Monday, July 27, 2009

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Michael Likosky: Finally, A Craigslist for Government Assets Top
If you're looking for a good deal on public assets, Allen & Overy LLP, a leading international law firm, has a product for you. It's called the "PPP & Municipal Home Rule" tool. Don't be turned-off by the long-winded name. Allen & Overy is saving investors a lot of time and money by honing in on what really matters. The two most important things for public asset gobblers are: (1) good prices and (2) elected officials ready to deal But you might ask: Who has the time to drive around the country looking for good government garage sales? And, Craigslist doesn't have a listing for bridges, emergency response systems and dog shelters. This is where Allen & Overy provides such a valuable service. It turns out that there are twenty-seven states in America that make it easy for their cities to deal directly with investors. So far so good. But, that information only takes us so far. That is, the real deal on public assets is to be had from cities in financial distress. A road is not a road, a bridge not a bridge. In other words, a cash-strapped city will sell its public park at a better price than a cash flush one. Financial crisis, it turns out, depresses asset price, but not necessarily value. Even crisis-ridden Californians have to drink water and drive to work. And, when the financial crisis does end for more Americans, they'll be more water drunk and more miles driven. Now that's value for the money. What Allen & Overy does is to find all those cities in states that have had credit rating downgrades during the last quarter of 2008. Ones with "heightened interest" in selling off public assets. The beauty of the Allen & Overy tool is that they reduce the "pursuit costs" of investors looking for this type of opportunity. They are right: when looking for "jurisdictions of opportunity", it is easy to become "overwhelmed by the scale of the U.S. infrastructure market." The ability to lower the cost of finding these opportunities is the beauty of the Allen & Overy tool.
 
Yoani Sanchez: Honored Today With The Cabot Journalism Prize, I Will Use It To Grow The Cuban Blogosphere Top
Years ago I turned my back on the academic and intellectual world, tired of seeing, so frequently, the masks covering the faces of my teachers and classmates. Today begins my journey back to the university campus, bearing in hand the special mention in the Maria Moors Cabot Journalism prizes with which I've been honored by Columbia University . An award that I've received for--among other things--refusal to take part in this "cultivated" complicity that I was so frustrated to discover on the part of Cuban letters. Escaping from a bookish erudition detached from reality, I went to the opposite extreme: that of circuitry and binary code. There are roads, however, that lead us always to the same place and that can make a renegade philologist re-embrace the habits of the academy. Particularly, if this return to the world of gowns and diplomas happened for having behaved as a free person in cyberspace. I think I will use the prestige and protection that the Cabot Prize brings with it to continue to grow the Cuban blogosphere. The alternative journey that unites us every week has reached a point where it must become an authentic blogger academy. As I don't plan to wait to be allowed to open school of digital journalism in order to realize this project, I will begin it with bureaucratic and legal formality. The distinction that I have received today can contribute to the birth of a new kind of instruction here, one without ideological conditions, without those ugly costumes which at one time made me distance myself from the academic world. Yoani's blog, Generation Y , can be read here in English translation.
 
David Wild: Top Five Reasons That I Love "Funny People" Much More Than I Love Funny People Top
1) "Funny People" will cost you a set and rather reasonable amount at the box office. Actual funny people have a funny way of costing you considerably more than you would ever imagine. Just ask anyone who's ever gone to a diner with one. 2) Leslie Mann is really funny -- and really hot. Most actual funny people are only hot by virtue of an extremely liberal interpretation of the theory of relativity. Worringly, Seth Rogan is looking pretty good to me too. 3) In a remarkable central performance, Adam Sandler is significantly better in "Funny People" than Lawrence Olivier was in "The Jazz Singer." This clearly means that Adam Sandler is a much better actor than Laurence Olivier, thus ending years of public debate. 4) With the three outstanding movies that he's directed to date - "40 Year Old Virgin," "Knocked Up" and now "Funny People," Judd Apatow has now hit the Human Comedy trifecta, getting ever closer to the core of the human condition without abandoning the dick jokes that would be hard for a generation to live without. 5) Sure, I've seen "Fire & Rain," but I never thought that I'd live to see James Taylor totally kill in a movie comedy. Eminem, on the other hand, I always expected to kill, but not quite like he does here.
 
Lloyd Chapman: Who Are the Real Small Business Advocates in America? Top
Can Legitimate Small Business Groups be Funded by Fortune 500 Firms? Can an organization claim to represent the interests of small businesses and never lift a finger to stop the most highly publicized issue affecting small businesses for the last eight years? Can an organization funded by Fortune 500 firms truly represent small businesses? In 2002, I convinced the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to launch the first federal investigation into the diversion of federal small business contracts to large corporations. In February of 2003, David Cooper, Director of GAO's Acquisition and Sourcing Management Office, told Washington Technology magazine that the GAO launched its investigation based on "information Chapman provided." ( http://washingtontechnology.com/Articles/2003/02/20/Smallbusiness-deals-under-investigation.aspx?Page=1 ) That first GAO investigation has prompted over a dozen other federal investigations and private studies into the diversion of federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms and thousands of other large businesses. ( http://www.asbl.com/documentlibrary.html ) In 2005, the Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General (SBA OIG) released Report 5-15, which assessed the magnitude of the widespread fraud and abuses in federal small business contracting programs. Report 5-15 described the diversion of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to many of the largest companies in the world as, "One of the most important challenges facing the Small Business Administration and the entire Federal government today." ( http://www.asbl.com/documents/05-15.pdf ) Since the results of that first GAO investigation were released in May of 2003, over 500 stories in the media have covered the issue. Every major newspaper in the country has reported on the problem. Dozens of magazine articles have covered it. It has been on every major television network, including: ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX and CNBC. Finally, the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants has been discussed in more than 400 radio interviews by the American Small Business League (ASBL) staff. Over a dozen federal investigations, more than 500 stories in the media over eight years, and over $100 billion a year diverted from small businesses and firms owned by women and minorities; surely any group that claims to represent small businesses, women or minorities must have done something to address a problem of this magnitude. I challenge anyone to even find this issue mentioned anywhere on the websites of any so-called small business organization. Try and find any evidence of any effort to halt the fraud and abuse against legitimate small businesses. Virtually every national organization that claims to represent small businesses is actually funded by the very Fortune 500 firms that have hijacked hundreds of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts. Now that is a staggering conflict of interest. Many of these Fortune 500 firms have even lobbied to close the SBA and end all federal programs to assist small businesses and firms owned by women, minorities and veterans. Some of these sham groups will attempt to tell us that their members don't care about this issue. Quite the contrary, try and find a single legitimate small business in America that thinks Fortune 500 firms should receive federal small business contracts. Here's the truth; the ASBL is the only national organization that has fought to bring an end to the diversion of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms and hundreds of other large businesses. The ASBL is the only national small business group that does not take money from Fortune 500 firms or big businesses. We only fight for small businesses. We provided the information that prompted the investigations. We filed the lawsuits that forced the release of thousands of pages of government data proving that Fortune 500 firms have received billions of dollars in federal small business contracts. We prompted the overwhelming majority of stories in the media on this issue. We have fought the SBA, the White House, the Pentagon and Congress as they have refused to adopt legislation and policy to halt the rampant abuses. And now we are the only small business organization in America that has successfully had legislation introduced into Congress to finally halt the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants. The passage of H.R. 2568, the Fairness and transparency in Contracting Act will bring an end to years of fraud, abuse and loopholes in federal small business contracting programs. The passage of H.R. 2568 will also redirect over $100 billion a year in current federal infrastructure spending back to the 27 million small businesses where most Americans work. These firms are responsible for 50 percent of the Gross Domestic Product and over 95 percent of all net new jobs in America. Don't be fooled anymore, if you want to discover who the real small business advocates are in America, look to see who funds these groups and ask who has fought to end the most widely publicized and investigated abuses against small businesses in the last decade. If you are a small business owner, after you have discovered who the real small business advocates are, join them in their fight for American small businesses. www.asbl.com More on Barack Obama
 
Jonathan A. Schein: What's Not Wrong With New Jersey? Top
For the past week the wide ranging scandal in New Jersey politics has been making great theater. A feeding frenzy across all aspects of media had a wonderful time taking the Garden State to task. These media outlets have included the venerable The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, all three major network evening news outlets, and the blogosphere. Reaching millions and millions of eager eyes and ears, you might think that New Jersey is simply a backwater studio set ready-made for a variety of mob related movies and television shows. So much for balanced reporting. The truth is that corruption is too common in the chambers of local government. But there are many more people that don't lend themselves to the "culture of corruption." The state possesses earnest and hardworking public servants who only take the public interest into account. The state is home to 23 Fortune 500 companies employing hundreds of thousands of people. The state is the fourth largest real estate market in the country and, in spite of some its less than business friendly tax status, it is a strong economic engine bringing opportunity to millions of people. Does New Jersey have an all too common problem of entrenched corruption? Yes it does, much like many of the other states in the union. However, it has so much more than this one sullied aspect of its persona. All too often it's all too easy to characterize New Jersey as a laughingstock of a place mired in backroom deals filled with characters direct from central casting. Of course it's less convenient to focus on the people who work and live there every day. What kind of story would that make? Perhaps one that gives the millions of readers, watchers and listeners a different idea about what else happens in New Jersey. There are many truths about New Jersey and it would be great to see more media outlets bring them to light. Jonathan A. Schein is the publisher of New Jersey & Company magazine(njand.com).
 
Phil Bronstein: Obama and Palin Against the Media -- Plenty of Muck to Rake? Top
In a secret meeting last week at a Denny's outside Squamish, British Columbia, Barack Obama's chief strategists David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett shared coffee and a plate of donuts with Palin steering committee chairman, Levi Johnston . The purpose of the improbable session: to come up with a joint, bipartisan plan to deliver a lethal blow from the country's most popular Democrat and Republican against endless media coverage of hyped controversies and "personality"-obsessed journalism. The three senior advisers agreed on a coordinated attack to begin this last weekend. OK, I'm just makin' that up . But, something has been going on the last few days. There are few coincidences in nature and much more intelligent design, in my view. We all watched as Mr. Obama and outgoing Governor Palin dissed the media in the same weekend, blaming press coverage for their respective problems and, at the same time, waving off reporters like mosquitoes on an Alaskan canoe trip. The president, in his non-apology apology (his "stupidity" remark "was unfortunate", he said, using an uncharacteristically passive voice) over the Henry Louis Gates scuffle, talked about it being "ratcheted up." We all know who's responsible for that, you 24/7 media dogs. Yesterday, two days later, Sarah Palin told a hunted, red-meat crowd in Alaska that the press better leave her successor's family alone , and needs to "stop makin' things up." That's a big ouch and major two-fisted criticism coming from the the highest profile -- albeit with declining approval ratings -- spokespeople for each major party. Maybe in her new spare time, the ex-Governor can go to journalism grad school, learn the trade and then join with Mr. Obama in a slapping teachable moment movement to have the press do a better job at focusing on important stuff. But I have to say that Barack Obama did some makin' up of his own on the Gates/Crowley chest-bumping. "My impression of (Sgt. Crowley)," the president said Friday, "was that he was a outstanding police officer and a good man. And that was confirmed in the phone conversation." That's extrapolating a hell of a lot from a five-minute conversation. And how could he have had any impression of the officer at all before he talked to him? Mr. Obama went from judging a situation he didn't witness himself to judging a person he didn't know. I understand he was just doing his best to chill out the situation and get back to health care. Still, I believe in the rule laid out so heroically by CNN's Christiane Amanpour to Wolf Blitzer during the invasion of Iraq. Wolf had asked her what she could see from her post in Basra. Actually, she said, she was miles outside Basra and, "I can only tell you what I can see." Sarah Palin might not be able to see Russia from her house, but her basketball diaries riff yesterday at least spoke more to her life experience than Obama playing cops and robbers. I can tell you as a nominal member of the media, that I wasn't there in Cambridge so I can't say anything useful about what happened. I can also testify that I'm neither a black man nor a white police officer, so I don't bring much perspective there about race or socioeconomic pressure points. But I am a male, something I share with Professor Gates, Officer Crowley, and President Obama. And as a man I know that macho instincts can escalate a situation no matter what the other factors. Make that White House beer a Corona Light. And give me a woman with a gun and a dead moose any day. More on Barack Obama
 
Johann Hari: The Bravest Woman in Afghanistan: An Exclusive Interview with Malalai Joya Top
"I am not sure how many more days I will be alive," Malalai Joya says quietly. The warlords who make up the new "democratic" government in Afghanistan have been sending bullets and bombs to kill this tiny 30-year-old from the refugee camps for years - and they seem to be getting closer with every attempt. Her enemies call her a "dead woman walking". "But I don't fear death, I fear remaining silent in the face of injustice," she says plainly. "I am young and I want to live. But I say to those who would eliminate my voice: 'I am ready, wherever and whenever you might strike. You can cut down the flower, but nothing can stop the coming of the spring.'" The story of Malalai Joya turns everything we have been told about Afghanistan inside out. In the official rhetoric, she is what we have been fighting for. Here is a young Afghan woman who set up a secret underground school for girls under the Taliban and -- when they were toppled -- cast off the burka, ran for parliament, and took on the religious fundamentalists. But she says: "Dust has been thrown into the eyes of the world by your governments. You have not been told the truth. The situation now is as catastrophic as it was under the Taliban for women. Your governments have replaced the fundamentalist rule of the Taliban with another fundamentalist regime of warlords. [That is] what your soldiers are dying for." Instead of being liberated, she is on the brink of being killed. The story of Joya is the story of another Afghanistan - the one behind the burka, and behind the propaganda. I "We are our sisters' keepers" I meet Joya in a London apartment where she is staying with a supporter for a week, to talk about her memoir - but even here, her movements have to be kept secret, as she flits from one safe house to another. I am told not to mention her location to anyone. She is standing in the corridor, small and slim, with her hair flowing freely, and she greets me with a solid handshake. But, when our photographer snaps her, she begins to giggle girlishly: the grief etched on to her sallow face melts away, and she laughs in joyous little squeaks. "I can never get used to this!" she says. Then, as I sit her down to talk through her life-story, the pain soaks into her face once more. Her body tightens into a tense coil, and her fists close. Joya was four days old when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. On that day, her father dropped out of his studies to fight the invading Communist army, and vanished into the mountains. She says: "Since then, all we have known is war." Her earliest memory is of clinging to her mother's legs while policemen ransacked their house looking for evidence of where her father was hiding. Her illiterate mother tried to keep her family of 10 children alive as best she could. When the police became too aggressive, she took her kids to refugee camps across the border in Iran. In these filthy tent-cities lying on the old Silk Road, Afghans huddled together and were treated as second-class citizens by the Iranian regime. At night, wild animals could wander into the tents and attack children. There, word reached the family that Joya's father had been blown up by a landmine -- but he was alive, after losing a leg. There were no schools in the Iranian camps, and Joya's mother was determined her daughters would receive the education she never had. So they fled again, to camps in western Pakistan. There, Joya began to read -- and was transformed. "Tell me what you read and I shall tell you what you are," she says. Starting in her early teens, she inhaled all the literature she could -- from Persian poetry to the plays of Bertolt Brecht to the speeches of Martin Luther King. She began to teach her new-found literacy to the older women in the camps, including her own mother. She soon discovered that she loved to teach - and, when she turned 16, a charity called the Organisation for Promoting Afghan Women's Capabilities (OPAWC) made a bold suggestion: go to Afghanistan, and set up a secret school for girls, under the noses of the Taliban tyranny. So she gathered her few clothes and books and was smuggled across the border -- and "the best days of my life" began. She loathed being forced to wear a burka, being harassed on the streets by the omnipresent "vice and virtue" police, and being under constant threat of being discovered and executed. But she says it was worth it for the little girls. "Every time a new girl joined the class, it was a triumph," she says, beaming. "There is no better feeling." She only just avoided being caught, again and again. One time she was teaching a class of girls in a family's basement when the mother of the house yelled down suddenly: "Taliban! Taliban!" Joya says: "I told my students to lie down on the floor and stay totally silent. We heard footsteps above us and waited a long time." On many occasions, ordinary men and women -- anonymous strangers -- helped her out by sending the police charging off in the wrong direction. She adds: "Every day in Afghanistan, even now, hundreds if not thousands of ordinary women act out these small gestures of solidarity with each other. We are our sisters' keepers." The charity was so impressed with her they appointed her their director. Joya decided to set up a clinic for poor women just before the 9/11 attacks. When the American invasion began, the Taliban fled her province, but the bombs kept falling. "Many lives were needlessly lost, just like during the September 11 tragedy," she says. "The noise was terrifying, and children covered their ears and screamed and cried. Smoke and dust rose and lingered in the air with every bomb dropped." As soon as the Taliban retreated, they were replaced - by the warlords who had ruled Afghanistan immediately before. Joya says that, at this point, "I realised women's rights had been sold out completely... Most people in the West have been led to believe that the intolerance and brutality towards women in Afghanistan began with the Taliban regime. But this is a lie. Many of the worst atrocities were committed by the fundamentalist mujahedin during the civil war between 1992 and 1996. They introduced the laws oppressing women followed by the Taliban -- and now they were marching back to power, backed by the United States. They immediately went back to their old habit of using rape to punish their enemies and reward their fighters." The warlords "have ruled Afghanistan ever since," she adds. While a "showcase parliament has been created for the benefit of the US in Kabul", the real power "is with these fundamentalists who rule everywhere outside Kabul". As an example, she names the former governor of Herat, Ismail Khan. He set up his own "vice and virtue" squads which terrorised women and smashed up video and music cassettes. He had his own "private militias, private jails". The constitution of Afghanistan is irrelevant in these private fiefdoms. Joya discovered just what this meant when she started to set up the clinic - and a local warlord announced that it would not be allowed, since she was a woman, and a critic of fundamentalism. She did it anyway, and decided to fight this fundamentalist by running in the election for the Loya jirga ("meeting of the elders") to draw up the new Afghan constitution. There was a great swelling of support for this girl who wanted to build a clinic -- and she was elected. "It turned out my mission," she says, "would be to expose the true nature of the jirga from within." II "I would never again be safe" As she stepped past the world's television cameras into the Loya jirga, the first thing Joya saw was "a long row with some of the worst abusers of human rights that our country had ever known - warlords and war criminals and fascists". She could see the men who invited Osama bin Laden into the country, the men who introduced the misogynist laws later followed by the Taliban, the men who had massacred Afghan civilians. Some had got there by intimidating the electorate, others by vote-rigging, and yet more were simply appointed by Hamid Karzai, the former oilman installed by the US army to run the country. She thought of an old Afghan saying: "It's the same donkey, with a new saddle." For a moment, as these old killers started to give long speeches congratulating themselves on the transition to democracy, Joya felt nervous. But then, she says, "I remembered the oppression we face as women in my country, and my nervousness evaporated, replaced by anger." When her turn came, she stood, looked around at the blood-soaked warlords on every side, and began to speak. "Why are we allowing criminals to be present here? They are responsible for our situation now... It is they who turned our country into the centre of national and international wars. They are the most anti-women elements in our society who have brought our country to this state and they intend to do the same again... They should instead be prosecuted in the national and international courts." These warlords -- who brag about being hard men -- could not cope with a slender young woman speaking the truth. They began to shriek and howl, calling her a "prostitute" and "infidel", and throwing bottles at her. One man tried to punch her in the face. Her microphone was cut off and the jirga descended into a riot. "From that moment on," Joya says, "I would never again be safe... For fundamentalists, a women is half a human, meant only to fulfil a man's every wish and lust, and to produce children and toil in the home. They could not believe that a young woman was tearing off their masks in front of the eyes of the Afghan people." A fundamentalist mob turned up a few hours later at her accommodation, announcing they had come to rape and lynch her. She had to be placed under immediate armed guard -- but she refused to be protected by American troops, insisting on Afghan officers. Her speech was broadcast all over the world -- and cheered in Afghanistan. She was flooded with support from the people of her country, delighted that somebody had finally spoken out. One dirt-poor village pooled its cash to send a delegate hundreds of miles across the country to explain how pleased they were. An extremely old woman was brought to her in a rickety wheelbarrow, and she explained she had lost two sons -- one to the Soviets, one to the fundamentalists. She told Joya: "I am almost 100 years old, and I am dying. When I heard about you and what you said, I knew that I had to meet you. God must protect you, my dear." She handed over her gold ring, her only valuable possession, and said: "You must take it! I have suffered so much in my life, and my last wish is that you accept this gift from me." But the US and Nato occupiers instructed Joya that she must show "politeness and respect" for the other delegates. When Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador, said this, she replied: "If these criminals raped your mother or your daughter or your grandmother, or killed seven of your sons, let alone destroyed all the moral and material treasure of your country, what words would you use against such criminals that will be inside the framework of politeness and respect?" She leans forward and quotes Brecht: "He says, 'He who does not know the truth is only a fool. He who knows the truth and calls it a lie is a criminal.'" The attempts to murder her began then with a sniper -- and have not stopped since. But she says plainly, with her fist clenched: "I wanted the warlords to know I was not afraid of them." So she ran for parliament -- and won in a landslide. "I would return again to face those who had ruined my country," she explains, "and I was determined that I would stand straight and never bow again to their threats." III "In every corner is a killer" Joya looked out across the new Afghan parliament on her first day and thought: "In every corner is a killer, a puppet, a criminal, a drug lord, a fascist. This is not democracy. I am one of the very few people here who has been genuinely elected." She started her maiden speech by saying: "My condolences to the people of Afghanistan..." Before she could continue, the warlords began to shout that they would rape and kill her. One warlord, Abdul Sayyaf, yelled a threat at her. Joya looked him straight in the eye and said: "We are not in [the area he rules by force] here, so control yourself." I ask if she was frightened, and she shakes her head. "I am never frightened when I tell the truth." She is speaking fast now: "I am truly honoured to have been vilified and threatened by the savage men who condemned our country to such misery. I feel proud that even though I have no private army, no money, and no world powers behind me, these brutal despots are afraid of me and scheme to eliminate me." She says there is no difference for ordinary Afghans between the Taliban and the equally fundamentalist warlords. "Which groups are labelled 'terrorist' or 'fundamentalist' depends on how useful they are to the goals of the US," she says. "You have two sides who terrorise women, but the anti-American side are 'terrorists' and the pro-American side are 'heroes'." Karzai rules only with the permission of the warlords. He is "a shameless puppet" who will win next month's presidential elections because "he hasn't yet stopped working for his masters, the US and the warlords... At this point in our history, the only people who get to serve as president are those selected by the US government and the mafia that holds power in our country." Whenever she would despair in parliament, she would meet yet more ordinary Afghan women - and get back in the fight. She tells me about a 16-year-old constituent of hers, Rahella, who ran away to an orphanage Joya had helped to set up in her constituency. "Her uncle had decided to marry her off to his son, who was a drug addict. She was terrified. So of course we took her in, educated her, helped her." One day, her uncle turned up and apologised, saying he had learnt the error of his ways. He asked if she could come home for a weekend to visit her family. Joya agreed -- and when she got back to her village, Rahella was forced into marriage and spirited away to another part of Afghanistan. They heard six months later that she had doused herself in petrol and burned herself alive. There has been an epidemic of self-immolation by women across the "new" Afghanistan in the past five years. "The hundreds of Afghan women who set themselves ablaze are not only committing suicide to escape their misery," she says, "they are crying out for justice." But she was not allowed to raise these issues in the supposedly democratic parliament. The fundamentalist warlords who couldn't beat Joya at the ballot box or kill her chanced upon a new way to silence her. The more she spoke, the angrier they got. She called for secularism in Afghanistan, saying: "Religion is a private issue, unrelated to political issues and the government... Real Muslims do not require political leaders to guide them to Islam." She condemned the new law that declared an amnesty for all war crimes committed in Afghanistan over the past 30 years, saying "You criminals are simply giving yourselves a get-out-of-jail free card." So the MPs simply voted to kick her out of parliament. It was illegal and undemocratic -- but the president, Hamid Karzai, supported the ban. "Now the warlord criminals are unchallenged in parliament," she says. "Is that democracy?" We in the West have been fed "a pack of lies" about what Afghanistan looks like today. "The media are 'free' only if they do not try to criticise warlords and officials," she says in her book, Raising My Voice. As an example, she names a specific warlord: "If you write anything about him, the next day you will be tortured or killed by the Northern Alliance warlords." It is "a myth" to say girls can now go to school outside Kabul. "Only five per cent of girls, according to the UN, can
 
Lincoln Mitchell: The Policeman, the President, the Professor, an Apology, and a Round of Beers Top
The recent incident in Cambridge involving Henry Louis Gates Jr. is indicative of the way we have talked, if not always thought, about race in America, at least white America, for the past few decades. Race is rarely a topic that is explored directly, even though it remains a constant, perhaps even defining issue, in the U.S. Instead, we only discuss race when specific cases or incidents occur and become stories in the media. Thus, the Rodney King beating led to discussions of police abuse and race, O.J. Simpson to race and the judicial system and even Barack Obama's campaign to a discussion of race and politics. Similarly, the Gates incident, has brought on another discussion of race and police profiling. One major problem with this approach to discussing and understanding race is that the specifics of the case often get in the way of addressing the broader and more significant problem of which the case is only one example. The question of what exactly Gates said to the police may be interesting to some, but it not exactly relevant to the broader problem of racial profiling and African Americans being treated differently by police. The Gates incident has become a different kind of story because President Obama commented on it by describing the police officer involved as "acting stupidly." It is not common for presidents to get involved in issues that are so local in nature and almost unheard of for presidents not to back the police. Equally significantly, this was the first high profile racial incident to occur during the presidency of America's first black president, so Obama's comments took on additional import. Obama's remarks that the police "acted stupidly" were a rare example of the wrong words from a man who almost always chooses his words carefully. This does not mean that the police acted wisely -- they did not, or that Professor Gates should have been arrested -- he should not have been. However, by suggesting the police "acted stupidly" Obama, perhaps deliberately, sought to reinforce one of the standard views that we often hear from our elected officials, particularly conservative ones, whenever there is a case of police misconduct of any kind. This view might be called the "few bad apples" paradigm, which suggests that any police misconduct can be attributed to a few individual police who are racist, corrupt or too violent, rather than a broader problem within the police force. This is a good way to get the issue quickly out of the media and avoid a serious examination of policing. Obama's remarks were consistent with this approach because the remarks suggest that Sgt. Crowley made a bad decision, but somehow it was an isolated case. The unfortunate use of the word stupidly drew attention away from the rest of what Obama said. "Separate and apart from this incident is that there's a long history in this country of African-American and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately." This is much more relevant and closer to the heart of the issue. While it can be argued that Sgt. Crowley did not exhibit extraordinary intelligence by arresting an unarmed 58-year-old man in his own home who was not breaking any law, the issue is not the relative intellect of the arresting officer. The question here, which Obama addressed explicitly, but which was overshadowed by his other remarks is that this was a case that was unusual only because of the high profile of Professor Gates, not because of assumptions made or the conclusions to which the arresting officer jumped. These assumptions and conclusions still are systemic problems in police work, not just in Cambridge, but throughout the U.S. Suggesting that it was one officer acting stupidly downplays the serious of the issue and ends up being a more liberal, racially sensitive take on the "one bad apple" paradigm. It also makes it more difficult to consider possible ways to address this problem. Instead, a highly personal solution seems to be in the making, one that focuses more on Obama's words than on the arrest itself. If Obama, Gates and Crowley ever get together for that beer, it will be a good photo and probably an interesting discussion, but it will not change how African Americans are treated by police. President Obama can probably be forgiven for taking this approach. Because his initial response, was essentially to see it from Gates' view, Obama was unwilling to take the expected approach of calling for time and more investigation or simply refusing to comment on the case at all. The amount of anger his comments provoked from police officials and police organizations around the country indicates that had he made a broader statement condemning police practices more broadly, he would have ignited an even larger and politically costly firestorm. More on Barack Obama
 
More Animals Getting Cancer Due To Human Pollution Top
In 1999, wildlife disease specialist Thierry Work looked over the bow of his small whaler as it cut through a lagoon on the south side of Molokai, an island in Hawaii. On an emergent rock he saw a listless sea turtle, waiting to die. "This guy was so weak that he just let us pick him up," says Work, who runs the National Wildlife Health Center'sHonolulu field station. "He was so emaciated that his ventral was completely disked in. You could fill him up with water and use him as a bowl." Like more than quarter of the green turtles Work has plucked from the water or found stranded on Hawaii's beaches, this one was covered with tumors on its eyes and mouth, dying from a poorly understood form of cancer.
 
Lobbyists Gain Upper Hand On Obama In Recent Weeks Top
Lobbying interests that President Obama campaigned against last year have gained the upper hand on the White House in recent weeks. In stark contrast to Obama's first few months in office, special interest groups this summer have aggressively opposed the president's top domestic priorities. And they have succeeded in slowing legislation to revamp the nation's healthcare system, won an essential change to climate change legislation and put off efforts to set up a consumer agency in the financial sector.
 
The Governor: Blagojevich's 'Political Expose' Book Out September 8th Top
After swearing to all who would listen that he was hijacked from office in a flagrant abuse of justice, disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich is finally releasing his unfiltered take. Blagojevich's book, The Governor , will hit store shelves September 8th (you can pre-order it now from Amazon , Powell's , or call your local bookseller). The description from the publisher, Phoenix Books , calls the 352-page book "a proclamation that one man will not be silenced, that his side of the story must be heard and that the fight for American liberties and freedom must sometimes occur within its own borders." An ad in Sunday's New York Times Book Review was similarly breathless, saying the book, "pulls the curtain back on the shadowed world of politics and exposes the conspiracies and transgressions that so often compromise the basic tenet of American life: with liberty and justice for all. It is a proclamation that the governor's side of the story must be heard." Blagojevich's publicist claimed the impeached governor received a six-figure advance on the book. More on Rod Blagojevich
 
NYC, Seattle, Houston Pittsburgh Won't Get Stimulus Money For Cops: AP Top
WASHINGTON — Four major cities – New York, Seattle, Houston, and Pittsburgh – will get no money from a $1 billion economic stimulus program to help cities avoid laying off police officers, officials told The Associated Press on Monday. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the details publicly, said about 7,000 state and local agencies applied for aid under the COPS program that is part of the $787 billion stimulus package passed earlier this year. Only about 1,000 were approved. Justice Department spokeswoman Hannah August declined to comment in advance of the official announcement. Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder are to appear in Philadelphia on Tuesday to announce who gets what. There will be plenty of winners, though, in the COPS grant program: _The Philadelphia Police Department will get money to create or keep 50 law enforcement jobs. _The police department in Rochester, N.Y. will get money to create or save about 30 law enforcement jobs. _Kalamazoo, Mich., will get nearly $2 million for 10 officer positions. The roughly 1,000 places getting COPS aid also include: Mobile, Ala., Mesa, Ariz., Tulare County, Calif., Monroe County, Fla., the Seminole Tribe of Florida, Baltimore, Providence, R.I., Salt Lake City, Utah, and Huntington, W.Va. As local governments bleed red ink and officials look to plug budget gaps, they have swamped the government with a record number of requests for aid under the program. There is only $1 available in grant money for every $8 sought. As a result, the Justice Department decided the most worthy cities were those that faced serious budgetary problems and those that have relatively high crime rates. New York is less needy by both measures, officials said, because of its low crime rate and stable city budget. New York also has the largest single police force in the country, and received some money from a different stimulus program earlier this year, about $29 million. But the Big Apple also has a touchy history with Washington when it comes to federal aid for police costs. In 2006, the Bush administration sparked an uproar when it slashed homeland security money for New York. Rep. Peter King of New York, the senior Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, criticized the decision. "It is disgraceful for New York City to be shut out just because the NYPD is doing such a great job under trying circumstances and Mayor (Mike) Bloomberg is doing such a wonderful job of managing the city's finances," said King, adding that the city "is the No. 1 terrorist target and should not be penalized for its success." Officials familiar with Tuesday's announcement said the Justice Department estimates the grant awards will help hire 3,818 new officers, and retain 881 positions that would otherwise be lost to budgetary belt-tightening. That makes a total of 4,699 officers – still short of the program's announced goal of hiring 5,000 officers. Under the COPS program, the federal government pays the officers' salary and benefits for three years, after which the local government is responsible for the costs. Local police chiefs have been waiting anxiously for months to learn what they will receive, and understood even before the decisions were announced that many of them would be disappointed.
 
Doris Kearns Goodwin On Rich History Of Mixing Politics And Drinking: "FDR During WWII Had A Cocktail Party Every Night" (VIDEO) Top
With the news confirmed that President Obama, Henry Louis Gates and Sgt. James Crowley will get together at the White House to have a beer, Ed Schultz invited noted presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin on his show to discuss the history behind presidents mixing drinks with politics. As it turns out, that history is rich with examples. According to Goodwin: FDR during World War II had a cocktail party every single night... He would make these crazy martinis for the guests. Lyndon Johnson was another president adept at mixing political negotiations with bourbon and Scotch. According to Goodwin, he was "the best." WATCH: Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News , World News , and News about the Economy Send us tips! Write us at tv@huffingtonpost.com if you see any newsworthy or notable TV moments. Read more about our media monitoring project here and click here to join the Media Monitors team. More on Video
 
Scientists Say Evolution Causing Women To Become Increasingly Beautiful (VIDEO) Top
Fox 5 Chicago aired a startling report about scientists claiming that evolution is causing women to become more beautiful. Apparently, researchers found that beautiful women are reproducing at a higher rate and that they have a higher proportion of girls to boys. Men, however, are staying the same, according to the researchers. WATCH: More on Video
 

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