I decided to check Technorati to see what folks are saying about At the Corner of Progress and Peril, the first article in a year-long series about Black men.

Here's a link to the search result. See if you can find the link to my post. I can't.

 

Gross of note:

Scientists have long known that at least 50 percent of human feces, and often more, is made up of bacteria from the gut. Bacteria start to colonize the intestines and colon shortly after birth, and adults carry up to 100 trillion microbes, representing more than 1,000 different species.

They are not just freeloading. They help humans to digest much of what we eat, including some vitamins, sugars, and fiber. They also synthesize vitamins that people cannot.

We are not entirely human, germ gene experts argue
Thu Jun 1, 2006 02:13 PM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - We may not be entirely human, gene experts said on Thursday after studying the DNA of hundreds of different kinds of bacteria in the human gut.

Bacteria are so important to key functions such as digestion and the immune system that we may be truly symbiotic organisms -- relying on one another for life itself, the scientists write in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

I would support a national DNA database for those convicted of significant crimes, if I could trust the folks who manage it...and I don't think I can at this point.

She and others want samples destroyed once the identifying profile has been extracted, but the FBI favors preserving them.

Sometimes authorities need access to those samples to make sure an old analysis was done correctly, said Thomas Callaghan, who oversees the FBI database. The agency also wants to be able to use new DNA identification methods on older samples as the science improves.

Without that option, Callaghan said, "you'd be freezing the database to today's technology."

I WANT the thing frozen. This:

The U.S. profiling system focuses on just 13 small regions of the DNA molecule -- regions that do not code for any known biological or behavioral traits but vary enough to give everyone who is not an identical twin a unique 52-digit number.

is quite enough. 

Vast DNA Bank Pits Policing Vs. Privacy
Data Stored on 3 Million Americans
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 3, 2006; A01

...Brimming with the genetic patterns of more than 3 million Americans, the nation's databank of DNA "fingerprints" is growing by more than 80,000 people every month, giving police an unprecedented crime-fighting tool but prompting warnings that the expansion threatens constitutional privacy protections.

With little public debate, state and federal rules for cataloging DNA have broadened in recent years to include not only violent felons, as was originally the case, but also perpetrators of minor crimes and even people who have been arrested but not convicted.

Now some in law enforcement are calling for a national registry of every American's DNA profile, against which police could instantly compare crime-scene specimens. Advocates say the system would dissuade many would-be criminals and help capture the rest.

I've linked several of Mr. Colbert's op-eds on Mr. Rosenbaum's murder and subsequent investigation. His pushing the issue is part of why the D.C. Police responded as they did. I approve of the articles. I have no real comment on Rev. Evans' letter because I don't have it.

Six columns about Rosenbaum have appeared on The Post's op-ed pages, all written by yours truly. Perhaps the Rev. Evans has also concluded that I regard David Rosenbaum as more important than a "nameless African American male." Otherwise why send me a copy of his letter to Wainstein?

If so, he deserves a response.

I've linked several of Mr. Colbert's op-eds on Mr. Rosenbaum's murder and subsequent investigation. His pushing the issue is part of why the D.C. Police responded as they did. I approve of the articles. I have no real comment on Rev. Evans' letter because I don't have it.

From Mr. Colbert's reaction, I suspect Rev. Evans may have done better by saying that, having shown it possible to investigate such crimes, this is now the standard to which D.C. Police investigations will be held by the community. By casting it as a "Black on Black crime" issue you move it from a law enforcement issue to a social sciences issue.

A Calculus of Race and Death?
By Colbert I. King
Saturday, June 3, 2006; Page A17

The Rev. Anthony Evans, president of the D.C. Black Church Initiative, unloaded both barrels at Kenneth Wainstein, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, in a May 19 letter addressed to Wainstein, copies of which were sent to me, other journalists and media outlets, and public officials, including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey.

The thrust of the Evans missive, which he elected to characterize as "moral outrage," is that Mr. Wainstein's office observes "a double standard when it comes to race." Evans, who is associate pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church at 14th and Gallatin streets NW, wrote Wainstein of his dismay that, in the face of an "alarming rate of Black-on-Black crime (especially males)" in the District, "you have demonstrated that you devalue the deaths of those individuals by the scant amount of resources that you have devoted to solving those cases."

Salvation, One Boy At a Time
By Jabari Asim
Saturday, June 3, 2006

While many of us lament or condemn the conditions of an "underclass" that threatens to become permanent, others are exploring and finding solutions. One of the problem-solvers is Salome Thomas-El , an educator in Philadelphia for nearly two decades. As a teacher and administrator at Vaux Middle School and as principal of Reynolds Elementary School, he has turned around the lives of many students for whom survival has been a constant uphill struggle.

His efforts have produced a steady stream of accomplished learners who have gone on to do well in college and in life. In addition, a number of his students have excelled at chess, winning national championships. Thomas-El, who wrote about his experiences in "I Choose to Stay," a 2003 memoir, shares more of his philosophy in a fascinating new book, "The Immortality of Influence."

Harlem, a Test Lab, Splits Over Charter Schools
By SUSAN SAULNY

...By the end of next year, Harlem will be home to 17 charter schools, publicly financed but privately run — more than in Staten Island, Queens and Lower Manhattan combined. The Bronx has a high concentration, too, but only Brooklyn is expected to have more charter schools by the end of next year.

Harlem also has dozens of struggling traditional schools and six of the Bloomberg administration's new small themed schools.

The variety is prompting sharp debate. Some parents in Harlem are delighted with the new choices and are showing up by the hundreds at lotteries for the limited charter school seats. Others charge that the charter schools are unproven and are milking the traditional public schools of the most promising students.

BBC news footage is on the other side of the link.

The video tape obtained by the BBC shows a number of dead adults and children at the site with what our world affairs editor John Simpson says were clearly gunshot wounds.

The pictures came from a hardline Sunni group opposed to coalition forces.

It has been cross-checked with other images taken at the time of events and is believed to be genuine, the BBC's Ian Pannell in Baghdad says.

New 'Iraq massacre' tape emerges

The BBC has uncovered new video evidence that US forces may have been responsible for the deliberate killing of 11 innocent Iraqi civilians.

The video appears to challenge the US military's account of events that took place in the town of Ishaqi in March.

The US said at the time four people died during a military operation, but Iraqi police claimed that US troops had deliberately shot the 11 people.

"Global warming" has turned out to be an unfortunate term. It made people expect a simple increase in temperature across the board rather than a complex cascade of events. 

"Catastrophic climate change" is more accurate.

"Identity theft" may turn out to be equally unfortunate.

What identity is there to steal if your account number is never associated with your name on a computerized record? Surely somebody must understand this. We should have a nameless banking service.

"Identity theft" isn't about copping your name or style or personality. It's about getting access to your assets. The account number is enough; more than enough when there's no personal information one can use to verify you're the person that owns the account.

Rumsfeld to tell Asian nations: don't leave US out
Fri Jun 2, 2006 05:44 AM ET
By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will urge Asian nations at a security meeting in Singapore to resist attempts to exclude the United States from regional groupings.

As the U.S. defense chief arrived in the city-state on Friday for the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, an aide said Rumsfeld would laud the inclusiveness of the forum in a region that has seen moves over the past year to leave Washington out in the cold.

"There are some efforts and systems that leave us out, and we obviously favor institutions that are inclusive rather than exclusive," said a senior Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Time Magazine has a multimedia report on the disease that follows the warfare in Africa. 19 image slide show, with audio. They chose not to be grotesque, which I appreciate.

...as regards Rep. Jefferson , the institutional moves are more important than the specific incident. More interesting, too.

E.J. Dionne

So don't be fooled by the hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on the Justice Department's supposed violation of congressional rights in an FBI search of Rep. William Jefferson's office in a bribery investigation.

The hearing was dominated by talk of abuses of power by long-dead monarchs and the need of the people's representatives for untrammeled communication with their constituents.

But Rep. James Sensenbrenner's committee was really sending a message as the House confronts a far-reaching corruption investigation: Nice little Justice Department you have there, Mr. Attorney General. Too bad if anything were to happen to it. Stop messing with us before we mess with you.

Two Important Rulings on AIDS

Federal judges in New York and the District of Columbia have declared unconstitutional a 2003 rule that limits the way U.S. health groups spend their privately raised money if they want to get federal money for international AIDS work.

Under this sweeping edict, nonprofits that want government support must sign a pledge saying they oppose prostitution and will not spend any money — public or private — on programs the government does not approve of. Many groups are wary of signing, not because they favor prostitution, but because it is an offense to free speech, and because they are worried about harming vital programs aimed at teaching prostitutes about condom use.

This is from the first of a year long series . I've only glanced at it so far, but what I've seen has some promise. Of course, a year is a LONG, LONG TIME; plenty of time to fuck it up.

At the Corner of Progress and Peril
Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 2, 2006; Page A01

What does it mean to be a black man? Imagine three African American boys, kindergartners who are largely alike in intelligence, talent and character, whose potential seems limitless. According to a wealth of statistics and academic studies, in just over a decade one of the boys is likely to be locked up or headed to prison. The second boy -- if he hasn't already dropped out -- will seriously weigh leaving high school and be pointed toward an uncertain future. The third boy will be speeding toward success by most measures.

Being a black man in America can mean inhabiting a border area between possibility and peril, to feel connected to, defined by, even responsible for each of those boys -- and for other black men. In dozens of interviews, black men described their shared existence, of sometimes wondering whether their accomplishments will be treated as anomalies, their individuality obscured by the narrow images that linger in the minds of others.

It begins well, and that's important. I'll definitely be back to this, probably today in fact. Some will be here but I get the feeling most of it will be at Intrapolitics.org.

The next time you hear or read Sowell , Carlson, Hannity or Limbaugh talking about injustice in the Duke lacrosse case, shoot them an e-mail or give them a phone call and ask them where their voices were when injustice was occurring in Tulia, Texas.

Commentary: Conservative Media Cries Injustice Over Duke Rape Claims, Yet Clam Up When Victims are Black
Date: Thursday, May 25, 2006
By: Gregory Kane, BlackAmericaWeb.com

Conservative pundits and columnists won’t let the story of rape allegations against the Duke lacrosse team go.

Now, thanks to a story in The Baltimore Sun, I think I know why.

Last week, black conservative Thomas Sowell wrote what was at least his second column on the Duke lacrosse matter. Sowell, like television talk show hosts Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson and radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, went on at length about what an injustice is being done to the three white Duke lacrosse players who have been charged with raping a black North Carolina Central University co-ed.

I don't need this. The Brooks Brothers Riot of 2000 was all I needed to see. You folks might find it useful to have the story and linked references all in one nice handy package, courtesy of Ourstorian.

Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House. BY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.

The complete article, with Web-only citations, follows. [P6: that is, it follows over there. Here, as usual, you get an abstract] For more, see exclusive documents, sources, charts and commentary.

Jonathan Alter's "A New Open-Source Politics " caught my attention because I came up with the name for the now-defunct Open Source Politics web site. I came up with that name because it was representative of what I thought it could be more than what it was.

Mr. Alter is introducing Unity08 .

We’re a movement to take our country back from polarizing politics. In 2008, we’ll select and elect a Unity Ticket to the White House— one Democrat, one Republican, in whatever order, or independents committed to a Unity team. We want you to join us - and you don't have to leave your party to do it.

Kevin Drum:

So what is it that Beinart really wants from antiwar liberals? The obvious answer is found less in policy than in rhetoric: we need to engage more energetically with the war on terror and criticize illiberal regimes more harshly.

Maybe so. But this is something that's nagged at me for some time. On the one hand, I think Beinart is exactly right. For example, should I be more vocal in denouncing Iran? Sure. It's a repressive, misogynistic, theocratic, terrorist-sponsoring state that stands for everything I stand against. Of course I should speak out against them.

And yet, I know perfectly well that criticism of Iran is not just criticism of Iran. Whether I want it to or not, it also provides support for the Bush administration's determined and deliberate effort to whip up enthusiasm for a military strike. Only a naif would view criticism of Iran in a vacuum, without also seeing the way it will be used by an administration that has demonstrated time and again that it can't be trusted to act wisely.

Mr. Will is preparing Movement Conservatives for the inevitable: no immigration bill before the elections.

But if Congress fails to pass immigration reform, that will not really deserve to be called a failure, for two reasons. First, the moment may not be ripe for reform, because the country is of two minds -- actually, more than two -- about the issue. Second, the system the Framers created, with two legislative bodies having different dynamics because their constituencies have different characteristics, is in this instance performing approximately as the Framers intended.

Senators, only one-third of whom are ever facing imminent elections, are somewhat insulated by six-year terms from the public's fevers. And senators represent larger, less homogenous, more complex constituencies than most House members do.

He says no immigration bill would be no tragedy. Curiously, the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights agrees with Mr. Will.

Totally different reasons, of course.

At Intrapolitics.org

How to win friends and influence your political party

by Prometheus 6
Thu, 06/01/2006 - 8:10am

George Will's Between a Rock and Reform led me to expand on a comment I made yesterday at Prometheus 6 on an op-ed by Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe.

Like the post at P6, this one has little to do with the topic of of the editorial that inspired it

Um, I mean he was correct ...but so was the whole left/progressive blognet.

This second-term swamp is a far cry from what most of the Washington Monthly experts predicted -- and from what I would have guessed had I indulged in a crystal-ball exercise. Grover Norquist, the conservative activist, said Bush and the Republicans would send the Democrats into permanent political exile. Paul Begala, a Democratic political consultant, said Bush would exact vengeance on his political enemies. Several people predicted that he would usher in a new era of good feelings, tackling global warming and avoiding divisive social issues. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The one commentator who got it exactly right was Kevin Drum, who runs the magazine's blog. "What do we have to look forward to if George W. Bush is elected to a second term?" he asked. "One word: scandal."

"When they filled out money for the New York City area, (they said) that we have no vulerable, high-risk targets," Schumer said, "Anyone who can't see New York monuments at risk is blind as a bat when it comes to homeland security."

Schumer said Florida got a 22 percent increase, and Georgia got a 40 percent bump. He wondered if Georgia peanut farmers are a greater target than the Empire State Building.

Politicians Fuming: N.Y. Anti-Terrorist Budget Cut
Bloomberg & Co. Sound Off On Homeland Security Dept.

(CBS) NEW YORK Long Island Congressman Peter King said the Department of Homeland Security has -- in his words -- "declared war on New York," by slashing its anti-terrorist grants by 40 percent.

Poverty keeps many from preparing for storm season
Preparing for hurricane season with expensive supplies takes a back seat to everyday life for many of South Florida's low-income residents.
BY ANDREA ROBINSON AND NATALIE P. MCNEAL

On the cusp of a new hurricane season, Sheila Tobias is in a bind.

Generators, flashlights, batteries and nonperishable food are things that South Florida's poor and working-class families may not be able to afford for the coming storms. Among them is Tobias, a Miramar mother of two and a substitute school bus driver who makes $9 an hour.

''I don't have the extra money,'' said Tobias, 39. ``I have to take care of the kids, take care of school clothes. That's all the money I have.''

Quote of note:

Actually, the story bordered on unbelievable, in which a 350-pound-plus confidence man allegedly bribed guards to repeatedly slip out of prison overnight to operate a fraud operation, eat Church's Fried Chicken and meet his wife. By dawn he was back in his prison bed.

..."That man knows the Bible," she said. "He was a magnificent speaker and teacher. If he was straight, he could build a ministry."

Phony preacher ran fraud empire from jail
By BILL TORPY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/31/06

One link.

The 1st Erase Racism Carnival is Here!!

Bunches of good stuff. Now I can slop off for a while. 

 

The Holocaust wasn't Christian
Pope Benedict obscured the truth in his Auschwitz address by ignoring anti-Semitism and the Catholic Church's failures.
By Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
May 31, 2006

CERTAIN RARE moments provide politicians and religious leaders the setting to etch emblematic statements or gestures in historical consciousness. At a commemoration ceremony in 1970, German Chancellor Willy Brandt dropped spontaneously to his knees with evident emotion and contrition (even though he himself had been an enemy of Nazism) at the monument to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. John Paul II, upon becoming in 1986 the first pope ever to visit Rome's synagogue, unforgettably referred to the assembled Jews, humbly, as "our elder brothers."

Max Boot:

But perhaps there is a way to stop the killing even without sending an American or European army. Send a private army. A number of commercial security firms such as Blackwater USA are willing, for the right price, to send their own forces, made up in large part of veterans of Western militaries, to stop the genocide.

We know from experience that such private units would be far more effective than any U.N. peacekeepers. In the 1990s, the South African firm Executive Outcomes and the British firm Sandline made quick work of rebel movements in Angola and Sierra Leone. Critics complain that these mercenaries offered only a temporary respite from the violence, but that was all they were hired to do. Presumably longer-term contracts could create longer-term security, and at a fraction of the cost of a U.N. mission.

Yet this solution is deemed unacceptable by the moral giants who run the United Nations. They claim that it is objectionable to employ — sniff — mercenaries. More objectionable, it seems, than passing empty resolutions, sending ineffectual peacekeeping forces and letting genocide continue.

Yes, we are the Hessians now.

Let me tell you, Mr. Boot's voice is heard on foreign affairs issues. It is significant that he advances this foolish position.

One of the sillier statements to come out of the last election cycle was the idea of Black folks voting Republican to teach Democrats a lesson about ignoring us. Mr Jacoby demonstrates why it's silly.

Though the conservatives' exasperation isn't new, it was muted after Sept. 11 to preserve a common front in the war on terrorism. But now the pot is boiling over. Conservatives are shifting into Howard Beale mode: They're mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. Many may simply sit out the election this November, even if that means letting Democrats take over Congress.

Notice: he is NOT talking about Conservatives voting Democratic. Abstaining is enough to punish the party while still refusing to validate the other party. But it has to be willful abstanance, vocal abstanance. Your party must know what will make you abstain. You have to be heard.

The crumbling GOP base
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | May 31, 2006

LIKE A LOT of conservatives, I won't be voting Republican in the congressional elections this fall. Admittedly, I won't have a choice -- in Massachusetts, Republican candidates for Congress generally spare voters the trouble of defeating them by not bothering to run in the first place.

The rate of twin births has also increased significantly since 1975, when assisted reproductive technology came into wide use. But these factors alone, Dr. Steinman said, do not explain the continuing increase in the rates in the United States since 1994, when recombinant bovine somatotropin was approved for sale.

In 2003, the United States had 3 sets of twins per 100 live births — more than twice the rate of Britain, where growth hormone injection is banned. (Triplets and higher multiple births raise this figure to 3.18.) 

Rise in Rate of Twin Births May Be Tied to Dairy Case
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

American women who eat dairy products appear to be five times as likely to give birth to fraternal twins as those who do not, according to a new study, and one explanation may lie in dairy products from cows injected with synthetic growth hormone.

Dr. Gary Steinman, an assistant clinical professor of obstetrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, reached that conclusion by looking at the medical records of 1,042 mothers who were vegans consuming no dairy products and comparing them with those of mothers who regularly ate dairy products.

His findings appear in the May issue of The Journal of Reproductive Medicine. Eating dairy products increases blood levels of insulinlike growth hormone, or I.G.F., and it is this increased hormone level that is associated with increased rates of multiple ovulation.

In a study published in 2000 and cited in the findings, vegan women had concentrations of I.G.F. that were 13 percent lower than those in women who regularly consumed dairy products.

Multiple births are associated with increased health risks for mothers and infants, but Dr. Steinman said he was not prepared to use these findings as the basis for advising women about diet before pregnancy.

"Since this is the first time diet has been implicated in an important role for determining twinning rate," Dr. Steinman said in an e-mail message, "it must be confirmed by others before rigid recommendations can be made concerning health care."

Quote of note: 

Still, Ms. Franco said, consumers rate current conditions favorably.

Consumer Confidence Drops; Job Expectations Are Also Lower
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Consumer confidence soured in May, as Americans worried about the future of the economy and the outlook for jobs. A widely watched barometer of sentiment fell sharply, the most since hurricanes pummeled the Gulf Coast last year, increasing concern about future retail spending.

The Conference Board said yesterday that its consumer confidence index fell almost 7 points, to 103.2, from a revised reading of 109.8 in April. Still, the May index was better than the 100.9 expected by analysts.

Corporate America will see a living wage as a better bargain than the return of unions. 

Corporate Conscience Survey Says Workers Should Come First
By STEPHANIE STROM

Far more American consumers consider the way companies treat their employees a good indicator of their social conscience than their philanthropy, according to a survey by the National Consumers League and Fleishman-Hillard, the public relations company.

Asked to define "corporate social responsibility" in their own words, 27 percent of the 800 adults interviewed for the survey identified it as a demonstrated commitment to the well-being of employees.