Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Y! Alert: The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com

Yahoo! Alerts
My Alerts

The latest from The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com

Ted Johnson, Maegan Carberry, Teresa Valdez Klein: With Torture Memos Leaving Only Tortured Defenses, Is Lady Justice Waiting In The Wings? Top
Torture memos here, torture memos there, torture memos everywhere! On the left, they're screaming bloody-murder for public hangings of all people involved; on the right, they want Obama's head for letting out this confidential information. We're all embarrassed and horrified, but is that a reason for not talking about the fact that the United States DID torture? How do Lynndie England and her crimes at Abu Ghraib fit into this equation? Can you chastise one and not the other? And if letting out the memos is bad for morale, isn't torturing people bad for morale too? Maegan feels these the authors of these memos should be subjected to some sort of justice, and Teresa tries to remind us that if we want to do it right, we must be patient. Rome wasn't rebuilt in a day, after all. Besides torture, wiretapping is all the talk in DC right now after CQPolitics.com broke the story about Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) being wiretapped and getting caught offering to lobby for AIPAC. How much of it is true? Could this be a tempest in a teapot? Is this just another story the media is trumpeting without much evidence? Ted admits this is a big part of the media environment now, with everybody being under a tremendous amount of pressure to break a story. And the big news yesterday is Gavin Newsom announcing he's running for Governor of California, and did it via Twitter and Facebook! He might get new media, but he still has to get his message out there to, um, "regular folks" (aka non-twitterers). Will he make his stance on gay marriage a major part of his campaign? Of course, California is lining up a whole host of high-tech candidates for major office: Steve Westly, Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, even Chris Kelly from Facebook. But to command the youth vote, you've got to do more than engage the new mediums - you've got to speak the language. Finally, we've got a growing controversy, possibly, around Ron Howard's new film, Angels & Demons, with certain members from the Catholic Church calling it out. While this is surely going to fail in stopping the movie from becoming a massive box office success, a more interesting question is this: do boycotts even work anymore? Listen to the show here , subscribe to the iTunes podcast , or use the Blog Talk Radio player: Wilshire & Washington, the weekly Blog Talk Radio program that explores the intersection of politics, entertainment, and new media, features co-hosts Ted Johnson, Managing Editor of Variety; conservative blogger Teresa Valdez Klein ( www.teresacentric.com ), and liberal blogger Maegan Carberry ( www.maegancarberry.com ). The show airs every Wednesday at 7:30am PST on BlogTalkRadio.com.
 
Mark Nickolas: New GOP Meme: 'Ends Justify The Means' When It Comes To Torture Top
Maybe I'm missing something, but why is no one -- neither the media nor the Democrats -- pushing back on Dick Cheney latest rant that torture produced intelligence that saved American lives, simply pointing out that America's moral and legal code never embraces an "ends justify the means" approach? Isn't that the most basic element of our own criminal justice system and why we have constitutional rights and rules of evidence to protect us? If not, why not allow domestic eavesdropping on all of us without any oversight so that our government could better determine who was about to commit a heinous crime? Why not allow the police to bust into every home in drug-infested neighborhoods to search and interrogate since we clearly want to find the drugs and drug dealers before they're allowed on the streets? It shocks me that Cheney, and the GOP talking heads, are in full force pushing the meme that torture saved us from another attack without any simple and sensible response that, in America, the ends never justify the means when it comes to violating the law and constitutional rights. We've let many dangerous criminals walk out of courtrooms as free men because of botched prosecutions. Those are our values. Or so I thought... Mark Nickolas is the Managing Editor of Political Base . More on Dick Cheney
 
The Parking Ticket Geek: The Parking Meter Revolt Rolls On Top
Recently it seemed that the initial fury and furor over the parking meter rates had diminished. It was as if emotions, after initially boiling over with concerted physical attacks and vandalism of parking meters, had diminished to a slow simmer. It seemed that the meter vandalism had ceased. Then again, perhaps not. It's clear that fewer cars are parking at meters. Large swaths of metered thoroughfares seem virtually vacant at times, when just weeks ago, before the rate increases, the meters were filled with cars. But what is less evident and harder to spot is out and out vandalism of parking meters. Over the course of the past few weeks, readers have sent us more photos of vandalized meters, and we've come across them, as well. Meters clogged with expanding foam and super glue, stolen meter heads and parking meters knocked over by cars. A reader named Gary, who sent the photo of the bent meter, when asked if he thought it was the result of vandalism stemming from the meter rate increases said, "All I can tell you is that this meter was straight a few days ago, but after the rates went up, I found this meter like this." "I have been noticing two things," said one PEA I spoke to on the street about the broken meters he's been observing. "One, it has been an even mixture of vandalized and normal failed ones, and, two, there are a lot more parking spaces open now." Others are taking more passive and creative approaches to their protest, by covering meters up with fabric and using markers to express their outrage. Whatever the case, this meter rebellion or revolt, or whatever you would like to call it, continues to roll on. Despite multiple phone calls to Chicago Parking Meters, LLC, no one from the company returned our calls to comment. If you see a vandalized parking meter, snap a photo, send it to The Expired Meter and we'll publish it. Please e-mail your photos to: tips@theexpiredmeter.com Check out The Expired Meter for even more information and advice about parking, fighting parking tickets and red light tickets in Chicago.
 
Josh Dorner: EPA Regulations Will Destroy Economy, Says GOP Top
When I first saw the Earth Day message from House GOP Leader John Boehner come across my Twitter feed, I almost thought it was a joke. Boehner's blog basically outlines the main argument for letting the Environmental Protection Agency move forward with regulations to limit global warming pollution: that for decades we have successfully regulated various pollutants and still massively grown the economy. Today's message describes the success of EPA's regulations since the first Earth Day (39 years ago): According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the six most common air pollutants have decreased by more than 50%; air toxins from large industrial sources have fallen nearly 70%; new cars are more than 90% cleaner, in terms of their emissions; and production of most ozone-depleting chemicals has ceased. These reductions have occurred despite the fact that during the same period, gross domestic product tripled, energy consumption increased 50%, and motor vehicle use increased almost 200%. These are real improvements that all Americans can take pride in. They also demonstrate that protecting the environment and promoting economic growth do not have to be mutually exclusive goals. On the contrary, the last forty years have seen an explosion of economic growth and prosperity unparalleled in American history. Yes, thanks, that's right! In spite of intense opposition from conservatives at nearly every step, we (read: EPA) have managed to significantly reduce pollution and still grow the economy--A LOT. Yet, when EPA proposes beginning the process of addressing global warming pollution using precisely the same statute used to reduce most other air pollutants with precisely the same economic, cost-benefit considerations it has used over the past several decades, Boehner goes totally nuts! After the so-called "endangerment finding" finding was issued by EPA this past Friday, Boehner's blog said such regulations would be "disastrous for American families and small businesses." Boehner also went on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, in what turned out to be a widely panned appearance that erases any remaining doubt as to whether he doesn't really have any idea what he's talking about when it comes to global warming (start about 3:00 in): Even the EPA felt the need to pile-on, leaping on Boehner's confused statement about whether carbon dioxide was a carcinogen or not: An EPA spokesman called Boehner's comments "erroneous," noting that whether a gas is a carcinogen doesn't have anything to do with whether it causes global warming. It seems Boehner's epic fail on This Week is one indication of a larger problem within his caucus. The Politico had a story yesterday on the GOP's "climate confusion" : Ask 15 Republicans about climate change, and you'll get 20 different answers. Sounds about right.
 
Naomi Wolf: Don't Prosecute -- and Scapegoat -- Torture Operatives; Go for the Top Top
As citizens' outrage over the torture memos heats up, and Congress is barraged with calls to appoint a special prosecutor, we may be about to commit an egregious error. Today Republicans accused Democrats in Congress of having "blood on your hands too" in relation to the escalating calls to investigate. I would like to say that this is exactly right. I will go further: not only do Congressional Democrats have "blood on their hands" -- but so do we, the American people. And CIA agents may be about to be sacrificed to assuage their, and our, guilt. Today's suddenly urgent calls by our Congressional Democratic leaders, and even by many of the American people, to prosecute CIA operatives, military men and women and contractors who were certainly involved with, colluded in or turned a blind eye to torture are not only the height of hypocrisy, they are a form of unconscionable scapegoating. The scapegoating is political on the part of Congressional leaders, and psychological on the part of many Americans who are now "shocked, shocked" at what was done in their name. Hello, America? Hello? Were you asleep for the past seven years? The fact that the Bush administration used torture for the past seven years has been the furthest thing from a secret. When the political winds were with the last administration, which framed qualms about torture as being soft on "the war on terror," just about every Congressional Democrat fell right into line to accept it, if not cheer it on. Even Hillary Clinton supported torture, right up through her Presidential run. Nancy Pelosi was briefed on the torture in closed-door meetings. When activist groups and citizens called for a special prosecutor, all we heard from Congressional Democrats was that they did not wish to spend the political capital. President Bush championed torture. Vice President Cheney gave such explicit interviews about his role in directing the policy of torture that in legal terms, were there a prosecution, they amount to a confession. Did the Congress that is now so piously calling for the investigation of rank-and-file agents and military express their horror and outrage then? With a very few exceptions, they did not. These leaders "had no idea"? Please. Since 2003 it has been fully documented by rights organizations, and accessible to anyone listening, that direct US policy for prisoners in our custody included electrodes to genitals, suffocation, hanging prisoners from bars by the wrists, beatings, concealed murders, sexual assault threats, sexual humiliation and forced nudity, which is considered a sex crime in warfare international and domestic law. Many voices from Jane Mayer's to Michael Ratner's to Jameel Jaffer's to Amnesty and Human Rights Watch made similar documented charges. Did our leaders call for investigations? They barely even called for a moment's consideration of it. Tolerating torture ("tough tactics" or "enhanced interrogations") polled well; supporting it made them look tough in close elections. It was, overwhelmingly, okay with them. And may we ourselves please look in the mirror, for the sake of our own moral health? How many Americans spoke up when it was chic to thrill to the sadistic soundbite of "take the gloves off"? How many watched 24 without a murmur when the mass consensus was that it was okay -- no, patriotic -- to waterboard a bit? How many of us -- as in civilized societies everywhere when a wind of barbarism is set free -- actually thrilled to the sadistic (and sometimes sexually sadistic) soundbites that came out of the Bush communications office of the "special sauce," the "belly slap," and the phrase "we have our methods"? So now the political and cultural winds have shifted. Congress in their moral courage NOW are starting to call for investigations. Whom should they investigate? Well, in an ideal world, themselves: by knowing about and colluding with a declared and documented series of crimes, they are legally -- Pelosi especially -- accessories to those crimes. So there is an element of cover-your-blank in Congress finding its high dudgeon at last and pointing the accusing finger at subordinates in the CIA who obeyed orders that Congressional leaders themselves helped to sustain as a mockery of domestic and international law, and as daily, appalling practice. Should we prosecute the agents who committed the torture? We should not. As a longtime advocate for prosecutions, that may sound surprising coming from me. But let us look at the Nuremberg Trials: the rank and file soldiers and operatives who committed torture and genocide were not tried -- the lawyers and political leaders who crafted and defended the policy of torture and genocide were tried (and many convicted). While I am not apologizing for the dozens or perhaps hundreds of CIA agents, military and contractors who, any investigation will show, were complicit, actively or passively, in the top-down policy of torture, I do know that these were people lower down the chain of command who have served their nation for many years -- and who were following directives declared not only legal by the President of the United States of America and the OLC, but were told they were "saving lives." To throw them into the fire for political cover is shameful. Also, it would leave Obama with the problem from hell. So many people in the agency were involved in these practices that to prosecute them -- well, he would disembowel his own intelligence services. So we should call for former chief judge of the army General James Cullen's solution. He has been at the forefront of calling for accountability -- but the right kind of accountability: Cullen urges us to indemnify those lower down the chain of command to get their testimonies. So they implicate the ringleaders, and then the only people who should be prosecuted are, as at Nuremberg, those who directed otherwise honorable men and women to commit crimes: the lawyers, and those who are on record having given the orders: Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush himself. The psychiatrist who reverse-engineered the SERE tactics should be prosecuted as well. As for the dozens or hundreds of men and women who committed criminal assaults because their nation told them to -- at risk, if they refused to, of ending their careers? Protect them from prosecution. Many of them suffer trauma, nightmares -- and shame. That is more than burden enough. Lay the guilt where it belongs: on Congress -- most particularly, legally, on the leadership that directed this policy -- and, emotionally and morally, on our complicit American selves.
 
Shrek: On Earth Day: A Green, I Mean Really Very Green, Perspective Top
When you live in a tree stump in the middle of a dank swamp, pretty much every day is Earth Day. In fact, some people might say there's a little too much nature out where I live, what with the smell and the damp and the mud and the humidity and all. Yeah, back home, nature just slaps you in the face whether you like it or not. You learn pretty quick that everything works together in ripe, odoriferous, natural harmony. So I have to say I'm all for anything that reminds everybody that wetlands and forests are part of one big ecosystem. Believe me, lots of plants and animals love the swamp and, literally, wouldn't live any other way. Of course, I myself choose to live in the swamp. It suits my lifestyle. The fact that human beings tend to steer clear is probably a good thing anyway given my temperament, but I have to tell you I've noticed it also cuts way down on the pollution and trash. It stinks in my swamp, but it's a clean stink. As it happens, I'm not in the swamp at the moment. I'm in New York City, "treading the boards," with my friends Donkey, Princess Fiona and all the fractured fairy tale creatures in my new Broadway musical. I've met a lot of people here who don't appreciate the bouquet of a fine swamp gas. Really, some of these New Yorkers think a walk in Central Park is a jungle safari. They're not even that crazy about Donkey's aroma, and he's practically a city slicker now, hanging out at Sardi's and Elaine's after the show. His dressing room is full of flowers and the stagehands muck it out a couple of times a week. Even so he still gets the old wrinkled nose from some of the swells in the mezzanine seats. It's funny that the exhaust fumes don't seem to bother them when they leave the theater. What a terrible thing to get accustomed to. I was glad to hear that lots of cities, including New York, are working to reduce such stench. I guess ecology is just a natural interest of mine. I am after all green. I mean really green, as in a slimy Lime Jell-O complexion. And my friends are mostly animals. Sure, they talk and crack wise, but not one of them owns an SUV. Their carbon hoof prints are miniscule. And if they wear fur, they come by it honestly. I also travel the rural countryside a lot. Why they can't put castle keeps, enchanted forests and dragons' lairs closer together is beyond me. So it's a good thing Donkey and I walk everywhere. There's a lot of beautiful scenery in the world when you slow down to take it in. In the end I guess it's true what they say, you can take the ogre out of the swamp, but you can't take the swamp out of the ogre. I'm a nature boy and proud of it. The Earth is our home -- whether we hole up in a tree stump or a Park Avenue penthouse -- and if we don't take care of it, none of us will have a place to live. There is no land so Far Far Away that it is safe from the destruction of our environment. Every week, in five evening performances and three matinees, I go on an epic quest and (spoiler alert!) save Princess Fiona. I wish it could be that easy to clean up our planet and protect our environment. It's going to take a lot of work though. Maybe you have to believe in fairy tales to think we can do it. Or maybe everyone just has to make a commitment to do their part and incorporate a little green awareness into everything they do every day. If it helps, you can think of me. Handsome I'm not. But a lean, green ogre machine I am. More on Earth Day
 
TEXTING RECORD Attempt Reaps 217K Texts, $26K Phone Bill Top
PHILADELPHIA — Their thumbs sure must be sore. Two central Pennsylvania friends spent most of March in a text-messaging record attempt, exchanging a thumbs-flying total of 217,000. For one of the two, that meant an inches-thick itemized bill for $26,000. Nick Andes, 29, and Doug Klinger, 30, were relying on their unlimited text messaging plans to get them through the escapade, so Andes didn't expect such a big bill. "It came in a box that cost $27.55 to send to me," he said Tuesday. He said he "panicked" and called T-Mobile, which told The Associated Press it had credited his account and was investigating the charges. The two Lancaster-area residents have been practically nonstop texters for about a decade since they attended Berks Technical Institute together. That led Andes to search for the largest monthly text message total he could find posted online: 182,000 sent in 2005 by Deepak Sharma in India. Andes and Klinger were able to set up their phones to send multiple messages. During a February test run they found they could send 6,000 or 7,000 messages on some days, prompting the March messaging marathon. "Most were either short phrases or one word, 'LOL' or 'Hello,' things like that, with tons and tons of repeats," said Andes, reached by phone. Andes sent more than 140,000 messages, and Klinger sent more than 70,000 to end the month with a total of just over 217,000, he said. A spokesman for Guinness World Records didn't immediately return messages asking whether it would be certified as a record. April came as a relief to Andes' wife, Julie, who had found his phone tied up with texting when she tried to call him on lunch breaks. "She was tired of it the first few days into it," Andes said. ___ T-Mobile USA is a subsidiary of German telecommunications titan Deutsche Telekom AG.
 
Jason Russell: The Invisible Children Top
In April 2003, two weeks before the Iraq war started, two weeks before I traveled to Sudan to document the holocaust, I sold a movie musical to Steven Spielberg. That was always my plan: to make Hollywood musicals. I had just finished my film degree at USC and I wanted that post-graduation globetrotting adventure. I figured instead of backpacking Europe, I'd visit an African genocide. With two friends, my camera (purchased from eBay) and a few hundred bucks in cash, I went to tell a story that mattered. And it changed my life forever. We had never seen anything like it. So many bodies sleeping on top of each other. They were called night commuters. These children left their homes and walked to urban areas in search of safety from abductions by a rebel group. We couldn't believe we were witnessing something so horrific, and yet unheard of by most. These children were victims of a war that was older than them. We returned to the states with a clear objective- tell their story. We couldn't forget the faces and names of these children. So we made a documentary called, "Invisible Children: Rough Cut" that exposes the tragic realities of the night commuters and child soldiers. The film was originally shown to friends and family, but has since been seen by millions of people. We started a non-profit called Invisible Children, Inc. , giving compassionate individuals an effective way to respond to the situation. We challenged people's apathy and watched it turn into action. The movement began to ripple throughout the nation- we knew we were on to something. During the past two decades, LRA leader Joseph Kony has abducted over 30,000 children. Under his command, the LRA have attacked, murdered and displaced thousands, while refusing several attempts at peace. In recent months, his reign of terror has spread to the bordering areas of Democratic Republic of Congo, southern Sudan and Central African Republic. Joseph Kony is the first individual to be indicted by the International Criminal Court for his crimes against humanity. It's frightening that this war has now grown into an international crisis. We need to respond with an international body of activists to increase the visibility of this conflict and end Joseph Kony's reign of terror. So we are responding with our most ambitious and controversial event to date. THE RESCUE is a worldwide rally on April 25th in 100 cities across 10 countries. Participants will 'abduct themselves' on behalf of abducted child soldiers. Each city will be 'rescued' by a prominent political or cultural figure who attends the event and makes a statement on behalf of the child soldiers. Confirmed rescuers include Pete Wentz, Kirsten Dunst, Kristen Bell, Switchfoot, and Paramore among others. Together we are demanding that our world leaders make this conflict a visible priority and put an end to the longest-running war in Africa. I never thought that I would be wrapped up in such an extraordinary story; it's almost like being in a Hollywood musical. therescue.invisiblechildren.com www.invisiblechildren.com More on The Giving Life
 
Gayle Tzemach: Women's Rights and the Rush for the Exit in Afghanistan Top
Recently a slew of pieces have noted -- and sometimes bemoaned -- the fast-approaching fact that Afghan women are likely to see their rights recede in the rush to reach a deal with the Taliban. The latest of these notes in the Financial Times that: Nato is openly looking for an exit strategy for western troops. This could well involve dealing with those elements of the Taliban that are not committed to a global jihad -- and so making some accommodation with their ferociously reactionary social values. Sadly, these do have roots in Afghan society. Things would be much easier if western views of women's rights were indeed "universal values" -- but they are not, at least not among Pashtun tribesmen. It is significant that Mr Karzai is thought initially to have approved of this new law as an electioneering gambit, ahead of the presidential poll in August. The problem is that the "Pashtun tribesment" so blithely referred to by so many do not form a numeric majority in the country. Nor do all Pashtun tribesmen believe that women should necessarily be deprived of the right to study and to work simply by dint of their gender. This surface-level vision of Afghan society, however, ignores the far less visible but equally potent force of women fighting to share their education and their livelihoods with their communities. With help from supportive fathers, brothers, and husbands, they are contributing to their families while struggling to protect the fragile gains they have made since the Taliban fell in 2001. And they are watching nervously as the United States edges nearer to a deal with those who would send them back to a time in which they were banished from the schools, the streets and the offices of their own cities. It is worth noting that for many Afghans, particularly women living in the country's urban areas, the Taliban years marked a forced return to a past they had never known. Taliban rule did not signify a homecoming to a "tribal history" of which we now read so much; instead, it enforced a mandatory march backward toward an idealized version of the country as the Taliban envisioned it had looked 1000 years earlier. That is the Kalashnikov-enforced utopia to which we would consign Afghanistan -- and its women -- if we were to craft a deal with too much haste or too little thought. Certainly Afghans in general and women in particular want a country in which security is a daily reality rather than a campaign slogan or the focus of drive-by speeches from diplomats dropping in for the day. At a time when women cannot go to work without fear of kidnapping and girls cannot go to school without fear of acid attacks, a guarantee of safety would be a most welcome change. A concerted push to address Afghanistan's violence and force insurgents from their provincial strongholds would be embraced by women determined to raise their boys and girls in a peaceful, functioning country whose future is theirs to decide. Yet all signs point in the opposite direction. The Taliban attacks with increasing bravado and success. The international community's fear is growing. Expatriates speak openly over pricey dinners in foreigner-friendly restaurants about how long the current security destruction can continue before wholesale collapse becomes inevitable. United Nations staff and members of the aid community, including the Americans, are retreating farther and farther behind cement pylons, armed check points, and ever-taller barbed wire, symbols of their growing removal from the population they are there to support. Development workers venture out only rarely in Kabul, and even less in the remainder of the country, seeing little of the projects they are funding. Against this increasingly gloomy backdrop, talk of Washington policy right-sizing leaves Afghan women wondering what will come next. Are reporters correct? Will the international community trade women's rights for the mirage of stability? Will their futures be sacrificed in the rush to reach a politically palatable agreement? They hope not. They hope we understand that women's voices must be part of any discussion about how and whether to include the Taliban in a future Afghan government. They hope we realize that the successful development of their broken country's depends on all, not half, of its citizens' contributions. And they hope we now admit that an Afghanistan left behind under the Taliban will not long remain a domestic problem as it plays host to those with ambitions reaching far beyond the Hindu Kush. All of this they hope we have learned. For our sake and for the sake of the mothers, wives, and daughters fighting each day for their country's future, let us hope they are right. More on Afghanistan
 
Mike Doyle: How Print News Will Survive on the Internet Top
Rupert Murdoch and the Associated Press think there's value in siloing the news -- so much so that the AP has labeled bloggers "content thieves" merely for linking to or opining on AP stories reprinted in hundreds of newspapers around the country. Others have made the same charge about the AP, criticizing the news wire for copying content from member papers and passing it off as original work elsewhere. In 2009, neither charge is useful. They both rely on the outdated idea that the news can still be commodified. Unfortunately, easy access to the Internet across much of the globe instantly renders leaky any silo built to guard the profitability of news content. Anyone with a laptop or a web café account now has the ability to gather, write and publish original news content. Such tasks are no longer the exclusive province of journalists representing traditional newspapers. So if news is inherently a shared effort on the Internet, why are traditional news outlets trying to monopolize it with ham-fisted behaviors that violate the accepted norms of online community? (See John Yemma's article in the Christian Science Monitor which raises this same question.) In fact, for the past few years of dwindling resources and disappearing staff, newspapers have increasingly turned to the blogosphere for story leads or supporting elements -- often without attribution. For example, on the morning of April 7, the online Chi-Town Daily News broke the exclusive story of the impending closure of four Chicago mental health centers due to an ongoing billing error on the part of the city. Later that afternoon, Fran Spielman reported the story in the Chicago Sun-Times , relying on key investigative work done by the Chi-Town Daily News and appearing in its earlier exclusive that demonstrated the causal link between the city's billing error and the health center closures -- but giving no attribution whatsoever. That turned out to be a bad move on the Sun-Times ' part. On the Internet, attribution of the work of others is a bedrock fundamental of community standards. As soon as Spielman's article appeared on the Sun-Times ' website, some who had already read the Chi-Town Daily News ' exclusive homed in on Spielman's omission. I immediately complained about the missing attribution on Twitter, where my updates are followed by several Chicago media outlets. That prompted the @suntimes Twitter representative to enter a heated back-channel discussion with me, claiming the paper would never seek to silence a competing news outlet. I hardly took the @suntimes stance seriously. Numerous times I've been told by reporters and editors at both of Chicago's major dailies that they make it a point not to give credit to news competitors unless absolutely necessary. I almost always hear this when I'm pitching social-justice stories that arose from the work of small, nonprofit investigative journals. To its credit, on April 8, the Chicago Tribune attributed the uncovering of the billing errors to the Chi-Town Daily News . But the Sun-Times didn't get off that easily. On April 10, Progress Illinois , a statewide Progressive news blog, called out Spielman and the Sun-Times for attempting to silence Chi-Town Daily News while using the fruits of its investigative work. Moral of this story, don't steal someone else's scoop and then report it before the same audience as your own. (Did your high-school English teacher teach you nothing, Chicago Sun-Times ?) For that matter, the entire concept of scooping a story seems out of place on the Internet, where cut-throat behaviors regarding content are considered rude at best, cause for a DMCA complaint at worst. Recently, Newspaper Death Watch reported on the fixation of Boston Globe reporters for scooping the Boston Herald . Given that both papers are dying, the Death Watch suggested a better use of both papers' time might be to try staying relevant to readers, instead. Simply reporting the news isn't going to accomplish that, either in print or online, no matter how many silos Murdoch and the AP attempt to erect. Why? Because it's not happening . If news was going to make money in the 21st century, we'd still have newspapers. Plain and simple. No amount of handwringing or blogosphere-bashing by traditional journalists -- or New York Times Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal, for that matter -- is going to accomplish anything other than hastening the death of the print news industry. In a Times editorial of April 13 , Rosenthal said, "Frankly, I think it is the task of bloggers to catch up to us, not the other way around." Given the list of local online news startups reported in the Times the previous day , it seems more like the Times is the one behind the times here. Last week, I sat down with Aaron Renn, scribe of The Urbanophile , a blog about the future of Midwestern cities, over Lou Malnati's deep dish to talk shop about urban America. To my surprise, our conversation turned to the future of American newspapers. Renn suggested the economic viability of news outlets rests not only online, but also on the back of non-news content. I concur. No one reads the New York Times to learn what happened in China yesterday. People read the Times to learn why what happened in China yesterday matters today. Brought down to the local level, I would be surprised if many people who still receive home delivery of the Tribune or Sun-Times do so to read a retread of issues they've already browsed on the Internet or watched on the morning news. Aaron and I both share the suspicion that the main purpose of those early a.m. newspapers is so that Mary Mitchell, Neil Steinberg, Mary Schmich or Eric Zorn can accompany a hurried cup of coffee before leaving for work. With news leaking out of the silo, it's analysis and opinion that really differentiate what remains of America's newspapers. And in case you haven't been paying attention (Murdoch and Rosenthal, this means you), analysis and opinion are also what drive traffic on the Internet. Don't believe me? Try this. Visualize your favorite online news site and your favorite blogger. Now visualize both of those sites going away. Which one made you feel a personal sense of loss? Get the point now? Writing in Slate on March 27th, Jack Shafer noted that newspapers used to rely far more heavily on opinion pieces to differentiate themselves. From Colonial times until the middle of the last century, partisan papers were the norm, not the exception, and America did just fine. That's because Americans used their common sense to read a variety of sources and figure out the news from the spin for themselves. That changed in the 1900s with the rise of modern investigative journalism, which proclaimed itself and the newspapers which employed professional journalists as the public's arbiters of truth. Ignoring the obvious technological anachronism, if this were 1909 instead of 2009, no one would be moaning that the opinion-based Internet was somehow going to destroy our only access to objective truth. Americans may have shorter attention spans today, but I'm pretty sure they didn't lose their native intelligence in the past 100 years. (Again, the New York Times would beg to differ here, according to this March 18th Op-Ed by Nicholas D. Kristof.) Point being, if print news is going to make the successful transition to the Internet, it's going to have to offer a product that online readers (as in, just about any American with electricity at this point) actually want. That means leading with your big-name analysts and columnists, and rolling out more such added-value content -- much more. And that's irrespective of whether any attempt is made to charge for content, although unlike the objective news, analysis and opinion will likely attract the readership newspapers crave to demonstrate to online advertisers. Journalists aren't left out of this picture, but they'll have to adapt, too. No more high-minded excuses or restrictions from your editorial overlords for not telling readers who you are, what your background is, and why you're both qualified and interested to be working your beat and investigating and writing the news stories that you do. It doesn't matter what you were taught in journalism school, relevance on the Internet is demonstrated by disclosing who you are, what you think, and why. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it's that exact kind of relevance that former print news outlets will need to survive online, and the community expectations of hundreds of millions of Internet surfers across the planet are not going to suddenly change just to suit self-imposed, economically outdated ivory tower ideas about the supposed existence of absolutely objective news. Instead of journalism schools telling their students that sharing their opinion is the news equivalent of kicking puppies and robbing old ladies, why not require them to scribe blogs, instead? Sharing news, opinion, and perhaps most importantly, themselves, online would help aspiring journalists build an audience platform on which to launch their careers in the coming, opinion-centric online news universe with instant relevance. Through blogging, young journalists would also learn how to build and manage online communities and enter into a dialogue with readers via comments, forums, and social media tools (Twitter and Facebook, anyone?), another key expectation of the blogosphere. Best of all, once installed in their careers as online news gatherers, instead of building readership from scratch, they could simply take their blog audience with them . If all of this sounds like I'm expecting the industry to turn on its head to survive online, my response is the industry is already on its head. The viable model is apparent -- there simply is no analytical or opinionated blogger on the Internet without a following (myself included). It's fundamental change wrought by the Internet: newspapers no longer have the exclusive right to define the news. That definition is already being re-shaped by the community standards and expectations of the Internet. If print news outlets are going to survive at all, they're going to have adapt to life as online publications, offer online readers the differential analysis and opinion content that brought those readers over to the Internet in the first place, and allow readers into a robust, ongoing community dialogue with reporters, analysts and commentators. And print news outlets are going to have to do one more thing, too. They're going to have to stop complaining about it. More on Newspapers
 
Carl Pope: When New York Leads, the World Listens Top
That's what's so exciting about the Earth Day announcement by Mayor Michael Bloomberg that he is supporting a package of  legislative, regulatory, and investment programs that will make New York the first major American city to ensure that all of its big buildings become energy efficient over the next decade.  The package will set up funding mechanisms, create benchmarks, require that all building retrofits meet  energy optimization code requirements, train workers for the 19,000 new construction jobs which will be created, and ensure that big buildings be audited and retrofitted every decade. I was the only non-New Yorker on the green roof in midtown where Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, labor leaders, council members, builders, and environmentalists hailed the program. But I told Bloomberg that NYC was now leading, and that the world would listen.  The key factor making this so important is simple: market size.  By assuring designers and manufacturers of energy-retrofit technology -- efficient windows, insulation, high performance furnaces and air conditioning systems -- that as long as their products pay for themselves within five years they will have a huge market, New York City, Bloomberg's program is going to fundamentally change the national marketplace for energy retrofits. The New York program is a tribute to the power of intelligent public policy design -- and it puts to shame the conversations the U.S. Congress is having about the new energy economy. New York City is talking about reducing energy use in old buildings like the Empire State Building by 40%. If Congress would step up to that place nationally, it would be really transformational. More on Earth Day
 
Daoud Kuttab: Obama and the King Push the Two-State Solution on Netanyahu's Court Top
The visit of King Abdullah II of Jordan to Washington and his summit with President Obama revealed clearly a convergence of views on the need to seriously address the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The Jordanian monarch did not arrive empty-handed. He had been empowered by Arab leaders to deliver a unified Arab position. The Arab League and the Organization of Islamic States are unified on a peace plan that calls for normal relations with Israel once it quits the lands it occupied in 1967 and "fairly" resolves the Palestinian refugee problem. President Obama sent all the proper signals: his invitation to an Arab leader before the Israelis and his reiteration of his "strong" support for the two-state solution is clearly intended to rebut Israel's right-wing position. The traditional US diplomatic approach has emphasized the "process" part of the "peace process." President Obama's impressive signals since day one in office -- telephoning Arab leaders before European allies, appointing special envoy George Mitchell and speaking on Al-Arabiyeh for his first interview -- reflect a different approach than staid, unimaginative past years. In the last 30 years, US administrations have usually only exhibited deep interest in the Arab-Israeli conflict in the last year of two terms. In the Arab and Muslim worlds the litmus test of any sane US foreign policy will be how it deals with the Palestinian problem. On the books, the US position is fine. On the ground, the opposite is true. Washington has repeatedly opposed the 1967 Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and has called for its end. It has consistently voiced disapproval of settlement activities. Leaders of both major US parties have articulated a policy that calls for a viable, contiguous Palestinian state on the lands occupied in 1967. The United States has also opposed Israel's unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem and -- along with every nation on the planet -- refused to recognize Israel's application of Israeli law on residents of East Jerusalem. Yet Israel's actions on the ground have gone counter to American and international positions. The newly established Israeli government refuses even to give lip service to the internationally accepted requirements for peace. On the other hand, the freely elected Palestinian leadership faces international boycott until it accepts a solution that the Netanyahu government rejects. Among the international community's demands of Israel has been the acceptance of the two-state solution and a total settlement freeze. A freeze of all settlement activity, which includes expansion and natural growth, will certainly be a central focus of the robust diplomacy of Mitchell and his team on the ground. Mitchell, who was deeply involved in crafting the settlements language of the Mitchell Report of 2001, understands the capacity of the settlements to destroy the prospects for two states. Jerusalem is another on-the-ground issue that will be a litmus test for the Obama administration. The repeated house demolitions and Israeli provocations in East Jerusalem point to the need to confront this issue without delay. A third imperative for Palestinians today is to reunite the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Irrespective of the outcome of the internal Palestinian dialogue taking place in Cairo, there is a need to reconnect Palestinians. There is no excuse why Palestinians living in either remaining sliver of Mandate Palestine should be barred from traveling to the other part of the occupied Palestinian territories. Claims by Israeli officials that barring the movement of people and goods is done for security reasons do not withstand scrutiny. Under the leadership of US General Keith Dayton, the most vigorous security checks can be made to allow such travel. With renewed peace talks, results must be stressed over endless process. The last failed promise by President George W. Bush came at Annapolis in late 2007 when he promised that an independent, viable and contiguous Palestinian state would see the light before the end of his term. King Abdullah's message to the new results oriented American president will be simple. More than four decades after UN Security Council resolution 242, the "inadmissibility" of occupying land by force remains valid despite the passage of time, the building of illegal, exclusive Jewish settlements, and restrictions on movement. Time is no longer on the side of those who favor two states. The Obama administration must seize the initiative and insist that Netanyahu come round to US support for two states. Otherwise, tension looms in the Israeli-American relationship and the cries for one state with equal rights for all will begin to drown out older ideological voices seemingly unaware that settlement activity is foreclosing on the prospect of two states. Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian columnist, runs the Jordanian-based Community Media Network and a former Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. His email is info@daoudkuttab.com. More on Palestinian Territories
 
Czech Republic: Economic Crisis Leaves Migrants With Few Options Top
PRAGUE -- When the global demand for consumer goods tumbled, production and assembly line jobs here evaporated. The consequences for some migrants from the developing world have been catastrophic.
 
Terra Lawson-Remer: For Small Entrepreneurs in Developing Countries, Mobile Phones Can Be Path Out of Poverty Top
At the G20 meeting last month the international community pledged 1.1 trillion to combat the global economic crisis, but the intended beneficiaries of economic development initiatives have a better idea: they're buying mobile phones. In Fiji, mobile phones now allow any small scale subsistence fisherman with a boat to turn himself into a successful surf or dive trip operator, breaking a monopoly once held by high-end resorts with communications infrastructure. Tourists can ring individual boatmen - whether the boatman is in his village or out at sea fishing - whenever transport is needed. And text messaging is virtually free. This means that valuable seafood catches don't rot. Last month I was spearfishing with a skillful local Fijian who caught more than he and his family could possibly eat in a week, but he didn't have a freezer. The solution? He texted his relatives in a village a few hours away, asking them to pick-up some of the fish. (The relatives had an icebox.) Throughout most of the global south, particularly in rural areas, the penetration of telephone landlines is limited. For example, in India only 3.5% of rural residents are on the grid. Limited communication makes commerce extremely difficult for small aspiring entrepreneurs: after all, when potential customers have no way to reach you, business is quite slow indeed. But installing landlines is expensive (often impossible in remote areas) and can take months or years. Mobile phones, on the other hand, are spreading faster among average Indonesians, Fijians, Indians, and Kenyans than the latest ring tone in a high school cafeteria. The number of mobile phone subscribers has tripled in developing countries over the last five years, according to UNCTAD (Information Economy Report, 2007.) A rigorous study released earlier this year by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) found that Indian states with 10% higher mobile phone penetration enjoy an annual average growth rate 1.2% higher than those with a lower mobile phone density. This implies that if the state of Bihar had the same mobile penetration rate as Punjab, then Bihar's growth rate would be 4% higher. Kenya remains on the brink of political implosion since election related violence last year, but Safaricom Kenya could teach the U.S. a few lessons about affordable and efficient mobile phone service. Last year I walked into a supermarket in Karen, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Nairobi, to inquire where I might purchase a cell phone. Ten minutes later I walked out with a brand-new Nokia. The cost - including an hour of local outgoing calls, free incoming calls from anywhere in the world, and virtually free text messaging - was US$50. No yearly contract, no monthly charges, no minimum minutes per call, and most importantly, no waiting, hassle, or credit checks. I was ready to join Safaricom's advertising staff. Safaricom recently introduced a new service that allows users to transfer money by text message. The recipient just visits a Safaricom agent and provides a PIN code to withdraw the cash. High costs and even higher bank account eligibility requirements have historically barred the vast majority of Kenyans from access to the formal banking system, but text message money transfer serves essentially like an ATM account. And now workers in cities can send cash home to relatives in rural areas without risking robbery on arduous bus trips, and engage in long distance trades that woul have been too risky before. The affordability and availability of mobile phone service means that 54% of Kenyan adults now have access to a mobile phone. In Indonesia, a country of 250 million people, there are 110 million mobile phone subscribers. Bali is now full of independent taxi drivers whose mobile phones allow them to make arrangements directly with customers; and individual motorbike owners can rent their bikes straight to tourists. An inexpensive new 'handphone', as Indonesians call them, costs US$35, approximately three to four weeks average wages. Not an insignificant sum. Still, the number of subscribers is increasing at the rapid rate of 10% a year, putting Indonesia on track to have complete market saturation (like most of Europe) within the next ten years. And the first purchase when people take-out microcredit loans? Often a handphone. Instead of funding more oil pipelines that bring dubious economic benefits to the majority of a countries' population, we should be expanding mobile network coverage to poor and remote regions, and getting handphones into the hands of those who need them most but can afford them least. Expanding network coverage requires holding spectrum auctions, so that the mobile providers who can do the best job for the least cost win out. Auctions also give cash strapped governments a source of revenue, and prevent businesses from paying-off corrupt politicians in exchange for sweetheat deals. The tighter the spectrum squeeze the more broadcasting towers required (driving costs higher), so companies should implement pricing policies that encourage text messaging, which uses miniscule amounts of bandwidth. And taxing profits rather than revenues will promote network expansion to low population density rural areas where the fixed cost of building enough broadcast stations is high. It may even make sense to give phones away to households who could not afford them otherwise, or to heavily subsidize phone purchases. Making inexpensive mobile phones available to the poor is a three run triple. First, the really poor, living on a dollar or two a day, don't have the capital to buy a phone even at today's bargain prices. If mobile phones are to be a rung on the ladder out of poverty, the bottom billion needs a boost to get a toehold on that first rung. Second, network effects magnify the economic growth impact of mobile phones when penetration exceeds a critical mass of 25%, and free phone giveaways could dramatically increase teledensity in areas yet to reach this threshold level. And third, increasing the number of subscribers raises profitability for phone companies, so will promote network expansion in regions where it wouldn't pencil otherwise. Of course, mobile phones are no panacea. They cannot cure malaria, fix broken education systems, or end rampant corruption. These are large challenges that require collective, coordinated responses by governments and the international community. But mobile phones are already doing what economic development practitioners of all ideological persuasions are continuously championing: they are breaking the economic stranglehold of elites with access to capital, and giving poor entrepreneurs a chance to build their own businesses and be their own bosses. It appears that the best seed yet of 'grassroots development' may be a mobile phone chip. More on Kenya
 
Swap Out Your Vinyl Shower Curtain (VIDEO) Top
Still using a vinyl shower curtain? Swap it out for something greener and avoid buying vinyl again -- it's made with nasty chemicals! Zem Joaquin of ecofabulous.com offers a few tips on what to look for, and what you can do with the old shower curtain once you upgrade. WATCH: More on Video
 
Jimmy Seidita: 25 Easy Things One Hard Thing You Can Must Do to Save the Planet Top
April is indeed the cruelest month for environmental activists. Every year around Earth Day, newspapers, magazines, TV shows and Web sites run their annual "green" edition, inevitably filled with "easy tips for saving the planet," like changing light bulbs and re-using plastic bags. It's excruciating every year for serious envirowonks to see complex and challenging policy questions distilled down to "tips" that, let's be brutally honest here, are not saving the planet . I suppose these tips have their place, and have served a legitimate purpose. In the absence of any governmental policies, voluntary activities by individuals helped the long process of building awareness of the climate problem and increased familiarity with some of the pieces that someday may contribute to a solution. But voluntary action by a few individuals cannot substitute for a real national energy policy, or climate policy. Despite the preoccupation with paper or plastic, with respect to averting the coming climate disasters, only two things really matter: (1) electric companies must burn less coal, and (2) cars must burn less gasoline. It will take some combination of substituting other fuels and of just driving less and using less electricity. And our federal government needs to set out a plan to make that happen. Everything else is just busy work in the meantime. Well, meaningful changes in energy or climate policy have not been a realistic option for the past eight years, so enviros have been asking people to bicycle, unplug idle appliances, try the CFLs , etc., in anticipation of the day, someday, when a serious push to change government policy could be attempted. Well guess what? That "someday" has arrived. By some inconceivable quirk of fate , we find ourselves today with a president who not only understands the urgency of the climate problem but is committed, against all conventional political wisdom, to taking swift and meaningful action to address the threats of climate change. He's being advised by accomplished scientists and savvy policymakers. And he's not only taking action on climate change, he's making sustainability the cornerstone of his whole plan to turn around the economy. Last week, in response to a 2007 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Environmental Protection Agency declared that greenhouse gases pose a danger to public health and welfare. The finding sets the stage for the EPA to set limits on carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles and power plants, whether or not Congress takes action to limit carbon emissions. The coal and oil industries were ready with their response. Surprise: they don't like it. And they have built up a massive army of lawyers , lobbyists , front groups and spin doctors to convince you and the Congress not to like it either. These are the big boys. Check out Fortune magazine's latest list of the largest American corporations. Seven of the top 10 are companies that sell oil, cars or power plants. Including the new No. 1 company (sorry Wal-Mart), Exxon Mobil, which took in $443 billion last year, making $45 billion in profits. That's $5 million per hour in profits. To put it mildly, they have a good thing going, and they are not about to let a bunch of scientists and activists take it away from them without a fight. We've seen this before. In 1993, just one month into the first Clinton/Gore term, in an effort to begin a transition to more sustainable energy sources, the administration proposed a "BTU tax" on fossil fuels, including coal, natural gas and gasoline. The administration estimated that gas and electricity costs for a typical family would eventually increase about 4.5 percent. Had that bill passed Congress, we'd be well on our way to averting the looming climate disasters. But it didn't, the threat has become more dire and fixing the problem now will likely be more expensive, and more disruptive. The Clinton proposal never even came to a vote. An onslaught of lobbying, full-page ads from oil companies and an industry-orchestrated public outcry killed the bill in the Senate. The fossil industry spanked that new president so thoroughly, our federal government hasn't seriously debated the subject for 16 years. And the coal and oil companies have been gearing up for this next battle ever since. The tactics they employed then will seem primitive compared to what they have in store now for Obama and company. They will be coming with the long knives. If they succeed as well this year as they did in 1993, who knows how long it will be before another president or Congress tries to go up against the coal and oil lobby. If Obama cared only about being re-elected, he clearly would not be taking on this battle. The very states likely to be big swing states in 2012 are the states he risks alienating with a strong climate policy. Limit use of coal? Lose votes in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Push the auto companies to make more fuel efficient cars? Lose votes in Michigan. Raise the cost of electricity or gasoline even a little bit? Lose votes everywhere. In 2000, candidate George Bush promised to reduce carbon emissions from coal plants. A few months after being elected, he simply reversed himself , saying he changed his mind. He didn't pay any political price for that. Obama probably wouldn't either. It would be very easy for Obama to say, given the current economic crisis, we're going to put this issue on the back burner, and maybe take another look next year, or in the second term. But on this issue, it appears that Obama is following the advice of his climate scientists, and not of his political advisors. He is way out on a limb, and he needs a huge public show of support for these policies. OK. Ready for your one hard thing that you must do to save the planet? Here it is: 1. Actively support the Obama administration's efforts to limit carbon emissions. That's it. That's all you need to do. But really do it. Talk to your friends, relatives and neighbors about it. E-mail your congressman about it. Tell him you want action on climate this year, even if it means paying a little more for gas or electricity. Write your local newspaper. Join a climate organization . Wear a button. Put it on your Facebook. Twitter it, goddammit, whatever that means. Do all that, and you can leave the old light bulbs in place, give your kids the bottled water, and drive your SUV to the end of your driveway to pick up the mail. Just do everything you can to help the administration pass its climate program this year. Happy Earth Day. More on Earth Day
 
Step One When Going Solar: Cut Your Energy Use! Top
One of the most common complaints about "going solar" is that the upfront cost is just too high. The primary reason a solar power system can be a high ticket purchase for many solar power shoppers is because of the customers' bad energy usage habits. The majority of solar power shoppers don't realize they are energy hogs until they start shopping for solar power, when they are forced to understand and analyze their electric consumption. So how can solar power shoppers instantly get a deep discount on their solar power system? The answer is simple, "reduce then produce." Focusing on energy efficiency, and implementing lifestyle and product changes can greatly reduce the upfront cost of a solar power system. It is always more cost-effective to reduce your consumption through efficiency than it is to produce your own power. More on Green Living
 
Clinton Attacks Pakistan For Bending To Taliban Top
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sharply rebuked the government of Pakistan on Wednesday, accusing the country's leaders of surrendering large tracts of territory to the Taliban and saying that the country's instability is a "mortal threat" to world peace. More on Pakistan
 
Susan Kaiser Greenland: Focus on This Play, This Moment: Advice from a Japanese Baseball Team Top
This morning, while surfing the Internet, I followed a tweet to a Japanese baseball team's new logo. The slogan Focus on this play, this moment!! has been met with sniggers from baseball fans that, besides being put off by the double exclamation points, find it entirely uninspiring. They would prefer a more result-oriented slogan; one fan suggested Focus on the Victory another Destroy the Giants . Their reactions are familiar to those of us who have been in the mindfulness community for a while and reflect a common misunderstanding of the present moment (or now ) as it relates to meditation training. Many assume that focusing on the here and now means ignoring the past and the future, but that's not the way it works. Everything that leads up to this very moment is part of now. Our goals, expectations and fears about the future are also part of now. For instance, I could no more dislodge my childhood from the person typing this post than I could dislodge my bones from my body. My past experience influences what I'm writing now. What I hope will (or will not) happen in the future, also influences what's happening right now. Don't get me wrong, I'm not thinking about the past or the future as I type, nor will I think about the past or the future as I meditate later this morning, but that doesn't mean past experience and future expectations don't influence my present moment experience. I don't need to be thinking about something for it to inform my perspective. I work primarily with children and teens who intuitively understand that the past, present and future are naturally interwoven. Middle and high school kids in particular tend to have a clear sense of the likely effect what they're doing now will have on what will happen next -- both present action and future expectations relate to what they've said or done before. They understand that if there is a test coming up (in the future) it is important to study (now), and they know how to study (now) because they have studied for many, many other tests throughout their school career (in the past). They don't need to think about this sequence; they know it because by the time kids hit high school most have learned the hard way that actions have consequences. They understand if they don't study their notes from yesterday's class tonight, they are likely to bomb tomorrow's exam. This integration of past and future into present moment experience may not be something kids give much thought to, but it nonetheless informs much of what they do and say. A misunderstanding of the concept of now can be a slippery slope that quickly leads to a nihilistic take on mindfulness practice. If you view what's happening in the present moment as separate from past and future experience, figuring that what you say or do makes little difference is an understandable conclusion. Understandable, but completely at odds with two basic foundations of mindfulness practice -- that all actions have consequences (interdependence) and that everything changes (impermanence). But, if you adopt a worldview that is informed by an understanding of interdependence and impermanence, your perspective shifts. Here's what you realize: the opposite is true and absolutely every moment matters. Remember the slogan of the Japanese baseball team - Focus on this play, this moment ? Look at it like this: each play represents the juncture of present-moment awareness (what's happening now), with wisdom gleaned the hard way (from past games and training), and the players' determination to put all of their effort into this single moment hoping to win the game. They're hoping for the win -- they've worked hard for it - but not so busy chasing after a goal that they miss out on the invigorating experience of playing the game. Susan Kaiser Greenland developed the InnerKids mindful awareness program for children and families. To connect with Susan, and others, interested in bringing Mindful Awareness to child-related educational and community settings join the IK online community . More on Happiness
 
Scott Ballum: Find Water Everywhere You Go in NYC Top
This article originally appeared on PSFK.com The folks behind the TapIt Water initiative are taking the 'convenience' excuse out of the case for bottled water. Combining popular mobile technologies and grassroots on-the-ground efforts, the program connects empty-canteen-carrying water seekers with cafes and restaurants who offer good, clean, NYC tap water at no charge and with no dirty you-need-to-buy-something looks. Cafes sign up to be TapIt Partners , supplying their location and how they plan to make water accessible. Users can then log onto the site, or access its search and mapping features via an iPhone or Smartphone application, ... To continue reading this article, please visit PSFK More on Earth Day
 
Hani Almadhoun: From Durban II With No Love Top
News of Western diplomats walking out during a speech made by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, in protest over his criticism of the State of Israel and its Zionist culture made me pause. A day before the conference convened, the newly elected Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, declared that he won't negotiate with the Palestinians until they accept and recognize Israel as a Jewish State for the Jewish people. If this is not racism, I do not know what is. Ahmadinejad is a controversial figure for denying the Holocaust and other remarks. His unusually extensive list of sworn enemies around the globe range from Israel and the US to Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and from gay rights activists and hippies to neo-cons and war mongers. But I do not like how the media has turned him into the mascot for Israel bashing. Under this model, now, you either support Israel's inhumane policies or risk being counted as a sidekick for Ahmadinejad, resurrecting the President Bush's with us or against us rhetoric. Thanks to Ahmadinejad a good conference to discuss racism -- a serious issue -- was turned into a media love fest where the Israeli narrative went unquestioned. Although no country is perfect, no other country can have it both ways as Israel does -- an oasis of democracy that has institutionalized racism and is beyond reproach. Israel does struggle with racism -- Sephardic Jews make less money and have lower levels of education than the European Jews; Russian Jews' bona fides are questioned; Ethiopian Jews are treated with skepticism; and yes, Arab citizens of Israel are viewed as traitors and treated as second class citizens. Unfortunately, the Western counties do not see any of that, and accept the Israeli narrative of how anti-Semitism is the root of all evil--but can the death of 1500 Palestinians (Semitic people) in Gaza recently be condemned as anti-Semitic behavior? Obviously European and American leadership chose not to lead on the issues of racism because they do not have much to offer on the subject. After all, given their history of racism, colonialism, and imperialism, third world countries have plenty to say on those subjects. But Europeans and Americans who perfected the art of slavery chose to be no-shows and not to take part in the conference on racism. The old boys club avoided the guilt trip and opted out and instead chose to defend one of their own, Israel -- a European colonial settler state. Unfortunately those who had hoped to talk about their experience with racism -- much like Candidate Obama did in his much hailed Philadelphia speech -- were denied a forum. I think the president of Iran was wrong regarding Israel and its people, even though what he said is on par with what some of the new members of the Israeli government have said about Palestinians. Although there are many justified criticisms of the Israel's discriminatory policies, it's not helpful to have Ahmadinejad point them out. However, I think he would have done better to avoid the anti-Israel rant and talk about racism and prejudice suffered by blacks and North Africans in countries like France and South Asians in the United Kingdom. It seems to me that the West is much harsher on those that criticize Israel, but look the other way when Israel carries out an offensive and innocents are killed by the scores. Having said that, the West usually make things right and I just hope that in the Palestinian case it does not take too much more time. Most of the forty Western diplomats who walked out accused Ahmadinejad of incitement against Israel come from the same group of countries either carried out the racist Holocaust, financed or failed to stop it. Yet serving another slice of hypocrisy pie by condemning those who are too weak and too dysfunctional to do harm to Israel of being insensitive. I am left with one unanswered question, why did none of those "courageous " diplomats walk out during the UN meetings in the days leading to the Iraq war in 2003? More on Durban II
 
Joan Z. Shore: Susan Boyle Superstar Top
At the risk of alienating everyone on the planet, I am going to raise my voice against the Susan Boyle phenomenon. Not against the dear woman herself, but against the manipulative media that shot her to stardom. And the millions of crazed people who now see her as the Second Coming. I have worked in the news and entertainment sectors long enough to know how a person, or a story, can be transported, transfigured, transformed. I've seen the sleazy hypocrisy and sly maneuvering that pulls the strings behind the scenes: a wink, a sigh, a pregnant pause is often all it takes to shift reality. The three judges on Britain's Got Talent are good at that. Their facial mugging and body language set the tone for the audience and the contestant. Of course, they know in advance who will appear on stage, because there is a pre-selection process, and rehearsals. They know they are going to have a jerk, or a pro, or a buffoon, or a sex-pot -- usually chosen in perfect balance for each show. And once in a while, they arrange a "surprise" -- like the singing plumber a few seasons back, who belted out "Nessun Dorma." This season, it was the golden-voiced Susan Boyle. Of course, her hair could have been nicely styled and her dress could have been prettier, but she was thrust on stage au naturale for the shock appeal. The producers knew exactly what response she'd have from the audience, and the three judges were primed to reinforce the effect. If, indeed, their immediate snide reaction to Susan was not rehearsed, but genuine, they are contemptible human beings. We have to ask ourselves a few questions about this entire spectacle: Are we fed up with our perfectly gorgeous, filthy rich celebrities? Are we looking for the Cinderellas and Ugly Ducklings next door? Are we seeking reassurance that being ignored, unloved, and ordinary will eventually be rewarded? Why are we so surprised when an unattractive person turns out to have an extraordinary talent? And conversely, why do we assume that an attractive person is divinely gifted? Susan Boyle has already had more than her fifteen minutes of fame, and I wish her many hours more. I am simply sorry that she was "discovered" this way -- first as an object of derision, and then as a gimmicky success story. But maybe that's how fairy tales are written, even today.
 
Stephen H. Dinan: National Ecological Literacy Standards Top
In Time magazine this week, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan emphasized the importance of creating more unifying national standards for education in our country, which currently has a patchwork of local and state standards. The focus for such education standards tends to be on reading, math and other traditional subjects. Duncan also noted that our kids spend 25-30% less time in school than in India or China and thus wants to increase the amount of time our kids are in school. Given that we face an unprecedented global ecological crisis, what if we created national ecological literacy standards that helped to ensure that every child in the United States had the basic understandings necessary for us to become a sustainable country? This might lead to excellent after-school or Saturday supplement curricula, or even a week or two of training each summer, which would help to extend school hours while providing essential knowledge to navigate an increasingly resource-constrained world. These national standards could include practical elements such as creating your own garden, reducing your energy bill, recycling, or saving money with compact fluorescent bulbs. More advanced courses would lay the groundwork for green collar jobs such as energy retrofitting of houses or even solar panel installation. A lot of the work of greening our country can provide fun and engaging subject material for children, as well as something they can enroll their parents in doing as home projects. What if all kids in 6th grade all learned about how to conserve water in their household and had a competition to see who could make the most improvements, with each school offering an award to the winners? What if every child in our country was required to calculate their own carbon footprint in the 10th grade and thus knew about the various ways that their lifestyle contributes to global warming, along with solutions for reducing their impact? National ecological literacy standards for each grade level would help to create a larger library of course materials, curricula and media that teachers and local ecological leaders could use in working with kids, as well as a national database for locating these materials. Instead of ecology being only a special field trip or tangential to traditional school basics, it would eventually become as foundational as other courses. The Internet would provide a great repository for resources and media, as well as ways for local schools to share their successes with other schools. By seeding such curricula at a young age, when we are most open to change, we could start to pattern in a healthier, less consumptive lifestyle for America's future that has the benefit of saving money, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, preserving our natural resources, and making our cities more beautiful. On a practical level, unifying our national standards for math and reading requires dealing with all the existing standards and the politics of changing those. If we focus first on National Ecological Literacy Standards, it would be far easier to pass national standards and demonstrate the positive benefits for other subject areas. Earth Day was born 29 years ago on April 22, 1970. What if we make a more organized push for National Ecological Literacy Standards to be passed on the 30th anniversary of Earth Day next year? That would be a fitting maturation of the movement. Just as a typical 30-year-old is moving towards creating a family and raising the next generation, so would the environmental movement be moving into the next stage of its maturity by offering the best wisdom to the next generation on the 30th anniversary. Given the Obama administration's commitment to addressing our ecological crisis head on, a national push for such standards would likely be met favorably and adopted. And the benefits of training all of our youth in ecological literacy would be felt for generations. If you like this idea, I encourage you to share this article directly with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at arne.duncan@ed.gov . More on Earth Day
 
Les Leopold: Let us Now Praise Financial Luddism Top
The Looting of America: Let us now Praise Financial Luddism From Ben Bernanke, April 17, 2009: The concept of financial innovation, it seems, has fallen on hard times. Subprime mortgage loans, credit default swaps, structured investment vehicles, and other more-recently developed financial products have become emblematic of our present financial crisis. Indeed, innovation, once held up as the solution, is now more often than not perceived as the problem. I think that perception goes too far, and innovation, at its best, has been and will continue to be a tool for making our financial system more efficient and more inclusive. But, as we have seen only too clearly during the past two years, innovation that is inappropriately implemented can be positively harmful. In short, it would be unwise to try to stop financial innovation, but we must be more alert to its risks and the need to manage those risks properly. What more has to happen before our policy leaders admit that "financial innovation" is precisely what crashed the global economic system? Bernanke is not the only one in denial. Just about everyone elected leader and government official assumes that "financial innovation" is a good thing and that we must be careful not to mess with it. If you listen carefully, no politician will offer any reforms or regulations without first uttering the catechism, "Thou shalt not inhibit financial innovation." In fact, they call it "financial engineering," so that we might view it more akin to the micro-electronics industry. Hogwash. Financial engineering is not about creating great new products and processes for the benefit of our economy. Rather, it's exactly like creating new slots for Las Vegas. It's about high risk gambling. It's about creating complicated derivatives that hide risk while making enormous profits for the large banks and investment houses that create them. It's about financing astronomical compensation packages for Wall Street wizards. The mother of all "innovations" is the synthetic collateralized debt obligation -- the unholy marriage of a credit default swap and a CDO. With this bright new toy, billions upon billion of dollars could be bet on risky debt without either party to the bet owning any piece of what was bet upon. (It's like a thousand people buying fire insurance on your house. You'd better sleep with a fire-extinguisher.) This "innovation" turned the securitization market into a vast game of fantasy finance, just like fantasy baseball but with lethal effects. Did you ever wonder how $300 billion of subprime mortgages multiplied into trillions of toxic assets? The synthetic CDOs allowed institutions and the wealthy to bet on the same risky assets, again and again...without owning them. So when the underlying debt went bad, it sunk layer after layer of synthetic CDOs and nearly sent us back to the Great Depression. That's some innovation. Bernanke, who is considered a leading expert on the Great Depression, finished up his latest defense of financial innovation with "I don't think anyone wants to go back to the 1970s. Financial innovation has improved access to credit, reduced costs, and increased choice." Well, I do -- at least when it comes to finance. We were better off before we deregulated Wall Street so that it could become the world's biggest casino. We were better off before the vast disparities of wealth hit our economy. (In fact the average non-supervisory worker's real wage was higher then than now.) We were better off before our economy became dependent on a vast fantasy financial sector. Luddites of the world, unite! Les Leopold is the author of the upcoming book, The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance destroyed our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We can do about it. (Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2, 2009) More on Ben Bernanke
 
Georgia Protests: HuffPost Blogger Feet On The Ground Top
Tbilisi, Georgia -- We arrived in Tbilisi late at night April 21 and encountered a 24-hour occupation outside the Marriott Hotel off the main Rustaveli Avenue in front of the Georgian Parliament building, reportedly 4 days old. The street is occupied by at least 125 metal-framed boxes, dimensions approximately 6 feet wide, 6 feet high, and 4 feet deep. Each box is covered with a plastic banner fabric labeled in large red English letters, "CELL" and a unique identifying number. Each cell is occupied by one or more people gathered together on wooden pallets, where they may spend the night. Occupation of the public square is the latest attempt by citizenry opposed to the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been in power since 25 January 2004, and who won re-election in November of 2008. Opposition meetings started last year 2 November 2007. The spirit of the mixed-age crowd occupying the street is friendly, festive and peaceable, though people are eager for events to unfold. We interviewed four English-speaking Georgians, Vakkho, age 17, George, age 17, Archil, age 18, and Zura, age 18. "The cells indicate all of Georgia is in a cell," said Archil. "We are living in prisons. These people are here and don't need to live with injustice. It's a protest of the government, not our country." The young men agreed the protests will remain till Saakashvili resigns. They said protesters have been beaten by police at night in and around the cell structures. Local newspapers proclaim international government support for Saakashvili as he faces protests at home. The Georgia Today 17 April 2009 quoted Saakashvili as saying, "Our foreign minister and the US secretary of state are meeting each other for already second time in a month. The US has such relations with only very few countries." Saakashvili noted, however, that his close relations with the US dated to the Bush administration. Indeed, Tbilisi has a "George Bush Street." Again, his quote in the Georgia Today: "I admire American ideas. I used to idealize America under Bush when ideas were above pragmatic politics." George said the protests are nation-wide, not just in Tbilisi. "More cells are being brought in. There will be 500." According to George and his friends, the cells, originally an idea from Georgian pop star Giorgi Gachechiladze, known as Utsnobi (translated: "unknown" or "stranger"), brother of opposition leader and 2008 candidate Levan Gachechiladze. Gachechiladze reportedly lived in one of the cells for several months as a protest of Saakashvili's government in 2007. He was one of four activists who began a hunger strike to demand early parliamentary elections. He was also injured during the protests. Georgians seek to enjoy freedoms they know are available elsewhere in the world. "There is no justice," Archil said. "We want freedom of expression. People were beaten in the streets last night. We have two television stations that are government controlled." A large banner in the protesters' main street stage features photos of five Georgians reportedly killed by security police during previous protests. "People can't speak or protest," George said. "People are beaten if they are not in groups. Many people--80 examples--were hurt in this week. They are beaten because they were sitting here, at night. The television did not show this. They (the reporters) were frightened. They can't report this because they are threatened." The number of protesters in the street before Parliament swelled at about 3 pm Wednesday, as they gathered to hear speeches from the stage. As the speakers took their turns, men strung their cell frames with ropes to mimic prison cell bars. Opinions about Saakashvili heightened when the his government invaded South Ossetia in the summer of 2008, claiming it was a "breakaway province." Some speculated the Ossetia invasion was calculated to draw attention away from his sagging popular support. In response to the Ossetia invasion, Russian troops entered Georgia (August, 2008). Former Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze told The Georgian Times (13 April), "If I were Saakashvili, I would have resigned. He has no right to be the President of the country after making so many mistakes and shedding so many tears and so much blood." George, the young protest supporter, said, "The opposition's face is the people. We want free elections. we don't want one leader. We are the leachers. We must have leaders as they do in Europe, where the leaders are the people and who are not kings." Archil agreed. "We want parliamentary governance, with elections that don't hire monarchs or kings, but a full parliament." The young men referred visitors to YouTube video clips posted November 7, showing the hosing of Georgian television journalists. Scroll down for photos...
 
Sarah Newman: Eat Green, Be Green Top
In honor of our Earth, today is the special day where we all are encouraged to "be green." While there seems to be a holiday now for everything imaginable, this day rolls every eco, animal and biodiversity day up into one neat package that allows us to celebrate the beauty of our Earth and to honor the sustenance it provides for us by treating it with respect (shockingly, this day wasn't created by Hallmark, but they probably do sell recycled post-consumer cards for it). This is a special day that asks us to be greener than we normally are. I don't want to be too much of a cynic, but trying to be extra green on this one-designated day is a nice way to raise awareness, but how about making every day Earth Day? Today is a good day to start to make those permanent changes in our lives. Today is a reminder to us all that global warming is the single greatest threat to our planet. We can all do our part to save energy. However, it's time to expand the climate change discussion from one that is overwhelmingly focused solely on energy sources and consumption to one that also includes our food system. It's time to be green by eating green. This doesn't mean downing glasses of spinach like Popeye (though that would be helpful) but about eating more sustainable foods. Our food choices have dramatic impacts on the planet and are a major contributor to global warming. A shocking 1/3 of all of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from food and agriculture. Here's a quick survey of some food-global warming facts: 1. Livestock is one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters in the agriculture sector . These animals also emit tons (literally) of methane and nitrous oxide, which are even worse greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide. In total, they spew 2/3 of the world's methane emissions, 9% of carbon dioxide emissions and 65% of all nitrous oxide emissions . 2. Synthetic fertilizers contribute 647 million pounds of nitrous oxide (another greenhouse gas) annually. 3. In fact, 83% of agriculture's greenhouse emissions are spewed before anything has even left the farm. 4. After leaving a farm, the average American meal travels a whopping 1500 miles to reach your plate . Don't be discouraged! There's a lot of easy things you can do to green your plate and the planet (and eat lots of delicious, fresh, sustainable foods). 1. Buy local and cut your carbon footprint. Discover the beautiful, bountiful produce available within 200 miles of your community. 2. Buy organic. If everyone switched just 10% of their diet to organic food, it would be the equivalent of taking 2 million cars off the road annually. 3. Meatless Mondays! Reduce or eliminate your dairy and meat consumption at least one day per week. 4. Skip packaged foods. The food processing and packing industry is one of the top energy generators in the nation and use a whopping 14 billion gallons of gasoline. 5. Sign the Cool Foods pledge. 6. Go low carb(on)!: Calculate your carbon foodprint. Today can be the first day of your new food lifestyle. 7. Stay informed and involved with the Cool Foods Campaign and Take a Bite Out of Climate Change . The original version of Sarah's Social Action Snapshot originally appeared on Takepart.com More on Green Living
 
Michael Rowe: Havana From the Ground Top
On my second day in Havana, an American journalist based there told me that it's easier to write about Cuba when you know nothing about Cuba. Certainly much of the rhetoric (and especially the media punditry following the report by the Congressional Black Caucus on April 7th of this year) reminds me of the story of the blind men with the elephant: each limb was believed to be the sum total of the animal in the same way that every perspective on Cuba is believed, by the raconteur, to be the entire, correct perspective. I've listened to the lament of second-generation Cuban-American exiles, the sincerity of whose sense of inherited displacement I didn't doubt for a moment. I've listened to sputtering rants about "commies" and "despots" by fulminating American right-wing hysterics who've never been to Cuba or talked to any Cubans, but "know" Fidel Castro is the Devil because "everyone knows" it. They know it the way they know God is a heterosexual white male Republican with a gun. At the opposite extreme, I've listened to dreamy neo-Marxists singing the Revolution's praises, tut-tutting like 19th century Boston Brahmins wincing at the vulgar topic of money whenever the subject's of Cuba's troubling human rights history is raised. All of these people feel they "know" Cuba, and perhaps they do, in their way. All of them bring their particular worldview to bear. If their impressions of the country and its people are colored at the outset, there's still little doubt that the mystique of the country has legitimately touched them all. Last month, I traveled back to Cuba for the first time in forty years for a writing assignment for an American magazine. I'm not Cuban, but it was a homecoming. I'd lived in Havana with my family between 1966 and 1969 when my father was posted to the Canadian embassy. Unlike many embassy couples who socialized exclusively with other members of the diplomatic corps and their families, my parents maintained close relationships with Cubans, and not only the high-ranking government ones. Many was the night I fell asleep listening to Cuban musicians playing guitar in the living room, and all the houses we would live in throughout my childhood and adolescence were hung with vividly-hued Cuban art. When you've lived in a place as a child and loved it, there is no sense that it won't always be there for you to return to if you want to come back to it. But this year, I finally did return, as an adult, as a writer, as a professional observer. The detachment of journalism struck me as the perfect framework for this homecoming, and the assignment was a journalist's dream in every sense. I left our room at the Hotel Nacional that morning and set out to walk along the Malecón, the four mile seawall that runs east from the entrance to the Bay of Havana parallel to the coastline. On particularly windy days, the waves crash up over the seawall, battering it and flooding the streets. The architecture of Havana is still dramatic, but evidence of the embargo's depredation is everywhere A new friend laughingly told me that a party in Cuba requires just three people, a bottle of rum, and a guitar, and there was ample evidence of this. Another reminded me not to draw too many conclusions based on the festivity. "In order to understand the reality of life in Cuba," he said, "you must live as a Cuban. You cannot do that, because you do not live here." It was a flat statement of fact uttered without rancor. The subtext, unspoken as things so often are when Cubans are speaking with foreigners, was that North American privilege allows us a distance than can lead to supercilious condescension, or distortion, or both. Like the buildings in Havana, the pride of the Cuban people in their country and its history has managed to withstand hurricanes, meteorological and political, unbowed if not unscathed. They will happily celebrate the jollity of visitors, and even extend the hand of friendship when warranted, but they draw the line at having their lives explained to them by North Americans. During the election and afterwards, Barack Obama said that he would not lift the embargo until Cuba released its political prisoners. While the stance is a laudable one by any democratic or humanitarian standard there is an element of sophistry there: the embargo was not put in place for the purposes of human rights, and the United States regularly does business with countries whose human rights record is infinitely worse than Cuba's, the most obvious example being China. Until recently, Cuba has aggressively resisted what the Castro government has considered American bullying, to the economic detriment of the country and its people. As a consequence, the pro-embargo coalitions have been able to maintain their personal bearded Latin boogeyman living on his forbidden island in the Caribbean as a cautionary tale of what can happen when western-style democracy goes off the rails. Each has fed into the other's worst stereotype, and in the absence of diplomacy and dialogue, the Cuban people have been the casualties. Both sides of the pro and con-embargo debate tout "the Cuban people" as their primary concern. But what does "the Cuban people" mean? If the goal of the embargo was to punish the Cuban government for its communist regime, it had failed miserably. The Castro regime has outlasted no fewer than nine American presidents. If it was, as has been lately claimed, to force the release of Cuba's political prisoners, that has also failed, since a country with no diplomatic stake in another country has no real bargaining or negotiating chips. If the goal of the embargo was to "empower" the Cuban people (in essence, to make their lives so unbearable that they'd rise up and overthrow their government) that has also failed. Poverty is never empowering, and imposed poverty tends to hurt the weakest and most vulnerable members of the targeted society. Then, without warning there was a political "spring thaw" this month, the first in half a century. In quick succession came a series of decisive blows to the established wall between Cuba and the U.S. that has existed for nearly fifty years. The report from the Congressional Black Caucus who'd met with Raul Castro in Havana urging the United States to rethink its longstanding antipathy towards lifting the embargo, was welcomed by the majority of Americans, though it managed to provoke an expected level of carping from some hard line conservative commentators for whom antipathy towards the notion of dialogue with Cuba's leaders has been a dependable talking point. This was followed by president Obama lifting the travel restrictions for Cuban Americans volleying the ball over the net into Castro's court urging the Cuban president to release Cuba's political prisoners so an end to the embargo could be contemplated. Castro volleyed back at a summit of Latin leaders in Venezuela, indicating a willingness to discuss anything and everything with the United States, including the release of Cuba's prisoners of conscience. "We could be talking about many other things," Castro said. "We could be wrong, we admit it. We're human beings." One last volley, this time from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, came in the form of an expression of optimism on the Obama government's part. "We welcome his comments, the overture they represent and we are taking a very serious look at how we intend to respond." Many ordinary Cubans see Barack Obama as the first light at the end of the nearly fifty year-old tunnel. At the very least, the new president's willingness to engage and discuss with traditional adversaries signals a welcome return to discourse and diplomacy after eight years of George W. Bush in the White House, jumping across the world stage and waving his fists like a bellicose adolescent bully in his first jockstrap, browbeating and isolating friends and allies alike. That having been said, while it's not hard to picture a response of measured optimism on the part of many of the Cubans I spoke to in Havana in light of this recent spring thaw, I can't help remembering the words of an English-speaking taxi driver, a former white collar professional who, when he found himself unable to make ends meet in his profession, started to drive cab. Passing the American Interests Section building (the defacto American "embassy," in the absence of a formal embassy which would require full diplomatic relations) he mentioned how the Cuban government does what it can to obscure the building with flags or electric billboards depending on the insults, verbal or political, flung by Washington at any given time. "They love to taunt each other," he said of what many younger Cubans have come to think of as a political pissing contest between Washington and Havana, one that has left the Cuban people themselves in the crossfire. "My life isn't going to change [because of U.S. pressure on the Cuban government.] I'm going to have the problems in my house no matter who the [Cuban] president is. The American blockade has paralyzed the people of my country and has kept us poor. Our real oppressor is poverty. But maybe this Obama will be different. I hope so. I grew up with the Beatles and Phil Collins," he said, noting that the Miami radio stations are "so close we hear it all." Music is a great leveler, so we chatted briefly about British and American music. He mentioned the 1975 Chris de Burgh song, "Spanish Train," as one of his favorites. The song is about a chess game between God and the Devil for the souls of the dead. I asked him if he occasionally felt like the Cuban people were pawns in a larger political game between their own government's inflexible unwillingness to bend to the demands of the United States, and the Unites States' inexorable will to be obeyed. He smiled in the rear view mirror. "We've spent 400 years under Spanish rule, sixty years under the Americans, forty years under the Russians. The nature of the Cuban people is to survive, and we have. And we will. But," he added, "sometimes it's very, very hard." More on Cuba
 
Andrea Chalupa: Financial media mourns its Pulitzer Top
Will financial reporting ever have a Woodward and Bernstein, the two metro desk Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate Scandal? After attending last night's panel on Financial Journalism Under Fire: Did We Do Our Job?, hosted by the New York Financial Writers Association, the answer is clear: no. (Changes may and should happen, and I'll touch on a few of those). I have a theory that if you took a psychological assessment of a sports writer, a political reporter, and a financial writer to see who was the most cynical, the answer would most definitely be the financial writer. They're reporting on an industry ruled by greed and people who make more money in a year than they'll see in a lifetime. The system is just too large, too shady, and too encouraged to be bad in the name of profits (deregulated) that reporting on any of this would be best reserved for some hippie outlet like Mother Jones , not the respectable Wall Street Journal . Big scoops in finance usually involve mergers and acquisitions, company and exec failures -- going after anything else is cute idealism. (In fact, someone last night compared it to steroids and baseball -- you don't want to know where those home runs are coming from, you just want to enjoy the game). Even last night's panelist, Erin Arvedlund, who first questioned Bernie Madoff's record in 2001 in Barrons , failed to stay on top of the story. She opened the panel by saying she deeply regrets this now, but also, it must be pointed out, her reporting fell on deaf ears. What should we do, continue to push the story, report on it again and again, Diana Henriques, senior financial writer of the New York Times , asked the panel. Panelist Jon Friedman, who writes the Media Web column for MarketWatch.com , answered, yes. "If you do that you don't work for the same editors I work for," Henriques grumbled. Continue reading more on BloggingStocks.com More on Wall Street Journal
 
Derek Shearer: Money, Banking and Torture: It's Just Shocking! Top
Official Washington seems shocked that torture has been the rule above the law during the Bush administration. Reaction to the release of the Justice Department memos on the subject seems almost naive--and certainly with no sense of history (in this case, very recent history). I remember former defense secretary Robert McNamara saying in a documentary about the Vietnam War that he wished he had known more about the country before conducting a war there. Didn't anyone in the Pentagon or White House bother to tell him about French expert Bernard Fall and his books on the Indochinese war such as Hell In A Very Small Place? At Yale in the mid-60s, I met Fall when he came to lecture, read his books and followed his articles in the New Republic. I also took courses on the history and economy of Southeast Asia. Knowledge of the place was neither Top Secret nor hidden. Similarly with the story of the Bush administration, the CIA and torture, information has not been secret nor unreported. Wisconsin history professor Alfred McCoy's book, A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation from the Cold War to the War on Terror, explains the origins of many of the techniques described in the Justice Department memos. The film Taxi to the Dark Side reports on the torture methods used by US officials in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo; it won the Academy Award for best documentary in 2007. New Yorker writer and former Wall Street Journal reporter Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals is a model of investigative reporting on the legal machinations behind the Bush administration's approach to fighting terrorism. The New Yorker is not a difficult publication to locate. Fortunately, a few members of Congress such as Senators Carl Levin, Diane Feinstein, and Patrick Leahy know this current history and understand that the nation cannot and should not sweep it under the rug. Only a thorough airing of the issue will allow the US to rebuild its reputation among civilized nations and to undertake the institutional reforms needed to prevent this unAmerican behavior from being repeated in the future. The best way to do this, as President Obama has recognized and endorsed, is a bipartisan Congressional commission or Select committee which will hold comprehensive hearings, subpoena witnesses, examine documents, and report to the American people on how and why torture became a seemingly acceptable part of US international behavior. The country has done this before with the Chuch Committee investigations of CIA excesses during the Cold War. The Republic did not fall, nor did American national security suffer. We still prevailed in the Cold War--and we can certainly triumph against rag tag jihadists without resorting to torture (see Reza Aslan's new book, How To Win A Cosmic War: God, Globalization and the End of the War on Terror, for a nuanced rethinking of US anti-terrorism strategy). As with the torture issue, so with money and banking; we need more sunlight, not less. Already there seems to be moves afoot by Washington pundits, some politicians, and lots of Wall Streeters to put the financial crisis behind us, to move on to economic recovery (when it comes), and not bother ourselves with why the financial crisis happened nor how to assue that the US economy and global markets are not put in dire jeopardy again. As with the CIA and torture, we need to rely on Congress and certain Senators to lead the way. The Obama administration has its hands full simply dealing with the economic recovery, from restructuring the auto industry to keeping the big banks afloat, to passing a Federal Budget; they cannot be expected to explore root causes or even propose long term structural reform. One of the few national politicians who saw the economic storm coming is Senator Byron Dorgan, the populist Democrat from North Dakota. Ten years ago, in the debate over the Financial Services Modernization Act which repealed the Glass-Steagal act and lifted FDR era regulations on banks, Senator Dorgan prohecticly warned: "This bill will ...raise the likelihood of future massive taxpayer bailouts....I also think we will in ten years time, look back and say: We should not have done that because we forgot the lessons of the past; those lessons represent timeless truths that were as true in the year 2000 or 2010 as they were in year 1930 or 1935." Dorgan warned against financial institutions investing in derivatives, and about banks that would become "too big to fail" and require bailouts with taxpayer money. Dorgan has written a book, Reckless! How Debt, Deregulation and Dark Money Nearly Bankrupted America to be published next month. He has also proposed legislation to establish a Senate Select Committee to hold hearings on the financial crisis---on its root causes, and on the structural reforms needed to prevent future meltdowns. Senator John McCain is a leading co-sponsor of the initiative. Such a Select Committee would hold hearings, hear from experts, and examine the workings of the Federal Reserve, the private banking system, and hybrid organizations such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and consider them as a whole, and ask how they can work better to provide the credit needed by a modern, globalized economy without unleashing and rewarding unbridled greed, fraud and speculative abuse. Money--how it is created and how it functions in the economy often seems mysterious and opaque to most Americans. Few understand how central banks regulate the money supply or how private banks create money and provide credit. Yet, money is a social construct, no longer backed by gold or other precious metals. Readers looking for a primer should start with the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith's clear-eyed volume, Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went, and then move on to the political history recounted in Lords of Finance--The Bankers Who Broke the World, by Liaquat Ahamed, a splendid biographical rendering of the Central Bankers of the 1920s and 1930s who led us to the Great Depression. If you have energy left, pick up William Greider's award winning reportage in his book, Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs The Country. Most of our fellow citizens won't have time for such self-education. That's why the country needs a public discussion of money and banking--an economics tutorial for the nation. Congressional leaders and the White House should endorse and pass Senator Dorgan's initiative. It's time to stop being shocked by events. Let's learn from them. Let the hearings begin--on money and on torture.
 
Sheldon Filger: U.S. Banks Doomed to Fail Top
Within days after the legalized accounting fantasy masquerading as first quarter earnings for several of America's largest banks and financial institutions were released, the markets began to catch on. After several days of a sucker's rally on Wall Street, the Dow Jones went into retreat as more savvy investors caught on to the charade. That is when Timothy Geithner, U.S. Treasury Secretary, ran to the rescue, ready-made script in hand. In advance of the so-called "stress test" that is supposed to establish the fiscal health of U.S. banks, Geithner released a sneak preview. "Currently, the vast majority of banks have more capital than they need to be considered well capitalized by their regulators," boasted Obama's Treasury Secretary. With Pavlovian instincts, the market bought Timothy Geithner's fiscal fantasy, at least for a day. A few weeks before these antics a more sober assessment of America's banking health was delivered at the National Press Club in Washington by Dr. Martin D. Weiss, the head of Weiss Research, a global investment research firm. Previously, Weiss had accurately forecast the demise of Bear Stearns and the implosion of the U.S. investment-banking sector. However, at the National Press Club he offered a more chilling prediction: 1,568 U.S. banks and thrifts risk failure. Included in that number are several of the largest American banks, including J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Sun Trust Bank and HSBC Bank USA. The numbers and depth of the banking problem highlighted by Dr. Weiss are far larger and much more ominous than has been portrayed by the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and FDIC. He backed up his dire analysis with documentation and precise mathematical modeling. For example, he refers to the government's justification for a hideously expensive taxpayer bailout of AIG, based on the firm's exposure to the fragile investment vehicles known as Credit Default Swaps, or CDS. The policymakers maintain that AIG's $2 trillion in CDS exposure represented an unacceptable systemic risk, meaning AIG was "too big to fail." However, Weiss points out that Citigroup alone holds a portfolio of $2.9 trillion in Credit Default Swaps, while J.P. Morgan Chase possesses a staggering $9.2 trillion of these toxic instruments, about five times the exposure that led AIG to demand that the government rescue it, or see the global financial system implode. The essential point Dr. Weiss made at his press conference is that the degree of exposure U.S. banks have to a variety of toxic assets is beyond what the U.S. government and, by extension, the American taxpayer is financially capable of rescuing. Continued bailouts of insolvent banking institutions will not repair a broken financial order, but may very well cripple the overall economy. Earlier, NYU economics professor Nouriel Roubini had already gone on record as declaring that much of the U.S. banking sector was functionally insolvent, and that bailing out zombie financial institutions would only replicate the Japanese "lost decade" of the 1990s, when Tokyo's preference for keeping alive insolvent banks instead of closing them down led to a prolonged L-shaped recession. Roubini and other critics of both Bush and Obama administration policies on bank bailouts have looked to the Swedish model for resolving a profound banking crisis, which involved temporary short-term nationalization, closing down insolvent banks, while those banks that can be salvaged are cleaned up of their toxic assets, recapitalized and then sold back to the private sector. "You have to take them over and you have to split them up into three or four national banks, rather than having a humongous monster that is too big to fail," Nouriel Roubini has argued. According to the International Monetary Fund, the global financial and economic crisis has already created more than $4 trillion in credit losses due to toxic assets. If nothing else, the IMF estimate on the scale of the economic and financial disaster thus far should compel the Washington political establishment to face the painful yet necessary truths regarding America's precarious situation. However, it appears that fantasy is preferred over reality within the corridors of power. The procrastination of policymakers in Washington in facing dark reality, and preference to avoid any public takeover of troubled banking institutions while simultaneously subsidizing these financial dead men walking with almost unlimited taxpayer funds, at the same time maintaining the fiction, as Timothy Geithner has just done, that all is basically fine with the "vast majority" of U.S. banks, is to insure the inevitability of a systemic banking collapse in the United States. The conglomeration of reckless, greed-induced banking practices by the oligarchs of finance and inept, reality-denying policymakers is sending much of the American banking sector on a Wagnerian death ride into a financial apocalypse. Many of the U.S. banks are in fact doomed to fail, and no contrived stress test or Geithner speech can alter that outcome. And that isn't even the worst part. For when mass banking failures occur in the United States and overseas, a global economic depression will be an irreversible outcome. More on Timothy Geithner
 
Harvey Wasserman: How Chernobyl Could Happen Here Top
A catastrophe like Chernobyl could happen here. It's the radioactive core of the second-biggest lie in US industrial history. The atomic pushers say such a disaster is "impossible" at a US reactor. But Chernobyl's explosion spewed radiation all over the world. And Sunday's tragic 23rd anniversary reminds us that any reactor on this planet can kill innumerable people anywhere, at any time, by terror, error and more. It further clarifies why yet another grab at billions of taxpayer dollars for new reactor construction must be stopped now ! The biggest lie in US industrial history is that "nobody died at Three Mile Island." Just before last month's 30th anniversary of the central Pennsylvania meltdown, critical new evidence was completely ignored by the corporate media. Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen, a former industry executive, reported in Harrisburg that new findings show far more radiation may have been released than previously estimated. Epidemiologist Stephen Wing of the University of North Carolina joined in a study indicating human health was indeed compromised downwind. To this day neither TMI's owners nor the Nuclear Regulatory Commission knows how much radiation escaped, where it went or whom it impacted. The Gundersen/Wing findings cast new light on the question of building more reactors. But they got a Stalinesque blackout from all corporate media, which parroted the official lie that "nobody was harmed" at the 1979 disaster. This week comes official Radioactive Lie #2: "Chernobyl can't happen here." Chernobyl Unit 4 exploded in the wee hours of April 26, 1986. It was of a different design than US reactors. But its lid was stronger than about a third of the domes covering plants here. The Soviets who ran it also said Chernobyl could not explode, and that in any event its lid would hold. On October 5, 1966, the Fermi I fast breeder reactor nearly delivered a far worse explosion. Cooled by highly volatile liquid sodium, it teetered for a month on the brink of a radioactive eruption that could have cratered much of southeastern Michigan and permanently destroyed the biggest fresh water bodies on Earth. The accident was kept under Soviet-style wraps for years. When TMI melted, a potentially explosive hydrogen bubble formed inside the dome. Officials denied there was a melt-down (there was) but were privately terrified the trapped gas could rupture the containment. The escaping cloud would have contaminated millions along the east coast from Boston to Washington. Chernobyl's cloud blanketed Europe with deadly isotopes. Some came down in California within ten days, killing countless birds and possibly, in the long run, even more people. The radiation then crossed the entire northern United States, contaminating milk in New England. It returned later for a second pass. Reactor backers say Chernobyl "only" killed 31 plant workers. But the Soviets denied the accident happened, then ran 800,000 drafted "jumpers" through the radioactive corpse for a futile clean-up. They have been dying in droves for two decades. Chernobyl's radiation rained down on a May Day parade among citizens of Kiev who were told nothing about the catastrophe 80 kilometers away. The heartbreaking deformities plaguing the children born thereafter are the starkest reminders of that horrific day. Dr. Alexey Yablokov, former environmental advisor to the late President Boris Yeltsin, and president of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy, has estimated the known death toll at 300,000. The financial costs have topped a half-trillion dollars. The sale of lambs is still banned 2000 miles away in Wales and Scotland, where radioactive cesium still contaminates sheep farms and grazing land. The tidal wave of cancers, miscarriages, sterility and worse that still washes over the Ukraine and surrounding regions gets ever more horrifying as time passes. Because Chernobyl 4 was a new "state of the art" unit, its core spewed far less radiation than might come from older reactors at Indian Point, New York, or Oyster Creek, New Jersey, which has just been re-licensed to run twenty years beyond its original design specifications. Chernobyl's design was peculiar to the Soviets. But to say only it could explode is to argue that hybrid cars can't run people over, or that since there are no more World Trade towers, terrorists can no longer kill Americans. On January 31, 1986, four months prior to Chernobyl's explosion, an earthquake shook the Perry reactor east of Cleveland, which thankfully was not operating at the time. Now it is. By accident inspectors stumbled onto a football-sized hole eaten by boric acid to within a fraction of an inch through the pressure vessel at Davis-Besse near Toledo. A worker using a candle set a $100 million fire at the Browns Ferry reactor in Alabama. A cooling tower unexpectedly collapsed to the ground at Vermont Yankee. A basketball wrapped in tape was used to stop up a pipe at a reactor in Florida. This March 28, on TMI's 30th anniversary, an unexplained tremor shut Unit Two at Fermi. And, of course, the first jet that flew into the World Trade Center passed directly over the two decrepit reactors at Indian Point, as well as the three spent fuel pools and one dormant core shut for lack of an emergency cooling system. No reactor on this planet could withstand a similar terror attack. Small wonder the reactor industry cannot get private financing or insurance and has no place to go with its radioactive waste. Or why its pushers are yet again demanding $50 billion in loan guarantees for new reactor construction, and still more to perpetrate the myth that nuclear fuel can be reprocessed (to help stop this madness, see www.beyondnuclear.org , www.nirs.org , www.nukefree.org .) Chernobyl remains history's worst human-made disaster. Something slightly different but even worse could be happening as you read this. Building new reactors, and keeping old ones running, will guarantee it. The only containment strong enough to make atomic energy truly safe is the political power you exert. Chernobyl "can't happen here" only if the reactors are turned off before they kill again. Harvey Wasserman edits NukeFree.org. More on Green Energy
 
Daniel Cubias: More Than Money: When Downsizing Takes an Extra Bite Out of Us Top
As I wrote in a recent post, I was just laid off from my job of six years. It's disgruntling to go from analyzing the plight of unemployed Latinos to becoming part of the story. I'm not worried about the future or in dire financial straits, for which I'm grateful. But naturally, I want to get the unemployment monkey off my back, if for no other reason than I would like to continue affording luxuries like, say, food and shelter. But as you might expect with an overly analytical blogger with lots more free time, I've pinpointed an additional frustration with this mess. As a first-generation Latino, I feel an irrational need to get back on the payroll quickly so I can resume being a role model for my community. In some sectors of Hispanic society, I can achieve this lofty status, whether I want it or not, simply by getting a good-paying job and staying out of jail. I am aware of the hopes of my brethren urging me on, pushing me toward success as defined by the majority culture. For lack of any other goal, I want to be an outstanding, nonsterotypical member of society, an upper-middle-class big deal. This is just the latest example of how ethnic minorities perceive the world in subtly different ways than white people do. I've written about this before . In a previous post, I described how Latinos flinch whenever we hear about someone named Jose or Pedro or Julio committing a crime. If we have any self-awareness at all - or have gotten too old for street cred and are not obsessed with "keeping it real"- we tend to pinpoint negative stereotypes (e.g., being unemployed) and recoil from them like vampires catching a glimpse of sunlight. White people, in contrast, likely have the luxury of obsessing exclusively on their individual problems, taking the occasional break to get angry that they didn't invent YouTube (actually, I share that annoyance). It's a tricky balancing act, however. Because once I land that respectable white-collar job, I still have to be careful not to morph into The Man. That's because in addition to our desire to avoid sell-out status, we have been known to cultivate our own version of White Guilt. It's called Successful Minority Syndrome, and it manifests itself in our fear of losing our roots or in our queasiness for driving past a field of migrant workers or in our sudden awareness that we have paid good money for crème brulee torches . But that's the subject of another post, and in any case, it certainly is not an immediate danger. That's because the road to prosperity is closed for repairs, at least temporarily. Of course, I will eventually get back on it. With hope, we all will. And regardless of our race, creed, or ethnicity, we will one day look back at this decade that never had a name (my favorite term - "the zeroes" - is appropriate but never caught on), and we will say, "Remember that worldwide economic collapse? The one where we all lost our jobs? Yeah, that one. What was that all about anyway?" More on YouTube
 
Apple Profit Up 15% Top
CUPERTINO, Calif. - Apple Inc. says its profit jumped 15 percent in the last quarter, well ahead of Wall Street's expectations despite the global economic downturn. More on Apple
 
Hedieh Mirahmadi: Picking and Choosing Enemies in Afghanistan Top
It is has been reported that Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has reached out to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar - leader of the Hizb-e-Islami Party in Afghanistan and a declared terrorist. Hearing such news, it is right to question just how far the U.S. will go in its attempts to engage warlords as a strategy to bring sustainable stability and security to Afghanistan. Though arguably useful in the struggle to defeat Communism in Afghanistan in the late 1980s and early 1990s, cultivating warlords like Hekmatyar who were actually global jihadists is what gave us Al Qaeda. And therein lies the problem. We cannot ignore the ideological underpinnings of our enemy and empower them to fight us another day. The question is how do we tell the difference between a warlord and a global jihadist. In Afghanistan, people use the term "warlord" to describe someone who ruthlessly dominates a locality and extracts often exorbitant revenue from bribes in exchange for just about anything - security, business, drug dealing, or arms trade. However, not all warlords are global jihadists. Some are just in it for the money. In the case of Hekmatyar, it's easy to tell which camp he is in: Combining dangerous anti-American sentiments with a radical Islamist ideology is an obvious threat to American national security today and every day into the future. And so at a minimum, US policy of engagement must distinguish between radical Islamists and criminals motivated by money and not ideology. These distinctions are critical to determining with whom peace is possible because while the latter may be reformed - or at least brought into the political process - the former are our sworn enemies who will never surrender. It's also important to distinguish between the two because empowering the forces of radical Islamism is how we alienate the local population and turn potential friends into fighters. When the tribal leaders and local populace are victimized by radical Islamists and neglected by the local government too long, they, too, become a source of aggression. For example, take the recent events in the northern frontier provinces of Pakistan. Though scantily reported by world news agencies, Islamist extremists are brutalizing the local Muslim population and defiling the indigenous culture. Using a tactic popularized by Ansar Islam back in 2002 when they resettled from the caves of Tora Bora to the Kurdish areas of Northern Iraq, Islamist fighters in Pakistan have exhumed the corpses of Muslim holy figures and hung their bodies in the city square. These are revered religious figures of Pashtun culture and such blasphemy is correctly attributed to the "Taliban," which is a catchall term for the jihadi fighters. There has also been a rash of killings of traditional Sunni tribal leaders in the area - with reports of up to 120 people murdered - because they won't cede to radical Islamist demands for control of their communities. As a result of the inter-community battles and the failure to provide basic security to its citizens, the Pakistani government is left with very few allies in this territory. And here is another complication. In war torn regions like Afghanistan and lawless areas like the FATA, Islamist radicals are easily incorporated into the local power structure because they establish order out of chaos and create a semblance of security with a draconian application of "Shariah" justice. I place the word Shariah in quotes because the Islamist radicals have hijacked this word in much the same way they have hijacked Islam, resulting in a horrific abuse of the entire concept of Shariah and an utter contradiction to the true intent and implementation of Islamic law. By understanding the social and ideological influences in the region, the U.S. and its allies can devise strategies and aid programs that ensure we are supporting indigenous leaders with whom we have a set of shared values. We must provide aid and security only to those with whom we have a mutual interest in improving the lives of their communities. This is the only way to ensure that hard-earned US tax dollars are used to fulfill the promise of hope rather than worsening the cause for despair. And if the overarching objective of U.S. policy is to prevent further terrorist attacks against America, rather than just expedite an exit strategy, seeking to partner with the leader of the Hizb-e-Islami Party is clearly not the way. We must pick and choose our enemies wisely. More on Afghanistan
 
Scott Ballum: Educating Youth to Design Solutions for Social Issues Top
This article originally appeared on PSFK.com When it comes to utilizing design or creative thinking to shape our society, few avenues are more direct or have more potential than reaching out and fostering a commitment to social responsibility within our schools and our children. An interesting newcomer to this form of education is Design Ignites Change , an initiative created by Worldstudio Projects and Adobe's Youth Voices , which promotes and encourages high school students to use design thinking to solve real world problems. Fostered through a mentoring program which pairs creative professionals or university organizations with area high schools, the projects address a range of issues from diversity and hunger, to homelessness and gun violence. Each project is highlighted on the initiative's website , and selected groups will receive financial grant awards in the form of student tuition or project funding. Design Ignites Change is also an interesting way of introducing creative fields as a career path for young people, and instills early the myriad possibilities to use it to approach social issues. Youth outreach is also an integral part of the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), a Brooklyn-based organization started in 1997 dedicated to making educational projects about places and how they change. We recently sat down with exiting Executive Director, Rosten Woo, a design historian and advocate for the demystifying of public policy. ... To continue reading this article, please visit PSFK
 
Evan Derkacz: Why No Muslim Response to Torture? Top
From Religion Dispatches ' blog, The Devil's Advocate , Hussein Rashid writes : When Pres. Obama released the " torture memos " people were outraged; some for being outed for their complicity and some for being unable to deny their complicity. The President said America had lost its moral compass when torture was authorized by the previous administration. Christian and Jewish groups came out decrying torture as being irreligious, ethically challenged and morally bankrupt. National Muslim-American organizations did no such thing. By their silence, they are complicit. As Muslims, we are not responsible for the actions of other Muslims. We do not have to apologize for every terrorist who acts in the name of Islam. However, we do condemn these things because they are immoral. All the national Muslim-American organizations have condemned terrorism, but none have spoken out against torture. It begs the question of... Read more ... More on Terrorism
 
Dan Fleshler: Who Gets the Prize for the Most Stupid Behavior in the Jane Harman Fracas? Top
We still don't know a great deal about the Jane Harman affair , in which she allegedly agreed to try to intercede in the Justice Department's investigation of two former AIPAC employees. But I believe we now have incontrovertible proof of the utter stupidity exhibited by some of the main players. Here are my current nominees for the top prize for ill-advised, self-destructive and/or witless behavior. Others are welcome: 1 ) Jane Harman . She is reputed to have spoken to a so-called "Israeli agent" on the telephone. At this juncture, it is not clear precisely when that conversation took place, but it apparently happened sometime in 2005. At the time, she was part of a tiny group of insiders who knew the National Security Agency was wire-tapping phones. She must have known, like many others, that an FBI investigation against AIPAC had been going on since 2002 and was still underway. So why in the world would she promise to try to influence the AIPAC case in a phone conversation with an Israeli that could have been tapped and taped easily by one of several federal agencies? Why didn't the alarm bells go off as soon as the topic came up? What made her conclude that this wouldn't come back to haunt her? 2) The Israeli "agent" who made the phone call . The same questions apply to him. Why in the world would he have a conversation on a telephone that, if disclosed, would indicate the Israeli government was trying to tamper with a federal espionage case? 3) Avigdor Lieberman . We don't know the identity of the Israeli on the other end of the phone. It may well have been Naor Gillon, the former Israeli embassy staffer who has been publicly implicated in the case. If it wasn't Gillon, it seems likely that he knew about the effort to enlist Harman's help. And guess who the new Israeli foreign minister wants to appoint as his right-hand man, according to Ron Kampeas of the JTA? Yep. Naor Gillon. 4) The Department of Justice . Many pundits have observed that the case against former AIPACers Stephen Rosen and Keith Weissman is deeply flawed. It was filed by people who did not seem to understand that what Rosen and Weissman did -- i.e., pass along "classified information" that was placed in their hands -- was standard operating procedure in DC. But none of those pundits, as far as I can tell, have used the "S word" -- stupid -- to describe the FBI and DOJ. So I believe I am breaking new ground here. 5) "Spectre" . No, I'm not referring to the agency in the James Bond novels. This is a commentator who responded to a post called "The Real Reason for the Recession," on Business Insider . That post, by Joe Weisenthal, jokingly showed that recessions tended to coincide with sunspots. Here is "Spectre's" apparently serious response: The real reason for the Depression is the amount of thieving going on for many decades by the powers that be from both Partys. They are bought and paid for as I have many times. Bombshell: Rep. Jane Harman Caught on Tape Agreeing to Lobby for Alleged AIPAC/Israel Spies? Harman was allegedly heard saying she'd "waddle into" the AIPAC case in return for support for her bid to become chair of the Intelligence Committee . This last nomination is submitted without the benefit of much research. I found it after searching the blogosphere for about one minute. There are probably many other comments by conspiracy theorists and cabal watchers that are even more inane, and some that are insane. So I will keep this one as a placeholder. This was originally posted, in slightly different form, on Realistic Dove . More on Israel
 
Quinn: No Apologies For Past Blagojevich Support Top
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- New Gov. Pat Quinn says he doesn't owe any apologies for his past support of Rod Blagojevich, who wound up being arrested and tossed out of office. Quinn was elected lieutenant governor twice as Blagojevich's running mate. The second time, he backed Blagojevich despite a federal investigation and allegations of corruption. Quinn was asked Wednesday whether he should apologize, but he said the voters of Illinois "do not want to look backwards, they want to look forwards." He says apologies aren't necessary and instead the focus should be on cleaning up Illinois government. Quinn and Blagojevich were never close, but Quinn sometimes defended his running mate from criticism. After they were re-elected in 2006, the two openly feuded over major policy questions. -ASSOCIATED PRESS More on Rod Blagojevich
 
Danny Groner: Self-Googling Enhanced by Blogging Regularly Top
When I became a blogger for this site, I was looking for an outlet to express opinions next to other thoughtful and mostly unknown writers. Even from before the time I came aboard, I turned to HuffPo for content and analysis that I couldn't as extensively find elsewhere. By joining this team of bloggers, I hoped that others might read my pieces with the same interest and devotion I gave to the Web site's other writers. One of the unexpected perks that came along with writing for the site has been the sizable increase in my presence on the Web. Google provides an unscientific sketch of the expanded horizons that sites like HuffPo offer its contributors. Since so many other sites automatically pick up Huffington Post articles, my stories (likely even this one) have been reprinted or linked on news aggregation Web sites. I now routinely Google myself in order to find out where my articles have wound up after their initial publication. Needless to say, since starting to write for HuffPo, my return on Google searches has ballooned. There is definitely a certain self-importance that goes into caring about something as narcissistic and strikingly meaningless as the number of Google hits a search of your name yields. Yet, I have found there is an added benefit to writing regularly for a blogging network that relies so heavily on its expanse to other sites. One of the concerns that some have expressed about the Internet is how under its free-for-all system, it allows for everything from defamation to thoughtlessness. Whether it's a picture in which you are captioned, an article that misquotes you, or an embarrassing mention on a peer's blog, many people have reasons for pause or regret when it comes to their public Internet profile. Google can expose again wounds that have been all but sealed. For me, there's nothing on the Web that I'm particularly ashamed of although there are definitely things I'd take back or have done differently if given the chance. That's where writing for HuffPo has proven unanticipated dividends. Thanks to news aggregators that have picked up my recent HuffPo pieces, my dreadfully written college newspaper stories are now buried deep inside the annals of double-digit pages on Google returns. More and more we employ Google as a place for background checks, from the professional down to more curious and innocent social networking searches. I'm thankful that at least now I am able to highlight most prominently articles that I feel better exemplify my active interests and abilities. Just please make sure that, if you see it, you forgive my column giving a 2003-04 New York Islanders season preview. I was young and naive. More on Google
 
Napolitano Resignation Demanded By Some House Republicans Top
Conservative House Republicans are calling on their leaders to ask President Obama for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's resignation.
 
Sara Whitman: Another Dead Boy Top
My heart is broken. Another dead boy. On the heels of Carl Walker-Hoover's suicide, another boy has killed himself rather than endure the daily taunting. Jaheem Herrera was eleven. He hung himself in his closet. His mother complained repeatedly to the school that he was being bullied. Nothing happened. What will it take to create massive, systematic change? Jaheem was harassed physically and verbally. They called him gay. He spoke with an accent. A number of parents also complained about their children being bullied, too. Nothing happened. Nothing happened again. There is something deeply wrong. We must demand change. We must enable teachers to do the right thing. We must teach our children tolerance. All the crazy talk about storms and the horrible fear that maybe LGBT people might be treated as equals has to stop. We need to all come together to help these kids. Whatever our religious beliefs our, it has to stop. Kids too young to identify as any sexuality are being brought to levels of pain that leave them feeling they have no choice. The right wing rhetoric has to stop. Bullies like Dobson, Perkins, Warren, stand on their pulpits and spew hate. Save the family, they say. Unless you don't fit their narrow definition of family. From everything I've read, I'm fairly certain Jesus would not be on the side of hateful words. Where is President Obama? We need his leadership on this issue and we need it now. I fear these stories will continue and they can be prevented. I fear we will become numb to the senseless deaths.
 
Obama Touts Tire Inflation In Symbolic Pushback To Partisan Critics Top
Unrestrained by the sensitivities of campaign season, Barack Obama returned to an energy policy statement that got him in a bit of hyper-partisan heat while on the trail: calling for people to properly inflate their tires. "Some of you may remember during the campaign, when gas was really high, I suggested that one small step Americans could take would be to keep their tires inflated, remember that?" Obama told the crowd at Newton, Iowa, in a speech celebrating Earth Day. "And everybody teased me. 'Aw look, that's Obama energy policy.' And my opponents started passing out tire gauges. But I'll tell you what, turns out that saves you an awful lot of gas -- and money in your pocket. It also makes sense for our energy use as a whole. If everybody kept their tires inflated, it would have a big dent; it would produce as much oil savings as we might be pumping in some of these offshore sites by drilling." For about a week during the summer, Obama was ridiculed by Republican opponents for making the "outlandish" suggestion that people could save a fair amount of money by simply ensuring that their care tires were properly inflated. This was, critics contended, the totality of his energy policy. It was an absurd proposition then and now, in part because Obama's energy plan had many more, broader components; but also because properly inflating one's tires is an obvious way to save money and decrease dependence on oil. Now president and even less concerned about partisan backlash, Obama hit the same note of small sacrifice for energy gains during his Wednesday speech. "I don't accept the conventional wisdom that suggests that the American people are unable or unwilling to participate in a national effort to transform the way we use energy," he said. "I don't believe that the only thing folks are capable of doing is just paying their taxes. I disagree, I think the American people are ready to be part of a mission. I believe that." Get HuffPost Politics on Facebook , or follow us on Twitter .
 
Johnny C. Benjamin: MMA Legalization in the State of New York: The Facts, not Emotion, Speak for Themselves Top
New York Assemblyman Bob Reilly is leading the opposition against the legalization of professional mixed martial arts (MMA) competition in New York. He recently distributed a manuscript entitled "The Case against Ultimate Fighting in New York State". MMA is one of the fastest growing sports in the world and is currently legal in most states. New York City (Madison Square Garden in particular) is for obvious reasons a very desirable potential site. As a media and entertainment mega-market, a major MMA promotion (specifically the UFC) in NYC at "the Garden" would almost certainly produce a live gate well in excess of 15-20,000 people (not to mention pay-per-view dollars in the tens of millions). In these difficult economic times and with the State of New York (like many others) facing a significant budget shortfall, the potential revenue streams generated by sporting events of this magnitude are difficult to ignore. Assemblyman Reilly states that his case against ultimate fighting (MMA) centers on three main assertions: 1. Ultimate fighting is a form of violence that harms the participants and has a negative effect on children, adults and our society as a whole. 2. Ultimate fighting would have a negative effect on the economics of New York state and local municipalities. 3. The majority of New Yorkers do not want ultimate fighting legalized in New York State. Though I have intelligent comments regarding points 2 and 3, as a fellowship-trained, orthopedic spine surgeon, assistant clinical professor, Chairman of a department of orthopedic surgery with significant expertise in the potential medical ramifications of contact and combat sports, I will limit my comments to professional opinions related to Assemblyman Reilly's first assertion. The dictionary defines violence as: swift or intense force and rough or injurious physical force or action. By this common definition, MMA is clearly a violent activity. But to be consistent, aren't many other activities that are common and currently permissible in the state of New York also clearly violent? Using the common definition, all contact sports -- including (but not limited to): football, boxing, hockey, lacrosse, wresting, rugby and karate -- qualify as violent activities. Many other sports that are not commonly viewed as traditional contact sports by this definition should classified as violent activities as well (e.g. extreme sports including motocross, skateboarding, bmx bicycle events and many others). Collisions between female high school soccer players, a runner colliding at full speed with a catcher at home plate, hockey players checking each other against the boards or a basketball player taking a charge are all examples of very common, permissible violent sporting activities that occur on a daily basis throughout New York state. Despite the negative comments of some sports personalities cited by Mr. Reilly, to the best of my knowledge (and a thorough online review) of past and current credible medical literature there exists no significant body of work that clearly establishes or even opines a causal relationship between MMA and the moral decay of our society, on any level. Despite cuts, scratches and bruises, MMA has never been proven to be any more or less harmful to children or adults than most other contact sports. Assemblyman Reilly also references a medical article from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine ("Incidence of injury in professional mixed martial arts competition," July '06 Journal of Sports Science and Medicine ) that reviewed reported injuries occurring in all professional MMA events in the state of Nevada between September 2001 and December 2004. This article revealed that 40.3% of fighters sustained some sort of injury during their contests. Fortunately, virtually all of these injuries can be accurately described as minor (cuts, scrapes, bruises and minor fractures in that order). There were no major injuries or deaths. The most serious of the minor injuries were eye pokes (less than 3 per 100 competitors). There were NO serious impairments of vision reported. Just because MMA may evoke a negative emotional response by some viewers or offend the sensibilities of a portion of society, these feelings should not be interpreted, extrapolated or viewed as established scientific or clinical fact. Contrary to what was implied in Mr. Reilly's manuscript (by way of the reference to the defunct Japanese version of MMA known as Pride), the Unified Rules of MMA are extremely similar to those of professional boxing and do not reward or encourage inflicting bodily injury to ones opponent. MMA certainly has its share of minor, non-life or limb threatening injuries. Lacerations, soft tissue injuries, occasional broken bones and other injuries occur in all sports (both contact and non-contact) on all levels. Fortunately, with readily available techniques of modern medicine these types of injuries are easily addressed. There are many opinions regarding the acceptability or appropriateness of many common sporting activities. Deer hunting is a perfect example. Many people would say that in today's modern society with major supermarkets within reach of virtually every community that deer hunting for sport is unnecessary, barbaric and inhumane. There are many other good, law abiding citizens that would state that deer hunting is a time-honored tradition and a integral fiber of the fabric of America. Each argument is made with equal zeal and passion by fine, hard-working people. They just happen to disagree. But the fact of the matter is deer hunting continues to be legal in upstate New York and illegal in Manhattan. In my opinion, therein lies the wisdom and acceptable compromise to this debate. Allow the question of the appropriateness of legalized professional MMA to be a regional issue. It may very well be unacceptable to Assemblyman Reilly's constituents and they should be able to decide what public activities they condone in their community. But citizens of other areas of New York may have a very different view. They should also be allowed to determine the permissible public activities that occur in the communities in which they live and work. In the state of New York, as contact and many non-contact sports currently exist, from a physical injury risk perspective MMA (as governed by the unified rules) is an acceptable sporting activity. Mr. Reilly cites an outdated AMA policy statement that opposed the legalization of MMA. It is interesting to note that the AMA policy statement against MMA was made before the modern-era of MMA and the adoption of the current unified rules. This policy statement has not been readdressed since the implementation of the unified rules. MMA like many activities is not enjoyed by everyone. But to suggest that the risk profile or potential negative social impact is onerous or significantly varies from that of other currently permissible professional sports is not supported by credible medical facts or clinical studies. More on New York
 
Marcy Winograd: Harman's Wiretap Woes and the AIPAC Cabal Top
How ironic that I made my decision to challenge Jane Harman in 2006 after watching her Meet the Press interview in which she lambasted the New York Times for breaking the story about the Bush administration's massive illegal wiretapping. "Oh my God," I told my husband, who was doing Sunday sit-ups in front of the television set, "this woman needs to be challenged -- on the wiretaps, on the war, and on her collusion with the Bush mob." By the time I poured my coffee and grabbed my cell phone, I was off and running, campaigning as an insurgent Democratic Party peace candidate in the 36th congressional district. Now we see another page in the script. Reporter Jeff Stein tells us that Harman's sycophantic defense of the FISA violations was part of the deal: Harman, in return for then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' help in halting an FBI investigation, would do her best to defend and deflect attention from the illegal wiretaps. The fact that Harman, herself, was wiretapped, perhaps with good reason, is simply serendipitous poetry. And now it gets interesting. Will the Democratic Party establishment ignore this latest development in a longstanding corruption scandal? With Harman's next primary more than a year away, ignoring her quid-pro-quo may seem to be a viable strategy. But if ignoring it doesn't work, then the party establishment may need to distract people with something even more insidious than a Democratic Party congresswoman in bed with agents of a foreign power. Diverting attention elsewhere could make establishment Democrats do something they have so far refused to do -- prosecute the Bush administration torturers, shine the spotlight on those who gave the orders and provided legal cover to water board and more. This is the kind of diversion a progressive Democrat could relish. Impeach the war criminals. Prosecute those who gave the orders to torture. Since the Harman-AIPAC story broke -- again -- friends and bloggers, including members of the Progressive Democrats of America have emailed me, asking, "Will you run again in 2010?" My response has been, "Or sooner?" (Politicians, even grassroots activists like myself, know how to answer a tough question with a question.) Whether Harman and the Democratic establishment can stand this heat, this pall, remains to be seen, though I wouldn't be surprised if a special election snuck up on us before 2010. Demands that Harman step down are already echoing in the halls of the blogosphere and among the grassroots of the 36th district. The best part about this story is not what we know, but what we don't know, the questions that beg to be answered. According to the New York Times , the AIPAC lobbyists had it all figured out. Haim Saban, the wealthy television producer, would threaten to withhold campaign contributions to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party if Pelosi refused to appoint Harman as Chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Surely, this wasn't the first time AIPAC representatives promised to harness the almighty dollar for political purposes. Who else has AIPAC colluded with on the Hill? If the tapes are out there, Harman got caught, but isn't this a much larger story than just one woman bedazzled by men with money in their pockets and nuclear warheads in their backyards. It is time AIPAC register as a foreign lobbyist. During my congressional challenge to Harman, I dreaded answering questions about Israel and Palestine. The subject was nothing but a landmine, especially for a Jewish woman, like myself -- a believer in universal human rights -- challenging another Jewish woman, like Harman, in a district that included a substantial number of Israel supporters. Right after the 2006 primary, however, Israel's invasion of Lebanon put the issue squarely on the table. As the Israeli bombs turned Lebanese neighborhoods into blood-filled craters, Harman went on television to justify the invasion. Never mind the carpet bombing. Days later, after I, together with LA Jews for Peace, organized demonstrations in front of the Israeli consulate, Harman invited me and a dozen others who worked on my campaign to meet with her in her office. I implored her, literally begged her, to call for a cease-fire in the middle east. She wouldn't hear of it and drew back when I suggested she at least talk to members of Americans for Peace Now, a US offshoot of an Israeli peace group. Was Harman a true believer in Israel and AIPAC or was she caught up in a script that had spun out of control? Hard to say -- given the fact that so many of our Los Angeles-area law makers, from hawkish Howard Berman, Chair of the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee, to Henry Waxman, Chair of the House Energy Committee, have yet to raise a critical question about US military dollars funding Israel's use of white phosphorous and DIME explosives that instantly amputate in the open-air prison of Gaza. As much as this story is about Harman, about her collusion with a Bush administration bent on breaking the law, it is also about the pernicious influence wielded in Washington by lobbyists for a foreign government. It doesn't matter if it is Israel or China or Saudi Arabia. We need to remind Harman and the rest of Congress who they represent: we the people of the United States of America. Marcy Winograd is the Co-founder of Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles, LA Chapter of Progressive Democrats of America.
 
AIG Bonuses: What Ever Happened? Top
We are now about a month past the bonus backlash at the American International Group. It was on March 16 that President Obama said he had asked Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to "block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole." At the time, Mr. Obama also said: "This isn't just a matter of dollars and cents. It's about our fundamental values."
 
Rick Horowitz: Torture, Done in Our Name Top
They said yes, and yes again. That was the point. That was the whole idea. The interrogators from the CIA would describe what they wanted to do, or had already done, to certain prisoners in their control, and at the "Justice" Department, a handful of lawyers would find a way to declare that whatever the interrogators had done, or were about to do, to those prisoners was just fine. No problem. Even when it was torture. Especially when it was torture. That was the whole idea. The memoranda are public now, with only a few words missing, and the calculation perfectly -- chillingly -- intact. Here are the interrogation "techniques" -- sleep deprivation and dietary manipulation, the facial hold and the abdominal slap, stress positions and cramped confinement and "walling" and water dousing and waterboarding. Waterboarding. "This effort plus the cloth produces the perception of 'suffocation and incipient panic,' i.e., the perception of drowning. The individual does not breathe any water into his lungs. During those 20 to 40 seconds, water is continuously applied from a height of 12 to 24 inches...The sensation of drowning is immediately relieved by the removal of the cloth. The procedure may then be repeated." Note the wonderful precision -- the water falling no farther than 24 inches to the victim's nose and mouth, the "perception of drowning" lasting no longer than 40 seconds each time. There were similar touches decorating -- masking -- other techniques. The interrogator administering the abdominal slap "must have no rings or other jewelry on his hand." The cold water poured on the detainee in the water dousing "must be potable, and the interrogators must ensure that water does not enter the detainee's nose, mouth, or eyes." Considerate to a fault, don't you think? Call it pseudo-science. The artifice of concern. "Although the subject may experience the fear or panic associated with the feeling of drowning, the waterboard does not inflict physical pain....Although the waterboard constitutes a threat of imminent death, prolonged mental harm must nonetheless result to violate the statutory prohibition [on] infliction of severe mental pain or suffering....Indeed, you have advised us that the relief is almost immediate when the cloth is removed from the nose and mouth. In the absence of prolonged mental harm, no severe mental pain or suffering would have been inflicted, and the use of these procedures would not constitute torture within the meaning of the statute." Were they prepared to call it torture if that "threat of imminent death" had lasted 50 seconds? A full minute? Would it have been torture if the abdominal slap had left a jewelry scratch? If the water for the water dousing had been less than drinkable? If the walls the prisoners were slammed into over and over again had been more solidly constructed? Not a chance. Nothing was ever going to be over the line -- because there was no line . Or rather, because whatever line there was could be easily moved to a point just beyond whatever it was the interrogators wanted to do. Chalk it up to investigative zeal, to understandable fear of further attacks, to lawyers -- and their bosses -- run amok. Blame it on arrogance, or frustration, or rage, or vengeance plain and simple. How else to explain waterboarding Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times in August of 2002 alone? Or waterboarding Khalid Shaikh Mohammed 183 times just in March of 2003? If this isn't behavior that "shocks the conscience," it's only because the people who consistently approved it and excused it and applied it had put their consciences in a lockbox. And the rest of us? If the rest of us are to live with ourselves, if we're to regain our own consciences, our own souls, first we have to see it for what it was, and call it by its rightful name, this terrible thing that was done in our name. It was torture. Rick Horowitz is a syndicated columnist. You can write to him at rickhoro@execpc.com. More on Dick Cheney
 
Kerry: Obama Pakistan Plan 'Not A Real Strategy' Top
Just back from a visit to Pakistan, Sen. John Kerry says the Obama administration's plan for that volatile country, rolled out last month with great fanfare, "is not a real strategy." More on Pakistan
 
Africa's First Ladies Convene In Los Angeles, Urge Health Care Top
LOS ANGELES — They have seen each other socially, with their husbands in Washington or at the United Nations, but the 15 African first ladies met this time to speak candidly about problems facing women and children on their home continent. Some called for improved nutrition for children and pregnant mothers, clean water, sanitation infrastructure and inexpensive tools such as insecticide-treated bed nets to help combat malaria. The first ladies at the gathering Tuesday all called for better education for girls. "Developing partnerships with the education sector will give us significant mileage in preventing maternal and child mortality in the long term," Kenyan first lady Ida Odinga said. The World Health Organization estimates 121 of every 1,000 children who survive birth in Kenya will die before age 5. The survivors often lose parents, especially amid epidemics of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. Kenya has 2.4 million orphans, Odinga said. HIV/AIDS remains one of the toughest problem faced by Africa. The continent is home to nearly 70 percent of all adults and 80 percent of all children living with HIV/AIDS, according to the nonprofit US Doctors For Africa. Other infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis have also plagued the continent. The meeting was co-sponsored by US Doctors For Africa and African Synergy, a charitable group formed by 22 first ladies of Africa. "First ladies have a unique role. They exist outside the political realm to some degree but have a very powerful role in their communities" as role models to everyday Africans, said Cora Neumann, an organizer for US Doctors For Africa. "There's never been a summit focused exclusive to them," Neumann said. Some of the first ladies already are health advocates in their countries. First lady Nyama Koroma of Sierra Leone said she's been working to rebuild hospitals and medical infrastructure in the years since the country's bloody civil war. Plans for the event included a fundraiser with a performance by Natalie Cole and a luncheon hosted by California first lady Maria Shriver. Experts from the World Health Organization, Gates Foundation, U.S. Agency for International Development, World Bank and RAND were among those who participated in discussions alongside the first ladies.
 
J. Richard Cohen: Privatized Hell Top
"D.W." had been confined to the juvenile detention center for only a week when he tried to hang himself with a bed sheet. His mental health had deteriorated rapidly during his confinement at the Harrison County Juvenile Detention Center in Biloxi, Miss. But rather than provide him with counseling, guards at the detention center harassed and taunted him. They told him his mother no longer cared and would not visit him again. They said they could do whatever they wanted to him. That wasn't some empty threat. The 17-year-old African-American youth endured a brutal physical assault by guards who slammed his face into a concrete floor. Unfortunately, D.W.'s story isn't unique. It echoes the stories of more than 30 other children who spent time at the detention center, which is operated for profit by a private corporation called, strangely, the Mississippi Security Police. In separate interviews, these youths said they were confined to filthy, bug-infested cells for 23 hours a day with no adequate mental health or education services and guards who frequently resorted to violence. The detention center was so overcrowded that many children slept on the floor next to dirty toilets. Infections were rampant. The whole place smelled of human waste. This week, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal class action lawsuit to stop this shocking child abuse. It's important to remember that these children are not hardened criminals. Most are accused of minor, nonviolent offenses and are simply awaiting court hearings. Incredibly, some are even confined for "crimes" like truancy and curfew violations. But our broken system of juvenile justice allows such horrendous conditions to flourish. Across the country, thousands of children - disproportionately black and many suffering from mental disabilities - are being needlessly incarcerated for petty offenses. Often, vulnerable children caught up in this system are thrown away for the sake of corporate profits. That was the case in Pennsylvania, where two judges recently pleaded guilty to sending thousands of children to private detention centers in exchange for $2.6 million in kickbacks. The New York Times recently described how the youths in Luzerne County, Pa., faced court proceedings that lasted less than two minutes on average. Workers at detention centers knew in advance how many new arrivals to expect. We would never treat our own children this way. And that's the problem. We don't see these children as our own. Instead of giving them the educational or mental health services they need, we treat a truant like a career criminal. And in the process, we've nurtured an industry that turns a profit every time we throw away a young life. As a society, we are facing a crucial decision: We can continue to criminalize our children and groom them for adult prisons. Or, we can invest in programs that help rather than harm them. The choice should be clear.
 
Leslie Hatfield: A Revolution is Growing: A Look Back at the Last Year in Green(er) Food Top
Aside from Earth Day, today marks the Green Fork's one-year anniversary. That we launched this blog one year ago today (with 20 Ways to Green Your Fork ) is no coincidence -- the team at Eat Well, along with a growing number of consumers, are concerned about how our food choices impact the environment. Social justice concerns, especially access to healthful foods, and labor rights, are at issue here too, as well as animal welfare and public health issues. There is a lot to chew on, if you will, and we were excited to add our voices to the growing choir of sustainable food enthusiasts. This past year has been huge for Eat Well. We started producing videos , published the educational booklet Cultivating the Web : High Tech Tools for the Sustainable Food Movement (of which we've distributed over 20,000 copies -- you can download the digital version here ) and launched the beta version of our interactive mapping feature, Eat Well Everywhere . We also added hundreds of new listings to the Guide and yesterday, we were named "best local food blog" in Treehugger's "Best of Green" (you can help us win the Reader's Choice Award by voting for us before midnight tonight) . It's also been a big year for the larger food movement. To recap, we've tapped some of our favorite foodie writers, bloggers, activists and advocates to answer this question: What is one of the most powerful things you've seen and/or learned over the last year? And what is one thing you'd like to see happen over the next year? For my part, even as author of the question, I'm finding it really hard to narrow it down one thing, so I would just say that the the idea of "good food for all" has gained tremendous momentum over the last year. The New York Times prints a story about good food nearly everyday, and they are not alone -- all across America, people are talking and writing and organizing for more farmers' markets, more community gardens, more nutritious lunches and better food in general. Today, I'm writing from the W.K. Kellogg Food & Society conference , where over 500 good food advocates have gathered to work on what last year, many were hesitating to call a "movement," but these days, there hardly seems to be a question of whether or not what's happening qualifies as one. Given all that has been achieved over the last year, I can't wait to see what unfolds over the next one. If you have yet to join us, do yourself and your fellow global citizens a favor and get on the bus . Marion Nestle, of Food Politics : One person really can make a difference, and a big one, as shown by what's happening with community gardens, school food, and organic gardens at the White House. Let's have lots more people out there making a difference, each in their own way. Michael Pollen, of MichaelPollan.com : We'll look back at Michelle Obama's work --planting an organic garden on the White House lawn and talking about the importance of real food, as the most important food-and-ag news of the past year. She has already changed the conversation, inspired a counter-attack, and raised people's consciousness about food more than anyone else. Joan Dye Gussow : After more than 30 years of playing Cassandra, of living in opposition to the dominant myths about our truly gross national product and our unhealthy food supply, I've been shocked into hopefulness by what simple truth from the top has managed to transform despite a continuing din of misinformation. My hope is that we can revive the real economy-the one where people build, grow, feed and care for each other-without the need to resuscitate our still unsustainable "consumer society." Kerry Trueman of Eating Liberally : Oh, geez. I thought this was gonna be easy until I started to think of all the great things that happened over the past year: the resounding success of Roger Doiron's Eat The View campaign to get a kitchen garden established at the White House; the MacArthur Foundation awarding Growing Power 's Will Allen a much-deserved "genius" grant; the support that the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has received in their struggle to improve conditions for our farm workers; the passage of Proposition 2 in California thanks to the tireless efforts of our friends at the Humane Society; the extraordinary and ever-growing influence of Michael Pollan, who's got Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer talking about food sheds and urban ag; and Slow Food USA's shockingly savvy decision to make Josh Viertel its new president . The most powerful thing may be that folks like Pollan and Viertel have actually been granted access to our new administration, giving us an opportunity, at long last, to loosen the stranglehold of Big Ag and Big Food on our agricultural policies. According to Pollan and Viertel, President Obama is receptive to the sustainable ag agenda, but demanding evidence that we are, indeed, a real force to be reckoned with. "Show me the movement," he's reportedly saying. We're fighting "some of the most powerful and moneyed interests in the United States," as Joan Gussow noted in a speech at Columbia a couple of weeks ago. We must be doing something right, 'cause Monsanto and the rest of the bio-tech brigade have stepped up their disinformation campaigns to confuse consumers who are rethinking our fossil-fueled food chain. So, can we do away with Agribizness as usual? Yes, we can! Well, that's my hope, anyway... Sam Fromartz of Chews Wise : What I'm most encouraged by is the way people are thinking about food - understanding that how it's produced effects people, health, animals, fish, the environment, oceans, the climate, everyday lives. That consciousness is even more important than making the right food choice according to a rigid guideline. My only hope is that this continues to spread, altering the marketplace in ways we can only imagine. Anna Lappe of Take a Bite : One of the most powerful things I experienced last year was visiting communities on the outskirts of Seoul with farming activists from Southeast Asia who are part of the La Via Campesina movement. La Via Campesina, now hundreds of thousands strong, is a powerful reminder that small-scale farming is a viable way of life and can be a powerful tool for both helping us mitigate and adapt to global warming. As they say, small-scale farming can "feed the world and cool the planet." But perhaps the biggest consciousness shifting experience for me in this past year has been becoming pregnant. All the abstractions about toxins in our environment and on our foods, about the future of the planet and the species, feel very real to me as I sense my baby daughter swimming around inside me. At 29 weeks old, she already has all the eggs she will ever create, so that in me is literally the seeds of my grandchildren, as in my grandmother was the seed of me. The generational frame of sustainability is no longer an abstraction. Paula Crossfield of Civil Eats : The most powerful thing I've come to know about the sustainable food movement this year is how eager young people are to farm (myself included). I would love to push Vilsack to start a young farmer corps program, recruiting interested new farmers and paying them as apprentices and continuing to support them as they seek out land and begin their new occupation. Kim O'Donnel of A Mighty Appetite : A lot of yin yang this year -- Increased awareness on a consumer level about the state of our food system, which is horrifying, yet inspiring to hear the very good work being done to re-establish the farm-to-table connection. Seemingly unprecedented press coverage on food safety, the Farm Bill, immigrant worker rights and global food shortages, all disheartening news, yet bright sparks of light and encouraging reports of vegetable gardens and from the White House south lawn to the Ninth Ward in New Orleans. More hunger and demand on food banks yet communities pulling resources to feed one another. Severine von Tscharner Fleming of the Irresistible Fleet of Bicycles : An incredible surge of young people making bold professional choices, entering agriculture, starting businesses, becoming engaged in the foodsytem. From Jill Richardson of La Vida Locavore : The highlight of my year was the appointment of Kathleen Merrigan. And my top thing to change? The control of corporations over our food system. Yeah, I know... I dream big. From Gwen Schantz, frequent contributor to the Green Fork and also to Alternet :Last summer I was living in an Alaskan fishing town when the US Supreme Court ruled that Exxon Mobil would pay an insultingly low $500 million in damages for its role in the worst oil spill in the history of our country. In 1989 the Exxon Valdez spill left much of coastal Alaska covered in crude oil, crippling aquatic ecosystems and obliterating the livelihood of thousands of fishermen. At the time, fishermen put their bodies and their boats to work scrubbing beaches and hauling supplies and volunteers to cleanup sites. Twenty years later, these men and women continue to act as stewards of the sea, working the most environmentally-sustainable fishery in the world. Even as the Supreme Court's ruling last June illustrates the struggles and frustrations of the environmental movement, it gives me hope and pride to know that Alaskan fishermen carry on a tradition of stewardship through the act of putting good food on my table. Annie Meyers of Thoughts on the Table : One of the most powerful initiatives that I've noticed (and hope!) is gaining ground is the effort to bring fresh, local produce into hospital kitchens. The specific hospitals that have made this link (in Connecticut and California, for example) have had to do a lot of creative work with their food service providers or with individual distributors to connect with local farmers, but many hospitals are also starting to use common language to describe the type of foods they hope to source. Hospitals that have signed the Health Care Without Harm pledge have agreed to "create food systems which are ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially responsible." Of course we'll see whether health care reform will place value in the preventative care of healthy food, but at least for now, some hospital representatives are taking the initiative to do this themselves! One thing I look forward to in the next year is the establishment of a year-round wholesale regional market in New York City. The New Amsterdam Market project is the primary force building the foundation for this institution, and will be holding Monthly Markets starting on June 28th this year. The New Amsterdam Market will eventually provide a critical meeting point for the growing infrastructure of New York's regional food system, so that institutions, supermarkets, bodegas, and ever more families will have physical and financial access to the fresh food of the Northeast!
 
'Real Housewife' Jill Zarin Talks Breast Reduction Top
While the 'Real Housewives of New York City' are famous for protecting their assets, Jill Zarin is happy to part with some of hers. The red-headed Bravo network star opted for surgery to reduce her 32G-cup chest to a 34DD, and she's more than happy to talk about it. Zarin told Life & Style magazine that she wants to discuss her choice openly, to "show women there is no shame in wanting to look and feel your best as long as it's done safely." On her decision: "Time and gravity had taken their toll, and I developed health problems, which limited my physical activity over the years. Although they were fabulous assets until my mid-30s, they became a problem as time went on. To be honest, it had become more difficult to wear clothes. I was limited to certain styles and cuts. I always had to wear what felt like a harness under beautiful clothes, and anything strapless, halter, low-back or backless was mostly off-limits. "
 
Karen Symms Gallagher: At Sea Without a Compass: Chart a New Course for Education Reform Top
Bush may not have been able to make the grade himself, but he did set the bar for our nation's students. Under No Child Left Behind, there was one common goal: improving test scores. Whether it actually benefited our nation's youth remains a clear point of contention. Unfortunately, guidance from the federal government today on how to improve the education system is somewhat ambiguous. President Barack Obama wants to initiate improvements in teacher effectiveness, progress toward college ready standards and improvements in low-performing schools. It is easy to agree with his vision. Who among us would disagree with these goals? But how exactly will success be obtained and what will it actually look like? In truth, the devil is in the details, which are currently relegated to the sideline as Obama's administration tackles other pressing issues such as the economy. That's not to say the American education system is more or less important than the economy, but the two are closely intertwined. If states continue to slash education budgets by as much as 36 percent, our education system will suffer and so will the next generation of Americans. Reductions in the quality and affordability of education will eventually lead a "once-great" nation to lose its competitive edge in the global economy. Where are we today? Short-term financial greed has crippled our economy and disintegrated trillions in personal assets. Our high-priced health care system is bankrupting some families and is completely out of reach for others. Millions of Americans are saddled with debt, and the unemployment rate is expected to top 10 percent during 2010, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Some of the most iconic companies have failed in the face of economic pressure and innovative overseas competitors. How do we want America to look in thirty years? Will our country be innovative and provide the best products and services around the globe? Or will America continue losing ground to nations overseas? Think of a class full of six year olds today. This generation will be the future leaders of America. We need to provide these children and their peers with the right educational tools to enable them to create solutions to problems we face today, to discover scientific breakthroughs, to capitalize upon rapidly evolving technology, to foresee the opportunities and challenges the future will bring, and to employ business practices not built upon unbridled greed. We are at a unique moment in time. President Obama is pouring money into the system through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), and states and their school districts are relieved to have some additional funding. In many cases, that money will go to hiring back the teachers which districts had laid off during the previous six months. With this funding comes a general plan to improve student achievement and assessment and teacher effectiveness, but there are no specific standards yet for states to meet. It's not the federal government's responsibility to chart the course for the future of K-12 education. You could argue that education is a state responsibility, and you'd be right. But in America's tenuous position today, with states focused on plugging budget gaps and skyrocketing unemployment rates, Obama's administration needs to shine a light on the problems with our education system and to provide a clear destination for educators to pursue nationwide. And through its stimulus education funding, his administration has given itself the power to influence every state educational system and to determine the outcomes. If our school systems nationwide are in intensive care today, then stimulus funding has stopped the bleeding. But this relatively quick fix is just returning the public education system to the status quo, which, Obama readily admits, has been failing our children. While keeping schools' doors open gives us time to fix the system, we need more specific guidelines than "progress toward high-quality assessments" and "improvements in teacher effectiveness." We need a clear set of quantifiable goals. The federal government needs to call a public advisory committee, comprised of representatives from every stakeholder group that cares about what is happening in public schools. Besides education industry experts from K-12 and higher education, this committee could include policy leaders and government officials, which also includes individuals and organizations that have been traditionally critical of the public schools. State policy makers and current P-20 councils can support this advisory committee by working with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to offer perspective and opinions to help refine the committee's proposals. The responsibility to meet these new standards, of course, should rest squarely on the shoulders of the individual states. And, to ensure that states will focus on these standards with a sense of urgency, the federal government also needs to put into place a clear system of accountability. While the No Child Left Behind Act did have many problems, it did establish the expectation to hold schools accountable for the outcomes for all their students. The problem was that it didn't calculate annual yearly progress in a sustainable manner, and improvements in test scores didn't always translate into improvements in performance. The truth is that rewarding schools that meet certain passage rates of standardized tests, and punishing those that don't, clearly encourages teachers to teach to the test, focusing on the skills needed to increase testing performance rather than encouraging teachers to impart a deeper understanding of concepts behind a given subject. We need to hold our public schools to a higher standard--one that will meet all students' educational needs. We need to measure students' writing ability, focus on improving graduation rates and increase the number of students who pursue--and are adequately prepared for--post-secondary education degrees. Most importantly, however, we shouldn't waste ARRA funds on bureaucratic systems of measurement and compliance, as in the past, but instead carefully use it to support programs that have been demonstrated to improve student outcomes. It is true that teachers and schools today are taking steps to improve their courses and programs, but these one-off efforts are not enough to enhance the effectiveness of our educational system. And neither are the ambiguous standards currently proposed by the Obama administration. We need the federal government to chart a new course aimed toward specific standards and outlined by accountability. Education reform is larger than grades or test scores; it is how we will create a new foundation for our country.
 
Brad Hintz "Humiliated" By Wrong Call On Morgan Stanley Top
April 22 (Bloomberg) -- Brad Hintz, a Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst who has rated Morgan Stanley stock "outperform" since mid-2007, said the bank's weaker-than-expected results left him feeling "humiliated." "My guys are holding the sword so I can run on it this afternoon," Hintz said in an interview today, adding that he's still reviewing his earnings estimates and hasn't changed his recommendation on the company.
 
John Wellington Ennis: Yelling "FIRE!" in an Empty Theater Top
While I would prefer to not dignify John Ziegler by writing any more about him , I would like to take the opportunity to respond to his grievances against me while addressing more pertinent issues. I do not feel the need to rebut every sweeping accusation from him, because as I have already detailed , this individual projects partisan pressure into every context. My lengthy refutation of his film Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected and Palin was Targeted was not so "laughably biased" as he would prefer, but rather a thorough break down of the film as one long subjective rant with news clips plied around it. The only thing "documented" in this documentary was Sarah Palin squirming while Zeigler forces her to watch some of her damaging press clips. She even says to Ziegler, "You're torturing me, man!" My opinions never even got a chance to be affected by his film, because Ziegler offers no evidence other than his biased interpretation of news coverage. In fact, I have stretched to keep my mind open to many conservative viewpoints in spite of how Mr. Ziegler has argued them. Mr. Ziegler fails to recognize that using any credible sources to support his assertions would help convince others of his viewpoint. As such, I see no point in continuing to debate him or even acknowledge him. This is not a biased agenda; I would really rather work around our divisive partisan mindset with someone who does not oversimplify, who is not myopic, who does not make egregious accusations. To quickly offer corrections to his piece here on Huff Po: I never suggested that his being handcuffed by USC security guards at the Katie Couric event was appropriate, just not surprising given his belligerent behavior. In our sit-down interview , when Ziegler responded to my question "What is truth?" with a tirade about how truth does not matter, I did not misinterpret it as him saying that truth is not important to him or inconsequential. I understood what he meant. He believes that truth is bowled over and neglected in our partisan divide, and citing truth is ineffective in our culture. Thus, making your point louder and harsher is all that ultimately matters. I understood this because he lives this. My citing of Ziegler's appearance on a Reality TV dating show was included for the reasons given in its original context: I found an apt comparison to his incredulous expression as USC security detained him with the look on his face as he describes to a woman that he believes marriage should be renegotiated every five years as the man's power in the relationship appreciates. That expression could be described as: "How could they NOT get this?" The woman looks horrified and the security guards look like they can't believe they are giving their "behave yourself" speech to a middle-aged man instead of a frat boy. To be clear, I don't think Ziegler's appearance on a Reality TV show is embarrassing in itself. I have produced and directed all kinds of Reality TV; it's good sport. Ziegler is sufficiently able to embarrass himself without producers having to work at it. In fact, that is what John Ziegler really is, good Reality TV casting. He shows the hallmarks producers like: he talks without editing his thoughts, has lots of energy, and creates a visceral reaction in the viewer. This is a significant reason why he has appeared on the View, the Today show, FOX News, and more -- because he is a hothead you have to see to disbelieve, and segment producers know it. While he may see himself as the only important actor in this situation, I did not contact John Ziegler for my column because it was unnecessary. As seen in my article , I continually refer to the USC video itself. That is because this video, when waved as an inflammatory right wing rallying cry, could pose as much a challenge to free speech as yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater. At a time when manufactured and misdirected outrage has been boiling over at tea parties toward government authorities, concocting a civil liberties issue to advance an individual agenda is not only irresponsible, it is frankly dangerous. For Americans concerned that this video shows a threat to our First Amendment rights of free speech or freedom of the press, there is more to the issue. While Ziegler has campaigned to make himself a martyr for free speech as an independent journalist, he has down played part of the story, as clarified by James Grant, the Executive Director of Media Relations for USC and as reported by the Huffington Post : According to Grant, in the days before his eventual appearance on campus, Ziegler publicly announced his intention to demonstrate at the Couric event. USC was happy to accommodate Ziegler, and provided him with a designated area, where he could register his protest, be seen by event attendees and the student body, and pass out whatever materials he wished. These arrangements were ready upon Ziegler's arrival. However, according to Grant, Ziegler showed up for the event making unexpected demands. He was no longer a demonstrator. Now, he was a journalist, with cameramen in tow, insistent that he had a right to enter the event. Told that the event was invitation only, Ziegler contended that he had the right to range up and down the entryway and stick microphones into the faces of attendees. As adamant as Ziegler is that his appearance at USC was not aimed at being a stunt, this forethought into how to make an impact seems to suggest otherwise. Most indicative is that his original intent was to protest the event, creating the adversarial context. Then, arriving with cameras he claims he was not associated with despite being tethered to them , he approaches a USC security guard with a microphone and introduces himself. The security guard politely points out that anyone filming will have to stand behind the barricade that has been erected for that purpose. Ziegler, smirking already, asks: "Based on what?" Security: "Based on this being invitation only." Ziegler proceeds to follow the guard with the microphone. The security guard immediately senses where this is going and enlists another security guard for enforcement of what was just explained. Ziegler clearly attended knowing he did not have access to cover the event, hoping for some backlash to dignify his otherwise solo cause. Spare us the staged outrage of "Unhand me!" slapstick. When Andrew Meyer confronted John Kerry at the University of Florida, I credited him with citing Greg Palast 's book Armed Madhouse . However, once the kid interrupted John Kerry trying to answer his questions, and got all worked up about Skull & Bones, I was not surprised to see him escorted away by campus security. (Though I was horrified to see him get tasered while held to the ground by six security guards.) There is no law per se against making people uncomfortable in public settings, but it is human nature to whisk away those that are upsetting others. I am not defending it, simply pointing out something a lot of people already recognize. So when John Ziegler asks me what he should have been charged with, he is missing the point. In tense situations, cops make the laws, and whatever they say is the law at that time. Again, I am not crazy about this. But cops know charges can be dropped later when the present threat is diffused, so being arrested for something like "disturbing the peace," "inciting a riot," or "resisting arrest" are often used, no matter how illogical. ("How can I incite a riot if there is just me here? How am I resisting arrest if you can't name a charge you are arresting me for?") Ziegler had his designated protest/free speech/free press area, and did not like it. That is pretty much how it usually goes down for everybody. Pestering security guards until they apprehend you, then acting incredulous, that is not a threat to Free Speech everywhere. If Ziegler actually was surprised by this reaction to showing up uninvited some place with cameras, it might be because he doesn't do it very much. As noted, he has not bothered to shoot anything for his documentary besides Sarah Palin insisting she should have gotten more favorable news coverage, and man on the street interviews with uninformed voters on election day in Los Angeles. Many other people have shown up places trying to get legitimate information and have been treated far less politely by security than Mr. Ziegler was. There are so many independent media casualties from excessive policing, I could not begin to do justice to all of them here. There are blogs dedicated to it. John Ziegler's shameless provocation makes it harder on all independent media, regardless of ideology. There is another clarification I need to make about Ziegler's thoughtful piece, "John Ennis Thinks I'm 'A Dumbass': A Point by Point Response." I did not call him a "dumbass." I pointed out that there is a fine line between making a point and looking like a dumbass, and asked in my headline, "Does the First Amendment Protect the Right to be a Dumbass?" While pondering the constitutional rights surrounding a dumbass, Ziegler apparently found that the term applied to him. I clarify this not to soothe Ziegler's ego, but to illustrate how readily and easily our language is co-opted by those who wish to buttress their argument. To review, the First Amendment reads as such: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." I have not checked Drudge today, but last I heard, Congress was trying to sidestep accountability for torture, not pass laws against John Ziegler's outbursts. His video is still online, and he has been featured widely in our free press (he's no Susan Boyle , but who is?). He even got his response to my column promptly printed here on Huffington Post , with my encouragement. And what does he write about to belabor his point? Accusing liberals at the HP of opposing other people's free speech. Dude, we don't even spell check, let alone censor. My suggestion that backers of Ziegler's antics be embarrassed is far from an attack on free speech, as he insists. It is in fact just the opposite: I encourage everyone to freely review all speech from everywhere, and then reach their own independent, informed decisions about how big of an embarrassment John Ziegler really is. Ziegler's claims of oppression are tantamount to yelling "FIRE!" in an empty theater. More on Sarah Palin
 
Israel War Crimes Findings Blasted By Rights Groups Top
JERUSALEM — Human rights activists, some charging whitewash, demanded an independent war crimes probe after Israel's military on Wednesday cleared itself of wrongdoing over civilian deaths in the Gaza war. Army commanders acknowledged "rare mishaps" during the three-week offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers, including an airstrike that killed a family of 21. However, they said Israel did not violate international humanitarian law and that Hamas is to blame for civilian deaths, because it used Gazans as human shields. At least 1,100 people in Gaza were killed, according to counts by both sides. The military insisted that a majority of the war dead were militants, while the Palestinians said most were civilians. Israel launched the offensive Dec. 27 to halt years of rocket fire on Israeli border towns. It unleashed unprecedented force in the small seaside strip, including more than 2,000 bombing raids and barrages of artillery and mortar shells, against Palestinian militants, who operated inside residential areas. Human rights groups say there is grave suspicion that both Israel and Hamas carelessly put civilians in harm's way _ Hamas by using them as cover and Israel by using disproportionate force in densely populated Gaza. Since the war ended Jan. 18, calls have been mounting for a war crimes probe of both sides. A U.N. agency has appointed a widely respected former war crimes prosecutor, Richard Goldstone, to lead an investigation. Israeli officials say it's very unlikely Israel will cooperate, alleging the U.N. agency is biased. Hamas, Gaza's sole ruler since a violent takeover in 2007, said it would work with the investigator. If Israel has nothing to hide, it should cooperate with Goldstone, a coalition of Israeli human rights groups and the New York-based Human Rights Watch said Wednesday. They also questioned the military's ability to investigate itself. The military's findings "seem to be a cover-up for serious violations of international law," Human Rights Watch said, calling the findings an "insult to civilians" killed in the war. "It does not pass the smell-test," the group charged. The Israeli military assigned five colonels to lead separate investigations into its most controversial actions, including attacks on and near U.N. and international facilities, shooting at medical workers and facilities, as well as the use of white phosphorous shells, a chemical agent that can cause horrific burns. The military said Israeli forces operated in line with international law throughout the fighting. It said the killing of civilians was unintentional _ either a result of combat in crowded areas, with Hamas using civilians as human shields, or in rare cases because of human error. In one such case, an airstrike killed 21 members of the Daya family in Gaza City on Jan. 5, including 12 children, according to a Palestinian list of the war dead. The Israeli military said the target was a weapons factory next door. The military said what it described as unfortunate incidents, such as the shelling of the U.N. headquarters in Gaza City, were a result of urban combat, "particularly of the type that Hamas forced on the (Israeli) military, by choosing to fight from within the civilian population." It said U.N. facilities were not struck intentionally. The military alleged Hamas militants often took cover in ambulances or hospitals. Investigators noted that Gaza's prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, spent the war at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital. Haniyeh did not appear in public during the war, and remained in hiding for weeks after the fighting ended, apparently fearing assassination. Israel has promised legal and financial support for officers facing trial. In Norway, a group of lawyers filed a war crimes complaint against 10 Israelis on Wednesday, including the former prime minister. Since the Gaza war, the political deadlock in the region has only hardened, as Hamas has tightened its grip on Gaza, and a hawkish government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was elected in Israel. The U.N.'s Mideast envoy, Robert Serry, said Wednesday that the international community wants a Palestinian state established alongside Israel. "The problem is that the parties seem to be less ready and in a position to do what it takes to make peace," he said during a tour of Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Also Wednesday, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, the powerful official handling indirect Israel-Hamas contacts over a cease-fire and prisoner exchange, met with leaders of Israel's new government for the first time. Relations between the two nations have been tense since Netanyahu took office March 31 because of his hard-line views toward the Palestinians. But Netanyahu's office said Suleiman invited the Israeli leader to visit Egypt. ___ Associated Press reporter Aron Heller contributed from Tel Aviv, Israel. More on Gaza War
 
Deborah Weinstein: Obama Is on the Right Track When It Comes to Eliminating Government Waste Top
President Obama's order this week to cut $100 million in administrative costs from federal programs over the next 90 days sends an important message. As the President acknowledged himself, the $100 million is more a tone-setter than a meaningful sum in a federal budget of over $3 trillion. Instead, his words put front and center the longer-term goal of eliminating waste to help reduce the deficit and pay for health care, education, and other programs critical to rebuilding our economy. The President has already demonstrated a commitment to cut spending as long as needed services aren't compromised. His Administration has proposed: Eliminating large overpayments to the private insurers that serve some Medicare beneficiaries through the Medicare Advantage program. Cutting these costs, projected at more that $157 billion over the coming decade, would help finance health care reform. Curtailing the role played by private lenders in administering student loans. A Congressional Budget Office analysis found that $94 billion could be saved over 10 years if the government directly provided student loans. President Obama has proposed using the savings to increase Pell grants to low-income students. Cutting back funding for obsolete or unworkable weapons systems. The Center for American Progress has found that the United States could save $60 billion through such measures as scaling back funding for Cold War-era weapons and ballistic missile defense systems that are not now technically feasible. In the budget proposed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Obama Administration has already begun to take steps in that direction. Tax loopholes and cuts can be another form of government waste when they give well-off taxpayers a free ride at the expense of the rest of us. A Senate budget proposal to further slash the estate tax, which currently affects no couples with estates worth less than $7 million, would deprive the government of nearly $100 billion over 10 years - revenue that would help defray the cost of much-needed programs and services. Big oil has also traditionally been a beneficiary of problematic tax policies. An analysis by Friends of the Earth (pdf) found that under Bush Administration policies oil companies stood to gain $33 billion in savings through a variety of tax loopholes over the next five years. More problem areas could be identified with a better government system for measuring program effectiveness. The Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) put in place by the Bush Administration has been criticized as ineffective. During his confirmation hearing, Peter Orszag, the new director of the Office of Management and Budget, said PART focused "too much on process and not enough on outcomes." As one example, he noted that PART evaluates the number of audits the Internal Revenue Service conducts each year, rather than how well the IRS achieves compliance rates. "I'd like to see a system that tells IRS to hit a certain compliance rate in the tax code," Orszag said. "Don't just tell me your audit rate." The President's budget makes clear choices among alternative uses of scarce resources. He argues that providing health care reform, improving education and creating green jobs benefit the economy more than padded contracts for weapons, private lenders or health insurers. The President is right. He's also right to want to improve administrative efficiency and eliminate enormous tax breaks that do not spur economic growth. Building a sustainable recovery requires us to use every federal dollar wisely. We must try new approaches, because we know it is possible (and necessary!) to improve the way we deliver health care, educate our children and provide economic security for families. Decisions on whether to continue or expand existing programs - or to scrap them in favor of something new - should be made by taking a close look at whether they are achieving what we need. Predictably, special interest groups are already lining up in opposition to cuts in everything from student loan administration to subsidy payments for big farmers. If we're serious about doing all we can to support programs that work, we need to make sure that those voices do not drown out the rational calls for an effective and efficient government that will boost our economy and help all Americans. Deborah Weinstein is executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs , a Washington, D.C.-based alliance of national organizations working together to promote public policies that address the needs of low-income and other vulnerable populations. More on Barack Obama
 
CIA Rendition Trial In Italy: Judge Asked To Throw Out Case Top
Lawyers representing CIA agents accused in Italy of kidnapping a terrorism suspect asked a judge to toss out the trial on Tuesday, after a higher court ruled some evidence used to help win their indictments was classified. More on Italy
 
Peter Kaplan Leaving New York Observer After 15 Years Top
Peter W. Kaplan, the fourth and longest-serving editor of The New York Observer, announced to his editorial staff today that he is resigning from the newspaper effective June 1, 2009. More on Newspapers
 
Glenn Beck Expresses 'Erotic' Joy From Man Cutting Trees And Hunting On Earth Day Top
It turns out that the unrelenting insanity that I had hoped Glenn Beck might put on display on Teabag Day, he saved in reserve for Earth Day! On Beck's radio show , the host talked to some forest manager, who was going to be cutting down trees for some hunter. "This is like Nirvana here," he said, "This is not only going to hack off all the environmentalists but all the PETA people as well." (Nobody give Glenn a sad by telling him that environmentalists are actually okay with cutting down trees and sustainable forest management , okay?) Anyway, this presented Beck with a cognitive challenge. What would happen if he was forced to keep two ideas - chopping down trees and shooting deer - in his head at the same time? In short order came the answer. "I need some Barry White music!" Beck exclaimed, "This is almost full-fledged light some candles! This is eroticism!" And for a minute there, you got the feeling like an epic talk-radio jeans-creaming was about to unfold. Unfortunately, when the forest manager told Beck that he was just cutting down tiny "junk" Aspen trees and not mighty oaks, it was clear that the news was a total bonerkiller. I hear it happens to lots of guys, Glenn. Maybe next time, you should just try to imagine yourself straight up WRECKING that deer corpse! [LISTEN.] [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
 
Republican Strategist Says He Could Tell Gitmo Detainees Were Guilty From Looking At Them (VIDEO) Top
Via Media Monitor LaRay B., comes video of a segment between Phil Musser and Lawrence O'Donnell, hosted by Norah O'Donnell on MSNBC. The discussion centered on the torture memos, with Lawrence O'Donnell explaining how the pursuit of al Qaeda-Iraq links is a classic example of the sorts of fallacies that underpin the logic of those who think torture is effective. Musser, for his part, defended the leadership and judgment of Dick Cheney. And then, Musser's line of thought veered very sharply into the scarily phrenological. MUSSER: The bottom line is he's a guy that I watched up close in action and I have great respect for his judgment and wisdom in this regard. And having seen the face of terror, you know I've walked through Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay when I was serving in the government, and it changes your nature of the threat to look at the people an the other sides of those fences. And the bottom line is -- And that's when all the O'Donnells within the sound of Musser's voice, quite rightly, started to bug out. NORAH O'DONNELL: So just by looking at them, Phil, you can tell they were guilty? MUSSER: You know, I could tell, I could tell that basically that they -- NORAH O'DONNELL: And that they deserved waterboarding? MUSSER: Norah, I'm not making any particular allegations against individual people, but what I'm saying is that the nature of this threat is very, very different and the record of the Bush/Cheney administration post-9/11 is to keep people safe. And I think most Republicans - you ask people in Newton, Iowa, they're probably happy our country is doing everything possible to keep our country safe. Obviously, I cannot speak to whatever anomaly has occurred to make Newton, Iowa some sort of stronghold -- resistant to the very mainstream American opposition to torture and the very mainstream support, which I cited just yesterday , for investigations into the use of torture on terror suspects. But, seriously? This guy wants to assert he can tell a man's guilt by looking at them? Lawrence O'Donnell wasn't having any of this, either. LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: I think we just got a real window into the Bush administration's view of how to approach these problems. Just by walking through Guantanamo bay and looking at prisoners, I could tell! And we didn't get a full answer to what you could tell. But that is very similar to President Bush saying I looked into Putin's eyes and I saw an honest man that I could deal with. MUSSER: Come on, Lawrence. That's not fair. LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: No, no, no. This is a very serious thing. Was a trip on your part. I don't think you're going to do it again because what you just confessed to is the most simple minded possible approach to governing affairs and serious evaluations of where the truth lies and where the United States should commit its resources, commit its moral imperatives. And for you to be able to say just by looking at those people in Guantanamo, I knew something about them, is a very, very wrong headed and very, very dangerous approach to both jurisprudence and national security. MUSSER: I'm going to defend myself on this. I'm not pretending to say I was a national security official nor was I charged in any of the particular responsibility. I happen to -- it was a completely unrelated issue. I'm saying none of us here on this teevee show have access to the kind of compartmentalized sensitive, top-secret information that you need to make judgments about these things. So I was saying -- LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: We do now. we do now. Open The New York Times . It's on page one of the The New York Times today. We do now. What I am saying is that what you reflected was the spirit of the Bush administration that you can tell by looking at people what the danger level is and what the trust level is and what we should do as a government about those people. That is amateurish, wrong-headed and very, very dangerous. My question is this: while Phil Musser was wandering around Camp Zero, just gazing at folks with his super-powered Eyeballs of Guilt Discernment, why didn't he stand up, right then and there, and demand that the five prisoners of Uighur descent, who the Pentagon says are a threat to no one , be released? Why couldn't he have trained his all-knowing Peepers of Justice on Abassin Roshan , who was mistakenly placed into U.S. custody in Afghanstan, and insist that he be let go? CBS News even reports that there is a ninety year old man imprisoned there! I don't need Musser's magical goddamn powers to know that is plainly ridiculous. [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 Guantánamo Bay
 
Paraguay President Paternity Scandal Continues With Third Fatherhood Claim Top
ASUNCION, Paraguay — A third woman came forward Wednesday claiming Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo is the father of her child _ this one a 16-month-old boy she named after late Pope John Paul II. The growing number of paternity claims against Lugo less than a year into his presidency has embarrassed the government and put the opposition on the attack. But in Paraguay's macho culture, political analysts say the idea that the former bishop has fathered multiple children may even help him, by making him appear to be a strong leader. The latest woman to claim a child with Lugo is a 39-year-old divorcee with two adult children who said she met Lugo three years ago, after he gave up his church leadership position. And while the two other women are pursuing paternity claims, she says has no plans to sue the president. Meanwhile, Paraguayan newspaper Ultima Hora reported that the first woman to come forward, his former parishioner Viviana Carrillo, now 26, moved into the president's home along with her 2-year-old boy, whom Lugo has acknowledged as his son. Lugo appealed for privacy earlier this week and referred all questions about paternity claims to his lawyer, who had no comment on Wednesday's revelations. But his rivals have seized on the scandal. "He competed in the elections a year ago as an honest person but it turns out he's a fake because while he was a bishop he had a romantic relationship and a child," said Sen. Lilian Samaniego, leader of the opposition Colorado Party, on Tuesday. The latest case involves Damiana Hortensia Moran Amarilla, who said she met Lugo in 2006 while working as a church outreach worker in the city of San Lorenzo. She said she worked as a local coordinator for Lugo's alliance during his presidential campaign and still backs his government. "I fell in love because as a man, he is phenomenal. He is charismatic. He was my ideal of a man and social-political leader," Moran told Channel 4 television. "I do not need money or his last name for the child, because I can support my family. I am the owner of a child day care center and have plenty of work." Moran said she named the child Juan Pablo to honor Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005. "I honestly hoped I could make a new family with (Lugo), but it was not possible," she said. Moran is the third woman to go public with paternity allegations against Lugo, after Carrillo and then Benigna Leguizamon, an impoverished soap-seller who accused the president on Monday of fathering her 6-year-old boy. After failed attempts at an out-of-court settlement, Leguizamon filed a paternity suit in Ciudad del Este on Wednesday, asking for court-ordered DNA tests. "She is determined to go forward with the complaint," her lawyer Seong Je Park told Catholic-run Caritas radio. Other women could come forward as well, according to one of Lugo's former church colleagues, Bishop Rogelio Livieres. He alleged Tuesday that Lugo did not deny it when women in his diocese complained in writing to a Vatican representative that he had fathered their children. The Church later allowed Lugo to resign his leadership position without making the complaints public. The Paraguayan bishops' conference denied receiving "formal written complaints" about Lugo or covering up immoral conduct. Repeated attempts by The Associated Press to reach Livieres were unsuccessful Tuesday and Wednesday. Lugo's resignation in 2004 as bishop of San Pedro was never fully explained. It wasn't until December 2006 that he renounced his bishop status to run for president, and Pope Benedict XVI didn't accept his resignation, relieving him of chastity vows, until weeks before he took office in August 2008. Lugo, 57, said he would make no more comments about paternity claims after reading a brief statement this week promising to "act always in line with the truth and subject myself to all the requirements presented by the justice system." Many Paraguayans consider the scandal a black eye for both the government and the Roman Catholic Church, to which 90 percent of Paraguayans belong, but oddly enough, it may enhance his image in the "patriarchal, profoundly macho society," political analyst Alfredo Boccia said. "Lugo has given proof of his virility and that is an inherent attribute ... that a part of the population expects from its leader," Boccia said. More on Latin America
 
William Bradley: The Republican Choice: React or Modernize Top
Former McCain campaign director Steve Schmidt laid out a modernizer case to the Log Cabin Republicans, and urged support for same-sex marriage. It's been a strange week for the Republican Party, with noisy events pushing the old-time religion, a speech by a prominent consultant urging a new moderation, and back-to-the-future reactions to President Barack Obama's friendly gestures to Hugo Chavez and other critics of America. Who will prevail? The reactors or the modernizers? On the 15th, conservative media outlets like Fox News promoted the so-called American "Tea Parties" into lightly moderate success. There were a few, like the one I attended outside California's Capitol, where 3,000 made a noisy show of opposition to government, that drew into the four figures. Most were much smaller. Dominated by what I call the Talk Radio Wing of the Republican Party, the events were mini-festivals of reaction, with a collection of anti-government folks, gun enthusiasts, anti-gay rights and abortion true believers, and neoconservatives. Public enemy number one? America's first black president, Barack Obama. Think of it as politics in an echo chamber. Texas Governor Rick Perry, excited by the echo chamber activism of the American Tea Parties, brandished the threat of Texas seceding from the United States. Texas Governor Rick Perry, a rather telegenic character, sparked more controversy by suggesting that Texas secede from the union. Considering how much federal money has been poured into Texas, that didn't look like a good deal. 75% of his constituents didn't buy it. A good thing, because I'd hate to be importing my cowboy boots. This was par for the course for Perry, who appeared right after Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger told his California Republican convention in 2007 that it was past time for Republicans to get in touch with the center to avoid becoming a permanent minority. Perry disagreed with every point the once (and future) Terminator made. Then former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who lost power after trying to shut down the federal government, and former Vice President Dick Cheney weighed in again. Cheney defending torture as an effective means of intelligence gathering. Gingrich saying Obama is weak for shaking hands with Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez and offering a tentative opening to the Castro brothers in Cuba. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was very upset with President Barack Obama for shaking hands with Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. I don't know, maybe it's me, but I don't think that running on a policy of torture, or of resentment about the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, is a pathway to the future. In the midst of this stuff, the guy who directed John McCain's presidential campaign, and ran Schwarzenegger's landslide re-election campaign in 2006, gave a speech to the Log Cabin Republicans national convention in Washington. Steve Schmidt told the group, the leading organization for gays and lesbians in the Republican Party, on Friday that the party needs to be more diverse and should back same-sex marriage. It was part of a larger critique which is captured in this passage: "To state the obvious: the Republican Party needs to grow. A review of the exit polls and current demographic trends in the United States should make it clear to all but the most determined optimist that our coalition is shrinking, and losing ground with segments of the population that are growing. Whether it's with suburban voters, working class voters, college educated voters, Hispanics or left handed Albanian psychics, the percentage voting Republican has declined. Perhaps, the most alarming of these various and generally worrying results of the last election is the huge margin by which we lost voters under 30. "Having said that, it is not a foregone conclusion these are long term trends or even trends at all. They might just be the results of two lost elections, although I doubt it. And even if they do represent movement toward a center left political realignment, unanticipated events could arrest or begin to reverse them even in the near term." I think the country is center-left, has been for some time, that the reigning media trope about it being center-right was a canard. What was lacking were politicians deft and forceful enough to break through and shrewd enough not to imagine that center-left is synonymous with left-liberal. I've discussed this with Schmidt many times, who I came to know after breaking the story that Schwarzenegger was making him his campaign manager. I described him then as something of a right-wing hatchet man. Which turned out not to be entirely accurate. Some say that Schmidt, who ran a very hardball campaign into the Obama head wind for McCain, replete with rather irritating political trick plays that worked for awhile, until they didn't, is a johnny-come-lately in urging Republicans to support same-sex marriage. That's not true. While McCain continued his traditionalist opposition to gay marriage during last year's campaign, Schmidt spoke to the Log Cabin Republicans at the Republican national convention. Schmidt advised Schwarzenegger to oppose Proposition 8, which he did. He had advised Schwarzenegger to sign a gay marriage bill, which he did not. Schmidt was very enthusiastic about Schwarzenegger's efforts on climate change and in promoting the biggest infrastructure investment program in two generations. In all this, he worked closely with Schwarzenegger's gubernatorial chief of staff Susan Kennedy, a Democrat who is also a lesbian. Which was not the sort of stretch that I had expected it to be for the former Bush/Cheney war room director, as Schmidt, who is married to a former Navy nurse, has a sister who is lesbian. This doesn't mean that this one-time counselor to Dick Cheney is a liberal. He's a moderate hawk on military issues and thinks Obama is spending way too much money. But he isn't anti-government and does think the financial sector got out of control. Former Vice President Dick Cheney did an exit interview with ABC News. The truth is that his view on same-sex marriage is not only a decidedly minority view in the ranks of active Republicans, it's nowhere near being a majoritarian view in the country. Yet. The courts in Massachusetts and Connecticut found that same-sex marriage is a civil right. The legislature in heartland Iowa did the same. So, too, did California's supreme court, with the opinion written by the state's Republican chief justice. But that right was taken away with the passage of Proposition 8 last November, a victory for conservatives fueled by what the winning campaign's consultant called "the gift that kept on giving," the feckless moves and statements of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who unwittingly starred in the very effective anti-gay marriage TV ads. Whether he liked it or not. With gay marriage losing even in California, at least for the moment, it's still a long ways off for America as a whole. Though it is inevitable, just as segregation could not stand in the long run of history. So the weight of the past will hang especially heavy over the Republicans. While many may privately agree with Schmidt, a moderate conservative, the party's center of gravity is far to the right. The Conservative Party in Britain faced a similar choice. Routed by Tony Blair and "New Labour" in 1997, the Tories could stick with their Thatcherite past, and probably lose for a long time, or move in a new direction. Which was much the same choice that the Labour Party faced before the advent of Blair and his frenemy ally, Gordon Brown. They chose at first to stay the course, and the Tories have been out of power in Britain for a dozen years. It's only now, with modernizer David Cameron -- a sort of Blair doppelganger of the moderate right -- in as party leader that the Conservatives are highly competitive again in the UK. You can check things during the day on my site, New West Notes ... www.newwestnotes.com. More on Barack Obama
 
Paul Raushenbush: The Torture Memos: Dick Cheney vs. Jesus Christ Top
When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry.... These are evil people. And we're not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek. --Former Vice President Dick Cheney, February 4, 2009 [1] But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. --Jesus, Luke 6:27-31. These two opposing statements by former Vice-President Dick Cheney and Jesus Christ bring into sharp relief the contradictions of being a country that simultaneously lays claim to Judeo Christian values while going to any lengths to protect and preserve the American empire - including torture . There are compelling pragmatic questions that need to be raised about torture such as the evidence that shows that torture is ineffective in getting trustworthy information; and whether US torture practice has provided recruitment tools for al Qaida and severely damaging our global reputation. But putting these questions aside - what does the practice of torture by our government say about those of us who are American Christians and our commitment to Jesus? Some of the great evangelists of the early church were the martyrs (Paul and Stephen being the main figures) who were themselves tortured, but continue to profess what they believe. They never used violence or coercion to spread the faith; rather people came to Jesus in part because of the non-violent Christian witness of the early members. They were a strange crew these Christians who followed this even stranger Jesus who was himself tortured and killed and rose again. They espoused love in the face of hate, generosity in the face of theft, blessings for curses, and turning the cheek in the face of violence. They did this not out of a sense of weakness, but out of strength. They had been admitted into God's royal spiritual kingdom and so they granted a certain noblesse oblige of love and peace to the violent material world around them. This changed when Constantine made Christianity the official church of the Roman Empire and the church was co-opted. Members of the church began to use the violent techniques of force that had formerly been used against us - the Crusades and the Inquisition being two prime examples. George Bush and other professing Christians succumbed to the temptation of perceived expediency to employ torture in order to preserve national economic and security interests. Dick Cheney says "these are evil people" as a way to justify torture. But Christians have dealt with evil people before and Jesus taught us explicitly that evil is never overcome by evil; it is over come by Good. Plus, Jesus' final words in Luke 6 - Do unto others as you would have them do unto you - have a chilling resonance when it comes to torture. These torture documents do make me frustrated that our legal system was subverted, and our national reputation damaged. But mostly they make me fearful for our national soul. Let us practice the time-honored tradition of confession and repentance. The airing of these memos by President Obama is a good place to start, now let us continue to rid ourselves of this stain on our society and banish the barbaric and un-Christian practice of torture forever. More on Dick Cheney
 
House Committee Passes Bill To Limit Credit Card Fees, Rate Increases Top
A key House panel on Wednesday advanced a bill to crack down on credit card interest rates and fees amid signs the Obama administration will try to toughen the bill further before it goes to a full vote.
 
Jonathan Melber: The Harder They Con, The Bigger They Fall: Tribeca Film Festival Documentary On Artist Mark Kostabi Top
"A lot of people in the art world just hate his guts," said director Michael Sladek about Mark Kostabi, the one-time darling of the New York art scene whose meteoric rise in the early 80's was almost as rapid as his total collapse a decade later. Kostabi's recent attempts to reclaim his former glory is the subject of Sladek's documentary Con Artist , premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival this weekend. People despise Kostabi so much, Sladek told me, that it was hard to get anyone to participate in the film. "The second you say his name, they're like 'No. I don't like what he does, I don't like who he is, I don't want to have anything to do with it.' They think it's just another ad for him, because he does so much self-promotion." They're right, in a way: It is hard to tell if anything Kostabi does isn't just a publicity stunt. Take, for example, the game show he hosts on public access TV, where such art-world luminaries as Randy Jones , the original cowboy from the Village People, compete for cash prizes by suggesting titles to Kostabi's newest paintings. Sure, it's a "cynical conceptual art performance piece" skewering the pretense of authenticity in the art market. But it's also Mark Kostabi running around on television. In Con Artist , we learn that he wants to sell the show to HBO. Sladek was obviously not out to do a puff piece, and one of the things that makes Con Artist so interesting is its search for what's behind Kostabi's current act. Is there something new to his art, or its meaning? Does he really believe what he says on camera? Or is this just a rerun of his 80's antics, when--as Kostabi told porn-lover Robin Byrd on her public access show--everything he said was "hype and fake and not true." Although he was an exceptionally talented artist in his own right, Kostabi first made a name for himself by selling paintings he didn't paint, or even think of. He had assistants come up with everything but his signature, and, calling himself "the world's greatest con artist," he made sure everyone knew it. It was his version of extending Andy Warhol's critique of consumer culture, and collectors ate it up. He insulted them to their faces as they bought his work. He made fun of them in the press. He was funny and sarcastic and rebellious. And it worked, for a while. The film pegs Kostabi's demise to Japan's stock-market crash of the early 90's, which is true insofar as many of his collectors (indeed, many of the collectors fueling the New York art market) were Japanese. But it's also true that Kostabi insulted a lot of people during his time in the spotlight and, whether performance or not, a lot of people grew tired of it. Probably his most notorious comment was a vicious, anti-gay remark about AIDS--which he has since retracted and apologized for--in a 1989 interview with Vanity Fair. (According to Sladek, a year into the filming, Kostabi exacted an agreement from the filmmaker, on threat of shutting down the project, that the documentary wouldn't address the Vanity Fair quote or its fallout.) All of which is just background for the real story in Con Artist , which, to Sladek's surprise, "ended up having a classic comedy structure: it's mostly about a lonely guy looking for love, who's made mistakes in the past, who wants to be redeemed. His only caveat is that he equates fame with love." Watch the trailer here . Showtimes are listed on the Tribeca Film Festival website.   Jonathan Melber is an attorney and co-author, with Heather Darcy Bhandari , of ART/WORK: Everything You Need to Know (And Do) As You Pursue Your Art Career (Free Press), a professional-development guide for visual artists. He and Heather twitter here .
 
John Prendergast: Terrorists, Pirates and Anarchy, Somalia Style Top
Somalia has become the poster child for transnational threats emanating from Africa. By sea, pirates much more dangerous than their predecessors from centuries past prowl the Indian Ocean and Red Sea waterways and extort tens of millions of dollars in ransom. By land, extremist militias connected to al-Qaeda units ensure that Somalia remains anarchic and the only country in the world without a functioning central government. Until recently, this seemed to matter little to most Americans, as our only perceived connection to Somalia was the receding memory of the Black Hawk Down incident over 15 years ago, when 18 American soldiers were killed in what was thought to be a humanitarian mission. Suddenly, though, Americans have reconnected to Somalia in two distinct ways. First, the drama that unfolded on the high seas which finally led to the rescue of the American ship captain from his pirate captors has provided a glimpse into a modern day profession that most of us had thought was limited to Johnny Depp movies and the shores of Tripoli. Ships carrying oil, tanks, and other prized cargo have been taken hostage by Somali pirates, and a naval armada from Europe, Asia and North America hasn't stopped these sea-based predators. Second, at least 20 American citizens have gone to Somalia and joined jihadist militias there, mostly to fight against Ethiopian forces which until recently occupied swathes of southern Somalia. These Americans joined the al-Shabab organization, which the U.S. classifies as a terrorist group. Many came from America's Midwestern heartland, and were recruited mostly in mosques around Minneapolis. Both the land and sea phenomena have similar roots: in the absence of any state authority, predatory mafia and insurgent networks drive the informal economy, combining to extort, tax and ransom their way to multi-million dollar incomes. This reinforces state collapse, as the economic incentive remains in favor of disorder and predation rather than stability and the rule of law. In this vacuum jihadist recruitment has flourished, and U.S. actions over the last fifteen years have only fanned the flames of extremism. The Bush administration pursued a policy that prioritized military measures over political processes and state reconstruction. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, U.S. policy emerged from years of neglect to one of its most counter-productive chapters, in which American intelligence agents began to funnel suitcases full of dollars to Somali warlords that professed willingness to attempt to capture al-Qaeda elements there. After that approach only galvanized further support for extremist militias, the U.S. then supported Somalia's regional rival Ethiopia to invade, which led to an even faster rise in jihadist recruitment in Somalia and back here in the U.S. Counter-terrorism and anti-piracy efforts are both failing because they prioritize military force over state reconstruction diplomacy and real development, much more effective long-term antidotes to terrorism, piracy and insurgency. There have been fourteen distinct attempts to build a new government in Somalia in the past 17 years since the collapse of a U.S.-supported Cold War era dictator. The current effort has stumbled into something potentially successful, given the new president is a pragmatic Islamist himself, who sees the need for an inclusive process of state-building and who can deal directly with jihadist hardliners in ways that previous secular leaders could not. We can't afford to just sit back and wait and see if it succeeds. We must engage. If we do not, terrorist and piracy threats will only proliferate. The first challenge is rooted in security. The insurgency will be defeated primarily by political, not military means. News reports suggest that some Pentagon officials are advocating more military strikes inside Somalia. Airstrikes during the Bush administration occasionally took out one or two targets on the ground but inspired hundreds more Somalis to join the jihadist insurgency. Absent a state-building strategy, muscle-flexing military approaches are counter-productive for counter-terrorism. The second challenge is governance. A nascent transitional administration led by Sheikh Sharif Ahmed requires support. In our travels over the years in Somalia, we have found that the basics most Somalis are looking for are security and services, primarily education. We should start there. In fighting terrorism on land and piracy at sea, U.S. national security interests will be better secured if we aligned ourselves more with the interest of most Somalis in better security and effective governance. Helping to build the house and using the back door will be much more effective than barging into the front door of a house that has yet to be built. John Prendergast is co-founder of the Enough Project (www.enoughproject.org) David Smock is a vice president at the U.S. Institute of Peace (www.usip.org). More on Somalia
 

CREATE MORE ALERTS:

Auctions - Find out when new auctions are posted

Horoscopes - Receive your daily horoscope

Music - Get the newest Album Releases, Playlists and more

News - Only the news you want, delivered!

Stocks - Stay connected to the market with price quotes and more

Weather - Get today's weather conditions




You received this email because you subscribed to Yahoo! Alerts. Use this link to unsubscribe from this alert. To change your communications preferences for other Yahoo! business lines, please visit your Marketing Preferences. To learn more about Yahoo!'s use of personal information, including the use of web beacons in HTML-based email, please read our Privacy Policy. Yahoo! is located at 701 First Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94089.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)