In the news, McCain goes to a grocery store in Bethlehem, Pennsylania and invites the press.

Suzanne Smalley, on the scene for Newsweek, was amongst the first to refer to it as an “unscheduled campaign stop.” She went on to report:

[...] Renee Gould, the young mother McCain had an extended chat with about the high price of tomatoes and milk, was not a random shopper, but an area resident funneled to the campaign by the local Republican Party. Gould’s admission (a reporter cornered her and asked how she came to be there) was ultimately not all that surprising. Even with the amusing mishaps, the entire event came off as canned, and McCain—whose discomfort with the phoniness required by politics has always been evident—spent most of his time shifting uncomfortably.

Still, McCain did what he could to stick to his message, reading from a note card in his hand [...]

The event may not have been on whatever schedule has been issued to reporters but there was a script and an actor recruited. The press was notified. It would be more appropriate to say the photo op was scheduled at the last minute. McCain didn’t get a notion to pop into a grocery store and speak with customers about the price of a gallon of milk. It was pre-arranged.

Yet another example of reporters and their employers manufacturing excuses for McCain’s unappealing personality and desperate campaign moves.

McCain isn’t phony, he is discomfited by it. Nothing prevented McCain from tossing the note card and carrying on a conversation with the young mother worried about the rising cost of groceries. He didn’t do so because he is a remote, calloused politician who requires direction and cue cards, and even when rehearsed, performs below industry standards.

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The Bay Area’s KRON 4 covered a protest that took place yesterday at the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. More than 100 people gathered to demand that Pelosi withdraw HCR 362 which calls for a naval blockade of Iran. Eric Garris has posted the video report to Antiwar.com blog along with a detailed report from CodePink activist Janet Weil.

The congresswoman was not at home; she was in Texas at the third annual Netroots Nation conference (formerly known as the YearlyKos Convention):

Between 2,000 and 3,000 liberal-leaning bloggers are getting some face time this week, in hopes of gathering strength before the fall election.

The four-day Netroots Nation 2008 conference, which started Thursday in Austin, Texas, will feature more than 150 speakers and 125 panel discussions and events.

As three protesters were being arrested at her home, Pelosi was participating in an “Ask the Speaker Session” that was live blogged on DailyKos. I can’t seem to find the word ‘Iran’ in the post or the 173 comments that follow it but there is a brief exchange regarding the “CodePink dips” in the audience who were “acting up”.

Updated:
Barack Obama is so right. There is much more that unites us than divides us. Behold the Netroots defending a scripted event against the protests of “attention whores” and “jerks”.

A commenter to this post writes that “Markos (Moulitsas) called Code Pink “jerks” at a later event.”

Jason Linkins tweeted this to the Huffington Post: “Code Pink exit the room with a trenchant reminder of what attention whores they are.”

The trenchant reminder:

Before Pelosi speaks, an announcement is made from the podium that disruptions will not be tolerated…we will be arrested.

In this video something is thrown at the tiny group as official-looking people escort them out of the hall.

The CodePinkers promised to be and pictured here look subdued during Ms. Pelosi’s presentation. How dare they express themselves when her highness declared the scripted question and answer session was over! Off with their heads!

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By Bassam Aramin

Translated from Arabic by Miriam Asnes

My son Arab is 14, just past the age that his Jewish Israeli peers are celebrating their bar mitzvahs. This ceremony in Jewish culture is a rite of passage that marks a boy’s entrance into the realities and responsibilities of adulthood. And last week, my son experienced something akin to the Palestinian bar-mitzvah.

It was a beautiful day on Friday the 12th of July when Arab went with his friends to the beach in Tiberias. He spent all of his time in the days leading up to the trip trying to convince me that I should let him go. At first I refused—he’s young to be traveling so far in a group without his parents. But then I remembered the regret I still feel about the death of my daughter Abir.

Abir was ten when she was killed by the Israeli Occupation Force on January 16th, 2007 in front of her school in Anata. That morning, when she asked her mother and me for permission to play with her friends after school, I’d refused. I told her, “Don’t even think of coming home late, come back right away so you can prepare for your next exam.” And she answered me with the last words I ever heard from her, petulant and innocent. “Well, I’m going to be late.” She was angry with me. She was late that day, but not because she met her friends. A bullet from an Israeli border patrolman found her instead, and she never came back. I regret having refused her request, not knowing that it would be her last—that she would be late despite me and despite herself.

When I saw how much Arab wanted to go, I thought of Abir and gave my permission with the condition that he look after himself and be in constant phone contact with me.

Continue reading ‘Bassam Aramin: The Palestinian Bar-Mitzvah’

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by Janet Redman, Institute for Policy Studies, 11 July 2008

The World Bank’s new Climate Investment Funds will do nothing to help the climate; they’ll just give the bank more clout.

President Bush and other leaders of the industrialized world managed to produce a masterfully vague, loophole-ridden statement on climate change at a Group of 8 summit held at a secluded resort on the banks of Lake Toyako in Japan this week.

Meanwhile, thousands of delegates from grassroots movements transformed tranquil Odori Park in downtown Sapporo into the central nervous system of a bottom-up response to ecologically destructive development policies. On the opening day of the G8 summit, activists from every continent joined Japanese environmental and global justice groups in the streets brandishing banners, flags and megaphones. Their message was unambiguous: “Climate Justice, Yes! World Bank, No!”

Their boiled-down slogans were in response to a communiqué released on the second day of the official summit that endorsed the World Bank’s newly created Climate Investment Funds. The $6 billion pledged by the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan to these funds will do nothing to help the climate. Instead, they will give the World Bank an even larger — and completely inappropriate — leadership role on climate change.

[Read the article]

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By Mai Bader, Left Turn, 8 July 2008

On June 14, 2008, a wide coalition of grassroots organizations – including NOLAPS (New Orleans, Louisiana Palestine Solidarity); INCITE Women of Color Against Violence; New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival; and the Third World Coalition of American Friends Service Committee - held an historic event called Liberation Hip Hop, commemorating the 60th year of Al-Nakba; the dispossession of the Palestinian people.

Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts center was filled that day with folks from different backgrounds, ages and religions. Speakers and audience members from around the US and across the world got together to link their struggles and build an alliance against the injustice they all face. Addressing the standing-room-only crowd, local spoken word artist PoeticOne introduced Jordan Flaherty from Left Turn Magazine and Darryl Jordan from the Third World Coalition of American Friends Service Committee. They opened the event with a welcome that highlighted brief examples of how the struggles faced by the people of New Orleans are related to the situation in occupied Palestine.

[Read the article]

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