Weird-ass day

Nothing substantial today, so you can hit the next site you're interested in right now if you'd like.

No programming, no substance. Just sleep, classical music (I just get in the mood sometimes, shoot me) and brain surfing.

Brain surfing?

A few months ago when I decided to see what all this blogging noise was about, I started at www.weblogs.com. I clicked randomly on interesting sounding titles and was up all night. I finally went to bed when my mouth was dried out because my jaw had dropped so many times over so many blogs. I am fully aware of the anger and frustration most folks have to suppress justto get by, and I guess it's a Good Thing^TM to get it out of your head. But it's unnerving to read. Unnerving and a bit hypnotic.

I still do some of that, brain surfing. Everyday I pick five or ten blogs from the blogrolls of folks I respect. I been pretty much wallowing in the Mac-a-ro-nies and Silver Rights blogrolls recently. But every so often I'll do the absolute random thing again.

Today I stopped by www.nycbloggers.com. They got 2000+ bloggers by subway stop.

I considered listing myself there. But you know, I read some of that stuff and realized I could find a lot of these people. And if I listed myself, they could find me.

New York City is as close as most folks need to know about my location, thankyouveryindeed.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/26/2003 11:11:24 PM |

Got some stuff for ya

This blog, in my mind anyway, has a purpose beyond drive-by journalism. Beyond talking about the blogging tool I'm working on. Beyond the cartoons and the cutesy crap I stick in there occasionally. My original thought was to look at what we used to call issues of particular concern to Black folks. I guess a more accurate way of saying it is to talk about issues from the perspective of a Black partisan, because ultimately all issues are Black issues. As Americans, everything from the war to the economy to Broadway plays affect us. The thing is, we are in a particular position so these things affect us in particular ways. We give different weights to things than, say, a Korean or Irish or Russian person would, just as they have their particular spin on things. This is why I think the whole quest for color-blindness is wrong-headed. I see trying to fix things by sending a single message to people is useless unless everyone is in the same condition. This is why, when I talk about race, class and related issue I say different things to Black folks, white folks, Mexican folks, etc. I discuss the same information, but I have different suggestions about what to do with it, much as I give different directions to reach the same location depending on where you are when you start your journey.

I'm going into all this so that any white folks who may happen along this site won't think my intention is to leave them out (certain neocons not withstanding, be the last part of their title "servative" or "federate"). The contents of the "Dropping Knowlege" links could easily lead some to feel that way. And so can the material on the new section I just added, and nothing could be further from the truth.

On the right side of the page there's a new link, "The Attack on Civil Rights."

I write pretty well, think VERY well, and know how to do research. Given a couple of months I could put together some pretty convincing stuff on how the right has been attacking the gains minorties have made for the last 20 years. But it's been done already, by professionals with time and budgets that far exceed what I can muster for my paltry efforts. So what I've done, what I'm doing, is gathering pointers to resources you can read online or download (personally, I love PDFs because I can print a whole document to read in the bathroom).

Basically, my concerns are human rights, civil rights and judicial appointments, so that's what I've started with. It will eventually include historical items like slave narratives, and articles about the non-substantial yet compelling nature of "race". This section is going to evolve quickly, so do set any bookmarks just yet.

To minorities, and Black folks in particular, I suggest to read it and become familiar with the who's how's and why's of this assault … and the more comfortable you are in life the more strongly I suggest you read theses things.

To mainstream types, you need to understand the meanings behind the high-sounding words being bandied about, why organizations that sound like they might be my friend have the particular names they do. You need to understand there is an attack being made in the name of white supremacy, and that you in particular are open does not mean all people are. You need to understand that our perception that we are operating in a hostile environment isn't "oversensitivity" in most cases. These articles will document that the hostile envirnment is an objective fact.

This will not be my exclusive focus. But if I'm going to represent as the particular Black man that I am, I can't leave it out.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/25/2003 10:34:02 PM |

Ketchup-eating attack monkeys

I hate warblogging, but this cannot be ignored.

Reason for War?
White House Officials Say Privately the Sept. 11 Attacks Changed Everything

W A S H I N G T O N, April 25 - To build its case for war with Iraq, the Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but some officials now privately acknowledge the White House had another reason for war - a global show of American power and democracy.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/25/2003 03:38:40 PM |

On feminist or pro-feminist men

Just read this at "Alas, A Blog" (whihc is one of the few blog names I'd really like explained to me one day).

Honestly, I'm going to fall on the pro-feminist side of that judgement. But I am SO feeling Bean, because it's exactly how I feel about people dealing with race issues.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/25/2003 11:15:02 AM |

Too bad there's no money on the city, state or federal level to address this

From the NY Times
Students in a Fog
By RICHARD ROTHSTEIN

Federal law now demands that schools close the achievement gap between middle-class children and those from low-income or minority families. But all the money, teacher education and standardized tests in the world aren't going to help if students are at home sick or falling asleep in class.

That is why educators should be alarmed by last week's report from Harlem Hospital medical researchers who found that 26 percent of children in central Harlem had asthma. This is not only a health crisis but also an educational one. Asthma is the chronic ailment most responsible for school absences of low-income children nationwide. Even when they make it to school, asthmatics, drowsy after a sleepless night of wheezing, have a tough time paying attention.

… Asthma is not the only urban environmental scourge that depresses school performance. Lower birth weights ? more likely with newborns in minority, low-income neighborhoods ? are also associated with greater exposure to pollutants and can lead to lower I.Q.'s.

Likewise, we've long known that lead poisoning can cause cognitive damage that inhibits children's abilities to learn. Nationwide, lead poisoning rates declined once lead was removed from gasoline in the 1970's, but the improvements were less dramatic among low-income urban children. Congress banned use of lead-based paint in home construction in 1978, but low-income children are the group most likely to live in buildings constructed before that date. Children can ingest lead from peeling paint or from dust generated when windows are opened and rub along their frames.

In 1999, New York City weakened its lead control law; landlords are no longer required to remove lead paint that might cause dust, but only peeling paint.

… There are many reasons that children from poor households struggle academically: inferior schools, health care, housing and nutrition; financial insecurity; and exposure to pollutants. Each has only a small effect on education, , but combined, the impact is huge. All need to be addressed if we want to close the test-score gap.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/25/2003 10:15:06 AM |

New Reality Checks links

In the course of looking up stuff to comment on the NY Times article below I found two excellent resources … well, three if you look at it a certain way.

I'm going to be busy for a while. There are some specific things I want to set up pointers to, from these sites and the PBS site that supports the Race: The Power of an Illusion specials.

civilrights.org

Home to socially-concerned, issue-oriented original audio, video, and written programming, civilrights.org is committed to serving as the online nerve center not only for the struggle against discrimination in all its forms, but also to build the public understanding that it is essential for our nation to continue its journey toward social and economic justice.

Leadership Conference on Civil Rights

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) was founded in 1950 by three giants of the civil rights movement: A. Philip Randolph, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the NAACP; and Arnold Aronson, a leader of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council. It is the nation's premier civil rights coalition, and has coordinated the national legislative campaign on behalf of every major civil rights law since 1957.

Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund

Founded in 1969 as the education and research arm of the civil rights coalition, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCCREF) promotes an understanding of the need for national policies that support civil rights and social and economic justice, and encourages an appreciation of the nation's diversity. LCEF initiatives are grounded in the belief that an informed public is more likely to support effective federal civil rights and social justice policies.

The Institute for Democracy Studies is a nonprofit, tax-exempt research and educational center devoted to the study of anti-democratic religious and political movements and organizations in the U.S. and internationally.

Founded in 1999 in New York City, IDS has a unique and extensive archive of primary source material. The Institute currently maintains research programs in three areas: law, religion, and reproductive rights.

"The New Civil Rights Movement" is Newspeak for racist bastards. No link to them mofos.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/25/2003 10:06:20 AM |

You want to have the cake or eat it?

Critical to note here is the spokesman for the Century Foundation says they're waiting for the Supreme Court to decide on "the explicit use of race in education," yet the plan they are protesting against does not use race as a factor.

What they are complaining about is (in their eyes) a disparate impact on white people. For the last few years, Black folks have been called "oversensitive" when we make similar complaints.

The current standard is, when lodging a civil rights complaint minorities must not only prove actual damage suffered but intent to cause those damages. My position here is the plaintiffs should be made adhere to the same standard.

From the NY Times
Boston School Plan Isn't Biased Against Whites, Judge Rules
By SARA RIMER

In the latest chapter in Boston's 30-year battle over school desegregation, a federal judge ruled yesterday that the city's school assignment plan did not discriminate against white students.

The judge, Richard G. Stearns, ruled that the plan, which reserves 50 percent of the seats in elementary and middle schools for children from outside the neighborhood, is constitutional.

The plan is intended to equalize educational opportunity in a city that still bears the vestiges of a segregated school system.

While the plan does not use race as a factor in assigning schools, it is intended to create diversity. Under the system, parents still have choices where their children will go, and, in fact, 80 percent got their first or second choice this school year. But some pupils were unable to attend their neighborhood schools.

School officials adopted the plan in 1999 in response to legal challenges to the district's use of race in school admissions. School districts nationwide are searching for ways to maintain diversity in the face of such challenges.

But a group of white parents filed suit, charging that by reducing the number of seats available to their children in their own neighborhoods, the school district was discriminating against them.

Frances S. Cohen, the lawyer for the Boston School Committee, praised Judge Stearns' ruling.

"This is a firm line that we can hold onto, that a race-neutral policy intended to promote parental choice and diversity is constitutionally permissible," Ms. Cohen said, noting that in the past two decades federal courts have increasingly ruled against the use of race in school assignments.

Ann Walsh, director of Boston's Children First, a nonprofit group that filed the suit on behalf of the parents, said the parents would appeal the ruling.

"We feel as if an opportunity has been lost here," Ms. Walsh said.

Richard D. Kahlenberg, an educational researcher at the Century Foundation, a public policy research organization, said the judge's ruling in Boston was not surprising.

"We're still waiting for the Supreme Court to decide the larger issue, which is whether the explicit use of race in education is constitutional," Mr. Kahlenberg said.

In the case involving the University of Michigan, the Supreme Court is expected to rule by the summer on the issue of using race in university admissions. The Michigan case, although it involves higher education, is expected to have ramifications in elementary, middle and high schools.

In his ruling, Judge Stearns noted that the white parents had won a victory when, in response to their lawsuit, Boston school officials voted to eliminate the use of race in school admissions for the 2000-2001 school year. Despite that vote, the parents claimed that parts of the old policy persisted in the new admissions plan.

Thirty years ago, Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr. of Federal District Court found that Boston school officials had deliberately created a dual public school system, one that discriminated against black students. He ordered forced busing to desegregate. Violence erupted as white parents threw rocks at buses carrying black children to their neighborhood schools. Thousands of white students left the system and enrolled in parochial schools.

With bitterness still lingering over the forced busing, the white parents who filed the lawsuit before Judge Stearns were seeking a return to neighborhood schools. Judge Stearns noted in his ruling that one of the legacies of the old segregated system is that historically white neighborhoods still have a relatively high number of schools. Predominantly minority neighborhoods, like Roxbury and Mattapan, have the fewest schools. The lack of schools left minority students with few and sometimes no schools in their neighborhoods, while white students in some neighborhoods had as many as 10 schools from which to choose, Judge Stearns wrote in his ruling.

Boston is in many ways a very different city than it was 30 years ago. Back then, the public school students were 61 percent white, 32 percent black and 7 percent other. Today the students are 14 percent white, 29 percent Hispanic, 47 percent black and 9 percent Asian.

And school officials today emphasize their commitment to diversity and equal education. Testifying in the case before Judge Stearns, the Boston school superintendent, Thomas W. Payzant, said he was concerned that if the district returned to the old neighborhood school plan "we could backslide with respect to racial isolation and racial imbalance."

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/25/2003 09:19:35 AM |

And BECAUSE Ashcroft is at it again . . .

I felt compelled to add EPIC's privacy threat indicator. Symbolic, of course, because if it gets to red, you'll never see it. They'll have snatched my machine and commandeered Earthlink's servers.

EPIC PRIVACY THREAT INDEX REMAINS UNCHANGED
AS NATIONAL TERRORISM THREAT LEVEL REDUCED

WASHINGTON - The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a leading privacy research and advocacy organization, kept the Privacy Threat Index unchanged, even as the federal government reduced the threat level for the Homeland Security Advisory System.

EPIC established the Privacy Threat Index earlier this week at the annual RSA Conference to help the public understand the current threats to personal privacy.

The EPIC announcement comes as the White House has said that it would reduce the threat level from orange or "high" to yellow or "elevated."

Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of EPIC, said that the decision to leave the Privacy Threat Index unchanged was based on the fact that there had been no changes in the level of government monitoring and surveillance in the United States.

"We continue to follow developments in Congress and with the Administration to assess current threats to privacy," Rotenberg said.

"We could anticipate reducing the Privacy Threat Index when steps are taken to safeguard privacy, but at the moment it seems more likely that the Privacy Threat Index would be raised."

The White House also announced today that it would like to expand the FBI's national DNA database and include juvenile offenders and adults who have been arrested but not convicted. Currently, only the DNA of adult criminals are routinely stored in the FBI DNA database.

Mr. Rotenberg said it would become increasingly important to focus public attention on the privacy consequences of the response to terrorism and the dramatic expansion of the government's surveillance authority.

"The Privacy Threat Index is a critical measure of the protection of civil liberties in the United States," said Rotenberg.

Web sites are encouraged to link to the EPIC Privacy Threat Index. Insert the following HTML code where the graphic should appear:

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is a public interest research center in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy, freedom of expression and constitutional values. EPIC pursues a wide range of activities, including policy research, public education, conferences, litigation, publications, and advocacy.

EPIC publishes an annual survey on privacy laws and developments around the world. The EPIC 2002 Privacy and Human Rights survey reported on developments in more than sixty countries. The 2003 report will be released at the fall at the National Press Club in Washington DC and will incorporate the Privacy Threat Index.

Electronic Privacy Information Center
http://www.epic.org/

EPIC, Privacy Threat Index
http://www.epic.org/graphics/threat_index.gif

EPIC, Privacy and Human Rights 2002
http://www.epic.org/bookstore/phr2002/

Department of Homeland Security, "Homeland Security Advsiory System"
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?theme=29

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/25/2003 02:00:10 AM |

Ashcroft is at it again

I swear, I don't know who's more dangerous, Ashcroft or Bush.

From TalkLeft (who, like me, is up too damn late)

Ashcroft Rules Immigrants Can Be Held Indefinitely

In yet another grab for power and blow to justice, Attorney General John Ashcroft has issued a legal opinion declaring that most illegal immigrants can be jailed indefinitely without bond when national security risks exist.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/25/2003 01:49:59 AM |

Got some future-President stuff

Hit the Presidential Campaign 2004 link on the right.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/25/2003 01:45:18 AM |

This is why I don't warblog

It's because other people do it so damn well.

I go past Daily Kos and see Operation Desert Snipe. Impressive…and condensed. Read it if you're in a rush. Otherwise, hit up Cogent Provocateur and read the full version. Quite worth your time, I assure you:

The Snipe Hunt is an American folk tradition, a rite of passage for the novice outdoorsman ... an elaborate practical joke which ends with the initiate crouching alone in the woods, in the dark, literally "holding the bag", waiting for the nonexistent Snipe.

Too early to call it a night. It's a big desert, our last candle hasn't flickered out, and the mocking call of the snipe still echoes hauntingly in the distance, but ... the original standard WMD thesis is strictly defunct.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/24/2003 11:27:21 PM |

*!&%!!@#$&&!

So I tune into PBS…WLIW…for the first episode of RACE - The Power of an Illusion and it ain't on. It's playing in May 'round these here parts.

Probably just as well.

The web site for the series in pretty informative. I'll wander aroound there tomorrow, pick out some good stuff.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/24/2003 10:54:47 PM |

And at Wampum

MB speaks on the values of the Republican family:

Whose family values?

We need to put an end to this partisan chicanery here and now. Since the mid-1990s, the Republicans have mounted a campaign to convince American parents that they are the party which embodies that nebulous term, ?family values?. What are true family-oriented values? Ask most soccer-moms and dads and you will hear concerns about education, healthcare, public safety and the environment. Losing a job, not making the mortgage, crumbling schools and overcrowded classrooms, these are the nightmares of American families, not what John and Fred are or are not doing in the privacy of their home. Most parents, whether they be actual or de facto (as in guardians or foster parents), have basic dreams, for themselves and their children. They want a comfortable place to live, most likely a home (whether it be a house, apartment, mobile home or hogan); they're concerned about their own health and that of their children, and want to prevent illness or injury, as well as have access to care should they become sick or impaired. If their children are injured through corporate negligence or denied access to state sponsored programs such as education, parents want to trust that they can find recourse through the courts or government. American parents want their government and institutions to cherish and protect their children as much as they do.

The truth is that the Republicans have spent the last ten years waging outright war on these very dreams and values of American families. The No Child Left Behind Act has left thousands of schools behind, underfunded, its teachers and administrators on the brink of being "replaced" for not meeting impossible federally-imposed, standardized test "goals", all so that Republicans can finally win approval for private school vouchers. The Republican policy of tax cuts for the super-rich has left state governments, most all of which are constrained by balanced budget requirements, gasping for life, slashing funding for all but the most basic social, educational and public safety needs. Affordable quality daycare is scarce, respite care for families of special needs children revoked, afterschool and enrichment programs which keep children and teens engaged during the part of the day they're most vulnerable slashed under the weight of state and local budget shortfalls. This Administration's environmental policies have further threatened our children's health and wellbeing, from increasing pollutants in the air and water to suppressing information about the actual dangers these policies license.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/24/2003 01:58:40 PM |

When does it stop being humor and start being a plan?

Read this and see why I'm blaming Adam Felber if the Republicans win in 2004.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/24/2003 01:53:05 PM |

I think I admire Mark Fiore

Ever since I discovered Mark Fiore's Flash editorial cartoons, I've been telling people they're the best laugh at stuff that just ain't funny.

But sometimes you can't laugh. Sometimes you shouldn't.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/24/2003 11:49:22 AM |

Death to the death penalty

Reading Bob Herbert's editorial (pointed to below), I found out Amnesty International was releasing a report on the death penalty in the USofA today. So I go find it.

It is disgusting. And yes, you should read it. You can download a PDF of the report if you don't want to read it online.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Death by discrimination - the continuing role of race in capital cases

In February 2002, the second part of the Columbia University study was released. It examined some of the possible reasons behind the high error rate in capital cases.(66) It found that "heavy and indiscriminate use of the death penalty creates a high risk that mistakes will occur". "Most disturbing of all", the researchers wrote, "we find that the conditions evidently pressuring counties and states to overuse the death penalty and thus increase the risk of unreliability and error include race, politics and poorly performing law enforcement systems."

On the race question, the study made the following two findings:

1. The closer the homicide risk to whites in a state comes to equalling or surpassing the risk to blacks, the higher the error rate. Other things being equal, reversal rate is twice as high where homicides are most heavily concentrated on whites compared to blacks, than where they are the most heavily concentrated on blacks.

2. The higher proportion of African-Americans in a state - and in one analysis, the more welfare recipients in a state - the higher the rate of serious capital error. Because this effect has to do with traits of the population at large, not those of particular trial participants, it appears to be an indicator of crime fears driven by racial and economic conditions.

Seeking to explain their findings as they related to race, the Columbia researchers suggested that "when whites and other influential citizens feel threatened by homicide, they put pressure on officials to punish as many criminals as severely as possible, with the result that mistakes are made, and a lot of people are initially sentenced to death who are later found to have committed a lesser crime, or no crime at all. The more African Americans there are in a state, the more likely it is that serious mistakes will be made in death penalty trials. This could be because of fears of crime driven by racial stereotypes and economic factors. It is disturbing that race plays a role in the outcome of death penalty cases, whatever the reasons."(67)

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/24/2003 10:39:09 AM |

Death to the death penalty!

Pull the Plug
By BOB HERBERT

…Here are just some of the problems. There is no good evidence that Mr. Banks, who was accused of killing a 16-year-old boy in a small town in Texas in 1980, is guilty. A complete reading of the record, including facts uncovered during his appeals, shows that he is most likely innocent.

There is irrefutable evidence of gross prosecutorial misconduct. The key witnesses against Mr. Banks were hard-core drug addicts who had much to gain from lying. One was a paid informer, and the other was a career felon who was told that a pending arson charge would be dropped if he performed "well" while testifying against Mr. Banks. The special incentives given to the two men for their testimony were improperly concealed by prosecutors. Both witnesses have since recanted.

And, as in so many capital cases, the race issue runs through this one like a fatal virus. Mr. Banks, who had no prior criminal record and has steadfastly proclaimed his innocence, is black. The victim, the prosecutors and all the carefully selected jurors were white.

…A Columbia University study released last year documented extraordinarily high percentages of death penalty cases that had been tainted by "egregiously incompetent" defense lawyers, by police officers and prosecutors who had suppressed exculpatory evidence, by jurors who had been misinformed about the law, and by judges and jurors who were biased.

A study on race and the death penalty in the U.S. that is being released today by Amnesty International notes the following:

"Since 1976, blacks have been six to seven times more likely to be murdered than whites, with the result that blacks and whites are the victims of murder in about equal numbers. Yet 80 percent of the more than 840 people put to death in the U.S.A. since 1976 were convicted of crimes involving white victims, compared to the 13 percent who were convicted of killing blacks."

The Amnesty report asserts, correctly, that studies have consistently found that the criminal justice system "places a higher value on white life than on black life."

…"The prosecutors in this case concealed important impeachment material from the defense. In addition, the district court found, and the court of appeals agreed, that Mr. Banks received ineffective assistance from his lawyer, at least in the penalty phase of his trial."

None of these issues mattered to the state of Texas, which was ready and oh-so-willing to kill this man at 6 p.m. on March 12, and is still ready and willing to do so.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/24/2003 10:09:45 AM |

Let's take that cloth off the eyes of Justice and use it to bind her hands

From the NY Times
Another Unworthy Judicial Nominee

Carolyn Kuhl, a nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, seems to have undergone a classic confirmation conversion. As a lawyer and as a California state court judge, she advocated objectionable positions on civil rights, abortion and privacy. But at her confirmation hearings, she backpedaled furiously. Her testimony may have been tactically shrewd, but it failed to allay serious concerns about how she would perform as a judge. The Senate should not confirm her.

Judge Kuhl started out as a hard-driving conservative lawyer in the Reagan administration. When the I.R.S. denied tax-exempt status to Bob Jones University, which discriminated against blacks, she played a key role in persuading the Justice Department to take Bob Jones's side. In a landmark 1983 decision the Supreme Court rejected her position, 8 to 1. Judge Kuhl also argued forcefully for Roe v. Wade to be overturned. And she was co-author of a brief backing the defendant in a landmark sexual harassment case. The Supreme Court unanimously rejected its conclusion, ruling for the woman who had been harassed.

Under questioning by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Kuhl repeatedly retracted or minimized her positions: supporting Bob Jones was a mistake, she said, but she had been a "very young staffer" and had not understood the issues fully. She had advocated overturning Roe because President Reagan had wanted it. When, as a private attorney, she had later written a brief critical of Roe, it had not been because she shared its views, but because she had wanted to build an appellate practice and "filing briefs in the Supreme Court is a prestigious thing to do." In the sexual harassment case, her difference with the Supreme Court had been over only a "technical" issue.

Judge Kuhl's many shifts are suspect because of their timing. It is also clear, given this administration's track record, that she was chosen precisely because of the actions she now seeks to distance herself from. The White House can tell from her record that she shares its conservative agenda, including opposition to abortion rights and skepticism about civil rights.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/24/2003 09:59:11 AM |

Y'all need to raise up offa Winnie

Winnie Mandela Found Guilty of Fraud
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 7:53 a.m. ET

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) -- Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the ex-wife of former President Nelson Mandela, was convicted Thursday of theft and fraud involving $120,000.

Madikizela-Mandela -- whose financial adviser, Addy Moolman, also was convicted -- could be sentenced to 15 years in jail.

The trial marked the latest setback for Madikizela-Mandela, who had played a role in the nation's successful anti-apartheid campaign led by Nelson Mandela.

. . . Madikizela-Mandela and Moolman had both pleaded innocent to 60 charges of fraud and 25 of theft involving $120,000 at the African National Congress Women's League, which Madikizela-Mandela leads.

The prosecution said letters on organization stationery that bore Madikizela-Mandela's signature were used to fraudulently obtain bank loans in the name of bogus employees, including her daughter, Zinzi.

The theft charges relate to money deducted from the bank accounts of loan applicants for a funeral policy that the prosecution says did not exist.

. . . Madikizela-Mandela is still known to her supporters as "the mother of the nation,'' even though she also was convicted in 1991 of kidnapping and assault, and sentenced to six years in prison. Her appeal saw the sentence reduced to a fine.

Nevertheless, she has been sharply criticized by the African National Congress party, which leads the country.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/24/2003 09:26:54 AM |

Newt's not the only blast from the past

The Exorcism of Newt Gingrich
by Earl Dunovant © 1996

The Republican Revolution isn't going as the Republican National Committee expected. People loved all the anti-government ranting. . . never mind that it came from people whose greatest desire was to become a part of that government. It gave people a focus for their feeling that things are out of their control. It gave them a way to strike back at those who they felt didn't have their well-being in mind. It enabled them to scream "I'M the important one, not THOSE people!"

These folks were very aware that the Republicans fully intended to carry out all their promises. The mistake they made was in assuming the changes would affect someone else. They also mistook the promise to pass the "Contract with America" in the House of Representatives for a promise to make it law. . . a promise the Representatives were in no position to make anyway.

The Republicans underestimated the power of the office of the Presidency. They failed to realize that people would consider change for change's sake to be an improvement for the moment, but they ultimately want to feel better about their personal situation. . . and symbolic gestures of the sort offered (whack them welfare mothers!) are a temporary palliative when you've lost your union job and have to go back to school after 20 years to learn a job that pays two-thirds the salary you're accustomed to.

On top of that, the Republicans were unable to get folks to blame Clinton for the government shutdowns. That was intended to force Clinton's hand, but it backfired because:

* Too many people saw Clinton protecting their personal interests, and
* Too many people remembered Newt and the Freshmen promising a government shutdown over the budget MONTHS beforehand.

As the most prominent (read: biggest mouth) spokesman for the Republican Agenda, Newt Gingrich is identified with it in the public mind. (BTW, he replaces a comedian. . . does anyone remember the Freshmen Representatives hailing Rush Limbaugh as the party's primary spokesman? I found that odd, to say the least.) He's kept a lower profile because his penchant for saying really stupid things when off-guard made him a liability mere months into the "revolution". But he's too well known.

This past November, several Dems ran as "The Anti-Newt", with some success. A recent issue of The New Republic, commenting on the "unnecessary meltdown" of the Republican party, noted Republicans, "lacking adult leadership", are turning on Newt. And apparantly several folks running for re-election this year have rerquested the Speaker not campaign for them. Folks are talking about the Dems winning the House back this November. If this happens, the Republican Revolution is rhetorically dead. . . which means a sacrificial goat (no Republican leader is innocent enough to be called a lamb) will have to be served up as symbolic sacrifice. . . it may be a temporary palliative, but it will make folks think the Repubs are "cleaning house," "taking responsibility" and all that.

Newt looks to be the ideal candidate for ritual slaughter. He's provided more than enough rope to hang himself. And Al D'Amato (who is a hypocrite but a pragmatic one) has tossed the rope over the limb of the hangin' tree. He says Newt misread the message of the '94 election, that Newt was too extremist. Dole's reaction? He said the Speaker had a lot of ideas, and some of them are even good.

I would like to digress long enough to ask, what took Al so damn long to figure that out? If he just figured it out, that mean D'Amato, too, misread the public. As did Dole, who went along with Gingrich until his numbers at the polls started slipping. As did almost the entire House of Representatives and Senate including most Democrats. Doesn't say much for the cognitive abilities of our elected officials.

Anyway, by associating Newt with the most extreme ideas, then isolating him, it appears they are isolating the extreme ideas. In this case, it's more like letting go of the knife after plunging it into someone's chest. Because Newt was the point man, but the full force of the Republican party was the hand and arm wielding the blade.

The hostility, racism, elitism and greed this "revolution" has engendered will not go away because Newt is isolated, or even voted out of office, any more than an egg will un-fry when you shut off the range. Yet people will be satisfied with his retreat from a leadership position (if it happens), just as they will be satisfied with the inevitable neutralization of the Communications Decency Act. . . while the Internet will still belong to commercial interests as a result of all the other provisions passed in the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

I hope you are not among those who are fooled. You can exorcise a demon, but the Devil is still active.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/24/2003 12:17:50 AM |

I don't know if my heart can take it

…but I'm sure as hell gonna find out!

From Yahoo! Financial News
Imax Says Matrix Film Deal A 'Watershed Event' >IMAX

Earlier Wednesday, Imax and Warner Bros., a division of AOL Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:AOL - News) , announced that the second and third chapters of "The Matrix" trilogy, to be released in the spring and fall, will be digitally-remastered using Imax DMR - a technology that upgrades live-action 35mm films into the Imax experience.

Imax has said that the simultaneous release of first-run Hollywood event films in its theaters is the "holy grail" for the company, and it's something investors have been anxiously anticipating for some time.

Although "The Matrix Reloaded" will open in Imax theaters two or three weeks after its general release May 15, "The Matrix Revolutions" will open Nov. 5 in both conventional and Imax cinemas, marking the first time that a live-action Hollywood film is released concurrently in both large- and standard-sized formats, known in the industry as a day-and-date release.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/23/2003 09:19:56 PM |

Thought Fragment I

I sometimes wonder what value there is in all this public debate. I know it has had great value in the past…both the minister's podium and the crates on almost every corner north of 125th Street in Harlem had tremendous impact on the civil rights struggle in the 60s. But times change and the statements are reinterpreted-or discarded. The meanings we fought so hard to create are separated from the words used to express them. The meanings are shaded, and those shaded meanings are allowed into our minds, hearts and spirits because they are carried by words we have come to respect and love.

More than that, I find the words used came after the meanings they expressed were accepted. And I find the acceptance of those ideas weren't so much a matter of convincing people to join a movement as of showing people they were already in the mix.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/23/2003 08:40:24 PM |

Woodruff Library Research Fellowships

Received via AFROAM-L mailing list
The Robert W. Woodruff Library of Emory University offers short-term fellowships to support scholarly use of the Library's research collections.

The fellowships have a value of $1,000 to $2,000 and are meant to help defray expenses in traveling to and residing in Atlanta for the duration of the fellowship. The length of the fellowship will depend on the applicant's research proposal, but is normally one month.

Closing date for applications: June 20, 2003

Fellowships in Modern Literature

The Special Collections and Archives Division has extensive holdings related to the Irish literary renaissance and the finest collection outside of Ireland for the study of contemporary Irish poetry. The Library also holds the literary archive of the late poet laureate of England, Ted Hughes, and related British literary collections. For more information, please see our guide to Manuscript Sources for British and Irish Literature and our brochure on Irish Literary Collections at Emory.

Fellowships in African American Studies

Special Collections also houses extensive collections focusing on black print culture, the civil rights and post-civil rights movements, communism and the Left, and African American religion, literature, music and culture. The Camille Billops and James V. Hatch Archives at Emory contains an extensive collection of African American play scripts and many rare periodicals. For more information about these holdings, please see our guide to recent acquisitions in the African American collections, our guide to Manuscript Sources for African American Literature, and our brochure on African American Collections at Emory

Application Process

To apply for a Fellowship, please submit the following:

1. An application cover sheet. The cover sheet is available upon request and as a PDF document.
2. A curriculum vitae of no more than three pages.
3. A concise description (no more than two double-spaced pages long) of your proposed research project and its significance for scholarship. In this narrative, clearly indicate the specific research materials at Emory you intend to consult, and note the current status of the project and your plans and schedule for completing for publication or submission as a dissertation.
4. A list of sources, with amounts and dates, of any other funding (past, present, or future) awarded for your present project. Also, please list any other grants for which you may presently be applying.

Please mail, fax, or email items 1-4 above directly to:
Fellowship Program
Special Collections & Archives Division
Robert W. Woodruff Library
540 Asbury Circle
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322-2870

Fax: 404/727-0360
[email protected]
All application materials must be received by June 20, 2003

For further details on visiting Emory's Special Collections and Archives please see our website ( http://web.library.emory.edu/libraries/speccolls/collections.html) or email the Research Service staff ([email protected]).

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/23/2003 12:01:39 PM |

Moving Ideas Network

A very good resource, The Moving Ideas Network is run by The American Prospect. This is how they describe themselves:

Examples of what you can expect:

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/23/2003 11:40:26 AM |

Then again, maybe things aren't so funny after all

From DNC Supreme Court Watch

The Supreme Court extremist threat level currently stands at HIGH.
Top Five Signs a Supreme Court Justice Will Retire This Summer

1. GOP Secretly Raising Funds for Supreme Court Battle
On April 4 2003, former President George H.W. Bush hosted a private fundraiser at his Texas home, raising approximately $250,000 for a GOP front group called "Committee for Justice". CFJ is dedicated to helping the Bush White House pack the courts with right-wing extremists. Prominent Republicans -- including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, who will be crucial in any nomination battle -- are involved in helping CFJ raise money.

2. Two Conservatives Have Indicated They May Retire
Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor are the subject of intense retirement speculation. Both have indicated a desire to retire under a Republican President. Both owe their seats to the retirement of like-minded judges who timed their retirements for political reason. And Sandra Day O'Connor is the crucial swing vote protecting a woman's right to choose.

3. Longest Supreme Court Retirement Drought in Almost 200 Years
No Supreme Court Justice has retired for nine years. This much time hasn't elapsed between high court vacancies since the 1820s.

4. GOP Control of the Senate
The Bush White House is much more likely to choose ultra-conservative nominees when the Republican Party controls the Senate. A Bush nominee will likely face fewer hurdles with the GOP controlling the confirmation process.

5. Not a Presidential Election Year
Supreme Court retirements rarely take place during presidential election years. By retiring this summer, conservative judges can ensure that President Bush can nominate an ultraconservative replacement.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/23/2003 11:16:59 AM |

This must be Humor Day

Which objective do you thing GWB chose?

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/23/2003 10:31:16 AM |

Ohhh . . . Now I understand

From the Village Voice

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/23/2003 09:11:38 AM |

Rotten to the CORE

From the Village Voice
CORE Hustles White Firms With Race
Equal Opportunity Scam
by Nick Charles
April 23 - 29, 2003

The help-wanted ad in a local paper said the job was working for a national fundraiser. It was right up Phil Cooper's alley. After several decades at a major corporation, he was given a severance package and a decent pension in 2000. But he still needed to work to make ends meet. So last April he went to the third floor at 817 Broadway and filled out an application. The ad didn't say so, and Cooper (not his real name) didn't realize he was applying for a job at the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), run by Roy Innis, the controversial Republican who recently called for the Justice Department to investigate mosques attended by African Americans for potential terrorist recruitment.

. . . Ethical or moral questions at CORE have been raised as far back as 1976, when the state received complaints that CORE was browbeating companies into donations. In 1981, the state accused CORE of illegal fundraising practices, questioning the way the group represented itself. Under a settlement agreement, Innis, CORE's chairman, admitted no wrongdoing, but had to pay $35,000 to CORE out of his own funds. Innis charged racism.

While Innis professes that CORE maintains community projects, on closer scrutiny these often turn out to be nothing more than paper programs.

. . . He straddles a contradiction, which allows him to operate with impunity. Opposed to affirmative action, busing, and gun control, and a critic of "race mongers" such as presidential candidate Reverend Al Sharpton, Innis is at the head of the post-race movement. "My brand of conservatism is the traditional, most decent and rational expression of the American personality," Innis told The New York Times in 1996. But when he or CORE is challenged, Innis is the first to howl racism.

Since taking the helm in 1968, Innis, once a registered Democrat, has steered CORE to the right, making occasional detours into ideological lunacy such as befriending Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. He ended the group's integrationist tradition, turning it into an operation that gives aid and comfort to those who want to see the civil rights gains of the last 40 years erased.

. . . In its glory days, CORE was part of the big three civil right organizations, along with the NAACP and the Urban League. But it is now a specter of its former self, run as a fiefdom by Innis. In the 1980s, he had a few televised physical dust-ups with white supremacist Tom Metzger and with Sharpton. Last December, Innis defended Senator Trent Lott, saying that Lott was not racist, even though his praise of the good old segregationist days cost him the Senate majority leadership.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/23/2003 09:05:47 AM |

Accessory before the fact

From the NY Times
Gun Maker Found Liable in Shooting Accident
By FOX BUTTERFIELD

An Oakland jury has found a California gun maker, its designer and its main distributor partly liable in an accidental shooting that left a 7-year-old boy a quadriplegic.

. . . The jury found that Bryco Arms, the maker of the .38-caliber semiautomatic used in the shooting; Bruce Jennings, the gun's designer and the company's founder; and the company's main distributor, B. L. Jennings Inc. 35 percent liable for the injury to the boy, Brandon Maxfield, who was shot in the chin by a baby sitter in 1994.

In addition, the jury found two other gun distributors that shipped the gun and the pawnshop in Willits, Calif., where it was bought 13 percent liable.

The jury assessed the remaining responsibility to Larry Moreford, the 20-year-old baby sitter who accidentally pulled the trigger while trying to unload the gun, and to Brandon Maxfield's parents, who had bought it.

. . . In Brandon's case, Ms. Ni said, the crucial issue was that the .38-caliber Bryco semiautomatic was designed in such a way that it could be unloaded only when the safety was turned to the "off" position.

"You have to disengage the safety and put the gun in a dangerous position to unload it," Ms. Ni said. "That is a defect in the design."

During testimony, it was shown that Mr. Jennings had changed the design of the gun to make it operate that way.

Bryco Arms makes what are commonly referred to as Saturday night specials, inexpensive handguns with features that would put them on a list of guns prohibited from being imported to the United States. Mike Hewitt, the lawyer for Bryco and Mr. Jennings, did not return calls seeking comment.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/23/2003 08:20:46 AM |

Multiple copyright infringment day

Cartoons too on point to overlook.

Peerless Pat Oliphant

"Two-fer" Tom Toles

The Badazz Boondocks

Trenchant Ted Rall

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/23/2003 07:47:28 AM |

My computer is eating my muse

Sort of. I have this affirmative action thing stuck in my mind, but I'm also working on the blogging software I've mentioned that last few days and I'm kinda hyped by the progress I've made since Friday. After tonight's change in the logon procedure I think it will be useful enough to create a blog about developing the thing. Tomorrow I look into adding the FTP functionality, and maybe paralleling a few of Blogger's template tags. I can already see creating a utility to convert Blogger templates to my unnamed format.

That's eating my energy and creativity for a day or two.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/22/2003 10:24:03 PM |

The ACLU on Patriot II

One of the things that has every sane person paranoid is the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, alias Patriot II. The ACLU, as one would expect, is militating against it.

They've got a section by section analysis that it would do everyone good to read. At minimum their fact sheet should be required, so everyone has a clear idea of what we have at stake in this next election.

Under Patriot II

• The government would no longer be required to disclose the identity of anyone, even an American citizen, detained in connection with a terror investigation ? until criminal charges are filed, no matter how long that takes (sec 201).
• Current court limits on local police spying on religious and political activity would be repealed (sec. 312).
• The government would be allowed to obtain credit records and library records without a warrant (secs. 126, 128, 129).
• Wiretaps without any court order for up to 15 days after terror attack would be permissible. (sec. 103).
• Release of information about health/safety hazards posed by chemical and other plants would be restricted (sec. 202).
• The reach of an already overbroad definition of terrorism would be expanded ? individuals engaged in civil disobedience could risk losing their citizenship (sec. 501); their organization could be subject to wiretapping (secs. 120, 121) and asset seizure (secs. 428, 428).
• Americans could be extradited, searched and wiretapped at the behest of foreign nations, whether or not treaties allow it (sec. 321, 322).
• Lawful immigrants would be stripped of the right to a fair deportation hearing and federal courts would not be allowed to review immigration rulings (secs. 503, 504).

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/22/2003 08:18:34 PM |

National Urban League Seeks New Leader

From Black Enterprise Magazine (no link, because it came through their eekly mailing)

After departure of Hugh Price, civil rights organization names Executive Vice President and COO Milton Little as interim president
By Curtis Simmons

The National Urban League's board of directors is conducting a national search to replace former president Hugh B. Price, whose resignation became effective April 11, 2003, after nine years of service.

The league has named Milton J. Little, who has served as the organization's executive vice president and chief operating officer for nearly six years, as interim president.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/22/2003 07:37:34 PM |

On PBS - A Reminder

This was brought to my attention on a mailing list I frequent. I'm particularly interested in the episode to be aired on 5/1, "The Story We Tell," the other two episodes presnting stuff that strikes me as obvious to an honest mind.

RACE: The Power of an Illusion

What if people suddenly discovered that their most basic assumption about race 1 that the world's people can be divided biologically along racial lines - was false? And if race is a biological "myth," where did the idea come from? How do established institutions give race social meaning and power?

These are among the questions raised by Race: The Power of an Illusion, a provocative new series airing on PBS Thursdays, April 24-May 8, 2003, (check local listings). The first television series to scrutinize the very idea of race through the distinct lenses of science, history and social institutions, Race:The Power of an Illusion asks, "What is this thing called 'race'?" - a question so basic it is rarely raised. The series' three one-hour programs challenge some of people's most deeply held beliefs. C.C.H. Pounder ("The Shield") narrates.

Ethnic cleansing, affirmative action battles, immigration restrictions - all place race at center stage in contemporary life. Race is so fundamental to discussions of poverty, education, crime, music and sports that, whether people are racist or anti-racist, they rarely question its reality.

Yet recent scientific evidence suggests that the idea of race is a biological myth, as outdated as the widely held medieval belief that the sun revolved around the earth. Anthropologists, biologists and geneticists have increasingly found that, biologically speaking, there is no such thing as "race." Modern science is decoding the genetic puzzle of DNA and human variation - and finding that skin color really is only skin deep.

However invalid race is biologically, it has been deeply woven into the fabric of American life. Race: The Power of an Illusion examines why and how in three installments. "The Difference Between Us" (4/24) surveys the scientific findings - including genetics - that suggest that the concept of race has no biological basis. "The Story We Tell" (5/1) provides the historical context for race in North America, including when and how the idea got started and why it took such a hold in people's minds. "The House We Live In" (5/8) spotlights the ways social institutions "make" race by providing different groups with vastly different life chances even today, 40 years after the Civil Rights Act.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/22/2003 12:15:11 PM |

Okay, so I lied.

The thing is, because I am watching world and national events, I'm feeling a genuine threat response toward the government. It's not the lion-in-your-face reaction. Not even the dog-charging-across-an-unfenced-yard reaction. It's more like the walking-in-tall-grass, and you-KNOW-there's snakes reaction.

Ironic . . . Conservatives have just about convinced my they're right that the government can't be trusted by taking it over.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/22/2003 11:56:08 AM |

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/22/2003 08:52:59 AM |

Not blogging about this. Nope. I'm not.

For 2004, Bush's Aides Plan Late Sprint for Re-election
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and RICHARD W. STEVENSON

WASHINGTON, April 21 - President Bush's advisers have drafted a re-election strategy built around staging the latest nominating convention in the party's history, allowing Mr. Bush to begin his formal campaign near the third anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks and to enhance his fund-raising advantage, Republicans close to the White House say.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/22/2003 08:52:11 AM |

Today's resolution

I have not read the news yet today. I will not post anything that annoys me. I don't feel like being annoyed.

Yesterday's resolution

I got my template processing code running correctly. Since I already have the post creation stuff working I figure I'm a few man-hours away from a 0.1 alpha preliminary single blog page producing tool.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/22/2003 08:45:31 AM |

Today's resolution

I have not read the news yet today. I will not post anything that annoys me. I don't feel like being annoyed.

Yesterday's resolution

I got my template processing code running correctly. Since I already have the post creation stuff working I figure I'm a few man-hours away from a 0.1 alpha preliminary single blog page producing tool.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/22/2003 08:42:20 AM |

A "Web African" dilemma

Newsforge has an article on the trials of being a web developer in West Africa. Since it's being poited to by Slashdot, I figured I'd just point at the original article on sohne.net.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/22/2003 08:33:59 AM |

Better than a cartoon

Idleworm presents another of those amusing Flash games, Kirk vs. Picard. Find a friend to play against and check it out before Paramount sues his butt.

I have Idleworm in my humor folder, but maybe I should move it to commentary.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/22/2003 08:11:04 AM |

Mike Hawash

via TalkLeft

Mr. Hawash has written this letter.

A little info on Mr. Hawash's situation, from www.freemikehawash.org:
On Thursday, March 20, 2003, our friend and colleague Maher (Mike) Hawash was arrested ("detained") as a "material witness" by the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force in the parking lot of Intel Corp's Hawthorne Farms offices. Simultaneously, FBI agents in bulletproof vests and carrying assault rifles awoke Mike's wife Lisa and their three children in the home, which they proceeded to search. Since then, Mike has been held without charge in the Federal Prison at Sheridan, OR. All proceedings in his case are secret.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/22/2003 07:02:57 AM |

Catching up
Iraq isn't the only country that needs liberation
04/14/2003 11:53 PM EDT
By David Person
Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com

. . . We all know about how the FBI monitored Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and other civil rights leaders. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had concluded that the civil rights movement was part of a communist conspiracy and sicced COINTELPRO - the Bureau's counter-intelligence program - on it. The FBI then began recording phone conversations, spreading lies and doing anything it could to disrupt the efforts of black leaders to push for equality.

Even today, people with viewpoints that oppose the government become targets.

. . . Committed black folks won't let this stop them. The International Black Coalition for Peace and Justice held a protest in a black neighborhood in Los Angeles last month. From what Chimbuko Tempo, co-chair of the coalition told me, they're not going to back down.

"This is part of our tradition," she said. "The tradition of Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass. We're required to do this."

We have been taught that the United States is a free society. This means that any U.S. citizen is free to criticize any governmental policy - even in a time of war.

The war in Iraq is supposed to be about liberating the Iraqi people. After our military finishes its work in Iraq, our young men and women will come home to America that is not as free as it should be - and may be on its way to being even less free in the future.

Who then will liberate us?

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/21/2003 09:00:00 PM |

Changes I been going thru

I'm still in design mode here.

I decided to link to some culture. Lord knows I could use some . . .

devorah spent last year as Poet Lauriate of San Francisco, and has a following in the hiphop community as well. How's that for flexibility? Opal has a stronger teaching background and is a bit more structured than devorah, but she flows, too. Together or seperate, these is two banging artists.

Serious poetic talent going on here, great, classy presentations with high quality jazz in the backdrop. Not to mention extraordinarily cool sisters.

Check the website, which is hosted by WireonFire.com so there's Quicktime streaming of a couple pieces of their work. Maybe I'll ask devorah if I can embed a track or two over here (yeah, I know them personally, but check them out anyway).

drylongso? I quote:

Part ezine, part weblog, Lisa (the editor) has a way of pulling out some interesting stuff. Pulling from diverse sources ranging from "Rethinking Schools Online - An Urban Education Resource" (Black Over-representation in Special Education Not Confined to Segregation States) to "The Last Wizards" (WAR ON TRUTH: The Secret Battle for the American Mind), drylongso will at minimum find a fresh perspective for you. And that's just the blog part.

Finally, someone I don't know: Sarah Jones, another poet-performance artist and author of "Your Revolution", a send-up of mysogyny in rap that temporarily earned KBOO of Portland a $7000 FCC fine for indecency. In a rare moment of sanity, the fine was reversed a couple of months ago. Have a taste. Then buy her stuff at Amazon.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/21/2003 06:35:46 PM |

Note to self: post first, then send email

Mac-a-ro-nies tells you about Arizona honoring Pfc Lori Piestewa by renaming a mountain, and expresses an opinion or two about the process by which it happens.

I should thank George Stanton, a professor out in Cali, for pointing this out, though I'm not sure he's a blog reader. Hope it makes up for me yelling at him.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/21/2003 05:51:09 PM |

Letting known accomplices walk
(btw, I'll get over the smiley thing soon, I promise)

From the NY Times
Bill to Bar Suits Against Gun Industry Stuns Crime Victims

. . . "When I heard that Congress is seriously considering giving gun dealers special protection from suits like mine, I figured this had to be some kind of bad dream," Mrs. Johnson said in an interview, after attending a news conference with Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey. "I'm appalled and outraged that Congress can take away my rights as an American to have my day in court."

The suit by Mrs. Johnson, which is likely to be joined by seven other victims or families of victims of the Washington-area sniper attacks, is one of many suits that would be stopped if the bill passes the Senate and is signed into law by President Bush. The bill would make gun dealers and gunmakers the only industry in the nation exempt from lawsuits.

. . . There are also many suits by individuals, including one by two New Jersey police officers, David Lemongello and Ken McGuire, who are suing a pawnshop in West Virginia that sold a semiautomatic pistol used to badly wound them while they staked out a gasoline station that had been repeatedly robbed.

An investigation by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives determined that the gun had been sold to a gun trafficker, James Gray, who was legally prohibited from buying the weapon because he was a felon.

Mr. Gray went into the store, Will's Jewelry and Loan, in Charleston, W.Va., and handed thousands of dollars in cash to an accomplice after pointing out 12 guns he wanted to buy. The accomplice, who had no criminal record, then bought the guns for him, in front of the store owner, in what is known as a straw purchase.

Federal firearms law prohibits straw purchases, but they are one of the most common ways that criminals get guns.

Mr. Gray, who lived in New Jersey, resold the guns on the black market, court records show, including one to Shuntez Everett, a career criminal who soon used it to shoot the two officers at the gasoline station, in Orange, N.J. Mr. Everett died in a shootout with the police after shooting Officers Lemongello and McGuire, hitting both in the chest and the stomach and one officer in an arm and the other in a leg.

. . . In an interview afterward, Mr. Lemongello, 32, said the shooting had deprived him of his lifelong dream of being a police officer and that he had been eager to sue the Charleston gun shop, which is still in business and has not been prosecuted.

"But then I heard about this bill in Congress that would do nothing but protect bad dealers, and I felt sick and angry," Mr. Lemongello said.

"I'm not looking to put the gun industry out of business," he said. "I believe in the right to bear arms. I own a gun. I was a police officer and a police firearms instructor.

"But this case is a no-brainer," Mr. Lemongello said. "We are going after one bad dealer and one irresponsible manufacturer who didn't monitor what its dealers did."

The N.R.A. and the gun industry have made passing the immunity bill their main legislative priority this year.

. . . Bull's Eye, the Tacoma gun shop, is still in business, and Bushmaster is still selling rifles, Mrs. Johnson said, though a series of inspections by the federal firearms bureau found that the store could not account for 238 guns in its inventory in the last three years.

A spokesman for the United States attorney's office in Seattle said that Bull's Eye was under investigation.

But Scott McKenna, a spokesman for the federal firearms agency in Seattle, said the bureau had not been able to determine whether Bull's Eye had illegally sold the rifle to one of the sniper suspects without recording the sale or whether the gun had been stolen.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/21/2003 07:32:50 AM |

Another precinct reporting in

What is it with southern states that makes elections so difficult?

From the NY Times
Early Returns in Nigeria Indicate President Will Remain
By SOMINI SENGUPTA

ABUJA, Nigeria, April 20 ? Nigeria's president appeared to be in no danger of losing his seat as results from the election on Saturday trickled in to the capital this evening. But his government faced growing rancor in the country's southern oil region, where voters, opposition politicians and some election monitors complained of fraud.

With roughly 20 percent of local government areas reporting this evening, President Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military ruler running under the banner of the governing People's Democratic Party, was capturing 75 percent of the votes. Muhammadu Buhari, of the All Nigeria People's Party, another former military ruler, ran a distant second, with 21 percent. Eighteen other candidates barely registered in the balloting. With 61 million voters, final results are not expected until Tuesday.

Mr. Buhari's party called the results in several southern and eastern states fraudulent, but an Obasanjo campaign aide dismissed the accusations as baseless. Officials with the Independent National Electoral Commission here in the capital vouched for the integrity of the results.

Meanwhile, in one opposition stronghold in Rivers State, gunfights raged in broad daylight between gangs loyal to rival parties.

This could be the first time that this nation, the continent's most populous, moves from one civilian government to another. But the discontent in the oil-rich Niger Delta raised serious questions about whether this exercise ? and the government it empowers ? will engender confidence among all its citizens.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/21/2003 07:24:42 AM |

Gratuitous diversion

Sorry, I can't help it.

Can you tell who's had plastic surgery?

Real flesh is SO much . . . realer.

Okay. Party on.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/21/2003 07:20:50 AM |

Sadly, it looks like the only hope at this point

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/21/2003 07:15:28 AM |

Now, if we could get Mr. Watson to drop parallel knowlege on certain neoconfederates and racial realists

From the NY Times

Crossroads of Culture
By PETER WATSON

. . . The point of this history is to show how the golden age that Arab fundamentalists refer to was achieved only because Baghdad was wide open to foreign influences, much as the United States at its birth imported ideas of the Enlightenment from Europe and made more of them than did the Old World.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/21/2003 07:14:08 AM |

War . . . uhh!

From the NY Times:
What Is it Good For?
By BOB HERBERT

Somewhere George Shultz is smiling.

Mr. Shultz, whose photo could appropriately appear next to any definition of the military-industrial complex, was secretary of state under Ronald Reagan and has been a perennial heavyweight with the powerful Bechtel Group of San Francisco, where he previously reigned as president and is now a board member and senior counselor.

Unlike the antiwar soul singer Edwin Starr ? who, in an ironic bit of timing, went to his eternal reward early this month just as American ground forces were sweeping toward Baghdad ? Mr. Shultz knows what war is good for.

. . . Last week Mr. Shultz's Bechtel Group was able to demonstrate exactly what wars are good for. The Bush administration gave it the first big Iraqi reconstruction contract, a prized $680 million deal over 18 months that puts Bechtel in the driver's seat for the long-term reconstruction of the country, which could cost $100 billion or more.

Bechtel essentially was given a license to make money. And that license was granted in a closed-door process that was restricted to a handful of politically connected American companies.

. . . Among those in Congress who are beginning to challenge this loathsome process is Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who is one of the lead sponsors of a bipartisan bill that would require a public explanation of any decision to award Iraqi reconstruction contracts without a "fully open, competitive bidding process."

In an interview, he said, "You look at this process, which is secret, limited or closed bidding, and you have to ask yourself: `Why are these companies being picked? How's this process taking place, and is this the best use of scarce taxpayer money at a time when seniors can't afford medicine, kids are having trouble getting access to a quality education and local communities are just getting pounded? The administration has been keeping the taxpayers in the dark with respect to how this money is being used, and that information ought to be shared."

. . . The favoritism, the secretive method by which the contracts are being awarded and the arrogant and unconscionable exclusion of the United Nations and even close U.S. allies from significant roles in the administration and reconstruction of Iraq all contribute to the most cynical interpretation of American motives.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/21/2003 07:07:16 AM |

After this, I'm minding my business

re: Meet Bill Regnery, via Mac-a-ro-nies, specifically:

I respond thus:

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/20/2003 09:07:40 PM |

Software stuff again

Another delay, but a productive one. I've worked out my template processing routines. In doing this I had to give some thought to what I want in the templates, which means I'm rethinking my database design. What I've got is fine for your typical one page blog, but if that's what I'm going to do, why not just use an existing tool with a proven track record? Besides, I already have a second page and have two more in mind that a table designed to hold blog posts is almost adequate for. It's not quite redoing it from scratch but I don't intend to revisit this for a while so I have to get it right. I have to modify the queries I'm using to drive this thing.

Thinking about the templates and content led me into site design, in particular whether or not to use frames, rollovers and other cute Javascript things I know or know of.

Thinking about a single project in multiple languages . . . in this case Object Pascal, SQL, Javascript, CSS and HTML . . . will make your eyes cross after a while. I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the last three today, all the while feeling I need a better idea of my destination before committing a bunch more code in the first two. Funny thing is, HTML, CSS and Javascript just aren't that difficult.

Anyway, I just jotted down a diagram that goes something like:

(Database) ⇒(Article Data)⇒(Template)⇒(turns into cool shit)

later:Running a free comments service or shout-box service is almost like asking for a DoS attack, it seems to me. Not knocking these generous folks, just noticing

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/20/2003 07:13:25 PM |

Like it still is

I had to cut that last post off because dinner was ready.

Greg Palast says he had to move to Europe in order to get away with serious investigative reporting on the government and big business in the USofA. After going to his web site and reading a couple of articles and such, I'm going to buy his book, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy."

The biggy to me is his thorough documentations of the voter fraud - and I did not say alleged - in Florida during the Coup2000. Yeah, conservatives will be saying get over it, but (and this is one of the things the interview on "Like It Is" brought to my attention) Florida settled the NAACP's lawsuit alledging voter fraud on the part of Kathleen Harris, Jeb Bush, etc.

Like it is

One of the first references I attached myself to in the course of figuring out what I thought of all thsi racil stuff was "A Documentary History of the Negro in the United States of America." Literally encyclopedic in scope, it's a collection of writings by Black folks that stretches from pre-revolutionary war days to the 60's (last I checked). The editor of the series, Dr. Herbert Aptheker, has passed recently.

Walking past the TV, I saw a reply of an interview Gil Noble did with Dr. Aptheker a few years ago. I didn't know the good doctor was a white guy.

Mr. Noble also interviewed Greg Palast, a reporter working for the BBC. I will be looking up a number of the subjects of THAT discussion.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/20/2003 12:59:30 PM |

Just . . . just let me explain . . .

Got this in the mail today from Mac Diva

Since you insist on making this personal, though, I am compromising my principles and adding a "Blog that I must read" to the "Blogs by folks I might like to meet." Which means I'll have to meet you if you ever make it to NYC.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/20/2003 11:48:16 AM |

Stolen from the NY Times

What Washington Did While the War Was on TV
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON ? While Humvees sped toward Baghdad, the machinery of the federal government plodded along at home, churning out laws, executive orders and court decisions that passed relatively unnoticed by a public fixated on the war.

It might come as news that Congress, in creating a national kidnapping alert system, altered how federal criminal sentences are handed down. Or that the House voted anew for Arctic oil drilling. The Supreme Court issued an important decision on liability limits; the Environmental Protection Agency made a decision environmentalists liked. And nine Democratic presidential candidates held their first cattle call.

Congress purposefully kept at its business, driven by Republicans determined to have domestic issues in the ready room when the war ended. To that end, Republicans in the House and Senate pushed through a tax-cutting budget that sparked an intraparty feud with the potential to complicate their work for the rest of the year. The actual shape of the tax cut will be determined in the coming weeks.

House members, meanwhile, in establishing a national Amber Alert system to sound a public alarm after a child is abducted, persuaded the Senate to support a broader bill that added controversial new limits on judges' discretion over sentencing in cases involving children and sex crimes. Sponsors said the limits would deter kidnappings by making tough penalties more consistent, but Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and many federal judges expressed concern about rigidity in widely varying cases and about further crowding of the nation's prisons. Democrats railed against the changes but wanted to support the politically popular Amber Alerts, and the measure passed overwhelmingly in both the House and the Senate.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the challenge to the University of Michigan's use of affirmative action criteria in admissions, and college students, many from minority groups, camped outside the court building the night before. Who won won't be known for a while. But the court did hand down an important ruling limiting punitive damages in lawsuits, a decision that may encourage Congressional Republicans eager to rein in awards in medical malpractice disputes and other cases.

At the E.P.A., regulators drew rare praise from environmentalists for a proposal intended to reduce pollution from heavy construction equipment, tractors and other diesel-powered vehicles not made for use on roads. Analysts said the new rules, requiring cleaner fuel and better emissions control, would save both lives and billions of dollars in health-care costs.

Environmentalists were unhappy, however, when the House passed an industry-friendly energy bill that would initiate oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Though the Senate voted against that idea a month ago in another bill, House advocates hope to reopen the drilling debate this summer.

The energy plan was a central concern for President Bush before his administration was consumed by foreign policy matters. Another prewar goal, enabling faith-based organizations to get more government aid for social services, got a slight push in Senate legislation, but it was so watered down that even determined opponents didn't blink.

At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld proposed a transformation in the military personnel system, extending the tenure of senior officers and transferring 300,000 military jobs to the civilian ranks. He also wants to reduce what the Pentagon must report to Congress. Congress might be expected to object, but Mr. Rumsfeld has a lot of friends there these days.

After a bit of a tussle, Congress approved a plan to allay some health workers' concerns about side effects from the smallpox vaccine. The administration wants emergency personnel to volunteer for inoculation, but some who had heart conditions have died after receiving it. The final deal provides up to $262,000 in compensation for disability or death due to a bad reaction to the vaccine.

Though Mr. Bush came out of the war strengthened, Democrats were still volunteering to take him on in 2004. The contenders lined up, literally, for the first time in a forum sponsored by the Children's Defense Fund on April 9, the very evening the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad was toppled in a scene that quickly became symbolic of American victory. No one broke free of the pack. And in the Senate, Peter G. Fitzgerald, an Illinois Republican, set Democratic ambitions for more Senate seats stirring by announcing he would not seek a second term next year.

On April 14, new federal rules to protect the privacy of medical records went into effect. Consumers will notice the new privacy information they must read and sign.

One man's fate was completely unchanged prewar to postwar. Miguel Estrada, the Washington lawyer who is the president's pick for an important federal appeals court, is still not a judge. His nomination remains frozen in a filibuster launched by Senate Democrats who contend he has not been forthcoming about his judicial views. Gridlock, it seems, endures in war and peace.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/20/2003 10:10:11 AM |

Getting positive again

Just when I needed it, a reminder that Isaac Black is still out there.

What Is BLACK EXCEL?
Since its founding in 1988, BLACK EXCEL has helped young people and their parents all across the country to navigate the difficult college admission process. We have tried to make the way easy and accessible. As a result, we are happy to say that we have helped hundreds of African Americans get into college who might otherwise not have done so.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/20/2003 10:04:42 AM |

Morning rant

One day soon I'm going to look into what Technorati is doing.

I just spent the last hour or so reading law blogs. They interest me. I just wish . . . and it's the affirmative action discussion that brings this on . . . I wish people would realize that law isn't the same as morality. I can't say whether or not that's a Good Thing^TM, but it is the case.

Law and morality are not the same thing. They are not equivalent, or even congruent. They are similar at best.

I also wish humans would reach their positions through rational examination of, and discourse on, the issues rather than holding off on reason until they need to defend their gut-level decision. Oh, yeah, and lotto. I wish I could win the lotto. And being struck by lightning two or three times in the next 15 minutes, that would be cool too.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/20/2003 09:15:38 AM |

Losing my appetite

I have to make sure I eat breakfast before checking random blogs.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/20/2003 08:55:39 AM |