THE ANTIDOTE TO DEPRESSION IS GENEROSITY

WOMEN WE LOVE AND ADMIRE:

Drew Gilpin Faust, first female president of Harvard, and author of This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, Knopf

Catharine Drew Gilpin Faust (born September 18, 1947) is an American historian, college administrator and the first female president of Harvard University. Faust, the former Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, is also Harvard's first president since 1672 without an undergraduate or graduate degree from Harvard.

I also adore Raven-Symoné, 22, the youngest Cosby kid and star of THAT’S SO RAVEN! She is a wonderful role model for young girls.


Take a moment to appreciate beauty. For weeks I've been awestruck by the gorgeous fuscia color of this bougainvillea in our backyard. I also have Rosemary and it really perks up your mood to breathe the delicious scent. This photo, taken with my phone yesterday, does not do it justice. A week ago, the color was too vibrant to be true. As I appreciate more and more of the beauty in life, it seems to "play" and interact with me. More and more beauty becomes apparent. A French couple stopped their car to marvel at this color the other day, and on Thursday a woman -- whom I swear was an angel — stopped, and at the right moment said the exact words I was thinking: "Nature is the greatest painter." God has given us such beautiful vistas and playful creatures with which to enjoy in this life.

There is an old saying that goes: "Worry is often the cause of illness." The perceived weakening of the economy, too, may have its beginnings in the mind. Many of our problems are problems of perception. The way to be happy is to stop, look up, look around, breathe deeply and realize the sky is not falling. Take a moment to appreciate the smallest things. Think of how you can help someone else who may not have as much as you do. That will increase the wealth in your life a hundred fold. Just watch.

Of course, then there's this.... a portrait of someone who is sorely misguided and believes war is the answer to all our problems...

God Bless all the victims of recent catastophes from the earthquake in China, the cycone in Burma, the wildfires in Florida, and the tornadoes in Oklahoma and Missouri.
And our hearts and prayers go out to Katherine Wolf, the beautiful 26-year old mother from our church who suffered a major brain hemorrhage on April 21st, and her faithful family has been at the hospital round the clock ever since. Katherine has made some great strides, but it's still going to be some time before she goes home... God Bless Katherine, Jay and their baby.

APPEASEMENT? Let's talk about appeasement. Fifteen of the 911 hijackers were SAUDIS, yet Bush has made a deal with the devil by giving the Saudis over 2 million in high-tech weapons. Bush also gave into Osama Bin Laden's demads to remove our largest airforce base in Saudi Arabia. That is appeasement.

Make peace with your enemies, by not seeing them as enemies. Obama must stick to his truth - and what won him all those primaries: YOU MUST TALK TO YOUR ENEMIES. In fact, the minute we stop seeing our enemies as enemies, we heal the rift.

It's easy to fight those who hurt you; the higher law calls on us to love those who hate us and seek to hurt us. Then we will see miracles begin to happen in human relationships.

There are 1.5 billion Muslims. They want to raise their children in peace. Only fundamentalist extremists (in all religions) preach intolerance. To those who do so, look in the mirror.

We have to try to understand others. Why do people blow themselves up to kill Americans? Is it because they 'hate us for our freedoms' -- or could it be that our footprint is on their holy land raping their oil, killing their children and stealing their natural resources. "Seek first to understand rather than be understood...You get more flies with honey than with vinegar...Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

McCain is wrong and even going against his prior behavior. If we're trying to spread democracy across the world, we at least have to set an example and talk to the leaders that were voted into power by the democratic process -- as Hamas was in the Palestinian territories! Even in our country we voted in the corrupt Bush-Cheney regime and we call ourselves a Democracy that must be reckoned with.

If we actually stopped making the enemy so powerful with our obsessive focus on him, and go about the business of creating a beautiful, clean, proserous safe world for our children -- focusing on our own challenges at HOME, the "enemy" would never have any power over us. It's our attention to him that makes him bigger, for what you focus on grows.

These simple principles are the absolute answer to all the strife in the world and in our personal lives.

McCain and the Republicans call it "strength" -- that is their code word for war and military might. They think everything can be solved with bombs. Did you hear Senator Lieberman joking around with Bill Bennett about Hillary Clinton on his right-wing radio show?

BENNETT: And Joe, you know, this is my style. This is a girl who puts on her pearls, goes down, throws down a shot of liquor and bombs Iran, you know. This is…lookout Mrs. Bennett, this is my kind of girl.

LIEBERMAN: Hehehe, it does have an appeal to it." BOMBING IRAN HAS AN APPEAL TO IT? Senator Lieberman and Mr. Bennett you should be ashamed of yourselves. (Apparently Hillary never said this anyway.)

To retaliate on the level of engaging in fear-based obsession and magnifying the enemy, only makes the "enemy" larger. This is a spiritual law. Violence against innocents on the hopes of killing militants, is always wrong. There are much more clever and thoughtful ways of annihiating an enemy and it starts in your thought about them. They diminish when the nations of world unite to reduce their power. Not by creating more violence! We are feeding the violence and darkness by fighting it. We are giving it more power. But it has no real power. Just like darkness has no power of its own. LIght is an actual source of energy. Darkness is the absence of light.

When someone hates you, send them love. It works like a charm.

Anyway, it's hard but every single time I think hateful thoughts about terrorists, or George Bush or intolerant neocons, I turn my thoughts to love. The hardest people to do this with are ex-friends and family. It works, even if you can only do it 9 times out of 10. It changes everything.

Our enemies can also be our thoughts about ourselves, including our fears of financial insecurity, suspicion, bigorty, intolerance, worry, accidents, disease, terrorism and all sorts of fears of losing what we have or not getting what we want.

Also, to allow the terrorists to define our lives for us, to "hop" to their commands and live in fear of their threats, is to give them too much power.

Thoughts rule the world. We can lift our consciousness above what the material senses tell us. Then we will see heaven on earth.

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HUMILITY
Nothing is set in stone. We are all redeemable, even the "bad guys" in government and politics, even our leaders. I heard a humble young Israeli at a recovery meeting day say that he 'to become humble' is everything. It's the only way to attain peace. He made a list of his character defects and then made a list of each of their "opposites." To overcome depression, think of others first. To overcome selfishness, give to others. To overcome arrogance, learn humility.

Humility is one of the greatest virtues. When I think of how I can "give" instead of "get" the whole day goes better. When I think of how to "understand" rather than be "understood" or force my will and my opinions on others, I attract love.

Love is circular. Let's all be thinking of how we can help others. Human kindness is really all that matters.

IRON MAN * STEVE SPITZ * HERCULES at the GETTY

IRONMAN... and HERCULES AT THE GETTY VILLA


We all need to read Eckhart Tolle's new book A NEW EARTH — which has a section about how the rise of the male ego has dominated the world and virtually annihilated the nurturing, sacred feminine. This has created a catastrophic imbalance in our world and we are reaping the pain now. That said, I saw IRONMAN on Friday night and loved it. I thought Robert Downey, Jr. was brilliant — and I loved his inventor's lab with the 3-D computers. Of course the villain was a company like Halliburton and Blackwater or any giant weapons manufacturer. It was a morality tale about our blood lust. Why on earth is the U.S. so proud of it's hi-tech "smart" weapons that annihilate tribes of helpless civilians?


Took my stepson to the Getty Villa Museum in Malibu for extra credit this weekend. It's the home of ancient Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities. It is the most spectacular place, an exact replica of a spectacular Roman villa. Saw the bronze Victorious Youth, the Herculaneum Women. Here is Hercules, and below is a papyrus scroll piece from Homer's original Odyssey -- the actual original writing by Homer from 100 B.C.


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BETTER LIVING WITH STEVE SPITZ at MORONGO!
Taped a great show "Better Living with Steve Spitz" where I cooked my favorite Sesame Tofu recipe and chatted with the amazing Steve Spitz. SteveSpitz.com What a cool human being! Spitz does humanitarian work for Children with Aids, cooks, designs, is very spiritual and was the original inventor of honey mustard dressing. We filmed his really fun new talk show in the Desert at Morongo - a stunning hotel and casino which has five star dining at a sky-high all glass 3-story dining room overlooking the beautiful canyon below Idyllwilde. (Remember Albert Brook's classic Modern Romance when he and Kathryn Harold go to Idyllwilde?) Tony Dennison from The Closer was another guest on the show.
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People who create music blow me away. This song is so gorgeous it made me cry. And the generosity of the free piano teachers on You Tube that show close up lessons are like angels.
My stepson Kevin (12) has been learning this song "APOLOGIZE" by One Republic on his Yamaha piano. Click on this You Tube video and watch this gifted pianist play the piano part to this beautiful song. The version with TIMBLALAND and ONE REPUBLIC is below.


APOLOGIZE by ONE REPUBLIC with TIMBALAND

Another wonderfully generous pianist named "Ryan" shows you CLOSE UP how to play this song:
Apologize Close UP piano lesson
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Also: please comment on Rush Limpbotomy's comments and the way he is inciting a riot with his "Operation Chaos." The FCC needs to revoke Rush Limbaugh's license. This divisive, hateful "excellence in broadcasting has no place on the public airwaves. The propaganda must cease.

On Monday April 28, 2008, Bill Press will be the guest on the Basham and Cornell Radio heard weekday mornings at 8 a.m. on 1230 AM KLAV in Las Vegas and worldwide on the web.

Bill Press is a political commentator and author. He was the chair of the California Democratic Party from 1993 to 1996. He has served in different appointed positions such as a chief of staff to California State Sen. Peter Behr (a Republican) and director of the California Office of Planning and Research under Gov. Jerry Brown. One of the country's most well-known progressive commentators addresses how--and why--the conservative movement went off the rails in his new book “Trainwreck: The End of the Conservative Revolution (and Not a Moment Too Soon)”

According to even Newt Gingrich, "Republicans have lost their way." Always better with one-liners than worthwhile policies, John McCain recently said, "We spent money like a drunken sailor. Although I never really knew a sailor, drunk or sober, with the imagination of my colleagues."

Bill Press, however, says the Republicans have been governing exactly the way you'd expect. If a politician's most basic belief is that government always fails, why would anyone think he'd try to prove otherwise? Trainwreck details the rise of the modern conservative movement from Robert Taft to Ronald Reagan and its fall from Newt Gingrich to the abject failure of George W. Bush.

Once champions of fiscal responsibility, conservatives have brought us, instead, record high federal spending and bloated budget deficits. Once leery of foreign entanglements, conservatives have launched us, instead, into an unprecedented age of imperial wars and conquests. Once apostles of honesty and integrity in government, conservatives have, instead, used their positions of power to enrich themselves or evade the rule of law.

For decades, conservatives struggled to topple liberals from the federal throne, but, once in power, they didn't deliver. Everything they touched, they trashed. Here is the story of who, how, and why.

UPCOMING GUESTS: Bill Press, Senators Tom Daschle, Lincoln Chaffee and Arlen Specter. If you live in Vegas you can tune in Live or go to our website and listen in the audio archives.

The Basham and Cornell Show broadcasts weekday mornings at 8 am Pacific (11 a.m. Eastern) on KLAV 1230 AM Radio live in Las Vegas. Again, all shows are simulcast worldwide on the Internet (and archived) and can be listened to at Basham and Cornell Radio If you've missed our show, check out the audio archives. We have interviewed John & Elizabeth Edwards, Dennis & Elizabeth Kucinich, John Dean, Pat Buchanan, NBC Bureau Chief in Tel Aviv Martin Fletcher, Pulitzer Prize winner Charlie Savage, Congressman Charlie Rangel,Valerie Plame, Christine Pelosi, Larisa Alexandrovna, Dahr Jamail, Senator Mike Gravel; Senator Byron Dorgan; bestselling authors Greg Palast, Paul Krugman, Greg Anrig.

The Basham and Cornell Show broadcasts weekday mornings at 8 am Pacific (11 a.m. Eastern). All shows are simulcast on the Internet (and archived) and can be listened to at www.BashamAndCornell.com

HOW TO GET RICH? GIVE TO THE POOR

FIGHTING YOUR ENEMIES ONLY MAKES THEM STRONGER
Even in the midst of tragedy, there is a spiritual law of surrender: when you let go and accept whatever is happening in this very moment — when you stop worrying, stop stressing, start appreciating and start giving more than you receive — magic begins to happen in your life. No matter what is going on, there is always something to be grateful for. Sometimes you have to lose your life to save it. Sometimes you have to lose everything to gain what's really valuable.

It's a spiritual law: the more you give, the more you receive. Wayne Dyer, in his bestselling book You’ll See it When You Believe It, says that the magic of giving actually is a law in the universe and works like clockwork. Every single time he sent out 10% to charity of any income that came in, his income doubled, tripled and rose exponentially.

All sorts of wonderful things opened up when I started giving, tithing, caring about others and giving things away. In the debauched 80's, I even offered to drive a friend to the airport — an unheard of gesture in L.A. during that time. No one drove anyone to the airport; it was considered a huge imposition. But everytime I would give time or money, both time and money would expand. Soon, an abundance of riches flowed into my life. I love Oprah's new show THE BIG GIVE.

This is how we can change the world. It will happen on a community level. The other day I heard a woman on the radio say that she was at Trader Joe's, and just as she was checking out, she realized she had forgotten her wallet. Instead of sending her away, the cashier offered to pay for her groceries — and when she gushed apologies, he refused to let her pay him back. It wasn't that much, she had only purchased a few items, but still — this kind of generosity in "paying it foward" could change the world. This is how we'll win over corporate greed.

What has always, always seemed wrong to me is excess consumerism. It has never seemed natural to have so many stores, so much pavement, so many products. The other day I was driving back from Palm Springs where I did a wonderful TV show and I wandered into an outlet mall. People were shopping mindlessly, staring at "things" and never looking at each other. It's so bizarre, this shopping mentality — as if "stuff" can really fill you up. We have been programmed to be shoppers, always searching for something material to fill us. But it never does.

We are snowballing toward chaos and excess for one purpose -- to force us to look within.

Finally.

LESS IS MORE
By the way, what's wrong with downsizing, simplifying and living with less? Less is actually more. Thom Hartmann said, “Why are we so hell bent on ‘economic growth?’ Why not ‘economic stability?” If economic growth means even one more cancer death, then I am for stabilizing the economy, not growing it."

If the economy slows down, won't prices drop? Isn't necessity the mother of invention? I have long believed the emerging green economy will save American industry. But we have to stop thinking of ourselves as separate and superior to the rest of the world. Germany is excelling in solar power, and we should learn a lesson from their solar model.

As home prices drop to human levels, wouldn't it be great if the average American could actually afford to buy a home without killing himself — without holding down two jobs, or having his spouse bring in the second income while the children stay in day-care until 7 p.m. after a harrowing drive in rush hour?

This got me to thinking about Ted Knight’s favorite expression: “less is more.” He used to advise us not to mug for the cameras — and that there was more power in underplaying a scene. These were his acting tips in the beginning of Too Close For Comfort. I was too scared to look into his eyes, so I'd look at his forehead instead. He kept standing on his toes to get into my line of vision. Ted thought I was doing this on purpose, and the National Enquirer sent spies down to check out the tension on the set.

GROW YOUR OWN
I believe that less really is more when it comes to quality of life. In fact, lately I’ve been longing for a country life or "pastoral life" ( without the sheep.) I'm obsessed with HGTV and all the shows on fixing up houses, painting, cooking and gardening. Growing our own herbs and vegetables, building furniture, downsizing, shedding excess... I've actually been making my own hand lotion and face cream (olive oil & glycerin) because I'm sick of the chemicals the big brands put in there. Who knows what we're putting into our bodies with 'Aluminum Silicate, Dimethicone, Triethanolamine, Methylparaben, DMDM Hydantoin... (partial list of ingredients in a major label hand lotion.)

JOY IS CONTAGIOUS
It is also true that abiding by principle really pays off: if you treat your employees well, they will strive for you; they will be more loyal and more dependable. Trader Joes, CostCo, Starbucks, Best Buy and Google all pay great benefits and overtime; they have proven that companies who really do the right thing, are rewarded by the laws of the universe. To me this proves there is “goodness in the universe” – and that the Golden Rule works! Honestly, when I walk into Trader Joes or Costco, the employees seem to love their jobs. They are incredibly happy. Joy is contagious. On the other hand Circuit City keeps wages low, somehwere around $8 dollars an hour, just above minimum wage. they fire employees in order to hire new ones at lower wages. Guess what? Circuit city is failing. WalMart uses similar tactics; though they brag they donate more money to charity than any other company, they are not fooling smart people. Charitable donations are tax write-offs; why don't they put all that money into employee health care instead?

I love Stephen Covey’s book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” which basically proves that in business, if you abide by certain fundamental principles of justice, honesty and kindness — and seek to understand rather than to be understood (in other words, if you do the right thing) everyone is happy, wealth is created and harmony prevails.

To me this principle is most clearly and mysteriously propelled by “giving to the poor” or tithing.

As Obama says, "Pain trickles up." In a country such as ours, where corporations are given huge tax breaks and executives get million dollar bonuses, hoarding wealth at the top levels does not "trickle down." The government must step in and help the middle class and the poor. We can’t leave it up to the churches and synagogues to take care of the "least among us," as The Great Peacemaker admonished.

The day I started seeing the world through other people’s eyes and feeling other’s pain, is the day I can honestly say I became more progressive, inclusive, democratic, less fearful of the "other." In other words, I was a Republican and then I got sober. As I shed my old selfishness, I began to suspect other people existed in the universe — and not just to serve me.

By the way, LIBERAL IS NOT A DIRTY WORD; it's a beautiful word! It means "generous, bounteous, freedom loving, protecting of civil liberties."

Courtesy of Carl at SimplyLeftBehind "Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things...every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor." -- Matt Santos, The West Wing

Despite thirty years of 'liberal-bashing as blood sport' on AM Talk Radio via Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, etc — I believe GOOD CONSERVATIVES ARE LIBERALS AT HEART. Obviously, anyone who's paying any attention knows FOX News should have its license revoked for being a propaganda news network. I don't mean Fox Primetime or Fox Entertainment Network, but Fox News Division. Billionaire owner Rupert Murdoch admitted he tried to use his news channel to sway public opinion for a rush to war. Why isn't it a crime to pretend to be are a "fair and balanced" news broadcast, whose sole purpose is to deceive and manipulate viewers? My radio co-host Doug Basham said something very wise: "If Fox News thinks the media has a liberal bias, why aren't they showing us all the good news out of Iraq and the Bush administration? Why aren't they showing any other pictures, taken by their own "news" team?" BECAUSE THE TRUTH HAS A LIBERAL BIAS, that's why. It's hard to camoflage the truth, but they sure are trying.

The very idea of “conservatism” is antithetical to the Christ idea of loving ones neighbor as oneself, not judging others, blessing ones enemies, turning the other cheek, giving to the poor, giving one’s cloak, washing the feet of the lepers... in other words, 'love conqering fear.'

Conservative means "cautious, restrained, opposed to change." Sounds fear-based to me. And Christ said, "Love casts out fear." If the definition of God is Love, doesn't this mean that if you have faith in God you have nothing to fear? So tell me again, why are we at war with terror if we have faith in God? (The fundamentalist Christian right-wing agenda according to George Bush, Tony Perkins, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James D. Kennedy, Ann Coulter, Dick Cheney, James Dobson, Ted Haggart and the most dangerous pastor in America - John Hagee - who is advocating war with Iran! (Please read my expose on Hagee in the archives.)


Charity begins at home. Here are a few of my favorite sites to begin helping others.
ONE.org
The Hunger Site.com (one click feeds the hungry. It's free!)
Do One Nice Thing.com
Good News Network.org

CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS, CHANGE YOUR LIFE

When I read the newspaper, I look for the good news because every thought we think changes our biochemistry. Your hormones are all affected by your thoughts. Pay attention to things that bring you joy. - Dr. Christiane Northup

"Enthusiasm and courage actually change your brainwaves, which means that your thoughts can physically change your reality. This also means you can be attractive even if you're not good looking because if you radiate love, you attract people." - Lydia Cornell
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The FBI has a new way of tracking terrorists. They are now able to see every click they make on the internet. Privacy advocates say this is bad. Let us know what you think. Click on this link: http://users.chartertn.net/tonytemplin/FBI_eyes/

UPCOMING GUESTS on our show: Bill Press & Senators Tom Daschle, Arlen Specter and Lincoln Chaffee

MUST READ!!

WHO ELSE LIED US INTO INVADING IRAQ? Behind Analysts, the Pentagon’s Hidden Hand



In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

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Trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. - John Adams

Don't miss the HBO miniseries JOHN ADAMS, produced by Tom Hanks Playtone Prods. This is a riveting production that vividly depicts the struggle in giving birth to our nation. Abigal Adams is one of my favorite revolutionary heroes.
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More on the ABC Obama- Clinton debate debacle below... Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous spent 50 minutes on embarrassingly petty attacks and blatant character assassination — mostly aimed at Obama. It makes you wonder which side the mainstream media is on.
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Progressive Valerie Bertinell's book remains firmly on the New York Times Bestseller list...

If you missed it last Monday, check the archives for our interview with Valerie Bertinelli on the award-winning Basham and Cornell Radio Show heard weekday mornings at 8 a.m. on 1230 AM KLAV in Las Vegas, and simulcast worldwide on the web.

Valerie Bertinelli. Then: bubbly sitcom star and America's Sweetheart turned tabloid headline and rock star wife. Now: actress, single working mother of teenage rock star, and weight-loss inspiration to millions.

UPCOMING GUESTS: Bill Press, Senators Tom Daschle, Lincoln Chaffee and Arlen Specter. If you live in Vegas you can tune in Live or go to our website and listen in the audio archives.

The Basham and Cornell Show broadcasts weekday mornings at 8 am Pacific (11 a.m. Eastern) on KLAV 1230 AM Radio live in Las Vegas. Again, all shows are simulcast worldwide on the Internet (and archived) and can be listened to at Basham and Cornell Radio If you've missed our show, check out the audio archives. We have interviewed John & Elizabeth Edwards, Dennis & Elizabeth Kucinich, John Dean, Pat Buchanan, NBC Bureau Chief in Tel Aviv Martin Fletcher, Pulitzer Prize winner Charlie Savage, Congressman Charlie Rangel,Valerie Plame, Christine Pelosi, Dahr Jamail, Senator Mike Gravel; Senator Byron Dorgan; bestselling authors Greg Palast, Paul Krugman, Greg Anrig.
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Let's get Obama and Clinton together! An unbeatable ticket...


"

Debate moderators abuse the public trust every time they ask trivial questions about gaffes and 'gotchas' that only political insiders care about. Enough with the distractions—ABC and other networks must focus on issues that affect people's daily lives."

Did you watch ABC's prime-time character assassination of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton last night?

The day after this disastrous "debate," Americans are shaking their heads in disbelief at what they witnessed, sarcastically speculating whether ABC News decided to launch an early roll-out of the Republican "swift boat" campaign. Editor & Publisher called it "perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years."

"Moderators George Stephanopolous and Charlie Gibson spent the first 50 minutes obsessed with distractions that only political insiders care about--gaffes, polling numbers, the stale Rev. Wright story, and the old-news Bosnia story. And, channeling Karl Rove, directed a video question to Barack Obama asking if he loves the American flag or not. Seriously."

It's worse than that -- the video question specifically asked Obama about his thoughtful reluctance to wear an American flag-pin lapel. Apparently, wearing a flag pin is a legitimate symbolic proxy for whether or not a person is patriotic enough to be President. Questions about global warming, the economy, and the war? Mere trivialities in ABC's bizarro world.

Sad News: I received this letter from my friend Alison on Saturday:

"I am writing to you to let you know that my brother, Mark Metherell (also
the brother-in-law of Henry and Tori Cloud if you know them) was killed yesterday by a roadside bomb in Iraq while on a mission.

He leaves behind his loving wife, Sara Metherell, and their 1 year old adopted daughter, Cora. Please keep them in your prayers. They were the love of his life. He was kind and compassionate as evidenced by his many good friends.

Mark was an ex-Navy SEAL. I couldn't have asked for a better brother. He was the only son of my
parents, Pam and Alex Metherell. Please keep them in your prayers as well.

Mark Metherell is a true American hero, who died in service to this great country. God Bless him and his family.
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More on Valerie Bertinelli:
We all knew and loved Valerie Bertinelli years ago when she played girl-next-door cutie Barbara Cooper in the hit TV show One Day at a Time, and then starred in numerous TV movies. From wholesome primetime in America's living rooms, Valerie moved to late nights with the hardest-partying band of the decadent eighties when she became, at twenty, wife to rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen. Losing It is Valerie's frank account of her life backstage and in the spotlight. Here are the ups and downs of teen stardom, of her complicated marriage to a brilliant, tormented musical genius, and of her very public struggle with her weight.

Surprising, uplifting, and empowering, Losing It takes you behind the scenes of Valerie's acting career and marriage, recalling the comforts, friendships, and problems of her television family, her close relationships with her parents and brothers, the stress and worries of being the wife of a rock star, and the joys of motherhood. Like many women, Valerie often remembers the state of her life by the food she ate and the numbers on her scale. So despite her celebrity, Valerie's voice is down-to-earth, honest, and appealing. Funny and candid, Valerie recounts her attempts to maintain a healthy self-image while dealing with social pressures to look and act a certain way, and to overcome career insecurities and relationship problems, all of which will be familiar to the hundreds of thousands of women who struggle every day with these same issues.

From marital turmoil to the joys of a new career, from being named among Penthouse's ten sexiest women in the world to overhearing whispers about her weight gain in the grocery store, this is Valerie's inspiring journey as she finds new love, raises a terrific kid, and motivates other women as a spokesperson for Jenny Craig.

The Basham and Cornell Show broadcasts weekday mornings at 8 am Pacific (11 a.m. Eastern). All shows are simulcast on the Internet (and archived) and can be listened to at Basham and Cornell Radio

Living with the Decisions of the Decider

Guest Blog by Bartlebee

Well here we are, five years later.

Many of us said "don't go" but we were shouted down. Now, five years later and hundreds of thousands of dead, Bin Laden's still running around making home movies — and George Bush and Dick Cheney are still talking about patriotism and waving the flag.

The fruits of the decision to invade Iraq now have now been examined and the results are in. We're in a mess. Bush and Cheney did not have the courage to take the momentum we had immediately after 911 and rally the world to a UN supported US led incursion into Kashmir to root out Osama Bin Laden and his thugs and to garner the support of both India and Pakistan for such an incursion, which he could have done had he acted quickly and "decisively. Back when we had the momentum the world would have gotten behind us on any remotely reasonable plan to strike back at terrorists following the terrible images they witnessed of the 911 attacks. The world was with us. It was like we had been given an international credit card and the sky's the limit. And we could have used that card to buy our way into Kashmir and root out the son of a bitch and his thugs who murdered Americans on 911. We would have had him by the balls. But because they were cowards Bush and Cheney took that credit card and squandered the entire balance on invading Iraq, because they were afraid of what an invasion of Kashmir and UN and US forces in Pakistan and even India might mean.

Suppose Bin Laden supporters in Pakistan, where he enjoys the support of more than half the country, rose up and a war breaks out on a larger scale? Suppose it goes nuclear and Russia or China get pissed and things get hairy? These were the demons lurking in Bush's thoughts and he could not bring himself to confront them. So instead of dealing with the intricacies of such a potentially messy engagement in Pakistan and Kashmir, Bush and Cheney decided to squander the balance on their international 911 credit card by invading Iraq, making false claims about their involvement in 911 and WMD to sell their "poor mans war".

But the "bitch of the bunch" is where we are now.

Stuck literally between “Iraq and a hard place”.

Because now, that momentum is gone. The balance on our international 911 charge card is zero. In fact, it’s overdrawn. We are morally bankrupt as far as the rest of the world is concerned, so I guess it’s only fitting as far as fate is concerned that we’re also financially bankrupt as well. Problem is, we need the international credit to buy our way out of here. We need that international good moral credit to do the hard things we’re going to have to do to either capture or kill Osama Bin Laden and his thugs.

We know where they are. They’re in or around Kashmir or other remote regions in Pakistan, protected by his loyalists. All we have to do then is go get him right? Like we should have done when we had him cornered at Tora Bora and Bush let him go, like he did for about 70 his family members 2 days after 911 (still waiting for an answer on that one). But unfortunately Kashmir is a disputed region between two cold war countries, both that happen to be nuclear armed. And the US military is not allowed in, nor is the UN.

What we need to go get Bin Laden is “momentum”. Like the momentum we had right after 911. But that momentums gone and it ain’t coming back. Even if we were to be attacked again we won’t likely garner the international empathy we had post 911. Not after we’ve squandered their previous empathy so wantonly. Instead we’ll likely see a cold shoulder, and probably more than one lecture by other nations about starting wars with people who never attacked us. But we won’t gain their overwhelming support. The kind of support we’d need to initiate a US led UN supported incursion into Pakistan to get Bin Laden.

Come on. We all know he’s there. We’ve known that since 2003. But we just don’t have the means to go get him now. Bush and Cheney did not show courage after 911 by invading Iraq. They showed fear. Fear of going after Bin Laden like they promised they would because they thought it would be too hard. And possibly for other reasons yet to be identified.

So here we are, 5 years later, and no Bin Laden, Al Quaida going strong, and our international moral credit account bankrupt as is our national purse. And we have more important problems at the moment other than holding those responsible for this trainwreck accountable. We still have to get the guys who attacked us on 911. Make no mistake about it, we cannot let them get away. We need to capture or kill those responsible if we're ever hoping to be respected again by our enemies, whom we have many. Even more now thanks to our trainwreck that was the decision to invade Iraq. Bush and Cheney claim it doesn't matter and that we'll get him "sooner or later", but it does matter. It matters a lot. For all their talk of "going after the bad guys" the reality is they have done nothing to actually get the bad guys who they say attacked us. And at this rate Bin Laden will die of old age or kidney failure before we bring him to the "justice" Bush so loudly boasted of from his megaphone while standing on the bodies of 3000 dead Americans.

So now we are stuck, for the want of a better pun and at the cost of being redundant between Iraq and a hard place, the hard place being the chore still waiting the men and women of our military and our federal law enforcement agencies assuming we ever get around to electing a leader who will assign them to it.

And perhaps more difficult, we have to find a way to rebuild our squandered international moral credit before doing all this because until we do no ones going to just walk us into Kashmir and let us do the job we should have done in the fall of 2001, thanks to the Bush\Cheney doctrine. So 5 years later, all Bush and Cheney have given us is more overwhelming challenges to deal with, and we still have the one we had to deal with on Sept 12, 2001 waiting on our to do list.

Heckuva Job.

Listen to Lydia on Basham and Cornell Progressive Talk

McCain-Bush: The Two Faces of A Deceiver

Enigma of Watergate Summer sent me this beautiful music. It will lift your spirits. Please check it out:

As Martin Luther King said, silence is betrayal. The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my own government... This way of settling differences is not just. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. This madness must cease. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation, the initiative to stop this war must be ours.

On Tuesday April 8, 2008, Norman Solomon will be the guest on the Basham & Cornell Radio Show, heard weekday mornings at 8 a.m. on 1230 AM KLAV in Las Vegas.

Norman Solomon is the founder and executive director of the “Institute for Public Accuracy,” a national consortium of policy researchers and analysts. The latest collection of his columns won the 1999 George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language. He has authored eleven books, including The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media and Target Iraq: What the Media Didn’t Tell You.

His book “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death” was published in 2005. It has recently been turned into a documentary film, narrated by actor Sean Penn.

The Los Angeles Times called “War Made Easy” "brutally persuasive" and "a must-read for those who would like greater context with their bitter morning coffee, or to arm themselves for the debates about Iraq that are still to come."

The film “War Made Easy” exposes a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Narrated by actor and activist Sean Penn, the film exhumes remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations.

War Made Easy gives special attention to parallels between the Vietnam war and the war in Iraq. Guided by media critic Norman Solomon’s meticulous research and tough-minded analysis, the film presents disturbing examples of propaganda and media complicity from the present alongside rare footage of political leaders and leading journalists from the past.

The Basham and Cornell Show broadcasts weekday mornings at 8 am Pacific (11 a.m. Eastern). All shows are simulcast on the Internet (and archived) and can be listened to at www.BashamAndCornell.com


Republican Presidential candidate John McCain has been making his rounds across America getting the public “introduced” to John McCain. This tour is filled with stories of war, clips of violence and a continued emphasis on John McCain the “warrior.”

It was the “Straight Talk Express” as portrayed verbally by McCain and his comrades in the media who have seemed to enhance the image of glamour regarding McCain and his desire for war.

McCain has strangely embraced the policies of George W Bush who essentially gutted the candidate McCain in the 2000 primaries, thus ending his first saga of power and dominance of America.

McCain boasts of a legacy of service and war, having a father and grandfather who were supposedly admirals in the Navy. McCain grew up with the proverbial daddy getting him through life syndrome.

It was the angry McCain who needed his daddy’s help to get him into the naval academy, and it was with his daddy’s help that made sure he graduated since he was a less than stellar cadet.

McCain has constantly been called a hero for his prisoner of war status in Vietnam, when in reality he is said to have gave the enemy secrets and in return they gave him favorable treatment. McCain no longer was tortured and the enemy found a source of information.

McCain did vote against Reagan’s decision to deploy troops to Lebanon in 1983 in his first year of congress. McCain made other similar votes of opposition in the early years of his political career, hoping to be noticed by the media for something greater in the future.

McCain became an adulterer having an extended affair during his first marriage, with wealthy heiress Cindy Hensley, whose father was a wealthy Anheuser-Busch distributor.

In fact Cindy McCain is said to have a fortune exceeding $100 million and growing. The Hensley family virtually funded McCain’s early campaigns to the point McCain was forced by the Federal Election Commission to give part of it back.

Few know but in 1993, McCain blocked the release of classified documents relating to the Vietnam war in fear that the release, and subsequent revealing of his aiding the enemy would hurt his political ambitions, as his quest for power grew.

McCain is among the richest senators. A prenuptial agreement has kept assets in his wife's name. That arrangement served as a defense for McCain when the Senate ethics committee scrutinized a real estate deal involving his wife, her father and disgraced savings and loan owner Charles Keating Jr.

McCain escaped his fate through connections of power and wealth, and thus claimed the mantle of favoring campaign finance reform, when in reality McCain is one of the biggest abusers.

McCain openly supports the Iraq war, an attack on Iran and other acts of aggression that would bring the U.S into world dominance. He recently made the statement “there will be more wars, lots of wars.”

McCain like Bush opposed a bill to protect overtime rights of workers. McCain like Bush opposed an increase in unemployment benefits, and they oppose an increase in the minimum wage.

McCain voted to allow privatization and outsourcing of government jobs. McCain wants to tax your health care benefits and allow employers to eliminate benefits without the knowledge of the worker.

McCain like Bush supported NAFTA and CAFTA, fast track on all trade deals and the outsourcing of federal contracts overseas, eliminating unions for government employees and the elimination of worker rights in the workplace.

McCain supports the privatization of Social Security, raising Medicare age requirements, the raiding of the Social Security fund and he voted against protecting senior citizens from higher Medicare premiums.

McCain voted for Bush’s policies eighty-nine percent of the time, he supported the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest in America and he says the U.S will be in Iraq for at least one-hundred years.

John McCain has many faces. He has the face of an angry tyrant who cannot control his temper. He has the face of an adulterer, a philanderer, a money chaser. McCain has the face who opposes policies that will help the poor and elderly, while embracing policies that favor the rich.

Perhaps the “Two Faces of a Deceiver” that best describe John McCain is the face of a Traitor, and the Face of a Deranged War-monger. Thus another epic tale of the Deceiver John McCain.


You can find greater detail on the "Real John McCain" at the following sites:

Pissed on Politics

Also Listen to Lydia Cornell interview on this topic at:

Basham and Cornell Progressive Talk

FOCUS ON THE GOOD

Is JOHN McCAIN showing his age? (unretouched photo)

Interesting tidbit: In every U.S. presidential election, the taller candidate has always won — except in the case of George Bush and John Kerry... but in that case, Bush didn't win, AL GORE did.

THE CORRUPTION OF A CAREER POLITICIAN

Independents beware: McCain, when he thought it would help him politically, tried desperately to jump ship and leave the Republican party when he ran against George Bush for the nomination in 2000. He would have done anything to become a Democrat. Then when Republicans gained favor by hook and by crook, McCain began to curry favor with the most bizarre cast of characters, from Falwell to Hagee to the devil himself. He even switched his stance on torture, embracing it — because he knew it would win him the nomination. Remember, this is a man who had an affair while married to his first wife — only when he saw the opportunity to snare a woman of great wealth who could put him back into power in Arizona. Then, in the Keating scandal, McCain proved his corruption. Make no mistake about it: McCain is only looking out for McCain.

Take care of your mother
And remember to be kind,
when the pain of another will serve to remind..
That there are those who feel themselves exiled,
On whom the fortunes never smiled,
And upon whose life the heartache has been piled…
Jackson Browne, "The Only Child"

Obama’s luster may seem to have worn off temporarily, but the truth is often in the spaces — in the time between.

IT'S ALL GOOD
We may not be talking to the leaders of Middle Eastern Countries, but at least we’re talking to each other ABOUT talking to the leaders of other countries. We’re having a national psychology session for the whole world to sit in on. The media repeats every flaw, foible — and embarrassingly racist, misogynistic, nationalistic, patriarchical, fear-based, greedy thought we have. And we let the whole world listen in on our national pathology. And at least we’re thinking out loud and letting every racist fear be known. It’s like free therapy for all Americans.

In any event, it’s all good. Communicating about how racist we are and how bad the media is, can’t be bad.

But does America seem narcissistic? Our arrogance makes us assume we are the most important country on the planet. Do we hear everything going on in France? Does France and the rest of the world listen in on all this bickering between the parties — and all these sex scandals?

Last week in Santa Monica with my wonderful mom and sister.

Stop watching the news. Stop listening to the pundits tell us we are defeating ourselves. There is no reason to fear or believe McCain can ever win the upcoming presidential election. He is proving to be a clone of Bush and Cheney — and more about his character is being revealed. In June, the entire matter of the Democratic candidate will be decided and the nominee will have plenty of time to make the case for truth, hope and goodwill in front of the People. In the presence of truth, anything unlike truth, has to come up for healing. The process involves purging the old and brining in the new.

SPRING is a rebirth — and with spring, comes new life. My son and I were hiking at my mom's house yesterday, and a rabbit with a white tail hopped across our path. It must have been the Easter bunny. Bel Air Pres had a beautiful service at the Hollywood Bowl. On Saturday we went to a reenactment of the Resurrection at Vasquez Rocks — a spectacular natural park where they once filmed Star Trek. The rock formations are out of this world.


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SNOOP GATE: SECURITY BREACH ON OBAMA'S INFO

SHOCKING! On three separate occasions, three separate State Department contractors illegally accessed Obama's private records -- including his Social Security number, his travel itineraries, passport number and passport history. The breach was leaked to the Washington Times, a highly partisan Moonie-owned, Bush-backing newspaper. The Inspector General did not seem to know about this until today (!!) Who's idea was it to keep it secret, and why was there no investigation? And when exactly were the first two employees fired? It appears that now that these employees have been fired, they are under no obligation to answer any questions. Astounding.

Looking at Obama's File Gets Two Fired
By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 21, 2008

The State Department said last night that it had fired two contract employees and disciplined a third for accessing Sen. Barack Obama's passport file.

Obama's presidential campaign immediately called for a "complete investigation."

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the employees had individually looked into Obama's passport file on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14. To access such a file, the employees must first acknowledge a pledge to keep the information private.

The employees were each caught because of a computer-monitoring system that is triggered when the passport accounts of a "high-profile person" are accessed, he said. The system was put in place after the State Department was embroiled in a scandal involving the access of the passport records of then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton in 1992.

"The State Department has strict policies and controls on access to passport records by government and contract employees," Casey said.

The department uses contract employees to help with data entry, customer service and other administration tasks. The employee involved in the March 14 incident has only been disciplined so far, because the probe of that incident is continuing, an official said.

Though the workers were caught by a computer system that focuses on high-profile people, Casey said that a computer report is generated on every access to passport records and that spot checks are taken to ensure that employees are not violating the Privacy Act.

"This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement. "This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation, and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama's passport file, for what purpose, and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach."

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If you missed our amazing interview with NBC Bureau Chief and award-winning foreign correspondent Martin Fletcher yesterday, you can listen in the archives to one of the best interviews we've ever done.




Award Winning Foreign Correspondent Guests on Basham & Cornell Radio Show...

Martin Fletcher is one of the most respected foreign correspondents in television news. He has covered almost every conflict and natural disaster in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East for thirty-five years, winning five Emmys, a Columbia University Dupont Award, several Overseas Press Club awards, and a cameraman’s award from Britain’s Royal Society of television. Fletcher and his wife, Hagar, have raised three sons. He is currently based in Israel, where he is NBC News bureau chief in Tel Aviv.

If you live in Vegas you can tune in Live or go to our website and listen in the audio archives.

The Basham and Cornell Show broadcasts weekday mornings at 8 am Pacific (11 a.m. Eastern) on KLAV 1230 AM Radio live in Las Vegas. All shows are simulcast on the Internet (and archived) and can be listened to at Basham and Cornell Progressive Talk If you've missed our show, check out the audio archives. We have interviewed John & Elizabeth Edwards, Pat Buchanan, Dennis & Elizabeth Kucinich, John Dean, Valerie Plame, Christine Pelosi, Dahr Jamail, Senator Mike Gravel; Pulitzer Prize winner Charlie Savage, Congressman Charlie Rangel, Senator Byron Dorgan; bestselling authors Greg Palast, Paul Krugman, Greg Anrig, Mikey Weinstein, Paul Krugman; Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert and Paul Waldman are regular guests. Upcoming: Senator Tom Daschle, Senator Lincoln Chaffee, Naomi Klein, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. If you missed any of these shows, check out the archives on our website: Basham and Cornell Progressive Talk