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American Joe
Lisa Reynal’s story about one soldier on his way to Afghanistan and the effect that America’s war on terror has had on the lives around him.
--Chronicle
Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8:00 P.M. through August 15, 2008
fee/admission: $15-$35 ($10.00 tonight for BAUAW activists--just mention BAUAW at the door!)
Marsh Studio
1074 Valencia St. (at 22nd Street)
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 826-5750
(Mission/Bernal Heights)
www.themarsh.org
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Meeting to defeat pro-JROTC referendum set for November Ballot in SF
July 22, 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.
Dear Friends:
In 2006 San Francisco won attention across the country when the School Board voted to become the first large school district to eliminate an existing JROTC program. Now this achievement is being threatened by a group that recently submitted petitions for a ballot proposition on the November 2008 ballot in support of continuing JROTC in the San Francisco Unified School District. This group has been well organized, using as their base the JROTC students and instructors, as well as those in the community who are for military recruitment in our schools. We understand that pro-recruitment groups outside of San Francisco are interested in backing this proposition because of the devastating effect it would have if it was passed of anchoring JROTC in our schools.
We cannot let this happen. San Francisco voters are on record with past ballot propositions that expressed our desire to end military recruitment in our schools. We would like to invite you to attend an initial organizing meeting to create a campaign committee with the sole purpose to defeat this proposition. We would like to build a coalition of labor, peace groups, faith communities, students, parents, teachers and representatives from political clubs and constituencies across San Francisco.
The purpose of this organizing meeting is to set up our committee, to determine what resources organizations and individuals may be able to contribute to staff the committee and to run a successful campaign.
The meeting will take place on July 22, 7:15-9:00 pm at the Friends Meeting House, 65 9th St, San Francisco (between Mission and Market Sts). The American Friends Service Committee will convene this initial meeting.
To RSVP or for additional information, please contact Alan Lessik at AFSC at 565.0201, x11 or alessik@afsc.org.
We look forward to you and your organization's help in defeating this initiative.
American Friends Service Committee
JROTC Must Go
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Leonard Peltier Health Alert -- GOOD NEWS FOR A CHANGE!
Dear Supporters,
Great news! No more phone calls, letters or e-mails are needed. We heard from Leonard this morning. He now has his own diabetes testing kit in the infirmary. He also is receiving his medications as prescribed. He asked me to thank all of you for your care and concern and for taking such strong action on his behalf.
Betty Ann Peltier Solano
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee
PO Box 7488, Fargo, ND 58106
Phone: 701/235-2206
E-mail: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info
Web: www.whoisleonardpeltier.info
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STOP WAR ON IRAN !
An Emergency Call to Action AUGUST 2:
• An Attack could be Imminent
• We Can’t Afford to Wait
• Take It to the Streets This Summer
• U.S. out of Iraq, Money for human needs, not war!
MASS MARCH IN NYC
SATURDAY, AUGUST 2
Assemble 12 p.m.
at Times Square
43rd St. & Broadway
AN APPEAL TO ORGANIZERS AND ACTIVISTS ACROSS THE COUNTRY AND AROUND THE WORLD:
Consider as soon as possible if you can organize a STOP WAR ON IRAN protest in your locality during the weekend of August 2 – 3. Let us know
YET ANOTHER U.S. WAR?
The U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan is hated by the people there. These wars have no support at home and are ruining the domestic economy. Instead of pulling out, the Bush administration is preparing for still another warÅ]this time against Iran . This must be stopped!
AGRESSION TOWARDS IRAN IS ESCALATING
On June 4, George Bush, with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at his side, called Iran a “threat to peace.” Two days before, acting as a proxy for the Pentagon, Israel used advanced U.S. fighter planes to conduct massive air maneuvers, which the media called a “dress rehearsal” for an attack on Iran ’s nuclear facility. Under pressure from the U.S. , the European Union announced sanctions against Iran on June 23. A bill is before Congress for further U.S. sanctions on Iran and even a blockade of Iran.
IRAN “THREATS” A HOAX
Iran as a “nuclear threat” is as much a hoax as Bush’s claim of “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq used to justify the war there. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which inspects Iran ’s nuclear facilities, says it has no weapons program and is developing nuclear power for the days when its oil runs out. Even Washington ’s 16 top spy agencies issued a joint statement that said Iran does not have nuclear weapons technology!
U.S. and Israel are the real nuclear danger. The Pentagon has a huge, nuclear-capable naval armada in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, with guns aimed at Iran . Israel , the Pentagon’s proxy force in the Middle East , has up to 200 nuclear warheads and has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran did sign it.
WAR HURTS U.S. ECONOMY
While billions of dollars go to war, at home the unemployment rate had the biggest spike in 23 years. Home foreclosures and evictions are increasing; fuel and food prices are through the roof. While the situation is growing dire for many, Washington ’s cuts to domestic programs continue. A new U.S. war will bring only more suffering.
WHAT WE DO RIGHT NOW CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
While the summer is a difficult time to call protests, the August recess of Congress gives the White House an opportunity for unopposed aggression against Iran . We must not let this happen! From the anti-war movement and all movements for social change, to religious and grassroots organizations, unions and schools, let us join forces to demand “No war on Iran, U.S. out of Iraq, Money for human needs not war! “
This call to action is issued by StopWarOnIran.org
Endorse the Emergency Call to Action for August 2 at
http://stopwaroniran.org/aug22008endorse.shtml
List your local action at
http://stopwaroniran.org/aug22008volorgcent.shtml
Sign the Petition at http://stopwaroniran.org/petition.shtml
Make an Emergency Donation at http://stopwaroniran.org/donate.shtml
Tell a Friend
http://stopwaroniran.org/friend.shtml
Sign up for updates
http://stopwaroniran.org/updates.shtml
DONATE
Please help build a grassroots campaign to Stop War on Iran
http://stopwaroniran.org/donate.shtml
• Endorse the Emergency Call to Action for August 2
• List your local action
• Sign the Petition
• Make an Emergency Donation
• Tell a Friend
• Sign up for updates
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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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Indicted, Sami Al-Arian Faces Possible Life Imprisonment new
John Halliwell, July 1, 2008
Last March, Sami Al-Arian was given a choice: 1) damned if you do; and 2) damned if you don't; he chose "damned if you don't". Finally, a full three months after making that decision, he was formally charged last Thursday with contempt of court, a crime which has no maximum penalty. In other words, Dr. Al-Arian - a man whose innocence has been grudgingly admitted by even his worst enemies* - is now facing the possibility of life in jail all because he had the guts to stand up for what he believes in--read more at: http://www.freesamialarian.com/home.htm
1. Call Senator Patrick Leahy ((202) 224- 4242) and Congressman John Conyers ((202) 225-5126) - the Judicial Committee chairmen of the Senate and House respectively - and ask them to meet with the Attorney General and have him stop Assistant US Attorney Gordon Kromberg from going forward with this unlawful indictment. Even if you are not their constituent, they are obliged to listen to your opinion since their duties extend to all Americans.
2. Fax a letter to the Office of Professional Responsibility at the US Department of Justice: (202) 514-5050.
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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/
Canada ruling boosts US deserter
By Lee Carter
BBC News, Toronto
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7491060.stm
A Canadian court has ordered the country's refugee board to re-examine an American deserter's rejected attempt for asylum in Canada.
The court ruled that the board made mistakes when it turned down Joshua Key's claim for asylum.
Mr Key served in Iraq in 2003 before deserting to Canada with his family while on leave in the US.
The ruling could affect scores of other US soldiers sheltering in Canada who have refused to fight in Iraq.
Possible deportations
Joshua Key served in Iraq as a US combat engineer in Iraq in 2003.
He claims that he witnessed several cases of abusive acts against civilians and the killing of innocent people.
While on leave at home in Oklahoma, he decided that he would not return to duty and took his family to Canada where he applied for asylum.
Although the Canadian refugee board found Mr Key credible, it rejected his application, saying that unless his claims of abuse constituted a war crime, they did not justify his desertion from the US army.
In its ruling, the federal court has disagreed with that analysis, saying that being forced to participate in military misconduct, even if it stops short of a war crime, may support a claim to protection in Canada.
There are at least 200 American war deserters in Canada and many face deportation after their asylum cases were also rejected.
Joshua Key's lawyer said that the ruling may help their cases.
The Canadian government is reviewing the court's decision and has not said whether it will appeal.
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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) Two Labor Strike Resolutions via email:
a) For a National AFSCME Strike to Fund Public Services by Ending the War and Taxing Corporations and the Rich
b) Proposed Resolution to the 2008 Washington State Labor Council Convention For a Nationwide General Strike against the War, High Oil Prices, Mortgage Foreclosures and Evictions, and the Lack of Affordable Health Care
2) Group Apologizes for Its Racial Bias
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 11, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/health/11ama.html?ref=health
3) The Dead-End Inquiry on Tillman
By Mike Nizza
July 14, 2008, 3:40 pm
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/the-dead-end-inquiry-on-tillman/index.html
4) The Future of Fannie and Freddie
Editorial
July 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/opinion/15tue1.html?hp
5) G.M. Suspends Dividend and Plans More Layoffs
By NICK BUNKLEY and BILL VLASIC
July 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/business/16auto.html?hp
6) Guantánamo Interrogation Video Is Released
[This is an interrogation of a 15-year-old boy, Omar Khadr, by an adult American interrogator at Guantánamo Bay (video link below)...bw]
By IAN AUSTEN
July 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/world/16khadr.html?hp
Video Link: http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=66c11a6d42171a59e41ad8f547a160ce54149ce2
7) For Students in Kenya, Medicine Seems to Improve Attention Span
Global Update
[Children in Africa used as guinea-pigs, again...bw]
By DONALD G. MCNEIL JR
July 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/health/15glob.html?adxnnl=1&ref=world&adxnnlx=1216148426-qFS2jadyqlMcsIZCdCj8lA
8) Court Backs Bush on Military Detentions
By ADAM LIPTAK
July 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/washington/16combatant.html?ref=us
9) Abortion Proposal Sets Condition on Aid
By ROBERT PEAR
July 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/washington/15rule.html?ref=us
10) Group Calls for Inquiry Into Death of Detainee
By CARMEN GENTILE
July 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/us/15immig.html?scp=1&sq=Group%20Calls%20for%20Inquiry%20Into%20Death%20of%20Detainee&st=cse
11) Calm Down or Else
By BENEDICT CAREY
July 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/health/15restraint.html?ref=health
12) Canada Expels an American Deserter From the Iraq War
By IAN AUSTEN
July 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/world/americas/16deport.html?ref=world
13) More Homeowners Taking in Boarders
By JOHN LELAND
July 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/us/16share.html?ref=us
14) Detainee Challenges Guantánamo by Describing Life There
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
July 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/us/16gitmo.html?ref=us
15) Record Gulf Dead Zone Is Expected
By CORNELIA DEAN
National Briefing | Science and Environment
July 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/science/earth/16brfs-RECORDGULFDE_BRF.html?ref=us
16) As Children Grow, Activity Quickly Slows
By TARA PARKER-POPE
July 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/health/research/16exercise.html?ref=health
17) While the U.S. Spends Heavily on Health Care, a Study Faults the Quality
By REED ABELSON
July 17, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/business/17health.html?ref=business
18) Law School Pays the Price in ‘Don’t Ask’ Rule Protest
By KATIE ZEZIMA
June 29, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/education/29vermont.html?ref=education
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1) Two Labor Strike Resolutions via email:
a) For a National AFSCME Strike to Fund Public Services by Ending the War and Taxing Corporations and the Rich
b) Proposed Resolution to the 2008 Washington State Labor Council Convention For a Nationwide General Strike against the War, High Oil Prices, Mortgage Foreclosures and Evictions, and the Lack of Affordable Health Care
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a) For a National AFSCME Strike to Fund Public Services by Ending the War and Taxing Corporations and the Rich
Whereas, the war to control Iraq's oil has already cost over $500 billion, with long-term costs that include healthcare for veterans estimated to be at least $3 trillion; and
Whereas, the rapidly deteriorating economy is forcing at least 28 states and many local governments to face budget cuts (many of them severe like California's $16 billion shortfall) which will slash funding for vital services such as healthcare for the poor and elderly, education, libraries, and parks; and
Whereas, thousands of AFSCME members are threatened with lay offs as a result of these cuts; and
Whereas, neither Democratic nor Republican state legislators or governors are proposing even modest tax increases on the wealthy or closing tax loopholes on big business in order to fill these funding gaps; and
Whereas, the federal tax burden has steadily shifted onto workers, while the percentage of federal tax receipts from corporate income tax has gone from over 30% in the 1950s down to less than 10% today; and
Whereas, over the last quarter century there has been an enormous concentration of wealth in fewer hands, with over 90% of the gains from economic growth going to the richest 10% of the population, and the richest 1% alone pulling in more than half; and
Whereas, working people across the nation–who are suffering from escalating unemployment, energy and food prices, and home foreclosures–cannot be expected to bear the brunt of the war and a worsening economic crisis: and
Whereas, the Democratic controlled Congress has refused to end the war by cutting off funding for it, and will be averse to taxing their big business contributors in order to provide financial aid to state and local governments; and
Whereas, the ILWU inspired workers around the world when they closed the west coast ports on May Day in protest of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, prompting a solidarity statement from the General Union of Port Workers in Iraq that said, "a better world will only be created by the workers and what you are doing is an example and proof of what we say"; therefore be it
Resolved, that AFSCME organize it's entire membership for a national strike to demand an end to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the immediate return of all troops, and the diversion of military spending to fund social and public services; and be it further
Resolved, that this national AFSCME strike demand the taxing of corporate profits and the wealthy in order to provide funds for the following:
1. Massive grants of federal funds to state and local governments to stave off damaging cuts in services
2. Relief for the unemployed through an extension of unemployment benefits and large federal jobs programs to rebuild the infrastructure and construct more public housing: and be it further
Resolved, the strike put forth other demands to alleviate the plight of workers caught in the grip of a worsening recession, including:
1. A national moratorium on foreclosures, utility shutoffs, evictions and public housing demolitions, as recently called for by the San Francisco Labor Council
2. Federal control over and the rolling back of prices for gas and home heating oil
3. Affordable, universal healthcare and prescription drug coverage; and be it finally
Resolved, that AFSCME send this resolution to the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win labor federations and encourage them to mobilize for a general strike to achieve the same ends.
Approved by vote of the membership of WFSE/AFSCME Local 304 at its June 26, 2008 general meeting in Seattle, Washington.
Signed:
Rodolfo Franco, President
Michelle Henry, Secretary
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b) Proposed Resolution to the 2008 Washington State Labor Council Convention For a Nationwide General Strike against the War, High Oil Prices, Mortgage Foreclosures and Evictions, and the Lack of Affordable Health Care
Whereas, in these extraordinary times, extraordinary measures are needed to defend workers’ living standards and to provide for our basic needs; and
Whereas, labor is strongly opposed to the Iraq war which has resulted in untold death and destruction, including the loss or injury of over 34,000 U.S. troops, and cost the U.S. over $500 billion, with long-term costs estimated to be over $3 trillion; and
Whereas, members of the Democratic Party-controlled Congress failed to end this war by cutting off funding and have allowed gas prices to skyrocket while oil companies and speculators rake in billions in profits; and
Whereas, working people across the nation–who are reeling from escalating unemployment, energy and food prices, medical bills and home foreclosures–cannot be expected to bear the brunt of the war and a worsening economic crisis: and
Whereas, the rapidly deteriorating economy is forcing at least 28 states and many local governments to slash funding for vital services such as healthcare for the poor and elderly, education, libraries, and parks, and is costing thousands of jobs in both the public and private sectors; and
Whereas, it will take a dramatic showing of workers power and solidarity to pressure politicians of either major party to go against their corporate backers and do what is needed for working people to keep a roof over their heads, food on their tables, gas in their cars, oil burning in their furnace and their medical bills paid; and
Whereas, it is time for the U.S. labor movement to resurrect the general strike, a potent strategy workers have used to defend themselves from attacks by the employing class and governments around the world, including in the general strikes in San Francisco and Minneapolis during 1934 and the walk out of hundreds of thousands of immigrants on May Day 2006; and
Whereas, organizing a general strike on a national basis can be accomplished with the proper preparation, education, and rank-and-file leadership to motivate the participation not only of union members but also supporters from other social movements and millions of unorganized workers, including many immigrants, who oppose the war and are also impacted by the rise in oil and gas prices and the current economic crisis; and
Whereas, the ILWU inspired workers around the world when they closed the west coast ports on May Day in protest of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, prompting a solidarity statement from the General Union of Port Workers in Iraq that said, “a better world will only be created by the workers and what you are doing is an example and proof of what we say”; therefore be it
Resolved, that the Washington State Labor Council urges the AFL-CIO and Change to Win federations to issue a call for their affiliates to participate in planning and conducting a nationwide general strike to demand an end to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the immediate return of all troops, and the redirection of war spending to fund:
1. Huge grants of federal money to state and local governments to stave off damaging cuts in social and public services; and
2. Relief for the unemployed and working poor by training and employing them in massive public works programs as apprentices working alongside skilled union journey men and women to rebuild our infrastructure and construct more public housing, hospitals, schools, public transit and more: and be it further
Resolved, that the strike put forth other demands to alleviate the plight of workers caught in the grip of a worsening recession, including:
1. A national moratorium on foreclosures, utility shutoffs, evictions and public housing demolitions, as recently called for by the San Francisco Labor Council, and the institution of rent control; and
2. Public ownership of the oil companies and the roll back of gas and heating oil prices; and
3. Affordable health care and prescription drugs for all; and
4. Passage of pro-immigrant rights legislation and a moratorium on ICE raids, detentions and deportations; and be it
Finally Resolved, that the Washington State Labor Council adopt this resolution and send it to affiliated unions and labor councils and to the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win labor federations and encourage them to endorse it and to educate, organize and mobilize their members for a general strike to achieve these ends.
Adopted by Washington Federation of State Employees Local 304 at its June 26, 2008 membership meeting and approved for submission to the August 4-7, 2008 Washington State Labor Council Convention.
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2) Group Apologizes for Its Racial Bias
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 11, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/health/11ama.html?ref=health
CHICAGO (AP) — The American Medical Association formally apologized on Thursday for more than a century of policies that excluded blacks from the group, long considered to be the voice of American doctors.
It was not until the 1960s that association delegates took a strong stance against policies dating to the 1800s that barred blacks from some state and local medical societies.
While the association did not have a formal policy barring black doctors, physicians were required to be members of the local groups to participate in the association, said Dr. Ronald M. Davis, the group’s immediate past president.
In a statement on its Web site, the association apologized “for its past history of racial inequality toward African-American physicians, and shares its current efforts to increase the ranks of minority physicians and their participation in the A.M.A.”
Association data show that fewer than 2 percent of its members are black, and that fewer than 3 percent of the nation’s one million medical students and physicians are black.
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3) The Dead-End Inquiry on Tillman
By Mike Nizza
July 14, 2008, 3:40 pm
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/the-dead-end-inquiry-on-tillman/index.html?hp
A House committee today announced that it had hit a dead end after months of investigating the mishandling of the death of Cpl. Pat Tillman, the N.F.L. player-turned soldier.
According to the draft report, the inquiry was “frustrated by a near universal lack of recall” from senior officials. “Not a single one could recall when he learned about the fratricide or what he did in response,” the report said just before noting Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld’s testimony: “I don’t recall when I was told and I don’t recall who told me.”
Indeed, Mr. Rumsfeld and other military officials used some variation of “I don’t recall” at least 82 times in three hours, according to one count from the committee’s hearing on the subject last year.
Corporal Tillman’s death was initially blamed on Afghan insurgents. However, a battlefield investigation concluded within days that he was likely killed by friendly fire. The Tillman family and the general public did not learn of the changed cause of death for more than a month.
Pentagon officials have acknowledged time and time again that the situation was handled poorly, and a three-star general was censured for his role in deceiving his superiors. The Army secretary called it “a perfect storm of mistakes, misjudgments and a failure of leadership.”
Without any evidence of high-level collusion on the circumstances of Corporal Tillman’s death, the House report turned to a seemingly self-satisfied exchange by two lower-level staffers at the Pentagon. At the news conference revealing the embarrassing reversal, which was held on a Saturday, one public affairs aide told another, “No one will ever tell you, but nice job on this one.”
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4) The Future of Fannie and Freddie
Editorial
July 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/opinion/15tue1.html?hp
Distasteful as it may seem in the moment to taxpayers, who will be on the hook if losses result, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is taking the right approach to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the faltering mortgage giants. The question is: Will it be enough?
Mr. Paulson’s reassurances last week were clearly not enough to convince investors of the soundness of the two companies. His announcement on Sunday that the Treasury and Federal Reserve would lend money to the companies should allay fears that they could face a debilitating cash-flow crunch. To ease the even greater fear — that they might be going broke — he asked Congress for the authority to invest taxpayer dollars in their stock in case it turns out that they need an emergency infusion.
Whatever the cost to the taxpayer of a government intervention, it is likely to be less costly than watchful waiting or taking half measures, which would only allow the problems to get worse and require an ever bigger fix later.
Fannie and Freddie are too big to fail; they own or back nearly half of the nation’s $12 trillion in mortgage debt. In the wake of the housing bust, they are also about the only source of money still available for mortgage lenders. If they do not keep functioning more or less smoothly, the housing downturn will be deeper and longer than it would otherwise be. Housing prices would steepen further, creating more defaults, less consumer spending and lower tax revenues.
The companies are being hammered by rising mortgage delinquencies and the debt they are carrying is too high. That has left them with a cushion of capital that many investors think is too thin to absorb losses to come.
If that proves to be true, the ensuing damage will be partly self-inflicted — the companies could have bolstered their capital months ago — and partly the result of the shameful underregulation that fostered junk lending and, in time, record defaults. The government will not be able to walk away.
In the best case scenario, Sunday’s announcement of new ways for the companies to borrow will give them enough breathing space to undertake the difficult task of raising capital. They may need to cut their dividends and issue new shares to new investors, which will hurt existing shareholders by diluting their share of ownership.
In a worst case scenario, the companies will not be able to raise the money they need, and the government will have to inject it and take an ownership stake in exchange. Mr. Paulson should act quickly to clarify what would be required to take such a serious step. Taxpayers need to know their exposure, and shareholders need to know how they will be treated. Mr. Paulson must also be clear about how he sees the future of Fannie and Freddie, once the crisis has passed. Will they be wholly public companies, or privatized? Will they have some other, hybrid structure?
Finally, the crisis faced by Fannie and Freddie ought to be a clear signal to Congress and the two men vying for the presidency that regulatory reform of the nation’s financial system must be a priority, from mortgage lenders to Wall Street powerhouses and the government’s most entrenched regulatory agencies.
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5) G.M. Suspends Dividend and Plans More Layoffs
By NICK BUNKLEY and BILL VLASIC
July 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/business/16auto.html?hp
DETROIT — General Motors said Tuesday that it would reduce labor costs for salaried workers by 20 percent, eliminate its quarterly dividend and further reduce truck production to ensure that it has enough cash to finance its turnaround for at least two more years.
The moves, which include selling at least $2 billion in assets and borrowing as much as $3 billion, are expected to raise about $15 billion by the end of 2009, the chief executive Rick Wagoner said.
Mr. Wagoner said the automaker would stop providing health care coverage to salaried retirees at age 65, offer buyout and early retirement packages to reduce its salaried work force and freeze base pay for salaried employees through 2009.
In addition, G.M. executives will no longer receive discretionary cash bonuses.
“These are tough but necessary actions,” Mr. Wagoner said, “and these, along with current cash and available credit lines will provide us with ample liquidity through 2009 even under conservative U.S. industry sales assumptions.”
Analysts have said the automaker needs at least $10 billion to $15 billion in new capital, but the plan apparently did not go far enough to impress investors, who bid G.M. shares down to a new low of $8.85 in morning trading. That is nearly 6 percent below Monday’s closing price of $9.38, the stock’s lowest close in more than half a century. It was worth more than $40 a share as recently as October.
Mr. Wagoner said G.M. would eliminate a total of 300,000 units of truck production capacity by the end of 2009, double the reduction it announced six weeks ago. The additional cuts will be achieved both by closing some plants sooner than previously plans and through other steps that he did not detail.
Global engineering budgets will be frozen at last year’s levels and capital expenditures will be limited by delaying work on the next generation of full-size pickups and sport-utility vehicles, he said.
The company has reached an agreement with the United Automobile Workers union to delay $1.7 billion in health care payments to the union to 2010 from this year and 2009.
“These were very difficult decisions but ones necessary to help us get through the current weak U.S. market and position us for long-term success,” Mr. Wagoner said. “In short, our plan is not a plan to survive. It is a plan to win. We have a solid, well thought-out plan that aggressively addresses the challenges that we face.”
Industry analysts said that G.M. needed the broad cuts to persuade Wall Street that it was reacting sufficiently to drastic changes in the United States market.
G.M. has about 32,000 white-collar jobs in the United States, down from 45,000 in 2000. The company has already eliminated more than 40,000 hourly jobs through buyouts and early retirements since 2006.
At G.M.’s annual stockholders’ meeting last month in Delaware, Mr. Wagoner announced plans to close four plants in North America that build slow-selling trucks, but salaried workers were for the most part unaffected.
Since then, G.M. has halted work on some trucks and other vehicles, leaving employees assigned to those projects in jeopardy.
Ford Motor, meanwhile, recently began laying off workers to eliminate 15 percent of its salaried labor costs by Aug. 1. Ford is also idling plants and delaying the introduction of its redesigned F-150 pickup in response to record gasoline prices that have decimated sales of big, gas-thirsty vehicles.
In the first half of 2008, G.M.’s sales were down 16.1 percent. Total industry sales were off 10.1 percent, with truck sales declining by 17.9 percent.
Ford and G.M. have extended the annual two-week summer shutdown at many of their truck plants to as long as three months because inventories of those vehicles were so large. Last week, Toyota of Japan said it would halt truck production in Texas and Indiana for three months starting Aug. 8.
Three months ago, G.M. said it had $24 billion in cash and access to a $7 billion credit line. But analysts estimate that the company has been burning through about $3 billion in cash a quarter, and they say G.M. needs to act quickly to avoid a liquidity crisis.
Last week, Mr. Wagoner said that G.M. had enough cash and borrowing power to last through 2008.
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6) Guantánamo Interrogation Video Is Released
By IAN AUSTEN
July 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/world/16khadr.html?hp
OTTAWA — Video recordings released Tuesday showing interrogations of the only Canadian held at the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba provided an unprecedented glimpse inside the compound.
The mood of the detainee, Omar Khadr, just 16 years old at the time of the interrogations, in February 2003, swings between calm and indifference to rage and grief in the recordings, which were released by his lawyers.
The video footage, which provides the most extensive videotaped images yet seen from inside Guantánamo Bay, shows Mr. Khadr pleading with a Canadian intelligence agent for help and, at one point, shows him displaying chest and back wounds that had still not healed months after his capture in Afghanistan.
The poor quality recordings were made by the United States military, and were given to Mr. Khadr’s Canadian lawyers by the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service under the terms of a court order.
They show Mr. Khadr, who is accused of killing a United States soldier in Afghanistan during a battle in July 2002, being questioned by an unidentified member of the Canadian intelligence agency.
In all, about seven hours of recordings were given to Mr. Khadr’s lawyers, but the lawyers released a selection of only about 10 minutes of video recording on Tuesday.
Mr. Khadr maintains that he was abused by American interrogators both at Guantánamo Bay and in Afghanistan. It appears from the recordings, as well as from written documents of the interrogations that were released last week, that Mr. Khadr initially believed that the Canadian agent had come to help him.
But Mr. Khadr eventually seems to realize that the agent is only there to extract information.
Much of the material released shows Mr. Khadr — who is wearing an orange uniform — sobbing and repeatedly saying, in a moan, “Help me, help me.”
In the interrogation, Mr. Khadr says he wants to return to Canada, but the agent suggests that the situation is so good in Cuba he might want to stay there himself.
“The weather’s nice,” the interrogator, whose face was electronically obscured, said. “No snow.”
In the film, Mr. Khadr, who had been shot and was near death at the time of his capture in Afghanistan, repeatedly complains about his medical treatment and his physical condition. At one point, he lifts his shirt to show the agent the wounds on his back and stomach that were still not healed.
The agent, however, is unmoved. “I’m not a doctor, but I think you’re getting good medical care,” he responded.
Later, a sobbing Mr. Khadr said: “You don’t care about me.”
Slats, apparently from a ventilation panel in the detention center, obscure most of the images. The documents released last week under the same court order suggest that the sound on much of the rest of the unreleased video is inaudible.
Amnesty International and several Canadian groups have been pressuring the Canadian government to ask the United States to return Mr. Khadr to Canada from Guantánamo Bay. Last week, however, Prime Minister Stephen Harper again rejected those calls.
Nathan Whitling, one of Mr. Khadr’s Canadian lawyers, said that he hoped the airing of the videos, which were prominently featured on the morning new programs of Canadian television networks, would change the government’s mind.
“The only way to get him released is through a political process,” Mr. Whitling said from his office in Edmonton, Alberta. “So we are pleading in the court of public opinion.”
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7) For Students in Kenya, Medicine Seems to Improve Attention Span
Global Update
[Children in Africa used as guinea-pigs, again...bw]
By DONALD G. MCNEIL JR
July 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/health/15glob.html?adxnnl=1&ref=world&adxnnlx=1216148426-qFS2jadyqlMcsIZCdCj8lA
Malaria medicine as Ritalin?
Giving schoolchildren in rural Kenya regular doses of malaria medicine, even if they weren’t obviously sick, seemed to improve their attention span in school as it protected them from anemia, a study has found.
The study, published last week in The Lancet, was conducted by researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Harvard and four Kenyan institutions.
In it, nearly 5,000 students ages 5 to 18 in 30 primary schools in western Kenya were given three days of malaria drugs or a placebo once every four months.
All the students were poor — 97 percent studied by kerosene lamps or candles at home. Nearly half had malaria parasites but no fever when the study began. In malarial areas, it is common for anyone surviving to age 5 to develop some immunity.
The drugs — sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine and amodiaquine — do not contain artemisinin, the newest malaria drug, but are inexpensive and considered safe.
All the students were also treated for intestinal worms, which can cause anemia — a low red-blood-cell count.
Afterward, they had blood tests for anemia and parasites. They also took attention tests that required them to count sounds on a tape and detect patterns in spoken numbers.
Those who got the drugs were half as likely to be anemic and had higher scores on the attention tests. The authors suggested that higher levels of hemoglobin, which carries oxygen, were responsible.
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8) Court Backs Bush on Military Detentions
By ADAM LIPTAK
July 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/washington/16combatant.html?ref=us
President Bush has the legal power to order the indefinite military detentions of civilians captured in the United States, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled on Tuesday in a fractured 5-to-4 decision.
But a different 5-to-4 majority of the court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, ruled that Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar now in military custody in Charleston, S.C., must be given an additional opportunity to challenge his detention in federal court there. An earlier court proceeding, in which the government had presented only a sworn statement from a defense intelligence official, was inadequate, the second, overlapping majority ruled.
The decision was a victory for the Bush administration, which had maintained that a 2001 Congressional authorization to use military force after the Sept. 11 attacks had granted the president the power to detain people living in the United States.
The court effectively reversed a divided three-judge panel of its own members, which ruled last year that the government lacked the power to detain civilians indefinitely as enemy combatants. That panel ordered the government to either charge Mr. Marri or release him.
How helpful the decision will be to be Mr. Marri remains to be seen, as the majority that granted him some relief was notably vague about what the new court proceeding should look like. In that respect, Tuesday’s decision resembled last month’s decision from the United States Supreme Court granting habeas corpus rights to prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.
Mr. Marri is the only person on the American mainland known to be held as an enemy combatant. The government contended, in a declaration from the defense intelligence official, Jeffrey N. Rapp, that Mr. Marri was a Qaeda sleeper agent sent to the United States to commit mass murder and disrupt the banking system.
Mr. Marri was arrested on Dec. 12, 2001, in Peoria, Ill., where he was living with his family and studying computer science at Bradley University. He was charged with credit-card fraud and lying to federal agents, and he was on the verge of a trial on those charges when he was moved into military detention in 2003.
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9) Abortion Proposal Sets Condition on Aid
By ROBERT PEAR
July 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/washington/15rule.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration wants to require all recipients of aid under federal health programs to certify that they will not refuse to hire nurses and other providers who object to abortion and even certain types of birth control.
Under the draft of a proposed rule, hospitals, clinics, researchers and medical schools would have to sign “written certifications” as a prerequisite to getting money under any program run by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Such certification would also be required of state and local governments, forbidden to discriminate, in areas like grant-making, against hospitals and other institutions that have policies against providing abortion.
The proposal, which circulated in the department on Monday, says the new requirement is needed to ensure that federal money does not “support morally coercive or discriminatory practices or policies in violation of federal law.” The administration said Congress had passed a number of laws to ensure that doctors, hospitals and health plans would not be forced to perform abortions.
In the proposal, obtained by The New York Times, the administration says it could cut off federal aid to individuals or entities that discriminate against people who object to abortion on the basis of “religious beliefs or moral convictions.”
The proposal defines abortion as follows: “any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.”
Mary Jane Gallagher, president of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, which represents providers, said, “The proposed definition of abortion is so broad that it would cover many types of birth control, including oral contraceptives and emergency contraception.”
“We worry that under the proposal, contraceptive services would become less available to low-income and uninsured women,” Ms. Gallagher said.
Indeed, among other things the proposal expresses concern about state laws that require hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims who request it.
Nancy Keenan, president of Naral Pro-Choice America, said, “Why on earth is the Bush administration trying to discourage doctors and clinics from providing contraception to women who need it?”
Christina Pearson, a spokeswoman for the department, declined to discuss the draft. “We don’t normally comment on whether we are considering changes in regulations,” she said.
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10) Group Calls for Inquiry Into Death of Detainee
By CARMEN GENTILE
July 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/us/15immig.html?scp=1&sq=Group%20Calls%20for%20Inquiry%20Into%20Death%20of%20Detainee&st=cse
MIAMI — Just days before the funeral on Saturday of her oldest child, Jacqueline Fleury was still $2,000 short of his burial expenses.
But Ms. Fleury’s greatest concern was not money, she said, but finding out why her son Valery Joseph, 23, who was born in Haiti and arrived in the United States as a young boy, died last month while being held at an immigration detention center in South Florida.
Mr. Joseph’s mother is in this country legally and was working to get a green card for her son, who she said had a learning disability. He was detained by agents of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, in January after he was released from prison where he had served several months for robbery. The agency began deportation proceedings, citing Mr. Joseph’s numerous criminal offenses.
Though Mr. Joseph occasionally suffered seizures, they were controlled by medication, his mother said, and he was in good health.
“He was not sick; he was well,” a solemn Ms. Fleury said in her native Creole, recalling how she had visited her son a week before he died, on June 20.
Still, he was discouraged about his predicament. “So why,” she asked, “did he have to die?”
The Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center is calling for an independent investigation into Mr. Joseph’s death and has asked the customs agency for a copy of his medical records.
“Lack of access to adequate medical care is among detainees’ chief complaints,” said the center’s executive director, Cheryl Little, an immigration lawyer. “The ICE detention system is designed to fail detainees like Valery Joseph.”
United States immigration officials disagree. A division of the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently released a study it had done showing that the percentage of deaths per 100,000 detainees was “dramatically lower for ICE detainees than for U.S. prisons and jails and the general U.S. population as a whole.”
In a statement, Kelly A. Nantel, an agency spokeswoman, said the immigrant advocacy center’s efforts on behalf of the Fleury family was “another attempt by an advocacy group to tout unsubstantiated allegations over fact.”
“While a single death of an ICE detainee is a serious matter and a regrettable occurrence,” Ms. Nantel said, “it is important to review all the facts.”
The agency says that since it was created in 2003, 1.5 million people have been held in its detention facilities nationwide, and all are provided taxpayer-financed medical treatment by the Division of Immigration Health Services at a cost of more than $360 million a year.
A report by the enforcement agency said a staff member at the Glade County Detention Center, where Mr. Joseph was being held, found him unresponsive in his bunk on June 20; the staff member had been delivering medication to him. Efforts to resuscitate Mr. Joseph failed, and he was pronounced dead.
The immigration enforcement agency said the results of a preliminary autopsy by the state indicated that Mr. Joseph died of natural causes brought on by a seizure. The Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center said it would like an independent medical examiner to conduct another autopsy.
Ms. Fleury said that while her son was not capable of writing a letter himself, a fellow detainee wrote on his behalf to the immigration judge assigned to the case, and in that letter, Mr. Joseph begged not to be deported to Haiti, calling his seizures and mental deficiencies “extremely critical” health issues.
“I dont, and really cant imagine how, someone like me would make it to Haiti,” reads the letter, dated six months before Mr. Joseph’s death. It also refers to his need for “expensive meds” that he could not afford or obtain if he were deported to Haiti.
“I truly, verily thank God for being in America, able to get help from those expensive meds,” the letter reads. In it, he promises the judge “and the society that I would do the best extra efforts in my life not to get in trouble.”
Though he had access to medication at Glades, Ms. Fleury said, her son told her he was sometimes placed in isolation for lengthy periods and stripped naked.
Immigration officials denied the accusations.
“ICE categorically denies any claims of strip-searching Mr. Joseph while detained at the Glades facility,” Ms. Nantel said. “In fact, Glades policy prohibits such actions.”
If Mr. Joseph was being held in isolation when he died, Ms. Little, of the immigration advocacy center, said, “it would be very troubling.”
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11) Calm Down or Else
By BENEDICT CAREY
July 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/health/15restraint.html?ref=health
The children return from school confused, scared and sometimes with bruises on their wrists, arms or face. Many won’t talk about what happened, or simply can’t, because they are unable to communicate easily, if at all.
“What Tim eventually said,” said John Miller, a podiatrist in Allegany, N.Y., about his son, then 12, “was that he didn’t want to go to school because he thought the school was trying to kill him.”
Dr. Miller learned that Tim, who has Asperger’s syndrome, was being unusually confrontational in class, and that more than once teachers had held him down on the floor to “calm him down,” according to logs teachers kept to track his behavior; on at least one occasion, adults held Tim prone for 20 minutes until he stopped struggling.
The Millers are suing the district, in part for costs of therapy for their son as a result of the restraints. The district did not dispute the logs but denied that teachers behaved improperly.
For more than a decade, parents of children with developmental and psychiatric problems have pushed to gain more access to mainstream schools and classrooms for their sons and daughters. One unfortunate result, some experts say, is schools’ increasing use of precisely the sort of practices families hoped to avoid by steering clear of institutionalized settings: takedowns, isolation rooms, restraining chairs with straps, and worse.
No one keeps careful track of how often school staff members use such maneuvers. But last year the public system served 600,000 more special education students than it did a decade ago, many at least part time in regular classrooms. Many staff members are not adequately trained to handle severe behavior problems, researchers say.
In April, a 9-year-old Montreal boy with autism died of suffocation when a special education teacher wrapped him in a weighted blanket to calm him, according to the coroner’s report. Two Michigan public school students with autism have died while being held on the ground in so-called prone restraint.
Michigan, Pennsylvania and Tennessee have recently tightened regulations governing the use of restraints and seclusion in schools. California, Iowa and New York are among states considering stronger prohibitions, and reports have appeared on blogs and in newspapers across the country, from The Orange County Register to The Wall Street Journal.
“Behavior problems in school are way up, and there’s good reason to believe that the use of these procedures is up, too,” said Reece L. Peterson, a professor of special education at the University of Nebraska. “It’s an awful combination, because many parents expect restraints to be used — as long as it’s not their kid.”
Federal law leaves it to states and school districts to decide when physical restraints and seclusion are appropriate, and standards vary widely. Oversight is virtually nonexistent in most states, despite the potential for harm and scant evidence of benefit, Dr. Peterson said. Psychiatric facilities and nursing homes are generally far more accountable to report on such incidents than schools, experts say.
In dozens of interviews, parents, special education experts and lawyers who work to protect disabled people said they now regularly heard of cases of abuse in public schools — up to one or two a week surface on some parent e-mail lists — much more often than a decade ago. “In all the years I went to school, I never, ever saw or heard of anything like the horrific stories about restraint that we see just about every day now,” said Alison Tepper Singer, executive vice president of Autism Speaks, a charity dedicated to curing the disorder.
The issue is politically sensitive at a time when schools have done a lot to accommodate students with special needs, and some have questioned whether mainstreaming has gone too far. “Some parent organizations, they’re so grateful to the schools that their kids have been mainstreamed that they don’t want to risk really pushing for change,” said Dee Alpert, an advocate in New York who reports on the issue in the online journal specialeducationmuckraker.com.
For teachers, who have many other responsibilities — not least, to teach — managing even one child with a disability can add a wild card to the day. “In a class of 30 to 35 children, there’s a huge question of how much safety or teaching a teacher can provide if he or she is being called on to calm or contain a student on a regular basis,” said Patti Ralabate, a special education expert at the National Education Association. “The teacher is responsible for the safety of all the children in the classroom.”
The line between skillful conflict resolution and abuse is slipperier than many assume. Federal law requires that schools develop a behavioral plan for every student with a disability, which may include techniques to defuse the child’s frustration: a break from the class, for instance, or time out to listen to an iPod.
But in a hectic classroom, children with diagnoses like attention deficit disorder, anxiety or autism can seemingly become defiant, edgy or aggressive on a dime — and the plan, if one exists, can go straight out the window, investigations have found. Even defying a teacher’s instructions — “noncompliance” — can invite a takedown or time alone in a locked room, they found.
In an extensive report published last year, investigators in California documented cases of abuse from districts in the San Francisco Bay Area, the suburbs of Los Angeles and in the rural northeastern part of the state. During the 2005-6 school year, an 8-year-old with a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder and mild mental retardation was repeatedly locked in a “seclusion room” alone, adjacent to the classroom — at least 31 times in a single year. His parents heard about it from another parent, who saw the boy trying in vain to escape.
In another school, a teacher held a 12-year-old with a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder “face down on the floor, straddling him at his hips, and holding his hands behind his back,” according to the investigation, which was done by California’s office of protection and advocacy. Congress established such offices in each state in the 1970s to protect the rights of the disabled.
Leslie Morrison, director of investigations at the California office, said parents often complained about such episodes but were usually reluctant to cooperate with an investigation. “They’re afraid the school will retaliate,” she said.
And the children, who have an array of psychiatric diagnoses, from attention deficit to autism, often do not understand what is happening or why. “They just think they did something wrong and are being punished,” Ms. Morrison said. “Many of them are not verbal at all and can’t even tell their parents.”
In Tim Miller’s case, school logs obtained by his father illustrate how quickly a situation can escalate, regardless of behavior plans. In one entry, dated March 18, 2005, a teacher wrote: “Tim was screaming down the hall. He ran past me and began to double his fist to punch the locker. At this point I scooped my arm underneath his and directed him into my room.”
After the boy continued to struggle, this teacher and another “laid him onto the mat, where he was held approximately 20 minutes,” the log said.
Tim, now 15, graduated from the school last year and in June completed his first year of high school, excelling in a variety of mainstream classes without incident. In a telephone interview, he said he no longer thought much about the takedowns. “I just think now that they were idiots to do that,” he said. “I remember telling my mom to pray to God that they wouldn’t keep doing it, and wishing the other kids would see what was happening.”
When a school has a so-called zero tolerance approach to bad behavior, it often does makes a public spectacle of controlling a child’s behavior, said several parents interviewed for this article.
Kathy Sexton, who lives near Dallas, had to pick up her 11-year-old son, Anthony, who has a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder, at the police station, after school staff members had the boy hauled away in handcuffs for cursing at a teacher.
“I didn’t hear about it for hours and had to go get him at jail,” Ms. Sexton said in a phone interview. “He was hysterical, obviously, and he’s had his ups and downs since then. It’s hard to know what a thing like that does to a child that age.”
Several companies offer programs to teach so-called de-escalation techniques to school staff, and a scattering of schools have developed model programs to pre-empt confrontations, and defuse them when they happen. But experts say that until policymakers and schools adopt standards, on exactly which techniques are allowed and when, children with behavior problems will in many districts run the risk of being forcibly brought into line.
Dr. Peterson, the Nebraska professor, illustrates the challenges by citing two recent cases in Iowa. In one, the parents of an 11-year-old who died while being held down called for a ban on restraints; in the other, parents charged that a school failed their son by not restraining him. The boy ran away and drowned.
“It’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” Dr. Peterson said, “and it reflects the level of confusion there is about this whole issue.”
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12) Canada Expels an American Deserter From the Iraq War
By IAN AUSTEN
July 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/world/americas/16deport.html?ref=world
OTTAWA — An American Army deserter who sought refuge in Canada from the war in Iraq was expelled Tuesday to the United States. The deserter, Robin Long, a native of Boise, Idaho, is believed to be the first from the Iraq war returned by the Canadian government.
Mr. Long was expelled a day after the Federal Court of Canada rejected his request to delay his removal order pending further legal appeals.
That decision and Mr. Long’s expulsion were somewhat unexpected. Two other American deserters received Federal Court permission this month to stay in Canada to continue their appeals. Since the Iraq war began in 2003, about 200 people have abandoned the United States military and fled to Canada, according to groups that represent their interests and provide them with support, legally and otherwise.
“This is just one skirmish,” said Bob Ages, the chairman of the Vancouver War Resisters Support Campaign. “Despite the current government strategy of picking on resisters, the tide has turned in our favor both in the legal and political spheres.”
While many Canadians support the deserters’ efforts to remain in Canada, the deserters have not been welcomed as warmly as deserters and draft dodgers were during the war in Vietnam.
Canada has not backed the war in Iraq. But its Conservative government has ignored a nonbinding motion demanding asylum for deserters that was approved in June by Parliament, where Conservatives do not control a majority of the votes.
Changes in Canadian immigration laws since the Vietnam War leave a refugee claim process as the only legal avenue for deserters to remain in Canada. But that process, intended to screen asylum seekers fleeing violence and repression generally from poor and unstable nations, requires several tests that are difficult for deserters from the United States to pass. The federal Immigration Department has swiftly acted against several deserters who have failed in the initial rounds of making claims, including Mr. Long.
Sadia Qureshi, a spokeswoman for Diane Finley, the immigration minister, said agents from the Canada Border Services Agency sent Mr. Long back to the United States from British Columbia, where he had been living, at 9:55 a.m. local time.
Representatives of several Canadian government departments said that privacy laws prohibited them from discussing the specifics of Mr. Long’s case.
John Brent, a spokesman for Stockwell Day, the public safety minister, said by e-mail, “Our government is committed to enforcing removal orders against those persons who are inadmissible to Canada.”
Thomas Schreiber, the chief of United States border protection in Blaine, Wash., said that Mr. Long had been sent to his border crossing rather than the main crossing at the Pacific Highway to avoid a demonstration against the Canadian removal order.
Mr. Schreiber said that immediately after Mr. Long had been handed over he was arrested, adding that he would probably be taken to Fort Lewis, Wash., on Tuesday night.
Late Tuesday afternoon, Maj. Nathan Banks, a spokesman for the United States Army, said that the military had not been told about Mr. Long’s expulsion. But Major Banks said Mr. Long would eventually be returned to Fort Knox, Ky., his home base, for disciplinary procedures.
Major Banks declined to say what punishment Mr. Long faced, but lawyers for deserters in Canada said it could include prison and the equivalent of a felony conviction.
Mr. Long, who is 25, joined the Army in 2003 to become a tank commander and fled to Canada with his partner and two children in 2005.
He was arrested twice on charges of immigration violations in Canada, including not notifying the government that he had moved from a remote part of Ontario to Nelson, British Columbia.
Bill Siksay, a New Democratic member of Parliament from British Columbia who has been involved with deserter issues, dismissed the significance of those charges.
“These were small issue compared to the larger issues of the war in Iraq,” he said. “I’m shocked by this.”
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13) More Homeowners Taking in Boarders
By JOHN LELAND
July 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/us/16share.html?ref=us
BALTIMORE — When Barbara Terry fell behind on her mortgage payments earlier this year, she did the previously unthinkable. Through a local housing organization, she and her daughter, Imani, 9, rented part of their single-family house to a stranger.
“I had to do something,” said Miss Terry, 46, who helps formerly homeless people move into new housing. “I said, I am not going to lose this house. Thinking about having a stranger was not a pleasant thought. I have a daughter. But the positive part was that I needed extra help, and I wanted to help someone.”
With residential mortgage foreclosures still on the rise, more homeowners nationwide are considering Miss Terry’s choice: whether to take in a boarder to keep their homes. Modest but growing numbers are turning to agencies nationwide like the St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center Homesharing Program in Baltimore, which screen boarders to find appropriate matches and relieve some of the fear of strangers.
“We’re seeing greater numbers of marginal people,” said Kirby Dunn, executive director of HomeShare Vermont, one of several hundred programs around the country that have been formed since the 1980’s to help elderly or disabled homeowners exchange spare rooms for income or, more often, help around the house, but now being pressed to meet different needs.
“Historically,” Ms. Dunn said, “the people who come to us have been looking for someone to provide services in the home. But now, money is the bigger issue for folks. There’s definitely an increase in people looking for a revenue stream.”
Ms. Dunn said volume at the agency was up this year, with three or four times as many people seeking rooms as seeking boarders.
On a recent Saturday morning, while Miss Terry attended a training session at her church, Katherine Ongiri, 47, celebrated her first week of living in Miss Terry’s two-story house, where she pays $500 a month, in weekly installments. The women work different schedules, but have shared an occasional meal. Miss Terry helped Ms. Ongiri, who does not drive, get her check cashed, and treated her to lunch at Burger King.
“She’s good company,” Miss Terry said. “And I don’t mind helping because I know how hard it is when you’ve got to take the bus, because I’ve been there.”
Ms. Ongiri said of Miss Terry and her daughter, “I don’t mind helping her keep a roof over that girl’s head, because I know what it’s like.”
The two women’s routes to St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center, which culminated in Ms. Ongiri’s moving into Miss Terry’s attic, describe the multiple hazards of the current economic downturn: stagnant wages, rising energy and food prices, exotic mortgages, job insecurity, neighborhood instability and the challenges for single working women to find safe environments for themselves and their children.
“A lot of prayer comes in,” Miss Terry said. “You don’t want someone to try to take over, or cause problems once they get a foot in the door.”
Miss Terry bought her home six years ago, in a hilly neighborhood in northeast Baltimore, for $92,000, with a government-backed mortgage and monthly payments of about $800. She had never owned a home before, and was excited to move out of subsidized housing.
After two refinance loans, like many homeowners she does not understand her current mortgage, which is an interest-only loan. What she knows is that her payments are now more than $1,000 per month, and that she cannot afford them.
“Everything was going up except my paycheck,” Miss Terry said. “During the refinance, people tell you you can get money to upgrade your home, and your mortgage will go up a little bit. O.K., but my paycheck is not rising.”
Ms. Ongiri had housing and financial problems of her own. Earlier this year, after a cut in her income — she works as an airport wheelchair escort, for $6.25 an hour plus tips — she moved into a rented room, only to learn the house was in foreclosure. When she moved into another rented room in a rougher part of town, she discovered that the other residents were three men. “It could’ve been very unsafe for me,” she said. “I wasn’t afraid, but I was uncomfortable.”
Roy Miller, a housing counselor at nearby Belair-Edison Neighborhood Inc., said most of the distressed homeowners he saw were unwilling to rent part of their houses to strangers, especially if there were children at home. Most home-sharing agencies have fewer than 100 matches at any time.
But Miss Terry did not know where else to turn. She was behind on mortgage payments, but the idea of placing an advertisement in the newspaper or online scared her — anyone might show up at her door. (In the current movie “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl,” in which a Depression family takes in boarders to save its home, a motley assortment of strangers unsettle family life.) Miss Terry turned to St. Ambrose, she said, on the advice of her supervisor, who said the agency would screen potential housemates to find a match.
Like other home-sharing agencies, St. Ambrose conducts background checks on both parties, screening out people with criminal records or histories of drug or alcohol abuse, or those who cannot afford to be stable homeowners or renters. A 10-point questionnaire sorts candidates’ feelings about pets, smoking, overnight guests and other points of compatibility.
“So far we’ve had no bodily damage,” said Annette Brennan, the program’s director (St. Ambrose provides a full range of housing services). “I say that quietly so as not to jinx it.”
In some communities, local zoning laws or homeowner associations may limit the number of nonrelated people who can live in a house. Ms. Brennan said that home-sharing could help some people caught in the housing downturn, but that its benefits were limited.
“Where we see it being of value is if someone is having short-term problems,” she said. “The average stay of a sharer is about a year, and some are much less. It’s good for someone leaving a marriage or a relationship, or going to school. You can’t count on it as a regular income. It’s a stopgap.”
After counselors from St. Ambrose interviewed Miss Terry and Ms. Ongiri, Miss Terry drove to the house where Ms. Ongiri was living alongside three men. Right away, Miss Terry said, “I’m like, she don’t need to be living here with three males. I felt as if I could help her, get her out of that area and that living arrangement. I hoped she felt the same way.”
Ms. Ongiri said she was relieved to know “I wasn’t going to move in and find the house was in foreclosure or something equally distressing.”
Agencies have different procedures for resolving conflicts, none of them perfect. Ultimately the onus is on the home-sharers. In Maryland, owners have to give renters 60 days’ notice to break their arrangement; renters must give 30 days’ notice.
At the Human Investment Project, also known as HIP Housing, in San Mateo County, Calif., Laura Fanucchi said her organization called both parties every three months, “to see if there’s any red flags.” But the organization cannot help with eviction, other than to refer the owner to appropriate government agencies.
For Ms. Terry and Ms. Ongiri, the arrangement has been smooth so far. Ms. Ongiri said she hoped to wash the chairs on the wooden porch as a surprise for Miss Terry.
“This is a good thing for me,” Ms. Ongiri said. “I’m in a stable environment. I’m not worried about being held up in the neighborhood. I can keep a job, and look for a better one.” The other day, she said, she saw a job advertisement that might suit Miss Terry, so she clipped it for her.
Miss Terry said if Ms. Ongiri were to fall behind on rent, “I feel we would be able to work out an arrangement. She wants to go to school. That encourages me more, having someone striving in the house. It’s not like this job is it for her. She wants more than that. When I see that in people, it encourages me to want to help. That’s my job.”
Renée Drell, executive director of HomeSharing Inc., in Bridgewater, N.J., where home-shares rose 14 percent last year, said that as mortgage payments, heating costs and taxes have all risen, homeowners are asking for higher rents to share their homes, often more than seekers can afford.
But Ms. Dunn, of HomeShare Vermont, said people should not look at home-sharing only as a last resort or a financial Band-Aid. “When you look at the data on people living alone, they tend to die younger and be sicker. We’ve done surveys, and people say they’re happier, sleeping and eating better, and feel safer in their homes with someone around. If I sold you that as a drug, you’d pay thousands of dollars.”
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14) Detainee Challenges Guantánamo by Describing Life There
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
July 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/us/16gitmo.html?ref=us
GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — Salim Hamdan moved slowly to the witness chair.
Once a driver for Osama bin Laden, Mr. Hamdan is scheduled next week to become the first detainee to go on trial at Guantánamo and the first person in decades to face an American war crimes trial.
Fluke and circumstance brought him, and not Mr. bin Laden, to Guantánamo to answer for Al Qaeda. So Mr. Hamdan, with his bad back and his deep brown eyes, took the stand Tuesday at a pretrial hearing and described the everyday details of life in Guantánamo.
His lawyers are asking a military judge to move him from what they call solitary confinement, claiming that he has been so driven to distraction by Guantánamo that he cannot focus on his case.
In a white head scarf and a beige jacket with sleeves that were too long, Mr. Hamdan delivered something of a travelogue of his six years here. “Camp Echo,” he said at one point, “is like a graveyard where you place a dead person in a tomb.”
At Camp 6, where he was also held, “you can only see the soldiers,” he said. “And, of course, I was never able to see the sun.”
Tuesday’s hearing was part of a broad strategy by the team of military and civilian lawyers working for Mr. Hamdan. On Thursday, in Washington, they plan to ask a federal judge to stop the trial here from starting, asserting that the military commission system violates Mr. Hamdan’s constitutional rights.
If the judge in Washington permits the military trials to begin, there will be many more scenes like the one Tuesday, a preview by Mr. Hamdan of the detainees’ portrait of life at Guantánamo.
He was not sure when he had been moved into one or another of the half dozen camps here, or when he was transferred out. Time is not measured in the usual ways for the detainees. He often recalled his moves from camp to camp in relation to Ramadan, though it was not always obvious if he knew in what year the events had occurred.
But, as he presented them, some details were clear. He described the airplane trip to Guantánamo, during which he said he was blindfolded and tied down in a position that inflamed a back injury. “Such severe pains, I cannot really explain,” he testified.
He described the time when, he said, a female interrogator sexually humiliated him. “She came very close with her whole body towards me,” he said, looking down, seeming to catch his breath. “I couldn’t do anything.”
The detainees’ cells are small, he said in answering questions from a retired military lawyer, Charles D. Swift, who has represented Mr. Hamdan for years in cases all the way to the Supreme Court. The possessions permitted are few, he said: a toothbrush, a blanket, a towel. They are sometimes taken away, he said.
He was less jovial than the last time he spoke in court, in April, when he had a bit of a debate with the military judge about the process. He is about 40, even though he is not certain of his birth date, and has a youthful face. He had the tentative gait of a man with back pain.
He described a Guantánamo that sometimes seems far from the orderly courtroom.
Alone month in and month out, he said, he briefly had the chance to live in Camp 4, detainees’ favorite because it is the only place at Guantánamo where men are permitted to live communally, with group areas for meals and prayers.
“You share a room with other people, and have almost a normal life,” he said. “You speak together. You pray together.”
But soon, he said, there was “a problem” and he was back in a cell alone, in Camp 5, which looks like an American prison. He is there now, he said.
One prosecutor, Lt. Cmdr. Timothy D. Stone, said the “problem” was that Mr. Hamdan had incited a disturbance.
Whatever the cause, the move was a source of sorrow for Mr. Hamdan. In Camp 4, he said, “I felt like I started to live again.”
Mr. Swift asked Mr. Hamdan if the two had discussed his concerns. For a man facing a trial that could bring a life sentence, his answer showed how small the world is on the other side of the barbed wire.
His lawyers say Mr. Hamdan can barely discuss any subject other than his wish to get back to Camp 4.
“I always ask other lawyers, and I ask you,” Mr. Hamdan said to Mr. Swift. “Why am I being placed in the fifth camp? If you can’t do anything for me, I don’t need you. Why are you my lawyer?”
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15) Record Gulf Dead Zone Is Expected
By CORNELIA DEAN
National Briefing | Science and Environment
July 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/science/earth/16brfs-RECORDGULFDE_BRF.html?ref=us
Scientists from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium predicted that this year’s summer dead zone off the Louisiana coast would be the largest ever and would threaten commercial and recreational fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. The scientists, who attributed the dead zone in large part to agricultural chemicals carried into the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers by this year’s severe Midwest floods, predicted it would cover about 8,800 square miles, roughly the size of New Jersey. The previous record, in 2002, was almost 8,500 square miles; last year, the dead zone covered almost 8,000 square miles. The scientists said high nutrient levels in the water stimulate the growth of algae whose eventual decomposition depletes oxygen to the point that most marine life cannot survive.
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16) As Children Grow, Activity Quickly Slows
By TARA PARKER-POPE
July 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/health/research/16exercise.html?ref=health
Young children spend an extraordinary amount of time moving about: an average of three hours a day at age 9, new research shows.
But in just a few short years, all that childhood energy disappears. By the age of 15, daily physical activity is down to just 49 minutes on weekdays and about a half-hour on weekends, according to the research, being published Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Experts have long believed that activity wanes as children enter their teenage years. This study affirming that belief, one of the largest and longest ever undertaken on the subject, followed about 1,000 children from around the country and, unlike many previous studies, used monitoring devices to track the activity carefully rather than relying on reports from parents.
The findings, which measured everything from moderate walking to vigorous athletic pursuits, show clearly that even the most energetic young children experience a precipitous drop in physical activity as they reach puberty.
“I was surprised by the degree of the drop; it’s a dramatic shift,” said the lead author, Dr. Philip R. Nader, emeritus professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego. “Younger children appear to be naturally active, but as kids get older, they find fewer opportunities to be active.”
The research was part of the continuing Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, a look at the health of American children that was begun in 1991 and is financed by the National Institutes of Health.
The authors had the children wear accelerometers, devices that measure movement, for a week at each of four ages: 9, 11, 12 and 15.
Over all, boys were more active than girls, moving an average of 18 more minutes a day.
Age 13 appeared to be a particularly vulnerable time. Though activity was not measured at that age, mathematical modeling showed it was at that point that daily weekend activity, for boys and girls alike, dropped below 60 minutes.
The percentage of children who met the government’s recommendation of one hour of moderate daily activity shifted markedly over time. At 9 and 11, almost every child in the study was moving at least an hour a day. But by 15, only 31 percent met the guideline during the week, and just 17 percent on the weekend.
The study did not measure reasons for the decline, but researchers noted that schools often curtail physical activity as children get older. Not only does recess stop, but many schools drop physical education as well. In addition, sports become more exclusive as children grow, allowing only the best athletes to compete.
“When you are younger, it’s much easier to go out and do things spontaneously,” said James A. Griffin, deputy chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch at the national institutes’ Center for Research for Mothers and Children. “But when you get older, kids tend to play a video game or watch television with their friends. Parents need to be aware to help them balance that out a little better.”
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17) While the U.S. Spends Heavily on Health Care, a Study Faults the Quality
By REED ABELSON
July 17, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/business/17health.html?ref=business
American medical care may be the most expensive in the world, but that does not mean it is worth every penny. A study to be released Thursday highlights the stark contrast between what the United States spends on its health system and the quality of care it delivers, especially when compared with many other industrialized nations.
The report, the second national scorecard from this influential health policy research group, shows that the United States spends more than twice as much on each person for health care as most other industrialized countries. But it has fallen to last place among those countries in preventing deaths through use of timely and effective medical care, according to the report by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit research group in New York.
Access to care in the United States has worsened since the fund’s first report card in 2006 as more people — some 75 million — are believed to lack adequate health insurance or are uninsured altogether. And within the nation, the report found, the cost and quality of care vary drastically.
The findings are likely to provide supporting evidence for the political notion that the nation’s health care system needs to be fixed. Both presumptive presidential nominees, Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama, argue that the country needs to get more value for its health care money, even if they do not agree on what changes would be most effective. But few people these days defend the status quo.
“It’s harder to keep deluding yourself or be complacent that we don’t have areas that need improvement,” said Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund.
The study, which assesses the United States on 37 health care measures, finds little improvement since the last report, as the cost of health care continues to rise steadily and more people — even those with insurance — struggle to pay their medical bills.
“The central finding is that access has deteriorated,” Ms. Davis said.
Even some experts who are quick to point to some of the country’s medical successes, as in reducing the deaths from heart disease or childhood cancers, for example, also acknowledge the need for change.
“We need to generate better value in this country,” said Dr. Denis A. Cortese, the chief executive of the Mayo Clinic.
In some cases, the nation’s progress was overshadowed by improvements in other industrialized countries, which typically have more centralized health systems, which makes it easier to put changes in place.
The United States, for example, has reduced the number of preventable deaths for people under the age of 75 to 110 deaths for every 100,000 people, compared with 115 deaths five years earlier, but other countries have made greater strides. As a result, the United States now ranks last in preventable mortality, just below Ireland and Portugal, according to the Commonwealth Fund’s analysis of World Health Organization data. The leader by that measure is France, followed by Japan and Australia.
Other countries worked hard to improve, according to the Commonwealth Fund researchers. Britain, for example, focused on steps like improving the performance of individual hospitals that had been the least successful in treating heart disease. The success is related to “really making a government priority to get top-quality care,” Ms. Davis said.
The presidential candidates both emphasize the need to shift the country’s health priorities, to provide more medical care that helps prevent people from developing disease and that helps control conditions before they become expensive and hard to treat. And the mounting evidence indicates that such issues are not simply political talking points, said Len Nichols, a health economist at New America Foundation, a nonprofit group in Washington that advocates universal health care coverage.
More hospital executives and doctors understand their performance could be better, Mr. Nichols said.
Dr. James J. Mongan, the chief executive of Partners HealthCare System, a big medical network in Boston, agrees that “there’s substantial room for improvement.” Dr. Mongan is one of several health care leaders who is working with the Commonwealth Fund to develop a model for a better system.
Business leaders also see a pressing need for health care changes, said Helen Darling, the president of the National Business Group on Health, which represents big employers that provide medical benefits to their workers. The report “documents that it’s been as bad as we have been thinking it is,” she said.
But Ms. Darling and others were also heartened because some areas in the report said that the United States had shown marked improvement, including the measurements hospitals use to track how well they treated conditions like heart failure and pneumonia.
“It proves once again if you have quantitative information and metrics and make people pay attention, they change,” Ms. Darling said.
But the report also emphasizes the inefficiencies of the American health care system. The administrative costs of the medical insurance system consume much more of the current health care dollar, about 7.5 percent, than in other countries.
Bringing those administrative costs down to the level of 5 percent or so as in Germany and Switzerland, where private insurers play a significant role, would save an estimated $50 billion a year in the United States, Ms. Davis said.
“It kind of dwarfs everything else you can do,” she said.
Much of the high costs are attributed to the lack of computerized systems that may link pharmacies and doctors’ offices for filling prescriptions, for example, or that may enable insurers to more efficiently pay doctors’ bills.
“An awful lot of the waste in this system is the antiquity of the information technology,” Ms. Darling said.
Karen Ignagni, the chief executive of America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group, argues that much of the higher administrative costs stem from the additional services provided by United States insurers, like disease management programs, and the burdensome regulatory and compliance costs of doing business in 50 states. A more uniform system could result in savings, she said.
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18) Law School Pays the Price in ‘Don’t Ask’ Rule Protest
By KATIE ZEZIMA
June 29, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/education/29vermont.html?ref=education
SOUTH ROYALTON, Vt. — A renewed fight over the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is being watched closely here on the campus of the Vermont Law School, a 600-student institution on the banks of the White River.
The Vermont Law School is one of two law schools in the nation that bar military recruiters, as a protest against the 15-year-old rule that prevents openly gay men and lesbians from serving in the military. As a result, the school is denied some federal research money — $300,000 to $500,000 a year by one outside analyst’s estimate.
“Every once in a while an issue comes to a community and, despite a cost, it comes to the conclusion that it has to stand up for its principles,” said Jeff Shields, president and dean of the law school. “It has to do with speaking truth to power, and it’s one of those roles that those of us lucky enough to be trained as lawyers hopefully take from time to time.”
Last week, an advocacy group urging the repeal of the policy released a report saying the Army and Air Force had discharged a disproportionate number of women in 2007 because of the rule. And in May, a California appeals court reinstated a lawsuit challenging the policy, while a federal appeals court in Boston upheld it a month later.
In 2006, the Supreme Court, in a unanimous ruling, upheld a law that withholds some federal money from law schools and universities that do not give military recruiters the same access to campus as other employers.
“If the Department of Defense finds a school is doing this, it notifies other federal agencies and funding gets cut off,” said Lt. Col. Les Melnyk, a department spokesman.
The law, the Solomon Amendment, was challenged by a consortium of law schools and professors.
Here in Vermont, the prospect of losing federal grants mattered to the small, independent law school, which has an endowment of $14 million.
The fact that the school is not affiliated with a university, however, made the decision to forgo the money easier, because other programs are not affected.
At most universities, federal grants help finance dozens of scientific and other research programs.
The William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul also bars recruiters from its campus. The school is not losing any federal money, however, because its research is not financed out of four spending bills affected by the Solomon Amendment.
“It was a pretty simple application of our nondiscrimination policy,” said Eric S. Janus, president and dean of William Mitchell. “It really arises out of our desire to make sure that all of our students have equal access to all opportunities, including the opportunity to serve in the military.”
Paula C. Johnson, a professor at the Syracuse University College of Law and a co-president of the Society of American Law Teachers, one of the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case, said the two institutions were keeping alive the issue of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and its impact on law schools.
“They are the only institutions that have taken as dramatic and as principled a stance as they have, so it’s certainly put in the category of profiles in courage,” Professor Johnson said. “They have done things that other schools have not done.”
On campus here, the policy is often a topic of conversation. The college also sends students to Washington each year for lobby day, when they protest “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Richard Eckley, a former marine and a second-year student, does not agree with the school’s decision to bar military recruiters, saying it is not constructive.
But Kathy Stickel, a student who served in the Army and who is also a lesbian, does not think the school should change its policy.
“There’s great value in doing something right when there’s a cost attached to it,” Ms. Stickel said. “You shouldn’t change because someone is waving money in front of you.”
Alison Share, who graduated this year, said even though the school had not made a big splash with the decision, it had taught her a valuable lesson.
“It’s important to stand up, even when no one is watching,” Ms. Share said.
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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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