Monday, May 18, 2009

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Jeff Norman: Why I Criticized Code Pink Top
On Wednesday I admonished a Code Pink protester for her melodramatic "attempt" to arrest Donald Rumsfeld. My post (published here , here and here ) was not a rebuke so much as a practical call for more advanced operations. Nonetheless, so-called progressives -- including David Swanson , whose After Downing Street website is largely dedicated to the torture scandal -- told me I had crossed some line. As he explained in an email, Swanson refused to run what I had written because he thinks "self-critique from our own side" is so deleterious it must be silenced. He said he would "promote" my point of view only if I express it "without criticizing...the few people who are doing something." To comply with Swanson's unwarranted rule would be to perpetuate the very problem I want to address, which is that many activists are more concerned with feeling good about themselves than being effective. The incident which prompted my previous commentary occurred on May 9 at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington, DC. As Rumsfeld arrived at the event, he was harangued by Medea Benjamin and Desiree Fairooz of Code Pink. I wrote that Fairooz seemed "a bit crazed" as she screamed at Rumsfeld and unconvincingly claimed she would apprehend him for war crimes right then and there if only she were in possession of handcuffs. Although I approvingly noted her desire "to hold our leaders accountable," I also questioned whether Fairooz's outburst would influence public opinion as presumably intended. My emphasis on the latter consideration is what caused Swanson to deem the post too incendiary for publication. I pointed out in my rejected piece that allegations of unlawful conduct tend to be more persuasive when the accuser bothers to mention what crime the accused is believed to have committed. The closest either muckraker came to mentioning a cause for arrest was when Benjamin said of Rumsfeld: "He killed people in Iraq." It should be obvious to everybody that the basis for apprehending Rumsfeld needs to be something more than feeling the former Defense Secretary did something illegal. Nonetheless, those who lately have been professing certainty about war crimes, typically fail to identify the laws they "know" were violated. Trying to be helpful, I recommended "focusing on conspiracy to commit torture , which is a felony under Section 2340A of the U.S. Code." Unfortunately, Swanson has so far prevented that suggestion from entering the After Downing Street echo chamber. Citing applicable statutes is no small factor when it comes to arresting lawbreakers. Moreover, recruiting people to make citizen arrests is ostensibly a key aspect of Swanson's mission. Indeed, his website includes a page that's headlined " How to Make a Citizen's Arrest of a War Criminal ," on which he purports to be in search of "[arrest] teams in California, Texas, New York, and Washington, D.C., among other places." As I told him in an email, my proposed strategy and tactics are more consistent with his stated objectives than Code Pink's theatrics are. So it's very strange that Swanson squelched constructive criticism of fictional arrests, and turned his back on an offer to initiate real ones. Ironically, my history with Swanson and Code Pink reflects a kinship concerning the very issues which lie at the heart of our current disagreements. In 2005 I joined forces with Code Pink activists at one of Rumsfeld's speaking engagements. After I asked an unwelcome question that day, I was forcibly removed from the premises, just as Benjamin and Fairooz were ejected a week ago. And in 2006 I hosted a forum on media censorship televised by C-SPAN that Swanson had organized. So it's especially disappointing to now be required to pass a purity test in order to participate in "his" discussion. Swanson's fluctuating principles represent a blind spot which surfaces frequently on "our own side." (For the record, I'm not actually on any "side.") The tendency to embrace tolerance and such virtues only intermittently, has dealt a virtual death blow to the concept of free expression . A generation ago it was common to find self-identifying liberals who understand the importance of defending ugly or unpopular speech. Two well-known examples are the support the American Nazi Party received when its members sought to march in the streets of Skokie, Illinois, and Larry Flynt's widely recognized right to publish an intentionally hurtful cartoon depicting a public figure (Jerry Falwell) engaged in a bogus act of indecency. But nowadays the people "on our own side" who detect and reject thought control in all its insidious forms are few and far between. It was mostly "progressives" who insisted on punishment for Don Imus even though the irreverent radio announcer had violated no rule when he referenced racial characteristics while ridiculing the physical appearance of basketball players. After copies of an O.J. Simpson book had been shipped by one of Rupert Murdoch's imprints, an uproar ensued which caused Murdoch to pull the title out of circulation. Nary a liberal seemed concerned that a lynch mob had robbed everyone of the option to buy that book. And then there's war correspondent Dahr Jamail , lionized by peaceniks as the antithesis of a censor and bigot, who endorsed an effort to thwart development of a film project simply because he doesn't "trust Hollywood." The common thread here is a mindset which impels unwitting acts of censorship by individuals who believe they stand for free speech and open debate. When confronted with the reality of their oppressive behavior, the oblivious morality czars either retreat or rely on convoluted logic and semantics (i.e., quibble over the definition of "censorship") to deny the charge. In the world of activism, as elsewhere, such shenanigans are extremely counterproductive, and the consequences include inertia, drastically low standards and loss of credibility. Imagine if fire department officers were to indulge in the sort of pointless diversions Swanson and his ilk see as noble behavior. Buildings would burn to the ground because commanders would have already purged the ranks of skilled individuals whose opinions are offensive, leaving too few to get the job done. Luckily, most communities are actually served by a diverse, amply-staffed contingent of firefighters, some of whom are occasionally critical of one another, all of whom focus exclusively on putting out destructive fires when called upon to do so. Swanson spends what must be huge chunks of his time sounding alarms about torture and the need to punish war criminals. But where the rubber meets the road, his paltry emergency response team, devoid of disciplined actors and independent thinkers, is busy being fitted for costumes and enjoying a group hug. UPDATE 5.18.09: Swanson emailed me over the weekend to say he is "eager and delighted" to assist me, and today has begun to do so. Jeff Norman blogs at CitizenJeff.com .
 
Reese Schonfeld: Seven and a Half Years Top
Every time Dick Cheney or John Ashcroft or any of their toadies boasts on cable or television "We kept the homeland safe for seven and a half years" I ache to scream, "No you didn't, you slimy bastard." It's not the timeline that bothers me -- you and President Bush really kept us safe for only seven years, four months and ten days -- it's that before that you and President Bush contributed to the deaths of more Americans at the hands of a foreign power than any President in the history of the United States. The Japanese killed 2,350 at Pearl Harbor when FDR was President. Under James Madison, we lost 2,260 Americans in The War of 1812, and that war lasted almost three years. But it was under George Bush and Dick Cheney that, on 9/11, 2001, that 2,974 Americans were killed by al Qaeda. What's worse is that Cheney, Bush, Condileeza Rice and George Tenet had been warned about al Qaeda's plans. Richard Clarke, the National Coordinator for Security, warned Condileeza about Osama face-to-face in January 2001, and had sent memos to the CIA about him and al Qaeda as far back as the Clinton Administration. What's more, in August, two FBI agents, one in Arizona and one in Minnesota, sent warnings to FBI headquarters about suspicious Arab pilots training in American flight schools. The Bush Administration chose to ignore all the intelligence. Bush and Cheney's lack of diligence, their refusal to heed warnings, resulted in the deaths of almost 3,000 Americans in their first eight months in power. And, worst of all, the only way they could think of keeping America safe was torture. Richard Clarke didn't torture anybody to get his information; neither did the two FBI agents. They were just smart people doing their job, following clues, and sounding the alarm. But the best Bush/Cheney solution was stripping people down and water-boarding them. Cheney claims that torture got us the information that kept Americans safe for seven and a half years. But if torture is so effective, how come it hasn't led us to Osama bin Laden? How come we haven't found out where he is and sent in the drone that will launch the missile that will blow Osama to smithereens? How come torture didn't get us the information to tip off the Spaniards and the Brits about the terrorists who killed 243 of their citizens on buses and subways? How come torture didn't reveal Jamaah Islamiyah's plan that wound up killing 202 Indonesians and tourists in Bali? Maybe torture doesn't work. For years the Bushies have told us that they saved us from plot after plot; but of course they couldn't tell us what the plots were without jeopardizing national security. How come Bill Clinton was able to save us from the real "millennium" plots to blow up the Los Angeles Airport and the Radisson Hotel in Amman without torturing anybody? I guess it's all a matter of intelligence, and that's something the Bush Administration didn't have. More on George Bush
 
Jeff Schweitzer: Dog Souls, Animal Intelligence and Human Hubris Top
A few days ago, Seattle Times headlined an article by Electra Draper entitled, "Dogs Have Souls, but You Already Knew That." Much of the piece is devoted to University of Colorado Professor Marc Bekoff, who has concluded that humans are not alone in having a nuanced moral system. I strongly suspect that the conclusions are correct, and that many animals, including dogs, likely have a true sense of right and wrong. But I question the premise about what is being proved and disproved in Bekoff's research. We have been so brainwashed by Christianity that we begin with the too-long-unquestioned assumption that only humans are moral creatures. Research then operates from that premise, in either proving it right or wrong. But that has the process exactly backwards. Instead, we should start with the baseline assumption that animals are moral; research would then set out to prove that premise to be verifiable or not. We may come to the same conclusion either way, but how we get there reveals much about human hubris. The question of animal morality is ultimately based on the concept of a soul, which Western religion teaches us is an exclusively human possession. In this view, morality springs from an inner spiritual life separate from the corporeal self. Morality requires and is derived from having a soul. The Bible offers plenty of proclamations on the subject: "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul..." (Genesis 2:7). Note that no other animal ever got the nostril treatment, only humans. "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it" (Ecclesiastes 12:7). Again, the Bible gives no similar treatment to any life form other than humans. Only humans shall "return unto God." We can also remember the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Of all visible creatures only man is "able to know and love his creator." He is "the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake," and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God's own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity. (CCC #356) That species-centric hubris cultivates the unhealthy attitude that humans are better than other animals. If we possess a dignity conferred only upon us by our special relationship with god, if we alone were made in God's image, we would of course conclude that only humans have souls. But even if the concept of a soul were valid, the notion that such an idea is exclusive to humans is unsupportable. Would a chimpanzee sharing 98% of our genome not have a soul? Does this mean that the soul resides in the differential 2%? Would a chimpanzee have a soul, but not an elephant? How about dogs, if we can prove them to be moral creatures knowing right from wrong? How about Alex, the African Gray parrot so famous for his command of language? The concept of a soul, though, is not valid. The soul rests on the discredited notion of dualism, as does the closely related issue of mind versus brain. By looking at the latter issue we can gain some insight into the former. Neuroscientists have moved beyond the old dualist arguments that posit that the mental and physical are different in kind, or that understanding the brain will not lead to an understanding of the mind. Dualism, separating mind and brain, arises from the deep human need to offer an explanation for what is not yet understood. We have difficulty just saying, "we don't yet know" while searching for the answer. From the ancients trying to explain the rising and setting sun to modern efforts to understand the beginning of the universe, humans simply make up comforting explanations when nothing more is available, with little regard to objective truth. What could be more comforting than knowing that the earth is the center of the universe, around which everything revolves? This geocentric view was taught as an absolute divine truth for almost 1500 years until Copernicus and Galileo proved instead that the earth revolves around the sun. We made up an answer until the evidence became overwhelming that the myth was not supported by fact. Likewise, we do not yet know the neural mechanisms underlying consciousness, so we make up the notion that it is somehow a mysterious entity separate from the brain. Dualism is nothing more than the neurobiological equivalent of geocentrism -- a false doctrine created out of a deep need to understand something that is not yet understood. It is this same appeal to dualism that contributes to the persistent idea that humans have souls, something beyond the body, just as the mind is something beyond the brain. By rejecting dualism, the notion of a soul becomes equally insupportable. Instead of tying the concept of morality to the soul, we need to understand morality as a consequence of intelligence . After all, one needs to be smart enough to understand the difference between right and wrong to be moral, so the concepts of morality and intelligence naturally correspond. And with that idea we can easily see how other animals can be moral, and are likely so. So what, then, is intelligence? Intelligence can be thought of as the ability to learn from experience (acquire and retain new knowledge), and to subsequently apply that new knowledge with flexibility to manipulate or adapt to a changing environment. Or we can view intelligence as the ability to create abstract thought, beyond instinct or responses to sensory input. Without a doubt, human beings possess a level of intelligence, self-consciousness and self-awareness greater by degree than is found in any other animal. Evidence suggests that no animal besides the human kind is aware of its own mortality, the ultimate expression of self-awareness. Only humans bury their dead ceremonially. Dogs and cats do not put on elaborate state funerals for their fallen leaders. Chimpanzees do not visit their lawyers to make out a will in anticipation of impending death. For centuries, philosophers have taken this highly developed sense of self in humans to mean that intelligence does not exist at all in other animals. Descartes was convinced that animals completely lacked minds, and his influence is felt even today. Even Stephen Jay Gould, the no species-centric chauvinist, concluded that consciousness has been "vouchsafed only to our species in the history of life on earth." With all due respect to the late Professor Gould, perhaps one of the greatest evolutionary biologists of our time, and to Descartes, the issue is not so simple. As with almost all aspects of comparative biology, intelligence, self-consciousness and self-awareness are elements of a continuum, rather than phenomena with sharp boundaries between species. Intelligence does not by any means belong exclusively in the domain of humankind. Animals exhibit by degree skills in language, music, mathematics, social organization, and other traits previously thought to be uniquely human. No matter how we define or measure it, intelligence must always be understood in context. A cat under water would not look too intelligent, but a porpoise might. On the other hand, you would be severely challenged to teach a porpoise to climb a tree. You may well be able to solve math problems, but your dog will learn more quickly and more effectively than you ever could to sniff out the drugs in your colleague's suitcase, and to notify you of the contraband. An animal's intelligence, or more precisely, its ability to manifest its intelligence , is tightly correlated with its natural environment, and its evolutionary adaptations. Therefore, no universal measure of smarts can be meaningful because animals have diverse adaptations that define the context of intelligence, making interspecies comparisons suspect. Brain power is found by degrees across the animal kingdom, and not in some nice neat linear correlation with some other trait like the development of mammary glands. Being smart seems to be a trait unique to human beings only when we artificially designate our particular suite of characteristics as the definition of intelligence, proving that circular logic is not too intelligent. The same applies precisely to morality. The assumption must be that animals are moral until proven otherwise. Not the other way around. More on Animals
 
Brian Whetten: Conscious Business: Like Water To A Fish ... Top
If you're a fish living in an aquarium, it doesn't take a whole lot of ingenuity to discover things like food, rocks, bubbles, and other fish. But it takes a genius to discover water. In response to a recent article on conscious business , someone asked me "so, what do you mean by conscious?" And I got stuck. I couldn't provide a concise answer. The whole notion of consciousness had become so core for me that that I was at a loss for words. Then in my morning meditation today, I realized that the defining genius of some of my favorite teachers (such as Ron and Mary Hulnick , Steve Chandler , Ken Wilber and David Hawkins ) is that like a fish explaining water, they've learned how to explain consciousness to other humans. The picture below shows the ladder of consciousness. At the bottom of the ladder is death. As Steve Chandler points out, you've got to be a pretty good salesperson to close a deal with a dead person. And death makes it a lot harder to hit the quarterly numbers. Just slightly above death is fear, along with its partners judgment and pain. Fear makes us stupid. It makes us un-conscious. At a physical level, it literally sucks the blood from our brains, reverses tens of thousands of years of evolution, and puts us into "fight or flight mode." When we're feeling scared, angry, hurt, stressed, guilty or unworthy, we're in a very low state of consciousness. Most violence comes from this level of consciousness, as do most of the deeper challenges in relationships and business. At the top of the ladder is the power of the human spirit. Think Gandhi, Chariots of Fire, and the firemen at 9/11. Think "yes we can." This is where creativity lives, as well as inspiration, joy, love and peace. When we're living life from the top of the ladder, we're at the top of our game. Ideas flow, synchronicity connects, and we're able to see how even the most painful challenges in our lives have been gifts for our learning and growth. This is a place of profound but grounded optimism -- what Jim Collins calls Level 5 Leadership. This grounded optimism makes a huge difference. According to Dr. Martin Seligman , " I have studied pessimism for the last twenty years, and in more than one thousand studies, involving more than half a million children and adults, pessimistic people do worse than optimistic people in three ways: First, they get depressed much more often. Second, they achieve less at school, on the job and on the playing field, much less than their talents would suggest. Third, their physical health is worse than that of optimists. " When we're at the top of the ladder we live life much more consciously than when we're at the bottom. We see how interconnected life is, and we treat other people and our environment with care and consideration. Not because we "should," or because we want others' approval, but because we genuinely want to. From this place, we naturally shift our focus from a single bottom line to a triple bottom line (of profits, society and the environment.) We create businesses that provide both money and meaning. We create conscious businesses -- organizations that are aware of the ladder of consciousness, and focus not just on what they do , but also on how they are . Organizations which are not only aware of the other fish in the tank, but also of the water they swim in. More on Happiness
 
Cortez Brown: I Confessed To Murder To End Torture By Police Top
CHICAGO — An inmate seeking a new murder trial claims he was tortured so badly by Chicago police officers in the 1990s that he would have signed anything, including his murder confession. Cortez Brown testified before a judge Monday at a hearing to decide whether he'll get a new trial. Brown was convicted of first-degree murder in 1992. He says he only confessed to the crime after detectives in former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge's unit beat him. At least two officers who worked under Burge invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during questioning. Brown's attorney cited a special prosecutor's report saying there was a history of police torture under Burge, who wasn't required to attend the hearing.
 
Arianna Huffington: Obama Calls for An Extreme Makeover of Our Culture: Are the Credit Card Companies Listening? Top
In his masterful commencement speech at Notre Dame this weekend, President Obama took his campaign theme of Change to a whole new level, telling the graduates -- and the rest of us -- that we find ourselves at "a rare inflection point in history where the size and scope of the challenges before us require that we remake our world to renew its promise." So, as we stand at this inflection point and gradually move from what Jonas Salk called Epoch A (our survival-focused past) to Epoch B (our meaning-focused future), we have to ask ourselves what this remade world will look like -- and what steps we need to take to get there. At Notre Dame, Obama offered a devastating teardown of Epoch A and its "economy that left millions behind even before this crisis hit -- an economy where greed and short-term thinking were too often rewarded at the expense of fairness, and diligence, and an honest day's work." The problem, according to the president: "Too many of us view life only through the lens of immediate self-interest and crass materialism; in which the world is necessarily a zero-sum game. The strong too often dominate the weak, and too many of those with wealth and power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice." The president should email his speech to Wall Street. And while he's at it, he should also blast it out to the people running the giant pharmaceutical companies, the ones who knowingly allow deadly drugs to remain on the shelves; to the people running chemical plants releasing deadly toxins into the water and air; to the factory farmers filling our food with steroids and additives; to the dentists exposed for trading their Hippocratic oath for profit by performing unnecessary surgeries on children . And he should definitely send it to the credit card companies, which, faced with customers choking on debt and forced to use their credits cards to pay for essentials like food and medical care, respond by jacking up interest rates and tacking on penalties and fees. Even as credit card defaults reached record levels in April . As we move to Epoch B, we need to ask ourselves: do we want to continue living in a world where banks can gouge their customers with sky-high interest rates? The Senate seems to think so. Last week it voted down a measure introduced by Bernie Sanders that would cap interest rates at 15 percent. And it wasn't even close . Sanders' amendment only got 33 votes, with 22 Democrats joining those who voted against the interests of their constituents (a shout out to Sen. Grassley, the lone Republican to vote for the amendment). "When banks are charging 30 percent interest rates, they are not making credit available," said Senator Sanders . "They are engaged in loan sharking." Also known as usury. Throughout history, usury has been decried by writers, philosophers, and religious leaders. Aristotle called usury the "sordid love of gain," and a "sordid trade." Thomas Aquinas said it was "contrary to justice." In The Divine Comedy Dante assigned usurers to the seventh circle of hell. Deuteronomy 23:19 says, "thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother." Ezekiel 18:10 compares a usurer to someone who "is a thief, a murderer...defiles the wife of his neighbor, oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not give back a pledge, raises his eyes to idols, does abominable things." The Koran is equally unequivocal: "God condemns usury." And it goes on to say that "those who charge usury are in the same position as those controlled by the devil's influence." Up until the late 1970s, America's laws followed suit, keeping interest rates in check. Then, in 1979, a Supreme Court ruling allowed banks to charge the top interest rate allowed by the state where a bank is incorporated as opposed to the borrower's home state. Hoping to lure banks' business, states like South Dakota and Delaware repealed their usury laws -- and off we went. That same year, Congress passed the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act which, among other things, allowed federally chartered savings banks and loan companies to charge any interest rates they chose -- putting us on the path that led us to today, where banks routinely gouge their most vulnerable customers. According to Elizabeth Warren, credit card companies "have switched from the notion of 'I'll lend you money because I think you'll be able to repay and we'll find a reasonable rate for doing that' over to a tricks and traps model... The job is to trick people and trap them and that's how you boost profits." This profit-uber-alles mindset is why the banking industry, looking at the world through what Obama described as the "lens of immediate self-interest and crass materialism," is fighting tooth and nail against the Senate's new credit card reform bill that is set to come up for a vote this week (the industry already having spent $42 million on lobbying this year alone ). Although, to hear the bankers' lobbyists tell it, all they really want is what is best for the consumer. "It is vitally important for policymakers to get the right balance of better consumer protection while not jeopardizing access to credit and the credit markets," said Ken Clayton of the American Bankers Association . "We are very worried that the Senate bill fails to achieve this balance, to the detriment of American consumers." Yes, I'm sure they are losing a lot of sleep worrying about American consumers. But the problem for most consumers isn't getting access to credit cards (see the endless credit card come-ons clogging our mailboxes). It's being hammered with 36 percent interest rates for missing a single payment or bombarded with a never-ending array of fees (lenders raked in over $18 billion on penalties and fees alone in 2007). In any case, the Senate bill, while definitely a step in the right direction (and even tougher than the measure the House passed in April), will, with a few worthy differences, impose the same limits on the credit card industry as the new rules passed by the Fed in December. And, like the new Fed regulations, the Senate legislation won't take effect for close to a year. Don't get me wrong: having the president sign the bill into law will send the right message to the banking industry (important after the cramdown debacle) and offer added protection against a future Fed chairman arbitrarily rolling back the new rules. But if the new rules are important enough to consumers for Congress to enshrine them into law, why not make them effective immediately? As Obama said at last week's town hall meeting on credit cards, the predatory practices of the credit industry have "only grown worse in the middle of this recession, when people can afford them least." Almost a year is too long to wait when people are struggling -- and being bled dry. "Both the politicians and the regulators are riding in like the cavalry, and the settlers are already dead," David Robertson, publisher of the Nilson Report, a newsletter that monitors the credit card industry, told the Washington Post . As HuffPost's Ryan Grim reported , Obama has been much more involved with the credit card bill than he was with the anti-foreclosure legislation. But, given the impassioned case he made at Notre Dame and his call to "align our deepest values and commitments to the demands of a new age," he should take it one step further and throw his weight behind Sanders' effort to limit usurious interest rates. Just because it didn't pass doesn't mean it's dead. History is filled with causes that took many battles before they were victorious (women's suffrage, the Voting Rights Act, the Clean Air Act, the American with Disabilities Act, etc., etc., etc.). Our deepest values and commitments are certainly being put to the test. Questions we thought had been settled for hundreds of years are suddenly back on the table. Are we a country that tortures or not? Are we a country that financially tricks and traps millions of vulnerable working families, binding them to the whims of bankers who have lost all sight of fairness? Appearing on Real Time with Bill Maher , Elizabeth Warren put the question this way: "This is really about whether we have a government that just recedes and says, in effect, 'Hey, the strong can take from everybody, they can write these [rules] however they want...we can have a totally broken market that makes a few people very rich and robs the rest of them. Or you can write a set of rules that says, 'You know, it's just gotta be kind of level out there.' ...Everything we have, your shoes, your clothes, the water you drink, the air you breathe, we have basic safety rules in the United States... But we don't have them for consumer credit products." Heading into Epoch B, and seeing the devastation all around us here at the tail end Epoch A, can anyone -- other than the banking lobby, that is - argue that we shouldn't? The moment to act is now. Inflection points in history don't come along very often. More on Barack Obama
 
Oksana Grigorieva Definitely Pregnant With Mel Gibson's Baby: TMZ Top
We've learned Mel Gibson's girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, is pregnant with his child. Our sources say Gibson has already told his estranged wife, Robyn, and their children about the news. We're told Oksana is in her second trimester. More on Celebrity Kids
 
Jim Gibbons Blasts Obama's "Hypocrisy" For Turning Down Meeting Top
Gov. Jim Gibbons said today that President Obama has denied his request to meet with him in Las Vegas later this month. The governor had sent the president a letter last month saying he wanted to discuss the economic difficulties facing the state's tourism industry. Gibbons said today that he was notified Obama won't meet with him while the president is in Las Vegas on May 26 for a fundraiser for Sen. Harry Reid.
 
Alan Lurie: The Promise of Uncertainty Top
There was once a philosophy professor who opened each class by reminding his students that the test of any truth is whether it is paradoxical. In other words, it must be internally self-contradictory in order to be true. This is a difficult concept to grasp, so one of his students approached a math professor and asked if he could explain this puzzling teaching. The math professor came to the next class, and as the philosophy professor was about to begin, stood and asked, "Sir, do you really believe that all truth is based on paradox?" The philosophy professor scratched his head and thoughtfully answered, "Well, yes... and no." I'd like to offer such a paradoxical statement by the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus: There is nothing permanent except change. We clearly live in times of enormous change. Many of us may wish that things could stay put, or return to some version we have of "better times". We may feel a desire for solid, familiar ground, and out of a sense of uncertainly we may be feeling fearful and insecure. In this fearful state of mind, though, it is very difficult to act positively and to find wisdom, because when fear arises our self-created defenses go up, dampening our deeper knowing, and unseating our sense of confidence and connection. In this way, we may tend to reject change and its accompanying feeling of uncertainty. But we can view uncertainty in a different way. Uncertainty can be a great gift, causing us to re-think our established, fixed way of seeing things, and opening the way for transformation - from stagnation to movement; from limitation to expansion. In this light, uncertainty is the calling card of change and growth, and is a cause for optimism, not fear. This is the essential process of evolution. Periodic - often dramatic and unpredictable - changes occur, leading to the creation of new, more advanced species that further the process of awareness and diversity. Without change there is no life, because without change there is no growth. Without change our mind, body, emotions, and spirit begin to atrophy, solidify, and decay. Charles Darwin himself noted this succinctly: It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. In order to be responsive to change, we must have the confidence to look at our situation as honestly as possible, assess where previously held beliefs and actions are keeping us from growing, and muster the strength to implement a new course of action. This requires that we become conscious of our internal mental dialogue, and challenge fear-based assumptions against reality. If different action is needed, we will then respond based on information, not reactionary fear. In essence, these external changes result in our own internal change, and are the catalysts for personal and communal growth. We all know people (and we may be one ourselves), who faced an unexpected change that felt completely unwelcome when it occurred, but who now look back on that event as a key positive turning point in their lives. Through addressing this change, and accepting the uncertainty that followed, that person (you?) experienced growth that would not have happened otherwise. Uncertainty and change are the agents in our lives that propel us, often against our will at the moment, to growth; exposing the hidden defenses that we've created to protect us from revealing our insecurities. Once exposed, these defenses begin to weaken, and we allow something new and positive to enter. This is what is meant by the famous, often quoted truism: As a door closes, a window opens. By going through that window - though it may be a tight fit - we can discover a landscape of possibilities that we may never had known existed if the same old door that we've been walking through for all of our lives had not suddenly been closed. From this perspective, uncertainty and change are great gifts of grace that present great opportunities for growth. The Talmud, the compellation of Jewish thought, in addressing one who is struggling with the difficult feelings of uncertainty and uninvited change, says, ...let him be sure that these are the chastening of love. Like a parent who, out of love, insists that her child turn off the TV (or log off of Facebook), put down the candy bar, and stop hitting his sister, in order to exercise, study, get restful sleep, make peace with his sibling, and eat good food, we are often forced to change, from an Infinite Love that desperately desires our healthy development. The child may resist - and perhaps resent - these changes, unwilling to acknowledge that these are ultimately for his own good. Accepting uncertainty and change requires faith - the knowledge that we are watched, guided, and protected, and that our lives are purposeful and meaningful. Although we may not often understand why events are unfolding, faith gives us the peace to face these events with confidence. Uncertainty is the calling card of change and growth, and is a cause for optimism, not fear. So, instead of feeling fearful, or hoping that things will somehow return to their old familiar patterns, we can embrace our current situation of uncertainty and change with great optimism, knowing that we are heading toward an individual and collective future that will be better, more prosperous, more compassionate, and more wondrous than we can yet imagine. Then, if we are willing, we can walk through a new door that opens to the untold, unimaginable potential that is our birthright as human beings.
 
Kristi York Wooten: John Legend and Jeffrey Sachs: Philanthropy's New BFFs Top
The rooftop of the private Soho House in New York's Meatpacking District is the perfect setting for a late-spring soirée: it showcases lower Manhattan's twilight glow the way few other locales can. It's no surprise, then, that singer John Legend would host a $1,000-per-ticket benefit dinner and performance for his Show Me Campaign there on May 19, or that he would fill up the seats with models Padma Lakshmi and Petra Nemcova, singer Wyclef Jean, and actor Jeffrey Wright. Yet, the event's most important guest isn't someone you'd normally see vying for a lounge chair beside this exclusive hotel pool, even though he travels the world with the likes of Bono, Angelina Jolie and Madonna: Jeffrey Sachs may be best known as an economic advisor to the stars, but the 54-year-old Columbia University professor isn't interested in hobnobbing his way into the tabloids; he's hell-bent on halving extreme poverty by 2015 -- and if another celebrity comes along for the ride, that's just fine, too. To be fair, the association between Legend, 30, and Sachs seems genuine; in an email for this story, Sachs characterized their relationship as that of "friends and colleagues (except he sings better than I do). John is exceptionally smart, talented, and committed." One sings about making love, the other writes about making poverty history, and together, Legend and Sachs might be one of the most potent philanthropic pairings the celebrity world has seen in a few years. Why? Aside from the fact that they're both Ivy grads with prodigious talents who both achieved major success in their respective fields at a young age, neither one has an air of insolence about him. Their differences in age and (yes, even in the Obama era) skin color are welcome juxtapositions, and the fact that Legend approached Sachs because he was so moved by his 2005 New York Times bestseller, The End of Poverty , says something about the authenticity of their pairing. And, needless to say, from a marketing standpoint, putting an internationally-renowned economist with a platinum-selling soul singer is one combination that covers plenty of demographic territory. So, what, exactly, have Legend and Sachs been up to since they met? They teamed to launch Legend's nonprofit Show Me Campaign in June 2007; they embarked on a January, 2008 "Poverty Action Tour," in which they conducted Q&A sessions at universities around the country on behalf of Sachs' nonprofit, Millennium Promise; they've appeared on MTV together, and they've had their picture made quite a bit at celeb-filled events. How did it all begin? After a visit to Ghana and Tanzania, Legend was moved to start the Show Me Campaign (named after his song, "Show Me," a conversation with God about the state of the world) as a partner organization to Sachs' Millennium Promise, which benefits more than 80 Millennium Villages in Africa -- all built upon strategies devised to carry out the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals. Since 2000, the "MDGs" have become the cornerstone of the work done by many NGOs and advocacy organizations worldwide. Among those goals: to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, and combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and other diseases that keep the world's poorest billion people in the "poverty trap" of living on less than $1 per day. We're talking about a lot of work, and a lot of money. In these tough economic times, it's hard for Americans to think about raising funds for Africa when we have hunger and homelessness in our own backyard -- and critics of celebrity philanthropy are getting louder by the minute. Portfolio magazine's May 2009 issue features an exhaustive (and more than occasionally cynical and unfair) view of Sachs' work, labeling him at turns a "card sharp," "The Willy Loman of Antipoverty Products," a "white knight do-gooder," and the "Sally Struthers of intellectuals" (referring to the latter's tearful commercials for the Christian Children's Fund in the 1970s and 1980s). And, Dambisa Moyo, author of the recent book Dead Aid , disagrees with Sachs' position about sending government aid to Africa, and told the New York Times she "objects to this situation as it is right now where [celebrities] have inadvertently or manipulatively become the spokespeople for the African continent." The "cha-ching" of receipts from celebrity fundraisers is necessary, but it's not an evil. A philanthropist is a philanthropist, no matter the level of his fame or whether his contribution is monetary, artistic, or simply a PowerPoint grid of ideas about how to save the world. Now, more than ever before, it's important that the work of fundraising for the shaping of sustainable communities in the developing world continue, and Sachs, for one, shouldn't be attacked for sharing his wealth of knowledge with those who seek his expertise. In John Legend's case, I'd venture to say he'd be teaming with Sachs even if he'd never become a famous musician. As such is reality, though, this multiple-Grammy-winner's in the unique position of being able to summon the big bucks for an intimate rooftop show (grand piano and all), yet also rally young fans to activism. "[John] brings an enormous amount of energy, care, and ideas to the fight against poverty," Sachs writes about Legend. "And excitement. He energizes his countless fans to get involved, which they are doing in large numbers. All over the US I meet people who mention John's engagement with the Millennium Villages and the inspiration that he has given to [them]." So, to all the naysayers who think a little cynicism can stop the "do-gooders" (and idealists and songwriters) from raising money to help people thousands of miles away, I heartily say, "Pshaw!" As for Tuesday's rooftop party in New York? Sign me up! (And feel free to put me in the lounge chair next to Sally Struthers.)
 
Donnie Fowler: Fox News Admits Pelosi Issue = GOP Distraction Top
Fox News correspondent Jonathan Hunt today candidly gave voice to what Republican leaders have privately been saying for the last week -- the controversy over the briefings Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi received from the CIA several years ago is an orchestrated & deliberate distraction from the real debate about torture and the collapse of the GOP. FOX NEWS FLUB: Instead of this debate being about national security, what is and isn't torture, what the Bush administration should and shouldn't have allowed and whether anybody in that administration should now be prosecuted, the Republicans are now able to frame this debate as to whether Nancy Pelosi is fit to continue as Speaker. So they are not about to let their foot off the gas in any way, shape, or form. The video is here: The Republicans mistakenly think Speaker Pelosi has thrown them a thin lifeline in the rough political seas in which they are drowning (and doing so because of their own failures and internecine warfare ). Democrats who support the dramatic progressive victories during the 120 days since the Obama inauguration should stand up for her and, likewise, avoid any move that throws the GOP a life raft. "When your opponent is in the process of destroying himself, don't step in and interfere." Only the Republican base, desperately trying to create the Democratic failure that Rush Limbaugh so feverishly desires, should have the nuttiness to buy into these talking points and these distractions. Donnie Fowler Silicon Valley --- What are those victories? Here's a little reminder since Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House in January of 2007 ... an increase in the minimum wage; higher benefits for veterans; tough new ethics rules; improved gas standards; funding for schooling, Medicaid, infrastructure & state assistance; health insurance for millions of uninsured children; and a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. And think of the opportunities to come on health care reform, civil rights, and climate change reform. Read more: "The Pelosi factor - Julian E. Zelizer - POLITICO.com" - http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22425.html#ixzz0FthqVNT7&A More on Nancy Pelosi
 
Rachel Maddow Ratings Hit Series Low With May 15 Program Top
Much was made last week when Tuesday's broadcast of "The Rachel Maddow Show" drew the smallest audience Maddow had seen since she joined MSNBC last summer , averaging 789,000 total viewers. According to Nielsen Media Research, Friday's (May 15) program drew just 763,000 total viewers, setting a new series low. Friday's program also drew Maddow's smallest Adults 25-54 audience ever, averaging just 163,000 demo viewers. Maddow's ratings have cooled since the election frenzy of the fall, where she burst onto the cable news landscape with impressive numbers. In March, she averaged 1.133 million total viewers for her lowest month to date — in April, however, she came just shy of that with 1.042 million total viewers (setting a new monthly low). That said, her April 2009 ratings represented a 98% increase over April 2008, in which Dan Abrams' "Verdict" averaged just 527,000 total viewers in the same 9PM time slot. Maddow's largest audience came on October 30, 2008, when she averaged 3.041 total viewers. More on Rachel Maddow
 
Eva Herzigova Dons Sheer Gisele-Like Dress (POLL, PHOTOS) Top
Model Eva Herzigova - she of the original Wonderbra ads - is in Cannes for the film festival. At Monday night's red carpet premiere for "Looking for Eric" the Czech beauty wore a sparkly, nude-colored dress reminiscent in shape to the dress Gisele Bundchen wore to the 2008 Met Gala, only covered in sequins. PHOTOS: More on Celebrity Skin
 
Lita Smith-Mines: Finishing The Hat Top
I didn't need a hat, yet I was really tempted when he asked if I wanted him to buy the one perched on my head. I was animatedly admiring my image in the mirror, and he loves me, so I could understand his inquiry. "No, thanks," I said. "I don't need a hat, and we have so many bills to pay." Yet like a comedian simultaneously tamping down and encouraging audience applause, I kept the hat on my head while encouraging my husband to marvel at how appealing it was. Bewildered yet emboldened by my expressed astonishment that such a stylish and organic hemp chapeau was only $28, he again offered to purchase the hat. "No, we can't afford it," I said much more firmly. Without nuance or subtext this time, I returned the hat to the shelf and turned my attention to the nearby wine bottle holder fashioned from driftwood. Since the real estate market (and my law practice) started to fray from the bottom fringes up, it was unusual for me to be in this upscale town, and even more unusual for me to be visiting a store that sold mainly ornamental and unnecessary items. But there I was, killing time before an essential appointment, holding hands with my spouse and wandering up and down Main Street, stepping into boutiques and shops to purely admire the kinds of fairly insignificant items I once acquired as fast as a flash of plastic could fly. Did my husband miss the "old days" as well, when shopping was recreation? Undoubtedly. Did he want to make me happy since times have been so cheerless? I'm sure. But he didn't push me again about the hat, as we both were realistic people firmly entrenched in the here-and-now confines of our financial circumstances. And I didn't bring up all the perfectly plausible ways I could justify spending less than $30 on a hat. I haven't forgotten those pre-2007 feelings of indulgence, even though they prevented me from fully preparing for the rain clouds of 2009 hovering over my (hat-less) head. While I have come to grips with knowing the days of see any hat -- buy any hat have conclusively ended for me, all that keeps me going some days is anticipating that my life's circumstances will improve just enough to adopt some variation on see an affordable hat -- buy an affordable hat. Content again to resume window shopping while in the company of my husband, we made our way towards the exit without a backwards glance at the hat that formerly would have been mine. I hummed a bit of Sunday In The Park With George as we reached the doorway: Reaching through the world of the hat, like a window, back to this one from that... however you live, there's a part of you always standing by... At the last second, I hesitated on the store's threshold, and then ducked back inside. But my fiscal resolve was not weakened by an impulsive purchase: I merely picked up a card listing the boutique's information. Then and there, caught between my old and new worlds, I optimistically vowed to return as soon as I could. That hat and I had unfinished business. More on Financial Crisis
 
Christine Schanes: Battered Into Homelessness Top
Domestic violence perpetrated upon women is a leading cause of homelessness for women and their children. In fact, the National Network to End Domestic Violence in its current online article, "Housing: Issue Overview", states "the interrelated nature of domestic violence and homelessness is undeniable." Please play the following video of legendary artist Edward D. Miracle's stunning sculpture entitled, "Battered Woman Syndrome," E.D. Miracle © 2008, all rights reserved.   In the NCH Fact Sheet #7, published in 2008, the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) described the circumstances, which I list numerically below, that lead many battered women and their children into homelessness: When a woman leaves an abusive relationship, she often has nowhere to go. This is particularly true of women with few resources. Lack of affordable housing and long waiting lists for assisted housing mean that many women and their children are forced to choose between abuse at home or life on the streets. Moreover, shelters are frequently filled to capacity and must turn away battered women and their children. An estimate 29% of requests for shelter by homeless families were denied in 2006 due to lack of resources (U.S. Conference of Mayors, 2006). In "Housing: Issue Overview," the NNEDV describes the all-to-common scenario facing battered women who seek to leave their abusers: Victims of domestic violence struggle to find permanent housing after fleeing abusive relationships. Many have left in the middle of the night with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and now must entirely rebuild their lives. As long-term housing options become scarcer, battered women are staying longer in emergency domestic violence shelters. As a result, shelters are frequently full and must turn families away. The NCH Fact Sheet #7 sets forth the relationship between domestic violence and homelessness as found in state and local studies: In Minnesota, one in every three homeless women was homeless due to domestic violence in 2003. 46% of homeless women said that they had previously stayed in abusive relationships because they had nowhere else to go. (American Civil Liberties Union, 2004) In Missouri, 27% of the sheltered homeless population are victims of domestic violence. (American Civil Liberties Union, 2004) In San Diego, a survey done by San Diego's Regional Task Force on the Homeless found that 50% of homeless women are domestic violence victims. (American Civil Liberties Union, 2004) A recent study in Massachusetts reports that 92% of homeless women had experienced severe physical or sexual assault at some point in their life. 63% were victims of violence by an intimate partner. (NAEH Fact Checker, 2007) Within the "2008 Hunger and Homelessness Survey" released by U.S. Conference of Mayors, twenty-two of the twenty-five cities participating in the study "reported that, on average, 15% of homeless persons were victims of domestic violence." The City of Trenton, New Jersey reported that 65% of people experiencing homelessness there were domestic violence victims, the highest percentage of any city reporting in this study (Appendix G-2). I have to agree with the NNEDV's conclusion in its "Housing: Issue Overview" that it "is not because homeless women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence, rather experiencing domestic violence or sexual assault often forces women and children into homelessness." I look forward to your comments. Thank you, Christine More on Women's Rights
 
Joe Barton Begins "Guerrilla Warfare" On Climate Bill Top
The markup session for the landmark Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill is underway in the House Energy and Commerce Committee (live webcast from C-SPAN). And it's sure to be one hell of a show. Ranking member Joe Barton (R-Texas), who promised to wage "sneaky," "crafty" "guerrilla warfare" on the legislation, just delivered his opening statement. He said of the bill, "We know the cost is significant; we know the environmental benefit is practically nonexistent."
 
Jacob Dickerman: Journalists Present Acupuncture Placebo As Cure Top
Last week, an acupuncture story from the Center for Health Studies in Seattle came out, and the mainstream press hopped all over it. 638 randomized adults with chronic mechanical low back pain were split them into four groups: one which was given standardized acupuncture, one that was given acupuncture specifically tailored to that individual, one that was given standard medical treatments, and one that was given fake acupuncture. As in previous studies, the scientists found that acupuncture had a greater reported effect than conventional medicine, but also, that poking people with toothpicks had the same effect as traditional Chinese medicine. Before we go on, there are a couple things we should discuss about chronic mechanical low back pain. Many of us experience back pain on a fairly regular basis. With most of us, it's fairly mild, and with some of us it's downright crippling. As I once heard paleobiologist Donald R. Prothero describe it, we are badly constructed bipeds. Humans are the only fully bipedal primate, and we're among the few fully bipedal mammals, most of the others belong to the family of macropods - the hopping family of the Kangaroo and Wallaby. The other large group of bipedal animals are birds, who, as we all are probably aware, use those other two limbs of theirs to fly (except for birds like the Ostrich, Emu, and Penguin). Of all bipeds, we have the heaviest upper body, in regards to our legs. We have great leg muscles, sure, but we're built top heavy, and all of our weight is constantly supported by an inflexible spine. Thus: humans have back problems. Thank you, Homo Erectus. So, chronic low back pain is a fact of life. And it's not just about our construction. Some of it also comes from our mood, how we hold ourselves. If you're stressed out you're going to carry your shoulders differently, your posture will be different, you're going to tense in certain ways, you're just going to put more strain on your already hard working back. And here's the real kicker: most conventional treatments don't have much effect on chronic back pain. It's unfortunate but it's true. Pills, stretches, anti-inflammatories, most of doesn't hit the key problems, how we hold ourselves, how we walk, the strain that we put on ourselves on a daily basis. Now, let's go back to acupuncture - and all other practitioners of alternative medicine. There's one thing I'll say they do better at than doctors who practice scientific medicine: spending time with patients. There're a couple reasons for this. To begin with, we have more sick people than doctors. I have a friend who's currently going into her second year of residency. She's a great person, very good hearted, and she constantly has to deal with the fact that she just doesn't have the time to spend with all the patients who could use time. Practitioners of alternative medicine don't have that same problem. Most people coming to them don't have life-threatening conditions. What's more, no matter how much alternative medicine practitioners like to describe themselves as healers, we must recognize that this is their business and, like Plastic Surgeons, the high amount of time they spend with their patients is built into the bill. The don't have to hurry. As I said, a great deal of lower back problems actually have to do with stress. A doctor's probably not going to be able to help you out here. They don't have half an hour to sit with you, talk, about your problems and help your stress levels. Alt Med practitioners, on other hand, do. This alone can have a hugely beneficial effect on a patient. That feeling that someone cares is taking the time to relax you can be great. Acupuncture includes an extended process of someone talking to you while you lie down. And when it comes to something like lower back pain, yes, that can be beneficial. Another big part of why alternative medicine works is because people using it believe it's going to. Pain is a subjective experience. Sensation is received via nerve endings, interpreted by the brain and delivered to our consciousness. Because there's an interpretive element to pain sensation, it is particularly vulnerable to the placebo effect. And acupuncture will definitely stimulate that. Your brain thinks that something is happening, you think that there's something that will work, and therefore... it does. And if there's anything that recent study suggested, it's that acupuncture is based on the placebo effect. Acupuncture is built on the theory that there is a metaphysical life-energy inside you called Qi or Chi. This Qi flows throughout your body by way of "acupoints," and when it is blocked it causes sickness. Traditional acupuncture states that the placement of thin needles into these acupoints will restore the flow of Qi, helping to heal the body to full working condition. In the Seattle study, toothpicks were poked on these acupoints, but not into them, down to the level where traditional acupuncture demands. There are certain offshoots of acupuncture which will claim that you just have to be near the acupoints to have an effect, but that's really not the traditional belief system of acupuncture. What's more, there have been other studies which have shown similarities between real and sham acupuncture where the needles have not been placed anywhere near traditional acupoints. What this really amounts to is what we skeptics refer to as "special pleading," Acupuncturists proposing that what the study showed was that the placebo was not a placebo. The truth for practitioners of acupuncture is that, when we look at the combined weight of all studies on acupuncture, the evidence suggests that the fundamentals of acupuncture - Qi, acupoints, blockages - simply have no basis in human physiology. But the papers that picked up the story about this study didn't highlight that the procedure was shown to have no greater effect than placebo. Instead, you had from Business Week , " Acupuncture: Real Or Fake, Eases Back Pain ," from Reuters, " Acupuncture, real or fake, helps aching back: study ," or the Washington Post 's " Does Acupuncture Help Your Back? " They're articles that really want to talk about how the acupuncture worked, and not that the fundamentals of the practice are flawed. The story that was picked up in the media was that Acupuncture was a safe way to cure lower back pain, when really what the article tells us is that at its core, there probably isn't anything to it other than what the brains of the patients are producing. There's something that I want to make clear here. I am not saying that it's impossible that acupuncture works. Personally, I don't believe that the scientific evidence has so far pointed to any efficacy for it, but there are people out there that swear by it and I don't really have a problem with it. There are a couple dangers associated with it that I don't feel people are quite aware enough of. Since certain acupuncturists don't hold with the germ theory of diseases, there have been a couple cases where unsterilized needles have spread deadly viruses like Hepatitis. Also, there have been cases where acupuncturists punctured the chest wall of patients, causing collapsed lungs. And of course, there's always the danger that a person with some deadly illness will delay conventional medicine, giving their disease the chance it needs to get worse. But that's not the point of this article, and I think with a bit of regulation, sterilization, at the very least, would cease to be a problem. What I'm saying is that this particular study which is being looked at by the press does not say that acupuncture works. I'm saying that the evidence from this study suggests a placebo effect and not one from the needles themselves. Why do journalists keep missing the real story? Is it just because they think this is what we want to see or is it that they just don't have enough science training to understand? Who knows? Maybe the problem's us as readers. James Randi still talks about when he demonstrated that "psychic surgery" was a sham on " The Tonight Show ". The audience response? "Can you get me in touch with that psychic surgeon?" Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I thought it was the journalist's responsibility to get the story right and make sure we understand it. Perhaps it comes down to this strange belief in balancing stories, this theory that you need to present both sides of a story equally, even when the stories aren't equal. But while that may make sense in the context of humanities, science is about fact. A flat Earth is not an equal proposition to a round one, and when a study shows that a placebo works as well as a medicine, it means that the medicine itself is probably a placebo. The real problem may be, the story that acupuncture doesn't work any better than a placebo isn't sexy. If you look at the recent study honestly, no amount of special pleading can counter the fact that the theoretical underpinnings of acupuncture were dealt a blow. I like the idea that instead of getting needles stuck into me, I can have someone chat me up and occasionally poke me with toothpicks and that'll have the same effect. Certainly it'd be cleaner and safer, and probably cheaper too. But that's not as good a story, so instead we see a story about how traditional Chinese medicine wins against the evil forces of science.
 
Joe Biden Praises Tim Russert At Wake Forest Commencement Top
In an otherwise cheerleading sort of commencement speech, Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. offered up poignant remembrances of Tim Russert, the former NBC journalist who died nearly a year ago. The vice president noted that Mr. Russert, the network's Washington bureau chief and transformative anchor of "Meet the Press," had been originally scheduled to give the address this Monday morning at Wake Forest University, calling his visit bittersweet. More on Joe Biden
 
Andrea Friedman: End the Burma Exception and Refer the Military Junta to the International Criminal Court Top
Today the world watches aghast as the SPDC, the military junta controlling Burma, puts Aung San Suu Kyi, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, into the notorious Insein prison for the offense of an uninvited intruder coming to her home. Just a year ago, there was shock and horror as the SPDC blocked efforts to distribute aid after Burma was devastated by Cyclone Nargis. These actions come as no surprise from this military regime. Yet in the discussions and debates on Burma, be it about sanctions, engagement, arms embargo, political prisoners or any of the myriad responses to the atrocities taking place there, until recently one word has been noticeably absent. Where are the calls for justice? Where in the Burma discussion are the voices that are calling for an investigation of Israel's actions in Gaza or for the arrest of U.S. officials for torture ? Where are the calls for justice that led to a referral of the situation in Darfur, Sudan to the International Criminal Court? The international community has a responsibility to respond to the denial of basic rights and the crimes against the people of Burma; justice must be a part of the equation. There have been thirty-eight resolutions condemning the situation in Burma from the United Nations General Assembly and Human Rights Council (formerly Commission). The regime's scorched earth policies have included the destruction of 3,300 ethnic minority villages, the conscription of tens of thousands of child soldiers, the forced displacement of over one million refugees and internal displaced persons, and the widespread rape of ethnic women. Yet while the military junta in Burma was receiving an ineffective tongue lashing, in other situations with clear evidence of crimes that threaten international peace and security the United Nations and its most powerful body, the Security Council, took action, including establishing criminal tribunals in the Former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, East Timor and Cambodia and referring the situation in the Darfur, Sudan to the International Criminal Court. It is time for governments around the world to live up to their legal commitments and respond to the situation as what it is -- a criminal government that must be held accountable under international law. The need for action has become particularly urgent as the SPDC attempts to solidify its rule in 2010 with a sham election based on an illegitimate and illegal constitution. The Security Council should exercise its mandate decisively by recognizing the situation in Burma as a threat to international peace and security and referring the situation to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for a real investigation of what is happening inside Burma. The discussion has begun to change. As of this posting, 69 Members of Parliament in the UK have called for a Commission of Inquiry into "allegations of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Burma". The Women's League of Burma has led the call for justice through a referral to the International Criminal Court for the use of rape and sexual violence as a weapon against ethic nationalities; the title of their recent statement says it all, "Enough is Enough." The International Burmese Monks Organization has appealed to the European Union to push for a Security Council referral as well. The US Campaign for Burma has called for a Security Council Commission of Inquiry into crimes. The Burma Lawyers' Council and my own organization, the Global Justice Center , have repeatedly called for accountability for the regime. Today sovereignty can no longer be a free pass to arbitrarily arrest, torture, rape and kill one's own people. The military junta in Burma should be no exception. More on Burma
 
Rose Hayden-Smith: Of California, Fairgrounds and Things I Can't Afford to Buy Given the Current Budget Situation Top
California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has released a list of state properties that might be for sale in this time of unprecendented budget crisis. On that list are a couple of fairgrounds, including the Ventura County Fairgrounds in Southern California. The Ventura County Fairgrounds is actually California's 31st Agricultural District, and operates under the oversight of the California Department of Food and Agriculture . You can visit that website to learn more about our Fairs and Expositions; they represent a great underutilized resource in California. Per a report produced under the leadership of previous Governor Gray Davis (remember him?): The network of California fairs is an economic, social and cultural bonanza that enriches the lives of Californians from every background and walk of life. California's fair network dates back to before the Civil War as a way to advance public knowledge of agriculture and provide a community gathering place. That tradition continues to this day, but with modern innovations that bring home the importance and reality of agriculture to an urban population that may have little contact with farms, ranches and agribusinesses. In California, the mission of fairs has grown to include commercial ventures that hold little relation to agriculture (such as car races). But I know that the Ventura County Fair is one of the last great fairs in California, one that truly evokes the spirit of agriculture, past and present, and helps people to understand more about those who work to feed us. California legislates by ballot box. Competing initiatives and propositions from different election cycles make it difficult to develop and provide a coherent and sustainable roadmap for the state. The passage of one ballot initiative, for example, may rule out another. Each ballot is a confusing tangle of competing initiatives, nearly all driven by special interests. California's initiative law was passed in 1911, during the Progressive Era. Ballot initiatives provided an instrument that enabled "the people" to check excesses during a period when there was little regulation of industry or other aspects of American life (call it the Gilded Age). Peter Schrag, a columnist with the Sacramento Bee , has written about this in " Paradise Lost ." (Schrag has also written a book more recently about California as America's "high stakes" experiment. He generates interesting and thought-provoking work that will challenge your thinking in any number of ways. If you hold the view that the beginning of the budget crisis in California dates back to Prop 13 in 1978, Schrag's work may resonate with you. Even if you don't believe that, you'll find his viewpoint worth considering, and he's a lively writer.) We are in a world of budget trouble in California. I have been sharing this with the many out-of-staters that I speak to on a daily basis. I don't know that my out-of-state friends fully comprehend the size of the state, and the implications for the nation if the experiment here fails. Per 2008 census estimates, 36,756,666 Americans live here...that's nearly 1 in 12. We have more than six million students K-12 enrolled in our public school system; that's greater than the entire population of some other states. We're a MEGA state by nearly every index, including the challenge index. We're also a mega agricultural producer. In 2007, California was the number one state in cash farm receipts. The state produces about half of U.S.-grown fruits, nuts and vegetables. Many crops are produced solely in California. Bring this down to a smaller, local level, and California is still a leader: we are also home to some of the most productive agricultural counties in the U.S. Per 2002 Ag Census figures, 9 of the nation's top 10, and 12 of the top 20 ag producing counties are in California. Ventura County is one of them. So what does this have to do with the sale of state property? In California, agriculture is not just something that's part of our past, as it is in some other places. It's vital to California's future, and the state's current economic health. And the kinds of foods we produce are vital to human health, which ought to be a national priority. This is important and heady stuff, the stuff of a nation's food security, a nation's future. How do we preserve this and assure agriculture's vitality for future generations? We continue to educate the public about the importance of agriculture, no matter how deep the budget cuts go. If anything, we do more . Agricultural education is our seedbank; it is where we should be sowing more now, to reap future benefits. Not just in California, but nationally. How do we do this? Well, we could lose No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and replace it with education about agriculture. When we don't educate youth about the food system and healthy lifestyle, we leave all children behind. Substitute NCLB with a national curriculum that incorporates food systems education, environmental awareness, and human health. Teach children about agriculture, where their food comes from, about the importance of healthy soil in producing healthy food and healthy communities. That's a good start (and my next public policy agenda item). But we also need to keep the Fair and Exposition system intact in the Great State of California. If anything, we should commit to pumping into that system more money, resources and a real mandate to improve and increase the focus on agricultural education, making it once again the primary mission of these public venues. We must develop a coherent educational and outreach plan that involves all stakeholders, including agricultural interests (who, in Ventura County, do a great job of educating the public about their work at the Fair). But we don't sell taxpayer treasures like county fairgrounds, which sometimes provide the only link between consumers and the agriculture that feeds them. The threat to sell state properties such as fairgrounds may be a publicity stunt on the part of the Governor. He is clearly trying to let citizens know that we are in a dire situation, and that whether these ballot measures pass or not in the upcoming special election, that there is going to be a lot of pain to go around. He is daring us to consider what might happen if we fail to approve these measures. Double dog dare the voters. But talk about selling fairgrounds? If we value the future of agriculture in California, this is not a dare any of us should be willing to take. "A Garden for Everyone. Everyone in a Garden."
 
Obama: Dating My Daughters Will Be "An Issue" Top
At ages 10 and 7, Malia and Sasha Obama are daddy's girls, but the president is already preparing for what might be his biggest challenge: the dating scene. In a recent Newsweek Q&A , President Obama mentioned his dating policy, with an emphasis on the inherent advantage of armed Secret Service guards. The Daughters Obama won't be sneaking out of any White House windows. Or see a slideshow of Obama's sweetest parenting moments . Were you surprised at how quickly your family became part of the cultural iconography? You know, the nice thing is that, partly because of temperament, partly because of Michelle's unbelievable parenting skills, I've just got some happy, normal kids. And all that stuff that's going on around them, they just kind of miss. We have not seen any effects, any fishbowl effects, yet on them. Now, I worry about them when they're teenagers where, you know, you're already embarrassed about your parents and even more embarrassed on TV all the time. And dating I think will be an issue because I have men with guns surrounding them at all times [laughter], which I'm perfectly happy with, but they may feel differently about it. *Follow Huffington Post Style on Twitter and become a fan of Huffington Post Style on Facebook * More on Obama PDA
 
Candy Spelling: It's Still All About the Hair Top
I've had a lot of requests to talk about my longtime friend, Farrah Fawcett, leading up to last week's airing of the documentary about her heartbreaking and inspiring battle to beat cancer. She is so closely associated with my husband's show, "Charlie's Angels," that it's difficult to believe she was only on the show for its first year, in 1976. Inevitably, the reminiscing and reflecting include references to "that hair" and "the poster." Aaron and I used to get more questions about Farrah's hair (the stylist was Armando of Teddy and Armando in Beverly Hills) than any other subject - at least until "Dynasty" premiered, when people asked if Krystle was me, or I was Krystle. (Neither.) I don't know if the renewed interest in Farrah's hair and how she changed fashion made me pay more attention to references to hair in movie reviews or not. But, I was stopped in my tracks when I read: "...well-coiffed Tom Hanks" in a photo caption; and "Tom Hanks is back with much better hair...," in a movie review in the "Los Angeles Times." When I got to the review in Thursday's "USA Today," the headline was: "'Angels, Demons' does not translate: But Tom Hanks' hair does look better." "Entertainment Weekly" went in a different direction in its review: "Let others sermonize about 'Angels & Demons'....Let voices rise on matters of...old hairdo versus new coif in Tom Hanks' portrayal...." "Daily Variety's review included an observation that Tom Hanks' character was in "fitter condition" than the last time he played the role, and: "He's also clearly changed hairdressers, a good move." I doubt Ron Howard will get many questions about Tom's hairline, but there may be some trade ads being planned already for awards season. I guess it is still all about the hair - but at least with a more gender equality.
 
Man Calls 911 Over 28-Year-Old Son's Messy Bedroom Top
BEDFORD, Ohio — An Ohio man who argued with his grown son over a messy bedroom said he overreacted when he called 911. Andrew Mizsak called authorities Thursday after his 28-year-old son _ who's a school board member in the Cleveland suburb of Bedford _ threw a plate of food across the kitchen table and made a fist at him when told to clean his room. The son, also named Andrew, lives in a room in his parents' basement. The father declined to press charges and told police he doesn't want to ruin his son's political career. The son, who also works as a political consultant, said he's lucky to be living in the house rent free. He also promises to keep his room clean. ___ Information from: The Plain Dealer, http://www.cleveland.com More on Stupid Criminals
 
Frank Schaeffer: Obama and Abortion: Escaping the Left/Right Divide Top
The abortion issue that President Obama addressed during his commencement speech on May 17 at the University of Notre Dame cuts across party lines. The President made an honest attempt to re-frame the debate around the practical means to help women with difficult pregnancies. What this means is a further de-linking of abortion from the Religious Right and Republican politics. Abortion as a moral non-partisan issue has become mainstream. The result is that the gross hypocrisy of the "pro-life" Religious Right in trying to prevent sex education or the distribution of contraceptives is clear for all to see. And the Republicans that speak against abortion and then cut programs for women, sex education and children are also left twisting in the wind. On the other hand, when President Obama initiates better health care programs for women, better education programs, backs sex education and the availability of contraceptives he's going to have the support of the majority of the American people. One reason he will is because most Americans regard abortion as a sad, if not bad, choice. From the early 1970s to the early 1980s I was an anti-abortion crusader. I left the Religious Right in the mid-80s. My evangelical leader father, the late Francis Schaeffer, Dr. C Everett Koop (who became Ronald Reagan's surgeon general) and I teamed up in the late 1970s to make a film and book project (Whatever Happened to the Human Race?) that was credited with vastly expanding the anti-abortion movement and bringing evangelicals into it. The way I came to change my mind about a number of issues related to abortion is I think similar to what President Obama refers to as "fair-minded discussion" between anti-abortion Americans and pro-choice Americans: I came to see that the right wing is not fair-minded. It is anti-American. It hates America as it is, and only loves the America it approves of. It divides the country into "Real Americans" ( a la Palin) and the rest. These days I believe that abortion should be legal. I also agree with the President that we must find better ways to help women who choose to carry their babies to term. I also think that we can prevent many more unwanted pregnancies through more and better sex education and the distribution of contraceptives. If polls are to be believed it happens that my view is that of the majority of Americans. For the first time since 1973 and the legalization of abortion the debate belongs to reasonable Americans who don't see everything in legalistic terms. The absolutist pro-lifers and the absolutist pro-choicers are being deservedly marginalized. President Obama will not be able to heal the divide between the extremes but he is providing an option: keeping abortion legal while working on the means to prevent unwanted pregnancies and also helping women and families to keep, raise and love their babies, or put them for adoption. Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice groups have not won the public opinion battle on abortion. In fact, even in the context of a hugely popular pro-choice president the poll numbers are gradually but steadily moving away from the simplistic embrace of abortion along the lines of the Roe v. Wade model. If you look at the often contradictory polling information the picture that emerges is that most Americans believe abortions early in pregnancy should be legal but that abortion is usually not the best choice, that late-term abortions is tantamount to murder, that abortion for the life or health of the mother or for severe fetal deformity should always be available, but that abortion is never merely a matter of personal choice in some amoral way. Most Americans believe that abortion has moral implications which gives society a stake in trying to compassionately reduce the number of abortions. This is a long way from the type of propaganda put out by the pro-choice groups in the 1970s in which aborted fetuses simply became "tissue" and abortion at any age of fetal development for any reason was just a matter of "personal choice." A combination of factors including sophisticated ultrasound methods, fetal surgery, genetic science, premature birth survivability rates at younger ages have combined to change the landscape from a time when pro-choice advocates pitched abortion has no more morally significant than the removal of an appendix. Since the abortion issue has escaped the left/right divide it is no longer a creature of the Democratic or Republican Parties. Organizations such as Planned Parenthood can no longer "win" abortion battles by simply getting Democrats elected. (An anti-abortion governor is now chairman of the Democratic Party.) That being the case, President Obama's non-partisan approach is the only one that makes sense. This is not going to be a winner-take-all situation. The battle over abortion is going to have to find slow resolution in the way President Obama recommends or not at all. First, abortion will remain legal. No thoughtful commentator that I know of thinks that Roe will be reversed. Second, the American public -- even at a time of Democratic Party ascendancy and a popular Democratic President -- is not only ambivalent about abortion but numbers are trending away from an affirmation of the legal right to choose being perceived as the same thing as abortion being right in a moral sense. The hate-filled morons of the Religious Right have deservedly lost the battle for the hearts and minds of America. But the extreme supporters of abortion have also lost. They can no longer credibly cast all Americans who are morally ambivalent about abortion as misogynists. President Obama has provided a tangible alternative both in spirit and practically. It won't bridge the gap between extremes but it will provide an uneasy place for the rest of us to live and work together for the good of both women and children. Frank Schaeffer is a writer. He is author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back and also author of the forthcoming Patience With God: Faith For People Who Don't Like Religion (Or Atheism). More on GOP
 
John Cusack: A War on Terror by Any Other Name Top
Like many other American progressive-types (title for sake of argument), I voted for Obama and hope every day he'll facilitate the change he promised. A big part of the change progressives interpreted that promise to mean was to bring an end to the Bush administration's "War on Terror." The White House no longer uses the term -- but how much of a break has the new administration really made? I am not condemning his entire presidency -- nor am I debating it, and I would not debate his goodness as an individual man. I'm arguing that so far his administration has failed to resolve (by reversing) a massive constitutional and moral crisis which has resulted in the brutalization of thousands. A lot of powerful people in Washington may think it's a crazy-leftist-fringe position to think the intellectual authors of a torture regime should be investigated and prosecuted. But recent polling suggests at least half of the American population favors an independent investigation or criminal prosecution of members of the Bush administration for torture. Half is not fringe. Maybe they say this because they're scared, and well they should be. It seems most people are quite clear -- the law says if someone should be held underwater repeatedly on no sleep until he thinks he's drowning, or tortured in other ways, the people who ordered it or did it should be be arrested, charged, tried, and sent to jail. And even if, say, 40% of the country wants to advocate breaking the law -- they should still be resigned to see those who did it pay the price for it. How that is a left /right debate is beyond me. How that is even debatable is also beyond me. Of course, I think it is legitimate for the Commander-in-Chief to be concerned for the safety of his soldiers. I am as well. But the reality is that anti-American sentiment has already been inflamed in Iraq, Afghanistan and across the Muslim world by horrific acts of torture and detainee abuse (not to mention arbitrary detentions and civilian casualties). The photos are evidence of what Afghans and Iraqis already know has taken place. And their number -- there are up to 2000 photos allegedly up for release -- is further proof that torture and abuse were widespread and systemically accepted in US detention facilities. Whether or not the Obama administration releases them now, the pictures will eventually come out. And if Obama wants to make a true break with Bush/Cheney's "War on Terror" -- and not simply rebrand it -- releasing the photos would be an important step, and send a signal to the rest of the world. If the move is judged too dangerous for US troops, the president could at least ask the Department of Defense to release the photos to an independent council charged with investigating and prosecuting those at the highest levels responsible for mandating and creating a culture of torture and abuse. So far, he has done neither. What is most disturbing about the refusal to release the photos is the broader pattern into which it fits -- a pattern of decisions that effectively preserve the framework of Bush's War on Terror, with all the violations of our constitution that it entails. I spoke with Constitutional Law professor Jonathan Turley, and this is how he described the series of decisions that the administration has made: "Well it can't get any worse: extreme executive privilege arguments in court, withholding of abuse photos, adoptions of indefinite detentions without trial, restarting military commissions, and blocking any torture investigation. Welcome to Bush 2.0..." And.. "In my view, it comes down to a simple question of the rule of law FOIA clearly mandates the release of the photos. Notably, even Obama says that they are not as bad as the first set. However, it does not matter. It would be a dangerous thing if an Administration can withhold documents and photographs on the basis for embarrassment to the country. FOIA is needed to get material that an Administration has refused to release. It is often embarrassing. If an Administration can simply invoke an embarrassment exemption, FOIA would be gutted..." Obama never promised he would transform the entire architecture of the American system -- he's a pragmatist, not a revolutionary. But he did say he would restore balance and the rule of law to the existing system. For that, the Bush/Cheney "War on Terror" paradigm must be dismantled. Disclosing the photos and mandating an independent prosecutor to investigate those responsible for torture would be one step in signaling a genuine break with this endless-just war paradigm, and ensure the terrible violations it made possible will never again be perpetrated by agents of the United States. And that a horrible precedent will not be set for future US state crimes.
 
Barbara Ficarra: 5 Ways to Improve Your Health Top
Simple lifestyle changes boost your health-and your happiness Health care isn't just what happens between you and your medical professionals. It's how you care for yourself and maintain your health and well-being. Here are five ways to change your life in a way that will not only make you healthier, but happier too. 1. Connect with friends-face-to-face Spending time with your best friends is proven to be good for your health . Bonding with your girlfriends is different from connecting to your spouse, kids, family, significant other or lover. Day-to-day life is stressful. Reaching outside your routine to connect with friends provides real relief-and a way to get in touch with the real "you," who can get lost in daily shuffle. But bonding requires face-to-face interactions. While I'm a huge fan of Facebook, Twitter, texting and e-mailing, it's not the same. Get together for lunch, take a walk, chat over tea. Be that care-free girl you once were to boost your health. (Men: this goes for you too. Grab your best buddies and go have some fun.) 2. Listen to the joy Researchers at the University of Maryland School Of Medicine found that listening to joyful music can have a healthy effect on blood vessels. But the key is joyful music. It was found the blood vessels relaxed and widened by 26 percent when subjects listened to uplifting music, compared to a 6 percent narrowing while listening to music that causes anxiety. So what music did the participants of this study choose to evoke joy? Country. (I knew I loved Rascal Flatts for a reason.) Anxiety-producing music? Heavy metal. So choose the music that makes you feel good-it will also make you healthier. 3. Laugh Out Loud Laughing doesn't just make you feel good. The Mayo Clinic reports that laughter can have short- and long-term health benefits. Short-term, laughter increases levels of endorphins that are released from your brain. It can stimulate your heart, muscles and lungs. It can reduce stress, tension and stomach upset. Longer-term, laughter can even help improve your immune system and relieve pain. 4. Eat Healthy Eating mostly fresh fruits and vegetables, lean proteins and whole grains is demonstrated to be one of the most powerful ways to boost your health, reducing risk for most major chronic diseases and improving the health and function of nearly every body tissue. Easy to say. Hard to do. One of my favorite health books provides an excellent way to make healthy eating a reality: ChefMD's Big Book of Culinary Medicine by John La Puma, MD. As a physician, Dr. La Puma knows his stuff about health. As a trained chef, he knows how to make amazing meals. The recipes are quick and simple, healthy and delicious. Dr. La Puma has been a guest on the Health in 30® Radio Show; give the segment a listen for more. And if you happen to love hummus, here's a great healthy recipe from ChefMD. 5. Just move Sedentary lifestyle is a major risk factor for heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, obesity and-this is not as well-known-clinical depression. And you don't have to be an exercise fanatic to reap the health benefits. The American Heart Association recommends 30 minutes per day, 5 days per week. So does the federal government, though its exercise guidelines for Americans go into more detail. Brisk walking is one of the easiest ways to get this kind of exercise. It also sets a healthy foundation for other kinds of activities you might want to do. The guidelines differ a bit for those 65 and older and for people with chronic health conditions and physical limitations, so check with your doctor before starting an exercise routine. Having support from your friends or an exercise partner may make exercising more fun and improve your chances of sticking with a regular schedule. For me, I love to just grab my iPod and walk or run. On nice days I love being outside. Otherwise I'll hit the treadmill indoors. Find something you like and can stick with over the long haul. Getting in shape for bathing suit season is fine, but in terms of long-term health it's not the same as integrating regular exercise into your life. More on Wellness
 
Howie Klein: Oh, The Tangled Webs They Weave-- What's Right About Arkansas? Top
A good Webb (left) and a really bad one (right) Sure, Arkansas voters went overwhelmingly (638,017 to 422,310) for McCain over Obama, and yes, the state has two of the absolute worst and most reactionary Democratic senators, imbecile Mark Pryor and corrupt corporate pawn Blanche Lincoln. Chances are, you read about or heard the Arkansas state Senate's GOP whip and Republican Party U.S. Senate candidate, Kim Hendren last week. It was a national story. But you probably don't know much about state Rep. Kathy Webb, a Democrat representing downtown Little Rock, her party's whip, and the first ever openly gay elected official in Arkansas-- and the only one serving in the state legislature. She got some of that same ole Arkansas Republican treatment, but for some reason the national media isn't picking up on the homophobia the way they picked right up on the anti-Semitism. Once Hendren popped the cork on GOP bigotry last week, it all started gushing out. Not only was Chuck Schumer "that Jew," suddenly Kathy Webb was " that lesbian ." An editorial in the Arkansas Leader took it very seriously and urged its readers not to tolerate bigotry . Escaping its growing reputation for religious intolerance and bigotry is going to be much harder than most devoted members of the Republican Party figured. The party's two leading figures in Arkansas, the only avowed candidate for the U. S. Senate and the party's state chairman, went to local party gatherings and uttered such nonsense that it won them national attention, the kind of attention no party wants. State Sen. Kim Hendren of Gravette, who is running for the Republican nomination for the Senate and is so far unopposed, was trying to win over the Pulaski County Republican Committee, which did not like his vote for the cigarette tax increase back in March, so he attacked Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, a liberal Democrat whose unflattering mention he thought would certainly get a good response from the Republicans. He could not think of Schumer's name, so he called him "that Jew." Committee members fed the remark to a Republican blogger, a former campaign worker for Mike Huckabee, and it went on the Internet. Hendren said he was trying to make the point that he stood for traditional family values while the Jew did not. The Arkansas Young Republicans denounced the "anti-Semitic and derogatory personal attack." Other Republicans put some distance between themselves and the maverick senator. So Thursday Hendren apologized and said he never intended to derogate the senator's religion and that he had no antipathy for Jews. Ever the gentleman, Sen. Schumer said simply, "apology accepted." Hendren explained that he was prone to stick his foot in his mouth, which he has demonstrated from time to time. His candor and independence sometimes are admirable. But the loose remark about a senator who is many things-- a Democrat, usually a liberal, a decent and intelligent man-- but who happens also to be a Jew betrays something disturbing about Hendren. He assumed that his audience would know the man primarily by his religion and would share his contempt for it. He will have plenty of chances now to regain the esteem of tolerant people of all faiths in a party that actually does embrace different faiths, including Jews. He has virtually assured opposition in his own party, so there will be abundant opportunities for him to show tolerance for different religious beliefs, ethnic and social backgrounds and points of view. Doyle Webb, the state Republican chairman and a former state senator, has more to atone for. While making the circuit of Lincoln Day Republican gatherings, Webb distinguished between himself and Democrats by saying he was for the Ten Commandments and the Democratic Party was not. Webb's own career has not been a particularly good example, but Democrats against the Ten Commandments? He described the Democratic Party as the party of lesbians and people who were not as good Christians as he was. Webb went further and attacked a state representative from Little Rock, Kathy Webb, who is unrelated. In the Lincoln Day talks the Republican leader said there was a Democratic legislator who was a lesbian and, he implied, not a follower of the Ten Commandments or a devotee of family values. The day might be coming, he warned, when a lesbian would be "in charge of the state budget." He was referring to Rep. Webb, who probably will be co-chair of the Legislative Joint Budget Committee in 2011. Doyle Webb apparently did not serve in the legislature long enough to learn that the chairs of the Budget Committee are not "in charge of the state budget" but happen to have a vote the same as other committee members and other legislators. He may have merely been saying that lesbians are not good with arithmetic. Ignorance and bigotry are a bad combination. They are the weapons of the demagogue. Ms. Webb took the attack in stride. She said she would like to meet with Mr. Webb and share her own thoughts about family values. Let her describe them: "First, my parents were happily married for 68 years, and my siblings and I get along very well. My Dad is a retired United Methodist pastor. I serve on the Missions Committee at First United Methodist Church, and chair the Green Team there. Last year, I spoke from the pulpit during Lent to help raise money for hunger relief. I am privileged to serve on both the Arkansas Foodbank Network and Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance boards.... Today, I was one of 10 legislators honored by the Arkansas Kids Count Coalition as a Legislative Champion. My parents raised me to help those who are less fortunate than I, that to whom much is given, much is expected, and to love my neighbors." And Doyle Webb's values? Seven and a half years ago, the Supreme Court Committee on Professional Conduct rebuked and fined him for unethical conduct in his law practice. He was the attorney for an 86-year-old woman who was in the advanced stages of Parkinson's disease. He arranged for a lawyer who practiced with him to change the sick woman's will to make Webb the beneficiary of $321,000 from her estate instead of her heirs. Three judges in Saline County, who seem to have been outraged, sent the case to the ethics committee. We like Kathy Webb's family values better than Doyle's. Most Republicans do, too. They deserve leaders who share them both in word and deed. I hope The Leader is correct about most Republicans liking Kathy's family values better than Doyle's. But I have no idea what they base that on. All I read is about how Republican leaders are determined to use hatred and bigotry for political gain . You've got to admire the strength and convictions of a woman like Kathy Webb to follow a career in public service in the face of the systemic ugliness that is today's Republican Party. Let's hope that when term limits ends her service in the Arkansas House in 2012, she decides to keep right on serving. Without men and women like Kathy Webb, we would all be at the mercy of people like Doyle Webb, Kim Hendren and Rush Limbaugh.
 
Gail Lynne Goodwin: What Would You Do If You Knew You Couldn't Fail? Top
Several years ago when I was a rookie working in the music business, an experienced executive with a major label told me I was succeeding in the business because I was too naive to know that what I was doing wouldn't work -- and amazingly it was working! He was surprised that I was trying things that he would never do, because he thought he knew better and knew that they wouldn't work. Yet, they were successful for me, because I didn't have his predisposed opinion and I didn't know that I would, or should fail with what I was trying. I believed I would succeed and I did. I was taking action each day moving closer to my dreams and desires and believed that anything was possible. Interestingly enough, from that attitude alone, doors opened. Whether because of youth or naivete, there's something to be said for not knowing any better or not having limiting beliefs. No matter your age or experience, imagine a life lived from that perspective. When you live from that place of possibility, everything changes. To help put this into perspective in your own life, ask yourself, what would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? Very big questions like this birth very big outrageous answers. What could you do to make a huge positive impact on the world, knowing that you couldn't possibly fail? Take away all of your excuses -- you can't fail. When you look at your life with such a big purpose, monumental things are going to happen. Suddenly the mundane things that we stressed over yesterday seem to disappear and our life is consumed by a greater passion and a bigger purpose. When my husband and I asked ourselves that question, the Global Hug Tour was born. We're planning to fly 31,000 miles around the world in a small prop airplane on a 5-month tour, stop in 50 international cities to gather inspiration, deliver 100,000 hugs and raise and share more than $1,000,000 with charities worldwide. More importantly, we want to help shift the focus from the current doom and gloom to one of connectivity and possibility through love. We developed a plan where anyone can go to our site , sponsor a hug for $10 and send it to one of the 50 cities on our path. To make a tangible difference in each area when we land, we'll deliver the hug and the full donation to the non-profit or NGO. For example, one hug in Chicago ($10) will feed 3 homeless people, two hugs ($20) in Cambodia will educate a child for a year and one hundred hugs ($1000) in Chennai, India will pay the cost of heart surgery to save the life of a child. Our goal for the Global Hug Tour was to raise a million dollars for charities around the world, and I thought that was a pretty big goal.That was, until I met today's Inspirational Luminary, Bilaal Rajan. Eight years ago while he was eating a clementine, Bilaal was shocked by a newspaper photo of the devastation caused by an earthquake in India. He started raising money by selling clementines door to door to help kids who were victims of the quake. He hasn't stopped giving since. In the last four years, Bilaal has raised over $5,000,000 for charity. And here's the kicker -- Bilaal is only 12 years old! Here I am thinking our idea is so cool and we're going to rock the world, and a 12 year old boy in Canada exceeded our goal by 5 times in just the last few years. It's rather humbling and inspires me to think even bigger. Imagine if everyone in the world asked himself or herself what they could do to make a positive difference in the world. The problem occurs when our fear is greater than our faith and our ideas are set aside because we believe they're just too audacious, too big and too scary. But if a kid can do this, what can we do? We need to be just naive enough to believe that we can't fail! Big things can only happen from big ideas. Those big ideas are gifts, given to us for a reason. And that reason isn't to put them in our someday bucket along with all the other things we're going to do "someday". It's to take action and move on them today not tomorrow. Our ideas and our dreams are ours and ours alone. Even when we can't see it, we'll be shown the way. For with the idea, also comes the inspiration, and from that, the path will be shown. Bilaal made a comment to me that struck me with the power of his words. "As one person, I can make a difference. But as a group, we can change the world." It's a big world and there's plenty of room for all of us to follow our dreams. We invite you to join us and imagine the power you have to change the world- if you knew you couldn't fail. We invite you to listen to today's FREE Inspired Interview with host, Gail Lynne Goodwin, Ambassador of Inspiration from InspireMeToday.com and today's guest, 12-year old Bilaal Rajan. More on Sudan
 
Ann Carlson: Obama's Bold New Auto Standards Top
In what is a huge victory for California and a strong national commitment to more fuel efficient cars, the New York Times is reporting that the Obama administration will grant California its waiver to issue tough greenhouse gas emissions standards while at the same time combining those standards with a new national Corporate Automotive Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard (for an explanation of the California waiver issue click here ). The result will be a unified national fuel standard of 42 miles per gallon for passenger cars by 2016 and 26.2 mpg for light trucks. According to the Times, industry groups are satisfied with the administration's move and will not challenge it. This is truly huge news. California's leadership on auto standards has been confirmed and for the first time in thirty years the federal government will significantly strengthen CAFE standards. And if the reports are right the Obama administration will accomplish this change by getting the auto industry to drop its lawsuits against California and other states that have chosen to follow the California standards. Otherwise, the new standards even with federal approval might well have faced seriously delay until the resolution of the suits (as it is the California standards were supposed to take effect for model year 2009, something that obviously didn't happen). Moreover California will retain its regulatory leadership role and thus can continue to set the pace, post-2016, for further greenhouse gas emissions reductions for automobiles.
 
Nicholas Carlson: Newsweek CEO On The Economist's "Snob Appeal" Top
While American newsweeklies Time and Newsweek undergo drastic changes in hopes of surviving , The Economist 's ad pages and circulation are up, even while a year subscription continues to cost $127. Click here to see all the magazines killed by the crash.→ We asked Newsweek CEO Tom Ascheim -- whose magazine re-launched today -- to explain how his competitor does it. He gave us three reasons for The Economist 's success: As a non-American magazine, the Economist has been forced to take on a global perspective, attractive to worldly, aspirational readers that advertisers will pay a premium to reach . "The audience they're speaking to has a global life and The Economist has a global voice." The Economist actually makes money from its circulation. Tom says that because the economy has steadily grown over the past 25 years, the traditional model in the US magazine industry has been to lower subscription prices in order to sustain volume and generate more advertising dollars. The Economist never resorted to this model and kept its subscription rates very high. Perhaps our favorite explanation for The Economist 's appeal came from Vanity Fair writer Matt Pressman, who said “ The Economist is like that exotic coffee that comes from beans that have been eaten and shat out undigested by an Indonesian civet cat, and Time and Newsweek are like Starbucks — millions of people enjoy them, but it’s not a point of pride.” Anscheim likes that explanation, too. "There's a certain snob appeal to the Economist," he said. "Not everyone who gets it reads it." More on Magazines
 
Derek Beres: Global Beat Fusion: Music as Preservation and Cultural Force Top
When I turned my journalism focus from rock and hip-hop to global music in 2001, I quickly realized that the political and media-driven clichés that I was being taught by newspapers and television accounted for but a small minority of each country's population. The way to enter and embrace a nation is through the arts, most notably music, which, despite the criticisms from a small number of record executives (who unfortunately have a big percentage of legislative pull), is in great shape as both an industry and as a creative force. Today, our ability to taste and sample the music of the world has never been greater. Here are four artists dedicated to preserving their own culture's musical form while, to a varying degree, evolving it into future possibilities. With a growing list of accolades, Cape Verdean singer Maria De Barros has been reinterpreting her ancestral homeland since her 2003 debut Nha Mundo . Music is in this Senegalese native's blood, almost literally -- her godmother is the famed Cesaria Evora, Cape Verde's musical queen. After releasing her follow-up, Danca Ma Mi , with Narada, she moved over to the South African label Sheer to distribute her latest, Morabeza . While the global-influenced singer (now a Los Angeles resident), considers her music to borrow from elements of many cultures, at root you hear the soft acoustics and dependably groove-oriented African rhythms embedded in every note. What carries the weight of this album, as on her last two, is her voice. It doesn't necessarily need instrumentation, and fortunately most of her latest album is musically sparse, offering De Barros more room to flex her lyrical strength. So while the upbeat songs are enjoyable, one listens to her for tracks like "Nha Vazio," which includes a simple guitar line, a few string sections, a tasteful harmonica interlude, and not much else. Beautiful. Cultural cataloging is part of San Francisco-based producer and performer Jef Stott's latest project, Eliyahu Sill & The Qadim Ensemble. After releasing a fierce Arabic-tinged electronica record on Six Degrees, Saracen , he joins with multi-instrumentalist Sills to produce his very organic, richly textured exploration of Jewish and Arabic folk songs. The instruments Sills plays are many; ney, oud, bass, and vocals dominate. The ensemble takes care of the rhythm and some of the vocals, including a gorgeous outing by Rachel Valfer, who also doubles up on oud. Her interpretation of the classic "Im Nin'alu" is breathtaking. Eastern Wind (Embarka) is at root a musical project devoted to healing the social and political rifts forced upon Jewish and Arabic populations for nearly a century now. (We'll leave aside the Christian roots of this occupation, which would date it back many more.) The ensemble chose the word Qadim, as it implies both history and "that which is to come" (in both Arabic and Hebrew), symbolically locking them into their mission when presenting this deeply sonorous album of songs of love and devotion. It is a gorgeous attempt at a cause which has seen too many musically clunky efforts over the years, for it does not sacrifice music for message; the darkness in rhythm and melody hints at yearning as much as fulfillment, correctly capturing the mindset of so many today. What Valfer's voice is to Middle Eastern song, Lily Storm is to Eastern Europe. Not that the Bay Area vocalist is limited to these musics either, but that region is the focus of her latest solo album, If I Had a Key to the Dawn (Songbat). It is a stark, stunning record, unsurprising upon learning that Storm sang with vocal troupe Kitka for a half-decade, whose albums never disappoint. Here she takes on Greece, Aremenia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and more on their own terms, creating a stunning tapestry of sounds backed up by an elegant selection of instrumentalists. Hence, you have accordions, duduks, riqqs, bouzoukis, and harps all subtly (well, as subtle as an accordion can be) laying the backdrop for Storm's powerful voice to sail over. There are very few opportunities for Americans to hear such an array of European folk songs in one place -- Kitka has been one of the few holding down the throne -- so Storm's songs of "love and lament," as the subtitle goes, is a welcome addition, enough to pique and fill anyone's curiosity. While so far we have explored three quieter, predominantly female -- if not in person than in tone -- ways of reflecting culture, here we go off in an entirely different direction: mariachi. This over-the-top, showboating Mexican folk form is masculine in all its heart-tearing and tear-jerking glory. The father son team of Pedro and Mauricio Gonzalez, leaders of the group Mariachi Real de San Diego, went crate digging in Tijuana to pull out the holiest of the holy mariachi gems. The result is the appropriately titled Mariachi Classics (Mardi Gras). OK, this is not subtle music at all, but if you are feeling nostalgic for the culture that you know (or want to pretend to know), this is the place to start. Cliché? Certainly: that combination of guitars and brass and violin is irrefutably Mexican. Fortunately this sextet does it well, and while it's tough to listen to an entire album without having flashbacks of mariachi bands joining ranchera icon Vicente Fernandez (or, worse, of a group of mariachis chasing my cab in Mexico City in full garb, trying to physically stop the driver so they could play for us), this band's name is true to the word: they are the real thing. More on South Park
 
James Harrison Snubs Obama: Steelers' LB Refuses To Join Team At White House (VIDEO) Top
Pittsburgh Steelers' linebacker James Harrison will not accompany his team to the White House when President Obama greets the Super Bowl champions. Harrison told WTAE, a local Pittsburgh television network, that his refusal to take part in the honor was not based on his political views but rather, according to his agent, "he just doesn't want to go." Harrison told WTAE: This is how I feel -- if you want to see the Pittsburgh Steelers, invite us when we don't win the Super Bowl. As far as I'm concerned, [Obama] would've invited Arizona if they had won. Here's the video of James Harrison talking to WTAE: For the full WTAE story, click here . More on Sports
 
Stephen C. Rose: MSNBC's Slippery Fishing Expedition Top
By Stephen C. Rose I have to assume that MSNBC is following someone's lead in trying to gin up a Pelosi coup story. It is the sort of thing that makes watching this once promising channel not merely a chore but an impossibility. When you are online and aware of what is going on, TV such as MSNBC and its Pelosi fishing expedition is too pathetic for more than an epitaph. Here is what is happening. Pelosi will be Majority Leader much longer than MSNBC will be around in its present configuration. That is the consensus of people who should know and MSNBC could not find anyone to confirm their slur-question. All they seem able to do is repeat a venal sound bite from the discredited Newt Gingrich. That's not the only problem with MSNBC. Any channel that cares so little for news that it does not even run it on Sundays, that stacks its shows with stables of talking heads whose main qualification seems to be that they appear on all their programs and that insists on reporting events in progress before they have any understanding of what the event is, is going down. Pelosi from strength to strength. MSNBC, for taking a tempest in a teapot and trying to gin up a coup, a further slide down an already slippery slope. Well, I have expressed high hopes for MSNBC in the past, but a visit to my blog at http://stephencrose.wordpress.com/ will reveal a gradual decline in esteem. Too bad. More on Nancy Pelosi
 
Allison Kilkenny: Troy Davis is Still With Us Top
Excerpt from an article I originally posted back in September: Two hours before Troy Davis was scheduled to die, the U.S. Supreme Court granted him a stay of execution. Davis is an African-American man, who was convicted of the 1989 killing of a white police officer, Mark Allen McPhail. However, since his conviction, seven of the nine witnesses to the crime have recanted their testimonies, and now claim they were intimidated into making their initial statements against Davis. There is no physical evidence tying Davis to the scene. There is no murder weapon. Three witnesses now claim they overheard another man confessing to the crime. The whole case stinks of fraud, deception, and racism. Martina Correia, Davis's sister, claimed in an interview that the Georgia parole board is the only entity, non-judicial, that's able to act in secrecy. There are no transcripts. There are no recordings. There is no media presence...Correia believes the Davis case is being handled by the state of Georgia under a shroud of secrecy because the state has already experienced a string of embarrassing death row exonerations. If they expose it, then you would have another exoneration yet from the same county. In that county, there's been two out of the five death row exonerations for the state under the same prosecutor (Spencer Lawton,) who's run unopposed for almost thirty years. ## There was a brief flurry of hope when the blogosphere and independent media aggressively pursued the Davis case. Al Sharpton demanded justice. Petitions circulated. The case went to the Supreme Court, and Davis was granted a stay of execution. Then the story faded away, but the injustice and outrage did not fade in the minds of Davis's supporters. Tuesday, May 19th, is the Global Day of Action for Troy Davis. Jared Feuer, Regional Director of Amnesty International describes the event as a rally for Davis, but also for the much larger problem of the death penalty itself: "Troy's case reveals all that is wrong with the death penalty - from the 132 exoneration that have already occurred, to geographical bias (80% of executions happen in the South), to ineffective counsel (the courts have since faulted Troy's attorneys in not pursuing specific appeal paths as a justification to deny a new hearing), to issues of race (80% of executions involve a white victim)." Amnesty International is calling for Davis supporters from every state, on every continent, to join the day of protest. You can see specific events in your state here: http://www.globaldayfortroy.org .
 
Ellis Cose: India's "Untouchables" Break Through the Caste System Top
In the bustling metropolises of Mumbai and Delhi, it's easy to forget about caste. In such cosmopolitan centers, people have a certain freedom to become what they will. But in the small villages of India, where Martin Macwan has labored most of his life, caste is an omnipresent reality. I first met Martin at a Human Rights Watch dinner in 2000. He was in America to receive the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award for work on behalf of India's Dalits--or "untouchables." A few months later, I visited him in Gujarat, in western India, where I saw, first hand, his impact on the lives of lower caste people. We met again in South Africa, in 2001, at the World Conference Against Racism. Martin was trying to build support for an international movement against caste discrimination. Several months ago, I went to see him again and found Martin feisty and thoughtful as ever. Martin is the second oldest of nine surviving children born and raised in poverty. The defining event of his childhood occurred when he was nine, working on a farm with his grandmother. His throat was parched and he asked for water. But instead of giving him a glass, the farmer told him to catch the water in his hands. Martin was learning an essential lesson for a child of his caste: how to interact with people without touching them: how to be untouchable. That incident, along with others, led Martin to dedicate his life to fighting discrimination against Dalits, who make up roughly 20 percent of India's population. Dalits, in the eyes of many Hindus, are condemned to suffer for sins committed in a previous life. He started out with a Catholic-church-affiliated group working in small villages. And even though he was familiar with caste distinctions, he was stunned by what he saw. It "was unbelievable," he recalled. "The Dalits are not allowed ... water from the well. The Dalits are not allowed to ride a bicycle. If somebody has died in a family, you can't pass with the dead body from the main village... The so-called upper caste men would enter any house of the Dalits that they wanted and do anything with the women they wanted and nobody could say a word...So, for example a ... higher caste man has come and entered the house where a woman is alone. .. His shoes are outside the house. If the husband comes from market and sees the shoes, so he won't go inside. He will leave him alone with the wife. " Martin's work focused largely on showing Dalits how to become more self-sufficient by setting up cooperatives. But in 1985, at the age of 26, he ran into trouble in a village called Golana. The government had given 33 acres to a Dalit cooperative as part of a land reform. But higher caste landholders refused to surrender the land. That resistance turned violent: "On 25th January, 1986...eight sharp in the morning, they attacked the community. Four people were shot dead on the spot," said Martin. Eventually fourteen got life sentence. "This was the first major case in the state of Gujarat where so many people were sentenced...We were determined that, no matter what happens, we have to win this case," he said. That incident led Martin to create his own organization, which he called Navsarjan--or "New Creation" in Gujarati. Martin's new creation began with a simple rule: "Every single case of caste violence must be fought legally." So Martin added a cadre of lawyers who, at one point, were fighting nearly 1,500 cases annually. Today Navsarjan is a major force for change, working in some 3,000 villages across the state of Gujarat. But recently Martin has shifted gears. He believes his movement must enter a new phase--where Dalits confront their own role in perpetuating the caste system. The insight came from a meeting with his colleagues, 200 of whom he called together one day: "I told them, see here is a map of Gujarat, twelve thousand five hundred villages where Dalits live. Now, here's a pencil. Take the pencil, draw a circle around the name of a village where we have been able to eradicate untouchability...Nobody got up." The problem, concluded Martin, was that they had never attacked the problem at its root: too many Dalits accepted their own subjugation. Martin handed day-to-day leadership over to Manjula Pradeep, his longtime deputy, and focused his own efforts on education. He has written several children's books and also built three schools. I visited one with Manjula and Martin in the village of Katariya, about 85 miles outside the city of Ahmadabad. The boarding school has 140 students, ranging in age from ten to fourteen years. The students get up at 5:30 and spend the hours before class helping to maintain the grounds and the rest of the facility. They are trained in math, reading and all the traditional subjects; but they also learn about ecology and making chapati, or bread. In one classroom, children were learning Sanskrit, the language of classical literature--and, traditionally of the upper caste Brahmins. By teaching the language to Dalits, the school is making a point: that "Dalits can learn any language. Dalits can learn any skill," explained Manjula. I asked a group of students how the new school compared to those they had attended in their villages. They were no longer physically abused in school, said one. They were taught to use computers and speak English, said another. When I asked how many would like to return to their villages schools, not a hand went up. Some sixty years after the Dalits gained equal status under the law, many of their fellow citizens still see them as the lowest of the low. But in Martin's boarding school, for the first time in their lives, Dalit kids are being treated as precious human beings with limitless potential. They are learning that it is okay to have big dreams, that they should aspire beyond the limits imposed by bigotry. That is the gift Martin has given them; and he hopes it will not only transform their own lives but eventually their entire society. More information about programs featured in "Against the Odds" is available at www.elliscose.com . More on India
 
Iraq Elections Pushed To January, Complicating US Withdrawal Plans Top
BAGHDAD — National parliamentary elections will be held Jan. 30, Iraqi officials announced Monday, sliding the date into next year in a move that could complicate the U.S. timetable for drawing down its forces. The new parliament will choose a prime minister and Cabinet, a process that could take months. A long and turbulent delay in setting up a new government could force President Barack Obama to revise his goal of removing most of American troops from Iraq by the end of August 2010. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will be hoping to build on his success in last January's provincial balloting to form a strong government capable of dealing with the security and economic challenges facing this country as the American role fades. But a recent spate of deadly bombings in Baghdad has tarnished his image, and the threat of more violence could rise as U.S. forces redeploy outside of urban areas by June 30 as scheduled. The election for the 275-member parliament had been expected in December, four years after the current assembly was chosen. But the current parliament did not hold its first session until March 2006, or about three months after the December 2005 election. Deputy parliament speaker Khalid al-Attiyah said the Federal Court ruled that the current mandate lasts until March 2010 and selected a date 45 days before the expiration. Some Iraqi politicians had suggested delaying the election for up to a year, giving the prime minister's Shiite and Sunni rivals who did not fare as well in the provincial elections more time to regroup. Al-Maliki opposed a lengthy delay. Timing of the election is critical to Obama's plan to end the American combat role in Iraq next year and withdraw most of the 135,000 U.S. troops by September 2010. Obama accepted a recommendation by U.S. officials in Baghdad to maintain substantial military forces in Iraq until after the election to help guarantee a safe ballot. Once the vote is over, the U.S. expects to speed up the troop withdrawal, leaving between 30,000 and 50,000 soldiers here after September 2010 to train Iraqi forces and provide logistical and other support. All U.S. troops are due to leave Iraq by the end of 2011 under terms of the U.S.-Iraq security agreement that took effect this year. But Iraq's political parties are deeply fragmented. An inconclusive election outcome, with no party winning a commanding number of seats, could lead to protracted negotiations where the makeup of the new government remains unclear. Following the December 2005 election, Iraq's sectarian and ethnic-based parties took more than five months to agree on a prime minister and Cabinet. If the process is delayed again and punctuated by violence, it could force the Obama administration to slow the drawdown to help keep order and maintain leverage with the Iraqis to make political compromises. Al-Maliki, a Shiite who completes three years in office this week, is hoping for a stronger mandate to forge ahead with what he says would be a unity government that includes all of Iraq's ethnic and religious groups. But the provincial elections showed the lingering sectarian character of Iraqi politics, with many Shiites and Sunnis voting for candidates based on religion. Voters in the three-province Kurdish self-ruled region did not take part in the January balloting and instead will choose provincial officials in July. The provincial election had to be postponed indefinitely in the Kirkuk area because of tension among rival ethnic groups. Overcoming sectarian rivalries and maintaining the improved security of the past two years will be the two most significant challenges for al-Maliki as he seeks to strengthen his power. Although al-Maliki emerged from the provincial election stronger, his re-election as prime minister is by no means assured. The broad Shiite political alliance has virtually ceased to exist following the withdrawal of major blocs and because of the sharp differences between al-Maliki and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council over numerous security and political issues. The council fared poorly in the provincial elections, and al-Maliki has not responded to its call for a new coalition to run in the national balloting. In other developments Monday, Iraqi television aired partial footage of the interrogation of a man it says is Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the al-Qaida front group, the Islamic State of Iraq. The government says it arrested al-Baghdadi on April 23. A speaker who identified himself as al-Baghdadi denied the arrest in an audio message posted last week on a militant Web site. The man on the grainy video shown Monday said his real name was Ahmed Abed Ahmed Khamees al-Mujamaie, born in 1969 in Diyala province north of Baghdad. He said al-Qaida in Iraq relied for funding on money sent by charities in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria as well as from robberies carried out inside Iraq. He said the group was responsible for the 2006 bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra north of Baghdad that sparked sectarian Shiite-Sunni killings that claimed thousands of lives. He also suggested the group cooperated with Saddam Hussein's now-banned Baath party. The U.S. military has not confirmed al-Baghdadi's arrest. Past Iraqi claims to have captured or killed al-Baghdadi turned out to be wrong. The U.S. has even said al-Baghdadi was simply an actor used by the terror movement to give an Iraqi face to an organization dominated by foreign al-Qaida fighters. ___ Associated Press Writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this report. More on Iraq
 
Iran's Khamenei Warns Voters Against Electing Pro-Western President Top
Reporting from Beirut -- Iran's most powerful political and spiritual leader warned voters today against supporting pro-Western candidates in next month's presidential election, comments widely seen as supporting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's approach to foreign policy over those of his challengers. More on Iran
 
Burton L. Wise: Executive Pay and What to Do About It Top
The current economic crisis appears to have been caused by a combination of greed, dishonesty and stupidity. The greed is said to be a part of human nature, but was overlooked by regulators who did not believe in regulation, arguing that self-interest would prevent these institutions from damaging themselves. Dishonesty is closely associated with greed, and requires both legislation and close regulation to control. Stupidity is omnipresent to some degree -- it is just surprising how much of it surfaced in high places in this economic crisis, and the mind-boggling incomes of some of these people... In 1965, U.S. CEOs at major companies made 24 times a worker's pay -- by 2004, CEOs earned 431 times the pay of an average worker . To understand how these huge salaries and bonuses came about, we need to review the history of the modern corporation -- often a large institution controlled by a small group of (mostly) men who actually have only a small portion of the (often huge) volume of common stock (i.e. shares of ownership of the corporation). Several centuries ago, the few corporations that were extant had often been formed to spread the risk of ventures such as sailing to trade with distant countries, with uncertain outcomes. Over the centuries, more corporations were formed, and some became very large and very rich. In the early 20th century, ownership of common stock was hardly as widespread as at is today. Stock was purchased mainly by the wealthier part of the population. During the mid- to late 20th century, the volume of shares of common stock available and traded on stock exchanges exploded. "Institutional investors" including mutual funds, retirement funds, hedge funds, private equity funds et al. became significant players in stock markets and the corporations whose stock they held. This process may be referred to as "democratization," since large segments of the population have become indirect stockholders through their membership in these institutional investors. However, they do not get to vote at the annual meetings of the corporations whose stock the institutional investors own. These institutional investors vote large blocs of stock at the corporate meetings, according to the interests of the particular institution. Their interests include stable and growing income and dividends. If their interests are met, they are unlikely to take a stand against excessive pay packages for upper echelon executives in large corporations. In fact, the income and "fringe benefits" of the executives of the institutional investor may be equally large. In recent years effective control of some large corporations seems to have remained in the hands of a small group of financially knowledgeable people, a veritable oligarchy. The Board of Directors is filled with "good old boys" (and now some girls) who support the upper executive staff, and its decisions. It is difficult to introduce significant change from outside this management group. Several decades ago, two brothers bought a small number of shares in some big corporations and attended shareholder meetings in person. They spoke up and introduced motions but, aside from some media coverage, accomplished little change. The control of many large corporations remains in the hands of a small group of people who control the votes of large blocs of stock. Note the recent populist outrage regarding the awarding of huge bonuses to executives who were part of the cause of the recent financial disasters, justified as "retention bonuses," although many left the company after the bonus. Small shareholders in large corporations must form organizations to unify and organize their votes, advance their interests and attempt to limit the out-of control remuneration of these executives, many of whose incomes represent a much greater multiple of worker's salaries than those in other Western capitalist countries. Between 1995 and 2005, CEO pay in the U.S. went up 298%, while the average worker's pay went up by only 4.3% . A small-shareholder committee should have a full-time chairman who would monitor the corporation on behalf of small stockholders, deal with the executives and other groups of stockholders, and vote the proxies of the small shareholders at corporate meetings. He or she might even help prevent the awarding of large bonuses to executives who caused losses or damage to the corporation.
 
Boehner Rejects Fox News Call For Pelosi's Resignation Top
Fox News has been aggressively pushing for Pelosi's resignation. This morning, Fox and Friends host Brian Kilmeade tried to get House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) to agree. Boehner, however, shied away: BOEHNER: I think the ball is in the speaker's court. I think she needs to come forward, either present evidence or do an apology, and let's get this behind us. [...] More on Nancy Pelosi
 

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