Friday, September 4, 2009

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Ian Ruskin: Health Care and Other Communist Ideas Top
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting" --Milan Kundera The PBS airings over Labor Day weekend of From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks: the Life and Times of Harry Bridges , a film telling the story of a labor struggle that has it's 75th Anniversary this year, couldn't be more timely So many of the issues in radical labor leader Harry Bridges' life -- immigration, the right to organize (as tens of millions of Americans today, often the people who would benefit most from union membership, consider any ideas of organizing into unions as Socialistic at best), the fight against prejudice and discrimination, a war against an "ism", government surveillance of American citizens, the widening gap between the rich and everyone else -- are all still with us today, if in far more sophisticated and nuanced forms. And the on-going pitched battle to capture the imagination's understand of the "American Dream" continues. Is it to have the very remote chance of becoming a billionaire? Or more down to earth dreams of having a decent job, sending the kids to college, receiving quality health care and being able to retire with dignity? But the two issues that are particularly and painfully relevant today are war and health care. Harry Bridges saw war in terms of class struggle, where the workers fight and die as the capitalist bosses grow rich. This was as true in World War II, a war Bridges wholeheartedly supported, as it certainly is in the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars today. He considered the practice of invading foreign countries, including Korea and Vietnam among others, as immoral and counter-productive when these nations did not pose an actual "clear and present danger" to America and its citizens. I have no doubt that he would have felt the same about Iraq and Afghanistan America continues to lose these wars of invasion. It's hard to win a war against any guerrilla movement by killing large numbers of a country's population. Throughout the years this has continued to be a difficult lesson to learn when, as President, you control the most powerful military force ever known. Let's ask ourselves how many billions of dollars these wars have cost us, in addition to leading to the deaths of millions of civilians and many ten of thousands of American soldiers, and casting a dark shadow over America's credibility in the world. Conservative estimates, excluding any attempt to quantify the on-going cost to society of war vets unable to readjust to life after war, are that Korea cost $403 billion, Vietnam cost $686 billion, that Iraqi, according to a distinguished group of economists, will cost $3 trillion and Afghanistan $1 trillion. Add in a few minor invasions, and the total is about $6 trillion. 6 million million dollars. All to fight and, so far, lose wars against communists and terrorists, both of whom thrive on these continued invasions. No wonder America can't afford a national health care system. Bridges said very simply that America should have a national health system and once suggested the best way to get one would be to do away with health insurance for members of Congress. Contrary to some recently expressed views, in 1930 Bridges saw health care as a human right for all people. Not as socialism or communism or any other ism, but as a human right. And his view is shared today by every other industrialized nation on earth, but what would they know? They obviously don't realize that the fight against a national health care system is really the front line of the never-ending fight against Socialism and Communism. It's a miracle that America has survived as the land of the free, what with having over 40 years of Medicare..... Obama's plan would not be cheap. Economists say that it would cost 1.5 trillion dollars over 10 years. Yes that is a lot of money, but one quarter of the cost of decades of those American foreign invasions. How ironic that instead of contributing to the death of millions, we could have installed health care plans in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Not only would that have taken the wind out of the sails of those communists and terrorists and Al Qaeda, but also given all Americans what Bridges saw as a simple human right: the freedom to go to a doctor when you are sick and get the care you need. So the struggle between the liberal and the conservative, between the concepts of individual freedom and societal responsibility, the struggle to define that American Dream, continue. The propaganda and injustices of 1934 may seem unsophisticated and blatant to us today, but watch the film and you will see that, just below the surface, the same issues, if a little more urbane and refined, still permeate our society today. Ian Ruskin is co-producer of the film version of From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks airing on PBS stations nationwide over Labor Day Weekend. The film, also produced by Suzanne Thompson, was directed and shot by multi-Academy Award winner Haskell Wexler. For more information: http://theharrybridgesproject.org/ More on Health Care
 
Amb. Edward S. Walker, Jr.: The Thirteenth Palestinian Government Top
From the earliest days, once the Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat forced the United States back in 1978 to take an active role in resolving the Palestinian problem, we have largely focused our efforts on security and the key final status issues like borders and Jerusalem. President Bush embraced the policy of a two state solution, but aside from some discussions in the context of the Autonomy negotiations and in the Oslo process years ago, there has been very little focus on what the Palestinian State will look like, how it will be organized and what are the premises on which it will be based. Presumably, these are questions that the Palestinians will have to answer in due course. But, it is very hard for me to imagine that Israel, or for that matter the United States, is a disinterested party. Will the Palestinian state look like Gaza under Hamas? If that is the expectation then it is not very likely that negotiations on the final status, even if started, would ever result in an agreement. What we have all known for a long time is that Israel will not accept a hostile, independent state in the West Bank and Gaza and nor should it. If there was ever any doubt of this, all we need to do is to examine the Israeli and US reaction to Hamas' rule over Gaza. The Israelis will have to know who their neighbors are and will have to have a high degree of confidence that once a Palestinian state is established, it will not become a launching pad for attacks on Israel. Without a substantial degree of mutual confidence, issues like security, settlements, borders, Jerusalem and refugees cannot be resolved. This is not only a question of lines on a map. It is also a question of intentions. Certainly, the Palestinian record thus far does not fill one with confidence. The divided polity, the clinging to rhetoric instead of reality, the record of corruption in the Palestinian National Authority, and failure to govern effectively even in areas where the Authority has sway, creates the expectation of failure, instability, and continued hostility toward Israel as the path of least resistance. Palestinians have been reluctant to take on the hard issues of coming to grips with their internal differences using the excuse that with the Israelis hovering over every decision and intervening at will, the Palestinians cannot determine their own vision or begin the construction of their own state. They have been unwilling to take the difficult steps of forging a common Palestinian vision and policy in the absence of the concrete governmental structure of a State in being - until now. Now the Palestinian National Authority is advancing a new approach in its program of the thirteenth government entitled "Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State" published in August 2009. This is a document that has received little notice in the media, but which lays out a picture of a Palestinian state that could, if implemented, enable a constructive process of peace making. The document includes a forward by Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Prime Minister that sets out the objectives of the Government for the next two years as a "full commitment to this state-building endeavor" and emphasizes that such a program is "critical" to the "creation of the independent state of Palestine on the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital." Fayyad's formulation in his cover letter is interesting since it is not found in the document itself. He refers to "East" Jerualem - the document consistently refers to "Jerusalem" without any modifier. The document itself has problems such as repeated references to UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which established the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees to their homes based on their free choice. However, the document assigns responsibility of dealing with the refugees to the Palestinian Liberation Organization and not to the Palestinian Authority or its government. The agenda that the program of the 13th government has set out is surprisingly detailed, which is unusual for political documents that have to appeal to a broad constituency. What is even more surprising is the level of self-criticism that is implied by the document. Repeated references to the need for auditing government functions would appear to be in response to the heavy criticism of the Authority as being corrupt. It would also tend to indicate that over the 17 years that the Palestinian Authority has been in existence, virtually no reforms have taken place, no strategic plan has been developed, no consensus on goals and vision has been reached, and that there has been little or no effort to establish the foundation for a viable Palestinian state. A lot of the credit for this dysfunctional history has to be laid at the feet of Yasser Arafat whose style of governing was divide, conquer and never decide. While one could nit-pick the program. Certainly there are aspects that will cause heartburn particularly within the Palestinian community, but also among some Israelis. Furthermore, there is a long distance between statements of intention and facts on the ground. It remains to be seen if Abu Mazen and Salam Fayyad can deliver on the vision and reform. But it is virtually certain, in my view, that without such an effort on the part of the Palestinians, there will be no peace agreement, no Palestinian state, and no respite from terrorism. The program's success is, as Prime Minister Fayyad says, essential if a peace agreement is to be reached. The program is predicated on and designed to help achieve the unification of the Palestinian polity, without which I do not give the peace process a snowball's chance of succeeding. This is the very first time that we have seen a concrete, rational, official Palestinian projection of what a Palestinian state might look like and how it could sustain peace as a democracy based on the rule of law. That has been an important missing ingredient in all the past efforts to concoct a peace between Israelis and the Palestinians. We should give Salam Fayyad our full support and help him make his vision real. Cross-posted at Ambassador Blog and The Mideast Peace Pulse.
 
James P. Hoffa: Happy 'Enlightened' Labor Day Top
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said this week that workers in the United States apparently don't want to join unions because of the "very enlightened management in this country now, treating employees better and employees have decided they don't want to pay the dues." McConnell, R-Ky., husband of the most anti-union Labor Secretary in history, enlightened the rest of the country with his ridiculous reason claiming why no Republican will vote for the Employee Free Choice Act To borrow from Rep. Barney Frank, McConnell must spend most of his time on a planet that's much better than the planet the rest of us live on. In truth, the Employee Free Choice Act is desperately needed on my planet, where 16 workers die on the job every day because managers ignore their health and safety. On my planet, field workers die of heat exhaustion. Laundry workers are killed by dangerous machinery. Exhausted airline pilots die in crashes. Here's something else very enlightened managers do on my planet: cheat poor workers of their wages. Last week, 68 percent of low-paid workers were victimized by wage violations, according to a new University of Chicago report. The typical worker had lost $51 the previous week through wage violations, out of average weekly earnings of $339. So-called enlightened Amerijet managers forced pilots and flight engineers to strike on Aug. 27. Fort Lauderdale-based Amerijet doesn't put working toilets on its Boeing 727s, which fly from Florida to Venezuela and the Caribbean. Amerijet's female pilots are forced to relieve themselves by squatting over bags. Male pilots urinate into bags hanging just outside the cockpit doors. There are no sanitary facilities in which to wash. Amerijet managers are so enlightened they think it's a good policy to force exhausted, hungry, sick pilots to fly long hours. The company pays a small fortune to union-busting lawyers who have prevented Teamster pilots from negotiating a contract for 5-1/2 years. But Amerijet managers pay their co-pilots less than $35,000 a year. Sen. McConnell might be surprised to learn of the outpouring of support for the Amerijet strikers from their dues-paying Teamster brothers and sisters in the airline and trucking industries. Teamster maintenance workers and cleaners at Miami International Airport are refusing to cross the picket lines. Amerijet's picket line is being walked by unions at American, US Airways, Southwest, JetBlue, UPS, the Air Line Pilots Association and the Coalition of Airline Pilots Association. Other South Florida unions, as well as organized labor in the Caribbean and South America, are supporting the strikers. So-called enlightened managers make life difficult for school bus drivers, who have an important job that requires skill and hard work. This is how managers at one private school bus company treated its drivers before they became Teamsters: At several depots, the toilet paper was removed from the employees' bathroom. Workers had to ask for it at the office. They would get four or five squares. Along with shabby treatment, school bus drivers earn low pay and enjoy few benefits. The Teamsters are building a movement of school bus and transit workers to change that. Almost 30,000 school bus and transit workers became Teamsters in the last three years. They are now seeing real improvements in their jobs and in their lives. We are organizing school bus workers at First Student, Bauman/Acme and Durham School Services. Next week, we plan to file petitions with the National Labor Relations Board to unionize 3,500 school bus drivers, aides, attendants, monitors and mechanics at 30 yards across the country. Studies show that millions more workers would belong to unions if they had the chance. We are working hard to pass the Employee Free Choice Act over Sen. McConnell's objections. Workers need the chance to decide for themselves - without being spied on, threatened, interrogated or fired by their employers - whether to join a union. The Employee Free Choice Act would give them that chance. Enjoy your well-deserved holiday, brought to you by America's labor unions.
 
Linda Bergthold: What do you want Obama to say Wednesday night? Top
President Obama will address a joint session of Congress next Wednesday night (September 9th) and make his case for health reform. What do YOU want him to say? All the media are saying this is high wire, high risk speech-making for the President. And perhaps it is. But it is what we expected from him all along. We hoped that his sense of timing would mean that he would start really putting himself on the line sometime in September, after Congress had had the chance to draft its legislation. And so it has come to pass (Biblical allusion intentional). This weekend, Obama and his speech writers and advisors will be drafting his address. As many organizations have noted, now is the time to make your views known. There are a couple of options I can think of: 1) Make an emotional and moral appeal for health reform. Talk about people dying and suffering without health insurance or going broke with it. Explain why it is a disgrace that the U.S. does not cover all its citizens while every other industrialized country has done so for a long time. Maybe mention his mother and grandmother again. 2) Make a more factual and analytic appeal . Talk about costs (again). Show connection with the deficit. Explain how health reform can be funded. Get specific. 3) Use the time to knock back the myths and lies about health reform. Shame the Republicans in the Chamber for their death panel, granny-killing, abortion-covering, Medicare destroying lies. 4) Come out swinging . Remind those who voted for him why they did. Stand firmly behind the public option. Be tough. 5) Be bipartisan . Reach out to Republicans in the Chamber. Do not embarrass them. Ask them to join him in passing health reform. Make some compromises and offer yet another olive branch. Suggest the public option as a trigger if private plans don't behave. 6) Some combination of the above . But with what emphasis? How much detail? What do you think Jane Q. Public will or can hear? This weekend is the time to make your opinions known. But be constructive. There has been plenty of mindless opposition this summer. If you don't like one of the above options, explain why and give your own suggestion. Maybe someone in the White House will listen!
 
James Moore: The Lies of Texas Are Upon You Top
"Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love." - Butch Hancock, Musician, the Flatlanders A friend called to talk about his daughter being caught in the middle of one of the kinds of controversies that only happen in Texas. His daughter's teacher had sent an email that her school was not going to show the president's national address to students in their school. My buddy Marcus is African-American and Native American, holds two degrees, and does not very well countenance stupidity and hypocrisy. "It's not exactly a political speech," he said. "He's going to tell kids to work hard and stay in school and get a good education, and take personal responsibility for their actions." "Of course not," I conceded, "But Obama is a democrat and African-American and this is Texas." "Yeah, well, I'm going to get Mia from class and bring her home to watch the speech and then take her back. This is garbage." Actually, it is more like intellectual pus, a kind of deadly ooze that keeps infecting our national discourse. We tell people not to mess with Texas but that's because we reserve the right to mess it up ourselves, which we are doing quite effectively. This latest hypocrisy, though, is almost beyond imagining, but is a logical next de-evolutionary step for progressive thinking under the Lone Star. During the campaigns and administrations of both Presidents Bush and Ronald Reagan, speeches and public appearances were almost mandatory for students and the religion of those leaders was forced on the crowds gathered in the taxpayer built gymnasiums. I cannot count the times that I attended political rallies as a journalist during school hours where students were told to leave class and come provide a crowd for the Republican candidates. Invariably, at many of these, I was standing next to my friend, a Pulitzer-winning journalist who is Jewish, as a Christian prayer was offered and the name of Jesus was invoked. Nobody saw the contradictions and hypocrisies. In Texas, we see this as a positive attribute, taking kids out of classes for candidate rallies and force feeding them the candidate's religion. Hell, we're doing even better than that in our school system. A number of boards of education have voted to begin teaching the bible in public schools. A statement from a school board in Central Texas indicated that the class will be optional and will teach the bible as "an historical document." Oddly enough, we aren't teaching about the Koran's historical impact and power and that might be a handy piece of knowledge in the future for our children. I think the constitution is as clear on this matter as it is on the right to keep and bear arms. Church and state are to be separated. No damned religion of any kind or any of its texts should be taught in public schools. But this is Texas and the long, proud march backwards presses on; except we may soon begin dragging the nation with us into the 18th century. Because so many textbooks are published for our vast public school system, the curriculum standards adopted by the Texas State Board of Education have great influence beyond the Red and Sabine Rivers. Annually, while the rest of the world has acknowledged science, our textbook committee has to debate creationism and intelligent design and including religious faith in science books. When science rears its little head we have the bludgeons to whack it back into a hidey-hole, and when politics moves away from progressive, free-thinking, historical analysis, we teach the Rovian Revisionism of great events and personalities. The newest effort by our school board is designed to make certain our students know that McCarthyism wasn't all that bad and that students need to be able to identify significant conservative organizations and leaders. This is coming out of the textbook committee's latest hearings and, even though board members want Texas children to learn about conservatives, whom they identify in their recommendations, they make no point to mention progressive groups or personalities. According to TalkingPointsMemo, one of the board members griped about "too much emphasis on multiculturalism" when it was noted that World War II led to greater female and minority employment. Another member, scribbling in the margin of a critique of the textbooks notes that, "...if McCarthyism is noted, then the Venona papers need to be explained that exonerates him." (Fabulous grammar from a Texas public school grad risen to political prominence.) There was also a note suggesting that Charlton Heston's speech on the culture war, which made conservative hearts pound with joy, was a good topic for a textbook's section on "effective leadership." The standards on Richard Nixon say that the text should "describe his role in the normalization of relations with China and the policy of détente." Maybe, just maybe, we can squeeze in a line about Watergate and resignation in disgrace and nearly destroying the constitution with corruption but be certain you cover China and détente. So this is Texas, folks, created by god 10,000 years ago with all fossils and fossil fuels in place, where black presidents are not allowed to encourage our children, there are two sides to every story, even McCarthyism, Richard Nixon is the man that saved the world, and the bible is a text book, and FOX NEWS is on every TV screen in every airport and public place in the land. I suppose I'm obligated to mention that our governor is aligned with a secessionist group and appears at rallies citing our constitutional right to secede and, oh, I forgot to tell you about how we voted three to one in 1975 to ban gay marriage. Y'all come on down. Also posted at www.moorethink.com
 
Lobster Wars Turn Violent In Maine Top
MATINICUS ISLAND, Maine — Life here is defined by the ocean. It's the ocean that feeds the livelihoods of the lobstermen. It's the ocean that dictates the weather. And it's 20 miles of ocean that separates Matinicus from the mainland and makes it a world apart. The ocean's bountiful waters have also been a source of strife here for as long as anyone can remember. Lobster fishermen have feuded for generations over who can set traps, and where. To protect their fishing grounds, the lobstermen here have been known to cut trap lines, circle their boats menacingly around unwelcome vessels and fire warning blasts from shotguns. With lobster prices down, the animosity has been particularly shrill this summer. On a July morning, it reached the boiling point when a longtime lobsterman and his daughter drew guns on two fellow islanders. The lobsterman fired, shooting a man he had known for decades in the neck, police reported. The shooting has shone a spotlight on a long-standing territorial system all along the ragged Maine coast that gives fishermen unofficial rights to specified waters. The rights are legally unenforceable but important and usually accepted. Nowhere are they more strictly enforced than around Matinicus Island, home to a fleet of three dozen lobster boats whose crews have a reputation for outlaw behavior. "Every harbor in the state has a piece of bottom they call their own. I would be willing to bet every fishing harbor in the world does the same thing and has been doing it since man went out in a boat to fish," said Clayton Philbrook, a lifelong Matinicus fisherman. "It's just that we've gotten the reputation that we do seriously hold the line. We have to." Matinicus has a reason for feeling that it's on its own. Slightly smaller than New York's Central Park, the island is the farthest offshore of Maine's 15 year-round island communities. It's so isolated that the ferry only comes once a month in wintertime, when barely two dozen people live there. There are no restaurants or gas stations, and islanders fax their orders to a mainland grocery store. Locals now want the state to create a special zone around Matinicus so only full-time residents can fish the waters. Such a move would cut down on the hostility while ensuring the island community's viability, lobstermen say. "We have a golden area to fish in," Ron Watkinson said as he prepared to go out to his boat in Matinicus Harbor before sunrise one recent morning. "Instead of us having to enforce the boundaries, the Marine Patrol would enforce them." Matinicus lobstermen fish with more than 20,000 traps and there's only so much ocean bottom to go around. Some liken the fishermen to the pioneers who claimed farmland in frontier America. "The only difference between this place and the family farms that were settled out West is our land is covered with water," said Marty Molloy, who lives on Matinicus and runs a business buying lobsters from fishermen. Marine Patrol Col. Joseph Fessenden said he respects the unofficial, self-policing territorial system that lobstermen live by – but laws must be respected. "We don't let them do their cowboy thing," Fessenden said. Vandalism and violence to enforce the unwritten rules have cropped up in many places. This summer, in Owls Head along the state's midcoast, somebody sank two lobster boats and partially sank a third. And once in Portland Harbor, a crew rammed their boat into another vessel, jumped aboard and struggled with the other crew before being tossed overboard. Still, Matinicus has more than its share of run-ins – from smelly bait herring dumped in a gasoline tank, disabling a boat, to raccoons, considered pests, dumped on the island, apparently by a man prevented from fishing there. A few years ago, two island fishermen were charged after one fired a shotgun across the bow of the other's boat when it crossed his wake at high speed. But this summer saw a more serious incident. Alan Miller knew he wasn't welcome to set his traps in waters around Matinicus. Miller, 59, is from Wheelers Bay, a small mainland harbor 20 miles across Penobscot Bay, but he reckoned he was entitled to fish Matinicus waters because his wife, Janan, and his father-in-law, Vance Bunker, were lifelong Matinicus residents. Bunker, who has homes on the island and the mainland, shared his son-in-law's belief. But others disagreed. Matinicus lobstermen had voted more than once against allowing Miller to fish around the island. The votes were cast in secret ballots at annual meetings fishermen used to hold the first Sunday of each June in the basement of the island's white-steepled church. (Fishermen put an end to the meetings two years ago after being accused of conspiracy in a still-pending federal lawsuit filed by a lobsterman who had been voted down.) Nonetheless, Miller this year set hundreds of his traps with their Day-Glo pink buoys in Matinicus waters. Predictably, it wasn't long before somebody cut the lines to many traps, leaving them sitting on the ocean bottom. Replacing a trap can cost $70 to $100. "He's from Wheelers Bay," said Matinicus lobsterman David A. Ames. "If I went to Wheelers Bay and set my traps, they'd be gone the next day." Early on the morning of July 20, Marine Patrol officers were called to the island on a report of an altercation between Bunker and Chris Young, a 41-year-old Matinicus lobsterman. Bunker, 68, grew up with Young's father and has known the son all his life. But tempers were hot that morning. Bunker told officers Young jumped on his boat at 5:45 a.m., accused him of cutting his trap lines and tussled with him, so he sprayed Young with pepper spray. A short time later, officers received a report that Matinicus fishermen were circling their boats around Miller's vessel outside the harbor. Marine Patrol police responded, and Officer Wes Dean rode back into the harbor on Miller's boat as a precaution. They arrived at Steamboat Wharf at about 10 a.m. That was when Bunker pulled up to the wharf in a pickup truck and confronted Young and Weston Ames, Young's sternman – and when Janan Miller stepped out from behind a stack of lobster traps and leveled a 12-gauge shotgun at Young and Ames, according to investigators' reports. When Ames tried to push the shotgun barrel away, Bunker pulled a pistol from his holster and fired at him, police said. He missed. Bunker turned, took aim at Young and fired again, investigators said. The bullet struck Young in the neck and he fell to the ground. Dean, the Marine Patrol officer, scrambled up and ordered Bunker to drop his weapon. The wounded Young was flown to a mainland hospital, where he underwent surgery. The bullet fragmented upon impact, with parts of it coming within 3 millimeters of Young's spinal column, according to a lawsuit he filed against Bunker; it also said Young suffered serious neurological damage in his hands and arm. Bunker said he shot in self-defense, claiming he had been threatened in the previous days and that he pulled his gun because he feared that he and his daughter were going to be shot when Ames grabbed for the shotgun. "When there's a lot of verbal threatening going on and people threatening to kill you or threatening to beat you up or threatening to kill your family, I feel you better pay attention to make sure they ain't going do it," Bunker said in an interview with The Associated Press. A pillar of the community on Matinicus, who won a prestigious Carnegie Hero award for helping save two crewmen from a sinking tugboat on a frigid January night in 1992, Bunker remains free on $125,000 bail. The wharf encounter was the first time anyone remembers a lobsterman in Maine being shot in a dispute over fishing grounds. "It gives us all a bad name," said Darlene Ames, who works as a sternman on her husband's boat. The reality, islanders insist, is that Matinicus is a quiet community where people work hard and help their neighbors. Nat Hussey moved from the mainland to Matinicus in 2006 with his wife and three children. Hussey is a lawyer, but he now makes a living on a lobster boat where he spends his days filling bait bags and banding lobster claws with rubber bands. "Your neighbors aren't just people you wave to here," Hussey said. "They're people you rely on, and who rely on you." Out here, not only does everybody know everybody, they know the sound each other's vehicles make while traveling the island's 4.1 miles of dirt roads. Islanders drive rusting pickup trucks with busted-out headlights and taillights and leave their keys in the ignition. They aren't required to get their vehicles inspected, and many don't have license plates. Residents think of their 2-by-1 1/2-mile island – where just five children attended the K-8 school last year – as a world unto itself. They jokingly refer to the mainland as America and have hung a "Matinicus International Air-Strip" sign at the island's 1,528-foot dirt-and-gravel airstrip. Penobscot Island Air flies a seven-seat plane from the mainland for $50 one-way, weather permitting; rain and fog often ground the flights. A water taxi will take you from island to shore for $50, again subject to the unpredictable weather and seas. There's little tourism. A small bed-and-breakfast, a gift shop and a store where people can pick up sandwich makings, beer, chips and ice cream are about the only businesses. For the most part, islanders like things just the way they are. "We don't want a big influx of people coming to the island, because we can't accommodate it," said Donna Rogers, an artist who has lived here with her lobsterman husband for some 30 years. Maine accounts for 80 percent of the nation's lobster catch. The state's nearly 6,000 licensed fishermen caught nearly 70 million pounds in 2008. The most successful fishermen, known as "highliners," can make more than $100,000 a year after expenses, though many fall short of that. The waters of Penobscot Bay, where Matinicus is located, are as productive as any. But times are tough these days. This summer, lobstermen have been getting under $3 a pound for their catch, about $1 less than in recent years. It would help greatly, locals say, if the state would approve their request to create an official Matinicus fishing zone where outsiders would be barred from setting traps – similar to zones off two other Maine islands, Monhegan and Swan's. Clayton Philbrook, whose family has been here since the 1820s, says he doesn't want his son, Nick – a 28-year-old who named his boat "Destitute" – to be the last of the Philbrook line to fish here. "If we lose control of the bottom so people can't make a living, the town's gone. That's it," Clayton Philbrook said. "And we don't want that." More on Animals
 
Carl Pope: Putting the Fun Back in Childhood Top
Washington, DC -- It's staggering how high the bar for being shocked has become in our capital city. Three years ago, the Sierra Club exposed that children's toys had become a toxic melange of lead and other poisons, courtesy of a global supply chain that values low price over everything. After a huge round of initial outcry, the EPA and Consumer Product Safety Commission sluggishly began to respond. But even though new federal standards were established for lead in toys, companies kept making and shipping and selling toys that violated those standards. Just last month I heard a radio program about how common poison toys are on the shelves of discount toy retailers in the San Francisco Bay Area. Then, last year, the EPA proposed new rules that would have perpetuated the single largest source of childhood exposure to lead -- paint in homes. The Sierra Club and others sued, challenging the rules. Last week the EPA agreed to remove the loopholes from its proposed rules and move forward to protect kids. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson made her position very clear: "As both EPA Administrator and as a mother, my highest priority is protecting our children from environmental threats in the places where they live, play and learn. Lead is still present in many of our neighborhoods, but we can limit exposure to children and adults by working together on comprehensive actions like these." Jackson also announced that the EPA would take a number of other steps designed to reduce overall risks from childhood exposure to lead. This is wonderful. But really, why did it require three years of litigation to get this far? How do the companies that sell those toxic toys, now knowingly, justify what they are doing? How can landlords and contractors continue to sell buildings that they know will poison the next generation? And how did Washington find it acceptable for previous EPA regulators to simply stonewall cleanup measures that are this simple and ethically essential?
 
Glenn Beck Clones Himself Because He "Loves America" (VIDEO) Top
DDT-loving , NBC-art-hating Glenn Beck , who has made the leap from average nutjob to leader of the deranged in the past year , has finally taken the next inevitable step in his self-obsession: cloning. Now he has someone who supports him wholly in his war on normalcy, despite the fact that he's being abandoned by advertisers left and right. WATCH: Glenn Beck & Glenn Beck are Back - watch more funny videos Get HuffPost Comedy On Facebook and Twitter! More on Funny Or Die
 
Paula Crossfield: Bad Seed Farm in Kansas City Brings Urban Farming to the Next Level: Legislation Top
Urban farming is not new -- its been a way to feed cities for thousands of years. But in the US, it was purposely planned out of our cities, even as they grew bigger and, as a result, hungrier. Now many of our cities contain massive sprawl, which have created new opportunities in the form of abandoned lots, a consequence of the economic downturn. But we also have a mobilized movement of individuals interested in feeding people, especially those without access to healthy fruits and vegetables (many of whom reside in cities). But connecting these dots is sometimes more complicated than it seems. As urban farming takes hold across the nation, reviving old school ways of supporting communities with homegrown food, it will inevitably bump into resistance in the form of outdated laws and legislative confusion around this up and coming issue, in addition to complaints by neighbors who don't see the value in having a farm nearby when there are still packed shelves at the supermarket. These neighbors worry about their views, are disturbed by farm animal noises and deposits, and fear property value declines, which have more to do with economics than kale. These anticipated problems now have a face -- Bad Seed Farm is at the center of a neighborhood zoning debate in Kansas City, Missouri. The farm is run by two forward thinking young agriculturalists, Brooke Salvaggio and her husband Dan Heryer, both age 27, who pulled up a half acre of her grandfather's lawn (with his blessing) to plant their urban farm. The two provide local organic produce to city residents via their store front farmer's market and run a popular CSA. But the farm is located in a more affluent section of the city, where it could be viewed as "rubbing up against the suburban ideal" of perfectly manicured lawns, said Katherine Kelly, Executive Director of the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture . "As more people get into urban agriculture, it becomes more visible to the neighbors," said Kelly. "As [urban farming] becomes a business... people start having opinions about it." Bad Seed is one of around fifty urban farms in greater Kansas City, where almost 22% of inhabitants were living below the poverty line in 2007, and unemployment jumped around 5 points (to 13.1% in Kansas City, KS, and 10.4% in Kansas City, MO) in the last year. This particular case has brought to the fore an issue which is bound to come up again and again as growing food changes the cityscape: how do we value urban land, and what are the existing laws on the books that keep urban agriculture from flourishing and feeding locals? Kelly took part in a meeting with some of the legislators and the Bad Seed farmers this morning. Prior to the meeting, the urban farmers had been warned that they could be in violation of a zoning law that states that no business can be conducted in a residential zone. Technically, Salvaggio and Heryer should be exempt as they only sell produce through their store front farm stand nearby. But the law is not nuanced enough and so is open for interpretation in the case of growing produce. The house on the property serves as the primary use of the land, a residence. Today, the legislators clarified that as long as Salvaggio and Heryer are the only two farming on their land, their urban farm will be considered an accessory use, instead of a competing primary use. Though restrictive (no volunteers, specific delivery hours to follow, etc) this is great news. The Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture is working on re-writing the code with city council members to more clearly accommodate urban farming, in an era when more and more unemployed people, hunger advocates and beginning farmers are looking for just these kinds of opportunities to grow in urban settings. "I think this is a sign of the maturing of the urban agriculture movement," Kelly said. "Urban farming is part of a a new emerging definition of the city... We are eager to work with planning and development officials to develop new codes addressing urban agriculture." More on Food
 
Samuel S. Epstein: The National Cancer Institute Should Delay Its Collaboration With Love/Avon Top
In August 2009, the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG) and the Love/Avon Army of Women announced that they intended to collaborate. Their objective is to develop a computerized initiative to recruit and study women is order to improve the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of breast cancer. What could be a more important and worthy objective? Dr. Susan Love is a well-known and leading national breast cancer surgeon. The Avon Foundation is a non-profit organization of Avon Products, a leading global beauty company. Avon is the world's largest direct seller, which markets to women in over 100 countries through independent sales representatives. Relating to a November 2008 prominent advertisement by Avon Products in The New York Times , I identified a wide range of toxic ingredients in their products: --Benzophenone-1 (hormonal and penetration enhancer) in Nail Experts Nail Brightener. --Methylparaben (hormonal), ethylparaben (hormonal), and imidazolidinyl urea (cancer precursor) in Wash-Off Waterproof Mascara. --Ceteareth-20 (cancer precursor), and disodium EDTA (penetration enhancer) in Advance Techniques Body Building Conditioner. --PEG-80 sorbitan laurate, and PEG-10 rapeseed sterol (cancer precursors) in Anew Beauty Youth-Awakening Lipstick. I communicated these disturbing concerns to Avon's Chief Scientific Officer. However, she responded dismissively. I then informed Dr. Love of these concerns. She replied reassuringly, but non-responsively, to the effect that this information "could be used for future research by Love/Avon." However, and of major concern, is persuasive evidence that has accumulated over the last decade, that parabens are readily absorbed through the skin, and that they pose powerful hormonal or estrogenic effects even at very low concentrations. Parabens have shown to be readily absorbed through the skin of immature female rodents, and to stimulate premature uterine growth. Parabens have also been shown to stimulate the growth of breast cancer cells in laboratory tests, and incriminated as possible causes of breast cancer. In should be further stressed that parabens are the commonest of all ingredients in cosmetics and personal care products. As disturbingly, it has been estimated that women are exposed to high levels, as much as 50 milligrams of parabens daily, from cosmetics and personal care products. Of additional and generally unrecognized concern is that other ingredients, benzophenone, and EDTA, are "penetration enhancers." These facilitate their own absorption, and that of other toxic ingredients in any product, deeply through the skin. These longstanding public health concerns have been further strengthened by an August 2009 publication in the Journal of Clinical Oncology . This warned of the dangers of unknowing exposures, and risks of "estrogenically active compounds" in women using moisturizing creams containing hormonal ingredients. Based on these considerations, the NCI should insist that Avon reformulate its products to phase out all toxic ingredients and replace them by safe alternatives before proceeding with this important initiative. If Avon is unwilling to do this, the NCI should terminate its relationship with the Love/Avon initiative. Samuel S. Epstein, M.D. is professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health; Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition ; The Albert Schweitzer Golden Grand Medalist for International Contributions to Cancer Prevention; and author of over 200 scientific articles and 15 books on the causes and prevention of cancer, including the groundbreaking The Politics of Cancer (1979), and Toxic Beauty (2009). More on Health
 
Una LaMarche: Project Runway Episode 3 Recap: Capital WTF Top
I watched Project Runway with my mother this week, and so will intersperse her comments throughout this recap (this year I also watched the Oscars with her and live-blogged her bitchy comments. Ah, family bonding). When the "previously on" scenes began and Malvin the Eggman appeared, my mom yelled, "He was robbed !" (In the interest of full disclosure, we had downed a few bottles of wine by this point -- why does PR start so late? The following recap may be somewhat affected.) The day starts, as always, at the apartments on the morning after the previous elmination, "Anotha day, anotha dolla," says Ra'mon Lawrence, presumably referring to the money he has riding on Mitchell's imminent elimination. Logan lolls on a nearby bed. Is it just me, or does he always seem stoned? Perhaps it is just his straightness weighing him down. That and the ironic ponytail. On the runway, Heidi struts out as per usual to present the designers with their challenge. It is something, she says, that no trip to California would be complete without. "Remember to bring your sunscreen," she advises. I don't know if it's clever editing or if the designers are just really dense, but it seems to take awhile for them to collectively figure out that they are going to a beach. Christopher, who has spent his life landlocked in Minnesota, is extra excited. When they arrive oceanside, Tim Gunn is wearing flip flops and no tie, which normally would be a sign of the apocalypse but in this case is simply a tool to illustrate the challenge. Tim tells the designers that they are to create a "fun and fashionable surfwear look." It is also a Garnier challenge, which means that in addition to the outfits, the models' hairstyles will be judged. The Garnier goal is a "just off the beach look," which I am personally very familiar with. It involves a ratty Mets cap and at least three hair elastics, and is not easy to pull off. Good luck, designers. This challenge is a team challenge, so Tim chooses seven captains, who then pick their teammates as follows: Shirin/Carol Hannah (whom I shall christen Team Irksome) Logan/Christopher (Team Cutiepants, or the Half Ambiguously Gay Duo) Nic/Gordana (Team EuroFab) Mitchell/Ra'mon Lawrence (Team of the Damned) Althea/Louise (Team I Don't Really Care) Qristyl/Epperson (The Elder Statesmen) Johnny/Irina (I am running out of ideas, so how about Hall & Oates? I would pay big money to see them as a cover band, with Irina wearing a mustache.) It's worth noting at this point that some women are standing around with surfboards. "Talk to them," Tim urges. "They have valuable information for you, I'm certain." Um, one of the women is wearing a neon argyle print bikini top with matching Bermuda shorts, so the valuable information she has may be that she is legally blind. Back in the work room, Ra'mon Lawrence sagely notes that being paired with Mitchell is like having "a giant Bullseye painted on my face." (Mitchell, by the way, reveals that his strategy in picking Ra'mon was to find a good designer who could "carry him." Methinks the bullseye still falls squarely on Mitchell.) Carol Hannah and Shirin are crafting "a dress that turns into a swimsuit"...is the ghost of Ari advising them? Wasn't her goal in life to make, like, a gimme cap that turned into a camper? Nic declares that he is "bringing back the wraparound pant." The term "wraparound pant" confused and concerned me, so I did a Google search which revealed that wraparound pants (I refuse to use the word "pant" in the singular) are sort of like the enormous-legged rave pants favored by my college boyfriend in 1999, but also resemble parachute pants fitted with a cape for one's ass. This mental image was too much for my poor brain, which short-circuited and seized and made up the following song (apologies to Justin Timberlake): I'm bringing ass capes back (Yeah!) They're easy-fitting so don't talk no smack (Yeah!) Adjust the size if saddlebags detract (Yeah!) Shit, MC Hammer called--he wants them back. (Make it work!) Roomy, babe I look like a genie, baby I'm your slave Let's drop some acid and go to a rave No other pant can make me feel this way... [Awkward silence.] Moving on. Tim arrives with a message from Heidi: each team must create a second, avant garde look that should compliment their surfwear look. The teams will get more money and an extra trip to Mood. Ra'mon Lawrence, who is fast establishing himself as king of the one-liners, expresses his shock thusly: "Ladies and gentlemen, capital WTF." After the second trip to Mood, Qristyl and Epperson are bickering over pretty much everything. Qristyl is the team captain but bitches that Epperson is taking over and making all the decisions. I'm sorry, but this complaint does not fly, and just makes Qristyle seem like kind of a bitch ("He's so much more mature than she is," Mom notes.) Over at the newly-named Team Bullseye headquarters, Ra'mon is making something brown and shiny that he says was inspired by a wetsuit. ("Oh, this is going to be awful ," says Mom.) Mitchell, grinning from ear to ear, acknowledges yet again that he sucks. "I'm in big, big trouble!" he laughs. Oh, Mitchell. You so crazy. Tim is back, "The prophet of doom has returned!" he announces. It turns out that Carol Hannah's model Erika has landed her coveted Arby's commercial and will not be able to be there for the fitting. CH decides to jettison the Future Roastburger Queen of North America and chooses instead to bring back Valerie, best known as Malvin's ill-fated Mother Hen from the last challenge. Tim then peruses the designers' half-finished outfits. Nic is inspired by the sea, and interviews that his avant garde piece is made for "a seawoman, like in the movie Splash ." In actuality it is made of white and blue lace, has a giant crotch hole, and resembles something that an 80s-era call girl might wear. (Also, and unrelated, I miss Darryl Hannah, don't you? Darryl Hannah and Carol Hannah should form a burlesque troop and perform all of the singles from Madonna's True Blue album wearing Nic's lace bodysuits. Again, Broadway, you are welcome.) Over at Qristyl and Epperson's table, Tim considers their surfwear garment, which is green and white and sort of detaches to become a bathing suit top and skirt. "I was thinking we were going to see panties," Tim says. "And then all that sophistication went away for me." You know you're in trouble when Tim says that your look lacks the sophistication of panties. The morning of the runway show finds Ra'mon Lawrence scrambling to redo his team's avant garde look. The brown wetsuit has been scrapped and he's now putting the finishing touches on an ombre dress and a neoprene garment that he's dyeing by hand. Mitchell, meanwhile, is chattering away about how fucked they are. The models arrive, get fitted, Garnier'd, and L'Oreal'd, and then it's runway time! Michael Kors is very disappointingly still AWOL and has been replaced this week by Max Azria, who I immediately confuse with Hank Azaria, the actor who voices Apu and Chief Wiggum on The Simpsons . (I wonder what a BCBG Hank Azaria dress would look like?) Nina Garcia still has nothing better to do than show up, and the celebrity guest judge this week is Rachel Bilson. ALTHEA and LOUISE I don't know how these are supposed to relate to one another, plus the "surfwear" look is just sort of a bikini with a coverup, plus the "avant garde" look is not avant garde unless you define avant garde as "sparkly eveningwear"...but I guess both garments are well-made. CHRISTOPHER and LOGAN Now this is awesome. The first look says "badass surfer girl" and I kind of love--though would never wear--the pants. The avant garde look is simply amazing. It looks like what Sidney Bristow might wear if she had to attend a high fashion ball but then afterwards escape through an underground waterway (this scenario assumes that the skirt is detachable; otherwise she would drown). JOHNNY and IRINA Someone please explain to me why "brown" is an acceptable theme. The first look is cute enough, although its relation to surfwear--a macrame bathing suit--is completely hidden. The avant garde look is not so much boundary-pushing as just plain busted. Is the bodice made from one of those make-your-own-potholder looms we all used to own in like second grade? The model looks depressed. MITCHELL and RA'MON LAWRENCE I don't actually know which outfit is which here, but I'm going to go with the neoprene minidress as "surfwear." I appreciate that this was done last-minute, but I am not a fan of the dye job. This looks to me like someone tried to feed this model a Drano cocktail (a la Heathers ) but a struggle ensued and the concoction ended up spilling all over her favorite chartreuse toga. Look at her face, too--bitch is pissed . I like the colors and the execution of the ombre thing, but as it strikes me as neither surfwear nor avant garde, it must have missed the mark. (P.S. My mom remarked, awesomely, "Now, shorts would have made sense in this challenge." Damn , Mitchell, burned by my mom .) NIC and GORDANA LOVE the macrame one-piece, but the wraparound pants recall a towel wrapped jauntily around her waist. I see the appeal of being able to take the pants off easily and bound into the surf, but the function does not make up for the form in this case. The avant garde look is kind of mermaid-y, I'll give Nic that. Maybe if Madison from Splash had been forced to turn tricks on Liberty Island for cash she would have worn this. QRISTYL and EPPERSON OK, so I think I get this: By day, this woman is a kindly flower shop clerk who likes to discreetly flash people on the subway. By night, she is a superhero whose special power is crafting capes out of her own bedroom curtains and whose mission is to warn women the world over of the dangers of ill-fitting, fudge colored swimsuits with oversize buttons. Right? SHIRIN and CAROL HANNAH I had to show the transformation of this first look because it is pretty fierce. I would totally wear this, plus it's the only outfit I can easily see someone wearing on an actual beach. I also love the color of the avant garde look, and must give Team Irksom props for using a color that also shows up in the surfwear look, thus making the two outfits coordinate (ahem, Althea and Louise). Now, as I mentioned I had a bit of wine last night, so my memory could be cloudy, but the judging for this episode was all kinds of fucked up. First of all, the judges didn't deliberate like they usually do. The designers were called out and immediately Althea and Louise, Christopher and Logan, and Shirin and Carol Hannah were all safe (which, by the way, WHAT ? Shirin and Logan's teams made the best outfits and should have been in the running to win the challenge). Then somehow--it all happened so fast!--Mitchell and Ra'mon Lawrence are one of the top two teams and Ra'mon wins the challenge. By himself. Johnny and Irina are safe, as are the Eastern Europeans, and Qristyl and Epperson fight over why their outfits suck so hard. The judges send Epperson back safely to the green room and Mitchell and Qristyl are on the chopping block. The judges agree that Mitchell is once, twice, three times a lady failure and send him packing. Which is absolutely deserved, but seriously, the build-up to this elimination was bizarre . I wonder if the judges deliberated but it was boring or something and the producers cut it for time. I would also like to add that the hairstyles were not judged at all , so the Garnier challenge must have been left on the cutting room floor as well (except of course, for the beach scene in which Tim stressed its importance. Oops!) Next week promises the utterances of phrases like "smurf prom dress" and "model dog years," which is encouraging. I won't recap Models of the Runway this week because my mom summed up the drama of the entire show in one sentence: "If those women ate something they would all feel better." See you next week! More on Fashion Week
 
Michael Winship: Coming Soon to a Democracy Near You... Top
The envelope, please. And the winner for "most influential motion picture in American politics"" is... "Hillary: The Movie." Never heard of it? Not surprising -- very few people saw it in the first place. But "Hillary: The Movie" -- a no-holds-barred attack on the life and career of Hillary Clinton intended for viewing during her presidential campaign -- could prove to have an impact on the political scene greater than even its producers could have dreamed. In the world of money and politics, "Hillary: The Movie""may turn out to be the sleeper hit of the year, a boffo blockbuster. Depending on the outcome of a special Supreme Court hearing on September 9th, this little piece of propaganda could unleash a new torrent of cash flooding into campaigns from big business, unions and other special interests. "Hillary: The Movie" may turn out to be "Frankenstein: The Monster." The film was created by a conservative group called Citizens United. They wanted to distribute the film via on-demand TV and buy commercials to promote those telecasts, but because the film was partially financed by corporate sponsors, the Federal Election Commission said no, that it was a violation of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act -- McCain-Feingold -- which restricts the use of corporate money directly for or against candidates. Citizens United appealed their case all the way to the Supreme Court, where it was first heard back in March. But the court did an usual thing. They asked for more time and ordered a new hearing and new arguments, almost a month ahead of the first Monday in October that usually marks the official start of the court's annual sessions. The reason for the special hearing is to more broadly consider the constitutionality of McCain-Feingold and campaign finance reform in general; whether it denies a corporation the First Amendment right of free speech. Those who believe that a corporation is being deprived of a fundamental right feel it should be treated no differently than any individual citizen. Those opposed believe that corporations do not hold the same rights as citizens and that their deep pockets - via political action committees (PAC's) and other avenues of participation -- already give them clout and influence dangerous to the health of a democracy. All of this comes, as The New York Times reported, "At a crucial historical moment, as corporations today almost certainly have more to gain or fear from government action than at any time since the New Deal." More than fifty friend of the court ( amicus ) briefs have been filed, an unprecedented number for a First Amendment case. The legal wrangling has made for some strange pairings. "The American Civil Liberties Union and its usual allies are on opposite sides," the Times noted, "with the civil rights group fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with the National Rifle Association" in support of "Hillary: The Movie's" corporate sponsors. "Most of the rest of the liberal establishment is on the other side, saying that allowing corporate money to flood the airwaves would pollute and corrupt political discourse." One of those who will argue on September 9th for overturning the McCain-Feingold limitations is the redoubtable Floyd Abrams, the ardent and vocal defender of free speech who has argued many landmark First Amendment cases before the Supreme Court. On the other side is Trevor Potter, founding president of the non-partisan Campaign Legal Center and a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission. General Counsel to John McCain during his presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2008, Potter was involved in the drafting of McCain-Feingold and has filed one of the amicus briefs in its defense. Both appear on the current edition of public television's Bill Moyers Journal , interviewed by my colleague Bill Moyers. "The question here is to what extent, if at all, can unions and corporations spend their money to put ads on or to speak out themselves in their own name about political matters, including even who to vote for," Abrams said. "I don't think that we should make a distinction on First Amendment grounds in terms of who's speaking. I think that whether the speaker is an individual or an issue group or a union or a corporation, if anything, the public is served, not disserved, by having more speech." Trevor Potter disagreed. "Corporations exist for economic purposes, commercial purposes," he said. "And the notion that they have full First Amendment free speech rights, as well doesn't make any sense for this artificial creation that exists for economic, not political purposes... "Corporations just want to make money. So, if you let the corporation with a privileged economic legal position loose in the political sphere when we're deciding who to elect, I think you are giving them an enormous advantage over individuals and not a healthy one for our democracy." The Supreme Court could rule just on Citizen United's "Hillary: The Movie" case, but the call for the special session and the current composition of the court would seem to indicate that the decision might completely overthrow McCain-Feingold. Three thousand corporate PAC's registered with the Federal Election Commission in 2007 and 2008 spent more than $500 million for political purposes. And we've seen the hundreds of millions big business already has spent to battle the Obama administration's domestic agenda. A 5-4 decision in favor of corporate interests could mean much, much more money from multinational corporations overwhelming our electoral process. Think of the September 9th hearing as a sneak preview of coming attractions. ########### Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal , which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers. More on John McCain
 
Craig and Marc Kielburger: How Screening Saves Lives Top
A Zimbabwean OB/GYN described to Scott Wittet the smell of a local hospital's cancer ward. The doctor said he took his interns to visit patients lucky enough to receive treatment or palliative care. As they approached one wing, they were hit by an intense stench. It was overpowering. Many of the interns had to stop, unable to stomach going further. The OB/GYN explained the source of the odor is more unpleasant than the smell. It comes from a strain of bacteria that finds breeding ground in conditions caused by cervical cancer. "He told me, I'm not telling you this so you can feel sorry for my interns," says Wittet, who works with the Cervical Cancers Prevention Programs at PATH, a non-profit focusing on global health. "He said, I'm telling you this so you can think about the women dealing with it in their villages." Cervical cancer is diagnosed in about 500,000 women every year. About 250,000 will die. More horrifying, an estimated 80 per cent of those deaths occur in the developing world. But, cervical cancer is largely preventable. It begins with slow-growing, pre-cancerous lesions which can be indentified with screening and removed with cryosurgery, the freezing technique used to remove warts, moles and small skin cancers. Screening has proven extremely effective. In the United States, the American Cancer Society credits Pap smears, one of the most common methods, with helping to reduce the cervical cancer death rate by 74 per cent between 1955 and 1992. But, Pap tests remain largely unavailable outside the West. "It's been so unfair that women in the developing world haven't benefiting from screening," explains Wittet. "But, the Pap test is very sophisticated. It hasn't proved sustainable except for in large cities like Bangkok or Kampala." In low-resource settings, the laboratories that process samples and the accompanied training simply aren't available. Also, results take weeks to be processed. Because women often have to travel hours to reach a clinic, they are rarely able to return for follow-up and treatment. This means they miss out on early diagnosis and the lesions often progress to cancer. With little access to chemotherapy or radiation, cervical cancer becomes the leading cause of cancer death in women in the developing world. With limited palliative care, that death can be horrific. The cancer causes tremendous pain. As the odor-causing bacteria manifests, women without access to cancer wards like the one visited by the Zimbabwean doctor end up leaving home. "Not only are they facing their own mortality and tremendous pain, they are facing stigma and loneliness," says Wittet. But, this doesn't have to be. There are screening methods more appropriate for low-resource settings. With the political will to fund and train healthcare workers, they could be made available. Visual inspection is an easier and faster way screen. Wittet explains vinegar is used to turn pre-cancerous lesions white. Through training, they can be seen with the naked eye. Then, cryosurgery is performed in the same visit to destroy the abnormal cells. Wittet explains freezing is cheap, effective and transferrable to low-resource settings. In regions where these programs are in effect, the results are promising. "There are many countries that are building up their visual inspection methods," says Wittet. "Through a five-day training session for local health providers, we create the opportunity to create a cadre of people who can go into the communities." That's something being desperately sought. "They've seen this disease in their villages," says Wittet. "This is the disease their aunt, their mom, their grandma died of so painfully." But, with proper access to screening, that can change. Much of the pain, the loneliness, the loss can be prevented. That is if we take the OB/GYN's advice and start thinking about the women in the villages.
 
Karthika Muthukumaraswamy: Tweetering on the Edge of Free Speech Top
The tennis world breathed a collective sigh of relief, when after one of the most painful losses of his career , Andy Roddick sent out an upbeat message to over 100,000 followers on Twitter. Defying the laws of grammar and just barely keeping to the more stringent 140-character limit, he wrote, "thanks again for all the responses!! all is good .. sun came up today :) all the support has been overwhelming and humbling!!" If not for the microblogging service that exploded to unprecedented popularity by informing earthlings about the discovery of water ice on Mars , transmitting valuable information during unforeseen terror attacks, and setting off civilian revolutions against authoritarian regimes, the world would have had no way of knowing that America's top tennis player took little time to get back to business after his loss to longtime nemesis and World Number One Roger Federer in an epic Wimbledon final earlier this year. Lack of geniality has never been a fault of Roddick. Quick to come up with a funny retort, be it in the face of a heart-wrenching defeat or a sweeping victory, the Austin native is known to engage tennis fans on and off the court with his affable banter. Twitter offers him something more: an outlet to connect with tennis fans without mediation, and to keep the conversation going long after the final trophy has been presented, and his fellow countrymen -- and the media -- divert their attention to more popular ballgames featuring impenetrable human walls, mobs of angry fans, lithe cheerleaders and cart wheeling mascots. "I like it because it's an avenue to kind of reach out and share as much as you want," Roddick said of Twitter in an interview to the New York Times . Or not . Last weekend, before the final grand slam of the season commenced in New York, U.S. Open authorities sent a "Twitter warning" to all players, cautioning them against divulging "inside information" through their tweets. Roddick was quick to share his not-so-subtle thoughts on the notice. "I think it's lame the U.S. Open is trying to regulate our tweeting," he said on -- well --Twitter. "I understand the on-court issue but not sure they can tell us if we can't do it on our own time ... we'll see." The Tennis Integrity Unit, which was formed last year owing to match-fixing concerns, is worried about the leaking of sensitive information such as injuries, weather, court conditions, and other factors that may be used by sports bettors and gamblers. While this is a legitimate concern, it certainly doesn't seem worthy of imposing restrictions on a medium that has opened up the sporting world in extraordinary ways. Especially considering the fact that the International Tennis Federation seems to have done little to crack down on perpetrators of match fixing in the last few years. It should, perhaps, turn its attention to where the problem can actually be resolved: resources for the Integrity Unit, which is manned by just two full-time employees, and has not revealed any information on over 45 matches under suspicion of match fixing since last year, supposedly under investigation. It would help to focus on that instead of fretting over relatively innocuous remarks made by tennis players about their fantasy football leagues or favorite iPhone games. The US Open itself maintains a Twitter page to keep fans updated about upcoming and ongoing matches, scores, polls, interviews, contests, milestones, and tournament gear, in order to get across concise information in real time. It is this same reason that keeps players from Shaq to Steven Jackson to Danica Patrick Twittering about their latest trip to the zoo or their case of Mondays, even while promoting photo shoots, endorsements and accolades. The fans, for their part, can't seem to get enough. The running joke about Twitter, "who cares that you had a ham sandwich for lunch," doesn't apply to celebrities. Like it or not, people do care about what their favorite actor or football star ate for lunch. The San Diego Chargers, meanwhile, have made clear that they don't. The team fined cornerback Antonio Cromartie $2,500 for complaining about training-camp food on Twitter. Chargers coach Norv Turner is said to have informed Cromartie and his team that they were not to Tweet anything critical of the organization on their Twitter pages. There was a much-deserved uproar over the incident. As an AP report pointed out , "The Chargers use Twitter as a promotional tool, but apparently are worried about the players being too honest." Mud slinging by athletes aside, there is the more legitimate concern that players may reveal details about strategies and injuries, thus causing liabilities to their teams. For instance, when Minnesota Vikings' Bernard Berrian exaggerated quarterback Tarvaris Jackson's knee injury on Twitter, there was fear that it would be read as a sign of the quarterback's vulnerability. So, is there a valid fear that players could put their teams or opponents in jeopardy by revealing sensitive information on social media? Sure. But the answer is not to censor online information. If it doesn't come through a player's Tweet, it's probably going to be heard in the locker room and picked up by media the old-fashioned way. Sure, Twitter allows an easier and more unrestricted vehicle for off-the-cuff, sometimes irresponsible statements, and is bound to bring with it complications we haven't dealt with before. So be it. If a Tweet could be deemed libelous, as evidenced by sufficient damage caused to the tweet victim, the latter should be allowed to take action. As Alexia Tsotsis makes clear in the LA Weekly blog: "According to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, you the individual, not the Internet Service Provider (in this case Twitter) are responsible for your libelous i.e. malicious and untrue words." Most media law experts seem to agree that the poster is liable for any libel charges on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, or a blog comments thread. This doesn't, however, justify censorship of content posted on these various media. While tournament authorities can regulate players' actions on the grounds, off-court regulation of their speech comes dangerously close to threatening freedom of expression. Players can be urged to exercise judgment while revealing information. Beyond that, any list of dos and don'ts is simply ridiculous. Quite like one NFL team executive's suggestion to players, "do not tweet about anything more than what you are eating." But it was tweeting about eating that got Cromartie in trouble. While rules can specify time and manner of broadcast, they cannot control content. After several teams caused a furor by banning Twitter use by players, the NFL finally settled for merely regulating the time of usage with respect to games and practice. The US Open has never allowed players to use any form of electronic device on court during matches, and this effectively rules out Twitter use as well. It would be preposterous to try to control what players say off the court: on Twitter or anywhere else. In other words, what a player chooses to tweet, just like what he decides to say, should be at his or her own discretion. And there is only one real way to do this: exercising common sense. More on Twitter
 
New Orleans & Seattle Music Festivals Go Green Top
NEW ORLEANS — A new music festival in New Orleans is pushing its environmental cred as much as its music, touting lights and sound systems powered by the sun, paperless tickets and an investment in a landfill to offset emissions. Project 30-90, a bash Saturday named for New Orleans' latitude and longitude, is one of the latest festivals to attempt not to leave a carbon footprint, along with Seattle's 40-year-old Bumbershoot festival with headliners The Black Eyed Peas and Sheryl Crow. That three-day event, also this weekend, will use biodiesel for its trucks, solar power to illuminate its art exhibits and brochures and programs printed on recycled paper. Whether the festivals actually avoid adding carbon dioxide that contributes to climate change, "green" is a growing trend, said Steve Schmader, president of the International Festivals & Events Association based in Boise, Idaho. At least one concert stage is powered by the sun for Chicago's Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo in Tennessee. And Lollapalooza has a "Green Street" for eco-friendly vendors and "Rock & Recycle," which raffles a hybrid car to festival-goers who fill a recycling bag with cans, ride bikes or public transit to the festival, or participate in other green activities. Schmader didn't know how many of the estimated 400,000 annual U.S. festivals – 4 million to 5 million worldwide – are taking steps to go green, but it's clear the trend is catching on. At the festival group's annual meeting Sept. 21-25 in Indianapolis, a number of sessions will be held about how to go green, he said. In New Orleans, festival founder Don Kelly said he got the idea several years ago when his young daughter asked why New Orleans stopped curbside recycling after Hurricane Katrina. "Her simple understanding was, 'We should do it, and it's good for the earth, so let's do it,'" Kelly said. Headlining the New Orleans festival are the Von Bondies, who play Detroit garage rock and blues; Alabama rocker Jason Isbell (formerly of the Drive-By Truckers) and the 400 Unit; and blues, soul and rock group Grace Potter and The Nocturnals. At the festival, instead of ferrying artists and staffers around on golf carts, acts will be peddled to stages in bicycle rickshaws. Toilets will have recycled paper and food vendors must use biodegradable cups, plates and utensils. Trash cans will be labeled for recycling, composting and landfill, and "green ambassadors" will answer questions about what goes where. Festival-goers can add $2 to the $30 ticket price for a carbon credit from the St. Landry Parish landfill to counter the emissions from their round trip to the site next to the Mississippi River. The money helps the landfill recoup more than $850,000 voluntarily spent on a system to collect and burn methane rather than letting the greenhouse gas seep into the atmosphere. Festival-goers must bring a photo ID and the credit or debit card used to buy the paperless tickets for verification at the gate. Globally, greening festivals have already spread. The European Festival Association, which has 56 members, published environmental guidelines for music festivals in 2006. That group and an English nonprofit called A Greener Festival have recognized about 65 festivals so far for environmental practices. The English group bases its award on a 56-point questionnaire, such as whether a festival recycles, requires food vendors to use recyclable or usable containers and utensils, and has a carbon footprint or greenhouse gas analysis. "In abstract terms – what this festival (Project 30-90) is doing is almost exactly what we would be looking for," A Greener Festival co-founder Ben Challis wrote in an e-mail. ___ On the Net: http://www.project3090.com http://www.bumbershoot.org International Festivals and Events Association http://www.ifea.com/ European Festival Association: http://www.yourope.org A Greener Festival: http://www.agreenerfestival.org
 
Agapi Stassinopoulos: What Zeus And Hera Can Teach Hillary, Silda, And Elizabeth About Betrayal Top
I went to see the new Renée Zellweger movie this weekend, "My One and Only", a film that touches on the ever present subject of a woman's liberation after leaving a man. The movie is set in the 1950 and follows Anne Deveraux, a southern blonde who, as her husband Dan, a band conductor played by Kevin Bacon describes her, suffers from delusions of grandeur. When she arrives early from one of her trips, she finds him in bed with the singer of the band, and it's clear this isn't their first time. She packs up, takes her two teenage sons, money and jewelry from the safe deposit box, buys a Cadillac and leaves for Boston, the closest city she can think of. He protests and tries to stop her by saying how the affairs mean nothing and that she means much more. He then tells her that she is a bad mother who doesn't even know what school her kids go to and that she won't be able to take care of them or survive on her own. She drives on, with the clear intention of finding a husband to take care of her and her boys. This is the archetypic tale of the betrayed wife, and it lives on our collective feminine psyche. I know it very well from my personal experience and from watching my mother live through my father's affairs, sharing her heartache and suffering with it all (my parents' story has a happy ending, see below). I also know it from my extensive work on the Greek archetypes and working with various women who have lived through their experience of betrayal. The archetype of the betrayed wife is nothing new and has been present in public lives from Henry the 8th through Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Edwards, Princess Diana, Silda Spitzer, Dina McGreevy, and most recently, Jenny Sanford. But unlike so many others, Jenny walked out. She didn't sit by the governor's side as he confessed. Instead, she went and did an interview with Vogue and posed looking gorgeous. Let me start with the mythology, the way it relates to today, and how it leads us to catharsis (the Greek word for resolution) at the end. Hera, the goddess of marriage, is the loyal wife of Zeus and the queen of Mt. Olympus. She is Mrs. Zeus. Their romance begins when Zeus woes her by disguising himself as a cuckoo bird. She takes pity on the bird and takes it under her arm. The bird then proceeds to change into mighty Zeus and seduces her, after which she to marries him. Now think back for a minute. Have you ever encountered a disguised male? Someone that enlists your support, that you embrace before he reveals his hidden self? Zeus and Hera have a 300-year honeymoon, and then he gets the 300-year-itch and has affairs with muses, goddesses and semi goddesses, fathering countless children while she is stuck at Olympus, humiliated and undermined. She feels disempowered and blocked from exercising her power as a woman and as queen. She becomes bitter, jealous, vindictive and turns his mistresses into cows, flies, and trees. At some point she realizes that she must leave him. Yes, get out of Olympus. counsel no divorce lawyers, take no temples, just walk out. She leaves him (this is my favorite part of the myth) and returns to Evia, her birthplace, where she secludes herself in her sanctuary to do some soul searching. Beware of goddesses doing soul searching! They become mighty! Notice that she doesn't confront him. She doesn't call her girlfriends to bitch about him. She just leaves. In the movie, Anne does a similar thing. She leaves, dates one jerk after another, moves in with a sister she can't stand, eats humble pie, takes multiple jobs, travels from city to city, runs out of money and even gets arrested. But--she doesn't go back! In the Greek myth, Zeus misses Hera, so he disguises himself as a statue and begs her to return. She does return more complete within herself and is called Hera the Telia, Hera the perfected. In the movie, Dan, returns and begs Anne to come back. She says, "No", and when he asks her, "Don't you love me anymore?" and she responds with the climactic line: "I am not sure if I love you, but I am sure I don't need you anymore!" She has finally come to the realization that she can survive financially, emotionally and mentally without him. She has unhooked herself from him and has connected back to her own self . Like Hera and Anne, my mother, made the decision to leave my father. In Athens Greece in the 60 's with no vocation or a job this was a most courageous act with many challenges on the way. In the last year of their lives he asked her for forgiveness, and she forgave him. They had a loving six-month long distance relationship, Athens to L.A., she died three months after him. That is how strong their bond was. In the film, Anne finds her sea legs by reassuring herself, getting up after every blow. My mother found her life force in leaving my father. The core issue is not that the man is unfaithful, lies, cheats and betrays the woman. The core issue is that the woman assigned her well being to the man. Such a relationship is doomed to be a dead-end. Somewhere in there she gave up her inner authority and it's going to backfire at some point. Our feminine psyche is always prompting us to wholeness so it will bring up false situations to wake us up. Ultimately it is all serving to return us to self. When something becomes so visible in our society it is a collective wound that is being exposed and needs to be healed, "The fault dear Brutus is not in our stars but in ourselves." When we women rise up in who we are and own our truth, when we express our needs and claim our voices; when we recognize that we can be both powerful and vulnerable when we stop diminishing ourselves, the men will rise to the occasion and match us. But if we remain unconscious of our feminine power, the men will have a field day and we both will suffer the consequences. I am grateful to Charlie Peters, the screenwriter, for raising this subject again, and I am grateful to each of us who walked away from the unconsciousness of being suppressed, forgotten and shut off. Have you been betrayed? Has someone close to you? How did you cope? Share your story or thoughts on the subject matter below. More on Eliot Spitzer
 
Kim Rosen: Madoff and Miracles: How I Lost My Life's Savings and a Poem Saved My Life Top
On a beautiful day in December of 2008 I lost my life's savings to Bernard Madoff. My loss was not unique, thousands of us were watching our money disappear -- either in one fell swoop as mine did, or drop by painstaking drop. What saved my life, however, was a poem. In August and September I saw the value of my stocks shrink towards nothingness. In October, I sold everything and invested it all in a stable fund with the optimistic name of "Starlight." Two months later came the message on my voicemail: "Madoff was arrested today. The fund was a fraud. Everything is lost." It turned out that Mr. Madoff, the Wall Street wizard who was arrested for the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, was the secret of Starlight's twinkle. The fund had been 100% invested with him. And now it was 100% lost. Or, to be more accurate, stolen. "To replay this message press 1, to save it press 9, to erase it press 7, for more options press 0," the voicemail lady was saying into my ear. I sat down on the floor (it seemed the only appropriate place to land given the drama of the moment), and pressed 1. It was then that what I can only call a miracle occurred. The words of a poem I'd heard ages ago, "Kindness" by Naomi Shihab Nye, began to play in my mind. I had no idea those words were even in my memory! It was like the part in a movie where suddenly the noise of the scene fades and all you hear is the throb of the protagonist's heartbeat over a kind of otherworldly hum. In my case the hum was there, but it was the lines of this poem that pulsed over it: Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things. I sat on the floor, paralyzed. The phone dangled from my fingers like a weapon found at the scene of the crime. Nothing seemed to matter but finding the next lines of the poem. I tried to reason with myself: looking up a poem at a time like this seemed crazy. Look up a lawyer, an accountant, even a professional assassin (just kidding), but not a poem. In the frenzy of days that followed--full indeed of lawyers and accountants, sleepless nights riddled with a litany of "what-ifs", hours of obsessively googling "Madoff" as if an answer might somehow rise up out of the morass of gossip -- "Kindness" was my lifeline. The images -- an Indian dead on the side of the road who "could be you," a cloth of sorrow that wraps round the planet, a breed of kindness that "lifts its head from the crowd of the world" in the face of the deepest loss -- opened the tight fist of my own little drama to the constant awareness that I was not alone. We need poetry now more than ever. If the current climate of catastrophe is teaching us anything, it is that material acquisition is not the road to happiness--not only because we're losing what we stored for our happily-ever-after, but also because our amassing of stuff is not doing the trick and is directly or indirectly causing devastation to the planet and many of the people upon it. Now is the time, the bell of history seems to be tolling, to discover a security that's not tied to the economy, a homecoming that requires no mortgage payments, a wealth that doesn't drown polar bears, a happiness that has no need to ravage innocent people in faraway lands to keep us in cell phones or diamonds or you-name-it. It's time for a shift to the values of the soul. Poetry is the language of this shift. It is a direct route to the riches of the interior life. It is available to everyone at any hour of the day or night, and it doesn't cost a thing. But many of us are ignoring it, especially in America. Perhaps you, too, hear the word poetry and decide to check your email instead of reading on. I can relate. Like so many, I was turned off to poetry early. Miss Tapley's ruler beating out Homer's dactylic hexameters in seventh grade was curtains for my childhood love of poetry. Until recently, I was convinced that any poem I picked up would make me feel left out of some secret society of the elite who could decipher the code. But the truth is, we turn to poetry all the time without knowing it. The lyrics you played over and over after the break up -- I will survive! As long as I know how to love I know I will stay alive -- is poetry. The psalm you recite when you cannot take another step -- Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death -- is poetry. It is in the prayer you repeat as you pick up your partner's socks one more time -- God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change -- and the pulse of the speech you'll never forget: I have a dream! We are healed by the rhythm, we are harmonized by the sound, we are awakened by the passionate telling of truth. You see, poetry is actually our most ancient form of prayer. In this world of iPods and e-mails and spam and traffic jams, the opportunities for fragmentation of awareness are thick and fast. A poem, like a prayer, can return you to a seamless place within that has never been broken. You may choose a mystical poem by the twelfth century poet, Rumi -- This longing / you express is the return message -- or a poem of outrage by modern poet and activist Audre Lorde -- There are so many roots to the tree of anger / that sometimes the branches shatter . The ring of truth can wake you up to the present moment. And when you are present, you are open to your feelings. And when you feel, the rigid boundaries that divide you from others can melt. In that moment, the man sleeping on the sidewalk, the woman in a rice paddy in Viet Nam, the child on the streets of Gaza, and your own father, mother, sister, brother, lover are not separate from you; they are you. At this time in history, there is a paradoxical urgency to slowing down, focusing on what matters, looking into each other's eyes and speaking the truth. Whether you read poetry, avoid it, or have never thought twice about it, find a poem you love today. (I've listed links to resources at the end of this blog.) Let it become your companion. Speak it aloud to yourself and to others. Your whole being will come into alignment. And wholeness is contagious. Others will catch it from you, and they too may taste a moment of peace in the maelstrom of these times. Resources The Poetry Foundation, home of the Poetry Tool for finding poems, as well as a wealth of other wonderful resources: www.poetryfoundation.org Poetry Chaikhana, a extensive gathering of mystical poetry: www.Poetry-Chaikhana.com More on Bernard Madoff
 
Rob Richie: Diebold's End: Consolidation of largest voting companies shows need to fix elections Top
Yesterday the United States' largest voting equipment vendor Election Systems & Software (ES&S) announced the purchase of Premier Election Solutions, our nation's second largest vendor, and a product of the Diebold Corporation's North American operations. If this sale goes forward, ES&S will control a huge majority of the voting equipment market in the United States. According to Verified Voting , more than 120 million registered voters live in American jurisdictions using one of these two companies' systems. In contrast, the nation's third largest elections vendor, Sequoia Voting Systems, provides equipment in jurisdictions with only some 26 million registered voters -- and seems to be on shaky ground, having been sold several times in recent years and still waiting to have its latest optical scan system certified by the federal Election Assistance Commission. Whether the sale goes through remains a question. According to election integrity activists at Black Box Voting , ES&S previously attempted to consolidate the voting industry in 1997 with a purchase of Business Records Corporation (BRC), but the purchase was blocked by the US Security and Exchange Commission on antitrust grounds, and the acquisition of BRC was split between ES&S and Sequoia. Regardless of its ultimate outcome, this latest potential consolidation in ownership of our voting equipment highlights the broken nature of American election administration. We run democracy on the cheap at the national level, and pay for it with lost votes, untrustworthy software and exorbitant costs for public interest improvements due to companies recouping expenses by abusing their local monopolies. FairVote has long suggested a full public ownership model , similar to what Oklahoma and other nations have done. We should keep pursuing this "public option," but also consider additional ways to gain control of the election process and foster, better, more reliable equipment. Some groups are seeking to hold vendors legally accountable for past failures to uphold election integrity. Looking forward, one straightforward step would address a glaring problem: the process of certifying equipment. To open up the market to more competitors and secure certain basic rights of transparency and quality control, the public should pay for the costs of certification. Better certification processes voting equipment of course are absolutely essential, as underscored by how more rigorous certification processes in recent years have exposed major problems with proposed equipment. Election results also keep demonstrating how systems already certified for our most important elections can have serious flaws. For example, the Humboldt County (CA) Election Transparency Project discovered that a Premier/Diebold optical scan paper ballot system dropped 197 ballots in 2008, while a FairVote analysis this year found that the same system dropped 0.4% of ballots in an election in Aspen (CO). But each new revelation and each new good idea for updating certification standards at the federal level and state level makes it harder for companies to comply, in turn stretching out the timeline for certification and greatly increasing companies' costs. Paying for companies' costs of certification would cost taxpayer dollars, of course, and should have some reasonable limits. But these upfront costs promise to pay big dividends for our democracy in the long-term. It would allow new companies to get a competitive product on the market before they know for sure they will be able to sell it - resolving the catch-22 that today makes it so difficult for any new company to compete with the dominant companies. It also would make it easier to justify ongoing updates to the voting standards, rather than essentially adding new "unfunded mandates" on the vendors who either go out of business or, more typically, give up after barely getting started. The quality of voting equipment and software should also rise as companies would be required to do more than just "get by," and county and state governments would pay less for better equipment and upgrades - right now they typically face excessive fees for equipment, ongoing services and upgrades from vendors trying to recoup their certification costs and able to take advantage of their near monopoly of the industry. In exchange for paying for the certification process, the public also should secure greater rights of transparency and general ownership of the process. For example, New York State's latest contracts for new equipment include a sensible provision that should become a national standard: a requirement that any new contracts for services and new features involving the new equipment should be open to competitive bidding rather than have to accept the vendor's monopoly power. Taxpayers also should require much greater access to the software code, if not full open source software, and a requirement for "modular" components that would make it easier to piece together separately certified systems for an election rather than rely on just one company for election services. Exclusive focus on pre-election certification will never be sufficient , as we must also focus on post-election verification and audits. By verifying all election counts, the certification process would become part of a "belt and suspenders" approach. With the latest optical scan paper ballot systems having the capacity to create redundant records of every ballot, these records can be made publicly available, as they are in cities from San Francisco (CA) to Burlington (VT). When coupled with manual audits and appropriate privacy safeguards, they will allow the public to verify vote tallies and immediately identify errors. The bottom line is that the existing regime is broken. Let's stop outsourcing democracy and make sure that citizens are in control. More on Voting Machines
 
David Roberts: Will Glenn Beck bring down Van Jones after all? Top
grist.org A couple days ago I ran a post defending Van Jones from some of the more absurd charges leveled at him by noted race-baiter Glenn Beck over the last month. Jones is not an "ex-con," he's not a communist, he's not even a czar. He's not, to pick just one of Beck's darkly hinted smears, on a top-secret mission to commandeer the U.S. treasury and dispense slavery reparations. He is, however, two things that scare the whitey tighties off of Beck and his tighty whitey audience: black and liberal. It was mostly a tempest in a teabag until the last couple of days, when Jones got tagged with a few things that could very well end up being the end of his career in the executive branch. The first and less consequential is a video of Jones answering the question of why Republicans in Congress continually vote against clean energy as follows: " Because they're assholes ." That is a) pretty funny and b) a little difficult to get worked up about. When he said those words, Jones was an activist speaking to an activist audience, not a government official. When a Republican vice president told a senior Democratic senator to " fuck himself ", the rightosphere responded with enthusiasm that bordered on tumescence. Republicans -- not activists, but senior politicians -- spent years cavalierly calling everyone to the left of Genghis Khan a traitor. Call the waahbulance. Anyway, let's face it, blocking progress on the signal challenges of our time for partisan political gain does kind of make you an asshole. Jones issued an apology anyway. Yesterday brought a more disturbing discovery: that Jones had signed a Oct. 24, 2004, petition from the 9/11 Truth organization . The so-called "truthers" come in many varieties. At the far end are the loony tunes who believe the Bush administration rigged the whole thing using some combination of thermite bombs, missiles, and holograms. Ever so slightly less loony, though much more widely believed, is the notion that Bush officials knew the attack was coming and looked the other way. Not loony tunes at all -- in fact shared by tens of millions of Americans -- are concerns that warnings were insufficiently heeded, reaction to the event was riddled with incompetence, and official investigations have answered many questions poorly, if at all. It was in this latter vein that the petition was written, with some political flourishes tossed in, reflecting the political context of the time. Many of the questions raised by the petition were banal, if anything, about topics addressed (adequately or not) in the official 9/11 commission report. What made it so toxic was a part of the preamble, which "calls for immediate public attention to unanswered questions that suggest that people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war." That's bona fide crazy town. Did all 100 of the signatories notice it? I have trouble believing they did, even in the angry panic that preceded the 2004 election. There are some fairly prominent names, members of 9/11 families, heads of NGOs, professors, authors-- Paul Hawken and Richard Heinberg among others. People who have reputations to risk (alongside predictable cranks like Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader, of course). Were they mostly concerned with the unanswered questions or did they really want to associate with the notion that Bush officials knowingly let 3,000 people die? A source says Jones said didn't read the petition closely -- thought it was just a petition to support the families' questions -- and I suspect that's true for many of the signatories. In a released statement Jones disavowed it: In recent days some in the news media have reported on past statements I made before I joined the administration – some of which were made years ago. If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize. As for the petition that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever. My work at the Council on Environmental Quality is entirely focused on one goal: building clean energy incentives which create 21st century jobs that improve energy efficiency and use renewable resources. Paul Hawken also released a statement corroborating Jones take on it: In the fall of 2004, I was approached by 911Truth.org to support the grieving families of the 9/11 tragedy. Family members who had lost a loved one, and many American citizens, felt that the 9/11 Commission had not fully explored key questions involving that fateful day. My concern then and now was for the victims. I felt that a deeper inquiry into policies and security would be helpful to reach a fuller understanding of the cause of 9/11 and how to prevent future terrorist attacks. I do not recollect any of the questions that are posed on the website, never saw the subsequent press release of Oct 26, 2004, and never signed such a statement. I was interested in questions, not blame; inquiry, not jumping to conclusions. It is unfortunate that Van's name has been used in this way as I know he would not knowingly endorse a statement that would place blame or create divisiveness. That would probably be that, except: Today, it emerged that Jones was on the organizing committee of a 2002 march also geared at demanding an inquiry into 9/11-- again, the document combines sensible questions and objections to the way the Bush administration used 9/11 ... with some slightly crazy implications of conspiracy. The explanation's likely the same -- signing on before reading all the details -- but in DC, two is a trend. Press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked today if Jones still has the confidence of the president, and he basically refused to answer, saying only that Jones is "still employed at the White House." That doesn't bode well -- even money has Jones out by the end of the day. Is it just? Of course not. Jones is certainly guilty of poor judgment: as a lefty activist fighting a malign administration he basically signed on to anything that came across his desk, without always reading closely or thinking them through. He was far, far from alone at that time. But he's had nothing at all to do with the truthers outside of having his name on these documents. By no even mildly charitable interpretation is he "a truther" like the lazy-ass media is now saying. Of course the right will offer no charity, and the media will echo whatever the right says. Politics ain't beanbag. Kate Sheppard observes that ... ... when Jones joined the administration last March, many environmentalists worried they were losing their most charismatic and visible spokesman. Instead of playing a public role in drumming up support for clean-energy polices—something he was extremely effective at—[Jones] is now a relatively low-level bureaucrat struggling to steer stimulus funding toward green-job programs. In all honesty, Glenn Beck may have more to worry about with Jones outside the White House than in it. It may be true that Jones can be more effective on the outside, but this is about a lot more than him. It's about whether an outspoken progressive can work in government. About whether the likes of Glenn Beck, a revanchist, fear-mongering huckster who would have no place in the public sphere of a sane country, can collect a scalp. Next week Obama will give an address to school children, encouraging them to stay in school and study. In response to yet another outbreak of mendacious bullying, the administration just changed the wording on its press release . It was a gutless move, evincing the kind of news-cycle jumpiness the Obama team eschewed so well during the campaign. Dumping Van Jones would be the same kind of thing. This is all about bitch-slap politics . If Jones drops out, think Beck or the right-wing slime industry will stop? Think they won't keep going after Carol Browner, John Holdren, and the rest -- twisting and attacking every word and gesture from the Obama administration? "Uncovering" people as wildly caricatured leftists? Faux-populist fear merchants are like sharks; they have to keep moving, keep eating. There's no sating them. Letting Beck bag Jones would be like chum in the water. Jones will end up on his feet and doing good in the world no matter what. But the resolution of this fight will tell us a great deal about the balance of power between the Obama administration and the toxic 25 percent. The wingnuts have an active propaganda network, including a devoted cable news channel, but Obama still has the trust of the American people and a popular agenda . He needs to get his mojo back. More on Glenn Beck
 
One In Six Construction Loans Are In Trouble Top
Reports filed by banks with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation indicate that at the end of June about one-sixth of all construction loans were in trouble. With more than half a trillion dollars in such loans outstanding, that represents a source of major losses for banks. More on Banks
 
Huff TV: Roy Sekoff Challenges Congressman On GOP's Criticism Of Obama School Speech Top
HuffPost Editor Roy Sekoff co-hosted an hour on MSNBC this morning with Carlos Watson. Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) was their guest on the phone, discussing the wave of conservative criticism of President Obama's upcoming speech to school kids. Sekoff asked the Representative, who has blogged for the Huffington Post , if he was willing to denounce the members of his party who "criticize the president of the United States for telling school kids to do their homework": "You have to say to the GOP, 'Have you no shame?'" WATCH: Earlier in the show, Sekoff and Watson discussed Afghanistan, how the media's favored right versus left framing no longer applies to the situation there, and whether or not this war would prove to be "Obama's Vietnam." WATCH: More on Afghanistan
 
Susan J. Demas: The Republican Death March on Health Care Top
Right now, Republicans are feeling pretty good about themselves. President Obama's poll numbers have tumbled , health care reform has withered and raucous town hall protests have been even better summer teevee than blood-bathed shark attacks. The Politico is forecasting double-digit Democratic losses in the U.S. House next year and the GOP is primed to pick up several key governorships (perhaps one in Michigan ). The president has overplayed his liberal hand and now everything will return as it was, with Republicans rightly reclaiming the throne. Yes, it seems our long, nine-month national nightmare of liberal/socialist/communist/Nazi rule is over. We are, as telepundits will gravely tell you, a center-right nation and the people have spoken. (Evidently, when the people actually spoke in November at the ballot box it was no more than a brain fart). Like all overly simplistic analysis designed to confirm one's preprogrammed world view (because independent thought hurts), this is just wrong. The Democrats have big margins in both chambers of Congress and unless something cataclysmic happens, they'll maintain healthy majorities after the '10 election. Even if there is a GOP comeback, it will be years before the party has real power (and Democrats will have time to redeem themselves). Now it's certainly true that Obama has taken a beating and will probably only emerge with a watered-down health plan at best. Given the likely slow economic recovery, punctuated by continued uncomfortably high unemployment, we can expect his job approval numbers to be in the 40s next year. The president deserves criticism. He's hardly executed a flawless strategy, outlining eight vague principles, waffling on the public option and leaving the details up to lawmakers (similar to what Gov. Jennifer Granholm has done on the budget - and look how well that's turned out). But his administration is loath to repeat the Clintons' mistakes by pushing a heavy-handed plan and can claim victory if anything passes. My conservative friends insist Obama is trying to do too much too soon on health care and is pushing an ultra-liberal agenda. On this front, I have to admit to being baffled. We've been talking about universal health care since longest-serving U.S. Rep. John Dingell's daddy was in Congress -- and 75 years or so seems like a healthy waiting period. No one's talking single-payer, just a government option. A little more competition is a good thing in my book (but what do I know; I'm a capitalist). If you want further proof that the prez isn't Chairman Mao, just take a look at the savage attacks on him from the left . Always pessimistic, MoveOn.org activists are already willing to declare Obama's presidency a failure if he caves on the public option. Why, we may as well have George W. Bush back in office. But that's nothing compared to the hysteria on the right. In political journalism, there is a tendency to equate insanity on both ends of the spectrum and sometimes it's apt. This is not one of those times. Something has snapped with right-wingers in this country over the last decade as they've been obsessed with eating their own in primaries -- and it seems to be reaching a fever pitch this summer with gun-totin' town hall meetings. The sheer rage, misinformation and unvarnished racism on display at these events should cause anyone to shiver. Even the wackiest members of Congress, like former U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg's buddy Michele Bachmann, are getting heckled by the unbalanced souls looking to score a clip on YouTube. There's a temptation for conservatives who genuinely believe government-run health care would be a disaster (besides the V.A. and Medicare) to embrace these vigilante-minded folks as patriotic mascots for the majority. Indeed, turn on Fox News at any hour and dudes with sadly misspelled signs will be hailed as heirs to Samuel Adams or that other intellectual heavyweight, Joe the Plumber. But you have to draw the line. You don't see communists, anarchists or those who believe Bush was behind 9/11 getting a seat at the table with Obama. So why in the world are folks like House Minority Leader John Boehner coddling the screeching crazies on the right? Sure, the GOP is out of power and desperate to get back in. But this need to pacify the purists -- forcing everyone to fall in line with groups like Right to Life and Club for Growth - began while Republicans ruled every branch of government. This helped hasten their fall and will make it increasingly difficult for them to claw their way back. Demographics are not the GOP's friend, as the party has turned off Hispanics and young people at an alarming rate. Bashing new Justice Sotomayor satisfied the base, but helped solidify Republicans as cranky old codgers befuddled that a wise Latina could do more than clean houses. Social issues don't pack the same punch when the economy is tanking. But the right just can't let go, making euthanasia and abortion the centerpieces of the health care debate. In polling , the arguments resonating most with voters are that of fiscal conservatism and limited government. As a centrist country, Americans are suspicious of a health care expansion and a ballooning deficit. But that's not really registering in the high-decibel debate dominated by death panels and Adolf Hitler analogies. Thanks to the town hall turmoil from bigots, birthers and assorted miscreants, Republicans can savor a sugar-high on health care - a decadent and ultimately short-lived victory. But the president will come out looking calm and reasonable with some reform that widens the safety net. Like Social Security, the GOP won't be able roll it back. Tell me again how total Republican victory is at hand? More on Health Care
 
Canadians Defend Their Health Care System In Video Top
One of the unfortunate side-effects of the often confused health care reform discourse is the way so many perfectly nice health care systems that operate in some perfectly pleasant foreign nations have been caught in the crossfire. Writing on these pages, Allison Kilkenny chronicled the way British citizens defended their own National Health Service from the slings and arrows of outrageous talking points. Twitter users may remember outspoken Brits defending the NHS on messages accompanied by a #welovetheNHS hashtag. Well, the Canadians, who use a nationally-funded single-payer system, aren't going to sit back and let American politicians slag the health care that they love, either! So, from Karoli at U.S. Health Crisis comes a video of several Canadians offering up some real talk on what health care is like in the Great White North. Guess what? They like it! And they are a wee bit vexed and perplexed by what people in America have been saying about it. [WATCH] The blogger behind the video said that she tried to get some negative views and failed: In the spirit of truth, my friend Matte Black (@Shoq on Twitter) and his brother took their video camera to Canada on vacation to interview Canadians about their health care system. When we talked about it, I asked him to try to get negative views with specifics for balance. Here is the result. It has been edited for brevity, but the negative views were not removed, because there were none. He could not find one Canadian who thought they should kill the system. My favorite part of the video is when the Canadians are asked about their "co-pay," and they all basically stare at the camera as if they've been asked, "Prithee! Would you like to wear my peanut butter fancypants, this merry Midsummer morning?" [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 .] Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter! More on Canada
 
Pawlenty Sides With Extremists On Obama "Back-To-School" Address Top
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty today gave his support to parents and schools wary about showing President Obama's televised back-to-school address in classrooms next week. Pawlenty said that showing the address, slated to be telecast at 11 a.m. Central Time on Tuesday, could be disruptive and raises concerns "about the content and the motive," he said on WCCO radio early this morning. He also said that the speech is "uninvited."
 
Phil Ramone and Danielle Evin: Dog Ears Music: Volume Eighty-Eight Top
Sister Gertrude Morgan Preacher, singer, poet, and folk-art legend Sister Gertrude Morgan was born in 1900 on a farm in Alabama, one of seven children. As a young bride in Georgia, she had a spiritual epiphany that led her to New Orleans to serve the downtrodden. Morgan went on to preach throughout the South, presenting her artwork and music as a vessel to spread the good word. Along the way, she released a 14-song collection of gospel singing, tambourine, and heavy foot. By 1974, Morgan received the divine message to stop painting and to set her gaze to poetry. She passed away in 1980 and leaves behind an extensive and mystical legacy, including a burgeoning garden of four-leaf clovers. Remember Sister Gertrude Morgan with "Power (Voodoo Version)," from King Britt's 2005 remix tribute King Britt Presents: Sister Gertrude Morgan. Buy : iTunes Genre : Gospel/Electronic Artist : Sister Gertrude Morgan Song : "Power (Voodoo Version)" Album : King Britt Presents: Sister Gertrude Morgan Takagi Masakatsu Multifaceted multimedia artist, filmmaker, and musician Takagi Masakatsu was born in Kyoto, Japan, in 1979. He is an artist whose kinetic paintings take all his senses, color, and sound and drive them along a road not taken. Masakatsu, who's exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo and throughout Europe, has released more than a half-dozen albums to date and scored numerous commercials. Collaborations include designer Agnes B, UA, and David Sylvian. Masakatsu's partnership with the whimsically voiced Miu Sakamoto (daughter of composer Ryuichi Sakamoto) produced a captivating 21-track collection. Download "Silent Life," from the 2008 release Sorato for AU Design Project. It is an uncaged specter for the ears. Buy : iTunes Genre : Electronica Artist : Takagi Masakatsu Song : Silent Life Album : Sorato for AU Design Project Danny Elfman The unrelentingly creative music-maker Danny Elfman was California born and raised. He served as frontman for the righteous '80s pop group Oingo Boingo which released over a dozen records. On his own, Elfman has taken the art of film scoring to another level, earning a Grammy, an Emmy and four Oscar noms. Collaborations include Gus Van Sant, Warren Beatty, Tim Burton, Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson, Ang Lee, and Guillermo del Toro. Elfman's credits range from a bevy of monster game soundtracks to television and films, including Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Beetlejuice, Batman, Batman Returns, To Die For, Mission: Impossible, Men in Black, Good Will Hunting, Spider-Man, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Milk, and Taking Woodstock. Get "The Little Things," from the 2008 soundtrack, Wanted-- it rocks, plus we get to hear him sing... Buy : iTunes Genre : Rock Artist : Danny Elfman Song : The Little Things Album : "Wanted" Soundtrack Calexico Calexico is the Americana unit founded by Tucson locals Joey Burns (vocals, guitar) and John Convertino (drums) founded in the mid-'90s. Paul Niehaus (pedal steel),
 Jacob Valenzuela (keys, trumpet, vibes), Martin Wenk (accordion, guitar, synthesizers), and 
Volker Zander (bass) fill out the ensemble. The unit has over a dozen recordings to date, including a full CD with Iron & Wine (Sam Beam). Other collaborations include Tortoise's Douglas McCombs and Mickey Raphael (Willie Nelson's harmonica player). Calexico sways heavy and lush. Their tasteful and romantic overtones will reel you in. Download "Two Silver Trees," from the 2008 release Carried to Dust (Bonus Track Edition). Buy : iTunes Genre : Americana Artist : Calexico Song : Two Silver Trees Album : Carried to Dust (Bonus Track Edition) Jorge Calderón Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Jorge Calderon hails from Puerto Rico. Calderón is best known for his longtime writing partnership with rock luminary Warren Zevon. Following the release of his 1975 solo debut, Calderón joined David Lindley's El Rayo-X. Collaborations include Emmylou Harris, Karla Bonoff, Jackson Brown, Dwight Yoakam, Leonard Cohen, Los Lobos, The Eagles and Ry Cooder. Take delight in the lilting "Keep Me in Your Heart," featuring Jennifer Warnes, from the 2004 release Enjoy Every Sandwich - The Songs of Warren Zevon. Buy : iTunes Genre : Rock Artist : Jorge Calderón Song : Keep Me in Your Heart Album : Enjoy Every Sandwich - The Songs of Warren Zevon Jesse Malin Singer/songwriter Jesse Malin was born one of two children in Queens, New York. His childhood was filled with the echoes of music, and nearing the age of 10 he picked up the guitar. Malin's early professional career began with hard-rock unit Heart Attack. He went on to establish and front punk squad D Generation. By the early aughts, Malin went solo and has since given us over half a dozen releases to enjoy. Collaborations include rock luminaries Bruce Springsteen, Lucinda Williams, Jakob Dylan, and Ryan Adams. Check out the romantic and longing undercurrent in "Bastards of Young," from Malin's 2007 release Glitter in the Gutter. Touring soon. Buy : iTunes Genre : Rock Artist : Jesse Malin Song : Bastards of Young Album : Glitter in the Gutter Tour : Visit
 
Sadhu Johnston, Chicago's Top Green Official, Quietly Bolts To Vancouver Top
Mayor Daley has been saying for years that he wants to make Chicago the greenest city in the country, but his environmental record is decidedly mixed.
 
World In Photos: September 4, 2009 Top
Here is the HuffPost's selection of photos of today's news and events from every corner of the globe. Check back Monday through Friday for this HuffPost World feature. Get HuffPost World On Facebook and Twitter!
 
NY Mag Art Critic Challenges Glenn Beck To Stage Art Shows Top
Days after Glenn Beck presented Fox viewers with his art history lecture of Rockefeller Center , I find myself really thrilled at the extent to which people have gotten so into art history . Apparently there is a desire out there for a little bit more than a Birther Tour of Manhattan landmarks. Now, Glenn Beck is being asked to greatly expand upon his foray into art criticism. Via Tyler Green's Modern Art Notes comes news that New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz has issued a challenge to Beck: Put on your own shows! Saltz writes: A large gallery or museum should ask Glenn Beck to curate two shows this season (he would be free to ask other associates at Fox News to assist). * The first: Images of art in NYC, or actual works, that he would like to see demolished; and * The second: A show of CONTEMPORARY art that he approves of. According to Green, Saltz has pledged to review both shows. And if Beck is looking for suggestions, Green makes a solid case for an inclusion in the second show: an original Scott Sforza multimedia performance art piece with which you may have some passing familiarity. As for me, well, to put it in the contemporary parlance of 30 Rockefeller Center, "I want to go to there!" I can think of few things more enjoyable that attending the opening night reception of these two Beck-curated shows. I would gladly pay money to be in attendance. Later, I would be just as glad to submit any or all receipts pertaining to those shows in an expense report, for reimbursement. [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 .] More on Glenn Beck
 
Chris Kelly: Van Jones Hearts Meg Whitman Top
Meg Whitman, the fourth richest women in California, has been running for governor while refusing to debate an opponent, face an impartial interviewer, or address an unfriendly crowd. She has never held public office, rarely even voted, and has no readily apparent ideas. There's a word for this figure in Republican politics: Frontrunner. She's committed $50 million dollars of her personal fortune to the race, she says, and so far she's won the has the full and passionate support of a woman named Pattie Sellers at Fortune magazine. It's like a groundswell. Or it was, until now. That's all over. Because California just found out the sinister truth about so-called "Republican" Meg Whitman: She loves black Marxists. And not just any black Marxists. She specifically loves the black Marxist who connects ACORN to the SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION! A COMMUNITY ORGANIZER who actually believes in GLOBAL WARMING! A principal architect of THE PORKULUS! AN OBAMA CZAR! She loves VAN! JONES! Who's black. And a Marxist. You might even call him a black Marxist. Because of how black he is. And because he's a Marxist. But here, I'll let her tell you herself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSn37TMXZO8 There's a guy over in Oakland, I think his name is Van Jones. And he and I were on a cruise last summer in the Arctic, on climate change. And I got to know him very well. And a lot of the work he's doing to enfranchise broader communities I'm a big fan of. He's doing a marvelous job... I'm a huge fan of his. He is very bright, very articulate, very passionate. I think he is exactly right. Now, as a rational person, you might be wondering what makes this such a big deal. But that's because you don't watch Glenn Beck. Van Jones is the co-founder a group called Color of Change. Color of Change organized a boycott of Glenn Beck's TV show. So Glenn Beck spent the last week with a dry erase board proving that Van Jones is behind everything that scares white people in America, including the beach. Beck also called Jones a communist - about a thousand times -- and proved, with his white board, that President Obama has put him in charge of the Federal government. Which is a line that even the McCarthyites never crossed. I mean, they never went after the President. They never said the communists were in charge . And that was when there was an actual Soviet Union, full of actual communists. Almost seems like Glenn Beck is a delusional simpleton. Who thinks he's a con man. Impersonating a delusional simpleton. But back to Meg Whitman. Meg Whitman once said something nice about Van Jones, which didn't mean anything at the time, but now proves she supports collectivism and miscegenation. The video is a couple of months old but it appeared, out of nowhere, on YouTube this week. Today Steve Poizner - who's running against Whitman for the Republican nomination - put out a new version, cleverly edited into the credit sequence from The Love Boat . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QFfciwRqaU Yes, The Love Boat . That's Republican satire. Back me up, 1977. Why not duck some more debates, you big disco duck? Is it a big deal? It wouldn't be, if Meg Whitman would give us anything else to talk about. That's the problem with a campaign strategy based on perfect silence. Other people get to fill in the gaps. If you won't tell us who you are, you might as well be Cinque's sea wife. So this kind of thing can stick. Remember, she's running as a Republican. And right now those people are crazy. Van Jones isn't the end of Whitman for Governor, it might not even be the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning. ** Hey, did you notice how the nicest complement Meg Whitman could come up with for a black man was "articulate?" Must be because he has a law degree from Yale and she went to Princeton. Those people are always at each other.
 
The Weirdest Stimulus Projects: Recovery Act Spending Top
The government has spent about $85 billion on Recovery Act projects so far, but not all of money is being used to fix roads, provide more Medicare aid to states, amp up clean energy programs or school repair.
 
CIA Wants DOJ To Investigate Assassinations Leak Top
The CIA is none too happy about the recent disclosure of apparently inchoate "significant actions" canceled by Director Leon Panetta. After the activities' initial disclosure to Congress in late June, additional reporting determined that these actions were a never-operational effort at assassinating members of al-Qaeda and were contracted to the controversial firm Blackwater. Now, Eli Lake and Sara Carter report for The Washington Times that the CIA has requested that the Justice Department open an inquiry into the expanding leaks. Both the CIA and Justice neither confirm nor deny an investigation is taking place. More on Blackwater
 
Chavez Calls Israeli Government 'Genocidal' Top
DAMASCUS, Syria — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told the Israeli people not to support their government, which he described as "genocidal" on Friday, the second day of his trip to Syria. Chavez is on an 11-day trip to Libya, Algeria, Syria, Iran, Belarus, Russia and Spain in what he is describing as a bid to build a multi-polar world and decrease U.S. influence in the region. The Venezuelan president has singled out Israel for criticism during his visit to Syria, slamming it for mistreating the Palestinians and being an agent of U.S. imperialism. "The state of Israel has become a murderous lackey at the service of imperialism," Chavez said. "It's a genocidal government. I condemn that Zionist government that persecutes the heroic Palestinian people." Chavez, whose remarks were broadcast by state television in Venezuela, added that "the people of Israel shouldn't support a genocidal government." Chavez spoke in front of about 10,000 people who gathered at a football stadium in the city of Sweida, some 110 kilometers south of Damascus, near the Jordanian border. More than 200,000 people from the Sweida area carry Venezuelan citizenship and most are members of Syria's Druse sect, who immigrated to Venezuela in the past century. Chavez later inaugurated a public garden in the city, naming it after 19th century Latin American independence leader Simon Bolivar. The firebrand Latin American leader has built close ties with Iran, Syria, Cuba and other countries while his relations have grown tense with Israel. Chavez strongly criticized Israel's war against Gaza in December and January and said the Jewish state should return to Syria the strategic Golan Heights that it captured in 1967 Mideast war. Chavez also called for Israel to "take its hands off Latin America also. Because there the U.S. empire is trying to turn Colombia... into the Israel of Latin America." Venezuela and Colombia have been feuding for weeks over negotiations between the Colombian government and Washington that would allow the U.S. military to increase its presence at seven Colombian bases through a 10-year lease agreement. Chavez calls the pending deal a threat to Venezuela. Colombia says it's necessary to more effectively help fight drug traffickers and leftist rebels. ____ Associated Press Writer Ian James in Caracas contributed to this report. More on Israel
 
Anthony Weiner: Obama Hasn't Led On Health Care (VIDEO) Top
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) said Obama has been hurting the cause of health care reform by sitting out the fight. "David Axelrod said on your show that this is like we're in the ninth inning," he told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow last night. "That's not true. Our cleanup hasn't even come to the plate." Weiner is a forceful advocate of a public health insurance option. He's said he thinks about 100 Democratic House members would vote against a bill that didn't include it. "We've been in a scrap through the month of August, but we really haven't had presidential leadership in the way we need it most," Weiner told Maddow. He told he thought Obama's speech next week would turn things around. "If he stands up Wednesday and says to the country, we need to have a public option and here's why, it's going to get done. If he don't we'll settle for less and that will be a tragedy." Weiner dismissed talk of an incremental approach or a bill that only deals with some problems of the health care industry. "That's not the change that a lot of people think they voted for," he said. Watch: Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News , World News , and News about the Economy Earlier this week, Weiner attempted to explain Medicare to confused CNBC host Maria Bartiromo . More on Rachel Maddow
 
Yoani Sanchez: 34 Years Top
Today I am twice as old as I was in 1993, when I began taking care of myself and decided to leave home. I gave up the protection, the hot food--or rather the joke of food, because it was the worst moment of the Special Period*--the minimum financial support that my parents could offer me and the shield they formed between the hardness of the street and my adolescent dreams. Loaded with a bird cage, a pile of books and my only change of clothes I launched myself without a net, looking for that independence which even today I'm obsessed with. This September 4, I will already have spent half my life being responsible for my actions. In this time I have learned to value autonomy, to distrust the subsidies and all these "gifts" that they constantly throw in the faces of citizens. I enjoyed and suffered from having to answer for what I did and not being able to take refuge in the phrase, "I don't know, ask my mom." After many setbacks, I've come to understand that my true home has the form of an Island and that from this, at least, I don't think of leaving and slamming the door behind me. I already walked out once with my belongings on my back, now--that I am twice as old--I have to stay. My friend Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo created this video as a birthday present to me, and I invite you to watch it. Translator's note Special Period: A time of great hardship in Cuba after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss of its subsidies for Cuba. Yoani's blog, Generation Y , can be read here in English translation. More on Cuba
 

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