Monday, May 25, 2009

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Jonathan Richards: Super Max Motel Top
US prisons are only accepting kinder, gentler prisoners these days. More on Political Humor
 
Stephen Zunes: Hillary Clinton's First 100 Days Top
Hillary Clinton has received mixed though generally favorable reviews, both internationally and domestically, during her first 100 days as secretary of state. Public opinion polls in the United States give her a more than 70 percent-positive rating. Still, concerns linger regarding her eight years in the Senate, during which she supported some of the more controversial initiatives of the Bush administration, such as the U.S. invasion of Iraq, criticisms of the World Court and United Nations, and defense of Israeli occupation policies and military offenses against its neighbors. Clinton has been slow to appoint a number of key officials, including regional assistant secretaries, and many of the appointments she has made have been of center-right veterans of the foreign policy establishment, many of whom were prominent in her husband's administration -- not the younger, more innovative figures many had hoped to see. Indeed, given that Barack Obama as a candidate promised not just to end the war in Iraq but to "end the mindset that led to the war in Iraq," the prominent State Department roles given to supporters of the illegal invasion of that oil-rich country have been disturbing. In certain ways, Clinton's path has been made easier simply by the fact that her boss is not George W. Bush. Indeed, the enthusiasm overseas for Obama's election has been unprecedented. Yet the penchant for unilateralism and disregard for the views of its allies for which the Bush administration became so notorious was also in evidence during her husband's administration, such as the Clinton administration's support for Israeli occupation policies, the enactment of the embargo of Cuba, and the continuation of draconian sanctions, accompanied by unauthorized air strikes, against Iraq, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. Despite this, Clinton has demonstrated that U.S. foreign policy under the Obama administration will be very different from that under Bush. In one of her first actions as secretary, she met with a large group of career State Department personnel -- well-regarded experts in their respective fields who were consistently ignored under the previous administration -- to thank them for their service and welcome their input. On her trips abroad, she has put her experience as a campaigner to work, spending as much time listening as talking, trying to shore up the image of the United States, so badly damaged under the Bush administration. Her style is far more frank and open than the conservative intellectual Condoleezza Rice or the career military officer Colin Powell. It is not unusual for a president to want to be his own secretary of state, but rarely has a secretary so badly wanted to be her own president. Despite this, she has demonstrated an ability to be a willing subordinate to the commander in chief. Despite her decidedly hawkish record while on Capitol Hill, Clinton has shown herself willing to adjust to the more moderate policies of Obama. For example, despite her harsh criticism during the primary campaign of Obama's call to negotiate with Iran, it was Clinton herself who invited the Islamic Republic to take part in multiparty talks on Afghanistan. Similarly, while in Israel, she raised concerns about Israel's mass demolition of Palestinians' homes and construction of new settlements in the occupied West Bank. While referring to policies that constitute flagrant violations of international humanitarian law and a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions as simply being "unhelpful" is certainly an understatement, this was still more criticism of Israel than she ever said publicly during her eight years in the U.S. Senate. Still, while most of the international community recognizes that a unified Palestinian Authority -- which would include moderate members of Hamas -- is necessary for the peace process to move forward, Clinton told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on that same trip that a coalition government with a party that does not recognize Israel's right to exist would be unacceptable, even threatening to cut off all humanitarian aid. By contrast, she has expressed no similar concern that Israel's new coalition government is dominated by hard-line parties that oppose Palestine's right to exist, and has even pledged to continue sending billions of dollars in unconditional military and economic aid to that right-wing government. Human-rights activists were disappointed in her deliberate downplaying of human-rights violations during her visit to China. And she has had awkward moments during her travels responding to questions about U.S. military bases, now in more than 130 countries around the world. Yet she has also emphasized the importance of "soft power" -- the use of America's political, diplomatic, economic and human capital to advance the country's strategic interests -- rather than reliance primarily on military means. She has stressed the need for international action to fight climate change. And she gained the respect of many in Latin America by acknowledging, during a trip to Mexico, U.S. culpability in the violence in the northern part of that country resulting from the insatiable appetite of Americans for illegal drugs. Unfortunately, the fundamental problems with U.S. foreign policy in the early 21st century, rooted in hegemonic aspirations and imperial designs, go far beyond what Secretary of State Clinton or even President Obama can change on their own. Even the most enlightened foreign affairs minister or prime minister in 19th-century London could not fundamentally change the character of the British Empire. For those of us desiring a more radical change in the United States' role in the world, we cannot simply hope for change emanating from Washington. Instead, we must recognize our responsibility as citizens to bring about the change ourselves. This article originally appeared in the May 11, 2009 edition of the National Catholic Reporter. More on Obama's Cabinet
 
Dr. Johnny C. Benjamin: We Miss you Ed Bradley... It's Time for CBS to Step Up and Diversify 60 Minutes Correspondents Top
I've grown up with 60 Minutes and continue to enjoy and anticipate each new episode. In this world overrun by reality programming -- more appropriately described as general foolishness -- intelligent journalism addressing provocative issues is very much appreciated but apparently a dying art form. Unfortunately, I have a serious problem with the show that I respect so much. Since the untimely death of Ed Bradley in November of 2006, CBS has been either unwilling or unable to secure another regular correspondent of African American descent. Every week as I faithfully tune in, I listen to the upcoming features and view the familiar roster of correspondents. Over and over they introduce themselves with the refrain "I'm ..." For two and a half years I have patiently waited for another African American person to be elevated to the pantheon of intelligent television journalism. Week after week and month after painful month, I anxiously watch in hopes of seeing a shining new face. How can CBS not appreciate the importance of diversity? To watch a roster of entirely white men and women is more than a bit difficult for me to reconcile in 2009. More accurately, it stings. I find myself asking, 'why this obvious lack of representation?' ... instead of fully enjoying the subject matter at hand. Ed Bradley was an icon in the Black community. His intelligence, eloquence, deportment and cool were a beacon of hope for many people. When Black men were far more likely to be depicted on television as pimps, drug dealers, thugs and ne'er-do-wells in general, Ed Bradley was more than a role model for young men like me. He was a hero. Ed Bradley asked questions and engaged subject matter that was meaningful to the minority community. But more importantly he did it in the majority world. He was not the correspondent that merely covered Black issues. Ed Bradley probed powerful and relevant people, mostly white, in a manner that was virtually never displayed then and rarely seen now. The recurring images of an intelligent and articulate black man engaged in meaningful discussion with figures of national and often international importance were more than inspirational. They were educational. His well televised presence inspired Black America to believe in the potential reality of equality, while simultaneously educating White America to the promise of opportunity. Ed Bradley was allowed access to the living rooms of America that until then had been mostly off limits. He did not protest nor picket. He quietly excelled and gained entrance with ability and dignity. Why is the message any less relevant today? Why hasn't CBS secured one of the many qualified Black and Hispanic journalists to represent a more culturally diverse America? Or better yet, why have they chosen not to? Children need the inspiration and America needs the continuing education. More on CBS
 
Study On Supreme Court Questions: The Side That Gets More Questions Is More Likely To Lose Top
A few years ago, a second-year law student at Georgetown unlocked the secret to predicting which side will win a case in the Supreme Court based on how the argument went. Her theory has been tested and endorsed by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and has been confirmed by elaborate studies from teams of professors. "The bottom line, as simple as it sounds," said the student, Sarah Levien Shullman, who is now a litigation associate at a law firm in Florida, "is that the party that gets the most questions is likely to lose." More on Supreme Court
 
Radio Canada's Obama Assassination Joke Draws Heavy Criticism Top
Canada's public broadcaster was wrong to show a skit that joked about the possible assassination of President Barack Obama and suggested he could be a thief, an industry panel ruled on Monday. More on Barack Obama
 
Chris Weigant: Memorial Day For Flu Victims Top
On a lonely hill outside the small town of Cobh, Ireland (pronounced: "cove"), is a mass grave marked by three somber headstones. As mass graves go, it's a fairly small one; holding not tens of thousands or even thousands, but merely a few hundred bodies. But the relative size of the grave on the scale of human misery is beside the point -- because while few, their deaths had monumental consequences for America. The dead were civilians, not soldiers (more on them in a minute). But their deaths deserve memorializing today just as much as those we remember who wore the uniform of our country. Because this is the final resting place of the people onboard the Lusitania . Cobh itself is a town steeped in history, mostly because of its geography. It is situated next to what is reputed to be the second-largest natural deepwater harbor in the world (Sydney's, the residents will grudgingly admit, is larger). Meaning it was the last port of call for the great oceangoing ships of a century ago. For instance, Cobh was the last port of call for the Titanic (where Leo DiCaprio boarded, in the film of the same name -- although, due to the English propensity for renaming everything in sight to suit their fancy, it was called "Queenstown" at the time). And, earlier, it was the departure point for millions of Irish emigrants. There is a statue in Cobh depicting the first person processed through America's Ellis Island; a young Irish immigrant girl, with her brothers (a copy of this statue stands on Ellis Island, as well). But although the town of Cobh itself cheerfully welcomes tourists with more than the usual amount of Irish charm, the graveyard which lies outside the village is not a cheerful place at all. There are individual headstones for the officers of the Lusitania , but most of the passengers were never identified and their final resting place is a grim reminder of the event which caused America to enter World War I. Which brings us to remembering America's military. After 128 American civilians were killed in the sinking of the Lusitania , America mobilized over four million men for the fight in Europe. Almost 120,000 of them would wind up in graves themselves rather than returning to their homes. But what many do not realize about this stark death toll is that over half of American military fatalities happened not on a battlefield, but instead due to the Spanish Influenza worldwide pandemic of 1918-1919. While estimates of the war dead and the cause of their deaths vary (due to the age and non-mechanical nature of the records involved), the Department of Defense official tally is 116,516 fatalities (53,402 killed in action, 63,114 non-combat fatalities). More American soldiers were almost certainly killed by the flu than by enemy bullets, in other words. The young men mobilized for the war effort were sent to boot camps in America for their training, before being sent "over there." This had the effect of drawing together large groups of people from all over America (in an age where travel was much less common than today, to put it mildly), and housing them in close quarters with minimal facilities. Exactly what you should not do in the middle of a pandemic, in other words. Thrown together in this fashion, the flu virus ran rampant among the new troops. Many of our war dead never set foot in Europe, because they were dead long before their fellow recruits ever were deployed. The Spanish Influenza was an abnormally quick killer, with infected people sometimes dying within hours of contracting the disease. And one of the most susceptible groups of people were the young -- people in their twenties or teens. Meaning the virus was particularly deadly to our troops. The reason I have chosen to remember them today is that they deserve every single bit of respect and memorialization as the American fighting men who died in the trenches in Europe. Through no fault of their own, they were struck down by a microscopic killer before they had the chance to stand shoulder to shoulder with their fellow troops under fire. Their country called, they heard the call, and they answered. And they made the ultimate sacrifice for it. Without getting into the history and/or morality of America's involvement in World War I (since today is not the day for such arguments), I have been thinking about these military flu victims for a while now, ever since the "swine flu" hype in the news recently. I was surprised, when I sat down to write this, to find a story from CNN about the World War I American flu deaths. In it, they quote (from letters home) Martin Aloysius Culhane's first-hand account of what the boot recruits were going through: "Since noon today our camp has been under quarantine to prevent an epidemic of Spanish influenza. We have had no cases thus far but it is the intention of the medical officers to prevent any case of the disease from making an appearance. All the men who have even slight colds have been put into separate barrack which, of course, were immediately christened 'the TB ward' by the rest of the company." This was from a letter dated September 28, 1918. By October, Culhane had caught the flu himself, and had recovered. He then wrote home asking a friend to attend a mutual buddy's wake who had succumbed to the flu's scourge (Culhane would survive getting the flu twice , and would later return home without ever being shipped over to Europe): "...the death of a very good friend, my Bunkie, Thomas Birdie. His body will go north today, I think. At his side, say a few prayers for the repose of his soul." Today, while memorializing all the fallen in America's wars over the centuries, let us also remember the ones who were cut down before they even made it to the battlefield. Because the service of those killed by a lethal virus should be seen with just as much respect -- and deserves just as much honor -- as the ones killed by human enemies.   Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com   More on Leonardo DiCaprio
 
Janice Taylor: 9 Happy Weight Loss Tips from the Patron Saint of Permanent Fat Removal Top
Our Lady of Weight Loss, the patron saint of permanent fat removal (she who guides me) takes a light approach to weight loss. It is her mission to make weight loss fun. She asked me to share the following with you. Tips that will up your energy, keep you focused and help you to happily melt the fat away! Nine Tips to Happiness Centered Weight Loss 1. Balance : Permanent weight loss is about living a balanced life. It's about looking at all areas of your life -- physical health, mental health, relationships, finances, career, fun, creativity, spirituality, physical environment, time -- and creating them so that they support you to have the best life ever. Focusing only on weight loss will not serve you well. You may lose it; but without creating balance in all areas of your life, you will in all likelihood find it again. We're talking permanent weight loss here! 2. Commitment : Make a commitment to you , all of you, every aspect of you. Losing weight won't fix what's wrong with your finances. Gathering buckets of money won't help you to lose weight. Commit to giving yourself the best life that you can. Do this for you and your body! 3. The Scale: Do not get hung up on the number on the scale. Do you know what the scale really measures -- scientifically that is? Every object in the universe with mass attracts every other object with mass. (Some more massive than others!) Therefore, there is a pull -- a force -- an attraction between you and the Earth. Your bathroom scale measures gravitational pull! Nowhere in scientific date -- that I could find -- does it state that the scale measures hideous fat . Nor does it say that you are bad ! 4. Visioning : Envision your compelling future. What would you ultimately like your life to be like? See every detail. From where you would live, what you would do, what you are wearing! See, feel, hear and smell (if you can! Perhaps the honeysuckle in the air; or the slicing of a lemon.) Every aspect of this clear picture. Write it down. And now make it come true. One step at a time. 5. Safe Haven : Keeping your home clear of the Devil's Food, red light items, things that send you off on a binge is essential! Making your home a safe haven affords you an opportunity to establish healthy, solid habits. It is essential that you create an environment that supports your permanent fat removal efforts; a place where you are as free as possible from excessive food thoughts. 6. De-Clutter. I've been both organized and disorganized, I can tell you the 2nd is the better way. Not only do you not waste time endlessly searching for stuff, but there's a mysterious calm one finds in organization. 7. Be Imperfect . There is no need to be perfect. It would be unbelievably boring if we were perfect. So dry, unpleasant, Stepford Wife-like that we would seek imperfection. Revel in your imperfection. 8. Be Your Passion . Jump head first into the thing you love to do the most. As they say, "Do what you love and the money will follow." Our Lady of Weight Loss says, "Jump headfirst into passion and the fat cells will melt!" Life will improve in ways you never imagined. You will be focused on what you love, feel less-stressed, be more productive, procrastinate less. The energy will shift dramatically. Can you feel it now? 9. Wake Up. You are 25 times more open to suggestion as you wake. Pay attention to what thoughts first surface, and if these first thoughts are not helpful, simply turn them around. Repeat your positive thought(s) a few times. Hold on to those good feelings for a moment or two. And then, 'see' the thought and imagine carrying this thought with you throughout the day. Spread the word ... not the icing. ____________________________________ Janice Taylor is a Life & Wellness Coach, the author of Our Lady of Weight Loss and All Is Forgiven, Move On. Visit Janice: Our Lady of Weight Loss Janice's Beliefnet Blog . Janice LIVE at Omega Holistic Institute "Janice Taylor is a certain kind of kooky genius." ~ O , the Oprah Magazine "mindful eating in humorous yet earnest style . . . ." ~ the New York Times. More on Food
 
Appa, Sherpa, Warns Mount Everest Glaciers Melting From Global Warming Top
KATMANDU, Nepal — A Sherpa from Nepal who holds the world's record for scaling Mount Everest said Monday the planet's highest peak was littered with trash and warned that its glaciers were melting because of global warming. Appa, who like most Sherpas goes by only one name, scaled the peak last week not to draw attention to his own amazing feat _ he has now climbed Everest a record 19 times _ but to the impact that global warming is having on the majestic site. Glaciers are melting at an alarming rate, creating lakes whose walls could burst and flood villages below. Melting ice and snow also make the routes for mountaineers less stable and more difficult to follow. "We have only one Everest, we need to clean it, protect it," said Appa, who flew back to Katmandu on Monday after reached the 29,035-foot (8,850-meter) summit last Thursday for the 19th time. "The warming temperature is increasing the volume of glacial lakes." One aim of Appa's expedition was to help clean up the mountain. The climbers brought about 11,000 pounds (5,000 kilograms) of garbage from the higher slopes to base camp. The trash will eventually be carried down by porters and yaks. Mountaineers in the past habitually left behind their climbing gear, tents, empty oxygen bottles and food wraps _ leading to Everest being dubbed the "world's highest garbage dump." Now, however, climbers are required to bring down what they take up the slopes. The Nepalese government withholds the security deposit of climbers who violate the rule. Appa, 48, placed a banner at the summitt last week that read, "Stop Climate Change _ Let the Himalayas live," to urge the world to take action against global warming. ___ On the Net: Appa's expedition Web site: http://www.ecoeverest.net.np/ News about Everest: http://www.mounteverest.net More on Climate Change
 
Brad Balfour: Q&A: Actor Geena Davis Got An Oscar And Makes Accidents Happen Top
Every film festival yields an unexpected treat and this year's Tribeca Film Festival is no exception. With the premiere of Accidents Happen, the 51 year old actor Geena Davis steps into the spotlight again, this time by doing a quirky little indie--the feature directorial debut of composer and short filmmaker Andrew Lancaster --shot in Australia but set in the 1980s Connecticut. For this Oscar winner, her startling and starring reappearance makes for a snappy and sharp-witted comeback. At a time when dysfunctional moms seem to dominate the news and daily talk shows, Davis plays a flippant Gloria Conway, the maternal head of a decidely distraught suburban family traumatized by a fatal auto accident in which one of the kids is killed and another is brain damaged. Though partially responsible, 15-year-old Billy (Harrison Gilbertson) has become the de facto glue that barely holds together his bitter mom, distant brother (Harry Cook), and disaffected, disenfranchised dad (Joel Tobeck). When Billy starts to act out his anguish, things change for him and his family in this visually provocative, wry drama. Having been once married to such arch personalities as actor With a career that has had her playing the first female president, Mackenzie Allen in Commander in Chief (a short-lived but critically appreciated television series) as well as a feminist culture hero in Thelma and Louise, the still svelte six-footer has established her range and smarts. Once she had been tapped to be in Tootsie, she soon proved her versatility and has done over-wrought adventure films ( Cutthroat Island ), crime-noir ( The Long Kiss Goodnight ), comic-drama ("A League of Their Own") arch sci-fi (David Cronenberg's The Fly remake) a Tim Burton film ( Beetle Juice ) and won an Oscar for The Accidental Tourist. During a small roundtable at the Fest, she spoke about a return to film--Aussie style. Q: You went to Australia to essentially make an American film. GD: Well, it struck me as odd, definitely. It was like, "Why aren't we shooting this in Connecticut?" But it actually turned out great. We wouldn't have had these incredible actors, and it was fun. I love Sydney. I love Australia. I always say that if I had to move I would move to Sydney. I loved it there. Q: What kinds of adventures did you have there? GD: Well, some run-ins with emus [Australian Ostrich-like birds] and there were some koala [bears] that were jumping out of the trees at me. We went to play bingo in Maroubra [a beach-side suburb of Sydney]. Q: Bingo? GD: Bingo. We went to the bingo hall and there was a bingo parlor near where Sarah lives. It's this little kind of crummy building and in the basement. We went, and it was all old people. Instead of chips they had these stamp things, like you stamp a little dot. Q: Did you play for money? GD: Yeah. And we won. I got a $20 voucher. It was fantastic. Q: Did you eat any weird foods while in Australia? GD: Foods? No. I have to say that for someone coming from and living in L.A., Sydney [offers] the least culture shock you could possibly encounter in going to a foreign country. It's like L.A. only a little askew. They drive on the other side of the road, but you don't have to figure out, like, "How do I take the subway..." or "What's the money?" Q: Did you have any Australian wine while you were there? GD: Oh, yeah, I love Australian wine, actually. Q: The culinary scenes in the film were fun--especially that mysterious mixture. What were you actually eating? GD: It was like canned stew. It was fine and tasted good. Q: Were you the only American in the cast? GD: Yeah. Q: Did these old cars bring back any memories for you? GD: Oh, yeah. The prop guys were keen on teaching me to drive the car that I drove. I was like, "Are you kidding? This is what my parents had. I've driven this kind of car a couple of times." Q: How was it working with all those young Australian actors? GD: All these guys are so sweet, like the sweetest guys on earth. When we first met, one of the very first things that we did was to have a read-through around the table. I was sitting next to Harry [Gilbertson] and there's a word that's not in the movie anymore, a profoundly vulgar word that he had to say. We get to that scene and it's coming up, and he says the line and says the word sort of quietly and goes, [whispering] "Sorry." I think he might've even gone, "Sorry, Mrs. Davis." Q: How did they feel about meeting you? GD: Later they told me that they were so nervous about meeting me. I thought, "Oh, I really should've been like, 'It's Mrs. Davis, please...' just to torture them a little bit [laughs]. But they were nervous enough. Q: You didn't call them on their American accents and make sure they were good? Did they keep you fooled? GD: They were good, very good. They did a great job, really. Q: How did the role you played personally resonate with you? GD: I always feel like when I play a character, you just have to find that part of yourself instead of imposing something from the outside. So I had to find a part of me that could relate to feeling helpless and lost, but try to cover for it and try to rise above it and put up a shield. I think it's something that people can easily do to a lesser degree. I think it's just how big the circumstances are, how much you're forced by self-preservation in that particular way--denial and blocking and blaming other people. Q: How was your character's guilt different from the other character's guilt? GD: I think she feels horribly, horribly guilty about it. Her way of surviving was partly to put it on her husband, and try to force others to carry the burden and develop this sort of defense mechanism of outrageous language and vulgarity and brash personality as a way to keep people away. Also, it's from facing her own pain. Q: Why is she guilty? GD: Well, I'll [won't] tell you in specifics [or it might ruin the movie], but I think that in general, any mother--if anything happens to their kid, it doesn't matter what the circumstance was--you would always feel like, "If I hadn't let them be there, if I hadn't..." There's nothing worse than having your child die. I think it's that. I imagined that she was going over that situation--that I was needling everybody and was yelling at the kids and so they fought. I didn't tell him enough to slow down, and all of those things that just probably wrack your life forever. Q: Was this film specifically designed for you? GD: No, not specifically. Q: You've done television, big studio films, and now independent films. How do those experiences contrast--for a while you were in the television arena and now doing this opens must open up a whole range of new opportunities... GD: Well, I hadn't avoided independent films. It just somehow never happened. I never got offered a part in an independent film that I wanted to do. So it's not like you made it sound, that I'm now in my independent film phase [laughs]. I don't know what'll happen. I would be happy to do more. Q: How different was this experience from working in television? GD: I don't find any of them that different. This was actually a lot like TV in that you shoot so much faster, so many more pages a day than a pricey film. But I like all mediums. I don't really do plays, but as far as TV and films and everything, I like them all. It's really just what the part is. I didn't notice...it didn't have pop-outs, my trailer. It's true. I did notice that [laughs]. But what I'm saying is that it was very similar. Q: How has your training as an athlete shaped your training as an actor? GD: It had a more personal impact on me, a more real-life impact than acting, because I'd been so un-athletic, and was sure that I was uncoordinated until I got cast in A League of Their Own and had to learn [how to play] baseball. The coaches were like, "You're picking this up fairly fast." I was like, "I have untapped athletic ability!" Then I did some action movies. That spurred me to take up archery, and I became a sort of fanatic about that [to the point where she became a women's Olympic archery team finalist in 1999 but failed to qualify]. So it changed my feeling about my body and my physical abilities a great deal. What I didn't realize until later is that competing in tournaments was so satisfying. But I think it's because it's the exact opposite of having a movie review, which is utterly subjective. It doesn't matter what you wore to the tournament. It's the points--did you hit the bull's-eye or not--and that's very satisfying. You can look at it and count instead of wondering. Q: Do you still do it? GD: I haven't lately because of the kids. I've been busy, but it's not age dependent so I think I can take it up again at another time. Q: Since you've never done that before, what would bring you to the stage? GD: I don't know, maybe a big musical. Q: What's next for you? GD: I don't know yet. Q: You don't have anything coming up? GD: Listen, I've never known what I'm going to do next when I finish one thing. I don't know how people do that. I'm always like, "Sharon Stone has four movies." She's got this in the can and then this... But that's never ever happened for me. I never know. I guess I just take a long time. Q: I'd like to see you kick ass one more time, so do another action film. GD: Believe me, I would love to. Q: What's been the best accident that's ever happened to you and why? You met your husband in an interesting way--is that true? GD: Oh, that's true. That's probably the biggest accident that happened. I met my husband because my dog bit him on the ass. I said, "Hey, who's that? Bite him." No. The only reason that I met him and spoke to him was because he wanted to tell me that my dog had bit him. I left it at a friend's house, and he was a mutual friend who walked in to say hi to his friend and there [the dog] was. She had decided to guard the house, and chased him out over the fence. Q: Did he need stitches? GD: No. Q: Was it a pit bull? GD: No, an Irish Water Spaniel. Very sweet and soft, but she got possessive about the house. Q: How are they now, your husband and the dog? GD: Well, she fell in love with him [Dr. Reza Jarrahy with whom she has three kids]. She just absolutely fell in love with him. Q: It's kind of like The Accidental Tourist. GD: There's a doggish thing going on there... Yeah. More on Australia
 
Dr. Tian Dayton: Five Easy and Fast Stress Busters Top
Welcome back. Hopefully over the holiday weekend you remembered what it feels like to be relaxed. You may have wondered "is all this stress really worth it?" Or, "how can I hang onto some of this lovely, relaxed feeling that I am experiencing." Well here are a few short and sweet techniques to help you to do just that! Try these not only as stress busters but as part of daily relaxation moments. Taking an extra few minutes for yourself throughout your day to manage stress before it builds is good for everyone concerned! So: When you have 1 minute Place your hand just beneath your navel so you can feel the gentle rise and fall of your belly as you breathe. Breathe in slowly. Pause for a count of three. Breathe out. Pause for a count of three. Continue to breathe deeply for one minute, pausing for a count of three after each inhalation and exhalation. Or alternatively, while sitting comfortably, take a few slow deep breaths and quietly repeat to yourself "I feel" as you breathe in and "relaxed and peaceful" as you breathe out. Repeat slowly two or three times. Then feel your entire body relax into the support of the chair. When you have 2 minutes Count down slowly from ten to zero. With each number, take one complete breath, inhaling and exhaling. For example, breathe in deeply saying "ten" to yourself. Breathe out slowly. On your next breath, say "nine," and so on. If you feel lightheaded, count down more slowly to space your breaths further apart. When you reach zero, you should feel more relaxed. If not, go through the exercise again. When you have 3 minutes While sitting down, take a break from whatever you're doing and check your body for tension. Relax your facial muscles and allow your jaw to fall open slightly. Let your shoulders drop. Let your arms fall to your sides. Allow your hands to loosen so that there are spaces between your fingers. Uncross your legs or ankles. Feel your thighs sink into your chair, letting your legs fall comfortably apart. Feel your shins and calves become heavier and your feet grow roots into the floor. Now breathe in slowly and breathe out slowly. Each time you breathe out, try to relax even more. When you have 5 minutes Try self-massage. A combination of strokes works well to relieve muscle tension. Try gentle chops with the edge of your hands or tapping with fingers or cupped palms. Put fingertip pressure on muscle knots. Knead across muscles, and try long, light, gliding strokes. You can apply these strokes to any part of the body that falls easily within your reach. For a short session like this, try focusing on your neck and head. • Start by kneading the muscles at the back of your neck and shoulders. Make a loose fist and drum swiftly up and down the sides and back of your neck. Next, use your thumbs to work tiny circles around the base of your skull. Slowly massage the rest of your scalp with your fingertips. Then tap your fingers against your scalp, moving from the front to the back and then over the sides. • Now massage your face. Make a series of tiny circles with your thumbs or fingertips. Pay particular attention to your temples, forehead, and jaw muscles. Use your middle fingers to massage the bridge of your nose and work outward over your eyebrows to your temples. • Finally, close your eyes. Cup your hands loosely over your face and inhale and exhale easily for a short while. When you have 10 minutes Try imagery. Start by sitting comfortably in a quiet room. Breathe deeply for a few minutes. Now picture yourself in a place that conjures up good memories. What do you smell --the sweet scent of flowers on a summer's day, crisp fall air, the wholesome smell of baking bread? What do you hear? Drink in the colors and shapes that surround you. Focus on sensory pleasures: the swoosh of a gentle wind; soft, cool grass tickling your feet; the salty smell and rhythmic beat of the ocean. Passively observe intrusive thoughts, and then gently disengage from them to return to the world you've created. Try making these a part of your daily routine for a week, done regularily and throughout the day you just may see a difference, you may actually accumulate less stress by intervening on it before it has a chance to build. Good luck!
 
Bradley Burston: In Israel, Adam Lambert Would Have Won Top
If it had been up to Israelis, American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert would have won. Not because he's Jewish. Because he can sing. Israelis keep asking me why Adam Lambert, whose gargantuan talent clearly places him in the category of Touched By God, didn't win. Here is one reason: Because many, many Americans don't want to think that God works that way. I should state at the outset that is not a column about music. This is, at heart, about deviance, and how societies respond to the deviants in their midst -- whether with fascistic denial ["In Iran, we don't have homosexuals"], or with an unease that spurs them to seek desperate refuge in the bland. Seldom has a singing contest been so clear-cut a case of no contest. In a final duet alongside eventual winner Kris Allen, Adam Lambert sang him off the stage. And no one knew that better than Kris Allen. So what was it about Lambert that moved tens of millions of Americans to make sure that he would not win? Some, at least, decided to take a stand. It was time to cast a vote against deviant behavior. Against men who keep their eyeliner thick and their sexual preference determinedly indeterminate. Against a polite, generous, fearsomely gifted deviant. When the internet brimmed with photos of what appeared to be a femme Adam kissing men, his response was one which triggered every trip wire of passive-aggressive American grundyism. "I have nothing to hide," he said. "I am who I am." Through no fault of Kris Allen's, who, by all accounts, is exactly the unassuming, more-surprised-than-anyone small town Arkansas guy he appears to be, many Americans seem to have viewed him as holding the fort against the darkness of diversity and/or non-Christianity. "The battle of good versus evil, dark versus light, played out in the context of a culture war," wrote Danielle Bergin in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal. "The nation's conservatives changed the game by voting their conscience, not their common sense. And in the end, Idol viewers proved that they're not that interested in the best singer. They don't even care about electing a star. All that matters is that they get to worship their Idol, the one who is just like them." Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, while declaring that the best man should win, displayed a bowdlerized version of the photographs, and could not resist asking a guest expert: "Can illegal aliens vote in this?" Which brings us to Israel. Soon after the Idol finale aired in the Jewish state at the weekend, the crowning segment of Israel's version of "Survivor" was broadcast live from the ancient Roman amphitheater in Caesarea. Perhaps the most telling moment in the broadcast was a look at the daily life of Arik Alper, a slight pediatrician with deer-in-headlights eyes, who would go on to survive all other contestants and win the million shekel grand prize. "I wasn't one of the more popular kids in the class," Alper said, on a filmed visit to his boyhood school. "I was on the sidelines. I was different. I was in the closet. I was the ugly duckling." The day before, the mass-circulation Maariv newspaper published an extensive article detailing how "Over the past decade homosexuals have turned from an exotic detour on [talk-show host] Dan Shilon's panel, to the kings of prime-time." Among the gallery of famous gays were two of the 20 Survivor contestants, one of them Arik Alper. "To me," he told the camera, "being the last survivor is to be the most popular kid in the fourth grade, which I never was." Say what you will about Israel, this place has developed an exceptional tolerance for behavior traditionally deemed deviant. One of the judges on Kochav Nolad ( A Star is Born ), Israel's version of American Idol , is Dana International, a post-op transsexual singing star whose unapologetic exuberance persuaded Israelis to choose her as their representative to the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest, in which she took first place. Perhaps a certain tolerance, or predilection, for flamboyantly deviant behavior devolves from the way Israel is itself seen as deviant in its region and in the world. In this world, all Israelis have a certain otherness about them, a statistical minority status. Certainly, any American in Israel can relate. All American Jews who live in Israel are, by definition, deviants, no matter how conventional their lifestyle may be. They have done what only one out of 100 American Jews does -- and, for that matter, just 0.02 percent of all Americans chooses to do -- live in Israel. On the surface, the choice of Kris Allen -- not unlike the choice of George W. Bush -- suggests that the more unreliable America seems, the more unsafe, the more threatening it gets, that is, the more diverse it gets, the more the people who used to call themselves Real Americans, that is, Christians, are going to look for a Kris Allen to soothe them. "Though never referenced on the show," the Associated Press commented, "Allen's religious background may have also played a role. Allen has worked as a worship leader at his hometown church, traveling on mission trips around the globe." It could be that the fight over separation of church and state is giving way to a struggle over separation of church and gays, one in which -- as in the California referendum which successfully outlawed gay marriage -- Christian churchgoers of all colors and cultures band together in common cause against societal acceptance of what they view as deviant sexuality. Read the full article on haaretz.com More on American Idol
 
Karin Badt: Cannes Wrap Up: What Journalists are Saying Top
Rumor has it that the jury at Cannes was furiously divided this year: actress Isabelle Huppert supposedly in one camp rooting for Lars Von Trier's Anti-Christ and director James Gray in the other, arguing for Jacques Audiard's The Prophet. Yet neither film won the great prize at Cannes: rather Austrian director Michael Haneke became the Palme d'Or winner for the second time with his stellar (but icy-cold) portrait of repressed (and perhaps malicious) villagers in a pre-World War I German village. Last Night of the Cannes Film Festival As for Von Trier's film, Charlotte Gainsbourg won the "Best Actress" award for what was certainly a demanding and superlative performance. That Haneke won the great prize surprised some journalists -- who expected the well-crafted and energetic French film The Prophet to be the winner (the latter did receive second prize). Still the choice of Haneke did not shock anyone. What did shock was the choice to give "Best Director" to Filipino director Brillante Mendoza's Kinatay. Not only was this film booed at the press screening (many objecting to the two hour depiction of pedestrian sadistic violence towards a bound and gagged woman), but there were several other films that had earned critical praise: Jane Campion's finely tuned (yet somewhat bland) Bright Star and Marco Bellocchio's fascinating journey into madness and dictatorship in his Vincere . Neither won a single prize. I myself was happy to see that Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank won the Jury Prize (sharing it with Park Chan-Wook's Thirst) . Fish Tank is a jewel, not to be missed. The young British director delivers a gripping story of an alienated adolescent girl fighting her way to have an identity with a mother who hates her, and a peer group which shuns her -- with just cause, for her rough demeanor. "Fuck you" is how the girl greets people. She also is a superb break-dancer. A fantastic film to sit through -- alive and fresh in insight -- truly a pleasure. Indeed, I would have preferred to see the Palme D'Or given to Fish Tank, to give fresh blood to the film circuit, but certainly Haneke's White Ribbon is a film that stays with you and is masterfully done, from first shot to last. More on CANNES
 
Eric Broder: Ideas for a Perfect "Staycation" Top
Take time to plan ahead. Maybe you already got your family together and brainstormed on what you'd like to do for this year's summer vacation. Everyone chimed in on their ideal destination. Daughter Fritzi clamored for Munich. Son Guido pined for the hills of Sicily. Your dream was to play a third of a round at Pebble Beach, while your wife wanted to hit the lesbian bars in Brasilia. Well, guess what - you're not going to any of those places. While daydreaming about expensive trips may be fun, in this economy you have to get real. "Just fucking forget it," advises financial strategist Robert Charles. Sometimes the best things in life are free, and all it takes is some planning to get your vacation off on the good foot, to find ways, before you start, to minimize your cost and maximize your fun. Good luck with that, but here are a few ideas anyway. Pool your resources. Your community has untold riches - often right in your neighborhood. Vacation planner Elaine Bustos suggests making friends with someone who has a pool. "You can take the entire family swimming," she says. "And see if the owners of the pool will give you food. That's what I do. I've had entire meals poolside. There's nothing like a cheeseburger with your feet dangling in the water. If they have Tostitos, that's good too." There are pitfalls to watch out for with this, however. "Don't let your food fall into the water," cautions Bustos. "I once dropped a plate of nachos in a pool and it left an orange film they couldn't get out. I didn't get any more food and I wasn't invited back, either." Doin' what comes virtually. Another activity you can enjoy without leaving town, or even home, is watching television shows or Internet videos of other people's vacations. Unlicensed psychologist Noel Berrysill is a big proponent - and we mean big, at 320 pounds - of the three Vs: Vicarious Virtual Vacations. "You might try the Travel Channel or National Geographic. Or Google 'people's summer vacations' and see what you come up with. It can be very emotionally satisfying to go along with a stranger to Nice or Switzerland or Paris." Berrysill has personally watched many TV shows about travel. "It makes me feel really good, like I'm really going out there," he grunts. Laid at the library. Your local library is a goldmine for books and information, but why not take a different tack with this invaluable resource? "A good inexpensive way to enjoy summer is to lay down a beach towel in your town library's parking lot," says libraryvacation.org 's Puffi Livermore. "We promote a program, 'Tan 'n' Tarry,' where we encourage people to tan in our parking lot, then cover them with chicken fat and invite them in for an afternoon inside the library." Why chicken fat? "We found that more people develop an interest in reading after a combination of sunning and chicken fat," says Livermore. "Families come to the parking lot for free summer fun and end up learning. It's sustainable, too, because it involves solar energy." On the beach. To simulate a day at the beach, pour some sand (available at most hardware stores in inexpensive five-pound bags) in the living room and fill the fireplace with water. Turn a fan onto the fireplace to make waves and presto! Your own beachfront to enjoy. Build a campfire to complete the classic summertime tableau. "People truly don't understand the power they have to adjust their environment," marvels Philip Monroe, decorating motivator from yourindoorsummerbeach.com . "You can transform your living space to anything, from Canada to the Congo. All it takes is a little old-fashioned American know-how." Monroe suggests picking over neighbors' trash on garbage collection day to pick up discarded chairs and small tables for your personal beach. "Then put together a fabulous relish tray!" burbles the effeminate designer. "Celery, peppers, carrots, cauliflower - oh, I don't know what else!" Hop on this and rotate. Since you can't get to a real amusement park this summer, get together with the kids to devise rides for your backyard. Looped over a sturdy tree branch, the combination of a tow truck chain and an old tire from the city dump can create magical moments for you and your family. Steven Pinkler, author of Stuff You Should Do With Your Family But Probably Won't (FamFun Books), thinks you should have a variety of homemade amusement park-type rides in your backyard. "People can easily make their own roller coasters, Tilt-a-Whirls, Dodgem cars, Ferris wheels - anything you can find at Six Flags, you can build yourself," he says. "But let's face it, that's not gonna happen."
 
Jerry Cope: Tck Tck Tck Countdown to Copenhagen Launches in Telluride Top
The spectacular setting of Telluride, Colorado provided a breathtaking venue for the launch of two important environmental campaigns this week. On Thursday over three hundred of the town's residents lay down on the ground to send the first message in the global Tck Tck Tck campaign. John Quigley/SpectralQ whose previous aerial photographs in the Artcic Wisdom series led to Global Warming being considered as a human rights issue, designed an image which featured the number "350" framed by lightening bolts and the words "green power". The Climate Art Action Campaign 2009 is a grassroots initiative to pressure and support leaders in making courageous decisions to aggressively address global climate change. The campaign will culminate at the COP15 Climate Talks in Copenhagen this December and will feature the unique medium of human aerial artwork where communities gather together to send powerful unified messages with their bodies. Human aerial artwork allows people to use their bodies as a human declaration and visual petition in a way that is widely accessible, celebratory, and action oriented. Bill McKibben founded 350.org to bring awareness to what many scientists and climate experts consider the most important number in human history, the "safe" level of CO2 in parts-per-million (PPM) in the Earth's atmosphere. Current CO2 concentration levels are well above that at 387 PPM and rising by 2-3 PPM annually. In order for us to have any real chance of getting back to 350 it is imperative that a meaningful agreement is reached in Copenhagen this year to address global greenhouse gas emissions. McKibben was on hand during the MountainFilm Festival in Telluride to launch the Power Project , a national campaign to transition towns and cities off of coal-fired power and onto 100 renewable energy sources in an accelerated 5-year time frame. The Mayors of both Telluride and the adjacent Mountain Village attended a press conference with McKibben and committed to 100% renewable energy by 2020, an ambitious increase of 80% over the goals they announced just one week prior. More on Green Living
 
Paul Katz: Hollywood Event Honoring Streisand's Yentyl Brings Awareness to Plight of Congolese Women Top
When Kat Kramer announced the launch of her "Films That Changed the World" series, she got a mostly enthusiastic response, but there were a few naysayers in the mix. "You've got to be kidding me!" some said to Ms. Kramer, "Films don't change the world!" As Kramer shared this story at the premiere luncheon for her series, groans of disagreement from approximately 100 women (and a handful of men) in the entertainment industry echoed throughout a "writer's garden" area on the Sunset-Gower Studios lot in Hollywood. To those in attendance, films absolutely have the power to change the world. Kat Kramer conceived her series when Sunset-Gower named a theater in honor of her father, the late producer and director Stanley Kramer. As a matter of interest, his classic Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? was filmed on the Sunset-Gower lot over 40 years earlier when the facility was known as Columbia Pictures. Stanley Kramer's films, which also include Inherit the Wind and Judgment at Nuremberg , often gave him a reputation as a "message movie-maker." "[My father's movies] effected change," says Ms. Kramer. "He didn't set out to do that but he wanted to tell stories and explore issues that were going on around him." It is apropos, then, that Kat Kramer's "Films That Changed the World" will not only honor her father's legacy, but the achievements of other filmmakers whose movies had significant social relevance and retain that relevance in the present day. The "social issue" for the first in Kramer's series was the empowerment of women (hence the majority female invite list) and the film chosen was Barbra Streisand's Yentl . Of course, the question to ask based on Kramer's series title is, "How did Streisand's film change the world?" Well, it seems forgotten that Streisand was the first "bankable" female figure in Hollywood to produce, direct, co-write, and act (not to mention sing) in a major motion picture. That may not seem important in 2009, but in 1983 Streisand had to overcome great obstacles to get Yentl made. At that time, the film industry was not welcoming of female auteurs. Streisand's achievement blew the door wide open for many women to produce and direct their own movies (Penny Marshall, Jane Campion and Sofia Coppola are a few that followed and come to mind). Additionally, the plot of Yentl mirrors Streisand's battle for achievement. Streisand was trying to get a foothold as a director in an atmosphere that was largely a "men's only club." The character of "Yentl" has essentially the same problem. To study Talmud was forbidden to women, so "Yentl" has to disguise herself as a man and enter "a man's world" in order to get an education. It stands to reason that women of varying industries and professions were equally moved by Streisand's on and off screen efforts, and felt inspired to prove they can hold positions of power just as effectively as any man. Despite Streisand's impressive achievement, Kramer notes that women in Hollywood seem to have taken a few steps back in the ensuing years. She says, "It's unfortunate that even now, a lot of women in the film industry are not getting the chances they were even then [in 1983]. I think, 25 years later, we have to examine why that is happening." In sync with her intention to put a spotlight on a present day issue concerning women, Kramer expertly tied a primary theme of Yentl (that women are considered substandard in the world of men) to the current human rights violations of women and girls in the Congo of Africa. A group called The Enough Project, which created a campaign called Raise Hope for Congo, was invited to be a part of the occasion. In materials provided by The Enough Project, Major General Patrick Cammaert, a former UN Deputy Force Commander, said of the situation in eastern Congo in May of 2008, "It is more dangerous to be a woman than to be a soldier right now." As part of the afternoon, Vice-President of Participant Media Bonnie Abaunza (also Kramer's co-host) and actress Emanuelle Chriqui (of Entourage and You Don't Mess with the Zohan ), were guest speakers before the screening of Yentl would begin. Abaunza spoke of being haunted by stories she'd read when she began working for Amnesty International seven years prior. One of her case files dealt with an extreme form of sexual violence being perpetrated against women of Congo. She cited the chilling story of a mother, grandmother and granddaughter who had all been gang-raped for hours by Congolese rebel forces. The little girl, five years old and named Precious, was so traumatized she no longer speaks. When Abaunza first learned of these horrors, her own daughter was five years old. She looked at her child and thought, "How do I....we.....tackle the propensity for human beings to perpetrate this kind of violence and brutality?" As she continued to read the file, there were stories of a few people who would go out of their way to help these women. These hopeful stories presented some form of balance and Abaunza realized, "The capacity for human compassion far outweighs the brutality." When Ms. Chriqui stepped to the podium, she spoke about "conflict minerals" from the Congo and how they are utilized in electronic devices, particularly cell phones. "It is not unlike the "blood diamonds" of Sierra Leone" reported Chriqui. "The armed groups and military units perpetrating violence in Congo are making millions of dollars off the trade of Congo's minerals. The mineral wealth should be a source of prosperity for the Congolese rather than a source of exploitation and violence." Chriqui urged those in attendance to be certain the cell phones they purchase do not contain conflict minerals, and therefore are not financing violence and rape in Congo. To counter-balance the seriousness of the Congolese issue, Kramer also honored the artistry of Streisand's film, which holds deep personal resonance for Kat. She and her father watched the film together many times and Ms. Kramer considers Streisand a personal heroine. The film is currently celebrating its 25th Anniversary with a DVD release. Preceding Abaunza and Chriqui at the podium was Marilyn Bergman, who co-wrote lyrics to the musical score of Yentl and agreed to speak on behalf of the film. Bergman is also the first female to be President and Chairman of ASCAP, a position she has held since 1994. She will resign shortly to concentrate on other projects with her husband and songwriting partner, Alan Bergman. In introducing Mrs. Bergman, Kramer said she considers the music the "heart and soul of Yentl ." Bergman was very grateful for the compliment and Ms. Kramer's efforts to bring attention not only to the film but women's issues around the world. "I am hardly objective on the subject of women, Yentl or Barbra [Streisand]," she said. "I think shining a light on women of accomplishment, not only in this [entertainment] industry, but industry in general has somehow faded. The women's movement used to have a kind of steam that I think has gone out of it. This is a time when many things are being revivified in this country because of the new Presidency and I think we have to keep talking about change and women's rights, not only here but all around the world. I think [this event] is a step in the right direction. I am certain Kat's father would be very proud today." Jewelry designer Keren Barukh, a continual champion of women's causes, was a sponsor for the event and sold her unique pieces at an impressively generous discount in order to help raise funds for The Enough Project. Barukh's jewelry was sold out before the luncheon come to a conclusion and attendees were led to the intimate, 70-seat Stanley Kramer Theatre to watch an extended version of Yentl . As the film played, when any male character questioned whether a woman's thoughts have any value, the gasps and indignation from the majority female audience made it clear that Streisand's film still strikes quite a nerve. Candice Knezevic, a campaign manager for The Enough Project, had never seen the film and said, "I couldn't help but think about the obstacles that women continue to face today." Music publicist Monica Wild was also seeing the film for the first time and felt that Kramer's use of Yentl was brilliant. "Yentl" isn't just a character in a movie, she represents women all over the world," said Wild. "We take for granted that the United States is one of the very few countries where women can be free. We should strive to make more movies like Yentl that pull at the heart and make us realize how important freedom is." Kat Kramer was mostly mum when asked about the next film in her "Films That Changed the World" series, but did say that after she completes work on an album of Mick Jagger music, she will make an announcement. One tidbit she did let slip? "I'm considering an all male invite list next time out." For more on The Enough Project and Raise Hope For Congo please click here . For my previous Huffington Post article about Barbra Streisand's Yentl , please click here . More on Women's Rights
 
Magatte Wade: Beyond the Romance of Microfinance to a Love of Manufacturing Top
by Magatte Wade, with Michael Strong In the course of starting a business based in Africa, I was referred to a former Silicon Valley CFO who had made enough money and now devoted his life to helping the world's poor. As I began to explain my project to him, which involved setting up manufacturing plants in Senegal, he kept encouraging me to buy crafts from local artisans rather than setting up manufacturing plants. Despite the fact that he had become wealthy through a capitalist world and lived a comfortable lifestyle that depended on tens of thousands of factories around the world, his vision of helping the poor was strictly limited to microfinance and local crafts. My vision of manufacturing in Africa was frankly repulsive to him. The do-gooders of the world love to campaign on behalf of foreign aid to help the poor, and more recently they have discovered and come to love microfinance, giving small loans to women around the world. Kiva.org allows people in the developed world to invest small amounts of money ($25) in micro-entrepreneurs around the world. Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank, leaders in microfinance, won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. It is estimated that since Yunus and others launched the microfinance movement in the 1970s, approximately 110 million people, mostly women, have received microloans. Yes, microfinance is a good thing, especially in those parts of the world that lack industry. And yes, industries that pollute and that violate human rights, as take place all too often in China, are a bad thing. That said, as an African it is important to me that Africa develops a manufacturing base that allows Africans to become respected members of the global community who can live comfortable lives and engage in the co-creation of global culture as peers rather than as objects of pity. A vision of Africa that is limited to tribal villages and rural agriculture is not inspiring to me, even if the tribal villages are "assisted" by the millions of dollars worth of scientific expertise that Jeff Sachs is providing them. Quite aside from the presumption of well-funded scientific experts teaching rural Africans how to farm, I am offended by the implicit notion that Sachs and company have as their highest aspiration for us that we remain cute little tribal peoples growing our crops and producing our crafts. Africa: the eternal land of National Geographic articles complete with charming natives. Why is it that black Africans are not allowed to be full participants in global society? Barack Obama may have relatives in Kenyan villages, but he did not become president of the U.S. by means of living a village life. And although his excellent education at Punahou in Hawaii, at Columbia, and at Harvard were clearly keys to his success, even if he had had an equivalent education in an African village (which is, of course, impossible), he could not have become president had he not lived a life in contemporary society, with computers, refrigerators, cars, consumer brands and marketing, business schools, consultants, etc. Success in the modern world, respect in the modern world, is deeply tied up with familiarity with the products and institutions of the modern world. People who do not know how to use a fork or who do not know what laundry detergent is will never be respected in the world at large. While some of you may think that it is cute to look at us as quaint objects, indigenous fantasies to soothe your stressed out lives, we would prefer to be peers, thank you very much. Maybe we are tired of being your anthropological wet dream. As an African business woman in the U.S., I often feel caught in between a world of selfish, self-indulgent business men here who don't care about anything but profit, on the one hand, and an altruistic but similarly self-indulgent cohort of people who "care" about Africa and Africans, but who care strictly on their terms. And their terms are, for the most part, implicitly condescending. The more they care, the more they like the idea of helping pathetic Africans and bragging about how they are helping the pathetic Africans -- which sometimes comes dangerously close to bragging about how pathetic their Africans are. "My Africans are more pathetic than your Africans" is altruist speak for "My yacht is bigger than your yacht." I know it is well-intentioned, but it is time to have a higher vision for Africa. Because we have been so programmed to believe that manufacturing is necessarily dirty and harsh, most of us can't envision a comfortable, humane manufacturing workplace. But given the environments in which most Africans are currently working, which are often very dangerous and polluted, it is quite easy to create a factory that is far cleaner and safer. Right now on the streets of Dakar there are probably more than a million people, many of them children, working on streets where cars, buses and trucks puffing out diesel fumes dart chaotically by the human beings, occasionally hitting one. Raw sewage periodically floods this or that street, flowing into the stalls of street vendors and street manufacturers. The tiny manufacturers that line the streets and do woodwork, metal work, tire repair, sewing, etc. are often in dark, dilapidated shacks that are hardly safe or comfortable. Yes, they run their own businesses, but none of their businesses would come close to meeting ILO (International Labor Organization) standards. Yet if I create a factory and create hundreds of jobs, I'm perceived as a creator of sweatshops? The cost of putting up a clean, simple, well-ventilated building is very low in Senegal. I can create a cost-effective factory that provides my employees with a cleaner, healthier environment during the work day than they will encounter anywhere else in their lives. I can give them a reliable income that will allow them to plan for a future, unlike the uncertain existence that most of them experience day by day. I will give them experience with technologies ranging from hand soap to computers. And I will identify and cultivate talent, so that my products continue to be better designed, better made, and more competitive in the global marketplace. My vision for Africa is one in which it becomes the first region of the world to create a socially and environmentally responsible manufacturing base. But key to that vision is that Africa does create a manufacturing base. Because we will never be helped by those Americans who are strictly selfish and self-indulgent, I am appealing to those Americans who want to help to transcend their romance with foreign aid and microfinance, and begin to take seriously investing in African manufacturing and purchasing products made in Africa. Yes, pay attention to the kind of manufacturing that produces the goods you buy. But also remember that we Africans deserve the same respect and quality of life that you have. Microfinance and arts and crafts alone will not get us there. More on Barack Obama
 
Dr. Behzad Mohit: The Human Faces of For-Profit Health Care Top
To put a human face on our health care problem, I will share some stories with you to bring home the reason why we are so desperately in need of a nonprofit, people-funded, people-managed, private, single payer system . I have been in medicine for 40 years and have lots of stories to share. Case one . A close family member of mine had a lower back pain shooting to the side of her thigh. A neurologist, together with a neuroradiologist, took X-rays, etc., and recommended spinal fusion (an expensive operation that would lay her up in bed for some time). A friend gave her the name of a therapeutic massage therapist who diagnosed a spasm of a muscle in her buttock. After two massage treatments (cost: $200) she was relieved and has been free of pain for the last 15 years. Case two . A middle-aged woman came to my dermatology office (she had full insurance coverage) with a wart the size of a pea on her third finger asking for treatment. I asked her if it had been treated before. She said, "Yes, doctor. I have been going to Dr. X for eight months. Every two weeks he freezes the top and shaves it, but the wart is still here." I froze the wart with liquid nitrogen deeply and in two weeks it was gone (cost: $75. The previous doctor's cost: $1,200). Dr. X was so busy with repeat visits that he could not accept a new patient for at least three months. Case three . A 62 year-old man, married father of four adult children, has been a member of one of the largest HMOs for many years. Many times he has told his HMO physicians that colon cancer runs in his family. Indeed, his father died at 50 of colon cancer. He has asked every year for a colonoscopy, a procedure that is absolutely necessary in such cases to catch an early cancer. All along he was told it was not necessary. Finally, at the age of 61, he took a photo of his bloated belly to the doctor and demanded action. Then he was diagnosed with colon cancer, which had spread throughout his body, including his brain. This will torture and kill him. His family is devastated and the final cost, in human terms and dollars, is much higher than it would have been if had been diagnosed earlier. Why, then, this catastrophe? Because, as I have written in my book, Universal Health Care System for the United States of America (available for free download here ), HMO doctors are graded on whether they keep costs down, which affects their future pay within that HMO. If you multiply these types of stories by 250 million patients in the hands of a for-profit health care system , is it any wonder that our health care cost per person is double that of all the developed countries and we rank 37th in the world in quality of care? With a nonprofit, people-funded, people-managed, private, single payer insurance agency we can do even better than those countries because our proposed, single payer system avoids the inefficiencies of the government-run systems of those countries. We can save over $1 trillion (1/3 of our national budget) and improve the quality of our care. In addition, we also keep 1.7 million jobs within our economy. It is time to call it as it is. Everyone is tired of beating around the bush on the issue of health care. We need fundamental and bold action. Together we should all tell our president: Sir, you have given us the "audacity of hope" and the promise of change. We expect no less. Our health care services need a human face. I request that my readers please share your stories in the comments section or e-mail them to bmohit@helpeachother.com so that I can share them for you anonymously. More on Health
 
Jesse Larner: Cheney and Torture Top
A few more words about the use of torture in pursuit of national security goals in the wake of former Vice President Dick Cheney's deeply sick speech at the American Enterprise Institute on May 21. About that speech itself I will say very little, since so many others, such as Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel , Dan Froomkin (check out Froomkin's links, too) and, in a more historical and ongoing way, the sources I mention at the end of this previous post , have already quite conclusively taken apart Cheney's many lies "Waterboarding," beyond any doubt at all, is torture under domestic and international law to which the US is a signatory. I don't know why we're still arguing this question; it is settled. Far from being limited to three individuals, as Cheney implies, many hundreds and possibly thousands of individuals have been tortured (if not necessarily waterboarded) by the "enhanced interrogation techniques" that Bush and Rumsfeld approved, with legal rationalizations from Jay Bybee, John Yoo, and David Addington. A bipartisan Senate Armed Services committee report has acknowledged that these techniques and policies have resulted in some detainees being tortured to death . A Human Rights First report puts the overall number of deaths in US detention at as high as 98. Quoting this report: "According to the U.S. military's own classifications, 34 of these cases are suspected or confirmed homicides; Human Rights First has identified another 11 in which the facts suggest death as a result of physical abuse or harsh conditions of detention. In close to half the deaths Human Rights First surveyed, the cause of death remains officially undetermined or nannounced. Overall, eight people in U.S. custody were tortured to death." There is no credible evidence whatsoever that these "enhanced interrogation techniques" saved any American lives, much less the thousands or "hundreds of thousands" [!] that Cheney suggested in his AEI speech. Fox News and Jay Nordlinger at the National Review seem to think that Cheney's word is good enough. The rest of us may have reason to disagree. Abu Ghraib was certainly not a rogue operation, but rather abuse that occurred as a result of the direct orders and policies of Rumsfeld and Bush. There's been quite a bit of very good independent reporting on this from the sources mentioned above; it's hard to believe that any minimally skeptical or curious person would buy Cheney's outrage about a supposedly false connection with the other torture policies of the Bush/Cheney administration. It was part of the same strategy, the same arguments, the same bogus legal package. There is, however, a great deal of evidence that torture has led to Americans getting killed. There is no better way to make a permanent foe of the United States out of someone who may be on the periphery of terror operations, or who may have no connections with terror at all, than to torture that person. And you may make implacable enemies of his family, clan and tribe as well. Ayman al-Zawahira, al-Qaeda's Number Two and the ideological theorist of the organization, was transformed from a geeky student radical to a dedicated terrorist through his experience of torture at the hands of Egypt's secret police in the early 1980s. That Senate Armed Services committee report includes these lines: Former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee in June 2008 that "there are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U. S. combat deaths in Iraq -- as judged by their ffectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat -- are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo." But rather than taking Cheney's speech apart, I'd like to make an argument about what we must do and not do, in the war on terrorism. I'll start with a recent exchange on torture between Charles Krauthammer and Dan Froomkin at The Washington Post. Krauthammer has been defending the use of torture for years, and that's particularly revolting given that he is an MD; there's something seriously wrong with a doctor who will toss aside his Hippocratic oath so casually. On May 1, Krauthammer wrote this piece , in which he basically says that torture is absolutely impermissible except for 1. the "ticking bomb" scenario, and 2. any other situation in which it is deemed necessary to save lives. Dan Froomkin, who writes The Post's White House Watch, utterly obliterated Krauthammer's arguments on the same day they appeared. Krauthammer than replied to Froomkin, in this piece that defended the "ticking bomb" scenario with this example: On Oct. 9, 1994, Israeli Cpl. Nachshon Waxman was kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists. The Israelis captured the driver of the car. He was interrogated with methods so brutal that they violated Israel's existing 1987 interrogation guidelines, which themselves were revoked in 1999 by the Israeli Supreme Court as unconscionably harsh. The Israeli prime minister who ordered this enhanced interrogation (as we now say) explained without apology: "If we'd been so careful to follow the [1987] Landau Commission [guidelines], we would never have found out where Waxman was being held." It's interesting that Krauthammer has been trying to justify torture for years, and describing the "ticking bomb" for years, and he always uses this same single example , from as far back as an article he wrote for The Weekly Standard in 2005. If these scenarios were so real and so widespread after eight years of a war on terror, you'd think he could do better than that. (Here's Froomkin's exactly-right response to Krauthammer, by the way.) But what does this anecdote prove, in any case? That the Israelis were willing to throw out the rule of law when they perceived their interest in doing so to be great enough. But the rule of law is not binding only when it is convenient. It is true all the time, or none of the time. It is not discretionary. That's what law means. What did the Israelis gain, and what did they lose? (They didn't gain Waxman alive, by the way; he was killed by his captors while the rescue was being attempted, a fact that Krauthammer holds to be irrelevant. And so it would be, in a moral calculus argument. But Krauthammer is really making an expediency argument.) So at the cost of the rule of law, they got some information. Did the situation justify it? Well, the situation was a military variation on a kidnapping. Let's imagine a civilian kidnapping, for ransom, say. To make it suit Krauthammer's scenario better, let's say the kidnappers were threatening to kill a child if a ransom were not paid before a certain time. One of the kidnappers has been captured. Can we torture him to get the location where the child is being held? No, we can't, and the reason is that if we do, we are no longer a nation of laws. Once the law goes, anything goes, and people like Krauthammer and Alan Dershowitz are fooling themselves if they really believe that torture can be administered in a rule-based manner (Dershowitz has suggested that judges should be able to issue "torture warrants.") It's a very slippery slope. Without the rule of law, we would all live in terror, all the time; we would be living in Somalia. Much as we want to rescue the child, little as we care for the kidnapper, we just can't do it. The price is too high. So what is Krauthammer on about? Does he think his example proves anything, beyond his own lack of understanding of civil society and of his own responsibilities as a doctor? And aside from the damage the incident did to the Israelis themselves, to their ability to have confidence in their own law, what were the long-term consequences of the incident in the context of the war in which it took place? The Israelis' "success" in finding Waxman's dead body must be balanced against the confirmation of their reputation as a power that tortures, although this would scarcely have been news to the Palestinians. Does the accumulated bitterness and humiliation of torture -- the incident that Krauthammer describes, and all those other incidents of Israeli torture of Palestinians, both of terrorists and of innocents caught in indiscriminate roundups -- really help Israeli soldiers in Palestinian war zones? Or does it contribute to the continuous process of Palestinian radicalization inherent in the Israeli occupation, a grim cycle of escalating brutality on both sides. Question for Krauthammer: If the scenario had been reversed -- if the Israelis were holding a kidnapped Palestinian, as they often do, and if that Palestinian's colleagues then captured an Israeli soldier -- would those colleagues be justified in torturing that soldier? Your answer, Mr. Krauthammer? No, I didn't think so. The most truly terrible argument made by Krauthammer above, and by Cheney in his AEI speech, is that torture is justified because it works. This is an astonishing non sequitur, and it's equally astonishing that so few seem to notice. Even if torture did work -- and professional interrogators agree that it does not, and information gained through torture is usually worthless, and it prevents any subsequent prosecution in a court of law -- would that justify it if it could save American lives? Let's continue Cheney's line of reasoning. We could undoubtedly save American lives if we repealed or ignored the Fourth Amendment's protections against illegal search and seizure. Let's allow the police to search any person or any home or office on mere suspicion, or for no reason at all. Let's also repeal or ignore the Sixth Amendment's guarantees of a speedy trial and the right to confront witnesses, the Third Amendment's right to a jury trial, and the Fifth Amendment's right not to self-incriminate. Let's stop being soft on terror! Give the police and the prosecutor the tools they need to catch terrorists! If the police and the courts had no constitutional constraints, if they could bust into anyone's home for any reason or no reason, there's no doubt that they'd catch quite a few terrorists, along with several million other people. But we don't let them do that because the price is too high. There's no longer anything worth fighting for. In the trite phrase: The terrorists have won. There are certain things that in fact we can't do, even if doing them would save lives. Just as there are things we must do, even if they cost lives. We reserve the right to go to war, even though, inevitably -- and no matter how scrupulously we try to avoid it -- we kill civilians in war. We have to do this, because if our tolerance for civilian casualties in war were zero, we could never go to war. The planet would then be ruled by the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Saddam. There is a greater good. But the other side of this coin is that we have to accept the possibility of casualties on our side, too -- because the cost of not accepting them, of "doing whatever necessary," resorting to torture or the wholesale abrogation of the constitution, would defeat our own ultimate purpose of remaining a free society. In a previous Huffington posting , I quoted Benjamin Franklin. It's worth doing so again: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Cheney and his ilk don't understand liberty, and they don't understand freedom, what it costs and what it's worth. They are small men and cowards, selling out the rule of law at the first whiff of danger. Let's hope that the constitution survives them, and those who think like them. More on GOP
 
Swine Flu: Chicago Reports Nation's 12th Death From Swine Flu Top
CHICAGO — Illinois health officials say a person in the Chicago area has died of swine flu. It's the nation's 12th confirmed death from the illness. Illinois Department of Public Health director, Dr. Damon Arnold, said Monday the victim had other medical conditions. No more information about the person was released. As of Monday morning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported more than 6,700 cases in the U.S., most of them mild. The CDC has tallied 10 deaths, but New York health officials reported another death over the weekend. The World Health Organization tallied more than 12,500 swine flu cases worldwide as of Monday, with more than half of them in the U.S. Of at least 91 deaths, 80 were in Mexico, where the outbreak was identified in April. More on Swine Flu
 
Zorianna Kit: HuffPost Exclusive: McG on Terminator, Green Screens and That Schwarzenegger Cameo Top
I sat down with Terminator: Salvation director McG to discuss his new film, currently out in theaters. The video is below: http://www.zoriannakit.tv/node/57
 
Wes Isley: The Terrorists Are Already in My Backyard - and I Still Feel Safe Top
It seems that some members of Congress and various political pundits must live in an alternate version of the United States, unaware that American prisons now safely house convicted terrorists. As President Obama discusses how to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and what to do with its inmates, some of our leaders have lost complete faith in the ability of our justice and correctional systems to function. The argument goes that if we move the alleged terrorists now held in Cuba to U.S. soil, American lives will be placed in danger. I disagree. Apparently the talking heads have forgotten Zacarias Moussaoui, Richard Reid and Jose Padilla, among other convicted terrorists now imprisoned in some of this nation's most secure facilities. Do you suddenly feel in danger? I don't, and I doubt I would feel in any greater danger if the detainees currently in Guantanamo joined the current prison population. Despite the horror of 9/11, the one and only time I personally felt in danger from a terrorist-style attack was when John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo went on their sniper spree in Washington, D.C. back in 2002. Simply pumping gas became an act of courage. But here we are several years later with both men convicted and in prison. For the most recent example, consider that on Thursday, May 21, four Americans and one Haitian were arrested for plotting to bomb two Jewish community centers and possibly bring down military planes. Sounds pretty bad. But these men will be imprisoned here at home, in someone's back yard. But won't that put Americans at risk? Maybe they should be transferred to Gitmo -- but, of course, they won't be. If our court and prison system can handle these men, why can't they handle the worst of the worst from Guantanamo Bay? Sure, there's always the risk that a prisoner will escape, but we live with that reality every day. Given the right conditions and a little luck, a convicted murderer or rapist might slip free from the guards and then appear on the next episode of "America's Most Wanted." I'm more worried about these guys, your garden-variety criminals. Terrorists are high-maintenance bad guys. They need plans, financing, co-conspirators, blueprints, ingredients for bombs, safe houses and so on. It takes time to pull that together. But your average murderer just needs a handy gun or knife and adequate motivation to kill again. I want Gitmo closed because it represents America at its worst. Bring those detainees here, charge them, try them and, if evidence wins out, imprison them. If not, deport them. I think we're getting caught up in technicalities. If we had caught any of these guys on U.S. soil, they'd be in a U.S. prison right now. But I'm supposed to believe that they're so much more dangerous only because they were captured in another country? At this level, how do you evaluate how dangerous a criminal is? Are John Muhammad and Lee Malvo somehow less dangerous than a Gitmo detainee? President Obama apparently thinks so, saying that some detainees are simply "too dangerous" and may never be charged with a crime. But that excuse sounds like the same one governments in Cuba, China and elsewhere use when they hold political prisoners. Yet when those governments say prisoners are too dangerous to be tried in court or released, we cry "human rights abuse!" And what does this debate say about our prison system? If we can trust the most secure facilities in this nation to contain serial killers and violent drug dealers, will the walls just collapse in the face of a "real" terrorist, whatever that means? If we cannot find a way to charge these individuals at Gitmo with a crime, and if we doubt the ability of our judicial and corrections systems to adequately prosecute and contain them -- while keeping Americans safe -- then we truly are in great danger. It means our institutions are broken, we are at heart hypocrites and we are inching ever closer to handing the terrorists the very victory they seek. More on Crime
 
Debbie Tenzer: Good-Bye, Cruel World! Hello, 'Do One Nice Thing' Top
Despite everything going on in the world now, you can make it better. Yes, you can. And you don't have to spend a lot of money or time to do it. How do I know? I'm a kindness detective, and this is my story. During lunch one day in 2005, my friends and I bemoaned the huge problems facing us -- the wars, crime, poverty, climate change, and more. We felt pounded every time we turned on the news. Suddenly I couldn't take it anymore; I was fed up with feeling helpless. I thought, "I can't solve the big problems, but I know I can do something ." And then it hit me: I can't end hunger, but I can donate cans to a food bank. I can't fix needy schools, but I can give them my kids' old school books. I can't end the war, but I can send a phone card so a soldier can be comforted by calling home. What else could I do? A lot, as I was about to find out. I committed to doing a nice thing once a week. Not every day because, frankly, I'm not that nice. But once a week was a promise I could keep. I chose Monday, my crankiest day. I thought if I could make Mondays better, maybe the rest of the week would go more smoothly. I started a website, DoOneNiceThing.com , and researched and posted a new idea each week. Then I sent an email to sixty friends. Word spread by word of mouth and word of mouse. Now the website attracts millions of people in ninety countries. I call our members "Nice-o-holics" because when they start doing nice things, they get hooked. So I hunted for nice things to do, and Nice-o-holics sent their ideas to me too. Working together we have: Mailed more than seventy tons of school supplies to U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, who give them to local children so they can study Sent countless books to schools, libraries, and hospitals Contributed thousands of gifts for foster children, whose birthdays are often forgotten Donated tens of thousands of packages of pasta, cans of food, and other food items to food banks, and much more. People asked me to write a book. Parents and teachers, among others, wanted it to teach the children in their lives how to make the world better. And now, my book, Do One Nice Thing:Little Things You Can Do to Make the World a Lot Nicer , has just been published. It offers more than 100 easy ways to help children, friends, soldiers, animals, the planet -- in town and around the globe. I also included a chapter called "Just Click" -- umpteen ways to help even if you only have a minute. The book also contains a journal to record your weekly nice things. I find that when I'm having an "off" day, I feel better when I remember the nice things I've done. That's fifty-two good deeds a year! Helping every week is strength training for the soul. With all the bad news in the world, it's easy to become numb. But when you make kindness a regular habit, you keep your compassion muscles strong. With so many people out of work or on tight budgets, is it unrealistic to expect people to help each other now? Just the opposite. In today's world of bad news and pink slips, helping gives us the emotional lift we crave now. And there are endless ways to help that don't cost a dime. In fact, unemployed people are turning up in astonishing numbers to volunteer at nonprofit organizations of every kind. The truth is you don't need a lot of money to help someone. All you need is a kind heart. Maybe we can't solve the big problems -- yet. But by working together we can solve a lot of smaller ones. When you help someone, you give them hope. And the more hope you give, the more hopeful you feel. Join us. Help us make the world better on Mondays - or on any day that ends in "y." Sign up on DoOneNiceThing.com for ideas and stories, and to connect with other nice people. We'll send you our e-newsletter twice a month. That's good news in your inbox, free. What's Your Nice Thing? Suggest a project idea for Do One Nice Thing. If your idea is chosen, it will become our project of the week featured on DoOneNiceThing.com and in our e-newsletter to all the Nice-o-holics. A project must: 1. Be inexpensive 2. Be easy to do 3. Not ask us to donate money This is an opportunity to help a cause you embrace. Thousands of people could participate in your project. I'd like to hear from you. Please post a comment here or send me an email: dtenzer@DoOneNiceThing.com . More on Happiness
 
Deepak Chopra: Can We Have Security Without Fear? Top
The war of words between President Obama and Dick Cheney has exposed a rancorous divide over national security. Mr. Cheney states flatly that there is no middle ground on the issue. There is no such thing as being half-safe, he declares. On the face of it, his statement is nonsensical. Unless he has a way of screening the thoughts and intentions of every potential enemy in the world, we will always be half safe. But is that the real issue? Aren't we talking about our right not to be afraid as much as our right to defend ourselves? Better be safe than sorry is common sense. Better be afraid all the time is toxic politics at its worst. When the Senate voted overwhelmingly to deny funds for closing Guantanamo, they acted out of toxic motives. President Obama accused them of being irrational, and he was absolutely right. The issue of national security was a Republican gold mine for eight years, during which time not enough objection was raised over waterboarding, domestic surveillance, and holding detainees indefinitely without bringing them to trial. The tide turned with the new President, but the underlying dilemma remains with us. Can we be secure without resorting to fear? The Bush administration profited from fear to a huge extent; therefore, they couldn't resist the temptation to wield it. As if the 9/11 attacks were not terrifying enough, they created bogeymen with no justification. The primary one was Saddam Hussein, who posed no threat to the U.S., had no weapons of mass destruction, and made no alliance with Al-Qaeda. But the detainees being held without trial at Guantanamo were also a bogeyman. We still have no idea who among them was or is a danger to this country, but in a massive refusal to be fair, adult, and rational, we allowed all of them to be lumped together and treated as imminent threats. Cheney's round defense of torture is morally bankrupt, but the right wing knows -- as it knew in the McCarthy era -- that scapegoating an unpopular minority works. Fifty years ago it was Communists; now it is Muslims of any stripe, including the most harmless. We have been detaining harmless Muslims at Guantanamo for years without due process; we have also been imprisoning dangerous Muslims and others who fall between the extremes. The only way to sort them out is with fair trials, adequate evidence, and rational consideration of potential threats. Or you can just play the fear card. In his ongoing efforts to treat the American public as they have rarely been treated -- that is, as adults -- Obama pointed out several rational things: Our supermax prisons are safe. No one has ever escaped from them. America stands for constitutional principles. No one's fate should be decided by one man, even if he is President. The issue of releasing potential terrorists is difficult and troubling. Notice the one thing he left out: fear. That's the difference between him and Cheney. If he didn't play the fear card over and over, Cheney's vision of national security would fall apart, just as McCarthy's argument about Communists infiltrating the federal government fell apart when he couldn't find any. The show of smoke, mirrors, and fear collapsed. In a decent moral scheme, Obama would have pointed out the cruel injustice of holding anyone in prison without charges or the chance to defend themselves. How would any of us like to be in such a position, knowing that we were innocent? It doesn't matter if the accused happens to look like a bogeyman. He's a human being and should be treated like one. Published in the San Francisco Chronicle More on Barack Obama
 
Jim Jaffe: Who Said A Good Newspaper Has to Be Affordable? Top
One of the traditional charms of the New York Times is an untethered audacity that sometimes suggests it lives in a universe very different from the one it reports on. So it was perversely reassuring that the Times has responded to current economic conditions with a double-digit increase in subscription rates -- 10.5% to be exact. This came a few weeks after we learned that falling prices generally have led to a situation where there will probably be no Social Security cost-of-living increase next year (and the Congressional Budget Office says this freeze will likely continue until 2013). The Times goes its own way. And, indeed, if their plan succeeds it may well send ripples through the economy and lead to other price increases that will force an increase in Social Security benefits. But don't bet on it. We all understand these are tough times for the newspaper industry and that we readers have an obligation to help out. But where will this spiral dynamic end? The big price increase will probably lead to a drop in subscriptions (from people like me) and, perhaps a further drop in advertising revenue as the audience declines. So the remaining readers will be asked to pony up a bit more. The Times has always been a newspaper for the elite, but in today's America there's probably an absolute limit on the number of readers willing to pay a thousand dollars annually for something that is, ultimately, despite the bells and whistles offered on the website, just a newspaper. At the rate we're going, the Times subscription rates will cross into the magic four-digit range before Obama exits the White House. The stresses of the moment force a lot of us regular newspaper readers to ask how much the paper is worth to us. The Times has taken an audacious gamble by upping the ante. Part of me really hopes they succeed, but the prudent gambler within suggests it would be wiser to bet against them.
 
Analysis: NKorea widens threat, limits US options Top
WASHINGTON — North Korea's nuclear test makes it no likelier that the regime will actually launch a nuclear attack, but it adds a scary dimension to another threat: the defiant North as a facilitator of the atomic ambitions of others, potentially even terrorists. It presents another major security crisis for President Barack Obama, already saddled with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a nuclear problem with Iran. He said Monday the U.S. and its allies must "stand up" to the North Koreans, but it's far from clear what diplomatic or other action the world community will take. So far, nothing they've done has worked. At an earlier juncture of the long-running struggle to put a lid on North Korea's nuclear ambitions, the administration of former President Bill Clinton in the mid-1990s discussed with urgency the possibility of taking military action. That seems less likely now, with the North evidently nuclear armed and the international community focused first on continuing the search for a nonmilitary solution. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that if the North Korean claim of a successful nuclear test can be confirmed it would represent "a clear violation" of a U.N. Security Council resolution. The council called an emergency session Monday to discuss the matter. The North's announcement that it conducted its second underground test of a nuclear device drew quick condemnation across the globe, including from its big neighbor and traditional ally, China. The Obama administration, which said the North's action invited stronger, unspecified international pressure, has consistently called for Korean denuclearization but seemed not to have anticipated a deepening nuclear crisis. Just two weeks ago, the administration's special envoy for disarmament talks with North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, said during a visit to Asian capitals that "everyone is feeling relatively relaxed about where we are at this point in the process." If so, they are no longer. Obama, appearing in the White House Rose Garden, condemned the nuclear test and North Korea's subsequent test-launch of short-range missiles. He called the actions reckless and said they endanger "the people of Northeast Asia." North Korea conducted its first atomic test in 2006 and is thought to have enough plutonium to make at least a half-dozen nuclear bombs. It also is developing long-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, in defiance of U.N. actions. Obama made clear his intention to work with other world leaders to bring diplomatic pressure to bear on Pyongyang, and the United States could still try to resuscitate so-called six-party talks with the North as well as work with other members of the United Nations. North Korea has vowed not to resume participation in the six-party talks with the U.S., Japan, South Korea, China and Russia. Reflecting his view that only unified international action will compel North Korea to change course, Obama said that Russia and China, as well as traditional U.S. allies Japan and South Korea, have come to the same conclusion: "North Korea will not find security and respect through threats and illegal weapons." The Bush administration worked hard to get China, in particular, to press the North Koreans to denuclearize, and it seems likely that Obama will push equally hard with Beijing, which sided with the North Koreans against U.S. and United Nations forces during the 1950-53 Korean War. In recent years the Chinese have openly criticized the North Koreans for the nuclear arms program. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke by phone Monday to her counterparts in Japan and South Korea, and she planned to speak later with the Russian and Chinese foreign ministers in what Clinton spokesman Ian Kelly called intensive diplomacy in response to the North's nuclear test. "The secretary stressed the importance of a strong, unified approach to this threat to international peace and security," Kelly said. Such broad language leaves unsaid at least two of the main worries about North Korea: Would it use a nuclear bomb to attack a neighbor or the United States? And might it continue an established pattern of selling nuclear wherewithal and missiles to foreign buyers? Launching a nuclear attack would be an act of likely suicide by North Korea, given overwhelming U.S. military firepower and U.S. defense commitments to Japan and South Korea. Graham Allison, an assistant secretary of defense in the first Clinton administration and now director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, said Monday that the latest North Korean nuclear test should alert people to the fact that the international community regularly underestimates North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's willingness to do the unexpected. "Could this guy believe he could sell a nuclear bomb to Osama bin Laden?" Allison asked in a phone interview. "Why not?" It would be easier, he said, than helping Syria construct a nuclear reactor, which the North Koreans are accused of having already done. The U.S. has believed for years that the North Koreans pursued the bomb mainly to use it as political leverage, or blackmail, against its perceived enemies. That is a main reason the Bush administration pushed hard to build a missile defense system, which it explicitly described as protection against a North Korean threat. It was more a matter of preventing nuclear blackmail than expecting an attack. Victor Cha, a former director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council and now an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Monday that one of the first things he expects the Obama administration to do is send a high-level official to the region to reassure allies like Japan that their security is guaranteed by U.S. nuclear weapons superiority. ___ EDITOR'S NOTE: Bob Burns covers national security for The Associated Press. More on North Korea
 
Deborah De Santis: Blogging from a White House Committed to Ending Homelessness Top
Today I had the honor of attending a bill signing ceremony transforming a major initiative that helps combat homelessness across our country. With the sweep of his pen, President Barack Obama has accomplished what many of us have been fighting for since the early part of this century: the re-invigoration of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act and a new focus on ending homelessness. This significant event was the culmination of Herculean efforts by organizations and advocates from around the country, and by some conscientious leaders on Capital Hill that found common ground and stuck with it. I am humbled knowing that CSH joined others who spent year after year fighting for legislation that will do so much to help so many people. They all deserve our praise. The importance of McKinney-Vento cannot be underestimated. It has been the centerpiece of the federal government's efforts to end homelessness since 1987. Now, more than ever, with our economy in recession, Washington needs to show its commitment to caring for our vulnerable populations in ways that produce real results for those without a place to call home or proper medical care. When first enacted, McKinney-Vento had some fifteen programs providing a spectrum of services to homeless people, including the Continuum of Care Programs: the Supportive Housing Program, the Shelter Plus Care Program, and the Single Room Occupancy Program, as well as the Emergency Shelter Grant Program. It also established the US Interagency Council on Homelessness and extended education rights to children of homeless families. Under McKinney-Vento, homeless children are assured transportation to and from school, with their choice of what school they want to attend, regardless of where their family resides. It further requires schools to register homeless children even if they lack normally required documents, such as immunization records or proof of residency. States are given funding to comply with the terms of McKinney-Vento. McKinney-Vento has helped thousands of Americans free themselves from the despair of homelessness. But the original act needed improving and CSH and its partners have been working toward that end. President Obama's swift action reauthorizing McKinney-Vento means billions more to help vulnerable people break the cycle of homelessness. But his support and approval does not throw more money at a problem simply with a hope and prayer. The President has assured fundamental changes in the systems and programs designed to help homeless persons, where innovation and accountability will mean lasting progress toward the goal of ending homelessness. The new McKinney-Vento provides communities with better tools and resources at a time when they desperately need them. It increases prevention resources and changes the current Emergency Shelter Grants Program to the Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) Program. It requires HUD to provide family rapid re-housing incentives so long-term stability becomes the emphasis. This re-authorization continues the chronic homelessness project and adds families with children, and it also designates 30 percent of total funds for permanent housing solutions for families and individuals with disabilities. McKinney-Vento now incorporates an expanded and more realistic definition of who is homeless, streamlines the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's grant programs for the homeless, and improves homeless assistance in rural communities and gives them more flexibility. Just as important, the re-authorization requires a much greater emphasis on performance so that states, communities and nonprofits aiming to help homeless people are measured not by their intentions, but by their results. We can take pride in the quick response of this Congress and President Obama to the many pleas to reform and reauthorize McKinney-Vento. With rising foreclosures and unemployment, the attention and help from Washington comes in the nick of time. I am confident Senator Stewart B. McKinney and Congressman Bruce F. Vento would be pleased by the new, promising direction of their legacy. More on Barack Obama
 
Amy York Rubin: If the Government Won't the People Will Part II: The Hand in Hand Schools Top
The construction paper artwork taped to the wall is the same as in every other elementary school across Israel, and the world. The crooked cutouts of trees decorated with sparkles and magic marker are no different than what I am sure is hanging on the walls of the school down the street. The titles and captions scrawled on the bottom of the colored paper at the school down the street, however, are in Hebrew. Or maybe they are written in Arabic. It is only in this school that the children's artwork feature titles scrawled in Hebrew and Arabic, side-by-side in big, curly, teacher-handwriting. The artwork, the signs around the building, the voices over the loudspeaker, the words overheard in the hallway -- at the "Hand in Hand" school in the Beit Safafa neighborhood of Jerusalem everything is double, everything is done twice -- in Hebrew and Arabic. As their website explains, Hand in Hand was founded in 1997 to "build peace between Jews and Arabs in Israel through development of bilingual and multi-cultural schools." There is no doubt that this is an ambitious, and maybe even slightly idealistic, goal but with a four schools now up and running in Israel from the Galilee region all the way down to Beersheba it certainly does not seem like an impossible one. At first glance, visiting a Hand in Hand school is like boarding a peace time-machine and entering an alternate universe where the team of architects most likely included folks like Arlo Gunthrie and Joni Mitchell. Kindergarten teachers name their classroom the "Peace Garden." Children whose people and families are living in an all-consuming fear of each other just down the road are jumping rope and playing kickball together as if the words "suicide bomber," "Right of Return" and "Hamas" are not included in their impressively expansive vocabulary. After the first glass, it is clear that despite the peace bubble that engulfs the school these words are most certainly part of everyone's vocabulary, and their reality. Johar, a tenth grade physics teacher, articulates this underlying reality: When I am teaching here, I am not really teaching physics. I mean yes, we learn physics, but in everything I am doing I am bringing my students together for the sake of our country. When I assign partners for an experiment, when I use everyday examples to explain a principal of physics, I am bringing together, integrating our cultures, our language and our people. It is about much more than physics. Every teacher here has their own story, their own history that brought them to this point, but they all share this same agenda. From the young kindergarten teachers to the older, more experienced principals when they talk about their students they are not really talking just about students, they are talking about their country. It is as though they are all willing participants of a very emotional experiment. Many of them have a sense of having been through hell, having seen the alternative and now, as their only hope left, they have invested themselves in the next generation and in the school's educational approach. When they teach, when they interact with the students, it is clear that there is something between everyone at the school, something much stronger and much more fragile than a regular teacher-student relationship. For the teachers, the students are their only hope for an end to perpetual war, and for the children, the teachers are their constant reassurance and guidance that it is okay, in fact it is commendable, to behave in a counter-culture way. This relationship and commitment are apparent in every aspect of the structure of a Hand in Hand school day. The announcements over the loud speaker alternate between Hebrew and Arabic. Half of the student body is Arabic and half is Jewish. Each classroom, until grade seven, has two teachers -- an Arab and a Jew. After grade seven the idea is that students are acclimated enough to both cultures and both languages that the ethnicity or religion of their teacher is a moot point when it comes to learning physics or geography. The effects of this educational and ideological approach are hard to miss in the stories and behaviors of this unique and outspoken group of students. In response to the often repeated mantra about the "reality" that Arabs want to wipe Israel and the Jews off the map, one Jewish student offered a simple, counter-demonstration when he turned to an Arab classmate and asked: "Do you want to kill me?" With impressive comedic timing the 16-year old girl replied: "No...well, sometimes, but not because you're Jewish." Even for the younger students this idea of conflict and hate between the two peoples is ridiculous enough to joke about because to them, there really is no difference, they have grown up together. Any inquiry about getting along or problems between Jews and Arabs is lost on them. They have a sense that there is something different about their community, but that is about it. Mostly, they just find it silly that the rest of Israel would live any differently. Alia, an 11 year-old Arabic girl in the middle of some sort of complicated jumping game that involves rope and chalk, stops for a moment to explain this concept to me: I have to learn Hebrew because there are some people that don't like Arabs but there is no difference. We are learning and we are together [pointing to students involved in the jumping game]. Like she is speaking Hebrew and she is speaking Arabic but it is okay because we are still the same. It's okay. For some students, however, it did not come quite that easily. Many students transferred to Hand in Hand after years of a more isolated educational experience. "I used to go to school only with other Arabs but my parents made me come here because it is better preparation for the University. At first I was afraid. My cousins warned me, they thought it might be dangerous. It took them awhile, I try to show them that it is okay to be friends with Jews, that they are the same but I don't think they really believe me." Fatin's story hints at the only real problem with Hand in Hand. She came to the school for a better education. Her family was in a position to pay a tuition fee in order to give their daughter the best education possible. Most of the students at Hand in Hand come from middle or upper-middle class families. Many of the families are secular, or even progressive. In some ways, this is Hand in Hand's biggest challenge: they may very well be preaching to the choir. The group that would really benefit from a Hand in Hand education most likely cannot afford to attend the school, or if they could, would never send their child to the school. At the moment, Hand in Hand survives primarily on private donations, tuition fees and some minor support from the Israeli government. They are able to offer a small amount of scholarships but not nearly enough to really address this challenge of reaching the most "at-risk" students. This is not to say that middle-class students and families do not benefit, or do not need, this type of integrated immersion. In fact they are often just as resistant to the idea of integration as other classes of Israeli and Palestinian society. When the Jerusalem Hand in Hand school was first created there was a major protest from the surrounding middle class neighborhoods -- from Arabs and Jews. However, it is certainly clear that this new generation that Hand in Hand is investing in and pinning their hopes on is a generation made up of decidedly upper class students. The homogeneous socioeconomic makeup and the physical similarities of most Middle Easterners creates an environment at Hand in Hand where, to the untrained eye, most of the students don't look much different from each other. It's not as though we are walking the halls of a Hand in Hand school in Harlem or Anacostia. However, everyone knows who is Jewish and who is Arab. There are subtle physical differences but more apparent are the circumstantial differences -- what it means to be a Jew or an Arab in Israel. One of the biggest differences between the two groups is the looming reality of Israel's mandatory military service for all Jewish Israelis. Half of Hand in Hand's students will go to the army at some point, the other half will not. For the older students, this is a major point of difference. The students at Hand in Hand appear to have a very clear understanding of what they should expect to find in the army. When two 16-year-old Jewish students talk about how they will handle going to the army, their two Arab classmates listen carefully, with tentative and distant expressions. Talking about the army is the only moment that incites awkward glances and uncomfortable looks between classmates. "I think it is going to be very hard for me. I grew up like this, this is what makes sense. I think it will be very hard for me to have to join the army in two years. I don't know how I will be able to handle it." Jamie is 16 and in the tenth grade at Hand in Hand's Jerusalem school. He's not the only one who wonders what it will be like when he joins the army. His class will be the first graduating class of Hand in Hand. There is a pervasive feeling of anticipation and anxiety about Jamie's class. In fact, this seems to be the big, unanswered question: what will happen to these graduates? Will everything they learned at Hand in Hand, the friends and connections they have developed be enough to create a new generation that finds the idea of war more ridiculous than the idea of actually living in peace? It is clear that when it comes time for the mandatory service of the Jewish students, this new generation will face a defining moment. How the Jewish students respond -- passive or active resistance, acceptance or refusal of the "army education" -- and how the Arab students react -- resentment or understanding, maintaining relationships with a drifting group or isolation within a new community -- will be a serious test of the limits of a Hand in Hand education. More on Israel
 
Norb Vonnegut: Bandaged Futures? Top
After 2008 -- the year Hurricane Excess pummeled the markets -- we're all struggling with our investments. Is anything safe? What can we trust? Who can we trust? Today, The New York Times described the search for answers in "Time for a New Strategy". I keep hearing two words: managed futures. Supposedly, they herald the dawn of an enlightened age for investments. Sounds interesting. I want to manage my future. The Wall Street Journal reviewed this asset class last Saturday: "Should Managed Futures Be in the Cards for You?" Many advisers are extolling the virtues of these investments. What the heck are they? Jason Zweig of The Wall Street Journal offered a fair and balanced review. Let's break down his article and figure out why I've labeled them "bandaged futures." WSJ : "The returns on this commodity-trading strategy don't look good -- they look spectacular. The average managed-futures program, as measured by the Barclay CTA Index, was up 14% last year -- beating the stock market by a staggering 51 percentage points. Run by commodity-trading advisers, or CTAs, these funds manage an estimated $199 billion and may traffic in anything from corn, cotton and crude oil to interest rates, currencies and stock indexes. They often use technical analysis and mathematical formulas to trade on price patterns." Norb : Good overview of the asset class. I find it odd that corn and interest-rate futures sit in the same bucket. I understand the reason. Algorithms and charts drive trading decisions -- not the underlying entities. Futures and commodities are separate securities just as real estate and mortgages are two distinct investments. But still, corn and interest rates in the same breath? We use manure to grow corn. Interest rates are more a function of fiscal policy, money supply, and political jawboning. On second thought, maybe the two do share something in common. WSJ : "The Barclay CTA Index has gained an annual average of 12.2% since 1980 and lost money in only three of those calendar years. Academic research shows that commodity futures have kept pace with inflation and rivaled the returns on stocks, with the extra virtue of tending to go up whenever stocks or bonds go down." Norb : Several years ago, we were all reading about a commodity super-cycle. The BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) -- China in particular -- were consuming more and more of the world's natural resources. We watched prices spike with incremental demand. Intuitively, it seems there is a link between the performances of managed futures and underlying commodities. But what happens if commodity prices flat-line or drift lower? How will global recession affect managed-future returns? Attached is a must-see documentary. The film explains the correlation. It offers enduring images from mavens who made their mark in the brass-knuckled world of commodities and derivative instruments. All it takes is 7.12 minutes of your time. Can you afford not to watch? WSJ : "Still, flameouts are common. A 1997 study found 20% of managed-futures programs disappear each year. Sol Waksman, president of BarclayHedge in Fairfield, Iowa, estimates his firm's Barclay CTA Index replaces roughly 15% of its constituents annually." Norb : Uh-oh. The returns suggest survivor's bias. The asset class sounds great. Unless we back the wrong horse and fall into that 15 percent category. WSJ : "Most futures traders put up 15% or less of the purchase price of the contract as "margin" or cash collateral." Norb : In other words, the traders borrow 85 percent or 5.7 times their equity stake. Isn't that how we got into this mess? WSJ : "Fees on managed-futures funds make mutual funds seem cheap. Many CTAs charge a 2% management fee, plus 20% of any "net new profits." The fund can incur high trading costs. You may have to pay an "introducing broker" as much as 6% to get into the fund. All told, the costs can hit 6% to 8% annually, says Ruvane's Mr. Lerner. Of course, returns are reported after all fees (except sales charges) are deducted." Norb : Excuse me? You're kidding, right? I'm skeptical about the long-term viability of any investment with fees of 6 percent to 8 percent annually. A six percent front-end fee is a non-starter for me. It reminds me of that card in Monopoly : "Do not pass go. Do not collect $200." I know some readers will disagree. Let me hear from you. www.acrimoney.com More on Interest Rates
 
Labor Ad Calls On Obama To Aid Health Care Workers With Whom He Campaigned Top
The labor community is ramping up the pressure on Barack Obama to intervene in what could be drastic and costly wage cuts for health care employees in California. A source with the Service Employees International Union tells the Huffington Post that the union is making a six-figure ad purchase in Los Angeles and surrounding markets, calling on the President to come to the aid of the state's home health care workforce. The spot, which should be released on Wednesday, will tell, in part, the story of Pauline Beck, the homecare worker with whom Obama famously spent a day walking "in her shoes." It will coincide with the president's visit to L.A. for a DNC fundraiser scheduled that evening. The dueling images could be politically touchy for the White House: health care workers pleading with the president to help them keep their salaries as he attends a high-end event with Democratic donors. The back-story to the ad is equally compelling. In August 2007, then candidate Obama spent a day with Beck drawing attention to, and getting a sense of, life as a health care worker in California. Beck, in turn, was granted a speaking slot at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, the president's staff deeming her story the type of message that would help bolster the working class image of the campaign. Now, it's Beck who is in need of the president's help. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in an effort to get the state under budget, has proposed cutting salaries for health care workers to levels that -- SEIU reps say -- would approach those of Taco Bell employees. The Obama White House had initially threatened to withhold billions of dollars in stimulus funds from California if this were to happen. Earlier this week, however, the administration backed off this threat. The SEIU has been drawing attention to the scheduled salary cuts for the past week, hoping to influence the President into intervene in the matter. The television advertisement is the next step in that campaign. The SEIU source did not have a final script for the ad that will run. According to a tweet from the union's president, Andy Stern, Beck will play a prominent role in the spot.
 
Bill Scheft: You Want Crazy? Top
You got it.This time, it is me posting as me. I have decided to reproduce, in full, an email chain between myself and a man named Scott Thompson. But first, a little back story. Over two weeks ago, I went to Washington for a Writers Guild event. There was a stand-up show, then a panel about late night writers and their influence on the news and elections. (I don't buy that crap about our influence, by the way, but this is one of those times where people fall in love with the idea rather than the reality.) I sat in the back row with the guys I had done stand-up with, piping up sparingly. Towards the end of the panel, I mentioned that I had been with Letterman for almost 18 years, written over 100,000 jokes (which had garnered "dozens of laughs") but my proudest moment at the show had been last year, before John McCain returned after canceling on us to not rush to Washington and not save the economy. Before the show, I gave Dave the note that McCain had a long-time friendship with G. Gordon Liddy. This was relevant because at the time McCain was beating the Bill Ayres/"Obama pals around with terrorists" drum. Sure enough, midway through the segment, McCain brought it up out of nowhere. Dave, to his credit, raised the Liddy question, and McCain phumphured something about him being a good man who served his time. I repeated that I was proud of Dave and of the moment, and got a nice hand. My mood was obviously lighter later, when someone asked the panel why we don't make jokes about Obama. Is it because he's black? I said, "It's not because he's black. It's just that so far, he's been a little too damn competent. We need him to trip on a oriental rug. Or would it kill him to mispronounce a foreign leader's name?" Okay, done. Nobody gets hurt, right? Well, my remarks were picked up by a couple of conservative blogs and folks started writing me. The kind of folks that would have written to Marty Fleck. Except this was no novel, and there was no Jim McManus to explain it away as "big-time wrestling." The letters died down after a couple of days. I only responded to two people, and the fact that I chose to engage them is regrettably on me. Mr. Thompson took two weeks to write me back. Here's the chain. I feel compelled to point out that we have told several jokes about Obama's mother-in-law living in the White House, the best being, "Mother-in-law living in your house? I thought the United States doesn't torture." Enough. To get the full cyber effect, read from the bottom up. Mangia. From: Scott Subject: Re: Brilliant To: "Bill Scheft" Date: Saturday, May 23, 2009, 3:33 PM Bill, Yea he is exceedingly brilliant! How many times does he have to f-up before you realize just how brilliant this guy is? Were you in NY when Scare Force One flew over? Probably Michelle and the girls on board for lunch! Your job is to write jokes about current events! That means the current admin. your nothing but an apologist! Your explanation about the McCain joke is a little deep, isn't it Bill? If you have to go that far to explain a joke on Letterman then no one got it. Remember, this is Letterman, and the average tool watching that is the same morons that were bamboozled by your beloved Messiah. See howobamagotelected.com. Hahaha, as far as not making millions for his freinds then WTF is ACORN? What about the millions going to fund abortions, and the 10,000 tax relief checks that went to dead people. Yea he is a genius, and Letterman is still funny. This idiot has you so suckered it's hilarious, at least most folks with common sense realise they were lied to just for their vote. The best part is that the admin. you have in now is 10 times more evil then Bush. Rahm Emmanual "don't let a crisis go to waste". Wake the fuck up Bill they got you hypmotized! Saying what ever the far left kooks want to hear just to appease gets you in trouble (close Gitmo uh oh 96-6 vote). Libs don't deal with reality real well. Do you think Barney Frank, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi have the peoples best interest at heart? Let me lay it out for you Bill No significant troop reductions in Iraq Increased troop levels in Afghanistan More right wing stance on wire tapping then Bush (you have to dig for this one it's not exactly msm stuff Billy) The sad inability to say anything without his teleprompter (more genius stuff here Bill) You could do a half hour on the show just playing this stuff. Talk of preventive detention without a trial for really tough terrorist types Takeover of the Banks and Auto Industry, soon to come TV networks Spending that will bankrupt the country within 5 years. Hell he admitted this himself the other day. What a tool. I can't believe you come right out and call him brilliant! Your supposed to be a funny joke writer. That is what the article was about in the beginniing, that all of you can't even bring yourself you make fun of this guy cuz your left wing stupidity won't allow it. My God, grasp the obvious man! Your response just proves exactly what newsbusters was saying. Maybe as time goes on Bill you will keep putting the pieces together and if you work on your self honesty you will come to terms with the fact that you were OBAMABOOZLED! If it makes you feel any better so were millions of others. Bill, one more thing, your brilliance got his ass kicked in a little battle of speechifying by the great DICK CHENEY. God was that beautiful. Even an America hater like yourself will admit the ONE got his ass handed to him, ahahahahaha Yea, Brilliant! Campaigns over Bill, now it is time for some Obama jokes. I know the funny man in you is screaming to come out. Your having trouble suppressing it aren't you Bill? The mother in law living in the whitehouse. The auntie running from INS, the brother child molester, the other brother living in a dirt floor hut, come on Bill it is all there for the picking. Talk about your low hanging fruit. The Mickey Mouse ears, the grape ape amazon wife that looks like she kicks his ass on a daily basis. The black and white dog, the gifts to other heads of state. An ipod with his own speeches on it. The ego jokes alone could keep you in a job for years. The teleprompter, the saying things before you consider any of the consequences, the NY flyover, the bowing to the Saudi King. Oh yea and the bowing to Nancy Pelosi and cowardly letting the Congress write his ridiculous budget. The funny way he plays b-ball. He never met a shot he didn't like. He was the guy who always thought he had game but sucked and as soon as everyone figured it out no one ever passed him the ball again! How about Gibbs Bill? Talk about gold. The working for Acorn. God I almost forgot the Rev. Wright and his $500 jammies he likes to preach in! It most be so painful for you Bill. Just stop it Bill. Let it come out, it will be so cathartic for you and Dave. Your ratings will go up and you two turds can hide your embarrassment for being obamaboozled behind the laughs! Love ya Billy, ----- Original Message ----- From: Bill Scheft To: Scott Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2009 10:33 PM Subject: Re: Brilliant Scott, you didn't listen, or you weren't paying attention. Or you don't care. McCain, trailing in the polls and with no ideas of his own, resorted to banging the Bill Ayres drum, saying Obama palled around with terrorists with no proof, and yet he was friends with and took campaign money from Liddy, a man who not only served time in prison from the Watergate break-in, but publicly advocated bombing the Brookings Institute and recommended on his radio show "shooting ATF agents in the head." There is no doubt McCain was a war hero, but he was the antithesis of a hero the way he ran his campaign. He was a puppet at the hands of the most reactionary and exclusive wing of his party, to the point where he reversed stance on torture. And that makes him a spineless hypocrite. I am proud because at that moment, he was exposed as a hypocrite. Bill Ayres was never convicted of a crime. G. Gordon Liddy was at the center of the one of the country's darkest moments. If you are upset about the fate of the auto industry, I don't blame you. It is sad. But Obama is not the one who refused to build energy efficient cars in the 80s and 90s and fell behind the rest of the world. And Obama is not the one who was in the pocket of the oil industry, both here and abroad. And my excuse for voting for Obama? Other than he's exceedingly bright and committed to making the country better rather than his friends richer, I have no excuse. If you want to have an intelligent dialogue, fine. Otherwise, save your posts for elsewhere. --- On Mon, 5/11/09, Scott wrote: From: Scott Subject: Brilliant To: "Bill Scheft" Date: Monday, May 11, 2009, 1:02 AM If a dig on a national hero is your proudest moment on the show then what a pathetic waste of time your career has been! Letterman has not a good show since the early 80's and now I understand it a little better. Well you should be proud mr scheft you and the rest of main stream tv put this incompetent loser in the white house. Now your so embarrassed and ashamed all you can do is keep attacking the right! Hahahahaha the joke is on you. You did not get what you thought you were getting did ya! Your network is soon to follow the fate of the banks and the auto industry and then they will tell you what to write. hahaha won't be any different then the pathetic dribble you doll out every night! Obama voter is a SUCKA! You were bamboozled you pathetic loser. You and all the other dummys. At least black people voted for him because he's half black. What's your excuse? With the stories coming out everyday about the white houses strong arm threats to the auto shareholders it looks like you put into power the very thing you thought you were voting against! A writer such as yourself must revel in the bitter irony of it all. Oh the sweet smell of ignorance that is the left. A collective freak out of embarrassment, what a story huh? Should give you an idea for your next book.....Maybe something with Barney Frank as the protagonist. Proud you claim, hahahhaaha, so sad. Scott Thompson
 
William Easterly: Sachs Ironies: Why Critics are Better for Foreign Aid than Apologists Top
Official foreign aid agencies delivering aid to Africa are used to operating with nobody holding them accountable for aid dollars actually reaching poor people. Now that establishment is running scared with the emergence of independent African voices critical of aid, such as that of Dambisa Moyo. Jeffrey Sachs, the world's leading apologist and fund-raiser for the aid establishment, has responded here with a ferocious personal attack on Moyo and myself, " Aid Ironies ." Allow me to defend myself (I'll let the formidable Moyo handle herself). It's not so much my pathetic need to correct slanders, as if anybody cared. Sachs' desperation shows when he peddles what I will show he knew were falsehoods. Besides, the sight of two middle-aged white men mud-wrestling on African aid may entertain the audience. Sachs accuses me of such a hard heart as to deny "$10 in aid to an African child for an anti-malaria bed net." Sachs offers: "Here are some of the most effective kinds of aid efforts: support for peasant farmers to help them grow more food, childhood vaccines... roads, .. safe drinking water...." Sachs likes a lot more another writer whom he quoted in his book Common Wealth : "Put the focus back where it belongs: get the poorest people in the world such obvious goods as the vaccines,... the improved seeds, the fertilizer, the roads, the boreholes, the water pipes...." Wait, that was me! Sachs was earlier quoting from my book, The White Man's Burden , which far from wanting to deny an African child bed nets, denounces the tragedy of aid impunity, in which "The West spent $2.3 trillion and still had not managed to get four-dollar bed nets to poor families." Sachs complained that "most Americans know little about the many crucially successful aid efforts, because Moyo, Easterly, and others lump all kinds of programs -- the good and the bad -- into one big undifferentiated mass." Sachs again prefers another writer whom he quoted in Common Wealth : "Foreign aid likely contributed to some notable successes on a global scale, such as dramatic improvement in health and education indicators in poor countries." You guessed it -- that was me again, illustrating how aid COULD work if only aid agencies were accountable for their actions. Sachs denounces my callousness when I myself benefited from a government scholarship for grad school: "Easterly mentioned his receipt of NSF support in the same book in which he denounces aid," and now I am "trying to pull up the ladder for those still left behind." Either this is an intentional falsehood or Sachs inexplicably failed to read the next paragraph in the book: "Could you give many more scholarships to poor students? ...Could you give the poor "aid vouchers" that they could spend on aid agency services of their choice?" Sachs suffers from the same acute shortage of truthiness as did the Bush/Cheney administration, all of whom have contributed to the current climate of fear and intimidation in foreign aid. Any aid critic is immediately denounced as a heartless baby-killer, which protects the establishment from the accountability so badly needed to see aid reach the poor. My colleagues and I at Aid Watch have documented in recent months such examples of aid impunity as: --USAID was caught red-handed by its own Inspector General mismanaging one multi-million project in Afghanistan so badly that millions disappeared without a trace, and among the few tangible outputs was a bridge, reported as "completed," that was so life-threatening that nobody could use it. --The World Bank's own evaluation unit criticized them for having only 2 percent of its communicable diseases projects focus on TB, despite the huge mortality from this disease and the availability of effective treatments. For good measure, the World Bank also cut nutritional projects in half, despite the huge benefits from cheap and effective nutritional supplements for children so malnourished that they will suffer permanent brain damage. --the World Health Organization faked malaria statistics to make false claims of victories against malaria in the New York Times. The WHO later withdrew and then contradicted the numbers, but never issued a public retraction. How to know when and where to fight malaria if the numbers are faked? None of these organizations suffered any consequences for their misbehavior. Only poor people suffer the consequences, and they are powerless. As an alternative to the impunity of the establishment that Sachs defends, the emergence of a new wave of independent aid critics in Africa is most welcome. This new wave includes many more besides the remarkable Dambisa Moyo -- such as the Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda and two extraordinary colleagues of mine at NYU: the Ghanaian economist Yaw Nyarko and the Beninese political scientist Leonard Wantchekon. Instead of Sachs' attempt to shout down critics with slanders and falsehoods, let's have a climate of open debate in which we learn from past mistakes, the guilty suffer, the good are rewarded, and we can hope that aid does start to reach the poor. More on Africa
 
Pinaki Bhattacharya: Why India Cannot Be Run as a Corporation Top
Indian media's search for a new knight in shining armor has found a recruit in Rahul Gandhi. The fourth generation scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty is the latest toast of the town in New Delhi. The credit for the Congress Party's modest, but impressive performance in the Hindi-speaking heartland of the country is accruing to him. This is the region where earlier the Congress Party's presence had reached non-existent proportions. Naturally, the media's focus is now on the personal team he leads -- his own private 'think tank.' And the number of young people with MBAs in that team -- all from American universities -- is causing speculation that the country would soon be in the thrall of these managers, who would get a chance to run it. A vastly urban middle class might not be too opposed to the concept of the country being run along the lines of a large corporation. Especially since their popular consciousness is suffused with the belief that the private sector is infinitely more efficiently managed than the public sector. It remains to be seen how much the collapse of the Fannie Mays, Freddie Macs, Bear Stearns and Lehman Bros has dented this core belief on which modern capitalism rests. Indian politico-economic elite has experimented earlier with these notions. Rajiv Gandhi, Rahul's father, was the first who brought the whiff of corporate culture into politics in the 1980s when he had joined as his mother's -- Indira Gandhi, India's third prime minister -- understudy. But the whopping Parliamentary majority of three-fourths of the total seats that Rajiv Gandhi won after his mother's assassination was whittled down to less than a third over a mere five year term in office. The next big corporate icon who was hailed as the 'chief executive officer' of a state of India, Andhra Pradesh, was a politician called Chandrababu Naidu. The World Bank found great virtues in his modernizing impulse in a state like AP, whose capital city, Hyderabad, he made the 'Cyberabad' of India. He too earned the ire of the voters in a short time to the extent that he is still in the political wilderness, losing the five-yearly state election, for the second time in a row this month. In retrospect thus, it can be said that running a country as a large corporation is fraught with dangers. The point is to understand why. Nations by their very nature are heterogeneous. Even the most homogeneous nations like China -- with a 90 per cent Hun racial stock; with one dominant language, Mandarin; and ruled by a single party -- have a heterogeneity of public views that can accommodate more than 250 news publications. En route to Chongqing in Central China, a fellow traveler on a boat over the Yangtze River had explained that any Chinese can shout at a street corner 'Hu Jintao is a bastard' and go scot free, provided the person does not attract a following. Jack Welch would not be able to handle that level of heterogeneity. If an employee of the GE were to do the same as a Chinese peasant, he would soon be stamped out at as 'militant trade unionist.' Commercial enterprises by their terms of reference, look for homogeneity. They look for homogeneity, within and without. Within, enterprise talks of propagating a corporate culture that creates certain predictability. Without, they seek a consumer group that has similar spending behavior and same likes and dislikes. It helps the production lines to plan in advance. But a country like India that thrives on its diversity does not take to homogenizing, unitarist messages easily. The sad plight of the religious rightist BJP is a case in point. Second, India's levels of inequality militate against a corporate agenda that says 'one size fits all.' Also, the increasingly federated political power in democratic India works against one single corporate entity laying down the line for the entire country. The disparate voices that constitute the vast mosaic of Indian polity provide necessary dynamism to a situation that can often seem impossible to an outsider. Finally, though politics is an art of the possible, the discourse is dependent on the idiom. The ruling idiom of Indian politics is economic growth, abolition of poverty, and supplanting scarcity with plenty. A corporation, on the other hand, cannot function in an atmosphere of deficiency. Its value chain demands that there are plentiful resources for it to function efficiently. Plus, the non-representational nature of corporate leadership finds itself at sea when powerful fringe movements threaten to dominate mainstream thought. Twenty percent of India's territory is under the control of the Maoists, who have the dispossessed tribals as their loyal followers. A violent solution to the problem could cut both ways. Not only would it take away India's sheen as a global brand for pluralism, it could also sow the seeds of a future conflict that would be even less amenable to the state capacities of India. The other solution dwells on addressing the root causes of the problem in terms of empowerment and resource transfer. This resolution of the problem would come in the longer term. Till then India has to stay solvent. Rahul Gandhi would have to go beyond the prepared text and delve into it as a politician with a mass following would do. More on India
 
Jim Luce: Ethiopian-American Lawyer on Conflicts Along the Nile Top
The Nile River between Luxor and Aswan, Egypt. A scorpion once tried to cross the river Nile. He approached several animals, asking if he could ride on their backs. None of them dared trust him, and they all refused. Finally, an old sheep agreed because the scorpion said that if he strung the sheep during the crossing, they would both die. In the middle of the river, the scorpion struck, and as they both sank beneath the waves, the sheep cried, "Why?!" The scorpion said, "I could not do anything else. I am a scorpion!" Fasil Amdetsion is an attorney from Ethiopia who speaks in riddles. With an undergraduate degree from Yale in both history and international studies, and a law degree from Harvard, he is a thinker. Working with prestigious New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, he is also a do-er. One of the things Fasil has done recently is analyzed the legal, geopolitical, and historical dimensions of the longstanding dispute over the Nile. He has followed the course of this river from an early age, growing up in the Nile River basin. The White Nile begins at Lake Victoria and the Blue Nile begins at Lake Tana. The Blue and White Nile then merge in Sudan and flows to the Mediterranean. Fasil's task is to get people outside the region to see trouble on the horizon. He believes there is significant chance of a "water war" along the Nile basin. The largest question is how volatile it will be -- and whether it is preventable. Both necessary and finite, water plays a vital role in food and energy production, modern transportation, waste disposal, industrial development, and of course health. Water gave rise to civilization 7,000 years ago -- and sustains it still. Fasil Amdetsion, Esq. studied at Harvard and Yale Because of its limited supply, Fasil understands water's crucial importance to governments and their people. When water is unevenly distributed, or when it is in needed more than ever as nations develop, conflicts are sure to arise. With water's myriad uses and limited nature, coupled with the fact that it is the quintessential "trans-boundary" resource, it is difficult for nations to agree upon its distribution and use. It is unsurprising, Fasil notes, that the English word "rival" is derived from the Latin word rivalis, a term denoting persons who live on opposite banks of a river used for irrigation. Fasil thinks the Nile basin will be the most likely site of a future "water war" because the Nile embodies "all the challenges that transnational management of fresh water could possibly present." The Nile would seem to be a water war waiting to happen. The Nile is long -- over 4,000 miles long. Two countries sharing anything often equates war. The Nile is shared by ten countries, and flows through some of the most water-deprived parts of the world. The region's population is growing at 3% a year and is projected to reach 859 million in 2025 (up from 245 million in 1990) is likely to make water even more scarce along the river basin. One problem is that Sudan and Egypt -- two comparatively non-contributories -- monopolize the use of the Nile. They claim it all -- and rely on colonial-era treaties to do so. In recent years, nations up-river have become more assertive of their rights. Tanzania, Uganda, and Ethiopia are among the countries that have begun to construct projects on the Nile. Despite the occasional conciliatory gesture, however, relations between the Nile's upriver nations have been dominated by suspicion and, at times, raw belligerence. In a sense, Fasil argues, Nile riparian states are behaving like the proverbial scorpion. Although these countries have much to gain from cooperation, they have rigidly pursued divergent paths in a manner that may ultimately be self-destructive if environmental and population pressures continue to mount -- which they will. Fasil criticizes current legal frameworks and political arrangements governing the Nile's use. He is also critical of a status quo which does not allow several countries to make use of the Nile for their own development. Egypt receives the entirety of the Nile's bounties from others but is allocated 75% of the Nile's waters, while Ethiopia, from which 85% of the Nile flows, makes almost no use of the river. Because of the enormity of interests these two states have at stake, they have been most vocal in asserting claims and counterclaims that represent competing upper and lower riparian visions for the Nile's future utilization Specifically, Fasil attempts to overcome the quandary the up-river states find themselves in. He hopes to influence a more comprehensive approach by grappling with environmental challenges, economic issues, populist and nationalist imaginations that influence politics, security interests, and legal arguments. Fasil's thoughts on this subject are available in a law journal article published by the University of Texas School of Law, Texas International Law Journal , Fall 2009, "Scrutinizing the Scorpion Problematique: Arguments in Favor of the Continued Relevance of International Law and a Multidisciplinary Approach to Resolving the Nile Dispute." More on Egypt
 
Jim Selman: Obama and Cheney: Dueling in Different Universes Top
I listened to both President Obama and Ex-Vice President Cheney deliver their remarks on National Security. The President's speech gave me goosebumps and Mr. Cheney's gave me pause to consider the other view. It seems to me there were three basic issues and points of disagreement. The first has to do with what philosophy/approach is appropriate to maintain 'National Security'. The second is whether 'enhanced interrogation' is torture and was it or should it ever be justified. The third is whether 'American Values' are a source of power and strength or are they potentially a source of real or perceived weakness. I believe these two men were both eloquent and sincere in their positions. They were both 'taking a stand' for what they believe in and, in this case, those beliefs are radically different. Whichever view one embraces, there is a lot at stake in terms of who we consider ourselves to be, who we are for others and, of course, our day-to-day security. This is an example where two people and their constituents are on opposite sides of an issue. In many regards, this could be viewed as another grand example of conflict and divisiveness -- as polarized as Northern and Southern Ireland, Islam and Judaism, 'Rightists' and 'Leftists', Uppers and Downers. The issue is that when people become polarized, there is no common ground from which to build a common future -- no amount of information and analysis can dictate a decision. Both cases are compelling. And if you accept their underlying assumptions, you will come to more or less the same conclusions. The problem with absolute divides is that people are seeing and relating to different worlds. CNN characterized the two perspectives presented by President Obama and Vice President Cheney in these speeches as being from 'different universes'. One of the things I've come to appreciate is that when conflict exists at the level of core beliefs or 'paradigms', the question is no longer which one is right or wrong. The question is which worldview can include the other. In the case of this week's debate, President Obama said that ends do not justify the means if the means go against the core principles and values that define who we are. Vice President Cheney's position suggested that unless we do whatever we need to do to prevail in the face of an enemy committed to our absolute destruction, we may not have a nation to defend (in other words, the ends do justify the means). Leaving short-term political games aside, how can we make this choice? In my view, the point goes to Obama for the simple reason that if we remain true to who we are, then even in defeat we have the capacity to create a vision of freedom and prosperity and rebuild what has been destroyed. If we lose the core of who we are in the interest of survival, we will at best be hollow mannequins of who we used to be. As our father's taught us in WWII, there are some things worth dying for.
 
Nancy L. Cohen: Left is the New Center Top
Last week, the nonpartisan Pew Center released its 2009 survey on American political values . Its headline could have read "Left Wins Culture War," As the Right ramps up for a Supreme Court showdown over abortion and gay marriage , this report couldn't be more timely. It's a clarion call for Democrats to come out of the closet. Like a host of other polls of recent months, the Pew survey shows the GOP near an all-time low. Only 22% of Americans identify as Republicans. Since partisan identification surveys began in 1929, only in the post-Watergate years have fewer Americans identified as Republicans. Only 40% view the Republican party favorably, while a majority of Americans hold an unfavorable opinion of the GOP. But the bad news for the GOP isn't automatically good news for the Democratic party. Democrats have an 11 point advantage in party identification, but at 33%, that's down 6 points from the election day high. The problem is that many of the refugees from the GOP prefer to call themselves independents. (A plurality of independents--46%--lean Democratic, giving the Democrats a 17 point advantage in party indentification when leaners are taken into account.) According to Pew's top-line analysis of its survey, Centrism has emerged as a dominant factor in public opinion as the Obama era begins. . . . . Republicans and Democrats are even more divided than in the past, while the growing political middle is steadfastly mixed in its beliefs about government, the free market and other values that underlie views on contemporary issues and policies. The proportion of independents now equals its highest level in 70 years. Owing to defections from the Republican Party, independents are more conservative on several key issues than in the past. While they like and approve of Barack Obama, as a group independents are more skittish than they were two years ago about expanding the social safety net and are reluctant backers of greater government involvement in the private sector. Yet at the same time, they continue to more closely parallel the views of Democrats rather than Republicans on the most divisive core beliefs on social values, religion and national security ." [emphasis added] What are the views of the political middle on these "divisive core beliefs"? By Pew's index of social conservatism, 46% are conservative, down from 67% in 1987, the year Pew started this survey. Two-thirds of those surveyed support gay civil rights, 53% support civil unions for gays and lesbians, and while a majority of the total population still oppose gay marriage, opposition has declined by 11 points since 1996. Only 19% of those surveyed favor a return to traditional roles for women; perhaps unremarkable until one considers that 30% of Americans believed in traditionalism in 1987. Only 16% agree with the religious right that abortion should be illegal in all cases. 63% favor a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Other recent polls show even stronger public support for socially liberal positions. A recent New York Times /CBS poll found that 57% of those under age 40 support gay marriage and 22% do not identify with any religion. CNN/ Opinion Research Corporation recently found support for Roe v. Wade at an all-time high of 68%. (The one outlier, Gallup's poll on abortion, has been most effectively challenged here .) In sum, Pew's survey suggests that Americans have fled the GOP because of its extreme positions on social issues, not because of its economic royalism. Put another way, although 60% of independents prefer the GOP position on issues of the economy and government , they can't stomach the party's reactionary social, cultural, and religious views. So, why did Pew report this as a confirmation of Americans' centrism? Simply because the majority of those surveyed fell between the extreme right and the progressive left. Like many interpreters, Pew confuses a term about relative position--the center--with a philosophical disposition toward Centrism, or moderate politics. The center is crowded, indeed, but Centrism is an empty political category. Its substance changes. And, at this moment, Left is the new Center. When we take into account the very mixed views Americans hold about progressive economic policies, the conclusion becomes obvious that Americans are turning away from the GOP and toward the Democratic party because, not in spite of, the Democrats' social liberalism. Yet Centrist Democratic politicians continue to invoke the putative Center to derail policies tarred as "Left." (See, for example, Sen. Ben Nelson, who is holding up Dawn Johnsen's nomination and threatens to filibuster Obama's Supreme Court nominee.) This kind of obstructionism gets validation from self-defined Centrist pundits and activists, who for the past three decades have counseled Democrats to moderate their views on social and cultural issues. It gets enabled by self-defined progressive pundits and activists, who for the past two decades have counseled Democrats to soft-pedal their liberal views on social and cultural issues, so as not to alienate socially conservative economic populists. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it looks as if the Left's much derided cultural liberalism is the key to cementing the Democrats' majority status for the coming years. Here's hoping our Democratic leaders read the fine print of the public opinion polls before this summer's Culture War blockbuster, the SCOTUS hearings, premieres. More on GOP
 

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