Monday, April 13, 2009

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Robert Weissman: No Blank Check for the IMF Top
This month's G20 meeting ended with one overriding tangible agreement : A commitment by the rich countries to provide more than $1 trillion in assistance (mostly in the form of loans) to developing countries. This money is desperately needed. Although they had nothing to do with mortgage-backed securities or credit default swaps, developing countries are getting worst hit by the global economic meltdown. The World Bank conservatively estimates that 53 million more people will be trapped in deep poverty due to the crisis. Fleeing foreign investors, plummeting remittance earnings, falling commodity prices and shrinking export markets are devastating developing countries, leaving them in dire need of infusions of hard currency. So, the G20 move is to be applauded ... except that the entire purpose of the G20's assistance may be thwarted by the institution through which the G20 countries chose to channel most of the money: the International Monetary Fund (IMF). (There's also the matter that the $1 trillion figure overstates what will actually be delivered, and includes previously pledged money.) The logic of providing assistance to developing countries is to help them adopt expansionary policies in time of economic downturn. Yet the IMF is forcing countries in financial distress to pursue contractionary policies -- exactly the opposite of the stimulative policies carried out by the rich countries (and supported by the IMF, for the rich countries). The good news is this: The U.S. Congress can fix the problem, if it imposes conditions on the IMF before it agrees to authorize the U.S. contributions to the Fund. For three decades , the IMF has imposed "structural adjustment" on the developing world, using different names. In exchange for providing loans and, more importantly, a stamp of approval needed to access donor money, the IMF requires countries to adopt a series of market fundamentalist policies. These include deregulation (including of financial services), privatization, opening to foreign investment, orienting economies to export markets, removing protections for local producers growing food or manufacturing for the local market, removing labor rights protections, cutting government budgets, raising interest rates, and more. Furious at being subject to IMF dictates, over the past decade almost all middle-income countries paid back their loans to the IMF and refused to have anything to do with the institution. Only African and other poor countries remained under IMF control. The financial crisis has breathed new life into the IMF. Now headed by a new Managing Director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the Fund proclaims that it has changed. The days of harsh conditionality are over, it says. That's a pronouncement to be applauded ... except that the evidence of actual change in IMF policy is disturbingly hard to find. The Fund's loans since September 2008 to countries rocked by the financial crisis almost uniformly require budget cuts, wage freezes, and interest rates hikes. These are exactly the opposite of the policies that make sense in recessionary conditions. They are exactly the opposite of the huge stimulus measures taken in the United States and other rich countries. They are the opposite of the interest rate reductions in the United States (now effectively at zero) and other rich countries. In Ukraine, Georgia, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Pakistan, Serbia, Belarus and El Salvador, the IMF has told countries to cut government spending, an analysis by the Third World Network shows . This means less money for health, education and other vital priorities. Earlier this month, the IMF told Latvia -- where the economy is expected to contract 12 percent this year -- that its loans would be suspended until it further cuts spending. The IMF has also instructed almost all of these countries to raise interest rates, the Third World Network analysis shows . The IMF has ballyhooed a new, low-conditionality lending program, known as the Flexible Credit Line. But that is available only to "good performing" countries -- which will be the countries least in need of loans. In some countries, there may be a modest loosening of Fund conditions. But the basic framework remains in place. Putting on its best face at a meeting it convened in Tanzania on the impact of the financial crisis on Africa, the Fund said in a policy paper that a few poor countries might have some capacity to undertake small stimulative programs. "A few countries may have scope for discretionary fiscal easing to sustain aggregate demand depending on the availability of domestic and external financing." But even then: "All this must be done carefully so as not to crowd out the private sector through excessive domestic borrowing in the often thin financial markets." But for countries in weak positions -- the vast majority -- "the scope for countercyclical fiscal policies is limited." And, the Fund continues to counsel against capital controls , which could limit the ability of foreign funds to enter and flee a country easily. This is of central importance, because it is concern about a currency attack that is the rationale for why poor countries cannot undertake stimulative measures. Capital controls would be the obvious remedy. But since the Fund rules them out a priori, countries are helpless, and denied the right to use the same Keynesian tools available to the rich countries. The opportunity to win real change at the IMF is this: The new money for the Fund's coffers has not yet arrived. The United States has pledged $100 billion of the $500 billion in new money that G20 countries said they would provide for the Fund (they also announced plans for an additional $250 billion through issuance of Special Drawing Rights, a kind of IMF currency). Congress must approve the U.S. contribution. Congress can very reasonably attach conditions to any money for the IMF, so that IMF policies do not undermine the very purposes of providing money in the first place. The Congress can say, before the money goes to the IMF, the IMF must agree not to impose contractionary policies during times of recession, or at least provide a reasoned, quantitative justification for any such policies. The Congress can say, before the money goes to the IMF, that the IMF must exempt health and education spending from any government budget caps. The Congress can say, before the money goes to the IMF, that parliaments must be given the authority to approve any deals negotiated between the IMF and finance ministries. People are growing a little tired of seeing hundreds of billions of dollars allocated without conditions and accountability. Congress must not sign a blank check for the IMF. More on The Bailouts
 
Moira Gunn: Moldova: Power to the People, Electronically Speaking Top
The news that some 10,000 to 15,000 young people met spontaneously in the capital of Moldova to protest recent and questionable elections was crowned physically by the storming of Moldova's Parliament and a breaching of the offices of its President. It was crowned in cyberspace as the embodiment of that old entreaty: "Power to the people" - this time, electronically delivered. Key were short text messages sent via mobile devices. Some devices were simple cell phones, while others were more sophisticated, like the iPhone and its ilk, which can check streams of messages on Twitter and view full video and photos on any website anywhere. The entire swath of young people were further aided by GPS, which can tell you exactly where to go and exactly how to get there. For people who can't understand how such a crowd could spontaneously assemble, remember that each of us knows a rather small, select group of people pretty well. If you blast a single message to all these people, and then these people turn around and send it on immediately to all the people they know, and so on, you get a sense of how fast a message can move. The fastest part is the technology. The slowest part is pretty fast as well - it's how long it takes a person to read the message and pass it on. The key is that starting with any single person you can get to everybody - so, in truth, everybody knows everybody. But there's a little more to it than that. The organizing power of this phenomenon was first seen in the US with the surprise success of "meet-up's" organized online during Howard Dean's ill-fated presidential run. This technology literally drew thousands of people to designated spots, again and again, and the only limiting factor was interest to do so. That's right, the motivation of everyone involved. Who knew how motivated the Dean supporters would be? So, while we may share common interests with our friends, any message we send them must be grandly compelling to carry it forward. Howard Dean as a new viable candidate was just such a compelling idea for young people in that moment, and for ten-to-fifteen thousand young people in Moldova, the idea of protesting what they believed to be rigged elections was even more so. Once pulled together in the same spot, these young people started acting as all young people do - rashly, to be sure, but without a doubt, passionately. It was the kind of civil action witnessed in Berkeley in the sixties and nationwide across college campuses in the seventies. And the rhetoric of Moldova's protesters had another familiar ring: The desire to reject the values of their parents and an entire older generation. "Never trust anyone over thirty" was the Baby Boomers' mantra. These protesters may be young, but they are serious, and they will never ever forget that day. While enjoying the euphoria of the moment, they also need to remember: There's always a downside to technology, and this one may lead to trouble in the future. All their messages and photos and the like, and where they physically were through it all, is sitting there as data on their mobile phone provider's computers and in each other's cell phones and on the Internet and who knows where else. These same thousands of young people may be pursued and prosecuted, put on a list somewhere that feeds onto another list, and still another. They may find in the years to come that they are asked again and again about that day, and suffer consequences - both known and unknown - from their participation. For in the end, as always, this isn't about technology; it's about power. And no government - communist or otherwise - gives it up without a fight. But the young people of Moldova have one thing previous generations never had - access to information technology. Yes, the Information Age has arrived, and without a doubt, information and freedom are inextricably linked. Truth be told, the power of governments will never be the same. More on Twitter
 
Jeff Schweitzer: Morality Originates in Religion...Not Top
A spate of magazine articles, cable TV shouting matches and debates among pundits this week have raised to prominence the question of whether the United States is a Christian nation. President Obama claims we are not, as we should not be. The majority of the public, ignorant of our history, believes otherwise. The arguments will rage on. But the current contretemps misses a central point about religiosity in general by focusing on Christianity specifically. More important than the degree to which the United States is Christian is the deeper but virtually unquestioned assumption in this debate that morality is derived from religion. The assumption is false and dangerous. Traits that we view as moral are deeply embedded in the human psyche. Honesty, fidelity, trustworthiness, kindness to others, and reciprocity are probably primeval characteristics that helped our ancestors survive. In a world of dangerous predators, early man could likely thrive only in cooperative groups. Good behavior would almost certainly strengthen the tribal bonds that were essential to survival. We can reasonably postulate that what we now call morality is really a suite of behaviors favored by natural selection in an animal weak alone but strong in numbers. Morality is our biological destiny, not a gift from god. Despite abundant evidence to the contrary, human beings are inherently moral creatures, as our sociality would demand. Our inherent good, however, has been corrupted by the false morality of religion. For millennia religious doctrine has manipulated us with divine carrots and sticks. If we misbehave, we are threatened with the hot flames of hell. If we please god, we are promised the comforting embrace of eternal peace. Under the burden of religion, morality has become nothing but a response to bribery and fear. We have forsaken our biological heritage in exchange for coupons to heaven. Faith has triumphed over reason, and we have suffered terribly as a result. In much of the world, humanity endures crowded poverty, taught that contraception is an affront to god. We rape our environment, told in Genesis that the earth's resources were put here for our exploitation and pleasure. Millions have perished in wars fought in the name of some great god. Genocide, torture, and holocausts are perpetrated in the cause of a loving father in heaven. This vengeful, wrathful, jealous, petty, bloodthirsty deity is not an appropriate guiding light on moral values. Popular and brilliant authors such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris understand the inherent danger of religion's false promise. All are eloquent and fully justified in their respective and beautifully written diatribes against god. But in some ways these authors have life easy. Religion is so deeply flawed that bashing god makes for poor sport. The target is too easy, like fish in a barrel, deer in the headlights, or flightless quail on a Dick Cheney hunt. Tearing down religion is useful only if a viable alternative is offered. We need to take the next step of suggesting solutions to humanity's most pressing problems in a world absent any god. We can do so by returning to core values based on our own evolutionary history, derived from our biological legacy free from myth and fable. We can move beyond faith and god to a life more complete. There exists for those willing to see a new perspective a deeply satisfying purpose and meaning to life free from any divine influence. To glimpse this world, imagine for a moment that there is no invisible man in the sky using magical powers in "mysterious ways" to control our fate. Imagine that we can toss away the crutch of false hope and bad myth to walk unhindered down the path of personal responsibility. Without the burden of a wrathful god, we have the power to create our own meaning, our own sense of purpose, our own destiny. By rejecting the false premises of religion we are free to move beyond the random hand we are dealt at birth to pave our own road to a better life. With freedom of course comes the obligation to act wisely and responsibly. We fulfill this duty first by taking a more modest view of our place in the world. When we see that humans are a natural part of the ecosystem, not above or separate from the environment, we will protect the resources that sustain us. When we reject the hubris and conceit of religion, we will redefine our relationship with each other without calling upon god to smite our enemies. When we understand that true morality is independent of religious doctrine, we will create a path toward a just society. We each have the power to create a life in which we no longer accept the arbitrary and destructive constraints of divine interference. The need to move beyond religion has never been more urgent. Our Earth is in crisis. Religion corrupts our relationship with the environment, fosters extremism that threatens our security at home and abroad, and breeds outlandish hypocrisy in personal behavior and public policy. A meaningful alternative exists for the millions of people unsatisfied with this status quo, for those who want to shed the yoke of tired rituals no longer relevant to modern life and who reject religious dogma that for too long has suppressed our inherent good. Morality without religion encourages sound environmental stewardship, offers a new approach to social ethics, and promotes and strengthens our better side. For those willing to consider a new path, shedding the constraining cloaks of religion leads to a life more fulfilled through personal responsibility and a morality based in fact instead of myth. More on Religion
 
David Ormsby: Quinn Is Both Frugal and Generous Top
(Springfield, IL) -- Governor Pat Quinn continues to outshine his predecessor Rod Blagojevich. Admittedly, that bar is pretty low. A 7 watt bulb could outshine Blagojevich. But Quinn does it without the Blagojevich "razzle dazzle machine" theatrics that House Speaker Michael Madigan's press secretary, Steve Brown, once ascribed to the former governor. On Saturday, April 11, the Quinn brand was on full display at the Executive Mansion -- both frugal and generous simultaneously. Quinn organized an Easter egg hunt for Springfield-area children with developmental disabilities. More than 100 children, siblings, and parents attended, the Springfield Journal-Register reported. In addition to the plastic egg hunt, the Springfield Theatre Centre put on a vignette of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", arts and crafts were made available to the kids, and Quinn read "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" to the folks assembled. Of course, Quinn is a politician and there is public relations value for staging an kids event like this. So, one is inclined to ask what was the event's cost to taxpayers? Zero. Local businesses covered a portion of the expenses -- and Quinn paid the rest out of his own pocket. Quinn's frugality is legendary. As Lt. Governor, Quinn traveled overseas on state business 10 times in six years. But he billed the state for just two of the trips. And when on other state business Quinn never accepted the $32 daily meal allowance to which traveling state workers are entitled. And he often payed his own hotel bill. His predecessor? Blagojevich for all his blather about his commitment to kids, he appears to have held no Easter egg hunt, though Patti Blagojevich hosted a hunt in 2006. And during his terms Blagojevich allegedly seemed intent on filling his pockets. And what's the reaction of Springfield Journal-Register readers to Quinn and his Easter egg hunt? * Debi5 - Thank you Governor Quinn for doing something wonderful! It is nice to see the mansion being used and opened to the public once again. * walt38 - Great going Gov. Quinn!! * fourfootedpals - Thank you, Governor Quinn, for doing this. Thank you for making the SPARC kids feel very special. I'm so glad you chose these kids instead of a bunch of the legislators kids, grandkids, relatives, and other assorted kids 'adopted' for the day just so they could go to the Mansion's Easter Egg hunt. * starstruck - A very positive event. Thumbs up Gov. Q! * Lillie Mae - Very cool, Governor Quinn, thank-you. Glad all had a good time. * Ambrose Bee- Whethe you agree with his politics or not, this guv is CLASS. Events like this, paying the difference out of his own pocket. Wish the media would do a story on this instead of all the garbage they chase * Oldman - What a difference a NEW Governor can make. * cubshater - Thanks Gov,,, * Mumps - What a difference an impeachment makes. We might have had Pat Quinn a few years ago if others had done their jobs instead of choosing to re-elect Blago. That being said, Governor Quinn couldn't have come at a better time. Thanks, governor, for all your efforts. It's nice to see this event back on the calendar. And Happy Easter, everyone! How's that for -- "razzle dazzle"? It's the kind of razzle dazzle Blagojevich never understood. More on Rod Blagojevich
 
Craig Rowin: Passover Leftover Suggestions Top
Passover is almost over. You've already eaten a lot of Farfel, Matzah O's and macaroons, but you're still hungry. Here are 10 delicious and easy ways to make the most of your remaining Passover food. 1. Passover Sushi - Wrap gefilte fish in matzah and seaweed. In place of soy sauce, use Manishevitz wine. 2. Karpas Salad - Take the parsley (which represents hope and redemption) wash with salt water (which represents tears shed) and cover with balsamic vinaigrette (which represents a delicious low fat alternative). 3. Passover 6 Foot Sub - Line up 6 feet of matzah on a table. Place whitefish and liver on top. Garnish with horseradish, and enjoy your favorite sports game as you would year-round. 4. Macarooni and Cheese - Take any kind of macaroons (I prefer coconut) and cover with warm Velveeta cheese. 5. Protein Shake - Drink leftover gefilte fish jelly straight from the jar. 6. Matzah Pasta - Drop three pieces of matzah into a pot of water. Let it come to a rolling boil. Drain excess water. Mix the wet matzah and tomato sauce into a nice consistent mush. 7. Charoses Turnovers - Turn your favorite apple and nut mix into a delicious desert turnover. Place charoses on matzah, turn it over, and enjoy. 8. Bittersweet Chocolate Chips - Mix bitter herbs and chocolate chips, and spread on Matzah. For a more savory treat, use horseradish with beets mixed in. 9. Matzah Brei and Brie - Place matzah in egg and milk and fry in a pan to make traditional Matzah Brei. Add aged brie cheese, and enjoy with a nice kosher wine. 10. Matzah Ball Soup Ice-Pops - Place matzah ball soup in individual plastic cups. Put popsicle sticks in cups, and place in freezer. Don't eat these too slow or the chicken broth will melt all over you.
 
Dr. Robert Aziz: The White House Office of Goodwill Neighborhood Partnerships Top
On the 16th day following his inauguration as the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama established by way of an executive order the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. This Office, according to the February 5th White House press release, "will be a resource for nonprofits and community organizations, both secular and faith based" supporting such groups to "work on behalf of Americans committed to improving their communities, no matter their religious or political beliefs." Now although the opinion generated by this controversial presidential order has covered much ground from the time of its February 5th signing, a question of no small significance remains unexamined. To date we have heard a great deal from those sitting on the two readily identifiable sides of this controversy; on the one side, religious groups who are delighted with the prospect of continued government funding for faith-based community projects and, on the other side, those who regard such funding as unconstitutional. What has remained unexamined, by contrast, is the question of exactly what this executive order means to President Obama. Clearly this is a question of no small importance; for what this executive order means to the President, I would suggest, is not at all what it means to most others, especially those operating within the said polarity. What has remained unexamined is the question of the role played by President Obama's most basic assumption about human nature--an assumption that not only informed his decision-making process in the case of this project, but one that will inform the President's decision-making process and leadership going forward. An understanding of this the President's most fundamental assumption about human nature and thus his vision for this program, I would further add, is not only necessary to measure the success or failure of the program, but also, to allow for corrections should things move off course or, worse still as I believe we are now seeing, altogether fail to get properly on course in the first place. Barack Obama, it should be understood, is a man of faith, but not in a conventional sense of that notion. Indeed very much in contrast to the faith-based experiences of most individuals, for Obama spirituality has far less to do with what one believes than it has to do with the good works that result from those beliefs. Ideologically-based convictions in themselves, in this regard, whether, I will now add, they are of a religious or secular nature, have little or no credence except to the extent they are validated by the actual good works issuing from them. This view is entirely consistent with Barack Obama's upbringing, as I explain in Democracy and Self-Organization: The Change of Which Barack Obama Speaks : It is perhaps not surprising that absolutistic assumptions about life and its meaning were not part of Barack Obama's own upbringing. In fact under his mother's direction, Barack Obama was led to view disparate and even competing religious belief systems and ideologies with empathic openness and tolerance, as he explained to Charlie Rose in an interview in 2006: 'I didn't grow up in a religious household. My mother, who was an anthropologist, would take me to church once in a while, and then she would take me to the Buddhist monastery, and then she'd take me to a mosque. Her attitude was religion was fascinating and an expression of human attempts to understand the mysteries of life.' Of course the phrasing 'human attempts to understand the mysteries of life' is not be overlooked, as it speaks, not to the possibility of an absolute understanding of the life process and God, but rather, to the possibility of an approximate understanding of the life process and God, much as is no less true of the limitations of scientific inquiry itself. Yet with such epistemological limitations and all her 'professed secularism' taken into account, Barack Obama could only conclude about his mother that she 'was in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I've ever known. She had an unswerving instinct for kindness, charity, and love, and spent much of her life acting on that instinct, sometimes to her detriment ... she worked mightily to instill in me the values that many Americans learn in Sunday school: honesty, empathy, discipline, delayed gratification, and hard work. She raged at poverty and injustice, and scorned those who were indifferent to both. Most of all, she possessed an abiding sense of wonder, a reverence for life and its precious, transitory nature that could properly be described as devotional.' [pp. 41-42] As I noted in a previous Huffington Post blog, " An Inaugural Invocation For A Man of Goodwill ," Barack Obama, although a deeply spiritual person, can in no way be conceived of as a religious fundamentalist, since for him ideology and dogma are entirely secondary to acts of goodness. Barack Obama, I suggested, accordingly, is most accurately characterized as "a goodwill fundamentalist, which is to say, someone who believes in the infallibility of goodwill, something no doubt his mother instilled in him." For President Obama the OFBNP project is ultimately about one thing only; it is not about the sponsorship and promotion of religious ideology and dogma; it is not about the sponsorship and promotion of secular ideology; what it is about, rather, is the freeing of genuine goodwill acts from the potential constraints of both of these, not to speak of the behemothic constraints of government bureaucracy. Speaking with specific reference to the freeing of goodwill acts from the ideological limitations of the latter, President Obama stated at the time of the signing of his executive order on February 5th: Over the past few days and weeks, there has been much talk about what our government's role should be during this period of economic emergency. ... But no matter how much money we invest or how sensibly we design our policies, the change that Americans are looking for will not come from government alone. There is a force for good greater than government. It is an expression of faith, this yearning to give back, this hungering for a purpose larger than our own, that reveals itself not simply in places of worship, but in senior centers and shelters, schools and hospitals, and any place an American decides. 'There is a force for good greater than government;' there is a force for good, I would add by way of extending this point, greater than all secular and religious ideologies combined. It is for Barack Obama a force whose tangible presence is announced to us in the form of goodwill acts. Addressing his National Prayer Breakfast audience in Washington. D.C., President Obama thus spoke candidly and compellingly about the constraints that religious ideologies have historically placed on acts of genuine goodwill: ... as I see presidents and dignitaries here from every corner of the globe, it strikes me that this is one of the rare occasions that still brings much of the world together in a moment of peace and goodwill ... far too often, we have seen faith wielded as a tool to divide us from one another - as an excuse for prejudice and intolerance. ... There is no doubt that the very nature of faith means that some of our beliefs will never be the same. ... But no matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate. ... We know too that whatever our differences, there is one law that binds all great religions together. ... the call to love one another; to understand one another; to treat with dignity and respect those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth. It is an ancient rule; a simple rule; but also one of the most challenging. For it asks each of us to take some measure of responsibility for the well-being of people we may not know or worship with or agree with on every issue. ... It requires us not only to believe, but to do - to give something of ourselves for the benefit of others and the betterment of our world. In this way, the particular faith that motivates each of us can promote a greater good for all of us. Instead of driving us apart, our varied beliefs can bring us together to feed the hungry and comfort the afflicted; to make peace where there is strife and rebuild what has broken; to lift up those who have fallen on hard times. This is not only our call as people of faith, but our duty as citizens of America, and it will be the purpose of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships that I'm announcing later today. There should be no doubt that President Obama's intention is to provide by way of the OFBNP unprecedented support for goodwill works. There should be no doubt that the President's intention is to utilize non-governmental religious and secular groups as the conduit of a goodwill surge--and in so doing it is his hope that these religious and secular groups will rise above the limitations of their ideological differences and embrace a common endpoint. Seeking to convey the endpoint focus of his newly created White House Office by way of quoting St. Augustine, the President told his Washington audience: "Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you." The endpoint is the key--the endpoint is, to be sure, the only point of reference and that point of reference for President Obama is the work, the goodwill work. Prayers are not being funded, nor are beliefs being funded, rather, goodwill works are being funded. Clearly this is the President's intention, but this being said signals to the contrary have been sent out, such as the presentation of conversion testimony at the time of the project's launch, as from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair --testimony which wrongly pushes the question of belief to the forefront. Then there are the important questions that have been raised about the responsibilities and structural bias of the newly created 25-member OFBNP advisory council. In a March 26, 2009 Guardian article, Sarah Posner wrote: ... few Americans have grasped how President Barack Obama is surrounding himself with spiritual advisors whose politics are less extreme and vitriolic than the religious right, but whose views of women and gender are far closer to those of religious extremists than to those of mainstream Americans ... Obama enlarged the role of the OFBNP to provide guidance on matters including 'fatherhood' and 'abortion reduction.' That these policy concerns should be the province of religion is bad enough. Obama also stacked the council with men, many of whom are opposed to reproductive rights. Similarly, with reference to the OFBNP advisory council, Martha Burk wrote in her Huffington Post blog on February 22, 2009: To accord this advisory panel so much power, while relegating women to the margins, speaks volumes. Religious groups gained a lot from the Bush years - access to the White House, and millions of dollars in federal money, some of which was used to proselytize. And don't forget, almost all faiths consider women second class citizens; many actively campaign against affirmative action, the Women's Equality Amendment, the international human rights treaty for women known as CEDAW, and civil rights for gays and lesbians. Much as the assumptions of scientific paradigms restrict which scientific findings will and will not be taken into consideration, much as the assumptions of scientific paradigms restrict which research paths will or will not be followed, the ideological assumptions of secular and religious worldviews, there should be no doubt, will hold no less sway over the decision making processes of steering committees such as the 25-member advisory council. Inclusivity and balance, therefore, must be taken as requisites when it comes to the question of the council's directional integrity. "One of the great strengths of the United States," President Obama noted in his April 6, 2009 news conference in Turkey, speaking with reference to America's historic regard for secular and religious balance and inclusivity, "[is that even though] we have a very large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation; we consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values." How much clearer could the President's intentions be? But this being said even the best of intentions, as we well know, are never enough. What is required, therefore, to keep the OFBNP project from going sideways, is the introduction of precise navigational points oriented to specific endpoints or outcomes. What is needed to keep this project from going sideways is for the President to close a leadership gap between vision and execution--a leadership gap that has not only presented with this project, but also is starting to show up elsewhere. What is needed is for the President to close a leadership gap between the consciousness level at which he is capable of functioning and his level of policy execution. Given the steep learning curve that any new President must undergo such missteps are not surprising. What does, however, especially concern me is that given the uniqueness of President Obama's vision--that for which the American electorate so fully moved behind him--correction may not be as simple as delegating more. Indeed the solution to this problem may need to take the form of delegating less. Delegation, if it is to amount to anything of value, requires the delegated responsibility to be handed off to someone capable of carrying it. My great concern is that those around the President may often be at a loss when it comes to interpreting and actualizing his vision. The 'new,' as a consequence, is getting poured into the molds of the 'old.' Going forward, the President, it seems to me, will need to assume the responsibility of ensuring a more precise interpretation and execution of what he has in mind. The President may have made his own way through the religious and secular ideological labyrinths through which the OFBNP initiative must pass to succeed, but the greatest threat to the success of this project is that the fine line that has been genuinely walked by the man of goodwill is largely indiscernible to most. "Begin with an error of an inch," a well-known Chinese proverb aptly relates, "and end by being a thousand miles off the mark." It would have been a far more precise starting point if the President had simply called it the White House Office of Goodwill Neighborhood Partnerships. More on Barack Obama
 
Palin's Attorney General Pick: She "Looked Really Good," "Provocative" Top
A news clip from KTUU in Alaska, pulled by HotAirPundit , features a bizarre back and forth between Alaska Attorney General-designee Wayne Anthony Ross at his confirmation hearing in the Alaska State House of Representatives, being questioned by Republican Rep. Jay Ramras. Ramras asked Ross to give his opinion on what Governor Sarah Palin had "done wrong." Ross, who apparently doesn't "like people taking shots at courageous women," offered, "She's been shot at so much, she doesn't want to reach out." Okay, this is pretty par for the course, I guess. Then comes this bizarre exchange: RAMRAS: She was wearing Arctic Cat gears and leathers-- ROSS: She was provocative. She looked really good didn't she? RAMRAS: Yes...[beat]...Well no, not to a lot of Alaska she didn't. To a lot of Alaska she looked like a walking billboard. Alaska: we're all professionals here. [WATCH.] [Would you like to follow me on Twitter ? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here .] More on Video
 
Jay Mandle: Congressional Fair Elections Act 2009 Top
Last month, Arlen Specter and Dick Durban in the Senate, and John Larson and Walter Jones in the House of Representatives introduced the Bi-Partisan Fair Elections Now Act (Fair Elections), a bill that would for the first time provide public funding for Congressional candidates. Welcoming its introduction, Nick Nyhart and David Donnelly, long time reform advocates, wrote that with its passage voters of average means would no longer "worry that their elected officials are indebted to deep-pocket funders with interests entirely separate from their own."[1] Obviously this legislation will not be adopted without a hard fight. The special interests who benefit from the "pay to play" political system will not willingly concede defeat. A wide array of defenses will be mounted in support of the private funding system, including of course the argument that at a time of economic collapse, the last thing we should do is spend public money on politicians. Yet none of these arguments successfully counters the reality that today's system of private funding privileges the wealthy and thereby subverts democracy. In fact the present economic crisis is largely the result of the political power Wall Street accumulated as a result of its massive political contributions. If Fair Elections were passed, the banks, hedge funds, insurance companies and all those who gamble in financial markets would find their power greatly curtailed and we would be all the better for it. The Fair Elections Act is a hybrid plan. Like the "clean elections" systems present in Arizona, Maine, Connecticut, and elsewhere, it provides public funds to qualified office-seekers who volunteer to participate in the system. But unlike the full public funding systems present in those states, the Congressional bill permits an individual to contribute a donation of $100 or less during each of three separate stages of the electoral process (qualifying for participation in the system; running in a primary election; and competing in the general election). In the latter two stages candidates will receive four public dollars for every dollar raised from in-state contributors. Fair Elections reduces the total amount of money any private contributor can give to candidates during an election cycle from $2,300 to $300. In exchange it provides a substantial grant of public funds and allows a candidate to accumulate private money in small donations. Small donors are part of all systems of public funding. These contributions are used as a means of testing the seriousness and viability of candidates. It is important to protect the public funding system against cranks with no real basis of political support. But in the state "clean elections" systems those qualifying donations do not go directly to the candidates. In contrast, with Fair Elections small donations play a dual role. They are used both to qualify for participation in the system and to accumulate campaign funds. No violence to democratic norms would be involved with such a system if in fact small donors were representative of the American electorate. Their voluntary participation in the funding process would merely reflect the greater willingness of some citizens compared to others to participate in politics by making financial contributions. Unfortunately, however, the limited data that we have on the subject suggests that even small donors represent a relatively privileged stratum of the population. In a 2006 survey of donors in five states, the Campaign Finance Institute compared the income levels of donors who made no political contributions with those who gave under $100 and with those who donated between $100 and $500. The differences were substantial. Even donors of $100 or less were notably more affluent than non-donors. While almost half (48.3 percent) of non-donors earned less than $40,000, only 11.2 percent fell into that income category among $100 or less donors. The gap is even greater in the study's medium donor category. The data are not cut off at the $300 level used by Fair Elections, but among the people who gave between $100 and $500, only 4.9 percent earned less than $40,000. And four-fifths of these donors earned at least $75,000.[2] There is of course no danger that small donors - even assuming that they contribute the maximum $300 allowed - will play the same role in the Fair Elections system that big donors do at present. Nevertheless the four to one match does mean that private donations will remain important. Because that is so and because small donors tend to be relatively high income earners, Fair Elections will allow wealthy people to exercise more political influence than the rest of the population. The fight for Congressional public financing will be protracted. Congressional hearings have not yet even been scheduled. The content of the Fair Elections bills therefore can and should be subjected to intense debate. That debate should emanate not only from the side that opposes egalitarian funding. There should as well be vigorous intervention from those who think that the retreat from the more democratic funding of "clean elections" models is undesirable. Fair Elections should be modified to more closely resemble the "clean elections" systems that at the state level have proved to be both effective and popular. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Nick Nyhart and David Donnelly, "Fair Elections Now!" The Nation, March 26, 2009. [2] These data are taken from Wesley Y. Joe, Michael J. Malbin, Clyde Wilcox, Peter W. Brusoe and Jamie P. Pimlott, "Do Small Donors Improve Representation? Some Answers from Recent Gubernatorial and State Legislative Elections," (Washington DC: Campaign Finance Institute, 2008) Table 1.
 
Carolita Johnson: The Bailout Slide Game! Top
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Bruce Nilles: Keeping Clean Energy, Public Comments on the Table Top
We've been big fans of Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire because she's a great supporter of clean energy and fighting global warming. This week she even wrote about those issues in an excellent OpEd for the Seattle Times . Yet while we support many of Gov. Gregoire's actions, we must also take issue when coal power gets a boost and the public is not allowed to voice its concerns. In the past week, controversy arose when the Washington State Department of Ecology announced the results of a deal brokered between the Governor's office and the TransAlta Corporation, owners of the Centralia Coal Power Plant in Central Washington. The deal rewrites the state's pollution rules for the Centralia Coal Plant and is the result of several months of closed door negotiations discussing several air quality issues which are normally openly regulated under the Clean Air Act. Although some of the specifics of the confidential agreement were disclosed at a recent Department of Ecology meeting, a spokesperson for the department has announced that the full discussions from the mediation process will remain confidential and that there are no plans to allow public comment or involvement in the mediation process or on the deal itself. Dan Ritzman, the Western Regional Director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign , said this type of mediation process is highly unusual. It's hard to know what to think when this whole process has been conducted behind closed doors, but it's hard to believe that this process is in the people's best interest. We haven't been told much about this deal, nor have we been given access to all the documents upon which Ecology based their decision. Ritzman said the Governor's office entered into the mediation at the request of the Alberta, Canada, based corporation TransAlta. At the company's request, the mediation process was conducted with a confidentiality clause preventing public access or involvement. Ritzman speculates that TransAlta requested this deal seeking to come to an agreement on pollution standards for the coal plant while avoiding the public disclosures and involvement which are normally part of the regulatory process. Ritzman added that "this should have been handled through the regular process, the lack of transparency in these negotiations sets a dangerous precedent for the state." Despite the coal plant being the state's single largest point emitter of green house gasses and Washington's only dirty coal plant, the new agreement fails to provide any guidance or regulations on global warming pollution. Interestingly, the Centralia Coal Plant was also absent from the Department of Ecology's plan to address climate change which was released last year during the state's confidential bargaining process with TransAlta. Ritzman and the chapter also took notice that the Department of Ecology's plan calls for some additional monitoring, but no actual control, of the plant's mercury pollution. It's impossible to know whether this is a good deal for the environment or not unless the public has the opportunity to review all the documents the Department of Ecology used to make this decision. We were under the impression the public would have an opportunity to comment on this agreement. We know Gov. Gregoire cares about clean energy and fighting global warming. We will continue to urge her to move the state away from coal and to involve the public in the process of planning Washington's clean energy future. More on Green Energy
 
Take HuffPost's World News Quiz Top
Americans are often chastised for knowing little to nothing about world affairs. Time to prove that you can do more than pick out your country on a blank map. Step right up and take HuffPost's World News Quiz. Show us your global-news prowess, compete with your friends and come back every Monday for a new edition. And remember, you won't be able to look yourself in the mirror if your good friend Google helps you out...enjoy! Take past quizzes . Sign up here to receive the latest HuffPost World news and learn about ways to participate in our coverage. Keep in touch with Huffington Post World on Facebook and Twitter .
 
Scott Diel: Battle Stations: Among the Russians Top
I've always loved Russia, if only for the Russians. They're a people to whom pazhalusta (please) and spaseeba (thank you) actually matter, and even poorly spoken Russian will get you almost everything and everywhere. And there are few things better in life than to be the honored guest of a Russian. The host opens his heart and soul and "what's mine is yours" is more than a cliché. Although I've been to Russia many times, I took my first trip to Moscow just last month. My prior love for Russia had come from the countryside: aimless wanderings in search of the people under Chekhov's mansard roof, Turgenev's sportsmen, or Pushkin's fog on the hills of Georgia. But Moscow made me an urban fan. When I stepped into Red Square I could understand that Russia is a great nation in the word's true meaning and that the source of Russian pride is not misplaced. Young Muscovites were as stylish as New Yorkers and there was palpable energy on the streets. After a few days being spoiled by my Russian hosts, even the dirty metro seemed romantic and I began to find pleasant meter and rhyme in the exit signs: V ihod v gorod . But while individual Russians are a delight, a large group of them is entirely another matter. Courtesy of a canceled Estonian Air flight, I was to witness the dark underbelly of the Russian soul. Over the next nine hours--the time it would take Estonian Air's crack representatives to get us off the plane and re-ticketed for other destinations--I would be treated to an up-close tour of the uniquely Russian phenomenon, the ocherit , or queue. Russian lines take on distinct forms that are not, in fact, lines. They are more elliptical in shape with cells within the larger unit each playing out its own small drama. It is much like being in the showroom of Best Buy with each television tuned to a different Mexican soap opera. Within cells of two or three persons, elbows are thrown, luggage carts driven over toes, and the raw cruelty of Darwinism is on full display. It began on my flanks. I would turn my attention only briefly to the magazine I was reading, and dark shapes would appear in my peripheral vision. Wordlessly, they would infiltrate the queue and plant themselves directly before me. From my days in Kiev, I thought I was sufficiently versed in Russian line lingo--stern utterances such as zdyess ocherit! (there's a line here!) and ya stayu zdyess tozhe! (I'm standing here, too!)--but my Ukraine experience proved not up to the major leagues of Moscow. Muscovites simply ignored me. When I employed eye contact, the western technique of shaming, the Russians displayed total indifference. They'd achieved their new, rightful place in line, and any prior aggressiveness was now water under the bridge. A few even smiled when I made eye contact. Most ignored me and went back to loud conversations with their friends. I don't mind a little bit of lawlessness, and I have to admit fascination (and a bit of admiration) for the strange ways of Russians. Many cut to the very front of the line without the slightest protest from any other passenger, and I was spellbound by the silent charisma of those able to manage the feat. But when you are standing in line for nine hours, Russian behavior takes on a different significance. I realized I might never get out of Sheremetyevo airport alive. Despite my attempts to step up my level of aggressiveness there were always more people in front of me than behind. Something was amiss. I soon found myself at the very end of the line. At the end of the queue I found other westerners. There was a middle-aged Italian businessman with no idea which line he was in. There was an elderly French couple who wanted to go to Prague. And there were a half-dozen Estonians who silently, patiently looked on. One of them acknowledged me when I rolled my eyes. "Are we ever going to get checked in?" I asked. "It's a Russian thing," he shrugged. "I'm used to it." It's said Estonians are the ideal intermediaries for doing business in Russia. They're western enough to win Europe's trust, but their Soviet past enables them to smartly navigate the Russian system. To the untrained eye it might have appeared the Estonians were standing idly by. But they had a plan. As I chatted with the man, I noticed the line was actually growing behind him. The Estonians did not push, shove, or swear. They had quietly formed a phalanx. In the absence of spears and pikes, they employed luggage trolleys and heavy baggage to defend their flanks and gain forward ground. In characteristic Estonian style they did not invite me to join their phalanx, though they seemed not to object to my presence. And so I remained. In another two hours I had my ticket. If any of my fellow passengers are reading this, I'd like to convey my sincere appreciation. You may not know it, but you saved my life. Had it not been for your assistance, I might be still queued up Sheremetyevo waiting on a sign from God. But, as it happened, you got me home and added a new chapter to my Russian education. I'm scheduled to visit Moscow again next month. When the plane breaks down again, I can only pray you'll be there. I'll look for you in the queue, ready to man my battle station. More on Travel
 
Barack Obama's New American Religion Top
Barack Obama is looking for a church, but what's his religion? Through the campaign, he was dogged by the rumor that he's secretly a Muslim, a sleeper-believer in the West. His purported bow to the Saudi King on his recent trip, categorically denied by the White House, got the conspiracists going again (the more the conspiracists fulminate, the more his virtue and reasonableness seem evident). The "dip," or perhaps the canny appearance of a dip, did, however, certainly win him (and the US) points in the Arab world. Of course, then there was the first Seder in the White House, in which the president no doubt would have liked to be the one asking the four questions. (It's rather amazing no previous president has thought of a White House Seder--especially with Passover becoming such a sought-after invitation among non-Jews.) More on Barack Obama
 
Anand Gopal: What You Should Know About Women's Rights in Afghanistan Top
Just as the world's eyes are turning towards Afghanistan once again, a few conservative Afghan lawmakers are trying to pass a law that would, amongst other things, legalize marital rape, prohibit women from leaving the home without permission, deny them the right of inheritance, force a woman to "preen for her husband as and when he desires," and set the minimum female marital age to sixteen. The draft proposal, which is aimed only at the country's Shia minority, recalls for many the harsh strictures of the Taliban era and has been roundly condemned in the international community: Hillary Clinton said that she is "deeply concerned" about the law, Obama found it "abhorrent", and others in the West have asked, "Is this what our soldiers are dying for?" The international condemnation has forced the Karzai administration to shelve the law for the time being, as the Afghan government pledges to look at the details of the bill more closely. While the world buzzes about this latest setback for Afghan women, you might be wondering just what exactly the bill says about women's rights in Afghanistan. What do Afghan women think about this law? Most Afghan women have never heard of it. This is because the majority of Afghans are rural, living without electricity or a connection to the happenings in Kabul. Afghan women suffer from the lowest literacy rate in the world, at 13 percent. And the ones that are familiar with it mostly shrug their shoulders, because the conditions that the law imposes are no different than those that already exist in their everyday lives. The typical woman from the country's south or east, for example, cannot leave her home without a male guardian. She must wear the burqa in public at all times, and in some villages she must even don one in private. Marital rape is the norm in a society where sex is a man's right, not a woman's. According to the UK-based NGO Womankind, anywhere between sixty and eighty percent of marriages are forced, 57 percent of brides are under the age of 16, and 87 percent complain of domestic violence. UNIFEM says that 65 percent of widows in Kabul see suicide as their only option to "get rid of their miseries and desolation." Thousands of women turn to self-immolation every year. There are no reliable stats on rape, as most women will never report it. This is because women can be convicted of zina, extramarital sex, if knowledge of the rape becomes public. In most of the country, even a woman just found outside of her home without the permission of her male guardian will be thrown in jail and tried as an adulterer. How do Afghan women fare now compared to the Taliban era? The answer, like most things in Afghanistan, depends on where you look and whom you ask. In the central highlands, for example, women of the ethnic minority group the Hazaras are usually allowed to leave the home and sometimes even find work. In Kabul, some females now have access to education, and there are well-paying NGO jobs available for the elite. Only five percent of girls go to secondary school throughout the country, but in Kabul more girls are enrolled than at any point in the last ten years. In the south and east, life for women is mostly unchanged since the Taliban times: they remain cloistered indoors, in burqas, away from schools, without health care, without independence, and without protection from physical and sexual violence. And in some ways, life is even worse than during the Taliban: these women now live in an active war zone, caught in a crossfire between belligerents. So the lives of women in the central highlands and in some cities have improved, while things have remained the same or even gotten worse for women elsewhere. The sum result is that things have mostly stayed the same for Afghan women since the fall of the Taliban. It shouldn't be surprising that the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development recently released a study finding that Afghanistan is the second most unequal society in terms of gender in the world. Or that Afghan women rank at or near the bottom in almost every conceivable world ranking: life expectancy, maternal mortality, access to education, access to health care, suicide rates, domestic violence, and more. In short, Afghanistan is just about the worst place in the world to be a woman. Why are things so bad for Afghan women? People wrongly assume that the Taliban is a sort of alien force, imposing misogynistic views on an unwilling society. For instance, Ellen Goodman of the Washington Post Writers Group writes in a recent editorial that: Afghan women had slowly gained rights through the 20th century. They helped write their country's 1964 constitution. They served in parliament and went to universities. They were 40 percent of the doctors and 70 percent of the teachers. Then the Taliban turned their homeland into a patriarchal jail. This couldn't be further from the truth. Afghan women did gain rights throughout the twentieth century -- in the cities. In the countryside, where the majority lived, no such thing happened. And the Taliban did not turn the Afghan homeland into a patriarchal jail; it was already a prison for women. There are three causes for women's predicament. First, Afghanistan was and is a rural society, and in the south and east dominated by tribes. This tribal society is deeply patriarchal, with women commodified into a resource to be bartered, sold and fought over. Hence the Pashtun man is honor-bound to defend zan , zamin and zar (woman, gold and land). Various Afghan leaders -- including some kings and the Communist government -- tried in vain to modernize the countryside. But this was a second reason why women remained oppressed -- the central state has been weak and unable to successfully enact reforms throughout the country. Even as the central state made such attempts, other actors were actively working to undermine women's interests in the country. The third reason for the situation today is foreign intervention, especially by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States. The US and its allies supported the mujahedeen -- fundamentalist, misogynist warlords -- against the Soviets in the eighties. The mujahedeen transformed an extremely reactionary interpretation of Islam into the national standard, and in many ways were even worse than the Taliban. They burned down schools and libraries, killed women in public positions, enforced the burqa in areas under their control. They raped and killed thousands. After coming to power in the mid-nineties, they established a Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. One issued decree mandated that: Women do not need to leave their homes at all, unless absolutely necessary, in which case they are to cover themselves completely; are not to wear attractive clothing and decorative accessories; do not wear perfume; their jewelry must not make any noise; they are not to walk gracefully or with pride and in the middle of the sidewalk; are not to talk to strangers; are not to speak loudly or laugh in public; and they must always ask their husbands' permission to leave home. When the Taliban arrived in Kabul in 1996, they continued to enforce these mandates, without resorting to the widespread raping and killing that marked the mujahedeen government. After the Taliban was toppled, the US and rest of the international community supported these same mujahedeen in their return to power. The majority of the Afghan parliament today consists of these warlords. Is it any surprise then that parliament tries to pass anti-women laws? Can the West save Afghan women? Many observers say that unless the rural, tribal structure of the society is changed, the patriarchal prison will continue. But that might be something only the Afghans themselves can accomplish. In the meantime, many Afghan women say that the West can help this process -- by dropping support for fundamentalists and misogynists. It will be important to take such a step, they say, because the West has a credibility gap -- despite billions of dollars, thousands of lives lost, and scores of promises, Western intervention has not made the lives of Afghan women significantly better. Anand Gopal is an Afghanistan-based journalist. To read more of his dispatches from the region, see his website: www.anandgopal.com. More on Afghanistan
 
Megan Harris: Obama Visit Strengthened Historic Partnership with Canada Top
President Obama's February 19thday trip to Canada ushered in a new era in Canada U.S. relations. The trip not only re-established the tradition of U.S. Presidents' making Canada their first foreign trip but also underscored the historic importance of a strong, open and constructive relationship between the two countries and their leaders. This was the first meeting between President Obama and his counterpart Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. Cynics who say the meeting was inconsequential simply lack sufficient insight to grasp the significance of diplomacy and the dynamics of the Canada U.S. relationship. The two economies are highly integrated. Each day, more than $1.5 billion dollars in goods and services cross the border between the two countries, making it the biggest trading relationship in the world. In fact, "the two economies are so closely linked that we sometimes take each other for granted" President Obama reminded us during a joint press conference. Canada is the single largest supplier of oil to the U.S., not Saudi Arabia, as is the mistaken perception among Americans. For its part, Canada's economic well being is dependent on a healthy and robust American economy given that more than 80% of Canadian goods and services are destined for U.S. markets. But as we know, all relationships are complicated and contradictory and nation states are not immune to such vagaries. So while the Alberta Tar Sands are the primary supplier of the energy that drives America's economic engine they are also the scourge of a green President. Similarly, the Japanese economy sputtered for more than a decade yet it remained the largest holder of American debt, until recently. China a nation of savers is now America's primary creditor. Let us not forget that it was not very long ago that American officials took every opportunity to lecture China about human rights and intellectual property rights issues. Today the tune has changed. Case in point: during Secretary of State Clinton's maiden visit to Asia her message to China was one of strengthening partnership between the U.S. and China. No mention of human rights. So, during this period of global economic turbulence punctuated with America's diminishing economic status and the rise of China's global influence, it is astute for America to remind its friends how much they are valued and to refer to their shared history. Call it a diplomatic retention strategy. President Obama used his visit to Canada to underscore the "closeness and importance of " Canada U.S. relations. His visit provided Prime Minister Harper with a valuable platform to establish a personal relationship with the President. By all accounts he succeeded. Prime Minister Harper sagely used the joint press conference to speak directly to Americans and remind them that the Canadian government view "threats to the U.S. as threats to Canada ... there is no such thing as a threat to the U.S. that is not a threat to Canada." Building on the momentum of President Obama's visit, Prime Minister Harper has taken on the role of Canada's leading spokesperson in America. The Prime Minister's appearance on CNN, Fox News and several other key international media organizations ensures that Canadian issues will not be lost in Washington's political whirlpool. So while most leaders at the recent G20 summit in London jockeyed to establish a relationship with President Obama, Stephen Harper did not have to join that queue. Instead, he used the G20 platform to focus on other Canadian priorities while highlighting the virtues of the Canadian banking system. Though brief, President Obama's February 19th visit to Canada provided the basis for strengthening the historical relationship between continental partners who share the largest unprotected border in the world. Despite the troubling short to mid-term economic prognosis for the U.S. economy, improved bi-lateral co-ordination on security, environment, and economic issues will remain vital to the long-term interests of both countries.
 
Obama Overseas Trip Behind The Scenes Photos (SLIDESHOW) Top
President Obama's first major trip overseas has been over for almost a week, but some of the best photos from the eight day extravaganza came out today on the White House's website. These snaps are behind the scenes and capture some private moments between the President and Secretary of State Clinton, the staff on Air Force One, Obama's personal aide taking notes and the first couple talking to the Queen of England. Scroll through to see the great photos all from Whitehouse.gov: More on Presidential Debates
 
David Wild: I've Just Heard the Future of Singer-Songwriters and Her Name Is... Top
Diane Birch, apparently. Even now as what's left of our music industry evolves into whatever it may soon become -- a primordial forest with iPods plantings? A brave new digital marsh populated by mutant musical hunters and gatherers? -- you still hear a rare album that reminds you why albums still exist. Truth be told, I never even heard the name Diane Birch until this weekend when I opened my mail and put on an advance copy of Bible Belt, Birch's debut album that comes out in May. Already I can't wait to hear and see more. From what I could quickly gather online, Birch grew up the youngest daughter of a traveling preacher who covered territories from South Africa to Australia before settling down in Portland, Oregon. So her upbringing sounds colorful and intriguing, but this young sing-songwriter sure doesn't need to coast on a cool back-story. Wherever she comes from, Birch has delivered an album with strong echoes of Laura Nyro and Carole King -- two absolute all-time greats in my book -- but with songs that, like the best of Alicia Keys and Fiona Apple, retain that thrilling shock of the new. Trying to find out more, I went to Birch's MySpace where she identifies herself as "that Piano Girl." Birch looks appropriately cool bohemian, and begins her list of influences with "church hymns, Beethoven, Burt Bacharach, Nina Simone" and goes to mention everyone from The Carpenters to Rachmaninoff to Jonathan Richman to Donny Hathaway to Aaron Copeland to Notorious B.I.G. Laur
 
Janice Taylor: Governor Paterson Declares War! Top
... On Obesity Oh Goody! Just what we needed: another war! There's the War on Terror, War on Poverty, War on Drugs ... and now the War on Obesity! Governor Paterson announced in a recent press release that he is declaring "War on Obesity." Governor Paterson, in case you haven't noticed, "WAR" does NOT work! Anything that has the word "WAR" stenciled across its forehead is a sure sign of the PAST MASQUERADING AS THE FUTURE! The Past Masquerading As the Future? Yes! Exactly. An interesting concept; worthy of exploration. Governor Paterson is planning to 'combat' obesity by declaring war on it. This is a failed strategy, which has been attempted again and again. Although we can, of course, learn from past events, we can also get trapped into relying on outmoded, failed strategies. How many times do you have to 'hit' the escape button on your computer before you realize that the darn thing just doesn't work? The future, my friends, is filled and overflowing with new possibilities. The future hasn't happened yet. The future can be a place where paradigm shifts occur! Governor Paterson, the past is already filled with one war after another on obesity. Enough already with war! We must learn a new language. When asked if she would join an anti-war march, Mother Theresa declined. She said that instead she would join in a peace rally. She understood that if we use the word 'war' we are, through our words, creating war. Get the difference? Sit back for just for a moment and let the words "war" and "peace" resonate. What feelings float to the surface when you hear the word war? What feelings when you hear the word peace? Let us not war on our fat, because inevitably we are warring against ourselves. We can love our excess pounds away! We need to be kind to ourselves and our bodies. Yes, obesity is problematic, but losing weight must be framed from a perspective of compassionate caring about our health and our bodies. Let us be peaceful warriors as we undertake the task of creating health in our society. Most importantly, we create the world we live in by our thoughts and beliefs, as the words we use are powerful living entities. Genesis 1:3 (Hebrew) "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." All things considered, we have the power to create a new, compelling and healthy future ... starting with our thoughts and words. Governor Paterson, your first step in promoting health is to change the conversation. Let us operate out of positivity and hope. By clinging to antiquated concepts and words, YOU ARE the past masquerading as the future. -------------------- Janice Taylor is a Life & Wellness Coach and author of the Our Lady of Weight Loss books. Visit: Our Lady of Weight Loss Janice's Beliefnet.com Blog More on Food
 
Crossover Dreams: Why Immigrant Workers Will Fill the Streets This May Day Top
By David Bacon Oakland, CA -- In a little less than a month, hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of people will fill the streets in city after city, town after town, across the US. This year May Day marches of immigrant workers will make an important demand on the Obama administration: End the draconian enforcement policies of the Bush administration. Establish a new immigration policy based on human rights and recognition of the crucial economic and social contributions of immigrants to US society. This year's marches will continue the recovery in the US of the celebration of May Day, the day that celebrates worldwide the contributions of working people. That recovery started on May 1, 2006, when over a million people filled the streets of Los Angeles, with hundreds of thousands more in Chicago, New York and cities and towns throughout the United States. Again on May Day in 2007 and 2008, immigrants and their supporters demonstrated and marched, from coast to coast. One sign found in almost every march said it all: "We are Workers, not Criminals!" The sign stated an obvious truth. Millions of people have come to the United States to work, not to break its laws. Some have come with visas, and others without them. But they are all contributors to the society they've found here. The protests are a result of years of organizing, the legacy of Bert Corona, immigrant rights pioneer and founder of many national Latino organizations. He trained thousands of immigrant activists, taught the value of political independence, and believed that immigrants themselves must conduct a struggle for their rights. Most of the leaders of the radical wing of today's immigrant rights movement were his students. In part, the May Day protests respond to a wave of draconian measures that have criminalized immigration status and work itself for undocumented people. In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act made it a crime, for the first time in US history, to hire people without papers. Defenders argued that if people could not legally work they would leave. Life was not so simple. Undocumented people are part of the communities they live in. They cannot simply go, nor should they. They seek the same goals of equality and opportunity that working people in the US have historically fought for. In addition, for most immigrants there are no jobs to return to in the countries from which they've come. After Congress passed The North American Free Trade Agreement, six million displaced Mexicans came to the US as a result of the massive displacement the treaty caused. Free trade and free market policies have similarly displaced millions more in poor countries around the world. Instead of recognizing this reality, the US government has attempted to make holding a job a criminal act. Some states and local communities, seeing a green light from the Department of Homeland Security, have passed measures that go even further. Mississippi passed a bill making it a felony for an undocumented worker to hold a job, with jail time of 1-10 years, fines of up to $10,000, and no bail for anyone arrested. Employers get immunity. Last summer, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff proposed a rule requiring employers to fire any worker who couldn't correct a mismatch between the Social Security number given to their employer and the SSA database. The regulation assumes those workers have no valid immigration visa, and therefore no valid Social Security number. With 12 million people living in the US without legal immigration status, the regulation would have led to massive firings, bringing many industries and businesses to a halt. Citizens and legal visa holders would have been swept up as well, since the Social Security database is often inaccurate. While the courts enjoined this particular regulation, the idea of using Social Security numbers to identify and fire millions of workers is still very much alive in Washington, DC. Under Chertoff, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted sweeping workplace raids, arresting and deporting thousands of workers. Many were charged with an additional crime - identity theft - because they used a Social Security number belonging to someone else to get a job. Yet workers using those numbers actually deposit money into Social Security funds, and will never collect benefits their contributions paid for. The new Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says the big raids need to be reexamined, but she continues to support measures to drive undocumented workers from their jobs, and to keep employers from hiring them. During her term as governor, the Arizona legislature passed a law requiring employers to verify the immigration status of every worker through a federal database called E-Verify, even more full of errors than Social Security. They must fire workers whose names get flagged. This is now becoming the model for Federal enforcement. Many of these punitive measures surfaced in proposals for "comprehensive immigration reform" that were debated in Congress in 2006 and 2007. The comprehensive bills combined criminalization of work for the undocumented with huge guest worker programs. While those proposals failed in Congress, the Bush administration implemented some of their most draconian provisions by administrative action. Many fear that new proposals for immigration reform being formulated by Congress and the administration will continue these efforts to criminalize work. In reality, the labor of 12 million undocumented workers is indispensable to the economy, just as is the labor of 26 million people with visas, and the many millions of workers who were born in the U.S. The wealth created by undocumented workers is never called illegal. No one dreams of taking that wealth from the employers who profited from it. Yet the people who produce this wealth are called exactly that - illegal. All workers need jobs and a way to support their families, not just some. And in a country with schools behind the rest of the industrialized world, with bridges that fall into rivers and people living in tent cities for lack of housing, there is clearly no shortage of work to be done. If the trillion dollars showered on banks were used instead to put people to work, there would be plenty of jobs and a better quality of life for everyone. Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Association and the Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana, says, "Washington legislators and lobbyists fear a new civil rights movement in the streets, because it rejects their compromises and makes demands that go beyond what they have defined as 'politically possible.'" The price of trying to push people out of the US who've come here for survival is increased vulnerability for undocumented workers, which ultimately results in cheaper labor and fewer rights for everyone. Under Bush, that was the government's goal -- cheap labor for large employers, enforced by deportations, firings and guest worker programs. This is what millions of people want to change. And the Obama administration was elected because it promised "change we can believe in." In past May Day marches many participants have put forward an alternative set of demands, which includes tying legalization for 12 million undocumented people in the US with jobs programs for communities with high unemployment. All workers need the right to organize to raise wages and gain workplace rights, including the 12 million people for whom work is a crime. More green cards, especially visas based on family reunification, would enable people to cross the border legally, instead of dying in the desert. Ending guest worker programs would help stop the use of our immigration system as a supply of cheap labor for employers. And on the border, communities want human rights, not more guns, walls, soldiers and prisons for immigrants. This May Day, immigrants will again send this powerful message. Their marches have already rescued from obscurity our own holiday, which began in the struggle for the eight-hour day in Chicago over a century ago. Today they are giving May Day a new meaning, putting forward ideas that will not only benefit immigrant communities, but all working families. More on Immigration
 
Mort Zuckerman: The Story You Aren't Hearing About Israel Top
Did you hear about the two policemen who stopped to help a driver stuck with a flat--and were shot to death in the head at point-blank range? Did you know about the 120-kilogram bomb planted in a parking lot adjacent to a shopping mall where thousands of people were milling about the stores, restaurants, and movie theaters? No, of course, you didn't. These are just two everyday incidents of the ordeal confronted by people in Israel while the world and the political leaders look away. Outrages like these do not make it into the Western media, which exhibit the familiar phenomenon of monitoring only the conflicts that are the flavor of the month. And when they do turn to Israel, sporadically, it is with the excitement of thinking they can expose Israeli wrongdoing: the New York Times just drummed up a front-page story alleging the deliberate murder of innocent civilians by Israeli soldiers during the Gaza war, a poorly investigated report that turned out to be yet another urban myth and then was shamefully corrected by the Times only on the inside pages and only by blaming Israel for the false report. (Remember another urban myth alleging thousands of citizens massacred in the battle against terrorism in Jenin in 2002 when it turned out no more than 54 died, most of them combatants?) Ordinary Israelis despair of the cruel bias. The policemen died because Israel eased restrictions on movement in the Nablus area of the West Bank. Hundreds survived in the attack on the mall near Haifa only because a woman reported hearing an explosion. Security found it was a detonator that expired without setting off a car bomb that would have lacerated the crowds with sharp metal and ball bearings. The willingness to give a free pass to terrorism was, of course, manifest most luridly in the Gaza war. Hamas fired thousands of rockets with the short-term aim of murdering as many innocent civilians as possible in the service of the longer-term ambition to terrorize Israel. Then, when Israel finally responded (with military restraint and humanitarian aid), it was faced with world demands for an unconditional cease-fire. Ironically, the fiercest criticism in the Arab world about Israel's conduct in Gaza stems from Israel's failure to achieve a decisive victory, for the Arab world rightly perceives not Israel but Hamas as a threat: It knows full well that Hamas is a fifth column for Iranian influence. Once the cease-fire was achieved, the world lost interest in Israel. Except that now, in a fit of selectively lethal amnesia, it is on the verge of providing the selfsame murderous Hamas with a huge influx of funding that will rebuild the authority of a terrorist organization dedicated to killing Jews. The tragedy for the Palestinians as much as the Israelis is that they do not have leadership strong enough to make peace. Hamas wants perpetual war: No one can doubt that it aims not to have a two-state solution but to have a "no state" solution--that is, to have the State of Israel stop existing. For its part, "moderate" Fatah is hopelessly corrupt and weak and seemingly incapable of reform or of enforcing law and order on its people. That is why an Israeli-Palestinian peace remains a dream today and why what Israel can offer the Palestinians is less than what any Palestinian politician is willing or able to attempt. Even the language of peace is eroding. The Palestinians say they support two states for two peoples but refrain from saying that one of those is the Jewish people. Most recently, a major Palestine Liberation Organization figure, Mohammed Dahlan, asserted that the Fatah movement hasn't even recognized Israel thus far and that the Palestinian Authority's apparent "recognition" of Israel is to make the PA "acceptable" to the international community, in order to bring in international aid. Who can trust that? There is justification for the widespread Israeli concern that if a Palestinian state were established, power in Gaza, and then in the West Bank, would soon fall into the hands of Hamas. After all, Hamas won 44 percent of the vote and the mayoralty in several major cities in the last West Bank election. Another unreported fact that reflects on what would happen if Hamas won: The most credible of the Palestinian-run news operations, the Ma'an News Agency, has posted three listings involving a total of 181 persons--all Fatah people--shot by Hamas in Gaza since December 2008. The Fatah party is facing an election within a year, which may well be won by Hamas. If the Iranian-supported Hamas ultimately succeeds in its 20-year effort to be the principal voice of Palestinian nationalism, Israel will have a neighbor that truly speaks for Iran's goal of seeing Israel "wiped off the face of the Earth." In a "unity" government, Hamas would undoubtedly be integrated in the security services, which would end Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation covering the majority of the West Bank cities. Hamas wants Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to stop negotiations with Israel and to embrace the political program that allows for "resistance" -- in other words, violence. No wonder the Palestinian Reconciliation Conference in Cairo ended in failure. Even the lure of billions of dollars in aid has not brought Fatah Sunnis in Judea and Samaria, i.e., the West Bank, any closer to Shiite supporters of Hamas in Gaza. These are two parallel lines that cannot meet, and this division will persist. And what of Israeli leadership? Now Israel has Binyamin Netanyhu trying to form a cabinet. The world may be skeptical about the will and political ability of a more conservative Likud government to make historic and dramatic decisions that involve painful concessions to the Palestinians in the interest of a two-state solution, but history suggests otherwise. It was Menachem Begin's Likud government that brought about the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. It was Yitzhak Shamir's Likud government that began the peace process at the Madrid Conference in October of 1991. Netanyahu's Likud party and its reservations should not be dismissed lightly, for it was Netanyahu who predicted way back in 1994 that handing over territories to Palestinians would lead to the creation of a fundamental Islamic terrorist base adjacent to Israel. Israel has taken many risks for peace. The response has been rocket fire, terrorism, more incitement, more vilification, more shedding of Israeli blood, and less security, not to mention an ongoing historic campaign to defame, denounce, denigrate, and delegitimize Israel in every international forum. Contrary to many reports, Netanyahu has asserted that he is not opposed to a two-state solution, provided it does not put at risk the national security of the Jewish state. The key component would be a record of Palestinian determination and ability to fight terrorism and to live in peace with Israel. Like so many experts, Netanyahu feels that the chances of an enforceable, comprehensive arrangement are low to negligible. In the meantime, as a matter of law and order, he intends to oppose illegal settlements, be they in the West Bank or among Bedouins in Sinai. His major priority would be to promote prosperity on the West Bank, creating an incentive for the Palestinians to make a commitment to peace. He notes that Palestinians in the West Bank remained calm during the fighting in Gaza and didn't engage in mass protests. Therefore, Netanyahu will focus on improving Palestinian life by lifting roadblocks (100 so far) and reducing checkpoints (they have gone down from 50 to 15) and making other improvements on the ground for the Palestinian community. In this he is supported by dovish Israeli President Shimon Peres, who now has doubts about Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza without first having established a peaceful and democratic Palestinian party to which it could hand the territory. That Palestinian party does not yet exist. A Palestinian state cannot be created by terrorism. It can be created through the reformation of political and economic institutions so that they reflect democracy, market economics, and real actions to confront terrorism. When there is an effective, Palestinian-based security force with counterterrorism capability in the West Bank, the Israelis will then be prepared to withdraw their defense forces and the Shin Bet from operating there. Hence the importance of the U.S. effort, led by Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, to develop a decent Palestinian security force. The new units have been enforcing order in the cities of Jenin and Hebron, which had been basically lawless. But it is not enough to target car thieves and robbers. The critical counterterrorism ability of the Palestinian security forces is still limited; above all, they must have the will to target terrorist cells and their networks. Two modest paramilitary forces have been trained to police crime and enforce public order, but not to uproot terror groups. In fact, the PA has increasingly offered safe haven to terror groups. Brig.-Gen. Radhi Assida, the PA National Security Forces (NSF) commander in Jenin, revealed to the Palestinian website Ma'an on January 24, 2009, that PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's NSF had agreed to provide protection to four senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists wanted by Israel. Assida also confirmed that PIJ operatives continue to receive monthly salaries from the PA Interior Ministry, just like their colleagues in the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades. In the interim, Israel must not wait on events. Israel would be wise (despite the risks) to allow even freer movement in the West Bank; it should help to create more jobs and a better standard of living. Yes, the West must press Israel on these issues, but it must also press the Arab states. They should underwrite the training of PA security forces and invest sensibly in housing and agriculture. Peace will come only when the Palestinians are liberated from their age-old hatred of Israel and Jews. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called for many times, there must be teaching, preaching, and celebrating, from childhood on, that hatred, disrespect, violence, terrorism, anti-Semitism, and war against Israelis and Zionists are unacceptable. Today, it is exactly the opposite. A great Middle East authority, Prof. Bernard Lewis, recently pointed out in Foreign Affairs how easily the West is misled. In contrast to reports in English, he writes, "the discourse in Arabic--in broadcasts, sermons, speeches, and school textbooks--is far less conciliatory, portraying Israel as an illegitimate invader that must be destroyed." Israel cannot make peace with those whose first priority is to blow up Israeli women and children and who deny the nation's right to exist. As Lewis puts it, "There is no compromise position between existence and nonexistence." The sad but realistic fact is that we are much closer to the establishment of two Palestinian states, one in the West Bank and one in Gaza, than to reaching a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians. More on Israel
 
Stacie Krajchir: Do You Have What it Takes to Push Up Through the Earth and Bloom Again? Top
It is no secret these days many of us feel as though the wheels are falling off around us. And by definition, they are. We are facing real life challenges of loss of income, homes, and savings and overall our basic sense of security, the similar stories have become like a broken record and we're all being forced to listen to as a nation. Friends and family are suffering right on front of my very eyes: One who is a single father of two has had to pack up and move his kids twice within 60 days to figure out where makes the most cost effective sense, while he sees if he is going to avoid losing a major real estate property he built from ground up. Another friend and his wife have a restaurant, trying to survive, timing not on his side with the opening not even one year ago. More than one of my relatives is in the middle of contemplating bankruptcy, seven friends laid off and counting. It's an emotional epidemic we are all experiencing. After all the bills, mortgages, pulling your kids out of preschool and cutting corners and coupons, we haven't only lost our income, we've lost our spiritual sense of self and more so I think the will and energy to even muster up "it's going to be okay." Depression is upon us, silently seeping into our spirits, dissention among couples, fighting only about finances. We're all edgy irritable, stressed and not very much fun anymore, are we? We're pretty much spiritually exhausted. I'm an entrepreneur, which means by nature I am a survivor, and this can be said in my personal life as well. I have lost more than most and along the way, and it is within crisis I have actually gained a true sense of who I am and how I show up and try my best to kick some major ass in this world. I run a boutique PR firm and a creative international art collective that helps youth in underdeveloped countries. I am an aunt, a sister, a BFF, a girlfriend, a daughter, an author, artist and an expert in my field. I have a lot of responsibility to both friends family, my own creativity as well as my clients, to show up and be sparkly. Sparkly? Good luck people, I'm lucky if I put a clean bra on these days. And the will to be creative? That concept lives as far as Iceland right now. In the past, when numbers were down, I would see it as an interesting challenge, pull up my straps, have a good cup of strong delicious Peets coffee and work my magic. I always came out with new business fluttering our way. Most times brought in a little too much business. Oh, and I forgot to be grateful during those times, by the way. Now, with business dropping like flies all over the place, and the stories and stories of loss and fear and reviewing my own plan of execution, I am just spent. I sit wondering if I have another "run " in me. Another run requires me to feel it, reach out, connect, network with my people, friends, clients and former clients -- create new plans, brilliant, exciting ideas and create an infectious energy irresistible to all. Truthfully, I'm tired the kind of tired where I want to take all my toys from the sandbox and just not play anymore and pack it all up, buy a ticket to someplace else and simplify. Take an adult time out and let someone else figure this all out. My friend Laura mentioned spring being a time of death and rebirth, a time of passing. It's a time where you have to decide if you have the will to bloom again, to become a flower. Flowering from a seed it not easy, it's a commitment. It's slow and takes work and watering and time. So much work. I asked, do I have the strength to bloom and push through the Earth? Ugh, that sounds so hippie and so not where I am at or something I am open to right now. So, I don't know. And then I realize, if not me, or us, then who? This is all happening, it's happening to us collectively as well as individually and there is something to be said about that. This is a lesson for us all. We're supposed to pull our heads out of our spoiled pretty homes full of nice things and regroup, get a new less greedy grip. If we step outside our situation and look in, really, we have two basic choices. We have a choice to show up depressed and defeated within this very challenging time, whining all along the way; or we have the choice to reach deep inside and be inspired and look at this as an opportunity to face our fears. See this as the moment to look at all of this as a gift and the opportunity to plant new dream seeds and care for these new ones with less greed and greater care towards a more joyful way of living and being together. We've needed this for a long time -- we just haven't realized it. Clean the decks, clean house if you will and choose to show up differently. So yes, I am going to find the strength to push up through the Earth to bloom again, I just need to figure out what kind of flower I want to be. I'm thinking orchid or gardenia. What flower will you bloom into? Let's get our garden on. More on Layoffs
 
Alec Baldwin: Journalism vs. Commentary; and Remembering Maurice Jarre Top
A lot of huffing and puffing here about my last post . The reading comprehension here can be rather surprising at times. I said I was a fan of both Keith and Rachel. Watch them all the time. I suppose I hold them to a higher standard as I feel that now is our time. A time for real change. I didn't vote for Obama to savor the thrill of having our first black president. I did so because I thought he was smart and tough. I want Obama to undo much of what was done these past eight years by the crypto-fascists in the Bush administration. And a good part of that would involve a press that was on the ball. On the case. Keeping an eye on what is going on. Making sure that Americans are properly informed about what our government is doing. Something that was scarce during the Bush years. Journalism is what is required now. And, yes, some commentary. But more journalism than commentary. That's what a newspaper does. That's why newspapers are quoted so often as the sources of actual news on this very site. Newspapers are about journalism. The internet, and sites like this, are about commentary. People sign on and give their opinion. But that is not journalism. That is commentary, internet style, whereby most people are not trained as journalists and the comments of many posters here are anonymous. You can piss on anyone you want, say anything you want, and so long as it is within the boundaries of HuffPo politesse, you are in. The sine qua non to understanding the garbage barge of the internet is the AOL home page. The AOL home page, which makes Us Weekly look like Paris Match , wants its readers to focus on the latest unflattering photos of stars or their DUIs. The AOL home page is where polls rated George W. Bush as one of the ten greatest presidents, even as late as last fall. The AOL home page is where they wrote that I had "picked a fight" with Maddow and Olberman. Perhaps this comes as no surprise, but there are never, ever any names that appear as authors of the monstrously boring and mind-numbing content on the home page of this popular server. Never. Ever. AOL just keeps churning out all of that trash on their digital welcome mat, and you never find out who is responsible. That's the Internet. Some great, serious, lofty thinking, one click away. The AOL home page, like a filthy dinner plate, just begging to be scraped and washed, another click away. I'll take the Times any day. Judith Miller, or no. As for Keith and Rachel, I would never pick a fight with them. You think I want Keith Olbermann gnawing on me on national television? You haven't been gnawed till you've been gnawed by Keith. And Rachel? I love Rachel. Doesn't everyone? But just as I don't want root beer for dinner, I like my "news programming" a little straighter, at least during these times. Now a quick note on something infinitely more interesting. I wanted to acknowledge the passing of the great Maurice Jarre, the composer who died last month. Jarre was nominated nine times and won the Oscar three times for Best Score for Lawrence of Arabia , Doctor Zhivago , and A Passage to India . Music has clearly played such an essential role in great movie-making. I once had the rare honor to present John Barry the Oscar for his score for Dances with Wolves . Barry was nominated seven times and won five Oscars. In addition to the Kevin Costner film, Barry won two Oscars (score and song) for Born Free and best score for Lion in Winter and, my personal favorite, Out of Africa . Whether it is Oscar winning scores such as those for The Wizard of Oz, The High and the Mighty, The Sound of Music, Star Wars, or Jaws, or other memorable music that propels certain images of films straight into your brain, like Gone with the Wind, Psycho, The Godfather, or A Hard Day's Night, music can contribute to making the difference between a popular motion picture and a classic. What are your favorite movie scores? The sun is just rising over the burning desert. Cue the incredible music of Maurice Jarre. What could be better than that? More on Rachel Maddow
 
MEL GIBSON DIVORCE SHOCK: Wife Files Papers Top
We've learned Mel Gibson's wife Robyn has just filed legal papers to divorce Mel Gibson, her husband of 28 years, citing "irreconcilable differences." Pretty ironic -- Robyn signed the papers the day before Good Friday. Sources tell us there is no prenuptial agreement -- they were married in 1980, before Mel Gibson amassed a fortune estimated at $900 million back in 2006. Under the laws of California, community property -- which includes earnings -- is divided 50/50.
 
Huff TV: HuffPost's Katharine Zaleski Discusses The White House Easter Egg Roll Top
Huffington Post Senior News Editor Katharine Zaleski appeared on MSNBC over the weekend to discuss The White House's annual Easter Egg Roll. Watch the full segment below: More on Video
 
NAKED: Padma Lakshmi, Chelsea Handler And Eliza Dushku Strip For Allure's Nude Issue (PHOTOS) Top
"Top Chef" host Padma Lakshmi, E! talk show host Chelsea Handler and "Dollhouse" star Eliza Dushku each stripped for the May issue of Allure, the Nude Issue. The issue is on stands April 21, but more quotes from the ladies and the photos below are online . The pictures are below, and here is some of what the women had to say: Padma: "I tend to sleep in the nude... I'm a sensual-leaning woman. You have to use the word 'leaning' or it sounds like I'm boasting." Chelsea, asked about her favorite body part, said: "My boobs are good. They're real and perky." Eliza: "I'll strip down to my underwear and my Ugg boots when I eat lunch in my trailer." PHOTOS: More on Celebrity Skin
 
Dean Sluyter: Spirituality ≠ Belief Top
In bars, in churches, on cable news channels, and just about anywhere else, there's never a shortage of people eager to tell you what to believe. But at least when the guy on the next stool is busy convincing you who the Dodgers' greatest left-handed pitcher was, he'll trot out some statistics, and the cable news shouters will usually cite some kind of evidence, however flimsy, to prop up their biases. Religion is different. You're told what to believe, period. Amen. At its worst, you're told to believe or else suffer in a very bad place for a very long time. But can you really choose to believe? You believe the sun rises in the morning because you've seen it happen. Can you choose to believe it rises in the evening? I suspect that many "believers" don't actually believe; they believe they believe. Such belief is so fragile that anything (or anyone) that challenges it can become a threat that must be suppressed or eliminated. People who've grown up with this model of spirituality may be startled to learn that there are other models. When the Buddha stopped at the village of Kalama to give enlightenment teachings, the locals told him, Hey, so many holy men have already blown through town we don't know who to believe -- this guy, or that guy, or you, or who? None of the above, was the Buddha's surprise answer. Don't believe a thing just because the teachers or the priests say it. Don't believe a thing because it's in all the books. Don't believe it because everyone says it's so. And also, don't believe it just because it seems logical or makes you feel good. Believe it only when you've experienced it yourself, and then (maybe to make sure you're not crazy) corroborate it by finding some reliable people you respect who have experienced the same thing. In other words, the Buddha was teaching scientific method, centuries before it was supposedly invented in western Europe. But he directed it toward inner, "spiritual" experience rather than the outer world. One of his most potent sayings was Ehi passiko : Come and see. (In the prisons where I teach, the Hispanic guys say Veng' y vey .) Check it out for yourself. Many Christians conceive of spiritual truth as something that is directly experienced only when you die and are (hopefully) lifted into heaven. But Christ himself said the kingdom of heaven is within you. Not elsewhere, in the sky. Not later, when you die. And not just maybe, if you've behaved and/or believed: it is within you. This inner, ever-present heaven is actually more consistent with the inner space of nirvana or moksha -- liberation -- that Buddhists and Vedantists describe than it is with what a lot of people take away from Sunday school. The problem is not confined to Christians. A friend who has traveled throughout India and practiced Eastern spirituality for years recently told me, "After all my experiences with saints and holy men of all kinds, I no longer try to believe in God. It's too much work." Well, yes. Trying to believe in anything is too much work. Belief is constructed out of thoughts. Your thoughts about God are not God; your thoughts about enlightenment are not enlightenment; your thoughts about the infinite are not infinite. They're just thoughts. Thoughts are finite and impermanent. When you try to hold onto a thought -- even your most beautiful, golden thought -- and prop it up as something infinite and permanent, you're creating a false God, a faux enlightenment, a glittering golden calf. The harder you work at this unnatural task, the more secret anger you store. Sooner or later that anger is likely to burst into some kind of aggression, whether putting yourself down as a bad meditator or launching crusades to convert or eliminate unbelievers. What, then, is the alternative? What is the truth that is beyond thought, beyond belief? Where is it to be found? Well, when Jesus says the kingdom is within you , I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean in your pancreas or spleen. That "you" is the "I" that says, "I see the colors," "I hear the sounds," "I have the thoughts." You are, very simply, that space, that openness, that capacity for experience within which all your experiences arise. That is, you are awareness . And within this awareness -- its essential nature -- is heaven, nirvana, enlightenment, truth, joy, boundlessness. (Of course I don't expect you to believe this.) Everyone is constantly seeking boundlessness, including those who consider themselves thoroughly nonspiritual. The problem is, we're looking for it in all the wrong places: boundless love, boundless security, boundless money, boundless approval, boundless orgasm, boundless youth, boundless ice cream. All those things in which we seek it, all those things we're aware of , have boundaries, so our appetite for boundlessness remains unsatisfied. But it turns out that awareness itself is boundless: regular, ordinary awareness, the very awareness within which these black squiggles on your computer screen (and the thoughts they stimulate) are bouncing around right now. So the most profound kind of meditation doesn't require mantras or concentration or cross-legged postures. It consists of sitting naturally (or standing, or walking), closing the eyes (or leaving them open), and simply remaining as the awareness that you already are. Not seeking any new experience, not trying to figure anything out, just leaving everything as is. Not minding the thoughts, sounds, and sensations that come and go, neither resisting them nor attaching to them. Just being, without associating that beingness, that awareness, with anything in particular. Awareness is like space; everything else comes and goes within it like wind. Even the most violent wind can't make the space less spacious. So whether you feel distracted or attentive, tense or relaxed, that's fine: distraction, attention, tension, and relaxation are all just more experiences within the awareness, none better or worse. Simply remain as that awareness. And to do that, there is no effort. There is nothing to do at all -- as you will see with growing clarity, you are that. You have no choice. In case you're interested in trying this experiment, you can do it for, say, five or ten minutes a day, and whenever you feel like it. Increasing you'll find your attention naturally settling into the experience of "just being" at every opportunity, such as when you stop at a red light. And eventually it's there even through the green lights. The naturally boundless, infinite quality of being-awareness is perceived spontaneously, and all the phenomena of the finite unfold within it in due order. Everything's cool. As the great science fiction writer Philip K. Dick put it, "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Come and see. More on Christianity
 
Alan Schram: Digging Out Top
I believe the US economy will continue to experience distress, and may take a long time to recover. It will probably take years for the Dow to see 14,000 again. But the stock market anticipates future events and will begin to move higher well before either sentiment or the economy improve. For the market to go up from here, the news doesn't have to be good. It just has to be not quite as bad as what has already been discounted. It is clearly much better to buy at discounted prices than to invest when the market has regained its peak levels. And US Stocks are cheap, any way you look at it: • As a percentage of GDP: At 59% of GDP stocks are at historic lows. The long term average has been about 75%. • Compared to Bonds: The S&P 500's dividend yield moved above the yield on 10-year Treasury notes for the first time since 1958. Remember, stocks act a lot like long term bonds. When the price declines the coupon (dividend yield) rises, and subsequent returns increase. • Compared to Gold: The S&P 500 index is priced at about 90% of an ounce of gold. Over the past 40 years, the S&P average was 1.6 times the price of an ounce of gold, and peaked at more than five times the price of gold in 2000. • Cash levels on the sidelines: Now at 84% of stock market value, up from 43% a year ago and much above the 66% average of the last 50 years. Compare stocks to cash, which is now earning close to zero and almost sure to lose purchasing power in the coming years. • The "Q" ratio, or the price of the stock market relative to the replacement cost of assets. Today's Q ratio has not been lower since World War II, implying extreme undervaluation, since it is cheaper to buy new businesses in the open market than to create them from scratch. • 12-year low: In February, the Dow hit a 12-year low. That happened only twice before, on April 8, 1932 and December 6, 1974. Both were an excellent time to buy stocks, even though the economy was still far from reaching bottom. • In real terms: At the levels of early March, the Dow was at the same inflation adjusted levels as in 1966. The S&P 500 is now 40% below its level a decade ago, rendering moot all the technological innovation, economic development and population growth of the last decade. It is also worth noting that historically, a small percentage of trading days equaled a large proportion of returns. Davis Advisors did a study and found that an investor who missed only the best 30 trading days over a 15 year period saw their return go down from 10.5% to 2.2%. And an investor that missed the best 60 days had their return go from 10.5% to negative! It is very difficult to time the market and very easy to miss the best 60 days in 15 years. Every country in the world is addressing the financial and economic crisis. The bailouts, stimulus packages, liquidity facilities, central bank interventions and regulatory reforms will pay off. The banks will finally get to the bottom of their writedowns, recapitalize with clean balance sheets and then start generating profits. In order to create revenue from the hundreds of billions they have been infused with, they will have to start lending. Investors will tire of zero-return government bonds and will seek higher yields. While there is no ladder that reaches to Heaven, the ladder that reaches all the way down to Hell in a country like America is just as bogus. Alan Schram is the Managing Partner of Wellcap Partners, a Los Angeles based investment firm. Email at aschram@wellcappartners.com. More on The Bailouts
 
Georgianne Nienaber: DRC: Nkunda Languishes While Women Are Raped Top
Georgianne what is happening in our mountains is indescribable and the world is watching without a word. Our soldiers are trying to deal with the situation but they have no food, no means for that. As I am writing to you right now Colonel Makenga is trying to organize his troops to stop the FDLR from entering Bukavu they have already gotten to Uvira. Please tell the world what is going on down here since the one who was protecting people was arrested. Be the voice of the voiceless please. We can't let another humanitarian disaster happen as if 1994 wasn't enough. I am sorry I am being emotional... ~Email received from Rwanda/DRC at 8:13 AM Thursday April 9 Today, Human Rights Watch (HRW) is reporting ongoing brutal rapes by Rwandan rebel soldiers and regular Congolese army troops in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Rwandan rebel forces have also been implicated in the deaths of most of the 180 civilians killed since January 23, HRW said in a statement. Image: IDP camp near Goma, DRC © 2009 Nienaber The Rwandan Hutu militia called the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) attacked and burned dozens of villages and towns in Masisi and Lubero territories (North Kivu) as well as in Kalehe territory (South Kivu) in recent weeks, committing numerous deliberate killings, rapes, and acts of looting. Blaming government military operations, the FDLR deliberately targeted civilians, used them as human shields, and accused civilians of having betrayed them. "The FDLR are deliberately killing and raping Congolese civilians as apparent punishment for the military operations against them," said Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Both the fighters who commit such horrific acts and the rebel commanders who permit them are responsible for war crimes." On or about January 22, Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Nkunda of the CNDP (Congress for the Defense of the People) was arrested and detained by Rwandan military forces in Gisenyi, Rwanda. The CNDP maintains that Nkunda protected Congolese people of all ethnicities who lived in the territories under his control, especially against atrocities and violence perpetrated by FARDC and the FDLR. The arrest of Nkunda in an action of apparent betrayal by the government of Rwanda, which had supplied him with aid and logistics, marked the beginning of an unprecedented joint military operation between the governments of Rwanda's Paul Kagame and DRC's Joseph Kabila. During January and February, according to the HRW report, the FDLR were temporarily held at bay and pushed out of their strategic positions. However, following the withdrawal of Rwandan forces after February 24, the FDLR reoccupied its former positions. On January 27, HRW reports FDLR combatants "hacked to death dozens of civilians used as human shields at their military position in Kibua." One witness at Kibua interviewed by HRW saw an FDLR combatant batter a 10-year-old girl to death against a brick wall. The immediate result has been tragic for 250,000 persons who have been added to the already crowded and filthy conditions in IDP camps. In recent weeks rape and murder are increasing. Most recently, at least seven civilians were killed and 24 others wounded during FDLR attacks in Beni and Walikale in early April. On March 20, 2009, the FDLR attacked Buhuli, North Kivu, and four other nearby villages, killing at least five civilians, including two women, an elderly man, a 7-year-old girl and 9-year-old boy. On February 13, the FDLR attacked the village of Kipopo, killing at least 13 people, who were burned to death in their homes. In late February, the FDLR abducted at least a dozen women and girls from Remeka, in Masisi territory, North Kivu. Two women who escaped reported that FDLR combatants brutally killed nine of the women and girls when they resisted attempts to rape them. The fate of the others is unknown. Human Rights Watch also reports atrocities by the regular Congolese army, which has been implicated in numerous rapes. "In March, Congolese soldiers raped at least 21 women and girls in southern Masisi and northern Kalehe territories. Many of the victims were violently gang raped while the soldiers were on looting sprees. On March 24, four women from Ziralo, South Kivu, were returning from the market when they were stopped by a group of army soldiers at a makeshift barricade. The soldiers took the sacks of food the women were carrying and then said they were going to examine the women's vaginas for any hidden money. The soldiers took the women into the nearby forest and gang raped each of them for hours. One woman was six-months pregnant and was raped so brutally that she lost her unborn child. Image: Congolese Midwife and Rape Counselor 2009 Nienaber According to the United Nations, an estimated 250,000 people have fled their homes in eastern Congo since January, adding to hundreds of thousands of others who fled earlier waves of violence. A source with the allegedly "repatriated" CNDP army reports today that: Actually there was no real integration in the regular army our soldiers where forced to join the army after the arrest of the chairman Nkunda. CNDP soldiers agreed to play the path of the peace as it was being preached by Rwanda and Congo. but now it's a totally disaster because they have no food like they used to have, their conditions are worse than when they were in rebellion and because they were trained to protect people, it's difficult to be among those who hurt people(FARDC) and because of that most of them are deserting the army. The Congolese army says it is preparing for the next phase of operations against the FDLR, this time expanding the operations to South Kivu. The rapidly mixed brigades of former enemies have been sent to the front lines with no salaries, rations, or any formal training, increasing the likelihood of future human rights violations, HRW says. Serious abuses against civilians by government soldiers have already been reported. Army soldiers killed at least five civilians in Lubero territory in March, some while on looting sprees. In Ziralo, an elderly man was killed by soldiers while they raped his wife and looted his home. Human Rights Watch decries the fact that there is no formal vetting mechanism to stop those with serious records of past human rights abuses from being promoted and integrated into the Congolese army. Bosco Ntaganda, wanted on an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the war crime of enlisting child soldiers and using them in hostilities, was promoted to the position of general in the Congolese army in January 2009. In addition to the ICC charges, Ntaganda has been accused of commanding troops that massacred 150 civilians at Kiwanja in North Kivu province in November 2008. Jean-Pierre Biyoyo was recently appointed a colonel in the Congolese army despite being found guilty by a Congolese military court in March 2006 of recruiting child soldiers. He later escaped from prison. Both Ntaganda and Biyoyo play an important role in current military operations. "Protection of civilians can only be taken seriously if known human rights abusers are removed from the ranks of the Congolese army," said HRW's Van Woudenberg. As for the fate of Congolese General Nkunda, his attorneys and private counsel have filed applications and protests in Rwandan courts reminding the courts that "it is useful to recall that habeas corpus applications are normally heard within 24 hours." Image: Nkunda in Interview before his detention 2009 Nienaber Counsel says that the "arbitrary detention of Laurent NKUNDA MIHIGO, in violation of the fundamental rights of any person present on the territory of the Republic of Rwanda - recognized internationally by, amongst others, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 9), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 9(1)), the African Charter of Human and People's Rights (Article 6) as well as by the Constitution of the Republic of Rwanda (Article 18) - Counsel for Laurent NKUNDA requested that it be heard on an urgent basis." Counsel also cited Article 89 of the Rwandan Code of Criminal Procedure. In a nutshell, Rwanda is not abiding by its own Constitution, which the United States and other Western powers hold as a model for the region. The US has just completed work on an $80 million embassy in Rwanda, a country the size of the State of Maryland. Congo is the size of Western Europe and contains the most strategic store of minerals necessary for the defense industry and telecommunications as well as substantial stores of uranium. In a complete disconnect regarding realities in this region, Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times interviewed Congolese President Joseph Kabila , whom HRW names as an egregious human rights violator, and gave him a free pass. No mention is made of the rapes and killings by Congolese troops in Kivu. Gettleman does manage to get a few laughs from Kabila at Nkunda's expense, and then goes on to discuss Kabila's motorcycles and cars, which the president uses "to blow off steam." Gettleman has not interviewed Nkunda, nor did he press Kabila on HRW's insistence that Bosco Ntaganda be arrested as a war criminal . There are absolutely no international arrest warrants for Nkunda, nor are there arrest warrants for him in Rwanda or DRC. Neither did the NYT mention the HRW report "WE WILL CRUSH YOU" which details the Kabila government's use of violence and intimidation to eliminate political opponents. Kabila himself set the tone and direction by giving orders to "crush" or "neutralize" the "enemies of democracy," implying it was acceptable to use unlawful force against them, according to the report. Meanwhile 250,000 people who were living in their homes before the arrest of Nkunda are now displaced, rape and murder is on the rise, Nkunda, a man with no warrants against him, languishes in detention in a corrupt Rwandan court system, Kabila rules Congo in spite of extreme human rights violations, and a man wanted by the Hague, Bosco Ntaganda is in charge of troops in eastern Congo. In an OPED in the LA Times , Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch also makes the point that Rwanda has been given a free pass for repression because of collective western guilt over the genocide. More on Congo
 
Lizz Winstead: A Shitstorm Of Intolerance (VIDEO) Top
The only "Storm Gathering" as far as we can tell is a shitstorm of intolerance gathered by the latest fearmongers over at The National Organization for Marriage. They are running a multi-million dollar ad to warn people about the dangers of gay marriage. In this response to their claims, we spent about 150 bucks on a green screen, some lights, a honey baked ham and some beer. More on Gay Marriage
 
John Farr: On His Birthday, Taking The Measure Of Brando Top
"I admire Marlon's talent, but I don't envy the pain that created it." -Anthony Quinn In the wake of this iconic actor's death nearly five years ago, the prevailing sentiment was that Marlon Brando, who would have turned 85 last week, was a remote, tortured man who squandered his prodigious talent for easy money. Some critics at the time sounded downright miffed, as if a good kick in Brando's voluminous rear-end might have shocked him back to a full appreciation of just what he owed his public. Brando's filmography in fact provides sufficient proof that the actor's own demons helped stall a career that in its hey-day (the mid-late fifties) seemed limitless in potential. Even though the Broadway stage had brought him sudden and early fame, as his career progressed Brando consciously resisted the traditional course of revisiting the stage periodically to hone his craft with more demanding, high-brow works of classic and contemporary theatre. Three personal qualities likely contributed to this decision: an inherent contrariness, the laziness that often accompanies success earned too quickly, and a corrosive contempt for his chosen profession, a path he chose only because it was the one thing he could do well. Brando grew up the son of alcoholic parents-unappreciated, and often ignored. Desperate to gain attention from his pre-occupied mother, he learned to play-act and entertain from an early age. His early isolation bred in him both a vivid internal life and a seething resentment that would inform his acting persona and approach. In real life, his fundamental wariness and barely concealed self-loathing would make it difficult for him to trust and enjoy other people for sustained periods of time. From the start, Brando's public image reflected a basic truth about the man: he was complex, brooding, and angry, while at the same time almost child-like in his vulnerability. His ability to draw on the techniques of "The Method", plumbing the depths of his unhappy, lonely childhood to create searing emotions on-screen, made him not just the embodiment of a new generation of actor, but a new kind of actor entirely, one perfectly in keeping with the darker realities of the post-war, atomic age. Beyond the undeniable impact of "Method" proponent Stella Adler, whom he credited with much of his success, Brando's unique gift came from his uncanny ability to portray conflicting, suppressed emotions like no other actor before or since. Driving this was his core belief that the inner lives of human beings could not be drawn in black and white, only murky shades of gray. This meant that otherwise decent people, filled with hidden, often frightening contradictions, could inexplicably do horrible things. Technique and motivation aside, the result was clear enough: no actor had ever filled a stage or a screen quite like Brando. Popular and critical adulation came at him like a tidal wave, and the actor privately dealt with the onslaught by dismissing the importance of his craft. He referred to acting as "an empty and useless profession", and Hollywood, "a cultural boneyard". His whole film career came to represent a pay-check he wasn't principled enough to resist. This sour outlook, coupled with a growing reputation as an erratic and unpredictable on-set personality, would result in a steadily diminishing quality of output in the sixties. Like Elizabeth Taylor, he became known for a time as a bloated has-been, a personification of the greed and self-indulgence of a now vanished Hollywood. When Francis Ford Coppola approached him to audition for the part of Don Corleone in "The Godfather", the actor had not worked in two years. Though Burt Lancaster was lobbying heavily for the role (ironically the same actor who had launched Brando by turning down "Streetcar" on Broadway), he didn't stand a chance once Marlon put that Kleenex in his cheeks. In the wake of this iconic role and his second Oscar (which he famously refused), Brando milked his comeback by making one more great film ( "Last Tango"), and then walking away from the industry, only returning when a pay day was too sweet to pass up. A telling quote from this period: "I'm not an actor and haven't been for years. I'm a human being-hopefully a concerned and somewhat intelligent one-who occasionally acts." Though it's difficult to deny the prevailing sense of waste in Brando's career and life, he must be credited with acting on his idealism, supporting the rights of disenfranchised groups, whether advocating for the plight of Native Americans, or lending his presence and support to the Civil Rights movement. It is also true that he paid dearly for his shortcomings and mistakes, living to see his son Christian's arrest for murder (which nearly bankrupted him), and the eventual suicide of his daughter, Cheyenne. Who would wish this kind of pain on anyone? Out of the spotlight and safe from prying eyes on his private Polynesian island, the star indulged in the only activity that provided real comfort: eating. Though always a prodigious gourmand, in later years the actor's weight ballooned to 350 pounds (he stood just 5'10"). Even on "Apocalypse Now", shot when Brando was still in his fifties, director Francis Coppola had no alternative but to shoot the star in shadow, and when needed, utilize a stand-in. It was sad to think this obese figure had once played the lean, well-muscled Stanley Kowalski in a form-fitting tee-shirt. Here then are the Brando titles that remain in fine trim, demonstrating a striking, simple truth: no other actor could touch Marlon Brando at his best. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)- Frayed Southern belle Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh) arrives in a seedy quarter of New Orleans, where she's arranged to stay with her pregnant sister Stella (Kim Hunter) and coarse, hulking brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski (Brando). Right from the start, Blanche and Stanley are at odds, as he sees through her high-mannered facade to the neurotic, vulnerable woman beneath. Tensions soon escalate, as Stanley sets out to confront Blanche about money and her unseemly past. Brando's force-of-nature performance in Elia Kazan's "Streetcar" - an electrifying mix of brute physicality and smoldering sexuality - made Stanley Kowalski's infamous bellow a permanent part of pop culture and Brando a household name. But the undeniable strength of this film, adapted from the play by Tennessee Williams, is driven as much by the witty, vivid dialogue and ensemble acting as it is the lead actor's Method work. Leigh, Hunter, Karl Malden, Ruby Bond, and Nick Dennis are all terrific, and Alex North's atmospheric jazz score enhances the tense, combustible interplay. Winner of five Oscars, this "Streetcar" offers an incredible ride. Julius Caesar (1953)- Troubled by the unchecked ascension of statesman and military hero Julius Caesar (Louis Calhern), Roman senator Cassius (John Gielgud) conspires with fellow politicians Casca (Edmond O'Brien) and Brutus (James Mason) to assassinate the power-hungry despot. After they carry out the deed on the Ides of March, Caesar's bosom friend Marc Antony (Brando) elects, for the good of the republic, to throw in his chips with the schemers. Or does he? Joseph L. Mankiewicz's quintessential, star-studded adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy is a lavish, Oscar-winning production. Gielgud, Mason, O'Brien, Greer Garson, and Deborah Kerr all shine in their respective roles. And Brando puts the mumbling Stanley Kowalski out of mind as he yelps "Let loose the dogs of war!" and intones Antony's unforgettable funeral speech with a gravity befitting the role. Worlds better than other screen versions, and one of the finest meditations on personal versus public ethics, "Julius Caesar" deserves your adulation. On The Waterfront (1954)- Washed-up prizefighter Terry Molloy (Brando) is increasingly disillusioned, working for his mobster brother, Charley (Rod Steiger), who is the right-hand man to waterfront boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J.Cobb). Events lead Terry to take a stand against the widespread corruption on the waterfront and thus regain his self-respect. Here, Brando teamed with Kazan for the third time on film, and the result is what many consider to be their best work together. Its gritty, almost claustrophobic on-location direction captures the human desperation and sense of danger emanating from the waterfront neighborhood, a world unto itself. The acting is absolutely top notch throughout as Malden, Steiger and Cobb all perform at (or close to) Brando's level. The film's ending will leave you breathless. (Kazan himself later stated he considered Brando's work here the finest male performance he'd ever witnessed on-screen.) Sayonara (1957)- When truculent GI Joe Kelly (Red Buttons) seeks to marry his Japanese lover during the Korean War--at the risk of a court martial, since Army policy forbids such unions-he appeals to his friend, Major Lloyd Gruver (Brando). Curbing his own deep-seated prejudices, Gruver agrees to be best man. Eventually, Gruver himself meets and falls in love with a Japanese dancer, unleashing the bigotry of the top brass and forcing him to face his own. This potent, then-controversial drama about a romance between an American and an Asian in wartime was adapted from a novel by James Michener. Shot in Technicolor on location in Japan, the film is gorgeous to look at, and Brando's work is skillfully nuanced, as his character's outlook gradually evolves from intolerance to enlightenment through the love of a woman. Red Buttons, playing Brando's best friend, and Miyoshi Umeki as his lover, both won Oscars for their touching, heartfelt performances as the doomed couple. The Young Lions (1958)- During WWII, singer Michael Whiteacre (Dean Martin) and Jewish American Noah Ackerman (Montgomery Clift) enlist and strike up a close friendship. Meanwhile, in Germany idealistic Nazi supporter Christian Diestl (Brando) joins Hitler's army and becomes an officer in the Wehrmacht. Over the course of the war, each man falls in love and confronts unpleasant realities- most notably, Ackerman battles anti-Semitism among his own countrymen, while Diestl becomes increasingly disillusioned with Nazi brutality. Based on Irving Shaw's novel, Edward Dmytryk's perceptive rumination on love, war, loyalty, and fate is notable for offering one of the first three-dimensional portrayals of a Nazi character, courtesy of Brando, in a surprisingly understated mode. Clift's own turn as the proud, patriotic Jew is one of his shining moments on-screen, while Dino eased into his first serious screen role with assurance. Great support from Lee Van Cleef (as Clift's racist superior), the superb Maximillian Schell (as a cynical Nazi), and Hope Lange, Barbara Rush, and May Britt (as love interests) keep these "Lions" roaring. The Godfather (1972)- This brilliant, bloody saga traces the turbulent reign of aging Mafia patriarch Don Vito Corleone (Brando) and his son, Michael (Al Pacino), a decorated war veteran in 1940s New York who has no intention of joining the family business. But after Don Vito is victimized by a rival who wants to move heroin through his turf, Michael elects to seek vengeance, and is then forced to hide out in Sicily. It's only a matter of time before Michael returns to inherit the mantle from his recuperating father. Long before "The Sopranos," a young Coppola transformed our understanding of the relationship between organized crime and corporate American profiteering with this operatic ode based on Mario Puzo's acclaimed novel. Moody and violent, "Godfather" combines a bullets-blazing mobster film with a gripping family saga. And what a cast: Pacino, Robert Duvall, James Caan, and Diane Keaton are all superlative. Brando, of course, achieved yet another level of cinematic fame with his stunning portrayal of the title character. Coppola fought with Paramount to achieve his personal vision, but ultimately triumphed, winning the 1972 Oscar for Best Picture. Last Tango In Paris (1972)- While apartment-hunting in Paris, sultry 20-year-old Jeanne (Maria Schneider) meets Paul (Brando), a brooding middle-aged American whose wife has recently committed suicide for reasons he cannot fathom. Within minutes, they make love in the empty flat, a desolate place that becomes their temple of carnality, but with strict rules established by Paul. Scandalous in 1972 and still unsettling today, Bernardo Bertolucci's bizarre, fascinating psychodrama depicts sex not as a union of two human beings, but as a reflection of their alienation from each other. While the butter scene is justly famous, this isn't the only reason "Tango" stays with you. Just watch Brando closely here: at certain moments you catch a glimpse of that fiery young man in the ripped tee-shirt, railing against the world's injustices, down but never out, and utterly, brilliantly alive. (Trivia note: reportedly, to build a feeling of spontaneity, Brando would improvise his own lines the day before shooting a scene. In many instances, Paul's memories of childhood are Brando's). Apocalypse Now Redux (1979)- During the Vietnam War, Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is given the unusual assignment of tracking and eliminating rogue Colonel Kurtz (Brando), a decorated career officer who has broken the chain of command and is presumed insane. Willard and his team venture into remote territory to find the enigmatic Kurtz. Symbolically, they're all traveling to the very core of man's bestial instincts. Director Coppola's re-edited "Redux" version includes new scenes which clarify some loose ends in the original cut of this slightly flawed masterpiece. "Apocalypse" stands as an epic, mesmerizing acid-trip of a war movie that melds together the savage themes of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" with the inherent waste of Vietnam. This is grand spectacle, augmented by a brilliant use of music. The acting is superb, from Sheen, Duvall and Hopper in particular. Even bald, bloated, incoherent Brando fascinates. Once seen, never forgotten. For the ideal double feature, follow this with Eleanor Coppola's revealing documentary on the mostly jinxed production of this film, "Hearts Of Darkness" (1991). For close to 2,000 other outstanding DVD titles, visit www.bestmoviesbyfarr.com.
 
Nicole Stremlau: How to Effectively Manage a Crisis but Still Miss the Point Top
Co-authored with Iginio Gagliardone Even for George Bush's careless reaction to Hurricane Katrina, it would have been hard to imagine him telling the thousands of victims made homeless "it's like a weekend of camping." But that was what Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi said on the German television, NTV, about the more than 30,000 people whose homes were destroyed by the earthquake that struck the center of the country. A day before, he similarly suggested that the residents leave the wreckage of their homes, and the on-going rescue effort, to "go to the coast, it is Easter. You should take some time off. We will pay for you." The international media cried outrage. But these episodes were scarcely mentioned in the domestic media. Even the leftist papers such as La Repubblica passed over it as news. And the Democratic Party affiliate, L'Unità , framed it just as yet another gaffe. A comment on a Huffington Post news article argues that the reason the Italian media have been ignoring these inappropriate comments is because the international media is taking the quotes out of context. But a more likely explanation for the silence is the adversarial relationship the media, and especially the press, have developed with the prime minister. The Italian media are embroiled in such a complex and delicate dance they have to choose their battles carefully. Berlusconi has been very successful in disarming opposition voices by claiming to be unfairly persecuted. Many journalists operate with a limited amount of 'critical capital' to expend. They are well aware that the government will immediately reply to any criticism by suggesting they are exploiting the tragedy for political ends. So in an effort to avoid further polarizing the political environment during a delicate time, journalists choose to self-censor. In contrast from George Bush during Hurricane Katrina, on a personal level Berlusconi did everything right. He quickly canceled his trip to Moscow, he immediately visited the site of the devastation and he mobilized all emergency services to work at full capacity. But similar to George Bush, he exhibited a remarkable inability to empathize and see things from perspectives other than his own. What really mattered to the Italian prime minister was that "he did well" rather than understanding what his fellow citizens were going through. The images from the state funeral on Friday marked a dramatic change of atmosphere as Berlusconi was clearly taken by the situation. After three visits to L'Aquila, he may have gained more of an insight into the struggles of the people. It may also be indicative of a greater ability to connect with the tragedy. But after the funeral Berlusconi made yet another awkward suggestion, "offering his houses" to the homeless. While many Italians made a similar offer, as the richest man in Italy who happens to be prime minister, it had the appearance of the magnanimous King opening his private mansions to the people. When handled well, leaders usually emerge from such disasters with significant political capital. Together, however, Berlusconi's comments are a worrying sign of the disconnect with reality that power can create. Perhaps by not reporting on the issue the press will be able to spend some of the critical capital it has earned on encouraging the prime minister to better understand his people. More on Italy
 
Sasha Cagen: Twitter's Aspiring Micro-Celebrities Top
On my first day at South by Southwest, an annual geek conference dedicated to celebrating the brightest minds in emerging technology, I already felt like a speck of Internet dust because I only have 157 Twitter followers. I took drastic measures and pulled out my iPhone for an old-fashioned phone call. My confidante was my former business partner Adam. I knew he would immediately understand. In that moment, I officially hated the Internets. Just a day before, I was giddy about attending South by Southwest (SxSW) for the first time. Billed as the center of digital creativity, and not to be confused with the film or music festival that immediately follows it, "South by" attracts entrepreneurs, bloggers, developers, advertisers, and venture capitalists. By day, thousands of us roamed the Austin Convention Center to go to panels like "Mad Men on Twitter" (now even Peggy Olsen has a Twitter account), "Love in the Cloud: Online-Only Marriages," and "What Do I Do With Myself, Now that the Economy Has Collapsed?" At night, shoulder-to-shoulder parties raged. As much as I wanted to have the random, stimulating conversations in the hallway that everyone says defines the event, something felt very wrong. In fact, my first tweet was: "I feel contrarian urge coming on in first day of #sxsw never seen more distracted sea of people." SxSW felt like a flashback to high school, but all the kids are former debate and math team nerds. Summoning all their repressed teenage angst, my fellow conference participants seemed to be taking a new shot at the yearbook superlatives. I quickly realized I was living in the vortex of a geek popularity contest. The Pressure to Tweet The more than 5,000 people who attend SxSW interactive are a future-looking crowd. Think of them as a subculture that may forecast the culture at large. SxSW's early adopters sometimes go nuts for Internet services that go nowhere, but they have been spot on with Twitter. The broadcast-your-brain service launched two years ago at SxSW and geeks went wild for it. Now John McCain, Ashton Kutcher and P Diddy love it too. The rules of fame are being rewritten. Andy Warhol would be pleased. Forget fifteen minutes of fame, now you can create a cult of yourself on Twitter and be in constant conversation with every fan. SxSW was supposed to be about community. A full-page house ad in the conference schedule instructed people to "Put away your laptop and talk to your neighbor!" And yet, I had never seen more people tuning each other out. At any given time, at least 50% of the audience in any panel had their laptops open so they could tweet their reactions to "the cloud," aka Twitter. The norm was to type, text, and read while people were giving their presentations. A twenty-something man who works at cars.com in Chicago confessed, "I am doing things here that I would consider so rude if I were at home or at work." At a normal conference, you have to impress dozens of strangers in "meatspace" (geeks' word for the physical world). But at SxSW, you also have to make an impression on Twitter, and prolifically. During those five days in Austin, I felt like I was living in on another planet where the pressure to tweet was constant! People gain followers by broadcasting every observation. The more tweets you post, the more likely people might be to see them, and thus, to follow you. The more followers you have, the more status you gain. Thus it is important to pump out as many tweets as possible. "I'm at the party." "Now I'm two steps to the right." "Now I'm too steps to the left." "Great beer!" How frequently did SxSW's most prolific tweeters tweet? Tara Hunt, a marketing expert who writes about how companies can benefit by getting involved with their customer communities through social media, spent three years accruing 25,000+ followers. She tweeted 66 times in a 24-hour period on March 14, day two of SxSW. Assuming six hours of sleep, that's about 3.67 every hour, or once every 16 minutes. Internet marketing guru Guy Kawasaki manages alltop.com, "an Internet magazine rack." He topped Tara by tweeting 95 times on March 15, but half of his tweets may have been "ghost-tweeted" by paid staff. He says he writes all his own personal replies. On my most prolific day, March 16, I tweeted seven times. I wrote these things not so much out of a desire to communicate, but to be discovered by the small gods of SXSW. I am not proud of this. In fact, I am embarrassed to have been caught up in the avalanche of nothingness. I am just honest about being swept up in the vibe. And to Power-Tweet But just tweeting prolifically isn't enough. You really need to power-tweet. Imagine two celebs on the red carpet. Brangelina, for example, shines brighter than Jennifer Aniston alone. Using Twitter, you can combine (or align with) celebrities, forming your own power-couple. Dave Morin, a Senior Platform Manager at Facebook, has more than 300,000 followers. On his way out of SxSW, he power-tweeted: "In a cab between the two women building the next Oprah. @juliaallison and @meghanasha!" Julia and Meghan are founders of nonsociety.com , a "lifecasting 'magazine' geared towards today's savvy young women." They are definitely micro-celebs with the mostly male crowd at SxSW. Morin also power-tweeted, "Just had an EPIC conversation with @Garyvee." Gary Vaynerchuk is another micro-celeb unknown outside the Twitter bubble. A Belarusian-born wine retailer and blogger from New Jersey with a rabid Twitter fan base, Vaynerchuk recently signed a seven-figure, ten-book deal with Harper Studio. The topic will be self-help business advice. He's a wine blogger, but his claim to micro-fame seems to be his success at becoming micro-famous. One has to wonder, will these be micro-books? My only real micro-celebrity friend is Penelope Trunk , a career-advice blogger who has 10,000 followers. Much like a Jessica Simpson spotting at LAX, the Twitterazzi tweeted when she arrived at the airport. We had coffee during the conference, and it felt like one of the only focused conversations that lasted more than 30 minutes and wasn't punctuated with a rapid exchange of business cards. She told me, "I confess that I am getting extremely anxious that I am not getting Twitter followers fast enough. I feel like a 20-year- old." Who's keeping track? Wefollow.com , a site created by Kevin Rose, the founder of digg.com, launched at SxSW. Wefollow ranks people with the top follower count in the categories of celebrity, actor, music, and of course, blogger, social media, and tech. Rose has 428,268 followers and Evan Williams, founder of Blogger and Twitter has 437,273. For now, they are not far behind Barack Obama (581,185) and Britney Spears (688,797). To be sure, Britney Spears sells more copies of USWeekly than Kevin Rose. But still, a cult of 400,000 is not to be lightly dismissed. Micro-revenue for Micro-celebrities? What's driving the followers arms race? Just think: Even MySpace celebrity-turned-model-turned-friend-of-Lindsay-Lohan Cory Kennedy only had 20,000 friends. The longer I spent inside this (questionably) futuristic social media bubble, the more I thought the popularity anxieties were not just repressed high school angst. They're also economic, perfectly coinciding with our melting economy. The median age of a Twitter user is 31. Most of these aspiring micro-celebrities are established in their careers. On my last day at SxSW, Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired and author of The Long Tail , gave a keynote that started to put the follower madness into context. His new book Free will come out in July (will it also be free?) and has a thesis that couldn't be more on point for people who work in the Internet. Anderson argues that consumers will perceive anything delivered via the Internet as free. This presents a thorny problem for the creators of software, music, and all forms of content. Price to consumer: zero. Price to create is obviously not zero. What's the solution? Micro-celebrity! Chris gave this advice to content creators: "Create microcelebrity and then monetize it. . . Each one of us has to figure out our own way to convert our reputation into money." His sole example: a Cantonese pop singer who accepted piracy of her music but made money through paid engagements, store openings, and product endorsement. According to Anderson, we must all suck people in as our followers, and then, somehow convert them into monetization opportunities: endorsements, PR, consulting, paid engagements, and better-paying jobs. The underlying assumption is that everyone would want to create micro-celebrity. There's no world of just writing, creating film or art, or paid-for software, anymore. But wait, aren't most writers naturally introspective, MFAs, not MBAs? Will micro-celebrity deliver more than micro-revenue? Maybe the formula works for Chris, Malcolm Gladwell, and other business authors who command large speaking fees for speaking to business audiences. But for most this advice seems preposterous. It leads to a world much like Hollywood: a few well-paid actors and actresses, an army of wait staff futilely chasing a dream. Even if everyone who cultivates their "micro-celebrity" identifies an audience that would be valuable to paying advertisers or sponsors, it's a simple problem of supply and demand. There will be too many micro-celebrities to generate anything more than nano-revenue. Anderson explained to me later in an email dialogue that his definition of "content creator" includes engineers who contribute to bulletin boards. The world of Internet content is flat to him--content is anything that consumes our attention, whether it's a movie review on the New York Times or a tweet from Major Nelson, the director of programming for the Xbox. Sure, if you are a programmer, creating a cult around yourself on Twitter may help you get better jobs. But in this model, traditional "content creators" (who want to be paid for their content) may be out of luck. According to Anderson, "the good ones will find a way to prosper and society will evolve, regardless. It's just change." The good ones, presumably, will have an army of followers. Until Twitter Collapses Into a Meta Black Hole If there was one "takeaway" from this SxSW, it was that I'm going to have to jump into the popularity races myself. We live in an age of popularity surveillance now. Simon & Schuster, the publisher of one of my books just started following me. Until the Twitter fad crashes and burns (my friend Jeff tells me on IM, "I am waiting for Twitter to collapse into a giant meta-black hole with everyone retweeting everyone else"), I predict book advances will be determined in part by an author's follower count. Penelope told me she felt the same way after last year's SxSW. Must. Get. On. Twitter. And. Attract. Thousands. Of. Strangers. Here's where my worrying brain starts to spiral. If SxSW represents the future, does that mean that we'll all become aspiring micro-celebrities in our own industries? Will obsessive self-promotion becomes the new normal? After a few days at home, I started to worry less and see this crowd for who they were: entrepreneurs who had paid upwards of $2,000 to attend a conference and needed to get their money's worth. Most of us are not trying to build Internet companies. We probably won't approach life with the same self-promotional fervor. Immediately after SxSW, I couldn't have been more relieved to return to San Francisco. It's ironic, because I normally think of San Francisco as being a haven of weirdos. But after five days in the Austin Convention Center, my non-Internet friends, writers, artists, and unmarried, people I usually lovingly consider odd compared to most Americans, seemed so refreshingly normal. They are capable of carrying on an "epic" conversation without bragging that they are having an "epic" conversation. Changing planes in Dallas, I tapped out a Facebook status update: "on my way back to SF after sxsw, eager to be around normal people, ie, non-aspiring micro-celebrities." The first comment in response was from an old work friend. Her response reassured me and made me smile. I was returning to the real world. "What's sxsw?" she asked. Sasha Cagen is building the next Oprah at Quirkyalone and To-Do List . Follow her at twitter.com/sashacagen . More on Twitter
 
Some Cuba Travel Restrictions To Be Lifted Today Top
The Obama administration on Monday will lift travel and gift restrictions for Cuban Americans, allowing them to travel more freely to the island and send additional financial help to family members. More on Cuba
 
Patricia Draznin: The 1040 Rebellion Top
We approach that notable time of year when the snow is melting, the sun is shining, and a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of itemizing to offset the annual looting fest by our federal and state governments. Today we band together in the spirit of survival to remember that even in 2009, there is life after taxes, as long as we don't have to buy anything for the rest of the year. While the Obama administration struggles to ease our tax burden, we reflect on the roots of American taxes when in 1773, the colonists staged The Boston Tea Party to rebel against taxation without representation -- since the commute to Parliament was prohibitive and also non-deductible. In addition to spiking the flavor of Boston Harbor, the Tea Party succeeded in eliminating the unfair tea tax, which we later replaced with the property tax, employment tax, social security tax, capital gains tax, and the income tax. Taxation was not always a contact sport. In the early 1800s, Americans paid a simple luxury tax on items like tobacco and alcohol, a reason to be grateful for other people's vices. But the history of tax is the history of war. The sales tax was born to finance the War of 1812, while the income tax was conceived by President Lincoln to bankroll the Civil War -- along with the excise tax, the car wash and the yard sale. Repealed in 1872, revived in 1894, ruled unconstitutional in 1895, and reinstated in 1913, the lowly misunderstood income tax is here to stay. Which is why today we pay our taxes every year whether we are engaged in combat or just sitting at home decoding our 1040s. And by now we are getting used to the feeling of always having someone else's hand in our wallets, and realizing that paying taxes to Uncle Sam doesn't mean we're losing money. We're gaining shares of an F-16 Viper. The Internal Revenue Service has been collecting our taxes since 1862. And apparently it's still not enough. And if they ever have a question, they will be happy to audit your tax returns all the way back to your first newspaper route, a procedure as painless as having your spleen removed through your mouth in a dentist's office. And a reminder to all wage earners to save your receipts so you can justify every business latté you ever deducted. Not that I knew about receipts when I was 23 and got audited -- probably for earning so little income, which I had no idea was illegal. I arrived carrying a big cardboard box filled with mystery papers organized like the contents of a wastebasket and probably included some receipts. In response to each of the questions posed by the tax collector, who breathed fire that swirled high above his horns, I rummaged through the box holding up one receipt after another asking, "Is this it?" [No response.] "How about this one?" Honestly, I was not under the influence of any mind-altering substances, although that could only have helped. But after a while the tax collector told me to take my box and never darken his doorway again. Maybe he decided to try meeting his quota with a better prospect, like Chevron. Before you try the "big box of mystery papers" method, remember that results may vary. Consult your tax adviser. And be prepared, be very prepared. After all, paying taxes is just the price of our freedom to work and pay taxes. Remember this when you're drinking your next cup of tea. More on Taxes
 
Nathan Hegedus: Men Are Idiots to Not Fight for Paternity Leave Top
The chance to nap. The chance to ponder NBA playoff match-ups or your favorite baseball team's pitching rotation. The chance to hang out on a bench in the sun with a friend. Men. You are missing this. Thanks to the Swedish welfare state, I spent six months on paternity leave with my daughter last year. And I will be home with my son for nine or ten months next year. These are not times to be missed. Yeah, for all that bonding time with your kid. Yeah, because your family does mean that much more than your career (You know all the deathbed cliches? I suspect they are true). Yeah, for equality in the marriage and family and society. Yeah, to set a good example. I could do some research and cite studies that show the benefits of involved fathers for small children but who has time for research with a toddler and baby in the house? No, it is really about the lifestyle, the pace. It is all about naps. When, as a father of small children, do you get to nap anymore? Now before stay at home parents get all worked up, yes, parental leave is hard, often grindingly hard. It is harder than any job I have ever had. It is likely harder than Barack Obama's job. All the diaper changes, all the food planning and cleaning and crying. You never get a moment to yourself. Your work day lasts all day. But this is beside the point. I was home for only six months. And I got to nap almost every day. I pondered all this the other day, off for a few weeks on a short term paternity leave, as my daughter wandered around our local park, and I reviewed the Buffalo Bills 2009 schedule (impossible) and the San Francisco Giants' starting rotation (good). Maybe I am more Type B than I previously suspected but would you not like to have a stretch of naps and sports and the like? It is only for a couple months. Go back to work after with a vengeance. You are not killing your career. Or it should not mean that. But of course, in America, it does mean wounding your career. Still, dude, it is your own fault. You are not trying to change the culture, you are not making noise about your wife getting maternity leave, and you certainly are not fighting for your own time with your kid. It is a cultural paradigm reinforced by jerks. A while back, we came upon the new Dr. Phil-developed show The Doctors on Swedish TV. The episode likely aired in the US months ago. These four doctors in all their various costumes happened to be talking about parental leave. And the OB/GYN, the only woman, was saying that women should have at least 2-3 months off after they have a baby. And the three men agreed but not too strongly. It was like watching TV from an alternate universe. Has it slid that far in America, that if you are not a stay at home mom, you are likely back at work in a month, six weeks? But then the OB/GYN said that fathers should get some time off too. She said this defensively and quietly. And the ER doctor, Dr. Travis Stork, laughed. "Someone has to work," he said with a smug smile. I know I am lucky to live in Sweden, where I get all this time off with my kids (and happily pay the taxes to do so). But this faux macho, men are doing real work crap. Aren't we past this? We need to change the metaphor here. So let me belatedly call out Dr. Stork. I consider him less masculine for his comment. I think the guy is a p ... aternalistic schmuck. I smell fear. So conquer your fear Travis. Naps are worth fighting for. Oh, plus all that bond with your kid, equality, society stuff. That works too.
 
Matthew DeBord: After the Golden Age, Can Car Design Go Green? Top
The automobile business has never been in worse shape. Two of Detroit's Big Three, Chrysler and General Motors, have been bailed out by the taxpayers and are on the verge of bankruptcy. Even it doesn't come to that, both carmakers, along with Ford, are all facing declining market share, anemic sales, and legacy union costs. Things are no better for the Japanese. Earlier this year, Toyota posted its first-ever operating loss, a corporate humiliation that proves even 70 consecutive years of making money on cars can be swiftly and mercilessly reversed by a dismal economic climate. Many industry experts and observers are wondering just what the auto business will look like when all this creative destruction finishes playing itself out. Regrettably, a casualty of the downturn may be design. The debate should be on everyone's mind this week, as the 2009 U.S. car show season winds down in New York City. The past decade has been perhaps the greatest in the century's long history of car design. Almost everyone built extremely cool rides, and some, like Cadillac, BMW, and, Audi debuted vehicles that delivered aesthetic home runs. Boxy, overly adorned cars from the 1980s and '90s gave way to smooth, sculptural forms. Car designers as a group developed, in the parlance of the profession, swooping and occasionally controversial new "form vocabularies." At BMW, designer Chris Bangle (who recently announced his retirement) moved the carmaker away from a vaguely retro look and created vehicles that were carved, angular and slightly threatening. At Audi and later Ford, J Mays ushered in an era of curvaceous shapes, on cars such as the VW Beetle, the prototype of the Audi TT, the Ford Thunderbird and the Mustang. Designers ceased to think of cars as "styled," in the old Harley Earl way of conceptualizing extraneous chrome and faux-heraldic badges. Instead, designers envisioned the car as a bold form that emerged from a billet of steel. Angles, as with the Stealth-fighter inspired Cadillac XLR, became hard, clearly defined, and de rigeur. Never again would the public be forced to digest to stunted mediocrity of the Cimarron from the early 1980s, by common assent the worst car Caddy ever produced. This Golden Age of car design cast the designers as heroic figures and allowed them to separate themselves from engineers. Designers glissaded around Motown or Tokyo--and, often enough, Southern California, where many automakers headquartered their design operations -- in monochrome suits, exotic eyeglasses and pricey footwear, presenting themselves as artistic companions to contemporary architects like Rem Koolhaas and Daniel Libeskind, or noted product designers such as Philippe Starck. The engineers were left to their dreary suburban dad threads, lumpy khakis and oversized polo shirts, as they labored on what thrummed away under the sensuously articulated hood. For designers, sleek good taste became an inspiration as they decisively shifted away from the previously efflorescent period in car design, the fabulous 1950s, with its tailfins, hood ornaments, and whitewall tires. The results were glorious. Even lowly econo-rides, like the Ford Focus, looked sharp. Car shows in Detroit, Los Angles, and Paris became showcases for acres of gorgeously crafted sheet metal. Concept cars once again drew then oohs and aahs of the salivating public. Whole new aftermarket industries, dedicating to customizing the rides of the rich and famous, sprang up. This was all fueled, of course, by the idea that consumers, flush with credit and easily bored, would want to aggressively pursue next year's model. One of the Big Three, Chrysler, made outlandish, over-the-top design its signature, producing a fleet of cars that exhibited massive aesthetic swagger. Now, of course, it's unclear whether the auto industry will be able to carry on in anything that resembles in pre-Financial Crisis form. The expectation is that consumers will want more sober vehicles. The anti-design of the Toyota Prius, which by looking no-nonsense advertises its Green credentials, could be the way of the future. Which would be too bad, as great design can still be actively pursued, no matter what kind of fuel-economy numbers a car is supposed to muster. In fact, the urgent demand to do something about global warming may bring about a second Golden Age in auto design. It's one thing to start with a long-hooded, broad-shouldered Cadillac V8 as your canvas, but quite another to make something like the diminutive Smart car seem visually appealing. Obviously, cars that could chase ever-escalating performance, or simply be built large as in the case of many SUVs, invited dramatic design. The challenge now will be for the designers of the next decade to pack a different kind of emotion into smaller frames. It will probably never be like it was, back in the design-supercharged 2000s, but it could, and should, be good again. Because if we're going to keep driving, we should look cool doing it. More on Cars
 
Circuit City seeks to sell brand, Web site Top
RICHMOND, Va. — Circuit City is looking to sell its brand, trademarks and e-commerce business to Systemax, the same company that purchased CompUSA's intellectual property in 2008. According to bankruptcy court filings, the Richmond-based company has entered into a so-called stalking horse agreement with Systemax for $6.5 million. A stalking-horse bid is an initial offer on a bankrupt company's assets from an interested buyer chosen by the company. The agreement also includes payments of a scaled percentage of revenues coming from the site. Other companies should have an opportunity to bid on the assets, if a federal bankruptcy court judge grants a motion for a May 11 auction at a hearing Tuesday. Circuit City closed its remaining U.S. stores last month and has laid off about 34,000 workers since filing for bankruptcy protection in November.
 
Patti Blagojevich's Questionable Payday From Tony Rezko Top
A key part of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's criminal indictment describes how crooked businessman Tony Rezko steered real estate deals to Blagojevich's wife -- a price Rezko paid to wield clout within the Blagojevich administration, according to federal prosecutors. More on Rod Blagojevich
 
John Terzano: Prosecutors Must Be Held Accountable Top
Prosecutors have power. They have been given that power in part to effectively ensure public safety. Yet, everyday in courtrooms across the country, prosecutors are abusing their broad powers and engaging in misconduct that can and does lead to flawed verdicts and the conviction of innocent people. It is a severe problem -- it is a widespread problem. Our criminal justice system can and should do better. Arguably the most powerful figures in the criminal justice system, prosecutors are heavily involved in the investigation of crimes; they are solely responsible for what charges, plea bargains, and sentences a criminal defendant will face; and they have complete control over what evidence will be disclosed to the defense during discovery. The responsibility of a prosecutor is not to simply seek convictions, but to seek justice. This means that, in addition to convicting the guilty, the prosecutor has a duty to protect the innocent and guard the rights of the accused. Yet within our criminal justice system there is a lack of transparency and accountability which has allowed prosecutorial abuse of power and misconduct to become common place. It is a problem at both the state and federal levels. We are all aware of the recent headlines around the Ted Stevens case, where Attorney General Eric Holder dismissed an indictment against the former Alaskan senator, citing prosecutorial misconduct as the primary reason. Just last week, Federal District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan ordered a special investigation of six federal prosecutors within the Department of Justice for their acts of misconduct in the case, including the mishandling of witnesses and suppression of important evidence. In North Carolina in June of 2007, another high profile case of prosecutorial misconduct ended in the disbarment of Durham County District Attorney Michael Nifong for suppressing evidence and making inflammatory public statements related to the prosecution of three innocent Duke Lacrosse players for rape. While these high profile cases provide egregious examples of prosecutorial misconduct, they are not isolated incidents. There are numerous prosecutors that have committed similar abuses of power and acts of misconduct that have not been held accountable in a similar fashion and continue to practice law as prosecutors. Unlike the examples cited above, the vast majority of misconduct cases go unnoticed -- prosecutors are rarely held accountable when they make egregious errors or abuse their power. Jurisdictions around the country have failed to effectively investigate or sanction prosecutors. This lack of accountability has led to widespread abuse of prosecutorial power, and a flawed and inaccurate criminal justice system. The most common type of prosecutorial misconduct is the suppression of exculpatory evidence from the defense. Other forms include courtroom misconduct, mishandling of physical evidence, threatening or badgering witnesses, using false or misleading evidence, and improper behavior during grand jury proceedings. Today, The Justice Project released Improving Prosecutorial Accountability: A Policy Review , which analyzes prosecutorial misconduct and presents comprehensive recommendations to improve the accountability of our nation's prosecutors. The policy review offers solutions to systemic problems that lead to prosecutorial misconduct. Among other recommendations, states are encouraged to require all prosecutors' offices to adopt and enforce clearly defined office manuals on the proper use of discretion, adopt open-file discovery in criminal cases, and establish prosecutorial review boards to investigate and sanction prosecutors who abuse their power. In addition, the policy review profiles cases of prosecutorial misconduct that led to wrongful convictions and the death sentences of innocent individuals, highlights jurisdictions that have taken steps to curtail prosecutorial misconduct, and includes a model policy. It is time for states to take steps to ensure prosecutors are held accountable for their actions in all cases -- not simply the high profile ones. The Justice Project's recommendations, if implemented by the states, would significantly improve prosecutorial accountability, which would increase the fairness and accuracy of our criminal justice system. John F. Terzano is President of The Justice Project , a nonpartisan organization that works to increase fairness and accuracy in the criminal justice system . More on Ted Stevens
 
Most Americans Trust Obama To Handle Economy: Poll Top
More than two-thirds of Americans trust President Obama to handle the economy, according to a new Gallup poll . Seventy-one percent of those polled last week said they had a great deal or a fair amount of confidence that Obama would do or recommend the right thing for the economy. By contrast, Americans have less confidence in two of Obama's economic deputies, Treasury secretary Tim Geithner and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke. Only 49 percent and 47 percent of poll respondents said they had lots of confidence in Geithner and Bernanke, respectively. Thirty-nine percent said they had just a little or no confidence at all in Geithner -- only congressional Republicans fared worse in the poll. In the first April of his presidency, George W. Bush received confidence marks similar to Obama's. Gallup's writeup notes that poll respondents were highly willing to share their opinions of Geithner and Bernanke even tho most Americans probably have no idea what, exactly, the Treasury secretary and Fed chairman do: It is unlikely that many Americans have a highly sophisticated understanding of the complex economic policies enacted in the last several months by either Bernanke or Geithner. Yet only 17% and 14% of Americans, respectively, are not able or willing to give an opinion on confidence in these two men's actions on the economy. Compared to the president, Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress fared poorly in the poll, with Republicans winning the confidence of only 38 percent of respondents. Congressional Democrats earned 51 percent, more than either Geithner or Bernanke. Get HuffPost Politics on Facebook , or follow us on Twitter . More on Economy
 
Laura Trice: Starting a Business and Following a Dream - Miniseries- Part 1 Top
I grew up in a household where my father worked for the government and my mom was a homemaker. My first jobs were babysitting and yard work and graduated to selling wedding gowns at a bridal shop owned by a woman, Linda. People who owned their owned businesses both interested and intimated me. They were their own bosses and that was great. Who wouldn't want to be in charge? However, they did not just get a paycheck and go home. And, if business was not good, there was a reduced pay check or no paycheck for them. There were people who started a business based on something that already existed. For example, buying a gas station or opening up a dental office. Then there were people who created something new, like a new technology or product. They had an extra challenge of explaining to people what they did before people would come to them. All of this was interesting to me, yet I never thought I would ever start my own business. Why? I figured that the people who did that type of thing had something special and I was pretty sure I did not have it. Maybe it was nerve. Maybe it was family money. Maybe it was the next great idea. At the time, I couldn't imagine that I could do what it took to start or run any business of any kind. That would mean managing money, hiring, firing, handling problems, being accountable and, most scary of all, stepping outside of what was familiar to me and what I had seen my family do. Maybe others are braver than me, but I have always wanted to do a great job and felt awful when I'd make a mistake or fall short. I liked the assuredness of knowing that I would get that paycheck every week. At some point, I started to feel bored and like I was wasting my life. Yet, I'd show up to the job every day and continue. Something in me wanted more but I didn't know what more meant. I found myself feeling jealous of others who were doing something they loved. They seemed alive in a way I was not. They looked inspired, energetic and, well, happy. I didn't know what career would do that for me and I was also afraid of change. How would I pay my bills? Well I had some savings. What would I do? I had no idea. It just all started with a feeling of there had to be more to life and I had something in me that wanted to be expressed and create something more. This mini-series is going to be about how I started Laura's Wholesome Junk Food. Sitting on the set of 7th Heaven working as a medic after medical school was a great opportunity for me to reflect. I had already created the cookie recipe, I had already accidentally come up with the idea that my business is built on, and people had already told me that they loved it. However, I never for a moment thought that an idea I had could ever become a business and that I could develop the skills to run a successful business and create a place where people enjoyed working. Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Starting a Business and Following a Dream - Find out what pushed me over the edge and got me pursuing my dream? Laura Trice, M.D. CEO and Founder - Laura's Wholesome Junk Food - www.lwjf.net More on Small Business
 
CTA Fare Card Beeps: What The Different Sounds And Lights Mean Top
About 90 percent of CTA riders use some type of fare card, and you might have noticed each transaction corresponds to a distinct pattern of beeps and lights on bus fareboxes or rail station turnstiles.
 
Rinku Sen: Stimulus Package: Immigrants! Top
Last week, the New York Times reported that President Obama intends to push immigration reform, welcome news to the millions of undocumented people who need legalization in that package. Cecilia Muñoz, the Adminstration's Director of Inter Governmental Affairs, is managing this project for the White House. Muñoz was known as a dogged advocate while she was VP of Policy at the National Council of La Raza , and her experience of the five-year immigration debate that ended with no change in 2007 is some of the most moving stuff in my book, The Accidental American . The pushback will be all focused on the economy, as conservatives and liberals alike argue that we cannot have more permanent residents while so many Americans are unemployed. This line of thinking would make sense if the economy was a zero sum game, with no flexibility or room for growth. In that case, we could protect jobs for current residents by preventing immigrants from taking them. But economies and immigration don't work that way. Economies grow and shrink according to a number of factors, and immigrants, whether they are apple pickers or scientists, help U.S. economies grow. Often when the immigrant is gone , so is the job, not to mention the tax revenue. This report by the William C. Velasquez Institute at UCLA makes the case that legalizing millions of undocumented people is the most effective stimulus plan we've got. Legalization would create $4.5 to $5.4 billion in net tax revenue alone, not to mention the nearly million new jobs and $30-36 billion in personal wealth it could generate. Those are jobs that largely go to native-born Americans. My own father is a great example. He came to the states as a metallurgical engineer. Since the industrial economy shrank steadily from his arrival in 1971 to 1980, he started a small business in light construction. He employed dozens of people, none of them immigrants. When he died, my mother ran the business and kept those people. When she retired, a long-term employee bought the business and still owns it five years later. My dad didn't steal a business from anyone - it didn't exist before him. He didn't steal a loan - the bank can, and is happy to, make more loans. He expanded the economy and created opportunity for native-born workers with low and medium skill levels. You don't have to be an engineer to do this. The economist James Holt estimates that each farmworker creates an average of 3 new jobs in the surrounding area. Apples have to be packaged, shipped and sold, all jobs that are often done by native-born Americans. Pushing immigration reform to the top of the list could be Obama's boldest economic move yet. During times of economic crisis, the knee jerk reaction is to close our doors and scapegoat. It's counterintuitive, but nonetheless true, that immigrants could pull us out of the trenches more swiftly than we thought possible. As Cecilia Muñoz learned before she went to the White House, however, the conservative noise on immigration is producing a racial, as well as economic, story, and the racial division may scuttle the economic benefit. More on Immigration
 
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Kate Michelman: A System from Hell: How Medical Crises Have Taken My Family to Financial Ruin Top
A version of this post was first published in this week's issue of The Nation . It was a crisp and brilliant autumn day last October when the medical and financial crises with which my family had successfully, if barely, coped for seven years became a catastrophe. My husband had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2002, a year after our daughter was paralyzed in a horse-riding accident. His balance had deteriorated until he fell two or three times at home last summer. In the face of his diminishing physical condition, a single fall could result in disastrous injury. We scheduled an appointment with his neurologist in Washington. We pulled up to the main entrance of the hospital after the two-hour drive from our home near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. My husband opened his door, grabbed the roof of the car and began to pull himself out as I walked around to help him. I was too late. In an instant -- time slowed enough for me to see the danger but raced ahead too fast for me to reach him -- he lost his grip and fell to the concrete, shattering his hip, breaking his femur and causing internal bleeding that kept him in the hospital for months. My husband is a retired college professor, and what the teaching profession lacks in salary it often makes up for with generous benefits. His health insurance would cover most of the emergency costs related to the fall -- the surgeries, the hospitalization, the drugs. But in the astronomical sums the cost of medical care often entails, "most" is not a reassuring word. Months later, as his discharge from the hospital drew near, I sat in my living room looking at the bills piling up on the table. The co-pays, uncovered care and other costs had already reached $8,000, and we had virtually nothing left. Seven years of caring for my husband and our daughter, who had no insurance at the time of her accident, had all but exhausted our savings. As my husband's condition deteriorated, I was caught in a trap. We needed my income, but the kind of political consulting work that was my forte was incompatible with the demands of caring for him. It was simply not possible for me to be available for him 24/7 and simultaneously to work overtime, traveling for days or weeks on the campaign trail, to bring in the income that would keep us afloat. The fraying financial thread by which we were already hanging was now certain to snap. When I heard the awful sound of my husband's body hitting the concrete outside the hospital, I knew the modicum of independence to which he had clung for so long was gone. He was discharged into an assisted-living facility, where most of the cost was excluded from both his private long-term-care insurance and Medicare. At $9,000 a month, the bills accumulated quickly. Recently, we decided to bring him home, although the doctors would have preferred that he stay at a facility with full-time supervision. But this was a mathematical decision, not a medical one: We do not have the money it costs to keep him there. I had already stopped working, to care for him; our savings are nearly depleted; and his pension is not nearly large enough to pay the bills. Today he needs nearly round-the-clock professional help at home -- less than the cost of the assisted-living facility but still far more than we have. I have spent recent weeks looking for a job that can add at least enough to my husband's pension and our Social Security benefits to cover the cost of his care. It is a dilemma familiar to so many women -- finding work that can pay for care but also leave time for providing it. The time is drawing near when, job or no job, the expenses will simply be more than we have. I am coming full circle, back to where so many women's lives begin and end -- and where my career as an activist began: jobless, unsure how to pay the next month's bills, caring for a family that depends on me for survival -- and utterly and deeply determined that something about our country must fundamentally change. That was in 1969. My first husband had abruptly left my three young girls and me, stranding us without financial support. Our family was in crisis, and when I found out a few weeks later that I was pregnant too, I knew it was impossible to give a new baby -- whose father had already deserted it -- what it deserved while also giving my daughters what they needed. So in 1969 I made the difficult decision to have an abortion. Because state law radically restricted access to the procedure, that decision had humiliating consequences. I was forced to obtain permission both from the man who had abandoned my daughters and me and from an all-male hospital review board. The board's interrogation in a hospital conference room covered subjects like whether I was capable of dressing my children in the mornings and whether I had been satisfying my husband sexually. That experience sparked a lifetime of activism that eventually took me to the front ranks of the pro-choice movement, where I forged deep and lasting friendships with some of the most powerful political figures of the past thirty years. Not many Republicans were among them. But there ought to have been more -- because in a distant era fast receding in time, theirs was the party of moderation and individual rights, and also because, ironically enough, I have led precisely the life Republicans claim to value. I started as a single welfare mother, then worked my way through college en route to a successful career. My second husband and I have sustained a traditional and loving marriage for thirty-five years. He purchased quality health insurance, including long-term-care insurance, so he would not be a financial burden to others. He enjoyed a long and steady career at an institution that would pay healthcare costs and a modest pension for life. Between his salary and mine, we achieved a reasonable degree of economic comfort -- never wealthy but independent, self-sufficient, responsible. Then came our daughter's accident. We got the call in 2001. She was pursuing her lifelong love of horses as a trainer in upstate New York. One day in May her horse got spooked, reared up and fell over backward on top of her, crushing three of her vertebrae and paralyzing her for life. The weeks and months that followed included multiple surgeries, a long hospitalization and extensive rehab. The bills were exorbitant, to say nothing of the fact that our daughter probably would never again be able to support herself through full-time work. When the bills came in, it never occurred to me that walking away from them was an option. I cashed in the IRA on which we were depending for retirement and paid them myself. My husband's diagnosis followed just as our daughter was beginning to stabilize. Eventually I had to leave work to care for him, and our financial independence deteriorated on a parallel track with his health. The story is familiar: the medical crisis that becomes a financial one. Still, we were able to hold things together, moving from one crisis to the next but finding a way to get by. That ended in October. We quickly learned that not even the most frugal planning is enough to cope with surging healthcare costs. The long-term-care insurance barely covers a fraction of his long-term care. I will care for him at home, but a time will come when even our home might be at risk: If he needs nursing home care, Medicaid will pay for it only after we have liquidated most of our assets. Consequently, a blessing -- my husband could live like this for years to come -- is also likely to bankrupt us. I do not tell this story because it is unique. On the contrary, the point is precisely that countless people across the country are living it. And millions more are a crisis away from joining them -- one lost job, a diagnosis, an accident. Most people do not have the luxury of being able to call, as I do, on powerful friends for help. Not even these friends, of course, can change the predicament my husband and I face. Nor will the situation change for anyone until political leaders get serious about comprehensive healthcare reform. ( Read the rest of Kate's post here .) More on Health
 
Weather, Vegan Pirates Hinder Japan's Whale Hunt Top
Though the target for minke whales was 850, only 679 were caught due to disruptions caused by protestors. Whalers had hoped to catch 50 fin whales, but they managed to kill only one. A combination of bad weather and disruptions due to direct action on the part of Sea Shepherd caused the whaling fleet to lose 16 days of potential hunt time. More on Japan
 
Rahm Emanuel Tells Bret Baier: White House Senior Staff Watches "Special Report" Every Night Top
Bret Baier has been covering the White House and national politics for a decade. Yet even he still experiences surreal moments with the most powerful people in Washington. The anchor of "Special Report with Bret Baier" recently ran into Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff for President Barack Obama. Emanuel told Baier, a former WRAL reporter, he was doing a great job since replacing Brit Hume as anchor on the Fox News Channel program on Jan. 5. Emanuel told Baier the White House senior staff watches his show every night. More on Rahm Emanuel
 
Brad Balfour: Sex It Up with "American Swing"--Doc Directors Matthew Kaufman and Jon Hart Explore Plato's Retreat Top
When American Swing writer/co-director Jon Hart hailed a cab on a Manhattan street little did he know that its driver was former Plato's Retreat founder and head prosyletiser Larry Levenson. Once they began speaking, Hart was hooked and Levenson found someone to tell his story and that of notorious club not long before he would die at 62. Long lost to the annals [so to speak] of New York cultural history, Plato's Retreat was more than just another night club, high-energy disco, or part of another era. It was a both a phase in the sexual awakening of America and a public heave-ho to traditional morality that was of both of grand intentions and of a sleazy greediness endemic to our media culture. But it wasn't merely a swinger's club--private discreet, with members vetted---it was a bold attempt to bring relationship-free sex to the forefront of our world. That was something which both Hart (a longtime journalist) and his co-director Matthew Kaufman (an experienced doc director) wanted to explain while telling of the rise and fall of Levenson and his club. The story of the place and its founder, American Swing begins with humor, which is it inevitable when you bring together a lot of wildly divergent naked people. At that point in the "me" decade of the '70s, disco served the elite and as it morphs into naughtiness, much like the music itself, the scene changes to sleaze and pandering rather than creativity and philosophical adventuring. Finally it decends into a kind of sadness accompanied by the sense that yet another search for utopia--this time a sexual utopia--has gone wrong. Q: Did you plan for this? Did you even realize that all this was there? JH: Definitely. We knew the humor was there, it's inherent; it was intentional. And there were sexual relations in this as well. People went to Plato's Retreat to laugh and dance and have fun--and the fun was there. They were also vulnerable -- because, well, they were naked. So there's humor there that is very apparent. There were sexual relations going on there, too, so that had to be portrayed. That era is now over--but it was sad. That interview where Larry says, "I thought I was the king. But it was just me." He was in his cab--myself and him alone. He's symbolic of that era being over, but it had to be reported, and yes, it's sad. The laughter was there, and it's intentionally in our movie, but so is the sadness, and that all has to be there as well. Q: I assume structural arc was intentional--describing its meteroric rise and grimy end... MK: We set out to make a fun movie. It was a worn torn doc about some African country; we wanted to show it was fun, life in New York during the late '70s was fun... But we totally missed it. Q: How old are you guys--you seem too young to have experienced any of this first-hand? MK: We're both 39... JH: We lived all this as kids via Public Access television--like [late night sex shows like] "Midnight Blue--when our parents were asleep that was my intro to it. MK: Yeah, there's a lot of titillation to this film, but it also had to be there. Sex is funny--people giggle. Because it's so much a part of that whole story, of the time and place and people; the sex is funny. It is the rise and fall of Larry Levenson. It is his story and the story of the times. He was the proselytizer of the couples movement in all its stages. When you're up up up, everybody wants to be your frtiend. But he had to know that weren't really his frends. At the beginning there all this innocence and that fun, club-like atmosphere. And then, after it ended, after the "up".... and then ultimately the downfall. No one can sustain [that kind of scene forever.] He was the king and have fun and then after it ended--and that was the arc. JH: I knew Larry for a number of years, and I was always trying to understand him. And believe [him]. When he first told me the story, it was hard to believe him, and I wanted corroboration. I genuinely liked Larry, and that made me ever more curious, and I wanted to put the pieces together and corroborate him. Larry lived in the moment. He did want people to be his friends. At some point, yes, it was innocent at the beginning, it was a great, alternative lifestyle and it was fun, but then you get corrupted by commerce by... Q: The Mafia. JH: Exactly. The wise guys who come in and years go by... The club was open at the Ansonia for eight years. At some point you lose the innocence it becomes a grind. Time passes. When Larry and Mary [his wife and partner in the club--she was an active participant] break up, that's the end of the innocence. Mary loved Larry before he became anything and she partnered with him. No strings attached they actually met at one his underground events and she moved in with him... Q: Is Larry's first wife still living? JH: Gloria? Yes. She's in the movie... Q: Right, but you lose her along the way MK: She lives in Florida now, and she talked to Larry right until the end. JH: We put time into making this palatable... When Plato's moved from the Ansonia to 34th St, they {Larry and his partners] had an idea that this was the beginning of something great. Then it becomes almost hubris. They thought this same kind of club could take off in every city around the country. So it becomes too much about commerce and less about having fun. On 34th St, it becomes basically, a tourist trap. I'm not sure what the analogy would be: Maybe... you have this small but popular restaurant that suddenly wants to becomes a chain... Q: The interviews with the various characters in the film-- how did they happened, how did you get them to go on camera and how did they take shape? MK: This movie wouldn't be anything without the people who let us put their stories in here. Jon had some original contacts, of course, and when those ran out, we put ads in the paper all up and down the east coast and in California, where we thought that transplanted New Yorkers of a certain age might reside and respond. And we really did get a lot of response--hundreds of people called from all over. We followed it all up--"You call this guy, I'll call that guy"--trying to weed out and find the people who were real. It was frustrating, because you sometimes would follow these people for a good long time, and then suddenly, "Oh, my husband will not let me be a part of this." Or, "Oh-- I couldn't let you put me on film." And that, after we'd spent hours and hours doing that. We had celebrities and all the notable folks but ultimately, we wanted to get the regular people who spent time there. And we did get a lot of people. And we wanted to make this an honest film where people really appeared in it, rather than having their faces obscured. Q: You had to do a lot of research.... Regarding the archival interviews, you must had a problem getting rights with all the nudity and sex... MK: We had some really seasoned researchers go through everything. But we were really lucky that Bill Lustig [director of exploitation films] owned the whole Midnight Blue collection. We had to go through boxes and boxes and boxes of all the old tapes from this collection, in every imaginable configuration. It took weeks and weeks to go through everything--any scrap we could get, from anywhere. All the tapes had to be pulled and cleaned and transferred and--it was a technological nightmare because there were so many formats: ¾, ½ - inch, even some were on the old Beta format. TM: Q: How long in total have you worked on this film? MK: Since late 2003 we were corresponding. JH: I met Larry in 1994. Q: So you've been dealing with sorting out these rights for a long time. JH: When I first wanted to do this project, I met with much resistance from his family. I met his son, the prince and then Larry told me about Howard Smith, who had written about him in The Village Voice. So I basically hung around Howard, who had carried the baton before me... I think time helped a lot. Larry and some of the family members still had some open wounds, and it took time for these to heal. Now, the family definitely appreciates Larry much more. What I've heard from them is that they feel very protective of Larry. When they see him on the screen they want to reach out and protect him. MK: Rather than portraying him as some sort of sexual deviant, you can see that in someway he was just a regular guy. When you see the film, you can make your own choice about the man. Some people walk away from the film liking Larry, and some don't. TM: Q: I think you can like him--and still feel that he was full of shit. MK: Of course! JH: Hard as this might be to believe, I think that Larry genuinely believed in what he was saying. More on Sex
 
Russell Bishop: Empower Yourself: The Empowerment Myth Top
If ever there were a time for empowerment, this would be it. It sure seems like events are conspiring to dis-empower us as we transition through these still rocky economic times. However, have you had the somewhat scary experience of bumping into someone who wants to empower you? That's a pretty interesting notion, I must admit. On the one hand, I have been in the business of empowerment for thirty plus years; on the other, empowerment is generally a myth and doesn't work. Or at least, no one else is going to empower you. Not me, not your boss, not your husband or wife, not your church, not anyone. Well, maybe one person can. That one would be you. I frequently hear the term "Empowerment" being used in corporate settings where some person or group wants to talk about "empowering" people. For the most part, lots of people think highly of this notion and jump on the empowerment bandwagon. For my part, I would welcome larger numbers of empowered people in just about any aspect of life. That is, I would welcome the empowered if that meant people taking responsibility for improving what they can about their life circumstances, and leaving behind the notion that blaming someone else is the correct route. Including right now. Including these trying economic times. Including those of us who have lost jobs. For most of us, the word responsibility conjures up images of blame or fault. There's plenty of that being hurled around these days, and perhaps deservedly so. However, you can blame until the cows come home and nothing will change as a result, no matter how articulate you are in the blame game. There is however, a much more empowering definition of responsibility. Fritz Perls, in his super little book, Gestalt Therapy Verbatim , redefined responsibility by spelling it slightly differently: response ability. With this change in spelling, the word takes on a whole new meaning; it becomes less about blame and fault and more about having the ability to respond. If we could have more (self) empowered people exercising their ability to respond, I suspect we could cure a whole lot of what ails us in this world. I think I understand the good intentions of those who would "empower" me. It usually has to do with allowing or encouraging decisions to be made at lower levels of an organization. In other words, someone is encouraging me to exercise greater ability to respond in the everyday activity of my job. To the extent that decisions get made closer to the level where the work actually takes place, this kind of empowerment could be a really great thing. If your employer wants to "empower" you to make customer service decisions, that's probably a good thing - assuming you have the requisite authority to go with the decisions that are being handed over to you. And if they stand behind you in true support, then it's getting better. However, I'm not so sure that most empowerment efforts are sufficiently thought through. Let's take a closer look at empowerment as it applies individually and in terms of what it suggests about capability or the lack thereof. If you were not previously empowered, then what were you? Disempowered seems like the logical opposite. And, if you are disempowered, then perhaps you are viewed as someone who is weak or ineffective. If you accept the notion that someone else can empower you, then you may even believe that you are weak, ineffective and powerless. In the work I have done with individuals and organizations, I have encountered hosts of people who see something that could be done to improve the current situation and yet avoid taking response-ability for making the improvement. I imagine that it is in this context that the well intentioned manager, trainer or friend seeks to empower someone else. In today's current and ongoing economic challenges, I see all kinds of people volunteering to be self disempowered, and quite a few examples of people who are choosing the self empowered route instead. Self empowerment only requires that you embrace the notion that you can do something about your current situation, something other than sitting around hoping that things get better. It also requires that you stop blaming the circumstances and get on with doing what you can to improve what you can. There are any number of examples out there of people taking the initiative to do what they can to make a difference. Recently, I received a note about two women who lost their livelihoods in the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Once they got over the shock, they decided that there was opportunity in the midst of their dilemma and chose to be response-able. These two self-empowered women opened a small business targeting other small businesses. Their focus: helping small business owners create high quality web sites and web marketing programs to help grow their businesses. It's too early to tell whether or not they will have a small, medium or large size success. However, it is already clear that success will be theirs. Why? Because they chose the self-empowerment route. How? By acknowledging their ability to respond, and moving on what they could. And what happens if this enterprise encounters additional challenges and unforeseen twists and turns? I'm betting that they will find another opportunity and will choose the response-able option once again. After all, we come across forks in the road every day. If you have a sense of where you are heading and the willingness to respond, you don't have to choose perfectly, you just have to choose. And choose again. That's response-able self empowerment. *** You can find out more about Russell Bishop at http://www.lessonsinthekeyoflife.com . Contact Russell at: russell@lessonsinthekeyoflife.com . The author of Lessons in the Key of Life, Russell is an Educational Psychologist, professional life coach and management consultant, based in Santa Barbara California.
 
Judith Krug, Founder Of Banned Books Week, Dies Top
EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) -- Judith Krug, a director of the Chicago-based American Library Association and founder of its Banned Books Week, has died. She was 69. Judith Platt, president of the ALA's Freedom to Read Foundation, says Krug (KROOG) died late Saturday at Evanston Hospital in suburban Chicago following a battle with stomach cancer. Platt says Krug had been ill for more than a year. Krug had been head of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom since 1967. Banned Books Weeks has been observed since 1982 during the last week of September. ALA officials say the event celebrates intellectual freedom. Krug is survived by her husband Herbert, son Steven, daughter Michelle, five grandchildren, two brothers and a sister. --- On the Web: http://www.ala.org/bbooks
 
Philip G. Baker: Which is better, a PC or a Mac? Top
Apple made a splash with its advertising comparing the Mac to the PC. Now Microsoft has fired back with their own commercials touting PCs as a better value. So what are the true facts? It all depends on how you make the comparison and what's important to you. But I think the real discussion should be about how well the two platforms work and the differences in hardware. Here are ten points to compare. 1. Starting up - Turn on a Macintosh from sleep and the screen lights up instantly, networks are quickly found, and the computer is ready to use a few seconds later. The same with closing down. PCs take much longer. This means you're more likely to use the Mac like a radio, turning it on and off to retrieve information without giving it a second thought. Advantage: Mac 2. Viruses - Macs have no significant viruses, meaning you don't need to run anti-virus software that slows the computer down and takes your time. (Yes, technically there are occasional virus that are harmful to a Mac, but it's nowhere near the problem it is with PCs). Advantage: Mac 3. Versatility of Programs - The availability of programs for the PC is vastly superior to the Mac. In most categories, you'll find dozens of programs for the PC and only a handful for the Mac. While you can run Windows virtually on a Mac, you wouldn't buy a Mac for just running PC programs. Macintosh addresses this shortcoming by supplying more of its own excellent programs in the purchase price. But if you want to run the thousands of PC programs get a PC. Advantage: PC 4. Stability - Macs crash less because the OS is more stable and Apple has more control over the software. With the huge variety of PC software and hardware and the less stable Windows, you run into more problems. Advantage: Mac 5. Customer support - Computers of all brands tend to have problems. First year repair rates tend to be a little better for Macs. When you need help Apple offers good on-line support out of Canada and terrific help at their Apple stores whether you purchased your computer there or not. Advantage: Mac 6. Hardware choice - While Apple's notebooks are beautifully designed you're limited to fewer choices of size and functionality. No Mac model comes close to the portability of the netbooks that weighs under three pounds, nor does Apple make a product comparable to a PC tablet. Yet. Advantage PC. 7. Ease of use - PCs are harder to set up, more difficult to add and remove programs and more difficult to connect to your wireless networks. Macs are closer to being plug and play. Advantage: Mac. 8. Operating system - Mac's OS-X is more advanced and more stable. It's more contemporary in appearance and there's no registry and special files to contend with. Advantage: Mac. 9. Cost - While Apple's products are now closer in cost to PCs, especially if you consider the value of the applications that are included, you can find PCs as much as 20% less. Advantage: PC. 10. Business integration - If your company uses Windows servers and your email and data access are tied to your corporate network then you need to use a PC. Advantage PC. Conclusion: Apple wins 6-4. The bottom line is the Mac is less of a hassle, is easier to use, and works more like an appliance. But if you want a much wider choice of software and hardware and need to run the latest PC programs because of business requirements, then go with a PC. More on Apple
 
Evan Wolfson: Winning the Freedom to Marry? Cue the Attack on the Gays! Top
Computer-generated clouds roil on an apocalyptic backdrop as fake lightning flashes. Actors stiff as zombies recite horror stories, punctuated by protestations that they are animated by love. Is this new political ad warning of the economic hardships confronting families, a call to action on health care or job loss? Is it an effort to unite Americans to help solve our shared problems? No, it's the latest assault on gay couples seeking to build and spend their lives together in - cue spooky music - marriage The ad was unveiled by the National Organization "for" Marriage ("NOM"), which ironically is against marriage for committed couples if they are gay. It's brought to you by the folks who brought California the 40-plus million dollar Proposition 8 attack campaign, including the same front-group for right-wing funders and church hierarchies, and the same political consultant/public relations firm. Now that the unanimous Supreme Court in Iowa and a super-majority of elected legislators in Vermont voted to end same-sex couples' exclusion from marriage in the past week, NOM and its backers are funneling the ad into states such as Maine , New Jersey , and New York — whose legislatures are all weighing the evidence that shows no good reason for denying the freedom to marry to same-sex couples. But beware: the NOM campaign is bait-and-switch. The real agenda here is not just resistance to marriage rights, it's undermining the broader civil rights laws that ensure that we can all participate equally in society, even if other people don't like us. Though they wrap it in marriage, the opposition is actually about gay - and they are attacking the idea that civil rights laws should protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation at all. At a time when most Americans have had their fill of years of polarization and want to see us come together to deal with the pressing problems that hurt us all, gay and non-gay, could a negative ad campaign like NOM's work? Who would buy these obvious scare-tactics? Alas, too many. NOM's public relations roll-out has already had some temporary traction in changing the subject from the merits of the case for marriage equality to the politics of this ongoing civil rights battle. And the agenda of the groups behind NOM is even more scary than just another cruel attack on gay couples' freedom to marry. The campaign to "defend" marriage (as if marriage needed "defense" against couples seeking to marry) and to block even partnership protections for gay families masks an effort to erode the whole idea of civil rights laws. Consider what the actors in the NOM ad pretend to be: A doctor who wants to discriminate against her patients, despite civil rights laws and medical ethics that the California Supreme Court upheld - in a case having nothing to do with marriage. An officer of a New Jersey group that for years voluntarily operated a beachside pavilion with special tax-breaks that required it be open to the public - but then tried to turn down a lesbian couple. The case did not turn on marriage, since New Jersey doesn't yet allow gay couples to marry, but, rather, basic civil rights laws about open access to public accommodations. A Massachusetts parent who sought to dictate public school curriculum about the diverse families children will need to be aware of to thrive in a diverse world, and then wanted to remove her child from classes in a way that would have disrupted class and imposed unreasonable burdens on the school and other kids. The law in California, as elsewhere, is that doctors can't discriminatorily refuse to treat patients — Christian, Muslim, or Jewish, gay or non-gay; that has nothing to do with marriage, and yet NOM incites fear. The law in New Jersey, as elsewhere, says that organizations running public accommodations such as restaurants or rental halls cannot discriminatorily exclude people — African American, Latino, or Asian, gay or non-gay; that has nothing to do with marriage, and yet NOM says that the discriminators are somehow the victims. The law in Massachusetts, as elsewhere, of course allows parents to teach their kids whatever they want, and even to send them to private schools or do home-schooling. The law also rightly sets rules for determining public school curriculum without having every parent, or special interest with an agenda, coming in and imposing their views on everyone else's kids — yours or mine, gay or non-gay. These have nothing to do with marriage, and yet NOM would have public schools pretend that gay people don't exist or, even worse, teach all kids that it is okay to look down on people who are different (including the parents of some of their classmates, and even other students themselves). The Human Rights Campaign issued a thorough refutation of the ad's deceptions. In a remarkable expose, HRC's EndtheLies.org website revealed the audition tapes for the NOM's attack ad, with actors stumbling through the scripts , reciting disproven claims about gay people as a threat. All of NOM's actors are invoking as supposed arguments against the freedom to marry examples that, as HRC puts it, "involve religious people who enter the public sphere, but don't want to abide by the general non-discriminatory rules everyone else does." But in a complicated world, where lots of people "disapprove" of other people's beliefs and lives, or race and religion, we can't allow our ability to have a job or a home, or get medical care or a marriage license, turn on whether our boss, landlord, doctor, or government clerk likes us. If we did, we'd have chaos. The point of civil rights laws is to make it possible for all of us to live together in one nation. This past week, the Vermont legislature and the unanimous Iowa Supreme Court both offered reassurance that Americans can respect one another's religious freedom while protecting everyone's personal freedom and equality under the law. As Justice Mark Cady, a Republican appointee, explained: [W]e give respect to the views of all Iowans on the issue of same-sex marriage—religious or otherwise—by giving respect to our constitutional principles....The sanctity of all religious marriages celebrated in the future will have the same meaning as those celebrated in the past. The only difference is civil marriage will now take on a new meaning that reflects a more complete understanding of equal protection of the law. This result is what our constitution requires. The millions of dollars that NOM and its backers threaten to spend fostering yet another cultural and political war against gay people and threatening civil rights protections would be better spent addressing the real problems facing all our families today. What's truly scary is they don't seem to be feeling that love. More on Gay Marriage
 
Adam Green: Is the Chamber of Commerce Using Bailout Money to Attack Workers? Top
2 plus 2 = 4.  So, what do these two excerpts add up to? Monday's Wall Street Journal reports : The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is launching a $1 million television advertising campaign that takes a new line of attack against the Employee Free Choice Act...The new Chamber ads will hit the airwaves in Nebraska, Virginia, Louisiana, North Dakota and Colorado -- states whose senators could be swing votes on the issue. In January, The Huffington Post's Sam Stein broke this news : Three days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists and business officials to organize opposition to the U.S. labor community's top legislative priority. Participants on the October 17 call -- including at least one representative from another bailout recipient, AIG -- were urged to persuade their clients to send "large contributions" to groups working against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), as well as to vulnerable Senate Republicans, who could help block passage of the bill. There's a natural question for taxpayers to ask: Is the Chamber of Commerce using bailout money to attack workers?  There are two things you can do right now to take action: 1) Join the Facebook group: " Petition: Chamber of Commerce Shouldn't Use Bailout Money to Attack Workers ." (If not on Facebook, sign the petition here .) 2) Email top Chamber execs. Ask them if the Chamber is rejecting money from bailout recipients so that taxpayer funds aren't used on these ads. Chamber President Tom Donohue: tdonohue@uschamber.com Executive Vice President David C. Chavern: dchavern@uschamber.com Executive Vice President Bruce Josten: bjosten@uschamber.com Share what your email said on the Facebook group wall . More on Facebook
 
B. Jeffrey Madoff: Who Are the Best and the Brightest? Top
"The best and the brightest" is a phrase that has been used a lot lately - usually in an attempt to cajole, convince or frighten us. When there was a public outcry regarding the $3.6 billion in bonuses being paid to Merrill Lynch employees because the securities firm had lost over $27 billion in 2008, John Thain, the former CEO said, "If we don't pay our people well, we won't be able to keep the best and the brightest." AIG's CEO, Edward Liddy issued a warning that essentially copied Thain, which was not very convincing a couple months earlier either: "We cannot attract and retain the best and brightest talent to lead and staff the AIG businesses, which are now being operated principally on behalf of American taxpayers --" Liddy must have forgotten why AIG was being operated on behalf of the American taxpayers. If there is universal health care, as the argument goes, the best and the brightest will no longer have the incentive to become doctors. There always seems to be the threat that only the worst and the dimmest will be left to fill the ranks of the medical and financial professions - two professions I hope aren't inexorably linked together. The phrase, "the best and the brightest" was made familiar in 1972 by journalist David Halberstam's landmark book of the same name. The irony is that Halberstam used the phrase in a far different way, asking the following question regarding U.S. policy in Vietnam during the Kennedy administration: "What was it about the men, their attitudes, the country, its institutions and above all the era which had allowed this tragedy to take place?" They were, after all, "the best and the brightest," so why did it happen? ...they had, for all their brilliance and hubris and sense of themselves, been unwilling to look and learn from the past." (The Best and The Brightest by David Halberstam) Halberstam's question is as relevant today. If these people were "the best and the brightest" why did this happen? My question: who are the best and the brightest and what does that mean? By definition, they certainly would not be the ones who messed things up so badly in the first place. The notion that nobody could have seen these coming flies in the face of so many people stuffing their pockets before it happened. Even in the children's game, "hot potato", one understands that somebody is bound to lose so you get rid of it before you get stuck with it. Adults call that game "collateralized debt obligation". You want the people who built the bomb to defuse it, is the argument for how to deal with the economy blowing up. While bomb makers know how the bombs work, the physical evidence of cause and effect is clear, nobody seems to know how the economy works, at least those who blew it up don't - or it wouldn't have. So who are the best and the brightest? If the criteria is financial acquisition, the grading scale has slid way down - all of a sudden there aren't so many best and brightest. Is the notion that transitory? I don't think so. In 1994 I did a film about The Harvard School of Public Health. It was a humbling experience. The dean, Harvey Feinberg told me that while those who graduate from Harvard Law or Business School anticipate a high standard of living, graduates from Public Health are the only ones graduating from Harvard that don't. I met a student, Vineeta Rastogi, who was chosen by her classmates to give the commencement address. She told me what inspired her was the work of Albert Schweitzer. She quoted from his "Teaching Reverence for Life": "No one has the right to take for granted his own advantages over others in health, in talents, in ability, in success, in a happy childhood or congenial home conditions. One must pay a price for all these boons. What one owes in return is a special responsibility for other lives.'' Vineeta died of cancer in 1995. She was 27. The Vineeta Rastogi Foundation continues her mission of public health, human rights and cultural exchange worldwide. I mention Vineeta because she was one of "the best and the brightest". What she did in her unfortunately short life clearly demonstrated that. The fact that her mission, through her foundation's work, continues, is further proof. She didn't receive any bonuses. There are many out there; doctors, teachers, scientists, politicians, entrepreneurs, community organizers and more whose efforts are geared toward improving the lives of others, whose innovative thought and committed action place them among the best and the brightest. It seems to me that the true best and brightest among us are too busy doing that which makes them such rather than making excuses and claiming that they are. More on Merrill Lynch
 
Bob Greenstein: Senate to Uber-Rich: "Help Is on the Way" Top
Sixteen months into the recession, the pace of job losses is worse than in the deep 1981-82 recession , a growing number of families are making excruciating choices with their shrinking pocketbooks, and the federal government is facing stunning budget deficits as far as the eye can see. So, is this the time to spend about $90 billion over the next decade to give the nation's wealthiest households a new, multi-million-dollar tax cut? The U.S. Senate apparently thinks so. Earlier this month, it voted 51 to 48 to add to its 2010 budget plan a proposal by Senators Blanche Lincoln and Jon Kyl to substantially weaken the estate tax . Only the wealthiest 1 of every 400 people who die - the top one-quarter of 1 percent - would benefit from this proposal, since they're the only ones who owe any estate tax under current rules, according to the Urban Institute-Brookings Tax Policy Center . Within this small group, the wealthiest of the wealthy would benefit the most. Estates worth over $20 million would get an average tax cut of $3.5 million. This isn't a done deal. The House budget plan doesn't include this proposal, and Congress won't make its final decisions on the estate tax until later this year. But with the nation in two wars and a serious recession, and facing forecasts of damaging deficits for decades to come, the Senate vote is breathtakingly irresponsible just the same. The estate tax is a tax on property (such as cash, stock, or real estate) that very affluent people arrange to transfer to their heirs when they die. President Bush's big tax cut of 2001 eviscerated the estate tax; in 2009, the first $7 million in value of a couple's estate is entirely free from tax and, in 2010, the tax disappears altogether for one year. But, unless Congress acts, the tax will then return in its much stronger, pre-Bush form in 2011, when the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire. President Obama has proposed making permanent the estate rules that are in effect for 2009. The Lincoln-Kyl proposal, in contrast, would increase the exemption from the current $7 million per couple to $10 million and weaken the tax in other ways. This would cost $91 billion more than the Obama proposal during the first decade when Lincoln-Kyl's full budgetary effects would be felt, 2012-21. How did Senate proponents sell their colleagues on the idea of spending so much money to benefit the estates of the wealthiest one quarter of one percent of Americans who die? Mainly with deceptive advertising. In particular, they portrayed this tax windfall for the wealthy as an essential lifeline for small businesses and farms. The Lincoln-Kyl proposal would provide "crucial support and protection to small businesses, family ranchers, and farms," Minority Leader Mitch McConnell asserted on the Senate floor. That's sheer nonsense. Nearly all small farms and businesses are exempt from the estate tax under the current rules, so Lincoln-Kyl would do nothing for them. Only 100 small farm and business estates in the entire country would owe any estate tax at all in 2011 if Congress extends the current rules, the Tax Policy Center reports. Less than one quarter of one percent of the $91 billion in new tax cuts that the proposal would provide would go to estates that consist primarily of small businesses or farms. But it was politically effective nonsense. Ten Democrats joined all Republican Senators in voting for Lincoln-Kyl: Max Baucus, Evan Bayh, Maria Cantwell, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Patty Murray, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Mark Pryor, and Jon Tester. Senators supporting the measure typically stressed the small business angle. Murray's spokeswoman, for instance, declared, "Small businesses are hurting and we need to make sure they're protected." Some proponents also claimed Lincoln-Kyl would not increase the deficit because Congress would offset its cost. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. Both the Senate and House budget plans call for extending the 2009 estate tax rules without paying for it. (Extending the 2009 rules costs money because, under current law as noted above, the estate tax is scheduled to return to its larger, pre-2001 form after 2010.) If Congress isn't planning to offset the cost of extending the 2009 estate tax rules, it's extremely unlikely to offset the added costs of Lincoln-Kyl, which would be incorporated into the same bill. Besides, even if Congress were willing to pay for this proposal, where would the money come from? Should we divert scarce resources from health care, education, anti-poverty measures, or deficit reduction to pay for a large new tax cut for the estates of the nation's elite? Congress has a lot of tough decisions to make these days. This isn't one of them. More on Taxes
 
John W. Whitehead: Why Local Newspapers Are the Basis of Democracy Top
"The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."--Thomas Jefferson With newspaper readership and circulation continuing to drop, more and more local newspapers are being forced out of business. However, as a recent poll by the Pew Research Center indicates: "Many of those who say the closing of the local paper wouldn't make much, if any, difference in their communities note that there are other news sources available." Young people, in particular, are more inclined to get their news from the internet. According to Pew, only 27% of those born after 1976 read newspapers, as opposed to 55% of those born prior to 1946. One person who believes the closure of the local paper would make no difference to civic life stated: "There are other forms of communication that are more important and easier to follow. I either go to television or turn on the radio in my car." There are, however, serious problems with this line of thinking. First, anyone who relies exclusively on television for knowledge of the world is making a serious mistake. TV news networks, having fallen prey to the demands of a celebrity-obsessed and entertainment-driven culture, provide viewers with what they want to see, rather than what is newsworthy. As a result, there tends to be little deviation between the networks as to what stories are covered. Hence, more time is spent titillating and entertaining viewers than educating them about pressing issues of concern. Second, the emergence of the corporate media has ensured that a handful of corporations now control most of the media industry and, thus, the information dished out to the public by the national media. As one former Newsday reporter observed, "They serve their stockholders first, Wall Street second and somewhere far down the list comes service to newspaper readerships. All across America news organizations have been devoured by massive corporations, and allegiance to stockholders, the drive for higher share prices, and push for larger dividend returns trumps everything that the grunts in the newsrooms consider their missions." Finally, there are very important things happening at the local level of government and community life that national newspapers, television news and online news do not--and cannot--cover. Local newspapers tell us what's going on in our local councils of government, in our schools, on our streets. As one journalist, remarking on the fact that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has ceased to exist as print newspaper, recently observed, "If we lose local newsrooms, we lose the watchdog power of the media. The most disheartening part of seeing the physical Seattle P-I close is that only 20 of its reporters went to the website. Not only is that a lot of lost jobs, but that represents a lot of important news contacts lost. That represents a lot of carefully cultivated sources gone. That represents a lot of shady, lazy, or dishonest politicians, corporations, and agencies that won't be watched as carefully as they used to be." The basic mission of the media is to serve as a check on the government. That is why the freedom of the press is such an integral part of our First Amendment. Our founders understood the vital importance of the press in maintaining an educated citizenry and a transparent government. However, even freedom of the press will not make much of a difference if there are no local newspapers keeping watch over what's happening in our own back yards. Local newspapers are the clarion call of democracy. "The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people," wrote French historian Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America , one of the definitive works on early America. Tocqueville understood that governmental power flows up from our local towns, cities and counties--that's where democracy happens. Hence, the Constitution begins with those three beautiful words: "We, the people." However, we've been deceived into believing that the most important governmental matters are housed in Washington, DC. In truth, the real government, the one that Abraham Lincoln spoke of as being a government of the people, by the people and for the people, is housed in small towns across this country. That's where democracy is being played out on an everyday basis. Unfortunately, in subscribing to the false notion that national news are somehow more relevant than local news, we have mistakenly bought into the idea that what the talking heads in Washington, DC, have to say is more important than the dialogue taking place between average Americans and their representatives at the local level. That's where we're failing in our democracy today. The founders did not establish a national government. Rather, America was intended to be a conglomeration of small governments, not one big government. In this way, the cities, towns and counties were to be the basis of American democracy. As Tocqueville wrote about early America, "every village forms a sort of republic accustomed to conduct its own affairs." This idea is at the heart of federalism. The founders would have looked upon the huge national machine that exists in Washington, DC, today and its claim of total sovereignty as a totalitarian horror. The truly literate and involved American should be reading the local newspaper. Weekly newspapers and the internet are also vital to maintaining an educated citizenry. We must ensure that they continue to flourish because they are all important resources for maintaining a healthy democracy. And you need to do your part, as well. Subscribe to your local newspaper. Read it so you'll know what's happening in your community. And when you disagree, let your local politicians know--even if it is with a picket sign in hand. More on Newspapers
 
Marian Wright Edelman: A Public Health Insurance Plan Can Cover All of Our Children Top
It's plain that our nation's health insurance system is broken: 46 million people in America lack health coverage--nine million of them children--and the number of uninsured is growing during the current recession. Since 2001, the cost of family coverage from an employer has climbed by almost 80 percent, while workers' earnings have risen only 24 percent. And the number of businesses offering employees health coverage is declining. At the same time, the private health insurance industry has made huge profits, and several insurance firms have provided their top executives annual compensation packages exceeding $20 million. Our health insurance system enables a few to get rich from insurance profits while millions of uninsured families can't afford to provide their children regular visits to the doctor or dentist. This is unjust and costly. Our health care system is crying out for reform, and our families and children are crying out for help. Reform must include a public health insurance plan option that competes with private insurers to extend comprehensive benefits through first-rate health care providers at an affordable price. Without this public plan choice, the health of our children will continue to be held hostage to profit-driven insurance companies. A public health insurance plan option would encourage competition on the basis of cost and quality, not by avoiding the sick and denying care, as is the current practice. The plan will also keep costs down by negotiating bulk discounts from providers and drug companies through pooling on the model of the Veteran's Administration. A public health insurance plan option could be available nationwide to people who want it and deliver services through private health providers as Medicare does. Those satisfied with their current insurance could keep it. America's health care system failure places struggling working families under great financial strain, which is worsened during the recession. Some insured families spend more on health care than on housing or food. People who lose their jobs are likely to lose their health coverage, despite the subsidy in President Obama's economic recovery bill allowing newly unemployed people to buy health coverage through their former employer. The high costs of treating serious illnesses are a major contributor to bankruptcy. One study says medical problems were a reason for nearly half of all home foreclosures. Insurance companies have not provided solutions to these huge problems and often cause them. For many insurers, maximizing profits is paramount and providing quality health coverage secondary. With little oversight or regulation, they control who gets coverage, what medical procedures they'll pay for, and the prices for coverage. Insurance companies routinely deny coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions or those they think will become ill in the future. A reason that insurers have been able to continue these practices is that a few companies control large portions of the market in some states. An American Medical Association survey reveals that one private insurance company controls more than half the insurance market in 16 states and a third of the market in 38 states. With limited competition, many of these powerful companies can ignore pleas to provide patient-focused health care. Insurance companies in the small group market spend on average 25 to 27 percent of premium receipts on administrative costs--or profit--compared to the public Medicare program's administrative costs in the range of three percent. Learn more about CDF's Health Coverage for All Children Campaign at www.childrensdefense.org/healthychild. Marian Wright Edelman, whose latest book is The Sea Is So Wide And My Boat Is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation , is president of the Children's Defense Fund. For more information about the Children's Defense Fund, go to www.childrensdefense.org.
 
The 10 Coolest Foreign Words The English Language Needs Top
Have you ever blurted out, "Wow, that guy is just so...so..." and then were left floundering with nothing to say? Well, it's not always your fault. English doesn't have words for every situation, or even the ones that happen every damned day. Fortunately, other languages usually do. And since we already borrow words from them (just recently we've taken "schadenfreude," the German word for pleasure in someone else's misfortune) here's a few that we need to pick up right away...
 
Cubs Opening Day: Goat Head Found Hanging Outside Wrigley Field Top
CHICAGO - As if the rain and cold weather threatening the Chicago Cubs' home opener against the Colorado Rockies weren't enough, there's another goat involved _ a dead one this time. Chicago police say they found the severed head of a goat outside Wrigley Field early Monday morning, about 12 hours before the scheduled game. Officers said they were treating the incident as a prank, since the same thing happened last year . Goat and sheep's heads are available at a number of ethnic butcher shops in Chicago. The goats' heads are presumably a reference to the alleged "goat curse" placed on the Cubs in 1945 by tavern owner William Sianis after authorities would not allow him to bring his pet goat into Wrigley Field for a World Series game. --- Information from: Chicago Tribune, http://www.chicagotribune.com More on Sports
 
How People Brushed Their Teeth In The Olden Days Top
Thousands of years ago, people wanted to keep their teeth and gums clean, their breath fresh and their teeth white, just like people do today. They found different tools with which to do it. Before toothbrushes, people used rough cloth and water to clean their teeth. They would also rub things like salt and chalk across their teeth to try to get rid of the grime. The ancient Egyptians made a kind of brush by splitting the end of a twig. And the ancient Chinese chewed on twigs with a special flavor to freshen their breath. People also used forms of toothpaste that they made out of ingredients you probably wouldn't want to put in your mouth. Sometimes a powder was made of the ashes of ox hooves and burned eggshells. The ancient Greeks and Romans used materials such as crushed oyster shells and bones.
 

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