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Help end the war by supporting the troops who have refused to fight it.
Please sign the appeal online
"DEAR CANADA: LET U.S. WAR RESISTERS STAY!"
"I am writing from the United States to ask you to make a provision for
sanctuary for the scores of U.S. military servicemembers currently in
Canada, most of whom have traveled to your country in order to resist
fighting in the Iraq War. Please let them stay in Canada..."
To sign the appeal or for more information:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/canada
Courage to Resist volunteers will send this letter on your behalf to three
key Canadian officials--Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Minister of
Citizenship and Immigration Diane Finley, and Stéphane Dion, Liberal
Party--via international first class mail.
In collaboration with War Resisters Support Campaign (Canada), this effort
comes at a critical juncture in the international campaign for asylum for
U.S. war resisters in Canada.
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STOP THE BOARD OF EDUCATION FROM MAINTAINING OR EXTENDING JROTC!
The next Board OF Education Meeting is
November 13, 2007, 6:00 PM
555 Franklin Street, 1st Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102
415/241-6427
(To get on the speakers list call Monday, November 12 from 8:30 AM - 4:00 PM or Tuesday, November13--the day of the meeting from 8:30 AM - 3:30 PM. You will get at most, two minutes and most probably only one minute to speak. Also expect a large group of JROTC cadets and teachers to show up if the issue is on the agenda. Even if it is not, we can speak against it.)
[The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act is not only an educationally bankrupt law that leaves masses of children in drastically underfunded and overcrowded schools, it ties school funding to a requirement that each time a college, university, career college or labor apprentice program offers opportunities such as apprenticeships or scholarship to students on school grounds, as they do on High School Career Days, the school must also allow two recruiters from each separate branch of the military (Army, Coast Guard, Navy, Marines and Air Force--ten altogether) to be in our schools each and every time as well.
They call this the "equal access" part of NCLB which was passed by the San Francisco Board of Education last year around the same time the board voted to phase out JROTC in San Francisco schools by 2008.
I have seen this in action at Washington High School where the military comes in force; setting up fully staffed tables for each branch of the military with thousands of dollars worth of whips and jingles to attract the students. Students come away from those tables with shopping bags full of junk with the military insignia on it. The Army alone has a $1.53 billion dollar advertising budget! This is the real purpose of No Child Left Behind. We have to get the military out of our schools...bw]
San Francisco schools expected to grant JROTC a year's reprieve
Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, October 6, 2007
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/06/BAP3SJ72P.DTL&hw=board+of+education+jrotc&sn=001&sc=1000
The controversial demise of the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps in San Francisco schools scheduled for this spring will likely be put off for at least a year because the school district hasn't developed a promised replacement program.
The expected reprieve would drag out what has already been a protracted and emotional battle over the district's 90-year tie to the military program.
Still, supporters say the prospect of an extra year offers hope that JROTC could survive in San Francisco.
The school board voted last November to phase out JROTC over two years because of its connection to the military, which board members said was discriminatory, homophobic and at odds with the mission of public education. They also agreed to create a task force to develop an alternative program to begin in fall 2008.
Despite JROTC's expected demise, 1,500 students in seven city high schools enrolled in JROTC this fall, with 670 of them participating in affiliated after-school programs. That's about 200 fewer than last year, although students who thought the program no longer existed continue to transfer in, JROTC instructors say.
The school board's composition has also changed, and just two of the board members who voted to eliminate JROTC last year - Eric Mar and Mark Sanchez - are still serving.
A majority of current board members - Kim-Shree Maufas, Jill Wynns, Norman Yee and Hydra Mendoza - said they were open to keeping JROTC alive.
The seventh board member, Jane Kim, said she was also willing to support JROTC, but only if there were a way to address the military's discriminatory hiring practice involving homosexuals. She suggested a JROTC diversity curriculum or a cadet campaign against the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
But bringing JROTC back to life is not something any of those board members seems willing to do right now.
"I wouldn't be leading any of it," Yee said. "I just don't want to do that battle."
Maufas agreed. "I respect what the board decided," she said. "I believe with hard work and enough time, we can provide a program that serves students' needs in terms of leadership development."
But there isn't enough time to do that before next fall.
District officials didn't even create the task force that was supposed to identify a new program until last spring - several months after their vote against JROTC.
The task force - consisting of 17 district staff members, students and community members, and including supporters and opponents of JROTC - met for the first time in April. By its third meeting in June, the group acknowledged serious flaws in the process.
"We do not have enough time, we do not have enough (task force) attendance, and we do not consistently have agreement on this committee," group members decided, according to minutes of the meeting.
In addition, the school board gave the task force little guidance, even about how much it could spend.
"We've been given no budgetary guidelines," said Meyla Ruwin, district director of school health programs and task force co-chair.
So the task force could ultimately come up with a plan that the district has no intention or ability to fund.
Task force members said they plan to ask the school board's curriculum committee Thursday to let JROTC continue until spring 2009.
Board President Mark Sanchez said he expects the extension to be approved by the board.
"We've been trying to find a program that the city could benefit from, the kids could benefit from, and would still provide that leadership training and the physical training," said board member Mendoza. "It's getting the program off the ground that's the key, and where are we going to get the funding?"
The $1.7 million JROTC program receives a $750,000 annual subsidy from the U.S. military. Students in the program, called cadets, earn up to two years of physical education or elective credits for the courses. [The rest is paid by the SFUSD!...bw]
Board Vice President Yee, who voted against last year's resolution, said he wasn't surprised by the lack of an alternative.
"It seems like what I thought might happen is happening," he said. "There's nothing to replace it with. ... There are a lot of practical things we didn't think about."
In the meantime, JROTC students and their instructors said they are frustrated by the inaction. The instructors don't know whether they'll have their jobs next year.
"They've got mortgages," said task force member Robert Powell, a JROTC instructor at Lincoln High School and retired Army lieutenant colonel. "They've got bills. How can you tell them, 'Just hang on'?"
Junior Yvonne Ho said that she found her niche in JROTC and that without it students would be sent to play sports - an option she dreads.
"I think it's pretty unfair to cancel the program without a backup plan," said Ho, the battalion commander of Balboa High School's 280 JROTC cadets.
"We don't know where we'd go," she said. "There's just PE."
The task force said its next step will be to survey current and former cadets about what is important about the program - characteristics they hope to build into a replacement.
Students say the program develops leadership, teamwork, community service, a sense of responsibility and a sense of belonging.
Maufas, whose daughter participated in the program while in high school, said JROTC provides strong role models: Most of the program's instructors are African American men.
"Those types of relationships are so valuable," she said. "It's hard to replace it."
JROTC'S recent history in San Francisco
Feb. 22, 1994 - JROTC hazing incident occurs at Balboa High, prompting a districtwide debate about the program's merits.
June 27, 1995 - San Francisco school board votes to keep JROTC programs.
May 23, 2006 - School board introduces resolution to eliminate JROTC.
Nov. 14, 2006 - School board votes to phase out JROTC by June 2008.
April to Oct. 3, 2007 - Task force meets five times to discuss a replacement program.
Thursday - Task force scheduled to address school board curriculum committee to request one-year extension.
E-mail Jill Tucker at jtucker@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/06/BAP3SJ72P.DTL
This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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OCT. 27 COALITION EVALUATION MEETING WILL TAKE PLACE:
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1 P.M. AT CENTRO DEL PUEBLO.
474 Valencia Street, SF (Near 16th Street)
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Petition in defense of Morton students:
To: Morton West School District
In Defense of the Morton West Antiwar Students
We are writing in defense of the students who now face excessive disciplinary actions at the hands of various Morton West school administrators. Our sympathies lie with the courageous and moral struggle that the students have taken up, and with their parents who still support them. The struggle for a peaceful and just society absent of war should not be met with punishment, but should be supported by the community as a whole, especially from within the educational setting. Furthermore, It is our firm belief that an injury to freedom for students anywhere is an injury to freedom for students everywhere. This is why we urge all Morton West administrators to drop all disciplinary action against the said students, and to remove any indications of said events from their permanent records. We urge you to respect these students right to free expression now and in the future.
(Written by Columbia College Chicago Students for a Democratic Society)
Sincerely,
Sign your name at:
http://www.petitiononline.com/mortonw/
See Articles Below:
6) Suspended Morton students demand return to class
BY KATE N. GROSSMAN Education Reporter
November 6, 2007
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/637168,morton110607.article#
11) Students Call Protest Punishment Too Harsh
By CRYSTAL YEDNAK
“Who’s the next group to go off to war?” said Adam Szwarek, whose 16-year-old son, Adam, faces expulsion. “These kids. The kids do a peaceful sit-in and they’re threatened with expulsion, yet the military’s running around the school trying to recruit.”
November 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/us/07protest.html?ref=us
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MONEY AS DEBT
http://video. google.com/ videoplay? docid=-905047436 2583451279
http://www.moneyasd ebt.net/
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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) 50 Public Schools Fail Under New Rating System
By ELISSA GOOTMAN and JENNIFER MEDINA
November 5, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/education/05cnd-reportcards.html?hp
2) Dubious Fees Hit Borrowers in Foreclosures
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
November 6, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/business/06mortgage.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1194368643-PQ5Ec9XdSox67RoyMTo/bQ
3) 2007 Deadliest Year for U.S. Troops in Iraq
By DAMIEN CAVE
November 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/world/middleeast/07iraq.html?ref=world
4) In Denver, a Ballot Fight Over Marijuana Arrests
By DAN FROSCH
November 5, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/us/06pot.html?ref=us
5) For a Key Education Law, Reauthorization Stalls
By SAM DILLON
November 6, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/washington/06child.html?ref=us
6) Suspended Morton students demand return to class
BY KATE N. GROSSMAN Education Reporter
November 6, 2007
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/637168,morton110607.article#
7) LAPD Gentrifies Skid Row
By Jessica Hoffmann
Issue #40, Sept/Oct 2007
http://www.colorlines.com/article.php?ID=244
8) Chemical Industry 1, Public Safety 0
Editorial
November 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/opinion/07wed1.html?hp
9) G.M. Posts Its Biggest Quarterly Loss
By NICK BUNKLEY and MICHELINE MAYNARD
November 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/business/07cnd-auto.html?hp
10) Students Call Protest Punishment Too Harsh
By CRYSTAL YEDNAK
“Who’s the next group to go off to war?” said Adam Szwarek, whose 16-year-old son, Adam, faces expulsion. “These kids. The kids do a peaceful sit-in and they’re threatened with expulsion, yet the military’s running around the school trying to recruit.”
November 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/us/07protest.html?ref=us
Sign Petition against punishment of students at:
http://www.petitiononline.com/mortonw/
11) Military Bill Approved [$459 billion...bw], but Without Iraq Increase
By ROBERT PEAR
November 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/world/middleeast/07cong.html?ref=world
12) Takin' It to the Streets - A Bill Moyers Essay
video clip: http://pbs.wmod.llnwd.net/a1863/e1/general/windows/wnet/moyers/journal/1130/BMJ1130_street_320.wmv?v1st=none
November 2, 2007
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11022007/watch2.html
13) Venezuela's assembly approve Chavez reforms
The Associated Press
Friday, November 2, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/02/america/LA-GEN-Venezuela-Constitution.php?WT.mc_id=rssamerica
14) Hugo Chávez and Constitutional Reform
by Salim Lamrani
ZNet | Activism
September 16, 2007
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=13801
15) Opposition violence at Venezuelan university - What really happened at the UCV
By Rodrigo Trompiz and Jorge Martin (with eyewitness information from Caracas)
Thursday, 08 November 2007
http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org/violence_venezuela_university.htm
16) House Approves Broad Protections for Gay Workers
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
November 8, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/washington/08employ.html?ref=us
17) Surge Seen in Number of Homeless Veterans
By ERIK ECKHOLM
November 8, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/us/08vets.html
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1) 50 Public Schools Fail Under New Rating System
By ELISSA GOOTMAN and JENNIFER MEDINA
November 5, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/education/05cnd-reportcards.html?hp
Under a blunt new A through F rating system, whose results Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg unveiled today, 50 public schools across New York City, most in Manhattan and the Bronx, have been designated failures, placing them in danger of closing as early as the end of the school year and putting their principals’ jobs on the line.
Another 99 schools across the city received D’s, according to the complex formula the Education Department used to assign the letter grades to more than 1,200 schools. Although the department had planned to assign the grades around a curve, more schools than expected — 23 percent — received A’s. Thirty-eight percent of schools received B’s.
Of the five boroughs, Queens had the highest proportion of A schools, 28.85 percent, and the lowest share of F schools, .77 percent. On Staten Island, where many residents pride themselves on their local schools, the reverse was true; 5 percent of schools received A’s, while 8.33 percent received F’s.
City officials have described the report cards as the linchpin of the Bloomberg administration’s efforts to overhaul the school system. Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein has repeatedly said that the grades, which are based on a calculation that compares schools with similar populations and gauges not just proficiency but the gains that individual students make year by year, are the most accurate and comprehensive way of determining whether schools are moving their students forward year by year.
The largest portion of a school’s grade, 55 percent, is based on the improvement of individual students on state tests from one year to the next, a so-called growth model analysis. Thirty percent of the grade is based on overall student achievement on state tests. An additional 15 percent is based on the school’s environment, measured by attendance figures and parent, teacher and student surveys.
The grades also reflect a comparison of schools with similar student populations. Elementary school populations are grouped mainly by racial and socioeconomic background; middle and high schools are grouped by students’ test scores from previous years.
Because the grades are based largely on improvement, not simply meeting state standards, some high-performing schools received low grades. The Clove Valley School in Staten Island, for instance, received an F, although 86.5 percent of the students at the school met state standards in reading on the 2007 tests.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, some schools that had a small number of students reaching state standards on tests received grades that any child would be thrilled to take home. At the East Village Community School, for example, 60 percent of the students met state standards in reading, but the school received an A, largely because of the improvement it showed over 2006, when 46.3 percent of its students met state standards.
Some grades lined up with longstanding reputations. Some of the city’s most prestigious and selective schools — like Stuyvesant High School and Anderson School, both in Manhattan — received A’s. In Community School District 26 in Queens, long considered a top district citywide, 52 percent of schools received A’s, the highest share of any district.
Twenty-three high schools did not receive grades, and officials said they were still under review. The decision not to release those grades came after some principals panicked that their draft grades were based on inaccurate data. In an e-mail message to high school principals on Friday, James Liebman, the Education Department’s chief accountability officer, wrote that those schools would receive their report cards within a week of the rest of the schools.
The newest schools in the city, including small high schools that have not had a graduating class, did not receive letter grades at all.
The report cards also include a "quality review" report, an observation of the school written by one of several consultants hired to visit the schools last year.
Some parents and educators have already complained that the grades are simplistic and place too much emphasis on standardized test scores.
Chancellor Klein has said that principals who receive D’s and F’s could face administrative reorganization at their schools, or be removed from the system entirely. Principals who do well on the report cards are eligible for bonus pay, and teachers at certain schools whose schools’ grades improve from this year to next will also be eligible for bonuses, under a recent agreement with the city teachers’ union.
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2) Dubious Fees Hit Borrowers in Foreclosures
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
November 6, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/business/06mortgage.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1194368643-PQ5Ec9XdSox67RoyMTo/bQ
As record numbers of homeowners default on their mortgages, questionable practices among lenders are coming to light in bankruptcy courts, leading some legal specialists to contend that companies instigating foreclosures may be taking advantage of imperiled borrowers.
Because there is little oversight of foreclosure practices and the fees that are charged, bankruptcy specialists fear that some consumers may be losing their homes unnecessarily or that mortgage servicers, who collect loan payments, are profiting from foreclosures.
Bankruptcy specialists say lenders and loan servicers often do not comply with even the most basic legal requirements, like correctly computing the amount a borrower owes on a foreclosed loan or providing proof of holding the mortgage note in question.
“Regulators need to look beyond their current, myopic focus on loan origination and consider how servicers’ calculation and collection practices leave families vulnerable to foreclosure,” said Katherine M. Porter, associate professor of law at the University of Iowa.
In an analysis of foreclosures in Chapter 13 bankruptcy, the program intended to help troubled borrowers save their homes, Ms. Porter found that questionable fees had been added to almost half of the loans she examined, and many of the charges were identified only vaguely. Most of the fees were less than $200 each, but collectively they could raise millions of dollars for loan servicers at a time when the other side of the business, mortgage origination, has faltered.
In one example, Ms. Porter found that a lender had filed a claim stating that the borrower owed more than $1 million. But after the loan history was scrutinized, the balance turned out to be $60,000. And a judge in Louisiana is considering an award for sanctions against Wells Fargo in a case in which the bank assessed improper fees and charges that added more than $24,000 to a borrower’s loan.
Ms. Porter’s analysis comes as more homeowners face foreclosure. Testifying before Congress on Tuesday, Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, estimated that two million families would lose their homes by the end of the current mortgage crisis.
Questionable practices by loan servicers appear to be enough of a problem that the Office of the United States Trustee, a division of the Justice Department that monitors the bankruptcy system, is getting involved. Last month, It announced plans to move against mortgage servicing companies that file false or inaccurate claims, assess unreasonable fees or fail to account properly for loan payments after a bankruptcy has been discharged.
On Oct. 9, the Chapter 13 trustee in Pittsburgh asked the court to sanction Countrywide, the nation’s largest loan servicer, saying that the company had lost or destroyed more than $500,000 in checks paid by homeowners in foreclosure from December 2005 to April 2007.
The trustee, Ronda J. Winnecour, said in court filings that she was concerned that even as Countrywide misplaced or destroyed the checks, it levied charges on the borrowers, including late fees and legal costs.
“The integrity of the bankruptcy process is threatened when a single creditor dishonors its obligation to provide a truthful and accurate account of the funds it has received,” Ms. Winnecour said in requesting sanctions.
A Countrywide spokesman disputed the accusations about the lost checks, saying the company had no record of having received the payments the trustee said had been sent. It is Countrywide’s practice not to charge late fees to borrowers in bankruptcy, he said, adding that the company also does not charge fees or costs relating to its own mistakes.
Loan servicing is extremely lucrative. Servicers, which collect payments from borrowers and pass them on to investors who own the loans, generally receive a percentage of income from a loan, often 0.25 percent on a prime mortgage and 0.50 percent on a subprime loan. Servicers typically generate profit margins of about 20 percent.
Now that big lenders are originating fewer mortgages, servicing revenues make up a greater percentage of earnings. Because servicers typically keep late fees and certain other charges assessed on delinquent or defaulted loans, “a borrower’s default can present a servicer with an opportunity for additional profit,” Ms. Porter said.
The amounts can be significant. Late fees accounted for 11.5 percent of servicing revenues in 2006 at Ocwen Financial, a big servicing company. At Countrywide, $285 million came from late fees last year, up 20 percent from 2005. Late fees accounted for 7.5 percent of Countrywide’s servicing revenue last year.
But these are not the only charges borrowers face. Others include $145 in something called “demand fees,” $137 in overnight delivery fees, fax fees of $50 and payoff statement charges of $60. Property inspection fees can be levied every month or so, and fees can be imposed every two months to cover assessments of a home’s worth.
“We’re talking about millions and millions of dollars that mortgage servicers are extracting from debtors that I think are totally unlawful and illegal,” said O. Max Gardner III, a lawyer in Shelby, N.C., specializing in consumer bankruptcies. “Somebody files a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, they make all their payments, get their discharge and then three months later, they get a statement from their servicer for $7,000 in fees and charges incurred in bankruptcy but that were never applied for in court and never approved.”
Some fees levied by loan servicers in foreclosure run afoul of state laws. In 2003, for example, a New York appeals court disallowed a $100 payoff statement fee sought by North Fork Bank.
Fees for legal services in foreclosure are also under scrutiny.
A class-action lawsuit filed in September in Federal District Court in Delaware accused the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, a home loan registration system owned by Fannie Mae, Countrywide Financial and other large lenders, of overcharging borrowers for legal services in foreclosures. The system, known as MERS, oversees more than 20 million mortgage loans.
The complaint was filed on behalf of Jose Trevino and Lorry S. Trevino of University City, Mo., whose Washington Mutual loan went into foreclosure in 2006 after the couple became ill and fell behind on payments.
Jeffrey M. Norton, a lawyer who represents the Trevinos, said that although MERS pays a flat rate of $400 or $500 to its lawyers during a foreclosure, the legal fees that it demands from borrowers are three or four times that.
A spokeswoman for MERS declined to comment.
Typically, consumers who are behind on their mortgages but hoping to stay in their homes invoke Chapter 13 bankruptcy because it puts creditors on hold, giving borrowers time to put together a repayment plan.
Given that a Chapter 13 bankruptcy involves the oversight of a court, the findings in Ms. Porter’s study are especially troubling. In July, she presented her paper to the United States trustee, and on Oct. 12 she outlined her data for the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges in Orlando, Fla.
With Tara Twomey, who is a lecturer at Stanford Law School and a consultant for the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, Ms. Porter analyzed 1,733 Chapter 13 filings made in April 2006. The data were drawn from public court records and include schedules filed under penalty of perjury by borrowers listing debts, assets and income.
Though bankruptcy laws require documentation that a creditor has a claim on the property, 4 out of 10 claims in Ms. Porter’s study did not attach such a promissory note. And one in six claims was not supported by the itemization of charges required by law.
Without proper documentation, families must choose between the costs of filing an objection or the risk of overpayment, Ms. Porter concluded.
She also found that some creditors ask for fees, like fax charges and payoff statement fees, that would probably be considered “unreasonable” by the courts.
Not surprisingly, these fees may contribute to the other problem identified by her study: a discrepancy between what debtors think they owe and what creditors say they are owed.
In 96 percent of the claims Ms. Porter studied, the borrower and the lender disagreed on the amount of the mortgage debt. In about a quarter of the cases, borrowers thought they owed more than the creditors claimed, but in about 70 percent, the creditors asserted that the debt owed was greater than the amounts specified by borrowers.
The median difference between the amounts the creditor and the borrower submitted was $1,366; the average was $3,533, Ms. Porter said. In 30 percent of the cases in which creditors’ claims were higher, the discrepancy was greater than 5 percent of the homeowners’ figure.
Based on the study, mortgage creditors in the 1,733 cases put in claims for almost $6 million more than the loan debts listed by borrowers in the bankruptcy filings. The discrepancies are too big, Ms. Porter said, to be simple record-keeping errors.
Michael L. Jones, a homeowner going through a Chapter 13 bankruptcy in Louisiana, experienced such a discrepancy with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. After being told that he owed $231,463.97 on his mortgage, he disputed the amount and ultimately sued Wells Fargo.
In April, Elizabeth W. Magner, a federal bankruptcy judge in Louisiana, ruled that Wells Fargo overcharged Mr. Jones by $24,450.65, or 12 percent more than what the court said he actually owed. The court attributed some of that to arithmetic errors but found that Wells Fargo had improperly added charges, including $6,741.67 in commissions to the sheriff’s office that were not owed, almost $13,000 in additional interest and fees for 16 unnecessary inspections of the borrowers’ property in the 29 months the case was pending.
“Incredibly, Wells Fargo also argues that it was debtor’s burden to verify that its accounting was correct,” the judge wrote, “even though Wells Fargo failed to disclose the details of that accounting until it was sued.”
A Wells Fargo spokesman, Kevin Waetke, said the bank would not comment on the details of the case as the bank is appealing a motion by Mr. Jones for sanctions. “All of our practices and procedures in the handling of bankruptcy cases follow applicable laws, and we stand behind our actions in this case,” he said.
In Texas, a United States trustee has asked for sanctions against Barrett Burke Wilson Castle Daffin & Frappier, a Houston law firm that sues borrowers on behalf of the lenders, for providing inaccurate information to the court about mortgage payments made by homeowners who sought refuge in Chapter 13.
Michael C. Barrett, a partner at the firm, said he did not expect the firm to be sanctioned.
“We certainly believe we have not misbehaved in any way,” he said, saying the trustee’s office became involved because it is trying to persuade Congress to increase its budget. “It is trying to portray itself as an organ to pursue mortgage bankers.”
Closing arguments in the case are scheduled for Dec. 12.
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3) 2007 Deadliest Year for U.S. Troops in Iraq
By DAMIEN CAVE
November 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/world/middleeast/07iraq.html?ref=world
BAGHDAD, Nov. 6 — Six American soldiers were killed in three separate attacks Monday, the military said today, taking the number of deaths this year to 851 and making 2007 the deadliest year of the war for American troops.
Military officials announced the discovery of a mass grave holding 22 bodies in a rural area north of Falluja. It also said that nine Iranians being held in Iraq would soon be released, including two detained during a January raid of a consulate office in Erbil.
Five of the American soldiers died in two roadside bomb attacks on Monday near Kirkuk, said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, director of the communications division of the Multinational Force-Iraq, the formal name for the United States-led forces.
A sixth soldier died Monday during combat operations in Anbar Province, according to a military statement.
The deaths come only a few days after the military announced a steep drop in the rate of American deaths this year. In October, 38 American service members died in Iraq, the third lowest monthly tally since 2003, according to Iraq Casualty Count, a web site that tracks military deaths. November’s total, if the current pace continues, would be higher but still far below the war’s average of 69 American military deaths per month.
Despite the decline, American commanders acknowledged that 2007 will be far deadlier than the second worst year, 2004, when 849 Americans died, many of them in major battles for control of insurgent strongholds like Falluja.
Military officials attribute the rise this year to an expanded troop presence during the so-called surge, which brought more than 165,000 troops to Iraq, and sent units out of large bases and into more dangerous communities.
Commanders maintain that despite the high cost in terms of lives lost, the strategy has brought improved security to the country and “tactical momentum” that could stabilize Iraq permanently.
The potential release of the Iranians may reflect American approval of some signs that Iran is cooperating with their demand that it staunch the flow of materials into Iraq used to make deadly roadside bombs known as explosively formed projectiles, or EFPs.
Rear Admiral Smith said that the EFP components found recently during raids “do not appear to have arrived here in Iraq after those pledges were made,” suggesting that Iran has limited EFP trafficking across the border after promising to do so.
American commanders have stopped short of declaring that Iran has in fact complied with the United States’ demands, and today Rear Admiral Smith described the plan to release nine Iranian prisoners not as a diplomatic reward but rather as the perfunctory end to a criminal investigation.
“These individuals have no continuing value, nor do they pose a further threat to Iraqi security,” he said.
Rear Admiral Smith did not say why the two Iranians captured in January at an Iranian consulate office in Erbil were held for nine months, after Iran insisted that they were harmless government workers.
Meanwhile, violence against Iraqis continued. The mass grave was found Saturday during a joint American-Iraqi operation in the Lake Tharthar area, a desolate rural area near the site of another grave, holding 25 bodies, that was found less than a month ago.
Local police officials said the bodies were dumped in and around an abandoned building.
“Some were buried in wells and some were left in rooms used as prisons,” said a police officer who helped clear the grave. “These corpses are part of what we expect to find more of in the future.”
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4) In Denver, a Ballot Fight Over Marijuana Arrests
By DAN FROSCH
November 5, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/us/06pot.html?ref=us
DENVER — In 2005, voters here approved a measure making it legal for an adult to possess an ounce or less of marijuana. But arrests for misdemeanor marijuana possession have risen since then.
Now, voters are to decide on a ballot measure that would make possession of small amounts of marijuana the lowest enforcement priority for the police.
“People didn’t want anyone arrested,” said Mason Tvert, executive director of Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation, a pro-marijuana group that sponsored the 2005 measure and is sponsoring the latest one. “That’s what they voted on.”
Proponents of the measure, which is similar to regulations in Seattle and Missoula County, Mont., contend that the police have more pressing matters to attend to and that the use of marijuana by adults is less harmful than alcohol.
But, it is unclear how the authorities will react if the measure passes. The 2005 measure garnered 54 percent approval. But city officials have ignored it, choosing instead to keep enforcing superseding state laws, which stipulate that a marijuana offense of an ounce or less, considered a Class 2 petty offense in Colorado, is punishable by a $100 fine. Misdemeanor marijuana arrests for people over 21 have risen to 1,347 last year, from 1,168 in 2005.
Sgt. Ernie Martinez of the Denver Police Department said that the police do not single out marijuana smokers and that such arrests often occur when officers respond to other crimes.
Sergeant Martinez, the president of the Colorado Drug Investigators Association, said even if the latest ballot measure passes, he cannot envision ordering his officers to stop arresting people for marijuana.
“They essentially want to promote self-indulgence of marijuana use at the risk of the public,” he said of Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation.
Mayor John Hickenlooper is against the initiative and says that marijuana enforcement is already a low priority for the police.
“It is not something the police specifically target for enforcement, or to which they deploy a significant amount of resources,” said Sue Cobb, a spokeswoman for Mr. Hickenlooper.
Local officials elsewhere have abided by similar ballot measures. Officials in Missoula County have heeded a 2006 decision by voters to make adult marijuana possession of any amount a low priority for the police. But the county commission, believing that such a sweeping measure was not actually the voters’ true intention, narrowed the scope of the law so to make only possession of small amounts of marijuana a low enforcement priority.
In Seattle, misdemeanor marijuana citations have dropped off since voters approved a similar measure in 2003. In August, two Seattle city council members sent a letter to Denver officials praising the Seattle initiative, calling it a sensible drug policy.
But even in that city, where an oversight panel will issue a report on the effects of the law, opinions are sharply divided.
The Seattle city attorney, Thomas Carr, said the data on the ordinance was inconclusive and noted that arrests have dropped citywide, not just those for marijuana. He said voters in Denver should judge the measure for themselves rather than holding Seattle up as a model.
“What I think bothers the police here is the message that marijuana smoking is O.K.,” he said. “And that bothers me as well.”
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5) For a Key Education Law, Reauthorization Stalls
By SAM DILLON
November 6, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/washington/06child.html?ref=us
The leaders of the Senate and House education committees are signaling that time has run out for reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act this year, leaving prospects for rewriting it uncertain during the presidential campaign in 2008.
The law, which holds public schools accountable for improving student test scores, is President Bush’s signature domestic achievement and the most important statement of federal policy toward the nation’s public schools.
It passed Congress with bipartisan support in 2001 and will remain in effect even without Congressional action.
But the administration and Democrats in Congress had repeatedly promised to make important changes to it this year, including some that would alter judging student performance.
Despite dozens of hearings, months of public debate and hundreds of hours of Congressional negotiation, neither the House nor the Senate has produced a bill that would formally start the reauthorization process.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Senate education committee, has postponed introducing a new version of the law until next year, Melissa Wagoner, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy, said yesterday.
“Senator Kennedy is committed to putting together a responsible reauthorization package early in 2008,” Ms. Wagoner said. “But we’re running up against the clock for this year.”
The education committee in the House has worked for months on negotiations to produce legislation to renew the law.
But in recent days, its chairman, Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, has been working on a higher-education bill.
Mr. Miller’s spokesman, Tom Kiley, said the Senate postponement of reauthorization for No Child Left Behind had complicated the work of writing a House bill.
“It’s growing less likely that we get a bill off the House floor this year,” Mr. Kiley said. “We’re continuing our negotiations on the bill with Republicans and with educational organizations, but we’re looking to balance the need to work expeditiously with the need to get this bill right.”
Mr. Miller has not produced a bill despite repeated suggestions as early as June that work on a House reauthorization bill was nearing completion.
Lobbyists for educational organizations who have watched the process closely said it appeared that Mr. Miller had been unable either to find enough votes among the committee’s Democratic majority to pass a reauthorization bill or to stitch together a bill that could attract enough Republicans to form a winning bipartisan coalition.
Alexa Marrero, a spokeswoman for Representative Howard P. McKeon of California, the ranking Republican on the committee, said: “Chairman Miller has signaled that the committee is turning its attention to higher education. Looking at the calendar, it’s difficult to see how N.C.L.B. could move through the process this year.”
But negotiations continue on some points as lawmakers seek to put together a bipartisan bill that could be introduced next year, Ms. Marrero said.
Mr. Bush has several times recently urged reauthorization of the law. But his efforts have not appeared to help in either chamber, partly because he has been waging a series of veto fights with Congressional Democrats.
And with only a few weeks left before Congress adjourns for the holidays, the House calendar is clogged with appropriations bills and other work.
Speaking of reauthorization, Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president for government and public affairs at the American Council on Education in Washington, said, “It’s dead for this year.”
“The more things move into the presidential election year,” Mr. Hartle added, “the more the long-term fate of any reauthorization bill becomes problematic.”
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6) Suspended Morton students demand return to class
BY KATE N. GROSSMAN Education Reporter
November 6, 2007
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/637168,morton110607.article#
About 10 Morton West High School students suspended over an anti-war protest at the school last week returned to the Berwyn school today to demand they be allowed back in classes.
The kids were accompanied by about 20 parents and anti-war activists at a press conference in front of Morton West. About 25 students were suspended and face expulsions after staging a protest against the Iraq war in the school cafeteria last Thursday.
The kids were accompanied by about 20 parents and anti-war activists at a press conference in front of Morton West. About 25 students were suspended and face expulsions after staging a protest against the Iraq war in the school cafeteria last Thursday.
District 201 Supt. Ben Nowakowski has insisted the students seriously disrupted the school day. All classes were locked down after the protesters locked arms and refused to move, he said previously. The students insist they were peaceful.
• Student protest
District 201 Supt. Ben Nowakowski has insisted the students seriously disrupted the school day. All classes were locked down after the protesters locked arms and refused to move, he said previously. The students insist they were peaceful.
“All we were trying to do was promote peace and recognize that people are dying every day,” said sophomore Adam Szwarek. “They said it was insubordination.”
The parents of the suspended students delivered a letter to Nowakowski demanding amnesty for their children. They want them back in school by Thursday. A call today to Nowakowski’s office by the Chicago Sun-Times was not immediately returned.
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7) LAPD Gentrifies Skid Row
By Jessica Hoffmann
Issue #40, Sept/Oct 2007
http://www.colorlines.com/article.php?ID=244
"We’re talking about any Black resident or any Black visitor in downtown Los Angeles. If they’re not looking a certain way that day, they could be stopped, handcuffed and harassed.”
For decades, a 50-block area in downtown Los Angeles known as Skid Row has been a hub for shelters and social services for homeless and extremely poor people, the majority of them Black. Now, amid rapid-fire gentrification of the downtown area, city leaders have implemented a police crackdown on Skid Row that has resulted in the harassment, arrest and displacement of thousands of poor people of color.
The LAPD’s “Safer Cities Initiative,” launched on Skid Row last summer, is based on the “broken windows” theory of law enforcement, which holds that small signs of “disorder” (graffiti, broken windows, people hanging out on the sidewalk) invite more serious crimes to a neighborhood and should be eliminated. Critics of the theory note its historical use to justify law-enforcement crackdowns on members of marginalized communities—especially poor people of color—who are disproportionately targeted for petty crimes. “‘Broken windows’ gets couched in this almost-neutral language about ‘signs of disorder’,” says Kristian Williams, author of a history of modern U.S. policing called Our Enemies in Blue, “but the things that get counted as ‘signs of disorder’ tend to be signs of poverty. What the theory is doing is reading poverty as disorder and using those ‘signs of disorder’ as an excuse to bring additional police attention and additional sanctioning to areas where poor people live.”
Since the summer of 2006, there have been more than 6,000 arrests in Skid Row, an area with a population of 10,000 to 15,000 people (about 4,000 of whom are homeless) on any given night. More than 100 new officers have been assigned to the neighborhood in the past year, so that now police officers on foot, in patrol cars, on bicycles and mounted on horses are a near-constant presence. Deborah Burton, who lives in subsidized housing in the neighborhood, said she has been stopped while simply walking down the street by police who ask, “Are you on parole or probation?” In April, a federal district judge ruled that the LAPD has engaged in a policy of unconstitutional searches of Skid Row residents.
“We’re not just talking about folks that are homeless,” says Pete White, codirector of the Skid Row-based Los Angeles Community Action Network. “We’re talking about any Black resident or any Black visitor in downtown Los Angeles. If they’re not looking a certain way that day, they could be stopped, handcuffed and harassed.”
In the face of this, many people have relocated to other neighborhoods, farther away from social services. James Hundley, who coordinates a needle-exchange program at the Skid Row site of Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, says that he has seen a decrease of about 30 percent in the number of people accessing their services since Safer Cities started. In the last year, he has also seen his site’s client population go from majority Black to majority white. “The people that were accessing the services,” he says, “are afraid to come in. If they come into the area, they’re gonna be harassed. If they’re not in the area, how can they access the services?”
Longtime residents and community organizers see what is happening on Skid Row as an extreme example of what is happening in cities across the United States: as predominantly white middle- and upper-middle-class people find urban centers increasingly desirable places to live, gentrification displaces lower-income communities of color. Policing strategies such as “broken windows” are often used to facilitate gentrification, resulting not only in displacement but increased incarceration of poor people of color. “Nationally,” says White, “we need to look at these hot spots, where hard-fought civil rights are being undermined by development, and liberal politicos are turning a blind eye.”
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8) Chemical Industry 1, Public Safety 0
Editorial
November 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/opinion/07wed1.html?hp
Air travelers are asking for trouble if they show up for a flight with 3.5 ounces of shampoo in their carry-on bags. But the Department of Homeland Security has decided that the government should not even trouble chemical plants to account for the storage of anything under 2,500 pounds of deadly chlorine. The department’s new rules on reporting stockpiles of toxic chemicals, issued last week, have certainly made the industry happy. They should make the public worried.
Chemical plants — and petroleum plants, paper mills and other industrial facilities that use dangerous chemicals — are one of the nation’s greatest vulnerabilities. An attack on such a facility could create a deadly chemical cloud that would put hundreds of thousands of people in danger. Just consider the result of an accidental train derailment in North Dakota in 2002 — a cloud of deadly chemicals hundreds of feet high and several miles long — and magnify it by what would happen if terrorists planned and carried out an attack in a highly populated area.
The government should be doing everything it can to guard against such catastrophes.
The Bush administration has shown repeatedly, however, that it does not want to impose reasonable safety requirements on chemical plants. That may have to do with its general opposition to regulations, or it could be connected to the enormous amount of money the chemical industry spends on lobbying and campaign contributions. The industry does not want to bear the expense of serious safety rules, and it fights them furiously. In a recent study, Greenpeace reported that the chemical industry spent more money in a year lobbying to defeat strong chemical plant legislation than the Department of Homeland Security spent on chemical plant security.
The rules the department issued last week are far too lax about when facilities need to report stockpiles of chemicals like chlorine, fluorine and hydrogen fluoride to the government. According to the new rules, which watered-down proposed rules that the department had released in April, a chemical plant does not have to report the storage of 2,499 pounds of chlorine, even if it is located in a populated area — or across from an elementary school.
If 450 pounds of chlorine are stolen, enough to cause mass casualties, the theft need not be reported. Chlorine has been used by insurgents in Iraq, and it is high on the list of chemicals that should be kept out of terrorists’ hands.
It is troubling that these industry-friendly rules were developed in part by Department of Homeland Security employees who previously worked for the chemical industry — and who may one day work for it again. Rick Hind, the legislative director of the Greenpeace Toxics Campaign, contends that such employees have had an “undue influence.” The department says it draws on former chemical industry workers simply because of their “relevant prior experience.”
Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has rightly compared the chemical storage rules to “putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg.” Congress needs to step in now and pass a strong new chemical plant law — one that puts more weight on the safety of the public and less on industry’s bottom line.
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9) G.M. Posts Its Biggest Quarterly Loss
By NICK BUNKLEY and MICHELINE MAYNARD
November 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/business/07cnd-auto.html?hp
DETROIT, Nov. 7 — General Motors reported its largest quarterly loss ever today after it took a huge noncash charge to write down deferred tax credits.
The loss — $39 billion — ended G.M.’s streak of profitable quarters at three. Excluding the $38.6 billion deferred tax charge and other one-time items, G.M. said it lost $1.6 billion, or $2.80 a share, in the third quarter. That compared with a profit of $497 million, or 88 cents a share, in the period a year earlier, excluding items.
“Things are bad and getting worse,” Peter Nesvold, an auto analyst with Bear Stearns, wrote to clients this morning, assuring them that the number was “not a typo.”
“Fundamental pressures appear to be coming on even faster and stronger than we thought when we downgraded G.M. shares to underperform three weeks ago,” he said.
Jonathan Steinmetz, an analyst with Morgan Stanley, criticized G.M.’s results as “messy and weak.” In a research report this morning, Mr. Steinmetz said, “There were not a lot of positives in the quarter.”
G.M. shares fell more than 4 percent, to $34.66, in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Until last week, many analysts had expect G.M. to post a small profit for the third quarter. But an unexpectedly deep loss at its financing arm, GMAC Financial Services, prompted a number of analysts to cut their estimates for G.M., and predict it would lose money in the quarter.
Even those cuts, however, miscalculated the depth of G.M.’s operating loss in the third quarter, let alone the magnitude of the overall company loss.
G.M.’s third-quarter loss comes as the outlook for Detroit automakers is growing gloomy. A number of company officials have said they expect auto sales, which are down about 3 percent in the United States this year, to fall further in 2008.
Ford is expected to post a loss of about $1 billion when it reports results tomorrow. Chrysler does not report results now that it is privately owned, but the company said last week it was cutting 11,000 more hourly and salaried jobs, in part because of its pessimistic outlook for auto sales.
G.M. lost $247 million in North America, the focus of its turnaround effort, although that is considerably better than the $660 million it lost in the region last year. The improved results were due to a more favorable sales mix, higher transaction prices and better warranty performance.
Globally, G.M.’s automotive operations earned $122 million. Total revenue was a record $43.1 billion.
“We continue to implement the key elements of our North America turnaround strategy, and these initiatives are driving steady improvement in our financial results, despite challenging North America market conditions,” G.M.’s chief executive, Rick Wagoner, said in a statement. “Our record third quarter global sales are strong evidence that our commitment to great cars and trucks is being embraced by consumers around the globe.”
G.M. said yesterday that it would take the huge charge to remove net deferred tax assets from its books, signaling that it would probably not earn significant profits on its automotive or finance operations in the near future. The automaker said that the charge would have no effect on operations and would not interfere with efforts to restructure.
But analysts said the step reflected the likelihood that G.M. would not earn significant profits on its automotive or finance operations in the near future. The deferred assets could have been used to offset taxes on future profits.
“What they’re doing is coming to terms with reduced future profitability,” said Charles Mulford, an accounting professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who added that the charge was one of the biggest ever taken by a company.
G.M.’s losses were offset in part by a $3.5 billion after-tax gain from the August sale of its Allison Transmission business. But its results were hurt by charges of a $1.6 billion in pension service costs related to previous labor agreements, $400 million associated with restructuring actions and $400 million related to the bankruptcy reorganization of its former parts operation, the Delphi Corporation.
G.M. recorded a loss of $757 million related to its financing arm, the General Motors Acceptance Corporation, of which it owns 49 percent. G.M.A.C., which had been a consistent source of profits in recent years, lost $1.6 billion in the quarter because of trouble in the mortgage and credit markets.
G.M.’s $39 billion overall loss equals $68.85 a share, nearly double the company’s closing stock price Monday. In the quarter a year earlier, G.M. lost $147 million, or 26 cents a share.
Sales of cars and trucks increased 4 percent worldwide in the third quarter, to a record 2.39 million. In the first nine months of the year, G.M. sold 7.05 million vehicles, enough to pull even with Toyota to claim the title as the world’s largest automaker. Toyota had claimed that position in the first half of 2007.
Also in the third quarter, G.M. workers represented by the United Automobile Workers union ratified a new contract that cuts the company’s labor costs by shifting retiree health care expenses to an independent trust and creating a lower wage tier for some jobs.
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10) Students Call Protest Punishment Too Harsh
By CRYSTAL YEDNAK
“Who’s the next group to go off to war?” said Adam Szwarek, whose 16-year-old son, Adam, faces expulsion. “These kids. The kids do a peaceful sit-in and they’re threatened with expulsion, yet the military’s running around the school trying to recruit.”
November 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/us/07protest.html?ref=us
Sign Petition against punishment of students at:
http://www.petitiononline.com/mortonw/
CHICAGO, Nov. 6 — A school superintendent’s decision to suspend, and perhaps expel, about two dozen students who took part in a protest against the Iraq war at a suburban high school drew criticism Tuesday from the students and their parents, who demanded that their children be allowed to return to classes.
In a statement issued after the protest on Thursday at Morton West High School in Berwyn, a working-class suburb just west of Chicago, the district superintendent, Ben Nowakowski, said the school’s reaction had to do only with the interruption of the school day, not with the students expressing themselves.
The administration “did not say that the students could not protest,” Dr. Nowakowski’s statement said. “Rather, we asked that the students simply move their protest to an area of the school that would not disrupt the ability of the other 3,400-plus students at Morton West to proceed with their normal school day.”
Dr. Nowakowski did not return repeated calls seeking comment Tuesday.
But several students said the protesters, whose numbers had dwindled to about 25, obeyed the administration’s request to move from a high-traffic area in the cafeteria to a less-crowded hall near the principal’s office. There, they intertwined arms, sang along to an acoustic guitar and talked about how the war was affecting the world, said Matt Heffernan, a junior who took part.
“We agreed to move to another side of the building,” Matt said. “We also made a deal that if we moved there, there would be no disciplinary action taken upon us.”
Matt said the group had been told that the most severe punishment would be a Saturday detention for cutting class that day.
Police officers were on the scene, and Berwyn’s police chief, William Kushner, said no arrests were made. “It was all very peaceful and orderly,” he said.
But at the end of the school day, Matt said, Dr. Nowakowski gave the remaining protesters disciplinary notices stating that they had engaged in mob action, that they were suspended for 10 days and that they faced expulsion.
“I was shocked,” said Matt, 16. “We had the sit-in. So I had mixed feelings of confidence — of a job well done — and fright, because my whole educational future is at risk.”
School officials also sent a letter to the parents of all the school’s students calling the protest “gross disobedience” and reminding parents that any disruption to the educational process could lead to expulsion.
On Tuesday, a group of parents went to the school to demand that their children be allowed return to classes. At most, the parents said, the protesters’ behavior amounted to loitering, which should be punishable by detention or a meeting with a guidance counselor.
The parents have also asked that the district provide the students with some way to express themselves about issues like the war.
“Who’s the next group to go off to war?” said Adam Szwarek, whose 16-year-old son, Adam, faces expulsion. “These kids. The kids do a peaceful sit-in and they’re threatened with expulsion, yet the military’s running around the school trying to recruit.”
Parents also complained that deans, teachers and coaches singled out certain athletes and honor students and persuaded them to drop out of the protest.
Rita Maniotis, president of the school’s parent-teacher organization, said the school called her husband to say that their daughter, Barbara, a junior, was participating in the protest and that he should come to get her. He did so, and she was suspended for five days. But other parents were not called and not able to intervene, Ms. Maniotis said. “There’s no rhyme or reason to the punishment doled out,” she said.
The executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Illinois, Colleen K. Connell, said she could not comment on the case because her organization was investigating to determine whether it will take it up. In general, public school students have constitutional rights, she said, but they can be limited in a school setting.
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11) Military Bill Approved [$459 billion...bw], but Without Iraq Increase
By ROBERT PEAR
November 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/world/middleeast/07cong.html?ref=world
WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 — House and Senate negotiators approved a $459 billion military spending bill on Tuesday, but rejected a Republican bid to provide $70 billion more to continue fighting the war in Iraq without any restrictions.
Senior Democratic lawmakers said they would provide less money for the war, for a shorter time, with certain restrictions that are to be decided in the next few days.
Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, urged the House and Senate negotiators to provide the $70 billion for six months of combat in Iraq, money separate from the regular Defense Department budget.
Senator Robert C. Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said: “This amendment would send to the president additional funding for his horrible, misguided war in Iraq without any Congressional direction that he change course. No strings attached. That would be a tragic mistake.”
“No more blank checks for war funding,” Mr. Byrd declared.
The new Democratic leaders of Congress have repeatedly been stymied in their efforts to bring troops back from Iraq or to force a change in President Bush’s war policies. But the Democrats made clear on Tuesday that they would try again to change course by using the power of the purse — what James Madison called “the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people.”
Representative John P. Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania and chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, said: “The public wants this war over with. Many Democrats were elected because they said this war ought to end.”
Mr. Murtha said he and Mr. Byrd would recommend “goals or timelines” for curtailing American military operations in Iraq. “Our goal,” he said, “would be to get everybody out” by the end of next year.
Mr. Byrd said he had drafted legislative language that would send “a clear message to the president that we must transition the mission in Iraq to encourage Iraqis to take a much greater role in securing their future.”
The restrictions would be added to a bill providing money — a maximum of $50 billion — to continue the Iraq war to next spring, Mr. Murtha said. The president has requested nearly $200 billion for the full year, but Democrats said they were unwilling to provide the full amount in a lump sum, without conditions.
Short-term financing for the Iraq war is not included under the military spending bill that pays for weapons systems and the far-flung operations of the Defense Department in the budget year that began Oct. 1.
Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Congress has approved some $412 billion for the Iraq war, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Most of the money has paid for military operations.
In May, Mr. Bush vetoed a war spending bill on the ground that it would “set an arbitrary date for beginning the withdrawal of American troops” from Iraq. Military commanders, he said, should not have to take “fighting directions from politicians 6,000 miles away in Washington, D.C.” The White House could raise similar objections to the restraints now contemplated by Congressional Democrats.
Republicans said the Democrats were trying to establish a “slow bleed strategy” in Iraq.
“It’s just a political ploy to try to end the war by starving the troops,” Mr. Stevens said.
The bill includes a 3.5 percent pay increase for all military personnel. That is one-half of a percentage point more than Mr. Bush requested.
Congress has not completed work on any of the 12 annual appropriations bills. Attached to the Defense Department spending bill is a measure that would provide a short-term infusion of cash for other agencies, to allow them to continue spending at current levels through Dec. 14.
In late September, just days before the start of the current fiscal year, Congress passed a stopgap spending bill for the entire government, but most of its provisions expire Nov. 16.
Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, the Republican whip, predicted that most of the unfinished appropriations bills would be packed together in “a bloated omnibus money bill.”
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12) Takin' It to the Streets - A Bill Moyers Essay
video clip: http://pbs.wmod.llnwd.net/a1863/e1/general/windows/wnet/moyers/journal/1130/BMJ1130_street_320.wmv?v1st=none
November 2, 2007
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11022007/watch2.html
BILL MOYERS:It's important who owns the press, as we've just seen and heard...but it's also important who decides what is news.
Why wasn't it news last weekend when more than 100,000 people turned out in 11 cities across the country to protest the occupation of Iraq...Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Orlando, Salt Lake City, New Orleans, Jonesborough, Tennessee. but if you blinked while watching the national news, you wouldn't have known it was a story. We found less than two minutes of scattered mentions on television, and not even the Associated Press reported on other demonstrations in smaller cities.
Here in Manhattan, thousands of people took to the streets in a steady rain -- but the national coverage was even damper than the weather. THE NEW YORK TIMES didn't even run a story at all. and local television coverage was sparse.
40 years ago opposition to war was a big story.
You couldn't miss what happened that October day in 1967 when more than 50,000 protesters moved en masse from the Lincoln memorial across the Potomac river to the Pentagon...calling on their government to end the war in Vietnam...
This photograph by Bernie Boston of the WASHINGTON STAR circled the globe...to become one of the most enduring images of the era...
But this one, too, speaks volumes... Secretary of Defense Robert Mcnamara peering out of his window at thousands upon thousands of his fellow americans who just wanted to stop the killing.
Among them was sixteen-year old Maurice Isserman, a high school student making his first visit to the nation's capitol. By the end of the day he and other marchers would be tear-gassed and dragged away. 700 would be arrested.
Isserman, forty years later, is a historian teaching at Hamilton college. In the CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION last week I came across his essay reminiscing on that day. press reports, he remind us, disparaged the protesters...despite their solemn rendition of the Star Spangled Banner which they sang, "Wide-open, high notes and all."" Despite the Secretary of Defense, above them, breaking down and weeping.
Isserman reminds us that only five months before the Pentagon protest, Mcnamara, one of the war's architects and defenders, had sent the White House a confidential memo outlining his 'growing doubts' about american involvement in Vietnam.
The march on the Pentagon was a watershed, Maurice Isserman writes, turning dissent into resistance.
But the war went on for another seven years...altogether almost sixty thousand American soldiers died...and millions of Vietnamese...and America still lost, fleeing the country and leaving Vietnam to the Vietnamese.
In Iraq the war also goes on...despite the protests...despite public sentiment that has turned against it...despite almost four thousand soldiers killed...another 28,000 wounded...and God knows how many iraqi civilians dead or injured...and the war goes on.
Look at this story in the WASHINGTON POST. It appeared last weekend as those marchers took to the streets.
Reporter Joshua Partlow told of an American unit fighting in a southwest corner of Baghdad...a once middle class neighborhood now in ruins... you can hear an audio report from Partlow at our website on pbs.org.
One officer told him: "People are killed here every day, and you don't hear about it. people are kidnapped here every day, and you don't hear about it."
The unit has lost 20 of their comrades during their 14 months at war...the soldiers, Partlow writes, are tired, bitter and skeptical.
One of them told the journalist: "I don't think this place is worth another soldier's life."
Here at home, if you were watching the Sunday talk shows, you wouldn't know anyone was paying attention to either the soldiers or the protesters. The talk was all about politics, fires and Iran.
And if anyone in high office was weeping over yet another war with no end in sight...we'll have to wait until they write their books to know it.
The protest last weekend came almost exactly five years after Congress had backed the President's rush to war. Five years later the Capitol and the country alike seem once again to have their fingers in their ears.
In Philadelphia one puzzled protester looked around and wondered aloud why there's not more outrage...as the war machine rolls on.
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13) Venezuela's assembly approve Chavez reforms
The Associated Press
Friday, November 2, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/02/america/LA-GEN-Venezuela-Constitution.php?WT.mc_id=rssamerica
CARACAS, Venezuela: Venezuela's pro-government National Assembly overwhelmingly approved constitutional reforms on Friday that would greatly expand the power of President Hugo Chavez and permit him to run for re-election indefinitely.
The 69 changes to Venezuela's Constitution now go to citizens for a vote on Dec. 2.
The proposed changes, Chavez's most radical move yet in his push to transform Venezuela into a socialist state, threaten to spur a new wave of political upheaval in this oil-rich South American country already deeply divided over Chavez's rule.
The amendments would allow the government to expropriate private property without having to first seek court authorization, take total control over the Central Bank, create new types of property managed by cooperatives and extend presidential terms from six to seven years while allowing Chavez to run again in 2012.
All but seven of the assembly's 167 lawmakers voted for the changes by a show of hands.
"Today the Venezuelan people have a pencil in their hands to write their own history, and it's not going to be the history of the elite," said pro-Chavez lawmaker Earle Herrera.
Concerns that the measures will weaken civil liberties have been raised by university students, opposition parties, human rights groups and representatives of Venezuela's Roman Catholic Church.
Demonstrators protested the reforms at several universities on Friday. One student was killed by an unidentified gunman during a demonstration in western Zulia state, Zulia Police Chief Candido Carreno told state television. Four other students were injured, he said, without elaborating. No suspects were arrested.
Critics also worry the reforms would allow Chavez to remain in power for decades like his close friend Fidel Castro of Cuba.
Calling the reforms "unconstitutional," dissident lawmaker Ricardo Gutierrez railed against pro-Chavez congressmen for approving amendments "that don't have anything to do with giving more power to the people."
Chavez, a retired army lieutenant colonel who was first elected in 1998 on a populist platform and has repeatedly defeated his political adversaries at the polls, denies the reforms are antidemocratic.
Most "Chavistas," as the president's supporters call themselves, back the reforms as a novel means of giving neighborhood-based assemblies called "communal councils" greater decision-making power as Chavez steers Venezuela toward what he calls "21st-century Socialism."
Among other changes, the reforms would enshrine socialist concepts in the constitution, reduce from 18 to 16 the minimum voting age and increase the number of signatures required to trigger a presidential recall vote.
Government supporters wearing red — the color of Chavez's ruling party — cheered outside the assembly in downtown Caracas as lawmakers left the building and walked to the nearby National Elections Council, where they asked officials to schedule a Dec. 2 referendum on the reforms.
Jose Manuel Gonzalez, president of the Fedecamaras business chamber, warned of grave consequences if voters agree to the amendments.
"If this reform is approved, it destroys the future of our institutions, isolates us as a nation, brings us back to the past and distances us from modernity and progress," he told Union Radio.
On Thursday, protesters staged the biggest demonstration against Chavez in months, and appeared to revive Venezuela's languid opposition. Soldiers responded with tear gas canisters, plastic bullets and water cannons to scatter tens of thousands who said the amendments would violate civil liberties and derail democracy.
The pro-government VEA newspaper on Friday predicted an overwhelming referendum victory in an editorial and urged government supporters to join "a life or death battle in which the present and future of the Venezuelan nation is in play."
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14) Hugo Chávez and Constitutional Reform
by Salim Lamrani
ZNet | Activism
September 16, 2007
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=13801
The constitutional reform project introduced by the Venezuelan President
on August 15, 2007 has provoked an unprecedented media frenzy. For several
days the western media obsessively focused on this, after all, banal event.
The proposal seeks to modify 33 of the 350 articles of the 1999
Constitution. (1) But the media only concentrated on the proposed change to
Article 230 that would repeal the limit on presidential terms currently set
at two terms. (2) The French press, among others, immediately denounced
Chávez’ intention to “remain in power” (3) and criticized the Venezuelan
president’s “temptation of total power” claiming he aimed to “become the
sacrosanct leader.” (4)
It is both curious and ironic that the French press feign to be offended
by Chávez’ attempt at a third term when presidential term limits are not
constitutionally limited in France. According to the French Magna Carta,
President Nicolas Sarkozy could go on governing for the next 30 years, if
reelected, without any problem. The same goes for countries such as United
Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and most other European nations. This
fact has never aroused the slightest critique from the western media. Why is
it that what is acceptable in the West is not acceptable for Third World
nations? These attacks reek of inadmissible colonialism and clearly
illustrate the intention of the transnational press to demonize the
democratic and popular government of President Chávez at whatever cost.
In fact, the completely legal Venezuelan reform will not be adopted by
decree. First it must be extensively debated throughout the country. Then it
has to be approved by 167 National Assembly deputies. And lastly, it has to
be submitted to public referendum. (5) In sum, the people have the last
word. A reform could not be more democratic. Moreover, the current
constitution allows the opposition to participate in the debate and
formulate concrete proposals. (6) But that is of little interest to the
detractors of Hugo Chávez, who have launched a worldwide disinformation
campaign with the complicity of the western media, the White House and the
European Union. (7)
The opposition has sworn to block the constitutional reform by any means
claiming that it poses a threat to democracy. Opposition leader Manuel
Rosales, who participated in the coup attempt of April 2002, denounced the
“constitutional coup” and announced that he would oppose the reform project.
(8)
For his part, Hugo Chávez called on the people to resist the media
propaganda and proliferate national and local debates regarding the project
(9). He also warned against destabilization attempts orchestrated by the
opposition, who was responsible for the bloody coup attempt and the
subsequent disastrous sabotage of the oil industry in December 2002. “The
conspiracies have already begun [...]. Until late last night I met with the
minister of the People’s Power for Defense, members of the military high
command, the commanders of the Army, National Guard, and the Navy;
evaluating, because messages have already begun to circulate and arrive at
the barracks, [...]. The hand of the CIA is behind it,” Chávez accused. (11)
In closing he reiterated his conviction that the opposition would be
“crushed and pulverized” during the upcoming consultative referendum on the
Constitutional Reform Project. (12) A new triumph for the most popular man
in Latin America is very probable, given that he has won 12 consecutive
electoral victories since his presidential election in 1998. The National
Assembly will decide on the reform in November 2007 after three months of
discussions and debates. (13) The referendum will be convoked within 30 days
of the project’s approval. (14)
It is worth mentioning that the media, so long-winded about this matter,
have hardly mentioned the rest of the proposed reforms. In addition to
annulling presidential terms limits and extending the duration of terms from
six years to seven, the project also proposes to establish a “social
stability fund” that would guarantee workers “fundamental rights such as
retirement, pensions, vacations, prenatal and postnatal leave and other
others...” (15) The workday would be limited to six hours creating a 36-hour
workweek and employers would be prohibited from forcing wage earners to work
overtime. “The exploitation of workers” would become unacceptable. (16)
The reforms would also abolish the autonomy of the Central Bank thus
allowing subsidies to be applied to social programs. In addition, communal
councils that play a direct role in decision-making would be multiplied in
order to promote a more participatory democracy. New forms of ownership with
a cooperative character would be created, without eradicating private
property. Land currently not in production would be distributed among rural
farmers. Similarly, the reform would write “the express interdiction of
large estates” into the constitution as well as the prohibition of all
monopolies. “The state reserves [the rights to], for reasons of national
sovereignty, development and interests, the exploitation of liquid, solid
and gaseous hydrocarbons.” Likewise, it would make impossible the
privatization of the nation’s natural resources. (17) the media has censored
all these reforms.
“This ambition to accumulate money and wealth is one of the causes of
the downfall of humanity,” declared Chávez, who stated his intention to
build a more just society. (18) So far, from his position of power, the
Venezuelan president has carried out spectacular social reforms that have
greatly improved Venezuelan living standards. After recovering control of
the national petroleum company PDVSA and nationalizing the petroleum,
electricity and telephone sectors, eradicating illiteracy in 2005,
distributing 3 million hectares of land to rural farmers, universalizing
education and health care, and conducting nearly 200 thousand surgeries for
cataracts and other ocular diseases free of charge, he built housing en
masse for the most needy, subsidized basic food stuffs by 40%, raised the
minimum wage making it the highest in Latin America ($286USD/month), and
decreased the work week from 44 hours to 36. No other government in the
world has done so much in so little time. (19)
Hugo Chávez has extended his aid to the other American nations.
“Brazilian workers have recovered their jobs, Nicaraguan farmers received
credits and Bolivian mayors can build health clinics all thanks to
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez,” reported the Associated Press.Currently
Venezuela offers direct financial support to the American continent. In
2007, Chávez has so far provided no less than $8,8 billion in fuel
donations, financing and aid, in contrast to the $3 billion that has come
from the Bush administration. The Bolivarian government’s aid is
unprecedented in Latin American history, with the exception of Cuba’s
humanitarian missions. Even U.S. citizens, abandoned by their own
government, have receiving subsidized fuel thanks to Venezuela’s altruistic
policy. (20)
So it is of little surprise that the Venezuelan president has become the
most popular leader in the world. Advocating the emancipation of those
constantly humbled by an unsustainable economic order, Chávez has sparked
hope not only in his own people, who are now inexorable actors in
establishing the trajectory of their country; but he is also a source of
inspiration for the dispossessed around the globe. Conversely, to the rulers
of the world, Hugo Chávez is a dangerous example. He is a leader who refuses
their tutelage and calls into question their devastating hegemony. In
retaliation they strive to discredit him by any means possible with the
cowardly complicity of the western media that, tossing journalistic ethics
out the window, does not hesitate in the least to manipulate reality and
excel in the realm of disinformation.
Translation by Dawn Gable.
Notes
(1) Hugo Chávez Frías, “ Presentación del proyecto de Reforma
Constitucional ante la Asamblea Nacional, por parte del presidente Hugo
Chávez,” Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, 15 August, 2007.
(2) Le Monde, “Au Venezuela, Hugo Chávez présente sa réforme
constitutionnelle,” 16 August, 2007.
(3) Libération, “Hugo Chávez veut modifier la Constitution pour rester
au pouvoir,” 16 August, 2007.
(4) Stéphanie Schüler, “Chávez – la tentation du pouvoir total ,” Radio
France International, 16 August, 2007.
(5) Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, “Batallones socialistas crearán
voluntariado para debatir reforma constitucional,” 25 August, 2007.
(6) Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, “Chávez exhorta arreciar batalla
ideológica para frenar campaña contra reforma,” 26 August, 2007.
(7) Christopher Toothaker, “Ex mentor de Chávez rechaza su reforma,”
Associated Press, 22 August, 2007.
(8) Fabiola Sánchez, “Opositores a Chávez lucharán contra reforma
constitucional,” Associated Press, 17 August, 2007.
(9) Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, “Carta Magna garantiza a la
oposición hacer propuestas sobre reforma ante la AN,” 25 August, 2007.
(10) Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, “Reforma constitucional
profundizará la Revolución Bolivariana,” 25 de agosto 2007; Agencia
Bolivariana de Noticias, “Chávez denuncia que comenzó conspiración contra
Reforma Constitucional,” 19 August, 2007.
(11) The Associated Press, “Chávez acusa a opositores de conspirar en su
contra,” 20 August, 2007.
(12) Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, “Oposición será aplastada en
próximo referendo sobre la reforma,” 25 August, 2007.
(13) The Associated Press, “Congreso venezolano espera aprobar pronto
reforma constitucional,” 23 de August, 2007; Agencia Bolivariana de
Noticias, “Todos los sectores del país analizarán Proyecto de Reforma
Constitucional,” 23 August, 2007.
(14) Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, “CNE convocará a referendo tras
aprobación del proyecto por la Asamblea Nacional,” 23 August, 2007; Agencia
Bolivariana de Noticias, “CNE trabaja en el diseño del referendo
constitucional,” 22 August, 2007.
(15) Hugo Chávez Frías, “ Presentación del proyecto de Reforma
Constitucional ante la Asamblea Nacional, por parte del presidente Hugo
Chávez,” op. cit.; Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, “Gobierno nacional
trabaja en reivindicación del derecho a la pensión,” 22 August, 2007;
Pascual Serrano, “El golpe de Estado de Chávez,” Rebelión, 17 August, 2007.
(16) Hugo Chávez Frías, “ Presentación del proyecto de Reforma
Constitucional ante la Asamblea Nacional, por parte del presidente Hugo
Chávez,” op. cit.; Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, “Rivero: Nueva jornada
laboral planteará horarios de mutuo acuerdo,” 22 August, 2007; Pascual
Serrano, “El golpe de Estado de Chávez,” op. cit.
(17) Ibid.
(18) Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, “Chávez destacó moral socialista
como base de nuevo modelo de país,” 20 August, 2007.
(19) Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, “Venezuela con el salario mínimo
más alto de Latinoamérica,” 20 de abril de 2007; Ignacio Ramonet, “Hugo
Chávez,” Le Monde Diplomatique, August, 2007, p. 1.
(20) Natalie Obiko Pearson & Ian James, “Exclusiva AP: Venezuela ofrece
miles de millones a Latinoamérica,” Associated Press, 26 August, 2007; The
Associated Press, “Ayuda venezolana a Latinoamérica y el Caribe en el 2007,”
26 August, 2007.
Salim Lamrani is a French professor, writer and journalist specializing
in relations between Cuba and the United States. He has published the
following books: Washington contre Cuba (Pantin: Le Temps des Cerises,
2005), Cuba face à l’Empire (Genève: Timeli, 2006) y Fidel Castro, Cuba et
les Etats-Unis (Pantin: Le Temps des Cerises, 2006).
Dawn Gable is a freelance translator, writer and activist and member of
the Venezuela Solidarity Network and the Santa Cruz Cuba Study Group.
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15) Opposition violence at Venezuelan university - What really happened at the UCV
By Rodrigo Trompiz and Jorge Martin (with eyewitness information from Caracas)
Thursday, 08 November 2007
http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org/violence_venezuela_university.htm
According to eyewitness reports from Hands Off Venezuela members, violence broke out yesterday in Caracas when opposition students arrived back from a peaceful demonstration against the proposed constitutional reforms. Apparently frustrated by the lack of violence, a group of about 250 of the opposition students (many from other universities) went straight to the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) to the School of Social Work which is a stronghold of revolutionary students inside UCV.
There, a group of revolutionary students was campaigning for a yes vote in the referendum. They had an assembly for students/teachers/non-teaching staff in the morning and were putting up posters and giving out leaflets.
They were then attacked by the opposition students who surrounded the School. Molotov cocktails and stones were thrown, the toilets were destroyed, the door of the Students Centre (Bolivarian dominated) was burned down, and around 150 people (students, teachers and non-teaching staff) were trapped inside the building for several hours, with the violent opposition students trying to force their way into the building to lynch them.
Some of the students inside the Faculty are nationally known Bolivarian student leaders (including Andreina Taranzon who spoke in the debate with opposition students at the National Assembly earlier this year at the time of the RCTV protests). They managed to call the state TV and reported live on what was happening.
The police are not allowed to enter University premises owing to a law on University autonomy. The Mayor of Caracas offered the possibility of the Metropolitan Police going in to contain violence and allow people in the School to come out, but the rector of the University, a member of the opposition, refused the offer. The University authorities are responsible for security on their own premises and did nothing to prevent violence from escalating.
Meanwhile, opposition TV stations were full of reports that masked Chavista supporters had fired on opposition students and that one person had been killed (this was then proven to be false, nine students were injured, most of them from inhaling fumes from the fires started by opposition students).
Finally, the head of emergency and fire-fighting services was allowed by the rector to go into the university and negotiate the safe exit of the people who were trapped inside the School of Social Work by a violent mob of opposition students.
The international media has been "reporting" about these clashes as if "armed Chavista gunmen" had fired on peaceful opposition students. A member of Hands Off Venezuela was present at the University when the violence broke out. He reports that the gunmen who originally opened fire stopped him on his way through the UCV to the Bolivarian University nearby. He reports that the two gunmen on the motorbike did not look like students, but were more likely thugs hired for the occasion and that they were shouting anti-Chavez slogans and boasting of having shot at Chavistas.
Even news agencies now are reporting that Bolivarian armed men arrived at the UCV after the opposition students had sieged 150 people inside the building of the School of Social Work to help those sieged gain safe passage out:
Later, armed men riding motorcycles arrived, scaring off students and standing at the doorway - one of them firing a handgun in the air - as people fled the building. (The Guardian )
What Hands Off Venezuela eyewitness report is that, faced with the inaction of the University authorities, hundreds of students, University workers and people from nearby neighbourhoods finally went into the University to help the people at the School of Social Work escape from the violent mob of opposition students. Some of them were carrying guns, which was only normal considering the extremely violent nature of the situation.
Bolivarian students, teachers and non-teaching staff have now held a joint meeting at the UCV and called for a demonstration against fascist aggressions to take place in the UCV on November 15.
Videos of the violent attack by opposition students can be seen here:
http://www.radiomundial.com.ve/yvke/noticia.php?988
http://www.radiomundial.com.ve /yvke/noticia.php?990
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16) House Approves Broad Protections for Gay Workers
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
November 8, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/washington/08employ.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 — The House on Wednesday approved a bill granting broad protections against discrimination in the workplace for gay men, lesbians and bisexuals, a measure that supporters praised as the most important civil rights legislation since the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 but that opponents said would result in unnecessary lawsuits.
The bill, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, is the latest version of legislation that Democrats have pursued since 1974. Representatives Edward I. Koch and Bella Abzug of New York then sought to protect gay men and lesbians with a measure they introduced on the fifth anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, the brawl between gay men and police officers at a bar in Greenwich Village that is widely viewed as the start of the American gay rights movement.
“On this proud day of the 110th Congress, we will chart a new direction for civil rights,” said Representative Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat and a gay rights advocate, in a speech before the vote. “On this proud day, the Congress will act to ensure that all Americans are granted equal rights in the work place.”
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat and a longtime supporter of gay rights legislation, said he would move swiftly to introduce a similar measure in the Senate. Some Senate Republicans said that, if worded carefully, it would have a good chance of passing, perhaps early next year.
Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, has said that she would be the lead co-sponsor of the Senate bill. Ms. Collins, in a statement, said that the House vote “provides important momentum” and that “there is growing support in the Senate for strengthening federal laws to protect American workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation.”
President Bush threatened to veto an earlier version of the bill, but a White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, said the administration would need to review recent changes before making a final decision. Few Democrats expect Mr. Bush to change his mind.
The House bill would make it illegal for an employer “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to the compensation, terms, conditions or privileges of employment of the individual, because of such individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation.”
While 19 states and Washington, D.C., have laws barring discrimination based on sexual orientation, and many cities offer similar protections, federal law offers no such shield, though it does bar discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity, sex, age, disability and pregnancy.
In the House on Wednesday, 35 Republicans joined 200 Democrats voting for the bill, which was approved 235 to 184, perhaps reflecting polls showing that a plurality of Americans believe homosexuality should be accepted as an alternative lifestyle, though a majority still oppose same-sex marriage. Voting against the bill were 25 Democrats and 159 Republicans.
Among the Democrats opposed, many said the bill should have also outlawed discrimination based on gender identity.
And while the Democrats fell far short of the 280 votes that would be needed to override a presidential veto, many of them, including the majority leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, spoke about the vote in exuberant tones, calling it “historic” and “momentous.”
For more than 30 years, outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation has been a cause of liberal Democrats, who have fought many partisan battles with Republicans but have always come up short. In 1996, the Senate came within one vote of passing a bill; the House did not vote on the bill that year.
The twist this year is that the measure has emerged as an example of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s pragmatism in trying to make headway on leading issues by granting concessions, even at the risk of angering her party’s base.
To ensure passage of the bill, Ms. Pelosi and other Democrats, including Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who is openly gay, removed language granting protections to transsexual and transgender individuals by barring discrimination based on sexual identity, a move that infuriated gay rights groups.
The Democrats also carved out a blanket exemption for religious groups, drawing the ire of civil liberties advocates who argued that church-run hospitals, for instance, should not be permitted to discriminate against gay employees. The civil liberties groups wanted a narrow exemption for religious employers.
On the House floor, Ms. Pelosi acknowledged challenges. “History teaches us that progress on civil rights is never easy,” she said. “It is often marked by small and difficult steps.”
Ms. Pelosi did maintain the support of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay rights group in the country, even though it was disappointed that gender identity protections were not included in the bill.
“Today’s vote in the House sends a powerful message about equality to the country, and it’s a significant step forward for our community,” said Joe Solmonese, the group’s president.
Others were not so upbeat. “What should have been one of the most triumphant days in our movement’s history is not,” said Matt Foreman, the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “It’s one of very mixed reactions.”
But many longtime supporters of the legislation cheered its passage. “It’s wonderful,” said Mr. Koch, a former mayor of New York City. “Even though it is a vote that was delayed too long.”
Much of the debate Wednesday was taken up by Republicans complaining, somewhat oddly, that they could not hold a vote on a Democratic amendment to restore gender identity language.
Democrats suggested that these Republicans were not hoping to protect transsexuals from discrimination but to restore provisions to the bill that would have made it easier to rally opposition.
Representative Doc Hastings of Washington, who led the Republican effort to get a vote on the amendment, said he opposed the overall bill in part because many states already had similar laws and because he viewed it as intrusive. “I do not think it is the place of the federal government to legislate how each and every place of business operates,” Mr. Hastings said.
Other opponents said the law would result in spurious lawsuits.
“It would be impossible for employers to operate a business without having to worry about being accused of discriminating against someone based on their ‘perceived’ sexual orientation,” said Representative Ginny Brown-Waite, Republican of Florida, who raised two fingers on each hand to flash quotation marks over her head as she said “perceived.”
Mr. Kennedy, who is chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, issued a statement praising the House vote. He could introduce a measure identical to the House bill or a new version, which might restore language about gender identity.
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17) Surge Seen in Number of Homeless Veterans
By ERIK ECKHOLM
November 8, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/us/08vets.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 — More than 400 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have turned up homeless, and the Veterans Affairs Department and aid groups say they are bracing for a new surge in homeless veterans in the years ahead.
Experts who work with veterans say it often takes several years after leaving military service for veterans’ accumulating problems to push them into the streets. But some aid workers say the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans appear to be turning up sooner than the Vietnam veterans did.
“We’re beginning to see, across the country, the first trickle of this generation of warriors in homeless shelters,” said Phil Landis, chairman of Veterans Village of San Diego, a residence and counseling center. “But we anticipate that it’s going to be a tsunami.”
With more women serving in combat zones, the current wars are already resulting in a higher share of homeless women as well. They have an added risk factor: roughly 40 percent of the hundreds of homeless female veterans of recent wars have said they were sexually assaulted by American soldiers while in the military, officials said.
“Sexual abuse is a risk factor for homelessness,” Pete Dougherty, the V.A.’s director of homeless programs, said.
Special traits of the current wars may contribute to homelessness, including high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and traumatic brain injury, which can cause unstable behavior and substance abuse, and the long and repeated tours of duty, which can make the reintegration into families and work all the harder.
Frederick Johnson, 37, an Army reservist, slept in abandoned houses shortly after returning to Chester, Pa., from a year in Iraq, where he experienced daily mortar attacks and saw mangled bodies of soldiers and children. He started using crack cocaine and drinking, burning through $6,000 in savings.
“I cut myself off from my family and went from being a pleasant guy to wanting to rip your head off if you looked at me wrong,” Mr. Johnson said.
On the street for a year, he finally checked in at a V.A. clinic in Maryland and has struggled with PTSD, depression, and drug and alcohol abuse. The V.A. has provided temporary housing as he starts a new job.
Tracy Jones of the Compass Center, a Seattle agency that has seen a handful of new homeless each month, said she was surprised by “the quickness in which Iraqi Freedom veterans are becoming homeless” compared with the Vietnam era. The availability of meth and crack could lead addicts into rapid downhill spirals, Ms. Jones said.
Poverty and high housing costs also contribute. The National Alliance to End Homelessness in Washington will release a report on Thursday saying that among one million veterans who served after the Sept. 11 attacks, 72,000 are paying more than half their incomes for rent, leaving them highly vulnerable.
Mr. Dougherty of the V.A. said outreach officers, who visit shelters, soup kitchens and parks, had located about 1,500 returnees from Iraq or Afghanistan who seemed at high risk, though many had jobs. More than 400 have entered agency-supported residential programs around the country. No one knows how many others have not made contact with aid agencies.
More than 11 percent of the newly homeless veterans are women, Mr. Dougherty said, compared with 4 percent enrolled in such programs over all.
Veterans have long accounted for a high share of the nation’s homeless. Although they make up 11 percent of the adult population, they make up 26 percent of the homeless on any given day, the National Alliance report calculated.
According to the V.A., some 196,000 veterans of all ages were homeless on any given night in 2006. That represents a decline from about 250,000 a decade back, Mr. Dougherty said, as housing and medical programs grew and older veterans died.
The most troubling face of homelessness has been the chronic cases, those who live in the streets or shelters for more than year. Some 44,000 to 64,000 veterans fit that category, according to the National Alliance study.
On Wednesday, the Bush administration announced what it described as “remarkable progress” for the chronic homeless. Alphonso R. Jackson, the secretary of housing and urban development, said a new policy of bringing the long-term homeless directly into housing, backed by supporting services, had put more than 20,000, or about 12 percent, into permanent or transitional homes.
Veterans have been among the beneficiaries, but Mary Cunningham, director of the research institute of the National Alliance and chief author of their report, said the share of supported housing marked for veterans was low.
A collaborative program of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the V.A. has developed 1,780 such units. The National Alliance said the number needed to grow by 25,000.
Mr. Dougherty described the large and growing efforts the V.A. was making to prevent homelessness including offering two years of free medical care and identifying psychological and substance abuse problems early.
One obstacle is that many veterans wait too long to seek help. “I had that pride thing going on, ‘I’m a soldier, I should be better than this,’” Mr. Johnson said.
Kent Richardson, 49, who was in the Army from 1976 to 1992 and has flashbacks from the gulf war, said, “when you get out you feel disconnected and alone.”
Mr. Richardson said it took him two years to find a job after leaving the Army. Then he became an alcoholic. He now stays at the Southeast Veteran’s Service Center in Washington, awaiting permanent subsidized housing.
Joe Williams, 53, spent 16 years in the Army and the Navy, including a deeply upsetting assignment in the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the dead from the gulf war were taken for autopsies.
For the past three years Mr. Williams has lived in a bunk bed in a Washington shelter. He was laid off, his car and house were repossessed, and his wife left him. He moved to Georgia, where he lost another job.
Broke and depressed, he walked from Georgia to a V.A. hospital in the Washington area, where schizophrenia was diagnosed. Now, after three years of medication and therapy, he feels ready to start looking for work.
“I have a mission I’ve got to accomplish,” Mr. Williams said.
Sean D. Hamill contributed reporting from Pittsburgh, Michael Parrish from Los Angeles and J. Michael Kennedy from Seattle.
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LINKS AND VERY SHORT STORIES
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Writers Set to Strike, Threatening Hollywood
By MICHAEL CIEPLY and BROOKS BARNES
November 2, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/02/business/media/02cnd-hollywood.html?ref=us
Raids Traumatized Children, Report Says
By JULIA PRESTON
Hundreds of young American children suffered hardship and psychological trauma after immigration raids in the last year in which their parents were detained or deported, according to a report by the National Council of La Raza and the Urban Institute. Of 500 children directly affected in three factory raids examined in the report in which 900 adult immigrants were arrested, a large majority were United States citizens younger than 10. With one or both parents deported, the children had reduced economic support, and many remained in the care of relatives who feared contact with the authorities, the study said. Although the children were citizens, few families sought public assistance for them, the study found.
November 1, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/us/01brfs-raids.html?ref=us
Newark: Recalled Meat Found in Store
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
New Jersey consumer safety officials said yesterday that state inspectors bought recalled frozen hamburgers at a store weeks after the meat was recalled because of fears of E. coli contamination. The 19 boxes were bought in Union City on Wednesday, nearly four weeks after the manufacturer, the Topps Meat Company, issued a nationwide recall of 21.7 million pounds of frozen patties. Officials would not name the store yesterday because of the investigation, and investigators have not determined when the store received the meat, said Jeff Lamm, a spokesman for the state’s Division of Consumer Affairs.
New Jersey
October 26, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/nyregion/26mbrfs-meat.html?ref=nyregion
Florida: Sentence for Lionel Tate Is Upheld
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
An appeals court has upheld a 30-year probation violation sentence for Lionel Tate, who for a time was the youngest person to be sentenced to life in an American prison. The ruling Wednesday by the Fourth District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach sets the stage for Mr. Tate’s trial on robbery charges that could carry another life term. Mr. Tate, 20, had sought to have the sentence thrown out based on procedural mistakes. Mr. Tate was 12 at the time of the 1999 beating death of 6-year-old Tiffany Eunick. An appeals court overturned his murder conviction in 2004, and he was released but was on probation. In May 2005, the police said, Mr. Tate robbed a pizza delivery man, and he was found to be in possession of a gun even before that, a violation of his probation.
October 26, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/us/26brfs-lionel.html?ref=us
Submarine’s Commanding Officer Is Relieved of His Duties
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The commanding officer of the nuclear-powered submarine Hampton was relieved of his duty because of a loss of confidence in his leadership, the Navy said. The officer, Cmdr. Michael B. Portland, was relieved of duty after an investigation found the ship had failed to do daily safety checks on its nuclear reactor for a month and falsified records to cover up the omission. Commander Portland will be reassigned, said Lt. Alli Myrick, a public affairs officer. [Aren't you glad they are out there making the world safe for democracy?...bw]
October 26, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/us/26brfs-sub.html?ref=us
Britain: New Claim for Sovereignty in Antarctica
By REUTERS
World Briefing | Europe
Britain plans to submit a claim to the United Nations to extend its Antarctic territory by 386,000 square miles, the Foreign Office said. Argentina wants some of it, and its foreign minister said his country was working on its own presentation. May 13, 2009, is the deadline for countries to stake their claims in what some experts are describing as the last big carve-up of maritime territory in history.
October 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/world/europe/18briefs-claim.html?ref=world
California: Veto of 3 Criminal Justice Bills
By SOLOMON MOORE
Bucking a national trend toward stronger safeguards against wrongful convictions, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed bills that would have explored new eyewitness identification guidelines, required electronic recordings of police interrogations and mandated corroboration of jailhouse informant testimony. Mr. Schwarzenegger cited his concern that the three bills would hamper local law enforcement authorities, a contention shared by several state police and prosecutor associations. The proposals had been recommended by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, a bipartisan body of police officials, prosecutors and defense lawyers charged by the State Senate to address the most common causes of wrongful convictions and recommend changes in criminal justice procedures.
October 16, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/us/16brfs-VETOOF3CRIMI_BRF.html?ref=us
Illinois: Chicagoans May Have to Dig Deeper
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Chicagoans would have to spend 10 cents more on a bottle of water, pay higher property taxes and spend more for liquor under Mayor Richard M. Daley’s proposed budget for next year. Also financing Mr. Daley’s $5.4 billion budget are higher water and sewer fees and more expensive vehicle stickers for people driving large vehicles, $120 a vehicle sticker, up from $90. Mr. Daley announced his budget to aldermen, calling it a last resort to ask taxpayers for more money. His budget closes a $196 million deficit and avoids service cuts and layoffs. Budget hearings will be held, and a city spending plan will require a vote by aldermen.
Midwest
October 11, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/us/11brfs-CHICAGO.html?ref=us
Wisconsin Iraq vet returns medals to Rumsfeld
By David Solnit, Courage to Resist / Army of None Project.
"I swore an oath to protect the constitution ... not to become a pawn in your New American Century."
September 26, 2007
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
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GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS AND INFORMATION
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Russell Means Speaking at the Transform Columbus Day Rally
"If voting could do anything it would be illegal!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8Lri1-6aoY
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Stop the Termination or the Cherokee Nation
http://groups.msn.com/BayAreaIndianCalendar/activismissues.msnw?action=get_message&mview=1&ID_Message=5580
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"They have a new gimmick every year. They're going to take one of their boys, black boys, and put him in the cabinet so he can walk around Washington with a cigar. Fire on one end and fool on the other end. And because his immediate personal problem will have been solved he will be the one to tell our people: 'Look how much progress we're making. I'm in Washington, D.C., I can have tea in the White House. I'm your spokesman, I'm your leader.' While our people are still living in Harlem in the slums. Still receiving the worst form of education.
"But how many sitting here right now feel that they could [laughs] truly identify with a struggle that was designed to eliminate the basic causes that create the conditions that exist? Not very many. They can jive, but when it comes to identifying yourself with a struggle that is not endorsed by the power structure, that is not acceptable, that the ground rules are not laid down by the society in which you live, in which you are struggling against, you can't identify with that, you step back.
"It's easy to become a satellite today without even realizing it. This country can seduce God. Yes, it has that seductive power of economic dollarism. You can cut out colonialism, imperialism and all other kind of ism, but it's hard for you to cut that dollarism. When they drop those dollars on you, you'll fold though."
—MALCOLM X, 1965
http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=987
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A little gem:
Michael Moore Faces Off With Stephen Colbert [VIDEO]
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/57492/
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LAPD vs. Immigrants (Video)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/qws/ff/qr?term=lapd&Submit=S&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Search&st=s
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Dr. Julia Hare at the SOBA 2007
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeo9ewi/proudtobeblack2/
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"We are far from that stage today in our era of the absolute
lie; the complete and totalitarian lie, spread by the
monopolies of press and radio to imprison social
consciousness." December 1936, "In 'Socialist' Norway,"
by Leon Trotsky: “Leon Trotsky in Norway” was transcribed
for the Internet by Per I. Matheson [References from
original translation removed]
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/12/nor.htm
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Wealth Inequality Charts
http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html
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MALCOLM X: Oxford University Debate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmzaaf-9aHQ
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"There comes a times when silence is betrayal."
--Martin Luther King
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YouTube clip of Che before the UN in 1964
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtATT8GXkWg&mode=related&search
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The Wealthiest Americans Ever
NYT Interactive chart
JULY 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/business/20070715_GILDED_GRAPHIC.html
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New Orleans After the Flood -- A Photo Gallery
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=795
This email was sent to you as a service, by Roland Sheppard.
Visit my website at: http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret
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[For some levity...Hans Groiner plays Monk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51bsCRv6kI0
...bw]
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Which country should we invade next?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3g_zqz3VjY
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My Favorite Mutiny, The Coup
http://www.myspace.com/thecoupmusic
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Michael Moore- The Awful Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeOaTpYl8mE
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Morse v. Frederick Supreme Court arguments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_LsGoDWC0o
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Free Speech 4 Students Rally - Media Montage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfCjfod8yuw
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'My son lived a worthwhile life'
In April 2003, 21-year old Tom Hurndall was shot in the head
in Gaza by an Israeli soldier as he tried to save the lives of three
small children. Nine months later, he died, having never
recovered consciousness. Emine Saner talks to his mother
Jocelyn about her grief, her fight to make the Israeli army
accountable for his death and the book she has written
in his memory.
Monday March 26, 2007
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2042968,00.html
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Introducing...................the Apple iRack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-KWYYIY4jQ
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"A War Budget Leaves Every Child Behind."
[A T-shirt worn by some teachers at Roosevelt High School
in L.A. as part of their campaign to rid the school of military
recruiters and JROTC--see Article in Full item number 4, below...bw]
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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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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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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.Peace Articles at Libraryofpeace.org">
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