"I played like shit. Here's my book"

When Manchester City footballer Joey Barton joined the England squad earlier this year, he made loads of friends by commenting on all the books his new team mates had published recently. "England did nothing in that World Cup, so why were they bringing books out? 'We got beat in the quarter-finals. I played like shit. Here's my book'."

And that, my friends, is basically what George Tenet's new book is: a recounting of how he played like shit and helped the president take us into a catastrophic war. At least, that's apparently what his former colleagues at the CIA think. In a letter published on Alternet, Tenet is chided and scolded and downright tongue thrashed for his appalling lack of leadership and courage.

We write to you on the occasion of the release of your book, At the Center of the Storm. You are on the record complaining about the "damage to your reputation." In our view the damage to your reputation is inconsequential compared to the harm your actions have caused for the U.S. soldiers engaged in combat in Iraq and the national security of the United States...

...It now turns out that you were the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community -- a grotesque mixture of incompetence and sycophancy shielded by a genial personality. Decisions were made, you were in charge, but you have no idea how decisions were made even though you were in charge.

...Most importantly and tragically, you failed to meet your obligations to the people of the United States. Instead of resigning in protest, when it could have made a difference in the public debate, you remained silent and allowed the Bush Administration to cite your participation in these deliberations to justify their decision to go to war. Your silence contributed to the willingness of the public to support the disastrous war in Iraq, which has killed more than 3300 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

And they even use the "hundreds of thousands" figure for Iraqi deaths.

Yep, he played like shit and here's his book. Though, I can't take credit for knowing the Joey Barton quote. While I do know more about English football than any girl from Oregon should and therefore know of Joey Barton because he plays for Manchester City -- the team A. supports -- A. was the one who made the comparison between Barton's quote and Tenet's book.

I have such a witty boyfriend...

Link garden #3: People who won't go quietly

Bill Moyers is BACK!

When he stepped down in 2005 as the host of "NOW," I was sorely disappointed. At the time, there were rumors that he was bumped from PBS because of his criticism of conservative policies. He did make a few appearances last year with his "Faith and Reason" series (which was freekin' brilliant, btw) and a couple of other programs looking at the Jack Abromoff scandal and God and the environment.

But this last week he returned to turn the heat up on his colleagues in the press who remained on bended knee (also the title of a great book about the press during the Regan presidency) while George et. al led our nation into a war of epic disaster.

After Moyers Iraq Documentary, DC Reporters in Damage-Control Mode Annotated

Moyers piece is important not just because it has exposed the entire sham that was pre-war Beltway journalism, but also because he has finally exacted a price -- in this case, humiliation -- from the reporters whose power-worshiping, must-stay-on-the-cocktail-party-circuit tendencies led them to aggressively push this country into war. And we can hope that fear of future humiliation will help prevent another gross abdication of responsibility next time around.

I had only one disappointment. At the end of the program, when Moyers talked about the Iraqi lives that have been lost, he used the 30,000 figure the president has grudgingly acknowledged rather than the more scientific Johns Hopkins/University of Baghdad study that estimated the number of Iraqis killed at around 655,000. I'm puzzled because it's not exactly like Moyers is afraid to be provocative, and it's not like the Hopkins/Baghdad study is really all that provocative considering that it's the only scientific study of Iraqi casualties. Indeed, nobody found their methodology provocative when it was used to estimate the number of Africans that other Africans had killed in the Congo. So, you know, why'd ya do it, Bill?


Former envoy makes devastating attack on Blair's 'bullshit bingo' management culture of diplomacy

"British diplomacy is being subordinated to a "bullshit bingo" management culture that works against the national interest in troubled regions such as the Middle East, according to a confidential dispatch circulating the Foreign Office.

In a devastating critique of the regime imposed by Tony Blair's premiership, the farewell telegram from Sir Ivor Roberts as he left his job as Rome ambassador is curtly dismissive of strategic concepts such as, "the war on terror"...

...His dispatch complains of an unending "Cultural Revolution" imposed on the FCO by the Cabinet Office and the Treasury and says much of the "change-management agenda is written in Wall Street management speak already ... discredited by the time it is introduced. Synergies, best practice, benchmarking... roll out, stakeholder.... fit for purpose, are all prime candidates for a game of bullshit bingo, a substitute for clarity and succinctness."

LOL! Bullshit bingo indeed. Best way to describe New Labor that I've heard in a long time. And it sounds like Sir Ivor ought to know.

Then there are people who don't go quietly even after being shot at. Like Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire, who was shot last week by Israeli soldiers while participating in the weekly non-violent peace protest in Bil'in, a village in the West Bank.


Statement on the Shooting in Bil'in, Palestine - Maired Maquire

During the [press] conference, the Israeli military drove through the gate onto Palestinian land with many foot soldiers. They surrounded the world media present, and in Hebrew warned us that if we did not disburse they would attack in five minutes. Myself and Dr. Barghouti condemned this as an abuse of freedom of press and of peoples' rights to peaceful protest and speech...

...We returned to the village and joined the peace vigil, which was moving down the road towards the wall. Several hundred people participated, with Palestinian men, women, and many young Palestinian males leading the march. They were very courageous, since young Palestinian males, when arrested, often are beaten...

...When the walkers got halfway down the road, the Israeli soldiers started firing nerve gas and plastic bullets directly at us. At another point they used water cannons. We were a completely unarmed peaceful gathering, and this vicious attack from the Israeli soldiers was totally unprovoked attack upon civilians.

The soldiers block the upper part of the road, thus preventing Dr. Barghouti and some of the Palestinians from joining the main vigilers. We were then teargassed, and as I helped a French woman to retreat, I was shot in the leg with a rubber bullet. Two young women, one from the USA and one from New Zealand, helped me towards an ambulance. I saw an elderly Palestinian mother carried on a stretcher into the ambulance, as she was shot in the back with a plastic bullet. I saw a man whose face was covered in blood and a Palestinian youth overcome with the gas.

About 20 people were injured. Ann Patterson and myself went back to the protest where the people were being viciously attacked with nerve gas and plastic bullets. I was overcome with gas and had a nose bleed, which resulted in being carried to ambulance for treatment.

We were advised by medical staff to not return to the vigil, and were obliged to leave our friends, who several hours later were still heroically trying to get near the wall. On the road towards the village we watched two children playing in their garden, oblivious to the nerve gas floating down on the wind towards their home. This permeates their cloths and their lungs, and the question has to be asked: What will the health of these children be like in a few years time?

Feeling our pain

Went last I left you, dear readers, I was in need of toilet paper and this afternoon I dragged myself the three and half blocks down to Safeway in order to buy some, as well as pick up my thyroid refill and a few assorted groceries with the remaining $14 I have for the month. Buying groceries meant doing quite a bit of arithmetic with my now Elavil-clouded brain (but hey, there is the possibility of pregabalin at then end of this newest Elavil trial so it may be worth it). Despite it all, I managed to leave the store with toilet paper and groceries that included Ben and Jerry's Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream all for $13.02.

As I came out of the store, I saw in the Oregonian newspaper box the following headline that was actually a story about our fair governor, Ted Kulongoski:

Could you feed yourself for $3 a day? Annotated

"It's not a stunt," Kulongoski said after the shopping trip. "I know for a lot of people, what I just did for this week, they're going to be doing every week of the year." On top of that, he said, they're "also worried about housing, about their car, gasoline, getting to work and back, health care."

For Kulongoski, the "food stamp pledge" is a continuation of efforts he's made since he was first elected governor in 2002 and made reducing hunger a top priority. Since then, Oregon has gone from having one of the highest hunger rates in the nation to its current position in about the middle of the pack.

Yes, the governor of my beloved state had been doing some arithmetic of his own at the grocery store.

And while he's right, his week on food stamps isn't much compared to what a lot of us deal with every day, it somehow made me feel a little lighter on the walk home.

Gravity hates me

Seriously. It does.

And the laws of physics are totally out to get me.

Just last night I ran out of toilet paper. I took out a roll and put it on the counter next to the toilet. Finished my business and got up to brush my teeth. As I reached for my toothbrush, the roll of toilet paper dropped and managed to find its way into the toilet. The whole damn roll.

And of course, it had to be my last roll.

Yup. I fucking hate gravity. And the laws of physics.

Yes, yes, I know. It's not gravity or the laws of physics but my spatial perception -- which isn't worth shit -- or my sense of touch -- or, rather, its subtle decline over the years. I am always dropping stuff or bumping stuff over, which is hard when bending over disturbs my hyperactive vestibular system. How that stuff manages to tumble and drop in the ways it does still pisses me off.

But what pisses me off more is that those bastards at the CDC can't see that this is a disease with profound neurological effects.

Help! I got strep throat and now I'm Obsessive-Compulsive!

Psychology Today: The Infection Connection Annotated

Today, scientists are increasingly coming to recognize that the bacteria and viruses that frequently invade our bodies and cause sore throats and other minor ailments may also unleash a host of major mental and emotional illnesses, including anorexia, schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

It's funny because just at the very moment I was reading those words, I heard David Brooks say on the Newshour that perhaps the Virginia Tech shooter may have had a virus that caused his mental illness. One of those very weird moments of synergy.

From an ME/CFIDS perspective, this article was interesting as there has certainly be a lot of speculation about the role of infectious agents in the etiology of the disease. Indeed, a lot of people who see improvement do so by taking antibiotics and/or antivirals. And mental illness is frequently comorbid with ME/CFIDS. Suicide is the leading cause of death for people with ME/CFIDS -- something I learned in a painful way last year when someone I knew with ME/CFIDS committed suicide -- and interestingly enough, it's the leading cause of death for those with HIV as well, a disease closely associated with ME/CFIDS.

This article also points out that Chlamydia Pneumonia is associated with Alzheimer's Disease. So, could that be why I keep forgetting everything lately? Or is that bout of strep I had when I was 15 the reason I seem to get more obsessive-compulsive as the years go by (seriously, A. teases me about getting all "Howard Hughes" on him)?

Beyond perfection

AlterNet: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body Annotated

The body is the perfect battleground for perfect-girl tendencies because it is tangible, measurable, obvious. It takes four long years to see "summa cum laude" etched across our college diplomas, but stepping on a scale can instantly tell us whether we have succeeded or failed.

It's funny because I always thought I was a perfectionist over-achiever good girl because I was fat and had a disease for which I learned the word "malingerer" from my sixth grade principal. I needed to prove to people that I wasn't fat or sick because I was lazy or morally deficient. After reading this article, an excerpt based on Courtney Martin's book, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, I realize it's simply because I'm a woman. The quotes from women around the world remind me of me.

Maybe being sick and fat is a gift, in a way. I will never be perfect and therefore, get to appreciate my value beyond "perfection."

Life is funner

So, I was telling my sister about this funny video of Stephen Colbert chastizing Harry Reid, a Mormon, for using "the Holy Father to bash our holy war" (hat tip to Evan Derkacz at Alternet). After laughing, we ended up talking about a Mormon friend of hers and how Tammy really respects how comfortable this friend is with her spiritual life. Now that Tammy isn't so stressed about saving this friend and is instead letting God work it out, friendship is a lot easier.

"Yeah, " I replied. "Life is funner when you let God decide who's going to hell."

Not grammatically correct, but I like to think it's maybe a little profound.

Behind the Window: Afterlife

You might remember that on Holy Friday I watched the banal anti-drama of someone's death in the apartment building across the street. And today, this was the view from my kitchen window.




All the things this person held dear now dumped in a junk truck. As someone with a severe, chronic illness who lives alone a good chunk of the time, I occasionally think about my own mortality in solitude. Not a lot. I mean, it's not a particularly pleasant topic to think about. But every since the Friday before last, it's definitely been on my mind a bit more than usual.

I also had another morbid thought the other day. Multiple Sclerosis has relapse-remit and progressive forms. What if ME/CFIDS is the same and I have the progressive form? Every year I seem to get just a little bit worse and wish I could just have what I had the year before. Maybe I need to appreciate what I've got now because I won't have it next year.

You'd think that would be good incentive to live in the present. Except mostly it made me totally freak out about the future. So, you know, I've had to just forget about that thought for awhile.

Mostly I just find myself living that old cliche: one day at a time. I guess some cliches are cliches because we really do need to hear them over and over again.

Looking for eggs in all the wrong places

The oldest girl found it eventually after a few hints. Their sister, however, was not very impressed with the number of eggs she found.


But don't worry. Her bucket wasn't completely empty.



Gosh I've got cute nieces and nephews.

Death across the street

It's an 80 degree day today and as my caregiver cleaned up my balcony for me yesterday I thought I'd sit outside to read through my email. Just as I came outside an ambulance and fire truck came screaming along and stopped in front of the apartment building across the street. Behind them was a police officer. I wondered if, perhaps, this was a psychiatric call as there have been those here at my building before (have I mentioned that I have interesting neighbors?).

Within five minutes or so the fire truck left. Ten minutes later the paramedics came downstairs with an empty guerney. They chatted with the policeman for a bit and then left. The policeman, however, stayed. An hour or so later a truck that looked a lot like what I remember the medical examiner's truck looking like (it was parked in front of my building several months ago) showed up. An hour or so after that a nondescript van parked in front of it and two guys pulled out their own guerney. That's when I knew for sure that yes, indeed, it was the medical examiner and that the earlier paramedics had been too late.

There were no family members when the two guys brought out the body all zipped up and ready for its ride to the morgue. And life on this busy street under a brilliant blue sky hasn't stopped.

Mr. Burns would be proud

How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits

Awhile back I argued that the military has in many ways become Bush's battered wife who smiles in public, enables his behavior but is getting the shit kicked out of her behind closed doors. The above story from Josh Kors in The Nation, which I heard this morning on Here and Now, details how the military has found a loophole that keeps it from having to pay disability benefits to soldiers wounded while fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. In other words, the Bush Administration is beating his wife yet again.

But instead of sending Town to a medical board and discharging him because of his injuries, doctors at Fort Carson, Colorado, did something strange: They claimed Town's wounds were actually caused by a "personality disorder." Town was then booted from the Army and told that under a personality disorder discharge, he would never receive disability or medical benefits.

Town is not alone. A six-month investigation has uncovered multiple cases in which soldiers wounded in Iraq are suspiciously diagnosed as having a personality disorder, then prevented from collecting benefits. The conditions of their discharge have infuriated many in the military community, including the injured soldiers and their families, veterans' rights groups, even military officials required to process these dismissals.

They say the military is purposely misdiagnosing soldiers like Town and that it's doing so for one reason: to cheat them out of a lifetime of disability and medical benefits, thereby saving billions in expenses.

Yup, you read it right. They are just flat out lying to save money. And it gets worse. Kors goes on to explain that if the soldier hasn't served out the full extent of the time he/she signed up for -- you know, having been discharged because he/she is no longer useful to the military -- the soldier then has to pay back a portion of his/her enlistment bonus. So, they come home disabled and actually owe the military money.


It's like a scheme hatched up by Mr. Burns himself (you know, from the Simpsons). Can't you just hear him going, "EX-cel-lent" and then turning to Smithers and shouting "release the hounds!"?


As I listened to Kors talking about doctors telling soldiers they were making stuff up and, in one case, getting so upset with a soldier when he questioned the doctor's diagnosis that the doctor kicked him out of his office, I was immediately reminded of what so many ME/CFIDS patients go through. Civilians have been dealing with this sort of crap from long-term disability insurance companies for years. True, they didn't become disabled while volunteering to, if need be, lay down their life for their country in combat, but the horror stories you hear about intrusive surveillance and company doctors denying anything is wrong with a patient who is clearly very ill are just as blood-boiling. Indeed, I suspect the military has become cocky after denying benefits to those with Gulf War Syndrome. They figured if they got away with that, why not try the "personality disorder" route?

I thought there was more to this story...

The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis - Independent Online Edition > Middle East

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy failed to inform Americans that the Soviets had placed nuclear weapons on Cuban soil in retaliation for us putting nuclear missiles in Turkey aimed at Moscow, and as I've watched the crisis with the Iranian-abducted British sailors, I kind of suspected something similar was going on that Tony Blair and George Bush were forgetting to mention. Sure enough, Patrick Cockburn figured out what prompted the Iranians to do what they did.

A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines.

Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds.

In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment....

...The attempt by the US to seize the two high-ranking Iranian security officers openly meeting with Iraqi leaders is somewhat as if Iran had tried to kidnap the heads of the CIA and MI6 while they were on an official visit to a country neighbouring Iran, such as Pakistan or Afghanistan.

Not to mention, the SAS has been trying to stir up trouble in Khuzestan, as may American Special Forces or "paid agents," which according to this old article from the Asia Times just might not be that difficult.

Talk about deja vu. And just think, if the US and Britain had left Mossadeq in power, we'd probably have a secular -- maybe even democratic -- Iran. Meddling in another country's affairs always seems to come back and bite us in the ass, don't it?