August 02, 2003
Jello is a threat to national security
That's what Mr. Bush says.You don't believe me, do you? Fine. Just check with Mike at TOPDOG04. He'll explain it.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/2/2003 11:59:38 AM |
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Okay, THIS is embarrassing
I don't even know what made Ms. Lee think of this.
I can hear it now: "Here comes Hurricane Roshonda. There went the neighborhood."
Hurricane names raise a warning The 2003 hurricane season is here, and that means a whole new list of names such as Larry, Sam and Wanda ready to make tropical-storm history.
Although Spanish and French names are included in this year’s lineup, among them Juan and Claudette, which struck Texas last week, popular African American names, like Keisha, Jamal and Deshawn, are nowhere to be found.
Some black lawmakers don’t seem to mind, but Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) does. “All racial groups should be represented,” said Lee.
The World Meteorological Organization began naming tropical storms after women in 1953. That made sense to scientists at the time who thought women and storms were both unpredictable. After feminist groups protested, men’s names were added in 1979.
The National Weather Service says hurricane names are derived from languages spoken in areas that border the Atlantic Ocean, where such storms occur. Yet that doesn’t explain why Gaston, Ernesto and Cindy were chosen and Antwon, Destiny and Latonya were passed over.
Lee said she hoped in the future the weather establishment “would try to be inclusive of African American names.”
That could take a while. The current roster of hurricane names isn’t due to be updated until 2007.
Stupid.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/2/2003 11:46:12 AM |
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Some amazingly blunt discussion
You must look in on Conceptual Guerilla's Strategy and Tactics, both the front page and the weblog. Even the forum looks promising, though I have to seriously watch the information overload nowadays.
However, what I'm talking about here is MYKERU.COM, in capital letters and blogrolled without a second thought…I am seriously considering putting the link in the template rather than the blogrolling.com account so I can put it at the top of the page ising the <H1> tag in some hideously garish color that conflicts with the whole design of the page, just force everyone to notice it and read the ABSOLUTELY AMAZING RANT published there on July First. I am SO late with this, and SO ashamed.
Why all the superlatives? Let me provide you with the least tenth of this long post, under the condition that you subsequently get some popcorn, a huge soda and a bag of Twizzlers, and settle in for the long, rewarding task of reading the entirety of MYKERU.COM and Suburban Guerilla:
End the Liberal Voluntary Extinction Movement.…When the Republicans got a $350 billion tax cut in which 60% of the population would only get 8.5% of the tax benefits, while the top earning 1% would get the remaining 40%, they cut out a provision to prove a child credit to those making just above minimum wage. They saved 3.5 billion doing so. They could have saved the same amount of money if they had reduced the top rate to 35.3% instead of 35% for the first three years. They, of course, didn't do that, deciding to screw over poor kids rather than reduce the windfall for the wealthiest people in the wealthiest country in the world by a minuscule amount.
No reasonable explanation for that sort of Republican behavior exists except when you factor in character, and a character that displays dark pathology at that. It is the behavior of people who derive sadistic pleasure from punishing the weak, the poor, the hungry, even at the expense of children. It is the behavior of people who derive an orgasmic thrill from their own power and unfairness.
As I said, as twisted as it may be, it takes real conviction to hurt children simply for the mean-spirited hell of it.
…Some people may remember the "unpleasant" lunch held at the Book Expo at the LA Convention Center. What made it "unpleasant" was that Al Franken got in Bill O'Reilly's face and exposed O'Reilly to be a shameless liar, claiming on a number of occasions that O'Reilly's pre-O'Reilly Factor entertainment show Inside Edition won the Peabody Award. It didn't. It won a Polk award and that after O'Reilly had left the show. If you didn't get a chance to see Franken engage in some much need public humiliation of a pompous conservative pundit, you can see the video on C-Span's BookTV.org site under the heading
Book & Author Luncheon. Unfortunately, the lunch ended on a wussy note, the last questioner from the audience mildly chastised the panel because he says it "strikes me that this dialogue is good entertainment but on another level it concerns me for our republic." Well, considering that our republic is already fucked what with the 2000 election invalidated by a Supreme Court decision placing the loser in the White House, rampant Republican redistricting to render democratic voting bloc irrelevant, not to mention the FCC ignoring public outrage at further loosening the restraints on corporate media oligopoly, I hope he wasn't too disturbed by the unpleasantness. You see, the questioner wants "people coming together for constructive discourse that brings people together".
Jesus fucking Christ, where do we get people like this? "Constructive discourse"? Where the fuck has this guy been?
First, there's nothing unconstructive about pointing out the simply fact that Bill O'Reilly is either a liar or an idiot.
…These people don't need to be scolded, or persuaded, or convinced otherwise. They need to be destroyed. They need to be removed from the debate by pointing out their lies, dishonesty and mercenary attitude towards truth. It's not nice, it's not pleasant and there won't be a fucking group-hug afterwards. These pundit punks accurately reflect the thinking, or lack thereof, of the conservatives now in power and using that power to gut the social contract, whore the United States military for Bush's inner-circle of contractors and, in the process, kill a whole bunch of foreigners that the American people can't even bother to give lip service to caring about.
See Bill 'Reilly? See Ann Coulter? See the well-respected whores at the Washington Post and on CNN? They are not harmless. Every child screwed out of a dollar and every foreign child screwed out of the remainder of their natural life can thank these amoral bastards for their predicament.
…Remember: This is the America where people get arrested for wearing T-shirts, where people are harassed and threatened with arrest of flying the flag upside down. This is an America that doesn't give a great goddamn about your high road. Under the surface, of course, this is an American which may be aware that something is terribly wrong and is fighting like hell to avoid the cognitive dissonance between the American in print and the America currently in practice. The more "constructive discourse" you attempt with people that will should you down, offer bumper sticker slogans and question your patriotism, the more of a loser playing their game you are.
What this America needs is righteous indignation. This American needs to be shamed. This America needs a spanking. It won't be pleasant, it won't be nice and yeah, it won't always follow the high road. And maybe a life or two is worth the price of making an ad hominem argument or two. You think?
…This isn't a game. Liberals don't score points for enlightened loftiness. No one is waiting to study at the feet of sage liberals. These oh-so enlightened Liberals are not the Buddha and their copping the attitude of having "Buddha-nature" because they read
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and stink of patchouli doesn't give them the right to tell people how to fight for their very survival.
"Constructive discourse" my ass. People are getting screwed. People are dying. And some liberals still don't realize that this isn't a dialectic.
This is a knife fight. If Liberals can't fight for their own survival (and if they won't, then perhaps Liberalism deserves extinction) it would be nice if they could hold their nose and get over their prim dislike of unpleasantness and self-serving bullshit about "constructive discourse" in order to fight for other's survival.
jaHEEzuz! I almost couldn't stop.
I'm going to go read it again.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/2/2003 08:20:53 AM |
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Editorial run
Capitol Hill Cross-Fire
The gun lobby in Congress, as brazen as it is shameless, recently scored an alarming coup among compliant lawmakers by jamming a routine appropriations bill with amendments to undermine federal laws that track illicit firearms. The legislative blitz, engineered by the National Rifle Association, took the House Appropriations Committee by surprise last month. Yet it was approved 31 to 30, in bipartisan homage to the N.R.A.'s power to stir politicians' fear and obeisance.
Less Power, More Influence
By RICHARD H. PILDES
&hellip:In the 1980's, Congress and the courts therefore required "safe" minority districts, in which black voters would be able to elect their candidates regardless of how whites voted. But with some districts intentionally drawn to be dominated by blacks, surrounding districts became even more dominated by whites.
Many found this solution troubling - including supporters of race-conscious public policies, like affirmative action, in other areas. But in the electoral context of a generation ago, this approach seemed the only way to create equal opportunities for black voters in a one-party system.
…The rise of two-party politics in the South helps explain why: a vibrant Republican Party now threatened to take over state government. That pressure united black and white Democrats. As black Democrats in Georgia saw it, what good are seats in a political body more hostile overall to the interests of black voters?
…The Supreme Court was remarkably astute about the new South's new politics. The Voting Rights Act, it ruled, does not require the election of black candidates for their own sake. Its purpose is to ensure equal opportunities and meaningful political influence and participation. If that goal is best realized by designing democratic institutions that foster interracial coalitions, the court concluded, the law should not stand in the way.
This is much the same as the court's approach in the affirmative action cases, in which it allowed university administrators flexibility to decide how much to weigh race in admission decisions. Similarly, in the most important voting-rights decision in a generation, the court concluded that the law did not dictate a single solution. The states now have some leeway to decide exactly what political equality means.
Difficult decisions lie ahead. As a first step toward a new understanding of political equality, Georgia v. Ashcroft was legally difficult, but practically easy; black legislators were not seriously at risk of losing in the less "safe," more integrated new districts. But as the four dissenters in the case worried, deciding what amounts to meaningful political power, and what tradeoffs to accept in pursuit of it, is fraught with controversy and uncertainty. Looming are more profound questions, like whether political equality may sometimes require black candidates giving up safe seats.
Looking deeper at racial profiling
By Jack McDevitt and Lisa Bailey, 8/2/2003
THE RECENT Globe series on the enforcement of traffic stops has provided a service by documenting some of the costs associated with racial disparities in traffic stops.
Previous media stories have focused on particular cases of individual traffic stops and allegations of bias. The analysis has taken an important step in moving the discussion beyond anecdotes and toward a more systematic analysis of one aspect of the racial profiling discussion: the role race, age, and gender play in the decision to give either warnings or citations to motorists stopped by the police.
The analysis has documented that disparate treatment by law enforcement has significant monetary costs to those who are treated differently. The two most significant costs are the additional expense of receiving a citation rather than a warning and the additional surcharges on the driver's insurance premium.
While such monetary costs are relevant to the discussion of racial profiling, disparate treatment produces more dramatic social costs. Individuals singled out for disproportionate enforcement will experience personal costs in terms of embarrassment and a feeling of being treated as a criminal just because they belong to a particular group. As a consequence, those who are subjected to disparate traffic enforcement may experience a loss of respect and trust in their local police.
This is important as more law enforcement agencies adopt a community policing philosophy that relies on a high level of trust between the police and their community. Individuals who believe they have been singled out for harsher treatment because of their race, ethnicity, or gender will be much less willing to work with the police when asked for their help to solve public safety problems in their community.
Cartoons
The Boondocks allows me to make this comment without drawing more odious basketball player/Denver cheerleader googles. Thank you.
Jeff Danziger diagnoses the Democratic primary hunt. (BTW, I always…and I mean always thought Kerry looked like Herman Munster with a bad toupee. Am I wrong for saying that?)
Ted Rall documents the process involved in deciding whether Liberia gets U.S. assistance.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/2/2003 07:35:37 AM |
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John Poindexter Has Not Quit…John Poindexter is not the problem. Poindexter is a symptom of a larger disease, the idea that liberty is incompatible with fighting terrorism, in fact if not in rhetoric.
Let me repeat this one more time. You don't fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water or sand. You choke off fire's oxygen. You reduce the causes of fire. If you only fight fire with fire, the ground is burned and
a lot of brave men are dead .
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/2/2003 07:14:24 AM |
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Careful…
We certainly understand the need to compete at this stage, but we need to be careful.
Kerry camp split on issue of DeanTougher approach winning out, but some have doubts
(By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff)
WASHINGTON -- Howard Dean's strong fund-raising and recent rise in public opinion polls have created a divide within Senator John F. Kerry's presidential campaign, between aides who want to attack the former Vermont governor to stem the tide and others who believe his wave of support will crest on its own.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/2/2003 06:56:57 AM |
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Leaks from those drips are very suspicious
When the most tight-lipped administration in the history of the nation has leaks like this, you can assume it's no accident.
I think the single most annoying phrase in common political use is "it sends the message that…" I would deeply appreciate it if people would stop sending messages and just say what the hell the want to say. Half the reason your evil plans fail is you keep sending messages which people are free to ignore because you didn't just say it.
The other half fail because you lie, but that's an issue for another post.
Classified pages implicate SaudisSept. 11 report sees a government role
(By Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times)
WASHINGTON - The 27 pages deleted from a congressional report on Sept. 11 depict a Saudi government that not only provided significant money and aid to the suicide hijackers, but also allowed potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to flow to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups through suspect charities and other fronts, according to sources familiar with the document.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/2/2003 06:54:41 AM |
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To show or not to show, that is the question
Ancient Art at Met Raises Old Ethical QuestionsBy MARTIN GOTTLIEB and BARRY MEIER
lmost lost in the sumptuous display of Mesopotamian antiquities in the "Art of the First Cities" exhibition now at the Metropolitan Museum is a small limestone fragment, triangular in shape and delicately carved.
The piece shows Naram-Sin, a king of the ancient Akkadian empire, seated beside Ishtar, goddess of love, fertility and war. In the show's catalog it is described as an "extraordinary" example of the era's art.
It also has another distinction. In terms of its archaeological pedigree, it might as well have fallen out of the sky.
Until about four years ago, when a scholar spotted it in the Upper East Side home of a prominent collector, the Naram-Sin limestone was essentially unknown. No record of its excavation or history of ownership has emerged. In antiquities circles, that empty space amounts to a warning label: this piece may be the fruit of plunder.
The "First Cities" show opened in May, on the heels of the ransacking of the Iraq Museum and as pretty much everyone in the archaeological community was vowing to stanch the trade in stolen antiquities. But as the story of the Naram-Sin limestone shows, the everyday world of buying, selling and exhibiting is often a lot more ambiguous than that. The marketplace is full of objects with mysterious pasts — a lot of them indeed looted — and it's often anything but clear which ones are legitimate and which are not.
How to handle such orphan objects — is it ethical to buy them, to show them, even to write scholarly articles about them? — is one of the central, and most divisive, issues in the hothouse world of museums, collectors and archaeologists. But the debate has become increasingly public and pointed with the recent events in Iraq.
The article comes with a
narrated slideshow that has excellent pictures of some remarkable pieces.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/2/2003 06:49:46 AM |
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Work on Star Trek universal translator is beginning in a few more years
From Uzbek to Klingon, the Machine Cracks the CodeBy CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARAH
…Statistical machine translation - in which computers essentially learn new languages on their own instead of being "taught" the languages by bilingual human programmers - has taken off. The new technology allows scientists to develop machine translation systems for a wide number of obscure languages at a pace that experts once thought impossible.
Dr. Knight and others said the progress and accuracy of statistical machine translation had recently surpassed that of the traditional machine translation programs used by Web sites like Yahoo and BabelFish. In the past, such programs were able to compile extensive databanks of foreign languages that allowed them to outperform statistics-based systems.
Traditional machine translation relies on painstaking efforts by bilingual programmers to enter the vast wealth of information on vocabulary and syntax that the computer needs to translate one language into another. But in the early 1990's, a team of researchers at I.B.M. devised another way to do things: feeding a computer an English text and its translation in a different language. The computer then uses statistical analysis to "learn" the second language.
Compare two simple phrases in Arabic: "rajl kabir'' and "rajl tawil.'' If a computer knows that the first phrase means "big man," and the second means "tall man," the machine can compare the two and deduce that rajl means "man," while kabir and tawil mean "big" and "tall," respectively. Phrases like these, called "N-grams" (with N representing the number of terms in a given phrase) are the basic building blocks of statistical machine translation.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/2/2003 06:40:15 AM |
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I was looking forward to seeing her in them short skirts
I don't understand tennis ranking, but since Venus Williams came in second in 5 of the last 6 Grand Slams (and, I believe, won the sixth), why isn't she ranked second?
Surgery Puts Serena Williams Out of OpenBy THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The announcement last night that Serena Williams would not defend her United States Open title created a wide-open tournament while depriving the field of the most compelling player in women's tennis.
The Associated Press reported that Williams, the top-ranked women's player, had had surgery to repair a partial tear in the middle portion of the quadriceps tendon of her left knee. Her spokeswoman said she was resting at her home in Los Angeles, and Dr. Rodney Gabriel, who performed the operation, said she would be out six to eight weeks.
The operation puts at least a temporary halt to a remarkable run by Williams, who has won five of the last six Grand Slam titles, all of them in finals against her older sister Venus. In their most recent Grand Slam meeting, in the Wimbledon final, Serena prevailed by 4-6, 6-4, 6-2; Venus was bothered by a strained abdominal muscle.
The WTA Tour said that Serena Williams was now certain to lose her No. 1 ranking to Kim Clijsters, who is currently ranked second, or No. 3 Justine Henin-Hardenne between next week and the first week of September.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/2/2003 06:33:49 AM |
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I like it
Cyndy at Mousemusings pointed this out. This is better than the "Killer D's" leaving Texas to prevent a quorum.
BRIAN FLEMMING ANNOUNCES CANDIDACY FOR CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR; PLATFORM: "I WILL RESIGN"LOS ANGELES, July 25, 2003 -- Nationally renowned playwright, filmmaker and political activist Brian Flemming today officially announced his intention to run as a candidate for governor in California's October 7, 2003, recall election.
"I have one plank in my platform," said Flemming. "If elected, I will immediately resign. This action will make Lieutenant Governor Cruz M. Bustamante the Governor of California."
Because most prominent Democrats, including Bustamante, have refused to run, out of solidarity with Gov. Gray Davis, there will likely be few choices for Democrats on the recall ballot. Flemming intends to be the focus of those who vote against the recall, while several announced Republican candidates may split the pro-recall vote.
Word of Flemming's unique candidacy leaked out through his personal weblog earlier this week, and words of encouragement are pouring in from the "blogging" community, especially those in the Golden State.
"The people of California are furious at the right-wing attempt to hijack our democracy. My platform is a novel solution that has a lot of appeal. People can still vote against recalling Davis--but then, on the second vote in that election, they can choose my name from the list as a backup plan, and the person whom Californians already elected to replace Davis will take the governor's office as soon as I resign, which will be the same minute I am inaugurated."
Flemming's campaign already has a website ( http://www.slumdance.com/flemmingforgovernor/ ), a logo, and a motto: "choose democracy."
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/2/2003 12:40:55 AM |
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August 01, 2003
Another "Think on these things" moment
Give Young Adults a Reason to Vote, Say Panelists
By civilrights.org staff
civilrights.org
July 25, 2003
Although the public tends to assume that youth apathy towards politics is a result of ignorance, panelists at the "Take Back America Conference" pointed instead to the fact that many young people do not "see the process as being legitimate" or connected to their own lives. Young political activists criticized politicians and parties as they speculated about the root of youth apathy in politics in one session at the conference, which was held by Campaign for America's Future.
Speakers attributed the lack of youth participation in the electoral process to the lack of attention politicians pay to issues relevant to young adults. One example given was the failure to adequately tackle the sources of youth criminality instead of focusing on punitive measures against juvenile delinquency after the fact.
Other panelists argued that youth culture is being ostracized instead of embraced by the political community. Instead of attempting to utilize and understand hip hop culture as an integral part of connecting with youth today, it is often seen as a menacing social force that causes more cleavage than unity. Panelists fought this misconception, giving examples of how to utilize hip hop culture in various capacities to mobilize youth and provide a medium in which they can become more politically involved.
Most importantly, panelists argued that politicians must not take their constituents for granted, regardless of age, making a specific reference to black voters. To make this happen, activists must increase efforts to raise issue awareness among both elected officials and potential voters.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/1/2003 02:57:13 PM |
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Wrong for the right reasons
Stanley Crouch lambasts the civil rights establishment over the whose death or mistreatment they show outrage over. Though I'm very concerned about violence in the Black community and particularly disturbed about those that take a dump on the dining room table, as it were, Crouch's editorial is wrong headed.
Civil Rights organizations exist for specific purposes and it is fitting that they show some focus in their activities. Just as one wouldn't charge the FBI with laxness because they don't pursue every murder but would if they ignored any kidnapping, one shouldn't expect civil rights organizations to pursue every violence act but should expect them to pursue every act that violates the civil rights of those they represent.
The problem isn't that there's a division of labor, it's that every division isn't adequately covered, or covered correctly. Yet, assuming Crouch is as concerned over the victims of violence as the existance of civil rights organizations that focus on civil rights, I can forgive him for raising the issue.
Civil rights leaders show selective rage The tragic murder of City Councilman James Davis brought great attention to his career. He is rightfully mourned, if only because of how far ahead of the civil rights establishment this highly principled man was. He was willing to face the epidemic of urban violence, push for better alliances between the police and communities and bring together hip-hop writers and entertainers opposed to the oppression of those communities by murderous thugs.
Given Davis' example, you might ask what the civil rights leaders and black elected officials who represent terrorized urban neighborhoods are doing about this problem. Largely nothing, from what I can tell.
Let us say that Davis was just another hardworking black man who was highly regarded by his friends. Let us say that he was gunned down in a public place in East Harlem or inner Brooklyn or the South Bronx. Let us add that he, like a recent Brooklyn victim, was killed by a member of the Bloods because he was going to testify against a gang member in a murder trial.
Would the civil rights establishment or local black elected officials or the Rev. Al Sharpton have made much of his murder? I don't think so, because there is no substantial record of their showing any overt concern about such issues, which is why Davis' sustained campaign against violence was unique.
…As historian Leon Litwack observes, 4,742 black people were lynched between 1882 and 1968, a period of 86 years. Thugs in Los Angeles have more than doubled that number in just 20 years. Had the Los Angeles culprits been white gangs, they would not have been allowed to kill even 100 people.
Therein lies the sin of silence on the part of the civil rights establishment. Think about it.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/1/2003 02:52:19 PM |
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Huh?
What does (passim) mean?
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/1/2003 11:08:23 AM |
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The State of Black America 2003
The National Urban League has released this year’s edition of The State of Black America, a collection of essays that explores the place and progress of African American families. To view the abstracts, click here.[p6: Microsoft Word Document] To order your copy today, click here to download and print out an order form, which must be faxed to 212.344.5189 when it is completed, or call 212.558.5300.
Here's one of the abstracts.
The Impact of Mass Incarceration on Public Health in Black Communities
By Ernest M. Drucker
Mass incarceration in America? The term seems alien to us. Yet the facts are stark: the United States now has the world's highest rate of imprisonment-more than 2 million Americans behind bars, and another 4.6 million on probation and parole. The imprisonment rate is now also at its highest level in our history: more than 700 per 100,000 Americans, the highest in the world. This vast system of some 5000 federal, state and local penal institutions and its millions of inmates is supported by prison budgets that are also unprecedented-averaging more than $25,000 per inmate or about $50 billion annually. These and other facts have led some observers to speak of the country's incarceration polices being manipulated by a "prison industrial complex."
Despite studies showing this "industry" delivers few long-term economic benefits, prisons are often seen as an economic lifeline-especially in rural communities, making prison budgets hard to touch because many powerful local political arrangements are built on them. Recently, however, states' need to conserve funds has produced the first decline in new incarcerations in 30 years via the early release of nonviolent offenders, even as many of the sentencing policies that built and filled these prisons continue unabated.
There are serious questions about the effectiveness of mass incarceration in reducing crime. On the other hand, substantial research indicates that the massive scale of imprisonment and the long sentences are having disastrous effects of their own. This includes the creation of a large and embittered population of ex-offenders who return to their communities changed for the worse. Given the high rates of recidivism among ex-offenders generally-more than two-thirds of ex-offenders end up back in prison within a few years of their release-this dynamic virtually guarantees a higher crime rate in many urban neighborhoods for years to come.
Mass incarceration in our society disproportionately targets African Americans and Hispanics. African Americans, while only about 12 percent of the total population, constitute nearly 50 percent of the prison population; and approximately forty percent of all black men age 20 to 29 are currently in prison or jail, or on parole or probation. Incarceration is now becoming the norm for a substantial proportion of black American men; more black males go to jail than to college.
Drug-enforcement policies are particularly important for understanding mass incarceration, because during the last twenty-five years, they've produced the largest and most racially disparate increases in incarceration rates. Nationally, more than 450,000 people incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. In New York State, despite the lack of any evidence of significantly higher rates of illicit drug use for blacks and Hispanics, drug-related incarcerations of young black and Hispanic males is 40 and 30 times the rate, respectively, of young white males. Since the so-called Rockefeller drug laws took effect in 1973, the rate of drug incarcerations in New York increased from 8 percent of the prison population to more than 30 percent. Ninety percent of that group are male; 78 percent are New York City residents; 94 percent are black and Hispanic (although blacks and Hispanics are just 12 percent of the total state population); and 70 percent of them come from just six New York City neighborhoods.
Studies which use a public-health approach to systematically assess the impact of mass incarceration policies show the huge scale of the harm the dynamic of mass incarceration policies-especially those driven by draconian drug laws-is doing to specific black communities and Black America as a whole.
Further intensifying the negative collective impact of mass-incarceration, little support is expressed for the communities and families most affected by the dynamic. Each prisoner's family must carry its own burdens and find ways to compensate for the loss. When this phenomenon occurs on a large scale and for an extended period of time, it may significantly damage the mental and physical health of individuals, families and entire communities-and create or intensify the very social conditions that enable crime to flourish
Felony convictions also mean the loss of the right to vote-which currently affects almost 3.9 million Americans, half of whom are African American. That means that thirty to forty percent of black males age 18 to 30 are disenfranchised. Given that the usual voting rate of this age group, regardless of race, is about 25 percent, it may be that in those areas with high incarceration rates, the number of young black men barred from voting may be greater than those who are legally eligible. This is political disempowerment writ large, not just of individuals but of entire communities.
Further, felony conviction usually means a greatly reduced chance of gainful employment after prison, and being barred from a range of rights and opportunities other Americans enjoy. Obviously, these extensions of incarceration into the post-sentence life of felons affects their families, too-underscoring the possibility that, far from conferring any protection by fighting crime, mass incarceration systematically undermines black family life by destroying a substantial part of Black America's social capital.
From a public-health perspective, we must consider America's high rates of incarceration a negative measure of the society as a whole-akin to such other societal problems as AIDS, infant mortality, addiction, homicide, or school failure. We must recognize that incarceration must be used sparingly-especially for non- violent drug offenders. One way to ameliorate this crisis is to immediately repeal many of the draconian mandatory sentencing laws-especially those for nonviolent drug offenses-and replace the old drug laws with new ones that allow judges the discretion to discriminate between dangerous criminals and the vast number of those defendants with drug-dependency problems. We must also reduce the collateral damage to the children, families, and communities most affected by enacting policies and establishing programs to help them when their family members are sent to prison and when they are discharged from prison.
America must learn to limit the use of incarceration itself and find other means to enforce even just laws. This means reducing the number of Americans behind bars through the use of more effective and less damaging social policies. And it means abolishing the many laws that are patently unjust and counter productive-especially our discredited drug laws, which have led us to make imprisonment "normal" for large groups of Americans.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/1/2003 11:02:06 AM |
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Editorial Run
Lending a Hand in an African Village (Don't Mind the Goats)
By ADAM COHEN
Teaching in a poor Ghanaian village, you'll find limited English, goats and dignity in tough circumstances.
Grabbing the Nettle
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
We're so used to the Bush administration's hyping the Iraq threat that it's stunning to see officials playing down the North Korean crisis
The Growing Inmate Population
The nation's prison and jail population rose again last year, to 2,166,260, a record. The increase comes at a time when crime is falling and state and local governments are struggling to close budget deficits. The price of imprisoning so many Americans is too high, in scarce tax dollars and in wasted lives. Congress and state legislatures should find ways to reduce the number of people behind bars.
The population of federal and state prisons and local jails grew 2.6 percent last year, according to new Justice Department data. Since 1995, it has risen nearly 30 percent. By the end of last year, the proportion of United States residents who were behind bars was a staggering 1 in 143. The nation's incarceration rate is among the world's highest, 5 to 10 times as high as in many other industrialized nations.
Politics beats science in Senate
(By Derrick Z. Jackson)
IN THE LATEST sound science seance, we take you to Washington, where senators, cringing under the spell of Exxon-Mobil and Ford, again refused to raise fuel economy standards to fight global warming
Cartoons
Bill DeOre seems to have gotten a clue.
Joel Pett on Dubya's travelogue
Ann Telnaes on Bush press conferences.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/1/2003 08:50:12 AM |
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Queen of the Hill
August Wilson's potent but ungainly 'Gem of the Ocean' opens at the Taper.
By Don Shirley
Times Staff Writer
August 1 2003
A city of bones lies at the bottom of the Atlantic — the remains of the slaves who died while crossing over from Africa.
August Wilson first used this image in his 1986 play "Joe Turner's Come and Gone." In a 1993 interview, he called "Joe Turner" his favorite among his plays and said, "The bones rising out of the ocean — when I wrote that I thought, 'OK, that's it, if I die tomorrow I'll be satisfied and fulfilled as an artist that I wrote that scene.' "
Over the last decade, however, Wilson's satisfaction may have diminished somewhat. For in his new "Gem of the Ocean," at the Mark Taper Forum, he revives and more fully develops the image of the city of bones — not as a grim graveyard but as a quasi-heavenly place where African American souls can be washed clean.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/1/2003 08:15:34 AM |
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Live by the sword...
As Associates Fall, Is 'Suge' Next?Investigators say there's a hit out on Death Row founder Knight. The rap music mogul dismisses the notion.
By Chuck Philips
Times Staff Writer
July 31, 2003
Someone is gunning for Marion "Suge" Knight.
The head of Death Row Records grew famous glamorizing gang violence. He called his artists "inmates." His company logo depicted a hooded convict strapped into an electric chair. His producers grafted violent lyrics onto driving rhythms, punctuated by shotgun blasts and wailing sirens.
That was make-believe mayhem. Now, Knight is being stalked by the real thing.
A string of gang shootings has claimed the lives of eight people since 1997, including four of the rap entrepreneur's closest associates. Investigators believe the killers' ultimate target is Knight himself.
In the most recent slaying, gunmen ambushed Wardell "Poochie" Fouse, a longtime Knight confidant, on July 24, firing 10 shots into his back as he rode a motorcycle in Compton.
Previous victims include Knight's best friend and chief bodyguard, who was gunned down at a gas station in Compton, and the creator of the Death Row logo, who was shot dead near a fried-chicken stand in South-Central L.A.
All the killings remain unsolved. Police suspect that at least three were ordered or carried out by a pair of gang members pursuing a vendetta against Knight. One is a former Death Row bodyguard whom Knight fired.
"If I was Suge Knight, I'd be worried someone was out to get me," said Sgt. Fred Reynolds, a gang investigator with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. "When so many people so close to you get killed, it's no coincidence. If I was in his shoes, I'd be looking over my shoulder everywhere I went."
Knight, 37, said he intended to do no such thing. He dismissed the idea that his life was in danger but in terms that conveyed resignation more than defiance.
"I don't believe anyone is hunting me. But even if they were, so what?" Knight said over dinner at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills in late May. "The only guarantee a man has in life is that you are born to die. I'm from the ghetto, where black men get killed every day.
"It's like Jesus. [p6:
HELL no, it ain't]Anyone who reads the Bible knows Jesus was no punk. He didn't hide from nobody. The threat of danger didn't stop him from doing what he had to do. That's how it is with me too. I fear no man. Only God."
Knight was arrested in late June on charges that he punched a parking lot attendant outside a Hollywood club. He has been in jail since then. And Thursday, a state parole panel deemed the incident a violation of Knight's parole from an earlier assault conviction and ordered him to serve 10 months in prison.
Through much of the 1990s, Death Row was the nation's No. 1 rap label, home to the biggest hip-hop stars, including Dr. Dre, Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg.
Knight strutted into award shows draped in gold chains and diamond medallions, puffing on Cuban cigars. He mugged with celebrities and chief executives for magazine covers. He was backed by some of the biggest names in corporate America, including Time Warner and Seagram Co.
Today, all that seems a distant memory. Shakur is dead. Dre and other Death Row artists have long since defected. The label has not introduced a new star in seven years. Knight's latest release, the movie soundtrack "Dysfunktional Family," didn't even register on the national pop charts.
Knight, who has five children from different relationships, owes the Internal Revenue Service $6 million in back taxes.One bank has threatened to seize Death Row's headquarters over delinquent mortgage payments. Another has repossessed Knight's 90-foot Hatteras yacht. Staples Center revoked his luxury box over missed lease payments.
Death Row's Beverly Hills headquarters, which once teemed with employees, artists and their entourages, is silent and mostly empty now. In May, the building was raked by gunfire in the middle of the night, causing no injuries but leaving a bullet-pocked facade.
At the height of his fame, Knight embraced more than the imagery of gang violence. He surrounded himself with gangmembers and tried to become a player in their world. In so doing, police investigators and gang members say, he became entangled in their feuds and unwittingly made himself a target.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/1/2003 08:12:50 AM |
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On the horns of a dilemma
This reminds me of a joke that I heard pre-invasion:
Reporter: Why are you so adamant that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction? How can you be so sure?
Government Functionary: We kept the receipts.
US debates bid to kill Hussein and avoid trialBy Bryan Bender, Globe Correspondent, 8/1/2003
WASHINGTON -- Senior Bush administration officials are debating whether to order military commanders to kill rather than capture Saddam Hussein to avoid an unpredictable trial that could stir up nationalist Arab sentiments and embarrass Washington by publicizing past US support for the deposed Iraqi dictator, according to defense and intelligence officials.
Trying Hussein before an Iraqi or international criminal court would present an opportunity to hold the Ba'ath Party regime accountable for its repression and murder of thousands of people over the past three decades.
Iraq's new US-backed Governing Council said this week it wants to try Hussein in an Iraqi court, something the occupation authority there has said it supports. The New York Times, citing unnamed State Department officials, reported today that the administration favors creating a tribunal of Iraqi judges to try Hussein for crimes against humanity if he is caught.
But as US troops step up the hunt for Hussein near his hometown of Tikrit, the prospect of an open trial that puts him on a public stage has given pause to some in the administration, according to government officials with knowledge of the high-level meetings. Among those said to have taken part in the discussions are Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.
One of the officials, who is involved in the Iraq reconstruction effort, described at least one of the leaders as having ''mixed feelings'' about whether to kill or capture Hussein.
Cheney, whose office would not comment on the issue last night, and senior Bush advisers are said to worry that a trial would be a spectacle in which Hussein could tap into Arab anxieties about the American occupation, try to implicate the United States for previously coddling the regime, and assert Iraq's compliance with United Nations resolutions outlawing weapons of mass destruction -- measures that the administration says gave legal justification for the war.
…Such a prospect, however, raises concerns that a trial would create problems for the United States. One worry is that a host of embarrassing charges might be leveled at the United States. Washington supported Hussein's regime during Iraq's war against Iran between 1980 and 1988 -- including providing satellite images of Iranian military formations -- at a time when Iraqi forces used chemical weapons against troops and civilians. The United States may have even given Hussein the green light to attack Iran, according to Said K. Aburish, author of ''Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge.''
A trial might also raise uncomfortable questions about Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction. So far, the United States has failed to find the alleged chemical and biological arms used as justification for the war.
Hussein could try to take advantage of the controversy surrounding the search for unconventional weapons, claiming before the court of world opinion that he had abided by the UN resolutions that barred him from having such weapons -- thus putting the United States and Britain on the defensive.
Aburish, who was involved in business deals with Iraq in the 1970s, said that the weapons programs that are the focus of such scrutiny had roots in American assistance. For example, he said that in 1976 -- when former president George H. W. Bush was director of the CIA -- Hussein's government was sold the blueprints for what was described as a pesticide plant but was later determined to have more nefarious purposes.
''We gave them the design for how to build a chemical warfare plant,'' Aburish said. ''The initial effort involved US government approval -- in the second phase, someone woke up and said we can't do it. But [Hussein's] people put it together piecemeal,'' based on that design.
Hulsman said: ''Saddam knows the background of America far too well to make it comfortable for the Americans. He can claim victimhood in a region replete with victimhood.''
US government officials, as recently as last fall, denied having knowledge that the United States provided Iraq with materials for chemical and biological weapons -- some as recently as 1992 -- ostensibly for legitimate medical research. Rumsfeld told a Senate panel in September that he doubted its validity.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/1/2003 08:05:05 AM |
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The song sounds familiar
This highly offensive piece of Israeli legislation reminds me of the good ol' days in the USofA.
New Law Raises Obstacles to Israeli-Palestinian MarriagesBy JAMES BENNET
JERUSALEM, July 31 — The Israeli Parliament voted today to block Palestinians who marry Israelis from becoming Israeli citizens or residents, erecting a new legal barrier as Israel finished the first section of a new physical barrier against West Bank Palestinians.
Supporters of the legislation called it a necessary bulwark against infiltration by terrorists. "We are in a state of war — not with the English, or the Americans, or the Dutch, or the Slovaks — we are at war with our neighbors, the Palestinians," Gideon Saar, of the dominant Likud Party, told the Parliament in debate before the vote. "It's a tragic reality."
Proponents also called the law a way to preserve Israel's Jewish majority.
Opponents called it a racist measure that threatened to divide thousands of families or force them out of Israel. Roughly 1.2 million of Israel's 6.7 million citizens are Arabs, and they are far more likely than Israeli Jews to marry Palestinians.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/1/2003 07:56:47 AM |
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More on the voting machine issue
You know that very critical report on voting machines by The Information Security Institute at John Hopkins? The one I said looked like it was about the files Scoop published and asked security experts to examine?
Well, it was.
Diebold has published a press release responding to the report. It's a pdf file; googling "diebold technical response voting" gets you a pointer to a web page containing the press release, which has been removed. Google, of course, has it's cached copy available.
The response was fisked within an inch of its life
1) The software that's been examined is old and not used in elections. Easy to prove:
a) The FEC requires that each software version be certified.
b) The certification number is assigned by the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) and is accompanied by a "version number."
c) Matching version numbers are included in the source code examined by the Hopkins Heroes.
2) The research "overlooked the total system of software, hardware, services and poll worker training that has been so effective in real-world implementations." / They ran the tests on the wrong hardware.
a) These factors are irrelevant to the specified defects in the implementation code. "Hardware, services and poll worker training," no matter how good they are, don't fix flawed software code.
4) Diebold software undergoes a series of certification processes
a) Certification is not relevant to demonstrated code defects.
b) Shall we ignore the fact that the old horrifying code also passed the 'certification' and the certification is therefore worthless?
5) "We have been using the systems now for a year and a half, with great success."
a) Time in the field is not relevant to demonstrated code defects.
b) Define "success."
8) The system could be manipulated only by someone who brought a laptop to the voting booth and modified the voting machine. (From a Georgia official, Michael Barnes of the Georgia Elections Division)
a) Two words: Palm Pilot
b) What about an iPaq? Small, powerful, easily concealed.
c) In fact all you need is a forged voter card.
That's not all the points, or all the responses. Just the ones I enjoyed the most.
Is it clear yet we need to do what
Pima County, AZ Democratic Party is doing?
“The PCDP is committed to ensuring the integrity of our vote here in Pima County. We plan on educating our voters, elected officials and both local and national press about these major voting flaws. And if we need to take legal action to repair those flaws, we’re ready to do just that,” Eckerstrom concluded.
Is it yet clear that this is the most important non-partisan issue we have?
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/1/2003 07:50:38 AM |
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Update to the Dartmouth Observer/Tyler Cowen/Sacerdote rant
I got some back-story here. Tyler Cowen asked for blogging topics and Timothy Waligore of the Free Dartmouth submitted the Sacerdote paper. And apparantly there was an angry student letter, the Dartmouth Observer simply linked to the article that inspired the letter rather than the letter itself.
The original Dartmouth Observer article and Mr. Cowen drew inferences from the Sacerdote paper that are simply not supported by it. Jacob Levy's initial response restored the Volokh Conspircy's reputation for rigor. I don't know why the follow up post that so distracted me was made, but Mr. Levy has said he'll not likely respond to Timothy Waligore response (which is considerably more substantial than that of the Dartmouth Observer) nor mine. Frankly, I don't blame him. Shit and flames, man, shit and flames.
I had never read any of Mr. Cowen's work before this all came up, but I noted that he must have brought a predisposition against repartions to his reading of the Sacerdote paper, and I was right. I must say, however, that Dartmouth invited this misrepresentation from the very start, and Mr. Sacerdote did little (as opposed to nothing) to correct this.
One good thing about all this noise is I got a document or two I can use in further discussions of reparations, in particular Indigenous Minorities and the Shadow of Injustice Past. I found this while searching for an online copy of an article cited by Mr. Waligore.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/1/2003 04:53:11 AM |
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TerrorTubbies
You must have Flash installed, and you mush sit through a bit of nonsense (not ads, just nonsense) to get to the best part, but it is worth it.
http://icard.mondominishows.com/terror.asp?serial=1024149&seed=2035
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/1/2003 03:23:17 AM |
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Can't…resist…
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/1/2003 03:14:05 AM |
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July 31, 2003
Well, that blows my plans all to hell
I had it in mind to work on something entirely other than this tonight. I was going to write an essay about a long post I found at The Right Christians, taking into account the posts at The Raving Atheist that they were responding to. I'd actually be prime Bright material were it not for the impact I've seen various religions have had on people I've known. The essay I have in mind, and will still write, is something of a gift to the Right Christians in gratitude for their starting The TOE Project.
But that will have to wait
Like a fool, I check my referral logs and see I got my expected visit from one or more of the Volokhs. My invitation to review the series on reparations was accepted as well.
As I said at the beginning of the series, reparations is a subject that will generate enough shit and flames to easily last a week. That the topic has been taken up by such high-profile writers (relative to the BlogNet, of course) should guarantee a broad response. And since the Volokhs made it all the way uptown to review my humble efforts, I decided to take a look to see if and how one or more of the Conspiracy would respond to it all.
Well, they didn't respond. More accurately, their response was to refer it to The Dartmouth Observer.
Volokh discusses Sacerdote
Dartmouth economics professor Bruce Sacerdote '90 published a
paper not too long ago about the transgenerational effects of slavery, whereupon one student got
really, really mad and had to be
told off.
Tyler Cowen and
Jacob Levy at Volokh are now attempting to relate Sacerdote's study to the issue of slavery reparations. Cowen thinks the study weakens the case for reparations, but Levy doesn't. For a less technical discussion of reparations, try this
discussion between John McWhorter and Alfred Brophy on Uncommon Knowledge.
Again, I'm disappointed.
Not just because Mr. Levy just blows off the conversation after such a promising start, but to blow it off with this particular tripe, well…
You see, I
am one that follows links in a post I'm interested in. I don't like commenting in ignorance.
In the above quote, the word "paper" is linked to Sacerdote's paper, of course. But the link embedded in the phrase "whereupon one student got really, really mad" connects to an article in The Dartmouth Online titled "Study: Slavery's effects lasted just 2 generations." In this article, they have comments from, in order, Sacerdote himself, Conservative reactionary David Horowitz, national co-chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America Dorothy Benton Lewis, Dartmouth economics professor Eric Edmonds, and Stanford University economics professor Gavin Wright. Nowhere in the article is there any reference to any student. Therefore the phrase is a bald-faced lie, as is the phrase in which the next link is embedded.
As for the "less technical" discussion, I find the suggestion to take John McWhorter seriously almost offensive. To see why, here's the beginning of the transcript the Dartmouth Observer linked to:
Title: You Say You Want a Reparation
Randall Robinson who led the movement to boycott South Africa a decade ago has now written a book entitled, The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks. Robinson's argument, I quote him, "Well before the birth of our country, Europe and the eventual United States perpetrated a heinous wrong against the peoples of Africa. It was only in 1965, after nearly three hundred and fifty years of legal, racial suppression that the United States enacted the Voting Rights Act. Contemporary America must shoulder responsibility for those wrongs." Closed quote. Should the federal government recognize and pay such reparations? Al?
Alfred Brophy: Absolutely.
Peter Robinson: Absolutely, no--not a shadow of hesitation or doubt?
Alfred Brophy: I don't think there's any question that reparations are due, both because of the centuries of unpaid labor, as well as the continuing effects of slavery.
Peter Robinson: John?
John McWhorter: Yes, they should and they already do and it's unclear to me exactly why we need more.
Peter Robinson: Already do in what form?
John McWhorter: Welfare expanded in the late 1960's for unwed Black mothers was a form of reparations. Affirmative action is reparations in every single contour of it that you could think of. Community development corporations, the Community Re-investment Act, all of these things are reparations. They simply haven't been titled reparations. We've already got them and they're working.
Peter Robinson: And it's enough?
John McWhorter: And frankly, yeah. It's enough.
Peter Robinson: You wish no lump sum transfer payment?
John McWhorter: We need no such thing
"Welfare expanded in the late 1960's for unwed Black mothers."
Mind you, no one else benefitted from this expansion of welfare but unwed Black mothers.
I'm going to go ad hominem for a minute. McWhorter is one of those Black people who desperately hopes the Revolution will never come because he's doomed no matter which side wins.
Okay, I'm done with that. Suffice to say that single statement puts McWhorter in the same sphere as Horowitz.
This terribly weak, terribly false post in the Dartmouth Observer is what The Volokh Conspiracy uses as a response to the reparations discussion they themselves invoked.
Sad. Terribly disappointing. They cannot possibly be the best the right side of the BlogNet has to offer on this subject. They simply can't be.
Can they?
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 09:31:15 PM |
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If you look to your right
Between Dropping Knowledge and The Public Library, you'll see a link list which will hold posts and series I want readily available, either because I think I did a nice job on them or because I want to reference them without having to remember just which archive they're in.
At the moment there are links to the Racism series (because I never finished it to my satisfaction) and the Reparations series (because I think it was particularly clear).
You have roughly 24 hours in which to look at them without increasing my page views because I forgot to add the counter link and I'm just too through with HTML coding for the day (a late-learned lesson: there are some tasks Dreamweaver is better at than HTML Kit, and vice versa).
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 07:26:12 PM |
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Hm. It may be time for a serious move to Linux
Or at least to settle for my current version Direct X.
Check karmalized.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 02:06:49 PM |
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In case you hadn't checked
Interesting Monstah is back home.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 02:02:09 PM |
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Wow!
I forgot what kind of traffic comes your way when Ampersand links to you…even when he disagrees (which I can tell he does, because he just said "Prometheus 6 comments"). I gotta stay on his good side.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 10:51:33 AM |
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sigh
La. black church will pay whites to attendBy Diane Haag The (Shreveport, La.) Times
SHREVEPORT, La. — Greenwood Acres Full Gospel Baptist Church will pay white people to attend services during August to increase the diversity of its congregation.
By Charlie Gesell, The Times
Bishop Fred Caldwell says he will pay $5 per hour for Sunday services and $10 an hour for the Thursday service. The idea came to him during his sermon Sunday.
"Our churches are too segregated, and the Lord never intended for that to happen. It's time for something radical," Caldwell says.
He is basing the initiative on a parable from Matthew 20:1-16, the story of the workers in the vineyard. A landowner hired men to work in his fields for the day and throughout the day kept seeking more workers. No matter what time they came to work, the workers were all paid the same.
Caldwell says he has had several positive responses from the white community and expects to put out extra chairs Sunday.
One man who called didn't want the money; he just appreciated the invitation.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 09:42:54 AM |
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Guess who's back
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 09:34:10 AM |
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Cartoons
Why don't you just check out Tom Toles every day? It's obvious I'm going to point out his latest…
Stuart Carlson gives us a look into Poindexter's Office.
Dan Wasserman puts the GOP's seductive practices on display.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 09:26:04 AM |
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Let's keep it real
Colorblind Versus BlindfoldedIt's easy to condemn discrimination, segregation and racism. It's harder to agree on what practical steps are needed to combat them.
We all believe that everybody should be judged on his or her own merits, but many people, including a majority of Supreme Court justices, say race should be used as a "plus factor" in admitting students to public universities. And though everybody says we should strive for a colorblind society, some people still use racial and ethnic categories to describe why some people are different from others.
One way to end the problem, in the opinion of University of California Regent Ward Connerly, is to abolish the use of race and ethnicity as identifying factors. His Racial Privacy Initiative, slated to be voted on in October, would prohibit any government agency in California from collecting data on race, ethnicity, color or national origin and using it to classify those involved in public education, public contracting or public employment.
…I recall how frustrating it was to study law enforcement in Britain, where, at the time, the racial and ethnic identity of victims and suspects was not disclosed. You got the impression there that race made no difference when, in fact, it made a very large one - a fact that finally came home to the British when London was convulsed by racial tension occasioned, in part, by police action.
I wish we lived in a colorblind society but we do not. I take comfort from the fact that more and more college applicants, like more and more citizens, are refusing to select a single racial or ethnic identity when they fill out a form. These changes, accompanied by intermarriage, may in time make this a country in which ethnicity does not matter very much.
But we are not there yet. If you are a liberal, racial data are important in order to learn about social progress or its lack; if you are a conservative, they are useful to learn whether a national identity is or is not superceding separatist ones. Knowing in what direction we are moving is essential.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 09:08:26 AM |
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This ought to make everyone feel MUCH safer
China building missile supply
US report: Step linked to possible Taiwan showdown
By Eun-Kyung Kim, Associated Press, 7/31/2003
WASHINGTON -- China is boosting its missile stocks and increasing military budget to prepare for what could be a quick and brutal showdown with Taiwan, and to prevent US forces from getting in the way, the Pentagon said yesterday.
Defense officials said China was emphasizing a "surprise, deception, and shock" doctrine in its campaign against Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province.
"Preparing for a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait is the primary driver for China's military modernization," the Pentagon said in its annual evaluation of China's military.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 09:03:58 AM |
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You see? Who gives a damn about evidence?
Prosecutors to retry officer in alleged assault of teen(By Los Angeles Times)
LOS ANGELES -- Prosecutors said yesterday they will retry the assault case against former Inglewood police officer Jeremy Morse, who was caught on videotape last summer slamming a handcuffed teenager onto a car and striking him in the face.
"We will retry this case to bring this matter to some sort of just resolution for the community," said Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley. "Given seven voted guilty here, it was an easy decision to make."
The decision to try the case again came the day after a jury deadlocked after three days of deliberations, telling the judge their 7-5 split in favor of conviction was insurmountable.
One juror interviewed yesterday said the discussions were contentious but civil, with
all but one participant sticking to their initial judgment about Morse throughout deliberations. Given the near-even split vote, he questioned whether another jury can come to a unanimous verdict.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 09:01:24 AM |
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Get 'em, boyee...
Patriot Act Provision Challenged in CourtBy Caron Carlson
The expanded powers that Congress gave the FBI to search and seize private records—as well as other personal information and belongings—have been a source of criticism since the new authorities were enacted as part of the Patriot Act shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. More than 140 towns and other localities around the country have voted in opposition to the Act, and today, the American Civil Liberties Union is challenging the new powers in court.
The focus of the lawsuit is Section 215 of the Act, which gives the FBI greater powers to secretly procure records of people in the United States, including citizens. The FBI does not have to show probable cause that the target of an investigation is a criminal suspect or a foreign agent, and it never has to notify the target. The suit names Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller as defendants.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 07:23:52 AM |
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Pres. Charles Taylor
Newsweek has an interview with the "outgoing" President of Liberia up on the web.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 07:18:02 AM |
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ZIMBABWE: Political thaw raises hope of talks
ZIMBABWE: Political thaw raises hope of talksJOHANNESBURG, 30 Jul 2003 (IRIN) - Should talks resume between Zimbabwe's rival political parties, the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is likely to insist on the government restoring the "rule of law", analysts told IRIN.
Efforts to reopen the dialogue between the ruling ZANU-PF and the MDC have intensified in recent weeks with the country's clergy stepping in as mediators.
The MDC on Wednesday confirmed that its president, Morgan Tsvangirai, had met with local church leaders in a bid to get the stalled talks restarted, as a first step on the road to a negotiated settlement of the Zimbabwean crisis.
The clergy was awaiting written responses from both parties, which could lead to a formal meeting, the local Daily News newspaper reported.
Zimbabwe Council of Churches president Bishop Sebastian Bakare is leading the church delegation. He is accompanied by Trevor Manhanga, the head of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe and Patrick Mutume of the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference.
The apparent "public" thaw in relations between the opposition and the government came last week after the MDC attended the opening of parliament. Opposition MPs last year boycotted the occasion, saying they did not recognise the legitimacy of President Robert Mugabe as the head of state.
The MDC is challenging Mugabe's victory in court, alleging that the polls held in March 2002 were marred by violence, intimidation and vote-rigging.
Noting recent statements made by the MDC, observers said Mugabe's legitimacy would continue to surface throughout the proposed dialogue, but it would take a back seat to some of the more pressing issues facing the country.
The MDC's legal affairs secretary, David Coltart, told IRIN: "If the talks between the MDC and ZANU-PF are done in an earnest way, and endorsed by the international community, we will consider holding in abeyance the presidential challenge. We have also said if the talks yield a final agreement with constitutional guarantees then the MDC will withdraw the election petition."
The court challenge is due to start on 3 November.
"The key issue the MDC is likely to raise during the talks is the restoration of the rule of law, and that includes repealing repressive laws which restrict political activity," chairman of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network Reginald Matchaba-Hove said.
Human rights groups argue that the Public Order and Safety Act, for example, pushed through parliament in 2001, severely curtails political expression. The act bans any political gathering without police consent.
Another issue which should be urgently addressed, Matchaba-Hove added, was the humanitarian crisis now affecting close to five million Zimbabweans. "It is important that the leaders consider the seriousness of the humanitarian needs in the country and jointly produce a solid programme to sell to donors. Inflation is now close to 365 percent, which is an indication of how badly the economy is doing."
"In tandem to all of the other pressing issues, there should be a discussion of the drawing-up of a new constitution which is democratic, and allows for checks and balances. The discussion should focus on addressing electoral reform to ensure that the next election would be substantially free and fair. Mugabe's legitimacy is a detail which can be discussed at a later stage," he said.
Crisis in Zimbabwe spokeswoman Everjoyce Win agreed, saying that changes to the country's constitution were key to resolving the political impasse.
"The talks should not focus on who has the right to govern or not, but address fundamental shortcomings of the constitution. Talks should consider how the rule of law has been subverted, and what can be done to restore some legitimacy to the state," she said.
Mugabe's government walked out of political talks with the MDC in April 2002 after the opposition went to court to challenge the presidential election result, saying mediation efforts must wait until the courts ruled on the case.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 07:11:52 AM |
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Well. That's a surprise
Mugabe orders party faithful to hand back excess farms Harare
31 July 2003 11:30
President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has ordered top officials in his party to relinquish farms if they have acquired more than one under a controversial land reform programme, a newspaper said on Thursday.
The state-controlled Herald newspaper quoted a spokesperson for Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union -- Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) as saying Mugabe issued the directive at a politburo meeting on Wednesday.
"President Mugabe said he would not allow people to have more than one farm," Nathan Shamuyarira told the Herald.
"He advised those with multiple farms to choose one and give up the rest to the government for resettlement," he added. The paper reported that Mugabe wanted the farms to be relinquished within two weeks.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 07:04:24 AM |
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I'm going to try to be nice today
Given the some of the stories I posted yesterday, my timing on working on the Racism discussion pages could probably have been better. I think I typed "white people" more times than in any other 24 hour time span since P6 began.
It really is easy to become bitter, you know. And knowing why things are the way they are doesn't always make things easier to bear. I've never really been sure whether it's "better" to feel racism as an inchoate ache in the pit of your stomach or recognize it as the result of a long series of optional choices by people who didn't know their choices were, indeed, optional. Being able to dispute people like one very knowledgeable commenter on AfricaBlog that don't know the difference between the destruction of cultural works and the destruction of cultures doesn't always help when you reflect on the fact that, regardless of the outcome of your discussion those cultures are gone (and incidentally Kelley, if AfricaBlog turns out to be a place where bunch of folks show up to talk about how Africa's problems are no different than those Europe experienced, they just have to get their act together then your visitors aren't going to appreciate me very much. I don't see that as your partners' intent but it could easily happen). To talk with people who know your people have been damaged by events outside their control who yet argue against the ethics and morality of addressing that damage has made better men than me angry as hell. Okay, there ARE no better men than me, but you get my point.
I've already had a cross blog conversation in which a guy said "When you show concern about X, then I'll take your Y seriously," like he knew me and knew somehow I didn't care about his X. And suppose I said "When you show concern about Y, then I'll take your X seriously." What makes his X more important than my Y? Should we all have these conditional ethics? Doesn't that mean nobody makes a move?
Yes, it's really easy to become bitter. Still, I'm going to try to be nice today. So if you hear any teeth grinding, that won't be coming from me, okay?
Okay.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 06:45:05 AM |
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IT LIVES!!
I have survived the Basketball Traffic Onslaught!
You are all doomed…
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 12:48:22 AM |
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Okay, maybe it's just Tyler
At The Volokh Conspiracy, Jacob Levy is debating that anti-reparations nonsense by Tyler Cowen that so disappointed me. Mr. Levy's points are:
1) Those blacks born in free states before 1865 were themselves typically no more than two generations removed from slavery, and very often less. The study therefore does not, and cannot, show that slavery didn't inflict lasting intergenerational harms and costs. It shows, in effect, that being the grandchild of a slave is equivalent, in some respects, to being the great- or the great-great grandchild of a slave, that certain effects level out. It does not show that being the descendant of a slave is equivalent to not being the descendant of a slave. This might mean that a reparations formula shouldn't differentiate between those blacks descended from slaves freed before the war and those slaves freed during and after the war. It doesn't show anything at all about the appropriateness of reparations in the first place.
2) Moreover, Sacerdote freely acknowledges that there is no 1920 convergence between blacks and whites on his measures. This could be, as he thinks, because of Jim Crow barriers. (Take it away, Professor Bernstein.) If so, that might mean that reparations need to be understood as reparations for slavery plus Jim Crow, not just for slavery; but what of that? Alternatively, the lack of convergence between blacks and whites could mean that slavery by itself inflicted harm that had enduring intergenerational effects on education, literacy, and occupation-- again, with a convergence over time between those whose ancestors were freed earlier and those whose ancestors were freed later, but with no convergence between descendants and non-descendants of slaves. I certainly favor the Jim Crow explanation. But neither explanation forms any part of an argument against reparations.
3) The items on which convergence occurs are certainly important ones. But Sacerdote has no good measure of wealth available. (He does have home ownership, but, as he explains, it's effectively worthless as a wealth measure, since home ownership in 1920 was heavily influenced by employment in agriculture.) And surely we would need this. Even if after two generations the descendants of slaves were as educated, as literate, and in the same professions as the non-descendants of slaves (which, remember, is not the finding of the paper), that would not mean that there was nothing to compensate. Wouldn't we still expect there to be a significant wealth difference between those whose families could not have accumulated more than two generations of capital and those whose families could? As is well-known, there is a very large wealth difference even today between blacks and whites today even after controlling for education and current income. If white wealth was accumulated with stolen black labor (note: I have no ability to judge the debate among economic historians about whether slavery was in fact economically beneficial for whites), then a convergence of literacy rates doesn't seem especially interesting or relevant to the reparations debate. It's not illiteracy that reparations are being demanded for.
After our week-long discussion here, I appreciate the recognition that the effect of Jim Crow
may impact the case for reparations. And I don't expect any more recognition than that…I acknowledge it is for active proponents of reparations such as myself to make that case. And frankly, I think I have.
Mr. Cowen immediately
posts a rejoinder, though:
I still see the Sacerdote paper as weakening the case for reparations. If we look at literacy, recently-freed slaves catch up to the earlier-freed slaves within about a generation.
This is consistent with two possible explanations:
1) each group of former slaves recovered from its slavery heritage, once freed (albeit still suffered under a more general burden of racism, which may be huge)
2) The earlier freed slaves made some progress, the later freed slaves then matched that same progress, both suffered about the same lasting amount from slavery.
Jacob points out, correctly, that 2) is possible. But 2) suggests that having a longer slave heritage, across previous generations, is not a bad thing for a later generation. This is not intuitive. If you believe "a slave heritage has persistent bad effects" you probably also should believe "having a longer slave heritage has especially bad persistent effects." But the data don't show the latter. And intuitively, think about it: there ought to be some long-term progress as you move away from a (relatively) short slave heritage.
So either a slavery heritage doesn't add much to the racism explanation (and other alternatives), or the persistent intergenerational costs of slavery kick in at a constant level, once your ancestors have seen a threshold level of enslavement in the past.
When you look at literacy, yes the descendants of slaves catch up to the descendants of free Blacks in a generation, but Mr. Cowen's reasoning is too abstract to come up with the simple, down to earth explanation that
slavery does not damage the brains of unborn children. Children born to ex-slaves have (statistically speaking) the same capabilities as children born to
white folks, much less free Blacks, barring birth defects due to malnutrition and such. Given the same educational opportunities (or lack thereof), of
course they'd fare as well. It's not that the slavery heritage doesn't add much to the racism explanation (and other alternatives) it's that the literacy component doesn't take away much from the racism explanation.
Duh.
Since this is Honesty Night, I'll point out the reason Mr. Cowen finds Mr. Sacerdote's paper hostile to reparations is embedded in the last sentence of his rejoinder:
But in the meantime I am still more skeptical about the reparations case, and I would not have expected to find the Sacerdote result.
The key word being "still."
The Volokhs do notice incoming links, god only knows how with all they get, but they notice them. So I full expect a visitor to stop by and see this within the next 24 hours. If they are interested in reparations, as opposed to whether some specific paper supports or weakens the case therefor, I invite them to cruise the
7/13 weekly archive, search for "Startin' Stuff" and read the posts and the attached comments. Or consider the net sum of my thoughts on the issue: Fix the problem of injustice. Repair the damage done. What's wrong with those principles? How can you argue against them?
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/31/2003 12:43:54 AM |
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July 30, 2003
I have to be honest
Ampersand at Alas, A Blog is one of the more fair-minded folks I know of. So it doesn't surprise me that he's not thrilled about this story.
Me? Let's say I have mixed feelings. Seriously, what does it mean to "[seek] the independance of Southern people"? Isn't that advocating treason?
North Greenville professor says beliefs cost him jobGREENVILLE, S.C.-- A former North Greenville College art professor has sued the school, saying he was fired because he belongs to an organization that seeks the independence of Southern people.
…Goldsmith claims art department chairman Jim Craft told him on June 20 that he could no longer work at the college because he was a member of the League of the South.
…The League of the South seeks to "advance the cultural, social, economic and political well-being and independence of the Southern people by all honourable means," according to its Web site. It has been labeled a neo-Confederate hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The designation is unfair and has caused "employment problems" for a number of its members, according to one of the League's founders, University of South Carolina history professor Clyde Wilson.
"The league has repudiated violence and racism, and all of its activities have been peaceful and open to public scrutiny," Wilson said.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/30/2003 11:52:31 PM |
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Slipping in a poem when you ain't looking
a stone falls into a pool
(splash)
and waves traverse the surface
the water level will rise
(gush)
the stone may, in time, dissolve
and all the waves will settle
(hush)
and the surface will be calm
and none will know of a change
(splash)
but the hand, the water and stone
Earl Dunovant © 2003
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/30/2003 09:56:50 PM |
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Something I just noticed
I'm sitting here converting the text and comments from the Racism and Reparations discussions into permanent pages. I decided to do this a week or so ago because I felt it would be good to have such nice, productive conversations laying around handy. And maybe its because I still have my draws in a bunch over that hung jury out in California but I noticed a couple of things that have me kind of wondering.
When I have these sorts of discussions it's not at all unusual for a white person to start the conversation by attempting to correct me on some triviality then suggesting a book or two that I should read to come up to speed. Now, I expect some dispute and I know the tactics used in the agora so the trivial corrections don't bother me much. But the books tend to. I mean, what makes any white person think they know more about race than any Black person? Truthfully, I find the level of ignorance on both sides to be abominable. But we's all having this siditty debate and I just feel it would be a good thing to find out what I know before trying to educate me, especially if you know you're posturing…which if you are, you do.
Mark, the books you suggested are specifically excluded from this rant.
And another thing. Why am I supposed to be fair all the time? I remember years ago I got called a racist; it was said that I use disparaging terms for white people. I'm like, "Give me an example," and I was told "You capitalize 'Black' but you don't capitalize 'white'!" All I could say was, "Well, just damn!" This woman said, "Well, to be fair, you have to capitalize neither or both," and I'm like, "No, I don't. To be fair I have to not lie on you."
Okay, I'm going back to work on those pages. I just needed to get that off my chest.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/30/2003 09:54:11 PM |
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This is right interesting
Israel recognizes 'Black Hebrews' community DIMONA, Israel (AP) -- Israel's "Black Hebrews," a close-knit group of vegan polygamists who arrived in the country from the United States in 1969, are celebrating the government's announcement that they are finally eligible for citizenship in the Jewish state.
In the desert town of Dimona in southern Israel, home to about 1,500 Black Hebrews, there was a feeling Monday that a 34-year history of statelessness was coming to an end with news of their permanent resident status.
"There's going to be a lot of dancing, singing, shouting and eating," said former Chicagoan Adiv Ben-Yehuda. "It's the greatest day since the community arrived in Israel."
Other members of the 2,500-strong group live in Arad and Mitzpeh Ramon, other towns in Israel's south.
As permanent residents, members will be able to serve in the Israeli army and establish their own residential communities, an Interior Ministry statement said. Ministry spokeswoman Tova Ellinson said that under normal practice, permanent resident status would lead to full citizenship after an unspecified period of time.
"We're ready to take on responsibilities and obligations as permanent members of the community," said Ben-Yehuda, 50, a former college basketball player with two wives and 12 children. His American drawl is undimmed after 30 years in Israel.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/30/2003 06:50:45 PM |
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I'm deeply disappointed
Tyler Cowen at The Volokh Conspiracy says in a post titled Against slavery reparations
I just read a very interesting paper by
Bruce Sacerdote, economist at Dartmouth. His abstract tells us:
"How much do sins visited upon one generation harm that generation's future sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters?...I find that it took roughly two generations for the descendants of slaves to "catch up" to the descendents of free black men and women."
Here's a link directly to a pdf file of the paper under discussion, which is titled
Slavery and Intergenerational Transmission.
I ran across this paper a couple of months ago, and I just
KNEW someone would attempt to use it as an argument against reparations.
Please, you Volokh readers out there. Here's the entire abstract;
How much do sins visited upon one generation harm that generation's future sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters? I study this question by comparing outcomes for former slaves and their children and grandchildren to outcomes for free blacks (pre-1865), and their children and grandchildren. The outcome measures include literacy, whether a child attends school, whether a child lives in a female headed household, and two measures of adult occupation. Using a variety of different comparisons, (e.g. within versus across regions) I find that it took roughly two generations for the descendants of slaves to "catch up" to the descendants of free black men and women. This finding is consistent with modern estimates and interpretations of father-son correlations in income and socioeconomic status. The data used are from the 1880 and 1920 1 percent (IPUMS) samples, a 100 percent sample of the 1880 Census and a smaller data set in which I link families in the 1920 IPUMS back to the father's family in a 100% sample of the 1880 Census. These latter data sets are derived from an electronic version of the 1880 Census recently compiled and released by the Mormon Church with assistance from the Minnesota Population Center.
Note the date involved. 1880 and 1920. Ask yourselves two questions
- How far did they really have to go to catch up?
- How much progress did Black folks as a whole make in this time frame
It's much easier to catch up to a reference point that for all practical purposes is standing still.
With all I'd heard about The Volokh Conspiracy, I expected much better than this.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/30/2003 06:42:45 PM |
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I never liked him much anyway
Dana Blankenhorn thinks Howard Kurtz missed the boat:
Howard Kurtz Misses A Really Big StoryBut it's interesting that here is a Washington reporter, plugged in to politics, stating quite clearly that the people using a particular site are rocking his world, but they're not part of any campaign. They're volunteers. They're people who in other years would be licking stamps or knocking on doors. But here they are, impacting political coverage, directly impacting the political debate.
This is a tipping point. This is a major story. This one bit Kurtz on the bum and said I'm here.
And Kurtz still missed it. When you're accustomed to seeing things in one way, it may be impossible to change your worldview. This is why you need turnover in newsrooms.
Go read how Howie screwed up. It's short.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/30/2003 01:20:57 PM |
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Harsh! Harsh!
Which is only one reason I love The Black Comentator.
The Consequences of Believing Your Own PropagandaA new mental disorder has been born. (Either that or its an old disorder with a new application.) Like all newborns, this new mental disorder needs to be named. Its official name should be a catchy, clinical-sounding term. The term should contain reference to each of the multiple characteristics that converge with one another to form this mental disorder. It should be self-definitional and worthy of its uniqueness in human behavior. Those characteristics include (1) ill-fated policy, because that’s the symptom of this mental disorder; (2) self-delusion, because that’s the cause of the disorder; (3) collective, because this behavioral disorder has reached epidemic proportions; and (4) nationalistic, because the common denominator of those in this collective is national origin. Space for this new category should be reserved for inclusion in the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Until a more media-savvy term is coined, perhaps its working title can be National Collective Self-Delusional Foreign Policy. And since heads of state, their advisers and citizens of any country can suffer under this mental disorder, its name should be generic, rather than specific to any one nation-state. Therefore, “U.S.” will not be included in its name. However, to mark the point on the historical timeline at which this mental disorder was discovered and to honor its most famous victim, it’s only fair that it be nicknamed The George W. Bush Self-Delusional Syndrome, or, for short, Bush SS; or, if that’s not short enough, BSS. In the next edition of the DSM, this new category of mental disorder, Bush SS, should be perfectly placed between two new companion disorders; that is, (1) Those Who Laugh At Their Own Jokes; and (2) Those Who Bask In The Smelling Of Their Own Broken Wind. And it can be cross-referenced with Those Who Don’t Know When To Quit.
More.
I am one of those who felt the noise over stuff Cedric The Entertainer's character in "Barbershop" smacked of oversensitivity in certain circles. However I am also one that insists on respect for the O.G.s (and this is not contradictory…I will explain if necessary). So I'm pointing to this opinion piece in The Black Commentator by one of said O.G.s.
The Pretense of Hip Hop Black LeadershipDr. Martin Kilson
At the age of 71, I am a member of the progressive sector of African-American intellectuals, the post-World War II civil rights generation. The civil rights organizations I identified with were the NAACP, the National Council of Negro Women, the Congress of Racial Equality, the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the National Urban League, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, among others. The leadership personalities I looked up to and revered were W.E.B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, Walter White, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, Mary McLeod Bethune, Dorothy Height, James Farmer, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond, John Lewis, Medgar Evers, and Fannie Lou Hamer, to mention only a few.
However, just recently several articles have appeared by members of the post-civil rights era generation of Black academics that amount to tossing poisoned darts at African Americans’ mainline civil rights tradition and its courageous leadership figures. One of these civil rights tradition-offending articles, penned by Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, appeared in the New York Times, September 27, 2002. In the op ed piece, Dyson claims he belongs to a new generation of Black intellectuals who consider leadership personalities like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks fair game for anyone’s comedic dishonoring. He defended such dishonoring of King and Parks in the Black people-offending MGM film, “Barbershop.”
Supporting the mindless hip-hop style irreverence toward African-American civil rights leadership, Prof. Dyson considers it some kind of new freedom for Black actors and entertainers to verbally dishonor Dr. King, Rosa Parks, and others. Dyson approaches the analytically bizarre in his article when he claims “that the barbershop…may be one of the last bastions of unregulated speech in black America.” He also claims that, “at the worst [civil rights organizations] are antidemocratic institutions headed by gifted but authoritarian leaders.”
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/30/2003 01:03:55 PM |
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Digby doesn't post enough
So when he does (and it always seems to be deep) I depend on folks like Susan at Suburban Guerilla to let me know.
Digby Says:
The fact is that it does not matter if our candidate actually supported the war in Iraq or not. If John Kerry is the nominee rather than Howard Dean, do they actually believe that the Republicans will not find a way to portray him as soft on national security? Please.
It. Does. Not. Matter. What. We. Actually. Do.
We could sign on to a 0% tax rate for millionaires, repeal of Social Security, prison terms for homosexuality and oil rigs in the middle of San Francisco Bay and they would still say we are liberal, tax and spend, tree hugging, treasonous pacifists because it is in their interest to do so. Until we stop tugging our forelocks and sniveling around like beaten dogs, thereby validating their lies, they will be believed by a fair number of Americans. People who turn the other cheek when they are being unfairly and relentlessly attacked are either saints or pussies ... and the DLC aren’t saints.
The way to change the Republican propaganda-created perception that the Democratic Party is a bunch of namby pamby, liberal, pacifist big spenders is to FIGHT BACK.
…and I will ALWAYS link to stuff like this.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/30/2003 12:16:05 PM |
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A useful political lexicon
Over at The Black Hand Side is a series of terms translatted from Washington-speak to english. Just as useful as my translations from Ari-esque to ebonics, I'd say.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/30/2003 12:10:56 PM |
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Editorial Run
Poindexter's Follies
Revelations about his idea to trade in terrorism futures has made one thing clear: The time has come to send John Poindexter packing.
Blanket of Dread
By MAUREEN DOWD
Even now that it's clear they played up the terror angle, the administration refuses to level with the public
The Pentagon's Eastern Obsession
By LAWRENCE J. KORB
Moving our military bases from Germany to Romania, Poland and Bulgaria would have few advantages, and may be a case of the Bush administration cutting off its nose to spite its face.
Why Liberia matters
A collapsed West Africa could become, like the Taliban's Afghanistan, a haven for terrorists and narcotics.
Bush and Blair, so far, face different fates
Prime Minister Tony Blair has suffered a catastrophic loss of public trust, while President Bush has not--at least not yet.
When America goes it alone, we all pay
The notion of internationalism adopted by the Bush administration creates debilitating global uncertainty.
Ethiopia needs a lifeline
There is no greater impending humanitarian emergency than the crisis in Ethiopia.
Cartoons
Tom Toles shows why Dubya should reconsider his position on capital punishment.
Pat Oliphant on why Dubya's choices may, in fact, be quite limited.
Jeff Danziger shows a true oil-man's solution to the problems in Iraq.
Ted Rall asks the musical question, "What's one more lie between friends?"
Actually, you should start reading Ted Rall here and hit the "next date" link until you run out of dates. If you're short on time, then read this, and this, and this.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/30/2003 09:01:23 AM |
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I wouldn't worry about it
Why wonder about the last prejudice when the previous four or five are still thriving?
The last prejudice?Philip Jenkins argues that anti-Catholic bigotry is on the rise-even among Catholics
By Christopher Shea, Globe Columnist, 7/27/2003
…Philip Jenkins, a professor of history and religious studies at Penn State, pretty much saw this coming. Last fall, in a much-discussed cover story in The Atlantic Monthly titled ''The Next Christianity,'' Jenkins argued that the varieties of Christian faith thriving in the Third World were far more conservative than those in the United States. The next Christianity was on a collision course with the tolerant American creed, he wrote, and Catholic liberals in particular were demographically doomed.
''If we get an African pope, as we may before not too long, Americans may look back with nostalgia to the good old days of Pope John Paul II,'' Jenkins, reached at his office in State College, Pa., said recently. The Georgetown grads may have gotten a literal glimpse of the future: Cardinal Arinze has been named as a possible successor to the pontiff.
These days, Jenkins is promoting a book that will give Catholic liberals further fits. In ''The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice'' (Oxford), he argues that many leading Catholic critics of the church hierarchy-including the historian Garry Wills and the Globe columnist James Carroll-use such ferocious language that, in rhetoric if not in deed, they've become morally indistinguishable from Klansmen and 19th-century nativists.
''In modern American history,'' he writes, ''no mainstream denomination has ever been treated so consistently, so publicly, with such venom.'' Today, he argues, an unholy alliance of feminists, homosexual activists, and radical secularists-together with a fifth column of people who call themselves Catholics but who hate the church deeply-has seized upon the sex-abuse scandal in order to drive the church out of public life once and for all.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/30/2003 08:34:58 AM |
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From the Injustice Department
Police tied to a beating and coverupUS grand jury indicts two Boston officers
(By Andrea Estes, Globe Staff)
Two Boston police officers were indicted by a federal grand jury yesterday, accused of orchestrating a coverup by recruiting eyewitnesses to lie about the alleged beating of a teenager.
The 29-page federal indictment charges Sergeant Joseph A. LeMoure, who allegedly carried out the beating, with violating the civil rights of Peter Fratus on June 24, 2000, and then, along with Patrolman Joseph F. Polito, tampering with witnesses, obstructing justice, and suborning perjury.
LeMoure, 42 and a 14-year veteran from Saugus, and Polito, 29, of Boston, were placed on leave without pay yesterday.
''These are serious allegations against these officers,'' Boston Police Commissioner Paul F. Evans said in a written statement about the indictments. ''The Boston Police Department will not tolerate this behavior, and has assisted the US attorney's Office in their investigation.''
Fratus, now 21, welcomed the indictments of the two officers, who last November settled a civil suit filed by Fratus for an undisclosed sum.
''I always knew I was telling the truth,'' said Fratus, who was living in East Boston at the time of the alleged beating and now resides in Revere. ''It doesn't surprise me that they lied. But it surprises me to see how many people were involved. I'm happy that people who are supposed to enforce the law are held accountable when they break the law.''
Mr. Fratus should wait to see the outcome of the trial before making that declaration. Juries in New York City, NY and Inglewood, CA have shown nothing can be counted on when police officers are on trial.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/30/2003 08:30:44 AM |
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A good sign, but still a bad situation
Angolans Come Home to 'Negative Peace'
By LYDIA POLGREEN
M'BANZA CONGO, Angola — The journey took only a few hours — a brisk, bumpy ride of 60 miles in the bed of a truck along a rutted, red dirt road. It was a nanosecond compared with the five years that Emmanuel Antonio, his wife and six children had spent as refugees across the border in Congo.
This was the ride home. As the convoy bounced along, Mr. Antonio's older children slumbered at his feet, oblivious to the bone-rattling bumps, and his 32-year-old wife, Madelena Merneza, cradled their youngest, Dani, 2, in her arms.
Finally setting foot again on Angolan soil, in the border town of Luvo, and waiting in line for a stamp from immigration officials, Mr. Antonio searched the moment for joy. He found only worry.
"My family must come home because we are Angolans," said Mr. Antonio, 38, a farmer. "Now we have peace. We can only hope that there will be peace until the end."
The civil war, which killed at least half a million Angolans and displaced more than a third of this country's 13 million people, has been over for more than a year. Since then, more than a million people like Mr. Antonio have returned to a country physically, politically and economically in ruins.
Their return is perhaps the clearest sign yet that the worst of Angola's troubles are over. But relief officials warn that some of Angola's biggest challenges may still lie ahead.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/30/2003 08:18:12 AM |
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So this is news?
If Mr. Sharon defined a "more" that was actually possible to accomplish, I'd feel better about his positions.
Sharon Tells Bush Israel Won't Halt Its Fence ProjectBy RICHARD W. STEVENSON
WASHINGTON, July 29 — Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel today rebuffed pressure from President Bush to halt construction of a security fence on the West Bank and called on Mr. Bush to persuade Palestinian leaders to do more to dismantle terrorist organizations.
After meeting with Mr. Sharon at the White House, Mr. Bush said his commitment to Israel's security was "unshakable." Last week, the president called the fence a "problem" that could undermine efforts to build confidence between the sides; today he referred to it as a "sensitive issue" that he would continue to discuss with Mr. Sharon.
But the president also suggested that Israel do more to help the Palestinian people and urged Mr. Sharon to show restraint as the two sides each weigh difficult steps in advancing the latest peace plan.
The meeting was the eighth between the leaders at the White House, and they referred to each other by their first names, reflecting Mr. Bush's deepening involvement as a peace broker.
But behind the cordial tones, both sent clear messages. Mr. Sharon signaled that he was unwilling to make painful compromises without more concrete progress by the new Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, in cracking down on terrorism. For his part, Mr. Bush indicated that his support for Israel required Mr. Sharon to show patience and flexibility.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/30/2003 08:16:18 AM |
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I can dream, can't I?
Mightier than a WurlitzerA century ago, no instrument had the power, majesty or popularity of a pipe organ. A writer chronicles the instrument's rise and fall.
By Chris Pasles
Times Staff Writer
July 27 2003
Even before a note is played on a massive pipe organ, the imagination is stirred by the sight of three, four or more broad keyboards stacked one above one other, panels of 20, 40 or more pullstops alongside to control an amazing variety of sounds, and a row of 30 or more foot pedals at the base of the console.
And when such an organ begins to resonate through the architecturally dazzling space of, say, the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles, the experience can be thrilling. Seeing that instrument, and its unconventional new counterpart — a French-fry splay of pipes installed in Walt Disney Concert Hall — it's not difficult to imagine the excitement that pipe organs once regularly inspired in America, attracting massive audiences.
That period is evoked in sumptuous detail by Craig R. Whitney in his book "All the Stops" (Public Affairs), a fascinating, contentious history of the organ.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/30/2003 07:51:39 AM |
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Automakers-2,476,648, Environment-0
Plan to Toughen Fuel-Mileage Rules ThwartedBy Richard Simon
Times Staff Writer
July 30, 2003
WASHINGTON - Democrats from automobile-making states and Republicans wary of government regulation blocked a Senate proposal Tuesday to toughen fuel-mileage standards for motor vehicles, virtually ensuring the provision will be left out of any new energy bill.
The 65-32 vote against the higher requirements culminated a fierce lobbying effort that pitted environmentalists against car manufacturers and the auto workers union.
Environmentalists have called tougher fuel-economy rules the most important step Congress could take to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas linked to global warming.
"How can you have a serious energy bill and not ... address the fuel efficiency of vehicles?" asked Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.).
But with the House rejecting a similar measure earlier this year, environmentalists held little hope that the energy legislation would include the stiffer mileage standards.
Auto makers and auto union leaders contended that the proposal would hurt their industry's competitiveness - resulting in job losses - and lead to lighter, less safe vehicles.
"This is not the place, on the Senate floor, to make a complex decision that should involve a whole host of factors," said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.).
If Sen. Levin is correct, the Senate floor is no place to make
any of the decisions brought before them.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/30/2003 07:48:35 AM |
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Special blogroll notice
I've been taking notes while crusing the BlogNet, discussing stuff with bloggers and found a large number of people who I want to check in on periodically. I've found the lesser lights are not lesser voices and in fact it's interesting how many stories the major lights post have percolated up from the new guys on the blogroll (like I said, I've been taking notes). The "higher beings" and "mortal humans" do get and create new stuff but they also read a lot of us regular types so I figure I can do no less. That's part of the reason for my blogroll inflation, and there are too many to announce them all.
There are a couple of special cases I want to make note of, though. ibyx emailed me a link to a new blog named AfricaBlog that looks more than promising. I already ranted once in their comments. To be honest these guys are still working it out conceptually, and I'm going to disagree with things, I can see that already. But they are taking what looks like a real shot at it. Here's an example:
Concepts to Remember
There are two concepts that are helpful when discussing or considering Africa: colonialism and the Destabilization Loop.
The impact that colonialism had on Africa is much the same as other areas of the world, and has been mentioned several times in the context of problems we face in dealing with Iraq. The modern borders of nations had nothing to do with natural boundaries between homogenous peoples, interests or even languages. The borders were set for the convenience of the colonial powers. Sometimes to aid in administration, but often deliberately arranged so that ethnic groups were separated into separate nations and grouped with another ethnic group, so that one was always a distinct minority. The colonial power (whether England, France, Belgium, etc) would then put the minority group in power over the majority. This ensured that a significant minority would be educated, relatively wealthy, and firmly committed to supporting the European colonial power due to dependence on the colonial power to maintain the status quo with its military might.
Much of the instability we have seen over the last few decades in Africa is due to majority groups attempting to wrest back control from a minority group accustomed to being in power. One of the most tragic examples is that of Rwanda and Burundi. In both cases, the Tutsis were in placed in power, despite making up just 14-15% of the population. Most of the slaughter in that region comes from Hutus either trying to wrest control from the Tutsis or "getting revenge" for decades of oppression, or else the Tutsis trying to keep the Hutus cowed and in line.
Another thing I've noticed is those "conservatives" that don't just make me grind my teeth when I read them actually tend to be libertarians. Said realization makes it easier to recognize reasonable opposing voices…I know how to talk to libertarians, while there seems to be no talking to conservatives at all. So over the next few days, when I get over a couple of things I've blogged in the last few hours, I'm going to update the lonely conservative outpost by renaming it appropriately and adding at least two other blogs:
Dog of Flanders, whom I know from the comments here to be a reasoning man, and
Suburban Blight, whom I've linked to once before in connection with the New Weblog Showcase and is a contributor to AfricaBlog. It'll just take a minute to get to it because this section is hard-coded in the template.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/30/2003 12:41:22 AM |
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July 29, 2003
Ha ha ha
Big-ups to whoever thought of this line. It appeared with the story I linked to below.
Ventriloquist Dick Cheney in a rare appearance with his most famous work
PHOTO BY SGT. TONY DELEON
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posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 11:37:10 PM |
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In case you didn't hear
The Bush administration's Top 40 Lies about war and terrorism…This was truly a collaborative effort from start to finish. It began with the notion of running a week-long marathon of Bush administration lies at my online Bush Wars column (
bushwarsblog.com). Along the way my e-mail box delivered more research assistance than I've ever received on any single story. I need to thank Jeff St. Clair and the Counterpunch website (
counterpunch.org), which featured the Lies marathon in addition to posting valuable reportage and essays every day; I also received lots of lies entries and documentary links from BW readers Rob Johnson, Ted Dibble, and Donna Johnson, as well as my colleagues Mark Gisleson, Elaine Cassel, Sally Ryan, Mike Mosedale, and Paul Demko. Dave Marsh provided valuable editing suggestions.
I also found loads of valuable information through Cursor and Buzzflash, the two best news links pages on the internet, and through research projects on the Bushmen posted at Cooperative Research (
cooperativeresearch.org), Whiskey Bar (
billmon.org), and
tvnewslies.org.
But the heart of the effort was all the readers of Bush Wars who sent along ideas and links that advanced the project. Many thanks to Estella Bloomberg, Vince Bradley, Angela Bradshaw, Gary Burns, Elaine Cole, George Dobosh, Deborah Eddy, David Erickson, Casey Finne, Douglas Gault, Jean T. Gordon, Doug Henwood, George Hunsinger, Peter Lee, Eric Martin, Michael McFadden, George McLaughlin, Eric T. Olson, Doug Payne, Alan W. Peck, Dennis Perrin, Charles Prendergast, Publius, Michele Quinn, Ernesto Resnik, Ed Rickert, Maritza Silverio, Marshall Smith, Robert David Steele, Ed Thornhill, Christopher Veal, and Jennifer Vogel. And my apologies to anyone else whose e-mails I didn't manage to save.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 11:25:55 PM |
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Latino Family Claims Cops Brutalized Them Over a Radio
Overheated in Sunset Parkby Chisun Lee
July 30 - August 5, 2003
The Acostas of 47th Street in Sunset Park hold their heads high. When they believe someone is disrespecting one of theirs, they bristle. Even when that someone is a police officer.
The three-generation clan freely admit to objecting when a cop interrupted July 4 festivities in front of the three-story walk-up where the grandparents Acosta, natives of Puerto Rico, moved into the first-floor apartment 24 years ago. Some 15 friends and family, including several young children, had congregated on the stoop and sidewalk, spending the humid Friday evening outdoors like many in the neighborhood.
At about 10, a car pulled up, and a police officer emerged. Without a word, the family says, he strode over to a boombox emitting reggae and yanked out the power cord that extended through a window. The machine belonged to 14-year-old Orlando. His mother, Elena, says she confronted the officer, shouting, "Hey, what are you doing? That's my kid's radio!"
The NYPD's version of the outburst, according to spokesperson Inspector Michael Coan, is, "The officers were verbally abused."
Whether Elena swore or said pretty please, her kin say police reacted with unacceptable violence. They claim the Acosta attitude was met with brute force by a swarm of officers from Brooklyn's 72nd Precinct. (A teenage relative, with some quick footwork and a few clicks of the family camera, managed to capture some of the action.)
The dispute escalated into a melee that ended in the injury of at least eight Acostas, ages 12 through 62, and the arrest of five. Four, including grandmother Margarita, are now facing charges of assaulting officers, obstructing justice, and resisting arrest. But their claims of police misconduct have prompted ongoing investigations by the police Internal Affairs Bureau and the Civilian Complaint Review Board. The family is gearing up to sue the city for brutality and false arrest.
Five officers have claimed their own injuries, including an ankle sprain, bruises, and bites. "It escalated when one of the officers was pushed, possibly pricked, although that may have been accidental," says Coan. Told of the family's photos, he says, "it would be good for us to have them."
The Acostas deny assaulting police and say the interaction never had to get so hostile. Says Elena, 35, "[The officer] didn't ask no questions. No, 'we'll give you a ticket' or nothing. He says, 'I'm the law. Shut up or I'll arrest you.' "
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 11:14:37 PM |
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Yeah!
Who Made George W. Bush Our King?He Can Designate Any of Us an Enemy Combatant
July 25th, 2003 6:00 PM
Courts have no higher duty than protection of the individual freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution. This is especially true in time of war, when our carefully crafted system of checks and balances must accommodate the vital needs of national security while guarding the liberties the Constitution promises all citizens. —Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals judge Diana Gribbon Motz, dissenting, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, July 9
Some of the most glorious illuminations of the Bill of Rights in American history have been contained in Supreme Court dissents by, among others, Louis Brandeis, William Brennan, Hugo Black, and Thurgood Marshall. Equal to those was the stinging dissent by judge Diana Gribbon Motz when the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (8 to 4) gave George W. Bush a fearsome power that can be found nowhere in the Constitution—the sole authority to imprison an American citizen indefinitely without charges or access to a lawyer.
This case is now on appeal to the Supreme Court, which will determine whether this president—or his successors until the end of the war on terrorism—can subvert the Bill of Rights to the peril of all of us.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 11:09:54 PM |
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From the Department of Injustice
Suffer through the advertisement at the beginning and watch this video.
Now know the police brutality trial ended in a hung jury. The officer charged with filing a false report was found not guilty.
That's a link to TalkLeft.
That jury had five members with either blind support for police officers under any circumstances or a preformed opinion about Black youth, and I don't care which it is. Either is wrong. And I understand from the comments at TalkLeft the officers involved are filing a racial discrimination suit, claiming they were treated differently thana Black officer would be under the same circumstances.
This is very similar to the result when Charles Schwarz was tried for assisting Justin Volpe is sodomizing Abner Louima in a police bathroom. One juror had his mind made up to vote not guilty, and was simply not going to consider any evidence.
Cases like this can make even the most hopeful Black person (in which group I must admit I do not belong at the moment) lose belief in the 14th Amendment. An amendment written to protect the rights of freed slaves gives more protection to corporations than the descendant of those slaves, and is regularly perverted to insure the dominance of the mainstream culture.
pfaugh.
I'm really bitter, and I'm going to bed that way.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 10:39:21 PM |
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From the Injustice Department
A Portrait Of Injustice in Black and White By Marc Fisher
Sue Kennon robbed four pharmacies in southern Virginia with a toy gun. No one was hurt. Ollin Crawford robbed four banks in Fairfax County with a fake grenade. No one was hurt.
Because Kennon's robberies took place over a four-week stretch, they were considered separate crimes, and she became the first white woman convicted under Virginia's three-time loser law:
In 1987, she got 48 years in the clink, no parole possible.
Because Crawford's robberies took place over an eight-week stretch, they were considered separate crimes, and she became the first black woman convicted under Virginia's three-time loser law:
In 1985, she got 70 years, no parole possible.
Kennon, a former flight attendant and mother of three, had no previous criminal record. Crawford, a former military police officer who was seven months pregnant at her trial, had only a misdemeanor on her record: She shoplifted a roll of film as a young woman in the District.
Kennon earned a college degree in prison. Crawford became a certified paralegal.
Kennon came from a wealthy, politically connected family that drummed up media coverage of her case and paid for lawyers who fought for years to have her sentence commuted. Two years ago, the state Parole Board met in extraordinary session, traveled to the Virginia Correctional Center for Women in Goochland County, interviewed Kennon and decided that the three-time loser law should not have been applied to her case because her crimes were all part of one scheme. The board ordered her released.
Crawford came from a working-class family.
Two years ago, when Crawford's mother died, the warden at Fluvanna Women's Correctional Center permitted her to attend the funeral under the proviso that she wear hand and leg irons and the standard prison orange jumpsuit. Crawford's family arranged for all guests at the service to wear orange. [p6: Mad props to the family and guests!] In the funeral photos, Ollin does not stand out. She is now 44, has served 18 years and is scheduled for release in 2020.
…Black has appealed to three Virginia governors for clemency for Crawford, so far to no avail. Last year, the Parole Board chairman, James Jenkins, told Black that he agreed that Crawford's case was pretty much identical to Kennon's. But then the new governor, Mark Warner, fired the entire board. Jenkins wrote to Black that despite a last-minute effort, "I regret to report that I was unable to obtain the votes required" to treat Crawford's case like Kennon's. (Warner is now considering the case.)
"What's frustrating is that those most likely to receive clemency are the very worst criminals, typically the butcher on death row," Black says. As he works to spring Crawford, Black is also lobbying against the release of a child murderer who is now eligible for parole after just 12 years in prison.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 10:03:35 PM |
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PAMBAZUKA NEWS
PAMBAZUKA NEWS
As you can see today, Pambazuka News is a really rich source of links to information about Africa. It presents information in nineteen categories, discounting letters from subscribers. It is produced by Fahamu, Ltd., a pretty extraordinary organization.
Fahamu is committed to supporting progressive social change in the South through using information and communication technologies.
Fahamu specialises in making electronic information available to this community by:
* Producing electronic newsletters disseminating news, information and debate about social justice in Africa
* Producing distance learning materials for human rights and humanitarian organisations
* Providing training through face-to-face workshops
* Managing websites for our partners
* Making web-based resources available for offline use
* Undertaking social policy research on Africa
Fahamu has a small core of staff and associates located both in UK and Africa. The word 'Fahamu' comes from the Kiswahili word for understanding
We believe that civil society organisations have a critical role to play in defending human rights, and that information and communications technologies can and should be harnessed for that cause. We are committed to enabling civil society organisations to use the Internet in the interests of promoting social justice.
Fahamu comprises a small core of highly skilled and experienced staff based in Oxford (UK) and in Durban (South Africa), and associates based in the UK and internationally. Our headquarters are in Oxford. Fahamu also works with a wide range of international partners.
This area contains information about our
staff, our
associates, the
organisations that fund us, our
partners and
organisations for whom we have provided services.
Fahamu Limited is a not-for-profit organisation registered as a company limited by guarantee in England (reg no 4241054), and as Fahamu Trust SA in South Africa (IT 372/01).
It's fitting that Fahamu Limited and Pambazuka News get their names from the Kiswahili language. Kiswahili is a trading language, not one native to Africa per se. It developed as an intermediary language to facilitate trade, a position that English holds in the modern world.
If you choose to investigate Fahamu Ltd.'s web site you'll find they produce two other newsletters and some material I'd love to get a reviewer's copy of. And if Africa is a central interest of yours, their links page is to die for. I may wind up reorganizing the site a bit to take full advantage of it. At minimum a sidebar section devoted to African issues will be a major side effect of discovering Fahamu and Pambazuka News.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 08:18:30 PM |
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PAMBAZUKA NEWS: WOMEN AND GENDER
AFRICA/GLOBAL: THE ECONOMICS OF GENDER INEQUALITY: TOWARDS GENDER RESPONSIVE BUDGETING
Are budgets and revenue systems as gender neutral as they may appear to be? Can gender be incorporated into economic governance? How can women and civil society organisations be more involved in preparing budgets, scrutinising expenditure and collecting and analysing macroeconomic data that is disaggregated by sex?
AFRICA: AU ADOPTION OF THE PROTOCOL ON THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN WELCOMED
The African Union's (AU) adoption of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa is a significant step in the efforts to promote and ensure respect for the rights of African women, says Amnesty International. Adopted on 11 July 2003, at the second summit of the African Union in Maputo, Mozambique, the Protocol, among others, requires African governments to eliminate all forms of discrimination and violence against women in Africa and to promote equality between women and men.
ETHIOPIA: INTERVIEW WITH GIFTI ABASIYA, STATE MINISTER FOR WOMEN'S AFFAIRS
Gifti Abasiya is the State Minister for Women’s Affairs – one of the smallest ministries in Ethiopia. In this interview with IRIN, she says that discrimination is a result of undemocratic systems, and that widespread and deeply entrenched poverty is the key factor in fuelling arcane attitudes towards women.
GHANA: CHURCHES CAN HELP PERPETUATE EMOTIONAL VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Exhilda Natogma (Not real name) is a nurse at a mission hospital of one of the popular Pentecostal churches in Madina a suburb of Accra, the capital city of Ghana. Exhilda fell in love with one of her church elders who was studying at a professional Institute in Accra. After six months of a hot romance, Exhilda discovered that she was pregnant and the Elder quickly suggested an abortion.
SOUTH AFRICA: GENDER RESEARCHER SEEKS ANSWERS ON SOUTH AFRICAN CAMPUSES
In South Africa, post-secondary education is a privilege, and many students currently enrolled in universities are the first in their families to reach for it. Degrees are also one of only a few tickets to upward mobility, and students endure enormous economic and personal pressures to graduate. "Campus cultures are places in which the stakes are high," says Dr Jane Bennett, gender researcher and director of the African Gender Institute, based at the University of Cape Town.
SOUTHERN AFRICA: WOMEN TO ANALYSE GENDER POLICIES IN SADC COUNTRIES
Women unionists from the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) met from 14 to 18 July in Maputo, Mozambique, to analyse gender policies in their countries. According to an Angolan official, because the Southern Africa Trade Unions (SATUC) does not have a gender policy as yet, discussion was based on the rate of accomplishment of the commitment of SADC's heads of State and Government to gender representation.
UGANDA: WOMEN GAIN INCH IN PUSH FOR LAND RIGHTS
A new amendment to the 1998 Land Act in Uganda takes a small step toward women obtaining land rights. The issue is expected to remain on the national agenda, however, as candidates for president position themselves to gain the women's vote.
ZAMBIA: WOMEN MAKE SLOW, BUT STEADY PROGRESS
In the early hours of a cold morning, the streets of Lusaka are thronging with people rushing to work. I pass through a coffee shop on my way to the office and as I sip the hot brew my attention is drawn to two elderly women who work as sweepers for the Lusaka City Council (LCC). Eavesdropping in on their conversation, I soon discover that they are talking about the challenges that women continue to face in their pursuit of equality.
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PAMBAZUKA NEWS: EDUCATION AND SOCIAL WELFARE
AFRICA/GLOBAL: CHILD DEATH RATES BETWEEN RICH, POOR WIDENING, STUDY SAYS
The gap between child mortality rates in rich and poor countries is growing increasingly wide, the medical journal The Lancet reports in the latest of a series of articles on child health. "Gaps in child mortality between rich and poor countries are unacceptably wide and in some areas are becoming wider, as are the gaps between wealthy and poor children within most countries," the authors of the article wrote.
AFRICA: POORER NATIONS STRUGGLE WITH BALLOONING BIRTH RATES
Population growth rates in developed and developing countries are becoming increasingly skewed, posing challenges to governments worldwide, according to the 2003 World Population Data Sheet released on Tuesday. Published by the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau (PRB), the survey estimates a 193 percent population increase in Central Africa--the fastest-growing region in the first half of the 21st century--compared to a mere 6 percent gain in Northern Europe and a population decline in the rest of Europe.
AFRICA: UN LITERACY DECADE - HOPE OR HYPE?
The launch of the UN Literacy Decade was yet another in a series of international pledges to provide education to all. Time and again, in the past two decades, an atmosphere of urgency to achieve education goals has been created. And yet, each time, these pledges have met with very little commitment and action.
CENTRAL AFRICA: 'MIDDLE' AFRICA TO EXPERIENCE THE FASTEST POPULATION GROWTH
Demographic projections by the Population Reference Bureau for the first half of the 21st century show that the Democratic Republic of the Congo leads countries in "middle" Africa that are expected to experience the fastest population growth in the region. The bureau's "World Population Data Sheet" for 2003 showed that the Congo, with an estimated population of 56.6 million, would have 181 million people by 2050. Overall, the central Africa region's population will grow to 193 percent of its current size by 2050, followed by western Africa, which is expected to grow to 142 percent of its 2003 population. The population of southern Africa, a region that has been adversely affected by HIV/AIDS, was projected to fall by 22 percent.
EAST/SOUTHERN AFRICA: PRIMARY EDUCATION - INCREASING ACCESS FOR ORPHANS AND VULNERABLE CHILDREN IN AIDS-AFFECTED AREAS
This paper investigates the national and community level interventions that offer promise for increasing primary education access for children who have been orphaned or made vulnerable in areas heavily affected by AIDS in the eastern and southern Africa region. Some of the lessons learnt are that: Initiatives should target all vulnerable children in AIDS-affected areas and should create affordable schooling opportunities; non-formal education should be prioritised in addition to formal education and that initiatives should be developed with community participation and cater to community needs.
KENYA: STREET CHILDREN PROJECT TO GET MORE SUPPORT
Several organisations have pledged support for the Government in rehabilitating street children. Eleven non-governmental organisations dealing with children said they would begin programmes to support street families. Their representatives said they would form an alliance with private companies to ensure more than 1,500 children countrywide were rehabilitated.
MALAWI: DEEPENING POVERTY THREATENS HOUSEHOLDS
A household-level recovery from the past year's food security crisis in Malawi is being complicated by deepening levels of poverty, observers say. In a recent interview with IRIN in the capital Lilongwe, World Food Programme (WFP) country representative, Gerard van Dijk, said "poverty, combined with HIV/AIDS" had worsened household vulnerability.
NIGERIA: EDUCATION SCHEME FOR GIRLS LAUNCHED
The Federal Government has joined hands with the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) to develop the Strategy for Acceleration of Girls Education in Nigeria (SAGEN), a plan of action designed to ensure that equal number of boys and girls were in the education system by 2005.
SIERRA LEONE: CHILD SOLDIER REHABILITATION PROGRAMME RUNS OUT OF CASH
A programme to rehabilitate more than 7,000 child soldiers who fought in Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war is in danger of stalling because of a serious shortfall in funding, the UN children's fund (UNICEF) warned on Tuesday. UNICEF said that US $1.4 million is needed immediately and a further $2.5 million would be required in the "near future" if their critical re-education and re-training programmes were to be completed.
SOUTH AFRICA: HISTORY CLASSROOM LAUNCHED ONLINE
The Department of Education, together with a non-governmental organisation, SA History Online (SAHO), has launched a Web site as a resource site and teaching aid for pupils and students.
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: PRIMARY SCHOOLING - RECENT TRENDS AND CURRENT CHALLENGES
This paper argues that achievement of the Millennium Development Goals of Education for All (EFA) by 2015 will not only require a level of international resources and commitment not yet seen, but will also require better tools for monitoring educational progress at the country level. The authors estimate that more than 37 million young adolescents aged 10-14 in sub-Saharan Africa will not complete primary school. Their estimates are based on data from nationally representative Demographic and Health Surveys from 26 countries, collectively representing 83 percent of the sub-Saharan youth population.
UGANDA: SECONDARY SCHOOL REMAINS A DREAM
As the first beneficiaries of the Universal Primary Education (UPE) complete the primary cycle this year, government has a challenge to take them on to secondary level. It is estimated that this year, 1.6 million children will leave primary education as a result of UPE.
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PAMBAZUKA NEWS 120: RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY
AFRICA/GLOBAL: ILLEGAL U.S. CAMPAIGN AGAINST INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE
In withdrawing the United States from the International Criminal Court and in its current efforts to undermine the court's authority, the Bush administration has fallen far short of the high standards of justice that the United States has set for itself and by extension the rest of the world, says this commentary. The United States has also launched a campaign to persuade states supporting the court to sign agreements not to surrender U.S. nationals to it.
AFRICA: CALL FOR NEW AFRICAN COMMISSION CHAIR NOT TO LET DOWN THE CONTINENT
Alpha Konare, former President of Mali and newly elected Chair of the Commission of the African Union, has the right credentials for the job, CREDO for Freedom of Expression & Associated Rights says. Reacting to the election of the new AU Chair, CREDO’s coordinator Rotimi Sankore said: “As the first elected Chair of the Commission of the African Union, the success or failure of the entire African Union project depends largely on how Alpha Konare approaches the job.”
BOTSWANA: KHAMA WIN EASES MOGAE'S CONCERNS
Vice President Lt-General Seretse Ian Khama this week became the new national chairman of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), sweeping aside incumbent Ponatshego Kedikilwe in a landslide election victory. The emphatic win at the BDP's congress on Tuesday makes Khama, a relative newcomer to the party, an almost certain bet to succeed President Festus Mogae as the BDP's presidential candidate after the 2004 general elections.
BURUNDI: REGIONAL SUMMIT SHOULD GIVE PRIORITY TO PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Amnesty International has appealed to regional Heads of State or their representatives meeting on 20 July 2003 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to inject a renewed momentum to ending the armed conflict in Burundi and to give protection of human rights priority on their agenda. "The gap between paper agreements and the situation of Burundian civilians in constant fear for their lives, property and security grows ever larger," said Amnesty International.
DRC: HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS UNDER ATTACK
Human rights defenders in the Democratic Republic of Congo are under increasing attack, Human Rights Watch says in a newly-released backgrounder on freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. In the past few years, the main rebel groups and the previous DRC government have been responsible for intimidating and harassing those who have exposed human rights abuses. But the new transitional government in Kinshasa offers the chance to break this pattern, Human Rights Watch said.
GREAT LAKES: NEW HUMAN RIGHTS RESOURCE WEBSITE LAUNCHED
A non-profit charity based in the United States, the Centre for the Prevention of Genocide, has launched a human rights resource website. In a statement, the centre described the new website http://www.genocideprevention.org as one of the world's few early warning systems for the detection of genocidal activity.
KENYA: KENYA UNDER US PRESSURE NOT TO SIGN ICC PACT
Kenya is under immense pressure from the US government not to ratify the Rome Statue on the International Criminal Court (ICC). Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Mr Peter ole Nkuraiya, said the US is putting pressure on Kenya not to sign Article 98 of the Statute. "We are left to wonder what is the way forward as regards the issue. We are being arm and neck twisted by the big brother," he said.
MALAWI: CIVIL SOCIETY COALITIONS - OVERCOMING FEAR, MISTRUST AND JEALOUSY
Civil society networks are recognised almost universally as essential promoters of democratisation. What makes a coalition of civil society organisations (CSOs) effective? What role should international NGOs play in fostering alliances of local CSOs? Should local networks pursue international advocacy?
NIGERIA: NO JUSTICE FOR KADUNA KILLINGS
Not a single member of the Nigerian police or security forces has been charged with dozens of killings during the "Miss World" riots in Kaduna last November, Human Rights Watch said in a new report. The 32-page report, "The 'Miss World riots': continued impunity for killings in Kaduna," provides detailed eyewitness accounts of how soldiers and police killed people in cold blood between November 21 and 23, during an operation intended to restore law and order.
RWANDA: FOUR CLEARED TO CONTEST PRESIDENCY
Rwanda’s National Electoral Commission has approved four candidates to contest the country’s first post-genocide presidential elections, scheduled for 25 August. The commission cleared four of six candidates who had declared their interest in the presidency. The approved candidates are the incumbent, President Paul Kagame, former Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu, a woman candidate, Alvera Mukabaramba; and former Member of Parliament Nepomuscene Nayinzira.
SOMALIA/SOMALILAND: POLITICAL LEADERS MUST RECOGNIZE THE LEGITIMATE ROLE OF HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS
Somali human rights defenders in all areas must be given a central role in the difficult struggle ahead for sustained peace, democracy and human rights, Amnesty International has urged, as the Somalia peace and reconciliation conference in Kenya moves, within the next month, to establish a transitional federal government by selecting a four-year parliament which will elect the president. Somaliland is proceeding separately to its own parliamentary elections after the recent presidential elections.
SOUTH AFRICA: TOWARDS GLOBAL SOCIAL MOVEMENT UNIONISM: TRADE UNION RESPONSES TO GLOBALIZATION
This case study surveys the response of the South African labour movement to globalisation. It attempts to indicate how far unions in South Africa have maintained their position with respect to traditional constituent demands, whether they are adapting to a changing environment by organising new constituents, whether they are addressing new concerns by developing new perspectives on civil society, and whether they are enhancing their image as a major social actor.
SWAZILAND: OPPOSITION DEMAND LEGALISATION OF PARTIES
Swaziland's draft constitution was initially greeted with relief by pro-democracy groups who had feared it would be far more draconian. But six weeks on, banned political parties have begun to condemn the document for its ambiguous language regarding the legalisation of political groups. "We will only be interested in a constitution that would be inclusive of the entire people of Swaziland, not just a few. So we reject this draft constitution with contempt," the People's United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) said in a statement last week.
ZAMBIA: AGREEMENT WITH US ON ICC EXTRADITION
Zambia this month signed a bilateral agreement with the United States not to extradite US citizens accused of war crimes to the International Criminal Court (ICC), a US embassy official told IRIN last Friday.
ZIMBABWE: CHURCHES APOLOGISE FOR INACTION AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES
The Zimbabwe Council of Churches has apologised to the people of Zimbabwe for not doing enough to protest human rights abuses by the government. The apology was made in a communique issued by the Zimbabwe Council of Churches following its annual meeting.
Related Link:
PIED PIPER
ZIMBABWE: MDC SOFTENS STANCE TO DEFUSE TENSION
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has threatened to hit his opponents with "the full wrath of the law" if they tried to destabilise the nation. He said this on Tuesday just hours after Zimbabwe's opposition party offered a political truce with the government. Before Mugabe delivered his speech, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) announced that its lawmakers would not boycott Mugabe's speech - as they usually do - but would remain in parliament as part of an effort to build goodwill to end the political standoff.
ZIMBABWE: STATE-SPONSORED RETRIBUTION TO SUBVERT FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
There were 113 cases of torture recorded for the month of June, while political discrimination, violations of freedom of expression and assaults remained widespread, according to the Zimbabwean Human Rights NGO Forum's Political Violence Report for June. "Since the Human Rights Forum began documenting and publishing politically related human rights violations in 2000, there has been a sustained level of organised violence and torture, peaking at periods surrounding elections, public marches and demonstrations.”
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 07:45:19 PM |
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Take a break, have some fun
Now that it's almost the end of the day, check out Flesh or Food?
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 05:01:07 PM |
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Before you say anything, please notice this is a white guy's idea
No way to tackle racism … in December, NFL team owners agreed to interview at least one black prospect each time they enter the market for a new head coach. To make sure the teams hold to their pledge, the league commissioner, Paul Tagliabue, announced in May that a violation of the interview policy would earn the guilty party up to $690,000 in fines.
Last week, Mr. Tagliabue followed through on his threat. He smacked Matt Millen, president of the Detroit Lions, with a $280,000 penalty. Last February, Mr. Millen hired Steve Mariucci, a white man, as the Lions' head coach -- without interviewing any black candidates.
In fact, Mr. Millen had contacted no fewer than five African-Americans about the job. None of them, however, would consent to an interview. This was largely thanks to open speculation that the Lions badly wanted the highly regarded Mr. Mariucci.
…What was Mr. Millen supposed to do -- force blacks to go through the interview process? Uselessly parading a black candidate through the Detroit Lions' offices would hardly have struck a blow for minority empowerment, and it comes as little surprise that five African-American coaches refused to lend legitimacy to what would essentially have been an empty, tokenistic ritual.
Open letter to Mr. Paul Tagliabue:
When Mr. Millen reached out to five Black guys and they all said they didn't even want to interview for the position,
that is enough. Unless you feel the "open speculation" was floated to discourage potential Black applicants.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 02:28:31 PM |
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Some of the worst news possible
New cases of AIDS increase in nationEvolution of the virus, treatment trouble cited
(By Alice Dembner,
Globe Staff)
The number of Americans getting sick with AIDS increased last year for the first time in nearly a decade, federal officials said yesterday, marking a small but troubling reversal in the long national battle against the disease. Preliminary data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show new AIDS diagnoses rose 2.2 percent to 42,136, after dropping steadily from a peak of 80,010 in 1993.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 09:00:03 AM |
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A Suicide or a Lynching? Answers Sought in FloridaBy ABBY GOODNOUGH
BELLE GLADE, Fla., July 28 — Dawn was just breaking over the sugar cane fields that surround this town when police responded to a 911 call. A young black man was dead, hanged on an umbrella tree in his grandmother's yard.
The authorities quickly ruled the death of the man, Feraris Golden, 32, a suicide; there were no signs of struggle, and the police said Mr. Golden's grandmother told them that he had threatened to kill himself the night before.
One of the six officers who went to the scene on the morning of May 28 climbed the tree and cut the body down. But the image burned in the minds of the family members who gathered around the tree on that damp morning, and of many other residents of this racially divided town, about 40 miles west of West Palm Beach.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 08:57:13 AM |
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All that hard work, and for what?
Some whine, with cheese.
I love it. Atrios Jr., where are you??
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 08:42:18 AM |
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The mechanism of denial
The mechanism of denial
The last quoted paragraph says it all.
No it doesn't. This does. White people are the most race consious people in the USofA. White people go ballistic when you say that any white person is or did anything racist. It's a personal affront.
"The community doesn't want to get maligned." So you deny. That will get you maligned immediately, don't you see that? Or are you scared your neighbors will say you're "acting black?"
Bias-Crime Claim Puzzles Beach Enclave in QueensBy PATRICK HEALY
n the gated Queens community of Breezy Point, the summer chatter often revolves around beach parties, a musical performance at St. Thomas More Roman Catholic Church or even such trivial matters as a parakeet that has flown the coop.
But over the weekend, a 41-year-old Breezy Point woman was accused of assaulting a 12-year-old Hispanic girl in this overwhelmingly white community, and prosecutors charged the woman with committing a hate crime. They said the woman, Donna Harding, shoved a plastic wagon into the girl's legs and told the girl and her mother that blacks and Hispanics did not belong in the neighborhood.
Yesterday, several residents of this 4,300-person community in the Rockaways said they were skeptical of the charges. While acknowledging that they had not witnessed the exchange, the roughly a dozen people interviewed insisted such an assault did not — and could not — happen in Breezy Point.
"I'm here 22 years, and I've never heard of or seen anything to compare to that," said Msgr. Michael Connelly, a pastor at St. Thomas More Church. "In my mind, I don't believe that is true."
Elizabeth Leib, who has lived in Breezy Point for 25 years, said: "It's a beautiful Christian community. It would be bothersome to think we could be labeled so quickly. The community doesn't want to get maligned."
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 08:40:52 AM |
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First global warming, now this
Has the Sea Given Up Its Bounty?By WILLIAM J. BROAD and ANDREW C. REVKIN
ost of the earth's surface is covered by oceans, and their vastness and biological bounty were long thought to be immune to human influence. But no more. Scientists and marine experts say decades of industrial-scale assaults are taking a heavy toll.
More than 70 percent of commercial fish stocks are now considered fully exploited, overfished or collapsed. Sea birds and mammals are endangered. And a growing number of marine species are reaching the precariously low levels where extinction is considered a real possibility.
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"It's an incipient disaster," said Richard Ellis, author of "The Empty Ocean."
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 08:07:30 AM |
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Brain boosters
I guess 'just say no" is out of fashion.
I remember when chromium picolinate forst hit the market, hyped as a memory and mind enhancer. My immediate reaction was, "If you take a pill and are convinced it made you think faster and remember better…you're high."
Race Is On for a Pill to Save the MemoryBy DAVID TULLER
hey are called smart pills or brain boosters or, to use the preferred pharmaceutical term, cognitive enhancers.
But whatever the name given to compounds created to prevent or treat memory loss, drug companies and supplement producers — eager to meet the demands of a rapidly growing market — are scrambling to exploit what they view as an enormous medical and economic opportunity.
Three drugs being prescribed for Alzheimer's disease — donepezil (Aricept), galantamine (Reminyl) and rivastigmine (Exelon) — have been shown to delay somewhat the loss of mental abilities in people with the illness. So has the drug memantine, which has been used for years in Europe but has not been approved in the United States. Some experts also say that performing mental exercises and adding fish oil to the diet can delay memory decline.
Pharmaceutical companies are investigating dozens of other compounds to see whether they can help people who have memory difficulties but have not progressed to Alzheimer's. Some researchers hope that drugs will eventually prevent the deficits that even healthy elderly people experience.
Much of the excitement among pharmaceutical companies, which have dozens of drugs in development, stems from advances in clarifying some of the brain processes and biochemical pathways that can hinder or help memory storage and retrieval, said Dr. Paul R. Solomon, a professor of psychology at Williams College.
"The basic research into the causes of memory disorders is going very rapidly," said Dr. Solomon, who is also co-director of the Memory Clinic at the Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington.
But it will probably be at least five years before any of those drugs meet the standards for approval by the Food and Drug Administration, researchers said.
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PAMBAZUKA NEWS
Today is African News Day.
As I mentioned before, I've been using an RSS aggregator called FeedReader. Nice piece of software that I'm finding quite useful for keeping up with select blogs. Using it with news aggregators like Moreover.com is a bit less satisfactory. The problem is getting the same news, usually AP or other newswire stories, over and over and over with slight to nonexistant variations in headlines. So I'm still looking at alternatives.
As regards Africa, I believe I've found one. Pambazuka News will be the source of all the material I post today, with the exception of any original post I may write (I still try with mixed success to get off at least one per day).
There will be two more lots of posts. I'll give more information about what Pambazuka News has to offer with the next bunch. And with the last I'll give URLs and whatnot.
For now, though, I'm going to be selfish.
LATER: I lied.
Okay, not lied. I fully intended to post only news on Africa today, but some other stuff has come to my attention that must be blogged.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 07:05:02 AM |
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PAMBAZUKA NEWS 120: HEALTH
AFRICA: AMBITIOUS PLAN TO TACKLE AIDS
AIDS treatment in Southern Africa is about to explode with seven countries in the region accelerating access to antiretroviral drugs. "Very poor countries have shown they are capable of doing effective treatment in the public sector and that they would be ready to scale up rapidly," said the UN special envoy for HIV/Aids in Africa, Stephen Lewis. Speaking after last week's international Aids research conference in Paris, the executive director of the UN Global Fund for the Treatment of Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis, Richard Feachem, said that Africa was on the threshold of an explosion in treatment.
AFRICA: NEW WHO DG PLEDGES TO BOOST AIDS FIGHT
Dr. Jong-Wook Lee has assumed the position of World Health Organisation director general, saying that he will boost the organisation's commitment to combating HIV/AIDS by providing antiretroviral drugs to three million HIV-positive people in developing countries by 2005, Agence France-Presse reports. Lee, a South Korean physician who has worked at WHO for 19 years, succeeds Gro Harlem Brundtland.
AFRICA: RICH COUNTRIES STALL ON NEW AIDS FUNDING
The U.S$200 million Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria contribution proposed by President George W. Bush for one year amounts to little more than 32 hours of war expenses in Iraq. And at a recent meeting in Paris to consider additional funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, donors added a few additional promises and little new funding to meet an expected shortfall of $500 million to $800 million this year, with an additional $3 billion needed to cover grants in 2004. This posting from Africa Action contains a press release from the Global Fund putting as positive a spin as possible on new promises, a June 17 letter from the White House explicitly urging Congress not to provide more money than the President's request of only $200 million for the Global Fund and $2 billion total for 2004 funding, a brief note from Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS reports on the status on congressional action as of Friday, and excerpts from an opinion piece by Jeffrey Sachs commenting on the default by both Europe and the U.S.
AFRICA: U.S. ANTI-AIDS FUNDING DWINDLES; BUSH BLAMED
Two efforts by Democratic lawmakers to boost next year's U.S. contribution to the global fight against AIDS were narrowly defeated in a key Congressional committee Wednesday, spurring charges that President George W. Bush, who just returned from a five-day trip to Africa last weekend, had betrayed the expectations he created while there.
AFRICA: UK STILL POACHING AFRICAN NURSES
Nurses are still being 'poached' from Africa to work in Britain - even though there is a ban on recruitment from developing countries, unions have warned. The head of Kenya's nursing union told the BBC it was the most experienced nurses who were leaving.
AFRICA: WHEN MR. BUSH 'CAME SHOPPING' IN AFRICA
Rolake Nwagwu, from the Treatment Action Movement (TAM) Nigeria, writes that if America says she is committed to fighting AIDS in Africa, then the right things should be done at the right time in the right way. "Don't claim to commit to PMTCT if you won't make ARVs available. Don't claim to support Africans using generic drugs if you go on to try enforcing the same laws that will make getting generic drugs almost impossible. Don't claim to be against stigma and discrimination of PLWHA (People Living with HIV/AIDS) if your staff members still screen their domestic workers for HIV and visa lottery winners are compelled to take HIV tests without their informed knowledge or consent, without voluntary and confidential counselling."
KENYA: FREE MEDICINE FOR MOTHERS WITH AIDS
Mothers infected with HIV/AIDS will receive free medicine from the Kenyan Government. The Health ministry has developed a programme to provide the anti-retroviral drugs to minimize mother-to-child transmission. Health minister Charity Ngilu said children had been neglected in anti-AIDS campaigns despite their vulnerability.
KENYA: GOVERNMENT TO HIRE 2,000 NURSES
Two thousand nurses are to be hired for public hospitals this year. Director of Medical Services Richard Muga said this was expected to ease staff shortages and improve public service.
MALAWI: QUEST FOR CHEAP AIDS TREATMENT FUELS FAKE DRUGS BOOM
Many Malawians living with HIV/AIDS are forced to rely on illegal drugs in a bid to treat opportunistic illnesses, ease suffering and prolong their lives. Some of the fake drugs have flooded the country's parallel market with a potentially disastrous health impact.
SOUTH AFRICA: WORLD BANK WARNS ON IMPACT OF AIDS
South Africa could face economic collapse within a few generations unless it adopts a more urgent response to its HIV/AIDS epidemic, a new World Bank research report warned on Wednesday. According to the report "The Long-run Economic Costs of AIDS: Theory and an Application to South Africa", most studies on the macroeconomic costs of AIDS had overlooked the long-term damage of the disease.
ZAMBIA: 'LACK OF HIV INFECTION AWARENESS MAY MASK PREVALENCE LEVELS'
Lack of awareness of the disease and supplies for detecting HIV infection may mask prevalence levels in some areas of the country, UNICEF resident representative Dr. Stella Goings has said. Speaking at the regional workshop for peer educators held at Mulungushi International Conference Centre, Dr. Goings noted that most countries represented at the workshop were among those heavily affected by the HIV/AIDS infections.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 06:19:30 AM |
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PAMBAZUKA NEWS 120: RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA
SOUTH AFRICA: HAPPY REOPENS SOUTH AFRICA'S RACIAL SCARS
Apartheid, it seems, works. Nearly 10 years since racial segregation was abolished in South Africa, identity is still rooted in race. Or so it would appear from the case of Happy Sindane, the blond Ndebele-speaking boy who walked into a police station last month saying he had been abducted from his white family by their black cleaner at the age of six and brought up among blacks. He asked the police to help him find his white parents. The story was presented, to the fury of black commentators, as that of a lost white boy who had walked, Tarzan-like, out of the jungle. The courts demolished the fantasy last week after DNA tests established that Happy had at least one black parent.
ZIMBABWE: ADMISSIONS OF GUILT
The general response by black Zimbabweans to the dire conditions in which they try to survive, and to the hate-speech against minorities with which they are daily bombarded, must constitute final, irrevocable proof that apartheid was unjustified and unjustifiable. The overall refusal by Zimbabweans to give way to hate-crimes against officially-designated scapegoats - whites, Jews, Asians, homosexuals - is the great "positive" news, to which the media do not give sufficient prominence.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 06:13:14 AM |
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PAMBAZUKA NEWS 120: CONFLICT, EMERGENCIES, AND CRISES
AFRICA: RACISM, EXPLOITATION AND NEGLECT - BUSH AND AFRICA
Growing discomfort with U.S. unilateralism has increased anti-American sentiment across the continent and prompted calls for UN rather than U.S. leadership in the war on terrorism. But terrorism is far from the most critical problem confronting the continent, argues this article. Poverty, AIDS, protracted violent conflicts between countries, debt burdens, and the breakdown of states have all ranked higher on the agendas of African leaders and regional organisations.
BURUNDI: PEACE PROCESS FATALLY FLAWED
The massive and unexpected attack, launched by the rebel Palipehutu-Forces for National Liberation (FNL) on Bujumbura during the early hours of July 7 was a rude reminder that the lengthy peace process has not yet been able to achieve its goal. Burundi is yet again bleeding.
DRC: MINISTERS FROM FORMER REBEL MOVEMENTS TAKE OATH OF OFFICE
Transitional government officials designated by the two principal former rebel movements in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) took their oath of office on Thursday in the capital, Kinshasa, after a modification was made in the pledge of allegiance. Fourteen ministers and eight vice-ministers from the two groups - the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) and the Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC) - had refused to take the oath of office on Friday because it required a pledge of allegiance to President Joseph Kabila, but not to the institutions and laws of the country.
LIBERIA: INTERNATIONAL INDECISION AS CRISIS DEEPENS
The Liberian capital of Monrovia is experiencing some of its worst fighting in seven years, following a weekend of heavy bombardment as rebel forces advanced into the city centre and government troops loyal to embattled President Charles Taylor fought to hold their positions. The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), which had hoped to get a thousand or more troops on the ground this week, is still discussing how to get the force into place.
Related Links:
* REBELS REFUSE TO SIGN LIBERIA PEACE AGREEMENT
* BRUTAL FIGHTING IN MONROVIA: AT LEAST 100 DEAD
LIBERIA: TROOPS TO LIBERIA MUST RESPECT HUMAN RIGHTS
Human Rights Watch has written to the chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), John Kufuor, urging him to ensure that ECOWAS troops sent to Liberia act in full accordance with international human rights and humanitarian law, and with a clear mandate to protect civilians and to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.
LIBERIA: UN WARNS OF TRAGEDY AS FOOD SHORTAGES GROW ACUTE
Food shortages grew more accute in the Liberian capital Monrovia on Wednesday as rebel forces continued pounding the city centre with mortar fire and the United Nations warned that its one million population faced a humanitarian tragedy.
SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE: COUP LEADERS HAND POWER BACK TO CIVILIAN PRESIDENT
The military junta which seized power in the potentially oil-rich island state of Sao Tome and Principe last week, signed an agreement with international mediators on Wednesday to allow the reinstatement of the elected government of President Fradique de Menezes, news agencies with local correspondents reported.
SOMALIA: FOREIGN POWERS STALK PEACE TALKS
"People are here to pursue their own interests. In fact, one would say that Somalia is up for grabs," says a delegate to the Somali peace talks being held in Mbaghati, Kenya. The delegate is from Somaliland, the renegade region whose "head of State" has snubbed the Nairobi talks.
SUDAN: GOVERNMENT CONSIDERING DATE FOR RESUMPTION OF PEACE TALKS
The government of Sudan is considering a date for the resumption of postponed peace talks with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). "We are still consulting on that," Sudan's deputy ambassador to Kenya, Muhammad Ahmad Dirdeiry, told IRIN. He said a decision would be made before 3 August, which the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) mediators have suggested as a starting date. The talks were originally scheduled to restart on Wednesday.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 06:02:29 AM |
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PAMBAZUKA NEWS 120: Editorial
AFRICAN UNION ADOPTS PROTOCOL ON THE RIGHTS OF AFRICAN WOMEN
Statement By Equality Now
On 11 July 2003, the African Union adopted the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, a supplementary protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, which was adopted in 1981. Advancing the human rights of African women through creative, substantive and detailed language, the new Protocol covers a broad range of human rights issues. For the first time in international law, it explicitly sets forth the reproductive right of women to medical abortion when pregnancy results from rape or incest or when the continuation of pregnancy endangers the health or life of the mother. In another first, the Protocol explicitly calls for the legal prohibition of female genital mutilation.
In other equality advances for women, the Protocol calls for an end to all forms of violence against women including unwanted or forced sex, whether it takes place in private or in public, and a recognition of protection from sexual and verbal violence as inherent in the right to dignity. It endorses affirmative action to promote the equal participation of women, including the equal representation of women in elected office, and calls for the equal representation of women in the judiciary and law enforcement agencies as an integral part of equal protection and benefit of the law. Articulating a right to peace, the Protocol also recognizes the right of women to participate in the promotion and maintenance of peace.
The broad range of economic and social welfare rights for women set forth in the Protocol includes the right to equal pay for equal work and the right to adequate and paid maternity leave in both private and public sectors. It also calls on states to take effective measures to prevent the exploitation and abuse of women in advertising and pornography. The rights of particularly vulnerable groups of women, including widows, elderly women, disabled women and "women in distress," which includes poor women, women from marginalized population groups, and pregnant or nursing women in detention, are specifically recognized.
Equality Now, an international human rights organisation, convened a meeting in January 2003 of African women's rights activists to facilitate a collective review of the draft and coordinated advocacy for the adoption of a text that would truly advance the rights of African women in international law. Subsequent concerted lobbying of African governments by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and networks all over Africa on a consensus text resulted in significant gains to the original draft. The Africa Office of Equality Now, based in Nairobi, acted as a liaison with the African Union to push for expert discussion of the Protocol as well as strong NGO representation in the process.
The final Protocol is indicative of the achievements that can be made when governments and civil society use their collective resources to advance the cause of human rights. "The adoption of this Protocol marks a significant step forward in promoting the rights of women within Africa and we hope lays the groundwork for further gains for all women around the world," said Faiza Jama Mohamed, Equality Now's Africa Regional Director.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/29/2003 05:56:43 AM |
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July 28, 2003
The USofA as La Cosa Nostra
From the Washington Post, by way of Mark A. R. Kleiman, who's whole name is given so you can find him on the blogroll.
U.S. Adopts Aggressive Tactics on Iraqi Fighters
Intensified Offensive Leads To Detentions, Intelligence By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 28, 2003; Page A01
BAGHDAD -- Over the past six weeks a small but intense war has been conducted in the mud-hut villages and lush palm groves along the Tigris River valley, fought with far different methods than those used in the campaign that toppled president Saddam Hussein.
As Iraqi fighters launched guerrilla strikes, the U.S. Army adopted a more nimble approach against unseen adversaries and found new ways to gather intelligence about them, according to dozens of soldiers and officers interviewed over the last week.
[snip]
Col. David Hogg, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, said tougher methods are being used to gather the intelligence. On Wednesday night, he said, his troops picked up the wife and daughter of an Iraqi lieutenant general. They left a note: "If you want your family released, turn yourself in." Such tactics are justified, he said, because, "It's an intelligence operation with detainees, and these people have info." They would have been released in due course, he added later.
The tactic worked. On Friday, Hogg said, the lieutenant general appeared at the front gate of the U.S. base and surrendered.
Now, class, please notice the delicate use of language. "Aggressive" and "nimble." Aren't those interesting words to refer to kidnapping wives and children to put pressure on husbands and fathers?
This is literally criminal.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/28/2003 11:07:20 PM |
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I have NOT been slacking
What I have been doing, in fact, is editing the posts and comments in the reparations discussion we recently had. They, the incomplete Racism series (which I intend to get back to) and probably the upcoming Equal Time series will become a permanent feature of the site.
The reparations series is done. Once I find all the racism posts they'll be prepared too.
Truth to tell, though, I do feel like I've been slacking a bit. What I've been doing is strictly mechanical, not creative or analytical at all. On the other hand, how many folks do you need to tell you the feds are liars today?
It's funny, Progressives and Conservatives have reversed their positions…their sound bytes, actually…as regards the trustworthiness of the Federal government. Well, maybe not funny. But the what and why of the reversal is indicative of the reasons I become more certain of my political disposition (as opposed to my political positions, which are always open to further examination and refinement) the more I learn of the alternatives.
When Conservatives hated the Federal Government, they hated it on High Principle. The very concept of Big Government was an affront to freedom-loving Americans, stealing their money and still spending more than they stole. Now, Conservatives—or at least their accepted spokepersons—want to brand anyone that disagrees with the Federal government on their forehead with a big
T.
And after reading the comments on that post of Venomous Kate's that I linked to yesterday, I
really don't understand Conservative women. How can you be part of a group half of which wants your ass back in the Stone Age?
As for Libertarians, they're just silly. Despite a strong intellectual attraction to the philosophy, our nature as social animals simply makes all that independence impossible. We
must, interact, we
will impact each others lives, our very presence is a mutual imposition without which we'd starve. Our intellect must be bent, not to breaking the requirements of our nature but to honing the expression of it so that the institutions we build support rather than deny us. Or maybe that's just the Black guy in me talking, I don't know…
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/28/2003 07:39:28 PM |
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Blogroll
Pay no attention to that expanded blogroll on the right side of the page (hm. Maybe I should put it on the left?). Unless you want to explore a whole bunch of solid progressives.
I'll explain it sometime in the near future.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/28/2003 07:07:15 PM |
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Comics
This is what you do today. Read Tom Toles, Ben Sargent, Doonesbury and Jeff Danziger. Start with these links and just hit the "next date" links for each cartoonist until you run out of pages. Seriously.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/28/2003 09:17:20 AM |
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Of course, I should always finish reading the news before I declare I've finished reading the news
In other words, One More Thing…
This is for bloggers to consider. Plucked from Corante's Many-To-Many blog is a report on "Googlearchy: How a Few Heavily-Linked Sites Dominate Politics on the Web", an examination of the link structure of great hoards of politically-oriented websites. Key obeservations (from "Many-to-Many, because I haven't gotten around to reading it just yet):
For each of the issues examined, most of the links are to sites in the top 20; and the median site gets a single inbound link.
The bottom line: we should be careful not to confuse retrievability with visibility.
This is a 300k pdf file.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/28/2003 09:06:54 AM |
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Hm
Started the day with just short of 125 megs of traffic left. In the entirely egocentric interest of leavng space for my personal rants, I'm cutting the news a little short.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/28/2003 08:59:01 AM |
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What exactly is a salesman learning here?
Drug firms increasingly barred from exam roomsBy Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff, 7/28/2003
Azucena Sanchez-Scott had just finished chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer, and she was worried about the side effects. Her nails and hair were falling out, hot flashes plagued her, even sleep was difficult. So she went to her oncologist for reassurance. As she undressed in the exam room, he looked on.
So did someone else: a salesman from Alza Pharmaceuticals.Sanchez-Scott's doctor didn't say who the man was, only that he was ''observing my work,'' she said. At one point, when a hot flash hit, the doctor asked the salesman to operate Sanchez-Scott's pocket fan so she could lie down for the exam. She grew increasingly uncomfortable about the stranger's presence, but it wasn't until she questioned the receptionist afterward that she discovered the visitor was a drug company representative. Eventually, she sued the doctor and Alza for invasion of privacy, a suit that was settled in 2001. Executives at Alza, now a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, would not comment on the case. The doctor could not be reached.
''I still feel hurt,'' said Sanchez-Scott, now 50, a family and marriage therapist who lives in Los Angeles. ''The drug rep didn't have anything to do with me or my care, and he was allowed to come into my exam room. I felt violated.''
Sanchez-Scott's lawsuit was one of the first public challenges to a standard, long-term practice that has come under growing fire in the past year: Pharmaceutical companies paying doctors a fee of several hundred dollars a day to allow salespeople to shadow them as they see patients, a practice called a preceptorship.
Drug companies and some doctors say it is an important educational tool, but others believe it is an invasion of patients' privacy and a ploy by drug companies to promote their products.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/28/2003 08:57:10 AM |
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How to win friends and influence people
Rwanda Is Said to Seek New Prosecutor for War Crimes CourtBy MARLISE SIMONS
THE HAGUE, July 25 — With the quiet support of the United States, the Rwandan government has been campaigning to have Carla Del Ponte replaced as chief prosecutor for the tribunal dealing with the mass killing in Rwanda in 1994, Western diplomats and tribunal officials have said in recent days.
They said Rwanda was furious that Ms. Del Ponte had been investigating several senior civilian and military members of the present Tutsi-led government for reported atrocities at the time of the bloodshed.
As many as half a million Rwandans, mostly Tutsi, were believed to be killed in the Hutu-led slaughter that lasted three months. But
Tutsi troops who subsequently seized power are believed to have killed more than 30,000 civilians in reprisals.
Until now, all those indicted have been Hutu, and Ms. Del Ponte has often denounced Rwanda for obstructing her efforts to investigate crimes by Tutsi. But she has insisted that the tribunal's mandate is to deal with atrocities on both sides and that she must continue investigating to safeguard the court's credibility and to ward off future revenge killings.
Now
Rwanda has apparently won support from the United States and Britain in trying to separate Ms. Del Ponte from the tribunal, which is based in Arusha, Tanzania. The decision is up to the United Nations Security Council, which must debate the issue before Sept. 15, when her four-year mandate ends.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/28/2003 08:54:25 AM |
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Gee. Ya think?
First of all, the idea of calling (let's split the difference here for discussion's sake) a $30 billion reduction over two years "gradual" is kind of loopy. The major thing, though, is to push the recognition that Federal tax and budgetary policy doesn't play out in a vacuum.
For instance, "Red States" on the whole are consumers, not producers, of Federal tax dollars. They are selling out their own children by backing those who have created this fiscal debacle and I doubt they know it. How can their representatives send back all that nice pork after they've starved the pig to death?
Because the Federal government, even in its current state, has vastly more purchasing power than any given state, it can nogotiate much better purchasing arrangements. If it had the will to. By failing to do so, it increases
overall government spending every time it reduces Federal spending or spends inappropriately. The problem of Federal spending is more "how" than "how much."
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/28/2003 08:48:31 AM |
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A prediction
Bill Bennett was interviewed on TV this weekend, I forget where. It reminded me very much of Rush Limbaugh's first post-Oklahoma City bombing interview. If you recall, Limbaugh dropped off the map for a considerable period of time because he, being the lead loudmouth shouting the "government is your enemy" screed that so inspired the militia movement, was taking a lot of heat and blame for inspiring Timothy McVeigh and similar haters. Dark set, dark suits, somber, and only a brief reference to the actual issue that made the men step out of the spotlight.
Bennett will be doing his editorial thing again within three months. And Conservative extremists will simply ignore his moral hypocrasy…which will be made simple because the mainstream media will too.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/28/2003 08:29:22 AM |
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A typical American
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/28/2003 08:18:30 AM |
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July 27, 2003
Wonder why your wife is mad at you?
Get yourself a cold drink and a comfortable seat. Then read this.
Kate, I'd ping your trackback if I could (and you people need to keep your mind out of the gutter).
It's interesting…the women's movement patterned itself after the civil rights movement and got pretty much the same results: not a change in status so much as permission for people of the designated status to do more stuff.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/27/2003 02:02:04 PM |
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No surprise there
I just found out that I'm only 13% gay… a "walking, talking, red-blooded hetero guy. Just way too straight for these modern times." Oh, well. As long as I'm not required to become homophobic, I guess I can live with that.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/27/2003 12:23:36 PM |
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I don't even know if I should post this
Gunman claimed victim bribed, threatened him
(By Michael Weissenstein, Associated Press)
NEW YORK -- Hours before his City Hall attack, gunman Othniel Boaz Askew told the FBI his eventual victim had threatened to expose him as gay and harm his family unless he dropped a political challenge, investigators say.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/27/2003 04:16:40 AM |
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Get ready for some really tall rich people
This requires six shots a week for years… but I bet it can be delivered transdermally (think anti-smoking patches).
A Hormone to Help Youths Grow Is Approved by F.D.A.By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON, July 26 (AP) - Children who are healthy but abnormally short will be able to have injections of growth hormone in hope of gaining one to three more inches of height, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday, deciding an emotionally charged issue.
The drug, Humatrope, is not for normal children yearning for a few extra inches, the agency cautioned. It is for the shortest 1.2 percent.
The drug's maker, Eli Lilly & Company, counts about 400,000 such children ages 7 to 15, but predicts that only 10 percent will receive growth hormone because of eligibility restrictions and because six shots a week are required for years.
"This is not cosmetic use," said Dr. David Orloff, the agency's chief of endocrinology.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/27/2003 04:11:03 AM |
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Voting
A easily understandable article on voting systems and how they might affect the outcome of an election (no, it's not…and never has been…as simple a matter as seeing who got the most votes).
How to Vote? Let Us Count the WaysBy MICHAEL COOPER
There is a cynical precept of politics that says that those who cast the votes decide nothing, but those who count the votes decide everything. [p6: I think Florida proves this precept more practical than cynical]
A third group, though, decides quite a bit, too: those who set the election rules.
New York City's election rules could be rewritten soon, if the voters approve Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's plan to abolish party primaries in 2009.
The mayor says his push for nonpartisan elections will lead to fairer elections. But fair can be in the eye of the beholder. While the pros and cons of the mayor's proposal will be debated in the coming months, it is worth noting that recent history is riddled with well-intentioned election reforms that ended up having unintended consequences.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/27/2003 04:03:33 AM |
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Fire
Fire is the purest expression of the pardox of all tools. The greater the utility of a tool, the greater the damage misusing it can create. An editorial on eWeek discusses the downside of software designed to protect privacy and detect intrusions.
This is not to say this software should not be used. All in all, I prefer it be widely deployed. But it's a tool. And if misused, it can cause great damage by shielding the very people it is designed to expose.
Whistle-Blowers at RiskOne thing all these software systems have in common is the ability to strictly control the flow of information through a company, to control what employees can do with documents and data, and to track who has accessed that information.
Sounds great so far. But imagine a company with less-than-worthy goals—say, one with unethical or illegal business practices—installing this type of software. All of a sudden, it becomes hard to copy or view documents and data that show the company's actions. And if you do view a document, someone higher up will know you looked at it. If that person thinks you might tell the authorities, he or she may remove the offending data.
I can't help but get the feeling that these software applications, designed for worthy goals, will end up being used to protect all kinds of corporate information and stop whistle-blowers before they can get started. I have to think that even ethical companies, once they've installed these applications to protect privacy and handle reporting, will use these systems to protect many other types of business information, especially the information they don't want outsiders to see.
Keep this in mind when you consider the effects of computerized voting.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/27/2003 03:49:31 AM |
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Next week, on P6
Real world affairs will be packaged sufficiently well to allow me to return to something approaching my normal level of blogging.
"Equal Time Week" will be restarted.
I'll be giving The Right Christian's TOE Project (see below) some thought and will write up those thoughts, incomplete as they will likely be.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/27/2003 02:53:31 AM |
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Fool that I am
Forgot to blogroll The Right Christians.
What brings this up now is their TOE Project. Here's is a small sample, hopefully enough to intrigue everyone into a substantial, "must read" piece of thinking.
Even some of our best pollsters appear to have been caught off guard by what took place in the 2002 mid-term elections--a sure sign that we're operating without a good theoretical model of the electorate. I think it's one reason our leaders often look indecisive and weak (Clinton's uncanny instinctive feel for the electorate may have spared him from this perception.) One of our best writers, Frank Rich of the New York Times, is left to glumly hope for a
change in the political cycle. Tucker Carlson gloats to Rich that:
"'They [the conservatives] believe in nine things. They all know the catechism.' In Mr. Carlson's view, Democrats are all over the ideological map in the post-Clinton era, and there can be no effective media without a coherent message."
…Blogging is a medium that invites response and dialogue, and that's what progressives need. Maybe there's some great brainstorming going on in the liberal think tanks that's about to bear fruit in a great new approach to communicating the Democratic message. I hope so. But in case there's not, it is well past the time for us regular progressive Democrats to do more than moan and even weep about the direction of the country and the seeming impotence of our leaders to do anything about it. What I'm about to do is to try and provoke some thinking, some writing, some talking and finally, some action. Comment here on what's being written and help improve it. Be inspired to come up with your own TOE and write about it on your blog (and link back here!).
…Lakoff's research has led him to conclude that most of us use a metaphor of our nation as a family. The government at the federal, state and local level is thought of as the "parent" and the citizens stand in the role of "children." Those who understand politics in this way do not all have the same family model, however. People that we usually think of as conservatives hold a Strict Father worldview of the nation and politics. Liberals have a Nurturant Parent worldview.
…With so much depending on it, however, there are a few additional considerations. I would suggest that Lakoff's model misses one very important and growing worldview in the electorate. This conceptual metaphor does NOT see the nation as a family. I will call it the "Every man (and woman) is an island" worldview. The central metaphor is this worldview is that of personal boundaries and space. Simply stated:
No one is entited to intrude into my space if I do not intrude into theirs. Those who intrude into the space of others are morally bad and should be punished.
For them, the nation is not a family but not much more than the sea in which their island sits.
Many of those who operate by this metaphor call themselves libertarians.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/27/2003 02:47:14 AM |
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Been busy
Sorry.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/27/2003 02:37:36 AM |
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