is now in hiding in the same country that detained him in his home country. The land of the free and the home of the brave are but a melting pot stirred with someone else’s hand.
- Chris Mansel

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