Friday, May 1, 2009

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Bonnie Fuller: President Obama: Dump Joe Biden, Your Vice President of Panic, Right Now! Top
Hooray for the New York Post , which wrote an open letter to our Vice President of Panic Joe Biden on page five of the paper this morning. On behalf of the straphangers of NYC, they told him off for his wildly clueless remarks warning American citizens to stay off of public transportation--trains, planes, and subways. "I would not at this point--if they had another way of transportation--suggesting they ride the subway," he said referring to the advice he'd give his own family members now. Thanks Joe for joining in the swine flu hysteria. How nice that you and your family have the luxury of riding in the protective bubbles of Air Force Two and the Vice Presidential motorcade. Most of us average folks are stuck with regular modes of transport to get to work--yes those public buses, subways, trains and planes. Exactly what were you saying when you told us that you wouldn't go anywhere near confined spaces right now? That New Yorkers and other residents of urban areas mostly served by public transportation should stay home and grind our economy to a halt because there have been 100 cases of mostly mild flu throughout the country? As VP, can I remind you that you're supposed to be a grownup, a leader? You're supposed to calm citizen's fears, put crises like potential pandemics in perspective, not imply that people should hide in their homes, with medical masks on, preferably under their beds. What kind of wussy are you--just one heartbeat away from the Oval Office. Not one that I, and I bet 8 million New Yorkers, feel the least bit safe with now. Come on, Joe, where's your inner Churchill, inspiring us to hang tough in our darkest hour? One of the reasons John McCain lost the election was because Americans felt his VP pick, Sarah Palin, was so ill qualified to be president. They couldn't elect him for fear of what might happen if she by chance had to step into his shoes. If I were Obama, I'd sack you ASAP for those irresponsible comments spreading "a culture of fear," as one New York commuter, Brian Zwolinski. Besides, if Joe Biden is saying he's afraid--he is afraid. What's going to happen when there's a true national emergency--a future repeat of 9/11 or, speaking of swine, what if there were--horror of horrors--a future nuclear Bay of Pigs standoff? Is Biden going to be quivering in his shoes as he runs this time for a confined space--the White House bunker? President Obama--the writing is on the wall. You need a VP with unflappable courage by your side. Dump Biden right now. And I can tell you where to look for a new candidate--in the New York City subway. Any one of those straphangers fearlessly riding underground despite the fact that they might contract the new flu, has more backbone than Biden! For more on the swine flu panic follow Bonnie Fuller at twitter.com/bonniefuller More on Swine Flu
 
Arne Duncan Pledges To Stay Out Of Decisions Involving Chicago Schools Top
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who was head of Chicago's public schools, promises not to participate in any matter "in which Chicago Public Schools is a party or represents a party," and Tammy Duckworth, assistant secretary of Veterans Affairs, is barred from making decisions about the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, of which she was formerly director. (via This Week In Education )
 
Don McNay: How to Pick a Kentucky Derby Winner Top
When your sitting back In your rose pink Cadillac Making bets on Kentucky Derby Day - Rolling Stones As the son of a professional gambler, people often ask me for betting advice. Although I started going to race track before I was able to walk, I don't know much about the horse industry. I go the track a few times a year and bet small amounts. Most of my equine knowledge was gleamed when I worked on the clean up crew at the Kentucky Horse Park. I can tell you what horses make the biggest mess. Although there are people more qualified to give Derby tips, like many financial commentators, I won't let lack of expertise stop me. I came to the conclusion that I buy living in Kentucky, I needed to know how to bet on horses. I found a book called Racetrack Betting: The Professors' Guide to Strategies by Peter Asch and Richard E. Quandi. It was written by two statistics professors and not the easiest book to read. I can sum up the advice in two statements. 1. Bet on the horse that everyone else is betting on. 2. Bet on the horse to show, not to win or place. The book bases the ability to pick horses on an economic theory known as the wisdom of crowds. The wisdom of crowds concept is really popular now. It is a driving force for web sites like Google. The idea is that marketplace will move with the crowd towards the best outcome. If a horse moves from 10 to 1 to 2 to 1, it is probably a good horse to bet on. Betting to show is a practice that I follow religiously. . The professors said that betting to show will produce a winner 52% of the time. That is better than any other kind of bet. The professors hate jackpots like the Pick-6. Just like the lottery, big odds draw a lot of excitement and attention. Just like the lottery, you don't see many people winning them. The professors frown on exactas, daily doubles or any bet that exhibits large risk. Like in the investment world, the winner at race track is the person with a conservative style and discipline. When I go to the track, I don't look at the racing form, jockeys, past history or pick horses with funny names. (My mother was a sucker for horses with funny names.) I just follow the odds. I usually win enough money to pay for lunch. My father, a professional gambler, absolutely HATED my betting system. He and I would go to Keeneland every session and we never picked the same horse. He would bet $100 on a horse and lose. I would bet $10 and win. It drove him absolutely crazy. Dad liked the excitement of big odds and big payoffs. He knew everything about the horse's past performance, their breeding and who was riding them. Dad was superstitious and started to believe that my system was jinxing him. If dad ever met the professors, he would have punched them in the nose. I stuck to my system. I stick to it today. Betting to show fits with my overall philosophy about investing. Slow and steady works in the financial markets and works at the track too. For whatever reason, my system has failed me at Kentucky Derby's. The last one I remember winning was Sunday Silence in 1989. I didn't pick Sunday Silence because of my system. His owner, Arthur Hancock III, had graduated from Vanderbilt and I had received a Masters Degree from Vandy the year before. I picked the horse because of an alumni connection to a man I had never met. It was a stupid reason for picking a horse but produced one of my few winners. Thus the best advice may be to forget all the high powered systems and experts and give it your best guess. Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is the founder of McNay Settlement Group in Richmond, Kentucky. He is the author of Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You When The Lottery. Yo u can write to Don at don@donmcnay.com or read his award winning, syndicated column at www.donmcnay.com. More on Personal Finance
 
Juliet Jeske: Swine Flu and The Pork Industry Top
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Earl Ofari Hutchinson: When a Serial Killing Hits Close Too Close to Home Top
He always had a ready smile, tossed out a pleasant, even complimentary quip or two, and would often banter with me on the few occasions I bumped into him about the current events and issues of the day. The impression I had of John Floyd Thomas Jr. during the near decade he worked in the state agency I worked at was one of a seemingly engaged, curious even aware guy about issues. So interested, that he turned up once or twice at the weekly Los Angeles Urban Roundtable forum that I host. The roundtable brings together community leaders, activists, business leaders and elected officials to discuss hot button local and national issues. Thomas never said much, mostly listened and observed, and then was gone. This doubled the shock I felt at the news that the outwardly, placid, non-descript Thomas could be the worst serial murderer in L.A. history. Thomas is charged with two murders and likely will be charged with others thanks to a DNA match. The grotesque, sorry, and tragic saga of Thomas once more points up the time tested painful truism, that a seemingly benign, flaccid and even seemingly upstanding family man, can be a monster who commits heinous, despicable crimes that stir fear and terror in communities and that wreak emotional trauma and havoc on the dozens of families, friends and acquaintances of his victims. The horrific and hellish nightmare they create and the deep wounds from their bloodlust sprees never fully heal. Thomas may well be the latest monster to create those searing wounds. Thomas also points up the painful fact that serial killers can come in all shapes, sizes, and, of course, colors. Men like Thomas shatter the myth that serial killers are young, whacked out white males. It is easy to believe that. In the rash of Hollywood slasher, horror, and maniacal thrill kill films, serial killers are routinely depicted as deranged white males. The obsessive media attention on serial killers such as Son of Sam, David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and the Unabomber also reinforce the notion that serial killers are loopy white males. There was the horde of police, profiling experts, and psychologists that paraded endlessly across the TV screen a few years ago when the Beltway serial sniper killers John Allen Muhammad and his teen deranged side kick John Malvo cold-bloodedly gunned down a dozen persons, and terrorized the Washington D.C. area. The experts reflexively bought into the racial stereotype about who the killers were and why they killed. They were all embarrassingly and wildly wrong in their assumptions. All the old profiles and theories about who mass killers were had to be scrapped. Since then studies on serial killers that specifically looked at the race of the killers have found that blacks make up about 15 percent of America's rogue's gallery of mass murderers. Their ghastly killings still strike fear, dread and disgust in the communities they pillaged. During the 1980s, Wayne Williams was convicted of multiple murders in Atlanta and authorities think he may have killed even more. Coral Watts claimed that he killed 13 women in several states. In the early 1990s, Cleophus Prince Jr. stabbed six women in San Diego, and authorities in East St. Louis strongly suspect a black man is responsible for a string of still unsolved killings of prostitutes in the area. The victims of serial murderers almost always are other poor, or lower income, often single women, and in the case of the accused Thomas's victims, elderly women. They are the most defenseless and vulnerable. They are easy prey for the sick, demented, and cowardly minds of serial killers. Beneath the outwardly innocent smile of these men beat not only the heart of a monster, but our breathing stealth dirty bomb that can be planted any and everywhere and that shatters and destroy lives. For me, it's a case of serial killings that come too painfully close to home. Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, "The Hutchinson Report" can be heard on weekly in Los Angeles on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and nationally on blogtalkradio.com More on Crime
 
Tracy Hepler: Be "Meatless in May" to Help Fight Global Warming Top
Your Daily Thread and Chelsea Green have partnered up to raise awareness about the beef with meat. The raising of livestock, specifically the factory farming of animals, is a major contributor of green house gases that pollute our planet. The raising of these animals creates 18% of global greenhouse gases, more than all of the world's cars and SUVS combined. During the month of May we'll be cutting meat out of our diets and highlighting the environmental effects that meat production takes on our planet. Each of us who choses to go "meatless" will individually keep up to 420 lbs of carbon emissions out of the air. Help our movement. Take the pledge at our "Meatless in May" Facebook page and show how you can make a difference. The rules are simple for this campaign -- "meatless" means no animals (including fish). Eggs and dairy are okay. Be sure to visit Your Daily Thread and Chelsea Green all month long for tips on living meat free, giveaways and interesting debates on how we can reduce our carbon footprint. More on Green Living
 
David Souter Replacement Discussion Off To Nonsensical Start Top
With the announcement that Justice David Souter is planning on retiring from the Supreme Court to return to New Hampshire, President Barack Obama now has a momentous decision to make. But more importantly, the media has a SHINY NEW THING to get crazyfaced about, so it's time to CRY HAVOC and let slip the dogs of banality! Leading the pack, as usual, is Time Magazine internet ad pimp Mark Halperin, who frames the matter thusly : I really couldn't put it better! Will Barack Obama do anything about the historical barrier to entry that has always stood in the way of white people who just want to serve on the highest court in the land? Just look at the picture Halperin found, of a pensive and expectant white dude from post-racial stock photo company istockphoto.com. Who's going to be that guy's Jackie Robinson? Besides David Souter, I mean? Let's commence our "to be fair" paragraph by stipulating that Halperin, in actuality, is probably noting the possibility that Obama might choose to "play politics" with this pick, as opposed to Halperin attempting to make a judgment on the relative Caucasianness of rumored-to-be-on-the-shortlist Seth Waxman . Of course, this rather harsh tone Halperin is taking, toward the playing of politics, is unusual among the Beltway chatterers. When a President actively searches out the youngest possible SCOTUS picks, solely for the purpose of locking down an ideologue for the longest possible period of time, folks like Halperin clap and offer, "Huzzah, good sir, on the prowess you have demonstrated upon the field of politics this eventide!" I know it seems just so terribly unlikely , but there remains an outside chance that someone like a Sonia Sotomayor might actually be a great candidate on the merits. Don't expect that notion to get probed too deeply, though! Halperin's already laid down his marker in terms of race and identity politics. And once Sotomayor gets tagged with the term "moderate," it'll be a repeat of The Great Veep Shortlist Panic of 2008 all over again in parts of the progressive blogosphere. And other people will just show up, and say incredibly dumb things about the process, like the Politico 's Eamon Javers, who today made a game attempt to WIN THE MORNING on MSNBC through analysis: JAVERS: Sonia Sotomayor is the one who's on the top of everybody's list at this point because she's from New York, Hispanic, got an interesting background having grown up, I guess, in the Bronx. She sort of relates to Obama in many ways. Of course! Who better to relate to a New York-born Hispanic woman who grew up in the Bronx than a Hawaiian-born biracial guy who grew up in Honolulu? Maybe Javers will be able to answer that better once he nails down the guesswork involved in where Sotomayor grew up! Nevertheless, this is a pretty powerful indication of the high quality conversation we'll be having about the Supreme Court. By the way, I'll answer Halperin's "eleven real Supreme Court nomination questions" so you don't have to. The answers are: yes, yes, no, yes, yes, no (Specter never holds his tongue, Ben Nelson probably eats sand with it), WTF?, they'll try but not succeed, Rahm, Plouffe, and, "Mark, just admit you could only come up with ten questions, Jesus." [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 Photo Galleries
 
America's Most Polluted Cities: Try Breathing This! Top
This time of year, many Americans are concerned with sunburns. In some areas, they should pay more attention to smog. The reason? Though it's often invisible, air pollution is a threat to 186 million Americans, according to a new report released by the American Lung Association.
 
Steele Agrees Obama "Is The Magic Negro" Top
While hosting Bill Bennett's radio show Friday morning, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele appeared to agree with a caller that President Obama is "the magic Negro." CALLER: It's just like the LA Times said last year, or two years ago -- he is the magic Negro. STEELE: Yeah he is -- [laughter]. You read that too, huh? CALLER: Oh yeah. I read that too. And even when things go wrong, he still manages to come out smelling like a rose. STEELE: Well, yeah. And it's because he's getting unprecedented coverage -- cover -- by the media. Steele's amused reaction is somewhat surprising. When former RNC chairman Chip Saltsman released a CD including a parody song "Barack The Magic Negro" in January -- inspired by the same LA Times article -- Steele said it "doesn't help at all ... it reinforces a negative stereotype of the party." Saltsman withdrew from the race to remain chairman in the wake of the scandal. More on Michael Steele
 
Portland Mayor To SF Mayor: We're Better At Electric Cars Top
The electric vehicle smackdown has begun in earnest. Portland Mayor Sam Adams is responding to the perhaps higher-profile San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who says that San Francisco will be the electric car capital of the US . From the mayor of Portland: Portland just launched our joint City/County Climate Action Plan which aims to reduce our emissions by 80% of 1990 levels by 2050. This will take bold steps, and one step is replacing our fossil-fueled vehicles with zero emission vehicles. Portland already boasts a number of EV startups, and we're gunning for more. This industry will bring jobs, technology, innovation and recognition. And here he is, showing off: EV Charging Station Unveiled in Portland from Mayor Sam Adams on Vimeo . Earlier this week, Mayor Newsom (of San Francisco) posted here at HuffPost Green that he was excited to be racing toward electric car dominance : Now our neighbors to the north, Portland are challenging us for EV supremacy. This type of competition symbolizes what is best about our region and our country. If we were able to put a man on the moon, we most certainly can create a new generation of cars that do not run on fossil fuels. We've done it before. I owned one of the EV1's from Saturn in the 1990s. Now EV companies are sprouting up all over the country from Fisker Automotive to Better Place to Bright Automotive. Who will win? More on Cars
 
Magda Abu-Fadil: Qatar Museum of Islamic Art Bridges Cultural Divides Top
Any lover of chamber music would undoubtedly appreciate Qatar's Museum of Islamic Art , or MIA, ( http://www.mia.org.qa/english/index.html ), given its exquisite exhibits, magnificent displays and minute attention to detail aimed at featuring the religion's values and bridging cultural gaps. Mosaics with inscriptions (Abu-Fadil) The analogy can't be escaped, when one sees the choice and finesse of the works that highlight the brilliance of the artists who drew inspiration from their faith, much as intense composers like Bach, Haydn and Mozart did in their rich religious repertoires. Pages from a Quran (Abu-Fadil) Repetitive, highly structured baroque notes blended into intricate patterns woven into musical tapestries resemble the displays of hand painted Qurans (Islam's holy book), bronze pottery, terra cotta filigree candle sticks, carved wooden doors, blown glass lamps, as well as instruments used by mathematicians and scientists in Islam's golden era. Filigree candlestick (Abu-Fadil) The $300 million museum is the brainchild of the country's emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani , and his wife, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned . Sheikha Mozah, UNESCO 's Special Envoy for Basic and Higher Education since 2003, is an active member of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations ( http://www.unaoc.org /) that convened its second forum last month in Istanbul, Turkey, to forge new partnerships and generate ideas aimed at building trust and cooperation among diverse communities and religious faiths. The MIA is a testament to education, art appreciation and cross-cultural communication. According to the museum's website, the vision for the MIA "is rooted in the belief that education is the founding stone for the future of any prosperous society." Since education is multi-faceted, the MIA's first in a series of international temporary exhibits was dubbed "Beyond Boundaries: Islamic Art Across Cultures" that featured at its entrance a very prominent Madonna and child by Gentile da Fabriano (c. 1370 - c. 1427), an Italian Gothic painter. By the 1420s, da Fabriano was said to be working in Florence, where he painted a masterpiece depicting the Adoration of the Magi with pseudo-Arabic script in the Virgin Mary's halo. Madonna col Bambino c1370-1428 (Abu-Fadil) According to Sheikha Mayasa , the emir's daughter who chairs Qatar's Museums Authority , the "Beyond Boundaries" exhibit reflects the Islamic world's cultural diversity and reaffirms the notion that beauty knows no religious or political borders. The MIA's permanent collection includes manuscripts, books, ceramics, metal works, carved wood works, carpets, textiles, and, examples of scientific inventions in Islam like astrolabes and battle-proven battering rams. Scale model of battering ram (Abu-Fadil) The museum, which opened with much fanfare and fireworks to over 1,000 invited guests in November 2008, ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTnjqiF6gyY ), was designed by renowned Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei who was lured out of retirement to complete the four-year project. It was built on an artificial island 60 meters (197 feet) from the Doha corniche. Qatar's Museum of Islamic Art (Abu-Fadil) By his own admission, Pei knew little about Islamic art and embarked on an extensive trip across the Muslim world to learn about it, adding that it was one of the most difficult jobs he had ever undertaken. "The interior design clearly takes as its point of departure the architecture, but so, too, it was conceived with respect to the variety of Islamic art to be displayed, ranging from jewels to large carpets," he said. Persian engraved brass kashkul (Abu-Fadil) Nonagenarian Pei, noted for his glass pyramid at the Louvre 's entrance in Paris, and Washington, DC's distinctively pointed National Gallery of Art's East Wing , turned the equally angular structure into a repository for over 1,000 of the finest Islamic art works in the world. The MIA's airy atrium boasts a double stairway connecting a refreshingly spacious main floor with decorated patterns inspired by geometric Islamic designs akin to Mozart's highly structured allegros to the upper levels. View down toward atrium (Abu-Fadil) An elaborate halo-like structure of filigree metal overhangs the lobby to provide lighting. For avid photographers, like this writer, the pleasure of viewing all the treasures within was doubled by the ability to take pictures through display cases' non-reflective glass. According to curator Oliver Watson, Qatar's emir began collecting Islamic art for himself in the early 1990s, then gifted his entire collection to the state and ordered the construction of the museum to house the unique holdings. Carved wooden doors or window shutters (Abu-Fadil) An active acquisitions policy has followed, he said. The collections cover a geographical area from Spain to Central Asia and India with a time span from the 7th to the 19th centuries. 3-D rendition of Book of Secrets (Abu-Fadil) More on Turkey
 
Kevin Grandia: Canadian policies impacting US songbird populations Top
As a Canadian I want to apologize to all my American friends on Huffington Post about what our policies up North are doing to the cute little chickadees and warblers you see in your backyard. While those of us already familiar with the Canadian Boreal Forest are deeply aware of its ecological importance, many are still surprised when they learn how threatened it is. In addition to storing the equivalent of 27 years worth of the world's carbon emissions from fossil fuels, the Boreal Forest also acts as the summer nesting grounds for billions of migratory birds. Nearly 50% of the 700 species common to the United States and Canada rely on the Boreal Forest for their existence. Unfortunately, only 12% of this vital forest has been permanently protect, whereas over 30% has already been designated for logging and energy development. Development and human impact has taken a tremendous toll on North American birds, which was highlighted by the Interior Department's State of the Birds Report i n March. To make matters worse, a report by the National Audubon Society in February found more than half of the 305 bird species studied have moved their wintering grounds further north as a result of rising temperatures from global warming. These findings only reemphasize the importance of maintaining a healthy Boreal Forest, as declining bird populations moving further north will depend on the pristine forests for their survival. A host of environmental organizations and scientists have been working on getting the Boreal into Canada's political agenda, and two Canadian premiers (similar to governor in the US) have announced their ambitions to protect 50% of their Boreal Forests from development. But the work isn't over - neither province has put these announcements formally into law, and other provinces like oil-rich Alberta have shown little concern for the Boreal. In response, a group of environmental organizations, led by the Boreal Songbird Initiative, have started a petition urging Canadian leaders to protect more of the Boreal Forest and put existing commitments into law. They have already gathered nearly 60,000 signatures, and hope to bump that number up before its release next week. I wonder what Steven Colbert thinks about Canada impacting on his much loved American Bald Eagle? Again, apologies from the Great White North. More on Canada
 
Deborah Hobson: Ugly Face of British Policing Has Shocked Me Top
Controversy continues to rage over the heavy-handed policing of G20 protesters in London on April 1 as anger rises over the death of innocent bystander Ian Tomlinson and victims of brutality at the hands of riot officers are uncovered by big media thanks to citizen journalism photography. Deborah Hobson , Deputy Editor of The-Latest , explains why the traumatic experience has changed her view of British police. "First show a little respect, change your behaviour, change your attitude, change your plan". The "in your face" lyrics of US rapper KRS-One in his belligerent hit song Sound of Da Police rages against the illicit actions of the New York Police Department. Substitute the target of his frustration with British police and you might get an idea of the feelings felt by thousands of people "detained" like me in the open air prison that the City of London was turned into on that fateful day. The blatantly aggressive riot police chant of "Move! Move!" to the G20 protest crowd sounded like a cross between loud moos of cows and the threatening noise made by hooligans at a Millwall football ground in south London and is still ringing in my ears. The image of the snarling policeman who insisted on shoving my petite frame along a street close to the Bank of England with his riot shield is enduring. As is the damning video footage of innocent father of nine Ian Tomlinson, 47, being walloped with a truncheon from behind by the policeman who then violently pushed him to the ground moments before he died. A pathologist found massive bleeding in Tomlinson's stomach. What was our crime? Why were people who, for the most part, attended the G20 protests to peacefully show their contempt for fraudster bankers, concern for the environment and the issue of climate change as well as global poverty denied free movement and liberty for up to eight hours? I was there to report for The-Latest.com . Corralled like cattle at a meat market, I observed increasing pockets of disturbance as the hours passed and the police stubbornly adhered to their controversial, repressive tactic of "kettling"; placing the public in a small square outside the Bank of England under siege. Confining us against our will in a space with no toilets, water or food. We were forced to humiliatingly plead with our captors to set us free, but to no avail. As dustbins burned near Bank underground station and effigies of bankers swinging from lamp posts slowly turned to ashes, riot police, wearing black balaclavas pulled over their faces to make their eyes their only discernible feature, grasped their batons unmoved and unwilling to attend to the emerging dangers to everyone's safety and determined not to break their stifling cordons. I saw a number of young men, faces streaked with blood from ghastly head wounds, unable to get out of the prison to receive much needed medical attention. For the record, I boldly took a picture of one of them. No doubt if newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson had not been restricted from finding his way home after finishing work due to the bizarre "kettling" policy of police that breeds confrontation rather than peace and harmony, he would probably be alive today. In the fading light of evening, with emotions of frustration and anger welling up inside me, I spoke to Tom Brake, Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Carshalton and Wallington, who was invited to be a "legal observer" at the G20 protests by the Climate Change camp. Questioned about policing in the area around the Bank of England and the legality of preventing masses of people from leaving, he said: "Earlier in the day policing was fine but things seemed to have got bad later on. The last time this sort of thing happened there were some legal challenges brought by demonstrators but they were not successful." He later remarked that the police actions in stopping the free movement of protesters "went on far too long." I was hugely disappointed with Brake's timid comments, which hardly reflected the level of outrage expressed by us, the victims of "kettling" on the day and in later reports. Parliamentarians and human rights organisations like Liberty, headed by the current media courted darling of political talk shows Sharmi Chakrabati, have been far too slow and downplaying in their reactions to the damning photo and video evidence, largely supplied by camera wielding members of the public, that graphically exposed brutal police actions on April 1. However, in the wake of ongoing Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigations into the death of Ian Tomlinson, the police assault on Nicky Fisher and IT worker Alex Cinnane, IPCC chief Nick Hardwick has spoken out stating that the police were "servants" not "masters" of the public. Hardwick, who is due to attend the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday, has expressed his alarm over some officers suspected of removing their identification numbers. He said, nodding favourably in the direction of citizen journalism: "I think that raises serious concerns about the frontline supervision. They (the police) have to respond to the fact that they are going to be watched, there is going to be this evidence of what they have done." He added: "The number of people who had filmed the protests on their mobile phones was proving a key factor in helping the IPCC determine whether complaints made against the police had any legitimacy." I've never really been anti-police. Even after the death of my cousin Roger Sylvester 10 years ago -- the now notorious high-profile death in custody case in the UK -- I retained some faith in the police and their ability to serve and protect the public peacefully and equally. This belief was fortified a few years ago when I became a victim of an attempted mugging and was dealt with by a charming, sensitive and sympathetic local police officer. But at the G20 protests, I felt safe and oddly protected in the company of protesters and extremely apprehensive of the police. In a further ironic twist, the pathologist Dr. Freddy Patel, who at worrying speed stated after his examination of Ian Tomlinson that he died of heart attack (a second autopsy by another pathologist has found the cause to be internal bleeding) was the same doctor who initially examined Roger. Patel caused great distress to my family by making inaccurate remarks to the press about Roger's medical history . He was subsequently reprimanded by the General Medical Council. This police "rent a post-mortem result" pathologist also needs to be investigated.
 
F. Kaid Benfield: Village Green: Sidewalks Are Good for Us Top
    A large new international study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine demonstrates that the presence of sidewalks and other nearby amenities increases physical activity and fitness among neighborhood residents.  In particular, increased physical activity was significantly associated with five of the variables tested: Sidewalks on most streets Transit stop in neighborhood Many shops nearby Bicycle facilities Low-cost recreational facilities No significant association was found with two other variables, perceived crime and the presence of single-family houses (tested as a proxy for residential density).    The presence of sidewalks was found to have the highest association with physical activity, and the study also found that the presence of three or more of the significant environmental factors was associated with a higher degree of exercise than was the presence of only one factor:  "Although single attributes were associated with 15%-50% higher rates of meeting guidelines, when all six built environment attributes were present, rates of physical activity were 100% higher, compared to those in neighborhoods with no supportive attributes."  When the study was controlled for variations in levels of education, neighborhoods with multiple attributes continued to outperform those without in encouraging physical activity. Researchers looked at data from 11,541 survey participants in 11 countries, which included the United States Lithuania, Brazil, Sweden and Japan. They considered it enough exercise if individuals reported doing moderate-to-vigorous activity at least five days a week for at least 30 minutes each day. Here is a particularly sad finding: "The U.S. had the most limited access to transit stops and was the only country in which less than 60% of participants were within walking distance of shops. These findings help explain the small percentage of trips made by walking and bicycling in the U.S." "Our study had a great deal of variation in neighborhoods," said lead author James Sallis, Ph.D., a professor at the State University of San Diego. "We found that amenities were strongly related to exercise levels, even in this group of culturally very diverse countries." Go here for the Journal's news page, here for the press release, and here for the study itself. Jim Sallis has been researching the relationship between active living and the built environment for some time, and also led the long-term Neighborhood Quality of Life study , which was funded by a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health and evaluated 32 communities in the Seattle and Baltimore regions, starting in 2001. The final results of the study found that people living in "high-walkable" communities get substantially more exercise than those living in "low-walkable" areas.  Here's a short video clip ("Your Neighborhood Can Make You Fat") about the study that ran on San Diego's NBC affiliate :    Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment on NRDC's Switchboard site.  For more posts, see his blog's home page . More on Health
 
Cheryl Saban: How Do Women Measure Self Worth? Top
Does someone else need to acknowledge your worth to make it real? Do you crave outside affirmation of your value? Did we get a disproportionate amount of so-called worth from the "powers that be" because we're females, or are we generally insecure by nature about this issue? If we're basically insecure as a gender, we've been given reason to be. Imagine that you're a woman living in a country and society which denies you freedom of travel, forbids you to possess your own passport, complicates or denies your access to education and female-centric healthcare, restricts your participation in government, your ownership of property, your ability to obtain loans, to work outside the home, drive a car, or have custody of your children. Wow. Seems to me that this lack of freedom and autonomy could easily impact on your feelings of worth, could it not? Or, consider the prickly issue of how crime investigations - particularly in rape cases - are handled. The recent outrage at the backlog of unprocessed rape kits is well deserved. How could this be allowed to happen? Rape kits can provide investigators with the evidence they need to find and prosecute rapists, but yet, for some inexplicable reason, many kits are languishing, unprocessed. Does this say something about how we are valued and respected? Perhaps it's not that simple. A woman's culture, our upbringing, our environment, our religion, social cues, and our own strongly held beliefs nuance a woman's status, and ultimately, our perspective. Societal and cultural indoctrination is strong, and we continue to use a reflection of societal boundaries to assess ourselves. When the dominant governing power holds stubbornly to stereotypes, cultural mores, and antiquated mindsets, there may not be much wiggle room for women to express their worth. Despite the reflection we get from society, and even in spite of difficult, if not terrible life circumstances, our sense of self-worth is a personal journey. Though I'm a girl who grew up in the United States - a country where women have many rights, I doubted my self-worth and personal autonomy for the first thirty-odd years of my life. I faced some difficult things. I was raped when I was eighteen. I spent plenty of time in dysfunctional relationships, and ultimately had two failed marriages. I was, for a time, a single, working mother who couldn't afford health care. Trust me when I tell you, I felt powerless, humiliated, and essentially, worthless. I finally crawled off that slippery slope, but it was a difficult descent. Power and control issues are complicated for all of us, but are particularly so for women. Women who find themselves in untenable situations because of spousal abuse, power imbalances, poverty, or other difficult issues may have the right to drive, the right to go to work, and in fact have all sorts of other rights, but may lack the confidence or resources to exercise them. Many women don't think they can control their lives, and consequently, may have convinced themselves they don't deserve better. For example, thirty-one percent of American women report being physically or sexually abused by a boyfriend or husband at some point in their lives, yet only a fraction of those go to a shelter. Sadly, despite interventions, many of these women will eventually return to their attackers because they don't believe in themselves enough to strike out on their own - or, they don't have the support and social network to help them do so long term. Like the realization of self- worth, the idea that one has free will - freedom to choose, freedom to escape an unhappy life, freedom to direct one's trajectory and the power to do so, may seem as fanciful and out of reach as the summit of Everest. Still, even such a climb begins with the first step, which is why this dialog is so important. Those of us who can think freely, speak in public forums, and reach across miles and mindsets, need to keep the wheels of change in motion, and reach out our hands, hearts, minds, and financial resources to help those who are struggling. Women need to be more equally represented in the rule-making consortium to make sure female-centric needs are addressed. Regardless of cultural constraints and mores, when women take more personal responsibility for how we view, interpret, assess and express our worth, the groundswell of female opinion will eventually cause a tipping point in societal reform. And this newly articulated female narrative would ultimately affect the lives of women everywhere. Tough as it may seem, we need to realize our worth in order to actualize it. The Dalai Lama said, "According to Buddhism, individuals are masters of their own destiny. And all living beings are believed to possess the nature of the Primordial Buddha, Samantabhadra -- the potential or seed of enlightenment, within them. So. Our future is in our own hands. What greater free will do we need?" Indeed. Perhaps as young girls and women, we will be able to express that free well once more and more of us model that behavior. I'm signing up to do whatever I can. Will you? More on Happiness
 

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