BAUAW NEWSLETTER - SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

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LET OUR CHILDREN BE! NO ON V!
Keep Military Recruiters OUT of our Schools!

We don't want the schools used to recruit our children for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan!

Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC)-is a military recruitment program scheduled to be phased-out of our schools by June 2009 by the San Francisco Board of Education. JROTC doesn't teach students the realities of war: that they are likely to kill civilians, or that they are more likely to die or return with devastating mental and physical disabilities than earn college degrees.

Proposition V argues that students should have a "choice" to enroll in JROTC, but if they join the military they have no choice about killing or dying. JROTC is a military recruitment program, and it does not belong in our schools!

JROTC is not the way to keep kids away from gangs. There are peaceful ways to keep kids safe. JROTC is not a leadership program. It teaches unquestioning obedience in preparation for military service.

The School Board's decision to end JROTC has set a precedent for communities nationwide. Let's not allow it to be reversed.

Join parents everywhere trying to save their children from being sent to fight these unjust and illegal wars!

We want funding for education, healthcare, the environment, and jobs, not war! U.S. out of Iraq and Afghanistan now!

Bay Area United Against War
P.O. Box 318021, San Francisco, CA 94131-8021, 415-824-8730, www.bauaw.org

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Urgent Call For Community Support Sunday September 7, 2008!

UC Berkeley Desecrates Native American Sacred Site, Cuts 46 Trees. Tree Sitters still in remaining tree.

Police negotiations at 10 AM

Indigenous Peoples Decry Religious Freedom Violations.

Community Memorial For Oak Grove 2 PM

BERKELEY, CA- University of California police moved in Friday morning and cut many limbs and branches of a Redwood tree and cut down twelve Oak trees that have been protected by tree-sitting protesters for the last 21 months. Five people were arrested as they peacefully pleaded with arborists not to destroy the trees of the Memorial Oak Grove deemed a sacred burial site to Ohlone Indians.

Forty Six Trees have been cut over the weekend. Four protesters remain in a single Redwood tree in the center of the grove. Arborists trimmed most of the branches from the Redwood tree occupied by the four remaining tree sitters. Cutting the branches made it virtually impossible for the tree sitters to move from tree to tree. A spokesman for the campus said that within three days, the University would no longer honor its agreement to ensure they had adequate nutrition and water. The tree sitters currently only have one liter of water to share between four people as they sit in 90 degree heat.

The Memorial Oak Grove is regarded as a sacred place to Native American people and is documented as such by UC Berkeley's own Anthropology Department. There is evidence of 2 shell mounds sites in the area, with 19 ancestral remains found within them. Along with UC Berkeley's attempt to develop on a sacred place, they are guilty of housing over 17,000 sacred remains and objects. UCB currently holds the largest human remains collection in the United States of which it is not in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)

"I brought my five year old daughter and two month old son out today to bear witness to the massacre of sacred life," said Morning Star Gali of the Pit River Tribe and co-chair of Advocates to Protect Sacred Sites. "The cops responded by yelling to move them behind the median. I asked if they would stand by as complacent if it was their grandmother's gravesites being desecrated. I want my children here to witness the destruction of sacred life and how important it is to protect it. I wanted them to witness the cops, arborists and UC Officials that participated and cheered as the trees came crashing down from bulldozers. This exhibits the ongoing Human Rights abuses committed by the University. They refuse to comply with NAGPRA by holding 13,000 of our ancestors remains hostage, they illegally reorganized NAGPRA with no tribal consultation and now they continue to desecrate sacred burial grounds."

The Memorial Grove is a native Coast Live Oak ecosystem. Native oaks support the most complex terrestrial ecosystems in California. The California Native Plant Society CNPS has stated that the Memorial Oak Grove is "an important gene bank for the Coast Live Oak." Every one of the oaks in the grove should be protect by law and the Berkeley Coast Live Oak moratorium forbids cutting mature Coast Live Oaks in Berkeley. UC refuses to recognize the law. The grove is also part of a National Historic Site. The Stadium and landscape is a memorial to Californians who died in World War I.

The tree sitters are urging people to come and show support for the trees and bear witness to the University of California's blatant disregard to sacred sites and native ecosystems.

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NO ON PROPOSITION V! NO ON JROTC! NO MILITARY RECRUITMENT IN OUR SCHOOLS!

Next meeting: Tuesday, September 9, 7:15 P.M.
Friends Meeting House
65 9th St, San Francisco (between Mission and Market Sts)
To RSVP or for additional information, please contact Alan Lessik at AFSC at 565.0201, x11 or alessik@afsc.org.

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A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition Film Series “Machuca”
Thurs. Sept. 11, 7:30pm
ATA (Artists’ Television Access), 992 Valencia St. at 21st, SF
$6 donation, no one turned away for lack of funds.

Call 415-821-6545 for more info.

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Open Letter to the U.S. Antiwar Movement

The following “Open letter to the U.S. Antiwar Movement” was adopted by the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations on July 13, 2008. We urge antiwar organizations around the country to endorse the letter. Please send notice of endorsements to natassembly@aol.com

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

In the coming months, there will be a number of major actions mobilizing opponents of U.S. wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan to demand “Bring the Troops Home Now!” These will include demonstrations at the Democratic and Republican Party conventions, pre-election mobilizations like those on October 11 in a number of cities and states, and the December 9-14 protest activities. All of these can and should be springboards for very large bi-coastal demonstrations in the spring.

Our movement faces this challenge: Will the spring actions be unified with all sections of the movement joining together to mobilize the largest possible outpouring on a given date? Or will different antiwar coalitions set different dates for actions that would be inherently competitive, the result being smaller and less powerful expressions of support for the movement’s “Out Now!” demand?

We appeal to all sections of the movement to speak up now and be heard on this critical question. We must not replicate the experience of recent years during which the divisions in the movement severely weakened it to the benefit of the warmakers and the detriment of the millions of victims of U.S. aggressions, interventions and occupations.

Send a message. Urge – the times demand it! – united action in the spring to ensure a turnout which will reflect the majority’s sentiments for peace. Ideally, all major forces in the antiwar movement would announce jointly, or at least on the same day, an agreed upon date for the spring demonstrations.

The National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations will be glad to participate in the process of selecting a date for spring actions that the entire movement can unite around. One way or another, let us make sure that comes spring we will march in the streets together, demanding that the occupations be ended, that all the troops and contractors be withdrawn immediately, and that all U.S. military bases be closed.

In solidarity and peace,

National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations
http://natassembly.org/members/index.php?org-id=2

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OCTOBER 11, 2008 End the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan Now!
http://oct11.org/

Dear Readers,

The date of October 11, 2008 was designated as a day of localized national actions against the war at the National Assembly to End the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this past June. Demonstrations are already being planned. Here is the call from the Greater Boston area--hopefully we can pull something together for October ll here in San Francisco.

In solidarity,

Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War

Hi all,

Below is an outreach letter that will be going out to various organizational lists
and individuals all over the Greater Boston area. Please feel free to circulate
this letter as an example of what is happening in Boston as you seek support
for October 11 in your various localities.

Adelante (forward),
John Harris
Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition

Dear Friends,

March, 2008 ushered in the sixth year of war and occupation “without end” on Iraq . In an act of arrogance and impunity, Congress in a bipartisan vote approved another
$162 billion in funding for the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan . Stepped up threats against Iran and the increased likelihood of a U.S. troop “surge” into Afghanistan point to an imperative for action and an independent voice from the peace and justice movement.

In light of these developments, grass roots forces from around the country gathered together at the end of June for the National Assembly to End the Iraq War and Occupation in Cleveland, Ohio. At the conference an action plan for the months ahead was discussed and approved in a democratic vote. As part of this plan, over 95 percent voted in favor of supporting pre-election protests being organized in cities and localities around the country on October 11, 2008.

It was on October 11, 2002 that Congress approved the “ Iraq War Resolution” granting the Bush administration authorization to invade Iraq . The weeks ahead promise to be filled with debate as the election campaigns gear up. Instead of being spectators who watch the media pundits put their spin on the political pronouncements of the candidates, the October 11 protests present us with an opportunity to be engaged in injecting our agenda, the antiwar agenda, into the intensifying debate.

Please join us in an initial planning meeting as we prepare a Boston protest demanding the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all occupation forces from Iraq and the closing of all military bases. All are invited. Looking forward to seeing you there.

Saturday, August 9, 3:00 PM
Encuentro 5
33 Harrison Avenue, 5th Floor
Boston (in Chinatown )

In Peace and Solidarity,

Marilyn Levin
*Arlington/Lexington United for Justice with Peace, New England United

Liam Madden
*IVAW – Boston Chapter

Suren Moodliar
Mass Global Action

Ann Glick
Newton Dialogues for Peace

Nate Goldshlag
Smedley D. Butler Brigade, Chapter 9 Veterans for Peace

Paul Shannon
American Friends Service Committee

John Harris
Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition

* Organization for identification purposes only

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A.N.S.W.E.R.Calendar of Upcoming Anti-war Events

Bring the Anti-War Movement to Inauguration Day in D.C.

January 20, 2009: Join thousands to demand "Bring the troops home now!"

On January 20, 2009, when the next president proceeds up Pennsylvania Avenue he will see thousands of people carrying signs that say US Out of Iraq Now!, US Out of Afghanistan Now!, and Stop the Threats Against Iran! As in Vietnam it will be the people in the streets and not the politicians who can make the difference.

On March 20, 2008, in response to a civil rights lawsuit brought against the National Park Service by the Partnership for Civil Justice on behalf of the ANSWER Coalition, a Federal Court ruled for ANSWER and determined that the government had discriminated against those who brought an anti-war message to the 2005 Inauguration. The court barred the government from continuing its illegal practices on Inauguration Day.

The Democratic and Republican Parties have made it clear that they intend to maintain the occupation of Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and threaten a new war against Iran.

Both Parties are completely committed to fund Israel’s on-going war against the Palestinian people. Both are committed to spending $600 billion each year so that the Pentagon can maintain 700 military bases in 130 countries.

On this the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we are helping to build a nationwide movement to support working-class communities that are being devastated while the country’s resources are devoted to war and empire for for the sake of transnational banks and corporations.

Join us and help organize bus and car caravans for January 20, 2009, Inauguration Day, so that whoever is elected president will see on Pennsylvania Avenue that the people want an immediate end to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and to halt the threats against Iran.

From Iraq to New Orleans, Fund Peoples Needs Not the War Machine!

We cannot carry out these actions withour your help. Please take a moment right now to make an urgently needed donation by clicking this link:

https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Donation?ACTION=SHOW_DONATION_OPTIONS&CAMPAIGN_ID=1121&JServSessionIdr011=23sri803b1.app2a

A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311

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NEWS RELEASE
From: Radical Women, 5018 Rainier Ave. S., Seattle, WA 98118
Contact: Anne Slater: office 206-722-6057; cell 206-708-5161; home 206-722-3812

RE: PUBLIC CONFERENCE

Radical Women Conference Aims to Expand and Embolden Feminist Movement
October 2 - 6
Women's Building
3543 18th Street,in the Mission District, near the 16th Street BART stop.
Wheelchair accessible.
Registration is $15 per day; students and low income $7.50 per day.
Register at www.RadicalWomen.org.
For more information, phone 206-722-6057.

Radical Women Conference Aims to Expand and Embolden Feminist Movement

Optimistic rebels from all walks of life are invited to participate in a national Radical Women conference, „The Persistent Power of Socialist Feminism,‰ to be held at the San Francisco Women‚s Building, October 3-6, 2008. The major goal of the four-day public event is to produce a concrete education and action plan to focus and strengthen the feminist movement. Speakers include activists and scholars from Central America, China, Australia and the U.S.

Highlights on Friday, Oct. 2 include a 9:30am keynote address by Nellie Wong on „Women and revolution˜alive and inseparable.‰ Wong is an acclaimed Chinese-American poet, whose works include Stolen Moments, the Death of Long Steam Lady, and Dreams in Harrison Railroad Park. A former Senior Analyst of Affirmative Action, she is also a founding member of Unbound Feet, an Asian American writers group. Afterwards, Laura Mannen will present proposals and spearhead a discussion on how to build a strong, independent, grassroots U.S. feminist movement. Mannen is a bilingual teacher, mother of two and seasoned antiwar organizer from Portland, Oregon. The afternoon will feature a roundtable of female unionists on „Standing our ground on labor‚s frontlines.‰

At 7:30pm Friday evening Lynne Stewart will address „Radical dissent: The righteous response to an unjust system.‰ Stewart, embattled human rights attorney, was convicted in 2005 of providing support for terrorism by delivering a handwritten press release to Reuters from a client. Though prosecutors sought a 30-year prison term, Stewart was sentenced to serve 28 months. The shorter sentence, the judge said, was in recognition of her „service to the nation‰ as a representative of the poor and unpopular. The government is appealing her shorter sentence. Stewart is appealing the conviction.

„Magnificent warriors: female leadership in the global freedom struggle, ‰ a panel presentation on Saturday, October 4 at 9:00am, will include Debbie Brennan, workplace delegate for the Australian Services Union and Melbourne RW president; Dr. Raya Fidel, an Israeli-American feminist and supporter of Palestinian rights; Patricia Ramos, a Costa Rican labor lawyer and leading organizer against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA); and Wang Zheng, a University of Michigan Women‚s Studies professor and co-chair of the U.S. based Chinese Society for Women's Studies.

Christina López, Chicana-Apache advocate for reproductive justice and frontrunner in the battle for rights for undocumented workers, will present her paper „Estamos en la lucha: Immigrant women light the fires of resistance‰ at 11:30am.

Interactive workshops in the afternoon include Challenging the Minutemen; ABC‚s of Marxist feminism; Women‚s stake in the struggle for union democracy; Federally funded childcare NOW; End the war on women˜in Iraq, Afghanistan and the U.S.; On the barricades for reproductive justice; Confronting movement sexism; Free trade is a feminist issue; and Young queer radical˜what are we fighting for?

Sunday, Oct. 5 begins at 9:00am with a panel on „The galvanizing impact of multiracial organizing in a society divided by racism.‰ Sharing first-hand experiences will be author Christina López of Seattle, reproductive rights activist Toni Mendicino of San Francisco, and campus organizer Emily Woo Yamasaki of New York City.

The remainder of Sunday will be devoted to issues and skills workshops. Topics include Power to the poor!; Radical campus organizing; For affirmative action not „civil wrongs‰; Alternative feminist radio; Radical youth and rebel elders; Disabled rights activists on RX for toxic healthcare. There will also be sessions on getting media attention, confident speaking and writing, knowing your rights as a worker, and producing effective fliers and banners.

The conference concludes on Monday, Oct 6, 10:00am with a National Organizer‚s report and action plan presented by Anne Slater, veteran campaigner for queer rights, the environment and women‚s equality.

All sessions will be held at the Women‚s Building, 3543 18th St., in the Mission District, near the 16th Street BART stop. Wheelchair accessible. Registration is $15 per day; students and low income $7.50 per day. Register at www.RadicalWomen.org. For more information, phone 206-722-6057.

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Iraq Union Leader Attacked, Beaten, Almost Kidnapped, Shot at and Target of Death Threats
YOUR ACTION IS NEEDED NOW!!!
http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/
Register Your Protest:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2488/t/4187/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=25407

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Take Action to Defend RNC Protesters!
Stop the Police Riot in St. Paul!
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311

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ARTICLES IN FULL:

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1) 24/7 School Reform
The Way We Live Now
By PAUL TOUGH
September 7, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07wwln-lede-t.html?ref=education

2) Fuel Prices Squeeze School Districts
By PAT WIEDENKELLER
Published: September 5, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/07Rbus.html?ref=education

3) A playful Army experience at Franklin Mills
By Robert Moran
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Posted on Fri, Aug. 29, 2008
http://www.philly.com/philly
/news/20080829_A_playful_Army_experience_at_Franklin_Mills.html

4) U.S. Unveils Takeover of Two Mortgage Giants
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
September 8, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/business/08fannie.html?hp

5) Soviet Union's Fall Unraveled Enclave in Georgia
By ELLEN BARRY
September 7, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/world/europe/07alborova.html?scp=1&sq=Soviet%20Union%27s%20Fall%20Unraveled%20Enclave%20in%20Georgia&st=cse

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1) 24/7 School Reform
The Way We Live Now
By PAUL TOUGH
September 7, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07wwln-lede-t.html?ref=education

In an election season when Democrats find themselves unusually unified on everything from tax policy to foreign affairs, one issue still divides them: education. It is a surprising fault line, perhaps, given the party’s long dominance on the issue. Voters consistently say they trust the Democrats over the Republicans on education, by a wide margin. But the split in the party is real, deep and intense, and it shows no signs of healing any time soon.

On one side are the members of the two huge teachers’ unions and the many parents who support them. To them, the big problem in public education is No Child Left Behind, President Bush’s signature education law. Teachers have many complaints about the law: it encourages “teaching to the test” at the expense of art, music and other electives, they say; it blames teachers, especially those in inner-city schools, for the poor performance of disadvantaged children; and it demands better results without providing educators with the resources they need.

On the other side are the party’s self-defined “education reformers.” Members of this group — a loose coalition of mayors and superintendents, charter-school proponents and civil rights advocates — actually admire the accountability provisions in No Child Left Behind, although they often criticize the law’s implementation. They point instead to a bigger, more systemic crisis. These reformers describe the underperformance of the country’s schoolchildren, and especially of poor minorities, as a national crisis that demands a drastic overhaul of the way schools are run. In order to get better teachers into failing classrooms, they support performance bonuses, less protection for low-performing teachers, alternative certification programs to attract young, ambitious teachers and flexible contracts that could allow for longer school days and an extended school year. The unions see these proposals as attacks on their members’ job security — which, in many ways, they are.

As the fall campaign and a new school year begin, both the unionists and the reformers find themselves distracted by the same question: Which side is Barack Obama on? Each camp has tried to claim him as its own — and Obama, for his part, has done his best to make it easy for them. He reassures the unions by saying he will reform No Child Left Behind so teachers will no longer “be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests,” and he placates reformers by calling himself a “strong champion of charter schools.” The reformers point to his speech in July to the National Education Association, during which he was booed, briefly, for endorsing changes to teachers’ compensation structure. The unionists, in turn, emphasize his speech a week later to the American Federation of Teachers, during which he said, “I am tired of hearing you, the teachers who work so hard, blamed for our problems.” On blogs and at conferences, the two sides have continued to snipe at each other, all the while parsing Obama’s speeches and policy pronouncements, looking for new clues to his true positions.

It’s possible, though, that both camps are looking in the wrong place for answers. What is most interesting and novel about Obama’s education plans is how much they involve institutions other than schools.

The American social contract has always identified public schools as the one place where the state can and should play a role in the process of child-rearing. Outside the school’s walls (except in cases of serious abuse or neglect), society is seen to have neither a right nor a responsibility to intervene. But a new and growing movement of researchers and advocates has begun to argue that the longstanding and sharp conceptual divide between school and not-school is out of date. It ignores, they say, overwhelming evidence of the impact of family and community environments on children’s achievement. At the most basic level, it ignores the fact that poor children, on average, arrive in kindergarten far behind their middle-class peers. There is evidence that schools can do a lot to erase that divide, but the reality is that most schools do not. If we truly want to counter the effects of poverty on the achievement of children, these advocates argue, we need to start a whole lot earlier and do a whole lot more.

The three people who have done the most to propel this nascent movement are James J. Heckman, Susan B. Neuman and Geoffrey Canada — though each of them comes at the problem from a different angle, and none of them would necessarily cite the other two as close allies. Heckman, an occasional informal Obama adviser, is an economist at the University of Chicago, and in a series of recent papers and books he has developed something of a unified theory of American poverty. More than ever before, Heckman argues, the problem of persistent poverty is at its root a problem of skills — what economists often call human capital. Poor children grow into poor adults because they are never able, either at home or at school, to acquire the abilities and resources they need to compete in a high-tech service-driven economy — and Heckman emphasizes that those necessary skills are both cognitive (the ability to read and compute) and noncognitive (the ability to stick to a schedule, to delay gratification and to shake off disappointments). The good news, Heckman says, is that specific interventions in the lives of poor children can diminish that skill gap — as long as those interventions begin early (ideally in infancy) and continue throughout childhood.

What kind of interventions? Well, that’s where the work of Susan Neuman becomes relevant. In 2001, Neuman, an education scholar at the University of Michigan, was recruited to a senior position in George W. Bush’s Department of Education, helping to oversee the development and then the implementation of No Child Left Behind. She quit in 2003, disillusioned with the law, and became convinced that its central goal — to raise disadvantaged children to a high level of achievement through schools alone — was simply impossible. Her work since then can be seen as something of a vast mea culpa for her time in Washington. After leaving government, Neuman spent several years crisscrossing the nation, examining and analyzing programs intended to improve the lives of disadvantaged children. Her search has culminated in a book, “Changing the Odds for Children at Risk,” to be published in November, in which she describes nine nonschool interventions. She includes the Nurse-Family Partnership, which sends trained nurses to visit and counsel poor mothers during and after their pregnancies; Early Head Start, a federal program, considerably more ambitious than Head Start itself, that offers low-income families parental support, medical care and day-care centers during the first three years of the lives of their children; Avance, a nine-month language-enrichment program for Spanish-speaking parents, mostly immigrants from Mexico, that operates in Texas and Los Angeles; and Bright Beginnings, a pre-K program in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district in North Carolina that enrolls 4-year-olds who score the lowest on a screening test of cognitive ability and manages to bring most of them up to grade level by the first day of kindergarten.

Neuman’s favorite programs share certain characteristics — they start early, focus on the families that need them the most and provide intensive support. Many of the interventions work with parents to make home environments more stimulating; others work directly with children to improve their language development (a critical factor in later school success). All of them, Neuman says, demonstrate impressive results. The problem right now is that the programs are isolated and scattered across the country, and they are usually directed at only a few years of a child’s life, which means that their positive effects tend to fade once the intervention ends.

This is where Geoffrey Canada comes in. He runs the first and so far the only organization in the country that pulls together under a single umbrella integrated social and educational services for thousands of children at once. Canada’s agency, the Harlem Children’s Zone, has a $58 million budget this year, drawn mostly from private donors; it currently serves 8,000 kids in a 97-block neighborhood of Harlem. (I’ve spent the last five years reporting on his organization’s work and its implications for the country.) Canada shares many of the views of the education reformers — he runs two intensive K-12 charter schools with extended hours and no union contract — but at the same time he offers what he calls a “conveyor belt” of social programs, beginning with Baby College, a nine-week parenting program that encourages parents to choose alternatives to corporal punishment and to read and talk more with their children. As students progress through an all-day prekindergarten and then through a charter school, they have continuous access to community supports like family counseling, after-school tutoring and a health clinic, all designed to mimic the often-invisible cocoon of support and nurturance that follows middle-class and upper-middle-class kids through their childhoods. The goal, in the end, is to produce children with the abilities and the character to survive adolescence in a high-poverty neighborhood, to make it to college and to graduate.

Though the conveyor belt is still being constructed in Harlem, early results are positive. Last year, the charter schools’ inaugural kindergarten class reached third grade and took their first New York state achievement tests: 68 percent of the students passed the reading test, which beat the New York City average and came within two percentage points of the state average, and 97 percent of them passed the math test, well above both the city and state average.

Obama has embraced, directly or indirectly, all three of these new thinkers. His campaign invited Heckman to critique its education policy, and Obama has proposed large-scale expansions of two of Neuman’s chosen interventions, the Nurse-Family Partnership and Early Head Start. Most ambitiously, Obama has pledged to replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone in 20 cities across the country. “The philosophy behind the project is simple,” Obama said in a speech last year announcing his plan. “If poverty is a disease that infects an entire community in the form of unemployment and violence, failing schools and broken homes, then we can’t just treat those symptoms in isolation. We have to heal that entire community. And we have to focus on what actually works.”

Obama has proposed that these replication projects, which he has labeled Promise Neighborhoods, be run as private/public partnerships, with the federal government providing half the funds and the rest being raised by local governments and private philanthropies and businesses. It would cost the federal government “a few billion dollars a year,” he acknowledged in his speech. “But we will find the money to do this, because we can’t afford not to.”

It remains to be seen, of course, whether Obama will convince voters with this position, and whether, if elected, he will do the heavy lifting required to put such an ambitious national program in place. There are many potential obstacles. A lot of conservatives would oppose a new multibillion-dollar federal program as a Great Society-style giveaway to the poor. And many liberals are wary of any program that tries to change the behavior of inner-city parents; to them, teaching poor parents to behave more like middle-class parents can feel paternalistic. Union leaders will find it hard to support an effort that has nonunion charter schools at its heart. Education reformers often support Canada’s work, but his premise — that schools alone are not enough to make a difference in poor children’s lives — makes many of them anxious. And in contrast to the camps arrayed on either side of the school-reform debate, there is no natural constituency for the initiative: no union or interest group that stands to land new jobs or new contracts, no deep-pocketed philanthropy devoted to spreading the message.

The real challenge Obama faces is to convince voters that the underperformance of poor children is truly a national issue — that it should matter to anyone who isn’t poor. Heckman, especially, argues that we should address the problem not out of any mushy sense of moral obligation, but for hardheaded reasons of global competitiveness. At a moment when nations compete mostly through the skill level of their work force, he argues, we cannot afford to let that level decline.

Obama’s contention is that the traditional Democratic solution — more money for public schools — is no longer enough. In February, in an interview with the editorial board of The Journal Sentinel in Milwaukee, he called for “a cultural change in education in inner-city communities and low-income communities across the country — not just inner-city, but also rural.” In many low-income communities, Obama said, “there’s this sense that education is somehow a passive activity, and you tip your head over and pour education in somebody’s ear. And that’s not how it works. So we’re going to have to work with parents.”

In the end, the kind of policies that Obama is proposing will require an even broader cultural change — not just in the way poor Americans think about education but also in the way middle-class Americans think about poverty. And that won’t be easy. No matter how persuasive the statistics Heckman is able to muster or how impressive the results that Canada is able to achieve, many Americans will continue to simply blame parents or teachers for the underperformance of poor kids. Obama’s challenge — if he decides to take it on — will be to convince voters that society as a whole has a crucial role to play in the lives of disadvantaged children, not just in the classroom but outside schools as well.

Paul Tough is an editor at the magazine. His book, “Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America,” will be published next week.

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2) Fuel Prices Squeeze School Districts
By PAT WIEDENKELLER
Published: September 5, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/07Rbus.html?ref=education

SCHOOL budgets are the rock. Surging fuel costs are the hard place. Crushed in between are districts across the area, beginning the school year with fleets of buses that typically get six miles to the gallon.

As the cost of diesel fuel has soared well past what many districts budgeted for last spring, school officials are rethinking their transportation needs, making big-ticket spending cuts and a host of surgical trims.

Some districts are eliminating field trips and after-school buses. Many are consolidating routes, causing some students to walk farther to their stops and others to lose their buses altogether. They are holding off on new teachers, counselors and textbooks, and teaming with neighboring districts for prekindergarten, special education and private school transportation.

“It’s affecting everybody, everywhere,” said Ingrid Reitano, president of the School Transportation Supervisors of New Jersey and transportation supervisor for Monroe Township in Middlesex County. “People are going to be giving up some things.”

How much will become clearer in the first weeks of school, when ridership patterns and bus routes firm up. But with fuel prices volatile (diesel costs have begun to level nationally at about $4.26 a gallon, up from $2.92 at this time last year), administrators are preparing for a year of budget nips and tucks and long-term strategizing.

They are not alone. In a national survey of superintendents released in July by the American Association of School Administrators, 99 percent said that rising fuel costs had forced across-the-board cuts.

“Everything is on the table,” said William Clark, chief operating officer for New Haven Public Schools, which is paying $1.9 million this year for fuel to transport 20,000 students, $623,571 more than last year.

New Haven, Connecticut’s second-largest district, has focused on consolidating bus runs. “You’re finding the furthest point out and picking up as many kids as you can on the way to school,” Mr. Clark said.

New Haven is also adjusting “bell times” to better “flow the routes” among its 50-odd schools, he said, and shoehorning field trips into the hours its 268 buses are contracted for.

Such efficiencies allowed the system to add a new school this year without adding the six new buses that it would normally have been required to contract for, at a cost of $68,000 per year per bus, said Teddi Barra, New Haven’s transportation director. If costs get worse, field trips may go, Mr. Clark said, along with other expenditures not required by the state, like after-school buses.

Field trips have already taken a hit in the Middle Country school district on Long Island, where Roberta A. Gerold, the schools superintendent, faced a 45 percent increase in fuel costs. “Where we have local field trips and can hire coaches” — meaning private buses — “we’ll try to do that,” she said. Students will take more “virtual field trips,” exploring places by computer, she said.

In New Jersey, some districts plan to pare “courtesy busing” for students who live closer than the distance required by the state for free busing — two miles for elementary students and two and a half miles for high school. Steven Cea, business manager for West Milford Township schools, is making cuts as he tries to cover an expected transportation shortfall of $78,000. About 3,500 students could be affected in the district, which covers 80 square miles, Mr. Cea said.

West Milford is reorganizing bus routes and teaming with districts to transport special-needs students and athletic teams, an approach many districts have taken or are considering.

To save on fuel costs, many districts in Connecticut have joined fuel-buying consortiums. Fred Hurley, the Newtown district’s director of public works, locked in diesel at $3.07 a gallon in March with the Capitol Region Purchasing Council.

In New York and New Jersey, districts often save money by buying fuel under a state bid. But many private bus companies provide their own fuel and have contracts that allow them to impose surcharges when fuel prices rise. Some districts are hoping to gain control of costs by curtailing such contracts and expanding their own fleets.

Ms. Reitano, the transportation supervisor in Monroe, N.J., fuels her 64 in-house buses, eight of which she added this year, with diesel bought under a state contract. About 75 percent of her fleet is district-owned, she said. “We can run our own buses for less money,” she said.

The Middle Country district is seeking savings through alternative fuels. It added one compressed-natural-gas-powered bus to its 120-bus fleet this year, and won bond approval last May for 18 more, Ms. Gerold, the superintendent, said.

IN Piscataway, N.J., where transportation costs are up about 4.5 percent from last year, the district bought 22 new buses this year to supplement 107 buses run by private companies with fuel-included contracts, said Brian DeLucia, business administrator for the Piscataway Township Schools. The district also signed on to the state’s fuel-purchasing contract. “We’re projecting a solid $200,000 — a nice little chunk of change — in savings this year,” he said.

For some districts, particularly those in the middle of multiyear agreements, such arrangements may simply postpone the pain. Brad A. Cohen, vice president of B and B Transportation in Bethany, Conn., said that some of his school contracts last year left him covering diesel increases, even as his costs for tires, parts and repairs increased.

In the future, B and B will put fuel clauses in every contract to pass on costs to districts, said Mr. Cohen, whose 75 buses serve three public school districts, Woodbridge, Bethany and Amity, and seven private schools.

Some districts are already getting a preview of the higher costs: In Milford, Conn., the price for busing of private school students tutored out-of-district went up 20 to 30 percent, said Phillip Russell, deputy superintendent of operations. And when Yonkers recently put out a bid for vans to be used during the school day, “the bids came back about 80 percent higher than the previous year we’d bid them out,” said Jerrilynne Fierstein, the district’s communications director. “We decided not to get them.”

Federal relief may be coming. Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York plans to introduce bills this month calling for the Energy Department to award emergency grants to low-income districts and to expand tax credits to make hybrid school buses more affordable. Whether districts will invest in hybrids, which can cost $100,000 more than diesel buses, is far from certain.

“I don’t think in this climate you’re going to see districts going out and replacing buses that they don’t immediately need to replace,” said Lisa P. Davis, executive director of the Westchester-Putnam School Boards Association. “You’re going to find districts looking at ways to improve efficiency within what they’re already doing.”
A version of this article appeared in print on September 7, 2008, on page NJ3 of the New York edition.

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3) A playful Army experience at Franklin Mills
By Robert Moran
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Posted on Fri, Aug. 29, 2008
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20080829_A_playful_Army_experience_at_Franklin_Mills.html

Across from the skate park at Franklin Mills Mall, the Army has opened a high-tech recruiting experiment to give potential sign-ups a taste of what military life is like.

The 14,500 square-feet Army Experience Center features Disney-grade simulators that immerse visitors in missions aboard helicopters or a humvee. Visitors are re briefed on their missions at the TOC, or tactical operations center, which looks like a set from a Tom Clancy thriller.

Banks of Xbox 360s with plush chairs include speakers in the headrests. Participants can play popular "shooter" games like "Call of Duty 3" or kick back and just play "Madden 09" football.

As younger generations become increasingly tech-savvy and their habits and routines change, Army recruitment strategies are changing with them.

"You can come in here and be put in the life of a soldier," said Amy Lindstrom, who handled public relations for today's opening

Large touch-screen displays explain the more than 150 job types in the Army. One display uses Google Earth to identify Army bases around the world and has narration that explains the type of recreation and dining outside each base.

Anyone can walk in to look around, but to use or participate in anything, visitors must be at least 13, and then register and obtain a type of membership card. That means providing age and contact information.

Sgt. 1st Class Phil Cianchetti said a registrant can opt not to be contacted or receive any mail or e-mail.

"It's not, 'Hey, we got you phone number and address. We're going to send someone right over,' " Cianchetti said. "It's not that way at all."

And part of the strategy is to encourage passive recruitment. For example, the "Career Configurator" station lets people learn about jobs in the Army. They can touch the "contact a recruiter" button on the screen and a name, address, phone number and e-mail address for a recruiter pops up. If they want, they can then leave.

"Without talking to somebody, they can learn on their own," said Maj. Larry Dillard, project manager for the new center.

Since younger people are spending more time indoors playing video games or surfing the Internet, "what we did was, we got into their territory," said Cianchetti.

There are also a few things they can't get at home.

The stand-out attractions are the simulators of the UH-60 Black Hawk, the AH-64 Apache and the HMMWV, or humvee.

The Black Hawk simulator allows a visitor to sit in a gunner position as the helicopter flies above a convoy through hostile mountainous terrain. Once the mission begins, giant video screens encompass a player's vision with the battlefield. The Black Hawk vibrates and fans blow air to replicate the sensation of flying with the doors open.

It's realistic enough to be disorienting.

Players can fire a replica carbine rifle at enemy targets, and the rifle actually gives something of a kick.

It's cool, and that's the point. It's likely that not too many kids would sign up if the simulator made participants eat sand while carrying 70 pounds of gear on their backs.

The Army Experience Center is open during general mall hours.

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4) U.S. Unveils Takeover of Two Mortgage Giants
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
September 8, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/business/08fannie.html?hp

WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department seized control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the nation’s giant quasi-public mortgage finance companies, and announced a four-part rescue plan that includes an open-ended guarantee from the Treasury Department to provide as much capital as they need to stave off insolvency.

At a news conference on Sunday morning, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. also announced that he had dismissed the chief executives of both companies and replaced them with two long-time financial executives. Herbert M. Allison, currently chairman of TIAA-CREF, the huge pension fund for teachers, will take over Fannie Mae and replace the chief executive, Daniel Mudd. David M. Moffett, currently a senior adviser at the Carlyle Group, one of the country’s biggest private equity firms, will replace Richard Syron as chief executive of Freddie Mac.

“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are so large and so interwoven in our financial system that a failure of either of them would cause great turmoil in our financial markets here at home and around the globe,” Mr. Paulson said. “This turmoil would directly and negatively impact household wealth: from family budgets, to home values, to savings for college and retirement. A failure would affect the ability of Americans to get home loans, auto loans and other consumer credit and business finance. And a failure would be harmful to economic growth and job creation.”

Mr. Paulson refused to say how much capital the government might eventually have to provide, or what the ultimate cost to taxpayers might be.

The companies are likely to need tens of billions of dollars over the next year, but the utlimate cost to taxpayers will largely depend on how and how fast the housing and mortgage markets recover from their current crisis.

Mr. Paulson’s plan begins with a pledge to provide extra cash by buying up a new series of preferred shares that would offer dividends and be senior to both both the existing preferred shares and the common stock that investors around the world already hold.

The two companies would be allowed to “modestly increase” the size of their existing investment portfolios until the end of 2009, which means they will be allowed to use some of their new taxpayer-supplied capital to buy up and hold new mortgages in investment portfolios.

But in a strong indication of Mr. Paulson’s long-term intention to wind down the companies’ portfolios, the Treasury plan states that they must shrink their portfolios by 10 percent a year until they each total $250 billion. They now hold more than $700 billion apiece.

That covenant in the agreement responds to many in the Bush administration and in the private sector who had argued for years that Fannie and Freddie posed “systemic risks” to the entire economy because they had acquired more than $5 trillion in assets with only the thinnest of capital cushions to shield them from losses.

Treasury officials had little choice. With the credit markets still in a tailspin and investors deeply reluctant to buy up mortgages with even a hint of risk, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac currently guarantee about 70 percent of all new home loans, according to James B. Lockhart, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Mr. Paulson said the Treasury Department would provide as much money as needed to keep the companies’ capital reserves from falling below the levels that would trigger rules that automatically put them into receivership.

In addition, the Treasury Department will create a “Secured Lending Credit Facility,” a back-up source of borrowing for the companies in the event they cannot borrow enough money on the open market to finance their main business of buying mortgages and re-selling them as pools of mortgage-backed securities.

In a possibly unprecedented move into ther private markets, the Treasury Department will also buy up billions of dollars in Fannie and Freddie mortgage securities on the open market. This move is likely to make it much easier for the companies to finance somewhat riskier loans.

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5) Soviet Union's Fall Unraveled Enclave in Georgia
By ELLEN BARRY
September 7, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/world/europe/07alborova.html?scp=1&sq=Soviet%20Union%27s%20Fall%20Unraveled%20Enclave%20in%20Georgia&st=cse

TSKHINVALI, Georgia — It is not easy for Ireya Alborova to root
through the events that cracked this city in half, but one small
bright memory stands out from 1989, when she glanced at the building
across the street from her high school and spotted a flag.

It was a small Georgian flag, fixed in an attic window. Ms. Alborova
was an unruly 15-year-old, preoccupied with her friends and her
classes, and she took it in — a small piece of information — and kept
walking. But now she thinks of it as the first signal of what was coming.

Most of the world now knows what happened: South Ossetians and
Georgians began a drawn-out war to control this sleepy valley, where
the main feature is a road that cuts through the Caucasian ridge into
Russia. That flared into a global standoff last month, when Georgia
pounded Tskhinvali, the capital of the South Ossetian enclave, with
rocket fire and Russian troops poured across the border in response.

But for Ms. Alborova's family, which is partly Georgian but wound up
on the Ossetian side of the conflict, the crucial event took place
during the last months of the Soviet Union, when the fabric of a
multiethnic society tore apart with breathtaking speed. For the past
18 years, in a city encircled by Georgian positions, the family and
its neighbors have been reliving the rifts and betrayals of that period.

Her Aunt Fuza's neighbor, a Georgian woman, crossed ethnic lines to
pass on a warning that an attack on Ossetians was planned — and then
disappeared. A checkpoint appeared between Tskhinvali and her mother's
ancestral village, cutting the Alborovas off from their Georgian
relatives. Construction suddenly halted on a huge supermarket being
built near their apartment 18 years ago, and not a day's work has been
done since then.

Its foundation was eventually picked apart to build trenches. And the
citizens of Tskhinvali became a resistance.

"It's not a question of whether you choose to or not," said Ms.
Alborova, who is now 34 and lives in Toulouse, France. "Sometimes you
are obliged. In some situations you don't choose anything."

Tskhinvali is a city of low-slung, sand-colored buildings suspended
between urban and rural life. Roosters crow in the cool of the
morning, and almost every house has its own grape arbor, used to make
sweet pink wines that are stored in plastic soda bottles and brought
out for the slightest occasion. There were also monumental
Stalinist-era apartment buildings where the elite lived, and a grand
neoclassical theater.

Ms. Alborova practically grew up in that theater. Her mother, Medeya,
was Georgian. (Though her mother's mother had been Ossetian, children
in the Caucasus take their father's ethnicity.) Medeya met Gelim
Alborov in a state folk dancing troupe, and when they married in the
1970s, unions of Georgians and Ossetians were still unremarkable.

To a teenager's eyes, the two ethnic groups were woven together
inextricably. Children in Ms. Alborova's class were given their choice
of language for classroom use, and though most of them were Ossetian,
28 out of 32 opted to study Georgian.

"Our teacher was embarrassed, " Ms. Alborova said. "No one wanted to
learn Ossetian."

In the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, some 50 miles to the southeast,
Georgia's first post-Soviet leader was emerging. Zviad Gamsakhurdia, a
longtime anti-Soviet dissident, based his campaign for the presidency
on a vaulting Georgian nationalism — an idea powerful enough to fill
the vacuum left by Communism's collapse.

The platform, known as Georgia for the Georgians, cast ethnic
Georgians, who made up 70 percent of the population, as the country's
true masters. Mr. Gamsakhurdia derided South Ossetians as newcomers,
saying they had arrived only 600 years ago and as tools of the Soviet
Union.

On the street in Tskhinvali, small changes began to appear.

Ms. Alborova's aunt was exasperated to go to the store and see that
pasta manufactured in Russia had been put in packages labeled with
Georgian script. Her neighbor Emma Gasiyeva kept hearing slogans:
"Brush them out with a broom!" and "Who are the guests, and who are
the hosts?" a reference to the theory that Ossetians had been brought
to the area as agricultural workers.

In 1989, Ms. Alborova was 15, and she saw only shadows. She heard that
her Georgian classmates were gathering for some kind of meeting, but
she was not invited. "They stopped talking to us," she said of her
Georgian neighbors. "It was done very quickly."

Over the next three years, Tskhinvali became something like Belfast in
Northern Ireland.

The government in Tbilisi established Georgian as the country's
principal language, enraging the Ossetians, whose first two languages
were Russian and Ossetian. A few months later, more than 10,000
Georgian demonstrators were transported to Tskhinvali in buses and
encircled the city, until they were repelled by Ossetian irregulars
and Soviet troops. A true war began in 1991, when thousands of
Georgian soldiers entered Tskhinvali. The city was shelled almost
nightly from the Georgian-held highlands, and Medeya Alborova recalls
holding pillows over her teenage daughters' heads, as if that could
protect them.

When Mrs. Alborova got to Tbilisi to see her relatives, it was like
stepping into a parallel universe. She sat with them watching news on
Georgian television, as the announcer recited a litany of crimes
committed by Ossetians against Georgians. At times, she said, she was
not sure she was on the right side of the conflict.

But the years made all of them harder. Even after a cease-fire in
1992, Tskhinvali was isolated from the Georgian territory around it,
and accounts of atrocities against Ossetians — rapes and grisly
killings — circulated endlessly.

Mothers, who wield enormous power in this society, urged their sons to
fight.

But Ms. Alborova found a way to leave, through a scholarship to study
in France. She arrived in Toulouse in 2001 and took in the town with
amazement; people were so focused on pleasure. She replayed her
memories from Tskhinvali, sealed off from the bright world that
surrounded her.

"I understood that I had lost 10 years of my life," she said.

Ms. Alborova returned to Tskhinvali on Aug. 24 with butterflies in her
stomach. She had expected physical damage, and it was there: bullet
holes pockmarked virtually every building. But what surprised her were
the people. Not many of them were left, and those who remained seemed
damaged.

Soon after her return, Ms. Alborova was taken aback when a friend
asked her if she could kill President Mikheil Saakashvili if he were
standing in front of her. A family friend, who greeted Ms. Alborova
affectionately on Karl Marx Street, turned icy when asked about Georgians.

"They have poison in their blood," said the woman, Katya Kharebova, 60.

Many in Tskhinvali say they would welcome the return of their Georgian
neighbors. Still, it is difficult to imagine how long it will be
before these people will live together again, much less intermarry.
When history sets down the consequences of what happened on Aug. 7,
the death of a neighborhood will not be recorded.

Indeed, in 20 years, it may be hard to find Georgians and Ossetians in
this area who can talk to each other at all. Ms. Alborova's nieces,
who live in Russia with her sister, are the first generation of her
family that does not speak Georgian. Her mother shrugged, when asked
about it.

"Who's going to teach them?" she asked.

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National Briefing | Rockies
Utah: Mine Collapse Case Goes to Prosecutors
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Federal mining officials have asked prosecutors to decide whether criminal charges are warranted in the deaths of nine people in last year’s collapse of the Crandall Canyon mine. The Mine Safety and Health Administration has been investigating two cave-ins at the mine in August 2007 that killed six miners and three rescuers. The safety agency has already fined the operator $1.34 million for violations that it says directly contributed to the deaths. Richard Stickler, an acting assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health, said the mine’s operator and its engineering consultants demonstrated reckless disregard for safety. Mr. Stickler said the safety agency had referred the case to the Justice Department for possible criminal charges.
September 4, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/us/04brfs-MINECOLLAPSE_BRF.html?ref=us

National Briefing | Immigration
Rabbis Endorse Certification Plan
By JULIA PRESTON
The organization of Reform rabbis endorsed a movement led by Conservative Jews to create an additional certification for kosher food that would show that the producer met ethical standards for the treatment of workers. In a resolution, the Central Conference of American Rabbis promised to work cooperatively with the movement known as Hekhsher Tzedek, meaning “justice certification,” to develop the new seal of approval, which would be applied only to food certified as kosher according to traditional Jewish dietary laws. It would confirm that the producer met certain standards for wages and employee safety. The resolution was evidence of a new interest in kosher practice by Reform Jews, who do not generally follow strict dietary laws. The Reform rabbis said reports of “abusive and unethical treatment of workers” at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, were “particularly distressing.”
September 4, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/us/04brfs-RABBISENDORS_BRF.html?ref=us

Illinois: School Financing Protest
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | Midwest
More than 1,000 Chicago public school students boycotted the first day of classes in a protest over school financing and instead rode buses more than 30 miles north to try to enroll in a wealthy suburban district. About 1,100 elementary students and 150 high school students from Chicago filled out enrollment applications in the New Trier district in Northfield, said the New Trier superintendent, Linda Yonke. Boycott organizers acknowledged the move was largely symbolic: Students would have to pay tuition to attend a school outside their home district. In Illinois, property taxes account for about 70 percent of school financing, meaning rural and inner-city schools generally end up with less to spend per student than suburban schools.
September 3, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/us/03brfs-SCHOOLFINANC_BRF.html?ref=education

3 Civilians Killed at Checkpoint in Afghanistan
By REUTERS
BERLIN (Reuters) — Three civilians were killed in Afghanistan when a group of security forces, including German soldiers, opened fire at a checkpoint, Germany’s Defense Ministry said Friday.
The shootings occurred outside the city of Kunduz on Thursday, when two cars ignored officials’ calls to stop, said a Defense Ministry spokesman, Thomas Raabe. He said the checkpoint had been staffed by Afghan police officers and German soldiers.
August 30, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/world/asia/30afghan-002.html?ref=world

Mexico: City’s Abortion Law Is Upheld
By ELISABETH MALKIN
World Briefing | The Americas
The Supreme Court upheld Mexico City’s abortion law by an 8-to-3 vote on Thursday, allowing unrestricted abortions during the first trimester of pregnancy. The ruling sets a legal precedent that will allow other states to liberalize their abortion laws if they choose. It was a defeat for the Roman Catholic Church and President Felipe Calderón’s conservative government, which filed the constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court. Mexico City, which passed the law in April 2007, is the only place in Latin America except for Cuba that allows unrestricted abortions in the first 12 weeks.
August 29, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/29/world/americas/29briefs-CITYSABORTIO_BRF.html?ref=world

Texas: Militant Ordered to Stand Trial
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A federal appeals court ordered a Cuban militant, Luis Posada Carriles, to stand trial in El Paso on immigration fraud charges. A three-judge panel of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, ruled that Mr. Posada, 80, an anti-Castro militant, should stand trial on charges that he lied to federal authorities in his 2005 bid to become an American citizen. The criminal case had been dismissed last year when a federal district judge in El Paso, Kathleen Cardone, ruled that the government engaged in trickery and deceit by using a naturalization interview to build its case against Mr. Posada. Felipe Millan, one of Mr. Posada’s lawyers in El Paso, said Mr. Posada’s legal team was reviewing the decision and would decide on a course of action afterward.
August 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/us/15brfs-MILITANTORDE_BRF.html?ref=us

Canada: Rioting in Montreal
By IAN AUSTEN
World Briefing | The Americas
Three police officers were injured, one shot in the leg, during rioting in Montreal that erupted late Sunday in response to the killing of an 18-year-old by the police the day before. A fire station, fire trucks, cars and about 20 shops were vandalized or set ablaze. An ambulance worker was also injured. About 500 riot police officers quelled the violence.
August 12, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/world/americas/12briefs-RIOTINGINMON_BRF.html?ref=world

Arizona: Court Allows Fake Snow Opposed by Tribes
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
National Briefing | Southwest
A federal appeals court has ruled that a ski resort’s plan to use recycled wastewater for making snow would not violate the religious freedom of Indian groups who had claimed that the practice would be blasphemous to a mountain they hold sacred. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, ruling in a lawsuit against the Arizona Snowbowl near Flagstaff that was filed by 13 tribes and the Sierra Club, overturned a ruling by a smaller panel of the court that said the plan would violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The 1993 act is intended to ensure that government actions do not infringe on religious freedom. Lawyers for the tribes and the Sierra Club said they expected to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
August 9, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/us/09brfs-COURTALLOWSF_BRF.html?ref=us

Bolivia: Tin Miners Die in Clashes
By REUTERS
World Briefing | The Americas
At least two miners were killed and many more were injured Tuesday in clashes between the police and workers at the country’s largest tin mine, Huanuni, local radio reported. The violence erupted when police officers clashed with groups of striking miners who had blocked a road, Interior Minister Alfredo Rada said. The strike is in support of a drive by a labor federation for higher pensions and a lowering of the retirement age to 55.
August 6, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/world/americas/06briefs-TINMINERSDIE_BRF.html?ref=world

Proposed Kosher Certification Rules
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Conservative Jewish leaders are seeking to protect workers and the environment at kosher food plants like the one raided this spring in Iowa. They issued draft guidelines for a kosher certification program meant as a supplement to the traditional certification process that measures compliance with Jewish dietary law. The proposed “hekhsher tzedek,” or “certificate of righteousness,” would be awarded to companies that pay fair wages, ensure workplace safety, follow government environmental regulations and treat animals humanely, among other proposed criteria. Support for the idea has been fueled by controversies at Agriprocessors Inc. in Postville, Iowa, the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking plant. In May, immigration officials raided the plant, arresting nearly 400 workers.
August 1, 2008
National Briefing | Immigration
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/us/01brfs-PROPOSEDKOSH_BRF.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS AND INFORMATION

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Labor Beat: National Assembly to End the War in Iraq and Afghanistan:
Highlights from the June 28-29, 2008 meeting in Cleveland, OH. In this 26-minute video, Labor Beat presents a sampling of the speeches and floor discussions from this important conference. Attended by over 400 people, the Assembly's main objective was to urge united and massive mobilizations in the spring to “Bring the Troops Home Now,” as well as supporting actions that build towards that date. To read the final action proposal and to learn other details, visit www.natassembly.org. Produced by Labor Beat. Labor Beat is a CAN TV Community Partner. Labor Beat is affiliated with IBEW 1220. Views expressed are those of the producer, not necessarily of IBEW. For info: mail@laborbeat.org,www.laborbeat.org. 312-226-3330. For other Labor Beat videos, visit Google Video or YouTube and search "Labor Beat".
http://blip.tv/file/1149437/

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12 year old Ossetian girl tells the truth about Georgia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5idQm8YyJs4

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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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Canada: American Deserter Must Leave
By IAN AUSTEN
August 14, 2008
World Briefing | Americas
Jeremy Hinzman, a deserter from the United States Army, was ordered Wednesday to leave Canada by Sept. 23. Mr. Hinzman, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division, left the Army for Canada in January 2004 and later became the first deserter to formally seek refuge there from the war in Iraq. He has been unable to obtain permanent immigrant status, and in November, the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear an appeal of his case. Vanessa Barrasa, a spokeswoman for the Canada Border Services Agency, said Mr. Hinzman, above, had been ordered to leave voluntarily. In July, another American deserter was removed from Canada by border officials after being arrested. Although the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not backed the Iraq war, it has shown little sympathy for American deserters, a significant change from the Vietnam War era.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/world/americas/14briefs-canada.html?ref=world

Iraq War resister Robin Long jailed, facing three years in Army stockade

Free Robin Long now!
Support GI resistance!

Soldier Who Deserted to Canada Draws 15-Month Term
By DAN FROSCH
August 23, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/23/us/23resist.html?ref=us

What you can do now to support Robin

1. Donate to Robin's legal defense

Online: http://couragetoresist.org/robinlong

By mail: Make checks out to “Courage to Resist / IHC” and note “Robin Long” in the memo field. Mail to:

Courage to Resist
484 Lake Park Ave #41
Oakland CA 94610

Courage to Resist is committed to covering Robin’s legal and related defense expenses. Thank you for helping make that possible.

Also: You are also welcome to contribute directly to Robin’s legal expenses via his civilian lawyer James Branum. Visit girightslawyer.com, select "Pay Online via PayPal" (lower left), and in the comments field note “Robin Long”. Note that this type of donation is not tax-deductible.

2. Send letters of support to Robin

Robin Long, CJC
2739 East Las Vegas
Colorado Springs CO 80906

Robin’s pre-trial confinement has been outsourced by Fort Carson military authorities to the local county jail.

Robin is allowed to receive hand-written or typed letters only. Do NOT include postage stamps, drawings, stickers, copied photos or print articles. Robin cannot receive packages of any type (with the book exception as described below).

3. Send Robin a money order for commissary items

Anything Robin gets (postage stamps, toothbrush, shirts, paper, snacks, supplements, etc.) must be ordered through the commissary. Each inmate has an account to which friends may make deposits. To do so, a money order in U.S. funds must be sent to the address above made out to "Robin Long, EPSO". The sender’s name must be written on the money order.

4. Send Robin a book

Robin is allowed to receive books which are ordered online and sent directly to him at the county jail from Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble. These two companies know the procedure to follow for delivering books for inmates.

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Yet Another Insult: Mumia Abu-Jamal Denied Full-Court Hearing by 3rd Circuit
& Other News on Mumia

This mailing sent by the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal

PLEASE FORWARD AND DISTRIBUTE WIDELY

1. Mumia Abu-Jamal Denied Full-Court Hearing by 3rd Circuit
2. Upcoming Events for Mumia
3. New Book on the framing of Mumia

1. MUMIA DENIED AGAIN -- Adding to its already rigged, discriminatory record with yet another insult to the world's most famous political prisoner, the federal court for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia has refused to give Mumia Abu-Jamal an en banc, or full court, hearing. This follows the rejection last March by a 3-judge panel of the court, of what is likely Mumia's last federal appeal.

The denial of an en banc hearing by the 3rd Circuit, upholding it's denial of the appeal, is just the latest episode in an incredible year of shoving the overwhelming evidence of Mumia's innocence under a rock. Earlier in the year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court also rejected Jamal's most recent state appeal. Taken together, state and federal courts in 2008 have rejected or refused to hear all the following points raised by Mumia's defense:

1. The state's key witness, Cynthia White, was pressured by police to lie on the stand in order to convict Mumia, according to her own admission to a confidant (other witnesses agreed she wasn't on the scene at all)

2. A hospital "confession" supposedly made by Mumia was manufactured by police. The false confession was another key part of the state's wholly-manufactured "case."

3. The 1995 appeals court judge, Albert Sabo--the same racist who presided at Mumia's original trial in 1982, where he said, "I'm gonna help 'em fry the n....r"--was prejudiced against him. This fact was affirmed even by Philadelphia's conservative newspapers at the time.

4. The prosecutor prejudiced the jury against inn ocence until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, by using a slimy tactic already rejected by the courts. But the prosecutor was upheld in Mumia's case!

5. The jury was racially skewed when the prosecution excluded most blacks from the jury, a practice banned by law, but, again, upheld against Mumia!

All of these defense claims were proven and true. But for the courts, these denials were just this year’s trampling on the evidence! Other evidence dismissed or ignored over the years include: hit-man Arnold Beverly said back in the 1990s that he, not Mumia, killed the slain police officer (Faulkner). Beverly passed a lie detector test and was willing to testify, but he got no hearing in US courts! Also, Veronica Jones, who saw two men run from the scene just after the shooting, was coerced by police to lie at the 1982 trial, helping to convict Mumia. But when she admitted this lie and told the truth on appeal in 1996, she was dismissed by prosecutor-in-robes Albert Sabo in 1996 as "not credible!" (She continues to support Mumia, and is writing a book on her experiences.) And William Singletary, the one witness who saw the whole thing and had no reason to lie, and who affirmed that someone else did the shooting, said that Mumia only arriv ed on the scene AFTER the officer was shot. His testimony has been rejected by the courts on flimsy grounds. And the list goes on.

FOR THE COURTS, INNOCENCE IS NO DEFENSE! And if you're a black revolutionary like Mumia the fix is in big-time. Illusions in Mumia getting a "new trial" out of this racist, rigged, kangaroo-court system have been dealt a harsh blow by the 3rd Circuit. We need to build a mass movement, and labor action, to free Mumia now!

2. UPCOMING EVENTS FOR MUMIA --

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA -- Speaking Tour by J Patrick O'Connor, the author of THE FRAMING OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, in the first week of October 2008, sponsored by the Mobilization To Free Mumia. Contributing to this tour, the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia will hold a public meeting with O'Connor on Friday October 3rd, place to be announced. San Francisco, South Bay and other East Bay venues to be announced. Contact the Mobilization at 510 268-9429, or the LAC at 510 763-2347, for more information.

3. NEW BOOK ON MUMIA

Efficiently and Methodically Framed--Mumia is innocent! That is the conclusion of THE FRAMING OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, by J Patrick O'Connor (Lawrence Hill Books), published earlier this year. The author is a former UPI reporter who took an interest in Mumia's case. He is now the editor of Crime Magazine (www.crimemagazine.com).

O'Connor offers a fresh perspective, and delivers a clear and convincing breakdown on perhaps the most notorious frame-up since Sacco and Vanzetti. THE FRAMING OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL is based on a thorough analysis of the 1982 trial and the 1995-97 appeals hearings, as well as previous writings on this case, and research on the MOVE organization (with which Mumia identifies), and the history of racist police brutality in Philadelphia.

While leaving some of the evidence of Mumia's innocence unconsidered or disregarded, this book nevertheless makes clear that there is a veritable mountain of evidence--most of it deliberately squashed by the courts--that shows that Mumia was blatantly and deliberately framed by corrupt cops and courts, who "fixed" this case against him from the beginning. This is a case not just of police corruption, or a racist lynching, though it is both. The courts are in this just as deep as the cops, and it reaches to the top of the equally corrupt political system.

"This book is the first to convincingly show how the Philadelphia Police Department and District Attorney's Office efficiently and methodically framed [Mumia Abu-Jamal]." (from the book jacket)

The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal has a limited number of THE FRAMING ordered from the publisher at a discount. We sold our first order of this book, and are now able to offer it at a lower price. $12 covers shipping. Send payment to us at our address below:

The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610 • 510.763.2347
www.laboractionmumia.org • LACFreeMumia@aol.com

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Sami Al-Arian Subjected to Worst Prison Conditions since Florida
Despite grant of bail, government continues to hold him
Dr. Al-Arian handcuffed

Hanover, VA - July 27, 2008 -

More than two weeks after being granted bond by a federal judge, Sami Al-Arian is still being held in prison. In fact, Dr. Al-Arian is now being subjected to the worst treatment by prison officials since his stay in Coleman Federal Penitentiary in Florida three years ago.

On July 12th, Judge Leonie Brinkema pronounced that Dr. Al-Arian was not a danger to the community nor a flight risk, and accordingly granted him bail before his scheduled August 13th trial. Nevertheless, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) invoked the jurisdiction it has held over Dr. Al-Arian since his official sentence ended last April to keep him from leaving prison. The ICE is ostensibly holding Dr. Al-Arian to complete deportation procedures but, given that Dr. Al-Arian's trial will take place in less than three weeks, it would seem somewhat unlikely that the ICE will follow through with such procedures in the near future.

Not content to merely keep Dr. Al-Arian from enjoying even a very limited stint of freedom, the government is using all available means to try to psychologically break him. Instead of keeping him in a prison close to the Washington DC area where his two oldest children live, the ICE has moved him to Pamunkey Regional Jail in Hanover, VA, more than one hundred miles from the capital. Regardless, even when Dr. Al-Arian was relatively close to his children, they were repeatedly denied visitation requests.

More critically, this distance makes it extremely difficult for Dr. Al-Arian to meet with his attorneys in the final weeks before his upcoming trial. This is the same tactic employed by the government in 2005 to try to prevent Dr. Al-Arian from being able to prepare a full defense.

Pamunkey Regional Jail has imposed a 23-hour lock-down on Dr. Al-Arian and has placed him in complete isolation, despite promises from the ICE that he would be kept with the general inmate population. Furthermore, the guards who transported him were abusive, shackling and handcuffing him behind his back for the 2.5-hour drive, callously disregarding the fact that his wrist had been badly injured only a few days ago. Although he was in great pain throughout the trip, guards refused to loosen the handcuffs.

At the very moment when Dr. Al-Arian should be enjoying a brief interlude of freedom after five grueling years of imprisonment, the government has once again brazenly manipulated the justice system to deliver this cruel slap in the face of not only Dr. Al-Arian, but of all people of conscience.

Make a Difference! Call Today!

Call Now!

Last April, your calls to the Hampton Roads Regional Jail pressured prison officials to stop their abuse of Dr. Al-Arian after only a few days.
Friends, we are asking you to make a difference again by calling:

Pamunkey Regional Jail: (804) 365-6400 (press 0 then ask to speak to the Superintendent's office). Ask why Dr. Al-Arian has been put under a 23-hour lockdown, despite the fact that a federal judge has clearly and unambiguously pronounced that he is not a danger to anyone and that, on the contrary, he should be allowed bail before his trial.

- If you do not reach the superintendent personally, leave a message on the answering machine. Call back every day until you do speak to the superintendent directly.
- Be polite but firm.

- After calling, click here to let us know you called.

Don't forget: your calls DO make a difference.

FORWARD TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS!

Write to Dr. Al-Arian

For those of you interested in sending personal letters of support to Dr. Al-Arian:

If you would like to write to Dr. Al-Arian, his new
address is:

Dr. Sami Al-Arian
Pamunkey Regional Jail
P.O. Box 485
Hanover, VA 23069

Email Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace: tampabayjustice@yahoo.com

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Video: The Carbon Connection -- The human impact of carbon trading

[This is an eye-opening and important video for all who are interested in our environment...bw]

Two communities affected by one new global market – the trade in carbon
dioxide. In Scotland, a town has been polluted by oil and chemical
companies since the 1940s. In Brazil, local people's water and land is
being swallowed up by destructive monoculture eucalyptus tree
plantations. Both communities now share a new threat.

As part of the deal to reduce greenhouse gases that cause dangerous
climate change, major polluters can now buy carbon credits that allow
them to pay someone else to reduce emissions instead of cutting their
own pollution. What this means for those living next to the oil industry
in Scotland is the continuation of pollution caused by their toxic
neighbours. Meanwhile in Brazil, the schemes that generate carbon
credits give an injection of cash for more planting of the damaging
eucalyptus plantations.

40 minutes | PAL/NTSC | English/Spanish/Portuguese subtitles.The Carbon Connection is a Fenceline Films presentation in partnership with the Transnational Institute Environmental Justice Project and Carbon Trade Watch, the Alert Against the Green Desert Movement, FASE-ES, and the Community Training and Development Unit.

Watch at http://links.org.au/node/575

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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