An appeal.

–   –   –

ADVISORY: Dear Readers (both of you), I’m putting together a little package that might exemplify the ideal or the sorry were it to appear under the rubrics of other categories of this blog including 9/11 TRUTH, MEDIA, IRAN, and UKRAINE. It will be the only (other) entry for today. Please return. — MCM

.

Links to an interview from Chris Hedges’ YouTube channel, and to reports from the Associated Press and Reuters; others are accessible by clicking on their names or initials. (Scroll down for Iran 9-28-26.) — MCM

–   –   –

FROM c. SEPT. 29  Iran has destroyed U.S. bases in the Gulf (w/ John Mearsheimer). Hedges and University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer discuss the damage Iran’s use of cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones has inflicted on U.S. military bases; shifting alliances resulting from the war; and what the future may hold in store. Click HERE for nine-minute video.

–   –   –

FROM OCT. 1  Third aircraft carrier and thousands of troops head to Mideast as Trump weighs new Iran strikes, by Konstantin Toropin, Michelle L. Price and Aamer Madhani | AP  WASHINGTON — The U.S. military is dispatching roughly 9,000 troops aboard a group of ships to the Middle East, a U.S. official said Thursday. The bolstering of the American military presence comes as President Donald Trump warned anew that new strikes against Iran could be on the horizon. READ MORE . . . Click HERE for same AP report in Spanish, and HERE for others.

–   –   –

FROM OCT. 1  Iran readies harder retaliation if attacked as diplomacy faces long odds, by Parisa Hafesi | Reuters  DUBAI — Iran is preparing a broader and more forceful response if the United States resumes large-scale military attacks, sources said, while continuing a diplomatic push that Iranian officials privately see as unlikely to succeed. READ MORE . . .

.

A rumination. (Scroll down for 9/11 TRUTH 9-20-26, or click HERE.) — MCM

–   –   –

“Don’t you hate,” writes Adrian Dannhauser, “when you know you’re right, but somehow you still end up in the wrong? You’ve played by the rules, your logic seems sound, but in the end, it just doesn’t add up. . . . If you’ve ever been in a heated argument, you know that rational thought does not carry the day.”

That sometimes pertains to a number of ugly truths that have been nailed down conclusively but do not carry the day.

I think of a friend who was a loving husband and father, faithful parishioner, successively city councilor, county commissioner and state representative, knowledgeable letter-to-the-editor writer and denizen of the public library — a stone’s throw from his law office. Army veteran and former FBI agent.

Naturally, Frank favored a state “bottle bill” when a City Council position on it came up, giving a litany of good reasons to be for it at a Council meeting but emphasizing each phrase with a jab of his index finger into the air in front of him. His side didn’t carry the day. Campaign donations from affected businesses may have made the difference (5-cent deposits for beer and soda pop containers is now state law), but his finger jabbing didn’t help.

Years later I lent him a CD from Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth about the World Trade Center skyscrapers coming down on Sept. 11, 2001, according to standard “controlled demolition” practices — but at odds with government and news media narratives. When I stopped at his house to pick it up, he had watched it. But he simply handed it to me with a sheepish smile and that was it.

A friend I didn’t know as well or as long had been a flight engineer for Pan Am and TWA  — flight engineers (at least at the time) accompanying pilots and copilots on large passenger liners. Bob had included me on mass email mailings to old Air Force and airline buddies, none of which interested me. Until after the September 2001 events. I lent him a book or a CD in which (I thought) knowledgeable people had challenged parts of official “9/11” accounts involving the airplanes. He simply refused to talk about it.

Just this morning I came across observation up top. It is also HERE. The onetime practitioner of corporate bankruptcy law turned priest and now church rector and author appears to know what she’s talking about, including the limits of law and of human reason.

NOTE: This entry, the only one for this date, may be tinkered with by me. (Scroll down for MEDIA 9-26-26.) — MCM

–   –   –

Most Americans, when we think about Australia at all, know it as a continent-sized English-speaking nation surrounded by ocean, with kangaroos and koala bears, where humans have more interest in soccer (which they call football) than we have. And that it has a free press. Some of us know that Julian Assange is from there.

Assange is back home after having served five years in London’s Belmarsh prison after he was holed up for seven years in Ecuador’s embassy in London until the government in Ecuador changed hands and booted him out.

A year ago he won Integrity Media’s first Courage in Journalism award, and a news release about it is HERE. It includes a panel discussion starring journalist Melissa Fyfe of the Age, Member of Parliament Andrew Wylie, and barrister Greg Barns. Comedian Tom Ballard was moderator.

I found the discussion fascinating — refreshing and salubrious — while not understanding much of what they were talking about except that Australian journalists face the same kind of censorship as ours do in the United States and engage in similar self-censorship. And that Australian media ownership is undergoing the same consolidation that is going on in the United States and in much of the world, meaning that consumers of what newspapers and broadcasters turn out are getting a much more constricted view of what is really happening here and there.

I didn’t find Ballard funny at all, but then the topics under discussion are not funny. He may have been chosen to moderate because of some popularity. See his website.

Assange was not spoken of much, possibly because the . . .

–   –   –

TO BE CONTINUED ANOTHER TIME, MAYBE

Belatedly, the only link today, to an essay from Global Dialogue via the Floutist; others are accessible by clicking on their names. (Scroll down for ALL OF IT 9-28-26.) — MCM

–   –   –

FROM JANUARY 2024  ‘Terrorism,’ this insidious word, by John V. Whitbeck | Global Dialogue / The Floutist  PARIS — The greatest threat to world peace and civil society today is clearly “terrorism” — not the behavior to which the word is applied but the word itself. Since the word “terrorism” (like the behavior to which the word is applied) can never be eradicated, it is imperative to expose it for what it is — a word. READ MORE . . .

.