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U.S. Out Now! From Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and all U.S. bases around the world; End all U.S. Aid to Israel; Get the military out of our schools and our communities; Demand Equal Rights and Justice for ALL!
TAX THE RICH NOT THE POOR! MONEY FOR HUMAN NEEDS NOT WAR!
Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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National Call For Action And Endorsements at the
G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, PA
Sept. 19 - 25, 2009
Endorsers (list in formation): Iraq Veterans Against the War Chapter 61, Pittsburgh; PA State Senator Jim Ferlo; Veterans for Peace Chapter 047, Pittsburgh; National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations; Thomas Merton Center Pittsburgh; Codepink Pittsburgh Women for Peace; Bail Out The People; Green Party of Allegheny County; World Can't Wait; ISO (International Socialist Organization); WILPF (Women's International League for Peace and Freedom) Pittsburgh; Socialist Action; Ohio Valley Peace
Activists from Pittsburgh, the U.S., and across the globe will converge to protest the destructive policies of the G-20 - meeting in Pittsburgh this September 24-25.
The Group of Twenty (G-20) Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors represents the world's economic leaders, intimately connected to the most powerful multi-national corporations that dominate the global economy. Their neo-liberal policies have squandered billions on war, plunged economies into deep recessions, worsened social, economic and political inequality, and polluted the earth.
We believe a better world is possible. We anticipate involvement and support from like-minded people and organizations across the country for projected actions from September 19-25:
People's Summit - Sept. 19, 21-22 (Saturday, Monday, Tuesday)
A partnership of educators and social justice groups is organizing a People's Summit to discuss global problems and seek solutions that are informed by the basic principles of genuine democracy and human dignity. This will bring together informed speakers and panels to discuss problems we face and possible solutions, also providing interactive workshop discussions.
Mass March on the G-20 - Friday, Sept. 25:
Money for human needs, not for war!
Gather at 12 noon, march to the City County Building downtown
A peaceful, legal march is being sponsored by the Thomas Merton Center, an umbrella organization that supports a wide variety of peace and justice member projects in Pittsburgh. We will hold a mass march to demand "Money for human needs, not for war!"
WE SEEK THE BROADEST RANGE OF SUPPORT, PARTICIPATION, AND ENDORSEMENTS FOR THE MASS MARCH AND PEOPLE'S SUMMIT
To endorse, E-mail: info@pittsburghendthewar.org
Or contact: Thomas Merton Center AWC, 5125 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15224
Several other events are being planned by a wide variety of community and social justice groups in Pittsburgh.
For more information and updates please visit:
http://www.thomasmertoncenter.org/g20action.htm
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NATIONAL MARCH FOR EQUALITY
WASHINGTON, D.C. OCTOBER 10-11, 2009
Sign up here and spread the word:
http://www.nationalequalitymarch.com/
On October 10-11, 2009, we will gather in Washington DC from all across
America to let our elected leaders know that *now is the time for full equal
rights for LGBT people.* We will gather. We will march. And we will leave
energized and empowered to do the work that needs to be done in every
community across the nation.
This site will be updated as more information is available. We will organize
grassroots, from the bottom-up, and details will be shared on this website.
Our single demand:
Equal protection in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states.
Our philosophy:
As members of every race, class, faith, and community, we see the struggle
for LGBT equality as part of a larger movement for peace and social justice.
Our strategy:
Decentralized organizing for this march in every one of the 435
Congressional districts will build a network to continue organizing beyond
October.
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B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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This is a must-see video about the life of Oscar Grant, a young man who loved his family and was loved by his family. It's important to watch to understand the tremendous loss felt by his whole family as a result of his cold-blooded murder by BART police officers--Johannes Mehserle being the shooter while the others held Oscar down and handcuffed him to aid Mehserle in the murder of Oscar Grant January 1, 2009.
The family wants to share this video here with you who support justice for Oscar Grant.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/21/18611878.php
WE DEMAND JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT!
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U.S. national anti-war assembly calls for freedom for Ahmad Sa'adat and Palestinian prisoners
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org/
The July 10-12, 2009 U.S. national conference of the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations unanimously approved a major resolution in support of freedom for Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners.
Over 250 anti-war and progressive activists attended the conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, representing dozens of organizations and groups across the United States. The National Assembly includes trade unionists, veterans, students, local antiwar coalitions, women's organizations, national leaders of the major antiwar coalitions, immigrant rights activists, racial justice activists and organizations, and many others.
Monadel Herzallah, a Palestinian organizer, president of the Arab American Union Members' Council and national coordinator of the US Palestine Community Network - Popular Conference presented the resolution at the conference, where he spoke at the major Saturday evening panel. In his presentation, he called for an end to U.S. aid to Israel and called for trade unions, churches, universities, cultural centers and other institutions to cut all ties with Israel and Israeli entities, and stressed the need to confront racism and oppression facing the Palestinian and Arab communities and other racially and nationally oppressed communities within the United States. He concluded by stressing the need to support Palestinian political prisoners, highlighting the growing campaign of solidarity with Ahmad Sa'adat and all prisoners. He discussed Sa'adat's hunger strike against prison repression as well as his leadership in the Palestinian national movement, and the direct involvement and responsibility of the U.S. for the imprisonment of Sa'adat.
Ahmad Sa'adat is the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. A Palestinian national leader, he is one of 39 Palestinian Legislative Council members and government ministers imprisoned by Israel, and one of thousands of Palestinian activists, students, workers, trade unionists, men, women and children held in the prisons and detention centers of the occupier. He was imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority since 2002 under U.S. and British guard before being kidnapped in an Israeli military raid on the PA prison where he was held. He has since been sentenced to 30 years in Israeli prison for his political activity and has remained a strong leader of the prisoners' movement as well as a national and international symbol of the Palestinian struggle for justice and freedom. Over 400 international organizations and individuals recently signed on to a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urging freedom for Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners.
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat congratulates the National Assembly for its important resolution, that passed with the unanimous approval of the delegates. Only one other resolution passed with such unanimous support - a resolution to condemn the military coup in Honduras and stand in solidarity with the Honduran people against the coup and U.S. imperialism. We welcome such resolutions from organizations around the world. Please send your resolutions and statements in solidarity with Ahmad Sa'adat to the Campaign at info@freeahmadsaadat.org.
The full text of the resolution is below:
RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF THE CAMPAIGN TO FREE AHMAD SA'ADAT AND ALL PALESTINIAN POLITICAL PRISONERS
for the National Assembly National Conference, July 10-12, 2009
WHEREAS, Israel currently holds over 11,000 Palestinians as political prisoners, including men, women and children, and one out of every four Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza has been subject to political arrest or detention, including 40% of Palestinian men from the West Bank and Gaza, and
WHEREAS, the arrest, detention and imprisonment of Palestinians is directed by a series of over 1500 Israeli military regulations that can be changed at any time by the regional military commander, and Palestinians arrested by the Israeli military are often relocated to Israeli military prisons outside the West Bank and Gaza, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and as the Israeli military continues to abduct Palestinians on a daily basis and imprison them in these military prisons, and
WHEREAS, Palestinians abducted by the Israeli military are subject to psychological and physical torture and abuse, especially during the period of interrogation, which can last for up to 180 days, including up to sixty days in which a Palestinian prisoner may not be seen by an attorney, and
WHEREAS, over half of all Palestinian political prisoners and detainees have not been tried, and
WHEREAS, nearly one thousand Palestinians are held in "administrative detention," a system of detention without charge or trial, that is indefinitely extensible for successive six-month periods, confronted only by secret evidence that is impossible to refute, and
WHEREAS, those Palestinian detainees that are tried are brought before an Israeli military court, in which Palestinians' rights to a fair trial are systematically violated, presided over by three judges, only one of which is required to have any legal training, and
WHEREAS, the Israeli military courts exist only as a function of the illegal military occupation, and thus can never provide a legitimate or fair trial to Palestinian political prisoners, and
WHEREAS, Palestinian national leaders, including Ahmad Sa'adat, General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Marwan Barghouti, and 37 other members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, are systematically targeted for political arrest and imprisonment, and
WHEREAS, the most basic of political activities, including simply being a member of most Palestinian political parties, are sufficient to serve as "charges" against Palestinian political prisoners and are met with substantial sentences, and
WHEREAS, Ahmad Sa'adat and five other Palestinian political prisoners were arrested by the Palestinian Authority in 2002, and were transferred to Jericho Prison under U.S. and British guard as a condition of a settlement between then PA President Yasser Arafat and Israel in May 2002, and
WHEREAS, during his time in PA prison, Sa'adat was never charged with any crime nor tried for any offense; his release was ordered by the Palestinian High Court, and supported by numerous international organizations, including Amnesty International, and
WHEREAS, on March 14, 2006, the U.S. and British monitors at Jericho Prison left their posts, shortly before the inception of a ten-hour siege of the prison by the Israeli military that ended in the death of two Palestinians, the injury of twenty-three more, and the abduction of Ahmad Sa'adat and five other political prisoners from Jericho to Israeli military prisons, and
WHEREAS, Ahmad Sa'adat was sentenced by an illegitimate military court to 30 years in prison for 19 political offenses, including membership in a prohibited organization, holding a post in a prohibited organization, and incitement, for giving a speech after the Israeli assassination of his predecessor, Abu Ali Mustafa, in 2001, and
WHEREAS, Ahmad Sa'adat and his attorneys consistently refuse and refused throughout his trial to recognize the authority of a military court that is an instrument of occupation, and
WHEREAS, political imprisonment has been one part of a deliberate strategy to deprive Palestinians of their leaders, educators, writers, journalists, clergy, unionists, and popular activists from all political orientations, as part of the dispossession and repression of the Palestinian Arab people in the interests of colonialism and occupation for over sixty years, including the denial of millions of Palestinian refugees' right to return home, and
WHEREAS, as Ahmad Sa'adat said in his statement to the court of January 14, 2007, " This trial cannot be separated from the process of the historical struggle in Palestine that continues today between the Zionist Movement and the Palestinian people, a struggle that centers on Palestinian land, history, civilization, culture and identity," and
WHEREAS, Ahmad Sa'adat has been a leader among Palestinian prisoners and recently completed a nine-day hunger strike against Israeli policies of isolation and solitary confinement against Palestinian prisoners, and is currently in isolation until September 17, has faced serious health problems, and has been denied family visits from his wife for months and from his children for years, and
WHEREAS, the United States government bears direct responsibility for the situation of Ahmad Sa'adat, and oversaw his imprisonment in PA prison for four years and was complicit in his abduction and kidnapping by the Israeli military during its attack on Jericho prison, and
WHEREAS, there is an international campaign to free Ahmad Sa'adat, and all Palestinian political prisoners, and as the National Assembly has a history of supporting struggles for justice and freedom, and
WHEREAS, the political imprisonment of thousands of Palestinians is made possible by the billions of dollars in economic and military support as well as the vast political and diplomatic support given to Israel by the United States,
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations calls for the immediate freedom of Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian political prisoners and detainees, and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the National Assembly shall actively support the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat and all campaigns to free all Palestinian political prisoners and detainees, and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the National Assembly shall endeavor to issue statements and publicize the cases of Palestinian political prisoners and detainees, and
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that the National Assembly shall endeavor to support the struggles and organizing of Palestinian political prisoners, and the work of activists and organizations on the ground working for justice and freedom for Palestinian political prisoners and the cause of freedom for which these thousands of prisoners are held - of self-determination, liberation and return for all Palestinians in exile and in all of historic Palestine
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org
info@freeahmadsaadat.org
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Condemn Honduran Coup and Restore Honduran President Zelaya NOW!
Sign the Emergency Petition!
http://www.iacenter.org/honduraspetition/
To: President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
CC: Vice President Joe Biden, Congressional leaders, U.N. General Assembly President d'Escoto-Brockmann, U.N. Secretary General Ban, and major media representatives including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, and Reuters.
I demand that the Barack Obama administration and the U.S. Congress unequivocally condemn the unconstitutional and anti-democratic military coup in Honduras and insist that the military regime and the newly appointed but illegitimate president of Honduras restore President Zelaya to office, free all the imprisoned popular leaders and remove the curfew. I further demand that the U.S. Ambassador to Honduras be recalled immediately until such time as President Zelaya is restored to office.
Sincerely,
(Your signature will be appended here based on the contact information you enter in the form)
Sign the Petition Online
http://www.iacenter.org/honduraspetition/
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Troy Anthony Davis is an African American man who has spent the last 18 years on death row for a murder he did not commit. There is no physical evidence tying him to the crime and seven out of nine witnesses have recanted. New evidence and new testimony have been presented to the Georgia courts, but the justice system refuses to consider this evidence, which would prove Troy Davis' innocence once and for all.
Sign the petition and join the NAACP, Amnesty International USA, and other partners in demanding justice for Troy Davis!
http://www.iamtroy.com/
For Now, High Court Punts on Troy Davis, on Death Row for 18 Years
By Ashby Jones
Wall Street Journal Law Blog
June 30, 2009
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/06/30/for-now-high-court-punts-on-troy-davis-on-death-row-for-18-years/
Take action now:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&aid=12361&ICID=A0906A01&tr=y&auid=5030305
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Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
New videos from April 24 Oakland Mumia event
http://abu-jamal-news.com/article?name=jlboak
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense in the U.S. Our legal effort is the front line of the battle for Mumia's freedom and life. His legal defense needs help. The costs are substantial for our litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court and at the state level. To help, please make your checks payable to the National Lawyers Guild Foundation (indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). All donations are tax deductible under the Internal Revenue Code, section 501(c)(3), and should be mailed to:
It is outrageous and a violation of human rights that Mumia remains in prison and on death row. His life hangs in the balance. My career has been marked by successfully representing people facing death in murder cases. I will not rest until we win Mumia's case. Justice requires no less.
With best wishes,
Robert R. Bryan
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
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Short Video About Al-Awda's Work
The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected over the past nine years.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl
Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial support to carry out its work.
To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the simple instructions.
Thank you for your generosity!
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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT!
FLASHPOINTS Interview with Innocent San Quentin Death Row Inmate
Kevin Cooper -- Aired Monday, May 18,2009
http://www.flashpoints.net/#GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE
To learn more about Kevin Cooper go to:
savekevincooper.org
LINKS
San Francisco Chronicle article on the recent ruling:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/13/BAM517J8T3.DTL
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling and dissent:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/05/11/05-99004o.pdf
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COURAGE TO RESIST!
Support the troops who refuse to fight!
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
Donate:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/21/57/
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C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) Military Weighs Private Security on Front Lines
Firm Could Have Broad Protection Authority in Afghanistan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/25/AR2009072501738.html
2) As Charter Schools Unionize, Many Debate Effect
By SAM DILLON
July 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/education/27charter.html?hp
3) Israeli Officials: No Option Off Table on Iran
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/07/27/world/AP-ML-Israel-US.html?ref=world
4) Uranium Contamination Haunts Navajo Country
By DAN FROSCH
July 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/us/27navajo.html?ref=us
5) Of Banks and Bonuses
Editorial
July 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/opinion/27mon1.html
6) Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
May 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/us/14explorers.html?scp=1&sq=Imperial,%20Calif%20May%2014&st=cse
7) 12 and in Prison
Editorial
July 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/opinion/28tue1.html
8) Homeless Families Could Face Eviction Over Rules
By JULIE BOSMAN
July 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/nyregion/28homeless.html?hp
9) A President Kicked Out, but Not Alone in Defiance
By BLAKE SCHMIDT
July 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/world/americas/28honduras.html?ref=world
10) Military Criticized in Report on Soldier Electrocuted in Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html?ref=world
11) Young Japanese Women Vie for a Once-Scorned Job
By HIROKO TABUCHI
July 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/business/global/28hostess.html?ref=world
12) Wronged Juveniles May Lose Right to Sue
By IAN URBINA
July 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/us/28juvenile.html?ref=us
13) Dead Zone in Gulf Is Smaller Than Forecast but More Concentrated in Parts
By HENRY FOUNTAIN
July 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/science/earth/28zone.html?ref=us
14) Rural Medical Camp Tackles Health Care Gaps
Monday 27 July 2009
By Howard Berkes
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111066576
15) The Financial Truth Commission
Editorial
July 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/opinion/29wed1.html?_r=1
16) How Firms Wooed a U.S. Agency With Billions to Invest
By ERIC LIPTON
July 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/business/29pensions.html?hp
17) Witness Tells of Doctor's Last Seconds
By MONICA DAVEY
July 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/us/29tiller.html?ref=us
18) House Panel Approves Executive Pay Restraints
By STEPHEN LABATON
July 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/business/29pay.html?ref=business
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1) Military Weighs Private Security on Front Lines
Firm Could Have Broad Protection Authority in Afghanistan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/25/AR2009072501738.html
The U.S. military command is considering contracting a private firm to manage security on the front lines of the war in Afghanistan, even as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says that the Pentagon intends to cut back on the use of private security contractors.
On a Web site listing federal business opportunities, the Army this month published a notice soliciting information from prospective contractors who would develop a security plan for 50 or more forward operating bases and smaller command outposts across Afghanistan.
Although the U.S. military has contracted out security services to protect individuals, military bases and other facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, this contract would award a commercial company unusually broad "theater-wide" authority to protect forward operating bases in a war zone.
"The contractor shall be responsible for providing security services, developing, implementing, adequately staffing, and managing a security program," the notice said, adding that the contractor would have to be available "24 hours a day, seven days a week."
The U.S. military currently has 72 contracts that provide 5,600 civilian guards, mostly local Afghans, at forward bases across Afghanistan, according to Lt. Cmdr. Christine M. Sidenstricker, chief of media operations for U.S. Forces-Afghanistan. The intent of the proposed contract is to bring all "disparate and subordinate contracts" under single, theater-wide management at a time when the U.S. forces are expanding, she said.
The Army has not issued a formal proposal for a contract, but the notice says that interested companies should reply by Wednesday and that a formal request for proposals should follow. The "anticipated award date" for a contract is Dec. 1, according to the notice.
The request for information comes as Gates is moving to put soldiers back in charge of security roles that contractors have filled in recent years. Drawing on its experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Defense Department recently organized a task force to measure the military's dependence on contractor support in training and security, with the goal of determining an appropriate mix.
Lawmakers, too, have raised concerns about the cost of contractors and about outsourcing what have traditionally been government roles.
The Commission on Wartime Contracting, a bipartisan congressional panel, noted in a recent report that in previous wars, military police protected bases while other service members pursued the enemy. "Contractors are now literally in the center of the battlefield in unprecedented numbers," the commission said, creating "a need to define specific functions that are not appropriate for performance by contractors in a contingency operation."
Meanwhile, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), chairman of the Senate subcommittee on contracting oversight, said her panel had "revealed major concerns about the use of private security contractors in Afghanistan." She added that a hard look needs to be taken "at where we have gone wrong in the past, to ensure that the military does not repeat history."
Afghan forward operating bases are often considered dangerous posts. An American soldier was critically injured this month when insurgents attacked Forward Operating Base Salerno, near the eastern border town of Khost. Two U.S. troops died July 4 at Combat Outpost Zerok, also near the Pakistan border, in an insurgent assault.
In the worst attack on an outpost, roughly 200 insurgents broke through security walls last year at an outpost in Konar province and killed nine American soldiers. Sen. James Webb (D-Va.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, recently asked the Pentagon's inspector general to investigate whether security at the post was adequate.
With Afghan army and police officers totaling roughly 160,000, and the number of U.S. service members in Afghanistan set to grow to 68,000 by year's end, the U.S. military is moving to protect the facilities where personnel will be based. But many experts say commanders do not have enough forces.
"We don't want to waste scarce Afghan army and police, so we must be creative," said Michael E. O'Hanlon, a senior fellow and military expert at the Brookings Institution.
But O'Hanlon also said he is concerned that if contractors were to take over security at forward operating bases, they would be the first to see hostile fire, and they -- not soldiers -- would have to decide whether to employ weapons against an enemy.
Instead of hiring a private firm, O'Hanlon said, the Americans and Afghans could create a local version of Iraq's Facilities Protection Service, the modestly trained but government-paid guard force that was pulled together to provide protection for government ministries in Baghdad and the oil fields. "We should create a different branch of the Afghan security forces that has minimal training," he said.
At a town hall meeting at Fort Drum, N.Y., on July 16, Gates said that the military had let contracting "grow without the kind of controls that we should" have had. The purpose, he said, was "to try and free up as many soldiers for actual combat duty, rather than having them do things that civilian contractors could do."
Contractors, Gates noted, have done a variety of jobs, including running dining facilities and doing laundry, cleaning chores and security work. "So, we're kind of going back through all of these roles, at this point, to figure out where military ought to be doing these things and where civilian contractors can be," he said.
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2) As Charter Schools Unionize, Many Debate Effect
By SAM DILLON
July 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/education/27charter.html?hp
CHICAGO - Dissatisfied with long hours, churning turnover and, in some cases, lower pay than instructors at other public schools, an increasing number of teachers at charter schools are unionizing.
Labor organizing that began two years ago at seven charter schools in Florida has proliferated over the last year to at least a dozen more charters from Massachusetts and New York to California and Oregon.
Charter schools, which are publicly financed but managed by groups separate from school districts, have been a mainstay of the education reform movement and widely embraced by parents. Because most of the nation's 4,600 charter schools operate without unions, they have been freer to innovate, their advocates say, allowing them to lengthen the class day, dismiss underperforming teachers at will, and experiment with merit pay and other changes that are often banned by work rules governing traditional public schools.
"Charter schools have been too successful for the unions to ignore," said Elizabeth D. Purvis, executive director of the Chicago International Charter School, where teachers voted last month to unionize 3 of its 12 campuses.
President Obama has been especially assertive in championing charter schools. On Friday, he and the education secretary, Arne Duncan, announced a competition for $4.35 billion in federal financing for states that ease restrictions on charter schools and adopt some charter-like standards for other schools - like linking teacher pay to student achievement.
But the unionization effort raises questions about whether unions will strengthen the charter movement by stabilizing its young, often transient teaching force, or weaken it by preventing administrators from firing ineffective teachers and imposing changes they say help raise achievement, like an extended school year.
"A charter school is a more fragile host than a school district," said Paul T. Hill, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington. "Labor unrest in a charter school can wipe it out fast. It won't go well for unions if the schools they organize decline in quality or go bust."
Unions are not entirely new to charter schools. Teachers at hundreds of charter schools in Wisconsin, California and elsewhere have long been union members, not because they signed up, but because of local laws, like those that extend union status to all schools in a state or district.
Steve Barr, the founder of one large charter network, Green Dot, said his group operates its 17 charter schools in Los Angeles and one in the Bronx with union staff because it makes sense in the heavily unionized environment of public education.
In recent months, teachers have won union recognition at schools including the Boston Conservatory Lab School, a school in Brooklyn that is part of the Knowledge Is Power Program, an Afro-centric school in Philadelphia, four campuses in the Accelerated School network in Los Angeles, and a Montessori school in Oregon. Moves toward unionizing have revealed greater teacher unrest than was previously known.
"I was frustrated with all the turnover among staff, with the lack of teacher input, with working longer and harder than teachers at other schools and earning less," said Jennifer Gilley, a social studies teacher at the Ralph Ellison Campus of the Chicago International Charter School, who said she made $38,000 as a base salary as a starting teacher, compared with about $43,500 paid by the Chicago Public Schools.
The potential for further unionization of charter schools is a matter of debate.
"They'll have a success here and there," said Todd Ziebarth, a vice president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. "But unionized charters will continue to be a small part of the movement."
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, called the gains of the past year "a precursor."
"You're going to see far more union representation in charter schools," Ms. Weingarten said. "We had a group of schools that were basically unorganized, groups of teachers wanting a voice, a union willing to start organizing them, and now money in our organizing budget to back that up. And all of that has come together in the last 6 to 12 months."
She quoted Albert Shanker, her union's founder, as saying charter schools should be "incubators of good instructional practice."
"I'm adding to the argument," Ms. Weingarten said. "Let them be incubators of good labor practice."
The largest teachers union, the National Education Association, has no national charter organizing campaign. But some of its state affiliates have helped charters unionize.
Some recently unionized charters say they are feeling their way forward.
The Knowledge Is Power Program, known as KIPP, which operates 82 mostly high-performing charter schools nationwide, is facing first-time negotiations with teachers at its KIPP Amp Academy in Brooklyn, where teachers this spring won affiliation with the United Federation of Teachers.
KIPP is also facing demands for higher pay at its high-performing Ujima Village Academy in Baltimore, which has been unionized under Maryland law since its founding.
"Our schools had largely been left alone," said Steve Mancini, a KIPP spokesman. "Now we're getting all this union attention." One goal KIPP will seek in negotiations in New York and Baltimore, Mr. Mancini said, is to preserve the principals' right to mold their teams.
Whether KIPP can maintain that posture in its negotiations remains to be seen. Another question is whether the strains of unionization will affect the culture of collegiality that has helped charter schools prosper.
Here in Chicago, where students at several Chicago International campuses have scores among the city's highest for nonselective schools, teachers began organizing last fall after an administrator increased workloads to six classes a day from five, said Emily Mueller, a Spanish teacher at Northtown Academy.
"We were really proud of the scores, and still are," Ms. Mueller said. "But the workload, teaching 160 kids a day, it wasn't sustainable. You can't put out the kind of energy we were putting out for our kids year after year."
Some teachers disagreed. Theresa Furr, a second-grade teacher at the Wrightwood campus, said she opposed unionization.
"Every meeting I went to," Ms. Furr said, "it was always 'What can we get?' and never 'How is this going to make our students' education better?' "
For Joyce Pae, an English teacher at Ralph Ellison, the decision was agonizing. Her concerns over what she saw as chaotic turnover and inconsistency in allocating merit pay led her to join the drive. But after school leaders began paying more attention to teachers' views, she said, she voted against unionization in June.
Union teachers won the vote, 73-49.
"If nothing else," Ms. Pae said, "this experience has really helped teachers feel empowered."
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3) Israeli Officials: No Option Off Table on Iran
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/07/27/world/AP-ML-Israel-US.html?ref=world
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel insisted Monday it will do whatever it must to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, even as the visiting U.S. defense chief promised tougher international sanctions if Tehran spurns an offer of talks.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates tried to reassure Israeli leaders that President Barack Obama is not naive, and he said the offer to bargain with Iran isn't good indefinitely. After meeting with Gates, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak suggested his country's patience is limited, saying -- three times -- that Israel would not rule out any response.
''We clearly believe that no option should be removed from the table,'' Barak said, referring to the unstated possibility that Israel might launch a pre-emptive attack to thwart Iran's nuclear development.
Differences between Israel and the U.S. over how to handle a looming Iranian nuclear threat dominated Gates' brief stop in Jerusalem. And later, in neighboring Jordan, Gates was blunt in describing what Iran might expect if it refuses the offer of international arms control talks this year, or walks away from Obama's wider offer of better relations with Washington.
''If the engagement process is not successful, the United States is prepared to press for significant additional sanctions,'' Gates said. He added that the United States would try to abandon the current policy of gradual international pressure, where layers of generally mild sanctions have been added as each time Iran flouted international demands.
''We would try to get international support for a much tougher position,'' Gates said. He added: ''Our hope remains that Iran would respond to the president's outstretched hand in a positive and constructive way, but we'll see.''
While the United States also reserves the right to use force if need be, the Obama administration is playing down that possibility while it tries to draw Iran into talks. Gates said Washington still hopes to have an initial answer in the fall about negotiations.
''The timetable the president laid out still seems to be viable and does not significantly raise the risks to anybody,'' Gates said in Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he hopes to work out policy disagreements with the U.S. during a series of meetings this week with high-profile American envoys. Gates was the second in a parade of Americans coming to Israel this week, and the only one for whom Israel's expansion of Jewish settlements was not a primary topic.
Netanyahu's office said that during talks with Gates, Netanyahu ''reiterated the seriousness (with) which Israel views Iran's nuclear ambitions and the need to utilize all available means to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear weapons capability.''
The United States contends that a strike would upset the fragile security balance in the Middle East, perhaps triggering a new nuclear arms race and leaving everyone, including Israel and Iran, worse off.
Iran has long insisted it is merely trying to develop nuclear reactors for domestic power generation. Israeli leaders fear the U.S. is prizing outreach to Iran over its historic ties to Israel and appears resigned to the idea that Iran will soon be able to build a nuclear weapon.
Obama says he has accepted no such thing.
Both Barak and Gates said time is short, and Gates stressed that any negotiations would not become cover for Iran to run out the clock while it perfects a nuclear weapon.
''I think we're in full agreement on the negative consequences of Iran obtaining this kind of capability,'' Gates said. ''I think we are also agreed that it is important to take every opportunity to try and persuade the Iranians to reconsider what is actually in their own security interest.''
Obama pledged a new outreach to Iran during last year's presidential campaign. Aides say the recent election-related political upheaval in Iran has complicated, but not derailed, that effort.
On Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton implicitly urged Israel to set aside any plans it might have for attacking Iran, saying she hopes the Jewish state understands the value of American attempts at diplomacy.
Speaking on NBC's ''Meet The Press,'' Clinton also said she would not reveal any specifics of a possible ''defense umbrella'' to protect Mideast allies against an eventual Iranian bomb.
The umbrella idea, which Clinton offhandedly mentioned last week, has fueled Israel's uncertainty over U.S. policy under Obama even though Clinton later backpedaled.
Iran rejects the idea of a U.S. defensive umbrella to protect Washington's regional allies against a nuclear Iran. Foreign ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi told reporters Monday that ''there is no need'' for a U.S. defensive umbrella, just for Washington to tell Israel to ''dismantle its own 200 nuclear warheads.''
Associated Press writers Josef Federman and Matti Friedman contributed to this report.
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4) Uranium Contamination Haunts Navajo Country
By DAN FROSCH
July 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/us/27navajo.html?ref=us
TEEC NOS POS, Ariz. - It was one year ago that the environmental scientist showed up at Fred Slowman's door, deep in the heart of Navajo country, and warned that it was unsafe for him to stay there.
The Slowman home, the same one-level cinderblock structure his family had lived in for nearly a half-century, was contaminated with potentially dangerous levels of uranium from the days of the cold war, when hundreds of uranium mines dotted the vast tribal land known as the Navajo Nation. The scientist advised Mr. Slowman, his wife and their two sons to move out until their home could be rebuilt.
"I was angry," Mr. Slowman said. "I guess it was here all this time, and we never knew."
The legacy wrought from decades of uranium mining is long and painful here on the expansive reservation. Over the years, Navajo miners extracted some four million tons of uranium ore from the ground, much of it used by the United States government to make weapons.
Many miners died from radiation-related illnesses; some, unaware of harmful health effects, hauled contaminated rocks and tailings from local mines and mills to build homes for their families.
Now, those homes are being demolished and rebuilt under a new government program that seeks to identify what are very likely dozens of uranium-contaminated structures still standing on Navajo land and to temporarily relocate people living in them until the homes can be torn down and rebuilt.
Stephen B. Etsitty, executive director of the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency, and other tribal officials have been grappling for years with the environmental fallout from uranium mining.
"There were a lot of things people weren't told about the plight of Navajos and uranium mining," Mr. Etsitty said. "These legacy issues are impacting generations. At some point people are saying, 'It's got to end.' "
After a Congressional hearing in 2007, a cross-section of federal agencies committed to addressing the environmental and health impacts of uranium mining on the reservation. As part of that commitment, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Navajo Nation began working together to assess uranium levels in 500 structures through a five-year plan set to end in 2012.
Using old lists of potentially contaminated structures, federal and Navajo scientists have fanned out to rural reaches of the 27,000 square mile reservation - which includes swaths of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah - to measure levels of radium, a decay product of uranium that can cause lung cancer. Of 113 structures assessed so far, 27 contained radiation levels that were above normal.
"In these situations, you have contamination in somebody's yard or in their house," said Harry Allen, the E.P.A.'s section chief for emergency response in San Francisco who is helping lead the government's efforts. "To us, that is somewhat urgent."
Many structures that showed high levels of radiation were vacant; some families had already moved out after hearing stories of contamination in their homes. But eight homes still had people living in them, and the E.P.A. and Navajo officials have worked to convince residents that it would be unsafe to stay.
"People had been told they were living in contaminated structures, but nobody ever did anything about it," said Will Duncan, an environmental scientist who has been the E.P.A.'s main representative on the reservation. "They would tell us, 'We don't believe you are going to follow through.' "
But with a budget of nearly $8 million, the E.P.A. has demolished all 27 contaminated structures and has begun building ones to replace those that had been occupied. Typically, the agency pays a Navajo contracting company to construct a log cabin or a traditional hogan in the structure's stead, depending on the wishes of the occupants. Mr. Allen said the cost, including temporarily relocating residents, ran approximately $260,000 per dwelling and took about eight months.
The agency also offers $50,000 to those who choose not to have an old home rebuilt.
Lillie Lane, a public information officer with the Navajo Nation E.P.A. who has acted as a liaison between the federal government and tribal members, said the program held practical and symbolic importance given the history of uranium mining here.
Ms. Lane described the difficulty of watching families, particularly elders, leaving homes they had lived in for years. She told of coming upon two old miners who died before their contaminated homes could be rebuilt. "In Navajo, a home is considered sacred," she said. "But if the foundation or the rocks are not safe, we have to do this work."
Some families, Ms. Lane said, complained that their children were suffering from health problems and had wondered if radiation were to blame.
The E.P.A. has started sifting through records and interviewing family members to figure out whether mining companies that once operated on the reservation are liable for any damages, Mr. Allen said.
On a recent summer day, Fred and Clara Slowman proudly surveyed their new home, a one-level log cabin that sits in the quiet shadows of Black Rock Point, miles away from the bustle of Farmington, N.M., where the family has been living in a hotel.
Mr. Slowman said he suspected that waste materials from a nearby abandoned mine seeped into his house. The family plans on having a traditional Navajo medicine man bless their dwelling before they move in.
"In our traditional way, a house is like your mom," he said. "It's where you eat, sleep, where you're taken care of. And when you come back from the city, you come back to your mom. It makes you feel real good."
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5) Of Banks and Bonuses
Editorial
July 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/opinion/27mon1.html
Earlier this month, when Goldman Sachs reported record quarterly profits - and prepared to pay juicy bonuses - it was widely, and correctly, noted that the firm was leading the way back to a future in which outsized pay for short-term gains could once again foster excessive risk taking.
Sure enough, last week, Morgan Stanley explained its quarterly loss by saying that some of its traders were still "gun shy" after last year's near-death experience in the financial markets, but that the firm now planned to increase its risk taking. To try to stay competitive with Goldman and other banks, Morgan Stanley has also allocated a big chunk of its net revenue for compensation.
This from a couple of firms that 1) probably wouldn't even be around today were it not for ongoing government rescues of the financial system and 2) by dint of being too big to fail, now enjoy an implicit guarantee of future bailouts if their bets go wrong. The financial system may be stabilizing for now, but the danger to taxpayers if markets were to buckle again is at least as great as ever.
Financial regulatory reform is supposed to control that danger. For example, both the Obama administration's proposal and ideas from Congressional committees sensibly call for banks to hold more capital with which to absorb losses. A wise variation on that basic notion is that the bigger the bank, the higher the capital requirement should be. Insurance premiums paid to the government could also increase along with a bank's size. Such provisions would create incentives for banks to limit their size and in so doing, reduce the risk they pose to the system.
The problem is that the bonus-driven risk culture is reasserting itself now, while comprehensive reform will probably take until next year, if it occurs at all. A solution is for Congress to handle bankers' compensation as a stand-alone issue, as the House Financial Services Committee has said it is ready to do. There is no question about the need to end the perverse incentives that helped to set off the financial crisis. There is ample, and justified, anger among Americans about outsized pay - often to the very same bankers who profited from the bubble - to warrant fast-tracking the issue.
Among the needed pay reforms are rules to tie executive payouts to long-term results, like prohibitions against cashing out equity-based compensation until many years after options or shares have vested. Bonuses need to be delayed to ensure that the profits on which they are based do not prove transitory. An insightful reform recommended by Lucian Bebchuk, a Harvard Law professor and director of the law school's Program on Corporate Governance, would require that executive compensation be tied not only to the company's stock performance, but also to the long-term value of the firm's other securities, like bonds. That would encourage executives to be more conservative about using borrowed money to juice returns to capital, because it would expose them to the losses that leverage can exert on all the firm's investors.
Reforming the way bankers and traders are paid needs to be part of a newly regulated financial system. But it needn't and shouldn't wait for comprehensive reform to see the light of day.
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6) Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
May 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/us/14explorers.html?scp=1&sq=Imperial,%20Calif%20May%2014&st=cse
IMPERIAL, Calif. - Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on the floor.
The responding officers - eight teenage boys and girls, the youngest 14 - face tripwire, a thin cloud of poisonous gas and loud shots - BAM! BAM! - fired from behind a flimsy wall. They move quickly, pellet guns drawn and masks affixed.
"United States Border Patrol! Put your hands up!" screams one in a voice cracking with adolescent determination as the suspect is subdued.
It is all quite a step up from the square knot.
The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence - an intense ratcheting up of one of the group's longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.
"This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl," said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff's deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. "It fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts."
The training, which leaders say is not intended to be applied outside the simulated Explorer setting, can involve chasing down illegal border crossers as well as more dangerous situations that include facing down terrorists and taking out "active shooters," like those who bring gunfire and death to college campuses. In a simulation here of a raid on a marijuana field, several Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout.
"Put him on his face and put a knee in his back," a Border Patrol agent explained. "I guarantee that he'll shut up."
One participant, Felix Arce, 16, said he liked "the discipline of the program," which was something he said his life was lacking. "I want to be a lawyer, and this teaches you about how crimes are committed," he said.
Cathy Noriega, also 16, said she was attracted by the guns. The group uses compressed-air guns - known as airsoft guns, which fire tiny plastic pellets - in the training exercises, and sometimes they shoot real guns on a closed range.
"I like shooting them," Cathy said. "I like the sound they make. It gets me excited."
If there are critics of the content or purpose of the law enforcement training, they have not made themselves known to the Explorers' national organization in Irving, Tex., or to the volunteers here on the ground, national officials and local leaders said. That said, the Explorers have faced problems over the years. There have been numerous cases over the last three decades in which police officers supervising Explorers have been charged, in civil and criminal cases, with sexually abusing them.
Several years ago, two University of Nebraska criminal justice professors published a study that found at least a dozen cases of sexual abuse involving police officers over the last decade. Adult Explorer leaders are now required to take an online training program on sexual misconduct.
Many law enforcement officials, particularly those who work for the rapidly growing Border Patrol, part of the Homeland Security Department, have helped shape the program's focus and see it as preparing the Explorers as potential employees. The Explorer posts are attached to various agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police and fire departments, that sponsor them much the way churches sponsor Boy Scout troops.
"Our end goal is to create more agents," said April McKee, a senior Border Patrol agent and mentor at the session here.
Membership in the Explorers has been overseen since 1998 by an affiliate of the Boy Scouts called Learning for Life, which offers 12 career-related programs, including those focused on aviation, medicine and the sciences.
But the more than 2,000 law enforcement posts across the country are the Explorers' most popular, accounting for 35,000 of the group's 145,000 members, said John Anthony, national director of Learning for Life. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, many posts have taken on an emphasis of fighting terrorism and other less conventional threats.
"Before it was more about the basics," said Johnny Longoria, a Border Patrol agent here. "But now our emphasis is on terrorism, illegal entry, drugs and human smuggling."
The law enforcement posts are restricted to those ages 14 to 21 who have a C average, but there seems to be some wiggle room. "I will take them at 13 and a half," Deputy Lowenthal said. "I would rather take a kid than possibly lose a kid."
The law enforcement programs are highly decentralized, and each post is run in a way that reflects the culture of its sponsoring agency and region. Most have weekly meetings in which the children work on their law-enforcement techniques in preparing for competitions. Weekends are often spent on service projects.
Just as there are soccer moms, there are Explorers dads, who attend the competitions, man the hamburger grill and donate their land for the simulated marijuana field raids. In their training, the would-be law-enforcement officers do not mess around, as revealed at a recent competition on the state fairgrounds here, where a Ferris wheel sat next to the police cars set up for a felony investigation.
Their hearts pounding, Explorers moved down alleys where there were hidden paper targets of people pointing guns, and made split-second decisions about when to shoot. In rescuing hostages from a bus taken over by terrorists, a baby-faced young girl screamed, "Separate your feet!" as she moved to handcuff her suspect.
In a competition in Arizona that he did not oversee, Deputy Lowenthal said, one role-player wore traditional Arab dress. "If we're looking at 9/11 and what a Middle Eastern terrorist would be like," he said, "then maybe your role-player would look like that. I don't know, would you call that politically incorrect?"
Authenticity seems to be the goal. Imperial County, in Southern California, is the poorest in the state, and the local economy revolves largely around the criminal justice system. In addition to the sheriff and local police departments, there are two state prisons and a large Border Patrol and immigration enforcement presence.
"My uncle was a sheriff's deputy," said Alexandra Sanchez, 17, who joined the Explorers when she was 13. Alexandra's police uniform was baggy on her lithe frame, her airsoft gun slung carefully to the side. She wants to be a coroner.
"I like the idea of having law enforcement work with medicine," she said. "This is a great program for me."
And then she was off to another bus hijacking.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 18, 2009
An article on Thursday about Explorer scouts who train to confront terrorism and illegal immigration, and a picture caption with the continuation of the article, misspelled the surname of a scout who said she was attracted to the program because of the use of pellet guns. She is Cathy Noriega, not Noriego.
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7) 12 and in Prison
Editorial
July 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/opinion/28tue1.html
The Supreme Court sent an important message when it ruled in Roper v. Simmons in 2005 that children under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed were not eligible for the death penalty. Justice Anthony Kennedy drew on compassion, common sense and the science of the youthful brain when he wrote that it was morally wrong to equate the offenses of emotionally undeveloped adolescents with the offenses of fully formed adults.
The states have followed this logic in death penalty cases. But they have continued to mete out barbaric treatment - including life sentences - to children whose cases should rightly be handled through the juvenile courts.
Congress can help to correct these practices by amending the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, which is up for Congressional reauthorization this year. To get a share of delinquency prevention money, the law requires the states and localities to meet minimum federal protections for youths in the justice system. These protections are intended to keep as many youths as possible out of adult jails and prisons, and to segregate those that are sent to those places from the adult criminal population.
The case for tougher legislative action is laid out in an alarming new study of children 13 and under in the adult criminal justice system, the lead author of which is the juvenile justice scholar, Michele Deitch, of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. According to the study, every state allows juveniles to be tried as adults, and more than 20 states permit preadolescent children as young as 7 to be tried in adult courts.
This is terrible public policy. Children who are convicted and sentenced as adults are much more likely to become violent offenders - and to return to an adult jail later on - than children tried in the juvenile justice system.
Despite these well-known risks, policy makers across the country do not have reliable data on just how many children are being shunted into the adult system by state statutes or prosecutors, who have the discretion to file cases in the adult courts.
But there is reasonably reliable data showing juvenile court judges send about 80 children ages 13 and under into the adult courts each year. These statistics explode the myth that those children have committed especially heinous acts.
The data suggest, for example, that children 13 and under who commit crimes like burglary and theft are just as likely to be sent to adult courts as children who commit serious acts of violence against people. As has been shown in previous studies, minority defendants are more likely to get adult treatment than their white counterparts who commit comparable offenses.
The study's authors rightly call on lawmakers to enact laws that discourage harsh sentencing for preadolescent children and that enable them to be transferred back into the juvenile system. Beyond that, Congress should amend the juvenile justice act to require the states to simply end these inhumane practices to be eligible for federal juvenile justice funds.
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8) Homeless Families Could Face Eviction Over Rules
By JULIE BOSMAN
July 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/nyregion/28homeless.html?hp
Homeless families can be kicked out of city shelters for repeatedly breaking rules like staying out past curfew or for refusing apartments offered to them, according to a tougher policy that takes effect Tuesday.
The new policy gives the city greater latitude to push families out of the shelter system, which had swelled to a near-high of 9,720 families as of Sunday. Families could always be evicted for illegal behavior like bringing in drugs or weapons, but they can now be ousted for any of 28 violations, including failing to sign in and out or not keeping an active case file with city welfare agencies.
The new policy is also meant to encourage families to more readily accept permanent housing, even if it is not to their liking.
"We would only expect to use this process in the most egregious of situations," said Robert V. Hess, the commissioner for homeless services, in an interview on Monday. "We do have a small number of families where temporary emergency shelter is really being used as permanent housing."
Evictions are for a 30-day period.
The five homeless shelters that are fully operated by the Department of Homeless Services will be the first to test out the new rules, which go into effect there on Tuesday. Shelters operated by the roughly 150 organizations that hold contracts with the city will begin by Aug. 17.
Steven R. Banks, the attorney in chief of the Legal Aid Society who has represented homeless families in decades-long litigation against the city, said he believed that the policy would be harmful to children and especially to adults with physical and mental impairments, who might be at risk of sanction.
"With all of the problems that the state has and all of the problems that the city has right now, in the midst of this economic downturn, it's shocking that the state and the city are prepared to invest the resources to put innocent children and their families out of safety-net shelters onto the streets," Mr. Banks said. "You have to wonder who needs this, with all of the other issues that are going on."
Several nonprofit shelter providers, who asked not to be identified because they feared retaliation from the administration, said that they did not intend to evict any families from shelters.
But others said they were grateful for the ability to threaten the most difficult families with ejection.
"If you need a big stick now and then, for certain families, so be it," said Richard Motta, the president and chief executive of Volunteers of America of Greater New York, which runs three family shelters.
The lack of such a threat was a problem, Mr. Motta said.
"There's not a caseworker alive that wants to realize that threat, and as an agency, we don't want to move people to the streets," he said. "That's not what we're in business to do. But if you enter the shelter, if you know there's a threat of being put out of the shelter, you'll be more likely to follow the rules."
The city already has the power to eject single adults from shelters.
State approval was required to put into place the new policies for families. After months of lobbying from city officials, and opposition from local advocates for the homeless, the approval was granted by David A. Hansell, the commissioner of the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, on June 25, his second-to-last day on the job. Mr. Hansell, a former Bloomberg administration official, resigned from his post to take a job with the federal Department of Health and Human Services.
Mr. Hansell decided that the policy would be in effect for only one year as a "demonstration project," a move that Mr. Hess said he supported. Ten months after the policy begins, the city will be required to write a report on the results to that point.
Mr. Hess said it was not clear where families removed from shelter might turn. "The most likely outcome is that the family would demonstrate that they do have a place to go," he said. [So, the logic here is, if you get thrown out then, that means you have demonstrated that you do have a place to go!?!?!?!?! -- bw]
An instructional guide provided to shelter operators appears to leave open the possibility that families will be subject to the elements. It instructs shelter operators that no families should be ejected during a "Code Blue Winter Weather Alert," or when the temperature drops to 32 degrees.
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9) A President Kicked Out, but Not Alone in Defiance
By BLAKE SCHMIDT
July 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/world/americas/28honduras.html?ref=world
OCOTAL, Nicaragua - When Ángel Hsiky, a farm worker, heard his ousted president's call for supporters to help him return to Honduras, he threw a change of clothes in a knapsack, kissed his wife and 9-month-old boy goodbye and headed to the Nicaraguan border.
Defying a military-enforced curfew, Mr. Hsiky and a caravan of about 200 supporters of the deposed Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, crossed precipitous hillsides covered with coffee plantations and dense cloud forest, skirting military roadblocks by taking dirt back roads. When that became impossible, the group abandoned cars and trucks and walked through mud and rain to the mountain-ringed outpost of Las Manos, Nicaragua.
"We've come to bring our president back home," said Mr. Hsiky, 23, who is from Mr. Zelaya's Olancho Province in central Honduras.
Since Mr. Zelaya arrived here on Friday to taunt the de facto government that exiled him a month ago, hundreds of Hondurans have answered his call to join him just across the border in Nicaragua.
Arriving here in mud-caked jeans and ripped shirts, after sleeping on soaked mountaintops and hiding among the coffee plants from patrolling helicopters, they have set up camps in the border towns of Las Manos and Ocotal.
They are teachers, students, the self-employed and laborers. Many said they came to support Mr. Zelaya because his policies benefit the poor.
At one of the main encampments in Ocotal, about 20 miles from the border, they eat chicken dinners supplied by a Nicaraguan aid group and listen to revolutionary folk songs on loudspeakers trucked in by the Nicaraguan government, a staunch ally of Mr. Zelaya's. Rules have been posted to keep the place clean: no spitting on the floor.
This is the front line in what Mr. Zelaya calls his "rebellion."
In the weeks after Mr. Zelaya was awakened by soldiers on June 28 and put on a plane to Costa Rica, he tried to regain his presidency through international diplomacy. He jetted around Central America and the United States, addressed the United Nations, attended regional summit meetings and was received with the pomp of a president.
But negotiations with the de facto government led by Roberto Micheletti have stalled, and the attention of the international community seems close to spent. Mr. Zelaya is here because he has little place else to go. Hard against the border, he can rally Hondurans here to try to keep some internal pressure on those who ousted him and stage political theater that, laced with an implicit threat of violence, helps keep the crisis from falling off Washington's radar.
When he arrived Friday, after weeks of promising to return to Honduras, he dramatically stepped across the border, but just a few feet, not far enough to allow the government to make good on its pledge to arrest him. On Saturday he returned to the border, taking his supporters with him in three old school buses, followed by a motorcade of reporters and television cameras.
"You've each walked hours with soldiers tailing you and police harassing you, having left your families behind," he told supporters in Ocotal on Sunday night. "You've left everything, and many of you have no money. You've felt all the repression."
Carlos Eduardo Reina, Mr. Zelaya's organizer here, said Mr. Zelaya would ask the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to grant refugee status for the Hondurans who have crossed to Nicaragua. Mr. Reina said that 1,000 protesters had crossed the border, a number that was difficult to verify because they are spread among several encampments.
The de facto government in Honduras responded to Mr. Zelaya's presence by calling for a 24-hour curfew in the border departments that began Friday. At checkpoints on major roads to the border, soldiers stopped traffic to conduct searches while more soldiers and police officers in riot gear blockaded roads before the border.
The soldiers have turned back hundreds of protesters.
"We want to cross the border, but as you can see, we're being oppressed," said one protester, Mario Tercero, standing in front of a military blockade in El Paraíso, Honduras, this weekend wearing a cowboy hat that said, "Mel, the people support you."
Hondurans arriving in Nicaragua said Monday that the military was tightening enforcement of the curfew, telling people to stay in their homes.
About 30 mayors and other political leaders have driven groups of supporters across the border. "We're putting pressure on the acting government until it restores Zelaya," said Marco Antonio Mendoza, the mayor of San Marcos de Colón. "The Micheletti government has no support. It can't sustain itself. It will run out of aid and money to pay government workers."
Tension mounted Saturday morning when the body of a protester from El Paraíso was found near the site of a protest. Mr. Zelaya's supporters accused the authorities of being involved in the death of the man, who had been stabbed in the back and was last seen by friends at protests here in Ocotal on Friday.
The mayor of El Paraíso, Alan Funes, appeared with Mr. Zelaya on Sunday and offered fighting words.
"We will take back El Paraíso," he said. "We won't let the military install itself there. If it's our turn to die, so be it, but the coup leaders will die first."
One protester, Johnny Rodriguez, a teacher who followed a guide on a nine-hour hike across the border, said that, like many others, he would stay as long as he felt he was needed.
"It's frightening to leave behind your family," he said, "but when you're scared, you have to remember what's really best for them and understand that it requires an effort."
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10) Military Criticized in Report on Soldier Electrocuted in Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html?ref=world
WASHINGTON (AP) - Military leaders and a major military contractor failed to protect a Green Beret who was electrocuted while showering in his barracks in Iraq, the Defense Department's inspector general has determined in findings released Monday.
The death of the Green Beret, Staff Sgt. Ryan D. Maseth, in early 2008 set off an investigation that included a review of 17 other electrocution deaths in Iraq. The case also led to inspections of the electrical systems of about 90,000 facilities maintained by the United States in Iraq.
The inspector general said in the findings that "multiple systems and organizations" failed and exposed Sergeant Maseth to "unacceptable risk."
The report said that Sergeant Maseth, 24, was electrocuted while showering when he came in contact with water pipes that had become energized because of the failure of a water pump that had not been grounded. It says that the military contractor KBR, based in Houston, installed the pump and adjacent water tanks.
KBR did not ground equipment during installation or report improperly grounded equipment during routine maintenance, the inspector general said. It also says that KBR did not have standard operating procedures for the technical inspection of facilities.
But it also says military commanders and important decision makers failed to ensure that renovations were properly performed and did not address the maintenance issue.
Heather Browne, a KBR spokeswoman, said the company had not seen the report and would not comment on the contents. But she said in an e-mail message that while Sergeant Maseth's death was tragic, the company maintains that it is not responsible. She said that KBR informed the military of the absence of grounding and bonding in the structure nine months before Sergeant Maseth's death.
"Prior to that incident, the military never directed KBR to repair, upgrade or improve the grounding system in the building in which Maseth resided, nor was KBR directed to perform any preventative maintenance at this facility," Ms. Browne said.
Sergeant Maseth's family has filed a lawsuit against KBR. Cheryl Harris, his mother, said in a statement she read over the telephone that she was pleased that the inspector general had conducted the investigation.
"The results are revealing and contrary to what KBR and its president have continuously stated," her statement said.
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11) Young Japanese Women Vie for a Once-Scorned Job
By HIROKO TABUCHI
July 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/business/global/28hostess.html?ref=world
TOKYO - The women who pour drinks in Japan's sleek gentlemen's clubs were once shunned because their duties were considered immodest: lavishing adoring (albeit nonsexual) attention on men for a hefty fee.
But with that line of work, called hostessing, among the most lucrative jobs available to women and with the country neck-deep in a recession, hostess positions are increasingly coveted, and hostesses themselves are gaining respectability and even acclaim. Japan's worst recession since World War II is changing mores.
"More women from a diversity of backgrounds are looking for hostess work," said Kentaro Miura, who helps manage seven clubs in Kabuki-cho, Tokyo's glittering red-light district. "There is less resistance to becoming a hostess. In fact, it's seen as a glamorous job."
But behind this trend is a less-than-glamorous reality. Employment opportunities for young women, especially those with no college education, are often limited to low-paying, dead-end jobs or temp positions.
Even before the economic downturn, almost 70 percent of women ages 20 to 24 worked jobs with few benefits and little job security, according to a government labor survey. The situation has worsened in the recession.
For that reason, a growing number of Japanese women seem to believe that work as a hostess, which can easily pay $100,000 a year, and as much as $300,000 for the biggest stars, makes economic sense.
Even part-time hostesses and those at the low end of the pay scale earn at least $20 an hour, almost twice the rate of most temp positions.
In a 2009 survey of 1,154 high school girls, by the Culture Studies Institute in Tokyo, hostessing ranked No. 12 out of the 40 most popular professions, ahead of public servant (18) and nurse (22).
"It's only when you're young that you can earn money just by drinking with men," said Mari Hamada, 17.
Many of the cabaret clubs, or kyabakura, are swank establishments of dark wood and plush cushions, where waiters in bow ties and hostesses in evening gowns flit about guests sipping fantastically expensive wine.
Some hostesses work to pay their way through college or toward a vocational degree, or to save up to start their own businesses.
Hostessing does not involve prostitution, though religious and women's groups point out that hostesses can be pressured into having sex with clients, and that hostessing can be an entry point into Japan's sprawling underground sex industry.
Hostesses say that those are rare occurrences, and that exhaustion from a life of partying is a more common hazard in their profession.
Young women are drawn nonetheless to Cinderella stories like that of Eri Momoka, a single mother who became a hostess and worked her way out of penury to start a TV career and her own line of clothing and accessories.
"I often get fan mail from young girls in elementary school who say they want to be like me," said Ms. Momoka, 27, interviewed in her trademark seven-inch heels. "To a little girl, a hostess is like a modern-day princess."
Even one member of the Japanese Parliament, Kazumi Ota, was a hostess. That revelation once would have ignited a huge scandal, but it has not. She will run for re-election on the leading opposition party ticket, the Democratic Party of Japan, in the national election next month, and the ticket is expected to unseat the ruling party.
It is unclear how many hostesses work in Japan. In Tokyo alone, about 13,000 establishments offer late-night entertainment by hostesses (and some male hosts), including members-only clubs frequented by politicians and company executives, as well as cheaper cabaret clubs.
Hostesses tend to drinks, offer attentive conversation and accompany men on dates off premises, but do not generally have sex for money. (Men who seek that can go to prostitutes, though prostitution is illegal.)
Hostesses are often ranked according to popularity among clients, with the No. 1 of each club assuming the status of a star.
Mineri Hayashi has made it to the top of her club, Celux, six years after coming to Tokyo from northern Japan. One recent evening, she readied herself for an elaborate birthday event her club was throwing in her honor.
Outside the club, bigger-than-life posters of Ms. Hayashi adorned the street. At the club, a dozen men put up balloons and lined up Champagne bottles.
The club's clientele is diverse, including workaday salarymen, business owners and other men unwinding after work.
Celux hopes to make more than $60,000 on Ms. Hayashi's birthday party, which will be attended by scores of regulars.
"Life has been fun, and I want to keep on having fun," Ms. Hayashi said, placing a tiara in her hair. She talks of plans to retire next year and travel abroad.
Her 17-year-old sister, who also wants to be a hostess, may succeed her. Ms. Hayashi is supportive. "I just want her to be happy," she said.
Popular culture is also fueling hostessing's popularity. TV sitcoms are starting to depict cabaret hostesses as women building successful careers. Hostesses are also writing best-selling books, be they on money management or the art of conversation.
A magazine that features hostess fashion has become wildly popular with women outside the trade, who mimic the heavily made-up eyes and big, coiffed hair.
But Serina Hoshino, 24, another Tokyo hostess, is exhausted from the late nights and heavy drinking.
Slumped in her chair at the M.A.C. hair salon, she talked about endless after-hours dates with clients. Stumbling back home at dawn, she sleeps the rest of the day. On her days off, she hardly leaves her apartment.
Her reward is about $16,000 a month, almost 10 times the salary of most women her age.
"It's nice to be independent, but it's very stressful," Ms. Hoshino said, speaking through a cloud of hair spray and cigarette smoke.
In recent months, clubs have also started to feel the squeeze of the bad economy. Hostess wages are starting to fall to as little as $16 an hour. Still, that rate remains above many daytime jobs here.
So, the young women keep coming. The Kabuki-cho district is lined with dark-suited scouts recruiting women. One club recruiter said some women turn up to interviews with their mothers in tow, which never would have happened when the job was less respectable.
"Women are being laid off from daytime jobs and so look for work with us," said Hana Nakagawa, who runs a placement agency for higher-end clubs in Tokyo.
She gets about 40 inquiries a week from women looking for hostess jobs, twice as many as before the downturn.
Atsushi Miura, an expert on the issue, says hostessing will be popular among Japanese women as long as other well-paying jobs are scarce.
"Some people still say hostesses are wasting their life away," he said. "But rather than criticizing them, Japan should create more jobs for young women."
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12) Wronged Juveniles May Lose Right to Sue
By IAN URBINA
July 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/us/28juvenile.html?ref=us
In a bizarre twist to a closely watched case that rocked the Pennsylvania legal system this year, thousands of youths who had to appear before a corrupt county judge are in danger of losing the ability to sue for damages and court fees.
The potential loss stems from a decision by the State Supreme Court in May that it would help the youths move on with their lives by destroying all documents related to their convictions that it deemed faulty. But doing so would hamper the public's ability to investigate the corruption of the judge, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and limit the youths' ability to sue him.
"This is about destroying evidence," Marsha Levick, chief legal counsel for the Juvenile Law Center, a public interest law firm in Philadelphia, said after appearing on Monday before Judge A. Richard Caputo of Federal District Court in Scranton, Pa., to ask that the records be preserved.
"Without these documents," Ms. Levick said, "it would make it nearly impossible for these kids to get justice."
The Supreme Court has argued that under Pennsylvania law, all copies of a youth's criminal record must be deleted for it to be expunged.
But last week the Supreme Court amended its May order and agreed to preserve, under seal, copies of the records for the estimated 400 juveniles who are named as plaintiffs in lawsuits against Mr. Ciavarella and had requested copies of the records by a June 1 deadline set by the court.
Lawyers for the youths, however, said that the amended order would not safeguard the records of about 6,100 remaining youths, who either had not been told of their rights stemming from the judicial corruption case or had yet to request their records.
The records deal with the convictions of more than 6,500 youths who appeared from 2003 to 2008 before Mr. Ciavarella, who ran the juvenile court of Luzerne County for 12 years.
In February, Mr. Ciavarella and Michael T. Conahan, a judge on the county's Court of Common Pleas, pleaded guilty to tax evasion and wire fraud in a scheme that involved sending thousands of juveniles to two private detention centers in exchange for $2.6 million in kickbacks. They had been removed from the bench that month.
Mr. Ciavarella appeared Monday at the federal courthouse to file a motion to dismiss a federal lawsuit against him. He would not comment on whether the records should be preserved.
"I'm sorry that I brought such shame to the bench," the former judge told a television reporter at the courthouse. "There's a lot of good people who sit on the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas who don't deserve to be tarnished by what I did. And, unfortunately, they do get tarnished by that, and that's wrong because they didn't do anything wrong. I did; they didn't."
Four civil lawsuits, which have been consolidated before Judge Caputo, have already been filed against Mr. Ciavarella and Mr. Conahan.
Lawyers for the juveniles said Monday that the records might be important for them to identify and contact each potential member of the class. They are also needed so that investigators and the public can discern the extent of judicial misconduct, the lawyers said.
Zygmont A. Pines, the Pennsylvania court administrator, wrote in a June 25 letter to Judge Caputo that the main concern of the Supreme Court was "to ensure that tainted convictions of affected juveniles in Luzerne County be undone as expeditiously as possible."
Mr. Pines also wrote that youths who had not joined any of the lawsuits might not want to have their records preserved.
This month, after Judge Caputo was asked to protect the records, the Supreme Court sent him a letter opposing the move.
On July 2, Judge Caputo denied the request to protect the records, citing federalism prerogatives and concluding that the issue was "best left to the Pennsylvania courts."
Appearing before him on Monday, lawyers for the juveniles argued that the Supreme Court's decision last week acknowledged that Pennsylvania law allowed for records to be expunged even if copies were kept under seal for the sake of evidence in later litigation.
"If they are going to preserve the evidence for 400 of the faulty convictions," Ms. Levick said, "then they should preserve it for all of the faulty convictions."
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13) Dead Zone in Gulf Is Smaller Than Forecast but More Concentrated in Parts
By HENRY FOUNTAIN
July 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/science/earth/28zone.html?ref=us
Scientists said Monday that the region of oxygen-starved water in the northern Gulf of Mexico this summer was smaller than forecast, which means less disruption of shrimp, crabs and other marine species, and of the fisheries that depend on them.
But researchers found that although the so-called dead zone along the Texas and Louisiana coasts was smaller - about 3,000 square miles compared with a prediction of about 8,000 square miles - the actual volume of low-oxygen, or hypoxic, water may be higher, as the layer is deeper and thicker in some parts of the gulf than normal. And the five-year average size of the dead zone is still considered far too big, about three times a target of 2,000 square miles set for 2015 by an intergovernmental task force.
"It's a smaller footprint," said Nancy N. Rabalais, executive director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, at a telephone news conference announcing the finding. She said unusual winds and currents this spring had driven much of the hypoxic water to the east, reducing the size of the zone but concentrating it. "In actuality we found quite a severe area that was large in volume," she said. "Organisms were obviously stressed."
Forecasts for hypoxic zones in the gulf are based on measurements of the nitrogen and phosphorus entering the water from agricultural runoff and other sources in the Mississippi River watershed. The forecast earlier this year was for a zone that would come near the record 8,500-square-mile-zone detected in 2002.
"But the model is based on predictions of what the zone would look like in a normal physical environment," said Donald Scavia of the University of Michigan, one of the forecast's preparers. "But this year we didn't have normal physical conditions."
When nitrogen and phosphorus enter the gulf, these nutrients cause an overabundance of algae - too much for other marine organisms to consume. Some of the algae die, sink to the bottom and decompose, and the bacteria that do the decomposing use up most of the oxygen in the water.
Faced with depleted levels of oxygen, fish and other creatures that can swim will leave for other waters. Those that cannot leave often die or show signs of reproductive or other stress. Shrimp and other fisheries in the gulf can be affected for weeks or longer.
In an interview, Dr. Rabalais, who has been mapping the gulf hypoxic zone during summer research cruises for 25 years, said that in the most affected areas, where levels of dissolved oxygen were near zero, she and her colleagues saw crabs, eels and brown shrimp swimming toward the surface, fleeing the low-oxygen water. Predator fish were obviously affected too, she said, as there were none around to eat the smaller escapees. "Any self-respecting fish would have eaten those brown shrimp," she said.
Jane Lubchenco, under secretary of commerce and administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the gulf dead zone was the most "notorious" of about 250 such regions around the country.
Agricultural runoff, she said, "continues to wreak havoc with life in the gulf." Governments are working to promote programs to reduce nutrient runoff, like "engineered" wetlands that can remove nitrogen, but Dr. Lubchenco added, "Some progress is being made, but not enough."
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14) Rural Medical Camp Tackles Health Care Gaps
Monday 27 July 2009
By Howard Berkes
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111066576
A crowd gathers in the early morning at Wise County Fairgrounds in Virginia to receive medical care at a makeshift field hospital providing free care for those in need. (Photo: Becky Lettenberger / NPR)
It was a Third World scene with an American setting. Hundreds of tired and desperate people crowded around an aid worker with a bullhorn, straining to hear the instructions and worried they might be left out.
Some had arrived at the Wise County Fairgrounds in Wise, Virginia, two days before. They slept in cars, tents and the beds of pickup trucks, hoping to be among the first in line when the gate opened Friday before dawn. They drove in from 16 states, anxious to relieve pain, diagnose aches and see and hear better.
"I came here because of health care - being able to get things that we can't afford to have ordinarily," explained 52-year-old Otis Reece of Gate City, Va., as he waited in a wheelchair beside his red F-150 pickup. "Being on a fixed income, this is a fantastic situation to have things done we ordinarily would put off."
Also see:
Whistleblower Tells of America's Hidden Health Nightmare for Its Sick Poor
http://www.truthout.org/072609R
For the past 10 years, during late weekends in July, the fairgrounds in Wise have been transformed into a mobile and makeshift field hospital providing free care for those in need. Sanitized horse stalls become draped examination rooms. A poultry barn is fixed with optometry equipment. And a vast, open-air pavilion is crammed with dozens of portable dental chairs and lamps.
A converted 18-wheeler with a mobile X-ray room makes chest X-rays possible. Technicians grind hundreds of lenses for new eyeglasses in two massive trailers. At a concession stand, dentures are molded and sculpted.
Desperate for Health Care
The 2009 Remote Area Medical (RAM) Expedition comes to the Virginia Appalachian mountains as Congress and President Obama wrestle with a health care overhaul. The event graphically illustrates gaps in the existing health care system.
"We're willing to sleep in pickup trucks or cars and deal with the elements to at least get some kind of health care," Reece adds. He earned a six-figure income working for an international industrial supply firm until an accident five years ago left him disabled. Joining him for dental, vision and medical checks are his wife, daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren.
"Tomorrow, I'm going to see the doctor to get my ear and my nose fixed!" grandson Jacob shouts excitedly. His nose appears battered and his ear has an oozing scab.
Before the gate opened, Loretta Miller, 41, of Honaker, Va., got four hours' sleep behind the wheel of her parked minivan. She was No. 39 in line for her eighth RAM expedition. Her visit last year saved her life.
"They done an ultrasound and told me that my gallbladder was enlarged and was ready to burst and it could kill me," Miller recalls. "They told me if I hadn't got help when I did, literally I could have died."
Medical, dental and vision help is often elusive for the 2,700 people seeking treatment during the three-day RAM event. Just over half of the people attending this year have no insurance at all, according to a survey of the patients conducted by RAM. Forty-seven percent could be considered underinsured, given unaffordable copays or gaps in coverage provided by Medicare, Medicaid and conventional insurance plans. Only 11 patients have dental insurance, and just seven have vision coverage.
"There's no doubt about it. There is a Third World right here in the United States," concludes Stan Brock, RAM's founder. Brock has organized similar medical expeditions in Asia, Africa and South America. "Here in the world's richest country, you have this vast number of people, some say 47 million, 49 million, that don't have access to the system and that's why [this] is necessary."
About 1,800 volunteers provide the medical, dental and logistical help, including hundreds of doctors, dentists, nurses, assistants and technicians.
Almost 4,000 Teeth
Miller is ecstatic when her number is called. The divorced hairdresser and mother of two is uninsured and in pain. But she had taken the time, even with little sleep, to put on makeup, braid her blond hair and dress in a white lace tunic. She walked briskly through the gate for what would turn out to be five hours in dental chairs, given the extraction of an abscessed tooth, three fillings and a root canal.
More than half of those seeking help sign up for dental exams and procedures. They fill the more than 70 dental chairs while hundreds wait their turn under tents nearby. Hundreds more out in the grassy parking lot hope they'll get their teeth cleaned and fixed before the event ends.
Dental health greatly affects general health, says Dr. Terry Dickinson, who directs the Virginia Dental Association and the RAM dental effort at the Wise fairgrounds.
"The infection in the mouth certainly has been shown to have an effect on systemic diseases," Dickinson explains. "So it's really critical that these folks be able to get infected teeth out and infection treated in the mouth because it's going to help them with their overall health."
The extent of infections is staggering. Dickinson and his team pull 3,857 teeth in 30 hours of work spread over 2 1/2 days. Some patients lose all their teeth. A 4-year-old had cavities filled in every tooth.
Who Is Responsible for Health Care?
Terrible teeth, obesity, smoking, high blood pressure and diabetes are common among the people seeking help here. That raises an important question. Are they at fault for their poor health?
"There's enough blame to go around for everybody. I think patients certainly have to have personal responsibility for what they're putting in their mouth, but we are also trying to create a better access care system. How are you going to get providers, whether it be dentists or physicians or anybody else, into these areas where economically these communities are struggling?" Dickinson asks.
That's a reference to the costs of medical and dental schools and the debts that graduates incur, which can be $100,000 and more. There's pressure to practice in more lucrative places beyond rural regions like Appalachia.
"There are areas of the country, and certainly Wise County is one of them, where there just aren't [enough] physicians," says Dr. Susan Kirk, an endocrinologist and diabetes specialist with the University of Virginia Health System, which provides specialists for the Wise RAM event. "We provide indigent care at the University of Virginia, but that's six hours away."
RAM founder Stan Brock is impatient with those who suggest the people seeking help in Wise are somehow at fault and unworthy of care given poor health habits.
"The rest of the population is not exactly in the best of shape themselves," Brock asserts. "They're eating well and, therefore, they're putting on weight and, therefore, they've got heart disease and the rate of diabetes in this country is going up. But, in the case of the well-to-do and the well-insured, they can afford to take care of it."
At the end of her long day with dentists, Loretta Miller was still numb with Novocain but grateful for the care she could not otherwise afford.
"It's well worth the drive and the wait," Miller said, close to 12 hours after her number was called. "You get tired and stuff. But you think about all the trips and the money it would have cost to have all this done. I couldn't have had it done."
She then laughs about standing in line again at 5 a.m. the next day so she can get eyeglasses to "see what they've done."
RAM organizers say they spent about $250,000 providing care worth about $1.5 million. In 10 years in southwest Virginia, they say, they've treated more than 25,000 people. They have eight more expeditions planned this year, from Virginia to California.
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By the Numbers
A survey of RAM attendees by the event's organizers provides some insight into who is left out of conventional medical, dental and vision care.
What: Health care providers saw 2,715 patients and performed 2,671 medical exams, 1,088 eye tests and 1,850 dental exams. They extracted 3,857 teeth and put in 1,628 fillings.
Who: Patients came from 16 different states; 30 percent were repeat patients.
Of the patients, 51 percent are uninsured, 40.3 percent are on Medicaid or Medicare, and just 7.3 percent have employer or private insurance. Fewer than 1 percent of patients have dental or vision insurance.
Twenty-six percent of the people are employed, 40.6 are unemployed, 4.7 percent are retired and 4.8 percent are children.
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15) The Financial Truth Commission
Editorial
July 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/opinion/29wed1.html?_r=1
Congress has pledged to reform the banking system, but too often over the past year lawmakers have chosen instead to shield the financial industry, a big campaign contributor, from accountability.
So the public has every right to ask whether the newly formed Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission - created by Congress to investigate the meltdown - can be counted on to put the public interest ahead of political loyalties, professional ties and ideological biases.
The men and women on the panel are accomplished in their fields - business, law, economics and academia - and many have past government experience. They have been chosen to perform a service that is crucial to restoring trust in the markets and in the government; their findings will also inform regulatory reform efforts.
The 10 members - six chosen by the Democratic leadership, four by the Republican leadership - also have long partisan histories and at least one has strong ties to the financial industry.
The Democratic chairman, Phil Angelides, a former California state treasurer, has given, together with his wife, nearly $327,000 to Democratic candidates over the past two decades, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The vice chairman, former Representative Bill Thomas, a Republican, received $1.6 million in campaign contributions from financial, insurance and real estate interests during his nearly two decades on Capitol Hill. He is now an adviser to a law firm that represents banking and financial-services clients.
All of this suggests that the commission's efforts bear close monitoring. Here are some early indicators to watch to see whether they are rising to the occasion.
CHOOSING A LEAD INVESTIGATOR It is imperative that Mr. Angelides and Mr. Thomas agree on a strong investigator - with a proven record of exposing deceptive or fraudulent activities - to serve as the commission's director. The director must also be given the resources to assemble a strong team of experts and have the commission's full support to press the investigation.
The law allows the commission to issue subpoenas if the chairman and vice chairman agree or if a majority of the panel agrees, as long as the majority includes at least one Republican. If subpoenas are inhibited by partisan votes, the commission will be hamstrung.
STANDING UP TO THE BANKS The law requires the commission to investigate each failure of a major financial institution during the crisis, such as Lehman Brothers, and each major failure that was averted by assistance from the Treasury. Some banks may try to argue that although they received assistance, they were never in danger of failure, and thus are off limits to commission investigators. But all of the major banks are implicated in the crisis, and none should be outside the commission's purview.
STANDING UP TO THE GOVERNMENT The law requires government agencies and departments to furnish information to the commission upon request. Even though much of what the panel will investigate happened under President Bush, the executive branch tends to guard its secrets. President Obama has already reserved the right to assert executive privilege. The commission must be willing, if necessary, to fight for access to documents.
The commission is expected to hold its first meeting around Labor Day. As its work unfolds, there will be more benchmarks of success, or lack thereof. For now, it is important that it gets started with the right staff and a commitment to use its powers to the fullest.
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16) How Firms Wooed a U.S. Agency With Billions to Invest
By ERIC LIPTON
July 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/business/29pensions.html?hp
WASHINGTON - As a New York money manager and investment banker at four Wall Street firms, Charles E. F. Millard never reached superstar status. But he was treated like one when he arrived in Washington in May 2007, to run the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the federal agency that oversees $50 billion in retirement funds.
BlackRock, one of the world's largest money-management firms, assigned a high school classmate of Mr. Millard's to stay in close contact with him, and it made sure to place him next to its legendary founder, Laurence D. Fink, at a charity dinner at Chelsea Piers. A top executive at Goldman Sachs frequently called and sent e-mail messages, inviting Mr. Millard out to the Mandarin Oriental and the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, even helping him hunt for his next Wall Street job.
Both firms were hoping to win contracts to manage a chunk of that $50 billion. The extensive wooing paid off when a selection committee of three, including Mr. Millard, picked BlackRock and Goldman from among 16 bidders to manage nearly $1.6 billion and to advise the agency, which Mr. Millard ran until January.
But on July 20, the agency permanently revoked the contracts with BlackRock, Goldman and JPMorgan Chase, the third winner, nullifying the process. The decision was based on questions surrounding Mr. Millard's actions during the formal bidding process. His actions have also drawn the scrutiny of Congressional investigators and the agency's inspector general.
An examination of thousands of pages of e-mail messages and other internal documents obtained by The New York Times shows the other side of the story: the two firms aggressively courted Mr. Millard, so extensively that they may have compromised federal contracting rules or at least violated the spirit of the law, contracting experts said. The records also illustrate the clash between Washington's by-the-letter rules on contracting and the culture of Wall Street, where deals are often struck over expensive meals.
"Both sides should have known better," said Steven L. Schooner, co-director of the Government Procurement Law Program at the George Washington University, who reviewed some of the material for The Times. "What happened here is wrong, stupid and probably illegal."
BlackRock and Goldman, as well as Mr. Millard, all said that nothing improper happened either before the formal competition for the contract started last July, or while the competition, which concluded in October, was under way.
"Among the reasons that Mr. Millard was selected to head the P.B.G.C. is his understanding of the industry, his extensive background and the quality of his professional relationships," said Stanley M. Brand, a lawyer for Mr. Millard. "He correctly separated his personal relationships from his official actions."
A review of the documents shows that the third winner, JPMorgan Chase, had contacts with Mr. Millard before and during the competition, but did not display the same intensity as the other two.
Goldman and BlackRock saw Mr. Millard's selection as a major business opportunity, the records show.
"This is a very big fish on the line," one BlackRock executive wrote to another, discussing the government official.
Mr. Millard had at least seven meetings with Goldman executives in the year before the bidding started, and 163 phone contacts, the documents show. BlackRock had less frequent contact - 39 phone calls in that 12-month period. But one BlackRock executive told another that Mr. Millard had assured him in April, four months before the bidding, that he wanted to hire the company to help manage some of the money, company documents show.
"It sounds like we may have a tiger by the tail here," one BlackRock executive wrote in an e-mail message.
The agency takes over pension programs when private companies go bankrupt. For years there was talk it might have to be bailed out by the government, and Mr. Millard, like many others, saw shifting from low-yield conservative investments like Treasury bonds to those with higher risks and higher potential returns as a way to solve the problem.
Before coming to Washington Mr. Millard had been a money manager for Prudential Securities and Lehman Brothers, a senior economic development official in New York City while Rudolph W. Giuliani was mayor, a member of the New York City Council and a Republican nominee for Congress.
Within weeks of his arrival at the agency, he told Goldman Sachs about his plans to shake up the agency's portfolio.
"I just became head of the pension benefit guaranty corp in dc appointed by pres bush," he wrote in a June 2007 e-mail message to John S. Weinberg, a vice chairman and a member of the family that has helped run Goldman since the 1930s. Mr. Millard told Mr. Weinberg, a longtime acquaintance, that he wanted to revamp the agency's investment strategy.
"Is there a team at goldman that does this and that would be interested in pursuing this business?"
"Yes, absolutely!" Mr. Weinberg wrote back.
Almost immediately, Goldman started to work informally for Mr. Millard by providing one of its top pension analysts at no charge to prepare at least six reports over the coming year, based on internal agency data, detailing possible investment strategies.
Goldman also coached Mr. Millard as he sought to sway skeptics in the Bush administration.
"Here is the sound bite we discussed in this morning's meeting," wrote Mark Evans, a Goldman managing director, in a January 2008 e-mail message to Mr. Millard, seven months before the formal competition would begin.
Mr. Millard consulted with other industry experts during this period, but none so much as Goldman. George Koklanaris, Mr. Millard's chief of staff, said in retrospect that the detailed analytical work Goldman did for Mr. Millard, and the repeated contacts, might have created an appearance that Goldman had a competitive advantage. Even so, he says he believes Mr. Millard did nothing improper.
Mr. Millard's lawyer and a Goldman spokeswoman disputed that the firm gained any advantage from this work. The spokeswoman, Andrea Raphael, said the firm had no way of knowing that Mr. Millard was giving them more attention than other prospective bidders and that it was the agency's job to identify potential conflicts.
The most important player in BlackRock's attempt to win the business was David Mullane, who had known Mr. Millard since the two attended the same high school. The friendship continues; they both live in Rye, N.Y., and attend the same church.
In his conversations and e-mail messages with the agency head, Mr. Mullane often mixed family and business, talking about his golf game, his vacations, their children, their church ("Great job at Mass again this week," he wrote in one), invariably shifting into a discussion of his interest in the government work.
"Hope to see you at the Beefsteak Dinner tomorrow," he wrote to Mr. Millard, referring to a Friday night gathering at Church of the Resurrection in Rye. "If you're going perhaps we can catch up business for a few minutes before I thrash you in ping pong again."
After a February meeting, months before the contract competition began, Mr. Mullane wrote his bosses: "Money in motion by February."
There were more meetings through the winter and spring of 2008, as Mr. Millard prepared his plans. That April, there was a charity dinner at Chelsea Piers, along the Hudson River. One BlackRock executive wrote to another, "Try to get Larry seated next to Charles Millard," referring to Mr. Fink, the company's chairman and chief.
After the dinner, Mr. Millard wrote to Mr. Fink, "A pleasure meeting you. No need to respond. I will follow up with you briefly in future re our investment policy and with your team re other specifics."
The e-mail messages show that Mr. Mullane, a managing director at BlackRock, understood that the firm needed to move quickly, before the presidential election.
"He is a lame duck political appointee as soon as the November election occurs," he wrote to one BlackRock colleague last June, as the bidding was about to start. "When the new man comes in at P.B.G.C., all bets are off for us."
As he prepared to open the competition, Mr. Millard, working with Mr. Mullane, sought to restrict the bidders to the biggest players by stipulating that the winner must have thousands of employees and a global operation, e-mail messages show. That decision cut out many boutique firms hoping to compete and gave BlackRock, Goldman and other large firms an advantage. "Neither the company nor any of its employees did anything improper or illegal," Bobbie Collins, a BlackRock spokeswoman, said.
Mr. Millard, through his lawyer, denied telling BlackRock that he wanted to select the company even before the competition started. Mr. Millard's lawyer also said he told the agency about his friendship with Mr. Mullane. But Jeffrey Speicher, an agency spokesman, said in a written statement that Mr. Millard "did not disclose his relationship with the BlackRock executive."
While the competition was getting started, Mr. Millard began his job hunt.
He started by contacting Mr. Weinberg of Goldman Sachs, sending him his résumé after meeting with him in New York last June.
Mr. Millard's e-mail messages show that, while the bidding was under way last fall, he also spoke with Rick Lazio, a former House Republican who is now a senior executive at JPMorgan Chase, to discuss career options.
In both cases, spokesmen for the executives said that while Mr. Millard was at the agency, they did not take actions to help him find a new job.
The e-mail messages show that within two weeks of the selection of the winners, Mr. Millard sought help from Karen Seitz, a Goldman executive involved throughout the process, in getting interviews with prominent industry players.
"I spoke with Dennis Kass after our meeting," Ms. Seitz wrote last November, referring to the chief executive of a $60 billion asset management firm, one of half a dozen interviews she arranged. "He would love to meet with you in N.Y."
To date, Mr. Millard remains unemployed. His lawyer noted that Mr. Millard had honored the one-year prohibition in federal law against negotiating a job with a firm that he helped select as a contractor. While still at the agency, his lawyer said, Mr. Millard also paid his own bill whenever he dined out with industry officials, including Ms. Seitz.
But Mr. Schooner, the government contracting expert from George Washington University, said even asking for career help from a company he had just picked as a contractor raised serious questions.
"As a federal official you are not supposed to be discussing, bartering or leveraging a new job while you are involved with parties in a procurement," he said. "It is a clear black-and-white rule."
Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin, plans to seek legislation to require more intense oversight of the agency by an expanded board.
"The whole process was flawed," said Mr. Kohl, the chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, which oversees the agency.
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17) Witness Tells of Doctor's Last Seconds
By MONICA DAVEY
July 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/us/29tiller.html?ref=us
WICHITA, Kan. - Dr. George R. Tiller was standing beside a refreshment table inside his church, discussing his fondness for doughnuts, when a man walked up, pressed a gun against the doctor's head and fired, a fellow church member recalled Tuesday.
"I wasn't sure if it was a cap gun or what," Gary Hoepner, the church member, testified in a hearing here that offered the first significant details of what happened the morning Dr. Tiller, one of the nation's only doctors to perform late-term abortions, was killed.
"And then George fell," said Mr. Hoepner, who testified he had been standing within touching distance of Dr. Tiller in the church foyer and who, like Dr. Tiller, had been serving as an usher that Sunday, May 31, at Reformation Lutheran. "I couldn't believe what I was seeing," added Mr. Hoepner, a member of the church for 52 years.
At the end of the hearing, a judge concluded that there was sufficient evidence to try Scott P. Roeder, an abortion opponent from Kansas City, Mo., for first-degree murder in the death of Dr. Tiller, whose clinic had been firmly at the center of the nation's battle over abortion for more than three decades.
A lawyer for Mr. Roeder entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf. Mr. Roeder made no public comments at the daylong hearing but appeared to listen closely to the testimony against him, at times gazing up at elaborate diagrams of the church foyer and jotting notes. Afterward, Mr. Roeder's lawyers declined to comment on their defense plans, noting that the hearing had presented only witnesses for the prosecution. The trial has been set for Sept. 21.
Balding and considerably slimmer after nearly two months in jail, Mr. Roeder, 51, wore a jacket and a tie and leg shackles.
In testimony, several church members said that Mr. Roeder had come to the church occasionally in the weeks and months before the shooting. Because of Dr. Tiller's presence, the church had been the target of occasional outbursts by abortion protesters, the church members recalled, so congregants were sensitive to new faces.
"He didn't seem in place," said Keith Martin, a church member of 25 years who said he had repeatedly seen Mr. Roeder, but had not spoken with other church members about him. "I was suspicious of him," he said, adding that Mr. Roeder had drawn particular notice because of a pungent, overwhelming odor around him, something akin to ammonia.
Mr. Roeder attended the service one week before the shooting, Mr. Hoepner said, and left a written note (with a reference to tax policy) in the collection plate. As it happened, Dr. Tiller had not attended church that Sunday, though he was listed in an insert in the church bulletin, handed out each week to all who come, as an usher for the entire month of May.
Crowds have nearly always materialized in this city for anything to do with Dr. Tiller or his opponents, whether rallies, court cases or simply gatherings outside his clinic, now closed.
But only a small cluster of observers sat in the courtroom on Tuesday, and at least seven were uniformed law enforcement authorities in the tightly screened gallery. Dr. Tiller's family was not seen there, nor were the best-known leaders of Operation Rescue and other anti-abortion groups here, which have denounced the killing.
If convicted, Mr. Roeder could face life in prison. Prosecutors have said the case does not meet certain circumstances required for the death penalty under Kansas law, including, for instance, the killing of a law enforcement officer or more than one person.
He is also charged with two counts of aggravated assault, accused of threatening to shoot Mr. Hoepner and Mr. Martin, who was also volunteering as an usher that Sunday.
The shooting occurred just as the service was starting. Dr. Tiller and Mr. Hoepner, as ushers, had lingered in the foyer to hand out bulletins to latecomers. The two stood beside a table of juice and doughnuts, Mr. Hoepner said, exchanging small talk. It was then, he said, that Mr. Roeder emerged from the sanctuary through a door often used for those slipping off to the restroom, stepped into the foyer and shot Dr. Tiller.
Mr. Hoepner said he followed Mr. Roeder outside toward the parking lot, but stopped when the man turned and called out, "I've got a gun, and I'll shoot you." Mr. Martin ran after Mr. Roeder, too, he testified, and at one point called out to him, "How could you do that?" The man yelled back something, Mr. Martin said, like, "he was a murderer" or "he was a killer."
When the man reached his car, Mr. Martin was about 10 feet away, blocking the car's exit. Mr. Roeder yelled "Move!" Mr. Martin recalled, but he stayed put. At that, Mr. Martin said, the man pulled out the gun, pointed it at him, and said, "I'll shoot you."
Mr. Martin stepped aside, but flung the cup of coffee he was still carrying - cup and all - through an open window in the man's car as he drove away. Mr. Roeder, whose license plate had been spotted by another church member, was arrested a few hours later along a Kansas highway about 170 miles away.
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18) House Panel Approves Executive Pay Restraints
By STEPHEN LABATON
July 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/business/29pay.html?ref=business
WASHINGTON - In an important victory for the White House, a Congressional committee approved legislation on Tuesday that closely resembled an Obama administration proposal seeking to impose new restraints on executive pay.
The approval by the House Financial Services Committee, on a party-line vote of 40 to 28, clears the way for the measure to be considered by the full House later this week, when it is likely to be adopted.
The bill does not set pay limits. Instead, it gives shareholders the right to vote on pay and requires that independent directors from outside of management serve on compensation committees.
The shareholder votes would not be binding on company management.
The measure tries to reduce the potential conflicts of interest involving compensation consultants who play a central role in blessing pay packages. Many of those consultants also provide other services to the companies, putting them in a conflicting role for issuing fairness opinions about pay.
The measure also gives regulators the authority to prohibit inappropriate or risky compensation practices for banks and other regulated financial institutions.
The Senate is not expected to consider the legislation until this fall, at the earliest.
The Obama administration's executive pay proposal, embodied in legislation sponsored by Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, is part of its larger package of regulatory changes intended to reduce the chances of another economic crisis.
While the measure still faces political obstacles in the Senate, it has not encountered as much resistance as two other cornerstones of the administration's proposal - a greater role for the Federal Reserve in monitoring large institutions that could pose risks to the financial system and the creation of a new agency to protect consumers from deceptive or ill-suited mortgages, credit cards and other kinds of loans.
The legislation comes as the Obama administration is separately examining the pay practices of seven big companies that have received significant taxpayer assistance in recent months. The administration's top official for compensation, Kenneth R. Feinberg, has been in discussions with the companies as he considers whether to approve the compensation of top executives at American International Group, Citigroup, Bank of America, General Motors, Chrysler and the financing arms of those two automakers.
The legislative debate over the pay measure pits two powerful political forces against each other. One is the public's growing outrage at skyrocketing pay packages, particularly at troubled companies that have needed billions of taxpayer dollars to survive. The other is a coalition of senior executives of large corporations and their lobbyists who have succeeded in the past in blocking or diluting meaningful restrictions on pay practices.
That tension was clear at a legislative drafting session, where Republicans who opposed the legislation sought to scale it back sharply, while also decrying the high pay at many troubled institutions. In one colloquy between the two senior members of the committee, Representative Spencer T. Bachus III of Alabama, the ranking Republican, said he had privately told Mr. Frank that "executive compensation was a very difficult matter for all members of this committee."
"I said doing something about executive compensation would be very popular with the American people," Mr. Bachus said. "I said opposing this would put our members in a very difficult position."
Still, Mr. Bachus and his Republican colleagues offered numerous amendments to weaken the legislation, most of which were defeated either by voice or party-line votes.
But the Democrats led by Mr. Frank also agreed to some modest changes in the legislation to reduce its scope. They agreed to give the Securities and Exchange Commission the authority to exempt smaller companies from shareholder votes on pay. And they reduced the authority of regulators by giving them power to restrict only incentive-based pay arrangements instead of any kind of compensation.
The panel adopted an amendment proposed by Representative Mary Jo Kilroy, Democrat of Ohio, to require large institutional investors to reveal how they vote the shares that they own on pay proposals affecting companies that issued those shares.
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