Saturday, March 26, 2005

Two things from Luke of wotisitgood4

Our friend Luke gives us a heads up to two things.

the nyt has done a terrible job reporting on richard perle's latest legal troubles. bloomberg wrote a reasonable piece on it, which the nyt ostensibly carried, but they omitted all of the damning parts of the story, saying simply "Mr. Perle said that he never profited from the deals."

Luke has blogged on this at his site wotisitgoodfor (here's the specific entry for that topic).

Luke also notes today:

In the article about the RedLake/prozac link, I wanted to point out the separate article at the bottom of the piece - firstly cos its funny, and secondly cos i find it odd when the nyt appends an article at the end of another article."PHOENIX, March 25 (AP) - All options should be considered to prevent rampages like the Minnesota shooting, including making guns available to teachers, Sandra S. Froman, first vice president of the National Rifle Association, said Friday." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/national/26shoot.html

The e-mail address is common_ills@yahoo.com and yes, we're on a break, The Third Estate Sunday Review gang, Rebecca, Betty and myself. In addition to Luke, make sure you check out Liang's post here that's is very much worth reading.

If there are more breaks tonight, I still hope to do another entry.

Liang notes Grace Lee Boggs

Liang: I'll do a history/timeline of Grace Lee Boggs because I'm not sure how familiar most people will be with her.

* 1914 Grace Lee is born in Providence, Rhode Island to Chinese immigrants.
*1924 Grace Lee's family moves to New York. Here her father will open the restaurant Chin Lee's in Time Square.
*1931 at the age of 16 she receives scholarship to Barnard College.
*1935 receives BA at Barnard College.
* 1940 recieves doctorate from Barnard in philosophy.
*1940 moves to Chicago joins the Socialist Workers Party.
*1941 Grace Lee becomes an activist and works on A. Philip Randolph's March on Washington project.
*1953 meets James Boggs, auto worker and Detroit area activist.
*1954 Grace Lee and James Boggs marry.
*1967 Grace Lee Boggs authors Detroit, Birth of a Nation.
*1969-1971 works with the Asian-American movement and helps found the Asian Political Alliance.
*1974 Grace Lee Boggs and James Boggs publish Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century.
*1978 with James Boggs and Freddy & Lyman Paine, Grace Lee Boggs authors Conversations in Maine: Exploring Our Nation's Future.
*1978 Grace Lee Boggs authors Women and The Movement to Build a New America.
*1979-1981 Grace Lee Boggs and James Boggs helped found the National Organziation for an American Revolution.
*1984 visists China for the first time.
*1987 Grace Lee Boggs and James Boggs's papers are placed with the Archives of the Walter Reuther P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs.
*1991 Grace Lee Boggs edits the book Conditions of Peace: An Inquiry: Security, Democracy, Ecology, Economics, Community.
*1992 Grace Lee Boggs, James Boggs and Shea Howell form Detroit Summer, a group for Detroit youth.
*1993 James Lee Boggs dies on July 22nd.
*1995 The Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership is founded.
*1998 publishes her autobiography Living for Change.
*1999 Honored by the National Women's Hall of Fame.
*2000 Grace Lee Boggs is awarded many awards. In May, the "Discipleship Award from Groundwork for a Just World; June's award is The Distinguished Alumna Award from her alma mater Barnard College; July's award is The Chinese American Pioneers Award from the Organization of Chinese Americans.
*2001 Grace Lee Boggs delivers the keynote speech to the National Lawyers Guild Conference.
*2003 Grace Lee Boggs delivers "These Are the Times That Try Our Souls" - the keynote speech in Flint, Michigan for Animating Democracy National Exchange on Art & Civic Dialogue.
* October 16, 2003 Grace Lee Boggs delivers "James Boggs: The Man, Organic Intellectual and Activist" which at Michigan State University as part of the African American and African Studies Program.
*2004 Grace Lee Boggs is awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the College of Wooster.
* March 27, 2004 Grace Lee Boggs facilitates the panel discusson on Catalysts for Climate Justice at the University of Michigan for the Environmental Justice Climate Change Student Conference.

The history/timeline does not note all of her accomplishments, it just highlights some.
As a long term advocate for peace, racial and social justice, women's liberation and the environment, Grace Lee Boggs deserves highlighting for Women's History Month. She writes a column for The Michigan Citizen Newspaper and an archive of her columns can be found online at The Boggs Center.

Sunday, The Laura Flanders Show reports on Ohio; Beth calls our attention to the controversy over the protests in Fayetteville

Two more things from e-mails (no, this doesn't count as the other posts I mentioned in the previous post, this is in addition to).

Natalie e-mails asking that we do a reminder of The Laura Flanders Show. The Laura Flanders Show airs on Air America Saturdays and Sundays, seven to ten p.m. in the eastern time zone. If you're unable to pick it up in your area, you can stream it online via Real Player or Windows Media. Just click on The Laura Flanders Show and choose the listen live option.

Sunday Flanders will address the issue of the Congressional committee going to Ohio this weekend. In a previous entry, we noted this:

Todd e-mails "As Blackwell Says, Ohio's in 2004 was a National Model" by Steve Rosenfeld,
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman from The Free Press. From that article:

Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell finally testified -- something he had refused to do in the Moss v. Bush Ohio election challenge before the State Supreme Court and refused to do in Washington, D.C. His testimony proved so contentious that at one point Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, D-OH, told him to "haul butt" if he was unwilling to answer questions about irregularities in the 2004 election.
[. . .]
Blackwell's wholesale denial of the legal record documenting the scores of Election Day problems that disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters -- from the House Judiciary Committee Democrats' report, to the 900 pages of sworn affidavits and other analysis filed at the Ohio Supreme Court in response to his attempt to sanction the lawyer who filed a lawful challenge of the 2004 presidential results, to the statements made in Washington on January 6, 2005 during the Electoral College challenge -- did not go unanswered by Democrats on the House Administration Committee. "Mr. Secretary of State, you have a lot of improvement to do," said Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, D-CA, the ranking Democrat on the panel.
[. . .]
Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, the judge-turned-congresswoman from Ohio’s largest city, Cleveland, led the House challenge to the 2004 Electoral College certification. While she is not a member of the House Administration Committee, the committee members let her participate as a panel member as a House courtesy. When it was her turn to ask questions, Blackwell said it was "good to see you," to which Rep. Tubbs-Jones replied, "It was so good to see you that you chose not to shake my hand in the anteroom." Jones followed up the questioning on the provisional ballots by asking Blackwell why his 'public education' campaign – radio ads and recording phone messages to voters' homes - did not tell people that if they were given a provisional ballot they had to be turned in at the board of elections to be counted.

"In this ad you said ‘Vote your precinct,’ but you didn't say 'Vote in your board of elections," Tubbs-Jones said. "You did an ad statewide and you spent $2.5 million."

Steve Rosenfeld should be (fingers crossed) giving a report on the Congressional committee's visit to Ohio this weekend on The Laura Flanders Show.

From the Air America web site (updated as I type):

On Saturday, MARY JOHNSON of Ragged Edge Magazine articulates the disability rights' movement's agenda beyond Terri Schiavo. GOP lawmakers oppose most of it, like the full implementation of the Americans' With Disabilities Act. We'll hear from student activists at Georgetown University who won a rise in campus workers' wages from management after a hunger strike And PATRICK FARRELLY and KATE O CALLAGHAN, producers and directors of the HBO documentary, LEFT OF THE DIAL, about Air America Radio which premiers this week will give us an advance peak. You may laugh. We nearly cried. But things are looking up.
On Sunday, an update from Ohio where Republican
Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell got a dressing-down from passionate Democrats in hearings the media saw fit to ignore this week. Our senior producer was there and we'll play tape. Monty Python's TERRY JONES will join us live in studio to discuss Spamalot the Python's arrival on Broadway -- and "Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror," his latest collection of "observations and denunciations." Also with us, Nigeria's Nobel Prize-winner, WOLE SOYINKA who says we are questing for dignity in a dehumanized world. It's all coming up on the Laura Flanders show this weekend on Air America Radio. Join us.

So Sunday this will be addressed on The Laura Flanders Show. (I think I've grabbed all the mentions of "this weekend" -- other than in the post quoted -- but if not, when I started this entry, there was no schedule posted for this weekend's Laura Flanders shows. Sunday is the day Ohio will be addressed.)

Let's note Cedric's closing comments in his entry Friday:

I'll be listening to The Laura Flanders Show this weekend not just because she'll be addressing Ohio but because Laura Flanders makes a point on her show to open it up to all people. It's a real and continuing tragedy that others don't follow her lead. In a world where they could learn from her or Democracy Now's Amy Goodman and Juan Gonazalez, they choose to instead copy the likes of Larry King and Tim Russert and new media and the discussions get a whole lot whiter.

I think we've now got something like five links (always check my math!) to The Laura Flanders Show. Look, there's another. That's fine. Her show is worth a million times that many links so please make a point to listen to it (Saturday and Sunday) if you're able to.

Beth e-mails Dennis Kyne's "Fayetteville Diary" from Guerrilla News Network:

The hot topic of the day was the simmering controversy over recent statements by Paul Rieckhoff, founder of the Manhattan-based soldier advocacy group Operation Truth. Rieckhoff, an Iraq war veteran and a favorite of media outlets from CNN to The New York Times, stated that protesting in Fayetteville represented, “the height of insensitivity by the anti-war organizations” due to its proximity to Fort Bragg, home to the 82nd Airborne. On Air America last week, he repeated the charge, getting into a heated argument with Unfiltered host Rachel Maddow. Aside from the insinuation that troops are trained with sensitivity, it is an incredible assumption to think that all troops on active duty are so dense they don’t know we are there in their interests. One could very easily infer from Rieckhoff’s rhetoric that we were there to spit and curse at the troops. But there were no cries of “babykillers” coming from this crowd. In fact, there was nothing but love for the sons and daughters sent to fight a war sold to the public on a lie. Riechkhoff seems to forget that the organizations hosting this event were all family members of service members who have died in action or are currently serving. In addition, the organizations were made up of many veterans, people who have served in both peace and wartime. Rieckhoff, who is not an active duty soldier, is currently a 1st Lieutenant in the New York State National Guard. Having spent fifteen years in the Army myself, from 1987 until 2003, including service as a medic on the frontlines of Operation Desert Storm, I can tell you, the only person insulting anyone is Rieckhoff.

Beth: Rachel really did a bang up job defending the right to protest and she also did some strong work advocating for pro-choice. The show wasn't the same after Lizz Winstead but this week, in what turns out to be the second to last week of Unfiltered, Rachel really rallied and did some outstanding work. I will miss Unfiltered. And I won't be listening to Jerry Springer. I've spent my life avoiding his show on TV, I have no desire to listen to him on radio.

ACLU on torture; Jesse Jackson, Sr: world bank; undembedded journalists in Iraq; DeLay; Julian Bond; silicone implants; reporter killed in Philippines

Kyle e-mails asking that we highlight something he found at TomPaine.com, Rverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.'s "Choosing Poverty's Banker." Here's an excerpt of Jackson's column on the World Bank:

The Bush administration in general, and Paul Wolfowitz in particular, would have you believe that 1,500 Americans have died, perhaps 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, and more than $200 billion has been spent on invading and occupying Iraq, in the name of "democracy."
Funny, then, that Paul Wolfowitz is now being promoted in a secret, opaque, closely held process that freezes out most of the world. Of special note, the selection of the new World Bank head freezes out the 1 billion people who live on less than $1 per day, and the 3 billion who live on less than $2 per day. It freezes out the entire Southern hemisphere, Africa, Asia and South America. In fact, it freezes out everyone who is not a Bush loyalist in the United States, or a nervous European elite.
It is as if fighting world poverty were a ping-pong game between the United States and Europe, a game in which the poorer nations are not even allowed to enter.
But why? Why should the world’s poorest people be excluded from the process of selecting one of the most important leaders who will affect their lives? Why are the nations most controlled by World Bank and International Monetary Fund policies not allowed to nominate--or even participate in any meaningful way--in the selection of new leadership?


Toni wants us to note Jill Carroll's "Letter from Baghdad: What a Way to Make a Living" which appears in the American Journalism Review and addresses being a freelance journalist in Iraq.
From the article:

Covering the war gives journalists an opportunity to recall the noblest tenets of their profession and fulfill the public service role of journalism.
The sense that I could do more good in the Middle East than in the U.S. drove me to move to Jordan six months before the war to learn as much about the region as possible before the fighting began. All I ever wanted to be was a foreign correspondent, so when I was laid off from my reporting assistant job at the Wall Street Journal in August 2002, it seemed the right time to try to make it happen. There was bound to be plenty of parachute journalism once the war started, and I didn't want to be a part of that.
Idealistic, for sure, but I am not the only one. Ashraf Khalil had the same motivation. The 33-year-old Chicago native had been living in Cairo for six years as a freelancer when he decided his years of experience in the region could add depth to the torrent of coverage coming out of Iraq.
"I feel I have a responsibility to try to bring something to these stories," says Khalil, who freelanced in Iraq in January and February 2004 and is now a reporter in the Los Angeles Times' Baghdad bureau. "I spent a lot of time waiting for someone to sponsor me, and finally I realized it just wasn't going to happen unless I did it myself."


Lloyd e-mails Derek Cressman's "Ethics DeLayed" from ProgressiveTrail.org. Lloyd notes Cressman offers "a great and informative summary that will bring people up to speed on Tom DeLay." From the article:


DeLay is a conservative and so are most of the people in the 22nd congressional district in Texas that he represents.
They elected him to fight for their values and he is right to do so. So when DeLay noticed that the Lone Star State's congressional delegation was comprised of 57% Democrats despite the fact that a solid majority of Texans had been supporting Republicans in statewide races, he had every right to try to change the congressional district lines in a way that would more accurately represent the political beliefs of most Texans.
The most principled course of action would have been to turn redistricting over to a non-partisan commission that could fairly balance the principles of competition, accurate political representation, and preservation of local communities. That is what Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying to do in California. Instead of creating a fair process, DeLay helped elect Tom Craddick and other allies to the Texas legislature so long as they promised to redraw congressional districts once in office.

Rob e-mails to note an announcement on the NAACP web site that Julian Bond will be receving an award:

NAACP Board of Directors Chairman Julian Bond will receive the 2005 Hubert H. Humphrey award presented by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights May 4, 2005 during their annual dinner at the Hilton Washington and Towers hotel. The Hubert H. Humphrey (HHH) Award salutes individuals or organizations that best exemplify Vice-President Hubert Humphrey's legacy of “selfless and devoted service in the cause of equality."

Lily e-mails asking that we note an action alert from NOW:

A lobbyist for implant manufacturer Mentor Corporation is trying to convince Congress and the Food and Drug Administration that silicone implants are safe, despite the clear evidence we provided to Congress on March 2 showing they are not. It is essential that members of Congress and the FDA understand the truth about the risks of silicone implants. We need you to help Congress and the FDA see their way through the implant industry's deception. A new letter is being circulated around Congress and the FDA that refutes the comments from Mentor and provides additional evidence to support the concerns we have about the risks of silicone implants. Please send a message to Congress and the FDA to help them get the facts straight. Don't let the silicone implant industry mislead Congress and the FDA into approving silicone implants for general use. They are simply too risky.

For more information, visit NOW's action alert.

Keesha asks that we note this from Reporters Without Borders, "Newspaper columnist gunned down in front of her 10-year-old daughter:"

Reporters Without Borders voiced "horror" today at the murder of newspaper columnist Marlyn Garcia Esperat of the weekly Midland Review, who was shot dead in her home in front of her 10-year-old daughter by two gunmen on the eve of Easter on 24 March in Tacurong, on the southern island of Mindanao.
Noting that this was the second murder of a journalist since the start of the year in the Philippines, the press freedom organization said in a letter to interior minister Angelo Reyes that there was an "urgent need to restore a climate that allows the press to work properly after repeated attacks that have gone completely unpunished."


Cedric notes that the ACLU has something we should pay attention to, "Army’s Own Documents Acknowledge Evidence That Soldiers Used Torture." From that press release:

The American Civil Liberties Union today charged that the government is attempting to bury the torture scandal involving the U.S. military by failing to comply with a court order requiring release of documents to the ACLU. The documents the government does release are being issued in advance to the media in ways calculated to minimize coverage and public access, the ACLU said.
The reason for the delay in delivering the more than 1,200 pages of documents was evident, the ACLU said, in the contents, which include reports of brutal beatings, "exercise until exhaustion" and sworn statements that soldiers were told to "beat the fuck out of" detainees. One file cites evidence that Military Intelligence personnel in Iraq "tortured" detainees held in their custody.
"These documents provide further evidence that the torture of detainees was much more widespread than the government has acknowledged," said ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer. "At a minimum, the documents indicate a colossal failure of leadership."

The ACLU notes that "The documents released today include evidence of:
*Abuse of a high school student detainee
*Death of detainee with no history of medical problems
*Soldiers being told to "beat the f*ck out of detainees"
*Perceptions of chain of command endorsement of "pay-back"


"Army’s Own Documents Acknowledge Evidence That Soldiers Used Torture" provides a summary as well as links to the documents themselves in pdf format.

Please note that there have been problems with posting this morning. (A long entry on this morning's Times was lost as I attempted to save the draft.) And although it is Saturday and I will be helping The Third Estate Sunday Review, we will have a Women's History Month note posted as well as, hopefully, at least one more entry if not two.

Site e-mail address is common_ills@yahoo.com.

Pentagon won't try 17 G.I.'s for prisoner's deaths, prozac involved in shootings?, Ward Churchill, Texas refinery blast raises questions

From this morning's New York Times, let's start by noting Douglas Jehl's "Pentagon Will Not Try 17 G.I.'s Implicated in Prisoners' Deaths:"

Despite recommendations by Army investigators, commanders have decided not to prosecute 17 American soldiers implicated in the deaths of three prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004, according to a new accounting released Friday by the Army.
Investigators had recommended that all 17 soldiers be charged in the cases, according to the accounting by the Army Criminal Investigation Command. The charges included murder, conspiracy and negligent homicide. While none of the 17 will face any prosecution, one received a letter of reprimand and another was discharged after the investigations.
To date, the military has taken steps toward prosecuting some three dozen soldiers in connection with a total of 28 confirmed or suspected homicides of detainees. The total number of such deaths is believed to be between 28 and 31.


Brad says to note Monica Davey and Gardiner Harris have "Family Wonders if Prozac Prompted School Shootings:"

On Friday, as Tammy Lussier prepared to bury Mr. Weise, who was her nephew, and her father, who was among those he killed, she found herself looking back over the last year, she said, when Mr. Weise began taking the antidepressant Prozac after a suicide attempt that Ms. Lussier described as a "cry for help."
"They kept upping the dose for him," she said, "and by the end, he was taking three of the 20 milligram pills a day. I can't help but think it was too much, that it must have set him off."
[. . .]
The effects of antidepressants on young people remain a topic of fierce debate among scientists and doctors.
Last year, a federal panel of drug experts said antidepressants could cause children and teenagers to become suicidal. The Food and Drug Administration has since required the makers of antidepressants to warn of that danger on their labels for the medications.
The suicide risk is particularly acute when therapy starts or a dosage changes, the drug agency has warned.


[Note Jodi Wilgoren also contributed to the above article.]


Note the following paragraph:

Prof. Ward L. Churchill cannot be fired from his job at the University of Colorado for controversial opinions like his comparison of some victims of the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack to Nazi technocrats, the university said in a report released late Thursday.

It's from Kirk Johnson's "University Changes Its Focus in Investigation of Professor." And as Kara writes, "But oh no, the story isn't over. Now they're going after him with something else." From the article:

The university wants to examine his writing and speeches for evidence that he misrepresented his background and did not follow standard procedures for crediting others' work.
Professor Churchill's lawyer, David Lane, said he believed that the inquiry was "blatantly unfair" because the professor was given no opportunity to present a defense, and that the decision to continue the inquiry was driven by politics.


Billie draws our attention to Matthew L. Wald has "Inquiry Turns to Leak as Probable Cause of Texas Blast:"

The refinery blast here that killed 15 people on Wednesday and injured 100 more was probably caused by a leak of two flammable chemicals that are found in crude oil and reworked at the refinery to make ingredients of gasoline, a member of a federal chemical safety agency said on Friday evening.
The cause of the leak is unknown, and investigators are looking for the source. They are also highly concerned about the unusually high death toll in the resulting explosion. The federal official, John Bresland, a member of the United States Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, speaking soon after the investigators got their first tour of the periphery of the blast zone, said another important issue was why a temporary office trailer, in which several people died, had been so close, and whether brick structures should have been used instead. Mr. Bresland estimated that the trailer was 50 yards from the blast site.


E-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Mag report The Nation (plus some web features I overlooked last time)

Lloyd and Zach both asked that I do a mag report on the issue of The Nation that I explained was now out of date. (It arrived in the mail this week.) For the record, this will be two issues behind, but okay. It's the March 28, 2005 issue.

First of all, when Katrina vanden Heuvel mentioned an editorial on democracy on The Majority Report, we highlighted that and a number of you couldn't access it. It is available to all users (subscribers or visitors) now so let's note the conclusion of "Democracy's Dilemmas:"

The triumphalists have given very little thought to these issues. What should be clear from our experience in Iraq, however, is that the dangers and dilemmas of democratization will increase if Washington pursues a military campaign against Syria and Iran while ignoring nascent reforms in places where US encouragement can make a positive and peaceful contribution.
Although the triumphalists are wrong in arguing that the democratic opening grew from the Iraq War and wrong to ignore the risks of instability and Islamist extremism the Bush agenda has helped create, they're right about one thing: In an age of satellite television and the Internet, it will be hard to put the genie of democracy back in the bottle. Washington must now act more responsibly than in the recent past, and it must work with its European allies and Middle Eastern countries themselves to make the emerging democratic process more liberal and more orderly.


I'm pretty sure we've highlighted Naomi Klein's "Can Democracy Survive Bush's Embrace?" but in case we haven't:

Brand USA's latest story was launched on January 30, the day of the Iraqi elections, complete with a catchy tag line ("purple power"), instantly iconic imagery (purple fingers) and, of course, a new narrative about America's role in the world, helpfully told and retold by the White House's unofficial brand manager, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. "Iraq has been reframed from a story about Iraqi 'insurgents' trying to liberate their country from American occupiers and their Iraqi 'stooges' to a story of the overwhelming Iraqi majority trying to build a democracy, with U.S. help, against the wishes of Iraqi Baathist-fascists and jihadists." This new story is so contagious, we are told, that it has set off a domino effect akin to the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of Communism. (Although in the "Arabian Spring," the only wall in sight--Israel's apartheid wall--pointedly stays up.)
As with all branding campaigns, the power is in the repetition, not in the details. Obvious non sequiturs (is Bush taking credit for Arafat's death?) and screeching hypocrisies (occupiers against occupation!) just mean it's time to tell the story again, only louder and more slowly, obnoxious tourist-style. Even so, with Bush now claiming that "Iran and other nations have an example in Iraq," it seems worth focusing at least briefly on the reality of the Iraqi example. The state of emergency was just renewed for its fifth month, and the United Iraqi Alliance, despite winning a clear majority, still can't form a government. The problem is not that Iraqis have lost faith in the democracy for which they risked their lives on January 30; it's that the electoral system imposed on them by Washington is profoundly undemocratic.


Patricia J. Williams has a column in the issue and she's one of my favorite voices but her columns often aren't made available online unless you subscribe to the print edition (as e-mails have noted whenever I've highlighted one).

However this is "mag report" so I'll highlight her column (and note, it's available online only to subscribers of the magazine) "Grim Fairy Tales:"

It seemed too bizarre to be anything but apocryphal, but, hey, I heard it on NPR: William Poole, a high school junior from Kentucky, was taken into custody and charged with threatening to commit second-degree-felony terrorism for writing a story about a horde of zombies who wreak havoc in a school. It seems the boy's grandparents had been reading his journal, found a story he'd been writing for English class and promptly turned him in. According to a police detective, "Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function, it's a felony in the state of Kentucky." Based on that kind of reasoning, a judge raised Poole's bond from $1,000 to $5,000 after prosecutors requested it, citing the seriousness of the charge.
I can't imagine what was going on in the hearts and minds of Poole's grandparents--are they the sort who would burn copies of Harry Potter? Do they harbor some religiously based objection to zombies, akin to witchcraft? How great must be their fear, and how little their love! But however subjective or obscure the motives of the grandparents, it does seem to me that the detective and prosecutor are the kind of strict textualists upon whom the "war on terror" has showered foolish amounts of power. "My story is based on fiction," said Poole; but in Clark County, Kentucky, the law is the word. Last heard, he was dispatched to jail to await mercy and a sense of perspective. Let's hope his grandparents don't find any scribblings about manga demons, or he'll be in there for life.

There is a biography of her available online:

Patricia J. Williams, a professor of law at Columbia University, was born in Boston in 1951 and holds a BA from Wellesley College and a JD from Harvard Law School. She was a fellow in the School of Criticism and Theory at Dartmouth College and has been an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin School Law School and its department of women's studies. Williams also worked as a consumer advocate in the office of the City Attorney in Los Angeles.

The above is an excerpt (one paragraph out of two paragraphs) and here's the most recent list of her columns for The Nation and some of them are available to be read by all. Read on to the end of this entry for another Patricia J. Williams resource.

Liza Featherstone's "Race to the Bottom" addresses the issue of Wal-Mart and the African-American community. Here's the conclusion of that article:

Madeline Janis-Aparicio of the Coalition for a Better Inglewood says about her campaign's success: "We were also lucky--Wal-Mart did something really stupid." In trying to pass an ordinance exempting itself from the town's laws, the company violated the largely black community's most basic requirement: respect. "We used that," says Janis-Aparicio, who credits that theme with winning over the church leadership and many Inglewood voters. After one large, mainstream black church joined the anti-Wal-Mart fight, the rest followed, not just lending passive endorsement but enthusiastically rallying their forces. Another helpful issue was crime--Wal-Mart is the nation's leading purveyor of guns. To rural white communities, that's often a political asset, but to urban black voters it's a harsh liability. In the last few days of the Inglewood campaign, the anti-Wal-Mart coalition hung a flier in the shape of an M-16 rifle on everybody's door. "Some on our side felt it was a scare tactic," Janis-Aparicio admits, but, she adds with justified pride, "it had a powerful impact."
Even in Chicago, Wal-Mart's own actions may end up helping its opponents. Elce Redmond says, "A lot of people who supported Wal-Mart at first are now saying, 'Elce, you were right.' Wal-Mart made a lot of promises, and hasn't delivered." Politicians and community leaders are now finding that since Wal-Mart secured permission to open the West Side store, its officials aren't returning their calls too readily. Rather than agreeing to pay workers decently, the company sent 300 holiday turkeys for the community's needy. That struck many people as a shallow response to concerns about the store's economic impact. "People are beginning to ask questions," says Redmond. "Why can't Wal-Mart pay a living wage? Why can't its workers have a union if they want one? Why not?"



And Karen Houppert's "The New Face of Protest?" is an article I think the community will enjoy. It addresses the anti-war movement and raises some issues not often noted. From that article:

While the antiwar movement embraces soldiers who brave such hostility to express their qualms about the war, dissenting military voices do not always share all of the peace movement's goals and priorities. As a result, these alliances have the potential to backfire. For example, Specialist Wilson's comment to Rumsfeld about the lack of armored vehicles was the complaint heard round the world. But if it gets invoked as justification for increased military spending, the cheers may fade. Or if the complaints of military families who lament the current operational tempo that has their spouses deployed more than they're home spur a military buildup, they may find themselves at odds with the larger peace movement. Indeed, progressives may be putting the military out front for the same reasons that the Democrats are now determined to put religion out front--and both "projects" raise the same serious questions: Is this capitulating to the political climate rather than contesting the very premise that says the God-fearing make the best leaders, or the khaki-clad soldiers the truest patriots? And when some of those "true patriots" are the perpetrators of crimes, like those committed at Abu Ghraib, will the peace movement's promilitary stance inhibit strong criticism?
Ultimately, there is a danger that the soldier's perspective, so crucial to the peace movement now, may prove problematic to the larger progressive movement that activists hope this will spawn. After all, for many soldiers this is a one-platform plank, making their immediate asset their long-term flaw. "So many of the other activists at this United for Peace and Justice convention can be written off by Americans as crazy pinko commie lefties," Hoffman told me privately, after he had addressed the larger assembly of peace activists in the St. Louis convention hall. "But we're the vets who've been there and fought, and it seems it's hard for us to be dismissed. We've been to Iraq. We've seen it. We know it's wrong. We have to end it." He shrugs and raises his hands, palms up, as if he holds a tidy package. "It's very simple. There's not a lot of other issues we're talking about."


In the post about the online features of The Nation, I overlooked a number of things that several wiser community members didn't. Sherry noted that John Nichols has a web feature entitled The Online Beat available. Keesha noted that Peter Rothberg has ActNow! available online and recommends it "as a great resource." My apologies for overlooking both which I honestly wasn't aware of -- underscoring the point of how the community is a resource for all of us, myself included.

When I read Sherry and Keesha's e-mails, I thought of a feature that I did know about but completely forgot to mention. Marc Cooper hosts RadioNation which features many wonderful interviews and the occasional speech. This feature is available to everyone, subscriber and non-subscriber alike. I believe at some point I've noted it before here because I'm about to note some of the people you can hear via RadioNation and it seems familiar. (Maybe it's a deja vu?)
I've enjoyed hearing Gloria Steinem, Gore Vidal, Tom Hayden, Juan Cole, Howard Zinn and others.

RadioNation can be heard on some public radio stations once a week. The most recent episode is one with Lou Dubose discussing Tom DeLay. One of my favorites has been Patricia J. Williams' speech entitled "Republic in Ruins" from September 8, 2004. For those who've not heard Patricia J. Williams speak before (she's been a guest on The Majority Report and hopefully will be again), you should really check out that recording.

Back to the print edition, you get Alexander Cockburn's columns, Calvin Trillin's poetry, the amazing letter section and a lot more including contributions from people like William Greider, Christian Parenti and Ruth Rosen. So please visit The Nation's web site, but if you've never looked at the print edition of The Nation, please check your local libraries and bookstores.

[As noted before, Alexander Cockburn's writing can be found online at CounterPunch which he co-edits. Also note that there will be a mag report on The Progressive this weekend -- barring an all nighter with The Third Estate Sunday Review. The latest issue arrived in the mail Wednesday but the web site still has the old issue up -- not a complaint.]

Billy notes Aretha Franklin for Women's History Month

Billy: Today is Aretha Franklin's 63rd birthday and it being Women's History Month, I think she deserves a shout out.

Here's what always stands out for me about Aretha Franklin: her singing and her piano playing.
No one sings like Aretha. She's got a really good range but you might not notice because she's always using her voice to serve the song and not to upstage it the way so many musical divas do.

But if you listen to something that's arranged for her upper register and something that's arranged for her lower register, you realize quickly that she could go toe to toe in vocal acrobatics with Mariah [Carey] or Whitney [Houston] if she so wanted. But it's not about that when she sings because it is just about the song and how she can reach you with it & move you with it.

"Sweet Bitter Love" is a perfect example of that. She can just blow you away with that song when she lays out is so simple and lets you hear the emotions in that song.

And with her voice she creates her own melody on top of the melody of the song. It's this improv that comes in an unexpected place and can be missed as she halves the beat or goes into double-time or messes with the time signature in a way that only her genius can lead her to.

Which is what I like about her piano playing because those moments with her voice are real similar to what she does when she sits down at the piano and finds a spot in the song that she builds on - a spot you didn't quite hear before if someone else did the song or, if it's a new song, a spot that you could have missed if she didn't emphasize it. When she sits down at the piano (which isn't that often as the years have gone by) she can take even the weakest song that you heard too many times by other people and invest something new in it by finding that spot that everyone else just passed over but she's going to stop a moment and explore it.

That's what makes her an original as a piano player or as a singer.

She's racked up the hits over her long career and everyone knows 'em from "Respect" to "A Rose Is Still A Rose." But there are moments on her best albums where you find a song you never heard on the radio and just realize how great a singer she is. Yeah she is amazing on "Chain of Fools" but she's even more amazing on a little known track off Aretha called "Look to the Rainbow." Or take her cover of "Let It Be" which a lot of people have done since the Beatles but only Aretha really finds the point of "there will be an answer" and when you hear her sing her version, you really get that line.

That gift is why she can remake "I Say a Little Prayer" and still have something to offer to the song or "Brand New Me" which Dusty Springfield did to perfection but when Aretha does her version, she creates her own space and her own right to the song by finding that part everyone else just sang through and finding a way to draw your attention to it.

Her last CD was So Damn Happy and off that one the moment of genius is "Falling Out of Love."

She was interviewed by Tavis Smiley last year and talking about the new album she was recording which is all duets and I'm looking forward to hearing that one like I do with each new one. Sometimes I find a strong CD all the way through, sometimes I just find a gem or two.
But she's got a track record that's now a legacy and she can still amaze.

In 1998, Time Magazine picked her as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. I'll close by quoting from that story.

Her reign has been long. Born in 1942 in Memphis, Tenn., she started recording when she was just 14. Since then, she has had 20 No. 1 R. and B. hits and won 17 Grammys. Her breakthrough album, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (1967), was a Top 40 smash. Three decades later, after Motown, after disco, after the Macarena, after innumerable musical trendlets and one-hit wonders, Franklin's newest album, her critically acclaimed A Rose Is Still a Rose (1998), is another Top 40 smash. Although her output has sometimes been tagged (unfairly, for the most part) as erratic, she has had a major album in every decade of her career, including Amazing Grace (1972) and Who's Zoomin' Who? (1985).
Her reign has been storied. She sang at Martin Luther King's funeral and at William Jefferson Clinton's Inaugural gala. She has worked with Carole King and Puff Daddy. The Michigan legislature once declared her voice to be one of the state's natural resources.


[Note: The quote is from "The Queen of Soul reigns supreme with a heavenly voice and terrestrial passion" written by Christopher John Farley. Correction added 3-27-05: Aretha Franklin was in the hospital last year, not this year. That was my mistake and didn't appear in Billy's remarks, only my note here at the bottom. My apologies.]

Sunday Chat & Chews (and Nightline addresses the tsunami tonight)

For those with strong stomachs, here's the line up for the Sunday Chat & Chews.

ABC's This Week (airs Sunday, check local listings):

Guests: Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Fla.
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington
The Rev. Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life"
[. . .]
Then an Easter morning conversation with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, on Terri Schiavo, the pope and the Catholic bishops' latest stand on the death penalty.
[. . .]
In "The List," the best-selling author of "The Purpose Driven Life," the Rev. Rick Warren, shares his Easter message.
Our political panel: John Dickerson of Time magazine, ABC's Claire Shipman and George Will.
And we'll remember a distinctive automaker and an elegant cabaret singer who played one room for nearly four decades.


NBC's Meet the Press (Sundays, check local listings):

REZA ASLAN
Author "No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam"

REV. ROBERT DRINAN,
S.J.Author, "Can God and Caesar Coexist?"Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center

DR. RICHARD LAND
Author, "Real Homeland Security: The America God Will Bless"President of The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Southern Baptist Convention

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D-CT)
2000 Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate

JON MEACHAM
Author, "How Jesus Became Christ"Managing Editor, Newsweek

REV. JIM WALLIS
Author, "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It"

You may need to have a stronger stomach than usual to get through that.

By the way, they still haven't corrected their "about" page which still lists "Gloria Steiner" instead of "Gloria Steinem." Here's the paragraph that's been up for years and that Meet the Press has shown no interest in fixing:

Since those beginning days, "Meet the Press" has interviewed First Ladies Eleanor Roosevelt, Nancy Reagan, Rosalynn Carter, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Laura Bush appeared on "Meet the Press" the first three years of her husband’s presidency. Other notable women appearing as guests over the years on "Meet the Press" include: Barbara Jordan, Shirley Chisholm, Jane Fonda, Phyllis Schlafly, Geraldine Ferraro, Gloria Steiner, Elizabeth Dole, Madeleine Albright, Tipper Gore, Condoleezza Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Shirley Temple Black and Caroline Kennedy.

Over at CBS's Face The Nation (Sundays, check local listings), Blinky Bob Schieffer takes Easter Sunday off and Bill Plante subs for him.

Thirty minutes of Schiavo because Lord knows, there's not been enough on this topic.

Will someone please tell me, for the love of God, when will the press in this country find the Schiavo story!!!!!!!!! (That was sarcasm.)

Here are the guests:

Tony Perkins
President, Family Research Council

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Democrat - Florida

John Harwood
The Wall Street Journal

Karen Tumulty
TIME Magazine

Andrew Cohen
CBS News Legal Analyst


Again, do the Sunday chat and chews if that's you're thing. It's not mine. Someone argued in an e-mail (may have been more than one person, sorry, and I'm blanking on who) that it's important to watch because it's how you learn about the world.

If that's how you feel, more power to you. I disagree. I think you get the official line explained by many people who have no expertise to speak on or by people who want to speak of things that they can't possibly know. I don't care for insta-experts. (And am surprised that This Week didn't pull Cokie Roberts out of mouthballs for a panel this week.)

I get the official line seven mornings a week in the New York Times. I feel I've served my time and don't need to add to my sentence by also taking in the Sunday chat and chews.

If you watch for humor, insight or knowledge, more power to you. But myself, I have other things I'd rather be doing.

Let's note Nightline tonight. (ABC, airs at some point after your local news that follows the prime time schedule, check your local listings.)

This is from the e-mail (authored this time by Sara Just) that you can sign up for if you're interested in knowing the topic and guests for each night's Nightline:

Tonight we look at the survivors in one of the areas hardest hit by the tsunami. "Nightline's" David Marash is in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. The children in this tragedy cope in their own unique way. Tonight you will hear from one boy who now lives in a camp for people who have been displaced by the tsunami. The children here are seeking signs of normalcy through their grief, and a song this one young boy wrote is helping them find it.
The tsunami did not only destroy homes and lives, it also destroyed a way of life. In Aceh's fishing villages, the boats, nets and all of the equipment that sustained the communities were sucked away by the tsunami. Also, paper records that identified who owned parcels of land were destroyed. Now that the houses are gone too, how can these villagers lay claim to their property? A massive recovery effort of these documents will be required. In other words, it's going to take more than just blankets and clean water to put these lives back together again.


To me, that actually sounds interesting. I've got company over and if they're gone or still here but want to watch, I'd like to check it out. I'm including it because I know the tsunami was something the community cared a great deal about. And I'll give Nightline credit for following
up on the story. Especially in a week where one topic and one topic only dominated.

Also, Cedric's e-mail posted this morning was written last night. I hurried through copying and pasting it into an entry and forgot to note that. I'll correct this later.

And yes, Democracy Now! is posted twice on the site. We'll leave it because it really was an important. I contacted Shirley and she attempted to e-mail it in as well. We both used various accounts and got lucky because two made it through.

E-mail address is common_ills@yahoo.com for this site.

Democracy Now: Naomi Klein on Giuliana Sgrena & Wolfowitz, Kyrgyzstan; Georgetown Students; Ohio, Black Commentator; Amitabh Pal

Democracy Now! "always worth watching" (Marcia) is simply amazing today addressing a variety of topics.

Headlines for March 25, 2005
- Large Car Bomb Explodes in Iraq- Iraqi Lawyers Call for Trying Bush, Blair- Sgrena Released From Rome Hospital- Texas Paper: Bush Willing to Err on Side of Death as Gov. - Bush Approval Slips to Lowest of His Presidency- UN to Deploy Troops in Sudan- Jeremy Hinzman Loses Asylum Bid in Canada

Naomi Klein Reveals New Details About U.S. Military Shooting of Italian War Correspondent in Iraq
Three weeks after being shot by US forces in Iraq, veteran Italian war correspondent Giuliana Sgrena is released from a military hospital. New details are emerging about the killing of the Italian agent who saved her life. We speak with independent journalist Naomi Klein, who just returned from meeting with Sgrena in Rome. [includes rush transcript]

A Wolfowitz in Sheep's Clothing?
We speak with award-winning journalist and author Naomi Klein about the nomination of Paul Wolfowitz, one of the administration's top neoconservatives and a chief architect of the invasion of Iraq.

Kyrgyzstan Protests Topple Government
Opposition protestors in Kyrgyzstan took over the presidential compound and other government buildings yesterday, effectively bringing President Askar Akayev's government to collapse. We speak with the director Asia Program at the International Crisis Group.


Student Hunger Strike Secures Living Wage for Georgetown Workers
After a three-year campaign, students at Georgetown University have won their fight to secure living wages for university workers. The campaign - known as the Georgetown Living Wage Coalition - culminated in a nine-day hunger strike by over twenty students before the university accepted almost all of the campaign's ten demands. We speak with one of the students who participated in the hunger strike

Todd e-mails "As Blackwell Says, Ohio's in 2004 was a National Model" by Steve Rosenfeld,
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman from The Free Press. From that article:

Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell finally testified -- something he had refused to do in the Moss v. Bush Ohio election challenge before the State Supreme Court and refused to do in Washington, D.C. His testimony proved so contentious that at one point Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, D-OH, told him to "haul butt" if he was unwilling to answer questions about irregularities in the 2004 election.
[. . .]
Blackwell's wholesale denial of the legal record documenting the scores of Election Day problems that disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters -- from the House Judiciary Committee Democrats' report, to the 900 pages of sworn affidavits and other analysis filed at the Ohio Supreme Court in response to his attempt to sanction the lawyer who filed a lawful challenge of the 2004 presidential results, to the statements made in Washington on January 6, 2005 during the Electoral College challenge -- did not go unanswered by Democrats on the House Administration Committee. "Mr. Secretary of State, you have a lot of improvement to do," said Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, D-CA, the ranking Democrat on the panel.
[. . .]
Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, the judge-turned-congresswoman from Ohio's largest city, Cleveland, led the House challenge to the 2004 Electoral College certification. While she is not a member of the House Administration Committee, the committee members let her participate as a panel member as a House courtesy. When it was her turn to ask questions, Blackwell said it was "good to see you," to which Rep. Tubbs-Jones replied, "It was so good to see you that you chose not to shake my hand in the anteroom." Jones followed up the questioning on the provisional ballots by asking Blackwell why his 'public education' campaign -- radio ads and recording phone messages to voters' homes - did not tell people that if they were given a provisional ballot they had to be turned in at the board of elections to be counted. "In this ad you said 'Vote your precinct,' but you didn't say 'Vote in your board of elections," Tubbs-Jones said. "You did an ad statewide and you spent $2.5 million.

Steve Rosenfeld should be (fingers crossed) giving a report on the Congressional committee's visit to Ohio this weekend on The Laura Flanders Show.

Ben sends in "The U.S. is Becoming a 'Failed State'" from The Black Commentator:

We are witnessing the domestic version of a phenomenon well known in the Third World: the deliberate creation of “failed states,” national governments that have been maneuvered or coerced into impotence by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, trade agreements with the United States -- any combination of capital and military coercion. These states have become irrelevant to the needs of their own people and, therefore, in a very real sense, illegitimate.
[. . .]
The Bush regime has summoned the failed state chicken home to roost, with a vengeance, as it attempts to strip away every social obligation of the state to the people. However, the legitimacy of American governments at all levels has long been eroding, as defined by their capacity to provide political goods to the citizenry. For decades, heavily Black cities have busily sold off their "prerogatives" -- their assets, tax bases and sovereign powers -- to corporations or regional authorities.


Kelli e-mails "Bush's Poke In the Eye" from Amitabh Pal's blog at The Progressive:

Not content with ruining domestic institutions, George W. Bush is targeting international organizations, too. His appointment of Paul Wolfowitz as the new head of World Bank will go a long way toward accomplishing that.
Let's not kid ourselves. The World Bank has been a problematic institution at least since the Reagan years, if not earlier. Its functions have largely been to strong-arm developing countries into adopting economic policies friendly to Western interests and to lend money to compliant nations--dictatorships or otherwise--around the world. Besides, Wolfowitz is not the first veteran of a failed war to head the organization. Robert McNamara of Vietnam War infamy sat at the helm for more than a decade.
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Democracy Now: Naomi Klein on Giuliana Sgrena & Wolfowitz, Kyrgyzstan; Georgetown Students; Ohio, Black Commentator; Amitabh Pal

Democracy Now! "always worth watching" (Marcia) is simply amazing today addressing a variety of topics.
 
 - Large Car Bomb Explodes in Iraq
- Iraqi Lawyers Call for Trying Bush, Blair
- Sgrena Released From Rome Hospital
- Texas Paper: Bush Willing to Err on Side of Death as Gov.
- Bush Approval Slips to Lowest of His Presidency
- UN to Deploy Troops in Sudan
- Jeremy Hinzman Loses Asylum Bid in Canada
 
Three weeks after being shot by US forces in Iraq, veteran Italian war correspondent Giuliana Sgrena is released from a military hospital. New details are emerging about the killing of the Italian agent who saved her life. We speak with independent journalist Naomi Klein, who just returned from meeting with Sgrena in Rome. [includes rush transcript]
 
We speak with award-winning journalist and author Naomi Klein about the nomination of Paul Wolfowitz, one of the administration's top neoconservatives and a chief architect of the invasion of Iraq.
 
Opposition protestors in Kyrgyzstan took over the presidential compound and other government buildings yesterday, effectively bringing President Askar Akayev's government to collapse. We speak with the director Asia Program at the International Crisis Group.
 
 
After a three-year campaign, students at Georgetown University have won their fight to secure living wages for university workers. The campaign - known as the Georgetown Living Wage Coalition - culminated in a nine-day hunger strike by over twenty students before the university accepted almost all of the campaign's ten demands. We speak with one of the students who participated in the hunger strike
 
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman from The Free Press.  From that article:
 
Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell finally testified – something he had refused to do in the Moss v. Bush Ohio election challenge before the State Supreme Court and refused to do in Washington, D.C. His testimony proved so contentious that at one point Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, D-OH, told him to “haul butt” if he was unwilling to answer questions about irregularities in the 2004 election.
[. . .]
Blackwell’s wholesale denial of the legal record documenting the scores of Election Day problems that disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters – from the House Judiciary Committee Democrats’ report, to the 900 pages of sworn affidavits and other analysis filed at the Ohio Supreme Court in response to his attempt to sanction the lawyer who filed a lawful challenge of the 2004 presidential results, to the statements made in Washington on January 6, 2005 during the Electoral College challenge – did not go unanswered by Democrats on the House Administration Committee.

“Mr. Secretary of State, you have a lot of improvement to do,” said Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, D-CA, the ranking Democrat on the panel.
[. . .]
Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, the judge-turned-congresswoman from Ohio’s largest city, Cleveland, led the House challenge to the 2004 Electoral College certification. While she is not a member of the House Administration Committee, the committee members let her participate as a panel member as a House courtesy.

When it was her turn to ask questions, Blackwell said it was “good to see you,” to which Rep. Tubbs-Jones replied, “It was so good to see you that you chose not to shake my hand in the anteroom.”

Jones followed up the questioning on the provisional ballots by asking Blackwell why his ‘public education’ campaign – radio ads and recording phone messages to voters’ homes - did not tell people that if they were given a provisional ballot they had to be turned in at the board of elections to be counted.

“In this ad you said ‘Vote your precinct,’ but you didn’t say ‘Vote in your board of elections,” Tubbs-Jones said. “You did an ad statewide and you spent $2.5 million.
 
Steve Rosenfeld should be (fingers crossed) giving a report on the Congressional committee's visit to Ohio this weekend on The Laura Flanders Show.
 
Ben sends in "The U.S. is Becoming a 'Failed State'" from The Black Commentator:
 
We are witnessing the domestic version of a phenomenon well known in the Third World: the deliberate creation of “failed states,” national governments that have been maneuvered or coerced into impotence by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, trade agreements with the United States -- any combination of capital and military coercion. These states have become irrelevant to the needs of their own people and, therefore, in a very real sense, illegitimate.
[. . .]
The Bush regime has summoned the failed state chicken home to roost, with a vengeance, as it attempts to strip away every social obligation of the state to the people. However, the legitimacy of American governments at all levels has long been eroding, as defined by their capacity to provide political goods to the citizenry. For decades, heavily Black cities have busily sold off their “prerogatives” -- their assets, tax bases and sovereign powers -- to corporations or regional authorities.
 
 
Kelli e-mails "Bush's Poke In the Eye" from Amitabh Pal's blog at The Progressive:

Not content with ruining domestic institutions, George W. Bush is targeting international organizations, too. His appointment of Paul Wolfowitz as the new head of World Bank will go a long way toward accomplishing that.

Let's not kid ourselves. The World Bank has been a problematic institution at least since the Reagan years, if not earlier. Its functions have largely been to strong-arm developing countries into adopting economic policies friendly to Western interests and to lend money to compliant nations--dictatorships or otherwise--around the world. Besides, Wolfowitz is not the first veteran of a failed war to head the organization. Robert McNamara of Vietnam War infamy sat at the helm for more than a decade.

Naomi Klein on Democracy Now! reporting on Giuliana Sgrena

Naomi Klein:  She told me a lot about the incident that I had not fully understood from the reports in the press. One of the most – and at first, the other thing I want to be really clear about is that Giuliana is not saying that she's certain in any way that the attack on the car was intentional. She is simply saying that she has many, many unanswered questions, and there are many parts of her direct experience that simply don't coincide with the official U.S. version of the story. One of the things that we keep hearing is that she was fired on on the road to the airport, which is a notoriously dangerous road. In fact, it's often described as the most dangerous road in the world. So this is treated as a fairly common and understandable incident that there would be a shooting like this on that road. And I was on that road myself, and it is a really treacherous place with explosions going off all the time and a lot of checkpoints. What Giuliana told me that I had not realized before is that she wasn't on that road at all. She was on a completely different road that I actually didn't know existed. It's a secured road that you can only enter through the Green Zone and is reserved exclusively for ambassadors and top military officials. So, when Calipari, the Italian security intelligence officer, released her from captivity, they drove directly to the Green Zone, went through the elaborate checkpoint process which everyone must go through to enter the Green Zone, which involves checking in obviously with U.S. forces, and then they drove onto this secured road. And the other thing that Giuliana told me that she's quite frustrated about is the description of the vehicle that fired on her as being part of a checkpoint. She says it wasn't a checkpoint at all. It was simply a tank that was parked on the side of the road that opened fire on them. There was no process of trying to stop the car, she said, or any signals. From her perspective, they were just -- it was just opening fire by a tank. The other thing she told me that was surprising to me was that they were fired on from behind. Because I think part of what we're hearing is that the U.S. soldiers opened fire on their car, because they didn't know who they were, and they were afraid. It was self-defense, they were afraid. The fear, of course, is that their car might blow up or that they might come under attack themselves. And what Giuliana Sgrena really stressed with me was that she -- the bullet that injured her so badly and that killed Calipari, came from behind, entered the back seat of the car. And the only person who was not severely injured in the car was the driver, and she said that this is because the shots weren't coming from the front or even from the side. They were coming from behind, i.e. they were driving away. So, the idea that this was an act of self-defense, I think becomes much more questionable. And that detail may explain why there's some reticence to give up the vehicle for inspection. Because if indeed the majority of the gunfire is coming from behind, then clearly, they were firing from -- they were firing at a car that was driving away from them.

Shirley directs us to FAIR's study on inclusion and exclusion

On the subject on inclusion and exclusion, Shirley e-mails to draw our attention to FAIR's recent study "Women's Opinions Also Missing on Television: Women of color virtually invisible on Sunday shows."

From the study:

In recent weeks, criticism of the shortage of women's bylines on newspaper op-ed pages has roiled the media waters, prompted by syndicated columnist Susan Estrich's attack on Los Angeles Times op-ed page editor Michael Kinsley for his failure to bring more women onto the Times' op-ed page.
This issue certainly deserves discussion, but the problem extends beyond newspaper op-ed pages and into television.
[. . .]
Surprisingly, NBC's Chris Matthews Show came out almost exactly even on gender, with 51 men and 49 women. Unfortunately, the show is unique in its gender balance: This Week and Fox News Sunday hewed more closely to the print media's unspoken "quota of one" for female pundits, featuring 22 percent and 25 percent women respectively. Meet the Press—which occasionally included more than one woman per panel and once (2/20/05) even filled its panel with four—had 39 percent women. All of the program hosts, who direct the discussions, are white men: NBC's Chris Matthews and Tim Russert, ABC's George Stephanopoulos and Fox's Chris Wallace.But which women get to speak? Certainly not women of color. While the Chris Matthews Show did well on gender parity, every one of its 49 female panelists was white. The only two appearances by non-white women in the six months studied were PBS's Gwen Ifill (Meet the Press, 10/24/04) and Democratic strategist Donna Brazile (This Week, 2/27/05). And Brazile falls into a somewhat different category—unlike the other shows, This Week's pundit roundtable sometimes includes newsmakers like her in addition to journalists.

Please click the link and read the media advisory. The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

Issues of inclusion vs. exclusion, the Un-embed the Media tour and Democracy Now!'s interview with Phil Donahue

This morning Cedric raises an issue that's been touched on here but that is becoming a strong sentiment in e-mails to this site (common_ills@yahoo.com) KeShawn e-mails asking if this topic can be raised by him here and the answer is absolutely. Members can raise any issue they want here. Just note that you want your comments shared with the community or, if you only want some comments shared, which comments you want shared.

The story of inclusion vs. exclusion is an issue we should always be raising here. And as it applies to where our attention has been this week, it has been the subject of many e-mails that are coming in this week.

Gina writes this morning noting the Un-Embed the Media tour and notes that when you only go to the same sources and same faces you only get one part of the story.

For those who haven't caught Democracy Now! this week, The Un-Embed the Media tour kicks off on Monday. From the Democracy Now! web site for that tour:


Join:
Phil Donahue--Fired By MSNBC for Airing Antiwar Voices
Sgt. Camilo Mejia--First Court-Martialed Iraq War Objector, Just Released From Prison
Juan Gonzalez--Democracy Now! Co-Host and NY Daily News Columnist
Amy Goodman--Democracy Now! Host and Co-Author with
David Goodman--of The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them.

A WBAI fundraiser hosted By WBAI's Bernard White and Democracy Now!'s Jeremy Scahill
Marking the launch of the paperback edition of Amy and David Goodman's national best-seller, The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them.
The event will be ASL-interpreted.
Monday, March 28New York Society for Ethical Culture2 West 64th Street (at Central Park West) New York, NY
Ticket Information
6 PM Gala Reception: $50. Includes entry to the reception; one free, signed copy of The Exception to the Rulers; and admission to the event.
Purchase Tickets
7 PM Event Only: $10.
Purchase Tickets
Important! Please read carefully!
Tickets for the reception will be limited and are available on a first-come-first-serve basis.
Advance tickets for the reception and event are available for purchase by credit card only online by clicking on purchase ticket icons above. To pick up your ticket at the box office, you will need a printout of your purchase confirmation and the credit card with which you bought it.
Tickets are available for sale on this web site until Friday, March 26, 5pm.
After that time, tickets will only be available for purchase with cash only at the box office on Monday, March 28th. (Closest ATM: 64th and Broadway.) The box office, located at the Ethical Culture Society, will open at 5pm.
Seating is limited. Advance ticket holders should arrive by 6:30 pm. Tickets sold at the door will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis only.
For questions concerning this event please call 212-431-9090.


This is only the kickoff of the tour.

Other dates for March, April and May posted so far include:

MARCH
3/28: New York, NY
3/29: Houston, TX
3/30: Washington D.C.
3/31: Los Angeles, CA
APRIL
4/1: San Francisco, CA
4/1: San Francisco, CA
4/2: Portland, OR
4/2: Seattle, WA
4/4: Philadelphia, PA
4/5: Sarasota, FL
4/6: Huntington, NY
4/8: Boulder, CO
4/8: Denver, CO
4/9: Omaha, NE
4/9: Lincoln, NE
4/10: Boulder, CO
4/11: Salt Lake City, UT
4/12: Ogden, UT
4/13: New York, NY
4/14: Tempe, AZ
4/16: Santa Fe, NM
4/17: Taos, NM
4/20: West Hartford, CT
4/20: Fairfield, CT
4/21: Los Angeles, CA
4/22: Berkeley, CA
4/23: San Francisco, CA
4/23: Ashland, OR
4/23: Ashland, OR
4/24: Los Angeles, CA
MAY
5/2: New York, NY
5/3: Portsmouth, NH
5/5: Bloomington, IN
5/6: Albuquerque, NM


Gina: I want to stress what you did yesterday that the Democracy Now! interview with Phil Donahue needs to be noted and recognized.

Gina asks that we note this from the interview:


AMY GOODMAN: That was Harry Belafonte on KFMB radio in San Diego being rebroadcast on Donahue's show on MSNBC. Phil Donahue was on in the same time slot as Fox's Bill O'Reilly, but the show didn't last -- Phil's, that is. In fact, it didn't even last a year, even though it was MSNBC's top rated program. When Donahue was fired, the network moved to hire a string of right wing hosts. Phil Donahue joins us in the studio right now. It’s great to have you with us.
PHIL DONAHUE: Hi, Amy. Nice to be here.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we all learned about this memo, just soon after you were fired that came out of NBC, that was -- that said that as we led into the invasion of Iraq, they didn't want to have their flagship show, no matter how successful it was, the most popular show on MSNBC, being one that provided a forum for anti-war voices. They didn't want an anti-war face when the other networks were waving the American flag.
PHIL DONAHUE: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: Your response?
PHIL DONAHUE: Well, that memo was a fact, and it was reported by The New York Times and other publications. Our program was doing reasonably well. We weren't Elvis, but the program for its -- the numbers of our program on the family of NBC -- MSNBC at night, was very respectable, and I think had a prospect of growing even larger. So, the numbers did not warrant our departure, our dismissal. And along the way it became clear to us that they were terrified that we were going to become a place -- an anti-war kind of platform, where all of these radicals would come and oppose the war.
AMY GOODMAN: Like Harry Belafonte.
PHIL DONAHUE: Yes, and others. We had some wonderful – for a peaceful tomorrow. I mean, I came back to television and ran right into a wall of widows. I mean, that shocked me. I just somehow wasn't anticipating this. 9/11 widows. The New Jersey girls and these wonderful people, people who came on -- mothers, wives said, “Not in my name. Don't kill more innocent people to avenge the death of my loved one.” We just were very excited about what we were doing. Along the way, it became clear that they were really very nervous about us, and the rule was laid down, we had to have two conservatives for every liberal. I was counted as two liberals. I mean, this is the truth. So I was very, very naive, you know, for a veteran guy, I can't get over – and there’s probably some vanity involved here, too. I thought I was going to be a place where dissent could be heard. I really believed that that was going to happen. And it was very naive of me to think that. It made them very, very nervous.


The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

Cedric on Red Lake and Ohio and the exclusion of coverage on non-white persons and issues

Cedric wrote the following in an e-mail that arrived last night.

Cedric: This morning on Democracy Now this was said:

JUAN GONZALEZ: Audrey Thayer, what about that issue, again, comparing this to the tragedy of Columbine several years ago when the entire nation seemed to grieve, and the press coverage was almost non-stop of the incident? Do you think that there is a marked difference in the reaction because this occurred on native land?
AUDREY THAYER: Well, I have to agree with Mattie on this issue, and I have to talk a little bit about even the Bemidji community and what has happened up here. And of course, what I do in the Racial Justice Project which is focusing on the 97% of six counties up here that are incarcerated with Indian people, and we're considered the Birmingham of the north, you know, the city of Bemidji, in regard to the three reservations. Right now, of course, the law enforcement of the Beltrami County is doing a very, very fine job of being in support of Red Lake, and that's important. But it is interesting. It will be interesting to see the Governor Polenti come up here, who has completely massacred -- massacred programs that would affect Indian people, state programs. We have an administration that does not serve any dollars for indigenous people. You know, I get calls in my office of indigenous people and ironically, I have talked with some of the families that we are going to be burying some of their family members this next few days, but you know, they'll call and say, you know, I am the landlord or the landlady of this country, and yet I don't have enough money to pay for my gas, you know, to keep my home warm. You know, because there's no programs extended. These are the working poor. Indian people are known for their hard work, their diligence in the community, and if they're offered something, a job, they’re working. But you drive to the city of Bemidji, in very few of the stores will you see Indian people working. I have been disappointed in both of the prayer services in Bemidji. I thank so much the people from Bemidji that came to the pipe ceremony on Tuesday, to the two prayer services at the two separate churches the last few days. But those churches should have been full. And there was only 100 at the Catholic Church. There was very few at the Episcopal Church which has a huge population of urban Indians from Bemidji that they have a mission church for in the city here. I had expected to see an outpouring. Now, needless to say, many, many cards and gifts and monies are going to Red Lake. So, I don't want to offend those who are giving, because there is a population of people that know that this country has failed our people, have failed indigenous people. And now, all of a sudden, we are focused like Columbine. And it's a class issue. Columbine was an upper middle class community. This is not. This is not. This is totally different. I like to think that the people in Red Lake Nation, Leech Lake, White Earth and the indigenous nations, we are givers in this country. We have given, given and given. So I'm hoping that something good -- something good will come out of all of this.


The school shooting is one more story that's not going to be heard or addressed because the nation will focus on only one story. So to recap, Native Americans in Red Lake suffered a serious tragedy this week and Stephanie Tubbs-Jones went to a Congressional hearing in Ohio to draw attention to the voting problems but those stories were hushed up by the big media and by the new media. What do they have in common? The stories deal with nonwhites and it's getting harder and harder to not feel that racism is at work.

Week after week, day after day, we get silence. One week the excuse is that this can't be covered because the big news is that. Then the next week, we hear another story. It's not that people of color can't 'wait their turn,' it's that we're just starting to wonder when that turn ever comes.

As a black man, I am taking the ignoring of Stephanie Tubbs-Jones very personally. She is a member of the United States Congress and she chose to fight this issue all along but here we are two months after everyone was jawing about it and she's still fighting this issue but few people can find time to note it. And I'm finding it hard to believe that if Barbara Boxer had gone to Ohio Monday all the people being silent now wouldn't have rushed to write about it.

In Red Lake, the victims were not white. And the situation is ignored in the same way that Ohio isn't dealt with by the new media and people of color have a right to ask if this new media is going to continue to be as guilty as the big media in ignoring the needs and issues that impact them.

I'll be listening to The Laura Flanders Show this weekend not just because she'll be addressing Ohio but because Laura Flanders makes a point on her show to open it up to all people. It's a real and continuing tragedy that others don't follow her lead. In a world where they could learn from her or Democracy Now's Amy Goodman and Juan Gonazalez, they choose to instead copy the likes of Larry King and Tim Russert and new media and the discussions get a whole lot whiter.

News stories in this morning's Times that go beyond the national obsession with you know what

Moving quickly through this morning's New York Times, we'll note a few news stories that may or may not find traction in our national discussion as one story continues to domination.

We can start by noting Greg Myre's "Palestinian Urges U.S. to Oppose an Israeli Plan:"

The Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, welcomed two American envoys on Thursday and called on the United States to take a clear stand against Israel's planned expansion of the largest Jewish settlement in the West Bank.
Israel said this week that 3,500 new housing units had been approved for the settlement, Maale Adumim, which is just east of Jerusalem and already has some 30,000 residents. The Palestinians, who are seeking all of the West Bank as part of a future state, say the move will violate the United States-sponsored peace plan, known as the road map, and will further complicate any future negotiations over Jerusalem's fate.
[. . .]
The State Department has said the envoys would seek clarification from Israel on the issue, and the two men held talks Wednesday with Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon. Neither envoy has spoken publicly during the visit, but in Washington, the State Department said Israeli officials had assured Mr. Abrams and Mr. Welch that no decisions on the construction were final. Officials at the United States Consulate in east Jerusalem declined to comment on the meeting with Mr. Qurei.

Also note Warren Hoge's "10,000 Peacekeepers to Be Sent to Sudan, U.N. Council Decides:"


The Security Council passed a resolution on Thursday establishing a 10,000-member peacekeeping force for Sudan to reinforce a peace agreement in the south of the country and to lend assistance in the conflicted Darfur region in the west.
The measure, introduced by the United States, drew the support of all 15 Council members.
Passage occurred after France postponed consideration of a resolution that would refer war crime cases from Sudan to the International Criminal Court, a move seen as a challenge to the United States and likely to provoke an American veto. That vote was rescheduled for March 30.

The vote on Thursday followed two months of delay in which the Council and member countries were subject to rising complaints that world powers had failed to respond to what the United Nations has called the world's worst human crisis.


Don't miss Eric Lichtblau's "A New Antiterror Agency Is Considered:"

The Bush administration is considering a major restructuring of the Justice Department that would create a powerful new national security division in an effort to consolidate and coordinate terrorism and espionage investigations better, officials say.
The concept, still at a preliminary stage, reflects concerns among some administration officials that national security cases handled by Justice Department lawyers and investigators remain fragmented at times because of bureaucratic divisions, despite structural changes made since the Sept. 11 attacks.
[. . .]
But the idea of creating what amounts to a superdivision at the Justice Department, with even broader power to combat terrorism, is also likely to stir concerns from civil rights advocates and conservative libertarians, who assert that the national antiterrorism law, the USA Patriot Act, has already given the Justice Department too much power to track terrorism suspects without reasonable cause. Some officials acknowledged that a single national security division could have the potential to curtail checks and balances that are now in place.

Glen Justice's "Election Commission Urges Finance Rules for Online Politics" is of interest:


The Federal Election Commission on Thursday proposed new ways to apply campaign finance rules to online political activity, inviting members of the public to comment on how the agency should regulate things like online advertising and e-mailed political messages.
The proposal, which would primarily address paid political advertising on the Internet, was the first step toward new rules that were mandated by a federal court last year after the commission lost a legal challenge.
Accordingly, the six-member commission, split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, is treading lightly as it begins what will be a months-long process that includes a public hearing in June.
[. . .]
Other provisions seem to indicate that the panel might be leaning away from heavy regulations on most "bloggers," whose online commentary played a major role in last year's election.


"Judge Tells City to Release Much of 9/11 Oral History" by Michael Cooper is another story that may get lost but deserves attention:


The state's highest court ruled on Thursday that the Bloomberg administration must release the New York City Fire Department's oral history of the Sept. 11 attack, but said the city could withhold portions that would cause "serious pain or embarrassment" to the fire officials interviewed.
The ruling, by the Court of Appeals, came in response to a lawsuit brought by The New York Times seeking the release of the Fire Department's thousands of pages of oral history of the attack and the unedited tapes and transcripts of emergency calls made to 911 and radio dispatches that day, under the state's Freedom of Information Law.
While the court ordered the release of the oral history - interviews with more than 500 employees about the city's response to the attack - it allowed the city to sharply edit the tapes and transcripts of 911 calls.


"Agency's Web Site Out of Sync With Bush Plan" by David E. Rosenbaum points out the problems with a nonreading administration -- they don't check the web sites to make sure they're echoing the talking points. Rosenbaum discovers that the following points re: social security are still online at the Social Security web site:

*Your Social Security taxes pay for potential disability and survivors benefits as well as for retirement benefits.
*Social Security incorporates social goals - such as giving more protection to families and to low-income workers - that are not part of private pension plans; and
*Social Security benefits are adjusted yearly for increases in the cost of living - a feature not present in many private plans."


Ralph Blumenthal reports on "A Town Used to Danger Shifted Into Crisis Mode:"

Earnest Olvey was cleaning up a job at the BP refinery here Wednesday when, he said, "all of a sudden I heard two little pops." He turned to see flames some 100 feet away and started to run. That, he said Thursday from his hospital bed in Galveston, was when his world exploded, sending him flying.
One of the hundred or so contractors injured in the nation's worst refinery accident in 10 years, he was one of the lucky ones, said Mr. Olvey, 39, a heavy equipment operator. Fifteen other workers died in the blast and fire, the last victim found in the rubble a day a day later.
The medical examiner said the force of the blast was so great that everyone who perished either died instantly or was knocked unconscious. Only a handful of victims could be easily identified.

And Kirk Johnson covers another tragedy that's gone unnoticed as one topic has dominated,
"Survivors of High School Rampage Left With Injuries and Questions:"

Many students at Red Lake High School ignored Jeff Weise, with his weird hairstyles and his talk about guns. Cody Thunder, who is 15, was one of the few who reached out and tried to make a connection. Just ordinary conversation, he said, nothing too deep.
But on Monday afternoon, as Cody sat in biology class - the usual spot at the front row, he said, near the door for a quick exit when the bell rang - there was Jeff outside in the hallway, visible through a glass partition, armed with a pistol.
"He was aiming at me," Cody said. An instant later, a bullet crashed through the glass into Cody's hip.
The violence that ripped through Red Lake High, on the reservation of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, will probably always be on some level inexplicable.
Eight people died at the school, including Mr. Weise, 16, who killed himself. He also killed his grandfather and his grandfather's companion a few minutes earlier.


The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.