Listen in to Danny Schechter’s why-media-matters rant, “Our Mandate,” in the Audioblog.

APRIL FOOLS DAY PLUS ONE

Happy April.

This April fool was on the road yesterday, so I didn’t have too much time to get clever. April showers threaten to explode in the Northeast. I will be heading out to East Stroudsburg in Pennsylvania’s Pocono mountains to show WMD today at noon. It’s not far from an old union resort called Unity House where my grandparents escaped the city heat in the early part of the last century. That garment workers union, the ILGWU, has since merged into an entity called UNITE. The generations unite. The Schechter generations may be singing from the same prayer book, but the old resort has long since been sold off to realtors.

Across the big pond, one of our readers, a real singer, Pia Raug, writes to tell us:

“The day is beautifully blue and clear. The Pope is still dying, but here in Denmark everything circles around the April 2nd 200th birthday of Hans Christian Andersen. Right now royalty and celebrity artists ambassadors from all over the world, transported by train from Cph to the HCA’s birth town, Odense, are being treated lunch — later today they will be transported back to cph for biggest mega-show ever staged in dk (and I am sure it will be totally at the beg and call of Media and Market — not a speck of art involved — but I’m also sure that he would be vain enough to truly enjoy all the fuss).

“I too was born in Odense, but in my childhood memory it is not the image of the celebrity. It is the first ‘litterary’ experience of my life. My grandmother’s brother, all through my childhood before I was able to read myself, read the fairytales aloud to my sister and me. I just loved it. But alongside that for the first time I was confronted with the fact that eternal ‘Art’ has not always just ‘been there.’ It comes out of actually living, breathing people.”

Art may come from “living, breathing people,” but the news these days seems to be revolving around dying people on their last breath. The Pope is surrendering to his God’s will, as we all know.

April is also the anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, events depicted in Raoul Peck’s new film, “Sometimes in April” now showing on HBO. See it if you can. Chilling.

“WHAT A WEB WE WEAVE WHEN FIRST WE PRACTICE TO DECEIVE”

‘Curveball’ Debacle Reignites CIA Feud
The former agency chief and his top deputy deny reports that they were told a key source for Iraqi intelligence was deemed unreliable.
By Bob Drogin and Greg Miller, Times Staff Writers

“WASHINGTON — A bitter feud erupted Friday over claims by a presidential commission that top CIA officials apparently ignored warnings in late 2002 and early 2003 that an informant code-named ‘Curveball’ — the chief source of prewar U.S. intelligence about Iraqi germ weapons — was unreliable.

“Former CIA Director George J. Tenet and his chief deputy, John E. McLaughlin, furiously denied that they had been told not to trust Curveball, an Iraqi refugee in Germany who ultimately was proved a fraud.

“But the CIA’s former operations chief and one of his top lieutenants insisted in interviews that debates had raged inside the CIA about Curveball’s credibility, even as then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell vouched for the defector’s claims in a crucial address to the United Nations Security Council on the eve of war.

“‘The fact is there was yelling and screaming about this guy,’ said James L. Pavitt, deputy director of operations and head of the clandestine service until he retired last summer…”

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-intel2apr02,0,5679005.story?coll=la-home-headlines

YOUR LETTERS

Robert Polhemus writes from Yonkers:

“I have no doubt what-so-ever that the more you expose these WEREWOLVES ON THE RIGHT, The harder they will come down on you. Quite honestly, I would have little problem if I was well known enough to have these Jackals attack me. It means I have hit their Gutless Asses.”

Carol the Artist writes:

“Please talk about the Canadian Seal Slaughter. This is the most heartbreaking thing there is. Have you seen pictures of the baby harp seals? They are the most sweet, innocent, adorable little baby animals there are. They are just days or weeks old and should be nursing from their mothers, NOT having their heads bashed in with clubs with metal prongs on them and being skinned alive. This is being done by the hundreds of thousands. Canada is subsidizing the slaughter of three hundred thousand baby seals. A million in 3 years.

“For more information see websites like: harpseals.org, International Fund for
Animal Welfare — www.ifaw.org, Friends of Animals, The Humane Society — www.hsus.org, which has a Seal Watch site.

“I get so emotional over this.This should be all over the media. Pictures of baby seals should be all over the newspapers and tv. Not that non-story of Terry Schiavo…”

Eugene Duran writes:

“Interesting how a ad this mourning showed how hydrogen fueled vehicle will be the choice of Americans 20 years from now. This on a day when many agencies are issuing dire warnings of oil spikes production problems and a tight market.. This PR war will continue for a couple of years. What then?”

Jon R. Koppenhoefer writes from Springfield, Ohio:

“I appreciated reading that some Americans were so proud of the role religion played in the recent surrender of a man who had killed a courtroom guard, and judge, and at least one other person before taking a young woman hostage.

“The hostage, as you know, read to this murderous convict from a popular book on religion, titled something like ‘Your mission on earth is God’s will’. The murderer saw this woman as his saving angel sent by God to show him the way to a better life. He surrendered.

“People were beside themselves with glee that the killer had been converted by his hostage/angel. They claimed far and wide that this proves the power of the Lord.

“They didn’t mention that the killer will no doubt face the death penalty despite having been ‘redeemed’ by his ‘guardian angel.’ And, I expect, he will be executed without the death watch given Terri Schiavo…

“I appreciate reading the Dissector Daily, and consider it a blow against the empire of ignorance that Bush — the champion of faith-based opinion — and the corporate media are building in America. I used to be proud of this country. Now I’m in contempt of much of its people and institutions. Canada beckons.”

One story of the week via J. Boudreau:

“Drudge is reporting that clinically insane whack-job Ann Coulter was interrupted by hecklers during a speaking engagement last night at KU. But little Mattie is not telling us the whole story. My best friend’s daughter is a sophomore at Kansas. She called her dad after the event and he immediately phoned me. Apparently what sent Coulter into a full-bore, spittle-flecked, incoherent rage was being asked, ‘So, Annie, what’s actually larger, your Adam’s apple or your dick?’ My wife and kids slept through the ringing phone, but my ensuing laughter woke the entire house.”

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3387035&mesg_id=3387035&page

Comment of the day from Tina Brown’s column in the Washington Post:

“The current mania for any story with a religious angle is just the latest index of the post-election angst in executive suites about the terror of being out of touch with suburban mega-churches and other manifestations of the supposed Real America. God forbid, so to speak, that anyone should stand up and suggest that Mozart might be as worthwhile as NASCAR, or that it might be as important for the soul to read Philip Roth as the hokey bromides of ‘The Purpose Driven Life.’”

Thanks to Paul O’Hanlon for arranging a screening of WMD in Cairo. See www.wmdthefilm.com for more. The “Making and Mission of WMD” can be seen for free at www.hi-movie.com (no Macs).

I am off. Keep your letters coming. Back Monday or before.

Write: dissector@mediachannel.org