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Dave Maass: Former New Mexico Governor, Toney Anaya, Talks Death Penalty Politics Top
New Mexico repealed the death penalty during the 2009 Legislative session, but since the lawmaking body is prohibited from enacting retroactive laws the two men currently on death row are still eligible for execution. Gov. Bill Richardson has said he would not commute the sentences of the remaining two individuals and last week the New Mexico Supreme Court declined to rule on whether it should finish what the Legislature began. In this week's Santa Fe Reporter I write about how the death penalty debate could effect the 2010 governor's race, since this decision may be up to Richardson's successors. For historical context, here's my interview with Gov. Toney Anaya, who made human rights history in 1986 by commuting the death sentences of five men, essentially clearing death row. Anaya talks about the death penalty in election politics, the Terry Clark execution and how a governor manages such a heavy decision. Currently, Anaya currently heads up the New Mexico Office of Recovery and Reinvestment. DM: Could you give me some historical perspective on the death penalty debate? TA: It kind of reminds me of the old saying, the more things change the more they remain the same. It was in the gubernatorial elections of 1982 that the death penalty was a hot issue. There were four democrats, four republicans in the primary and I was the only one who was opposed to the deaht penalty. It doesn't look like it hurt you any. Well, I got the nomination and I subsequently won the election. During the general election campaign, it was an issue, but not just in the governor's race, it was an issue in a lot of races: legislative races, judicial races and so on. But I stood fast on my position. What was your position? Well, I was opposed to the death penalty and I made it very clear that I would not allow the execution of anybody while I was governor. Could you tell me briefly why? Was it a religious thing? I laid out the reasons pretty specifically, but there were a large number of them. Part of it was religious. I was brought up as a very strong Catholic, but it wasn't strictly just a religious issue. I was careful not to turn it into a religious issue during the campaign because I thought there were many other reasons to debate the issue. I think it's very costly. To be effective, in my opinion, a penalty has to be swift and certain. The death penalty is neither swift nor certain. At the time, we didn't know about DNA, but I long suspected that there were a lot innocent folks that were convicted of death penalty offenses, simply because they were either poor or a minority. Do you think you swayed any people during the campaign? I don't know. I wasn't trying to. I was open about my position and people either voted for me because of that or in spite of that. The polls in those days were very, very strongly in favor of the death penalty, so if anything it was going to hurt me,. Obviously it didn't hurt me enough too keep me from being elected. What To fast forward and then come back and fill in the details, what I found after I commuted the death sentences was that long after I left office, people who disagreed with the action told me that even though they disagreed with what I had done, they very much appreciated that I stood strong by my beliefs. Even my critics said they didn't find much honesty in government and they appreciated that I stood fast. Take me through when your decision to commute the sentences. While I was governor, a number of defense attorneys stopped appealing the death sentence because they knew I had pledged not to let their clients be executed, so they were preserving the death sentence appeals for after I left office. As a result, a couple of times they did not pursue the appeals. I criticized the defense attorneys for that. So, they thought, 'We're just going to stop them right now because if it gets to that point...; 'Why waste our appeals now? Let's wait. Anaya's not going to let them die. We'll wait until he leaves office and then we'll start the appeal the process. We'll buy our clients more time.' I thought that was a very intellectually dishonest approach. If they honestly thought they had a good basis for appeal, other than just simply buying time, they should hae pursued it. The main point I wanted to make was not so much that, but that on a couple occasions I had to actually stay the executions of a couple of inmates because their appeals were not being pursued and they were subject to execution. At what point did you decide you were goin to do the full commutations? During the campaigns of 1986 for my successor, both the Republican and the Democratic nominees, as well as in the attorney general's race, the death penalty issue seemed to be the principle issue. In the summer of 1986, I seriously considered commuting the death sentences then just to take the issue out of the election and challenging the candidates to get back to important issues like the economy, educations and health care. I chose not to because it would have spilled over into a lot of other races. A number of judges I had appointed to vacancies and a number of legislators would have been caught up in the backlash and probably would've gotten defeated at the polls, so I chose not to. So, you waited until after the election? I waited to see who was going to get elected governor and even though both of them were supporters of the death penalty. The Democratic nominee, Ray Powell Sr was a little softer on the issue and I thought, if he got elected then maybe I could persuade him otherwise. After the election, I did meet with Gov-elect Garrey Carruthers. He denies having made this statement to me, but I very clearly remember him telling me, regarding the inmates on death row, that I better leave them alone, they belong to him. That just literally sent chills up my spine. He also indicated that the first piece of paper he wanted to sign upon being sworn in was a death warrant. The latter didn't disturb me much because that showed a lack of knowledge about the process because it doesn't work that fast. Chances are he would not have had the opportunity to in fact execute anybody, but I didn't want to take that chance. Even though I didn't share it with anybody at the time, even my staff or closest advisor, I had no doubt when I left that meeting what was I going to do. Then I chose Thanksgiving time as a symbolic time to do it and commute everybody on death row. Do you still stand by that decision? Absolutely. I feel even stronger about it now. I think a couple of things have happened with the passage of time. One, public opinion has shifted. When given an option of life imprisonment, which I'm not sure is the right solution either, and the death penalty, the majority of New Mexicans will support life imprisonment. That was not the case back in 1986. Secondly, with the advancement of DNA, there's been dozens of individuals all over the country that there were on death row that have proven to have been innocent. How did you deal with the victims' families? I'm sure you probably got some backlash from the victims advocates groups. Well, I got backlash from everybody. Even those who opposed the death penalty, like the religious groups--I was very crtiical then and I remain critical today of their reaction at the time. There were a coalition of religious groups that came to see me, encouraging me to do what I did and after I did it and all of the backlash--it was ugly--not a single voice stood up to defend what I did. I felt very isolated, but still felt comfortable in knowing that I had done the right thing. But yes, there was a lot of reaction. Did you face it head on? There's nothing you can do. There was nothing that I could have said or done that would have made any of the victims families feel any better. I felt for them, I really, really did, but the death penalty wasn't going to help them either. Since then, there's already been one individual executed and there are two more on the row right now. Would you like to see the next governor to make the same move? If it comes down to that. There's still appeals. On Astorga, there's still a trial. There's not a guilty verdict yet, must less a death penalty sentence. So, that one will still wind its way through. It could well be into a subsequent governor's term. It could be another five ten years before a governor has to deal with that. But five to ten years--a two-term governor may have to deal with the two on death row right now. It's a decision that every governor has to personally deal with--their own conscience, with their own standard of justice, with whatever it is that goes through their mind. I'm not going to be individually critical of any governor. I have throughout the years, not just in New Mexico but around the country, been asked to communicate with govenors who had individuals that were on the verge of being put to death. I've communicated with some in writing, others by telephone call. In New Mexico, I spoke to Gov. Johnson, before Terry Clark was executed. Tell me about Terry Clark. He had been charged and not yet convicted at the time that I had commuted the other death sentences.Hhis attorneys chose to plead him guilty to a death penalty offense at the end of my term. I cautioned them against doing that. They assumed that I would then commute his sentence. What happened after that proves that one of my criticisms of the death penalty was very much correct: The death penalty is very political. The sentencing judge at the time, who has since passed away,refused to sentence him until after I left office because he felt that if he was sentenced there was a possibility I would commute his sentence. The judge felt that he wasn't sentenced there wasn't anything I could do about. I actually had independent legal research perfomed and had concluded that there was a possibility that a governor infact had the authority to commute prior to sentencing. I just felt that given the enviroment at the time I would have probably just set off such a firestorm in the state that the state just simply could not have healed itself and gone on to take care of the rest of the business. So, I didn't do it. When he was executed, that weighed very heavily on my mind. Could I have prevented it and should I have done it? How did you feel when you heard the Legislature had finally passed the death penalty repeal. Ecstatic. That's the way these things go. Some legilsation is very incremental. It take years, sometimes decades, and for this kind of issue it takes decades, so I felt even more vindicated that the actions I took helped pave the way. It helped soften the approach. It is fair to imagine if one of these two guys does come up for execution, 4 years, 8 years, 12 years from now, that the sitting governor will get a call from you? I'm sure he'll get a visit. Cross-posted at SFReeper.com More on Bill Richardson
 
Jacob M. Appel: Alabama's Bad Vibrations Top
Alabama's ban on sex toys is no laughing matter. Ever since that state approved the Anti-Obscenity Enforcement Act in 1998, which prohibited the sale of "any device designed or marketed as useful for the stimulation of human genital organs," humorists have mocked the statute while many Alabamans with common sense have tried to downplay its significance. In 1997, the District Attorney of Madison County, Tim Morgan, told reporters that enforcing the ban was "a pretty low priority" and contrasted dildo dealing with "real crimes" that needed prosecution, while the conservative-leaning Press-Register of Mobile has called for repeal of the law on the grounds that it "makes Alabama look foolish." However, after an eleven year court battle that climaxed on September 11, 2009, when the Alabama Supreme Court upheld the law in Love Stuff v. City of Hoover , Alabamans who sell sex toys--even inside so-called "adult oriented" businesses--face up to a year in prison and a $10,000 fine. Repeat offenders risk a ten year prison sentence. Opponents of the measure should not take this judicial defeat lying down. Whether the law is enforced, its very existence is likely to deter businesses from selling such toys and to deprive the women and men of the Yellowhammer State both freedom and pleasure. However, since the Alabama legislature has insisted on making sex toys a matter for public debate, progressive Americans ought to accept this challenge to debate such devices on their merits. I suspect most people, and most Alabamans, view sex toys as a social good. I am confident that, in the marketplace of ideas, sexual pleasure will trounce Puritanism--and almost everything else. Alabama's crusade against sex toys actually began as an effort by State Senator Tom Butler of Madison to ban nude dancing. Why precisely Butler objected to a naked foxtrot is not so clear, but even he admits that his effort spiraled out of hand. That was largely the work of two misguided individuals. One of these men is a fire-and-brimstone Baptist preacher named Dan Ireland who runs a letterhead organization called the Alabama Citizens Action Program. In a widely quoted interview, while discussing why the state should ban sex toys but not high-grade weapons, Ireland stated: "There are moral ways and immoral ways to use a firearm....There is no moral way to use one of these devices." The other crusader is Alabama Attorney General Troy King, who built his early political career deriding homosexuality as "deviant behavior" and "perversion," but has toned down his homophobic rhetoric after allegations surfaced of a gay affair. (I am not one who believes that politicians generally have an obligation to discuss their sexual orientation in public, but a man who had constructed his entire political career principally on arguing for compulsory sexual conformity, and who writes that "many homosexuals would mislead society into believing that three men, an armadillo and a houseplant create a functional family," has made his own private life fair game.) When Ireland and King began their legal crusade, several other states had similar prohibitions. However, a landmark ruling by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2008 overturned a Texas ban and likely invalidated a Mississippi statute as well. Similar laws have been struck down by courts in Kansas, Lousisiana and Colorado. A reasonable interpretation of other state statutes, including vague provisions in Virginia and Georgia, suggests that Alabama is now the only jurisdiction in the country where such toys are illegal. Both the 5th Circuit and the Alabama Supreme Court rejected the claim that the sex ban either implicated a "fundamental right" under the 14th Amendment or failed a "rational basis" test for Constitutionality. Law Professor Eugene Volokh has suggested that the Supreme Court may not choose to hear the case, despite the split between the 5th and 11th Circuits, because the law may be viewed as "of comparatively minor practical importance and the sort of thing that some Justices might see as beneath the Court's dignity." To use the language of the late Justice Potter Stewart, it is merely "an uncommonly silly law" and not a threat to ordered liberty. However, many draconian laws may seem inconsequential until you are the one jailed or until your rights are denied. The reality is that so-called marital aids (personally, I prefer the term "marital substitutes") play an important role in the emotional lives of millions of Americans. I cannot say whether more Alabama women own vibrators than own Bibles. If I were guessing, I would suspect that a majority derive more use out of the vibrators. Certainly more pleasure. Nor does there appear to be any remotely rational basis for keeping sex toys out of the hands of married adults, or single adults, or even children. Now that we are relatively confident that masturbation does not make little girls go blind, or cause palms to sprout hair, exposure to sex toys shouldn't harm them. On the list of items that I might not want children to be exposed to in stores--guns, matches, poisons, junk food--sex toys are way down the list. Of course, if you don't want your daughter to use a dildo, don't buy her one. Don't take her shopping. Lock her into a chastity belt and raise her inside a stone tower like a Medieval princess. It's a free country, after all. Alas, children are resourceful. The average nine-year-old in Alabama probably knows more about human sexuality that several members of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. More fifth graders can tell you what a vibrator does than can tell you what a Supreme Court justice does. Which is why a prohibition on widely-used (and relatively-intuitive) devices is about as irrational as legislation comes. The brilliant and irreverent libertarian politician Loretta Nall spearheaded a campaign two years ago to mail sex toys to Attorney General Troy King. I'd like to make him a far better offer. MacArthur fellow Sarah Ruhl's brilliant new comedy, In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play), opens on Broadway in November. The work, which premiered in Berkeley last winter, focuses on the origins of the vibrator as a medical device and its use to bring long-frigid Victorian Era wives to orgasm. Families will come to the show. So will tourists. Even Alabamans. They will enjoy themselves. I'd be thrilled if Attorney General King came to the opening as my guest. Not a date, just two grown men enjoying a lively, tasteful play about vibrators. We can even pick up a souvenir or two for Mrs. King, maybe something she can't buy in Alabama. More on Sex
 
Daley Slams Media, Ducks Questions At Final Olympics Rally Before Copenhagen Top
Mayor Richard Daley today sought one more time to rally the city behind the bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics before heading to Copenhagen for next week's vote to determine who will host the games.   More on Olympics
 
Robert D. Stolorow: Please Do Not Delay: Open Letter to Senator Snowe Top
Dear Senator Snowe, We are writing to implore you to act swiftly and strongly in support of true health care reform for all Americans. This must include a strong public option to help bring down the cost of health care by offering an alternative to the monopolies held by private, for-profit insurance companies that exist in so many states. We heard you say that there is no need to rush, that there is no problem with delaying a vote for two weeks. But Senator Snowe, we disagree. Two weeks can make a big difference, a life-and-death difference. Two weeks are enough time for cancer to begin to metastasize, for a simple infection to lead to septic shock, for intrauterine growth retardation to lead to fetal demise or serious illnesses in an infant. Two weeks can make the difference between life and death. Please do not delay. Please support the public option. Please pass true health care reform now. Respectfully, Julia M. Schwartz, M.D. and Robert D. Stolorow, Ph.D.
 
Obama Adviser Signals White House Giving Up On Climate Change Treaty Top
Is the Obama administration giving up on reaching a comprehensive international climate change agreement this year? A statement released on Friday by John Podesta, who headed Barack Obama's presidential transition, is a big hint that the White House is looking to dramatically downplay expectations. More on Climate Change
 
Mohsin Mohi-Ud Din: Dear America: Letter From a Muslim-American Top
I write to you, America, as a Muslim-American who is frustrated at seeing both sides of my identity spreading myths about each other. In part one of this two part article, I address America from a Muslim perspective. In part two, which will follow in the coming weeks, I shall write to the Muslim community, from an American perspective. Dear America, Our world today is assaulted with myriad headlines describing rising extremism and terrorism, and political instability in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Middle East. Despite the plethora of bad news, most recently we have seen a day of hope marked by the end of Ramadan, where Muslims from all nations, social classes, and sects openly united in the spirit of humility, brotherhood, thankfulness, and peace. As human beings, you and me have a tendency to let the negative marginalize the good and the true. But in this Ramadan the unity and the message of peace and humility that nearly a billion Muslims have exhibited should not go unnoticed, nor should it be underestimated. America, even though you are part of us (Muslims) and we are a part of you, you often fear and misunderstand the one thing that unites the billion of us around the world is peace, love, and spiritual strength. You fear our religion, Islam. I write the following to not accuse anyone or apologize on behalf of any group. In part one of this article, I speak to you America, as one Muslim who is part of the majority of Muslims standing against the Ahmedinijads, Bin Ladens, and Taliban and Al Qaeda. These men have stolen my voice... our voice. The actions of a violent minority have for too long trumped the selfless and righteous actions of the moderate majority who do good in the name of Islam. Firstly, Muslims are not a violent people and Islam is not a violent religion. I fear you overlook the fact that the faith of Muslims has been monopolized by the corrupt despots of Muslim countries and Muslim extremists. And it is the extremists whose power is bolstered by a media that has paralyzed the voice of the Muslim majority, who in fact abhor violence and terrorism. It can be confusing even to me because on one side we only see Muslim extremists on the TV preaching hate in the name of Islam and we barely hear the majority. As I will touch on in part two of this article, Muslims have even marginalized themselves. But America, Muslims are a community of over a billion people, most of whom live in poverty within developing countries governed by oppressive, abusive, authoritarian regimes. These very regimes remain bunkered against an alienated group of extremists who are taking to the gun instead of a potentially rigged ballot. It is our mothers and daughters and sons who are being killed on a daily basis by either violent extremists or botched missile attacks by NATO. We are against violence and terrorism America, be it from Muslim extremists or NATO bombs. We are against violence because it is we who are the primary target of most terrorist attacks today. And while we may disagree with your military actions and policies, we look up to the principles that make up America... I speak of the freedom to be critical of yourself as a society and government; the opportunities awarded by the most comprehensive education system in the world; and your effortless ability to adapt in an ever transforming world. (Girl in Kashmir/photo by Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din) Secondly, we Muslims, especially the Muslim youth, are not limited to the identifications that many parts of you believe us Muslims to be. Many see us to be ignorant, introverted, backwards, fundamentalist people. This is far from the truth. We are artists, painters, poets, doctors, lawyers, musicians, intellectuals, gay, straight, punk or conservative, man and woman, and yes, we too are American. Thirdly, Muslims abroad and Muslims in America are often confused by your (America) political and military actions, which sometimes contradict the pro-freedom, pro-democratic pro-human rights rhetoric. Yes, the fault is ours (the Muslims) in numerous respects, but America, historical facts show that failed foreign policies have contributed to the political and economic landscape in which many Muslim led authoritarian regimes currently thrive. As an American myself, I know it is not the American agenda to kill civilians. The brave men and women in the armed forces are fighting for international peace and security. I truly believe this. So, why do many other Muslims in my community distrust American policies and actions? (View From Inside Mecca/ photo by Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din) Every civilian death in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan leaves a cut in the collective Muslim conscious... be it for a Muslim in Iowa or a Muslim in Morocco. It is felt in every corner of the Muslim world. And the lasting effects of failed foreign polices cut just as deep. Take the example of Afghanistan, where the C.I.A armed, trained, and funded freedom fighters during the Cold War. These fighters later shed blood and defeated the Soviets. But after the smoke cleared, when Afghanis needed development and aid upon their victory for the West, the people were abandoned. Perhaps former U.S. Representative Charlie Wilson said it best, "These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world... and then we [America] f*&ked up the endgame." The Muslim fighters trained by America, later regrouped as the Taliban whom we see resurfacing today. In 1953, President Mossadeq, the once popular, pro-democratic leader of Iran, was driven out of office in a coup d'etat funded and supported by the CIA. He was replaced by a dictator whose ineptness spawned the Islamic Revolution that transformed a once democratic, secular society into a theocracy led by brutes such as Ahmedinijad. In the area of women's rights and political transparency, America is an outspoken leader for reform, and yet, America is also an uncritical ally of Saudi Arabia, a country where women's empowerment or political pluralism has remained stagnant for hundreds of years. You speak of human rights, and yet you are a staunch ally to India who commits mass atrocities in Kashmir, where 70,000 have been killed since 1989. But the main conflict on every Muslim's psyche is Palestine and it is here where your rhetoric and your actions on human rights has most frustrated both Muslims and Arabs. I support Israel's right to exist and defend itself and I support Palestine's right to exist and defend itself. International law has been violated on both sides, but one side operates with impunity while the other remains in rubble. This affects the Muslim's collective-psyche as it promotes the sentiment that the world sees Muslims as sub-human and that laws related to human rights don't apply to Muslims. Yes, that is untrue, I know, but the ridiculousness of such a myth is not so obvious to the millions of Muslims who live in war-torn and oppressive countries lacking justice and accountability. Despite all of these examples, if you simply talk to Muslim youth, you will still find that the overwhelming majority of young Muslims make a distinction between American politics and American innovation and culture. Listen to how many Muslim youth pray for greater democracy in Iran, for example. See how many Muslim youth watch MTV and Gossip Girl in Morocco, or, eat KFC in Saudi. See how many Kashmiris would beg to walk in one of your universities. Just look at the hundreds of millions of Muslims in Africa and Asia who watched the 2008 elections as if it were their own. Witness the joy that was felt when popular democracy prevailed with Obama's victory. America, you are not just a country. You are an idea that is looked up to by the world. The final myth I would like to challenge is the concept of Islam being THE threat. This sentiment is becoming far too entrenched in America and as a Muslim- ]American this deeply concerns me. For example, when President Obama was pictured wearing Kenyan garb, the press were in uproar over him dressing as a 'Muslim'. Indeed, there are warlords, despots, and extremists who have hijacked my religion, and lead the world on. But to allow Islamophobia to be the status quo in you, America, is no different from the Muslim world allowing its own to think that America is THE evil. (Inside the Dome of the Rock, mosque in Jerusalem/photo by Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din) Islam and the Quran are not the threat America. Instead, Islam is the source of inspiration for many to be better human beings. What inspiration has Islam given to the West? Under the Islamic Golden Age, for example, Islam inspired scientists, poets, activists, and philosophers. Many of their innovations have come to be adopted into the very fabric of Europe and America. Even most Muslims forget that as far back as the 8th Century, it was Islamic and Jewish philosophers who promoted freedom of speech, religious freedom, secularism, and peace. In the realm of agriculture it was Muslim farmers who introduced crop rotation. Doctors developed the world's first public hospitals. Muslim academics opened the world's first universities awarding diplomas in a diverse array of subjects. Arab musicians introduced the bass drum, the violin, and the guitar to Europe. Averroes, an Andalusian Muslim polymath and Islamic philosopher, developed and explored the concept of secularism and he is described as the father of secularism for Western Europe. (for an outline of Islam's contributions to modern Western society visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age) If Islam is such a threat then how could such positive advancements, made hundreds upon hundreds of years ago, be inspired by Islam? I look at the Muslim world today and I see a community in disarray, affected by poverty, war, political oppression, extremism. (I speak to this in part two, following this article). But in this past month of fasting, (Ramadan), I felt my community coming closer to its core. During Ramadan I witnessed families together, praying for peace, fasting in solidarity with non-Muslims and Muslims. On Eid this past Sunday, hundreds of millions of Muslim families from Africa, America, Europe, Asia, were not standing against the world, but were spreading the message of charity, peace, and patience. Men, women and children were hugging the stranger sitting next to them. For the first time in my spiritual life, I heard the leader of Friday prayers at a mosque in Maryland ask us to be more active in social service and community development. In fact, the cleric promoted the American value of "citizenship." I see these things and I do not see Islam as a threat. I see a solution...I see hope. I write this to you America, not to accuse you of the rift that exists today with the Muslim world, because America is not solely responsible. Muslims carry the prime responsibility of political-economic problems affecting them. I write this letter to you America so that you may in some way be more aware of the Muslim majority and have hope in it as well. You will find contradictions in us, America, and Muslims will find contradictions in you. Like all values and great ideals, it is we humans who taint them and pervert them. Islam is not an exception. In fact, it is time for us in the Muslim community to look in the mirror and reform, as I will talk about in more detail in part two. Muslims and external players continue to taint the ideal of Islam. But America, the longer you hold on to the status-quo of Islam as the threat, the larger the rift will grow between you and the Muslim world; thus leaving a world divided. Muslims and non-Muslims in the West and in the East: faith must triumph over fear. More on Afghanistan
 
Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins: Opportunity, fully funded Top
Today, Green For All and Living Cities unveiled the Energy Efficiency Opportunity Fund alongside President Clinton, at the closing session of Clinton Global Initiative's Annual Meeting. The groundbreaking fund will finance innovative efforts that create jobs and cut energy costs for low-income families through energy-efficiency building retrofits.
 I am proud to say that in addition to advocating for public policies that invest in the clean energy economy, Green For All is now mobilizing private capital to directly create jobs and fight global warming . By investing in new models for financing retrofits, the Fund will help catalyze and leverage additional funding from federal, state and local governments, financial institutions and foundations. The Fund creates a unique platform for "triple bottom line" returns, including: • Profit for investors : A financial return of 2 - 3 percent annually; • Cuts in global warming pollution : An environmental return in the form of reduced energy consumption and avoided greenhouse gas emissions; and
 • Jobs and opportunity for Americans : A social return that saves money and creates jobs for low-income people. We estimate that when fully deployed, a $20 million fund would leverage approximately $200 million in financing for building energy retrofits. On an annual basis, this would mean: • 37,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions avoided - the equivalent of more than 4,700 cars taken off the road;
 • 25% energy savings on average in 15,000 homes, with total household savings of $6 million;
 • 25% energy savings on average in 2,000 commercial/community buildings;
 • 2,500 clean energy jobs, with substantial opportunity for low-income people; and
 • Improved health, increased household income and/or greater worker productivity experienced by 40,000 people.
 The Energy Efficiency Opportunity Fund is an extension of Green For All's commitment to build a clean-energy economy that is ripe with broad opportunity and shared prosperity for every neighborhood. In particular, we have been engaging the business community through our Capital Access Program . Through CAP, we coach emerging clean energy businesses, provide resources for the business community, and now, invest directly in the clean-energy economy. You can learn more and get involved with CAP here . Building a better economy for America requires working hand in hand with diverse and unlikely partners: from elected officials to unemployed workers, from businesses to community organizers. Everyone has a role to play in crafting a clean energy future. 
We are so proud to be able to work with businesses and investors to directly create jobs and wealth through clean energy. 
Economic opportunity and environmental renewal are now converging through smart investments in people, place and planet. More on Bill Clinton
 
Tom Gregory: The Mindless Bimbo and the Glamour of the Gun Top
The children of the sixties learned about the danger of guns before we learned the alphabet. My first indelible memory was the assassination of JFK, then Malcolm X, the University of Texas massacre, Dr. King, RFK, Kent State, Gerald Ford, and even the Manson murders. Throughout the Vietnam War, Walter Cronkite counted the dead as never-seen-before live images of men and women dying or broken frightened my childhood innocence away. I was born into a world of exploding bombs, terrified Vietnamese, and lots and lots of bullets, bombs, and guns. Several years ago while walking from home to my car, a man rushed me sticking a revolver my face. Even though I sparked a thought to bargain, I quickly handed him my cash. Weeks later the police telephoned. A suspect had been caught. He was charged with assault over a victim who wasn't as quick on the draw as I had been with my cash. This guy had actually fired upon a young woman, irreparably injuring her spinal cord with a single shot. The echo of a bullet and my abhorrence towards violence convinced me long ago that there was nothing romantic or fashionable about a gun. Then came children caught in gang-war crossfire, school shootings, terrorism at the point of a rifle, and more and more war. Even after Columbine - and scores of other high profile rampages - film, music, television, and video games still market gun violence as an accepted and expected part of the American experience. The counter intuitiveness of romanticizing violence is too repugnant for me to dwell on - much less promote, but that's just what LA based clothing company FUTURE HERETICS is doing with its threatening, vile, and violent fashions. Since 1977 the ubiquitous "I Love (heart) NY" campaign has spoken for up optimism and pride by every community who has adapted it for their own use. Like the smiley face before it, the slogan nourishes good cheer along with a strong sense of community dignity. But now FUTURE HERETICS has replaced the heart with an UZI sub-machine gun and the "NY" with "LA." Across the pages of PEOPLE, US, and leading fashion magazines mindless stars with thin careers are being showcased wearing these t-shirts. Hayden Panettiere, Khloe Kardashian, Sarai Givati, Fergie, and Lindsay Lohan, are among the stars whose candid photographs the company is using to market their wares. But FUTURE HERETICS hasn't stopped with Los Angeles, they have waved the automatic weapon at Santa Barbara in a special-issue "I (UZI) SB". Everyone is frightened of everyone; no one can be trusted. Arm and aim or be a victim. It's the idiocy of war, terrorism, and violence in everyone's bedside drawer. Even as it's been reported that gun and bullet sales are at unimaginable levels , we cannot allow violence and threats to be fashion. Maybe these starlets aren't callous, perhaps they are just not aware that guns kill, maim, and cause unbearable pain to thousands of people across America every year. FUTURE HERETICS and these young women are just incredibly overrated and unwittingly they are co-opting a violence that may someday turn a real gun on them. Oh, what I would do for a peace sign these days. www.ShowBizTom.com More on Lindsay Lohan
 
Property In Landmark Eminent Domain Supreme Court Case Never Used Top
NEW LONDON, Conn. — Weeds, glass, bricks, pieces of pipe and shingle splinters have replaced the knot of aging homes at the site of the nation's most notorious eminent domain project. There are a few signs of life: Feral cats glare at visitors from a miniature jungle of Queen Anne's lace, thistle and goldenrod. Gulls swoop between the lot's towering trees and the adjacent sewage treatment plant. But what of the promised building boom that was supposed to come wrapped and ribboned with up to 3,169 new jobs and $1.2 million a year in tax revenues? They are noticeably missing. Proponents of the ambitious plan blame the sour economy. Opponents call it a "poetic justice." "They are getting what they deserve. They are going to get nothing," said Susette Kelo, the lead plaintiff in the landmark property rights case. "I don't think this is what the United States Supreme Court justices had in mind when they made this decision." Kelo's iconic pink home sat for more than a century on that currently empty lot, just steps away from Connecticut's quaint but economically distressed Long Island Sound waterfront. Shortly after she moved in, in 1997, her house became ground zero in the nation's best-known land rights catfight. New London officials decided they needed Kelo's land and the surrounding 90 acres for a multimillion-dollar private development that included residential, hotel conference, research and development space and a new state park that would compliment a new $350 million Pfizer pharmaceutical research facility. Kelo and six other homeowners fought for years, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2005, justices voted 5-4 against them, giving cities across the country the right to use eminent domain to take property for private development. The decision was sharply criticized and created grassroots backlash. Forty states quickly passed new, protective rules and regulations, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Some protesters even tried to turn the tables on now-retired Justice David Souter, trying unsuccessfully in 2006 to take his New Hampshire home by eminent domain to build an inn. In New London the city's prized economic development plan has fallen apart as the economy crumbled. The Corcoran Jennison Cos., a Boston-based developer, had originally locked in exclusive rights to develop nearly the entire northern half of the Fort Trumbull peninsula. But those rights expired in June 2008, despite multiple extensions, because the firm was unable to secure financing, according to President Marty Jones. In July, backers halted fundraising for the project's crown jewel, a proposed $60 million, 60,000-square-foot Coast Guard museum. The poor economy meant that donations weren't "keeping pace with expenses," said Coast Guard Foundation president Anne Brengle. The group hopes to resume fundraising in the future, she said. Overall, proponents say about two-thirds of the 90-acre site is developed, in part because of a 16-acre, $25 million state park. The other third of the land remains without the promised residential housing, office buildings, shops and hotel/conference center facility. "If there had been no litigation, which took years to work its way through (the court system), then a substantial portion of this project would be constructed by now," said John Brooks, executive director of the New London Development Corp. "But we are victims of the economic cycle, and there is nothing we can do about that." A new engineering tenant is moving into one of the office buildings at 1 Chelsea St., and a bio tech firm with as many as five employees is getting ready to move into an existing building on Howard Street, Brooks said. Kelo, paid $442,000 by the state for her old property, now lives across the Thames River in Groton, in a white, two-bedroom 1950s bungalow. Her beloved pink house was sold for a dollar and moved less than two miles away, where a local preservationist has refurbished it. Kelo can see her old neighborhood from her new home, but she finds the view too painful to bear. "Everything is different, but everything is like still the same," said Kelo, who works two jobs and has largely maintained a low profile since moving away. "You still have life to deal with every day of the week. I just don't have eminent domain to deal with every day of the week, even after I ate, slept and breathed it for 10 years." Although her side lost, Kelo said she sees the wider ramifications of her property rights battle. "In the end it was seven of us who fought like wild animals to save what we had," she said. "I think that though we ultimately didn't win for ourselves, it has brought attention to what they did to us, and if it can make it better for some other people so they don't lose their homes to a Dunkin' Donuts or a Wal-Mart, I think we did some good." Scott Bullock, senior attorney for the Institute for Justice, argued Kelo's case before the Supreme Court. He calls "massive changes that have happened in the law and in the public consciousness" the "real legacy" of Kelo and the other plaintiffs. The empty land means the city won a "hollow victory," he said. "What cities should take from this is to run fleeing from what New London did and do economic development that is market-driven and incorporate properties of folks who are truly committed to their neighborhood and simply want to be a part of what happens," he said. More on Supreme Court
 
Anna Jane Grossman: Adieu Larry Gelbart...and Laugh Tracks Top
Towards the end of  Annie Hall , Woody Allen, as Alvy Singer, visits an edit room where his friend Rob is tinkering with footage from his new show. Every few seconds, Rob instructs the editor to add a giggle or a guffaw after his TV self delivers a punch line. Allen, still in his relatively principled pre-Sun Yi days, watches the whole thing with disgust.  "Do you realize how immoral this all is?" he asks.  "It’s kind of a joke within a joke: Allen was actually friends with Charles Douglass, the man who revolutionized the world of recorded laughter.  But, seen in another way, it’s a rather touching moment: the comedian considering how technology can give the impression of hilarity in what amounts to a man-vs.-machine comic standup showdown. The leader of the crusade against canned laughter lost one of its greatest defenders when Larry Gelbart died two weeks ago today at 81 . Gelbart, who wrote  Tootsie ,  A Funny Thing Happened on The Way to the Forum , and many of the early episodes of  M*A*S*H , spent years vociferously rejecting the industry's efforts to manipulate TV-watchers into emitting less-than-sincere laughs. Laugh tracks may have outlived Gelbart, but it looks like they’re not far from the grave. When I spoke to Gelbart on this subject late last year while researching my new book, OBSOLETE , which touches on the subject, he acknowledged that it seemed as if fewer shows were employing canned laughter. But any glee Gelbart felt about the possible—or even probably—death of the laugh tracks was felt about this fact was muted by what he believed was the real cause of the growing distaste for pumped-in laughs: in a moment where restaurant-goers wear iPod ear-buds and millions of people each day enjoy YouTube clips or Hulu shows on laptop screens only big enough for one pair of eyes, he feared we were losing something more important than the right to laugh when we please: he felt that we were actually forgetting what it means to enjoy things in the company of others. For better or worse, television once was a family's hearth—a place for gathering and bonding and, yes, laughing together. But now...? "Before, there was only one television in a household. Now, families are a lot more fragmented and there just aren’t the same opportunities to watch things together," he said. "People watch in their rooms alone or on their phones or online, or they watch while doing a million other things." The main source of laughs for the bulk of television history has been the Laff Box, a piano-like device filled with recorded laughter that can erupt at various levels of gaiety and volume. Its inventor, Allen’s friend Douglass, carted around the machine from one show to another; few people ever saw what it actually looked like.  The added chuckles didn't really make shows funnier, but laughter can be as contagious as yawning--an oft-cited example of this trend is a 1962 incident in Tanzania where three school girls started a laughing epidemic that resulted in a laughter "outbreak" so widespread that the school was forced to close. Producers hoped to trigger this kind of happening in miniature. At the very least, families in their living rooms would join in the chorus and would think a show was funny if only because they had chuckles ringing in their ears, right? Laugh tracks, which debuted on The Hank McCune show in 1950, really are only a modern take on an age-old custom: For centuries, theater owners filled audiences with people who were paid to laugh. In nineteenth century France there were "claques”—agencies that represented these professional laughers. This was clearly a reductive look at laughter: We are capable of finding things funny without uttering a sound. What’s more, often we laugh precisely when something isn't funny. There's also nervous laughter, scared laughter, appeasing laughter, I-don't-get-the-joke-but-I-want-to-fit-in laughter. But, when calculating something as unquantifiable as enjoyment or humor, those who are in the entertainment business singled-out laughter as a commodity that could both be measured and created. "With laugh tracks, comedians were assured that if the audience members didn't laugh, they could make it sound like they did," Gelbart said. "It lowered the bar for everybody. It lowered the bar for the writers who could be sure that what they were writing would be perceived as funny, and for the performers. When they migrated to television and radio, it made sense to Vaudeville performers to perform in front of live audiences because they'd honed their career catering their acts to the mood and energy of the audience. Early sitcoms took a lot of cues from traditional comic theater; the stories often unfolded on one or two static sets. TV, which required sets and strict time requirements, couldn’t tell stories that were as expansive as the ones in movies. So, televisions used the stage model. Lucy and Ricky were mostly seen in the living room;  The Honeymooners  generally stayed close to the kitchen table. Then, as now, laughter was sometimes added even to shows that had live audiences. Television shoots can last for days and may be shot non-sequentially, with some parts not filmed with an audience. Also, on the third take, even a very vocal audience wouldn’t necessarily roar the way the producers would’ve liked. The hope was that the sounds of a crowd of happy people would make new television users, who were presumably accustomed to sitting in a full audiences at films and or Vaudeville shows, feel more comfortable about being entertained in small groups in their homes As shows began exploring the world outside of the realm of a living room, it was harder to justify the laughter. There was no studio audience during the filming of Gelbart's Korean War comedy,  M*A*S*H , and the illusion of one seemed a hard sell. Still, when the show debuted in 1972, the producers insisted on pumped in laughs. Gelbart’s crusade began around this time. Believing that  M*A*S*H ’s fans would find the humor without having every punch line underscored, Gelbart conducted a test where two audiences watched the same episode, one with the laugh track and one without it. People in the laugh-track room probably did laugh aloud more than viewers in the other room, but when surveyed afterward, the groups reported enjoying the show equally. But the networks couldn’t be swayed. "They felt that the home audience would be encouraged to notice the comedy if 'others were laughing,'" he told me. "God knows where they thought the 'other' people were. Sitting in the foxholes?" (Eventually, in the name of compromise, the network agreed to not play artificial laughs during scenes in the operating room.) When the show was eventually released on DVD in 2006, Gelbart gave the viewers the option of watching the episodes with or without the added impression of hilarity. "If you listen to it with the laughs, it comes off as a smart-ass comedy, which it wasn't supposed to be," he said. "They weren't supposed to be comedians or wise guys; they were just people observing horrible conditions and commenting on them." If the laugh track is getting ready for its big exit, it can lock arms with the classic multi-camera sitcoms that had only two or three main sets— Full House  or  Growing Pains , for example. They’re increasingly taking a backseat to single camera shows like  30 Rock  or  The Office  or  Weeds , which offer up complex characters and serial plots that are funny without necessarily going in for the Mr. Ed style sight-gag or quick laugh. Instead of pausing for laughs from a real or recorded audience, actors on these shows work to illicit reactions from the people with whom they're performing, which lends these shows a feeling that's more natural than anything that, say,  Three's Company  was ever able to achieve. The further we go from sitcoms with theatrical staging, the less producers are mandating the use of laugh tracks. The mostly single-camera non-sofa-centric show  Sports Night , which debuted in 1998, straddled the divide: the laugh track was phased out as the show progressed. This season, the major networks are trumpeting the return of the classic sitcom, but early reviews don’t suggest that this is a movement that has real legs.  CBS’ has two-hours of non-stop canned laughter during their Monday block of   How I met Your Mother ,  Accidentally On Purpose ,  Two and a Half Men  and  The Big Bang Theory  . It’s a TV experience that is likely to feel stale in contrast to the new sitcoms that do without ( Bored to Death  on HBO and ABC’s  The Middle , to name two).  But Gelbart  was wary of proclaiming  the end of the era of canned laughter. "One can only  hope  that one day they will go away completely," he said to me. "But hope is a dangerous thing to have in television."  (I thought of this comment when I saw one newer show that is carrying the torch and even threatens to hand it to a younger generation: Nickelodeon's animated series Glenn Martin, DDS , uses one. )  Before our conversation ended, Gelbart pointed out that it’s believed that most of the laughs in Douglass’ Laff Box come from recordings he made of people laughing during Marcel Marceau mime shows in 1950s. "So for the moment," he said, "at least we can say that there's laughter after death."  Indeed, we can.      
 
Peter Diamandis: Launching Commercial Space Flight: Part Four -- Anousheh Ansari and Her $10 Million Purse Top
Ever since I was a young girl in Iran, I have had a deep curiosity and active imagination which peak whenever I look up at the night sky. I'm fascinated to think about how we got to this place and time, what will come after us and what else is out there. For many others the dream of space is tied to the thrill of riding a rocket, but if I could blink my eyes and be there, I would do so. To me, rockets are just transportation -- the allure is in exploring the universe. I have also always had an inner voice which compels me to follow my dream and aspirations. This voice has been my guide in my journey to the U.S. and in rough road of entrepreneurship to successful business. Even though my Entrepreneurial aspirations were not directly related to my passion for space, they ultimately provided me the financial means to make space travel a realistic possibility. And so, having carried the dream of space exploration throughout my life, I was incredibly excited when Peter Diamandis came to visit our family (me, my husband, Hamid, and his brother, Amir, who are also space enthusiasts) to tell us about the X PRIZE. As entrepreneurs, we knew the huge amount of work that it would take to make his idea succeed, as well as the many setbacks he would face along the way. And yet, sitting there listening to him, what was so captivating about Peter was his passion, because in the end, we knew that only passion that strong would keep him going in the face of the tremendous challenges ahead. Additionally, his vision really resonated with us; we had been looking for possibilities to go to space and perhaps find a way for other like us with a passion for space to be able to do it as well. While some options existed, they lacked credibility. The beauty of the X PRIZE was that we didn't have to decide which company had the greatest probability of building a safe and usable private spaceship, we could support all of the competing teams (and therefore multiple solutions) and we would not have to pay out unless there was a winner. The investment also offered considerable leverage, as the $10 million prize purse would incentivize multiple teams around the globe to compete, and those teams would find sponsors to invest in their technology (in the end team and sponsorship investment amounted to over $100 million). So we signed on to sponsor the prize, which then became known as the Ansari X PRIZE. Throughout the competition, for selfish reason, I hoped with all my heart that someone would win. I wasn't sure if it was possible, but I always maintained hope -- even when the first deadline passed and the prize remained unclaimed. As a family of entrepreneurs, we are eternally optimistic, so we decided to extend the deadline by a year. When I realized the second deadline was drawing near, I still didn't lose hope. I had witnessed miracles in the past, and I knew we were on the brink of something really important. When the prize was at last won (with less than a month until the deadline!), it exceeded all of my expectations. Witnessing SpaceShipOne hanging in the Air & Space museum really proved that we had made history. And when we learned that the prize had sparked a new industry and that Sir Richard Branson commercialized the technology... Well, that was just the cherry on top. Now, as a member of the Board of Trustees and the Vision Circle of the X PRIZE Foundation, I have the opportunity to continue to make history using incentive prizes to drive radical breakthroughs. Although there are four different areas, including Energy & the Environment, Life Sciences, Exploration, and Education & Global Development, that are being addressed with X PRIZEs, I am a space cadet. I look forward to the day when the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE is won, and I am committed to developing more space-based prizes which will give us further access to crucial materials and energy necessary to solve some of mankind's greatest challenges. Tune in next week for the culmination of the blog series, when Brian Binnie tells about what it felt like to fly in the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE winning flight!
 
Small Bank Bailouts Under Consideration Top
WASHINGTON — Treasury officials and regulators are weighing a fresh round of bailouts for banks that were deemed too risky to qualify for earlier aid. Representatives from the Treasury Department, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and House Financial Services Committee discussed the plan by phone Thursday, said California Bankers Association Chairman Dan Doyle, who was on the call. Small community banks are struggling as commercial real estate and other loans go sour. Officials and industry representatives are considering how to get money to those banks, Doyle said Friday. The new program could force Treasury to postpone closing its $700 billion bailout fund, which is scheduled to expire this year. That decision has become a political hot potato amid public backlash against bailouts and a rising deficit. Other banking industry leaders confirmed that the conversations are taking place. They did not know when Treasury might announce the plan. Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams would not comment on the proposed program. Treasury is "continually monitoring economic conditions and exploring options to ensure that a sustainable recovery is taking hold on Main Street," he said in a statement. An FDIC spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. The money could go to banks whose ratings by regulators made them too weak to qualify for earlier rounds of funding. It may be limited to banks with less than $5 billion on their books. The banks could be required to raise matching money in the private markets, Doyle and others said. "The rules were pretty restrictive," Doyle said. "They want to give another opportunity for some of the community banks." As with earlier capital injections, banks eventually will have to repay Treasury with interest. The move could prevent some small bank failures, which would ease pressure on the FDIC's dwindling fund that insures bank deposits. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., has been "very, very supportive" of extending the program to reach more community banks, said committee spokesman Steve Adamske. Frank had talked with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner about the plan, Adamske said. "We're very concerned about the community banking sector," Adamske said. "We await Treasury's decision." One challenge is that the program was designed for larger banks that are publicly traded, he said. Many community banks are privately owned or held by small groups of investors, making it more complicated for them to participate. A leading bailout critic on the committee called the proposed expansion "a uniquely bad idea." "It creates even greater taxpayer exposure for the program, where the taxpayer is certainly not going to recoup anywhere near his investment," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, who sits on the congressional panel that oversees the $700 billion fund. At a forum Friday, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., told Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that she worries about the ability of small and minority-owned banks to access capital. Bernanke responded that the "the best source" was the government's $700 billion bailout fund. He also said the government was looking at expanding the program to make it available "very broadly for access." He offered no details. Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., who arranged for Thursday's call, said bankers in his Fresno district were suffering from high unemployment and foreclosure rates. He said the additional money would allow banks to lend more to "those who need it most." Small banks currently have until Nov. 9 to apply for the money. If more banks are deemed eligible, the deadline could be pushed back, as the application process can take months to complete. The plan could prevent officials from winding down the $700 billion fund that is set to expire on Dec. 31. Republican lawmakers and some Democrats want Treasury to stop lending now that the financial markets have stabilized. Frank said this week that he supports extending the program beyond the end of the year. Geithner has trumpeted the end of some emergency financial programs as signs the economy is recovering. The department expects to see tens of billions of dollars in additional repayments to the fund in coming months. But Doyle said FDIC officials still expect up to 150 bank failures this year. So far, 95 banks have been closed. That's the most since 1992, during the savings-and-loan crisis. Officials are scrambling for a way to add money to the deposit insurance fund, and may levy a second extra fee on the banking industry. Officials have said the capital injections from Treasury are intended for healthy banks not at risk of failing. Lobbyists for small banks say the rules have been too restrictive, discriminating against smaller institutions that are likely to succeed. "We believe the criteria to determine viability have been too strict," said Karen Thomas, the top lobbyist with the Independent Community Bankers of America. Banks that want government money should be required to raise some private capital to prove that the market believes they will succeed, she added. The program would help "avoid any preventable bank failures," bolster the FDIC's deposit insurance fund and help small banks "weather the storm," Thomas said. ___ AP Economics Writer Jeannine Aversa contributed to this report. More on The Bailouts
 
Enjoy This Dramatic Reading Of Peggy Noonan's Harvard Study Group Syllabus Top
Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan is leading a study group at Harvard, just like Joel McHale does in the new NBC show Community . Her offering, a part of the Fall 2009 study groups at Harvard's Institute of Politics, is titled "Creativity In Journalism, In Politics And In Life: A Writer's Perspective," and she has offered a syllabus for your perusal . Obviously, it is MAGICAL... the dream of a crystalline dust mote in the eyelash of a woodland faerie! Noonan says, "It is often said that writing is a solitary act, and that is true - it's you and your brain, your soul and your response to something that's happening either in the world or in your head." Sometimes, the "world" is full of crazies, and your "brain" is spiked with Adderall and your "soul" is being crushed to death by cynicism over the fact that no one is hiring you or purchasing your writing, but I'm sure Noonan is going to cover all these vagaries. At least I hope so! Her sentence-fragment-strewn syllabus reads like this: Session Six: "What It Is to Write A book?" To write a book is to swing for the fences. Books last. The great CBS News anchor Charles Kuralt once said in my presence, gesturing toward the television, "That doesn't last, but this" - he gestured toward a book case - "does." (Actually if Google has its way maybe this will change; maybe they'll delete us.) But until they do, books are forever. I've written eight. All nonfiction. Let's talk about them, about the writing of them, and let us have as a guest a great book writer. I have someone very specific in mind, and he's said yes. And that's the incredibly true story of how Charles Kuralt advised on the purchase of a bookcase, adding, "None of that cardboard Ikea crap, either." Noonan hopes that various sessions will include various guests like "a great book writer" and "a great columnist," which adds a lot of dramatic suspense to this whole affair. But you will have to wait for that! What you can enjoy now is the audio of Chris Lehmann giving Noonan's syllabus a dramatic reading , with a "few improvements." This will allow you to feel like YOU ARE THERE, learning to laugh and love and write again, with Peggy Noonan, only much much better. [Would you like to follow me on Twitter ? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here .]
 
Tom Gerdy: Dear Rush, Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Top
I felt I had to write and thank you for something you recently said on the air. Many years ago I decided that listening to your ramblings was a very non-productive way to use my valuable time. Let's face it, in an attempt to continually extend your fifteen minutes of fame, most of what you say is a radio version of Fonzie jumping the shark tank on Happy Days . The term "jumping the shark" has now become a euphemism for the point when a show needs to be put to rest. It is a time when there is nothing new and interesting for a show to do so The Fonz "jumps a shark". In the world of radio, the same situation could be called "pulling a Limbaugh." I don't want you to get a big head because it could also be called "Coulterizing". As I surfed radio stations on my way home from work a few days ago, I stumbled upon your show. I am embarrassed to say that I stopped surfing and spent about four minutes of my ten minute commute listening. You were discussing comments made at the UN by a variety of players. At one point you said that it sounded like something one of the Deranged Pseudo Columnists for the Huffington Post would have said. That comment is what I want to thank you for. At that moment I thought you were speaking directly to me. I was asked when Huffington Post was created to contribute my thoughts and feelings when so moved. I am not terribly prolific and by my own admission only occasionally do I touch on the slightly profound. However, I still feel like I am one of those Deranged Pseudo Columnists you referred to. As that comment sunk in, I was thankful that is how you felt about me. I would be very distressed if someone of your questionable judgment and propensity for making statements with no factual basis said, "I really like what that Tom Gerdy guy had to say." I am a carpenter and a building contractor. I find great satisfaction in creating and building. I am saddened by the fact that so many people in our world today spend their time doing nothing but tearing down. The real, strength, power and magic is in creation and construction. If the foundation of your fifteen minutes is based on destructive comments and tearing down, your house is on shaky ground. As I conclude my Deranged Pseudo Columnist ramblings, I want to thank you for placing me on the other side of the spectrum from your destructive ramblings. I like it much better over here in the world of construction. I believe it was Ralph Waldo Emerson who used just eleven words to best articulate it when he said, "Tearing to pieces is the trade of those who cannot construct." Rush, it's time for you to do something constructive. There is no honor in being the poster child for this quote by Mr. Emerson.
 
Dan Persons: Mighty Movie Podcast: Fashion Defied/Defined: Anne Fontaine on COCO BEFORE CHANEL Top
So last week we had Bright Star , in which 19th century Fanny Brawne came into her own through her gifts as a seamstress. And now we have Anne Fontaine's Coco Before Chanel , in which Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel... well... "comes into her own" is putting it mildly. She frackin' defined an industry, after all. Thankfully, this is not Sex and the City: The Prequel . The clothes certainly are there -- in nascent form since the period dealt with here focuses on Chanel's (Audrey Tatou) earlier years -- but given that the story behind the woman who would eventually turn fashion on its ear incorporates a childhood in which Chanel and her sister were dumped off at an orphanage by her father, followed by a brief and unsuccessful fling as a chanteuse (hence the nickname "Coco"), then her becoming the live-in lover of the aristocratic Etienne Balsan (Benoit Poelvoorde) -- with the attendant delicious scandal as she begins to remold the rococo tastes of upper-class fashion into her own vision of beauty -- and subsequently finding her true love in the very handsome and very married Arthur "Boy" Capel (Alessandro Nivola), there's enough consequence here to keep the film from devolving into a two-hour runway show. It also helps that Coco's intelligence, austere mien, and impulsive drive for success takes most of the suds out of the potential soap. (Just as an aside, turns out that minimalist me digs Chanel's spare design sense, anyway. Nevetheless, Carrie Bradshaw, you can take your own sweet time returning to the screen.) I got to talk to Fontaine about Chanel's impact on fashion in specific and modern women in general, and how one takes Amelie and turns her into a shrewd, determined icon of creative genius. Click on the player below to hear the interview. The Life Iconoclastic on MMP: Ondi Timoner on We Live in Public Spike Lee and Stew on Passing Strange: The Movie Paul Morrison on Little Ashes More MMP on HuffPost: Michael Almereyda on Paradise Ben Whishaw and Paul Schneider on Bright Star Dan Stone and James Joyner on At the Edge of the World Check out the Mighty Movie Podcast homepage. More on Fashion Week
 
Marshall Auerback: FDIC Shortfall Symptom of Much Bigger Problem Top
So it has come to this. According to the NY Times , regulators are "seriously considering a plan to have the nation's healthy banks lend billions of dollars to rescue the insurance fund that protects bank depositors. That would enable the fund, which is rapidly running out of money because of a wave of bank failures, to continue to rescue the sickest banks." The rationale is ostensibly to avoid the makings of another populist revolt via further taxpayer bailouts, as well as sparing Sheila Bair the humiliation of going hand in cap to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner for more money. Of course, had we used the FDIC as we should have done in the first place, by downsizing "too big to fail" financial institutions, while putting in place new regulations and supervisory practices to attenuate the tendency to produce a fragile financial system as the economy recovers, it would have never come to this. But there is no need to compound the error by making the FDIC a mere adjunct of current (and misguided) Treasury policy. Sheila Bair's reluctance to approach Secretary Geithner is well-founded. The FDIC should be allowed to do its job without any assistance by Treasury, given the latter's cozy relationship with Wall Street. Apart from funding any expenditures which facilitate the FDIC's existing role, Treasury should butt out. The sole purpose of any Treasury funding should be to ensure that the FDIC is free to take over any bank it deems insolvent, and then either sell that bank, dispose of the bank's assets, reorganize the bank, or any other similar action that serves the public purpose of government participation in the banking system. The notion of having the FDIC implement higher insurance charges on the banks, as many have suggested, is wrong on many grounds. For one thing, it is grossly unfair to force well-run banks to pay higher premiums to pay for the sins of Citi, Bank of America, or Wells Fargo. For another, the higher premiums will simply induce the banks to pass on those costs to the consumer, thereby increasing the marginal cost of credit. The reality is that banks already have loans outstanding priced in relation to current FDIC premiums. Consequently, raising those premiums retroactively on liabilities already in place is unfair confiscation from shareholders. This is counter to public purpose, as public purpose is presumably currently best served by a zero interest rate policy to keep the cost of credit down. All a bank-wide tax (or increase in insurance premium fees) does is increase the rates charged by the banks, which raises the cost of credit to the economy. Having healthy banks to shore up the shorter-term liquidity needs of the fund by lending to the FDIC is probably a less onerous option than higher insurance fees, insofar as the loans to the FDIC are government-guaranteed, and therefore pose little risk as far as the banks' lending activities go. They actually can make a profit here. To read the rest of Marshall Auerback's argument, visit NewDeal2.0 More on Banks
 
Flashback: Students Sang Bush's Praises Too (And For Katrina Response!) Top
Republicans have been in an uproar recently over video footage of children at a New Jersey elementary school singing the praises of President Barack Obama. The outrage has been fueled mainly by a constant drumbeat from conservative media. But on Friday it boiled over into the realm of political opportunism when the Republican National Committee sent out a fundraising appeal calling the episode an "indoctrination of our nations... children" and "fanaticism." "Friend," RNC Chairman Michael Steele wrote , "this is the type of propaganda you would see in Stalin's Russia or Kim Jong Il's North Korea. I never thought the day would come when I'd see it here in America." Alas, such "propaganda" has not been limited to despots, dictators and the Obama White House. As a savvy source points out, back in 2006 children from Gulf Coast states serenaded First Lady Laura Bush with a song praising the President, Congress, and Federal Emergency Management Agency for their response to -- of all things -- Hurricane Katrina. The lyrics were as follow: Our country's stood beside us People have sent us aid. Katrina could not stop us, our hopes will never fade. Congress, Bush and FEMA People across our land Together have come to rebuild us and we join them hand-in-hand! The event took place at that year's White House Easter Egg Roll and included roughly 100 children from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. President Bush, it seems, wasn't in attendance during the song itself. But he was there earlier, when the First Lady read the book, Will You Be My Friend: A Bunny and Bird Story by Nancy Tafuri , to the children. "After the reading," the Wall Street Journal reported at the time, "Mr. Bush asked, 'Did you like this book? Does it tell you about what people can do to help other people, what bird did to help bunny? Be kind to him and give him shelter.'" The weather that day was described as a "chilly rain" which must have seemed appropriate given the fact that the Gulf Coast children were actually thanking the administration for its feeble response to the hurricane.
 
Rep. Grayson Calls For 'Corporate Death Penalty On Contractors' Who Rip Off Government Top
When the House of Representatives went after federal funding for the community-organizing group ACORN last week, the bill as written also affected "any organization" that had been involved in a wide range of fraudulent activity and other bad behavior. On Friday, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) inserted into the "legislative history" language spelling out that including all fraudulent organizations was, in fact, the intent of the Congress. Meanwhile, he has been asking citizens to suggest specific companies which would be targeted by the anti-fraud language and provide evidence for the claim. The list has grown several pages long. The names of those organizations will be submitted into the congressional record next week. "The purpose of this bill is to cleanse federal contracting and grant-making, completely and permanently. The purpose is to put an end to the invidious practice of rewarding those who steal taxpayer money by giving them more taxpayer money," writes Grayson. "The bill imposes, and is intended to impose, a corporate death penalty on contractors who fall within the scope of its prohibitions." Grayson's history notes that the highest-ranking Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), agrees with him. As the ranking member's report describes, however, the term 'filed a fraudulent form' extends to all organizations that have filed such a form, whether or not such a filing has resulted in a conviction or judgment. The ranking member issued a statement yesterday, which said: 'For far too long, recipients of federal dollars have been given free reign [sic] and some have acted in a reckless and cavalier way and whether it be ACORN or anyone else -- abuse and fraud will not be tolerated.' He added, 'frankly, I don't know how anyone can successfully argue [that] those who actually perpetrate fraud and misuse taxpayer dollars should not be' subject to these prohibitions." Read the full entry into the legislative record: H.R. 3221 - LEGISLATIVE HISTORY Madam Speaker, The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill including prohibitions on federal funds and other activities with respect to certain organizations. The intent of Congress with respect to those provisions is as follows: The purpose of this bill is to cleanse federal contracting and grant-making, completely and permanently. The purpose is to put an end to the invidious practice of rewarding those who steal taxpayer money by giving them more taxpayer money. The bill imposes, and is intended to impose, a corporate death penalty on contractors who fall within the scope of its prohibitions. This is remedial legislation. The primary intention is not merely to penalize such organization, since other laws perform that function. Rather, the intention is to protect the Government and the taxpayers from losses in the future, and to deter misconduct on the part of federal fund recipients. The intention of deterrence, in particular, requires that these prohibitions be construed broadly, and enforced strictly. By this bill, Congress intends to exercise the full extent of its Constitutional authority, both express and implied. This includes, but is not limited to, Congress's express authority under the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution. Notwithstanding the heading on the part of the bill containing these provisions, it is not Congress's intent that these prohibitions apply only to organizations that have been indicted. Rather, Congress intends that the prohibitions apply to all "covered organizations," as defined in the bill. With respect to the prohibitions set forth in paragraph (a), Congress intends that these prohibitions be automatic and permanent. In this context, "automatic" means not subject to alleviation by administrative action. Regarding such prohibitions, Congress intends to substitute a "per se" rule in place of any rule requiring a balancing of factors, or exercise of discretion or judgment, to the full extent permitted for Congress by the U.S. Constitution. "Permanent" means lasting for the entire time that the organization remains in existence. If a principal, or principals, of a covered organization form(s) or attempt(s) to form a new organization, then that new organization may be deemed, through administrative action, to be a covered organization. "Principal" means an officer, a director, or an owner of at least five percent of the shares of a covered organization. It is the intent of Congress that any organization seeking or receiving a federal contract, grant, cooperative agreement, any other form of agreement, federal funds, or promotion by a Federal employee or contractor shall certify, both when seeking and when receiving such a benefit, that the organization is not a covered organization as that term is defined in this bill. Any organization falsely making such a certification shall be deemed a covered organization (and, in fact, already is one), and shall be subject to prosecution under 18 U.S.C. 1001 or any similar provision in the Criminal Code. Any individual making such a false certification on behalf of a covered organization shall be similarly liable. Congress strongly recommends to federal prosecutors that they execute their prosecutorial discretion in a manner that holds such organizations and individuals accountable, to the fullest extent permitted by law. Congress intends that all covered organizations be added to the "Excluded Parties" list maintained by the Federal Government, with a prescribed duration on that list of "permanent." Whenever the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) learns or has reason to believe that an organization is a covered organization, it shall be the duty of DOJ to apprise the debarring officials of all relevant federal agencies of such information. Congress intends that any person or organization shall have standing to request that any debarring official shall identify an organization as a covered organization, and add that organization to the "Excluded Parties" list. Congress also intends that the contention that any federal offeror or contractor is a covered organization is a contention that is a valid basis for a bid protest. Such a contention may be asserted at the Government Accountability Office, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and any other tribunal with bid protest authority. The term "covered organization" includes parent companies, subsidiaries and subsidiaries of parent companies of a covered organization. Such affiliation is to be determined by legal ownership of at least 50%. The term "organization" in paragraph (a) means only a covered organization. The enumerated prohibitions apply to covered organizations only. In subparagraph (a)(1), the term "other form of agreement" includes, but is not limited to, the execution of contract options, the award of task orders, and any other form of action that establishes or increases the legal rights of any federal contractor or grantee. In subparagraph (a)(2), the term "[n]o Federal funds in any other form may be provided" shall mean that all contracts and grants that have been awarded to a covered organization with a remaining duration of more than one year on the date of enactment shall, within that one-year period, be terminated for the convenience of the Government. In subparagraph (b)(1) of the prohibitions, Congress recognizes that the denial of liberty or property on the basis of an indictment, without conviction, raises Constitutional due process issues. If it is determined that such denial is unconstitutional, or otherwise contrary to law, then it is the intent of Congress that subparagraph (b)(1) be held void, but that the remainder of the prohibitions remain intact and enforceable. In subparagraph (b)(3) of the prohibitions, it is the intent of Congress that this subparagraph be construed expansively. The term "Federal or State regulatory agency" shall include any agency authorized by law to issue regulations, whether or not such regulations have been issued. For instance, the term includes, but is not limited to, the U.S. Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, and Labor. The term "filed a fraudulent form" includes, but is not limited to, actions that would establish liability under 18 U.S.C. 1001 or 31 U.S.C. 3729. A conviction or judgment under these laws, or any similar law, is sufficient per se to establish that an organization is a covered organization. The term "filed a fraudulent form" is derived in part from a report dated July 23, 2009 and issued by the Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Page five of that report discusses allegations, not resulting in a conviction or judgment, that "ACORN has submitted false filings to the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Labor." The report states that: "All of these fraudulent acts would constitute a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1001 by presenting false documents to the United States government." A fortiori, any acts that actually do (not merely "would") constitute such a violation, or a violation of similar provisions such as those appearing in 31 U.S.C. 3729, as determined by a conviction or judgment, shall per se constitute the "fil[ing] of a fraudulent form" within the meaning of these prohibitions. As the Ranking Member's report describes, however, the term "filed a fraudulent form" extends to all organizations that have filed such a form, whether or not such a filing has resulted in a conviction or judgment. The Ranking Member issued a statement yesterday, which said: "For far too long, recipients of federal dollars have been given free reign [sic] and some have acted in a reckless and cavalier way and whether it be ACORN or anyone else - abuse and fraud will not be tolerated." He added, "frankly, I don't know how anyone can successfully argue [that] those who actually perpetrate fraud and misuse taxpayer dollars should not be" subject to these prohibitions. The term "form" is to be construed broadly. It includes all communications, in any form or format, which include any information required by law. For instance, a request for payment under a cost reimbursement contract that includes a statement of incurred costs is a "form" within the meaning of subparagraph (b)(3), because (among other reasons) such a statement is required by law. Whenever the Government finds that such a request is excessive, and reduces it, then this means that the form that was filed was fraudulent, unless the contractor possessed no information whatsoever that did allow or should have allowed the contractor to know that the form was excessive. No proof of specific intent to defraud is required. It is the intent of Congress that the term "form" include, but not be limited to, the term "claim" under 18 USC 287, the terms "claim," "record" and "statement" in 31 USC 3729, and the terms "statement," "representation" and "entry" under 10 USC 1001. In all administrative or judicial proceedings regarding whether a party has "filed a fraudulent form," in cases based on a conviction or judgment, the inquiry shall be limited to whether there is any evidence in the record on which the finder of fact could have determined that the organization filed a fraudulent form. Under no circumstances shall the burden of proof be anything beyond "adequate evidence" in administrative proceedings, or "support by any evidence in the record" in judicial proceedings, when such judicial review of such administrative action is allowable at all. It is the intent of Congress that administrative action to add an organization to the "Excluded Parties" list is ministerial. For that reason, and otherwise, such administrative action is committed to agency discretion under 5 USC 702(a)(1). In all judicial proceedings, it is the intent of Congress that the prohibitions apply to an organization that has been found to be a covered organization unless and until a final judgment has been entered in favor of the organization. Specifically, it is the intent of Congress that in determining whether the organization should be granted interim relief in such proceedings, the greatest weight be the public interest in having the Government issue contracts and grants only to organizations with unquestioned integrity. It is the intention of Congress that the term "covered organization" apply to all organizations qualifying within the definitions of subparagraphs (b)(1) through (b)(4), without regard to when the acts establishing such qualification occurred. Specifically, it is not the intent of Congress that such acts be limited to acts following enactment of these prohibitions. If, for instance, an organization filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency in 2006, that organization is a covered organization as of the date of enactment, and subject to all prohibitions from the date of enactment onward. Regarding paragraph c, if it shall be ruled or held that this provision, or any other provision in these prohibitions, is a bill of attainder, or constitutionally infirm for any other reason, it is the intent of Congress that these prohibitions nevertheless apply to all covered organizations for which these prohibitions are not a bill of attainder, or constitutionally infirm. Regarding paragraph (d) of the prohibitions, the revision of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) shall include the revisions set forth above, including but not limited to revision of Parts 3, 9, 15 and 33 of the FAR.
 
Eric Brody: Mike Coffman's Technical Violation Top
Ambiguous wording in the April 14 decision of Colorado's Independent Ethics Commission (IEC) will come in for close scrutiny following an official complaint Mike Coffman lodged with the state supreme court against attorney Chantell Taylor , director of Colorado Ethics Watch (CEW). The Associated Press reported September 24 that in a letter he mailed the previous day Coffman, who currently represents Colorado's 6th Congressional District, accused Taylor of having misrepresented the IEC to have "found that he 'technically violated state law' when he was secretary of state." While there is room for honest disagreement, I believe the context of the disputed language supports Taylor's interpretation of the ruling. The IEC's ruling dismissed the complaint CEW filed against Coffman on February 13, 2008. The first of the two charges in the complaint alleged that Coffman allowed a subordinate - a political ally named Dan Kopelman - to operate a side business in violation of state law and personnel rules. CEW charged a) that Coffman had been aware of Kopelman's side business well before his deputy, William Hobbs, formally brought it to his attention in May 2007, and b) that in failing to take action earlier, Coffman himself violated state law and personnel rules that hold agency heads and hiring authorities responsible and accountable for the activities of their subordinates. Coffman's complaint against Taylor revolves around the following sentence from the ruling: "The IEC finds that although there may have been a technical violation of state law, this was mitigated by the vigorous and immediate remedial action taken by both Coffman and Hobbs." In an April 14 press release CEW stated regarding the Kopelman charge: "The IEC found that Coffman technically violated state law by allowing a senior employee to operate a partisan side business." In its September 24 article the AP reported, "In his complaint letter to the commission, Coffman said the finding of a technical violation referred only to possible illegal activity by his employee and not to Coffman." So who's right? Let's look at the IEC's "technical violation" sentence in context : The First Claim of Relief alleges violations of C.R.S. § 24-50-101(3)(d) and 4 CCR § 801, Rule 1-11. This statute provides that "heads of principal departments...shall be held responsible and accountable for the actual operation and management of the state personnel system for their respective departments." State Personnel Rule 1-11 provides that "[a]ll appointing authorities, managers, and supervisors are accountable for compliance with these rules and state and federal law, and for reasonable business decisions, including implementation of other policy directives and executive orders." The IEC agrees that Coffman, as the head of the agency, was responsible and accountable for the overall management of the Secretary of State's Office. However, it does not believe that this necessarily means that he can be held personally responsible under ethical standards for every activity of each individual employee. Coffman reasonably relied on Mr. Hobbs and other managers in his department to oversee the daily operations of the office. Mr. Hobbs testified that he was responsible for reviewing and approving requests for outside businesses of employees. Mr. Hobbs was also an appointing authority. The State Personnel Rules impose an affirmative duty on the employee to request approval to engage in any outside business, and Kopelman had not done so. Further, there was no evidence that Mr. Hobbs had had any knowledge of Kopelman's outside business. Once Coffman and his management team were made aware of the problem, they immediately undertook an investigation to assure the integrity of information at the Secretary of State's Office, and disciplined Kopelman. This discipline included a demotion, loss of pay differential, and transfer out of the Elections Division. Coffman also requested investigations by the Colorado Attorney General and the State Auditor, and accepted the Auditor's recommendation that oversight of this issue needed strengthening. There is no evidence that Coffman attempted to conceal the incident from the public. The IEC finds that although there may have been a technical violation of state law, this was mitigated by vigorous and immediate remedial action taken by both Coffman and Mr. Hobbs. As pled in the complaint, in order to find Coffman in violation of an ethical standard, the Commission must find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Coffman knew or should have known that Kopelman was operating an outside business, or that he knowingly ignored the situation in order to benefit himself or Kopelman. The facts before the IEC do not support a finding under the preponderance of the evidence standard that Coffman knew or should have known about the outside business being conducted by Kopelman. [emphasis added] Taylor disagreed with the IEC's conclusion that the evidence in the case was insufficient to demonstrate that Coffman knew or should have known about Kopelman's side business, and readers can review CEW's closing brief and its April 14 press release to understand why. However, CEW having declined to appeal the decision, that matter is officially settled. The pending issue is Coffman's complaint against Taylor. Did she, as Coffman charged, misrepresent to whom the IEC attributed "a technical violation of state law"? I think not. The IEC appears to have meant the following: the law, strictly interpreted, does indeed hold Coffman (along with Hobbs) technically responsible for Kopelman's illegal operation of a side business, but a) this technical violation of law does not equate to a violation of an ethical standard , and b) the action Coffman (and Hobbs) took mitigates the guilt one might nevertheless assign for this technical lapse. Coffman's reading of the key sentence appears to be that Kopelman alone was in technical violation of state law, and action Coffman and Hobbs took mitigated the consequences to the public of that technical violation. This is plausible, but I disagree with it. It will be interesting to see whether the IEC clarifies this issue and how this story develops.
 
Terry Gardner: 3 Travel Lessons: The Advantage of Persistence, Flexibility and an Upgrade Top
Travel often seems to teach me lessons I never learned in school. Of course, when I was a kid -- there were friendly skies to fly, if you lost something at a hotel, you usually got it back, and I had less responsibility. DON'T GIVE UP The first two nights of my trip were spent at a Hyatt in Sonoma County. As my head hit the pillow at my second destination in Orick, California I realized I had left the charger for my Canon G10 camera and the extra battery charging in the wall of my room at the Hyatt. It was midnight, so I waited until the next day to call. The next day, I began calling the Hyatt inquiring whether my charger and extra battery had been found. For the next three days, I kept calling -- once or twice a day. I insisted to both housekeeping and the front desk that my charger had to be there unless the maid had thrown it out, kept it or it had been taken by the next guest in the room. Each time they patiently told me it had not been found. After I arrived at LAX while awaiting a shuttle, despite having no hope left at all, I decided to call one last time. Much to my surprise, the housekeeping supervisor said: "Is it black grey with a little battery inside?" I said yes, and they said they had found it. The next day when I called to give them my FedEx number to ship it home to me, Maria said: "I think because you kept calling and I kept asking -- it turned up." LESSON: If you know you left a valuable piece of equipment in the wall of a hotel room, keep calling to inquire because your persistence may pay off like mine did. STAY FLEXIBLE The purpose of my trip was to go elk watching in Northern California during rutting season. I needed my camera to photograph the elk, so I was really bent out of shape when the battery in my camera lasted only ten minutes before dying. My friend immediately gave me her Canon to use. Although I initially whined wishing her camera was the same model as mine, I soon realized how lucky I was to have any camera at all. More often than not, travel doesn't go exactly as planned. Whining does little good, so adjust and move on (unless you are whimpering and insisting to a hotel that you left equipment behind). I also realized yet another advantage to shooting digital photos. You can borrow someone's camera, download the photos to your laptop and give them back their camera. THE JOYS OF A $50 UPGRADE ON A SHORT HAUL FLIGHT These days flying coach often feels more like being squeezed into a can of sardines than a seat. And sardines don't require elbow room and leg room like humans do. Even in coach, however, Virgin America is pretty darned comfortable with its mood lighting and seats with lumbar support in each class of service. On my last flight from San Francisco to LAX, the kiosk offered me the option of paying $50 to upgrade to First Class, and I turned down the offer thinking "How could a 50 minute flight be worth it?" This time, since I needed to check a bag (filled with bottles of wine from exploring Sonoma County), I thought an upgrade made sense. Checking my bag on my coach ticket would cost $20, so $30 more to experience first class seemed to make sense. Wow, was my response. I thought coach was comfy on Virgin America, but First Class makes you want the 50 minute flight to last longer. The Mother of a two year old kid who was also flying first class said her son wanted the flight to last longer too. The buttery leather seat made me feel like I was flying in a luxury Mercedes Benz. The seat reclines without limiting the legroom of the passenger behind you. I will be saving up to travel cross country in luxury. And First Class has a great adjustable reading lamp (which I had thought was some kind of microphone to request service when I noticed it on previous flights as I ambled back into the depths of coach). The passenger next to me had upgraded to First Class for $25 because he had paid for a premium main cabin seat. He always tries to upgrade to first, even for the short haul flights. For First Class upgrade info... . More on Travel
 
Kyl: "I Don't Need Maternity Care" So Employers Shouldn't Be Required To Provide It (VIDEO) Top
As the Senate Finance Committee moved into its fourth day of deliberations over the health care bill, tensions continued to rise. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), broke new ground defending an amendment he'd proposed that struck language from the bill defining which benefits employers are required to cover -- in this case, basic maternity care. "I don't need maternity care," Kyl said. "So requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don't need and will make the policy more expensive." Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), interrupted Kyl: "I think your mom probably did." The amendment was defeated, nine to 14. More on Health Care
 
Bruce Nilles: Coal's Ash is On the Line Top
This post was co-written by Lyndsay Moseley, Washington Representative for the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign . For those who remember the tragic TVA coal ash spill of December 2008 and wonder if such a disaster could happen in your town, there have been lots of important recent developments. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has started inspecting hazardous coal ash impoundments around the U.S., rating them based on how likely are they to fail and cause massive disasters like the spill at TVA's Kingston, TN, plant last December. In keeping with President Obama's goal of promoting transparency, EPA has also begun posting their findings online   - more than 43 inspections at 22 facilities have already been posted.  And how many of those 43 impoundments ranked "satisfactory"?  Just over half of them - the rest were rated "fair" or "poor", which means they have some work to do. This is scary news, considering that these dams are holding back billions of gallons of toxic waste left over from burning coal to generate electricity. As EPA continues to inspect more coal ash impoundments, we are anxiously awaiting EPA's draft rules, which have been in the works for over a decade and - amazingly enough - would be the first federal regulations ever put in place to ensure utilities are disposing of this hazardous waste safely. We expect that EPA will not only address the safety of the dams, but also how to treat the highly toxic waste material that is held back behind the dams. Coal ash contains arsenic, selenium, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, boron, thallium, and aluminum - toxic heavy metals that have been linked to cancer, birth defects, and neurological disorders, and which clearly threaten nearby communities and ecosystems.  There are some who would have EPA classify coal ash within the same category as household garbage. Call us crazy, but a substance that threatens to increase risks of cancer and other diseases doesn't really sound like regular household trash. And what's more, when coal ash comes into contact with water, these hazardous materials leach out of the waste and contaminate groundwater and surface water. Coal ash is exactly as we described it, a hazardous material. And nearly a hundred million tons of toxic coal ash and related coal combustion wastes pile up in unlined ponds and pits across the United States every year - the second largest solid waste stream in the nation, after municipal garbage. Of course, we are pleased to learn from recent news reports that EPA's lawyers agree that coal ash must be regulated under the hazardous waste classification, because it's the only classification that establishes one consistent federal standard, prevents states from adopting weaker standards, and allows EPA to inspect sites and enforce these safeguards. In order to meet Administrator Lisa Jackson's stated goal of proposing regulations for coal ash by the end of 2009, EPA Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery will likely send draft rules to the White House Office of Management and Budget in the next few weeks. OMB has up to 90 days to complete their review before the draft rule is published in the federal register and the public comment begins.  We must remain vigilant, but we are pleased to see EPA finally taking the critical steps needed to protect communities and watersheds across the nation from the hazards posed by coal ash.  
 
Jeff Danziger: Senator Snowe and the Boys Top
 
New Prediction: Earth Could Warm 6.3 Degrees This Century Top
Robert Corell, who chairs the Climate Action Initiative and reviewed the UNEP report's scientific findings, said the significant global temperature rise is likely to occur even if industrialized and developed countries enact every climate policy they have proposed at this point. The increase is nearly double what scientists and world policymakers have identified as the upper limit of warming the world can afford in order to avert catastrophic climate change. More on Climate Change
 
David Scheiner, Obama's Former Doctor: Insurance Companies "Screwing Up" Health Care Top
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- President Obama's former personal physician of 22 years, Dr. David Scheiner, has been very vocal on the issue of health insurance, particularly with his criticism of commercial insurers and how he feels they are meddling with the doctor-patient relationship. More on Health Care
 
Leonard Zeskind: An Open Letter to Mark Lilla: Yes, We Should Take the Right Seriously Top
"The Republican Party and the political right will survive, but the conservative intellectual tradition is already dead." So argued Mark Lilla, author of The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West and several other highly regarded books. A professor at Columbia University and a former editor of The Public Interest , Mr. Lilla's ideas demand respect. And in an opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal just days after the 2008 presidential election, Mr. Lilla lamented the rise of Sarah Palin-style "populism" (as he described it), the complicity of conservative intellectuals in Palin's elevation to the national stage, and he celebrated her return then to Alaska. It should be noted, however, that Palin's anti-elite style embodied a particular form of nationalism that abjured both cosmopolitan elites and the more darkly hued "undeserving" poor. It is precisely this type of nationalism that animates Tea Party activism today. Now, in an article written for The Chronicle of Higher Education's September 11, 2009 edition, Mr. Lilla alternately ridicules a newly-created Center for the Comparative Study of Right Wing Movement and gives it his blessing. He wonders if an institution situated at the University of California at Berkeley can do justice to that (now dead?) intellectual tradition mentioned above. He seems to ignore the center's actual purpose, stated in its name: to study right wing movements--and not necessarily only those ideas of the conservative elites. He imagines the mistakes the newly formed center might make, such as comparing conservatism to violent right-wing movements. Along the way, Mr. Lilla makes several significant mistakes of his own. He writes: "mainstream American conservatism, which pretty much is all there is to the American right, shares nothing meaningful with proto-fascist figures." Leaving aside for the moment the question of sharing with proto-fascists, let us examine Mr. Lilla's first point, that mainstream conservatism is all there is to the American right, pretty much. Well, he has already told us that the conservative intellectual tradition, as he understood it, had been replaced by a rousing anti-elitism. More, he would have us ignore precisely those elements of contemporary conservatism that David Frum examined in his 1994 book, Dead Right : the nationalism of the Buchananites and the Religious Right. Certainly, those nationalists have appropriated the conservative intellectual tradition for their own purposes. Consider in this regard, the 1993 edition of The Conservative Movement written by Paul Gottfried, a Humanities Professor at Elizabethtown College. There is more that can be said about where the right's center of gravity is, but for the moment Mr. Lilla might check again his statement about the various elements constituting the American right. He might also re-examine the issue of whether or not the right shares anything meaningful with proto-fascism. Now I must note here that fascism is not a word of much use in the American context. A highly centralized, totalizing national state is one of the hallmarks of fascism. Most of the conservative right and the far right oppose any centralizing tendencies in the federal government. And among the old-line white supremacists and the 21st century white nationalists, only the national socialists propose a fascist state as part of their program. By contrast, there is a volkish nationalism that is very alive today. And it is precisely on this point that a remark Mr. Gottfried made at a small symposium in the Cooper Union dominated by Rockford Institute intellectuals becomes relevant. "We are all Schmittians now," Gottfried said. He was referring to Carl Schmitt, a now deceased German political philosopher who joined the NSDAP (the Nazi Party) in 1933, helped formulate the legal foundations of Hitler's fuehrer-state, but was ex-communicated from the Nazi elite before the death camps and the invasion of Poland. Perhaps we should not make too much of Mr. Gottfried's association with Carl Schmitt, after all a host of other intellectuals including Jacques Derrida have dipped in the Schmittian waters. Nevertheless, there is much that mainstream conservatism has shared with white nationalism, including, for example, Pat Buchanan. And if Mr. Lilla wants more information on that subject, I will be happy to provide it. In the spirit of full disclosure I must say that I am not an innocent bystander in this discussion. I come from the left, and lack the formal certificates of higher education. After decades spent studying right-wing social movements, my book, Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream was published by Farrar Straus & Giroux in May. (That book notes that after William Buckley had declared that Pat Buchanan could not be defended from the charge of anti-Semitism in 1992, the National Review endorsed Buchanan's candidacy for president in the New Hampshire primaries.) And I will be speaking at a Center for the Comparative Study of Right Wing Movements forum in Berkeley on October 8. Nevertheless, I hope that my writing here will benefit Mr. Lilla's thinking about these matters, including his discussion of anti-communism and its significance on the right. Consider that after World War Two and after the hysteria of McCarthyism had subsided, anti-communism settled in as a staple of American life. Both Cold War liberals and National Review conservatives considered anti-communism a first principle. Southern segregationists covered their racism with anti-communism, describing King and all the civil rights workers as Communists. J. Edgar Hoover's Masters of Deceit was a runaway best seller. I would argue that anti-communism became both the pretext for American imperial designs (Guatemala 1954, etc.) and a core element in the social psyche that produces national identity. And it needs to be noted that whether or not mainstream conservatives felt bound to white supremacists, the vast majority of white supremacists felt bound to conservatives by their shared anti-communism. After the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and the re-emergence of ethnic nationalism as a force in both the East and West, the conservative movement split apart. Pat Buchanan became a spokesman in opposition to the first Persian Gulf War. The very type of overseas military intervention he had once supported under the rubric of fighting communism became anathema to him, as he adopted the mantle of the Old Right and America first nationalism. There is much more to that part of the story, also. I invite Mr. Lilla to read Blood and Politics , and then add again to the discussion at hand. More on Wall Street Journal
 
Ben Berkon: New Study Shows that Children Who Play Educational Video Games Wrongly Believe 'Education Leads to Success' Top
In education news, a recently conducted study showed that 83% of children who play educational video games wrongly believe that "education leads to success." STAThead, the company who also conducted the study that linked violent video games to adolescent violence as well as lawnmower sales to pre-teen pregnancy, felt it was necessary to reveal the much more troubling reality about education. "There was an astonishingly high percentage of misinformed children who are in for a real surprise," said STAThead executive Bill Myers. "These educational video games, which value learning fundamentals, hard work, and honesty, don't give our children the full picture of the real world. You will not find anything about 'rich delinquents being given sought-after internships,' 'knowing the ins and outs of tax law so you can steal billions of dollars from charities' or even 'the advantage girls with big tits have' in these educational video games. These educational video games may teach your children their multiplication table, but your kids will not have the know-how to do anything beyond being a barista at Starbucks or campaign staffer for a little-known, eccentric third-party candidate." While most teachers and parents have objected to the results, claiming that "[the results are] merely a narrow-minded and disgusting outlook for our youth," STAThead calculated that 99% of those teachers and parents fell into the "complete failures in the real-world" category. (For more articles and segments of this kind, visit www.SomethingYouShouldRead.com .)
 
Una LaMarche: Project Runway Episode 6 Recap: Annie Get Your Gunn Top
Previously on Project Runway : The gang put on a far-too literal production of Newsies , Tommy Hilfiger did a terrible Michael Kors impression, and poor recovering Meth addict Johnny was sent back to understudy for Jerry Ferrara. "Here we go again," says the voice of Logan as the morning-in-LA establishing shots play, and this makes me think of Whitesnake's, Here I Go Again , which made me Google it, and you have to watch this video . Did you know it starts out with someone doing a backbend across the hoods of two cars? Anyway, here we go again on our own... goin' down the only road we've ever known, which is the morning after scenes of people making idle conversation and maybe eating cereal. Ra'mon-Lawrence notes (to a scantily-clad Logan... is there any better kind?) that there are two empty beds where Malvin and Johnny used to lie, dreaming of ethereal nests and runway walks, respectively. But then he says that their absence makes the competition more serious. Burn! (My husband Jeff counter-burns by remarking that Ra'mon has a "corn-row mullet.") Nic interviews, apropos of nothing, that he is not here to make friends (a reality TV refrain so ubiquitous that there is going to be a segment on This American Life about it. For reals .). And, well, great job, asshole, you haven't. Over in the women's compound, Irina says that the competition is "getting stiffer," which is technically accurate but which sounds dirty. Gordana was shocked to find herself in the bottom three last week, but she is so deadpan that her shock reads as boredom. On the runway, Heidi dispenses with the rehashing (Irina has immunity) and segues into the challenge. "We are in LA," she says, "And it's time to get you out of the sewing room to see what this town is all about...." There are so many fantastic potential endings to this ellipsis... In N' Out Burger! Smog! Porcelain veneers! Sadly the end of Heidi's sentence turns out to be "Moviemaking." Tim is waiting at Stage 6 to tell the designers more. As they approach, we see that he is joined by Collier Strong, the L'Oreal spokesperson who shows up occasionally on the show for brand extension purposes, and to scare me with his bald head, piercing eyes, and craggy face. He kind of reminds me of Locke from Lost , if Locke was gay and spent his time taking Kate's look from tomboy to vamp instead of trying to, you know, kill Jacob and rule the island. Anyway. Tim says that he is on "real Hollywood soundstage" which is cute because that's not exactly rare. But Tim is holding a velvet bag, and I LOVE it when things get picked out of bags on this show. Seriously, Tim could pick Scrabble tiles out of that thing one by one and I would still watch with bated breath. It turns out that for this challenge the designers will select a film genre and create a character, whom they will then outfit. The genres are: Action/Adventure, Film Noir, Science Fiction, Period Piece, and Western. For a minute I was bummed that there was no Musicals category, but I quickly realized that no good could ever come of that. Immediately all of the designers interview that they will do anything but Western (What, guys, no Texas tuxedos?). Nic and Gordana are particularly horrified at the idea. Gordana says, "I don't know what to do with a Western. I'm not American." I know how she feels. I don't know what to do with those mini metric cans of Coke they have in Europe, not to mention the bidets. Irina gets to go first since she won the challenge and picks Film Noir. Then Tim draws names from the velvet bag (yay!). Logan picks Action/Adventure, as does Carol Hannah, who is called right after him. Ra'mon picks Science Fiction -- apparently he is a closet Trekkie! Louise picks Film Noir, somewhat obviously, as does Althea. Gordana picks Period Piece, Nic chooses Sci Fi, and Christopher picks Period Piece, which leaves Epperson and Shirin with Western. Poor Epperson. He gets picked last every time there is a bag drawing. It almost takes away from my enjoyment of the bag ceremony. Almost . Back at FIDM, Tim tells the designers that they have 30 minutes to sketch, $150 for Mood, and only one day to complete the challenge. People freak, understandably. Epperson is somewhat blocked, while Shirin settles on a saloon girl concept. Althea is going for a sexy assassin (which I totally didn't think of when I heard "Action/Adventure." I thought of Nicolas Cage in a crappy Hawaiian shirt trying to save the Declaration of Independence. And you know, I think I'm mixing up Raising Arizona with National Treasure .) Carol Hannah and Logan also both have Action/Adventure, and as they compare notes they interview that they are kind of BFFs. Who knew? Logan says that CH is the only "female" he connects with, which makes him sound creepy. CH, of course, thinks Logan is hot. Are they doing it? I totally would have thought Logan would go for an Althea or Irina type. But if it's true then good on you, Carol Hannah. Someone should be hitting that. The single straight man in the cast (who does not hail from "the Motor City" or make skorts ) is a terrible thing to waste. At Mood, everyone is haggling over yards of cheap fabric and Shirin is too short to reach anything by herself. I wish the Mood outings were more fraught with tension. I want people coming to blows over bolts of brocade. In the workroom, Epperson explains that he wanted Period Piece but has figured out how to make a Western period outfit. His character is a woman whose husband is off to war and she has to take care of cattle and carry a gun and stuff. Gordana, who does have Period Piece, has settled on the twenties (after, hilariously, briefly considering the eighties) because, as she says "that was when women became more emancipated." Nic is designing for one of "three queens who watch over the universe." I could not even make up something that good. And, forgive me for blaspheming here, but it makes me imagine the Father, Son and Holy Ghost as characters in Paris is Burning . They could even have a Biblical song! We three queens of Orient are... Ahem. Ra'mon-Lawrence is crafting a jumpsuit that, he says, is for a "human-alien hybrid." There is some transient drama in the sewing room when Louise loses her bobbin, and then she pretty much admits that she has no story, no character, and no idea what she's doing. Nic then actually has an interview in which he makes some decent points about how Louise does not have her shit together without seeming like a total dick. When Tim comes to assess the designers' progress, Chris has his hands all up in his mannequin's prairie skirt, Nic is hanging spangles on a white costume like ornaments on a tree, and Ra'mon-Lawrence is working on what looks like leisure wear for the Green Lantern. Gordana tells Tim that her flapper character "discovers oil" and is "coming out in society." Aw. I kind of love Gordana. Then Irina bitches that she can't see Gordana competing at Bryant Park and that the other designers are "on a different level." I think she should spend more time keeping up with the Kardashians and less time being a giant beyotch. Chris is making a Victorian period piece for what he calls a "vampire bride." Tim loves the look but balks at the bare arms, saying that they are not very Victorian. Of Epperson's Tim cries "Annie Get Your Gun!" (Which reminds me of yet another great Broadway muscial waiting to happen -- Annie Get Your Gunn . Starring Tim and Aileen Quinn. What ever happened to her?) Tim is seduced by Epperson's ruffles. I am also seduced by Ruffles, of the potato variety. Ra'mon-Lawrence's jumpsuit is made of scaly leather that looks almost skin-like. Tim says it could either be great or a big hot mess. Louise gets a thumbs down, as her relatively simple black dress is all about details and nuance that won't really read on the runway, especially for such a costumey challenge. Nic's sci-fi white Ice Queen gets the Gunn seal of approval. Nic says he is worried about Ra'mon and I kind of am, too. I am even more worried when, moments later, R-L fits his model into the green jumpsuit and admits that he is having second thoughts. "This is looking very Kermit the Frog gone wrong," he says. (And I must disagree that this is actually Kermit the Frog gone wrong). He decides to start from scratch with two hours to go. Everyone is going bananas as the clock ticks down to midnight. Nic shrieks like a girl and runs from the workroom. Shirin furrows her brow amidst a sea of taffeta. Louise cuts herself on the sewing machine, and we are treated to a far too-long close-up of her bloody finger. The next morning, the workroom is still crazy. All of the designers are doing last-minute work on their garments. R-L, who has crafted some sort of dress out of his lizard-skin fabric, thinks he'll rank in middle. Gordana needs lots of accessories, because without them her dress is kind of simple. Irina's dress looks whorey on the mannequin, and I wonder if she'll be told that without the immunity she'd be in the bottom two, as punishment for her bravado. Tim pops in with the models and advises the designers to "Work like there's no tomorrow, because for one of you there wont be!" Sad! Runway time! Heidi is rocking some sequined leggings, but of course she pulls them off. She is sartorially superhuman. The judges this week (don't worry, I won't yell; I'm all done with the rage stage and now I'm in denial) are John Varvatos, Zoe Glassner from Marie Claire , and a costume designer named Arianne Phillips, whose onscreen credit tells us she was nominated for an Oscar for Walk the Line . Here we go, y'all. Hold on to your butts. IRINA Since we saw basically nothing of Irina's process this episode, we left to decide for ourselves who this film noir character is. I'm thinking a dark re-imagining of Snow White set in a Spanish bordello. Which still doesn't explain the shower curtain liner cape. CAROL HANNAH Very Mrs. Smith., and I like that the trench comes off to reveal.... A badass patent leather bustier and a harness! The overall effect of this is very costume, but then I guess that was the point. SHIRIN Seeing as the saloon girl is kind of a cliche, I'm pleasantly surprised by what Shirin did with the skirt, with that poof of shocking pink. The bodice and styling aren't very original, though, and Bitchface always gets ten points off in my book for her, well, Bitchface. Maybe she should try SMIZE-ing . CHRIS This is one of my favorite looks of the episode. It's period, but also looks like it could be on a 2009 runway. There are so many different pieces but they all come together beautifully. The back, too is gorgeous. Check it: Chris must be in the top three, or I will fucking lose my tulle. NIC This reminds me of two things: One, the snowflakes in The Nutcracker , which I have seen at Lincoln Center approximately 25 times because my mother is a Balanchineaholic. Two, the White Witch from The Chronicles of Narnia , who scared me silly as a child and even more when she was played by Pringle spokeswoman Tilda Swinton in the recent movie. So I guess Nic makes a good villian (imagine me sarcastically slow-clapping right now). ALTHEA As always, pretty and polished, and, in keeping with the genre, very femme fatale. I think Althea will make it to Bryant Park with Chris. Bets on the third? RA'MON-LAWRENCE Eek. I know Ra'mon made this in two hours, and if you gave ME two hours and a handful of acid green leather I would probably make a place mat and order in Chinese... but this really does look a mess. I suspect that the original jumpsuit would have been better, and you know how I feel about jumpsuits. The model looks like she could be one of Audrey Two's singing buds in the final scene of Little Shop of Horrors . Don't feed the plants! LOUISE Boring, black and beaded: The Louise Black Story. I know Louise is a talented designer, but this isn't even her best work, and in this challenge it just doesn't cut it. This model wouldn't get hired as an extra in Clue! The Musical's Saskatchewan tour. EPPERSON Do not step to this woman's cattle. Seriously, she will scalp you. I'm so glad Epperson finally found his mojo. And I want that leather belt/holster thing, if only to hold my remote control. GORDANA Gordana's model looks supercute and very period, but I feel like without the accessories this would be really bland. I mean, if she wasn't wearing a wig, headband, gloves, necklaces... it would just be a dress, not a character. LOGAN OMG, this garment has bloody rips built into the leather! And the model is wearing bloody knuckle rags. The title of this episode should be Blood, Sweat, and... well, I want to say Queers, but that's not very sensitive. Show's over. Heidi calls the following designers forward: Logan, CH, Shirin, Irina, and Althea. They are safe (oh, come on, Irina should have gotten publicly shamed for that cape). That leaves Nic, Chris, Ra'mon-Lawrence, Louise, Epperson, and Gordana on the chopping block. In fairly obvious news, the top three this week are Chris, Nic, and Epperson. The judges love the wow factor of Chris's modern take on Victorian wear and no one brings up the bare arms. They like that Epperson has displayed an as-yet-unseen bravado, and they think Nic worked
 

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