Progressive News Digest - March 31, 2008
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Date: Mon, March 31, 2008
PROGRESSIVE NEWS DIGEST
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Volume IV, Issue #43 Monday, March 31, 2008
Welcome to another edition of Progressive News Digest, still rolling along in
its fourth year (just over the halfway-mark of Year 4, BTW, and with rare
exception this has appeared every week at some point).
This one has a full table of contents and a set of blurbs and links, so if you've
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... enjoy and see you next week! Check the site for constant
updates each day:
NEWS
01 - McCain commitment to public financing questioned
02 - Katrina victims may have to repay $$$
03 - States fight as REAL ID deadline nears
04 - Ruwart enters Libertarian nomination race
05 - CA: Pot candy producer pleads guilty
06 - TN: Dozens protest ex-con campus
07 - FARC acquired uranium, says Colombia
08 - Survey: Leadership means little to youngsters
09 - TN: FBI investigates spray painted racial slurs on houses
10 - FL: School security officer tasers 11-year-old girl
11 - MA: Boston schools will get $10 million bailout
12 - Gravel enters Libertarian presidential race
13 - Congress in no rush to fix Medicare and Social Security
14 - McCain’s stand on tobacco is put to test
15 - TN: Memphis man sentenced to 10 days per word for threatening judge
16 - OR: Transgendered man now claims “I’m pregnant”
17 - Most aren’t fans of healthcare system
18 - NY: Court overturns “Passenger Bill of Rights”
19 - Obamas put tax returns on Web
20 - TN: No wine at the grocery store … yet
21 - CA: Molestation case against music teacher dropped
22 - Ex-slave works to free others from West African tradition
23 - DoOneNiceThing.Com inspires do-gooders to keep it up
24 - MI: Kevorkian considers Congress run
25 - Keeping the “grave” out of “graveyard shift”
COMMENTARY
26 - Five years later, we told you so about Iraq
27 - The manufacture of uncertainty
28 - Is Wright right about racism?
29 - For a social bailout
30 - Tough lesson
31 - Who is free from public comment?
32 - When Zola wrote “J’accuse!”
33 - Indecent exposure
34 - When a great power goes mad
35 - ‘Running up and down with guns’
36 - Justice and the Monsters of War
37 - Peak oil? Consider it solved
38 - What made Richardson flip?
39 - For the press, no Iraq introspection
40 - A conversation with Mike Gravel
41 - Is a new, dangerous biohazard site coming to your state soon?
42 - How Barack uses Bill
43 - Solar energy v. redwoods
44 - McCain on the red phone
45 - Honestly, candidates, stop the truth-parsing
46 - End the war: Try again
47 - Changing the minds of superdelegates
48 - End the community service sham
49 - Seattle battles the homeless
50 - Moral hazard
51 - Drive-by defamation
52 - War of The Word
53 - Obama touches the real third rail and survives
54 - It’s not the French; it’s US
55 - Blue collar, bare cupboards
NEWS
01 - McCain commitment to public financing questioned
Boston Globe
“Senator John McCain has retreated from his longtime commitment to public financing of campaigns since he started planning his 2008 bid for the presidency, according to nonpartisan advocates who had hoped McCain would be a strong voice for reform during the most expensive presidential campaign in history. McCain, who angered conservatives when he coauthored a bipartisan law aimed at taking big money out of politics, in 2003 cosponsored legislation to expand the federal matching system to help fund presidential campaigns, but failed to add his name to similar measures in 2006 and 2007. And while McCain once supported a law in his home state of Arizona providing full public financing of campaigns, he now says he opposes that idea at the federal level.” [editor’s note: Hypocrisy, anyone? After burdening all other candidates with his “campaign reform” bill, Old John doesn’t wanna polay by those rules. Oh, and “screw BCRA” too! - SAT] (03/30/08)
=====
02 - Katrina victims may have to repay $$$
Raw Story
“Imagine that your home was reduced to mold-covered wood framing by Hurricane Katrina. Desperate for money to rebuild, you engage in a frustrating bureaucratic process, and after months of living in a government provided-trailer that gives off formaldehyde fumes you finally win a federal grant. Then a collector announces that you have to pay back thousands of dollars. Thousands of Katrina victims may be in the same boat. A private contractor under investigation for the compensation it received to run the Road Home grant program for Katrina victims says that in the rush to deliver aid to homeowners in need some people got too much. Now it wants to hire a separate company to collect millions in grant overpayments.” (03/29/08)
=====
03 - States fight as REAL ID deadline nears
Christian Science Monitor
“Frustrated by unfunded federal mandates, a number of states are revolting. The latest case in point: stiff resistance to REAL ID, a controversial post-9/11 law that aims to make driver’s licenses more secure [sic]. The Department of Homeland Security set Monday as the deadline for states to get an extension for implementing REAL ID. Miss this deadline, DHS warned resistant states, and come May, your residents won’t be allowed to board planes with their current driver’s licenses. Montana is one state that’s been opposed to the DHS requirements. Rather than request an extension, it sent DHS a letter explaining what it’s already doing to strengthen licenses. Still, DHS responded on March 21 by granting an extension. New Hampshire, another REAL ID holdout, took a similar path with DHS and also got an unasked-for extension last week.” [editor’s note: If this were truly about “making driver’s licenses more secure,” it would not be receiving nearly the opposition it is getting from us ci
vil libertarians - SAT] (03/31/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0331/p03s03-uspo.html
=====
04 - Ruwart enters Libertarian nomination race
Liberty For All
“Two months ahead of its national convention in Denver, the Libertarian Party’s already crowded field of candidates grew by one on Friday as Dr. Mary J. Ruwart announced her candidacy for the LP’s 2008 presidential nomination. Responding to an informal draft effort conducted by party activists, the author of Amazon.Com #1 bestseller Healing Our World in an Age of Aggression launched her campaign web site and announced plans to begin addressing state party conventions and other political events with the intent of challenging Republican candidate John McCain and the Democratic Party’s as yet unnamed nominee for the support of America’s voters.” (03/21/08)
http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=1230
=====
05 - CA: Pot candy producer pleads guilty
San Francisco Chronicle
“The owner of an Oakland factory that produced marijuana candy with names like Buddafinga and Mr. Greenbud has pleaded guilty to conspiring to manufacture and distribute marijuana, authorities said today. Michael Martin, 33, of El Sobrante entered a guilty plea at a hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Oakland. He is scheduled to be sentenced July 2 by Judge Claudia Wilken. Martin is the owner of Tainted Inc., which started as a boutique business that made chocolate truffles and grew into a large marijuana-candy maker that bought chocolate by the ton, authorities said.” [editor’s note And the nature of the “offense?” Providing more palatable ways of ingesting a substance that the voters of California (and later on, several other states) have decided is a legitimate medical aid for nausea and other ailments, allowing the chronically ill to survive a bit longer - SAT] (03/27/08)
=====
06 - TN: Dozens protest ex-con campus
Tennessean
“A proposal to build a 30-house campus near Long Hunter State Park [Nashville] for recently released convicts drew so much opposition Saturday that its authors delivered two information sessions instead of one. At least 250 residents from Davidson, Wilson and Rutherford counties — some visibly angry — packed an office building at the state park Saturday morning to hear from a local Christian ministry about its $10.5 million program to reintegrate men with felony convictions into society. Those who came expressed deep concerns for their safety and plummeting property values with such a facility nearby. Many questioned its security and asked Men of Valor, the prison ministry, what benefit it would bring to their area.” (03/30/08)
=====
07 - FARC acquired uranium, says Colombia
Christian Science Monitor
“Weeks after the dust settled from the Colombian bombs dropped on a clandestine rebel camp in Ecuador, the information found on three laptop computers found in the rubble continues to reverberate in the Andes. On Wednesday, Colombian military officials said that they recovered 66 pounds of uranium that, they say, was acquired by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Colombian Gen. Freddy Padilla tied the uranium to the seized laptops, saying one of the computer files mentions attempts by the FARC to buy uranium, apparently to resell. Earlier this month, Colombian officials claimed the rebels were seeking uranium to make a ‘dirty bomb.’” (03/28/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0328/p07s03-woam.html
=====
08 - Survey: Leadership means little to youngsters
Arizona Republic
“A new nationwide survey of girls and boys found that a majority of children and youths in the United States have little or no interest with achieving leadership roles when they become adults, ranking ‘being a leader’ behind other goals such as ‘fitting in,’ ‘making a lot of money’ and ‘helping animals or the environment.’ The study commissioned by the Girl Scouts of the USA and released Wednesday determined that three-quarters of African-American girls and boys and Hispanic girls surveyed already identify themselves as leaders, a much larger group than White youths, about half of whom think of themselves this way.” (03/27/08)
=====
09 - TN: FBI investigates spray painted racial slurs on houses
Tennessean
“The FBI has joined an investigation into racial slurs spray painted on two houses in Cleveland and whether the acts are a hate crime. Margaret Arnold said her neighbors told her Tuesday the outside of her house was sprayed with what she described as ‘bad words,’ KKK and other symbols. The blue paint was also sprayed on the house next door. Police say it appeared the same paint was used to write racial slurs on the two houses. Cleveland Mayor Tom Rowland said at a Thursday news conference he considers the painted words to be a hate crime, although not directed specifically at the residents.” (03/27/08)
=====
10 - FL: School security officer tasers 11-year-old girl
Fox News
“A Florida elementary school student was tasered Thursday after punching a school security officer during an alleged fight. The alleged incident began when teachers at the Moss Elemenary School in Orange County confronted an 11-year-old girl for allegedly attempting to push another student into ongoing traffic outside the campus, MyFOXOrlando.com reported. Authorities say the young female ignored the teacher and walked inside the homeroom where she was again approached by teachers over her behavior. The student responded by thowing a desk and chair and attempting to spit on the instructor, according to MyFOXOrlando.com. Donna Hudepohl, a school resource officer called to remove the troubled girl from the classroom, was allegedly pushed and punched in the face during a struggle to restrain her. Hudepohl responded by tasering the girl.” (03/27/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,342471,00.html
=====
11 - MA: Boston schools will get $10 million bailout
Boston Globe
“Averting imminent school closings and deep classroom cuts, Boston will bail out the cash-strapped school system by giving it a one-time infusion of $10 million from city reserves, school and city officials said yesterday. The funds will help the district close a $30.7 million budget shortfall and give its new superintendent some breathing room to tighten operations. Dealing with her first budget since she arrived in August, Superintendent Carol Johnson said she also has identified $18.7 million in cuts, mostly by reducing central office staff, deferring maintenance on school buildings, installing energy-saving software on computers, and limiting the number of teachers and principals who go through training programs. While she tried to steer cuts away from classrooms, she said, it was impossible to make ends meet without affecting students.” (03/27/08)
=====
12 - Gravel enters Libertarian presidential race
Washington Post
“Mike Gravel is headed to the convention in Denver. No, not that one. The septuagenarian former Alaska senator, who, depending on your viewpoint, was an amusing or aggravating presence in the early Democratic presidential debates, has announced that he is joining the Libertarian Party and will be competing for its presidential nomination in Denver in late May. … Andrew Davis, a spokesman for the Libertarian Party, said that Gravel was welcome to compete for the party’s nomination, noting that the only requirements for running were meeting the constitutional requirements for the presidency, being a member of the party and being willing to accept its nomination. But he said that Gravel might face a tough sell on some issues — while the party’s membership agrees with his stances against the war in Iraq and the military draft, among other issues, it differs with his stances in favor of universal health care and higher spending on public education.” [editor's note: This is NOT necessari
ly a good sign for the LP, though it could spell a step ahead for liberty. Stay tuned - SAT] (03/26/08)
=====
13 - Congress in no rush to fix Medicare and Social Security
Christian Science Monitor
“Lawmakers are preparing to get serious about the long-term solvency of America’s Social Security and Medicare programs — but not until the next Congress convenes. The latest annual report on the prospects for Social Security and Medicare projects a $42.9 trillion shortfall over the next 75 years, at current levels of benefits and taxation. The message Congress is taking away from the report is that there’s still time to build bipartisan consensus for reform. ‘I believe that we must get serious about addressing the long-term challenges to Social Security and Medicare,’ said House majority leader Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, in a statement. ‘To that end, we must begin to lay the foundation for bipartisan action on this issue in the next Congress. …’” (03/27/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0327/p02s02-usgn.html
=====
14 - McCain’s stand on tobacco is put to test
Boston Globe
“Ten years ago, Senator John McCain took on the tobacco industry, saying he would never back down from legislation to regulate the industry. He also supported a $1.10-per-pack tax on cigarettes to fund programs to cut underage smoking. ‘I still regret we did not succeed,’ he said as recently as last October. Now, McCain’s longtime effort to crack down on tobacco is being put to a new test. Within weeks, the Senate is expected to vote on legislation to allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco. McCain agreed months ago to cosponsor the current bill with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, but McCain’s policy adviser said the senator won’t commit to voting for it until he sees the final legislation.” (03/26/08)
=====
15 - TN: Memphis man sentenced to 10 days per word for threatening judge
Tennessean
“A man has talked himself into nearly two years in jail after threatening to kill a Shelby County criminal court judge. Joshua Beadle has been held in contempt and sentenced to 10 days per word after a judge ordered him to stop the threatening comments. Judge Lee Coffee stopped counting at 70 words and sentenced Beadle to 700 days in jail. Beadle was shackled and outfitted in a special hooded spit mask during the hearing Monday after spitting at the judge at a hearing in January. Beadle missed the judge and instead hit a clerk’s computer.” (03/26/08)
=====
16 - OR: Transgendered man now claims “I’m pregnant”
Fox News
“A transsexual woman who has undergone reconstructive surgery and testosterone therapy, and who calls herself ‘a man,’ claims to be five months pregnant with a baby girl. Oregon resident Thomas Beatie told The Advocate magazine that carrying a daughter for her wife Nancy is an ‘incredible’ experience. The article carried a photo showing Beatie with an enlarged midsection, purportedly the result of being pregnant. Neighbors, however, think otherwise. … Beatie, born a woman, has had a chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy, but decided to keep her female reproductive organs. Beatie claims to have become pregnant through artificial insemination. … Beatie says Nancy had a hysterectomy 20 years ago, and that’s when they started thinking about Beatie carrying their child.” [editor’s note: The funniest part about this story is how Faux News avoids pronouns in describing it! - SAT] (03/26/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,341595,00.html
=====
17 - Most aren’t fans of healthcare system
San Francisco Chronicle
“A survey of more than 26,400 Americans conducted by the AFL-CIO found that people are fed up with the U.S. health care system, whether they have health insurance or not. ‘The survey results paint a devastating picture of a healthcare system that costs too much, covers too little, leaves too many people behind and is getting worse,’ AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in a conference call. The survey, conducted by the union and its affiliate Working America between Jan. 14 and March 3, was not random but was open to anyone who responded to the online questionnaire. About half the respondents said they were union members.” [editor’s note: I answered this survey, while wondering how they would distort the results - SAT] (03/26/08)
=====
18 - NY: Court overturns “Passenger Bill of Rights”
Fox News
“A federal appeals court has rejected the first law in the nation requiring airlines to provide food, water, clean toilets and fresh air to passengers trapped in a plane delayed on the ground. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that New York’s new state law interferes with federal law governing the price, route or service of an air carrier. The appeals court said the new law was laudable and the circumstances that brought them about were deplorable but only the federal government has the authority to enact such a law. The law was challenged before the appeals court by the Air Transport Association of America, the industry trade group representing leading U.S. airlines.” (03/25/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,341388,00.html
=====
19 - Obamas put tax returns on Web
Boston Globe
“Barack Obama’s campaign yesterday posted on its website the senator and his wife’s tax returns for 2000 through 2006, and challenged rival Hillary Clinton to do the same. More than 100 pages of the returns are available to anyone with Internet access. Senator Clinton said yesterday she will release her tax returns in the next week, well in advance of the April 22 Pennsylvania primary. Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said the Obamas will disclose their taxes for 2007 ‘in the coming weeks.’” (03/26/08)
=====
20 - TN: No wine at the grocery store … yet
Tennessean
“A proposal that would allow wine to be sold in retail stores in Tennessee has stalled in the legislature. The measure sponsored by Sen. Bill Ketron, a Murfreesboro Republican, was deferred in the Senate State and Local Government Committee on Tuesday to allow more discussion. Ketron, the committee chairman, says he’s considering sending the bill to a summer study committee. Under the bill, an applicant would receive a ‘wine at food store’ license from the alcoholic beverage commission if the retail store is located in a county or city that has authorized the sale of alcohol. The companion bill has been retained in a House government committee since January.” (03/25/08)
=====
21 - CA: Molestation case against music teacher dropped
San Francisco Chronicle
“Contra Costa County prosecutors dropped child-molestation charges Monday against a Lafayette music teacher who had been accused of assaulting three teenage boys, after a judge ruled that an investigator in the case had shown a ‘reckless disregard for the truth.’ Prosecutors dropped the case against James Toland, 63, after Superior Court Judge John Sugiyama granted a defense motion to throw out evidence obtained under a warrant to search Toland’s computers. … The investigator reported that one of the alleged victims, a 15-year-old boy who took singing lessons from Toland, said the teacher had ‘grabbed his penis and buttocks and moved it around.’ … But Toland had simply touched the boy’s lower back and abdomen to adjust his posture, a standard technique in voice lessons.” (03/25/08)
=====
22 - Ex-slave works to free others from West African tradition
Christian Science Monitor
“Boubacar Messaoud, the son of slaves who toiled in the fields of Mauritanian landowners, remembered stopping one day when he was 7 to see what was going on. Local children being signed up for school. He asked a cousin of his family’s owner to help him enroll. ‘I can’t,’ the man replied. ‘What will your master say?’ Messaoud put down the watermelon he was carrying and cried. The ancient tradition of slavery endures in the West African nation today, although it was officially abolished in the 1980s. There are roughly half a million slaves among a population of 3.3 million, and at least 80 percent do not have access to a formal education, Messaoud said during recent visit here. Messaoud founded the antislavery group SOS Slaves in 1995.” (03/26/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0326/p04s01-woaf.html
=====
23 - DoOneNiceThing.Com inspires do-gooders to keep it up
Christian Science Monitor
“It began in the simplest way. Over lunch with girlfriends, Debbie Tenzer listened as they argued over the state of the world — war, crime, schools in Los Angeles — and how they felt helpless to change anything. Ms. Tenzer found herself resisting that view — and began to think what she could do. ‘OK, I can’t fix needy schools, but I could give them my children’s old schoolbooks,’ the mother of three recalls telling herself. ‘I can’t end the war, but I can send a phone card so a soldier can call home and feel comforted. I decided then I’d find a way to do one nice thing for someone every week.’ Tenzer, a marketing professional, started with small gestures of kindness on Mondays, her own most difficult day. Friends soon suggested she post these activities on a website, and DoOneNiceThing.com was born.” (03/24/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0325/p01s01-usgn.html
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24 - MI: Kevorkian considers Congress run
Raw Story
“Assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian, known as ‘Doctor Death’ for helping more than 100 people end their lives, said on Monday he will run for the U.S. Congress. The 79-year-old pathologist announced his bid to run as an independent less than a year after being released from prison where he served eight years for second-degree murder. ‘I have no ties, no fetters. I am free,’ Kevorkian told reporters, adding that he planned to run against the ‘tyranny’ of the U.S. Supreme Court which he said has robbed Americans of their rights.” (03/24/08)
=====
25 - Keeping the “grave” out of “graveyard shift”
San Francisco Chronicle
“When Debbie Toms first started working nights as a respiratory therapist, co-workers teased her that the graveyard shift would ‘take 10 years off your life,’ she said. It never occurred to her that there might be some truth to the statement. While Toms has managed to stay healthy in the 30 years that she’s worked off and on night shifts, most recently at Kaiser Permanente’s Regional Center for Sleep Medicine in San Jose, the graveyard shift has been associated with everything from ulcers and depression to heart disease and cancer. There’s even a formal diagnosis called shift work disorder, which applies to people who suffer insomnia and excessive sleepiness from working nights.” (03/24/08)
COMMENTARY
26 - Five years later, we told you so about Iraq
Orange County Register
Steven Greenhut
“The U.S. war in Iraq recently passed its five-year milestone, having now lasted longer than American involvement in World War II. The surge has brought some recent success, but it has not helped bring about the stated goal of political reconciliation. That might, in the words of Sen. John McCain, take 100 or even 1,000 years of U.S. occupation to achieve. Last week, America commemorated the grisly landmark of the 4,000th U.S. soldier killed there, while official estimates say that more than 29,000 Americans have been seriously wounded. Meanwhile, violence between Shiite militias and the Iraqi government in southern Iraq has been heating up. What a mess. The Bush administration and its supporters are still defending the war. They know that Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, that al-Qaida was never operating there until after the U.S. invasion, and that dreams of remaking the Middle East through American military might were overly optimistic and disturbingly utopian. Stil
l, they soldier on, arguing to those of us who opposed the war all along that ‘everyone thought that Saddam had those weapons’ at the time. Actually, everyone did not think that. I was chatting a few months ago with former OC Weekly Publisher Will Swaim, and we laughed at how strange it was that the foreign-policy establishment couldn’t figure out what was obvious to a few lefty editors at an alternative weekly and some righty editorial writers on a suburban newspaper. The skeptics had one thing in common: We didn’t trust the government to give us the straight scoop. We understood that government officials tend to manipulate the facts to reach a preordained conclusion.” (03/30/08)
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/war-iraq-editorial-2008187-last-everyone
=====
27 - The manufacture of uncertainty
The American Prospect
Chris Mooney
“The sabotage of science is now a routine part of American politics. The same corporate strategy of bombarding the courts and regulatory agencies with a barrage of dubious scientific information has been tried on innumerable occasions — and it has nearly always worked, at least for a time. Tobacco. Asbestos. Lead. Vinyl chloride. Chromium. Formaldehyde. Arsenic. Atrazine. Benzene. Beryllium. Mercury. Vioxx. And on and on. … Tobacco companies perfected the ruse, which was later copycatted by other polluting or health-endangering industries. One tobacco executive was even dumb enough to write it down in 1969. ‘Doubt is our product,’ reads the infamous memo, ’since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.’ In his important new book, Doubt is Their Product: How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health, David Michaels calls the strategy ‘manufacturing uncertain
ty.’” (03/28/08)
=====
28 - Is Wright right about racism?
In These Times
David Sirota
“Since the 1960s, bigotry has undergone an aesthetic makeover. Today, the most pernicious racists do not wear pointy hoods, scream epithets and anonymously burn crosses from behind masks. They don starched suits, recite sententious bromides and stage political lynchings before television cameras. For proof, behold the mob stalking Barack Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Wright has long delivered fiery (and occasionally outrageous) sermons, to little fanfare. Now, though, a gang of thugs is inflicting a guilt-by-association blow to Obama by excoriating his spiritual adviser for three specific declarations. Sean Hannity, Fox News’ own George Wallace, turned a fire hose on Wright for his church’s focus. ‘[The church] is all about the black community,’ Hannity thundered, claiming that means Wright supports ‘a black-separatist agenda.’” (03/27/08)
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3596/is_wright_right_about_racism/
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29 - For a social bailout
The Nation
Robin Blackburn
“The bailout of Wall Street banks began a while ago, when the Federal Reserve and the Treasury doled out easy loans. But on March 16 the scope of the rescue widened dramatically, with the Fed absorbing the losses at Bear Stearns, backing its sale at a heavily discounted price to JPMorgan Chase and announcing its willingness to make further loans to the rest of the Street against worthless collateral. The banks are being saved partly because they have friends in the right places but also because the failure of even one investment bank would undermine the others and spread havoc in the real economy.” [editor’s note: And then the writer goes on to recommend, not that this “corporate welfare” be squelched, but merely that the handouts be extended to other causes deemed more relevant by said writer. No mention is made of the fact that it all comes out of taxpayer pockets - SAT] (03/27/08)
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080414/blackburn
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30 - Tough lesson
Fox News
Tara Ross & Joseph C. Smith, Jr.
“Late last month, a California court ruled that California parents do not necessarily have a constitutional right to homeschool their children, even when the parents say they homeschool for religious reasons. The In re Rachel L. decision questions whether religiously motivated homeschooling is protected by the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of the ‘free exercise’ of religion. Reverberations of the ruling are spreading like shock waves through the homeschooling community. Dr. James Dobson immediately blasted the ruling as an ‘all-out assault on the family.’ More than 250,000 people have signed a petition requesting that the appellate decision be depublished, preventing the decision from bearing precedential value. The HomeSchool Association of California has asked its members to flood media outlets with letters and editorials. An appeal already has been promised.” (03/28/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,342869,00.html
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31 - Who is free from public comment?
Christian Science Monitor
Ronald Sokol
“France is known for its great restaurants. Chefs are singled out and graded by anonymous critics who award or withdraw stars to their restaurants. So seriously are these grades taken that from time to time a chef will commit suicide upon losing a star. Yet no starless chef has ever turned to the French judicial courts for relief from this scrutiny. Recently a more sensitive group, one that enjoys tenure for life, sought and won deliverance from their critics in a French court. A website went live in January allowing students in France to grade their teachers online based on six specific criteria such as motivation, interest, and clarity. The teachers were named. The students, for obvious reasons, remained anonymous. This did not go over well with teachers.” (03/31/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0331/p09s03-coop.html
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32 - When Zola wrote “J’accuse!”
Boston Globe
Jeff Jacoby
“It is the most famous front page in the history of journalism. Its one-word headline — J’accuse! — is if anything even more renowned. On Jan. 13, 1898, the French newspaper L’Aurore published Emile Zola’s extraordinary 4,000-word open letter on the Dreyfus Affair, a travesty of justice in which an innocent captain in the French army, Alfred Dreyfus, had been convicted of treason and sentenced to solitary confinement for life on Devil’s Island, a hellish penal colony off the coast of South America. Zola was then the most popular writer in France, and his impassioned essay defending Dreyfus and accusing the military court and the French government of a massive cover-up electrified the nation and reverberated around the world.” (03/30/08)
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33 - Indecent exposure
Asia Times
William Sparrow
“The Indonesian government’s new ban on Internet sites with “immoral content” comes at the same time another government campaign attempts to put free Internet access in all the nation’s high schools. Such complexities continue, as the world’s most populous Muslim nation tries to balance its “sexual evolution” with a bustling sex trade, the cyber age and what Jakarta considers moral decay.” (03/28/08)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/JC29Ae01.html
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34 - When a great power goes mad
Consortium News
Robert Parry
“With the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War and the grim milestone of 4,000 U.S. dead, the nation has been awash with news retrospectives on the war and speeches by politicians, mostly offering sanitized versions of what’s transpired. With a few exceptions, these media/political reflections have had the feel of self-rationalizations, more than self-criticisms. They’ve conveyed a sense that the U.S. system is doing just fine, thank you, although a few mistakes were made.” (03/28/08)
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/032808.html
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35 - ‘Running up and down with guns’
Las Vegas Review Journal
Vin Suprynowicz
“Bill Wade, executive council chairman of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, told The Los Angeles Times last month that people could be discouraged from visiting certain parks, such as Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, where he served as superintendent, if they knew the Second Amendment was in force, there.”How many of you would want to go out there if you knew that people were running up and down the Appalachian Trail with guns?”Gee, I don’t know, Bill. Do you avoid police stations because the law-abiding Americans there are armed? Military bases? Why would you come to America in the first place, if you didn’t like the idea of mere peasants “running up and down with guns”?” (03/30/08)
http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/17138006.html
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36 - Justice and the Monsters of War
CounterPunch
Missy Beattie
“I am a taxpayer who does not want my money to purchase crimes against humanity. To pay for occupations. For Dick Cheney’s mobile ambulance. For Bush excursions to other countries, mugging and shaking his booty. For Guantanamo. For speechwriters who create arrogant, aggressive ‘axis of evil’ threats and skits like Bush’s obscene search for WMD under his desk. I could go on and on and on.I am more than willing, though, to shell out for the arrest of these mass murderers, their trials, convictions, and sentences. And to see them locked up in small cells with concrete beds next to their toilets.” (03/29/08)
http://counterpunch.org/beattie03292008.html
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37 - Peak oil? Consider it solved
Salon
Joseph Romm
“For more than a decade, a fierce debate about peak oil has been raging between those who think a peak in global oil production is at hand and those who think the world is not close to running out of oil. The debate is moot for two reasons. First, the growing threat of global warming requires deep reductions in national and global oil consumption starting now, peak or no peak. Second, relying on unconventional oil like tar sands and liquid coal to make up a supply shortage, as the oilmen say we must, would be climate catastrophe. More supply is not the answer to either our oil or our climate problem — reducing consumption of oil is. And right now we have two feasible solutions: greatly increase our vehicle fuel economy and find alternative fuel sources that are abundant, low-carbon and affordable.” (03/28/08)
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38 - What made Richardson flip?
Slate
John Dickerson
“What did Barack Obama offer Bill Richardson for his endorsement? Nothing, say both the Obama and Richardson camps, but this is the question angry and jilted Clinton supporters are asking in the wake of Richardson’s announcement a week ago that he would support Obama rather than their woman. Despite Clinton strategist Mark Penn’s effort to downplay the endorsement, Richardson’s move was very helpful to Obama. When Richardson said he’d decided to back Obama in part because of Obama’s speech reacting to the uproar over his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his move became a symbolic end point to the controversy.” (03/28/08)
http://www.slate.com/id/2187560/
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39 - For the press, no Iraq introspection
Mother Jones
Greg Mitchell
“In the thousands of articles and television reports marking the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, nearly every important aspect of the war was probed. Fingers were pointed at the usual suspects — Rumsfeld, Bremer, and Cheney; stubborn Republicans and weak-willed Democrats, among many others — but conspicuously absent from the media coverage was any soul-searching on behalf of the press, as if there had been no major media slips or tragic omissions over the past five years. With months to plan for the commemoration, the media were ready to take stock of everything — but themselves.” (03/28/08)
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40 - A conversation with Mike Gravel
Last Free Voice
ElfNinosMom
“Earlier today, I had an opportunity to speak by telephone with Senator Mike Gravel, a presidential candidate who has switched from the Democratic Party to the Libertarian Party. Senator Gravel welcomed my questions, and I had a very positive impression of him. He is extremely well spoken, and quite passionate about many of the issues near and dear to the Libertarian Party. My purpose, of course, was to ascertain why he decided to switch parties, and whether he truly holds Libertarian views as opposed to only conveniently holding libertarian views in order to get the LP nomination.” (03/28/08)
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41 - Is a new, dangerous biohazard site coming to your state soon?
AlterNet
Stan Cox
“What would it take to convince you that your town should play host to the world’s most feared human and animal pathogens? Believe it or not, five states are locked in fierce competition over a proposed bioterror lab that would have them doing just that. In 2002, the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was given control of Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York. Now DHS is seeking a home in the heartland for a National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) that would take over Plum Island’s work, along with its potent microbial cultures. The fact that many diseases are now known to jump between humans and animals, combined with this decade’s terror-fixation, has led the federal government to convert the agricultural problem of sick livestock into the national-security problem of bioterrorism.” (03/29/08)
http://www.alternet.org/story/80576/
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42 - How Barack uses Bill
Slate
John Dickerson
“How much of a rhetorical genius is Bill Clinton? He could find wiggle room in the word is. He could issue stern denials about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky while looking straight into the camera. Sen. Bob Kerrey once described him as ‘an unusually good liar.’ Clinton is considered such a master of the art of political speech that during this campaign, his every remark is scrutinized for hidden agendas, motivations, and lucky lottery numbers. … But Clinton can’t possibly be angling as much or as often as people give him credit. Like Karl Rove, the former president is inevitably assumed to be playing games he may not actually be trying to play. What’s intent and what’s reputation doesn’t matter to Obama campaign aides, though. They have effectively used Clinton’s reputation as a political master against his wife’s campaign.” (03/24/08)
http://www.slate.com/id/2187300/
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43 - Solar energy v. redwoods
AlterNet
Douglas Fox
“It started as a typical over-the-back-fence suburban neighborhood chat, not the kind of thing that would escalate into a criminal prosecution. Carolynn Bissett and her husband, Richard Treanor, were pulling weeds in their backyard on Benton Street here on a July day in 2001, when their neighbor Mark Vargas peeked over the fence for a chat. Mr. Vargas said he planned to install solar panels on the trellis behind his house — meaning he needed access to sunlight. But the row of eight 10- to 25-foot redwoods along that edge of the couple’s backyard would have to go — or be shortened, or perhaps replaced with smaller trees.” (03/27/08)
http://www.alternet.org/environment/80170/
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44 - McCain on the red phone
The American Prospect
Harold Meyerson
“It is 3 a.m., and the stillness of the White House night is shattered by the ringing of the red phone. President John McCain, rousing himself from a deep sleep, turns on the light and picks up the receiver. A U.S. embassy in a Middle Eastern country, he is told, has been blown up, and al-Qaeda is taking credit. McCain takes a deep breath. ‘Character counts, my friend,’ he says. ‘Bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb Iran.’ There is a rustling of blankets, and, brushing aside Cindy McCain, a concerned Joe Lieberman rises from the bed. ‘Not Iran, Mr. President,’ he says. ‘They hate al-Qaeda.’ ‘That’s right,’ the president says. ‘I remember now.’ He sighs with relief. ‘Good thing you’re here every night, Joe.’ But suppose, dear reader, that John McCain becomes president and Joe Lieberman doesn’t bunk with the McCains on a nightly basis. How easily should the rest of us sleep?” (03/27/08)
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=mccain_on_the_red_phone
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45 - Honestly, candidates, stop the truth-parsing
Boston Globe
Joan Vennochi
“Hillary Clinton remembers sniper fire during a 1996 visit to war-torn Bosnia. Barack Obama can’t remember exactly what he heard at church over the past 20 years. After the past eight years, it’s no joke. The truth matters. In 2000, George W. Bush campaigned for the presidency as the candidate who would bring honesty back to the White House. Now, many statements he made in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq and afterward are considered blatant lies. Today, the president’s credibility on subjects foreign and domestic is in tatters.” (03/27/08)
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46 - End the war: Try again
The Nation
Christopher Hayes
“On the late afternoon of the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a grim, surreal procession made its way up DC’s Capitol Hill. Down Independence Avenue alongside the House office buildings marched a single file of protesters, each clad in a black T-shirt, wearing a haunting white mask and holding a sign with the name of a civilian killed in Iraq. As they trudged up the Hill, a drummer rapped out a spare and mournful beat. Aside from several police escorts on bicycles, few were there to bear witness. Congress was in recess, the usual passel of commuters away or shuttered indoors, the streets empty under a misting gray sky. Like the real-life funerals for the Iraqi dead they represented, this re-creation, too, would pass with hardly a notice.” (03/27/08)
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080414/hayes
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47 - Changing the minds of superdelegates
Fox News
Susan Estrich
“I had to laugh last weekend watching New Mexico Governor and superdelegate Bill Richardson, who was everywhere endorsing Barack Obama, taking a moralistic stance on superdelegates respecting the will of the people. Come again. Which people? Would that be the people of his home state, who he will actually be ‘representing’ at the convention, or the people of the 48 states that will be allowed to vote on the first Credentials Challenge, or the people of the 50 states who will be voting if Hillary ultimately has even one more vote than Obama on the question of seating Florida and Michigan?” (03/26/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,342029,00.html
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48 - End the community service sham
Christian Science Monitor
Patrick O'Connor
“High school students, especially those of you applying to college, it’s time to have a heart-to-heart about the meaning of community service. Here’s the deal: Chances are, the community you live in doesn’t have enough money to pay for everything it needs. Some older community members could use a little company, or some elementary school kids may have nowhere to go after school. The DVDs in the library may need to be catalogued, or the local business owners could use a hand running the town Halloween party. The help may seem a bit random, but it’s still needed. Because you like where you live, and you want to keep it nice — or because you’d like to make it even nicer — you step up, pitch in, and help out people you’ve never even met before. It goes beyond serving you, it serves everyone. That’s community service.” (03/28/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0328/p09s03-coop.html
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49 - Seattle battles the homeless
In These Times
Silja J.A. Talvi
“Underneath the I-5 highway in south Seattle, Isaac Palmer had found a spot to sleep. Hidden away from public view, Palmer likely thought he had found a bit of safety in a city where many homeless people die, often as a result of hypothermia, illness, drug overdose or violent attack. But while tucked in his sleeping bag on June 3, 2007, Palmer, 66, was crushed to death by a brush-clearing machine rolling through the weeds that had been his cover. At the time, Palmer’s death didn’t provoke public outrage. Instead, it was chalked up to an unfortunate consequence of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. The Washington Department of Transportation says it posted a flyer 48 hours in advance, warning homeless people in the area of a clean-up operation.” (03/27/08)
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50 - Moral hazard
The American Prospect
Robert B. Reich
“Letting children bear the consequences of their risky behavior — what some parents call ‘tough love’ — is equally applicable [to] adults, and conservatives have made something of a fetish out of it. Months ago, when the president announced a paltry plan to help out a few of the millions of homeowners who got caught in the sub-prime loan mess, he reiterated the credo: ‘It’s not government’s job to bail out … those who made the decision to buy a home they knew they could not afford.’ Days ago, when he endorsed the giant Fed bailout of Wall Street, the president signaled it was government’s job to bail out big bankers who had made decisions to buy and sell risky securities they knew (or should have known) they could not afford.” (03/26/08)
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=moral_hazard
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51 - Drive-by defamation
Boston Globe
Jeff Jacoby
“Politics, as they say, ain’t beanbag. Unfair accusations have been lobbed in the heat of presidential campaigns for as long as presidential campaigns have been heated. In 1796, historian Paul Boller records, John Adams was denounced by Thomas Jefferson’s partisans as ‘an avowed friend of monarchy,’ who intended to make his sons ‘Lords of this country.’ Adams’s Federalist followers called Jefferson a ‘Franco-maniac’ favored by ‘cut-throats who walk in rags and sleep amidst filth and vermin.’ The current presidential contest has not — so far — generated any charges of secret monarchism or Francomania. Bum raps and low blows, however, have not been lacking. The latest took flight when retired Air Force General Merrill McPeak, a military adviser to Barack Obama, hauled out the M-word and fired it at former president Bill Clinton.” (03/26/08)
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52 - War of The Word
The Nation
Robert Scheer
“Would God ever damn America? Is there anything we have done or could do as a nation that might court such severe judgment from an almighty, or is there a peculiar American exemption from God’s wrath? The prediction of God’s damnation for bad behavior is made in both black and white churches. One authority on such matters, the Rev. Pat Robertson, didn’t think the latter when he blamed the ravaging effects of Hurricane Katrina on the Lord’s retribution against those who ’shed innocent blood.’ Robertson’s reference to legalized abortion cited a passage from Leviticus that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright also might have been thinking of when he sermonized: ‘The government … wants us to sing God Bless America. No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people,’ a reference to African-Americans sacrificed on ghetto streets.’ While the ‘innocents’ about whom they spoke are different, the scriptural reference seems to be the same.” (03/26/08)
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080407/scheer
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53 - Obama touches the real third rail and survives
Orange County Register
Steven Greenhut
“If Sen. Barack Obama goes on to win the presidency, his March 18 speech in Philadelphia dealing with the firestorm that erupted over his former pastor’s incendiary remarks will be analyzed for decades — as a pivotal point not just in his campaign, but in the art of modern presidential speech-giving. Unlike many of his other talks, which have featured high-sounding rhetoric that, upon close examination, comes up a bit empty, this one was direct and forthright, an admirable feat given that he was dealing with perhaps the most painful subject in American society: race.” (03/23/08)
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54 - It’s not the French; it’s US
Our Future
Robert Borosage
“Our McCain ad struck a chord, eliciting both reason and vitriol. It strikes me that it is worth being clear what the ad says and doesn’t say. Other than the bad French accent, it isn’t anti-French, xenophobic or ‘racist.’ It doesn’t accuse the French of taking jobs from us. It features a Frenchman hailing Sen. John McCain for bringing jobs to France. There is a fundamental difference. And that is the point. We’ve run a massive and unsustainable trade deficit. Despite a falling dollar and rising exports, we’re still selling off or borrowing about $2 billion a day to cover that deficit. One in five manufacturing jobs has been lost over the past eight years. And as even apologists of our current trade policies admit, this contributes big time to the stagnation of U.S. wages. This isn’t the fault of the French, or the Chinese or the Arabs — nor does the ad suggest that. It is the responsibility of the U.S. to figure out its strategy in a global economy.” (03/26/08)
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/it-s-not-french-it-s-us
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55 - Blue collar, bare cupboards
In These Times
Sasha Abramsky
“Ten miles outside Eugene in west central Oregon, little wooden houses and mobile homes make up the town of Alvadore. The homes are too far apart to give the town — population 1,358 — the appearance of a city, yet too close together for it to come off as true countryside. Old, domestically manufactured cars line the streets, as well as a few rundown mom-and-pop convenience stores. Small farmers, mill workers and construction people live here. And they work hard — or at least they do when they can get employment. There’s a dry nuts and prunes plant just outside town, as well as a Country Coach facility that manufactures motor homes. Many of the residents hold down several jobs to make ends meet. Yet for an increasing number of people in Alvadore, getting a paycheck — or even several paychecks — is not the same as earning enough to put food on the table.” (03/26/08)
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3574/blue_collar_bare_cupboards/
Peace, Love and Liberty
Steve Trinward, Editor