Amazing Grace, I am back in the saddle, out a year’s worth of files, but perhaps wiser and more vigilant. TekServ, the old Mac Shop, did extract some files from the machine that crashed before this one so I can now reread my fulminations from years gone by. I am probably the only one cares, but at least something survived.

To some eeny-weeny small degree, I was reminded how the Katrina victims felt when they returned to their homes and found their momentos and more submerged or gone. This was not as bad, not even in the same league of loss, but meltdowns like this are always personal and of course relative. At least, I as heartened by the genuine concern and support showed by some of our readers.

On Friday, I did some media hopping with quickie interviews on two BBC news programs—I still get more interest in my ideas overseas that in the USA—and a sit down on debt at the downtown studio of INN, Lenny Charles’s daily news show coming live out of a loft-like facility still under reconstruction in Tribeca.

I admire his determination and technical prowess in producing probably the lowest cost TV newscast in the world. The program is carried daily by Free Speech TV and is in constant danger of going down. 911, a subject that is an anathema for many on the left is his main concern but he has been covering the financial crisis regularly and got my take on the latest bad news. He also, thank, you, hyped my film In Debt We Trust (indebtwetrust.com) which foresaw some of the economic implosion we are experiencing.

Two different BBC newscasts spoke to me about Prince Harry being extracted from his unit in Afghanistan after the Drudge Report so insidiously exposed his presence there after the British press agreed to keep his presence a secret for fear of his being targeted.

Before I discussed the issue on a broadcast out of Wales, a British General amazed me by disclosing that the mighty British Empire, or what is left of it, was less worried about the Taliban than an assault by the rest of the press corps surrounding the base, They feared an incursion, Paparazzi style which would interferie with their efforts to keep the free world free and put the Prince at more risk that the barbarians could inflict.

Of course this was not a real secret anyway. Some earlier shots of Harry himself in action:

Some even see the lad as a war criminal

But the miliyary man on BBC revealed that the Prince and the troops are secure. The General said they can handle those risks but worried more about a mad Fleet Street-style media attack. I didn’t see that reported anywhere. The media worried them more than the Taliban.

I think I did well although I had more trouble getting to the BBC because of the jittery security people at Channel 13—where their NY office is based.I had to go through three ID checks. I had one word of praise for my on-air comments from none other than a former CNN anchor now with Al Jazeera in Doha. He heard me holding forth clear across the world. I tend to get heard more overseas than here. I wonder why. Still waiting for calls from NPR in the US. I guess I will be waiting a long time.

JUST OUT:

The Essential Chomsky, edited by Anthony Arnove

NEW FROM NOAM: WHY AREN’T CANDIDATES DEBATING IRAQ?

NEW FILM ON LIES THAT LED TO WAR—FREE

YOUR LETTERS

Paul Blanc writes about my film WMD:

I just finished watching this movie and found it to be a great eye opening to how much I was taken for a ride by our Gov.

Thank you and please note I will never watch Fox New again.>

Lee Mintz had some good suggestions for me about recovering my data but I couldn’t afford pricey data recovery services. (The estimate was $2800)

Ever see Fred Dalton Thompson as the auto executive in Michael Apted’s old (1991) Gene Hackman/ Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio film, Class Action?

One of the key plot points is Thompson’s revelation of the bean counters’ conclusion: sheerly as a matter of raw dollars, it was cheaper for the auto company to pay off the estimated number of law suits (for families incinerated in the defective cars) than
it would have been to spend a few extra dollars per car re-locating the gas tanks that the auto execs knew in a collision would explode upon impact.

Why did they sell that lemon to you?

Because they could get away with it!

In today’s corporate-controlled Washington, what regulatory, legal, legislative or executive authority is going to do anything to keep them in check?

Certainly nobody appointed (or confirmed) by any Republicans, or by any trough-feeding Democrat either!

I’m enormously sorry that you lost your files!

But as Joe Hill might say under the circumstances:

Don’t mourn! Keep news-dissecting!

Thanks Lee, but I am mourning– for the loss of two friends. One is a fellow Seven Stories author, Barbara Seaman, the leading feminist/writer on women’s heath issues.

There will be a memorial service on Thursday March 6, 2008, at 5:30 pm at Riverside Memorial Chapel at 180 West 76th Street, New York, N.Y. Her first book on the pill was published in 1969. After her third, the NY Times noted: “that she had “triggered a revolution, fostering a willingness among women to take issues of health into their own hands.”

How she saw it: “I didn’t start out to be a muckraker. My goal was simply to try and give women plain facts that would help them to make their own decisions, so they wouldn’t have to rely on authority figures.”

Salute: Barbara Seaman (1935 - 2008), another victim of lung cancer. And also “Hans Janitschek who worked at supporting the UN.

Writes the World Security Network:

“He Was ”an Austrian idealist and journalist, was long-time U.S. Vice President of the World Security Network Foundation in New York, a man of Vienna charm, character and vision, fighting for a better, more just world, and for peace and solidarity with the poor. He was an idealist, not a cold blooded politician. He was a friend of human beings and was caring when others needed his support.”

He was very supportive of our work as well.

On this sad note, I welcome you back as I move on to writing this next blog on what must be my 15th Mac. Not everyone who likes what we do can afford donations but you can all urge your friends to subscribe. That price is right.

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