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NEXT Meeting to defeat pro-JROTC referendum set for November Ballot in SF
TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 7:15-9:00 pm
Friends Meeting House
65 9th St, San Francisco (between Mission and Market Sts)
To RSVP or for additional information, please contact Alan Lessik at AFSC at 565.0201, x11 or alessik@afsc.org.
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AMERICANS DO NOT SANCTION THE RECRUITMENT OF CHILDREN!
Say NO! to "America's Army"
Video-Game Targets Children as Young as 13.
South Park Game Companies Profit from Illegal Recruitment Program!
Rally and Action
Wednesday, August 6, 12 Noon
South Park - between 2nd and 3rd, Bryant and Brannan streets.
actagainstwar.net takedirectaction@riseup.net
“America’s Army” is a game developed by the U.S. military to instruct players in “Army values,” portray the army in a positive light, and increase potential recruits. The “game” is the property and brainchild of the US Army, which admit freely, and with pride, that it is one of their principal recruitment tools.
America’s Army has been available since 2002 as a free download or as a CD available in recruiting stations. It is published and distributed by Ubisoft right here in South Park. Ubisoft is not the only South Park neighbor engaged in the development of the game, Gameloft is working on the cell phone application and Secret Level was a designer on the 2005 Xbox version. The game has been granted a “teen” rating, allowing 13 year olds to play.
The military recruitment of children under the age of 17, however, is a clear violation of international law (the U.N. Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict). No attempt to recruit children 13-16 is allowed in the United States, pursuant to treaty. In May, the American Civil Liberties Union published a report that found the armed services regularly target children under 17 for military recruitment. The report highlighted the role of “America’s Army,” saying the Army uses the game to “attract young potential recruits . . . train them to use weapons, and engage in virtual combat and other military missions”, adding that the game “explicitly targets boys 13 and older.”
It is also important to consider the effects of the game within the context of the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Undoubtedly, soldiers now recruited through “America’s Army” will serve in these wars. The invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are violations of international law, and contributing to their continuation through the propagation of the game is, if not a criminal violation, a moral outrage.
The game is having an effect. An informal study showed that 4 out of 100 new recruits in Ft. Benning, Georgia credit America’s Army as the primary factor in convincing them to join the military. 60% of those recruits said they played the game more than five times a week. And a 2004 Army survey found that nearly a third of young Americans ages 16 to 24 had some contact with the game in the previous six months.
This August 6, on the 63rd Anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, come out and ask the Producers and developers of America’s Army to stop helping the Army recruit children.
We are asking you to consider three steps:
1. Support for our campaign against America’s Army
2. Sign our letter and endorse this campaign.
3. Participate in our upcoming event on Hiroshima Day (Wed., Aug. 6), at noon, in South Park (btw 2nd/3rd, Bryant/Brannan), asking these companies to either withdraw from their Army contracts or provide a warning label: “This game is designed to recruit children in violation of international law. Military service can be hazardous to your health.”
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In front of the Marine Recruiting Station on Shattuck Ave
AUGUST 6TH @ 12NOON - 4pm
Press Conference @ 12:30pm
Join CodePINK, MECA, Courage to Resist, Women in Black, Gray Panthers and others;
To PROTEST the use of nuclear bombs on this horrific 'anniversary' of the bombing of HIROSHIMA, marking us as the ONLY nation in the world to use atomic weapons against a civilian population!
STAND STRONG against the threatened bombing of Iran, again in our name!
And find out what support there is in Berkeley for free speech and the right to protest!
JOIN US at the MRS (Marine Recruiting Station), noon to 4:00pm - with our constitutional rights and responsibilities to protest.
Your presence is crucial!!! Stand with us for peace, our Constitutional rights, AND in remembrance of the lives lost in Hiroshima!
We are also still looking for entertainment for the day, like spoken word, theater, or anything else! If you, or someone you know would like to perform at this event, please call KEIKO at (707) 334-7071
PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO APPROPRIATE E-MAIL LISTS!!!
Call Keiko 707-334-7071 or Judy 415-51906355 for more info or email info AT bayareacodepink DOT org.
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Monday August 14 - 7:30 pm
David Rovics Concert
Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists
1924 Cedar St. at Bonita, a block east of MLK Jr. Way, Berkeley 948709
The "musical version of Democracy Now" per Amy Goodman! "The peace
poet and troubador for our time" per Cindy Sheehan!
Rovics is a radical and progressive singer and songwriter.
$15
co-sponsored by BFUU's Social Justice Committee
wheelchair accessible
510 528 4941
www.bfuu.org
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SAN FRANCISCO IS A SANCTUARY CITY! STOP THE MIGRA-ICE RAIDS!
Despite calling itself a "sanctuary city", S.F. politicians are permitting the harrassment of undocumented immigrants and allowing the MIGRA-ICE police to enter the jail facilities.
We will picket any store that cooperates with the MIGRA or reports undocumented brothers and sisters. We demand AMNESTY without conditions!
BRIGADES AGAINST THE RAIDS
project of BARRIO UNIDO
(415)431-9925
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"Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about his religion. Respect others in their views and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and of service to your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
"Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place. Show respect to all people, but grovel to none. When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.
"Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home." by: Tecumseh -(1768-1813) Shawnee Chief
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Sami Al-Arian Subjected to Worst Prison Conditions since Florida
Despite grant of bail, government continues to hold him
Dr. Al-Arian handcuffed
Hanover, VA - July 27, 2008 -
More than two weeks after being granted bond by a federal judge, Sami Al-Arian is still being held in prison. In fact, Dr. Al-Arian is now being subjected to the worst treatment by prison officials since his stay in Coleman Federal Penitentiary in Florida three years ago.
On July 12th, Judge Leonie Brinkema pronounced that Dr. Al-Arian was not a danger to the community nor a flight risk, and accordingly granted him bail before his scheduled August 13th trial. Nevertheless, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) invoked the jurisdiction it has held over Dr. Al-Arian since his official sentence ended last April to keep him from leaving prison. The ICE is ostensibly holding Dr. Al-Arian to complete deportation procedures but, given that Dr. Al-Arian's trial will take place in less than three weeks, it would seem somewhat unlikely that the ICE will follow through with such procedures in the near future.
Not content to merely keep Dr. Al-Arian from enjoying even a very limited stint of freedom, the government is using all available means to try to psychologically break him. Instead of keeping him in a prison close to the Washington DC area where his two oldest children live, the ICE has moved him to Pamunkey Regional Jail in Hanover, VA, more than one hundred miles from the capital. Regardless, even when Dr. Al-Arian was relatively close to his children, they were repeatedly denied visitation requests.
More critically, this distance makes it extremely difficult for Dr. Al-Arian to meet with his attorneys in the final weeks before his upcoming trial. This is the same tactic employed by the government in 2005 to try to prevent Dr. Al-Arian from being able to prepare a full defense.
Pamunkey Regional Jail has imposed a 23-hour lock-down on Dr. Al-Arian and has placed him in complete isolation, despite promises from the ICE that he would be kept with the general inmate population. Furthermore, the guards who transported him were abusive, shackling and handcuffing him behind his back for the 2.5-hour drive, callously disregarding the fact that his wrist had been badly injured only a few days ago. Although he was in great pain throughout the trip, guards refused to loosen the handcuffs.
At the very moment when Dr. Al-Arian should be enjoying a brief interlude of freedom after five grueling years of imprisonment, the government has once again brazenly manipulated the justice system to deliver this cruel slap in the face of not only Dr. Al-Arian, but of all people of conscience.
Make a Difference! Call Today!
Call Now!
Last April, your calls to the Hampton Roads Regional Jail pressured prison officials to stop their abuse of Dr. Al-Arian after only a few days.
Friends, we are asking you to make a difference again by calling:
Pamunkey Regional Jail: (804) 365-6400 (press 0 then ask to speak to the Superintendent's office). Ask why Dr. Al-Arian has been put under a 23-hour lockdown, despite the fact that a federal judge has clearly and unambiguously pronounced that he is not a danger to anyone and that, on the contrary, he should be allowed bail before his trial.
- If you do not reach the superintendent personally, leave a message on the answering machine. Call back every day until you do speak to the superintendent directly.
- Be polite but firm.
- After calling, click here to let us know you called.
Don't forget: your calls DO make a difference.
FORWARD TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS!
Write to Dr. Al-Arian
For those of you interested in sending personal letters of support to Dr. Al-Arian:
If you would like to write to Dr. Al-Arian, his new
address is:
Dr. Sami Al-Arian
Pamunkey Regional Jail
P.O. Box 485
Hanover, VA 23069
Email Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace: tampabayjustice@yahoo.com
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"Canada: Abide by resolution - Let U.S. war resisters stay!"
Dear Canada: Let Them Stay
Urgent action request—In wake of Parliament win, please sign this new letter to Canada.
By Courage to Resist
June 18, 2008
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/499/89/
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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) Wounded Warriors, Empty Promises
Editorial
July 25, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/opinion/25fri1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
2) Local Philanthropist Reacts to Judges Ruling in Rosenberg Spying Case
By Elizabeth Corridan
Posted: July 23, 2008 09:05 PM
http://www.wggb.com/Global/story.asp?S=8726542
3) After Iowa Raid, Immigrants Fuel Labor Inquiries
By JULIA PRESTON
July 27, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/us/27immig.html?hp
4) 4,000 U.S. Deaths, and Just a Handful of Images
By MICHAEL KAMBER and TIM ARANGO
July 26, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/world/middleeast/26censor.html?hp
5) Reports on Mine Collapse Criticize Operation and Oversight
By DAN FROSCH
July 26, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/us/26mine.html?ref=us
6) OSHA Seeks $8.7 Million Fine Against Sugar Company
By SHAILA DEWAN
July 26, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/us/26sugar.html?ref=us
7) Gates Wants to Shift $1.2 Billion to Bolster War Surveillance
By THOM SHANKER
July 26, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/us/26military.html?ref=us
8) In a Doll’s Head, Some in Harlem See a Setback
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and JASON GRANT
July 26, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/nyregion/26harlem.html?ref=nyregion
9) Unions Rally, Vowing Strike at Verizon
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
July 27, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/nyregion/27rally.html?ref=nyregion
10) Demand soars as donations decline at L.A.-area food banks
Job losses have hit the San Fernando Valley particularly hard as the economic downturn spreads beyond the poor and begins to affect middle- and upper-class families.
By Jennifer Oldham
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
latimes.com
July 28, 2008
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-valecon28-2008jul28,0,42513.story
11) Another Temporary Fix
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
July 28, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/
12) U.S. Military Says Soldiers Fired on Civilians
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
July 28, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html
13) Suspected U.S. Missile Strike Kills Six in Pakistan
By REUTERS
Filed at 3:41 a.m. ET
July 28, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-pakistan-violence.html?ref=world
14) Iowa Rally Protests Raid and Conditions at Plant
By JULIA PRESTON
July 28, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/us/28immig.html?ref=us
15) For Many Student Athletes, Game Over
By WINNIE HU
July 28, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/education/28sports.html?ref=education
16) Harlem Man Who Made Doll-Head Complaint Is Arrested
By ERIC KONIGSBERG and JASON GRANT
July 28, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/nyregion/28doll.html?ref=nyregion
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1) Wounded Warriors, Empty Promises
Editorial
July 25, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/opinion/25fri1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
The bad news about the Army’s treatment of wounded soldiers keeps coming. The generals keep apologizing and insisting that things are getting better, but they are not.
The latest low moment for Army brass came on Tuesday in Washington, where a subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee held a hearing to examine the sorry state of the Army Medical Action Plan. That’s the plan to prevent the kind of systematic neglect and mistreatment exposed by The Washington Post last year at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
After a flurry of apologies, firings, investigations and reports, the Army resolved to streamline and improve case management for wounded soldiers. Under the plan, “warrior transition units” would swiftly deliver excellent care to troops so they could return to duty or be discharged into the veterans’ medical system. Each soldier would be assigned a team to look over his or her care: a physician, a nurse and a squad leader. It all sounded sensible and comprehensive.
It has not worked out so well. Staff members of the House subcommittee who visited numerous warrior transition units June 2007 to February found a significant gap between the Army leadership’s optimistic promises and reality.
Among other things, the Army failed to anticipate a flood of wounded soldiers. Some transition units have been overwhelmed and are thus severely understaffed. At Fort Hood, Tex., last month, staff members found 1,362 patients in a unit authorized for 649 — and more than 350 on a waiting list. Of the total, 311 were identified as being at high risk of drug overdose, suicide or other dangerous behavior. There were 38 nurse case managers when there should have been 74. Some soldiers have had to languish two months to a year before the Army decided what to do with them, far longer than the goal the Army set last year.
Under skeptical questioning during a hearing in February, Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, the Army surgeon general, told the subcommittee that “for all intents and purposes, we are entirely staffed at the point we need to be staffed.” He also said: “The Army’s unwavering commitment and a key element of our warrior ethos is that we never leave a soldier behind on the battlefield — or lost in a bureaucracy.”
That was thousands of wounded, neglected soldiers ago. There are now about 12,500 soldiers assigned to the warrior transition units — more than twice as many as a year ago. The number is expected to reach 20,000 by this time next year.
The nation’s responsibility to care for the wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan will extend for decades. After Tuesday’s hearing, we are left pondering the simple questions asked at the outset by Representative Susan Davis, the California Democrat who is chairwoman of the military personnel subcommittee: Why did the Army fail to adequately staff its warrior transition units? Why did it fail to predict the surge in demand? And why did it take visits from a Congressional subcommittee to prod the Army into recognizing and promising — yet again — to fix the problem?
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2) Local Philanthropist Reacts to Judges Ruling in Rosenberg Spying Case
By Elizabeth Corridan
Posted: July 23, 2008 09:05 PM
http://www.wggb.com/Global/story.asp?S=8726542
EASTHAMPTON, Mass. (abc40) -- A local philanthropist is reacting to news that a U.S. District Judge in New York is allowing the release of testimony from witnesses who were part of one of the most controversial cases of the Cold War era.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were Americans, who were convicted of giving secrets of the atomic bomb to the Soviets and executed in the electric chair in 1953. The Rosebergs brother and sister-in-law, David and Ruth Greenglass were two key witnesses in the case. Ruth Greenglass recently passed away. Her testimony is one that will be made public. The ruling judge said he would not authorize the release of David Greenglass' testimony at this time.
Both of Rosenbergs' sons live in Western Massachusetts. Younger son, Robert Meeropol runs the Rosenberg Fund for Children. The agency helps the children of political prisoners. Upon hearing the news that Ruth Greenglass' testimony is being released, Robert Meeropol said he was pleased to learn more information about his parents' case is being made public. He anticipates being able to read the testimony by the fall. Meeropol says he hopes one day David Greenglass' testimony will also be released. The Meeropol brothers believe their parents' trial was grossly unfair and hope to one day sift through decades of history to get to the truth.
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3) After Iowa Raid, Immigrants Fuel Labor Inquiries
By JULIA PRESTON
July 27, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/us/27immig.html?hp
POSTVILLE, Iowa — When federal immigration agents raided the kosher meatpacking plant here in May and rounded up 389 illegal immigrants, they found more than 20 under-age workers, some as young as 13.
Now those young immigrants have begun to tell investigators about their jobs. Some said they worked shifts of 12 hours or more, wielding razor-edged knives and saws to slice freshly killed beef. Some worked through the night, sometimes six nights a week.
One, a Guatemalan named Elmer L. who said he was 16 when he started working on the plant’s killing floors, said he worked 17-hour shifts, six days a week. In an affidavit, he said he was constantly tired and did not have time to do anything but work and sleep. “I was very sad,” he said, “and I felt like I was a slave.”
At first, labor officials said the raid had disrupted federal and state investigations already under way at Agriprocessors Inc., the nation’s largest Kosher plant. The raid has drawn criticism for what some see as harsh tactics against the immigrants, with little action taken against their employers.
But in the aftermath of the arrests, labor investigators have reaped a bounty of new evidence from the testimony of illegal immigrants, teenagers and adults, who were caught in the raid. In formal declarations, immigrants have described pervasive labor violations at the plant, testimony that could result in criminal charges for Agriprocessors executives, labor law experts said.
Out of work and facing deportation proceedings, many of the immigrants say they now have nothing to lose in speaking up about the conditions in the plant. They have told investigators that they were routinely put to work without safety training and were forced to work long shifts without overtime or rest time. Under-age workers said their bosses knew how young they were.
Because of the dangers of the work, it is illegal in Iowa for a company to employ anyone under 18 on the floor of a meatpacking plant.
In a statement, Agriprocessors said it did not employ workers under 18, and would fire any under-age worker found to have presented false documents to obtain work.
To investigate the child labor accusations, the federal Labor Department has joined with the Iowa Division of Labor Services in cooperation with the state attorney general’s office, officials for the three agencies said.
Sonia Parras Konrad, an immigration lawyer in private practice in Cedar Rapids, is representing many of the young workers. She said she had so far identified 27 workers under 18 who were employed in the packing areas of the plant, most of them illegal immigrants from Guatemala, including some who were not arrested in the raid.
“Some of these boys don’t even shave,” Ms. Parras Konrad said. “They’re goofy. They’re teenagers.”
Iowa labor officials said they rarely encounter child labor cases even though the state has many meatpacking plants.
“We don’t normally have many under-age folks working in our state,” said Gail Sheridan-Lucht, a lawyer for the state labor department, who said she could not comment specifically on the Agriprocessors investigation.
Other investigations are also under way. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is examining accusations of sexual harassment of women at the plant. Lawyers for the immigrants are preparing a suit under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act for wage and hour violations.
Federal justice and immigration officials, speaking on Thursday at a hearing in Washington of the House Judiciary immigration subcommittee, said their investigations were continuing. A federal grand jury in Cedar Rapids is hearing evidence about Agriprocessors.
While federal prosecutors are primarily focusing on immigration charges, they may also be looking into labor violations. Search warrant documents filed in court before the raid, which was May 12, cited a report by an anonymous immigrant who was sent to work in the plant by immigration authorities as an undercover informant. The immigrant saw “a rabbi who was calling employees derogatory names and throwing meat at employees.” Jewish managers oversee the slaughtering and processing of meat at Agriprocessors to ensure kosher standards.
In another episode, the informant said a floor supervisor had blindfolded an immigrant with duct tape. “The floor supervisor then took one of the meat hooks and hit the Guatemalan with it,” the informant said, adding that the blow did not cause “serious injuries.”
So far, 297 illegal immigrants from the May raid have been convicted of document fraud and other criminal charges, and most were sentenced to five months in prison, after which they will be deported.
A spokesman for Agriprocessors, Menachem Lubinsky, said the company could not comment on an active investigation.
“The company has two objectives in mind: to restore its production to meet the demands of the kosher food market and to be in full compliance with all local, state and federal laws,” Mr. Lubinsky said. Reports of labor violations at the plant “remain allegations only, that no agency has charged the company with,” he said.
The Agriprocessors kosher plant here has been owned and operated since 1987 by Aaron Rubashkin and his family. His son Sholom was the plant’s top manager until he was removed by his father in May after the raid. The plant’s products are distributed across the country under brands including Aaron’s Best and Aaron’s Choice.
Most of the young immigrants were hired at Agriprocessors after they presented false Social Security cards or other documents saying they were older than they were.
But in an interview here, Elmer L. said he had told floor supervisors that he was under 18. He asked that his last name not be published on advice of his lawyer, Ms. Parras Konrad, because he is a minor in deportation proceedings.
“They asked me how old I was,” Elmer L. said. “They could see that sometimes I could not keep up with the work.”
Elmer L. said that he regularly worked 17 hours a day at the plant and was paid $7.25 an hour. He said he was not paid overtime consistently.
“My work was very hard, because they didn’t give me my breaks, and I wasn’t getting very much sleep,” he said. “They told us they were going to call immigration if we complained.”
Elmer L. said that he was clearing cow innards from the slaughter floor last Aug. 26 when a supervisor he described as a rabbi began yelling at him, then kicked him from behind. The blow caused a freshly-sharpened knife to fly up and cut his elbow.
He was sent to a nearby hospital where doctors closed the laceration with eight stitches. But he said that when he returned to the plant, his elbow still stinging, to ask for some time off, his supervisor ordered him back to work.
The next day, as he was lifting a cow’s tongue, the stitches ruptured, Elmer L. said, and the wound bled again. He said he was given a bandage at the plant and sent back to work. The incident is confirmed in a worker’s injury report filed on Aug. 31, 2007, by Agriprocessors with the Iowa labor department.
Gilda O., a Guatemalan who said she was 16, said she worked the night shift plucking chickens. She said she was working to help her parents pay off debts.
Another Guatemalan, Joel R., who gave his age as 15, said he dropped out of school in Postville after the eighth grade and took a job at Agriprocessors because his mother became ill. He said he worked from 5.30 p.m. to 6.30 a.m. in a section called “quality control,” a job he described as relatively easy that he got because he speaks English.
But he said he and other workers were under constant pressure from supervisors. “They yell at us when we don’t hurry up, when we don’t work fast enough for them,” said Joel R. He and Gilda O. did not want their last names published because they are illegal immigrants and they were not arrested in the raid.
Most of the young immigrants have been released from detention but remain in deportation proceedings. Ms. Parras Konrad said she will ask immigration authorities to grant them special four-year temporary visas, known as U-visas, which are offered to immigrants who assist in law enforcement investigations. Iowa labor officials are considering supporting some of those visa requests, Ms. Sheridan-Lucht said.
Agriprocessors executives said they had begun an overhaul of the company’s hiring and labor practices, starting with hiring a compliance officer, James G. Martin, a former United States attorney in Missouri. In an interview, Mr. Martin said the company had contracted an outside firm, the Jacobson Staffing Company, to handle its hiring, and new safety officers, including one former federal work safety inspector.
Mark Lauritsen, a vice president for the International Food and Commercial Workers Union, which has tried to organize the plant, said he remained skeptical. “They are the poster child for how a rogue company can exploit a broken immigration system,” Mr. Lauritsen said.
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4) 4,000 U.S. Deaths, and Just a Handful of Images
By MICHAEL KAMBER and TIM ARANGO
July 26, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/world/middleeast/26censor.html?hp
BAGHDAD — The case of a freelance photographer in Iraq who was barred from covering the Marines after he posted photos on the Internet of several of them dead has underscored what some journalists say is a growing effort by the American military to control graphic images from the war.
Zoriah Miller, the photographer who took images of marines killed in a June 26 suicide attack and posted them on his Web site, was subsequently forbidden to work in Marine Corps-controlled areas of the country. Maj. Gen. John Kelly, the Marine commander in Iraq, is now seeking to have Mr. Miller barred from all United States military facilities throughout the world. Mr. Miller has since left Iraq.
If the conflict in Vietnam was notable for open access given to journalists — too much, many critics said, as the war played out nightly in bloody newscasts — the Iraq war may mark an opposite extreme: after five years and more than 4,000 American combat deaths, searches and interviews turned up fewer than a half-dozen graphic photographs of dead American soldiers.
It is a complex issue, with competing claims often difficult to weigh in an age of instant communication around the globe via the Internet, in which such images can add to the immediate grief of families and the anger of comrades still in the field.
While the Bush administration faced criticism for overt political manipulation in not permitting photos of flag-draped coffins, the issue is more emotional on the battlefield: local military commanders worry about security in publishing images of the American dead as well as an affront to the dignity of fallen comrades. Most newspapers refuse to publish such pictures as a matter of policy.
But opponents of the war, civil liberties advocates and journalists argue that the public portrayal of the war is being sanitized and that Americans who choose to do so have the right to see — in whatever medium — the human cost of a war that polls consistently show is unpopular with Americans.
Journalists say it is now harder, or harder than in the earlier years, to accompany troops in Iraq on combat missions. Even memorial services for killed soldiers, once routinely open, are increasingly off limits. Detainees were widely photographed in the early years of the war, but the Department of Defense, citing prisoners’ rights, has recently stopped that practice as well.
And while publishing photos of American dead is not barred under the “embed” rules in which journalists travel with military units, the Miller case underscores what is apparently one reality of the Iraq war: that doing so, even under the rules, can result in expulsion from covering the war with the military.
“It is absolutely censorship,” Mr. Miller said. “I took pictures of something they didn’t like, and they removed me. Deciding what I can and cannot document, I don’t see a clearer definition of censorship.”
The Marine Corps denied it was trying to place limits on the news media and said Mr. Miller broke embed regulations. Security is the issue, officials said.
“Specifically, Mr. Miller provided our enemy with an after-action report on the effectiveness of their attack and on the response procedures of U.S. and Iraqi forces,” said Lt. Col. Chris Hughes, a Marine spokesman.
News organizations say that such restrictions are one factor in declining coverage of the war, along with the danger, the high cost to financially ailing media outlets and diminished interest among Americans in following the war. By a recent count, only half a dozen Western photographers were covering a war in which 150,000 American troops are engaged.
In Mr. Miller’s case, a senior military official in Baghdad said that while his photographs were still under review, a preliminary assessment showed he had not violated ground rules established by the multinational force command. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing, emphasized that Mr. Miller was still credentialed to work in Iraq, though several military officials acknowledged that no military unit would accept him.
Robert H. Reid, the Baghdad bureau chief for The Associated Press, said one major problem was a disconnection between the officials in Washington who created the embed program before the war and the soldiers who must accommodate journalists — and be responsible for their reports afterward.
“I don’t think the uniformed military has really bought into the whole embed program,” Mr. Reid said.
“During the invasion it got a lot of ‘Whoopee, we’re kicking their butts’-type of TV coverage,” he said.
Now, he said the situation is nuanced and unpredictable. Generally, he said, the access reporters get “very much depends on the local commander.” More specifically, he said, “They’ve always been freaky about bodies.”
The facts of the Miller case are not in dispute, only their interpretation.
On the morning of June 26, Mr. Miller, 32, was embedded with Company E of the Second Battalion, Third Marine Regiment in Garma, in Anbar Province. The photographer declined a Marine request to attend a city council meeting, and instead accompanied a unit on foot patrol nearby.
When a suicide bomber detonated his vest inside the council meeting, killing 20 people, including 3 marines, Mr. Miller was one of the first to arrive. His photos show a scene of horror, with body parts littering the ground and heaps of eviscerated corpses. Mr. Miller was able to photograph for less than 10 minutes, he said, before being escorted from the scene.
Mr. Miller said he spent three days on a remote Marine base editing his photos, which he then showed to the Company E marines. When they said they could not identify the dead marines, he believed he was within embed rules, which forbid showing identifiable soldiers killed in action before their families have been notified. According to records Mr. Miller provided, he posted his photos on his Web site the night of June 30, three days after the families had been notified.
The next morning, high-ranking Marine public affairs officers demanded that Mr. Miller remove the photos. When he refused, his embed was terminated. Worry that marines might hurt him was high enough that guards were posted to protect him.
On July 3, Mr. Miller was given a letter signed by General Kelly barring him from Marine installations. The letter said that the journalist violated sections 14 (h) and (o) of the embed rules, which state that no information can be published without approval, including material about “any tactics, techniques and procedures witnessed during operations,” or that “provides information on the effectiveness of enemy techniques.”
“In disembedding Mr. Miller, the Marines are using a catch-all phrase which could be applied to just about anything a journalist does,” said Joel Campagna, Middle East program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
New embed rules were adopted in the spring of 2007 that required written permission from wounded soldiers before their image could be used, a near impossibility in the case of badly wounded soldiers, journalists say. While embed restrictions do permit photographs of dead soldiers to be published once family members have been notified, in practice, photographers say, the military has exacted retribution on the rare occasions that such images have appeared. In four out of five cases that The New York Times was able to document, the photographer was immediately kicked out of his or her embed following publication of such photos.
In the first of such incidents, Stefan Zaklin, formerly of the European Pressphoto Agency, was barred from working with an Army unit after he published a photo of a dead Army captain lying in a pool of blood in Falluja in 2004.
Two New York Times journalists were disembedded in January 2007 after the paper published a photo of a mortally wounded soldier. Though the soldier was shot through the head and died hours after the photo was taken, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno argued that The Times had broken embed rules by not getting written permission from the soldier.
Chris Hondros, of Getty Images, was with an army unit in Tal Afar on Jan. 18, 2005, when soldiers killed the parents of an unarmed Iraqi family. After his photos of their screaming blood-spattered daughter were published around the world, Mr. Hondros was kicked out of his embed (though Mr. Hondros points out that he soon found an embed with a unit in another city).
Increasingly, photographers say the military allows them to embed but keeps them away from combat. Franco Pagetti of the VII Photo Agency said he had been repeatedly thwarted by the military when he tried to get to the front lines.
In April 2008, Mr. Pagetti tried to cover heavy fighting in Baghdad’s Sadr City. “The commander there refused to let me in,” Mr. Pagetti said. “He said it was unsafe. I know it’s unsafe, there’s a war going on. It was unsafe when I got to Iraq in 2003, but the military did not stop us from working. Now, they are stopping us from working.”
James Lee, a former marine who returned to Iraq as a photographer, was embedded with marines in the spring of 2008 as they headed into battle in the southern port city of Basra in support of Iraqi forces.
“We were within hours of Basra when they told me I had to go back. I was told that General Kelly did not want any Western eyes down there,” he said, referring to the same Marine general who barred Mr. Miller.
Military officials stressed that the embed regulations provided only a framework. “There is leeway for commanders to make judgment calls, which is part of what commanders do,” said Col. Steve Boylan, the public affairs officer for Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq. For many in the military, a legal or philosophical debate over press freedom misses the point. Capt. Esteban T. Vickers of the First Regimental Combat Team, who knew two of the marines killed at Garma, said photos of his dead comrades, displayed on the Internet for all to see, desecrated their memory and their sacrifice.
“Mr. Miller’s complete lack of respect to these marines, their friends, and families is shameful,” Captain Vickers said. “How do we explain to their children or families these disturbing pictures just days after it happened?”
Mr. Miller, who returned to the United States on July 9, expressed surprise that his images had ignited such an uproar.
“The fact that the images I took of the suicide bombing — which are just photographs of something that happens every day all across the country — the fact that these photos have been so incredibly shocking to people, says that whatever they are doing to limit this type of photo getting out, it is working,” he said.
Michael Kamber reported from Baghdad, and Tim Arango from New York.
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5) Reports on Mine Collapse Criticize Operation and Oversight
By DAN FROSCH
July 26, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/us/26mine.html?ref=us
Family members of miners killed after a huge collapse at a Utah mine last year expressed outrage on Friday after two federal reports showed that the mine had long been dangerous.
The reports, released Thursday, also faulted the mine’s operators for continuing to pull coal from deep within the mine despite the dangers and the government regulators for failing to stop them.
“If everything was as bad as it was, then the men shouldn’t have been in there,” said Nelda Erickson, whose husband, Don, was one of six miners killed when the mine’s coal pillars burst last Aug. 6. Three rescue workers died trying to reach them after another collapse 10 days later.
“It’s hard to swallow,” Ms. Erickson said. “I don’t understand how the company got approval to do mining that deep underground.”
The mine’s operator, Genwal Resources, was heavily criticized in one of the reports, released by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, which found that the company had kept working in the Crandall Canyon mine despite indications that it was unsafe.
A second report, by the Labor Department, took the mine safety agency itself to task for approving Genwal’s mining plan in the first place and for not taking full control of the rescue operation after the initial collapse.
In Utah’s close-knit coal country, those who knew the dead miners seemed relieved at the revelation that the sheer force of the collapses, as described in the reports, most likely killed their loved ones relatively quickly.
But there was also a visceral anger and even disbelief at the notion laid out in the reports that the Crandall Canyon mine was probably destined for trouble long before the initial accident and that their loved ones’ fates might have been sealed months before the collapses.
“They had those men working in a section they knew was doomed to fail,” said Terry Byrge, whose son-in-law, Brandon Kimber, died in the failed rescue mission. “They were playing spin the bottle with their lives every day and taking a chance on whether those men would come out alive.”
The mine safety agency’s report criticized Genwal, a subsidiary of the Murray Energy Corporation, for withholding information from federal regulators about three coal bursts at the mine, one of them just three days before the Aug. 6 collapse.
“The failure to report those bounces denied MSHA the opportunity to evaluate the conditions of the mine,” said the director of the mine safety agency, Richard E. Stickler, in a telephone interview.
That and numerous other safety violations, like Genwal’s removal of coal that was propping up the mine’s roof, led the agency to assess $1.6 million in fines against the company for its role in the collapse. That is the highest coal mine fine in the agency’s history.
The agency also levied $220,000 in fines against a mine consulting company, Agapito Associates, for providing Genwal with a faulty engineering analysis of the Crandall Canyon mine, which contributed to the collapse, according to the report.
In a statement, Genwal said the report “appears to have been tainted in part by 10 months of relentless political clamoring to lay blame for these tragic events.”
A spokeswoman for Agapito did not return phone calls seeking comment. Both companies can contest the fines.
Although the mine safety agency garnered some praise for candor in its own report and for improvements over the past two years, like the hiring of 322 coal mining enforcement personnel and more intense reviews of deep mining practices, some in the industry remain skeptical about the agency’s capacity for long-term change. This is particularly true given the Labor Department’s criticism of the safety agency in its report.
Tony Oppegard, a lawyer who represents miners and their families, and a former federal mine safety official, said that the hiring of additional inspectors was no substitute for strengthening federal mining laws.
A bill, written by Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, that would beef up mine safety regulations is being opposed by Mr. Stickler, the federal mine safety director.
“How the head of mine safety could oppose this is beyond me,” Mr. Oppegard said.
Mr. Stickler said the bill did not allow enough flexibility to put the improvements into effect and imposed “unrealistic” time frames on the agency.
Cecil E. Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, said in a statement: “There is more to this tragedy than the greed of a coal operator causing workers to be put in harm’s way. The fact is that companies like Murray Energy are supposed to be kept in check by MSHA. That did not happen at Crandall Canyon.”
Nelda Erickson recalls her husband, a veteran miner, returning home from Crandall Canyon and telling her of how the mine would sometimes shudder violently when he was underground.
“I think a lot of the guys were worried,” Ms. Erickson said. “They were just hoping it didn’t happen to them.
“We don’t want families to go through what we’ve gone through. It’s too hard.”
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6) OSHA Seeks $8.7 Million Fine Against Sugar Company
By SHAILA DEWAN
July 26, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/us/26sugar.html?ref=us
ATLANTA — Imperial Sugar, the owner of a refinery near Savannah where 13 workers died in a sugar dust explosion in February, knew of safety hazards at the plant as early as 2002 but did nothing, and should pay more than $8.7 million for safety violations, the head of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Friday.
The proposed penalty is the third-largest in OSHA’s history. Imperial Sugar will contest the findings, the company announced Friday.
At a news conference in Savannah, Edwin G. Foulke Jr., the OSHA chief, said, “The investigation concluded that this catastrophic incident could have been prevented if Imperial Sugar had complied with existing OSHA safety and health standards.”
The company’s senior management was fully aware of the combustible dust hazards, Mr. Foulke said, and did not take any appropriate action to eliminate them.
The fire, which burned for a week, started when sugar dust, which is highly combustible, was ignited in the plant by a large bucket that broke loose in a storage silo and struck a metal siding, causing a spark, according to OSHA’s investigation. Even when plants are regularly cleaned, dust can build up on ledges, pipes and other hard-to-reach places. The fire renewed calls for OSHA to issue regulations specifically designed to prevent combustible dust explosions, which can occur in many industries.
In addition to the fatalities, the fire injured 40 people, three of whom are still in a hospital burn unit, and shocked the small community of Port Wentworth, Ga., where it seemed that almost every family had some connection to the 91-year-old sugar plant. Imperial Sugar won praise when it promised to rebuild the plant and continue to pay workers.
The company has written that before the Feb. 7 explosion, “There was an insufficient understanding of the hazards of combustible dusts both within the sugar industry and within the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.”
But Mr. Foulke said that even after the explosion, company officials had not acted to alleviate similar conditions at its plant in Gramercy, La., despite a warning from OSHA. An inspection of that plant five weeks after the Georgia fire found sugar dust four feet thick in some spots, he said, prompting OSHA to issue an emergency order closing the plant, an action the agency characterized in a news release as “extremely rare.”
“I am convinced that our actions prevented a second terrible accident at the Gramercy facility,” Mr. Foulke said.
The proposed penalties include more than $5 million for violations at the Port Wentworth plant, with 120 violations, and $3.7 million at the Gramercy plant, with 91. The violations included failure to clean up dust, the use of spark-producing electrical equipment, and faulty ventilation and dust collection systems.
John Sheptor, the chief executive of Imperial Sugar, issued a statement that read in part: “We believe that the facts do not merit the allegations made. As we go forward, we will continue to focus on the safety of our employees and our contractors.”
Eric Frumin, the health and safety coordinator for the labor union federation Change to Win, said the fines could have been much higher if OSHA had regulations for combustible dust. The agency found 118 “egregious” violations, a category in which the agency counts each instance in which a violation occurs.
But per-instance violations can be cited only where the agency has specific standards. In this case, ventilation and dust collection issues fell under the agency’s “general duty” clause, which allows it to cite employers for unsafe practices not specifically addressed in the regulations. So while there were 44 violations issued for spark-producing electrical equipment, which is regulated, under the general duty clause there were only two, one at each plant, for faulty ventilation and two for failing to maintain dust collection systems.
“It’s basically an admission that their standards have gaps,” Mr. Frumin said.
The federal Chemical Safety Board called on OSHA to issue dust standards in 2006, after a series of fatal events. After the Port Wentworth fire, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would require OSHA to issue dust-related rules based on recommendations from the National Fire Prevention Association.
Next week, Imperial Sugar representatives are expected to testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety, which is considering a similar bill. According to a copy of the company’s planned testimony, Imperial Sugar welcomes dust regulation.
“It is our view that a clear standard would assist employers in understanding the hazards of combustible dust and the means to reduce or prevent such hazard,” the testimony says.
Graham H. Graham, who joined Imperial Sugar as vice president for operations last November, is expected to testify that he identified serious safety concerns before the February explosion.
The company’s testimony quotes from documents written by Mr. Graham in January indicating that he had seen significant improvement at the two plants.
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7) Gates Wants to Shift $1.2 Billion to Bolster War Surveillance
By THOM SHANKER
July 26, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/us/26military.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has asked Congress for the authority to shift more than $1 billion in Pentagon spending to rapidly increase the ability to provide surveillance to battlefield troops, officials said Friday.
The request to reprogram $1.2 billion is the most significant step since Mr. Gates ordered the creation of a task force in May to press all of the armed services to urgently expand and improve intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in the war zones.
If approved, the money would pay for more than 50 new airplanes that would be designed to watch and listen over the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, providing the ability to bring full-motion video and electronic eavesdropping to the troops.
The additional aircraft would allow the military to add 11 around-the-clock patrols to the war zones; the patrols would be for surveillance only and would not be flown by aircraft that could carry out attacks with missiles or bombs.
Mr. Gates has described battlefield intelligence as central to saving the lives of military personnel in the war zones, and the reprogramming request is expected to receive bipartisan support among leaders in the House and Senate, Congressional aides of both parties said.
Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon spokesman, said the proposal to reprogram the $1.2 billion in Pentagon money was “a further manifestation of the secretary’s whole-hearted commitment to getting the commanders in the field and their warfighters the resources they need to win.”
Officials at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill said the money would be pulled from lower-priority items like heavy trucks — of which the military has more than needed, officials said — and communications systems not required for Iraq or Afghanistan.
Much of the money would go toward adding more than 50 Beech C-12 aircraft, which are small, off-the-shelf propeller planes commonly used as corporate aircraft that would be outfitted with advanced surveillance sensors by the military. The aircraft would be provided by contractors.
Before Mr. Gates’s initiatives, the military could guarantee about a dozen around-the-clock surveillance patrols to provide full-motion video, a figure that is to rise to 31 by October under prodding by Mr. Gates and additional efforts from the armed services.
Efficiencies in how these aircraft are deployed are expected to add two more 24-hour patrols, officials said.
If the reprogramming request is approved, the military within six months should be able to guarantee 44 of these 24-hour surveillance patrols every day, officials said.
The extra money would also pay for what one official called the “technical architecture” that allows the surveillance aircraft to send information to ground terminals where it can be stored, sorted and analyzed.
The overall Pentagon budget for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance remains classified, and officials declined to provide even the percentage of increase that would be achieved by reprogramming $1.2 billion.
Mr. Gates announced in May that he was creating a task force to find ways to move urgently and provide more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan, a decision that was expected to focus initially on a shift of priorities to remotely piloted aircraft.
The initiative was previewed in a speech Mr. Gates delivered at Maxwell Air Force Base, in Alabama, home of the Air War College, in April. In his address, the defense secretary described his deep frustration at being unable to promote a shift from piloted aircraft to less expensive, and less glamorous, surveillance vehicles.
“I’ve been wrestling for months to get more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets into the theater,” Mr. Gates, a former director of central intelligence, said at the time. “Because people were stuck in old ways of doing business, it’s been like pulling teeth.”
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8) In a Doll’s Head, Some in Harlem See a Setback
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and JASON GRANT
July 26, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/nyregion/26harlem.html?ref=nyregion
Though accounts vary, the basics of what happened on Tuesday evening in Harlem are not in dispute: an unmarked police car with two white officers inside drove around with the head of a black doll on the rear antenna.
The officers said they did not know it was there. Some witnesses said they must have because the head was life-size. The Police Department said the car was patrolling the streets for only a short time that day; some witnesses said it was hours. The police are trying to determine who attached the head to the antenna. Some witnesses say an officer laughed as he tossed the doll’s head into the car trunk.
While a doll’s head on a police car might not seem generally offensive, in Harlem, residents’ relationship with the New York City Police Department has long been fraught with tension and distrust.
In a highly publicized case in the 1990s, officers from the 30th Precinct in Harlem — called “the Dirty 30” — pleaded guilty to or were convicted of crimes including robbing drug dealers, selling cocaine and taking payoffs. And police statistics show that far more people are stopped and questioned in Harlem than in the nearby Upper West Side, even though the overall crime rates in both neighborhoods are similar. In addition, Harlem riots in 1935, 1943 and 1964 were partly attributed to problems with the Police Department.
So the doll’s head may mean more here than elsewhere.
“This is a significant marker of a deteriorating relationship,” said State Senator Bill Perkins, who organized a march on Thursday to protest the doll’s head. “This incident opens up the Pandora’s box. It reminds people there have been other incidents.”
Mr. Perkins said the episode was a setback for a police-Harlem relationship that had been improving. (Parts of Harlem are in the 25th, 28th and 30th Precincts.)
“There has been less of an aggressive anticommunity stance expressed” during the Bloomberg administration, Mr. Perkins said. He added, however, “To the extent there’s been some repair, this tears that repair apart.”
In Harlem, it is not difficult to find a male African-American who says he has been stopped or harassed by a police officer. This is how many residents here have encounters with the police. And for many young, black residents, this is often the seminal event in their relationship with the law.
Data about those encounters — known as “stop-and-frisks” — obtained by the New York Civil Liberties Union from the Police Department show that the department has relied increasingly on such tactics in Harlem and elsewhere since 2003, the first year data are available.
The figures reveal, for example, that more people have been stopped by officers in the 28th Precinct, in central Harlem, than in the 24th Precinct, on the Upper West Side, even though the precincts have similar crime rates.
From April through June 2006, for example, officers made 2,365 stops in the 28th Precinct, compared with 409 in the 24th Precinct. During the first three months of this year, there were 514 stops in the 28th Precinct and 460 in the 24th. The police say that officers make stops based on the descriptions of suspects.
The 28th Precinct has also had four murders and 131 robberies so far this year, while the 24th Precinct has had two murders and 135 robberies. In 2007, the 28th Precinct had four murders and 275 robberies, while the 24th Precinct had two murders and 248 robberies.
While the murder numbers are double in the 28th Precinct, they are remarkably lower than the numbers from a decade ago.
Darrin Murray, 19, of Harlem said that half an hour before he was approached by a reporter on Thursday, he had been questioned by officers in a van outside his apartment building.
Mr. Murray said that an officer told him, “Come here,” and the 19-year-old, who was carrying a black plastic bag containing a Sunkist soda and a plastic foam cup with ice, approached the van.
“ ‘Let me see what’s in the bag,’ ” Mr. Murray said one of the officers ordered. After inspecting the bag, he said, the officer told him, “ ‘Oh, yeah, that’s the type of stuff people have when they’re doing something.’ ”
When Mr. Murray’s mother, who saw the encounter, approached the officers to ask why they were questioning him, the police van abruptly drove away, Mr. Murray said.
A police spokesman said that Mr. Murray may have been questioned because the police had received two calls about drug sales in the area.
Mr. Murray said of the police in Harlem, “More people are scared of what they are going to do to them than what anyone else would do.” He added, “I’m scared all the time.”
At a news conference a few hours after the doll’s-head allegation came to light, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said he believed that the rapport in Harlem was as strong as ever.
And he said that the neighborhood’s gentrification had actually strengthened the bond between officers and the community.
Mr. Kelly tends to be popular in African-American neighborhoods and has been credited with tamping down a rancorous relationship between the police and African-Americans during the Giuliani administration.
“I would describe our relations as good in Harlem and, quite frankly, throughout the city,” Mr. Kelly said. “We are always going to have some pockets of tension because of what we do, because of the enforcement aspects of the work that police departments do.”
He added, “With the so-called gentrification of the neighborhood, I think there are even stronger relationships than those that existed in the past.”
Mr. Kelly said that Harlem home owners worried about crime seemed to be among those most apt to reach out to officers.
“We have a lot more ownership of property in the neighborhood,” he said. “Brownstones are obviously going for significant amounts of money.”
Wayne Dawson, 45, the director of the Dunlevy Milbank Community Center in central Harlem, said the neighborhood’s relationship with the police “appears to be a little bit more polarized than I have ever seen it.”
“There is an unusually high demand for kids to be stopped and show identification,” Mr. Dawson said.
While crime has decreased, it is not extinct. Officers who patrol Harlem point out that the area has had a number of shootings since January, including an episode in which six young people were shot and wounded on Memorial Day. No one has yet been arrested in that case.
The doll-head case seemed to resonate with many Harlem residents.
Clarence Jones, 28, said he saw the doll’s head on the antenna and tried to take a photograph, but one of the officers stuffed the head into the trunk.
The police said the officers reported that once the doll’s head was pointed out to them, they tossed it away.
Mr. Kelly said the police were analyzing surveillance video from the area to try to determine what happened.
But he said the officers’ explanation that they were unaware of the doll’s head was “plausible.”
Some in Harlem, however, question whether the department is committed to a thorough investigation. Mr. Perkins has criticized Mr. Kelly and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg for not forcefully denouncing the episode.
“There’s nothing more symbolically terrifying than that in this community, given the history of slavery and the K.K.K. and night riders,” Mr. Perkins said.
When asked about Harlem residents’ denunciations of the Police Department, Mr. Kelly said it was the nature of the job.
“That is the world in which we live,” he said. “We accept that.”
Christine Hauser contributed reporting.
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9) Unions Rally, Vowing Strike at Verizon
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
July 27, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/nyregion/27rally.html?ref=nyregion
The unions representing 65,000 Verizon workers on Saturday resounded a pledge to strike if demands for higher wages, caps on health care payments and limits on outsourcing jobs are not honored.
With one week to go before a contract expires, several thousand telephone workers affiliated with the Communications Workers of America and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers gathered at Verizon headquarters in Lower Manhattan.
They chastised Verizon executives for proposing sharp increases in health care payments and reductions in coverage for retirees. Some held signs reading “Hands Off Our Benefits,” vowing to take to the picket line on Aug. 3 if the two sides did not reach a settlement.
Joe Connolly, president of Local 1101 of the C.W.A., said that the union was pushing for a 5 percent annual wage increase, larger pensions and expanded medical benefits. “Right now, employees have to make a choice: Are they going to eat or get benefits?” Mr. Connolly said.
In light of the slow pace of negotiations, a strike was likely, he said. “There’s been nothing resolved on any level at this point.”
Eric W. Rabe, a spokesman for Verizon, however, remained hopeful that a deal would be reached. He declined to comment on the specifics of the negotiations. “I think everybody recognizes that it is in the interests of all sides to get the contract resolved,” Mr. Rabe said.
A major point of contention between the unions and Verizon is the outsourcing and subcontracting of jobs. Union members have said that work like telephone technical support and laying new wires should go to union laborers. But Verizon has said that awarding some jobs to outside firms gives the company the flexibility to create, for instance, a new call center on the spot, or to quickly find laborers for a one-time construction job.
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10) Demand soars as donations decline at L.A.-area food banks
Job losses have hit the San Fernando Valley particularly hard as the economic downturn spreads beyond the poor and begins to affect middle- and upper-class families.
By Jennifer Oldham
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
latimes.com
July 28, 2008
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-valecon28-2008jul28,0,42513.story
Food pantry operators throughout the Los Angeles region report that demand for free groceries has surged to the highest level in recent memory this summer as the sagging economy has hit not only the poor, but also middle- and upper-class families.
"This is probably the most people we've ever seen use emergency food assistance," said Darren Hoffman, communications director for the 35-year-old Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. "We're seeing people who were making $70,000 a year coming into a food bank for the first time. . . . They've used their retirement to pay their mortgage, and gone through their savings."
The organization, which distributes groceries to about 670,000 people each year through a network of more than 900 religious entities and nonprofits, watched demand increase by 80% this spring.
Steep job losses in the banking and entertainment industries, on top of the housing downturn, are reverberating particularly hard through the San Fernando Valley, leading to less work for janitors, waiters and others. The Valley has lost thousands of jobs in financial services, largely due to the failure last fall of Calabasas-based Countrywide Financial Corp. -- the nation's largest mortgage lender -- which laid off more than 20% of its workforce.
"We're seeing an increase in people who never would have asked for help in the past," said Joan Mithers, a director at SOVA Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles, which operates three food pantries including its headquarters in Van Nuys. The agency served 5,605 people in June, up 28% from a similar period in 2007 and 46% over June 2006.
One recent day, Teresita Guzman was among those standing in long lines to receive food, clothing and other assistance at the northeast Valley headquarters of Meet Each Need With Dignity, or MEND.
Her eyes cast downward, Guzman tugged at her worn black T-shirt and recounted how her three teenage sons decided to hold off eating the corn flakes she brought home from a food pantry until she could afford to buy milk.
"I told them to wait until their dad gets paid," the 39-year-old Pacoima resident said through an interpreter. With construction work increasingly hard to find, the family can't depend on regular paychecks.
The one-two punch of a declining income of about $1,300 a month -- with half going to rent -- and higher gas and food prices forced Guzman for the first time this spring to visit MEND to pick up food for her family.
The Valley's largest charitable group aiding the poor, MEND serves about 46,200 people a month and has seen demand jump about 26% so far this year.
"There's a perception that the Valley is middle class and one of the richer parts of L.A.," said Marianne Haver Hill, MEND's executive director. "The poverty is very much hidden here."
But recent statistics underscore the fact that times are tough for people of all income levels who call the 225-square-mile Valley area home. Job losses in the Valley's signature industries, such as financial services and entertainment, pushed unemployment claims in May to a four-year high, said Dan Blake, director of the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center at Cal State Northridge.
Local food pantry operators said some clients had exhausted savings and retirement funds and had their vehicles repossessed before they came for free food.
Yet as demand is climbing, food donations to charities throughout Southern California are at record lows, leading some organizations to face a tough choice: Should they feed each family less in order to serve more people?
"We're able to provide less food for the money we have," said Cambria Smith, president of the San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council, a network of 18 pantries that primarily serves people living in the west Valley.
Food pantry administrators said they tend to give cereal and other scarce items to families first, in some cases leaving single clients without certain goods. They also refer clients to agencies in surrounding communities that haven't been hit as hard, and limit free grocery visits to once a month.
The federal government exacerbated food pantry shortages when it slashed two-thirds of the surplus food it donated to charities earlier this decade. In 2002, 42 million pounds of groceries were donated to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, and 60% of that came from the Department of Agriculture; in 2007, the organization received 35 million pounds of food, and the government's share of the donations dropped to 25%, said Hoffman, the agency's spokesman.
Supermarkets have also decreased donations by trimming the amount of food sold close to its expiration date and selling dented goods to discount outlets.
With fewer groceries available, many charities are scrambling to raise money to buy staples such as powdered milk. And prices for those staples are at 18-year highs.
At MEND, food bank director Gina Mirabella said her volunteers spend hours some days dialing grocers and food manufacturers requesting donations. She said she's even gone so far as to phone the toll-free number on cereal boxes and Canadian outlets asking for donations from their Los Angeles warehouses.
"I try to keep up by covering more ground, covering more stores, covering more merchants, covering more companies," said Mirabella, who said the workload is the highest it's been in her 20 years at MEND. "We come up short mostly on cereals and soups and canned meats."
In search of eggs, milk and other staples to feed her husband and three children, Maria Oliveros visited her neighborhood church in Pacoima recently, only to find that they were out of food. Sitting in a dirt backyard surrounded by a camper covered by a plastic tarp, a camper shell and several rusted storage sheds, Oliveros said two-thirds of her husband's paycheck pays for two rooms the family rents in a nearby bungalow.
What's left is barely enough to pay for gas, school uniforms and other necessities, she said, forcing her to seek free food for her family several times a week.
"Last year I would go to the church every once in a while, but now I go every Monday and Tuesday," Oliveros said through an interpreter. "It's very hard right now."
jennifer.oldham@latimes.com
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11) Another Temporary Fix
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
July 28, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/
So the big housing bill has passed Congress. That’s good news: Fannie and Freddie had to be rescued, and the bill’s other main provision — a special loan program to head off foreclosures — will help some hard-pressed families. It’s much better to have this bill than not.
But I hope nobody thinks that Congress has done all, or even a large fraction, of what needs to be done.
This bill is the latest in a series of temporary fixes to the financial system — attempts to hold the thing together with bungee cords and masking tape — that have, at least so far, succeeded in staving off complete collapse. But those fixes have done nothing to resolve the system’s underlying flaws. In fact, they set the stage for even bigger future disasters — unless they’re followed up with fundamental reforms.
Before I get to that, let’s be clear about one thing: Even if this bill succeeds in its aims, heading off a severe credit contraction and helping some homeowners avoid foreclosure, it won’t change the fact that this decade’s double bubble, in housing prices and loose lending, has been a disaster for millions of Americans.
After all, the new bill will, at best, make a modest dent in the rate of foreclosures. And it does nothing at all for those who aren’t in danger of losing their houses but are seeing much if not all of their net worth wiped out — a particularly bitter blow to Americans who are nearing retirement, or thought they were until they discovered that they couldn’t afford to stop working.
It’s too late to avoid that pain. But we can try to ensure that we don’t face more and bigger crises in the future.
The back story to the current crisis is the way traditional banks — banks with federally insured deposits, which are limited in the risks they’re allowed to take and the amount of leverage they can take on — have been pushed aside by unregulated financial players. We were assured by the likes of Alan Greenspan that this was no problem: the market would enforce disciplined risk-taking, and anyway, taxpayer funds weren’t on the line.
And then reality struck.
Far from being disciplined in their risk-taking, lenders went wild. Concerns about the ability of borrowers to repay were waved aside; so were questions about whether soaring house prices made sense.
Lenders ignored the warning signs because they were part of a system built around the principle of heads I win, tails someone else loses. Mortgage originators didn’t worry about the solvency of borrowers, because they quickly sold off the loans they made, generally to investors who had no idea what they were buying. Throughout the financial industry, executives received huge bonuses when they seemed to be earning big profits, but didn’t have to give the money back when those profits turned into even bigger losses.
And as for that business about taxpayers’ money not being at risk? Never mind. Over the past year the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury have put hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on the line, propping up financial institutions deemed too big or too strategic to fail. (I’m not blaming them — I don’t think they had any alternative.)
Meanwhile, those traditional, regulated banks played a minor role in the lending frenzy, except to the extent that they had unregulated, “off balance sheet” subsidiaries. The case of IndyMac — which failed because it specialized in risky Alt-A loans while regulators looked the other way — is the exception that proves the rule.
The moral of this story seems clear — and it’s what Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has been saying for some time: financial regulation needs to be extended to cover a much wider range of institutions. Basically, the financial framework created in the 1930s, which brought generations of relative stability, needs to be updated to 21st-century conditions.
The desperate rescue efforts of the past year make expanded regulation even more urgent. If the government is going to stand behind financial institutions, those institutions had better be carefully regulated — because otherwise the game of heads I win, tails you lose will be played more furiously than ever, at taxpayers’ expense.
Of course, proponents of expanded regulation, no matter how compelling their arguments, will have to contend with very well-financed opposition from the financial industry. And as Upton Sinclair pointed out, it’s hard to get a man to understand something when his salary — or, we might add, his campaign war chest — depends on his not understanding it.
But let’s hope that the sheer scale of this financial crisis has concentrated enough minds to make reform possible. Otherwise, the next crisis will be even bigger.
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12) U.S. Military Says Soldiers Fired on Civilians
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
July 28, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html
BAGHDAD — The American military admitted Sunday night that a platoon of soldiers raked a car of innocent Iraqi civilians with hundreds of rounds of gunfire and that the military then issued a news release larded with misstatements, asserting that the victims were criminals who had fired on the troops.
The attack on June 25 killed three people, a man and two women, as they drove to work at a bank at Baghdad’s airport. The attack infuriated Iraqi officials and even prompted the Iraqi armed forces general command to call the shooting cold-blooded murder.
It also bolstered calls from Iraqi politicians to pressure the American military to leave Iraq after this year, when a United Nations mandate expires, unless the United States agrees to permit its soldiers to be subject to criminal prosecution under Iraqi law for attacks on civilians.
In a statement issued late Sunday, the American military said that “a thorough investigation determined that the driver and passengers were law-abiding citizens of Iraq.” It added that the soldiers were not at fault for the killings because they had fired warning shots and exercised proper “escalation of force” measures before they opened fire on the people in the car.
But the findings called into question the way the military handled the aftermath of the shootings.
For example, a key assertion of the news release issued by the military on the day of the killings was that “a weapon was recovered from the wreckage.” But the military said Sunday that no one claimed to have found a weapon in the car or had seen a weapon taken from it.
Instead, one of the soldiers at the scene reported seeing an Iraqi police officer pull something from the burned car and then place it in the front seat of an ambulance, according to Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a spokesman for the Fourth Infantry Division, which patrols Baghdad.
The soldier never said the item pulled from the car was a weapon, he said. But the soldier’s account nevertheless formed the basis for a statement in an initial internal military assessment of the attack, which said that a weapon had been pulled from the car.
“We don’t believe there was any cover-up,” Colonel Stover said.
The investigation also revealed that the car had already passed through a major checkpoint leading into the airport, which required the occupants to submit to a thorough search for weapons and other dangerous objects. As they had many times before, the bank employees then drove down the main civilian road to the airport.
But this time they encountered a four-vehicle military convoy that was not supposed to be there. The convoy had taken the wrong road and failed to turn into a military checkpoint. Instead, the military vehicles had traveled down a road that serves as the main entry for thousands of Iraqis who drive to the Baghdad airport.
The convoy had stopped on the side of the road to try to fix a problem with a vehicle when the car with the bank employees approached. A soldier guarding the rear of the convoy fired several warning shots, according to Colonel Stover. When the car did not stop, 9 of the 18 soldiers in the platoon opened fire.
In its initial news release about the killings, the military said that the car then crashed and “exploded.” But that, too, was false, Colonel Stover said. After the shootings, the car’s engine compartment ignited, he said, and the fire then “spread throughout the car.”
Soldiers also fired warning shots near at least two other vehicles, causing them to stop and turn around. Some of the soldiers involved in the shooting had previously been involved in what the military calls “escalation of force” episodes involving civilians, he added.
In addition, the military had stated last month that two vehicles in the convoy had sustained “bullet hole damage” from the supposed attack. But on Sunday the military changed its story about that, saying that while there was a fresh bullet mark on one vehicle, it had nothing to do with the June 25 attack.
The soldiers “thought they were in danger, they really did,” Colonel Stover said, adding that the soldiers said they had thought they saw gunfire. “We now know there were no weapons in the car, and there were not any shell casings.” The military’s investigating officer filed his report on the attack on July 7, and the soldiers involved returned to duty on July 15.
“This was an extremely unfortunate and tragic incident,” Col. Allen Batschelet, chief of staff for the Fourth Infantry Division, said in the statement issued Sunday night. He said the military would take “several corrective measures to amend and eliminate the possibility of such situations happening in the future.”
According to Colonel Stover, those measures include ensuring that troops do not accidentally travel down the civilian road to the airport as well as reviewing escalation of force procedures “to see if they are meeting needs of the current environment.”
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13) Suspected U.S. Missile Strike Kills Six in Pakistan
By REUTERS
Filed at 3:41 a.m. ET
July 28, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-pakistan-violence.html?ref=world
WANA, Pakistan, July 28 (Reuters) - A suspected U.S. missile strike on a Pakistani madrasa killed six people, including foreigners, on Monday in tribal lands regarded as an al Qaeda and Taliban hotbed, intelligence officials said.
The target of the pre-dawn attack was a house close to a madrasa used by militants near Azam Warsak village, about 20 km (12 miles) west of Wana, the main town of the South Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan.
The attack, one of many in recent months, was launched hours before Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was due to meet President George W. Bush in Washington for talks that will focus on the conduct of the war against terrorism.
The United States, alarmed by rising casualties among Western forces in Afghanistan, wants Pakistan to do more to contain the al Qaeda and Taliban threat in its territory.
A Pakistani military spokesman confirmed an incident had occured in Waziristan, but said he was unaware of details, though intelligence officials in Wana gave a clearer picture.
One official told Reuters the madrasa, or religious school, was a militant base and the owner of the targeted house, a tribesman named Malik Sallat Khan, had ties with the militants.
"The owner of the house and seminary had some links with militants, and the madrasa was not used for education, but as a compound," he said.
Another official, who also declined to be identified, said at least three missiles hit the house and seminary, killing six people, including foreigners whose nationalities had still to be identified. Three people were wounded.
Residents said they heard the sound of a drone aircraft engine, suggesting that the missile may have been fired by a U.S.-controlled unmanned Predator.
"We had heard the sound of a drone engine just before the explosions," said Zia-ur-Rehman, a local tribesmen.
"These drones have been flying since late Sunday night."
Spokesmen for NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan denied involvement in any cross-border strike, but could not speak for the CIA, which also operates drones.
"NO PRIOR INFORMATION"
Despite Islamabad's repeated protests, several drone missile attacks have been carried out this year by U.S. forces against militants linked to al Qaeda and Taliban hiding in the northwest tribal lands near the Afghan border.
Pakistan's military spokesman said he had little information, and noted that U.S. coalition forces were no longer informing the Pakistan army over every missile strike.
"Some incident did take place but what kind of strike it was, whether it was missile or rocket attack or bomb explosion, we don't know," said Major General Athar Abbas.
"Coalition forces don't share information about any strike with us prior to any attack," he said. Security in northwest Pakistan has deteriorated in the past few weeks.
Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, whose fighters were blamed for many of the suicide bomb attacks on Pakistani security forces and politicians last year, has suspended peace talks and threatened to unleash a fresh wave of violence.
There had been a lull in the violence since the new government came to power in March after elections in February.
Gilani's government embarked on a strategy of dialogue with the militants, although there has been limited military action in some parts of the semi-autonomous tribal region where unrest has flared.
Western governments fear the Pakistani strategy provided the militants with breathing space to increase the flow of fighters across the border to fuel the Afghan insurgency.
Separately, a bomb planted on a bicycle killed a boy and wounded eight policemen near the northwestern garrison town of Kohat on Monday, police said. The policemen had been aboard a bus taking them on duty when the remote-controlled device exploded.
(Additional reporting by Mohammad Hashim, Haji Mujtaba, Alamghir Bitani and Hafiz Wazir) (Writing by Kamran Haider; editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Sanjeev Miglani) (For a Reuters blog about Pakistan please see http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan )
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14) Iowa Rally Protests Raid and Conditions at Plant
By JULIA PRESTON
July 28, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/us/28immig.html?ref=us
POSTVILLE, Iowa — About 1,000 people, including Hispanic immigrants, Catholic clergy members, rabbis and activists, marched through the center of this farm town on Sunday and held a rally at the entrance to a kosher meatpacking plant that was raided in May by immigration authorities.
The march was called to protest working conditions in the plant, owned by Agriprocessors Inc., and to call for Congressional legislation to give legal status to illegal immigrants. The four rabbis, from Minnesota and Wisconsin, attended the march to publicize proposals to revise kosher food certification to include standards of corporate ethics and treatment of workers.
The march drew a counterprotest by about 150 people, organized by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which opposes illegal immigrants and proposals to give them legal status.
At one point, tension surged as the two sides shouted slogans at each other through bullhorns from opposite sidewalks of the main street of this town with a population of about 2,200. The marchers said, “Stop the raids!” Protesters across the street responded, “Illegals go home!”
No incidents of disorder were reported by the police.
The debate over kosher standards has intensified since the May 12 raid at the plant, in which 389 illegal immigrants, the majority from Guatemala, were detained. Reports by many of those workers of widespread labor violations in the plant have been prominent news in the Jewish media, provoking discussion of whether Jews should buy meat and poultry products made there.
Agriprocessors, owned and operated by Aaron Rubashkin and his family, is the largest kosher plant in the United States. Its products, sold as Aaron’s Best and Rubashkin’s, among others, dominate the nation’s market for kosher meat and poultry.
The plant had been cited for state and federal labor violations before the raid, including inadequate worker safety protections and unpaid overtime. Since the raid, immigrants under 18, the legal age in Iowa for working on a meatpacking floor, have said they worked long hours at Agriprocessors, often at night.
Agriprocessors’ beef and poultry are killed and packaged using procedures specified by strict Jewish dietary laws, and are certified by rabbis who are recognized authorities on kosher food.
In 2006, after reports in The Forward, a Jewish newspaper, of harsh working conditions at Agriprocessors, a commission of inquiry organized by Conservative Jewish leaders criticized the plant’s operations and called for more safety training and increased inspections by state labor officials.
A member of that commission, Rabbi Morris Allen of Mendota Heights, Minn., proposed a new system of kosher certification that would include consideration of working conditions in plants where the food is produced.
Rabbi Harold Kravitz, from the Adath Jeshurun synagogue in Minnetonka, Minn., said on Sunday that the health and safety issues raised by the commission did not appear to have been addressed. Speaking to the rally on a dusty driveway in front of the plant, Rabbi Kravitz said that Jewish laws governing the kosher processing of animals should not be separated from Jewish ethical principles.
“Proper business conduct and treatment of workers also are important Jewish values,” Rabbi Kravitz said.
He and several Jewish community activists met on Sunday morning here with Chaim Abrahams, a top manager of the plant. Aaron Goldsmith, a Postville resident who participated in the meeting, said Mr. Abrahams reported that about 360 of the arrested workers had received all payments that they were owed and that Agriprocessors was making weekly deliveries of food to about 30 immigrant families in Postville.
Although Agriprocessors executives have largely avoided speaking to the news media, Getzel Rubashkin, 24, a grandson of Aaron Rubashkin, emerged from the plant and approached the rally.
“There’s no argument here,” said Getzel Rubashkin, who said he works in the plant but was not a representative of Agriprocessors and was speaking for himself. Agriprocessors managers, he said, “treat their workers well and they pay their workers well and there is no other policy.”
“The company is not on the other side of any of these people,” he said, referring to the immigrants lined up behind banners across the street from the plant.
Getzel Rubashkin said a large number of illegal immigrants had been hired because they presented identity documents that he called convincing forgeries.
“The high number of illegal people who were working here is more a testimony to the quality of their deceit, of their papers,” Getzel Rubashkin said. He said the company did not criticize immigration authorities for the raid.
“Obviously some of the people here were presenting false documents,” Getzel Rubashkin said. “Immigration authorities somehow picked it up and they did what they are supposed to do, they came and picked them up. God bless them for it.”
On Postville’s main street, the protesters opposing the immigrants’ march praised Iowa federal prosecutors, who convicted 297 illegal immigrant workers from the plant, most on criminal document fraud charges.
“It’s a felony when you take someone’s identity, and we think that needs to be out there when you talk about the supposed injustices against undocumented workers,” said Susan Tully of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an organizer of the counterprotest.
Like the marchers, the protesters were also angry at Agriprocessors managers. To date, the only managers arrested were two floor supervisors, on immigration harboring charges.
“It’s cheap labor, that’s what they’re getting away with,” said Ruthie Hendrycks, 48, of a group called Minnesotans Seeking Immigration Reform. “I want to see these employers that hired children and illegal aliens do serious jail time.”
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15) For Many Student Athletes, Game Over
By WINNIE HU
July 28, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/education/28sports.html?ref=education
MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. — Student athletes in maroon and gold uniforms filled their water coolers with more than $19,000 in donations last weekend by standing on street corners here to ask friends, neighbors and strangers alike to help revive the school district’s $1.1 million athletic program, which was eliminated last month in budget cuts.
On Long Island, a group of parents started a charitable corporation, Wantagh S O S (Save Our Students), to collect money for nearly 100 sports teams and extracurricular clubs that were dropped from the school district’s budget last month. The group has raised more than $334,000, about half of its goal, through dinner parties, car washes, a lacrosse tournament and a walk-a-thon at Jones Beach.
And come fall, middle school students in Dearborn, Mich., will have to settle for fewer games after every team’s season was cut by a quarter, or about two weeks, to save $130,000 annually on busing and coaching. The district trimmed the schedules after students and parents opposed its plan to replace the sports teams with an intramural program, in which students would not have competed against other schools.
As cash-strapped school districts across the nation scale back sports programs or try to pass on part or all of their costs to students and parents, some fear that the tradition of the scholar athlete is at risk. In Mount Vernon — where this year more than 700 students were expected to participate on 55 teams in basketball, football, volleyball, tennis, cross country, track, soccer, wrestling, swimming, baseball, softball, golf and cheerleading — many teachers and parents say that sports not only keep children coming to school but also keep them away from crime, drugs and gang activity.
“The field, the pool, the court are our classrooms, and the coaches are our teachers,” said Donna Pirro, an assistant principal who was the district’s athletic director until that title was eliminated along with the sports program. “Education through athletics should be taken seriously because it builds the kind of teamwork, self-discipline and social skills that our children need to succeed in any career they pursue.”
School officials here and elsewhere say they recognize the value of athletic programs, but have little choice as they face rising teacher salaries and mounting costs for benefits, special education classes and utility bills that are soaring with higher fuel prices and inflation. W. L. Sawyer, superintendent of the 10,046-student Mount Vernon district, said he was forced to choose between pre-kindergarten classes and sports after voters rejected the school budget twice this spring.
“There were a lot of other things that were cut before we got to the sports program,” he said, explaining that even though the district went from a $178.8 million budget last year to a $187.4 million contingency budget, it had to increase class size to 29 from 26 in the high school and lay off 100 employees, or about 6 percent of the district staff. The move away from athletics comes as many public schools, under pressure to increase standardized test scores, are also cutting back on physical education classes and shortening recess periods to free up time for test preparation.
Stewart Trost, an associate professor in the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Sciences at Oregon State University, said that while schools had a tradition of providing physical exercise that dated to the 1850s, less than 10 percent of the nation’s public schools now have daily physical education classes. “In a No Child Left Behind era, all nonmath, nonreading classes have been cut back,” he said.
But Professor Trost argued that “ensuring the health of children is part and parcel of the academic mission of schools in that you have to be healthy to learn,” citing studies showing that students who participate in a physical activity or sports perform better on standardized tests, and are less likely to smoke, use drugs, or engage in unprotected or promiscuous sex.
School officials do not dispute the benefits of sports, but instead emphasize that their primary responsibility is academics. Dr. Sawyer acknowledged that cutting athletics “leaves a tremendous hole” but pointed out that the district’s pre-kindergarten classes served 400 students, many of whom came from disadvantaged families.
“It’s a tough decision because we know cutting sports has an impact, but you have to consider what impacts the most children,” he said.
Similarly, Carl Bonuso, Wantagh’s superintendent, said that his priority was to maintain smaller class sizes — from 24 in the early elementary grades to up to 30 in the high school after the school budget failed to pass this spring for the first time in two decades.
His district’s $63.1 million contingency budget called for reducing the district’s staff of 400 by 5 teaching and 10 support positions, a number that most likely would have risen if the district had not also saved $650,000 by cutting 46 athletic teams and more than 50 activities, including orchestra and the drama and French clubs, said Dr. Bonuso, who agreed to freeze his salary, as well as those of two assistant superintendents and their secretaries.
But many parents contend that schools should also be required to fund sports and extracurricular activities. One parent, Don Desroches, said he was spending two hours a day on Wantagh S O S so that his son could play basketball and his daughter could join the orchestra and the chorus this fall, activities he considered crucial to building character and good citizenship.
“I feel like it’s a one-time effort, and we shouldn’t have to do this on a regular basis,” said Mr. Desroches, 46, who owns a company that runs soccer, basketball and baseball classes for children from ages 3 to 18. “I’m doing this now because it’s necessary, but it also takes a lot of time and effort.”
Across the country, schools have increasingly augmented tight budgets by charging students fees that can run to hundreds of dollars, a practice that is prohibited in New York State. The 17,600-student Dearborn district, in addition to shortening athletic seasons this year, also charges fees of up to $350 per family per year for students to participate in athletics and extracurricular activities.
This week, the 9,000-student Olympia district in Washington State raised its fees for middle school to $60 per sport from $40 to help cover a projected $2 million budget shortfall; the fees were introduced five years ago during another budget crisis. Three years ago, the high school diving teams were narrowly saved by a parent who covered the $4,600.
Similarly, at a Catholic high school in Somers, N.Y., freshman teams in basketball, baseball and volleyball were cut last week and then quickly reinstated after an anonymous benefactor donated $10,000.
Here in Mount Vernon, students and parents have raised more than $55,000 of the $950,000 district officials say is required to restore the athletic program (the district will pay insurance costs, bringing the total down from $1.1 million). The high-profile campaign has attracted the support of the mayor, Clinton I. Young Jr., as well as Ben Gordon of the Chicago Bulls, a 2001 graduate, who helped initiate fund-raising events, including a reggae concert and a cocktail reception with food donated by local restaurants.
But district officials say they need to have at least $300,000 in hand by Aug. 10 to start the fall season.
The uncertain future of Mount Vernon’s sports has been particularly hard on the boy’s basketball team, a perennial contender for state championships and a source of local pride. “They cut out part of my life,” said Mark Cole, 17, a senior, who continued to practice with his teammates this week in a sweltering gym with no air-conditioning. “Everybody needs sports for something, whether it’s dreaming of playing professionally or getting a scholarship to college or just staying off the streets.”
Jomo Belfor, 25, a teacher’s aide who graduated from the school in 2002, said playing basketball had given him stability and structure and “made me a totally different person.” Mr. Belfor, who played Division I basketball at James Madison University, said he could not understand how the district had failed to find the money for an athletic program that meant so much to so many.
“I just feel that everyone has expenses, and you have to budget for them,” he said. “Say you have $20 to spend at the supermarket, you’re going to buy necessities: milk, bread, and eggs. Basketball needs to be with the eggs because it affects your community.”
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16) Harlem Man Who Made Doll-Head Complaint Is Arrested
By ERIC KONIGSBERG and JASON GRANT
July 28, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/nyregion/28doll.html?ref=nyregion
A 27-year-old Harlem man, who spoke out last week about spotting the head of a black doll on the rear antenna of an unmarked police car with two white officers inside, was arrested early Sunday in what his lawyer and a state senator said was a case of unwarranted retaliation meant to intimidate the neighborhood.
The man, Clarence Jones, was charged with obstruction of government administration and resisting arrest, the police said. He was released without bail on Sunday night after being arraigned.
According to the police, two patrol officers were ticketing a parked Lincoln Navigator they had found unattended in front of a bus stop near Madison Avenue and 116th Street when Mr. Jones got into the vehicle — ignoring the officers’ statements that they were about to issue a summons — and drove off.
The police released a statement on Sunday evening saying that the officers who arrested Mr. Jones had not been aware of his connection to the outcry over the doll’s head.
Desiree Murray, a friend and neighbor of Mr. Jones, said that he told her he had been sitting in the car as it idled when the officers told him he was illegally double-parked. She said he told her that the officers had walked away after appearing to notice several other similarly parked cars nearby.
Police officials said that the officers pursued Mr. Jones to 116th Street and Fifth Avenue, where, they said, he left the car and became loud and boisterous, trying to film them with his cellphone.
The police said that Mr. Jones was subdued and arrested around 1:25 a.m. on Sunday.
Mr. Jones’s mother, identified by the police as Kimerly Powell, 48, arrived at the scene and was eventually issued a summons for disorderly conduct, the police said. They said that Mr. Jones and his mother live in an apartment building at 116th Street and Fifth Avenue.
The Navigator was registered to a woman in the Bronx, whom Mr. Jones identified as his companion, the police said.
After Mr. Jones was arrested, neighbors said, residents gathered on the sidewalk and demanded to know why.
The police said they were trying to determine who had put the black doll’s head on the antenna of the police car on Tuesday. Residents, including Mr. Jones, said they had seen the car patrolling the area for a while. The two officers in the car said that once the doll’s head was pointed out to them, they put it in the trunk.
As Mr. Jones has described it, he was trying to take a photograph of the doll’s head but one of the officers put it in the trunk before he could do so.
In subsequent days, some in Harlem saw it as a sign of troubled times between black residents and the police.
In a press conference on Thursday, State Senator Bill Perkins, who represents the area, denounced the doll’s-head display.
On Sunday, Mr. Perkins called the arrest “a retaliation,” and said he was organizing a Monday press conference outside 25th Precinct headquarters.
Roger Wareham, Mr. Jones’s lawyer, said on Sunday, “I am certain it’s retaliation.” He added: “It’s sending a message, to anyone else who is thinking of doing that, that it’s not worth it. This is what you are going to face.”
Mr. Jones said that officers threw him to the ground, chipping his tooth and injuring his wrist, and possibly breaking his arm, according to Mr. Wareham. The lawyer said on Sunday night that Mr. Jones was on his way to a hospital in Harlem.
Mr. Wareham said that he had met Mr. Jones at Thursday’s press conference and that they had both expressed concern that Mr. Jones might soon find himself in trouble with the police for expressing his outrage over the doll’s head.
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LINKS AND VERY SHORT STORIES
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North Carolina: Charges in G.I.’s Death
[What the title doesn't say is that the GI, a woman, was killed by a Marine who happened to be her husband...]
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | South
The husband of an Army nurse at Fort Bragg’s hospital was charged with murder in her death, a day after her body was discovered by the authorities. Cpl. John Wimunc of the Marines, 23, was also charged with first-degree arson and conspiracy to commit arson in the death of his wife, Second Lt. Holley Wimunc, of Dubuque, Iowa. Her body was found Sunday, three days after a suspicious fire at her Fayetteville apartment. The authorities also charged Lance Cpl. Kyle Alden, 22, with first-degree arson, conspiracy to commit arson and accessory after the fact to first-degree murder.
July 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/us/15brfs-CHARGESINGIS_BRF.html?ref=us
Louisiana: Case of Ex-Black Panther [The Angola Three]
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | South
The conviction of a former Black Panther in the killing of a prison guard in 1972 should be overturned because his former lawyer should have objected to testimony from witnesses who had died after his original trial, a federal magistrate found. The lawyer’s omission denied a fair second trial for the man, Albert Woodfox, in 1998, the magistrate, Christine Nolan, wrote Tuesday in a recommendation to the federal judge who will rule later. Mr. Woodfox, 61, and Herman Wallace, 66, were convicted in the stabbing death of the guard, Brent Miller, on April 17, 1972. Mr. Wallace has been appealing his conviction based on arguments similar to Mr. Woodfox’s. Mr. Woodfox and Mr. Wallace, with another former Black Panther, became known as the Angola Three because they were held in isolation for about three decades at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.
June 12, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/us/12brfs-CASEOFEXBLAC_BRF.html?ref=us
Texas: Killer Is Executed
By REUTERS
National Briefing | Southwest
A convicted killer, Karl E. Chamberlain, was put to death by lethal injection in Texas, becoming the first prisoner executed in the state since the Supreme Court lifted an unofficial moratorium on the death penalty in April. Texas, the country’s busiest death penalty state, is the fifth state to resume executions since the court rejected a legal challenge to the three-drug cocktail used in most executions for the past 30 years. Mr. Chamberlain, 37, was convicted of the 1991 murder of a 30-year-old Dallas woman who lived in the same apartment complex. Mr. Chamberlain was the 406th inmate executed in Texas since 1982 and the first this year.
June 12, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/us/12brfs-KILLERISEXEC_BRF.html?ref=us
Tennessee: State to Retry Inmate
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | South
The Union County district attorney said the county would meet a federal judge’s deadline for a new trial in the case of a death row inmate whose trial was questioned by the United States Supreme Court. The state is facing a June 17 deadline to retry or free the inmate, Paul House, who has been in limbo since June 2006, when the Supreme Court concluded that reasonable jurors would not have convicted him had they seen the results of DNA tests from the 1990s. The district attorney, Paul Phillips, said he would not seek the death penalty. Mr. House, 46, who has multiple sclerosis and must use a wheelchair, was sentenced in the 1985 killing of Carolyn Muncey. He has been in a state prison since 1986 and continues to maintain his innocence.
May 29, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/us/29brfs-STATETORETRY_BRF.html?ref=us
Israel: Carter Offers Details on Nuclear Arsenal
By REUTERS
World Briefing | Middle East
Former President Jimmy Carter said Israel held at least 150 nuclear weapons, the first time a current or former American president had publicly acknowledged the Jewish state’s nuclear arsenal. Asked at a news conference in Wales on Sunday how a future president should deal with the Iranian nuclear threat, he sought to put the risk in context by listing atomic weapons held globally. “The U.S. has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union has about the same, Great Britain and France have several hundred, and Israel has 150 or more,” he said, according to a transcript. The existence of Israeli nuclear arms is widely assumed, but Israel has never admitted their existence and American officials have stuck to that line in public for years.
May 27, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/world/middleeast/27briefs-CARTEROFFERS_BRF.html?ref=world
Iowa: Lawsuit Filed Over Raid
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | Midwest
The nation’s largest single immigration raid, in which nearly 400 workers at an Agriprocessors Inc. meat processing plant in Postville were detained on Monday, violated the constitutional rights of workers at a meatpacking plant, a lawsuit contends. The suit accuses the government of arbitrary and indefinite detention. A spokesman for the United States attorney’s office said he could not comment on the suit, which was filed Thursday on behalf of about 147 of the workers. Prosecutors said they filed criminal charges against 306 of the detained workers. The charges include accusations of aggravated identity theft, falsely using a Social Security number, illegally re-entering the United States after being deported and fraudulently using an alien registration card.
May 17, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/us/17brfs-LAWSUITFILED_BRF.html?ref=us
Senate Revises Drug Maker Gift Bill
By REUTERS
National Breifing | Washington
A revised Senate bill would require drug makers and medical device makers to publicly report gifts over $500 a year to doctors, watering down the standard set in a previous version. The new language was endorsed by the drug maker Eli Lilly & Company. Lawmakers said they hoped the support would prompt other companies to back the bill, which had previously required all gifts valued over $25 be reported. The industry says the gifts are part of its doctor education, but critics say such lavish gestures influence prescribing habits.
May 14, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/washington/14brfs-SENATEREVISE_BRF.html?ref=us
Texas: Sect Mother Is Not a Minor
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | Southwest
Child welfare officials conceded to a judge that a newborn’s mother, held in foster care as a minor after being removed from a polygamous sect’s ranch, is an adult. The woman, who gave birth on April 29, had been held along with more than 400 children taken last month from a ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was one of two pregnant sect members who officials had said were minors. The other member, who gave birth on Monday, may also be an adult, state officials said.
May 14, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/us/14brfs-SECTMOTHERIS_BRF.html?ref=us
Four Military Branches Hit Recruiting Goals
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | Washington
The Marine Corps far surpassed its recruiting goal last month, enlisting 2,233 people, which was 142 percent of its goal, the Pentagon said. The Army recruited 5,681 people, 101 percent of its goal. The Navy and Air Force also met their goals, 2,905 sailors and 2,435 airmen. A Defense Department spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said that if the Marine Corps continued its recruiting success, it could reach its goal of growing to 202,000 people by the end of 2009, more than a year early.
May 13, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/us/13brfs-FOURMILITARY_BRF.html?ref=us
Texas: Prison Settlement Approved
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | Southwest
A federal judge has approved a settlement between the Texas Youth Commission and the Justice Department over inmate safety at the state’s juvenile prison in Edinburg. The judge, Ricardo Hinojosa of Federal District Court, signed the settlement Monday, and it was announced by the commission Wednesday. Judge Hinojosa had previously rejected a settlement on grounds that it lacked a specific timeline. Federal prosecutors began investigating the prison, the Evins Regional Juvenile Center, in 2006. The settlement establishes parameters for safe conditions and staffing levels, restricts use of youth restraints and guards against retaliation for reporting abuse and misconduct.
May 8, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/us/08brfs-PRISONSETTLE_BRF.html?ref=us
Michigan: Insurance Ruling
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | Midwest
Local governments and state universities cannot offer health insurance to the partners of gay workers, the State Supreme Court ruled. The court ruled 5 to 2 that Michigan’s 2004 ban against same-sex marriage also blocks domestic-partner policies affecting gay employees at the University of Michigan and other public-sector employers. The decision affirms a February 2007 appeals court ruling. Up to 20 public universities, community colleges, school districts and local governments in Michigan have benefit policies covering at least 375 gay couples.
May 8, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/us/08brfs-INSURANCERUL_BRF.html?ref=us
Halliburton Profit Rises
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
HOUSTON (AP) — Increasing its global presence is paying off for the oil field services provider Halliburton, whose first-quarter income rose nearly 6 percent on growing business in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, the company said Monday.
Business in the first three months of 2008 also was better than expected in North America, where higher costs and lower pricing squeezed results at the end of 2007.
Halliburton shares closed up 3 cents, at $47.46, on the New York Stock Exchange.
Halliburton said it earned $584 million, or 64 cents a share, in the three months that ended March 31, compared with a year-earlier profit of $552 million, or 54 cents a share. Revenue rose to $4.03 billion, from $3.42 billion a year earlier.
April 22, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/business/worldbusiness/22halliburton.html?ref=business
Illegal Immigrants Who Were Arrested at Poultry Plant in Arkansas to Be Deported
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Eighteen illegal immigrants arrested at a poultry plant in Batesville will be processed for deportation, but will not serve any jail time for using fake Social Security numbers and state identification cards, federal judges ruled. Magistrate Judge Beth Deere and Judge James Moody of Federal District Court accepted guilty pleas from 17 of those arrested last week at the Pilgrim’s Pride plant. Federal prosecutors dismissed the misdemeanor charges against one man, but said they planned to ask Immigration and Customs Enforcement to begin deportation proceedings against him. The guilty pleas will give the 17 people criminal records, which will allow prosecutors to pursue tougher penalties if they illegally return to the United States. They had faced up to up to two years in prison and $205,000 in fines. Jane Duke, a United States attorney, said her office had no interest in seeing those arrested serve jail time, as they were “otherwise law-abiding citizens.”
National Briefing | South
April 22, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/us/22brfs-002.html?ref=us
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GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS AND INFORMATION
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Torture
On the Waterboard
How does it feel to be “aggressively interrogated”? Christopher Hitchens found out for himself, submitting to a brutal waterboarding session in an effort to understand the human cost of America’s use of harsh tactics at Guantánamo and elsewhere. VF.com has the footage. Related: “Believe Me, It’s Torture,” from the August 2008 issue.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/video/2008/hitchens_video200808
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Alison Bodine defense Committee
Lift the Two-year Ban
http://alisonbodine.blogspot.com/
Watch the Sept 28 Video on Alison's Case!
http://alisonbodine.blogspot.com/2007/10/blog-post.html
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The Girl Who Silenced the World at the UN!
Born and raised in Vancouver, Severn Suzuki has been working on environmental and social justice issues since kindergarten. At age 9, she and some friends started the Environmental Children's Organization (ECO), a small group of children committed to learning and teaching other kids about environmental issues. They traveled to 1992's UN Earth Summit, where 12 year-old Severn gave this powerful speech that deeply affected (and silenced) some of the most prominent world leaders. The speech had such an impact that she has become a frequent invitee to many U.N. conferences.
[Note: the text of her speech is also available at this site...bw]
http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=433
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MINIATURE EARTH
http://www.miniature-earth.com/me_english.htm
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"Dear Canada: Let U.S. war resisters stay!"
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/499/89/
Russell Means Speaking at the Transform Columbus Day Rally
"If voting could do anything it would be illegal!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8Lri1-6aoY
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Stop the Termination or the Cherokee Nation
http://groups.msn.com/BayAreaIndianCalendar/activismissues.msnw?action=get_message&mview=1&ID_Message=5580
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We Didn't Start the Fire
http://yeli.us/Flash/Fire.html
I Can't Take it No More
http://lefti.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html#9214483115237950361
The Art of Mental Warfare
http://artofmentalwarfare.com/pog/artofmentalwarfarecom-the-warning/
MONEY AS DEBT
http://video. google.com/ videoplay? docid=-905047436 2583451279
http://www.moneyasd ebt.net/
UNCONSTITUTIONAL
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6582099850410121223&pr=goog-sl
IRAQ FOR SALE
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6621486727392146155
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Port of Olympia Anti-Militarization Action Nov. 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOkn2Fg7R8w
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"They have a new gimmick every year. They're going to take one of their boys, black boys, and put him in the cabinet so he can walk around Washington with a cigar. Fire on one end and fool on the other end. And because his immediate personal problem will have been solved he will be the one to tell our people: 'Look how much progress we're making. I'm in Washington, D.C., I can have tea in the White House. I'm your spokesman, I'm your leader.' While our people are still living in Harlem in the slums. Still receiving the worst form of education.
"But how many sitting here right now feel that they could [laughs] truly identify with a struggle that was designed to eliminate the basic causes that create the conditions that exist? Not very many. They can jive, but when it comes to identifying yourself with a struggle that is not endorsed by the power structure, that is not acceptable, that the ground rules are not laid down by the society in which you live, in which you are struggling against, you can't identify with that, you step back.
"It's easy to become a satellite today without even realizing it. This country can seduce God. Yes, it has that seductive power of economic dollarism. You can cut out colonialism, imperialism and all other kind of ism, but it's hard for you to cut that dollarism. When they drop those dollars on you, you'll fold though."
—MALCOLM X, 1965
http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=987
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A little gem:
Michael Moore Faces Off With Stephen Colbert [VIDEO]
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/57492/
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LAPD vs. Immigrants (Video)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/qws/ff/qr?term=lapd&Submit=S&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Search&st=s
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Dr. Julia Hare at the SOBA 2007
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeo9ewi/proudtobeblack2/
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"We are far from that stage today in our era of the absolute
lie; the complete and totalitarian lie, spread by the
monopolies of press and radio to imprison social
consciousness." December 1936, "In 'Socialist' Norway,"
by Leon Trotsky: “Leon Trotsky in Norway” was transcribed
for the Internet by Per I. Matheson [References from
original translation removed]
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/12/nor.htm
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Wealth Inequality Charts
http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html
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MALCOLM X: Oxford University Debate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmzaaf-9aHQ
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"There comes a times when silence is betrayal."
--Martin Luther King
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YouTube clip of Che before the UN in 1964
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtATT8GXkWg&mode=related&search
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The Wealthiest Americans Ever
NYT Interactive chart
JULY 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/business/20070715_GILDED_GRAPHIC.html
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New Orleans After the Flood -- A Photo Gallery
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=795
This email was sent to you as a service, by Roland Sheppard.
Visit my website at: http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret
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[For some levity...Hans Groiner plays Monk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51bsCRv6kI0
...bw]
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Which country should we invade next?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3g_zqz3VjY
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My Favorite Mutiny, The Coup
http://www.myspace.com/thecoupmusic
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Michael Moore- The Awful Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeOaTpYl8mE
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Morse v. Frederick Supreme Court arguments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_LsGoDWC0o
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Free Speech 4 Students Rally - Media Montage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfCjfod8yuw
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'My son lived a worthwhile life'
In April 2003, 21-year old Tom Hurndall was shot in the head
in Gaza by an Israeli soldier as he tried to save the lives of three
small children. Nine months later, he died, having never
recovered consciousness. Emine Saner talks to his mother
Jocelyn about her grief, her fight to make the Israeli army
accountable for his death and the book she has written
in his memory.
Monday March 26, 2007
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2042968,00.html
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Introducing...................the Apple iRack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-KWYYIY4jQ
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"A War Budget Leaves Every Child Behind."
[A T-shirt worn by some teachers at Roosevelt High School
in L.A. as part of their campaign to rid the school of military
recruiters and JROTC--see Article in Full item number 4, below...bw]
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"200 million children in the world sleep in the streets today.
Not one of them is Cuban."
(A sign in Havana)
Venceremos
View sign at bottom of page at:
http://www.cubasolidarity.net/index.html
[Thanks to Norma Harrison for sending this...bw]
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FIGHTBACK! A Collection of Socialist Essays
By Sylvia Weinstein
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-fightback-intro.html
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[The Scab
"After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad,
and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with
which he made a scab."
"A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul,
a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue.
Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten
principles." "When a scab comes down the street,
men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and
the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out."
"No man (or woman) has a right to scab so long as there
is a pool of water to drown his carcass in,
or a rope long enough to hang his body with.
Judas was a gentleman compared with a scab.
For betraying his master, he had character enough
to hang himself." A scab has not.
"Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.
Judas sold his Savior for thirty pieces of silver.
Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of
a commision in the british army."
The scab sells his birthright, country, his wife,
his children and his fellowmen for an unfulfilled
promise from his employer.
Esau was a traitor to himself; Judas was a traitor
to his God; Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his country;
a scab is a traitor to his God, his country,
his family and his class."
Author --- Jack London (1876-1916)...Roland Sheppard
http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret]
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
"Award-Winning Writer/Filmmaker Donald L. Vasicek Launches New Sand
Creek Massacre Website"
May 21, 2008 -- CENTENNIAL, CO -- Award-winning filmmaker, Donald L.
Vasicek, has launched a new Sand Creek Massacre website. Titled,
"The Sand Creek Massacre", the site contains in depth witness
accounts of the massacre, the award-winning Sand Creek Massacre
trailer for viewing, the award-winning Sand Creek Massacre
documentary short for viewing, the story of the Sand Creek Massacre,
and a Shop to purchase Sand Creek Massacre DVD's and lesson
plans including the award-winning documentary film/educational DVD.
Vasicek, a board member of The American Indian Genocide Museum
(www.aigenom.com)in Houston, Texas, said, "The website was launched
to inform, to educate, and to provide educators, historians, students
and all others the accessibility to the Sand Creek Massacre story."
The link/URL to the website is sandcreekmassacre.net.
###
Contact:
Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net
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