BOGOTA, Colombia (AP)—A satchel of letters carried out of the jungle by two women freed by Colombian rebels details the heart-wrenching suffering and depredation of the hostages still held captive.
Maria Teresa Mendieta, wife of hostage police Col. Luis Mendieta, reads a letter from her husband.
The letters catalog the misery of eight captive politicians, police and soldiers who’ve become pawns in a bitter conflict. Often chained by the neck, they suffer from malaria, tropical parasites, heart ailments and diarrhea so severe that one captive couldn’t walk.
They got McDonalds to eat? Thats torture! FARCs are terrorists, like Bushitler.
Jes keeding. Lefties are tender poet nobles.
But it’s not the physical pain that wounds us, not the chains that we wear around our necks that torment us, nor the incessant ailments that afflict us. It’s the mental agony caused by the irrationality of all this. It’s the anger produced by the perversity of the bad and the indifference of the good.”
Cmon. The good are busy worrying about global warming whilst planning their vacations. And that Fred Thompson may only be an an actor, after all.
I can just hear the “thank gods” from conservatives if Sean Penn runs for office. His comments will automatically be “qualified” and conservatives will be so much happier!
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Sean Penn’s days of writing for the San Francisco Chronicle may be over: The actor now calls the publication an “increasingly lamebrain paper.”
Penn offered the critique in a letter published Tuesday, written in response to a tongue-in-cheek article that focused on celebrity interest in Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. It listed a number of potential matchups between celebrities and dictators or other authoritarian figures.
Penn objected to the characterization, saying Chavez is a democratically elected leader.
One of the most liberal newspapers in America recently mocked “celebrities making asses of themselves...hanging out with the world’s most notorious dictators and other authoritarian figures.”
One such a-a-actor, Sean Penn, who has actually written for the paper in question, struck back Monday by calling the outlet “lame-brain,” “desperate,” and having “become Mad Magazine for small-minded cowards and former writers of substance.”
In reading Penn’s letter to the editor, one can only marvel at the clarity exhibited in contrast to his otherwise incoherence in past endeavors. Maybe Penn hired a ghost writer.
The problem I have with the Hollywood crowd is not that their politics differ from mine. It’s that they are given a public soapbox solely because of their celebrity . . . as if celebrity alone demands more weight be given their opinions. There are both liberals and conservatives in Hollywood who agree with this.
With Penn, I don’t really have that much of a problem, but if his talent for social commentary was as formidable as his acting ability—at which he excels—then I wouldn’t have any problem at all with giving him a soapbox. On the other hand, actors like Rosie O’Donnell or Charlie Sheen, who have this narcissistic need to opine on certains matters far outside their area of expertise, should be severely criticized for being the dunces they are. Court jesters don’t deserve that level of attention . . . no matter how entertaining it is to see Rosie make a complete ass of herself in public.
I can just hear the “thank gods” from conservatives if Sean Penn runs for office. His comments will automatically be “qualified” and conservatives will be so much happier!
And yes, CM, some celebrities (not necessarily Penn) abuse their priviledge of having a public soapbox while legitimate opinions suffer de facto censorship. Zdenek Bazant may not be as entertaining as Rosie O’Donnell, but when it comes to opinions on progressive collapse of steel structures, the world’s leading mind on the subject has never appeared on “The View” (or any other public forum) to present his opinions regarding the collapse of the Twin Towers even though he authored the one and only peer-reviewed paper on the subject which proved progressive collapse was indeed possible. Rosie insists otherwise.
Some opinions should carry more weight than others as some people are far more “qualified” to have certain opinions. Bazant, who would probably bore the bark off a log, versus Rosie O’Donnell, an ignoramus with a mental disorder (and perhaps more than one) isn’t really much of choice unless there are agendas to service, be they ratings related or political.
It boils down to this: Some people in Hollywood need to be more responsible with their public comments. Unfortunately, some Hollywood narcissists cannot control themselves; thus, they are “experts” on everything.
As I’ve said in the past - surely the problem is with the people that provide the soapbox then, not those using it?
I absolutely agree that having someone like your Zdenek Bazant guy is much more useful than having someone tell us their opinion because they are famous. But I just can’t see why I should blame those people that effectively have a soap-box shoved under them.
I totally agree about ‘weight’ though, where something like you are talking about is being argued - where expertise is required.
But in terms of political opinions then I’m not sure it’s the same.
Either way, when weighting is required, then it’s up to us to apply that isn’t it? Or are people not intelligent enough to apply weighting?
As I’ve said in the past - surely the problem is with the people that provide the soapbox then, not those using it?
I absolutely agree that having someone like your Zdenek Bazant guy is much more useful than having someone tell us their opinion because they are famous. But I just can’t see why I should blame those people that effectively have a soap-box shoved under them.
I totally agree about ‘weight’ though, where something like you are talking about is being argued - where expertise is required.
But in terms of political opinions then I’m not sure it’s the same.
Either way, when weighting is required, then it’s up to us to apply that isn’t it? Or are people not intelligent enough to apply weighting?
I guess I might agree with some of the blame resting with those that provide the soapbox, but some Hollywood celebrities have this inexplicable need to publically opine on matters of which they are cluelessly ignorant. They just don’t know how ignorant they really are when it comes to things like physics and such. Others celebrities of both liberal and conservative persuasion have the good sense to keep their mouth shut it these situations.
I tend to think it’s more a matter of personal responsibility. If Rosie O’Donnell wants to go off on some lame Witch Hunt looking for the so-called “real perpetrators” of 911, then that’s her business, but when she starts making public statements about how a gravity driven progressive collapse of the Twin Towers was impossible, she is being totally irresponsible.
Yes, political opinions are another matter. I agree. But when politics and science are mixed, then it’s time for celebrities and laymen to use a little discretion. And yes, we all must weigh opinions, but when it comes to some matters like science, it’s not a matter of intelligence . . . it’s a matter of understanding, and the general public is largely ignorant about technical matters. Rosie has no business grossly misinforming the masses on these matters, but she willingly takes on that responsibility as if she knew what she was talking about. She is eagerly being less than useless.
As I’ve said in the past - surely the problem is with the people that provide the soapbox then, not those using it?
I absolutely agree that having someone like your Zdenek Bazant guy is much more useful than having someone tell us their opinion because they are famous. But I just can’t see why I should blame those people that effectively have a soap-box shoved under them.
I totally agree about ‘weight’ though, where something like you are talking about is being argued - where expertise is required.
But in terms of political opinions then I’m not sure it’s the same.
Either way, when weighting is required, then it’s up to us to apply that isn’t it? Or are people not intelligent enough to apply weighting?
I guess I might agree with some of the blame resting with those that provide the soapbox, but some Hollywood celebrities have this inexplicable need to publically opine on matters of which they are cluelessly ignorant. They just don’t know how ignorant they really are when it comes to things like physics and such. Others celebrities of both liberal and conservative persuasion have the good sense to keep their mouth shut it these situations.
I tend to think it’s more a matter of personal responsibility. If Rosie O’Donnell wants to go off on some lame Witch Hunt looking for the so-called “real perpetrators” of 911, then that’s her business, but when she starts making public statements about how a gravity driven progressive collapse of the Twin Towers was impossible, she is being totally irresponsible.
Yes, political opinions are another matter. I agree. But when politics and science are mixed, then it’s time for celebrities and laymen to use a little discretion. And yes, we all must weigh opinions, but when it comes to some matters like science, it’s not a matter of intelligence . . . it’s a matter of understanding, and the general public is largely ignorant about technical matters. Rosie has no business grossly misinforming the masses on these matters, but she willingly takes on that responsibility as if she knew what she was talking about. She is eagerly being less than useless.
Celebrities, or anyone for that matter, who use an opportunity to say something publicly, inherently run into the potential to enhance but also degrade their reputuations, or ‘public standing’. So yeah, if a celebrity, or anyone, goes public and tries to talk knowledgeable about a technical matter they are not qualified to talk about, then they are invariably going to come across as idiots if and when that is pointed out by those who DO know. And then the market will decide. If we stick with the ‘market’ analogy, sounds like you are suggesting that there is not ‘perfect information’ in these cases, as the balancing voices are never as loud. So perhaps Rosie is an example of market failure.
So yeah, if a celebrity, or anyone, goes public and tries to talk knowledgeable about a technical matter they are not qualified to talk about, then they are invariably going to come across as idiots if and when that is pointed out by those who DO know. And then the market will decide.
True fans usually don’t care so long as their idol gets air time. “Fan” is derived from “fanatic”.
Etymology: Latin fanaticus inspired by a deity, frenzied, marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion <they’re fanatic about politics>
Housewife Ingrid Guzman thanks Chavez for a clinic where Cuban doctors treat her son’s asthma and she voted for him in the referendum, but also complains that crime is out of hand and that residents in her pot-holed street have to coerce workers to collect trash.
“The government sends help, but it doesn’t arrive,” Guzman said through the half-open door of her home. “It’s not Chavez, it’s the people around him,” she added, echoing a commonly expressed view that Chavez is surrounded by corrupt officials.
“I used to sit here on my doorstep until 11 or 12 at night. Not any more,” Guzman said.
Seconds later, she dived inside as two youths ran up the street firing a hand gun at a third youngster.
Learned from being exposed to US American “culture”
See, if Chavez went into these slums and violently disposed of the human trash there I’d laud him to. But unfortunately they’re the very proles the Good People Thinkers love so dearly and support wihtout reserve.
Madrid - Spain’s National Court has accused Guatemala of “discrediting” human rights, violating international legislation and protecting the suspected perpetrators of the “genocide” of the country’s Maya population between 1961 and 1996, press reports said Thursday. Judge Santiago Pedraz issued a ruling accusing the Guatemalan judiciary of not collaborating with his investigation, launched on the basis of a complaint lodged by Guatemalan 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu.
The National Court has indicted eight people, including former military leaders Efrain Rios Montt and Oscar Humberto Mejia, of involvement in the killings of more than 250,000 people, 83 per cent of whom were Mayas.
Guatemala has refused to collaborate with the investigation, arguing that the Spanish judiciary did not have the authority to handle it, and not allowing Pedraz to interrogate any of the suspects when visiting the Latin American country, the judge complained.
Immigrant Latinos murdering native Mayans? I call bullshit. And, Euro or no, Spain needs to give Basque territiory back to its rightful owners.
Celebrities, or anyone for that matter, who use an opportunity to say something publicly, inherently run into the potential to enhance but also degrade their reputuations, or ‘public standing’. So yeah, if a celebrity, or anyone, goes public and tries to talk knowledgeable about a technical matter they are not qualified to talk about, then they are invariably going to come across as idiots if and when that is pointed out by those who DO know. And then the market will decide. If we stick with the ‘market’ analogy, sounds like you are suggesting that there is not ‘perfect information’ in these cases, as the balancing voices are never as loud. So perhaps Rosie is an example of market failure.
CM, they may come across as idiots to some, but others they influence in a very negative way. This is what free societies must deal with . . . free speech even when it comes from narcissistic celebrities who consider themselves experts on everything. As the philosopher once said, freedom is nothing more than an opportunity to practice self-disipline. This is a case where we cannot deny Rosie that opportunity. It is also a case where she is being negligent in her responsibility to practice that self-disipline.
Up until 911, structural engineering was a pretty obscure disipline, hardly known and certainly not well-understood by the general public. Today, it seems there are many celebrities who have become “expert” forensic engineers overnight. The problem is those who DO know, as you say, are relatively silent on the matter since they have no public soapbox. Hence, far too many people hear Rosie misinform them. And little do they suspect she is clueless about the subject. Whatever you call it—market failure or what not—the problem of celebrity misinformation is with us.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Sean Penn’s days of writing for the San Francisco Chronicle may be over: The actor now calls the publication an “increasingly lamebrain paper.”
The paper becomes a lamebrainer after Penn starts writing for it. I’m with Spiccoli on this one…
I’ll bet readership declines precipitously and permanently over the next few weeks.... Another crappy newspaper bites the dust. Good riddance. Sean Penn saves the trees!
A report in a New York newspaper has claimed that Sienna Miller may have been responsible for the break-up of Sean Penn and Robin Wright Penn, prompting Miller’s lawyers to send a letter to the columnist’s stating that the article is “false, and is highly defamatory”, and stating that Miller is pursuing “legal remedies”.
Betcha AIDS babies in Africa are already happily anticipating their cut.
Apropos suewage: Its funny that Seaniepoo should mention “porcelain dumping bowl” cuz whenever I look at Penn I see constipation, arrogance, self-love yet absolutely zero capacity for humor. How good a writer can such a person be? He’s no Charlie Bukowski.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film “Into the Wild” 4 stars out of 4 and described the film as “spellbinding.” Ebert wrote that Emile Hirsch gives a “hypnotic performance”, saying “It is great acting, and more than acting.” Ebert said “The movie is so good partly because it means so much, I think, to its writer-director.”, Sean Penn.
I read the book and saw McCandless overall as a witless pampered schmoe self-deluded into thinking he was somehow being green by burning his cash and sitting in some weeds.
Sean depicts him as a budding Walt Whitman or Euell Gibbons encountering myriad Gary Snyders, Rachel Carsons and Ansel Adamses along the way, all wisely quoting Ted Roosevelt
“We of an older generation can get along with what we have, though with growing hardship; but in your full manhood and womanhood you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thoughtlessly destroyed; and because of that want you will reproach us, not for what we have used, but for what we have wasted...So any nation which in its youth lives only for the day, reaps without sowing, and consumes without husbanding, must expect the penalty of the prodigal whose labor could with difficulty find him the bare means of life.”
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Hugo Chavez threatened on Saturday to take control of banks that fail to meet state-imposed loaning requirements designed to benefit Venezuela’s farmers.
Chavez, who says he is leading Venezuela toward “21st century socialism,” accused many private banks of neglecting laws requiring them to set aside nearly a third of all loans for agriculture, mortgages and small businesses at favorable rates.
“The law must be applied,” Chavez said during a televised meeting with farmers. Any bank that doesn’t comply with these lending requirements “should be seized.”
Asimbonanga
This is somewhat ironic when you recall JFK and Castro
By now practically everyone in the Midwest and Northeast has seen the TV ads. A series of heart-rending scenes show low-income American families gratefully receiving discounted home heating oil as a gift “from Citgo and the people of Venezuela.” The gift-giving intermediary? Former Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, founding chairman of Citizens Energy Corp.
The favorable media exposure that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is buying for Kennedy would be worth millions if he runs again for public office. His uncle, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), has been in the U.S. Senate since 1962. Chavez is also using the ads as part of his public relations campaign to influence the American people to look more favorably upon Venezuela and the oil and power his regime controls.
Citgo is owned by Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), the state-owned oil company controlled by Chavez. Any reasonable observer would have to conclude that the “JOE-4-OIL” advertisements and discounted heating oil program are very political.
Crime, corruption, inflation and food scarcities are rampant. The average per capita income in Venezuela is less than one-sixth of America’s and millions of Venezuela’s extremely poor earn less than $1 a day.
So the 112 million gallons of heating oil Citgo is selling at a 40 percent discount to relatively wealthy Americans under the Citgo/Kennedy program means that Chavez is denying the poor in Venezuela $150 million in lost Citgo revenue — all of it spent to purchase political influence for Chavez and Kennedy.
It takes a donkey to know a donkey. The voice of the everyprole, Chevez brays on:
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) —President Hugo Chavez threatened on Sunday to take over farms or milk plants if owners refuse to sell their milk for domestic consumption and instead seek higher profits abroad or from cheese-makers.
art.chavez.ap.jpg
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez pours powder milk on his desk during his weekly broadcast.
With the country recently facing milk shortages, Chavez said “it’s treason” if farmers deny milk to Venezuelans while selling it across the border in Colombia or for gourmet cheeses.
“In that case the farm must be expropriated,” Chavez said, adding that the government could also take over milk plants and properties of beef producers.
His comments came a day after he threatened to take control of banks that fail to meet state-imposed requirements to set aside nearly a third of all loans for agriculture, mortgages and small businesses at favorable rates.
