at Columbia University in New York
http://www.bwog.net/index.php?page=post&article_id=2265
Minutemen suffer defeat at Columbia University
Jim Gilchrist terminates speech in face of angry opposition
www.answercoalition.org
Please circulate widely
A major demonstration tonight resulted in a serious setback
for the Minutemen organization. Jim Gilchrist, the founder
of the Minutemen, an organization which dispatches armed
vigilantes at the U.S.-Mexican border, was invited by the
Columbia University Republicans to speak at the Roone
Arledge auditorium on campus.
Many hundreds of protesters filled up the blocks outside
the auditorium, in a demonstration initiated by the Chicano
Caucus of Columbia University and supported by the ANSWER
Coalition. Inside the hall, the overwhelming number of
attendees were clearly opposed to the racist message
of the Minutemen. When Gilchrist began to speak, the
students inside exercised their Free Speech rights by
loudly protesting the presence of this fascist on their
campus. More than 20 students - including several ANSWER
activists - occupied the stage where they were violently
attacked by thugs working with the Minutemen. In spite
of the violent attacks against them, they held their ground,
and Gilchrist terminated his speech.
Minutemen thugs tear at ANSWER banner"Progressive students
of all backgrounds -- immigrant and non-immigrant, Black,
Latino, Asian, Arab and white -- mobilized to meet this racist
provocation. Jim Gilchrist was hoping to sell his message of hate
but the people were not buying. Let tonight be a model for others
around the country. And let it be a lesson to the Minutemen:
wherever they go, they will be confronted. We have an obligation
to the millions of immigrants in this country who are being
demonized and targeted by the Minutemen, KKK and other
racists," said Karina Garcia, Political Chair of Chicano Caucus.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 323-464-1636
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
Seattle: 206-568-1661
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STAND UP FOR LYNNE STEWART ON OCTOBER 15 AND 16!
Friends & Americans--
Throughout American history, a number
of attorneys have placed people's
needs and human rights before
personal desire for wealth and position. Most
toil in obscurity, defending the
indigent in criminal cases that few lawyers
care to touch, others support mothers
and children in the least glamorous of
civil cases, helping them to remain in
their homes and to put food on the
table.
A few, like the late Bill Kunstler, rise
to fame, devote themselves to
people's movements, and live their
later days, with no lack of stress, but
in the comfort of family and friends.
Rarely does an attorney find herself
in a controversy as notorious as that
of her best known clients; rarely does
a grandmother, suffering from cancer,
disbarred from her livelihood, ever-
vigilant for the rights of all of us,
face the fate of a political prisoner,
face the abyss of the American (could
it happen here?) gulag.
I do not think that I overstate
the case when I make the claim that one
school-teacher-turned-lawyer
has become exemplary in the
history of people's movements
for her singular dedication
to the rule of law, democratic
principles, and the human rights
of the powerless, poor and reviled.
Lynne Stewart is not now, nor
has she ever been, a terrorist.
Lynne Stewart has been tried and
convicted for her sheroic devotion to the
American Constitution.
Lynne Stewart has been tried and
convicted by a government that has
relentlessly transferred power from
the American people to a seemingly
conscienceless coterie of neo-cons,
con-artists and enablers (nominal
dissenters better known for being
nowhere when we need them).
Please read "The Case of Lynne Stewart"
by Heidi Boghosian and Ian Head, a
publication of the National Lawyers
Guild, and visit the website,
www.lynnestewart.org. Please investigate
this case further on your own.
I think that you will be convinced
that Lynne's case is a watershed in our
ongoing struggle for human rights.
It is not for Lynne alone that I ask
you to stand up, but for yourself and
for your friends and for all those
who stand up to injustices known and
unimaginable. After all, who
is going to defend all of us?
Please prioritize your schedule
for Sunday, October 15 and Monday, October
16. Please add the following
information to your calendar.
SUNDAY, October 15, 4:00 PM
RALLY AND TRIBUTE
Riverside Church, between 120 & 122nd
Street and Riverside Drive, Manhattan
(#1 or 9 to 125th Street)
On the eve of the sentencing, show
your support and love for Lynne Stewart.
A tribute to her legal career and
to her political life. Speakers and
Entertainment include Vinie Burrows,
Michael Warren, Raging Grannies, Peace
Grannies, Howie Hawkins, Michael Smith,
Michael Ratner, Professor Louie,
Ralph Shoeman, Jeff Mackler,
Black Waxx, and more!
MONDAY, October 16, 8:00 AM
RALLY AND SENTENCING
Tom Paine Park (Foley Square) Centre St
and Worth St, Manhattan
(#6, J, M to Brooklyn Bridge or Chambers Street)
Rally to accompany Lynne Stewart to Court.
Demonstrate your support. You
cannot be too busy for this historic
moment. One to tell your
grandchildren about. Crucial
to the atmosphere of outraged citizenry we
need. Be there for the early rally.
Go with Lynne to court. If there‚s no
room... rally outside the courthouse in the square.
Thank you.
--zool
Paul H. Zulkowitz
The Art & Politics of Justice & Joy
1068 Highland Place
Woodmere NY 11598
zoolTheArtandPolitics@hotmail.com
646-549-1615
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QUOTE
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
"You can't talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro
without talking about billions of dollars. You can't talk about
ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken
out of slums .... we are treading in difficult water, because
it really means that we are saying that something is wrong
.... with capitalism .... There must be a better distribution of wealth
and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism."
— Reverend Martin Luther King
(Frogmore, S.C. November 14, 1966)
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U.S. Out of Iraq Now! We Are the Majority!
End Colonial Occupation from Iraq,
to Palestine, Haiti, and Everywhere!
October 28, 2006, 12 Noon, U.N. Plaza, S.F.
Part of the Locally Coordinated Anti-War Protests from Coast to Coast
Vote With Your Feet … and Your Voices, and Banners, and Signs!
Let Every Politician Feel the Power of the People!
415-821-6545
answer@actionsf.org
http://answer.pephost.org/site/News2?abbr=ANS_&page=NewsArticle&id=7836
Tues. Oct. 3, mailing at 10am/ meeting at 7pm
Mass Mailing for Oct. 28 & Weekly A.N.S.W.E.R. Activist Meeting
2489 Mission St. Room 30 (at 21st St.) near 24th St. BART, #14,
#49 MUNI, San Francisco
Join us for analysis and discussion of the week’s events, including
the US war drive in the Middle East. Find out how you can help
build for the Oct. 28 Anti-war march and rally. The mass mailing
will start at 10am and continue through the ANSWER Meeting,
which will begin at 7pm. For more info or to volunteer,
call 415-821-6545.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
ANSWER POSTERING CASE HEARING UPDATE:
A hearing was held Thursday, September 28th at
San Francisco Superior Court. The judge ruled
later that week against A.N.S.W.E.R.
To find out how you can help, or if you would like to read
a copy of attorney Ben Rosenfeld’s reply to the city's response
to our lawsuit, which summarizes the main points of our position,
please contact ANSWER at 415-821-6545 or
answer@actionsf.org.
We extend our solidarity to ANSWER in their struggle against the City
and County of San Francisco who, acting as a body, are increasingly
limiting our right to free speech (including the right to post public
announcements--a centuries-old tradition of mass communication
among the poor) and the right to free assembly--as was experienced
by the group People United for General and Unconditional Amnesty
to All, who were denied their permits for a rally on 24th and Mission
Street on Saturday, September 16 based upon a false report by
the Mission Police Station representative at the permit hearing.
It is also true that the DPT ISCOTT hearing never goes against
Police recommendations. So, there you have it, the Police and
their generals have the last say on permits in SF!
Paid advertising in the mass media is prohibitive. Only those with millions
of dollars to spend for advertising are allowed a public voice.
Our society is plastered with product publicity everywhere our
eyes look--in shop windows, billboards, on buildings, signs
on trucks as we drive by--we are inundated with commercial pollution--
in our line of site; on the airwaves; and on TV? Forget about it!
Meanwhile the politicians (all wealthy or wannabes themselves)
claim to represent the views of the people while at the same time,
silencing them by requiring exorbitant fees and denying permits--
not to speak of inflicting ridiculous fines such as they are trying
to do to ANSWER.
(The Department of Public Works (DPW) once tried to charge
the person who applied for the permits for Feb. 16, 2001 protests
over $23,000.00 for "clean-up of Market Street" after the
massive march of over 500,000 people from Justin Herman
Plaza to the Civic Center in solidarity with "THE WORLD SAYS
NO TO WAR" International protest against the impending war on Iraq
held across the world that weekend.)
Right here in San Francisco the fees for permits have skyrocketed--
a sound permit that used to cost $65.00 in 2001 costs $453.20 now!
And the permit process is long and complicated. The permit
application for DPT, in addition, costs over $200.00, is 17 pages
long and full of rules and regulations that must be followed.
What's worse, both the City and County and the ACLU have
agreed that while we have the right to free speech, the City
and County does, indeed, have the right to say when and where
we may or may not exercise it.
I don't quite remember when we voted for such things!
WE SAY NO!
The City's obligation is to make sure our right to organize,
publicize and protest is protected! And that our right to free
speech and the right to have direct contact with our own
community is guaranteed!
We must be able to post public events, and hold public
events where the people are. The San Francisco
Police Department routinely protects the rights of the Zionists
when they want to hold counter-demonstrations to our
antiwar actions. They also protect the "Right to Lifers" when
they want to march down San Francisco's Embarcadero--right
here in San Francisco, the Pro-Choice City!
The San Francisco Police Department goes all out to
accommodate them! WHY NOT US!
ANSWER POSTERING CASE:
We urge you to support ANSWER's free speech lawsuit
against the San Francisco Department of Public Works (DPW).
As you may be aware from articles that have recently appeared
in the Bay Guardian, the SF Weekly and elsewhere, the DPW
is attempting to impose fines that now total more than $45,000
against the local ANSWER Coalition for postering violations. If the
city wins, it means that if your group puts out a leaflet about
a meeting and a person you handed it to goes and posts it
up on a lamppost, your group will be held liable for damages
automatically by the City and County.
This is what's at stake here. A freedom-loving city would
build postering kiosks around all the lampposts throughout
the city where neighbors could communicate with neighbors.
Make them attractive and easy for the community to maintain
themselves.
What about those lost dog, cat, bird flyers that get posted
up all over. Is the city going to fine grandma for trying to find
her lost cat?
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
!VIVA FIDEL! LONG LIVE FIDEL! LONG LIVE THE CUBAN REVOLUTION!
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
SCROLL DOWN TO READ:
EVENT ANNOUNCEMENTS
GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
ARTICLES IN FULL
LINKS ONLY
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
EVENT ANNOUNCEMENTS
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WORLD CAN'T WAIT-- DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME
For information and interviews, contact:
Reiko Redmonde, 510-384-1816
Nationwide Protests to Drive Out the Bush Regime-
No Work, No School-- MARCH October 5, 2006
San Francisco Info:
12 NOON CONVERGENCE at Justin Herman Plaza
1pm MARCH on Market Street
4pm Main RALLY and People’s Tribunal Indicting the Regime
7pm Into the Night with Camp "WAKE THE FOLK UP!"
Broadcasting 24+ hours from Justin Herman Plaza
9am (Friday October 6): Morning Rally and press conference
On Thursday, October 5, people will walk out of school,
take off work, gather in town squares, and MARCH in cities
across the country, declaring their intention bring the Bush
regime to a halt. In the last week, momentum is growing
as the number of cities planning protests jumped from
50 to over 80. Meanwhile, the Bush administration
is racing to bolt into place an unprecedented new law
which would legalize torture and eliminate habeas
corpus, a basic right to legal redress first established
in England in 1215.
"Face it. The Bush regime is remaking the world, very
quickly, in a fascist way and for generations to come.
Denial won't help. And the Democrats aren't stopping
them. But WE must. And we can. There are millions of us…"
This message calling people out on October 5 from singer
Michelle Phillips (Mamas and Papas) is being heard nationally
on Air America radio spots. Thousands also contributed
to publish a full-page ad in USA Today on September 20,
reading in part: "Endless wars. Torture. Katrina. Theocracy…
This regime does not represent us and we will drive it out."
In the past week, organizers of October 5 marches have
had to battle with police departments for permits to march
through the center of the city in Chicago, New York City
and San Francisco. They see these obstructions linked
to increased police state measures as Bush threatens
a new war on Iran and the "Military Commissions Act of 2006"
races through the Senate with bi-partisan support. Sold as
a compromise, the "torture bill" allows the president
to name anyone an "enemy combatant"-- indefinitely
removing them from reach of legal counsel.
Debra Sweet, national coordinator of World Can’t Wait
said Tuesday, "We are at a defining moment for this country
and its people. There are millions who don’t want to live
in a theocratic new Rome – but we don’t have unlimited
time to stop this regime. What WE do – or fail to do – right
now will impact the lives of millions all over the world for
generations. We are putting this to everyone: When all
other avenues of change are blocked, what do people
do? Hit the streets. This is the chance we have on October 5."
The World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime CALL
has been signed by tens of thousands of people, including
GORE VIDAL, HARRY BELAFONTE, DAN ELLSBERG, JONATHAN
KOZOL, SEN. JAMES ABOUREZK, SEAN PENN, ERICA JONG,
U.S. REP. JOHN CONYERS, MARGARET CHO, MICHAEL ERIC DYSON,
CORNEL WEST, HOWARD ZINN, MARK RUFFALO, JANE FONDA,
CINDY SHEEHAN, PAUL HAGGIS, ALICE WALKER, and REV. JESSE JACKSON.
Check www.worldcantwait.org for locations for October 5 protests.
Interviews available with selected signers
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
South Bay Mobilization and Friends of South Asia
present
"One Country:
A Bold Proposal to End the
Israeli-Palestinian Impasse"
A Talk by Ali Abunimah
Saturday, October 14th, 2:00 pm
Clear-eyed, sharply reasoned, and compassionate,
One Country proposes a radical alternative: to revive
an old and neglected idea of one state shared by two
peoples.
Ali Abunimah shows how the two are by now
so intertwined—geographically and economically—
that separation cannot lead to the security Israelis
need or the rights Palestinians must have.
Ali Abunimah is a prominent Palestinian author, media
voice, and frequent commentator on KPFA. He is the
founder of Electronic Intifada, electronicintifada.net,
an internet gateway about Palestine and the Palestine
– Israeli conflict.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
Urgent call from October 22 Coalition against Police Brutality, SF
October 22 Coalition against Police Brutality, Repression
and Criinalization of a generation
National Day of Protest, March and Rally in SF, Planning
NO MORE STOLEN LIVES ! NO MAS VIDAS ROBADAS !
Contact:
mesha Monge-Irizarry
Idriss Stelley Foundation
(415) 595-8251 24HR Bilingual Spa. Crisis line
iolmisha@cs. com
How: Already involved are : October 22 Bay Area, Idriss
Stelley Foundation, SF CEDP (Campaign to End the Death
Penalty, ISO (International Socialist Organization, Bay Area),
Bay Area Families of Victims and Survivors of Police brutality,
Code Pink
http://www.october22.org/
GET INVOLVED: To join our mailing list, please write to:
sf1022-talk-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
U.S. Out of Iraq Now! We Are the Majority!
End Colonial Occupation from Iraq,
to Palestine, Haiti, and Everywhere!
October 28, 2006, 12 Noon, U.N. Plaza, S.F.
Part of the Locally Coordinated Anti-War Protests from Coast to Coast
Vote With Your Feet … and Your Voices, and Banners, and Signs!
Let Every Politician Feel the Power of the People!
http://answer.pephost.org/site/News2?abbr=ANS_&page=NewsArticle&id=7836
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
End Canada's Occupation of Afghanistan!
Call for action on October 28, 2006
This call for a pan-Canadian day of action, co-signed by the
Canadian Peace Alliance, the Canadian Islamic Congress, the
Canadian Labour Congress and the Montreal coalition Echec
a la Guerre, is being distributed and discussed at the World Peace
Forum now taking place in Vancouver. -SV The Collectif Échec
à la guerre, Canadian Peace Alliance, the Canadian Labour Congress,
and the Canadian Islamic Congress are jointly calling for a pan-
Canadian day of protest this October 28th, 2006, to bring Canadian
troops home from Afghanistan.
On that day, people all across the country will unite to tell
Stephen Harper that we are opposed to
his wholehearted support for Canadian and U.S. militarism.
This October marks the fifth anniversary of the invasion and
occupation of Afghanistan, and the people of that country are
still suffering from the ravages of war. Reconstruction in the
country is at a standstill and the needs of the Afghan people
are not being met. The rule of the new Afghan State, made
up largely of drug running warlords, will not realize the
democratic aspirations of the people there. In fact, according
to Human Rights Watch reports, the human rights record
of those warlords in recent years has not been better than
the Taliban.
We are told that the purpose of this war is to root out terrorism
and protect our societies, yet the heavy-handed approach of
a military occupation trying to impose a US-friendly
government on the Afghan people will force more Afghans
to become part of the resistance movement. It will also
make our societies more -- not less -- likely to see terrorist
attacks.
No discussion on military tactics in the House of Commons
will change that reality. Indeed, violence is increasing with
more attacks on both coalition troops and on Afghan civilians.
While individual Canadian soldiers may have gone to Afghanistan
with the best of intentions, they are operating under the
auspices of a US-led state building project that cares little
or the needs of the Afghan people. US and Canadian interests
rest with the massive $3.2 billion Trans Afghan Pipeline (TAP)
project, which will bring oil from the Caspian region through
southern Afghanistan (where Canada is stationed) and onto the
ports of Pakistan.
It has been no secret that the TAP has dominated US foreign
policy towards Afghanistan for the last decade. Now Canadian
oil and gas corporations have their own interests in the TAP.
Over the last decade, the role of the Canadian Armed Forces
abroad has changed, and Canadian foreign policy has become
a replica of the US empire-building rhetoric. The end result
of this process is now plain to see with the role of our troops
in Southern Afghanistan, with the enormous budget increases
for war expenditures and "security," with the Bush-style speeches
of Stephen Harper, and with the fear campaigns around
"homegrown terrorism" to foster support for those nefarious
changes.
It is this very course that will get young Canadian soldiers killed,
that will endanger our society and consume more and more
of its resources for destruction and death in Afghanistan.
We demand a freeze in defense and security budgets until
an in-depth public discussion is held on those issues across
Canada. The mission in Afghanistan has already cost Canadians
more than $4 billion. That money could have been used to fund
human needs in Canada or abroad. Instead it is being used
to kill civilians in Afghanistan and advance the interests
of corporations.
On October 28th, stand up and be counted.
Canadian Troops Out of Afghanistan Now!
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
VOICES OF A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
Thursday, November 9, 2006 - 7:30 pm
Berkeley Community Theatre, 1930 Allston Way
Voices of a People's History of the United States
Dramatic Readings Celebrating the Enduring Spirit of Dissent
The Middle East Children's Alliance, Speak Out,
Vanguard Public Foundation and KPFA 94.1FM present:
The Bay Area Premiere of Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove's
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
San Francisco Board of Education Meeting
Tuesday, November 14th, 7PM
555 Franklin Street, 1st Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102
415/241-6427
The Board will vote on a resolution to phase out JROTC.
Harvest Time
By Bonnie Weinstein
Congress is postponing decisions about immigrant rights legislation
until after the elections. They say they don't want to antagonize
the Latino community before elections. But there is another reason.
It's harvest time! They need thousands of immigrant workers
to harvest the nations crops. They are not worried about antagonizing
Latino's-it's America's agribusiness they don't want to upset. Clearly
they don't want to deport all immigrants, they just want to be able
to terrorize them into submission.
What many American-born workers don't realize is that this threat
will be extended to them as well-not deportation, of course-but
the threat of being out of a job if they stand up for their rights.
What are the common dangers that we face? At the stroke of
a bosses pen we can be fired and find ourselves without a livelihood.
Throughout America factories are being closed down and re-built
in countries that force workers to live as slaves while a bonanza
of U.S, tax-free, corporate profits flows freely across all borders
and into the bosses' pockets.
An even more sinister danger is the lure of U.S. Military service.
All of our children and especially the children of undocumented
workers are in danger of being used as cannon fodder to maintain
the power and wealth of America's corporations. The Military
is entrenched in our public schools. They don't go to the schools
of the wealthy. To the children of immigrants they promise
citizenship and to the children of poor, American workers they
promise college and a career. But it does no good to become
a citizen after you are dead and it's hard to have a career with
half of your brain or body missing in action!
On Tuesday, November 14th at 7:00 P.M., the San Francisco Board
of Education will vote on whether to phase out the Junior Reserve
Officers Training Corps-a military recruitment program for the
High Schools. We must be there in force to see that they do
so immediately, and that they rid the schools of all military
recruiters! It is up to us so please come! That's Tuesday,
November 14, 7:00 P.M., at 555 Franklin Street, First Floor.
You can call the day before and the day of the meeting
to get on the speakers list: 415-241-6427.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
Close the SOA and Change Oppressive U.S. Foreign Policy
Nov. 17-19, 2006 - Converge on Fort Benning, Georgia
People's Movements across the Americas are becoming increasingly more
powerful. Military "solutions" to social problems as supported by
institutions like the School of the Americas were unable to squash their
voices, and the call for justice and accountability is getting louder each
day.
Add your voice to the chorus, demand justice for all the people of the
Americas and engage in nonviolent direct action to close the SOA and
change oppressive U.S. foreign policy.
With former SOA graduates being unmasked in Chile, Argentina, Colombia,
Paraguay, Honduras, and Peru for their crimes against humanity, and with
the blatant similarities between the interrogation methods and torture
methods used at Abu Ghraib and those described in human rights abuse cases
in Latin America, the SOA/WHINSEC must be held accountable!
Visit http://www.soaw.org to learn more about the November Vigil, hotel
and travel information, the November Organizing Packet, and more.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
Shop for a Donation at Al-Awda!
Interested in furthering your knowledge about Palestine
and its people?
Want to help make the Palestinian Right to Return a reality?
Looking for ways to show your support for Palestine and
Palestinian refugees?
Why not shop for a donation at Al-Awda
http://al-awda.org/shop.html
and help support a great organization and cause!!
Al-Awda offers a variety of educational materials including interesting
and unique books on everything from oral histories, photo books
on Palestinian refugees, to autobiographies, narratives, political
analysis, and culture. We also have historical maps of Palestine
(in Arabic and English), educational films, flags of various sizes,
and colorful greeting cards created by Palestinian children.
You can also show your support for a Free Palestine, and wear with
pride, great looking T-shirts, pendants, and a variety of Palestine pins.
Shop for a Donation at Al-Awda!
Visit http://al-awda.org/shop.html for these great items, and more!
The Educational Supplies Division
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
Tel: 760-685-3243
Fax: 360-933-3568
E-mail: info@al-awda.org
WWW: http://al-awda.org
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition (PRRC), is a broad-
based, non-partisan, democratic, and charitable organization of
grassroots activists and students committed to comprehensive public
education about the rights of all Palestinian refugees to return to their
homes and lands of origin, and to full restitution for all their confiscated
and destroyed property in accordance with the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, International law and the numerous United Nations
Resolutions upholding such rights (see FactSheet). Al-Awda, PRRC
is a not for profit tax-exempt educational and charitable 501(c)(3)
organization as defined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the
United States of America. Under IRS guidelines, your donations
to Al-Awda, PRRC are tax-deductible.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
I demand an immediate apology from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez...
AN OPEN LETTER OF PROTEST FROM LUCIFER SATAN
The Rev. Obed Juan Vizcaino Najera (Maracaibo) intercedes:
Dear world media editors:
A few days ago, I was shocked at what I consider to be a monumental
offense against the vast work that I have been carrying out for thousands
and thousands of years throughout mankind's history.
I know that I am no gold nugget but to compare me to someone
as evil as Mr. Bush, aka Mr. Danger, is an unfair and disproportionate
offense that I cannot allow to pass.
Only I know and understand how I felt when I heard that extremely offensive
comment about me coming out of President Chavez's mouth before
the General Assembly at the United Nations.
I don't deserve such an insult!
This is why I now come before the nations of the world to let it be known
that I want nothing to do with that ultra-dark and hyper-diabolical Mr. Bush.
I m not a friend of the current pResident of the United States, even though
(unfortunately) we are blood relatives.
I broke up all diplomatic relations with Mr. Bush and recalled my Ambassador
when he attempted to steal the sulfur mines in hell and threatened to invade
and bomb us to kingdom come should we fail to heed his ominous threats.
I categorically reject any alliance or friendship with the likes of Mr. George
W. Bush. God have mercy on me!!! Just the thought of such an alliance fills
me with dread and makes me shudder.
Therefore, I demand an apology from President Hugo Chavez.
I demand that the United Nations allow me the opportunity to reply and
clarify that it wasn't me who stood at the podium under the appearance
of George W. Bush.
I want to make it absolutely clear that I am highly offended that President
Chavez could confuse my scent with that pestilent odor of war, death and
destruction that emanates from this dark entity known in your dimension
as George W. Bush - a fiend from the deepest, darkest, and most dismal
abyss in the entire Universe.
I implore that the Secretary General of the United Nations call upon President
Chavez to retract his words before the nations of the world. I am highly
offended that President Chavez has dared to compare me to this most
hideous ghoul: George W. Bush.
Signed:
Lucifer Satan
A communication delivered by:
The Rev. Obed Juan Vizcaino Najera
obedvizcaino@gmail.com
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=67560
Published: Friday, September 22, 2006
Bylined to: The Rev. Obed Juan Vizcaino Najera
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Before You Enlist
Excellent flash film that should be shown to all students.
http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=ZFsaGv6cefw
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QUOTE OF THE DAY:
In an interview in March 1995 entitled, "Jesse Helms: Setting the
Record Straight" that appeared in the Middle East Quarterly, Helms
said, "I have long believed that if the United States is going to give
money to Israel, it should be paid out of the Department of Defense
budget. My question is this: If Israel did not exist, what would
U.S. defense costs in the Middle East be? Israel is at least the
equivalent of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Middle East. Without
Israel promoting its and America's common interests, we would
be badly off indeed."
(Jesse Helms was the senior senator from North Carolina and the
chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time.)
http://www.meforum.org/article/244
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IN VOGUE:
Unspeakably grotesque, This spread was so galling I felt a primal
scream rising inside me. And it was not because I am a woman.
The link is
http://www.voguevan ity.it/cont/ 060hvg/default. asp
The wounds of "western civilization" inflict themselves over
and over...unapologetic , shameless...ditto BW
http://www.voguevanity.it/cont/060hvg/default.asp
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A CALL TO SUPPORT THE CASE OF ELVIRA ARELLANO
Stand in solidarity with all immigrants, documented and undocumented
The IAC urges you to support the case of Elvira Arellano. Elvira is
an undocumented worker who is taking a heroic stand against
deportations and fighting for her rights. She is a native of Michoacán,
Mexico who came to the U.S. like many of the other 12 million
undocumented in this country, in search of work and a better life.
In 2002, Elvira was detained by Homeland Security agents in an
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sweep at O’Hare Airport
in Chicago under the guise of allegedly looking for “terrorists”. She
was detained by the Department of Homeland Security for using
a false social security number on her job at O’Hare.
On August 18, 2006 Elvira Arellano and her seven year old son,
Saul who is a US citizen, took sanctuary in Adalberto United Methodist
Church in Chicago instead of reporting for deportation, primarily
because Saul has health problems. She has pledged to live indefinitely
in the church until granted a reprieve.
Elvira is a well known activist, representing many families in
Congressional hearings and speaking on behalf of immigrant rights.
She worked to organize in July 2005 a march of 50,000 for immigrant
rights in Chicago, and went on a hunger strike to support workers who
were picked up by ICE prior to the historic May 1st boycott in 2006.
Arellano was a founder of both La Familia Latina Unida and the
Coalition of African Arab Asian European and Latino Immigrants
of Illinois (CAAAELII).
The case of Elvira Arellano is a just case
Elvira Arellano has become the symbol of resistance to the heartless
and callous deportations that are sweeping the country. Despite
a legislative standstill in Congress, not only are deportations
escalating, local officials around the nation are implementing
de facto immigration policy that amount to a witch-hunt against
immigrants. A case in point is the anti-immigrant ordinance that
passed in July in Hazelton, PA.
Due to her heroic stand, a group of Black ministers spoke last
week at Adalberto Methodist of the comparisons of Arellano
to Rosa Parks. Reverend Albert Tyson said he hopes “their
support would increase the bonds between Latinos and African-
Americans.” At the meeting Arellano said, “I don’t only speak
for me and my son, but for millions of families like mine.”
Supporters from the predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood
chanted, “Luchando mano y mano, Boriqua y Mexicano!”
(“Fighting hand in hand, Puerto Rican and Mexican!”)
Elvira Arellano is the perfect example that the anti-immigrant
hysteria sweeping the country is an inhumane situation that
has become intolerable. The human rights of immigrants are
being cruelly violated under the guise of fighting terrorism
or stopping “illegal” immigration. In fact, no human being
is illegal and whether in the U.S. documented or undocumented,
immigrants have a right to live in peace, without fear of evictions
from their homes or the country.
How you can help Elvira:
1. Write letters to Illinois Senators Richard Durbin and Barack
Obama as well as your own legislator urging them to prevent
her deportation.
For Senator Durbin visit: http://durbin.senate.gov/contact.cfm#contact
For Senator Obama: http://obama.senate.gov/contact/index.php
2. Send Letters to the Chicago Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune
asking them to stop demonizing Elvira as well as all immigrants.
Their emails are letters@suntimes.com and ctc-tribletter@tribune.com.
3. Send letters of support directly to Elvira at the organization she works
with and who has been spearheading her support, Sin Fronteras
at Centro Sin Fronteras 2300 S. Blue Island Ave., Chicago IL 60608
or visit the website: www.legalizationyes.com
For Spanish speakers visit:
www.legalizacionsi.com
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TWO AMICUS BRIEFS FILED FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL WITH
THE 3RD CIRCUIT FEDERAL APPEALS COURT IN JULY 2006
These pdf files can be found on Michael Schiffmann's web site at:
http://againstthecrimeofsilence.de/english/copy_of_mumia/legalarchive/
The first brief is from the National Lawyers Guild.
The second brief is from the NAACP Legal Defense
and Educational Fund, Inc.
Howard Keylor
For the Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
www.laboractionmumia.org.
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SIR! NO SIR!
I urge everyone to get a copy of "Sir! No Sir!" at:
http://www.sirnosir.com/
It is an extremely informative and powerful film
of utmost importance today. I was a participant
in the anti-Vietnam war movement. What a
powerful thing it was to see troops in uniform
leading the march against the war! If you would
like to read more here are two very good
publications:
Out Now!: A Participant's Account of the Movement
in the United States Against the Vietnam War
by Fred Halstead (Hardcover - Jun 1978)
and:
GIs speak out against the war;: The case of the
Ft. Jackson 8; by Fred Halstead (Unknown Binding - 1970).
Both available at:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/103-1123166-0136605?search-alias=books&rank=+availability,-proj-total-margin&field-author=Fred%20Halstead
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein
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Endorse the following petition:
Don't Let Idaho Kill Endangered Wolves
Target: Fish and Wildlife Service
Sponsor: Defenders of Wildlife
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/664280276?z00m=99090&z00m=99090<l=1155834550
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THIS JUST IN: THE KPFA PROGRAM COUNCIL HAS TURNED DOWN
THE SHOW!
SUPPORT "TAKING AIM" produced by Ralph Schoenman and
Mya Shone.
LET KPFA KNOW WE ARE DISAPPOINTED!
To contact KPFA PROGRAM COUNCIL email:
programcouncil@lists.kpfa.org
KPFA's Tracy Rosenberg voted to air "Taking Aim" and we
commend her for it.
You can thank her by writing her at:
tracyrose@gmail.com
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein
Here's my letter to the KPFA Program Council::
To: KPFA PROGRAM COUNCIL
programcouncil@lists.kpfa.org
KPFA RADIO
Re: "Taking Aim"
Dear Council Members,
We are very disappointed that KPFA decided not to air the extremely
important show, "Taking Aim" produced by Ralph Schoenman and
Mya Shone.
Of course, we are also disappointed by your reluctance
to air a PSA for a rally to defend death row inmate, renowned
commentator, leader and writer, Mumia Abu-Jamal, because the
group that sponsored the rally was not a 501c3, non-profit,
semi-corporation.
I am happy to say that I did hear it announced in the Community
Calendar during Denis Bernstein's "Flashpoints," Thursday evening,
9/14, the day before the rally. But I'm sorry to say that I did not
hear the PSA.
God only knows, the downtrodden need a public voice more
than ever.
Organizers are not even allowed to post up posters and
announcements anymore in San Francisco. A.N.S.W.E.R. is currently
in a battle over the right to practice this centuries-old custom of
"posting up" for meetings, marches and rallies--historically one
of the only venues of mass communication freely available to the poor.
"Taking Aim" is a program that express that public voice.
KPFA is also supposed to express that public voice.
Now is not the time to silence it!
Please reconsider your decision not to air "Taking Aim." And end
the prohibition against airing the PSAs of non-501c3 groups and
organizations--after all, aren't they the grass roots of the matter?
Sincerely,
Bonnie Weinstein, www.bauaw.org
415-824-8730
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END ALL U.S. AID TO ISRAEL!
Stop funding Israel's war against Palestine
Complete the form at the website listed below with your information.
Personalize the message text on the right with
your own words, if you wish.
Click the Next Step button to send your letter
to these decision makers:
President George W. Bush
Vice President Richard 'Dick' B. Cheney
Your Senators
Your Representative
Go here to register your outrage:
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy?
JServSessionIdr003=cga2p2o6x1.app2a&cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=177
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Idriss Stelley Foundation is in critical financial crisis, please help !
ISF is in critical financial crisis, and might be forced to close
its doors in a couple of months due to lack of funds to cover
DSL, SBC and utilities, which is a disaster for our numerous
clients, since the are the only CBO providing direct services
to Victims (as well as extended failies) of police misconduct
for the whole city of SF. Any donation, big or small will help
us stay alive until we obtain our 501-c3 nonprofit Federal
Status! Checks can me made out to
ISF, ( 4921 3rd St , SF CA 94124 ). Please consider to volunteer
or apply for internship to help covering our 24HR Crisis line,
provide one on one couseling and co facilitate our support
groups, M.C a show on SF Village Voice, insure a 2hr block
of time at ISF, moderate one of our 26 websites for ISF clients !
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeo9ewi/idrissstelleyfoundation/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/isf23/
Report Police Brutality
24HR Bilingual hotline
(415) 595-8251
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Justice4Asa/
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Appeal for funds:
Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches
Visit the Dahr Jamail Iraq website http://dahrjamailiraq.com
Request for Support
Dahr Jamail will soon return to the Middle East to continue his
independent reporting. As usual, reporting independently is a costly
enterprise; for example, an average hotel room is $50, a fixer runs $50
per day, and phone/food average $25 per day. Dahr will report from the
Middle East for one month, and thus needs to raise $5,750 in order to
cover his plane ticket and daily operating expenses.
A rare opportunity has arisen for Dahr to cover several stories
regarding the occupation of Iraq, as well as U.S. policy in the region,
which have been entirely absent from mainstream media.
With the need for independent, unfiltered information greater than ever,
your financial support is deeply appreciated. Without donations from
readers, ongoing independent reports from Dahr are simply not possible.
All donations go directly towards covering Dahr's on the ground
operating expenses.
(c)2006 Dahr Jamail.
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New Flash Film
From Young Ava Over At 'Peace Takes Courage'
http://www.peacetakescourage.com/page-blog.htm
http://letter.cf.huffingtonpost.com/
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Save the Lebanese Civilians Petition
http://epetitions.net/julywar/index.php
http://donations.tayyar.org/
To The Concerned Citizen of The World:
http://epetitions.net/julywar/index.php
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Legal update on Mumia Abu-Jamal’s case
Excerpts from a letter written by Robert R. Bryan, the lead attorney
for death row political prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal.
...On July 20, 2006, we filed the Brief of Appellee and Cross
Appellant, Mumia Abu-Jamal, in the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia.
http://www.workers.org/2006/us/mumia-0810/
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Today in Palestine!
For up to date information on Israeli's brutal attack on
human rights and freedom in Palestine and Lebanon go to:
http://www.theheadlines.org
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For a great car magnet--a black ribbon with the words, "Bring
the troops home now!" written in red, and it also comes in a
lapel pin!--go to:
(Put out by A.N.S.W.E.R.)
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Ecommerce?store_id=1621
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THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF ZIONISM
BY RALPH SCHOENMAN
Essential reading for understanding the development of Zionism
and Israel in the service of British and USA imperialism.
The full text of the book can be found for free at:
http://www.marxists.de/middleast/schoenman/
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JOIN THE LYNNE STEWAR DEFENSE
For those of you who don't know who Lynne Stewart is, go to
www.lynnestewart.org and get acquainted with Lynne and her
cause. Lynne is a criminal defense attorney who is being persecuted
for representing people charged with heinous crimes. It is a bedrock
of our legal system that every criminal defendant has a right to a
lawyer. Persecuting Lynne is an attempt to terrorize and intimidate
all criminal defense attorneys in this country so they will stop
representing unpopular people. If this happens, the fascist takeover
of this nation will be complete. We urge you all to go the website,
familiarize yourselves with Lynne and her battle for justice
www.lynnestewart.org
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NATIONAL COMMITTEE TO FREE THE CUBAN FIVE
Comité Nacional por la Libertad de los Cinco Cubanos
Who are the Cuban Five?
The Cuban Five are five Cuban men who are in U.S. prison, serving
four life sentences and 75 years collectively, after being wrongly
convicted in U.S. federal court in Miami, on June 8, 2001.
They are Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero,
Fernando González and René González.
The Five were falsely accused by the U.S. government of committing
espionage conspiracy against the United States, and other related
charges.
But the Five pointed out vigorously in their defense that they were
involved in monitoring the actions of Miami-based terrorist groups,
in order to prevent terrorist attacks on their country of Cuba.
The Five’s actions were never directed at the U.S. government.
They never harmed anyone nor ever possessed nor used any
weapons while in the United States.
The Cuban Five’s mission was to stop terrorism
For more than 40 years, anti-Cuba terrorist organizations based
in Miami have engaged in countless terrorist activities against
Cuba, and against anyone who advocates a normalization
of relations between the U.S. and Cuba. More than 3,000 Cubans
have died as a result of these terrorists’ attacks.
Gerardo Hernández, 2 Life Sentences
Antonio Guerrero, Life Sentence
Ramon Labañino, Life Sentence
Fernando González, 19 Years
René González, 15 Years
Free The Cuban Five Held Unjustly In The U.S.!
http://www.freethefive.org/
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Eyewitness Account from Oaxaca
A website is now being circulated that has up-to-date info
and video that can be downloaded of the police action and
developments in Oaxaca. For those who have not seen it
elsewhere, the website is:
www.mexico.indymedia.org/oaxaca
http://www.mexico.indymedia.org/oaxaca
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REMINDER TO ALL GROUPS: BE SURE AND POST ALL ACTIONS AND
EVENTS TO WWW.INDYBAY.ORG TO REACH THE MOST PEOPLE
AGAINST THE WAR IN THE BAY AREA!
http://www.indybay.org
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Iraq Body Count
For current totals, see our database page.
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr13.php
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The Cost of War
[Over three-hundred-billion so far...bw]
http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182
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"The Democrats always promise to help workers, and the don't!
The Republicans always promise to help business, and the do!"
- Mort Sahl
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"It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees."
- Emilano Zapata
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Join the Campaign to
Shut Down the Guantanamo Torture Center
Go to:
http://www.shutitdown.org/
to send a letter to Congress and the White House:
Shut Down Guantanamo and all torture centers and prisons.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.actionsf.org
sf@internationalanswer.org
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
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Great Counter-Recruitment Website
http://notyoursoldier.org/article.php?list=type&type=14
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DEFEND IMMIGRANT RIGHTS AND
CIVIL RIGHTS!
Last summer the U.S. Border Patrol arrested Shanti Sellz and
Daniel Strauss, both 23-year-old volunteers assisting immigrants
on the border, for medically evacuating 3 people in critical
condition from the Arizona desert.
Criminalization for aiding undocumented immigrants already
exists on the books in the state of Arizona. Daniel and Shanti
are targeted to be its first victims. Their arrest and subsequent
prosecution for providing humanitarian aid could result in
a 15-year prison sentence. Any Congressional compromise
with the Sensenbrenner bill (HR 4437) may include these
harmful criminalization provisions. Fight back NOW!
Help stop the criminalization of undocumented immigrants
and those who support them!
For more information call 415-821- 9683.
For information on the Daniel and Shanti Defense Campaign,
visit www.nomoredeaths.org.
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FYI
According to "Minimum Wage History" at
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth484/minwage.html "
"Calculated in real 2005 dollars, the 1968 minimum wage was the
highest at $9.12. "The 8 dollar per hour Whole Foods employees
are being paid $1.12 less than the 1968 minimum wage.
"A federal minimum wage was first set in 1938. The graph shows
both nominal (red) and real (blue) minimum wage values. Nominal
values range from 25 cents per hour in 1938 to the current $5.15/hr.
The greatest percentage jump in the minimum wage was in 1950,
when it nearly doubled. The graph adjusts these wages to 2005
dollars (blue line) to show the real value of the minimum wage.
Calculated in real 2005 dollars, the 1968 minimum wage was the
highest at $9.12. Note how the real dollar minimum wage rises and
falls. This is because it gets periodically adjusted by Congress.
The period 1997-2006, is the longest period during which the
minimum wage has not been adjusted. States have departed from
the federal minimum wage. Washington has the highest minimum
wage in the country at $7.63 as of January 1, 2006. Oregon is next
at $7.50. Cities, too, have set minimum wages. Santa Fe, New
Mexico has a minimum wage of $9.50, which is more than double
the state minimum wage at $4.35."
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NO BORDERS! NO WALLS! NO FENCES! GENERAL AMNESTY FOR ALL!
OUR HOMELAND IS WHERE WE LIVE!
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REPEAL THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT IN 2007!
Check out: 10 EXCELLENT REASONS NOT TO JOIN THE MILITARY
http://www.10reasonsbook.com/
Public Law print of PL 107-110, the No Child Left Behind
Act of 2001 [1.8 MB]
http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/index.html
Also, the law is up before Congress again in 2007.
See this article from USA Today:
Bipartisan panel to study No Child Left Behind
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
February 13, 2006
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-02-13-education-panel_x.htm
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The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.html
http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/decind.html
http://www.usconstitution.net/declar.html
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1805195.php
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Bill of Rights
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1805182.php
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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) A Broken, De-Humanized Military in Iraq
By Dahr Jamail
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 26 September 2006
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
2) Open Letter to Nancy Pelosi
by Bonnie Weinstein
Pelosi's Letter to Weinstein Regarding H. Res 921
Pelosi's Israel Support Statement
3) U.S. Sends Warships to Persian Gulf
Via NY Transfer News Collective
All the News that Doesn't Fit
Radio Havana Cuba
http://www.radiohc.cu
4) Rushing Off a Cliff
New York Times Editorial
September 28, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/opinion/28thu1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
5) 2 at Sago Mine on Day of Blast Commit Suicide
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/us/28sago.html
6) Research shows who dies when and where
Our nation divided into 'eight Americas'
By William J. Cromie
Harvard News Office
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/09.14/99-lifeexpectancy.html
7) UN says Gaza crisis 'intolerable'
Standards of human rights in the Palestinian territories have
fallen to intolerable new levels, says a UN expert
on the Mid-East conflict.
September 26, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5382976.stm
8) Senate, 100-0, Backs Budget for Pentagon
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:14 p.m. ET
September 29, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Defense-Spending.html?hp&ex=1159588800&en=73dffaa3995d31e7&ei=5094&partner=homepage
9) "THE DECIDER," by Toni Smith & "Yurtle the Turtle," by
Dr. Seuss
10) Poisoned on Eno Road
By BOB HERBERT
Dickson, Tenn.
October 2, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/opinion/02herbert.html?hp
11) Across Nation, Housing Costs Rise as Burden
By JANNY SCOTT and RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/nyregion/03census.html?hp&ex=1159934400&en=aee99cfd4b1ef740&ei=5094&partner=homepage
12) U.S. General Says Chávez Worries Region
By ROBERT PEAR
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/world/americas/03rumsfeld.html
14) At Risk: A Link Between Poverty and a Telltale Protein
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/health/03poor.html
15) New Militias Push Govt Back Further
Inter Press Service
Ali Al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
16) Activist Ousted From Vanderbilt Is Back, as a Teacher
By THEO EMERY
October 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/education/04lawson.html?ref=us
17) Board Redefines Rules for Union Exemption
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
October 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/washington/04labor.html
18) Layoffs at Whirlpool
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
October 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/business/04whirlpool.html
19) Adolescence: When Young People Use, Parents Seldom Know
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/health/03drug.html
20) "79 Percent of Gazan Households are Living in Poverty"
The Economy of Gaza
By SARA ROY
October 4, 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/roy10042006.html
21) Cuba Embargo's Boomerang Effect
by Patricia Grogg
Published on Wednesday, October 4, 2006 by the Inter Press Service
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34976
22) Latin America Declares Independence
by Noam Chomsky
Published on Tuesday, October 3, 2006
by the International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/03/opinion/edchomsky.php
23) Poor, Black and Dumped On
By BOB HERBERT
October 5, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/opinion/05herbert.html?hp
24) Police to Start Inspecting Bags on Boston Subway
By KATIE ZEZIMA
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/us/05boston.html?ref=us
25) U.S. Eavesdropping Is Allowed to Continue During Appeal
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 5, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/us/05nsa.html?ref=us
26) American Axle Offers Buyouts
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
October 5, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/business/05axle.html
27) Intelligent, Emotional, Ingenious: the Amazing Truth
about Whales and Dolphins
by Michael McCarthy
October 5, 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1799465.ece
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1) A Broken, De-Humanized Military in Iraq
By Dahr Jamail
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 26 September 2006
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
While the deranged chicken-hawks who "lead" the US continue their
efforts to wage another unprovoked war of aggression, this time against
Iran, what's left of their already overstretched military continues to
be bled in Iraq.
When the situation is so critical that even the corporate media is
forced to report on it, you know it's bad. Last week on the NBC Nightly
News, General Barry McCaffrey, now retired, said of the current state of
the US military, "I think, arguably, it's the worst readiness condition
the US Army has faced since the end of Vietnam." This isn't a big
surprise when we consider the facts that many soldiers are already into
their third combat tour, frequent deployments have cut training time at
home in half, and two thirds of all Army combat units are rated not
ready for combat.
The fact that 60% of National Guard soldiers have already reached their
limit for overseas combat is most likely not going to slow down the
Cheney administration's lust for more war. Most likely, they'll just
have Rummy change the Pentagon's policy that currently limits Guard
combat tours to two out of every five years.
This change was apparently already expected by Lieutenant General Steven
Blum, of the National Guard, who told NBC, "If you think the National
Guard's busy today, I think we're going to look back and say 'these were
the good old days' in about three years." A comment to which General
McCaffrey responded: "More is being asked of them, particularly the
National Guard and reserve components, than they signed up to do. And in
the near-term, we think it's going to unravel."
That "near-term" seemed to be about 72 hours away from McCaffrey's
comments. On Monday, the Army announced that because it is stretched so
thin by the occupation of Iraq, it is once again extending the combat
tours of thousands of soldiers beyond their promised 12-month tours.
It's the second time since August (i.e., last month) that this has
occurred. The 1st Brigade Armored Division, which is having its tour
extended, just happens to be located in the province of Al-Anbar, which
the military has long since lost control of. Between 3,500 and 4,000
soldiers are affected by this decision.
The move prompted defense analyst Loren Thompson to tell reporters: "The
Army is coming to the end of its rope in Iraq. It simply does not have
enough active-duty military personnel to sustain the current level of
effort."
There are currently over 142,000 US soldiers in Iraq. Just last week
General John Abizaid, the top US commander in the region, said the
military is likely to maintain and possibly even increase its force
level in Iraq through next spring.
What does this look like for US troops on the ground in Iraq? Here is an
email I received just last week from a mother whose son is serving in
the US military in Ramadi:
"My son cannot bear what he is forced to do, and has probably through
sheer terror, confusion, and split-second decisions, killed innocent
civilians. He is well aware of this, and I have witnessed the
consequences first hand. He probably carries innocent blood on his
hands. The killing of innocent people is virtually unavoidable. He is in
Al-Anbar region. You are the ONLY person in the media who has responded
to my emails. The other emails I sent to news organizations questioning
why so little news out of Al-Anbar were unanswered. I believe that it is
because the US has lost that region, and is suppressing that news to the
American public. My son called me last week from Ramadi and said the war
is lost - they are just going thru the motions, again, forced to carry
out orders and risk their lives for an unobtainable and unjust goal. I
continue to read your web site, as well as others, while I pray for my
son's safe homecoming in spring."
Her anguish, the description of her son's mental state, and her son's
report of the conditions in Ramadi, tragic as they are, come as no
surprise. At the time of this writing, over 2,703 US soldiers have been
killed in Iraq, and over ten times that number wounded. This month, over
61 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq. With an average of over
2.5 killed daily this month, at the time of this writing it's already
the third bloodiest month this year in Iraq for occupation forces.
Another report released last weekend from the Veterans Health
Administration found that over one third of Iraq and Afghanistan
veterans seeking medical treatment are reporting symptoms of stress or
other metal disorders. This is a tenfold increase in the last 18 months
alone. The dramatic jump in cases is attributed to the fact that more
troops are facing multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This is of course complicated by the fact that veterans' groups claim
that the VA is not able to meet the growing demand for services.
Already, veterans have had to deal with long waits for doctor
appointments (oftentimes over six months), staffing shortages, and lack
of equipment at medical centers run by the VA.
The woman who sent me the email about her son gave me permission to
publish another email that shows clearly how the over-stretch of the
military in Iraq and multiple tours are affecting her son:
"I have established contact with my son, thank God, and he writes to me
daily about Iraqi atrocities, and how he wants to wax them all. His
morale is low and he has a weak LT who is unable to keep up with the
pace required. I would love to share these emails with you, but I am
afraid. I'm afraid of the implications should this ever get out. I want
to do nothing to endanger my communications with my son. My impression
through my readings and contact with soldiers is that the Iraqis are
generally good people. The American occupation seems to be only making
things that much worse for the average Iraqi. My impression is that Iraq
is a country with no hope. No matter what is done, they will never have
a stable government, no matter what form it might take. From my son, I'm
able to glean the complete CHAOS Ramadi is in. It is hopeless. As a
mother, I want him to do whatever is necessary to come home, and will
not sugar-coat my thoughts: that he should kill everything and come
home. Naturally, not someone who is obviously an innocent civilian, but
how do you tell? How do you know who is innocent and who is a threat?
Therefore, he feels that daisy-cutting the town is the only option. Of
course this will not happen, and he's blowing smoke. However, it is an
indication of how bad things are there ... the struggle between the
Marines and the insurgents is never ending. The type of bomb now
employed by the insurgents (whoever they are) is frightening ... a metal
plate on the ground: when the Marine steps on it, it connects the
circuit and that boy is blown up. My son is running missions thru back
alleys ... and is hauling a machine gun that is destroying his back. He
is a slender young man, and the gear he is carrying is affecting his
health. He can run for miles, but not with a hundred pounds on him.
Already I hear such a hardness in his emails, such low morale, such
hopelessness, and he has only just begun this deployment (hopefully his
last ... his third)."
"America is a great nation, compassionate to many, and is my homeland.
I am sickened at what is happening, and what my son is being made to do
as a Marine. Ultimately we have morphed into an empire. It breaks my
heart that my son may die on foreign soil fighting a useless war that
will only lead to more death and destruction ..."
The longer the occupation of Iraq continues, more death and destruction
are two things all of us can count on. Along with a broken, bleeding
military that is being stretched even further each day, and the anxious
families of those serving, whose nerves and hearts are also being
stretched further each day.
(c)2006 Dahr Jamail.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
2) Open Letter to Nancy Pelosi
by Bonnie Weinstein
Pelosi's Letter to Weinstein Regarding H. Res 921
Pelosi's Israel Support Statement
...........................................
Open Letter to Nancy Pelosi
by Bonnie Weinstein
Who is the terrorist? Who has been responsible for the deaths
of a hundred-fold of those attributed to Hizbollah? Israel--
bought and paid for by the U.S. Of A with your approval
and financing!
In an interview in March 1995 entitled, "Jesse Helms: Setting the
Record Straight" that appeared in the Middle East Quarterly, Helms
said, "I have long believed that if the United States is going to give
money to Israel, it should be paid out of the Department of Defense
budget. My question is this: If Israel did not exist, what would
U.S. defense costs in the Middle East be? Israel is at least the
equivalent of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Middle East. Without
Israel promoting its and America's common interests, we would
be badly off indeed."
(Jesse Helms was the senior senator from North Carolina and the
chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time.)
http://www.meforum.org/article/244
How can you condemn Hizbolla and ignore the crimes
of Israel and of your own government--of yourself!
You are guilty of war crimes! You are guilty of mass murder!
What's worse, your proud of it!
Israel as well as your government can preemptively strike,
bomb, invade, build walls, imprison, condemn, starve, torture,
plunder and steal natural and human resources throughout the
world--rake in your bloody profits across the borders and into
your pockets with ease--and enforce this theft with the most
deadly-powerful weapons of mass destruction ever seen before--
weapons neither Hizbollah nor the Iraqi's nor the Afghans nor
the Cubans nor the Venezuelans nor the Palestinians nor the
Vietnamese nor any of the oppressed masses of the world
have any control over what-so-ever, and you know it!
But, the balance of power of the tiny minority of the wealthy
elite over the vast majority of humanity--one-one-hundredth
of one percent of humanity in despotic control over all the rest
--is destined to topple!
The mighty Goliath may be rampaging the world at the moment
but there are billions of David's and Davina's out there waiting
for their moment in history!
Your profound dishonesty makes it impossible to grant you
any kind of respect--human or otherwise. Too much blood
of the innocent is on your hands.
Your bloody fangs are showing and dripping with the blood
of the innocent!
Sincerely,
Bonnie Weinstein
..........................................................................
Pelosi's Letter to Weinstein Regarding H. Res 921
On 9/27/06 7:27 AM, "Rep. Nancy Pelosi" wrote:
pelosi@mail.house.gov
September 27, 2006
Ms. Bonnie Weinstein
San Francisco, California
Dear Ms. Weinstein:
Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition to H. Res 921,
which denounces the actions by Hezbollah that precipitated the recent
fighting in Israel and Lebanon. I appreciate hearing from you.
H Res. 921, introduced by Representatives Tom Lantos (D-CA) and John
Boehner (R-OH), condemns Hezbollah's actions. On July 20, 2006, this
resolution was passed in the House by a vote of 410-8.
I spoke on the House floor and voted in favor of this resolution. Please
find my statement attached.
We cannot allow acts of violence by Hezbollah and other terrorist
entities to dictate the decisions and destinies of democratic nations. We
must fully support nations that seek to defend themselves against acts of
terrorism. In so doing, however, we must endeavor to protect innocent
civilians caught between warring parties. I am hopeful that the cease fire
now in place and the coming deployment of a UN peacekeeping force
and the Lebanese army will enable the people of Israel and the people of
Lebanon to live in peace.
While we may not agree on this issue, I hope you will continue to
communicate with me on matters of concern to you. For more
information on this and other issues affecting our country, I invite you to
visit my website at www.house.gov/pelosi. I hope you will continue
keep in touch with me on matters of concern to you.
Sincerely,
Nancy Pelosi
Member of Congress
..................................................
Pelosi's Israel Support Statement
Pelosi Floor Statement on House Resolution Reaffirming Support for Israel
Monday, July 19, 2006
Contact: Brendan Daly/Jennifer Crider, 202-226-7616
Washington, D.C. – House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi spoke
on the House floor tonight in support of H.Res. 921, condemning
the recent attacks against Israel. Below are Pelosi’s remarks:
"Mr. Lantos, it’s hard to capture the words to express the difficulty
that Israel is facing now for all of us, but for you, it must be
particularly difficult. I know that you are an idealist; I know that
you are a realist. I thank you for your leadership; we could not
be better served than by having you here at this difficult time.
"And at this difficult time for the state of Israel, this resolution
reaffirms our unwavering support and commitment to Israel,
and condemns the attacks by Hezbollah.
"I support this resolution because I believe that the seizure
of Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah terrorists was an unprovoked
attack and Israel has the right, and indeed the obligation,
to respond. Hamas and Hezbollah are committed to the
destruction of Israel, what more do you need to know?
It is clear that Iranian and Syrian aid have helped the effort
to achieve that goal. The United Nations Security Council
has already spoken on the issue of dismantling Hezbollah;
the Security Council’s resolution must be enforced by the
international community. Syria has repeatedly demonstrated
it is a rogue state, which is why we passed Mr. Engel’s Syria
Accountability Act more than two years ago. However, we
must now fully implement all the sanctions spelled out
in that legislation.
"In order to address the Iranian support of terrorists, I urge
the passage of the Iran Freedom Support Act. We must
ensure that Iran and Syria understand the depth of the
commitment of the United States to the state of Israel
by using every diplomatic tool at our disposal.
"For a time in recent years, there was a hope that a corner
had been turned in the Middle East. The Israeli withdrawal
from Lebanon, the emergence of a democratic process
in Lebanon, and the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza were
all hopeful signs that the future could be different from
the past. Those indications of progress, however, were
seen as threats by Hezbollah and Hamas, organizations
that have a greater interest in maintaining a state of hostility
with Israel than in improving the lives of the people they
claim to represent. Now the lives of those people and tens
of thousands of others in the Middle East, including thousands
of American citizens in Israel and Lebanon, have been
put at risk by the aggression of Hamas and Hezbollah.
"As the fighting rages, it is imperative that the combatants
take whatever steps they can to lessen risk to innocent civilians.
The world knows too well the horrors of war. It also knows
that there are ways to offer some degree of protection
to civilians, and it is right to insist that those ways be chosen.
Using civilians as shields by concealing weapons in civilian
areas, as done by Hezbollah, is inconsistent with affording
them protection, and the resolution we are considering properly
condemns that action. Protecting civilians also means getting
our citizens out of harm’s way as quickly as possible. I urge
the Administration to expedite its efforts to bring to safety
those Americans who want to leave Lebanon.
"When the fighting ends, and I hope that it will be soon, the
United States must engage in a concerted, sustained effort
with other nations seeking a just resolution of the differences
between Israel and its neighbors. Israel’s right to exist
is the non-negotiable starting point for that effort.
"I thank again those who were responsible for bringing
the resolution to the floor and again commend Mr. Lantos
for his leadership, compassion, and wisdom."
# # #
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
3) U.S. Sends Warships to Persian Gulf
Via NY Transfer News Collective
All the News that Doesn't Fit
Radio Havana Cuba
http://www.radiohc.cu
Washington, September 26 (RHC)-- Major media sources are reporting
advance deployments of U.S. warships and weapons toward the Persian
Gulf --pointing to what appears to be preparations for launching a
premptive military strike against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
According to reports from various sources, the Pentagon has moved up
the deployment of a major "strike group" of ships, including the
nuclear aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower as well as a cruiser,
destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head for the
Persian Gulf, just off Iran's western coast.
This information follows a report in the current issue of Time
magazine, both on-line and in print, that a group of ships capable of
mining harbors has received orders to be ready to sail for the
Persian Gulf by October 1st. As Time writes in its cover story "What
Would War Look Like?" evidence of the forward deployment of
minesweepers and word that the chief of naval operations had asked
for a reworking of old plans for mining Iranian harbors "suggest that
a much discussed -- but until now largely theoretical -- prospect has
become real: that the U.S. may be preparing for war with Iran."
According to Lieut. Mike Kafka, a spokesman at the headquarters of
the Second Fleet, based in Norfolk, Virginia, the Eisenhower Strike
Group, bristling with Tomahawk cruise missiles, has received orders
to depart the United States by this coming weekend. Other official
sources in the public affairs office of the Navy Department at the
Pentagon confirm that this powerful armada is scheduled to arrive off
the coast of Iran on or around October 21st.
According to The Nation, the USS Eisenhower had been in port at the
Naval Station Norfolk for several years for refurbishing and
refueling of its nuclear reactor; it had not been scheduled to depart
for a new duty station until at least a month later, and possibly not
till next spring. Family members, before the orders, had moved into
the area and had until then expected to be with their sailor-spouses
and parents in Virginia for some time yet. First word of the early
dispatch of the "Ike Strike" group to the Persian Gulf region came
from several angry officers on the ships involved, who contacted
anti-war critics like retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner and
complained that they were being sent to attack Iran without any order
from the Congress.
Colonel Gardiner, who has taught military strategy at the National
War College, says that the carrier deployment and a scheduled Persian
Gulf arrival date of October 21st is "very important evidence" of war
planning. He told reporters: "I know that some naval forces have
already received 'prepare to deploy orders' [PTDOs], which have set
the date for being ready to go as October 1st. Given that it would
take about from October 2nd to October 21st to get those forces to
the Gulf region, that looks about like the date" of any possible
military action against Iran. (A PTDO means that all crews should be
at their stations, and ships and planes should be ready to go, by a
certain date -- in this case, reportedly, October 1.)
Col. Gardiner notes: "You cannot issue a PTDO and then stay ready for
very long. It's a very significant order, and it's not done as a
training exercise." He noted that this point was also made in the
Time article.
Anti-war critic retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner said: "I think
the plan's been picked: bomb the nuclear sites in Iran. It's a
terrible idea, it's against U.S. law and it's against international
law, but I think they've decided to do it." Gardiner says that while
the United States has the capability to hit those sites with its
cruise missiles, "the Iranians have many more options" -- noting that
an attack on Iran could engulf the entire region in flames.
The Nation magazine notes that commentators and analysts across the
political spectrum are focusing on Bush's talk about dialogue, with
many claiming that he is climbing down from confrontation. On the
right, David Frum, writing on September 20th in his National Review
blog, argues that the lack of any attempt to win a UN resolution
supporting military action, and rumors of "hushed back doors" being
opened in Washington, lead him to expect a diplomatic deal, not a
unilateral attack.
But all these war skeptics may be dead wrong. The Nation says that,
after all, it must be recalled that Bush also talked about seeking
diplomatic solutions the whole time he was already planning on
invading Iraq, and the current situation is increasingly looking like
a cheap Hollywood sequel. The United States, according to retired Air
Force Col. Gardiner and others, already reportedly has special forces
operating in Iran, and now major ship movements are looking ominous.
Representative Maurice Hinchey, a leading Democratic critic of the
Iraq War, informed about the Navy PTDOs and about the orders for the
full Eisenhower Strike Group to head out to sea, said: "For some time
there has been speculation that there could be an attack on Iran
prior to November 7, in order to exacerbate the culture of fear that
the Administration has cultivated now for over five or six years. But
if they attack Iran it will be a very bad mistake, for the Middle
East and for the United States."
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. Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us .
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---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
4) Rushing Off a Cliff
New York Times Editorial
September 28, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/opinion/28thu1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Here’s what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads
a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of
a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans’
fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about
antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do
lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while
actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists.
Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack
ads. Our democracy is the big loser.
Republicans say Congress must act right now to create procedures
for charging and trying terrorists — because the men accused
of plotting the 9/11 attacks are available for trial. That’s pure
propaganda. Those men could have been tried and convicted
long ago, but President Bush chose not to. He held them in illegal
detention, had them questioned in ways that will make real trials
very hard, and invented a transparently illegal system of kangaroo
courts to convict them.
It was only after the Supreme Court issued the inevitable ruling
striking down Mr. Bush’s shadow penal system that he adopted
his tone of urgency. It serves a cynical goal: Republican strategists
think they can win this fall, not by passing a good law but by
forcing Democrats to vote against a bad one so they could
be made to look soft on terrorism.
Last week, the White House and three Republican senators
announced a terrible deal on this legislation that gave Mr. Bush
most of what he wanted, including a blanket waiver for crimes
Americans may have committed in the service of his antiterrorism
policies. Then Vice President Dick Cheney and his willing lawmakers
rewrote the rest of the measure so that it would give Mr. Bush
the power to jail pretty much anyone he wants for as long as he
wants without charging them, to unilaterally reinterpret the Geneva
Conventions, to authorize what normal people consider torture,
and to deny justice to hundreds of men captured in error.
These are some of the bill’s biggest flaws:
Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of “illegal
enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the
United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own
countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with
no hope of appeal. The president could give the power
to apply this label to anyone he wanted.
The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century
of international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide
on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered
permissible. And his decision could stay secret — there’s
no requirement that this list be published.
Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose
the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases
do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give
wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.
Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any
aspect of this new system, except verdicts by military tribunals.
The bill would limit appeals and bar legal actions based on
the Geneva Conventions, directly or indirectly. All Mr. Bush
would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to declare him
an illegal combatant and not have a trial.
Coerced Evidence: Coerced evidence would be permissible if
a judge considered it reliable — already a contradiction in terms
— and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts
anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee
Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses.
Secret Evidence: American standards of justice prohibit evidence
and testimony that is kept secret from the defendant, whether
the accused is a corporate executive or a mass murderer.
But the bill as redrafted by Mr. Cheney seems to weaken
protections against such evidence.
Offenses: The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow,
a virtual reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration
produced after 9/11. Rape and sexual assault are defined in
a retrograde way that covers only forced or coerced activity,
and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The bill would
effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture.
•There is not enough time to fix these bills, especially since
the few Republicans who call themselves moderates have
been whipped into line, and the Democratic leadership
in the Senate seems to have misplaced its spine. If there
was ever a moment for a filibuster, this was it.
We don’t blame the Democrats for being frightened. The
Republicans have made it clear that they’ll use any opportunity
to brand anyone who votes against this bill as a terrorist
enabler. But Americans of the future won’t remember
he pragmatic arguments for caving in to the administration.
They’ll know that in 2006, Congress passed a tyrannical
law that will be ranked with the low points in American
democracy, our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
5) 2 at Sago Mine on Day of Blast Commit Suicide
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/us/28sago.html
MORGANTOWN, W.Va., Sept. 27 (AP) — Two miners whose jobs
included watching for safety hazards inside the Sago Mine before
the deadly explosion last January committed suicide in the past month.
Neither man had been blamed for the disaster that killed
12 of their comrades, and neither one’s family has definitively
linked the suicides to the accident.
Both men were working at the Sago Mine on the day of the blast
and were questioned by investigators along with dozens of other
witnesses. One former co-worker said at least one of the men
felt investigators were treating him as if he had done something
wrong.
John N. Boni, whose job that day was to maintain water pumps,
shot himself Saturday at his home in Volga, the state police said.
William L. Chisolm, 47, the dispatcher responsible for monitoring
carbon monoxide alarms and communicating with crews
underground that morning, shot himself at his Belington home
on Aug. 29, the authorities said.
State and federal mine-safety agencies have not determined
the cause of the mine blast. But spokeswomen for both agencies
said that both men had been thoroughly interviewed and that
there had been no plans to talk with them again.
International Coal Group, the mine’s owner, has said it believes
a lightning bolt somehow ignited methane gas that had
accumulated naturally in a sealed-off section of the mine.
Mr. Boni was certified as a fire boss and occasionally conducted
preshift inspections to ensure the safety of incoming crews.
Mr. Chisolm told investigators that a carbon monoxide alarm
had sounded about 20 minutes before the explosion. Following
procedure, he alerted a crew inside the mine and asked it
to verify the alarm because the system had a history
of malfunctions.
Relatives told investigators that Mr. Chisolm had been depressed
about personal matters and drinking heavily in the weeks before
his death. Friends and family said Mr. Boni retired shortly after
the accident.
His former wife, Vicki Boni, said he had never discussed the
accident with her, but said, “I’m sure it had weighed on his mind.”
Ms. Boni, who divorced Mr. Boni 15 years ago but saw him
when he picked up their daughter for visits, said her own
father died in a coal mine accident when she was a teenager.
“It’s something you never get over,” she said.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
6) Research shows who dies when and where
Our nation divided into 'eight Americas'
By William J. Cromie
Harvard News Office
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/09.14/99-lifeexpectancy.html
In the United States, the best-off people, like Asian women
in Bergen County, N.J., have a life expectancy 33 years longer
than the worst-off, Native American males in some South Dakota
counties - 91 versus 58 years. So concludes the most comprehensive
study to date of who dies when and where in this country.
In order to determine how unequal life expectancy is in the
United States, and why, researchers from the Harvard School
of Public Health and Harvard Initiative for Global Health
analyzed census and health statistics data for the years
1982 to 2001. They found what they call "an enormous gap"
in life expectancies based on race, counties of residence,
income, and a few other social factors.
The analysis led the researchers to the idea that there
are "eight different Americas." White middle America and
black middle America are different from each other (whites
live longer than blacks) and from low-income white America,
Southern low-income rural black America, Northern low-
income rural white America, high-risk urban black America,
and Asian America.
An enormous gap in life expectancy divides the United States
into eight different Americas, say Ezzati and Murray. This gap
has persisted for at least 20 years despite efforts to reduce
heath care disparities between different racial, geographic,
and income groups.
"Put in a global context, the disparities in mortality among
the eight Americas are enormous," says Majid Ezzati, an
associate professor of international health at the School
of Public Health. "Our analysis indicates that 10 million
Americans with the best health have achieved one of the
highest levels of life expectancy on record, three years
better than Japan for women, and four years better than
Iceland for men. At the same time, tens of millions
of Americans are experiencing levels of health that are
more typical of people in developing countries."
Christopher Murray, faculty director of the Harvard Initiative
for Global Health, Ezzati, and their colleagues uncovered many
striking differences between people living in the different Americas.
For the best-off versus worst-off males, Asians can expect
to live more than 15 years longer than high-risk urban blacks.
Asian females, in general, outlive poor, urban black males by
more than 20 years and low-income rural Southern black
women by almost 13 years.
The gaps are largest for young (15 to 44 years old) and middle-
aged (45 to 59 years old) adults compared with children and the
elderly. In 2001, 15-year-old blacks in high-risk city areas were
three to four times more likely than Asians to die before age 60,
and four to five times more likely before age 45. In fact, young
black men living in poor, high-crime urban America have death
risks similar to people living in Russia or sub-Saharan Africa.
Diseases, injuries cause gaps
The researchers attribute such gaps to injuries and chronic
diseases, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. These
killers, in turn, are a consequence of well-known and largely
controllable risk factors such as smoking, alcohol use, obesity,
high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. In high-risk urban
black communities, male mortality is increased by homicides
and exposure to AIDS.
Despite all the warnings in media and elsewhere, gaps in life
expectancy in the different Americas did not improve between
1982 and 2001. In some groups, death rates even worsened.
For example, life expectancy among low-income white women
in Appalachia and the Mississippi Valley decreased during
those years.
A big effort is being made in the United States to provide
health insurance for the nearly 47 million Americans who
don't have it. Increasing access to coverage is bound to narrow
the gap in life span, but will not come close to eliminating it,
the researchers speculate. "The variation in health plan coverage
across the eight Americas is small relative to the very large
difference in health outcome," notes Murray, who is lead author
of the report. "It is likely that expanding insurance coverage
alone would still leave huge disparities in young and middle-
aged adults."
Ezzati, Murray, and their colleagues recommend such steps
as increased tobacco taxes, stricter enforcement of drinking
and driving laws, and reduction of alcohol-induced violence.
Things like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and even
obesity are not all about individual behavior, they argue.
Removing financial and cultural barriers to lifestyle and
medication that have proven effective for controlling weight,
blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar should help
reduce the large inequities in chronic disease, they believe.
The research team concludes that "because policies aimed
at reducing fundamental socioeconomic inequalities are
currently practically absent in the United States, health
disparities will have to be at least partly addressed through
public health strategies that reduce risk factors for chronic
disease and injuries."
The report is printed in the open access journal and appears
online at the Public Library of Science.
Copyright 2006 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
7) UN says Gaza crisis 'intolerable'
Standards of human rights in the Palestinian territories have
fallen to intolerable new levels, says a UN expert
on the Mid-East conflict.
September 26, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5382976.stm
John Dugard said Israel was largely to blame for turning Gaza
into "a prison" and "throwing away the key".
He also criticised Canada, Europe and the US for cutting funds
to Palestinian Authority, run by the Hamas militant group
which does not recognise Israel.
An Israeli official said the statement was unrealistic
and over-simplified.
Mr Dugard, UN special rapporteur on Palestinian
human rights, said three-quarters of Palestinians
in Gaza now depended on food aid - a result, he added,
of Israeli military raids, blockades and demolitions.
"I hope that my portrayal... will trouble the consciences
of those accustomed to turning a blind eye and a deaf
ear to the suffering of the Palestinian people," Mr Dugard
told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Unpunished
The South African lawyer was appointed in 2001.
["Palestinian people are punished for having democratically
elected a regime unacceptable to Israel, the US and the EU."
John Dugard]
The situation - in the wake of Israel's response to the
capture of a soldier by militants from Gaza during a cross-
border raid - is worse than at any time during my mandate,
Mr Dugard said.
More than 100 civilians have been killed in army raids
and bombardments in the Gaza Strip.
"What Israel chooses to describe as collateral damage
to the civilian population is in fact indiscriminate killing
prohibited by international law," he said.
Mr Dugard also criticised the embargo on funding to the
Palestinian Authority since the victory by Hamas early
this year.
"Israel violates international law as expounded by the Security
Council and the International Court of Justice and goes
unpunished," he said.
"But the Palestinian people are punished for having
democratically elected a regime unacceptable to Israel,
the US and the EU.
"In effect, the Palestinian people have been subjected
to economic sanctions - the first time an occupied people
has been so treated," he said.
Omissions
Mr Dugard's brief to investigate Israeli human rights
violations against Palestinians has led Israel and its US
ally to condemn his reports as one-sided.
The US ambassador to the UN in Geneva cautioned against
taking Mr Dugard's view out of context and Israeli envoy
Itzhak Levanon dismissed his findings.
"This report is characterised by errors of omission as well
as distortions of both fact and law," Mr Levanon said.
He said it ignored what he called the daily experience
of Israelis facing Palestinian terrorism.
Mr Dugard is a South African national and won his
reputation as a civil rights lawyer during the apartheid
era in the 1980s.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/5382976.stm
Published: 2006/09/26 18:10:11 GMT
© BBC MMVI
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
8) Senate, 100-0, Backs Budget for Pentagon
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:14 p.m. ET
September 29, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Defense-Spending.html?hp&ex=1159588800&en=73dffaa3995d31e7&ei=5094&partner=homepage
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate unanimously approved $70 billion
more for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan Friday as part
of a record Pentagon budget.
The bill, now on its way to the White House for President Bush's
signature, totals $448 billion. It was passed by a 100-0 vote after
minimal debate.
Approval by a comfortable margin came despite intense partisan
divisions over the course of the Iraq war, which is costing about
$8 billion a month. Another infusion of money will be needed
next spring.
At the White House, President Bush said he would sign the bill
and thanked Congress ''for passing legislation that will provide
our men and women in uniform with the necessary resources
to protect our country and win the war on terror.''
''As our troops risk their lives to fight terrorism,'' he said, ''this bill
will ensure they are prepared to defeat today's enemies and address
tomorrows threats. I look forward to signing this bill into law.''
The House-Senate compromise bill provides $378 billion for
core Pentagon programs, about a 5 percent increase, though slightly
less than President Bush asked for. The $70 billion for Iraq and
Afghanistan is a down payment on war costs the White House has
estimated will hit $110 billion for the budget year beginning Oct. 1.
Congress has now approved $507 billion for Iraq, Afghanistan and
heightened security at overseas military bases since the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The war in Iraq has cost $379 billion and the conflict in Afghanistan
now totals $97 billion.
The Iraq war continues to be unpopular with voters, according to
opinion polls, but even Democratic opponents of the war voted for
the Pentagon measure, which provides funding for body armor and
other support for U.S. troops overseas.
''America is in deep trouble in Iraq,'' said Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
''The continuing violence and death is ominous.... Militias are growing
in strength and continue to operate outside the law. Death squads
are rampant.''
The growing price tag of the Iraq conflict is partly driven by the need
to repair and replace military equipment worn out in harsh, dusty
conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan or destroyed in battle. Almost
$23 billion was approved for Army, Marine Corps and National Guard
equipment such as helicopters, armored Humvees, Bradley armored
fighting vehicles, radios and night-vision equipment.
Lawmakers allotted $1.9 billion for new jammers to counter
improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan and $1 billion
is provided for body armor and other personal protective gear.
There is also a stack of pet projects for lawmakers' homes states
and districts, including $372 million obtained for Hawaii, home
of Daniel Inouye, top Democrat on the defense appropriations panel.
''There are 2,000 earmarks in the bill directed by Members of Congress
-- somewhere around $8 billion -- and a large portion of those don't
have anything to do with the mission of the Defense Department,''
said Tom Coburn, R-Okla.
The legislation would be the first of 11 spending bills to clear Congress
for the new budget year. The homeland security bill is the only other
ready to pass before Congress leaves Washington this weekend.
Nine bills funding domestic programs and foreign aid will wait until
a lame duck session. That means delays in funding increases
for veterans health care.
So little progress has been made on other bills that the Pentagon
measure also carries a stopgap funding bill to keep open through
Nov. 17 agencies whose funding bills won't have passed. Only the
homeland security measure is expected to also pass before Congress
leaves Washington to campaign.
The core bill contains $86 billion for personnel costs, enough
to support 482,000 Army soldiers and 175,000 Marines. That would
provide for a 2.2 percent pay increase for the military, as Bush requested
in his February budget.
The bill provides $120 billion for operations and maintenance costs,
just less than the Pentagon request. And $81 billion goes for
procurement of new weapons, with $76 billion dedicated
to research and development costs.
That's still not enough for the White House, which requested
$4 billion more. But House appropriators diverted that money
to ease cuts in domestic programs. Earlier this year, the Senate
passed a version shifting $9 billion to domestic programs but backed
off in the face of a White House veto threat.
On the Net:
Information on the defense bill, H.R. 5631, may be found at
http://thomas.loc.gov/
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
9) "THE DECIDER," by Toni Smith & "Yurtle the Turtle," by
Dr. Seuss
"I hear the voices and I read the front page and I know the
speculation," the president told reporters in the Rose Garden.
"But I'm the decider and I decide what's best. And what's best
is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."
--George W. Bush
Well, it took me awhile, but I finally realized what "I'm the
decider," reminds me of. It sounds like something a character in
a Dr Seuss book might say. So with apologies to the late Mr.
Geisel, here is some idle speculation as to what else such a
character might say:
I'm the decider. I pick and I choose.
I pick among whats.
And choose among whos.
And as I decide
Each particular day,
The things I decide on
All turn out that way.
I decided on Freedom
For all of Iraq.
And now that we have it,
I'm not looking back.
I decided on tax cuts
That just help the wealthy.
And Medicare changes
That aren't really healthy.
And parklands and wetlands
Who needs all that stuff?
I decided that none
Would be more than enough!
I decided that schools
All in all are the best.
The less that they teach
And the more that they test.
I decided those wages
You need to get by,
Are much better spent
On some CEO guy.
I decided your Wade
Which was versing your Roe,
Is terribly awful
And just has to go.
I decided that levees
Are not really needed.
Now when hurricanes come
They can come unimpeded.
That old Constitution?
Well, I have decided-
As "just Goddamn paper"*
It should be derided.
I've decided gay marriage
Is icky and weird.
Above all other things,
It's the one to be feared.
And Cheney and Rummy
And Condi all know
That I'm the Decider -
They tell me it's so.
I'm the Decider
So watch what you say,
Or I may decide
To have you whisked away
Or I'll tap your phones.
Your e-mail I'll read.
`cause I'm the Decider -
Like Jesus decreed.
* This is an exact Bush Quote! Now that I think about it,
Dr. Seuss anticipated this administration pretty well
when he wrote Yertle the Turtle
On the far-away island of Sala-ma-Sond,
Yertle the Turtle was king of the pond.
A nice little pond. It was clean. It was neat.
The water was warm. There was plenty to eat.
The turtles had everything turtles might need.
And they were all happy. Quite happy indeed.
They were... until Yertle, the king of them all,
Decided the kingdom he ruled was too small.
"I'm ruler", said Yertle, "of all that I see.
But I don't see enough. That's the trouble with me.
With this stone for a throne, I look down on my pond
But I cannot look down on the places beyond.
This throne that I sit on is too, too low down.
It ought to be higher!" he said with a frown.
"If I could sit high, how much greater I'd be!
What a king! I'd be ruler of all that I see!"
And Yertle, the Turtle King, gave a command.
He ordered nine turtles to swim to his stone
And, using these turtles, he built a new throne.
He made each turtle stand on another one's back
And he piled them all up in a nine-turtle stack.
And then Yertle climbed up. He sat down on the pile.
What a wonderful view! He could see 'most a mile!
"All mine!" Yertle cried. "Oh, the things I now rule!
I'm the king of a cow! And I'm the king of a mule!
I'm the king of a house! And, what's more, beyond that
I'm the king of a blueberry bush and a cat!
I'm Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!
For I am the ruler of all that I see!"
And all through the morning, he sat up there high
Saying over and over, "A great king am I!"
Until 'long about noon. Then he heard a faint sigh.
"What's that?" snapped the king,and he looked down the stack.
And he saw, at the bottom, a turtle named Mack.
Just a part of his throne. And this plain little turtle
Looked up and he said, "Beg your pardon, King Yertle.
I've pains in my back and my shoulders and knees.
How long must we stand here, Your Majesty, please?"
"SILENCE!" the King of the Turtles barked back.
"I'm king, and you're only a turtle named Mack."
"You stay in your place while I sit here and rule.
I'm the king of a cow! And I'm the king of a mule!
I'm the king of a house! And a bush! And a cat!
But that isn't all. I'll do better than that!
My throne shall be higher!" his royal voice thundered,
"So pile up more turtles! I want 'bout two hundred!"
"Turtles! More turtles!" he bellowed and brayed.
And the turtles 'way down in the pond were afraid.
They trembled. They shook. But they came. They obeyed.
From all over the pond, they came swimming by dozens.
Whole families of turtles, with uncles and cousins.
And all of them stepped on the head of poor Mack.
One after another, they climbed up the stack.
Then Yertle the Turtle was perched up so high,
He could see forty miles from his throne in the sky!
"Hooray!" shouted Yertle. "I'm the king of the trees!
I'm king of the birds! And I'm king of the bees!
I'm king of the butterflies! King of the air!
Ah, me! What a throne! What a wonderful chair!
I'm Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!
For I am the ruler of all that I see!"
Then again, from below, in the great heavy stack,
Came a groan from that plain little turtle named Mack.
"Your Majesty, please... I don't like to complain,
But down here below, we are feeling great pain.
I know, up on top you are seeing great sights,
But down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights.
We turtles can't stand it. Our shells will all crack!
Besides, we need food. We are starving!" groaned Mack.
"You hush up your mouth!" howled the mighty King Yertle.
"You've no right to talk to the world's highest turtle.
I rule from the clouds! Over land! Over sea!
There's nothing, no, NOTHING, that's higher than me!"
But, while he was shouting, he saw with surprise
That the moon of the evening was starting to rise
Up over his head in the darkening skies.
"What's THAT?" snorted Yertle. "Say, what IS that thing
That dares to be higher than Yertle the King?
I shall not allow it! I'll go higher still!
I'll build my throne higher! I can and I will!
I'll call some more turtles. I'll stack 'em to heaven!
I need 'bout five thousand, six hundred and seven!"
But, as Yertle, the Turtle King, lifted his hand
And started to order and give the command,
That plain little turtle below in the stack,
That plain little turtle whose name was just Mack,
Decided he'd taken enough. And he had.
And that plain little lad got a bit mad.
And that plain little Mack did a plain little thing.
He burped!
And his burp shook the throne of the king!
And Yertle the Turtle, the king of the trees,
The king of the air and the birds and the bees,
The king of a house and a cow and a mule...
Well, that was the end of the Turtle King's rule!
For Yertle, the King of all Sala-ma-Sond,
Fell off his high throne and fell Plunk! in the pond!
And today the great Yertle, that Marvelous he,
Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see.
And the turtles, of course... all the turtles are free
As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.
by Dr. Seuss
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
10) Poisoned on Eno Road
By BOB HERBERT
Dickson, Tenn.
October 2, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/opinion/02herbert.html?hp
If you stand outside the Holt family home late at night, after
everyone has gone to sleep, with the sound of a soft wind drifting
through the trees and the damp sweet smell of abundant grass
heavy in the humid air, you can easily imagine what this area was
like in the days of slavery.
And then the quiet is broken by the sudden eruption of dogs
barking and howling on nearby property, and you’re reminded
that the tiny population of blacks in Dickson County, even after
all these years, is still frequently treated — literally — like garbage.
The property adjacent to the Holt family home is a government-
owned landfill. The howling dogs are housed in a pound right
next to the landfill. The noise is a nuisance, but it’s the least
of the family’s problems.
Toxic chemicals from the landfill have polluted the pristine water
that was once drawn from the Holt family well. Unaware that
the water was contaminated, the family drank it for years.
Now the Holts are convinced that the poisons that seeped
for so long from the landfill into the groundwater are
responsible for the potentially deadly diseases that have
struck several members of the family.
The Holts were not just unaware that their water was
contaminated; they had been assured by federal environmental
officials way back in 1991 that the water had been tested and
was safe to drink.
“They told us,” said Sheila Holt-Orsted, who grew up on the
property, “that the water wouldn’t hurt us, and that we
shouldn’t worry about it.”
In fact, government records show that dangerous levels
of trichloroethylene (TCE), a suspected carcinogen, had been
found in the water as early as 1988. The family drank the
poisoned water for more than a dozen years after that.
During that time, the government warned white families
that the water had been contaminated and provided them
with an alternate source of drinking water. The Holts, who
are black, were left oblivious to the danger. Welcome to the
world of environmental racism, a subject that doesn’t get
nearly enough attention.
The Holts’ property is on Eno Road, a quiet rustic area with
an interesting history. Hundreds of acres of land along the
road were acquired by blacks in the post-slavery period.
Only recently freed, they were proud of being landowners.
The Holts have lived in the community for many decades.
Blacks make up just 4.5 percent of the Dickson County
population, and they have always been clustered in the
vicinity of Eno Road. This has been a great convenience
for the whites, who have run the local governments.
For six decades, the Eno Road community has been
designated as the place for whites to dump their garbage.
“The city and county fathers singled out this small, rural
and mostly black Eno Road community to locate their
garbage dumps, landfills, transfer stations, toxic waste
sites — you name it,” said Dr. Robert Bullard, director
of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark
Atlanta University. “These waste sites are all located
on Eno Road.”
When I asked the mayor of Dickson County, Robert Stone,
why that particular community had been chosen to absorb
so much of the county’s garbage, he said he couldn’t
respond because the Holts had filed a lawsuit against
the county. He referred me to a lawyer, Eric Thornton,
who asked why anyone would think it was peculiar
to dump the garbage there.
“It has to be at some location,” he said. He denied that
race had anything to do with the selection process, noting
that there were also whites who lived nearby.
The ingestion of TCE, commonly used as a metal degreaser,
has been associated with a variety of cancers, heart disease,
impairment of the nervous system, stroke, liver disease,
kidney disease, diabetes and other extremely serious disorders.
At various times, the concentration of TCE in the well water
of the Holt family was 24 and 29 times as high as the
maximum level of five parts per billion set by the federal
Environmental Protection Agency.
Sheila Holt-Orsted has undergone six surgeries and
chemotherapy for breast cancer. Her father was stricken
with prostate cancer. During a conversation in her front
yard, less than 50 feet from the landfill, she told me:
“My aunt, who lives next door, she had cancer. And then
there was another neighbor who had cancer. I said, you
know, ‘Something is not right here.’ ”
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
11) Across Nation, Housing Costs Rise as Burden
By JANNY SCOTT and RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/nyregion/03census.html?hp&ex=1159934400&en=aee99cfd4b1ef740&ei=5094&partner=homepage
The burden of housing costs in nearly every part of the country
grew sharply from 2000 to 2005, according to new Census Bureau
data being made public today. The numbers vividly illustrate the
impact, often distributed unevenly, of the crushing combination
of escalating real estate prices and largely stagnant incomes.
While many of the highest home values were on the coasts, in
places like Southern California and Manhattan, many of the
biggest jumps in the percentage of people paying a burdensome
amount of their income for housing occurred in the Midwest
and in suburbs nationwide, making it clear that the housing
squeeze has reached deep into the middle class.
In New York City, more than half of all renters now spend
at least 30 percent of their gross income on housing,
a percentage figure commonly seen as a limit of affordability.
In Staten Island, the percentage paying at least 30 percent
of income rose to nearly 60 percent, up from 40.
Among suburban homeowners, there were big increases in
the percentage of people with mortgages spending at least
30 percent in places like Loudon County, Va.; Morgan County,
Ind.; Nassau County, on Long Island; and Bastrop County, Tex.
“Housing prices have gone up much more than incomes have,”
said Christopher Jones, vice president for research at the
Regional Plan Association in New York City. “Clearly, you
can’t sustain that sort of imbalance over the long run.
There’s only so long that housing prices can go up without
sustained increases in income to support them.”
The data, from the American Community Survey, was collected
throughout 2005, some of it before the real estate market
began softening over the past year.
While the escalation in house prices that began in the
mid-1990’s has slowed down in most places, and while
prices are even dropping in some markets, rents are
currently rising.
Historically, it is not unprecedented for housing prices
to rise faster than household incomes, since housing prices
fluctuate more than median incomes. In recent decades,
median incomes have not risen at the rate that they did
in the booming 1950’s and 1960’s, yet real estate prices
in many parts of the country have escalated sharply
in recent years.
“People want to hang on and stay in the market,” said
William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution
in Washington, “and they are willing to stretch themselves
to find or to rent a house that is suitable.”
The places with the highest overall percentages of people
carrying a heavy housing burden were in fast-growing
areas of California, Colorado and Texas.
In Southern California, Temecula and Hemet had the highest
percentages of renters paying at least 30 percent, with 74
and 73 percent of renters at that level.
Boulder, Colo., and College Station, Tex., held the record
for renters spending at least 50 percent, with 47 and 46 percent.
The biggest jump in the percentages of people paying at least
30 percent of their income on rent, as well as those spending
at least 50 percent, occurred in Olathe, Kan., a booming suburb
of 114,000 southwest of Kansas City.
S. Lawrence Yun, an economist with the National Association
of Realtors, said renters in desirable cities might be spending
more of their income on housing in hopes of getting a toehold
in places with good schools, better homes and a good quality
of life. He said, “There is certainly a concern that people are
devoting a large portion of their income to housing, and one
of the reasons is due to the more limited housing supply.”
In the New York region, a very high percentage of renters in
urban counties spent a big share of income on housing. In the
Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, close to a third of all renters pay
at least 30 percent.
But many of the biggest increases in housing burdens occurred
outside the city.
Among homeowners, there were big increases in the percentage
of people spending at least 30 percent on housing in counties
like Nassau, Dutchess, Orange and Putnam. The percentage
of households spending at least 50 percent of income also
rose in those counties.
In Clifton, N.J., the percentage of mortgage holders spending
at least 50 percent of their income on housing rose to 27 percent
in 2005 from 12 percent in 2000, a 134 percent rise. In New
Britain, Conn., the group paying at least 30 percent more than
doubled, rising to 57 percent of people with mortgages,
up from 27 percent.
Nationally, the biggest increase in homeowners spending
more than 30 percent of their income on housing occurred
in an unincorporated area southeast of Los Angeles called
Florence-Graham, where more than a third of residents live
in poverty. There, the figure climbed to 43 percent from
17 percent. Other places with big jumps included Wyoming,
Mich.; Round Rock, Tex.; and Plymouth, Minn.
In general, the places with the highest overall percentages
of homeowners spending that level of income were poorer
cities. El Monte, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb, had the highest
percentage of mortgage holders, 73 percent, spending more
than 30 percent of their income on housing. In Newark,
the figure was 72 percent; in El Cajon, Calif., east of San
Diego, 69 percent; and in South Gate, Calif., 69 percent.
Jack Kyser, senior economist with the Los Angeles County
Economic Development Corporation, said such cities are
often the only places that people on the lowest rungs
of the economic ladder can afford and they tend to stretch
their resources to get in. He said El Monte and South Gate
both are growing, largely because Latinos have been moving in.
“These communities are well located to employment
opportunities and they can drive and it is not a horrendous
drive,” he said. “They are also close to public transportation
and use it.”
The numbers, which were analyzed for The New York Times
by Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College,
provided a glimpse of how hot — and how unhot —
some areas had become.
Two Southern California coastal cities, Santa Barbara and
Newport Beach, had the highest median house values,
at $1 million.
Youngstown, Ohio, a city long hurting economically,
had the lowest, at $48,000.
In New York State, the median value of owner-occupied
homes actually declined slightly in a few upstate counties,
including Oswego, Steuben and Madison. The median house
value dropped 9 percent in Buffalo, to $60,800.
Housing values rose only barely in some upstate counties,
including Cattaraugus, Cayuga, Chautauqua and Chemung.
Because of a change in census procedures, it was not
possible yesterday to reliably gauge the increase in cost
burden among homeowners in places with large numbers
of condominium or cooperative apartments.
In 2000, the bureau did not count owner-occupied apartments
in multifamily buildings; in 2005, it did. So the 2000 and 2005
figures could not be satisfactorily compared for places like
Manhattan and San Diego.
In Manhattan, where the median value of all owner-occupied
homes hit $718,000, the increase in median gross rents from
2000 to 2005 was 14 percent, well below the 20 percent jump
in Suffolk County on Long Island, the 23 percent rise in the city
of Passaic, N.J., and the 24 percent jump in Ulster County, N.Y.
The increase in the percentage of Manhattan renters paying
at least 50 percent of their income on housing was 13 percent
— well below the 50 percent rise in Rockland County.
The data also showed that, among couples living together in
Manhattan, about 17 percent were unmarried in 2005,
compared with 10 percent nationwide.
Manhattan appeared to have the second highest number
of male couples living together, following Los Angeles.
Sam Roberts contributed reporting.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
12) U.S. General Says Chávez Worries Region
By ROBERT PEAR
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/world/americas/03rumsfeld.html
MANAGUA, Nicaragua, Oct. 2 — The commander of United States
military activities in Latin America said Monday that Venezuela under
President Hugo Chávez had become a destabilizing force, and that
other countries in the Western hemisphere shared that concern.
The commander, Gen. Bantz J. Craddock of the Army, said, “What
I have heard in the last few months is more concern by more
countries” about an increase in Venezuela’s purchase
of weapons, especially small arms.
United States officials said Venezuela had used its oil wealth
to undermine democratic forces in other Latin American
countries. “There’s a factor here that is destabilizing,”
General Craddock said.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and General Craddock
were in Managua for a meeting of defense ministers from
more than 30 countries in the hemisphere.
In recent months, Venezuela has bought AK-47 assault
rifles and military helicopters from Russia and patrol boats
from Spain.
General Craddock said he did not know the reason for the
purchases. “I don’t have much military-to-military contact
with Venezuela,” he said.
Asked about Venezuela’s recent call to form a military
coalition in opposition to the United States, General
Craddock said, “I don’t see any traction” for the proposal.
Delegates from Brazil and other countries said they “did
not see a rationale or need” for such a coalition, General
Craddock said.
On Sunday, President Chávez said he had received warnings
that the United States might be plotting to assassinate him.
General Craddock responded: “That’s mindless. That’s far out.
It’s way over the top.”
One reason for United States concern about Mr. Chávez
is that he is supporting Washington’s old cold war nemesis,
Daniel Ortega, who is running for president of Nicaragua.
Public opinion polls suggest that Mr. Ortega could return
to power after the election on Nov. 5.
The commander in chief of the Nicaraguan Army, Gen. Omar
Halleslevens, said Monday that the army would remain
apolitical, regardless of who won the election.
General Halleslevens told American officials and journalists
that the Nicaraguan Army was determined to stay out of politics.
“We have a professional army that follows the Constitution
and the law and will not be used for political or partisan
purposes,” he said.
General Craddock said he believed the assurances from
the Nicaraguan commander.
In 1989, Nicaragua’s army had more than 73,000 men.
“That was an army that was created for war,” General
Halleslevens said, noting that the army now has 11,000 men.
The president of Nicaragua, Enrique Bolaños, said that his
nation has had extensive experience removing land mines
left from its civil war and that it was eager to share its
expertise with other countries, like Afghanistan and Iraq.
General Craddock welcomed the offer, saying, “That’s
a distinct possibility.”
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13) A Racial Rift That Isn’t Black and White
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/us/03georgia.html?ref=us
WILLACOOCHEE, Ga. — The ministers close their eyes and raise
their voices to the heavens and, for a moment, they are colorless.
Two men who grew up desperately poor, who picked tobacco
in the fields and hauled boxes at Wal-Mart and whose life journeys
ultimately led them to the Lord and to each other.
“It’s like praying with a brother,” said the Rev. Harvey
Williams Jr., 54, who is black.
“He looks out for me and I look out for him,” said the Rev. Atanacio
Gaona, 45, who is a Mexican immigrant. “In the eyes of the Lord,
there are no colors.”
In this immigrant boomtown in Atkinson County, about 45 miles
north of the Florida border, the ministers have forged a rare
friendship that transcends the deep divide between blacks
and Hispanics here.
For centuries, the South has been defined by the color line and
the struggle for accommodation between blacks and whites.
But the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Hispanic immigrants
over the past decade is quietly changing the dynamics of race
relations in many Southern towns.
The two pastors find that the fault lines that separate their
communities sometimes test their friendship and challenge
their efforts to bring blacks and Hispanics closer together.
Blacks here, who had settled into a familiar, if sometimes uneasy,
relationship with whites, are now outnumbered by Hispanics.
The two groups, who often live and work side by side, compete
fiercely for working-class jobs and government resources.
By several measures, blacks are already losing ground.
The jobless rate for black men in Georgia is nearly triple that
of Hispanic men, labor statistics show. More blacks than Hispanics
fail to meet minimum standards in Atkinson County public schools.
And many blacks express anguish at being supplanted by immigrants
who know little of their history and sometimes treat them with
disdain as they fill factory jobs, buy property, open small
businesses and scale the economic ladder.
“If you have 10 factory openings, I would say Hispanics would
get the majority of the jobs now,” said Joyce Taylor, the Atkinson
County clerk, who is black. “And if you look at the little grocery
stores, there are more Hispanic businesses than black businesses.”
“It’s kind of scary,” said Ms. Taylor, 44, whose daughter was
laid off from a factory here. “My children, looking forward,
it may be harder for them.”
Some Hispanics say African-Americans treat them with hostility
and disparage them with slurs, even though blacks know the
sting of racism all too well. They say many blacks are jealous
of their progress and resent the fact that whites, who dominate
the business sector, look increasingly to Hispanics to fill work
forces. Blacks say employers favor immigrants because they
work for less money.
An Area of Intense Feelings
The killing of six Mexican farm workers in a robbery last year
in Tifton, about 30 miles away — and the arrest of four black
men in the case — has heightened the friction. Nothing
so violent has occurred here, but some Hispanics say black
criminals focus on immigrants in this town, too.
Speaking of blacks, Benito González, 51, a Mexican who has
worked alongside them at a poultry plant, said: “They don’t
like to work, and they’re always in jail. If there’s hard work
to be done, the blacks, they leave and they don’t come back.
That’s why the bosses prefer Mexicans and why there are
so many Mexicans working in the factories here.”
Such images stoke the debate over how to overcome tensions,
which flared nationally this year when some African-Americans
expressed anger and unease as immigrant groups hailed efforts
to legalize illegal immigrants as a new civil rights movement.
Although the push in Congress to create a guest-worker
program has stalled, concerns about competition between
black and immigrant low-wage workers remain.
Those feelings resonate with particular intensity in the South,
home to the nation’s largest share of African-Americans and
its fastest-growing population of immigrants, according
to an analysis of census data by William H. Frey,
a demographer at the Brookings Institution.
The two Pentecostal ministers who pray together are men
of faith who say they believe that blacks and Hispanics
should be allies in the struggle to overcome discrimination
and economic adversity, even though they acknowledge
that interethnic unity is often hard to come by.
Mr. Williams, a thoughtful man who studied psychology
in community college, ruminates in a weekly newspaper
column on topics like spirituality, ethnic relations and
his recovery from cocaine addiction 20 years ago.
Mr. Gaona, whose boyish looks belie his intensity, left
school after second grade to help his father work the fields
in Mexico. He entered the United States illegally and started
picking tobacco here when he was 24. Over the past decade,
he has received his citizenship and built his church from
the ground up.
The two men met working on a Wal-Mart warehouse floor
in neighboring Coffee County around 1993 when Mr. Gaona
was starting to deepen his faith and Mr. Williams, already
a pastor, was looking for a ride to work.
Neither expected much from the acquaintanceship.
Mr. Gaona, who said his perceptions of black Americans
were shaped in Mexico by news reports of crime and violence
in poor urban areas, recalled, “I was thinking: ‘He’s black.
Who knows what he wants from me?’ I was just trying
to keep my distance.”
Mr. Williams said he never envisioned a friendship because
he had never known blacks and Hispanics to be friends.
“I think I probably saw him as being a Hispanic,’ he said,
“and I was only going to get so close.”
Over the next five years, in their hourlong weekday commuting
trip in Mr. Gaona’s 1988 Oldsmobile and later in Mr. Williams’s
1982 Ford station wagon, they discovered common ground.
Both are divorced fathers. Mr. Williams has two sons and two
daughters. Mr. Gaona has five boys.
Both grew up poor, working in the fields. And both were trying
to advance at Wal-Mart and searching for pathways to God.
It was Mr. Williams who helped persuade Mr. Gaona to quit
Wal-Mart to open the first Spanish-language church in this town.
Today, the men are remarried, full-time ministers who chat
by telephone and disregard the diners at local restaurants who
still gawk at the sight of a black man and a Hispanic man
eating together.
But they also remain painfully aware of the fear and prejudice
that remain in their communities.
Mr. Williams, who leads a working- and middle-class congregation
of teachers, Civil Service workers and factory workers at the Union
Holiness House of Deliverance, shakes his head as he describes the
jokes about Mexicans with poor hygiene that circulate among some
black people he knows.
“It was not so long ago that we were the object of jokes,” Mr. Williams
said. “I’m constantly having to remind people.”
Mr. Gaona, whose flock at the Iglesia Alfa y Omega is dominated
by factory and farm workers, says his members often describe
American blacks as moyos, a derogatory Spanish term that
sometimes refers to a black insect. He used the term, too,
he admits, before he found God and his friend Mr. Williams.
“Every now and then, I remind them that we need to respect people,
no matter how they look or their color,” Mr. Gaona said. "But mostly,
we don’t know them, and they don’t know us. There’s no real
communication going on.”
Gaps and Similarities
The tension simmers just below the surface in the quiet communities
of bungalows and trailers where the two churches are situated. Five
years ago, these neighborhoods were overwhelmingly black. Today,
Hispanics and blacks account for 21 percent and 19 percent of the
county population of about 8,000, respectively.
Lyrical Spanish chatter competes with the sweet Georgia drawl
as blacks and Hispanics share streets, assembly lines, classrooms
— and hardships — that could prove to be the basis of community
and political alliances. The two groups appear more likely to be
poor than whites. About 36 percent of Hispanics and 31 percent
of blacks live in poverty in Atkinson County, census data shows;
17 percent of whites are poor.
The two ethnic groups report experiencing some discrimination
from non-Hispanic whites, who account for 60 percent of the
population, and they view the blue-collar jobs in the factories
that manufacture industrial fabrics and mobile homes
as steppingstones to prosperity.
School administrators and sociologists suggest that the gap
between blacks and Hispanics in employment and education
may stem in part from immigrant parents who push their
children harder to succeed in schools and the immigrant
zeal to find work, regardless of how much it pays.
Many black adults, who typically have more formal education
than new immigrants, seethe at the disparities. In a town where
neighborliness is entrenched, blacks and Hispanics often treat
one another warily.
It is hard to envision such tension in the ministers’ friendship,
particularly as they laugh amid the wooden pews in Mr. Williams’s
church. But in many ways, they, too, keep their distance.
Despite more than 10 years’ friendship, the two have never
dined in each other’s home. Their wives and children have
never met, nor have their congregations.
Mr. Gaona does not know the black families who live near him.
And he has never addressed Mr. Williams’s congregation, even
though his friend has invited him several times. The minister
says he feels uncomfortable preaching in English.
Mr. Williams, who has spoken at his friend’s church twice,
says there is more to it. (Mr. Gaona’s English, after all, is
quite good.)
“There’s still a barrier there,” Mr. Williams said.
He said the worshippers in Mr. Gaona’s church seemed reluctant
to mingle with him after his guest sermons there several years ago.
“They are like standing on the side, you know, with their heads
down as if waiting for me to leave,” he recounted. “They’re
uncomfortable. And that’s one reason for not visiting him
any more than I do.
“It’s one of my goals in life, to break down these nationality
walls. But people are pretty divided. I just don’t know if that’s
going to change.”
Mr. Williams concedes that he, too, strives to do better. He does
not know the name of the Hispanic family that lives near him.
For a time, he refused to wave to Hispanic drivers on the road
because they often hurt his feelings by ignoring him and the
Southern tradition of greeting strangers. He has since decided
to wave — no matter what.
His wife, who did not grow up around immigrants, still feels
a bit uncomfortable socializing with Hispanics, despite his
long friendship with the Hispanic pastor.
A Shoulder to Lean On
Mr. Gaona said he was recently taken aback when his
5-year-old came home from school and described his
black classmates as moyos, the aspersion.
“ ‘Why you need to call them like that?’ ” Mr. Gaona said
he asked his son. “I’m trying to share with him that’s not
right. But that’s what he hears.”
Still, on most days the two men put aside such awkwardness
and focus on supporting each other.
When Mr. Gaona’s computer became infected with a virus,
he called Mr. Williams, who stopped by to help repair it. When s
tate officials refused to renew his brother’s driving license
because his immigration papers were not in order, Mr. Gaona
called Mr. Williams in frustration.
Mr. Williams relies on Mr. Gaona to interview Hispanic immigrants
who ask to rent his church’s social hall for parties. And it was his
respect for the Hispanic pastor that helped persuade him to use
his newspaper column to chastise Americans who disparaged the
newcomers.
“I believe that rather than be angry or envy those who have
came to America and found success, we ought to be learning
from them,” Mr. Williams wrote.
As the ministers meandered through their changing neighborhoods
one afternoon, they considered taking their friendship to another level
by preaching a joint service for their congregations. Though they knew
it might never happen, they envisioned Spanish speakers and English
speakers, newcomers and long timers’ holding hands and praying
beneath the oak trees.
On that sultry summer afternoon, it felt good to dream about the
possibility. Somehow, it felt like it just might be the start of something.
“We’ll get together one day soon and do one out in the open,”
Mr. Gaona said.
Mr. Williams replied: “That sounds good. That sounds good.
We’ll do that.”
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14) At Risk: A Link Between Poverty and a Telltale Protein
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/health/03poor.html
People living below the poverty line are more likely to have very
high levels of C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation that
increases the risk for heart disease and death, a new study
has found.
C-reactive protein is produced in response to injury or infection,
but some people have chronically high levels of it. The study,
published in the September issue of Brain, Behavior and Immunity,
found no significant difference by socioeconomic status in those
with moderate or high levels of C-reactive protein, but there
was a significant difference in very high levels.
The researchers used data from a nationally representative group
of 7,634 adults who were 20 and older and who enrolled in the
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Only 9.1 percent
of participants above the poverty line had C-reactive protein
levels above 10 milligrams a liter, compared with 15.7 percent
of people below the poverty level.
About two-thirds of the high levels could be attributed to acute
or chronic illness, obesity and lack of exercise. The explanation
for the rest was unknown. Dawn E. Alley, the study’s lead author,
said, “People in poverty are more susceptible to infection,
and because they lack health care and have other social
stresses, they are less likely to recover.”
The authors acknowledged that C-reactive protein data were
available only at one time point and that some data collection
relied on self-reports, which can be biased. It is impossible based
on these data, they write, to conclude that poverty itself is a cause
of very high levels of the protein.
Dr. Alley, who completed the study while at the University
of Southern California, is now a postdoctoral fellow at the
University of Pennsylvania.
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15) New Militias Push Govt Back Further
Inter Press Service
Ali Al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
*RAMADI, Oct 3 (IPS) - Reports of the setting up of U.S.-backed Sunni
militias have brought new uncertainty to deepening chaos within Iraq.*
Some Sunni leaders from the troubled al-Anbar province west of Baghdad
recently met away from their tribes to set up new militias, according to
local reports.
These new armed groups have received early praise from Iraqi Prime
Minister Nouri al- Maliki and U.S. officials. The United States had
earlier called for the disarming of all militias for the sake of social
peace and reconciliation, but that policy has clearly changed. The
occupation forces now back both Shia and Sunni militias in different
areas of the country.
These new groups are drawing strong condemnation from other Sunni tribal
chiefs.
"They are a group of thieves who are arming thieves, and this is
something dangerous and nasty," Sheikh Sa'adoon, chief of a large Sunni
tribe near Khaldiyah city in al-Anbar told IPS. "This only means we will
have more disturbances here, and it could create local civil war."
Another tribal leader in the area, speaking to IPS on condition of
anonymity, said "they are only doing this in order to kill as many
Sunnis as possible, and this time with Sunni hands."
He said true tribal leaders should lead any militias they form, rather
than issue orders from the Green Zone, the U.S. and Iraqi government
enclave in Baghdad.
"Leaders should lead their soldiers on the battlefield, but those
so-called sheikhs are well protected behind concrete walls inside the
dirty zone (green zone)," he said. "How can they win a battle by remote
control?"
The controversial move appears to have brought widespread condemnation
also from academics, Iraqi military leaders, and even Shia politicians.
"It is a new way of making millions of dollars," a professor at al-Anbar
University in Ramadi told IPS.
Brigadier-General Jassim Rashid al-Dulaimi from the new Iraqi Army in
Anbar province told IPS: "I cannot imagine 30,000 more guns in the Iraqi
field. I hope they will reject the idea. Iraq needs more engineers and
clean politicians to solve the dilemma of the existing militias rather
than recruiting new ones to kill more Iraqis. The idea sounds to me as
turning the country into a mercenary recruitment centre."
Shia leader Jaafar al-Assadi said the move will bring more violence.
"Al-Anbar will fight even more now with the guns given to those fools,"
he told IPS. "They are surely going to sell their weapons to the
terrorists or surrender to them soon or later."
Some of these group leaders have distanced themselves from the new
militias. Sheikh Hamid Muhanna, chief of the large tribe al-Bu Alwan
appeared on al-Jazeera denying the creation of such militia. He said he
and the other sheikhs are in control of their tribes, and those who met
al-Maliki speak for themselves only.
The main Sunni religious group, the Association of Muslim Scholars
(AMS), remains staunchly opposed to any continuance to the occupation.
"It is all in the hands of the Americans, we are trying to cover the sun
with a piece of glass," Sheikh Ahmed from AMS told IPS in Baghdad. "The
occupation power is too strong for any player to make a major change,
and so we should believe in our own capabilities without dreaming of
useful solutions from our enemy."
The Association has consistently refused to take part in Iraqi politics
under U.S. occupation.
The new militias are riding the back of what is controversially referred
to as federalism, under which each group appears headed its own way.
Thafir al-Ani, official spokesman for al-Tawafuq, a major Sunni
parliamentary group, resigned as chairman of a constitution committee
last week. "I would have had to take part in dividing Iraq under the
flag of federalism, which would have put a mark in my history as one of
those who established the dividing of my country," he said.
The solutions being put forth are all driven by personal and sectarian
interests, and fail to consider what is best for the country, Maki
al-Nazzal, political analyst from Fallujah told IPS.
"The change that could take place is an Iraqi people's 'Orange
revolution', which could occur with all Iraqis, regardless of their ID
information," al-Nazzal said. "But that would be very dangerous without
international protection to the people who would do it because Iraqi
rulers today, together with the U.S. Army, could massacre demonstrators."
The 'Orange revolution' was the name given to public protests across
Ukraine in November 2004 against a government and an election seen as
illegitimate. The revolution was widely believed to have had U.S. support.
A member of an Iraqi Human Rights non-governmental organisation who
asked to be identified as Ibrahim said the United Nations must take a
stronger stand in Iraq.
"The international community must take its real role in the country," he
told IPS. "UNAMI's (UN Assistance Mission for Iraq) hands are tied, and
they are only monitoring the disastrous situation without doing anything
to help stop the bleeding of Iraq."
(c)2006 Dahr Jamail.
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16) Activist Ousted From Vanderbilt Is Back, as a Teacher
By THEO EMERY
October 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/education/04lawson.html?ref=us
NASHVILLE — Just before 6 p.m. on a recent evening, students
began to fill a lecture hall at Vanderbilt University. Some pressed
cellphones to their ears, others sipped cups of coffee. Flip-flops
scuffed the carpet as the students shed book bags and opened
laptops.
A typical class, perhaps — until the teacher with the shock of white
hair rose from the table at the front of the hall, greeted the
students and asked a question: “How many of you have experienced
a hate crime against yourself? Let’s see the hands.”
So began the lecture by the Rev. James M. Lawson Jr., 78, who
returned to teach at Vanderbilt this fall, 46 years after the university
expelled him for his role in lunch-counter sit-ins that made
Nashville a springboard for a generation of civil rights activists.
The expulsion of Mr. Lawson, a Methodist divinity student who
was one of the nation’s leading scholars of civil disobedience
and Gandhian nonviolence, was quickly dubbed the Lawson affair,
and tarnished Vanderbilt’s reputation for years. University officials
apologized to Mr. Lawson long ago, honoring him and inviting
him back for periodic lectures. Even Harvie Branscomb, the
chancellor who presided over Mr. Lawson’s ouster, apologized
before his death.
But the invitation to return as a visiting professor is a new
chapter in relations between Vanderbilt and its famous
former student.
“It isn’t often that an institution gets the chance to correct
for a previous error,” said Lucius Outlaw, Vanderbilt’s
associate provost for undergraduate education, who first
proposed that Mr. Lawson be asked here for the year.
Mr. Lawson said the invitation came “out of the blue.”
He bore no grudge when he was expelled, he said,
nor does he today.
“I simply did not anticipate that Vanderbilt would do this,
or offer me that, so I had no inkling,” he said.
He also said he intended to accept the university’s invitation
to donate his papers to its archive.
When Mr. Lawson enrolled in 1958, Vanderbilt was still largely
segregated and widely seen as aloof from Nashville, which
had a reputation as being racially moderate though still
a segregated city.
Mr. Lawson, who at the time was a field officer for the
pacifist group Fellowship of Reconciliation, had spent three
years studying nonviolence while a missionary in India.
He was one of only a handful of blacks at Vanderbilt, which
had begun admitting black graduate students, but not black
undergraduates.
In some cases unwittingly, Mr. Lawson said, he began
undoing segregation on campus and off. He ate at the
university’s whites-only cafeterias and played intramural
football. When he bought orchestra seats for the Nashville
Symphony through the university, he and his date, Dorothy
Wood (now his wife), were ushered to a blacks-only section
of the balcony. Once there, Mr. Lawson said, another usher
consulted their tickets and told them their seats were
on the concert hall’s first floor.
“Dorothy and I desegregated Symphony Hall, because we
went back downstairs,” he said. “They were a little surprised,
but they led us to the row and we sat down.”
The university, he said, took notice and tolerated those
activities. But that changed, he recalled, in the winter of 1960.
For months in late 1959, Mr. Lawson led workshops on
nonviolence for students from Nashville colleges and universities,
including Fisk, American Baptist, and Tennessee Agricultural
and Industrial, in preparation for peaceful protests at downtown
businesses and for a campaign to desegregate the city’s lunch
counters. Their lunch-counter sit-ins, coming on the heels
of those in Greensboro, N.C., in early February, were well-
organized and drew national attention. Protesters kept up
pressure on the city, and in late February about 80 students
were arrested.
Under pressure from university board members, including
James G. Stahlman, the strongly anti-integration editor of
The Banner, one of two daily newspapers in Nashville,
Chancellor Branscomb told the dean of the divinity school
to ask Mr. Lawson to withdraw.
Mr. Lawson refused, and the board expelled him, which quickly
led to protests, condemnation from other colleges across the
country, and the resignation of the dean and faculty members
from the divinity school.
Mr. Lawson finished his studies at Boston University and
returned to Tennessee as a Methodist pastor in Shelbyville,
south of Nashville, and then in Memphis.
His actions influenced a generation of activists who went on
to help organize the Freedom Rides in the Deep South in 1961.
Some, like Stokely Carmichael; Marion S. Barry Jr., who later
became mayor of Washington; and John Lewis, who is
a Democratic congressman from Georgia, took the national stage.
Chancellor Gordon Gee said Mr. Lawson’s expulsion was
a defining moment for Vanderbilt, forcing it to decide whether
to modernize or “remain in amber.” His return this year,
Mr. Gee said, closes the loop on a transformative period
in the university’s history.
“It’s a reminder that we have much left to do,” he said. “But
we’ve come a long way.”
Mr. Lawson admits to a certain anxiety about being the
torchbearer for the civil rights movement.
“I want to be sure that my understanding of the 50’s and
60’s is relevant to the present,” he said.
During the evening lecture, he tucked his hands in his trouser
pockets and jingled loose change as he paced in front of the
class. He sprinkled his comments with references to the Bible
and Gandhi as the students discussed hate crimes, role-played
confrontations between strangers, and saw a movie about the
antiapartheid movement in South Africa.
A student in the back row, Elias Feghali, asked about violence
and Islam. Mr. Lawson hesitated only a moment before starting
a discussion of the international arms trade and how difficult
it was to disarm a society armed to the teeth.
“I don’t happen to think that Islam is the most violent religion,”
he added. “I think Christianity is. As a Christian, I think we need
to think about ourselves first, and clean up our own act.”
Afterward, Mr. Feghali said he had been “blown away” by
Mr. Lawson’s course. Nonviolence, Mr. Feghali said, is more
relevant today than ever.
“Obviously it’s the right step to take,” he said of Vanderbilt’s
invitation to Mr. Lawson. “They probably should have reached
out to him much earlier.”
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17) Board Redefines Rules for Union Exemption
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
October 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/washington/04labor.html
In a decision condemned by unions but praised by business, the
National Labor Relations Board issued a ruling yesterday that will
exempt registered nurses — and many other workers — from
union membership if they have certain kinds of supervisory duties.
Some labor experts predicted that the ruling could affect more
than eight million workers who might also be deemed supervisors,
including teachers who oversee aides. The board’s 3-to-2 decision
involved nurses overseeing shifts at a Michigan hospital.
But in two related cases, the board ruled that workers with
limited supervisory duties were not supervisors.
Labor unions have long feared such a decision, so much so that,
in an unusual move, they held demonstrations at the labor board’s
offices in July to urge it not to issue an expansive ruling that would
exempt many workers from union coverage.
In the majority decision, the three Republicans on the board adopted
a broad definition of supervisor, saying it included workers who
assigned others to a location, shift or significant tasks, like a nurse
overseeing a shift who might assign another nurse to a particular
patient.
The majority ruled that workers should generally be deemed
supervisors, exempt from union membership, if they oversaw
another employee and could be held accountable if that subordinate
performed poorly. The majority also ruled that workers could
be deemed supervisors if they were assigned supervisory duties
just 10 percent to 15 percent of their total work time.
In a stinging dissent, the two Democrats on the board, Wilma B.
Liebman and Dennis P. Walsh, wrote, “Today’s decision threatens
to create a new class of workers under federal labor law: workers
who have neither the genuine prerogatives of management, nor
the statutory rights of ordinary employees.”
The dissenters asserted that most of the nation’s more than
20 million professional workers could fall into that category
because many professionals, like a doctor overseeing nurses
or a lawyer overseeing a secretary, could be deemed supervisors
under the board’s new guidelines.
The case focused on workers who did not perform functions like
hiring, promoting or laying off workers, but rather assigning and
directing other employees — functions in which the supervisory
role was more ambiguous. The board’s majority emphasized that
to be considered a supervisor, workers had to exercise independent
judgment, although it adopted a more expansive view of such
judgment than previous labor boards had.
The majority comprised the chairman, Robert J. Battista; Peter
C. Schaumber; and Peter N. Kirsanow.
Steve Bokat, general counsel for the United States Chamber of
Commerce, said the decision did not go as far as business had
wanted, adding that estimates that millions of workers would
be exempted from union coverage were “outrageous numbers.”
“I think it’s a good test that the majority has laid out,” Mr. Bokat
said, “a reasonable test, one that employers and their counsel
can apply.”
John J. Sweeney, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said the ruling
“welcomes employers to strip millions of workers of their right
to have a union by reclassifying them as supervisors, in name only.”
Organized labor said the ruling continued a trend in which
President Bush and the labor board had exempted groups
of workers from union coverage, including graduate teaching
assistants, disabled workers and many Defense Department
employees.
The board’s ruling interprets a 2001 Supreme Court decision
in which Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for a 5-to-4 majority,
asserted that the labor board, then dominated by appointees
of President Clinton, had adopted too strict a test in deciding
when workers were supervisors.
Yesterday’s decision could exclude many retail workers, like
department heads in supermarkets or discount stores, from
joining unions. The majority wrote, “The assignment of an
employee to a certain department (e.g., housewares) or to
a certain shift (e.g., night) or to certain significant overall
tasks (e.g., restocking shelves) would generally qualify”
as having the supervisory responsibility of assigning.
The decision also stated, “If a person on the shop floor has
‘men under him,’ and if that person decides ‘what job shall
be undertaken next or who shall do it,’ that person is
a supervisor, provided that the direction is both ‘responsible’
” and “carried out with independent judgment.”
William B. Gould IV, who was board chairman under
Mr. Clinton, said the decision’s “shift in statutory interpretation
is a seismic one.” Mr. Gould said that with the board setting
forth rules on what employers must do to prove that employees
are supervisors, “the potential for manipulation is substantial.”
The board’s main decision yesterday involved Oakwood Heritage
Hospital, an acute care facility in Taylor, Mich., with 257 beds
and 181 registered nurses. The decision focused on a dozen
nurses who worked in intensive care, medical/surgical and
other units, and oversaw several other nurses, nurses’ aides
and technicians.
The union that sought to represent them, the United
Automobile Workers, asserted that they should not be
deemed supervisors on the ground that their supervisory
duties were minor and routine, and required so little independent
judgment. But the hospital argued that they should be considered
supervisors on the ground that they assigned nurses and nurses’
aides to particular patients and directed them by giving them
specific responsibilities, all while using independent judgment.
Another board decision released yesterday involved some
30 “lead persons” working for Croft Metals, a door and window
factory in McComb, Miss. The board ruled that the company had
not established that these workers exercised independent
judgment in directing their crews. The board suggested that
their judgment was simply routine.
A third decision involved the Golden Crest Healthcare Center,
a nursing home in Hibbing, Minn. The board ruled that the
employer had not established that the nurses in charge had
met the definition of assigning or directing other workers.
It found that the nursing home had failed to show that those
nurses were held accountable when their subordinates failed
to perform properly.
Pamela Thompson, chief executive of the American Organization
of Nurse Executives, an industry organization, said, “Since
hospital staffing can vary, not only hospital to hospital but
hour by hour, this decision will play out differently hospital
by hospital.”
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
18) Layoffs at Whirlpool
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
October 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/business/04whirlpool.html
The Whirlpool Corporation, the world’s largest appliance maker,
said yesterday that it would dismiss about 1,200 workers
in Arkansas and Indiana and shift some of its production
to a lower-wage factory in Mexico.
The company said it would cut 700 jobs at its Fort Smith, Ark.,
plant in the first half of 2008 and move the work to a refrigerator
factory in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico. An additional 500 workers
in Evansville, Ind., will be dismissed in 2007, the company said.
The company, which is based in Benton Harbor, Mich., cut
940 positions at the Arkansas plant earlier this year and
added the work to the factory in Mexico.
“They need to make these adjustments to stay competitive,
especially with the Asian imports in the market,” said Mirko
Mikelic, a bond fund manager at Fifth Third Asset Management.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
19) Adolescence: When Young People Use, Parents Seldom Know
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/health/03drug.html
Parents consistently and substantially underestimate their children’s
use of alcohol and other drugs, a new study has found.
Researchers interviewed 591 adolescents ages 12 to 17 about their
drug and alcohol use and then questioned at least one parent
of each about what he or she thought the children were using.
The analysis appears in the October issue of Alcoholism: Clinical
and Experimental Research.
Parents consistently said they believed that their children were
using substances less frequently than the children reported.
Alcohol use was most common, with 54.4 percent of the teenagers
reporting having consumed at least one drink in their lifetimes,
and 23.6 percent saying they had been intoxicated. But only
30.5 percent of parents believed that their children had ever
had a drink, and only 8.1 percent said their children had ever
been drunk.
While 44 percent of the adolescents reported smoking cigarettes,
only 27 percent of their parents knew they smoked.
Almost 23 percent of the adolescents admitted to using marijuana,
while only 13.2 percent of their parents were aware of it.
With drugs other than marijuana, the results were similar:
8.5 percent of teenagers said they had used other drugs,
while 3.1 percent of parents knew it.
“Parents of 12- and 13-year-olds had the lowest rates of knowledge,”
said Dr. Laura J. Bierut, the senior author of the study and an associate
professor of psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis.
“That’s worrisome, because there is good evidence that the younger
you start to use substances, the more likely you are to develop
addiction.”
“Children are not telling you about their drug use,” Dr. Bierut
added. “You have to ask. Kids have access to drugs, they use
them, and most parents are clueless.”
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20) "79 Percent of Gazan Households are Living in Poverty"
The Economy of Gaza
By SARA ROY
October 4, 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/roy10042006.html
In one of many reports and accounts of economic life in the Gaza
Strip that I have recently read, I was struck by a description of an
old man standing on the beach in Gaza throwing his oranges into
the sea. The description leapt out at me because it was this very
same scene I myself witnessed some 21 years ago during my very
first visit to the territory. It was the summer of 1985 and I was
taken on a tour of Gaza by a friend named Alya. As we drove
along Gaza's coastal road I saw an elderly Palestinian man standing
at the shoreline with some boxes of oranges next to him. I was
puzzled by this and asked Alya to stop the car. One by one, the
elderly Palestinian took an orange and threw it into the water.
His was not an action of playfulness but of pain and regret.
His movements were slow and labored as if the weight of each
orange was more than he could bear. I asked my friend why
he was doing this and she explained that he was prevented
from exporting his oranges to Israel and rather than watch
them rot in his orchards, the old man chose to cast them
into the sea. I have never forgotten this scene and the impact
it had on me.
Politics and Economics
Over two decades later, after peace agreements, economic
protocols, road maps and disengagements, Gazans are still
casting their oranges into the sea. Yet Gaza is no longer where
I found it so long ago but someplace far worse and more
dangerous. One year after Israel's 2005 "disengagement"
from the Strip, which was hailed by President Bush as a great
opportunity for "the Palestinian people to build a modern
economy that will lift millions out of poverty [and] create
the institutions and habits of liberty,"i--a "Dubai on the
Mediterranean"ii--according to Thomas Friedman, Gaza
is undergoing acute and debilitating economic declines
marked by unprecedented levels of poverty, unemployment,
loss of trade, and social deterioration especially with regard
to the delivery of health and educational services.
The optimism that surrounded the disengagement was
also reflected in the Palestinian Authority's plan for reviving
Gaza's economy known as the Gaza Strip Economic Development
Strategy, published soon after the disengagement was completed.iii
This document, less a development plan than an articulation
of objectives, had, among its primary goals "[a]chieving stability,
contiguity and control over land to support the Palestinian economy,"
and "[a]dopting effective economic policies to enable the rehabilitation
of the Palestinian economy to achieve comprehensive development."iv
Needless to say the Authority has not been able to realize its
objectives given the exigencies imposed. However, it is important
to point out that even in the absence of many constraints, rational
planning of the sort described in the Authority's plan is simply
futile in an environment that is itself so irrational, typified by
increasingly acute unpredictability, vulnerability and dependency,
themselves resulting from a continued and unchanged occupation.
This is not a new problem but an old one that requires a new
approach that argues that as long as the political environment
remains unchanged (or worsened), economic development
is precluded and economic planning should focus on areas less
vulnerable to external pressure (e.g. labor force training, institutional
development). Otherwise, planning becomes nothing more than
a theoretical and increasingly abstract exercise that promises few
if any meaningful results. In this context, international aid can play
a critical role in helping people survive but with little if any structural
impact on the economy. _The pauperization of Gaza's economy
is not accidental but deliberate, the result of continuous restrictive
Israeli policies (primarily closure), particularly since the start of the
current uprising six years ago, and more recently of the international
aid embargo imposed on Palestinians after the election and
installation of the democratically elected Hamas-led government
earlier this year. However, one need only look at the economy
of Gaza, for example, on the eve of the uprising to realize that
the devastation is not recent. By the time the second intifada broke
out, Israel's closure policy had been in force for seven years, leading
to by then unprecedented levels of unemployment and poverty
(which would soon be surpassed). Yet the closure policy proved
so destructive only because the 30 year process of integrating
Gaza's economy into Israel's had made the local economy deeply
dependent. As a result, when the border was closed in 1993,
self-sustainment was no longer possible-the means were simply
not there. Decades of expropriation and deinstitutionalization
had long ago robbed Palestine of its potential for development,
ensuring that no viable economic (and hence political) structure
could emerge.v
International Agencies: Realties and Forecasts
According to the World Bank, Palestinians are currently experiencing
the worst economic depression in modern history. The opprobrious
imposition of international sanctions has had a devastating impact
on an already severely comprised economy given its extreme
dependence on external sources of finance. For example,
the Palestinian Authority is highly dependent on two sources
of income. The first is annual aid package from Western donors
of about $1 billion per year (in 2005, according to the World Bank,
donors gave $1.3 billion in humanitarian and emergency [$500m/38%],
developmental [$450m/35%] and budgetary [$350m/27%]) assistance,
much of it now suspended. The second is a monthly transfer by Israel
of $55 million in customs and tax revenues that it collects for the PA,
a source of revenue that is absolutely critical to the Palestinian budget
and totally suspended.vi In fact, Israel is now withholding close
to half a billion dollars in Palestinian revenue that is desperately
needed in Gaza.
The combined impact of restrictions, notably the almost unabated
closure and the ongoing economic boycott, has resulted in unprecedented
levels of unemployment that currently approach 40 percent in Gaza
(compared to less than 12 percent in 1999). In fact, Palestinian workers
from Gaza have not been allowed into Israel since 12 March 2006,
Gaza's primary market and all entry and exit points have been
virtually sealed since June 25, 2006 when Israel's current military
campaign in Gaza began.vii In the next five years, furthermore,
135,000 new jobs will be needed just to keep unemployment at
10 percent.viii Trade levels have been similarly affected. By early
May 2006, for example, the Karni crossing, through which commercial
supplies enter Gaza, had been closed for 47 percent of the year
with estimated daily losses of $500,000-$600,000.ix Compounding
this are agricultural losses amounting to an estimated $1.2 billion
for both Gaza and the West Bank over the last six years.
By April 2006 79 percent of Gazan households were living in
poverty x (compared to less than 30 percent in 2000), a figure
that has likely increased; many are hungry. Furthermore, in Gaza,
adding one dependent member to the family increases the household's
probability of being poor by 3.5 percent. The dependency burden found
in Gaza is second only to that of Africa.xi Hence, the number of adults
in a household who are employed is a strong factor in poverty alleviation.
Not surprisingly, individuals living in the Gaza Strip are 23 percent
more likely to be poor than individuals living in the West Bank.
The United Nations currently feeds approximately 830,000 of Gaza's
1.4 million population (or 59 percent of the total population who would
go hungry without UN assistance)-100,000 of whom were added since
March of this year. UNRWA primarily supports 610,000 (all of whom are
refugees) and the World Food Program supports 220,000 (60,000 were
added in September 2006 alone) non-refugees. The latter include 136,000
"chronic poor" who previously received welfare assistance from the PA.xii
Exacerbating Gaza's socioeconomic decline was Israel's attack on Gaza's
only power station last June. The plant, which was destroyed, supplied
45 percent of the electricity in the Gaza Strip. The cuts in power have
been extremely harmful to healthcare delivery, food and water supplies,
and the treatment of sewage among other problems. Recently, the Israeli
human rights group, B'tselem said the attack on the power plant constituted
a war crime under international law since it targeted a civilian population.
Furthermore, since Israel's military invasion of the Gaza Strip known
as "Operation Summer Rains," 237 Palestinians have been killed by the
IDF (out of 382 since January 2006 and 2137 since September 2000,
the majority civilians) and 821 wounded. The Israeli military has also f
ired at least 260 air-to-surface missiles and hundreds of artillery shells
at mostly civilian targets including government buildings and educational
institutions, dozens of private homes, six bridges and a number of roads,
and hundreds of acres of agricultural land, destroying them.xiii [Note:
Between 29 March and 27 June 2006, Israel launched 112 air strikes,
fired 4,251 artillery shells and five naval shells killing 94 Gazans
including 35 civilians.]xiv
According to the United Nations, in 2007, absent of any meaningful
improvement, the Palestinian economy as a whole will be 35 percent
smaller than it was in 2005, falling to its level in 1991, and over half
the labor force will be unemployed.xv The UN recently published
projections on the impact of reduced international aid on the Palestinian
economy. Using 2005 as its basis of comparison, the projections
assume a 30-50 percent reduction in aid (and with it public expenditures),
a 50-100 percent increase in restrictions on trade, and a 10-20 percent
increase in restrictions on labor flows to Israel. Under the worst-case
scenario, which is not unlikely, the losses in GDP between 2006 and
2008 could reach $5.4 billion, which exceeds the Palestinian GDP
in 2005. Eighty-four percent of total jobs available in 2005 could
be lost.xvi Even under a better case scenario, writes Raja Khalidi,
an economist at UNCTAD, "the Palestinian economy will implode
to levels not witnessed for a generation."xvii
The Population Factor
Gaza's problem is not only one of occupation but of population
and this vital to understand. Today, there are more than 1.4 million
Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip: by 2010 the figure will be close
to two million. Gaza has the highest birthrate in the region _ 5.5
to 6.0 children per woman _ and the population grows
by 3 to 5 percent annually. Eighty percent of the population
is under 50 and 50 percent is 15 years old or younger. The half
of the territory in which the population is concentrated has one
of the highest densities in the world. In the Jabalya refugee camp
alone, there are 74,000 people per square kilometer, compared
with 25,000 in Manhattan.
According to the latest data produced by Harvard University's
2010 Project, with an annual growth rate of between 3.45 and
3.5 percent, Gaza's population of 1,330,000 people will reach
1,590,000 by 2010 and 2,660,000 by 2028, doubling its current
size. By 2010, furthermore, the adult population, relative to that
of youth, will grow by 24 percent, placing added pressures on the
job and housing markets.xviii If growing numbers of people are
unable to secure work or housing, both of which are key
to marriage and family structure, the resulting and widening
gap between supply and demand will lead to greater violence
and with it the continued militarization of society. Hence,
population trends will be a major factor determining the
socioeconomic wellbeing, or lack thereof, of the Gaza Strip.
And even with an immediate decline in fertility, Gaza's young
population will grow for at least a generation (because of the
size of the upcoming cohorts).xix
The combination of a growing population and shifting age
structure places enormous pressures on public services,
especially education and health. In education, for example,
population growth alone-without any improvement in the quality
of services-will require 1,517 more teachers and 984 new classrooms
over the next four years. Similarly, if Gaza's educational system
is to reach current standards in the West Bank, it needs at least
7,500 additional teachers and 4,700 new classrooms. And if the
Gaza Strip is to just maintain current levels of access to health
services in 2010, it will need 425 more physicians, 520 additional
nurses and 465 new hospital beds.xx
An Economic Forecast
The resulting damage-both present and future-cannot be undone
simply by 'returning' Gaza's lands, removing 9,000 Israeli settlers,
and allowing Palestinians freedom of movement and the right
to build factories within an enlarged but isolated and encircled Gaza.
Gaza's many problems cannot be addressed when its burgeoning
population is confined within a physically constrained territory
of limited resources. Density is not just a problem of people but
of access to resources, especially labor markets. Without external
access to jobs and the right to emigrate, something the Gaza
Disengagement Plan and Olmert's realignment plan effectively deny,
the Strip will remain a prison unable to engage in any form
of economic development.
Indeed, in 2005, the international community (through the Ad Hoc
Liason Committee) concluded that the most important factor
in Palestine's economic decline is not reduced aid levels but
movement and access restrictions and the suspension of revenue
transfers. In fact, they concluded that in the continued absence
of a political settlement (that would allow greater movement
into Israel and beyond), international aid can only help
Palestinians survive and nothing else.
The urgency of Gaza's plight is considerable for as Raja Khalidi
writes, "Even assuming a full return of donor support and the
relaxation of mobility restrictions by 2008, GDP and employment
losses would continue to accumulate. This suggests that today's
declines will have harmful, long-lasting effects on the economy
that will persist even if adverse conditions are alleviated later on."xxi
Dr. Sara Roy is a Professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies
at Harvard University. Dr. Roy has worked in the Gaza Strip and West
Bank since 1985 conducting research primarily on the economic, social,
and political development of the Gaza Strip and on U.S. foreign
aid to the region. Dr. Roy has written extensively on the Palestinian
economy, particularly in Gaza, and has documented its development
over the last three decades.
Notes
i The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, "President Bush
Commends Israeli Prime Minister Sharon's Plan," 14 April 2004.
ii See my analysis of the disengagement agreement, in Sara Roy,
"A Dubai on the Mediterranean," The London Review of Books,
November 2005.
iii Ministry of National Economy and Ministry of Planning, Gaza
Strip Economic Development Strategy, The Palestinian National
Authority, September 2005.
iv Ibid. v Roy, "A Dubai on the Mediterranean."
vi Samar Assad, "Forecast for Palestinian Economic Survival,"
Palestine Center Information Brief No. 135, 18 April 2006.
vii United Nations, The Humanitarian Monitor-occupied Palestinian
territory, Number 4, August 2006, p. 1.
viii Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, Harvard
University, Gaza 2010: human security needs in the Gaza Strip,
Population Projections for Socioeconomic Development in the
Gaza Strip, Working Paper #1, May 2006, Cambridge, MA, p. 18.
ix OCHA, Situation Report: The Gaza Strip, 3 May 2006
x United Nations, The Humanitarian Monitor, p. 7.
xi Harvard University, Population Projections for Socioeconomic
Development in the Gaza Strip, p. 15.
xii Steven Erlanger, "As Parents Go Unpaid, Gaza Children Go
Hungry," The New York Times, 14 September 2006, p. A11.
xiii Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), Weekly Report:
A Special Issue on the 6th Anniversary of the al-Aqsa Intifada,
No. 38/2006, 21-27 September 2006, p. 2.
xiv Palestinian National Initiative, The Forgotten People:
The Despair of Gaza One Year After the 'Disengagement',
14 September 2006. http://www.amin.org.
xv Raja Khalidi, "Palestinian collapse hurts all," Ha'aretz,
17 September 2006.
xvi Ibid.
xvii Ibid.
xviii Harvard University, Population Projections for
Socioeconomic Development in the Gaza Strip, pp. 13-16, 20.
xix Ibid, p. 13.
xx Ibid, p. 21.
xxi Raja Khalidi, "Palestinian collapse hurts all."
This information brief was written for The Palestine Center.
The above text may be used without permission but with proper
attribution to The Palestine Center. This information brief does
not necessarily reflect the views of The Jerusalem Fund.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
21) Cuba Embargo's Boomerang Effect
by Patricia Grogg
Published on Wednesday, October 4, 2006 by the Inter Press Service
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34976
HAVANA - Washington's embargo against Cuba also has an impact on the
United States economy and prevents millions of U.S. citizens from
benefiting from Cuban medical progress, according to a report
released by the Cuban foreign ministry.
The text of the report will be presented at the United Nations
General Assembly, which on Nov. 8 will be examining for the fifteenth
consecutive year the need to end the embargo imposed by Washington on
Havana more than four decades ago. The document states that "because
of the blockade regulations" it has been impossible to begin clinical
trials in the U.S. with TheraCIM, a Cuban pharmaceutical product for
treating brain tumours in children.
TheraCIM is produced by the Molecular Immunology Centre, which in
2004 made a deal with U.S. company CancerVax to develop and produce
therapeutic vaccines against cancer.
This medication is registered in Cuba and other countries for
treating cancer of the head and neck, and has been proved to reduce
tumour mass. It could benefit children in the United States and other
countries with this type of cancer, the report points out.
It also adds that were it not for the embargo, millions of people in
the United States suffering from diabetes could benefit from Citoprot
P, a unique product and treatment method that accelerates healing of
diabetic foot ulcers, reducing the risk of lower extremity
amputations.
Citoprot P was developed by the Cuban Centre for Genetic Engineering
and Biotechnology. According to the foreign ministry report, about
20.8 million people in the United States suffer from diabetes, a
chronic incurable disease.
The restrictions that Cuba calls a blockade and the U.S. an embargo
have cost this Caribbean country 86.1 billion dollars in total
damages throughout the period, including four billion in 2005 alone,
the document says.
Last year the U.N. approved by 182 votes the Cuban motion in favour
of lifting the embargo. The motion was first set before the U.N.
General Assembly in 1992, when only 59 countries voted in favour of
the resolution.
The report states that the ban on U.S. tourism to Cuba causes tourist
agents in the U.S. losses of 565 million dollars per million U.S.
tourists who are prevented from visiting the country.
An estimated 1.8 million U.S. tourists could have vacationed in this
Caribbean island in 2005, but because of the ban, U.S. tourist
agencies lost potential income of 996 million dollars, the report
says.
In addition, the U.S. imports about 148,000 tons of primary nickel
and some 10,000 tons of cobalt annually "from distant markets."
But "If the blockade did not exist," it could purchase these raw
materials from Cuba, only 200 kilometres away, the report notes.
At present Cuba produces about 77,000 tons of nickel a year, and
output is set to increase through an investment programme agreed with
Canada in March 2005 for the expansion and modernisation of a joint
venture company to exploit the mineral.
Cuba has proven nickel reserves of 800 million tons, and potential
reserves are estimated at two billion tons. The country's cobalt
reserves amount to approximately 26 percent of total world reserves,
according to official sources.
In presenting the report, Cuban deputy foreign minister Bruno
Rodríquez said on Monday that the George W. Bush administration has
created "an inter-agency task force on Cuban nickel," to monitor and
prevent sales of this strategic mineral.
Energy is another good business that Havana says U.S. companies are
missing out on, because they are forbidden to participate in
prospecting for oil on Cuba's undersea platform in the Gulf of
Mexico, only 137 kilometres from Florida.
The platform to the north of Cuba has an estimated potential of
between one billion and 9.3 billion barrels of crude and between 1.9
trillion and 22 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
These estimates in the Cuban foreign ministry's report are attributed
to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which said "the possibilities
of success are of the order of 95 percent."
In 1999 Cuba opened up to tender 112,000 square kilometres of its
waters in the Gulf of Mexico, divided into 51 blocks, for foreign
exploration aimed at eventual exploitation.
The Spanish-Argentine company Repsol YPF currently has a contract to
drill in six of these blocks, with a total surface area of 10,700
square kilometres. This year, however it decided to spread the risk
and has sold a 30 percent share in the venture to each of two other
companies, from India and Norway, retaining 40 percent itself.
The Canadian firm Sherritt International has also signed a contract
for four blocks in this deep water drilling area.
Legislation approved in 2000 by the U.S. Congress permits the sale of
foods to Cuba, an exception to the embargo that began to be
implemented in 2001.
Between late 2001 and 2004, Cuban purchases from U.S. firms totalled
over one billion dollars in cash.
In 2005, Cuba had earmarked between 700 and 800 million dollars to
buy food from the United States. But Washington tightened its trading
restrictions with Cuba, and the trade dropped to some 474 million
dollars.
"Due to the obstacles to trade imposed by the blockade, U.S.
agricultural exporters lost income of about 300 million dollars,
which were used for purchases in other markets," the Cuban report
said.
The economic, commercial and financial embargo was formally imposed
on Feb. 3, 1962. That means "seven out of 10 Cubans have been born
and grown up under the blockade," said deputy foreign minister
Rodríguez.
The different generations often have different views with respect to
the effects of the embargo. For example, Antonio Díaz, 70, believes
that "the blockade is the reason why the country has not progressed,"
while a 30-year-old taxi driver who remained anonymous said "(the
embargo) is nothing but an excuse to cover up economic inefficiency."
According to some experts, bilateral trade between the United States
and Cuba would reach 20 billion dollars in just five years, if the
embargo were lifted.
But Díaz, a retired sugar industry worker, confessed that he agreed
with those who think ending the embargo won't be enough. "I think
changes are also needed to straighten out the country. I don't think
we're working properly, and that's something we have to fix -- with
or without the blockade," he told IPS.
According to deputy foreign minister Rodríguez, the sole aim of the
restrictions is to subject the Cuban people to hunger, desperation
and suffering, and in his view it constitutes "an act of economic
warfare and genocide."
Copyright © 2006 IPS-Inter Press Service
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22) Latin America Declares Independence
by Noam Chomsky
Published on Tuesday, October 3, 2006
by the International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/03/opinion/edchomsky.php
Five centuries after the European conquests, Latin America is
reasserting its independence.
In the southern cone especially, from Venezuela to Argentina, the
region is rising to overthrow the legacy of external domination of
the past centuries and the cruel and destructive social forms that
they have helped to establish.
The mechanisms of imperial control - violence and economic warfare,
hardly a distant memory in Latin America - are losing their
effectiveness, a sign of the shift toward independence. Washington is
now compelled to tolerate governments that in the past would have
drawn intervention or reprisal.
Throughout the region a vibrant array of popular movements provide
the basis for a meaningful democracy. The indigenous populations, as
if in a rediscovery of their pre-Columbian legacy, are much more
active and influential, particularly in Bolivia and Ecuador.
These developments are in part the result of a phenomenon that has
been observed for some years in Latin America: As the elected
governments become more formally democratic, citizens express an
increasing disillusionment with democratic institutions. They have
sought to construct democratic systems based on popular participation
rather than elite and foreign domination.
A persuasive explanation for this has been offered by Argentine
political scientist Atilio Boron, who observed that the new wave of
democratization coincided with externally mandated economic "reforms"
that undermine effective democracy.
In a world of nation-states, it is true by definition that decline of
sovereignty entails decline of democracy, and decline in ability to
conduct social and economic policy. That in turn harms development.
The historical record also reveals that loss of sovereignty
consistently leads to imposed liberalization, of course in the
interests of those with the power to impose this social and economic
regime.
It is instructive to compare recent presidential elections in the
richest country of the world and the poorest country in South
America.
In the 2004 U.S. presidential election, voters had a choice between
two men born to wealth and privilege, who attended the same elite
university, joined the same secret society where young men are
trained to join the ruling class and were able to run in the election
because they were supported by pretty much the same conglomerations
of private power. Their programs were similar, consistent with the
needs of their primary constituency: wealth and privilege.
For contrast, consider Bolivia and Evo Morales' election last
December. Voters were familiar with the issues, very real and
important ones like national control over natural gas and other
resources, which has overwhelming popular support. Indigenous rights,
women's rights, land rights and water rights were on the political
agenda, among many others. The population chose someone from
its own ranks, not a representative of narrow sectors of privilege.
Given its new ascendancy, Latin America may come to terms with some
of its severe internal problems. The region is notorious for the
rapacity of its wealthy classes, and their freedom from social
responsibility.
Comparative studies of Latin American and East Asian economic
development are revealing in this respect. Latin America has close to
the world's worst record for inequality, East Asia the best. The same
holds for education, health and social welfare generally.
Latin American economies have also been more open to foreign
investment than Asia. The World Bank reported that foreign investment
and privatization have tended to substitute for other capital flows
in Latin America, transferring control and sending profits abroad,
unlike East Asia.
Meanwhile, new socioeconomic programs under way in Latin America are
reversing patterns that trace back to the Spanish conquests - with
Latin American elites and economies linked to the imperial powers but
not to one another.
Of course this shift is highly unwelcome in Washington, for the
traditional reasons: The United States expects to rely on Latin
America as a secure base for resources, markets and investment
opportunities.
And as planners have long emphasized, if this hemisphere is out of
control, how can the United States hope to resist defiance elsewhere?
Noam Chomsky is emeritus professor of linguistics and philosophy at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His most recent book is
"Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy."
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23) Poor, Black and Dumped On
By BOB HERBERT
October 5, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/opinion/05herbert.html?hp
Most of the carnage — the terrible illnesses and the premature
deaths — is hidden.
“The people in those agencies who issue the permits, and then
do very little monitoring and very little enforcement in our
communities, they don’t go with us to the emergency rooms
where the children are suffering from serious asthma attacks.
And they certainly don’t go with us to the funeral homes where
we bury people who are 40 years old and have died of cancer.
They don’t see the terrible damage that this stuff is doing.”
Monique Harden, a lawyer and director of a human rights
agency in New Orleans, was talking about a problem that will
get no attention at all in the Congressional elections, which
are primarily about foolishness and the compulsion to deceive.
The evidence has been before us for decades that black people,
other ethnic minorities and some poor whites have been getting
sick and enduring horrible deaths from the filth that they
breathe, eat, drink and otherwise ingest from the garbage
dumps, landfills, incinerators, toxic waste sites, oil refineries,
petrochemical plants and other world-class generators
of pollution that have been deliberately and relentlessly
installed in the neighborhoods where they live, work,
worship and go to school.
Two colossal environmental debacles occurred, for example,
in West Anniston, Ala., a neighborhood that is mostly black
and mostly poor. A chemical plant conveniently located there
produced thousands of pounds of potentially deadly
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB’s) each year. For years
after the danger was apparent, residents were left uninformed.
Some were later found to have the highest concentrations
of PCB’s in their bloodstreams of anyone ever tested.
But the PCB’s from the chemical plant were just one of
many risks faced by the residents. In 2003 the military
began burning deadly chemical weapons stored at the
Anniston Army Depot in West Anniston. Emissions
associated with burning chemical weapons include
dioxins, PCB’s, furans, heavy metals and trace amounts
of nerve and mustard gas agents.
The Rev. Henry Sterling, a pastor in Anniston, told me
with great sadness how he had buried his niece who had
died from cancer when she was just 30, and then two
days later had to bury two other women in their 20’s,
and then the following week two more women in their
late 20’s.
He added, “My secretary was from here, and she was just
32 when she died from cancer. We have young men dying,
too. But during that short period it just happened to be
all women. ”
We’ve known — or should have known — since at least
1987, when a landmark study was published by the
Commission on Racial Justice of the United Church of
Christ, that wildly disproportionate numbers of hazardous
waste sites have been placed in communities with large
concentrations of black and Latino residents.
Since then an enormous amount of data has been compiled
showing that government and industry alike have used
black and poor neighborhoods as dumping grounds
for the vilest and most dangerous of pollutants. You
go to these communities, where the air can be thick
enough to make you gag, and you find that the rates
of cancer, heart disease, stroke and the like are off
the charts.
The largest hazardous waste landfill in America is near
the small, rural town of Emelle, in Sumter County, which
is part of the so-called “black belt” of Alabama. It takes
in hazardous materials from 48 states and some foreign
countries. More than 70 percent of the Sumter County
population, and more than 90 percent of the population
of Emelle, is black.
The systematic placement of garbage dumps, chemical
plants, oil refineries and other hazardous facilities
in communities inhabited primarily by blacks and other
disadvantaged groups is nothing less than an unconscionable
extension of the devastating Jim Crow policies that have
existed in one form or another, legally or illegally,
since slavery.
More than 70 environmental, human rights and public
health groups participated in a bus tour last week —
dubbed “The Environmental Justice for All Tour” —
that visited communities across the country that have
suffered terrible damage from these blatantly
discriminatory policies.
The tour was enthusiastically received at each stop,
but got hardly any attention from the larger society.
The message to blacks and others struggling with these
hideous policies could not have been clearer: we are not
in the least interested in you.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
24) Police to Start Inspecting Bags on Boston Subway
By KATIE ZEZIMA
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/us/05boston.html?ref=us
BOSTON, Oct. 4 — The police will begin inspecting passengers’
bags on the Boston subway system in the next few days,
Gov. Mitt Romney said on Wednesday.
The inspections will be random for the most part, but could
be mandatory at some stations, Mr. Romney said in an interview.
The program was not in response to a specific threat against
the transit system here, he said, but to the general threat
of terrorism.
“I think we recognize globally that transit systems, airport
systems and the like have been targets,” Mr. Romney said, “and
therefore we have to adjust our security parameters to no longer
focus on just crime, but to add the additional threat of terror.”
Boston was the first American city to randomly inspect bags
on its subways. At the Democratic National Convention
in 2004, police officers inspected bags on the subway
and searched the bags of people standing in lines near
the convention site. Both practices were stopped after
the inspections, which were compulsory, were challenged
in federal court.
The decision to resume inspections comes nearly two months
after a federal appeals court upheld the constitutionality
of random visual inspection of bags on the New York City
subway system, which started in July 2005 in response
to the London train bombings.
Rather than conduct visual searches, Boston police officers
will swab a bag, its seams and its handles with an electronic
device that checks for traces of explosives. They will search
a bag if they think there is probable cause.
In addition, behavior-recognition teams will be dispatched
throughout the subway and bus system as part of the program.
Those officers will be authorized to search a person’s bag
if they believe it is warranted.
Mr. Romney, a Republican, and Joseph C. Carter, chief of the
Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority police, which will
be conducting the searches, said they believed the Boston
system was in line with the system ruled constitutional
in New York, because the searches would be short and
would be done in public and with advance notice.
“They affirmed the right of transit agencies to carry out this
kind of a security program,” Mr. Romney said. “We believe
the program will fall within the parameters the court outlined.
It is not discrimination based on racial profiling. The hallmark
of the program is the lack of predictability.”
Mr. Romney said there would be no pattern to where police
officers were stationed or how many of a person’s bags
would be searched.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
25) U.S. Eavesdropping Is Allowed to Continue During Appeal
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 5, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/us/05nsa.html?ref=us
CINCINNATI, Oct. 4 (AP) — The Bush administration can continue
eavesdropping on the international communications of some
Americans without a court warrant while it appeals a judge’s
ruling that the program is unconstitutional, the federal appeals
court here ruled Wednesday.
President Bush has said the wiretapping program is needed
in the campaign against terrorism; opponents say it oversteps
constitutional boundaries on free speech, privacy and
executive powers.
The unanimous ruling from a three-judge panel of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit gave
little explanation for the decision. In the three-paragraph
ruling, the judges said they considered the likelihood that
an appeal would succeed, the potential damage to both
sides and the public interest.
Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of Federal District Court in Detroit
ruled on Aug. 17 that the program was unconstitutional,
saying it violated the rights to free speech and privacy
and the separation of powers in the Constitution.
The Justice Department had urged the appeals court to
allow it to keep the program in place while it argued its
appeal, claiming that the nation faced “potential irreparable
harm.” The appeal is likely to take months.
The program monitors international phone calls and e-mail
messages to or from the United States involving people whom
the government says it suspects of having links to terrorism.
A secret court can grant warrants for such surveillance, but
the government says it cannot always wait for that court
to take action.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit seeking
to stop the program on behalf of journalists, scholars and
lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them
to do their jobs because of concerns that telephone
conversations with overseas contacts will be monitored.
Similar lawsuits challenging the program have been filed
by other groups, too.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
26) American Axle Offers Buyouts
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
October 5, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/business/05axle.html
American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings is offering union workers
at five auto parts plants up to $100,000 to leave the company
because of declining demand from automakers.
About 6,000 members of the United Automobile Workers union
in New York and Michigan are eligible for buyout or retirement
packages, American Axle, which is based in Detroit, said yesterday.
Plans also call for salaried jobs to be cut as part of a North
American restructuring. No plants are scheduled to close.
American Axle withdrew its earnings and cash-flow guidance
for the year and said it would spend $150 million to $250 million
on restructuring in 2006. The company gets 77 percent of its
sales from General Motors, which along with other American
automakers plans to build fewer vehicles in the second half of 2006.
American Axle builds almost all of the axles for G.M.’s light
trucks and its sales in that category have declined 13 percent this year.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
27) Intelligent, Emotional, Ingenious: the Amazing Truth
about Whales and Dolphins
by Michael McCarthy
October 5, 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1799465.ece
Jumping through watery hoops? Forget it. They can solve problems and
use tools. They exhibit joy and grief. They live in complex societies.
And although we have always instinctively thought that cetaceans -
whales, dolphins and porpoises - are special members of the animal
kingdom, scientific evidence is piling up that they are truly out of
the ordinary in terms of their intelligence.
A growing number of behavioural studies strongly suggest that whale
and dolphin brain power is matched only by the higher primates,
including man, according to a new review of the scientific literature
by one of Britain's leading save-the-whale campaigners.
It means that the potential impact of whaling may be far greater than
it appears, and we should adopt a new approach to the conservation of
these species which takes into account their intelligence, societies,
culture - and potential to suffer, says Mark Simmonds, director of
science for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.
In a scientific paper published this month, Mr Simmonds surveys
recent cetacean research and highlights striking examples which have
been observed of whale and dolphin behaviour. For instance, captive
animals have been shown unequivocally to be able to recognise
themselves in a mirror, which was previously known to be the domain
only of humans and the great apes.
There are many other examples of intelligence, Mr Simmonds reports in
his paper Into the brains of whales, being published in the journal
Applied Animal Behaviour Science.
Dolphins can "point" at objects with their heads to guide humans to
them, and they can also manipulate objects spontaneously, despite
their lack of fingers and thumbs. There is a well-documented use of
tools in an Australian population of wild Indo-Pacific bottlenose
dolphins, he says. "The animals (almost exclusively females) are
often seen carrying sponges on the ends of their beaks, probably to
protect them while they forage in the sediments on the sea floor
where spiny sea urchins might otherwise cause puncture wounds."
They show remarkably human-like emotions, ranging from joy to grief
to care for the injured. Mr Simmonds quotes a case of a 30-strong pod
of false killer whales which remained with an injured member in
shallows for three days, exposing themselves to sunburn and the risk
of stranding, until it died.
Group living, in fact, is at the centre of cetacean existence,
perhaps because the sea has few refuges from predators, and many
species "have nothing to hide behind but each other". It has led to
the evolution of many types of sophisticated co-operative behaviour,
from hunting, to young males banding together to secure mating
partners. And there is an "emerging but compelling argument", Mr
Simmonds says, that some cetacean species exhibit culture - behaviour
that is acquired through social learning.
He points out that since commercial whaling was put on hold in 1986,
some of the devastated populations have recovered, but some have not.
It is plausible, he says, that the whalers destroyed "not just
numerous individuals, but also the cultural knowledge that they
harboured relating to how to exploit certain habitats and areas."
But the jury is still out, he says, on whether the vast range of
sounds emitted by whales and dolphins constitutes language.
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
LINKS ONLY
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
109th U.S. Congress (2005-2006)
H.R. 5295: Student and Teacher Safety Act of 2006
The following summary is provided by the Congressional Research
Service, which is a government entity that serves Congress
and is run by the Library of Congress.
5/4/2006--Introduced.
Student and Teacher Safety Act of 2006 - Requires states, local
educational agencies, and school districts to deem a search of any
minor student on public school grounds to be reasonable and
permissible if conducted by a full-time teacher or school official,
acting on any colorable suspicion based on professional experience
and judgment, to ensure that the school remain free of all weapons,
dangerous materials, or illegal narcotics.
Denies Safe Schools and Citizenship Education funds, provided
under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965,
to states, local educational agencies, and school districts that
fail to deem such searches reasonable and permissible.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?tab=summary&bill=h109-5295
Global Warming on the Forest Floor
By HENRY FOUNTAIN
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/science/03observ.html
New Planets Astound Astronomers in Speed and Distance
By DENNIS OVERBYE
October 5, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/science/space/05planet.html?ref=science
Poor U.S. Scores in Health Care Don’t Measure Nobels and Innovation
By TYLER COWEN
October 5, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/business/05scene.html
Apple Says Jobs Knew of Options
By LAURIE J. FLYNN
October 5, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/technology/05options.html?ref=business
Hauppauge, L.I.: New Immigration Law
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Steve Levy, the Suffolk County executive, signed into law yesterday
a measure requiring companies with government contracts to verify
that their employees are in the United States legally. Last month,
the County Legislature passed the proposal by a 15-to-3 vote.
Opponents fear that the measure could exacerbate tensions
in a region that has seen an influx of day laborers from abroad.
October 5, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/nyregion/05mbrfs-008.html
Adults on Welfare With H.I.V. or AIDS Hit With Rent Increase
By SEWELL CHAN
October 5, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/nyregion/05aids.html
California: Governor Proclaims Prison Crowding Emergency
By CAROLYN MARSHALL
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued an emergency proclamation
on prison overcrowding, the first legal step required before the
authorities can contract with out-of-state prisons to house an
overflow of state inmates. The proclamation states that all
33 state prisons are at capacity or above, with 29 so crowded
that the conditions pose “substantial safety risks.” Risks cited
include infection, potential harm to prison workers and the
threat of excessive violence. The California Department
of Corrections and Rehabilitation has estimated that state
facilities will run out of beds as early as January 2007.
The emergency act would allow prison authorities to sign
three- to five-year housing contracts with out-of-state prisons.
[This is a horrible plan. It will make it impossible for prisoners
to get visitors. With the knowledge that most are in jail for
drug offenses--something they should be getting treatment
for and are not--this is truly cruel and unusual punishment...bw]
October 5, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/us/05brfs-001.html
Judges Zero In on Treatment of a Detainee
By NINA BERNSTEIN
October 5, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/nyregion/05immigrant.html
U.S. Opens Criminal Inquiry in Spinach Scare
By GARDINER HARRIS and LIBBY SANDER
October 5, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/us/05spinach.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin
Sean Penn | The Arrogant, the Misguided, and the Cowards
Sean Penn writes: "We the people of the United States have
a unique opportunity. We can show each other and the world
that what the Bush administration claims is their mission
is not ours. And, by leading our country as a citizenry and
demanding of our government an immediate end to our own
military and profit investments in Iraq, display for the entire
world that democracy is a government of the people."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100406A.shtml
Kokomo Operations: Miller and Jordan Dialogue
(Steve Miller, Delphi CEO and Todd Jordan, Future of the
Union, Soldiers Of Solidarity have e-mail dialogue about the buyouts.)
http://futureoftheunion.com/?p=3290
Border Fence Could Spell Environmental Disaster
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1003-08.htm
Software Being Developed to Monitor Opinions of U.S.
By ERIC LIPTON
October 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/us/04monitor.html?ref=us
A Science Show Courts ‘Blue-Collar Intellectuals’
By FELICIA R. LEE
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/arts/television/03tyso.html
Fish Farms Also Harbor Deadly Lice
By CORNELIA DEAN
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/science/03lice.html
In the Jungles of Brooklyn, Nothing Can Stop Them
[I couldn't help sending this link. I'm from Brooklyn. I'm so glad
to hear that the fireflies are still there....bw]
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/science/03essa.html?ref=science
Commentary
Numbers Are Male, Said Pythagoras, and the Idea Persists
By MARGARET WERTHEIM
When I was a physics major in the late 1970’s, my very few fellow
female students and I had high hopes that women would soon
stand equal with men in science. But progress has proved slower
than many of us imagined. A report last month by the National
Academy of Sciences documents widespread bias against women
in science and engineering and recommends a sweeping overhaul
of our institutions.
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/science/03comm.html?ref=science
U.S. Steps Back on Drug Confiscations
By BLOOMBERG
WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 (Bloomberg News) — The Department of
Homeland Security agreed to stop confiscating prescription
drugs mailed to American consumers from Canadian pharmacies,
Senator Bill Nelson said Tuesday.
Mr. Nelson, a Florida Democrat, had asked the Senate Committee
on Homeland Security and Government Affairs in June to investigate
the seizing of prescription drugs by Customs and Border Protection
agents. The drugs had been bought by Americans.
The decision to stop the confiscations, which became effective
Monday, means that the Food and Drug Administration resumes
the job of overseeing drug imports from Canada.
Mr. Nelson still wants a Congressional investigation “to seek
answers on why the administration started the medicine seizures
in the first place,” his health counsel, Jon Cooper, said Tuesday
in an interview.
The senator raised the issue after being contacted by Lee and
Jean Edes of Mount Dora, Fla., who discovered that drugs they
were ordering from Canada were vanishing in the mail, having
been seized by federal agents.
October 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/health/index.html
Daimler and Chery of China Planning Subcompact for U.S.
By KEITH BRADSHER
HONG KONG, Oct. 3 — DaimlerChrysler has reached a broad
understanding with Chery Automobile of China to set up
a joint venture to export cars to the United States for the
first time, according to two auto industry managers.
October 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/business/worldbusiness/04car.html
Bronx: Mayor Criticizes Maker of Cocaine Drink
By SEWELL CHAN
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has joined a chorus of elected
officials who have criticized the manufacturer of a new, heavily
caffeinated soft drink called Cocaine. “The bottlers ought
to have their heads examined,” the mayor said yesterday.
“Given we have a drug problem, particularly among kids,
to try to glorify something that is so destructive just is an
outrage.” James T. Kirby, the owner of Redux Beverages L.L.C.,
which makes the beverage, has said that he did not advocate
drug use but that “controversy sells.”
October 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/nyregion/04mbrfs-005.html
Manhattan: Ruling for Aid to Mentally Ill Inmates
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
An appellate court ruled yesterday that New York City must help
mentally ill inmates find psychiatric and other services when it
releases them from jail wards in city hospitals. Three years ago,
in settling a lawsuit, the city agreed that when it released mentally
ill prisoners from jails, it would help arrange their medical care,
psychotherapy, insurance and housing, rather than leaving them
to fend for themselves. But the city argued that the settlement
did not apply to prisoners discharged from city hospitals. The
plaintiffs reopened the case, and a State Supreme Court judge
ruled that the city’s policy violated the settlement. Yesterday,
a panel of the Appellate Division of Supreme Court in
Manhattan upheld that decision unanimously.
October 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/nyregion/04mbrfs-004.html
The Goldman Sachs Crew That’s Helping Run Trenton Government
By DAVID W. CHEN
October 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/nyregion/04goldman.html?ref=nyregion
Kentucky: Soldier Surrenders
By REUTERS
A decorated Army veteran who was wounded in Iraq and then
deserted to Canada to protest the war surrendered to the military.
The veteran, Darrell Anderson, 24, flashed a peace sign before
his mother and his wife drove him to the rear gate of the Army
base at Fort Knox under a negotiated surrender that will probably
see him released in a few days. His supporters said he was
expected to receive a less-than-honorable discharge but not
face a court-martial.
October 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/us/04brfs-003.html
Ohio: Immigration Case
By JULIA PRESTON
The president of a temporary-labor contracting company operating
in Ohio and Tennessee and two other people associated with the
company pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiring to send
hundreds of illegal immigrants to work for an air cargo business,
federal prosecutors and immigration officials said. As part of his
plea, Maximino Garcia, 43, president of the Garcia Labor Company,
agreed to forfeit $12 million in proceeds, including an office
building in Wilmington, Ohio. Also pleading guilty were Dominga
McCarroll, 53, Mr. Garcia’s sister and a former vice president
of the company, and Gina Luciano, 40, director of human relations.
Mr. Garcia admitted that he had sent more than 400 illegal
immigrants to work loading cargo at ABX Air in Wilmington
under contracts spanning five years. [Are there charges
pending against ABX Air? I bet not!...bw]
October 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/us/04brfs-002.html
Justices Ponder Conditions for Automatic Deportation
[I.E., the "justices" ponder extreme punishment for immigrants
for "crimes" like being caught with a joint--a "crime" that is
committed by millions of wealthy white people all the time
without so much as a slap on the hand.
If your poor, Black or non-white, or an immigrant the same
"crime" becomes a violent felony...bw]
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
October 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/washington/04scotus.html
Board Redefines Rules for Union Exemption
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
October 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/washington/04labor.html?ref=us
In Bill’s Fine Print, Millions to Celebrate Victory
By THOM SHANKER
October 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/washington/04victory.html?ref=us
Museum Field Trip Leaves Texas Art Teacher out of A Job
[This is an unbelievable story. I remember regular trips
to the Metropolitan, the Whitney, the Modern and Brooklyn
Museums with our classes from grade school on. We were taught
that the human body was beautiful and nothing to be ashamed
of and that there is a difference between art and pornography.
you know, we were "taught!" I'm talking about Brooklyn Public
School No. 127 circa 1950-56. Bravo, Ms. McGee!...bw]
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1002-07.htm
Venezuela's Oil Wealth Funds Gusher of Anti-Poverty Projects
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1002-06.htm
Trying to Keep TV Appeal as Housing Reality Sets In
By JEREMY W. PETERS
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/realestate/03reality.html?ref=business
Lawmakers Scold Maker of ‘Cocaine’ Drink
By SEWELL CHAN
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/nyregion/03cocaine.html?ref=nyregion
Suit on Behalf of Afghan Detainees
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Lawyers for 25 men being held in Afghanistan filed a court challenge
to President Bush’s plan to prosecute and interrogate terrorism
suspects, demanding that the men be released or charged and
allowed to meet with lawyers. Such a filing is prohibited under
the legislation approved by Congress last week. That bill says
the military may detain enemy combatants indefinitely and,
if officials choose to bring charges against them, the cases
would be heard before a military commission, not before
a civilian judge. Mr. Bush has not signed the bill but has
indicated he will. [complete story...bw]
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/washington/03brfs-010.html
In Brazil Balloting, Leader Finds His Base May Turn to Sand
By LARRY ROHTER
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/world/americas/03brazil.html
Fly Away Home
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/science/03butter.html?8dpc
Out-of-Body Experience? Your Brain Is to Blame
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/health/psychology/03shad.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin
North Korea Vows First Nuclear Test
By CHOE SANG-HUN and JOHN O’NEIL
October 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/world/asia/04nukecnd.html?hp&ex=1159934400&en=dbe19294472a2cc0&ei=5094&partner=homepage
The Unending Torture of Omar Khadr
He was a child of jihad, a teenage soldier in bin Laden's army.
Captured on the battlefield when he was only fifteen, he has been
held at Guantanamo Bay for the past four years -- subjected
to unspeakable abuse sanctioned by the president himself
Jeff Tietz
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/11128331/follow_omar_khadr_from_an_al_qaeda_childhood_to_a_gitmo_cell
Oaxaca Facing Imminent Attack
by via elenemigocomun.net ( solidarity [at] elenemigocomun.net )
Sunday Oct 1st, 2006 1:12 PM
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/10/01/18317093.php
University Set to Launch Academic Program in Cuba
After 18-month-long process, U.S. grants College
a one-year academic exchange license
Published On 10/2/2006 1:49:58 AM
By JUSTINE R. LESCROART
Contributing Writer
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=514630
A Farmer Fears His Way of Life Has Dwindled Down to a Final Generation
By CHARLIE LeDUFF
October 2, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/us/02album.html
Wait Ends for Father and Son Exiled by F.B.I. Terror Inquiry
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
October 2, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/us/02terror.html?ref=us
Global Sludge Ends in Tragedy for Ivory Coast
By LYDIA POLGREEN and MARLISE SIMONS
October 2, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/world/africa/02ivory.html?ref=world
Wal-Mart to Add Wage Caps and Part-Timers
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and MICHAEL BARBARO
Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, is pushing to create
a cheaper, more flexible work force by capping wages, using more
part-time workers and scheduling more workers on nights
and weekends.
October 2, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/business/02walmart.html?hp&ex=1159848000&en=5b8b226214562a4a&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Venezuela's Chavez says assassination attempt against him foiled
The Associated Press
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2006
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/09/30/america/LA_GEN_Venezuela_Chavez.p
hp
Happy Birthday, Bull Market. (Now, Make a Wish.)
By PAUL J. LIM
October 1, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/business/yourmoney/01fund.html?ref=business
Is the Corporate Profit Machine About to Sputter?
By NORM ALSTER
October 1, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/business/yourmoney/01profit.html?ref=business
Campaign Cash Mirrors a High Court’s Rulings
By ADAM LIPTAK and JANET ROBERTS
October 1, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/us/01judges.html?ref=us
AWOL Iraq veteran Agustin Aguayo speaks out against war,
returns to Army base
Report and photos by Jeff Paterson. September 26, 2006
After escaping a second forced Iraq deployment via a window
in Germany, medic reports to Mojave desert Army base to continue f
ight for conscientious objector discharge...
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/09/27/18314785.php
Oregon: Military Police Officer Charged
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Army brought charges against a military police officer who
refused to return to Iraq after she said her supervisor had coerced
her into a sexual relationship. The police officer, Specialist Suzanne
Swift, 22, based at Fort Lewis, Wash., faces charges of being absent
without leave and missing movement. The latter means she was not
with her company when it left in January for a four-month tour
of duty in Iraq, said a Fort Lewis spokeswoman, Sgt. Maj. Yolanda
Choates. Specialist Swift could face a reprimand, a more serious
nonjudicial punishment or a court-martial, Sergeant Choates
said. Specialist Swift, who served in Iraq from February 2004
to February 2005, said she had been harassed or abused
by three officers, two in Iraq and one at Fort Lewis.
September 28, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/us/28brfs-002.html
Where Are the Mass Protests?
The Antiwar Struggle, UFPJ and the Democrats
By JOE ALLEN
September 27, 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/allen09272006.html
In Lebanon, a War's Lethal Harvest
Threat of Unexploded Bombs Paralyzes the South
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, September 26, 2006; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092501500.html
Bush Facing Growing Revolt among Top Military Commanders
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0926-03.htm
Global Temperature Highest in Millennia
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0926-06.htm
Supporters of ACLU Call for the Ouster of Its Leaders
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0926-01.htm
Bolivian Leaders Find Their Promises Are Hard to Keep
By SIMON ROMERO
September 26, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/world/americas/26bolivia.html
The Importance of Civil Disobedience
From the "looting" that occurred as people scavenged for food,
water and medicines, in the days following Katrina, to the refusal
of thousands to leave,
despite a mandatory evacuation order by gun point, civil
disobedience has taken its place as a survival tool in post-
Katrina New Orleans.
By Elizabeth Cook
Source: Austin Independent Media Center
http://austin.indymedia.org/newswire/display/34593/index.php
Center of E. Coli Outbreak, Center of Anxiety
By JESSE McKINLEY
September 25, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/us/25ecoli.html
Panel Urges Basic Coverage on Health Care
By ROBERT PEAR
September 26, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/washington/26health.html
The Choice: A Longer Life or More Stuff
By DAVID LEONHARDT
September 27, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/business/27leonhardt.html?ref=health
Justices to Hear Case on Use of Union Fees
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
September 27, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/washington/27scotus.html
Health Care Costs Rise Twice as Much as Inflation
By MILT FREUDENHEIM
“The cost of living keeps going up, but the cost of healthy
living is going up even faster.”
September 27, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/business/27insure.html?ref=business
House Passes Abortion Bill on Minors
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 (AP) — Accompanying a minor across
a state line to obtain an abortion and avoid parental notification
in the girl’s home state would become a federal crime under
a bill the House passed Tuesday on a vote of 264 to 153.
September 27, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/washington/27cong.html
Senators Criticize Border Security Measures
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
The Republican architects of the Senate immigration bill criticized
the border security measures under consideration in Congress
as piecemeal and inadequate. Senators John McCain of Arizona,
Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Lindsey Graham of South
Carolina said they supported border security, including a measure
to add fencing to the border with Mexico. But they said that such
measures alone would fail to deal with the illegal residence in this
country of about 11 million immigrants as well as labor shortages
in particular industries. The senators called for an approach similar
to the Senate bill, which would tighten border security, toughen
penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants, put most
illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship and create a guest-
worker plan to address labor shortages. They acknowledged
that passage of such legislation was unlikely before the elections.
September 27, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/washington/27brfs-005.html
California: Teenager Gets Life in Murder
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A teenager convicted of murdering the wife of a prominent
defense lawyer was sentenced to life in prison without the
possibility of parole. The teenager, Scott Dyleski, was 16 when
he bludgeoned and stabbed his neighbor, Pamela Vitale, 45,
in October 2005. He was convicted last month of first-degree
murder. He avoided the death penalty because of his age.
Ms. Vitale was married to Daniel Horowitz.
September 27, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/us/27brfs-002.html
California: Official Admits Execution Was Bungled
By REUTERS
A state official admitted that prison guards had bungled the
execution of the gang leader Stanley Tookie Williams last
December, but denied that it constituted cruel and unusual
punishment. The official, Dane Gillette, senior assistant
attorney general, spoke at a federal court hearing in San Jose
on lethal injection. He said officials had failed to connect
a backup intravenous line to Mr. Williams’s left arm. Guards
typically attach two lines to condemned inmates to assure
the continuous flow of chemicals. “Williams was a lesson
well learned that will not happen again,” Mr. Gillette said.
September 27, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/us/27brfs-001.html
U.S. Pushes Anti-Castro TV, but Is Anyone Watching?
By ABBY GOODNOUGH
September 27, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/us/27marti.html?ref=us
G.M. Holds Talks With 2 Automakers
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
September 27, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/automobiles/27cnd-auto.html?hp&ex=1159416000&en=129a1794bc5b209f&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Monday Night Football at the Superdome
New Orleans is Back ... Without Blacks
By NATE MEZMER
September 26, 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/mezmer09262006.html
Exclusive: AWOL Iraq Veteran Turns Himself In Instead
of Returning to Iraq
http://www.democrac ynow.org/ article.pl? sid=06/09/ 26/1415257
A Broken, De-Humanized Military in Iraq
By Dahr Jamail
http://www.truthout .org/docs_ 2006/092606A. shtml
Battle for Bayview
Redevelopment referendum tossed — so now what?
BY STEVEN T. JONES
http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=1708&catid=4&volume_id=147&issue_id=253&volume_num=40&issue_num=52
Army Warns Rumsfeld It's Billions Short
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092506J.shtml
Study of Iraq War and Terror Stirs Strong Political Response
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092506K.shtml
Halliburton Employees, Subcontractors Allege More Abuses
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092506M.shtml
A Detainee's Story: The Man Who Has Been to America
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092506P.shtml
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