E. says:
About twice a week I get another rightist diatribe from a MA pal of many years (a dentist, a dancer, and a guy I really like a lot aside from his politics), and most of them I just delete and ignore. Occasionally, I do answer them, or refer him to snopes.com to get the straight facts. If you go to the lower half of this email, you can read his latest mailing to me--a rant that makes the rounds with annoying regularity. With the help of info on snopes.com, I sent him the replythat appears just below his rant:
G sends this:
Is it the NBA or the NFL?
36 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad checks
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71, repeat 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 currently are defendants in lawsuits.
and84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year
Can you guess which organization this is?
Give up yet? . . Scroll down, citizen!
It's the 535 members of the United States Congress.The same group of Idiots that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.
E. replies:
G: at some point you are going to have to start thinking a bit about some of this stuff that people send you, and that you pass on as though it were gospel--and as though it were something to be taken seriously by the people you are sending such stuff to.In that last article, one hardly knows where to begin but what is surprising is that so many people willingly circulate that piece of cheap, inflammatory tripe expecting it to be taken seriously.
Note that no names or dates are mentioned, of course, so trying to match individuals with the vague charges levelled in this text would be a fruitless task (especially since the composition of Congress changes at least every two years, and the piece is undated).
In any case that effort would be pointless, for this article is nothing more than a cheap smear: Doesn't that kind of thing bother you at all?Almost every point mentions unnamed and unidentified people who are not cited as actually having done something wrong, but merely of having been "arrested" or "accused," or being a "defendant," or having been "stopped." Isn't our system supposed to be based upon the presumption that a person is innocent until proved guilty?
One can be arrested without being convicted of a crime (or even being charged with one), so the mere mention of an arrest with no other detail is meaningless.
And when did these alleged arrests of Congressmen occur? While the arrestees were serving in Congress? While they were running for office? Before they became politicians? When they were juveniles? Are these events going back thirty or fifty years?
And think about this: thirty-two arrests and no convictions should probably make us more concerned about problems with our law enforcement and legal systems than it should about the people who make up Congress, shouldn't it?
The claims that numerous Congressmen have been "accused" of various wrongdoings is even more specious. "Accused"? By whom? Journalists? Jealous rivals? Bitter ex-spouses? Childhood enemies? Muckrakers? Gossip mongers? I suspect that every single member of Congress has been "accused" of something bad at one time or another.
By what standards does an accusation become "serious" or "official" enough to merit inclusion in this list? Almost every time I won a criminal case in court some irate observer would come up (usually family or friends of the other side) to accuse me of being a blight upon humanity and a person with no moral fiber, while others would come up to compliment me on a fine job and for protecting the rights of a falsely-accused defendant. (Should those "accusations" be considered a stain on my record?)
Even the entries that contain some marginal detail are too vague to be relevant. We're told than 117 Congressmen "have bankrupted at least two businesses." What does that mean? Were all 117 personally and solely responsible for driving thriving businesses into the ground, or were they merely nominal board members of companies that went belly up? Were these businesses large companies, or the equivalent of mom-and-pop shops run out of someone's home? More importantly, is failing at business in today's volatile business environment supposed to be considered a moral failure as well as an economic one? Is being a successful businessman a prerequisite for being a legislator, or is it a sign or moral turpitude that should automatically disqualify one from office?
By the way--that article in one form or another has been circulating since at least 1998 that I am aware of--so which Congressmen are we talking about? Time to stop passing on bilge, Gerry--time to start thinking just a bit, now and then, just to give the old brain cells a workout--but be careful--if you think too much you may be accused of being a dreaded liberal.
Wrap....
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Voting down the drain in Ohio....
This is just horrendous! Unconstitutional! I can hardly believe the brazonness of this!!
From truthout.org :
With New Legislation, Ohio Republicans Plan Holiday Burial for American Democracy
By Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
The Free Press
Tuesday 06 December 2005
A law that will make democracy all but moot in Ohio is about to pass the state legislature and to be signed by its Republican governor. Despite massive corruption scandals besieging the Ohio GOP, any hope that the Democratic party could win this most crucial swing state in future presidential elections, or carry its pivotal US Senate seat in 2006, are about to end.
House Bill 3 has already passed the Ohio House of Representatives and is about to be approved by the Republican-dominated Senate, probably before the holiday recess. Republicans dominate the Ohio legislature thanks to a heavily gerrymandered crazy quilt of rigged districts, and to a moribund Ohio Democratic party. The GOP-drafted HB3 is designed to all but obliterate any possible future Democratic revival. Opposition from the Ohio Democratic Party, where it exists at all, is diffuse and ineffectual.
HB3's most publicized provision will require positive identification before casting a vote. But it also opens voter registration activists to partisan prosecution, exempts electronic voting machines from public scrutiny, quintuples the cost of citizen-requested statewide recounts and makes it illegal to challenge a presidential vote count or, indeed, any federal election result in Ohio. When added to the recently passed HB1, which allows campaign financing to be dominated by the wealthy and by corporations, and along with a Rovian wish list of GOP attacks on the ballot box, democracy in Ohio could be all but over.
The GOP is ramming similar bills through state legislatures around the US, starting with Georgia and Indiana. The ID requirements in particular have provoked widespread opposition from newspapers such as the New York Times. The Times, among others, argues that the ID requirements and the costs associated with them, constitute an unconstitutional discriminatory poll tax.
But despite significant court challenges, the Republicans are forcing changes in long-standing election laws that have allowed citizens to vote based on their signature alone. Across the US, GOP Jim Crow laws will eliminate millions of Democratic voters from the registration rolls. In swing states like Ohio, such ballots are almost certain to be crucial.
The proposed Ohio law will demand a valid photo ID or a utility bill, a bank statement, a paycheck or a government document with a current address. Thousands of Ohio citizens who are elderly, homeless, unemployed or who do not drive will be effectively disenfranchised. Many citizens, for example, rent apartments where the utilities are paid by landlords. In such cases, the number of people living in utilities-included apartment rentals could actually determine an election.
During the 2004 presidential election, Ohio's Republican Secretary of State, J. Kenneth Blackwell, also issued statewide threats against ex-felons and people whose names resembled those of ex-felons. Thousands of such threats were delivered to registered voters who were never convicted of anything, or who were eligible to vote after being released from prison. In 2004 a "Mighty Texas Strike Force" came to Columbus with a specific mandate to threaten ex-felons with arrest if they dared to vote.
It is legal for ex-felons in Ohio to vote, even if they are in half-way houses or on parole. But HB3's identification requirement, combined with the confusion Blackwell has introduced into the process, will intimidate such Ohioans from voting in 2006 and beyond.
HB3 will also reduce voter rolls by ordering county boards of elections to send cards to registered voters every two years. If a card comes back as undelivered, the voter must rely on a provisional ballot. But tens of thousands of provisional ballots were arbitrarily discarded in 2004, and some 16,000 are known to remain uncounted to this day.
HB3 also imposes severe restrictions on voter registration drives. It allows the state attorney-general and local prosecutors wide powers to prosecute vaguely defined charges of fraud against those working to sign up voters. The restrictions are clearly meant to chill the kind of Democratic registration drives that brought hundreds of thousands of new voters to the polls in 2004 (even though many were turned away in Democratic wards due to a lack of voting machines).
Those electronic machines will also be exempted from recounts by random sampling, even in close, disputed elections like those of 2000 and 2004.
In 2004, scores of Ohio voters reported, under oath, that they had pressed John Kerry's name on touchscreen machines, only to see George W. Bush's name light up. A board of elections technician in Mahoning County (Youngstown) has admitted that at least 18 machines there suffered such problems. Sworn testimony in Columbus indicates that votes for Kerry faded off the screen on touchscreen machines there. Other charges of mis-programming, re-programming, recalibrating, mishandling and manipulation of electronic voting software, hardware and memory cards have since arisen throughout Ohio 2004.
For the 2005 election, some 41 additional Ohio counties (of 88) were switched to Diebold touchscreen machines. Despite polls showing overwhelming voter approval, two electoral reform issues went down improbable defeat. Issue Two, meant to make voting easier, and Issue Three, on campaign finance reform, were shown by highly reliable Columbus Dispatch polls to be passing handily.
The Dispatch was within 0.5% on Issue One, a bond issue, and has rarely been significantly wrong in its many decades of Ohio polling. And even opponents of Issues Two and Three conceded that they were highly likely to pass.
On the Sunday before the Tuesday 2005 election, the Dispatch predicted Issue Two would pass by a vote of 59% to 33%, with about 8% undecided. But Tuesday's official vote count showed Issue Two failing with just 36.5% in favor and 63.5% opposed. For that to have happened, the Dispatch had to have been wrong on Issue Two's support by more than 20 points. Nearly half those who said they would support Issue Two would have had to vote against it, along with all the undecideds.
The numbers on Issue Three are equally startling. The Dispatch showed it winning with 61%, to just 25% opposed and some 14% undecided. Instead just 33% of the votes were counted in its favor, with 67% opposed, an almost inconceivable weekend turnaround.
No other numbers were comparable on November 8, 2005, or elsewhere in the recent history of Dispatch polling. The startling outcome has thus raised even more suspicion and doubt about the use of electronic voting and tabulating machines in Ohio, which account for virtually 100% of the state's vote count.
The federal General Accountability Office (GAO) has recently issued a major report confirming that tampering with and manipulating such machines can be easily done by a very small number of people. Charges are widespread that this is precisely what gave George W. Bush Ohio's electoral votes, and thus the presidency, in 2004, not to mention the suspicious referenda outcomes in 2005.
HB3 will make it virtually impossible for any challenge to be mounted involving any votes cast or counted on electronic machines or tabulators - meaning virtually every vote cast in Ohio.
Indeed, HB3 will raise the cost of mounting a recount from $10 per precinct to $50 per precinct. In 2004, Secretary of State Blackwell forced citizen groups to raise private funds for a recount, which he proceeded to sabotage. The process, which became a futile electronic charade, cost donors committed to democracy more than $100,000. Three partial, meaningless faux recounts resulted. To date more than 100,000 votes cast in Ohio remain uncounted, including some 93,000 easily-read machine-rejected ballots.
During the 2004 election process, Blackwell manipulated the number of precincts in Ohio, and issued inaccurate information about their location and boundaries, making a meaningful precise number hard to come by. But with more than 10,000 precincts still in existence, HB3 would make funding an attempt at another recount in 2006 or 2008 cost more than $500,000.
Such an effort might also result in official retaliation. In 2004, Blackwell and Ohio Attorney-General Jim Petro - both of whom are now Republican candidates for governor - tried to impose stiff financial sanctions against attorneys who filed a legal challenge to the seating of the Ohio electors who gave George W. Bush the presidency. The Ohio Supreme Court disallowed the sanctions after the challenge was withdrawn. But HB3 would make such a federal election challenge illegal altogether.
With the electoral process in Ohio all but disemboweled, those hoping for a change of party in upcoming state and national elections are probably kidding themselves.
The 2004 election in the Buckeye state was riddled with deception, fraud, intimidation, manipulation and outright theft, all of which were essential to the triumph of George W. Bush. In 2005, four electoral reform ballot initiatives were allegedly defeated despite huge poll margins showing the almost certain passage of two of them. The most credible explanation for their defeat lies in electronic manipulation of voting machines, tabulators and memory cards which the GAO confirms have no credible security safeguards.
With campaign finance, voter registration, electronic voting, public recounts, district gerrymandering and overall electoral administration now firmly in the pocket of the GOP, and with Democratic opposition that is virtually non-existent on the issue of vote fraud and election manipulation, there is little reason to believe the Republican grip on Ohio will be loosened at any point in the near future.
In traditional terms, the scandal-ridden Ohio GOP would appear to be more vulnerable than ever. Governor Robert Taft has become the only Ohio governor to be convicted of a crime while in office. With an astonishing 7% approval rating, he has been compared to Homer Simpson by the state's leading Republican newspaper. Republican US Senator Mike DeWine appears highly vulnerable. The GOP has never won the White House without winning the Buckeye State.
But HB3 will solidify the GOP's iron grip on the electronic voting process and all that surrounds it. Unless they break that grip, Democrats who believe they can carry any part of Ohio in 2006 or 2008 are kidding themselves.
When it comes to 2008, can you say "Jeb Bush"?
Wrap....
From truthout.org :
With New Legislation, Ohio Republicans Plan Holiday Burial for American Democracy
By Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
The Free Press
Tuesday 06 December 2005
A law that will make democracy all but moot in Ohio is about to pass the state legislature and to be signed by its Republican governor. Despite massive corruption scandals besieging the Ohio GOP, any hope that the Democratic party could win this most crucial swing state in future presidential elections, or carry its pivotal US Senate seat in 2006, are about to end.
House Bill 3 has already passed the Ohio House of Representatives and is about to be approved by the Republican-dominated Senate, probably before the holiday recess. Republicans dominate the Ohio legislature thanks to a heavily gerrymandered crazy quilt of rigged districts, and to a moribund Ohio Democratic party. The GOP-drafted HB3 is designed to all but obliterate any possible future Democratic revival. Opposition from the Ohio Democratic Party, where it exists at all, is diffuse and ineffectual.
HB3's most publicized provision will require positive identification before casting a vote. But it also opens voter registration activists to partisan prosecution, exempts electronic voting machines from public scrutiny, quintuples the cost of citizen-requested statewide recounts and makes it illegal to challenge a presidential vote count or, indeed, any federal election result in Ohio. When added to the recently passed HB1, which allows campaign financing to be dominated by the wealthy and by corporations, and along with a Rovian wish list of GOP attacks on the ballot box, democracy in Ohio could be all but over.
The GOP is ramming similar bills through state legislatures around the US, starting with Georgia and Indiana. The ID requirements in particular have provoked widespread opposition from newspapers such as the New York Times. The Times, among others, argues that the ID requirements and the costs associated with them, constitute an unconstitutional discriminatory poll tax.
But despite significant court challenges, the Republicans are forcing changes in long-standing election laws that have allowed citizens to vote based on their signature alone. Across the US, GOP Jim Crow laws will eliminate millions of Democratic voters from the registration rolls. In swing states like Ohio, such ballots are almost certain to be crucial.
The proposed Ohio law will demand a valid photo ID or a utility bill, a bank statement, a paycheck or a government document with a current address. Thousands of Ohio citizens who are elderly, homeless, unemployed or who do not drive will be effectively disenfranchised. Many citizens, for example, rent apartments where the utilities are paid by landlords. In such cases, the number of people living in utilities-included apartment rentals could actually determine an election.
During the 2004 presidential election, Ohio's Republican Secretary of State, J. Kenneth Blackwell, also issued statewide threats against ex-felons and people whose names resembled those of ex-felons. Thousands of such threats were delivered to registered voters who were never convicted of anything, or who were eligible to vote after being released from prison. In 2004 a "Mighty Texas Strike Force" came to Columbus with a specific mandate to threaten ex-felons with arrest if they dared to vote.
It is legal for ex-felons in Ohio to vote, even if they are in half-way houses or on parole. But HB3's identification requirement, combined with the confusion Blackwell has introduced into the process, will intimidate such Ohioans from voting in 2006 and beyond.
HB3 will also reduce voter rolls by ordering county boards of elections to send cards to registered voters every two years. If a card comes back as undelivered, the voter must rely on a provisional ballot. But tens of thousands of provisional ballots were arbitrarily discarded in 2004, and some 16,000 are known to remain uncounted to this day.
HB3 also imposes severe restrictions on voter registration drives. It allows the state attorney-general and local prosecutors wide powers to prosecute vaguely defined charges of fraud against those working to sign up voters. The restrictions are clearly meant to chill the kind of Democratic registration drives that brought hundreds of thousands of new voters to the polls in 2004 (even though many were turned away in Democratic wards due to a lack of voting machines).
Those electronic machines will also be exempted from recounts by random sampling, even in close, disputed elections like those of 2000 and 2004.
In 2004, scores of Ohio voters reported, under oath, that they had pressed John Kerry's name on touchscreen machines, only to see George W. Bush's name light up. A board of elections technician in Mahoning County (Youngstown) has admitted that at least 18 machines there suffered such problems. Sworn testimony in Columbus indicates that votes for Kerry faded off the screen on touchscreen machines there. Other charges of mis-programming, re-programming, recalibrating, mishandling and manipulation of electronic voting software, hardware and memory cards have since arisen throughout Ohio 2004.
For the 2005 election, some 41 additional Ohio counties (of 88) were switched to Diebold touchscreen machines. Despite polls showing overwhelming voter approval, two electoral reform issues went down improbable defeat. Issue Two, meant to make voting easier, and Issue Three, on campaign finance reform, were shown by highly reliable Columbus Dispatch polls to be passing handily.
The Dispatch was within 0.5% on Issue One, a bond issue, and has rarely been significantly wrong in its many decades of Ohio polling. And even opponents of Issues Two and Three conceded that they were highly likely to pass.
On the Sunday before the Tuesday 2005 election, the Dispatch predicted Issue Two would pass by a vote of 59% to 33%, with about 8% undecided. But Tuesday's official vote count showed Issue Two failing with just 36.5% in favor and 63.5% opposed. For that to have happened, the Dispatch had to have been wrong on Issue Two's support by more than 20 points. Nearly half those who said they would support Issue Two would have had to vote against it, along with all the undecideds.
The numbers on Issue Three are equally startling. The Dispatch showed it winning with 61%, to just 25% opposed and some 14% undecided. Instead just 33% of the votes were counted in its favor, with 67% opposed, an almost inconceivable weekend turnaround.
No other numbers were comparable on November 8, 2005, or elsewhere in the recent history of Dispatch polling. The startling outcome has thus raised even more suspicion and doubt about the use of electronic voting and tabulating machines in Ohio, which account for virtually 100% of the state's vote count.
The federal General Accountability Office (GAO) has recently issued a major report confirming that tampering with and manipulating such machines can be easily done by a very small number of people. Charges are widespread that this is precisely what gave George W. Bush Ohio's electoral votes, and thus the presidency, in 2004, not to mention the suspicious referenda outcomes in 2005.
HB3 will make it virtually impossible for any challenge to be mounted involving any votes cast or counted on electronic machines or tabulators - meaning virtually every vote cast in Ohio.
Indeed, HB3 will raise the cost of mounting a recount from $10 per precinct to $50 per precinct. In 2004, Secretary of State Blackwell forced citizen groups to raise private funds for a recount, which he proceeded to sabotage. The process, which became a futile electronic charade, cost donors committed to democracy more than $100,000. Three partial, meaningless faux recounts resulted. To date more than 100,000 votes cast in Ohio remain uncounted, including some 93,000 easily-read machine-rejected ballots.
During the 2004 election process, Blackwell manipulated the number of precincts in Ohio, and issued inaccurate information about their location and boundaries, making a meaningful precise number hard to come by. But with more than 10,000 precincts still in existence, HB3 would make funding an attempt at another recount in 2006 or 2008 cost more than $500,000.
Such an effort might also result in official retaliation. In 2004, Blackwell and Ohio Attorney-General Jim Petro - both of whom are now Republican candidates for governor - tried to impose stiff financial sanctions against attorneys who filed a legal challenge to the seating of the Ohio electors who gave George W. Bush the presidency. The Ohio Supreme Court disallowed the sanctions after the challenge was withdrawn. But HB3 would make such a federal election challenge illegal altogether.
With the electoral process in Ohio all but disemboweled, those hoping for a change of party in upcoming state and national elections are probably kidding themselves.
The 2004 election in the Buckeye state was riddled with deception, fraud, intimidation, manipulation and outright theft, all of which were essential to the triumph of George W. Bush. In 2005, four electoral reform ballot initiatives were allegedly defeated despite huge poll margins showing the almost certain passage of two of them. The most credible explanation for their defeat lies in electronic manipulation of voting machines, tabulators and memory cards which the GAO confirms have no credible security safeguards.
With campaign finance, voter registration, electronic voting, public recounts, district gerrymandering and overall electoral administration now firmly in the pocket of the GOP, and with Democratic opposition that is virtually non-existent on the issue of vote fraud and election manipulation, there is little reason to believe the Republican grip on Ohio will be loosened at any point in the near future.
In traditional terms, the scandal-ridden Ohio GOP would appear to be more vulnerable than ever. Governor Robert Taft has become the only Ohio governor to be convicted of a crime while in office. With an astonishing 7% approval rating, he has been compared to Homer Simpson by the state's leading Republican newspaper. Republican US Senator Mike DeWine appears highly vulnerable. The GOP has never won the White House without winning the Buckeye State.
But HB3 will solidify the GOP's iron grip on the electronic voting process and all that surrounds it. Unless they break that grip, Democrats who believe they can carry any part of Ohio in 2006 or 2008 are kidding themselves.
When it comes to 2008, can you say "Jeb Bush"?
Wrap....
Forget doing good..BushCo wants privatization...
From American Progress:
CORPORATE POWER Blocking Innovation
With New Orleans police still "scattered in hotels, precinct stations and other makeshift locations" since Hurricane Katrina, city officials were delighted that regional phone giant BellSouth Corp. had agreed "after months of discussions" to donate one of its damaged buildings to serve as a new police headquarters. That is, until last Tuesday, when BellSouth abruptly rescinded the offer. Why the sudden turnaround? Municipal wireless (a.k.a. community Internet). According to the Washington Post, "officials said BellSouth was upset about [New Orleans's] plan to bring high-speed Internet access for free to homes and businesses to help stimulate resettlement and relocation to the devastated city." Though notable for its ruthlessness, BellSouth's move is just the latest evidence that major U.S. telecom firms will stop at little to undercut local control and prevent competition in their efforts to outlaw municipal wireless systems.
SPECIAL INTERESTS PRY OPEN DIGITAL DIVIDE:
Desperate to maintain their monopoly, telecom giants have "done their best to demonize" municipal broadband projects, launching "an aggressive lobbying and misinformation campaign." (After all, Americans won't "need those pesky phone lines or coaxial cables if you can pull your Internet service from the sky.") Earlier this year, Verizon, which successfully blocked Pennsylvania residents from obtaining low-cost Internet access without its permission, circulated a so-called fact sheet "to lawmakers, journalists and opinion leaders" that was full of erroneous statistics on the "'failures' of public broadband." The same is occurring in Houston, where SBC and Time Warner are fighting to stop a proposed municipal wireless system. In fact, former SBC employee Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) introduced a bill in May that "would extend the ban on municipal broadband services to every city in the country." Yet all the telecom lobbying work obscures the fact that "the commercial broadband market has not only failed to bring affordable access in 2005, it is nowhere close."
THE WHITE HOUSE'S PRIVATIZATION 'SOLUTION':
The White House and the FCC claim they want universal, affordable broadband by 2007. Yet current telecom policy is "being left in the hands of the cable and phone companies that control at least 93 percent of the country's broadband market." As the Wall Street Journal notes, the "inferior value of [commercial] U.S. broadband service becomes clear when you calculate the monthly 'cost per megabit' of Internet access, or how much you pay to get a megabit's worth of download capability." With Verizon, entry-level broadband users pay about $20 per megabit; in France, customers pay just $1.80 per megabit for a service that is 20+ times faster than Verizon's. This is because "France has strict 'unbundling' rules that force big carriers like France Télécom to make their networks available to other companies offering Web services." But as the Wall Street Journal points out, "In the U.S., unbundling is a dead issue because of heavy lobbying by telephone companies."
WHAT CAN COMMUNITY INTERNET DO FOR YOU?
The benefits of municipal wireless are numerous, as New Orleans has already demonstrated. City officials say the system has proved "invaluable for law enforcement," as "background data checks and other police functions can be done on the WiFi network, relieving pressure on the radio system." Broadband has been put to use "for an array of city government functions, such as speeding approval of building permits," and is being designed specifically to chip away at the digital divide -- the increasing gap "between those who have access to information technology and digital content and those who do not." According to Forbes, New Orleans is "focusing especially on low-income areas that were particularly hard-hit when the levees burst and where phone service has still not resumed." Broadband wireless can do wonders for business, particularly in rural and low-income urban areas, which "are badly underserved by providers of DSL and cable modem broadband." And with free wireless in place, "communities can offer citizens numerous advanced media services for everything from pubic safety and political forums to church services and Internet radio stations."
FREE INTERNET OVER 'FREEDOM FRIES':
Even as conservatives lob insults at our allies abroad, the United States has fallen further behind the rest of the industrialized world in indicators from health care to wireless technology. In the last five years, the United States has dropped from 4th to 16th place in global rankings of broadband Internet usage. "We're behind Hong Kong, Japan, and Israel, as well as most of Western Europe," -- not to mention that broadband rates abroad are as much as 200 times faster than the average U.S. "broadband" rate. Foreign Affairs notes that the United States is no longer even considered "a leader in Internet innovation," a technological set-back that "will cost it dearly." These days, several other industrialized nations are "positioning themselves to be the first states to reap the benefits of the broadband era: economic growth, increased productivity, and a better quality of life."
Wrap...
CORPORATE POWER Blocking Innovation
With New Orleans police still "scattered in hotels, precinct stations and other makeshift locations" since Hurricane Katrina, city officials were delighted that regional phone giant BellSouth Corp. had agreed "after months of discussions" to donate one of its damaged buildings to serve as a new police headquarters. That is, until last Tuesday, when BellSouth abruptly rescinded the offer. Why the sudden turnaround? Municipal wireless (a.k.a. community Internet). According to the Washington Post, "officials said BellSouth was upset about [New Orleans's] plan to bring high-speed Internet access for free to homes and businesses to help stimulate resettlement and relocation to the devastated city." Though notable for its ruthlessness, BellSouth's move is just the latest evidence that major U.S. telecom firms will stop at little to undercut local control and prevent competition in their efforts to outlaw municipal wireless systems.
SPECIAL INTERESTS PRY OPEN DIGITAL DIVIDE:
Desperate to maintain their monopoly, telecom giants have "done their best to demonize" municipal broadband projects, launching "an aggressive lobbying and misinformation campaign." (After all, Americans won't "need those pesky phone lines or coaxial cables if you can pull your Internet service from the sky.") Earlier this year, Verizon, which successfully blocked Pennsylvania residents from obtaining low-cost Internet access without its permission, circulated a so-called fact sheet "to lawmakers, journalists and opinion leaders" that was full of erroneous statistics on the "'failures' of public broadband." The same is occurring in Houston, where SBC and Time Warner are fighting to stop a proposed municipal wireless system. In fact, former SBC employee Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) introduced a bill in May that "would extend the ban on municipal broadband services to every city in the country." Yet all the telecom lobbying work obscures the fact that "the commercial broadband market has not only failed to bring affordable access in 2005, it is nowhere close."
THE WHITE HOUSE'S PRIVATIZATION 'SOLUTION':
The White House and the FCC claim they want universal, affordable broadband by 2007. Yet current telecom policy is "being left in the hands of the cable and phone companies that control at least 93 percent of the country's broadband market." As the Wall Street Journal notes, the "inferior value of [commercial] U.S. broadband service becomes clear when you calculate the monthly 'cost per megabit' of Internet access, or how much you pay to get a megabit's worth of download capability." With Verizon, entry-level broadband users pay about $20 per megabit; in France, customers pay just $1.80 per megabit for a service that is 20+ times faster than Verizon's. This is because "France has strict 'unbundling' rules that force big carriers like France Télécom to make their networks available to other companies offering Web services." But as the Wall Street Journal points out, "In the U.S., unbundling is a dead issue because of heavy lobbying by telephone companies."
WHAT CAN COMMUNITY INTERNET DO FOR YOU?
The benefits of municipal wireless are numerous, as New Orleans has already demonstrated. City officials say the system has proved "invaluable for law enforcement," as "background data checks and other police functions can be done on the WiFi network, relieving pressure on the radio system." Broadband has been put to use "for an array of city government functions, such as speeding approval of building permits," and is being designed specifically to chip away at the digital divide -- the increasing gap "between those who have access to information technology and digital content and those who do not." According to Forbes, New Orleans is "focusing especially on low-income areas that were particularly hard-hit when the levees burst and where phone service has still not resumed." Broadband wireless can do wonders for business, particularly in rural and low-income urban areas, which "are badly underserved by providers of DSL and cable modem broadband." And with free wireless in place, "communities can offer citizens numerous advanced media services for everything from pubic safety and political forums to church services and Internet radio stations."
FREE INTERNET OVER 'FREEDOM FRIES':
Even as conservatives lob insults at our allies abroad, the United States has fallen further behind the rest of the industrialized world in indicators from health care to wireless technology. In the last five years, the United States has dropped from 4th to 16th place in global rankings of broadband Internet usage. "We're behind Hong Kong, Japan, and Israel, as well as most of Western Europe," -- not to mention that broadband rates abroad are as much as 200 times faster than the average U.S. "broadband" rate. Foreign Affairs notes that the United States is no longer even considered "a leader in Internet innovation," a technological set-back that "will cost it dearly." These days, several other industrialized nations are "positioning themselves to be the first states to reap the benefits of the broadband era: economic growth, increased productivity, and a better quality of life."
Wrap...
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Southern CA Writers' Conf * San Diego...Feb, 2006.
Note: In my opinion, this conference is a combo of one big party, one hard-working weekend, a place where the writers don't have sense enough to go to bed, and where the laughter, conversation, and even deal-making is non-stop! More, how many conference directors write a piece for writers on how to select the right conference for their particular needs and post it on the website? Well, it's there all right, so go look!
From www.writersconference.com :
TWO MORE SPEAKERS AND MUCHO MAS (11/18/05):
Yet another past conferee has hit the big time with her debut novel just released. Murder Uncorked (Berkley Prime Crime) brings to eight the number of books published in the last 24 months that were written by SCWCers. The first out of a total of six titles she sold in only ten months, author Michele Scott will join us Saturday morning to tell all about her journey from humble aspirant to hot published who-be . . . And to open the show Friday evening, who better than an author whose first book (The Horse Latitudes) he brought to the SCWC back in 1991, with the title of his second (Chesire Moon) being discovered there. Of Scavenger Hunt, his seventh, Entertainment Weekly declared, "Every few years another writer is described as the next Raymond Chandler, but (he) may be the real thing." His latest, The Wake-Up, delivers the goods, and with the February release of Prayers for the Assassin (Scribner), Robert Ferrigno will no doubt do so again . . . Little, Brown and Company editor Michael Mezzo is also freshly aboard, as is Castiglia Literary's wonderful write-minded rep, Sally Van Haitsma. And in an unconscionable act of decency, Saturday evening speaker, author & AEI Literary Management CEO Ken Atchity will also be accepting a limited number of advance submissions . . . With the online brochure now available, schedule nearly complete, and more authors, agents & editors than ever before, we're going to get busy fast. In fairness to those who don't rely on the Web to get all the SCWC skinny, the $50 Early "Bard" Discount has been extended for hardcopy brochure delivery. It is expected that many of the readers will sell out soon, so if you're serious about your writing getting the attention it warrants register today. You've earned it!
MORE ADDITIONS (11/14/05):
From Trident Media Group, one of Book Publishing Report's top-ranked agents, Scott Miller, will be accepting advance submissions, as will longtime SCWC friends and reps Ken Sherman and Paul S. Levine (who both scored finding new talent at our L.A. event). Poisoned Pen Press co-publisher and editor Nancy Peters is aboard. Authors Ken Kuhlken and Alan Russell are back, joining Carolyn Wheat in a new tag-team workshop called "What if? Public Plotting Session." In it conferees will brainstorm plot ideas to generate ideas for further development. Another fresh session debuting is one that many have asked for: "Freelance Editors and How to Pick the Right One." In a more playful mood, we might've called it "How Not to Get Screwed by the Far Too Many 'Book Doctors' Out There Bilking New Writers When They, Themselves, Can't Edit Their Way Out of a Split Infinitive!" The schedule has been updated, so check it out. Over the next couple of months some of the sessions will get shuffled around a bit, but otherwise we have only to announce our Friday Evening Speaker, add a couple more folk and get ready for some good, hard working times. Check back for further updates. In the meantime, go forth and write great!
ANOTHER EVENING SPEAKER, PLUS (11/6/05):
New York Times best-seller Margaret Coel, whom Publishers Weekly considers the "James Lee Burke of Native American mystery writers," will be our Sunday evening headliner. Her new title in the acclaimed Wind River series is Eye of the Wolf. Saturday night's guest is author-producer-literary manager Ken Atchity, whose excellent new book How to Publish Your Novel is rightfully garnering raves. Longtime powerhouse publicist Milton Kahn is going to handle a vitally needed marketing session and doing a limited number of one-on-one consults. Also joining us, regional publisher Sunbelt Publications' editor-in-chief Jennifer Redmond will be conducting a session and sitting in on Sunday's Editors Panel, as will Harper's Magazine contributing editor Charis Conn, who'll be accepting submissions for advance critique and one-on-one. More yet to come.
AND WE'RE OFF! (11/1/05):
As with every SCWC, we welcome back many familiar faces and introduce a few new to the staff. For our 20th – count 'em, 20! – San Diego event, so far we've got authors Ken Atchity, Mark Clements, Dale Fetherling, Debra Ginsberg, Jerry Hannah, Jean Jenkins, Cathrine Ann Jones,, Betty Abell Jurus, Gordon Kirkland, Justine Musk, Matthew J. Pallamary, Judy Reeves, Leslie Schwartz, Mike Sirota, Neva Sullaway, Ross Talarico, Laura Taylor, Carolyn Wheat and Marilys Wills. On the editors and agents front, so far Tom Britt, Regina Brooks, Kristin Nelson, Kelly Skillen and David Hale Smith are aboard, with others to be announced. Check back often for staff and scheduling updates taking place over the next couple of weeks. Got to announce the evening speakers, too. Hardcopy brochures will be mailed mid-November.
SCWC*SD 20 LOCATION:
The conference will be held at the Red Lion Hanalei Hotel San Diego resort, located mere moments away from Lindbergh Field International Airport, Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, historic Old Town, downtown and its famous Gaslamp District, and beaches, beaches, beaches galore! Conference dates for SCWC*SD 20 are Presidents' Day Weekend, Feb. 17-20, 2006. Lodging discounts are available to SCWC conferees. Phone: 800-882-0858 to book your reservation. We often sell out the conference hotel, so be sure to move on it sooner than later.
Wrap...
From www.writersconference.com :
TWO MORE SPEAKERS AND MUCHO MAS (11/18/05):
Yet another past conferee has hit the big time with her debut novel just released. Murder Uncorked (Berkley Prime Crime) brings to eight the number of books published in the last 24 months that were written by SCWCers. The first out of a total of six titles she sold in only ten months, author Michele Scott will join us Saturday morning to tell all about her journey from humble aspirant to hot published who-be . . . And to open the show Friday evening, who better than an author whose first book (The Horse Latitudes) he brought to the SCWC back in 1991, with the title of his second (Chesire Moon) being discovered there. Of Scavenger Hunt, his seventh, Entertainment Weekly declared, "Every few years another writer is described as the next Raymond Chandler, but (he) may be the real thing." His latest, The Wake-Up, delivers the goods, and with the February release of Prayers for the Assassin (Scribner), Robert Ferrigno will no doubt do so again . . . Little, Brown and Company editor Michael Mezzo is also freshly aboard, as is Castiglia Literary's wonderful write-minded rep, Sally Van Haitsma. And in an unconscionable act of decency, Saturday evening speaker, author & AEI Literary Management CEO Ken Atchity will also be accepting a limited number of advance submissions . . . With the online brochure now available, schedule nearly complete, and more authors, agents & editors than ever before, we're going to get busy fast. In fairness to those who don't rely on the Web to get all the SCWC skinny, the $50 Early "Bard" Discount has been extended for hardcopy brochure delivery. It is expected that many of the readers will sell out soon, so if you're serious about your writing getting the attention it warrants register today. You've earned it!
MORE ADDITIONS (11/14/05):
From Trident Media Group, one of Book Publishing Report's top-ranked agents, Scott Miller, will be accepting advance submissions, as will longtime SCWC friends and reps Ken Sherman and Paul S. Levine (who both scored finding new talent at our L.A. event). Poisoned Pen Press co-publisher and editor Nancy Peters is aboard. Authors Ken Kuhlken and Alan Russell are back, joining Carolyn Wheat in a new tag-team workshop called "What if? Public Plotting Session." In it conferees will brainstorm plot ideas to generate ideas for further development. Another fresh session debuting is one that many have asked for: "Freelance Editors and How to Pick the Right One." In a more playful mood, we might've called it "How Not to Get Screwed by the Far Too Many 'Book Doctors' Out There Bilking New Writers When They, Themselves, Can't Edit Their Way Out of a Split Infinitive!" The schedule has been updated, so check it out. Over the next couple of months some of the sessions will get shuffled around a bit, but otherwise we have only to announce our Friday Evening Speaker, add a couple more folk and get ready for some good, hard working times. Check back for further updates. In the meantime, go forth and write great!
ANOTHER EVENING SPEAKER, PLUS (11/6/05):
New York Times best-seller Margaret Coel, whom Publishers Weekly considers the "James Lee Burke of Native American mystery writers," will be our Sunday evening headliner. Her new title in the acclaimed Wind River series is Eye of the Wolf. Saturday night's guest is author-producer-literary manager Ken Atchity, whose excellent new book How to Publish Your Novel is rightfully garnering raves. Longtime powerhouse publicist Milton Kahn is going to handle a vitally needed marketing session and doing a limited number of one-on-one consults. Also joining us, regional publisher Sunbelt Publications' editor-in-chief Jennifer Redmond will be conducting a session and sitting in on Sunday's Editors Panel, as will Harper's Magazine contributing editor Charis Conn, who'll be accepting submissions for advance critique and one-on-one. More yet to come.
AND WE'RE OFF! (11/1/05):
As with every SCWC, we welcome back many familiar faces and introduce a few new to the staff. For our 20th – count 'em, 20! – San Diego event, so far we've got authors Ken Atchity, Mark Clements, Dale Fetherling, Debra Ginsberg, Jerry Hannah, Jean Jenkins, Cathrine Ann Jones,, Betty Abell Jurus, Gordon Kirkland, Justine Musk, Matthew J. Pallamary, Judy Reeves, Leslie Schwartz, Mike Sirota, Neva Sullaway, Ross Talarico, Laura Taylor, Carolyn Wheat and Marilys Wills. On the editors and agents front, so far Tom Britt, Regina Brooks, Kristin Nelson, Kelly Skillen and David Hale Smith are aboard, with others to be announced. Check back often for staff and scheduling updates taking place over the next couple of weeks. Got to announce the evening speakers, too. Hardcopy brochures will be mailed mid-November.
SCWC*SD 20 LOCATION:
The conference will be held at the Red Lion Hanalei Hotel San Diego resort, located mere moments away from Lindbergh Field International Airport, Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, historic Old Town, downtown and its famous Gaslamp District, and beaches, beaches, beaches galore! Conference dates for SCWC*SD 20 are Presidents' Day Weekend, Feb. 17-20, 2006. Lodging discounts are available to SCWC conferees. Phone: 800-882-0858 to book your reservation. We often sell out the conference hotel, so be sure to move on it sooner than later.
Wrap...
Kung Fu...Fighting monks of Shaolin...
From the LA Times:
December 4, 2005
latimes.com : World News
Kung Fu Monks Go Modern
Amid China's growing interest in religion, an abbot uses TV, films and the Web to market an ancient temple made famous by a Jet Li movie.
By Ching-Ching Ni, Times Staff Writer
SONGSHAN, China — Shi Yongxin wears a bright yellow robe and heavy prayer beads and lives in an ancient shrine high up in the mountains of central China.Yet he spends a lot of his time traveling in a chauffeur-driven jeep, jet-setting around the world and hobnobbing with Hollywood types. No wonder some people call him a CEO in a monk's robe.
As abbot of the world-famous Shaolin Temple, the holy land of kung fu, Shi indeed plays multiple roles. His latest is executive producer of a $25-million movie about the life and times of the legendary fighting monks that is set to hit cinemas in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He also has a reality TV project in the works, a kind of "American Idol" for kung fu masters.
To critics, Shi's lifestyle and projects prove how far the Shaolin Temple has strayed from its roots in an increasingly commercial society. But its controversial abbot says it's no crime to keep up with the times in order to preserve the past.
"Movies, TV shows, the Internet — these are all modern communication tools," said Shi, sitting in the dark chambers of his office in the Shaolin Temple as aides with shaved heads buzzed around arranging his busy schedule on their cellphones. "We are monks living in a new era. We should take advantage of these technologies and use them to serve Buddhism and traditional culture."
At 40, Shi is one of the youngest leaders in the history of the 1,500-year-old shrine. Perhaps because of his youth, he has presided over some of the boldest moves at the birthplace of Zen Buddhism.
Among his innovations were setting up the country's first temple-based website back in 1996, when few in China had heard of the Internet. The next online move was more of a head-turner: He revealed some fighting sequences previously considered top secrets passed only to true disciples.
Shi flung open the doors of Shaolin further by sending cloistered monks all over the world to perform and promote the temple's Zen-inspired martial arts. He knew physical prowess was not enough. He set up a corporation to defend the temple's "brand name." He was also among the first to send yellow-robed monks to take MBA courses and get doctorates.
No idea seems too far-fetched. He created a broadcasting company enabling the temple to produce film projects and oversee the selection of scripts and stars. He has been contemplating the possibility of taking his martial arts disciples to the stages of Las Vegas.
"We used to be isolated from the world. Our outside contact was only with the land, through farming," Shi said. "Now we must deal with people, it's not as simple. We need to gain knowledge, learn new skills, like study English, know about computers and study overseas."
In many ways, the Shaolin Temple is riding the wave of a Buddhist revival in China. After years of decline, it is back and more popular than ever. Thanks to the country's growing wealthy class and a yearning for spirituality, people are increasingly turning to religion and opening their wallets to show their faith.
Communist China is officially atheist, but it is home to an estimated 100 million believers of all faiths. Though hard to quantify, many are thought to be followers of traditional faiths such as Buddhism and Taoism, while an increasing number are converts to Christianity.
Old temples are rising from the ashes and being restored to their former glory. New temples are popping up from cities to the countryside. Demand is so high for religious services that sending monks to business school has become a growing necessity in the quest to better manage these thriving houses of worship.
"We are learning about communication skills, client psychology, marketing, human resources and strategic management techniques," said Chang Chun, a monk at Shanghai's Jade Buddha Temple. He is one of 18 monks taking a half-year course in business administration at Shanghai's Jiaotong University.
Located in the heart of a vibrant metropolis, Jade Buddha Temple has a wealthy clientele. That means a need for creative ways to link its modern lifestyle with an ancient religion. A colorful brochure near the entrance advertises opportunities to invite monks to bless newly purchased automobiles and real estate — for a fee, of course.
"Some people think monks should do nothing but sit around and read scriptures," Xue Ming, another monk taking the business course, said as he sat in a newly built conference room with leather sofas and computer cubicles. "The times have changed — we have to change too. If we stay the same, we can't survive."
By the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, Chinese Buddhism seemed to teeter on the brink of extinction.Temples across the country were either destroyed or forced to serve the people in secular ways. Some morphed into factories, storage facilities, residential units and schoolhouses. Precious scriptures were burned; Buddhist statues were smashed or had their faces hacked out. Many monks were kicked out to seek new livelihoods.
Shi arrived in 1981 to find the Shaolin Temple, nestled in the hills of the misty Song Mountains in central China's Henan province, a shadow of its former self. Where once 2,000 monks lived on an estate that stretched for miles, just 12 elderly monks remained, subsisting by farming a tiny plot of land and keeping a low profile reading scriptures and practicing kung fu.
Then came "Shaolin Temple," a 1982 film that was the first Hong Kong kung fu flick to be shot at the temple. Its star was a then-unknown martial artist called Jet Li. It launched his acting career and brought international acclaim to a dilapidated monastery in the Chinese heartland.
"That movie turned out to be a great advertisement for the Shaolin Temple," Shi said.He has no qualms about capitalizing on the temple's fame. Buddhism, after all, has always been on the cutting edge of innovation, he said. It was among the first religions to use paper to write scriptures and print scrolls. And advertising is not necessarily a bad word.
"What is a pagoda? It is like an ancient billboard," Shi said. "Buddhist statues too are a form of advertising. If we don't advertise, nobody would know about us."
The problem, however, is that the more people know about the Shaolin Temple, the more they want a piece of its good fortune.
As China moved toward a market-oriented economy, the Shaolin phenomenon to some became just another big business opportunity. Products as wide-ranging as pork sausages and cars, martial arts academies and security doors started to be marketed under the Shaolin name. In 1997, the temple made headlines by establishing a corporation and hiring lawyers to fight trademark violations.
The hardest thing for Shi is fighting the perception that the Shaolin Temple is in it for the money."When some people see us doing things like brand protection and movies, they think there's something inappropriate," Shi said. "But what we are doing is in keeping with tradition. Monks from every dynasty had to adapt to the changes of society. We are monks. But we are also citizens."
Wrap....
December 4, 2005
latimes.com : World News
Kung Fu Monks Go Modern
Amid China's growing interest in religion, an abbot uses TV, films and the Web to market an ancient temple made famous by a Jet Li movie.
By Ching-Ching Ni, Times Staff Writer
SONGSHAN, China — Shi Yongxin wears a bright yellow robe and heavy prayer beads and lives in an ancient shrine high up in the mountains of central China.Yet he spends a lot of his time traveling in a chauffeur-driven jeep, jet-setting around the world and hobnobbing with Hollywood types. No wonder some people call him a CEO in a monk's robe.
As abbot of the world-famous Shaolin Temple, the holy land of kung fu, Shi indeed plays multiple roles. His latest is executive producer of a $25-million movie about the life and times of the legendary fighting monks that is set to hit cinemas in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He also has a reality TV project in the works, a kind of "American Idol" for kung fu masters.
To critics, Shi's lifestyle and projects prove how far the Shaolin Temple has strayed from its roots in an increasingly commercial society. But its controversial abbot says it's no crime to keep up with the times in order to preserve the past.
"Movies, TV shows, the Internet — these are all modern communication tools," said Shi, sitting in the dark chambers of his office in the Shaolin Temple as aides with shaved heads buzzed around arranging his busy schedule on their cellphones. "We are monks living in a new era. We should take advantage of these technologies and use them to serve Buddhism and traditional culture."
At 40, Shi is one of the youngest leaders in the history of the 1,500-year-old shrine. Perhaps because of his youth, he has presided over some of the boldest moves at the birthplace of Zen Buddhism.
Among his innovations were setting up the country's first temple-based website back in 1996, when few in China had heard of the Internet. The next online move was more of a head-turner: He revealed some fighting sequences previously considered top secrets passed only to true disciples.
Shi flung open the doors of Shaolin further by sending cloistered monks all over the world to perform and promote the temple's Zen-inspired martial arts. He knew physical prowess was not enough. He set up a corporation to defend the temple's "brand name." He was also among the first to send yellow-robed monks to take MBA courses and get doctorates.
No idea seems too far-fetched. He created a broadcasting company enabling the temple to produce film projects and oversee the selection of scripts and stars. He has been contemplating the possibility of taking his martial arts disciples to the stages of Las Vegas.
"We used to be isolated from the world. Our outside contact was only with the land, through farming," Shi said. "Now we must deal with people, it's not as simple. We need to gain knowledge, learn new skills, like study English, know about computers and study overseas."
In many ways, the Shaolin Temple is riding the wave of a Buddhist revival in China. After years of decline, it is back and more popular than ever. Thanks to the country's growing wealthy class and a yearning for spirituality, people are increasingly turning to religion and opening their wallets to show their faith.
Communist China is officially atheist, but it is home to an estimated 100 million believers of all faiths. Though hard to quantify, many are thought to be followers of traditional faiths such as Buddhism and Taoism, while an increasing number are converts to Christianity.
Old temples are rising from the ashes and being restored to their former glory. New temples are popping up from cities to the countryside. Demand is so high for religious services that sending monks to business school has become a growing necessity in the quest to better manage these thriving houses of worship.
"We are learning about communication skills, client psychology, marketing, human resources and strategic management techniques," said Chang Chun, a monk at Shanghai's Jade Buddha Temple. He is one of 18 monks taking a half-year course in business administration at Shanghai's Jiaotong University.
Located in the heart of a vibrant metropolis, Jade Buddha Temple has a wealthy clientele. That means a need for creative ways to link its modern lifestyle with an ancient religion. A colorful brochure near the entrance advertises opportunities to invite monks to bless newly purchased automobiles and real estate — for a fee, of course.
"Some people think monks should do nothing but sit around and read scriptures," Xue Ming, another monk taking the business course, said as he sat in a newly built conference room with leather sofas and computer cubicles. "The times have changed — we have to change too. If we stay the same, we can't survive."
By the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, Chinese Buddhism seemed to teeter on the brink of extinction.Temples across the country were either destroyed or forced to serve the people in secular ways. Some morphed into factories, storage facilities, residential units and schoolhouses. Precious scriptures were burned; Buddhist statues were smashed or had their faces hacked out. Many monks were kicked out to seek new livelihoods.
Shi arrived in 1981 to find the Shaolin Temple, nestled in the hills of the misty Song Mountains in central China's Henan province, a shadow of its former self. Where once 2,000 monks lived on an estate that stretched for miles, just 12 elderly monks remained, subsisting by farming a tiny plot of land and keeping a low profile reading scriptures and practicing kung fu.
Then came "Shaolin Temple," a 1982 film that was the first Hong Kong kung fu flick to be shot at the temple. Its star was a then-unknown martial artist called Jet Li. It launched his acting career and brought international acclaim to a dilapidated monastery in the Chinese heartland.
"That movie turned out to be a great advertisement for the Shaolin Temple," Shi said.He has no qualms about capitalizing on the temple's fame. Buddhism, after all, has always been on the cutting edge of innovation, he said. It was among the first religions to use paper to write scriptures and print scrolls. And advertising is not necessarily a bad word.
"What is a pagoda? It is like an ancient billboard," Shi said. "Buddhist statues too are a form of advertising. If we don't advertise, nobody would know about us."
The problem, however, is that the more people know about the Shaolin Temple, the more they want a piece of its good fortune.
As China moved toward a market-oriented economy, the Shaolin phenomenon to some became just another big business opportunity. Products as wide-ranging as pork sausages and cars, martial arts academies and security doors started to be marketed under the Shaolin name. In 1997, the temple made headlines by establishing a corporation and hiring lawyers to fight trademark violations.
The hardest thing for Shi is fighting the perception that the Shaolin Temple is in it for the money."When some people see us doing things like brand protection and movies, they think there's something inappropriate," Shi said. "But what we are doing is in keeping with tradition. Monks from every dynasty had to adapt to the changes of society. We are monks. But we are also citizens."
Wrap....
Geomythology...Myths based on truth...
From the Guardian:
Ancient legends give an early warning of modern disasters
The new science of geomythology is being harnessed by researchers who believe folklore can save lives
Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday December 4, 2005
The Observer
On the banks of Siletz Bay in Lincoln City, Oregon, officials dedicated a memorial last week to one of America's worst calamities: a huge earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands of Native Americans 300 years ago.
But the memorial's main job is not to commemorate the disaster, which has only just come to light, but to warn local people that similar devastation could strike at any time.
The area sits over massive fault lines whose dangers have been highlighted by a startling new scientific discipline that combines Earth science studies and analysis of ancient legends. This is geomythology, and it is transforming our knowledge of earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis, says the journal Science.
According to the discipline's proponents, violent geological upheavals may be more frequent than was previously suspected.
Apart from the 'lost' Seattle earthquake, geomythology has recently revealed that a volcano in Fiji, thought to be dormant, is active, a discovery that followed geologists' decision to follow up legends of a mountain appearing overnight.
Geologists have found that Middle Eastern flooding myths, including the story of Noah, could be traced to the sudden inundation of the Black Sea 7,600 years ago. The Oracle at Delphi has been found to lie over a geological fault through which seeped hallucinogenic gases. These could account for the trances and utterances of the oracle's mystics.
'Myths can tell us a great deal about what happened in the past and were important in establishing what happened here 300 years ago,' said Brian Atwater, of the US Geological Survey in Seattle.
Along the Oregon and Washington coast, there are Native American stories about boulders, called a'yahos, which can shake to death anyone who stares at them. In addition, Ruth Ludwin, a seismologist in Seattle, discovered tales of villages being washed away and of whales and thunderbirds locked in fights.
These stories were a key influence on Atwater, who started to study the 680-mile long Cascadia subduction zone fault along the coast. What he found provided a shock. Long stretches had suffered sudden inundation relatively recently.
The study of trees stumps in this drowned landscape indicated there had been a huge earthquake and a tsunami between 1680 and 1720. 'We didn't know whether it was one massive quake or a couple of slightly smaller ones. Nor did we know exactly when the disaster occurred,' added Atwater.
Later research on tree rings put the date at between 1699 and 1700. Then local legends helped again. Japanese colleagues studied their records and traced an orphan tsunami - a giant wave not linked to a local earthquake - that destroyed several villages on 27 January, 1700.
'That told us two things: that our earthquake must have been vast, Richter scale 9, to devastate part of Japan thousands of miles away. It also gave us a precise date for our disaster.'
Scientists now believe huge earthquakes and tsunamis devastate the Seattle area every 200 to 1,000 years. 'We may be due one soon,' added Atwater.
However, until this year, the lesson of that tsunami was remembered only as a dim legend. Other such stories have been put to better use, however.
Last year's tsunami was also triggered by a strong earthquake, and around 300,000 people died. The Moken - or sea gypsies - of Thailand, however, have a tradition which warns that when tides recede far and fast, now known as a precursor of a tsunami, then a man-eating wave will soon head their way: so they should run far and fast. Last 26 December, they did - and survived.
Another example of the power of geomythology is from Patrick Nunn, of Fiji in the South Pacific. His studies of volcanoes on the Fijian island of Kadavu indicated they had not been active for tens of thousands of years.
'Then I heard legends of recent eruptions,' he told The Observer. 'I thought them unlikely. When a road was cut there in 2002, I found there had been a volcanic eruption long after it had been occupied by humans. It made me look at myths in a new light.'
Now, Nunn is working for the French government to compile tales that might pinpoint Pacific islands where scientists should look for warnings of earthquakes, volcanoes and catastrophic landslides.
These include stories of deities who fish up islands from the water and others in which they are thrown back into the sea.
'If you had asked me 10 years ago if there was value in local myths I would have said "not a lot",' added Nunn. 'Since then I have had a Pauline conversion.'
Wrap...
Ancient legends give an early warning of modern disasters
The new science of geomythology is being harnessed by researchers who believe folklore can save lives
Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday December 4, 2005
The Observer
On the banks of Siletz Bay in Lincoln City, Oregon, officials dedicated a memorial last week to one of America's worst calamities: a huge earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands of Native Americans 300 years ago.
But the memorial's main job is not to commemorate the disaster, which has only just come to light, but to warn local people that similar devastation could strike at any time.
The area sits over massive fault lines whose dangers have been highlighted by a startling new scientific discipline that combines Earth science studies and analysis of ancient legends. This is geomythology, and it is transforming our knowledge of earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis, says the journal Science.
According to the discipline's proponents, violent geological upheavals may be more frequent than was previously suspected.
Apart from the 'lost' Seattle earthquake, geomythology has recently revealed that a volcano in Fiji, thought to be dormant, is active, a discovery that followed geologists' decision to follow up legends of a mountain appearing overnight.
Geologists have found that Middle Eastern flooding myths, including the story of Noah, could be traced to the sudden inundation of the Black Sea 7,600 years ago. The Oracle at Delphi has been found to lie over a geological fault through which seeped hallucinogenic gases. These could account for the trances and utterances of the oracle's mystics.
'Myths can tell us a great deal about what happened in the past and were important in establishing what happened here 300 years ago,' said Brian Atwater, of the US Geological Survey in Seattle.
Along the Oregon and Washington coast, there are Native American stories about boulders, called a'yahos, which can shake to death anyone who stares at them. In addition, Ruth Ludwin, a seismologist in Seattle, discovered tales of villages being washed away and of whales and thunderbirds locked in fights.
These stories were a key influence on Atwater, who started to study the 680-mile long Cascadia subduction zone fault along the coast. What he found provided a shock. Long stretches had suffered sudden inundation relatively recently.
The study of trees stumps in this drowned landscape indicated there had been a huge earthquake and a tsunami between 1680 and 1720. 'We didn't know whether it was one massive quake or a couple of slightly smaller ones. Nor did we know exactly when the disaster occurred,' added Atwater.
Later research on tree rings put the date at between 1699 and 1700. Then local legends helped again. Japanese colleagues studied their records and traced an orphan tsunami - a giant wave not linked to a local earthquake - that destroyed several villages on 27 January, 1700.
'That told us two things: that our earthquake must have been vast, Richter scale 9, to devastate part of Japan thousands of miles away. It also gave us a precise date for our disaster.'
Scientists now believe huge earthquakes and tsunamis devastate the Seattle area every 200 to 1,000 years. 'We may be due one soon,' added Atwater.
However, until this year, the lesson of that tsunami was remembered only as a dim legend. Other such stories have been put to better use, however.
Last year's tsunami was also triggered by a strong earthquake, and around 300,000 people died. The Moken - or sea gypsies - of Thailand, however, have a tradition which warns that when tides recede far and fast, now known as a precursor of a tsunami, then a man-eating wave will soon head their way: so they should run far and fast. Last 26 December, they did - and survived.
Another example of the power of geomythology is from Patrick Nunn, of Fiji in the South Pacific. His studies of volcanoes on the Fijian island of Kadavu indicated they had not been active for tens of thousands of years.
'Then I heard legends of recent eruptions,' he told The Observer. 'I thought them unlikely. When a road was cut there in 2002, I found there had been a volcanic eruption long after it had been occupied by humans. It made me look at myths in a new light.'
Now, Nunn is working for the French government to compile tales that might pinpoint Pacific islands where scientists should look for warnings of earthquakes, volcanoes and catastrophic landslides.
These include stories of deities who fish up islands from the water and others in which they are thrown back into the sea.
'If you had asked me 10 years ago if there was value in local myths I would have said "not a lot",' added Nunn. 'Since then I have had a Pauline conversion.'
Wrap...
Saturday, December 03, 2005
BushCo frustrates satire writers...
From: http://farce.cynicmag.com :
Citing George W. Bush’s Policies, Satire Writers Admit They’re Superfluous.
By Chuck Terzella -- Staff Writer
Pity the poor satire writer. After years of growing popularity that began during the second half of the Clinton Administration in the late nineties and reached it’s peak during the 2004 election cycle, political satire seems to be becoming a thing of the past, or at least irrelevant. While most political humor websites still register thousands of hits a day, and television shows such as Jon Stewarts remain immensely popular, those who do the actual writing are...well, seeing the writing on the wall. Very soon they realize they will be completely unneeded. Why? The answer lies with the very target of ninety percent of the humorous pieces written today: George W. Bush.
Political Humorists are finding themselves struggling more and more just to find a topic to satirize. No, it’s not because the Bush Administration policies and actions have left them no ammunition; far from it. The problem is actually the opposite one of an embarrassment of riches. So many members of the Bush White House and it’s cronies and supporters both past and present...Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Tom Delay, Bill Frist, ex FEMA head Michael Brown, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Jerry Falwell, UN Ambassador John Bolton, White House Counsel and current Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers... and the list goes depressingly on and on, ending with Vice President Dick Cheney and George W. Bush themselves, are committing so many bizarre acts that satirical writers are finding it increasingly difficult to come up with a punch line.
Political satire depends in a large part on the truth. All good humor depends on plausibility; as Johnny Carson so succinctly put it, "You buy the premise, you buy the bit." But when the premise becomes so outrageous that people refuse to believe it, the bit becomes redundant and therefore unnecessary. When the President of the United States admits that he preemptively invaded a sovereign nation that posed no threat to our country because, "God told me to" and a "religious" leader like Pat Robertson advocates the political assassination of another sovereign nations leader...when top Administration officials intentionally name a covert CIA agent as way to exact political revenge, when the White House allows a Gay Conservative Republican Christian Homosexual Military Prostitute an Political Commentator (whew) to be a White House Press Reporter in order to feed George Bush softball questions when things got too rough...well, I mean, where do you go from there? Who’s gonna buy the lie when the truth is unbelievable?
Nowadays, when people want to be taken for a ride intellectually, all’s the have to do is just read the regular news media reports.
When I write my pieces, my goal is to take a morsel of truth and then try to subtly blend in the lie that makes the whole thing funny. While I regularly fail miserably in that task as my regular readers will attest, the concept is sound. But more and more, when I try my pieces out on say, my wife, she can’t recognize the truth in the fiction anymore; the truth has become the unbelievable part.
So, while the current Administration and it’s assorted hangers-on are investigated and indicted, while they allow major American cities to flood and leave it’s residents writhing in agony, while they go to war for one reason then blithely change that reason afterwards after the original one is proved to be as false as they apparently knew it was all along, when one man’s conversations with God dictates the course of a nation and the wars it fights, political satirists are finding themselves with less and less to do.
After all, why bother to tell the joke when everybody’s living it?
Wrap...
Citing George W. Bush’s Policies, Satire Writers Admit They’re Superfluous.
By Chuck Terzella -- Staff Writer
Pity the poor satire writer. After years of growing popularity that began during the second half of the Clinton Administration in the late nineties and reached it’s peak during the 2004 election cycle, political satire seems to be becoming a thing of the past, or at least irrelevant. While most political humor websites still register thousands of hits a day, and television shows such as Jon Stewarts remain immensely popular, those who do the actual writing are...well, seeing the writing on the wall. Very soon they realize they will be completely unneeded. Why? The answer lies with the very target of ninety percent of the humorous pieces written today: George W. Bush.
Political Humorists are finding themselves struggling more and more just to find a topic to satirize. No, it’s not because the Bush Administration policies and actions have left them no ammunition; far from it. The problem is actually the opposite one of an embarrassment of riches. So many members of the Bush White House and it’s cronies and supporters both past and present...Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Tom Delay, Bill Frist, ex FEMA head Michael Brown, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Jerry Falwell, UN Ambassador John Bolton, White House Counsel and current Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers... and the list goes depressingly on and on, ending with Vice President Dick Cheney and George W. Bush themselves, are committing so many bizarre acts that satirical writers are finding it increasingly difficult to come up with a punch line.
Political satire depends in a large part on the truth. All good humor depends on plausibility; as Johnny Carson so succinctly put it, "You buy the premise, you buy the bit." But when the premise becomes so outrageous that people refuse to believe it, the bit becomes redundant and therefore unnecessary. When the President of the United States admits that he preemptively invaded a sovereign nation that posed no threat to our country because, "God told me to" and a "religious" leader like Pat Robertson advocates the political assassination of another sovereign nations leader...when top Administration officials intentionally name a covert CIA agent as way to exact political revenge, when the White House allows a Gay Conservative Republican Christian Homosexual Military Prostitute an Political Commentator (whew) to be a White House Press Reporter in order to feed George Bush softball questions when things got too rough...well, I mean, where do you go from there? Who’s gonna buy the lie when the truth is unbelievable?
Nowadays, when people want to be taken for a ride intellectually, all’s the have to do is just read the regular news media reports.
When I write my pieces, my goal is to take a morsel of truth and then try to subtly blend in the lie that makes the whole thing funny. While I regularly fail miserably in that task as my regular readers will attest, the concept is sound. But more and more, when I try my pieces out on say, my wife, she can’t recognize the truth in the fiction anymore; the truth has become the unbelievable part.
So, while the current Administration and it’s assorted hangers-on are investigated and indicted, while they allow major American cities to flood and leave it’s residents writhing in agony, while they go to war for one reason then blithely change that reason afterwards after the original one is proved to be as false as they apparently knew it was all along, when one man’s conversations with God dictates the course of a nation and the wars it fights, political satirists are finding themselves with less and less to do.
After all, why bother to tell the joke when everybody’s living it?
Wrap...
SCOTUS debates "Don't ask, don't tell" on Tues...
From http://APNewsmyway.com :
Court to Release Tape of Gay Policy Debate
Dec 3, 7:10 AM (ET)
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday on the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward gays, then immediately release audio tapes of the proceeding.
The court has made same-day releases of audio tapes in some major cases since December 2000, when justices heard Florida ballot recount appeals that determined the outcome of the presidential election.
On Wednesday, the same-day release of audio tapes for a case involving abortion rights marked the first time Chief Justice John Roberts allowed the practice.
Television cameras are barred from the court and reporters are not allowed to use tape recorders. But arguments are taped by the court and usually released at the end of the term.
The case to be argued Tuesday, deciding the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment, deals with whether federal funds can be withheld from colleges that close their campuses to military recruiters in a protest of the current military policy toward gays.
The case is Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic & Institutional Rights, 04-1152.
Wrap..
Court to Release Tape of Gay Policy Debate
Dec 3, 7:10 AM (ET)
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday on the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward gays, then immediately release audio tapes of the proceeding.
The court has made same-day releases of audio tapes in some major cases since December 2000, when justices heard Florida ballot recount appeals that determined the outcome of the presidential election.
On Wednesday, the same-day release of audio tapes for a case involving abortion rights marked the first time Chief Justice John Roberts allowed the practice.
Television cameras are barred from the court and reporters are not allowed to use tape recorders. But arguments are taped by the court and usually released at the end of the term.
The case to be argued Tuesday, deciding the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment, deals with whether federal funds can be withheld from colleges that close their campuses to military recruiters in a protest of the current military policy toward gays.
The case is Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic & Institutional Rights, 04-1152.
Wrap..
And then there's Halliburton...
By way of http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth
New questions about Halliburton payments
As if the old questions weren't enough. Rep. Henry Waxman's Government Reform Minority Office is on the case:
December 2, 2005
In a letter (pdf) to Chairman Davis, Rep. Waxman discloses that the Army Corps of Engineers has paid Halliburton $130 million in cost reimbursements, profits, and bonuses for billings related to fuel imports and oilfield repairs in Iraq that Defense Department auditors determined to be unreasonable and unsupported.
In making the payment, the Corps of Engineers appears to have ignored auditor findings in three ways: by reimbursing Halliburton for the challenged costs, by permitting Halliburton to collect profits on these challenged costs, and by giving Halliburton unwarranted bonuses.
Halliburton received some of its highest bonuses for the projects with the most inflated costs.
And the Navy just awarded Halliburton another $15 million for Hurricane Wilma cleanup. They've already received $124.9 million for post-Katrina contracts.
When does the list of scandals get so long that taxpayers can cut them off (pdf)?
posted by Chris Kromm at 4:28 PM
Wrap...
New questions about Halliburton payments
As if the old questions weren't enough. Rep. Henry Waxman's Government Reform Minority Office is on the case:
December 2, 2005
In a letter (pdf) to Chairman Davis, Rep. Waxman discloses that the Army Corps of Engineers has paid Halliburton $130 million in cost reimbursements, profits, and bonuses for billings related to fuel imports and oilfield repairs in Iraq that Defense Department auditors determined to be unreasonable and unsupported.
In making the payment, the Corps of Engineers appears to have ignored auditor findings in three ways: by reimbursing Halliburton for the challenged costs, by permitting Halliburton to collect profits on these challenged costs, and by giving Halliburton unwarranted bonuses.
Halliburton received some of its highest bonuses for the projects with the most inflated costs.
And the Navy just awarded Halliburton another $15 million for Hurricane Wilma cleanup. They've already received $124.9 million for post-Katrina contracts.
When does the list of scandals get so long that taxpayers can cut them off (pdf)?
posted by Chris Kromm at 4:28 PM
Wrap...
Bush's "Plan for Victory" writer...
From Editor and Publisher.com :
How Bush Caught the 'Feaver' in Big Iraq Speech This Week
By Greg Mitchell
Published: December 03, 2005 2:05 PM ET
NEW YORK In his major speech this week outlining a strategy for Iraq that might turn around public opinion on the war, President Bush used the word victory 15 times against a backdrop of dozens of “Plan for Victory” signs.
Is victory really in our grasp—-and was the talk based more on changing poll results that really setting a wise course in Iraq? The questions will gain even more relevance with a revelation coming in Sunday’s New York Times.
It seems that in a part of the 35-page “Or National Strategy for Victory in Iraq” document posted on the White House web site, a few key strokes by those in know reveal that the document’s originator or author, is one “feaver-p.”
This person is Dr. Peter D. Feaver, a 43-year-old Duke University political scientist who joined the National Security Council staff as a special adviser in June. White House officials, while saying the document contained contributions from many federal departments, confirmed, according to the Times, that “its creation and presentation strongly reflected the public opinion research” of Dr. Feaver.
Feaver, the Times’ Scott Shane writes, “was recruited after he and Duke colleagues presented to administration officials their analysis of polls about the Iraq war in 2003 and 2004. They concluded that Americans would support a war with mounting casualties on one condition: that they believe it would ultimately succeed."
This past June, the Washington Post observed that Feaver's studies had already "helped influence the White House thinking."But Christopher F. Gelpi, Feaver's colleague at Duke and co-author of the research on American tolerance for casualties, tells the Times on Sunday that this week's 35-page report "is not really a strategy document from the Pentagon about fighting the insurgency. The Pentagon doesn't need the president to give a speech and post a document on the White House Web site to know how to fight --the insurgents. The document is clearly targeted at American public opinion."
Dr. Gelpi said he had not discussed the document with Dr. Feaver, who declined to be interviewed by the Times.
E&P has learned that Feaver is on leave from Duke until at least August 2006. According to his curriculum vitae, obtained by E&P, he describes himself as "Special Advisor for Strategic Planning and Institutional Reform, National Security Council Staff."
The study he did with Feaver, along with Jason Reifler, challenged the post-Vietnam view that Americans will only support military operations if casualties are low. Rather, they declared, based on a study of recent polls, that public acceptance for the Iraq war depended much more on feeling that the war was a worthy cause--and even more, a belief that the war was likely to end well.
Feaver is a lieutenant commander in the United States Naval Reserve and received his doctorate from Harvard University. While he served on President Clinton's National Security Council staff in 1993 and 1994, he has written critically of Clinton and other Democrats and sympathetically of President Bush in a variety of publications, including The New York Times and The Weekly Standard.
E&P research has found that:--In a June 24, 2004 op-ed for The Washington Post he wrote: "The Clinton record on military operations was clear: frequent resort to low-risk cruise-missile strikes and high-level bombings, but shunning any form of decisive operations involving ground troops in areas of high risk. The Clinton White House was the most casualty phobic administration in modern times, and this fear of body bags was not lost on Osama bin Laden. Indeed, al Qaeda rhetoric regularly 'proved' that the Americans were vulnerable to terrorism by invoking the hasty cut-and-run after 18 Army soldiers died in the 1993 'Black Hawk Down' events in Somalia..."
Last October in another op-ed article in The Washington Post, Feaver declared, "Despite an extraordinary effort to woo the military...the Democrats still have not overcome their traditional tone-deafness when it comes to civil-military relations."
He lists on his curriculum vitae a series of talks he gave in England in 2002, titled alternately "Casualty Aversion and the CNN Effect" and "Casualty Phobia, the CNN effect and U.S. involvement in Low Intensity Operations."
Appearing on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS in April 2004 he downplayed reports of civilian casualties in Iraq, noting among other things that "when newspaper reporters go out and collect information, and they ask people how many people died, and they faithfully report that number, that number has, is almost certainly inflated upwards."
And, in an online chat at The Washington Post's web site on March 6, 2003, just before the Iraq invasion, Feaver said the following:--"A fair reading of the past 18-months would show that this Administration has tried fairly and responsibly to persuade the American public of the wisdom/need for the course of action the President wants to pursue."--"It is simply a fact that Iraq is bolstered by the anti-war protests and is pursuing a wedge strategy hoping to isolate the Bush administration on this issue. So whether or not that is the intention of the war protestors, it is one of the results. One of the reasons why the war protests have not been more persuasive is precisely because the protestors have not come to terms with the net result of their actions and have not presented a credible strategy for dealing with Iraq."
"President Bush subscribes to the momentum theory of politics: that success breeds success, and political capital accrues to the one who spends political capital....But the danger is that it can lead to over-reach -- if President Bush misjudges popular sentiment while pursuing this strategy he is likely to fall much further/faster than a more cautious politician who triangulated every issue and never tried to lead public opinion anywhere. "For that reason, public sentiment is probably more important for President Bush than for other presidents -- he is trying to do more and is willing to get out in front of the public more than other Presidents and this makes him more exposed."
Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com)
Wrap...
How Bush Caught the 'Feaver' in Big Iraq Speech This Week
By Greg Mitchell
Published: December 03, 2005 2:05 PM ET
NEW YORK In his major speech this week outlining a strategy for Iraq that might turn around public opinion on the war, President Bush used the word victory 15 times against a backdrop of dozens of “Plan for Victory” signs.
Is victory really in our grasp—-and was the talk based more on changing poll results that really setting a wise course in Iraq? The questions will gain even more relevance with a revelation coming in Sunday’s New York Times.
It seems that in a part of the 35-page “Or National Strategy for Victory in Iraq” document posted on the White House web site, a few key strokes by those in know reveal that the document’s originator or author, is one “feaver-p.”
This person is Dr. Peter D. Feaver, a 43-year-old Duke University political scientist who joined the National Security Council staff as a special adviser in June. White House officials, while saying the document contained contributions from many federal departments, confirmed, according to the Times, that “its creation and presentation strongly reflected the public opinion research” of Dr. Feaver.
Feaver, the Times’ Scott Shane writes, “was recruited after he and Duke colleagues presented to administration officials their analysis of polls about the Iraq war in 2003 and 2004. They concluded that Americans would support a war with mounting casualties on one condition: that they believe it would ultimately succeed."
This past June, the Washington Post observed that Feaver's studies had already "helped influence the White House thinking."But Christopher F. Gelpi, Feaver's colleague at Duke and co-author of the research on American tolerance for casualties, tells the Times on Sunday that this week's 35-page report "is not really a strategy document from the Pentagon about fighting the insurgency. The Pentagon doesn't need the president to give a speech and post a document on the White House Web site to know how to fight --the insurgents. The document is clearly targeted at American public opinion."
Dr. Gelpi said he had not discussed the document with Dr. Feaver, who declined to be interviewed by the Times.
E&P has learned that Feaver is on leave from Duke until at least August 2006. According to his curriculum vitae, obtained by E&P, he describes himself as "Special Advisor for Strategic Planning and Institutional Reform, National Security Council Staff."
The study he did with Feaver, along with Jason Reifler, challenged the post-Vietnam view that Americans will only support military operations if casualties are low. Rather, they declared, based on a study of recent polls, that public acceptance for the Iraq war depended much more on feeling that the war was a worthy cause--and even more, a belief that the war was likely to end well.
Feaver is a lieutenant commander in the United States Naval Reserve and received his doctorate from Harvard University. While he served on President Clinton's National Security Council staff in 1993 and 1994, he has written critically of Clinton and other Democrats and sympathetically of President Bush in a variety of publications, including The New York Times and The Weekly Standard.
E&P research has found that:--In a June 24, 2004 op-ed for The Washington Post he wrote: "The Clinton record on military operations was clear: frequent resort to low-risk cruise-missile strikes and high-level bombings, but shunning any form of decisive operations involving ground troops in areas of high risk. The Clinton White House was the most casualty phobic administration in modern times, and this fear of body bags was not lost on Osama bin Laden. Indeed, al Qaeda rhetoric regularly 'proved' that the Americans were vulnerable to terrorism by invoking the hasty cut-and-run after 18 Army soldiers died in the 1993 'Black Hawk Down' events in Somalia..."
Last October in another op-ed article in The Washington Post, Feaver declared, "Despite an extraordinary effort to woo the military...the Democrats still have not overcome their traditional tone-deafness when it comes to civil-military relations."
He lists on his curriculum vitae a series of talks he gave in England in 2002, titled alternately "Casualty Aversion and the CNN Effect" and "Casualty Phobia, the CNN effect and U.S. involvement in Low Intensity Operations."
Appearing on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS in April 2004 he downplayed reports of civilian casualties in Iraq, noting among other things that "when newspaper reporters go out and collect information, and they ask people how many people died, and they faithfully report that number, that number has, is almost certainly inflated upwards."
And, in an online chat at The Washington Post's web site on March 6, 2003, just before the Iraq invasion, Feaver said the following:--"A fair reading of the past 18-months would show that this Administration has tried fairly and responsibly to persuade the American public of the wisdom/need for the course of action the President wants to pursue."--"It is simply a fact that Iraq is bolstered by the anti-war protests and is pursuing a wedge strategy hoping to isolate the Bush administration on this issue. So whether or not that is the intention of the war protestors, it is one of the results. One of the reasons why the war protests have not been more persuasive is precisely because the protestors have not come to terms with the net result of their actions and have not presented a credible strategy for dealing with Iraq."
"President Bush subscribes to the momentum theory of politics: that success breeds success, and political capital accrues to the one who spends political capital....But the danger is that it can lead to over-reach -- if President Bush misjudges popular sentiment while pursuing this strategy he is likely to fall much further/faster than a more cautious politician who triangulated every issue and never tried to lead public opinion anywhere. "For that reason, public sentiment is probably more important for President Bush than for other presidents -- he is trying to do more and is willing to get out in front of the public more than other Presidents and this makes him more exposed."
Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com)
Wrap...
Able Danger...still stonewalled!!!
From AbleDangerBlog.com :
Retaliation
Just in case anyone from the Inspector General's office is listening.
October 21, 2003 - After receiving permission from his commanding officer, Tony Shaffer briefs 9/11 Commission staff members on Able Danger and other classified projects, which he believed were relevant, at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan. He does not specifically seek permission from the DIA as well, before telling the Commission staff that Able Danger had identified two of the three cells that executed the 9/11 attacks.
January 2004 - Shaffer tries to contact the Commission staff again, as requested, but is told that his information is not needed. "Someone answers the phone and says, 'Yes, we remember you. I will talk to Dr. Zelikow and find out when he wants you to come in.' A week goes by, no phone call back. I called them a week later and said, 'Hey, what gives?' 'Yeah, we know who you are. Ummmmm. Dr. Zelikow tells me that he does not see the need for you to come in. We have all the information on Able Danger.'"
February 2004 - Two briefcases with limited information on Able Danger are delivered to the 9/11 Commission staff. According to Shaffer, "I'm told confidently by the person who moved the material over, that the Sept. 11 commission received two briefcase-sized containers of documents. I can tell you for a fact that would not be one-twentieth of the information that Able Danger consisted of during the time we spent..."
Also in February 2004, Shaffer sees the detailed documents regarding all the details of Able Danger for the last time. "The last time I saw the data I’m referring to is also the February 2004 timeframe. Since then, the data regarding the Able Danger set of documents has not been located."
March 2004 - Shaffer's security clearance is suspended, preventing him from accessing the documents. "Then, in March of 2004, there are some allegations drummed up against me regarding $67 in phone charges, which were accumulated 25 cents at a time over 18 months. Even though when they told me about this issue, I offered to pay it back, they chose instead to spend in our estimation $400,000 to investigate all these issues simply to drum up this information."
October 1, 2004 - Shaffer is promoted to lieutenant colonel by the Army. Lt. Col. Shaffer is now a member of the Army Reserves, and has been on paid administrative leave since his security clearance was suspended in March. As Attorney Mark Zaid explains, "This is the key to the whole story and was lost in the shuffle. If any of the DIA allegations had merit, LTC Shaffer would still be Major Shaffer. So why is DIA taking the action it has?"
June 2005 - Congressman Curt Weldon talks about Able Danger in an interview with the Norristown Times Herald and a subsequent speech on the floor of the House. He also mentions it briefly in his new book, "Countdown to Terror".
August 2005 - Government Security News publishes an article on Able Danger, which is noticed by reporters from the New York Times and Fox News. Both feature prominent stories on the subject over the next few weeks, and several members of the Able Danger team come forward to defend their story publicly after both DoD officials and members of the 9/11 Commission claim to know nothing about it.
September 1, 2005 - The Department of Defense holds a press conference to discuss Able Danger in public. According to Congressman Curt Weldon, "I was told by Fox News that the press guy over at the Pentagon actually went in the room and told Fox News and the New York Times, 'When you going to let this story go?'"
September 17, 2005 - Congressman Weldon makes the following comment in response to statements by members of the 9/11 Commission the previous day, "And so I felt, after seeing what I thought was a ridiculous press conference yesterday and knowing what's going to come up on Wednesday at the Senate hearing -- unless somebody is gagged between now and Wednesday, because I have talked to all the witnesses -- there are some serious questions that need to be answered."
September 20, 2005 - The members of the Able Danger team are gagged and Tony Shaffer's security clearance is permanently revoked, despite the fact that written testimony from the members of the Able Danger team has already been submitted to the committee. Normally, such testimony is published by the committee once the hearing is actually held.
September 21, 2005 - Congressman Curt Weldon and Attorney Mark Zaid testify instead of the Able Danger team members who were scheduled to do so, prior to being gagged.
November 3, 2005 - Shaffer loses an appeal to have his security clearance reinstated. His Attorney Mark Zaid explains "Unfortunately DIA has seen fit to completely disregard our submissions, and Cong Weldon and Hunters' formal requests to refrain from acting against Tony. This was the final stage of the process. There are no more administrative appeals left with respect to the clearance. A response to the indefinite suspension will be filed tomorrow. I expect that Tony will receive a notice of termination also in record breaking speed. That will take effect no sooner than thirty days from when received."
November 9, 2005 - The Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Defense opens an investigation into retaliation against Tony Shaffer for speaking out about what he knew regarding Able Danger before 9/11.
November 14, 2005 - Pay and benefits to Tony Shaffer are apparently scheduled to end, or he receives notice of this, as DIA attempts to terminate his employment. However, any such action is delayed until the Inspector General investigation has runs its course.November 18, 2005 - Congressman Curt Weldon sends a letter to Don Rumsfeld, with signatures from 246 member of Congress, asking for public hearings on Able Danger without any fear of retaliation against the witnesses.
December 2, 2005 - As of this date, Congressman Weldon is yet to receive a reponse.
Wrap...
Retaliation
Just in case anyone from the Inspector General's office is listening.
October 21, 2003 - After receiving permission from his commanding officer, Tony Shaffer briefs 9/11 Commission staff members on Able Danger and other classified projects, which he believed were relevant, at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan. He does not specifically seek permission from the DIA as well, before telling the Commission staff that Able Danger had identified two of the three cells that executed the 9/11 attacks.
January 2004 - Shaffer tries to contact the Commission staff again, as requested, but is told that his information is not needed. "Someone answers the phone and says, 'Yes, we remember you. I will talk to Dr. Zelikow and find out when he wants you to come in.' A week goes by, no phone call back. I called them a week later and said, 'Hey, what gives?' 'Yeah, we know who you are. Ummmmm. Dr. Zelikow tells me that he does not see the need for you to come in. We have all the information on Able Danger.'"
February 2004 - Two briefcases with limited information on Able Danger are delivered to the 9/11 Commission staff. According to Shaffer, "I'm told confidently by the person who moved the material over, that the Sept. 11 commission received two briefcase-sized containers of documents. I can tell you for a fact that would not be one-twentieth of the information that Able Danger consisted of during the time we spent..."
Also in February 2004, Shaffer sees the detailed documents regarding all the details of Able Danger for the last time. "The last time I saw the data I’m referring to is also the February 2004 timeframe. Since then, the data regarding the Able Danger set of documents has not been located."
March 2004 - Shaffer's security clearance is suspended, preventing him from accessing the documents. "Then, in March of 2004, there are some allegations drummed up against me regarding $67 in phone charges, which were accumulated 25 cents at a time over 18 months. Even though when they told me about this issue, I offered to pay it back, they chose instead to spend in our estimation $400,000 to investigate all these issues simply to drum up this information."
October 1, 2004 - Shaffer is promoted to lieutenant colonel by the Army. Lt. Col. Shaffer is now a member of the Army Reserves, and has been on paid administrative leave since his security clearance was suspended in March. As Attorney Mark Zaid explains, "This is the key to the whole story and was lost in the shuffle. If any of the DIA allegations had merit, LTC Shaffer would still be Major Shaffer. So why is DIA taking the action it has?"
June 2005 - Congressman Curt Weldon talks about Able Danger in an interview with the Norristown Times Herald and a subsequent speech on the floor of the House. He also mentions it briefly in his new book, "Countdown to Terror".
August 2005 - Government Security News publishes an article on Able Danger, which is noticed by reporters from the New York Times and Fox News. Both feature prominent stories on the subject over the next few weeks, and several members of the Able Danger team come forward to defend their story publicly after both DoD officials and members of the 9/11 Commission claim to know nothing about it.
September 1, 2005 - The Department of Defense holds a press conference to discuss Able Danger in public. According to Congressman Curt Weldon, "I was told by Fox News that the press guy over at the Pentagon actually went in the room and told Fox News and the New York Times, 'When you going to let this story go?'"
September 17, 2005 - Congressman Weldon makes the following comment in response to statements by members of the 9/11 Commission the previous day, "And so I felt, after seeing what I thought was a ridiculous press conference yesterday and knowing what's going to come up on Wednesday at the Senate hearing -- unless somebody is gagged between now and Wednesday, because I have talked to all the witnesses -- there are some serious questions that need to be answered."
September 20, 2005 - The members of the Able Danger team are gagged and Tony Shaffer's security clearance is permanently revoked, despite the fact that written testimony from the members of the Able Danger team has already been submitted to the committee. Normally, such testimony is published by the committee once the hearing is actually held.
September 21, 2005 - Congressman Curt Weldon and Attorney Mark Zaid testify instead of the Able Danger team members who were scheduled to do so, prior to being gagged.
November 3, 2005 - Shaffer loses an appeal to have his security clearance reinstated. His Attorney Mark Zaid explains "Unfortunately DIA has seen fit to completely disregard our submissions, and Cong Weldon and Hunters' formal requests to refrain from acting against Tony. This was the final stage of the process. There are no more administrative appeals left with respect to the clearance. A response to the indefinite suspension will be filed tomorrow. I expect that Tony will receive a notice of termination also in record breaking speed. That will take effect no sooner than thirty days from when received."
November 9, 2005 - The Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Defense opens an investigation into retaliation against Tony Shaffer for speaking out about what he knew regarding Able Danger before 9/11.
November 14, 2005 - Pay and benefits to Tony Shaffer are apparently scheduled to end, or he receives notice of this, as DIA attempts to terminate his employment. However, any such action is delayed until the Inspector General investigation has runs its course.November 18, 2005 - Congressman Curt Weldon sends a letter to Don Rumsfeld, with signatures from 246 member of Congress, asking for public hearings on Able Danger without any fear of retaliation against the witnesses.
December 2, 2005 - As of this date, Congressman Weldon is yet to receive a reponse.
Wrap...
Dowd knows unknown unknowns when she sees one.
From the NY Times:
W.'s Head in the Sand
By MAUREEN DOWD
In the Christmas spirit, the time has come for the reality-based community to reach out to the White House.
The Bush warriors are so deluded, they're even faking their fakery.
This week, the president presented a plan-like plan for "victory" in Iraq, which Scott McClellan rather pompously called the unclassified version of their supersecret master plan. But there would be no way to achieve victory from this plan even if it were a real plan. If this is what they're telling themselves in the Sit Room, we're in bigger trouble than we thought.
Talk about your unknown unknowns, as Rummy would say.
The National Strategy for Victory must have come from the same P.R. genius who gave President Top Gun the "Mission Accomplished" banner about 48 hours before the first counterinsurgency war of the 21st century broke out in Iraq.
It's not a military strategy - classified or unclassified. It's political talking points - and not even good ones. Are we really supposed to believe that anybody, even the most deeply delusional Bush sycophant, believes the phrase "Our strategy is working"?
The president talked about three neatly definable groups of insurrectionists. But as Dexter Filkins reported in yesterday's New York Times, there are dozens, perhaps as many as a hundred, groups fighting the U.S. Army in Iraq, and they have little, if anything, in common.
Mr. Bush's presentation claimed that the U.S. was actually making progress in Iraq. But outside the Bush-Cheney-Rummy bubble, 10 more marines were killed by a roadside bomb outside Falluja, for a total of 2,125 U.S. military deaths so far.
The administration must realize it needs a real exit strategy, because it's advertising for one.
The U.S. Agency for International Development is offering more than $1 billion for anyone - anyone at all - who can come up with a plan to pacify and rebuild 10 Iraqi cities seen as vital in the war.
Maybe the White House should apply - Usaid's proffer says the "invitation is open to any type of entity."
When Bush officials weren't telling us fairy tales about the big, bad W.M.D. in Iraq, they were assuring us that the unprovoked war would be a kindness for Iraq, giving it democracy. But they are not just failing to bring democracy to Iraq as they help Iranian-backed mullahs install an Islamic republic with Saddamist torture chambers. They are also degrading democracy in America.
They've tarnished American moral leadership with illegal detentions, torture, secret C.I.A. prisons in countries only recently liberated from the Soviet gulag, and Soviet-style propaganda both at home and in Iraq.
Guess the Bush administration didn't learn anything this fall when federal auditors said it had violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of its education polices. Bush officials got right back into the fake news business, paying to plant propaganda in the Iraqi press. They outsourced this disinformation campaign to something called the Lincoln Group - have they no shame?
You have to admire Scott McClellan, the president's spokesman. He kept a straight face when he called the U.S. "a leader when it comes to promoting and advocating a free and independent media around the world." He added, "We've made our views very clear when it comes to freedom of the press."
Exceedingly clear. The Bushies don't believe in it. They disdain the whole democratic system of checks and balances.
At the Naval Academy, President Bush talked about how well the Iraqi security forces were fighting. He claimed that 40 Iraqi battalions were taking the lead in the fight against insurgents, and that in the battle of Tal Afar this year, "the assault was primarily led by Iraqi security forces - 11 Iraqi battalions backed by 5 coalition battalions providing support."
Anderson Cooper of CNN swiftly produced Time magazine's Baghdad bureau chief, Michael Ware, who was embedded with the U.S. military during the entire Tal Afar battle. "With the greatest respect to the president, that's completely wrong," Mr. Ware said, adding: "I was with Iraqi units right there on the front line as they were battling with Al Qaeda. They were not leading."
He also told Mr. Cooper: "I have had a very senior officer here in Baghdad say to me that there's never going to be a point where these guys will be able to stand up against the insurgency on their own."
Mr. Ware recalled that in a battle two weeks ago, he saw an Iraqi security officer put down his weapon and curl up into a ball when he was under attack. "I have seen that on - on many, many occasions," he said.
Curling up in a ball. Good National Strategy for Victory.
Wrap...
W.'s Head in the Sand
By MAUREEN DOWD
In the Christmas spirit, the time has come for the reality-based community to reach out to the White House.
The Bush warriors are so deluded, they're even faking their fakery.
This week, the president presented a plan-like plan for "victory" in Iraq, which Scott McClellan rather pompously called the unclassified version of their supersecret master plan. But there would be no way to achieve victory from this plan even if it were a real plan. If this is what they're telling themselves in the Sit Room, we're in bigger trouble than we thought.
Talk about your unknown unknowns, as Rummy would say.
The National Strategy for Victory must have come from the same P.R. genius who gave President Top Gun the "Mission Accomplished" banner about 48 hours before the first counterinsurgency war of the 21st century broke out in Iraq.
It's not a military strategy - classified or unclassified. It's political talking points - and not even good ones. Are we really supposed to believe that anybody, even the most deeply delusional Bush sycophant, believes the phrase "Our strategy is working"?
The president talked about three neatly definable groups of insurrectionists. But as Dexter Filkins reported in yesterday's New York Times, there are dozens, perhaps as many as a hundred, groups fighting the U.S. Army in Iraq, and they have little, if anything, in common.
Mr. Bush's presentation claimed that the U.S. was actually making progress in Iraq. But outside the Bush-Cheney-Rummy bubble, 10 more marines were killed by a roadside bomb outside Falluja, for a total of 2,125 U.S. military deaths so far.
The administration must realize it needs a real exit strategy, because it's advertising for one.
The U.S. Agency for International Development is offering more than $1 billion for anyone - anyone at all - who can come up with a plan to pacify and rebuild 10 Iraqi cities seen as vital in the war.
Maybe the White House should apply - Usaid's proffer says the "invitation is open to any type of entity."
When Bush officials weren't telling us fairy tales about the big, bad W.M.D. in Iraq, they were assuring us that the unprovoked war would be a kindness for Iraq, giving it democracy. But they are not just failing to bring democracy to Iraq as they help Iranian-backed mullahs install an Islamic republic with Saddamist torture chambers. They are also degrading democracy in America.
They've tarnished American moral leadership with illegal detentions, torture, secret C.I.A. prisons in countries only recently liberated from the Soviet gulag, and Soviet-style propaganda both at home and in Iraq.
Guess the Bush administration didn't learn anything this fall when federal auditors said it had violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of its education polices. Bush officials got right back into the fake news business, paying to plant propaganda in the Iraqi press. They outsourced this disinformation campaign to something called the Lincoln Group - have they no shame?
You have to admire Scott McClellan, the president's spokesman. He kept a straight face when he called the U.S. "a leader when it comes to promoting and advocating a free and independent media around the world." He added, "We've made our views very clear when it comes to freedom of the press."
Exceedingly clear. The Bushies don't believe in it. They disdain the whole democratic system of checks and balances.
At the Naval Academy, President Bush talked about how well the Iraqi security forces were fighting. He claimed that 40 Iraqi battalions were taking the lead in the fight against insurgents, and that in the battle of Tal Afar this year, "the assault was primarily led by Iraqi security forces - 11 Iraqi battalions backed by 5 coalition battalions providing support."
Anderson Cooper of CNN swiftly produced Time magazine's Baghdad bureau chief, Michael Ware, who was embedded with the U.S. military during the entire Tal Afar battle. "With the greatest respect to the president, that's completely wrong," Mr. Ware said, adding: "I was with Iraqi units right there on the front line as they were battling with Al Qaeda. They were not leading."
He also told Mr. Cooper: "I have had a very senior officer here in Baghdad say to me that there's never going to be a point where these guys will be able to stand up against the insurgency on their own."
Mr. Ware recalled that in a battle two weeks ago, he saw an Iraqi security officer put down his weapon and curl up into a ball when he was under attack. "I have seen that on - on many, many occasions," he said.
Curling up in a ball. Good National Strategy for Victory.
Wrap...
Friday, December 02, 2005
Cunningham...much worse than you think...
*World Exclusive*Nov 30 2005--Venice,FL.
by Daniel Hopsicker
The MadCowMorningNews has learned that California Republican Congressman Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham steered $500 million in defense contracts in less than a decade, according to the company’s own website, to a start-up San Diego software firm which—and here’s the beauty part—doubled as a lobbying firm.
The lobbying firm then gratefully kicked back—at a bare minimum—hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to a Jack Abramoff-directed Washington D.C. lobbying and consulting firm run by two former senior staffers of Texas Republican Tom DeLay.
It offered, in other words, one-stop shopping.
While the focus was on the $2 million in bribes paid to Cunningham after his guilty plea, the question of just what the Congressman had done for all that long green received scant media attention.
But as the extent of the damage to America’s national security wrought by the bribes which crossed Cunningham’s greasy palm begins to come into focus, the fraud being revealed is orders of magnitude greater than has been hinted at so far.
Here’s how it worked:
Continue reading at: http://www.madcowprod.com/index.html
Wrap...
by Daniel Hopsicker
The MadCowMorningNews has learned that California Republican Congressman Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham steered $500 million in defense contracts in less than a decade, according to the company’s own website, to a start-up San Diego software firm which—and here’s the beauty part—doubled as a lobbying firm.
The lobbying firm then gratefully kicked back—at a bare minimum—hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to a Jack Abramoff-directed Washington D.C. lobbying and consulting firm run by two former senior staffers of Texas Republican Tom DeLay.
It offered, in other words, one-stop shopping.
While the focus was on the $2 million in bribes paid to Cunningham after his guilty plea, the question of just what the Congressman had done for all that long green received scant media attention.
But as the extent of the damage to America’s national security wrought by the bribes which crossed Cunningham’s greasy palm begins to come into focus, the fraud being revealed is orders of magnitude greater than has been hinted at so far.
Here’s how it worked:
Continue reading at: http://www.madcowprod.com/index.html
Wrap...
We need all the info we can get. Here are books!
Well now! Here's the latest from TJ Waters, whose non-fiction, CLASS 11, about the first CIA class after 9/11 promises to be a real honey of a read. TJ says,
"Finally got my website up and running; check out www.tjwaters.com. Movie negotiations underway right now - keep your fingers crossed!" Indeed I will. Do send good vibes in his direction! Can hardly wait to get my hands on his book. Have it advance ordered, in fact.
And now, from Publishers Lunch Weekly:
FICTION/DEBUT:
Dinaw Mengestu's CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION, about an Ethiopian immigrant and grocery store owner and the relationship he has with his two best friends, and a white next door neighbor and her mulatto child, to Megan Lynch at Riverhead, at auction, by PJ Mark at McCormick & Williams Literary Agency (NA). pm@mccormickwilliams.com
MYSTERY/CRIME:
LA Times bestselling author John Shannon's THE DARK STREETS, the latest novel in the Jack Liffey mystery series, to Claiborne Hancock at Pegasus, in a nice deal, by the Amy Rennert Agency (world).claiborne@pegasusbooks.us
THRILLER:
Juan Gómez Jurado's forthcoming Spanish novel GOD'S SPY, in which a couple of Cardinals are found brutally murdered just before the election of the new Pope, and the Vatican police realize they have a probable serial killer on their hands, enlisting a Roman inspector and a priest who is a former US Army intelligence officer to investigate -- as they wonder if the Vatican is helping, or sacrificing them as pawns in an even more deadly game, to Dutton, by Thomas Colchie at The Colchie Agency, on behalf of the Antonia Kerrigan Literary Agency (NA).
Italian rights went to Longanesi recently; rights have also been sold to Gyldendal in Norway.bernat@antoniakerrigan.com
Man Booker Prize Winner John Banville writing as Benjamin Black's QUIRKE, which features a pathologist who uncovers a murderous plot at the heart of the Catholic establishment of Dublin and Boston, for publication in winter 2007; and a second book in the series to be published in winter 2008, to Jennifer Barth and John Sterling at Holt (and Picador for paperback), at auction, by Ed Victor (NA)
UK:
SPEAK SOFTLY SHE CAN HEAR author Pam Lewis's PERFECT FAMILY, the story of a family whose old money and influence conceal a story of tragedy and shame, which comes to light after the youngest daughter's death by drowning, to Mary-Anne Harrington at Headline Review, in a nice deal, by Shana Kelly at William Morris (UK/Commonwealth, excl. Canada).mary-anne.harrington@headline.co.uk
FOREIGN:
Italian rights to Keigo Higashino's Japanese bestseller HIMITSU, a detective story involving a man whose wife dies in a bus accident while his young daughter, who survives,seems to be inhabited by her mother's personality), and THE LAKESIDE MURDER CASE, a psychological thriller in which the wife of a school teacher confesses a murder she did not commit, to Patricia Chendi of Baldini Calstoldi Dalai, in a nice deal, by Marinella Magrì of Il Caduceo, on behalf of Japan Foreign Rights Centre.
Russian rights to the 2005 Governor General Award winner for literary fiction David Gilmour's A PERFECT NIGHT TO GO TO CHINA, to Centrepolygraph, by Svetlana Pironko, on behalf of Samantha Haywood of the Transatlantic Literary Agency. Einaudi previously bought Italian rights in a pre-empt for publication in early 2006.
Foreign rights to Michael White's EQUINOX, to Scribe, at auction in Australia; to Bard, in a pre-empt, in Bulgaria; to Presses de la Cite, at auction, in France; to Droemer, at auction, in Germany; to Livani, in a pre-empt, in Greece; to Unieboek, at auction, in Holland; at Sonzongno, in a pre-empt, in Italy; to Jotema, in a pre-empt, in Lithuania; to Rebis, at auction, in Poland; to Roca, in a pre-empt, in Spain; to Bra Brocker, in a pre-empt, in Sweden, by Carole Blake and Oli Munson at Blake Friedmann Literary Agency.carole@blakefriedmann.co.uk oli@blakefriedmann.co.uk
NON-FICTION/ADVICE, RELATIONSHIPS:
Journalist David Valdes Greenwood's HOMO DOMESTICUS: Notes from a Same-Sex Marriage, a look at the arc of one gay couple's ten-year relationship, from the first date to the first proposal to the adoption of their baby girl, to Wendy Holt at Da Capo, for publication in fall 2006 (world).
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:
Mental Floss: Forbidden Knowledge author D. Peter Haugen's UNSOLVED MYSTERIES OF ROYAL HISTORY, which will look at enduring topics such as: Was King Tut murdered? Was there a real King Arthur? Did Richard III murder the princes in the tower? Why did Edward VIII love Wallis Simpson? And why did Princess Diana die?, to Stephen Power at Wiley, in a nice deal (world).monorato@wiley.com
MEMOIR:
Lannan Foundation fellowship recipient Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts's HARLEM IS NOWHERE: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America, a personal view of her current neighborhood, which also draws from the literary chronicles of the past, to Pat Strachan at Little, Brown, in a two-book deal, by Jin Auh at The Wylie Agency.
Thomas Healy's I HAVE HEARD YOU CALLING IN THE NIGHT, an original account of how a dog really can be a man's best friend, to Tina Pohlman at Harcourt, in a very nice deal, by Angela Rose for Granta Books (US).arose@granta.com
FILM:
Ramón Lobo's ISLA ÁFRICA, a story of friendship between a war correspondent and a photographer, to Tornasol Films in Spain, to be shot in 2007, directed by Gerardo Herrero, by Anna Soler-Pont at the Pontas Literary & Film Agency.marina@pontas-agency.com
Wrap....
"Finally got my website up and running; check out www.tjwaters.com. Movie negotiations underway right now - keep your fingers crossed!" Indeed I will. Do send good vibes in his direction! Can hardly wait to get my hands on his book. Have it advance ordered, in fact.
And now, from Publishers Lunch Weekly:
FICTION/DEBUT:
Dinaw Mengestu's CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION, about an Ethiopian immigrant and grocery store owner and the relationship he has with his two best friends, and a white next door neighbor and her mulatto child, to Megan Lynch at Riverhead, at auction, by PJ Mark at McCormick & Williams Literary Agency (NA). pm@mccormickwilliams.com
MYSTERY/CRIME:
LA Times bestselling author John Shannon's THE DARK STREETS, the latest novel in the Jack Liffey mystery series, to Claiborne Hancock at Pegasus, in a nice deal, by the Amy Rennert Agency (world).claiborne@pegasusbooks.us
THRILLER:
Juan Gómez Jurado's forthcoming Spanish novel GOD'S SPY, in which a couple of Cardinals are found brutally murdered just before the election of the new Pope, and the Vatican police realize they have a probable serial killer on their hands, enlisting a Roman inspector and a priest who is a former US Army intelligence officer to investigate -- as they wonder if the Vatican is helping, or sacrificing them as pawns in an even more deadly game, to Dutton, by Thomas Colchie at The Colchie Agency, on behalf of the Antonia Kerrigan Literary Agency (NA).
Italian rights went to Longanesi recently; rights have also been sold to Gyldendal in Norway.bernat@antoniakerrigan.com
Man Booker Prize Winner John Banville writing as Benjamin Black's QUIRKE, which features a pathologist who uncovers a murderous plot at the heart of the Catholic establishment of Dublin and Boston, for publication in winter 2007; and a second book in the series to be published in winter 2008, to Jennifer Barth and John Sterling at Holt (and Picador for paperback), at auction, by Ed Victor (NA)
UK:
SPEAK SOFTLY SHE CAN HEAR author Pam Lewis's PERFECT FAMILY, the story of a family whose old money and influence conceal a story of tragedy and shame, which comes to light after the youngest daughter's death by drowning, to Mary-Anne Harrington at Headline Review, in a nice deal, by Shana Kelly at William Morris (UK/Commonwealth, excl. Canada).mary-anne.harrington@headline.co.uk
FOREIGN:
Italian rights to Keigo Higashino's Japanese bestseller HIMITSU, a detective story involving a man whose wife dies in a bus accident while his young daughter, who survives,seems to be inhabited by her mother's personality), and THE LAKESIDE MURDER CASE, a psychological thriller in which the wife of a school teacher confesses a murder she did not commit, to Patricia Chendi of Baldini Calstoldi Dalai, in a nice deal, by Marinella Magrì of Il Caduceo, on behalf of Japan Foreign Rights Centre.
Russian rights to the 2005 Governor General Award winner for literary fiction David Gilmour's A PERFECT NIGHT TO GO TO CHINA, to Centrepolygraph, by Svetlana Pironko, on behalf of Samantha Haywood of the Transatlantic Literary Agency. Einaudi previously bought Italian rights in a pre-empt for publication in early 2006.
Foreign rights to Michael White's EQUINOX, to Scribe, at auction in Australia; to Bard, in a pre-empt, in Bulgaria; to Presses de la Cite, at auction, in France; to Droemer, at auction, in Germany; to Livani, in a pre-empt, in Greece; to Unieboek, at auction, in Holland; at Sonzongno, in a pre-empt, in Italy; to Jotema, in a pre-empt, in Lithuania; to Rebis, at auction, in Poland; to Roca, in a pre-empt, in Spain; to Bra Brocker, in a pre-empt, in Sweden, by Carole Blake and Oli Munson at Blake Friedmann Literary Agency.carole@blakefriedmann.co.uk oli@blakefriedmann.co.uk
NON-FICTION/ADVICE, RELATIONSHIPS:
Journalist David Valdes Greenwood's HOMO DOMESTICUS: Notes from a Same-Sex Marriage, a look at the arc of one gay couple's ten-year relationship, from the first date to the first proposal to the adoption of their baby girl, to Wendy Holt at Da Capo, for publication in fall 2006 (world).
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:
Mental Floss: Forbidden Knowledge author D. Peter Haugen's UNSOLVED MYSTERIES OF ROYAL HISTORY, which will look at enduring topics such as: Was King Tut murdered? Was there a real King Arthur? Did Richard III murder the princes in the tower? Why did Edward VIII love Wallis Simpson? And why did Princess Diana die?, to Stephen Power at Wiley, in a nice deal (world).monorato@wiley.com
MEMOIR:
Lannan Foundation fellowship recipient Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts's HARLEM IS NOWHERE: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America, a personal view of her current neighborhood, which also draws from the literary chronicles of the past, to Pat Strachan at Little, Brown, in a two-book deal, by Jin Auh at The Wylie Agency.
Thomas Healy's I HAVE HEARD YOU CALLING IN THE NIGHT, an original account of how a dog really can be a man's best friend, to Tina Pohlman at Harcourt, in a very nice deal, by Angela Rose for Granta Books (US).arose@granta.com
FILM:
Ramón Lobo's ISLA ÁFRICA, a story of friendship between a war correspondent and a photographer, to Tornasol Films in Spain, to be shot in 2007, directed by Gerardo Herrero, by Anna Soler-Pont at the Pontas Literary & Film Agency.marina@pontas-agency.com
Wrap....
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Cheney on the skids with Bush...
From Insight Mag:
Bush takes Cheney out of the loop on national security
The role of Vice President Dick Cheney as the administration's point man in security policy appears over, according to administration sources.
Over the last two months Mr. Cheney has been granted decreasing access to the Oval Office, the sources said on the condition of anonymity. The two men still meet, but the close staff work between the president and vice president has ended.
"Cheney's influence has waned not only because of bad chemistry, but because the White House no longer formulates policy," another source said.
"There's nothing to input into. Cheney is smart and knowledgeable, but he as well as Bush are ducking all the time to avoid the bullets."
The sources said the indictment and resignation of Lewis "Scooter" Libby marked the final straw in the deterioration of relations between President Bush and Mr. Cheney. They said Bush aides expect that any trial of Mr. Libby, Mr. Cheney's long-time chief of staff, would open a closet of skeletons regarding such issues as Iraq, the CIA and the conduct of White House aides.
"There's a lack of trust that the president has in Cheney and it's connected with Iraq," a source said.
The sources said Mr. Bush has privately blamed Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for the U.S.-led war in Iraq. They said the president has told his senior aides that the vice president and defense secretary provided misleading assessments on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, as well as the capabilities of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
As a result, the sources said, Mr. Cheney has been ousted from his role as the administration's point man in the area of national security. They said presidential staffers have kept Mr. Cheney out of the loop on discussions on policy as the White House has struggled with the political and intelligence fallout from the war in Iraq.
Mr. Bush is not expected to replace Mr. Cheney unless the vice president follows the fate of his former chief of staff. The sources also said Mr. Rumsfeld is expected to remain in his post until U.S. troops are withdrawn from Iraq.
Wrap...
Bush takes Cheney out of the loop on national security
The role of Vice President Dick Cheney as the administration's point man in security policy appears over, according to administration sources.
Over the last two months Mr. Cheney has been granted decreasing access to the Oval Office, the sources said on the condition of anonymity. The two men still meet, but the close staff work between the president and vice president has ended.
"Cheney's influence has waned not only because of bad chemistry, but because the White House no longer formulates policy," another source said.
"There's nothing to input into. Cheney is smart and knowledgeable, but he as well as Bush are ducking all the time to avoid the bullets."
The sources said the indictment and resignation of Lewis "Scooter" Libby marked the final straw in the deterioration of relations between President Bush and Mr. Cheney. They said Bush aides expect that any trial of Mr. Libby, Mr. Cheney's long-time chief of staff, would open a closet of skeletons regarding such issues as Iraq, the CIA and the conduct of White House aides.
"There's a lack of trust that the president has in Cheney and it's connected with Iraq," a source said.
The sources said Mr. Bush has privately blamed Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for the U.S.-led war in Iraq. They said the president has told his senior aides that the vice president and defense secretary provided misleading assessments on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, as well as the capabilities of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
As a result, the sources said, Mr. Cheney has been ousted from his role as the administration's point man in the area of national security. They said presidential staffers have kept Mr. Cheney out of the loop on discussions on policy as the White House has struggled with the political and intelligence fallout from the war in Iraq.
Mr. Bush is not expected to replace Mr. Cheney unless the vice president follows the fate of his former chief of staff. The sources also said Mr. Rumsfeld is expected to remain in his post until U.S. troops are withdrawn from Iraq.
Wrap...
Some people will believe anything!
From:
http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/debate/story/13924084p-14761016c.html
Molly Ivins: Mishearing the Lord
By Molly Ivins
Published 2:15 am PST Thursday, December 1, 2005
AUSTIN, Texas -- The Lord Impersonator is back again. This fella reappears every couple of years and causes no end of trouble. The jokester goes around persuading feeble-minded persons he is the Lord Almighty and that they are to do or say some perfectly idiotic thing under his instructions.
One of the worst cases we've had in Texas was the time the Lord Impersonator convinced 20 people in Floydada to git nekked, get into a GTO and drive to Vinton, La., where they ran into a tree. Seein' 20 nekkid people, including five children, come out of a GTO startled the Vinton cops. The nekkid citizens all said God told them to do it.
Quite a few people have been mishearing the Lord lately. The Rev. Pat Robertson thinks the Lord told the people of Dover, Pa., they shouldn't ask for His help anymore because they elected a school board Robertson doesn't like. And Rep. Richard Baker of Louisiana said right after Hurricane Katrina that "we finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did it."
I kind of doubt Katrina was designed by the Lord as a form of urban renewal. I think it's a big mistake for us to go around putting our own puny interpretations on stuff that happens and then claiming the Lord meant thus-and-such by it. It is my humble opinion that some folks should do a lot more listening to God and a lot less talking for Him.
In that category, I put a whole passel of politicians -- including that God-fearing professional patriot Rep. "Duke" Cunningham of San Diego. Cunningham resigned his office after pleading guilty to having accepted $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors. "Duke's" big cause in Congress was to get a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning. Which do you think is more unpatriotic: burning a flag to indicate desperate dissent against American policy or getting elected to Congress and selling out for a Rolls Royce and some antique commodes?
Rep. Tom DeLay, who is under indictment in Texas, is another fine parser of the Lord's intent. According to Mother Jones magazine, DeLay appeared at a prayer breakfast just after the tsunami that killed 240,000 people. "DeLay read a passage from Matthew about a nonbeliever: '... a fool who built his house on sand: the rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house, and it collapsed and was completely ruined.' Then, without comment, he righteously sat down."
Some Christians seem to me inclined to lose track of love, compassion and mercy. I don't think I have any special brief to go around judging them, but when the stink of hypocrisy becomes so foul in the nostrils it makes you start to puke it becomes necessary to point out there is one more good reason to observe the separation of church and state: If God keeps hanging out with politicians, it's gonna hurt his reputation.
I've always hoped that people like Tom DeLay and Duke Cunningham (and Reps. Bob Ney, Richard Pombo, Dana Rohrabacher, John Doolittle and William J. Jefferson (a D) and Sens. Bill Frist and Conrad Burns) were really stonewall cynics at heart, secretly sneering at the rubes who buy into their holier-than-thou posturing. But I'm afraid they're not.
I'm afraid one actually has to allow for the denial and self-delusion that make it possible for people to be both self-righteous and sleazy at the same time. We are all capable of fooling ourselves in a grand variety of ways.
Another reason why religion and policy make such a bad mix is that religion brings the dread element of certitude into what needs to be a constant process of questioning. In the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh quotes a former Defense Department official who served in Bush's first term: "The president is more determined than ever to stay the course. He doesn't feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage, 'People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.'"
Look, certitude is the enemy of clear thinking. "Never be absolutely sure" is a useful motto, and sailing through our current policies in Iraq without a shadow of a doubt is both foolish and dangerous. I would be far more reassured if I thought the president were second-guessing every move we make than I am to find out he hasn't a shadow of a doubt. For one thing, it shuts him off from considering alternatives, and boy do we need some alternatives.
So here we sit, watching a great, stinking skein of corruption being fished to the surface of Washington, while the town is simultaneously filled with a great babble about God, prayer and morality. Corruption trails head off in all directions -- lobbyists, wives, jobs, perverting intelligence, outing agents for petty revenge -- all this and a Prayer Breakfast every day.
Wrap...
http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/debate/story/13924084p-14761016c.html
Molly Ivins: Mishearing the Lord
By Molly Ivins
Published 2:15 am PST Thursday, December 1, 2005
AUSTIN, Texas -- The Lord Impersonator is back again. This fella reappears every couple of years and causes no end of trouble. The jokester goes around persuading feeble-minded persons he is the Lord Almighty and that they are to do or say some perfectly idiotic thing under his instructions.
One of the worst cases we've had in Texas was the time the Lord Impersonator convinced 20 people in Floydada to git nekked, get into a GTO and drive to Vinton, La., where they ran into a tree. Seein' 20 nekkid people, including five children, come out of a GTO startled the Vinton cops. The nekkid citizens all said God told them to do it.
Quite a few people have been mishearing the Lord lately. The Rev. Pat Robertson thinks the Lord told the people of Dover, Pa., they shouldn't ask for His help anymore because they elected a school board Robertson doesn't like. And Rep. Richard Baker of Louisiana said right after Hurricane Katrina that "we finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did it."
I kind of doubt Katrina was designed by the Lord as a form of urban renewal. I think it's a big mistake for us to go around putting our own puny interpretations on stuff that happens and then claiming the Lord meant thus-and-such by it. It is my humble opinion that some folks should do a lot more listening to God and a lot less talking for Him.
In that category, I put a whole passel of politicians -- including that God-fearing professional patriot Rep. "Duke" Cunningham of San Diego. Cunningham resigned his office after pleading guilty to having accepted $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors. "Duke's" big cause in Congress was to get a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning. Which do you think is more unpatriotic: burning a flag to indicate desperate dissent against American policy or getting elected to Congress and selling out for a Rolls Royce and some antique commodes?
Rep. Tom DeLay, who is under indictment in Texas, is another fine parser of the Lord's intent. According to Mother Jones magazine, DeLay appeared at a prayer breakfast just after the tsunami that killed 240,000 people. "DeLay read a passage from Matthew about a nonbeliever: '... a fool who built his house on sand: the rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house, and it collapsed and was completely ruined.' Then, without comment, he righteously sat down."
Some Christians seem to me inclined to lose track of love, compassion and mercy. I don't think I have any special brief to go around judging them, but when the stink of hypocrisy becomes so foul in the nostrils it makes you start to puke it becomes necessary to point out there is one more good reason to observe the separation of church and state: If God keeps hanging out with politicians, it's gonna hurt his reputation.
I've always hoped that people like Tom DeLay and Duke Cunningham (and Reps. Bob Ney, Richard Pombo, Dana Rohrabacher, John Doolittle and William J. Jefferson (a D) and Sens. Bill Frist and Conrad Burns) were really stonewall cynics at heart, secretly sneering at the rubes who buy into their holier-than-thou posturing. But I'm afraid they're not.
I'm afraid one actually has to allow for the denial and self-delusion that make it possible for people to be both self-righteous and sleazy at the same time. We are all capable of fooling ourselves in a grand variety of ways.
Another reason why religion and policy make such a bad mix is that religion brings the dread element of certitude into what needs to be a constant process of questioning. In the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh quotes a former Defense Department official who served in Bush's first term: "The president is more determined than ever to stay the course. He doesn't feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage, 'People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.'"
Look, certitude is the enemy of clear thinking. "Never be absolutely sure" is a useful motto, and sailing through our current policies in Iraq without a shadow of a doubt is both foolish and dangerous. I would be far more reassured if I thought the president were second-guessing every move we make than I am to find out he hasn't a shadow of a doubt. For one thing, it shuts him off from considering alternatives, and boy do we need some alternatives.
So here we sit, watching a great, stinking skein of corruption being fished to the surface of Washington, while the town is simultaneously filled with a great babble about God, prayer and morality. Corruption trails head off in all directions -- lobbyists, wives, jobs, perverting intelligence, outing agents for petty revenge -- all this and a Prayer Breakfast every day.
Wrap...
There is no measuring the depths of Bush's stupidity.
From Tom Paine.com :
Bush's Newest Crusader
William Fisher
December 01, 2005
William Fisher has managed economic development programs in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia for the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. This piece was originally published in The Daily Star and is reprinted with permission. Washington is a town where the best and the brightest usually coexist with well-connected political hacks. However, the Bush administration has taken promotion of the latter to embarrassing extremes, selecting unqualified people for posts because of their political loyalty and ideological persuasion. The most recent example of this was the appointment of Paul Bonicelli to be deputy director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which is in charge of all programs to promote democracy and good governance overseas.
One would have thought the administration had learned its lesson. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael Brown, was forced to resign because of his incompetence in dealing with the consequences of the storm. Soon afterward, President George W. Bush named While House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Her lack of qualifications, and a Republican revolt against the nomination, forced her to withdraw.
Like Brown and Miers, Bonicelli has little experience in the field he has been tapped to supervise. The closest he comes to democracy promotion or good governance is having worked as a staffer for the Republican Party in the International Relations Committee of the House of Representatives.
More significant to the administration, perhaps, is the fact that Bonicelli is dean of academic affairs at tiny Patrick Henry College in rural Virginia. The fundamentalist institution's motto is "For Christ and Liberty." It requires that all of its 300 students sign a 10-part "statement of faith" declaring, among other things, that they believe "Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, is God come in the flesh;" that "Jesus Christ literally rose bodily from the dead"; and that hell is a place where "all who die outside of Christ shall be confined in conscious torment for eternity."
Faculty members, too, must sign a pledge stating they share a generally literalist belief in the Bible. Revealingly, only biology and theology teachers are required to hold a literal view specifically of the Bible's six-day creation story. Bonicelli has stated, "I think the most important thing is our academic excellence, [and the fact that we] combine it with a serious statement about our faith and values ... I believe in six literal days, but I remain open to someone persuading me otherwise."
Patrick Henry was founded in 2000 for home-schooled students. Among the fundamentalist community, home-schooling is seen as a way to promote Christian values as an alternative to what is regarded as an increasingly secular and irreligious culture prevalent in public schools. The college says it aims to "prepare Christian men and women who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values and fidelity to the spirit of the American founding." It seeks "to aid in the transformation of American society by training Christian students to serve God and mankind with a passion for righteousness, justice and mercy, through careers of public service and cultural influence."
Though Bonicelli has scant credentials for his new post, he and his institution enjoy close ties to the Bush administration and to fundamentalist religious groups that form such a critical part of the president's base. Many Patrick Henry students have been chosen to serve as interns working for White House political adviser Karl Rove, for the White House Office of Public Liaison, and for Republican members of the House and Senate. "Most students' values don't link up with [those of] the Democrats," Bonicelli says.
In 2002, Bush appointed Bonicelli—along with former Vatican adviser John Klink and Janice Crouse of the ultra-conservative Concerned Women for America—to an American delegation attending a United Nations children's conference, where they sought to promote biblical values in U.S. foreign policy. This sparked angry protests from groups advocating women's rights and the separation of church and state.
What's wrong with this picture is that the USAID programs Bonicelli will run are important weapons in the arsenal of Bush's new public diplomacy czarina, White House confidante Karen Hughes. These programs are intended to play a central role in boosting Bush's efforts to foster democracy and freedom in Iraq and throughout the broader Middle East.
One can only wonder how Muslims, the target audience for these USAID programs, will react to the view that "all who die outside of Christ shall be confined in conscious torment for eternity."
Wrap...
Bush's Newest Crusader
William Fisher
December 01, 2005
William Fisher has managed economic development programs in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia for the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. This piece was originally published in The Daily Star and is reprinted with permission. Washington is a town where the best and the brightest usually coexist with well-connected political hacks. However, the Bush administration has taken promotion of the latter to embarrassing extremes, selecting unqualified people for posts because of their political loyalty and ideological persuasion. The most recent example of this was the appointment of Paul Bonicelli to be deputy director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which is in charge of all programs to promote democracy and good governance overseas.
One would have thought the administration had learned its lesson. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael Brown, was forced to resign because of his incompetence in dealing with the consequences of the storm. Soon afterward, President George W. Bush named While House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Her lack of qualifications, and a Republican revolt against the nomination, forced her to withdraw.
Like Brown and Miers, Bonicelli has little experience in the field he has been tapped to supervise. The closest he comes to democracy promotion or good governance is having worked as a staffer for the Republican Party in the International Relations Committee of the House of Representatives.
More significant to the administration, perhaps, is the fact that Bonicelli is dean of academic affairs at tiny Patrick Henry College in rural Virginia. The fundamentalist institution's motto is "For Christ and Liberty." It requires that all of its 300 students sign a 10-part "statement of faith" declaring, among other things, that they believe "Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, is God come in the flesh;" that "Jesus Christ literally rose bodily from the dead"; and that hell is a place where "all who die outside of Christ shall be confined in conscious torment for eternity."
Faculty members, too, must sign a pledge stating they share a generally literalist belief in the Bible. Revealingly, only biology and theology teachers are required to hold a literal view specifically of the Bible's six-day creation story. Bonicelli has stated, "I think the most important thing is our academic excellence, [and the fact that we] combine it with a serious statement about our faith and values ... I believe in six literal days, but I remain open to someone persuading me otherwise."
Patrick Henry was founded in 2000 for home-schooled students. Among the fundamentalist community, home-schooling is seen as a way to promote Christian values as an alternative to what is regarded as an increasingly secular and irreligious culture prevalent in public schools. The college says it aims to "prepare Christian men and women who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values and fidelity to the spirit of the American founding." It seeks "to aid in the transformation of American society by training Christian students to serve God and mankind with a passion for righteousness, justice and mercy, through careers of public service and cultural influence."
Though Bonicelli has scant credentials for his new post, he and his institution enjoy close ties to the Bush administration and to fundamentalist religious groups that form such a critical part of the president's base. Many Patrick Henry students have been chosen to serve as interns working for White House political adviser Karl Rove, for the White House Office of Public Liaison, and for Republican members of the House and Senate. "Most students' values don't link up with [those of] the Democrats," Bonicelli says.
In 2002, Bush appointed Bonicelli—along with former Vatican adviser John Klink and Janice Crouse of the ultra-conservative Concerned Women for America—to an American delegation attending a United Nations children's conference, where they sought to promote biblical values in U.S. foreign policy. This sparked angry protests from groups advocating women's rights and the separation of church and state.
What's wrong with this picture is that the USAID programs Bonicelli will run are important weapons in the arsenal of Bush's new public diplomacy czarina, White House confidante Karen Hughes. These programs are intended to play a central role in boosting Bush's efforts to foster democracy and freedom in Iraq and throughout the broader Middle East.
One can only wonder how Muslims, the target audience for these USAID programs, will react to the view that "all who die outside of Christ shall be confined in conscious torment for eternity."
Wrap...
Senate trashes the Constitution...
From the Village Voice:
Bushwhacking the Constitution
U.S. Senate proves as disdainful of the Constitution as George W. Bush. Be forewarned.
by Nat Hentoff
November 28th, 2005 5:28 PM
Senator Lindsey Graham: Who cares if the world is watching?
US Senate
These are weighty and momentous considerations that go far beyond the detainees at Guantánamo. . . .[This amendment] . . . takes away jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States. It is untenable and unthinkable and ought to be rejected.
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter , on the floor of the Senate, November 15, objecting to an amendment to the defense authorization bill by Lindsey Graham, Carl Levin, and Jon Kyl that would effectively close our federal courts to any charges of abuse, including
torture, of Guantánamo prisoners. The amendment passed 84 to 14.
I learned long ago not to say the sky is falling when it's only raining. However, the hard rain on our fundamental liberties has been persistently increasing since the White House rammed through the Patriot Act soon after 9-11. This nation has survived grave constitutional crises before, but recent events in the U.S. Senate that further strengthen and deepen presidential powers are reason to be alarmed at what can follow under the present administration.
On November 10, with the support of Bush's Justice Department, the Senate had previously passed an amendment by the manipulatively mercurial Senator Lindsey Graham that the American Civil Liberties Union charged "would make the McCain anti-torture amendment nearly impossible to enforce at Guantánamo Bay.
"The [original] Graham amendment would strip all courts, including the Supreme Court, of jurisdiction to consider habeas [corpus] petitions or any other action challenging any aspect of the detention of foreign detainees [there], except for the narrow question of whether [Defense Department] status review boards follow their own rules."
The vote on November 10 was 49 to 42. That action by the Senate so alarmed the law school deans at Georgetown, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford—Alexander Aleinikoff, Elena Kagan, Harold Hongu Koh, and Larry Kramer—that they wrote a letter to Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, that he inserted in the November 15 Congressional Record. (Leahy, a firm constitutionalist, voted against Graham's amendment.)
I haven't the space for all of the deans' letter, but I quote from page S12802 and strongly recommend you read the entire Senate debate that day, which led to the eventual 84-14 vote that disgraces the majority of the Senate—and could place the liberties of all of us, not only the Guantánamo prisoners, at risk.
Said the deans: "We cannot imagine a more inappropriate moment to remove scrutiny of Executive Branch treatment of non-citizen detainees. We are all aware of serious and disturbing reports of secret overseas prisons, extraordinary renditions [by the CIA], and the abuse of prisoners in Guantánamo, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
"The Graham Amendment will simply reinforce the public perception that Congress approves Executive Branch decisions to act beyond the reach of law. [Emphasis added.] As such, it undermines two core elements of the rule of law: congressionally sanctioned rules that limit and guide the exercise of Executive power, and judicial review to ensure that those rules have in fact been honored.
"When dictatorships have passed laws stripping their courts of power to review executive detention or punishment of prisoners, our government has rightly challenged such acts as fundamentally lawless. The same standard should apply to our own government. We urge you to vote to remove the court-stripping provisions of the Graham Amendment from the pending legislation."
The majority of the Senate continue to ignore all warnings on this subversion of the separation of powers. But there was a backlash to that first Graham amendment from civil liberties and human rights organizations and members of Congress. This resulted in various amendments and counter-amendments on the Senate floor to "improve" that initial startling Graham amendment. Adding minimal due-process protections, this "improvement" nonetheless remains dangerous to the future of the Constitution and its separation of powers because it continues to deny habeas protections to Guantánamo prisoners.
Making that case, I quote from a November 17 letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist from the justly prestigious Association of the Bar of the City of New York. Despite the attempts to perform cosmetic surgery on the original Graham amendment, said the New York City bar, the version that the Senate is sending to the House "leaves a gaping hole precisely where the Administration's policies are most troublesome, and where the world is most carefully watching—the indefinite detention of persons whose status as an enemy combatant has not been adequately examined, and the treatment of those detainees.
"The 'war on terror,' unlike other U.S. wars, has no conceivable end point. . . . Therefore, there is every reason to believe that the detainees being held at Guantánamo could spend the rest of their lives as prisoners."
The New York bar letter ends with this acutely telling point: "Just yesterday, we learned that our government expressed outrage over the torture of prisoners by Iraqi captors in an Iraqi ministry building. To have moral force, our expressions of outrage must be buttressed at home by protections that only the writ of habeas corpus can provide."
The Graham-Levin-Kyl amendment passed on November 15 by a resounding vote of 84 to 14. It does not—as the ACLU emphasizes—"allow any habeas claim for protection against government-funded torture or abuse . . . and prohibits all habeas claims if the government decides it is going to hold a person with- out ever determining their status." (Distinguished civil libertarians Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer voted for the amendment.)
The "great writ" of habeas corpus goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215 and allows a prisoner to go to a court to make the government prove that he or she is being legally held. Making it impossible for a Guantánamo prisoner to go to a court on a habeas petition concerning torture makes the McCain amendment meaningless. I've left two messages with McCain's press secretary to have the senator explain this clear inconsistency. There has been no response, in contrast with quick answers to previous queries.
I had thought John McCain was a man of principle, not just another presidential candidate in 2008.
Wrap...
Bushwhacking the Constitution
U.S. Senate proves as disdainful of the Constitution as George W. Bush. Be forewarned.
by Nat Hentoff
November 28th, 2005 5:28 PM
Senator Lindsey Graham: Who cares if the world is watching?
US Senate
These are weighty and momentous considerations that go far beyond the detainees at Guantánamo. . . .[This amendment] . . . takes away jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States. It is untenable and unthinkable and ought to be rejected.
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter , on the floor of the Senate, November 15, objecting to an amendment to the defense authorization bill by Lindsey Graham, Carl Levin, and Jon Kyl that would effectively close our federal courts to any charges of abuse, including
torture, of Guantánamo prisoners. The amendment passed 84 to 14.
I learned long ago not to say the sky is falling when it's only raining. However, the hard rain on our fundamental liberties has been persistently increasing since the White House rammed through the Patriot Act soon after 9-11. This nation has survived grave constitutional crises before, but recent events in the U.S. Senate that further strengthen and deepen presidential powers are reason to be alarmed at what can follow under the present administration.
On November 10, with the support of Bush's Justice Department, the Senate had previously passed an amendment by the manipulatively mercurial Senator Lindsey Graham that the American Civil Liberties Union charged "would make the McCain anti-torture amendment nearly impossible to enforce at Guantánamo Bay.
"The [original] Graham amendment would strip all courts, including the Supreme Court, of jurisdiction to consider habeas [corpus] petitions or any other action challenging any aspect of the detention of foreign detainees [there], except for the narrow question of whether [Defense Department] status review boards follow their own rules."
The vote on November 10 was 49 to 42. That action by the Senate so alarmed the law school deans at Georgetown, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford—Alexander Aleinikoff, Elena Kagan, Harold Hongu Koh, and Larry Kramer—that they wrote a letter to Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, that he inserted in the November 15 Congressional Record. (Leahy, a firm constitutionalist, voted against Graham's amendment.)
I haven't the space for all of the deans' letter, but I quote from page S12802 and strongly recommend you read the entire Senate debate that day, which led to the eventual 84-14 vote that disgraces the majority of the Senate—and could place the liberties of all of us, not only the Guantánamo prisoners, at risk.
Said the deans: "We cannot imagine a more inappropriate moment to remove scrutiny of Executive Branch treatment of non-citizen detainees. We are all aware of serious and disturbing reports of secret overseas prisons, extraordinary renditions [by the CIA], and the abuse of prisoners in Guantánamo, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
"The Graham Amendment will simply reinforce the public perception that Congress approves Executive Branch decisions to act beyond the reach of law. [Emphasis added.] As such, it undermines two core elements of the rule of law: congressionally sanctioned rules that limit and guide the exercise of Executive power, and judicial review to ensure that those rules have in fact been honored.
"When dictatorships have passed laws stripping their courts of power to review executive detention or punishment of prisoners, our government has rightly challenged such acts as fundamentally lawless. The same standard should apply to our own government. We urge you to vote to remove the court-stripping provisions of the Graham Amendment from the pending legislation."
The majority of the Senate continue to ignore all warnings on this subversion of the separation of powers. But there was a backlash to that first Graham amendment from civil liberties and human rights organizations and members of Congress. This resulted in various amendments and counter-amendments on the Senate floor to "improve" that initial startling Graham amendment. Adding minimal due-process protections, this "improvement" nonetheless remains dangerous to the future of the Constitution and its separation of powers because it continues to deny habeas protections to Guantánamo prisoners.
Making that case, I quote from a November 17 letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist from the justly prestigious Association of the Bar of the City of New York. Despite the attempts to perform cosmetic surgery on the original Graham amendment, said the New York City bar, the version that the Senate is sending to the House "leaves a gaping hole precisely where the Administration's policies are most troublesome, and where the world is most carefully watching—the indefinite detention of persons whose status as an enemy combatant has not been adequately examined, and the treatment of those detainees.
"The 'war on terror,' unlike other U.S. wars, has no conceivable end point. . . . Therefore, there is every reason to believe that the detainees being held at Guantánamo could spend the rest of their lives as prisoners."
The New York bar letter ends with this acutely telling point: "Just yesterday, we learned that our government expressed outrage over the torture of prisoners by Iraqi captors in an Iraqi ministry building. To have moral force, our expressions of outrage must be buttressed at home by protections that only the writ of habeas corpus can provide."
The Graham-Levin-Kyl amendment passed on November 15 by a resounding vote of 84 to 14. It does not—as the ACLU emphasizes—"allow any habeas claim for protection against government-funded torture or abuse . . . and prohibits all habeas claims if the government decides it is going to hold a person with- out ever determining their status." (Distinguished civil libertarians Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer voted for the amendment.)
The "great writ" of habeas corpus goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215 and allows a prisoner to go to a court to make the government prove that he or she is being legally held. Making it impossible for a Guantánamo prisoner to go to a court on a habeas petition concerning torture makes the McCain amendment meaningless. I've left two messages with McCain's press secretary to have the senator explain this clear inconsistency. There has been no response, in contrast with quick answers to previous queries.
I had thought John McCain was a man of principle, not just another presidential candidate in 2008.
Wrap...
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