Mais Oui – Je pense à la paix

Death comes to a lady with class – who shot from the hip and did not mince words – she will be missed…

By KELLEY SHANNON
The Associated Press
Wednesday, January 31, 2007; 11:08 PM

AUSTIN, Texas — Best-selling author and columnist Molly Ivins, the sharp-witted liberal who skewered the political establishment and referred to President Bush as “Shrub,” died Wednesday after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 62.

Ivins died at her home while in hospice care, said David Pasztor, managing editor of the Texas Observer, where Ivins had once been co-editor.

Ivins made a living poking fun at politicians, whether they were in her home state of Texas or the White House. She revealed in early 2006 that she was being treated for breast cancer for the third time.

More than 400 newspapers subscribed to her nationally syndicated column, which combined strong liberal views and populist humor. Ivins’ illness did not appear to hurt her ability to deliver biting one-liners.

“I’m sorry to say (cancer) can kill you, but it doesn’t make you a better person,” she said in an interview with the San Antonio Express-News in September, the same month cancer claimed her friend former Gov. Ann Richards.

To Ivins, “liberal” wasn’t an insult term. “Even I felt sorry for Richard Nixon when he left; there’s nothing you can do about being born liberal _ fish gotta swim and hearts gotta bleed,” she wrote in a column included in her 1998 collection, “You Got to Dance With Them What Brung You.”

In a column in mid-January, Ivins urged readers to stand up against Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq.

“We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war,” Ivins wrote in the Jan. 11 column. “We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, ‘Stop it, now!’”

Ivins’ best-selling books included those she co-authored with Lou Dubose about Bush. One was titled “Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush” and another was “BUSHWHACKED: Life in George W. Bush’s America.”

“Molly Ivins was a Texas original,” Bush said in a statement. “I respected her convictions, her passionate belief in the power of words, and her ability to turn a phrase. She fought her illness with that same passion.”

Dubose, who has been working on a third book with Ivins, said even last week in the hospital, Ivins wanted to talk about the project.

“She was married to her profession. She lived for the story,” he said.

Ivins’ jolting satire was directed at people in positions of power.

“The trouble with blaming powerless people is that although it’s not nearly as scary as blaming the powerful, it does miss the point,” she wrote in a 1997 column. “Poor people do not shut down factories … Poor people didn’t decide to use ‘contract employees’ because they cost less and don’t get any benefits.”

In an Austin speech last year, former President Clinton described Ivins as someone who was “good when she praised me and who was painfully good when she criticized me.”

Ivins loved to write about politics and called the Texas Legislature the best free entertainment in Austin.

“Naturally, when it comes to voting, we in Texas are accustomed to discerning that fine hair’s-breadth worth of difference that makes one hopeless dipstick slightly less awful than the other. But it does raise the question: Why bother?” she wrote in a 2002 column.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whom Ivins had playfully called “Governor Goodhair,” praised Ivins for her wit and insight. “Molly Ivins’ clever and colorful perspectives on people and politics gained her national acclaim and admiration that crossed party lines,” Perry said in a statement.

Born Mary Tyler Ivins in California, she grew up in Houston. She graduated from Smith College in 1966 and attended Columbia University’s journalism school. She also studied for a year at the Institute of Political Sciences in Paris.

Her first newspaper job was in the complaint department of the Houston Chronicle. She worked her way up at the Chronicle, then went on to the Minneapolis Tribune, becoming the first woman police reporter in the city.

Ivins counted as her highest honors the Minneapolis police force’s decision to name its mascot pig after her and her getting banned from the campus of Texas A&M University, according to a biography on the Creators Syndicate Web site.

In the late 1960s, according to the syndicate, she was assigned to a beat called “Movements for Social Change” and wrote about “angry blacks, radical students, uppity women and a motley assortment of other misfits and troublemakers.”

Ivins later became co-editor of The Texas Observer, a liberal Austin-based biweekly publication of politics and literature.

She joined The New York Times in 1976, working first as a political reporter in New York and later as Rocky Mountain bureau chief.

But Ivins’ use of salty language and her habit of going barefoot in the office were too much for the Times, said longtime friend Ben Sargent, editorial cartoonist with the Austin American-Statesman.

“She was just like a force of nature,” Sargent said. “She was just always on and sharp and witty and funny and was one of a kind.”

Ivins returned to Texas as a columnist for the Dallas Times-Herald in 1982, and after it closed she spent nine years with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. In 2001, she went independent and wrote her column for Creators Syndicate.

“She was magical in her writing,” said Mike Blackman, a former Star-Telegram executive editor who hired Ivins in 1992. “She could turn a phrase in such a way that a pretty hard-hitting point didn’t hurt so bad.”

In 1995, conservative humorist Florence King accused Ivins in “American Enterprise” magazine of plagiarism for failing to properly credit King for several passages in a 1988 article in “Mother Jones.” Ivins apologized, saying the omissions were unintentional and pointing out that she credited King elsewhere in the piece.

She was initially diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999, and she had a recurrence in 2003. Her latest diagnosis came around Thanksgiving 2005.

Associated Press writers April Castro in Austin and Matt Curry and Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.

© 2007 The Associated Press
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Molly-ism’s:

• The first rule of holes: when you’re in one, stop digging.

• What you need is sustained outrage…there’s far too much unthinking respect given to authority.

• Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous.

• The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.

• Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful.

• There are two kinds of humor.

One kind that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity — like what Garrison Keillor does. The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule — that’s what I do. Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel — it’s vulgar.

• I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth.

• You can’t ignore politics, no matter how much you’d like to.

• It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.

• What stuns me most about contemporary politics is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do in Washington and our state capitols.

Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom that you can decide you don’t much care for.

• I believe in practicing prudence at least once every two or three years.

• I still believe in Hope – mostly because there’s no such place as Fingers Crossed, Arkansas.

• One function of the income gap is that the people at the top of the heap have a hard time even seeing those at the bottom. They practically need a telescope. The pharaohs of ancient Egypt probably didn’t waste a lot of time thinking about the people who built their pyramids, either. OK, so it’s not that bad yet — but it’s getting that bad.

• It’s like, d’uh. Just when you thought there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties, the Republicans go and prove you’re wrong.

• In the real world, there are only two ways to deal with corporate misbehavior: One is through government regulation and the other is by taking them to court. What has happened over 20 years of free-market proselytizing is that we have dangerously weakened both forms of restraint, first through the craze for “deregulation� and second through endless rounds of “tort reform,� all of which have the effect of cutting off citizens’ access to the courts. By legally bribing politicians with campaign contributions, the corporations have bought themselves immunity from lawsuits on many levels.

• Any nation that can survive what we have lately in the way of government, is on the high road to permanent glory.

• I am not anti-gun. I’m pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We’d turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don’t ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.

17 February 2007 – year of the Boar (Pig) Chinese New Year…

Rosie – speaks from the heart – for those of you who have made stupid and mean comments about her – get a life – apparently you don’t know her or anyone like her – Does it make you feel good about yourself to call her or others like her cruel names? OR put labels on them because of their sexuality, political party OR their physical size? Suggest that y’all look at yourselves in the mirror and see that you, too, are indeed non-perfect children of God. Comments supposedly made, as satire are mostly NOT funny – and just plain cruel.

– Rosie O’Donnell has given well over 80 million dollars so far to help people – specially children – she has foundations set up to help those who have needs – all things sold on her site – well, the profits go to those foundations – to keep giving. She is an advocate for children with Autism + Cystic Fibrosis + Our troops that have given their body parts and in some cases their spirits – and yes she is an advocate for peace in the world. She is very vocal and passionate about all things in life – is she perfect? Oh, hell no – nor does she pretend to be. She is a very human child of God and feels pain when hurt.

As far as saying has she done anything Christian like – excuse me – what does that mean? Does the word altruistic mean anything to you? People like Rosie don’t tie themselves to a religion just as an excuse to do something “goodâ€? – they work from a heart space – they do not have to be Christian – OR Jewish OR Buddhist OR Muslim OR? – they simply are and get that the connection between us is as children of God and that we should take care of one another.

So, again I have borrowed from her site to share information with anyone who cares – I feel sometimes we can learn more by just listening to someone who cares and is setting an example of how not be holier than thou – and just do what needs to be done – and following ones heart – giving a damn. It will be the Oprah Winfrey’s, the Rosie O’Donnell’s, the Bill and Melinda Gates, et al who will lead the altruistic way – because they are not waiting for the current administration to take care of us as they were hired to do. They are remembering where they came from and are doing it ‘cause it needs to be done.

In the meantime, we pray and DO everything – that we are able…

STOP ASKING!!!

The reasons are scary and simple – They did so because they were given FALSE information by people we should have been able to trust (the administration)…enough said – now I really want to know what are THEY going to DO about it – if candidate’s start bad mouthing other’s – then they can kiss my vote goodbye!

From Rosie.com…

Earlier I heard the news about Barbaro – I can not explain it but I began to cry – I know I am a big baby – crying over a four legged being – it is how I am – I know too, that there are many people all over the world deeply saddened by this news – he tried so hard – in the end they could not bear to see him suffer anymore – so they have freed him – to our hero Barbaro, ” I say “Fly high, dear heart – we ALL will miss you…”

As we can see he is/was very much loved

___________________________________________________________________________________________
Barbaro euthanized; owner calls it ‘the right decision’
By DAN GELSTON, AP Sports Writer
January 29, 2007

AP – Jan 29, 3:55 pm EST

KENNETT SQUARE, Pa. (AP) — Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro was euthanized Monday after complications from his gruesome breakdown at last year’s Preakness, ending an eight-month ordeal that prompted an outpouring of support across the country.

A series of ailments — including laminitis in the left rear hoof, an abscess in the right rear hoof, as well as new laminitis in both front feet — proved too much for the gallant colt. The horse was put down at 10:30 a.m.

“Certainly, grief is the price we all pay for love,” said co-owner Gretchen Jackson at a news conference.

Barbaro battled in his ICU stall for eight months. The 4-year-old colt underwent several procedures and was fitted with fiberglass casts. He spent time in a sling to ease pressure on his legs, had pins inserted and was fitted at the end with an external brace. These were all extraordinary measures for a horse with such injuries.

“Clearly, this was a difficult decision to make,” chief surgeon Dr. Dean Richardson. “It hinged on what we said all along, whether or not we thought his quality of life was acceptable. The probable outcome was just so poor.”

Richardson, fighting back tears, added: “Barbaro had many, many good days.”

Roy and Gretchen Jackson were with Barbaro on Monday morning, with the owners making the decision in consultation with Richardson.

“We just reached a point where it was going to be difficult for him to go on without pain,” Roy Jackson said. “It was the right decision, it was the right thing to do. We said all along if there was a situation where it would become more difficult for him then it would be time.”

Richardson said he was comfortable the right decision was made and could tell Barbaro was not his usual self early Monday morning.

“He was just a different horse,” he said. “You could see he was upset. That was the difference. It was more than we wanted to put him through.”

On May 20, Barbaro was rushed to the New Bolton Center, about 30 miles from Philadelphia in Kennett Square, hours after shattering his right hind leg just a few strides into the Preakness Stakes. The bay colt underwent a five-hour operation that fused two joints, recovering from an injury most horses never survive.

“It’d be nice if he’s remembered for winning the Kentucky Derby, not for breaking down in the Preakness,” said Peter Brette, Barbaro’s exercise rider and assistant trainer for Michael Matz.

Barbaro suffered a significant setback over the weekend, and surgery was required to insert two steel pins in a bone — one of three shattered in the Preakness but now healthy — to eliminate all weight bearing on the ailing right rear foot.

The leg was on the mend until an abscess began causing discomfort last week. Until then, the major concern was Barbaro’s left rear leg, where 80 percent of the hoof had been removed in July when he developed laminitis.

“This horse was a hero,” said David Switzer, executive director of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association. “His owners went above and beyond the call of duty to save this horse. It’s an unfortunate situation, but I think they did the right thing in putting him down.”

Brilliant on the race track, Barbaro always will be remembered for his brave fight for survival.

When Barbaro broke down, his right hind leg flared out awkwardly as jockey Edgar Prado jumped off and tried to steady the ailing horse. Race fans at Pimlico wept. Within 24 hours the entire nation seemed to be caught up in a “Barbaro watch.”

Well-wishers young and old showed up at the New Bolton Center with cards, flowers, gifts, goodies and even religious medals for the champ, and thousands of e-mails poured into the hospital’s Web site just for him.

The biggest gift has been the $1.2 million raised since early June for the Barbaro Fund. The money is put toward needed equipment such as an operating room table, and a raft and sling for the same pool recovery Barbaro used after his surgeries.

“I would say thank you for everything, and all your thoughts and prayers over the last eight months or so,” Roy Jackson said to Barbaro’s fans.

The Jacksons spent tens of thousands of dollars hoping the best horse they ever owned would recover and be able to live a comfortable life on the farm. The couple, who own about 70 racehorses, broodmares and yearlings, and operate the 190-acre Lael Farm, have been in the horse business for 30 years, and never had a horse like Barbaro.

Foaled and raised at Sanborn Chase at Springmint Farm near Nicholasville, Ky., breeder Bill Sanborn fought back tears Monday as he talked about “the privilege” of working with the colt.

“Everything was looking really, really good, and of course I honestly thought that the horse was going to pull it off,” he said. “It just wasn’t meant to be. It didn’t surprise me that he fought so long. He was a great horse.”

Dr. Larry Bramlage, a veterinarian at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, said the horse lived as long as he did because of Richardson’s solid decision-making.

“It’s kind of like playing a chess game,” Bramlage said. “Whenever you get confronted with something different, you have to make the right moves. You have to be impressed with the number of right moves Dr. Richardson made. They got close, and if not for a little bad luck they would have made it.”

La Ville Rouge, Barbaro’s broodmare, remains pregnant at Mills Ridge Farm in Lexington with a full brother to Barbaro. The foal is expected to be born sometime in the early spring, according to farm spokesperson Kimberly Poulin.

A son of Dynaformer, out of the dam La Ville Rouge, Barbaro started his career on the turf, but Matz knew he would have to try his versatile colt on the dirt. He reasoned that if he had a talented 3-year-old in America, he’d have to find out early if his horse was good enough for the Triple Crown races.

Barbaro was good enough, all right. He won his first three races on turf with authority, including the Laurel Futurity by eight lengths and the Tropical Park Derby by 3 3/4 lengths.

That’s when Matz drew up an unconventional plan for a dirt campaign that spaced out Barbaro’s race to keep him fit for the entire Triple Crown, a grueling ordeal of three races in five weeks at varying distances over different tracks.

Barbaro won the Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream Park on Feb. 4, but his dirt debut was inconclusive since it came over a sloppy track. After an eight-week break, an unusually long time between races, Barbaro came back and won the Florida Derby by a half-length over Sharp Humor.

The deal was sealed — on to the Derby, but not without criticism that Barbaro couldn’t win coming off a five-week layoff. After all, it had been 50 years since Needles won the Derby off a similar break. But Matz stuck to his plan.

Not only did Barbaro win the Derby, he demolished what was supposed to be one of the toughest fields in years. The 6 1/2 -length winning margin was the largest since 1946, when Assault won by eight lengths and went on to sweep the Triple Crown.

In Barbaro, Matz truly believed he was training a Triple Crown winner. He often said Barbaro was good enough to be ranked among the greats and join Seattle Slew as the only unbeaten Triple Crown champions.

But two weeks later after the Derby Barbaro took a horrible misstep and one of the most extraordinary attempts to save a thoroughbred was under way.

The injury was considered to be so disastrous that many thought the horse would be euthanized while still at Pimlico Race Track. Instead, Barbaro, who earned $2,302,200 with his six wins in seven starts, was operated on the next day by Richardson.

Though Barbaro endured the complicated five-hour surgery, Richardson called chances for a full recovery a “coin toss.”

Afterward, though, things went relatively smoothly. Each day brought more optimism: Barbaro was eyeing the mares, nickering, gobbling up his feed and trying to walk out of his stall. But by mid-July, Richardson’s greatest fear became reality — laminitis struck Barbaro’s left hind leg.

Barbaro responded well to treatment, but he began to struggle in January with a serious laminitis setback and this final, fatal turn.

AP Racing Writer Richard Rosenblatt in Kennett Square, Pa. and AP Writer Will Graves in Louisville contributed to this report.

A Blessing for Absence
(from Celtic Spirituality)

May you know that absence is full of tender presence and that nothing is ever lost or forgotten.
May the absences in your life be full of eternal echo.
May you sense around you the secret Elsewhere which holds The presences that have left your life.
May you be generous in your embrace of loss.
May the soreness of your grief turn into a well of seamless presence.
May your compassion reach out to the ones we never hear from and …
May you have the courage to speak out for the excluded ones.
May you behold the gracious and passionate subject of your own life.
May you not disrespect your mystery through brittle words or false belonging.
May you be embraced by God in whom dawn and twilight are one and…
May your longing inhabit its deepest dreams within the shelter of the Great Belonging.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Christine Moulton, Acting Director
(315)568-8060
cmoulton@greatwomen.org

SENECA FALLS, NY, January 25, 2007

The National Womenís Hall of Fame announces its 2007 Inductees. Included in the group of nine outstanding American women are engineer Dr. Eleanor K. Baum, philanthropist and social reformer Swanee Hunt, environmental advocate Winona LaDuke, and astronomer Dr. Judith Pipher. These women, along with five historic figures, will be inducted during a weekend of ceremonies October 6-7, 2007.

We are thrilled that this yearís class of Inductees represents such a wide array of endeavor. It is important that everyone learn about the accomplishments of these women and the affect of those achievements on advancing our country as a whole. We look forward to telling these stories in the hopes of inspiring and lifting up many others,î said the Hallís President, Barbara DeBaptiste.

The 2007 Inductees are:

Dr. Eleanor K. Baum (1940 – ) Currently serving as the Dean of Engineering at Cooper Union and the Executive Director of the Cooper Union Research Foundation, Dr. Eleanor Baum is the first female engineer to be named dean of a college of engineering in the United States. In 1995, she became the first female president of the American Society for Engineering Education. An electrical engineer who has worked in the aerospace industry, Dr. Baum is a respected leader in recruitment and retention of women in the engineering profession.

Julia Child (1912 – 2004) A graduate of Smith College, Julia Child went on to attend classes at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. The famous American cook, author, and television personality introduced French cuisine and cooking techniques to America through her cookbooks and television programs. Her most famous works include the 1961 cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and the television series The French Chef, which premiered in 1963. She is widely credited with demystifying the art of fine cooking.

Swanee Hunt (1950 – ) Swanee Hunt is Director of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Universityís Kennedy School of Government. An internationally recognized expert on foreign affairs and diplomacy, Hunt is heralded for her trailblazing work to increase the participation and inclusion of women in peace processes around the world. She is also President of Hunt Alternatives Fund, a private foundation committed to advancing social change at local, national and global levels.

Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (1926 – 2004) After graduating from the University of Zurich medical school, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross married and moved to the United States. She began working in hospitals, where she was appalled at the treatment of terminally ill patients. Her 1969 bestseller On Death and Dying revolutionized the medical professionís treatment and understanding of dying patients, serving as a voice for the rights of the terminally ill. Her work was a catalyst for now commonly accepted ideas such as hospice care, living wills, and death with dignity.

Winona LaDuke (1959 – ) A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities, Winona LaDuke advocates for public support and funding for frontline native environmental groups. In 1994, she was nominated by Time Magazine as one of Americaís most promising leaders under forty years of age. In 1998, she was named Ms. Magazine Woman of the Year. Ms. LaDuke was the vice-presidential candidate on the Green Party ticket in both 1996 and 2000. She currently serves as director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project in Minnesota.

Dr. Judith L. Pipher (1940- ) Dr. Judith Pipherís research in the field of Infrared Astronomy began in graduate school with work on some of the first rocket-borne telescopes. Since 1971, Dr. Pipher has served on the faculty of the University of Rochester, where she and her colleagues were the first U.S. astronomers to turn an infrared array toward the skies. Her experiments with ground-based and airborne telescopes culminated in development of a camera for, and infrared observations on, the Spitzer Space Telescope, launched in 2003.

Catherine Filene Shouse (1896 – 1994) Known for her visionary work in education, arts, politics and womenís affairs, Catherine Filene Shouse was the first woman to receive a Masters Degree in Education from Harvard University and the first woman appointed to the Democratic National Committee in 1919. Ten years later, she launched the Institute for Womenís Professional Relations. An ardent supporter of the arts and arts education, Catherine Filene Shouse founded and was the major benefactor of the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Vienna, Virginia – the first and only national park dedicated to the performing arts. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald R. Ford in 1977.

Henrietta Szold (1860 – 1945) The daughter of Hungarian immigrants, educator and social pioneer Henrietta Szold was an important figure in both American and Jewish history. In 1889, she opened a night school to educate immigrants in English and civics, creating a model for other night schools and immigrant education programs. Her groundbreaking work in the American Jewish community continued with her founding of Hadassah, the Womenís Zionist Organization of America, in 1912. Ms. Szold moved to pre-state Israel in 1920, continuing her work with the American Zionist Medical Unit, which she organized in 1918.

Martha Coffin Wright (1806 – 1875) Martha Coffin Wright was one of five visionary women who organized the first womenís rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, forever changing the course of American history. She was also one of the few women who attended the 1833 founding meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society. An accomplished author, she wrote for local and national publications on anti-slavery and womenís rights issues. She was elected President of the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1874, serving until her death in 1875.

These nine women will join the 217 already inducted into the Hall, the first national membership organization recognizing and celebrating the accomplishments of great American women. For more information on the Hall or its activities, please call (315)568-8060 or visit the Hallís award winning website, www.greatwomen.org.

The National Womenís Hall of Fame is a national membership organization recognizing and celebrating the achievements of individual American women. The Hall was founded in historic Seneca Falls, New York, the site of the first Womenís Rights Convention in 1848. A not-for-profit educational organization, its programs include inductions of distinguished American women, educational activities, special exhibits, and events for the enrichment of public understanding and appreciation of the diverse contributions women make to society. Two hundred and seventeen women have been inducted since the Hallís founding in 1969. The National Womenís Hall of Fame is supported by corporations, foundations, and individual benefactors.

Happy Birthday – Ellen Degeneres

26 January 2007

All this outrage over scenes from a film that shows only with illusion a young girl being raped – Good god people – Why do you expend so much energy protesting the film? Why the HELL are you not out there protesting the actual lack of protection for ALL children – make loud noises and make it happen – see that laws are broadened and inforced in protecting our children. Get a life, folks – one that is more focused on ending the real life abuses of our young ones. There is a lesson to be learned here people – stop being holier than now – DO SOMETHING!!! – stop yapping and actually DO something – if you really care then start walking YOUR talk.

Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2007
By REBECCA WINTERS KEEGAN/PARK CITY

Rumors swirled on the ticket line that protesters were being bussed in and festival-goers were being frisked. Neither occurred, but the credits to the Jan. 22 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Hounddog might as well have included the tag line: “Dakota Fanning was not harmed in the making of this movie.” Fanning, 12, plays a victim of sexual abuse who finds comfort in Elvis Presley music in the film, which has been condemned by religious groups and child advocates as child pornography. Former child actors, like Alison Arngrim (Nellie from Little House on the Prairie) and Paul Peterson (Donna Reed’s son) told reporters that Fanning was being exploited. Online petitioners called for the arrest of Fanning’s agent and mother and attempted to block the film’s distribution.

In the disturbing but not graphic scene that inspired the controversy, the camera fixes on a closeup of Fanning’s terrified face while a neighbor boy unzips his pants. Despite the lack of nudity, and cutaways to falling rain, it’s clear the boy rapes Fanning’s character, Lewellen. More uncomfortable to watch than that short scene, in which the trauma is implied, are the lingering shots throughout the film in which Lewellen gyrates to Elvis music in her underwear while older men and boys watch hungrily.

Uproars like one surrounding Hounddog also arose in 1978, when 12-year-old Brooke Shields played a child prostitute in Pretty Baby, and in 1997, around a remake of Lolita. “The controversy comes from a societal terror that we have,” Hounddog’s writer-director Deborah Kampmeier said after the premiere. “A lot of people think we’re gonna die if we tell this secret.” The secret to which Kampmeier refers is that of sexual abuse of children. At the screening, representatives of the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) took the stage and delivered the statistic that in the time it took the audience to watch the film, eight children under 12 age were sexually assaulted.

Fanning also fielded questions at the premiere. The young star of Charlotte’s Web and Dreamer said the toughest scene for her to film was not the rape, but one in which rattlesnakes slither into her bed: “Some of those twitches were real.”

Another end to that Watergate Saga that never seems to end…

By Vivek Shankar

Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) —

E. Howard Hunt, who organized the Watergate break-in that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon, has died. He was 88.
Austin Hunt said his father died today in Miami after a long battle with pneumonia, the Associated Press reported.

Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy were members of the so-called White House plumbers, the secret team formed to stop government leaks after defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg sent documents that became known as the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times.

Besides Hunt and Liddy, the plumbers included Cuban exile friends of Hunt’s. They ransacked and bugged the Democratic Party office at the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, D.C., in May and June of 1972, as well as the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist.

Hunt was convicted of conspiracy, wiretapping and burglary and served 33 months in prison. He said he preferred the term “Watergate conspirator,” AP reported.

Hunt served in the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army Air Force and the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor of the CIA, during World War II. He then spent 21 years with the CIA, during which he wrote several books, mainly spy novels under pseudonyms.

Guatemala, Bay of Pigs

Operating in Latin America in the 1950s and 1960s, Hunt orchestrated a U.S.-backed coup in Guatemala that toppled democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954. He said he was involved in the botched Bay of Pigs attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro in 1961.

Hunt’s first wife, Dorothy, was killed in the crash of United Airlines Flight 533 in Chicago on Dec. 8, 1972. The National Transportation Board, the FBI and Congress investigated the crash because $10,000 was found in her handbag, money that some believed was paid to Watergate defendants to keep them silent regarding White House involvement in the break-in. The crash eventually was ruled an accident.

In 1981, Hunt was awarded $650,000 in a libel lawsuit against Liberty Lobby for publishing an article in its newspaper, The Spotlight, that accused Hunt of involvement in a conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. The award was overturned on appeal in 1985. Lawyer Mark Lane defended Liberty Lobby, and in his 1991 book, “Plausible denial,” outlined his theory about Hunt and the CIA being involved in Kennedy’s 1963 assassination.

The Cuban Issue

Hunt had expressed bitterness about the Bay of Pigs operation’s failure. In his semi-fictional autobiography, “Give Us This Day,” Hunt wrote: “The Kennedy administration yielded Castro all the excuse he needed to gain a tighter grip on the island of Jose Marti, then moved shamefacedly into the shadows and hoped the Cuban issue would simply melt away.”

“I found out the CIA was just infested with Democrats,” Hunt told Slate magazine in 2004. “I retired in ’70.” After that he served as a consultant for the White House. Later, Nixon’s special counsel Chuck Colson asked Hunt to work for the administration. “I greatly respected Nixon,” Hunt said.
He told Slate he didn’t hold anyone responsible for Watergate and said Nixon shouldn’t have resigned.

Nixon resigned under the threat of impeachment on Aug. 9, 1974. He was later pardoned by U.S. President Gerald Ford.
Hunt said he applied for a pardon but no action was taken. “I thought I’d just humiliate myself if I asked for a pardon,” he said.
Born Oct. 9, 1918, in East Hamburg, New York, Hunt is survived by his second wife, Laura Martin Hunt, and six children, AP said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Vivek Shankar in San Francisco at vshankar3@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: January 23, 2007 19:20 EST