On this day in the year of the escape of 1980: Former Beatle John Lennon is shot dead.

Politics New tyrants for old
Sir, I have just returned from a book promotion in Poland, where even those MPs who had been in the forefront of opposition to the Communists told me that they found the EU far more oppressive and dismissive of Polish nationhood than their previous Soviet masters.
· Masters & Slavs [Samizdata]

One Man In His Time

In 1983, Phillip Adams wrote that Adolf Hitler was "not the Fuhrer of the Third Reich so much as the ventriloquist doll of an entire people". It's a popular notion today, and it says that one man and his prejudices can't influence history. It says that when a man acts in the name of his country, his entire race is behind him.

It suggests that what happened 60 years ago in Europe couldn't possibly happen again, for we're smarter now; we move carefully and see the world in all its colours - unlike those Movietone extras, who waddled stupidly through their black-and-white lives.

To think so is to forget that there have been only 14 Olympic Games since Hitler besieged the civilised world. Nazi Germany is no more a quaint, irrelevant relic than the Sydney Harbour Bridge - a product of the industrial world over which we still move. Marian Pretzel lives near the Harbour Bridge, and he remembers European Nazism vividly.
· Ageless [The Age, Australia]

Union of Solidarnost

The fate of rights we do care about — of race, gender, age and disability — is intimately linked to the fate of rights we don't care about. For instance, at a Sprint office in San Francisco during the early 1990s, Latina employees suffered humiliating indignities. They had to raise their hands and ask permission to go to the bathroom. Supervisors regulated their access to drinking water. Wages were low. When they tried to organize a union in order to advance their rights, as women and as Latinas, they were fired. But where black workers at Shoney's were able to win $132 million in a highly publicized racial discrimination suit against the popular Southern restaurant chain in 1993, the unionizing Latinas ended up with nothing.
· Two Steps Backward and One Step [Forward]

Enlisting writers for good old propaganda

With a government like the one we have, when not even 50 percent of Americans voted for the president, the diversity of opinion is not represented.
The Bush administration has recruited prominent American writers to "write about what it means to be an American writer" for a State Department anthology to promote America culturally around the world.
· Old Tricks [The New York Times]

Media The Unbiased Truth About Media Objectivity

The reporting of the news is supposed to be objective, a dispassionate recitation of the facts. But of course it never is and never has been. What's more, it never will or could be.
In this, the postmodernists are right. The truth does exist somewhere out there, but we are incapable of perceiving it except from our own inherently skewed points of view.
So we're stuck with our versions of events or a plethora of competing versions of the same events, none of which adds up to the real McCoy. A lot of effort, however, is put into maintaining the illusion that they do, especially when it comes to the news.

· A free press doesn't always sit on the fence. [LA Times]
· What will the rest of us do about the new bias? [Washington Post]

Information highway at a crossroads

As old media corporations hog-tie the Internet, they will kill the golden goose, not just for themselves, but also for democracy.
This week marks one of two things for the Internet: Either it's the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning.Whatever. The bottom line is ... the bottom line.
· The Bottom [Toronto Star]

Civil Liberties The Kafkaesque Police State of the USA-Patriot Act

After the photographer Mike Maginnis took his pictures in downtown Denver near Cheney's hotel, a cop confronted him. He demanded Maginnis hand over not only his film, but also his camera. When he refused, Maginnis was thrown down on the pavement and arrested. He was taken to the police station and locked in an interrogation room for two hours. Finally an SS agent arrived and told Maginnis that his "suspicious activities" made him a threat to national security, and that he would be charged as a terrorist under the USA-Patriot Act. The agent tried to get Maginnis to admit he was taking photos of Cheney's hotel as part of some nefarious terrorist plot intended to "cause terror and mayhem." The photographer refused to admit this. The SS agent responded by calling Maginnis a raghead collaborator and a dirty pinko faggot. No doubt it would've been great for the SS agent's career if Maginnis had admitted he did something wrong.
· Agents of Terror [Counter Punch]

Gang Rule

A database of organized crime figures and gangs; lots of images, including of original newspaper articles; documents and articles; and bibliography, links, and contact info.
· Organised Chaos [Gang Rule]

Political Money Line's Federal
Lobby Directoryis the most comprehensive US directory of lobby firms, lobbyists and organizations that lobby on the Federal level.
· Lobby Links [Political Money Line's]

Crime statistics links
· Punishment [Poynter 1]

How They Got the Story

Poynter.org has a new feature, How They Got the Story, in which reporters describe the work that led up to a significant story or series. Four award-winning McClatchy newspaper teams describe the work behind their pieces.
· 5 Ws 1 How [Poynter 2]

Internet Specialty Search Engines
For those times when you want to find more than just web pages and web sites, some of the topical search engines will prove useful.
· Search [Engine Room]


Literature From Cold River To Hot Air Review of 2002

For my family, the only book of entire 2002 was Jozef Imrich’s Cold River. Tim Lott kickstarted 2002 with Rumours of a Hurricane (a bleak novel set against a backdrop of Thatcher’s Britain that puts paid to the lie about contemporary novelists not engaging with the political), but sadly didn’t herald a revolution of any kind.
· Double Dragon of Two Zero Zero Two [Book Munch I]

Opal Fruits of 2003
For us, 2003 starts with the got-damn TITAN that is E. Annie Proulx (and we will continue to use the “E” despite the fact that 4th Estate have ignominiously dropped it . . . as it were). She’s back with her first novel since the masterful Accordion Crimes way back in 1997 and to say we’re looking forward to it, to say we’re salivating like a dog with a packet of Opal Fruits in its mouth . . . Well, that’s just plain old understatement and no mistakin’.
· Titan [Book Munch II]

The Writer's Almanac

A daily program of poetry and history hosted by Garrison Keillor, can be heard each day on public radio stations throughout the country. Boys waxed their cars, got new hair- styles, read books -- anything to impress her. But Cecilia hated Lunenburg and thought the boys
were stupid and dull. She thought the girls were even worse.
· Perfection [Almanac]


Travel Tired of traveling?

Visit world landmarks without leaving your computer. 360-degree tours. Includes several Miami landmarks...or for even more unusual travel, tour the U.S. with Mr. Toaster.
· Tour [Toaster]

99% Truth Mice, men share 99 percent of genes

When it comes to DNA, it turns out there's not that much difference between mice and men.
· Rats in the ranks [CNN]