HOW MANY CRIMES CAN THE U.S. COMMIT IN A CENTURY? EVIDENTLY THEIR PENCHANT FOR MORE AND MORE EGREGIOUS CRIMES ARE LIMITLESS! IT'S UP TO US TO STOP THEM! U.S. OUT OF HAITI NOW! LEAVE THE FOOD AND SUPPLIES AND GET THE HELL OUT! AND TAKE YOUR MARINES, GUNS AND TANKS WITH YOU!
U.S. Marines prevent the distribution of food to starving people due to "lack of security." They bring a truck full of supplies then, because their chain of command says they haven't enough men with guns, they drive away with the truckload of food leaving the starving Haitians running after the truck empty-handed! This is shown in detail in the video in the New York Times titled, "Confusion in Haitian Countryside." The Marines-the strong, the brave--turn tail and run! INCAPABLE, EVEN, OF DISTRIBUTING FOOD TO UNARMED, STARVING, MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN!
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/01/22/world/americas/1247466678828/confusion-in-the-haitian-countryside.html?ref=world
HAITI ACTION COMMITTEE CALLS FOR EMERGENCY DEMONSTRATION
HAITI - AID THOSE WHO NEED IT MOST AND DO IT NOW!
PROTEST TONIGHT, MONDAY, JANUARY 25 5PM
POWELL AND MARKET, SAN FRANCISCO
Respect Haiti!
Aid, Not Troops! Life, Not Death, for Haiti!
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STOP SPENDING TRILLIONS ON THE WARS! BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
BAIL OUT THE PEOPLE OF HAITI NOT THE BANKSTERS!
U.S. OUT OF IRAQ & AFGHANISTAN!
FREE PALESTINE!
MONEY FOR HEALTHCARE, JOBS AND EDUCATION!
U.S. HANDS OFF LATIN AMERICA!
SAN FRANCISCO MARCH AND RALLY
SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 11:00 A.M., CIVIC CENTER
GET THE WORD OUT ABOUT MARCH 20!
Call 415-821-6545 for leafleting and posting schedule.
NEXT MARCH 20 COALITION MEETING:
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2010, 2:00 P.M.
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO
474 VALENCIA STREET
Between 16th and 15th Streets, SF)
For more information call: 415-821-6545
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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HAITI ACTION COMMITTEE CALLS FOR EMERGENCY DEMONSTRATION
HAITI - AID THOSE WHO NEED IT MOST AND DO IT NOW!
PROTEST MONDAY, JANUARY 25 5PM
POWELL AND MARKET, SAN FRANCISCO
Respect Haiti!
Aid, Not Troops! Life, Not Death, for Haiti!
As the death count rises in Haiti, the effects of a catastrophic natural disaster are compounded - as in Hurricane Katrina - by political failure, by the consequence of generations of U.S. intervention in Haiti. Six years after it forced out the democratic Aristide government, and replaced it with a brutal coup regime, the U.S. is advancing a massive military operation in Haiti. While thousands of American troops amass in Port-au-Prince, thousands of Haitians are dying from lack of water and medicine, starving while food supplies sit on the airport tarmac.
This is a time for aid, not charity; for solidarity, not a calculated U.S. military take-over. Demand accountability of the US government and the United Nations. Demand respect for the resiliency and courage of the Haitian people, and the return President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to his homeland, as the vast majority of Haiti's people demand.
PRIORITIZE MEDICAL AND HUMANITARIAN RELIEF, NOT MILITARY OCCUPATION.
Get the people of Port-au-Prince clean water, food, and medical treatment now
Allow President Aristide to return to Haiti from forced exile in South Africa.
Respect human rights. Do not criminalize a traumatized population that needs aid!
SPREAD THE WORD. LET'S MAKE THIS INTERNATIONAL
DONATE TO HAITI EMERGENCY RELIEF FUND: www.haitiaction.net
For more information, see: www.haitisolidarity.net
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Black History Month Forum & Benefit for Haiti Relief
Stand with the people of Haiti!
What the U.S. government isn't telling you
Fri. Feb. 5, 7pm
Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia St. at 16th St., SF
near 16th St. BART; Wheelchair accessible
Featured speaker: Pierre Labossiere, Haiti Action Committee
Plus, cultural performance and dinner to help raise funds
The people of the world are responding to help alleviate the terrible suffering of the Haitian people after the massive earthquake which struck Jan. 12. We urge everyone who can, to attend this important benefit for the Haitian people. Pierre Labossiere of the Haiti Action Committee will give an important update on the ongoing crisis.
Why is Haiti the most impoverished country in the Western hemisphere? The answer lies in the more than two centuries of U.S. exploitation of--and hostility to--the island nation, whose hard-won independence in 1804 from the French was only the beginning of its struggle for liberation.
Natural disasters are inevitable, but resource allocation and planning can play a decisive role in lessening their impact. But Haiti has been drained of vital resources and income for decades, due to extortionate loans by the U.S.-controlled International Monetary Fund and World Bank. These loans enrich the banks while Haitian people die.
Haiti was self-sufficient in rice production until the Clinton administration forced a "free trade" policy on Haiti in the 1990s, and soon U.S. agribusiness began to flood Haiti's markets, displacing thousands of farmers. The chronic malnutrition and poverty is a direct result of U.S. imperialist policy.
President Obama announced that USAID and the Departments of State and Defense will support the rescue and relief efforts in Haiti. Yet, these are the same government bodies responsible for the economic and military policies that reduced Haiti to ruins even before the earthquake hit. We call on the U.S. government to stop deportations of the Haitians from the U.S., and to immediately cancel Haiti's debt, in addition to real assistance for the Haitian people.
$10-20 donation. (no one turned way for lack of funds). All funds collected go to Haiti relief.
Sponsored by the ANSWER Coalition. Co-sponsored by FMLN-N. Calif., Bay Area Latin American Solidarity Coalition, Task Force on the Americas, and others.
Call 415-821-6545 for more info.
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NEXT MARCH 20 COALITION MEETING:
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2010, 2:00 P.M.
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO
474 VALENCIA STREET
Between 16th and 15th Streets, SF)
For more information call: 415-821-6545
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National Call for March 4 Strike and Day of Action To Defend Public Education
By Elly
http://defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com/?blogsub=confirmed#subscribe-blog
California has recently seen a massive movement erupt in defense of public education -- but layoffs, fee hikes, cuts, and the re-segregation of public education are attacks taking place throughout the country. A nationwide resistance movement is needed.
We call on all students, workers, teachers, parents, and their organizations and communities across the country to massively mobilize for a Strike and Day of Action in Defense of Public Education on March 4, 2010. Education cuts are attacks against all of us, particularly in working-class communities and communities of color.
The politicians and administrators say there is no money for education and social services. They say that "there is no alternative" to the cuts. But if there's money for wars, bank bailouts, and prisons, why is there no money for public education?
We can beat back the cuts if we unite students, workers, and teachers across all sectors of public education - Pre K-12, adult education, community colleges, and state-funded universities. We appeal to the leaders of the trade union movement to support and organize strikes and/or mass actions on March 4. The weight of workers and students united in strikes and mobilizations would shift the balance of forces entirely against the current agenda of cuts and make victory possible.
Building a powerful movement to defend public education will, in turn, advance the struggle in defense of all public-sector workers and services and will be an inspiration to all those fighting against the wars, for immigrants rights, in defense of jobs, for single-payer health care, and other progressive causes.
Why March 4? On October 24, 2009 more than 800 students, workers, and teachers converged at UC Berkeley at the Mobilizing Conference to Save Public Education. This massive meeting brought together representatives from over 100 different schools, unions, and organizations from all across California and from all sectors of public education. After hours of open collective discussion, the participants voted democratically, as their main decision, to call for a Strike and Day of Action on March 4, 2010. All schools, unions and organizations are free to choose their specific demands and tactics -- such as strikes, rallies, walkouts, occupations, sit-ins, teach-ins, etc. -- as well as the duration of such actions.
Let's make March 4 an historic turning point in the struggle against the cuts, layoffs, fee hikes, and the re-segregation of public education.
- The California Coordinating Committee
To endorse this call and to receive more information contact:
march4strikeanddayofaction@gmail.com
and check out:
www.defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com
Andy Griggs
andyca6@gmail.com
310-704-3217
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U.S. OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN NOW!
FREE PALESTINE!
San Francisco March and Rally
on Saturday, March 20, 2010
11am, Civic Center Plaza
National March on Washington
on Saturday, March 20, 2010
Fri., March 19 Day of Action & Outreach in D.C.
People from all over the country are organizing to converge on Washington, D.C., to demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan and Iraq.
On Saturday, March 20, 2010, there will be a massive National March & Rally in D.C. A day of action and outreach in Washington, D.C., will take place on Friday, March 19, preceding the Saturday march.
There will be coinciding mass marches on March 20 in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The national actions are initiated by a large number of organizations and prominent individuals. see below)
Click here to become an endorser:
http://answer.pephost.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=5940&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&autologin=true&link=endorse-body-1
Click here to make a donation:
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Donation?ACTION=SHOW_DONATION_OPTIONS&CAMPAIGN_ID=2302&autologin=true&donate=body-1&JServSessionIdr002=2yzk5fh8x2.app13b
We will march together to say "No Colonial-type Wars and Occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine!" We will march together to say "No War Against Iran!" We will march together to say "No War for Empire Anywhere!"
Instead of war, we will demand funds so that every person can have a job, free and universal health care, decent schools, and affordable housing.
March 20 is the seventh anniversary of the criminal war of aggression launched by Bush and Cheney against Iraq. One million or more Iraqis have died. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops have lost their lives or been maimed, and continue to suffer a whole host of enduring problems from this terrible war.
This is the time for united action. The slogans on banners may differ, but all those who carry them should be marching shoulder to shoulder.
Killing and dying to avoid the perception of defeat
Bush is gone, but the war and occupation in Iraq still go on. The Pentagon is demanding a widening of the war in Afghanistan. They project an endless war with shifting battlefields. And a "single-payer" war budget that only grows larger and larger each year. We must act.
Both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were predicated on the imperial fantasy that the U.S. could create stable, proxy colonial-type governments in both countries. They were to serve as an extension of "American" power in these strategic and resource-rich regions.
That fantasy has been destroyed. Now U.S. troops are being sent to kill or be killed so that the politicians in uniform "the generals and admirals") and those in three-piece suits "our elected officials") can avoid taking responsibility for a military setback in wars that should have never been started. Their military ambitions are now reduced to avoiding the appearance of defeat.
That is exactly what happened in Vietnam! Avoiding defeat, or the perception of defeat, was the goal Nixon and Kissinger set for themselves when they took office in 1969. For this noble cause, another 30,000 young GIs perished before the inevitable troop pullout from Vietnam in 1973. The number of Vietnamese killed between 1969 and 1973 was greater by many hundreds of thousands.
All of us can make the difference - progress and change comes from the streets and from the grassroots.
The people went to the polls in 2008, and the enthusiasm and desire for change after eight years of the Bush regime was the dominant cause that led to election of a big Democratic Party majority in both Houses of Congress and the election of Barack Obama to the White House.
But it should now be obvious to all that waiting for politicians to bring real change - on any front - is simply a prescription for passivity by progressives and an invitation to the array of corporate interests from military contractors to the banks, to big oil, to the health insurance giants that dominate the political life of the country. These corporate interests work around the clock to frustrate efforts for real change, and they are the guiding hand behind the recent street mobilizations of the ultra-right.
It is up to us to act. If people had waited for politicians to do the right thing, there would have never been a Civil Rights Act, or unions, women's rights, an end to the Vietnam war or any of the profound social achievements and basic rights that people cherish.
It is time to be back in the streets. Organizing centers are being set up in cities and towns throughout the country.
We must raise $50,000 immediately just to get started. Please make your contribution today. We need to reserve buses, which are expensive $1,800 from NYC, $5,000 from Chicago, etc.). We have to print 100,000 leaflets, posters and stickers. There will be other substantial expenses as March 20 draws closer.
Please become an endorser and active supporter of the March 20 National March on Washington.
Please make an urgently needed tax-deductible donation today. We can't do this without your active support.
The initiators of the March 20 National March on Washington preceded by the March 19 Day of Action and Outreach in D.C.) include: the ANSWER Coalition; Muslim American Society Freedom; National Council of Arab Americans; Cynthia McKinney; Malik Rahim, co-founder of Common Ground Collective; Ramsey Clark; Cindy Sheehan; Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK; Deborah Sweet, Director, World Can't Wait; Mike Ferner, President, Veterans for Peace; Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild; Ron Kovic, author of "Born on the 4th of July"; Juan Jose Gutierrez, Director, Latino Movement USA; Col. Ann Wright ret.); March Forward!; Partnership for Civil Justice; Palestinian American Women Association; Alliance for a Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines; Alliance for Global Justice; Claudia de la Cruz, Pastor, Iglesia San Romero de Las Americas-UCC; Phil Portluck, Social Justice Ministry, Covenant Baptist Church, D.C.; Blase & Theresa Bonpane, Office of the Americas; Coalition for Peace and Democracy in Honduras; Comite Pro-Democracia en Mexico; Frente Unido de los Pueblos Americanos; Comites de Base FMLN, Los Angeles; Free Palestine Alliance; GABRIELA Network; Justice for Filipino American Veterans; KmB Pro-People Youth; Students Fight Back; Jim Lafferty, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild - LA Chapter; LEF Foundation; National Coalition to Free the Angola 3; Community Futures Collective; Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival; Companeros del Barrio; Barrio Unido for Full and Unconditional Amnesty, Bay Area United Against War.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
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The US Social Forum II
" June 22-26, 2010 "
Detroit, Michigan, USA
Another World Is Possible! Another US is Necessary!
http://www.ussf2010.org/
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B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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Lost Generation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA
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Sign the petition. Drop the charges against Alexis Hutchinson!
"...four separate court martial charges have been brought against Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, a single parent with a one-year old son, who missed deployment in early November 2009 when her childcare plan fell through at the last moment, due to circumstances beyond her control."
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/811/1/
Cuba establishes hospital in Port-au-Prince
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2010/01/17/kastenbaum.haiti.la.paz.hosp.cnn
Disputes emerge over Haiti aid control
[THIS IS A MUST-SEE VIDEO. U.S. AID IS MILITARY OCCUPATION...BW]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F5TwEK24sA&feature=player_embedded
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Please sign the petition to stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal and
and forward it to all your lists.
"Mumia Abu-Jamal and The Global Abolition of the Death Penalty"
http://www.petitiononline.com/Mumialaw/petition.html
To: President Barack Obama
WE THE UNDERSIGNED petition you to speak out against the death penalty for Mumia Abu-Jamal, and all the men, women and children facing execution around the world. This ultimate form of punishment is unacceptable in a civilized society and undermines human dignity. (U.N. General Assembly, Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty, Resolution 62/149, Dec. 18, 2007; reaffirmed, Resolution 63/168, Dec. 18, 2008.)
Mr. Abu-Jamal, a renowned black journalist and author, has been on Pennsylvania's death row for nearly three decades. Even though you do not have direct control over his fate as a state death-row inmate, we ask that you as a moral leader on the world stage call for a global moratorium on the death penalty in his and all capital cases. Mr. Abu-Jamal has become a global symbol, the "Voice of the Voiceless", in the struggle against capital punishment and human-rights abuses. There are over 20,000 awaiting execution around the globe, with over 3,000 on death rows in the United States.
The 1982 trial of Mr. Abu-Jamal was tainted by racism, and occurred in Philadelphia which has a history of police corruption and discrimination. Amnesty International, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, "determined that numerous aspects of this case clearly failed to meet international standards safeguarding the fairness of legal proceedings. [T]he interests of justice would best be served by the granting of a new trial to Mumia Abu-Jamal. The trial should fully comply with international standards of justice and should not allow for the reimposition of the death penalty." (A Life In the Balance - The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, at 34, Amnesty Int'l, 2000; www. Amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/001/2000.)
[Note: This petition is approved by Mumia Abu-Jamal and his lead attorney, Robert R. Bryan, San Francisco (E-mail: MumiaLegalDefense@gmail.com; Website: www.MumiaLegalDefense.org).]
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Alert! New Threat To Mumia's Life!
Supreme Court Set To Announce A Decision
On the State Appeal To Reinstate Mumia's Death Sentence
17 January 2010
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 Oakland CA 94610
(510) 763-2347
Mumia Abu-Jamal, an innocent man on death row and the world's best-known political prisoner, now faces an immediate new threat to his life from the US Supreme Court. The Court ruled last year on Mumia's appeal, by summarily refusing to even consider a reversal of his unjust 1982 murder conviction in a blatantly racist court. And last week, the Supreme Court discussed a cross-appeal by the State of Pennsylvania to reinstate Mumia's death sentence, which had been put on hold by a federal court in 2001. A ruling could be announced as early as Tuesday this week.
It would be an illusion to expect good news. Supporters should stay tuned, and be prepared to participate in actions to free Mumia!
The Vendetta Against Mumia
In making it's flat-out rejection of Mumia's appeal (which it did without making any statement), the Supreme Court had to knowingly violate its own precedent in the 1986 Batson v Kentucky decision. This ruling famously said that purging a jury on the basis of race was unconstitutional. In Mumia's case, at least 10 black jurors were excluded for reasons not applied to their white counterparts. Under Batson, such violations require that the conviction be thrown out!
But this was Mumia Abu-Jamal, the falsely accused "cop killer." And while evidence of his innocence has always been available, along with evidence of the corruption of the cops who framed him, Mumia is the object of a world-wide vendetta led by the Fraternal Order of Police and numerous pundits and politicians. So an exception was made.
The Spisak Case
Meanwhile, the 2001 federal district court decision (besides upholding Mumia's conviction) said that Mumia's death sentence resulted from improper instructions to the jury. The trial judge's instructions to the jury on sentencing had said that a decision had to be unanimous, even on mitigating factors that could result in a sentence of life in prison, instead of death. This violated another Supreme Court precedent, Mills v Maryland, which held that such mitigating factors required only a simple majority.
After tossing out Mumia's appeal in 2009, the Court took it's time on the State's cross-appeal, because another case, Smith v Spisak, dealt with the same issue of jury instructions in sentencing. Frank Spisak is a neo-Nazi who made racist statements in court, wore a Hitler mustache, and confessed to three hate-crime murders in Ohio. The two cases could hardly be more different, yet appeals courts threw out death sentences in both on the basis of the Mills decision. But now, on January 12th, the Supreme Court has reinstated Spisak's death sentence. The decision on Mumia followed shortly thereafter, and the implications are clear. The Spisak decision could open the door to what the cops, courts and ruling class generally want to do most: legally murder Mumia!
The Supreme Court said Mills didn't apply to Spisak for various reasons (that don't seem to apply to Mumia), but the legal ins and outs aren't the point. The point is that the entire legal system is at the service not of the law, but of power in society.
As Mumia Abu-Jamal said in a recent interview, "[Spisak's] case differs from mine substantially, not just in terms of facts, but also in terms of law. But the law is the tool of those in power, so how they use it doesn't depend on the law; it depends on power."
(-Free Speech Radio News, 15 January 2010).
The Question of Innocence!
As an award-winning radical journalist, former Black Panther, and critic of police brutality and malfeasance, Mumia Abu-Jamal is considered an enemy of the state. As such, legal decisions have systematically gone against him, regardless of the law. Batson is only one example of this "Mumia exception."
Manufacturing false confessions, planting evidence, corrupting "witnesses" to say they saw what they didn't see--all of these "illegal" tricks were used against Mumia. The real evidence points to Mumia's innocence, including another man who confessed, witnesses who said Mumia didn't shoot anybody but who were never called to testify, and photos of the crime scene that show that police lied. But very little of this has ever been heard in court.
Rather than follow the "law," the criminal justice system follows a simple rule: "If we want to get you, we will." The US Supreme Court (Herrera v Collins), and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (signed by Bill Clinton in 1996), have effectively said: innocence is no defense!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal has never thought that calling for a new trial, or appealing to the US Justice Department to right the wrongs that they helped create, were anything more than distractions, getting in the way of a mass, working-class movement to free Mumia.
Mumia is a class-war prisoner, and it will take a class struggle to free him: that was position of longshore workers in the International Longshore and Warehouse
Union (ILWU) when they shut down all the ports on the West Coast in 1999, and headed the march in San Francisco, to free Mumia. Oakland teachers, and teachers in Rio de Janeiro Brazil also took work actions to support Mumia. Only this kind of working-class action, combined with mass mobilizations, can defeat a determined frame-up by cops, courts and politicians. Mumia Abu-Jamal is now in imminent danger of a new execution order, so the need for action is urgent. For workers action to free Mumia!
Stay in touch for demonstration details this week.
Visit our newly-rebuilt and updated web site for background information on Mumia's innocence. See the "What You Can Do Now" page: www.laboractionmumia.org
- The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 Oakland CA 94610
(510) 763-2347
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Urgent action needed to stop executions in CA
By Stephanie Faucher, Death Penalty Focus
January 8, 2009
stefanie@deathpenalty.org
Dear supporters,
Please take action today to stop executions from resuming in California. This is very urgent, without your help executions could occur in the near future.
Both Californians and non-Californians are encouraged to take action.
Letters must be received by January 20, 2010 at 5pm PDT.
BACKGROUND:
On January 4, 2010, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) proposed minor revisions to its lethal injection procedures in the form of amendments to its previously proposed procedures. CDCR set a fifteen-day comment period ending January 20, 2010 at 5:00 p.m. during which the public can submit written comments on the proposed amendments.
The amended regulations, which are virtually identical to the regulations proposed in May 2009, can be found here:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=DsL2ekA4m2nB2qSfspkiCinFkqj%2BKN3u
The above link contains only those regulations that were amended. To see the full text of the proposed regulations proposed in May 2009, go to this link:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=NHU2PZL0sQWgLuC6BWt%2BfynFkqj%2BKN3u
TAKE ACTION:
We have created a draft letter which you can personalize and send here:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1265/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1988
A separate letter will also be sent the Governor of California.
Thank you for taking action!
BAUAW responds:
Here is the letter I wrote as a representative of BAUAW:
I oppose the racist death penalty to its very core. There is no "humanitarian" way to murder someone. It's barbaric.
Already so many who have been on death row for decades have been proven to be innocent victims of gross forensic mistakes or blatant police frame-ups.
The poor are routinely afforded inferior and indifferent legal services that serve mainly as a go-between the prosecution and accused. It can hardly be called legal defense.
Justice is not served equally or fairly in the United States. Most other nations have done away with the death penalty. Here our "great minds of justice" debate the best way to kill.
Under these concrete circumstances, instead of limiting the appeals process for prisoners, the justice system should bend over backwards to hear and re-hear the evidence and set free those who have been convicted unfairly.
Death should never be our conscious choice as a nation.
I am also very concerned about the newly revised lethal injection procedures.
In particular, I have the following concerns:
* The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) added a news article from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat to the rulemaking file. The article mentions that the original creator of the three-drug lethal injection formula has suggested ways to reform the process, including keeping up with changing drugs and science and proper training of lethal injection team members. The recent experience of Romell Broom in Ohio reinforces a point raised in the article, that botched executions are a real possibility, especially in California, due to the limited training of the lethal injection team members and California's repeated failure to meaningfully change its protocol.
* CDCR's amended regulations continue to be wholly inadequate and inapplicable to female condemned inmates. The regulations now specify that a female condemned inmate shall be transported to San Quentin no sooner than 72 hours and no later than six hours prior to the scheduled execution, but contain no provisions to implement the required 45-day chronology of events prior to her arrival at San Quentin. CDCR also fails to address how and if the female condemned inmate will be in contact with her family members and her legal team during her transport, which may take place on the same day as her scheduled execution.
* Contrary to CDCR's claim, the amended regulations continue to treat the condemned prisoner's witnesses differently than the victim's witnesses. The victim's family is allowed an unlimited number of witnesses at the execution, whereas the prisoner scheduled to die is limited to five individuals other than her or his spiritual adviser. In the event of lack of space, the victim's family is provided with the option of remote viewing of the execution, while the same option is not extended to the inmate's family.
*The distinction drawn between Chaplains and "approved" Spiritual Advisors is confusing and it is unclear how and when a person may become a "pre-approved" Spiritual Advisor.
I expect that you will take these concerns very seriously.
Sincerely,
Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War, bauaw.org
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The Pay at the Top
The compensation research firm Equilar compiled data reflecting pay for 200 chief executives at 198 public companies that filed their annual proxies by March 27 and had revenue of at least $6.3 billion. (Two companies, Motorola and Synnex, had co-C.E.O.'s.) | See a detailed description of the methodology.
http://projects.nytimes.com/executive_compensation?ref=business
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AMAZING SPEECH BY WAR VETERAN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akm3nYN8aG8
The Unemployment Game Show: Are You *Really* Unemployed? - From Mint.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulu3SCAmeBA
Video: Gaza Lives On
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU5Wi2jhnW0
ASSESSMENT - "LEFT IN THE COLD"- CROW CREEK - 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmfue_pjwho&feature=PlayList&p=217F560F18109313&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=5
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Tom Zaniello is a living, walking encyclopedia of films about labour.
I heard him speak at a conference once, but it wasn't so much a speech as a high-speed tour through dozens of film clips, lovingly selected, all aiming to make a point.
I don't know anyone who knows more about cinema and the labour movement than he does.
And Working Stiffs, Union Maids, Reds, and Riffraff: An expanded guide to films about labor is his, well, encyclopedia about the subject.
It's a 434 page guide to 350 labour films from around the world, ranging from those you've heard of - Salt of the Earth, The Grapes of Wrath, Roger & Me - to those you've never heard of but will fall in love with once you see them.
Zaniello describes all the films in detail, tells you whether they're available for rental or purchase, and, if so, where.
Fiction and nonfiction, the films are about unions, labour history, working-class life, political movements, and the struggle between labour and capital.
Each entry includes critical commentary, production data, cast list, suggested related films, and annotated references to books and Web sites for further reading.
If you want to know more about labour films, buy this book.
And remember that every copy you purchase helps support LabourStart.
Thanks very much.
Eric Lee
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Letter from Lynne Stewart from behind bars:
Dear Sisters and Brothers, Friends and Supporters:
Well the moment we all hoped would never come is upon us. Good bye to a good cup of coffee in the morning, a soft chair, the hugs of grandchildren and the smaller pleasures in life. I must say I am being treated well and that is due to my lawyer team and your overwhelming support.
While I have received "celebrity" treatment here in MCC - high visibility - conditions for the other women are deplorable. Medical care, food, education, recreation are all at minimal levels. If it weren't for the unqualified bonds of sisterhood and the commissary it would be even more dismal.
My fellow prisoners have supplied me with books and crosswords, a warm it is cold in here most of the time) sweat shirt and pants, treats from the commissary, and of course, jailhouse humor. Most important many of them know of my work and have a deep reservoir of can I say it? Respect.
I continue to both answer the questions put to me by them, I also can't resist commenting on the T.V. news or what is happening on the floor - a little LS politics always! Smile) to open hearts and minds!
Liz Fink, my lawyer leader, believes I will be here at MCC-NY for a while - perhaps a year before being moved to prison. Being is jail is like suddenly inhabiting a parallel universe but at least I have the luxury of time to read! Tomorrow I will get my commissary order which may include an AM/FM Radio and be restored to WBAI and music classical and jazz).
We are campaigning to get the bladder operation scheduled before I came in to MCC) to happen here in New York City. Please be alert to the website I case I need some outside support.
I want to say that the show of support outside the Courthouse on Thursday as I was "transported" is so cherished by me. The broad organizational representation was breathtaking and the love and politics expressed the anger too) will keep me nourished through this.
Organize - Agitate, Agitate, Agitate! And write to me and others locked down by the Evil Empire.
Love Struggle, Lynne Stewart
FREE LYNNE STEWART NOW!
Lynne Stewart in Jail!
For further information contact: Jeff Mackler, Coordinator, West Coast Lynne Stewart Defense Committee 510-268-9429 jmackler@lmi.net
Mail tax free contributions payable to National Lawyers Guild Foundation. Write in memo box: "Lynne Stewart Defense." Mail to: Lynne Stewart Defense, P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610.
SEND RESOLUTIONS AND STATEMENTS OF SUPPORT TO DEFENSE ATTORNEY JOSHUA L. DRATEL, ESQ. FAX: 212) 571 3792 AND EMAIL: jdratel@aol.com
SEND PROTESTS TO ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER:
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Department of Justice Main Switchboard - 202-514-2000
AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
Office of the Attorney General Public Comment Line - 202-353-1555
To send Lynne a letter, write:
Lynne Stewart
53504-054
MCC-NY
150 Park Row
New York, NY NY 10007
Lynne Stewart speaks in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOQ5_VKRf5k&feature=related
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With a New Smile, 'Rage' Fades Away [SINGLE PAYER NOW!!!]
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/12/08/health/20091208_Clinic/index.html?ref=us
FTA [F**k The Army] Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HlkgPCgU7g
Jon Stewart: Obama Is Channeling Bush VIDEO)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/03/jon-stewart-obama-is-chan_n_378283.html
US anti-war activists protest
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/12/200912283650408132.html
Buffy Sainte Marie - No No Keshagesh
[Keshagesh is the Cree word to describe a greedy puppy that wants to keep eating everything, a metaphor for corporate greed]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKmAb1gNN74&feature=player_embedded#
Buffy Sainte-Marie - No No Keshagesh lyrics:
http://www.lyricsmode.com/?i=print_lyrics&id=705368
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The Tar Sands Blow
Hi -
I just signed the Tar Sands Blow petition -- and I hope you'll do the same.
The Canadian tar sands produce the dirtiest oil on earth -- including five times the greenhouse gases of conventional oil. World leaders meet next month in Copenhagen to deal with climate change. Sign the petition -- so that we all don't get a raw deal.
http://ien.thetarsandsblow.org/
The Story of Mouseland: As told by Tommy Douglas in 1944
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqgOvzUeiAA
The Communist Manifesto illustrated by Cartoons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KUl4yfABE4
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HELP VFP PUT THIS BOOK IN YOUR HIGH SCHOOL OR PUBLIC LIBRARY
For a donation of only $18.95, we can put a copy of the book "10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military" into a public or high school library of your choice. [Reason number 1: You may be killed]
A letter and bookplate will let readers know that your donation helped make this possible.
Putting a book in either a public or school library ensures that students, parents, and members of the community will have this valuable information when they need it.
Don't have a library you would like us to put it in? We'll find one for you!
https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/826/t/9311/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=4906
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This is a must-see video about the life of Oscar Grant, a young man who loved his family and was loved by his family. It's important to watch to understand the tremendous loss felt by his whole family as a result of his cold-blooded murder by BART police officers--Johannes Mehserle being the shooter while the others held Oscar down and handcuffed him to aid Mehserle in the murder of Oscar Grant January 1, 2009.
The family wants to share this video here with you who support justice for Oscar Grant.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/21/18611878.php
WE DEMAND JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT!
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Troy Anthony Davis is an African American man who has spent the last 18 years on death row for a murder he did not commit. There is no physical evidence tying him to the crime and seven out of nine witnesses have recanted. New evidence and new testimony have been presented to the Georgia courts, but the justice system refuses to consider this evidence, which would prove Troy Davis' innocence once and for all.
Sign the petition and join the NAACP, Amnesty International USA, and other partners in demanding justice for Troy Davis!
http://www.iamtroy.com/
For Now, High Court Punts on Troy Davis, on Death Row for 18 Years
By Ashby Jones
Wall Street Journal Law Blog
June 30, 2009
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/06/30/for-now-high-court-punts-on-troy-davis-on-death-row-for-18-years/
Take action now:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&aid=12361&ICID=A0906A01&tr=y&auid=5030305
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Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
New videos from April 24 Oakland Mumia event
http://abu-jamal-news.com/article?name=jlboak
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense in the U.S. Our legal effort is the front line of the battle for Mumia's freedom and life. His legal defense needs help. The costs are substantial for our litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court and at the state level. To help, please make your checks payable to the National Lawyers Guild Foundation indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). All donations are tax deductible under the Internal Revenue Code, section 501c)3), and should be mailed to:
It is outrageous and a violation of human rights that Mumia remains in prison and on death row. His life hangs in the balance. My career has been marked by successfully representing people facing death in murder cases. I will not rest until we win Mumia's case. Justice requires no less.
With best wishes,
Robert R. Bryan
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
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Short Video About Al-Awda's Work
The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected over the past nine years.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl
Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial support to carry out its work.
To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the simple instructions.
Thank you for your generosity!
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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT!
FLASHPOINTS Interview with Innocent San Quentin Death Row Inmate
Kevin Cooper -- Aired Monday, May 18,2009
http://www.flashpoints.net/#GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE
To learn more about Kevin Cooper go to:
savekevincooper.org
LINKS
San Francisco Chronicle article on the recent ruling:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/13/BAM517J8T3.DTL
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling and dissent:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/05/11/05-99004o.pdf
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COURAGE TO RESIST!
Support the troops who refuse to fight!
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
Donate:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/21/57/
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C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) Obstacles to Recovery in Haiti May Prove Daunting Beyond Other Disasters
By RAY RIVERA
January 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/world/americas/23haiti.html?ref=world
2) Emergency Air Cargo Shipments to Haiti Face High Prices That May Last Awhile
By BARRY MEIER and VIKAS BAJAJ
January 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/world/americas/23cargo.html?ref=world
3) Jobless Rates Rose in 42 States in November
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/business/economy/23jobless.html?ref=business
4) "Foreclose the War, Not People's Homes"
By Linden Gawboy
Created 01/16/2010 - 18:11
http://twincities.indymedia.org/2010/jan/%E2%80%9Cforeclose-war-not-people%E2%80%99s-homes%E2%80%9D
5) Recession reveals new face of homeless in mid-Hudson
'It could happen to you or your neighbor'
By Steve Israel
Times Herald-Record
January 24, 2010 2:00 AM
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100124/NEWS/1240344
6) When the Media Is the Disaster: Covering Haiti
Rebecca Solnit, Author of "A Paradise Built in Hell," about Hurricane Katrina
Posted: January 21, 2010 12:56 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-solnit/when-the-media-is-the-dis_b_431617.html
7) Ready to Spend, but Not to Boast
"One banker's wife, who did not want to be named, said she and others like her felt more financially secure these days. 'There is the sense in the community that the world is not coming to an end,' she said. Of bonus critics, she added, executives like her husband work hard and are unjustly singled out as greedy. 'Everybody wants someone to blame,' she said, 'and rich people are an easy target.'"
By LAURA M. HOLSON
January 22, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/fashion/24bonus.html?ref=fashion
8) More Than 150,000 Have Been Buried, Haiti Says
"Recent estimates from the International Organization for Migration show that 370,000 people are living in "improvised shelter," outside largely in camps without access to water, sanitation or food."
By DAMIEN CAVE
January 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/world/americas/24bodies.html?hp
9) Students Face a Class Struggle at State Colleges
By KATHARINE MIESZKOWSKI
January 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/education/24sfstudent.html?ref=us
10) Shrimp's Dirty Secrets: Why America's Favorite Seafood Is a Health
and Environmental Nightmare
By Jill Richardson, AlterNet
Posted on January 25, 2010, Printed on January 25, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145369/
11) In Haiti, Many Amputees Have No Place to Go
By RAY RIVERA
January 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/world/americas/25amputee.html?ref=world
12) On Street Tracing Haiti's Pain, Survival Goes On
By DEBORAH SONTAG and GINGER THOMPSON
January 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/world/americas/25street.html?ref=world
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1) Obstacles to Recovery in Haiti May Prove Daunting Beyond Other Disasters
By RAY RIVERA
January 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/world/americas/23haiti.html?ref=world
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - The relief effort in Haiti could end up being the most difficult, faith-testing recovery from a modern disaster, perhaps even exceeding that from the 2004 Asian tsunami, according to United Nation officials and aid groups with experience in large-scale catastrophes.
Haiti, already the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, was barely showing signs of recovery from the 2008 hurricane season when the earthquake flattened its capital, Port-au-Prince, crippling the country's already weakened transportation and service delivery network.
Local aid groups that would normally help guide international efforts were damaged themselves, while the United Nations lost at least 70 staff members, and 146 more remain unaccounted for.
"You're talking about a country that pre-earthquake had limited resources and capability, and what resources it did have were concentrated in the capital," said Kim Bolduc, who is coordinating the relief effort for the United Nations. "This context helps explain why this emergency is probably the most complex in history, more than the tsunami, more than the Pakistan earthquake" of 2005.
The difficulties have confounded aid workers across the country, even those who have dealt with some of world's worst disasters in recent years. At a first aid tent in the middle of a soccer field where hundreds of people are now living in Jacmel, a coastal city that was among the worst-hit, a French doctor threw his hands in the air.
"I am very, very surprised," the doctor, François Sarda, a volunteer with Aides Actions Internationales Pompiers, said of the three days it took the aid group to get in and the chaos he found when he finally arrived. The group was forced to fly to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and take a boat from there. "At least in the tsunami we had some infrastructure," he said.
To help manage the chaos, the United Nations and the United States signed a two-page memorandum of understanding on Friday to formalize their roles and end the tensions that flared earlier in the week. The United Nations had complained about the American military's handling of flights at the airport here, saying critical deliveries of food from the World Food Program were being unnecessarily delayed.
Under the memorandum, Haiti maintains overall control of the aid and rescue efforts, though the United Nations is in charge of coordinating the work. But the memorandum does not put American soldiers or other personnel under United Nations command. The Americans remain focused on delivering aid, while the United Nations handles peacekeeping.
Still, the United States is known for throwing its considerable weight around in international aid efforts, so it is unclear if the new agreement will solve the earlier problems.
Doctors Without Borders has complained about the American military's running of the airport. The group has landed some planes, but has had others diverted, forcing it to truck in supplies from the Dominican Republic, according to Marie-Noëlle Rodrigue, deputy director for operations for Doctors Without Borders in Paris.
"It's a very confusing situation and difficult to understand," Ms. Rodrigue said. Jason Cone, a spokesman in New York, said much of the confusion involved who was coordinating matters. He said airport access had improved in recent days through direct contact with the Pentagon and the United States Agency for International Development.
Maj. Nathan Miller, with the Air Force's 23rd Special Tactics Squadron, said that the military was not playing favorites, and that military planes now arrived during off-peak night hours to make more room for international aid flights.
The challenges faced by some Haitian organizations are confounding. Danièle Magloire, a senior director of Fokal, a Haitian human rights organization, began working from an empty room in a friend's apartment building after her own home and office were damaged. The room still lacks electricity and water, like most buildings in the city. Residents of the neighborhood whose homes were destroyed camp outside on the street.
"We cannot possibly make it alone in the struggle to rebuild," Ms. Magloire said. "The United Nations, with its immense bureaucracy, cannot make it alone. We need all the help we can get, and we know that it must come from the United States at this critical moment."
Despite the troubles, the recovery effort is finding better footing by the day. Though rescuers are still hoping to defy the dwindling chances of finding anyone alive in the mountains of rubble 10 days after the earthquake, aid workers are shifting their focus to delivering shelter, water and medical care to hundreds of thousands of injured, hungry and displaced Haitians. They are racing against the approach of the rainy season, which aid groups fear could unleash disease.
United Nations officials said Friday that most surviving supermarkets would reopen next week, and that cellphone service should be fully restored by Saturday, with 40 banks also reopening. Lines for gasoline have also eased, with officials reporting that 30 percent of the city's gas stations were now operational and that there was no longer a shortage of gasoline.
But problems persist bringing in diesel fuel, hobbling efforts to gear up aid distribution, Edmond Mulet, the chief United Nations official in Haiti, said in a videoconference with reporters.
Although enough food is on hand to reach many more people, only 100,000 received such aid on Thursday because of a lack of trucks and fuel, he said.
"We have the food to be distributed," he said. "We just don't have the vehicles."
The United Nations needs to bring in 10,000 gallons of diesel per day from the Dominican Republic just to keep water trucks circulating, Mr. Mulet said.
Ms. Bolduc is coordinating the humanitarian efforts, but how many aid groups are now roaming the country is anybody's guess, she said. About 375 have registered with her office, but she says she believes that there are many more that have found their own way into the country and are providing relief.
American rescue teams were among the first to experience the knot of troubles. Usually, when they set down in a country after a natural disaster, the local government has already identified buildings where there are known survivors so they can race to the scene. But here, without government input, they had to drive through the city themselves, making snap assessments about where survivors were likely to be found.
They had trouble getting their equipment; its arrival at the airport was delayed for several days. Then they faced a shortage of vehicles, gas and drivers at the United States Embassy.
"We have zero infrastructure here," said Louie Fernandez, one of 80 rescuers from Miami-Dade County in Florida. "What are you supposed to do?"
Despite the monumental obstacles that must be overcome, Ms. Bolduc said, "It's not mission impossible, if all the players work together."
Reporting was contributed by Damien Cave and Simon Romero from Port-au-Prince, Neil MacFarquhar from the United Nations, and Doreen Carvajal from Paris.
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2) Emergency Air Cargo Shipments to Haiti Face High Prices That May Last Awhile
By BARRY MEIER and VIKAS BAJAJ
January 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/world/americas/23cargo.html?ref=world
Amid the many problems facing relief efforts in Haiti are sharp increases in air cargo costs for emergency supplies that may endure longer than usual.
In the aftermath of any disaster, prices charged by air charter operators shoot up because of surging demand for a week or so and then fall, according to officials with several relief agencies and brokers who supply disaster equipment.
But the rise in prices for Haiti has been extreme in some cases, and may in general last longer because other routes for aid have been largely blocked because of the damage caused by last week's earthquake to the airport itself and the seaport, its normal cargo hubs. Over the past day or so, the logjams have started to ease.
The air cargo industry is a mix of brokers and companies large and small, and rates depend on a multitude of variables, so gauging normal prices is elusive. But two officials of relief supply companies separately said they were seeing wildly varying quotes, some far higher than anything they considered reasonable.
Michael Ridenour, an official of the International Procurement Agency, a Dutch company that works with relief groups, said he was seeing charter quotes from brokers that varied widely for similar flights. For example, one broker wanted $519,000 to charter a flight from China to the Dominican Republic, while another was asking $1 million for a similar plane on the same route, he said.
"With demand far exceeding supply at the moment, air freight costs have increased dramatically," Gregory Barrow, a spokesman for the World Food Program in Rome, said in an e-mail message.
A senior British relief official, speaking on his government's standard condition of anonymity, said air freight costs from Europe to Haiti had increased by 10 percent to 30 percent since the quake.
Relief group officials declined to name specific operators or brokers, to avoid endangering future business.
An official at a large air charter company said rates invariably rose when demand increased, whether the cause was a disaster or the increased air shipments that precede the Christmas shopping season. She requested anonymity because the company had a United Nations contract.
Peter Nopper, the chief executive of Tri-Med of Britain, a relief equipment broker, said he was quoted a price of $520,000 for a large plane to fly relief supplies from Dubai to Haiti.
"There seems to be some speculation going on," Mr. Nopper said. "I think that people are throwing out high prices to see if anyone will bite."
He said that the fees some cargo operators were asking for Haiti flights might reflect the fact that planes were returning empty, rather than with return loads that could help defray costs.
"Because they have to do it so fast they are charging for a round trip," he said.
Not all companies appear to have raised their rates: Oxfam said it noticed no large increase when it chartered a cargo plane to the Dominican Republic from England to deliver water, sanitation equipment and tents, after its warehouse in Haiti collapsed. But others say they cannot find planes to fly to Haiti at any price.
Along with the United States, some companies and countries are moving to help get supplies in. British Airways made a cargo plane available; the United States, the United Nations and Britain have also begun using smaller vessels that can dock in shallower ports.
In coming weeks, the need for air cargo flights will only intensify as relief organizations exhaust their inventories of relief supplies. Those groups will be turning to equipment brokers or will buy supplies directly from manufacturers in places like India, Pakistan and China that produce emergency equipment like tents, blankets, and kitchen utensils.
The Port-au-Prince seaport has been too damaged to accommodate large ships carrying relief supplies like tents, blankets and cooking equipment.
With only one runway operating at the main Port-au-Prince airport, many relief flights are landing in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, and the supplies are then trucked in over sometimes difficult roads.
"What is unusual about Haiti is that it is a big disaster in a small country," said the senior British relief official. "Usually we are talking about medium to large countries where an earthquake will do a lot of damage but it won't bring down everything."
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3) Jobless Rates Rose in 42 States in November
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/business/economy/23jobless.html?ref=business
WASHINGTON (AP) - Unemployment rates rose in 43 states last month, the government said Friday, painting a bleak picture of the job market and illustrating nationwide data released two weeks ago.
The rise in joblessness was a sharp change from November, when 36 states said their unemployment rates fell. Four states - Delaware, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina - reported record-high jobless rates in December.
New Jersey's rate, meanwhile, rose to a 33-year high of 10.1 percent while New York's reached a 26-year high of 9 percent.
Analysts said the report showed the economy is recovering at too weak a pace to generate consistent job creation. A lot of states that had started to add jobs in November gave up the gains in December, Sophia Koropeckyj, managing director at Moody's Economy.com, said.
Texas and Georgia lost more jobs in December than they had gained the previous month, Ms. Koropeckyj noted, while Arizona and South Carolina lost nearly as many as they had gained.
That is consistent with nationwide trends. Employers shed 85,00 jobs in December, the government said earlier this month, after notching a small gain of 4,000 jobs in November.
In another nationwide trend, long-suffering states like California and Michigan saw their jobless rates stabilize even as they continued to bleed jobs. That was because thousands of frustrated workers gave up hunting for work and dropped out of the labor force, which means they are not included in the unemployment rate.
California lost 38,800 jobs, the most of any state. But its unemployment rate was unchanged at 12.4 percent, the fifth-highest in the nation. That was because 107,000 people, or 0.6 percent of the state's work force, stopped job-hunting.
Michigan shed 15,700 jobs, but 31,000 people left the labor force. That caused the state's jobless rate to fall slightly, to 14.6 percent from 14.7 percent. Michigan has the nation's highest unemployment rate.
Still, Michigan has actually gained about 10,000 jobs over the past three months, as automakers and other manufacturers have bolstered production to restock inventories depleted over the summer and early fall.
"That's a positive thing for a state that has been doing so terribly for so long," said Dave Iaia, an economist at IHS Global Insight.
Texas lost the second-most jobs: 23,900. That sent its jobless rate to 8.3 percent in December from 8 percent. The next-largest job losses were in Ohio, Illinois and Michigan.
Many states saw sharp drops in restaurant, hotel and other leisure employment, a sign that consumers are still holding back on their spending. Nationwide, the United States lost 25,000 leisure and hospitality jobs in December.
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4) "Foreclose the War, Not People's Homes"
By Linden Gawboy
Created 01/16/2010 - 18:11
http://twincities.indymedia.org/2010/jan/%E2%80%9Cforeclose-war-not-people%E2%80%99s-homes%E2%80%9D
Minneapolis, MN - Under the call of "Foreclose the war, not people's homes," more than 100 people joined a protest here to mark the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. Demonstrators gathered at the home of Leslie Parks, an African American woman who is fighting back against the attempt to foreclose on her home. Later, participants gathered at Saint Joan of Arc Church. The events were organized by the Iraq Peace Action Coalition and the Minnesota Coalition for a People's Bailout.
Speakers at the events included Mel Reeves, a prominent community activist; Jenny Eisert, a leader of the Minnesota Coalition for a People's Bailout, Leslie Parks and other activists.
Speaking in front of her home, Leslie Parks stated "This war has been going on for far too long. It's time to bring our troops home to their families. All of the money that has been used on this war could have been used to pay off every home owner's mortgage in America. It is now time to foreclose on the war, not on families homes."
Jenny Eisert told the crowd assembled at the church, "We are sick and tired of the government helping the banks and Wall Street when they are they are the reason we got into this mess." She also spoke about a bill that will be introduced when the state legislature opens to put a two-year moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions from foreclosed prosperities.
A statement by Iraq Peace Action Coalition says in part, "The U.S. government spends billions for the wars and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, even as working and low income people are facing the worst economic crisis in decades. Millions of people are facing foreclosure, unemployment and budget cuts. On Martin Luther King Jr. weekend we call for and end to the U.S. wars and occupations and for the war budget to instead be used for education, housing, health care and other human needs."
The Iraq Peace Action Coalition statement also calls on people to join anti-war protests on Saturday, March 20. "March 20 will mark seven years of the U.S. war and occupation in Iraq. On March 20 there will be protests and demonstrations in Washington D.C., San Francisco and Los Angeles. In Minneapolis a protest will also be held that day as part of building a movement to end the wars and occupations."
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5) Recession reveals new face of homeless in mid-Hudson
'It could happen to you or your neighbor'
By Steve Israel
Times Herald-Record
January 24, 2010 2:00 AM
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100124/NEWS/1240344
Lounging in his box seat near the sparkling green baseball diamond, feet
on the dugout roof as he munches a hot dog, no one could possibly know
the dad is homeless - not even his kids next to him. But after the dad
had taken those kids to the Hudson Valley Renegades game - buying the
great seats to salvage a shred of dignity - the divorced ex-Wall Street
worker drops his children at their mom's
house. Then he drives to the Walmart parking lot, sets the front seat of
his SUV in the reclining position, covers himself with one of his 8
blankets and goes to sleep in his only home, his car.
This is the face of the new - and hidden - mid-Hudson homeless:
middle-class men and women without a safety net who, when they lose
their jobs, often live under the public radar by finding shelter in cars
and on couches.
This dad was a computer analyst from the city who just a few years ago
was earning enough money - $80,000 per year in salaries and bonuses - to
buy a new, three-bedroom $250,000 colonial home on three-quarters of an
acre in Orange County, with a finished basement, a backyard swing set
and a basketball hoop.
Then the dad - who wants to be called Lenny because he's too embarrassed
to give his real name - loses his job in the Wall Street layoffs that
have so far cost more than 100,000 financial workers their positions.
The Bronx native, who had been living paycheck to paycheck to pay more
than $3,000 per month in expenses that included a $1,500-per-month
mortgage from Countrywide, cannot pay his bills, not even with his
wife's $500-per-week office job. He opens the mail to find threatening
foreclosure notices. He picks up the phone to hear threatening
foreclosure phone calls.
He has no savings. He has no job. He loses his home.
He has enough pride not to want to tell his only close relative, his
elderly mother, that he's losing everything, this man without a college
degree who built a new life by working.
So on a hot and muggy August day three years ago, he shuts the door of
his dream home one final time. With a backpack containing his $100
leather jacket from the Gap, some clothes, toiletries and pictures of
his kids, Lenny, then 55, heads to the place that - along with brief
stays in an apartment, two filthy motels and a long stay in a clean
shelter - would be his new home for months, that SUV with 200,000 miles
on it.
"I can't even articulate how (crappy) I felt," Lenny says.
So when he finally gets some money from the sale of that house - after
settling his divorce - he wants to do something for the kids he'd read
bedtime stories to. He buys them those Renegades season tickets.
"The best," he says. "You do anything for normalcy."
Face of homeless has changed
The new, often hidden homeless are middle-age ex-Wall Street workers
like Lenny, who sleep in cars beneath towering mall lights, play poker
on laptops and read library books about larger-than-life heroes like Joe
DiMaggio. They sneak showers at truck stops and work temporary jobs at
malls including Woodbury Common.
"It's not drug addicts or derelicts; it's teachers, secretaries, truck
drivers," says Lenny, ticking off some folks he's met at soup kitchens
and shelters.
The new homeless are mothers like Monticello's Sherry Sanders, who quits
her waitress job that paid as much as $800 a week to move to the
mountains from New Jersey with a boyfriend. Then she loses her new $15
per hour house-cleaning job when the resort closes. She ends up sleeping
on friends' couches after the relationship ends. All she has left is the
eyeliner she wears to remind her of better days. Pride doesn't allow her
to tell her married kids about her homelessness.
The new homeless are young office worker moms like Middletown's Tanya
Covert, who could not pay the $2,000 per month it costs for her to rent,
heat, power and eat in her mobile home. So she too ends up homeless,
finding shelter for herself and her little girl in a motel room just
outside her daughter's school district. She waits weeks to tell the
school she's homeless - and eligible for free meals - for fear the girl
will have to transfer from the school she loves.
The new homeless include a real estate broker whose income has been
slashed from $200,000 to $20,000. They include a nurse and a carpenter,
a teacher and a secretary who have been living on the thin ice of the
recession economy and have fallen through the cracks when they lose
their jobs.
"The face of the homeless has changed; it's the middle class, the
upper-middle class," says Shari Trust, who, as the chairwoman of the
Housing Task Force in Monticello, gets some 30 calls a week for help.
"Employment's cut back. Overtime's cut back, and if you can't hang on to
your home, your credit's shot so you can't even get an apartment."
The new homeless are not necessarily the hundreds of mothers and
fathers, sons and daughters packing the region's few shelters to
capacity. Like Lenny, they're the anonymous car dwellers in parking lots
and "couch surfers" in apartments, often swelling the number of people
in a two-bedroom place to 10.
The new homeless are often so hidden, they go uncounted. But the state
does know that more than 1,300 local school kids, and their families,
are considered homeless by their schools because they don't have a
regular place to sleep each night - a number that's soared some 30
percent over the past two years. In Orange County alone, the official
number of homeless has doubled over the past two years, to 218. The
unofficial number is twice that.
"People can't see the face of homelessness. It could happen to you or
your neighbor," says Kathi Hitt, director of administration and case
management for Sullivan County's Division of Health and Family Services.
Her agency sees some 250-260 people per month, but has difficulty
tallying numbers of the new homeless because of their anonymity and the
fact that staff to document the problem has been cut.
Too proud to ask for help
But even though the population of the new homeless is as diverse as the
population of those with homes, most have one thing in common in this
region that's been the fastest growing in the state: no financial or
family safety net.
When folks like Lenny get behind on their mortgages or lose their homes,
they have no place to turn. To rent an apartment, you need at least
three months' rent, including one month's security. With the fair market
value of a two-bedroom apartment in Orange, Ulster or Sullivan counties
about $1,000 per month, you must have $3,000.
"And who has that?" asks former waitress Sherry Sanders.
School nurses - who often see the littlest, most helpless victims of the
new homelessness - are also the first to see how easy it is to slip
through the cracks of this financial thin ice. They see more and more
children without anyone to contact in an emergency besides a parent.
"There is no support system," says Pine Bush Elementary School nurse
Bobbie Ercoline, whose school food pantry helped two new homeless
families in just the past month.
And while the traditional poor know the ropes of the welfare system, the
new homeless often have no idea that there are programs to help prevent
homelessness. Plus, many of the new homeless are too proud to ask for help.
So, like Lenny, they may rent an apartment that they can't afford, or
live in a $350 per week motel, which soon drains whatever money they
have. And they end up on couches or in cars - clinging to whatever
normalcy they can salvage, like those Renegades tickets, or that eyeliner.
"I think I was depressed," says Lenny.
So he would sleep beneath those blankets, awake shivering at 3 a.m. and
drive to the home where his kids slept, just for a look. And when his
wife was at work, he'd often find the spare key and sneak a shower. He
finally did ask for help at Occupations Inc. in Middletown, which
offered him counseling, medication, shelter and the chance to apply for
government benefits like food stamps - which he shares with his old
family while he stays with them this winter.
But even after all he's been through, even after sleeping in his car for
months, Lenny, now 59, still hasn't come to grips with his not-so-new
homelessness. Ask if he considers himself homeless and he'll tell you
about watching "Law and Order" with his kids. He'll see a wild-eyed,
mangy guy who is "homeless."
"I look around and feel paranoid," he says, tugging on that black
leather jacket he bought a few years ago when he was working on Wall
Street and living in a new home. "And I think, that's not me. That's not
any of us. We're normal."
sisrael@th-record.com
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6) When the Media Is the Disaster: Covering Haiti
Rebecca Solnit, Author of "A Paradise Built in Hell," about Hurricane Katrina
Posted: January 21, 2010 12:56 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-solnit/when-the-media-is-the-dis_b_431617.html
Soon after almost every disaster the crimes begin: ruthless, selfish, indifferent to human suffering, and generating far more suffering. The perpetrators go unpunished and live to commit further crimes against humanity. They care less for human life than for property. They act without regard for consequences.
I'm talking, of course, about those members of the mass media whose misrepresentation of what goes on in disaster often abets and justifies a second wave of disaster. I'm talking about the treatment of sufferers as criminals, both on the ground and in the news, and the endorsement of a shift of resources from rescue to property patrol. They still have blood on their hands from Hurricane Katrina, and they are staining themselves anew in Haiti.
Within days of the Haitian earthquake, for example, the Los Angeles Times ran a series of photographs with captions that kept deploying the word "looting." One was of a man lying face down on the ground with this caption: "A Haitian police officer ties up a suspected looter who was carrying a bag of evaporated milk." The man's sweaty face looks up at the camera, beseeching, anguished.
Another photo was labeled: "Looting continued in Haiti on the third day after the earthquake, although there were more police in downtown Port-au-Prince." It showed a somber crowd wandering amid shattered piles of concrete in a landscape where, visibly, there could be little worth taking anyway.
A third image was captioned: "A looter makes off with rolls of fabric from an earthquake-wrecked store." Yet another: "The body of a police officer lies in a Port-au-Prince street. He was accidentally shot by fellow police who mistook him for a looter."
People were then still trapped alive in the rubble. A translator for Australian TV dug out a toddler who'd survived 68 hours without food or water, orphaned but claimed by an uncle who had lost his pregnant wife. Others were hideously wounded and awaiting medical attention that wasn't arriving. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, needed, and still need, water, food, shelter, and first aid. The media in disaster bifurcates. Some step out of their usual "objective" roles to respond with kindness and practical aid. Others bring out the arsenal of clichés and pernicious myths and begin to assault the survivors all over again.
The "looter" in the first photo might well have been taking that milk to starving children and babies, but for the news media that wasn't the most urgent problem. The "looter" stooped under the weight of two big bolts of fabric might well have been bringing it to now homeless people trying to shelter from a fierce tropical sun under improvised tents.
The pictures do convey desperation, but they don't convey crime. Except perhaps for that shooting of a fellow police officer -- his colleagues were so focused on property that they were reckless when it came to human life, and a man died for no good reason in a landscape already saturated with death.
In recent days, there have been scattered accounts of confrontations involving weapons, and these may be a different matter. But the man with the powdered milk? Is he really a criminal? There may be more to know, but with what I've seen I'm not convinced.
What Would You Do?
Imagine, reader, that your city is shattered by a disaster. Your home no longer exists, and you spent what cash was in your pockets days ago. Your credit cards are meaningless because there is no longer any power to run credit-card charges. Actually, there are no longer any storekeepers, any banks, any commerce, or much of anything to buy. The economy has ceased to exist.
By day three, you're pretty hungry and the water you grabbed on your way out of your house is gone. The thirst is far worse than the hunger. You can go for many days without food, but not water. And in the improvised encampment you settle in, there is an old man near you who seems on the edge of death. He no longer responds when you try to reassure him that this ordeal will surely end. Toddlers are now crying constantly, and their mothers infinitely stressed and distressed.
So you go out to see if any relief organization has finally arrived to distribute anything, only to realize that there are a million others like you stranded with nothing, and there isn't likely to be anywhere near enough aid anytime soon. The guy with the corner store has already given away all his goods to the neighbors. That supply's long gone by now. No wonder, when you see the chain pharmacy with the shattered windows or the supermarket, you don't think twice before grabbing a box of PowerBars and a few gallons of water that might keep you alive and help you save a few lives as well.
The old man might not die, the babies might stop their squalling, and the mothers might lose that look on their faces. Other people are calmly wandering in and helping themselves, too. Maybe they're people like you, and that gallon of milk the fellow near you has taken is going to spoil soon anyway. You haven't shoplifted since you were 14, and you have plenty of money to your name. But it doesn't mean anything now.
If you grab that stuff are you a criminal? Should you end up lying in the dirt on your stomach with a cop tying your hands behind your back? Should you end up labeled a looter in the international media? Should you be shot down in the street, since the overreaction in disaster, almost any disaster, often includes the imposition of the death penalty without benefit of trial for suspected minor property crimes?
Or are you a rescuer? Is the survival of disaster victims more important than the preservation of everyday property relations? Is that chain pharmacy more vulnerable, more a victim, more in need of help from the National Guard than you are, or those crying kids, or the thousands still trapped in buildings and soon to die?
It's pretty obvious what my answers to these questions are, but it isn't obvious to the mass media. And in disaster after disaster, at least since the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, those in power, those with guns and the force of law behind them, are too often more concerned for property than human life. In an emergency, people can, and do, die from those priorities. Or they get gunned down for minor thefts or imagined thefts. The media not only endorses such outcomes, but regularly, repeatedly, helps prepare the way for, and then eggs on, such a reaction.
If Words Could Kill
We need to banish the word "looting" from the English language. It incites madness and obscures realities.
"Loot," the noun and the verb, is a word of Hindi origin meaning the spoils of war or other goods seized roughly. As historian Peter Linebaugh points out, "At one time loot was the soldier's pay." It entered the English language as a good deal of loot from India entered the English economy, both in soldiers' pockets and as imperial seizures.
After years of interviewing survivors of disasters, and reading first-hand accounts and sociological studies from such disasters as the London Blitz and the Mexico City earthquake of 1985, I don't believe in looting. Two things go on in disasters. The great majority of what happens you could call emergency requisitioning. Someone who could be you, someone in the kind of desperate circumstances I outlined above, takes necessary supplies to sustain human life in the absence of any alternative. Not only would I not call that looting, I wouldn't even call that theft.
Necessity is a defense for breaking the law in the United States and other countries, though it's usually applied more to, say, confiscating the car keys of a drunk driver than feeding hungry children. Taking things you don't need is theft under any circumstances. It is, says the disaster sociologist Enrico Quarantelli, who has been studying the subject for more than half a century, vanishingly rare in most disasters.
Personal gain is the last thing most people are thinking about in the aftermath of a disaster. In that phase, the survivors are almost invariably more altruistic and less attached to their own property, less concerned with the long-term questions of acquisition, status, wealth, and security, than just about anyone not in such situations imagines possible. (The best accounts from Haiti of how people with next to nothing have patiently tried to share the little they have and support those in even worse shape than them only emphasize this disaster reality.) Crime often drops in the wake of a disaster.
The media are another matter. They tend to arrive obsessed with property (and the headlines that assaults on property can make). Media outlets often call everything looting and thereby incite hostility toward the sufferers as well as a hysterical overreaction on the part of the armed authorities. Or sometimes the journalists on the ground do a good job and the editors back in their safe offices cook up the crazy photo captions and the wrongheaded interpretations and emphases.
They also deploy the word panic wrongly. Panic among ordinary people in crisis is profoundly uncommon. The media will call a crowd of people running from certain death a panicking mob, even though running is the only sensible thing to do. In Haiti, they continue to report that food is being withheld from distribution for fear of "stampedes." Do they think Haitians are cattle?
The belief that people in disaster (particularly poor and nonwhite people) are cattle or animals or just crazy and untrustworthy regularly justifies spending far too much energy and far too many resources on control -- the American military calls it "security" -- rather than relief. A British-accented voiceover on CNN calls people sprinting to where supplies are being dumped from a helicopter a "stampede" and adds that this delivery "risks sparking chaos." The chaos already exists, and you can't blame it on these people desperate for food and water. Or you can, and in doing so help convince your audience that they're unworthy and untrustworthy.
Back to looting: of course you can consider Haiti's dire poverty and failed institutions a long-term disaster that changes the rules of the game. There might be people who are not only interested in taking the things they need to survive in the next few days, but things they've never been entitled to own or things they may need next month. Technically that's theft, but I'm not particularly surprised or distressed by it; the distressing thing is that even before the terrible quake they led lives of deprivation and desperation.
In ordinary times, minor theft is often considered a misdemeanor. No one is harmed. Unchecked, minor thefts could perhaps lead to an environment in which there were more thefts and so forth, and a good argument can be made that, in such a case, the tide needs to be stemmed. But it's not particularly significant in a landscape of terrible suffering and mass death.
A number of radio hosts and other media personnel are still upset that people apparently took TVs after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005. Since I started thinking about, and talking to people about, disaster aftermaths I've heard a lot about those damned TVs. Now, which matters more to you, televisions or human life? People were dying on rooftops and in overheated attics and freeway overpasses, they were stranded in all kinds of hideous circumstances on the Gulf Coast in 2005 when the mainstream media began to obsess about looting, and the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana made the decision to focus on protecting property, not human life.
A gang of white men on the other side of the river from New Orleans got so worked up about property crimes that they decided to take the law into their own hands and began shooting. They seem to have considered all black men criminals and thieves and shot a number of them. Some apparently died; there were bodies bloating in the September sun far from the region of the floods; one good man trying to evacuate the ruined city barely survived; and the media looked away. It took me months of nagging to even get the story covered. This vigilante gang claimed to be protecting property, though its members never demonstrated that their property was threatened. They boasted of killing black men. And they shared values with the mainstream media and the Louisiana powers that be.
Somehow, when the Bush administration subcontracted emergency services -- like providing evacuation buses in Hurricane Katrina -- to cronies who profited even while providing incompetent, overpriced, and much delayed service at the moment of greatest urgency, we didn't label that looting.
Or when a lot of wealthy Wall Street brokers decide to tinker with a basic human need like housing.... Well, you catch my drift.
Woody Guthrie once sang that "some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen." The guys with the six guns (or machetes or sharpened sticks) make for better photographs, and the guys with the fountain pens not only don't end up in jail, they end up in McMansions with four-car garages and, sometimes, in elected -- or appointed -- office.
Learning to See in Crises
Last Christmas a priest, Father Tim Jones of York, started a ruckus in Britain when he said in a sermon that shoplifting by the desperate from chain stores might be acceptable behavior. Naturally, there was an uproar. Jones told the Associated Press: "The point I'm making is that when we shut down every socially acceptable avenue for people in need, then the only avenue left is the socially unacceptable one."
The response focused almost entirely on why shoplifting is wrong, but the claim was also repeatedly made that it doesn't help. In fact, food helps the hungry, a fact so bald it's bizarre to even have to state it. The means by which it arrives is a separate matter. The focus remained on shoplifting, rather than on why there might be people so desperate in England's green and pleasant land that shoplifting might be their only option, and whether unnecessary human suffering is itself a crime of sorts.
Right now, the point is that people in Haiti need food, and for all the publicity, the international delivery system has, so far, been a visible dud. Under such circumstances, breaking into a U.N. food warehouse -- food assumedly meant for the poor of Haiti in a catastrophic moment -- might not be "violence," or "looting," or "law-breaking." It might be logic. It might be the most effective way of meeting a desperate need.
Why were so many people in Haiti hungry before the earthquake? Why do we have a planet that produces enough food for all and a distribution system that ensures more than a billion of us don't have a decent share of that bounty? Those are not questions whose answers should be long delayed.
Even more urgently, we need compassion for the sufferers in Haiti and media that tell the truth about them. I'd like to propose alternative captions for those Los Angeles Times photographs as models for all future disasters:
Let's start with the picture of the policeman hogtying the figure whose face is so anguished: "Ignoring thousands still trapped in rubble, a policeman accosts a sufferer who took evaporated milk. No adequate food distribution exists for Haiti's starving millions."
And the guy with the bolt of fabric? "As with every disaster, ordinary people show extraordinary powers of improvisation, and fabrics such as these are being used to make sun shelters around Haiti."
For the murdered policeman: "Institutional overzealousness about protecting property leads to a gratuitous murder, as often happens in crises. Meanwhile countless people remain trapped beneath crushed buildings."
And the crowd in the rubble labeled looters? How about: "Resourceful survivors salvage the means of sustaining life from the ruins of their world."
That one might not be totally accurate, but it's likely to be more accurate than the existing label. And what is absolutely accurate, in Haiti right now, and on Earth always, is that human life matters more than property, that the survivors of a catastrophe deserve our compassion and our understanding of their plight, and that we live and die by words and ideas, and it matters desperately that we get them right.
At the dawn of the millennium, three catastrophes were forecast for the United States: terrorists in New York, a hurricane in New Orleans, and an earthquake in San Francisco. Rebecca Solnit lives in San Francisco with her earthquake kit and is about to make her seventh trip to New Orleans since Katrina. Her latest book, A Paradise Built in Hell, is a testament to human bravery and innovation during disasters.
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7) Ready to Spend, but Not to Boast
"One banker's wife, who did not want to be named, said she and others like her felt more financially secure these days. 'There is the sense in the community that the world is not coming to an end,' she said. Of bonus critics, she added, executives like her husband work hard and are unjustly singled out as greedy. 'Everybody wants someone to blame,' she said, 'and rich people are an easy target.'"
By LAURA M. HOLSON
January 22, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/fashion/24bonus.html?ref=fashion
LAST year, investment bankers and their spouses kept their wallets shut during bonus season, first, out of panic, and later, fearing mobs with torches would descend upon their gated estates.
Now, after a year of self-imposed austerity and in what is shaping up as a spectacular bonus season, the Wall Street crowd is shaking off what one luxury retailer called its "frugal fatigue." Unlike earlier spending sprees, however, the consumption will be a lot less conspicuous.
On Wednesday, Morgan Stanley said it was setting aside $14.4 billion for salary and bonuses, or $235,000 per employee. A day later Goldman Sachs said it would pay an average of $498,000, with top producers at each of the two banks earning in the millions.
More than in past years, this year's bonus numbers are stirring deep resentment in a nation staggering under 10 percent unemployment.
Yet there is another class of individuals, beside the fortunate few receiving Wall Street windfalls, who celebrate bonuses: purveyors of goods and services to the wealthy, from Greenwich, Conn., to Gramercy Park, who stand to see their own fortunes improve. In the New York area's own kind of trickle-down, real estate agents, high-end car dealers and luxury retailers are all welcoming this bonus season as if it were their own.
In the Hamptons, where real estate agents court bankers looking for summer homes, the sales are also expected to be a boon for contractors, movers and groundskeepers. "A community like the Hamptons depends on house trades," said Diane Saatchi, an agent with Saunders and Associates who just sold a home to a banker for $4.9 million.
"Don't ask to talk to him about it, because he won't," Ms. Saatchi said of the buyer, deflecting a reporter. "They don't want anyone to know they are buying." That includes the banker's extended family, she explained, because he is worried they will ask him for money.
No one, she said, "is bragging about anything."
At the heart of Wall Streeters' anticipated splurge is pent-up demand after a year dominated by fears of a new depression, retailers and cultural observers say. "For whatever reason, people feel the need to reward themselves for doing something good even if that just means surviving," said Alexandra Lebenthal, an investment manager and creator of a fictional column about financial high jinks for NewYorkSocialDiary.com.
At the same time, investment bankers want to avoid the wrath of a fed-up public that continues to blame them for the nation's recessionary ills. On Jan. 13, the chief executives of the nation's four largest banks took a drubbing in hearings from Congressional leaders, who criticized their pay practices as being out of whack with the rest of the country. The Obama administration is channeling that populism with proposals to further regulate and tax banks.
As such, the prevailing wisdom on Wall Street is less show and no tell.
"Bankers are being told by their bosses to be careful," said Janet Hanson, who was an executive at Goldman Sachs for 14 years and is a founding member of 85 Broads, a professional women's networking organization. "I mean, how does it look if you got a $1 million bonus from Goldman Sachs and you are sporting around in a new Audi TT? People will hate you." (To deflect criticism, Goldman announced last week it would pay its top 30 executives in stock only.)
Few Wall Street executives or their spouses contacted for this article were willing to discuss how they planned to spend or invest their bonuses, expressing a fear of public scorn combined with the silence about personal rewards that bankers usually observe.
One banker's wife, who did not want to be named, said she and others like her felt more financially secure these days. "There is the sense in the community that the world is not coming to an end," she said. Of bonus critics, she added, executives like her husband work hard and are unjustly singled out as greedy. "Everybody wants someone to blame," she said, "and rich people are an easy target."
She and her husband have earmarked his bonus for two purposes. First, they want to set aside enough money for their four children's college funds. But they are also shopping for a vacation home - perhaps from a buyer forced to sell. "It is a good time to buy," she said. A friend of theirs, another financial executive, recently bought a house in Vermont weeks before it was to be foreclosed upon.
As much as Wall Street executives are seeking value, decisions are also based on whether they (and their new possessions) can hide in plain sight. A case in point: Manhattan Motorcars offered two lease programs in December, each costing about $100,000. The first was a one-year lease for a Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe with embroidered headrests and a brushed steel hood. The second was a three-year lease for a Bentley Flying Spur or GT convertible, both of which are more understated than the Rolls.
Brian Miller, the owner of Manhattan Motorcars, said the Bentleys were more popular with Wall Street executives, not because they were less expensive, but because they attracted less attention. "They said they wanted to tone down their exposure and get something more staid and sedate," Mr. Miller said. "Later on they said they could come back and get something flashy."
New York's wealthiest families have always had money to spend whether they received bonuses this year or not. But it might have been seen as insensitive last year to parade down Madison Avenue, shopping bags in hand, while so many other Americans were losing jobs. Even those who had money didn't spend it, retailers said. But many high-end retailers said they began seeing a shift in November, as news of Wall Street's spectacular profits circulated.
Art sales were brisk in the fall, said Barbara Gladstone, who owns a gallery in Chelsea. She anticipates an even better spring as the dark mood that prevailed in Manhattan through much of last year begins to brighten. Simply put, shoppers, like teenage girls at a high school dance, move in packs. Once a few high-end buyers emerge, the rest will follow.
"A lot of clients' hesitation was psychological," Ms. Gladstone said. "They were waiting until they felt better. And then they got tired of waiting."
Suzanne Johnson, the general manager of Saks Fifth Avenue's flagship store, said many wealthy customers were suffering from what she called "frugal fatigue." After a year of looking, they are ready to treat themselves. Next month, Saks is holding an event at its Kiton men's wear boutique where made-to-order suits can cost as much as $21,000. It will feature Kiton's craftsmen and is timed to bonus season, she said.
She recalled, too, a couple - the husband was a banker - who came in last month and looked at a pair of earrings from the Roberto Coin Cento collection that cost about $5,000. Days later he returned and bought them for his wife. "They are turning 'looking' into an 'impulse buy,' " Ms. Johnson said. "It is about inner self-gratification rather than letting people know how rich you are."
At the same time, however, luxury merchants predict it will take at least five years to return to 2007 spending levels. One reason is that some bankers are getting restricted stock that they won't be able to sell for years, instead of cash.
"It's not like they are running around screaming now," said Frederick Anderson, president of the fashion designer Douglas Hannant's company, which opened a boutique in the Plaza last summer. "But they are making their appointments and keeping them. Last year, they used to make an appointment and cancel it. It got to be a joke. After the fourth time you're like: 'I get it. You aren't coming in.' "
"A lot of people are scared to go out because they are afraid of being criticized," he added. "How you spend your money now is a social comment. Everyone is looking."
In a striking twist on how the have-a-lots see themselves, social distinctions seem to have developed regarding who can flaunt what and where. It is in poor taste, for example, for employees of investment banks that were bailed out using taxpayer dollars to show off much of anything. But that is not the case among hedge fund managers whose companies didn't receive federal assistance.
Ms. Lebenthal, the investment manager and columnist, recalled being at a party recently and getting on an elevator with a hedge fund manager's wife who was wearing a $10,000 white fur jacket paired with faded jeans. Surprised at the display, Ms. Lebenthal stared.
"They feel much less a sense of propriety because they didn't get government money," Ms. Lebenthal said of employees at hedge funds. "They don't feel as if they have to spend less."
But spring is not far off - and that means more opportunities for financiers and their spouses to reward themselves: paintings bought at art auctions, summer homes in Sag Harbor and silken gowns to wear to the season's gala parties. Will Wall Street restrain itself as it seeks to repair its damaged image?
"I think it will be interesting to see what big houses go up for sale or who buys the first big necklace," Ms. Lebenthal said. "Even when there is still so much populist anger."
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8) More Than 150,000 Have Been Buried, Haiti Says
"Recent estimates from the International Organization for Migration show that 370,000 people are living in "improvised shelter," outside largely in camps without access to water, sanitation or food."
By DAMIEN CAVE
January 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/world/americas/24bodies.html?hp
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Haiti's government provided a preliminary assessment of the earthquake's body count on Saturday, putting it at more than 150,000, and declared that the search for survivors trapped in the rubble would soon be coming to an end.
Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue, Haiti's culture and communications minister, said that 150,000 bodies from the streets had been collected and buried in the past 11 days.
She also said that there were at least 250,000 people homeless and that 200,000 residents of Port-au-Prince and its outskirts had moved to the provinces since the earthquake hit.
It was unclear, however, how the government arrived at these numbers - especially the number of victims buried. The figure grew over the course of the day from 111,000 to 120,000 to 150,000 without detailed explanation.
Ms. Lassegue, in an interview under a mango tree at the police station that now serves as government headquarters, said the 150,000 bodies was a count of "what we have taken and disposed of," not including family burials or bodies still trapped in the collapsed buildings.
As recently as Wednesday, that government estimate was put at 75,000 bodies. But most Haitian and international officials here have agreed that official efforts are better focused on helping the living than counting the dead.
In interviews, government workers collecting the bodies on the streets have said that they were not counting, and at many of the mass graves outside the city where the bodies have dumped, no government officials could be found.
Jacques Adler Jean-Pierre, one of Ms. Lassegue's aides under the tree, said nonetheless that someone had been keeping track.
"It may have looked like no one was counting," he said, "but someone was supposed to."
The figure for those who have left the city seemed more solid. Mr. Jean-Pierre said this was a compilation of what local governments from outside Port-au-Prince had reported.
The number of homeless appears to be in flux. Haiti's Directorate for Civil Protection estimated last week that one million people had been displaced by the quake on Jan. 12. Recent estimates from the International Organization for Migration show that 370,000 people are living in "improvised shelter," outside largely in camps without access to water, sanitation or food.
Laurent M. Dubois, a history professor at Duke University who specializes in Haiti, said that the government - which struggled to compile comprehensive data even before the earthquake - appeared to be geared toward showing people that it was seriously trying to gauge the disaster's impact and challenges.
"What they are probably getting are conflicting reports from people who are imagining things different," Professor Dubois said. "They must be guessing to some extent."
Rescues, however, have been easier to count. The numbers are smaller, and the moments more joyful. As of Saturday morning, international rescue teams had pulled 132 people alive from the rubble.
Then in the afternoon came another. A team of mostly French rescuers pulled a 24-year-old cashier, Richmond Exantos, from a collapsed hotel and pharmacy downtown around 4:30. A crowd of Haitians and rescuers cheered as he emerged, without visible injuries. Soon, though, there will be no more of these miracles.
The government said Saturday that rescue teams could continue to search if they know of survivors, but that, realistically, it was unlikely that anyone else would be found alive.
Michel Legros, a cousin of an owner of the building where Mr. Exantos was found, said this was a mistake. He had stationed people at the building since the quake, listening for signs of life. Saturday was the first day anyone heard anything - the sound of soft tapping. "I think they should keep looking," Mr. Legros said. "Because if Richmond is alive, maybe there are more."
Ginger Thompson contributed reporting.
Correction: January 24, 2010
An earlier version of this article misspelled the given name of a cousin of the owner of the building where Richmond Exantos was found. He is Michel Legros, not Michelle.
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9) Students Face a Class Struggle at State Colleges
By KATHARINE MIESZKOWSKI
January 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/education/24sfstudent.html?ref=us
At 2:29 p.m. on Jan. 12, Juan Macias, 19, a sophomore at San Francisco State University, sat in a cafe near the engineering firm where he works part time as an office assistant, staring at a laptop computer screen.
In one minute he would get a crucial opportunity to register for classes for the spring semester. "This is so nerve-wracking," he said as he waited for the clock to signal that his assigned registration period had begun.
Hours earlier, scrutinizing the class schedule, he considered about 30 courses - then had to rule all of them out. They were full. The last slot on the waiting list for a 146-seat introductory physics class he has been trying to join for a year had disappeared minutes before, taken by another student with an earlier registration period.
"You're trying to compete with all the other students, when we all want education," said Mr. Macias, a business major. "It really makes me angry." His classes - the ones that had an opening - begin on Monday.
Welcome to state-run higher education in California. Mr. Macias is just one of more than 26,000 students at San Francisco State, and now educational opportunities cost more and are harder to grasp and even harder to hold onto than ever before. Mr. Macias's experience of truncated offerings, furloughed professors and crowded classrooms is typical.
Neither of Mr. Macias's parents went to college; his father is a railroad conductor. One of his five siblings dropped out of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo to go to community college because of financial constraints.
Terry Hartle, the senior vice president of the American Council on Education, a trade association representing colleges and universities, confirmed that higher education in California has become akin to navigating an obstacle course.
"There are an awful lot of students in California who are having similar problems," he said. "This is a potential tragedy for individual students."
In 1960, he added, the state created "the gold standard in high-quality, low-cost public higher education. This year, the California legislature abandoned the gold standard."
Because of state budget cuts to higher education, San Francisco State is now offering 3,173 course sections, 12 percent fewer than two years ago. From the university administration's point of view, that is not as bad as it might have been: over $1.5 million in federal stimulus money prevented more draconian cuts.
Among other things, oversubscribed classrooms can force a student like Mr. Macias, who must be enrolled full time to keep financial aid, to take courses that might have little to do with his progress toward graduation.
This semester, he is signed up for a biology class, but was unable to get into the companion laboratory class. His other courses are a workshop on the "history, aesthetics, mechanics and politics of rap music and hip-hop culture," a class built around the campus radio station, KSFS, and a class called "The Origins of Rock," which is supposed to be for upperclassmen.
He is on the waiting list for a humanities class called Style and Expressive Forms and a physics laboratory class, which he hopes will help him get into the physics lecture class. They are meant to be taken together.
But taking any class you can get into just to stay enrolled is no recipe for excelling academically. Last semester his grades suffered. "I'm taking these classes that I don't care about, getting bad grades in these classes," Mr. Macias said. "That's affecting my G.P.A., at the same time that I'm fighting so that I can have grades. It's really contradictory."
And it is not just classes that he has to deal with this semester. He must also deal with the legal system. He faces misdemeanor trespassing charges as a result of joining last semester's protests of the budget cuts.
Still, things could be worse. If he were a year younger, he would not be able to take classes at San Francisco State. This spring, cutbacks have largely ended the opportunity for community college students to move into the state university system, which enrolls 433,000 students. Mr. Macias transferred a year ago from Allan Hancock College, a community college in Santa Maria.
Also, in response to budget cuts, San Francisco State plans to reduce enrollment more than 10 percent for the 2010-11 academic year.
"These students are being told the doors to the university are closing," said Kenneth Monteiro, dean of the university's College of Ethnic Studies, where even the student resource center has been shuttered for lack of funds.
This academic year, the university lost $38 million in state support. Student fees are 32 percent higher. Hundreds of lecturers lost their jobs; faculty and staff salaries were cut by 10 percent. Furlough days made the university's schedule a chaotic patchwork of canceled lectures and shortened office hours.
The cutbacks enraged students. On Dec. 9, Mr. Macias was among the student activists who occupied the campus's Business Building for 24 hours, canceling the classes held inside, including one he was taking. With a red sweater partially obscuring his face, he took to the roof with 11 other protesters, wielding a megaphone and leading chants.
When police broke up the occupation early the next morning, Mr. Macias, who had never participated in a protest before he went to San Francisco State, was arrested. On Jan. 26 he will go to court.
The chaos of trying to get into classes last fall spurred Mr. Macias. After budget cuts forced class cancellations, he had to take a week off work to attend 20 classes, as he tried to scrounge up enough units to keep his full-time status and maintain his financial aid.
In an oceanography class, the professor drew names at random to pick among the students trying to join the already-full class. Mr. Macias's name did not come up. His final course load included several that he took to ensure a full schedule, such as the Music of John Coltrane.
Mr. Macias also felt the cuts in the classroom. In the fall, Don Menn, a lecturer in the journalism department since 1999, had taken pity on many students who, like Mr. Macias, were seeking to join his introductory course, Journalism and Mass Media. He let them all in, teaching 190 in a lecture hall that seats 148. Some sat on the floor.
But with no budget for a teaching assistant to help with grading, Mr. Menn had to slash the syllabus, canceling the midterm exam and the 10-page research paper. While in the past he had frequently given essay tests, this year all quizzes and the final were multiple choice.
"This is supposed to be a critical-thinking type class," Mr. Menn said, "and here it was rote learning."
His students noticed the difference. "The classes are being dumbed down a lot," Mr. Macias said.
Next year, students like Mr. Macias may face a further increase in fees. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget for 2010-11 includes a 10 percent fee increase for students at the California State University's 23 campuses. He also proposed restoring $305 million to the state university system.
Mr. Macias's education has already suffered. "Just worrying about having enough units to stay in school made me lose focus on my schoolwork," he said.
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10) Shrimp's Dirty Secrets: Why America's Favorite Seafood Is a Health
and Environmental Nightmare
By Jill Richardson, AlterNet
Posted on January 25, 2010, Printed on January 25, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145369/
Americans love their shrimp. It's the most popular seafood in the
country, but unfortunately much of the shrimp we eat are a
cocktail of chemicals, harvested at the expense of one of the
world's productive ecosystems. Worse, guidelines for finding some
kind of "sustainable shrimp" are so far nonexistent.
In his book, Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of
Vanishing Seafood, Taras Grescoe paints a repulsive picture of how
shrimp are farmed in one region of India. The shrimp pond
preparation begins with urea, superphosphate, and diesel, then
progresses to the use of piscicides (fish-killing chemicals like
chlorine and rotenone), pesticides and antibiotics (including some
that are banned in the U.S.), and ends by treating the shrimp with
sodium tripolyphosphate (a suspected neurotoxicant), Borax, and
occasionally caustic soda.
Upon arrival in the U.S., few if any, are inspected by the FDA,
and when researchers have examined imported ready-to-eat shrimp,
they found 162 separate species of bacteria with resistance to 10
different antibiotics. And yet, as of 2008, Americans are eating
4.1 pounds of shrimp apiece each year -- significantly more than
the 2.8 pounds per year we each ate of the second most popular
seafood, canned tuna. But what are we actually eating without
knowing it? And is it worth the price -- both to our health and
the environment?
Understanding the shrimp that supplies our nation's voracious
appetite is quite complex. Overall, the shrimp industry represents
a dismantling of the marine ecosystem, piece by piece. Farming
methods range from those described above to some that are more
benign. Problems with irresponsible methods of farming don't end
at the "yuck," factor as shrimp farming is credited with
destroying 38 percent of the world's mangroves, some of the most
diverse and productive ecosystems on earth. Mangroves sequester
vast amounts of carbon and serve as valuable buffers against
hurricanes and tsunamis. Some compare shrimp farming methods that
demolish mangroves to slash-and-burn agriculture. A shrimp farmer
will clear a section of mangroves and close it off to ensure that
the shrimp cannot escape. Then the farmer relies on the tides to
refresh the water, carrying shrimp excrement and disease out to
sea. In this scenario, the entire mangrove ecosystem is destroyed
and turned into a small dead zone for short-term gain. Even after
the shrimp farm leaves, the mangroves do not come back.
A more responsible farming system involves closed, inland ponds
that use their wastewater for agricultural irrigation instead of
allowing it to pollute oceans or other waterways. According to the
Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program, when a farm has
good disease management protocols, it does not need to use so many
antibiotics or other chemicals.
One more consideration, even in these cleaner systems, is the wild
fish used to feed farmed shrimp. An estimated average of 1.4
pounds of wild fish are used to produce every pound of farmed
shrimp. Sometimes the wild fish used is bycatch -- fish that would
be dumped into the ocean to rot if they weren't fed to shrimp --
but other times farmed shrimp dine on species like anchovies,
herring, sardines and menhaden. These fish are important foods for
seabirds, big commercial fish and whales, so removing them from
the ecosystem to feed farmed shrimp is problematic.
Additionally, some shrimp are wild-caught, and while they aren't
raised in a chemical cocktail, the vast majority is caught using
trawling, a highly destructive fishing method. Football
field-sized nets are dragged along the ocean floor, scooping up
and killing several pounds of marine life for every pound of
shrimp they catch and demolishing the ocean floor ecosystem as
they go. Where they don't clear-cut coral reefs or other rich
ocean floor habitats, they drag their nets through the mud,
leaving plumes of sediment so large they are visible from outer space.
After trawling destroys an ocean floor, the ecosystem often cannot
recover for decades, if not centuries or millennia. This is
particularly significant because 98 percent of ocean life lives on
or around the seabed. Depending on the fishery, the amount of
bycatch (the term used for unwanted species scooped up and killed
by trawlers) ranges from five to 20 pounds per pound of shrimp.
These include sharks, rays, starfish, juvenile red snapper, sea
turtles and more. While shrimp trawl fisheries only represent 2
percent of the global fish catch, they are responsible for over
one-third of the world's bycatch. Trawling is comparable to
bulldozing an entire section of rainforest in order to catch one
species of bird.
Given this disturbing picture, how can an American know how to
find responsibly farmed or fished shrimp? Currently, it's near
impossible. Only 15 percent of our total shrimp consumption comes
from the U.S. (both farmed and wild sources). The U.S. has good
regulations on shrimp farming, so purchasing shrimp farmed in the
U.S. is not a bad way to go. Wild shrimp, with a few exceptions,
is typically obtained via trawling and should be avoided. The
notable exceptions are spot prawns from British Columbia, caught
in traps similar to those used for catching lobster, and the small
salad shrimp like the Northern shrimp from the East Coast or pink
shrimp from Oregon, both of which are certified as sustainable by
the Marine Stewardship Council. However, neither are true
substitutes for the large white and tiger shrimp American
consumers are used to.
The remaining 85 percent came from other countries and about
two-thirds of our imports are farmed with the balance caught in
the wild, mostly via trawling. China is the world's top shrimp
producer -- both farmed and wild -- but only 2 percent of China's
shrimp are imported to the U.S. The world's number two producer,
Thailand, is our top foreign source of shrimp. Fully one third of
the shrimp the U.S. imports comes from Thailand, and over 80
percent of those shrimp are farmed.
The next biggest sources of U.S. shrimp are Ecuador, Indonesia,
China, Mexico, Vietnam, Malaysia and India. Together, those
countries provide nearly 90 percent of America's imported shrimp.
Interestingly, Ecuador's shrimp industry exists almost entirely to
supply U.S. demand, with over 93 percent of its shrimp coming up
north to the U.S. The vast majority of those shrimp (almost 90
percent) are farmed. Sadly, shrimp production is responsible for
the destruction of 70 percent of Ecuador's mangroves. Farming
practices in other countries range from decent to awful, but
there's currently no real way for a consumer to tell whether
shrimp from any particular country was farmed sustainably or not.
Geoff Shester, senior science manager of Monterey Bay's Seafood
Watch, says that ethical shrimp consumption is a chicken and egg
problem. On one hand, the solution is for consumers to show demand
for responsibly farmed and wild shrimp by eating it but on the
other hand, ethical shrimp choices are not yet widely available.
Seafood Watch is working with some of the largest seafood buyers
in the U.S. to help them buy better shrimp, but it's currently a
major challenge.
The first challenge is that labeling and certification programs do
not yet exist to identify which farmed shrimp meet sustainable
production standards. The second challenge is that even when such
programs are in place, the U.S. demand will likely greatly exceed
their supply.
Shester's advice to consumers right now is "only buy shrimp that
you know comes from a sustainable source. If you can't tell for
sure, try something else from the Seafood Watch yellow or green
lists." Knowing that many will be unwilling to give up America's
favorite seafood, he advocates simply eating less of it and
keeping an eye on future updates to the Seafood Watch guide to
eating sustainable seafood.
Jill Richardson is the founder of the blog La Vida Locavore and a
member of the Organic Consumers Association policy advisory board.
She is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is
Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It..
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11) In Haiti, Many Amputees Have No Place to Go
By RAY RIVERA
January 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/world/americas/25amputee.html?ref=world
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - In a tent serving as an acute-care ward on the grounds of this city's biggest hospital, Jocelin François was sitting up in bed when a nurse went by, barking at him in French. Mr. François, whose left leg was amputated nearly to his knee after the earthquake on Jan. 12, threw out his arms and fell back on the mattress.
"She said I have to go home," Mr. François, 26, said. "I don't want to leave until I can walk. I am weak. I have no place to go."
A doctor, sensing some confusion, intervened. "We're not telling him he has to go home," the doctor, Rose Antoine, 33, a native of Haiti who now lives in Pennsylvania, explained. "We're only telling him that this is an acute ward and we need the bed. We're trying to find a step-down unit where he can go to."
Nearly two weeks after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince, the immediate health crisis, which involved treating the injuries of people who were crushed by collapsing buildings and amputating damaged limbs, has begun to settle into a new phase.
This one is perhaps even more daunting: caring for thousands of post-operation trauma patients who are ready to leave the hospitals, but lack homes or families to go to. Many will require prosthetic limbs, frequent wound cleanings, bandage changes and months of rehabilitation.
As officials warn of possible outbreaks of infectious diseases from unsanitary conditions in hundreds of makeshift camps of people made homeless by the earthquake, they are also wondering where to send patients who have been treated for their injuries but require follow-up care.
"It's very hard to send people home when they don't have a house," said Dr. Surena Claude, who is coordinating a commission appointed by President René Préval to respond to the health emergency. "This situation is causing so many problems, because the hospitals are full, and if this continues we will have no room."
Early reports that there might be as many as 200,000 people who required amputations appear to have been exaggerated. At the University Hospital, Port-au-Prince's largest hospital, which received the brunt of the casualties after the quake, surgeons have performed about 225 amputations, mostly in the first few days. Doctors Without Borders estimated that its doctors had performed 125 amputations in 12 centers across the country. Hundreds more have been done in other clinics and hospitals elsewhere; the total is more likely to have been a few thousand.
Still, this is a country that, even before the earthquake created so much devastation, could barely cope with the healthy. There will be thousands more who will need rehabilitation for a range of injuries, from broken hips and femurs to neurological disorders from head injuries.
Health officials are still in the earliest stages of determining how to deal with post-operative patients, even as new patients are coming to the hospitals with secondary infections as well as the usual array of emergencies.
Dr. Mirta Roses, director of the World Health Organization's Pan-American region, said Sunday that all of the country's remaining 48 hospitals were at full capacity, including 11 in Port-au-Prince. That does not include the many clinics that aid groups have created.
Health officials are dealing with another problem. With aftershocks still rattling the city, including another on Sunday, many people are afraid to be inside the hospitals but are also unwilling to leave the grounds, where they can get food and water and have access to care.
"Even their relatives want to be with them in the hospitals," Dr. Roses said. She added that a solution would involve creating centers for ambulatory and post-operative care and persuading patients and their families to move there.
Even in the best of circumstances, it can take four to six months for a person who has had a traumatic amputation to function again, Dr. Steven R. Flanagan, medical director of the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at N.Y.U. Langone Medical Center, said in a telephone interview. The Rusk Institute has a team in Haiti.
"What they really need to worry about in Haiti is infectious complication, so if you have an amputation of a leg or arm, that wound is subject to infection," Dr. Flanagan said. "And clearly they don't have all the medicines they need down there."
Dr. Claude, of the presidential commission, said the government was well aware of the situation.
"Unfortunately, a solution is not yet found," he said. Even when one is found, he said, logistics in this rubble-choked country will continue to be a problem.
The hope is that access to medicines and care will be eased greatly when the government carries out plans to build giant tent cities across Port-au-Prince and the vicinity, but that could take weeks.
At University Hospital, which is next to a nursing school that collapsed, killing about 50 students, Mr. François was relieved to learn that he did not have to leave immediately. He said he did not know if his relatives died in the earthquake, and that they did not know that he survived.
Outside the tent, a giant post-operative ward has been created in a grove of mango and oak trees, with low-slung tarps strung over patients' beds. The ward, known as "the forest," is filled with many patients who did not want to be inside the hospital. The doctors do not know how many patients are there, because they have been too busy to count.
In the United States, many of these patients would already be home, receiving outpatient care, said Dr. Michael Marin, chairman of surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, who is volunteering here with the International Medical Corps, the group coordinating relief efforts at the hospital.
Here, many of the patients cannot return home. "The only place they have to go is the forest," Dr. Marin said.
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12) On Street Tracing Haiti's Pain, Survival Goes On
By DEBORAH SONTAG and GINGER THOMPSON
January 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/world/americas/25street.html?ref=world
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Avenue Poupelard in the center of this devastated city pulses with life and reeks of death almost two weeks after the earthquake.
Before what Haitians call "the event," it was a chaotically bustling street of lottery kiosks and cybercafes, gated homes and shacks, churches and schools.
Now, a coffin maker spends the day hammering wood as fast as he can get it, while the body of a 6-year-old boy decomposes in the ruins of a school. Hundreds of displaced residents squat in the junked cars of a mechanic's lot as a lawyer, writing briefs, camps under the bougainvillea of her uninhabitable villa. A fiery pastor preaches outside the ruins of his church; street vendors hawk small plastic bags of water; an AIDS clinic reopens briefly each day for patients who survived the earthquake but ran out of essential pills.
And, bound in muslin like a mummy, a cadaver lies beneath a sign that screams "S O S," deposited there by neighbors as if to underscore their cry for help as they struggle to reconstitute some semblance of community and move forward.
"We are not blood relatives but we are all the dispossessed of Avenue Poupelard," said Franc Danjou, gesturing at those around him in one encampment. "We must pool our resources - and get help! - or in a year this community will be dead."
Over a quarter-mile stretch, Avenue Poupelard, a residential and commercial strip in the area called Nazon, offers a panorama of life in the ruins of the Haitian capital where a stricken heart still beats.
A complete damage assessment is impossible without tax and property records, which are not available. But of 53 buildings examined on Avenue Poupelard, only six appeared to be intact. Twenty-three are completely or partially collapsed. And the remaining 24 show damage ranging from cracks to crumbled walls, with daily aftershocks presenting a continuing threat.
Despite such widespread destruction - and an incalculable number of deaths - almost no one on Avenue Poupelard seems to let himself cry, not even the children. Grief is still buried under shock, and there is a stoic determination to face the future because, no matter how tenuous, it is far less frightening than the immediate past. It is daunting to imagine the recovery that lies ahead. But in this one pocket of the city, as elsewhere, life of a survivalist sort goes on.
Some small businesses - a barbershop here, a tiny food stand there - are stirring back to life. Political debate, a sign of normalcy, is resurfacing, with many openly cursing President René Préval for making few forays into hard-hit areas.
Food, water, shelter, sickness and death: these continue to be urgent problems even as some help is finally arriving. For many on Avenue Poupelard, the trauma of loss has created an almost existential vertigo. Nora Jean Phillipe, an office worker who sat beside a tent with a box of Pop Tarts in her lap, was keenly, almost obsessively, focused on one thing: excavating her family's birth certificates from their destroyed house.
"Please understand," she said. "I lost my home. I lost my son. Somehow, I have to find a way to salvage our identity."
Determined to Stay
The Legros family settled into their villa on Avenue Poupelard over a half-century ago when the area was affluent and surrounded by farmland. As he grew up, Michel Legros, 53, owner of a popular radio station, Radio Maximum, watched the neighborhood grow denser and more socioeconomically mixed.
Late last week, Mr. Legros and his sister Gladys Legros, a lawyer, opened their gates, ushering visitors onto the patio in the shadow of their elegant house, which is still standing but badly damaged.
Mr. Legros is a well-known political activist. "Politics sticks to him like a disease," his sister said. His patio, shaded by palm and banana trees, used to serve as a meeting place for the Democratic Convergence, a largely elite political coalition opposed to former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a champion of the poor. Now the Legros family sleeps there alongside the many less privileged, displaced neighbors they have invited in.
Most of his friends, Mr. Legros said, have abandoned the country, but he refuses to go. "If you hear there is one person left standing in Haiti," he said, "you can be sure it's me."
Despite his bravado, Mr. Legros, unlike many of his neighbors who have repressed the horror of the earthquake itself, keeps reliving it.
After the earthquake struck, he said, he rushed downtown, where his cousins owned a small hotel and found it a pile of heavy concrete slabs. After learning that his cousins were buried inside, he saw an employee, whom he knew only as Rudy, lodged in the rubble, crying for help. He ran to search for equipment to help get Rudy out. But with Port-au-Prince wrecked from one end to the other, Mr. Legros found that his political connections did not help - not on the day of the earthquake, or for the two days after that.
By the time Mr. Legros secured a bulldozer, Rudy was dead.
"I feel impotent, and that impotence bothers me a lot," he said. "But what bothers me even more, is that my country is impotent.
"My God," he added, "what has happened to Haiti?"
Crossroads of Need
Avenue Poupelard crosses a major north-south thoroughfare, Avenue Martin Luther King. At their intersection, a sign in English - "We need help. Food. Water." - has arrows pointing both east and west.
To the immediate west lies the AIDS clinic opposite the car repair lot; to the immediate east, the coffin maker - who is charging his neighbors $125 per plywood box, about a quarter of the average yearly income - and a cybercafe offering free phone calls to the United States. Among those thronging the PMS Cyber Café late last week, one caller was recounting how a cousin had died at the hospital: "They cut off his leg," he said into the phone, "so I don't think he wanted to live after that."
Across the street from the cafe last Thursday, a community center was converted into a triage unit by American doctors, volunteers with a Catholic missionary group who tended dozens of survivors with crush injuries and fractures. The patients included Linda Saint Alain, 27, who had languished in pain with a broken back on the patio of a family home since being dragged from its wreckage during the quake.
The American doctors quickly determined that Ms. Saint Alain needed to be transferred to a hospital, and helped her brother put her onto a flatbed. Before leaving, the brother jumped down to hug Gaston Jeaneddy, a voodoo priest and community leader who had arranged for the rescue team to visit the neighborhood.
"No one person can fix all of Haiti," said Mr. Jeaneddy, a short, muscular man with the bark of a drill sergeant. "Each has to fix his own piece."
Earthquake injuries are not the only urgent medical problems on Avenue Poupelard. The quake has left many thousands of Haitians who have H.I.V./AIDS without the antiretroviral medication that they need to stay healthy. On Thursday, scores of newly homeless Haitians managed to make their way to a dermatology clinic on Avenue Poupelard, where a guard let them wait for assistance on the wooden benches of the open-air waiting room.
The clinic, which used to focus on leprosy and now treats many AIDS patients, is damaged but standing. Its staff members, many of them also homeless, have been showing up for a couple of hours a day to dispense pills.
One patient, Yvose Descosse, 38, wore a turquoise flower in her hair, and twisted her beaded necklace as she spoke in a soft sing-song. She had walked three hours to the clinic from her tent city in the sprawling slum of Cité Soleil. Having missed an appointment the day after the earthquake, she had run out of pills and found herself racked by diarrhea and vomiting - on the streets, no less.
Further, she added, patting her very small belly, she was eight months pregnant and the father of her baby had been killed during the earthquake.
"I needed to come to Poupelard, where they will help me," she said, covering her face with her hands.
Seated near her, Claude Chevalier, 24, a medical student who has H.I.V., said the earthquake had killed his mother, father and sister and left him completely alone. "Everyone in Haiti is in the same situation," he said, closing his eyes briefly, then shrugging.
Not everyone can shrug. For some, the dispiriting reality inspires grim thoughts. Florence Mabeau, a former Red Cross janitor, said she almost envies her teenage daughter for lying unconscious at the General Hospital: "I wish I could sleep through this nightmare," she said.
Ms. Mabeau was squatting in the mechanic's yard opposite the dermatology clinic, where about 300 people have taken shelter in junked cars. It is one of the largest encampments in the neighborhood, with extended families crowding into broken-down vans and painted jitneys. At night, they reserve the best car seats - where there are seats - for the babies, and sleep in the open air.
Conditions are harsh. The people pool their pennies to buy small packets of water and spaghetti, they have no running water or electrical generator and diarrhea is rampant. And now, most have little patience for questions about where they were when the earthquake struck. What's gone is gone, some say, slapping their hands. But others cannot help but yearn for what they lost.
Huguette Joseph, 53, who shares a yellow Nissan bus with 10 children and grandchildren, said she did not have much before the earthquake, living in a leaky, one-room house. Still, she said, "I had my own house. I had my own kitchen. I had my own pots for cooking. I had shoes on my feet."
Sermon Amid the Ruins
Before the earthquake battered the large Evangelie de la Grâce Church, Pastor Enso Sylvert said he routinely drew hundreds of worshipers who spilled out onto the sidewalk for Sunday services. Now he has a gravel lot and a circle of folding chairs, but during a morning service last Thursday, his faith was on fire. He wore a salmon shirt, bounced on the balls of his feet and thrust his Bible in the air, working a crowd of displaced residents into a good-spirited frenzy.
"We call the president 'Onion,' " he said in a chant, using a Creole insult. "We call the ministers 'Onion.' We call the government 'Onion.' Our only hope lies with God."
For a couple of hours, the service enlivened the camp beside the church, a ragtag assemblage of working-class and poor neighbors who once coexisted in the various structures - main house, cottage, shacks - on an old villa property with an empty, cracked swimming pool. Jean-Claude Gouboth, 36, a thin, serious man in an Italian soccer shirt whose small store was crushed in the earthquake, lived in the main house, now damaged.
That made him the de facto leader of the impromptu refugee camp, a post that he did not appear to relish. Life was not easy before the earthquake, he said, with three children to put through school and mounting debt to the bank underwriting his business. But now his 3-year-old girl had been killed by the quake, his wife and other children had fled to the countryside, and he was sleeping with the neighbors in his rocky backyard.
"We are trying to stay on friendly terms, but sometimes there are disputes," he said, citing not a squabble over scant resources, but a theological debate about exactly what God was trying to say when he shook Haiti to its core.
Jesumelle Gustave, 44, who lives in the rubble of the church, does not participate in such esoteric conversation. She thanks God, she said, for leaving $4 in her husband's pocket when the earthquake killed him, money that she has needed to sustain her family of five, including a son with a broken back and an amputated finger.
"How merciful is God!" she said, as the little boys in the encampment kicked a soccer ball onto Avenue Poupelard and across the street to a schoolyard where some friends are living.
Two slim teenage girls ran past them in flip-flops, mattresses on their heads. The school, its roof knocked off, has one wall chiseled away to reveal a blackboard chalked with the chemistry homework assigned the night the earthquake struck.
"We don't have school anymore in Haiti," Sophonie Daniel, 17, said. "Can we come to your country to study?"
Her friend Danuela Bayard, a 21-year-old marketing student, chimed in: "We are young, and we don't want to waste our time in life. This earthquake just paralyzes our lives."
Damien Cave contributed reporting.
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