Sunday, September 27, 2009

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Karen Robinovitz: A Moment of Success (Finally!) Top
Back to the action of production and getting the business up and running. In the last piece of the story, we had just received 30,000 damanged components - and I was suddenly suffering from severe acid reflex, brought on by stress. After going through weeks upon weeks of debate with the manufacturer to replace them... missing shipping dates... losing the UK opportunity to star in 62 windows (and receiving a 13,000 pound bill for the screw up)... a whole lot of crying... an enormous dose of fear... thoughts of giving up... we had... finally... a moment of success! In case you missed it, this picture shows you the kind of damage we had when we attempted to fill the components we didn't know were cracked until we - well - tried to fill them! Look closely and you will see a fracture in the component that caused the leaking! Here it is again! Can you imagine? This is the story of a bit of our bright light - see my vlog below! Stay tuned for more purple action! Mwah! Karen Purple Lab Creatrix
 
Johann Hari: The Saviour of Africa - and the Environment? An Interview With Nobel Prize-winner Wangari Maathai Top
When does planting a tree become a revolutionary act - and unleash an army of gunmen who want to shoot you dead? The answer to this question lies in the unlikely story of Wangari Maathai. She was born on the floor of a mud hut with no water or electricity in the middle of rural Kenya, in the place where human beings took their first steps. There was no money but there was at least lush green rainforest and cool, clear drinking water. But Maathai watched as the life-preserving landscape of her childhood was hacked down. The forests were felled, the soils dried up, and the rivers died, so a corrupt and distant clique could profit. She started a movement to begin to make the land green again - and in the process she went to prison, nearly died, toppled a dictator, transformed how African women saw themselves, and won a Nobel Prize. Now Maathai is travelling the world with a warning. As she told the United Nations climate summit last Tuesday, it is not just her beloved rainforest that is threatened now, but all rainforests. "As human beings, we are attacking our own life-support system," she says. "And if we carry on like this, we are digging our own grave." Her story begins with one particular tree in the heart of Africa. In 1940, Maathai became the third of six children born to illiterate peasant farmers. Her father worked as a "glorified slave" for the British settlers who occupied Kenya. He was forced to do what he was told on their farms, and forbidden - like all black people - from growing his own food and selling it. The nearby town of Nakuru was strictly segregated, with Africans banned from the "European areas." As a child, Maathai escaped into the natural landscape. She studied the forests - how they absorbed water and turned them into streams, and how they were filled with life. She would sit for hours under one particular fig tree, which her mother told her was sacred and life-giving and should never be damaged. "That tree inspired awe. It was protected. It was the place of God. But in the Sixties, after I had gone far away, I went back to where I grew up," she says, "and I found God had been relocated to a little stone building called a church. The tree was no longer sacred. It had been cut down. I mourned for that tree. And I knew the trees had to live. They have to live so we can live." I. A Daughter of the Soil I am meeting Maathai in a busy hotel in London. She approaches me in the lobby - a tall, broad woman with a bright blue headdress and a slight limp - looking frazzled. "I have a flight in a few hours and I have packed nothing! Ah, you know how it is," she says. "Let's have coffee." As soon as we sit, she begins to talk about the trees, and a calm settles over her unlined 69-year-old face. "I am a daughter of the soil, and trees have been my life," she says. She begins to talk reverentially about how trees store carbon, regulate rainfall, hold soil in place, and provide food. "I can't live without the green trees, and nor can you. I'm humbled by the understanding that they could get along without me though! They sustain us, not the other way round. We don't really know where we came from, where we are going, and what the purpose of all this is. But we can look at the trees and the animals and each other, and realise we are part of a web we can't really control." She was only able to learn the hard science of the forests because her parents made a bold decision. At a time when girls were not often educated, her mother resolved to send her girl to school, and give her all the opportunities she had never had. The British settler her father worked for was furious: who was going to pick his pyrethrum? But her mother insisted - a rare and risky act of defiance. Maathai soon shot to the top of the class, and was offered a place at a Catholic boarding school run by Irish nuns. When she was 13, in her first year away at school, the rebellion against the British occupation broke out. The Mau Mau guerrilla fighters took on the British occupiers to drive them away, killing around 100 people. The British fought back with astonishing ferocity, killing around 100,000 Kenyans. "The Home Guards had a reputation for extreme cruelty and all manner of terror," she says. Her mother was forced out of her home at gunpoint and ordered to live in an "emergency village" - a glorified camp surrounded by trenches. Men were not allowed in. "My mother and father didn't see each other for seven years," she says. "I carried messages between them. That's how I ended up imprisoned for the first time." When she was 16, she was caught by British soldiers, and thrown into a detention camp. "The conditions were horrible - designed to break people's spirits and self-confidence and instil sufficient fear that they would abandon their struggle." It stank. She slept on the floor and wept. After two days, she was released. She adds: "I will never forget the misery in that camp. There is terrible trauma for everyone from those times." What does she think of the British historians who lyrically laud the British Empire, and say what happened in Kenya was merely a blip? "Well, that is the propaganda we all give to our subjects! They have to do that for them to support these terrible crimes." It was not only humans who were being cut down. Her forests began to be slashed by the British and replaced with vast commercial plantations growing tea for export. These plantations couldn't absorb and store water in the same way, so the groundwater levels fell to almost nothing, and the local streams dried up. After independence, Kenya's corrupt new ruling class continued the same policies, treating the forests as their private property to be pillaged. But Maathai was offered a way out, to a place where she could ignore all this. After scoring extremely highly on the national exams, she was granted a place at an American university. It would be fully paid-for by the US Government, as part of a policy introduced by John Kennedy. She was one of thousands of young Africans - including Barack Obama Sr - who became part of "the Kennedy airlift" to study there. At first, "I felt like I had landed on the moon." She remembers getting into her first elevator: "I thought I was going to be pulled apart!" She was shocked to see men and women dancing pressed up against each other and women with relative freedom. She stayed for four years, majoring in biology in Kansas, and "America changed me in every way. I saw the civil rights movement. It changed what I knew about how to be a citizen, how to be a woman, how to live. But I always knew I would go back." Her forests were calling. When she arrived back in Kenya, she soon became the first woman ever to get a PhD in East or Central Africa. She was a Professor by her mid-20s. But she was paid far less than men in the same position, and the entirely male student body at first refused to take lessons from her in anatomy. "But I showed them who was boss. A failing grade from me counted as much as from any man! That was a language they understood." She met a young Kenyan politician called Mwangi Maathai, and adored him. She became swept up in his campaign to gain a seat in parliament, and quickly married him - but it soon started to go bad. "When Mwangi won the election, I was so happy for him. I said - what are we going to do now to get jobs for all the people we promised help for? He just said - oh, that was the campaign." She pauses, disgusted still. "I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He didn't intend to do anything." She joined a group called the National Council of Women of Kenya, determined to give other people the opportunities she had been given. "Many of the girls I was at school with were back working in the fields and living in huts, and I wanted to help them," she says. When she went out into their areas, she saw the forests had been razed, and malnutrition was rife. She felt helpless and wondered what she could do. "Then it just came to me - why not plant trees? The trees would provide a supply of wood that would enable women to cook nutritious foods. They would also have wood for fencing, and fodder for cattle and goats. The trees would offer shade for humans and animals, protect watersheds and bind the soil, and if they were fruit trees, provide food. They would also heal the land by bringing back birds and small animals and regenerate the vitality of the earth." She managed to persuade international aid organisations to pay women a very small sum - around 2p - for successfully planting each tree. At first, local men scoffed. What could women do? How could they make trees grow? What did this belong in our traditions? But women were soon organising themselves from village to village into independent committees. "We started by planting trees, but soon we were planting ideas! We were showing women could be an independent force. That they were strong." But a scandal was waiting that threatened to leave Maathai broken - and broke. II. Too strong Mwangi Maathai was jealous of his wife's intellect and expected her to be submissive and obedient. "He wanted me to fake failure and deny my God-given talents. But I wouldn't do it," she says. One morning, he announced he was divorcing her - and it became a national news story. Divorce was, at that time, a huge scandal - and the woman was always blamed. When the case came to open court, it was filled with journalists eager to report on Mwangi's charges that she was an adulterous witch who had caused his high blood pressure and refused to submit to his will. She was, he announced, "too educated, too strong, too successful, too stubborn, and too hard to control." The men in the courtroom cheered. "With every court proceeding, I felt stripped naked before my children, my family and friends. It was a cruel, cruel punishment," Maathai wrote in her autobiography, Unbowed. She adds: "I was being turned into a sacrificial lamb. Anybody who had a grudge against modern, educated and independent women was being given an opportunity to spit on me. I decided to hold my head high, put my shoulders back, and suffer with dignity: I would give every woman and girl reasons to be proud and never regret being educated, successful, and talented." The judge found in her husband's favour, saying she had been a disgrace as a wife and deserved nothing. A few days later, she criticised the judge in an interview for his sexism - and he ordered she be tossed into prison for contempt of court. "So not only had I lost my husband but I lost my freedom," she says. The other women prisoners were very kind to her: they let her sleep in the middle of the huddle, so she wouldn't be so cold. "Far from beating me down, I felt stronger. I knew I'd done nothing wrong." When she was released, she decided to run for parliament herself, to demand rights for women. She resigned from the university and announced her candidacy - only for another judge to declare she was ineligible to stand on the false grounds that she hadn't placed herself on the electoral register. The university - also under political pressure - refused to take her back. Suddenly, "I was 41 years old and I had no job, no money, and I was about to be evicted from my house. I didn't have enough money to feed my children. I remember them wanting chips, and I just couldn't afford it. You never forget the sound of your child crying with hunger." She rubs her head-dress softly and says: "I thought about my mother. She had survived everything life put at her. She had been kept apart from my father for seven years in an emergency village. She always survived." It was at this personal midnight that she returned to the small seeds she had begun to plant years before. She decided to urge women to plant whole forests. She wanted to see an entire new green belt across Kenya nurtured by women. A grant by the UN Development Programme and the Norwegian Government spurred it on, and she felt herself awakening again - along with the greening land. Then one day she read about a threat to some of the country's most precious trees. Daniel Arap Moi, the thuggish dictator of Kenya, decided to build over Uhuru Park, the only green space in the capital of Nairobi. He wanted to replace it with a giant skyscraper, some luxury apartments, and a huge golden statue of himself. So she decided to do something you weren't supposed to do in Moi's Kenya: protest. She led large marches to the park, and wrote to the project's international funders, asking if they would happily pay to concrete over Hyde Park or Central Park. "People said it would make no difference - that you can't make a dictator hear you, he's too strong," she says. "But I was in Japan a few years ago and I heard a story about a hummingbird. There's a huge fire in the forest and all the animals run out to escape. But the hummingbird stays, flying to and from a nearby river carrying water in its beak to put on the fire. The animals laugh and mock this little hummingbird. They say - the fire is so big, you can't do anything. But the hummingbird replies - I'm doing what I can. There is always something we can do. You can always carry a little water in your beak." But the initial reaction to her protests was frightening. She began to receive anonymous phone calls telling her should shut up or face death. Moi called her a "madwoman," and announced: "According to African traditions, women should respect their men! She has crossed the line!" When she carried on, she was charged with treason - a crime which carried the death penalty - and was slammed away in prison. She had arthritis, and she says: "In that cold, wet cell my joints ached so much I thought I would die." But she would not apologise, or give in. "What other people see as fearlessness is really persistence. Because I am focused on the solution, I don't see the danger. If you only look at the solution, you can defy anyone and appear strong and fearless." It was only after international protests began to gather - led by then-Senator Al Gore - that an embarrassed Moi had to let her go. She immediately started protesting again. After three years of campaigning against the developers and relentless death-threats, Moi finally relented. He dropped the project. The park was saved. A dictator defeated by a woman? Nothing like it had happened in Kenya before. It was the moment the Moi regime began to die. She says: "People began to think - if one little woman of no significance except her stubbornness can do this, surely the government can be changed." A great green wave of trees was starting to grow across the country: some 35 million have been planted by her Green Belt Movement. But her confrontation with Moi was not over. As a symbol of resistance, Maathai was contacted by a group of mothers whose sons had disappeared into the prison system, simply for democratically opposing the regime. They believed their sons were being tortured. They were frantic with fear and grief. Maathai realised she could not refuse them. She told them to gather up blanket and mattresses, because they were going to go to Central Nairobi, plant themselves in Moi's vision, and refuse to leave until he released their sons. On the first night, the police watched anxiously, unsure what to do. Hundreds of people gathered in solidarity. By the third day, there were thousands - and men started to publicly describe how they had been tortured by the police, and weep. "Nothing like it had happened in our country's history before," she says. But then the police swooped in with tear gas and batons. They beat the women hard, and Maathai hardest of all. She was carried away bleeding. When she had to sign her name at the police station, she dipped her finger in her own blood, pouring from a crack in her head, and scrawled her name with it. The next morning, all the women went back. Maathai was there too, in a neck brace and bandages, insisting she would not be intimidated. For a second time, Moi relented. There was a sense of shock in the country - the women had
 
Jonathan Handel: SAG: Four Hardline Horsemen in the National Board Room Top
Thursday's SAG election was a victory for the moderate coalition. Yet, strangely enough, the leaders of the losing hardline faction will all find seats on the national board, and will continue to be a shadow government within the union's Hollywood board--a board on which, in contrast, none of the moderate leaders will be voting members. Yes, the moderates (Unite for Strength (UFS) / USAN / RBD / independents) won the national offices - President and Secretary-Treasurer - and picked up additional national board seats and many on the Hollywood board as well. But with SAG, the story is never simple. In fact, paradoxically, 1 st VP and failed Membership First presidential candidate Anne-Marie Johnson will continue as 1 st VP, ex-president Alan Rosenberg will almost certainly be back on the national board in a matter of days despite winning only an alternate seat, MF leader David Joliffe will be on the Hollywood board and effectively on the national board, and MF leader Kent McCord continues on the national and Hollywood boards. Meanwhile, none of the moderate leaders will be on the Hollywood board--Unite for Strength leaders Ned Vaughn, Assaf Cohen, Ken Howard and Amy Aquino are all off of that board, at least as voting members (the latter two will serve ex-officio, as non-voting members). Tough independent and former presidential candidate Morgan Fairchild remains, but she's not a member of the UFS slate and thus doesn't occupy a leadership position in that group. UFS-ers Adam Arkin and Amy Brenneman also remain, and perhaps will emerge to fill the gap. How could the election yield so much change in the national offices and so little in the Hollywood Division? Here's the scenario: 1. The moderates seemingly have 27 seats on the Hollywood board out of 55 (because 27 = 6 seats pre-election plus 21 additional seats won in the election). That's a tad less than half (49%). It would seemingly take peeling off one more vote from MF for the moderates to control the Hollywood board. 2. However, look closer. One of those 6 pre-election seats was held by Ken Howard. Under the SAG Constitution and By-Laws, a national officer can't also be an elected member of the national board or a Divisional board. So, the day he became president, Howard lost his elected seat on the national and Hollywood boards, and, indeed, his name has been replaced on SAG website listings with "(1 TBD)." That leaves the moderates with 26 seats on the Hollywood board out of 54. That's less than half by an even greater margin (48%). Now it would take 2 more votes, rather than just one, for the moderates to control the Hollywood board. 3. So, Membership First controls the Hollywood board, unless two people break ranks. If that doesn't happen, then MF will fill the TBD vacancy. Whom will they appoint? Almost certainly Alan Rosenberg, whom they would elevate from national board alternate (which is the office he won on Thursday) to full national board member from the Hollywood division. Thus, even though Rosenberg 's presidency was so discredited in many members' eyes that he couldn't even win a board seat, he's likely to end up with on anyway. This would take place at the next Hollywood board meeting, which is scheduled for October 5 or 6 (I'm not sure which). 4. Elevating Rosenberg leaves his alternate seat vacant. So, MF would then vote to appoint its longtime leader David Joliffe as a Hollywood alternate (and Hollywood board member). That effectively appoints him to the national board, because one or more of MF celebrity board members (which include Martin Sheen, Ed Harris, Elliott Gould and Ed Asner) will usually be absent from national board meetings. 5. MF will also presumably vote to appoint newly reelected board member Anne-Marie Johnson as 1 st VP (the VP office from Hollywood) and as Divisional chair, to the extent that she doesn't automatically continue in these offices (it's not clear to me what expired and what didn't; note that the updated SAG website still lists her as 1 st VP). This is possible because Johnson ran for two seats in this election--president, but also, as a backup, national board member. She won the latter. 6. As a result, MF will have skilled leadership as voting members in the Hollywood board room, namely, all four of its core leaders: Johnson, Rosenberg, Jolliffe and, continuing on the national and Hollywood boards, Kent McCord. 7. In contrast, Unite for Strength will have none of its leaders as voting members in the Hollywood boardroom: Ned Vaughn and Assaf Cohen didn't win seats on the Hollywood or national boards, and Ken Howard and Amy Aquino, as national officers, are non-voting, ex officio members of the Hollywood board, as well as the NY and RBD (Regional Branch Division) boards. One wonders whether Howard and/or Aquino will be able to find time to attend every Hollywood board meeting. In any case, their formal roles would be very circumscribed; under the Constitution and By-Laws, they're not even allowed to make motions or "initiate any other parliamentary procedures." 8. Note also that the Hollywood board gets to appoint the Hollywood members of the TV/theatrical contract negotiating committee, if there is one, and that Hollywood has a majority on that committee. That suggests that negotiation will once again have to be handled by a task force appointed by the whole board, not by a committee appointed on a Division by Division basis. (It's unclear to me whether the task force appointed earlier this year is still in existence.) 9. Remember too that it was the Hollywood board that passed a resolution expressing the goal that SAG "acquire actors of AFTRA," i.e. in some mystical fashion divesting AFTRA of its actors and absorbing all of them in SAG. Anne-Marie Johnson ran for and won a seat on the AFTRA board--despite saying it was distasteful to run--giving her an internal platform for this goal as well. We can expect MF to seek to terminate the anti-disparagement agreement so that the Hollywood board will be free to express its anti-AFTRA views without financial repercussion to SAG. Bottom line: SAG's byzantine governance structure and geographical divisiveness will once again facilitate disunity. Among other things, the question becomes, will SAG and AFTRA be able to reestablish joint bargaining under the Phase 1 agreement? The divided governance certainly makes it harder. -------------- Subscribe to my blog ( jhandel.com ) for more about entertainment law and digital media law. Go to the blog itself to subscribe via RSS or email. Or, follow me on Twitter , friend me on Facebook , or subscribe to my Huffington Post articles. If you work in tech, check out my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets . More on Labor
 
Huff TV: James Carville And Mary Matalin On CNN: Back In Familiar Territory, Couple Trade Barbs On TV Top
Married D.C. power couple James Carville and May Matalin returned to their bickering, if loving ways Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union with John King." Just last week, Carville, a Democrat, and Matalin, a Republican, shared a moment after CNN aired a clip from Saturday Night Live mocking Carville. The opposites-attract political consultants returned to more familiar territory Sunday and laid into one another after King asked the pair about a "vast right-wing conspiracy." The pair weighed in, but then Carville accused his wife of simply repeating GOP talking points. Matalin responded and said her husband can't write--he can only talk CARVILLE: We seem to have gone from the vast right-wing conspiracy to the vast right-wing talking points here. MATALIN: I don't get the talking points like you do. Check, check, check. KING: I thought he wrote the talking points. MATALIN: He can't write. He can only talk. More on GOP
 
Huff TV: Carville And Matalin On CNN: Back In Familiar Territory Couple Trade Barbs On TV Top
Married D.C. power couple James Carville and May Matalin returned to their bickering, if loving ways Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union with John King." Just last week, Carville, a Democrat, and Matalin, a Republican, shared a moment after CNN aired a clip from Saturday Night Live mocking Carville. The opposites-attract political consultants returned to more familiar territory Sunday and laid into one another after King asked the pair about a "vast right-wing conspiracy." The pair weighed in, but then Carville accused his wife of simply repeating GOP talking points. Matalin responded and said her husband can't write--he can only talk CARVILLE: We seem to have gone from the vast right-wing conspiracy to the vast right-wing talking points here. MATALIN: I don't get the talking points like you do. Check, check, check. KING: I thought he wrote the talking points. MATALIN: He can't write. He can only talk. More on GOP
 
Kim Morgan: Roman Polanski Understands Women: 'Repulsion' Top
I'm not going to go into my Roman Polanski defense. I've been doing this all morning, nearly ranting and raving over my views on the matter, and have grown frustrated and depressed. But in short, I'm not happy about his arrest. So, I would rather discuss one of his greatest pictures, a brilliant portrait of female sadness, alienation, sexual neurosis turned to psychosis. A movie all women should watch. His masterpiece Repulsion. "I hate doing this to a beautiful woman." --Roman Polanski cameraman Gil Taylor Roman Polanski knows women because he understands men. He knows both sexes because he understands the games both genders play, either consciously or instinctively. He understands the perversions formed from such relations and translates them into visions that are erotic, disturbing, humorous and, most important, allegorical in their potency. One should not (as so many did with his misunderstood Bitter Moon ) take Polanski's films literally, for they are often heightened versions of what occurs naturally in our world: desire, perversion, repulsion. Film writer Molly Haskell said that at the core of Polanski's work is the "image of the anesthetized woman, the beautiful, inarticulate, and possibly even murderous somnambulate." Her observation is astute, but it's followed by the tired criticism that in all of Polanski's films, including  Repulsion , "the titillations of torture are stronger than the bonds of empathy." Of course. Polanski's removed morality is exactly why he is often brilliant: He is so empathetic to his characters that, like a trauma victim floating above the pain, he is personally impersonal. He insightfully scrutinizes what is so frightening about being human, yet he doesn't feel the need to be resolute or sentimental about his cognizance. He is also, consciously or subconsciously, aware of the darkness he explores, especially in his female characters, who could be seen as extensions of himself. 1965's Repulsion proves as much. Starring ice goddess Catherine Deneuve, Repulsion is one of the most frightening studies of madness ever filmed. Deneuve plays Carol, a nervous young manicurist who shares an apartment with her sexually active sister (Yvonne Furneaux). At first Carol goes about her days in the salon, where she quietly tends to bossy old ladies' fleshy cuticles; walking outside, where she unsuccessfully avoids the leering glances and advances of men; and languishing about the apartment, where, with disgust, she listens to the noises of her sister's lovemaking and silently despises the men who visit. She exhibits a pathological shyness and repression that slowly spiral into madness after her sister leaves on holiday. Carol's dementia creates perplexing hallucinations: sexual acts with a greasy man whom she simultaneously loathes and lusts after; greedy hands poking through walls and kneading her soft flesh; and the moving and cracking of walls. Left alone, she is able to act out what she is so afraid of: the dark sludge of desire. The obscure, slippery and decayed complexities of such desire are conveyed brilliantly in Repulsion . The diseased atmosphere of Carol's womb is meticulously created with Polanski's use of camera angles, sound effects and images of clutter. Though music is used effectively, Polanski relies more on amplifying the sounds of everyday life -- the ticking of a clock, the voices of nuns playing catch in the convent garden, the dripping of a faucet -- to convey the acute awareness Carol acquires in response to her fear. Polanski also dresses the film with pertinent details that further exemplify both Carol's madness and the aching passage of time: Potatoes sprout in the kitchen, meat (rabbit meat, no less) rots on a plate and eventually collects flies, various debris of blood, food and liquids form naturally around Carol. The film's inventive use of black-and-white film, wide-angle lenses and close-ups creates an unsparing vision of sickness, and Deneuve's performance is effectively mysterious. The viewer, however, is able to empathize with Carol, which is how she lures us into her web in the first place. As Polanski cameraman Gil Taylor muttered during filming, "I hate doing this to a beautiful woman." And yet, one loves doing this to a beautiful woman, especially one like Deneuve. Deneuve's loveliness makes Carol's madness more palatable (her unfortunate suitor thinks she is odd, but he can't help but "love" this gorgeous woman), but eventually it becomes horrifying. Carol is not simply a Hitchcockian aberration of what lies beneath the "perfect woman," she is the reflection of what lies beneath repressed desire -- in men and women. Polanski has a knack for casting women who are nervously exciting (Faye Dunaway in Chinatown is a blinking, twitching mess), and therefore dangerous to desire. He makes one insecure about longing for them. And Deneuve is certainly nerve-racking. She is so physically flawless that she often seems half human: An anemic girl, she can barely lift up her arm, yet at the same time she is highly sensual, an ample, heavily breathing woman with more than a glint of carnality in her dreamily vacant eyes. Deneuve makes one feel the confusion of a corrupted child: She is an arrested adolescent who, like an anorexic, cannot face her womanliness without visions of perverse opulence and violence. Carol is the personification of sexual mystery -- she is what lurks beneath the orgasms of pleasure and pain. What Polanski finds intriguing and revolting is perceptively female, making Repulsion a woman's picture more than women may want to know, or care to face. Read more Kim Morgan at Sunset Gun .
 
Navi Pillay: Improving Democracy Top
There has been remarkable progress in terms of the number of States that have adopted democratic governance over the past two decades, mainly through commitment to holding periodic elections. While this gives new hope and expectations to millions of people around the globe, the prospect of leading a fulfilled life, free from fear and want, remains elusive for millions who continue to suffer from injustice, war, poverty, social exclusion, and numerous forms of discrimination. These not only damage their lives and well-being, but also at times reach a level that jeopardizes international peace and security. Non-existent or inadequate democracy remains perhaps the single biggest barrier to widespread enjoyment of human rights. Likewise, the failure to respect fundamental human rights is a major impediment to the establishment of a smooth-running democracy. For this reason, action by the United Nations in providing technical cooperation to support national governments and actors seeking to establish, restore or improve democratic processes and institutions is of greater significance than is generally recognized. Chipping away at the impediments to democracy is long, slow, often unglamorous work, but when it produces results in the form of a freely and fairly elected government it is priceless. The failures in democracy - stuffed ballots and stolen elections, leading to protests, riots and sometimes even civil war - dominate the news and arouse anger and anxiety, whereas the fragile incremental successes that precede and accompany the establishment, or major overhaul, of a democracy rarely make headlines. In our efforts to establish true, smooth-running democracies on a wide scale we have come a long way - and we still have a long way to go. Democracy does not come alone, and it does not come cheap. If it is to be sustained, it has to develop in tandem with the realization of numerous basic human rights: for example the rights to universal education, gender equity, non-discrimination against all sorts of minorities, and a free and critical press and civil society. I would like to highlight four challenges to democracy that are particularly relevant today: Impunity, corruption, denial of access to justice for disadvantaged groups, and conflict and disorder. All States must uphold their human rights obligations even in the face of national emergencies, including outright conflicts. They are obliged to act within the law and do their utmost to ensure accountability for abuses and wrongdoing. Corruption is also a major impediment to democracy: all forms of corruption -- including the political, economic and corporate varieties -- undermine democratic values and institutions, degrade the enjoyment of rights, and impair the ability of the State to implement human rights, in particular, economic and social rights. Resources to combat corruption should be made readily and widely available at the national and international levels. In addition, there should be further focus on studying the particular needs of minorities and other disadvantaged groups in societies, such as women, children, and non-citizens The attainment and maintenance of democracy is a relentless, on-going process which deserves our struggle and sacrifices. And the same goes for the principles contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the democracy-supporting norms and standards enshrined in the United Nations Charter as well as the wide array of international human rights treaties and other instruments. Democracy and human rights go hand in hand: if one stumbles, then so does the other. I call on all States to uphold their commitment to democracy and the rule of law. My office, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, stands ready to provide the necessary cooperation and support to all countries striving to counter democracy deficits through the protection of human rights and the rule of law; access to justice by all, especially the most vulnerable segments of the society; the empowerment of disadvantaged groups and of civil society; and the enjoyment of fundamental freedoms. More on United Nations
 
Carol Hoenig: Staying Sane While Picking Up the Pieces Top
Divorce is a common theme in many works of fiction; probably because we have all been affected by it one way or another and need to examine how something we were sure was so right eventually went so wrong. I couldn't help but consider this while reading Irene Zutell's Pieces of Happily Ever After (St. Martin's Griffin). Alice not only has to face that her husband left her, but that he left her for a very famous celebrity. This in turn puts a glaring light literally, thanks to the hounding paparazzo, on Alice's failings as a wife, mother and woman. In spite of a marriage coming to an end and dealing with a mother with Alzheimer's, there are a number of humorous scenes that take place in this novel; for instance, when Alice discovers that her neighbors go over the top on cheesy Christmas decorating and she's expected to do the same otherwise she will also come up short in one other aspect of her life. Without a doubt, it is a frivolous concern in comparison to watching a loved one slip into a vacuum that sucks away any remnant of personality and I often kept wishing Alice would stop being the victim and learn to take control of her life. The strongest character in Pieces of Happily Ever After is Gabby, Alice's five-year old daughter. Unfortunately, this reader found the child to be far too precocious for her age. Had she been perhaps ten years old, it would have been easier to accept the mature diction and complete sentences the author implements via Gabby to help reveal Alice's moods, struggles and concerns. We are told early on just how bright the little girl is, but it would have been more believable seeing how a five-year old reacted to the upheaval in her home instead of hearing her state it so clearly. However, Zutell does a wonderful job giving Alzheimer's a face in the character of Alice's mother, a woman whose communication is economical but colorful, thanks to the affects of the debilitating disease. Eventually, Alice finds her way and this reader was grateful that Zutell didn't have a denouement wrapped in a tidy bow. This should give anyone experiencing drama in his or her life comfort to know that happily ever after comes in the moments between the disappointments, sadness and frustration. Pieces of Happily Ever After reminds us we just need to look for them.
 
Dr. Peter Breggin: Conference on Stopping the Psychiatric Abuse of Children Top
Millions of our children are being labeled with false and stigmatizing psychiatric diagnoses. Then their brains are being blunted and disabled by psychiatric drugs. Want to find a way to do something about the plight of our children at the hands of drug companies and misguided mental health professionals? Want to learn more about what our children really need from us? In less than two weeks, you can attend the annual meeting of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology at the Renaissance Syracuse Hotel. The two-day conference takes place on Friday and Saturday, October 9-10, 2009 in Syracuse, New York. It features international experts on the adverse of effects of psychiatric drugs and better ways of helping children and families. The public is welcome. For the sake of our children, please attend. This year's conference comes at a tragic turning point in the psychiatric abuse of children. In the past, the main threat has come from the widespread use of stimulant drugs like Ritalin, Dexedrine, Adderall, Focalin, and Concerta for children labeled with ADHD. These drugs work by crushing spontaneous behavior. Frequently this leads to depression, as well as insomnia, anxiety and psychosis. The stimulants suppress the growth of children, cause abnormalities in their brains, induce sudden cardiac death, and predispose children to cocaine abuse in young adulthood. As bad as this is, the situation of our children has recently become even more desperate. In the past year, the FDA has unleashed a crisis of epidemic proportions by approving lobotomizing antipsychotic drugs for the control of behavior in children. Diabetes. Pancreatitis. Pathological obesity. The abnormal growth of breast tissue and even lactation in young boys and girls. Heart disease. Permanently disfiguring tics and other abnormal movements (tardive dyskinesia). Agonizing muscle spasms that also defy treatment and last indefinitely (tardive dystonia). These are a few of the drastic disorders caused by antipsychotic drugs such as Zyprexa, Risperdal, Abilify, Seroquel, Geodon, and Invega. The antipsychotic drugs work by flattening the emotions and causing docility, so that the children no longer make trouble, at least for a while. With their frontal lobe function suppressed, the kids become more robotic in their behavior, and their mental and emotional growth is stunted. Often these drugs will turn them into lifelong mental patients whose enslaved brains will continue to deteriorate under toxic assault. Great speakers and workshop presenters will cover these and many other subjects about psychiatry and about how to help children and families in distress with caring and effective psychological, education, and social approaches. Stephen A. Sheller is one of the lead attorneys in two of the largest billion-dollar settlements ever made as a result of civil and criminal actions brought by the federal government against drug companies Pfizer and Eli Lilly. Both legal actions involved psychiatric drugs. I will be honored to introduce attorney Sheller at the conference. As the Founder Emeritus of ICSPP (I've passed the mantle onto younger professionals), I will be making two presentations, one on how to inspire the psychiatric reform movement and another on better approaches to helping children and families. Attorney James Gottstein from Alaska is the world's most active civil rights attorney on behalf of psychiatricaly abused children and adults. Graham Dukes, a physician and a lawyer, is a leading expert on international drug regulation. Critiques of ADHD and better approaches to children and families will be presented by many experts in psychiatry, pediatrics, psychology, and education. Registration can be made on-line or at the meeting at the Syracuse Renaissance Hotel, Friday and Saturday, October 9-10, 2009. Tickets are available for one or both days. For hotel reservations, call 315-479-7000. If you care about our children, this is the place for you to be. It's always a great and inspiring conference. Even if you don't know anyone else at the conference, you will feel at home. You will meet many new friends with similar concerns. Our children need our protection and support in these dire times. Peter R. Breggin, M.D. is a psychiatrist in private practice in Ithaca, New York. The observations made in this column are scientifically documented in his medical book, Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry, Second Edition (2008) as well as his popular book, Medication Madness: The Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Violence, Crime and Suicide (2008). Dr. Breggin's website, loaded with scientific information and interesting radio and TV reports, is www.breggin.com. On Dr. Breggin's website you can purchase a bonus edition of ICSPP's new book, The Conscience of Psychiatry: The Reform Work of Peter R. Breggin, MD (2009).
 
John Farr: Leniency for Polanski Top
The news of director Roman Polanski's arrest stirred me more than I might have expected, since I'd just screened Marina Zenovich's revealing documentary about this man's tortured life, entitled Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008). This documentary is must-viewing, particularly given breaking events. Confronting these developments, we must affirm the law's the law, right? And what Polanski reputedly did with a 13-year-old girl all those years ago was unquestionably the act of a sick individual. But the story of what Polanski suffered even before the unspeakable trauma of having his pregnant wife Sharon Tate butchered in the spooky twilight of the turbulent Sixties makes me believe that overall, he's as much victim as predator himself.  Can you imagine living in the Krakow ghetto during the Nazi Occupation, and at the tender age of ten watching both your parents shuttled off to concentration camps, only to have your mother die in one? These horrors by no means excuse his crime, but they are mitigating factors, are they not? This new arrest also smacks of a sneak attack on the now 76-year-old director, who's been remarried to actress Emmanuelle Seigner for two decades. (He's probably reformed by now , don't you think?) And unless there's something we don't yet know -- for instance, that he actually wanted to be arrested to gain some sort of late-life expiation of his past sins -- then it's clear he thought he was safe going to Switzerland to accept that award. Watching Wanted and Desired , I did not get the impression that the now-adult lady Polanski seduced, who after all bears the most right to carry a grudge, would herself want to see the aging director slapped behind bars at this stage. (Perhaps others who saw the film had a different impression.) So, with all due contempt for child molesters in general, I hope the case will be handled expeditiously, and that Polanski ultimately receives a measure of leniency. I can't help musing that here in America, we drove away Chaplin for all those years, and though Polanski's crime was much harsher and more defined, I, for one, would welcome having him back among us once he's paid his debt to society. Maybe he could even help us make better movies again. Of course, the diminutive Pole has had his share of stinkers (example: 1988's Frantic was most ordinary), but in my view, the following five features assure his screen immortality. Knife In The Water (1962)- Weird dynamics arise when a married couple impulsively invite a young male hitch-hiker on a boating excursion. The men each subtly vie for macho supremacy as a way both to impress and lay claim to the woman. A layered tale about mankind's baser instincts on display, the film catapulted the young director to fame in his own country. Repulsion (1965)- When Helene and her boyfriend leave her disturbed sister Carole (Catherine Deneuve) alone in their London flat one weekend, Carole's visceral contempt for men causes her to disintegrate emotionally. Pretty as she is, it's difficult for the opposite sex to leave her alone, including ardent admirer Colin (John Fraser). He has definitely picked the wrong girl. The director's first English-language film makes for a potent shocker, with Deneuve mesmerizing as the isolated, increasingly demented Carole. Rosemary's Baby (1968)- New York's famous Dakota apartment building houses a modern-day witches' coven, with designs on the unborn child of a young housewife (Mia Farrow). Is Rosemary really carrying the Devil's offspring, and if so, how will she get anyone to believe her... before it's too late? This subtly demonic tale builds to a shocking climax. The willowy Farrow embodies vulnerability as Rosemary, while John Cassavetes, in a rare mainstream role, delivers just the right amount of shaded menace as her too soothing spouse. Ruth Gordon also scores as a kooky older neighbor, and look for a young Charles Grodin playing a doctor in a pivotal scene. Chinatown (1974)- Hired by glamorous, mysterious Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) to tail her errant husband, private dick Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) thinks he's on a routine case of spousal infidelity. It turns out Evelyn is the daughter of shadowy industrial baron Noah Cross (John Huston), and the seamy revleations mount from there, plunging Jake into a hornet's nest of incest and corruption in 1930's Los Angeles. Unquestionably one of the best films about the "City Of Angels", it's also one of the most superbly crafted detective stories ever committed to celluloid. The two leads really click, and legendary director Huston delivers his finest acting turn as the wily, ruthless Cross. Watch for Polanski himself as thug with a grudge against nosy people. The Pianist (2002)- When the Nazis occupy Warsaw, a gifted pianist (Adrien Brody) feels his privileged world begin to crumble. Escaping the fate of his family,who are deported to a concentration camp, the man hides out in the apartment of a sympathetic friend, who then disappears. Desperate, he moves from one empty flat to another, determined to elude capture aa the city collapses around him. Polanski transforms this true story based on one man's memoirs into his most personal work. The acting in this shattering film is superb, with Thomas Kretschmann playing a Nazi officer partial to classical music, and Brody heart-rending in the title role, for he which he netted a richly deserved Oscar. For over 2,000 more outstanding titles on DVD, visit www.bestmoviesbyfarr.com . And check out John's weekly film recommendations on video at www.reel13.org .  
 
Dawn Teo: Tea Party Founder Announces: "A Huffington Post Of Our Own" Top
Eric Odom, founder of American Liberty Alliance (ALA), the group that launched and organized the tea party movement across the country, announced Friday what he calls a movement-minded news portal and his answer to the the Huffington Post . While the domain and branding are secret for now, Odom has given his news portal a temporary name, Project 73 . Odom aims to create an online news portal that he hopes will become the "gathering spot for all the news" for their "side" -- a "movement minded news portal." "I mean, I despise a lot of what is written at Huffington Post. But the reality is... they're good at it. They cover very wide ranges of topics and they cover them well. On our side you need to visit a good ten sites in the morning to get the full web digest. On their side you just go to Huffington Post and you know about everything that's happening." At the bottom of the Project 73 announcement, Odom says, "Not a single person involved with our organization, or any tea party movement related organization for that matter, is profiting off of the movement." However, it looks like Odom's site will be a for-profit model. Most political organizing outfits are registered as a 501(c)(4), meaning they are not a profit-making enterprise but contributions are not tax deductible (only contributions to charitable organizations are tax deductible). However, according to ALA's website, the organization is registered as a for-profit enterprise . The American Liberty Alliance is not a 501c3, 501c4 or a PAC. We are not registered as a non-profit and we do not raise funds as such. Our primary focus is on content. We publish information and sell advertising on our network of sites. We also occasionally seek contributions from our readers. These contributions are seen as 'gifts' to our network and are not tax deductible. A few lines above ALA's not-a-single-person-makes-money statement, they lay out their plans for a revenue-sharing model for bloggers who participate in Project 73 , All bloggers/writers are required to submit two posts per week (minimum). There is a revenue sharing system in place that will help you earn revenue on the posts you get published. Unlike the Huffington Post , where bloggers and writers are given almost complete freedom over their own content (the HuffPost editorial team ensures accuracy but does not dictate point of view), Odom is setting up a "news" site that he admits will tell only his "side" of the issues. And bloggers get paid only if the editorial team approves their posts. In other words, bloggers will get paid only when their articles are in agreement with the site's founder. Eric Odom and Ken Marerro, the founders of the tea bagger movement and heads of ALA, have made their living by creating and managing professional, well-funded websites that appear at first glance to be grassroots. The first third of the Project 73 announcement lays out Odom's professional credentials developing and managing websites, and the post ends with, "His profession is web strategy and online community development." Get HuffPost Eyes&Ears on Facebook and Twitter! More on Tax Day Tea Parties
 
Peter Diamandis: Gold Rush on the Moon Top
Last week brought us the exciting official news of water on the Moon . This news is scientifically critical and, more importantly, economically astounding. From a scientific point of view, we now know that the water is interlaced with the lunar soil in many locations, perhaps as remnants of comet collisions with the lunar surface. From an economic point of view, water on the Moon is the equivalent of finding "gold in the hills of California." Translation: there is the potential for a California gold rush to hit the space community in the years ahead, and the teams building robotic exploration vehicles in the Google Lunar X PRIZE are constructing the shovels and picks on the leading edge of this potential boom. So what's so interesting about water on the Moon? After all, it's in boundless supply on Earth. The value of water is its actual physical location on the Moon, a place that is very expensive to travel to. The utility of the water is both as a propellant for rockets and for the maintenance of human life in space. With sufficient water on the Moon, solar energy can be used to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen is, of course, critical for humans to breathe and the water important for us to drink. As it turns out, hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2) together are also one of the most efficient propellants we know. The Space Shuttle Main Engines (some of the most powerful rocket engines in existence), for example, burn O2 and H2 to blast our astronauts off the Earth into orbit. You can think of water as the petroleum of spaceflight. Rather than oil that powers our cars, H2 and O2 power our rocketships. Today's launch costs are, unfortunately, extremely expensive. On the average it costs something on the order of $20,000 per pound to get supplies into low-Earth orbit (where the International Space Station is located) and, optimistically, 10 times to 20 times that cost -- or approximately $400,000 per pound -- to land something on the Moon's surface. So the cost of transporting water to the lunar surface, or oxygen, or hydrogen, is about $400,000 per pound or $25,000 per ounce -- about twenty-five times the price of gold today! Revealing water in significant quantities on the Moon could truly be a turning point in space exploration. Who will set up the first water mining plants? Given low-cost availability of water, hydrogen and oxygen, what type of off-Earth economies and exploration will this enable? The question is not too dissimilar to those questions asked when oil was discovered buried deep under the Earth or under the oceans. We eventually designed the technology to mine and extract this precious resource. It's what we do as humans and entrepreneurs. I'm excited for all of the teams building vehicles for the Google Lunar X PRIZE . This is a $30 million competition funded by Google and operated by the X PRIZE Foundation. We've offered up a large cash bounty for the first team to privately build and land a robot on the surface of the Moon that can travel and send back photos and video. Think of these vehicles as a low-cost 'prospector' looking for information and valuable data. Thus far, over twenty teams from eleven nations have registered to compete. When they are successful they will demonstrate the ability to reliably travel to the lunar surface and explore for less than a tenth of the current costs envisioned by government programs. Everyone will benefit and these Google Lunar Teams will be on the cutting edge of a gold rush. Stay tuned for the next chapter of the story of water on the Moon, which happens on October 9th of this year. On this day, a NASA mission called LCROSS will collide (catastrophically) into the Lunar South Pole with the hope of discovering large quantities of water. This LCROSS collision is targeted on one of the permanently shadowed craters. At the same time a lunar orbiting observing satellite will be taking photos and searching for H20 in the plume resulting from the collision. If you've been wondering where the next gold rush is going to take place, look up at the night sky to our closest celestial neighbor. The next economic boom might just be a mere 240,000 miles away on the bella luna .
 
Catie Lazarus: A Review of The Cleveland Show: Cleveland's Got a New Mascot Top
"Can you come wipe me?" asks Cleveland Jr. a teenage schlub, who is sitting on the toilet, asks his pop, who is next to him, taking a bath. Cleveland Jr. isn't developmentally delayed, more of a man-child in the making, like father, like son. A similar parallel can be drawn about The Cleveland Show , a new 1/2 hour animated comedy the father-son team star in, which is a spin-off of The Family Guy. Like it's forefather, The Cleveland Show shares the same aesthetic and skewers the oafish, albeit well-intentioned, middle-America, middle-aged male. When asked at a screening at The New York Television Festival , what is different about The Cleveland Show, its creator Mike Henry said, "The show has more heart." As animated comedies go, it certainly has poignant moments, like a flashback to Cleveland's high school prom years prior, where despite his jerry curl worn non-ironically, he is rejected by his crush, Donna. She falls for the bad boy, Robert Tubbs, who slaps Donna on the ass and commands her to, "show your fat ass to the boys." Decades later, Cleveland stumbles upon Donna when he returns to his hometown in Virgina. Recently divorced, he is still starry-eyed over Donna, and the pilot episode (airing tonight at 8:30 pm EST) chronicles him wooing her back. I won't say whether he succeeds, only that at one point, Cleveland slaps Donna on her rear, and says that her, "nice fat ass is mine." As it's a cartoon made in Hollywood, all Donna does is smile. The Cleveland Show is not meant to offer a meta-analysis of the state of America's gender or race relations. It's a family comedy, with black characters, that doesn't shy away from off-color jokes, which is as progressive as Network TV gets. There is not one scene where a black character interacts with a white one without a racial joke played, as if it's some type of nervous tick. Still, creating leading black characters, even in 2009 and in a cartoon, is progressive compared to its non-animated and animated competition. Behind the camera, the talent is also mixed, not in terms of skill, but race. Seth MacFarlane was not as involved in the production as Mike Henry and Rich Appel, although he does voice the bear with the unidentifiable, maybe European-accent. Arianna Huffington plays the bear's wife. (If this seems odd, she's worn different hats, as this liberal champion once served as a Republican grand dame.) Ms. Huffington doesn't mug and keeps up with some incredibly talented voice-over actors, most notably Kevin-Michael Richardson, who plays Cleveland Jr. and the redneck neighbor Lester. Like with The Family Guy, there are celebrity cameos, including Kanye West, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Scottie Pippen. Stars aren't the only ones finding time for The Cleveland Show. Fox ordered a second season before the first one even aired. Based on the reaction from the packed crowd at The New York Television Festival's screening, Cleveland will be a welcome in many homes.       More on Family Guy
 
David Sirota: Denver Post: Obama Aide Messina Caught "Trying to Buy Off" Primary Challenger Top
I've made my position on the Emanuel administration's attempts to crush Democratic primaries pretty plain : Beyond it being a disgusting effort to crush the kind of local democracy Barack Obama used to make Rahm Emanuel president, it also makes Democratic legislative unity even tougher to achieve. Additionally, the aggressiveness of the effort reveals a double-standard: The Emanuel administration that categorically refuses to twist the arms of congresspeople to pass legislation is the same Emanuel administration that is more than happy to break the arms of Democratic primary candidates. As I said in my last column , that's the power-worshiping, incumbent-protecting country-club etiquette at work: Just like, say, Tim Russert would ask upstart presidential candidate Howard Dean much tougher questions than sitting Vice President Dick Cheney, President Emanuel is willing to punch those outside of D.C., but not those inside. Now, the Denver Post gives us a sense of just how hard those punches are being thrown. The front-page Sunday story details how President Emanuel dispatched former Max Baucus aide and current Vice President Jim Messina to, as the Post says, "try to buy off" former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff (D) with a job before he announced his primary challenge to appointed Sen. Michael Bennet (D). There's probably nothing illegal about this -- although you can't really say that for sure. Let's not forget that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was indicted and impeached for allegedly trying to horse-trade jobs for senate seats . But legal questions aside, it shows that while President Emanuel may do nothing to stop insurance and pharmaceutical companies from writing health care legislation, he's going to do everything he can to make sure that incumbents are not bothered by local primary challenges -- even those that might create a dynamic that helps pass President Emanuel's legislative agenda. The danger for President Emanuel, of course, is that the big foot strategy may backfire, especially out here in the West: "It may make the situation worse for Bennet for them to play the game this way," said state Rep. Kathleen Curry, a Gunnison lawmaker who is supporting Romanoff. "People in Colorado have an adverse reaction to the external forces coming down and telling them how to think," she said. The timing of Messina's latest intervention sparked particular concern -- because of the appearance that the administration was trying to buy off a nettlesome opponent , to some; to others, because the timing made the effort appear so ham-handed. As I've said, I have no dog in the primary fight -- I just want to see local democracy be allowed to run its course. Like Barack Obama said on the campaign trail, primaries and local democracy strengthen the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, President Emanuel and Vice President Messina don't subscribe to that belief. More on Rahm Emanuel
 
Deane Waldman: "MediCare for All" Becomes No Care at All Top
People from Nancy Pelosi to daily bloggers are screaming "MediCare-for-All" as the answer to our health care crisis. Is MediCare the solution for us all? The answer is clear: no. Unlike MediCaid, MediCare was never intended as an entitlement. MediCare was supposed to be self-sustaining: people would pay in while working and take out as needed after they retired. It was sold as a program that would pay for itself: no additional funds required. Hah! Inconvenient truth #1: MediCare quickly became a Ponzi scheme just like Social Security. Contributions of the presently employed are not saved for the future but are spent to pay for the expenses of the retired. According to the GAO, Medicare will run out of funds just like the house of cards called Social Security, but sooner (2017). The addition of the President Bush's ill-conceived Drug Program For Seniors simply accelerated the slide to bankruptcy by adding another (unpaid for by the contributors) expenditure. When MediCare runs out of money , it will be No Care for All . MediCare tries to contain its costs in two ways: neither works, and neither is what patients want. First, it rations care . Yes, I said it. Many things your doctor would like for you are denied as not "cost effective." Let's just ignore inconvenient truth #2 that there are, at present, virtually no scientific cost effectiveness studies on which the government denies payment. Denying payment means denying care and thus again, MediCare-for-All is No Care for All. Inconvenient truth #2A: Beware of what President Obama is touting as cost effectiveness studies in the proposed Healthcare Reform Bill. Just like in Great Britain and Australia, what the government defines as effective is often not what patients and doctors want as positive effects. The second "cost saving" method used by MediCare is to reduce reimbursements. Put aside for a moment that this actually increases costs . Current payments to physicians are now below their marginal costs. The more MediCare patients a doctor sees, the quicker she goes broke. That is why fewer and fewer physicians accept MediCare patients: they cannot afford to. Those who still do so make up their losses on the ever-shrinking pool of privately insured patients -- the infamous cost -- or more correctly revenue-shift. I guarantee that your local hospital engages in money shifting. How do I know? It is still in business. Low payment schedules make it fiscal suicide for doctors to see MediCare patients. So what will Healthcare Reform (HR 3200) do to increase access to doctors for MediCare patients? Answer: it cuts physician reimbursements even further. Perfect! In a recent Letter to the Editor, a local resident complained that at age 65 he thought he had to choose between Medicare and carrying additional, supplemental insurance to cover those things that MediCare does not. The writer was wrong...for now. To add to the Perfect-Program-for-all-Americans called MediCare, Congress is now considering adding that very limitation to their "Healthcare Reform" Bill. Perfection indeed! Final inconvenient truth: Whether we get MediCare-for-All or the infamous "public option," under government payment schedules doctors will be paid less than their costs to stay in business. End result: no doctors. Then for sure, "MediCare-for-All" will be No-Care-For-All. PS. The last paragraph is intended to defend NEITHER the status quo nor the private insurance industry. Both need to change drastically. Okay, both need to...go. We need a totally new system, not tinkering with what we have. We could begin with a discussion of personal responsibility. Oops, I'm sorry. That phrase (I'm whispering) is political cyanide and will never come up for serious national debate.
 
Vivian Norris de Montaigu: Anti-Globalization Is Back! Police vs. the People and the "Pirates" Top
"A single ruler could, by fiat, decide which enemies were legitimate representatives of a state and which, by contrast, were mere 'bandits'..." - Daniel Heller-Roazen, The Enemy of All: Piracy and the Law of Nations In June of 2001, I was in Gothenburg, Sweden, to witness both then President George W. Bush's first European visit, as well as the EU meeting which followed, and the extremely well organized anti-globalization protests which took place over the several days of the events. The photos I have of that time show that journalists were allowed close to the then president, (though questions were few and had been pre-selected), and that there was a great deal of "action" in the streets on the parts of protesters and the police. These clashes grew out of the snowball effect of the anti-globalization movement which began with the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999. In Gothenburg, plastic bullets wounded protesters, storage containers encircled a school where many protesters were staying, creating a fire hazard, and locked them in, and, as a result, a fringe group (the same thing happened in Seattle none of the real protesters knew exactly where these "anarchists" came from) changed the tune and banks were attacked, windows broken, fires set, and dogs and police with protective gear confronted both protesters and so-called "anarchists." By the end of that summer of 2001, a young man, Carlo Giuliani, a protester, had been killed in Genoa, Italy, and within a few weeks, the world would experience 9/11 and nothing would ever be the same. The anti-globalization movement would be basically pushed underground, to Porto Allegro, and heightened security at world events where heads of state convened, created a kind of Big Brother control of protesters, would lead to where we are today. More journalists have been killed in the past years since 9/11 than ever before, and the tactics used to police and control any form of dissent have become Orwellian to say the least. Many people have been scared to say, write and broadcast what they really believe and have experienced. But the anti-globalization movement is back, and it is taking forms that extend beyond the left of center radicals, to those who are out of work, out of money, losing what little they have left to the greed of a very few. The walls between "Us" and "Them" are taller than ever before and harder to penetrate, yet people are also angrier than ever before. It is symbolic that "pirates" would be making a comeback, not only on the high seas of the East Coast of Africa (perhaps not so ironically positioned precisely where the oil tankers head out to the rest of the world?), but to the internet, and technology in general. The controllers are trying to control more than ever, punishing those who "pirate," be it a Somalian bandit or a housewife who downloads a film or a simple student in Pittsburgh last week during the G20 meeting. ( See video here .) I would argue that we should be learning from the protesters and "pirates" instead of simply fighting against them. We should be coming up with new models for sharing the wealth, the resources, knowledge and content, as well as all benefiting from the distribution mechanism, so that the few do not only end up controlling the commodities, but also the pipelines through which they reach the rest of us. And it may very well be that in parts of the so-called "developing world" we will continue to see leapfrog technologies that can teach all of us about how to move forward in new directions. Microcredit, made popular by Nobel Peace Prize -winner Muhammad Yunus, can also be applied to legal, shared Content Micro-distribution (and indeed, is, in places like India where cablewallas divide up the neighborhoods to distribute "pirated" cable content). Content can be appropriately priced so that even the poorest people can have access to education and information, for example via the cell phones in rural villages owned by women who then can help villagers access educational and other content. This would mean a true democratization not only of content -- choice of what they and their communities receive -- but also job possibilities that can lift them out of poverty. Add to this content creation, be it local news, documentaries, or even entertainment, and local ownership of telecoms, and you have a situation which will help pull many of these countries out of poverty at an exponential rate. The new financial models need to be inclusive and participatory, not hyper-controlled, and regulations should serve the majority, not a minuscule part of the world's population. It is mostly those who are the elite, in power, and of a mostly older generation who want to adopt more controlling regulations against the "pirates" and protesters. In France, it is the Hadopi law that is slamming down on internet pirates. In the UK, there are CCTV cameras everywhere, and in many countries guards are capable of pulling aside a ten-year-old at a border crossing. The establishment and the wealthy are scared and the gatherings of the elite and heads of state have now become islands so separate from the people that they do not communicate anymore. Exaggerations and lies tend to circulate because there is no or little interaction. Someone needs to listen to the protesters and what they are saying. At least people are standing up for themselves and are getting angry. They should be angry. They feel as if they have been robbed. Those who are not standing up for themselves are the ones taking anti-depressants because anger turned inward is victimization and depression. Anger can bring about constructive results. Remaining vigilant means taking on the responsibility of becoming more aware. Listen to and develop your intuition. Talk to your friends around the country and around the world to hear what is really going on. Don't "buy" what mainstream media is telling you. Learn about other financial models that are working such as Microcredit and Social Business, which are also more sustainable. Look into alternative sources of information about the financial crisis, piracy and new models for media and the economy such as NGO websites, news sites such as www.demotix.com and www.maxkeiser.com . The protesters and the pirates are not menacing enemies, but mirrors reflecting a deeply disturbing society in which inequalities have grown to levels not seen since, well, the last Depression, the 1930s. And look where that brought us. More on India
 
Michael B. Laskoff: Spitzer & Bloomberg - Not again Top
Movie sequels prove that second acts are usually a terrible idea. The clever becomes dross; the dross becomes fetid, and so on and so forth, until all that's left if toxic landfill. What's true of cinema is also true of politics. If you stick around past your expiration date, then you probably stink. For the past couple of weeks, the rumor mill has been grinding out stories that Elliot Spitzer is planning another run for the governor of New York. I assumed that this was all nonsense until Friday night when I watched Spitzer on Real Time. Bill Maher, the host, didn't make a single crack regarding the prostitute, the money transfers, the resignation or the irony of a man who had cracked down on prostitution as New York District Attorney being revealed as a 'john' himself. The worst name that Spitzer was called was "the former governor." That's when it hit me: he's serious about running again. For the record, I agree with a lot of Spitzer's positions; I also don't get too exercised about the adultery - that's a private matter - or prostitution, which should be legal, taxed and regulated. None of that, however, mean's that a megalomaniac hypocrite who got caught with his genitals in the cookie jar should seriously consider running again. Stay on the sidelines. Leave it to others to take up the mantle. If you don't want to do it for the public good, then do it for your family who will have to survive rehashing all of all that political pornography. And then there's Mike Bloomberg, already the two-term mayor of New York. To his mind, the City needs him too much for him to step down. Unfortunately, getting the City Council to lift mayoral term limits allowed them to lift their own. And if there is one thing that America's largest city does not need, it's a mayor and council that can stay in office ad infinitum (or until they caught for something). So to the former Governor Spitzer and the current Mayor of New York: I plead, "Not Again." (The fact that my entreaties will fall entirely on deaf ears is another subject altogether.) Democracy is the best form of government not because of some mystical ideal but because it brings about regular change and, with it, new blood. In order for that to happen, some of the old warhorses need to step aside. In this case, that means you.
 
Lea Lane: "Turning," or, You Don't Have to Be Jewish (or a President) to Atone on Yom Kippur Top
Failure to repent is much worse than sin. One may have sinned for but a moment, but may fail to repent of it moments without number. Chasidic saying, from the book, Day by Day On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Jews around the world repent for the past year's sins, wiping the slate clean for another year. But you don't have to be Jewish to ask for forgiveness. This Day of Atonement would be a fitting time for non-Jews as well to show some true repentance, more than the standard "I'm sorry," often forced, and mumbled insincerely. Jews in almost all of the 800 or so Reform congregations in the States -- almost a million people -- happen to worship using the book my late husband Rabbi Chaim Stern wrote and edited, Gates of Repentance. In 1998 President Clinton had offered a weak apology for the Monica Lewinsky situation. The public didn't buy it. So he offered a stronger, introspective apology at a prayer breakfast in Washington, with an acknowledgment of the need to change, He mentioned that a friend had given him a copy of Gates of Repentance , and mentioned some of his childhood traumas, and then quoted from one of the book's passages: Now is the time for turning. The leaves are beginning to turn from green to red to orange. The birds are beginning to turn and are heading once more toward the south. The animals are beginning to turn to storing their food for the winter. For leaves, birds and animals, turning comes instinctively. But for us, turning does not come so easily. A week later, on September 18, the president sent my husband the manuscript of that speech. As he wrote in the accompanying letter: "I deeply appreciate ... Gates of Repentance . As you know I was very moved by the passage on "turning," and I thank you for your wisdom and spiritual inspiration." (Read more about this in the NYT article here .) True repentance is more than an apology. It does require "turning," a real effort to change bad behavior. As Chaim wrote in the prayer book: "What is genuine repentance? When an opportunity for transgression occurs and we resist it, not out of fear or weakness, but because we have repented." Here are the sins, wrongdoings and transgressions we all commit at some time or another, listed from Gates of Repentance and read at Yom Kippur services: The sins of arrogance, bigotry and cynicism; of deceit and egotism, flattery and greed, injustice and jealousy. Some of us kept grudges, were lustful. Malicious, or narrow-minded. Others were obstinate or possessive, quarrelsome, rancorous, or selfish. There was violence, weakness of will, xenophobia. We yielded to temptation, and showed zeal for bad causes. I can think of many people in the news who have made weak apologies or none at all for wrongdoings this past year. So I suggest they follow President Clinton's lead, and atone in this season of change: --Joe Wilson can write President Obama a sincere note of apology and read it before the House of Representatives -- Kanye West can rap about his boorishness, and the proceeds would provide an annual musical scholarship in Taylor Swift's name. -- Ann Coulter can give the profits from all of her books to homeless shelters, and admit her arrogance on MSNBC. Well, we can dream. I know you can think of other notable transgressors this year, and suggest how then can resist repeating their offenses, by making amends and turning their behavior on this Day of Atonement. More on The Balanced Life
 

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