Nasty Little Man

When triangulating hurts people

2008-02-06T09:38:00.000-05:00

I've never liked the Clintons. It started on that dark day- January 24, 1992- when Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton left the campaign trail to oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a man so brain damaged that he left the dessert from his last meal so that he could have it after the execution. A columnist from the San Francisco Chronicle said in 2002

On that day in Arkansas, the Democratic Party also died. Its body is still with us, to be sure, but its heart and soul died 10 years ago.

In 1993, the heart and soul was put in its grave when President Clinton signed NAFTA.

In 1996, the grave was spat upon when Clinton signed the Telecommunications Reform Act. At the time, Clear Channel owned 40 radio stations. Today Clear Channel owns about 1200 stations, and the media business is dominated by a small handful of companies.

In 2000, the gravestone was kicked over when Clinton signed Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China. Do your kids like their lead-tainted toys?

Hillary Clinton has done nothing to lead me to believe she is a different politician than her husband. She supported the war in Iraq "with conviction." Until September, she supported torture. In 2005, she went to Israel, and while standing at the apartheid wall, she stated, "This is not against the Palestinian people." At a recent debate, after Barack Obama said that we should not be scapegoating immigrants for our economic problems, Mrs. Clinton scapegoated immigrants for the plight of unemployed, urban African Americans.

Like her husband, Hillary is a politician who will inflict harm on others for her political gain. I support Barack Obama because he is willing to stand on principle. He opposed the war in Iraq from the start and he has always opposed torture.

Which brings me to cluster bombs. In 2006, an amendment was introduced to a defense bill to block funding for the Pentagon for cluster bombs unless it could ensure that the bombs would not be used in civilian areas. Cluster bombs contain small "bomblets" that explode on impact. Sometimes these bomblets do not explode on impact. When they are later found, sometimes by children, they can detonate.

Obama voted for the amendment to block the funding. Clinton voted against it.

David Rees, creator of the brilliant cartoon Get Your War On, said at HuffPo this week:

Amendment No. 4882 was an easy one to vote against: Who'd want to risk accusation of "tying the hands of the Pentagon" during a never-ending, global War on Terror? As is so often the case, there was no political cost to doing the wrong thing. And there was no political reward for doing the right thing.

But Senator Obama did the right thing.

Democrats have a cult of personality around the Clintons that I do not understand. Either they don't care about the issues I've mentioned here, which I don't believe, or they just don't know the Clintons' record.

New blog, same blogger, new attitude

2007-09-17T21:29:00.001-05:00

If you liked Nasty Little Man, you'll love Kinder Gentler Nation.

Quote of the day

2007-02-22T09:26:00.000-05:00

"Are you mad, sir?"
--Michelangelo Signorile, talkshow host on Sirius OutQ, on Vice President Cheney's comment that the British withdrawal from Iraq is an "affirmation" that things are going well

Why am I doing this?

2007-02-22T08:41:00.000-05:00

Ok, I can't resist. I really don't want to write another post about Clinton and Obama, at least for a little while, but I just feel a pull to get this down. It must be the sports-like (or soap opera-like) tendencies of politics that makes it such a draw to watch and comment on.

Yesterday there was quite a dust-up between the campaigns of Senators Clinton and Obama. The Clintons were PO'ed that producer David Geffen, a former supporter and now Obama supporter, took shots at both Hillary and Bill in a column by Maureen Dowd of the NY Times (subscription required).

Geffen:

"Obama is inspirational, and he’s not from the Bush royal family or the Clinton royal family. Americans are dying every day in Iraq. And I'm tired of hearing James Carville on television."

"I don't think anybody believes that in the last six years, all of a sudden Bill Clinton has become a different person," Mr. Geffen says, adding that if Republicans are digging up dirt, they'll wait until Hillary's the nominee to use it. "I think they believe she's the easiest to defeat."

"It's not a very big thing to say, 'I made a mistake' on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can't(.)"

"Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling."

The Clinton camp, through the mouthpiece of communications director Howard Wolfson (who, frankly, should be fired immediately), suggested that Obama should apologize and return the money he brought in at a fundraiser sponsored by Geffen. Mind you, Geffen has no official position with the Obama campaign. He's just a high-profile supporter.

Then Wolfson went on Hardball last night and stated that when he speaks he speaks for "the campaign," not Hillary.

So break this down scientifically: The Clintons are suggesting that Obama should apologize for the comments of a supporter who has no position with the campaign, but when Clinton's communications director speaks, he is not speaking for her, he's speaking for "the campaign."

What this whole thing makes clear is that the Clinton campaign is scared, damn scared, that Obama resonates with the American people and is on the express to the nomination. And after garnering the support of Geffen, yesterday former Senator Tom Daschle endorsed Obama.

Hillary (or was it "the campaign"?) took some shots from the blogosphere for all of this.

The Huffington Post: Hillary's campaign would rather mudsling than get the facts straight

This wasn't the only ludicrous claim Wolfson made. He also suggested that the Obama campaign "put Mr. Geffen up to this." Does Wolfson really expect anyone to believe that David Geffen is taking his marching orders from the Obama campaign?

America Blog: Hillary is Sistah Souljah'ing the entire Democratic Party

It started with Hillary's unique experience on 9/11 - the day she witnessed the world falling apart while the rest of us went to Disneyland. Then yesterday we heard about how Hillary thinks terrorism is a bad thing, while her fellow Democrats think it's no big deal. And today we get an earful about those nasty rich Hollywood Jews - oh, sorry, I mean fags.

Could Karl Rove have written a better script?

It's becoming increasingly clear that Hillary isn't running as a new Democrat, she's running as as a non-Democrat. Her strategy seems to be attacking everything and everyone associated with the Democratic party, and especially its base - and using Republican talking points, at that - in order to somehow position Hillary as a modern-day Diogenes, independent, above-the-fray, alone in the wilderness, forever on the look-out for honest politics.

In other words, Hillary is Joe Lieberman.

(Note: America Blog, for those who are unfamiliar, is serious about LGBT rights. It's founder was one of the organizers of the Stop Dr. Laura campaign. Hence the sarcastic use of the word "fags.")

On top of all of this, Obama is asked to apologize for the comments of a supporter while Clinton refuses to apologize for her complicity in the deaths of 3,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Classy.

Quote of the day

2007-02-21T20:57:00.000-05:00

"I'm suspicious of anything with 'Bill of Rights' attached to it."
--right-wing pundit Michelle Malkin

Bigotry overload

2007-02-15T21:09:00.000-05:00

I don't know how much hate I can take in one week.

First, there was Glenn Beck on Barack Obama:

BECK: Yeah, I -- you know, I was driving in today, and I was seeing -- because I saw this piece with him on 60 Minutes -- and I thought to myself, he is -- he's very white in many ways.

GIORDANO: Uh-huh.

BECK: And I thought to myself: Gee, can I even say that? Can I even say that without somebody else starting a campaign saying, "What does he mean, 'He's very white?' " He is. He's very white.

Then there was Rush Limbaugh on Obama:

RUSH: So are we to conclude here that he didn't define himself as black, that the way he looks does? (Sigh.) Okay. We’ve got Obama's wife in here. We've got John Howard from Australia coming up, but, "I'm not sure I decided it"? Well, if you didn't decide it, then how did it happen?

Well, when you look like that, that's what you are.

Well, renounce it, then! If it's not something you want to be, if you didn't decide it, renounce it, become white!

Tonight on Countdown Keith Olbermann called this "sleek racism" and noted for a group of people who keep saying that we need to get beyond race they sure are obsessed with race.

Let's face it. The Re-thug-nicans are scared as hell about Obama. They know he brings something to the people that no Re-thug can. Hope.

And finally there was retired NBA player Tim Hardaway:

On a Miami radio show Wednesday, Hardaway was asked how he would interact with a gay teammate.

"First of all, I wouldn't want him on my team," the former Miami Heat star said. "And second of all, if he was on my team, I would, you know, really distance myself from him because, uh, I don't think that is right. I don't think he should be in the locker room while we are in the locker room."

When show host Dan Le Batard told Hardaway those comments were "flatly homophobic" and "bigotry," the player continued.

"You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people," he said. "I'm homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States."

This comment comes on the heels of former Penn State and NBA player John Amaechi coming out in his new book. The NBA wisely banished Hardaway from its All-Star festivities this weekend.

This is what happens when conservatives rule our government and our media.

Iraq, Hillary's albatross

2007-02-14T19:32:00.000-05:00

Senator Clinton's stance on Iraq and her explanation on her resolution vote are not flying. Prediction: Clinton will not win the Democratic presidential nomination due to Iraq.

In the last week, she has taken hits from Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and America Blog.

Perhaps most disturbing of all is the Clinton team invoking 9/11 as justification for her Iraq war resolution vote.

Arianna Huffington:

Its latest explanation/rationalization? 9/11 made her do it! That's right, the Clinton camp is now reading out of the Bush administration's wing-and-a-prayer book.

John at America Blog:

I have no idea what Senator Clinton was trying to telegraph in her speech - who exactly doesn't think that we're engaged in a war against heartless enemies? - but speaking as a blog that has a pretty damn good record of treating her fairly, she really crossed the line on this one.

Don't question our patriotism, and don't talk like George Bush, or this is going to be a very problematic race.

And Markos at Daily Kos:

Arguing that since New York was hit, we had to bomb the fuck out of a country that had nothing to do with it, then invade it and lose what will eventually be a trillion dollars and countless lives is really not an endearing argument.

It seems the Clinton team doesn't realize that they are in a different world than they were in 1996. What you could get away with then you cannot get away with now.

The Joker, William Kristol

2007-02-14T19:10:00.000-05:00

I'm losing my patience with TIME magazine over the regular appearances of William Kristol and think it's time to take some consumer action.

The letter below is in reference to this comment by Kristol in his most recent TIME column:

Then last Sunday Clinton, under pressure from antiwar activists in Iowa, reacted indignantly to matter-of-fact statements by Bush that the broader war on terrorism--and the war in Iraq--wouldn't be resolved by the time his successor took office. Clinton took offense

Here's my letter:

Editor,

William Kristol has been wrong, dead wrong, on his analysis for four years, but he continues to appear in your magazine. Kristol has been so far off base that, in reference to his commentary on Iran, comedian Bill Maher said, "Hey, you know what, Nostrodamus? Why don't you sit this one out?"

Poor analysis is one thing. Using misinformation to make a point is another. Granted, it is the neo-clown playbook to mislead the public, but when Kristol does it in your magazine, it damages your credibility. In his most recent TIME column, Kristol implies that Senator Hillary Clinton believes the entire war on terrorism should be over by the end of the Bush presidency. This is not what Senator Clinton suggested. She suggested that it is irresponsible of President Bush to leave the mess in Iraq to the next president. And she is absolutely right.

I am a 33-year-old middle class consumer, the very kind of customer magazines like your’s are desperate to hang onto. But I can take no more Kristol. Cancel his contract or cancel my subscription.

The power of diplomacy

2007-02-13T06:16:00.000-05:00

This story should be blaring across the front page of every American newspaper for days.

North Korea agrees to wind down nuclear program

North Korea agreed Tuesday after arduous talks to shut down its main nuclear reactor and eventually dismantle its atomic weapons program, just four months after the communist state shocked the world by testing a nuclear bomb.

The deal marks the first concrete plan for disarmament in more than three years of six-nation negotiations, and could potentially herald a new era of cooperation in the region with the North's longtime foes -- the United States and Japan -- also agreeing to discuss normalizing relations with Pyongyang.

And it happened without a single bomb being dropped. It happened by talking with those with whom we disagree. Despite the rhetoric of some, war is not always the answer. In fact, it's rarely the answer.

Quote of the day

2007-02-13T06:10:00.000-05:00

"They can't find anything on this guy because he's been right on the issues from the time he started talking about them."
--Ed Schultz, radio talk show host, on Senator Barack Obama

Iran is here, there, and EVERYWHERE

2007-02-10T14:25:00.000-05:00

Now we're being told that Iran is supplying "lethal support" to militant groups in Iraq.

The assertion of an Iranian role in supplying the device to Shiite militias reflects broad agreement among American intelligence agencies, although officials acknowledge that the picture is not entirely complete.

The response here is obvious.

The contrasts could not be greater

2007-02-10T14:15:00.000-05:00

Senator Barack Obama today in Springfield, Illinois, announcing his candidacy for president:

And when all else fails, when Katrina happens, or the death toll in Iraq mounts, we've been told that our crises are somebody else's fault. We're distracted from our real failures, and told to blame the other party, or gay people, or immigrants.

NY Times: In New Hampshire, Clinton refuses to denounce her war vote

While she tried to keep the audience of 300 people here focused on Mr. Bush’s war management, she was forced at one point to account for her own history on Iraq, as an audience member asked her to say plainly and “without nuance” that her Senate vote to use force in Iraq in 2002 was “a mistake.”

“Until we hear you say that, we’re not going to hear all these other great things you’ve said,” said the questioner, Roger Tilton of Nashua.

Mrs. Clinton has not been willing to go as far as some of her Democratic rivals, like former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, and say that her 2002 vote was a mistake. And she did not do so on Saturday. Instead, she repeated her standard talking points about that vote, saying she would never have cast it if she had had the intelligence information in 2002 that she had now.

“I’ve taken responsibility for my vote,” Mrs. Clinton said. “The mistakes were made by this president.”

Quote of the day

2007-02-10T14:13:00.000-05:00

"Live your life every day so that when you leave, no matter at what age, somebody can say that your life meant something to someone."
--Rev. Al Sharpton
during a panel discussion at the State of the Black Union 2007
February 10, 2007

Quote of the day

2007-02-08T07:45:00.000-05:00

"I know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors... I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars."
--then-State Senator Barack Obama, fall, 2002

From sex to rape to prison

2007-02-07T13:32:00.000-05:00

Time this week features an article on "A Time Limit on Rape," which focuses on a woman's right to change her mind about sex in the midst of intercourse. I'm all for a woman's right to say, "No," at any time.

But the case that has brought this issue to the fore is, in a word, outrageous.

The murkiness surrounding what's reasonable has deepened further with the Maryland case, which was tried in 2004. The accuser and the defendant agree that after he began to penetrate her and she wanted him to stop, he did so within a matter of seconds and did not climax. Even so, during deliberations, the jury sent a note to the judge asking if it was rape if a female changed her mind during the sex to which she consented and the man continued until climax. The judge said it was for them to decide. They convicted the defendant of first-degree rape, among other sex offenses.

The defendant is serving a five-year prison term.

This is yet another example of the victims' rights movement and the criminal justice system run amok. This man's life is ruined. He will lose five years. He will be forever collared with a felony charge, which will impact employment and housing. And depending upon Maryland's Megan's Law, he might have to register as a sex offender.

Yet he did what we would expect a man to do in that situation. He stopped "within a matter of seconds." I could understand a rape charge if she said no and asked him to stop and he kept going at it for minutes. But this ended within seconds.

In general, I'm with my feminist friends on a lot of issues, but this goes too far. My distrust of the criminal justice system trumps my sympathies on gender issues.

Who said that?

2007-02-06T22:07:00.000-05:00

It's time to play "Name that Speaker!"

Who said the following?

Israel is a beacon of what’s right in a neighborhood overshadowed by the wrongs of radicalism, extremism, despotism and terrorism. We need only look to one of Israel’s greatest threats: namely, Iran. Make no mistake, Iran poses a threat not only to Israel, but to the entire Middle East and beyond, including the U.S.
...
But Iran is a threat not only because of the hateful rhetoric spewed by its president, not only because of its nuclear ambitions, but because it uses its influence and its revenues in the region to support terrorist elements that are attacking innocent Israelis; and now we believe attacking American soldiers. Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel this summer using Iranian weapons clearly demonstrate Iran’s malevolent influence even beyond its borders.

It is essential to those of us who care deeply about what is happening in and to, Israel, to recognize that Israel’s struggle is a struggle on behalf of a future where people will be able to live with peace and security.
...
Hezbollah is second only to Al Qaeda to the number of American lives it has claimed. We know too of the deep and dangerous connections these terrorists share with the governments of Syria and Iran; and we are seeing the reprehensible consequences of having these terrorist beachheads along Israel’s borders.
...
The highest priority of any government is to ensure the safety and security of its citizens and that is why, as I have said, I’ve been a strong supporter of Israel’s right to build a security barrier to keep terrorists out. I have spoken out against the International Court of Justice for questioning Israel’s right to build that fence of security.

Was it...
A) George W. Bush
B) Dick Cheney
C) Mel Gibson
D) Hillary Clinton

If you guessed A, B, or C, you're wrong. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, the warmonger who said these words is none other than the so-called Democratic presidential front runner, Senator Hillary Clinton.

According to Senator Clinton, "Israel is a beacon of what's right" when it...

...bulldozes people's homes (with bulldozers bought from Caterpillar and made in York County).

...fires missiles into civilian areas.

...destroys an entire country's infrastructure because two soldiers were kidnapped.

...blocks off an entire region and an entire group of people, denying access in and out and leaving people desperate.

...destroys average farmers crops, leaving them with nothing.

Apparently, Senator Clinton believes in The Other Bush Doctrine: The way to people's hearts is to beat the hell out of them.

Let justice flow...

Shortest presidential campaign ever

2007-02-02T06:55:00.000-05:00

One day.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, who announced his candidacy on Wednesday with the hope that he could ride his foreign policy expertise into contention for the Democratic nomination, instead spent the day struggling to explain his description of Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat running for president, as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."

Biden makes a lot of sense when he discusses policy, but something is not right with the guy when it comes to race. Last year he made a comment about Indian-Americans, 7-Eleven, and Dunkin' Donuts.

"I've had a great relationship. In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking," Biden said.

How can someone in the public eye be this clumsy on race?

Was a 15-year-old girl raped at Abu Ghraib?

2007-01-31T09:18:00.000-05:00

Iraq Slogger reports that the U.S. Army is investigating new torture allegations at Abu Ghraib. The investigation began as a result of a video that appeared on YouTube with a young man who claimed to be a guard at the prison and told the story. The video is available at Iraq Slogger.

If this is a fake, these guys are doing a heck of an acting job.

Quote of the day

2007-01-30T14:00:00.000-05:00

"War is terrorism with a bigger budget."
--from a sign at Saturday's anti-war march in Washington

Clinton dead wrong on the "proper debate"

2007-01-29T22:41:00.000-05:00

Senator Hillary Clinton told this to the AP on Sunday, regarding her vote to authorize the war in Iraq:

"I take responsibility for having voted to give him that authority," she said. "My focus is on what we do now. That is the proper debate."

Wrong....sort of. Yes, we need to discuss what we do now. But we are considering our next president. In order to make an informed decision about who our next president should be, we need to consider each candidate's past actions. And Senator Clinton has some explaining to do about that vote, along with Senators Dodd and Biden.

At least John Edwards had the strength to admit, "I was wrong."

America's leaders -- all of us -- need to accept the responsibility we each carry for how we got to this place.

Obama gets off lucky since he was not in the Senate at the time, but he was a public opponent of the war.

I haven't done a full inventory of every presidential candidate on the authorization vote, but my hunch is that only Rep. Dennis Kucinich comes out totally clean on this since he was there for the vote and voted against the authorization.

Senator Clinton, you helped get us into this mess, and I suspect you did it for political gain. Please tell us why we should trust you in the White House.

As an aside, the person who deserves posthumous respect on this issue is Senator Paul Wellstone (D-Minnesota). In the heat of a difficult re-election campaign and worrying that opposition to the war in Iraq could cost him his Senate seat, Wellstone took to the floor and gave the speech of his life in opposition to the war. After the speech, his poll numbers went up. For a thorough look at the life of this remarkable public servant, check out the documentary Wellstone! You can get a 5-10 minute preview online.

Coffee with Tim

2007-01-28T22:03:00.000-05:00

A few thoughts from today's Meet the Press.

Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, announces his bid for the presidency.

Huckabee touched on his belief that we need to promote a "culture of life" and pointed out a deserving criticism of others who oppose abortion. Huckabee said, "If we're really pro-life, we have to be concerned about more than just gestation," and went on to talk about education, healthcare, and the environment.

Moderator Tim Russert missed an opportunity by failing to ask Huckabee about the death penalty. It is farcical for the so-called "culture of life" crowd to continue to support a policy in which the government straps a person down until he or she cannot move and injects him/her with poison for the purpose of killing him. And Russert missed it.

Schumer on "special interest groups."

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) went after our voices in D.C. near the end of the program.

I bring up, in my book, talk when I got to Congress in 1980, for instance, and that was-that was about crime was ripping apart my district. I come to Washington, and I find out that the ACLU is writing crime legislation, has a veto over any piece of crime legislation. Now, they should be at the table. Their views should be considered. But our job, whether we're Democrat or Republican, is not to just take what the interest groups want and just make it into legislation, it's to balance their needs against others'. I believe in the environment, but there's the issue of jobs. I believe in civil liberties, but there's the issue of security. And what both parties have done, Tim, is forgotten the average middle class voter—yes, I call them the Baileys, but they could be anybody—and instead paid too much attention to interest groups.

I am a member of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Natural Resources Defense Council, among others, and there is a good reason. I care about the environment. I care about civil liberties, the Constitution, and equal rights for all. And there is no way that I can have access to my senators. Period. Can you imagine the response I would get if I tried to get a personal meeting with Senator Specter or Senator Casey? I'd be lucky to get anyone above an intern.

But the ACLU and the NRDC do have that kind of access. People like me who care about these issues rely on them to make sure our voices are heard.

There's a big difference between non-profits like the ACLU and NRDC and the lobbyists for for-profit companies like Halliburton, Verizon, and Comcast. Yes, the Democrats (and all politicians) should not be giving those lobbyists more of an ear than the people. But Chuckie was simply looking to score some cheap political points by lumping all of the above together.

After the Demo-rats rolled over on the renewal of the PATRIOT Act, I switched my voter registration from D to "no affiliation." Schumer is doing nothing to win me back.

Obama for president

2007-01-26T22:42:00.000-05:00

During the early speculation about the presidential race, I was a Russ Feingold guy. The senator from Wisconsin made some appearances around the country that gave the appearance that he was laying the groundwork for a presidential run.

The country needs a candidate like Feingold in the race. The senator is not afraid to tell it like it is, and he is a champ on defending the Constitution and standing up for justice.

But at this point, it does not appear that Feingold is running. We are still almost a year away from the Iowa caucuses, so there is time.

But assuming Feingold is out, Barack Obama is my guy, even though a) PA's primary is so late that it is irrelevant in the nominating process (at least for now) and b) I'm registered "no affiliation" anyway.

Although I will not have a vote, I am fully behind Senator Barack Obama. (And let's face it, all of the candidates are chasing the highly-coveted Nasty Little Man endorsement.) There are two main reasons I'm an Obama supporter.

First, Senator Obama appeals to my better person, to my Buddha nature. The public dialogue is too often corrosive, and I'll admit that I've engaged in that kind of behavior myself. Obama is attempting to go beyond that to a place where you can stand for something and still engage in respectful dialogue with others. This doesn't mean that you stand for nothing. You simply have enough respect for the other person and recognize his/her inherent worth to give his/her ideas a full public airing. (And then crush them with your own brilliant ideas.)

Second, there are few politicians that have the street cred that Obama has. That might sound silly since he gets knocked around for growing up in Hawaii, going to Harvard, etc. But how many politicians have been a community organizer in an urban area like the South Side of Chicago? I appreciate the fact that he has been out there in the neighborhoods and the streets working directly with people.

Some of my friends and acquaintances have been talking up Hillary, but my problem with Hillary is the same problem I had with Bill. She appears to be a political opportunist, and I'm not certain that she stands for anything. I see politics as a means to an end, i.e. achieving some level of justice in our country. Hillary seems to see politics as the end, not a means to an end.

Plus, what state is Hillary going to win that Kerry didn't win?

Barack Obama for President.

Quote of the day

2007-01-25T14:45:00.000-05:00

"The pilots said their bombs lit Baghdad like a Christmas tree. It was the Christian thing to do, you see."
--The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, "The Winter of the Long Hot Summer" (1992)

Coffee with Tim

2007-01-21T10:43:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, I intended to start a new series of posts called "Coffee with Tim," which would be a reaction to Meet the Press each week, or as many weeks as I could. I never got around to it but am hoping to start now. MTP is the one Sunday morning show that I watch.

And this week is a great week to start. MTP featured Senator John McCain, a key supporter of the Bush-McCain-Lieberman escalation, and Senator Edward Kennedy, who voted against the Iraq war at the start and now opposes the escalation.

Senator McCain's arguments in favor of the escalation are based on a few assumptions that I just don't buy. First, he believes that more troops means more security. I don't buy it. We've been at 150,000 troops before, and we all saw how well that worked. More troops might actually make things worse.

Bush's friend McCain also believes that a U.S. withdrawal will lead to chaos. That is a distinct possibility. But it's not guaranteed. It's important to remember that a U.S. withdrawal does not mean that one day there are 130,000 troops in Iraq and the next day there are zero. President Bush has long said that as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. In fact, we can turn that around. We stand down, and the Iraqis will then recognize that it is time to stand up.

It seemed that Senator McCain has picked up the Rove-Limbaugh-Hannity tactic of spreading a flat-out lie. McCain stated several times that the American people did not support the Gulf War at the start. That is just flat wrong.

Most Americans agreed with the President's decision to go to war. For example, the Washington Post/ABC News Poll on January 16, 1991, found that 76 percent of Americans approved of the U.S. going to war with Iraq and 22 percent disapproved.

I'm considering going to Washington on Saturday for the march against the war. I hope those of you who come across this post will consider doing the same.

Colbert, O'Reilly; O'Reilly, Colbert

2007-01-19T13:21:00.000-05:00

There's no comfortable place to eat lunch in my workplace, so I usually eat at my desk. We're supposed to take a lunch, so sometimes I spend lunch hour searching YouTube for fun videos, mostly the Daily Show, Colbert Report, and Chappelle's Show. Today I came across an appearance by Bill O'Reilly on the Colbert Report and Stephen Colbert on the O'Reilly Factor. Based on the posting on Colbert Nation, this must have just happened last night.

I'm not sure which is funnier, but they're both pretty good.

Colbert on the Factor

O'Reilly on the Report

What you don't know can kill you

2007-01-18T06:31:00.000-05:00

Watching the Eagles game last weekend, I thought of Andre Waters when I saw Brian Dawkins wearing number 20. Dawkins is the longest-serving Eagle at this point, but for whatever reason, I thought back to Waters, who was a hard-hitting safety for the Eagles during the Buddy Ryan era and who wore number 20.

I didn't realize that Waters had killed himself in November.

Now research has been done on Waters' brain at the University of Pittsburgh, and it revealed that Waters had severe brain damage, at the level of an 85-year-old in early stage Alzheimers. It appears that Waters' football career directly affected his condition.

Asked in 1994 by The Philadelphia Inquirer to count his career concussions, Mr. Waters replied, "I think I lost count at 15." He later added: "I just wouldn't say anything. I'd sniff some smelling salts, then go back in there."

Mr. Nowinski also found a note in the Inquirer in 1991 about how Mr. Waters had been hospitalized after sustaining a concussion in a game against Tampa Bay and experiencing a seizure-like episode on the team plane that was later diagnosed as body cramps; Mr. Waters played the next week.

This is an important warning to those who have family members who play football or any contact sport. My parents did not let me play football as a child because they said it was too dangerous for a growing body. I was annoyed at the time- I thought I could have been a heck of a quarterback- but now I appreciate that they directed me away from football.

In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve

2007-01-16T21:09:00.000-05:00

And there's no one more deserving right now than the 51% of voting Americans who chose George W. Bush in 2004.

The escalation of the war in Iraq will begin shortly. The President believes that American soldiers going door-to-door, neighborhood-to-neighborhood, is going to quell the violence in the shattered country.

As I heard a public official say this week (can't remember who, but I think it was Senator Chuck Hagel), there's an assumption in the president's plan that more troops equals more security. I don't buy that premise. More troops could mean less security. When you add heat to a simmering pot of water, it gets hotter and boils.

There's no indication from the Iraqi government that they want to crack down on al-Sadr and other Shiites who are wreaking havoc. As long as armed Shiites have the backing of the government, the violence will not stop, and no level of U.S. escalation will stop it.

That doesn't mean the alternative- a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops- is a picnic. Iraq might not get much better as we leave, but at least one element that inspires the mayhem- the occupiers of the United States- will be subtracted from the equation.

This whole thing led me to think about something I read by Thich Nhat Hanh recently about the elimination of nuclear arms. Thay said that the United States could lead the way in abolishing nukes by unilaterally destroying x-number of arms. If more countries follow suit in the months that follow, the U.S. could destroy more, and so on.

Maybe if the U.S. partially backs away, they will lead the way to peace. Why not try it? Nothing else Bush has tried has worked.

Ed the Second

2007-01-16T20:35:00.000-05:00

Governor Rendell started his second term today. Frivolity abounds in Harrisburg. But, once again, The Central Pennsylvania Abolitionist isn't at the party.

In January, 2004, Nicholas Yarris of Philadelphia was released from prison after 22 years on death row for a crime someone else committed in Delaware County. Nick was so broken after his decades on death row that he was ready to accept execution until a DNA test saved his life.

And Ed Rendell did nothing.

Read the full post.

Quote of the day

2007-01-12T12:59:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, actually.

"The President's approval rating on Iraq is at 26%. Who are you people?"
--Stephanie Miller, syndicated talkradio host

Race matters: Why this white guy supports affirmative action

2007-01-06T12:04:00.000-05:00

I'm a 33-year-old white male. I grew up in the suburbs of Harrisburg with one younger sibling, and my parents' marriage is intact. If you profiled people who oppose affirmative action, I would fit the profile.

But I support it, and here's why. In light of all of the privilege I get as a white male, it doesn't bother me that in college admissions or employment, when all other factors are equal, minorities get an edge.

What would my life be like if I were a black male?

If I were a black male, I would be pulled over more. I've only been pulled over three times in my life, all deserved.

If I were a black male, clerks and security would watch me more closely in stores.

If I were a black male, women would clutch their purses when I get on to an elevator.

If I were a black male, people would look at me funny when I get on the bus.

If I were a black male, the chances would be greater that I got a sub-standard education at a "separate and unequal" public school.

We were with some friends recently who said they will give their daughter a black-sounding name to help her get into college. Too bad blacks can't name their daughters Sara Jane and then get an education at a school like Derry Township or Cumberland Valley.

When whites claim that minorities get extra privilege through affirmative action, they really need to look inward at all of the privilege they've had.

Another view on D-O'Brien

2007-01-03T15:53:00.000-05:00

While the Dems stroke new PA House Speaker Dennis O'Brien (R-Phila), The Central Pennsylvania Abolitionist has an alternative view. Check it out.

Harrisburg Zero: Rep. Thomas R. Caltagirone

2007-01-02T09:30:00.000-05:00

On November 7, the winds of change swept across Pennsylvania. The people rose up. We are tired of business- as in, big business- as usual. We are tired of the working people being under the boot of legislative leaders who are hopelessly out of touch.

So we did something about it. We swept the Democrats into the majority in the PA House, eliminating an 18 seat advantage for the Re-thug-nicans, and we played a major role in sweeping the Ds into power in the U.S. Senate and House.

But now the change the people called for is going to be erased by one push of the button from a Demo-rat, Rep. Thomas Caltagirone. Rep. Caltagirone is going to show the people of Pennsylvania what he thinks of them today when he votes for Rep. John Perzel (R-Phila) for Speaker of the House. The Rep will thumb his nose at the people's call for change.

Michael Morrill, a member of the Berks County Democratic Committee, said constituents were "very, very angry" with Mr. Caltagirone and were hoping the rally would spur him to reconsider.

T.J. Rooney, chairman of the state Democratic Party, released a statement calling the situation a "desperate" move by Republicans.

"By selling out to House Speaker John Perzel, Caltagirone will go down in history with the likes of other traitors who have given Republicans an opportunity to stifle progressive legislation that helps working families in Pennsylvania while advancing the cause of big business and the elite at everyone else's expense," Mr. Rooney said.

The new mandate for Mr. Morrill and the Berks Dem Committee is now clear: Send Rep. Caltagirone into retirement in 2008. In so many ways, the Rep is now On Notice.

The death of Saddam

2006-12-31T10:58:00.000-05:00

The tinpot dictator is dead. The relief and joy of Iraqis who lived under his murderous regime is understandable. Organizations that I have financially supported, like Amnesty International, exist in order to shine a light on regimes like Saddam's that violate basic human rights.

And Saddam certainly created his own kharmic conditions that would lead to his death at the hands of others. Kharma is not some mystical force that is like a joystick on the world, but it is simply cause-and-effect. Saddam's murderous ways led to his own murder at the hands of the Iraqi government.

Joy over another person's death, especially when it happens in an unnatural way, is not something I've ever felt, though. The closest I've come to a positive feeling about another's death is a feeling of relief, but even then, it is mixed with a level of sadness.

May all the people of Iraq find healing.

New look

2006-12-31T10:51:00.000-05:00

I just switched over to Blogger's new service, which has additional tools, like labels for posts. I like the look, but this wiped out some of my side features, like the blog roll, the media, and the soundtrack. Thus, the site will be "under construction" for at least a few days while I'll get everything back up.

Welcome to the renovated blog!

Art of the Day

2006-12-29T13:54:00.000-05:00

This is an artist's rendition of Buddha Shakyamuni tangling with the dark forces of Mara. I'm a layperson, not clergy, so I might have some of the details wrong here, but it's my understanding that this occurred in the seven days of meditation that led up to Shakyamuni's enlightenment.

In this painting, Mara is personified (or creature-ified). He is an outside force, and certainly all of us at times encounter outside forces of hostility. When we are attacked with hostility from others, it is challenging not to respond in kind.

This challenge between acting with a clear mind or a delusional mind is illustrated in the saying of the lion's gaze. When you wave a stick in front of a dog, the dog will jump around and become excitable. This is the deluded mind. But when you wave a stick in front of a lion, the lion simply gazes at you. He is unmoved by your attempt to manipulate his actions. This is the clear mind.

Not that I've ever tried waving a stick in front of a lion.

Although Mara is an outside force in the painting, Mara is actually within us, and Shakyamuni was wrestling with his own inner darkness. This is the shadow self, and we all have to deal with it. In the painting, stillness overtakes Shakyamuni while his shadow self, Mara, is swirling all around him.

This is an everyday challenge for all of us, to remain still while in the shadows.

What is really happening in Iran?

2006-12-17T09:10:00.000-05:00

The media loves conflict. Conflict sells papers and draws viewers and listeners. And that is why few American media outlets have taken note of student protests against President Ahmadenijad in Tehran.

A conference of the world's most prominent Holocaust deniers opened in Iran yesterday amid international condemnation and protests by dozens of Iranian students, who burned pictures of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and chanted "death to the dictator".

Never has the hardline leader, who was giving a speech at a university in Tehran yesterday, faced such open hostility at home.

This quote is not from the NY Times or the Washington Post and certainly not from the Washington Times or the NY Post. Nope, it's from The Scotsman, and a Google search for "Iran Holocaust conference student protests" brings up mostly European press.

Now, there is some uncertainty about what the student protests were all about. Some are now saying that the students were actually protesting a new rating system that can potentially deny young people admission to universities if they are too politically involved. But even if that was the motivation for the protests, outrage over the conference was also present.

One student said the crowd was protesting against the "shameful" Holocaust conference - which was organised after Mr Ahmadinejad described the murder of six million Jews by Nazis a "myth" invented to justify the occupation of Palestinian land - and the "fact that many activists with student movements have not been allowed to attend university".

The conference "has brought to our country Nazis and racists from around the world", the activist added.

The protest will be deeply embarrassing for the president, who has portrayed Iran as champion of free speech in hosting the event, organised by the Iranian foreign ministry.

And the American media missed it. Once again, the media is falling into the same trap it helped spring in the lead-up to the Iraq war. It is helping to create the climate to justify military action against Iran.

You probably don't recognize these pictures.

These are photos from a candlelight vigil held in the streets of Tehran on September 18, 2001. Participants mourned the loss of innocent lives in the terrorist attacks of September 11.

Iran is not the monolith that some politicians and, out of laziness, the media are trying to create. Keep in mind that 70% of the Iranian population is under the age of 30. We would be well-served to nurture the Iranians' push back against Ahmadenijad's wackiness, not bomb it.

So much things to say right now

2006-12-14T23:07:00.000-05:00

Over the last two weeks or so, a bunch of things have been rollin' through my head to get up on here, but the end of the semester and work have been kickin' my butt. Now that school is done for a month, I'm going to try to get more posts up. Stay tuned.

Thoughts on The Holiday

2006-12-14T22:42:00.000-05:00

Ok, so let me tell you about last week, working backwards chronologically. On Friday, my Dad told me that a friend of the family has terminal cancer of the colon and liver. With chemo, they give him two years. Without chemo, they give him nine months.

On Thursday, I attended a meeting that was also attended by a woman whose son is facing the death penalty in a neighboring county.

Also on Thursday, a friend told me that her son had planned to kill himself. It didn't happen, and he is now getting psychiatric treatment.

On Wednesday, I found out that my Little Brother's uncle died.

Tragedy and tough situations have been following me around lately (and I didn't even mention this week), so by the time last Friday night rolled around, I was ready to go see a sweet, fun movie with my wife.

Enter The Holiday.

Yes, it's a "chick flick." Yes, it's kind of corny. But I really, really liked this movie. I can't watch these kinds of films all the time, but this was good timing for one like this.

Here's the quick summary. Iris (Kate Winslet) and Amanda (Cameron Diaz) are losers in love in Surrey, U.K., and LA, respectively. Amanda finds Iris on a "home exchange" website, and they both decide to get away from it all by switching houses.

While in the U.K., Amanda meets Graham (Jude Law), Iris's brother, and in LA, Iris meets Miles (Jack Black). From there, the two stories go back and forth. Hilarity ensues. There is a twist with Graham that is particularly touching for guys like me. (Can't say much more than that or I'd risk giving it away.)

Black handles his role here superbly. He dials it back a bit from his typical act, but his signature zaniness is still present. And Diaz does some great slapstick.

For a nice night at the movies, I highly recommend The Holiday.

Bumper sticker of the day

2006-12-02T09:28:00.000-05:00

Sound familiar?

2006-11-30T23:41:00.000-05:00

From The New Yorker:

The Administration's planning for a military attack on Iran was made far more complicated earlier this fall by a highly classified draft assessment by the C.I.A. challenging the White House's assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb. The C.I.A. found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
....
A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the C.I.A. analysis, and told me that the White House had been hostile to it. The White House's dismissal of the C.I.A. findings on Iran is widely known in the intelligence community. Cheney and his aides discounted the assessment, the former senior intelligence official said.

Honestly, how can anyone support this Administration anymore? Maybe I'm cranky because it's late, but you really have to be dumber than a box of rocks to continue to support George W. Bush.

The GOP becomes even more laughably irrelevant

2006-11-30T16:15:00.000-05:00

The latest dictum (so to speak) from the other world known as Republican Land is this: American citizens under the age of 30 should be discouraged from having sex:

the latest twist in the Abstinence Education Program from Bush's increasingly laughable Department of Health and Human Services, a $50 million slice of embarrassing government detritus that is now actually encouraging all states to tell their single, youngish residents that they should -- how to put this so you don't shoot coffee through your nose? -- that everyone should avoid sex entirely, until they turn 30.

See? See your reaction? You are like: No way. You are like: Is the United States government really saying that? You are like: Laughter, a smirk, maybe a shrug and a sigh and a sad shake of the head and another glass of wine because, you know, what the hell is wrong with these people?

Maybe you think I am making this up. Maybe you think that our fair government, as sad and lost and nipple-terrified as it is, can't seriously be suggesting that, to avoid STDs and unwanted pregnancy and unchecked misery in their obviously sad and irresponsible little lives, single people under 30 should not have sex, like, ever. And maybe not even then.

You would, of course, be wrong.

It's for real. It's an actual HHS dictum and there are people who actually believe it should be adhered to, and I'm right now guessing you broke this rule this very morning and if you didn't you really, really wanted to, and if you're over 30 and/or married chances are you are sitting there right now wishing you were still single and/or under 30 just one more time just so you could squishily, juicily break that rule again, oh my God yes please. Just a guess.

One can only hope that this is, as once put by Michael Moore, the final wail of a dying animal. These people are laughable, hopelessly irrelevant, and with no grounding in reality. Then again, reality doesn't concern them in other arenas (Iraq, evolution, the Constitution), so it's no shock that they are hilariously out of touch. As a newspaper columnist once said to me, it's been a tough couple of years for those of us who base our views on reality.

Comic of the day

2006-11-17T15:51:00.000-05:00

ACLU Comics: Racial Profiling

Harrisbug Zero: Mayor Steve Reed

2006-11-17T10:00:00.000-05:00

Our first two-time winner!

What has become blatantly obvious through the course of the budget debate in Harrisburg is that Mayor Reed apparently learned his leadership skills from George W. Bush. Or vice versa. The Mayor is now using the city's "official" website as a platform for criticizing his partners in city government. This headline is currently on the city's website, just below the word "Welcome":

ADDITIONAL STAFF TO BE LOST DUE TO CITY COUNCIL ACTION

Classy. It would be nice if the mayor would act his age and act like the leader he is supposed to be.

Mayor Reed is now on notice. We'll take off Astronomers. They've had their 15 minutes after sending Pluto to the minors.

Race matters: Rebuilding the neighborhood

2006-11-15T21:47:00.000-05:00

Today I was in Alison Hill, one of Harrisburg's tougher neighborhoods, which is mostly minority. I was there for work purposes and walked 13th Street between Market and Derry and walked both Derry and Market for a few blocks.

Along the way, I passed multiple construction sites. These were sites where old homes were being restored. I probably saw at least a dozen workers over the course of 2 or 3 sites, but only one of those workers was a minority.

Something about that just strikes me as odd. Where are the minority workers?

On a related note, I had to chuckle a bit when I stopped at the laundromat at 13th and Derry to post a flyer and saw a travel advertisement in Spanish. The flier showed pictures of white people vacationing at Disney World, the beach, and a ski resort. Come on, man, please do not insult our intelligence. Folks in that neighborhood are working hard just to be sure that there is food on the table next week. They're not thinking about Disney World. When we lived in the city, I don't recall any of our neighbors going to Disney World or some posh ski resort.

Quote of the day

2006-11-15T21:42:00.000-05:00

"I don't know about y'all, but I had a damn good week."
--Michael Franti, musician, to the crowd at his show in Pittsburgh on Sunday

Are the Republicans trying to muddy the waters in PA?

2006-11-07T16:37:00.000-05:00

A friend heard on NPR this afternoon that Pennsylvania is the state with the most voter complaints. Let's see: The Republicans are about to go down hard in this state, including conservative poster boy Dick Santorum. Plus, our governor, who is running for re-election, is a Dem. Would anyone put it past the Re-thug-icans to call in bogus complaints in order to debase the credibility of the vote? Seriously, you could not put it past them. No one could believe that they are above making Secretary of the Commonwealth Pedro Cortes the Democratic version of Ken Blackwell.

Cheney hostile to democracy

2006-11-06T10:41:00.000-05:00

As if the PATRIOT Act, warrantless surveillance, the fixing of elections in FL and OH, torture, and the end of habeas corpus didn't already show the administration's hostility toward representative democracy, Darth Cheney's answer to a George Stephanopoulos question surely further illustrated it:

(The war) may not be popular with the public. It doesn't matter in the sense that we have to continue the mission and do what we think it right, and that's exactly what we're doing. We're not running for office, we're doing what we think it right.

In other words, we only care about what the public thinks when we have to run for (re-)election. Once we've run our last race, we cease representing the people.

And a wag of the finger for G-Steph for not leaping on him for that.

The crumbling of the GOP

2006-11-06T09:11:00.000-05:00

I have plenty to say about the way the Rethugnican party has imploded, but at the moment, don't have the time. However, this editorial called "GOP must go" says plenty:

On Nov. 7, the world will be watching as we go to the polls, seeking to ascertain whether the American people have the wisdom to try to correct a disastrous course. Posterity will note too if their collective decision is one that captured the attention of historians—that of a people voting, again and again, to endorse a leader taking a country in a catastrophic direction. The choice is in our hands.

And which magazine wrote thie editorial? The American Conservative.

A Haggard Affair

2006-11-03T23:29:00.000-05:00

It's very easy to watch with glee the falling star of Rev. Ted Haggard, an anti-gay civil rights evangelical Christian leader who has been accused of having an affair with a gay prostitute and using crystal meth. Let me be clear: I have a real problem with people who kick around the most vulnerable in our society. That disdain is double for those who are in powerful positions and are able to use that power to inflict the harm they inflict, be it on gays, immigrants, or anyone else.

And I feel that way about people like Haggard whether their personal life is sparkling or tainted.

But when my mind is clear, one feeling comes up again and again for Rev. Haggard- compassion. Unlike those with the Judeo-Christian mindset, I am much more interested in the suffering in the Rev's mind that would lead him to commit these (alleged) actions than I am in the actions themselves. Actions, including those that some would consider sinful, do not happen in a vacuum. Something in a person's mind motivates him or her to commit these actions. It is not a result of being naturally bad or "fallen."

In the Rev's case, one could speculate on what was going on in his head. Perhaps he felt tremendous pressure from his position at the mega-church. Perhaps his marriage is broken. Perhaps he felt lost after spending years in the closet, which may have pushed him to drug use, a point touched on by Andrew Sullivan:

But it is also important to remember that this is what the closet does: it is a dagger aimed at the heart of the family. It has wrecked so many marriages, destroyed so many families, traumatized so many kids. It must end.

No one knows but the Rev himself, but like all of us, he is a suffering human being with his own imperfections. Perhaps now he has learned the lesson of what harm his style of preaching does to real people.

Overheard today on the streets of Harrisburg

2006-11-03T23:03:00.000-05:00

Voter fraud or media fraud? Sitting in the pizza shop for lunch, I had to stomach Fox News, which was on the TV. (Between my slow service today and the fact that Fox News has been on the last two times I've been in there, I'm considering abandoning my favorite downtown pizza shop.) Fox was doing one of their usual manipulation jobs, trumpeting a story about 10,000 deceased people who are still registered to vote in Missouri, seven of whom supposedly voted in 2004. Fox, of course, missed two key facts: A) Those who supposedly voted only came up that way because poll workers accidentaly scanned the bar codes next to their names when they shouldn't have done so. And B) remaining registered is simply a clerical error. It only becomes a grave problem (so to speak) when these supposedly dead people are voting en masse.

But the lady behind me didn't think this through. "Ha," she said. "Dead people are voting in Missouri."

"Voter fraud," one of the pizza guys said.

Fox knows full well that when people think of dead people voting they think of the Democrats in 1960.

Multi-culturalism lives in central PA. The International House and the Governor's Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs had a wonderful turnout for their first La Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. In fact, the turnout was greater than the organizers expected, and it was a diverse crowd. South central PA can embrace diversity, immigrants, and their cultures.

His favorite team. As I walked by a group of men near the capitol today, I heard this: "They're going to decide on Sunday morning. He's played the last few weeks but hasn't carried the ball very well." Ah, a good ol' fashion conversation about someone's favorite team? "I can't cut him." The team in question is not the Eagles or the Steelers or some other NFL squad. It was this guy's fantasy team.

Harrisbug Zero: Mayor Steve Reed

2006-11-03T08:49:00.000-05:00

Usually, the Harrisburg Hero and Harrisburg Zero awards are reserved for those in state government. However, today the mayor of Harrisburg, Stephen Reed, deserves the Zero.

There is a dispute at the moment between hiz honor and city council over how much money the city should borrow in order to maintain its budget without layoffs and a minimal tax increase. The council approved a loan but not as much as the mayor suggested. Now the mayor is laying off workers, including police officers and fire fighters.

I'm not going to pretend to know what the best solution is. Few of us actually know who is correct here and whether or not the city can get by on what the council approved. Admittedly, it seems a little strange to borrow money in order to maintain financial health. I'm not sure how you can be financially healthy when you are borrowing money.

But Mayor Reed gets the Zero for his ongoing support of the Harrisburg Incinerator, which is one of the major drains on city resources. I lived in South Harrisburg for five years, about a mile- as the crow flies- from the incinerator, and attended numerous meetings on the issue, some organized by the Stop the Burn coalition and some sponsored by DEP.

In those days, the message residents were sending to the mayor was clear: The incinerator is too damn expensive. Shut it down.

But the Mayor, in a leadership style that would make only George W. Bush proud, refused to listen to and work with these citizens. He plowed forward with the incinerator project, which at that time was spewing fumes into the air 30 times higher than EPA standards. It was only when the state DEP forced his hand and mandated a shutdown that the mayor finally did something about it. And then he and the city council opted for an upgrade- an upgrade that was supposed to launch in January but still hasn't started and is going to cost the city an additional $13 million, on top of the $80 million that has already been spent. The incinerator generates electricity through steam and was expected to put revenue in the city's pocket, but since it has yet to launch, that cash is not there while the incinerator itself is responsible for more than $100 million in city debt.

Built in the 1970s for about $9 million, the problem-plagued incinerator was finally shut down in June 2003 by the state for routinely violating emission standards. Its legacy is $104 million in debt that was rolled over into a new borrowing to be paid off over 30 years, along with $100 million in interest. Reed, with City Council support, gambled that a new incinerator (carrying an additional debt load of $125 million) not only would pay for itself but would also cover the debt on the old one.

The mayor's numbers indicated this was possible. But they also indicated that the incinerator would have to run at near perfection and at full capacity to achieve revenue projections. Given the city's history operating an incinerator, that seemed, even at the time, more than a stretch.

The city is in a serious financial bind that isn't going to be solved by short-term borrowing or juggling the books. The chickens are coming home to roost

Patriot News editorial: Council should authorize loan, take a hard look at budget

Those were heady days when I was going to those meetings. It was when I first started getting active in community issues, and this one was and is important. If the mayor had listened to us then, maybe the city wouldn't be where it is now.

Better Days

2006-10-31T23:43:00.000-05:00

And you ask me what I want this year
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
Cuz I don't need boxes wrapped in strings
And desire and love and empty things
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days

So take these words
And sing out loud
Cuz everyone is forgiven now
Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again

And it's someplace simple where we could live
And something only you can give
And thats faith and trust and peace while we're alive
And the one poor child that saved this world
And there's 10 million more who probably could
If we all just stopped and said a prayer for them

So take these words
And sing out loud
Cuz everyone is forgiven now
Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again

I wish everyone was loved tonight
And somehow stop this endless fight
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days

So take these words
And sing out loud
Cuz everyone is forgiven now
Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again
Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again

Race matters: "Let's go save our boys"

2006-10-31T23:25:00.000-05:00

Last Friday, I was at the state conference of the PA NAACP. I stayed long enough to have lunch and attend the afternoon workshop on criminal justice. Listening to the speakers, it was clear that the point I made in last week's post that whites can never truly understand what minorities go through was right on target. The workshop opened with a viewing of the Frontline report "Snitch," which documents the case of Clarence Aaron, who received three life sentences for driving some friends to buy drugs. Clarence was convicted solely on the testimony of the other conspirators. There was no other evidence for conviction. Thanks to mandatory minimums, Clarence got life.

The moderator of the workshop noted that in 1954, just before the Brown v. Board of Education decision, there were 87,000 blacks in prison. Today there are 1.2 million. What is wrong with this picture?

I couldn't help but think of some other statistics. (I hope I'm remembering this correctly) 1 in 3 young adults black males (18-35, I think) are in the care of the Department of Corrections, either incarcerated, on parole, or on probation.

The government claims that this is the result of the war on drugs, but that policy has been so ineffective that the drug supply on the street hasn't changed. Meanwhile, an entire generation of black men is being lost, which prompted the moderator to say, "Let's go save our boys."

And another statistic that popped to mind, although it is history: In the early 1900s, as lynchings dropped, state executions rose.

Is it just a coincidence that state policy seems to encourage the ongoing oppression of black males?

Race matters

2006-10-25T11:38:00.000-05:00

Through my work in civil rights, which I'll keep anonymous for the purpose of staying relatively anonymous, and through graduate studies in Community Psychology and Social Change, I've had the opportunity to confront and deal with issues around race, in a variety of ways, in the last two years and especially in the last year. Because of these experiences, here a few thoughts on the issue I'd like to share.

White people can listen mindfully and express empathy but can never truly understand the plight of America's racial minorities. Last year in one of my classes, we watched the documentary The Color of Fear. In the film, a group of men gather at a retreat center in suburban California and discuss issues of race. There is a middle-aged white man in the film who reminds me of so many white people I know. This man fails to comprehend the experiences of the minorities in the group, and in one example, he does not understand why a black man is uncomfortable coming to the area of Cali where the retreat is being held. The area is nearly all-white.

I hear many white people say things like, "All racism is wrong." Certainly that is true, but it is way too simplistic. There are issues of power here that must be explored. When whites engage in racism, it is for the centuries-old purpose of pushing down minorities and for keeping power over minorities. When minorities engage in racism, it is an attempt to grab some power back. This explanation does not make either one right, but it certainly helps us to further understand. From a Buddhist perspective, I would want to find compassion for both because they are the result of their conditioning, but it is much easier to have compassion for the powerless than the powerful.

Central Pennsylvania is not a racist hell in the midst of a racial paradise. This region takes a pretty good beating from outsiders, and there can be no denying that we have issues here. But let's stop acting like in the rest of the country whites and minorities are walking arm-in-arm singing "Ebony and Ivory" while in central PA there is a cross-burning on every corner. Our issues here are not any different from the rest of the country.

As one example, I have only heard of one potential anti-immigrant ordinance proposed in central PA, but a flurry of them have been proposed in southeast PA. Yet it's central PA that gets tagged with the racist label while I have yet to hear anyone (other than myself) talk about how racist the Philly region is.

This issue can be carried to a state level, too. Another example: The PA House of Reps tried to suppress the minority vote with a voter photo ID bill earlier this year. That bill was watered down by the Senate and then vetoed by the governor.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, legislation like the original PA House bill passed and was signed by the governor. It's already been struck down at the district court level, but the state is appealing. (Background: 1 in 8 Pennsylvanians do not have photo identification, and they are disproportionately minorities, elderly, the poor, and the disabled.)

Let kids be kids. In the eyes of many, including both whites and other minorities, minority kids don't have the freedom to just be kids. A family member once told me that he has driven by a local elementary school with a significant minority population at dismissal and that it's out of control. Hmmm, an elementary school at dismissal time is going to be a bit wild, whether the kids are white, black, or otherwise.

A friend who is half Latina who grew up in an urban setting told me recently that if she sees Puerto Rican teens hanging out, she assumes they're up to trouble.

It's my contention that white kids and minority kids can exhibit the exact same behavior but will be viewed differently by adults, particularly whites.

These are a few thoughts on these issues. I'm probably going to randomly post thoughts about race as they come to me.

The Audacity of Hope

2006-10-19T09:54:00.000-05:00

Not to pimp for Borders, but their weekly ad came across the inbox this morning with a coupon for Barack Obama's new book The Audacity of Hope. It included a link to his speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. It is a must-watch, even if you've seen it before.

"A faith unshaken"

2006-10-07T22:54:00.000-05:00

This is important enough to cross-post with Nasty Little Man and The Central Pennsylvania Abolitionist.

Here's a commentary from Wisconsin on the Amish school shooting tragedy that I found particularly inspiring:

But the Amish will not respond with anger or hatred. This tragedy will strengthen their faith and their resolve in maintaining their way of life. It may make them more wary of the "English" world, but that caution will not manifest itself in resentment or revenge. Those words are not even in their vocabulary.

The Amish are people who put their faith into action, even in the most horrific of circumstances. The very foundation of their church (and mine) is pacifism and withstanding persecution for their beliefs. There is no doubt in my mind that if the gunman had lived, the families of his Amish victims would have asked the court to spare him the death penalty.

And the AP is reporting that about half of the mourners at the funeral of the shooter, Charles Roberts, were Amish:

His wife, Marie, and their three small children looked on as Roberts was buried beside the pink, heart-shaped grave of the infant daughter whose death nine years ago apparently haunted him, said Bruce Porter, a fire department chaplain from Colorado who attended the service.

About half of perhaps 75 mourners on hand were Amish.

"It's the love, the forgiveness, the heartfelt forgiveness they have toward the family. I broke down and cried seeing it displayed," said Porter, who had come to Pennsylvania to offer what help he could. He said Marie Roberts was also touched.

"She was absolutely deeply moved, by just the love shown," Porter said.

The Foley Affair: Intelligently Designed?

2006-10-06T13:30:00.000-05:00

So says Glenn Greenwald:

The Foley scandal is so perfectly tailored -- one could even say artistically designed -- to expose every character flaw of this country's Republican leaders (and their followers), and it has evolved so flawlessly (like the most brilliantly coordinated symphony), that one is almost inclined to believe that it was divinely inspired. It is difficult to believe that human beings (let alone Democrats) could create something so perfect (as Billmon wrote in comments here the other day, the relentless efficiency of this scandal is proof positive that Democrats had nothing to do with it).

Greenwald goes on:

It is as though Republicans are being punished for all of their serious political sins at once, in one perfectly constructed, humiliating scandal designed to highlight their crimes and exact just retribution for them. The Foley scandal is shining a very bright light on their conduct, not just in this one incident but with regard to how they have been governing the country generally over the last five years. That is why this scandal is so important and it is why Bush followers are so desperate to proclaim the whole thing over with -- even if it means having to jump on a pathetic Matt Drudge item to do it. The one thing they don't want is for a clear, illuminating light to be shined on how they conduct themselves.

Is the GOP trying to lose?

2006-10-02T22:09:00.000-05:00

Seriously, either the Republi-cons are trying to lose the election or they want to measure just how incompetent the Democrats are at winning elections:

Update, 11:13pm:
That's funny. Right after I posted that, I read this from David Goldstein at Huffington Post:

this is exactly the wrong time for "Leader" Frist to tell the American people that the greatest military power in the history of the world cannot defeat the ragged extremists who harbored our al-Qaeda attackers.

Unless, of course, your goal is to convince the American people that the Republican Party is simply incapable of leading: incapable of winning the war in Iraq or in Afghanistan, incapable of fighting the war on terror... even incapable of what should be the relatively routine task of protecting House pages from being groped by a congressman in a Capitol Hill restroom.

It is hard to believe that this is in fact the Republican leadership's goal... that the people who have "led" our nation for the past six years really want to lose the November election. But the alternative explanation is even more disturbing.

Update, 11:19pm:
This is getting stranger and stranger. Right after the last post, I found this article, Why some Republicans want to lose:

The array of former members of Congress and officials from Republican administrations dating to the 1970s are using opinion articles, speeches and interviews to make the surprising -- and, to many of their friends and colleagues, near-heretical -- argument that it would be better for the country if their party lost. Some say they plan to vote Democratic for the first time in their lives. The Republican rebels say the modern Republican Party has so abandoned its conservative beliefs that it deserves to be defeated by the Democrats.

Is CBS News trying to destroy Katie Couric's credibility?

2006-10-02T18:20:00.000-05:00

Her cred was already low in my book, but CBS News seems to be doing its best to destroy any semblance of a newswoman. The CBS Evening News features a segment called "free speech". With today's school shooting in Lancaster County, CBS asked Brian Rohrbaugh, the father of a boy who was killed at Columbine, to offer his thoughts for "free speech." Mr. Rohrbaugh proceeded to tell a national television audience that today's tragedy in Bart Township was the result of teaching evolution, abortion, and "taking God out of our schools." (Never mind that this was a private, religious school.)

This is a tragic day here in Pennsylvania. Although there can be little doubt that a father who loses a son to violence suffers in a way that most of us will never understand, it is not an excuse for him to do a Jerry Falwell impersonation. Let us mourn with our Amish friends without the Regressives' agenda front and center.

Vets scoff at politicos

2006-10-01T20:37:00.000-05:00

Like I said a few days ago, it's hard to believe we need a military coup to restore some common sense in America. Today the Patriot News featured an article on veterans who scoff at the idea of our current struggle with terrorists being classified as World War III:

"The current 'long war' is not a world war in the sense of major states committing massive military resources in clashes in far-flung theaters," said Conrad Crane, director of the U.S. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks.

With its lower level of military commitment and its political and ideological undertones, the terrorism battle "more closely resembles the level of commitment of the Cold War," when the main threat was communist subversion, Crane said.

There also is a vast difference in the impact on the home front, said Kim Fox, assistant professor of political science at Shippensburg University.

All Americans were affected by World War II. Food, fuel, clothing and tires were rationed, and the whole economy was geared toward winning the war.

"We're a long way from the Third World War," Fox said. "If this is World War III, why aren't we mobilizing, rationing and bringing back the draft?"

Although U.S. troops are making great sacrifices, the situation is more akin to a policing effort than to all-out war, he said.

Exactly. When some have argued for rolling back our rights and the Constitution, they do it under the cover of "we're at war." But this is more like Cold War II than it is World War III. And it barely measures up to the Cold War since the Soviets could have obliterated us at any minute, a power the terrorists do not have.

Just called my senators and rep

2006-09-28T08:30:00.000-05:00

Here were the messages I left for them:

Rep. Tim Holden (D): "Your vote for the detainee bill is very disappointing. To vote for a bill that condones torture and wipes out habeas corpus in one bill is very, very disappointing." (I might actually try to set up an appointment with Holden in October since Congress will be out of session and he is breezing to re-election.)

Specter: "Please vote against the detainee bill, whether your amendments pass or fail. To condone torture and destroy habeas corpus is un-American." (Specter is going to introduce amendments to strike the habeas destruction clauses from the bill.)

Santorum: "Who would Jesus torture? Please think about that when you go to vote today."

Find your senators and your rep.

This will be a day long remembered

2006-09-28T07:24:00.000-05:00

The day the democracy died. The Senate is poised to pass a bill to rubber-stamp the use of torture and the destruction of the courts in our military actions. Under this bill, rape is not torture. It allows the president to define what actions can be taken under the Geneva Convention without ever releasing what actions are on his list. The bill would not only allow the U.S. to pick up citizens of other countries in their countries as "illegal enemy combatants" but would also allow the president to pick up U.S. citizens and slap them with the same designation.

Here's what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans' fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws - while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.

I'm calling Santorum today to ask, "Who would Jesus torture?" This is one of those days when I wish there was a hell because then I could take great pleasure knowing that Bush, Cheney, Santorum, Frist, etc. would burn there.

It's hard to believe that America has reached a day where we need a military coup to restore decency and common sense.

From inauguration day to "zero hour": George Bush in the months before 9/11

2006-09-27T21:31:00.000-05:00

With all this chatter about what Clinton did and did not do regarding the threat from al-Qaeda, Countdown with Keith Olbermann did a comprehensive report on the warnings the Bush Administration was receiving about the threat from global jihadists. (To view the report, visit Countdown's website and then click "Watch Video" under "Leading up to 9/11." The report is about 4 minutes into the segment.) Meanwhile, Bush was worried about Star Wars, aka the missile defense system, and Wolfowitz was actually arguing that the greatest threat from terrorism was from Iraq. From Bill Clinton to Sandy Berger to Richard Clarke to Senator Carl Levin to Senator Diane Feinsteinn, the bells were ringing all around President Bush, but he and his administration couldn't be bothered.

Why does this matter now? It matters because it shows that we cannot trust the judgment of George Bush and his party with national security.

Quote of the day

2006-09-27T21:02:00.000-05:00

"If your workplace is safe: if your children go to school rather than being forced into labor; if you are paid a living wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a forty-hour week and you are allowed to join a union to protect your rights; if your food is not poisoned and your water is drinkable; if your parents are eligible for Medicare and Social Security, so they can grow old in dignity without bankrupting your family; if our rivers are getting cleaner and our air isn't black with pollution; if our wilderness is protected and our countryside is still green; if people of all races can share the same public facilities; if everyone has the right to vote; if couples fall in love and marry regardless of race; if we have finally begun to transcend a segregated society-you can thank liberals." --Joe Conason, writer

I'm ready to go vote for Bob Casey

2006-09-27T17:22:00.000-05:00

With all of the negative campaigning and the mud-slinging, it's easy to get down on the political season and the nonsense and the high jinks. And although the headline here is "I'm ready to go vote for Bob Casey," I'd be ready to vote for Terrell Owens if he was running against Rick Santorum.

But Casey's latest ad has me inspired. Go, Bob, go. You can watch the ad here. This is a clear contrast to Santorum's latest ad, the now-infamous jail cell piece.

There is a clear difference in this campaign. One candidate has class, and one is crass. I'm voting for class.

You be me for a while and I'll be you

2006-09-24T20:48:00.000-05:00

One of the great tragedies in our nation and the world, frankly, is the wide inability to see things from others' points of view. After 9/11, the mere suggestion of trying to grasp a better understanding of the Middle East was quickly yelled down by the screamers. And we have an administration that doesn't even bother talking with people they don't agree with, let alone trying to understand them. This is not a uniquely American problem either.

I'm thinking about this in relation to the Iran situation. Ever stopped to think about what must be going through the Iranians' heads about their security? The president of the United States has called your country one of three countries in an "axis of evil." The U.S. then pre-emptively and on false pretenses attacked one of the other three in this "axis," who just happens to be your neighbor.

Is it any wonder Iran would want to pursue nuclear weapons? The bull-in-a-china shop approach toward the world by the Bush Administration has made the world not safer but more dangerous.

The Regressives

2006-09-22T19:05:00.000-05:00

It's about time someone connected the dots about the Republicans. Plenty of us out here in the hinterlands know this, but the Democrats aren't saying this or the media's not covering them saying it. This needs to be stated clearly, concisely, and strongly in every press appearance the Democrats do:

The Republicans do not believe in the rights of the people. They do not believe in American values. They believe in restricting rights, rather than expanding them. In short, the modern-day Republican party does not believe in freedom.

You can go right down the line and find so many ways in which the Rethugnicans believe in restricting people's rights:

Voting rights. Suppressing the vote has a sad history in our country. Unfortunately, it continues to this day. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives approved a bill to require proof of citizenship at the polls. It was a party-line vote with the Republicans in favor and the Democrats against.
The right to privacy. The Republicans believe that there is no right to privacy, that the government can and should monitor you anytime, anyplace. They can govern your body. They can govern your sex life. They can listen to your phone calls and read your e-mails and collect your records without showing any reason why they suspect you of a crime.
The courts. There are at least three bills bouncing around Congress that are complete about-faces on the American value of justice. The "compromise" detainee and military commission bill will block habeas corpus for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, a majority of whom, according to multiple military reports and sources, are innocent. The Streamlined Procedures Act (PDF) would severely restrict the access to federal courts for state prisoners and risk the execution of the innocent. And the Public Expression of Religion Act would keep those with low or moderate incomes from challenging violations of their Constitutional rights. Only the wealthy could carry forth with a complaint when their rights have been violated. The Republicans are in the process of obliterating our system of justice.

There are numerous other examples, of course. The attacks on gays and their desire to end their second-class citizenship is one.

The Democrats need to make it clear to the American public that the Republican party is against freedom. When the Republi-cons accuse the Dems of having a "pre-9/11 mentality," the Dems should retort that the Cons have a pre-1776 mentality.

People on the left like to call themselves Progressives. Today's Republican party should be known as Regressives.

George W. Bush, war criminal

2006-09-16T22:06:00.000-05:00

Whoa. This is the first time that I've seen a prominent pundit, and a conservative one, at that, suggest that Bush and his henchmen be prosecuted for war crimes:

What the Bush administration wants is to introduce vagueness to get away with exactly the same barabarism they have deploying illegally for the past five years. They must be stopped. And eventually, they must be prosecuted for war crimes.

A list of op-eds and editorials from the week

2006-09-13T12:22:00.000-05:00

There has been a host of op-eds and editorials worth note this week.

New York Times, John Tierney, columnist: Waiting for al-Qaeda (subscription required)

The Bush administration likes to take credit for stopping domestic plots, but it's hard to gauge whether these are much more than the fantasies of a few klutzes. Bush also claims that the war in Iraq has diverted terrorists’ attention there, but why wouldn't global jihadists want the added publicity from attacking America at home, too? Al Qaeda's leaders threatened in 2003 to attack America — along with a half dozen other countries that haven’t been attacked either.

Mueller's conclusion is that there just aren’t that many terrorists out there with the zeal and the competence to attack the United States. In his forthcoming book, "Overblown," he argues that the risk of terrorism didn't increase after Sept. 11 — if anything, it declined because of a backlash against Al Qaeda, making it a smaller and less capable threat than before. But the terrorism industry has been too busy hyping Sept. 11 and several other attacks to notice.
(snip)
Compared with past threats — like Communist sociopaths with nuclear arsenals — Al Qaeda's terrorists are a minor problem. They certainly don't justify the hyperbolic warnings that America's "existence" or "way of life" is in jeopardy, or that America must transform the Middle East in order to survive.

There undoubtedly will be more terrorist attacks, either from Al Qaeda or others, just as there were before 2001. Terrorists might strike Monday. There will always be homicidal zealots like Mohamed Atta or Timothy McVeigh, and some of them will succeed, terribly. But this is not a new era. The terrorist threat is still small. It's the terrorism industry that got big.

The Patriot News, editorial: Detainees

Under our Constitution, the most heinous criminal is entitled to due process and a day in court. This is what separates us from many other countries around the world where the rights of the accused are not protected, and torture and gross mistreatment to obtain confessions are routine.

Philadelphia Inquirer, editorial: Remember 9/12?

On that day, we had the world's sympathy and, for a short while after, its admiration. "We are all Americans," European newspaper headlines declared. You could not pay the same publications enough euros to print the same headline today.

Why? Because of the ways we did not change for the better, and the ways we changed for the worse.

In these five years, the nation has been poorly led. History's verdict on those men and women (of both parties) will be severe.

Ny Times, editorial: 9/11/06

When we measure the possibilities created by 9/11 against what we have actually accomplished, it is clear that we have found one way after another to compound the tragedy. Homeland security is half-finished, the development at ground zero barely begun. The war against terror we meant to fight in Afghanistan is at best stuck in neutral, with the Taliban resurgent and the best economic news involving a bumper crop of opium. Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11 when it was invaded, is now a breeding ground for a new generation of terrorists.

Listing the sins of the Bush administration may help to clarify how we got here, but it will not get us out. The country still hungers for something better, for evidence that our leaders also believe in ideas larger than their own political advancement.

Return to Guantanamo Bay

2006-09-11T15:22:00.000-05:00

I was able to track down an online version of the Rolling Stone article on torture at Guantanamo Bay, so the more disturbing excerpts can be easily copied-and-pasted. It was available in a database from school, so I cannot link to it.

These words speak for themselves:

Upon their return, the MPs uncuffed Omar's arms, pulled them behind his back and recuffed them to his legs, straining them badly at their sockets. At the junction of his arms and legs he was again bolted to the floor and left alone. The degree of pain a human body experiences in this particular "stress position" can quickly lead to delirium, and ultimately to unconsciousness. Before that happened, the MPs returned, forced Omar onto his knees, and cuffed his wrists and ankles together behind his back. This made his body into a kind of bow, his torso convex and rigid, right at the limit of its flexibility. The force of his cuffed wrists straining upward against his cuffed ankles drove his kneecaps into the concrete floor. The guards left.

An hour or two later they came back, checked the tautness of his chains and pushed him over on his stomach. Transfixed in his bonds, Omar toppled like a figurine. Again they left. Many hours had passed since Omar had been taken from his cell. He urinated on himself and on the floor. The MPs returned, mocked him for a while and then poured pine-oil solvent all over his body. Without altering his chains, they began dragging him by his feet through the mixture of urine and pine oil. Because his body had been so tightened, the new motion racked it. The MPs swung him around and around, the piss and solvent washing up into his face. The idea was to use him as a human mop. When the MPs felt they'd successfully pretended to soak up the liquid with his body, they uncuffed him and carried him back to his cell. He was not allowed a change of clothes for two days.
(snip)
While he was at Guantanamo, Omar was beaten in the head, nearly suffocated, threatened with having his clothes taken indefinitely and, as at Bagram, lunged at by attack dogs while wearing a bag over his head. "Your life is in my hands," an intelligence officer told him during an interrogation in the spring of 2003. During the question' ing, Omar gave an answer the interrogator did not like. He spat in Omar's face, tore out some of his hair and threatened to send him to Israel, Egypt, Jordan or Syria - places where they tortured people without constraints: very slowly, analytically removing body parts. The Egyptians, the interrogator told Omar, would hand him to Asfyri raqm tisa - Soldier Number Nine. Soldier Number Nine, the interrogator explained, was a guard who specialized in raping prisoners.

Omar's chair was removed. Because his hands and ankles were shackled, he fell to the floor. His interrogator told him to get up. Standing up was hard, because he could not use his hands. When he did, his interrogator told him to sit down again. When he sat, the interrogator told him to stand again. He refused. The interrogator called two guards into the room, who grabbed Omar by the neck and arms, lifted him into the air and dropped him onto the floor. The interrogator told them to do it again - and again and again and again. Then he said he was locking Omar's case file in a safe: Omar would spend the rest of his life in a cell at Guantanamo Bay.

Several weeks later, a man who claimed to be Afghan interrogated Omar. He wore an American flag on his uniform pants. Hc said his name was Izmarai - "lion" - and he spoke in Farsi and occasionally in Pashto and English. Izmarai said a new prison was under construction in Afghanistan for uncooperative Guantánamo detainees. "In Afghanistan," Izmarai said, "they like small boys." He pulled out a photograph of Omar and wrote on it, in Pashto, "This detainee must be transferred to Bagram."
(snip)
In his debriefing, Abdurahman Khadr told the CIA that only ten percent of the detainees at Guantanamo "are really dangerous." The rest, he said, "are people that don't have anything to do with it, don't even . . . understand what they're doing here." One innocent man, Abdurahman said, was given up by his own son for $5,000. Another detainee was nothing more than a drug user: Every time the MPs came around, he begged them for hashish: "He doesn't even know what he's doing here," Abdurahman said. "Truly a drug addict, not Al Qaeda at all."

One military-intelligence officer, speaking anonymously, told a reporter that more than seventy-five percent of the detainees at Guantanamo are innocent. When the government recently prepared Summaries of Evidence for its 517 detainees in an attempt to justify its "enemy combatant" designation, only eight percent were "definitively identified" as Al Qaeda fighters. Sixty-six percent have no definitive connection to Al Qaeda at all. The detention camps of Guantanamo Bay are filled with shepherds, taxi drivers, farmers, small businessmen, drug addicts, homeless people and children.

For Rick Wilson and Muneer Ahmad, this nasty truth led to an unnerving conclusion: After the invasion of Afghanistan, the Bush administration effectively kidnapped hundreds of innocent people because they looked like Arabs and shipped them to a detention facility designed to torture them nonstop and in perpetuity. If the president were tried in the Hague, the prosecution would have an easy case.

Removing religion from the public square....

2006-09-08T21:27:00.000-05:00

...is an overused and twisted phrase but completely appropriate for Thursday's column by Stu Bykofsky from the Philadelphia Daily News. Stu suggests that faith remove itself from public policy debates:

The separation of church and state protects the church from intrusion by the state. It should also shield the state from intrusion by the church, whether the issue be stem-cell research, abortion, Terri Schiavo or the death penalty.

And he completely mangles Jesus' teachings:

He certainly wasn't talking about Jesus' admonition to "render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." Jesus meant the Romans had the right to tax the Jews and to impose Roman law.

To suggest that Jesus would teach his followers to simply stand-by while the government commits unjust acts is just wrong. He said that if a soldier forces you to carry his pack one mile, carry it two, which would break the etiquette of what soldiers could and could not do to citizens.

You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.

If you turn the other cheek, your attacker would have to hit you overhand, which would be a sign of equality. It was more shameful to see someone naked than it was to be seen naked, and hence the suggestion to "let him have your cloak as well." Jesus taught people non-violent civil disobedience.

"Render unto Caesar" is not a blank check for the government to do whatever it wants.

Faith has played a role in the great movements for progress and against injustice throughout this country's history- the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, women's suffrage, the abolitionists. Stu's suggestion that faith and faith leaders play no role in public policy infringes on basic American freedoms of religion and political expression.

For many Americans, faith and spirituality give us a compass for direction on social justice. It's impossible to disconnect it from public policy.

"This country faces a new type of fascism- indeed"

2006-09-04T10:00:00.000-05:00

Keith Olbermann gripped it and ripped it last Wednesday on Countdown. In response to Don Rumsfeld's speech to the American Legion in Salt Lake City, Olbermann noted

For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence -- indeed, the loyalty -- of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants -- our employees -- with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration's track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.

Dissent and disagreement with government is the life's blood of human freedom; and not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as "his" troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.

It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile it is right and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.

You can watch the video and read the text here.

The answers Casey could have given

2006-09-04T07:57:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Senator Rick Santorum and Democratic challenger Bob Casey, Jr. faced off in a debate on Meet the Press. Casey did pretty well. Several times, particularly when moderator Tim Russert pressed him on Iraq, Santorum got hot and bothered, so imagine the surprise when the Patriot News today said that Santorum was "sedate and less emotional." That's not what I saw. The Patriot said, "Independent analysts called it a clear Casey victory."

There were a few times, though, when Santorum gave Casey hanging curveballs and Casey failed to knock them out of the park. Here are a few of those situations and what Casey could have said.

Santorum claimed we found WMD in Iraq. This is the continuation of a statement Santorum made on the floor of the Senate, but even the White House admitted these were old weapons that had been buried in a WMD graveyard after the Iran-Iraq war. Casey responded by saying that Russert found the 2% of the time that Santorum disagrees with the president.

What Casey could have said. "The weapons that the senator refers to were found in a WMD graveyeard. They were so old you would do more damage if you dropped them on your foot than if you tried to launch them. But the broader issue here is that this is a clear indication of why we need new leadership in the Senate. Senator Santorum went to the floor of the United States Senate to proclaim this information from the highest mountaintop in order to mislead the American people. It was picked up by the extreme right-wing talkradio hosts and Fox News, and now more Americans believe that we found WMD in Iraq. This country can no longer afford leaders who will manipulate information in this way. I make a promise today to the people of Pennsylvania and the people of this country that as the senator from Pennsylvania I will never mislead you for my own gain of power."

Santorum lambasted Casey for not stopping the state legislative pay raise. Santorum suggested that Casey could have stopped the pay raise by not signing the checks. Clearly, this would have been illegal. Santorum went on to accuse Casey of playing politics with the pay raise by filing an amicus brief in a lawsuit against the raise after the November 05 election, when a state Supreme Court justice lost in a retention vote.

What Casey could have said. Casey did note that if he did not sign the checks, he would be breaking the law. He could have carried that a step further: "Unfortunately, the senator and his party have made clear in recent years that they are perfectly content with government officials breaking the law. I am not comfortable with that and think that it undermines our democracy. I believe in the rule of law. It's unfortunate that the senator and his party do not."

Santorum revived the ghost of Bob Casey, Sr. to criticize Casey on emergency contraception. Santorum said that Casey's late father would be disappointed in him for supporting the FDA's approval of selling emergency contraception over the counter.

What Casey could have said. Surprisingly, Casey did not reply to this, but here's what I suggest. "During the 2004 campaign, members of the senator's party criticized John Kerry for mentioning Vice President Cheney's daughter during a debate. In that situation, Ms. Cheney was working for the Bush campaign. In this debate, Senator Santorum has the gall to super-impose thoughts on my father, who passed away six years ago. This is despicable behavior, and it has no place in politics. I would suggest that Senator Santorum should be ashamed of himself, but if there is one thing that has been made clear over the course of the senator's career it's that he has no shame."

Thoughts on Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion

2006-09-03T20:22:00.000-05:00

The film industry has taken numerous cracks at telling the story of Tibet. The best known are Brad Pitt's Seven Years in Tibet and Martin Scorsese's Kundun. Both films were released in 1997 and both serve the Tibet cause well, telling the early story of China's occupation of "the roof of the world."

Other films, like Little Buddha and The Cup (which is a ton of fun, by the way), involve Tibetan monks in exile but don't get into the story of the invasion and destruction of the country.

The 2003 documentary Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion, which I just watched for the first time on Friday night, is an excellent source for all of the most pertinent facts and events during the 56-year occupation of Tibet by China. Narrated by Martin Sheen, it starts dramatically with the story of the monk in the above picture, who was severely burned and beaten during an uprising in 1987. The monk went into a burning building to save other Tibetans from further beatings at the hands of the Chinese police.

From there, the viewer learns about the back-story leading up to China's invasion and how the invasion occurred. It includes fascinating insights into the initial interactions between the Chinese and the Tibetans, which were positive, and how that relationship soured when it became clear that Mao's agenda would include the destruction of religion.

All of the major events that have impacted the country and its people are highlighted in the documentary, including the Cultural Revolution, the death of Mao, which led to a visit to Tibet by representatives of the Dalai Lama, and the pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square. Current conflicts like the abduction and imprisonment of the newest incarnation of the Panchen Lama and the construction of the new railway connecting Beijing and Lhasa, which just opened in July and which Tibet advocates fear will lead to further migration by the Chinese into Tibet and turn the natives into a minority in their own country, are also featured.

If you're interested in learning more about this human rights disaster but don't have the time for extensive reading or research, this film is a must-see. I found it in the "special interest" (aka "documentaries") section of my local Blockbuster.

What do the people want? Stoic or passionate?

2006-09-03T20:02:00.000-05:00

Political pundits are hard to follow at times, and, frankly, it seems they just repeat each other's assertions, leading to the "echo chamber" effect.

Today's Patriot News featured a cover story headlined, "Style key to winning Senate seat, analysts say." With echoes of John Kerry, circa 2004, the lede of the story was

Asked whether there is a "charisma gap" between Democrat Robert P. Casey Jr. and U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., offered an assessment that didn't exactly tout Casey as the most exciting of candidates.

"He is a low-key fellow," said Schumer, chairman of the Senate Democrats' campaign committee and one of the people who recruited Casey to challenge Santorum, R-Pa.

So this article was all about how Bob Casey, Jr.'s mellow personality could hurt him against the fiery Rick Santorum.

But then one turns to page A8 and finds this story: Voters Democratic wariness tempers mood for change. It includes this:

Voters like Jim Meyer are part of the reason one party is scuffling, yet the other not completely confident.

"I think we're in a lot of trouble," said the 59-year-old resident of Greenhills, Ohio, a Bush voter in 2004. His reasons: "Our commitment overseas, using our National Guard as much as we're using it, calling back our troops" to duty.

Still, he sized up the political alternative in less-than-glowing terms. "I think a lot of Democrats come across as crazies."

It's an impression Democrats are determined to negate and Republicans eager to reinforce in the 10 weeks from the traditional Labor Day campaign kickoff until Election Day.

Let's review. Casey might not be able to win because he's too mellow but people are unsure about the Democrats because they're "crazies." What gives? In PA, you have a candidate who is clearly not a crazy (going against a Senator, I might add, who is a polarizing bomb-thrower who couldn't keep his temper in check today on Meet the Press), but that Democratic candidate's style- stoic- could cost him votes. This is nuts. Is this real or is this the media's need to fill pages?

Enough said

2006-09-03T10:33:00.000-05:00

Dumbsfeld should be careful when drawing Nazi analogies.

Harrisburg Zero: Rep. Ron Marsico

2006-09-01T20:40:00.000-05:00

Pennsylvania is under siege!!!

Not really, but you wouldn't know by listening to the nativist race-baiters at the capitol. Unfortunately, that group includes my representative, Ron Marsico, which can only lead me to one conclusion: Rep. Marsico deserves the newly renamed "Harrisburg Zero" award.

Defying the position of his own Catholic church, Rep. Ron recently sent around an e-mail in which he encouraged constituents to sign a petition on his website "to protect our citizens and their property (GASP!) from the clear and present dangers (AAAAAH!) of illegal immigration."

Legislation has been introduced in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives that will restore safety and security (YES! UUUH!) to our state's communities by eliminating all economic attractions and incentives (including but not limited to: public benefits, welfare, education and employment opportunities) for illegal immigrants, as well as encourage our federal government to secure our borders against unlawful invasion (GRAB THE KIDS AND RUN FOR THE BASEMENT!!!!).

Of course, this is absurd. To suggest that there is "an invasion" (of hard-working people who want to care for their families, mind you) is to use hyperbole just a notch short of Don Rumsfeld.

But the nativists at the capitol are desperate because they know that the government reform movement has not forgotten the pay raise debacle, and they know it is in the Republican ranks in which the grass-roots are most restless. So they throw this red-meat out there, which is always divisive, to try to placate the base. It didn't work with the Marriage Protection-From-What Amendment. After five months of that debate, 13 incumbent Republicans lost in the May primary.

Hopefully it won't work this time either.

And here's a snippet of what the Catholic bishops have to say:

some aspects of the migrant experience are far from the vision of the Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed: many persons who seek to migrate are suffering, and, in some cases, tragically dying; human rights are abused; families are kept apart; and racist and xenophobic attitudes remain. (my bold)

And we have a new attraction for the Harrisburg Zero. You are on notice.

Let's remove Terrell Owens since he seems to be making a strong effort to implode the Cowboys' season before it even starts.

One man's legacy

2006-08-31T19:39:00.000-05:00

The air traffic controller who was working in Lexington on the day Comair 5191 crashed had worked a seven hour shift on Saturday that ended at 2:30pm and then came back on duty Saturday night at 11:30pm. In between, he had two hours of sleep. The crash happened at 6am on Sunday. In addition, he was working by himself when he should have had a partner.

How does an air traffic controller end up in such a vulnerable position? A weak union. And why is the union weak? Ronald Reagan, who conservatives lionize by naming an airport after him and actually suggesting that he should replace F-Roosevelt on the 10-cent piece. That would actually be appropriate because thanks to Reagan and the Bushes the middle class is left with just one thin dime.

I've heard a lot of great stats on what has happened to the middle class on Thom Hartmann's radio program. Unfortunately, some of them are not handy, but here's what sticks out: Before the air traffic controller's strike that Reagan busted, there were on average 300 strikes per year across the country. In the years since, there have been an average of 30 strikes per year.

Connected to that, real wages have stayed stagnant in the years since the Reagan administration while CEO salaries have gone up hundreds of percentage points. In the decades between WWII and Reagan, real wages went up more than 60% while CEO salaries only went up marginally.

There is a war on the middle class, and it has been led by conservatives and their anti-worker policies. Hartmann has a new book called Screwed: The Undeclared War against the Middle Class. I haven't read it yet but would like to read it.

When I was a kid, my parents were able to live on my dad's salary as a tech at IBM. My mom stayed home, only occasionally working weekends as a nurse, until I got to high school when she went back to work full-time. We had a nice home in the suburbs, we took annual summer vacations, and we were able to get new clothes each school year.

Today, my wife and I have a home that is probably the equivalent of that home I grew up in, but if we lived on just one of our salaries- and my wife has a master's degree- we would not be able to live here, let alone do all of the things listed above.

And the same conservatives who support the anti-worker policy also lament the fact that so many kids are in daycare today. They've made the bed and now they don't want to sleep in it.

I worked at a union shop recently. While I was there, the administration changed, and the new administration was anti-worker. Wages were cut for new employees (to be fair, existing employees got a significant pay raise), vacation was cut in half, and off-time vulnerable to being scheduled as work time. They even rolled over our existing contract, intimidating employees into voting for the changes by threatening an even worse atmosphere if we didn't accept the changes.

Many of my colleagues were conservative Bush supporters. One of my buddies said to our colleagues over and over again, "I assume that all of you are OK with this because you support George Bush. This is exactly the kind of atmosphere that we have in the country now." I don't know how many of them got what he was saying.

That's how conservatives are. They don't care about things until it affects them personally. They don't care about workers' rights until they're the workers who are losing rights. They don't care about the environment until someone wants to build a land-fill or a factory farm in their town.

The difference between progressives and conservatives is that those on the progressive side grasp that there is a vaster world around them. Conservatives only see what is in their immediate vicinity.

Connect these dots

2006-08-27T22:09:00.000-05:00

Fun and games on a Sunday night.

According to a recent Harris poll, 50% of Americans believe that we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

According to a recent Science magazine poll, 50% of Americans do not believe that humans evolved from a lower species.

And according to the 2004 election returns, 52% of American voters voted for George W. Bush.

How much overlap do you think there are in these three groups?

This response came from media critic Michael Massing on the WMD poll:

"This finding just has to cause despair among those of us who hope for an informed public able to draw reasonable conclusions based on evidence," Massing said.

The Science poll backs up the findings of a CBS News poll from earlier this year, which found that 53% of Americans believe that God created us in our present form. The funny thing is that at least one Finnish news outlet, NewsRoom Finland, reported the results from the same Science magazine poll with the lede, "With only two thirds saying the theory of evolution is a tenable explanation of the origin of species, Finns are more sceptical about evolutionism than people in many other European countries as well as in Japan." Only two thirds? Two thirds would be cause for celebration in the U.S.

As I once heard someone else say, it's been a rough couple of years for those of who are based in reality.

885 greatest artists of all time

2006-08-26T21:48:00.000-05:00

WXPN in Philadelphia is compiling the 885 greatest artists of all-time. You can vote by submitting your top 10 list (or more) at this link.

Here's mine:
10. Fugazi
9. Barenaked Ladies
8. REM
7. The Beatles
6. Dave Matthews Band
5. Public Enemy
4. Michael Franti and Spearhead
3. The Beastie Boys
2. U2
1. The Replacements

Who's the more foolish?

2006-08-26T20:57:00.000-05:00

The fool or the fool who follows?

NY Times: Some in GOP say Iran threat is played down

Some senior Bush administration officials and top Republican lawmakers are voicing anger that American spy agencies have not issued more ominous warnings about the threats that they say Iran presents to the United States.

Ex-CIA officer Larry Johnson points out that the CIA had an operation that is now defunct that was gathering information on Iran's WMD program. It was led by someone you may have heard of, a lady by the name of Valerie Plame.

So, the Republicans want to whine about inadequate intelligence on Iran's nuclear program while holding fund raisers for Scooter Libby, one of the men implicated in the leak of Valerie's classified identity? Excuse me? The leak did more than ruin Val's ability to continue working as an undercover CIA officer. The leak destroyed a U.S. intelligence program to collect information about Iran's efforts to get nuclear weapons material.

And, as usual, Cenk Uygur nails it:

Look, I don't have a problem with neoclowns making these arguments. It's a free country. If you want to put on a shiny red nose and big floppy shoes and make clowning your calling in life, more power to you. What I don't get is why we're still going to the circus. Haven't we had enough of this freak show?

In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve, and in light of the fact that 59 million people voted for Bush in 2004 and they've continued to allow the Republi-cons to control Congress for 12 years, the public is getting what it deserves. Enjoy.

You're on notice!

2006-08-26T20:12:00.000-05:00

Create your own.

More thoughts on torture at Guantanamo

2006-08-21T20:15:00.000-05:00

The night before I read that article from Rolling Stone I watched a documentary on the History Channel called "Nazi POWs in America." The difference between the way Nazis were treated and the way we've treated detainees at Guantanamo is striking. The Germans were housed in the United States. They had more food than average Americans, who were rationing. They gardened, played games, had concerts, and watched movies. The most hardcore among them did carry out their own form of justice, which included killings, while American overseers looked the other way, but this was the one negative.

(B)y bringing Axis POWs to the U.S., the Allies inadvertently defanged even the most ardent Nazi POWS and created "Little Ambassadors". First, Nazi loyalists among the Germans saw that the wild and rabid anti-U.S. propaganda that they had been fed didn't fit what they saw in America. Second, all German POWs learned by example what democracy looked like on a daily, personal basis. Third, after the German capitulation some were chosen for special "re-education" to counter lingering post-war Nazi ideology once backs in Europe. Fourth, most German POWs took with them to Germany news and views of America which, by and large, spoke well of the U.S.—the land of their victors and former "enemies".

Some German POWs returned to the United States to live just a few years after returning to Germany. Some went on to be leaders in the democratic West Germany.

Compare that to what we're doing at Guantanamo. George W. Bush wants to spread democracy and freedom around the world but is missing a great opportunity by destroying people at Guantanamo Bay.

If it talks like a racist and acts like a racist...

2006-08-21T15:50:00.000-05:00

...then it's a racist.

It's getting pretty damn difficult for those advocating for punitive measures against undocumented immigrants to deny that race is playing a major role in igniting the debate. Peruse these nuggets.

Philadelphia Inquirer: Protest roils Riverside

After an hour of prayers and speeches, Rivera and the protesters headed up Scott Street, the Burlington County town's main drag, as hundreds on both sides of the street cursed, spit and shouted at them to leave and never come back.

Some in the crowd were intoxicated. Some waved Confederate flags, while others thrust their right arms up to resemble a Nazi salute. Dozens had signs calling for tighter border control.

As the protesters walked along the center line, police kept the opposing crowd on the sidewalks. When the march ended and the two groups were allowed to mingle, the verbal attacks continued.

Some claimed illegal immigrants took jobs away from citizens. Some said they were angry because some illegal immigrants pay no income taxes. For others, the matter seemed personal.

"You spread germs," screamed Mary Goff, 32, a lifelong township resident. "You're ignorant, disgusting and lazy. Go somewhere else and give us back our town."

And then there's this:
The Nation: Nightly Nativism

(Lou) Dobbs (of CNN) often features and quotes activists with links to extremist and even openly racist groups, as the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, reported last year. Yet Dobbs consistently fails to mention those connections--even when he or his reporters interview the founder and leader of a hate group. Glenn Spencer, for example, who heads the nativist American Patrol, deemed a hate group by both the SPLC and the Anti-Defamation League, was portrayed as a hero for running a "shadow border patrol" with "a handful of committed friends" using technology that rivals the federal government's. The reporter didn't mention that Spencer has also predicted a war with Mexico; his popular website, which often quotes Dobbs and links to his show, spreads rumors that immigrants are plotting to overthrow the Southwest United States. There's also Protect Arizona Now (PAN), which successfully pressed a ballot initiative that denies state services to illegal aliens and requires state employees to report them. Dobbs ran glowing features on the group and its campaign, never mentioning what many news outlets had reported: that Virginia Abernethy, a self-described "white separatist" and former editorial adviser to the white-supremacist CCC, headed PAN's national advisory board.

And finally we have this lovely piece:
Pittsburgh Tribune Review, columnist Dimitri Vassilaros: ACLU should check the law

But Witold Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said in a news release that "You might as well just paint a target on every foreigners' (sic) forehead or a sign saying 'please treat me differently.'" Um, OK. Actually, that sounds like a dandy idea. (my bold)

Physically marking foreigners. Nice. Somebody tried something like that once.

Haunting

2006-08-18T19:25:00.000-05:00

Rolling Stone's feature article on the torture of Omar Khadr left me not angry, as my wife suggested, but numb. The online version doesn't do it justice:

Before boarding a C-130 transport to Guantanamo, Omar was dressed in an orange jumpsuit and hog-chained: shackled hand and foot, a waist chain cinching his hands to his stomach, another chain connecting the shackles on his hands to those on his feet. At both wrist and ankle, the shackles bit. The cuffs permanently scarred many prisoners on the flight, causing them to lose feeling in their limbs for several days or weeks afterward. Hooded and kneeling on the tarmac with the other prisoners, Omar waited for many hours. His knees sent intensifying pain up into his body and then went numb.

A military-intelligence officer estimates that 75% of detainees at Guatanamo are innocent. Another report states that just 8% of detainees are confirmed al-Qaeda.

Go get this article. It is in the latest issue with Christina Aguilera on the cover. You will be haunted by what it describes and might even leave you thinking that simply allowing George W. Bush to serve out his term until January, 2009 is letting him off too easy.

Good to the last drop

2006-08-18T17:27:00.000-05:00

NY Times: Coffee as a health drink? Studies find some benefits

Coffee is not usually thought of as health food, but a number of recent studies suggest that it can be a highly beneficial drink. Researchers have found strong evidence that coffee reduces the risk of several serious ailments, including diabetes, heart disease and cirrhosis of the liver.

Among them is a systematic review of studies published last year in The Journal of the American Medical Association, which concluded that habitual coffee consumption was consistently associated with a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes. Exactly why is not known, but the authors offered several explanations.

Coffee contains antioxidants that help control the cell damage that can contribute to the development of the disease. It is also a source of chlorogenic acid, which has been shown in animal experiments to reduce glucose concentrations.

It's a good thing because diabetes is in the fam and I drink waaaaaay too much...wait, I drink a healthy amount of coffee, apparently. Tip up your cup!

Harrisburg Hero: Stephen A. Glassman

2006-08-18T12:59:00.000-05:00

Stephen A. Glassman, chair of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, has a top-notch guest blogger entry on the immigration debate over at Speaking Freely, the blog of the ACLU of PA:

The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission has sought to insure that a person's race, skin color, national origin, or ancestry did not result in such patently unfair discrimination. Unfortunately, those who are different from the majority, who are the most disenfranchised and the least able to protect or speak for themselves, are the ones most likely to become the targets of discrimination. Immigrants are simply the current target, whether they are Hispanic, Asian, African, or Middle Eastern. They are not the first. They will, unfortunately, not be the last.

The Commission's assessment of various legislative initiatives and, more pointedly, our assessment of the tone and tenor of much of the public debate, suggests that the impetus for action comes from the same type of prejudice and fear that has had such demonstrable and unfortunate consequences in the past. Much of the proposed legislation and public debate is centered on punishing both those who are here illegally and those who provide them with employment, food and housing. Inevitably, these laws will unfairly ensnare many individuals who are living here legally and will encourage aggressive behavior against anyone perceived to be an illegal immigrant.

Reform, to be truly effective, must be broader in its approach; punitive action, alone, will not solve the problem. It will simply encourage people to "obey" these new laws by treating anyone who looks or sounds "foreign" as if they are also "illegal." This is not only bad social policy. It is also unlawful under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act and other state and federal laws.

Along with the revival of NLM comes the revival of the Harrisburg Hero award. Steve deserves it for his leadership and his desire to move Pennsylvania forward, not backward.

Top Global Universities

2006-08-18T09:47:00.000-05:00

Newsweek has ranked the top global universities, which means:

universities have...become more self-consciously global: seeking students from around the world who represent the entire spec trum of cultures and values, sending their own students abroad to prepare them for global careers, offering courses of study that address the challenges of an inter connected world and collaborative research programs to advance science for the benefit of all humanity. To capture these developments, NEWSWEEK devised a ranking of global universities that takes into account openness and diversity, as well as distinction in research.

#10 nationally and #37 globally? The University of Pittsburgh. Hail to Pitt!

Federal judge declares surveillance without a warrant unconstitutional

2006-08-17T22:09:00.000-05:00

Duh.

Glenn Greenwald:

In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court -- as Marty Lederman was the first to note -- rejected the Bush administration's principal defense for its violations of the Geneva Conventions not only with regard to military commissions, but generally. By holding that Common Article 3 of the Conventions applies to all detainees, and a failure to treat detainees in compliance with Common Article 3 constitutes "war crimes," the Supreme Court effectively found that Bush officials have authorized and engaged in felony violations of the War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. sec. 2241), which makes it a federal crime to violate war treaties such as the Geneva Conventions. That is why the administration is busy at work trying to change that law so as to retroactively legalize their conduct -- because the Supreme Court all but branded them war criminals, and the consequences of that can be severe.

And now, a federal court in Michigan -- the first to rule on the legality of the President's NSA program -- just rejected all of the administration's defenses for eavesdropping in violation of FISA, effectively finding that the administration has been engaged in deliberate criminal acts by eavesdropping without judicial approval. And as I documented previously, Hamdan itself independently compels rejection of the administration's only defenses to its violations of FISA. Eavesdropping in violation of FISA is a federal crime, punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine (50 U.S.C. 1809).

Thus, judicial decisions are starting to emerge which come close to branding the conduct of Bush officials as criminal.

This will knock you on your (behind)

2006-08-17T21:53:00.000-05:00

Try explaining September 11, 2001, to a three-year-old. Tonight my daughter was in the room while I was watching Countdown with Keith Olbermann and the story on more 911 tapes from NYC on 9/11 came on. Here's sort of how the conversation went:

Child: (sees street scene) "Daddy, what's that?"
Dad: "That's trash on the street, honey."
"Why?"
"A building fell down."
"What are they doing?" (referring to firefighters on the street)
"Trying to help people."
"Why?"
"Because the people needed help."
(pause)
"Why did the building fall down?"
(pause)
"Because an airplane hit it."
"The building shook and fell down when an airplane hit it."
"Yes."
(pause)
"Why did an airplane hit the building?"
(Dad puts arm around child) "I'll explain it to you some other day but not right now, OK?"
"Ok, you can tell me another time."

In between, I said a few times, "This almost never happens." I thought of saying, "This only happened one time," but then I thought, 'How do I explain earthquakes?' It's also not clear if she realizes that some of what we see on television is fiction and some is non-fiction.

Comic of the day

2006-08-17T21:40:00.000-05:00

Sick and twisted humor from Get Your War On

I never heard of this comic until I saw it in the latest Rolling Stone. The strip that is in the issue is hilarious but not online yet.

Size of trophy inversely proportional to size of heart

2006-08-16T21:33:00.000-05:00

In my mid-teens, I umpired little league baseball for two seasons or so. I stopped doing it because of a summer job working at a summer camp, but I probably would have stopped, anyway. The kids were great, but the parents and coaches were awful to deal with. That was 18 years ago, and based on the stories out there, they've only gotten worse.

Which brings us to this little jewel, courtesy of Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated:

In a nine- and 10-year-old PONY league championship game in Bountiful, Utah, the Yankees lead the Red Sox by one run. The Sox are up in the bottom of the last inning, two outs, a runner on third. At the plate is the Sox' best hitter, a kid named Jordan. On deck is the Sox' worst hitter, a kid named Romney. He's a scrawny cancer survivor who has to take human growth hormone and has a shunt in his brain.

So, you're the coach: Do you intentionally walk the star hitter so you can face the kid who can barely swing?
(snip)
Yanks coach Bob Farley decided to walk the star.

Parents booed. The umpire, Mike Wright, thought to himself, Low-ball move. In the stands, Romney's eight-year-old sister cried. "They're picking on Romney!" she said. Romney struck out. The Yanks celebrated. The Sox moaned. The two coaching staffs nearly brawled.

And Romney? He sobbed himself to sleep that night.

Short of a dad beating a coach to death, this is about as bad as it gets. The only uplifting part of this story was this:

By the way, the next morning, Romney woke up and decided to do something about what happened to him.

"I'm going to work on my batting," he told his dad. "Then maybe someday I'll be the one they walk."

SI is doing a poll on this, and although it's not scientific, it's awfully sad that only 60% of voters have opted to pitch to the slugger.

Here's a CNN feature on the story.

"Deport them all"...to PR and Guam???

2006-08-16T12:56:00.000-05:00

If you're in the United States, how is it possible to be deported to Puerto Rico or Guam?

Waiting downtown for a bus, Lena Zizzo, of McAdoo, said she supports the ordinance because illegal immigrants should "stay where they belong."

"Why should they come and take everything away? You don't see me going to Puerto Rico or Guam. Deport the whole lot of them. Chances are, they're no good," Zizzo said.

Mindful Politics

2006-08-13T19:21:00.000-05:00

Shambhala Sun

Lieberman and Cheney: Cut from the same cloth

2006-08-13T18:38:00.000-05:00

Only Republicans like Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman could claim that Ned Lamont's primary victory in Connecticut last week would embolden terrorists:

"My God, here we have a terrorist threat against hearth and home and the very first thing that comes out of their mind is how can we turn this to partisan advantage. I find that offensive," Lamont said in an interview Sunday with The Associated Press.

After British officials disclosed they had thwarted a terrorist airline bombing plot on Thursday, Lieberman warned that Lamont's call for a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq would be "taken as a tremendous victory" by terrorists.

Cheney suggested Wednesday that Lamont's victory might encourage "the al-Qaida types" who want to "break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task."

Like so many that have come before him, Lieberman has to have power taken from him instead of graciously giving it up. If he cared about the country, he would give up his independent bid.

The Republicans and the neo-conservatives are doing their best to paint Lamont's victory as a takeover of the Democratic party by the "far-left" since the campaign centered largely around Lieberman's support of the occupation of Iraq and Lamont's opposition to it. They are flailing, looking down the barrel of their own loss in November and perhaps long-term exile into the wilderness. 60% of the general population and 82% of Dems oppose what we're now doing in Iraq. That is not the far-left.

Neo-con (emphasis on the "con") Charles Krauthammer of the WaPo claims that this will lead to the Democrats' demise much like the party's anti-Vietnam War shift did.

Like Iraq, Vietnam was but one theater in a larger global struggle -- the struggle against the Soviet Union and its communist clients around the world -- and by the early 1970s, the newly reshaped McGovernite party had to face the larger post-Vietnam challenges of the Cold War. The result? Political disaster.

There is one major problem with Krauthammer's premise. There were communists in Vietnam. Before we invaded, there were no global jihadists in Iraq. The Iraq debacle has taken us away from the job at hand, which is chasing the extremists like al-Qaeda.

John Kerry made those arguments in 2004, and I believe the people of this country are finally recognizing this truth.

The many flaws of the anti-immigrant crowd

2006-08-09T14:06:00.000-05:00

Along with Israel-Lebanon, immigration is the other issue brewing this summer that has had me itching to blog. A few thoughts on the misconceptions and the misinformation espoused by those opposed to immigrants:
"Immigrants burden our communities with crime." Immigrants commit crime at a lower rate than non-immigrants. In Hazleton, PA, where much of the summer debate has been focused with that focus on latinos, 22% of the city's crime is committed by latinos, who make up 30% of the population.

"Illegal immigrants burden our welfare system." Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for cash-assistance, food stamps, public housing, or Medicare and Medicaid. This argument is a non-starter.

"Immigrants don't assimilate into and embrace American culture." First-generation immigrants throughout the nation's history have hung onto their own culture and language, but by the second and third generations, their children are Americanized. I saw this recently when an Indian neighbor held a party. Those from my parents' generation wore traditional Indian dress while those in my generation dressed like me and others our age.

"Immigrants demanded that we provide services in languages other than english." Admittedly, I do not know the history of how we started offering government services to people in non-english languages. But I find it hard to believe that powerless immigrants who barely have a pot to pee in were able to force the big, bad government to cater to them. Common sense tells me that the government realized it could operate more efficiently and effectively if it offered services in other languages. A good example is the case of Alberto and Anna Pacheco of Luzerne County, who lost their children for more than a year simply because the county did not provide them with a spanish interpreter to aid them in dealing with Children and Youth Services.

As Grits for Breakfast said (see link above):

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Often though, the immigration debate seems virtually fact-free.

Picture of the Day

2006-08-09T14:02:00.000-05:00

Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean on Monday morning. Most pics that appear here are from others and are gathered from the 'net, but this one came from my own camera.

We already made that mistake once

2006-08-04T21:06:00.000-05:00

Rumors in Cuba are that the U.S. is preparing to invade.

In a televised message beamed into Cuba, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice offered the full support of the United States in a transition to democracy while promising to respect the sovereignty of the Cuban people.

Carried on TV Martí, the government-financed service that broadcasts to Cuba from the United States, Ms. Rice tried to calm fears that Washington planned to intervene directly in Cuba in the wake of President Fidel Castro's illness and his decision to hand off power provisionally to his brother Raúl, who is 75.

"The United States respects your aspirations as sovereign citizens," Ms. Rice said. "And we will stand with you to secure your rights - to speak as you choose, to think as you please, to worship as you wish and to choose your leaders, freely and fairly, in democratic elections."

The Iran-Israel War?

2006-08-04T20:29:00.000-05:00

Andrew Sullivan says that the Iran-Israel War has begun.

It will end only in either the destruction of Israel and Iran's major populations, or in the demise of the Ahmadinejad-Khameini regime.

Let's hope not...the former, that is.

The continued strategy of pillage and plunder

2006-08-04T18:47:00.000-05:00

Ah, it's great to see Israel doing its best to win the hearts and minds.

NY Times: Israel Extends Strikes North of Beirut, Hitting Village

Israel unleashed airstrikes across Lebanon Friday, severing the last major road link to the outside world and killing more than 30 people.

The bombs destroyed four bridges along the main north-south highway in what had been the largely untouched Christian heartland north of Beirut and far from Hezbollah territory. With the road from Beirut to Damascus already cut at several points, this was the only practical way to bring in relief and other supplies from Syria, tightening the sense of siege here.
(snip)
"Where are the Katyushas of the Hezbollah here?" asked Joseph Abihana, referring to a type of rocket that has been fired at Israel from the southern part of Lebanon. He said he was awakened by four bomb blasts. "We are used to being a safe area here, but now there is no safety. I blame the Israelis."
(snip)
In the Bekaa Valley, hard against the Syrian border, an airstrike killed at least 28 seasonal farm workers loading fruit and vegetables into a refrigerated truck. Ali Yaghi, the head of the rescue service in the tiny village of Qaa, told reporters that others may be buried in the rubble. Israel has frequently fired upon vehicles it suspected of carrying fighters or weapons, but these have also included water drilling rigs, convoys of medical supplies and minivans of fleeing civilians.
(snip)
The wave of bombings was yet another crippling blow to Lebanon’s infrastructure, painstakingly rebuilt over the past decade after years of civil war. Lebanese officials say 71 bridges have been destroyed — including elaborate overpasses on the Damascus road — and estimate the damage at $2 billion and rising.
(snip)
While many Lebanese Christians have long distrusted Hezbollah and other Muslims and Druse (there were, after all, 15 years of civil war along sectarian lines), and many criticized the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 that touched off the conflict, comments Friday indicated that the damage Israel has inflicted on Lebanon has shifted that equation.
(snip)
"Public opinion is 100 percent against Israel from this area," said Camille Chamoun, scion of one of the three major Christian families who mounted militias against the Muslim and Palestinian forces during the civil war and whose faction was aligned with Israel during its 1982 invasion.

"This is just an excuse to hit more of our infrastructure," said Manal Azzi, a 26-year-old health worker who lives next to the destroyed bridge.

"I'm here speaking as a Christian," she went on. "Israel is our main invader and has been for the last 50 years. Right now we're getting more civilian casualties, so we'll have another war in 10, 15 years.

"They talk about a new Middle East. To serve who? Israel and the United States. Israel is itself a terrorist state backed up by the United States."
(snip)
More than 400 fishing boats and trawlers, most of them moored in a dock, others stored in a nearby field, were destroyed in the bombings in an hour-long barrage by helicopters, aircraft and warships off the shore, residents said.

"The planes came from above, and then we heard ships shooting too," said Jihad al Hoss, who lived across the road. "They hit 30 or 35 rounds into the area. But what fault is it of the fishermen in all this?"
(snip)
"They've destroyed our homes, and now they've destroyed our livelihood," said Fadel Alami, who dove into the water to salvage parts from his wooden fishing trawler. He managed to recover the registration booklet for the boat and pieces of a sonar device, but, he said, the rest is all gone.

"We still have our dignity, and Seyed Hassan will help us get the rest back," he said, speaking of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
(snip)
She had escaped the house the night before as planes began circling overhead, she said, and stayed with relatives in another part of town. Her son, who only gave his name as Claude, climbed over a fence to help his mother.

"Why are you crying mom?," he asked as she came up the stairs. "We have to be steadfast."

"How can I not cry, just look around you," she said. "But we have to persevere. Hassan Nasrallah will change this."

People, people, people. Come on. Haven't you heard what PM Ohlert and President Bush have said? Blame Hezbollah. The firepower was supplied by the U.S., and it was the Israelis who decided that fishermen and farmers needed to die and have their industry destroyed, but blame Hezbollah. You didn't hear those speeches?

Before some wise guy comes along to justify this madness...

But Hezbollah's ability to fire rockets into Israel remained intact. By nightfall, Israeli officials said, 195 rockets had landed, killing at least four people. The Israeli police said that 2,500 rockets had been fired into Israel since the war began.

If you justify Israel's actions by claiming self-defense, then you would be hard-pressed to not say the same about Hezbollah. But Israel knows best. Completely obliterating a country is a good way to ensure security. Like Afghanistan in the '80s and '90s.

Seriously, when people say, "Blame Hezbollah," there's an underlying assumption that I haven't heard verbalized yet. If one is to say that Hezbollah's actions caused what Israel is doing, the assumption then is that Israel cannot control itself. Come to think of it, based on its actions, that's a safe assumption to make.