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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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PROTEST! When Obama Announces Afghanistan Escalation
The World Can't Wait
Stop the Crimes of Your Government
News from the San Francisco
Bay Area Chapter
Emergency Response Plan for the SF Bay Area:
World Can't Wait is joining with other anti-war forces including the local chapters of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, Code Pink and others [list in formation] to mobilize
On the SAME WEEKDAY** that Obama announces the escalation:
5:00 PM at Fifth & Market (Powell St. BART): San Francisco street protest including die-ins
In the East Bay, feeder rallies and a BART march:
3:30 PM Rally: Marines Recruiting Station, 64 Shattuck Square, Berkeley
4:00 PM Rally: downtown Berkeley BART station then march by BART to arrive 5:00 PM at Fifth & Market in SF
** NOTE: If the news breaks on a weekend, these protests will happen the following MONDAY
The day of the announcement, the World Can't Wait SF office [(415) 864-5153] will have a recorded message confirming the protest times and locations.
Send us info on other campus and community protests that we can also publicize.
PROTEST IN THE STREETS THE DAY AN ANNOUNCEMENT IS MADE TO SEND MORE TROOPS INTO AFGHANISTAN
STOP THE ESCALATION - OUT OF AFGHANISTAN NOW!
STOP THE CRIMES OF YOUR GOVERNMENT - THE WORLD CAN'T WAIT!
sf@worldcantwait.org
(415) 864-5153
sfbaycantwait.org
www.myspace.com/sfbaycantwait
World Can't Wait SF
2940-16th St., Rm. 200-6
San Francisco CA 94103
Bay Area United Against War endorses this emergency action.
bauaw.org
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STRIKE @ UC BERKELEY: NO BUSINESS AS USUAL!
NOVEMBER 18, 19 AND 20
At their November 17-19 meeting, the UC Regents will be voting on an additional 32% student fee increase. These proposed fees have already been pledged as collateral for $1.35 billion worth of new construction bonds despite an "extreme fiscal emergency." The Regents will also vote to lay off nearly 2,000 more workers, continue with furlough plans, and cut classes and critical student services. The executive administration wants to convince us that their hands are tied by Sacramento, but we know the real crisis is one of priorities. During these days The University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE) will be striking, the Coalition of University Employees (CUE) will be striking and we will be converging on UCLA and at UC Berkeley to confront the Regents and fight their austerity measures.
WALKOUT on Wednesday, November 18
UPTE pickets beginning at 5am
Noon: Mass Rally on Sproul followed by a sendoff to those traveling to LA and
MARCH ending with a Strike Meeting: What's Next?
RECLAIM on Thursday, November 19
UPTE pickets beginning at 5am
Noon: Mass Rally at California Hall
4pm, Lower Sproul Second Strike Meeting: What's Next?
ESCALATE on Friday, November 20
If the Regents increase our fees, lay us off and cut our
pay, we will have no choice but to escalate our actions.
Noon: Gather at California Hall
*Tent City throughout the strike in solidarity with UCLA. Bring a pillow !*
**Schedule of Events forthcoming:Have your band play, play sports, put on a workshop, read your poetry, project a movie on the wall, do a fashion show, dj a set, whatever! **
Whose University? Our University!
Sign the call @ ucstrike.com. More info at ucsolidarity.org
The strike is endorsed and supported by UPTE Local 1, CUE Local #3, Solidarity Alliance , Graduate Student Organizing Committee, Graduate Assembly, CalSERVE, Bridges Multicultural, Student Worker Action Team (SWAT), Berkeley Law Organizing Committee, UC Berkeley General Assembly, & Oct 24th Statewide Mobilizing Conference.
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for immediate release:
Contact: Hendrik Voss
202-234-3440, media@soaw.org
Mass Mobilization to Shut Down the School of the Americas
November 20-22, 2009, Fort Benning, Georgia:
* The SOA graduate-led military coup in Honduras and the increasing U.S. military involvement in Colombia put a renewed focus on the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC) and the policies it represents.
* Thousands from across the Americas will converge on November 20-22 at Fort Benning, GA for a vigil and civil disobedience actions to speak out against the SOA/ WHINSEC and to demand a change in U.S. foreign policy.
* The vigil will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 1989 SOA graduate-led Jesuit massacre in San Salvador, and the many other thousands of victims of SOA/ WHINSEC violence.
The military coup led by SOA graduates in Honduras has once again exposed the destabilizing and deadly effects that the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC) has on Latin America. Torture survivors and human rights activists from across the Americas, including Bertha Oliva, the founder of the Committee of the Family Members of the Disappeared (COFADEH) from Honduras and human rights defenders from Colombia will travel to Fort Benning, Georgia to participate in the mobilization.
The campaign to close the SOA/ WHINSEC is in a crucial phase right now. Despite promising comments from President Obama during his 2008 election campaign, the SOA/ WHINSEC is still in operation, the U.S. is poring millions into failing "military solutions" to combat the drug problems in Mexico and the Pentagon is moving forward with plans to use seven Colombian military bases in Colombia for offensive U.S. military operations.
"It is up to us to hold those responsible accountable and to push for to closing of the School of the Americas and a change in US foreign policy" said Father Roy Bourgeois, the founder of SOA Watch. "Too many have died and continue to suffer at the hands of graduates of this notorious institute."
In the fall of 2009, opponents of the SOA/ WHINSEC achieved a victory when a joint House and Senate conference committee agreed to include language in the FY 2010 Defense Authorization bill that requires the Pentagon to release names of the graduates of the SOA/ WHINSEC to the public. The Pentagon had classified the names after the continued involvement of SOA/ WHINSEC attendees in human rights abuses became public.
For more information about the November vigil to close the SOA/ WHINSEC, lead-up actions and a complete schedule of events, visit www.SOAW.org
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"The End of Poverty"
Democracy Now Interview with Filmmaker Philippe Diaz
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/10/filmmaker_philippe_diaz_on_the_end
The film opens in San Francisco on December 4 at the 4-Star Theatre on Clement Street.
http://www.theendofpoverty.com/
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Four years ago activists around the world were mobilizing and organizing against the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams. We need to continue that fight today.
Fourth Annual Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Summit
MOBILIZING THE MOVEMENT FOR JUSICE
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13TH, 3:00-6:00 P.M.
MERRITT COLLEGE
Huey P. Newton/Bobby Seale Student Lounge
12500 Campus Drive, Oakland
For directions go to www.merritt.edu
For more information: 510-235-9780
KEVIN COOPER, TROY DAVIS, MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: THREE INNOCENT MEN ON DEATH ROW
Featuring:
Angela Davis, author and activist.
Barbara Becnel, co-author and friend of Stanley Tookie Williams
Martina Correia, sister of Troy Davis
Release of report, "What's Really Happening on California's Death Row?"
Messages from "The Three Innocent Men"
Sneak Preview, "The Justice Chronicles," dramatic presentation of prison writings
Memorial Movie, for Oscar Grant III
Sponsors:
Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Network; Campaign to End the Death Penalty; Kevin Cooper Defense Committee, African American Studies Department, Merritt College
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U.S. OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN NOW!
FREE PALESTINE!
San Francisco March and Rally
on Saturday, March 20, 2010
11am, Civic Center Plaza
National March on Washington
on Saturday, March 20, 2010
Fri., March 19 Day of Action & Outreach in D.C.
People from all over the country are organizing to converge on Washington, D.C., to demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan and Iraq.
On Saturday, March 20, 2010, there will be a massive National March & Rally in D.C. A day of action and outreach in Washington, D.C., will take place on Friday, March 19, preceding the Saturday march.
There will be coinciding mass marches on March 20 in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The national actions are initiated by a large number of organizations and prominent individuals. (see below)
Click here to become an endorser:
http://answer.pephost.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=5940&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&autologin=true&link=endorse-body-1
Click here to make a donation:
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Donation?ACTION=SHOW_DONATION_OPTIONS&CAMPAIGN_ID=2302&autologin=true&donate=body-1&JServSessionIdr002=2yzk5fh8x2.app13b
We will march together to say "No Colonial-type Wars and Occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine!" We will march together to say "No War Against Iran!" We will march together to say "No War for Empire Anywhere!"
Instead of war, we will demand funds so that every person can have a job, free and universal health care, decent schools, and affordable housing.
March 20 is the seventh anniversary of the criminal war of aggression launched by Bush and Cheney against Iraq. One million or more Iraqis have died. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops have lost their lives or been maimed, and continue to suffer a whole host of enduring problems from this terrible war.
This is the time for united action. The slogans on banners may differ, but all those who carry them should be marching shoulder to shoulder.
Killing and dying to avoid the perception of defeat
Bush is gone, but the war and occupation in Iraq still go on. The Pentagon is demanding a widening of the war in Afghanistan. They project an endless war with shifting battlefields. And a "single-payer" war budget that only grows larger and larger each year. We must act.
Both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were predicated on the imperial fantasy that the U.S. could create stable, proxy colonial-type governments in both countries. They were to serve as an extension of "American" power in these strategic and resource-rich regions.
That fantasy has been destroyed. Now U.S. troops are being sent to kill or be killed so that the politicians in uniform ("the generals and admirals") and those in three-piece suits ("our elected officials") can avoid taking responsibility for a military setback in wars that should have never been started. Their military ambitions are now reduced to avoiding the appearance of defeat.
That is exactly what happened in Vietnam! Avoiding defeat, or the perception of defeat, was the goal Nixon and Kissinger set for themselves when they took office in 1969. For this noble cause, another 30,000 young GIs perished before the inevitable troop pullout from Vietnam in 1973. The number of Vietnamese killed between 1969 and 1973 was greater by many hundreds of thousands.
All of us can make the difference - progress and change comes from the streets and from the grassroots.
The people went to the polls in 2008, and the enthusiasm and desire for change after eight years of the Bush regime was the dominant cause that led to election of a big Democratic Party majority in both Houses of Congress and the election of Barack Obama to the White House.
But it should now be obvious to all that waiting for politicians to bring real change - on any front - is simply a prescription for passivity by progressives and an invitation to the array of corporate interests from military contractors to the banks, to big oil, to the health insurance giants that dominate the political life of the country. These corporate interests work around the clock to frustrate efforts for real change, and they are the guiding hand behind the recent street mobilizations of the ultra-right.
It is up to us to act. If people had waited for politicians to do the right thing, there would have never been a Civil Rights Act, or unions, women's rights, an end to the Vietnam war or any of the profound social achievements and basic rights that people cherish.
It is time to be back in the streets. Organizing centers are being set up in cities and towns throughout the country.
We must raise $50,000 immediately just to get started. Please make your contribution today. We need to reserve buses, which are expensive ($1,800 from NYC, $5,000 from Chicago, etc.). We have to print 100,000 leaflets, posters and stickers. There will be other substantial expenses as March 20 draws closer.
Please become an endorser and active supporter of the March 20 National March on Washington.
Please make an urgently needed tax-deductible donation today. We can't do this without your active support.
The initiators of the March 20 National March on Washington (preceded by the March 19 Day of Action and Outreach in D.C.) include: the ANSWER Coalition; Muslim American Society Freedom; National Council of Arab Americans; Cynthia McKinney; Malik Rahim, co-founder of Common Ground Collective; Ramsey Clark; Cindy Sheehan; Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK; Deborah Sweet, Director, World Can't Wait; Mike Ferner, President, Veterans for Peace; Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild; Ron Kovic, author of "Born on the 4th of July"; Juan Jose Gutierrez, Director, Latino Movement USA; Col. Ann Wright (ret.); March Forward!; Partnership for Civil Justice; Palestinian American Women Association; Alliance for a Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines; Alliance for Global Justice; Claudia de la Cruz, Pastor, Iglesia San Romero de Las Americas-UCC; Phil Portluck, Social Justice Ministry, Covenant Baptist Church, D.C.; Blase & Theresa Bonpane, Office of the Americas; Coalition for Peace and Democracy in Honduras; Comite Pro-Democracia en Mexico; Frente Unido de los Pueblos Americanos; Comites de Base FMLN, Los Angeles; Free Palestine Alliance; GABRIELA Network; Justice for Filipino American Veterans; KmB Pro-People Youth; Students Fight Back; Jim Lafferty, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild - LA Chapter; LEF Foundation; National Coalition to Free the Angola 3; Community Futures Collective; Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival; Companeros del Barrio; Barrio Unido for Full and Unconditional Amnesty, Bay Area United Against War.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
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B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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Oakland's Judge Jacobson ruled at 4:00PM Friday, October 16 to move the trial of Johannes Mehserle, killer of unarmed Oscar Grant, OUT OF OAKLAND. The location of the trial venue has not been announced.
In the case of an innocent verdict, folks are encouraged to head to Oakland City Hall ASAP to express our outrage in a massive and peaceful way! Our power is in our numbers! Oscar Grant's family and friends need our support!
For more information:
Contact BAMN at 510-502-9072
letters@bamn.com
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The Story of Mouseland: As told by Tommy Douglas in 1944
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqgOvzUeiAA
The Communist Manifesto illustrated by Cartoons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KUl4yfABE4
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Tell City Hall:
All Renters Deserve Protection from Eviction!
Supervisor Avalos has proposed legislation that would extend "just cause" eviction protections to rentals build after 1979.
Without this protection, 16,000-23,000 renters can be arbitrarily evicted, suddenly and for no reason at all.
The Land Use Committee will be voting on Monday. Please call or email the following board members and the Mayor to urge them to support the "Avalos Just Cause Bill". A Sample email is below.
justcauseimage.gif
Mayor Gavin Newsom
Telephone: (415) 554-6141
Fax: (415) 554-6160
gavin.newsom@sfgov.org
Sup. Sophie Maxwell
(415) 554-7670 - voice
(415) 554-7674 - fax
Sophie.Maxwell@sfgov.org
Sup. Bevan Dufty
(415) 554-6968- voice
(415) 554-6909 - fax
Bevan.Dufty@sfgov.org
Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier
(415) 554-7752 - voice
(415) 554-7843 - fax
Michela.Alioto-Pier@sfgov.org
Sup. Carmen Chu
San Francisco, CA 94102-4689
(415) 554-7460 - voice
(415) 554-7432 - fax
Carmen.Chu@sfgov.org
Sup. Sean Elsbernd
(415) 554-6516 - voice
(415) 554-6546 - fax
Sean.Elsbrend@sfgov.org
Sample Letter/ Email
Dear Supervisor,
I am a renter in San Francisco and I am very concerned to learn that many renters here are not protected from evictions because their home was build after 1979.
There is no reason why a random group of renters could suddenly lose their housing at the drop of a hat.
Rents are still so high in this city. Getting evicted means quickly finding housing that you can afford, which is nearly impossible in this market.
Please support Supervisor Avalos's "Just Cause" ordinance. It is only fair.
Sincerely,
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HANDS OFF JUANITA YOUNG!
Statement from the NY October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality
http://www.petitiononline.com/JYoungNY/petition.html
Soon after 6:00am on October 27th, five cops raided the house of Juanita Young, the mother of Malcolm Ferguson who was gunned down by a plainclothes cop in 2000. They threatened to break down her door, tried to climb in through her bathroom window, put a gun in Juanita's face and took away her son, Buddy. The cops justified their outrageous and illegal behavior by citing a warrant, refusing to identify who or what the warrant was for. Later it was claimed that the warrant was for Buddy failing to appear in court for a Desk Appearance Ticket on October 13th, just two weeks earlier. This made it clear that it was both an unusually quick response and out of the ordinary violence for this offense.
This is not the first time cops have run roughshod over the rights of Juanita and her family. Juanita Young has been an outspoken opponent of police brutality, fighting for justice not only for her son Malcolm, but for all victims of police brutality. This has made her a target of persistent persecution by the police:
--June 2003: During an illegal eviction carried out by the NYPD, Juanita was arrested for trespassing in her own home. She was handcuffed and aggressively pushed out of her apartment and building, falling twice and injuring her arm. In October 2007, a Bronx civil jury determined that the arresting officer used excessive force in her arrest.
--November 2005: After voicing her disapproval of a brutal arrest at a demonstration, Juanita was arrested after a commanding officer said, "Get her, too." She was refused medical attention that she needed due to an asthma attack. Young was hospitalized for three days and faced criminal charges, but before the date of her arraignment, she received notice in the mail that the charges were dropped.
--November 2006: Juanita was arrested after more than 8 cops entered her apartment during an ambulance call for her daughter. The cops jumped her, punched and kicked her. She was taken to the hospital, where she was handcuffed to the bed and tortured by police for four days, only to be handed a ticket on the last day an hour after a press conference about her attack took place. In October 2008, a Bronx jury acquitted Young of all charges.
--August 2009: During a cookout in front of Juanita's building, over a dozen cops broke down the front door, slammed her oldest son up behind the door, and beat him on the head. The cops also arrested her daughters. This was another attempt to intimidate Juanita Young - through striking out at her loved ones - in hopes of silencing this powerful voice against police brutality.
All these attacks are outrageous, illegitimate and illegal. We say: HANDS OFF JUANITA YOUNG! The NYPD must stop this intimidation and harassment of Juanita and her family. Speaking out against police brutality is no crime. But targeting someone in retaliation for speaking out is illegal.
From Juanita Young's statement to supporters:
"Not only have my rights been violated in the most blatant ways, but I feel physically and psychologically terrorized. I fear for my safety, my very life, and the lives of my children and grandchildren." (October 29, 2009)
We refuse to allow Juanita Young, this fighter against police brutality and injustice, to stand alone against this onslaught.
We demand:
1: The NYPD stop its persecution of Juanita Young!
2: Bronx DA Robert Johnson investigate the role of the 43rd Precinct in this persecution.
3: An investigation of the Warrant Squad and how they were charged, and how they went about, in serving the warrant at Juanita Young's house on October 27th.
Sign Petition Here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/JYoungNY/petition.html
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Cleve Jones Speaks At Gay Rights Rally In Washington, DC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvC3hVXZpc4
Free the SF8: Drop the Charges!
by Bill Carpenter ( wcarpent [at] ccsf.edu )
Monday Oct 12th, 2009 11:20 AM
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/10/12/18625220.php
Sony Piece of crap (Hilarious!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I-JByPDJm0
Sick For Profit
http://sickforprofit.com/videos/
Fault Lines: Despair & Revival in Detroit - 14 May 09 - Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ7VL907Qb0&feature=related
VIDEO INTERVIEW: Dan Berger on Political Prisoners in the United States
By Angola 3 News
Angola 3 News
37 years ago in Louisiana, 3 young black men were silenced for trying to expose continued segregation, systematic corruption, and horrific abuse in the biggest prison in the US, an 18,000-acre former slave plantation called Angola. In 1972 and 1973 prison officials charged Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Robert King with murders they did not commit and threw them into 6x9 ft. cells in solitary confinement, for over 36 years. Robert was freed in 2001, but Herman and Albert remain behind bars.
http://angola3news.blogspot.com/2009/09/video-dan-berger-on-political-prisoners.html
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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JROTC MUST GO!
The San Francisco Board of Education has re-installed the Junior Reserve Officer's Training Corps in San Francisco schools -- including allowing it to count for Physical Education credits.
This is a complete reversal of the 2006 decision to end JROTC altogether in San Francisco public schools. Our children need a good physical education program, not a death education program!
With the economy in crisis; jobs and higher education for youth more unattainable; the lure, lies and false promises of military recruiters is driving more and more of our children into the military trap.
This is an economic draft and the San Francisco Board of Education is helping to snare our children to provide cannon fodder for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and for over 700 U.S. military bases around the world!
We can't depend upon "friendly politicians" who, while they are campaigning for office claim they are against the wars but when they get elected vote in favor of military recruitment--the economic draft--in our schools. We can't depend upon them. That has been proven beyond doubt!
It is up to all of us to come together to stop this NOW!
GET JROTC AND ALL MILITARY RECRUITERS OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS NOW!
Write, call, pester and ORGANIZE against the re-institution of JROTC in our San Francisco public schools NOW!
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein
Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
San Francisco Board of Education
555 Franklin Street, 1st Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102
415/241-6427, (415) 241-6493
cascoe@sfusd.edu
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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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Showdown In Chicago
The Showdown in Chicago is underway! Thousands of Americans are in the midst of a series of demonstrations against Wall Street banks and their lobbyists to call for financial reform. Check out the latest news:
http://www.showdowninchicago.org/
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EYE WITNESS REPORTS FROM GAZA Video Free Gaza News October 22,2009
http://www.youtube.com/gazafriends#p/a/1/nHa-CzNCF3c
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ANSWER Statement on Proposed SF Parking Meter Hours
The ANSWER Coalition-SF Bay Area strongly opposes the proposal to extend parking meter hours in San Francisco. The SFMTA, the Metropolitan Transit Agency, is proposing to have parking meters in most of SF run until midnight Monday-Saturday, and from 11 am-6 pm on Sundays!
This is another attempt by the politicians to solve the city's budget crisis by squeezing every last dollar they can out of working people. They have outrageously jacked up MUNI fares, other city fees and parking fines. At the same time they have let the big banks, developers and other wealthy corporate interests-the ones who have created the current economic and budget crisis-off the hook.
The DPT (Department of Parking and Traffic) has already begun a policy of "enhanced enforcement," super-aggressively ticketing vehicles from 9:01 am to 5:59 pm, Monday-Saturday. Every day in every working class neighborhood of SF you can see the booted cars and trucks. On top of the $53, $63 and higher parking tickets, it costs over $200 just to get a boot removed! If your car gets towed, you have to pay $400 or more to get it back. This is causing many low-income people to lose their vehicles.
City officials are trying to mislead people by falsely claiming that the reason for extending meter hours is to collect more quarters and "open up more parking spaces." What they really want is to hit us with thousands more high-priced tickets, and then collect the ransom for booted and towed cars.
This is a class issue. The rich and the well-to-do don't have to worry about where to park in this small and crowded city. They have garages or can afford to pay for parking. It is overwhelmingly working class people who are being hit and who will be hit much, much harder if the new policy goes into effect. Many residents in neighborhoods with meters have no choice but to park at meters after 6 pm and move their vehicles before 9 am the next morning. There just aren't enough spaces otherwise.
As Cristina Gutierrez of Barrio Unido, an immigrant rights group opposed to the plan, asked: "What are we supposed to do, run out of our homes every hour at night to feed the meter?"
But the MTA board and some misguided individuals are trying to pose the issue as MUNI riders vs. car drivers. Some have even ignorantly asserted that if you own a car, you can't possibly be poor. Really? Tell that to the growing number of people forced to LIVE in their cars due to the depression!
The reality is that many people in SF both ride MUNI and own cars (some ride bikes, too). For a lot of people getting to work, shopping, medical appointments, etc. requires a car. That's especially true for families and for people whose jobs are outside SF or not easily accessible by mass transit. Posing the issue as bus riders vs. car riders is false and reactionary.
Does MUNI need more funding? Of course. Should MUNI fares be cut and service increased? No question about it. The issue is: Who should pay?
While taxes, fees, fines, fares, etc., etc, have been constantly increased for us, the taxes on corporate profits have been going down. Many big banks and corporations have been able to avoid paying income tax altogether. While we're told that there's no money for people's needs, $500,000,000 is spent every day on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trillions of dollars have been handed over to the biggest banks in just the last year.
It's time to say: Enough is Enough! It's time for the politicians to stop trying to make working people pay for the economic crisis that the rich created. It's time to make those who can afford it-big business-pay for the services that the people of the city, state and country need.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.answersf.org
answer@answersf.org
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
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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) On the White House
Obama Purposely Taking Time on Troop Decision
By JEFF ZELENY
November 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/us/politics/13zeleny.html?hp
2) Charges Prompt Iraqis to Look Into Blackwater
By JAMES RISEN
November 12, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/world/middleeast/12blackwater.html?ref=world
3) Who's Hurting the Most?
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
November 6, 2009, 5:41 pm
[Graphics can be viewed on site below...bw]
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/whos-hurting-the-most/
4) PLEASE SHARE WIDELY!
AFT 1021, part of United Teachers Los Angeles, representing over 10,000 teachers and professional education support personnel, passed the following motions at its meeting Thursday, 11/12/09.
AFT 1021 PASSES MOTIONS ON Afghanistan, Honduras, CA Statewide Day of Action for Public Education, Solidarity Day III March and Rally, and Community input on military academies
5) Man Jailed for '91 Murder Is Cleared by Judge
By JOHN ELIGON
November 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/nyregion/13freed.html?ref=nyregion
6) Virtuous Bankers? Really!?!
By MAUREEN DOWD
Op-Ed Columnist
November 11, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/opinion/11dowd.html?emc=eta1
7) Where Credit Isn't Due
By JOHN CARNEY
Op-Ed Contributor
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/opinion/13carney.html?hp
8) Huge rise in birth defects in Falluja
Iraqi former battle zone sees abnormal clusters of infant tumours and deformities
Martin Chulov in Falluja
guardian.co.uk
Friday 13 November 2009 19.24 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/13/falluja-cancer-children-birth-defects
9) A Recovery for Some
By BOB HERBERT
"There are 25 unemployed construction workers for every job opening in their field, and more than a dozen for every opening in the durable goods industries, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston."
Op-Ed Columnist
November 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/opinion/14herbert.html?hp
10) Turtles Are Casualties of Warming [and tourist beaches...bw] in Costa Rica
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
November 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/science/earth/14turtles.html?ref=world
11) Kansas: F.B.I. Was Warned Before Doctor's Killing
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | Plains
November 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/us/14brfs-FBIWASWARNED_BRF.html?ref=us
12) Job Losses Mount, Enduring and Deep
By FLOYD NORRIS
Off the Charts
November 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/business/economy/14charts.html?ref=business
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1) On the White House
Obama Purposely Taking Time on Troop Decision
By JEFF ZELENY
November 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/us/politics/13zeleny.html?hp
WASHINGTON - President Obama has not made a decision about his new military strategy for Afghanistan. And the White House is happy to say so.
It's been 22 days since Mr. Obama was first accused by former Vice President Dick Cheney of "dithering" as he decides whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. An announcement is still likely at least two weeks away - perhaps more - and White House officials have purposefully made no apologies for the extended timetable.
"Contrary to published reports," an administration official said late Wednesday, "the president has not made a decision about the options presented."
As Mr. Obama convened his war council for 2 hours and 20 minutes on Wednesday, the final session before departing for a trip to Asia on Thursday, he suggested he was not satisfied with his options. It was the eighth Situation Room meeting in the last two months on Afghanistan and Pakistan, and officials said Mr. Obama pressed for clarifications on a series of questions.
Where are the off-ramps for the military? What is the exit strategy? When will Americans and their allies hand responsibility to the Afghanistan government? Can the Afghan government improve its credibility?
While much has been made of the four military options on the table - all of which revolve around how many troops to send and for how long - the president also made clear that he is not yet fully satisfied with these choices and will not approve an open-ended commitment. He has also asked, officials said, that some of the options be redrawn.
The White House has been eager to show that Mr. Obama is engaged in extensive deliberations before making one of the most controversial decisions of his presidency. Drawing consciously on studies of how decisions were made to escalate the war in Vietnam, Mr. Obama and his aides seem intent on showing the nation and the world that he is not being rushed by the military or making a judgment without considering the long-term implications.
In purely political terms, the relatively slow pace - administration officials had initially suggested that the review would be complete by early November - signals to both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill that he has given serious consideration to all the options. Given that liberals in his own party are generally opposed to further escalation in Afghanistan and could make trouble for the president should he need to ask for more money for the war, as he will almost certainly need to do, it can only help the White House to reassure the left about how rigorously he is examining the options.
As the weeks have passed by without a decision, the administration is airing its frustration that several news reports have suggested a decision has been made.
"I don't know that it's annoying as much as it is generally amusing to watch somebody or some group of people decide they know what only the president knows," said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary.
Even as Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said last week he was disappointed and angry the president has delayed his Afghanistan decision, the White House has spent very little time reacting to the criticism. Administration officials said they believe Americans support the lengthy deliberations.
A poll released on Wednesday by CNN/Opinion Research Corporation showed that 49 percent of Americans surveyed said the president was taking too long to decide whether to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, while 50 percent did not.
As the White House makes plans for how the president will explain his decision to the nation - a leading option is delivering his first prime-time Oval Office address - Mr. Obama has spent considerable time with troops and families, filling out another part of his role as commander in chief.
He visited the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Fla., on Oct. 26. He arrived at Dover Air Force Base in the small hours of Oct. 29. And he delivered a Veteran's Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery. (A trip to Fort Hood, Tex., aides said, was the only hastily scheduled event, following the unforeseen shooting that killed 13 last week.)
A few hours before the meeting of his war council began Wednesday, Mr. Obama walked through the rain-soaked grass at Arlington National Cemetery. He stopped by Section 60, where 577 troops from Iraq and Afghanistan are buried. He moved slowly among the granite headstones etched with names of today's wars, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
Mr. Obama stopped by the grave of Spec. Ross McGinnis, a Medal of Honor recipient who was killed nearly three years ago when a grenade was thrown into his vehicle in Iraq. The president visited family members of other troops, who were on hand when he passed by.
Before Mr. Obama reaches Asia - where his focus will be on a variety of other issues, from trade to North Korea - he has one more military stop on his schedule: He is set to meet Thursday with troops at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, as he makes his way to Tokyo.
The decision on Afghanistan won't come, aides said, until well after the president returns to American soil.
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2) Charges Prompt Iraqis to Look Into Blackwater
By JAMES RISEN
November 12, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/world/middleeast/12blackwater.html?ref=world
WASHINGTON - A senior Iraqi official said Wednesday that he had ordered an investigation into whether top officials of Blackwater Worldwide approved of bribes to Iraqi government officials after shootings by Blackwater guards in 2007 left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.
In an interview with CNN, Iraq's interior minister, Jawad al-Bolani, said that his ministry was beginning an investigation that was prompted by a report in The New York Times on Tuesday that top Blackwater officials approved cash payments intended to silence criticism and win support for the company after the shootings in Nisour Square in Baghdad.
The Times article reported that former Blackwater executives who learned of the plans said they did not know whether the money was, in fact, delivered to Iraqi officials.
Mr. Bolani said he had asked the appropriate commanders to prepare a report about the accusations and to follow up on the matter, CNN reported.
"My door is open to anyone with any complaints or information about this, and I hope they provide me with any information that may help with the investigation," Mr. Bolani told CNN.
The Times reported that a former Blackwater official said the planned payoffs were intended for officials in the Interior Ministry, which is responsible for approving operating licenses for private security companies working in Iraq. At the time of the Nisour Square shootings, Blackwater provided diplomatic security for the United States Embassy in Baghdad and would have needed the license to continue doing so.
Separately, Cofer Black, a former Blackwater official, issued a written statement on Wednesday saying that he was "unaware of any plot or guidance for Blackwater to bribe Iraqi officials," after the shootings, CNN and The Associated Press reported.
The Times article said that Mr. Black learned of the plan while in Baghdad in December 2007, discussing compensation to victims of the Nisour Square shootings with American Embassy officials. The Times reported that he later confronted the founder of Blackwater, Erik Prince, about the issue. Mr. Black left Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, in 2008.
In his statement, which CNN said it was provided by Xe Services, Mr. Black confirmed that he had met with embassy officials about payments to victims.
But he denied that he had "confronted Erik Prince or any other Blackwater official regarding any allegations of bribing Iraqi officials."
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3) Who's Hurting the Most?
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
November 6, 2009, 5:41 pm
[Graphics can be viewed on site below...bw]
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/whos-hurting-the-most/
The job market is bad for almost everyone. But it is especially bad for those who are young, less educated, male or black.
Below we have collected a breakdown of unemployment numbers by various demographic categories. You'll notice that many of the groups in the worst position today had relatively high unemployment rates even before the recession had begun. But in many cases, those who were relatively worse off before the recession have still been disproportionately hurt by the downturn.
(For example, even before the recession began, high school dropouts had higher jobless rates than college graduates. And during the recession, the jobless rate for dropouts has grown by 8 percentage points, to a total of 15.5 percent in October, while the rate for college graduates has grown by just 2.6 percentage points, to 4.7 percent in October.)
First let's take a look at jobless rates by age:
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
While older workers may worry about their coming retirement, younger workers are actually having the most difficulty finding jobs. The unemployment rate for teenagers, which reached 27.6 percent in October, has set a record in each of the last three months.
On to education. As implied above, greater educational attainment is associated with a lower unemployment rate:
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Men are also doing much worse than women in the labor market, largely because men are disproportionately employed in industries that are more sensitive to the business cycle:
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
And finally, African-Americans are faring far worse than whites. (Seasonally adjusted data are not available for Asian-Americans.) The jobless rate for whites has risen 5.1 percentage points since the recession began in December 2007 to a total rate of 9.5 percent in October 2009. It has risen 6.8 percentage points for blacks, to 15.7 percent in October.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Update: Check out this neat interactive graphic to see how narrower slices of the labor force are doing.
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4) PLEASE SHARE WIDELY!
AFT 1021, part of United Teachers Los Angeles, representing over 10,000 teachers and professional education support personnel, passed the following motions at its meeting Thursday, 11/12/09.
AFT 1021 PASSES MOTIONS ON Afghanistan, Honduras, CA Statewide Day of Action for Public Education, Solidarity Day III March and Rally, and Community input on military academies
END THE AFGHANISTAN WAR AND SUPPORT DOMESTIC PROGRAMS
Whereas, polls show that a majority of the American people oppose continuation of the war in Afghanistan, 38% support immediate withdrawal, and only 25% favor any increase of troops to be sent there; and
Whereas, since 2001, US taxpayers have spent $ 230 billion on the war in Afghanistan, and
Whereas, military spending creates many fewer jobs than the same amount spent on infrastructure and other domestic needs (Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier, "The Wages of Peace," The Nation, March 31, 2008), and
Whereas, the U.S. death toll in Afghanistan has escalated each year and 830 U.S. service members have been killed in Afghanistan so far as of 9/15/2009, and
Whereas, the $65 billion to be spent in Afghanistan this year, and the hundreds of billions of dollars required in coming years for counterinsurgency there, are desperately needed for urgent domestic social purposes, including health care for all, housing relief in the foreclosure crisis, full veterans benefits, and the creation of millions of jobs, therefore be it
Resolved, that AFT 1021 call for the U.S. government to end the war and occupation of Afghanistan and end its attacks on neighboring Pakistan; close all military bases in the region; and begin to withdraw all troops, mercenaries, contractors, and weapons immediately, and further
Resolved, that AFT 1021 call for the redirection of the military budget for Afghanistan to reparations for infrastructure and social programs for the Afghani people; and to expenditures to support returning US troops, and to meet urgent human needs domestically, such as education, healthcare, housing, jobs, and other social programs and public services, and further
Resolved, that AFT 1021 will undertake an educational campaign on these issues among its membership and seek to involve the members in the political tasks necessary to implement this resolution in public policy, and further
Resolved, that AFT 1021 endorse local, regional and national mobilizations this month and into the spring that support the goals of this resolution, and finally
Resolved, that AFT 1021 will communicate this resolution to its elected Congressional representatives and affiliates (CFT/AFT, LA County Federation of Labor, US Labor Against the War) with a request that they act accordingly.
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Emergency Resolution on the Current Crisis in Honduras
Whereas, following the June 28, 2009 military coup in Honduras, the AFL-CIO National Convention passed a resolution in September demanding immediate reinstatement of President Manuel Zelaya, restoration of all labor and democratic rights, and an immediate halt to all U.S. aid to the coup government; and
Whereas, a U.S.-brokered deal [the Tegucigalpa/San Jose Accords] to reinstate President Zelaya by November 5th -- in preparation for the Nov. 29th elections -- has unraveled, and the coup regime refused to restore Zelaya to the Presidency. As a result, President Zelaya, denouncing the "bad faith" of the U.S. government, said the Tegucigalpa/San Jose Accords were "a dead letter," and
Whereas, President Zelaya is still taking refuge in the Brazilian Embassy and the Honduran people led by the National Resistance Front Against the Coup (including many teachers in the leadership) continue to mount massive daily demonstrations against the coup regime; which responds with mass tear-gassing and beating of protesters by U.S.-trained army and police in an attempt to suppress the popular will and prevent the exercise of democratic rights; and
Whereas, there is a total lack of political space for opposition candidates to campaign and for the expression of any dissident political opinion, and under the current coup regime, conditions for free, fair and open elections are non-existent; and
Whereas, the National Resistance Front has denounced the Nov. 29th elections as a scheme by "the de facto regime that is repressing the people and violating the civil and human rights of its citizens, with the goal of validating the dictatorship of the oligarchy," and that participating in such an electoral exercise "would give legitimacy to the coup regime or its successor." The Front also stressed that "our stance in opposition to the electoral farce will remain firm even if President Zelaya is reinstated between now and Nov. 29th, since 20 days or less is too short a time to dismantle an electoral fraud many months in the making," and there is no time for opposition candidates to mount a campaign;
Therefore be it resolved, that AFT 1021 stand in solidarity with the heroic people of Honduras as they resist the savage repression of a military dictatorship, and fight to win real democracy and sovereignty for their country; and
Be it further resolved, that AFT 1021 send official letters to Congressional representatives, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, and President Obama demanding that the U.S. government take strong measures against the repressive coup government in Honduras -- and whatever government may succeed it as a result of the "electoral farce" scheduled for Nov. 29th. These measures should include: 1) Immediately break off all political and economic ties with the coup government and its successor; 2) Recall the U.S. ambassador; 3) Establish an economic embargo on all trade and aid to Honduras; 4) Freeze the U.S. bank accounts of the coup plotters and deny them visas for U.S. travel; 5) Shut down U.S. military bases in Honduras; and
Be it further resolved, that AFT 1021 demand that the U.S. government denounce and refuse to recognize the results of Nov. 29th elections or any electoral process organized under the repressive coup regime; and
Be it further resolved, that AFT 1021 will submit this resolution as an emergency resolution at the Delegate Assembly of the County Federation of Labor on Monday, November 16, 2009 and further encourage its other affiliates, such as CFT and AFT to adopt similar resolutions; and
Finally be it resolved, that AFT 1021 make common cause with other labor and community organizations, to develop a reliable support network for the National Resistance Front against the Coup, and for the labor unions, especially the teachers union, that are at the center of the Resistance movement in Honduras.
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Call for Statewide Day of Action to Support Public Education
Whereas, California public education from pre-kindergarten through college and adult ed, is facing its most dangerous crisis in years; with funding cuts, tuition increases, reduction of college seats available, furlough days for educators and support staff, and layoffs of employees and outright closures of entire departments; and
Whereas, new registrations for anti-union referenda have been introduced in order to further damage education workers and their unions, and
Whereas, the official national, state and, in many cases, local agendas for public education will result in increased class size, increased testing, teacher accountability measures which do not take into account many factors, and the creation of tiered categories of employment based on such measures, and
Whereas, following successful statewide events at CSU, UC and community college campuses in September, 2009, a conference is being held on October 24 in San Francisco to explore the possibilities of statewide actions to "Save public education! No budget cuts, fee hikes, or layoffs! For state-wide student, worker, and faculty solidarity!"; therefore, let it be
Resolved, that AFT 1021 join the call for a statewide day of action to be held March 4, 2009, to include the demands of 1) restoring full funding of all public education, 2) assuring all of our students their right to a safe and free public education, 3) maintaining the rights of education employees to guaranteed pay, benefits and safe working conditions, and 4) ensuring adequate funding for the health, housing, jobs and safety of all working people; and further
Resolved, that AFT 1021 will organize within United Teachers Los Angeles (including bringing this resolution or a similar one to the House and Board of Directors of UTLA) its own internal education campaign, and mobilize support for an action locally, building coalitions with other education and affiliated unions, teachers, students, and community organizations to further the goals of this resolution, and finally
Resolved, that AFT 1021 will carry this resolution to CFT and to the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor for their concurrence and support.
________
Support the Call for Solidarity DAy III March and Rally in Washington, DC next spring
Resolved, that AFT 1021 call on the AFL-CIO and Change to Win to organize a Solidarity Day III march on Washington D.C. in the spring of 2010 to demand jobs, housing, health care, full funding for public education and social services, and peace.
________
Community Input on military academies and opposition to charters
Whereas, the forces of educational privatization and charter companies are making strong attempts to convert existing public school campuses throughout the country, and
Whereas, the forces of educational privatization and charter companies are seeking to convert new publicly-funded school construction projects to charters and other types of schools, and
Whereas, community, parent, faculty, labor, and youth voices are not part of the dialogue that allows for these charterizations and privatizations, and
Whereas, existing collective bargaining agreeements are being circumvented and ignored in this process, and
Whereas, many of these schools may be initiated or converted by private companies into military-style academies,
Therefore, let it be resolved, that the CFT insist that any new military and military-style academies in public school districts thaqt utilize school district resources conduct community forums where community stakeholders can provide input and vote on the militarization of the local school,
Be it further resolved, that the CFT discourage charterization and privatization of public schools in any form if community, labor, and parent voices are not included in the formation of these charter or private schools, receiving public dollars, or using publicly financed construction projects,
Be it finally resolved, that the CFT publicize this stand to all CFT locals and affiliates, and forward to the AFT for ratification at the 2010 AFT Convention.
Andy Griggs
lauslaw2@gmail.com
310-704-3217
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5) Man Jailed for '91 Murder Is Cleared by Judge
By JOHN ELIGON
November 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/nyregion/13freed.html?ref=nyregion
A Manhattan judge ruled on Thursday that a man who had spent 18 years in prison for murder was innocent of the crime, sending a cathartic jolt through a courtroom packed with his friends and family members.
The prisoner, Fernando Bermudez, was not immediately released, however, as his lawyers must still sort out with federal authorities the status of a sentence on a drug distribution charge that he pleaded guilty to after he was arrested in the murder case. The time he served in state prison does not count toward his federal sentence of 27 months, but Barry J. Pollack, one of Mr. Bermudez's lawyers, said he would appeal for his client's release.
Mr. Bermudez, 40, broke down as Justice John Cataldo of State Supreme Court overturned his conviction. He whispered "thank you" to his lawyers, the judge and his supporters, who sobbed and applauded. He turned toward the gallery and whispered, "I love you," then hugged his lawyers before being taken away in handcuffs.
"I hope for you a much better future," Justice Cataldo told Mr. Bermudez.
Prosecutors continue to maintain that Mr. Bermudez is in fact guilty of the murder, in which Raymond Blount, 16, was gunned down on the street after a fight inside a Greenwich Village club in 1991. Mark Dwyer, the chief assistant Manhattan district attorney, said his office was deciding whether to appeal.
In his ruling, Justice Cataldo did more than overturn the conviction, dismissing the charges altogether. Short of a reversal by an appellate court, prosecutors cannot retry Mr. Bermudez for the crime, Mr. Pollack said.
A year after Mr. Bermudez's 1992 conviction, five witnesses who had identified him as the killer at trial recanted, saying in sworn affidavits that, they were coerced or manipulated by the police and prosecutors to identify Mr. Bermudez as the killer. Several of those witnesses reiterated their recantations in September at a hearing before Justice Cataldo.
This was the 11th attempt to overturn his conviction by Mr. Bermudez, whose case had received a lengthy examination by The New York Times in 2007.
Lawyers and advocates for the wrongfully convicted said the significance of Thursday's ruling was twofold. They said it was one of the rare instances in New York in which a judge had ruled that a defendant was innocent without the presence of exonerating DNA evidence. They also said that by ruling that Mr. Bermudez was innocent, Justice Cataldo had bolstered the prisoner's chance of collecting compensation from the state.
"This case, like the overwhelming number of wrongful convictions, does not have the advantage of DNA," said Scott Christianson, the author of "Innocent: Inside Wrongful Conviction Cases." "So for this judge to assess all the evidence in the case and come to this decision is quite unusual."
In his 79-page decision, Justice Cataldo wrote that Mr. Bermudez's rights were violated because the police had allowed prosecution witnesses to view Mr. Bermudez's mug shot as a group and to discuss his resemblance to the killer. Justice Cataldo also found that the prosecution should have known before sentencing that one of its cooperating witnesses, Efraim Lopez - a teenager whom Mr. Blount had punched at the club - had given false testimony.
"I find no credible evidence connects Fernando Bermudez to the homicide of Mr. Blount," Justice Cataldo wrote. "All of the people's trial evidence has been discredited: the false testimony of Efraim Lopez and the recanted identifications of strangers. I find, by clear and convincing evidence, that Fernando Bermudez has demonstrated he is innocent of this crime."
But prosecutors have contended that witnesses may have been pressured into changing their testimony.
"We don't think the defense has shown anything wrong with the verdict," Mr. Dwyer said.
Outside the courthouse, Mr. Bermudez's supporters beamed and waved shirts that read "Fernando Bermudez Is Innocent" for television cameras.
When Justice Cataldo declared Mr. Bermudez to be innocent, emotion flooded the tense courtroom.
"I couldn't even breathe," Christine Bermudez, Mr. Bermudez's sister, said. "My heart just stopped."
But Mr. Bermudez's father, Frank, who lives in Washington Heights, was so nervous he could not stick around to watch. He left before the start of the proceeding and returned to find his daughter weeping in the courthouse lobby. She told him that his son had been exonerated. "I was crying, too," Frank Bermudez said.
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6) Virtuous Bankers? Really!?!
By MAUREEN DOWD
Op-Ed Columnist
November 11, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/opinion/11dowd.html?emc=eta1
WASHINGTON
The Great Vampire Squid has gotten religion.
In an interview with The Sunday Times of London, the cocky chief of Goldman Sachs said he understands that a lot of people are "mad and bent out of shape" at blood-sucking banks.
"I know I could slit my wrists and people would cheer," Lloyd Blankfein, the C.E.O., told the reporter John Arlidge.
But the little people who are boiling simply don't understand. And Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, who unforgettably labeled Goldman "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money," doesn't understand.
Banks, Blankfein explained, are really serving the greater good.
"We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital," he said. "Companies that grow create wealth. This, in turn, allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth. It's a virtuous cycle. We have a social purpose."
When Arlidge asked whether it's possible to make too much money, whether Goldman will ignore the people howling at the moon with rage and go on raking it in, getting richer than God, Blankfein grinned impishly and said he was "doing God's work."
Whether he knows it, he's referring back to The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism - except, of course, the Calvinists would have been outraged by the banks' vicious - not virtuous - cycle of greed and concupiscence.
Blankfein's trickle-down catechism isn't working. Now we have two economies. We have recovering banks while we have 10-plus percent unemployment and 17.5 percent underemployment. The gross thing about the Wall Street of the last decade is how much its success was not shared with society.
Goldmine Sachs, as it's known, is out for Goldmine Sachs.
As many Americans continue to struggle, Goldman, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase, banks that took government bailout money after throwing the entire world into crisis, have said they will dish out $30 billion in bonuses - up 60 percent from last year.
The saying used to be, whatever happens, the lawyers win. Now, it's whatever happens, the bankers win.
Under pressure from regulators, who were trying to ensure that long-term performance was rewarded, the banks agreed to award more in stock, deferring cash payments.
But as The Times reported this week, the Goldman executives who got stock options instead of bonuses last year, at market lows, got a windfall - so it had nothing to do with bank employees' performance.
"The company gave its general counsel, for example, 104,868 stock options and 14,117 shares in December, when the bank's stock was around $78," Louise Story wrote for The Times. "Now the bank's shares have more than doubled in value, making that stock and option award worth nearly $12 million."
As one former Goldman banker told Arlidge, the culture there is "completely money-obsessed. ... There's always room - need - for more. If you are not getting a bigger house or a bigger boat, you're falling behind. It's an addiction."
It's an addiction that Washington has done little to quell. President Obama has not been strong on the issue, and Timothy Geithner coddles the wanton bankers whenever they freak out that they might not be able to put in their new pools next summer.
The bankers try to dismiss calls for regulation as populist ravings, but the insane inequity of it cannot be dismissed.
No sooner had the Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd announced his plan to overhaul financial regulation Tuesday than compensation experts declared it toothless.
The banks and their lobbyists wheedled concession after concession out of Washington and knocked down proposed inhibition after inhibition. Now the banks are laughing all the way to the bank.
"Saturday Night Live" was tougher on Goldman Sachs than the government, giving the firm flak about commandeering 200 doses of the swine flu vaccine - the same amount as Lenox Hill Hospital got - while so many at-risk Americans wait.
"Can you not read how mad people are at you?" demanded Amy Poehler. "When most people saw the headline 'Goldman Sachs Gets Swine Flu Vaccine' they were superhappy until they saw the word 'vaccine.' "
Seth Meyers chimed in: "Also, Centers for Disease Control, you sent the vaccine to Wall Street before schools and hospitals? Really!?! Were you worried the swine flu might spread to the Hamptons and St. Barts? These are the least contagious people in the world. They don't even touch their own car-door handles."
And as far as doing God's work, I think the bankers who took government money and then gave out obscene bonuses are the same self-interested sorts Jesus threw out of the temple.
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7) Where Credit Isn't Due
By JOHN CARNEY
Op-Ed Contributor
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/opinion/13carney.html?hp
SENATOR CHRISTOPHER DODD of Connecticut is trying to help consumers. Unfortunately, his plan is likely to backfire.
Despite the recent promising signs on economic growth, unemployment is rising and consumer spending is contracting. The slight rise in home prices we saw over the summer is already sputtering. Credit card rates have been shooting up - even though the Federal Reserve has extended generous interest rates to banks.
Mr. Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, has proposed legislation that would immediately freeze credit card rates. "At a time when families are struggling to make ends meet, jacked-up rates can quickly create crushing debt," he said in a statement. He also wants to extend and expand the tax credit for first-time home buyers, which was due to expire on Dec. 1.
At first glance, both proposals look like pragmatic attempts to relieve the tough economic problems faced by ordinary Americans. Unfortunately, the unintended consequences of the proposals may wind up creating even worse problems.
Let's start with the credit card rate freeze. The rising rates charged by issuing banks that inspired Mr. Dodd's legislation are themselves the unintended consequence of an earlier attempt to assist the consumer. Back in May, Congress passed a law requiring banks to give customers a 45-day notification before raising rates. To give banks time to adjust to the new rules, Congress decided not to put that provision into effect until February.
So what happened next? Banks rushed to raise rates before the law takes effect. Many customers who may not have had their rates raised until 2010 - or perhaps not at all, if the economy continues to improve - found themselves paying higher rates even though they had not missed any payments. How could Mr. Dodd and his fellow lawmakers not realize that banks would pre-emptively raise rates?
Mr. Dodd's new proposal may also wind up dealing a serious blow to consumers - and the economy. If banks find themselves unable to raise rates, many will limit their risk by severely restricting consumer credit. Many people will find their credit cards canceled, and new customers will be turned away. This will come on top of an already tight consumer credit market: banks sent out 2.1 billion direct-mail credit card solicitations in the third quarter of 2006, according to the research firm Mintel; this year in the same quarter, they sent out 391 million. A further contraction in consumer credit could devastate our nascent recovery.
The tax credit for new home buyers, now worth up to $8,000 per sale, can be credited with giving a boost to the housing market. Investment in housing rose almost 24 percent last quarter. Mr. Dodd would extend the program into next year, perhaps raising the $8,000 cap or allowing it to apply to those not purchasing homes for the first time.
But this program, too, has had an unintended consequence: large-scale fraud. According to the Treasury's inspector general for tax administration, at least 19,000 people who claimed the credit didn't actually purchase a home. Here's how: because the credit is "fully refundable," it is available to even those who don't pay any taxes or have any income at all. Thus people are buying homes under the names of their children - including at least one 4-year-old - to qualify as first-time homebuyers.
The tax credit is also interacting with other government programs to enable some of the worst mortgage practices of the recent past, including the notorious "no money down" mortgage. The Federal Housing Administration requires a down payment of at least 3.5 percent on mortgages it guarantees. But because homebuyers can recoup up to $8,000 from the tax credit and apply it to the down payment, they can buy a home worth up to $228,000 without spending a dime.
We don't know for certain how many such buyers will default on their loans. But borrowers who invest very little in their homes default at much higher rates than other homeowners. And because these loans are backed by the Federal Housing Administration, taxpayers pay the cost of those defaults. This sequence of events is eerily familiar from the subprime era.
Mr. Dodd's new proposals are guided by good intentions. But he and other lawmakers need to look to the future and see where that particular road may lead.
John Carney is a managing editor at BusinessInsider.com.
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8) Huge rise in birth defects in Falluja
Iraqi former battle zone sees abnormal clusters of infant tumours and deformities
Martin Chulov in Falluja
guardian.co.uk
Friday 13 November 2009 19.24 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/13/falluja-cancer-children-birth-defects
Doctors in Iraq's war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants and a spike in early life cancers that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting.
The extraordinary rise in birth defects has crystallised over recent months as specialists working in Falluja's over-stretched health system have started compiling detailed clinical records of all babies born.
Neurologists and obstetricians in the city interviewed by the Guardian say the rise in birth defects - which include a baby born with two heads, babies with multiple tumours, and others with nervous system problems - are unprecedented and at present unexplainable.
A group of Iraqi and British officials, including the former Iraqi minister for women's affairs, Dr Nawal Majeed a-Sammarai, and the British doctors David Halpin and Chris Burns-Cox, have petitioned the UN general assembly to ask that an independent committee fully investigate the defects and help clean up toxic materials left over decades of war - including the six years since Saddam Hussein was ousted.
"We are seeing a very significant increase in central nervous system anomalies," said Falluja general hospital's director and senior specialist, Dr Ayman Qais. "Before 2003 [the start of the war] I was seeing sporadic numbers of deformities in babies. Now the frequency of deformities has increased dramatically."
The rise in frequency is stark - from two admissions a fortnight a year ago to two a day now. "Most are in the head and spinal cord, but there are also many deficiencies in lower limbs," he said. "There is also a very marked increase in the number of cases of less than two years [old] with brain tumours. This is now a focus area of multiple tumours."
After several years of speculation and anecdotal evidence, a picture of a highly disturbing phenomenon in one of Iraq's most battered areas has now taken shape. Previously all miscarried babies, including those with birth defects or infants who were not given ongoing care, were not listed as abnormal cases.
The Guardian asked a paediatrician, Samira Abdul Ghani, to keep precise records over a three-week period. Her records reveal that 37 babies with anomalies, many of them neural tube defects, were born during that period at Falluja general hospital alone.
Dr Bassam Allah, the head of the hospital's children's ward, this week urged international experts to take soil samples across Falluja and for scientists to mount an investigation into the causes of so many ailments, most of which he said had been "acquired" by mothers before or during pregnancy.
Other health officials are also starting to focus on possible reasons, chief among them potential chemical or radiation poisonings. Abnormal clusters of infant tumours have also been repeatedly cited in Basra and Najaf - areas that have in the past also been intense battle zones where modern munitions have been heavily used.
Falluja's frontline doctors are reluctant to draw a direct link with the fighting. They instead cite multiple factors that could be contributors.
"These include air pollution, radiation, chemicals, drug use during pregnancy, malnutrition, or the psychological status of the mother," said Dr Qais. "We simply don't have the answers yet."
The anomalies are evident all through Falluja's newly opened general hospital and in centres for disabled people across the city. On 2 November alone, there were four cases of neuro-tube defects in the neo-natal ward and several more were in the intensive care ward and an outpatient clinic.
Falluja was the scene of the only two setpiece battles that followed the US-led invasion. Twice in 2004, US marines and infantry units were engaged in heavy fighting with Sunni militia groups who had aligned with former Ba'athists and Iraqi army elements.
The first battle was fought to find those responsible for the deaths of four Blackwater private security contractors working for the US. The city was bombarded heavily by American artillery and fighter jets. Controversial weaponry was used, including white phosphorus, which the US government admitted deploying.
Statistics on infant tumours are not considered as reliable as new data about nervous system anomalies, which are usually evident immediately after birth. Dr Abdul Wahid Salah, a neurosurgeon, said: "With neuro-tube defects, their heads are often larger than normal, they can have deficiencies in hearts and eyes and their lower limbs are often listless. There has been no orderly registration here in the period after the war and we have suffered from that. But [in relation to the rise in tumours] I can say with certainty that we have noticed a sharp rise in malignancy of the blood and this is not a congenital anomaly - it is an acquired disease."
Despite fully funding the construction of the new hospital, a well-equipped facility that opened in August, Iraq's health ministry remains largely disfunctional and unable to co-ordinate a response to the city's pressing needs.
The government's lack of capacity has led Falluja officials, who have historically been wary of foreign intervention, to ask for help from the international community. "Even in the scientific field, there has been a reluctance to reach out to the exterior countries," said Dr Salah. "But we have passed that point now. I am doing multiple surgeries every day. I have one assistant and I am obliged to do everything myself."
Additional reporting: Enas Ibrahim.
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9) A Recovery for Some
By BOB HERBERT
"There are 25 unemployed construction workers for every job opening in their field, and more than a dozen for every opening in the durable goods industries, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston."
Op-Ed Columnist
November 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/opinion/14herbert.html?hp
President Obama's strongest supporters during the presidential campaign were the young, the black and the poor - and they are among those who are being hammered unmercifully in this long and cruel economic downturn that the financial elites are telling us is over.
If the elites are correct, if the Great Recession really is over, then these core supporters of the president are being left far, far behind - as are blue-collar workers of every ethnic and political persuasion. Nobody wants to talk seriously about class in America, but the elites are smiling and perusing their stock portfolios while the checklist of Americans locked in depressionlike circumstances just grows and grows: construction and manufacturing workers, young men without college degrees (especially young black and Hispanic men), teenagers, and those who were already poor when the recession began.
The economic environment for all of these groups is an absolute and utter disaster.
Now we're learning that unmarried women are among those being crushed by the epidemic of joblessness. As the Center for American Progress has noted, "The high unemployment rate of unmarried women, and particularly the 1.3 million unemployed female heads of household who are primary breadwinners for their families, is devastating to their financial circumstances and standard of living."
Mr. Obama announced this week that he would convene a jobs summit at the White House next month to explore ways of putting Americans back to work. It remains to be seen whether the summit will yield anything substantial. But it's fair to wonder why the president and his party have not been focused like fanatics on job creation from the first day he took office.
It was the financial elites who took the economy down, and it was ordinary working people, the longtime natural constituents of the Democratic Party, who were buried in the rubble. Mr. Obama and the Democrats have been unconscionably slow in riding to the rescue of those millions of Americans struggling with the curse of joblessness.
We've been hearing that there are six unemployed workers for every job opening in the U.S., but even that terrible figure is deceptive. There are 25 unemployed construction workers for every job opening in their field, and more than a dozen for every opening in the durable goods industries, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.
This was not a normal recession, and we are not on the cusp of anything like a normal recovery. The unemployment rate for black Americans is 15.7 percent. The underemployment rate for blacks in September (the latest month for which figures are available) was a gut-wrenching 23.8 percent and for Hispanics an even worse 25.1 percent. The poverty rate for black children is almost 35 percent.
Wall Street can boast about recovery all it wants, much of America remains trapped in economic hell.
It will take a monumental leadership effort by the administration and Congress to spark the kind of changes necessary to transform this wretched employment landscape. Ross Eisenbrey of the Economic Policy Institute has written: "By itself, the private sector is unable to create jobs in the numbers the United States needs to obtain a robust, full economic recovery."
If that's true, and I have long believed it to be the case, then we need to rethink our entire approach to employment. Conventional efforts to kick-start economic growth are dwarfed by the vast scale of the problem. Bold new efforts - creative efforts - are needed.
A recent survey for the policy institute found that one in four families had been hit by a job loss during the past year and 44 percent had suffered either the loss of a job or a reduction in wages or hours worked. Economic insecurity has spread like a debilitating virus through scores of millions of American families.
What kind of recovery are we talking about if blue-collar workers, and men and women without college degrees, and large percentages of ethnic minorities and the young and the poor are not part of it? And how can any recovery be sustained if economic insecurity is a permanent feature of even middle-class life?
The financial elites have flourished in recent decades to a great extent because they have had government on their side, with the politicians working diligently to ensure that rules, regulations and tax policies established an environment in which the elites could thrive. For ordinary Americans, it has been a different story, with jobs shipped overseas by the millions and wages remaining stagnant, with labor unions under constant assault and labor standards weakened, with the safety net shredded and the message sent out to workers everywhere: You're on your own.
We'll get a chance to see at President Obama's employment summit whether anything much has changed.
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10) Turtles Are Casualties of Warming [and tourist beaches...bw] in Costa Rica
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
November 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/science/earth/14turtles.html?ref=world
PLAYA GRANDE, Costa Rica - This resort town was long known for Leatherback Sea Turtle National Park, nightly turtle beach tours and even a sea turtle museum. So Kaja Michelson, a Swedish tourist, arrived with high expectations. "Of course we're hoping to see turtles - that is part of the appeal," she said.
But haphazard development, in tandem with warmer temperatures and rising seas that many scientists link to global warming, have vastly diminished the Pacific turtle population.
On a beach where dozens of turtles used to nest on a given night, scientists spied only 32 leatherbacks all of last year. With leatherbacks threatened with extinction, Playa Grande's expansive turtle museum was abandoned three years ago and now sits amid a sea of weeds. And the beachside ticket booth for turtle tours was washed away by a high tide in September.
"We do not promote this as a turtle tourism destination anymore because we realize there are far too few turtles to please," said Álvaro Fonseca, a park ranger.
Even before scientists found temperatures creeping upward over the past decade, sea turtles were threatened by beach development, drift net fishing and Costa Ricans' penchant for eating turtle eggs, considered a delicacy here. But climate change may deal the fatal blow to an animal that has dwelled in the Pacific for 150 million years.
Sea turtles are sensitive to numerous effects of warming. They feed on reefs, which are dying in hotter, more acidic seas. They lay eggs on beaches that are being inundated by rising seas and more violent storm surges.
More uniquely, their gender is determined not by genes but by the egg's temperature during development. Small rises in beach temperatures can result in all-female populations, obviously problematic for survival.
"The turtles are very good storytellers about the effect of climate change on coastal habitats," said Carlos Drews, the regional marine species coordinator for the conservation group W.W.F. "The climate is changing so much faster than before, and these animals depend on so much for temperature."
If the sand around the eggs hits 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), the gender balance shifts to females, Mr. Drews said, and at about 32 degrees (89.6 Fahrenheit) they are all female. Above 34 (93), "you get boiled eggs," he said.
On some nesting beaches, scientists are artificially cooling nests with shade or irrigation and trying to protect broader areas of coastal property from development to ensure that turtles have a place to nest as the seas rise.
In places like Playa Junquillal, an hour south of here, local youths are paid $2 a night to scoop up newly laid eggs and move them to a hatchery where they are shaded and irrigated to maintain a nest temperature of 29.7 degrees Celsius (85.4), which will yield both genders.
On a recent night, Dennis Gómez Jiménez, a 22-year-old in a red baseball cap and jeans, deftly excavated the nest of a three-foot-wide Olive Ridley, one of the smaller sea turtle species. The turtle had just finished the hourlong task of burying 100-plus eggs and then lumbered back into the water.
One by one, Mr. Jiménez placed what looked like table tennis balls into a plastic bag and transferred them to an ersatz nest he had dug in a shaded, fenced-off portion of sand that serves as a hatchery. Sandbags are positioned to protect against tides that could rip nests apart.
When the turtles hatch, in 40 to 60 days depending on the species, they are carried in wicker baskets to the ocean's edge and make a beeline for the water. Gabriel Francia, a biologist who oversees the youths, known locally as the "baula" or leatherback boys, likens their work to delivering an endangered infant by Caesarean section.
"In some ways we're playing God - this is a big experiment," he said. The long-term hope, he said, is to build a robust turtle population that will slowly adapt by shifting to cooler, more northern beaches or laying eggs at cooler times of the year.
Worldwide, there are seven sea turtle species, and all are considered threatened. (Turtle populations in the Atlantic have increased over the last 20 years because of measures like bans on trapping turtles and selling their parts.)
The leatherback is considered critically endangered on a global level. Populations are especially depleted in the Pacific, where only 2,000 to 3,000 are estimated to survive today, down from around 90,000 two decades ago. Cooler sands alone will not save them, given the scope of the threats they face. At Playa Junquillal, markers placed a decade ago to mark a point 55 yards above the high tide line are now frequently underwater.
"It's happened really fast - we have no rain, but water pouring in from the ocean," said Adriana Miranda, 30, the manager of a local hangout that serves beer and rice and beans.
Beachside tables have been removed because rising tides have destroyed the restaurant's concrete terrace and uprooted shading trees there. In different circumstances, the beaches could gradually extend backward as the sea level rose. But along much of Costa Rica's Pacific coast, the back of the beach is now filled with hotels, restaurants and planted trees, giving the sand no place to go. "The squeezing of the beaches where turtles nest is going to be a big problem," said Carl Safina, head of the Blue Ocean Institute, a conservation group.
In Playa Grande, the turtle issue has pitted environmentalists against developers and the national government. To ensure a future for the leatherbacks and the national park, biologists wanted a large section of land extending about 140 yards back from the current high-tide line protected from development. Beachfront property owners, many of them foreigners with vacation homes, demanded hefty compensation.
Arguing that the government cannot afford the payouts, President Óscar Arias has instead proposed protecting the first 55 yards, and allowing about 80 yards of somewhat regulated mixed-use development to the rear. But Costa Rica's leading scientists have protested that the new boundaries will lead to "certain extinction."
Turtles will not nest if there are lights behind the beach, Mr. Drews said, and those first 55 yards will be underwater by midcentury.
"Turtles will have to find their way between the tennis courts and swimming pools," he said dryly.
In a country where turtle eggs are traditionally slurped in bars from a shot glass, uncooked and mixed with salsa and lemon, biologists are also promoting cultural change.
"Of course 25 years ago, you went out with your friends or family and dug up the eggs," said Héctor García, 42, shopping at the Junquillal market. "It was a tradition. They are delicious, cooked or raw."
Today egg collecting is illegal in Costa Rica, but poaching is still common in many towns. It is frowned on at Playa Junquillal, where the five baula boys, with their piercings and baseball caps, patrol for poachers and are idolized by many younger children. Dr. Francia, the biologist, has also invited local families to watch the babies being released. "There were a lot of people who had eaten eggs but never seen a turtle," he said.
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11) Kansas: F.B.I. Was Warned Before Doctor's Killing
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | Plains
November 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/us/14brfs-FBIWASWARNED_BRF.html?ref=us
The Federal Bureau of Investigation says that more than a month before the abortion provider Dr. George R. Tiller was shot and killed, it received an anonymous letter warning about the man now charged in the case. Bridget Patton, an F.B.I. spokeswoman, said the letter warned that the suspect, Scott Roeder, would physically harm Dr. Tiller or any other abortion provider. The letter turned out to have been written by a man who is in the midst of a custody battle with Mr. Roeder. Ms. Patton says the agency found no specific, credible threat in the letter.
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12) Job Losses Mount, Enduring and Deep
By FLOYD NORRIS
Off the Charts
November 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/business/economy/14charts.html?ref=business
THE rise in unemployment that has occurred in the current recession has been hardest on young workers, while having a smaller effect on older workers than previous downturns. Women have been more likely than men to hold on to their jobs.
The overall unemployment rate, which reached 10.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis last month, remains below the post-World War II peak of 10.8 percent, reached in late 1982. But the proportion of workers who have been out of work for a long time is higher now than it has ever been since the Great Depression.
The persistence of joblessness for so many people - 5.6 million Americans have now been out of work for more than half a year even though they have continued to seek employment - may provide the greatest challenge for the Obama administration if it decides to seek a new economic stimulus program.
The short-term unemployment rate - the proportion of the work force that has been jobless for less than 15 weeks - has begun to decline, however, and stood at 4.5 percent in October after peaking at 4.9 percent in May.
That decline is a signal that the recession, which officially began in December 2007, probably has ended. In past recessions since World War II, the National Bureau of Economic Research has always dated the end within two months of the peak in short-term joblessness.
Over the last three years - since October 2006 - the overall unemployment rate has risen by 5.8 percentage points. That is the largest such increase since the Great Depression, providing another indication of the rapidity and severity of the current downturn.
Before this cycle, the sharpest 36-month increase since World War II was a 4.9 percentage point rise in the period that ended November 1982.
The accompanying charts show the short- and long-term unemployment rates during the three cycles since World War II when the unemployment rate rose above 8 percent, and reflect how different groups of workers fared in each.
Each of the charts begins in the month when the broadest measure of employment - the proportion of people over age 16 with jobs - hit a cyclical peak. The first two end when that measure reached a cyclical low, several months after the recession was later deemed to have ended. The final chart runs through October, the latest month available.
With each chart are calculations on the proportion of jobs that were added or lost from the peak through the bottom for differing groups of workers.
This cycle has been the worst over all, with the government's household survey in October finding 7.7 million fewer jobs than in December 2006, when the employment-to-population ratio reached its high for the current cycle. The declines during the two earlier cycles, from November 1973 to June 1975 and from December 1979 to March 1983, were 0.8 percent and 2.0 percent, respectively.
Women have held on to jobs better than men have during this downturn, reflecting a pattern that prevailed during the previous cycles.
One major difference is how older workers have fared. The number of jobs held by men over 55 is up 5.6 percent since the cycle began, and the number of jobs held by women of that age has risen by 9.3 percent.
There are fewer jobs for workers age 54 to 64 than when the cycle began, but that group has done much better than younger workers.
By contrast, younger workers were more likely to hold on to their jobs in the two previous downturns.
It is not clear why that pattern has changed. It is against federal law to discriminate against older workers, but that law was passed in 1967, before either of the previous downturns. It could be that the plunge in real estate and stock prices in 2008 led fewer older workers to decide to retire.
The proportion of the work force out of work for more than 15 weeks reached 5.7 percent in October, well above the 4.2 percent figure reached in 1982. That had been the highest such figure since the government began calculating the number in 1948.
The proportion that has been out of work for at least 27 weeks - half a year - is now 3.6 percent, also a record.
Floyd Norris comments on finance and economics in his blog at norris.blogs.nytimes.com.
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