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Alex Rodriguez Steroids: Report Says He Tested Positive In 2003 Top
NEW YORK — Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids in his MVP season of 2003, according to a report by Sports Illustrated. The New York Yankees star tested positive for two anabolic steroids, four sources told Sports Illustrated in a story posted Saturday on its Web site. His name appears on a list of 104 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in a 2003 baseball survey, the magazine said. He reportedly tested positive for Primobolan and testosterone while playing for the Texas Rangers. Rodriguez declined to discuss the tests when approached by SI on Thursday at a Miami gym. "You'll have to talk to the union," he told a reporter. Calls from SI to union head Donald Fehr were not returned. Rodriguez played for the Rangers in 2003, when he won the AL home run title and MVP award. He was traded to the Yankees in 2004. He is drawing a major league-high $27 million salary after signing a record $275 million, 10-year contract with New York in 2007. The revelations come at a time when baseball's focus on drugs has concerned Barry Bonds and the legal maneuvering leading to the start of his trial March 2. The government is trying to prove the home run king lied when he told a grand jury he never knowingly took performance-enhancing drugs. Rodriguez until now has had an offseason dominated by talk of disclosures in Joe Torre's recently released book. The former Yankee manager wrote of the pressure A-Rod puts on himself and the third baseman's need to command the stage. Torre said some in the Yankees clubhouse referred to Rodriguez as "A-Fraud," although Torre made light of that during interviews promoting his book, "The Yankee Years." Baseball's drug policy prohibited the use of steroids without a valid prescription since 1991, but there were no penalties for a positive test in 2003. As part of an agreement with the players' union, the testing in 2003 was conducted to determine if it was necessary to impose mandatory random drug testing across the major leagues in 2004. The results of the testing of 1,198 players were meant to be anonymous under the agreement between the commissioner's office and the union. SI reported that Rodriguez's testing information was found after federal agents, with search warrants, seized the 2003 results from Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc., in Long Beach, Calif. That was one of two labs used by baseball in connection with the testing. The seizure in April 2004 was part of the government's investigation into 10 baseball players linked to the BALCO scandal, the magazine reported. Rodriguez has not been connected to BALCO. Primobolan, also known as methenolone, is an injected or orally administered drug. It improves strength and maintains lean muscle with minimal bulk development and few side effects. Bonds tested positive three times for methenolone, according to court documents unsealed by a federal judge Wednesday. Primobolan is not an approved prescription drug in the United States. Testosterone can be taken legally with a prescription.
 
US Helped Plan And Finance Failed Rout Of Ugandan Rebels Top
The American military helped plan and pay for a recent attack on a notorious Ugandan rebel group, but the offensive went awry, scattering fighters who carried out a wave of massacres as they fled, killing as many as 900 civilians. The operation was led by Uganda and aimed to crush the Lord's Resistance Army, a brutal rebel group that had been hiding out in a Congolese national park, rebuffing efforts to sign a peace treaty. But the rebel leaders escaped, breaking their fighters into small groups that continue to ransack town after town in northeastern Congo, hacking, burning, shooting and clubbing to death anyone in their way.
 
Deepak Chopra: Military Solution to Terrorism Doomed? Military Presence Could be the Solution, If... Top
The following is a response to Deepak Chopra and Ken Robinson's recent editorial: By Col. Brian Rees, Dr. John Hagelin and Dr. David Leffler We agree, mostly, with Deepak Chopra's and Ken Robinson's editorial, "A military solution to a war on terrorism is doomed." However, there is one more important area that must be addressed in order for their proposed strategy to work quickly. They hinted at it when they wrote, "The chief reason to remain in Iraq and Afghanistan, once we entered and found chaos, is humanitarian..." Although the following comparison is not entirely applicable, we must remember that the US military deployed to Somalia for largely "humanitarian" reasons. Although sent in as a friendly force to restore order, later, due to the "chaos" they were reviled and persecuted by many civilians who had earlier pleaded for their help in delivering and safeguarding their lives, food, and supplies. This indicates that humans are motivated by dynamics that are beyond the ability of just our diplomatic and economic muscle to control. Violent extremism is a human problem requiring human solutions. The underlying cause of extremist social violence that often thrives in chaos is accumulated social stress. The US armed forces need a proven method to reduce the collective societal stress in hot spots like Iraq and Afghanistan. Peer-reviewed scientific research indicates that the best way to reduce collective societal stress, eliminate extremism and thereby snuff out war and terrorism is to adopt an ancient strategy. In modern times this strategy is called Invincible Defense Technology (IDT) and was revived by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in a non-religious manner. It has been quietly and successfully used in the past by members of many faiths to eliminate conflict. Contracting with IDT civilian experts or creating Prevention Wings of the Military could achieve this goal. These special units would be trained in IDT and collectively practice IDT's ancient technologies of consciousness--the Transcendental Meditation (TM) and TM-Sidhi programs--in large groups, twice a day. Extensive research shows that the size of the group needed to reduce social stress in a given population should exceed the square root of 1% of the population size. For instance, Iraq would need approximately 544 soldiers and Afghanistan approximately 572 soldiers as trained IDT experts. Studies show that when these thresholds are exceeded, quality of life indices go up, and crime, war and terrorism abate. Scientists named this phenomenon "The Maharishi Effect" in honor of Maharishi, who first predicted it. For instance, a day-by-day study in the Journal of Conflict Resolution (1988, vol. 32, #4, pp. 776-812) of a two-month-long coherence-creating assembly in Israel showed that, on days of high attendance by IDT experts, war deaths in neighboring Lebanon decreased by 76%. A follow-up day-by-day study in the Journal of Social Behavior and Personality (2005, vol. 17, #1, pp. 285-338) of more than two years showed that during seven different coherence-creating assemblies, war deaths in Lebanon decreased by an average of 71%. Over 50 studies have shown that IDT works. The causal mechanism has been postulated to be a field effect of consciousness -- a spillover effect on the level of the unified field from the peace-creating group into the larger population. On this basis, a study in the Journal of Social Behavior and Personality (2005, vol. 17, #1, pp. 339-373) additionally offers a proposed explanation of causality of IDT in biological terms. Research conducted on the powerful neurotransmitter serotonin shows that it produces feelings of contentment, happiness and even euphoria. Low levels of serotonin, according to research, correlate with violence, aggression, and poor emotional moods. The IDT study showed that higher numbers of IDT experts correlated with a marked increase in serotonin production among other community members. These results were statistically significant and followed the attendance figures in the IDT group. This finding offers a plausible neurophysiologic mechanism to explain reduced hostility and aggression in society at large. IDT has also been documented worldwide in a study published in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation (2003, vol. 36, #1-4, 283-302) using data provided by the Rand Corporation. When large assemblies of IDT experts exceeded the Maharishi Effect threshold for the world during the years 1983-1985, deaths due to terrorism globally decreased 72%, international conflict decreased 33%, and violence was reduced in nations throughout the world without intrusion by other governments. The armed forces are responsible for protecting the nation's citizens, and are obligated to thoroughly examine realistic, scientifically validated methods for ending war and terrorism. Militaries are funded and its personnel are paid to perform their duties to protect their nations. Ultimately, it is the duty of our elected representatives to give the military the tools it needs to eliminate the collective stress fueling terrorism worldwide. Just because a military solution to a war on terrorism is doomed, it does not mean that militaries cannot apply IDT as a scientifically-verified means to reduce the societal collective stress that is ultimately responsible for social problems like crime, terrorism and war. About the Authors: Colonel Brian M. Rees, M.D., US Army Reserve, a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, is a graduate of the US Army War College, and is currently Deputy Command Surgeon, 63rd RRC, Los Alamitos, California. John Hagelin, Ph.D. is a Harvard-trained Kilby Award winning quantum physicist who appeared in the feature films The Secret and What the Bleep Do We Know? David Leffler, Ph.D. a US Air Force veteran, is the Executive Director at the Center for Advanced Military Science, http://www.StrongMilitary.org More on Terrorism
 
Steve Clemons: Give Us Netanyahu. Please. Top
Peter Berkowitz 's essay in the latest issue of the Weekly Standard provides good insight into what I think is the strategic irresponsibility of those in Israel's leadership who think that they can hold steady on a course that justifies failure on an a Palestine-Israel deal using Hamas and Iran as excuses. As things look today, the Likud Party and its chief, Benjamin Netanyahu , look like they are about to be given a stronger hand in the coming elections. And Netanyahu is pro-settlement, and in my view the continued expansion of settlements is the most toxic activity that is undermining the negotiations process and actually, in the long term, will assure a deterioration in America's support for Israel. Berkowitz points out : The major difference between the candidates went unaddressed at Herzliya. It concerns the future of Israeli settlements, the towns and cities built and populated by Israel in the territories it gained control over in 1967 in the Six Day War. While he almost certainly would not build new settlements, Netanyahu remains unlikely, without pressure from the United States, to freeze the natural growth of existing settlements. In contrast, both Livni and Barak would probably impose a freeze on all new building beyond the Green Line. Livni and Barak recognize, however, along with Netanyahu, that the settlements are far from the fundamental obstacle to peace with the Palestinians. Indeed, the journalists, political analysts, and current and former national security officials to whom I spoke were in striking agreement that Livni and Barak as well as Netanyahu all see that the fundamental obstacle to progress in resolving the conflict with the Palestinians is Iran. Indeed, the case for Iran's centrality is convincing. I respect Peter Berkowitz but disagree with his take on things -- and find the perspective of many he is interacting with strikingly narrow when it comes to a serious strategy that will secure Israeli democracy and security in the coming years. I share Zbigniew Brzezinski's view that both sides of the Israel-Palestine divide have proven themselves completely unable to solve an arrangement on their own. A Palestinian state is still possible -- and Israel democracy without apartheid within its borders is also still possible. However, it is time to move negotiations out of the weeds and re-engage various stakeholders on all sides of the equation - including the U.S., Europe, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Iran, Syria, and the United Nations. Israel's bravado over Gaza and the massively disproportionate deployment of force in which so many innocents were killed or injured -- and lives seriously disrupted on so many levels -- is the type of potentially transformative act that can either radicalize a great many more Arabs against the current equations of power in the region or more optimistically, could transform the perspective of the White House to finally realize that Israel's zero-sum game approach in the region is something that needs to be curtailed and changed. Folks in the U.S. are hoping for centrists, reasonable, rational negotiators to emerge. Some on Obama's National Security Council team think that if they only can now. . .finally. . .make Abbas and Fatah the winners in the eyes of Palestinians by showering on them goodies to deliver to their constituents, all will be well. This is well meaning "earnestness." But it is flawed sentimentalism. Taking this approach with Abbas is "too much, too late." I think that despite recent drama, Tzipi Livni falls into this "earnestness" hope -- though she has a class of detractors larger than Maureen Dowd has. But "earnestness" in trying to move the Rubik's Cube of the region into alignment is flawed. Israel and Palestine together don't work. They can't come to a responsible deal on their own. It doesn't matter if Livni is Prime Minister, or Ehud Barak -- who I think is the most monstrous of recent Israeli political players for his role in tightening the noose around Palestinian mobility and movement after the Annapolis process started. And yes, I said monstrous - to borrow a term from Samantha Power. And it doesn't matter if Netanyahu is PM. Likewise, Mahmoud Abbas is essentially irrelevant at this point -- and all leaders in Palestine are with the exception of those who might be able to think strategically in a Gandhi-esque way and match the flamboyant absolutism and inhumanity of Israel's occuptation behaviors with non-violent civil disobedience on a communications scale that Gandhi achieved. Mustafa Barghouti comes to mind. . .possibly. In fact, the more irresponsible both sides are about their situation, the more achievable a "new equilibrium arrangement" may be -- because the US and other regional stakeholders simply can't afford for the recklessness, immaturity, and sheer stupidity of leadership on all sides of the conflict to continue. Given that. Give us Netanyahu. Please. His re-ascension will help Americans realize that the false choice approach the Bush administration has been taking in Israel-Palestine affairs was flawed -- and that Obama's team must change the game or face a serious rebuke from Middle East watchers in the US and around the world. -- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note More on Israel
 
FDA Approves Drug Made From Gene-Altered Goats Top
WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration made history Friday as it approved the first drug made with materials from genetically engineered animals, clearing the way for a new class of medical therapies. GTC Biotherapeutics said regulators cleared its drug ATryn, which is manufactured using milk from goats that have been scientifically altered to produce extra antithrombin, a protein that acts as a natural blood thinner. The drug's approval may be the first step toward new kinds of medications made not from chemicals, but from living organisms altered by scientists. Similar drugs could be available in the next few years for a range of human ailments, including hemophilia. The FDA cleared the drug to treat patients with a rare hereditary disorder that causes a deficiency of the protein, putting them at higher risk of deadly blood clots. The injectable treatment will be marketed in the U.S. by Deerfield, Ill.-based Ovation Pharmaceuticals About 1 in 5,000 people don't produce enough antithrombin protein, according to Framingham, Mass.-based based GTC. As a result, their blood is more likely to stick together, occasionally causing clots that can travel to the lungs or brain, causing death. Pregnant women with the disorder are at higher risk of miscarriage or stillbirth, because of blood clots in the placenta. Patients with hereditary anithrombin deficiency are currently prescribed conventional blood thinners, like Plavix from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis. That will not change with the new approval. ATryn is only approved for use when patients are undergoing surgery or having a baby, times when the risk of dangerous clots is particularly high. Those patients would receive the drug by intravenous infusion for a limited time before and after their procedures. To make the drug, scientists at GTC put DNA for the human antithrombin protein into single cell embryos of goats. Goat embryos with the gene were then inserted into the wombs of surrogate mothers who gave birth to baby goats that produce the protein-charged milk. Genetically engineered animals are not clones but rather animals that have had their DNA changed to produce a desirable characteristic. Amid growing questions about the technology, the FDA last month issued guidelines for how it will regulate products made from genetically altered animals. FDA said it will not allow any such products to be sold without first submitting them to scrutiny by independent advisers at a public meeting. The agency's panel of blood product experts recently concluded ATryn was safe and effective. But consumer groups said the FDA's long-awaited policy will not require all genetically engineered foods to be labeled as such. And they said the government has not done enough to examine the potential impact of genetically engineered animals on the environment, particularly if some escape and begin to mate with animals in nature. The drug received European approval in 2006. Shares of GTC Therapeutics rose 5 cents, or 5.5 percent, to 87 cents in midday trading. ___ AP Business Writer Matthew Perrone contributed to this story.
 
Europe Also Moves To Limit Executive Pay Top
This was supposed to be bonus season for the once-pampered bankers of Europe. Instead, it has become payback time. With President Obama telling American executives to curb excessive pay, an increasing number of European banks are limiting or canceling the high salaries and bonuses once seen as an inalienable right. More on Europe
 
Dreamworks Said To Be Headed To Disney Top
Steven Spielberg seems headed to the Walt Disney Company after a surprise parting of the ways with Universal Pictures, with whom he signed a deal just four months ago. The director's production company, DreamWorks SKG, was in advanced talks on Friday on a deal to distribute its movies through Disney, according to several people with knowledge of the talks but who asked for anonymity because no paperwork had been signed.
 
Steve Rosenbaum: "Stimulus? The Dollar Is Toast" Says Harvard MBA Juan Enriquez Top
If you believe what you read, the battle over the stimulus package has been a partisan one. The Democrats want it - the Republicans don't. And that story has played out as the vote squeaked through in the middle of the night. So, if you buy that line of reasoning - President Obama's plan is now in place. So, with that in mind - I found myself sitting in an auditorium in Long Beach with some of the smartest people on the planet this week. And as the stimulus debate raged in Washington, I listened to Juan Enriquez present a contrarian view of the countries financial crisis that was chilling. And perhaps made more chilling by the fact that Enriquez says the stimulus package will in fact make things worse. Said Enriquez: 'We're living in a debt crisis not a liquidity crisis. The fundamental problem is too much debt. And now we're adding debt and adding debt and adding debt. We're adding that debt in places that are not going to generate more jobs or economic output." What is critical here is to know that Enriquez isn't preaching pop-economics. Rather, he's presenting a deeply analytical and carefully researched argument. And with his triple threat background in business, economics, and science - he's got the processing power to actually lay out a cool and calculated argument that bears investigation. In his view, the stimulus is going to pour gasoline on the fire. Otherwise, in his words: "the Dollar is toast." Says the Harvard trained MBA, The only part of the economy that generates new output are start-up companies. The fortune 500 have generated net negative jobs over the last 30 years. It's startup companies that are .2 percent of GDP that have generated 17.8 percent of economic output. That's where we've got to be investing. So, has the administration reached out to Enriquez? Clearly not. The other thing we've got to do is politically untenable but absolutely essential. The country has a crisis - a cancer - that is called debt. If you've got cancer you've got to go through radiation, you've got to go through surgery, and you've got to go through chemo. That chemo looks like capping medical spending which is going to eat the entire budget. It looks like asking people to retire two years later if they're fifty to sixty, four years later if they're under fifty. And cutting back on the military about 3% a year. If we don't start doing these things and show those that own the US Debt, which is mostly foreigners that that trend line is going to start to come down instead of accelerating very quickly in terms of overall debt we're going to be in real trouble. Enriquez has a strongly worded warning for President Obama: "Quit spending money you don't have, because our kids - it isn't just our kids who are going to pay for it, we're going to pay for it and this crisis is going to get a lot worse if we don't start controlling our spending." More on Stimulus Package
 
Earl Ofari Hutchinson: Octuplet Mom Reinforced Single Mother Stigma Top
In her NBC interview Octuplet mom Nadya Suleman was irked at getting pounded for being a single mother with fourteen kids. Or in her words, "it's not as controversial because they're couples so its more acceptable." She had good reason to be irked, but she should be irked at herself too for doing much to reinforce that stigma. For the past half century single mothers have been ritually dumped on by everyone from liberal sociologists to Christian fundamentalists and even self-promoting gabber Ann Coulter. They are the fall women for every real and perceived malady in society; poverty, crime, drug use, personal profligacy, welfare dependency, bad acting, and even worse performing students, and of course, family breakdown. As for Coulter, she got hammered for beating up on single mothers in her new book while letting the guys who shove the women into single motherhood skip away scot free. This was more a hit against Coulter than a real defense of single mothers. The perception is just too deeply ingrained that single mothers create babies and problems for a momentary attack on Coulter to change that perception. Suleman is naive, in denial, or blind to the power of the negative single mom image to think that her pleading for the bashers to knock it off will fall on anything but the tinnest of tin ears. If anything, having eight babies, on top of six, and then hinting that her over the top baby making is a good thing without a prospective father sighting anywhere, fuels public wrath over the folly of babies and single mothers even more. But leaving aside questions of moral right, ethical propriety or even Suleman's legal responsibility, all have been hotly debated, the truth is that single mothers do not cause a terrible society, but do fare terribly in society. And there are a lot of single mothers. At last count nearly 40 percent of children are born out of marriage. In the majority of those cases the mothers will stay that way. The figures for lower income black and Hispanic women almost all Suleman's age or a decade or even decades younger than her are far greater than for unmarried white mothers. The number of single mothers are inching up after a decade long drop from the mid 1990s to 2005. The demographic of who gets pregnant and is single is predictable They're young, have multiple births, are non college educated, or even high school educated, and invariably poor. In their, Child Wellbeing Study, Princeton University researchers tracked 5,000 single mothers in who are charitably called Fragile Families. The women gave birth between 1998 and 2000 and all claimed that they wanted to get married. The wish didn't get any further than a wish. In a follow-up survey, most did not get married and a fair share of them had more babies by multiple partners. They had done little to improve themselves educationally or boosted their income. The Princteon findings are not unique. This reinforces the belief that single mothers are inherently doomed to wallow in poverty and want, and that their children are doomed to be congenital gang bangers, drive by shooters, and drug peddlers and jail and early cemetery fodder. Many single mothers swear as Suleman has that they will be good, devoted and loving mothers and that they will be able to foot the bill for their children's care and upbringing. That's not a small point in the furor over single mothers. The prospect that Suleman who's not only a single mother but an unemployed single mother who filed workers compensation claims, bankruptcy, and had a mountain of debt, might put the state (taxpayers) in hock for the medical care and treatment of the octuplets drew loud howls of protest. This is not a totally unfair concern. Kaiser Hospital shelled out a reported cool million for delivery, treatment, and care costs for the octuplets. Few single mothers, and that certainly includes Suleman, have a prayer of paying this cost out of pocket. Suleman gave no indication that she had a clue that someone else will have to pay the staggering cost of their ongoing care. This is not to pass moral judgment on Suleman's act, legions have already done plenty of that. Suleman may well prove her scoffers, bashers, and revilers all wrong. She may find a way to pay the freight for all 14 children, provide them with a warm, stable and loving home, and even stroll down the aisle with a mate. This would transform her from the poster single mom for irresponsible induced baby making to a true American motherhood success story. She would hardly be the first single mother to become a productive, paragon of achievement. Anything is posssible. Whatever happens, Suleman was right that single mother's do unfairly get beat up on for creating societal's ills. Unfortunately Suleman insured that the beating will continue. Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).
 
Greg Mitchell: How George Bush's Penis Made It to Broadway Top
For years, many here and elsewhere have referred to former President George W. Bush as "a dick" or "that prick." Now, you may have heard, Bush's penis has made it to Broadway -- and it opened "huge" this week. Now the question is, will it be "extended"? And how did it get there? Yes, this member of the administration has a cameo in the new Will Ferrell tribute, You're Welcome America , already one of the toughest tickets in town. It appears suddenly in the show, in living color, projected on a big screen, drawing gasps but also a few ahhs...sort of like Dubya while in office. It goes away and then appears again, provoking more shock and awe. The New York Times reports today that it has already provoked at least six walkouts. Someone in the theater is actually keeping track. The New York Daily News was more demure, referring to it as a "ruder body part." Others beat around the Bush, failing to even mention the appendage. The Times actually asked a Bush spokesman for comment (thank god it is no longer Dana Perino). No response came. Since Will could not get the real thing his team searched the Web for a possible likeness. To make sure it was not a hard act to follow, a limp penis was picked for the role. How did that happen? Director Adam McKay tells Playbill.com, I hate to break it to most of America, but there are public-domain cocks all over the place. You go surf the Internet. There are plenty of dudes out there who don't mind having their cock used in a Broadway show. I'd love to know whose it is. He's putting himself on the line as much as anyone out there. The idea of using the image of a penis originated one day in rehearsals. McKay and Ferrell recalled Dubya's comment that he had enjoyed being "a free man" before he entered the White House. "We were joking that now that he was out of office, he could do whatever he wants," McKay told the Times , "and so I said, 'Let's have him show his own penis,' and Ferrell was like, 'O.K.' He is a frat boy, a big party guy, and you could imagine him doing this. Though I want to make clear I'm not blaming the president for our very bad taste." One reviewer noted, "There is full frontal male nudity, ostensibly to imply that President Bush is compensating for something." Now the limited-run play may be extended. But Playbill also notes one serious aspect of the play: [T]here is one unscheduled speed-bump on this Bush-whacking expedition -- when he asks for a moment of silence for the lives lost in Iraq -- and the audience turns chillingly still for what seems like a small eternity. "That's our favorite part of the show," Ferrell admitted. "You just don't see it coming, and no one knows how we're going to get out of it. The reaction tonight is pretty close to what we get every night. Sometimes the audience is a little nervous and starts to laugh because they don't know which way to go, but tonight everyone was so dialed in to the moment and what we were trying to say. We've heard people felt a mixture -- they feel uncomfortable, they feel sad, they are stunned that they are actually being forced to sit there. That's the most satisfying part of the whole thing." Director Adam McKay, a longstanding friend of Ferrell's and his sometimes screenplay collaborator, defended that tough call: "We all know that Bush is funny and that he's not competent, but the fact is, because of what he did, he killed people -- conservatively, 200,000 civilians in Iraq, and all these soldiers -- 30,000 casualties. As much as you laugh about him, people died because of this...." Greg Mitchell's new book is " Why Obama Won " (Sinclair Books), the first book on the campaign from a "progressive" perspective. He is the editor of Editor & Publisher.
 
Shepard Fairey Arrested In Boston Top
BOSTON — Police in Boston say the artist famous for his "Hope" posters of President Obama has been arrested on outstanding warrants. Shepard Fairey was in Boston on Friday for his new exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art. Police Officer James Kenneally says the department had Jan. 24 warrants alleging the Los Angeles artist tagged property with graffiti. Fairey's Obama image has been sold on thousands of stickers and posters. It is the subject of a copyright dispute with The Associated Press. Fairey argues that his use of the AP photo is protected by "fair use," which allows exceptions to copyright laws. A California lawyer who has represented Fairey in the copyright case didn't immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the arrest.
 
Julia Moulden: Save The Girls, Save The Economy Top
The video begins with a provocative statement. "The world is a mess." And asks the viewer to agree or disagree. How would you respond? ( Watch video .) Well, the word out of the World Economic Forum in Davos is a definitive "agree". And an interesting trio is suggesting that investing in girls in developing countries is a sure-fire way to make sure they don't become victims of the global financial meltdown. In fact, with our help, they will be able to lead the way into the future. Mark Parker, CEO of Nike, Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation, and UNICEF's executive director Ann Vaneman believe that investing in girls and women will help them transform their families, their villages, and, ultimately, their countries. It all begins with providing girls with education and economic opportunities so that they can avoid, for instance, becoming commodities in the sex trade. There's more about what these organizations are doing at The Girl Effect . Of course, it's not just world-famous people who are making a difference in the lives of girls and women in nations around the globe. In 1980 or so, I read about female genital mutilation, or excision, a practice common in many African countries. I was horrified, and mentioned it to my anthropology professor, eager to discuss why it was encouraged, and what might be done about it. He dismissed it as nonsense, "That doesn't happen." Today, we know otherwise. And each year, more people are trying to eliminate the practice. A documentary on CBC Radio last Sunday afternoon told the story of women in the Dogon Hills of Mali who are defying centuries of tradition by saying "No!" to excision. One is Madame Fifi, who rides around Mali on a motorcycle, educating women about the dangers of the procedure, which more than 85% of the girls in her country endure (and it's being done on younger and younger girls as the older girls begin to resist). The other is a doctor who once treated the survivors of excision - yes, there are all kinds of physical complications, including infection, massive bleeding, and difficulty giving birth years later. Today, Dr. Joséphine Traoré-Keita is the director of the Malian government's anti-excision agency. To listen to David Gutnick's report, visit the Sunday Edition site , and choose the February 1, 2009 program. To read David's in-depth article, click here . Clearly, New Radicals - ordinary men and women like us who are putting the skills we acquired in our careers to work on the world's greatest challenges - are cropping up everywhere. Sometimes when I'm delivering a speech about the New Radicals (for more, please see archived articles ), I pose a question to the audience that's not unlike the one asked at the beginning of the 'girl effect' video, "Do you think the world is getting better or worse?" Most often, the response is mixed. Once in a while, more hands go up for "better", particularly when I'm speaking to educators. As one teacher put it last year when I remarked on the difference, "We're graduating the future." New Radicals believe that things may be bad, but it's not hopeless, and that each of us can make a difference. So, can investing in girls in developing countries save their lives and the economy, too? Please share your thoughts by commenting below, or emailing me at julia@wearethenewradicals.com . • In a related story, have you heard about playwright Eve Ensler's extraordinary efforts to bring the world's attention to the issue of violence against women in the Congo and around the world? Visit her site to learn more, and see if the woman best known for her play, The Vagina Monologues, is going to be in your town as she tours North America with Dr. Denis Mukwege. More on Davos
 

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