Amy Goodman Democracy Now New York Times

I have the greatest respect and admiration for Amy Goodman, she is a rare bird indeed in America today. That sentiment reflected in this nice article from the New York Times.

I telephoned the Library yesterday as it happens, ordering three books.

Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times Amy Goodman

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ José Saramago

Cain José Saramago

A more comprehensive review from the Guardian. Sounds like a fun book.

A few words to come on those no doubt.

A Grass-Roots Newscast Gives a Voice to Struggles
By Brian Stelter
October 23, 2011

Hours after Amy Goodman, the host of the grass-roots newscast “Democracy Now!,” was arrested in Minnesota in 2008 while trying to cover protesters at the Republican National Convention, she was sitting in a network news studio above the convention floor, when a producer said: “I don’t get it. Why wasn’t I arrested?”

Amy Goodman, right, interviewing Tawakkol Karman, left, a Nobel laureate, with an interpreter.

Ms. Goodman asked him, “Were you out on the streets?” No, he said, he had been in the studio the whole time. “I’m not being arrested here either,” she said she told him. “You’ve got to get out there.” (Clip here)




For Ms. Goodman, that exchange expresses both a shortcoming of the network newscasts that many Americans consume and a strength of “Democracy Now!,” the 15-year-old public radio and television program. The newscast distinguishes itself by documenting social movements, struggles for justice and the effects of American foreign policy, along with the rest of the day’s developments.

Operated as a nonprofit organization and distributed on a patchwork of stations, channels and Web sites, “Democracy Now!” is proudly independent, in that way appealing to hundreds of thousands of people who are skeptical of the news organizations that are owned by major media companies. The program “escapes the suffocating sameness that pervades broadcast news,” said John Knefel, a comedian and freelance writer who started listening about four years ago and now tries never to miss an episode.

Though it has long had a loyal audience, “Democracy Now!” has gained more attention recently for methodical coverage of two news events — the execution of the Georgia inmate Troy Davis and the occupation of Wall Street and other symbolic sites across the country. Ms. Goodman broadcast live from Georgia for six hours on Sept. 21, the evening of the execution, and “Democracy Now!” reporters were fanned out in Manhattan from the first day of the protests against corporate greed.

“At the time, we had no idea if the protest would even last the night, but we recognized it as potentially an important story,” said Mike Burke, a senior news producer for the program. He noted that “it took NPR more than a week to air its first story on the movement.”

Distribution for “Democracy Now!” — which is live each weekday at 8 a.m. Eastern — comes from public, community and college radio stations; public access television stations and some PBS affiliates; the noncommercial satellite networks Free Speech TV and Link TV; and from the program’s Web site, DemocracyNow.org, which streams each hour long newscast in full.

The producers say the program is broadcast on more than 950 stations. But because the distribution is cobbled together and because the program has no commercials, no Nielsen ratings are available.

The media, Ms. Goodman said in an interview last week, can be “the greatest force for peace on earth” for “it is how we come to understand each other.” But she asserted that the views of a majority of Americans had been “silenced by the corporate media.”

“Which is why we have to take it back,” she said, echoing the sentiments of many of her fans.



Friends and former colleagues describe Ms. Goodman as ferocious and persistent, traits that have not changed since the program’s inception in 1996 on five Pacifica Radio stations.

“On the radio, she sounded at times like a giant, at others a giant slayer,” said Jeremy Scahill, now an investigative reporter for The Nation magazine, who practically begged Ms. Goodman to let him volunteer for the program in 1997. She agreed and initially paid him $40 a day from her own pocket. On Facebook he lists the program as his college education.

“What drove us was telling stories we felt were being ignored, misreported or underreported by corporate media outlets,” Mr. Scahill said.

The program slowly gained more stations and, amid a dispute with Pacifica, which was later resolved, it established itself as a nonprofit news organization in 2001. The week of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the program began to be simulcast on television. Since then, Ms. Goodman said, “the growth has just been phenomenal.”

While many media outlets were faulted for playing down antiwar protests after the attacks, “Democracy Now!” covered such events extensively.

Some fans as well as critics describe “Democracy Now!” as progressive, but Ms. Goodman rejects that label and prefers to call it a global newscast that has “people speaking for themselves.” She criticized networks in the United States that have brought on professional pundits, rather than actual protesters, to discuss the Occupy protests.

Last week, no United States television network covered the filing of a lawsuit in Canada by four men who said they had been tortured during the Bush administration and who are seeking Mr. Bush’s arrest and prosecution. But one of the men, Murat Kurnaz, a former prisoner at Guantánamo Bay, was interviewed at length by Ms. Goodman and her co-host, Juan Gonzalez.

The nonprofit nature of the program means that the producers “never have to worry about how an advertiser might feel,” avoiding potential self-censorship, Mr. Burke said. But it also sharply limits the size of the staff. The program relies on volunteers to transcribe segments and, occasionally, to translate foreign-language interviews.

Ms. Goodman regularly helps raise money for stations that broadcast the program. The Internet has given the program a global audience and the ability to reach that audience for more than an hour a day. On the evening of Sept. 21, the live stream about the execution of Mr. Davis was viewed more than 800,000 times.

The live stream attested to “the hunger for this kind of information,” Ms. Goodman said. “Yet there was no network that was there to cover this moment throughout the night.”

Except, in a sense, “Democracy Now!” was able to be that network, at least for a night. YTN

Read More

Eleven Nations Under God: A Book Review

An interesting book review focusing on peoples inability to fully recognise the true scale of both ethnic diversity and of regionality, as an entity in its own right.

Mind you, it's not the only thing they don't recognise. Rather than incessantly spouting the worn out mantra that, 'this nation was founded on Judeo-Christian principles' they might in actual fact look at what America was really founded on, genocide, dispossession, slavery and rivers of blood.

But that reality is somewhat at odds with the concept of One Nation Under God, or even one State Under God, for that matter. (I'll give you three guesses which one) But then I don't suppose it is at odds, not if you read the Old Testament it ain't, and we all know that the Bible is the literal word of the Almighty, even if it was written by some blokes. Making me wonder, if in truth it is me that's wrong, and that the God fellow would feel right at home there.

It took "a thousand years and dozens of generations" to write the Bible, which depicts a "cruel, spiteful, vengeful, jealous and unbearable God." José Saramago

11 Vastly Different Americas? Why There's No Such Thing As a Unified Nation

Might it be that the traits and culture of the first nonnative colonizers in North America have left an indelible mark on the local society where they settled?
by Emily Badger
October 23, 2011




Colin Woodard suggests that we’ve been vastly oversimplifying things by talking about America’s internal divisions between red states and blue states, between “the coasts” and the “heartland,” between the urban and the rural or even the North, South, Midwest and West. Instead, the veteran journalist slices North America (sans Mexico from Tampico south) into eleven culturally distinct regions that look something like a continentally gerrymandered map gone wild.

Until more Americans grasp what this map implies, he believes, we’ll continue to have a hard time forging national consensus.

Woodard floats this thesis in a new book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, that offers novel perspective on the current U.S. predicament of culture wars mixed with political paralysis mixed with economic disarray. His assessment recalls another region with complicated geography: the Balkans.

Woodard studied Eastern European history in college, and he spent the early years of his journalism career reporting from that part of the world, where centuries-old cultural fissures and historic events have left a deep mark on the present — and where those fault lines don’t overlay very neatly with national borders on a map.

“In returning to America and living in other parts of the country,” Woodard said this week, “it seemed clear to me these fissures exist on our continent as well. We just don’t recognize them.”

This idea has been broached before. Joel Garreau identified The Nine Nations of North America in his 1981 portrait of the country’s economic and cultural divisions. And historian David Hackett Fischer proposed later that decade, in Albion’s Seed, that four distinct British migrations had grafted parallel societies onto colonial soil.

But Woodard marries historical record with present-day observation into what he jokingly calls a “grand unified theory,” tracing the evolution of early settlement patterns through the regional differences that prompted the Civil War, the civil rights movement and current political polarization.

His theory rests on the idea that there has been tremendous continuity in regional cultures from the colonial era to the new millennium. He draws on literature arguing that the first self-sustaining settlement group to arrive in an empty territory (or, in the case of much of the U.S., a territory that’s been cleared of its existing inhabitants) has a dominating influence on the future evolution of that society and culture. The theory holds even when original settlers are far outnumbered by all of the people to come.




New York is a prime example. A global trading and financial center that prizes diversity and tolerance, to this day it shares many similarities with Amsterdam of 300 years ago. Dutch descendants, however, make up a fraction of 1 percent of the local population today.

These initial groups essentially laid down the cultural DNA that the rest of us who’ve come since have had to live to with,” Woodard said. “They created the institutions and cultural assumptions and norms over pieces of geography that formed the dominant culture that future groups encountered.”

(As a side note, this suggests that people who fear that the character of their communities will change dramatically with the influx of 21st century immigrants vastly overstate that threat.)

Among Woodard’s other “nations,” are “Yankeedom,” where Calvinist roots still feed public faith in the ability of government to do good; the originally Quaker and politically moderate “Midlands”; the deeply traditional and conservative “Tidewater,” settled by English gentry; and the individualistic “Greater Appalachia.” Woodard’s regions defy state boundaries. He groups Chicago with its northern neighbors and southern Illinois as part of Appalachia. California spans three nations: the “Left Coast,” the “Far West” and Spanish-influenced “El Norte.” Go to page two.

Read More

Yes Rupert Even The Best Drop The Occasional Clanger

Rupert's MySpace mea culpa

Everybody else's fault, actually
By Natalie Apostolou
23rd October 2011

War-weary News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch made one concession at the company’s high drama AGM on Friday, stating the MySpace acquisition was a “huge mistake.”

The sorry tale of the social network’s digital demise at the hands of NewsCorp began with the purchase of MySpace for $US580 million in 2005. “We paid $US600 million. We could have sold it for $US6 billion a month later,” Murdoch told shareholders.

“I made a huge mistake. We then proceeded to mismanage it in every possible way,” he said. But Murdoch then threw in the caustic barb, “all of the people concerned with it are no longer with the company.”

This isn’t strictly true as former AOL CEO Jon Miller, who joined News Corp in March 2009 as its great digital savant, is still apparently in Camp Murdoch as CEO of digital media and chief digital officer.

He was brought in to - among other digital super charging duties - turn the ailing fortunes of MySpace around. Despite ousting a lot of bodies and a couple of CEOs, it was pretty clear that this feat wasn’t going to happen. He then helped shift the asset into the hands of Justin Timberlake and Specific Media for $US35 million earlier this year.

Miller also spearheaded News Corp's foray into its iPad only newspaper, The Daily, and is also in charge of Hulu, which was pulled out of serious sale discussions earlier this month.

Perhaps Murdoch was pointing the finger at former MySpace CEO (and Miller oustee) Owen Van Natta who is now at Zynga as EVP and earned $US43 million last year; or Mike Lang, one of the architects of the MySpace acquisition when he was an EVP at News Corp, who is now the freshly installed CEO of Miramax; or former MySpace CEO Mike Jones who has recently started a Los Angeles-based incubator? The Register

By some strange coincidence my other great clanger (mistake/error) story involves a railway.

And as clangers go, they don't come better than this. Isobard Kingdom Brunel's Atmospheric Railway.





Links

http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/em/_events/atmospheric_railway.php

http://www.gkweb.net/myheroes/brunel/railways/atmospheric.php

Read More

Ray Mears Bushcraft - Britain - America - Sweden

And a couple of other places as well. And I do have to say, a pleasant way to while away a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon. Before heading off that is, to Talladega for some, buggity buggity buggity, let's go racing boys. Buggity

I do like Ray Mears, he's quiet and unpretentious and he 'does' there's none of the ''Here's one I made earlier'' kind of thing.

Episodes 1 of the various programs, all in HD courtesy of, and a tip of the hat to, Ritchie Powell.

The Barren Lands, not in HD.




Ray Mears - Bushcraft Survival Series 1 - ABORIGINAL BRITAIN
Ray shows how our ancestors used the resources around them to feed and clothe themselves.




Ray Mears - Bushcraft Survival Series 2 - AMERICA - Ray takes a journey into America's past as he travels in the footsteps of Jim Bridger, one of the mountain men who opened up the route to the Pacific Coast of America. Ray makes a bull boat using willow and buffalo skin and spends time with the Shoshone.



SWEDEN One country where the acient skills of bushcraft are alive and in daily use. Lars Falt joins Ray by the campfire to discuss some of the Swedish traditions and cook a salmon. He shows how pine tar is made and used on traditional skis before spending time with the Sami people and Swedish singer Yana.



RAY MEARS WILD FOOD - COAST - Ray finds out just what Britain's coast had to offer our ancestors, as he continues to explore the wild food that tickled the taste buds of Stone Age man. The coastline of Stone Age Britain was rather different than it is today, as Britain was yet to become an island.



RAY MEARS WILD FOOD - Australia - Ray travels to the other side of the planet to hear from Australian Aboriginals about what food means to a hunter-gatherer and the role it plays in their culture as well as their society. Along with many other discoveries, the trip sees Ray sample that most iconic of 'bush tucker' - the witchetty grub, a huge maggot that lives in the roots of the witchetty bush.




The Barren Lands: Ray Mears
Ray learns the finer points of fishing in Labrador, Canada, and visits the native Innu people at a winter hunting camp where porcupine figures high on the menu and the brains of unfortunate caribou are used to tan their hides for buckskin

Read More

Pete Seeger Arlo Guthrie Occupy Wall Street Sing Along: Watch

Details and a couple more bits here.

And no show without Punch Bill Maher. I quite liked the way he included Rick Santorum in this three minute clip.

"These people down there, they're not the counter-culture."

"They're the culture."

"They don't want free love, they want paid employment."

Read More

Lulled in to Risk: Cell Phones are not as safe as you've been told

Misleading Danish Mobile Phones and Brain Tumour Study

 

Just about every news outlet is telling you that your cell phone is safe, yet no one is really telling you about the faults in the study. 

 

I have been researching the cell phone and related microwave issue for almost 15 years.  Everything I have read issues a risk.  And I have read research dating back to the early 1940s.

 

Of course you can make a choice to use a cell phone, a microwave, a smart meter, or have wi-fi in your home but just don't be lulled by junk science.  Get properly informed first before you wake up in 10 years with leukemia because your red blood cell production is failing because you carry your cell phone on your belt, or you can't have children, or you get thyroid disease or breat cancer, ovariam cancer or your children have behavioral problems or you get a heart attack.

 

"This misleading study has many flaws and serious confounders and should not give anyone reassurance that mobile phone use is not associated with an increase in brain tumours. In our opinion the paper should not have been published in this form — it should have failed peer-review. We recommend that it is disregarded as low quality science.
Denis Henshaw, Emeritus Professor of Human Radiation Effects at the University of Bristol agrees with this view: "This seriously flawed study misleads the public and decision makers about the safety of mobile phone use. I consider that their claims are worthless."" READ complete article

 

and  find more in this press release -

 

INDUSTRY PLAYS ‘DOUBT’ CARD TO DOWNPLAY IARC/WHO FINDINGS’

The BMJ is set to publish an 'update' to a study that finished over 4 years ago

[1](and used dataeven older) and was widely criticised at the time for its design - that it appeared to be

designed tocome out negative for tumours in that they had excluded heavy mobile phone users from the study(the business users).More recent studies - including the Interphone Study (itself somewhat flawed) - have shown asignificant increased incident of brain tumours and related cancers in long-term (10 years use for1/2 hour per day) mobile phone users.Because of these other studies etc. the World Health Organisation (WHO) in conjunction with theInternational Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) have this year declared microwave radiation -used by mobile phones and other wireless devices - to be a class 2b carcinogen " Possibly carcinogenic  to  humans "[2]

 

This means that microwave radiation is a possible cause of cancer  .The re-release of the Danish study is part of an industry-orchestrated backlash to delay legislationto limit microwave exposure and place mandatory health warnings on mobile phones (in the style ofcigarette packets) and other radiation emitting devices such as WiFi routers, smart meters andcordless landlines. The 4G spectrum sell-off would be adversely affected with such a move.

References:-

[1]

This is what we said about the Danish Cohort Study back at the end of 2006:-"

Danish Mobile Phone Study : He who pays the piper, calls the tune.

You might have widely read the story in the Press that "A long-term study, carried out by the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Denmark and published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, has found no increased incidence of cancer among mobile phone users."

However, if you delve a little bit deeper you will find that all is not quite as it seems.

George Carlo, former head of the US WTR research project into Mobile Telephone health effects in the late 1990s had this to say: "John Boice and his colleagues have been on the cell phone industry payroll, and for big money, since the late 1990’s. The money laundering vehicle is the International Epidemiology Institute — the name sounds like a non-profit by design, but make no mistake, this is a big for-profit enterprise. When I ran the WTR, the International  Epidemiology Institute, with  Boice and a fellow  named Joe McLaughlin, applied for funding to do this exact epidemiology study that was released this week. After much discussion within the WTR, they were refused funding because I felt they were blatantly biased and had overtly given us the notion that they would always create findings that were favorable to the industry."

The EM Facts Consultancy had the following to add: "Here’s the latest in industry funded cell phone studies that claim to have the final answer. When you see statements like “There’s really no biological basis for you to be concerned about radio waves,” and “people can become more reassured that these devices are safe” you can be sure the cell phone industry is paying the piper."

EMFacts Article and The Times Article

"http://mastsanity.org/home/2/108-danish-mobile-phone-study--he-who-pays-the-piper-calls-the-tune.html[2] http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2011/pdfs/pr208_E.pdf - IARC possible cancer announcement

The Mast Sanity Press Office can now be contacted on 0844 443 5750.

www.mastsanity.org

Registered UK Charity no. 1109757 Calling for Environmentally and Biologically safe  communications networks and radiofrequency devices

Article

 

Selections from Natural Health News

 

Natural Health News: San Francisco Passes Cellphone Radiation Law

Jul 20, 2011

At long last, since the discoveries of Dr. Gerorge Carlo in the 1980s about the carcinogenic risk of cell phones, now perhaps there will be more progess towards the truth. San Francisco supervisors on Tuesday unanimously ...

Natural Health News: New reports tell of more cell phone risks

Mar 07, 2008

There was a time not so very long ago that all of us got along very well without cell phones. This month, being Women's Health Month, I especially hope for women that they come to understand the specific risks uncovered ...

Pittsburgh cancer center warns of cell phone risks - Natural ...

Jul 23, 2008

A 2008 University of Utah analysis looked at nine studies — including some Herberman cites — with thousands of brain tumor patients and concludes "we found no overall increased risk of brain tumors among cellular phone ...

Natural Health News: Cell Phone Updates -Know Your Risks

Oct 10, 2009

Hang on to your land line phones. Herb Denenberg in an article for The Bulletin says: “The great cell phone cover-up may be coming to an end. A new report may finally wake the public up to the brain cancer risks of cell ...

Read More

Woman Arrested for Reciting the Constitution During TSA Inspection

Outrageous yes, but a brilliant read. Try this little nugget.

I turn to young cop. "How does it feel to be one of the brown shirts."

"What?"

"You can look it up later," I say.

Bizarre: Woman Roughed Up, Arrested for Reciting the Constitution During TSA Inspection
By T. P. Alexanders | Sourced from Daily Kos
Oct. 17, 2011




Albuquerque International Sunport Security Checkpoint:

I pass a camera crew filming the ticket counter. I stop and consider telling them what I am about to do, but decide against it. They probably won't care. Instead, I wheel my baggage to the security area.

I can feel my heart beat in my chest. I've never done anything like this. I've always said “Yes sir,” even when I didn't agree. Even this simple act fills me with conflicting emotions.

New Mexico is far warmer than my native Pacific Northwest. I'm sweating by the time I reach the first inspection of my ID. I'm sure I already look like a terrorist. The TSA agent, perched on his stool, takes no notice. I look enough like my driver's license and I have a valid airline ticket. He black lights my ID and lets me pass with hardly a glance.

I've come here to moonlight from my real job. My daughter had an operation, and I had to come up with thousands in deductible. She's in college and, so far, I've managed to keep her from becoming a debt slave, like her mother. I took eight extra weekends of work in the Land of Enchantment to cover the cost. I'm lucky, I guess, I can do that. Others, with fewer job opportunities, have no choice but to go bankrupt.

My heart kicks it up another notch when I get to the conveyor belt. Shouldn't have had that coffee this morning but thank God I didn't eat anything, or I'd be hugging the trash can right now.

Come on, I tell myself, what are they going to do? Confiscate your toothpaste? Say something mean to you? So what. Relax. You can do this. You should do this. You have to do this.

I take off my shoes and strip my backpack of computer and the baggie of incidentals. I stand in line while my armpits grow embarrassingly moist and I feel my heart race. I think, Get a hold of yourself. You're being a drama queen.

When it is my turn, I decline to go through the monitor that scans under your clothes, as I always do. The TSA agent starts his spiel about how safe it is. I've done my research. His statements are questionable, but that is not why I am doing this. I start my own spiel.

"The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution reads: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, an particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

I'm speaking loud and clear so those around me can hear. Before I get to "unreasonable search" a man in an ill-fitting suit and a tie marches up to me. He tells me I was disrupting his operation. I have no idea what his position is. He stands in front of the metal detector--the first place they usually screen me. He tells me I am holding up the line. I drop my voice and tell him to go ahead and screen me. I'll take the pat down. But that's not what he wants. He wants me to shut up. I continue reading the Fourth Amendment.

He asks me to go with him to some undisclosed location to “talk”. He indicates with his hand somewhere back toward ticketing, away from being screened. I decline. He tries to gently guide me with a hand on my elbow, like we're on a date, pushing me back up the line. I stand firm. I want to go forward, let them pat me down while I read the Fourth Amendment to my fellow citizens.

He asks me what airline I'm on. I have seen no badge or ID. I ask him if he has a warrant for the information. He looks at me dumbfounded. He sees the United boarding pass in my hand. He tells me he won't allow me to fly. I have no idea if he has that sort of authority.

I say as loudly and clearly as I can, "I am being told I can not fly for reading you the Fourth Amendment."

He says, "If you keep this up I'll call the police."

I say as loud as I can, "You are going to arrest me for reading the Constitution?"

"You are disrupting the screening process, and yes we will arrest you."

Again, I say I will be screened but not by the machine. They make no effort to walk me through the metal detector or find a female officer to frisk me. He tries again to walk me out of the area. I stand my ground and read the First Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise there of, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for redress of grievances."

The police do come, two of them. A young man and a grizzled officer with a road map of wrinkles lining his face. The young man stands in front of me and now I am terrified. They aren't just going to take my toothpaste. Why didn't I ask the camera crew to come--take the chance of getting the brush off? They might not do this, if there was a camera. Do I have the will to continue? I hear his voice asking for my name over the thudding of my heart in my ears. Do I have to give it to him? I'm not sure.

I look behind him to the startled mass of silent passengers. "If you have a cell phone camera, this would make good You Tube footage." It is an act of desperation, and I don't see anyone reach for their phone.

They jack hammer questions at me, name, where am I from, phone number, etc. I lose track, I can't tell which questions I am obligated to answer and which I'm not. I concentrate on the officer in front of me. I think I know what the police can and can't do. He asks me my name, again, and I ask "Do you have a warrant or am I under arrest?"

He sees the license and plane ticket still in my hand and tries to take them. I pull them back. "Do you have a warrant to remove those?" He lets them go.

Guy with a Tie tells the cops I won't be flying. The police try to push me out of the area. I stand my ground.

"You are giving up your Constitutional rights for something that only has a 1 in 25 million chance of happening. Fifty times less than death by lightening or being struck by an asteroid." I call to the herd of passengers. They stare at me dazed.

The cops push me with more aggression and tell me that if I don't quit, I will be arrested.

I yell, “Thomas Jefferson said, 'those who would give up their liberty for their security deserve neither.'”

They physically push me out of the security area. I try to dig in my heels and resist, but my stocking feet slide over the tile floor.

I shout, "When you allow the Bill of Rights to be violated, you deprive your children of the government your parents gave you. That is neither reasonable or responsible."

They stop pushing me at the end of the security check point and I regain my footing.

The old goat of a cop shoves me. "Get the hell out of here!" he yells, "Go on, stop causin' trouble."

I am in my stocking feet, with no cell phone, wallet or back pack. I stare at his snaring face and I can't. I just can't walk away. In for a penny, in for a pound. I sit down.

Instantly, my right hand is yanked behind my back and the cuffs are snapped on so tight they cut my skin. I grit my teeth, bite my tongue and let them have the left hand as well. He yanks the ID and boarding pass out of my hand. He pulls me up before he tells me to stand, but I scramble to my feet so I won't be resisting arrest. I walk where I am directed. At the first people I pass, I shout, "I am being arrested for reading the Constitution of the United States."

Old Goat lifts my hands up so high it hurts.

I continue to yell. People walking to the gate stare wide-eyed, but no one stops. In my hometown of Arcata, someone would have whipped out a cell phone and filmed it for You Tube, or at least “Shame!”ed the police for this act of cruelty.

A shout comes from behind me, "You are not being arrested."

I switch to, "I am being battered for reading the Constitution of the United States."

Old Goat pushes my hands up to the level of my shoulder blades, forcing me to walk bent over. I grunt with the pain but I won't give in to him.

"I am being battered for reading the Constitution of the United States, and when I tell you that he hurts me more."

Now my hands are over my head and it's hard to breathe. My eyes water, but I will not cry. My voice is high pitched with the strain of it. I have to pause to pant between my word, but I'm all-in.

"I...pant...am being battered...pant...for reading the Constitution...pant...and when I tell you that...pant...he hurts me more."

I am actually glad when we reach the holding cell. They throw me inside and slam the door with all the drama of any cop show.

The cell is clean and small, secured with a security door you would put on the front of your house. I sit on the bench at the far wall. My wrists, especially the right, are killing me. My mouth is parched and I am gasping.

Suddenly, I am filled with self-doubt. The bad machine doesn't know it is a bad machine. I say a prayer. Have I done the wrong thing? I've never stood up like this before--am I a bad person?

Calm descends. No. My words were the truth. If I can't turn to a fellow citizen and say, “Hey the TSA isn't obeying the Constitution. They're acting like this is a totalitarian state. What do you think?,” then it's because I live in a totalitarian state. I have acted on the side of democracy, so I can look the next generation in the face and say, “At least I tried.”

Young cop sits at a desk outside my security door. I hear Old Goat in the adjoining room tell someone, "We arrested her for disorderly conduct."

I yell, "That is the first time I've heard a charge." I do not add that there have been no Miranda rights or "You're under arrest." statement. In fact, they kept insisting while I was being marched through ticketing I was not under arrest--just cuffed and brutalized.

They ignore me. Old Goat asks for a statement from Guy with a Tie.

I ask, "Can I go back and get a statement from the people who witnessed it?"

Of course, there is no response.

I turn to young cop. "How does it feel to be one of the brown shirts."

"What?"

"You can look it up later," I say.

He says, "Did you listen to what people were saying?"

"I listened to what you told me. I responded to your questions."

"No--to the people in the airport? They were shouting for you to shut up."

True, one of them in the back of the line was irritated by the delay. The rest looked on wide-eyed and confused. I don't remember anyone shouting encouragement, but it was hard concentrating on the crowd with so many men in my face.

I try a different tactic. "Didn't you take an oath to defend the Constitution?"

"Look, we're just trying to keep you safe."

"The thing you are keeping me safe from, only has a 1 in 25 million chance of occurring. I'm more likely to win the lottery today."

"Maybe you should have bought a ticket."

I sigh and switch tactics again. “I know you have a job to do. I bet when you got into this it was to be of service. But how do you feel about what you just did?”

"I followed the rules and did this by the book. You disobeyed an officer when you wouldn't give me your license."

"I wasn't under arrest. You had no right to take anything from me. What if you book doesn't follow the Constitution, the highest law in the land?"

"It's not that big a deal. It's for everyone's safety. We don't want to take the risk. You don't have to fly you know. You give up your rights when you fly." (Yes, he really said that.)

"You know, as well as I do, I do have to fly. I have a job, too. I got to feed by family, too. That's just an excuse for ignoring the Constitution. What if they say you need to give up your rights in order drive a car, or board a bus. Where is your line in the sand that can't be crossed. You know where mine is."

He chews on his lip, turning this over in his mind.

“I know about orders. I have to follow rules, too,” I continue. “Would it surprise you to know I was in the Air Force once?”

He looks me in the face, really seeing me for the first time. “Yes, actually, it would.”

“Twenty years. I'm a retired Lieutenant Colonel.”

"How are those cuffs? Are they too tight?"

"They're a bit snug,” I smile at him, “I wouldn't mind them a little looser."

He unlocks the door, and I turn my back so he can loosen the cuffs but he takes them off. He asks over my shoulder, "Are you thirsty? Would you like some water?"

I turn rubbing my protesting right wrist. There is a half inch dent in my skin outlining the cuff. "I'd love some water."

He brings a cold bottle and shuts the door. I'm grateful when the chill of the water hits my hot throat. I down half the bottle before I even realize it.

Guy in a Tie comes to the cage door. He asks if the address on my license is correct. I confirm that it is. He asks my phone number. I ask if he is an officer of the law and does he have a warrant. He asks if I am refusing to talk to him. I ask if I am legally obligated to give him information. He asks again if I am refusing to talk to him. I tell him I am refusing to answer questions, and he leaves.

Young cop comes to the door. "What's your name?"

I sigh and ask about a warrant.

"We have your license. That's not why I am asking. I just wanted to know your name."

I give him my first name--the one on the license since they already have it. "What's you name?" I ask.

"Jared (not his real name)."

"Pleased to meet you Jared. Wish it was under better circumstances."

He nods and smiles.

A new man comes to the door. Marty (also not a real name) has a better fitting suit than Guy with a Tie. Polite is apparently in his job description.

"If I could get you home tonight, would you like that?" They must have hired him from a pool of telephone solicitors.

"Depends on the situation."

"But you would like that?"

"My husband would like it."

"Well, I'm married. Making the spouse happy usually makes my life better."

I can't deny this, and I nod. He disappears and returns. He offers to get me on a later flight if I take a misdemeanor charge of Disorderly Conduct. I feel like I am giving in, but what can I do? I actually do have to go to work tomorrow.

He says there is the little matter of getting through airport security. I say that I never declined a physical search, it was never offered. My intent was to read the Constitution, while it was happening. He speaks to someone in the next room. I ask who he is talking to and Guy with a Tie emerges.

"You refused to talk to me."

"No, I refused to give you personal information you were not entitled to."

"You refused to be searched."

"I never refused. You never offered. You only offered to remove me from the area."

"You don't have a right to disrupt the screening."

"You disrupted the screening. I just read the Constitution."

Marty intervenes. Clearly, his job is to get this resolved today. He breaks us up and I ask him, "So next week, when I have to fly again, what's going to happen when I read the Constitution?"

I actually feel pity for the way he looks at me. I have just made his day a living hell and I really do feel sorry for him and for calling Jared a Brown Shirt.

"Let's just get through today,” he says.

I agree to be searched and tell them I will read the Constitution in a normal voice while they do it. This is not good enough for Guy with a Tie. He says if I read the statement, I can't pay attention to what the frisking officer tells me. You know, how she is going to put her hands here and there and use the back of her hand to check my "sensitive areas". They tell me I need to listen to this, I kid you not, for my own safety. I say I will only read while she is not speaking. That won't do either, because I won't be concentrating on her instructions. Seriously, this was their rational explanation to me for continuing to violate my First and Fourth Amendment rights. I have to get home so I finally acquiesce.

Marty asks if I could be released and Jared lets me out. They give me back my shoes. Old Goat explains that I could await arraignment next Monday, or take the misdemeanor. I say I have already agreed to the misdemeanor.

“OK,” he says, “then you need to wait 'til Monday.” He leaves again.

"Wait a minute.” I call after him, “I don't think I understood the options. Could you come back and explain them to me?" There is only silence. My heart is beating again.

"I said I was taking the misdemeanor. Did I not understand what that was?" Monday is a week away. My job and my husband will kill me.

Jared comes to the rescue. He gets Old Goat to write up the misdemeanor charge and explains I have to appear before the judge here in New Mexico. That is going to be damned inconvenient, as I live in Northern California, but I agree.

Jared and Marty walk me back to security with Guy in a Tie. Jared asks, "What did you do in the Force?"

"Same thing I do now. I'm a doctor."

He snorts and looks at me. I know I'm not what he expected. Now, he can't help but think about all I've said. Is he drawing his own line in the sand? Maybe. It took me a while, too. I got here in stages, not all at once.

They walk me to the ticket booth. Three planes and I won't get home until midnight, but at least I am going home. Marty gives me his card and asks that I call him the next time I flying through Albuquerque. I agree. I have nothing to hide, I maintain that I have not done anything not guaranteed to me by the Constitution.

They search me and I am sore and exhausted. I am silent. They check my bags for explosives and my backpack alarms. The same pack ,with the same contents, I have had checked here multiple times with no problems, alarms today. I share this fun fact with Jared. He smiles and nods. They unpack it and examine everything but decide the 3 mm bamboo knitting needles aren't that dangerous.

Guy with a Tie wants to know if I was born in Arcata. I ask why I should give this information. He asks for my phone number. Again I ask if I am legally obligated to give it. He says that a TSA representative will want to follow up about the incident. I'd love to talk to customer service about today. I give my number.

He dances from foot to foot and hunches his shoulder. He won't look me in the eye for more than a microsecond.

I say, "I can tell by your body language you know more than you are telling me."

He gives me the deer in the headlights look and says "That's not my department."

"What's not your department?"

"Investigations. When they call you."

"You mean an agent is going to call me?"

"Well, yes."

"Agent of whom, TSA or FBI."

"TSA."

"What will they be investigating me for?"

The headlights are closing in on the deer. "I don't know. That's not my department."

I nod, too tired to worry that part of the intimidation leveled at people who aren't good little sheep is to be investigated by a federal agency for terrorism.

I turn to my gate. I have 5 hours.

I call my husband. “Why would you do such a thing in some damn red-neck state, where I can't get to you?” He has for years tried to cure me of my delusion that there is some democracy left in the United States. I can hear the worry in his voice and I am sorry for putting it there. I try to reassure him that I am alright.

I find the first available electric socket and I write.

Tears finally come. People pass me by, staring, but I just put my head down and write. I open my veins and I write it all, the fear, the self doubt, the shock, the pain, the indignation.

When I am done, it is time to board. I pack my computer and stand in line, trying to come to grips with all that just happened.

I wonder what my husband will say when I get home. I wonder how I'm going to get down here for a court appearance. I wonder if they will let me fly again. I wonder what will happen if I read the Constitution next week when I have to come back. I wonder, briefly, what Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson would say, if they knew it was a sign of terrorism to recite the Bill of Rights.

Read More