*VIVA PHIL DONAHUE*

*MALARIA SILENCES HARD BALL HOST*

*DID PAKISTAN GET THE RIGHT KILLERS?*

Leave it to me. Yesterday, I led this column with an item on the market letdown, pointing to all the sycophantic stock market coverage, and hinting at the collapse of capitalism. And what happens? The market shoots up. Just to prove me wrong I am sure, but still, I am proud that some of my skepticism and foreboding has spurred a economic revival — if only to show how off-base I am, of course. Actually, the spectacle of those Adelphia executives in handcuffs cheered the markets to a nearly 500 point rise.

Now, if only they’d sweep through all the suites of corporate deception and bust them all, the economy itself might perk up along with the rest of us.

(Ironically, those Adelphia scum suckers who became a media spectacle are in the media business. A few days ago, VARIETY reported that they were planning to offer more porn as a way to draw more eyeballs, damn the culture and other sensibilities. They didn’t figure that they would soon be starring in a bondage movie.)

“AMAZING”

Some media outlets are finally tapping into the anger in the American public about all of this. Jack Cafferty on CNN this morning was, amazingly enough, praising a program on MSNBC that interviewed former Enron employees who lost their pensions. Jack was ragging on the corporate criminals, who until recently, were the favorite sons on all the big TV business who’s whose — sought after for interviews and profiled on programs like CNN’s CEO worshipping Pinnacle.

What Cafferty didn’t say was that the show he was alluding to was Phil Donahue’s, who is back in fine form and fired up as never before. While his show was on — and sadly, I missed it — the Toronto Star’s Antonia Zerbisias breathlessly messengered me:

“Dunno if you’re watching it right now but it’s AMAZING! I never thought I’d see something like this on American TV.Donahue is back in his old fine form, interviewing some very unhappy and angry former Enron workers.

“On stage, Ralph Nader railing and ralphing about soft money and the White House.” Who knows but that more shows like that might revive MSNBC’s failing ratings.

GO GIT ‘EM

Nirvana is not here yet. Judicial Watch, watching all of this, sent out a release noting:”… no criminal charges or arrests have been brought by the Bush-Cheney Justice Department in connection with high officials of Enron, Halliburton, Global Crossing or WorldCom.

“President Bush and senior members of his administration have close ties to Enron and its CEO, Kenneth Lay, who the president affectionately calls, “Kenny Boy.” Vice President Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton in the late 1990s. Global Crossing and WorldCom were both large contributors to the two major political parties.

“This is an attempt to create the illusion of tough enforcement by the Bush-Cheney Justice Department concerning the nation’s securities laws, but it does not address the Bush-Cheney administration’s failures to aggressively pursue the Enron, Global Crossing, Halliburton and WorldCom scandals”

LINK BETWEEN CORPORATE CRIME AND POLITICS

The Institute on Accuracy, a supplier of guests to media outlets, is offering the economist Robert Polin from U-Mass today. He makes a key link between the current economic scandals and our political system — one of those “dots” that is rarely connected.

“The fraud and accounting scandals are not the cause of the financial crisis, but rather a consequence of it. No one seemed to care about loose accounting practices as long as the stock market was going up. Only when investors realized that stock prices were not going to continue to go up, and they had to rely on earnings, did it become apparent that the earnings were simply not there. The stock prices were at historical highs at the end of the 1990s, even if the bogus profit numbers had been true. Historically, the average price-earnings ratio is about 15:1. In 1999, it was about 42:1 based on companies’ reported earnings. One of the major factors in driving the bubble was the deregulation of financial markets. For example, Clinton’s Treasury secretary, Robert Rubin, presided over the deregulation of the banking industry. Now he’s heading up Citicorp. The type of fraudulent activity that corporate leaders have engaged in would clearly have been far more difficult within a reasonably functioning regulatory environment.”

While media coverage of this crisis is in overdrive, the media itself is becoming part of the story. AOL is now under official scrutiny for rigging its books just before the merger or “takeover of Time Warner.”

This is happening just as the conglom reports revived earnings. One division is being slapped by a billion dollar law suit by Al Sharpton, who contends that HBO and its program “Real Sports” did him wrong in its expose of his dealings with the FBI back in l983.

The program aired a l983 FBI video tape which caught the flamboyant politician in an alleged drug deal. Sharpton says that there was a second tape that they did not run which puts him in a better light, and shows that he did not do anything wrong.

I didn’t see the story, but am skeptical about it because it was the work of Bernard Goldberg, author of the bluster book “BIAS,” one that thrilled right-wingers with its overheated attack on “liberal media.” Bernie is a man with an agenda, crusading to show how full of shit liberals and leftists are. This is not to say that Sharpton is right — he often flips back and forth as the political opportunist he is — but I would not bank on the HBO report as the definitive word and so hope to get a tape of it.

MALARIA HOSPITALIZES TALK SHOW HOST

In other media news, our wishes to a speedy recovery to MSNBC’s Chris Mathews–who has been silenced by an attack of malaria, one of the deadliest and least covered diseases, one that claims millions of lives. USA TODAY reports:

“The Hardball host is lying in a hospital bed in Washington, D.C., often delirious, recovering from a case of malaria that sent his temperature to more than 103 this weekend.

“Doctors aren’t sure when he picked it up, but suspect it was on one of his trips in recent years to Africa, Vietnam or the Middle East. Malaria can incubate for four years.

“I’m just mentally and physically depleted,” says Matthews” an admission that might surprise fans and foes since Matthews never seems to run out of energy.”

As it turns out, Mark Kusnetz and I are working on a documentary project with the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV). If we can find the funding to do it, perhaps MSNBC would consider using it. It common for media executives become more sensitized to diseases that usually affect others — basically people in developing countries — when the victims are in their families or close to them. This happened years ago at ABC, when an exec’s son came down with AIDS.

I wish Chris the best and hope that his misfortune leads others to learn about the ravages of malaria and the need to do more about it.

OUR POLLUTION AND THEIR DEMISE

Speaking of links between the Third World and our own, Sam Smith’s Progressive Review carries this item, reminding us of an incident involving Larry Summers, who was Secretary of the Treasury before he became President of Harvard. He came to public attention for denouncing black scholar Cornell West, who has since left that university. When Summers was working for the World Bank, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Treasury department, a candid memo of his was leaked. In it, he said: “I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that . . . I’ve always thought that under populated countries in Africa are vastly under-polluted.”

And now the Associated Press reports: “A new study says pollution from industrial nations was one of the possible causes of a devastating African famine that left 1.2 million people dead . . . Researchers said the short-lived pollutionparticles, known as aerosols, didn’t have to travel to Africa to harm the environment there. The particles were able to alter the physics of cloud formation miles away and reduce rainfall in Africa by as much as 50 percent, say the researchers, who used a computer to simulate the atmospheric conditions.

http://www.globalwarm.com/p/5c/0aaa24b78bfb.html

AFGHAN WOES (AGAIN)

The other day, as I reported Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was bragging about how the US War on Terror had saved Afghanistan and averted famime. Today’s New York Times reports that group of senior Afghan officials said US aid to that country has been “too slow.” And they warned that social unrest is likely if assistance doesn’t come in by winter…

Once again, the delay between official pronouncement and truth is so long that the Administration can say anything which gets on page one. When it is corrected, it ends up deep in the paper with little connection to the original claim or story.

Part of the problem is that the press is still being constrained and intimidated in Afghanistan. Reporters Without Frontiers today “called on the US government today to investigate the arbitrary detention of a Pakistani journalist by US forces in Afghanistan and stressed that soldiers “must respect the rights of journalists, even in war zones.” “As US forces continue to make blunders in Afghanistan regarding civilians, the arrest of Pakistani journalist Hayatullah Khan is another error in their dealings with journalists,” said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Mènard in a letter to US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

“If he was arbitrarily detained and ill-treated, the US government must compensate him.”

“Without water, with hands tied and blindfolded, he was interrogated by US and British officers who accused him of passing on information to terrorist organisations, notably Al-Qaeda, on the basis of names and phone numbers of Afghan and Pakistani religious leaders they found in his confiscated address book. He explained they were contacts he needed to do his job as a journalist in the region.

“‘I kept denying their charges and repeatedly told them I was a professional journalist.’ At one point the soldiers told him heshould be ‘ready to die.’”

REVISITING DANNY PEARL

As for people ready to die, The Pakistanis may have the wrong men in the Daniel Pearl case, writes Daniel Bushell in this week’s Boston Phoenix. Writing from Karaschi:

“Omar Shaikh, widely regarded as the brains among the four who stood in the dock, received the death sentence for his involvement. The three men named as his co- conspirators received 25-year sentences. That was a surprise. Most believed that they would all hang together. For some reason the judge thought that only one person needed to die, and defying the Pakistani Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997, he refused to sentence them all to death; instead, in addition to slapping them with long sentences, he fined them each the equivalent of approximately $41,000. One hanging was sufficient.

“When I asked a friend of mine clerking in the judge’s chambers why the judge condemned only one man, my friend, who decided to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, said, ‘Well, the accused are all men of very good character, and Daniel Pearl was a Jew — the prosecution never refuted the contention that he was Mossad [Israeli intelligence].’”

Okay, so clemency doesn’t always come from the best intentions.

WHO WAS DANNY PEARL?

As for my namesake, Danny Pearl, his family has set up a foundation and website. (www.danielpearlfoundation.com) It features a beautiful appeal to the people of Pakistan from his father Judea, who of course has dismissed the ridiculous claim that his son was an agent of the Israelis because he is from that country. His statement appeared in the Wall Street Journal and demands to be republished widely.

“If one reads the many stories written by Danny and about Danny’s life and work (http://www.saja.org) one finds that his death shocked the world not because he was an innocent victim of terrorism, but because of the irreconcilable irony of his tragedy: Danny was a perfect mouthpiece for both the West and the Muslim worlds to understand each other. His lively prose, honesty, and sensitivity to other cultures earned him the respect of all who met him and made him a perfect emissary of goodwill and understanding.

“Additionally, Danny embodied qualities that some close-minded people have found hard to accept. He showed that an American can faithfully and unjudgmentally present anti-Western points of view.

“He showed that a journalist need not be considered a ‘spy,’ because honest and accurate information can benefit both providers and receivers. He showed that being Jewish does not mean being anti-Islam. For the past seven years, Danny’s articles in The Wall Street Journal served in fact as Islam’s best advocates; they showed readers the hardships and aspirations of people in Islamic countries, as well as the intricate nuances of their religion.

“Thus, when he declared to his captors: ‘I am Jewish!’ what he said in fact was: ‘I respect Islam precisely because I am Jewish, and I expect you to respect me and my faith precisely because you are good Muslims.’ In short, Danny personified tolerance, humanity and dialogue, and his death turned him into a symbol for these values.”

A SONG FOR JIHAD JOHNNY

John Walker Lindh’s image may be in for a refurbishing as a result of a new controversial song, as Richard Harrington reported in the Washington Post:

“John Walker’s Blues,” from an upcoming Steve Earle album, has landed the country-music renegade on the enemies list at Nashville radio station WTN-FM. Morning talk show host Steve Gill is comparing Earle to Jane Fonda in her ‘Hanoi Jane’ phase and to John Walker Lindh himself, the young Californian dubbed the “American Taliban” after he was captured in November fighting alongside troops of Afghanistan’s fundamentalist Muslim rulers.

“Taken from Earle’s ‘Jerusalem’ album, due in late September, the song offers a sympathetic view of Lindh, who last week pleaded guilty to two felony counts, assisting the Taliban and carrying explosives. Lindh will serve 20 years in prison in exchange for the government’s dropping the more serious charges — those that could have brought the death penalty:

On the Israeli Palestinian front, others are singing out. This was in my email today: “This is Jojoboy from Juha, a Hip Hop pod on Maui of the Queer Palestinian persuasion. We’ve just released our cd “Polari” on Agitprop Records/Boston in the US, and are getting rad reviews (see below), and our album hit #1 on a small US Queer music chart. We want one of the songs (”This Dream Is Gonna Blow”) to get mad airplay for starters. Wanna play us?”

MEDIA ROLE IN ISRAELI DEBATE

In Israel, debate rages over the wisdom of the military assassination by smart bomb of the leader of Hamas and 8 children, as well as new reports in the Israeli press of reports that the European Union had notified Israel about an impending ceasefire by Palestinian groups before the Israeli attack derailed the peace process. (It is usually the other way around with terror attacks by Palestinians — this time there might have been time to maneuver towards peace.)

The US State Department says it will be investigating whether Israel, which awaits another $200 million in US military aid, violated the terms of US law that prohibits the use of weapons against civilians, a long-violated provision. Interesting isn’t it that this issue was raised by the US government, and not by most of the press, a point not lost on Dr. Mohammad Khodr, of Virginia whose letter to the Washington Post complains about one-sided coverage that often leaves out key facts and realities:” …that many Israeli’s oppose Sharon’s policies, that most settlers are willing to leave the occupied territories, that most Americans support a Palestinian state and demand a balanced American policy, that many American Jews are speaking out against Israel and our blind support of it, even risking their lives to protect Palestinians, that the Arabs finally presented a coherent final solution to Israel, that the entire world stands against us and Israel, however, you and the rest of our major media exclude the rational voices for peace… To my mind you are complicit in aiding and abetting Sharon and his murderous policies.”

THE SOUTH AFRICAN METAPHOR

On the Israeli side, Adam Keller wrote about continued protests by Israeli peace activists. His letter closes this way:

“While dispersing, more than one of us contemplated the likely future occasions when we would have to come here again in the coming months - the suicide bombings which are the likely result of the Gaza bombings, and the new acts of repression to which these bombings will provide a pretext, and the new Palestinian retaliations and…

Then we passed the tall building at the corner of Ibn Gvirol St. where the South African Embassy was located in the 1980’s, and the pavement where “Israelis Against Apartheid” had held their vigils. That, too, had often seemed futile and interminable.”

On that note, it is on to my day. For those of you who are interested, please check out our Globalvision.org site for information about our new film COUNTING ON DEMOCRACY about the electoral fiasco in Florida during the 2000 election. Copies are available. In the meantime, so am I. Write dissector@mediachannel.org

Also, last but least, CONGRATULATIONS to our Turkish correspondent Adam McConnel, who frequently sends in items and reports on his recent marriage. And to Gillian Caldwell, the Executive Director of WITNESS, and her partner, Louis Spitzer. On June 23, Gillian gave birth to a healthy baby girl named Tess Spitzer Caldwell.