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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!
On the 8th Anniversary of the War on Afghanistan
U.S. -- NATO OUT! BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
End colonial occupation in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Haiti...
Healthcare, jobs, housing, education for all--Not War!
San Francisco Protest:
Wednesday, October 7, 5:00 p.m.
New Federal Building
7th and Mission Streets, Near Civic Center BART
Volunteers needed: 415-821-6545
answer@answersf.org
ANSWERcoalition.org
ANSWERsf.org
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 SAN FRANCISCO MARCH AND RALLY AGAINST THE WARS
U.S. Troops Out Now! Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan!
Assemble 11:00 A.M. U.N. Plaza, SF (Market between 7th and 8th Streets)
March begins at 12:00 Noon
Rally begins at 1:00 P.M. back at U.N. Plaza
Commemorating the eighth anniversary of the war on Afghanistan and the 40th anniversary of the massive October 17, 1969 Vietnam Moratorium.
Sponsor: October 17 Antiwar Coalition
510-268-9429 or 415-794-7354
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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ReThinking Norma Rae: A Union Icon Falls Fighting the Healthcare Industry
Video and article at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-kim/rethinking-emnorma-raeem_b_287552.html
Take Action: Remembering Crystal Lee Sutton
http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/campaign/CrystalLeeSutton/8gg63ddr27e6k5bm?
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Taking Aim Radio Program with
Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone
The Chimera of Capitalist Recovery, Parts 1 and 2
http://www.takingaimradio.com/shows/audio.html
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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Wednesday, September 23: A Day of Action and Art Against Torture
Morning (8:30 AM) - Support the Fire John Yoo 4
Rally and pack the courtroom -- first court appearance for the 4 arrested for protest as John Yoo came to class on his first day back at Boalt. Demand all charges be dropped! Wiley Manuel Courthouse, 661 Washington St., Oakland, Dept. 107 at 8:30 (arrive early, security lines can take 30 min.)
12 Noon - Information in Action at UC Berkeley: FIRE, DISBAR, AND PROSECUTE JOHN YOO!
Stand up and speak out against torture, as jumpsuited "detainees" appear at Sproul Plaza, sparking conversation and debate at this campus crossroads. Speakers, displays, rally.
Evening (5:00 PM)- Fernando Botero In Conversation: The Abu Ghraib Series
A major exhibit of world-renowned artist Botero 's series of 56 paintings (inspired in 2004 by Seymour Hersh's exposure of the U.S. torture program at that hellhole) opens at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way, on Sept. 23. Botero speaks at the Museum Theater at 6:00 PM. For information on how to get two (2) tickets, go here -- AND join World Can't Wait and the anti-torture community at the Museum at 5:00 PM to welcome the artist and this timely exhibition.
FOR UPDATES (INCLUDING ACTION REPORTS & PICTURES) GO TO:
firejohnyoo.org & sfbaycantwait.org
World Can't Wait - National: http://www.worldcantwait.org 866.973.4463
SF Bay Area Chapter: sf@worldcantwait.org 415.864.5153 http://www.sfbaycantwait.org
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National Call For Action And Endorsements at the
G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, PA
Sept. 19 - 25, 2009
For Immediate Release
September 15, 2009
Media Contacts:
Pete Shell, 412.422.7435, pshell1@earthlink.net
Edith Bell, 412.661.7149 or 412.728.3341
Federal Lawsuit over G-20 Protest Permits to Begin Wednesday
Most Protest Groups Still Haven't Received Permits
On Wednesday, September 16 at 10:00am at the Federal Court House on 700 Grant Street, downtown Pittsburgh, a federal court hearing will address the formal complaint issued last week by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of the Thomas Merton Center, CodePink, the 3 Rivers Climate Convergence, Bail Out the People, Pittsburgh Outdoor Artists, and the G6 Billion. The lawsuit and the hearing are in response to several Pittsburgh G-20 protest groups and organizations that have been in a tug of war for several weeks with Pittsburgh city council and the federal government over permits for outdoor demonstrations. The complaint claims that the city and federal governments are in violation of basic American rights such as freedom of assembly and expression.
"We want the G-20 representatives and all people to know how to build a sustainable, democratic world," says Lacy MacAuley of the G-20 Media Support Team. "This is why it's important that the federal government issue the requested permits to all the G-20 protest groups. The ability to have ongoing workshops, trainings, and discussions in the encampments, as well as the ability to peaceably assembly on the streets of downtown, will build community, culture, and opportunities to educate about real sustainability and democracy."
The Thomas Merton Center Anti-War Committee's request to march from Oakland to one block before the Convention Center on September 25 has also not yet been issued. Pete Shell of the AWC notes that "the Peoples' March will be peaceful, and the lawsuit will ensure that we obtain the permit we need to march to within sight of the G-20 summit. The voices of the people, articulating solutions to the economic and environmental crises that the G-20 has gotten us into, urgently need to be heard."
David Meieran of the 3 Rivers Climate Convergence, whose group has been denied a permit for its Climate Camp, says that "there's a rich historical tradition in the United States of '24 hour vigils' and 'tent cities' as a protest tactic. The visual representation of an encampment is an expressive end in itself and should thus be protected by the Constitution. Camping is as American as apple pie."
Protesters urge Pittsburghers to support their rights to expression and assembly and invite everyone to the hearing at Pittsburgh's Federal Court House at 10am on Wednesday. They further encourage Pittsburghers to demonstrate these rights by participating in the many encampments and marches during the week of the G-20 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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THE FINAL TWO OCTOBER 17 COALITION MEETINGS WILL TAKE PLACE:
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2:00 PM AND SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2 PM
Unitarian Church (Fireside Room)
1187 Franklin at Geary, SF (wheelchair accessible).
Let's reach out to as many people as possible to come to these final two meetings to ensure a maximum effort to build Oct. 17. Flyers will be available for pickup as well as cementing the final planning for important, last-minute organizational tasks.
We all need to step up and give our best efforts to make this a successful protest against these wars and bankster-bailouts, and for jobs, education, healthcare, housing and a peaceful world for all.
A new website has been set up at:
www.oct17awc.wordpress.com
A calendar will be posted listing activities and events for flyering and getting the word out about Oct. 17.
To arrange to pick up flyers, or to add another event to the calendar, call either of the numbers below. (Please note, Michael Moor's new film, "Capitalism: A Love Story" opens nationwide on Oct. 2. This will be a great place to flyer for Oct. 17.)(See the trailer at: http://www.capitalismalovestory.com/)
Please call Jeff (510-268-9428) or Kathy (415-641-1997) to volunteer at one of these great opportunities to get out the word.
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein
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Wednesday, September 30, 5:30-7:00pm
Rally Against Budget Cuts
FACE ITT--Feminists Against Cuts Especially in Tough Times
California State Building, 455 Golden Gate Ave., San Francisco
Rally with community members and organizations to protest the state cuts to essential social services. Governor Schwarzenegger is trying to impose $500 million in cuts which will affect women and children the hardest. Let's stand together to fight for real solutions to California's budget crisis.
Demands:
Redirect war funding and prisons into health, public education, domestic violence shelters and HIV/AIDS services!
NO to bailouts--protect working people and the poor, not corporate CEO's!
NO to layoffs and furloughs! No to home foreclosures!
NO to rightwing violence--Defend immigrant rights and women's right to reproductive health care!
Tax the rich and corporations, cut senior management and legislators' salaries to increase revenue for social services!
We want government funded quality, low-cost healthcare and childcare, quality education and living wage jobs!
The rally will feature local activists and social service providers and an open mic. Come share your stories of how the budget cuts are impacting you and ideas on how to fix the economic crisis. All are welcome!
Sponsored by Radical Women
For more information or to get involved, please call 415-864-1278 or email baradicalwomen@earthlink.net.
www.radicalwomen.org
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The Human Face of Death Row
Join us October 2nd at 7pm for the opening reception for an exhibition of paintings from three men - Kevin Cooper, James Anderson and Eddie Vargas. Two of them are condemned - on death row; the third has a life sentence - the other death penalty.
These three men use art to express themselves. We hope you will see their work, hear their stories, and take away an understanding of their humanity from viewing it.
PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY
ROCK PAPER SCISSORS GALLERY
TELEGRAPH & 23RD ST, OAKLAND
October 1 - October 31, 2009
OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2ND - 7 TO 9 PM
JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16TH - 7 TO 9 PM - a memorial movie of Oscar Grant, with Uncle Cephus Bobby Johnson, other members of Oscar's family and Jack Bryson. Come for update: Meserlhe's trial starts October 13th, unless continued again.
STAN TOOKIE WILLIAMS LEGACY NETWORK: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17TH - 4 TO 6 PM - with Barbara Becnel and Stan Tookie Williams' books for children.
LIVE FROM DEATH ROW: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23RD - 7 TO 9 PM - with Kevin Cooper, an innocent man on San Quentin's death row calling (at 7:30 sharp). Q&A with Kevin Cooper and members of the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee.
PLEASE JOIN US
FOR MORE INFO: CALIFORNIA@NODEATHPENALTY.ORG
510-589-6820
2278 Telegraph Ave., Ca 94612(click here for a map)http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Oakland&state=CA&address=2278+Telegraph
Presented by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, a grassroots organization dedicated to the abolition of capital punishment in the United States.
website: www.nodeathpenalty.org
Also by Art for a Democratic Society, an Oakland based art and activism group specializing in participatory grassroots interventionist art.
website: www.a4ds.org email: a4ds@earthlink.net
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On the 8th Anniversary of the War on Afghanistan
U.S. -- NATO OUT!
BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
End colonial occupation in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Haiti...
Healthcare, jobs, housing, education for all--Not War!
San Francisco Protest:
Wednesday, October 7, 5:00 p.m.
New Federal Building
7th and Mission Streets, Near Civic Center BART
Initiated by the ANSWER Coalition--Act Now to Stop War and End Racism
Volunteers needed: 415-821-6545
answer@answersf.org
ANSWERcoalition.org
ANSWERsf.org
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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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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 SAN FRANCISCO MARCH AND RALLY AGAINST THE WARS
U.S. Troops Out Now! Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan!
Assemble 11:00 A.M. U.N. Plaza, SF (Market between 7th and 8th Streets)
March begins at 12:00 Noon
Rally begins at 1:00 P.M. back at U.N. Plaza
Commemorating the eighth anniversary of the war on Afghanistan and the 40th anniversary of the massive October 17, 1969 Vietnam Moratorium.
Sponsor: October 17 Antiwar Coalition
510-268-9429 or 415-794-7354
Money for Human Needs Not War!
Immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. troops, military personnel, bases, contractors, and mercenaries from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Colombia.
End U.S. support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine! End the Seige of Gaza!
U.S. Hands Off Iran and North Korea!
Self-determination for All Oppressed Nations and Peoples!
End War Crimes Including Torture and Prosecute the War Criminals!
See historical images of the Vietnam Moratorium at:
http://images.google.com/images?q=vietnam+moratorium&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=lGaISs7pMIP-sQOr2OznAg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4
Image of San Francisco Vietnam Moratorium, Golden Gate Park, October 17, 1969 (I was there...bw):
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.rchrd.com/photo/images/pb2-12-15.jpg&imgrefurl=http://rchrd.com/photo/archives/1969/&usg=__FeHN5CAwDXv-ewwCt2Hfni6ZUn8=&h=567&w=850&sz=143&hl=en&start=3&um=1&tbnid=EJH6Kzj6YI6zzM:&tbnh=97&tbnw=145&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dvietnam%2Bmoratorium%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1
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Please forward widely. Contact us if you or your organization would like to endorse this call.
CALL FOR OCTOBER 22 DEMONSTRATION IN OAKLAND, CA:
NATIONAL DAY OF PROTEST TO STOP POLICE BRUTALITY, REPRESSION AND THE CRIMINALIZATION OF A GENERATION
Oscar Grant. Brownie Polk. Parnell Smith. And dozens more Oakland alone. Sean Bell and Amadou Diallo in New York City. Adolph Grimes in New Orleans. Robbie Tolan in Houston. Julian Alexander in Anaheim. Jonathan Pinkerton in Chicago. And thousands more nationwide.
All shot down, murdered by law enforcement, their lives stolen, victims of a nationwide epidemic of police brutality and murder.
The racist arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates this summer in Cambridge, Massachusetts - right in his own home - showed that any Black man or woman, no matter their stature, no matter their education, no matter their accomplishments can be targeted for brutality - even murder - at any moment.
Meanwhile, a whole generation of youth is treated as guilty until proved innocent, and hundreds of thousands are criminalized, and locked away in U.S. prisons with no hope for the future. And immigrants are subject to brutal raids, with families cruelly split up in an instant.
We refuse to suffer these outrages in silence. We need to put a stop to this and drag the truth about the nationwide epidemic of police violence and repression into the light of day for all so see. We say no more! Enough is Enough!
Oct 22nd 2009 is the 14th annual national day of protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of Generation---bringing together those under the gun and those not under the gun as a powerful voice to expose the epidemic of police brutality. On that day in cities across the country many different people will take to the streets against police brutality and murder, against the criminalization of youth, and against the targeting of immigrants.
We call for a powerful demonstration in Oakland on October 22 demanding:
* Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation!
* October 22....No To Police Brutality
* No to ICE raids and round-ups of immigrants!
* Enough Is Enough! No More Stolen Lives!
* Justice for Oscar Grant and all victims of police murder!
* Wear Black, Fight Back
Contact the National Office of October 22nd at:
Info@october22.org or 1-888-NOBRUTALITY
October 22nd Coalition
P.O. Box 2627
New York, N.Y. 10009
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B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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URGENT ALERT!
Call-In To Save San Francisco's Only State Park Wilderness Area From
Toxic Condominium Development!
Within the next two weeks, State Senator Mark Leno will seek to pass a
bill allowing environmentally criminal Lennar Corporation to build high
priced condos on the wildlife habitat and parkland in San Francisco's
Candlestick Point State Recreation Area!
San Francisco Supervisors Avalos, Daly, Mirkarimi, Mar and Campos have
sponsored a local resolution to tell the State legislature not to wreck
our State parkland for real estate developer profits.
This measure needs the crucial sixth vote of Board of Supervisors
President David Chiu to win, before Leno's bill (SB 792) goes for its
own final vote.
**WHAT YOU CAN DO**
Call Supervisor David Chiu at 415-554-7450 with the comment:
"Please bring the Avalos/Daly resolution opposing SB 792 to a full Board
vote by September 15th and vote YES! Don't give away one inch of
California's only urban state park!"
If you call during the weekend or evening, or get a recording, just
leave your comment as voice mail.
For more on the State Park land grab see
http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/privatizing-california-senate-bill-792/
For more on Lennar's history of corporate abuses see page 3 of Our
City's Fall 2007 Update at http://our-city.org/Update-Oct07.pdf
###
This alert sent by:
Our City
1028-A Howard St.
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-756-8844
For more information about Our City campaigns go to:
http://www.our-city.org
info@our-city.org
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HELP VFP PUT THIS BOOK IN YOUR HIGH SCHOOL OR PUBLIC LIBRARY
For a donation of only $18.95, we can put a copy of the book "10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military" into a public or high school library of your choice. [Reason number 1: You may be killed]
A letter and bookplate will let readers know that your donation helped make this possible.
Putting a book in either a public or school library ensures that students, parents, and members of the community will have this valuable information when they need it.
Don't have a library you would like us to put it in? We'll find one for you!
https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/826/t/9311/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=4906
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Take Action: Stop Rite Aid's abuses: Pass the Employee Free Choice Act!
For years Rite Aid workers have faced unfair firings, campaigns of misinformation, and intimidation for trying to form a union. But Rite Aid would never have been able to get away with any of this if Congress had passed the Employee Free Choice Act.
You can help us fight mounting anti-union opposition to the bill that would have protected Rite Aid's workers. Tell Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act today!
http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/campaign/riteaidefca2/8gg63dd407ejd5wi?
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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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Urgent: Ahmad Sa'adat transferred to isolation in Ramon prison!
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org/
Imprisoned Palestinian national leader Ahmad Sa'adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was transferred on August 11, 2009 to Ramon prison in the Naqab desert from Asqelan prison, where he had been held for a number of months. He remains in isolation; prior to his transfer from Asqelan, he had been held since August 1 in a tiny isolation cell of 140 cm x 240 cm after being penalized for communicating with another prisoner in the isolation unit.
Attorney Buthaina Duqmaq, president of the Mandela Association for prisoners' and detainees' rights, reported that this transfer is yet another continuation of the policy of repression and isolation directed at Sa'adat by the Israeli prison administration, aimed at undermining his steadfastness and weakening his health and his leadership in the prisoners' movement. Sa'adat has been moved repeatedly from prison to prison and subject to fines, harsh conditions, isolation and solitary confinement, and medical neglect. Further reports have indicated that he is being denied attorney visits upon his transfer to Ramon.
Ahmad Sa'adat undertook a nine-day hunger strike in June in order to protest the increasing use of isolation against Palestinian prisoners and the denial of prisoners' rights, won through long and hard struggle. The isolation unit at Ramon prison is reported to be one of the worst isolation units in terms of conditions and repeated violations of prisoners' rights in the Israeli prison system.
Sa'adat is serving a 30 year sentence in Israeli military prisons. He was sentenced on December 25, 2008 after a long and illegitimate military trial on political charges, which he boycotted. He was kidnapped by force in a military siege on the Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho, where he had been held since 2002 under U.S., British and PA guard.
Sa'adat is suffering from back injuries that require medical assistance and treatment. Instead of receiving the medical care he needs, the Israeli prison officials are refusing him access to specialists and engaging in medical neglect and maltreatment.
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat demands an end to this isolation and calls upon all to protest at local Israeli embassies and consulates (the list is available at: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/ About+the+Ministry/Diplomatic+mission/Web+Sites+of+Israeli+ Missions+Abroad.htm) and to write to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations to exercise their responsibilities and act swiftly to demand that the Israelis ensure that Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners receive needed medical care and that this punitive isolation be ended. Email the ICRC, whose humanitarian mission includes monitoring the conditions of prisoners, at jerusalem..jer@icrc.org, and inform them about the urgent situation of Ahmad Sa'adat!
Ahmad Sa'adat has been repeatedly moved in an attempt to punish him for his steadfastness and leadership and to undermine his leadership in the prisoners' movement. Of course, these tactics have done nothing of the sort. The Palestinian prisoners are daily on the front lines, confronting Israeli oppression and crimes. Today, it is urgent that we stand with Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners against these abuses, and for freedom for all Palestinian prisoners and for all of Palestine!
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org
info@freeahmadsaadat.org
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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) U.N. Chief Says Working Poor Still Suffer
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
September 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/world/18nations.html?ref=world
2) Judge Rules Pittsburgh Must Allow Protest at G-20
By SEAN D. HAMILL
September 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/us/18pittsburgh.html?ref=world
3) Inmate Will Testify About Failed Execution
By BOB DRIEHAUS
September 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/us/18ohio.html?ref=us
4) With Recruiting Goals Exceeded, Marines Toughen Their Ad Pitch
By JAMES DAO
September 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/us/18marines.html?ref=us
5) Union Rejoining A.F.L.-C.I.O.
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
National Briefing | Labor
September 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/us/18brfs-UNIONREJOINI_BRF.html?ref=us
6) Unemployment in California at 12%, Highest in Nearly 70 Years
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
September 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/19/us/19calif.html?hp
7) August Joblessness Hit 10% in 14 States and D.C.
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
September 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/19/business/economy/19jobless.html?ref=business
8) Why Health Care Will Never Be Equal
By N. GREGORY MANKIW
Economic View
September 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/health/policy/20view.html?ref=business
9) Racially charged killing ignites Ill. community
By SOPHIA TAREEN, AP
Sat Sep 19, 5:01 PM EDT
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jNZJ5EzVF4aLqdoTRAhf_gnugxNgD9AQKD9G1
10) Mississippi's Failure
Editorial
September 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/opinion/21mon1.html?hp
11) General Calls for More U.S. Troops to Avoid Afghan Failure
By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER
September 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/world/asia/21afghan.html?hp
12) Life Without Bumblebees? It's Not Just Honeybees That Are Mysteriously Dying
By Adam Federman, Earth Island Journal
Posted on September 15, 2009, Printed on September 22, 2009
AlterNet
http://www.alternet.org/story/142616/
http://www.alternet.org/environment/142616/life_without_bumblebees_it%27s_not_just_honeybees_that_are_mysteriously_dying
13) The Hard and Bitter Truth
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
September 22, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/opinion/22herbert.html?hp
14) Rallies Set Across Nation to Protest Big Insurance
by Mike Hall
September 21, 2009
http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/09/21/rallies-set-across-nation-to-protest-big-insurance/
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1) U.N. Chief Says Working Poor Still Suffer
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
September 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/world/18nations.html?ref=world
UNITED NATIONS - While economists in developed nations are cautiously pointing to the first signs of renewed economic growth, the global financial crisis is slamming some of the working poor around the world, Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, said Thursday.
"There is talk of green shoots of recovery, but our data show another picture," Mr. Ban told a news conference. "It is not the chronic poor who are most affected, but the near and working poor whose lives had improved significantly over the past decade."
Although the ability of the United Nations or any other global entity to collect accurate figures about poverty is in dispute, a point Mr. Ban conceded, there is general consensus that the poorest people in the world are staggering from the impact of the crisis.
Some 100 heads of state and government are expected to gather at the United Nations in New York beginning next Tuesday for what the organization is calling its biggest annual assembly ever. Much of the focus will be on climate change, with a special meeting on the subject the first day.
But Mr. Ban also wants to highlight the need to keep aid flowing in the middle of still-turbulent economic times. He compiled a report, "Voices of the Vulnerable," which he distributed to all the foreign missions on Thursday and plans to make a centerpiece of his own address to the General Assembly.
It includes a variety of grim figures:
¶As many as 222 million workers run the risk of joining the ranks of the working poor, earning less than $1.25 a day, according to an estimate by the International Labor Organization.
¶Remittance flows, which reached $328 billion in 2008, will drop by 7.3 percent in 2009, the World Bank predicts.
¶Hunger rates are up in every region in the world, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.
There are also figures for how many people would be viewed as living below the poverty line, with the report suggesting it will be more than 1.3 billion people, up by more than 100 million in 2009.
But there is no consensus on that number. New World Bank figures suggest that while the overall number of poor people is falling, it is not falling as fast as it might. There are 50 million people living in poverty, defined as those making less than $1.25 a day, who might have climbed out in the absence of the economic crisis, said Martin Ravallion, director of the Development Research Group at the World Bank.
"If it wasn't for the crisis, the number of impoverished would have been 50 million lower," he said, noting the trend was continuing, with data for this year still incomplete.
Some economists dispute the data, claiming that the United Nations is pushing numbers that have little basis in reality to justify its own programs.
"When you start talking about the number of people who live on less than $1.25 a day, we just don't have any hard evidence for that," said Prof. William Easterly, the co-director of the Development Research Institute at New York University. "Talking about the acuity of the crisis based on these numbers is more of a political exercise than an exercise in real analysis - they want to raise the moral urgency."
Mr. Ban acknowledged in the report that despite its far-flung agencies, the United Nations lacks real-time data to gauge the full extent of the problem. "The current snapshot is in shades of gray, not full color," he wrote.
One of his proposals is for the international community to provide the financing for just such a global data-collection system.
The idea that the effects of the economic crisis, with its plunging employment rates and dropping demand for raw materials, have been delayed across the developing world is more a matter of anecdotes. "The economic crisis generally has hit poor countries later than it did the rich world," said Jon Slater, the spokesman for Oxfam International, based in London. "Rather than hit by the financial collapse, they were hit by falling trade flows, falling investments, falling remittances."
Unemployment numbers also tend to reflect the loss of jobs in developed nations that track such figures much more closely. In poorer countries, employment tends to be much more diffuse as more family members take the lowest-paying jobs in order to survive, said Lawrence J. Johnson, chief of the employment trends group at the I.L.O. Those coping mechanisms have also been battered by recent events - drought, then rising food prices, then the financial crisis.
The most pessimistic estimates on employment and the working poor may not be reached, however, because some global companies are beginning to increase their demand for raw materials from poorer nations, which tends to help better-paying jobs, he said.
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2) Judge Rules Pittsburgh Must Allow Protest at G-20
By SEAN D. HAMILL
September 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/us/18pittsburgh.html?ref=world
PITTSBURGH - A federal judge on Thursday ordered the City of Pittsburgh to allow a group's tent city protest during the Group of 20 meeting next week, but he denied two other requests for permits for demonstrations, saying the city's goal of "protecting visiting foreign leaders is of the highest interest."
The judge, Gary L. Lancaster of Federal District Court, made his ruling just over a week before the leaders of 20 of the world's largest and emerging economies meet here in a gathering that has become a rallying point for a variety of protesters.
Six groups sued the city, state and federal governments last week after being denied permits after months of discussions.
Since their lawsuit was filed, the city granted permits to three of the groups: for an interfaith march by the G6 Billion group; for another march by the group Bail Out the People; and for permits for a group of artists to use a city park.
Judge Lancaster granted one of the remaining groups, CodePink, the right to use Point State Park in downtown Pittsburgh to hold a tent city demonstration Sunday night through Tuesday night. The city had tried to deny the permit, saying it would conflict with a run in the park, as well as a free-speech festival being organized by a group supported by former Vice President Al Gore. Denying CodePink the right to hold its tent city "would result in the loss of CodePink's First Amendment freedoms," Judge Lancaster ruled.
Jules Lobel, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which was representing the organizations along with the American Civil Liberties Union, said the ruling for use of the park "shows that it's not just for the powerful, but for everyone."
Judge Lancaster denied a request from the Thomas Merton Center to end a march through the city on Sept. 25 with a rally on the Seventh Street Bridge, near the convention center where the meeting will be held.
He said the city's view that such a rally, with 5,000 to 7,000 people on a bridge, would be unsafe was valid. The judge also denied a request from the 3 Rivers Climate Convergence to camp out overnight in a city park all of next week because it would put too much of a burden on the city to clean up after the campers, and set a precedent for other groups.
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3) Inmate Will Testify About Failed Execution
By BOB DRIEHAUS
September 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/us/18ohio.html?ref=us
CINCINNATI - Two days after the execution of a convicted rapist-murderer was halted when technicians were unable to inject him with lethal drugs, a federal judge ordered Thursday that the inmate be deposed for a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Ohio's lethal injection procedure.
The deposition for the inmate, Romell Broom, is set for Monday, a day before he is scheduled to be executed. His lawyers said they planned to file appeals in state and federal courts on Friday seeking to cancel or at least postpone his execution.
One of his lawyers, Adele Shank, said the appeals would present three arguments that executing Mr. Broom on Tuesday would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. They will contend that seven days is not enough time to recover from the physical and emotional trauma of the failed execution attempt, that Ohio's lethal injection system in its current form is critically flawed and that lethal injection, in general, is cruel and unusual punishment.
The execution of Mr. Broom, 53, was postponed Tuesday after technicians tried and failed for more than two hours to maintain an IV connection in order to inject him with lethal drugs.
On Thursday, federal public defenders argued before the judge, Gregory L. Frost of Federal District Court in Columbus, Ohio, that evidence supporting their case against lethal injection would be irretrievably lost if they were not able to interview Mr. Broom before his death.
"He has relevant evidence that needs to be preserved," said David C. Stebbins, an assistant federal public defender in Columbus. "Mr. Broom has, of course, the most relevant testimony of what exactly they did to him and the amount of pain he was put in."
The deposition is for a case in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.
"The core of the complaint," Mr. Stebbins said, "is that there are insufficient protections built into the Ohio procedures that guarantee it will be a painless execution, that the protocols are not sufficient to guard against mistakes and that they don't cover all issues like in Mr. Broom's case."
Mr. Broom was convicted of the 1984 abduction, rape and killing of Tryna Middleton, 14, who had been walking home from a football game in Cleveland with two friends. He maintains his innocence.
His case is the first in which an execution by lethal injection in the United States has failed and then been rescheduled, according to Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, in Washington.
Along with the court appeals, Mr. Broom's lawyers are asking Gov. Ted Strickland to delay or commute the death sentence.
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4) With Recruiting Goals Exceeded, Marines Toughen Their Ad Pitch
By JAMES DAO
September 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/us/18marines.html?ref=us
Calvin Klein it's not. The advertisement shows men crawling through mud and under barbed wire, being smacked in the head with padded fighting sticks, vomiting after inhaling tear gas and diving, boots and all, into a swimming pool.
If it sounds like a teaser for a survival reality show, that's not far off the mark. On Saturday, the Marine Corps will unveil its newest advertising campaign, and unlike past campaigns featuring the Marines' stately Silent Drill Platoon in dress uniform, the new spot highlights in high-definition detail the grit, sweat and tears of boot camp.
"It's not soft," said Maj. Gen. Robert E. Milstead Jr., who heads the Marine Corps Recruiting Command. "It's not showing people in a nice uniform. It's not showing all the good things. It's in your face."
The new approach is a result of recruiting successes, General Milstead said. Thanks in part to the weak economy, the corps is ahead of its recruiting goals not only for this year but for the next three as well. And so the high command has concluded that it can be pickier about new recruits.
"We're going to toss a challenge," General Milstead said. "And if you rise to the challenge, we'll make you only one promise: we'll make you a United States Marine. That resonates to young men and women."
The corps is not the only service meeting its goals. As is typical when job markets are weak, all the services have been meeting or exceeding their targets, including the Army, which struggled just a few years ago when the economy was strong and the Iraq war was sending home large numbers of casualties.
General Milstead said that in 2008, the corps had its most bountiful recruiting year since 1984, bringing in about 42,000 new Marines. He also noted that the quality of recruits was higher: nearly 99 percent this year are high school graduates, up from 95 percent in 2007.
The bumper crop has been such that many new enlistees must now wait six months or more to get a spot in boot camp, and the corps has already met its five-year mission to expand by 27,000 Marines. Two years ago, when Congress authorized the corps, the smallest of the military services, to grow to 202,000 from 175,000, the leadership thought it could not reach the goal until 2012. Instead, it was reached this summer.
The new advertising campaign tries to capitalize on the Marines' image, part reality and part burnished myth, as the toughest and most selective of the services. A 60-second spot shows three young men - one black, one Latino and one white - hearing a silent call, and then running toward the rigors of basic training, a drill instructor shouting, "Move it!"
The spot, which will first be televised during the Florida-Tennessee college football game on CBS this Saturday and during pro football games Sunday and then Monday night, was produced by JWT, the advertising agency that has long been a consultant to the corps. The director was Simon Crane, whose film credits include helping direct the Normandy beach scene in "Saving Private Ryan."
Shot on location mostly at Parris Island, S.C., the corps's East Coast training station, the spot shows real Marines doing real basic training exercises, although actually the Marines shown are members of the elite Silent Drill Platoon, not new recruits.
With its focus on men doing rigorous basic training exercises, the new spot has a more testosterone-fueled quality than last year's campaign, which featured the precise rifle-handling exhibition of the Silent Drill Platoon at iconic American locales, from Times Square to the Hoover Dam.
It also makes no effort to show the emotional or mental challenges involved in being a Marine, like coping with combat stress or death. General Milstead said future spots might take on some of those themes.
General Milstead called the new campaign, titled "America's Few," a "prequel" to last year's campaign, because it shows how recruits are transformed into Marines. "It's the truthful, gritty image of what it takes," he said.
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5) Union Rejoining A.F.L.-C.I.O.
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
National Briefing | Labor
September 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/us/18brfs-UNIONREJOINI_BRF.html?ref=us
Unite Here, a union largely representing hotel and restaurant workers, said it was rejoining the A.F.L.-C.I.O. The union was one of seven that quit the federation four years ago. John W. Wilhelm, president of Unite Here, which has 265,000 members, announced the move in Pittsburgh six months after his union split apart. The leaders of the union's apparel workers' wing led an exodus by more than 100,000 members and formed a new union, Workers United. Mr. Wilhelm said some of the other breakaway unions were holding reunification talks as well. "While every union will make its own decision, we hope the labor movement continues to move towards total unity," he said.
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6) Unemployment in California at 12%, Highest in Nearly 70 Years
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
September 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/19/us/19calif.html?hp
LOS ANGELES - California's unemployment rate in August hit its highest point in nearly 70 years, starkly underscoring how the nation's incipient economic recovery continues to elude millions of Americans looking for work.
While job losses continue to fall, the new unemployment rate - 12.2 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics - is far above the national average of 9.7 percent and places the country's largest state fourth behind Michigan, Nevada and Rhode Island.Statistics kept by the state show California's unemployment rate was 14.7 percent in 1940, according to Kevin Callori, a spokesman for the California Employment Development Department.While California has convulsed under the same blows as the rest of the country over the last two years, its exposure to both the foreclosure crisis and the slowdown in construction - an industry that has fueled growth in much of the state over the last decade - has been outsized.
Total building levels in California have fallen from $63 billion in 2005 to $23 billion this year; home building this year is less than a quarter of what it was in 2005, according to the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. Roughly 500,000 of the state's job losses have been in construction, finance, real estate and ancillary industries related to construction, which has left thousands searching for work.
"We were at the epicenter of the housing bubble and we are at the epicenter of the fallout," said Stephen Levy, senior economist and director of the center. "The reason we are doing worse in California than other states is construction."
While California has enjoyed some signs of a comeback in recent months, unemployment, which is often the last economic indicator to turn around in a protracted recession, is expected to remain high in the state in the near future. For example, a recent study by the University of California in Los Angeles predicted that while the state will enjoy 2 percent quarterly growth in 2010, the unemployment rate would remain above 10 percent.
Such numbers have caused deep pain to a state overly reliant on personal income taxes to balance its budget. The stock market crash, which greatly reduced personal wealth in the state, and job losses related to the housing bust combined to smash that revenue line.
In July, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a budget that closed a roughly $24 billion two-year gap with extensive cuts to social services, parks and education. This has left the state with large numbers of people without jobs seeking government services in a reduced state, further pressing its resources, and further weakened potential consumer spending among laid off and furloughed government workers.
The governor seized on California's grim milestone Friday to make a case for his current pet projects - revising the state's tax system, fixing its broken water system, which has contributed to unemployment in the state's farm regions, and tapping the federal government for all he can get.
"The latest unemployment numbers reinforce the importance of combining federal, state and local efforts to put Californians back to work and to help all those struggling in this difficult economy," Mr. Schwarzenegger said. "Immediately addressing our challenges, which include reforming the state's antiquated tax structure and updating our water delivery system will move the state forward and build a stronger, more diverse economy. While I am pleased to see fewer jobs lost, my administration will not rest until job growth resumes and employment returns to normal."
Earlier this week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke proclaimed that the country was emerging from its protracted recession, and doubtlessly, California is showing its own signs of recovery: In Southern California, the center of the housing bust, home sales rose 11 percent in August from a year earlier, and prices have begun to tick up as well; the state's exports are once again growing as international economics, particularly in Asia, have begun to recover and create demand for goods and layoffs have slowed statewide.
"Any economist would tell you we're in a recovery," Mr. Levy said. "Job losses are lessening, the GDP is rising, the housing market is stabilizing, and have you looked at the stock market lately? But the unemployment rate is the thing families care about. They don't care about GDP or China coming back, they care about jobs."
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7) August Joblessness Hit 10% in 14 States and D.C.
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
September 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/19/business/economy/19jobless.html?ref=business
In 14 states and the District of Columbia at least a tenth of the work force was unemployed in August, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report released Friday.
Even as some economic indicators in housing and elsewhere showed signs of improvement, jobless rates declined in 16 states from July to August. In every other state the portion of workers who could not find jobs stagnated or, in most places, grew.
Compared with the same time last year, unemployment rates increased in every state and the District of Columbia, fueling expectations that the many government efforts to tame the recession will not prevent a jobless recovery.
"We're not really seeing recovery anywhere yet, and it'll still be awhile before we see much of a difference," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
The regions that have been hit hardest - primarily those with once-bustling construction and manufacturing industries - continue to suffer, Mr. Baker said. "The only positive news, probably going into next year, will be slower rates of decline, not job additions."
Michigan continued to have the country's highest jobless rate, at a seasonally adjusted 15.2 percent, compared with a national rate of 9.7 percent. In the Detroit metropolitan area, the rate reached 17.3 percent.
Nevada and Rhode Island followed Michigan, with unemployment rates of 13.2 percent and 12.8 percent, respectively. The rates in Nevada, Rhode Island and California - where unemployment reached 12.2 percent - were the highest on record for those states.
Generally, Western states had the weakest job markets, with Plains-state labor forces relatively more resilient. North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska all registered jobless rates of 5 percent or lower. Compared with places like California, unemployment has barely budged in these states over the last year.
Nonfarm payroll jobs - calculated from a different government survey - declined in 42 states and the District of Columbia. Texas lost the most jobs from July to August of this year, with a net loss of 62,200 positions. It was followed by Michigan and Georgia.
North Carolina, Montana and West Virginia registered the biggest month-over-month increases in nonfarm payrolls. Economists caution that because such monthly state payroll measures can be volatile, these increases may not indicate a turnaround.
New York did not have a statistically significant change in payroll employment from July to August, but over the last year the state had lost 188,400 jobs.
The state's unemployment rate was 9 percent in August, up from 8.6 percent in July, and unemployment in New York City alone reached 10.3 percent in August, from 9.5 percent in July.
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8) Why Health Care Will Never Be Equal
By N. GREGORY MANKIW
Economic View
September 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/health/policy/20view.html?ref=business
EVERY morning, I take a small white pill that makes me think deep philosophical thoughts about the American health care system, the value of life, and the relationship between man and state. No, it is not some illegal psychedelic left over from the 1960s along with my tie-dyed T-shirts. But if you bear with me, I bet this pill will have the same effect on you.
The pill is a statin - a type of pharmaceutical developed over the last few decades to lower a person's cholesterol. My father died of cardiovascular disease, and unfortunately I inherited his genetic predisposition. Yet I am hoping that modern medicine will help me avoid his fate. So like millions of middle-age men, I take my little pill every morning.
Here is the question I ask as the pill passes through my lips: Is it worth it?
Now you might be tempted to say, "Of course it is." Most people would prefer to avoid an early death. If the wonders of modern science might put off the inevitable for a while longer, why not give it a shot?
And that is, indeed, how I thought about the decision when my doctor recommended the treatment. One thing I did not consider was the price. Like most consumers of health care, I was insulated from economic concerns. I knew that the insurance company - and, indirectly, all its policyholders - would pick up most of the tab. This arrangement, encouraged by the tax system, ensures that I get the benefit of the pills while paying little of the extra costs they generate.
An optimist might hope that my doctor, or someone higher up in the health care hierarchy, made a rational cost-benefit calculation on society's behalf. To figure out whether my treatment makes sense, one would have to weigh the cost of the drug against the benefit of an extended life. And to do that, one would have to put a dollar value on my life - the kind of calculation that makes everyone but economists squirm.
Not long ago, I read that a physician estimated that statins cost $150,000 for each year of life saved. That approximate figure reflects not only the dollars patients and insurance companies spend on the treatment but also - and just as important - an estimate of how effective it is in prolonging life. (That number is for men. Women have a lower risk of heart disease.)
That estimate is, at best, approximate, but it certainly suggests that preventive care is not always cheap. The magnitude of the figure also brings to mind hard questions of political philosophy.
Imagine that someone invented a pill even better than the one I take. Let's call it the Dorian Gray pill, after the Oscar Wilde character. Every day that you take the Dorian Gray, you will not die, get sick, or even age. Absolutely guaranteed. The catch? A year's supply costs $150,000.
Anyone who is able to afford this new treatment can live forever. Certainly, Bill Gates can afford it. Most likely, thousands of upper-income Americans would gladly shell out $150,000 a year for immortality.
Most Americans, however, would not be so lucky. Because the price of these new pills well exceeds average income, it would be impossible to provide them for everyone, even if all the economy's resources were devoted to producing Dorian Gray tablets.
So here is the hard question: How should we, as a society, decide who gets the benefits of this medical breakthrough? Are we going to be health care egalitarians and try to prohibit Bill Gates from using his wealth to outlive Joe Sixpack? Or are we going to learn to live (and die) with vast differences in health outcomes? Is there a middle way?
These questions may seem the stuff of science fiction, but they are not so distant from those lurking in the background of today's health care debate. Despite all the talk about waste and abuse in our health system (which no doubt exists to some degree), the main driver of increasing health care costs is advances in medical technology. The medical profession is always figuring out new ways to prolong and enhance life, and that is a good thing, but those new technologies do not come cheap. For each new treatment, we have to figure out if it is worth the price, and who is going to get it.
The push for universal coverage is based on the appealing premise that everyone should have access to the best health care possible whenever they need it. That soft-hearted aspiration, however, runs into the hardheaded reality that state-of-the-art health care is increasingly expensive. At some point, someone in the system has to say there are some things we will not pay for. The big question is, who? The government? Insurance companies? Or consumers themselves? And should the answer necessarily be the same for everyone?
Inequality in economic resources is a natural but not altogether attractive feature of a free society. As health care becomes an ever larger share of the economy, we will have no choice but to struggle with the questions of how far we should allow such inequality to extend and what restrictions on our liberty we should endure in the name of fairness.
In the end of our day of philosophizing, however, we face a practical decision:
Who gets the magic pills, and who pays for them?
N. Gregory Mankiw is a professor of economics at Harvard. He was an adviser to President George W. Bush.
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9) Racially charged killing ignites Ill. community
By SOPHIA TAREEN, AP
Sat Sep 19, 5:01 PM EDT
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jNZJ5EzVF4aLqdoTRAhf_gnugxNgD9AQKD9G1
The anger spread almost as quickly as the news: an unarmed black man was fatally shot by two white police officers inside a northern Illinois church-run day care filled with children.
Competing stories about how 23-year-old Mark Anthony Barmore died last month have reopened racial wounds in the struggling city of Rockford, sparking outrage that has resonated for weeks - not just about whether the shooting was justified.
Barmore's death has become a symbol of unequal opportunities in this manufacturing town of about 160,000 where blacks lag far behind whites in jobs, education and income. The meandering Rock River divides the town largely along racial lines - whites on the east and blacks on the west, where aging and shuttered buildings line streets.
"It was really unsettling, because you're supposed to rely on police to protect you," black resident Maryann King, 41, said of Barmore's death. "It's really put division in the community. People are mad."
Barmore, a lifelong Rockford resident, was spotted Aug. 24 by patrol officers Oda Poole and Stan North outside the Kingdom Authority International Ministries Church he occasionally attended. Wanted for questioning in a domestic dispute, Barmore ducked into the adjoining House of Grace Daycare and Preschool. Police followed.
Authorities say the officers and Barmore struggled over a police gun, leading both officers to shoot. Witnesses, however, including the Rev. Melvin Brown's wife and teenage daughter, say Barmore came out of a storage closet where he had hidden and surrendered, but police shot him anyway in front of young children.
Barmore died at the scene of a gunshot wound to the neck and several to the back, said Winnebago County coroner Sue Fiduccia, who declined to give details citing pending tests.
Reaction was swift. Residents, outraged the shooting happened in church and that both officers had previously used deadly force, held rallies. National NAACP representatives traveled to the city about 90 miles northwest of Chicago to demand federal standards of police use of force. A Cook County task force was called to investigate. Department of Justice mediators were dispatched to quell unrest.
The anger was palpable weeks later as rally-goers wore T-shirts with a picture of Police Chief Chet Epperson that read "Death is only a phone call away."
Some believed a church in a more affluent neighborhood would be treated differently.
"It was in the 'hood," said resident Sonia Brown, 42, who is black. "Had it been anywhere else, there would have been a stakeout and they would have brought in a negotiator."
Epperson declined to be interviewed. A police spokeswoman declined to discuss details citing a pending investigation. The officers, who declined to comment, were placed on paid administrative leave.
"They're both shaken up," said Tim O'Neil, the police union attorney who said the community shouldn't rush to judgment. "They're human beings and they realize that a human being lost his life in this incident."
North, 47, a 22-year Rockford police veteran, shot someone in 2003. Poole, 37, who also won a 2007 medal of honor for saving children from a burning building, had shot three people, one fatally, in his five years with Rockford. Grand juries found all incidents justified.
Former Rockford resident Jason Andrews, 33, who lived on the west side, created an "Officer North and Poole Support" Facebook page with more than 3,000 members.
"They were being unfairly portrayed and not getting a fair shake," said Andrews, who is white. He organized a march of about 1,000 people Saturday to show support for the city's officers.
Carrying signs that read "We support the police" and "I support Stan and Oda," the marchers burst into applause when they passed by the police department's headquarters. Later, the wives of the officers involved in the shooting thanked the crowd for its support.
Barmore's death is about more than police, say activists. Protesters think city leaders could redevelop the west side and bring jobs.
"It started with the Barmore shooting," Sonia Brown said. "We expect justice not only for him, but for ourselves also."
The Rev. Jesse Jackson visited the city, calling attention to an unemployment rate that topped 15 percent in July - the state's highest - and has hit minorities even harder.
The unemployment rate among whites in Illinois was 5.7 percent in 2008, compared with 12.1 percent among blacks, according to the latest state statistics. The median income for a white household in Rockford is nearly $42,000, compared with around $23,000 for a black household.
"The facts are that if you're an African-American male in Rockford, you're more likely to get arrested than graduate from high school," said Mayor Larry Morrissey, who is white.
Barmore was a troubled youth who grew up poor, became a ward of the state, dropped out of school, had parents in jail and then went to prison himself for a battery conviction.
His father, Anthony Stevens, has felt overwhelmed, particularly as he recalled seeing the lifeless body of his son - a father and aspiring rapper.
"If you have seen what I have seen," he said, "they slaughtered him like a pig."
But many say Barmore's death can be a catalyst for change.
"It brought us together," said Rockford retiree Brazz Scott, 69. "We took a good look at ourselves; we've been dragging our feet."
City leaders hope that change will help keep peace when investigators determine whether the officers acted properly.
"The Barmore incident has challenged the community and exposed a lot of the underlying frustrations," Morrissey said. "It ignited the passions and frustrations ... it brought them to the surface."
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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10) Mississippi's Failure
Editorial
September 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/opinion/21mon1.html?hp
Mississippi is trumpeting its success at rebuilding since Hurricane Katrina decimated its Gulf Coast counties four years ago. But that progress has largely bypassed people like James Johnson, an impoverished and arthritic 74-year-old who has been sleeping on a thin cushion in a FEMA trailer, searching for help to rebuild his shattered home.
Mr. Johnson finally got some good news recently when a group associated with the Presbyterian Church committed to build him a new home. But the years of worry and discomfort have taken a heavy physical and emotional toll on this fiercely independent man.
This is not what Congress envisioned when it approved an initial $5.5 billion in disaster relief for Mississippi. It was disaster aid. The law required states and localities to spend 50 percent of the money on low- and moderate-income families. Over time, however, the state managed to get waivers and found other ways to spend the money on different projects.
In Mr. Johnson's case, the problem was too narrow a definition of disaster relief. According to a startling new report by the Steps Coalition, a watchdog group, Mr. Johnson and thousands of other homeowners were shut out of the state's assistance program because their homes were destroyed by wind rather than water.
While many Mississippians languished without help, the Bush administration's Department of Housing and Urban Development allowed the state to shift $600 million of the recovery money to the refurbishment and expansion of the Port of Gulfport - a pet project of local politicians that was conceived long before Katrina.
The Mississippi N.A.A.C.P. and the Gulf Coast Fair Housing Center have sued HUD to try to reverse the decision, arguing that it violates the federal regulations governing the disbursal of the disaster assistance. Some members of the House have called on Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi to restore the money to affordable-housing projects in what is, after all, the poorest state.
Congress may not be able to block the Gulfport project. But it needs to make sure that federal disaster aid is never hijacked this way again - and that money intended for affordable housing is spent on it.
The report paints a distressing picture of the affordable housing market in the state. It says the state was slow off the mark in spending federal money and once it got started, spent a large proportion on projects that were not targeted on the poorest people, who were "last in line for less relief."
The affordable housing stock was devastated by the storm. The coalition estimates, based on state data, that Mississippi is now on pace to produce 15,000 fewer affordable housing units than it projected in 2008. Last spring, Mississippi requested 5,000 housing vouchers from the federal government, many for people who could not afford soaring rents.
Mississippi is not alone. Projects intended to help low-income citizens have also run into problems in neighboring Louisiana, where proposals for new public housing encountered opposition.
Federal lawmakers reacted to the Mississippi problem in a subsequent disaster allocation by requiring that states set aside specific amounts of money for housing. They are also considering new laws that would tighten waiver provisions and prevent the states from using disaster aid as a goody bag of funding for pet projects. These legislative changes can't come soon enough.
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11) General Calls for More U.S. Troops to Avoid Afghan Failure
By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER
September 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/world/asia/21afghan.html?hp
WASHINGTON - The top military commander in Afghanistan warns in a confidential assessment of the war there that he needs additional troops within the next year or else the conflict "will likely result in failure."
The grim assessment is contained in a 66-page report that the commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, submitted to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Aug. 30, and which is now under review by President Obama and his top national security advisers.
The disclosure of details in the assessment, reported Sunday night by The Washington Post, coincided with new skepticism expressed by President Obama about sending any more troops into Afghanistan until he was certain that the strategy was clear.
His remarks came as opposition to the eight-year-old war within his own party is growing.
General McChrystal's view offered a stark contrast, and the language he used was striking.
"Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near term (next 12 months) - while Afghan security capacity matures - risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible," General McChrystal writes.
A copy of the assessment, with some operational details removed at the Pentagon's request to avoid compromising future operations, was posted on The Post's Web site.
In his five-page commander's summary, General McChrystal ends on a cautiously optimistic note: "While the situation is serious, success is still achievable."
But throughout the document, General McChrystal warns that unless he is provided more forces and a robust counterinsurgency strategy, the war in Afghanistan is most likely lost.
Pentagon and military officials involved in Afghanistan policy say General McChrystal is expected to propose a range of options for additional troops beyond the 68,000 American forces already approved, from 10,000 to as many as 45,000.
General McChrystal's strategic assessment could well fuel the public anxiety over the war that has been fast increasing in recent weeks as American casualties have risen, allied commanders have expressed surprise at the Taliban's fighting prowess, and allegations of ballot fraud Afghanistan's recent presidential elections have escalated.
In a series of interviews on the Sunday morning talk shows, Mr. Obama expressed skepticism about sending more American troops to Afghanistan until he was sure his administration had the right strategy to succeed.
"Right now, the question is, the first question is, are we doing the right thing? Are we pursuing the right strategy?" Mr. Obama said on CNN. "When we have clarity on that, then the question is, O.K., how do we resource it?"
Mr. Obama said that he and his top advisers had not delayed any request for additional troops from General McChrystal because of the political delicacy of the issue or other domestic priorities.
"No, no, no, no," Mr. Obama said when asked on CNN's "State of the Union" whether General McChrystal had been told to sit on his request.
Mr. Obama said his decision "is not going to be driven by the politics of the moment."
In an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation," Mr. Obama said his top priority was to protect the United States against attacks from Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
"Whatever decisions I make are going to be based first on a strategy to keep us safe, then we'll figure out how to resource it," the president said. "We're not going to put the cart before the horse and just think by sending more troops we're automatically going to make Americans safe," he said.
Mr. Obama and his advisers have said they need time to absorb the assessment of the Afghanistan security situation that General McChrystal submitted three weeks ago - a separate report from the general's expected request for forces - as well as the uncertainties created by the fraud-tainted Afghan elections.
"General McChrystal's strategic assessment of the situation in Afghanistan is a classified pre-decisional document, intended to provide President Obama and his national security team with the basis for a very important discussion about where we are now in Afghanistan and how to best to get to where we want to be," Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said Sunday night in a statement.
In his report, General McChrystal issues a withering critique of both his NATO command and the Afghan government. His NATO command, he says, is "poorly configured" for counterinsurgency and is "inexperienced in local languages and culture."
"The weakness of state institutions, malign actions of power-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials, and ISAF's own errors," General McChrystal says, referring to NATO, "have given Afghans little reason to support their government."
The general also describes an increasingly savvy insurgency that uses propaganda effectively and is using the Afghan prison system as a training ground. Taliban and Qaeda insurgents represent more than 2,500 of the 14,500 inmates in Afghanistan's overcrowded prisons.
"These detainees are currently radicalizing non-insurgent inmates," the report concludes.
Mr. Morrell declined to comment on details of the assessment.
Until Sunday, details of General McChrystal's report had not been made public.
Members of Congress were briefed on the reports and allowed to read copies of it in secure offices on Capitol Hill, but the lawmakers were not allowed to take notes.
General McChrystal has publicly stated many of the conclusions in his report: emphasizing the importance of protecting civilians over just engaging insurgents, restricting airstrikes to reduce civilian casualties, and sharply expanding the Afghan security forces and accelerating their training.
The Afghan government has about 134,000 police officers and 82,000 soldiers, although many are poorly equipped and have little logistical support.
General McChrystal has also signaled that he will seek to unify the effort of American allies that operate in Afghanistan, and possibly to ask them to contribute more troops, money and training.
Military officers said Sunday that General McChrystal had effectively completed his formal request for forces, and was prepared to send the proposal up through his hierarchy for review by Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of American forces in the Middle East; Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
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12) Life Without Bumblebees? It's Not Just Honeybees That Are Mysteriously Dying
By Adam Federman, Earth Island Journal
Posted on September 15, 2009, Printed on September 22, 2009
AlterNet
http://www.alternet.org/story/142616/
http://www.alternet.org/environment/142616/life_without_bumblebees_it%27s_not_just_honeybees_that_are_mysteriously_dying
Bombus franklini, a North American bumblebee, was last seen on August 9, 2006. Professor Emeritus Robbin Thorp, an entomologist at UC Davis, was doing survey work on Mt. Ashland in Oregon when he saw a single worker on a flower, Sulphur eriogonum, near the Pacific Crest Trail. He had last seen the bee in 2003, roughly in the same area, where it had once been very common. "August ninth," Thorp says. "I've got that indelibly emblazoned in my mind."
Thorp had been keeping tabs on the species since the late 1960s. In 1998, the US Forest Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management supported an intensive monitoring project to determine whether the bee should be listed as an endangered species, in part because of its narrow endemism. The total range of B. franklini is only 190 miles north to south, from southern Oregon to northern California, and 70 miles east to west between the Coast and Sierra-Cascade Ranges.
When Thorp began to monitor the bee, populations were robust, and he even estimated their range to be slightly further to the north and southwest than previously believed. The study was, in part, an attempt to find out why franklini's range is so restricted and other western bumblebees, such as its close relative Bombus occidentalis, are not. Thorp was investigating that question when something else occurred: Populations of both bees began to decline precipitously. "All of a sudden the bees disappeared out from under me," he says.
Bees, and particularly the European honeybee, Apis mellifera, have come to symbolize a deepening ecological crisis in North America. Colony Collapse Disorder, first reported in 2006, has been described as "an insect version of AIDS," ravaging honeybee colonies throughout North America. It has become a cause célèbre of sorts, embraced by Häagen-Dazs, which features the bee on some of its pints of ice cream and asks consumers to imagine a world without pears, raspberries, and strawberries. In fact, the US has become so dependent on honeybees for agricultural purposes that in 2005, for the first time in 85 years, the US allowed for the importation of honeybees to meet pollination demands. Although millions of dollars have been invested in an effort to pinpoint the cause, the honeybee lobby and some environmental organizations say it's not enough, and argue that if dairy cows were disappearing, the response would be slightly more engaged.
The decline of bumblebees has received far less attention, though in the public imagination their plight has often been conflated with that of the honeybee. Not only do bumblebees pollinate about 15 percent of our food crops (valued at $3 billion), they also occupy a critical role as native pollinators. Plant pollinator interactions can be so specific and thus the loss of even one species carries with it potentially severe ecological consequences. As E. O. Wilson writes, "If the last pollinator species adapted to a plant is erased ... the plant will soon follow." There are close to 50 bumblebee species in the United States and Canada that have evolved with various plants and flowers over the course of millions of years; our knowledge of those species, however, is incredibly weak.
In recent years, there has been much loose talk about the overall decline of pollinators, and the causes are manifold: habitat loss, pesticides, the spread of disease, and, without fail, global warming. The tendency to make sweeping claims about the demise of all pollinators has led to a lack of specificity when it comes to why particular species have declined, or in the case of B. franklini, disappeared. One of the only news stories to highlight the plight of bumblebees, published in The Washington Post last August, noted that "the causes of bumblebee decline are not scientifically defined and might be a combination of factors."
A crucial factor, according to Thorp and other scientists, was the rise of the commercial bumblebee rearing industry in the early 1990s, largely for greenhouse tomato pollination. Captive bees, they say, played a key role in spreading disease, which has led to the decline of several North American species, all of which belong to the same subgenus. If their theory proves to be correct, the rapid growth of the greenhouse tomato industry over the last two decades may have inadvertently wiped out a number of important native pollinators.
Around the same time that Thorp noticed a decline in B. franklini, John Ascher, a research scientist in the division of invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History, was having trouble finding samples of Bombus occidentalis, a common western bumblebee, for his personal collection in California. When Ascher went to graduate school in Ithaca, New York, he was able to find samples of Bombus affinis, B. terricola, and B. ashtoni without difficulty. (BB. affinis, terricola, franklini, and occidentalis belong to the same subgenus. B. ashtoni is a social parasite that specializes on members of this group). But in 2001, the bees began to disappear. B. terricola became rare, Ascher says, and BB. affinis and ashtoni nonexistent. The declines that Ascher, Thorp, and others observed were not site specific. A recent study carried out by Sheila Colla and Laurence Packer at York University in Toronto compared surveys of B. affinis - the species most closely related to B. franklini - from 1971-73 and 2004-06 both in Ontario and throughout its native range (18 sites in Canada and 35 in the US). From 2004 to 2006, they found only one individual of B. affinis, foraging on a woodland sunflower in Ontario's Pinery Provincial Park. None were found in the US.
"It would be like if you went out one day and there were no cardinals, or there were no mockingbirds anymore," Ascher says. "It's that obvious to bee people."
In 1997, just months before he began his monitoring project, Thorp attended a symposium of the Entomological Society of America during which he learned that an outbreak of Nosema bombi - a fungus that lives in the bees' intestinal tract - had wiped out commercial populations of B. occidentalis in North America. Breeders couldn't get rid of the disease and were suffering a shortage of colonies. In an e-mail to a bombus list-serv in 1998, Adrian Van Doorn, then head of the pollination department at Koppert Biological Systems, a commercial breeder, noted that they had been rearing B. occidentalis for several years with few problems, but that in 1997 the rearing stock had "become infected with N. bombi." There was no treatment for the disease, and the breeders were unable to eradicate it. A competing company, Biobest, suffered similar losses, and both companies would eventually phase out production of B. occidentalis altogether. Today they produce only one bee for distribution in all of North America: Bombus impatiens, an eastern bumblebee whose range extends from Maine to southern Florida. After observing sharp declines of B. franklini and B. occidentalis, Thorp began to wonder if there was a possible connection to the disease outbreak that had swept through the commercial facilities.
Thorp knew that the USDA Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) had allowed Biobest to ship queens of both B. occidentalis and impatiens to Belgium, where they were reared in facilities that likely housed the European bee Bombus terrestris, the preferred species of commercial breeders. The colonies were then shipped back to North America and distributed for use in greenhouse and possibly open field pollination in the US. This went on from 1992 to 1994 until APHIS, under pressure from scientists, conservation groups, and even some industry representatives, terminated the practice.
Thorp argues that while the bees were in European facilities that housed B. terrestris, they acquired an exotic strain of N. bombi. When the colonies were shipped back to the US and distributed, the commercial bees, which can easily escape from greenhouses if they aren't equipped with insect screens (and few were at the time), were able to infect related wild populations. The disease spread from there, carried by impatiens on the East Coast and B. occidentalis on the West.
"Basically, these two species in the West were declining while other bee species were thriving very well in the same areas," Thorp says. "It was not obvious habitat alteration or pesticides or global warming or other things that could potentially, and have on record, gotten rid of local bumblebee populations in various areas and are threats to bumblebees. This seemed to be very unique and very specific. And then it turned out that people in the East began noticing that two other very closely related species, which were at one time quite common, had also disappeared."
The evidence to support Thorp's hypothesis is circumstantial. A sudden and dramatic decline of several species belonging to the same subgenus points to the introduction of an exotic disease. The timing coincides with the outbreak of N. bombi within commercial rearing facilities, and there is an established point of entry via the importation of colonies from European rearing facilities during the early years of the industry. The big question is whether a European strain of N. bombi ever entered the country and whether scientists will ever be able to figure that out.
Both Koppert and Biobest strongly dispute Thorp's hypothesis and argue that the pathogen entered their facilities from wild bees collected for the purpose of replenishing genetic stock. In the early 1990s, Koppert helped to establish a joint venture, Bees West Inc., which had a rearing facility near Watsonville, California. Tom Kueneman, the founder of Bees West and one of those who opposed the trans-Atlantic shipment of bumblebees, says the company used only three collection sites within about 50 miles of Watsonville, and that there was only one small commercial greenhouse nearby; otherwise, the nearest facilities were at least 150 miles from the company's headquarters. Kueneman adds that Koppert and Bees West had close to 99 percent of the market share west of the Rockies and that Biobest had a very small presence there. "It's really a non-story if you want to look at scientific facts," he says.
Kueneman and Rene Ruiter, Koppert's general manager, argue that the very wet El Niño years and high humidity of the mid-1990s led to a higher prevalence of N. bombi among native populations of B. occidentalis. When those bees were collected and housed at high density, the disease spread quickly and wiped out the commercial stock.
"Back in the '90s, we collected B. occidentalis in California ... and it had a lot of nosema," Ruiter says. "That was the reason why we discontinued B. occidentalis. The bee itself contained nosema and we were unable to stamp it out."
But at the time, there were few regulations governing what was then a young industry, and no one was keeping a close eye on where the bees were being shipped once they entered the US, if they were housed in facilities with insect screens, and if colonies were properly disposed of after use.
Indeed, the commercial bumblebee industry has grown so rapidly in the last two decades that it is hard to remember what life was like before cherry and grape tomatoes were available in supermarkets year round. Although certain species were exported from England to New Zealand in the 1870s and 1880s for red clover pollination, and attempts to rear bumblebees were made in the early 1900s, their use on a commercial scale is relatively new.
Dr. R. De Jonghe first used B. terrestris for tomato pollination in the mid-1980s and launched Biobest in 1987. "Within a few years in the Low Countries," writes Hayo H. W. Velthuis in a brief history of the domestication of the bumblebee, "there was hardly a tomato grower left that still used pollination through artificial vibration." (Artificial vibration refers to the costly practice of hand pollinating tomatoes, the industry norm before the use of bumblebees.) Koppert soon followed suit and began to rear bees for crop pollination on a commercial scale.
Since then, the greenhouse tomato industry has continued to expand - it represents roughly 17 percent of US fresh tomato supply - and with it the use of commercially reared bumblebees. "You can't grow them on that scale without the bees," says Martin Weijters, head grower at Houweling Nurseries, a large greenhouse facility in California. Mexico has far outpaced the US and Canada in greenhouse tomato production in recent years, and the use of bumblebees for blueberry and cranberry pollination has become increasingly popular.
In the early 1990s, few had heard of the commercial bumblebee industry and it remains unclear precisely how many colonies were imported from Europe and where they were sent. At the time, there were greenhouse facilities in British Columbia, Oregon, Washington, and California. Biobest's general manager, Richard Ward, who was not with the company at the time, says they probably imported no more than a few thousand colonies and that most if not all were B. impatiens. Ruiter says that since Koppert never sent queens to Europe, it would have been virtually impossible for an exotic strain of Nosema bombi to enter their rearing facilities.
Thorp argues, however, that the fact that Koppert never sent queens to Europe misses the point. They could have collected bees carrying a nonnative strain of N. bombi when they were replenishing their breeding stock. "If the disease organisms had gotten out into the field, they could easily have picked it up in their collections for replenishing their genetic stock," he says.
Although there is a trail of evidence establishing the shipment of queens to Europe and colonies back to North America, there is little documentation of the path the bees took once they returned. In a 2004 article, Robert V. Flanders, former USDA senior entomologist, said that the imported bees were distributed "throughout the United States with courtesy permits issued by APHIS."
According to Flanders, the bees were to be received by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture - the company distributing the bees, Beneficial Resources Inc., now defunct, was based in Pennsylvania - where they would be checked for parasites and pathogens. They were also to be accompanied by a zoosanitary certificate from the host country ensuring that the production facilities had been inspected and that the bees were free of pathogens.
Karl Valley, chief of the division of entomology at the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture at the time (and currently chief of the division of plant protection), says that the inspection involved removing a single bee from each package, placing it in alcohol, and examining the exterior portions of the body for mites. They did not look for pathogens or other diseases specific to bumblebees. He doesn't recall how many shipments they received, where the bees were sent after they were examined, or if records from that period still exist.
Additional specimens were also sent to the Bee Laboratory in Beltsville, MD. According to a permit issued in 1992 and obtained by Dr. Thorp through a Freedom Of Information Act request, some of the bees were quarantined at the Maryland facility. "When cleared," the document states, "Dr. Shumanuki [sic] will release the bees to you and notify this office."
Dr. Hachiro Shimanuki was the research leader at the Beltsville Lab at the time and now lives in Florida. He recalls having examined only one sample of bumblebees from Europe over a three-year period and says that the company provided the sample.
"We certainly couldn't tell you whether it was a one percent sample or a one-thousandth of a percent sample," he told me. "It was just something that they sent to us as being typical of the kind of shipment they would like to make."
"There was really no request to look for any particular disease," Shimanuki adds. "As I recall, I think all it was was: Would the importation endanger our honeybees? That was really the question I guess that we tried to resolve in some way. That was our concern. But other than that, we didn't know what to look for."
There's another note on the permit record. It states that Dr. De Jonghe, a veterinarian and founder of Biobest, is the largest producer of bumblebees in the world and that the bees are "certified to be free of pathogens."
Leamington, Ontario (the "Tomato Capital of Canada") until recently had the highest concentration of commercial greenhouses in all of North America. (That honor now goes to Mexico, where Koppert has had a rearing facility since 2004 and produces B. impatiens, a bee that is not native to Mexico or the West Coast, for crop pollination.) The number of bumblebees needed for greenhouse pollination can reach into the tens of thousands. Houweling Nurseries in southern California, with 124 acres under glass, introduces roughly 20 hives with between 50 and 70 bees twice a week. That comes close to 30,000 bees a year.
Although Houweling installed insect screens on all of its vent windows in 2000 (to keep other insects out, not to prevent bees from escaping), they are not required by law and, without them, worker bees can easily escape, forage for pollen in the wild, and then return to the greenhouse. (According to Kueneman, during the early years of the industry, less than half of all greenhouses were using insect screens.) Hives sent to the West Coast, far outside the native range of B. impatiens, must be equipped with queen excluders - a very narrow rectangular opening large enough only for workers to get out. When the growers are through with the hives, they are required by law to destroy them either by drowning the bees or freezing them overnight.
Michael Otterstatter has studied the interaction between wild bees and pathogens for more than two decades and, five years ago, with a team of scientists from the University of Toronto, decided to look at whether commercial bees had higher rates of disease and if those diseases were spilling into wild populations. Otterstatter conducted a straightforward study that compared the prevalence of four pathogens among bees foraging in close proximity to commercial greenhouses with bees foraging in areas where there were no greenhouses. They sampled from six sites in southwestern Ontario, including Leamington, and found that bees near commercial greenhouses had a much higher rate of disease than those collected elsewhere. In fact, the presence of Crithidia bombi, a gut pathogen that lives within the intestinal tract of bumblebees (like Nosema bombi) and can spread between bees at flowers, was found only in bees foraging near greenhouses.
"It actually turns out to be present in almost 90 percent of the [commercial] colonies we looked at," Otterstatter says. "Nearly all of them. And the other place that you find this pathogen is in populations of bees right around greenhouses, within a few kilometers....It really looked like a disease that you only find around greenhouses."
Otterstatter's research team also found that the prevalence of N. bombi was three times higher at the Leamington site than elsewhere and that the infections tended to be more intense. Otterstatter notes that every study of commercially reared bees conducted in North America, Europe, and elsewhere has revealed very high levels of parasitic organisms, many of which are rare or entirely absent from most wild populations.
Koppert's Ruiter points out that his company's bees were not used in Otterstatter's study and says that the unusually high rate of disease is not a reflection of the industry at large. "It's appalling that something like that happens," he says. "I'm embarrassed for my industry. On the other hand, when I called him about his study, he was forthright in admitting that he didn't use our material, which is a good sign for us that we are doing what we're supposed to be doing, which is keeping things disease free."
According to Ruiter, Koppert's bees are inspected every two weeks by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and annually by Michigan State University. Ward, of Biobest, says that their facility is inspected on a regular basis without warning and that every shipment of bees made to the US or Mexico must have a health certificate signed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).
The rise of the commercial bumblebee industry reveals the limits of APHIS's regulatory authority. Prior to 1997, when Koppert's bees were infected with N. bombi, there was a gentleman's agreement that B. occidentalis would be used only in the western United States and B. impatiens in the east, roughly within their natural ranges. In 1994, when the importation of bees from Europe was discontinued, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy spelled out the agency's policy in a letter addressing concerns raised by Congressman Sam Farr (D-CA). "Risk assessments conducted by APHIS officials indicate that this type of movement could result in the introduction of bumblebee pests and diseases into new areas, such as eastern species of parasitic nematodes into Western States," he wrote. Therefore APHIS would not be issuing permits for the movement of eastern species west of the 100th meridian and vice versa.
But now that B. occidentalis has been removed from the market, B. impatiens is shipped freely to western states. When I asked Wayne Wehling, senior entomologist at the USDA, if APHIS still agreed with its earlier risk assessments he said, "Well, yes. That's the simple answer.
"Certainly we have been all over the board with that," he acknowledged. "And I think we've been all over the board largely because of the lack of clarity in the regulatory authority as to what our capacities really are."
Although the same concerns apply today, there are few restrictions (other than the use of queen excluders) on the interstate shipment of B. impatiens in the US. The largest greenhouse tomato-producing states - Arizona, Texas, and Colorado - are all states in which the bee is not native, and while the companies are happy to abide by the law, they do not share the concern about the shipment of bees outside of their native ranges.
For conservationists and many scientists, the movement of an eastern species to the West is reckless. If a queen did somehow escape and the bee became naturalized, it could compete with local species for floral resources, and close relatives of B. impatiens would be susceptible to nonnative diseases. "The diseases that are in B. impatiens could be virulent in things out here. We just don't know and I don't think we want to risk trying," Thorp says.
Globally, the issues and potential problems are perhaps even more pressing. B. terrestris has been introduced to Japan and Chile, where it is not native, and has become naturalized. Two parasites previously unknown in Japan, including N. bombi, have entered the country along with the commercial bumblebees. There are reports that B. terrestris has migrated from Chile into Argentina and that the bee may have been spotted in Uruguay as well. It is only in the last few years that the importation of B. terrestris into Mexico has been stopped. According to Wehling, the bee has already established itself in areas surrounding greenhouse production in the state of Michoacan, west of Mexico City.
In Canada, a laissez-faire approach rules. The greenhouse industry in southwestern British Columbia relies heavily on commercial bumblebees and, although queen excluders must be present on all hives shipped west of the 100th meridian, most greenhouses do not have screens covering the vents, so worker bees would have no trouble escaping. Given the urgency of a memo from Agriculture Canada's Central Plant Health Laboratory to APHIS in 1993, this is even more surprising:
"We really must get together to discuss a plan of action," it reads. "It appears that attempts to limit the movement of Bombus is not working. Bombus impatiens is being moved into California. Perhaps there is a need to review the whole policy of Bombus importations into North America before all hell breaks loose."
The battle over the bees echoes other controversies that have erupted around domestication of previously wild species. One example cited frequently in the literature on bumblebees is the spread of sea lice among farmed salmon in the Pacific Northwest, which led to the decimation of wild populations. Many fishermen, conservationists, and activists warned early on that the proliferation of disease among farmed, nonnative Atlantic salmon could spread to wild fish. They were largely ignored and told that no evidence had been found to prove such a hypothesis and that in fact the pathogens had migrated from wild salmon to farm stock.
Large fish die-offs were observed as early as 1989. In 2001, an outbreak of sea lice in Broughton, British Columbia led to one of the most dramatic declines of wild salmon ever seen. In a single generation, local pink salmon runs fell from 3.6 million spawners to 147,000.
Bumblebees, of course, are not salmon, but some of the same principles apply. "Feedlot farming attempts to break immutable laws of nature by overcrowding animals, lowering their genetic diversity and putting them where they do not belong," wrote Alexandra Morton in an essay on salmon farming published in 2004. The titles of many such essays and books are becoming all too familiar: "Silent Spring of the Sea," Fruitless Fall, etc. In the case of bumblebees, there is a wealth of evidence pointing to the risks associated with the importation of nonnative species and of pathogen spillover. Yet, according to Otterstatter, Thorp, and others, the regulations in place are hardly adequate to ensure that risks are minimized. Discontinuing the shipment of bees beyond their native ranges and requiring all greenhouses to install insect screens would be a start, they say.
"Bumblebees are marvelous pollinators and I really wouldn't want to see the industry come to a halt," Thorp says. "But I would like to see a lot more protection of the potential environmental risk."
(c) 2009 Earth Island Journal All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/142616/
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13) The Hard and Bitter Truth
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
September 22, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/opinion/22herbert.html?hp
President Obama is in the uncomfortable position of staring reality in the face in Afghanistan. Reality is not blinking.
The president's handpicked point man in the war zone, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, wants more troops and a stepped-up commitment by the United States that would lock us into the conflict indefinitely, with nothing like an exit strategy in sight, or even a conception of what victory might look like.
Mr. Obama himself has banged the war drums loudly, having already increased the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and declaring just last month that the war is absolutely essential to American security, that it "is fundamental to the defense of our people."
Among the many problems for the president on this front is the sobering fact that most ordinary Americans do not seem to agree. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 51 percent of respondents believed the war has not been worth its costs, and only 26 percent favored sending more troops.
That does not bode well for an expensive and debilitating conflict that is about to enter its 9th year and would go on for untold years to come if the president decides to double down on America's military commitment.
Senator John McCain gave us a compelling insight into these matters in a foreword that he wrote about Vietnam for David Halberstam's book, "The Best and the Brightest":
"War is far too horrible a thing to drag out unnecessarily," he said. "It was a shameful thing to ask men to suffer and die, to persevere through god-awful afflictions and heartache, to endure the dehumanizing experiences that are unavoidable in combat, for a cause that the country wouldn't support over time and that our leaders so wrongly believed could be achieved at a smaller cost than our enemy was prepared to make us pay.
"No other national endeavor requires as much unshakable resolve as war. If the nation and the government lack that resolve, it is criminal to expect men in the field to carry it alone."
The only thing that needs to be updated about Mr. McCain's comments is that we now regularly send women as well as men off to war.
In the case of Afghanistan, we're sending them off to fight and possibly die in support of a government that is incompetent and riddled with corruption and narcotics traffickers. We're putting them in the field with Afghan forces that are ill trained, ill equipped and in all-too-many instances unwilling to fight with the courage and tenacity of the American forces. And we're sending them off to engage in a mishmash of a mission that alternates incoherently between aggressively fighting insurgents and the admirable but unachievable task of nation-building in a society in which most Americans are clueless about the history, culture, politics and mores.
In a confidential assessment of the war prepared for President Obama, General McChrystal wrote: "The weakness of state institutions, malign actions of power brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials and [the American-led NATO force's] own errors have given Afghans little reason to support their government."
A friend of mine who lives in South Carolina sent me an e-mail about a young serviceman in civilian clothes whom she and her husband noticed as he talked on a public telephone in the Atlanta airport last week. He was 19 or 20 years old and quite thin. His clothes and his shoes were worn, my friend said, but the thing she noticed most "was the sadness in his eyes and his sweet demeanor."
The young man was speaking to his mom in a voice that was quite emotional. My friend recalled him saying, "We're about to board for Oklahoma for the training before we move out. I didn't want to bother Amber at work, so please tell her I called if you don't think it will upset her too much. ... I miss you all so much and love you, and I just don't know how I'll get through this."
At the end of the call, the serviceman had tears in his eyes and my friend said she did, too. She wrote in the e-mail: "I stood up and wished him good luck, and he smiled the sweetest smile that has haunted me ever since."
As President Obama tries to decide what to do about Afghanistan, reality is insisting that he take into account the worn-down condition of our military after so many years of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the soaring budget deficits and sky-high unemployment numbers here at home in a country that is hurting badly and could use its own dose of nation-building.
Mr. Obama, in the face of these daunting realities, is said to be re-thinking his plans to ratchet up American involvement in Afghanistan. One can only hope.
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14) Rallies Set Across Nation to Protest Big Insurance
by Mike Hall
September 21, 2009
http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/09/21/rallies-set-across-nation-to-protest-big-insurance/
Health care activists around the nation tomorrow will tell the huge private health insurance companies that are spending millions of dollars to derail health care reform:
"Big Insurance: We're sick of it!"
In Philadelphia, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker will lead a rally and march from the steps of City Hall to CIGNA's world headquarters to call on their executives to stop standing in the way of quality affordable health care for all.
Says Holt Baker:
Here's the way we in labor see things-America is in a big fight over health care. The American people are on one side. Big Insurance is on the other side. Only one of us will win. We know if the insurance companies win, we all lose.
Other demonstrations are planned at the headquarters and local offices of Aetna, UnitedHealthcare and Wellpoint-including its subsidiary Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Check out our friends at Health Care for America Now (HCAN) to find an event near you. HCAN, the AFL-CIO, the Health Care for America Education Fund (HCAEF) and MoveOn are among the National Day of Action sponsors of events with the theme "Big Insurance: Sick of it!"
According to HCAN, the Big Insurance companies are spending $1.4 million a day
to oppose reform because they profit by keeping the system as it is, by denying claims, raising premiums, co-pays and deductibles at will, making health care decisions instead of our doctors, denying care because of pre-existing conditions.
As the private health insurance industry focuses on blocking affordable health care for everybody, people who aren't covered and can't get decent health care are dying-one every 12 minutes.
A Harvard University study released last week found that some 45,000 people a year in the United States die because they don't have health insurance and access to good care. After factoring in education and income, smoking, drinking and obesity, researchers found that the uninsured had about a 40 percent higher risk of death, linking 45,000 American deaths a year to lack of insurance. In 1993, it was 25 percent.
Without proper care, uninsured people are more likely to die from complications from preventable and treatable diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease.
One of the study's authors, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, told CBS News:
We have lots of good treatments for high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol that can now prevent complications, that can now lengthen our patients' lives-but we can't do anything for our patients if they can't afford to come to our offices.
Woolhandler also said that in cities around the country, many clinics and public hospitals that offer low-cost health care are closing their doors.
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