Sunday, May 10, 2009

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Kathleen Savio's Mother 'Happy' About Drew Peterson Arrest Top
STONE PARK, Ill. (AP) -- The mother of Drew Peterson's slain third wife Kathleen Savio says she's happy the former Bolingbrook police sergeant has been arrested and charged with her daughter's death. Marcia Savio tells the Chicago Tribune in an interview published late Saturday on the newspaper's Web site that still, "there's a long way to go." She also says, "something good needs to come of this." Peterson was arrested Thursday and is charged with first-degree murder in Kathleen Savio's 2004 death. His fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, has been missing since October 2007. Marcia Savio says she and her husband didn't attend Peterson's Friday court appearance. She says she isn't sure if they will attend future hearings, unless they're called to testify. ___ Information from: Chicago Tribune, http://www.chicagotribune.com -ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
Hartmarx Bankruptcy: Politicians Push To Keep Obama Suit Maker Open Top
Workers at a suburban Chicago suit company, which calls President Obama one of its customers but has filed for bankruptcy protection, are getting support from the Illinois treasurer, who said Friday that if Wells Fargo liquidates the company, the bank could forfeit the state's $8 billion portfolio.
 
Gordon Marino: Wanda Sykes Punctures Cheney's Argument for Waterboarding Top
It is a truism to claim that profundities often lurk in good humor. Wanda Sykes performance last night at the White House Correspondents dinner was a prime example of the truth wrapped in a joke. Midway through her routine. Ms Sykes started railing against the very idea that anyone could defend the use of torture. "Torture" she bellowed a few times shaking her head and laughing ironically. After a pause, she turned her shotgun wit on the quail hunter- Dick Cheney. Cheney, rehearsed Sykes, wants the reports open that show that we were able to drown useful information out of terrorists by waterboarding them! That, quipped Sykes with a beaming smile and her arms outstretched, would be like getting caught robbing a bank and going before the judge saying "Yeah I robbed the bank but look at all the bills I paid!" Bulls eye Wanda! On an individual level crisis is no excuse for suspending adherence to the law. People who lose their jobs are not given a pass for acts of thefts because they are looking after the interests of their family. Suppose the economy got so bad that health clinics were closing in my community. I could not pull a heist at the local gambling casino, use the funds for the clinic, and expect the courts to wink at my burglary because it promoted the general welfare. We cannot, as individual or nations, unilaterally decide that some special circumstance makes breaking the law acceptable. If anything, the law is there as a guidewire in difficult times. It is easy enough for people to treat one another well when they are passengers on a cruise. When times get tough, people of character do not send their laws up the chimney. The argument that we should accept the use of torture because it enhances our security, suggests that rather than being the home of the brave, the United States is home to a people who will break international law and cash in their sacred principles whenever they feel seriously threatened. Cheney's utilitarian defense of torture is an insult to the people he once represented.
 
Allen Stanford, US Drug Informant? Evidence Emerges Top
vidence has emerged that the Texan who bankrolled English cricket may have been a US government informer. Sir Allen Stanford, who is accused of bank fraud, is the subject of an investigation by the BBC's Panorama.
 
Activists Press Obama To Combat Chicago Student Killings Top
Kids are dying in President Obama's backyard, and he needs to do something about it. That's what a Chicago activist group demanded Saturday as it called attention to the close proximity to the president's home of many of the murders of Chicago Public Schools students this year. More on Barack Obama
 
Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner: Mom of the Year, Naked Dogs, Talking Babies, and a National Mom Uprising Top
Michelle Obama isn't the only one flexing her right to bare arms. The millions of women proclaiming their friends as Mom of the Year this past week is nothing short of a national mom uprising. This week 7 million people viewed the MomsRising.org Mother of the Year Award customizable video in honor of Mother's Day. You can watch the video at: http://news.cnnbcvideo.com/index2.html Along with Beyonce, ponytail advice, and naked dogs, this video includes serious facts about mothers in the U.S. today. So in case you were too smitten by baby Joshy talking, and too distracted by watching President Obama sing the praises of your favorite mom, to read the text crawl at bottom of video screen, here's what it says: "Moms in this country are way undervalued - Mothers make 73 cents to every dollar an equally qualified man makes at the same job - Single mothers make only about 60 cents to a man's dollar - Those two facts, it should be noted, really suck - especially because men aren't making much these days either - Over a lifetime mothers are paid anywhere from $400,000 to $2 million less than men doing the same work due to gender wage disparity. That's a ridiculous "Mommy Tax." A full quarter of US families with children less than 6 years old live in poverty - Well duh, all these other statistics would lead to this likely outcome - Motherhood is one of the hardest full-time jobs that does not come with Social Security or health benefits - It does however come with a lot of labor as well as love." It's important to have fun celebrating moms, especially on Mother's Day. As the video says, "A big thank you for an often thankless job." It's also time to get serious about insisting that mothers are treated fairly in the work place and to demand that economic security policies for families be a top priority in our nation, including: Creating a healthcare system that works for both families and business; passing paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance; moving fair pay bills forward like the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Fair Pay Act of 2009 so gender based wage disparities can be addressed front and center; guaranteeing a minimum number of paid sick days that all people can earn each year in our nation; and making sure that all children have quality early learning opportunities, are all ways we can lower the wage gap between moms and non-moms while also helping our children and nation thrive. The fact of the matter is that our nation still needs to catch up to the modern reality that the majority of mothers are juggling an unprecedented number of roles at home and in the workplace at the same time. More than three-quarters of moms are in the labor force and families are increasingly relying on their wages to make ends meet, yet there is a profound wage and hiring bias against mothers. There are 83 million of moms in our nation--and a full 80 percent of American women have children by the time they are forty-four years old. In other words, the vast majority of women in our nation become mothers so these issues directly touch all of us in some way or another. The fact that a study last year found that women with equal resumes are 79% less likely to be hired if they are mothers--and another study found that women without children earn 90 cents to a man's dollar while mother's earn only 73 cents--show that we've got to address these issues front and center as we rebuild our nation because we all lose when such a large portion of our nation is falling behind. Let's join Michelle Obama in flexing her right to bare arms. Moms are powerful. Our voices are strong and our networks are vast. Watch the video, send it along to all the moms in your life to celebrate what they do each and every day, and then sign up to join the national uprising with MomsRising.org in honor of Mother's Day. More on Mother's Day
 
Chris Kyle: The Best Damn Sports Mom Period Top
For Mother's Day, I gave my mom a signed copy of Mike Krzyzewski's new book "The Gold Standard." Even though she's a Tar Heel, my mom likes and cheers for Coach K and Duke - and the University of North Carolina. That's unusual, I know, but my mom is an unusual sports fan. She doesn't use the word hate and she's never booed a single team or person in her life. She gets that sunny disposition from her mom, my 90-year-old grandmother, who not so long ago declared that she wouldn't be reading any more stories with unhappy endings. Why bother, she said, when there are more than enough happy endings to keep her busy? That's the kind of logic that explains why my mom is so blissfully unaware of A-Rod's nastier nicknames; why she doesn't get angry at Brett Favre for retiring and un-retiring; and why she never gets agitated by the likes of Skip Bayless and Jay Mariotti, ever. My mom saves her energy for the people and teams she likes the most. When her Boston Celtics lost to the Orlando Magic the other night, my mom sent me an email saying, "Well, it was nice to see JJ Redick playing for Orlando." She also roots for the New England Patriots but my mom never made excuses or cast blame during the Spygate scandal in the fall of 2007. She was too busy rooting for her favorite team, the Boston Red Sox, as they marched to their second World Series win in 89 years. My mom's love for all things Red Sox-related sparked a much sadder email from her on Thursday. But no, she wasn't worried about Manny Ramirez's legacy or his 50-game suspension. She was worried about Jerry Remy, the voice of Red Sox Nation, who is battling lung cancer. Maybe that's why my mom doesn't watch ESPN that much. Although he will never be the subject of an ESPN Special Report, the RemDawg is a person truly worth worrying about. Just like my mom, I've always liked him, as long as I can remember, I think. In his memoir " Trying To Save Piggy Sneed ," John Irving wrote: A fiction writer's memory is an especially imperfect provider of detail; we can always imagine a better detail than the one we can remember. The correct detail is rarely, exactly, what happened; the most truthful detail is what could have happened, or what should have. With those words in mind, I think my mom is the real reason I love sports as much as I do, although it's possible that my older brother was a bigger influence. Growing up, I was never as big or strong or fast as my brother, but I could be his equal as a fan. We rooted for the same teams and dressed up like the players for Halloween. Or maybe I became a sports fan because of the T-shirts. I like T-shirts a lot. Any sports fan who came of age in Massachusetts during the '80s remembers the "Squish the Fish" and "Berry the Bears" shirts for sale during the Patriots run to Super Bowl XX. My favorite shirt was a green and white ringer Tee. It said "Boston's Best Six Pack" on the front and featured beer bottle-like caricatures of the Celtics starting five, plus sixth-man Bill Walton. I loved that shirt so much and wore it so often that it surprises me, now, that I ever lost it. It probably came apart in the washer or dryer after its zillionth wearing. Years later I came across a street vendor at the Spanish Steps in Rome selling that shirt. It was too small so I didn't buy it. It's a decision I still regret. That same vintage shirt featured the same vintage Celts who were trailing the Detroit Pistons by one point with only seconds to go in the pivotal fifth game of the 1987 Eastern Conference Finals. "Now there's a steal by Bird," Johnny Most screamed through the radio in our kitchen. "Underneath to DJ - he lays it in... oh my, this place is going crazy!" Johnny Most's call and my family's ensuing celebration is one of my favorite sports memories, right up there with Laettner's shot, Henderson's homer, Vinatieri's clutch kicks, and Dave Roberts's steal. Although the aging '87 Celts went on to beat those upstart Pistons, they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in the Finals, but my memory of that defeat has faded over time. As my mom and grandmother would say, Boston's dramatic victory over Detroit was our happy ending that year and the only one worth remembering, and mothers know best. More on Mother's Day
 
Jay Leno Takes Show To Jobless Wilmington, Ohio Residents Sunday Top
WILMINGTON, Ohio — Comedian Jay Leno is taking his tour to southwest Ohio to boost morale in a region wracked by layoffs. The "Tonight Show" host is putting on two free shows expected to draw thousands of people to the Roberts Centre in Wilmington on Sunday. The city of about 12,000 residents has drawn national attention as a vivid example of the economic struggles of small U.S. communities during the recession. The main presidential candidates discussed its plight last year. About 8,000 workers were employed at the Wilmington Air Park a year ago when DHL Express announced it was pulling out, and about 3,500 remain. Wilmington Mayor David Raizk (RESK) says at least half of them will lose their jobs when DHL leaves this summer. More on Jay Leno
 
Swine Flu: 2,254 Cases Confirmed In 44 States Top
The number of confirmed H1N1 influenza cases climbed to 2,254 in 44 states and Washington, D.C., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday. Also, a Costa Rican man died of the flu, the first death reported outside North America. More on Swine Flu
 
Georgianne Nienaber: A Mother's Tribute to a Dead Congolese Child Top
On this Mother's Day I received the following YOUTUBE link from my Rwandan "daughter." It reminded me of all of the motherless children in Rwanda and Congo whom I have encountered along the way. I am 10,000 miles away and cannot hold them or offer comfort. Today, with an unending humanitarian crisis and the threat of more volcanic eruptions in the region of beautiful Lake Kivu, I am also reminded of a diary I wrote in January 2008 about the death of a Congolese child who was being cared for at the orphanage run by the late Rosamond Carr . Rosamond was mother to all and taught me so much about the nature of true love. She was my own spiritual mother and we grieved together over the death of a beautiful, innocent child. Image: Lake Kivu surrounded by the Volcanic Virungas (2009) © G. Nienaber .... January 28, 2008 A goodbye from a Congolese child infected with typhoid fever has stayed with me for as long as I has been writing about Africa. His exquisitely beautiful face remains embedded in memory just as a still frame bridges the action in a video montage. Frail body swaddled in frayed blankets as his dirty canvas stretcher was carried up a hill from the radiography building of the Gisenyi village hospital, the child smiled weakly and waved as he caught my eye--and I knew in that moment that he would not live to see another sunrise over the purple peaks of the Virungas. We were bonded for eternity in that instant with a glance more powerful than a lover's embrace. He had no mother to hold him in those moments, only the brown eyes of the helpless white woman who sat on his cot the day before and wiped the sweat from his fevered face. I was thirty feet down an embankment and could not reach him again, since the stretcher-bearers had no sense that this was a special dying child. They had probably born hundreds, perhaps thousands, up the hill to the fly infested infirmary that was but a waypoint before the pine coffin would hold him, safe from all pain and fever, forever. Even now, the sounds of the machetes swishing through the tall grass on the hospital grounds are a macabre white noise that, like the symptoms of posttraumatic stress, overpower rational thought. The machetes were in the hands of pink-uniformed Rwandan prisoners. Pink. The color of degradation; the scarlet letter assigned to the perpetrators of the genocide. The same arms that were swinging the smooth handled steel blades were the same that butchered one million in a hundred days almost a decade before the child began his own long journey through death. The swish, swoosh of the machetes was the child's funeral dirge. I remember this. I try to forgive but I cannot; I must not forget. Our group was on the last leg of a medical mission to an orphanage in Rwanda. The child was Congolese, found sick and alone, abandoned by all that is holy, in a forest on the Congolese side of the border. His parents were certainly dead, or dying. We had two medical doctors with us from the United States. One a surgical internist and the other and emergency room physician, both were highly competent and armed with $20,000 worth of donated antibiotics, designed to combat every super bug known to man--and to God---if there is a god--and I have decided there cannot be a god for the Congolese. If the Congolese do have a god, then I boldly curse the deity for abandoning its creation and its children as surely as mothers have been known to abandon infants on doorsteps or drop them in dumpsters. Abandonment by a selfish god is the ultimate sin against humanity. On this Mother's Day we need more moms and less gods. More on Congo
 
David Feherty Made "Unacceptable Attempt At Humor": CBS Sports Top
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — CBS Sports golf analyst David Feherty came under sharp criticism Saturday for a joke he wrote in a Dallas magazine article that suggested American soldiers would be just as likely to knock off House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid as they would Osama bin Laden. Feherty was among five Dallas residents who wrote for "D Magazine" on former President George W. Bush moving to Dallas, where the former Ryder Cup player from Northern Ireland has been living the last dozen years. "From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this though," Feherty wrote toward the end of his column. "Despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Osama bin Laden, there's a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death." Feherty is among the most popular golf analysts on television for his glib humor. He writes a monthly column for Golf Magazine, and the last of the four books he has written was titled, "An Idiot for All Seasons." CBS Sports quickly distanced itself from Feherty's writing. "We want to be clear that this column for a Dallas magazine is an unacceptable attempt at humor and is not in any way condoned, endorsed or approved by CBS Sports," spokeswoman LeslieAnne Wade said. CBS Sports is not televising the PGA Tour this week at The Players Championship, and Feherty did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment. "David Feherty is an insightful and sometimes humorous commentator for CBS Sports' golf coverage," the PGA Tour said in a statement. "However, his attempt at humor in this instance went over the line, and his comments were clearly inappropriate. We hope he will use better judgment in the future." Media Matters for America demanded an apology. "Mr. Feherty's violent comments about Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid are disgusting," said Eric Burns, president of the watchdog group. "Suggesting that our troops would attack the leaders of the very democracy they've sworn to sacrifice their lives for is an insult to their integrity, honor, and professionalism. CBS Sports should demand it's golf analyst apologize to our soldiers." Feherty, a recovering alcoholic, has been part of the CBS golf team since 1997 and has been an endless stream of comedy on the air. Last week in North Carolina, he stumbled over a line of questioning until he wound up asking Tiger Woods how it felt to be the "loser" after he finished fourth at the Quail Hollow Championship. That brought laughter from the world's No. 1 player. He has gone to Iraq the last two years over Thanksgiving to meet with the troops and deliver his irreverent humor, but the experience moved him to the point that he has applied for U.S. citizenship. Feherty is involved with "Troops First Foundation," with hopes of raising $15 million for soldiers who return wounded, many of them without limbs. He created his own division _ "F Troop" _ and last year took eight soldiers to South Dakota for pheasant hunting. "I think it was going to Iraq and being so proud of this country," he said in an interview in November. "The vast majority of Americans who haven't been outside of America don't really understand how wonderful this place is. ... And it just meant more to me, I think in the last year or so, having visited our troops abroad and spent so much time with them at home, that it will be a great honor for me to be an American." He is supportive of the 43rd president and his relocation to Dallas. "I think most of us here in Dallas would have understood if he and the former First Missus had moved someplace a little more secluded than Preston Hollow. Like Area 51, maybe, or some sandbar in the Galapagos Islands, just so they could catch their breath for a couple of years and take stock of their lives," Feherty wrote.
 
Dan Agin: Alzheimer's: Maybe Not What You Think Top
With American culture hooked to HBO cable TV the way it is, this is Alzheimer's Week. Moanings and whimperings about the sorrows of dementia will be trotted out like a series of acts in a vaudeville show, but with only some minor time devoted to the reality that if we shift the money we spend on aircraft carriers and silly wars and spend it instead on training scientists and engineers and medical researchers we might cut plagues like Alzheimer's disease (AD) down to the size of treatable infections. Yes, it's possible, but only if we really want it to happen. It's unfortunate that too many people who moan about AD don't understand that we need to spend taxpayer money if we're ever to get rid of it. Meanwhile, here are some facets of AD that many people don't know about or choose to ignore: 1) The brain of a patient with advanced AD does not look anything like an ordinary brain. There's tremendous atrophy -- loss of tissue -- with huge gaps as the folds of the brain have shrunk and narrowed and separated due to loss of brain cells. Anyone who still believes the human mind is something apart from the human brain should look at an AD brain and consider the behavior of the AD patient. The AD brain is a destroyed brain, and the behavior of the AD patient is the result of that destruction. The idea that the human mind is some magical entity that floats around inside the skull is romantic nonsense. The mind exists by the grace of biological tissue, and before long we will work out the details of how the brain produces every thought that's inside your head. 2) AD is only one form of dementia, but on autopsy about half the cases of dementia prove to be AD. The prevalence of AD for people 65 years old is 0.6 percent for males and 0.8 percent for females. But at age 90 the prevalence jumps to 21 percent for males and 25 percent for females, with about half of these cases moderate to severe. At age 95, the prevalence of AD is 36 percent for males and 45 percent for females. In America, more than half the beds in nursing homes are now occupied by patients with AD--about 2 million people. We need to consider the fact that if human life expectancy in America were to be extended a few decades without finding a prevention for AD, the majority of people who would live longer would be demented. That might be good for the nursing home business, but truly ridiculous for everyone else. Research to find a way to prevent AD should be an urgent priority. 3) So can AD be prevented? The answer is yes. AD is a neurodegenerative disease, and what we know about such diseases is that they usually involve the misfolding, aggregation, and accumulation of certain proteins in the brain. The evidence that we have suggests that accumulation of misfolded proteins interferes with events at synapses -- the connections between nerve cells -- and also causes the death of nerve cells. The ultimate result is destruction of the brain. So if we had a complete understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in the production and aggregation of the relevant misfolded brain proteins, we would probably have a good shot at preventing AD altogether -- in addition to preventing a half dozen other important neurodegenerative diseases. We need more funds for research in relevant basic and clinical protein biochemistry -- and every dime of that money would feed back into the economy as costs for salaries, medical equipment, and laboratory overhead. An important way to pump money into an economy is to fund scientific and medical research: it does do something for everyone -- including people who have a billion in the bank. So funding present research is of great importance. But my guess is that a way to prevent AD will be found by people who are now only in high school--our children. Can political blowhards come up with an argument against funding the education of the scientists, engineers, and medical researchers who will ultimately find a way to prevent AD? Is there any better way to spend taxpayer money than educating such people? We should be shouting in the streets to find a way to make certain that every kid who has a talent for it can have a free education right through to the moment when they start working in a laboratory. Such kids should not need to depend on charity and borrowed money. It's these kids that will make our future. Are we shouting? More on Taxes
 
Obama National Security Adviser Doesn't Know If "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Will Be Repealed Top
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's national security adviser says allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military is in the early discussions. But retired Marine Gen. James Jones says it's very preliminary in a very busy administration. Jones said Sunday he's not sure if the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy would be overturned, although Obama has said he wants it eliminated. Jones said the decision to go forward lies with the president. For now, Jones says, "We have a lot on our plate right now." To change the Clinton-era policy, Obama would need Congress' approval. Recent polls suggest public support but the White House faces other challenges with lawmakers, such as passing his budget and health care plan. Jones spoke on ABC's "This Week."
 
Tim Giago: A Holiday to Celebrate the Victory at the Little Bighorn Top
By Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji) © 2009 Native Sun News May 11, 2009 June 25 is a special holiday to most of the tribes of the Great Sioux Nation. It is the anniversary of the day that Lt. Colonel George A. Custer took himself and his troops into the valley of death. To ask a Lakota, Cheyenne or Arapaho, the three tribes that fought side-by-side at the Battle of the Greasy Grass or Little Bighorn, why they celebrate June 25, is like asking an American military veteran why he celebrates Memorial Day or Veteran's Day. Custer arrived in the Northern Plains in 1873, and in 1874 he led an expedition of 1,200 soldiers and miners into the Sacred Black Hills (He' Sapa) of the Sioux Nation. Six years earlier the government of the United States and the leaders of all of the tribes of the Great Sioux Nation, with the exception of the band led by Crazy Horse, signed the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 that guaranteed them the possession and security of the Black Hills, and millions of acres of adjoining lands. When Custer's team discovered gold and violated the Treaty of 1868 with the ink barely dry on it, the Treaty was tossed into the trash can of history. General George Crook, another general appropriately named, was supposed to use his army to keep the miners out of the Black Hills, but still smarting from his thumping by Crazy Horse and his warriors at Rosebud Creek, a defeat that is seldom covered in American history books, he never put his heart into defending the Black Hills from the gold-hungry miners. In fact, Crook was leading a cavalry unit to assist Custer in the event he ran into any large war parties when he ran into Crazy Horse and was forced to withdraw. Some historians say that if he had not been defeated at Rosebud Creek, he would have been in a position to support Custer at the Little Bighorn. Crow scouts guiding Custer toward the Little Bighorn were apprehensive. They knew there was a large encampment ahead, and they feared for their lives as well as that of Lt. Colonel Custer and his troops. Many history books and movies would have you believe that Custer and his men were surrounded by thousands of Indian warriors, made it to a high ridge, and made a gallant "Last Stand." The truth is that Custer made a cavalry charge into the huge camp and the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors had to defend themselves against this unprovoked attack. They easily overpowered Custer and his Seventh Cavalry and took the lives of more than 200 soldiers, including that of Custer, before the day was over. Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company mass-distributed a poster of Custer standing with his troops, pistols blazing, with hundreds of "blood thirsty" Indians converging on him. His defeat and death were probably a lot more ignoble than that. Movies like "They Died with their Boots On" became very popular in the 1940s, and George Armstrong Custer, a man who was totally undeserving of such acclaim, became a hero in the eyes of most Americans. A community situated in the heart of the Sacred Black Hills of the Sioux Nation is named Custer. Many Lakota find this the equivalent of naming a town in Israel after Hitler. Most Americans will never understand the fear and hatred that many Lakota had for Custer. By his actions he caused the deaths of many innocent Indian men, women and children, and his actions on the Washita made him an enemy of the Cheyenne and Arapaho people for life. As the irony of history is wont to do, it was a unit of the infamous Seventh Cavalry that slaughtered as many as 300 Lakota men, women and children in the Massacre at Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890. It is this horror that should have been featured in the PBS series "We Shall Remain," instead of the farcical and dishonest version of Wounded Knee 1973. Wounded Knee 1890 was the culmination of the nearly 400 years of war between the European invaders and the Indian nations. That so many unarmed, innocent Lakota men, women and children died so violently seemed to be a summation of all that preceded it. But the cruelty of what happened at Wounded Knee in 1890 is much too horrific for the stomachs of most Americans, and even in the HBO version of "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," the violent deaths of the innocent men, women and children was hidden from the public once again. George Armstrong Custer lived by the sword and perished by the sword and became a national hero because of American ignorance, and because of the shameless promoting of his career by his wife, Elizabeth Bacon Custer. She wrote accounts that praised him as a military genius, a patron of arts, and a refined and cultivated man. And so the descendants of the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors, who handed a humiliating defeat to the United States Army in 1876, will celebrate June 25 as a great victory that they still speak of with pride. (Tim Giago is the editor and publisher of the weekly Native Sun News. He can be reached at: editor@nsweekly.com)
 
Sri Lanka artillery barrage kills 378, doctor says Top
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — An unrelenting hail of artillery in Sri Lanka's war zone killed at least 378 civilians, according to a government doctor who survived the attack as shells flew near the makeshift hospital. More than 100 of the victims were children, the U.N. said Sunday. A rebel-linked Web site blamed the attack on the government, while the military accused the beleaguered Tamil Tigers of shelling their own territory to gain international sympathy and force a cease-fire. The attack marked the bloodiest assault on ethnic Tamil civilians since the civil war flared again more than three years ago. Health officials said a hospital in the war zone was overwhelmed by casualties, and the death toll was expected to rise. Reports of the fighting are difficult to verify because the government bars journalists and aid workers from the war zone, but the U.N. confirmed a heavy toll from the attack. "It seems beyond dispute that hundreds of civilians were killed overnight including more than 100 children," U.N. spokesman Gordon Weiss said. The first shells slammed into the tiny strip of rebel-controlled area along the northeast coast Saturday evening, soon after a Red Cross ship that had been evacuating wounded civilians left the area, health officials said. About 50,000 civilians are crowded into the 2.4 mile- (4 kilometer) long strip of coast along with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam fighters, who have been fighting for 25 years for a homeland for minority Tamils. Artillery pounded the area throughout the night, forcing thousands to huddle in makeshift bunkers, said Dr. V. Shanmugarajah, a health official in the region. Hours after the attack, the dead and wounded continued to pour into the hospital, he said. As of Sunday afternoon, the bodies of 378 civilians had been brought in and were being buried by volunteers, but the death toll was likely far higher since many families buried their slain relatives where they fell, he said. The rebel-linked TamilNet Web site said rescue workers had counted 1,200 civilians killed in the attack. Among the dead, was the rebels' military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan, according to TamilNet. Bodies were laid out in rows on the mud outside the hospital, some of their faces covered with mats and sheets, according to photos from the area. One small boy was stripped to the waist, his head covered in a bloody bandage and his mouth agape. The hospital was struggling to cope with the 1,122 wounded civilians. The government had recently sent medical supplies, but a shortage of physicians, nurses and aides made treatment difficult, Shanmugarajah said. "We are doing the first aid and some surgeries as quickly as we can. We are doing what is possible. The situation is overwhelming; nothing is within our control," he said. More than half the hospital staff did not turn up for work because their homes were attacked and many of the wounded went untreated for more than 24 hours, said another health official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. The shelling had subsided early Sunday, but a new bombardment began about 6 p.m., the official said. Suresh Premachandran, an ethnic Tamil lawmaker, said the assault was the deadliest attack on civilians since the 1983 anti-Tamil riots that killed as many as 2,000 people and helped trigger the civil war. "In the name of eliminating terrorism, the Sri Lankan government massacres its own citizens. It is absolutely unacceptable," he said, calling for the international community to intervene. TamilNet also blamed the attack on the Sri Lankan forces, which rights groups have accused of bombing and shelling the war zone despite its pledge to stop using heavy weapons. The Sri Lankan military denied firing the artillery and said the rebels appeared to be launching mortar shells from one corner of the coastal strip into another section heavily populated with civilians. "I think the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) is now trying to use these people as their last weapon to show the world that the army is firing indiscriminately and stop this offensive," military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said. Human rights groups have accused the rebels of holding the civilians as human shields and shooting some who tried to flee. U.N. figures compiled last month showed that nearly 6,500 civilians had been killed in three months of fighting this year as the government drove the rebels out of their strongholds in the north and vowed to end the war. The government has brushed off international calls for a humanitarian cease-fire, saying the beleaguered rebels would use any pause in fighting to regroup. Human Rights Watch on Saturday accused the military of repeatedly hitting hospitals in the war zone with artillery and aerial attacks that killed scores of people and said commanders involved in the attacks "may be prosecuted for war crimes." Meanwhile, pressure on reporters critical of the government's war effort has intensified. On Sunday, Sri Lanka deported three journalists for London-based Channel 4 television news who had been arrested on charges of tarnishing the image of the security forces after running a report about alleged sexual abuse in displacement camps. Lakshman Hulugalle, a government spokesman, said the journalists admitted they had "done something wrong" and would not be allowed to come back to Sri Lanka. However, Nick Paton-Walsh, the channel's Asia correspondent, denied giving a statement to police or admitting wrongdoing. "This is complete rubbish," he told The Associated Press from Singapore after his deportation. More on Sri Lanka
 
Nancy Pelosi Makes Surprise Trip To Iraq Top
BAGHDAD — U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Sunday for greater intelligence cooperation between the U.S. and Iraq as the American military moves to withdraw its forces from the country by 2012. Pelosi told reporters she had discussed intelligence sharing with Iraqi lawmakers after she arrived for a one-day visit. She was accompanied by Rep. Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who chairs a House committee that oversees U.S. intelligence operations. "If we are going to have a diminished physical military presence, we are have to have a strong intelligence presence," Pelosi said. Pelosi, a California Democrat and strong critic of the U.S.-led 2003 invasion, did not elaborate. On Tuesday, however, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told The Associated Press that Iraqi forces were ready to take over their own security but needed help gathering intelligence to target insurgents and prevent attacks. The U.S. is also keen to ensure that al-Qaida in Iraq and other threat groups do not reconstitute their ranks as the U.S. draws down ahead of the 2012 deadline. The former U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, told Fox News Sunday that he expected al-Qaida "will continue to try to reestablish itself in Iraq" although the terror group's senior leadership "appears to have shifted away somewhat" from operations here. Those threat groups also include Shiite extremists which the U.S. believes are funded and supported by Iran, Iraq's neighbor to the east. Tehran denies the charge. President Barack Obama has called for removing all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by September of next year. Appearing with Pelosi, Iraq's newly elected parliament speaker, Ayad al-Samarraie, said the two sides also discussed the implementation of the various agreements governing the presence of American troops and their eventual withdrawal. "We are aware that there are problems, but both the Iraqi government and parliament are trying to make use of the partnership between us and the United States in order to solve problems," al-Samarraie said. Pelosi opposed the 2007 increase in U.S. troops which has been widely credited with contributing to a substantial reduction of violence in much of country in the past two years. She has also urged the Iraqi government to make greater efforts at political reconciliation among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said that the prime minister did not discuss military affairs with Pelosi during their meeting, but rather focused on economic relations _ as well as the issue of reparations. In particular, al-Maliki asked for help with fending off demands from Iraq's neighbors for reparations dating back to Saddam Hussein's regime, the spokesman said. "Al-Maliki requested the United States protect Iraqi funds and put an end to the demands of other countries which feel they were harmed during the two Gulf wars of the former regime," al-Dabbagh added. Kuwait, which is also a close U.S. partner, still claims billions of dollars in war reparations from Iraq dating from the 1990 invasion and has refused appeals by Baghdad to reduce their demands and forgive about $15 billion in Iraqi debt. Also Sunday, Iraqi police announced the arrest of trade minister's brother, who was wanted along with several other officials for allegedly embezzling some $7 million from the country's ration program. Sabah al-Sudani was caught by police Wednesday in southern Iraq carrying large amounts of cash and two passports, in what the government is describing as an attempt to flee the country. When the security forces first tried to arrest him and other suspects on April 29 in Baghdad, guards at the Trade Ministry opened fire, allowing them to escape. The incident was embarrassing for the government, which has been begun responding to the rising public outcry against corruption. Al-Maliki called Saturday for a new campaign against corruption. Corruption watchdog Transparency International rated Iraq in 2008 as the third most corrupt country in the world after Somalia and Myanmar. But the Iraqi government has long downplayed the corruption riddling the country's ministries and hamstringing its reconstruction efforts after years of war. __ Associated Press Writers Sinan Salaheddin and Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report. More on Nancy Pelosi
 
Portman, Longoria, Padma, Demi, And More: The Lovely Ladies Of The Correspondents Dinner (PHOTOS) Top
Hollywood hit DC Saturday night for the White House Correspondents Dinner. The media elite had a hard time outshining celebrities like Natalie Portman, Eva Longoria and a radiant Amy Poehler. Below are just some of the lovelies from Washington's main event. PHOTOS: More on Photo Galleries
 
Cheney Swipes Powell, Says He'd Rather Have Limbaugh In GOP (VIDEO) Top
Dick Cheney's frosty relationship with fellow Bush cabinet member Colin Powell was a well-reported aspect of the past administration. On Sunday, however, the former Vice President took a very public dig at the one-time Secretary of State, saying he wasn't even sure if Powell was still a Republican. Asked whether he would side with Powell over Rush Limbaugh about the future of the GOP (moderation vs. doubling down on core principles), Cheney sided definitively with the brash talk radio host. "If I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I'd go with Rush Limbaugh," he said. "My take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn't know he was still a Republican." Slightly taken aback, host Bob Schieffer asked Cheney whether he truly thought Powell was "not a Republican." "I just noted he endorsed the Democratic candidate for president this time, Barack Obama," the former VP replied. "I assumed that that is some indication of his loyalty and his interest." Watch: Powell's endorsement of Obama has been a real irritant for many members of the GOP, despite the fact that the former Secretary of State is far from the only high-profile Republican to have supported the new president. While Cheney defined the move as a product of Powell's changing politics; Limbaugh has insisted the endorsement was race-based. Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter! More on Colin Powell
 
IMF: Mideast growth to slide in 2009 Top
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Economic growth in the Middle East and Central Asia could slow by more than half this year, but the region should still fare better than most others thanks to government intervention and stockpiles of oil wealth, the International Monetary Fund said Sunday. The assessment highlights the challenges facing some of the region's biggest oil exporters, which are grappling with a steep slide in energy profits. It also underlines the risk for countries like Egypt, Morocco and Pakistan, which do not have the benefit of large oil reserves and are particularly vulnerable to a decline in global trade. Masood Ahmed, the IMF's Mideast and Central Asia department director, said the region as a whole was likely to weather the financial crisis better than other parts of the world because of "prudent financial and economic management" and the ability of oil-exporting countries to draw upon hefty cash stockpiles accumulated during boom times. Oil exporters, he said, can use their reserves "to cushion the impact of the global slowdown on their own economies and the economies of their neighboring countries with whom they have growing economic links." Non-exporting countries are at greater risk, particularly if the recession dragging on the economies of trading partners in the West and elsewhere proves lengthy. A drawn-out global downturn could lead to significantly higher levels of unemployment and poverty, Ahmed added. In the report released Sunday, the IMF forecast the economy of the 22-country region stretching from the northwest edge of Africa through volatile Afghanistan and Pakistan would slow to 2.6 percent this year, down from 5.7 percent in 2008. The latest forecast is a full percentage point lower than a similar one that Ahmed made in February, when he predicted region-wide growth of 3.6 percent. He acknowledged in a speech to bankers in Dubai that the rapid shrinking of the global economy is making forecasting more difficult. "This is quite an unprecedented time," he said. OPEC powerhouse Saudi Arabia and Gulf Arab neighbors such as the United Arab Emirates have helped stimulate the world economy by pumping billions of dollars into ambitious real estate and infrastructure projects in recent years. But a prolonged global recession and weak demand for oil could strain those spending plans, as is already happening in the regional financial hub of Dubai. Faced with this possibility, these nations "need to enhance oversight of the financial system and support economic activity while preserving fiscal sustainability," the IMF said. The region's oil exporters have faced a tough time with crude prices now about 60 percent below their mid-2008 peak of $147 per barrel. Together, these nations account for 65 percent of global oil reserves and 45 percent of natural gas reserves. Surging oil prices in the past couple of years translated into stuffed treasuries. But as oil prices fell, so too did Mideast oil exporters' surpluses which, between 2004 and 2008, amounted to about $1.3 trillion, according to the IMF. Now, those countries are projected to run a cumulative deficit this year of $10 billion. That compares with a $400 billion surplus in 2008, the report said. Other factors are also weighing on the region, including the impact of declining global trade, a drop in key revenue sources like tourism, reduced foreign direct investment and tightening credit markets. For the region's oil exporters, gross domestic product growth is expected to fall from 5.4 percent last year to about 2.3 percent in 2009. Meanwhile, oil GDP growth is seen dropping from 2.4 percent to negative 3.5 percent, while non-oil GDP growth is projected to fall from 6.1 percent to 3.7 percent, the report said. The report said that despite the global challenges, many of the oil producers had embraced a variety of measures to boost investor confidence and stimulate growth, such as injecting liquidity, offering bailouts and tapping sovereign wealth funds for domestic policy efforts. ___ AP Business Writer Tarek el-Tablawy in Cairo contributed to this report. More on Global Financial Crisis
 
Coleen Rowley: What's FISHY?---PawLENTY! Top
Guess who got up at the crack of dawn yesterday morning to try and warn all the people heading out on White Bear Lake at Minnesota's grand "Fishing Opener" to be on the look-out for this Pirate PawLENTY who's known to have sworn in pirate blood not to raise taxes on the wealthy, even if it means holding Minnesotans hostage these last six years. We told all the poor Minnesota fishermen who'd listen to be on the lookout for a real hypocritical character in red driving a slick speedboat and who likes to be called "Governor" but who's doing just the opposite of what pirates used to do when they sailed the high seas: PawLENTY's been stealing from the poor to give to the wealthy! He must still think his "no new taxes" piracy is the surefire, cutthroat way to the GOP Presidency. Somebody must have heard our call because, lo and behold, after a while a colorful pontoon boat bearing peace flags and flying "Tax the Rich" rainbow colored kites came into view on the water. The colorful pontoon appeared to be trying to catch up with the Governor's speed boat all over the lake which, by now, had become nothing but a large free speech zone, without private property walls or barbed wire fences to stop the messages sent over the bow. The Pirate Governor's speed boat, to be sure, was much faster then the little Minnesotan pontoon trying to bring him to account. But even though the Red Pirate was able to continually zip away, he couldn't avoid the commoners' messages: "Pirate PawLENTY--holding MN hostage!" and "What's FISHY? PawLENTY!" In the end, Governor PawLENTY did catch his little fish and something he prized even more: a number of staged photo-ops , which was no doubt what he was really fishing for. Although the hypocrite Pirate is simultaneously poised to veto Minnesota legislators' new tax plan to fund public school education, nursing homes, long-term care facilities and hospitals and despite facing a $4.6 billion deficit in Minnesota's state budget, PawLENTY thought nothing of using poor Minnesotans' tax money to pay for the several law enforcement boats that served as his personal escort service zipping about the lake. PawLENTY's slick maneuvers have also kept his old Pirate Pal Norm Coleman's senate seat empty and from providing Minnesotans with their right to representation on the national level. Talk about holding a state hostage! And can anyone venture a guess as to what it may have cost taxpayers yesterday to bring this "Ramsey County Emergency Management Homeland Security Mobile Incident Command Center" shining like a million dollars and full of officers and intelligence analysts to the Minnesota Fishing Opener?! We hadn't heard that the annual Fishing Opener, special as it is for Minnesota, had been classified in the upper tiers of National Special Security Events so we wondered what so many of the Governor's homeland security mates could be doing inside the big patriotically decorated Command Center. Were they tasked, for example, with providing the Governor their best intelligence about where on the lake the fish were biting? Or were they just busy trying to manage the data coming in from their links to National Geo-Spatial Center satellites (links hooked up during the RNC) focused on Minnesota's other 10,000 lakes? They might have been thumbing through their recently issued " Domestic Extremism Lexicon " to find out what kind of special threat was posed by the two of us holding signs across the street, but we didn't see anyone even peep outside the windows of the "Ramsey County Emergency Management Homeland Security Mobile Incident Command Center". So heaven knows what they were up to inside. But, shiver our timbers!-- it didn't look as if the Pirate Governor's big smiling photos and fishing opener came cheap for the poor Minnesota taxpayers. Quick, let's all ask Jon Stewart's "Daily News" program to expose the piracy that went on yesterday at the Minnesota Governor's Fishing Opener! More on Pirates
 
Economic Crisis Forcing Return To Culture Of Thrift That Could Last Well Beyond Recovery Top
The economic downturn is forcing a return to a culture of thrift that many economists say could last well beyond the inevitable recovery. More on The Recession
 

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