Prometheus 6

The "new anti-Semitism" is more subtle. An Israeli politician, Natan Sharansky, first set out three general themes many people now propose to define the new term. Known as the "3-D's," those themes are:

-- Demonization of Israel with comparisons to Nazi Germany.

-- De-legitimizing Israel by saying it doesn't have a right to exist.

-- Double standards that apply one set of moral standards to Israel while ignoring similar failings of other countries.

Bay Area debate flares over 'new anti-Semitism'
- Matthai Chakko Kuruvila, Chronicle Religion Writer
Saturday, January 27, 2007

Presbyterians, college professors and even San Francisco grocery shoppers are fighting accusations of anti-Semitism.

Former President Jimmy Carter, too, is battling the label since the release of his book comparing Israel's treatment of Palestinians to South Africa's abolished apartheid policies.

Those wishing to attend today's "Slavery in 19th Century California" program, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at the Museum of the African Diaspora, are requested to RSVP online at www.moadsf.org/visit/calendar.html. They can call the admissions department after 10 a.m. at (415) 318-7144 to see if seats are still available.

The exhibition, "Slavery: Inhuman History," runs through April 30. The museum is at 685 Mission Street. Further information is available at www.moadsf.org and (415) 358-7200.

SAN FRANCISCO
Slavery in Gold Rush days
New discoveries prompt exhibition, re-examination of state's involvement
- Jason B. Johnson, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, January 27, 2007

Adam Willis was brought to California as a slave in 1846, gained his freedom nine years later, then searched the country using newspaper ads to find his family and build a home for them in Solano County.

The recent discovery of Willis' 152-year-old manumission record in the Solano County Archive has, along with other records from that era, stimulated a new examination of California's past that's been left out of the Gold Rush history books.

The existence of slavery in early California and the debate over whether it would enter the union as a free or slave state had momentous import. That past is featured in a special program this afternoon at San Francisco's Museum of the African Diaspora, known as MoAD, as well as in a new exhibit that opened Wednesday.

Science hopes to change events that have already occurred
- Patrick Barry
Sunday, January 21, 2007

Ever wish you could reach back in time and change the past? Maybe you'd like to take back an unfortunate voice mail message, or rephrase what you just said to your boss. Or perhaps you've even dreamed of tweaking the outcome of yesterday's lottery to make yourself the winner.

Common sense tells us that influencing the past is impossible -- what's done is done, right? Even if it were possible, think of the mind-bending paradoxes it would create. While tinkering with the past, you might change the circumstances by which your parents met, derailing the key event that led to your birth.

It's Bush's War because he refuses to let anyone else have responsibility. It's Bush's War because he claimed it.

Bush Defies Lawmakers To Solve Iraq
Gates Says Doubts Bolster Enemy
By Michael Abramowitz and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, January 27, 2007; A01

Declaring "I'm the decision maker," President Bush yesterday challenged congressional efforts to formally condemn his Iraq plan, while Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned that a proposed Senate resolution criticizing the deployment of additional troops would embolden the enemy.

"Any indication of flagging will in the United States gives encouragement to those folks," Gates told reporters at the Pentagon. "I'm sure that that's not the intent behind the resolutions, but I think it may be the effect."

A 2003 survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that about a third of wives earned more than their husbands. And about 43 percent of household income overall was earned by women, according to a 2003 study by the Families and Work Institute, a group in New York.

This data doesn’t begin to reveal the uncomfortable situation that breadwinner women are in: How to renegotiate expectations for everything from who manages the money to who does the laundry — when you’re C.F.O. of the household.

When I say uncomfortable, I’m trying to be polite. The women I know in these shoes are seething — with uncertainty, resentment, anxiety and frustration. The patterns that seem “normal” when the husband is the breadwinner don’t hold up when women earn most or even all of the income.

That is partly because “men have a sense of esteem, of identity that comes with being the provider,” says Barbara Risman, professor of sociology at the University of Chicago. “Women don’t get the same identity benefit — there’s a sense that one has a double burden.”

A Breadwinner Rethinks Gender Roles
By M.P. DUNLEAVEY

WHEN my son was born last fall, my husband and I had a plan. After a short maternity leave, I would continue to work, and he would quit his job to take care of the baby.

I didn’t think of myself as becoming the breadwinner; I had always earned the higher income. The fact that my mate would have a job at home, just not a paying one for now, didn’t bother me.

The main hurdle, we assumed, would be figuring out how to afford the shift from two incomes to one. That has turned out to be the least of our problems. The real challenge is navigating the kinds of financial and emotional issues that you can’t enter into a calculator or plug into a spreadsheet.

Judge Puts Settlement on Katrina in Question
By JOSEPH B. TREASTER

A federal judge in Mississippi, citing the need for more information, has rejected — at least temporarily — a settlement by State Farm Insurance that was expected to provide several hundred million dollars to help policyholders rebuild homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina 17 months ago.

In an eight-page order, Judge L. T. Senter Jr. of Federal District Court in Gulfport, Miss., said he was rejecting the agreement because it did not provide enough information for him to conclude that it was “fair, just, balanced and reasonable.”

From: lara logan
Subject: help

The story below only appeared on our CBS website and was not aired on CBS. It is a story that is largely being ignored, even though this istakingplace verysingle day in central Baghdad, two blocks from where our office is located.

Our crew had to be pulled out because we got a call saying they were about to be killed, and on their way out, a civilian man was shot dead in front of them as they ran.

I would be very grateful if any of you have a chance to watch this story and pass the link on to as many people you know as possible. It should be seen. And people should know about this.

The Bait-and-Switch White House

We often wonder whether there is a limit to the Bush administration’s obsession with secrecy, its assault on the rule of law, its disdain for the powers of Congress, its willingness to con the public and its refusal to heed expert advice or recognize facts on the ground. Events of the past week suggest the answer is no.

In his State of the Union speech, Mr. Bush stuck to his ill-conceived plans for Iraq, but at least admitted the situation was dire. He said he wanted to work with Congress and announced a bipartisan council on national security.

That lasted a day. By Wednesday evening, Vice President Dick Cheney was on CNN contradicting most of what Mr. Bush had said. We were left asking, once again, Who exactly is running this White House?

AUSTRALIAN OPEN
Serena Williams overpowers Sharapova for title
She claims her eighth, and most improbable, Grand Slam title with a 6-1, 6-2 rout of top-seeded opponent.
From the Associated Press

7:55 PM PST, January 26, 2007

MELBOURNE, Australia — Serena Williams won her eighth and most improbable Grand Slam title, overwhelming top-seeded Maria Sharapova, 6-1, 6-2, in the Australian Open on Saturday.

Only the second unseeded woman to win the Australian title in the Open era, Williams came into the tournament ranked No. 81 after spending most of last season on the sidelines because of a knee injury.

It was her first title in 15 tournaments since winning the 2005 Australian Open, and the most dominating win in a completed championship match at Melbourne Park since Steffi Graf beat Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, 6-0, 6-2, in 1994.

I had something or other in mind to write today, then I read Black Power Now, Equal to Nothing, Tom Tancredo -- Killing the Congressional Black Caucus?, and (especially) You Have To Identify The Disease Before You Can Treat It, and they all kind of meshed. I'm going to try to respond to the resulting commingling of imperatives. For the record, writing that was part of the process of figuring out just what to write. I had five or six false starts, trying to have each word respond to each imperative individually.

When Bush next says this "plan" was chosen because it has the best chance of success, ask his what exactly are those odds?

Does the best plan has one in twenty of success? One in fifty?

AP Disputes Military Claims on Deaths of Americans in Iraq
Published: January 26, 2007 11:45 AM ET

BAGHDAD Contrary to U.S. military statements, four U.S. soldiers did not die repelling a sneak attack at the governor's office in the Shiite holy city of Karbala last week. New information obtained by The Associated Press shows they were abducted and found dead or dying as far as 25 miles away.

The brazen assault 50 miles south of Baghdad was launched Jan. 20 by a group of nine to 12 militants. They traveled in black GMC Suburban vehicles - the type used by U.S. government convoys, had American weapons, wore new U.S. military combat fatigues and spoke English.

From this idiot, James Lileks, who knows he's wrong

I am now bracing for the mail that accuses me of missing the days of Jim Crow. Whatever. It wasn't all Amos and Andy.

and doesn't care. More than not caring, this little quip acknowledges his nostalgia.

Had I less discipline I could come to hate people who so blithely enjoy his fantasies (because he's not old enough for them to be memories) of Black subjugation.

Now this. To make up for the paucity of bleatitude, I present first an ad from 1943, one of the castoffs from the next book. It’s a long one, from Colliers:

It's just that the little weasels can't deny it now.

In Ex-Aide's Testimony, A Spin Through VP's PR
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 26, 2007; A01

Memo to Tim Russert: Dick Cheney thinks he controls you.

This delicious morsel about the "Meet the Press" host and the vice president was part of the extensive dish Cathie Martin served up yesterday when the former Cheney communications director took the stand in the perjury trial of former Cheney chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Flashed on the courtroom computer screens were her notes from 2004 about how Cheney could respond to allegations that the Bush administration had played fast and loose with evidence of Iraq's nuclear ambitions. Option 1: "MTP-VP," she wrote, then listed the pros and cons of a vice presidential appearance on the Sunday show. Under "pro," she wrote: "control message."

“Private universities can do whatever they want, consistent with federal law and the Supreme Court,” Mr. Hartle said. “Where minority students have a choice between selective public universities that cannot use affirmative action, and selective private universities with strong affirmative action programs, the private universities may seem like the more hospitable places, which would give them an advantage in drawing a diverse student body.”

To many educators, that would be a troubling turnabout.

“You’d think public universities are charged with special responsibility for ensuring access, but it could come to be exactly the opposite, if there are a lot of these state initiatives,” said Evan Caminker, the dean of the University of Michigan Law School, adding, “in terms of public values, it’s a big step backward.”

Not just that, the existence of affirmative action efforts will be used as evidence that a university isn't quite as selective as it could be. Market forces would compel selective private universities to drop their programs too.

Colleges Regroup After Voters Ban Race Preferences
By TAMAR LEWIN

With Michigan’s new ban on affirmative action going into effect, and similar ballot initiatives looming in other states, many public universities are scrambling to find race-blind ways to attract more blacks and Hispanics.

At Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, a new admissions policy, without mentioning race, allows officials to consider factors like living on an Indian reservation or in mostly black Detroit, or overcoming discrimination or prejudice.

Others are using many different approaches, like working with mostly minority high schools, using minority students as recruiters, and offering summer prep programs for promising students from struggling high schools. Ohio State University, for example, has started a magnet high school with a focus on math and science, to help prepare potential applicants, and sends educators into poor and low-performing middle and elementary schools to encourage children, and their parents, to start planning for college.

The Democrats' Rude Rebuff
By Robert D. Novak
Thursday, January 25, 2007; A25

When President Bush called for a bipartisan "special advisory council" of congressional leaders on the war against terrorism in his State of the Union address, he had in his pocket a rude rejection from Democratic leaders. Thank you very much, said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, but no thank you.

Three days earlier, Reid and Pelosi wrote a letter to the president turning down his offer (which was contained in his Jan. 10 speech on Iraq) to establish a council consisting of Democratic chairmen and ranking Republican members of the relevant committees. "We believe that Congress already has bipartisan structures in place," they said, adding: "We look forward to working with you within existing structures."

I was looking for a teaching moment in here, but you know what? Fuck it. If the facts that only 2% of the homes are affordable to people making $100k/year and that a community where 60% of the people making that much are feeling financial pressures isn't a sign that shit's broken, you're just too dense for me to talk to.

Factors contributing to the affordability problem include the loss of higher-paying jobs and growth of lower-paying ones. A decade ago, wages here exceeded the national average by 16 percent; that has shrunk to 5 percent, and average pay has stagnated since 2003.

At the same time, the number of residents using food stamps rose 20 percent from 2000 to 2003, the most recent data available.

On Long Island, More Are Priced Out of the Housing Market
By BRUCE LAMBERT

GARDEN CITY, Jan. 24 — In 2000, 60 percent of the homes sold on Long Island could be classified as “affordable” for families earning up to $100,000 a year, under the old rule of thumb that buyers should spend no more than 2.5 times their income on places to live.

Last year, according to a new report, just 2 percent of the houses sold on Long Island were in that range for families with such earnings, which make up more than 60 percent of Long Island households.

That night, Bush promised that "we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities." He vowed that "this great city will rise again." Then, as usual, he acted as if saying something were enough to make it true.

No Words for the Gulf
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, January 26, 2007; A21

More infuriating than anything George W. Bush said in his State of the Union address was what he didn't say. Congress and the nation heard nothing, zilch, nada, not a single, solitary word about New Orleans, the Gulf Coast and the devastation that remains from the worst natural disaster in United States history.

White audiences seem to find something ineffably cathartic in that kind of black person, and especially in maternal black women. I must admit a certain discomfort with Barack Obama, despite his sharpness and individuality, being treated as America's newest Mammy.

Also, it would be nice if his titles had anything at all to do with what he writes. Better, he should stop writing about Black folks.

What is Blackness?
BY JOHN McWHORTER
January 25, 2007

‘We've come a long way but we have a long way to go," I'm supposed to tell interviewers each year in the wake of Martin Luther King's birthday.

Well, nothing demonstrates that the way we have to go is getting ever shorter than having spent most of my time last week talking to reporters about a black man running for president whose race is, of all things, a plus.

Exhibit Reveals History of Slavery in New York City

Although slavery was abolished in New York City in 1827, residents remained divided on the issue through the Civil War. NewsHour correspondent Gwen Ifill talks with historian James Horton about slavery's impact on the future of New York.

GWEN IFILL: There are many myths about slavery: that it was confined only to the Civil War era; that it only occurred in the South; that all Northerners were abolitionists.

History tells another story, much of it now on view at the New York Historical Society in the exhibit New York Divided: Slavery and the Civil War. The exhibit showcases the contributions of more than 200 scholars, historians, and academics. And it continues through next September.

I have never been impressed by arresting ancient guys who were known to be murderers by their whole community and lauded for it for decades. But I read this...and decided maybe there's enough personal cathartic value in it to keep doing it.

POSTED ON JANUARY 24, 2007:
Mississippi Alt-Weekly Revealed Indicted Klansman Was Still Alive

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 24, 2007 -- The federal government today charged reputed Klansman James Ford Seale -- reported as dead by media for several years -- for his role in the kidnapping murders of two young black hitchhikers, Henry Dee and Charles Moore, in 1964 in Meadville, Mississippi, near Natchez. Seale's alleged accomplice, Charles Marcus Edwards, has not been charged and is expected to testify against Seale. The Department of Justice has granted Edwards immunity for his testimony.

The Dee-Moore murder case, which has been sporadically reported in the media over the years, gained new steam when the Jackson Free Press (JFP), an alternative newsweekly in Jackson, Miss., reported on July 20, 2005, that Seale was still alive and living in Roxie, Miss. It had previously been reported by The Clarion-Ledger, a daily newspaper in Mississippi, and then repeated nationally, that Seale had died, making it difficult to pursue indictments. The revelation that he was still alive, reported by Donna Ladd in the July 20, 2005, issue of the Jackson Free Press and picked up later by the Associated Press, provided a way for prosecutors to build a case positioning Edwards' testimony against Seale, as the accused ringleader of the plan, in exchange for immunity.

The Jackson Free Press began investigating the Dee-Moore case when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) asked to document JFP reporters covering the Edgar Ray Killen trial in Mississippi to help bring more attention to unsolved cases of murdered black Mississippians. Rita Schwerner Bender, wife of murdered civil-rights worker Michael Schwerner, told reporters at the Killen trial that her husband's case had only received extensive national attention because he and Andrew Goodman were white. As Ladd and photographer Kate Medley listened on the courthouse lawn, Bender challenged the media to look at other unsolved cases, including one of two black men killed near Natchez.

Administration officials have denied that the moves were political and assert that Gonzales has the authority to take these actions under a 2006 amendment to the Patriot Act that allows recess appointments....

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said that "Congress provided the attorney general the authority in federal law … to appoint a United States attorney because we must ensure that someone is able to carry out the important function of leading a U.S. attorney's office in the event a vacancy arises.

Appointment called unconstitutional
A lawyer alleges recent U.S. attorney selection violates appointments clause.
By Henry Weinstein
Times Staff Writer
January 25, 2007

If you had watched Bush's response to the ISG report back in January, you'd have heard about this "Civilian Reserve Corp" back then,

The president called on Congress to authorize an increase of about 92,000 active-duty troops over the next five years. He then slipped in a mention of a major initiative that would represent a significant development in the U.S. disaster response/reconstruction/war machine: a Civilian Reserve Corps.

"Such a corps would function much like our military Reserve. It would ease the burden on the armed forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them," Bush declared. This is precisely what the administration has already done, largely behind the backs of the American people and with little congressional input, with its revolution in military affairs. Bush and his political allies are using taxpayer dollars to run an outsourcing laboratory. Iraq is its Frankenstein monster.

Already, private contractors constitute the second-largest "force" in Iraq. At last count, there were about 100,000 contractors in Iraq, of which 48,000 work as private soldiers, according to a Government Accountability Office report. These soldiers have operated with almost no oversight or effective legal constraints and are an undeclared expansion of the scope of the occupation. Many of these contractors make up to $1,000 a day, far more than active-duty soldiers. What's more, these forces are politically expedient, as contractor deaths go uncounted in the official toll.

Our mercenaries in Iraq
The president relies on thousands of private soldiers with little oversight, a disturbing example of the military-industrial complex.
By Jeremy Scahill
JEREMY SCAHILL is a fellow at the Nation Institute and the author of the forthcoming "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army."
January 25, 2007

AS PRESIDENT BUSH took the podium to deliver his State of the Union address Tuesday, there were five American families receiving news that has become all too common: Their loved ones had been killed in Iraq. But in this case, the slain were neither "civilians," as the news reports proclaimed, nor were they U.S. soldiers. They were highly trained mercenaries deployed to Iraq by a secretive private military company based in North Carolina — Blackwater USA.

Kiri Davis, 16, Urban Academy wanted to make a film that explored the standards of beauty imposed on today's black girls. How do these standards affect her self-esteem or self-image. Through making this film she learned a lot about where some of these standards might stem from. Running time: 7:00. Mentor: Shola Lynch.