Hell for Halliburton
Major contributors to US President George Bush's election war chest have been awarded around US$8 billion in contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Washington-based US Center for Public Integrity (CPI) reported on October 30. Companies that coughed up a total of at least $500,000 to elect Bush have benefited.

According to CPI, most of the 10 largest contracts went to companies that employed former high-ranking government officials, or have executives with close ties to members of Congress and even the agencies awarding their contracts. Major contracts for Iraq and Afghanistan were awarded by the Bush administration without competitive bids.

this is outrageous. patently so. this story and dozens more like it - more every day - should be front page news, lead-off story news. where are we as americans if this shit can be allowed to go on and on. i think we lost the fourth estate - that's journalism, right? well, third or fourth [i might be wrong], it's just not independent anymore.

it's not even about getting the news to the people. nope. it's about ads, and money, and a snip snip here and a snip snip there, what'd you hear? JLo may not marry after all. the final episode of the matrix trilogy is FRONT PAGE NEWS. it's not? sorry, i thought it was. last week in a neighborhood in los angeles, four young men were murdered within 19 hours. didn't even make the LAPD's press releases, never mind the NEWS! yeah, there were fires, but if there weren't, something else would serve to keep the public from learning that they live in something that cannot accurately be called a civilization.

it's been years since i looked at the front page. never did much, except with the "local smut," the daily breeze...i did not concern myself with global news while my children were young. after my divorce in 1987 i became a sports fiend for a minute or so, til the strike. now i can't remember whether a team plays baseball or football...if i were to go back to reading the sports, it would only be because as i recall sports writers are by and large entertaining writers. after the strike i picked up the paper for the calendar section, the book review, the funnies, and dear abby. i loved jack smith enough to buy the times just for his column.

during gw's daddy's war, the gulf war, i became a glutton for news, turning on NPR in the car and actually reading the A section of the LATimes from cover to cover. CNN of course was ubiquitous in every house. then the troops came home, wave after triumphant wave, and naively i thought, wait up, dudes, still have a despot to kill. by and by it sank into my thick skull: saddam was not only going to survive the war, he would retain power.

but those weeks when i actually believed my country had gone overseas to save the world from an evil that could conceivably end up masterminding another holocaust did provide an education of sorts. after reading the los angeles times A section from front to back i had to acknowledge that contrary to my pie-in-the-sky protected suburban girl perceptions of life upon earth as being fair and peaceful, the truth was that war was going all the time. coups and invasions assassinations and exiles, wars, wars, wars. it's actually not a small world, as it turns out. it's so big that at any given moment, somewhere a war was going on.

by and by my life exploded; from may 1995 to april 1996 i was unemployed and without a place of my own, almost entirely disenfranchised. fortunately i had a sister and brother-in-law, two brothers, and friends. we pulled through. i completed a computer training course and got a job on sunset boulevard which pretty much held my interest [yeah right - i just don't even have enough time, energy, or words to hash through all the personal dramas from '96 to '01. even without them my job sucked all my concentration so thoroughly there was hardly time for the bathroom, let alone the news, which just seemed to go on somewhere else, somehow]. got my own place, though i never did get custody of andy again...we don't need to go there.

as if that wasn't plenty to turn me off the news, some show called "survivor" became such a humongous hit the seasonal results were literally reported on the front page of the LATimes. i've never watched a single episode of that or any of the so-called "reality" shows. not true. i watched the MTV show the "real world" [that's what it was called right?] for two or three years. but the "survivor" type shows, where there is a competition involving self torture or humiliation in front of the masses or whatever, i won't watch.

i will not watch. i am not a lemming. marshall mcluhan - not certain on that spelling - was a genius. as i gazed at the headline and picture of the first winner of "survivor" through the kiosk glass all i could think is "the media IS the message." i had other things to think about. they may or may not have been more uplifting than reality tv, but for me they were preferable by pounds and yards. with the exceptions of taxicab confessions and real sex? sometimes.

and i'm TARRED. Tarred to death of it all...and slap mah fingers, cause i did not even know i was sitting down to write a fucking autobiography! and at that, not even getting to the day that slit my life in two, july 19, 2001...i just knew i hate gw.

but i love bekah - :)
Andy's in the navy now and rory and i will be attending his journalism school grad next week. we will be intrepid as of sunday morning 11-09-03, when we fly to florida to visit my dear friend and blessed benefactor, solange.after that, fort meade, MD, for a couple days. andy hates MD so much he booked a flight home that leaves the east coast before rory and i. BUT i get a 1 1/2 layover in las vegas! gamble....

- posted by barbara @ 11/08/2003 04:37:00 AM