Answer To South Dakota's Anti Choice Anti Women Law

From Nora A.

March 29, 2006
Cecilia Fire Thunder, Chief of the Oglala Sioux
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When South Dakota outlawed abortion, even in the case of rape and incest, the American Taliban scored another victory against women's rights.
That is why we were heartened to learn from a reader that Cecilia Fire Thunder, Chief of the Oglala Sioux, decided that tribal reservation law would allow her to offer sanctuary to women seeking choice.
"To me, it is now a question of sovereignty," Chief Thunder said. "I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction."
In the face of these ignorant, Neanderthal South Dakota men -- who, along with their anti-choice brethren, will never understand childbirth nor abortion until they experience it themselves -- a Native American woman stands up for the Constitution and a women's right to choose.
For providing leadership during a time of cowardice in Washington, DC, Cecilia Fire Thunder, you truly merit this week's BuzzFlash "Wings of Justice Award."
* * *
Nominated by: Dennis Courtney of Brookeville, MD
HONOREES NOMINATE ABOUT HOME
Wings of Justice is a project of BuzzFlash.com
The Wings of Justice Award audio is available as podcast XML from Odeo.com. Click here to join Odeo:

Mbube Wimoweh

Another piece send by Bob Tomashevsky
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------March 22, 2006 Johannesburg JournalIn the Jungle, the Unjust Jungle, a Small Victory By SHARON LaFRANIEREJOHANNESBURG - As Solomon Linda first recorded it in 1939, it was a tender melody, almost childish in its simplicity - three chords, a couple of words and some baritones chanting in the background. But the saga of the song now known worldwide as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is anything but a lullaby. It is fraught with racism and exploitation and, in the end, 40-plus years after his death, brings a measure of justice. Were he still alive, Solomon Linda might turn it into one heck of a ballad. Born in 1909 in the Zulu heartland of South Africa, Mr. Linda never learned to read or write, but in song he was supremely eloquent. After moving to Johannesburg in his mid-20's, he quickly conquered the weekend music scene at the township beer halls and squalid hostels that housed much of the city's black labor force.He sang soprano over a four-part harmony, a vocal style that was soon widely imitated. By 1939, a talent scout had ushered Mr. Linda's group, the Original Evening Birds, into a recording studio where they produced a startling hit called "Mbube," Zulu for "The Lion." Elizabeth Nsele, Mr. Linda's youngest surviving daughter, said it had been inspired by her father's childhood as a herder protecting cattle in the untamed hinterlands."The lion was going round and round, and the lion was happy," she said. "But my father was not happy. He had been staying there since morning and he was hungry." The lyrics were spartan - just mbube and zimba, which means "stop" - but its chant and harmonies were so entrancing that the song came to define a whole generation of Zulu a cappella singing, a style that became known simply as Mbube. Music scholars say the 78 r.p.m. recording of "Mbube" was probably the first African record to sell 100,000 copies.From there, it took flight worldwide. In the early 50's, Pete Seeger recorded it with his group, the Weavers. His version differed from the original mainly in his misinterpretation of the word "mbube" (pronounced "EEM-boo-beh"). Mr. Seeger sang it as "wimoweh," and turned it into a folk music staple.There followed a jazz version, a nightclub version, another folk version by the Kingston Trio, a pop version and finally, in 1961, a reworking of the song by an American songwriter, George Weiss. Mr. Weiss took the last 20 improvised seconds of Mr. Linda's recording and transformed it into the melody. He added lyrics beginning "In the jungle, the mighty jungle." A teen group called the Tokens sang it with a doo-wop beat - and it topped charts worldwide. Some 150 artists eventually recorded the song. It was translated into languages from Dutch to Japanese. It had a role in more than 13 movies. By all rights, Mr. Linda should have been a rich man. Instead, he lived in Soweto with barely a stick of furniture, sleeping on a dirt floor carpeted with cow dung. Mr. Linda received 10 shillings - about 87 cents today - when he signed over the copyright of "Mbube" in 1952 to Gallo Studios, the company that produced his record. He also got a job sweeping floors and serving tea in the company's packing house. His eight children survived on maize porridge, known as pap. When they passed a grade in school, their reward was an egg. Two died as babies, one of malnutrition, said his daughter Ms. Nsele, now 47. "Chicken feet and pap, chicken feet and pap," she said. "That was our meal for years and years." When Mr. Linda died in 1962, at 53, with the modern equivalent of $22 in his bank account, his widow had no money for a gravestone.How much he should have collected is in dispute. Over the years, he and his family have received royalties for "Wimoweh" from the Richmond Organization, the publishing house that holds the rights to that song, though not as much as they should have, Mr. Seeger said. "I didn't realize what was going on and I regret it," said Mr. Seeger, now 86, adding that he learned only recently that Mr. Linda received less than the 50 percent of publishing royalties Mr. Seeger says he was due. "I have always left money up to other people. I was kind of stupid." But where Mr. Linda's family really lost out, his lawyers claim, was in "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," a megahit. From 1991 to 2000, the years when "The Lion King" began enthralling audiences in movie theaters and on Broadway, Mr. Linda's survivors received a total of perhaps $17,000 in royalties, according to Hanro Friedrich, the family's lawyer. A lawyer for Abilene Music, the publishing house for "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," did not return repeated calls for comment. But Owen Dean, a South African copyright lawyer who also represents the family, said the amount was a mere pittance compared with the profits the song generated. The Lindas say they knew no better. Ms. Nsele said she remembered hearing her father's tune on the radio as a teenager in the 1970's and recalled: "I asked my mother, 'Who are those people?' She said she didn't know. She was happy because the husband's song was playing. She didn't know she was supposed to get something."Indeed, few people knew until Rian Malan, the South African author and songwriter, documented the inequity in 2000 in Rolling Stone magazine. In a telephone interview this month, Mr. Malan said he was stunned "by the degree to which everyone was relying on the Lindas never asking the question" of why they were paid so little.Mr. Malan's article embarrassed several major players in the American music industry and brought both Mr. Friedrich and Mr. Dean to the family's defense. The Lindas filed suit in 2004, demanding $1.5 million in damages, but their case was no slam-dunk. Not only had Mr. Linda signed away his copyright to Gallo in 1952, Mr. Dean said, but his wife, who was also illiterate, signed them away again in 1982, followed by his daughters several years later. Ms. Nsele contends the family was hoodwinked by a South African lawyer, now deceased. Mr. Friedrich said the lawyer appeared to have worn two hats, simultaneously representing the family and the song's copyright holders. In their lawsuit, the Lindas invoked an obscure 1911 law under which the song's copyright reverted to Mr. Linda's estate 25 years after his death. On a separate front, they criticized the Walt Disney Company, whose 1994 hit movie "The Lion King" featured a meerkat and warthog singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." Disney argued that it had paid Abilene Music for permission to use the song, without knowing its origins. But for a company built on its founder's benevolent image, the case "had all the makings of a nightmare," Mr. Dean said - a David and Goliath story in which Disney raked in profits from the song while Mr. Linda's children toiled as maids and factory workers, lived without indoor plumbing and sometimes had to borrow from their lawyer for food. In February, Abilene agreed to pay Mr. Linda's family royalties from 1987 onward, ending the suit. No amount has been disclosed, but the family's lawyers say their clients should be quite comfortable. A representative for Disney would not discuss the circumstances behind the lawsuit, but the company said in a statement that Walt Disney Pictures had licensed " 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' in good faith" and was pleased that the litigation had been resolved "to everyone's satisfaction." Some injustices cannot be redressed: in 2001, Mr. Linda's daughter Adelaide died of AIDS at age 38, unable to afford life-saving antiretroviral treatment. "I was angry before," said Ms. Nsele, who, as a government nurse, is one of the few of Mr. Linda's descendants who is employed. "They didn't ask permission. They just decided to do anything they wanted with my father's song.""But now it seems we must forgive, because they have come to their senses and realized they have made a mistake," Ms. Nsele said. "The Bible says you must try to forgive.""Not 'try,' " her 17-year-old daughter Zandile corrected. "It says 'forgive.' "Copyright 2006The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map Back to Top

What The Media Told You About Iraq

WHAT THE MEDIA TOLD YOU ABOUT IRAQ[Compiled by FAIR]"Iraq Is All but Won; Now What?" (Los Angeles Times headline, 4/10/03)"Now that the combat phase of the war in Iraq is officially over, what begins is a debate throughout the entire U.S. government over America's unrivaled power and how best to use it." (CBS reporter Joie Chen, 5/4/03)"Congress returns to Washington this week to a world very different from the one members left two weeks ago. The war in Iraq is essentially over and domestic issues are regaining attention." (NPR'sBob Edwards, 4/28/03)"Tommy Franks and the coalition forces have demonstrated the old axiomthat boldness on the battlefield produces swift and relatively bloodless victory. The three-week swing through Iraq has utterly shattered skeptics' complaints." (Fox News Channel's Tony Snow, 4/27/03)"The only people who think this wasn't a victory are Upper Westside liberals, and a few people here in Washington." (Charles Krauthammer,Inside Washington, WUSA-TV, 4/19/03)"We had controversial wars that divided the country. This war united the country and brought the military back." (Newsweek's Howard Fineman--MSNBC, 5/7/03) "We're all neo-cons now." (MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03) "The war was the hard part. The hard part was putting together acoalition, getting 300,000 troops over there and all their equipment and winning. And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but it is not as hard as winning a war." (Fox News Channel'sFred Barnes, 4/10/03)"Oh, it was breathtaking. I mean I was almost starting to think thatwe had become inured to everything that we'd seen of this war over the past three weeks; all this sort of saturation. And finally, when we saw that it was such a just true, genuine expression. It was reminiscent, I think, of the fall of the Berlin Wall. And just sort of that pure emotional expression, not choreographed, not stage-managed,the way so many things these days seem to be. Really breathtaking." -Washington Post reporter Ceci Connolly, appearing on Fox News Channelon 4/9/03, discussing the pulling down of a Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad, an event later revealed to have been a U.S. military PSYOPS operation."The war winds down, politics heats up.... Picture perfect. part Spider-Man, part Tom Cruise, part Ronald Reagan. The president seizes the moment on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific." (PBS's Gwen Ifill, 5/2/03, on George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech)"We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not acomplicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple. We're not like the Brits." (MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 5/1/03)"He looked like an alternatively commander in chief, rock star, moviestar, and one of the guys." (CNN's Lou Dobbs, on Bush's 'MissionAccomplished' speech, 5/1/03)"Why don't the damn Democrats give the president his day? He won today. He did well today." (MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)"If image is everything, how can the Democratic presidential hopefuls compete with a president fresh from a war victory?" (CNN's JudyWoodruff, 5/5/03)"I doubt that the journalists at the New York Times and NPR or at ABC or at CNN are going to ever admit just how wrong their negative pronouncements were over the past four weeks." (MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, 4/9/03)"This has been a tough war for commentators on the American left. To hope for defeat meant cheering for Saddam Hussein. To hope for victory meant cheering for President Bush. The toppling of Mr. Hussein, or at least a statue of him, has made their arguments even harder to defend. Liberal writers for ideologically driven magazines like The Nation and for less overtly political ones like The New Yorker did not predict a defeat, but the terrible consequences many warned of have not happened. Now liberal commentators must address the victory at handand confront an ascendant conservative juggernaut that asserts UnitedStates might can set the world right." (New York Times reporter David Carr, 4/16/03)"This will be no war -- there will be a fairly brief and ruthless military intervention.... The president will give an order. [The attack] will be rapid, accurate and dazzling.... It will be greeted by the majority of the Iraqi people as an emancipation. And I say, bring it on." (Christopher Hitchens, in a 1/28/03 debate-- cited in The Observer, 3/30/03)"I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to take that wager?" (Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 1/29/03)"It won't take weeks. You know that, professor. Our military machine will crush Iraq in a matter of days and there's no question that it will." (Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 2/10/03)http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2842

Songs Of The Far Right

My thanks to Nora A. for this one.
http://folksongsofthefarrightwing.cf.huffingtonpost.com

A Groaner From www.rec.humor.jewish

A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgeon. As she lay her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest.After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said, "I'm so sorry,your Duck, Cuddles, has passed away."The distressed owner wailed, "Are you sure?"Yes, I am sure. The duck is dead," he replied."How can you be so sure," she protested. "I mean, you haven't done anytesting on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something."The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room, and returned a few moments later with a black Labrador Retriever.As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs,put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head.The vet patted the dog and took it out, and returned a few moments later with a cat. The cat jumped up on the table and also sniffed delicately at the bird fromhead to foot. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowedsoftly and strolled out of the room.The vet looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck. Then the vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman.The duck's owner, still in shock, took the bill. "$150!", she cried, "$150 just to tell me my duck is dead!!.READY ????The vet shrugged "I'm sorry. If you'd taken my word for it, the bill would have been $20 but with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, it's now $150.00".

Great Bluegrass,Old Time Country and Old Time Videos

http://www.johnhartford.org