Prometheus 6

Taylor Branch, author of a heralded three part history of the King era, lauds Glenn Beck's attempt to overwrite history, and I am disgusted by the attempt. The man has either never seen Beck...

...nevermind. Beck's behavior has been so widely reported, only pure bias can explain his willingness to align Beck with King. Can't say what that bias is, but I am seriously concerned and want folks who speak on it to hew as closely to physical fact as possible.

One would hope (appparently in vain) a Pulitzer-winning historian would get that.

Thought that was just another snarky headline, didn't you?

Mr. Feldman received a bill for $200. The Chicago Heights Fire Department told him the fire truck had responded in case there was a fire at the scene.

But Mr. Feldman, 71, had another question: “Why are you charging me? I didn’t do anything wrong. Charge the other guy.”

Neither Mr. Feldman’s insurance company, nor that of the man who struck him, would pay. Mr. Feldman finally paid the bill with some of the money he received from the insurance company of the person who hit him.

“This is my personal opinion: it is a rip-off and a scam,” he said.

A Crash. A Call for Help. Then, a Bill.
By CHRISTOPHER JENSEN

ABOUT a year ago Cary Feldman was surprised to find himself sprawled on the pavement in an intersection in Chicago Heights, Ill., having been knocked off his motor scooter by the car behind him. Five months later he got another surprise: a bill from the fire department for responding to the scene of the accident.

“I had no idea what the fire truck was there for,” said Mr. Feldman, of nearby Matteson. “It came, it looked and it left. I was not hurt badly. I had scratches and bruises. I did not go to the hospital.”

Mr. Feldman had become enmeshed in what appears to be a nascent budget-balancing trend in municipal government: police and fire departments have begun to charge accident victims as a way to offset budget cuts.

Ambulance charges have long been common and are usually paid by health insurance, but fees for other responders are relatively new. The charge is variously called a “crash tax” or “resource recovery,” depending on one’s point of view. In either case, motorists are billed for services they may have thought were covered by taxpayers.

Sometimes the victim’s insurer pays. But if it declines, motorists may face threats from a collection agency if they don’t pay.

The AAA opposes such fees, said Jill Ingrassia, managing director for government relations and traffic safety advocacy. “Generally, we see that public safety services are a core government function that should be properly budgeted for with general taxes and not addressed by fees after the fact,” she said.

Ms. Ingrassia says such charges can place an “undue burden on motorists who can’t choose the size or duration of an emergency response,” which means they cannot control the size of the bill they may get. “We also really don’t want to discourage any motorist involved in a crash from calling for police or rescue services if they fear they are going to be billed for it,” she said.

Haley Barbour Is A Lying Fat Redneck!
by playthell

It is instructive to know that Barbour’s role in politics began with Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign, when Haley took a leave from Old Miss to work for Nixon.  Professor Dan T. Carter, a Bancroft Prize winning southern historian, provides the background information we need to properly assess the significance of this fact in his seminal study of how the Republicans conquered the South: The Politics of Rage.

In a revelatory chapter titled “Richard Nixon, George Wallace, and the Southernization Of American Politics,” Dr. Carter  explains how the previous Republican Presidential candidate, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona – John McCain’s Mentor – had openly embraced the white racist in the south and was creamed in a landslide victory by Lyndon Johnson, a progressive southern Democrat, so Nixon rejected that strategy.

An astute politician who had been Vice President under Dwight Eisenhower, Nixon understood the appeal to southerners of traditional Republican conservatism on economic issues – like their anti-unionism – and he figured out that if he substituted the word “commie” for “Nigger” he could get the ear of many southerners.  He even rejected the idea that Goldwater had invented the “Southern Strategy” that would eventually convert the South from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican.  “The idea that Goldwater started the Southern strategy is bullshit,” he said, and pointed to Eisenhower’s presidential campaigns of 1952-56.

Concluding that old style southern racism was a loser – and bearing the burden of having supported the major Civil Rights legislation, Nixon devised a strategy where he could hunt with the hounds and run with the hares.  He decided that although Goldwater’s campaign had resulted in the election of large numbers of Republicans in the south for the first time since the Reconstruction period following the Civil War, the naked racism of his appeal to the crackers of the deep south turned off the moderates in the border states.

Nixon would mask his support of southern racial concerns by attacking the lawlessness of black rioters protesting racism in the north – whose desperate plight had been largely unaffected by the Civil Rights acts. This legislation had been designed to nullify the legal racial discrimination of the south, de-jure, not the customary racial discrimination – de-facto – of the north.  And he constantly attacked the liberal welfare state programs personified in Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty.”

He finally decided to aim for the emerging white middle class in the South, people like Haley Barbour.  He revealed the essence of his “Southern Strategy” to a group of southern delegates at the 1968 Republican National Convention, who controlled the votes to make him the Republican nominee.  Fending off challenges from the old eastern liberal wing of the Republican Party led by Nelson Rockefeller, and the new star of the far right Ronald Reagan, Nixon met with a group of southern delegates rounded up by the longtime Dixiecrat Strom Thurman, who had converted to the Republican Party during the Goldwater campaign.

We Don't Need Another Civil Rights Movement
By: Lester K. Spence
Posted: September 2, 2010 at 9:03 PM

We have become so distrustful of the political process that we think marches and cultural transformations will solve our problems.

Recently the Schott Foundation released a bleak report on the state of black male education. Only eight states graduate more than 70 percent of black non-Hispanic males from their high schools. Four states have a graduation rate between 60 percent and 69 percent. Twenty states (plus Washington D.C.) have graduation rates below 50 percent. Nationwide, the non-Hispanic black male graduation rate is 47 percent. Combined with the double-digit unemployment rates in our communities and the epidemic of foreclosures, we know that we are living a crisis of epic proportions.

I'm familiar with the research on educational outcomes. The data indicate that our income levels influence how stable our homes are and how well our children perform in school. Income also influences how likely our kids are to spend time in jail. In addition, the data show that there are a variety of structural dynamics that also influence outcomes. Universal preschool works wonders, for example, as does the type of comprehensive needs-based program exemplified by the Harlem Children's Zone.

On the other hand, there is no relationship between black cultural traits and educational outcomes. Having a child out of wedlock, for example, has little bearing on educational outcomes if the parent has a high income. I'm not saying that culture is unimportant, but we focus on it far more than the data suggest we should. [P6: emphasis added]

Similarly, there is no relationship between civil rights-style marches and educational outcomes. Participating in a march to transform one's school, or to transform education in general, does nothing more than perhaps help you lose weight.

Now, why do I mention these two issues? Because even though both the research and the Schott Foundation report clearly focus on structural solutions, and clearly state that the problem is not with black boys but rather with the structural conditions they find themselves facing, some of us are still focusing on some combination of civil rights activism and cultural reconditioning. The report says that "systemic disparities evident by race, social class, or zip code are influenced more by the social policies and practices that we put in place to distribute educational opportunities and resources and less by the abilities of black males."

LATER: I changed the order of the videos, because though I found The Empathic Civilization first (and so posted it first), I think Smile or Die is more relevant to the level we operate on daily.

The C.I.A.’s continuing relationship with the company, which recently was awarded a $100 million contract to provide security at agency bases in Afghanistan, has drawn harsh criticism from some members of Congress, who argue that the company’s tarnished record should preclude it from such work. At least two of the Blackwater-affiliated companies, XPG and Greystone, obtained secret contracts from the agency, according to interviews with a half dozen former Blackwater officials.

It would certainly explain a lot.

30 False Fronts Won Contracts for Blackwater
By JAMES RISEN and MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON — Blackwater Worldwide created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq, according to Congressional investigators and former Blackwater officials.

While it is not clear how many of those businesses won contracts, at least three had deals with the United States military or the Central Intelligence Agency, according to former government and company officials. Since 2001, the intelligence agency has awarded up to $600 million in classified contracts to Blackwater and its affiliates, according to a United States government official.

The Senate Armed Services Committee this week released a chart that identified 31 affiliates of Blackwater, now known as Xe Services. The network was disclosed as part of a committee’s investigation into government contracting. The investigation revealed the lengths to which Blackwater went to continue winning contracts after Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in September 2007. That episode and other reports of abuses led to criminal and Congressional investigations, and cost the company its lucrative security contract with the State Department in Iraq.

The network of companies — which includes several businesses located in offshore tax havens — allowed Blackwater to obscure its involvement in government work from contracting officials or the public, and to assure a low profile for any of its classified activities, said former Blackwater officials, who, like the government officials, spoke only on condition of anonymity.

On Economy, Democrats Face a Lack of Unity and Time
By JACKIE CALMES

WASHINGTON — Democrats are entering the fall sprint to the midterm elections lacking a unifying message to address the lackluster economy, scrambling to come up with further job-creating remedies and out of time to show substantial results before voters go to the polls.

The monthly jobs report on Friday, while better than economists had expected, did nothing to improve the deteriorating political climate for Democrats a little more than eight weeks before Election Day.

President Obama, after a week consumed by foreign policy issues, will begin focusing publicly on the economy next week and on Wednesday plans to propose modest additional tax breaks, temporary and aimed at small business to promote hiring. But it is not clear that he has the votes or the time in Congress to pass them, with Republicans eager to deny Democrats any victories and endangered Democrats eager to get home within three to four weeks to campaign.

Democrats’ sense of vulnerability has increased since Congress broke for August, after a month of reports tracking weakness in both the economy and their polls. One result is that they now split more deeply than ever on the issue that in recent elections had been a rallying cry: ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of taxpayers. Democratic leaders are imploring Mr. Obama to come off the sidelines and lead the fight.

On the campaign trail, many Democrats are going their own ways as they face the prospect that persistently high unemployment could cost them control of the House and perhaps the Senate. Many are embracing the stimulus package enacted soon after Mr. Obama took office; others run away from it. Some distance themselves from Mr. Obama and his economic team; most blame Republicans.

Democrats’ campaign message mostly is a Babel of individual voices. With the national winds blowing ever stronger against the party in power, threatened Democrats are tailoring their message to their particular district or state — with party leaders’ encouragement.

The most ominous recent sign for Democrats was a Gallup poll released this week showing a wide gap in voter enthusiasm, favoring Republicans. Those Democrats who prevail in November will likely return to the Capitol in a more fiscally conservative mood.

You know why Democrats lack enthusiasm. If there had been a real pursuit of progressive issues, if the stimulus had been properly sized, if evey effort didn't start with a 50-50 power split with obstructionist losers, Democrats would have more enthusiasm than Republicans.

And electing a bag of Republican-Lites is just as much a repetition of error as re-instituting Bush's political, economic and military imperatives is.

Democrats add fiscal austerity as a campaign issue
By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 3, 2010; 9:03 PM

The candidate was outraged - just outraged - at the country's sorry fiscal state.

"We have managed to acquire $13 trillion of debt on our balance sheet," he fumed to a roomful of voters. "In my view, we have nothing to show for it."

And that was a Democrat, Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, who voted "yes" on the stimulus, the health-care overhaul, increased education funding and other costly bills Congress approved under his party's control.

Faced with a potential wipeout in November's midterm elections, candidates such as Bennet are embracing budget cuts with the enthusiasm of Reagan Republicans.

Paul Hodes, the Democratic Senate candidate in New Hampshire, recently proposed $3 billion in spending cuts that would slice airport, railroad and housing funds. Elected to the House four years ago as an anti-war progressive, Hodes lamented that "for too long, both parties have willfully spent with no regard for our nation's debt."

The new push for austerity could prove too little, too late for Democrats, who fear losing their majorities in both chambers of Congress. In dozens of House and Senate races, incumbent Democrats are struggling in polls, leading political analysts to raise the serious prospect of Republican takeovers in the House and even the Senate.

Companies may be at a point where they are no longer willing or able to protect their workers’ health benefits, said Helen Darling, the president of the National Business Group on Health, an organization representing employers that provide coverage.

Employers Push Costs for Health on Workers
By REED ABELSON

As health care costs continue their relentless climb, companies are increasingly passing on higher premium costs to workers.

The shift is occurring, policy analysts and others say, as employers feel more pressure from the weak economy and the threat of even more expensive coverage under the new health care law.

In contrast to past practices of absorbing higher prices, some companies chose this year to keep their costs the same by passing the entire increase in premiums for family coverage onto their workers, according to a new survey released on Thursday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group.

Workers’ share of the cost of a family policy jumped an average of 14 percent, an increase of about $500 a year. The cost of a policy rose just 3 percent, to an average of $13,770.

Workers are now paying nearly $4,000 for family coverage, according to the survey, and their costs have increased much faster than those of employers.

Since 2005, while wages have increased just 18 percent, workers’ contributions to premiums have jumped 47 percent, almost twice as fast as the rise in the policy’s overall cost.

Workers also increasingly face higher deductibles, forcing them to pay a larger share of their overall medical bills. “The long-term trend is pretty clear,” said Drew E. Altman, the chief executive of the Kaiser foundation, which conducted the survey this year with the Health Research and Educational Trust, a research organization affiliated with the American Hospital Association. “Insurance is getting stingier and less comprehensive.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Isn't it shocking? An appeal to physical facts while considering political positioning. And here's some more of it, so you know how cycnical it is to have Barbour as the Republican front man for this effort to edit history.

The highlighted quote comes from the Southern Poverty Law Center

Haley Barbour (center), later elected governor of Mississippi, appeared at a 2003 Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) fund-raising event with CCC supporters and officials, including CCC Field Director Bill Lord (far right).

Even though it has largely left "respectability" behind, the Council still wields a big political stick in Mississippi, where it claims some 5,000 members. The Council helped organize opposition to a 2001 referendum to change Mississippi's state flag to a less Dixie-fied design (the flag included a miniature representation of the Confederate battle flag). The referendum's thumping defeat in a racially polarized vote — 64% to 36% — was a major victory for the CCC.

The Council also flexed some muscle in last year's gubernatorial election, which pitted incumbent Democrat Ronnie Musgrove — who led the fight to change the Mississippi state flag — against Republican Haley Barbour. During the campaign, the CCC Web site ran a photograph of Barbour posing with Council luminaries at the Black Hawk Barbecue, a CCC fundraising event for "private academy" school buses.

When the photo caused a stir, Barbour was quick to call the CCC's segregationist views "indefensible." But he refused to ask that his picture be taken down from the Web site. It was a matter of principle, Barbour explained. "Once you start down the slippery slope of saying, 'That person can't be for me,' then where do you stop?" he asked. "Old segregationists? Former Ku Klux Klan?"

 

The tea party tracker site is aggregating stories from Think Progress, Media Matters for America and New Left Media - which all promote liberal ideas, while criticizing conservatives and Republicans.

The tracker's launch comes a month and a half after NAACP members voted overwhelmingly to condemn "racist elements" within the tea party. Members of the conservative movement responded by saying that the civil rights group was "attempting to silence" the tea party with "inflammatory name-calling."

NAACP watches for 'tea party' racism, stirs controversy
By Krissah Thompson
Thursday, September 2, 2010; 1:36 PM

NAACP leaders have a message for the members of the tea party movement: We're watching you.

The civil rights group has partnered with three liberal media Web sites to form a "tea party tracker" intent on monitoring "racism and other forms of extremism" within the tea party movement.

The online project, which was developed and branded by the NAACP's new media staff, has already drawn strong criticism from tea party supporters, who have said repeatedly that racism plays no role in their movement.

Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau, said the project was started because NAACP leaders kept hearing from its members that they were seeing racist signs, T-shirts and commentary coming from the tea party movement.

"The site is set up to be utilized as a tool to track activities as they come up," Shelton said. "It is in some ways consistent with the kind of tracking that has been done of other extremist entities. I do not want to suggest that the tea party is a hate group, but there are some disturbing elements within."

Oil platform explodes in Gulf, rescues under way

[Posted at 11:53 a.m.] U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Colclough tells CNN that 12 people from the production platform are in water immersion suits as they await rescue.

Colclough told CNN there are reports the production platform is still on fire.

"We don't know what caused the rig to catch on fire," he told CNN, noting the incident is under investigation.

Asked about concerns regarding oil leaks or pollution, Colclough said "there are reports the rig was not actively producing any product, so we don't know if there's any risk of pollution."

Action Needed to Eliminate Food Insecurity in the U.S.
Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Updated Position of the American Dietetic Association

Media Contact: Ryan O'Malley
800/877-1600, ext. 4769
media@eatright.org

CHICAGO – The American Dietetic Association has published an updated position paper on food insecurity in the United States, calling for funding for food and nutrition assistance programs, increased nutrition education and efforts to promote economic self-sufficiency for all households and individuals.

The paper calls access to food "a basic human need and fundamental right," defining food insecurity as "limited or intermittent access to nutritionally adequate, safe and acceptable foods accessed in socially acceptable ways."

According to ADA's position paper, food insecurity is prevalent throughout the country: More than 49 million people living in the United States experienced food insecurity in 2008. In addition, 5.7 percent of all households representing 17.3 million people including 1.1 million children, had "very low food security," defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as "multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake."

ADA's position paper was written by registered dietitian David H. Holben, professor of nutrition and director of the didactic program in dietetics in the School of Applied Health Sciences and Wellness at Ohio University.

The paper, published in the September issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, represents ADA's official stance on food insecurity in the United States:

It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that systematic and sustained action is needed to achieve food and nutrition security for all in the United States. To eliminate food insecurity, interventions are needed, including adequate funding for and increased utilization of food and nutrition assistance programs, inclusion of food and nutrition education in such programs, and innovative programs to promote and support individual and household economic self-sufficiency.

"In children, adolescents and adults, negative nutrition and non-nutrition-related outcomes have been associated with food insecurity including substandard academic achievement, inadequate intake of key nutrients, poor health, chronic disease risk and development, and poor psychological and cognitive functioning," according to ADA's position paper.

Households receiving food from emergency food providers such as pantries, kitchens and shelters "appear to be particularly vulnerable to food insecurity," according to ADA's position. However, nearly 70 percent of food-insecure households do not use a pantry, "despite knowing of availability of one in their community."

ADA's position recommends "adequate funding for and increased use of food and nutrition assistance programs, as well as innovative programs to promote and support economic self-sufficiency...Registered dietitians and dietetic technicians, registered can encourage clients to access existing programs providing food and nutrition assistance, social services and job training as an immediate intervention. RDs and DTRs can also partner with key stakeholders in the community to build local food systems and reduce hunger."

####

The American Dietetic Association is the world's largest organization of food and nutrition professionals. ADA is committed to improving the nation’s health and advancing the profession of dietetics through research, education and advocacy. Visit the American Dietetic Association at www.eatright.org.

Watermelons: What happened to the seeds?
By Jane Black
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 31, 2010; 11:35 AM

According to the National Watermelon Promotion Board, only 16 percent of watermelons sold in grocery stores have seeds, down from 42 percent in 2003. In California and the mid-South, home to the country's biggest watermelon farms, the latest figures are 8 and 13 percent, respectively. The numbers seem destined to tumble. Recently developed hybrids do not need seeded melons for pollination - more on that later - which liberates farmers from growing melons with spit-worthy seeds.

The iconic, black-studded watermelon wedge appears destined to become a slice of vanished Americana. If that sounds alarmist, try to remember the last time you had to spit out a grape seed....

Though there is some debate about it, the flavor of old-time watermelons might also be in jeopardy. And what a flavor to lose! In "Pudd'nhead Wilson," Mark Twain described the true Southern watermelon as "a boon apart . . . when one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat." Convenience, whether it's a smaller size, a fruit without seeds or year-round availability, always seems to extract a price. And if that sounds alarmist, try to remember the last great tomato you bought at a supermarket....

The Tea Party Express did not get its money's worth.

Or did they? Because this show was for white folks who have no idea who Black leaders are (hint: a leader must have significant numbers of followers, not merely talk loud or be part of a club).

I don't pay much attention to web awards, but the 2010 Black Weblog Award winners were just posted, and, well...

 

And the winner of the Aaron Hawkins Award is…

Earl Dunovant!

Earl Dunovant is a web developer and political activist who has blogged at Prometheus 6 since January 2004. Dunovant is also a member of the Media Bloggers Association, has attended presidential debates as a credentialed blogger, and has been featured on NPR as part of News and Notes‘ Bloggers Roundtable.

 

Aaron's blog, Uppity-Negro.com, is still on my blogroll, and will remain there. Here's why.

But the thrust of the event was the effort to tell participants a story about themselves that would justify their identity and legitimate their claims in the public sphere. Oddly, little reporting bothered to recount the details of Beck’s opening performance, which, while officially repudiating racism, disturbingly substituted religion as the glue that held an identity block together in a way that race has often been used.

Glenn Beck Reimagines Whiteness
And the media can’t cope
By Lester Feder

It’s rare that an event can provoke columns that carry such contradictory teasers as “Don’t ridicule Glenn Beck’s tribute to MLK: Celebrate it” and “Drowning out the hate hustlers: Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck cannot steal America’s soul.”

The first comes from Slate’s William Saletan, [P6: who, incidentally, spent over a week arguing that intelligence and IQ are genetically determined, presenting J. Philippe Rushton's "work" as evidence...then swore he was unaware of Rushton's connection with The Pioneer Fund and the New Century Foundation, as though someone familiar enough with Rushton to quote him so extensively could fail to know that...] responding to critics who decried the tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. during Saturday’s “Restoring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial by asserting, “There’s nothing unseemly about the right’s embrace of King. This is America at its best: A man once disowned as a partisan and a rebel now belong to all of us… Their invocations of his legacy were sustained and serious. They affirmed his central message—equality—and grouped him with the country’s Founding Fathers.”

The second comes from Stanley Crouch’s column in the New York Daily News, which he begins, “Now that irresponsible opportunists have brought many of the misled to Washington, we can begin to contemplate what makes bigotry so appealing. Surely, being able to exclude is one of the great joys of the species because it can give a grand identity to the average person. That identity as one of the elect made the red glow in Southern white necks.”

While blasting the event’s main speakers, Crouch did not attack them for their words that day. Instead, he attacked them for earlier “race-bating as clearly as they could” around the controversy of an Islamic center in Lower Manhattan. He would have been hard-pressed to attack the speakers on the podium, for Beck delivered a pageant that scrupulously avoided any hint of racism. As Saletan notes, in addition to the embrace of King there were references to injustices done to Native Americans.

But even if spokespeople had never made comments that could be construed as racist, it would be understandable for critics to be on the lookout for racism. This was unquestionably an event about dividing an “us” from a “them,” and race has historically been a key dividing line in the modern conservative movement. Nixon mobilized white opposition to busing, and Reagan did so around welfare. While it would be simplistic to say that the conservative coalitions these men built were merely racist, it is unquestionably true that racial grievances helped crystallize opposition to interventionist government.

Faced with scrupulously multi-racial rhetoric, observers struggled to describe the identity articulated by the event. Also writing in Slate, Christopher Hitchens contextualizes the event against the backdrop of demographic change that eventually will make whites the minority. “The overall effect was large, vague, moist, and undirected: the Waterworld of white self-pity,” he wrote, attempting to connect the day’s imagery with identity anxiety. Struggling to be more precise, he used a revealing rhetorical slight of hand:

In a rather curious and confused way, some white people are starting almost to think like a minority, even like a persecuted one. What does it take to believe that Christianity is an endangered religion in America or that the name of Jesus is insufficiently spoken or appreciated? Who wakes up believing that there is no appreciation for our veterans and our armed forces and that without a noisy speech from Sarah Palin, their sacrifice would be scorned?

Is it the same to be Christian or pro-military as it is to be white?...

RADICAL RIGHT
The Hate Turns Violent

For months, the right wing has been leading a hateful campaign against the proposed Park 51 Islamic community center that will be built two blocks from Ground Zero in New York City. Many prominent conservatives like disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have even gone as far as to claim that Park 51 will act as a launching pad for the introduction of "Sharia law" to America. These top conservatives have claimed that they aren't opposed to all mosques, but rather just one near Ground Zero. Gingrich, for example, said he would not be offended by a mosque near Central Park or Columbia University. However, the culture of hate these right wingers are fomenting against Muslims is spreading all over the country. Mosques in locations as far apart as Madera, CA, and Murfreesboro, TN have faced hateful protests and angry threats. And unfortunately, in recent weeks, the hate has turned violent. Between a violent attack on a Muslim cab driver in New York City and an arson attempt against a mosque in the heart of the American South, the far right's toxic rhetoric is starting to have very real, very dangerous consequences.

HATE-INSPIRING RHETORIC: In campaigning against Park 51 and other mosques across the country, conservatives have escalated their rhetoric to hateful levels. Gingrich compared building Park 51 to the Nazis putting a sign next to the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C. Former Bush adviser Karl Rove compared the organizers of Park 51 to "skinheads" showing "up at a Black sorority convention" and screaming bigoted remarks and to "Neo-Nazis" showing up "at the B'na B'rith hotel and" having "their meeting in the next meeting room." Hate radio host Neal Boortz earlier this month called Islam a "gutter religion" and a "cult." Boortz may be picking up his smear against Islam from Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey (R), who openly wondered aloud about whether Islam is "actually a religion or is it a nationality, way or life, or cult, whatever you want to call it." The American Family Association's Director of Issues Analysis Bryan Fischer even went as far as to say that the United States should have "no more mosques, period" because each "mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government." The rhetoric of these major conservative figures stands in stark contrast to President Bush's rhetoric following the 9/11 attacks. The former president said just "days after the Twin Towers were destroyed in 2001" that "the face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. ... Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace."

HATE TURNED VIOLENT: When a minority group like Muslim Americans are demonized in this fashion, it is only a matter of time before paranoid individuals turn to violence. This past May, a pipe bomb was set off at the site of a protested Jacksonville, FL mosque. Early this month, a playground at an Arlington, TX mosque was torched. Last week, Bangladeshi-American New York City cab driver Ahmed Sharif picked up an intoxicated 21-year-old man. The man, Michael Enright, began to ask Sharif questions about his personal life. At one point, Enright asked Sharif, "Are you Muslim?" When Sharif replied that he was, Enright replied with the Muslim greeting, "Assalamu alaikum," then yelled, "Consider this a checkpoint!" and stabbed and slashed Sharif with his knife, leading to his hospitalization. Reports later revealed that Enright had served in Afghanistan with an NGO and kept a diary filled with anti-Muslim rhetoric. Sharif, who had been in the U.S. for more than 25 years, suggested to the press that the toxic debate surrounding Park 51 was endangering Muslims in the city. The week before the attack in New York, a brick was thrown at a window of a mosque in Madera, CA. Outside the premises, vandals put up a pair of signs: "Wake up America, the enemy is here" and "No temple for the god of terrorism." And this past Friday, a suspected arsonist set fire to part of the construction site at a Murfreesboro, TN mosque. Since then, "Muslim leaders in central Tennessee say that frightened worshipers are observing Ramadan in private and that some Muslim parents are wary of sending their children to school."

HATE'S LASTING EFFECTS: This combination of hateful rhetoric from the right's leaders and the rise in hate crimes against Muslims unfortunately serves to undermine both Muslim Americans' image at home and America's image abroad. A Time Magazine poll released earlier this month found 61 percent of Americans oppose the construction of Park 51. Even more disturbingly, only 44 percent of Americans held a favorable view of Muslim Americans. Only 55 percent of respondents "said they would favor the construction of an Islamic community center and mosque two blocks from their home." Almost one-third of respondents thought Muslims should be barred from running for president, and 24 percent of them mistakenly believed that President Obama is a Muslim. There is also evidence that the rise in hatred against Muslims here in the United States is serving to alienate and radicalize Muslims abroad. A Taliban operative going by the name Zabihullah told Newsweek that, by "preventing [Park 51] from being built, America is doing us a big favor." He explained that the anti-mosque campaign is providing the Taliban with "more recruits, donations, and popular support." Another Taliban official who "remains active in the insurgency" in Afghanistan told the magazine that he expects the anti-mosque campaigns to provoke a "new wave of terrorist trainees from the West," similar to suspected Times Square car bomber Faisal Shahzad. Zabihullah concludes, the "more mosques you stop, the more jihadis we will get." The irony behind the far right's campaign against peaceful Muslims is that Muslim Americans have actually been acting as a bulwark against extremism. Researchers at Duke University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill concluded in a study earlier this year that contemporary mosques in the United States serve as a deterrent to Islamic radicalism. A handful of conservatives have pushed back against the far right's rhetoric, however. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) said that the anti-Park 51 campaign is "all about hate and Islamophobia." Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said he'd be "the first to stand up for [Muslims'] rights" to build a mosque near Ground Zero. Yet, as the American Prospect's Adam Serwer writes, "Park 51 opponents have been remarkably quiet about [anti-Muslim] incidents. ... Either Park 51 opponents don't care about the larger anti-Muslim backlash, or they don't want to be seen defending American Muslims in any context."

Sit Yo’ Ass Down: Alveda King
By S. Shaw | August 30th, 2010

I think it’s about time to tell Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to just go sit her ass down somewhere.  While she’s been active for some time acting as a mutant stepchild of the Civil Rights movement, her recent appearance at August 28th’s “Restoring Honor” rally hosted by Glen Beck takes the cake.  Using your uncle’s name to position yourself as the Black-mammy poster child (or simply a willing Uncle Tommin’ accomplice) to Glenn Beck’s lunacy is just the straw that broke the camel’s back.  In fact…I’m taking “King” out of this bitch’s name altogether…let’s refer to her as “Kang” for the rest of the article.

Kang has been an advocate for the pro-life movement and has spoken out frequently against gay rights, stating that “God hates homosexuality” and that “homosexuality cannot be elevated to the civil rights issue”.  God also hates Glenn Beck and Kang’s right to expose her upper arms, but I guess she didn’t get that memo.  Strange, what with her being so tight with God and all.  I don’t think your uncle wrote a speech referencing “little straight Black boys and little straight white girls”.  You can find your seat, Ms. Kang, and I hope there’s a tack or some kind of throwing star positioned in the seat when you do find it.  The interesting thing about Ms. Kang is that while she uses Christianity as a weapon to combat the evil she sees in homosexuality, the Bible also has some things to say about women serving as ministers.  Are we being a little selective with our reading?

The whisky, as you might have guessed, won't be widely marketed conventionally. In fact, it's more of an art piece, asking, Gilpin says, whether it's "plausible to suggest that we start utilising our water purification systems in order to harvest the biological resources that our elderly already process in abundance".

Gilpin Family Whisky made from diabetics' urine
By Duncan Geere |24 August 2010

James Gilpin is a designer and researcher who works on the implementation of new biomedical technologies. He's also got type 1 diabetes, where his body doesn't produce enough insulin to regulate blood sugar levels.

So he's started a project called Gilpin Family Whisky, which turns the sugar-rich urine of elderly diabetics into a high-end single malt whisky, suitable for export.

The source material is acquired from elderly volunteers, including Gilpin's own grandmother, Patricia. The urine is purified in the same way as mains water is purified, with the sugar molecules removed and added to the mash stock to accelerate the whisky's fermentation process. Traditionally, that sugar would be made from the starches in the mash.

Once fermented into a clear alcohol spirit, whisky blends are added to give colour, taste and viscosity, and the product is bottled with the name and age of the contributor.

The five teenagers, Mark Vendetti and Tim Weader, both 17, and Dylan Phillips, Jeff Donahue and Anthony Ogden, all 18, who are all from Holley, N.Y., are scheduled to appear in court in Carlton, which is about 40 miles northeast of Buffalo, on Friday, the police said.

Mr. Vendetti, who is accused of firing the shotgun, was also charged with criminal possession of a weapon and faces up to four years in prison if convicted, Mr. Cardone said.

Teenagers Charged in Harassment at Mosque
By AL BAKER

A group of teenagers in western New York have been accused of harassing members of a mosque by yelling obscenities and insults during evening prayers for Ramadan, sideswiping a worshiper with a vehicle and firing a shotgun outside, the authorities said on Tuesday.

The teenagers were chased and cornered by members of the mosque, who held them for the police. They were charged with disrupting a religious service, a misdemeanor.

The obscenities episode occurred Monday and the shooting last Friday, both outside the World Sufi Foundation mosque in Carlton, N.Y., the authorities said. No one was hit when a 17-year-old fired the shotgun, they said.

“We have had occasions in the past,” said Joseph V. Cardone, the district attorney in Orleans County, “and it seems every three or four years we have some kids drive by the mosque and make comments and that sort of thing. We’ve had minor incidents, but nothing of this magnitude in the past.”

Why Americans believe Obama is a Muslim

Published: Aug. 31, 2010

EAST LANSING, Mich. — There’s something beyond plain old ignorance that motivates Americans to believe President Obama is a Muslim, according to a first-of-its-kind study of smear campaigns led by a Michigan State University psychologist.

The research by Spee Kosloff and colleagues suggests people are most likely to accept such falsehoods, both consciously and unconsciously, when subtle clues remind them of ways in which Obama is different from them, whether because of race, social class or other ideological differences.

These judgments, Kosloff argues, are irrational. He also suggests they are fueled by an “irresponsible” media culture that allows political pundits and “talking heads” to perpetuate the lies.

“Careless or biased media outlets are largely responsible for the propagation of these falsehoods, which catch on like wildfire,” said Kosloff, visiting assistant professor of psychology. “And then social differences can motivate acceptance of these lies.”