Mood:  a-ok

 Z3 Readers, friends, activists, and family ...

This fundraiser video will be shown on 8.15.09 

 at the Portland Art Museum

I am raising money to go to Venezuela in September

EVERYONE IS INVITED

More information is on my website

Here

Also be sure to check our delegation website

Here

Posted by Joe Anybody at 12:01 AM PDT

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Mood:  don't ask

Z3 Readers here is an articel afriend of mine wrote this morning:

Compromising Democracy in Honduras 

by shamus cook
  

Can a solution to the crisis in Honduras — itself the result of a military coup — be “mediated,” where on one side sit coup leaders and on the other a democratically elected but ousted President? Does any “middle ground” exist? Of course not. If President Zelaya unconditionally returns to finish his term in office, democracy will be restored; anything short of that will have democracy “compromised” into its opposite.

Obama is the behind-the-scenes organizer of this negotiated farce, even though he has no legal or moral right to undermine the democratic process in Honduras. His Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, brought the parties together and chose an “objective” mediator, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias — someone who has obviously aligned himself with the United States.

And while Arias is the “official” mediator, Obama will be the one calling the shots, using U.S. economic and military clout to bully the opposing sides into an “acceptable deal.”

For example, when some members of the coup leadership were still using obstinate language against a deal with ousted President Zelaya, the U.S. finally announced it would withhold $16.5 million in military assistance to the country.

If this announcement were made the day the coup took place — as it was legally required to under U.S. law — the coup would have been crushed. Now, the money is simply being used to cajole the coup plotters into a more pliable position at the bargaining table; a place at which they obstinately refused to sit previously. It was also announced that $165 million in aide to Honduras could be in jeopardy. That is, if the coup leaders don’t do exactly as the U.S. demands.

And this highlights a stark fact that many Obama supporters are refusing to see: the origins of the coup, and indeed its resolution, lie squarely on the shoulders of the U.S. When a country [the U.S.] trains and funds another nation’s military [Honduras], while also purchasing the vast majority of that country’s exports, and supplying it with enormous financial aid, there is little ground for “equal footing.”

In fact, all of Obama’s rhetoric about leaving South America to the South Americans is a conscious ploy at public relations. In reality, the economic and military screws continue to be tightened, and U.S. foreign policy continues as it always has.

After the coup first happened, the entire world reacted with horror, condemnation, and sanctions of various kinds, while everyone understood that only one country had the economic and military influence to actually reverse it…instantly.

Obama purposely dragged his feet. He cleverly tagged the U.S. name on U.N and O.A.S resolutions, while doing absolutely nothing in the realm of guns, trade, or aid — the places where actual power is wielded.

The New York Times correctly noted that “the mixed messages have emboldened Honduras’s de facto government…” (July 7, 2009).

Also emboldening the coup leaders is Obama’s virtual silence around the fact that Honduras has been transformed into a democracy-free zone, where anti-coup media has been silenced, a military curfew enforced, basic rights suspended, and unarmed protestors killed.

Ousted President Zelaya correctly noted that “if they [the U.S.] decide to live with the coup, then democracy in the Americas is over."

This is a bold yet correct assessment of the situation in Latin America, carrying with it enormous implications. Zelaya described in vivid detail one such consequence while talking to Hillary Clinton about his kidnapping at gunpoint. He asked her, “What have Latin American presidents learned from Honduras? To sleep with our clothes on and our bags packed.”

And while media outlets treated the comment as a mere joke, the truth of it will reverberate throughout Latin America. If a military coup against a democratically elected government is not completely reversed, elites in the region will be profoundly encouraged to follow the Honduran formula and return to a time where U.S.-backed military coups and mass repression were commonplace.

And while Obama has recently repeated that President Zelaya should be returned to finish out his presidential term, Hillary Clinton “…stopped short of calling for his reinstatement, a departure from statements by President Obama earlier Tuesday…” (New York Times July 7, 2009).

This good-cop-bad-cop routine isn’t by accident, but appears to be an emerging signature of Obama’s forked tongue political method: he says what he thinks people want to hear, while others close to him pursue a different course.

It is unclear at this time what type of rotten compromise will emerge. Zelaya will either be prevented from returning to his Presidency, or as a senior U.S. official leaked to the press, “…Zelaya would be allowed to return and serve out his remaining six months in office with limited powers…” (Associated Press, July 7, 2009).

Either scenario will have democracy severely eroded, so that those who previously dominated Honduran society — the local super-wealthy and rich U.S. investors — will remain all powerful.

The average, working class Honduran, however, is acting independently. A mass march of at least 100,000 congregated at the airport last week during President Zelaya’s failed attempt to re-enter the country, a fact heavily obscured or ignored by the U.S. media.

The country’s school teachers are also jointly striking until Zelaya is returned, while talks of a general strike continue. If such a strike were successfully carried through, all the maneuvers of Obama and the native Honduran elite will have been for naught, and the unconditional return of President Zelaya will be assured.

Posted by Joe Anybody at 12:01 AM PDT

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Mood:  a-ok

Police risk losing public confidence if they do not change how they manage protests, the police watchdog has said.

Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Denis O'Connor, said senior officers were too focused on dealing with disorder, and not enough on allowing peaceful protest.

Public order training and tactics were "inadequate for the modern day", he said, in his review of the G20 protests in central London on April 1.

The report found officers were too interested in whether protests were lawful or not, instead of focusing on allowing peaceful demonstrations.

Some officers policing G20 were not sufficiently aware of human rights laws, he said, and he criticised police use of containment to pen in demonstrators on the day Ian Tomlinson died, calling it "inconsistent".

Mr O'Connor called on the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) to carry out a wide-ranging review of tactics and training for officers dealing with protesters.

The review should include a medical assessment of the damage done by shields and batons carried by riot police, he said.

In future, containment should be used more flexibly, and vulnerable or distressed people should be allowed out, he said.

Mr O'Connor said the changes needed to be made as soon as possible to "meet the challenges of the 21st century", and would be especially important for the Olympic Games in 2012.

The report backed the continued use of containment techniques known as "kettling". Mr O'Connor said they were useful in preventing "running riots", but he said they needed to be tempered, and officers needed to watch the crowds for signs of anyone in distress.

Posted by Joe Anybody at 12:01 AM PDT

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Mood:  caffeinated

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/06/26/1422248/Copyfraud-Is-Stealing-the-Public-Domain?from=rss

Z3-ers I found this on my RSS reader here is a quick post of the article 

Malkavian writes:

 "This community has complained long and loudly about the very one-sided approach to copyright, and the not-so-slow erosion of the public domain. On top of the corporate lobbying to remove increasingly larger parts of the public domain, there is now an growing pattern whereby works are directly taken from the public domain and effectively stolen by a single company leveraging protections provided under copyright law. The Register's article is based on a paper by Jason Mazzone at the Brooklyn Law School, which starkly details the problems that are now becoming evident as entities grab control over public domain works. The paper proposes some possible solutions, such as amending the Copyright Act. From the abstract: 'Copyright law itself creates strong incentives for copyfraud. The Copyright Act provides for no civil penalty for falsely claiming ownership of public domain materials. There is also no remedy under the Act for individuals who wrongly refrain from legal copying or who make payment for permission to copy something they are in fact entitled to use for free. While falsely claiming copyright is technically a criminal offense under the Act, prosecutions are extremely rare. These circumstances have produced fraud on an untold scale, with millions of works in the public domain deemed copyrighted, and countless dollars paid out every year in licensing fees to make copies that could be made for free.'"

Posted by Joe Anybody at 9:43 AM PDT

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Mood:  not sure

Pictures from the torture Protest in Portland Oregon on last Thursday

Posted by Joe Anybody at 11:08 PM PDT

Updated: Friday, 26 June 2009 11:11 PM PDT

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Mood:  cheeky

Z3 Readers...

The following is an email I received from a (Right Wing) environment (as if they really care) (they don't) (profits first) Any way here is the article on Mercury in fish ...and their "spin"

Now I am no expert and I am trying to get to the truth so bear with me as I explore just what the hell is going on with the mercury / fish issue

Mercury in Fish: Not So Scary After All

This just in from The Miami Herald: “Most adults need not worry” about risks associated with tiny traces of methylmercury in seafood. And researchers from the University of North Dakota announced that, thanks to a nutrient called selenium, mercury levels in fish are “not as harmful as previously thought.” Hooray! Now, let’s file all of this news away under “we told you so.”

As scientists from Harvard University and the Food and Drug Administration have been saying, the nutritional benefits of omega-3 fatty acids in fish – including healthy hearts and smarter babies – far outweigh the hypothetical risks associated with mercury. The levels of naturally-occurring methylmercury in ocean-caught fish are so tiny that you could probably eat a hundred cans of canned chunk light tuna every week for a lifetime without getting mercury poisoning. (Click here to find out for sure.)

The reason why, as scientists from the Energy & Environmental Research Center at the University of North Dakota are explaining this week, has a lot to do with selenium:

"Selenium is an essential nutrient in healthy brain development and protects the brain from oxidative damage," said Dr. Nick Ralston, an EERC Research Scientist involved with the studies. .. “The more selenium in the tissue, the less mercury toxicity occurs. Since fish in some areas have much higher levels of selenium than mercury, the consumer receives the healthy benefits of selenium and a natural defense against mercury."

In other words, as we put it in the title of a 2006 report, selenium is “The Flip Side of Mercury.” But overblown mercury warnings, along with a lack of public understanding about the protective effects of selenium, has had negative public health consequences since so many consumers have over-reacted by steering clear of the canned tuna aisle.

The verdict is in – again: Selenium, protein, and omega-3s in fish are your friend. Too bad we can’t say the same about seafood scaremongers.

Posted by Joe Anybody at 7:01 AM PDT

Updated: Friday, 26 June 2009 9:43 AM PDT

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Mood:  lyrical

Hello friends n family of the Z3 Report ...its all about video and I have some new dirt that I found on "telephonyonline. com" regarding putting videos online ...and for what price?

Cable wins, broadcasters lose with Web video

http://telephonyonline.com/video/news/bernstein-research-web-video-0618/

Jun 18, 2009 1:15 PM, By Sarah Reedy

Bernstein Research analysts study the Web video ecosystem to discern winners and losers as IP takes over

Video on the Web is clearly proliferating and attracting controversy in the technology, media and telecom space as it does. According to Bernstein Research analysts, all the players in the Internet video ecosystem – pay TV providers, media companies and Internet companies – will influence the future of Web video, but there will be winners and losers in its wake.

In a Webcast held this week, the analysts discussed the intersections between US media, the Global Internet, data networkers and cable and telecom companies. Drawing from Bernstein’s recent in-depth consumer-behavior study, the analysts found that consumers watch a lot more TV – about 309 minutes a day – than they realized and a lot less Web video – only about 2 minutes per day – than they claimed. Yet despite the low numbers, the growth rate of Internet video has been very high, said senior analyst Jeff Lindsay. NBC and Fox’s Hulu is growing at an average of 89% per year, and Google’s YouTube at 38%, and their viewers are far more diverse than the assumed teenage male segment. This rise to fame of online content aggregators has many cable and telcos fearful of video cord-cutting, a potential trend, although one that has yet to materialize.  

“The single online property the cable MSOs should fear is not YouTube but Hulu,” Lindsay said on the call. “We view Hulu as the only property with the potential to drive any significant cable-cutting. A new term is already entering the internet lexicon, i.e. ‘Hulu households.’ We have yet to come across the term ‘YouTube households.’”

That being said, these global Internet companies will struggle to find profitable aggregator positions despite their success, Lindsay said, because these are already taken by the broadcasters themselves. Only five companies dominate the video landscape in the United States, according to senior analyst Michael Nathanson. How these companies, which include Viacom (NYSE: VIA-B), Disney (NYSE:DIS), NBC, Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) and News Corp. (NYSE: NWS-A-WI), respond to this online content explosion will shape the debate on Web video, he said. They – along with the Internet companies – have a vested interest in responding quickly, too, as they run the risk of being the most likely losers in the Web video scenario.

“By our math, a show like the Simpsons generates about 64 cents per user for Fox on Sunday night, as it packs in 18 commercials at a rate of about $30 per thousand viewers,” Nathanson said. “However, The Simpsons on Hulu is able to charge about double the CPM due to greater ad effectiveness, but it only has three -- that's right, three -- commercial units. As such, it's only generating about one-third of the value of the broadcast version.”

For these broadcasters to integrate more advertising into Web video runs the risk of cannibalizing their TV ad business, as the budgets are likely the same, Nathanson added. If Web usage of broadcast content does increase, content owners will have to shift to a subscription model or find a way to make ads work, he said.

The analysts concluded that the winners in the IP video movement will be data equipment suppliers like Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks and potentially even the cable and telecom pay TV providers. Even if these TV providers get relegated to a dumb pipe, revenues might decline, but costs and capital expenditures would decline even further, potentially 50%, causing free cash flow and return on investment to rise more than 30% each, according to senior analyst Craig Moffett.

Such an evolution as Moffett describes is possible, although not necessarily likely. The telcos and cablecos are interested in the evolution of Web video and won’t be satisfied being just a dumb pipe, he said. They want to shape the evolution, whereas at least one segment of their competition, satellite, will be rendered obsolete.

“They’ll make changes that protect the content companies, even if the content companies don’t try to protect themselves,” Moffett said. “But if bypass ever did happen ironically and cable was [relegated] to dumb-pipe status, it would actually be a better business than it is today -- obviously not so for the satellite operators, who are in this kind of purely broadcast distribution model. Their model would be obviously fully undermined.”

Posted by Joe Anybody at 12:01 AM PDT

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Mood:  chatty

Hello Z3 Readers

Here is a Riddle that I found in Harpers Mag: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2001/12/0075777

And here is the text --- lets see what we can figure out from this 1985 attack on Dan Rathers

The frequency:

Solving the riddle of the Dan Rather beating

By Paul Limbert

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2001/12/0075777

69 70 71 72

SEE ALSO: Assault and battery; Assault on, 1986—Humor; Coincidence; Rather, Dan; Barthelme, Donald; Involvement in assault on Dan Rather—Humor; Television journalists

Response: March 2002, page 82 · March 2002, page 82

Previous · Next

The frequency:

Solving the riddle of the Dan Rather beating

By Paul Limbert Allman

"I want Dan Rather to be free. I want my generation to be free, not trapped by conspiracy theories, like those who wrestle with the bloody puzzle of Dallas 1963. Our generation must have an answer to our riddle. And we will all know we have it when Dan Rather comes on the television and no longer looks anxious."

Dan Rather is the sphinx of our time, and his riddle is “Kenneth, what is the frequency?”

Who can forget our collective shock and bewilderment when we opened the New York Times and learned of the event? October 1986. A cool evening, upper Park Avenue, in the Eighties. Newsman and reservoir of trust, Dan Rather, dressed casually, walks home from dinner at a friend's house.

Two well-dressed white men in their thirties—one six feet tall, with dark hair and a mustache—accost Rather, one of them demanding to know, “Kenneth, what is the frequency?”

“You have the wrong guy,” Rather replies.

One of the men responds with a punch to the newsman's jaw, under his left ear. Rather flees into the lobby of a building on Park Avenue, and the thugs pursue him, punching, kicking, badgering Rather repeatedly with the strange query: “Kenneth, what is the frequency!”

A doorman rings for the super, the super bursts upon the scene of the cruel interrogation, and the attackers flee. Mr. Rather is briefly hospitalized. The attackers are not caught. Their motives are unknown. It is presumed a case of mistaken identity.

Mr. Rather returned to his news broadcast, unbowed, and made a statement about the incident. Who did it, and why? “Why and exactly by whom remains unclear,” Mr. Rather announced to a television audience estimated to be 18 million households. “And it may never be determined.”

Dan Rather looks anxious on television. He needs the answer. The incident haunts him, and it shows. “For a while,” he said, “I made it a point to hang out on the street corner opposite from where it happened and observe things.” During these poignant forays, he disguised himself with sunglasses and a baseball cap.

I want Dan Rather to be free. I want my generation to be free, not trapped by conspiracy theories, like those who wrestle with the bloody puzzle of Dallas 1963. Our generation must have an answer to our riddle. And we will all know we have it when Dan Rather comes on the television and no longer looks anxious.

One day, Rather signed off a broadcast with the single word, “Courage.” A noble gesture, at once commanding and empathetic. But it had no more effect than if he had said, “Porridge.” Such is the great ineffable quality of Dan Rather.

Yes, there are those who would like to keep him anxious. The same people who jumped and pummeled him on Park Avenue, calling him “Kenneth,” demanding the frequency.

Bastards.

I ask you: if the victim had been somebody named Kenneth, what would he have made of “what is the frequency?” Was this some intimate reference known only to Kenneth and his attackers? If so, how could the attackers—who knew their victim well enough to communicate with coded language—then stalk and attack the wrong man, especially when the “wrong man” was nationally famous?

They knew their victim. Rather's face was broadcast to millions of Americans, on network television, five days a week. Nothing was taken from the victim: watch, wallet, or souvenir. Park Avenue is hardly a hot spot for random violence. The attackers had one motive: to punch Dan Rather, to punish him. If they had said, “Go to hell!” or, “Take that!” the whole thing would have been dismissed as random criticism and forgotten.

Instead, they taunted him: “Kenneth, what is the frequency?”

The taunt was obviously some kind of code. We can assume that, knowing their victim, the attackers were intentionally identifying Rather as “Kenneth.” Was he supposed to recognize the cipher? I think not. I think the riddle was designed for their pleasure alone, designed to further torture Dan Rather. The coded language was another implement of the punishment.

What of the second part of the taunt: “What is the frequency?” “Frequency” could refer to a radio frequency, or perhaps to something in Rather's journalistic background. Or it might have been a scientific query, relating to the number of times a specific function or action is repeated within a given time.

But if the thugs were making a scientific inquiry, then their method was sloppy. The question, without a context, is meaningless, akin to asking somebody, “How much does it weigh?” without telling them what “it” is. Mr. Rather had every right to have answered the thugs with, “Frequency of what?” if he had been given the opportunity.

Rather did not have the opportunity, because the attackers were not expecting an answer. Rather was not expected to provide one. The encoded taunt was the verbal version of a sucker punch.

While I was puzzling over the case, I came across a story by a former professor of English at the University of Houston, the late Donald Barthelme. The story is called “The Indian Uprising.” It is a very beautiful and complex abstraction, in which wild, Hollywood-type Indians lay siege to the city. The outlook for the city, if the uprising succeeds, mirrors the fate of two lovers who are suffering from an uprising of bad feelings.

“What is the situation?” I asked.

“The situation is liquid,” he said. “We hold the south quarter and they hold the north quarter. The rest is silence.”

“And Kenneth?”

“That girl is not in love with Kenneth,” Block said frankly. “She is in love with his coat. When she is not wearing it she is huddling under it. Once I caught it going down the stairs by itself. I looked inside. Sylvia.”

Once I caught Kenneth's coat going down the stairs by itself but the coat was a trap and inside a Comanche who made a thrust with his short, ugly knife at my leg which buckled and tossed me over the balustrade through a window and into another situation.

The appearance of the name “Kenneth” made me pause over the passage. As a character, Kenneth was thinly drawn; just an important, distant personage, a little pretentious. One seldom sees the name “Kenneth” or hears it. But “Kenneth” appears in another story by Barthelme, called “Can We Talk.” He is referred to as a “friend.”

One can safely conclude that Barthelme had a running character in his fictions named Kenneth. This is arguably the only case of a running Kenneth in the history of literature. And Barthelme drew heavily from his life to make his fictions. But I was not reading Barthelme to look for clues; I was reading him because he, to my mind, is great and better with each read. So I gave the “Kenneth” coincidence no more thought until, in the same collection, Sixty Stories, I came across this exchange, in “Kierkegaard Unfair to Schlegel”:

A. I use the girl on the train a lot. I'm on a train, a European train with compartments. A young girl enters and sits opposite me. . . . The book is in her lap. Her legs are fairly wide apart, very tanned, the color of—

Q. That's a very common fantasy.

A. All my fantasies are extremely ordinary.

Q. Does it give you pleasure?

A. A poor . . . A rather unsatisfactory . . .

Q. What is the frequency?

Imagine my shock at finding, quite out of the blue, the words “Kenneth” and “What is the frequency?” combined within the same text, by a writer from Houston, Dan Rather's hometown.

It was an odd coincidence. What are the chances of finding “Kenneth” and “What is the frequency?” in any way connected to each other, outside of the mouths of Mr. Rather's attackers? And yet here they were, inside Donald Barthelme's book.

The photo of Barthelme on the back of the dust jacket: a stocky fellow with a leprechaun's face and beard, wearing a checked shirt and a leather vest, with a patch of Rorschach-style wallpaper behind his head. Was this mischievous but gentle soul the type to rough up a news anchor or hire goons to do the job? He looked capable of a prank but not one so violent.

The coincidence seemed to be just that: a strange, puzzling, but unintentional juxtaposition, one of life's sublime jokes.

Intrigued by the Rather riddle, I researched Dan Rather's career as a newspaper reporter and editor in Houston but could find nothing except the tale of a tireless, ambitious young man—what used to be called a B.M.O.C.—with something of a roving eye for what his biographer referred to as “coeds.”

Mr. Rather excelled first as the editor of a college newspaper. Eventually he broke into radio and then television journalism. Might there have been a grudge or a simmering jealousy from as far back as then? Somebody Rather stepped over on his way up the ladder of success, or the boyfriend or husband of one of those “coeds”?

Mr. Barthelme, just six months younger than Mr. Rather, also grew up in Houston. Barthelme attended the University of Houston; Rather attended Sam Houston State College. After their stints in the military in the fifties, both went into journalism. Rather worked at a Houston radio station, while Barthelme went to work as a reporter for the Houston Post.

Rather and Barthelme, same age, same military backgrounds, were now reporting for competing news outlets in a city of modest size. Is it possible that they could not have known each other, or of each other, in the Houston of the late 1950s and early 1960s? That they could not have attended the same journalistic functions? Or that Rather, the rising star, could not have been the object of envy and speculation on the part of his peers?

I tried to imagine an imbroglio between these two men, both titans in their field: the burly, bristling, brilliant professor/writer and the eager, ambitious, glamorous, comparatively superficial news anchor. Titans who left large footprints in Texas soil but no legacy of mutual distemper, no trace of a grudge. The implication—that a brilliant writer would somehow get himself involved in a hugger-mugger retributionary ambush of a prominent news editor over an undisclosed dispute—was difficult to accept. Yet these giants were undoubtedly linked together by that strangely magical refrain—Kenneth, what is the frequency?—and by their oddly parallel lives.

In 1959, Rather became a TV reporter for KTRK in Houston; two years later, Barthelme became director of the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston. Rather eventually transferred to New York City for CBS News, and Barthelme also landed in the city, teaching at City College.

I will never know what wrong Donald Barthelme perceived was done to him by Dan Rather during their mutual incubations in Houston. No one will ever know. It will have to be the one unknown that haunts our generation as we ponder the Rather/Barthelme connection with the incident on Park Avenue. But there are at least two well-dressed white men out there (now in their fifties) who know the complete truth. Did Barthelme know what they were doing? Or were the avengers acting on their own, loose cannons armed with quotes from Barthelme's canon?

In Barthelme's “The Emerald,” a reporter named Lily is interviewing a witch about her magic potions, and Lily wants to know if she can get one too, for her “problem.”

I have a problem.

What's the problem?

The editor, or editor-king, as he's called around the shop.

What about him?

He takes my stuff and throws it on the floor. When he doesn't like it.

On the floor?

I know it's nothing to you but it hurts me. I cry. I know I shouldn't cry but I cry. When I see my stuff on the floor. Pages and pages of it, so carefully typed, every word spelled right—

Don't you kids have a union?

Yes but he won't speak to it.

That's this man Lather, right?

Mr. Lather. Editor-imperator.

On the following page, Mr. Lather himself telephones Mad Moll:

Hello is this Mad Moll?

Yes who is this?

My name is Lather.

The editor?

Editor-king, actually.

Yes Mr. Lather what is the name of your publication I don't know that Lily ever—

World. I put it together. When World is various and beautiful, it's because I am various and beautiful. When World is sad and dreary, it's because I am sad and dreary. When World is not thy friend, it's because I am not thy friend. And if I am not thy friend, baby—

I get the drift.

All hell breaks loose in the story: a foot kills a man, an emerald begins to speak, and devils appear . . .

Three devils showed up! Lily's interviewing them right now!

A free press is not afraid of a thousand devils!

There are only three!

What do they look like?

Like Lather, the editor!

Just as I was prepared to dismiss the coincidence of finding “Kenneth” and “What is the frequency?” fifty pages apart in the same book, written by a Houstonian whose career mirrored Rather's, and who was reporting in the same town at the same time as Rather, I discover this rather ham-fisted swipe at an imperious news editor with a name so close to Rather's own that it seems almost unfair. An agitated, anxious, irritated man is said to be in a lather. There is something slightly foolish implied by that kind of lather, in a foamy, worked-up way. Donald Barthelme's editor-king, Lather, is a newsman in a lather, greatly agitated, foolishly grand. One begins to wonder how long Dan Rather has been wearing that anxious look on his face.

One cannot address the issue of the Rather beating without addressing the perplexing strangeness of the popular anchorman and, in the context of the crime committed against him, the exceedingly dubious attempt to pin the crime on a confessed murderer.

In January 1997, the Daily News published an article that connected the Rather mystery to a confessed killer, William Tager, who fatally shot NBC technician Campbell Theron Montgomery on August 31, 1994. The supposed scoop was written not by an investigative reporter but by a TV critic.

The tenuous connection was first made by Dr. Park Dietz, a celebrity forensic psychiatrist who interviewed Tager to see whether he was fit for trial. According to the Daily News, Dietz said there was “no question that it was William Tager who assaulted Dan Rather. The degree of consistency was exactly what I expect to find when the people were involved in the same incident and they're all telling the truth.”

If both parties are indeed telling the truth, then someone has some explaining to do, and the Daily News obliges. The published reports of “two well-dressed men” who accosted Rather, one of them demanding to know, “Kenneth, what is the frequency?” becomes, in the revised version, “An agitated man [who] directed a stream of near-gibberish at him, including the question ‘What's the frequency?' and a word that Rather told police sounded like the name ‘Kenneth.’”

The merging of two carefully identified assailants badgering Rather repeatedly with the strange query, “Kenneth, what is the frequency!” into one gibbering madman slurring his words is explained away by the Daily News: “Some news accounts at the time referred to two attackers, but Rather said he had told police it was just his impression that the attacker was accompanied by another man. Only one person actually beat him.”

These are the rather clumsy footprints of a cover-up, and one wonders why.

The official eagerness to accept the ravings of a criminal who is described by his friends as “loony toons,” and by his psychiatrist as mentally incompetent, is highly questionable. Likewise, the willingness to accept Rather's identification of a picture of his supposed assailant—provided by the Daily News—more than ten years after the fact is troubling, when Rather has difficulty remembering even how many attackers were on hand for the fracas.

Every news account specifies two assailants, who were both described in great detail by Rather himself, on the night of the assault. Rather's description was supported by the doorman and the superintendent—Robert Sestak—who came to Rather's rescue. Are we to believe that all three men were suffering some form of group hallucination?

Donald Barthelme is one of my literary heroes. Thomas Pynchon—no stranger to Houston, I might add—described Barthelme, lovingly, as “perhaps a species of anarchist curse.” Dan Rather, while not one of my heroes, is a victim. He was minding his own business, set upon and pummeled, and sent to the hospital, which isn't fun and isn't funny. As a victim, Rather will have to live with the memory of that episode for the rest of his days. I hope that the revelations contained here will help him deal with the calamity.

Rather's eagerness to put the issue to rest is understandable. The event, fueled by rumor and gossip, has dogged him. The rock band R.E.M. turned the cryptic mugging into a song, “What's the Frequency, Kenneth?” Rather's curious misfortune has clearly entered the public consciousness and become a touchstone for a generation. I'm sure he would like it to go away, and there are undoubtedly many out there who would like to help Mr. Rather in this effort.

I am one of those. I want to release Dan Rather from the prison of his own perplexity. The bogus attempt to close the case via the Daily News must eat at Mr. Rather, for he knows better. If they had told him the Huntsman from Snow White had confessed, Dan Rather would have agreed, just to get it behind him.

My strong suspicion is that Mr. Rather does not know who did this to him, or why. “Why and exactly by whom remains unclear,” he stated on TV. “And it may never be determined.” I want Mr. Rather to be liberated by the truth: Donald Barthelme, or avengers acting on the master's behalf, did the nefarious deed upon you. The startling evidence is contained within the pages of Barthelme's oeuvre; you can read the stories for yourself. May this knowledge set you free. May you feel the yoke of mystery lift from your shoulders.

But there are forces that do not want my revelation to be known. Dan Rather—who once, by his own admission, “made it a point to hang out on the street corner opposite from where it happened and observe things,” now sits tight behind an impenetrable fortress, protected by gatekeepers. Word filters down from his aerie that he doesn't want to know. He is selling a book now; his face remains strangely tense. He weeps on TV and has expressed a wish to enlist in the military. I wish I could save him.

Rather is like Rapunzel, locked in a tower, peering out from his window, giving the evening news. Dan Rather, Dan Rather, let down your hair! But no, he's cut it short. He doesn't want to be saved.

Barthelme's brother Frederick has refused to comment. Perhaps he knows nothing, but one wonders. There are two younger Barthelme brothers, including Frederick. Maybe they know something about the two attackers. Maybe they know why brother Donald had it in for the Texas newsman.

The building super who came to Rather's aid and frightened off the attackers, Robert Sestak, has passed away. I spoke with his family, and they graciously recounted his remarkable tale of two well-dressed men and Dan Rather in a Park Avenue vestibule. It is those two men who know the truth. But they have disappeared, as if they had stepped out from the pages of a book and ducked back inside as the covers slammed shut.

Donald Barthelme liked to compare his work to a collage. “The point of collage,” he said, “is that unlike things are stuck together to make, in the best case, a new reality.” He was king of the irrational, the surprising juxtaposition. Dan Rather is king of the rational: news, facts, reports. Why did the irrational attack the rational? Is it always the way with these two? Rather's very name is contained within the name Barthelme. Barthelme's last novel was The King, about King Arthur. Rathur? Lather? Editor-king? Who can say?

There is Dan Rather, up in his tower, a prisoner of perplexity. He doesn't want to be saved, and yet, and yet . . . he gazes out, and the look on his face speaks volumes. His lips move and we hear the news, but if you read his lips you might see the words of Snow White, from Barthelme's novel of the same name, as she gazes out from her own tower:

There is something wrong with all those people standing there, gaping and gawking. And with all those who did not come and at least try to climb up. To fill the role. And with the very world itself, for not being able to supply a prince. For not being able to at least be civilized enough to supply the correct ending to the story.

Posted by Joe Anybody at 12:01 AM PDT

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