Friday, September 18, 2009

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Chris Campbell: An Open Letter To Our Leaders Top
Dear President Obama, Senator Reid and Representative Pelosi, In 1991, I clearly recall standing in my hometown library, filling out my voter registration card and mulling my party affiliation. I can't say I followed politics all that much at the time, but my early heroes were John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. and a rudimentary knowledge of their policies led me to check the box "democratic." I went on to vote for Bill Clinton twice, Al Gore, John Kerry and Barack Obama. In 2004, I was so dismayed and disgusted with the state of our government that I quit my job to volunteer for the Kerry campaign in New York. I woke every day and took the F Train from Brooklyn to midtown Manhattan to phone voters in Iowa, Florida, Ohio, Michigan and all over the country. I went to rallies. I celebrated Kerry's primary victories with fellow volunteers. I felt like I was doing something that truly mattered. The result of that election left me enormously saddened and bordering on despondent. I firmly believed that John Kerry could take this country in the right direction. Early in the presidential race, I saw him speak in Queens, NY, and unlike the media's endless portrayal of him as a stiff elitist, I was incredibly moved by his words and conviction. Despite the sting of the loss, there was still hope in the future. There was hope in 2008. I initially backed John Edwards. I was taken by his interest in the lower and middle classes and working to foster a more balanced America, something that most networks would clearly deem to be "communism." Jokes aside, when Edwards' run faded, I quickly moved into then-Senator Obama's camp. I was drawn by his call for sweeping change, accountability, ethics, fairness, health care reform, ending torture and just about every policy position that the candidate supported. Once again, I couldn't sit on the sidelines. A few days a week I walked down to the volunteer center on Fillmore Street here in San Francisco and picked up the phones. I chatted with citizens from all parts of the country. After just a few hours on the phones, it was clear that the passion we felt in that room was shared by many, many fellow citizen we reached by phone. I spoke extensively with fellow volunteers, almost all of whom were absolutely thrilled to be playing a part, but more importantly, appeared clearly taken by the moment. And then came November 4th. Wearing one of my 47 Obama t-shirts, I went for a run during the day in an effort to ease my nerves. As I turned corner after corner, complete strangers would spontaneously toss a high five, shout something in support or press their car horns as I crossed city blocks. We could all sense that everything was about change. When the announcement came at 8pm PST, I sat in disbelief. My heart still picks up as I remember that moment. I just couldn't believe it. And then came the sweeping wins in the House and Senate. Our time had come. It took weeks, if not months, for the euphoria to ease. This afternoon I printed out a voter registration card, filled in all my information and under party affiliation wrote "Independent." Oh, I knew that a lot of the hyperbolic language on the campaign trail probably wouldn't become reality, but I was absolutely certain that we'd be up for the fight. I knew that health care reform would be a grueling and dirty ride, but I knew we'd take it on with all that we had. I knew that the disparity between rich and poor would persist, but I also knew that we finally had a government that would look to bridge that gap. And the list goes on. Again, it was our time. Yes, we would make every effort to include everyone in the debate and crafting of policy, but in the end, we would move forward with our party's initiatives, policies that democrats have lived by for as long as one can remember. When I saw the "Baucus Bill" today, I finally couldn't take it anymore. I could no longer fight for a party that I barely even recognized. This bill doesn't represent fight, it represents very little in the way of what brought millions of us out to volunteer. Yet after months and months of debate, this is what we're handed? Sure, we can all blame the Montana Senator and the "Baucus Six," but aside from a deluge of words, where has the leadership been from above? President Obama has certainly given us a lot of face time, but his management of the dialogue and ability to lead the country through this complex debate have been questionable . He basically ignored single-payer, and as time has passed, even the public option has been treated as an afterthought. One is left to wonder if our president is even fighting for the change that he spent almost two years championing. That registration card sits to my right, sealed in an envelope, but missing one final piece: I have yet to place a stamp in the upper right. I guess that's the result of one final vestige of that word that likely led a young senator from Illinois to the White House: hope. Please don't take that away from us. More on Nancy Pelosi
 
The World's Biggest Burger & 19 Other Record-Breaking Foods (PHOTOS) Top
This has been a big year for big food records. Since 2009 began we've seen folks set the world records for biggest burger, tamale, meatball, cheesecake, sandwich, and piece of fudge. Here are some of the most fun food feats of all time. If we've left any out, email us ! More on Food
 
Michael Markarian: Women Lawmakers are Top Dogs on Animal Welfare Top
Politico's Erika Lovley reported yesterday on a new study conducted by researchers at Stanford University and the University of Chicago, indicating that women in Congress tend to be more effective than male lawmakers. The study examined the performance of House members over two decades, and found that on average, women introduce more bills and attract more cosponsors for their legislation. Researchers say that women may fight harder once they get to Congress, because they've often been underdogs in their elections and have had to overcome obstacles and biases in order to get there. You might also say that female legislators are more likely to stand up for the underdogs. It's no surprise that there's a gender gap on animal protection, with women more likely to have sympathy for animals and to be involved in the cause of animal advocacy. In all of our statewide ballot measures , no matter what the subject matter--factory farming, dog racing, cockfighting, inhumane hunting or trapping practices--we have had strong support from every demographic group. But women voters of all political affiliations have always outperformed men and have provided a strong and unwavering base of support for animal welfare reforms at the ballot box. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) is one of many women advocating for animals. Lovley's article prompted me to take a look through the most recent edition of our Humane Scorecard , and compare how women and men in Congress performed on animal protection issues. Over the course of the 110th Congress, female House members scored an average of 68 percent on animal protection, while their male counterparts scored 54 percent. The gender gap was wider in the Senate, where women averaged 68 percent and men just 46 percent when it came to animal welfare. Female lawmakers were also nearly twice as likely as men to have perfect scores on animal protection legislation, and much less likely to be at the bottom of the ranking. Eighteen of the 66 women serving in the House (27 percent) scored 100 percent on animal issues, while only 48 of the 353 men (14 percent) did the same. In the Senate, five of the 16 women (31 percent) earned a perfect score, compared to 14 of the 84 men (17 percent). Five men in the Senate (6 percent) and 13 in the House (4 percent) scored a zero on animal protection, while not a single woman in either chamber had that sorry distinction. This strong showing by women in Congress on animal protection issues comes from both sides of the aisle, with both Democratic and Republican women helping to boost the average scores of their respective parties. And there is a solid group of female legislators who are introducing animal protection bills and showing active leadership to fight for these measures, like Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), and Reps. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.), Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), and Betty Sutton (D-Ohio). The changing demographics in our society are sure to keep accelerating the pace of progress on animal protection. More women are becoming veterinarians, for example, and steering the profession away from its traditional agribusiness alignment and toward a leadership role on animal welfare that better represents the view of mainstream Americans. As we see more women elected to public office, too, we can expect to see more public policies that reflect our social values and protect animals from cruelty and abuse. More on Animals
 
James Zogby: A New Path of Palestinian Resistance Top
Despite the continuing horrors visited upon Palestinians, their deep political divide, relentless Israeli settlement expansion and more, there are glimmers of hope in the Palestinian skies. What I am referring to here, are not external developments like ongoing U.S.-led efforts to rekindle Israeli-Palestinian peace talks or growing European impatience with Israeli occupation policies. As important as these may be, more significant are the developments occurring within Palestinian society, all of which, if combined and strengthened, point in the direction of empowerment and self-liberating resistance. Specifically, I am speaking about the recently completed Fatah Conference, the two-year plan, "Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State," announced by interim Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, and the weekly demonstrations at the wall near the village of Bilin. While critics point to its flaws, the fact that the Fatah conference was organized, at all, on the land of Palestine, is significant. It is true that it was held under occupation, but the reality is that Fatah used the space created by recent events and international pressure to organize, in spite of the occupation, and to elect a new leadership committed to ending the occupation. The sessions of the conference were heated and deliberative and, while not perfect, they were democratic. As such, its very occurrence was an act of resistance, defying a generation-long effort by the occupation to deny Palestinians their national identity and their right to organize as an independent people. The two year plan, laid out by Prime Minister Fayyad, must also be viewed, through this same lens, as an act of resistance. As Fayyad correctly noted, Palestinians have the capacity and the need, despite the persistence of a hostile occupation, to build independent institutions, the creation of which are prerequisites of statehood. Creating accountable and transparent structures that educate the young, provide security and needed social services, foster economic growth, and organize daily life, are, in themselves, acts of resistance. They empower and self-liberate Palestinians, while denying the occupiers the control they have sought to impose. Complementing these efforts are the weekly demonstrations at Bilin. By organizing non-violent resistance against the wall, the groups involved provide a clear example of the power of popular mobilization. That these efforts have won support is important, but they must be further strengthened, and adopted by a broad spectrum of Palestinian society, including Fatah, enabling them to become a mass expression of resistance. This will not only enhance empowerment, it will also provide needed leverage and support to the Palestinian Authority's negotiating posture. What is distressing, of course, is that those who claim to be the "standard bearers of true resistance" have stepped up their criticism of these efforts, accusing them of abandoning Palestinian rights. Their criticisms are wrong, based, as they are, on a distorted understanding of resistance. These critics have, in fact, made a fetish of violence and, therefore, can only see resistance through the distorted lens of the application of violence. But resistance means much more than bombs and rockets, and, in fact, often times violence can be antithetical to true resistance. In its proper sense, resistance is the strategic application of tactics, designed to counter oppression, progressively leading to liberation. As a strategy that utilizes tactics, resistance assesses the effectiveness of tactics that are available. Those that have failed, strengthening the hold of oppression, are rejected, while those that empower people, moving them forward toward liberation, are embraced and developed. Tactics are never ends in themselves. If they do not serve the strategic goal of liberation, they are cast off as counter-productive. That is why I have long argued that the path of violent resistance leads to a dead end, while the path of non-violent resistance through direct action, institution building, and the development of popular political organization provide a promising alternative. It is important to keep in mind these are tactics, and are not sufficient, in themselves, nor are they ends in themselves. To bear fruit, they must be strengthened, combined, and used in tandem as part of a broader strategy, whose end is to establish an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a just and comprehensive resolution of the issue of refugees. One other critical element, internal to Palestinian society, must also be considered here, and that is the deep fissure that has divided the West Bank and Gaza into hostile camps. Reconciliation is an absolute necessity, since no real progress toward statehood can be made as long as the Palestinian house is divided. But, for reconciliation to occur, whether through mediation efforts still underway in Cairo, or otherwise, the leadership of Hamas must understand the disaster that its failed approach to resistance has wrought. Israel can rightly be condemned for its barbaric assaults and its inhumane blockade of Gaza (as well as its acquisitive, humiliating and deadly policies in the West Bank and Jerusalem). But Hamas refuses to recognize not only the futility, but outright stupidity, and pathological destructiveness, of its ways. To paraphrase, my friend, the late Twefiq Zayyad, "you may claim the right to armed struggle, but when you consistently use it so badly, you forfeit that right". Given recent, and not so recent, history, Zayyad's words ring true. The time has, therefore, come to recognize that a new path forward must be found. If it is not, than no matter what external players do and don't do, the Palestinian reality will not appreciably change. More on Fatah
 
Baby Seals Clubbed To Death (VIDEO) Top
Animal rights activists have released this shocking footage of baby seals being clubbed to death in Namibia. An estimated 80,000 seal pups are clubbed to death each year, and their fur is sold internationally. The Dutch animal welfare group who shot the film are hoping to bring the cruelty to the attention of tourists who come to the country. Get HuffPost Green On Facebook and Twitter! More on Animals
 
Mary Ellen Harte and John Harte: Addressing Global Warming: the Next American Revolution by...You! Top
It's great that U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu promotes energy efficiency. But what about clean energy? "Its abundant, it's there, we know how to get it, and so we have to learn how to use it cleanly," he opined to Steve Inskeep of National Public Radio recently. You would think he was talking about sunlight and wind, which are far more abundant, cheaper, cleaner, and more accessible than what he was really talking about - "clean coal". With such outdated guidance in federal government, it is more important than ever for US citizens to take up energy and climate policy in their own hands at more local levels. It is time, once again, to start an American revolution in truly clean energy by the citizenry, from the bottom up, as well as the top down. How? From the bottom up, the revolution is already starting. In many states there are policies to help communities throughout the US to use clean energy. And this is where you can make a difference through your local community government. For example, the Connecticut Clean Energy Communities Program offers free solar power systems to municipalities that make substantial commitments to clean energy. Similar programs exist for Pennsylvania , California , and Maryland , among others. In addition, states, such as Massachussetts , are helping community governments to pass resolutions mandating that their supplying utilities provide an increasing percentage of their energy needs from clean energy sources. Gunnison, Colorado , gives homeowners the option of purchasing power from clean energy sources; the resulting cost is 5% more than the average regular energy bill - a 5% solution to climate change. Berkeley, CA, is providing upfront financing for homeowners to install rooftop solar panels that create the energy to run the household. Homeowners then pay off the loan over the next 20 years by paying a special tax on their own subsequent energy bills. As noted in our free downloadable book , there are many mechanisms that exist to increase the use of truly clean energy. But many more communities must get involved to make this a truly national revolution. How can you help? First, check out any programs within your state that might possibly help your community to use clean energy at the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency . Even if there is nothing for your community, check out all the different mechanisms that various communities throughout the US are using to increase their clean energy use. Then start lobbying your community government with ideas, and don't stop until your community is on its way towards using clean energy. Nothing less than the health of our planet, our country and our children's future are at stake. From the top down, we call on the captains of industry - yup, here's a shout out to Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates, among others. Join the revolution by creating a billionaire's/multimillionaire's clean energy club. The sliding scale price of admission might start with investment in one large wind turbine and go to ownership of one or more clean energy farms. Fossil fuel financiers get extra perks for investment. The payback? Club members have special access to each other, offering a unique way to network. If you finance a foundation, create programs that foster the use of clean energy in communities. The clean energy movement already links to the interests of many foundations, since the replacement of fossil fuel with truly clean energy will improve the physical health of much of our community, and through that extension, our economic health. So here's a toast - whether rich or not, bottoms up to a truly clean energy future! And Barack Obama called Kanye West a jackass ? Time to get refocused on that tidal wave of climate change headed our way, ya think? More on Barack Obama
 
Ending Youth Homelessness: How HuffPost Readers Can Get Involved Top
Last month, the Virgin Mobile FreeFest brought tens of thousands of people out to Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland, to help end youth homelessness. According to the Virgin Mobile-sponsored Re*Generation, up to two million young people face homelessness each year. Since 2006, over $3 million has been invested in this program. Last week, you may have read Arianna Huffington's blog post on how drastically she was affected by a New York Times story about the rapid increase in homeless schoolchildren due to foreclosures. Clearly, an epidemic of homeless youth is a crisis we cannot afford. Below are several steps HuffPost readers (or anyone, for that matter) can get involved in making sure American children have shelter, clothing, food and access to education. Text the word FREEFEST to 20222 and you will donate5 to The Re*Generation (It'll be added to your monthly bill). Go through a list of volunteer opportunitie s through Virgin Unite. Attendees at the FreeFest pledged over 30,000 hours of community service to help combat youth homelessness. If you know a young person who's lost their home or is thinking of running away, you can get involved and help. Call 1-800-RUN-AWAY, the National Runaway Switchboard, who can help discuss issues with depressed teenagers. Visit the F amily and Youth Services Bureau for help finding shelter for a homeless youth.
 
One For The Table: One Less Egg to Fry Top
By Laraine Newman My husband Chad went to New York recently to drop our oldest daughter Lena off at college. That same week, our 14-year old attended a cheer camp at UCLA for four days giving me a rare glimpse into the gaping maw of my Empty Nest Future and lemme tell ya, it was bleak. I won't mince words. I walked around the house weeping. No kidding. I went into Lena's room and smelled her pillow and the skeletal remains of her wardrobe. Each article of clothing summoned a sweet memory that only served to drive the knife in further, launching another torrent of bawling. "Oh, those Gladiator's from Urban Outfitters that I warned her not to wear at Coachella. But didn't we have a kick-ass time?' (Sob) "Oh, and look at this high collared floral shirt that she called "sexy secretary" when she wore it with that over-the knee pencil skir-hir-hir-hir-hirt, oh God, oh God, my ba-bee-he-he-he-he-heeeee." I just stopped short of falling to my knees, pounding my chest and bellowing "WHY, WHY?" Why, what, you fuckin' idiot? Your kid got into the college of her choice and she's off to the biggest adventure of her life, in New York City no less. Believe me, I'm excited for her. This isn't some Grey Gardens kind of shit. I'm just lonesome for her. I'm fully cognizant of the fact that, for the most part, I've put too many eggs in the parenting basket. Sure, I have a career, (I even have hobbies) but if I were to be completely honest, there's nothing that's given me more pleasure (and pain) than being a mom. I remember how little time I spent thinking about or interacting with my folks once I left home. My relationship with my mother was vastly different than the one I have with my girls, but they seem to be following in my indifferent footsteps as they both mature and "separate". How dare they?! Obviously generations before have accepted this inevitability. Did my folks suffer this much? How could they not? But they never burdened me with it. It's shameful to admit, but for me and some of my generation, my prolonged childhood hasn't gotten me to the place I'm supposed to be emotionally. I don't have the stoicism of past generations when it comes to this transition. I don't ever remember my parents facilitating the gauntlet of educating me as I have done for my kids. They were never as hands on with my homework as I am with mine. They were never subject to the oppressive schlepping I endured in supporting my children's talents and dreams. I could just take the bus. It was a different time. And going with me to see, say, Taj Mahal at The Ashgrove? Forget it. But I went with Lena to Coachella and loved it. So, as a result, I'm not the plump, jolly, mom wiping her hand on her apron while pushing away some strands of hair that escaped my white bun. I'm not standing on the front porch, shielding my eyes from the sun with one hand, while waving with the other as my kids leave me ! After I wiped their poopy asses and sang "Wheels On The Bus!" I'm not Lindsay Lohan's mom either, mind you. It's not like I wanted to go to college with her or anything. But it feels like being dumped by a guy. "Why won't she just call?" I'd whine. Chad would say something like "because things are going well." That's probably true and I'm not so self-centered as to not be comforted by that. I bought too many plums at the Farmers Market the other day. I thought I'd send them to her, but I left a message on her cell phone asking her if she wanted me to. I never heard back. (Sigh) Then, just the other day, she called to tell me she'd gone to a Farmer's Market that was near her dorm. She's also been calling to tell me about the restaurants she's tried. She cares!
 
Daniel Heimpel: Learning to Be a Man Top
Foster Boys and Male Mentors This has been a summer filled with promise for the future of foster care, starting with the announcement of new legislation to spur mentorship and ending with a coalescing of the foster care advocacy community around sweeping reform. But as the seasons change I am left reflecting on the small things that could -- right now -- make life better for the half-million children in foster care, especially the boys. As a reporter who covers the system extensively, I have grown accustomed to being one of the only men in the room. Right or wrong it is largely women who hold, love and uplift the children in foster care. As a man with a sincere desire to see the system radically change, I can't help but to notice that we men could and should be doing a lot more. The statistics speak of an army of young people, more than 20,000 a year, who leave the state's care inadequately prepared to go it alone. A survey of foster care alumni outcomes released by the National Foster Care Month Partnership ( http://www.nationalfostercaremonth.org/ ) found that within 18 months of leaving the system a quarter of these young people will have experienced homelessness and half are unemployed. In my Los Angeles County, the Children's Law Center reports that one quarter will have been incarcerated within two years. Among the myriad factors that create this societal wrong is that there are simply too few positive male role models in these young people's lives. My small contribution has been to mentor two young men who came up in the system, both now 18: one still in Los Angeles, the other recently moved to the Pacific Northwest. Not long ago Chris, the first foster kid I ever got to know, told me he didn't like letting girls all the way into his soul. It was the same message that I had heard just weeks before from 18-year-old John, who said he would never give up his whole heart, keeping five percent for himself. My response to both was the same. That there is no other way to go into a relationship other than to give wholly of yourself. If she doesn't like your soul she may walk away, but if you don't let her see 100 percent of it -- she surely will. I don't know if what I said made any impact. But at least it was positive and bore a male voice. In late Spring, I was invited to Washington D.C. by Casey Family Programs and the National Foster Care Coalition for the kick off of National Foster Care Month. There, several dozen emancipated foster youth met face-to-face with the press, senators and congressmen to deliver the message that the system is broken. One of these young people, Christopher Andrade, 20, stood behind a podium usually reserved for members of the Congress' Ways and Means Committee. He told of his life in a foster family who he loved but who inexplicably turned him out two weeks before high school graduation. "I became a boulder," he said. "Invulnerable but also so very vulnerable." After Andrade and a handful of other former foster youth presented their stories, I spoke with Kathi Crowe, also a former foster child, an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work and the Executive Director of the National Foster Care Coalition ( www.nationalfostercare.org ). I asked her why men are so important in foster boys' lives. "They provide that image of what it is to be a successful man," she said. "They can teach these kids that father is not just a noun. That fathering is an activity." It is hard for boys to become men when they don't have any in their lives. For John, the Chris I know and Andrade the difference can be a male role model, a mentor. While in DC, I met with Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu ( http://landrieu.senate.gov/2009/index.cfm ) who was promoting a bill, officially named The Foster Care Mentoring Act of 2009, which would offer up to $20,000 in loan forgiveness to college students who mentor foster youth. "It provides the anchor until we get more calm seas," Landrieu told me in her well-appointed chambers. Alongside Landrieu sat comedian Rosie O'Donnell, ( www.forallkids.org ) an adoptive mother of two and another unstinting child advocate. She was in D.C. using her star power and the recent release of her Lifetime film "America" about the foster care system, to help promote Landrieu's bill. Landrieu and O'Donnell later addressed the delegation of former foster youth: two strong women there to help. "How do you save the half million kids in foster care?" O'Donnell asked. "One at a time." By chance I took the same flight back to L.A. as Andrade. We discussed his boulder metaphor. I told him that strength was derived from being unashamed of exposing your weakness. At 20, having spent his life in the system, he said he couldn't remember hearing another man say that. "It's kind of nice to hear its okay to be vulnerable," he said. Since May, Landrieu's bill has been slowed by distraction over the economic crisis and health care reform. But that doesn't mean any of us, especially us men are off the hook. If more of us don't provide an example, boys will continue to grow into boulders instead of men. Ways to get involved : The Foster Care Mentoring Act sponsored by Landrieu in the Senate and Joe Crowley in the Congress looks to increase mentorship based on the model established by Children Uniting Nations (CUN) in Los Angeles County. CUN employs both relationship and academic based mentoring. For more information visit: www.childrenunitingnations.org Foster Club, of which Andrade is a representative, is a porthole of services for foster youth and adults who want to help. They can help find mentorship opportunities: www.fosterclub.com Casey Family Programs can also help you find a child to mentor: www.casey.org
 
Cathleen Falsani: The Coen Brothers Get "Serious" with a Comic (and Spiritual) Masterpiece Top
Earlier this week, I had a bad day. Epically bad. I ran out of cash. I lost my credit card. I missed my flight. And then, standing outside the United Airlines terminal at O'Hare, I dropped my cell phone, and as if in slow motion, watched in horror as it bounced and dropped over the barrier and onto the roof of the baggage claim area 10 feet below into an inch-deep layer of pigeon guano and dead cigarettes. First I cried, and then I laughed as several chivalrous gentlemen from TSA, the Chicago Police Department and the city's Department of Engineering came to my rescue, eventually retrieving my (mercifully) still-working phone. In those tense moments at the airport, beset by one minor calamity after another, I began to feel a bit like that poor fellow Job from Hebrew scripture (minus the nasty case of boils). Job lost all his money, his wife, his children and his health, but he refused to curse God. He was a good man, a serious man. My having-a-bad-day woes reminded me of Larry Gopnik, the protagonist of the spiritually powerful (and powerfully funny) new film A Serious Man , that I saw last weekend at the Toronto Film Festival. "A Serious Man" is the 14th film from the brotherly writing/directing/producing team of Joel and Ethan Coen. Set in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park, Minn., in 1967, the dark comedy follows the trials and tribulations of Gopnik (played by newcomer Michael Stuhlbarg), a physics professor and all-around decent fellow whose life falls apart in the course of a few weeks before and after his son's bar mitzvah. The Coens, the Oscar-winning duo who brought you No Country for Old Men, Fargo, Raising Arizona and The Big Lebowski , among others, are natives of St. Louis Park and were reared in an academic Jewish community much like that of A Serious Man . In fact, the Coens' parents were both university professors, and 1967 would have been the year Joel had his bar mitzvah. Gopnik's suburban serenity begins to unravel when his wife announces she's leaving him for Sy Abelman (Fred Melamed), a bloviating, faux-pious fellow professor. A litany of seemingly minor, but life-altering calumny leads Gopnik (who sees himself as a modern-day Job) to question the existence of God and the meaning of life -- and of suffering. He turns to three rabbis for answers to his questions, all of which are, the filmmakers seem to be saying, essentially, unanswerable. Since their directorial debut in 1984 with the neo-noir thriller Blood Simple , the Coens have created some of the most enigmatic and enduring films of my generation. The average moviegoer may not realize the duo who gave us whimsical comedies such as "The Hudsucker Proxy," "The Ladykillers" and "Burn After Reading," are the same guys who made the bleakly post-modern "The Man Who Wasn't There" and the gangland period piece "Miller's Crossing." The cinematic styles, periods and themes of their films are so varied, some critics have wondered whether there is an overarching vision to the Coens' work. I would argue that it is the spirituality -- the theological notions, the existential questions, and the religious ideas -- of their films that, to paraphrase one of the oft-quoted lines from "Lebowski," really ties the room together. Beginning with Blood Simple , the story of a man who has serious doubts about his wife's fidelity and what happens when he attempts to uncover the "truth," the Coens have boldly engaged serious existential questions with darkly intelligent humor. Each Coen brothers' films is marked by theological, philosophical and mythological touchstones that enrich even the slapstickiest moments. Each film probes confounding ethical and spiritual quandaries, giving us a tour of nuanced moral universes that may be individual (in the case of Barton Fink ), geographic (as in Fargo ), or historic (such as the Depression Era of O Brother, Where Art Thou? ) When I told people I was writing a book examining the spiritual messages -- the gospel, if you will -- of the Coen Brothers' films , most thought I was joking. Those who didn't figured it would be a really short book. But for those true fans (and Coen brothers' fans tend to be passionately so), the project struck a resonant spiritual chord. Whether you've seen only a couple or every single one of their films enough times to quote them by heart, you know Joel and Ethan Coen make movies like no one else in cinema. The Coens' quirky and sometimes confounding films are rich with meaning -- much of it hidden just beneath the surface -- gems of spiritual insight waiting to be excavated. Biblical truths run rampant throughout the Coens' 25-year cinematic oeuvre. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons. The love of money is the root of all evil. Love conquers all -- even death. And that's just in Fargo alone. The Coens have created moral universes in which some of life's essential questions are asked -- if not always answered. These queries run the gamut from the meaning of life and enlightenment, to the fundamental nature of grace, truth and love. There is seemingly no question the brothers are afraid to tackle, either with a wink and a smile or brutal honesty (and sometimes both). There is a moral order to the worlds the Coens create. Whether it's a farcical crime caper or an American Gothic tale of betrayal, there always are consequences to the characters' actions, for better or for worse. Bad guys are punished and the decent are rewarded for their innate goodness, though beware the viewer who assumes it will be easy to discern which is which. Sins come to light; lies and deception are revealed. Occasionally, the hand of God intervenes to restore order from chaos. A Serious Man , which hits theaters nationwide Oct. 2, encapsulates all of the spiritual themes the Coens have examined in their past films and introduces audiences to one of the more intriguing (if little-known) theological notions from Judaism -- that of the Lamed Vavnik, the 36 righteous souls in every generation upon whom the fate of the rest of the world rests. The film continues the Coens' work as secular theologians whose body of work one astute critic described as "the most sneakily moralistic in recent American cinema." Cathleen Falsani is the religion columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and author of the new book THE DUDE ABIDES: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE COEN BROTHERS .
 
Christopher Herbert and Victoria Kataoka Rebuffet: Weekly Foreign Affairs Roundup Top
The week's top stories in foreign affairs: Redirecting Missile Defense SI Analysis: The Obama administration announces that it is scraping plans for a Eastern European based Missile Defense Shield in favor of a more mobile and agile naval-based missile defense strategy . Critics of the administration contend that the US has weakened its nuclear deterrent strategy and relinquished a key card in negotiations with the Russians (planned Missile Defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic irked Russia to no end, as they said such a shield could only be aimed at them; but more importantly they felt that Missile Defense coupled with NATO expansion policies pushed too far into their sphere of influence). From this perspective, relinquishing the program without a solid quid pro quo from the Russians is a waste of an opportunity. Proponents say it is a savvy move: to better position the US ahead of the UN Security Council meeting next week and impending negotiations with Iran scheduled to start at the beginning of October; to bolster the US policy of anti-proliferation and to boost strategic arms reductions talks (START II) with the Russians; and to relieve the US of a costly, so-far ineffective and contentious program in favor of a more agile and reliable system. Some speculate that the move is indicative of a grand bargain reached with the Russians over pursuing greater sanctions against Iran (e.g. halting oil imports into Iran) if it does not quickly change course on its nuclear program. Whatever the reason, it was an expected decision and practical as it eliminates all sorts of distractions from key security policy (e.g. opposing European positions on the shield, debates about its cost and efficacy, arguments that say it spurred a new generation of arms races, a oft-cited reason for Russian opposition to myriad forums of international cooperation). Countdown for Iran SI Analysis: A flurry of stories has hit the airwaves ahead of Iran's showdown with the UN Security Council next week and Iran appears to be dictating every move: the UN nuclear agency IAEA says that Iran has enough fissile material to make a nuclear weapon; Iran, in an about-face, suddenly has allowed the nuclear watchdog to inspect its facilities (via CCTV); Iran agrees to hold talks about re-engagement with the West (but not specifically about its nuclear program) beginning the first week of October (one week after the Security Council meeting). Meanwhile internally all seems to be going the way of President Ahmadinejad and the Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: the President's picks for key ministerial positions such as oil, intelligence and the interior have been approved; in a provocative move, the next defense minister Ahmad Vahidi is wanted by Interpol for his lead role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Argentina; latent repression is reported in universities , where the feared baseej militias are skulking about to warn off any potential student uprisings and the Supreme leader has hinted on cracking down on dissenting professors and liberal arts curriculum. All eyes, especially Israel's, are watching closely to see whether Iran will actually engage in talks over its nuclear program. If not then it will be u p to the US to convince the Russians and the Chinese to go along with tougher sanctions and contain the hawkish actions of the Israelis. Analysis in Brief: President Putin Again? SI Analysis: Reports emerge that Putin may run for President again in 2012 . The Russian constitution bars politicians from serving more than two consecutive terms. But nothing, constitutionally (or politically, or logistically, or realistically) keeps the present Russian Prime-Minister from reclaiming the throne, er political office, after President Medvedev's term expires. Black Hawk Not-So-Down - At-All SI Analysis: In the most ambitious and brazen action in Somalia since its harrowing and failed incursions of the 1990s, US special forces made a daylight incursion into Somalia to track and kill Saleh Ali Nabhan, a supposed link between the extremist al-Shabbab militia in Somalia and al-Qaeda at large as well as a suspect in the al-Qaeda attack on a hotel in the Kenyan port of Mombasa in 2002. Chavez taking the lead in the South American Arms Race SI Analysis: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's recent statements and dealings have lent greater weight to those who argue, including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that a new arms race is afoot in Latin America. Citing recent agreement to permit US anti-narcotic operations to launch from Colombian military bases as impetus, Chavez has just concluded a significant arms deal with Russia and, in defiance of international law, claims to be pursuing a nuclear cooperation agreement with Iran . Ugandan Strife SI Analysis: Riots and violence opposing the central government with members of the majority ethnic Bagandan group rocked Kampala. The reasons for the uprisings were not initially understood since the parties traditionally tend to get along; some speculate political maneuvering to seduce minority factions ahead of 2011 elections; others say a personal falling out between the Bagandan King Ronald Mutebi and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, an Akole; still others lay the bizarre claim that Libyan President Qaddafi is funding the Bagandan uprising. Victor: President Karzai SI Analysis: Incumbent Hamid Karzai emerges as the winner of the Afghan Presidential elections, but not without significant controversy and claims of massive fraud . The Independent Election Commission and the Election Complaints Commission are pursuing different strategies to investigating the reports of fraud and validating the election or calling a run-off election. But time is running out and many worry that supporters of Abdullah Abdullah will not accept the official results in any case. There are reports that the EU, whose election-observing mission claims up to one third of all votes could be fraudulent , may be trying to broker a power-sharing deal between Abdullah and Karzai, but those are unconfirmed. Meanwhile, in the US debate continues on how best to continue fighting the war in Afghanistan and how to measure success there . Some, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, argue for massive troop increases , others, like chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Senator Carl Levin, call for state-building and empowerment of Afghanistan's own security forces ... both will have to take place in order to change the present course of the war . This briefing can be seen in the Huffington Post and on the Simple Intelligence site . More on Afghanistan
 
Heather Taylor-Miesle: Senator Murkowski Lights a Fire Under Alaskan Ice Top
You have all seen the devastating pictures of ice and glaciers melting in Alaska and at the poles .  Most of you have heard the stories of some villages in our largest state literally disappearing into the sea because of rapidly rising sea levels. Clearly, Alaska is on the front lines of climate change – and they are losing the battle.  You would think of all of the Senators in all 50 states, there would be at least 2 who would stand up and vociferously urge their peers to address global warming. And mean it.   Don’t get me wrong.  Alaska’s Senators, Murkowski (R-AK) and Begich (D-AK), have definitely talked a good game and have, in moments of lucidity, called on Congress to address climate change.  Senator Begich, in particular, was one of the first mayors to sign onto the U.S. Conference of Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement .  He is even participating in discussions on how to draft a bill that will address climate change.  As for Senator Murkowski – well lets just say that actions speak louder than words.  Today, Senator Murkowski teeters on introducing an amendment to environmental spending legislation that would allow EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions only from mobile sources, and portends to prohibit the agency from regulating heat-trapping emissions from the greatest source of pollutions --  stationary sources like power plants and industrial facilities. I think David Moulton, director of climate policy and conservation funding at the Wilderness Society said it best to the NYTimes : This amendment suggests that if global warming pollution comes from a power plant, it is safe, but if it comes from a car, it is harmful…. That is a preposterous distinction that cannot be supported in either law or fact. Senator Murkowski, the melting ice, rising sea, displaced people, and drowning polar bears don’t see the difference in the sources of pollution – all they see are the dire impacts of not cleaning up the pollution itself.   It is time to address the impacts of global warming pollution. You - of all of our elected-officials - should be leading the charge. More on Energy
 
State Applies For $98 Million In Stimulus Funds For Moynihan Top
It's official: The Paterson administration has passed Washington, D.C., the collection plate for Moynihan Station. Earlier this week, the state submitted an application for $98,281,730 in funds from the federal stimulus package out of a pot called "TIGER," a program in which the Obama administration has broad discretion on how to dole out awards.
 
Health Care Costs: Hidden Prices Hindering Reform Top
Until he got the bill, he didn't know what the surgery would cost him. "At a coffee shop, you can see that your latte is $2.50 and your grande is $3.50," Hausheer said. But not in health care. "This is the only industry that I know of that does things like that," he said. "Prices are not understood upfront." Until now, the push for price transparency hasn't played much of a role in the national debate over health care reform. However, the Senate Finance Committee version of health care overhaul would require hospitals to list their standard charges for services. The bill, unveiled Wednesday by committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., also would require health plans to report how much of each dollar paid in premiums goes to items other than medical care. President Barack Obama supports creating an insurance exchange where consumers and small business owners could shop for health insurance. But it's unclear whether such an exchange would promote publishing prices for procedures, said Elizabeth McGlynn, associate director of Rand Health, a nonpartisan research program. It's also not clear that provisions in the Baucus bill would offer useful information for consumers, McGlynn said. "Health reform may offer an opportunity for that agenda to be pushed forward on a broader scale than it would be otherwise," McGlynn said. "One of the biggest challenges people face is getting access to information that makes them smart shoppers." Finding out how much a medical procedure costs is more difficult and mysterious than buying a new car. With a new car, there's a sticker price. With health care, there's no starting line for haggling. The dealmaking happens behind closed doors long before patients get involved. Insurance companies make agreements with hospitals and doctors about what they will pay for knee surgeries, tonsillectomies and hernia repairs. For the uninsured, the hospital and doctors charge more – sometimes much more – than what they charge insurance companies. Medicare, the government plan for people 65 and older, sets its own rates, generally lower than what commercial insurance is able to negotiate. "The pricing model is ridiculous," said Brad Myers, who helped found Pensacola, Fla.-based NewChoiceHealth Inc., an online tool for consumers who want to compare prices in health care. The site is based on estimates derived from Medicare data. In parts of the country, some commercial insurers and nonprofit groups do post average costs for certain common treatments online. Two states – Maine and New Hampshire – also have online cost comparison tools that are even more accurate because they're based on insurance claims paid for procedures on patients in those states. Consumers can use prices posted on the sites to shop around or to strike better deals. A few clicks on Maine's site finds that one hospital charges the uninsured $1,326 for a colonoscopy. People with commercial insurance pay the same hospital from $800 to $950 for the same procedure, depending on their insurance company. And Medicare pays the same hospital $793. There are vast regional differences too. One insurance company is paying providers in Maine from $559 to $4,526 for a colonoscopy. "The consumer might look at this and say, 'Wait a second! We're getting ripped off!'" said Al Prysunka, the Maine government director of the program. More states are following Maine and New Hampshire, Prysunka said, and there's an effort to encourage uniformity in the new online tools to make comparisons between states possible. "This is information that ought to be available on a more widespread basis," said Anne Elixhauser, a senior research scientist at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, a federal agency supporting research on health care including price transparency. Increasingly, consumers have an incentive to shop around because of high deductibles that require them to open their own wallets before insurance kicks in. A growing number of employers are shifting more costs to workers through these high deductible plans. This year, 22 percent of all covered employees had annual deductibles of at least $1,000, according to a report released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust, a nonprofit research group affiliated with the American Hospital Association. That was an increase from 18 percent last year and 10 percent in 2006. Those working for a small business are likely to have a high deductible. "People who have high deductible plans are learning it's very difficult to get this information before they show up for the procedure," said Patrick Miller of the University of New Hampshire. If health care were a retail store, there would be no price tags, Miller said, and you wouldn't find out how much you paid until your credit card statement arrived. "We say we have a free market. But we really don't if you don't know what the price is," Miller said. Don't expect lifting the veil on prices to magically restrain health care costs, said Ha Tu, a senior health researcher for the Center for Studying Health System Change in Washington. If a hospital system is powerful in a market, just making prices public doesn't give insurance companies enough leverage to work out better deals, Tu said. And patients may not have much choice in the network of providers approved by their insurance companies, Tu said. Patients dislike asking doctors about cheaper prices and, without good ways to compare quality, patients can't know whether paying more is worth it or whether paying less is worth the risk, Tu said. Besides, people who need health care aren't in any condition to haggle. "Someone who is about to undergo surgery is not going to try to bargain with the anesthesiologist," Tu said. ___ On the Net: New Hampshire: http://www.nhhealthcost.org Maine: http://www.healthweb.maine.gov/claims/healthcost NewChoiceHealth: http://www.newchoicehealth.com/ More on Health Care
 
Len Berman: Top 5 Sports Stories Top
TGIF everyone, here's my Top 5 for September 18, 2009 from www.LenBermanSports.com 1. Quick Hits Double dribble. The lead negotiator for the NBA refs says a lockout of referees is unavoidable. The NBA pres-season begins in 2 weeks. Roger Federer was fined $1,500 for cursing at the chair umpire during the U.S. Open final. The Cowboys will debut their new stadium Sunday night against the Giants. Since their40-million dollar TV screens were hung too low over the field, there's a chance "do-overs" will be called if they interfere with punts. 2. The Way of the World How crazy has it become for celebs? A front page New York Times story yesterday talked about Florida Quarterback Tim Tebow. He was approached by a woman at Radio Shack to take a picture. But the instant before her mother snapped the pic, the woman tried to take off her shirt. Give me a break. Is everyone looking for their Michael Phelps gotcha moment? Do athletes have to live like monks in today's society? Kinda sucks. 3. Nailed Another sign of the times. I feel a twinge of sadness that Lenny Dykstra is putting his 1986 Mets World Series ring on the auction block. Of course he's the one who plunged head-first into his financial mess. Mets fans still feel a special glow about that magical World Series win. In today's sports world everything is up for sale. Even memories. 4. Friday Mailbag Serena Williams drew much comment. Said M.L. "While I don't condone what Serena did, I'm also VERY sick of the "I'm sorry" society we've created... I'm sorry I did steroids, I'm sorry I staged dogfights, I'm sorry I shot myself in the leg.... I'm actually glad Serena didn't say I'm sorry." And D.P. wrote: "You'd think Ms. Williams could've at least learned the NAME of the line judge while issuing her various half-hearted apologies?" Despite his accomplishments and how he's handled the spotlight, not everyone is a Derek Jeter fan. D.S writes: "I have long been annoyed by the absolute love affair the New York and national news media has with him - a love affair that has inflated the perception of how good a player Jeter is.... if he played his entire career in a place like Kansas City or Milwaukee, he would barely register on anyone's radar screen." The vote was about 50-50 on my proposal that the games should have been canceled back in 2001 after 9/11 and not merely postponed like rainouts. B.G. had a good compromise: "I think those games should've been made up, with all profits donated to the victims and their families." With runner Caster Semenya reportedly having male and female organs, R.R. writes: "She's already taking up new sports. in fact, she won a mixed tennis tournament last week -- by herself." And E.M. asks "can she now participate in biathlons?" Editor's note: Depends on his/her skiing and shooting skills. 5. Fans of the Week I know you are more used to cynicism than corniness in the Top 5, but my fans of the week are Steve Monforto and his 3-year old daughter Emily. Steve is the Phillies fan who caught a foul ball, gave it to Emily, who threw it back onto the field. Steve then gave her a big hug as the world went "aww." They've since been given autographed baseballs and jerseys. After a week of crappy behavior in tennis and music, we needed a feel good story to end the week. Thanks Steve and Emily. Happy Birthday: Cyclist Lance Armstrong. 38. Bonus Birthday: Former teen idol Frankie Avalon. 70. Today in Sports: Joe Louis knocks out Tami Mauriello in the first round at Yankee Stadium to retain his heavyweight title. 1946. Bonus Event: A horse raced a locomotive in a 9 mile race in Baltimore, and the horse won! 1830. More on Michael Phelps
 
Jeff Rivera: Nickelodeon's Naked Brothers Band (VIDEO) Top
I had a blast interviewing Nickelodeon's The Naked Brothers Band at Alice's Tea Cup in Manhattan. What talented guys I see nothing but big things for them. It will be interesting to see where their careers end up in the next few years. They just wrapped the series and now get ready Brothers fans, they're doing a tour! Jeff Rivera is an entertainment reporter who blogs about young Hollywood celebrities . He is also the author of the novel, Forever My Lady (Grand Central Publishing). For more celebrity interviews, visit: www.JeffRivera.com
 
Andrea Chalupa: I'm too sexy for this footprint: Eco-designers take on fashion's carbon footprint Top
What does fashion have to do with climate change? When you have new "It: bags and shoes coming out every season, made with toxic dyes, often with leather, flown and driven to stores across the globe, it's safe to say fashion's carbon footprint is a size XXXL. A growing number of eco-designers are trying to change all that, by using production processes that are gentler on the environment and all natural materials, such as hemp and cotton. (Watch this video-- this is not your mother's hemp.) And their pioneering efforts are making an impact on the industry as a whole. On Tuesday night during New York's Spring 2010 Fashion Week, The Green Shows feted Tiffany & Co. for switching its iconic pale blue shopping bags to environmentally-certified recycled paper versus the rainforest-endangering variety from Indonesia, the largest producer of luxury shopping bags and the third largest contributor to climate change because of its rapid deforestation. Tiffany & Co. C.E.O. Michael J. Kowalski said it was easy to make the switch, and that more designers need to follow suit -- it's simply an issue of awareness. "Industry has a leadership role to play that requires a social license to operate," says Kowalski. "We try to do what we can in our own sphere of influence." That includes addressing the issue with other members of Jewelers of America, as Kowalski plans to do. Lafcadio Cortesi of the Rainforest Action Network , says Indonesia pollutes more than the entire transport sector in the U.S.-- all trains, plains, and automobiles combined -- due to its deforestation, fueled on by one of its biggest clients -- the fashion industry. "Fashion should be the trendsetter," says Cortesi, who says major designers will find protesters outside their stores if they don't switch to using shopping bags made out of recycled paper and boycott Indonesia's deforestation. Even mogul designer Tommy Hilfiger, who Walletpop spoke with for the opening of his first flagship store in New York, has joined the bandwagon and switched his bags to certified eco-friendly. "It's so complicated. There's half a billion people in the world who depend on the garment industry," says famed plus-size model, Kate Dillon, an advocate for socially-responsible industry practices. The Green Shows commenced on Wednesday, with New York designer Bahar Shahpar , owner of The Four Hundred , an eco-designer showroom and consultancy. True to eco-fashion going against the grain, Shahpar had Ashley Dupré, Eliot Spitzer's infamous call girl, walk in her show, garnering lots of buzz, and yoga-activist, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons in the audience. English designer Isobel Davies of Izzy Lane , a celebrated animal rights leader, showed her adorable collection of autumnal wool skirts and sweaters while remaining conspicuously absent -- Davies forsook flying and stayed in London.
 
How To Buy A Sustainable Home Top
The company is aiming to become the first mass producer of what is known in green building circles as "net zero energy homes" - those that generate enough renewable energy on site to equal or exceed their annual energy use. More on Green Living
 
2morrowknight: Why 2010 Will Not be a Replay of 1994 Top
You sort of knew it was coming, right? The media talking heads are dusting off the 1994 playbook. You remember the story quite well: a young president and his party are soundly defeated in the midterm elections. It really sounds good, but it ain't gonna happen this time. It's hard for many people to believe this when many pundits are salivating over the remote possibility that the wheels will come off President Obama's ambitious agenda. Yes, some of the talking heads are hoping for an Obama implosion and for the Republicans to take back control of congress to create the drama and intrigue of divided government. But I just don't believe it's in the cards. And no, this is not wishful thinking on my part. This is not supposition and conjecture, or simply a baseless assertion from an Obama supporter trying to rally the troops. Trust me: 2010 will not be a repeat of 1994. Here are 4 reasons why: Demographics - President Obama won African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, Arab-Americans, and Native-Americans in last year's election. He also trounced John McCain by roughly 40% with young voters. This is stunning. But what is even more jaw-dropping is how well President Obama did with young white voters, particularly young white women. Think about it: Hillary Clinton had her daughter Chelsea and John McCain had his daughter Meagan, but they didn't make a big dent. So it's easy to see why some conservative white parents didn't want their children to see President Obama's back to school speech. He remains uber popular with most white youth, and, according to a major poll this Summer, with younger Americans in general . This is a positive development that will pay big dividends for the Democrats in 2010 and beyond. The Economy -- President Obama inherited a huge mess. The economy was tanking badly upon his arrival. But it would have been worse without the $787 billion stimulus bill. Period. The proof is in the pudding: it helped reduce GDP shrinkage in the third quarter and boosted consumer spending (great signs for the overall economy). The USA TODAY examined data that shows how stimulus cash has lifted Blue & Red States alike , and has offset a major drop in tax collections. And if that's not enough, the ultra conservative Wall Street Journal recently admitted that the stimulus (which they campaigned against) is helping the U.S. climb out of the current recession . And don't look now, but when Obama signs the impending climate bill into law, hundreds of thousands of Green jobs will be created. Around this time next year, Obama and the Democrats will be staring at a much stronger economy. The Tea Party -- Ideological disagreements are one thing, but the ugliness and hysteria at Tea Party gatherings are something else all together. These birthers, deathers, and anti-immigration zealots desperately need to reclaim their Shpadoinkle . I don't have to give a list of examples about their vitriol because we've all witnessed the outrageous posters and criminally irresponsible rhetoric from Tea Party organizers and participants. Is it any wonder why President Obama has seen a 400% surge in death threats , and that Speaker Pelosi is warning of potentially serious political violence ? Tell me how any of this helps Republicans? It doesn't. And...President Barack Obama himself - He ran the most efficient presidential campaign anyone had ever seen. Remember his TV channel ? Remember his advertisements in video games ? Remember his under radar outreach to young white evangelicals in '07 that was laughed off? Yes, he rocked it. What man could deliver the most electric concession speech I've ever heard that was later turned into a runaway viral hit ? The same man who delivered a riveting speech to 80,000 in Denver at the Democratic Convention. You think all of that ingenuity, energy, and out-of-the-box thinking has disappeared? President Obama is just getting warmed up. Remember his groundbreaking appearances on The Tonight Show , ESPN's' "March Madness/Bracketology" segment , and Univision's popular music show Premio Lo Nuestro back in the Spring? He rocked it. This Sunday, he is going to appear on five talk shows. And he will visit David Letterman - the King of Late Night - on Monday to reach slices of the American public that are not presently tuned into the cable news noise of lies and distortion. Oh, and about what he's done in office ... as of today, he's signed 13 bills into law, including the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act , Children's Health Insurance Reauthorization Act , and The National Service Bill . Yes, Obama is still the best asset the Democratic Party has. Taken together, this 2010 scenario is very feasible. But the factors I outlined must be married to the voter education/registration, traveling, e-mailing, phone-banking, and retail politicking that made it all happen in the first place. With so much at stake, we must remember that "Yes We Can" is not just a feel good slogan, or even a destination. In fact, it's an ongoing journey for something better than what we presently have: affordable health care, common sense education reform, stronger environmental protections, etc. So don't let your enthusiasm and resolve about the 2010 elections be sidelined by the ridiculous utterances of the usual suspects of punditry. This post was originally published at 2morrowknight.blogspot.com . More on Nancy Pelosi
 
Allison Kilkenny: Planet FOX Stokes The Right's Delusions Of Persecution Top
FOX News took out a full page ad in today's Washington Post braying about the channel's obsessive coverage of the Tea Party protests in Washington D.C. this past weekend. The ad reads, "How did, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN miss this story?" Well, as Huffington Post 's Jason Linkins points out, they didn't. By Jason's count, CNN ran no less than 14 reports on the Tea Party rally, beginning at approximately 7:00 a.m. During the same time, MSNBC broadcasted four reports on the Tea Parties. But let's remember that the facts don't matter. It doesn't even matter how many people showed up to the Tea Party protests. Citing "a university," Glenn Beck claimed that 1.7 million people had attended the rally. Of course, Beck couldn't remember the name of the school: "We had a university, I think it's University of -- I don't remember which university it is -- um, look at the pictures. And you know, they can do body space and calculate, 1.7 million, that crowd was estimated." Oh. Okay. Meanwhile, ABC pegged the attendees at 60,000 to 70,000 individuals even though they never covered the protests, according to FOX. It seems the country is operating with two sets of "facts" right now: the "facts" broadcasted on FOX, and the "facts" broadcasted on the mainstream media. This isn't to say the quality of the mainstream channels is good -- it's not -- but FOX has really left the stratosphere. ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN are certainly guilty of over-reporting celebrity stories, behaving as shills for corporate interests, all the while snuggling up too closely to the politicians they should be objectively monitoring. However, FOX does all of these things, and then stokes its audience's delusions of persecution on top of the terrible "news" coverage the network injects into their brains. And their audience is delusional. FOX viewers are consistently told by various anchors, but especially their weeping, bipolar messiah, Glenn Beck, that the government is trying to take their freedom. Beck is the guy who told his terrified audience that the Obama administration was setting up concentration camps when, in reality, the camps were being set up by the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA). Regardless, Beck claimed they would be used soon for mass imprisonment of American citizens with right-leaning political views. The truth is that this small, fringe, frothing-at-the-mouth tribe is using their misguided beliefs, and baseless lies, to persecute the majority of sane constituents. Glenn and his ignorant army have caused several of Obama's aides to be demoted or resign over fairly trumped up charges. First, Glenn successfully led the charge against Van Jones. Rather than engage with Glenn's army, the Obama administration failed to protect Jones, who resigned. Score one for the crazies, who let's remember, are very, very persecuted by their new President. Next, Glenn unsuccessfully tried to repeat the character assassination on Cass Sunstein. After the Jones witch hunt, Glenn and company accused Sunstein of "organ harvesting" because Sunstein proposed a way to increase participation in organ-donation programs. Currently, programs require potential givers to opt in, but if these programs were "opt out" (everyone is automatically enrolled and would have the option to choose not to participate) participation would theoretically grow. So either Sunstein had a clever idea to save thousands of lives, or he wants to harvest organs. It's one of the two, and what you believe depends if you're living on Planet Earth, or Planet FOX. The fringe mob is constantly pressuring the majority to change their stances in the spirit of bipartisanship even though the right wing never gives up anything during the pragmatic love fest. While the adults discussed end of life counseling on Planet Earth, the crazies screeched about death panels on Planet FOX. While the adults discussed health care coverage for all (even undocumented immigrants,) Joe Wilson shouted, "You lie!" from the bleachers. The consistent response to these baseless smears from the Obama White House has been to cave to the whims of the mob. And yet FOX continues to brainwash its audience into believing they're being deeply persecuted. By whom? Them . That's the ongoing mantra: They're trying to take your freedom. They want to change America. Them. The right is always losing even when they're winning, according to FOX. The right is always persecuted even when Democrats keep capitulating to the demands of a frenzied, uneducated panic squad. When the truth no longer matters, it's time to worry. The Tea Party protesters got their media coverage, and even if they don't feel as though they received enough attention, then they are now only beginning to understand a fraction of what anti-war protesters felt during the lead up to the Iraq invasion. We were trying to stop a war. The Tea Party protesters are trying to stop poor people from receiving affordable health care. Those are the facts. Don't look for them on Planet FOX. Cross-posted from Allison Kilkenny's blog . Also available on Facebook and Twitter . More on Glenn Beck
 
Tallulah Morehead: Survivor Samoa: Samoa, Samerrier. Top
"I am the monarch of all I survey; My right there is none to dispute; From the center all around to the sea, I am lord of the fowl and the brute. O Solitude! Where are the charms, That sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms, Than reign in this horrible place." -William Cowper, 1782. Survivor is back. Jeff Probst and a group of mismatched castaways, sadly not those of Oceanic Flight 815, have been marooned on the tropical isle of Samoa, to scratch, scheme, plot, and compete for our amusement. Better they than me. Excess seems to be the keynote, as they have given us 20 contestants this time out, most of them named "Russell," a Survivor record, though whether this will mean double evictions or a longer stretch on the air, I do not know yet. I don't ever remember watching the show and thinking, "They need more castaways." More often, it was, "They need therapy." We had a Russell on Big Brother all summer, on whom I had a tremendous crush. (Russell, call me. A great shag is waiting for you on my shag carpet.) Survivor , obviously trying to curry my favor (they tremble at my displeasure), has given us two Russells this time out, just to decrease clarity: a hot black Russell, for now known as "Black Russell," and a pudgy, psychotic white jerk to be known as "Psycho Russell." Next season, it will be "All Russells, All the Time." If your name isn't Russell, don't even bother applying, and that goes for women as well. Always going for the scenic in settings as well as in contestants, they opened with some truly breathtaking shots of the rugged, lush beauty of Samoa, and I speak as a beautiful, rugged lush myself, particularly a waterfall that looks to drop a mile. Our contestants were first seen paddling into land in outrigger canoes. Well it's an improvement over the season where they just had them all jump overboard and swim in or drown. They don't bother to introduce all 20 survivors at the beginning, but we got first impressions of a few. First off, "Shambo" (Her name is Shannon, but she calls herself Shambo because she admires Rambo! I already hate her, and we're not even to the opening titles yet.), a hyper-butch female ex-marine in a ridiculous mullet, who makes Clint Eastwood look effeminate. If she's not a lesbian, it's only because she terrifies real lesbians. At 45, she is "unmarried," and rides a Harley. I wonder if she rides it in a parade each June. Far from diminutive, she has taken off 70 pounds to do the show. That must be one big Harley! No one has come out as the token gay contestant yet, so Shambo may well be it. Although the official bio for 38-year-old Dave, or "Fitness Russell," an unmarried "Fitness Instructor," has no references to women in it (Unlike Ben's and Eric's, both of whom include bragging about their "womanizing"), and he has been a "Flight attendant," and has a degree in "Opera." Maybe he's the world's only straight, single, 38-year-old former-flight-attendant-turned fitness instructor with a degree in opera. Maybe. Shambo is deep into self-delusion right off the bat. "People have gravitated to me my entire life. It's like 'Oh my God. This chick rocks. We love her'." Shambo, kids giving you their lunch money so you won't eat them isn't popularity; and no one has ever called you a "chick" in your whole life. Continuing the butch women theme, we also met Betsy, or "Ms Russell,"an older policewoman who is clearly nobody's fool. She knows better than to trust what people tell her, and she doesn't wear a mullet, so I already like her a lot more than Shambo. And we met Psycho Russell, an "Oil Company Owner" from Texas, who doesn't need the million dollar prize, as he's already wealthy. Psycho Russell has been heavily hyped in the show's promotions as "The Biggest Villain in Survivor History." The odd things people choose to brag about. He's a pugnacious little bulldog, with a strong body, a large belly, and in the subcutaneous shorts he was wearing, a bulging "package." Psycho Russell was very upfront that he was there not to win the money, but to Sadistically torture everyone else, and behave as deliberately vilely as he can manage. I believe that he owns an oil company, as he makes J. R. Ewing look like Mother Theresa. As we will see, he starts right off living down to his hype. We're supposed to hate him, and by the time we saw him burning Jaison's (a tremendously hot black law student, who pronounces his name either Jai son or Russell) socks, I did. We met Ben, or "White Trash Russell," a Missouri bar manager who bragged: "I've shot and killed and cleaned about everything you're allowed to in Missouri, and probably a few things you're not. And I think a lot of these people are probably candy-asses." Oh, he's a charmer. Do you have to shoot people to get them to wash in Missouri? I've carefully avoided ever going there, and now that seems like a very wise move. Who isn't charmed by people who kill for fun? They were already divided into tribes, the purple tribe, Galu, and the yellow tribe, Foa Foa, or as I will be calling them, Zsa Zsa. Jeff had them vote for a leader (No one in their right mind takes a leadership role voluntarily on Survivor ; it's always a death wish.), without knowing anything about anyone beyond their appearances, which led to some hilariously stereotyped descriptions: "Better-looking Lenex Lewis:" Black Russell, a handsome, lawyer with dreadlocks and enormous pecs. "Tall, nicely-dressed, Yale-type black man," This was Betsy's description of Jaison. Black Russell was chosen as leader for Galu, and Mick, or "Dr. Russell," a McDreamy doctor (He's an anesthesiologist. Appropriate, because he's a knock-out!), was chosen to be the leader of Zsa Zsa. They then had to select tribe members for specific roles in the first challenge. When asked to choose his tribe's smartest member, Black Russell chose Shambo. Russell darling, how did you get through law school? A middle-aged woman in a mullet is not "smart." Said Shambo of her intelligence: "I am smart in the ways of life [I guess "The Ways of Life" do not include fashion sense in hairstyles] , but as far as book smart: dear God, please help me here." Oh great, illiterate and religious. Since the 'Smart" person had to finish the challenge by assembling a puzzle, it was no surprise that Black Russell's inexplicable choice of this idiot resulted in Galu losing the first contest of the season, although Shambo did manage to complete the puzzle by the time the episode aired. Reward Challenge : This had four legs. The best swimmer had to swim out and retrieve a key. The strongest used the key to unlock bundles of extremely heavy logs to carry over and use as steps. The most agile had to walk up the steps and maneuver a key through a rope maze while walking a balance beam, and then the smartest had to use that key to unlock puzzle pieces to assemble a Samoan idol. In the old days on Survivor , challenges were simpler, and had some unity. Both on last season's Survivor: Tocantins , and now this one, they seem to be tossing random challenge elements together at will. Unity is a distant memory. Jaison proved himself a hell of a swimmer. His body looks not unlike that of a black Michael Phelps, and he gave Zsa Zsa a strong early lead, with Psycho Russell's powerful strength at log-toting (something that, judging from that aggressive bulge in his pants, he has a lot of experience at) cementing that lead. Mike, or "Chef Russell," a 62 year old "Private Chef," who should really rethink sitting about on camera shirtless, as his repulsive hairy breasts flopping halfway down his over-ample gut makes for a most unappetizing sight (The CBS website says he lost 30 pounds to do the show. My Goddess, he must have been gigantic! ), told us,"Jaison, he surprised the s*%t out of me. Afro-Americans aren't known to be swimmers." Elderly fat white guys are however, known to be racially insensitive. Was "Afro-Americans" supposed to take the bigotry out of his stereotyping? (Of course, my ghost writer and amanuensis, Little Dougie, is also an elderly, out-of-shape white guy, but he is well-known to love black men, as frequently as possible.) Yasmin, or "Ebony Russell," a slim black woman, almost made up the lost time on the balance beam-rope maze, but Shambo still blew the puzzle assembling, and Zsa Zsa won fire. Since the other team was given fire after the next challenge, it hardly seemed worth all the effort. At camp, Ben declared himself a "hillbilly," and took over dictating how to build their shelter. I guess "Hillbilly" is considered expert credentials for shanty shack assembling. "Leader" Mick was more than happy to let Ben paint the target on himself. But the editors were more concerned with establishing the villainy of Psycho Russell. "I didn't come here to work. I came here to play... My strategy is to be able to have a secret alliance with each one of these dumb girls... I like to call it my dumb-ass girl alliance." (Does this cretin have a true friend in the world? The CBS website says he's married - poor woman - and has four kids, to whom he is teaching his appalling personal values.) He immediately trotted off with each female member of Zsa Zsa, proposing alliances, including Betsy, who is neither a "girl," nor dumb. In fairness to Psycho Russell, he referred to Betsy not as a girl, but as an "old lady." At 112, I'm an old lady. Betsy is 48. She's in the prime of life. Nobody's fool just yet, Betsy told us, "I just have a feeling that I don't trust Russell, because he came to me too quickly in the game." She's right that players who start making alliances the first day are never to be trusted. Often players who play that hard right from the start set off alarm bells, and get voted out quickly, but given how heavily CBS has been hyping Russell, he's not going away anytime soon. Over at Galu, an immediate conflict was established between Shambo and John, or "Space Russell," a "Rocket Scientist," something Shambo is not , over how to build their shelter. John wanted, quite reasonably, to figure out what they're doing so they do it right the first time. You know, using planning to do it intelligently. John: "In my life experience, a little bit of planning has taught me don't always be so quick to start spinning the wheels... This isn't your typical construction job... You can't ...deliver over-budget, because guess what? Your budget is cocoanuts." But thinking about things doesn't sit well with all-action/no-brains Shambo. "Oh my God, these guys are f*&$#ing killing me. John is very much all-talk, no business. I think he's an engineer or somethin'. He's too technical... All he's doing is runnin' his mouth" No, what he's doing is called "Thinking." Shambo, you should try it sometime. Translated, she's saying that figuring out the best way to do something is a waste of time. Shambo is very Bush Administration. Knowing what you are doing before you do it is for wimps! Shambo: "I think we should just act , and quit friggin' thinkin'." (Shambo is not big on pronouncing all the letters in a word. Pronouncing final Gs is for pussies!) Shambo, you have to start thinking before you can stop. No wonder we still haven't captured Osama. We got more of the "wisdom" of Miss I'm-Not-Book-Smart: "It's crazy, because I have to constantly remind myself this is not the Marine Corp... [black] Russell as the leader; I'm struggling with it. He's not being assertive. He's not leading right now. In my opinion, he needs to open a can of Whup-Ass and lay some laws down. That's what I would have done. That would be my game plan." How unfortunate that she wasn't elected leader. Opening cans of "Whup-Ass" (You can get fresher Whup-Ass these days in vacuum-sealed plastic pouches) and laying down laws is precisely the sort of leadership that gets you voted out. How I look forward already to the day when Jeff Probst says, "Shambo, the tribe has spoken." By the way, you recall that earlier Shambo said, "People have gravitated to me my entire life." When she gave the "Whup-Ass" monologue, she was sitting alone on the beach, while the entire rest of the tribe frolicked together in the water. Everyone avoiding her is apparently her idea of "Gravitating" to her. Then back to Zsa Zsa, where in the night, Psycho Russell was telling the whole tribe about his horrific experiences living in New Orleans, and losing his home to Hurricane Katrina, while laughing and bragging to us that it's all a load of bull. He also told them he was a fireman, which sounds somewhat more heroic than "Oil Company Owner & Swine." He even tossed in losing his fictional doggie in the flood. There is little that is more reprehensible than exploiting the very real tragedies of others for your own petty kicks. The worst of it is his smug self-satisfaction at being an utter douchebag. Mrs. Psycho Russell, are his millions really worth being married to this piece of excrement? "Student" Marisa (Which she insists is pronounced "Mareesa"), a member of the "Dumb-Ass Girl Alliance," on Russell's bull: "He's really been scrambling with everyone, and, um, he's been trying to get everyone's sympathy [she's starting to see through him. Good. Keep going, Marisa.] about Katrina, which is probably very true [Doh! So close. On what do you base your "probably very true" misconclusion?] ... and I'm starting to feel that he's pretty slimy." Good. Go with that. "Pretty slimy" is an understatement. While the others slept, Psycho Russell got up, snuck out. Emptied out all the canteens, so there was no water to wake up to, and then, for no discernable reason beyond pure evil cussedness, he burned Jaison's socks in the fire. Somewhere, in an undisclosed location, even Dick Cheney is saying, "This guy is nuts, and not in a good way either." Psycho Russell: "I plan on making it as miserable as possible for everybody... I'm really a multi-millionaire, own an oil company in Houston. I'm not here for the money. I'm only here to show people how easy it is to win this game." By endearing yourself to your tribemates by dumping out their water and burning their socks? It's a social game. You win by forming alliances, not by making yourself hated. This man is the Bush Administration personified. How long will it take for his tribe to get wise to his evil and get rid of this jerk? It took America eight years to rid ourselves of an evil Texas oil man. When the Zsa Zsa tribe found the empty canteens, no one suspected Psycho Russell, even though he was the one grinning with joy while everyone else was upset. Clueless. There is one ray of hope. Psycho Russell said, "Right now, I am running the whole show." Traditionally, whenever anyone, either on Survivor or Big Brother , says that they are running the show, they quickly find themselves gone. Smug overconfidence is always a ticket home. Immunity Challenge: Ben decided to show just how devoid of class this self-labelled hillbilly really is. While Black Russell was answering Jeff Probst's question about his tribemates, Ben interrupted with the "witticism": "Jeff, I've never read that book: Things Losers Say." The whole Zsa Zsa tribe thought that was hilarious. Laugh now, geniuses, because you are the tribe who lost this particular challenge. Eric, or "Belligerent Russell," another proudly womanizing bartender, as though Ben wasn't enough, decided he could be even crasser than Ben, "Can we start this, Jeff? Because I'm ready to open some cans of Whup-Ass." Is the Whup-Ass cannery paying for all this product placement? The challenge was another multi-part competition involving an obstacle course, dragging a heavy crate, and assembling a puzzle. I complained at length during the last Survivor that
 
8 American Cities That Get A+ For Sustainable H2O Management Top
American Rivers has highlighted eight communities' sustainable water management approaches that will make them more resilient to a changing climate.
 
Rep. Keith Ellison: A Public Option is Good Government! Top
The current attack on the public option as "government run" health care is a completely wrong-headed argument. First off, let's remember that government in a democracy is a good thing. Besides, with a public option, government does not "run" health care--government makes sure that everyone gets health care. Being against the public option is like wanting government out of Medicare. Let's be clear, our opponents have fought for decades to protect corporate health care interests. Their attack on the public option as "government run" health care is designed to distort the true meaning of reform and scare people. The public option is not government run health care; rather it is the only way to provide affordable health care that cannot be taken away. We're debating health care reform now because well over 60% of the American public believes the current system is broken. The average American family pays an extra $1,100 per year in premiums to support a system that leaves forty six million Americans uninsured. With the status quo in such a state it should be easy to enact reform, right? Wrong. The opposition has mobilized against dismantling their gravy train - spending over a million dollars a day to defeat meaningful health care reform. Since they don't have the facts on their side, they do it with scare tactics like death panels, tax hikes, and more debt. What they can't accomplish by scaring you, they confuse the facts. Opponents of reform are currently focused on gutting the bill of a key component - the public option. The objection to a "public option" in the health care debate is that it would be government-run. According to critics, "government run" means poorly, intrusively and wastefully administered. This analysis comes to you from the business titans that brought you the privately run goose eggs like Enron, WorldCom, Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers. All privately run disasters of major proportions. It takes real chutzpah to criticize government performance with examples like those in your own backyard. Now I believe in a healthy, mutually beneficial balance - a mixed economy with private and public participation. But balance is not what those who decry the public option seek in the health care debate. They want the status quo; and in the case of some insurance companies that means near monopoly of a market in some states. You, the consumer, lose in that situation with no competition, no accountability, and no recourse when premiums skyrocket. In fact, those who favor the public option, and those who oppose it, do so for the same reason: the public option will match up favorably against private market programs. Proponents of the public option say this is good; opponents actually deplore real competition, and enjoy monopoly pricing. There is no legitimate policy argument against the public option. The opposition is political - it's about power: public power - meaning your power - versus the power of those few bonus-bothered executives and their Republican allies. So when you hear the outcry of a government takeover of our health care - know it is a smokescreen for the protection of the pocketbooks of those in industry; those who fear real competition, effectiveness - and your voice. It is the outcry of those private insurers who have brought us to where we are today - without competition and accountability. More on Health Care
 
Find Out What It Takes To Cut Shipping Emissions Top
Global shipping contributes about a billion tonnes of CO2. That's more than the entire economies of Germany or the UK.
 
Carl Pope: America's Best Idea Top
THE WHITE HOUSE, Washington, D.C. -- I mean, how cool is it to be watching a special one-hour excerpt from Ken Burns' 12-hour PBS special on the National Parks in the White House screening room with President Obama, Interior Secretary Salazar, three Park Service Directors and a select group of members of Congress? Even better is the dialogue and interaction between the President and filmakers Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan, and the way in which some of the core themes of the series — called America's Best Idea — resonate with our current social and political dilemmas. At one point Burns says that all of this PBS specials, from the Civil War onward, drive at one question: "Who are we, we Americans?" Burns says that consistently the answer turns out to engage two repeating themes, place and democracy, and in particular whether democracy can overcome our dilemmas around race. Repeatedly in the film, the people interviewed (including my own brief snippet) focus on the democratic nature of the National Park system, in which every American owns an equal share in the nation's best real estate. Also highlighted is what one historian said: "that to be an American is have a connection with the American landscape — that's what actually transforms us from foreigners who have come here to Americans." Onscreen, President Obama describes his first encounter with the parks, when at age 11 he and his mother came from Hawai'i to the mainland, a place Obama had always dreamed about, and went to Yellowstone National Park, where on his first encounter with a bison, history was almost rewritten when young Barack ran too close to get his snapshot — the next kid who imitated him almost got trampled. Sitting next to me in the White House screening room is Ranger Shelton Johnson, from Yosemite, author of the recent Sierra Club-published novel Gloryland . Johnson has brought back to life the history of the African-American cavalry troops known as Buffalo Soldiers, who were the first park rangers. Johnson is a key part of Burns' story, which pivots on how park advocates and heroes have ranged from the patrician (John D. Rockefeller) to the grassroots, and in the end, the Park story is, as Burns says, "a bottom-up, not a top-down story." These excerpts focus, understandably, on the Presidential role in the history of the parks — Teddy Roosevelt at Yellowstone, Franklin Roosevelt and the Civilian Conservation Corps, and John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson supporting Interior Secretary Stewart Udall as he dramatically expanded the size and role of the parks. We see Martin Luther King, Jr., at the Lincoln Memorial, and hear how the Memorial has helped transform America's attitudes towards race. Trust me, an hour really isn't enough! We all left thirsting for more. If you want to see what the excitement is about, join the Sierra Club at one of our 750 house parties to watch a one-hour sneak peek of the film on or around this Sunday night, September 20. Can't make it this weekend? Invite some friends to watch the series premiere on Sunday, September 27, and download our discussion and take action materials here . For more information about America's Best Idea , Shelton Johnson and his book Gloryland, the Sierra Club, and our National Parks, click here .
 
The World Of Albino Animals (PHOTOS) Top
From tigers to peacocks, these albino animals are awesomely beautiful, a little bit scary and definitely worth a look. Vote on your favorite. Get HuffPost Green On Facebook and Twitter! More on Animals
 
John Geyman: A Death Every 12 Minutes: The Price of Not Having Medicare for All Top
Americans are dying at a faster rate -- 1 every 12 minutes, 5 an hour, 120 a day, 45,000 a year -- not from war or natural disaster, but from lack of health insurance. That's the stunning finding of a study published today in the American Journal of Public Health by leading researchers at Harvard Medical School. The report, "Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults," reveals that the uninsured have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those with private insurance, resulting in 45,000 preventable deaths annually. These are our friends and neighbors, our fellow Americans who can't afford or otherwise get private health insurance. Increasingly, this group includes nearly all lower-income and a growing majority of middle-class Americans. The Institute of Medicine estimated in 2002 that more than 18,000 Americans between the ages of 19 and 64 were dying each year as a result of being uninsured. The new number is two and a half times that figure. Trying to get by, the uninsured and underinsured delay necessary care, put off filling drug prescriptions or take only some of their medications each day. Most are just one major illness or accident away from financial ruin. No one should have to do a cost-benefit analysis when it comes to your health. A growing number of patients with cancer have to turn down recommended chemotherapy or radiation treatment because of inability to pay for care. If they have insurance, many find that the small print in their policies excludes such coverage. If they are uninsured, their risk of death multiplies. No one in dire need of medical care should be put in this lose-lose situation. We're not talking about a third world country. This is the United States, one of the most industrialized nations in the world. But increasingly, we look more like a developing country -- 42nd in the world for life expectancy (behind Japan and most of Europe), and ranked last among 19 OECD countries in preventable deaths that should not occur in the presence of timely and effective health care. Meanwhile, the charade goes on, as our elected representatives in Congress dither over health care reform. None of the bills in Congress will resolve the affordability and access problems. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the House health reform bill would still leave 17 million persons uninsured and that Sen. Baucus' bill, unveiled yesterday, would leave 25 million uninsured. That translates into tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths every year. There are now 3,300 health industry lobbyists running around Washington, D.C., trying to shape the small print to their advantage in whatever bill finally gets passed (if any). The insurance and pharmaceutical companies and their hangers-on are spending $5 million a week to block real reform. Suffice it to say that none of these companies have the best interests of the uninsured or the underinsured at heart. Through its trade group, America's Health Insurance Programs, the industry is fighting for its life (but not our lives). And so far, it is winning. By "cooperating" with health care "reform" by pledging to eliminate pre-existing conditions as a barrier to coverage, and saying they will take all comers in return for a government mandate that everyone be required to buy its shoddy products, the insurers are poised to reap a massive financial windfall. So far, the bills in Congress set no limits on what the insurers can charge for premiums, and the legal requirements for covered benefits are likely to be minimal. If a "reform" bill along these lines passes, it will be a bonanza for insurers, drug and medical device manufacturers, and other players in the medical-industrial complex, all at our expense. Since their revenues are our costs (as patients and taxpayers), there will be no cost containment. We can prevent another 45,000 Americans from dying next year. An effective cure to the health care crisis is within our reach, and it lies within a single-payer, Medicare-for-All plan. By cutting out private insurance companies, we would not only save taxpayers billions, but deliver quality care to everyone. We shouldn't have to wait another 12 minutes. Dr. John Geyman is professor emeritus of family medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, a past president of Physicians for a National Health Program and author of Do Not Resuscitate: Why the Health Insurance Industry Is Dying, and How We Must Replace It.
 
Craig and Marc Kielburger: Vietnam's Latest Casualties Top
It's been nearly 35 years since bombs were dropped in the Vietnam War. Last month, Pham Quy Tuan became one of the latest casualties. Tuan, 42, is married with two children. Few jobs are available in the poverty-stricken Quang Tri Province, the war's former demilitarized zone. To keep his family fed, Tuan resorts to collecting scrap metal for the local market. On Aug. 1, he lost both his hands and suffered burns across his body when a bomb detonated. He was attempting to dismantle it for money. The remnants of the Vietnam War can be equally horrific as the conflict itself. The country's landscape is littered with leftover, unexploded ordnance - still deadly after 34 years. Recently, the country's head of Military Engineering said at the current pace, it will take $10 billion and 300 years to clear it all. For people like Tuan and his family, that's simply too long. "Being injured in a poor country, you can't ask the government for a pension," says Jan Scruggs, founder and president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund which runs Project RENEW, a humanitarian program that clears unexploded ordnance. "If you're injured, you don't have a career." Scrap collecting is illegal under Vietnamese law. But, the danger lies more in encountering explosive devices than police. Tuan knew that well. He had lost two older brothers in 1992 to the same accident. However, in Quang Tri, one of the most heavily bombed regions of the Vietnam War, extreme poverty keeps collectors going back. "Because of the presence of bombs, much of the land can't be put to productive use," says Blair Burroughs, executive director of PeaceTrees Vietnam, a humanitarian project that removes landmines in the country's central province. "The prime way to make money is by getting a metal detector and scrap-collecting." Ordnance is a threat to more than just scrap-collectors. Those farmers who dare till the land often step on landmines in their own fields. Sand-dredging boats often come across cluster bombs and grenades in the depths Vietnam's central river. Children, not knowing the danger, will mistake cluster bombs for toys. In the former demilitarized zone, it's estimated one in every 100 people have been killed or injured by unexploded ordnance. Identifying, isolating and safely detonating the individual explosives is one way to prevent deaths. But, it is a slow process. So, other initiatives have been taken up to try to reduce casualties. "Kids are attracted to the ordnance and get killed playing with it. That's why we need to focus on behaviour modification," says Scruggs. "We have kids who have survived their injuries go into schools to teach other kids why not to touch the stuff." Training local people in basic first aid have also reduced the number of deaths among workers. But sadly, poverty keeps scrap collectors going back to their dangerous jobs and farmers continue to encounter the materials as they work. "The rate of accidents had been falling but you still have an average of one or two people being killed or injured each week," says Burroughs. "This is a problem that's not limited to Vietnam. There's not enough focus on getting rid of the explosive remnants in many places." It's near impossible to dispose of every bomb used in battle. France routinely finds unexploded ordnance dating back to World War II. But, Vietnam's poverty makes the post-war danger so great. That poverty is remarkably similar to that in Iraq and Afghanistan where we currently fight. Even if our armies left tomorrow, unexploded pieces of battle would remain. Ordnance doesn't respond to ceasefire the way armies do. When armies leave, we need to ensure peace really comes with the end of a war. "This war, it's very much not over for the people of Quang Tri," says Burroughs
 
Rob Warmowski: The Real Act Of Patriots: Restoring JUSTICE Top
Haven't one handful of isolated killers done enough damage? The payoff of the 9/11 attacks was not delivered that day but in the months and years that followed. The lasting victory for that tiny band of extremists lay in the fact that the attacks diverted the domestic civic tone of the United States so egregiously and for so long. In the wake of the attacks, over the objections of civil libertarians, a wounded and dazed Congress passed detestable legislation called the "Patriot Act" that gave unprecedented powers to the federal government and legal cover to telecommunications companies to spy on US citizens with impunity. This willingness to relinquish rights in the face of a threat wasn't introduced on 9/11. It was always there, but was magnified by our own institutions after that day into the single greatest and most systemic attack on Americanism the country has ever felt. The problem with tiny bands of bronze age terrorists is not that they form a long-term threat to the fabric of life in the United States. The fact is, they don't, even if they do their worst. Their worst can't possibly compare to the worst we will do to ourselves through our institutions. The Patriot Act, torture, suspension of habeas corpus, hundreds of billions more to an already bloated defense complex designed to oppose a nonexistent superpower - these are all grave errors, the consequencs of which we have not yet faced. But we have a chance to prove that that which does not kill us makes us stronger. Yesterday, U.S. Democratic Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Jon Tester (D-MT), Tom Udall (D-NM), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced legislation to reform the overbroad Patriot Act. It's called the Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools in Counterterrorism Efforts - aka the JUSTICE Act. It is with not a little Illinoisan pride that I quote Senator Durbin on this legislation: "The Government must use every legal tool available to protect us from the threat of global terrorism. But when those tools override Americans' fundamental rights and liberties, we run the very real risk of never getting them back," Durbin said. It's more than a risk. Indeed, even this legislation will not claw back everything we allowed a 9/11-cowed Congress to take away from us. "Sneak and peek" searches would still be allowed, albeit with stronger restriction and judicial oversight. Warrantless authorities under FISA would be retained, with stronger requirements to tie investigations directly to terrorism and disallow "fishing expiditions". But after eight long years of using 9/11 to justify every egregious excess against civil liberties and proffer every protection to telecom companies who enable, JUSTICE is long-needed step in the right direction. Where one step can be taken, others can follow. I have always thought of democratic government as a generally heartbreaking exercise that gets things done, undone, underdone and overdone. As flawed as it is, it is better than anything else anybody else has ever tried. When democratic government can be so readily turned on itself, turned against the people it represents by no more than a band of insignificant, cave-dwelling murderers, the society's fragility is made plainest. The JUSTICE Act recognizes this and for once, moves to protect it intelligently. It's about time.
 
Bill Maher: New Rule: You Can't Complain About Health Care Reform If You're Not Willing to Reform Your Own Health Top
New Rule: You can't complain about health care reform if you're not willing to reform your own health. Unlike most liberals, I'm glad all those teabaggers marched on Washington last week. Because judging from the photos, it's the first exercise they've gotten in years. Not counting, of course, all the Rascal scooters there, most of which aren't even for the disabled. They're just Americans who turned 60 and said, "Screw it, I'm done walking." These people are furious at the high cost of health care, so they blame illegals, who don't even get health care. News flash, Glenn Beck fans: the reason health care is so expensive is because you're all so unhealthy. Yes, it was fun this week to watch the teabaggers complain how the media underestimated the size of their march, "How can you say there were only 60,000 of us? We filled the entire mall!" Yes, because you're fat. One whale fills the tank at Sea World, that doesn't make it a crowd. President Obama has identified all the problems with the health care system, but there's one tiny issue he refuses to tackle, and that's our actual health. And since Americans can only be prodded into doing something with money, we need to tax crappy foods that make us sick like we do with cigarettes, and alcohol -- and alcohol actually serves a useful function in society in that it enables unattractive people to get laid, which is more than you can say for Skittles. I'm not saying tax all soda, but certainly any single serving of soda larger than a baby is not unreasonable. If you don't know whether you burp it or it burps you, that's too big. We need to make taking care of ourselves an issue of patriotism. If you were someone who condemned Bush for not asking Americans to sacrifice for the war on terror, the same must be said for Obama and health care. President Arugula is not gonna tell Americans they're fat and lazy. No sin tax on food on Obama's watch. And at a time when it's important to set new standards for personal responsibility, he appointed a surgeon general, who is, I'm sorry, kind of fat. Certainly too heavy to be a surgeon general, it's a role model thing. It would be like appointing a Secretary of the Treasury who didn't pay his taxes. He did? And get this: Surgeon General Benjamin had previously been a nutritional advisor to Burger King. The only advice a "health expert" should give Burger King is to stop selling food. The "nutritional advisor" job was described as, "promoting balanced diets and active lifestyle choices" -- and who better to do that than the folks who hand you meat and corn syrup through a car window? When you have a surgeon general who comes from Burger King, it's a message to lobbyists, and that message is, "Have it your way." More on Health Care
 
In Health Care, Number Of Claims Denied Remains A Mystery Top
Are health insurance companies generally being fair and honest when they reject claims from policy holders? That would seem to be an important question in deciding how best to fix the U.S. health system. But it hasn't been a focus of the raging health-care debate -- possibly because the answer is not publicly available. "This is one of the dark corners of the black box that is private health insurance," said Karen Pollitz, a professor at the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. Data on how often insurance claims are denied -- and for what reasons -- is collected and analyzed by the insurance companies themselves. But except in California, the companies aren't required to provide those records to any state or federal agency. "The number is knowable, but not known by regulators or policy makers or patients," Pollitz said. The main health-care reform bill being considered in the House does seek to address the matter. It would require health insurance companies to report data on claims policies, practices and denials to a central commissioner. The issue of claims surfaced recently in California. The state Nurses Association issued a press release saying that data it obtained from the Web site of the state's Department of Managed Health Care showed that in just the first half of 2009, California's six largest HMOs had rejected more than 31 million claims -- 21 percent of those they had received. The way the nurses group tells it, state officials didn't even know they had the data. Don DeMoro, a policy director for the nurses' association, said that he received a phone call from the managed care department after its press release came out. "They said, 'You couldn't have gotten this data from us. We don't collect it ourselves,'" DeMoro said. "'The data is there,' I told them, 'but it's hard to find.' I walked them through the steps and waited while they clicked through their own Web site. Once they saw that the data was there, they politely said, 'Thank you' and hung up." Lynne Randolph, spokesperson for the state agency, said she does not know what DeMoro might have been told, but said, "We've always known about this data." (To check the California data, go to the managed care agency's searchable financial reports. On the pull down menu, select 'full service,' choose a company name and 'annual.' When the list comes up, click on the company name and you will download a spreadsheet. The claims data is contained on the tab labeled 'Schedule G.') In any case, Randolph contends that the nurses' group misrepresented the meaning of what it found. She said the total number of "claims denied" include duplicate claims and claims that were eventually appealed and accepted, in addition to actual denials. "You can't just look at the numbers in schedule G," she said. "I guess it might look that way to a layman, but that data obviously does not reflect actual denials." Tim Labas, assistant deputy director in the Office of Health Plan Oversight at the state agency, estimated that the actual denial rate across the board in California is probably somewhere between 10 and 20 percent. "That might still seem high," he said. "But there are legitimate reasons why claims are denied." The state officials said they consider the claims data they collect to be a kind of early warning system. If they notice large jumps in claims denials for an insurance company, they have the authority to request more specific information, said Mark Wright, an official in the health plan oversight office. The office said it could not cite an example of when it made such a request. "We could require the insurance companies to report all of the data to us, but I think it would just be too much information for us to handle," Wright said. "We'd be overwhelmed." The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), whose stated mission is to "assist state insurance regulators, individually and collectively, in serving the public interest" said the group did not know the state reporting requirements for insurance companies, nor does it collect data on the actual number of claims denials. State regulators tend to focus on individual complaints from consumers. But only a fraction of consumer problems with health insurance result in formal complaints. A national survey published by the Kaiser Family Foundation in June 2000 found that 51 percent of those surveyed had experienced some type of problem with their health insurance, but only two percent had made a formal complaint. Nearly 90 percent of those surveyed could not name the agency that regulates health insurance in their state. In recent testimony before the House Subcommittee on Domestic Policy, Pollitz, the Georgetown professor, said that collecting claims data is important because "regulators must be able to monitor patterns of health insurance enrollment and disenrollment in order to know whether insurers are avoiding or shedding." Robert Zirkelbach, spokesperson for the insurance industry's trade association, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), said his organization had not taken a position on the proposed reporting requirement in the House bill. AHIP represents, among others, UnitedHeathOne, Wellpoint, Inc., Aetna, Inc., Humana, Inc., CIGNA Healthcare, and the Health Care Service Corporation, all of whom sent executives to testify before the subcommittee on Thursday. AHIP submitted testimony to the record as well, noting that the organization had completed an internal investigation of 700 million claims voluntarily submitted by 19 unnamed insurance companies in 2006 and found the denial rate to be only about 2.36 percent. But Pollitz said that consumers and regulators, not insurers, need more "detailed, descriptive information about how coverage works." This data about health insurance is generally lacking at both the federal and state levels. Last year the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform requested information from 50 state health insurance regulators. They found that most states didn't know the answers to basic questions. Only four states -- Hawaii, Kansas, Texas, and Washington -- knew how many times insurers had dropped people's coverage. Only ten states knew how many individual health insurance policies were in effect in their jurisdictions. More than one-third of state commissioners did not know which health insurance companies even offered policies in their state. The federal agency responsible for maintaining health insurance standards and oversight, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, does not gather compliance data, nor does it track state enforcement. "It is time for the federal government to take a more active role in health insurance regulation," Pollitz said. More on Health Care
 
Michael F. Jacobson: Meet Quorn: This Fungus Ain't No Portobello Top
I should say from the beginning that I have nothing against fungi. I love my sauteed shitakes and occasional grilled Portobello. I have nothing but respect for the humble, industrious yeasts that help turn flour and grape juice into bread and wine, respectively. I'm not much of a cheese eater, but even I can appreciate the mysterious molds that give Roquefort and Gorgonzolas their distinctive veins. And should I contract strep throat, pass the penicillin, please! Of course plenty of fungi are considerably less savory, making their homes in shower stalls, locker rooms, and stinky socks. But when it comes to eating, I draw the line at Quorn , and so should you. Meet Quorn-brand foods. In the 1960s, scientists and others became alarmed by the prospect of a global shortage of edible protein. In 1967, some British scientists thought they found the answer: A fungus growing in the dirt near Buckinghamshire, England. Quorn's copywriters describe the discovery thusly on packages: After 15 years of searching in many parts of the world, we finally found what we were looking for. And it was literally growing in our own backyard! The British scientists found that with some poking and prodding, this fungus could be grown in vats and then processed into an edible, low-fat, high-protein paste. Approved for sale in the U.K. in the 1980s, Quorn's so-called mycoprotein hit the grocery shelves in the form of meat-free burgers, cutlets, and in time, uniquely British things like "Cottage Pie," "Cornish Pasties," and "Toad in the Hole." Around 2002, the makers of Quorn brought it to America. Keep in mind that unlike the mushrooms that have been eaten for millennia, this is a new entrant into the human food supply. There had been remarkably little safety testing done of Quorn's fungus, though what had been done wasn't all that reassuring. One early company-sponsored test found that 10 percent of 200 test subjects who ate the fungus experienced nausea, vomiting, or stomach ache, compared with five percent in a control group. The Latin name of the fungus, Fusarium venenatum, should have tipped off regulators: venenatum means 'venomous.' But most Americans would probably be surprised to learn that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not actively investigate and "approve" new foods, as such. Rather, it simply requires manufacturers to self-affirm that the substance is "Generally Recognized as Safe," or GRAS. It's the same loosey-goosey regulatory framework that has grandfathered in other problematic ingredients like partially hydrogenated oils (the source of artery-clogging artificial trans fat) and salt (a major cause of high blood pressure, heart attacks, and strokes). So now Quorn's Toad is out of the Hole, as it were. And its sunny orange packaging is now a familiar sight in the frozen food aisles at "health food" stores, Whole Foods, and some other supermarkets. Since the Center for Science in the Public Interest began logging complaints about Quorn in 2002, we've heard from more than 1,400 people who have experienced everything from mild nausea to projectile vomiting, and even life-threatening anaphylactic shock. Our lawyers are now assisting a woman who is suing to get the company to place warning labels on the product about those problems . If you are already eating Quorn and haven't experienced any of these adverse reactions , you probably don't need to stop. But if you don't want to risk any of these symptoms, I'd opt for something else. The FDA's policy has been that if a substance does not cause permanent, severe harm, it may appropriately be considered GRAS. Frankly, that's nuts. There is fresh new leadership at the FDA, so I hope they take a long, careful look at Quorn--and their broader policy on when something is GRAS. On Quorn, I hope the FDA applies a massive dose of regulatory fungicide. More on Wellness
 
Michael Parrish DuDell: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner: The Green Movement's Dirty Little Secret Top
It wasn't very long ago that I found myself huddled in the corner at a particularly fancy, über exclusive green-themed party in the trendy meatpacking district of New York City. I won't say who was throwing the bash, but they're a leader in the green industry and have a solid track record for establishing effective change in the movement. It was clear that while planning the party, this particular group had been quite thoughtful -- meticulous, even -- in making sure that each and every aspect of the event was environmentally kosher. The CFL light bulbs were responsibly hung and complimented the sustainable furniture, neatly scattered throughout the efficiently air-conditioned space. The staff wore fair-trade, organic cotton t-shirts proudly displaying the organization's logo in crisp, soy-based ink. Even the invitation was up to par -- embossed with those six hypnotizing words: "Printed on 100 percent recycled paper." Yes, at first glance one might think that Mother Nature herself had blessed this sustainable soiree. And then the hors d'oeuvres were passed. Resting stylishly on recycled bamboo serving platters sat a ménage of beef tartar, pork belly something-or-other and a trilogy of pungent unidentifiable cheeses. I felt my eyes begin to roll. The onset of attitude was two-fold: First, I am a vegan of almost nine years and it was obvious that the growling noises clamoring from my stomach would be competing with the beat of the house music for the rest of the evening. Secondly, I was frustrated that nobody on staff had made the seemingly obvious, absolutely critical connection between what we eat and the health of our planet. With buckets of scientific evidence proving that animal products cause infinitely more harm to the environment than their plant-based counterparts, I was shocked to witness this menu served at an eco-conscious event by a company with a genuine stake in sustainability. The dangers of animal production are no secret. In 2006 the U.N. released a report stating that raising animals for food generates more greenhouses gases and contributes more to global warming than every mode of transportation in the world combined! Producing more methane and nitrous oxide than any other industry in the world, animal agriculture is to sustainability as Kanye West is to humility. Deforestation, mass pollution, and soil erosion are all symptoms of our society's method of raising animals for food. And then of course there's the undeniable fact that animal production simply requires more resources. In the early nineties, the Water Education Foundation in Sacramento -- a non-profit that prides itself on being "the only impartial organization to develop and implement educational programs leading to a broader understanding of water issues" -- worked with the University of California on a study that found it takes 2,464 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef. To compare, it takes 15 gallons to produce one pound of lettuce and 30 gallons for one pound of potatoes. Assuming there were 300 people at the party in question, and 38 pounds of beef were purchased to create single 1-ounce servings of tartar for each guest, that would mean 93,632 gallons of water was used for beef alone -- and that's not including second or third helpings. How does this translate to everyday water usage? Consider this: current federal regulations mandate that new shower heads must exceed no more than 2.5 gallons of water per minute. A little number crunch on the old calculator will unveil that you could take 7,490 5-minute showers with the same amount of water used to create this one appetizer -- that's one shower a day for more than 20 years. My point in playing math teacher is not to discredit this group's fine work or to discount the important steps they did take to throw an eco-friendly bash. Environmentalism isn't only about food and I certainly applaud their valiant attempt to create a planet-pleasing party. I choose to dissect the menu only to reveal that even the most conscious environmental organizations have still not yet fully accepted -- or at least put into practice -- the fact that eating lower on the food chain is a critical step to creating a more sustainable planet. At a recent concert in Sweden, Moby asked Al Gore why he didn't mention the heavy environmental impact of animal production in his film An Inconvenient Truth . "He answered honestly," recounts Moby, "Basically saying that getting people to drive a hybrid car isn't that difficult. Getting people to give up animal products is almost impossible." I agree. However, I also argue that the greatness of our world and the potential of the human race is only truly revealed when the "almost impossible" is achieved. One hundred years ago a woman's right to vote was "almost impossible." Fifty years later the thought of an African-American man becoming President of the United States was "almost impossible." 20 years after that, the idea that a small box with a processor and a screen would redefine our culture and forever change the way we receive information was... well, "almost impossible." And yet each of these "almost impossible" ideas sprouted and blossomed into magnificent truths, leaving many to wonder why they were ever so hard to imagine in the first place. If we as a society are willing to recognize that our purchases and lifestyle choices have an impact on the planet, then we must also recognize that our sandwiches do to. Like the delicate tartar or the peppered pork belly served that evening, change also comes from a recipe: one part education mixed with two parts action. And it's our responsibility to get cooking - even if sometimes it seems "almost impossible." More on Green Living
 
Biden To Move To Health Care Frontlines With Major Address Top
Fresh off his trip to Iraq, Vice President Biden will wade deep into the health-care debate next week, according to administration sources. Biden is slated to give his "first major health policy address" Tuesday to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and on Wednesday visits the Leisure World retirement community in Silver Spring. More on Joe Biden
 
Monopoly's Hidden Maps Help World War II Prisoner's Of War Escape Top
During World War II, as the number of British airmen held hostage behind enemy lines escalated, the country's secret service enlisted an unlikely partner in the ongoing war effort: The board game Monopoly.
 
Robert David Jaffee: You're No David Dinkins Top
In the wake of Congressman Joe Wilson's recent "You lie!" flare-up, which interrupted President Barack Obama's speech before the Congress, Maureen Dowd of The New York Times and Tim Rutten of the L.A. Times wrote thoughtfully about the ignoble history of South Carolina on matters of race. Wilson's outburst culminated a summer of racially tinged incidents, from Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates' arrest at his home in Cambridge, Mass., to the birther movement and the "racist-in-chief" proclamations at tea parties. However, these events got me thinking not about South Carolina, which deserves a special citation as a bastion of racism, from the days of slavery advocate John Calhoun to the presidential run of Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond, but about more recent history in the North involving another pioneering African-American chief executive, former New York City Mayor David Dinkins. There are more than a few parallels between Dinkins and Obama. For one, both men have a courtly elegance to them. Dinkins did not drop his vowels the way Obama sometimes does in certain settings, and his speaking style was never compared to that of the Rev. Martin Luther King, but Dinkins was nonetheless a grammarian, who, like Obama, often sounded like the seasoned lawyer that he was. In the lead-up to the 1989 mayoral primary, some supporters of Mayor Ed Koch, the Democratic incumbent, argued that Dinkins' financial plan would "bankrupt" the city. Such language bore elements of the rhetoric used at recent town hall meetings where a number of attendees have criticized Obama's "government takeover" of health care. While no one referred to Dinkins as a Socialist or Fascist, the rhetoric in the late 1980s suggested that Dinkins, like Obama, was not competent to balance a budget. That it was bruited about around the time that Rev. Jesse Jackson, the most well-known black politician back then, was having financial problems at his Rainbow/PUSH organization served only to heighten sensitivities. Yet many New Yorkers may have been motivated not so much by racial animus, as is the case today with tea party attendees holding up posters of Obama as a witch doctor, as they were by memories of the city's fiscal crisis in the mid-1970s when Mayor Abe Beame, an accountant who happened to be Jewish, presided over Gotham. There are other parallels between Dinkins and Obama. Dinkins won a bruising primary campaign against Koch, the three-term Mayor, just as Obama battled Hillary Clinton, a party veteran, for months before capturing the Democratic nomination for president. In the general election, Dinkins defeated a maverick Republican, Rudy Giuliani, just as Obama defeated a maverick Republican in John McCain. But the situation in New York in the late 1980s was very different from that in the U.S. now. New York City endured a spate of hate crimes in the 1980s, beginning with the case of Michael Stewart, the subway graffiti artist, who by most accounts died from asphyxiation after the police got him in a chokehold. Many other incidents followed, from the shooting of Eleanor Bumpurs, an elderly black woman, suffering from health problems, who was killed by police in her Bronx apartment after she allegedly brandished a knife; to subway gunman Bernard Goetz's clash with a group of black teens; to the rape and beating of a Central Park jogger; to Howard Beach, where several African-Americans, whose car had broken down, wandered into a white neighborhood before one was beaten senseless and another chased to his death on the Belt Parkway; to the Tawana Brawley hoax, in which a young black woman claimed that white men spread feces over her and raped her, though no evidence of penetration existed, and she had made up a similar story not long before. All of these events created an atmosphere of searing racial tension in New York. Tom Wolfe would capture the nuances of race in New York at this time in his 1987 novel, Bonfire of the Vanities , in which an African-American honors student is killed by a bond trader, a Master of the Universe, in what is touted as a hate crime. Spike Lee would address such crimes and police brutality in Do the Right Thing , his 1989 film, that came out in the heat of the primary between Koch and Dinkins and within weeks of the Bensonhurst case, yet another incident where a group of black teens, answering an advertisement for a used car, arrived in a white enclave in Brooklyn only to have one of them, Yusuf Hawkins, gunned down. After all these wounds, the city needed an African-American to heal it. Ironically, Dinkins, a one-term mayor, was undone at least partially by his missing-in-action response to two other racially tinged events: the Crown Heights riots, where Yankel Rosenbaum, a rabbinical student, was murdered by blacks, and many Jewish stores were looted; and a protest outside a Korean grocery store, where an African-American was suspected by store owners of shoplifting, a situation exacerbated by a language barrier. In the first case, Dinkins was perceived to have waited too long before sending in the police; in the second case, he allowed the Korean business to be boycotted for days before he decided to purchase groceries from the Koreans as a solidarity gesture for a wronged family. None of this is to suggest that Barack Obama is going to be a one-term president. He has masterful skills as a politician that few, including Dinkins, have. He built up an organization whose fund-raising and operational prowess were unmatched in the last election. And he is governing the country at a very different time in its history from the late 1980s. Right now, most people are more concerned about their economic futures than they are about race. To show how far we have come, Dinkins supported Hillary Clinton over Obama in the Democratic primary last year. Still, if the tea party vitriol, the firing of green jobs czar Van Jones and the standing ovation that Cambridge Police Officer James Crowley received at a policemen's convention in Long Beach are any indications, race remains a more insidious and pervasive issue than some of us realized and may have a greater impact on Obama's fate in 2010 and 2012 than it did in 2008. More on Barack Obama
 
World In Photos: September 18, 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!
 
Les Leopold: From Fantasy Finance to Fantasy History: Wall Street Blames Government for Crash Top
As Wall Street rebounds on the strength of over $13 trillion in taxpayer subsidies, its denizens want to rewrite history. This isn't a conspiracy. Rather this is what human nature does to make sense of a complex world, especially when you work in an industry that is accustomed to reigning supreme. You have to feel like you really are worth the big bucks. You have to feel that you've been doing a good job, and that you've done nothing to crash the economic system. Yet still you crave an explanation for what went wrong. You can't blame free-market ideology because that's who you are. That's leaves government bashing - Wall Street's version of populism. Wall Street is not happy at all with our real financial history, which they'd prefer that we forget. That history locates the cause within our giant free-market experiment that went terribly wrong, starting in the late 1970s. That experiment had two fundamental components: 1) unleash the free-market, especially the financial sector, from its New Deal constraints, so that it can "innovate," and 2) change the tax code so that wealth could accumulate at the top in order to spur entrepreneurial incentive. The economy was supposed to boom and all boats were supposed to rise. Instead we created the most unequal distribution of income since the great crash of 1929. And, just as in 1929, we had another great crash. The super-rich accumulated so much wealth that they literally they ran out of real world economic investments in assets related to tangible goods and services producing industries. Wall Street rode to the rescue by creating new financial instruments that formed a vast fantasy finance casino built upon risky assets, sold again and again through derivative products that supposedly had the risk engineered out of them. These puffed up securities were wildly profitable for Wall Street, more profitable than anything they had ever previously created or sold. When the underlying assets turned out to be junk assets instead of AAA bonds, trillions of dollars worth of securities turned toxic. (Forgive the advertisement, but The Looting of America is good place to get this story straight.). Lo and behold, all boats did not rise. Instead, the average real wage decline by 18 percent over the past three decades. Debt accumulated, and we careened from financial bubble to financial bubble - savings and loan, dot.com, and then housing. Financial innovation, instead of dispersing risk, connected it up, leading us to the greatest crash since the Great Depression, with more than 29 million now unemployed or underemployed. To prevent a total collapse the government poured trillions into Wall Street. We saved their butts and ours as well. Now that we're moving back from the precipice, the financial barons are making record profits and are eager to dole out their large bonuses again. They are using their welfare checks to lobby Congress to make sure they can. They also want to rewrite history and the new theme--of course!--is that the government is to blame...yet again. You see it all started when the government provided tax subsidies to housing which in turn led to the post-War boom of middle class housing, which in turn led to more and more demand for housing. Everyone wanted to be a homeowner even when they couldn't really afford it. The government enabled the process through allowing deductions for mortgage interest payments. This was an economic distortion that inevitably led to the housing bubble and then the bust. Furthermore the government passed the Community Readjustment Act which pushed marginal, low-income buyers into the system, creating even more risk. In addition, the new history says, the government failed to bust the asset bubbles. Instead, Greenspan inflated them, especially after the dot.com bust and 9/11. The Fed let the money supply grow too rapidly by not regulating the shadow banking system. There was too much money in the system making the bubble and bust inevitable. This historical rewrite is incredibly important to Wall Street and to all of us. It is the ultimate justification for continued sky high salaries. It says, "See we were and still are America's strongest industry. We deserve to be paid tens of millions because our innovations in fact are the best products this country has to sell." Of course, the new history also creates the backdrop for resisting any and all reforms to the financial system, especially a crackdown on compensation and profits. Most importantly, it totally ignores the driving force of the entire mess -- the overall lax tax code that has enabled our obscene distribution of wealth that has funded the fantasy finance casino. Far better to construct a fantasy history that blames the government that is bailing you out. These guys (and some gals) are not stupid. They have a sixth sense about where the country is heading. They know that Americans are really ticked off at Wall Street and at the government for bailing them out and getting nothing much in return. To the average American, it looks as if the government is afraid to take on Wall Street and the wealthy. And for very good reason--the government has been pathetically afraid to take on Wall Street! It's only natural that they tap into the part of the zeitgeist that blames the government. By reinforcing it, they might deflect some of the heat away from their welfare payments and their outsized pay packages. Ordinary folks can't vote Wall Street out of office, but they can get at politicians. When you step back and look at it all, it's utterly amazing. Wall Street creates the casino, makes hundreds of billions in phony profits, and then crashes the economy. We then turn over the treasury to them in order to prevent the Great Depression II. It seems to work as the Dow moves near 10,000.. Then a revitalized Wall Street turns around and blames the government for the entire mess while trying to pirouette itself onto the side of anti-government anger. Now that's what I call financial innovation. Be nice if we had a Left to counter it. Les Leopold is the author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance destroyed our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It , Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2009. More on Barack Obama
 
Andy Ostroy: The ACORN Vote: House Democrats Just Stuck a Knife in Their President and Party Top
Watch CBS Videos Online The Republican attack machine has been on a relentless mission to destroy ACORN, short for the Association for Community Organization and Reform Now, ever since the 2008 election campaign when conservatives saw it as an effective fundraising and get-out-the-vote group for Democrats and then-candidate Barack Obama. Rabid, inflammatory-rhetoric-fueled charges of inappropriate and illegal conduct have been flying ever since, especially as videotapes have recently surfaced showing ACORN workers advising alleged pimps and prostitutes on how to conceal their criminal behavior during the home-buying process. On Thursday the GOP got its wish, landing a big step closer to "Mission Accomplished," as House Democrats folded like a bunch of $2 lawn chairs and voted under intense Republican pressure to cut off federal funding to ACORN, which had received roughly $53-million over the last 15 years. The intensely harsh criticism by the right of the community group heated up ever since its sting operation, in which conservatives posing as the cartoonishly-dressed, Huggy Bear-lookin' Mack Daddies and their ho's, walked into a couple of ACORN offices and sought help in buying houses to operate their brothels filled with under-aged hookers. Clearly, the ACORN workers' behavior, caught on tape, is despicable and worthy of discipline and perhaps prosecution. But it's also comical , since you'd think any idiot could've realized how staged this all seemed. Unfortunately, though, what it did do was give the GOP House and Senate thugs the smoking gun they needed to begin bringing down this important group. It's important to note that what we're talking about here with these videotapes are two very isolated incidents of clear unethical and/or possible criminal behavior. Additionally, there's been a few cases nationally of ACORN workers illegally registering non-existent voters. But that's it. In comparison to all the good this organization does, the House's action Thursday, specifically the role played by the Democratic majority, is shameful. According to its website, ACORN serves: [L]ow-and moderate-income people with over 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in about 75 cities across the country. ... ACORN members across the country work to raise the minimum wage or enact living wage policies; eliminate predatory financial practices by mortgage lenders, payday lenders, and tax preparation companies; win the development of affordable housing and community benefits agreements; improve the quality of and funding for urban public schools; rebuild New Orleans; and pass a federal and state ACORN Working Families Agenda, including paid sick leave for all full time workers. ... Our issue campaign victories have delivered approximately $15 billion in direct monetary benefits to our membership and constituency over the past 10 years. ... Since 2004, ACORN has helped more than 1.7 million low- and moderate-income and minority citizens apply to register to vote. In the above context, eliminating federal funding of this important grassroots organization seems unjustified and excessive, and is surely a spineless knee-jerk reaction to political pressure from the right, which seeks to undermine Democrats and the Obama administration at every turn. Which is why it's truly incredible that Democrats aided in this travesty. But here's why Thursday's funding vote is most troublesome. Firstly, it says to all Democrats that they're still afflicted with the abused-wife syndrome where, no matter how much power voters give them, no matter how big a majority they have, they're still gonna allow Republicans to bully them into voting against their own self-interests. Can you imagine the GOP doing this five years ago when it controlled both Houses of Congress? To the contrary, Republican thugs back then did whatever it could to attain and retain power. When former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay didn't like the way voting had been going in certain parts of his home state Texas, he redrew the district lines which served to ensure future Republican victories. Would DeLay have ever joined with the minority party to cut off funding to an organization that supposedly benefited Republicans ? My God, just what the fuck is wrong with Democrats these days? Next, and most important, it provides further ammo to the 'community organizer Nazis' who denigrate this important function and relentlessly slander President Obama, America's most famous community organizer. The right will now use this vote to bolster their outlandish claims that Obama's got dangerous radical roots and philosophies. What it boils down to is this: House Democrats essentially did this week was say, "Yes, Republicans, we agree with you that community organizers are sleazy, untrustworthy and radical, and therefore don't deserve taxpayer funding." That they could do this, now, to their party, their president and the issues that ACORN advocates and supports, is unconscionable. More on GOP
 
Leon Panetta: Karzai Apparent Afghan Election Winner Top
Official preliminary final totals in Afghanistan's recent presidential election have incumbent president Hamid Karzai the winner, but the election was marred by allegations of massive vote fraud. A U.N. electoral oversight group has ordered a partial recount. But the head of the Central Intelligence Agency believes that will not make much of a difference. More on Afghanistan
 
Progressive Group: Deval Patrick Should Nominate Dr. Atul Gawande As Interim U.S. Senator Top
Next week, the Massachusetts state senate is expected to pass legislation giving Gov. Deval Patrick the authority to appoint a temporary successor to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. The interim appointee would serve until the Jan. 19 special election. Clearly, whomever Gov. Patrick decides to appoint will have a significant role to play in the health care debate over the coming months. It is for that reason we at the Center for American Progress Action Fund believe that Dr. Atul Gawande would be best choice for the job.
 
Deception Over Lockerbie? Top
In his new book Terrorism: How to Respond ,[*] Richard English, a historian who has written the definitive history of the IRA, argues that terrorism is best understood as a "subspecies of war" that embodies--among other things--"the exerting and implementing of power, and the attempted redressing of power relations." The furor over the Scottish government's decision to release Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the convicted Lockerbie bomber, and the speculations surrounding the whole affair prove his point. The festive welcome Megrahi received from President Muammar Qaddafi himself on arrival in Libya was met with predictable fury on both sides of the Atlantic. The explosion aboard Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988, which caused the Boeing 747 to disintegrate in flames over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, was the worst terrorist atrocity ever to have been perpetrated on British soil. Two hundred and seventy people died, including eleven Lockerbie residents. The majority of the victims, 189 of them, were US citizens returning for the Christmas holidays. President Obama's spokesman, Robert Gibbs, described the jubilant crowds that greeted the frail figure of the returning Libyan intelligence agent as "outrageous and disgusting." Robert Mueller, director of the FBI--who as assistant attorney general had been involved in the investigation that led to Megrahi's indictment and conviction by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands--took the unusual step of releasing the text of a letter he had sent to the Scottish justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, in which he complained that MacAskill's action, "blithely defended on the grounds of 'compassion,'" would give "comfort to terrorists around the world." Little Bookroom / Sonoma The devolved Scottish government --under the Scottish National Party (SNP), which has announced its intention to hold a referendum on full independence--has robustly denied claims that business interests or pressures from the UK government had any part in its decision to release Megrahi. Its position was supported--after a lengthy and deafening silence--by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whom the opposition has accused of "double-dealing" over the Lockerbie affair: I made it clear that for us there was never a linkage between any other issue and the Scottish government's own decision about Megrahi's future.... On our part there was no conspiracy, no cover-up, no double-dealing, no deal on oil, no attempt to instruct Scottish ministers, no private assurances by me to Colonel Qaddafi. We were absolutely clear throughout with Libya and everyone else that this was a decision for the Scottish government. In an effort to support their position, the UK and Scottish governments released a pile of documents, including previously leaked correspondence between MacAskill and Jack Straw, his counterpart in London. The British justice secretary explained that in his dealings with the Libyan authorities he had been unable to persuade them to exclude Megrahi from a prisoner transfer agreement between Britain and Libya under which prisoners would serve their sentences in their respective countries. The documents also reveal that when the Libyan minister for Europe told his British counterpart that Megrahi's death in a Scottish prison would have "catastrophic effects" on UK-Libyan relations, he was told that "neither the Prime Minister nor the Foreign Secretary would want Mr. Megrahi to pass away in prison but the decision on transfer lies in the hands of Scottish ministers." In fact the medical prognosis giving Megrahi less than three months to live provided both governments with a loophole in their dealings with Libya. Scottish prison service guidelines state that compassionate release "may be considered where a prisoner is suffering from a terminal illness and death is likely to occur soon," with a life expectancy of around three months an "appropriate time" to consider release. Doctors had earlier concluded that Megrahi might have a year or more to live, rendering him ineligible for release in time for the celebrations marking the fortieth anniversary of the coup on September 1, 1969, that overthrew the Libyan monarchy and brought Qaddafi, a twenty-seven-year-old army captain, to power. The three doctors--two British and one Libyan--who produced a revised prognosis in July were paid by the Libyan government. One of them, the British oncologist Professor Karol Sikora, medical director of CancerPartners UK, a private health care organization, admitted that the period of three months had been suggested by the Libyans. After examining Megrahi in prison and looking at the clinical details "in much greater depth" than previous doctors, Sikora concluded that Megrahi's tumor "was behaving in a very aggressive way, unlike [tumors afflicting] most people with prostate cancer" and that "the three-month deadline seemed about right." The Libyan doctor concurred. The third doctor would only say that Megrahi "had a short time to live." After it became clear that Megrahi could not be excluded from the prisoner transfer agreement, it seems the Scottish and British governments actively encouraged him and his legal team to seek a release on compassionate grounds. At stake, for the British, were contracts for oil and gas exploration worth up to $24 billion for British Petroleum (BP), announced in May 2007, as well as plans to open a London office of the Libyan Investment Authority, a sovereign fund with $136 billion to invest. Libya refused to ratify the contracts until Straw abandoned his insistence on excluding Megrahi from the prisoner transfer agreement. Shortly after Brown's statement, Straw admitted--in apparent contradiction to his prime minister--that oil had been "a very big part" of his negotiations. British leaders were also warned that trade deals worth billions could be canceled. "The wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage," Straw wrote to MacAskill in December 2007, "and in view of the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom I have agreed that in this instance the PTA [prisoner transfer agreement] should be in the standard form and not mention any individual." Within six weeks of the British government's concession, Libya had ratified the BP deal. The prisoner transfer agreement was finalized in May of this year, leading to Libya formally applying for Megrahi to be transferred to its custody. For the SNP government in Edinburgh, the "compassion loophole" made it possible to avoid authorizing Megrahi's release under an agreement negotiated by London. The decision was widely condemned in Scotland, with the minority SNP administration losing a vote by 73-50 in the Scottish parliament on a government motion that the release of Megrahi on compassionate grounds was "consistent with the principles of Scottish justice." But there was a further twist to this story. Before his release from Greenock prison near Glasgow and his flight to Tripoli in a chartered Libyan jet, Megrahi agreed to drop his appeal against the life sentence he received from the specially convened Scottish court sitting at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands in 2001. Megrahi has always insisted on his innocence, and doubts about his conviction have been expressed by several influential figures, most notably Dr. Jim Swire, a spokesman for the UK families of Flight 103, whose daughter Flora died in the crash, and Professor Hans Kochler, official UN observer at Megrahi's trial at Camp Zeist. In his reports to the UN secretary-general, Kochler deplored the political atmosphere of the trial and the failure of the court to consider evidence of foreign (i.e., non-Libyan) government involvement that formed part of a special defense--inculpating others--that is available under Scottish law. He was even more forthright in condemning the rejection of Megrahi's first appeal in March 2002--calling it a "spectacular miscarriage of justice"--which took place at the same time as discussions with Libya over compensation for the victims' families. The presence of a Libyan "defense support team" hampered the efforts of the Scottish defense lawyers, who failed to raise vital questions about the withholding of evidence and the reliability of witnesses. Two notable omissions Kochler highlighted were the alleged coaching of a key prosecution witness by Scottish police and the appeal court's failure to consider evidence of a break-in at the baggage storage area in London's Heathrow airport on the night before the bombing. Conspiracy theories have plagued the bombing ever since the clearing-up operation when unidentified Americans, thought to be CIA agents, were seen sorting through the debris alongside officially authorized Scottish police. The most plausible theories do not necessarily exonerate Megrahi, but do suggest that at most he was little more than a small cog in a much larger and more complex machine. A widely held suspicion at the beginning of the investigation pointed toward the culpability of a Palestinian faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), working under the protection of Syria. The theory held that the PFLP-GC, who specialized in aircraft hijackings using semtex bombs concealed in tape recorders, may have been "sub- contracted" by Syria's Iranian allies to bring down Pan Am Flight 103 in revenge for the accidental shooting down of an Iranian civilian airliner by the USS Vincennes in July 1988, just months before the bombing of Flight 103. At the time Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini vowed that the skies would "rain blood" in revenge for the loss of 290 civilian lives, including 66 children. Two defectors from Iranian intelligence agencies--or alleged defectors--subsequently accused the Iranian government of being behind the attacks for which the PFLP-GC was said to have been paid $10 million. Some analysts have argued that leads pointing toward the Palestinian-Syrian-Iranian connection were purposefully deflected after the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, when Syria became--albeit temporarily--a US coalition ally. Libya, the only Arab state to support Saddam's invasion, remained a more tenable target for exacting exemplary justice. After a decade of sanctions and interventions by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and South African President Nelson Mandela, the Libyans in 1999 gave up Megrahi and his alleged associate Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, who would later be acquitted. The case against Megrahi hinged on a fragment recovered at Lockerbie of a timing device traced to a Swiss manufacturer, Mebo. The firm had sold timers to Libya that differed in design from those allegedly used in cassette bombs of the type attributed to the PFLP-GC. The clothing in which the bomb was said to have been wrapped inside a suitcase was traced to a shop in Malta that Megrahi was alleged to have visited, traveling under an assumed name, on December 20-21, 1988. Although the evidence was purely circumstantial (there was no direct evidence that either he or Fhimah had placed the device aboard the aircraft), the judges wrote in their decision that the preponderance of the evidence led them to believe that Megrahi was guilty as charged. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a recommended minimum of twenty-seven years, to be served in a Scottish jail. A major reason for US anger at Megrahi's release has been the repeated assurances given by the British government that he would serve out his full term. In December 2003, as part of its campaign to end UN sanctions and abandon its pariah status, Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing, and agreed to pay compensation to the victims' families--although it continued to maintain Megrahi's innocence, as he had done throughout his trial. His position divided observers: some see his continuing denial as the standard response of a professional intelligence officer, as summarized by the unofficial motto of the CIA's Office of Technical Services--"admit nothing, deny everything, make counter-accusations." Others, including a significant group of Scottish lawyers and laypersons, take a different view. In June 2007, after an investigation lasting nearly four years, the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission delivered an eight-hundred-page report--with thirteen annexes--that identified several areas where "a miscarriage of justice may have occurred" and referred Megrahi's case to the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh. The commission considered evidence that cast doubt on the dates on which Megrahi was supposed to have been in Malta as well as the testimony of the Maltese shopkeeper who claimed to have sold clothing to Megrahi. He had changed his testimony several times, and had been shown Megrahi's photograph before picking him out of a line-up. It was expected that the fresh appeal would also consider new evidence about the timing device, as well as the reported break-in at Heathrow airport, which indicate that the bomb could have been planted in London rather than in a suitcase checked from Malta to New York, as the prosecution had claimed. In July 2007, Ulrich Lumpert, a former engineer at Mebo and a key technical witness, admitted that he had committed perjury at the Camp Zeist trial. In a sworn affidavit he declared that he had stolen a handmade sample of an MST-13 Timer PC-board from Mebo in Zurich and handed it to an unnamed official investigating the Lockerbie case. He also affirmed that the fragment of the timer presented in court as part of the Lockerbie wreckage had in fact been part of this stolen sample. When he became aware that this piece was to be used as evidence for an "intentionally politically motivated criminal undertaking," he said, he decided to keep silent out of fear for his life. Although it would have been necessary for Megrahi to drop his appeal under the prisoner transfer scheme, this was not a precondition for release on compassionate grounds. Nevertheless it seems likely that he was pressured into abandoning the appeal. Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya, has suggested that the dropping of the appeal, rather than "a deal involving business," was the real quid pro quo behind Megrahi's release. According to Miles, Scottish legal sources had been talking of a mood of "growing anxiety in the Scottish justice department that a successful appeal...would severely damage the reputation of the Scottish justice system." Although many British and American victims' families are demanding a fuller inquiry, Megrahi's decision means the end of any formal legal investigation into the Lockerbie atrocity. However, this is unlikely to be the end of the controversy, whatever the unpublicized hopes of the Scottish, UK, and US governments. Mark Zaid, the Washington lawyer who represents thirty American families and launched a lawsuit against the Libyan government, securing compensation of up to $2.7 billion, has announced that he is filing suit under the Freedom of Information Act to try to ascertain what agreements and discussions have taken place between the US and the UK, not just with respect to the release of Megrahi, but dating back to before the 1991 indictment. "It is ironic," he told the BBC, "that in the latest release of documents from the British authorities the US viewpoint was redacted [i.e., parts of it were omitted] at the specific request of my government." In retrospect, the connection between the downing of the Iranian Airbus in July 1988 and of Pan Am Flight 103 five months later has never been adequately established, and probably never will be. In settlements ending hostilities, justice is often the victim. -- September 9, 2009 Notes [*]Just published by Oxford University Press. More on Books
 
Richard Zombeck: Just Don't Talk About It Top
There's a scene in Escape from Alcatraz in which Frank Morris, played by Clint Eastwood, and English, played by Paul Benjamin have a brief conversation about race. English: Now you didn't sit down for two reasons, either you're scared or you just hate [black people]. Frank Morris : I'm not scared, [sits down next to black inmates] Frank Morris: I just hate black [people]. I paraphrased the entire conversation to avoid a wing-nut storm of outrage from both sides. One side aghast that I could use such a word and the other enraged that they can't. There's something to be said for being in touch and honest with your emotions. Even if those emotions are unfounded hate. At least it's not overly dramatic feigned denial, which is all we've been seeing from the wing-nuts since NBC released a clip of Jimmy Carter's assessment of Joe Wilson's outburst and the antics of the Tea Baggers and anti-Obama protesters. Many of the reactions we're seeing to Carter's assessment of what motivates the protests is like watching a cheating spouse being questioned. "I am aghast and in shock that you would suggest such a thing. How could you even think something like that? I'm offended that a thought like that would even cross your mind. You really have serious issues and should seek help." That anyone could categorically deny that what is being touted as genuine social and political concerns isn't racially motivated is a bit outlandish Maybe the initial motives of a few are social and political but plenty of racist whack-jobs are jumping on the crazy train for their own message. It's a little difficult to overlook Glenn Beck's use of a watermelon to illustrate a point about two black guys - one of which is the President, or this "Tea Party" leader trying to convince Anderson Cooper, James Carville, and David Gergen that Obama dressed as a witch doctor or calling him an Indonesian Muslim and "Racist in Chief" has nothing to do with the color of his skin. There's no doubt that Carter's sound bite was released early in the spirit of sensationalism and because it was more interesting than how he answered Brian Williams' questions about Israel or what it was like to be a peanut farmer, but the timing certainly could have been better. Like maybe bringing it up after the health care debate, the Wall Street clean up, and world peace had been addressed. The problem is, there is no good time to bring up the issue of race in this country because it simply can't be talked about until people admit it exists. We dance and tip toe around the issue because everyone is too afraid to discuss it and to bring it up. In addition, it's nothing anyone wants to accuse someone of or to be accused of. It's become such a taboo that winning an argument or having a discussion about race has become impossible. To illustrate my point I picked a fight with my wife last night. I walked into the room and declared, "Toots, you're a racist!" That's right, I call her Toots. I'm a sexist, but at least I'm not a racist. Here's the rest of the conversation: Toots: I am not a racist. Me : It's just like a racist to deny being a racist. Toots: I voted for Obama. Me: You only voted for Obama to relieve your guilt of being a racist. It's like saying I have black friends or the Chairman of the RNC is black, so I can't be racist. Toots: What's wrong with you? I'm not talking about this anymore. Maybe you're the racist, you seem to know a lot about racism. Me: Hah, just like a liberal to throw the race card when they're losing. See? It's a loosing battle no matter what side you're on. The "discussion" went on like that until I almost slept on the couch. It's difficult to say whether Wilson or the rest of the screamers are racists or motivated by racism since the issue is so difficult to address. In Wilson's case it could be that the previous administration did so much to disrespect the office of the President that this is just collateral damage. As for the tea baggers and protesters holding witch doctor signs, pulling their kids out of school, questioning Obama's citizenship, warning us about socialism, communism, fascism, Hitler and Marx all at once, it'd be easier to process and more comforting to know that those sentiments were in fact racially motivated. As it stands right now it just seems like they're a bunch of whack jobs making stuff up and repeating what they're told by other whack jobs who hate the fact that their side lost an election and that's more concerning than, "I just hate [black people]". www.shitheadery.com More on Tax Day Tea Parties
 
Dave Zirin: Sports and the Uncivil Society Top
This week, the grand media theme from USA Today to ESPN has been that "we have lost a sense of civility in US society." The examples have ranged from Serena Williams's expletive-infused outburst at the US Open and Michael Jordan's brutal basketball Hall of Fame speech to Rep. Joe Wilson bleating "You lie!" and the tea bagger "Up with Racism" parade that plagued my hometown of Washington DC. The idea that we are all just a bunch of uncivil goons sounds like common sense especially when you toss in the worst of reality television and anything done by Kanye West. But this conventional wisdom is not only wrong-headed, it's downright dangerous. At the risk of sounding uncivil, the much hyped moments of Serena, Kanye, and Michael Jordan have zero in common with the confederate carnival of hate brewing on the edges of the far right. The efforts of the media to conflate "black people behaving badly" alongside "tea baggers on the march" should be soundly rejected. I was on ESPN discussing this very subject alongside Juan Williams of Fox News who was bemoaning the "lack of civility" our culture (it's worth noting that working for Fox and voicing this complaint is like working for Oscar Mayer and preaching that meat is murder.) Juan said the incivility is connected to the presence of "reality television and people behaving badly." Somehow I don't think Rep. Joe Wilson's been at home viewing The Real World or Flava of Love. Instead he's reading the political moment and understands that the power in the Republican Party is not invested in civility but the heat on the street. I felt the heat this past weekend and it was a blast furnace. Yes there was nowhere close to the 43 kajillion people tweeted by Michelle Malkin and friends. But even to see 50,000 people with signs like, "We come unarmed THIS time" and "The tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of tyrants" was chilling. I saw one placard that read, "I'm not a racist, I'm a patriot" standing right next to someone in black face and I saw groups of them mock and shout down a group of immigrant rights activists. To witness those signs alongside ugly caricatures of Obama with a bone through his nose was to see an open declaration of the attempted hate crimes to come. Just because the Obama administration, due to political calculus or cowardice, refuses to call this out as racist and dangerous doesn't mean we should remain silent. But for the media, it is downright irresponsible to try to weave this lunacy into the same fabric as a tennis player misbehaving on the court. Yes, Serena Williams cursed out and threatened a line judge in the US Open semi-finals. Yes, it was inexcusable. But before we reach for the smelling salts (a profane woman! In tennis no less!) let's remember that she is hardly the first athlete to lose their head in the adrenaline-addled world of professional, organized play. Long before reality television, when the Kardashian sisters were even a gleam in someone's bloodshot eye, Ty Cobb went into the stands to beat up a disabled fan. In 1965, Hall of Fame pitcher Juan Marichal beat catcher John Roseboro with a bat right at home plate. And as long as there has been hockey, there's been blood on the ice. Violence has always been a part of what thrills and disgusts us about sports. If anything, the Serena case reveals a gender double standard more than any "absence of civility." As for Michael Jordan, Rick Reilly of ESPN.com reflected almost the whole of the sports media on the subject when he wrote, "Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame talk was the Exxon Valdez of speeches. It was, by turns, rude, vindictive and flammable. ....Nobody was spared, including his high school coach, his high school teammate, his college coach, two of his pro coaches, his college roommate, his pro owner, his pro general manager, the man who was presenting him that evening, even his kids!...Jordan had decided that this was the perfect night to list all the ways everybody sitting in front of him had pissed him off over the past 30 years...It was the only one-man roast in Hall of Fame history. Only very little of it was funny." I can't believe I'm writing this but for the first time in my life I feel sorry for Jordan. The historic critique of His Airness is that he is more a brand than a man. I have been critical of this guy since he first laced up sweatshop hightops. Now on the Hall of Fame stage, he actually removed the veil, and showed us his true self. The sports media has recoiled in horror at discovering that Jordan is exactly who we thought he was: competitive to the point of emotional sclerosis. He's not the first ex-jock to find himself at a loss once the cheering has stopped. But that's a far cry from showing up armed to town meetings. It blows up the importance of Jordan and Serena and tamps down the violence being brewed on the right. By saying it's all the same stew of incivility, we are just giving political cover to an inflamed minority that needs to be peacefully confronted and not coddled. More on Tax Day Tea Parties
 
Deborah Plummer: The Benefits of Choosing to Participate Top
"Choosing to Participate" is a nationally acclaimed interactive multimedia exhibit that examines the choices we make every day to build strong and inclusive communities. It further examines the history and impact of racism, injustice and the courage of citizens to make change. The exhibit will make its way to Cleveland, Ohio, next month before heading to Washington, D.C. Created by Facing History and Ourselves, an international educational nonprofit, the "Choosing to Participate" exhibit is part of a national initiative aimed at stimulating young people and adults to think deeply about the importance of participating in a democratic society, and the consequences of action and inaction. At the press conference yesterday announcing the exhibit, I met two high school students who were each part of Facing History and Ourselves initiatives in their schools. These teens have accepted the invitation to think critically about issues of race and prejudice and to understand that their decisions and actions matter to themselves, their communities and future generations. One young, African-American male was part of his high school's student leadership group that addressed bullying and educated peers on anti-bullying tactics. They educated themselves about the roles of bully, victim, bystander, and upstander--someone who takes a positive stand on behalf of others. Armed with personal bullying stories and anti-bullying techniques, they came up with a project to visit elementary school students and teach them about the long-term effects of bullying. The other young, white female was part of her high school's Race and Diversity (R.A.D) student club. The goal of R.A.D. is to get people to talk honestly and openly about race. After a number of school activities, students took cameras and engaged the community in race discussions. They learned that they can play an active role in shaping perceptions and ultimately can inspire change. Sometimes what I hear and read about today's youth makes me shudder. I shudder because I think about them as our future leaders who will be running the country, managing my retirement account, making decisions about international affairs when I am, hopefully, in some nice, assisted-living complex. Thinking about these teens, who represent so many others from their schools, I relax.
 
Obama Administration Asks Court To Dismiss Another Challenge To Anti-Gay Marriage Law Top
BOSTON — The Justice Department on Friday asked a federal judge in Boston to dismiss a lawsuit that claims a federal law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman is unconstitutional because it denies gay couples access to federal benefits given to other married couples. In court documents, the Justice Department makes it clear the Obama administration thinks the law is discriminatory and should be repealed. But the department, calling the law "constitutionally permissible," said it has an obligation to defend federal laws when they are challenged in court. The 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA, bars federal recognition of gay unions and denies gay couples access to pensions, health insurance and other government benefits. The law was passed by Congress at a time when it appeared Hawaii would become the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. Opponents worried that other states would be forced to recognize such marriages. Since then, six states have enacted laws or issued court rulings that permit same-sex marriage, including Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut and Iowa. New Hampshire's law takes effect Jan. 1, 2010. The Massachusetts lawsuit was brought by seven gay couples and three widowers, all of whom were married in Massachusetts after it became the first state in the country to legalize gay marriage in 2004. They argue that DOMA violates the equal-protection clause of the U.S. Constitution because it treats married gay couples differently than other married couples. Beatrice Hernandez and Melba Abreu, plaintiffs in the lawsuit, have been married for five years, but they aren't allowed to file a joint tax return, as heterosexual married couples can. Hernandez said they paid nearly $20,000 more in taxes between 2004 and 2007 than they would have if they had been able to file joint returns. "It really is separate and unequal treatment," Hernandez said. "When we were able to marry in 2004, we didn't receive a different marriage certificate. We received one that was equal for all citizens here in Massachusetts." The Justice Department, however, argues that there is no fundamental right to marriage-based federal benefits and says Congress is entitled to address issues of social reform on an "incremental" basis. "Congress is therefore permitted to provide benefits only to those who have historically been permitted to marry, without extending the same benefit to those only recently permitted to do so," the government argued in its written response to the lawsuit. "Congress may subsequently decide to extend federal benefits to same-sex marriages, and this Administration believes that Congress should do so. But its decision not to do so to this point is not irrational or unconstitutional." Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, the legal group that filed the lawsuit, said DOMA is an exception to a long history of the federal government deferring to determinations by the states as to what constitutes marriage. "We're seeking justice for the widows and widowers who are denied death benefits, for people who can't get on their spouse's health plan, for parents who can't file taxes jointly and pay thousands extra each year that they could put away for their children's education or family emergencies," said Gary Buseck, GLAD's legal director. A bill to repeal DOMA was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday by U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., but has little chance of making it to a vote this year. More on Gay Marriage
 
Joe Territo: Former VP Al Gore To Stump For NJ Gov. Jon Corzine in Atlantic City Next Week Top
Former Vice President Al Gore is scheduled to deliver the keynote address to the New Jersey Democratic State Conference in Atlantic City next Friday, Sept. 25. The focus of the conference will be getting Gov. Jon Corzine re-elected and retaining the majority in the state Assembly with all seats on the ballot. Complete real-time coverage of the New Jersey with The Star-Ledger on NJ.com.
 
Alexandra Sinderbrand: No Shirt, No Pants, No Problem: The Wardrobe of Melrose Place Top
Okay, so sex sells. I get it. Fashion and prostitution have a successful symbiotic relationship; there's Dov and his slut-loving American Apparel ads; there's Calvin Klein's orgy-implied billboards. And there's the way in which women of the 18-25 demographic dress on TV. Let's take a looksee. In a vacuum, I don't have a problem with cut-out tops and low-backed minidresses. But when the slut factor inherent in said garments is thrown in my face, I get a little nauseated. Apparently, the dude being straddled by one of two hot chicks isn't enough to imply a threesome - we need to see the word Menage in print to really get what's going on. Ooooh! How naughty! Okay, okay - so maybe the promo shots for Melrose Place have to slut it out - their job is to get people to watch a nineties-era show, after all. It doesn't necessarily mean the female cast members' entire wardrobes are as scandalous, right? Riiiiight. I'm going to give the women of LA the benefit of the doubt here and assume you don't dress like the above. There's something more than the overuse of orange going on in the girl-bonding shot. It's like the producers were like, "Shit, how do we make the one non-white chick on the show look ethnic AND hot?...Belly dancers! Belly dancers are super hot! Tell wardrobe we want that midriff showing 24/7. That's going to be her schtick." Then there's the image titled, A Study in Backstraddling . Cleavage-baring top? Check. Mini skirt? Check. Stripper shoes? Check, but the shot's still missing something. Fuck-me face? Yup, that's it. That's acting right there, people. Does Melrose Place exempt its cast member with the most Us Weekly appearances from the same garb it imposes on its lesser-known starlets? Hardly. Does Ash Simpson-Wentz have a phenomenal post-baby bod? Yes. Is she not wearing pants in either of these photos? Also yes. Would I want to win a Melrose Place wardrobe? Totally! As soon as I start my pole-dancing career. More on Fashion
 
Huffington Post Recommends Top
Arianna is reading... Editor's Picks Huffington Post bestseller list: • Politics • World • New media • Social Change • Inner Life • New Voices • Business Visionaries • Guilty Pleasures Huffington Post Blogger's bestsellers Blogger's Book Shop
 
Pat Choate: The $2 Trillion Secret Top
President Barack Obama went to the center of New York's financial district this week to describe how his Administration intended to overhaul U.S. financial regulations. The hallmarks of these reforms, he said, would be transparency and accountability. Fortunately, the President need not wait on Congressional enactment of legislation to get the transparency he seeks. He already has the authority to release all the details of the TARP bailout and identify the beneficiaries, how much money they got, what terms the Treasury Department imposed, what collateral was posted and what the recipients did with the taxpayers' funds. If the Treasury lacks that data, the General Accountability Office has the authority and resources needed to collect, organize, and analyze it. A more difficult challenge will be to persuade the Federal Reserve System to release similar information on the $2 trillion of emergency loans it made as part of its economic recovery program. Several news organizations, including Fox and Bloomberg, have sought that information under the provisions of Freedom of Information laws since 2007. Throughout the spring, summer and fall of 2008, Federal Reserve officials stalled the requests, finally claiming that release of the information might embarrass recipient stockholders, might trigger a run by bank depositors and might make their economic recovery efforts more difficult. Bloomberg News filed a federal lawsuit in November 2008 in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan) challenging that stonewalling and won the case. Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska on August 24 ruled that the Fed had "improperly withheld agency records" giving it a week to disclose daily reports on its loans to banks and other financial institutions. Three days later, Federal Reserve lawyers asked the courts for a delay so that they could make an expedited appeal of her decision. Several major banks, operating through an organization named "The Clearing House," filed a supporting brief with the appeals court, claiming that the Federal Reserve had provided its members emergency funds under an agreement not to identify the recipients or the loan terms. The Clearing House brief described its members as, "[T]he most important participants in the international banking and payments systems and among the world's largest intermediaries in interbank funds transfers." They include ABN Amro Bank, N.V. (Dutch), Bank of America, The Bank of New York Mellon, Citibank, Deutsche Bank Trust (Germany), JP Morgan Chase Bank, UBS (Switzerland), and Wells Fargo. As the sheer volume of the Fed financing makes clear, the bailout of the financial sector involves more than the $700 billion approved by Congress in late 2008. The Federal Reserve's $2 trillion of secret deals is by far the largest portion. Why are the Fed and the banks fighting so hard to keep the loan details secret? Congress and taxpayers cannot know until they have the information the Federal Reserve is keeping from them, but several plausible explanations exist. One is that the Fed has taken a great deal of worthless collateral and is propping up failed companies and banks. A second is that the information will make the issue of paying out huge Wall Street bonuses in 2009 politically radioactive, particularly if it turns out the payments are dependent on these federal loans. Finally, the Federal Reserve probably does not want that information to be part of the forthcoming Senate hearings on the re-confirmation of Ben Bernanke, current Chairman of the Federal Reserve. If President Obama seriously wants transparency and accountability, the place to start is Ben Bernanke's confirmation hearing. The President and the U.S. Senate should put Bernanke's nomination on hold until the Federal Reserve makes public the detailed information about these unprecedented $2 trillion of secret loans. More on Financial Crisis
 

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