May 03, 2003
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/3/2003 11:30:17 PM |
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Damn you, J.G.!
I read Blogospherics: How blogs look with interest because I've been playing around subtly with how I post items here, working on visual clues to help make the flow more evident (quote vs. my comment on a quote vs. a quoted comment on a quote). I get to how many blogs look alike and you say " Look here," and trusting you like a fool, I do. I wind up on Roger Ailes' blog, which I wind up reading a chunk of. He, in turn, refers to The Daily Howler, which is discussing Chris Matthews' groveling before the presidential altar. And shudder he gave a link to the transcript of the show under discussion.
To be fair, the Howler did say the link was only for use "[i]f your stomach is strong."
I clicked the link.
AAAAAAAAAARrgh!!!
If you'll excuse me now, I'm going to wash my eyes out with soap.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/3/2003 08:27:36 PM |
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He left out the AWOL thing, though
Bush's arrival on aircraft carrier is a shameless photo op05/02/2003 01:48 AM EDT
By DeWayne Wickham
Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com
George W. Bush arrived on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln Thursday like a man returning from a combat mission.
… Never mind that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was seen hours earlier riding around Baghdad wearing a bullet-proof vest in an armored Humvee, or that a growing chorus of Iraqis have taken to the streets to chant "Americans go home," the president went to the aircraft carrier to proclaim that the war he launched to topple Saddam Hussein from power has made Iraq safe for democracy.
… Thirty-five years ago as his college deferment was about to expire, Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard. He was accepted into the unit despite recording "the lowest possible grade" on the pilot aptitude test, The Washington Post reported in 1999.
… Instead of going to Vietnam like hundreds of thousands of black and white young men of his generation who enlisted or were drafted into the military, Bush sat out the war at a National Guard base just a few miles from his home in Houston. On the application form for the National Guard Bush was asked if he wanted to go overseas. He checked the "do not volunteer" box, according to The Washington Post story.
… Instead of pointing out the difference between George Bush-the-warrior-president and George Bush-the-draft-avoider, much of the nation's media covered the president's arrival on the Lincoln as if he were the linear successor to Attila the Hun.
That's a shame.
And it's also an insult to the brave men and women who went to war in Iraq.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/3/2003 04:09:22 PM |
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In honor of Ralph Ellison
From BlackAmericaWeb
Ralph Ellison memorial unveiled in Harlem
05/01/2003 11:25 PM EDT
NEW YORK (AP) - Nine years after the death of award-winning author Ralph Ellison, a towering bronze sculpture honoring him and his extraordinary novel, "Invisible Man," was unveiled Thursday opposite his longtime home in West Harlem.
Bill Cosby and wife, Camille, actress Ruby Dee and folk singer Odetta were among several hundred people who filled Riverside Drive in front of The Beaumont apartment building Thursday for the ceremony. Ellison, who lived at The Beaumont for more than three decades, died in his eighth-floor apartment in 1994.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/3/2003 04:03:53 PM |
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Homeland security? You mean the deposit on my apartment?
From African-American News&Issues
Black (America) Alert!By BUD JOHNSON
African-American News&Issues
Have you ever had cause to pause and ponder why African Americans were once derisively called "spooks" by early America's racists and bigots? …
… Denial aside, during an era when Amos & Andy was simply a hilarious comedy, rather than racist propaganda, there was a consensus in mainstream America that described Negroes as a happy-go-lucky people, who could sing, dance and were scared of ghosts. They also were scared to fight, but sho' nuff loved Jesus.
But that was then. And this is now. Conversely, in 2003 America, instead of Blacks being scary people, they are a scary people who strike fear in the hearts of mainstream America. Hence, terrorist threats that cause others to tremble only incite brothers and sisters (living in the land of the free's violent, crime and drug-infested 'hoods) to pontificate: "Hell, we've been terrorized in America since we got off the slave ships."
In essence, homeland security is a joke to citizens who view the world from a Black perspective. Meanwhile, CBS-NEWS.com officially designated Attorney General John Ashcroft "The Minister of Fear" in 2002, and asked the salient question: "Who needs terrorists when we have John Ashcroft to scare us out of our pants?"
"But scaring people is another matter. And it's turning the Department of Justice into "The Ministry of Fear." For sure, the fear factor negates a secure homeland, insofar as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfied says, in one breath, that the war in Iraq has been won. But, alas, without waiting to exhale, in the same breath he warns that terrorist strikes on strategic American targets are still a real and present danger, therefore citizens shouldn't feel too secure in the homeland of the brave.
Thus, new terminology, such as "Code Orange Alert," have become part of our Homeland Security lexicon. Nevertheless, since more-conscious Black Americans have learned to live with terrorism, orange, red, or multicolored alerts don't wiggle our antennae.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/3/2003 03:58:38 PM |
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A personal question
Atrios usually has a lot of interesting stuff, but today he's posted a question of interest to me personally.
Taking a little poetic license in reporting it, he asks:
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/3/2003 02:35:22 PM |
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So which is it?
The Washinton Post says
Simpler Tax Cut Is Floated
House Leaders Offer Uniform Rate on Dividends, Capital GainsBy Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 1, 2003; Page A04
House leaders have embraced an effort to replace President Bush's complex plan to eliminate the "double taxation of dividends" with a simpler proposal to lower taxes on capital gains and dividends to a new, uniform rate, congressional sources said yesterday.
The decision could prove fatal to the president's embattled proposal, which faces slim prospects in the narrowly divided Senate. With Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's backing, Ways and Means Chairman William M. Thomas (R-Calif.) presented committee members a $550 billion tax-relief plan that differs in many ways from the 10-year, $726 billion tax-cut plan that Bush unveiled in January.
… as if this is a defeat or challenge of some kind to the current regime's agenda.
Yet the Times, in one of those articles I was avoiding this morning, says
House G.O.P. Tax Cuts Outdo Bush Plan in Favoring Wealthy… The analysis by the Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution found, for example, that taxpayers with incomes of more than $1 million would get an average tax cut this year of $105,636 under the plan outlined on Thursday by Representative Bill Thomas of California, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Under the Bush proposal, the average cut for these people would be $89,509.
… By the same token, taxpayers with incomes between $50,000 and $75,000 would get an average tax cut this year of $734 under the the Bush plan and $712 under the Thomas plan; those with incomes between $40,000 and $50,000 would get an average cut of $482 under the Bush plan and $456 under the Thomas version. Similar disparities exist with the smaller tax cuts at lower income levels. Eighty-four percent of all taxpayers have incomes of less than $75,000.
The main difference between the two plans is that the president would eliminate the tax on most stock dividends but would not change capital gains taxes. The House plan would lower the tax on capital gains - now 18 percent or 20 percent in most cases - to 15 percent and tax income from dividends, now taxed at rates up to 38.5 percent, also at 15 percent.
Rich people, because they have more to invest, are the main beneficiaries of capital gains and dividends. But they have a larger proportion of total capital gains, which are profits from the sale of investments, than they do of dividends. So they benefit even more when the capital gains rate is reduced than they do from eliminating the tax on dividends.
It becomes obvious that this reduction in the overall tax cut package continues the trend that Reagan started: the transferance of as much wealth as possible to the upper economic classes. We get distracted trying to understand or disprove the reasoning behind each gesture when the clearest way of looking at government actions is to ask
- Who benefits
- How do they get the benefits
It's not even about who gets hurt. That is literally not a concern. How it
looks is a concern, though. So you have
The New Republic Online saying things like
The problem for the administration is that it doesn't serve the overall goal of passing as large a tax cut as possible. From a tactical perspective, clearly the best way to do that would be to keep the full dividend tax repeal intact, while temporarily junking the more popular provisions of the tax cut--like the increase in the child tax credit and the increase in the depreciation allowance for small business investment--and then passing them in a second bill later in the year. But thanks to the House, it looks like that strategy is now off the table.
… which positions the House Republicans to claim they listened to sound fiscal advice a fought for a lower tax cut while simultaneuously benefitting their constituency to an even greater degree than the initial proposal would.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/3/2003 12:05:19 PM |
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Amusing
So I'm watching Static Shock, a cartoon about a dreadlocked teen-age Black superhero. He's in Gotham City working with Batman.
After they talk to some cops and leave, one of them says, "What the heck did Robin do to his hair?"
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/3/2003 10:02:19 AM |
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Doesn't he look all forceful and studly with that nice erect cannon behind him? Huh? Doesn't he?
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/3/2003 07:47:47 AM |
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I'm not even going to read it
There's some stuff in the Times that, well, I'm going to have to eat before I read them.
Digging Up the Dead Digging Up the Dead
By BILL KELLER
How Iraq faces its recent past will ultimately count for as much as the design of a transitional government or the divvying up of the oil.
House G.O.P. Tax Cuts Outdo Bush Plan in Favoring Wealthy
By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM
WASHINGTON, May 2 � The tax-cut plan offered this week by Republican leaders in the House would be even more favorable to the wealthiest taxpayers than the larger plan proposed by President Bush, and those with incomes of less than $50,000 would have smaller tax reductions than under the Bush plan, a computer analysis showed today.
[p6: No, I gotta say something now - the idea is to make Bush's plan look like a compromise.]
Bush Begins Campaign to Sell His Economic Program
By DAVID E. SANGER
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/3/2003 07:40:06 AM |
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Y'all boy Colin is in the mix again
via the NY Times
Powell Rejects Syrian Weapons ProposalBy THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:45 a.m. ET
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell on Saturday turned aside the idea of immediate U.S. support for an Arab-backed U.N. resolution on ridding the Middle East of weapons of mass destruction -- a proposal obviously aimed at Israel.
"I think it is a goal that we have to pursue over time, and not ... at the moment of any particular declaration that might be put forward for political purposes, or to highlight the issue," Powell told reporters.
I can not believe Mr. Powell said this with a straight face.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/3/2003 07:35:19 AM |
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Having spent some time in Cali, I can vouch for this
And having spent time in the USofA, I can vouch for this:
"A society that can punish a marijuana offender more severely than a murderer is caught in the grip of a deep psychosis," he concludes. "Black markets will always be with us. But they will recede in importance when the public morality is consistent with our private one. The underground is a good measure of the progress and the health of nations. When much is wrong, much needs to be hidden."
With pot and porn outstripping corn, America's black economy is flying highIllegal migrants provide the muscle for US black market
Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Friday May 2, 2003
Marijuana, pornography and illegal labour have created a hidden market in the United States which now accounts for as much as 10% of the American economy, according to a study. As a cash crop, marijuana is believed to have outstripped maize, and hardcore porn revenue is equal to Hollywood's domestic box office takings.
Despite laws that punish marijuana cultivation more strictly than murder in some states, Americans spend more on illegal drugs than on cigarettes. And despite official disapproval of pornography, the US leads the world in export of explicit sex videos, according to Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labour in the American Black Market, by Eric Schlosser.
Excerpts in order of decreasing moral significance:
… "Migrant work in California has long absorbed Mexican surplus labour, while Mexico has in effect paid for the education, health care and retirement of California's farmworkers," writes Schlosser. "Maintaining the current level of poverty among migrant farmworkers saves the average American household around $50 a year."
Understand this well. We're not talking about the average American industrial farmer. We're talking about the average
American. Makes me wonder how much the average American family saves per year due to the current level of poverty and unemployment in the Black and Latino communities.
I need to say this. When you're a member of the mainstream, you benefit from the various 'isms'
whether you hold the position or not. All white people benefit from racism. Just as you don't have to be a farmer to receive the $50 per year savings that poverty among migrant farm workers gives you, you don't have to be a racist to benefit from the existance of racism.
This is a hard, hard thing, because it means that people who think they have never done a racist thing will still be impacted by anti-racism measures. This is the very thing that haters have used as a lever to shorten the focus of civil rights discussion - looking at the local impact of global strategies allowed the right to shift the discussion from enhancing the position of minorities to protecting the position of the majority.
… No aspect of farming has grown faster in the US over the past three decades than marijuana, with one-third of the public over the age of 12 having smoked the drug.
… the majority of the marijuana now cultivated domestically is being grown in the nation's mid-section - a swath running from the Appalachians west to the Great Plains. Throughout this Marijuana Belt drug fortunes are being made by farmers who often seem to have stepped from a page of the old Saturday Evening Post." [p6: Keep this in mind next time you be packin dat bowl a chronic.]
… Some estimates suggest 3 million Americans grow marijuana, although mostly for their own or their friends' use, but between 100,000 and 200,000 are believed to do so for a living.
The laws against the drug are strict. There were 724,000 people arrested for marijuana offences in 2001 and about 50,000 are in prison. Commercial growers can serve sentences far longer than those for murder, but the high risks appear to have had little effect on production or availability: 89% of secondary school students surveyed indicated that they could easily obtain the drug. [p6: Emphasis added]
Did you know
William F. Buckley thinks weed should be legalized?
exiguous adj limited: scanty or meager (formal)
(thought I'd save you the trouble …)" Taking pot can be risky, and stoned-while-driving should never be permitted. The scientific question - does pot harm? - is simply unsettled. It can be said that its ingestion has negative effects, and that there are positive effects. But experience is overwhelming the discussion, and it is teaching that however ill-advised it may be to take the drug, it is less well-advised to continue to arrest ten thousand people every week for a practice or indulgence of such exiguous social consequence."
… Hardcore pornography in the shape of videos, the internet, live sex acts and cable television is now estimated to generate around $10bn, roughly the same amount as Hollywood's US box office receipts.
… Americans spend more money at strip clubs than at Broadway, regional theatres and orchestra performances combined.
… Now the US leads the world in pornography; about 211 new films are produced every week. Los Angeles area is the centre of the film boom and many of those in the trade are otherwise respectable citizens.
Nina Hartley, a porn star, told Schlosser: "You'd be surprised how many producers and manufacturers are Republicans." [p6: no I wouln't]
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/3/2003 05:34:52 AM |
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May 02, 2003
From The Brookings Institution
Modest Progress: The Narrowing Spatial Mismatch Between Blacks and Jobs in the 1990sSteven Raphael and Michael A. Stoll
December 2002
Full Report (PDF)Census 2000 MattersThis analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data reveals that blacks' physical isolation from jobs improved slightly in the 1990s, though it remains significant. The survey also observes that the residential movement of black households within metropolitan areas drove most of the decline of segregation.
Findings:
An analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data on the location of people and jobs in U.S. metropolitan areas from 1990 to 2000 finds that:
- In 2000, no group was more physically isolated from jobs than blacks.In nearly all metropolitan areas with significant black populations, the separation between residences and jobs was much higher for blacks than whites.
- During the 1990s, blacks' overall proximity to jobs improved slightly, narrowing the gap in "spatial mismatch" between blacks and whites by 13 percent. Declines in spatial mismatch for blacks were smallest in metro areas in the Northeast, and in metro areas where blacks represent a relatively large share of the population.
- Metro areas with higher levels of black-white residential segregation exhibit a higher degree of spatial mismatch between blacks and jobs. In metro areas that experienced declines in black-white segregation during the 1990s, such as Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN and Pittsburgh, PA, the spatial mismatch between blacks and jobs tended to decline as well.
- The residential movement of black households within metropolitan areas drove most of the overall decline in spatial mismatch for blacks in the 1990s. By contrast, had black residential locations remained the same in 2000 as in 1990, the movement of jobs over the decade actually would have increased spatial mismatch for the metropolitan black population.
(Emphasis added)
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/2/2003 08:38:37 PM |
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What can be added to this?
U.S. says Canada cares too much about libertiesTerrorism report also says too little spent on police
Jim Bronskill, with files from Janice Tibbetts
The Ottawa Citizen
Thursday, May 01, 2003
The United States says the lack of funding for police and restrictive privacy legislation in Canada are frustrating probes of political extremists.
The comments in an annual report on international terrorism were the latest critical remarks from the U.S. apparently aimed at prodding Canada to bring its security measures in line.
The State Department report on global terrorism for 2002 suggests that while Canada has been helpful in the fight against terrorism, it doesn't spend enough on policing and places too much emphasis on civil liberties.
"Too much emphasis on civil liberties."
This is why I get seriously annoyed when I hear Bush talking about "free nations" and such. Obviously it's a trademarked term, like Retsyn
TM. You know, that stuff there's a golden drop of in every Certs
TM.
You know what Retsyn
TM is, don't you?
Vegetable oil.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/2/2003 03:11:47 PM |
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And speaking of George
Stolen directly from his page.
Bloggers, I'm ready to get up and do my thing. I wanta get into it, man, you know ... Like a, like a peace machine, man. Movin'... doin' it, you know. Can I count it off?
Spoken: one, two, three, four!!
Get up, get on up
Get up, get on up
Shame on CNN, stop the war machine
Wait a minute!
Shake your arm, then use your form
Stay on the scene like a peace machine
You got to have the feeling sure as you're born
Get it together right on, right on
Get up, get on up
I said the feeling, you got to get
Give me the fever, in a cold sweat
The way I like it is the way it is
I got mine and don't worry 'bout his
Get on up and then shake your media maker
Shake your media maker.....
If you like it, you have to help him and his crew levitate CNN.
We at LevitateCNN.com, in association with stonefishspine and powered by the music of All About George, have a solution to the problem: If the media won�t come to the protest, take the protest to the media!
In the spirit of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and the peace protesters of 1967 who levitated the Pentagon, we propose a mass levitation and exorcism of CNN Center in Atlanta, GA on Memorial Day Weekend May 24-25.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/2/2003 01:57:08 PM |
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Brief panic-stricken moment
I over-nested some CSS.
Somehow or other I managed to convince Internet Explorer to ignore every <p> and <br> tag on the page, and that the page should be some four feet wide. This would be a real problem, since some 86% of the page views passed thru some version of IE. had to examine every post I made today pretty closely to find the problem.
Bad day for it, because Ampersand of Alas, A Blog threw me some traffic today. Bad first impression to make, and since I'm new I have no reputation to fall back on.
Anyway, it gave me an excuse to look at the site statistics Sitemeter gives up for free. It looks like I may have a couple of people who came through while the site was a mess. Overall, the stats (which I have no business being so interested in at this point) are decent for a blog a couple of weeks old. And I can see where J.G and George made a good impact too.
But what I really get a kick out of is the ones where the referrer is unknown. That means someone bookmarked the site and came back. And even better is the visitors with multiple page views. That suggests I may be useful to someone.
LATER: Blogger has recreated my archives. The links still don't work, but that's because I jiggered with the template so they'd point to the current page. Since I keep seven days on the current page, I figured if anyone would look for something a week was plenty of time.
Anyway, everything I ever wrote for the site is over there.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/2/2003 01:38:50 PM |
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A new hero, for the right people
CalPundit notes that tomorrow is Free Comics Day (thanks!). In keeping with that, I direct you to Mark Fiore's latest effort: Taxcut Man!
As a side note, I really have to stay away from Mark Fiore's home page. I simply can't stop passing the mouse pointer over the links to his animations. Way too amusing. I guess that says something about me …
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/2/2003 12:47:19 PM |
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MALCOLM X BIRTHDAY OBSERVANCE READY
via Black World Events Calendar
For Immediate Release
Contact: Herman Ferguson
(718) 949-5153 Email: [email protected]
On Monday, May 191h, the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee and the Sons and Daughters of Afrika will co-host the annual pilgrimage and caravan to the gravesite of Malcolm X in observation of the 78th anniversary of his birth.
The pilgrimage and gravesite caravan were conceived and initiated by the powerful, pioneering Black nationalist entrepreneur and leader, Ella Little-Collins, Malcolm's underappreciated big sister.
Every year since his tragic assassination, the gravesite pilgrimage has been observed. Since 1966, Baba James Small, himself a surviving member of Malcolm's Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), has coordinated the pilgrimage, as he still does to this day.
In 1992, the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee joined the pilgrimage as co-hosts and expanded its outreach all along the northeast corridor. As a consequence, people have been making the pilgrimage from as far south as Baltimore and Washington, DC, and from as far north as Boston.
One of the moving aspects that has developed with the growth of the pilgrimage has been the increasing participation of young people.
Last year's pilgrimage had some especially moving highlights because the revered elder-scholar Dr. Yosef Ben Jochannon, affectionately known as 'Dr. Ben,' made the pilgrimage for the first time. The personal account that he gave of Malcolm's death and burial cemented the enormity of Malcolm's legacy and of the importance of the ceremony for all of the participants.
"This has really grown into something special. We are proud to do our share to see to it that it is upheld and properly appreciated," emphasized Herman Ferguson, chairman of the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee.
Ferguson was a founding member of the OAAU and served as chairman of the education committee. When he tried to continue to apply Malcolm's teachings with the Jamaica Rifle & Pistol Association, the Black Brotherhood Improvement Association and with being one of the founders of the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika, he also became a COINTELPRO target and was wrongly convicted for conspiracy to assassinate civil rights leaders Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young. He went underground and opted for exile instead. When he returned to the united states from exile in 1989, he was forced to serve his prison term. Upon his release, he and other surviving members of the OAAU, like Jean Reynolds, Yuri Kochiyama, Earl Grant and the late Gladstone Alexander, along with other militant Malcolm X enthusiasts, initiated the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee.
Participants will assemble at the Harlem State Office Building, 163 West 125th Street at Adam Clayton Powell Blvd., Harlem at 9:00 A.M. Busses depart at 10:00 A.M. Donation for the busses is $5.00 and $3.00 for children. Families should make reservations in advance.
The caravan usually returns to Harlem by 2:00 P.M. Upon their return, participants are encouraged to attend the Malcolm X Museum's youth speak out at the Schomburg Center on Malcolm X Blvd and 136th Street. The Speak-out begins at 6:00 P.M.
For more information about the pilgrimage, please call the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee at 718-949-5153.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/2/2003 11:33:47 AM |
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Corporate crime
It heartens me a bit to see this sort of reaction to corporate crime:
… It's time this kind of crime is seen for what it is. It's worse than drug-dealing, loan sharking, prostitution, gambling -- everything the Mafia specializes in. In those crimes the victims usually come to criminals with eyes wide-open. That's not true for corporate crime.
How many great ideas won't be funded because of corporate crime? How many jobs won't be created because of corporate crime? How many honest careers were killed by Enron, Worldcom, and on and on?
Corporate crime is not victimless. Corporate crime has more victims, more unwitting, innocent victims, than any other kind of crime.
… I want every CEO to be capable of waking up, screaming, hearing the voice of an evil, large, sweaty cellmate saying "You got a purty mouth."
All right, that last was a bit over the top.
Corporate crime is the theft that keeps on taking. On an Enron scale it doesn't just take your money now, it
distorts the economy, so that you wind up paying more forever.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/2/2003 11:14:18 AM |
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Break time
Amateur Hour amused me when I needed it.
First some background.
A while back there was a video game, I don't remember the name of it, where it seems the dialog was translated from Japanese to "engrish" by someone that spoke neither language. The phrase that lodged firmly into the minds of geeks everywhere was "All your base are blong to us." Personally, I thought "Someone set us up the bomb!" was deeper. Anyway, for a while there thousands of geeks were declaring that "all your are belong to us." I'll bet if you searched Slashdot for "are belong to us" you'd "slashdot" Slashdot.
Anyway, if you remember that absurdity, this flash animation will be good for a couple of chuckles. If not, then skip it.
Next … and I know you're a Star Wars fan …
Fan Film Remix
This is high on Blogdex, so it's making the rounds... Waxy's description sums it up:
If you're going to videotape your Star Wars fighting skills on a school camera, remember to remove the cassette when you're done. Watch this
embarrassingly good video (Windows Media video).
It didn't take long for the online community to remix it with full Star Wars
special effects and lightsaber noises. I have no idea where this video originated from; if you know this kid, let me know.
We already knew the future would be televised, but with cheap desktop tools, it'll now be remixed as well.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/2/2003 10:31:32 AM |
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More presidential stuff
… on the Presidential Campaign 2004 page.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/2/2003 09:28:49 AM |
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Black folks and political parties
Even though it's too damn early, I've been thinking about how to introduce this excerpt from a response to a letter to The Black Commentator. I think my best response is going to be to work the ideas presented into my "position paper."
The best way to look at multi-racial organizations is usually to start off with a given: the mass of white folks is going to be hostile to Black people acting in concert. Since whites are both in charge and tend to share a common worldview, they do not need to organize as whites in order to move in the same direction - they are already there, so to speak. African Americans share a common general worldview but are not in charge. Therefore, we have to meet and plan as a group in order to move towards empowerment.
In assessing the Democratic Party, we must take general white hostility as a given, and then ask, how well have Blacks in the party organized themselves in those areas in which they are minorities, and how have they leveraged those local party machineries in which Blacks are the party, numerically and as officers. Essentially, we must run the test on ourselves, not on whites, whose general hostility to Black action-as-Blacks is a given.
Since Blacks have not done a good job of organizing within the party, and have not treated local bastions of Black numerical dominance as engines of party-wide Black power, the verdict on the utility of the Democratic Party is still out. That's our fault, since we have failed to press our potential impact on the party to the limits. Simply pointing out white hostility begs the question of intra-Black political cohesion.
Ideally, every Black caucus within the party should act as a Black-Party unit.
's publishers have long maintained that we already have the makings of a Black political party within the Democratic Party, if we just acted like it. We have failed to organize where we already exist in great and strategically placed numbers. There is no reason to believe that we will do a better job outside of the party than we have done inside the structure.
However, it is also necessary to create separate structures outside of the Democratic machinery, to which Black Democrats would also belong. This organization would be committed to a broad set of progressive goals that are well understood as the Black Agenda. (The Black Agenda is a progressive political agenda that takes into consideration the particular history and legitimate group aspirations of African Americans.) One could call this a political party, but the word has too narrow a meaning in the United States, so let's just call it a Black National Caucus.
We have been trained like everyone else in the U.S. to think that parties exist only for the purpose of fielding candidates for elections. This is a huge, uniquely American weakness, and a large part of the reason businessmen so easily control society - they meet and discuss common interests and put forward programs and devise strategies all of the time, as an essential part of shaping the environment in which they do business. They then manipulate parties to carry out their agenda. Both parties.
Blacks must learn how to see parties as structures that have a certain utility, and use them to advance our agenda. Although the agenda exists, we have not organized to push it forward by treating the Democratic Party as one, very useful vehicle. Thus, Blacks inside the Democratic structure do not act in concert. Therefore, white corporate agents (or Black ones!) win battles that they should, based on raw Black numbers, lose.
Thus, we find ourselves in a situation in which there is a question of whether Al Sharpton will be invited to the January debates, or not!
It was in this spirit that we wrote,
What a Black Presidential Candidate Must Do.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/2/2003 07:21:03 AM |
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And so we begin
Information Clearing House, which gets added to the official News Sources list, directed me to this:
U.S., U.K. Waged War on Iraq Because of Oil, Blair Adviser SaysBy James Kirkup
London, May 1 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. and U.K. went to war against Iraq because of the Middle East country's oil reserves, an adviser to British Prime Minister Tony Blair said.
Sir Jonathan Porritt, head of the Sustainable Development Commission, which advises Blair's government on ecological issues, said the prospect of winning access to Iraqi oil was "a very large factor" in the allies' decision to attack Iraq in March.
"I don't think the war would have happened if Iraq didn't have the second-largest oil reserves in the world," Porritt said in a Sky News television interview.
No shit, Sherlock.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/2/2003 07:15:20 AM |
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May 01, 2003
Ashleigh Moore
From The Rittenhouse Review
She was last seen on April 18 at her home on Weiner Dr. in Savannah.
She is very near-sighted and normally wears glasses, without which she cannot see.
She has been missing for more than a week.
Never heard of her?
Didn't catch the three-alarm blast on CNN about her?
Missed the "Amber Alert" on this one?
I guess what bothers me the most about this isn't that young Ms. Moore disappearance didn't make the news, it's that I wouldn't look for to do so.
I looked up the statistics at the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
How many missing children are there?
Answer: The best national estimates for the number of missing children are from incidence studies conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice�s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Two such studies have been completed, the first National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART 1) was released in 1990 and the second, known as NISMART 2, was released in October of 2002.
According to NISMART 2, every year there are 58,200 children are abducted by nonfamily members. That's a fraction shy of 160 per day. 115 children are serious kidnap victims per year. That's roughly one every third day.
You think America went crazy over duct tape. Think of what would happen if every three days another kidnapping was broadcast.
America does like its horror shows, though, so some of this will be broadcast. Which, and when, is a
marketing decision. Has the market had its fill of this for the moment? Is the victim someone our target market will identify with or feel protective of? Are the spokesmen media-savvy enough to put on a good show? Under these conditions, the balance tips to the Jon-Binet types before racial justice even arises as a concept.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/1/2003 10:02:30 PM |
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This is deep.
I went by ALLABOUTGEORGE.com to thank him for a link (being new at this I still get a kick out of that), and saw a link to a site that will analyze your DNA to determine your where in Africa your matriarchal (and if you're male, patriarchal) lineage came from.
The interesting thing is, I don't see a reason it wouldn't work for white folks too. I wonder how Trent Lott would react to genetic evidence of Africans in his ancestry?
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/1/2003 05:54:19 PM |
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Bush vs. Bush
What goes Bush REALLY think?
This is classic.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/1/2003 03:22:39 PM |
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Checking …
This little box is permanently installed on the Attack on Civil Rights page. Can't miss it, can't lose it.
ChoicePoint Voter Databases Info via Hesiod and Atrios
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/1/2003 03:03:59 PM |
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posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/1/2003 01:02:58 PM |
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The Promethian Position Paper
or
As Simple as Possible, But No Simpler
J.G. at
Silver Rights (who I think highly enough of to allow her to refer to me by first name only) mentioned my asking where the political meridian falls in the blogosphere. Well, it wasn't so much trying to figure out who falls where, since for my purposes the best way to figure that out is to read what people write. My concern is more along the lines of understanding how I would be perceived (assuming I ever am).
The short form is, politically most bloggers will see me as a liberal falling slightly left of
Atrios. But I rarely think of myself in those terms. The way I tend to see myself is as this Black guy, see? Looking at the USofA from the perspective I have, I see particular issues from particular angles. Some things loom large to me that probably don't demand the attention of (pulling an A-list name out of a hat) Jeanne D'Arc, though she'd probably take the right position when the topic arises. Way back when the Conservative Culture Wars began, I had a guy tell me his Black neighbor
certainly doesn't agree with the "answers" I suggested. I replied that might well be the case, but I'd be willing to bet we agreed on the questions.
This is a major reason I'd align myself with the left. The right isn't considering the issues of importance to the Black folks that need to be drawn into the political process at all. They are considering the issues they think will resolve the problems they see … to the right, "minority issues" means "issues I have with minorities." A large component of the Black community feels the left, or more particularly the Democratic party, deals with us the same way. I've had that thought as well, but the fact is there is significant agreement on the questions between the political left and the Black communuty. At least the questions get some light.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/1/2003 11:26:03 AM |
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posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/1/2003 06:53:51 AM |
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An even earlier start
I didn't check the message time stamps, but it seems like that to me.
Anyway, Hesiod not only points out that the same company that put together the terribly inaccurate Florida voter purge list has been given another $75 mil to assemble information about Mexican voters … apparently without the consent, or even awareness, of the Mexican government.
There's a lot of stuff he and Atrios have dug out about this, strong indicators of the total lack of respect this regime has for the rights of individuals and other states. Later today I'm going to assemble the links inot one of them boxes I have on the static Attack on Civil Rights page.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/1/2003 06:23:40 AM |
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Getting an early start
A rather angry Atrios pointed out a little piece of ignorance of the type I've come to expect from our future chief justice, Antonin "I only notice color to make sure you don't" Scalia. Seems he got jokes about cancelling the Voting Rights Act.
The cynic in me is like, "Huh. Not like this represents a change in attitude or anything."
A close examination suggests thousands of voters may have lost their right to vote based on a flaw-ridden list that included purported "felons" provided by a private firm with tight Republican ties.
Early in the year, the company, ChoicePoint, gave Florida officials a list with the names of 8,000 ex-felons to "scrub" from their list of voters.
But it turns out none on the list were guilty of felonies, only misdemeanors.
Florida is the only state that pays a private company that promises to "cleanse" voter rolls.The state signed in 1998 a $4 million contract with DBT Online, since merged into ChoicePoint, of Atlanta.
"It's
not like the Bushes have shown any regard for fair elections at all. "
In December 2000, we reported that Florida's use of a faulty and politically questionable list of felons and dead people "scrubbed" from voter rolls -- half of them African-Americans -- may have cost Al Gore the 537-vote margin of victory claimed by George W. Bush in Florida.
Fast-forward two years. There's another close race in Florida. This time, younger brother Jeb is fighting to fend off a challenge from Bill McBride for the governor's race. The Nov. 5 face-off could again come down to thousands, if not hundreds, of votes.
And even though the list has been widely condemned -- the company that created it admits probable errors -- the same voter scrub list, with more than 94,000 names on it, is still in operation in Florida. Moreover, DBT Online, which generated the disastrously flawed list, reports that if it followed strict criteria to eliminate those errors, roughly 3,000 names would remain -- and a whopping 91,000 people would have their voting rights restored.
Eventually the list will be fixed, state officials have promised, in accordance with a settlement with the NAACP in its civil rights suit against Florida following the 2000 election. But not until the beginning of next year -- and after Jeb Bush's reelection bid is long over.
"So why the surprise?"
But that cynicism implies a "what's the use?" attitude that's good for cracking jokes but should not be accepted as the final word on how to respond to this.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 5/1/2003 06:07:28 AM |
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April 30, 2003
This is so interesting
I've been wandering again. This time I started at the web site for the PBS special, Race - etc., and found myself at the Black History at HarpWeek site, which is loaded with material from Harper's Weekly, the 19th century's leading illustrated newspaper (it says here). One of the many bizarre interests I have is history, and I get a big kick out of reading the original source material. This site has editorial cartoons, short stories, Civil War and Reconstruction related material … all right up my alley.
Original source material is great because it always contains nasty surprises for the current generation, no matter which side of the veil you live on.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/30/2003 09:17:23 PM |
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Is you a patriot?
Schlock 'N' Roll, a cartoon in the Village Voice. Check it out.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/30/2003 04:21:38 PM |
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Y'all know about Tulsa, right?
… or, why affirmative action is based on race, not economic class.
From the Village Voice
A Reparations Suit for a 1921 Race Riot
A Long Wait for Justice
by Adrian Brune
April 30 - May 6, 2003
… When asked what he would do with money from a reparations lawsuit filed last month on his behalf by Johnnie Cochran and Charles Ogletree Jr., Clark says he would write a book based on what he calls his "good, long life," in which he served as a butler for the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, and Stepin Fetchit.
Given his good health, even at 100 he might get his chance despite the length of the legal process. The complaint filed by Ogletree and Cochran in federal court in the Northern District of Oklahoma basically alleges that in 2001, the Oklahoma State Legislature, through the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot, admitted city and county officials failed to take actions to calm or contain the riot and, in some cases, became participants in the violence, which took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921. These officials, according to the complaint, even deputized and armed many whites who were part of a mob that killed 300 African Americans, looted, and burned down the black-owned Greenwood area, leaving 3,000 people homeless. There are now fewer than 100 known survivors.
… At the time, Clark was 19 and living with his grandparents. When the trouble broke out he was asked to drive a hearse and pick up the dead. A friend who was helping him was shot and injured.
"I used to be an angry young man, full of hate for what happened to me on that day," says Clark, who lost his home and his beloved dog on June 1, 1921. "That anger stayed with me for many years, but I have forgiven those people. I do think I am entitled to something for what I went through, though."
… Between the late 19th century and World War I, tens of thousands of former slaves left the South for better lives in the industrial economies of northern cities. A nationwide recession gripped the country just before WW I and blacks and immigrants competed for jobs. As the newspapers of the times attest, many blacks bore the brunt of the poverty and the blame for the tight job market.
While lynchings and massacres became the weapons used against African Americans, one element makes what happened to them fall into the arena of a holocaust�the participation of militias and law officers sanctioned by state and city governments. Starting in the 1890s, these riots suppressed rising black political power and destroyed whole communities.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/30/2003 04:14:06 PM |
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Now everyone can have that "inner city" experience
Noticed on Eschaton
Patriot Raid
By Jason Halperin, AlterNet
April 29, 2003
… In pre-9/11 America, the legality of this would have been questionable. After all, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized."
"You have no right to hold us," Asher insisted.
"Yes, we have every right," responded one of the agents. "You are being held under the Patriot Act following suspicion under an internal Homeland Security investigation."
… When I asked to speak to a lawyer, the INS official informed me that I do have the right to a lawyer but I would have to be brought down to the station and await security clearance before being granted one. When I asked how long that would take, he replied with a coy smile: "Maybe a day, maybe a week, maybe a month."
We insisted that we had every right to leave and were going to do so. One of the policemen walked over with his hand on his gun and taunted: "Go ahead and leave, just go ahead."
… I managed to ascertain that the whole thing had been one giant mistake. A mistake. Loaded guns pointed in faces, people made to crawl on their hands and knees, police officers clearly exacerbating a tense situation by kicking in doors, taunting, keeping their fingers on the trigger even after the situation was under control. A mistake. And, according to the ACLU a perfectly legal one, thanks to the Patriot Act.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/30/2003 02:38:40 PM |
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You know what I don't get?
I don't get why I write stuff like that directly in Blogger when I know the archives are screwed.
Later: ESPECIALLY when I know I'll want to go back over it and tighten it up a bit.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/30/2003 02:24:18 PM |
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On being multi-lingual
Thought I'd try putting this across in more palatable fashion.
Bean, at Alas, A Blog, offers
this statement in the comments to her
original post:
Men can be affected by prejudice against because they are male. This is not sexism.
Similarly, white people can be affected by prejudice against because they are white. This is not racism.
Sexism and racism are more than individual actions -- they are systemic. Without the systemic aspect, it is not sexism or racism, it is prejudice.
I do not support prejudice in any of it's manifestations -- but I do and will recognize the difference between individual prejudice and systemic sexism/racism.
Ampersand's responses:
I'd prefer to say "both people of color and whites are sometimes victims of individual racism, but only people of color experience systematic racism." I think the important distinction to be made isn't between "prejudice" and "racism," but between things that happen on a individual level and things that happen on a systematic level.
and
Bean and I don't disagree on substance here - merely on which words to use. In my experience - and maybe Bean has found otherwise - my wording is more useful for explaining feminist and anti-racist positions in everyday life. Most people - especially people who have never taken a women's studies class - will find it easier to understand the distinction between "individual-level racism" and "systematic racism," but will resist making the distinction Bean suggests between "prejudice" and "racism."
(Why do people resist it? Because no one likes being told they don't know what everyday words mean. To ask people to distinguish between "individual racism" and "systematic racism" isn't asking them to accept new definitions for words they already know. But to tell someone that someone who says "all white people are stupid and shouldn't be allowed to breed" isn't a racist is to tell them that they don't know what the word "racist" means. And that bugs people, understandably.)
are fine but they bring other, perhaps related, thoughts to mind specific to the discussion of race and racism.
You see, I use Ampersand's definitions and distinctions myself when I talk to well-meaning white people about racial issues. Racism, initially used to mean anti-Black prejudice and discrimination, has been redefined in the public discussion space to mean any reference to race at all. So now we have to specify the target of the racism under discussion, whether it was consciously invoked and specifically directed toward a specific person, granting 20 or so years of reduced entitlements moral equivalence to ten or so generations of oppression.
Ampersand is very correct when he says it's normal to dislike being told you don't know what a term you've used all your life means. I accept this language in practice, though as a person who grew up before the redefinition it all strikes me as an instance of newspeak. The redefinition was not done to benefit me. Trust me, I've know what racism is all along.
It doesn't surprise me that mainstream America would redefine the use of the word racism because Black people have done the same thing with the word that irks us almost as much as being called racist irks white Americans … the infamous
N-Word. First we tried denying all connection with it. Then we generalized the term (aided by cowardly lexicologists who defined the N-Word as "a low class person"). Finally, unable to escape it, we specialized it until we felt it defined a subset of Black people that just happened not to include ourselves. Racism, the word, has gone through two of these three steps and is in the process of completing the third.
Meanwhile, all the assumptions and power relationships that created and are reflected in the N and R words still exist, still influence (though no longer absolutely controls) class, economics and politics in the USofA. I still get that little twisting feeling in my gut when the security guard follows me, still wonder why that person feels relieved that I didn't rob them rather than foolish for fearing I would. I'm afraid I've never seen much reason to accept the redefinition of racism as anything more than a debating tactic.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/30/2003 12:15:28 PM |
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Race - The Power of an Illusion
Since this PBS special isn't playing in NYC until next month I suggest viewing the supporting website. There's a wealth of information there … California Newsreel did an excellent job of rounding up and organizing supporting material (114 Books, 26 Web sites, 18 Organizations, 17 Videos, 47 Online articles), the only problem being they pop up in Javascript-defined custom windows, with no address bar or menu. Makes bookmarking an annoying proposition.
Being who I am, naturally I rooted around until I worked out some key URLs, exactly one of which I will share; a lesson plan based on episode 2:Jamestown: Planting the Seeds of Tobacco and the Ideology of Race
This is an excellent plan. Having found information very similar to what is being presented here in Lerone Bennett's "The Shaping of Black America," I can vouch for the impact taking the lesson seriously would have.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/30/2003 08:29:33 AM |
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Another unnecessary lie
Recently Rumsfeld went to the Middle East
to thank Gulf allies for help in the Iraq war and discuss a possible new U.S. military "footprint" in the region.
Now this. Which makes sense, but just
say that's why you're going. This regime hides when there's no need, keeps common sense secret.
From the NY Times
U.S. to Withdraw All Combat Units From Saudi ArabiaBy ERIC SCHMITT
PRINCE SULTAN AIR BASE, Saudi Arabia, April 29 � The United States said today that it would withdraw all combat forces in Saudi Arabia by this summer, ending more than a decade of military operations in this strategic Middle East nation that is America's largest oil supplier.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/30/2003 06:26:35 AM |
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On the one hand …
Census reveals progress by blacks
By James G. Lakely
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
More black Americans today are finishing high school, going to college, moving to the suburbs and earning higher salaries than in previous decades, while the trend of single-mother households is in historic decline, a new report shows.
According to a report released yesterday by the Census Bureau, the percentage of black families led by unmarried females is 43 percent, the lowest percentage since at least 1980, when 40 percent of black families were led by an unmarried woman.
The percentage of black single mothers hovered around 50 percent in the mid-1990s. The decline came, some social scientists say, because of the 1996 welfare reforms that required work and limited the time one could receive federal benefits.
"Didn't that decline start when welfare reform was enacted?" asked David Almasi, director of Project 21, a conservative black think tank. "We reformed the welfare system, which so many people blamed for causing the chronic social problems of the black community. [Welfare] rewarded the splitting up of families."
Dr. William Spriggs, executive director for the National Urban League Institute for Opportunity and Equality, said welfare reform had very little to do with the decline of single-mother black households. The vibrant economy of the latter half of the '90s raised all boats, he said, creating a stable environment in which two-parent families could prosper.
… and on the other hand
From the NY Times
Report Finds Number of Black Children in Deep Poverty Rising
By SAM DILLON
The number of black Americans under 18 years old who live in extreme poverty has risen sharply since 2000 and is now at its highest level since the government began collecting such figures in 1980, according to a study by the Children's Defense Fund, a child welfare advocacy group.
In 2001, the last year for which government figures are available, nearly one million black children were living in families with after-tax incomes that were less than half the amount used to define poverty, said the new study, which was based on Census Bureau statistics and is to be released publicly today. The defense fund provided a copy in advance to The New York Times.
The poverty line for a family of three was about $14,100, the study said, so a family of three living in extreme poverty had a disposable income of about $7,060, the study said.
In early 2000, only 686,000 black children were that poor, the study said, indicating that the economic circumstances of the United States' poorest black families deteriorated sharply from 2000 to 2001.
… "The study shows that in the first recession since the welfare law took effect, black children who have the fewest protections are falling into extreme poverty in record numbers," Ms. Weinstein said. "So as we consider our federal policies, are we going to help children who need help the most, or rich people who don't need help at all?"
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/30/2003 06:12:23 AM |
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April 29, 2003
How important is this?
Important enough to repeat myself.
As I said a little while back, judicial nominations are among the things that bother me. Well, another nominee you'd have rather see lose has been confirmed. The Dems didn't fold entirely, but as one right-wing blogger put it, it's the results, not the margin of victory (not to mention the method) that counts.
Those senators and representatives (hah!) that vote for these federalists, I don't know what's on their minds, but I know what will get their attention … a threat to their jobs. And I know what will get people moving … a threat to their cash flow.
What I want you to do is read this again. It's about the attempt to enable employers to force you to take time off instead of cash for overtime, up to 13 months after you earn it at the employer's discretion.
Now, you work for a union? Tell your fellow union members about it. Tell your shop steward.
No union? Fine … you know people who work O/T to pay a bill or buy a Christmas present, or Easter clothes for the kids? Tell them about it.
Tell the people at your church, tell the preacher how that'll cut into the tithes. Tell the people at the PTA, the people you play ball with.
Tell everyone to write a letter to their congressman and senator complaining about it.
Later: ActForChange has an online form letter for this very purpose. You can copy the text, modify it to suit your views, and print it for your people.
And they're sending stuff to Bush. I'd advise getting your congresscritter's contact info and buying each of them under a couple pounds of paper.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/29/2003 11:57:19 PM |
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The return of the son of the monster that …
From the Washington Times, via Oliver Willis
Watts to seek out more minorities for GOP
Ralph Z. Hallow
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published April 29, 2003
Former Rep. J.C. Watts Jr. of Oklahoma plans to use his new post as chairman of GOPAC to preserve and extend the Republicans' governing majority by reaching into communities for voters that traditionally back Democrats � blacks, Hispanics and others.
"My goal is to broaden the reach of my party," Mr. Watts said in an interview last night.
Um, Mr. Watts. The changes necessary to draw more minorities to the Republican party will not be found in the minority communities.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/29/2003 11:20:35 PM |
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… and white people can't be n
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That's it. Obviously, it's war.
CIA: Syria Harboring More Than 15 Million Known Arabs
LANGLEY, VA�In an alarming report released Monday by the Central Intelligence Agency, Syria may be harboring upwards of 15 million known Arabs within its borders.
"Reliable intelligence collected by our agency indicates that Syria has conspired to lend physical and economic support to a massive number of people belonging to this group," CIA director George J. Tenet said. "The shocking truth is, there are nearly as many Arabs in Syria as there are people in New York and Los Angeles combined. In fact, Syrians openly refer to their nation as the Syrian Arab Republic, despite knowing full well America's opinion on these matters."
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/29/2003 08:48:21 PM |
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Emergency instructions posted in the White House
… just inside the door to the Oval Office.
Now, click on the picture and give Tom, the Dancing Bug some traffic, so I don't get sued.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/29/2003 06:09:31 PM |
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Okay, check this
As I said a little while back, judicial nominations are among the things that bother me. Well, another nominee you'd have rather see lose has been confirmed. The Dems didn't fold entirely, but as one right-wing blogger put it, it's the results, not the margin of victory (not to mention the method) that counts.
Those senators and representatives (hah!) that vote for these federalists, I don't know what's on their minds, but I know what will get their attention … a threat to their jobs. And I know what will get people moving … a threat to their cash flow.
What I want you to do is read this again. It's about the attempt to enable employers to force you to take time off instead of cash for overtime, up to 13 months after you earn it at the employer's discretion.
Now, you work for a union? Tell your fellow union members about it. Tell your shop steward.
No union? Fine … you know people who work O/T to pay a bill or buy a Christmas present, or Easter clothes for the kids? Tell them about it.
Tell the people at your church, tell the preacher how that'll cut into the tithes. Tell the people at the PTA, the people you play ball with.
Tell everyone to write a letter to their congressman and senator complaining about it.
Later: ActForChange has an online form letter for this very purpose. You can copy the text, modify it to suit your views, and print it for your people.
And they're sending stuff to Bush. I'd advise getting your congresscritter's contact info and buying each of them under a couple pounds of paper.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/29/2003 06:03:15 PM |
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A couple of updates
. . . to the Presidential Campaign 2004 page here.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/29/2003 10:26:57 AM |
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Which one applies to Black folks? More than one?
If you're feeling a little adventurous, check out this (you have to scroll almost half way down the page to get to the actual start of the thing):
WHY DO SOME SOCIETIES MAKE DISASTROUS DECISIONS?: JARED DIAMOND
What I'm going to suggest is a road map of factors in failures of group decision making. I'll divide the answers into a sequence of four somewhat fuzzily delineated categories. First of all, a group may fail to anticipate a problem before the problem actually arrives. Secondly, when the problem arrives, the group may fail to perceive the problem. Then, after they perceive the problem, they may fail even to try to solve the problem. Finally, they may try to solve it but may fail in their attempts to do so. While all this talking about reasons for failure and collapses of society may seem pessimistic, the flip side is optimistic: namely, successful decision-making. Perhaps if we understand the reasons why groups make bad decisions, we can use that knowledge as a check list to help groups make good decisions.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/29/2003 09:44:34 AM |
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Not really liking this
Legally, an excellent defense. Given the disconnect between law and morality, it's hard to fault. But it still leaves me feeling a bit disquieted. I can't remember another case where the defense was that the accused was guilty of another crime, which charge they beat, and the nature of that crime was such that they couldn't be guilty of the current charges.
This defense sounds true. Which means the previous defense was a successful lie. And Nelson will be found guilty, making this an unsuccessful truth.
The lessons drawn from this one, on all sides, will be unfortunate.
From the NY Times
In Twist, Defendant Admits to Stabbing in '91 Racial Unrest
By ANDY NEWMAN
Through almost 12 years and two previous trials, lawyers for Lemrick Nelson Jr. denied that he was involved in the killing of an Orthodox Jew named Yankel Rosenbaum during the racial unrest in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in 1991.
Yesterday, Mr. Nelson's new lawyers tried a new defense: Mr. Nelson did stab Mr. Rosenbaum.
But he did not do it, they said, because the victim was Jewish. Rather, Mr. Nelson, who was then 16, stabbed Mr. Rosenbaum because Mr. Nelson was drunk and swept up in the chaos of the moment, said his lawyer, Richard M. Jasper.
Therefore, Mr. Jasper said in the opening of Mr. Nelson's retrial in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, Mr. Nelson was not guilty of violating Mr. Rosenbaum's civil rights, the crime for which he is being tried.
"Mr. Nelson is saying that he participated in an attack not because he was Jewish," said Mr. Jasper, referring to Mr. Rosenbaum, "but because he ran out there and got high."
Mr. Nelson was acquitted of murder and related charges in a 1992 state trial, so he cannot be tried again on those criminal counts.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/29/2003 09:20:20 AM |
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Not goofing off
Just because the weather was so good yeaterday, don't think I was just goofing off. And I won't be goofing off today, either.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/29/2003 09:09:36 AM |
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April 28, 2003
Shit
I'm actually looking to engage some Black folks in discussion about the way the world is going and the threat the Bush regime represents to us in particular. Tryna make it real for'em. So I drop into a pretty active discussion board that shall remain nameless. I see some threads that give me hope, Bush cutting overtime, some war talk, shit like that. Thinking about registering so I can talk'em up, I check the rules messages and what do I see?
well now that the war is winding down, (unless it starts up with syria) there's gonna be a change of mood in chea.
the war gave the forum a nice boost, but now as shit gets or repetitive i'll merge similar threads together.
i'd like for the forum to take a turn to more sexual shit, more regular current events shit, more family related shit, and asking more questions when it comes to life (and death).
Str8 fukkin ignant.
If this where my people's at, I need to study Portugese and take my ass to Brazil.
Maybe I'm overreacting. It
was my first time looking in the forum. And, credit where due, one of the responses to that decree was to point out another moderator was looking for LESS sexual shit. But I am concerned when a discussion moderator says you can have as many threads on "sexual shit" as you want, but all the war discussion gets merged into one. I mean, you can lose your life and job over this political stuff. You'd have to be
awfully stupid to have that level of problem over a piece of ass.
Not enough people understand how critical it is to see what is happening, understand and act on it. The people who already understand how serious this is weren't enough to turn the tide in 2000 or 2002. With so few people who actually vote, so many who believe it pointless (a real problem in the Black community) I feel like a more significant move can be made by adding voters than trying to change the mind of existing ones.
This is a lesson I learned when Rudy Giuliani was first elected mayor of NYC. If every Black person who felt it was pointless to vote did so … hell, if one in ten did … Giuliani would have never seen the inside of that office and we'd never have found out about his divorce and alla that crap. Dinkins would have been mad as hell to win, I suspect. But the point is,
we have influence on our destiny. It's past time to stop reacting and start acting. Past time to start learning the rules of the Game we've only been able to play for 40 years. Past time to stop acting like we're something alien and apart from this mess we're living in the middle of.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/28/2003 12:45:44 AM |
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April 27, 2003
More on Michigan
From BlackPressUSA
An Inside Look at the University of Michigan�s Admissions Process
by George E. Curry
… As Woodson states, a person with a perfect SAT or ACT score receives a maximum of 12 points for that accomplishment under this system.
What Woodson fails to acknowledge is that the University of Michigan correctly assigns a low priority to standardized test results and places a greater emphasis on grade point averages. For example, a students with a straight-A average is awarded 80 points�more than seven times the points given top SAT and ACT scorers and four times those awarded to people of color. Even a student with a C average receives 40 points.
… Critics never mention that 20 points are also given to any applicant from a socio-disadvantaged group. That means a poor White person is just as entitled to 20 points as a person of color. No students can collect 20 points for being in more than one category.
… A student from Michigan�s largely White Upper Peninsula can pick up 16 more points�10 for being a Michigan resident and six for coming from an underrepresented county in the state. If that student is poor, that�s a total of 36 points.
… In fact, the White students who brought the suit against the University of Michigan had higher test scores and GPAs than some Whites who were accepted. Instead of challenging the admission of those students, however, conservatives have chosen to attack the handful of African-Americans accepted. And that�s truly outrageous.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/27/2003 09:09:39 PM |
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More culture stuff
The Soul Patrol is a venerable site run by Bob Davis, a guy I get along with fine as long as we don't discuss politics.
The page has embedded music, and the music is in Real Audio format, but dammit, the content is so good I have to forgive him for that.
As long as we don't discuss politics.
In Bob's words:
The intent of Soul Patrol, is to be a celebration of Great Black Music From The Ancient To The Future. It's all about Soul, Jazz, Blues, Rock, Funk, and the culture they evolved from.
(The Soul-Patrol Newsletter is essentially the �lite version� of the Monthly Soul-Patrol Digest Magazine, which is a 60 page monthly magazine that also comes bundled with it�s companion the Daily Soul-Patrol Digest Mailing List. Together, the Soul-Patrol Digest Magazine & the Daily Soul-Patrol Digest Mailing List, provide a far more in depth, comprehensive and more frequent look at the world of Soul Music/Culture. To subscribe to the Soul-Patrol Digest Magazineand the Daily Soul-Patrol Digest Mailing List, click on links in this paragraph.)
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/27/2003 05:22:32 PM |
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Winnie Mandela
Sorry for being so terse. Got a lot going on in my little head this morning.
Mac Diva's take on Ms. Mandela.
My take, carved from a conversation with so nice, but young, folks:
She #1: It just makes me wonder if this was the quality in her that caused their divorce.
Me: Nah. The quality was Nelson getting out of the joint.
Winnie held the movement down while Nelson was being a symbol. She's mad radical, and felt she earned a seat at the table for all her work . . . with which statement I agree.
But they needed Nelson to be the up-front symbol with no competition. on accounta his noble acceptance of the folks what jailed him--a Ghandi/MLK type was the only thing that could keep the Afrikaaners in the country thru the transition. So Winnie had to be shut up, shouted down or discredited.
She #2: But does one really thing Winnie yields that much power over the 'radicals'? It seems that Nelson easily distanced himself from that by as you say embracing his captors & divorcing her.
Me: I'm not saying Nelson embraced his captors. He hasn't been silent.
Aparthied had reached the pont where legally it had to end. But look at what happened in the USofA when our version of it was legally ended.
Nelson Mandela's release, and his deportment afterward, was part of the deal to end the legal support for Apartheid. But Winnie never signed on to that.
She used to have the kind of leverage that made her a concern. But (male supremacy being what it is) Nelson was the symbol and she was the loyal wife fighting to keep his memory and movement alive--that was the public stance.
Now, to use a really crass metaphor, if your preacher's been telling you about the second coming, who you gonna follow when the Christ returns . . . your preacher or the Christ?
Love my people, really. But we need a better sense of history, pretty much across the board.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/27/2003 03:46:00 PM |
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Intellectual property violation alert
I was just telling a friend that one of the things I do to stay on the good side of the IP laws is to avoid quoting an entire article. Then I run up on this, via the Howard Dean 2004 Call to Action Weblog … one of the foulest class warfare attack I've ever seen from the Republican party.
Read this, talk it up among people you know.
From the Star-Telegram
Coming soon: united serfs of America
By Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
Boy, there is no shortage of creatively terrible ideas from the Republican Party these days. Those folks are just full of notions about how to make people's lives worse -- one horrible idea after another bursting out like popcorn -- and all of them with these sickeningly cute names attached to them.
Consider the Family Time and Workplace Flexibility Act (Senate version) and the Family Time Flexibility Act (House version). The Bush administration is leading the charge with proposed new rules that will erode the 40-hour workweek and affect more than 80 million workers now protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act.
To hear the Republicans tell it, you'd think these were family-friendly bills, something like Bill Clinton's Family Leave Act, designed to help you balance the difficult combined demands of work and family. With such a smarm of butter over their visages do the Republicans go on about the joys of "flexibility" and "freedom of choice" that you would have to read the bills for maybe 30 seconds before figuring out they're about repealing the 40-hour workweek and ending overtime.
As The American Prospect magazine notes, when Republicans talk about "flexibility," it means letting business do whatever it wants without standards, mandates or worker and consumer rights. Ever since FDR's New Deal, working overtime gets you time-and-a-half in money, which has the happy effect of holding the workweek down to 40 hours -- or at least preventing it from ballooning grossly.
The proposed Bush rules, which the two Republican bills codify and expand, would:
- Exclude previously protected workers who were entitled to overtime by reclassifying them as managers. Companies are already using this ploy when they can get away with it. Say you're frying burgers on the night shift, making overtime, and suddenly -- congratulations -- you're the assistant night manager, with no raise and no overtime.
- Eliminate certain middle-income workers from overtime protections by adding an income limit, above which workers no longer qualify for overtime. You like that? You make too much to earn overtime.
- Remove overtime protection from large numbers of workers in aerospace, defense, health care, high tech and other industries.
Pay attention -- this one is coming right out of your paycheck.
Big Bidness is lobbying hard on these bills. If you work overtime to pay your bills, look out.
The trick is, employers get to substitute comp time for overtime, and the employers get the right to decide when -- or even if -- a worker gets to take his or her comp time. The legislation provides no meaningful protection against employers requiring workers to take time off instead of cash and no protection against employers assigning overtime only to workers who agree to take time instead of cash. Everybody gets burned on this one, except the bosses. Isn't it lovely?
The proposed rules changes and the Republican bills provide a strong financial incentive for employers to lengthen the workweek, on top of an already staggering load. By 1999, in one decade, the average work year had expanded by 184 hours, according to Kevin Phillips' book Wealth and Democracy.
He writes, "The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the typical American works 350 hours more per year than the typical European, the equivalent of nine work weeks."
The bills give employers a new right to delay paying any wages for overtime work for as long as 13 months. According to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, under the new bills an employee who works overtime hours in a given week might not receive any pay or time off for that work until more than a year later, at the employer's discretion.
"Without receiving interest or security, the employees in essence lend their overtime pay to the employers in the hope of getting back some time later as paid time off," the report states. "Employees' overtime compensation is put at risk of loss in the event of business failure and closure, bankruptcy or fraud. Furthermore, employees get no guarantee of time off when they want or need it."The EPI explains why Big Bidness loves these bills: "A company with 200,000 FLSA-covered employees might get 160 free hours at $7 an hour from each of them (160 hours is the maximum allowed under the bills). That's the equivalent of $224 million that the company wouldn't have to pay its workers for up to a year after the worker has earned it. Considering that, under normal circumstances, the employer might have to pay 6 percent interest for a commercial loan of this magnitude, it could save $13 million by relying on comp time to 'borrow' from its employees instead."
The slick marketing and smoke on this one are a wonder to behold. We're being told that private-sector workers will get the same "benefit" of comp time as public employees. Wow, keen, except the government has no profit motive for pushing comp time instead of overtime. Boy, does this stink.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/27/2003 03:07:08 PM |
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Oh? Really?
From the NY Times
Rumsfeld in Gulf to Thank Allies for Iraq Help
By REUTERS
Filed at 12:18 p.m. ET
DOHA (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met United Arab Emirates leaders on Sunday on a tour to thank Gulf allies for help in the Iraq war and discuss a possible new U.S. military "footprint" in the region.
The Bush regime had Gulf allies??
snikker
That new U.S. Military "footprint" is what this trip is about.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/27/2003 02:05:48 PM |
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