More Dead in Burma As China Vetoes UN Sanctions

GOOD NEWS: MEDIACHANNEL TO SURVIVE THANKS TO LAST MINUTE SAVE

BURMA PROTESTS AND RESPONSE
ARMY TOO TUCKERED TO FIGHT AGAIN
HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG

Its Friday, and we are about to say goodbye to September. I thought we would also be saying goodbye to the Mediachannel too?but we are close to having a partner come in and keep us alive. He was very impressed by the letters we received and the donations you have made. We will be making a full announcement very soon.

We are keeping the fundraising drive going for the rest of the month?ie two days?and would appreciate any and all support. One reader wrote us protesting those obnoxious mortgage ads on the site and we are going to get rid of them. (We had no control over the actual ads since we contracted with a service to handle the advertising.)

RANGOON CALLING

In the news, I have been riveted by the developments in Burma, the country renamed Muanmar by a group of murderous military thugs,

I guess the junta doesn’t agree with George Bush’s call for human rights there. And China doesn’t want the UN sanctioning the SLORC more.

Here are some reports:

NYT: Nine Deaths Reported in Myanmar Crackdown

Witnesses said soldiers fired automatic weapons into a crowd of protesters today during the second day of an armed crackdown in Myanmar.

Guardian: Riot police charge Yangon crowd

Burma riot police charged a crowd of more than 1 000 protesters after they pelted soldiers with rocks and water bottles in central Yangon on Thursday and at least one person collapsed as shots were fired, witnesses said. One man was on the ground, unconscious, but it was not clear whether he was alive or dead.

BEHIND THE PROTESTS (PINR)

The first sign of the current protests currently underway in Myanmar occurred in a rare display of public outrage over the economic conditions within the country in February 2007. A small group calling themselves the Myanmar Development Committee called on the military rulers to address consumer prices, lack of health care, education and the poor electricity infrastructure. Normally unseen in Myanmar, the protest was quickly broken up after only 30 minutes of activity. Likely in response to the protests, the ruling military junta appointed Brigadier-General Than Han of the Myanmar police to the responsibility of handling civil unrest in Rangoon.

On August 15, 2007, the government made significant cuts to national fuel subsidies, which had an immediate effect of increasing the price of diesel fuel by a reported 100 percent, causing a five-fold increase in the price of compressed natural gas, and placing additional inflationary pressure on an economy already facing estimated inflation levels of 17.7 percent in 2005 and 21.4 percent in 2006.

www.pinr.org

FOR BLOGS AND VIDEO

BURMA NEWS FROM THE INDEPENDENT IN LONDON
news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article3001620.ece

BURMA PROTEST AGAINST CHINA AT UN TODAY

Protest China’s continued support of Burma’s Military Junta and failure to stop ongoing violence, murder and oppression of the people of Burma.. Friday, September 28, 2007 at 2.45 p.m. 1st Avenue and 47th Street, New York City.

Meanwhile: WASHINGTON – Voice of America and Radio Free Asia have doubled their broadcasts to Myanmar in response to the military-run government’s crackdown on protesters.

Russia, US In Harsh Exchange Over West’s Bullying Of Iran

The Senate has now called for the partition of Iraq. The Cat’s Dream blog comments:

TEEN FREED IN JENA

AP: JENA, La. – A black teenager whose prosecution in the beating of a white classmate prompted a massive civil rights protest here walked out of a courthouse Thursday after a judge ordered him freed on bail.

Mychal Bell’s release came hours after a prosecutor confirmed he will no longer seek an adult trial for the 17-year-old. Bell, one of the teenagers known as the Jena Six, still faces trial as a juvenile in the December beating.

District Attorney Reed Walters’ decision to abandon adult charges means that Bell, who had faced a maximum of 15 years in prison on his aggravated second-degree battery conviction last month, instead could be held only until he turns 21 if he is found guilty in juvenile court.

VIA UNDERNEWS: ARMY BROKEN?-BRYAN BENDER, BOSTON GLOBE

The Army’s top officer, General George Casey, told Congress yesterday that his branch of the military has been stretched so thin by the war in Iraq that it can not adequately respond to another conflict – one of the strongest warnings yet from a military leader that repeated deployments to war zones in the Middle East have hamstrung the military’s ability to deter future aggression.

In his first appearance as Army chief of staff, Casey told the House Armed Services Committee that the Army is “out of balance” and “the current demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply. We are consumed with meeting the demands of the current fight and are unable to provide ready forces as rapidly as necessary
for other potential contingencies.”

Officials said Casey, who appeared along with Army Secretary Pete Geren, personally requested the public hearing – a highly unusual move that military analysts said underscores his growing concern about the health of the Army, America’s primary fighting force.

WAS THIS ON DISNEY ABC?

Police Arrest 2 Protesters at Hong Kong Disneyland

HONG KONG (AP) ? Police arrested two protesters during a parade at Hong Kong Disneyland after they lifted banners accusing The Walt Disney Co. of labor abuses in China, police said Thursday. The two men, identified only by the surnames Yau and Lai, disrupted the parade as they scuffled with park workers who tried to stop them, police spokeswoman Celia Tam said.

Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper reported Thursday that the banners said “Disney exploits Chinese labor.”

Tam said the two protesters were arrested for disorder in a public place, but wer

The two protesters were members of the Hong Kong activist group Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior, or SACOM, which has accused Disney suppliers in China of overworking their employees and skimping on pay and benefits. Disney has said it tries to use suppliers that adhere to labor standards.

Calls to SACOM on Thursday went unanswered.

Europe To Stand Up For Journalism-Why Not The US Too?

SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL: RATHER IS RIGHT (Salon)

STAND UP FOR JOURNALISM

The European Federation of Journalists is calling for a Europe-wide day of action in promotion of journalists rights on November 5th, 2007. ‘Stand up for Journalism!’, will protest against the dramatic crisis facing journalists suffering from excessive commercialization, political pressure, falling standards and poor working conditions across Europe. The events will also be a celebration of the crucial role played by European journalists’ unions for the promotion of quality journalism. The day will consist of protest actions, parties, demonstrations and union rallies at national and local level to highlight key areas of concern and campaigns for EFJ affiliates including work -demands for decent salaries and employment rights; campaigns for quality, independent and ethical journalism; and international solidarity actions against impunity for killers of journalists. Every union, every branch and every workplace will be encouraged to organise an event linking journalists across Europe. (International Federation of Journalists)

ALJAZEERA CLOSE TO A DEAL IN THE USA

Verizon Reverses Itself on Abortion Rights Messages

NYT: Saying it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text messages, Verizon Wireless last week rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile network available for a text-message program.

But the company reversed course this morning, saying it had made a mistake.

HEALTH CARE FIGHT

There’s a good piece on the issue in the New Yorker’s Talk of the Town?Michael Moore talks health care on Oprah today. Barbara Ehrenreich blogs about the issue; “We Have Seen the Enemy ? And Surrendered
ehrenreich.blogs.com/barbaras_blog/

Bow your heads and raise the white flags. After facing down the Third Reich, the Japanese Empire, the U.S.S.R., Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein, the United States has met an enemy it dares not confront-the American private health insurance industry.

With the courageous exception of Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic candidates have all rolled out health “reform” plans that represent total, Chamberlain-like, appeasement. Edwards and Obama propose universal health insurance plans that would in no way ease the death grip of Aetna, Unicare, MetLife, and the rest of the evil-doers. Clinton-why are we not surprised?-has gone even further, borrowing the Republican idea of actually feeding the private insurers by making it mandatory to buy their product. Will I be arrested if I resist paying $10,000 a year for a private policy laden with killer co-pays and deductibles??

ECONOMY NEWS THROUGH CAROLYNBAKER.NET

THE “GREATER” DEPRESSION UPDATE

“I’ll tell you how it’s going to end: It’s going to end with a depression, and not just a depression; not just another Great Depression; it’s going to be the Greater Depression.”

GET READY FOR WEIMAR-REPUBLIC STYLE INFLATION

THE ENTIRE U.S. IS NOW ON SALE

Many of us have been saying for years that the intentional demolition of the U.S. economy is for the purpose of having the Great American Fire Sale. It’s happening!

DUMPING THE DOLLAR: ISRAEL ASKS U.S. TO PAY FOREIGN AID IN EUROS

Read my StoptheSqueeze newsletter on http://Stopthesqueeze.org

www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com

Dissector Daily Forum: In Praise of Dan Cassidy’s New Book

LETTERS

Dave writes from Daniel Shays country in Massachusetts:

Hi Danny, Did you see the full page COLOR ad Chavez took in the NY Times declaring a new alliance between the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the South Bronx? What a propaganda finger fuck to Bush. A 2 bit Banana is sending foreign aid to NYC poor . financed by Citgo . Now that’s wealth redistribution. What did you think?

DISSECTOR RAVE

When I was at Cornell, I admired a student poet who later became a roommate and has remained a lifetime friend. His name, Danny Cassidy, actually Daniel Patrick Cassidy, also of NY working class origins and a passionate activist in his own way.

Danny went on to work at the NY Times, become a singer, record a record, fight drugs and become a champion for Irish freedom. He later became a professor of Irish Studies at San Francisco’s New College where he fought racisim in the Irish Community, upheld class solidarity and made an amazing discovery, an oiginal discovery, that much of our American slangs has its origins in the Irish language. This discovery led Danny on an obsessive hunt for a secret language that had become like an endangered species.

At first I thought he was losing it and turning into a nut. But he persisted, and convinced me that this is part of our heritage and buried history. He has just pubished a book that has been hailed in America and Ireland. Its called Slang: The Secret Language of the Crossroads

Just listen to him, as quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle. ..

“I don’t want to brag, which, by the way, is an Irish word,” says Cassidy, a Brooklyn-born former journalist and Irish scholar whose book on the hidden history of Irish slang has gotten him a pile of press clips from the motherland. “But this is absolutely true: My book has gotten more publicity than any other book in Ireland in the past 10 years. More than Frank McCourt, even. It’s actually astonished me. I wasn’t expecting that.”

“How the Irish Invented Slang: The Secret Language of the Crossroads” has stirred up much sentiment from Irish and Irish American communities. Cassidy contends that many of our most common slang words have entered the vernacular via Irish immigrants and their children, who passed on bits of a language they never fully learned.

If Cassidy is right, he has solved a big mystery of American linguistics; namely, how it could be that so few Irish words made it into American English. By plucking words such as “scam” and “snazzy” out of old English dictionaries and comparing them with phonetic twins in Irish dictionaries, Cassidy shows how Irish words were absorbed into American English while the Irish themselves were assimilating.

“The language was so obscured,” Cassidy says. “It was the language of maids and laborers and politicians and gangsters. It was literally kept in the back rooms.”

Cassidy’s interest in Irish slang came by way of two flukes – a word he’s quick to tell you probably came from Irish. In December 2o00, a good friend died and willed Cassidy a number of Irish books. The only one he didn’t donate was a frayed pocket Irish dictionary, “Focloir Poca”; it was too tattered.

“I told my wife, ‘I’m going to throw this out. I’m too old to learn to learn Irish,’ “ he says, “and she was like, ‘Danny, no, you can’t do that. It’s sacred.’ So I said, ‘You’re right, and it might be bad luck.’” He began reading a few words every night from the dictionary, and some of them sounded eerily familiar.

He was five months into his search for more Irish words that surfaced in English when he had an epiphany, “the only one” of his life. He happened upon the word bailbhe,” meaning “a mute, silent, inarticulate person”; it was pronounced like his grandfather’s nickname, Bolliver, which had puzzled him for years. But now it made sense – his taciturn grandfather was a perfect bailbhe – and, as he writes in his book, he discovered that “we had never stopped speaking Irish in my family.”

“When I realized that if all their nicknames came from Irish words, I thought then it was possible that Irish Americans remembered the Irish language without knowing it,” he says. “That’s what opened the book up.”

Danny’s book was ultimately published with the help of Alexander Cockburn and Counterpunch. It’s a great read and a good example of what happens when you pursue your intellectual curiosity and, in this case, Irish American identity. Read it of you can? It’s also fun.

Have a great weekend. My heart is a bit lighter because we seem to have saved Mediachannel. Praise The Lawd and you our readers for responding in our hour of need. We’ll let you know more next week.

Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org

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WHY WE ARE LOSING OUR MEDIACHANNEL — UNLESS YOU ACT

Funding Drive Update, 9.25.07: The month of September is rapidly coming to an end — and soon, so may MediaChannel — at least in its current incarnation. Although many of you have been extremely supportive, nonetheless our ongoing fundraising drive is simply not generating enough support to sustain our work.

We don’t want to change the Channel – much less flip the “OFF” switch — but we simply are in no position to continue to provide “free” information on the internet. As you can see as you surf from AOL to Yahoo and other leading sites, the news is pretty much the same everywhere — feeds from the Associated Press and Reuters.

Fewer sources and more headlines lead to less understanding. Media may define our lives but it doesn’t seem to have become an issue many feel they need to – or perhaps can afford to – support.

Bottom line? We at the MediaChannel are caught in a crunch. We don’t have the resources to afford sufficient staff to market, promote and fundraise. Despite being the first site of its kind on the internet, other issues now seem more urgent — although everyone knows that as long as our media doesn’t report on our activism or our analysis, most Americans will remain in the dark.

We appreciate the many donations we have received thus far, but if we are to survive, the readers that do care have to become organizers and reach out to friends and potential donors. We just can’t do it ourselves any longer!

Please click below to make a tax deductible donation – and tell a friend or two!

www.mediachannel.org/donate.html

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ANNOUNCING OUR “FALL OFFENSIVE”

MediaChannel’s Survival is Now In Your Hands

Last Spring, MediaChannel faced a serious funding crisis. Our original funders had moved on to new projects, and an earlier than usual Presidential race was literally vacuuming donations into the coffers of a dozen political campaigns. Even as our circulation grew ? with millions of hits monthly – our contributions were not keeping pace. We held our nose and opened our pages to advertising; some of it turned out to be objectionable, but we urgently needed revenue streams. With a shrinking staff and no fulltime development effort, we were unable to sustain our efforts. We were ready to call it quits? but tried something else instead.

We went to you, our readers, and were gratified by your response. Many of you opened your checkbooks or made donations online. We didn’t achieve our goal but we kept going. You kept us alive!

Rory O’Connor and I long ago stopped drawing any compensation for our editorial or administrative work on MediaChannel. All money raised went directly into sustaining MediaChannel. We’re now down to one paid part-time employee. And for those of you who noticed, this unique site was able to keep going all summer long with timely original content, diverse perspectives and global input. We were breaking stories, offering distinctive videos every day and building our subscriber lists.

We are proud of what we are doing, but like that old story about the bear, we were making tracks without getting anywhere. Our accounts are now totally depleted. A recent server problem has increased our expenses. We seem to be back on that plank, hoping once again not to fall over the edge.

Please click here to make a tax deductible donation: www.mediachannel.org/donate.html

And so, we are coming back to you as we explore some new and potentially exciting prospects: turning MediaChannel over to one of our leading affiliates, trying to hand over the site to another entity or find a media school to use it as a teaching platform. In the meantime, we need your help again. We didn’t pester you this summer, but that season of giving has come around again.

Our needs are relatively modest: One salary, rent and utilities, technical assistance, hardware, software, servers? But without more funding, we will have to bid you all adieu, say goodbye, auf wiedersein, sayonara and move on.

That is not what we want to do as the fight against the war, violations of our constitution and economic inequality deepens. We are the only global media website of its kind out there in cyberspace, and the only one covering all of these issues in depth every day – with the help from blogs, the best of the world’s reporting and informed analysis from hundreds of sources. We don’t let partisanship get in the way of our journalism, and we open our pages to your comments and commentary.

As our media system devolves even further into show biz values and corporate interests, our mission is needed more than ever.

We would rather not solicit individual donations, but we are not too proud to beg. We would prefer to find foundations or wealthy donors willing and able to be more generous, but we may have worn out our welcome with too many appeals over too many years. Seven and half Internet years is quite an achievement ? but as you know, we are not subsidized by big media companies, governments or special interests. We can only survive if you want us to, if you are willing to do your share in keeping this experiment in media accountability alive. We need your help more than ever, and do we ever!

Please make a tax deductible donation

online through PayPal: www.mediachannel.org/donate.html

or send a check made out to:

THE GLOBAL CENTER
575 8th Avenue
Suite 2200
NY, NY 10018
USA

Yes, we can cash foreign currencies. Donors over $200 will received a free DVD from the GlobalVision library. (See Globalvision.org for a list of our titles.)

You have always been there when we called on you in the past. We are calling on you now. Save MediaChannel and help create a media that serves the values of democracy.

Please share this appeal with your friends and consider yourselves an insurgent fundraiser in our FALL OFFENSIVE.

If you have ideas or suggestions, please write to Dissector@mediachannel.org

REMEMBER:
THE SITE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN.

Make a tax-deductible donation today.

You can send a check made out to our fiscal sponsor:

THE GLOBAL CENTER
575 Eighth Avenue, Suite 2200
New York, New York 10018

or

DONATE ONLINE: http://www.tinyurl.com/2zg2hb

If you have ideas or suggestions, please write to Dissector@mediachannel.org

REMEMBER: THE SITE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN.

Thank you!

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