Prometheus 6

The Politico is a new political magazine that is shooting for the fraction of Fox News fans that can read.

• Undoing Obama: Inside the Coming Effort to Dismantle A Candidate Mike Allen's subtly crafted introduction to all the doubts and absurdities assigned to the Senator so far
• Obama: 'I Have the Potential of Bringing People Together'
• Obama Off and Running
• Obama Wants Public Financing Option
• The Audacity of Barack Obama

Plus

Dr. Julia Hare of Black Thinktank took Min. Farrakhan's rhetorical spot. The audience reaction showed the Black Intelligensia's problem in taking control of the Black community's destiny is they sound too wimpy.

Tavis had to get Wade Henderson to put some cut on it.

I'd rather not, not yet...for now I'll just point out that Undoing Obama: Inside the Coming Effort to Dismantle A Candidate by Mike Allen is somewhat self-referential.

Racialicious pointed this one out.

Subject: Do all black people look alike?
2/8/2007 12:59:54 PM

From DAVID MILLS: Ever notice how black people are often misidentified in newspaper and magazine photo captions? I mean famous black people. It’s a weird phenomenon.

In last month's James Brown tribute issue of Rolling Stone, there's a photo on page 48 with this caption: "Brown with Sharpton in 1974.” Alas, the man seated next to J.B. isn’t the Rev. Al Sharpton; it’s trombonist Fred Wesley. (Sharpton pointed this out to listeners of his syndicated radio talk show, saying "it ain't me," according to Richard Prince’s blog.)

Forget how widely exposed Rev. Al’s face is. Fred Wesley is one of the great musicians, arrangers and bandleaders in funk and soul music going back 35 years. The editors of Rolling Stone should know what he looks like.

Connecticut University Op-Ed Piece on Rape Draws Protest
Published: February 09, 2007 12:25 PM ET

NEW BRITAIN, Conn. An opinion piece in a college newspaper, described as satire by editors, drew strong protests Thursday from members of the Central Connecticut State University community outraged at its topic -- extolling the virtues of rape.

The Feb. 7 article in the Recorder, headlined "Rape Only Hurts If You Fight It,'' argues that rape has been a positive force in western civilization and benefits "ugly women.''

About 100 students, some with signs, rallied in protest at the school Thursday and called for the resignation of the article's writer, John Petroski, and newspaper editor Mark Rowan.

Students Get Lesson to Chew On
Gum Sharing Disgusts Montgomery Parents, Officials
By Daniel de Vise
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 10, 2007; A01

It was a novel class exercise: Ask a room full of Montgomery County high school students to take turns chewing the same piece of gum.

To demonstrate how sexually transmitted diseases are spread, a visiting speaker invited students to share gum in health classes at four county high schools in December and last month. School officials said a total of about 100 students participated in the lessons, although some declined to chew the gum.

So I got all the cartoons on record and I'm watching the State of Black America on C-SPAN.

I say so far, so good because there seems to be an effort to avoid the error of lashing Black folk. They are definitely Cosbyites. But...you had to hear Cathy Hughes talking about the hip-hop generation. She got a semi-standing ovation. You had to hear Rev. Jackson talking about the history of the civil rights movement. You had to hear Rev. Sharpton talking about how the Black vote is not guaranteed, that Black folks vote their interests and always have. 

There's a real generational divide, and probably a personal interest divide, evident among the speakers. Not a lot new, but I like the tone.

Protesters and Israeli Police Clash at Mosque
By GREG MYRE

JERUSALEM, Feb. 9 — Israeli troops charged onto the grounds of Jerusalem’s most contentious religious site today, firing tear gas and stun grenades at stone-throwing Palestinians who were protesting Israeli excavation work taking place just outside the hilltop shrine.

The confrontation took place immediately after midday prayers on the Muslim Sabbath. Palestinians have been protesting for four days against the digging next to the mosque compound, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

POST-9/11 SECRETS, CONFIDENTIALITY, CONTROL:
IN A FOUR-HOUR SPECIAL, FRONTLINE INVESTIGATES
THE FUTURE OF THE NEWS

FRONTLINE presents
NEWS WAR
Tuesdays, February 13, 20, 27, and
March 27, 2007, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS

www.pbs.org/frontline/newswar

"The battle between the White House and the national media is the battle over who controls the national agenda," commentator Patrick Buchanan tells FRONTLINE. Mark McKinnon, former media adviser to President George W. Bush, agrees: "The Washington press corps for years thought that unless you talked to The New York Times and CBS, that you weren't talking to the American public. Well, that's just not the case anymore." McKinnon feels that it is a White House prerogative to choose its own communications strategy: "Presidents ... ought to determine who they want to talk to and when they want to talk to them," he says. But William Safire, author and former New York Times political columnist, fears that hostilities between the administration and the press could threaten the media's ability to hold government accountable. "The great check and balance that was built into the Constitution is under challenge," he says. "You've got to have a relationship between the government and the press that's adversarial, but not an enemy."

In more than 80 interviews with key figures in the print, broadcast and electronic media, and with unequaled, behind-the-scenes access to some of today's most important news organizations, FRONTLINE correspondent Lowell Bergman examines the challenges facing the mainstream news media and the media's reaction in News War, airing Tuesdays, February 13, 20 and 27, and March 27, 2007, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings). In this four-hour special, Bergman traces the recent history of American journalism, from the Nixon administration's attacks on the media to the post-Watergate popularity of the press, to new obstacles presented by the war on terror to changing economics in the media business and the Internet.

Subtitled, "Why I Am Pleased Senator Obama's Potential Campaign Is Getting So Much Press."

Things like this come out.

I guarantee you this nice lady's granddaughter would be shocked...SHOCKED, I tell you...to find she's 'a little bit racist.' But that's not the only interesting thing. Watch how uncomfortable Andrew Ferguson of The Weekly Standard gets...Brian Lamb, a man whose dispassion can raise traces of envy in me, pitches in to help him recover enough to say something face-saving (if silly).

The man who said he saw the naked man first, a 25-year-old skier named Ryan Harlow, told police he witnessed a man standing upright in one of the lift cars who was "not wearing a shirt or pants or anything," according to court documents....

...When police asked him what was in the pouch, Barrett allegedly replied, "More trouble."

Article published Feb 7, 2007
Police: Skier rode gondola naked

BRATTLEBORO — Is this another sign of global warming?

An Albany, N.Y., man is accused of taking off his clothes while skiing at Stratton Mountain Resort in December. A witness told police that 46-year-old William N. Barrett III was fully nude and touching himself inappropriately while riding a ski gondola up a mountain.

Callender, who has worked at Resorts since it opened in 1978, said the birth was a first for the casino as far as he knew. "We've had people die here," he said, "but we've never had people born here."

Gambler Gives Birth on N.J. Casino Floor
Feb 5, 7:21 AM (ET)

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) - A woman playing the penny slots Saturday morning left the Resorts Atlantic City casino with her own little jackpot - a new baby boy.

Eight-months pregnant Nyree Thompson, 32, went into labor on the casino floor about 9:30 a.m.

Thompson said she mistook labor pains for gas at first, but after going to the restroom told a security guard that she might be giving birth.

From the Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Iraq
The same neocon ideologues behind the Iraq war have been using the same tactics—alliances with shady exiles, dubious intelligence on W.M.D.—to push for the bombing of Iran. As President Bush ups the pressure on Tehran, is he planning to double his Middle East bet?
by Craig Unger March 2007

In the weeks leading up to George W. Bush's January 10 speech on the war in Iraq, there was a brief but heady moment when it seemed that the president might finally accept the failure of his Middle East policy and try something new. Rising anti-war sentiment had swept congressional Republicans out of power. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had been tossed overboard. And the Iraq Study Group (I.S.G.), chaired by former secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton, had put together a bipartisan report that offered a face-saving strategy to exit Iraq. Who better than Baker, the Bush family's longtime friend and consigliere, to talk some sense into the president?

The Psychology of Security
DRAFT
By Bruce Schneier
February 7, 2007

PDF version

Introduction

Security is both a feeling and a reality. And they're not the same.

The reality of security is mathematical, based on the probability of different risks and the effectiveness of different countermeasures. We can calculate how secure your home is from burglary, based on such factors as the crime rate in the neighborhood you live in and your door-locking habits. We can calculate how likely it is for you to be murdered, either on the streets by a stranger or in your home by a family member. Or how likely you are to be the victim of identity theft. Given a large enough set of statistics on criminal acts, it's not even hard; insurance companies do it all the time.

We can also calculate how much more secure a burglar alarm will make your home, or how well a credit freeze will protect you from identity theft. Again, given enough data, it's easy.

But security is also a feeling, based not on probabilities and mathematical calculations, but on your psychological reactions to both risks and countermeasures. You might feel terribly afraid of terrorism, or you might feel like it's not something worth worrying about. You might feel safer when you see people taking their shoes off at airport metal detectors, or you might not. You might feel that you're at high risk of burglary, medium risk of murder, and low risk of identity theft. And your neighbor, in the exact same situation, might feel that he's at high risk of identity theft, medium risk of burglary, and low risk of murder.

Or, more generally, you can be secure even though you don't feel secure. And you can feel secure even though you're not. The feeling and reality of security are certainly related to each other, but they're just as certainly not the same as each other. We'd probably be better off if we had two different words for them.

Remember it when they start the Social Security privatization noise again.

While teachers are put to the test, system itself gets an F
February 9, 2007

ALL THE talk of education reform ("Polishing the whole apple," Editorial, Feb. 4) ignores the obvious : ongoing social deterioration and increasingly rigid social and class stratification.

Teaching is not alchemy. And the multiple effects of a Darwinian politic, an often corrupting media, an exploitative economy, and near-absent moral leadership make for a nearly impossible situation.

Turkish officials have warned that they may intervene if the vote goes against their interests. Gul declined to say what would happen, but he pointedly noted that Turkey currently provides Kurdistan with its electricity and 90 percent of its gasoline.

Turkish Official Warns Against Vote on Kirkuk
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 9, 2007; A12

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul warned yesterday that a referendum planned this year on the status of the Iraqi city of Kirkuk should be canceled or else the outcome might widen the sectarian violence that has largely left the northern part of Iraq untouched.

When the misguided switch came to light, the panel reversed field again yesterday and went back to the previous formulation. But that does not excuse the fact that the panel was following internal politics, not sound legal principle.

The A.B.A.’s Judicial Ethics Mess

At a moment when judicial independence is under heightened political attack, the nation’s legal establishment should be doing everything it can to shore up public trust. Instead, the special commission charged with recommending revisions to the Model Code of Judicial Conduct of the American Bar Association has been flip-flopping around on some of the most important aspects of the code, which the states use to set standards for their courts.

But Snow on Thursday said the negotiations over Pelosi's transport have been conducted solely by the House sergeant-at-arms and the Pentagon, with no direct involvement by the speaker or her office - or the White House.

The guidelines provided by the Pentagon say Pelosi could be accompanied by family members, provided they pay the government coach fare. The plane could not be used for travel to political events. Members of Congress could accompany her on the plane if the travel is cleared by the House ethics committee.

White House Defends Pelosi Plane Request
Friday February 9, 2007 12:31 AM
By JIM KUHNHENN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House on Thursday defended House Speaker Nancy Pelosi against Republican criticism that her desire to fly in an Air Force transport plane is an extravagance.

It appears the State of the Black Union 2007 thingie is up tomorrow and Saturday. The players and schedule are here, and C-SPAN broadcasts and webcasts it.

It came to mind because of this.

400 Years After Jamestown
For African Americans, an Abundant Harvest From an Imperfect Democracy
By Stephanie Robinson and Cornel West
Thursday, February 8, 2007; A21

To think of America in 2007, it is impossible not to consider the contributions of African Americans -- many of whom have laid the foundation for American culture, democracy, freedom and equality.

Jonah Goldberg pretty much demonstrates ever error in reasoning you can make when pretending to be an Type 1 economist.

The Earth got about 0.7 degrees Celsius warmer in the 20th century while it increased its GDP by 1,800%, by one estimate. How much of that 0.7 degrees can be laid at the feet of that 1,800% is unknowable, but let's stipulate that all of the warming was the result of our prosperity and that this warming is in fact indisputably bad (which is hardly obvious). That's still an amazing bargain. Life spans in the United States nearly doubled (from 44 to 77 years). Literacy, medicine, leisure and even, in many respects, the environment have improved mightily over the course of the 20th century, at least in the prosperous West.

Given the option of getting another 1,800% richer in exchange for another 0.7 degrees Celsius warmer, I'd take the heat in a heartbeat.

"We've done this before," the LAPD officer at the news conference recalled. He was referring to a similar crackdown on the 204th Street gang in 1997, when members killed another African American youth. Then, as now, politicians threatened zero-tolerance, the LAPD increased patrols and arrested everyone in the gang they could. Officers galvanized the community against the gang. Politicians held community planning meetings. "And then, the focus shifted," the officer said, "we went back to normal deployment levels, and while we probably abated it for a while, new gang members refilled the ranks. Nothing on the ground changed. All of the conditions in that neighborhood continued."

Bingo. The "surge" in 1997 was temporary and, more important, the city never reversed the neighborhood conditions that fuel 204th Street. 

A 'surge' on gangs alone won't help
Violence-plagued neighborhoods need real reform, not just more cops walking the streets.
By Constance L. Rice,
CONSTANCE L. RICE is a civil rights attorney in Los Angeles.
February 8, 2007

CHERYL GREEN died Dec. 15 because she was black in the wrong gang-dominated neighborhood. Like innocent Latino children who are terrorized by black gangs in Watts, the 14-year-old was allegedly gunned down by members of the Latino 204th Street gang because she rode her scooter too close to the no-blacks Mason-Dixon line that gang members had drawn in her Harbor Gateway neighborhood.

L.A. politicians and law enforcement leaders have reacted forcefully to her death. Amid enough satellite dishes to remind one LAPD officer of the O.J. Simpson trial, officials at a January news conference declared war on 204th Street.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proclaimed that no one should fear losing his or her life for being the wrong color. He vowed to put the gang out of business. Police Chief William Bratton, Sheriff Lee Baca and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III announced weapons of mass crackdown: combined LAPD-Sheriff's Department patrols; cooperation with neighboring Torrance police; targeting of the gang's guns and drugs by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; dragnet operations; electronic surveillance; observation posts; intelligence sharing; early-release exclusions and a "most-wanted list" of the 10 worst gangs.

The U.S. attorney brandished stepped-up use of federal hate crime laws, death penalty enhancements, civil rights laws and RICO prosecutions. The city attorney added the use of "stay-away orders," which ban gangs from the neighborhood, on top of existing injunctions that forbid gang members from congregating.

Two days after this display, 204th Street shot another innocent black resident waiting in his car for his daughters.

A lawyer for Mr. Fortunato, Gerald DiChiara, offered a $1.2 million bail package compiled from family real estate holdings. Mr. Fortunato, 20, stood at the front of the courtroom in handcuffs. His relatives watched from one side of the gallery....A lawyer for Mr. Fortunato, Gerald DiChiara, offered a $1.2 million bail package compiled from family real estate holdings....

In the end, Justice Konviser-Levine denied bail, sending Mr. Fortunato back to jail with his co-defendants. 

Emotions Run High at Hearing in Bias Killing
By MICHAEL BRICK

The three men accused of killing a gay man arrived for a pretrial hearing yesterday and found a courtroom filled to near capacity. Spectators clutched one another and sobbed openly. The process took no more than 20 minutes, but it set the tone for an emotionally and politically charged case, one that most likely remains months away from trial in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn.

The victim, Michael J. Sandy, was contacted through a Web site for gay men, lured to a parking lot in Sheepshead Bay, beaten and chased into traffic on the Belt Parkway. He died on Oct. 13, five days after the attack, one day after his 29th birthday.