Thursday, June 4, 2009

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Jamie Court: Meet Joe The Mechanic 2012 - The Video Top
This powerful video, from the new Kaiser Health Network, of a Massachusetts mechanic who says he cannot afford the state's mandatory health insurance is a look into the future for President Obama about the political danger he faces embracing mandatory health insurance. The mechanic literally uses words Obama spoke on the campaign trial: it's not that he doesn't want insurance, it's that he cannot afford it. As a result, the state of Massachusetts taxes him $900 per year. President Obama came out this week strong for a public option to the private market, and only a strong public health care system that is cost effective can counter the political power of video like this. Does President Obama want to face a mechanic on the 2012 campaign trail who will be taxed by the IRS because he is being price gouging by health insurers and cannot afford the insurance. This video should show the president the need to do health care reform right by regulating insurers and offering a public option to the private market, not creating a punitive mandate for all Americans to buy unaffordable policies.
 
Andy Worthington: Death At Guantanamo Hovers Over Obama's Middle East Visit Top
In his speech in Egypt on Thursday, in which he promised "A New Beginning," Barack Obama did not specifically mention the death of a prisoner at Guantánamo on Monday -- and the extent to which the prison's existence has soured relations between the United States and the Muslim world -- except to repeat his most concise promise to move on from the lawlessness of the Bush years: "I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantánamo Bay closed by early next year." And yet, Guantánamo -- and recent events at the prison -- hovered unnervingly over the President's visit to the Middle East. A death at Guantánamo is always felt keenly in the Muslim world, and is also uncomfortable for the Obama administration, which, since reviewing conditions at the prison in January, claims that it is running a "humane" facility . Behind the rhetoric, however, the truth is still bleak. Guantánamo may look, more than ever, like a regular U.S. prison , with half of the remaining 239 prisoners now sharing communal facilities, and others, in two maximum security blocks, allowed limited opportunities to socialize, but the prisoners held there have, for the most part, been imprisoned without charge or trial for over seven years, unlike even the most hardened convicted criminals on the U.S. mainland. In addition, the widespread euphoria that greeted Obama's election victory, and the hope that it would result in the prison's swift closure, has turned to frustration, as only two prisoners ( Binyam Mohamed and Lakhdar Boumediene ) have been released in the last four months. Shane Kadidal, a lawyer with New York's Center for Constitutional Rights, explained that the prisoners were now saying, "At least Bush sent some people home," and further frustration has greeted news that Obama is considering proposing new legislation authorizing "preventive detention" for up to a hundred of the remaining prisoners, effectively legitimizing the Bush administration's detention policies. As a result, many of the prisoners, like Muhammad Salih, the Yemeni prisoner who died on Monday , apparently by committing suicide, have resorted to hunger strikes as the only means of protesting against their arbitrary and seemingly endless imprisonment. For these men, strapped into a restraint chair twice a day, and force-fed against their will via a tube that is thrust up their noses and into their stomachs, the prison is anything but "humane." Muhammad Salih was the fifth prisoner to commit suicide at Guantánamo, but the first under Obama's watch. In keeping with the President's desire to portray the prison in the best possible light, it is unlikely that anyone in the administration will make a comment to compare with a statement made by Rear Admiral Harry Harris, the commander of Guantánamo at the time of the first three deaths in June 2006, who said, "I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetric warfare committed against us." However, it is also unlikely that the government will come clean about Muhammad Salih's status, and concede that there is no evidence that he even remotely resembled one of the fabled "terror suspects" whom the prison was ostensibly established to hold. Salih himself admitted that he had traveled to Afghanistan many months before the 9/11 attacks, to fight as a foot soldier for the Taliban against the Muslims of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan's long-running civil war. When the U.S. military reviewed his case at Guantánamo in 2004, he acknowledged being a member of the Taliban, but made a point of adding, "Yes, but that doesn't mean I supported Osama bin Laden." With no information to indicate that Muhammad Salih was connected to al-Qaeda's terrorist activities, his death should serve as another important reminder that the Bush administration's policy of subjecting prisoners to arbitrary detention as "enemy combatants" has been a wretched failure. Had the former regime obeyed domestic and international laws, it would have held those regarded as terrorists as criminal suspects, to be prosecuted in federal courts, and, after adequate screening (which never took place ) would have held other combatants as prisoners of war, according to the Geneva Conventions. If this had happened, we would now be discussing whether it was feasible to imprison someone until the end of hostilities in a "war" whose supporters regard it as a struggle that might last for generations, and the answer, of course, would be no. Muhammad Salih, a foot soldier in another war, which preceded the 9/11 attacks, and had nothing to do with international terrorism, had been imprisoned for longer than the duration of the Second World War when his life ended in Guantánamo, even though the circumstances in which he was captured -- during the overthrow of the Taliban and the establishment of a new Afghan government -- came to an end no later than 3 November 2004, when Hamid Karzai was elected as President . Although the response to Muhammad Salih's death has been muted in the West, and did not surface publicly in the Middle East during President Obama's visit, the ripples from the latest death in Guantánamo -- and, no doubt, rumors that Salih was killed, or, perhaps more convincingly, that he died as a result of years of brutal force-feeding -- surely made themselves felt behind the scenes. If Obama truly wishes to distance himself from the lawless initiatives of his predecessor, he needs to think deeply about an appropriate response, and will, I hope, reflect on the distinction between terror suspects and foot soldiers, rethink what "preventive detention" really means, and, above all, move swiftly to release more prisoners before there are any other deaths at Guantánamo. Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press), and maintains a blog here . More on Obama Mideast Trip
 
Esther J. Cepeda: Backstage With "Bruiser," Legally Blonde Chihuahua Hits Chi-Town Top
If you know nothing about Legally Blonde -- The Musical here's the skinny: it's every bit as pink and perky as the 2001 Reese Witherspoon/Luke Wilson confection about the chipper sorority sister who gets into Harvard Law School and finds love, laughter and blah, blah, blah...there's a Chihuahua involved. Ahh, yes, Bruiser. You remember Bruiser from the film, right? Stoic, spoiled, and stylish from classic, apple-shaped head to teeny-tiny-dog-toe. Well, from the moment I heard the soaring-pop-lietmotif stage production would be coming to Chicago, I harassed the show's PR people until they granted me an exclusive, behind-the-scenes interview with his-highness. Imagine my surprise when I showed up at the Oriental Theater's stage door for our lunch date only to find...drumroll, please...TWO Chihuahuas! "There's Frankie who works with the lead "Elle" but like with people, there is an understudy -- that's Roxie," Marjorie Fitzsimmons, the show's Chihuahua handler explained to me in the comfort of the doggie dressing room which, incidentally, was marked with a bright yellow "Chihuahua crossing" sign. Frankie, a one-and-a-half year old dark-muzzled boy Chihuahua who was "discovered" as a stray in Meriden, Connecticut, and Roxie, a three-year-old girl Chihuahua with lighter facial features who was a stray rescued in rural Louisiana with a nasty case of the heartworm, surprisingly never yapped at me like my own two do. "Frankie is very friendly, very sweet, a little bit coy," Marjorie shared, "Roxie is a much braver little dog." And did I mention uncharacteristically mellow and quiet? I was expecting rock-star grade amenities; giant brandy snifters filled with Pupperonis and Beggin' Strips, and designer toilet-bowl-flavored water but, clearly, these Chihuahuas are Equity actors -- their room was Spartan, accented only by Roxie's gleaming pink crate and the dressing table which holds their extremely fashionable wardrobe. In fact, the Frankie and Roxie share their room with the two stunning English Bulldogs, Nellie and Lewis, (star and understudy -- both also rescued strays) who play Rufus. The crew has traveled over 17,000 miles with this show and Lewis hasn't been in a live show because Nellie has not missed a single performance," said Rob Cox, the Bulldog handler. "Of over 700 shows! No one else in the cast and crew can say that!" Here's the real dirt on the dogs of Legally Blonde : • All the dogs rehearse with the full cast and crew -- who, themselves, are trained by the handlers on how to interact with the canine talent -- they perform eight full shows a week. • Small cues earn the doggies small bits of beef jerky, big cues and curtain calls earn them pieces of hamburger or chicken. • All four of the pups are lovin' Chicago -- "Nellie and Rufus are very much city dogs, they prefer pavement, they think doing their business in the grass is weird," Rob said. "The buses and trains don't bother Frankie and Roxie one bit," Marjorie added. • Yes, people do wait at the Stage Door after performances to catch a glimpse, or a picture, with them after performances but Pupperazzi are strictly prohibited. "They're great with people and they love it when moms and their children interact with them on a leisurely walk," Marjorie said, "but after a performance the energy is just too high for them to handle full crowds." I was going to try to get a good quote from Frankie or Roxie about how it feels that first moment Bruiser comes on stage and crowd goes wild with the collective "awwww!!!!!" but by the time I finished taking my notes, they'd curled up in Frankie's crate for the afternoon siesta. So does all the glory and adoration go to their heads? In stark contrast to my own two Chihuahuas, Frankie and Roxie are purported to be "not really that spoiled." These are working professionals after all. "They get a lot of love and attention, but it's not a show to them," Marjorie said. "It's real life." Legally Blonde -- The Musical at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theater began May 12 and runs through June 7 Esther J. Cepeda has not one, but TWO Chihuahuas at home who believe they are Broadway stars. She rarely writes about them on www.600words.com More on Animals
 
Henryk A. Kowalczyk: What Can One Learn in Springfield? Top
This is my question for Thomas F. Roeser, in response to his critique of the political inexperience of Adam Andrzejewski , a candidate for governor who has not worked even one day in Springfield. I have to disclose that I am biased in my views of Adam Andrzejewski. I emigrated from Poland almost a quarter century ago, and made Illinois my new home. A friend pointed Adam out to me as a politician of Polish decent. As a result, I read his political platform twice, followed his campaign and had a chance to meet him in person more than once. I am subjective, not because in his ethnic background Adam is 51 percent Polish, but because I made an effort to educate myself on what he wants to do as a governor. Behind Tom Roeser's objection is an unspoken assumption that holding a top public office requires some knowledge and skills that are beyond the reach of an average citizen. If the people of Illinois agreed with Mr. Roeser, they would have written in the Constitution of Illinois a provision requiring from the gubernatorial candidates some time of apprenticeship in Springfield. They did not. On the other hand, the objection of inexperience is reasonable in the light of a practical observation: that every power transition or reform goes easier, smoother and with fewer surprises if a new leader grows up within a system. In other words, an experienced candidate gives a better guarantee of stability in the existing political system. With the state -- practically -- financially bankrupt, and with a long list of top politicians charged with corruption, one should ask how much of the current "stability" of the Illinois political system we want to keep. To find a pragmatic answer to this question "we do not need to discover America again," as a Polish saying goes. Quite the opposite: we need to return to the fundamentals of our political system. The Founding Fathers noticed that every political system has a tendency to create a political caste of bureaucrats that are inclined to abuse political power for their personal benefit. For this reason, we have constitutional provisions allowing outsiders like Adam Andrzejewski to run for political office. Therefore, instead of complaining in this time of crisis that outsiders are running for top office, we should praise the political system we have and be thankful for people who are willing to risk their own well-being for the good of the state. At the high point of his critique of inexperience of Andrzejewski, Roeser writes, "Do you want a brain surgeon to remove your tumor who's chief claim is that he isn't burdened by past surgical mistakes? Do you want an airline pilot who is a citizen pilot, willing to take a crack at the controls if somebody hands him a manual?" At first glance, this argument sounds logical. However, on second thought, one can see one more unspoken assumption: that the government and its bureaucrats do everything that is good and important within our society. This is a purely socialistic concept of a big government. I can almost see the smirk on Mr. Roeser's face at me calling him a socialist; I know he is a hard-core Republican. However, everything depends on one's perspective. I grew up in a socialistic system, and in my youth I tried to find out how to make it work better, only to find out that it would never work at all. In the process, I learned how socialistic thinking is deeply embedded in the minds of people regardless of where they live. I have been shocked many times that the majority of Americans formally support limited government, the freedom of individuals, entrepreneurship and the free market, while at the same time, on the issues of their concern, they favor to give the government extra powers and money to do things the way they prefer. I call this "kitchen door socialism," as on its face this country is very capitalistic. However, when it comes to the nitty-gritty of political decision making, socialism sneaks in through the back door and dominates the cooking of political decisions. As a result, in the last 10 years, the budget of the state of Illinois grew 48 percent, when the population grew only 4 percent. This increase of government spending cannot be justified by the growth of wealth, as today we are not about 40 percent richer than 10 years ago. Having hung around Springfield for years, Mr. Roeser knows that gentlemen do not talk about money. He knows that it is impossible to talk seriously about a 40 percent budget cut. Soon it could be as unthinkable as the bankruptcy of General Motors. However, this is not what one can learn in Springfield. One can find many points to criticize Adam Andrzejewski. However, no one can take away from him that he is trying to grab a bull by its horns. Overblown government spending puts a burden on the whole state. Without addressing this issue, no improvement is possible. Adam set the bar high for all other potential gubernatorial candidates. Can we just agree that whoever wants to join the race should have at least a better plan to put state finances in order?
 
Tom Morris: The Oath: An Ethics Promise at the Harvard Business School Top
Is it a great development in contemporary business for freshly minted MBAs in the hundreds to voluntarily take a personal Ethics Oath prior to entering the workforce? Or is such a thing, like many critics declare, an empty gesture and a waste of time, or even an additional opportunity for cynical manipulation of fragile public confidence? This week, The Harvard Business School graduated at least eight hundred new Masters of Business Administration. According to the New York Times , that's more than double the number of new medical doctors and lawyers emerging from Harvard this year, all together. At first glance, this may seem like an instance of extreme imbalance. Why do we need so many biz whiz operators, compared to practitioners in medicine and law? But these numbers should really be no surprise, since every law firm and medical office is now clearly a business, and the number of other businesses in the world outside these restricted realms is vastly more than double the number inside them. Every business needs managers. And Harvard provided more than a few this week. About a month ago, one of the business students looking forward to this year's graduation ceremonies in Cambridge, Maxwell F. Anderson, had an idea. There should be an MBA oath, in some respects analogous to the famous Hippocratic Oath that's so famous in medicine. And it should focus on ethics. Perhaps it could help rehabilitate our current notion of business management and elevate it into more of a true profession, in the classic sense, like law and medicine. With the encouragement of two of his professors, and some fellow students, he began to formulate a pledge, and to promulgate the idea. He's reported he would have been delighted if a hundred of his classmates signed the pledge before graduation. In fact, more than four times that many did. This act has drawn cheers, jeers, and much ink throughout the world of journalism. Supporters applaud its focus on all the right things. Detractors roll their eyes and say that it either abandons the core mission of business - in their view, doing whatever it takes to make as big a profit as possible - or that, at least, it encourages hypocrisy and empty grandstanding that results in nothing more than unenforceable promises. This is the short version of the oath. The longer, explicated, version is available here . The Oath Preamble: As a manager, my purpose is to serve the greater good by bringing people and resources together to create value that no single individual can build alone. Therefore I will seek a course that enhances the value my enterprise can create for society over the long term. I recognize my decisions can have far-reaching consequences that affect the well-being of individuals inside and outside my enterprise, today and in the future. As I reconcile the interests of different constituencies, I will face difficult choices. Therefore, I promise: I will act with utmost integrity and pursue my work in an ethical manner. I will safeguard the interests of my shareholders, co-workers, customers, and the society in which we operate. I will manage my enterprise in good faith, guarding against decisions and behavior that advance my own narrow ambitions but harm the enterprise and the societies it serves. I will understand and uphold, both in letter and in spirit, the laws and contracts governing my own conduct and that of my enterprise. I will take responsibility for my actions, and I will represent the performance and risks of my enterprise accurately and honestly. I will develop both myself and other managers under my supervision so that the profession continues to grow and contribute to the well-being of society. I will strive to create sustainable economic, social, and environmental prosperity worldwide. I will be accountable to my peers and they will be accountable to me for living by this oath. This oath I make freely, and upon my honor. The oath, available on a wallet size card , was actually put onto chairs at one of the graduation events this week. What is an oath, pledge, or public promise like this? Basically it's an affirmation before witnesses of a commitment, the signaling of a personal intent and resolve. As such, it is clearly an act of speech or a performance of signature that can be either honest or dishonest in its inner intentions. Liars and straight talkers can utter the same words to do very different things. That isn't unique to this case. I personally applaud Mr. Anderson and the signatories who took this oath out of personal conviction. They are taking a stand and drawing the attention of a much broader public to what matters most in business and in life. Integrity doesn't just make for good press. It makes for deeply satisfying and sustainable success. Ethics isn't just a way of staying out of trouble, or of reducing criminal fines and other sanctions under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Ethics is way of creating strength. It's a distinctive and unique path to relationships of trust, accomplishments of value, and a legacy of long-lasting meaning. Ultimately, business ethics is all about: Responsibility : to the greater good and the big picture of human life. Transparency : in our decision-making and actions. Honesty : in what we say, show, and do. Accountability : with respect to what we've caused or contributed to in our actions. The core commitments of business ethics aren't complicated in principle. But their application in the real world demands nuance, sophistication, hard thought, wisdom, skill, and consistency. Congratulations to the Harvard Business School Class of 2009 for bringing all this to our attention in a vivid way, and for generated a new conversation about business ethics when we clearly need one. I'd love to be able to talk to each of those graduating students who signed the pledge, as well as those who didn't, and follow them through the next ten years of their careers, watching what they do and how they do it. Too much modern education focuses on perfecting the means to our ends. We need to focus on the ends as well, analyzing them and assessing them wisely, as recent events clearly demonstrate. I think that the early crew of leaders at Harvard, like the Puritan divine, Increase Mather, would have applauded this novel development, perhaps added a few clauses of their own, and urged such an oath on us all.
 
Zainab Salbi: An Update: President Obama's Speech and the Struggle of Iraqi Women Today Top
In 1951, Ali Al-Wardi, one of Iraq's most respected historians and social anthropologists, wrote about the need to lift women's seclusion and the necessity of women's full inclusion in all aspects of the public life in Iraq. He argued that gender equality was one of the major prerequisites for a healthy Iraqi society that eliminates the dualism caused by the seclusion of women and systematic encouragement of segregation and separation of men and women. Nearly 60 years later, Iraq is witnessing more seclusion of women than ever, more suppression of women's rights than ever, and the near total disappearance of a female presence in the public sphere. This is a dangerous phenomenon that should not be taken lightly. Women are a bellwether for society and no progress can be achieved in any country, let alone Iraq, if women are continually suppressed and hidden from the public sphere with little or no rights or freedoms. In my recent visit to Iraq in May of this year, I was saddened to learn the extent to which women status has detracted in the country. Legally, women's rights remained unprotected. The Family Status Law, written in 1959 and shaped by legal scholars of a similar mind to Al-Wardi, had been practically erased by the new Iraqi constitution of 2004. Those who wrote the 1959 Family Status Law wrote about the need for a consistent, centralized law that ensured the protection of all women in Iraq as a vision for progress in the country. While the 1959 legislation and its Hussein-era amendments left much room for improvement, the Family Status Law protected Iraqi women's rights in many ways from establishing the legal marriage age at 18, to creating barriers, polygamy, specifying a woman's right to maintain her lifestyle upon her marriage, and asserting a women's right divorce her husband. The Family Status Law was written under the auspices of Islamic law with an intent to gear away from sectarian laws that suppressed women's public participation and basic human rights established in many other Muslim countries at the time. I must admit that Women for Women International was one of the leading organizations advocating for a radical improvement of the law during the constitutional writing process of 2004. Learning from different experiences in working in conflict and post-conflict environments, we have always been well aware that war and its rebuilding process present a window of opportunity for improvements in women's access to resources and representation in the public sphere generally articulated in Family Status Law. As an organization, we made sure to introduce members of the Iraqi constitutional writing committee to those who participated in the writing of the Malaysian Family Law, Egyptian, Moroccan, South African and even post-genocide Rwandese law with the hope that cross-cultural collaboration would facilitate the protection of women's rights within an Islamic context. Little did we know that all the training and the sharing of experiences would have no impact on the writing of the new constitution; the constitutional writing committee executed a decentralized Family Law that leaves every Iraqi woman's status vulnerable to varied interpretations by men in different provinces of Iraq. In my opinion, decentralization overlooked the historic importance of centralization of the 1959 Family Status Law, which in 2004 was erased and replaced with different versions from one province to another. This has many implications. It means that different women in Iraq have different access to their rights depending on where they are living. In the absence of a unified vision for Iraq's future and a central government with qualified lawmakers who understand how the law can learn from other Muslim countries, it means Iraqi women have been left vulnerable to the consequences of a young nation suffering from a weakened legal infrastructure and a institutionalized role for religious leaders never before realized in modern Iraqi history. Finally, according to Hana'a Edwar, a leading Iraqi women's rights activist, the new law expressed in article 41 contradicts the specification of equality for women and men in the new Iraqi constitution. While I am not necessarily qualified to comment on the relative merits of legal decentralization, I have seen with my own eyes the consequences it has had on the women of Iraq when it allows laws to be blindly applied without consistency. Unfortunately, the protection of women's rights is rarely seen as a vital element of nation building, though women represent between 55 and 65 percent (depending on various data). I fail to see how Iraq can have a strong economy, strong democracy or strong nation overall while over half its population remains excluded from public participation without access to resources. President Obama's speech in Cairo yesterday illustrates that it is prudent that the United States help Iraqi women in their struggle for a centralized Family Status Law that balances between respect of Islam as a religion, all the religious groups of Iraq, and women's rights as equal citizens. The connection the President made to women's rights, access to education, economic opportunity and building peace, stability, and stronger nations in the Muslim world underscores the importance of this. We cannot fail Iraqi women in this particular time in history, for they have lost too much ground over the last six years in terms of rights, mobility, access to and representation in the public sphere, employment opportunities, and personal security and stability. It is time to help Iraqi women, to support them as they move toward leadership and to enshrine their rights in the Iraqi constitution. More on Iraq
 
Jaime Pozuelo-Monfort: The Reality of Aid (I) Top
In their paper Ghost of 0.7%: Origins and Relevance of the International Aid Target , Michael A. Clemens and Todd J. Moss of the Center for Global Development review the rationale behind the determination of the percentage and its significance in today's environment. Clemens and Moss also provide evidence that "no government ever agreed in a UN forum to actually reach 0.7%". Clemens and Moss point out that "the eventual 0.7% target was mostly arbitrary, based on a series of assumptions that no longer are true, and justified by a model that is no loner considered credible". The Pearson Commission is credited with having set the 0.7% target. Lester B. Pearson was the Canadian Prime Minister when the President of the World Bank Robert McNamara asked him to form a Commission on International Development. It is in the Commission's report where the 0.7 percentage first appears. McNamara was President of the World Bank between 1968 and 1981. The final report entitled Partners in Development concluded that "We therefore recommend that each aid-giver increase commitments of official development assistance for net disbursements to reach 0.70 per cent of its gross national product by 1975 or shortly thereafter, but in no case later than 1980" (Oxfam, 2005). How did the Pearson Commission come up with the 0.7% number? According to Clemens and Moss, former Pearson Commission staffer Sartaj Aziz recalls: By the time the Pearson Commission met, there was a virtual consensus on the 1% target. From there, the rationale for reaching the 0.70% target for Overseas Development Aid (ODA) was straightforward. ODA had already reached 0.54% in 1961. An increase to 0.6% would have been considered too modest since countries like France had reached 0.72% by 1968. I remember one staff discussion in which we debated whether the ODA target should be 0.70% or 0.75%. Consensus reached was in favor of 0.70%, as a 'simple, attainable and adequate' target. The 1% consensus was built up during the 1950s and the 1960s and was confirmed by a group of influential economists in the 1960s. According to Clemens and Moss Paul Rosenstein-Rodan and Hollis Chenery, both of whom were Chief Economist of the World Bank at different times, conducted separate calculations on "how much foreign capital would be needed by low income-countries in the early 1960s". The Make Poverty History Campaign in Canada asks the question "Why should the Canadian government honor the 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) targets for foreign aid?" The answer takes the 0.7% target for granted and argues the following: The Canadian government committed itself to achieving the 0.7% target over 30 years ago but never set a timetable. Increased aid is needed to invest in development projects and public services such as health and education in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. In 2006-07, Canada's official development aid was about 0.33% of our GNI, or half of what we should be giving. Is more aid necessary? Does the amount of additional funding make the commitment to reach the 0.7% a priority? A variety of reports have pointed out the necessity of increasing foreign aid. Reaching the 0.7% threshold is only an intermediate step. The 0.7% has lost its significance in today's environment, very different from that of the 1960s. More emphasis has to be put on how additional funding is spent. We need more aid, but above all we need smarter aid. As a result it is important that countries increase their contribution. It is yet more important that any additional contribution be spent in new schemes that show the recipient country's explicit desire to receive the funding based on an improvement on the country's social and economic fabric. In other words, donors and recipients have to be accountable for the aid dispensed. Aid must have a social return. Its impact must be tracked down and appropriate changes should be incorporated to its allocation in the absence of any social improvement. Aid's time horizon must be a compromise between the short and the long runs.
 
Lisa Guest: The Moment is Now Top
As a reticent child, I always tested the water before jumping in. As a young girl, I'd purposefully alter my looks in some way in order not to compete with other girls for boys. As a Berkeley undergrad I chose political science because I thought I'd have to write more papers for the English literature department. It's not that I take the easy way out. I don't. My life has been one sacrifice after another. There is much I've been willing to give up in order to live my dream; children in order to give birth to books, relationship in order to seek and understand solitude, money in order to focus on what is truly valuable-sustainable-connect worthy. It would have been much simpler to lower my ideals, to set my sights on something easier, more mainstream. I couldn't do that. It might have been more "fun" to take the Best Dressed award instead of Most Friendliest or Most Likely to Succeed (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-guest/what-is-an-authentic-ante_b_178296.html). It is much harder to be a good friend than to decipher what the latest fashion is or how to achieve a look instead of show off a label. Much more difficult to determine what is truly successful... and to go for that no matter the cost. It would have been so much easier to cut off parts of myself in order to fit into the corporate structure. But I couldn't do it for long. It would have been so much easier to break the glass ceiling without the inconvenient emotional part already amputated. But I couldn't focus on achieving when I had to leave so much of myself at home. Instead, I came into each moment with too much emotion. Many labeled me "too sensitive." Early on I was told, "You think too much." It's not like I could stop. Like Madonna, I've always had a strong masculine energy swirling around my center core. Instead of moving out into the world to conquer it, I moved inside to understand what was there. When I started this blog I assumed I could just deposit here pieces I wrote two years ago. Yet, since I've placed a few blogs I've realized that I must share what is happening now, important now, what is real now... Life is moving so quickly. They (who?) say that more is changing technologically, energetically, and historically now and in the coming four years than ever before. What might have taken a decade to process in another century can now be experienced and expressed in a heartbeat. I've always thought I had to be perfect before sharing my wares. Yet, I've never believed in perfection nor tried to achieve it in my everyday life. I've remained silent instead of voicing opinions if I didn't have valid alternative solutions. I've denied myself in a myriad of ways. Brilliance I produced prior on the page overlooked for too many years when memories of certain experiences left me with an ache or a hole or a wish unfulfilled. I left it on the private page and kept moving forward. Privately I'd tried to process, but I didn't really know then how to move through a trauma drama. Instead of honoring my process, accepting my emotions, understanding that what I feel is a blessing and not a curse, I judged myself as others had judged me; too this or too that. Instead of just being profoundly me. It's just me in this moment, processing this emotion. As if being me, alive and breathing in this moment, isn't enough to be grateful about. I have a dear friend who is struggling. Who isn't these days? He has the soul of an artist and can produce paintings, sketches and collages that anyone would want on their wall. Yet, he's cut off so much of himself in order to be a partner in an architectural firm. With the economy STILL in shambles, he's had to fire most of his staff. He worries about his job, and subsequently, his loft bought at the peak of the bubble. It is affecting his health. He is not alone. Millions in cities around this country are in his position. So what's my valid solution? I don't have one. I just pray he and the many others, who have such special gifts to give to the world, might use this time to focus said gifts to express these feelings that are instead now causing havoc in the body. I'll leave you for now with this. For years I sought answers. In the Jewish tradition, why were men expected to study and women were only allowed in the bedroom and the kitchen. Finally one Rabbi gave me an answer I could accept. He said, "Women are already connected to God. Women can reproduce. Men cannot. Men must study how to connect with the divine." If it is true that men move forward physically and mentally, and women move forward emotionally and mentally.... And that's why it's been easier for men to jettison said emotions and why women have struggled when having to do so... Maybe the answer is to honor our feelings once and for all. Honor how sad it is that a major American auto firm is biting the dust and how that will affect so many souls in the process... but channel that sadness into action, into choices that will improve our future. Choices like Michael Moore suggested today (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/goodbye-gm_b_209603.html). We all must sacrifice to get to the promised land of peace. What can you give up today? More on Fashion
 
Jeffrey Wasserstrom: Illuminating and Misleading Takes on China in '89 + 20 Top
I've already had my chance, via both print and online pieces, to offer my thoughts about the protests that erupted in scores of Chinese cities twenty years ago, the June 4th Massacre that crushed that upheaval, and how China has changed in the last twenty years. Meanwhile, though this is my first Tiananmen-themed piece for the Huffington Post, other contributors have been offering regular readers excellent reports and commentaries on specific subjects, ranging from the Tiananmen movement's significance to China's current leaders (subject of a fine piece by Susan Shirk) to the regime's decision to block Twitter and other social media (a topic handled well here by David Flumenbaum and also dealt with smartly and stylishly by Rebecca MacKinnon and Andrew Leonard on their blogs). I'm writing now with a different purpose: to comment on the commentaries. The Chinese events of 1989 have been revisited in so many ways lately that it doesn't seem too soon to provide a first assessment of some of the best and worst discussions of either the struggle as a whole or specific dimensions of it that have appeared, and to ask if the latest chatter on China fits in with larger patterns in coverage of that county. As someone who finished a doctoral dissertation on Chinese student protests of the 1910s-1940s while the Tiananmen protest wave was underway (a revised version appeared as a book two years later) and soon afterward started serving as a consultant for the excellent documentary "The Gate of Heavenly Peace," I've spent a full two decades now not just paying attention to developments in China but also tracking international discussions of the June 4th Massacre and its precedents and legacy. Though I'll take issue with some parts of recent commentaries soon (pointing either to mistakes of fact or problems of interpretations, including the tendency by some analysts to overstate the degree of American influence on the students of 1989 or the gulf that separates the aspirations of those youths from those of their counterparts in the Beijing of today), I want to stress at the outset that I've found much to admire about some recent writings, as well as the overall coverage offered by some venues, including the Guardian and NPR websites. I've even learned some new specific facts about phenomena I thought I knew well: e.g., that the photographer who took the most famous shot of the man stopping the tanks thought, initially, that the man's arrival would "screw up" his photograph. Getting down to specific new writings that seem particularly valuable, here are some examples of things I like. I was moved by the "growing cage" metaphor employed by Beijing-based independent writer Lijia Zhang , who marched in a Nanjing protest of 1989 as a young worker. She says that she and her fellow demonstrators felt trapped and longed to be freer; now, while still confined in a "cage," it is one that has "grown so big" for many of them that they can go about their daily lives unaware of "its limitations," thanks to the state being less intrusive and realms of private freedom expanding. I also found novelist Yu Hua's op-ed on gaining a new appreciation for the term "the people" in 1989 moving. And various Western journalists (both relative newcomers to the China beat like Mara Hvistendahl and people who were on the scene in 1989, such as James Miles and James Kynge ) have done admirable pieces. On the other hand, though, I've been dismayed to see some misguided old notions about the June 4th Massacre continue to circulate, and to see some odd ideas about contrasts between then and now get introduced or reinforced. In the familiar but still wrong category is the notion that the only people the troops killed in early June of 1989 were students; a larger number of those slain were workers. To cite just two examples of high-profile North American publications that do this, the National Post introduces a piece on Tiananmen's legacy by stating that the massacre was just of students, while an editorial in USA Today certainly gives readers that impression. Another old problem that has resurfaced is a tendency to reduce the complexity of the grievances (economic as well as political), inspirations (provided by ideals rooted in China's own past as well from abroad), and symbols (the Goddess of Democracy was modeled on the Statue of Liberty but not simply a replica) involved in the struggle. To call the event a "pro-democracy" or "democracy" movement has always seemed an oversimplification to some analysts (myself included), and Kynge does a particularly good job of explaining its limitations. Still worse is to boil the undertaking down, as the Washington Times just did, to an effort to "bring America to China" ; not only is this inaccurate, but it plays into a long-standing Chinese government argument that the protesters were somehow simply doing the bidding of the West and hence were not the "patriots" they claimed to be. In terms of contrasts between the past and the present, there have been many apt handlings of the issue but also many that have gone astray. It is curious that a BBC video uses the fact that the current generation expresses itself by going to rock concerts to flag their difference from 1989 youths interested in politics, without noting that Chinese rocker Cui Jian was a key influence on the Tiananmen protesters. Similarly, while the specific forms that nationalism takes now may be different, it doesn't work to state or imply that nationalism played no role in the 1989 protests, since another singer the students found inspiring back then was Hou Dejian, whose most popular song at the time, "Children of the Dragon," had a strong nationalistic element to it. Problems also arise when overly simplistic statements are made about then and now relating to freedom of speech and patterns of unrest. Nicholas Kristof muses, misleadingly, on why there are so "few protests" these days (there are a great many, just not ones that bring together people from different social groups or spread widely in geographical terms). Other writers misleading present the taboo regarding discussion of the June 4th Massacre in a manner that suggests a Big Brother state is tightly monitoring even the most private conversations, when the reality is that many people in China now feel free (and indeed are free), as they weren't always before, to talk among themselves about even hot-button topics, such as the crackdown in 1989, that would likely get them into trouble if they published about them or held meetings to discuss them. In thinking about what patterns are revealed by these trends, I've found myself returning to an excellent piece that Timothy Garton Ash wrote just before the flood of stories linked to 1989 anniversary started, which the Los Angeles Times ran as "Lack of News about China has Nothing to Do with Bias" (it had other titles in other papers). One of his themes was the folly of putting too much emphasis on one kind of binary: that of the division between "positive" and "negative" stories about China. When Chinese official and unofficial commentators periodically complain that the Western press is distorting foreign understanding of the PRC by running too many "negative" stories about it and not enough "positive" ones, he pointed out, they overlook the fact that media systems in the West tend to thrive on "negative" reports about ALL places. And when it comes to getting a distorted sense of what is going on in the PRC, the "problem with regular China coverage in the mainstream western media is not its negativity; it's simply that there's too little of it," with the result that outsiders get not too jaundiced but too simplistic a sense of the complexities of the multiple and overlapping and often contradictory transformations reshaping Chinese society. The recent situation suggests that in addition to this binary, others also can get in the way of understanding. Drawing a sharp divided between "internationally" minded and "nationalistic" generations of Chinese youths can lead us astray. So can thinking that the story of what happened in 1989 can be told in only two ways, the incorrect manner that the Chinese government tells it and the correct manner in which it is told outside of China, as one can be convinced that there are many ways to get the facts wrong, even if one believes, as I definitely do, that the Communist Party's "Big Lie" that there was no massacre on June 4th is the most disturbing of all ways to do so. Ironically, the problem since Garton Ash published his piece has not been that there has been "too little" Western coverage of China. There's been plenty, thanks to not just the Tiananmen anniversary but also other developments, ranging from trips to Beijing by well-known political figures, to the latest North Korean nuclear crisis (these always lead to discussions of China's new importance in global diplomacy), to GM announcing that Hummers will henceforth be produced in the PRC. And yet, one suggestion that Garton Ash makes in his piece is as valuable in times of feast as in times of famine where China coverage is concerned. He tells readers who want to make sense of China from outside of the country that their best bet is to head to the "web, armed with a few tip-offs," as they can find there "an Aladdin's cave of rich, diverse, detailed reporting and analysis," adding that the should try " chinadigitaltimes.net and danwei.org as a first 'open sesame.'" Well, sure enough, the two websites he mentions did an admirable job throughout the last few weeks of steering visitors toward some of the most worthwhile commentaries on 1989 and on comparisons between China then and China now, while also at times pointing out flaws in coverage of the topic. But that does not exhaust the list of sites worth turning to for a richer perspective on Chinese developments. And, interestingly, one of the places I've been turning to on the web to provide an "open sesame" for insightful analysis of the continuities as well as contrasts between the Tiananmen generation and today's Chinese students is a lively blog that Timothy Garton Ash is surely reading as well. It's called "Six," it just ran an excellent post called "Peking University of June 4th: 2009 is not 1989, and it's not 1984 either," and it's run by a 26 year-old British student named Alec Ash, who hails from Oxford and has a father who first made his mark on the world of commentary by writing about the PolishSolidarity movement that won a famous electoral victory exactly 20 years ago today (and whose initials are "TGA"). More on China
 
Amy Palmer: PowerwomenTV: An Online Series About Women in Business! Top
For three years I hosted and produced a local entertainment show in NYC. I stood on dozens of red carpets and asked celebs what they were wearing. I went behind the scenes of Broadway shows and sat in flying cars. I attended Fashion Week and hung out with the glitterati. I hosted numerous awards shows like The Gotham Awards and the NY Emmy's. I did everything that an aspiring journalist/TV host would want to do in the greatest city in the world. Yet, I couldn't shake an idea I had for a show that I KNEW I was supposed to create. A show called PowerWomenTV. The idea came to me around four years ago. My EUREKA moment happened while I was having a conversation with a friend who worked on Wall Street. I casually asked him about the women he worked with. "There aren't any women on my trading desk" he said matter-of-factly. "Really" I said, "Why not?" He shrugged. "Not really sure. I can name about a dozen women I know who work in finance, and they are the ones at the top. It's a small group." That conversation got me thinking. Who were these women? I started to do some research. And then I did some more. My quest to uncover the stories of women on Wall Street lead me to amazing stories of women in business and entrepreneurship. I collected articles for over three years, and before long I had an entire file cabinet full of stories ... stories of women who were breaking the glass ceiling, forging new paths, and living their lives on their terms. They were the ROCKSTARS of the business world -- and there were TONS of them. THIS was a show waiting to happen, I told myself, and I have enough material for an entire series! I wanted to watch this show, and I was willing to bet others did too. I had to at least try to get it made and ON television. These women deserved to have their stories told. Wasn't it time to counter shows like Jon & Kate Plus 8 and The Real Housewives with positive, inspiring images of women? So, I spent last summer writing a treatment and gave it to my agent. I waited. Nothing. Waited some more. Then my agent called. A HUGE women's network wanted to meet with me! Wow, I thought. That was easy. Not so fast. Cut to me sitting in a TV development execs office. "So" she began "who are the characters?" "Well, " I began, "the characters are the women who are running companies, creating new products and balancing work and family." "Hmm" she said, "where is the drama? The battles? What are the stakes?" "The drama" I countered, "Couldn't be any more dramatic, the battles couldn't be any more real, and the stakes couldn't be higher. These are real women with serious careers -- just look at them!" I pointed to the treatment that contained the names of the most powerful women in business. "Hmmm" she said. I walked out of her office and up Fifth Avenue. Feeling slightly defeated but never one to give up, I thought of my options. Then it hit me -- the web! I would create PowerwomenTV online! Sure, the internet was a little bit like the Wild West these days but at least I would be able to create the show on my terms -- no catfights, no plastic surgery nightmares or scripted tennis competitions! I called up my favorite cameraman, found a web designer who understood my vision and branding, and created my own production company. PowerwomenTV was born. We have been shooting the series since March and the women we have profiled for the series have been beyond inspiring. We have been given unprecedented access to offices, factories, labs, warehouses and homes. Our conversations are candid. We talk about balance (there is no such thing), spirituality and how it relates to business (enlightenment = power), trusting your gut, following your passion, blocking out the negative and guidelines for getting ideas off the ground. The women on the show are smart, insightful, funny, passionate, quirky, serious, and playful. I look at the show as a cross section of women today -- REAL women who are following their dreams, and letting us learn from them along the way. You can read about several of the women featured on PowerwomenTV (check out Karen Robinovitz post Purple Blab! ) right here on The Huffington Post. They are blogging about their products, careers, projects and lives. PowerwomenTV is launching this summer. We are currently shooting so if you would like to pitch a Powerwoman, email me at amy@powerwomentv.com -- would love to hear from you! Next week I'll be talking about the importance of branding and how to produce for the web! See you then! Amy Creator PowerwomenTV
 
Hendrie Weisinger: What Makes You Grow? ...Emotional Nutrients! Top
Getting yourself into an empowering environment -- one that helps you grow -- is the foundation for enhancing your life, according to Mother Nature. That's why you are hardwired with shelter seeking instincts, their purpose being to guide you into an environment that helps you thrive-whether it is a job, college, or relationship. However, whether Mother Nature is counseling a high school senior picking a university, a laid-off man or woman looking for that great, new job, a single person searching for The One, or a company looking to relocate, her question is going to be the same: "What are you looking for?" Without sarcasm, she would also tell you that if you can't answer this question, you're going nowhere fast. Indeed, the purpose of getting yourself in an empowering environment is to take advantage of what all humans are hardwired to do: grow. Knowing what makes you grow is key to finding yourself an empowering environment -- it's a crucial function of self-awareness, a popular term these days that has many meanings. For shelter-seeking instincts, self-awareness is your ability to know your what you need to develop your potential: emotional nutrients. Figuring out your emotional nutrients doesn't have to cost you a lot of money in therapy, but it is one of those tasks that require time and honest self evaluation. One strategy is writing in a journal. One terrific exercise is complete these sentences: "In my primary relation, to grow I need______________________" "In my job, to grow I need_________________________________" I've found this topic is rarely discussed in our marriages, at least the ones that are surviving instead of thriving. Thus, you might find it relationship beneficial to ask your partner what he or she needs to grow, and share your emotional nutrients too. Many off track relationships invigorate themselves once partners become aware of this information as this relationship awareness often allows them to make adjustments that are tuned to the emotional nutrients of each other. I've also found that this topic is rarely discussed in performance appraisals, so describing what you need to grow at work might be a beneficial topic to discuss in your next review, if not sooner. Be tuned in to the fact that we often hide from both ourselves and others the importance of our emotional and creative needs. When we fail to acknowledge what really makes us feel good, we foster instinctual disconnection and the result, naturally, is to end up in an environment where we are ill-suited, one that makes us restless, dissatisfied, and miserable. Why are many people resistant to expressing their true emotional incentives? Well, your evolutionary heritage suggests the fear of group rejection. Your ancestors depended on their clan for sheer survival. To go against the group, one would risk expulsion and lonely, risky exile, so conformity was a fundamental survival instinct. Similarly, the stock analysts who goes against the advice of the group risks being an outcast, so, instead, he goes along with conventional wisdom, even though his instincts are tell him that a million people can be wrong. You have to be true to yourself when you state what you need from your partner or colleagues or boss. And, you will only know what you need after deep reflection and your willingness to accept truths about yourself. Self-awareness leads to authentic wisdom about the emotional nutrients you need. More on Marriage
 
Scott Mendelson: Second Time's the Charm -- When Superior Sequels Surpass Lukewarm Originals Top
While I won't be seeing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen until June 22nd (IE - the first press screening in IMAX), I am oddly excited about the would-be summer box office champion. I say 'oddly' because I rather didn't care for the first picture. I didn't like the constantly campy comedy bits, I didn't like the cartoonish human characters, and I was shocked by the lack of robot-on-robot smack downs. The film lacked tension, menace, and regulated the transformers to almost comic relief sidekicks. Those reasons, aside from a few other token issues (for example, Shia Labeouf falls for Megan Fox purely because she's hot, then is outraged when he discovers that she has the gall to come from a lower-class, petty criminal household... and SHE has to apologize!) had me scratching my head in July, 2007 as the film seemed to win over not just audiences but quite a few major critics as well. But the previews seem to indicate that Michael Bay may have tinkered with some of these issues, with more epic action and a darker tone (for one thing, the screenwriters are different this time out). So I'm feeling a little more optimistic than I probably should. At the moment, I'm feeling like Charlie Brown as he prepares to kick a football. Just what are the chances that this inferior first film will produce a decent sequel that actually works where the original did not? While there are plenty of good or terrific first films that produced superior sequels, there aren't that many mediocre or underwhelming chapter ones that produced stellar or vastly improved second chapters. For one thing, usually if the first film is lousy, it won't make enough money to justify a sequel (although that's less of an issue in this quick-kill blockbuster age). However, there are a few worth noting. To wit... Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life (2003) The original Tomb Raider was a colossal bore and a complete waste of potential. As one of the few video game franchises that actually made sense as a film, the Angelina Jolie vehicle none the less featured a stunning lack of action and a complete absence of adventure. You had a weak villain, a convoluted storyline that existed mainly to cram Jolie's estranged father Jon Voight in the narrative, and a picture where the majority of the action scenes were comprised of Lara Croft emptying her twin handguns into robots, statues, and CGI monsters. While no masterpiece, Jan de Bont's would-be comeback vehicle was a marked improvement. For one thing, the story actually made just a touch more sense. Plus Jolie had far more chemistry with the male lead (Gerald Butler) than she did with the boring 'insert a dude' in the first film (played by, shockingly, Daniel Craig). Most importantly, the film was an actual action film. It had real chases, real fight scenes, and real shoot outs and stunt work with actual stuntmen being beaten, shot, and falling off cliffs. While the original was an example with everything wrong with tent pole film making, the sequel (which was actually $20 million cheaper to make) was a pleasant B-movie throwback that worked as a rough and tumble action adventure movie. Alas, it's relative box office failure ($66 million vs. $132 million for the first Tomb Raider ) led to what I call the 'Tomb Raider trap' rule, which states that a sequel to an unloved but successful film will bomb even if it's better, because audiences won't risk getting burned again. Saw II (2004) I was in the minority in that I rather loathed the first Saw picture. Aside from its grotesque moral compass ('oh no, he's actually helping people... and he's not really killing anyone'), the film was terribly acted, ridiculously plotted, and inanely staged. Just why was Dr. Gordon forced to listen as Amanda told her story of terror in the head cage? Because that scene was what got the film made, and it was the prime attraction of the marketing campaign, so they needed to stick it in there somehow, right? The whole film feels like an interesting first draft that never got polished after it was sold. Since one of the costars was one of the writers, you had the unique pleasure of watching a lousy writer/bad actor deliver his bad dialogue poorly. And Danny Glover delivers one of the worst performances of his career to boot (at least, unlike Shooter , you don't need hearing aids to understand him). But Saw II ? It's no great masterpiece and certainly not that scary, but it traded in wrongheaded morality plays and narrative incompetence for B-movie fun house jolts. It's violent and brutal, but not drawn out or grotesque. Plus, you have the wonderful interplay between two first rate character actors, as Tobin Bell faces off against Donnie Wahlberg. This second chapter allowed Tobin Bell to progress from twist-spilling cameo player (gee... that's noted screen menace Tobin Bell in the hospital bed... I wonder if he's involved somehow?) to full-fledged franchise movie star. And this is the only film that has explicitly called foul on Jigsaw's warped philosophy. It's good nasty fun that forgoes the pretentiousness of the later sequels and its a far more polished, professional picture than the rough draft original in every way. Plus, it was the first date for my eventual wife/mother of my child, so it's got that going for it. Every year we celebrate the anniversary of our first meeting by seeing yet another Saw sequel and swearing each year that we'll find a better way to celebrate next year. Addams Family Values (1993) Despite opening to $24 million and staying above $20 million in weekend two way back in November 1991 (a second-weekend feat surpassed only by Batman, Home Alone, and Terminator 2 at the time), the original Addams Family film earned the scorn of critics and the passive acceptance of audiences (despite the two massive weekends, it quickly flamed out after Thanksgiving and ended with $113 million). While perfectly cast and gamely performed, the first picture and its 'fake Uncle Fester tries to con the family' plot did little to endear the franchise and the film just wasn't all that funny. But the sequel that followed just two years later was a genuine comedy classic. Everyone in the cast felt at home, Raul Julia and Angelica Houston were obviously having the time of their lives, and Christina Ricci was rewarded for her scene-stealing turn as Wednesday Adams in the first film by massively increased presence in the sequel (in terms of screen time, she's actually the star). All this, plus the film contains not one warmed over suspense plot line, but three broadly comic storyline all mixed in, each of which would have sufficed on its own. Whether it's the birth of Pubert Addams and the older childrens' quest to murder said infant (priceless sight gags galore), the marriage of Uncle Fester to a would-be black widow (played by Joan Cusack, who is rarely allowed to be this attractive onscreen), or the brilliant gambit of sending Wednesday and Pugsley Addams to a cheerfully happy song-and-dance summer camp, this second picture is superior in every way and is one of the funnier mainstream entertainments of the 1990s. Alas, the lukewarm reception of the first film prevented this sequel from attaining similar box office heights, and it reached only $48 million in the US. Scream 2 (1997) The original Scream is not a bad movie, but it is a slightly overrated one. Yes, it's gamely acted and contains a knockout of a curtain raiser. But, once you get past the 'wink-wink, we're openly discussing the very cliches we're indulging in', it's a pretty generic 80-style slasher picture. But the sequel umped the ante in a number of ways. For one thing, the picture feels huge in scope, as if it's the first 'epic' slasher film. The cast feels more comfortable in their characters' skin, and they are all suffering from various forms of post-traumatic stress disorder, which lends a gloom over the whole show. Leiv Shreiber gives a star-making performance, while the picture finds time for two completely appropriate musical interludes amidst the carnage (plus, David Warner is an upgrade from Henry Wrinkler). Most importantly, the violence in this one really stings, as Wes Craven boldly kills the most popular character in the series at the halfway point, and then allows the characters ample time to grief his murder. If for no other reason than the scene where Dewey and Sydney try to determine who gets to call Randy's mother after he is killed, Scream 2 is a more potent piece of pop entertainment. A few popular sequels that will not be on this list: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) - Yes, this second film is better than the first, but I enjoy the maiden voyage more than most. While it's overlong and more of a tone poem, Star Trek: The Motion Picture is perhaps the only Star Trek picture that's actually about space exploration and discovering new worlds, as opposed to foiling evil villains and their evil plots. Superman II (1981) - It's not a bad movie at all, but this critically overpraised sequel is still inferior to the grand myth making in Richard Donner's original picture. The climactic throw down with the Kryptonian super villains is still fun and there is still some drama in the fortress of solitude moments with Superman and his respective parent (his mother or his father, depending on which version you watch), but the film has never been as engaging as the epic gold standard of superhero origin stories. Neither film is perfect, and both have issues with villainy (Gene Hackman's Lex Luther is a little too campy, while General Zod and company are all bark and little bite due to the family friendly nature of the franchise), but the first Superman picture is still the very best one yet made. Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me - The original film is one of the very best comedies of the 1990s. The sequel, despite popularity and critical raves, was one of the most heartbreaking theatrical experiences of my life. Mike Myers apparently didn't realize that Dr. Evil and Austin Powers were not inherently funny characters, but that the comedy emanated from fish out of water situations. By putting a swinging 60s bachelor back into the 1960s, Jay Roach and company took all of the satirical fun out of the film, and the constant poop and dick jokes were not enough to compensate. Plus a prologue plot twist took a giant dump on whatever emotional investment we placed in the original picture. Spider-Man 2 (2004) - As confused as I was by the critical pass that Transformers received, I was flabbergasted by the critical orgasm that greeted this vastly overrated Spidey sequel.
 
Jonathan Daniel Harris: Why I'm Almost Vegetarian, But Not Yet Top
I've toyed with the idea. I've tried for a day or two, slowly changing my eating habits to accommodate a second serving of salad instead of another chicken thigh. Try as I might, though, I can't take the full plunge and become a complete vegetarian. One can't deny the benefits of going vegetarian , but despite the health and environmental concerns, it just doesn't happen for me. These are the reasons why and my justification for remaining an omnivore. Primarily, I like the way meat tastes and it fills me up in a way that fruits and vegetables don't. I do, however, subscribe to Michael Pollan's way of thinking. In his book In Defense of Food , he gives his simple tip for how to eat : Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. It's important to point out that "Mostly plants" comes third and "Eat food" comes first. I'm much more concerned with eating fresh, whole, unprocessed foods than I am with eating only vegetables. The ideas aren't mutually exclusive, though in the age when the vast majority of our food comes from CAFOs, it would certainly appear that way. Attempting to avoid factory farms would be my primary concern if I were ever to completely convert to the vegetarian lifestyle. In an ideal world, I would eat meat a few times a week and it would be grass-fed beef. The meat you get at Burger King simply won't do. However, this is the world we live in, and I'm the first to admit that despite all my hemming and hawing about the industrial food industry, I will often eat meat from restaurants, fast food restaurants and even the odd taco truck. Second: I do not believe it is inherently wrong to eat meat. The food chain is rough and life for animals, whether they're domesticated or not, is dangerous. Different species have always relied on each other for survival, and cows, chickens and pigs would not exactly be on easy street if we didn't kill and eat them. However, I don't consider this a justification for the inhumane treatment and unsanitary conditions of America's factory farms. The way we prepare and distribute meat in this country absolutely needs to change, for the environment and for our own wellbeing. I urge everyone to see Participant Media's Food, Inc. this summer. You'll cringe, then cry, and if you're anything like me, think about going on a hunger strike (I lasted about four hours). If our industrial food system's practices changed, and animals were no longer fed stuff they were never intended to eat and left standing knee-high in their own excrement, I'd feel much better about eating them on a daily basis. Last: It's available and it's cheap. Once again, I regret that this is the way it is. When peaches are $5 and a double cheeseburger is $0.99 something is definitely wrong. However, as a person living on relatively limited means, I find it essential to take the easy route on my way home. So, once again, I want to be a vegetarian. I wish I could live completely off the land, consuming food from my own garden perhaps! However, it's just not in the cards. For everyone out there who thinks it's possible for everyone to go vegetarian or vegan, think about the millions of lower-income families, working several jobs a day, but having a duty to feed their kids. The McNuggets are cheap, simple and effective. What's the solution? Cheap plants that taste like burgers? I don't know. I think science has done enough already.
 
Suzy Bales: Blooming Buddies: Lilacs and Peonies Top
It would be hard to find a more congenial twosome than late-blooming lilacs and early- blooming peonies. They are compatible in color, fragrance and form. If their beauty doesn't hold your attention, their perfume will. They bring out the best in each other. In late May and early June, when the lilacs and peonies bloom together, strolling the short walk from the house to the vegetable garden takes a lot longer. Everyone lingers savoring the beauty and fragrance they lavish on those who passes-by. Lilacs have a traveling scent, strong, yet never overpowering. The common and the classic lilac, Syringa vulgaris, is the strongest scented species, blooming in mid lilac season; it typically blooms from 16 to 20 days. Every few years an early warm spell pushes the first peonies into bloom and their flowering overlaps with the common lilacs. It is worth waiting for, but can't be counted on. As the classics wane, Preston lilacs, (Syringa X prestoniae) open their blooms. They extend the lilac season for another few weeks into June and perfectly partner the peonies. Most of us can't get enough of the lilac's pervasive scent and am always left wanting more. Preston flowers differ slightly from classic lilacs; they have long, narrower, tubular florets that hang in plumes rather than larger flared sprays. Their scent, like most late bloomers, is spicy, like Rhone wine. They prolong the lilac season for another few weeks letting us down slowly. And their long bloom means they can host mid- and late- blooming peonies as well. Popular cultivars include 'James Macfarlane', 'Donald Wyman', and 'Miss Canada'. Peonies, too, have memorable perfume. Breeders classify three distinct scents-- honey, rose, and an unpleasant odor reminiscent of bitter medicine. The medicinal scent is not a traveling one. Keep your nose out of the blooms, and you'll never notice. It is usually in the pollen-bearing cultivars. Single red peonies are among the worst. However, there are exceptions--'America', a favorite for long bloom and glorious flowers, boasts a lightly sweet breath. Fully double rose types generally have the strongest and sweetest scent. A clump of 'Festiva Maxima', an antique beauty bred in 1851, blooms with blousy bowls of double white flowers splashed with flecks of red, making it easily identifiable. This early bloomer's scent reminds some people of old roses, others of sweet talcum powder. Peonies are perfectly content whether they are ever divided or not. They know their place in the garden and remain there without squawking. (While root cuttings of lilacs are variable, incidentally, divisions of peonies produce exact replicas). Consequently this heavenly marriage needs so little care, and each partner makes the other look better. For example, the biggest complaint about lilacs is their ungainly growth, and bare bottoms. A gardener has to keep them in their place. Rejuvenation pruning, removing a third of the branches thicker than 2 inches every five years keeps the shrubs below 6 feet. An unkempt shrub that hasn't been pruned for decades can be taken down to 6 inches. It grows back, blooming in a couple of years. Planting peonies at lilacs' feet hides their poorly clad legs. Don't despair if you haven't room for a path. One lilac paired with a few peonies can anchor a flowerbed, be a focal point in a front or back lawn, accent a curve in a driveway or stand at attention next to a garage. For small spaces try a dwarf lilac, which is easily kept at a rounded 3 to 4 feet. Among dwarf types are 'Miss Kim' with lavender flowers and 'Palibin', a dark pink bloomer. The most difficult thing about combining lilacs and peonies is choosing among the cultivars. Once planted into a well-drained soil, in full sun, they don't like to be fertilized. On their lean diet they'll outlive us by a couple hundred years.
 
Francesca Biller-Safran: Japanese-Jew Doesn't "Oy Veh" So Much Since Obama Top
As a Japanese-Jew, I have historically used self deprecating humor at my own expense as a way to explain and defend to others who I was and to feel accepted. My cultural confusion can be summed up in this anonymous quote, "There is no escaping karma. In a previous life, you never called, you never wrote, you never visited. And whose fault was that?" Until recently I believed "everything" was my fault. And I would certainly be the last person I would ever want to visit, with all of my kvetching to anyone kind enough to listen. "Oy Veh," I would lament. "No one accepts me; I am neither a truly Japanese or Jewish soul, so I will just sit here alone in the dark, eating a knish in my kimono." But gratefully, since Obama has become president, not only do I feel more comfortable as the multiracial shikseh that I am, but engage in thoughtful conversations about my heritage and background, without jokes, defense or much self-deprecation. I only hope that I conduct myself with an ounce of the class, genus and moral fortitude the president has displayed when continually questioned about his cultural identity. In his keynote 2004 speech to the Democratic Convention, Obama said, "In a sense I have no choice but to believe in this vision of America. As a child of a black man and a white woman, someone who was born in the racial melting pot of Hawaii, I've never had the option of restricting my loyalties on the basis of race, or measuring my worth on the basis of race." I too was born in Hawaii and attended University High School in Hawaii a few years before Obama just a couple miles from his school, Punahoe High, whose students I shared long bus rides with from remote areas in order to get a good education; a value that my parents, like his, believed was invaluable. Like my mother and father, Obama's parents are from two different cultures, yet he never feels the need to defend or justify his background, rather, he consistently responds to questions and assumptions with dignity and forethought. When asked during the presidential campaign what he considered his ethnicity to be, Obama answered simply that he is an American from two equally rich and diverse cultures. In a 2004 speech, Obama said, "My parents shared not only an improbable love; they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or blessed, believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success. They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren't rich, because in a generous America you don't have to be rich to achieve your potential." As a blend of cultures with a Jewish-Russian, Irish father and Japanese-Hawaiian mother, I too have faced continual questions as to what I considered my race, people, culture and ethnicity to be. I was given several names, including three middle names, all five on my birth certificate. One is named after my Jewish great grandmother, Beatrice, the other a Japanese name, Yukari, and the third, Caitlin, named after the wife of my father's favorite poet, Dylan Thomas. My first name is named after a man -- the Italian Renaissance painter, Piero Della Francesca, with his last name chosen for my first. Who was I, where did I come from, was I merely a mistake, an experiment, and how I might actually exist as a identifiable human -- have been relentless questions that have sewn experiences throughout my culturally odd and unasked for politically patch-worked life. This sentiment from an anonymous quote defines the neurotic dichotomy of my life, "To find the Buddha, look within. Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers. Each flower blossoms ten thousand times. Each blossom has ten thousand petals. You might want to see a specialist." One searing memory I experienced involves a boy who told me on the schoolyard there was no such thing as a Japanese-Jewish person. Afterwards, I ran all the way home from this boy with the piercing blue eyes and looked into the mirror wondering if I really didn't exist at all; at least in any real identifiable sense that mattered. This was just one comment amongst countless surreal exclamations that secured my stalwart allegiance to defining myself as a person from different cultures, but never defined by them. In his keynote speech to the Democratic National Convention, Obama said, "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- there's the United States of America." I can assume the President Obama has heard countless comments denying his existence as a fortified American as well, but was intrepid enough to remain an honorable candidate despite cultural ignorance on the part of others. This is the essential definition for any strong person; the ability, will and might to face oppression and hatred and march forward anyway. No one thought it was truly possible that a man who was Black may become president yet, no one. Some hoped, some feared, some dreamed, and many imagined a courageous, ambitious reality, but not one of us truly believed with full breadth that this young country was ready to make such a fearless and autonomous leap for the betterment of us and for the world. Like Obama's parents, the marriage of my parents confounded some, upset others and was dismissed by the rest. My father was raised in Los Angeles and then attended The University of Hawaii not long after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He came back with an education and a wife, who was a second-generation Japanese-American known as the Nisei generation, who grew up as a farmer on the coffee plantations of Kona, Hawaii. My Japanese-American uncles were part of the 442nd Infantry, also known as The Purple Heart Battalion, the most highly decorated fighter pilots in United States History. This includes some 4,000 Bronze stars and nearly 9,500 Purple Hearts. In this period, many Japanese-Americans were interned throughout the U.S, with land taken away, families torn apart and lives devastated, not unlike Jewish family members of my husband's during the Second World War with more tragic results. A lot of anti-Japanese sentiment existed at this time, and yet my parents married, with whispers heard loudly as shouts and bombs from some family, while others chose to keep quiet with disdain; perhaps even more devastating. Martin Luther King said, "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." My parents had four children during the 1950's and 60's, and thankfully we were raised in Southern California, a region more liberal and tolerant of interracial marriage than many other parts of the country. A visceral account of the confused cultural identity I experienced in a Japanese-Jewish household can be summed up in the following quotes, the first from a Japanese emperor, "Generally speaking, the way of the warrior is the resolute acceptance of death," and the second from Woody Allen, "It's not that I'm afraid to die; I just don't want to be there when it happens." At least as a writer, my life experiences give me more material to work with than my mother's hundreds of antique kimonos combined with all the chuppah's this side of Golden Gate Bridge. A perfect example of conflicting philosophies learned during childhood includes Buddha's lesson that "Life as we know it ultimately leads to suffering," while we were told simultaneously that although Jesus was indeed a suffering member of our tribe, we should never actually worship him. But nevertheless, I have made it, I have arrived, and I am as they say in Yiddish, I'm "Nisht geferlech," which basically means "Not so shabby." Surely President Obama must realize this profound effect he has had on a nation who soldiers so many different religions, races and cultures while speaking in native tongues more freely understood now at least now in spirit, if not yet comprehended in each syllable, syntax or inflection. And because we now have a president with a different story than president's past, who holds his head high with his own proud blend of integral cultural being, each language and culture that is different is now more highly revered, as is each person's individual journey. Each story sheds an even broader and brighter light on a nation that not only endures, but empowers; not only inspires but includes, and not only validates, but values each lesson, paragraph and infinitesimal anecdote that boasts the value of us all. This is now an axiomatic concept for the country, one that is only beginning to change America's story and each person willing to tell their cultural rhythms on their own. For this one Japanese-Jewish woman who always thought she was strange; even once given the title of "Shikseh Princess" at a Bar Mitzvah by some nice Jewish boys, my story has now changed for the better and interestingly enough, still interesting all the same. Finally I can stop commiserating with Woody Allen when he said, "My one regret in life is that I am not someone else." Except those rare moments when I begin to doubt the integrity and veracity of my own personal story that is just as valuable as anyone else's. In his book, The Audacity of Hope , Obama wrote, "This is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can say what we think; write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door." The doors for us all now open with greater ease and determination, and the answers and questions we hear on the other sides of each door are purely reflective of a nation that is now more unified in its diversity, and more open to discussion, depth, profundity and inclusion. More on Barack Obama
 
Jerry Zezima: Crash Course Top
If my wife and I wanted to have an impact on the people around us, we would teach a crash course in driver's education. That's because we have been in three crashes caused by people who had an impact on us. The first mishap occurred about a year and a half ago, when some idiot cut in front of me at an intersection because his GPS told him to go the wrong way down a one-way street. In this case, GPS must have stood for Guy Positioning System, since the guy obviously was lost and, like most men, wouldn't stop to ask for directions. The second mishap occurred a couple of months ago, when a little old lady pulled out of a side street in front of my wife's car because, as the woman admitted, she wasn't paying attention. I can only assume her GPS stood for Granny Positioning System. The third mishap occurred only two weeks later, when an older man rear-ended my wife's car at a red light, damaging her brand-new bumper, which she got as a result of the previous accident. His GPS apparently stood for Geezer Positioning System. I don't know where the drivers are worse, on Long Island, N.Y., where my wife and I live and where all three accidents occurred, or in our hometown of Stamford, Conn., where you take your life in your hands every time you get behind the wheel. But I do know this: Everyone on the road these days is certifiably insane. Except for my wife and me. And we have the insurance settlements to prove it. To get a driver's education in the fine art of vehicular mayhem, I recently went to King O'Rourke Auto Body in Smithtown, N.Y., where my wife and I have had our cars repaired after each accident, and took a real crash course from manager Bobby Lombardi. "The main problem," Lombardi said, "is that people don't pay attention when they're driving. Of course," he added with a smile, "it's not a problem for me because it's good for business." There was one driver in particular who convinced him that auto body repair could be lucrative. The driver's name: Bobby Lombardi. "I totaled a cop car when I was 17," he recalled. "I was driving a van for a printing company. There was a misty rain and this lady in a station wagon with kids in the back cut me off. I remember thinking, 'I can hit this lady or hit the cop car.' The cop had gotten out of his car to write a ticket, so I said to myself, 'I'll hit the cop car.' I hit it so hard that it slid and hit the car he was writing a ticket for. I jumped out of the van and said, 'Get that lady's plate!' The cop gave me a ticket." After a few more mishaps, which mainly involved clipping taxis in New York City and putting a notch for each hit on his dashboard, "I decided to get into this business," he said. "I figured, at the very least, I could fix my own vehicles." Lombardi, 53, who has been in the business for 30 years, is now, by his own account, "an excellent driver." That's more than he can say for a lot of other people. "They drive while they're texting or talking on the phone," Lombardi said. "Some people read the paper. I've seen women putting on makeup. It's ridiculous." But the biggest causes of accidents, according to Lombardi, are GPS devices. "They're worse than anything," he said, adding that he once got into an argument with his GPS. "It could speak different languages. I was looking for a place in Massapequa. The GPS said, 'Do you want to speak Italian?' I said, 'No! I want Massapequa!' It said, 'No comprendo.' I was actually talking with my hands to this thing, like a real Italian. I was yelling at it. Finally, I shut it off, went to a gas station and asked for directions. I know guys aren't supposed to do that, but I had no other choice." Lombardi and I, who are both of Italian descent, agreed that his GPS stood for Goomba Positioning System. Lombardi, who has done wonderful work on our family cars, had this final piece of advice for drivers everywhere: "Pay attention. Don't drink and drive. And if you see Jerry or his wife coming down the road, get the hell out of the way." Stamford Advocate columnist Jerry Zezima can be reached at JerryZ111@optonline.net. His blog is www.jerryzezima.blogspot.com. Copyright 2009 by Jerry Zezima More on Cars
 
Leslie Hatfield: Biotech FAIL: Bad Science, Worse Faith and Superweeds Top
If you yawned your way through science class back in school, you're not alone. American students have lagged in the science department for years, with fourth and eighth graders recently placing eleventh among international peers . While this is often framed in terms of an inability to compete in the global marketplace, it has another insidious effect: ignorance when it comes to scientific issues that have great social and environmental impacts, leaving us vulnerable to questionable science. What if, while we were sleeping through class, a well-meaning but ethically compromised teacher received funding to conduct dangerous experiments in our presence, feed us the results, and dump the toxic byproducts in the river next to the school? That's kind of the state of industrial agriculture, according to a new paper, The Genetic Engineering of Food and the Failure of Science (full text available for download here ) published in this month's issue of The International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food , and our future food supply is on the line, not to mention our health. The sharp-witted Bonnie Powell of The Ethicurean blogged about the report yesterday. Even Bonnie's post is a little dense for a lay person, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand the three terrifying "red flags" of GMO foods identified by Lotter's paper, which she breaks into digestible bullets and that I'll chew up a little more for you: the introduction of "novel proteins created by accident in transgenic foods" (leading to food allergies and toxicity, and nearly impossible for consumers to guard against because GM foods aren't labeled in this country) "the horizontal transfer of transgenes to other organisms" (the animal equivilant of cross-pollination of GM seeds, which Powell points out has not been studied in the long term) environmental side effects including breeding insects and other organisms with greater resistance to pesticides, new superweeds, and contaminated soil and water So what's the benefit? Monsanto, by far the world's leading proponent of GMOs, is currently spending millions to convince consumers that they are the only way to feed the world's growing population . The company repeatedly returns to its holy grail, the so-called Green Revolution, which supposedly solved hunger in India. But in fact, just last year, the farce of the Green Revolution was severely criticized by scientists and experts from 57 other countries. More from Bonnie: And in April 2008, as Lotter writes, 400 agricultural scientists and experts in 57 nations signed a United Nations-sponsored document known as the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development. The IAASTD's final report criticized the "Green Revolution" style of capital-intensive, high-environmental impact, technology- and yield-centered approach of agriculture and recommended that developing nations base their future food production around local and regionally derived sustainable and agro-ecological strategies. Not GMOs. As we followed here with interest, Monsanto and Syngenta -- the two biotechnology-industry representatives in the IAASTD discussions, who were initially enthusiastic about convening a food production strategy agreement for developing countries -- took their balls and went home in January 2008, when it was clear that nobody at the IASSTD was interested in playing their game anymore. The United States, Canada, and Australia did not sign the agreement. And yet, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack continues to push the biotech agenda abroad and in the U.S. Senate, with a proposed Global Food Security Bill that would mandate GMO research funds as part of foreign food aid. Such requirements could trap farmers in the Global South in a system of dependence on multinational corporations for seeds they might otherwise have saved, and force them to buy chemicals year after year that strip their soil of minerals and pollute their water. The second half of Lotter's study, Academic Capitalism and the Loss of Scientific Integrity, chronicles the questionable circumstances under which GMO technology was given the green light. He details the effects of "the large-scale restructuring of university science programs in the past 25 years from a model based on non-proprietary science for the 'public good' to the 'academic capitalism' model." He goes on to describe how dependence on corporate dollars corrupted science to do its bidding with "deficient scientific protocols, bias, and possible fraud in industry-sponsored and industry-conducted research; increasing politically and commercially driven manipulation of science within federal regulatory bodies such as the FDA; and bias in the peer-review process, tolerance by the scientific community of biotechnology industry manipulation of the information environment, and of biased treatment and harassment of non-compliant scientists." The fact that so many of our government agency employees have worked for the very corporations they are now supposed to regulate, in the areas they govern and that so many officials have received campaign donations from these same corporations could account for their tendency to rely on this dubious research, but perhaps the reason so many of them continue to ride this precarious bandwagon is that they're not so great at science, either. Genetic modification is hard to wrap your head around. One would think, however, that the big-brained folks at the Gates Foundation would have no problem understanding the science behind biotech and the potential problems with it, but if the government and academics are on the bandwagon and Monsanto is behind the wheel, Gates is definitely pitching in for gas with grants to the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa ( AGRA ). What gives? Lotter and Powell both allude, in terms of America's acceptance of this dubiously tested technology, to our belief, as a culture, in science and innovation, and who stands for innovation more than Gates? But bearing in mind that we are talking about our ecology, our health and our global food supply -- not really the kind of stuff we want to leave to chance -- we would likely do well to follow the example of our European counterparts, who, as Powell points out, have "tended to operate according to the precautionary principle essentially expressed as 'better safe than sorry.'" In the end, Lotter says that he's not exclusively anti-GMOs, and whether this stance is meant to temper the rocking of the academic boat (a doctor of agroecology, Lotter has taught for years within the system he's bucking, and is not on a tenure track) or a genuine desire to call back only the most grievously dangerous of these technologies, it makes sense not to throw out the baby with the proverbial bathwater. But I would encourage consumers (and Gates, and government agencies) to err on the side of caution as well, and to entertain the idea that real innovation in the food and agriculture world may not be the stuff of spliced genes, petrochemicals and intellectual property but rather a better understanding of the nature of soil and weather and time-tested methods of food production, like compost and worms.
 
Valerie Tarico: My Abortion Baby Top
George Tiller--physician, abortion provider, Lutheran, husband, father, grandfather-- was shot and killed Sunday in the lobby of his church. He was killed after years of harassment and threats, bombing of his clinic, even being shot in both arms. And yet he continued doing what he did because he believed it was right. They say that the walls of Dr. Tiller's clinic are lined with letters from grateful families. I can understand that gratitude. Whenever tirades against abortion catch my attention, I look at our elder daughter with wonder and gratitude. Without abortion she wouldn't exist, and if I knew where to find the warm Canadian-trained Singaporean physician who gave us the gift of Brynn, I would send her one of those letters, too. Five years into our marriage, my husband and I kept a promise we had made to ourselves during our first months together. He quit his job and I closed my psychology practice, and we put on our backpacks for a year of Lonely Planet travel. We swam in travertine pools in Mexico, crewed on a sail boat in Costa Rica, and hiked in the dark to watch the sun rise over a crater. We rode standing-room-only buses with chickens at our elbows, and "luxury" buses where violent lurid Hollywood movies made the kilometers seem eternal, and narrow gauge trains with lace-edged linens in the hard sleepers. We stayed sometimes in sweet guest houses but more often in bare cement rooms full of spiders and mice and once slept on the dirt floor of a kind Cancun worker who picked up two foreign hitchhikers in his decrepit Ford truck. Without my work to focus on, my biological alarm clock went off, and scarcely a month into the trip I announced that it was time for us to get pregnant. Brian was a bit surprised, but (in contrast to me) he'd always known he wanted to be a parent. Besides which, he's an adaptable person and he recognized a window of opportunity, so he set to work wrapping his mind around the idea. We were in southern Costa Rica at the time, about to crew our way through the Panama Canal to a new continent and, I figured, a new phase of life. Then we got news that my father had died in a climbing accident. We flew back to the States for a month, where I comforted myself by putting our garden back in order - pruning and weeding, only mildly annoyed by the neighborhood cats who thought I was loosening the soil so it would be easier for them to bury their business. It was while we were at home that I got pregnant. Somehow in my mind, the new life that was growing inside me made it seem like Dad wasn't completely gone. His death, my pregnancy, the tenacious weeds eddied together in a soothing reminder of the flow of life. We hit the road again, this time flying east to Jakarta, and after more three months of bumpy bus rides where fake snuff films fused with all-day-long "morning sickness," I was so ready to have that baby. (If I barf right next to the video screen, will those little boys in the front of the bus be spared from a lifetime association between sex and violence?) We landed in Singapore at the trailing edge of first trimester and got a gorgeous ultrasound picture of the fetus we had nicknamed "Gecko." To celebrate, we splurged at a little French bistro with crusty bread and gorgonzola pasta and a wee bit of wine, with the picture on the table between us. And then, the next day, we got test results showing that I had acute toxoplasmosis. Probably not a big deal, right? We trucked ourselves over to the university library to find out. Turns out acute toxoplasmosis means possible blindness and brain lesions. It seemed like a nightmare. We both wanted a baby. But it also felt irresponsible to gamble. Not only would we would be taking a chance on the quality of life of our first child, but potentially committing any future children to a life of caretaking that they had no option to choose or reject. We would be risking our own ability to give to the community around us - and possibly creating a situation in which our family needed to suck more out of society than we could put back into it. As painful as the decision felt, our moral values were clear, and we scheduled to terminate the pregnancy. The loss felt enormous, in part because that pregnancy was so tied up with my father's death. I was still letting him go -- dreaming that I was in Switzerland rather than Costa Rica when he fell, kneeling and scooping the bright red snow while a helicopter flew his body away. Or talking to him at his desk and telling I wouldn't see him again. Or reliving my mother's middle-of-the night screams when, not knowing what to do with the blood-soaked clothes that the Swiss government had mistakenly shipped to Arizona, she put them in the washing machine and a piece of Dad's skull fell out of the wet heap. George Tiller's wife screamed when she saw him there in the church lobby; I wonder what kind of dreams his children and grandchildren will be having. But it wasn't just about Dad. To this day, I marvel at how quickly my mind and emotions oriented to the idea that we were going to have a child. Even after I got pregnant again a few months later, I remember crying -- I wanted Gecko. It wasn't until Brynn was born beautiful and whole, and I looked into her ancient newborn blue eyes and fell in love -- it wasn't until then that the loss healed completely. How could I grieve a potential child know that this tangible, silky sweet-smelling child in front of me couldn't exist if that one did. Instead of a child who spends a (short or long) lifetime struggling to be and do the things we cherish most, we have a daughter who is loving and generous and playful and strong and way smarter and more disciplined than her mama will ever be. That is the gift that a doctor like George Tiller gave to me and my husband and our younger daughter and our community -- to everyone Brynn will touch. In the case of my daughter, the trade-off is very clear: A bundle of risks, or the thriving life-lover who writes poetry about her chickens and races after a soccer ball as if, in that moment, it were the only thing that existed. There never was an option on both; Brynn was conceived before Gecko would have come to term. In less obvious ways, many many children exist in this world only because of abortion. We rarely talk of them - the chosen children who wouldn't be here if their mothers hadn't first chosen abortion when the timing or conditions were wrong. Most of the women I know who have had abortions now have chosen children, kids who are flourishing because they were born into flourishing families, born to parents who waited to stack the odds in their favor. Would my little friends Annie, Tommy and Hannah exist if their mothers had been forced to carry those early unintended pregnancies? Their moms say no. Thanks to contraception and abortion, they do. Yet we seldom talk about this part of choosing life. Who do you know who wouldn't be here if a brave doctor hadn't made a moral commitment like the one that cost George Tiller his life? What do those fundamentalists think keeps someone like Dr. George Tiller working behind bullet proof glass after being shot in both arms? The gifts of life given by an abortion provider are hard to measure, but I think that Dr. Tiller knew. I hope they publish those letters in a book.
 
Jim Luce: In Sri Lanka: A Look at the Refugee Camp Top
Hope amidst chaos. In the aftermath of Sri Lanka's victory over terrorism, there are many tears. The Tamil Tigers have been defeated, but 280,000 Sri Lankan Tamils are now Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) - in short, refugees in their own country. The world is beating a path to the camps, first United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, followed by a U.S. Congressman from North Carolina. The U.N. Security General visited the camp last week. Reports from the camp are that the Sri Lankan government has moved mountains to accommodate more than a quarter million people since the war ended ten days ago. But there are many more mountains to move. They need massive assistance. Tamil children connected to the Secretary General. I have already reported on the trip to the camp last week by U.S. Congressman Heath Shuler (Dem., N.C.) in this publication . He was much impressed with the progress the Sri Lankan government has made to meet the basic needs of its people so quickly. Several emergency hospitals have been put up by the government. With images of our own response to the people of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, the speed in which the Tamil refugees have been provided for has been impressive. There is much, much more to do. The darkness is deep - and the children frightened. The faces of children are heartbreaking. Even more tragic is that at least some of them had been trained as child soldiers by the Tamil Tigers. I will file a story shortly about a project just north of Colombo to rehabilitate the child soldiers who have been rescued. One young girl rescued by the Sri Lankan forces reported she had been "dragged screaming from her family. She was told to move forward against the Sri Lankan troops, and that she would be shot from behind if she hesitated. With over 280,000 refugees, the need is staggeringly enormous. The Sri Lankan government has already begun to clear an additional 1,000 acres to expand the refugee camp. Overcrowding is one of the most serious challenges the refugees now face. The heavy mining done by the Tigers is another. In this MASH unit, they are saving civilians, not soldiers. The Chef's Guild of Sri Lanka -- an association of restaurant and hotel chefs -- have stepped up to cook 30,000 meals a day for the Tamil refugees. They did the same for their fellow Sri Lankans following the Tsunami. Over 280,000 men, women, and children - over 280,000 stories. 116,000 soldiers belonged to the Sri Lankan military at the beginning of 2009. As the Tigers began to face defeat, more and more young Sri Lankans enlisted, swelling the troop number to 200,000 by the time the battle was over two weeks ago, United Nations floating hospitals are actively involved. The government has already sent 10,000 sets of school furniture and 25,000 school uniforms for children in the camp to resume their education. More than 3,000 teachers are among the refugees. The international community is helping in the camps but needs to do much more. As of last week, there are seven U.N. agencies and 17 international NGO's involved, including the Red Cross. Sri Lankan troops seem to genuinely care for the kids. The children in the refugee camps of Sri Lanka's north -- almost 1,000 of them orphaned -- will remember how the Tamil Tigers used them as human shields. They will remember the kindness and generosity of their fellow Sri Lankans who rescued them. These children will always remember their rescuers. This massive rescue effort should ensure that the next generation in Sri Lanka lives in peace and harmony, a dream that has been unachieved for the last three generations. Hopefully Europe and North America will join this massive humanitarian effort. The next generation of Tamil children -- in fact, all Sri Lankan children -- would remember their neglect just as sharply. More on Sri Lanka
 
Allen Gunn: Netsquared 2009: Making the Virtual Proximal Top
As someone who organizes nonprofit technology events for a living, I spend a lot of time reflecting on what role live convenings should play in this ever-more virtually networked world. The Netsquared conference in San Jose last week gave me plenty of food for those particular thoughts. Netsquared , an initiative of TechSoup Global , works to drive adoption of social web tools by nonprofits and activists through several different channels of engagement. The centerpiece of the program is an annual event held in May at Cisco in San Jose, California. NetSquared also fosters monthly face-to-face meetups for social innovators in 33 cities around the globe, and has incubated hundreds of social action projects in various stages of development, including the award of more than $240,000 in financial support through prized-based Challenges. The NetSquared Challenge is the focal point of the annual event, rolled out with a different theme each year. Social technology innovators are invited to submit projects that meet contest criteria and address the Netsquared vision of social impact through emerging social technologies. This year's contest focused on the role of mobile technology in social change, and the entries reflected the diversity of possibilities that emerging mobile technologies offer to social justice activists. The top vote-getter, FrontlineSMS: Medic , enables community health workers to deliver efficient healthcare to rural areas of the developing world via SMS text messages. The second-highest vote-getter, The Extraordinaries , is a platform that enables citizens to perform "micro-volunteer" tasks on their phones when they find themselves with small amounts of time, such as waiting at a bus stop or in line at the bank. Other projects explored how mobile devices can let citizens hold governments more accountable, support agricultural supply chains in developing countries, and be used to report issues such as potholes and safety concerns to local officials. The contest is unique in that competition is balanced with collaboration between both the entrants and other interested parties. The process is supported by a platform designed to enhance that collaboration; once contest entries are submitted, they are publicly visible on the web site, and Netsquared community members are encouraged to ask questions, provide critique, and offer suggestions to each project in the time leading up to the voting. That voting is done fully online, and this year 15 entries out of 72 submissions were selected to be "Featured Projects" who would travel to San Jose to pitch their visions in a live format where three conference participants would vote for their favorite projects and the top three vote-getters would be crowned. The live event in fact weaved to together two convenings of otherwise distributed virtual communities. In addition to the mobile practioners who came to participate, about 15 of the "Net Tuesday" coordinators from around the world attended. These individuals organize meet-ups in their respective cities on a monthly basis, and were quite energized to meet in person and exchange ideas for programming, outreach and community engagement. This layer of interaction juxtaposed with various mobile innovators sharing ideas and scheming new tools created a vivid live landscape, and created momentum to sustain online collaborations after the event. It's interesting to reflect on how the virtual and distributed nature of Netsquared feeds energy into the live event. More traditional conferences are seeing steep decline in participation; stalwarts like LinuxWorld have had to retrench and re-brand in response to waning registration. But the Netsquared conference saw its highest registration ever this year in a down economy, and it's not hard to connect the dots and see that a well-facilitated virtual community generates a demand for genuine human contact; when online community members are enjoying the experience, they long to see who is behind the email addresses and virtual personas. That said, as a live event "purist," there is still one unsolved dynamic in this brave new information era. Participants at Netsquared predominantly did the standard information warrior multi-tasking, churning email, surfing the web, tweeting observations and chatting in event "back channels" with their laptops while presenters spoke about their various visions for a mobile-powered better world. I believe the ultimate goal of live events in the era of virtualized camaraderie is to find ways to get participants to put away the laptops and remain fully present in the room. At Netsquared, the project sessions and the interactive "garage" sessions buzzed with interactivity, but plenary keynote speakers addressed a veritable sea of portable technology in play. I'll be interested to see how this conference and others evolve to maximize the types of interactions that can't be rendered through a keyboard. Looking back on the whirlwind of last week, what the Netsquared conference really bears out is the essential role that live events still play in weaving the fabric of social networks. Having what exists as a virtual community for 51 weeks of the year come together in person brings dimensionality to the program that can't be established electronically. Trust relationships are best established and strengthened in person, and collaborative dialogs and serendipitous friendships take on a whole different hue when adrenalized by physical proximity. Netsquared better than any other structured conference I've been to understands how to meld the virtual interaction with the proximal to get the best of both.
 
Boston Globe Union Attacks "Wretched" New York Times Management Top
BOSTON — Days before a key contract vote, the president of The Boston Globe's largest labor union has accused management of requiring deep concessions from workers while making "wretched" business decisions and doing little to share in the cuts. President Daniel Totten stopped short, however, of suggesting that the Boston Newspaper Guild reject a contract proposal that would save the Globe's owner, The New York Times Co., $10 million a year and avert the newspaper's possible closure. "I have every confidence that whatever Guild members decide will be the correct path," Totten wrote in the memo Wednesday. "Nonetheless, you learn a lot about people and organizations from how they behave in a highly challenging situation. And what we have learned about New York Times Company management _ and its unwillingness to share the pain of overcoming this crisis _ is terribly disappointing." E-mail and phone messages left Thursday with the Times Co. were not returned. Members of the Guild will vote Monday on the concessions negotiated after the Times Co. said it needed $20 million in annual savings from Globe unions to avoid having to shut down the 137-year-old newspaper. The Globe had $50 million in operating losses in 2008 and had been projected to lose $85 million this year. The Times Co. demanded half the concessions from the Guild _ the Globe's largest union with 700 editorial, advertising and business employees. The new contract proposal includes an 8.3 percent wage cut, five-day unpaid furloughs and cuts in benefits. It also would end lifetime job guarantees for 190 Guild workers. Guild leaders have not endorsed the contract proposal, agreeing only to allow its members to vote on it. If approved, the new terms would replace a contract set to expire at the end of the year. In a separate memo sent to Guild employees Wednesday, Globe Publisher P. Steven Ainsley said five other unions already have approved concessions _ but they all hinge on the Guild's ratification of new terms. "It is essential and non-negotiable that we achieve $10 million in cost savings from the Guild," Ainsley said. "Our financial situation is too urgent and further delays to resolution are not an option." If the union rejects the proposal, the Times Co. could seek to declare an impasse, which could let it follow through with threats to impose a 23 percent wage cut. Totten said Thursday he did not know how his membership would vote Monday. In Wednesday's memo, Totten said executives at the Times Co. received bonuses in February _ shortly before threatening to close the Globe _ and will have their pay cut by 5 percent through only the end of the year, unlike the permanent reductions being sought for Guild members. He also criticized the company for poor business decisions, such as splurging on its new headquarters in New York City. To help pay debt, the company recently sold 21 floors of the building for $225 million. Meanwhile, after the Times Co. sold its old building for $175 million in 2004, the new owners were able to fetch three times that amount about three years later. "Times Company management decisions have been wretched: another unfortunate reality of their response to a serious challenge," Totten wrote. Globe spokesman Robert Powers said many managers will experience a 20 percent cut in compensation. "We have asked all of our employees, those in unions and those who are non-union, to make significant and equitable sacrifices," he said in a statement. "We are taking these actions because our financial situation is untenable, and our top priority is to ensure the Globe continues to serve the Boston community with high-quality journalism." Beth Daley, a union delegate and environmental reporter at the Globe, said in an interview Thursday that many colleagues likely would reject the proposal _ some because of increased health care costs, others because of pension cuts. "For a lot of people, it's just the darn pay," said Daley, who also planned to vote "no." Those employees, she said, understand the difficult position the Globe and its parent company are in financially, but hope another round of negotiations could lead to a slightly better offer. But she expects the Times Co. to follow through on its threat to cut pay by 23 percent should the contract proposal fail. "I think it's going to be a very personal decision for a lot of people, and at the last minute," she said. "I'm also hearing a lot of 'What should I do?'" More on Newspapers
 
Mary Alice Carr, NARAL Rep: Why I'll Never Again Appear On Bill O'Reilly's Show Top
I made a personal pledge to no longer sit across from him after he called for people to converge on Tiller's clinic. I realized that appearing on the show with him would only legitimize his speech and that no good would come of my efforts. So on Tuesday morning, when an O'Reilly producer called and asked me to come on the show to "discuss the reasons why women have late-term abortions," I held fast to my pledge More on Bill O'Reilly
 
Justice Department Admits New Mistakes Under Bush Top
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday asked a court to release two imprisoned former Alaska state lawmakers after the Justice Department found prosecutors improperly handled evidence in their trials on corruption charges. The move is the second embarrassing retreat for Justice Department prosecutors since the conviction of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was tossed out of court in April. Now, the attorney general is asking a federal appeals court to send the cases of former Alaska House Speaker Peter Kott and former state Rep. Victor Kohring back to the trial judge. The attorney general made the request after finding prosecutors had failed to turn over evidence to the defense. Similar errors sank the case against Stevens. In announcing the move Thursday, the Justice Department said it also was asking the appeals court to release the two men on their own recognizance. The department is not dropping the charges against Kott and Kohring, but is seeking to bring the case back to the trial judge, where defense lawyers will almost certainly seek to have the cases thrown out entirely. "After a careful review of these cases, I have determined that it appears that the department did not provide information that should have been disclosed to the defense," Holder said in a statement. "When we make mistakes, it is our duty to admit and correct those mistakes." Kohring was convicted in November 2007 of bribery and extortion-related charges and sentenced in 2008 to 3 1/2 years in prison. Kott was also convicted in 2007 and sentenced to six years in prison. Both are Republicans, as is Stevens. Holder's announcement did not specify what evidence authorities failed to turn over to defense lawyers, but the trials of all three men _ Kott, Kohring and Stevens _ centered around testimony from the same key witness, Bill Allen, the founder of VECO Corp., a major Alaska company that performed maintenance, design and construction contracts for petroleum producers. Thursday's actions grow out of a review prompted by the problems with the Stevens case. When Stevens' conviction was tossed out, Holder ordered a more extensive review of possible prosecutorial missteps, particularly among the lawyers handling public corruption cases. Separately, a judge has ordered a second investigation into the conduct of many of the lawyers involved. Messages left Thursday with attorneys for Kott and Kohring were not immediately returned. ___ Associated Press writer Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, contributed to this report. More on Eric Holder
 

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