We're going to do an interesting thing at The N-Net.

I'm just about done with the first iteration of a new module for The Niggerati Network. As it stands now, the user record can include the name and syndication feed url for their blog and the feed will be added to the site's aggregator.

I'm only talking about this now because I was asked for this module by someone.

There will be some additional info you can input so I can slice and dice a few reports and web pages. My idea is to help make Black folks' voices in particular easier to find...progressive, conservative and libertarian Black folks alike. And I'll even let Black Conservatives™ and Libertarians™ in the mix. I truly feel they have the wrong approach, but I also truly believe Black folks are smart enough to know what's up when they see it.

Boston AND Indiana suck today.

I'm going to keep programming until the next game.

I was wondering where In Search of Utopia went.

Seriously.

Prison Predators
Friday, May 6, 2005; Page A22

THE NUMBER of federal prison inmates has exploded over the past three decades, increasing by 7 1/2 times between 1980 and 2004. The duty to keep those inmates safe makes a new report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine essential reading. The report focuses on sexual abuse of prisoners by prison staff. The inspector general's office sees a lot of these cases, though presumably only a tiny fraction of the ones that take place. From the experience of hundreds of these cases, Mr. Fine has concluded that federal law is inadequate. Congress must respond promptly.

Ad on ABC Sparks Debate on Content
By JULIE SALAMON

ABC's acceptance of an advertisement from a conservative, faith-based organization has touched off a debate about who can and who cannot buy commercial time to present their viewpoints.

Because The United Church of Christ wanted to run some ads and ABC would not sell them air time

The United Church of Christ ads, which depicted a variety of people - gay, disabled, racially diverse - said: "Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we."

Meanwhile

The Focus on the Family ad said, "We'll be there with parenting advice, and a faith-based perspective that can make all the difference."

And ABC's reason for rejecting The United Church of Christ's money?

Vatican Is Said to Force Jesuit Off Magazine
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

An American Jesuit who is a frequent television commentator on Roman Catholic issues resigned yesterday under orders from the Vatican as editor of the Catholic magazine America because he had published articles critical of church positions, several Catholic officials in the United States said.

The order to dismiss the editor, the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, was issued by the Vatican's office of doctrinal enforcement - the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - in mid-March when that office was still headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter, said. Soon after, Pope John Paul II died and Cardinal Ratzinger was elected pope, taking the name Benedict XVI.

Quote of note:

I think not taking care of yourself at all is much easier. For now, I trust that one day I'll take the necessary steps toward moving out -- or at least into my parents' other house.

YOUTH COMMENTARY: Doing the 'Twixter' -- Living at home is fine by me
- Pete Micek, Pacific News Service
Saturday, May 7, 2005

Menlo Park -- Living at home is such a drag," sang the Beastie Boys. "Now your mom threw away your best porno mag."

Well, nothing like that has happened to me, but I do live at home. It is not such a drag, because I am not the only one.

According to a 2003 University of Michigan study, the proportion of people in their 20s living with their parents increased 50 percent between 1970 and 1990. Up north in Canada, 47 percent of twenty-something males lived with their folks in 2001, up from just 27 percent in 1981.

Quote of note:

Chandler didn't return a message left by The Associated Press at his home Friday, and several calls to the church went unanswered. He told WLOS that the actions were not politically motivated.

Of course it isn't. It's religiously motivated.

Dems Booted From N.C. Church Over Politics
The Associated Press
Friday, May 6, 2005; 8:01 PM

WAYNESVILLE, N.C. -- A pastor of a small Baptist church led an effort to kick out church members because they didn't support President Bush, members said.

The nine members were voted out at a Monday meeting of the East Waynesville Baptist Church in this mountain town about 120 miles west of Charlotte. WLOS-TV in Asheville reported that 40 other members resigned in protest.

Having missed out on an opportunity to have some professionals critique my writing by dicking around instead of RSVPing, I signed up for this

Start: May 12 2005 - 4:00pm
End: May 12 2005 - 6:00pm

Sponsor:
Columbia University Center for Bioethics

Overview:
Race, Genetics, and Medicine
Is Race a Social Construct or a Factor for Optimal Prescribing of Medication?

Address:
P&S Amphitheatre, First Floor
Columbia University Medical Center
College of Physicians and Surgeons
630 West 168th Street

...as soon as I heard about it. Free, but limited seating.

I wondered where Prince at american black had gone

Birthdays and Conservatives

Today happens to be my birthday. It also happens to be the birthday of the woman pictured on the left. Her name is La Shawn Barber and she writes a good blog if you happen to be  a believer in and follower of Jesus Christ and a renegade supporter of conservative ideals.

I am fascinated by the fact that a woman the same age as me, from the same culture, can have such a different set of ideals. I read her writings (she's a very good writer by the way) and I am usually bewildered.  She's like a Baldilocks without the military background.

On May 6th and May 13th IRAAS presents a few of our rising scholars in the Masters of Arts Program

IRAAS Graduate Student "Conversation" Lecture Series
Friday, May 6th 4:00pm in Room 758
Schermerhorn Extension

Ms. Cara Caddoo "American White Working Class Identity Formation and the Silent Film"
Mr. Tongo Eisen-Martin "Prison Pedagogy"
Mr. Samuel Henry, Jr. "Re-Thinking the Pragmatic Dimensions of a Theology of Liberation"
[P6: Can't get to this one today]

Friday, May 13th 4:00pm in Room 758
Schermerhorn Extension

Ms. Zinga Fraser "Un-Bought & Un-Bossed-Chisolm: A Radical Political Ideology"
Mr. Anthony Johnson "The Harlem Urban Development Corporation: Revitalizing Harlem in Seventies"
Ms. Victoria Richards "Oppression for Sovereignty's sake Discourse on Reclaiming Sexual Sovereignty"
[P6: Might make this one...depends on if my friend comes to town this week or the following one.]

Tough streets bring county to town
County police began temporary patrols in Opa-locka in the aftermath of a killing that has renewed criticism of the embattled city police department.
BY TRENTON DANIEL, SUSANNAH A. NESMITH AND ELINOR J. BRECHER

The dark Dodge Intrepid screeched to a halt in front of the apartment building where the murdered 5-year-old had lived. Residents scattered. Two cops jumped out, one waving a gun.

"This ain't Opa-locka, m-----f-----!" one of them yelled. "This is Metro-Dade!"

The Miami-Dade lieutenant and sergeant proceeded to arrest a man for carrying a gun. The bust may be the first of many as the county begins patrolling Opa-locka to help the city's police get control of the notoriously dangerous Triangle neighborhood.

A Serious Drug Problem
By PAUL KRUGMAN

...Needless to say, apologists for the law insist that the prohibition on price negotiations had nothing to do with catering to special interests - that it was a matter of principle, of preserving incentives to innovate. How can we refute this defense?

One way is to challenge claims that the pharmaceutical industry needs high prices to innovate. In her book "The Truth About the Drug Companies," Marcia Angell, the former editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, shows convincingly that drug companies spend far more on marketing than they do on research - and that much of the marketing is designed to sell "me, too" drugs, which are no better than the cheaper drugs they replace. It should be possible to pay less for medicine, yet encourage more real innovation.

This is like the San Francisco Chronicle's "Black men on the down low" series in that I find it compels a more structured written response to some general issues.

Quote of note:

The hearings in Topeka, scheduled to last several days, are focusing on two proposals. The first recommends that students continue to be taught the theory of evolution because it is key to understanding biology. The other proposes that Kansas alter the definition of science, not limiting it to theories based on natural explanations.

Some time in the next week or so I'll probably write something that will not make Theocrats very happy. If you need more than this quote to see the problem, count on being among the offended.

Quote of note:

In the real world, reviving the 30-year bond would mean acknowledging that the nation's growing debt burden will eventually cause long-term interest rates to rise. Right now, however, those rates are abnormally low. So reverting to the 30-year bond would lock in low rates on future government borrowing. That would be a good thing for taxpayers, whose taxes go to pay the bonds' interest. But coming out and saying so would expose one of the administration's biggest failings: it has created the conditions for higher interest rates by squandering the Clinton-era surpluses and piling on debt. Locking in low rates with a 30-year bond is clever, but it is no substitute for cutting the deficit and reducing the national debt, something the powers-that-be have no credible plan for doing.

A move to bring back the bond also flags the danger of America's immense borrowing from abroad. Without a 30-year bond, the average maturity of the debt held by foreigners has been falling - to 54 months this year from 60 months in 2003. Such short maturities - together with a depreciating dollar - make financial markets fearful that in the near term, foreign lenders may choose to invest in other currencies' assets when their dollar-based debt matures, forcing the United States to raise rates, perhaps sharply, to attract the loans it needs. The 30-year bond would alleviate some of that anxiety. But again, it's no substitute for curbing the borrowing itself.

There is nothing objectionable, per se, about the 30-year bond. But if the nation were on a path to paying off its debt and accumulating assets for the future, as it was in the years before the Bush binge, there would be little need for it now.

OOPS!!! That's not from the article. It's from the NY Times editorial page!

How did that happen? My bad, really...

Treasury Says 30-Year Bond May Be Revived
By JONATHAN FUERBRINGER

The government has taken the first step toward a revival of the 30-year bond, an unexpected shift that could provide an important tool to grapple with the nation's troublesome budget deficit and its creaky pension system.

And for Wall Street, which has been clamoring for a revival of the bond almost since it was abandoned in 2001, a new Treasury security with a longer maturity than the current market benchmark - the 10-year note - could help the boom in bond trading that has bolstered many firms' profits in recent years.

"It was a surprise," said Lundy Wright, who runs the Treasury desk at Nomura Securities International, after the 9 a.m. announcement by the Treasury Department prompted a sharp sell-off in the bond market that cost some traders and investors millions.

"But it was something the market had been calling for for a long time."

What's more important—statistics or quality of life?

Smooth Earnings Growth Was Reassuring, but It Was Often Fictional

SMOOTH is dead. That means less business for financial firms and more erratic earnings for others.

To an extent not understood by investors or regulators, it appears that insurance companies, as well as investment and commercial banks, had profitable little businesses in what might politely be called financial statement beautification. They sold products that had little or no economic rationale, but that were promoted - ever so quietly - as being able to hide losses or smooth earnings.

Try being honest, giving proper attribution.

It's easy. You'll love it. And it's free.

Quote of note:

The two departures follow those of four reporters from four other newspapers in the last month, quickening the drumbeat of questions about media credibility as editors react swiftly to apparent problems in the face of intense scrutiny.

Not to mention it lets you keep your job and professional respect.

Anyway...

USA Today Reporter Quits Over Lifting Quotations
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Tom Squitieri, a 16-year veteran of USA Today, resigned from the newspaper yesterday after his editors said he lifted quotations from other newspapers without attribution.

Because that's where the money is.

Quote of note:

...backers of the Maryland bill, which seemed to take special aim at Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer, say the support for it there indicates a growing recognition of the growing financial burden of caring for the uninsured. They say taxpayers are unfairly supporting too many companies' uninsured workers, who turn to government programs like Medicaid or simply show up in the emergency rooms of hospitals subsidized by the state to provide care to people unable to pay.

Jonathan Parker, campaign director of Americans for Health Care, a union-led group in Washington that helped push for the Maryland bill, said legislative pressure was rising in state capitals nationwide. "We're going to see it in more and more states," he said, "and we're going to see it sooner rather than later."

States and Employers Duel Over Health Care
By REED ABELSON

Quote of note:

With some $292 billion in outstanding G.M. bonds and $161 billion in Ford bonds, the potential redistribution is titanic. How disruptive the process is for the corporate bond and high-yield bond markets will not be known immediately. But there certainly will be some indigestion.

Junk Ratings Make a Big Splash, Ripples to Follow
By JONATHAN FUERBRINGER

Many investors knew it was coming, but they did not expect that two of the nation's biggest issuers of bonds would be reduced to junk status so soon.

As a result, Standard & Poor's announcement at midday yesterday that it was cutting its credit ratings for both General Motors and the Ford Motor Company set off a selling spree in the corporate bond market. The rating cut to below investment grade begins a process of adjustment that could ripple through, and roil, the fixed-income markets for weeks.

I feel sooooo bad for Kendrik Perkins. I never root for the Celtics but to be picked by the opposition to shoot mad pressure free throws...

Paul Pierce probably feels like an ass too.

from Behind the image: Poverty and 'development pornography' by Rotimi Sankore

One dares not even go back to the consequences of 400 years of slavery that directly or indirectly killed and took away over a hundred million Africans and in the process disrupted all social and political development for four centuries, or subsequent colonial repression that in some places lasted over a 100 years. Most of Africa has been independent for only between 10 and 46 years and for most of that period many countries were ruled by left and right wing or simply mad dictators supported by cold war enemies jostling for strategic influence.

With all the slavery, colonialism, mass murder, repression, looting, corruption, trade imbalances, and outrageous interests on dubious loans that have gone on for 500 years it is no wonder the continent is bruised and battered. No continent subjected to the same conditions would have fared better.

That must be it.

Girl dies as family runs from 2 days of gunfire
A 5-year-old girl was killed before her family could drive to safety away from shootings in a crime-ridden Opa-locka area known as the Triangle.
BY SUSANNAH A. NESMITH AND TRENTON DANIEL
[email protected]

The shooting started Monday, sporadic gunfire that forced residents of an Opa-locka apartment building to scramble for cover. Families avoided windows. Babies slept on the floor.

Police came out several times, but as soon as they left, the bullets were flying again. By the second night of the siege at 2070 Lincoln Ave., Nicquila Godbee decided she had to get her three children out the next time the police showed up.

Maybe...

"All three of us agree that it's best to remove any doubt about this at the very start of the process," Mr. Hastings, a Washington Republican, said in a statement.

Anyway...

2 on Ethics Panel Withdraw From Any DeLay Inquiry
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, May 4 - Two Republican members of the House ethics committee who contributed to the legal defense fund of Representative Tom DeLay, the majority leader, recused themselves Wednesday from any potential investigation of him as the panel took the first steps that could lead to such an inquiry.

After a two-hour meeting, Representative Doc Hastings, the chairman, announced that the two representatives, Lamar Smith of Texas and Tom Cole of Oklahoma, would not take part in any action relating to Mr. DeLay. The two lawmakers each provided $5,000 last year to a fund being used to underwrite Mr. DeLay's legal expenses as he fought accusations of misconduct in Texas and Washington.

Here go the economic okey-doke.

Tax Receipts Exceed Treasury Predictions
Early Surge Lowers Deficit Projections
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 5, 2005; Page E01

After three years of rising federal budget deficits, a surge of April tax receipts brought unexpected good news to fiscal policymakers -- the tide of government red ink appears to be receding.

The Treasury Department this week reported there would be a $54 billion swing from projected deficit to surplus in the April-to-June quarter, after an unanticipated gush of tax payments poured into the Treasury before the April 15 deadline. That prompted private forecasters to lower their deficit projections for the fiscal year that ends in September.

Lest we forget:

Quote of note:

"It is becoming obvious that there was a chronic disregard for the letter of the rules," a senior House Republican aide said. "The ethics committee could be looking at hundreds of cases."

Another official described the situation as "a circular firing squad," with each party in position to harm the other party's members. One GOP chairman called the current situation "mutually assured destruction."

Frankly, I'm as concerned about a chronic disregard for the spirit of the rules as well, but hey...

House GOP to Consider Tougher Lobbying Rules
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 5, 2005; A10

The Christian Complex
By George F. Will
Thursday, May 5, 2005; Page A25

...Religion is today banished from the public square? John Kennedy finished his first report to the nation on the Soviet missiles in Cuba with these words: "Thank you and good night." It would be a rash president who today did not conclude a major address by saying, as President Ronald Reagan began the custom of doing, something very like "God bless America."

Unbelievers should not cavil about this acknowledgment of majority sensibilities. But Republicans should not seem to require, de facto, what the Constitution forbids, de jure: "No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust."

So I'm reading this:

Air Force to Probe Religious Climate at Colorado Academy
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 4, 2005; A03

The Air Force said yesterday it is creating a task force to address the religious climate at the U.S. Air Force Academy, following allegations that its faculty and staff have pressured cadets to convert to evangelical Christianity.

The acting secretary of the Air Force, Michael L. Dominguez, ordered the task force to make a preliminary assessment by May 23 of the religious atmosphere on the Colorado Springs campus and its "relevance . . . to the entire Air Force."

...Last week, the Washington-based group Americans United for Separation of Church and State issued a 14-page report charging that there is "systematic and pervasive religious bias and intolerance at the highest levels of the Academy command structure."

...and you KNOW I have to go find that report, right? Well, that's not all I found. Americans United for Separation of Church and State been busy.

Americans United Challenges ‘Faith-Based’ Job Discrimination At Federally Funded Program In Pennsylvania
by Rob Boston

A job recently became available for someone willing and able to teach construction skills to inmates at the Bradford County Correctional Facility in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Applicants had to be general contractors familiar with the ins and outs of the building trade, such as estimating jobs and procuring supplies; they also had to be capable of supervising a crew of up to 10 men.

There was one more requirement: Anyone interested in the job had to be a Christian willing to share his or her faith if the opportunity to save a soul arose. Leading workers in prayer would also be an important part of the job.

How did a religious requirement like that get affixed to a job funded with taxpayer dollars?

Blame it on President George W. Bush.

Though not as sure as the preemptive pardons given to Tommy Franks, George Tenet and Paul Bremer, I must say I am impressed with the thought that went into this. It's like that chess move, that sacrifice that sets up checkmate in two.

Quote of note:

The judge initially expressed concern Monday when England told him she was following the direction of higher-ranking soldiers when she posed for the pictures. Pohl told her that this statement could jeopardize her guilty plea. England then conferred with her lawyers and changed her explanation, saying she knew at the time that what she did was wrong.

but...

Graner, who in civilian life worked as corrections officer, said that the widely circulated photo of England holding a naked prisoner on a leash was not abuse, but rather a standard method guards use to control unruly prisoners.

One of the charges against England was that she "did conspire" with Graner to mistreat prisoners. If Graner and England believed that use of the leash was proper, the judge concluded, there was no crime.

"There is no finding of guilt that can be accepted any longer," Pohl said.

Judge Rejects Guilty Plea in Iraq Abuse Case
By T.R. Reid
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 5, 2005; A01

Daddy Dobson
Arguably America's most powerful conservative, James Dobson throws his weight around Washington--and people listen.
By Howard Fineman

...He s the kind of guy that anyone might want to talk to about their kids, and you have a sense that the discussion would be polite, even if you disagreed. It's that decency and civility that has made Dobson such a force in the country.

But politics is another matter. He was venomous on the topic of the federal judiciary, which he sees largely as a coven of secular ayatollahs imposing a pro-abortion, pro-pornography, pro-gay-and-lesbian agenda on a Christian nation. He and his lieutenants have become deeply versed in the voting records and election prospects of the senators who will handle the judicial nominations.

That's what I think all this tracking down of past heroes of the Segregationist South is. It's as if the Old Testament deity middle America worships told Abraham's son to sacrifice his father.

Quote of note:

Though the five-year statute of limitations in effect in 1955 means no federal charges could be brought, Mississippi state charges could still apply, Acosta said.

Body of Emmett Till to be exhumed
By Don Babwin
The Associated Press

CHICAGO   Nearly 50 years after 14-year-old Emmett Till's slaying shocked a nation and galvanized the civil rights movement, his body will be exhumed as federal authorities attempt to determine who killed him, the FBI said today.

Till's body, buried in a cemetery in the Chicago suburb of Alsip, will be exhumed within the next few weeks so the Cook County Medical Examiner's office can conduct an autopsy, said Deborah Madden, spokeswoman for the FBI's office in Jackson, Miss.

I was at Columbia University at a reading by Sonya Sanchez…and, it turned out, a number of her students. The young men and women got flow...some more than others. One guy looked my age or better, did a thing called "Frankie and Johnie Re-do." That's how he said it, and I'm pretty sure that's how he wrote it, "re-do" not "redux."

I have a weird relationship with poetry. There are poems I like and poets I like but I'm not sure I like Poetry the Capitalized Essence. I used to write it but at the moment there's no poetry in me.

I brought my cheapo voice recorder with me because I'm still experimenting. You get to hear none of it though, for two reasons:

1. Being a Capitalist Nationalist™, I care about copyrights, so I asked Ms. Sanchez' permission to post the recording. Not knowing my ass from Adam but having the request presented to her by a professor who knows I show for that sort of thing on the regular and so probably ain't evil (though Ms. Sanchez is, in a good way...later...) she wanted to talk to me about why I wanted to post it. Good enough...and to save time so she could get on with the show I gave her a card with my sites' URLs and my email address. I asked her to look around to see if it's the sort of site she could accept having her work appear on, and promised not to post it unless she sent me permission by email. And since I just got back she can't possibly have sent me a message yet. So you can't possibly hear it yet.
2. The recording sucked because of ambient noise, so I ain't gonna do it anyway. If you read this Sister Sanchez, thanks for the open-minded consideration. I may use a 10 second sample for this concept but trust me...with the ambient noise it's not recognizable as you or your work.

It would have been a goodie, though. Surprisingly, it turns out what I'd like to post is her lead-in to the poetry. She started out by saying it was good for the students to read before an audience because you talks about stuff in class,tell them something needs works and when the read in front of a bunch of people they find out yes, it does need work. Maybe you had to be there, but we all thought that was hysterically evil.

Sent to the SF Chron:

I understand that, outside the editorial pages, newspaper articles fall into three basic types: information, entertainment and titillation. It is sometimes hard to be sure which category an article falls into.

After considering your…latest…series on “Black men on the down low,” I’ve decided it falls into the titillation category. That may not have been the intent, but research points in a totally different direction than your article does.

In February 2005, the 12th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections had a session titled The Evolving HIV Epidemic: Risk Behavior, Incidence, and Prevalence. The abstracts of the presentations are available online, and I would like to quote from The Prevalence of HIV in the United States Household Population: The National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, 1988 to 2002:

Quote of note:

Mateo said "remorse is not what we're looking for."

Mateo said his group filed a complaint against Wilbanks during a 15-minute meeting Tuesday with Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter. Mateo said he'd like the prosecutor to make community service in the Hispanic community part of any sentence for the runaway bride.

"She needs to understand that she caused a lot of harm to Hispanics in her community and around the nation," Mateo said.

Hispanics: Group promises pressure
By TASGOLA KARLA BRUNER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/04/05

FBI mistake let suspected serial killer go free
By DON PLUMMER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/04/05

FBI officials in Washington admitted Tuesday they botched fingerprint tests on a suspected serial killer, allowing him to slip through the hands of Georgia authorities before he allegedly murdered four more women, including a Forsyth County hairdresser.

Jeremy Brian Jones was arrested and jailed over minor offenses three times —  twice in Douglas County, in October 2003 and in June 2004   and once in Carroll County, in January 2004.

Local law enforcement agencies in both counties fingerprinted Jones, who is now a suspect in as many as 20 slayings, and sent the prints to the FBI. However, the FBI didn't match those prints to Jones, who had given police an alias and was wanted in Oklahoma for sexual assault.

So Jones was released.

As a result, the FBI said Tuesday in a statement, "law enforcement lost an opportunity to prevent further criminal activity by this individual."

"The FBI regrets this incident," said Thomas E. Bush III, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division. "We continue to improve our procedures and examine new technologies to upgrade and enhance the reliability and accuracy of [the fingerprint system]."

Coretta King 'fine' after hospital stay
By MAE GENTRY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/04/05

Coretta Scott King is being treated for a heart condition and was hospitalized briefly last week after being transported by ambulance from her Buckhead condominium.

The widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spent the night of April 26 at Piedmont Hospital. She was released the next day, her 78th birthday, said her son Martin Luther King III.

"She's fine," he said Tuesday. "She actually had to have a procedure done, but she's back at home."

He did not identify the procedure.

Feds sound new warning about marijuana use

By Pauline Jelinek, Associated Press Writer  |  May 4, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Youngsters who use marijuana are more likely to develop serious mental health problems, the government said Tuesday.

Quote of note:

''I chose to stay, which I'm not sure was a wise move," he said. ''But I wanted to see how far they would go for asking something simple." Parker said he wanted to control ''the timing and manner" in which his son learned about ''adult themes."

''This is not about creating a forum for hate . . . for any segment of society," Parker said after his arraignment. ''I'm just trying to be a good dad."

Since the books under consideration are entirely unoffensive ("Who's In a Family" teaches that gay folks have families too) I'm not sure why "the first alarm went off." And if he's "trying to be a good dad," I don't understand why he wants his son to be ignorant."

But it is his kid.

I would be willing to advise him of the nature of any lessons of any type his children will be given. And if he insists his child be excluded, I would do that as well. But he would have to provide the alternate activity the child will need in order notto be sitting alone in an empty room for 15-20 minutes a day. And if the child asked why he had to leave the room, he WOULD be told, "Because your parents don't want you to know what we're talking about."

I think that's fair.

Arrested father had point to make
Disputed school's lesson on diversity
By Maria Cramer and Ralph Ranalli, Globe Staff  |  April 29, 2005

Quote of note:

It has become almost routine for corporate executives to enrich themselves enormously while slashing jobs, forcing concessions from workers, or stripping benefits, and that's the shame.

Bad image for Polaroid
May 2, 2005

IT'S ANOTHER disturbing snapshot of a corporate sale: the short-time chairman and the CEO of the Polaroid Corp. walk away with a combined payout of $21.3 million, while retirees with decades of service face the future without the healthcare and life insurance benefits they believed would always be there. So much for the once-proud image of the Waltham-based company.

Quote of note:

It is also an example of the power that these two minority groups, which have long kept their distance politically, can wield when they work together. Analysts say only a handful of long-gone big-city mayors -- David Dinkins in New York, Harold Washington in Chicago, and Federico Peña in Denver -- have benefited from such a black-Latino coalition.

The Los Angeles race also is seen as a statement of the potential of Latino political power. Long dogged by low turnout and poor organization, Latinos in this city and elsewhere in California have matured into a formidable force that could foreshadow increased clout in other parts of the country.

Black-Latino alliance buoys LA mayor candidate
By Brian MacQuarrie, Globe Staff  |  May 4, 2005

How?

Um...nevermind...

E-mail addles the mind
Endless messaging rots brain worse than pot, study finds
- Benjamin Pimentel, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 4, 2005

What's more harmful -- taking a hit or hitting the send button?

One study commissioned by Hewlett-Packard has found that excessive day-to-day use of technology -- whether it's sending e-mails or using mobile phones -- can be more distracting and harmful to the IQ than smoking marijuana.

Just Your Average Mayhem
May 4, 2005

The statisticians calmly tell us that the recent rash of Southern California freeway shootings  — eight, with four people dead —  in the last few weeks is not far off the average, even if they're spaced closer together than usual and the circumstances are harder to explain. Though no regional numbers are available, the city of Los Angeles averages a little more than 40 freeway shootings a year, with one to four fatalities over each of the last four years. This year's 11 incidents so far in L.A., and two deaths, are close to that average.

Should we be reassured or horrified?

The shootings are in the news for their seeming inexplicability: few evident gang connections and in most cases no obvious road rage. The thread connecting the victims is that they're mostly young males, a real risk factor in gang-plagued neighborhoods. After that, nothing. Not race, not type of car, not location, not time.

Quote of note 1:

"When you control a man's thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him to stand here or go yonder. He will find his 'proper place' and stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary."

Quote of note 2:

But the lesson of the recent upheavals at Columbia University —  where an individual professor became the object of a concerted campaign of intimidation because of his criticisms of Israel —  is that pressure groups targeting an individual professor for his public views are willing to inflict collateral damage on an entire university. What the new legislation offers such groups is the opportunity to inflict damage preemptively on our entire educational system.

Neocons Lay Siege to the Ivory Towers
By Saree Makdisi,

Creating Reasons to Go to War
by Congressman John Conyers
Mon May 2nd, 2005 at 13:02:58 PDT

Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States was too busy with wall-to-wall coverage of a "runaway bride" to cover a bombshell report out of the British newspapers. The London Times reports that the British government and the United States government had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in 2002, before authorization was sought for such an attack in Congress, and had discussed creating pretextual justifications for doing so.

Okay, so I wasn't speaking of it yet.

Quote of note:

"This is an industry that does drive pricing in many sectors," Spitzer told reporters, "Insurance is integral to what we do." (emphasis added)

Spitzer scolds White House over insurance scandals
Tue May 3, 2005 2:48 AM ET
By Reed Stevenson

SEATTLE (Reuters) - New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who is running for state governor in 2006, criticized President Bush's administration on Monday for failing to expose illegal practices in the U.S. insurance industry.

Quote of note:

For the secret documents   seen by The Sunday Times   reveal that on that Tuesday in 2002:

* Blair was right from the outset committed to supporting US plans for  regime change  in Iraq.
* War was already  seen as inevitable .
* The attorney-general was already warning of grave doubts about its legality.

Straw even said the case for war was  thin . So Blair and his inner circle set about devising a plan to justify invasion.

"If the political context were right," said Blair, "people would support regime change." Straightforward regime change, though, was illegal. They needed another reason.

By the end of the meeting, a possible path to invasion was agreed and it was noted that Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, chief of the defence staff,  would send the prime minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week .

Blair planned Iraq war from start
Michael Smith

The secret Downing Street memo

SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY

DAVID MANNING

From: Matthew Rycroft

Date: 23 July 2002

S 195 /02

cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell

IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY

Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.

This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.

John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.

They actually came to get me (via the Email me link):

Submitted on May 3 2005 - 4:09pm
your name : Melanie Alston-Akers
email : [email protected]
your topic : Future of the Progressive Movement Online Discussion

your message : START MAKING SENSE: A CONVERSATION ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT

Wednesday May 4:
1:00 PM – 5:00 PM EST
10:00 AM – 2:00 PM PST
http://www.movingideas.org/chat/AlterNet/AlterNet.php

Join AlterNet and Moving Ideas (www.movingideas.org) for a conversation with bold progressive thinkers, writers, and activists about creative and practical solutions for building the progressive grassroots strength we need to turn our country around.

This is a combined test of a voice recorder, Audacity's MP3 capabilities and Drupal's upload/attachment/RSS enclosure functionality.

It's some of my musings that turned into a post that strikes me as considerably shorter than the rambling thoughts that produced it. I was walking down the street making everyone think I was crazy as I recorded.

Ugly Children May Get Parental Short Shrift
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

Parents would certainly deny it, but Canadian researchers have made a startling assertion: parents take better care of pretty children than they do ugly ones.

Researchers at the University of Alberta carefully observed how parents treated their children during trips to the supermarket. They found that physical attractiveness made a big difference.

The researchers noted if the parents belted their youngsters into the grocery cart seat, how often the parents' attention lapsed and the number of times the children were allowed to engage in potentially dangerous activities like standing up in the shopping cart. They also rated each child's physical attractiveness on a 10-point scale.

Steppin' dance experiencing S. Florida resurgence
BY NATALIE P. McNEAL

The lights are low on this Friday night at Hallandale Beach's Millennium Ballroom, a modest hall tucked into one of South Florida's dozens of nondescript strip malls.

The mirrored walls and wooden floors have been transformed from a banquet hall into a destination for a steppers' ball.

The men have traded their distressed jeans and Air Force Ones for tailored suits and polished spectator shoes. The women are wearing strappy cocktail dresses and three-inch heels.

No hip-hop couture here. The look is grown and sexy.

The article requires registration, which is slightly unfortunate because there's an interactive thingie there that made me annoyed with the quoted section.

Quote of note:

Throughout Monday, Department of Children & Families officials, who have vigorously fought the girl's effort to terminate her pregnancy, declined to talk.

In a statement released at 8 p.m., the DCF's West Palm Beach spokeswoman, Marilyn Munoz, quoted from a state law: ''In no case shall the department consent to sterilization, abortion or termination of life support.'' Munoz added: ``The DCF has the custodial responsibility to do what is in the best interest of the child, as state law requires.''

Translation: Fuck all judges.

State again halts teen's abortion
A Palm Beach County judge ruled that a 13-year-old foster child is free to end an unwanted pregnancy, but state officials again intervened before she could act.
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER

A 13-year-old Palm Beach County foster child at the center of a legal battle over her right to end an unwanted pregnancy got permission from a judge Monday to get an abortion -- but was thwarted shortly afterward when state child-welfare officials appealed.

Do It Yourself: The Home Heart Defibrillator
By BARNABY J. FEDER

It sounds compelling: be your household's own paramedic by wielding the electrodes that could restart a loved one's heart.

But some doctors and other emergency medicine experts are skeptical of the product making that promise - HeartStart Home, which at a list price of $1,995 is the first external heart defibrillator for sale without a prescription.

External defibrillators in the hands of trained professionals can and do save thousands of lives each year. That it is why they have made their way beyond emergency rooms and ambulances to be widely installed at airports, gyms and other public places.

People behave better when they're sure everyone is packing.

Quote of note:

Secretly, everyone wants to believe that the shootings have been motivated by violations, however slight, of automotive honor. That would leave the rest of us on our best behavior, which is pretty much where we already are.

What we really fear is that they are genuinely unmotivated. If that is true, then suddenly we all live in a very different neighborhood.

The Psychology of Los Angeles Freeways and the Effect of Recent Shootings

...There have been at least seven attacks in the last 10 weeks, four of them fatal, the worst outbreak of apparently random freeway shootings in the Los Angeles area since 1987, when five people were killed. It has taken awhile for the news to soak in, but last Sunday's shooting seemed to tip the balance.

Quote of note:

"They are buzzing above you like buzzards," said Brad Lancaster, the director of emergency medical services in Murray County, south of Oklahoma City.

Okay, this one too.

Last year, the number of flights paid for by Medicare alone was 58 percent higher than in 2001. Spending by Medicare, which increased its rate of reimbursement for airlifts in 2002 and set a higher rate for patient pickups in rural areas, has more than doubled, to $103 million, over the same period.

In some cases, helicopters can transport seriously ill or injured patients to a hospital more quickly than by ground. But the industry's rapid expansion has taken place amid scant oversight of both flight safety and medical quality. The medical capabilities of competing helicopter concerns can vary sharply.

Meanwhile, deaths in crashes have reached alarming levels and questions remain about the effectiveness of air ambulances.

In the past, medical helicopters were largely operated by hospitals. But increasingly, aviation companies run them like independent air taxis that respond to emergency calls or ferry patients between hospitals.

As Medical Airlifts Proliferate, the Public Price Tag Is Rising
By BARRY MEIER

Quote of note:

Resistance to polio vaccine has been high from northern Nigeria to the Pakistan frontier because of persistent rumors that it is a Western plot to render Muslim girls infertile or to spread AIDS. Paradoxically, after several states in Muslim northern Nigeria halted vaccinations in 2003, it was purchases of Indonesian vaccine that persuaded wary imams and politicians to drop their opposition, because it is a Muslim country.

African Strain of Polio Virus Hits Indonesia
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

A case of polio has been detected in Indonesia, World Health Organization officials said yesterday, indicating that an outbreak spreading from northern Nigeria since 2003 has crossed an ocean and reached the world's fourth most populous country.

Congress May Require Closer Scrutiny to Get a Driver's License
By MATTHEW L. WALD and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: May 3, 2005

WASHINGTON, May 2 - Congress is moving quickly toward setting strict rules on how states issue driver's licenses, requiring them to verify whether each applicant for a new license or a renewal is in this country legally.

A House and Senate conference now taking place has included the requirements, which apply to all 50 states and other jurisdictions that issue licenses, in a supplemental appropriations bill for Iraq, aides involved in the process said on Monday. The draft legislation will be completed in the next few days and is all but certain to pass.

This is going to make the still-unresolved Plame case look like a walk in the park.

Quote of note:

The officials who discussed the assessment demanded anonymity because it is a classified document.

Pentagon Says Iraq Effort Limits Ability to Fight Other Conflicts
By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, May 2 - The concentration of American troops and weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan limits the Pentagon's ability to deal with other potential armed conflicts, the military's highest ranking officer reported to Congress on Monday.

The officer, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, informed Congress in a classified report that major combat operations elsewhere in the world, should they be necessary, would probably be more protracted and produce higher American and foreign civilian casualties because of the commitment of Pentagon resources in Iraq and Afghanistan.

NPR has audio, a short book excerpt and links to related articles on the other side of the link.

Educator Kenneth Clark and His Fight for Integration

Educator and psychologist Kenneth Clark died Sunday in New York at age 90. Clark and his wife Mamie were the originators of the famous doll studies on the harmful effects of racism on black children, cited in the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.

Clark was a lifelong opponent of segregation in any form and died pessimistic that his vision of an integrated society would be achieved. Margot Adler has a remembrance.

'Don't Ask' Rooming
By RANDY COHEN

I am a married, straight male teacher. On a business trip, I was required to room with another teacher, a gay man, or pay for my own room. The sole woman teacher on the trip was given a private room. When I mentioned my discomfort, my boss said it was a nonissue and not like asking straight men and women to share a room. Is it right to require straight and gay men to room together? Anonymous, Miami

It is. As it is right to have straight and gay ballplayers shower together. To arrange things otherwise is to impose a distasteful system of segregation. And while your colleague (or teammate) must treat you with courtesy and respect, you've offered no reason to think he would do less.

System requirements:
  USB 1.1 / 2.0 Interface
  Windows ® 98/SE* / ME / 2000 / XP, Mac OS X, Mac OS 8.6 and higher, Linux Kernel 2.4x and higher
  1 free USB-slot
*Windows 98 drivers available at www.swissbit.com/drivers

Package contents:
  SWISSMEMORY  
  USB-extension cable

Available in:
IT-Shops , shopping centers and specialized VICTORINOX stores

Manufacturer:
VICTORINOX, CH-6438 Ibach-Schwyz
Swissbit AG, Industriestrasse 4-8, 9552 Bronschhofen

Quote of note:

It's an adage that programs for the poor always turn into poor programs. That is, once a program is defined as welfare, it becomes a target for budget cuts.

You can see this happening right now to Medicaid, the nation's most important means-tested program. Last week Congress agreed on a budget that cuts funds for Medicaid (and food stamps), even while extending tax cuts on dividends and capital gains. States are cutting back, denying health insurance to hundreds of thousands of people with low incomes. Missouri is poised to eliminate Medicaid completely by 2008.

A Gut Punch to the Middle
By PAUL KRUGMAN

From 'Gook' to 'Raghead'
By BOB HERBERT

...Mr. Delgado's background is unusual. He is an American citizen, but because his father was in the diplomatic corps, he grew up overseas. He spent eight years in Egypt, speaks Arabic and knows a great deal about the various cultures of the Middle East. He wasn't happy when, even before his unit left the states, a top officer made wisecracks about the soldiers heading off to Iraq to kill some ragheads and burn some turbans.

"He laughed," Mr. Delgado said, "and everybody in the unit laughed with him."

The officer's comment was a harbinger of the gratuitous violence that, according to Mr. Delgado, is routinely inflicted by American soldiers on ordinary Iraqis. He said: "Guys in my unit, particularly the younger guys, would drive by in their Humvee and shatter bottles over the heads of Iraqi civilians passing by. They'd keep a bunch of empty Coke bottles in the Humvee to break over people's heads."

Quote of note:

In late March, on the recommendation of administration officials, Mr. Tomlinson hired the director of the White House Office of Global Communications as a senior staff member, corporation officials said. While she was still on the White House staff, she helped draft guidelines governing the work of two ombudsmen whom the corporation recently appointed to review the content of public radio and television broadcasts.

Republican Chairman Exerts Pressure on PBS, Alleging Biases
By STEPHEN LABATON, LORNE MANLY and ELIZABETH JENSEN

WASHINGTON, May 1 - The Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is aggressively pressing public television to correct what he and other conservatives consider liberal bias, prompting some public broadcasting leaders - including the chief executive of PBS - to object that his actions pose a threat to editorial independence.

Quote of note:

Council members, in particular, say the Amicone administration has done more to lose the trust of parents than to gain it, and they are loath to give the mayor's office more power.

As an example, they point to the hiring of a 24-year-old accountant with almost no professional experience for a senior-level job that paid $90,100 a year. A report by the city comptroller released in February concluded that the accountant, Pietro Barberi, appeared to have gotten the job because of his personal connections to the schools superintendent, Angelo Petrone.

Four of the seven council members called for Mr. Petrone's resignation, but the school board gave him a vote of confidence.

Amid Disagreement in Yonkers, All Agree Schools Must Change
By JENNIFER MEDINA
Published: May 2, 2005

Time Warner Loses Data on 600,000 Employees

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Time Warner Inc. on Monday said data on 600,000 current and former employees stored on computer back-up tapes was lost by an outside storage company, which the U.S. Secret Service is now investigating.

Time Warner's data storage company, Boston-based Iron Mountain Inc. , lost the tapes during transport, Time Warner said.

The world's largest media company and owners of America Online, HBO and Warner Brothers studio said the missing tapes contained data from Time Warner, including personal information on the employees. The tapes did not include personal data on Time Warner customers, it said.

Quote of note

Surviving Sudan

Discovery Times, tonight at 8, Eastern and Pacific times; 7, Central time.

That's cable. So you know where and when.

Reporting on a Hellish Situation From the Inside
By KEN TUCKER

Television journalism doesn't get much more participatory than "Surviving Sudan," a first-person plummet into the hellish conditions under which the displaced natives of Darfur live. Sorious Samura, the reporter and producer of the program, spent a month living among refugees traveling to a camp in Chad, where they hoped to find food and shelter. Over the course of the program, he quickly sketches in the details of what the United Nations has termed one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world - countless instances of murder, rape, arson and starvation since fighting began in 2003 between the rebels of the Sudan Liberation Army and the janjaweed, the government-backed Arab militia.

If they seriously pursue it, I approve. However, there's the problem that the assemblage of existing laws they're cobbling together will be allowed to fall apart in a few years.

Anyway...

With Little Fanfare, a New Effort to Prosecute Employers That Flout Safety Laws
By DAVID BARSTOW and LOWELL BERGMAN
Published: May 2, 2005

For decades, the most egregious workplace safety violations have routinely escaped prosecution, even when they led directly to deaths or grievous injuries. Safety inspectors hardly ever called in the Justice Department. Congress repeatedly declined to toughen criminal laws for workplace deaths. Employers with extensive records of safety violations often paid insignificant fines and continued to ignore basic safety rules.

Yesterday I linked to an article about a study that linked racism to health problems in Black folk.

The article was based on information provided by SWAN

The Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN) is a multi-site longitudinal, epidemiologic study designed to examine the health of women during their middle years. The study examines the physical, biological, psychological and social changes during this transitional period. The goal of SWAN’s research is to help scientists, health care providers and women learn how mid-life experiences affect health and quality of life during aging. The study is co-sponsored by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Office of Research on Women’s Health, and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
The study began in 1994 and is in its eighth year. Between 1996 and 1997, 3,302 participants joined SWAN through seven designated research centers. The research centers are located in the following communities: Ypsilanti and Inkster, MI (University of Michigan), Boston, MA (Massachusetts General Hospital), Chicago, IL (Rush Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center), Alameda and Contra Costa County, CA (University of California Davis and Kaiser Permanente), Los Angeles, CA (University of California at Los Angeles), Newark, NJ (University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-New Jersey Medical School), and Pittsburgh, PA (University of Pittsburgh). SWAN participants represent five racial/ethnic groups and a variety of backgrounds and cultures.

Typical of me, I had to go see what else I could find of interest. I found references to previously published manuscripts they used in the ongoing study (all manner of file formats going on there...).

Quote of note:

Instead, some political analysts say it is just as likely that Washington is witnessing a happens-all-the-time phenomenon -- the mistaken assumption by politicians that an election won on narrow grounds is a mandate for something broad.

Doubts About Mandate for Bush, GOP
By John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, May 2, 2005; A01

The day after he won a second term in November, President Bush offered his view of the new political landscape.

"When you win there is a feeling that the people have spoken and embraced your point of view," he said, "and that's what I intend to tell the Congress, that I made it clear what I intend to do as president . . . and the people made it clear what they wanted, now let's work together."

Quote of note:

And here we sit wondering how we would have controlled a 5-year-old child instead of asking ourselves how we can reconnect the disaffected among us -- even how we might mend the potentially tragic relationship between this child and her 31-year-old single mother.

...Can't we let this 5-year-old be our miner's canary -- a warning to us about the growing toxicity of our society?

We could do these things, of course. But we probably won't. We'll use this sad case to spur our own hobby horses: to extend civil liberties to children, to promote charter schools or vouchers, to argue that the police are racists, and to claim that teachers are either unprepared or underpaid.

And -- oh, yes -- for money. The mother whose child seems so obviously headed for trouble found herself a lawyer.

Society's Toxins, Caught on Tape
By William Raspberry
Monday, May 2, 2005; Page A17

Owners Hold Off On Sales Of Homes
Unable to Move Up In a Tight Market, Many Just Stay Put
By Sandra Fleishman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 2, 2005; A01

The super-charged local real estate market that has sent home prices soaring is increasingly leaving prospective sellers hesitant to put their homes on the market, believing they cannot find an affordable move-up house, according to real estate agents.

That, in turn, is translating to a tighter supply of homes for sale.

"This is a fear of being homeless and not finding anything, which is a well-founded fear," said Ron Sitrin, a Long & Foster Real Estate Inc. agent in the District. "But the more a potential move-up buyer is afraid to put his home on the market, the more difficulty people will have finding homes. It's a giant Catch-22."

The gold standard of style
No longer just for tough guys, glittering grills go mainstream
- Meredith May, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, May 1, 2005

Prom dress -- check. Corsage -- check.

Gold teeth -- check.

At this month's prom, Mika Castro is going to be the bling of the ball. The 18-year-old chose removable gold teeth covers, or "grills," to make fashion history at Westmoor High in Daly City.

"I like the way they shine," said Castro, showing off a row of eight gilded teeth behind her bottom lip. "No one at our school has them, but I'm starting to see them on girls on the bus more often."

Pop Quiz: Facts to Back Up the Blather

Pundits spew bitter screeds about its horrors and folkies ululate about its heartbreak in songs, but how much do you really know about the human species' eternal, often unsettling movement about the globe? —  Sarah Grausz

LATER: Okay, I got a 68%...not that great, but most of what I missed was about Europe more than the USofA.

Quote of note !:

At my block association meetings, I am routinely swept up in well-meaning discussions with my fellow homeowners which are inevitably aimed at protecting our own individual property values and interests. When I think of myself narrowly as a homeowner, my backyard becomes my universe. Everything from dog poop on my lawn to subsidized housing on the corner becomes a threat. I get in touch with self-defensive, reactionary and parochial impulses I never knew I had. 

Quote of note 2:

Yet it is misguided to fetishize homeownership, assign it mystical virtues or measure an individual's value to society based on what he or she owns.  If the goal of President Bush's Ownership Society is to create stakeholders who are responsible, contributing members of society, we need national leadership that can discern consumerism from citizenship.

Consumer Versus Community
Mark Winston Griffith
March 31, 2005

Quote of note:

The impulse to share risks and opportunities, he says, shouldn't be inspired by altruism or charity. "What people don't realize is in so many ways it is in their self-interest to work in cooperation and in concert," he says.

The domestic challenge ahead for Democrats is to build a case for cooperation as compelling as the one Bush is constructing for ownership. With his fresh voice in this debate, Griffith may have started them on the way.

A Fresh Voice Sees the Downside of Bush's 'Ownership Society'
Ronald Brownstein
Washington Outlook
May 2, 2005

Mark Winston Griffith has spent most of his career helping low-income and minority families enter what President Bush calls "the ownership society."

Quote of note:

"There's no law that will give artists the backbone to weather a fight with the record companies," said California State Sen. Kevin Murray (D-Culver City), an artists' rights advocate and former entertainment lawyer. "Gospel is where rap was 10 years ago. The artists are unsophisticated and there aren't a lot of high-powered attorneys, so the labels can push tough negotiators out. The problem is, some lawyers may be tough but not very competent. It's hard for clients to tell which one they've got."

Gospel Artists Forced to Ponder Root of All Evil
A lawyer's suit against a Sony BMG record label stirs up questions about money and mission.
By Charles Duhigg
Times Staff Writer

Quote of note:

"I think we are looking at one of the weakest Treasury Departments in my working lifetime," said Ken Guenther, a former Treasury official in the Ford administration and an advisor to three Federal Reserve chairmen. "It's not playing the role it should be playing on fiscal policy, tax policy, trade policy. The power base on those issues has moved to the White House and the Federal Reserve."

A Traveling Salesman Far From the Treasury
By Warren Vieth
Times Staff Writer
May 2, 2005

WASHINGTON   When President Bush decided two months ago to step up his campaign for Social Security restructuring, he assembled his Cabinet. Everyone was expected to play a part, Bush said, but the principal pitch man would be Treasury Secretary John W. Snow.

"You need to be the guy on the Hill . You need to be the guy doing the private meetings . You need to be the guy doing the media and traveling," Bush told Snow, according to one administration official's account of the session.

And Snow has been.

Treasury officials say the secretary has spent more than half of his time on Social Security. He has crisscrossed the country promoting Bush's proposal to let younger workers open individual investment accounts as part of an emerging plan to shore up the retirement system.

Only Bush has been more prominent in promoting the plan.

Yet, as the administration's "60 Stops in 60 Days" road show wrapped up Sunday, there was little evidence that the barnstorming efforts had eased widespread public skepticism about the president's plan.

And in the view of some Treasury watchers, including several former department officials who worked in Republican administrations, Snow's role as traveling salesman has contributed to a broader perception that the Treasury Department's influence and stature have declined since Bush took office.

One problem with this line of research.

What constitutes a "dose" of prayer? How does one define prayer? Is channeling Buddhist intention or reiki energy the same thing as praying to a Judeo-Christian God? And how do you determine whether it was prayer that made a patient better, or something else, such as the placebo effect?

"There are enormous methodological and conceptual problems with the studies of distant prayer," said Dr. Richard Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University in New York.

There's a lot of stuff about being human that at first blush looks to be non-physical in derivation (like mob psychology) because we only directly perceive the effect of whatever causes it. I think the recently discovered mirror neurons and the placebo effect are at the root of much of it. But you can't get 15 grams of placebo effect either.

Anyway, this is beyond testing scientifically.

Far-off healing
Many Americans pray for the health of loved ones; others turn to shamans or reiki. Now science is putting these practices to the test.
By Hilary E. MacGregor
Times Staff Writer
May 2, 2005

The editor is great, but it has it's limits. Specifically, it's compatible with Internet Explorer, Netscape and Firebird (i.e. Gecko powered browsers). But it seems to have difficulty with Apple browsers.

Therefore, you will now see radio buttons to select an Input format underneath the editor.

If you're having problems with the editor, you can go into your account profile and turn it off. You'll havethe standard textarea then. You'll have to select the Filtered HTML format, which lets you use safe tags and converts line breaks into paragraphs, just like in the old days.

While  I'm at it, I'll mention something that's my problem, but that you can help with. I've noticed folks will italicize a quote, hit enter then leave "italic mode." The HTML for the comment looks like this:

If I had told some of those jokes, I'd probably be followed by the Secret Service for the next three weeks.

But they already follow her, so I guess she figured, oh, what the heck...

Too bad I can't legally post his interview with George Stephanopolis today.

Study Links Discrimination, Blacks' Health
Stress From Persistent, Subtle Slights May Increase Heart Disease Risk in Women
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 1, 2005; A17

When Sandi Stokes waits for lunch at the sandwich shop near her office in downtown Washington, she notices the counter worker often assumes the white person next to her was there first.

Brenda Person frequently finds that when she goes shopping near her home in Silver Spring, clerks seem to ignore her and instead help a white customer.

Peggy Geigher, a District resident, says restaurant hostesses often seem to seat her near the bathroom, even when better tables are available.

Proof teenagers can sometimes think more clearly than any adult (of note):

Meanwhile, Judge Alvarez directed a court psychologist to examine L.G. The psychologist's findings: that although the girl appeared "to have a mild mood disorder," her psychological state did not "interfere with rational decision making." The judge also held a hearing on Thursday in which both sides offered witnesses. An expert presented by L.G.'s lawyers testified that she faced a higher risk of death from carrying the baby to term than from aborting it, while a DCF witness described the potential for "post-abortion syndrome" though he acknowledged that the supposed condition isn't formally recognized by either the American Medical Association or American Psychiatric Association. In that same hearing, Alvarez asked L.G. about her decision-making skills. "That is another reason I shouldn't have [the baby]," she replied, according to an audio recording of the court hearing. "I can't make good decisions for myself, so what makes you think I can make good decisions for a baby?"

Quote of note:

Critics of DCF's intervention say it's just the latest example of Governor Jeb Bush's attempt to advance his anti-abortion agenda. In 2003, for instance, he sought to appoint a guardian for the fetus of a mentally retarded woman who was raped. The case dragged on so long that the woman ended up having the baby though the Florida Supreme Court ended up ruling against Bush. And then, of course, there was the governor's recent attempt to have DCF take custody of Terri Schiavo so that it could reinsert her feeding tube after her husband and legal guardian ordered it removed.

Given that track record, says Howard Simon of the ACLU's Florida chapter, "it would take a blind man to not only [not] see the politics involved, but also the pattern of political influence used by this governor and his administration." A Bush spokesman's response: "The governor thinks that this is a very sad and tragic situation, but it's now up to the courts to decide." Though Bush seems less eager this time around to insert himself in a polarizing debate, abortion opponents are urging him to do so. "The eyes of the nation continue to focus on life and death issues in Florida," wrote activist Randall Terry in a letter to Bush. "Under no circumstances should L.G.'s baby be killed by abortion. I am begging you to not allow a repeat of the [Terri Schiavo] fiasco."

The Case of L.G.
When a 13-year-old ward of the state in Florida sought an abortion, the bureaucracy balked. Is another  culture of life  battle brewing?
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Catharine Skipp, Lynn Waddell and Arian Campo-Flores
Newsweek

Fareed Zakaria

To get a sense of how completely China dominates low-cost manufacturing, consider Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is America's — and the world's — largest corporation. Its revenues are eight times those of Microsoft, and make up 2 percent of America's GDP. It employs 1.4 million people, more than GM, Ford, GE and IBM put together. It is legendary for its efficient — some would say ruthless — efforts to get the lowest price possible for its customers. In doing this, it has used technology, managerial innovation, but, perhaps most significantly, China. Last year Wal-Mart imported $18 billion worth of goods from China. Of Wal-Mart's 6,000 suppliers, 5,000 — 80 percent — are in one country, and it isn't the United States.

Abramoff Breaks Silence About Investigations
By David Finkel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 1, 2005; Page A07

Jack Abramoff, the Washington lobbyist who is under federal investigation for his lobbying activities on behalf of Indian tribes and is a central figure in separate probes into alleged ethical improprieties by his close friend House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), has begun publicly defending himself after months of silence.

In an interview with Time magazine, portions of which have been posted on the magazine's Web site in advance of tomorrow's publication date, Abramoff said the tribes that hired him for help with casino licensing applications and paid him tens of millions of dollars got their money's worth.

The question is, was it legal?

The writer is a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and was an economic adviser in the Reagan administration.

Oh.

I asked because he wrote an editorial in the Washington Post on How to Fix Health Care today.

...Social Security today is the chief topic of conversation, but it's no secret that health care costs for the elderly will increase much more than retirement payments and much more quickly.

If we are to provide health care for seniors in superior and ultimately cheaper ways, we must face critical facts that point the way to effective, long-term Medicare reform:

"Superior" means "cheaper." Keep that in mind so you know what to expect from this crew.

George Will has opened the door to an important truth.

What Ails GM
By George F. Will
Sunday, May 1, 2005; Page B07

Who knew? Speculation about which welfare state will be the first to buckle under the strain of the pension and medical costs of aging populations usually focuses on European nations with declining birthrates and aging populations. Who knew the first to buckle would be General Motors, with Ford not far behind?

GM is a car and truck company -- for the 74th consecutive year, the world's largest -- and has revenue greater than Arizona's gross state product. But GM's stock price is down 45 percent from a year ago; its market capitalization is smaller than Harley-Davidson's. This is partly because GM is a welfare state.

He finally admits the way to view multinationals like GM is as a nation-state.

Quote of note:

"Is there any limit to how many fake asylum applicants should be let in in order to keep one legitimate applicant from being deported?" asked Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. "In order not to send this person back, do you have to say yes to everybody?"

Strong implication that a significant portion of asylum seekers are liars.

How about asking if there's any limit to how many people in need of asylum should be rejected to keep out the rare terrorist? How about giving them GPS bracelets while they're investigated?

Bill Shifts Burden to Asylum-Seekers
By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 1, 2005; A04

The Shoot-First State

LET'S SAY that you're behind the wheel and think someone wants to carjack your automobile and cause you bodily harm. Or suppose you get into a dispute with another shopper over a place in the supermarket's checkout line, and the shopper's aggressive behavior causes you to fear imminent peril. In both cases, you could -- and common sense suggests that you should -- retreat or back away from the scene if it can be done safely. But in Florida under a measure passed overwhelmingly by the state legislature last week, you would no longer have a duty to escape or retreat before resorting to the use of deadly force. The bill, signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Jeb Bush (R), will allow people in Florida -- without fear of criminal prosecution or civil action -- to shoot, stab or pummel to death anyone who causes them to fear for their lives outside of their homes, on the street, or in their cars or businesses. It's called the "Castle Doctrine," meaning your body, not just your home, is your castle and that you can stand your ground and meet force with force virtually anywhere if you reasonably believe injury or death might occur. A retired police officer in St. Petersburg, writing in the St. Petersburg Times, described the legislature's bill as the "citizens' right to shoot others on the street if they feel threatened" and asked, "Are they nuts?" That, we cannot answer.

Ex-Education Dept. Official Pleads Guilty

A former deputy undersecretary for safe and drug-free schools at the Education Department pleaded guilty to charging the government for personal travel, including trips to Texas, where he continued working as a visiting judge while employed in Washington.

Eric Andell's fraudulent expenses on 14 trips from late 2002 to September 2003 were motivated in part by his desire to accrue service time toward receipt of a pension from the state of Texas, the Justice Department said Friday.

He faces one year in prison and has agreed to reimburse the federal government $8,659.85. He will be sentenced July 29.

Andell, a former justice for the First Court of Appeals in Texas, made seven trips to Houston, documents filed in the case show.

Untangling a Lobbyist's Stake in a Casino Fleet
With Millions of Dollars Unaccounted for, Another Federal Investigation Targets Abramoff
By Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, May 1, 2005; A01

It was a gangland-style hit straight out of "Goodfellas."

A man in a BMW was driving down a quiet side street after an evening meeting at his Fort Lauderdale office when a car slowed to a stop in front of him. A second car boxed the BMW in from behind, then a dark Mustang appeared from the opposite direction. The Mustang's driver pulled alongside and pumped three hollow-point bullets into the BMW driver's chest.