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A little gem:
Michael Moore Faces Off With Stephen Colbert [VIDEO]
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/57492/
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September 15: A showdown march from the White House to Congress in Washington DC
North/Central California "End the War Now" March
Saturday, October 27, 2007, 11am, San Francisco Civic Center Plaza
I encourage anyone who can devote some time to contact the ANSWER office and sign up for one of the committees to build Oct. 27—two of the most important, of course, are outreach and fundraising.
Funds are urgently needed for all the material—posters, flyers, stickers and buttons, etc.—to get the word out! Make your tax-deductible donation to:
Progress Unity Fund/Oct. 27
and mail to:
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco, CA 94110
Please sign up to pass out flyers and to volunteer your time and energy to making this one of the truest expressions of the sentiment of we, the people this October 27.
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein
To get more information on meeting times or distribution dates call or drop into the ANSWER office at the above address.
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.actionsf.org
sf@internationalanswer.org
415-821-6545
(Call to check meeting and event schedules.)
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Waste Management Inc. Campaign: Support Workers Locked Out & Honoring Picket Lines
SOLIDARITY BREAKFAST -- 8:30AM, MONDAY, JULY 30
at ILWU Local 6
99 Hegenberger Rd, Oakland, CA
Bay Area Trade Unionists and Supporters,
The Teamsters Union Local 70, the Machinists Lodge 1546 and International Longshoremen Local 6 are all impacted by a lockout by Waste Management Incorporated.
Waste Management Incorporated locked out 500 Oakland area workers despite a public pledge by IBT Local 70 to not strike and to continue good faith negotiations after the contract expired on June 30, 2007. 80 Machinists have been locked out as well. Nearly 300 members of ILWU Local 6 were told they "had the right" to cross the picket line in the event of a strike or lockout. However, we all know that solidarity is our only choice to survive in these situations. Teamster members are entitled to unemployment benefits due to their locked out status. Machinists are hoping for these benefits as well. However, many of the lower paid workers -- the recycling, clerical and landfill workers in ILWU Local 6, respecting the picket line, will not qualify for unemployment and are not eligible for strike funds.
We are asking you to help in this critical fight. Nearly 1,000 workers overall are involved in this fight. Nearly 300 ILWU members are holding up their end without a safety net to catch their fall.
Please send in your pledges and contributions today to the Alameda Labor Council Hardship Fund. This fund is available to all union members impacted by the Waste Management lockout. However, we are especially mindful of the situation of our 300 ILWU brothers and sisters who are holding the line against a company that shows no regard for the lives of any of its workers.
Come join our Solidarity Breakfast on Monday, July 30 at 8:30 am, 99 Hegenberger Road, Oakland. BRING YOUR CHECK BOOK!!
$350 will replace one week?s take home pay for one worker
$1,000 will help pay rent or a mortgage for one month
$4,500 will pay our grocery bill this week
$7,500 will make you a hero
Please make your contributions to:
Alameda Labor Council Hardship Fund, 100 Hegenberger Rd., Suite 150, Oakland CA 94621
In unity,
Sharon Cornu, Executive Secretary -Treasurer Tim Paulson, Executive Director
Central Labor Council of Alameda County San Francisco Labor Council
Shelley Kessler, Executive Secretary-Treasurer Pam Aguilar, Executive Secretary -Treasurer
San Mateo Central Labor Council Contra Costa Central Labor Council
OPEIU 3 AFL-CIO 11
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YouTube clip of Che before the UN in 1964
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtATT8GXkWg&mode=related&search
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The Wealthiest Americans Ever
NYT Interactive chart
JULY 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/business/20070715_GILDED_GRAPHIC.html
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New Orleans After the Flood -- A Photo Gallery
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=795
This email was sent to you as a service, by Roland Sheppard.
Visit my website at: http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret
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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) 3 Executives Spared Prison in OxyContin Case
By BARRY MEIER
July 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/business/21pharma.html?ref=business
2) Police Attack Oaxaca’s Alternative Guelaguetza
One Person Confirmed Dead, 62 Detained, Disappearances
http://elenemigocomun.net/1008
3) The Fall of Faith-Based Foreign Policy
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
Howard Keylor
howardkeylor@comcast.net
4) Drug Safety Critic Hurls His Darts From the Inside
By STEPHANIE SAUL
July 22, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/business/22nissen.html?hp
5) When Mobile Phones Aren’t Truly Mobile
By RANDALL STROSS
July 22, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/business/yourmoney/22digi.html?ref=business
6) Organizations Unite Around September 15 March on Washington
and Plan "Days of Action"
Please circulate widely
Organizations Unite Around
September 15 March on Washington
and Plan "Days of Action"
www.Sept15.org
7) Philippine President Criticizes Killings by Military
By CARLOS H. CONDE
July 23, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/world/asia/23cnd-philippines.html?ref=world
8) Promise of ID Cards Is Followed by Peril of Arrest for Illegal Immigrants
By NINA BERNSTEIN
July 23, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/nyregion/23raid.html?ref=us
9) Hunts for ‘Fugitive Aliens’ Lead to Collateral Arrests
By NINA BERNSTEIN
July 23, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/nyregion/23operation.html
10) Ex-MP's daughter held over attack
From: "IRSP"
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 23:14:52 -0700
To: Seven_Stars_Republican_Socialist_News@yahoogroups.com
Ex-MP's daughter held over attack
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6676049.stm
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1) 3 Executives Spared Prison in OxyContin Case
By BARRY MEIER
July 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/business/21pharma.html?ref=business
ABINGDON, Va., July 20 — After hearing wrenching testimony from parents of young adults who died from overdoses involving the painkiller OxyContin, a federal judge Friday sentenced three top executives of the company that makes the narcotic to three years’ probation and 400 hours each of community service in drug treatment programs.
In announcing the unorthodox sentence, Judge James P. Jones of United States District Court indicated that he was troubled by his inability to send the executives to prison. But he noted that federal prosecutors had not produced evidence as part of recent plea deals to show that the officials were aware of wrongdoing at the drug’s maker, Purdue Pharma of Stamford, Conn.
The sentences announced by Judge Jones came at the end of a lengthy and highly emotional hearing at a small brick courthouse in this town in far western Virginia. Parents of teenagers and young adults who died from overdoses while trying to get high from OxyContin arrived here from as far away as Florida, Massachusetts and California.
Given the opportunity to speak, they both memorialized their lost children and lambasted Purdue Pharma and its executives, saying they bore a responsibility for those deaths. They also urged Judge Jones to throw out the plea agreements and send the executives to jail.
“Our children were not drug addicts, they were typical teenagers,” said Teresa Ashcraft, who said that her son Robert died of an overdose at age 19. “We have been given a life sentence due to their lies and greed.”
Another women held up a jar that she said contained the ashes of the dead son.
OxyContin, which is a long-acting time-release form of the narcotic oxycodone, is used to treat serious pain. Several reports have suggested that Purdue may have helped fuel widespread abuse of the drug by aggressively promoting it to general practitioners not skilled in either pain treatment or in recognizing drug abuse. The company has denied such a connection. Among those who testified at the hearing were some patients who told about the pain relief they received from OxyContin.
This bucolic town is not far from the spine of the Appalachian Mountains and Kentucky and Tennessee, where abuse of OxyContin exploded in early 2000, just a few years after it was first sold. Both addicts and young experimenters quickly discovered that a pill needed only to be chewed or crushed before ingesting to release large doses of oxycodone, which produced a heroinlike high.
In May, a holding company affiliated with Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to a felony charge that it had fraudulently claimed to doctors and patients that OxyContin would cause less abuse and addiction than competing short-acting narcotics like Percocet and Vicodin. The Food and Drug Administration had allowed the company to claim only that it “believed” that the drug, because it was long-acting, might be less prone to abuse.
To settle that charge, Purdue Frederick, the holding company, agreed to pay $600 million in fines and other payments, and the executives agreed to pay $34.5 million in fines. In accepting that deal, Judge Jones put the company on five years’ probation.
In a statement issued Friday, Purdue Pharma said that “Judge Jones’s acceptance of the settlement concludes this matter and we welcome its resolution.”
That ruling, however, does not mean the end of legal problems for Purdue Pharma, which is owned by the Sackler family, known for its contributions to institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. A number of insurers had lawsuits against it seeking compensation for what they say were unnecessary prescriptions for OxyContin, a very expensive drug, that were written because of the company’s false marketing claims.
Defense lawyers for the three executives involved — Michael Friedman, the company’s president until recently; Howard R. Udell, its top lawyer; and Dr. Paul D. Goldenheim, its former medical director — all urged Judge Jones not to put their clients on probation.
The executives had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of misbranding, a crime that does not require prosecutors to show that they knew about wrongdoing or intended to defraud anyone. And defense lawyers said their only crime was heading Purdue Pharma at time when others were committing crimes.
They also described their clients in glowing terms. For example, Mary Jo White, a former United States attorney in New York who represented Mr. Udell, described the lawyer as the “moral compass” of Purdue Pharma. Had he known about wrongdoing, Ms. White said, he “would have done everything in his power to stop it.”
Judge Jones appeared unmoved by such arguments. And while he said a lack of jail time was the “most difficult” part of accepting the plea agreements, he added that his hands were legally tied because prosecutors had not provided him with evidence on which to act.
Still, he appeared to be sending out a message by placing the executives on three years of probation and ordering them to perform 400 hours of service in a drug abuse or drug treatment program.
“As we have heard today, prescription drug abuse is rampant in all parts of this country,” Judge Jones said.
At an earlier outdoor rally Friday attended by about 50 people, including many of those who would later testify at the hearing, there was ample testimony to that problem.
Assembled around a bandstand where speakers stood to castigate Purdue Pharma as a “corporate drug pusher” were photographs of teenagers and young adults at parties, family trips or graduation ceremonies.
The legend over one young man’s photograph read “One Pill Killed.”
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2) Police Attack Oaxaca’s Alternative Guelaguetza
One Person Confirmed Dead, 62 Detained, Disappearances
http://elenemigocomun.net/1008
June 16th, 2007 - Barucha Calamity Peller writes: Today in Oaxaca
City,Oaxaca, a confrontation between the APPO (Popular Assembly of
The Peoples of Oaxaca) and security forces of the State of Oaxaca as
well as Federal Preventive Police has left at least one movement
participant dead as a result of police violence, at least 62
detained, and an unknown
number of people disappeared.
According to an APPO press statement released today, the police
launched “a broad offense” against the people of Oaxaca who were
celebrating their alternative and popular Guelaguetza (an annual
Oaxacan cultural festival) in the Guelaguetza auditorium. The APPO
announced two days previous that it would hold an alternative
cultural festival in the main Guelaguetza auditorium, located in the
Fortin Mountain outside of the city.
Federal Preventive Police and State police surrounded the perimeter
of the Guelaguetza auditorium in order to prevent people from
entering the festival. A caravan heading to the festival, tailed by
10,000 people, arrived to the auditorium, and in that moment the
police attacked the crowd with tear gas, rocks, sticks, whatever they
had in their hands, as well as with unidentified explosive
projectiles. People retreated, and
the police advanced, beating and arresting people. Three
photographers were reported to have been beaten. Countless others
were tossed into the back of police pick up trucks with serious
injuries.
For the moment the state and the municipal police continue a citywide
operation in the streets of Oaxaca City, detaining people in the
open. The military are reported to have surrounded the city on the
highways.
Several people are reported to be in grave conditions, and police
apparently apprehended injured festival participants and APPO
supporters while they were transported by the red cross to receive
medical attention.
There are reports that the detained are suffering torture and
constant beatings at the hands of the state and federal police.
Emeterio Merino Cruz Vazquez, the one confirmed fatality from police
violence, was killed from impact from a unidentified explosive
projectile fired by police, which split his intestines open.
The alternative Guelaguetza was planned by the APPO in response to
the government co-optation of the cultural festival that reflects
indigenous tradition through dance. The movement charges that the
festival has been made into a spectacle for tourists for years, and
that the “official” Guelaguetza is an economic excursion on the part
of multinational corporations and Ulises Ruiz, the state Governor
targeted by the Oaxaca popular uprising. Last year, in actions
against the official Guelaguetza, members of the APPO uprising burned
the Guelaguetza stage.
Oaxaca Solidarity:
El Enemigo Común (film and news)
http://elenemigocomun.net
Email Alert List
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/oaxaca
Join the Alert List, send an email to
oaxaca-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
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3) The Fall of Faith-Based Foreign Policy
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
Howard Keylor
howardkeylor@comcast.net
With the news of the resurgence of Al-Qaeda have come the incredible claims by the Bush administration of the exact opposite: that “Al-Qaeda is weaker.”
The Bush regime is in this profound state of denial because to agree with this assessment implies failure in Iraq, a fact that is patently obvious to all who possess sight.
For the Iraq debacle, begun with the spurious claims of weapons of mass destruction, and to stop Saddam Hussein's support of terrorism, has unleashed the whirlwind in the country.
Before the war, Al-Qaeda was, if anything, persona non grata to the Baath Party secularists who ran the country: today, they are using Iraq as a live-fire training camp; a place to fight the Americans, not in practice, but for real!
If that ain't failure, what is?
The neocon, “Zioncon” forces that pushed at the inner offices of government for the Iraq war, on the promise of “bringing democracy to the Middle East,” have reaped a disaster of truly epic proportions.
Iraq, whether it remains one state, or is shattered into many, will never be the same. Its millions of refugees may wait a lifetime for the stability that allows homes to be established, businesses to function, and peace to reign.
And while the problem may have begun in Congress (in their ill-advised grant of war authority to the so-called “War President”), it cannot resolve the problem, for it is now beyond their control.
Iraq is a hell on earth. Any dreams of using it as a demonstration project to influence the developments in the rest of the region is now in ashes.
But this is not merely my opinion. British journalist Jonathan Freedland, writing in a recent edition of the New York Review of Books, argued that Bush failed even under his own measures. Writes Freedland:
“Judged even by the lights of Bush's own ‘war on terror’ it has been a spectacular failure. It took a country that had been free of Jihadist militants and turned it into their most fecund breeding ground; it took a country that posed no threat to the United States and made it into a place where thousands of Americans, not to mention tens, if not hundreds, of thousand of Iraqis, have been killed. And it diverted resources from the task that should have been uppermost after September 11, namely the hunting down of Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, allowing them to slip out of reach. What's more, Bush's ‘war on terror’ did bin Laden's work for him. [Former US national security advisor [Zbigniew} Brzezinski is not alone in suggesting that it was a mistake to treat September !! as an act of war, rather than an outrageous crime: in so doing, the administration endowed a-qaeda with the status it craved.” {Fr.: Freedland, J., "Bush's Amazing Achievement," N. Y. Rev. of Books, June 14, '07, p.16]
Any president who assumes control next year, whether Democratic, Republican, or Green, will inherit the Iraq trap—for he or she may be able to mitigate problems, or even exacerbate them—but they cannot solve them. And they cannot ignore them.
Iraq will be with this country, one way or another, for at least a generation.
Ultimately, history will judge that this ill-advised adventure will become tantamount to a war on the U.S.
No lame declaration, from Congress, or the White House, will mean its end.
July 17, 2007
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4) Drug Safety Critic Hurls His Darts From the Inside
By STEPHANIE SAUL
July 22, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/business/22nissen.html?hp
Back in the ’60s, when University of Michigan students were holding protests over civil rights and the Vietnam War, an undergraduate named Steven E. Nissen was at the center of the political dissent.
Four decades later, that former campus activist is now Dr. Nissen, who is shaking up the nation’s pharmaceutical industry.
His questioning of the safety of the Avandia diabetes medication in late May, for example, prompted a federal safety alert and led to a sales decline of about 30 percent for the drug, which brought in $3.2 billion for GlaxoSmithKline last year. Now, with a federal panel soon to decide whether it can remain on the market, Avandia’s future is uncertain.
The drug is the latest example of why Dr. Nissen, 58, whose day job is chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, has emerged as a Naderesque figure and the nation’s unofficial arbiter of drug safety.
Admirers laud him not only for raising safety questions about Avandia, but also for sounding early warnings about the painkiller Vioxx, as well as other drugs. By digging deeply into companies’ own clinical trial data — information that used to be available only to federal drug regulators who did not always mine it as aggressively — Dr. Nissen is among a new cadre of activist scientists demanding greater vigilance on drug safety.
But Dr. Nissen also has critics, who say he seeks the spotlight as much as the safety of medicine. Others see a conflict of interest in his self-appointed role as the drug industry watchdog while he also presides over industry-financed research worth millions of dollars. “I’m an insider and an outsider at the same time,” Dr. Nissen says in an official Cleveland Clinic biography.
His crusading for drug safety, and his recent informal advisory role to members of Congress on legislation to strengthen drug safety enforcement, have fostered speculation that Dr. Nissen, a Democrat who has worked with members from both parties, covets an official public platform. Some see him angling to be the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, an agency whose decision-making he has frequently questioned.
Although Dr. Nissen denies that he is campaigning for the job, or even that he is really interested in it, he refuses to rule it out. “I want to fix the F.D.A.,” Dr. Nissen said in a recent interview.
He also wants to influence health policy more generally. In one of his final acts this year as the president of the American College of Cardiology, a doctors’ group, Dr. Nissen gave a speech calling for universal health insurance.
People listen to Dr. Nissen partly because of his unabashed self-confidence and outgoing personality. Friends from college remember his mischievous air, a demeanor that has endured alongside his willingness to raise tough questions.
Dr. Nissen also has a statistician’s zeal for drilling deep into clinical data, seeking signs that some widely used drugs pose undisclosed risks to patients. In discussing his work, he describes sleepless nights poring over numbers.
Dr. Nissen’s article in The New England Journal of Medicine, published in May, was based on his review of 42 clinical studies of Avandia involving nearly 28,000 patients. His conclusion, that the drug seems to raise the risk of heart attacks, was widely covered in the news media, including this newspaper.
After the Nissen article appeared on the journal’s Web site on May 21, the F.D.A., which said it had been evaluating the drug’s risks, issued a safety alert advising Avandia patients to consult their doctors.
The agency also scheduled a hearing on July 30, at which a panel of expert advisers could recommend restrictions, or even a ban, on Avandia’s use. The F.D.A. has asked Dr. Nissen to attend to answer questions.
GlaxoSmithKline has challenged the significance of Dr. Nissen’s findings and has defended the drug’s safety. Avandia, which has been used by about seven million people, is merely the latest drug to become a target of Dr. Nissen, who describes himself as an advocate of patients.
In 2005, for example, Dr. Nissen attacked the experimental diabetes drug Pargluva, from Bristol-Myers Squibb, saying it posed serious heart risks. Although an F.D.A. advisory panel had overwhelmingly recommended its approval, Pargluva never made it to market.
Dr. Nissen, who had warned of the dangers of the painkiller Vioxx, from Merck, before it was withdrawn in 2004, challenged Merck’s follow-on product, Arcoxia, which failed to win approval this year. He called Arcoxia the “son of Vioxx,” telling a reporter, “This is a genie I don’t want to see let out of the bottle.”
In his article on Avandia, Dr. Nissen was careful to note the limitations of his analysis. In some media interviews, though, he was less guarded. On the ABC television program “Nightline,” Dr. Nissen predicted that the deaths caused by Avandia could “dwarf” the carnage of Sept. 11, 2001.
Dr. Michael A. Weber, a professor of medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, is among the doctors who worry that Dr. Nissen’s Avandia rhetoric has been inflammatory. Dr. Weber cited Dr. Nissen’s reference to the World Trade Center attack as “something that doesn’t need to be part of a good clinical scientific discussion.”
GlaxoSmithKline complained about the same thing. “In some of his comments to the media, Dr. Nissen has gone beyond discussing the scientific findings of his study to language that frightens patients,” a company spokeswoman, Mary Anne Rhyne, said in an e-mail message.
Even Dr. Delos M. Cosgrove, Dr. Nissen’s supervisor at the Cleveland Clinic, where his department of 90 cardiologists handled 234,000 patient visits last year, says he advised Dr. Nissen simply to talk about the science.
Among his contributions to the clinic is his pioneering work in using ultrasound images to measure fatty plaque inside the walls of coronary arteries, a procedure known as intravascular ultrasound.
While some other drug safety critics avoid all industry ties, Dr. Nissen actively seeks industry-financed research. To avoid undue influence, he says, he insists that charities be given any industry consulting and speaking fees that he would have personally received.
Beneficiaries of the money, hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years, have included the American College of Cardiology. Another recipient has been the Cleveland Museum of Art, one of the major museums and galleries that has shown the work of his wife, Linda Butler, an award-winning photographer.
Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe, the head of the consumer organization Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, is generally supportive of Dr. Nissen’s efforts on behalf of drug safety. “He’s very smart and he’s done a lot of good,” Dr. Wolfe said.
But he says that Dr. Nissen’s diverting drug company money to charity is not an adequate buffer from industry influence. “It’s still a conflict of interest,” Dr. Wolfe said.
Dr. Nissen’s industry ties have enabled critics to question his analysis of Avandia, for example, because he has served as a consultant for Takeda and Eli Lilly, the companies that together market Avandia’s main competitor, Actos.
Pointing out that he does not personally receive money from any company, Dr. Nissen said his work for Takeda, Eli Lilly or any other drug maker does not affect his scientific detachment.
“My involvement with any company does not bias my scientific perspective and I scrupulously avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest,” he said.
And Dr. Nissen says he believes his alarms about drug safety have sometimes caused the Cleveland Clinic to miss out when companies award contracts for clinical research trials.
But his adversarial reputation can also work the other way. Because of Dr. Nissen’s reputation, companies may seek him out for research projects.
After the withdrawal of Merck’s Vioxx, for example, Pfizer chose Dr. Nissen to lead a 20,000-patient study of whether its similar drug, Celebrex, carries heart risks.
“In the view of Pfizer, who is co-sponsoring the trial, they know that whatever we report will be believable,” Dr. Nissen said. The study, which will cost millions of dollars, is expected to be completed in 2010.
A Pfizer spokesman, Raymond F. Kerins Jr., said the company picked Dr. Nissen because it seeks advice from leading experts. “These experts ask excellent — and often tough — questions,” Mr. Kerins said.
Although he is the son of a doctor, Dr. Nissen initially rebelled against following that path.
In college in the late 1960s and early ’70s, while working as an editor at his campus newspaper, The Michigan Daily, he became active in the antiwar movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement and the Human Rights Party, a largely student-run group that elected two members to the Ann Arbor City Council.
One of those council members, Jerry DeGrieck, remembers the young Steve Nissen’s work in leading a voter registration drive.
Those extracurricular activities left little time for classes, which is why Dr. Nissen likes to recall that he was on the “eight-year plan” at Michigan, and says he was lucky to have been accepted to the University of Michigan medical school after finally getting his bachelor’s degree, in 1974.
Mr. DeGrieck, now a government public health policy adviser in Seattle, says he never imagined that his college friend would become one of the nation’s most influential doctors. But he says he is not surprised at all by Dr. Nissen’s activism.
“He’s always questioned authority,” Mr. DeGrieck said.
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5) When Mobile Phones Aren’t Truly Mobile
By RANDALL STROSS
July 22, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/business/yourmoney/22digi.html?ref=business
WIRELESS carriers in the United States are spiritual descendants of dear Ma Bell: they view total control over customers as their inherited birthright.
The younger generation — Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and the namesake child AT&T — would make their hallowed matriarch proud. They do everything they can to keep power firmly in their own hands. It is entirely at the carriers’ discretion to permit, or disable, the features that a factory loads into the newest phones. They also decide which software can be installed and how it may be used. Many wireless subscribers have ruefully become acquainted with gotcha clauses in their contracts.
In most European and Asian countries, a customer can switch carriers in a few seconds by removing a smart card from a cellphone and inserting a different one from a new provider. In the United States, wireless carriers have deliberately hobbled their phones to make flight to a competitor difficult, if not impossible.
If you, the long-suffering subscriber, decide that you have had enough and wish to try your luck with another company, you’re free to pay your early-termination fee and go. But you most likely will have to abandon the phone you’ve already paid for, even when the technology is shared by the two carriers. (Sprint, for example, whose network is based on the CDMA standard, forbids the use of CDMA-based cellphones obtained from Verizon.) The odds are better than even that your cellphone is either locked by your incumbent carrier or forbidden for use on the network by your new one.
In the days when cellphones were inexpensive and could perform only one or two functions, they could be treated as disposable. When smart phones like the Palm Treo arrived, however, the cellphones became too pricey to abandon lightly when switching companies. Now the iPhone is here — if you’re willing to pony up $500 or $600. AT&T has received an exclusive contract from Apple, so iPhone buyers have no alternative carrier. But the lack of choices rankles and is drawing more scrutiny than ever.
Two weeks ago, Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, led a House hearing on “wireless innovation and consumer protection” and held up an iPhone as Exhibit A in his assessment that the industry exerted “far too much control over the features, functions and applications that wireless gadget makers and content entrepreneurs can offer directly to consumers.” Why is it, he asked, that AT&T imposes a two-year contract with a $175 early-termination fee “even though the phone cost wasn’t subsidized and a consumer can’t even take it to use with another network provider?”
Wireless customers may soon have a few more options. In a coming auction for wireless spectrum that will be available in 2009, the Federal Communications Commission is preparing to set aside a third of the new capacity for bidders who agree to operate wireless services in a more open fashion.
Kevin J. Martin, the F.C.C. chairman, said in an interview last week that he had circulated a draft proposal among his fellow commissioners that would require the winning bidders to be receptive “to all kinds of devices and applications” provided by independent consumer electronics makers and third-party software providers.
Subscribers of the new services would even be permitted to take their phones with them, freely, from one carrier to another. Imagine: a genuinely mobile phone.
The pressure to provide consumers with more cellphone and software choices has been building for some time. In January, the F.C.C. took another step to loosen the exclusive grip of the cable operators’ control over the set-top box that feeds the cable signal to the TV, a move that showed that the commission is open to changes that give consumers more equipment choices.
Then, in February, Timothy Wu, a law professor at Columbia University, published an influential paper, “Wireless Net Neutrality,” which made a well-supported case that the government should compel wireless carriers to open their networks to equipment and software applications that the carriers did not control. Mr. Wu called his proposition a call for “Cellular Carterfone,” referring to the 1968 Carterfone ruling by the F.C.C. The Carterfone was a speakerphone-like gadget that permitted a phone sitting in a cradle to be connected with a two-way radio. Over the objections of AT&T, the F.C.C. ruled that consumers could plug it or any phone or accessory into the network so long as doing so did no harm to the network. The ruling set in motion the changes that provided consumers with a cornucopia of equipment choices like answering machines, fax machines, modems and cordless phones. Among Mr. Wu’s readers was Mr. Martin of the F.C.C.
The wireless carriers are fighting a cellular version of the Carterfone decision. They contend that they must exert control over all equipment used on their networks in order to protect the networks’ operations. AT&T says in an F.C.C. filing that only the carrier has the incentive to oversee “the integrity, security and efficient and economical use” of the network.
MR. WU’S paper, however, shows that the landline telephone industry used identical arguments, predicting dire consequences were its customers permitted to use equipment from unknown sources. In 1955, when AT&T was fighting to exclude a gadget called the Hush-A-Phone, the company solemnly argued, “It would be extremely difficult to furnish ‘good’ telephone service if telephone users were free to attach to the equipment, or use with it, all of the numerous kinds of foreign attachments, which are marketed by persons who have no responsibility for the quality of telephone service.”
As a postscript to the landline industry’s resistance to opening its networks, Mr. Wu said in an interview last week, “Things turned out not just O.K., but great.”
Companies like Google and Skype have called on the F.C.C. to open up more equipment and software options in the wireless industry. Google said on Friday that it would participate in the spectrum auction, committing a minimum of $4.6 billion, if the F.C.C. put into effect its "open access" proposals submitted earlier. Verizon Wireless, however, contended that Google’s proposals would open its network to phones that Verizon had not approved and “that cannot reliably communicate with law enforcement,” a grave problem “in an era of heightened national security concerns.”
In other words, stick with Verizon-certified phones, or the terrorists win.
The wireless industry is being dragged, ever so slowly and gently, into a scary new age — one that began in 1968 with Carterfone — that will require adjustment to reduced control. The industry can never credibly contend that its business practices foster competition and innovation as long as its customers are prevented from moving easily from one carrier to another. Last week, Representative Markey said: “How crazy is this? You can take your number with you, but you can’t take your new $500 phone with you.”
Randall Stross is an author based in Silicon Valley and a professor of business at San Jose State University. E-mail: stross@nytimes.com.
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6) The end of Zionism
By Nehemia Strasler
Ha'aretz July 19, 2007
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/883868.html
A few days ago, A.'s great-great-great grandson was born. A. is 98 years old, a well-known figure in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighborhood, and he has around 450 descendants - no one counts for fear of the evil eye. A simple calculation shows that about 20 years separate each generation of his extended family, and each nuclear family has over 10 children on average.
What does this say about Israeli society and its future in the very near term? Even today, 23 percent of first-grade pupils are ultra-Orthodox and 22 percent are Arab. In another 12 years, when they reach voting age, they will together comprise the majority, and the face of the nation will change.
These figures complement the data about the growth in draft-dodging and about the education system, which is incapable of training its graduates for a life of work and productivity. Draft-dodging, which was once a mark of Cain on the brow of any healthy secular man, has in recent years become almost the bon ton. The new heroes of TV show "A Star is Born" are not embarrassed to say that they did not serve in the army.
Some young people explain their evasion of service by their loss of confidence in the leadership, the cases of corruption and the state's abandonment of its soldiers. But there is also an accumulated weariness with the state of war, which has already lasted 60 years, and many young people, along with their parents, are no longer willing to sacrifice their lives on the altar of the settlers' expansionist dreams.
In any case, the decline in motivation to serve in combat units and the steady rise in draft-dodging raise the question of whether the Israel Defense Forces is really still "the people's army." After all, 25 percent of those eligible for the draft never serve at all (11 percent receive exemptions for yeshiva studies, 7 percent for health reasons, 4 percent reside abroad and 3 percent have a criminal record). Of those drafted, 17.5 percent do not complete a full three years of service. The sharpest rise in the number of draft-dodgers is among the ultra-Orthodox. In 1974, they comprised only 2.4 percent of those eligible for the draft. Today, the figure is 11 percent.
Against this background, it is shocking to learn that yesterday the Knesset decided to extend the so-called Tal Law for another five years due to the government's need to keep Shas in the coalition. This is a cynical, immoral law that absolves a significant portion of Jewish Israelis from the need to either do army service or work for a living. The fact is that 80 percent of ultra-Orthodox men do not work; instead, they live on government grants and stipends and the earnings of their wives. After all, why should they risk their lives? Why should they leave their comfortable incubators as long as the secular donkey is there to bear the burden for them?
The secular donkey does not merely bear the military and economic burden; it also continues to expand the scope of government support for ultra-Orthodox education, including even the most extremist strains. About two months ago, the Knesset, by a large majority, approved the so-called Nahari Law, which compels the municipalities to grant equal funding to ultra-Orthodox schools that are not part of the official education system. These are extremist institutions, which do not even recognize the education systems run by Shas and United Torah Judaism and are unwilling even to hear about the Education Ministry's "core curriculum." They do not teach mathematics, English, nature, science, civics, geography or history. In other words, they deliberately fail to train their graduates for a life of work and productivity. So these graduates have no choice but to cling to the coattails of ultra-Orthodox activists.
And where will the new funding for these extremist schools come from? >From cuts in the state education system, which is already poor and discriminated against.
To this dangerous trend should be added the targeted assassination of the Wisconsin plan that Industry Minister Eli Yishai carried out this week. This welfare-to-work program succeeded in returning thousands of people to the ranks of the employed, but was curtailed because, in Yishai's value system, work is at the bottom of the list.
All this leads to a situation in which only 56 percent of the country's potential workers actually work - the lowest rate of any Western country. And if this rate declines any further, Israel will sooner or later reach a situation in which the taxes of the few who still work will not suffice to support the many who do not.
If these dangerous processes continue and even intensify, Israeli society will move from A.D. Gordon's system of labor to the charitable support system of the pre-state Jewish community, and from "the people's army" to a French-style foreign legion. That will bring us to the complete reversal of the Zionist revolution - and perhaps even to the end of the Zionist state.
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6) Organizations Unite Around September 15 March on Washington
and Plan "Days of Action"
Please circulate widely
Organizations Unite Around
September 15 March on Washington
and Plan "Days of Action"
www.Sept15.org
A broad spectrum of national groups have united to mobilize for a massive fall anti-war mobilization called the Days of Action. September 15-21 will be a major showdown in Washington DC at the very moment that the Petraeus Report is released and Congress takes up spending over $100 billion to prolong the war. Launched with a huge March on Washington on Saturday, September 15, led by veterans who have returned from Iraq, there will be seven days of actions to send a shockwave through Washington and the nation with the reverberating demand: End the War Now!
At the July 18 planning meeting held in Washington DC, representatives from Veterans for Peace (VFP), Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, National Council of Arab Americans, CODEPINK, Grassroots America, Democracy Rising, Howard University student leaders, ImpeachBush.org, National Lawyers Guild, ANSWER Coalition and others came together to plan a powerful mobilization at this critical moment to bring the war to an end. The groups have all agreed to bring their respective constituencies together and at the meeting made plans for the September 15 March on Washington DC. The march will be led by veterans returned from Iraq and their families, and will include a major and dramatic die-in of thousands. It will be followed by days of protest and direct action which will take place in Washington DC and elsewhere from September 16-21.
On July 18, Cindy Sheehan was on the road in the middle of her Journey for Humanity March, but she too will be with us in Washington DC on September 15. U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW) and others in the labor movement are also supporting the September 15 action. Malik Rahim of the Common Ground Collective in New Orleans, Ramsey Clark, Howard Zinn, Campus Anti-War Network, and hundreds of other organizations and prominent leaders are also involved in the September 15 March on Washington.
It was decided at the July 18 planning meeting that all organizations would work within a unified structure and framework, and that different organizations would provide leadership and act as the anchor for different parts of the September 15-21 actions. A website has been created to promote the September 15 March and all the other activities that will be organized in Washington DC between September 15-21: www.Sept15.org. An invitation is also open to all other organizations to join in this coalition or to endorse the activities.
Based on the decisions at the July 18 planning meeting and follow-up discussions among the various organizations, the following calendar of events lays out the schedule for September 15-21:
Saturday, September 15
Mass March on Washington & Die-In led by Iraq Veterans
- People will begin assembling at the White House in the late morning. There will not be an opening rally. A march will form with the front contingent of Iraq war veterans, family members of soldiers and marines, and other veterans. When the march arrives at Congress, the Iraq Veterans Against the War and family members will be the leadership of a mass die-in symbolizing the deaths of an estimated 4,000 U.S. servicemembers. A powerful representation of the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis will be the other central component of this dramatic confrontation with Congress at the time that they will be debating spending another $100 billion to sustain the criminal occupation of Iraq.
- The Die-In is a civil disobedience action that will involve at least 4,000 people who are able to risk arrest.
- There will be a permitted rally taking place simultaneously with the Die-In. All those who cannot afford to risk arrest will be able to participate in the permitted rally that will take place on the West Lawn of the Capitol Building.
Sunday, September 16
National Training Session for the other Days of Action
This will be a national meeting that will take place in Washington DC for all those who can remain in DC following the September 15 Mass March and Die-In. This will be a practical preparation for the actions on Monday, September 17 through Friday, September 21. This will be for everyone who can participate in one or more of the follow-up Days of Action.
Monday, September 17
Peoples March Inside Congress
Assemble at 9:00 am in the cafeteria of the Rayburn House Office Building (House of Representatives). The lead organizing group for this action is CODEPINK.
Monday, September 17
National Truth in Recruiting Day
In Washington DC, people will dispatch in teams to recruitment centers to tell the truth and counter the lies of the recruiters. Teams will dispatch from 7 am to 1 pm at Union Station in Washington DC. For those who have had to return to their cities, actions will take place all day long at local recruitment centers. The lead organizing group for this action will be Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). [Read a letter from Adam Kokesh of Iraq Veterans Against the War about the National Truth in Recruiting Day.]
Tuesday, September 18
Congressional Challenge Day
A broad spectrum of people from around the country will fill the halls and offices of Congress to tell members of Congress to stop funding the war right now. The lead organizing group for this action is Grassroots America. Tina Richards, mother of Iraq war veteran Cloy Richards and CEO of Grassroots America, writes that September 18 "is the day we throw the gauntlet down. We will challenge our government to fulfill the mandate of the people. We do not want a new direction into Iraq as Senate Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi is fond of saying. We will tell them: 'End the War NOW!' So join me on September 18, 2007, as we challenge our leaders to do the will of the American people." [Read a letter from Tina Richards about the Congressional Challenge Day.]
Wednesday, September 19
Direct Action
More details coming soon.
Thursday, September 20
Veterans lobbying day
More details coming soon. The lead organizing groups for this action will be Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW).
Friday, September 21
National Moratorium Day
Actions will take place around the country. Information: IraqMoratorium.org.
Be sure to check out www.Sept15.org!
Please make an urgently needed donation today. We must immediately raise funds to pay for buses, posters, leaflets, stickers, sound, stage and the many other expenses associated with a mass, grassroots organizing campaign. We have succeeded in making this movement grow because of the financial donations from you and thousands of others. Please make a much needed online donation, or learn how you can contribute by check, by clicking this link now.
Be sure to check out www.Sept15.org!
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
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7) Philippine President Criticizes Killings by Military
By CARLOS H. CONDE
July 23, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/world/asia/23cnd-philippines.html?ref=world
MANILA, July 23 — President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo highlighted on Monday what she called her administration’s successes in the past year, saying that these accomplishments, most of them infrastructure projects like roads and airports in the provinces, would play a critical role in achieving her vision of turning the Philippines into a first world country within the next 20 years.
In her state of the nation address opening the 14th Congress of the Philippines, Ms. Arroyo also called on Congress to pass laws that would “reserve the harshest penalties for the rogue elements in the uniformed services” who are found guilty of killing or torturing political activists. “It’s never right to fight terror with terror,” she said.
The killings of hundreds of political activists that have blotted the record of her administration and attracted widespread condemnation here and abroad. The military has been blamed for the killings and Monday’s speech was the first time Ms. Arroyo, who had always defended the armed forces, acknowledged this. “We must wipe this thing from our democratic record,” she said.
Ms. Arroyo devoted much of her speech to thanking politicians in the cities and provinces outside of Manila, whose support in the elections last May were a main factor in her administration’s dominance in the races for congressional and local positions.
“Our investment in vital infrastructure is already bearing fruit,” Ms. Arroyo said after citing dozens of projects her administration is overseeing.
Ms. Arroyo’s list of accomplishments seemed intended to counter complaints by her political opponents and critics, who continue to charge her administration with human rights abuses, election fraud and corruption.
“It is my wish that the Philippines become a developed country in 20 years,” Ms. Arroyo said in her hour long speech, which was interrupted at least 80 times by applause from the administration-controlled House of Representatives. By 2027, she said, “We will have achieved the hallmarks of a modern society.”
“The state of the nation,” she said, “is strong.”
By most accounts, the Philippine economy has been doing well in the last few years with first-quarter growth this year at 6.9 percent. The peso is now below 45 to the U.S. dollar from a high of more than 50 early in the year, and unemployment and inflation are manageable. But poverty remains widespread, terrorism is still a problem, communist and Islamic insurgencies are hampering development in the countryside, and corruption in the bureaucracy is a major concern.
Ms. Arroyo said her administration remains committed to fiscal reforms, pointing out that fiscal discipline was a major administration objective as it work toward the end of her term in 2010. Ms. Arroyo and her financial managers are hoping to balance the budget by 2008, relying mainly on improved tax collections.
Concerns have been raised by the government’s missing its tax-collection target for the first half of the year, but Ms. Arroyo tried to assuage those fears by firing the head of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the tax-collection agency.
She said the government would invest more in physical infrastructure to improve business confidence as well as expand social services. A top goal for the coming year, she said, was bringing peace to Mindanao, the main island in the southern Philippines where the communist and Islamic insurgencies are strongest.
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8) Promise of ID Cards Is Followed by Peril of Arrest for Illegal Immigrants
By NINA BERNSTEIN
July 23, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/nyregion/23raid.html?ref=us
NEW HAVEN — Under his family’s homemade shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe, Alan Flores, 8, spoke softly about the morning last month when federal immigration agents entered his home.
It was part of a raid that has complicated, but not defeated, this city’s novel plan to bring illegal immigrants out of the shadows.
The agents separated the children from the men. They placed Alan and three cousins, ages 7, 2 and 1, in a row on the living room couch. Then they asked the women, including Teresa Vara-Gonzalez, a housemate, if any of the children were theirs.
“Teresa said no, and that’s when they took her,” Alan said in Spanish last week, pressing closer to his mother, Norma Sedeño. “They took away Teresa, and my father and my two uncles. And then I got scared that they were going to come back and take away my mom.”
Those taken from Alan’s household were among the 32 immigrants arrested in the New Haven area by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and scattered to jails in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine, in an operation that began June 6 and ended June 11.
The operation started two days after the city’s Board of Aldermen approved the plan to offer municipal identification cards to all residents, including an estimated 15,000 illegal immigrants settled in this city of 125,000.
But as the city prepares to issue the first municipal cards tomorrow, 28 of the 32 are home on bond — a rare outcome that underscores how the arrests galvanized community protest, bail money and legal help.
And while the operation made many illegal immigrants more fearful of applying for the Elm City Resident Card, as the New Haven identification card is called, Ms. Vara-Gonzalez, 32, a waitress, said the risks are now outweighed by the benefits: a valid photo ID that she could use in daily life and that could help her open a bank account. “For us who have already been arrested,” she added, “we have nothing to lose.”
New Haven’s mayor, John DeStefano Jr., remains convinced that the operation was retaliation for the card initiative, he said in an interview Thursday. Despite denials by Michael Chertoff, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, that charge has been central to the unusual legal arguments raised by Yale University law students and professors who are working with the immigrants to challenge the arrests. The debate casts a spotlight on tactics used in raids around the country as municipalities grapple with immigration issues that have defied Congressional consensus.
During the raid, one man was up in a cherry picker when immigration agents called him down, waving a photo of someone else, and arrested him when he could not produce immigration papers, the lawyers said.
In some cases, they said, agents who found no one home at an address specified in a deportation order simply knocked on other doors until one opened, pushed their way in, and arrested residents rousted from bed when they acknowledged that they lacked legal status. Of the 32 arrested, most of whom are Mexican, only five had outstanding deportation orders, and only one or two had criminal records.
Many immigrants do not know that they have a right to remain silent, or to deny agents entry to their homes without a search warrant, said Michael Wishnie, a Yale law professor directing the legal challenge. Immigration statutes give government wide latitude to question people, he said, but the law requires agents to have a valid reason for suspicion, not one based on an illegal motive like racial or ethnic profiling.
In this case, Professor Wishnie contended, the overall motive for the operation was unconstitutional retaliation for New Haven’s card program. The evidence collected from the arrests, he said, is therefore “the fruit of an illegal act” and should be thrown out.
In a letter to Connecticut’s Congressional delegation, which sharply questioned the timing and conduct of the operation, Mr. Chertoff defended what his agency calls Operation Return to Sender, a national enforcement effort to reduce a backlog of more than 632,000 “fugitive aliens.” He insisted that in New Haven the agents “at no time” entered a dwelling without consent.
Professor Wishnie said, however, that Mr. Chertoff wrote that agents had waited with an 11-year-old girl for her father to come home from work. A child cannot give legal consent for entry, Professor Wishnie said.
The conflict has also energized opponents of the city ID card. On Friday, an immigration control group based in the suburbs of New Haven, Southern Connecticut Immigration Reform, demanded a list of applicants under Freedom of Information laws and vowed to sue for it, fanning fears among illegal immigrants that if they sign up, they could become the targets of future raids.
“Everytown U.S.A. has got their eyeballs fixed on this,” said Sean McMurray, a demolition foreman in the group. “I don’t want to see innocent people hurt, but I’m talking security for the legal residents of this country.”
On the other side, John Jairo Lugo, director of Unidad Latina en Acción, an immigrant self-help group in New Haven, also said towns across the country are watching.
“This was to make New Haven a model city in the United States,” Mr. Lugo said of the card, which is meant to be useful to all New Haven residents by combining access to city pools, libraries, the municipal golf course and the dump, and doubling as a debit card for parking meters. “Maybe that’s one of the prices you pay: the raids happened, people got detained. But the rest of the community came together. It’s a symbolic lesson: You cannot fight for the immigrants alone.”
In interviews last week with seven of those arrested, the fear remained palpable.
Alan Flores’s father, Apolinar Flores Romero, a pizza maker, said that in the first days after his release, he was afraid to leave the house.
Florente Baranda, another man, said he is haunted by his detention: “They had us with chains on our feet in Hartford, 23 or 24 people in this tiny room.” Mr. Baranda, 32, has lived in New Haven since 1998, packaging bread at a bakery from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. for $11 an hour. He and his wife have two children and, like many of those arrested, attend St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, which played a major role in raising bail.
“I’m nervous taking my kids to the park,” Mr. Baranda said at Junta, an immigrant organization that helped feed families when the raid left them without breadwinners.
A Yale law intern, Stella Burch, tried to reassure Mr. Baranda. Now that he is in deportation proceedings and out on $15,000 bond, she explained, “No one can arrest you for immigration issues, and we’re going to fight with you to win your case — St. Rose, Junta, the law school.”
The lawyers are still working for the release of Ivania Sotelo, 48, a Nicaraguan woman who was one of the few arrested on an outstanding deportation order. Her son, Jerry Sarmiento, 14, a United States citizen and the chess champion of his school, said her early-morning arrest left him in shock.
“I didn’t want to tell anybody,” he said. “But I started crying right in the middle of the seventh-and-eighth-grade morning circle.”
His mother is in the county jail in Portland, Me. “It’s a horrible place,” said Jerry, who was able to visit only once. “They’re all in orange and she’s right next to the drug addicts and murderers, and I don’t know why.”
Others had no families to call when they were bused in shackles to a private prison in Rhode Island. “I felt like I could disappear,” José Yangua, 27, a landscaper, said through a translator.
Ms. Burch had called jails in three states to find Mr. Yangua and his brother Edinson, who was also arrested. She collected handwritten testimonials from their landlord and bosses to win their release on bail.
Their landlord, Michael Quoka, wrote that the brothers were “solid members of the community” who studied English at night and paid the rent on time.
Most of the cases will probably take years to resolve. But just 18 days in jail has turned José Yangua’s life upside down. Immigration authorities confiscated all his identity documents, he said, including his valid Michigan driver’s license and the bank card he needs for access to his savings.
A municipal card, he said, may now be his best chance to prove his identity.
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9) Hunts for ‘Fugitive Aliens’ Lead to Collateral Arrests
By NINA BERNSTEIN
July 23, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/nyregion/23operation.html
When teams of federal agents unexpectedly show up in an immigrant neighborhood early in the morning, bang on doors, search through bedrooms and leave with a busload of people they have arrested as illegal immigrants, residents and city officials call it a raid.
But in a four-page letter defending such an operation in New Haven last month, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, rejected the term.
“It is not our policy,” he wrote, “to take an ad hoc approach to enforcing immigration law.”
Instead, he described what unfolded in New Haven as part of a year-old “nationwide interior enforcement initiative” called Operation Return to Sender “that applies an organized and methodical approach to the identification, location and arrest of fugitive aliens” — immigrants with outstanding orders of deportation.
The Fugitive Operations Teams responsible do not carry search warrants or arrest warrants approved by a judge, Mr. Chertoff noted, and their administrative warrants of deportation do not allow entry into dwellings without consent. But others they encounter during an operation can be questioned as to their right to be in the United States, and “if deemed to be here illegally, may be arrested without warrant.”
The number of such teams nationwide is expected to increase to 75 this year, from 53 last year, Mr. Chertoff said in the letter. But with an agency count of more than 632,000 “fugitive aliens” among an estimated 11 million immigrants in the United States illegally, how do the teams choose where to go?
“Once intelligence is gathered on several fugitives located within the same general vicinity,” a team “will develop an operational plan for the swift and safe arrest of the fugitive aliens in the most fiscally efficient way,” Mr. Chertoff wrote in response to pointed questions from Connecticut’s two senators, Joseph I. Lieberman and Christopher J. Dodd, and Representative Rosa L. DeLauro, whose district includes New Haven.
According to agency policy, wrote Mr. Chertoff, the teams prioritize their efforts in the following order: “(1) fugitives who are a threat to national security; (2) fugitives who pose a threat to the community; (3) fugitives who were convicted of violent crimes; (4) fugitives who have criminal records; and (5) non-criminal fugitives.”
Yet by Mr. Chertoff’s count, only five of 29 arrested in New Haven fit the priorities, apparently the lowest. Lawyers, who count another three in their tally of those picked up in the operation from June 6 to 11, say this bolsters their argument that the operation was unconstitutional retaliation for the city’s initiative to offer all its residents identification cards.
The initiative, believed to be the first of its kind, was described in a March 5 article in The New York Times and approved June 4. Mr. Chertoff said the New Haven operation was planned in April by the team in Hartford.
“I want to assure you there is no relationship between the operation’s execution date and the City of New Haven’s immigration policy,” he wrote.
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10) Ex-MP's daughter held over attack
From: "IRSP"
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 23:14:52 -0700
To: Seven_Stars_Republican_Socialist_News@yahoogroups.com
Ex-MP's daughter held over attack
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6676049.stm
The daughter of a former MP has been arrested and faces extradition
proceedings over an IRA bomb attack on a British Army base in Germany.
Roisin McAliskey, 35, was detained in Coalisland, County Tyrone, on a
European arrest warrant.
German authorities want to charge her over an IRA mortar bomb attack on an
Army barracks at Osnabruck in 1996.
Ms McAliskey, the daughter of former Mid-Ulster MP Bernadette McAliskey,
faced a similar action in 1998.
The then-Home Secretary Jack Straw decided at the time that she was too
ill to be extradited.
She was pregnant at the time and was held in a special unit in Holloway
prison.
At the time, the German attorney general said Ms McAliskey was still
regarded as a suspect and called on the British government to take over
the prosecution.
But two years later the Crown Prosecution Service said there was not
enough evidence for her to face trial in the United Kingdom.
Police officers including detectives from the Extradition and
International Mutual Assistance Unit were involved in the operation to
arrest her on Monday.
She will appear at Belfast Recorders Court for extradition proceedings.
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LINKS AND VERY SHORT STORIES
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States Weigh Safety With Dog Owners’ Rights
By IAN URBINA
July 23, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/us/23dogs.html
Guantanamo Hunger Strikers Stay Defiant
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072007R.shtml
Pentagon Extends Iraq Tours for 2,200 Marines
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072007S.shtml
Bush Executive Order Targets Domestic Assets
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072207A.shtml
Texas: 274 Immigrants Arrested in Raids
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Federal agents arrested 274 illegal immigrants over five days during raids in Dallas, Fort Worth and surrounding suburbs, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement said. The authorities took into custody 233 men, 28 women and 13 children, said an agency spokesman, Carl Rusnok. The operation, which began Monday and ended yesterday, yielded illegal immigrants, people wanted by immigration authorities and immigrants with criminal records. Of those arrested, 99 had criminal convictions, the agency said. “These operations are a critical element in removing threats to public safety,” said Nuria T. Prendes, field office director for the agency’s Office of Detention and Removal Operations.
July 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/us/21brfs-274IMMIGRANT_BRF.html
California: Ruling on Veterans’ Benefits
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A federal appeals court said the Veterans Affairs Department was obliged to pay retroactive disability benefits to Vietnam War veterans who contracted a form of leukemia after exposure to Agent Orange. The ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, was on a technical matter involving whether a lower court had properly interpreted an agreement in 1991 on benefits, stemming from a lawsuit filed in 1986.
July 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/us/20brfs-RULINGONVETE_BRF.html
Bush Denies Congress Access to Aides
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
July 9, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/washington/09cnd-prexy.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
California: No Jail for Marijuana Advocate
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A marijuana advocate will not spend time in prison despite a conviction for growing and distributing hundreds of marijuana plants, a federal judge ruled. The man, Ed Rosenthal, 63, was convicted in May on three cultivation and conspiracy charges. But the judge, Charles Breyer of Federal District Court, said a one-day prison sentence was punishment enough for Mr. Rosenthal, who said he planned to appeal his conviction. “I should not remain a felon,” he said. Mr. Rosenthal was convicted on the same charges four years ago. Judge Breyer sentenced him to one day in prison because Mr. Rosenthal reasonably believed he was immune from prosecution because he was acting on behalf of Oakland city officials. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned that 2003 conviction and ordered a retrial because of juror misconduct.
July 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/07/us/07brfs-advocate.html
Patterns: In Studies, Surprise Findings on Obesity and Heart Attacks
By ERIC NAGOURNEY
Two new studies shed light on the role obesity may play in causing heart attacks and, surprisingly, keeping them from being fatal.
In one study, published by the European Heart Journal, researchers followed more than 1,600 patients who were given angioplasty and, usually, stents after a type of heart attack known as unstable angina/non-ST-segment elevation. They found that the obese and very obese patients were only half as likely as those of normal weight to die in the three years after the attack.
Part of the explanation may be that obese people are more likely to have their heart problems detected by doctors and treated with medications that later help them recover from heart attacks.
Heart attack patients who are obese also tend to be younger. And other changes in the body that often occur with obesity may also help, the study said. (Of course, as the researchers noted, obesity is not desirable when it comes to heart disease; it causes medical problems that can lead to heart attacks in the first place.)
In the second study, presented at a recent meeting of the American Society of Echocardiography, researchers reported that excess weight was associated with a thickening of muscle in the left ventricle, the part of the heart that acts as a pump. The study was led by researchers from the University of Arizona Sarver Heart Center.
July 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/03/health/03patt.html
New Scheme Preys on Desperate Homeowners
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON and VIKAS BAJAJ
July 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/03/business/03home.html?ref=us
Keeping Patients’ Details Private, Even From Kin
By JANE GROSS
July 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/03/health/policy/03hipaa.html?ref=us
Lessons from Katrina
How to Destroy an African American City in 33 Steps
By BILL QUIGLEY
June 28, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.com/quigley06282007.html
After Sanctions, Doctors Get Drug Company Pay
By GARDINER HARRIS and JANET ROBERTS
June 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/health/03docs.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Somalia: The Other (Hidden) War for Oil
by Carl Bloice; Black Commentator
May 07, 2007
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=12768
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GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS AND INFORMATION
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LAPD vs. Immigrants (Video)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/qws/ff/qr?term=lapd&Submit=S&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Search&st=s
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Dr. Julia Hare at the SOBA 2007
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeo9ewi/proudtobeblack2/
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"We are far from that stage today in our era of the absolute
lie; the complete and totalitarian lie, spread by the
monopolies of press and radio to imprison social
consciousness." December 1936, "In 'Socialist' Norway,"
by Leon Trotsky: “Leon Trotsky in Norway” was transcribed
for the Internet by Per I. Matheson [References from
original translation removed]
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/12/nor.htm
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Wealth Inequality Charts
http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html
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MALCOLM X: Oxford University Debate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmzaaf-9aHQ
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ADDICTED TO WAR
Animated Video Preview
Narrated by Peter Coyote
Is now on YouTube and Google Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZwyuHEN5h8
We are planning on making the ADDICTED To WAR movie.
Can you let me know what you think about this animated preview?
Do you think it would work as a full length film?
Please send your response to:
Fdorrel@sbcglobal. net or Fdorrel@Addictedtow ar.com
In Peace,
Frank Dorrel
Publisher
Addicted To War
P.O. Box 3261
Culver City, CA 90231-3261
310-838-8131
fdorrel@addictedtow ar.com
fdorrel@sbcglobal. net
www.addictedtowar. com
For copies of the book:
http://www.addictedtowar.com/book.html
OR SEND CHECK OR MONEY ORDER TO:
Frank Dorrel
P.O. BOX 3261
CULVER CITY, CALIF. 90231-3261
fdorrel@addictedtowar.com
$10.00 per copy (Spanish or English); special bulk rates
can be found at: http://www.addictedtowar.com/bookbulk.html
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"There comes a times when silence is betrayal."
--Martin Luther King
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DEMAND THE RELEASE OF SAMI AL-ARIAN
The National Council of Arab Americans (NCA) demands the immediate
release of political prisoner, Dr. Sami Al-Arian. Although
Dr. Al-Arian is no longer on a hunger strike we must still demand
he be released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ). After an earlier
plea agreement that absolved Dr. Al-Arian from any further questioning,
he was sentenced up to 18 months in jail for refusing to testify before
a grand jury in Virginia. He has long sense served his time yet
Dr. Al-Arian is still being held. Release him now!
See:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/16/1410255
ACTION:
We ask all people of conscience to demand the immediate
release and end to Dr. Al- Arian's suffering.
Call, Email and Write:
1- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Department of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Fax Number: (202) 307-6777
Email: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
2- The Honorable John Conyers, Jr
2426 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-5126
(202) 225-0072 Fax
John.Conyers@mail.house.gov
3- Senator Patrick Leahy
433 Russell Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
(202)224-4242
senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov
4- Honorable Judge Gerald Lee
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
401 Courthouse Square, Alexandria, VA 22314
March 22, 2007
[No email given...bw]
National Council of Arab Americans (NCA)
http://www.arab-american.net/
Criminalizing Solidarity: Sami Al-Arian and the War of
Terror
By Charlotte Kates, The Electronic Intifada, 4 April 2007
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6767.shtml
Related:
Robert Fisk: The true story of free speech in America
This systematic censorship of Middle East reality
continues even in schools
Published: 07 April 2007
http://news. independent. co.uk/world/ fisk/article2430 125.ece
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[For some levity...Hans Groiner plays Monk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51bsCRv6kI0
...bw]
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Excerpt of interview between Barbara Walters and Hugo Chavez
http://www.borev.net/2007/03/what_you_had_something_better.html
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Which country should we invade next?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3g_zqz3VjY
My Favorite Mutiny, The Coup
http://www.myspace.com/thecoupmusic
Michael Moore- The Awful Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeOaTpYl8mE
Morse v. Frederick Supreme Court arguments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_LsGoDWC0o
Free Speech 4 Students Rally - Media Montage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfCjfod8yuw
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'My son lived a worthwhile life'
In April 2003, 21-year old Tom Hurndall was shot in the head
in Gaza by an Israeli soldier as he tried to save the lives of three
small children. Nine months later, he died, having never
recovered consciousness. Emine Saner talks to his mother
Jocelyn about her grief, her fight to make the Israeli army
accountable for his death and the book she has written
in his memory.
Monday March 26, 2007
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2042968,00.html
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Introducing...................the Apple iRack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-KWYYIY4jQ
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"A War Budget Leaves Every Child Behind."
[A T-shirt worn by some teachers at Roosevelt High School
in L.A. as part of their campaign to rid the school of military
recruiters and JROTC--see Article in Full item number 4, below...bw]
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THIS IS AN EXCELLENT VIDEO DESTRIBUTED BY U.S. LABOR AGAINST
THE WAR (USLAW) FEATURING SPEAKERS AT THE JANUARY 27TH
MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOCUSING ON THE DEMAND - BRING
THE TROOPS HOME NOW.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6935451906479097836&hl=en
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Defend the Los Angeles Eight!
http://www.committee4justice.com/
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George Takai responds to Tim Hardaway's homophobic remarks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcJoJZIcQW4&eurl_
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Iran
http://www.lucasgray.com/video/peacetrain.html
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Another view of the war. A link from Amer Jubran
http://d3130.servadmin.com/~leeflash/
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Petition: Halt the Blue Angels
http://action.globalexchange.org/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=458
http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/289327
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A Girl Like Me
7:08 min
Youth Documentary
Kiri Davis, Director, Reel Works Teen Filmmaking, Producer
Winner of the Diversity Award
Sponsored by Third Millennium Foundation
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1091431409617440489
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Film/Song about Angola
http://www.prisonactivist.org/angola/
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"200 million children in the world sleep in the streets today.
Not one of them is Cuban."
(A sign in Havana)
Venceremos
View sign at bottom of page at:
http://www.cubasolidarity.net/index.html
[Thanks to Norma Harrison for sending this...bw]
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
"Cheyenne and Arapaho oral histories hammer history's account of the
Sand Creek Massacre"
CENTENNIAL, CO -- A new documentary film based on an award-winning
documentary short film, "The Sand Creek Massacre", and driven by
Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people who tell their version about
what happened during the Sand Creek Massacre via their oral
histories, has been released by Olympus Films+, LLC, a Centennial,
Colorado film company.
"You have done an extraordinary job" said Margie Small, Tobient
Entertainment, " on the Colorado PBS episode, the library videos for
public schools and libraries, the trailer, etc...and getting the
story told and giving honor to those ancestors who had to witness
this tragic and brutal attack...film is one of the best ways."
"The images shown in the film were selected for native awareness
value" said Donald L. Vasicek, award-winning writer/filmmaker, "we
also focused on preserving American history on film because tribal
elders are dying and taking their oral histories with them. The film
shows a non-violent solution to problem-solving and 19th century
Colorado history, so it's multi-dimensional in that sense. "
Chief Eugene Blackbear, Sr., Cheyenne, who starred as Chief Black
Kettle in "The Last of the Dogmen" also starring Tom Berenger and
Barbara Hershey and "Dr. Colorado", Tom Noel, University of Colorado
history professor, are featured.
The trailer can be viewed and the film can be ordered for $24.95 plus
$4.95 for shipping and handling at http://www.fullduck.com/node/53.
Vasicek's web site, http://www.donvasicek.com, provides detailed
information about the Sand Creek Massacre including various still
images particularly on the Sand Creek Massacre home page and on the
proposal page.
Olympus Films+, LLC is dedicated to writing and producing quality
products that serve to educate others about the human condition.
Contact:
Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
7078 South Fairfax Street
Centennial, CO 80122
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Vasicek,+Don
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net
303-903-2103
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A NEW LOOK AT U.S. RADIOACTIVE WEAPONS
Join us in a campaign to expose and stop the use
of these illegal weapons
http://poisondust.org/
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You may enjoy watching these.
In struggle
Che:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqcezl9dD2c
Leon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukkFVV5X0p4
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FIGHTBACK! A Collection of Socialist Essays
By Sylvia Weinstein
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-fightback-intro.html
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[The Scab
"After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad,
and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with
which he made a scab."
"A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul,
a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue.
Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten
principles." "When a scab comes down the street,
men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and
the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out."
"No man (or woman) has a right to scab so long as there
is a pool of water to drown his carcass in,
or a rope long enough to hang his body with.
Judas was a gentleman compared with a scab.
For betraying his master, he had character enough
to hang himself." A scab has not.
"Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.
Judas sold his Savior for thirty pieces of silver.
Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of
a commision in the british army."
The scab sells his birthright, country, his wife,
his children and his fellowmen for an unfulfilled
promise from his employer.
Esau was a traitor to himself; Judas was a traitor
to his God; Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his country;
a scab is a traitor to his God, his country,
his family and his class."
Author --- Jack London (1876-1916)...Roland Sheppard
http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret]
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END ALL U.S. AID TO ISRAEL!
Stop funding Israel's war against Palestine
Complete the form at the website listed below with your information.
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy?
JServSessionIdr003=cga2p2o6x1.app2a&cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=177
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Sand Creek Massacre
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FEATURED AT NATIVE AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL:
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/local/16035305.htm
(scroll down when you get there])
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING
WRITER/FILMMAKER DONALD L. VASICEK REPORT:
http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/sandcreekmassacre.html
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FINALIST IN DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL COMPETITION (VIEW HERE):
http://www.docupyx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=41
VIEW "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FILM MOVIE OF THE WEEK FOR FREE HERE:
http://twymancreative.com/twymanc.html
On November 29, 1864, 700 Colorado troops savagely slaughtered
over 450 Cheyenne children, disabled, elders, and women in the
southeastern Colorado Territory under its protection. This act
became known as the Sand Creek Massacre. This film project
("The Sand Creek Massacre" documentary film project) is an
examination of an open wound in the souls of the Cheyenne
people as told from their perspective. This project chronicles
that horrific 19th century event and its affect on the 21st century
struggle for respectful coexistence between white and native
plains cultures in the United States of America.
Listed below are links on which you can click to get the latest news,
products, and view, free, "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" award-
winning documentary short. In order to create more native
awareness, particularly to save the roots of America's history,
please read the following:
Some people in America are trying to save the world. Bless
them. In the meantime, the roots of America are dying.
What happens to a plant when the roots die? The plant dies
according to my biology teacher in high school. American's
roots are its native people. Many of America's native people
are dying from drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, hunger,
and disease, which was introduced to them by the Caucasian
male. Tribal elders are dying. When they die, their oral
histories go with them. Our native's oral histories are the
essence of the roots of America, what took place before
our ancestors came over to America, what is taking place,
and what will be taking place. It is time we replenish
America's roots with native awareness, else America
continues its decaying, and ultimately, its death.
You can help. The 22-MINUTE SAND CREEK MASSACRE
DOCUMENTARY PRESENTATION/EDUCATIONAL DVD IS
READY FOR PURCHASE! (pass the word about this powerful
educational tool to friends, family, schools, parents, teachers,
and other related people and organizations to contact
me (dvasicek@earthlink.net, 303-903-2103) for information
about how they can purchase the DVD and have me come
to their children's school to show the film and to interact
in a questions and answers discussion about the Sand
Creek Massacre.
Happy Holidays!
Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Vasicek,+Don
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net
303-903-2103
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FEATURED AT NATIVE AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL:
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/local/16035305.htm
(scroll down when you get there])
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING
WRITER/FILMMAKER DONALD L. VASICEK REPORT:
http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/sandcreekmassacre.html
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FINALIST IN DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL COMPETITION (VIEW HERE):
http://www.docupyx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=41
VIEW "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FILM MOVIE OF THE WEEK FOR FREE HERE:
http://twymancreative.com/twymanc.html
SHOP:
http://www.manataka.org/page633.html
BuyIndies.com
donvasicek.com.
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