"That's where you'll find me"
Monday, May 28, 2007
Bach Guitars (& a blog slow-down)
Hey Folks,
I'll be tied up somewhat for a while. I'll try to do a bit on the blog whenever I get the chance.
In the meantime, get a load of this guitar player doing Bach on two guitars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UsPaiGUCss
Then check out his website for more: www.zackkim.com
- Uke Man
I'll be tied up somewhat for a while. I'll try to do a bit on the blog whenever I get the chance.
In the meantime, get a load of this guitar player doing Bach on two guitars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UsPaiGUCss
Then check out his website for more: www.zackkim.com
- Uke Man
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Let them eat $500 meals !!
Hey Folks -
It's worse than you probably thought. While the rich get ever richer (see Herbert, 2nd posting below), one is moved to ask - paraphrasing the school kid in the article - how much money can they spend? How much do they need?
Apparently they need it all and have no trouble spending it (or at least hoarding it).
How do the Rich sleep at night?
Denial.
Bob Herbert reports one person's observation, "I’ve become acutely aware that the lives of those who are well off are not touched at all by contact with the poor. It’s not that people don’t care or don’t want to help. It’s that they have very little awareness of poverty.”
Well, golly. Isn't that convenient. These good souls "have very little awareness of poverty.” Right!!! How can that be?
Denial.
Well, this calming "ignorance" is only going to get worse unless someone shakes things up. And more is at stake in this than just regular folks' standard of living. In an upcoming post I'll share a story from Sao Paulo, Brazil that takes this trend out a little farther than it's reached here.
It will stand your hair on end.
- Uke Man
May 22, 2007
American Cities and the Great Divide
By BOB HERBERT
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
A public high school teacher in Brooklyn told me recently about a student who didn’t believe that a restaurant tab for four people could come to more than $500. The student shook his head, as if resisting the very idea. He just couldn’t fathom it.
“How much can you eat?” the student asked.
When I asked a teacher in a second school to mention the same issue, one of the responses was, “Is this a true story?”
A lot of New Yorkers are doing awfully well. There are 8 million residents of New York City, and roughly 700,000 are worth a million dollars or more. The average price of a Manhattan apartment is $1.3 million. The annual earnings of the average hedge fund manager is $363 million.
The estimated worth of the mayor, Michael Bloomberg, ranges from $5.5 billion to upwards of $20 billion.
You want a gilded age? This is it. The elite of the Roaring Twenties would be stunned by the wealth of the current era.
Now the flip side, which is the side those public school students are on. One of the city’s five counties, the Bronx, is the poorest urban county in the nation. The number of families in the city’s homeless shelters is the highest it has been in a quarter of a century. Twenty-five percent of all families with children in New York City — that’s 1.5 million New Yorkers — are trying to make it on incomes that are below the poverty threshold established by the federal government.
The streets that are paved with gold for some are covered with ash for many others. There are few better illustrations of the increasingly disturbing divide between rich and poor than New York City.
“I get to walk in both worlds,” said Larry Mandell, the president of the United Way of New York City. “In a given day I might be in a soup kitchen and also in the halls of Fortune 500 companies dealing with the senior executives. I’ve become acutely aware that the lives of those who are well off are not touched at all by contact with the poor. It’s not that people don’t care or don’t want to help. It’s that they have very little awareness of poverty.”
I’d always thought of the United Way as a charitable outfit. But Mr. Mandell has committed his organization to the important task of raising the awareness of Americans and their political leaders to the pressing needs of America’s cities, and especially the long-neglected, poverty-stricken neighborhoods of the inner cities.
It’s a measure of how low the bar has been set for success in America’s cities that New York is thought to be doing well, even though 185,000 of its children ages 5 or younger are poor, and 18,000 are consigned to homeless shelters each night. More than a million New Yorkers get food stamps, and another 700,000 are eligible but not receiving them. That’s a long, long way from a $500 restaurant tab.
Only 50 percent of the city’s high school students graduate in four years. And if you talk to the kids in the poorer neighborhoods, they will tell you that they don’t feel safe. They are worried about violence and gang activity, which in their view is getting worse, not better.
This is what’s going on in the nation’s most successful big city.
Mr. Mandell is upset that urban issues, which in so many cases are related to poverty, have played such a minuscule role in the presidential campaign so far. “People need to become more aware of the issue of poverty,” he said. “It’s discouraging, frankly, to have it barely mentioned at all in the debates.
“It’s true that John Edwards is the one candidate who seems concerned about it, but to actually have the issue come up just briefly in the debates, and not at all in the Republican debate — well, my view is that we have to change that.”
The United Way of New York has issued a white paper on “America’s Urban Agenda” that says, “The greatest single challenge most American cities face lies in the increasing divide between the haves and have-nots.”
There was a time, some decades ago, when urban issues and poverty were important components of presidential campaigns. Now the poor are kept out of sight, which makes it easier to leave them farther and farther behind. We’ve apparently reached a point in our politics when they aren’t even worth mentioning.
It's worse than you probably thought. While the rich get ever richer (see Herbert, 2nd posting below), one is moved to ask - paraphrasing the school kid in the article - how much money can they spend? How much do they need?
Apparently they need it all and have no trouble spending it (or at least hoarding it).
How do the Rich sleep at night?
Denial.
Bob Herbert reports one person's observation, "I’ve become acutely aware that the lives of those who are well off are not touched at all by contact with the poor. It’s not that people don’t care or don’t want to help. It’s that they have very little awareness of poverty.”
Well, golly. Isn't that convenient. These good souls "have very little awareness of poverty.” Right!!! How can that be?
Denial.
Well, this calming "ignorance" is only going to get worse unless someone shakes things up. And more is at stake in this than just regular folks' standard of living. In an upcoming post I'll share a story from Sao Paulo, Brazil that takes this trend out a little farther than it's reached here.
It will stand your hair on end.
- Uke Man
May 22, 2007
American Cities and the Great Divide
By BOB HERBERT
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
A public high school teacher in Brooklyn told me recently about a student who didn’t believe that a restaurant tab for four people could come to more than $500. The student shook his head, as if resisting the very idea. He just couldn’t fathom it.
“How much can you eat?” the student asked.
When I asked a teacher in a second school to mention the same issue, one of the responses was, “Is this a true story?”
A lot of New Yorkers are doing awfully well. There are 8 million residents of New York City, and roughly 700,000 are worth a million dollars or more. The average price of a Manhattan apartment is $1.3 million. The annual earnings of the average hedge fund manager is $363 million.
The estimated worth of the mayor, Michael Bloomberg, ranges from $5.5 billion to upwards of $20 billion.
You want a gilded age? This is it. The elite of the Roaring Twenties would be stunned by the wealth of the current era.
Now the flip side, which is the side those public school students are on. One of the city’s five counties, the Bronx, is the poorest urban county in the nation. The number of families in the city’s homeless shelters is the highest it has been in a quarter of a century. Twenty-five percent of all families with children in New York City — that’s 1.5 million New Yorkers — are trying to make it on incomes that are below the poverty threshold established by the federal government.
The streets that are paved with gold for some are covered with ash for many others. There are few better illustrations of the increasingly disturbing divide between rich and poor than New York City.
“I get to walk in both worlds,” said Larry Mandell, the president of the United Way of New York City. “In a given day I might be in a soup kitchen and also in the halls of Fortune 500 companies dealing with the senior executives. I’ve become acutely aware that the lives of those who are well off are not touched at all by contact with the poor. It’s not that people don’t care or don’t want to help. It’s that they have very little awareness of poverty.”
I’d always thought of the United Way as a charitable outfit. But Mr. Mandell has committed his organization to the important task of raising the awareness of Americans and their political leaders to the pressing needs of America’s cities, and especially the long-neglected, poverty-stricken neighborhoods of the inner cities.
It’s a measure of how low the bar has been set for success in America’s cities that New York is thought to be doing well, even though 185,000 of its children ages 5 or younger are poor, and 18,000 are consigned to homeless shelters each night. More than a million New Yorkers get food stamps, and another 700,000 are eligible but not receiving them. That’s a long, long way from a $500 restaurant tab.
Only 50 percent of the city’s high school students graduate in four years. And if you talk to the kids in the poorer neighborhoods, they will tell you that they don’t feel safe. They are worried about violence and gang activity, which in their view is getting worse, not better.
This is what’s going on in the nation’s most successful big city.
Mr. Mandell is upset that urban issues, which in so many cases are related to poverty, have played such a minuscule role in the presidential campaign so far. “People need to become more aware of the issue of poverty,” he said. “It’s discouraging, frankly, to have it barely mentioned at all in the debates.
“It’s true that John Edwards is the one candidate who seems concerned about it, but to actually have the issue come up just briefly in the debates, and not at all in the Republican debate — well, my view is that we have to change that.”
The United Way of New York has issued a white paper on “America’s Urban Agenda” that says, “The greatest single challenge most American cities face lies in the increasing divide between the haves and have-nots.”
There was a time, some decades ago, when urban issues and poverty were important components of presidential campaigns. Now the poor are kept out of sight, which makes it easier to leave them farther and farther behind. We’ve apparently reached a point in our politics when they aren’t even worth mentioning.
Friday, May 25, 2007
This Just In
Hey Folks,
For what it's worth, here is some scary stuff. As B.F. Skinner said, "It's an experimental question." That is, we will see over time whether there is any truth in this. Still, if we don't hear the predictive evidence, we'll be caught flat-footed if it should come to pass. So, here it is.
- Uke Man
Excerpted from: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002145.php
Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney's national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush's tack towards Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts and fears that the Presidentis taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.
This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an "end run strategy" around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument.
The thinking on Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).
This strategy would sidestep controversies over bomber aircraft and overflight rights over other Middle Eastnations and could be expected to trigger a sufficient Iranian counter-strike against US forces in the Gulf-- which just became significantly larger -- as to compel Bush to forgo the diplomatic track that the administration realists are advocating and engage in another war.
There are many other components of the complex gameplan that this Cheney official has been kicking around Washington. The official has offered this commentary to senior staff at AEI and in lunch and dinner gatherings which were to be considered strictly off-the-record, but there can be little doubt that the official actually hopes that hawkish conservatives and neoconservatives share this information and then rally to this point of view. This official is beating the brush and doing what Joshua Muravchik has previously suggested -- which is to help establish the policy and political pathway to bombing Iran.
The zinger of this information is the admission by this Cheney aide that Cheney himself is frustrated with President Bush and believes, much like Richard Perle, that Bush is making a disastrous mistake by aligning himself with the policy course that Condoleezza Rice, Bob Gates, Michael Hayden and McConnell have sculpted.
According to this official, Cheney believes that Bush can not be counted on to make the "right decision"when it comes to dealing with Iran and thus Cheney believes that he must tie the President's hands.
For what it's worth, here is some scary stuff. As B.F. Skinner said, "It's an experimental question." That is, we will see over time whether there is any truth in this. Still, if we don't hear the predictive evidence, we'll be caught flat-footed if it should come to pass. So, here it is.
- Uke Man
Excerpted from: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002145.php
Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney's national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush's tack towards Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts and fears that the Presidentis taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.
This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an "end run strategy" around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument.
The thinking on Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).
This strategy would sidestep controversies over bomber aircraft and overflight rights over other Middle Eastnations and could be expected to trigger a sufficient Iranian counter-strike against US forces in the Gulf-- which just became significantly larger -- as to compel Bush to forgo the diplomatic track that the administration realists are advocating and engage in another war.
There are many other components of the complex gameplan that this Cheney official has been kicking around Washington. The official has offered this commentary to senior staff at AEI and in lunch and dinner gatherings which were to be considered strictly off-the-record, but there can be little doubt that the official actually hopes that hawkish conservatives and neoconservatives share this information and then rally to this point of view. This official is beating the brush and doing what Joshua Muravchik has previously suggested -- which is to help establish the policy and political pathway to bombing Iran.
The zinger of this information is the admission by this Cheney aide that Cheney himself is frustrated with President Bush and believes, much like Richard Perle, that Bush is making a disastrous mistake by aligning himself with the policy course that Condoleezza Rice, Bob Gates, Michael Hayden and McConnell have sculpted.
According to this official, Cheney believes that Bush can not be counted on to make the "right decision"when it comes to dealing with Iran and thus Cheney believes that he must tie the President's hands.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
The Rich get richer, and the Poor get more plentiful
Hey Folks -
"The Rich get richer and the Poor get poorer," but have you ever considered the notion that "The Rich get richer BECAUSE the Poor get poorer"? It makes sense to me.
Every time a profitable capitalistic venture such as a manufacturer, publisher, agribusiness, or professional service provider cuts benefits, makes layoffs, ships jobs over seas, or encourages easily-exploited "illegal" immigration, the capitalist - who is already making money - makes MORE money. The workers, obviously, suffer a reduction in their standard of living and are told (those who weren't laid off) that they should be happy to have a job at all - "quit complaining!!"
Workers who can barely keep body and soul together are supposed to be grateful for their increased difficulties and, perhaps, even proud that their sacrifice has helped increase the prosperity of the already prosperous.
Yep - sure makes sense. Uh huh!! Yeah. Right. Mmmmm . . .
- Uke Man
May 12, 2007
The Millions Left Out
By BOB HERBERT
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
The United States may be the richest country in the world, but
there are many millions — tens of millions — who are not sharing
in that prosperity.
According to the most recent government figures, 37 million
Americans are living below the official poverty threshold, which is
$19,971 a year for a family of four. That’s one out of every eight
Americans, and many of them are children.
More than 90 million Americans, close to a third of the entire
population, are struggling to make ends meet on incomes that
are less than twice the official poverty line. In my book, they’re poor.
We don’t see poor people on television or in the advertising that
surrounds us like a second atmosphere. We don’t pay much attention
to the millions of men and women who are changing bedpans, or
flipping burgers for the minimum wage, or vacuuming the halls of office
buildings at all hours of the night. But they’re there, working hard and
getting very little in return.
The number of poor people in America has increased by five million over
the past six years, and the gap between rich and poor has grown to
historic proportions. The richest one percent of Americans got nearly 20
percent of the nation’s income in 2005, while the poorest 20 percent could
collectively garner only a measly 3.4 percent.
A new report from a highly respected task force on poverty put together by
the Center for American Progress tells us, “It does not have to be this
way.” The task force has made several policy recommendations, and said
that if all were adopted poverty in the U.S. could be cut in half over the
next decade.
The tremendous number of people in poverty is an enormous drag on the U.S.
economy. And one of the biggest problems is the simple fact that so many
jobs pay so little that even fulltime, year-round employment is not enough
to raise a family out of poverty. One-fifth of the working men in America
and 29 percent of working women are in such jobs.
Peter Edelman, a Georgetown law professor who was a co-chairman of the
task force, said, “An astonishing number of people are working as hard as
they possibly can but are still in poverty or have incomes that are not much
above the poverty line.”
So the starting point for lifting people out of poverty should be to see
that men and women who are working are adequately compensated for their
labor. The task force recommended that the federal minimum wage, now $5.15
an hour, be raised to half the average hourly wage in the U.S., which would bring it to $8.40.
The earned-income tax credit, which has proved very successful in
supplementing the earnings of low-wage working families, should be
expanded to cover more workers, the task force said. It also recommended
expanded coverage of the federal child care tax credit, which is currently
$1,000 per child for up to three children.
A crucial component to raising workers out of poverty would be an all-out
effort to ensure that workers are allowed to form unions and bargain
collectively. As the task force noted, “Among workers in similar jobs,
unionized workers have higher pay, higher rates of health coverage, and
better benefits than do nonunionized workers.”
In a recent interview about poverty, former Senator John Edwards told me: “Organizing is so important. We have 50 million service economy jobs and we’ll probably have 10 or 15 million more over the next decade. If those jobs are union jobs, they’ll be middle-class families. If not, they’re more likely to live in poverty. It’s that strong.”
The task force made several other recommendations, including proposals
to ease access to higher education for poor youngsters, to help former prisoners
find employment, to develop a more equitable unemployment compensation
system, and to establish housing policies that would make it easier for poor
people to move from neighborhoods of concentrated poverty to areas
with better employment opportunities and higher-quality public services.
Mr. Edelman, an adviser on social policy in the Clinton administration,
stressed that there is no one answer to the problem of poverty, and
that in addition to public policy initiatives, it’s important to address the
“things people have to do within their own communities to take responsibility
for themselves and for each other.”
But he added, “It is unacceptable for this country, which is so wealthy, to have this many people who are left out.”
"The Rich get richer and the Poor get poorer," but have you ever considered the notion that "The Rich get richer BECAUSE the Poor get poorer"? It makes sense to me.
Every time a profitable capitalistic venture such as a manufacturer, publisher, agribusiness, or professional service provider cuts benefits, makes layoffs, ships jobs over seas, or encourages easily-exploited "illegal" immigration, the capitalist - who is already making money - makes MORE money. The workers, obviously, suffer a reduction in their standard of living and are told (those who weren't laid off) that they should be happy to have a job at all - "quit complaining!!"
Workers who can barely keep body and soul together are supposed to be grateful for their increased difficulties and, perhaps, even proud that their sacrifice has helped increase the prosperity of the already prosperous.
Yep - sure makes sense. Uh huh!! Yeah. Right. Mmmmm . . .
- Uke Man
May 12, 2007
The Millions Left Out
By BOB HERBERT
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
The United States may be the richest country in the world, but
there are many millions — tens of millions — who are not sharing
in that prosperity.
According to the most recent government figures, 37 million
Americans are living below the official poverty threshold, which is
$19,971 a year for a family of four. That’s one out of every eight
Americans, and many of them are children.
More than 90 million Americans, close to a third of the entire
population, are struggling to make ends meet on incomes that
are less than twice the official poverty line. In my book, they’re poor.
We don’t see poor people on television or in the advertising that
surrounds us like a second atmosphere. We don’t pay much attention
to the millions of men and women who are changing bedpans, or
flipping burgers for the minimum wage, or vacuuming the halls of office
buildings at all hours of the night. But they’re there, working hard and
getting very little in return.
The number of poor people in America has increased by five million over
the past six years, and the gap between rich and poor has grown to
historic proportions. The richest one percent of Americans got nearly 20
percent of the nation’s income in 2005, while the poorest 20 percent could
collectively garner only a measly 3.4 percent.
A new report from a highly respected task force on poverty put together by
the Center for American Progress tells us, “It does not have to be this
way.” The task force has made several policy recommendations, and said
that if all were adopted poverty in the U.S. could be cut in half over the
next decade.
The tremendous number of people in poverty is an enormous drag on the U.S.
economy. And one of the biggest problems is the simple fact that so many
jobs pay so little that even fulltime, year-round employment is not enough
to raise a family out of poverty. One-fifth of the working men in America
and 29 percent of working women are in such jobs.
Peter Edelman, a Georgetown law professor who was a co-chairman of the
task force, said, “An astonishing number of people are working as hard as
they possibly can but are still in poverty or have incomes that are not much
above the poverty line.”
So the starting point for lifting people out of poverty should be to see
that men and women who are working are adequately compensated for their
labor. The task force recommended that the federal minimum wage, now $5.15
an hour, be raised to half the average hourly wage in the U.S., which would bring it to $8.40.
The earned-income tax credit, which has proved very successful in
supplementing the earnings of low-wage working families, should be
expanded to cover more workers, the task force said. It also recommended
expanded coverage of the federal child care tax credit, which is currently
$1,000 per child for up to three children.
A crucial component to raising workers out of poverty would be an all-out
effort to ensure that workers are allowed to form unions and bargain
collectively. As the task force noted, “Among workers in similar jobs,
unionized workers have higher pay, higher rates of health coverage, and
better benefits than do nonunionized workers.”
In a recent interview about poverty, former Senator John Edwards told me: “Organizing is so important. We have 50 million service economy jobs and we’ll probably have 10 or 15 million more over the next decade. If those jobs are union jobs, they’ll be middle-class families. If not, they’re more likely to live in poverty. It’s that strong.”
The task force made several other recommendations, including proposals
to ease access to higher education for poor youngsters, to help former prisoners
find employment, to develop a more equitable unemployment compensation
system, and to establish housing policies that would make it easier for poor
people to move from neighborhoods of concentrated poverty to areas
with better employment opportunities and higher-quality public services.
Mr. Edelman, an adviser on social policy in the Clinton administration,
stressed that there is no one answer to the problem of poverty, and
that in addition to public policy initiatives, it’s important to address the
“things people have to do within their own communities to take responsibility
for themselves and for each other.”
But he added, “It is unacceptable for this country, which is so wealthy, to have this many people who are left out.”
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Fuck the Dispatch Editorial Board
Hey Folks,
Here we have the same old shit. Think about it!!
"Anytime a law or government regulation puts additional burdens on business, the very people who are supposed to benefit from it are hurt."
Ok, then I guess if government tries to hurt people by giving business a freer hand it helps the very people who are supposed to be hurt. Sending jobs over seas, eliminating pensions, reducing or eliminating health benefits, busting unions, shredding the safety net, etc. really helps the very people who are supposed to be hurt.
What bullshit!!!
"Businesses saddled with extra costs because of government mandates look elsewhere for savings, cutting other benefits and reducing the work force."
No shit!! The owners and stockholders come first!! Do you see anything in this comment about cutting profits? Fuck no. That's taboo /can't do/ unthinkable / illegal / immoral / and fattening.
And very often it has nothing to do with competing, in the sense of the cost of a product or service. Businesses "look elsewhere for savings, cutting other benefits and reducing the work force" even when they are doing quite well in relation to their product/service competitors. They often screw the workers NOT to sell their product, and not even to make a profit, but simply to make MORE profit. Everything gives way to the accumulation of ever more personal wealth.
Look carefully at their arguments and it's inescapable that they are focused solely on themselves with no regard for their fellow man, their community, nation, or world. Essentially, their position is that government (even one of, by, and for the people) helps the people best by helping them least, leaving it all up to business to "take care" of the workers "based on marketplace competition."
That's worked so well in the past.
Fuck the Dispatch Editorial Board !!
- Uke Man
p.s. Since the first editorial (below) was published April 22, another appeared on May 21 (also below - my comments in green). Nothing new - just re-fried shit !!!
Ill-chosen plan
Sick-day mandate would further hurt Ohio's ailing economy
Sunday, April 22, 2007 3:55 AM
Requiring Ohio employers to give their workers at least seven paid sick days a year sounds good to many people. Ohioans who might favor this idea if it comes up for a vote would be wise to take a serious look at the negative consequences of such a move.
Some businesses can afford to provide seven sick days, but others cannot.
Anytime a law or government regulation puts additional burdens on business, the very people who are supposed to benefit from it are hurt. Businesses saddled with extra costs because of government mandates look elsewhere for savings, cutting other benefits and reducing the work force. If they can't find other savings, their competitiveness is harmed.
Gov. Ted Strickland has made revival of Ohio's slumping economy one of his signature issues. He should oppose the proposal by the Service Employees International Union District 1199 as a jobs-killer.
The plan would require employers with 25 workers or more to give full-time staffers at least seven sick days, while part-timers would have their paid sick days prorated.
The plan is generous about what constitutes a sick day. Employees could use the days for themselves, a child, spouse or parent. Physical and mental illnesses would be covered, as would injuries, other medical conditions and preventive care. Given such broad parameters, many workers would use all of the days each year.
The union filed 1,800 petition signatures with Attorney General Marc Dann earlier this month. If 1,000 of the signatures are valid and the issue's language is approved by Dann and the Ohio Ballot Board, the union then needs 120,683 valid signatures to submit its proposal to the legislature, probably next year.
If the Republican-controlled General Assembly rejects the proposal [does anyone think they WON'T? - Uke Man], backers can submit another 120,683 valid signatures to put the issue to a statewide vote.
Fringe benefits, such as paid vacations, group insurance and sick leave, improve workplaces. But the employers, not government, should be the ones to decide how generous those benefits should be, based on marketplace competition [i.e. as little as possible and less than that - hence outsourcing to India and encouraging illegal immigration - Uke Man].
Ty Pine, legislative director for the National Federation of Independent Business/Ohio, had it right when he called the proposal a "one-size-fits-all, mindless" plan.
The market rules
Sick-day policies shouldn't be imposed on Ohio's businesses
Monday, May 21, 2007 3:21 AM
In the competitive world of business, imposing costly mandates on companies to provide benefits is a bad idea. If these pricks had their way, there would be NO benefits !! THAT's why they go to sweatshops over seas !!!! It has nothing to do with competition and everything to do with establishing virtual slavery!
Employers base sick leave and other benefits on what the market can bear. Fuck the "Market" !! It's designed and maintained for the purpose of exploiting workers, and THEN used as the reason workers MUST be exploited!! It is an arbitrary construct designed to benefit a few at the expense of many. Some businesses can afford to provide seven or more sick days; others cannot. What's important for Ohio's business climate is that sick-leave policies not be forced on employers by government fiat or by a vote of the people. Right!! This is a DEMOCRACY, for god's sake!! We can't have elected officials or the voters determining what's good for America - that's the Market's job - or maybe the Dispatch editorial board's job.
The Service Employees International Union District 1199 has begun a petition drive to gather signatures to put the Ohio Healthy Families Act on the statewide ballot, perhaps in time for the November 2008 presidential election. If passed, the initiative would require employers with 25 or more staff members to provide seven days off with pay for full-time workers who are ill. Part-timers' sick leave would be prorated.
The union is trying to obtain through a statewide plebiscite what it has been unable to gain via collective bargaining.
Perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that 66 percent of 939 Ohioans responding to a phone survey by Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., endorsed the seven-sick-days requirement. The poll question did not lay out the potential consequences of such a law.
Interestingly, respondents agreed, by 48 percent to 43 percent with 9 percent not answering, with the statement that wage and benefit mandates "lead businesses to close or move out of Ohio." So while the respondents like the sick-leave requirement, many of them understand it could have negative results.
Business groups aren't trying to scare Ohioans when they say that putting extra benefit mandates on the backs of employers could cost jobs. This is the reality of an economy where marketplace conditions are fluid and companies move to other states or countries to reduce costs. So, there it is. Business to the citizens: "You fucks who have jobs better put up with the shit we shovel and be prepared to take more, or we'll take even that away."
Ohioans should understand that this proposal would do workers more harm than good. Yep, the sacred Market has decreed: the only way Ohio can rise above its present problems is to screw workers even more; the only way to make life for Ohio's people better is to make it worse.
George Orwell is spinning in his grave.
- Uke Man
Here we have the same old shit. Think about it!!
"Anytime a law or government regulation puts additional burdens on business, the very people who are supposed to benefit from it are hurt."
Ok, then I guess if government tries to hurt people by giving business a freer hand it helps the very people who are supposed to be hurt. Sending jobs over seas, eliminating pensions, reducing or eliminating health benefits, busting unions, shredding the safety net, etc. really helps the very people who are supposed to be hurt.
What bullshit!!!
"Businesses saddled with extra costs because of government mandates look elsewhere for savings, cutting other benefits and reducing the work force."
No shit!! The owners and stockholders come first!! Do you see anything in this comment about cutting profits? Fuck no. That's taboo /can't do/ unthinkable / illegal / immoral / and fattening.
And very often it has nothing to do with competing, in the sense of the cost of a product or service. Businesses "look elsewhere for savings, cutting other benefits and reducing the work force" even when they are doing quite well in relation to their product/service competitors. They often screw the workers NOT to sell their product, and not even to make a profit, but simply to make MORE profit. Everything gives way to the accumulation of ever more personal wealth.
Look carefully at their arguments and it's inescapable that they are focused solely on themselves with no regard for their fellow man, their community, nation, or world. Essentially, their position is that government (even one of, by, and for the people) helps the people best by helping them least, leaving it all up to business to "take care" of the workers "based on marketplace competition."
That's worked so well in the past.
Fuck the Dispatch Editorial Board !!
- Uke Man
p.s. Since the first editorial (below) was published April 22, another appeared on May 21 (also below - my comments in green). Nothing new - just re-fried shit !!!
Ill-chosen plan
Sick-day mandate would further hurt Ohio's ailing economy
Sunday, April 22, 2007 3:55 AM
Requiring Ohio employers to give their workers at least seven paid sick days a year sounds good to many people. Ohioans who might favor this idea if it comes up for a vote would be wise to take a serious look at the negative consequences of such a move.
Some businesses can afford to provide seven sick days, but others cannot.
Anytime a law or government regulation puts additional burdens on business, the very people who are supposed to benefit from it are hurt. Businesses saddled with extra costs because of government mandates look elsewhere for savings, cutting other benefits and reducing the work force. If they can't find other savings, their competitiveness is harmed.
Gov. Ted Strickland has made revival of Ohio's slumping economy one of his signature issues. He should oppose the proposal by the Service Employees International Union District 1199 as a jobs-killer.
The plan would require employers with 25 workers or more to give full-time staffers at least seven sick days, while part-timers would have their paid sick days prorated.
The plan is generous about what constitutes a sick day. Employees could use the days for themselves, a child, spouse or parent. Physical and mental illnesses would be covered, as would injuries, other medical conditions and preventive care. Given such broad parameters, many workers would use all of the days each year.
The union filed 1,800 petition signatures with Attorney General Marc Dann earlier this month. If 1,000 of the signatures are valid and the issue's language is approved by Dann and the Ohio Ballot Board, the union then needs 120,683 valid signatures to submit its proposal to the legislature, probably next year.
If the Republican-controlled General Assembly rejects the proposal [does anyone think they WON'T? - Uke Man], backers can submit another 120,683 valid signatures to put the issue to a statewide vote.
Fringe benefits, such as paid vacations, group insurance and sick leave, improve workplaces. But the employers, not government, should be the ones to decide how generous those benefits should be, based on marketplace competition [i.e. as little as possible and less than that - hence outsourcing to India and encouraging illegal immigration - Uke Man].
Ty Pine, legislative director for the National Federation of Independent Business/Ohio, had it right when he called the proposal a "one-size-fits-all, mindless" plan.
The market rules
Sick-day policies shouldn't be imposed on Ohio's businesses
Monday, May 21, 2007 3:21 AM
In the competitive world of business, imposing costly mandates on companies to provide benefits is a bad idea. If these pricks had their way, there would be NO benefits !! THAT's why they go to sweatshops over seas !!!! It has nothing to do with competition and everything to do with establishing virtual slavery!
Employers base sick leave and other benefits on what the market can bear. Fuck the "Market" !! It's designed and maintained for the purpose of exploiting workers, and THEN used as the reason workers MUST be exploited!! It is an arbitrary construct designed to benefit a few at the expense of many. Some businesses can afford to provide seven or more sick days; others cannot. What's important for Ohio's business climate is that sick-leave policies not be forced on employers by government fiat or by a vote of the people. Right!! This is a DEMOCRACY, for god's sake!! We can't have elected officials or the voters determining what's good for America - that's the Market's job - or maybe the Dispatch editorial board's job.
The Service Employees International Union District 1199 has begun a petition drive to gather signatures to put the Ohio Healthy Families Act on the statewide ballot, perhaps in time for the November 2008 presidential election. If passed, the initiative would require employers with 25 or more staff members to provide seven days off with pay for full-time workers who are ill. Part-timers' sick leave would be prorated.
The union is trying to obtain through a statewide plebiscite what it has been unable to gain via collective bargaining.
Perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that 66 percent of 939 Ohioans responding to a phone survey by Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., endorsed the seven-sick-days requirement. The poll question did not lay out the potential consequences of such a law.
Interestingly, respondents agreed, by 48 percent to 43 percent with 9 percent not answering, with the statement that wage and benefit mandates "lead businesses to close or move out of Ohio." So while the respondents like the sick-leave requirement, many of them understand it could have negative results.
Business groups aren't trying to scare Ohioans when they say that putting extra benefit mandates on the backs of employers could cost jobs. This is the reality of an economy where marketplace conditions are fluid and companies move to other states or countries to reduce costs. So, there it is. Business to the citizens: "You fucks who have jobs better put up with the shit we shovel and be prepared to take more, or we'll take even that away."
Ohioans should understand that this proposal would do workers more harm than good. Yep, the sacred Market has decreed: the only way Ohio can rise above its present problems is to screw workers even more; the only way to make life for Ohio's people better is to make it worse.
George Orwell is spinning in his grave.
- Uke Man
Monday, May 21, 2007
Bees Be Gone Soon?????
Hey Folks,
I used to keep bees, back before the mites started killing them. Professionals fought off the mites with drugs (too much for me to mess with). Now, for whatever reason it turns out to be, we are losing colonies like crazy.
It might or might not be cell phones, but whatever it is, it's scary as hell.
- Uke Man
"The implications of the spread are alarming. Mostof the world's crops depend on pollination by bees.Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, 'man would have only four years of life left'."
Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?
Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious 'colony collapse' of bees
By Geoffrey Lean and Harriet Shawcross
The Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece
Published: 15 April 2007
It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.
They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.
The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.
The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.
CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London's biggest bee-keepers, announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned.
Other apiarists have recorded losses in Scotland, Wales and north-west England, but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted: "There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK."
The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".
No one knows why it is happening. Theories involving mites, pesticides, global warming and GM crops have been proposed, but all have drawbacks.
German research has long shown that bees' behaviour changes near power lines.
Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause.
Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: "I am convinced the possibility is real."
The case against handsets
Evidence of dangers to people from mobile phones is increasing. But proof is still lacking, largely because many of the biggest perils, such as cancer, take decades to show up.
Most research on cancer has so far proved inconclusive. But an official Finnish study found that people who used the phones for more than 10 years were 40 per cent more likely to get a brain tumour on the same side as they held the handset.
Equally alarming, blue-chip Swedish research revealed that radiation from mobile phones killed off brain cells, suggesting that today's teenagers could go senile in the prime of their lives.
Studies in India and the US have raised the possibility that men who use mobile phones heavily have reduced sperm counts. And, more prosaically, doctors have identified the condition of "text thumb", a form of RSI from constant texting.
Professor Sir William Stewart, who has headed two official inquiries, warned that children under eight should not use mobiles and made a series of safety recommendations, largely ignored by ministers.
I used to keep bees, back before the mites started killing them. Professionals fought off the mites with drugs (too much for me to mess with). Now, for whatever reason it turns out to be, we are losing colonies like crazy.
It might or might not be cell phones, but whatever it is, it's scary as hell.
- Uke Man
"The implications of the spread are alarming. Mostof the world's crops depend on pollination by bees.Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, 'man would have only four years of life left'."
Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?
Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious 'colony collapse' of bees
By Geoffrey Lean and Harriet Shawcross
The Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece
Published: 15 April 2007
It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.
They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.
The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.
The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.
CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London's biggest bee-keepers, announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned.
Other apiarists have recorded losses in Scotland, Wales and north-west England, but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted: "There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK."
The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".
No one knows why it is happening. Theories involving mites, pesticides, global warming and GM crops have been proposed, but all have drawbacks.
German research has long shown that bees' behaviour changes near power lines.
Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause.
Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: "I am convinced the possibility is real."
The case against handsets
Evidence of dangers to people from mobile phones is increasing. But proof is still lacking, largely because many of the biggest perils, such as cancer, take decades to show up.
Most research on cancer has so far proved inconclusive. But an official Finnish study found that people who used the phones for more than 10 years were 40 per cent more likely to get a brain tumour on the same side as they held the handset.
Equally alarming, blue-chip Swedish research revealed that radiation from mobile phones killed off brain cells, suggesting that today's teenagers could go senile in the prime of their lives.
Studies in India and the US have raised the possibility that men who use mobile phones heavily have reduced sperm counts. And, more prosaically, doctors have identified the condition of "text thumb", a form of RSI from constant texting.
Professor Sir William Stewart, who has headed two official inquiries, warned that children under eight should not use mobiles and made a series of safety recommendations, largely ignored by ministers.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Little Brother's Celebration
Hey Folks,
It was a great night at Little Brother's Friday !!! A wonderful time - sad, but warm. Those of us who love the place and ol' Danny Dougan had our hearts seriously tugged on.
Bless you, Danny !! And bless Little Brother's !!
- Uke Man
It was a great night at Little Brother's Friday !!! A wonderful time - sad, but warm. Those of us who love the place and ol' Danny Dougan had our hearts seriously tugged on.
Bless you, Danny !! And bless Little Brother's !!
- Uke Man
Friday, May 18, 2007
Fun video - Live or Memorex ??
Hey Folks,
This is fun and worth checking out:
'Mythbusters' Have Fun in the Name of Science
Breaking Glass Episode
Can a singer really break glass with just his or her voice? Rock singer and voice coach Jaime Vendera and Mythbusters co-host Adam Savage try their luck.
Go to: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10255528 and click on "Watch the Video" under "Breaking Glass Episode"
- Uke Man
This is fun and worth checking out:
'Mythbusters' Have Fun in the Name of Science
Breaking Glass Episode
Can a singer really break glass with just his or her voice? Rock singer and voice coach Jaime Vendera and Mythbusters co-host Adam Savage try their luck.
Go to: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10255528 and click on "Watch the Video" under "Breaking Glass Episode"
- Uke Man
Ukulele Man & his Prodigal Sons - @ Little Brother's Friday, May 18
Little Brother's Celebration & Wake - Friday, May 18
Hey Folks,
You may have heard the terrible news that Little Brother’s, after ten years of magical existence will be closing this summer.
Today, Friday, May 18, what started out as a celebration of the club's decade will do double duty: not only celebrating the beauty and humanity of Little Brother’s, but also mourning its imminent loss.The Lily Bandits and the Sovines have come out of retirement for the bash. The Wahoos, Whoa Nellie, Megan Palmer & the Hopefuls, and Ray Fuller will perform – as well as Ukulele Man & his Prodigal Sons.
It all gets going at 9:00 and goes to closing. I’ll be there all night, and we perform second. Hope to see you there, 1100 N. High Street – in another month the music will have died.
- Uke Man
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Who would Jesus hate, denigrate, or kill?
Hey Folks,
Jerry Falwell is dead. Good riddance. Supposedly a "Christian" man, he was filled with hatred, and it started with racism (see http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070528/blumenthal ). From "The Nation":
But for Falwell, the "questions of the day" did not always relate to abortion and homosexuality--nor did they begin there. Decades before the forces that now make up the Christian right declared their culture war, Falwell was a rabid segregationist who railed against the civil rights movement from the pulpit of the abandoned backwater bottling plant he converted into Thomas Road Baptist Church. This opening episode of Falwell's life, studiously overlooked by his friends, naïvely unacknowledged by many of his chroniclers, and puzzlingly and glaringly omitted in the obituaries of the Washington Post and New York Times, is essential to understanding his historical significance in galvanizing the Christian right. Indeed, it was race--not abortion or the attendant suite of so-called "values" issues--that propelled Falwell and his evangelical allies into political activism.
As with his positions on abortion and homosexuality, the basso profondo preacher's own words on race stand as vivid documents of his legacy. Falwell launched on the warpath against civil rights four years after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision to desegregate public schools with a sermon titled "Segregation or Integration: Which?"
"If Chief Justice Warren and his associates had known God's word and had desired to do the Lord's will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision would never have been made," Falwell boomed from above his congregation in Lynchburg. "The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line."
Falwell's jeremiad continued: "The true Negro does not want integration.... He realizes his potential is far better among his own race." Falwell went on to announce that integration "will destroy our race eventually. In one northern city," he warned, "a pastor friend of mine tells me that a couple of opposite race live next door to his church as man and wife."
As pressure from the civil rights movement built during the early 1960s, and President Lyndon Johnson introduced sweeping civil rights legislation, Falwell grew increasingly conspiratorial. He enlisted with J. Edgar Hoover to distribute FBI manufactured propaganda against the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and publicly denounced the 1964 Civil Rights Act as "civil wrongs."
In a 1964 sermon, "Ministers and Marchers," Falwell attacked King as a Communist subversive. After questioning "the sincerity and intentions of some civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. James Farmer, and others, who are known to have left-wing associations,"
Falwell declared, "It is very obvious that the Communists, as they do in all parts of the world, are taking advantage of a tense situation in our land, and are exploiting every incident to bring about violence and bloodshed."
Below, you'll find more familiar, hateful comments he's made in other areas. What testimony to the deapths a human being can go and still be held up as a great man by those who have fallen to similar depths. Check out the comments made upon his death by the Republican Presidential candidates
Again, from "The Nation":
On the day of Falwell's death, Republican presidential frontrunners fell over one another to memorialize him. Arizona Senator John McCain, who in the 2000 presidential campaign had called Falwell an "agent of intolerance," then spoke at the 2006 graduation ceremony at Liberty University, praising Falwell as "a man of distinguished accomplishment who devoted his life to serving his faith and country."
Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor whose Mormon faith is listed as a cult by Falwell's Southern Baptist Convention, hailed him as "an American who built and led a movement based on strong principles and strong faith.... The legacy of his important work will continue through his many ministries where he put his faith into action."
Rudy Giuliani, the thrice-married prochoice former New York City mayor, gay rights advocate and erstwhile cross-dresser, was also profuse in his praise of Falwell. "He was a man who set a direction," Giuliani said. "He was someone who was not afraid to speak his mind. We all have great respect for him."
Rev Jerry Falwell
Founder of The Moral Majority, a precursor to the Christian Coalition said:
If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being.
I had a student ask me, "Could the savior you believe in save Osama bin Laden?" Of course, we know the blood of Jesus Christ can save him, and then he must be executed.
"We visit prisoners on death row, and some of them are saved, but we believe their sentences should be carried out because they have a debt to society."
God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.-- [blaming civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to which Rev Pat Robertson agreed],
"God Gave US 'What We Deserve,' Falwell Says," The Washington Post (September 14, 2001)
The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this.-- Rev Jerry Falwell, blaming civil libertarians for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to which Rev Pat Robertson again agreed.
And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, "You helped this happen."-- [Rev Jerry Falwell, blaming civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001]
I put all the blame legally and morally on the actions of the terrorist, [but America's] secular and anti-Christian environment left us open to our Lord's [decision] not to protect. When a nation deserts God and expels God from the culture ... the result is not good.-- [Rev Jerry Falwell, backpedaling amidst criticism of his statement blaming civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001]
Pat, did you notice yesterday the ACLU, and all the Christ-haters, People For the American Way, NOW, etc. were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress as they went out on the steps and called out on to God in prayer and sang "God Bless America" and said "let the ACLU be hanged"? In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time -- calling upon God.-- [justifying the breech of Constitutional Separation of Religion from Government while blaming civil libertarians for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to which Rev Pat Robertson again agreed]
I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!
AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.
The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country.
If we are going to save America and evangelize the world, we cannot accommodate secular philosophies that are diametrically opposed to Christian truth ... We need to pull out all the stops to recruit and train 25 million Americans to become informed pro-moral activists whose voices can be heard in the halls of Congress. I am convinced that America can be turned around if we will all get serious about the Master's business. It may be late, but it is never too late to do what is right. We need an old-fashioned, God-honoring, Christ-exalting revival to turn American back to God. America can be saved!
It appears that America's anti-Biblical feminist movement is at last dying, thank God, and is possibly being replaced by a Christ-centered men's movement which may become the foundation for a desperately needed national spiritual awakening.
There is no separation of church and state. Modern US Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The Bible is the inerrant ... word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible,without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc.
But these things speak evil of those things, verse 10 [reading from Jude] which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Look at the Metropolitan Community Church today, the gay church, almost accepted into the World Council of Churches. Almost, the vote was against them. But they will try again and again until they get in, and the tragedy is that they would get one vote. Because they are spoken of here in Jude as being brute beasts, that is going to the baser lust of the flesh to live immorally, and so Jude describes this as apostasy. But thank God this vile and satanic system will one day be utterly annihilated and there'll be a celebration in heaven.
The Jews are returning to their land of unbelief. They are spiritually blind and desperately in need of their Messiah and Savior.
Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them.
I do not believe the homosexual community deserves minority status. One's misbehavior does not qualify him or her for minority status. Blacks, Hispanics, women, etc., are God-ordained minorities who do indeed deserve minority status.
We're fighting against humanism, we're fighting against liberalism ... we are fighting against all the systems of Satan that are destroying our nation today ... our battle is with Satan himself.
Billy Graham is the chief servant of Satan.
The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews.
AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharoah's chariotters.
You'll be riding along in an automobile. You'll be the driver perhaps. You're a Christian. There'll be several people in the automobile with you, maybe someone who is not a Christian. When the trumpet sounds you and the other born-again believers in that automobile will be instantly caught away -- you will disappear, leaving behind only your clothes and physical things that cannot inherit eternal life. That unsaved person or persons in the automobile will suddenly be startled to find the car suddenly somewhere crashes.... Other cars on the highway driven by believers will suddenly be out of control and stark pandemonium will occur on ... every highway in the world where Christians are caught away from the drivers wheel.
Jerry Falwell is dead. Good riddance. Supposedly a "Christian" man, he was filled with hatred, and it started with racism (see http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070528/blumenthal ). From "The Nation":
But for Falwell, the "questions of the day" did not always relate to abortion and homosexuality--nor did they begin there. Decades before the forces that now make up the Christian right declared their culture war, Falwell was a rabid segregationist who railed against the civil rights movement from the pulpit of the abandoned backwater bottling plant he converted into Thomas Road Baptist Church. This opening episode of Falwell's life, studiously overlooked by his friends, naïvely unacknowledged by many of his chroniclers, and puzzlingly and glaringly omitted in the obituaries of the Washington Post and New York Times, is essential to understanding his historical significance in galvanizing the Christian right. Indeed, it was race--not abortion or the attendant suite of so-called "values" issues--that propelled Falwell and his evangelical allies into political activism.
As with his positions on abortion and homosexuality, the basso profondo preacher's own words on race stand as vivid documents of his legacy. Falwell launched on the warpath against civil rights four years after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision to desegregate public schools with a sermon titled "Segregation or Integration: Which?"
"If Chief Justice Warren and his associates had known God's word and had desired to do the Lord's will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision would never have been made," Falwell boomed from above his congregation in Lynchburg. "The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line."
Falwell's jeremiad continued: "The true Negro does not want integration.... He realizes his potential is far better among his own race." Falwell went on to announce that integration "will destroy our race eventually. In one northern city," he warned, "a pastor friend of mine tells me that a couple of opposite race live next door to his church as man and wife."
As pressure from the civil rights movement built during the early 1960s, and President Lyndon Johnson introduced sweeping civil rights legislation, Falwell grew increasingly conspiratorial. He enlisted with J. Edgar Hoover to distribute FBI manufactured propaganda against the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and publicly denounced the 1964 Civil Rights Act as "civil wrongs."
In a 1964 sermon, "Ministers and Marchers," Falwell attacked King as a Communist subversive. After questioning "the sincerity and intentions of some civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. James Farmer, and others, who are known to have left-wing associations,"
Falwell declared, "It is very obvious that the Communists, as they do in all parts of the world, are taking advantage of a tense situation in our land, and are exploiting every incident to bring about violence and bloodshed."
Below, you'll find more familiar, hateful comments he's made in other areas. What testimony to the deapths a human being can go and still be held up as a great man by those who have fallen to similar depths. Check out the comments made upon his death by the Republican Presidential candidates
Again, from "The Nation":
On the day of Falwell's death, Republican presidential frontrunners fell over one another to memorialize him. Arizona Senator John McCain, who in the 2000 presidential campaign had called Falwell an "agent of intolerance," then spoke at the 2006 graduation ceremony at Liberty University, praising Falwell as "a man of distinguished accomplishment who devoted his life to serving his faith and country."
Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor whose Mormon faith is listed as a cult by Falwell's Southern Baptist Convention, hailed him as "an American who built and led a movement based on strong principles and strong faith.... The legacy of his important work will continue through his many ministries where he put his faith into action."
Rudy Giuliani, the thrice-married prochoice former New York City mayor, gay rights advocate and erstwhile cross-dresser, was also profuse in his praise of Falwell. "He was a man who set a direction," Giuliani said. "He was someone who was not afraid to speak his mind. We all have great respect for him."
- Uke Man
Rev Jerry Falwell
Founder of The Moral Majority, a precursor to the Christian Coalition said:
If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being.
I had a student ask me, "Could the savior you believe in save Osama bin Laden?" Of course, we know the blood of Jesus Christ can save him, and then he must be executed.
"We visit prisoners on death row, and some of them are saved, but we believe their sentences should be carried out because they have a debt to society."
God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.-- [blaming civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to which Rev Pat Robertson agreed],
"God Gave US 'What We Deserve,' Falwell Says," The Washington Post (September 14, 2001)
The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this.-- Rev Jerry Falwell, blaming civil libertarians for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to which Rev Pat Robertson again agreed.
And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, "You helped this happen."-- [Rev Jerry Falwell, blaming civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001]
I put all the blame legally and morally on the actions of the terrorist, [but America's] secular and anti-Christian environment left us open to our Lord's [decision] not to protect. When a nation deserts God and expels God from the culture ... the result is not good.-- [Rev Jerry Falwell, backpedaling amidst criticism of his statement blaming civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001]
Pat, did you notice yesterday the ACLU, and all the Christ-haters, People For the American Way, NOW, etc. were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress as they went out on the steps and called out on to God in prayer and sang "God Bless America" and said "let the ACLU be hanged"? In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time -- calling upon God.-- [justifying the breech of Constitutional Separation of Religion from Government while blaming civil libertarians for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to which Rev Pat Robertson again agreed]
I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!
AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.
The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country.
If we are going to save America and evangelize the world, we cannot accommodate secular philosophies that are diametrically opposed to Christian truth ... We need to pull out all the stops to recruit and train 25 million Americans to become informed pro-moral activists whose voices can be heard in the halls of Congress. I am convinced that America can be turned around if we will all get serious about the Master's business. It may be late, but it is never too late to do what is right. We need an old-fashioned, God-honoring, Christ-exalting revival to turn American back to God. America can be saved!
It appears that America's anti-Biblical feminist movement is at last dying, thank God, and is possibly being replaced by a Christ-centered men's movement which may become the foundation for a desperately needed national spiritual awakening.
There is no separation of church and state. Modern US Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The Bible is the inerrant ... word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible,without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc.
But these things speak evil of those things, verse 10 [reading from Jude] which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Look at the Metropolitan Community Church today, the gay church, almost accepted into the World Council of Churches. Almost, the vote was against them. But they will try again and again until they get in, and the tragedy is that they would get one vote. Because they are spoken of here in Jude as being brute beasts, that is going to the baser lust of the flesh to live immorally, and so Jude describes this as apostasy. But thank God this vile and satanic system will one day be utterly annihilated and there'll be a celebration in heaven.
The Jews are returning to their land of unbelief. They are spiritually blind and desperately in need of their Messiah and Savior.
Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them.
I do not believe the homosexual community deserves minority status. One's misbehavior does not qualify him or her for minority status. Blacks, Hispanics, women, etc., are God-ordained minorities who do indeed deserve minority status.
We're fighting against humanism, we're fighting against liberalism ... we are fighting against all the systems of Satan that are destroying our nation today ... our battle is with Satan himself.
Billy Graham is the chief servant of Satan.
The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews.
AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharoah's chariotters.
You'll be riding along in an automobile. You'll be the driver perhaps. You're a Christian. There'll be several people in the automobile with you, maybe someone who is not a Christian. When the trumpet sounds you and the other born-again believers in that automobile will be instantly caught away -- you will disappear, leaving behind only your clothes and physical things that cannot inherit eternal life. That unsaved person or persons in the automobile will suddenly be startled to find the car suddenly somewhere crashes.... Other cars on the highway driven by believers will suddenly be out of control and stark pandemonium will occur on ... every highway in the world where Christians are caught away from the drivers wheel.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
What group thinks the war is NOT a mistake?
Hey Folks,
A friend tipped me off to this posting on another blog. Check it out.
- Uke Man
Friday, May 11, 2007
Fascinating
No wonder so many of the right-wing war lovers seem to be between 30 and 39 (Malkin, Lowry, Goldberg, Lopez). Look at this Gallup Poll result:
Gallup has asked Americans whether U.S. involvement in Iraq was a "mistake" in seven polls so far this year. Across these more than 7,000 interviews, an average of 57% have said "yes."
AND THEN:
Did the United States make a mistake in sending troops to Iraq?
by age
Age:
18-29 Yes - 56% No - 41%
30-39 Yes - 48% No - 50%
40-49 Yes - 52% No - 47%
50-59 Yes - 61% No - 38%
60-69 Yes - 62% No - 37%
70-79 Yes - 70% No - 28%
80+ Yes - 69% No - 26%
It seems pretty clear to me that the folks who MAY have to fight worry they will. The people who have fought or remember Vietnam oppose.
30 to 39 year olds (and those in their early 40s) have no real recollection of Vietnam, and boy does it show.
posted by Attaturk at http://rising-hegemon.blogspot.com/2007/05/fascinating.html
A friend tipped me off to this posting on another blog. Check it out.
- Uke Man
Friday, May 11, 2007
Fascinating
No wonder so many of the right-wing war lovers seem to be between 30 and 39 (Malkin, Lowry, Goldberg, Lopez). Look at this Gallup Poll result:
Gallup has asked Americans whether U.S. involvement in Iraq was a "mistake" in seven polls so far this year. Across these more than 7,000 interviews, an average of 57% have said "yes."
AND THEN:
Did the United States make a mistake in sending troops to Iraq?
by age
Age:
18-29 Yes - 56% No - 41%
30-39 Yes - 48% No - 50%
40-49 Yes - 52% No - 47%
50-59 Yes - 61% No - 38%
60-69 Yes - 62% No - 37%
70-79 Yes - 70% No - 28%
80+ Yes - 69% No - 26%
It seems pretty clear to me that the folks who MAY have to fight worry they will. The people who have fought or remember Vietnam oppose.
30 to 39 year olds (and those in their early 40s) have no real recollection of Vietnam, and boy does it show.
posted by Attaturk at http://rising-hegemon.blogspot.com/2007/05/fascinating.html
Monday, May 14, 2007
Little Brother's Celebration & Wake - Friday, May 18
Hey Folks,
You may have heard the terrible news that Little Brother’s, the second coming of Stache’s, after ten years of magical existence will be closing this summer. Another example of money-grubbing capitalists in the George Bush “ownership society” killing culture to reap ever-increasing personal wealth. “Tear down paradise; put up a parking lot.”
This Friday, May 18, what started out as a celebration of the decade will do double duty: not only celebrating the beauty and humanity of Little Brother’s, but also mourning its imminent loss.
The Lily Bandits and the Sovines have come out of retirement for the bash. The Wahoos, Whoa Nellie, Megan Palmer & the Hopefuls, and Ray Fuller will perform – as well as Ukulele Man & his Prodigal Sons.
It all gets going at 9:00 and goes to closing. I’ll be there all night, and we perform second. Hope to see you there, 1100 N. High Street – in another month the music will have died.
- Uke Man
You may have heard the terrible news that Little Brother’s, the second coming of Stache’s, after ten years of magical existence will be closing this summer. Another example of money-grubbing capitalists in the George Bush “ownership society” killing culture to reap ever-increasing personal wealth. “Tear down paradise; put up a parking lot.”
This Friday, May 18, what started out as a celebration of the decade will do double duty: not only celebrating the beauty and humanity of Little Brother’s, but also mourning its imminent loss.
The Lily Bandits and the Sovines have come out of retirement for the bash. The Wahoos, Whoa Nellie, Megan Palmer & the Hopefuls, and Ray Fuller will perform – as well as Ukulele Man & his Prodigal Sons.
It all gets going at 9:00 and goes to closing. I’ll be there all night, and we perform second. Hope to see you there, 1100 N. High Street – in another month the music will have died.
- Uke Man
Mistreating your Mother has BAD consequences !!
Hey Folks,
On the day after Mother's Day, maybe we should consider Mother Earth and Mother Nature !!
- Uke Man
Timeline: The Frightening Future of Earth
By Andrea Thompsonand Ker Thanposted: 19 April 2007
Our planet's prospects for environmental stability are bleaker than ever with the approach of this year’s Earth Day, April 22. Global warming is widely accepted as a reality by scientists and even by previously doubtful government and industrial leaders. And according to a recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there is a 90 percent likelihood that humans are contributing to the change.
The international panel of scientists predicts the global average temperature could increase by 2 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 and that sea levels could rise by up to 2 feet.
Scientists have even speculated that a slight increase in Earth's rotation rate could result, along with other changes. Glaciers, already receding, will disappear. Epic floods will hit some areas while intense drought will strike others. Humans will face widespread water shortages. Famine and disease will increase. Earth’s landscape will transform radically, with a quarter of plants and animals at risk of extinction.
While putting specific dates on these traumatic potential events is challenging, this timeline paints the big picture and details Earth's future based on several recent studies and the longer scientific version of the IPCC report, which was made available to LiveScience.
2007
More of the world's population now lives in cities than in rural areas, changing patterns of land use. The world population surpasses 6.6 billion. (Peter Crane, Royal Botanic Gardens, UK, Science; UN World Urbanization Prospectus: The 2003 Revision; U.S. Census Bureau)
2008
Global oil production peaks sometime between 2008 and 2018, according to a model by one Swedish physicist. Others say this turning point, known as “Hubbert’s Peak,” won’t occur until after 2020. Once Hubbert’s Peak is reached, global oil production will begin an irreversible decline, possibly triggering a global recession, food shortages and conflict between nations over dwindling oil supplies. (doctoral dissertation of Frederik Robelius, University of Uppsala, Sweden; report by Robert Hirsch of the Science Applications International Corporation)
2020
Flash floods will very likely increase across all parts of Europe. (IPCC)
Less rainfall could reduce agriculture yields by up to 50 percent in some parts of the world. (IPCC)
World population will reach 7.6 billion people. (U.S. Census Bureau)
2030
Diarrhea-related diseases will likely increase by up to 5 percent in low-income parts of the world. (IPCC)
Up to 18 percent of the world’s coral reefs will likely be lost as a result of climate change and other environmental stresses. In Asian coastal waters, the coral loss could reach 30 percent. (IPCC)
World population will reach 8.3 billion people. (U.S. Census Bureau)
Warming temperatures will cause temperate glaciers on equatorial mountains in Africa to disappear. (Richard Taylor, University College London, Geophysical Research Letters:)
In developing countries, the urban population will more than double to about 4 billion people, packing more people onto a given city's land area. The urban populations of developed countries may also increase by as much as 20 percent. (World Bank: The Dynamics of Global Urban Expansion)
2040
The Arctic Sea could be ice-free in the summer, and winter ice depth may shrink drastically. Other scientists say the region will still have summer ice up to 2060 and 2105. (Marika Holland, NCAR, Geophysical Research Letters)
2050
Small alpine glaciers will very likely disappear completely, and large glaciers will shrink by 30 to 70 percent. Austrian scientist Roland Psenner of the University of Innsbruck says this is a conservative estimate, and the small alpine glaciers could be gone as soon as 2037. (IPCC)
In Australia, there will likely be an additional 3,200 to 5,200 heat-related deaths per year. The hardest hit will be people over the age of 65. An extra 500 to 1,000 people will die of heat-related deaths in New York City per year. In the United Kingdom, the opposite will occur, and cold-related deaths will outpace heat-related ones. (IPCC)
World population reaches 9.4 billion people. (U.S. Census Bureau)
Crop yields could increase by up to 20 percent in East and Southeast Asia, while decreasing by up to 30 percent in Central and South Asia. Similar shifts in crop yields could occur on other continents. (IPCC)
As biodiversity hotspots are more threatened, a quarter of the world’s plant and vertebrate animal species could face extinction. (Jay Malcolm, University of Toronto, Conservation Biology)
2070
As glaciers disappear and areas affected by drought increase, electricity production for the world’s existing hydropower stations will decrease. Hardest hit will be Europe, where hydropower potential is expected to decline on average by 6 percent; around the Mediterranean, the decrease could be up to 50 percent. (IPCC)
Warmer, drier conditions will lead to more frequent and longer droughts, as well as longer fire-seasons, increased fire risks, and more frequent heat waves, especially in Mediterranean regions. (IPCC)
2080
While some parts of the world dry out, others will be inundated. Scientists predict up to 20 percent of the world’s populations live in river basins likely to be affected by increased flood hazards. Up to 100 million people could experience coastal flooding each year. Most at risk are densely populated and low-lying areas that are less able to adapt to rising sea levels and areas which already face other challenges such as tropical storms. (IPCC)
Coastal population could balloon to 5 billion people, up from 1.2 billion in 1990. (IPCC)
Between 1.1 and 3.2 billion people will experience water shortages and up to 600 million will go hungry. (IPCC)
Sea levels could rise around New York City by more than three feet, potentially flooding the Rockaways, Coney Island, much of southern Brooklyn and Queens, portions of Long Island City, Astoria, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens, lower Manhattan and eastern Staten Island from Great Kills Harbor north to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. (NASA GISS)
2085
The risk of dengue fever from climate change is estimated to increase to 3.5 billion people. (IPCC)
2100
A combination of global warming and other factors will push many ecosystems to the limit, forcing them to exceed their natural ability to adapt to climate change. (IPCC)
Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will be much higher than anytime during the past 650,000 years. (IPCC)
Ocean pH levels will very likely decrease by as much as 0.5 pH units, the lowest it’s been in the last 20 million years. The ability of marine organisms such as corals, crabs and oysters to form shells or exoskeletons could be impaired. (IPCC)
Thawing permafrost and other factors will make Earth’s land a net source of carbon emissions, meaning it will emit more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than it absorbs. (IPCC)
Roughly 20 to 30 percent of species assessed as of 2007 could be extinct by 2100 if global mean temperatures exceed 2 to 3 degrees of pre-industrial levels. (IPCC)
New climate zones appear on up to 39 percent of the world’s land surface, radically transforming the planet. (Jack Williams, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
A quarter of all species of plants and land animals—more than a million total—could be driven to extinction. The IPCC reports warn that current “conservation practices are generally ill-prepared for climate change and effective adaptation responses are likely to be costly to implement.” (IPCC)
Increased droughts could significantly reduce moisture levels in the American Southwest, northern Mexico and possibly parts of Europe, Africa and the Middle East, effectively recreating the “Dust Bowl” environments of the 1930s in the United States. (Richard Seager, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Science)
2200
An Earth day will be 0.12 milliseconds shorter, as rising temperatures cause oceans to expand away from the equator and toward the poles, one model predicts. One reason water will be shifted toward the poles is most of the expansion will take place in the North Atlantic Ocean, near the North Pole. The poles are closer to the Earth’s axis of rotation, so having more mass there should speed up the planet’s rotation. (Felix Landerer, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Geophysical Research Letters)
More to Explore
Earth Will Survive. Will We?
Top 10 Surprising Results of Global Warming
Ethanol: Energy Panacea or False Promise?
Emerging Environmental Technologies
Video: Goldilocks and the Greenhouse
How You Can Fight Global Warming
More Global Warming News
On the day after Mother's Day, maybe we should consider Mother Earth and Mother Nature !!
- Uke Man
Timeline: The Frightening Future of Earth
By Andrea Thompsonand Ker Thanposted: 19 April 2007
Our planet's prospects for environmental stability are bleaker than ever with the approach of this year’s Earth Day, April 22. Global warming is widely accepted as a reality by scientists and even by previously doubtful government and industrial leaders. And according to a recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there is a 90 percent likelihood that humans are contributing to the change.
The international panel of scientists predicts the global average temperature could increase by 2 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 and that sea levels could rise by up to 2 feet.
Scientists have even speculated that a slight increase in Earth's rotation rate could result, along with other changes. Glaciers, already receding, will disappear. Epic floods will hit some areas while intense drought will strike others. Humans will face widespread water shortages. Famine and disease will increase. Earth’s landscape will transform radically, with a quarter of plants and animals at risk of extinction.
While putting specific dates on these traumatic potential events is challenging, this timeline paints the big picture and details Earth's future based on several recent studies and the longer scientific version of the IPCC report, which was made available to LiveScience.
2007
More of the world's population now lives in cities than in rural areas, changing patterns of land use. The world population surpasses 6.6 billion. (Peter Crane, Royal Botanic Gardens, UK, Science; UN World Urbanization Prospectus: The 2003 Revision; U.S. Census Bureau)
2008
Global oil production peaks sometime between 2008 and 2018, according to a model by one Swedish physicist. Others say this turning point, known as “Hubbert’s Peak,” won’t occur until after 2020. Once Hubbert’s Peak is reached, global oil production will begin an irreversible decline, possibly triggering a global recession, food shortages and conflict between nations over dwindling oil supplies. (doctoral dissertation of Frederik Robelius, University of Uppsala, Sweden; report by Robert Hirsch of the Science Applications International Corporation)
2020
Flash floods will very likely increase across all parts of Europe. (IPCC)
Less rainfall could reduce agriculture yields by up to 50 percent in some parts of the world. (IPCC)
World population will reach 7.6 billion people. (U.S. Census Bureau)
2030
Diarrhea-related diseases will likely increase by up to 5 percent in low-income parts of the world. (IPCC)
Up to 18 percent of the world’s coral reefs will likely be lost as a result of climate change and other environmental stresses. In Asian coastal waters, the coral loss could reach 30 percent. (IPCC)
World population will reach 8.3 billion people. (U.S. Census Bureau)
Warming temperatures will cause temperate glaciers on equatorial mountains in Africa to disappear. (Richard Taylor, University College London, Geophysical Research Letters:)
In developing countries, the urban population will more than double to about 4 billion people, packing more people onto a given city's land area. The urban populations of developed countries may also increase by as much as 20 percent. (World Bank: The Dynamics of Global Urban Expansion)
2040
The Arctic Sea could be ice-free in the summer, and winter ice depth may shrink drastically. Other scientists say the region will still have summer ice up to 2060 and 2105. (Marika Holland, NCAR, Geophysical Research Letters)
2050
Small alpine glaciers will very likely disappear completely, and large glaciers will shrink by 30 to 70 percent. Austrian scientist Roland Psenner of the University of Innsbruck says this is a conservative estimate, and the small alpine glaciers could be gone as soon as 2037. (IPCC)
In Australia, there will likely be an additional 3,200 to 5,200 heat-related deaths per year. The hardest hit will be people over the age of 65. An extra 500 to 1,000 people will die of heat-related deaths in New York City per year. In the United Kingdom, the opposite will occur, and cold-related deaths will outpace heat-related ones. (IPCC)
World population reaches 9.4 billion people. (U.S. Census Bureau)
Crop yields could increase by up to 20 percent in East and Southeast Asia, while decreasing by up to 30 percent in Central and South Asia. Similar shifts in crop yields could occur on other continents. (IPCC)
As biodiversity hotspots are more threatened, a quarter of the world’s plant and vertebrate animal species could face extinction. (Jay Malcolm, University of Toronto, Conservation Biology)
2070
As glaciers disappear and areas affected by drought increase, electricity production for the world’s existing hydropower stations will decrease. Hardest hit will be Europe, where hydropower potential is expected to decline on average by 6 percent; around the Mediterranean, the decrease could be up to 50 percent. (IPCC)
Warmer, drier conditions will lead to more frequent and longer droughts, as well as longer fire-seasons, increased fire risks, and more frequent heat waves, especially in Mediterranean regions. (IPCC)
2080
While some parts of the world dry out, others will be inundated. Scientists predict up to 20 percent of the world’s populations live in river basins likely to be affected by increased flood hazards. Up to 100 million people could experience coastal flooding each year. Most at risk are densely populated and low-lying areas that are less able to adapt to rising sea levels and areas which already face other challenges such as tropical storms. (IPCC)
Coastal population could balloon to 5 billion people, up from 1.2 billion in 1990. (IPCC)
Between 1.1 and 3.2 billion people will experience water shortages and up to 600 million will go hungry. (IPCC)
Sea levels could rise around New York City by more than three feet, potentially flooding the Rockaways, Coney Island, much of southern Brooklyn and Queens, portions of Long Island City, Astoria, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens, lower Manhattan and eastern Staten Island from Great Kills Harbor north to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. (NASA GISS)
2085
The risk of dengue fever from climate change is estimated to increase to 3.5 billion people. (IPCC)
2100
A combination of global warming and other factors will push many ecosystems to the limit, forcing them to exceed their natural ability to adapt to climate change. (IPCC)
Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will be much higher than anytime during the past 650,000 years. (IPCC)
Ocean pH levels will very likely decrease by as much as 0.5 pH units, the lowest it’s been in the last 20 million years. The ability of marine organisms such as corals, crabs and oysters to form shells or exoskeletons could be impaired. (IPCC)
Thawing permafrost and other factors will make Earth’s land a net source of carbon emissions, meaning it will emit more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than it absorbs. (IPCC)
Roughly 20 to 30 percent of species assessed as of 2007 could be extinct by 2100 if global mean temperatures exceed 2 to 3 degrees of pre-industrial levels. (IPCC)
New climate zones appear on up to 39 percent of the world’s land surface, radically transforming the planet. (Jack Williams, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
A quarter of all species of plants and land animals—more than a million total—could be driven to extinction. The IPCC reports warn that current “conservation practices are generally ill-prepared for climate change and effective adaptation responses are likely to be costly to implement.” (IPCC)
Increased droughts could significantly reduce moisture levels in the American Southwest, northern Mexico and possibly parts of Europe, Africa and the Middle East, effectively recreating the “Dust Bowl” environments of the 1930s in the United States. (Richard Seager, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Science)
2200
An Earth day will be 0.12 milliseconds shorter, as rising temperatures cause oceans to expand away from the equator and toward the poles, one model predicts. One reason water will be shifted toward the poles is most of the expansion will take place in the North Atlantic Ocean, near the North Pole. The poles are closer to the Earth’s axis of rotation, so having more mass there should speed up the planet’s rotation. (Felix Landerer, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Geophysical Research Letters)
More to Explore
Earth Will Survive. Will We?
Top 10 Surprising Results of Global Warming
Ethanol: Energy Panacea or False Promise?
Emerging Environmental Technologies
Video: Goldilocks and the Greenhouse
How You Can Fight Global Warming
More Global Warming News
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Mother's Day
Hey Folks,
Do you know the original impetus and direction of "Mother's Day"?
You can read it below or hear it read by women at: http://www.alternet.org/asoldierspeaks/51545/
- Uke Man
The "Mother's Day" antiwar observances founded by Julia Ward Howe http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Julia_Ward_ Howe in 1872[3]... celebrated on June 2nd, ... Howe's "Mother's Day" was a call for pacifism and disarmament.
The original Mother's Day Proclamation:
Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
Do you know the original impetus and direction of "Mother's Day"?
You can read it below or hear it read by women at: http://www.alternet.org/asoldierspeaks/51545/
- Uke Man
The "Mother's Day" antiwar observances founded by Julia Ward Howe http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Julia_Ward_ Howe in 1872[3]... celebrated on June 2nd, ... Howe's "Mother's Day" was a call for pacifism and disarmament.
The original Mother's Day Proclamation:
Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Businesses used to say,"America, love it or leave it!" Now they are taking their own advice
Hey Folks,
It's not only Latino "illegals" getting screwed. The vampires who run this country need more money than they can make screwing desperate, foreign immigrants. They are hell-bent on screwing American workers as well.
I heard recently that WAL-MART's sales had dropped more in April than in the last 27 years - other stores catering to regular folks sold less too. Stores serving the wealthy, however, are going great guns!!
What a surprise!! Screw the immigrant and the Average citizen, and they don't have as much money to spend. Who could have guessed? Especially when all the high priests of the Oligarchy keep saying the economy is just fine, thank you.
And it's going to get worse unless people get mad as hell and refuse to take it anymore.
Don't believe the old bearded one? Read the piece below.
- Uke Man
Highly skilled Americans in jeopardy
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
By Froma Harrop
The master plan, it seems, is to move perhaps 40 million high-skill American jobs to other countries. U.S. workers have not been consulted.
Princeton University economist Alan Blinder predicts that these choice jobs could be lost in a mere decade or two. These involve computer programming, bookkeeping, graphic design and other careers once thought firmly planted in American soil. For perspective, 40 million is more than twice the number of people now employed in manufacturing.
Blinder was taken aback when, sitting in at the business summit in Davos, Switzerland, he heard U.S. executives talk enthusiastically about all the professional jobs they could outsource to lower-wage countries. And he's a free trader.
What America can do to stop this is unclear, but it certainly doesn't have to speed up the process through a government program. We refer to the H-1B visa program, which allows educated foreigners to work in the United States, usually for three years. Many in Congress want to nearly double the number of H-1B visas, to 115,000 a year.
To the extent that the program helps talented foreign graduates of U.S. universities stay in this country while they await their green cards, it performs a useful service. But for many companies, the visa has become just a tool for transferring American jobs offshore.
Ron Hira, a professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, has studied the dark side of the H-1B program. He notes that the top applicants for visas are outsourcing companies, such as Wipro Technologies of India and Bermuda-based Accenture.
The companies bring recruits in from, say, India to learn about American business. After three years, the workers go home better able to interact with their U.S. customers.
In other cases, companies ask their U.S. employees to train H-1B workers who then replace them at lower pay. "This is euphemistically called, 'knowledge transfer,' " said Hira. "I call it, 'knowledge extraction.' "
Another rap against the program is that it's used to depress the wages of American workers. The program's defenders argue that the law requires companies to pay "the prevailing wage."
But prevailing wage is a legalism, Hira says. It does not translate into market wage.
The median pay for H-1B computing professionals in fiscal 2005 was $50,000, which means half earn less than that. An American information-technology worker with a bachelor's degree makes more than $50,000 in an entry-level job.
Businesses bemoan the alleged shortage of Americans trained to do the work. But wait a second. The law of supply and demand states that a shortage of something causes its price to rise. Wages in information technology have been flat.
The companies fret that not enough young Americans are studying science and technology. Well, cutting the pay in those fields isn't much of an incentive, is it?
The threat that they will outsource if they can't bring in foreign temps is a hollow one. "There's nothing stopping those companies from working offshore anyway," Hira said. "They're not patriotic."
This vision for a competitive America seems to be a few rich U.S. executives commandeering armies of foreign workers. They don't have to train their domestic work force. They don't have to raise pay to American standards.
A provision for revving up the H-1B program is contained in the immigration bill that last year passed the Senate. The co-sponsors, Democrat Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Republican John McCain of Arizona, have contended that their legislation requires employers to search for U.S. workers first. It does not.
Skilled U.S. workers had better start looking out for their interests. No one else is.
Froma Harrop writes for Creators Syndicate.
fharrop@projo.com
It's not only Latino "illegals" getting screwed. The vampires who run this country need more money than they can make screwing desperate, foreign immigrants. They are hell-bent on screwing American workers as well.
I heard recently that WAL-MART's sales had dropped more in April than in the last 27 years - other stores catering to regular folks sold less too. Stores serving the wealthy, however, are going great guns!!
What a surprise!! Screw the immigrant and the Average citizen, and they don't have as much money to spend. Who could have guessed? Especially when all the high priests of the Oligarchy keep saying the economy is just fine, thank you.
And it's going to get worse unless people get mad as hell and refuse to take it anymore.
Don't believe the old bearded one? Read the piece below.
- Uke Man
Highly skilled Americans in jeopardy
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
By Froma Harrop
The master plan, it seems, is to move perhaps 40 million high-skill American jobs to other countries. U.S. workers have not been consulted.
Princeton University economist Alan Blinder predicts that these choice jobs could be lost in a mere decade or two. These involve computer programming, bookkeeping, graphic design and other careers once thought firmly planted in American soil. For perspective, 40 million is more than twice the number of people now employed in manufacturing.
Blinder was taken aback when, sitting in at the business summit in Davos, Switzerland, he heard U.S. executives talk enthusiastically about all the professional jobs they could outsource to lower-wage countries. And he's a free trader.
What America can do to stop this is unclear, but it certainly doesn't have to speed up the process through a government program. We refer to the H-1B visa program, which allows educated foreigners to work in the United States, usually for three years. Many in Congress want to nearly double the number of H-1B visas, to 115,000 a year.
To the extent that the program helps talented foreign graduates of U.S. universities stay in this country while they await their green cards, it performs a useful service. But for many companies, the visa has become just a tool for transferring American jobs offshore.
Ron Hira, a professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, has studied the dark side of the H-1B program. He notes that the top applicants for visas are outsourcing companies, such as Wipro Technologies of India and Bermuda-based Accenture.
The companies bring recruits in from, say, India to learn about American business. After three years, the workers go home better able to interact with their U.S. customers.
In other cases, companies ask their U.S. employees to train H-1B workers who then replace them at lower pay. "This is euphemistically called, 'knowledge transfer,' " said Hira. "I call it, 'knowledge extraction.' "
Another rap against the program is that it's used to depress the wages of American workers. The program's defenders argue that the law requires companies to pay "the prevailing wage."
But prevailing wage is a legalism, Hira says. It does not translate into market wage.
The median pay for H-1B computing professionals in fiscal 2005 was $50,000, which means half earn less than that. An American information-technology worker with a bachelor's degree makes more than $50,000 in an entry-level job.
Businesses bemoan the alleged shortage of Americans trained to do the work. But wait a second. The law of supply and demand states that a shortage of something causes its price to rise. Wages in information technology have been flat.
The companies fret that not enough young Americans are studying science and technology. Well, cutting the pay in those fields isn't much of an incentive, is it?
The threat that they will outsource if they can't bring in foreign temps is a hollow one. "There's nothing stopping those companies from working offshore anyway," Hira said. "They're not patriotic."
This vision for a competitive America seems to be a few rich U.S. executives commandeering armies of foreign workers. They don't have to train their domestic work force. They don't have to raise pay to American standards.
A provision for revving up the H-1B program is contained in the immigration bill that last year passed the Senate. The co-sponsors, Democrat Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Republican John McCain of Arizona, have contended that their legislation requires employers to search for U.S. workers first. It does not.
Skilled U.S. workers had better start looking out for their interests. No one else is.
Froma Harrop writes for Creators Syndicate.
fharrop@projo.com
Friday, May 11, 2007
Straight Talk on the Immigrant "Problem" and the Bush "Solution"
Hey Folks,
Most of what we hear about immigration is self-serving crap promulgated by money-grubbing capitalists (businessmen) and their loyal political warriors.
We have an "immigrant problem" because the right people want it that way. The same people insist that the "solution" must serve their interests as well or better than the "problem" does. Hence, the Monkey-boy President's plan to reestablish Serfdom.
We find ourselves in a situation not unlike that faced by poor Southern whites during slavery. Many were ready to enlist in the Confederate army to fight and die trying to protect the system (slavery) which depressed the price of white labor to near subsistance.
Today, how many of us are stupid enough to support Bush's plan to do the same thing to American workers by reinstituting slave labor via desperate Mexicans? The Bush plan and the agenda of the wealthy is to help neither Mexican nor American workers, but only to help themselves.
Robyn Blumner has the straight scoop below.
- Uke Man
Immigration plan would ensure 'serfs'
Monday, April 16, 2007
By Robyn Blumner
Inevitably, during a debate on illegal immigration, someone will claim that we need this population because they will do the work that no American will do. President Bush said it Monday in Yuma, Ariz., while pushing his guest-worker proposal. Temporary workers, he said, are needed so the Border Patrol "will not have to try to chase people who are coming here to do work Americans are not doing."
This argument infuriates me. There is no such thing as work that Americans won't do. (Bush neatly danced around what "Americans won't do" by saying what "Americans are not doing." Same message.)
Americans will do any kind of work. They dig coal miles underground in dangerous mines; they pick up garbage on the street; they work in sewers; they harvest fruits and vegetables on their own farms; and they fill mind-numbing assembly-line jobs.
Here is what Americans by and large won't do. They won't work in physically demanding jobs for a wage that doesn't support a family. They won't do grueling work, such as in roofing or construction, that doesn't offer sick pay or annual vacation time. They won't work in the blood and bile pits of slaughterhouses without reasonable health and safety standards.
When these industries complain that they can't find American workers, what they mean is they can't find enough people willing to work for the pay, benefits and working conditions offered. Illegal immigrants do take American jobs, by allowing employers to make jobs unpalatable. If this shadow work force were unavailable, market forces would transform most of those jobs into decent work.
An interesting piece in The Wall Street Journal in January illustrated this point. It described what happened when a chicken-processing plant in Stillmore, Ga., lost 75 percent of its Hispanic work force after an immigration raid. Immediately the company, Crider Inc., advertised that it had boosted its wages a dollar an hour, and started to provide free transportation and free dorm rooms. The company went to the state employment office to find low-skilled laborers and ended up with 400 candidates, of whom 200 were hired.
It turns out that the local black community lined up for these jobs. Though the experience wasn't all rosy.
According to the article, "The allure of compliant Latino workers willing to accept grueling conditions despite rock-bottom pay has proved a difficult habit for Crider to shake." The result was a high turnover rate as complaints arose over conditions and pay.
Powerless employees are much more attractive than those the law protects.
The centerpiece of Bush's immigration-reform initiative is to offer people who have been working in the U.S. illegally a "Z" visa. The visa would legalize their status, be good for three years, and be indefinitely renewable -- at $3,500 per renewal.
John Keeley of the Center for Immigration Studies says Bush's plan is "sanctioning a serf class of workers." It also keeps around vulnerable workers who will continue to exert a downward pressure on wages at the low end.
A disturbing 48-page report by the Southern Poverty Law Center titled "Close to Slavery" ( http://www.splcenter.org/) documents the abuses that our current guest-worker program inflicts on these essentially disposable humans. Because they are consigned to one employer and have no mobility and few legal rights, guest workers are often cheated of their wages, forced to live in squalid conditions and made virtual prisoners. If they complain, they can be deported.
Because we can't properly police the modest programs we have now for foreign workers, why would we do a better job when the program expands exponentially?
Actually, I think it's a convenient fallacy to suggest that there is a dearth of available unskilled labor and an additional alien work force is needed. According to Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, 21 percent of the adult population of the U.S. is functionally illiterate. "We might run out of a lot of things in this country, but unskilled workers are not one," Mehlman said.
Despite our ostensibly low unemployment rate, thousands of people keep showing up for jobs at Wal-Mart when they open a store. But if we do need more workers, then why not just open our legal immigration process to more people every year? Waiting lists for legal entry are decades long. Why not just let lots more in?
We all know why: Employers don't really want a bunch of empowered new Americans. They want a ready supply of meek, pliant, exploitable workers.
And the president is trying to oblige.
Robyn Blumner writes for Tribune Media Services.
blumner@sptimes.com
Most of what we hear about immigration is self-serving crap promulgated by money-grubbing capitalists (businessmen) and their loyal political warriors.
We have an "immigrant problem" because the right people want it that way. The same people insist that the "solution" must serve their interests as well or better than the "problem" does. Hence, the Monkey-boy President's plan to reestablish Serfdom.
We find ourselves in a situation not unlike that faced by poor Southern whites during slavery. Many were ready to enlist in the Confederate army to fight and die trying to protect the system (slavery) which depressed the price of white labor to near subsistance.
Today, how many of us are stupid enough to support Bush's plan to do the same thing to American workers by reinstituting slave labor via desperate Mexicans? The Bush plan and the agenda of the wealthy is to help neither Mexican nor American workers, but only to help themselves.
Robyn Blumner has the straight scoop below.
- Uke Man
Immigration plan would ensure 'serfs'
Monday, April 16, 2007
By Robyn Blumner
Inevitably, during a debate on illegal immigration, someone will claim that we need this population because they will do the work that no American will do. President Bush said it Monday in Yuma, Ariz., while pushing his guest-worker proposal. Temporary workers, he said, are needed so the Border Patrol "will not have to try to chase people who are coming here to do work Americans are not doing."
This argument infuriates me. There is no such thing as work that Americans won't do. (Bush neatly danced around what "Americans won't do" by saying what "Americans are not doing." Same message.)
Americans will do any kind of work. They dig coal miles underground in dangerous mines; they pick up garbage on the street; they work in sewers; they harvest fruits and vegetables on their own farms; and they fill mind-numbing assembly-line jobs.
Here is what Americans by and large won't do. They won't work in physically demanding jobs for a wage that doesn't support a family. They won't do grueling work, such as in roofing or construction, that doesn't offer sick pay or annual vacation time. They won't work in the blood and bile pits of slaughterhouses without reasonable health and safety standards.
When these industries complain that they can't find American workers, what they mean is they can't find enough people willing to work for the pay, benefits and working conditions offered. Illegal immigrants do take American jobs, by allowing employers to make jobs unpalatable. If this shadow work force were unavailable, market forces would transform most of those jobs into decent work.
An interesting piece in The Wall Street Journal in January illustrated this point. It described what happened when a chicken-processing plant in Stillmore, Ga., lost 75 percent of its Hispanic work force after an immigration raid. Immediately the company, Crider Inc., advertised that it had boosted its wages a dollar an hour, and started to provide free transportation and free dorm rooms. The company went to the state employment office to find low-skilled laborers and ended up with 400 candidates, of whom 200 were hired.
It turns out that the local black community lined up for these jobs. Though the experience wasn't all rosy.
According to the article, "The allure of compliant Latino workers willing to accept grueling conditions despite rock-bottom pay has proved a difficult habit for Crider to shake." The result was a high turnover rate as complaints arose over conditions and pay.
Powerless employees are much more attractive than those the law protects.
The centerpiece of Bush's immigration-reform initiative is to offer people who have been working in the U.S. illegally a "Z" visa. The visa would legalize their status, be good for three years, and be indefinitely renewable -- at $3,500 per renewal.
John Keeley of the Center for Immigration Studies says Bush's plan is "sanctioning a serf class of workers." It also keeps around vulnerable workers who will continue to exert a downward pressure on wages at the low end.
A disturbing 48-page report by the Southern Poverty Law Center titled "Close to Slavery" ( http://www.splcenter.org/) documents the abuses that our current guest-worker program inflicts on these essentially disposable humans. Because they are consigned to one employer and have no mobility and few legal rights, guest workers are often cheated of their wages, forced to live in squalid conditions and made virtual prisoners. If they complain, they can be deported.
Because we can't properly police the modest programs we have now for foreign workers, why would we do a better job when the program expands exponentially?
Actually, I think it's a convenient fallacy to suggest that there is a dearth of available unskilled labor and an additional alien work force is needed. According to Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, 21 percent of the adult population of the U.S. is functionally illiterate. "We might run out of a lot of things in this country, but unskilled workers are not one," Mehlman said.
Despite our ostensibly low unemployment rate, thousands of people keep showing up for jobs at Wal-Mart when they open a store. But if we do need more workers, then why not just open our legal immigration process to more people every year? Waiting lists for legal entry are decades long. Why not just let lots more in?
We all know why: Employers don't really want a bunch of empowered new Americans. They want a ready supply of meek, pliant, exploitable workers.
And the president is trying to oblige.
Robyn Blumner writes for Tribune Media Services.
blumner@sptimes.com
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Yeah, but can they buy crap at WAL-MART??
Hey Folks,
Look around and you'll find plenty of situations in the US of A comparable to (and worse than) those described below.
Notice the conflicted comment of Luis Tache, a Cuban who spent time in America. His head spouts US criticism, but his heart and his senses speak honestly:
"It's bad for production, bad for the nation," he said. "But it's good for the people."
There you have it. In this country what's good for General Motors is good for America; if it hurts the people, too bad. In Cuba if what's good for the People is bad for production, too bad. In America we say "government for the people." In Cuba they mean it.
- Uke Man
Despite hardships, Cubans live longer
By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer Sun Apr 22
HAVANA - "Fidel: 80 More Years," proclaim the good wishes still hanging on storefront and balcony banners months after Cubans celebrated their leader's 80th birthday.
Fidel Castro may be ailing, but he's a living example of something Cubans take pride in — an average life expectancy roughly similar to that of the United States.
They ascribe it to free medical care, mild climate, and a low-stress Caribbean lifestyle, which they believe make up for the hardships and shortages they suffer.
"Sometimes you have all you want to eat and sometimes you don't," said Raquel Naring, a 70-year-old retired gas station attendant. "But there aren't elderly people sleeping on the street like other places."
Cuba's average life expectancy is 77.08 years — second in Latin America after Puerto Rico and more than 11 years above the world average, according to the 2007 CIA World Fact Book.
It says Cuban life expectancy averages 74.85 years for men and 79.43 years for women, compared with 75.15 and 80.97 respectively for Americans.
Most Cubans live rent-free, and food, electricity and transportation are heavily subsidized. But the island can still be a tough place to grow old.
Homes that were luxurious before Castro's 1959 revolution are now falling apart and many cramped apartments contain three generations of family members. Food, water and medicine shortages are chronic.
But most prescription drugs and visits to the doctor are free and physicians encourage preventive care.
"There's a family doctor on almost every block," said Luis Tache, 90 and blind from glaucoma but still chatty and up on the news.
Tache lived in New York for six straight summers starting in 1945, paying $8 a month for a furnished apartment at 116th Street and Broadway. An English teacher, he retired 30 years ago.
Sitting in a rocking chair in his breezy living room in Havana's Playa district, Tache said Cuban communism "is both good and bad," while the high cost of living in capitalist societies "must be very stressful."
A relaxed lifestyle, which prizes time spent with family over careers, helps keep Cubans healthy, Tache said.
"It's bad for production, bad for the nation," he said. "But it's good for the people."
The government runs residence halls for seniors with no family to care for them, though space is severely limited. Community groups make sure older people look after one another.
"It's a very happy society. There aren't so many worries and problems and that helps," said Alida Gil, 57, leader of a community group in Old Havana known as "Circle of Grandmothers 2000."
Shortly after 8 a.m. every weekday, Gil leads two dozen elderly women through 40 minutes of calisthenics on the windowless, water-damaged ground floor of a state-owned building adorned with photos of Castro and his brother, Raul.
Raul Castro, 75, took over in July after the president underwent intestinal surgery. Officials offer increasingly upbeat reports about his progress, but his condition and ailment remain state secrets.
One of Fidel Castro's personal physicians, Dr. Eugenio Selman, in 2003 helped launch the "120 Years Club," an organization of more than 5,000 seniors — many 100 or older — from several countries including the United States. They hope to reach the 120-year mark through healthy diet, exercise and a positive outlook.
Selman has not spoken publicly since Castro fell ill, but had previously suggested the president could live to 120. Whether Castro is a member of the club is unclear.
Gerardo de la Llera, who still practices medicine at 77, is the club's vice president. He said the oldest member was a 122-year-old woman who lives in the eastern Cuban province of Granma, but he did not know her name or exact birthrate. Cuba has a history of claiming very old citizens whose ages have not been authenticated.
The government says it wants Cuba to become the world leader in life expectancy, vying with the 82-year average for Japan and Singapore.
Look around and you'll find plenty of situations in the US of A comparable to (and worse than) those described below.
Notice the conflicted comment of Luis Tache, a Cuban who spent time in America. His head spouts US criticism, but his heart and his senses speak honestly:
"It's bad for production, bad for the nation," he said. "But it's good for the people."
There you have it. In this country what's good for General Motors is good for America; if it hurts the people, too bad. In Cuba if what's good for the People is bad for production, too bad. In America we say "government for the people." In Cuba they mean it.
- Uke Man
Despite hardships, Cubans live longer
By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer Sun Apr 22
HAVANA - "Fidel: 80 More Years," proclaim the good wishes still hanging on storefront and balcony banners months after Cubans celebrated their leader's 80th birthday.
Fidel Castro may be ailing, but he's a living example of something Cubans take pride in — an average life expectancy roughly similar to that of the United States.
They ascribe it to free medical care, mild climate, and a low-stress Caribbean lifestyle, which they believe make up for the hardships and shortages they suffer.
"Sometimes you have all you want to eat and sometimes you don't," said Raquel Naring, a 70-year-old retired gas station attendant. "But there aren't elderly people sleeping on the street like other places."
Cuba's average life expectancy is 77.08 years — second in Latin America after Puerto Rico and more than 11 years above the world average, according to the 2007 CIA World Fact Book.
It says Cuban life expectancy averages 74.85 years for men and 79.43 years for women, compared with 75.15 and 80.97 respectively for Americans.
Most Cubans live rent-free, and food, electricity and transportation are heavily subsidized. But the island can still be a tough place to grow old.
Homes that were luxurious before Castro's 1959 revolution are now falling apart and many cramped apartments contain three generations of family members. Food, water and medicine shortages are chronic.
But most prescription drugs and visits to the doctor are free and physicians encourage preventive care.
"There's a family doctor on almost every block," said Luis Tache, 90 and blind from glaucoma but still chatty and up on the news.
Tache lived in New York for six straight summers starting in 1945, paying $8 a month for a furnished apartment at 116th Street and Broadway. An English teacher, he retired 30 years ago.
Sitting in a rocking chair in his breezy living room in Havana's Playa district, Tache said Cuban communism "is both good and bad," while the high cost of living in capitalist societies "must be very stressful."
A relaxed lifestyle, which prizes time spent with family over careers, helps keep Cubans healthy, Tache said.
"It's bad for production, bad for the nation," he said. "But it's good for the people."
The government runs residence halls for seniors with no family to care for them, though space is severely limited. Community groups make sure older people look after one another.
"It's a very happy society. There aren't so many worries and problems and that helps," said Alida Gil, 57, leader of a community group in Old Havana known as "Circle of Grandmothers 2000."
Shortly after 8 a.m. every weekday, Gil leads two dozen elderly women through 40 minutes of calisthenics on the windowless, water-damaged ground floor of a state-owned building adorned with photos of Castro and his brother, Raul.
Raul Castro, 75, took over in July after the president underwent intestinal surgery. Officials offer increasingly upbeat reports about his progress, but his condition and ailment remain state secrets.
One of Fidel Castro's personal physicians, Dr. Eugenio Selman, in 2003 helped launch the "120 Years Club," an organization of more than 5,000 seniors — many 100 or older — from several countries including the United States. They hope to reach the 120-year mark through healthy diet, exercise and a positive outlook.
Selman has not spoken publicly since Castro fell ill, but had previously suggested the president could live to 120. Whether Castro is a member of the club is unclear.
Gerardo de la Llera, who still practices medicine at 77, is the club's vice president. He said the oldest member was a 122-year-old woman who lives in the eastern Cuban province of Granma, but he did not know her name or exact birthrate. Cuba has a history of claiming very old citizens whose ages have not been authenticated.
The government says it wants Cuba to become the world leader in life expectancy, vying with the 82-year average for Japan and Singapore.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
"The Land of the Free with Liberty & Justice for All"
Hey Folks,
Here, again, is the old double standard: We are so perfect that we can look down on others' failings, but don't point out ours! If you do, you "hate America".
See the contrast below.
- Uke Man
U.S. voices concern at breakup of Russian protests
Mon Apr 16
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House expressed deep concern on Monday over how Russian authorities broke up opposition protests over the weekend, calling it heavy-handed and part of an "emerging pattern of use of excessive force."
Russian police detained several hundred people in central Moscow, including chess champion Garry Kasparov, on Saturday as they dispersed an attempt by President
Vladimir Putin's opponents to hold a protest march near the Kremlin. Next day, riot police beat and chased anti-Kremlin protesters through the heart of Russia's second-largest city St. Petersburg.
"We are deeply disturbed by the heavy-handed manner in which this weekend's demonstrations ... were broken up by the authorities and by an emerging pattern of use of excessive force by the authorities in reaction to similar events," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
"We also find it intolerable that journalists were detained, an unacceptable practice that hinders freedom of the press," she said. "We underscore that allowing peaceful expression of protest is an essential component of democracy and of universally recognized human rights."
The sharp U.S. criticism marked a new chapter in already strained relations between Washington and Moscow. The Bush administration over the past year has at times accused Putin of rolling back democratic reforms. Moscow has voiced suspicions the United States is encroaching on its traditional spheres of influence.
The Kremlin on Monday defended police action against the weekend rallies, saying they were trying to stop "ultra-radicals" from violating law and order.
Germany, currently holding presidency of the European Union, said earlier on Monday that Russia's police crackdown on the anti-Kremlin protesters and media was "unacceptable" and demanded Moscow explain its actions.
Watch this video and then read the posting below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGeaGgk-m18
Z Magazine Online
November 2006 Volume 19 Number 11
CopWatch
Revisiting the “Miami Model”
By Cyril Mychalejko
(a ukethanks to George)
In early August video footage of police conduct at the November 2003 FTAA protests in Miami was released to the media. One video showed Elizabeth Ritter, a Miami lawyer dressed in a skirt, red jacket, and heels take cover under a handheld sign as local officers repeatedly fired rubber bullets at her. Another exposes Broward Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Michael Kallman addressing a group of his officers about that incident. “The good news about watching you guys live on TV was the lady in the red dress. I don’t know who got her, but it went through the sign and hit her smack dab in the head,” said a “pumped up” Kallman, to applause and cheers. Later, another unidentified officer referred to protesters as “scurrying cockroaches.”
This followed the release of Miami’s Civilian Investigative Panel’s (CIP) 50-page report investigating the actions of the Miami Police Department (MPD) leading up to and during the protests. What was revealed—much of which was already known—was that: the police had wanton disregard and contempt for the rights and well-being of the protesters; there was and still continues to be no accountability; and the media played a vital role in fomenting and vindicating draconian security policies, which turned the city of Miami into a police state.
The CIP was created to provide independent oversight of the MPD. It has the authority to conduct investigations, inquiries, and public hearings into allegations of police misconduct, though the panel’s recommendations are not binding. The panel began their investigations after numerous complaints of police brutality were filed.
One of the more interesting and relevant findings in the report was that the media should assume some responsibility for the mayhem that occurred. “For several months preceding the FTAA, the local media devoted considerable coverage to violent protests and wanton vandalism that had taken place at other locations where international economic conferences were held...this contributed to an apprehension that similar chaos and violence would occur,” the report stated. In addition, “Very little coverage was directed towards peaceful protestors or the underlying reasons for the protest” and the media unjustifiably fixated on “anarchists.”
“Distorted news media coverage of the FTAA protest and other similar actions increases the likelihood that the public will support overly aggressive police actions that result in the violations of protesters’ constitutional rights,” said Robert Jensen, associate professor of Journalism Law and Ethics at the University of Texas Austin. “If readers and viewers are told repeatedly that protesters are crazy anarchists bent on violence, what other conclusion can they reach, but that heavy- handed police tactics are necessary to keep the peace?”
Jensen said that mainstream corporate journalists are often biased in favor of people in power, which is why they often accept their “spin.” Coincidentally, this reflects the nature of the FTAA Ministerial Meeting where civil society has had no voice in the creation of policies that would ultimately affect them. Corporate journalists also view themselves as being part of a professional class, closer to the power brokers they rely on as sources than to their readers—in this case the union members, farmworkers, activists, students, and retirees whose concerns about the hemispheric trade pact were ignored.
Another problem with the coverage was the media’s decision to embed reporters with the police. Michael Putney, Miami ABC political reporter, put it best when he wrote in his guest opinion for the Miami Herald: “I spent most of the FTAA summit reporting from inside the drum-tight ‘security zone’ and saw demonstrations only occasionally from the safe side of police lines. From my vantage point, I thought that police generally showed professionalism, discipline, and restraint. Now, I’m not so sure” (“Citizens’ Panel Should Review Complaints,” 12/03/03).
It’s also troubling, but not surprising, that there has been deafening silence from the corporate media on the report’s findings regarding their sensationalist, inadequate, and unprofessional coverage. In fact, the media is still guilty of incessant incompetence. In an article in the Miami Herald (“Attorney Incensed After Viewing FTAA Police Video,” 08/09/06), it was reported that the CIP “found no evidence of excessive force.”
Luckily, a vigilant Larry R. Handfield, chair of the CIP, wrote a letter to the editor pointing out the paper’s glaring mistake. He wrote that the report concluded “indiscriminate force was utilized against protestors” and that “a review of the video footage from the FTAA protests revealed police officers targeting retreating subjects, and in the case of Ms. Elizabeth Ritter, inappropriately aiming and shooting where her head appeared to be as she knelt down in the street seeking cover behind a placard she was holding.”
The information used to write the report included public hearings with testimony by civilians, MPD officials and experts, MPD materials and departmental orders, hundreds of hours of video tape, arrest affidavits, and court records.
MPD Police Chief John Timoney has refused to comment on the report, just as he refused to comment on a draft released in May. Both times he cited not reading the report as the reason. And why should he bother? The report is nonbinding and the media surely can’t be relied on to do their job and follow up on the story.
Three months after the FTAA protests, the PBS Show “NOW with Bill Moyers” (02/27/04) did a segment examining the way police handled the event in which Timoney was a guest. Kathleen Hughes, the producer/correspondent for the segment, opened the piece by pointing out all of the power brokers that supported the free trade agreement: both the Clinton and Bush administrations, as well as “corporate America.”
“With all that power behind the agreement, why were the police out in such force?” asked Hughes, essentially answering her own question. Timoney told Hughes that, “I am completely satisfied that we did everything according to the book. The way we planned it.”
There is no reason to believe that Timoney has changed positions. The fact that the CIP launched unsuccessful legal attempts to acquire a copy of the MPD Operational Plan (OP) for policing the FTAA protests reinforces that everything was done “the way we planned it.” The panel’s report revealed that MPD’s after action reports repeatedly referenced that the OP contained policies concerning appropriate conduct for personnel.
The CIP wanted to review the document to evaluate just how it “addressed and provided for the protection of ‘constitutional guarantees.’” But there was no way Timoney, or the federal government, Homeland Security, and the FBI—who all collaborated in developing the OP—would give up what then Miami Mayor Manny Diaz touted as “a model for homeland defense”—the so-called “Miami Model.” (Congress gave Miami $8.5 million for security during the FTAA meetings tucked inside an $87 billion spending bill for Iraq.) Police officials said the report contained information that could jeopardize security operations, not only in Miami, but nationally as well.
According to Eric Rubin, director of the Florida Fair Trade Coalition (FFTC), the fact that the CIP did not acquire the OP underscores one of the main weaknesses of the report. The FFTC is a grassroots statewide coalition to develop a mass political and social base in Florida, recognizing that free trade is a link that can bring together the various components of civil society negatively impacted by transnational capitalism. “The best analogy that I can make is an investigation of a plane crash where the manufacturer of the plane has possession of the black box, but is unwilling to turn it over to the investigating body,” said Rubin who was involved in negotiations with the police leading up to the event.
Other weaknesses of the report include the CIP’s limited jurisdiction over the MPD. Other local, state and federal agencies contributed officers in riot gear with no identification. The MPD officers wore identification, but during the days’ events some wore off and became illegible. This helps explain why the CIP was unable to conclude any findings of guilt in the 20 complaints reviewed in the report. Could using officers with no visible identification to evade accountability have been included in the Operational Plan? Most likely, but unfortunately it may never be proven. In addition, there was no investigation of undercover cops dressed as the “anarchists” we were told repeatedly to fear (which has been captured on video) and their role in any violence that happened. Timoney used similar tactics at the 2000 Republican National Convention (RNC) when he was police chief in Philadelphia.
The CIP report concluded that “more time and attention was devoted to training personnel to protect property rather than persons and even less time was spent addressing the constitutional protections guaranteed to all.” This would help explain police officers’ indiscriminate use of pepper spray, tear gas, concussion grenades, rubber bullets, stun guns, and arrests during the protests—on everyone from journalists to senior citizens.
There were about 220 arrests during the protests with only 4 convictions. State Circuit Court Judge Richard Margolius, while presiding over the cases of free trade protesters in December 2003, said in court that he saw “no less than 20 felonies committed by police officers.” Margolis went to the protests and commented that it was “pretty disgraceful what I saw with my own eyes.”
It is important to keep what happened in Miami in the public’s collective consciousness, so when it happens again in some other city, it won’t be viewed as an anomaly, as suggested by PBS’s “NOW.” Activists and critics who refer to the police state in Miami as the “Miami Model” should recognize the security operation as just an evolved manifestation of a larger model, namely one that impels the state to maintain the desired social order by hammering any dissent.
“If this model is being utilized as a future model by the government and transnational supporters, what are the preemptive legal actions that can be taken (if any) to prevent this model from being used again?” asked the FFTC’s Rubin. “Secondly, it must be put into an international perspective that this Operational Plan is a mild component of the repression that is being used against our brothers and sisters internationally, where real bullets and death squads are the ‘normal way of life.’”
Cyril Mychalejko is assistant editor of www.UpsideDownWorld.org, which covers Latin America.
- Uke Man
Here, again, is the old double standard: We are so perfect that we can look down on others' failings, but don't point out ours! If you do, you "hate America".
See the contrast below.
- Uke Man
U.S. voices concern at breakup of Russian protests
Mon Apr 16
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House expressed deep concern on Monday over how Russian authorities broke up opposition protests over the weekend, calling it heavy-handed and part of an "emerging pattern of use of excessive force."
Russian police detained several hundred people in central Moscow, including chess champion Garry Kasparov, on Saturday as they dispersed an attempt by President
Vladimir Putin's opponents to hold a protest march near the Kremlin. Next day, riot police beat and chased anti-Kremlin protesters through the heart of Russia's second-largest city St. Petersburg.
"We are deeply disturbed by the heavy-handed manner in which this weekend's demonstrations ... were broken up by the authorities and by an emerging pattern of use of excessive force by the authorities in reaction to similar events," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
"We also find it intolerable that journalists were detained, an unacceptable practice that hinders freedom of the press," she said. "We underscore that allowing peaceful expression of protest is an essential component of democracy and of universally recognized human rights."
The sharp U.S. criticism marked a new chapter in already strained relations between Washington and Moscow. The Bush administration over the past year has at times accused Putin of rolling back democratic reforms. Moscow has voiced suspicions the United States is encroaching on its traditional spheres of influence.
The Kremlin on Monday defended police action against the weekend rallies, saying they were trying to stop "ultra-radicals" from violating law and order.
Germany, currently holding presidency of the European Union, said earlier on Monday that Russia's police crackdown on the anti-Kremlin protesters and media was "unacceptable" and demanded Moscow explain its actions.
Watch this video and then read the posting below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGeaGgk-m18
Z Magazine Online
November 2006 Volume 19 Number 11
CopWatch
Revisiting the “Miami Model”
By Cyril Mychalejko
(a ukethanks to George)
In early August video footage of police conduct at the November 2003 FTAA protests in Miami was released to the media. One video showed Elizabeth Ritter, a Miami lawyer dressed in a skirt, red jacket, and heels take cover under a handheld sign as local officers repeatedly fired rubber bullets at her. Another exposes Broward Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Michael Kallman addressing a group of his officers about that incident. “The good news about watching you guys live on TV was the lady in the red dress. I don’t know who got her, but it went through the sign and hit her smack dab in the head,” said a “pumped up” Kallman, to applause and cheers. Later, another unidentified officer referred to protesters as “scurrying cockroaches.”
This followed the release of Miami’s Civilian Investigative Panel’s (CIP) 50-page report investigating the actions of the Miami Police Department (MPD) leading up to and during the protests. What was revealed—much of which was already known—was that: the police had wanton disregard and contempt for the rights and well-being of the protesters; there was and still continues to be no accountability; and the media played a vital role in fomenting and vindicating draconian security policies, which turned the city of Miami into a police state.
The CIP was created to provide independent oversight of the MPD. It has the authority to conduct investigations, inquiries, and public hearings into allegations of police misconduct, though the panel’s recommendations are not binding. The panel began their investigations after numerous complaints of police brutality were filed.
One of the more interesting and relevant findings in the report was that the media should assume some responsibility for the mayhem that occurred. “For several months preceding the FTAA, the local media devoted considerable coverage to violent protests and wanton vandalism that had taken place at other locations where international economic conferences were held...this contributed to an apprehension that similar chaos and violence would occur,” the report stated. In addition, “Very little coverage was directed towards peaceful protestors or the underlying reasons for the protest” and the media unjustifiably fixated on “anarchists.”
“Distorted news media coverage of the FTAA protest and other similar actions increases the likelihood that the public will support overly aggressive police actions that result in the violations of protesters’ constitutional rights,” said Robert Jensen, associate professor of Journalism Law and Ethics at the University of Texas Austin. “If readers and viewers are told repeatedly that protesters are crazy anarchists bent on violence, what other conclusion can they reach, but that heavy- handed police tactics are necessary to keep the peace?”
Jensen said that mainstream corporate journalists are often biased in favor of people in power, which is why they often accept their “spin.” Coincidentally, this reflects the nature of the FTAA Ministerial Meeting where civil society has had no voice in the creation of policies that would ultimately affect them. Corporate journalists also view themselves as being part of a professional class, closer to the power brokers they rely on as sources than to their readers—in this case the union members, farmworkers, activists, students, and retirees whose concerns about the hemispheric trade pact were ignored.
Another problem with the coverage was the media’s decision to embed reporters with the police. Michael Putney, Miami ABC political reporter, put it best when he wrote in his guest opinion for the Miami Herald: “I spent most of the FTAA summit reporting from inside the drum-tight ‘security zone’ and saw demonstrations only occasionally from the safe side of police lines. From my vantage point, I thought that police generally showed professionalism, discipline, and restraint. Now, I’m not so sure” (“Citizens’ Panel Should Review Complaints,” 12/03/03).
It’s also troubling, but not surprising, that there has been deafening silence from the corporate media on the report’s findings regarding their sensationalist, inadequate, and unprofessional coverage. In fact, the media is still guilty of incessant incompetence. In an article in the Miami Herald (“Attorney Incensed After Viewing FTAA Police Video,” 08/09/06), it was reported that the CIP “found no evidence of excessive force.”
Luckily, a vigilant Larry R. Handfield, chair of the CIP, wrote a letter to the editor pointing out the paper’s glaring mistake. He wrote that the report concluded “indiscriminate force was utilized against protestors” and that “a review of the video footage from the FTAA protests revealed police officers targeting retreating subjects, and in the case of Ms. Elizabeth Ritter, inappropriately aiming and shooting where her head appeared to be as she knelt down in the street seeking cover behind a placard she was holding.”
The information used to write the report included public hearings with testimony by civilians, MPD officials and experts, MPD materials and departmental orders, hundreds of hours of video tape, arrest affidavits, and court records.
MPD Police Chief John Timoney has refused to comment on the report, just as he refused to comment on a draft released in May. Both times he cited not reading the report as the reason. And why should he bother? The report is nonbinding and the media surely can’t be relied on to do their job and follow up on the story.
Three months after the FTAA protests, the PBS Show “NOW with Bill Moyers” (02/27/04) did a segment examining the way police handled the event in which Timoney was a guest. Kathleen Hughes, the producer/correspondent for the segment, opened the piece by pointing out all of the power brokers that supported the free trade agreement: both the Clinton and Bush administrations, as well as “corporate America.”
“With all that power behind the agreement, why were the police out in such force?” asked Hughes, essentially answering her own question. Timoney told Hughes that, “I am completely satisfied that we did everything according to the book. The way we planned it.”
There is no reason to believe that Timoney has changed positions. The fact that the CIP launched unsuccessful legal attempts to acquire a copy of the MPD Operational Plan (OP) for policing the FTAA protests reinforces that everything was done “the way we planned it.” The panel’s report revealed that MPD’s after action reports repeatedly referenced that the OP contained policies concerning appropriate conduct for personnel.
The CIP wanted to review the document to evaluate just how it “addressed and provided for the protection of ‘constitutional guarantees.’” But there was no way Timoney, or the federal government, Homeland Security, and the FBI—who all collaborated in developing the OP—would give up what then Miami Mayor Manny Diaz touted as “a model for homeland defense”—the so-called “Miami Model.” (Congress gave Miami $8.5 million for security during the FTAA meetings tucked inside an $87 billion spending bill for Iraq.) Police officials said the report contained information that could jeopardize security operations, not only in Miami, but nationally as well.
According to Eric Rubin, director of the Florida Fair Trade Coalition (FFTC), the fact that the CIP did not acquire the OP underscores one of the main weaknesses of the report. The FFTC is a grassroots statewide coalition to develop a mass political and social base in Florida, recognizing that free trade is a link that can bring together the various components of civil society negatively impacted by transnational capitalism. “The best analogy that I can make is an investigation of a plane crash where the manufacturer of the plane has possession of the black box, but is unwilling to turn it over to the investigating body,” said Rubin who was involved in negotiations with the police leading up to the event.
Other weaknesses of the report include the CIP’s limited jurisdiction over the MPD. Other local, state and federal agencies contributed officers in riot gear with no identification. The MPD officers wore identification, but during the days’ events some wore off and became illegible. This helps explain why the CIP was unable to conclude any findings of guilt in the 20 complaints reviewed in the report. Could using officers with no visible identification to evade accountability have been included in the Operational Plan? Most likely, but unfortunately it may never be proven. In addition, there was no investigation of undercover cops dressed as the “anarchists” we were told repeatedly to fear (which has been captured on video) and their role in any violence that happened. Timoney used similar tactics at the 2000 Republican National Convention (RNC) when he was police chief in Philadelphia.
The CIP report concluded that “more time and attention was devoted to training personnel to protect property rather than persons and even less time was spent addressing the constitutional protections guaranteed to all.” This would help explain police officers’ indiscriminate use of pepper spray, tear gas, concussion grenades, rubber bullets, stun guns, and arrests during the protests—on everyone from journalists to senior citizens.
There were about 220 arrests during the protests with only 4 convictions. State Circuit Court Judge Richard Margolius, while presiding over the cases of free trade protesters in December 2003, said in court that he saw “no less than 20 felonies committed by police officers.” Margolis went to the protests and commented that it was “pretty disgraceful what I saw with my own eyes.”
It is important to keep what happened in Miami in the public’s collective consciousness, so when it happens again in some other city, it won’t be viewed as an anomaly, as suggested by PBS’s “NOW.” Activists and critics who refer to the police state in Miami as the “Miami Model” should recognize the security operation as just an evolved manifestation of a larger model, namely one that impels the state to maintain the desired social order by hammering any dissent.
“If this model is being utilized as a future model by the government and transnational supporters, what are the preemptive legal actions that can be taken (if any) to prevent this model from being used again?” asked the FFTC’s Rubin. “Secondly, it must be put into an international perspective that this Operational Plan is a mild component of the repression that is being used against our brothers and sisters internationally, where real bullets and death squads are the ‘normal way of life.’”
Cyril Mychalejko is assistant editor of www.UpsideDownWorld.org, which covers Latin America.
- Uke Man
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
The Ukulele War of 2007
Hey Folks -
I went to New York to enlist in this April’s Ukulele War. I was armed with a song , “The Lowdown Jacksonville Constipated Pit Bull Blues*,” which was lobbed into the fray a number of times. Friday through Tuesday the Army of Light more than held our own against the Powers of Darkness, and then it was time to come home.
I thought, “That’s that,” but as I prepared for my flight I realized that I would find no closure until I had considered the deeper implications of the battle. It struck me that not until I had made an effort to decipher the metaphysical intimations of it all could I really rest. So, here goes.
As long as I’ve been involved in the ukulele community there has been a “magic” about it – something that connected people of all types and persuasions to one another in a positive, open, accepting, supportive camaraderie; “Ukulele Consciousness” if you will. The War resulted from one individual’s rough departure from and attack upon that community.
Into the warmth of an exponentially-expanding, people’s uke scene; into a free-wheeling, anarchistic, universally humane and accepting ukulele hothouse, was thrust a mechanical, subjectively exclusive, critically opinionated, dictatorial, cold and coercive, financially-driven psycho-wedge.
Good people were pointedly excluded, gratuitously insulted, and publicly degraded. Innocent visitors were puzzled by the unexpected tensions. Worst of all, the machinations of just one misanthropic soul, to some extent, "displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting, With most admired disorder."
So much for Ukulele Consciousness! As one wag put it: “I never met a ukulele player I didn’t like – until now.”
I guess it echoes the eternal, more general human situation. Nothing good can be left alone; nothing benefiting all can escape attack if an individual can make financial or psychological gain by tearing it down; and that’s what this was all about.
A commitment to excellence has been advanced as a defense for all the rude actions toward people whom the perpetrator has labeled “anti-excellence.” Unfortunately, the one making this excuse is in no position to act as arbiter of ukulele excellence. He is no more an authority than the people he has dismissed as unworthy. Neither is he consistent or honest in his judgments, criticizing/excluding better performers than he, while prominently including himself in the main stage performance. It’s pathetic.
I’m glad I was able to make the trip and contribute to warding off this attack upon the magic that is the ukulele community. I don’t think too much damage was done. Many folks there for the weekend may have been oblivious to the undercurrents; and enjoyed themselves. I know that there were others who knew the score and still enjoyed themselves. I can’t speak for anyone committed to the Dark Lord, but I know that many of us unworthy Ukulele Rejects had a fantastic time. Not only did we enjoy marvelous audiences and the pleasure of one another’s company, but we were on the right side, doing good, playing ukulele music of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Power to the People’s Instrument!!! Long live Ukulele Consciousness !!!
- Uke Man
* www.ukuleledisco.com/jacksonblues
I went to New York to enlist in this April’s Ukulele War. I was armed with a song , “The Lowdown Jacksonville Constipated Pit Bull Blues*,” which was lobbed into the fray a number of times. Friday through Tuesday the Army of Light more than held our own against the Powers of Darkness, and then it was time to come home.
I thought, “That’s that,” but as I prepared for my flight I realized that I would find no closure until I had considered the deeper implications of the battle. It struck me that not until I had made an effort to decipher the metaphysical intimations of it all could I really rest. So, here goes.
As long as I’ve been involved in the ukulele community there has been a “magic” about it – something that connected people of all types and persuasions to one another in a positive, open, accepting, supportive camaraderie; “Ukulele Consciousness” if you will. The War resulted from one individual’s rough departure from and attack upon that community.
Into the warmth of an exponentially-expanding, people’s uke scene; into a free-wheeling, anarchistic, universally humane and accepting ukulele hothouse, was thrust a mechanical, subjectively exclusive, critically opinionated, dictatorial, cold and coercive, financially-driven psycho-wedge.
Good people were pointedly excluded, gratuitously insulted, and publicly degraded. Innocent visitors were puzzled by the unexpected tensions. Worst of all, the machinations of just one misanthropic soul, to some extent, "displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting, With most admired disorder."
So much for Ukulele Consciousness! As one wag put it: “I never met a ukulele player I didn’t like – until now.”
I guess it echoes the eternal, more general human situation. Nothing good can be left alone; nothing benefiting all can escape attack if an individual can make financial or psychological gain by tearing it down; and that’s what this was all about.
A commitment to excellence has been advanced as a defense for all the rude actions toward people whom the perpetrator has labeled “anti-excellence.” Unfortunately, the one making this excuse is in no position to act as arbiter of ukulele excellence. He is no more an authority than the people he has dismissed as unworthy. Neither is he consistent or honest in his judgments, criticizing/excluding better performers than he, while prominently including himself in the main stage performance. It’s pathetic.
I’m glad I was able to make the trip and contribute to warding off this attack upon the magic that is the ukulele community. I don’t think too much damage was done. Many folks there for the weekend may have been oblivious to the undercurrents; and enjoyed themselves. I know that there were others who knew the score and still enjoyed themselves. I can’t speak for anyone committed to the Dark Lord, but I know that many of us unworthy Ukulele Rejects had a fantastic time. Not only did we enjoy marvelous audiences and the pleasure of one another’s company, but we were on the right side, doing good, playing ukulele music of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Power to the People’s Instrument!!! Long live Ukulele Consciousness !!!
- Uke Man
* www.ukuleledisco.com/jacksonblues
Monday, May 07, 2007
Hey Folks,
I went to the New York Ukulele Wars and we did just fine in the face of the Dark Lord of the Egobuck. There was only a minor disturbance in the Ukulele Consciousness owing to the misanthropic machinations of Maestro Pitbull. Analysis soon.
The computer somehow ate all my New York photos. But we still have access to some videos from the trip at:
http://www.ukuleledisco.com/
These are from Tuesday night on Midnight Ukulele Disco. You can watch individual songs or the entire 28 minute show.
- Uke Man
I went to the New York Ukulele Wars and we did just fine in the face of the Dark Lord of the Egobuck. There was only a minor disturbance in the Ukulele Consciousness owing to the misanthropic machinations of Maestro Pitbull. Analysis soon.
The computer somehow ate all my New York photos. But we still have access to some videos from the trip at:
http://www.ukuleledisco.com/
These are from Tuesday night on Midnight Ukulele Disco. You can watch individual songs or the entire 28 minute show.
- Uke Man
Sunday, May 06, 2007
The Policeman is your Fiend
Hey Folks,
No racism or sexism in this country !!
- Uke Man
April 23, 2007
Words as Weapons
By BOB HERBERT
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
Just days after Don Imus was taken off the air for a slur hurled at members of the Rutgers women’s basketball team, a police sergeant conducting a roll call at a precinct in Brooklyn is reported to have called the three female officers in the room “hos” as he gave them an order to stand up.
The women, two of whom are black and one a Latina, refused to stand.
Another officer, unable to resist the great “fun” of mocking his female colleagues, is reported to have called out, “No, sergeant, not just hos, but nappy-headed hos.”
The women said they were stunned almost to the point of disbelief by the comments. They were the only women in the gathering of 17 police officers in the room, including the supervising sergeant. There was a sickening quality to the moment. The women said they felt violated, hurt and humiliated.
The incident occurred on April 15, a Sunday, at the 70th Precinct, which gained national notoriety in 1997 as the precinct in which Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant, was sodomized by police officers with a broken broomstick.
The three women, Tronnette Jackson, 36, Karen Nelson, 31, and Maria Gomez, 29, said they were attending a routine roll call session when Sgt. Carlos Mateo, referring to them, said, “Stand up, hos.”
The Imus controversy, in which Mr. Imus had referred to the Rutgers players as “nappy-headed hos,” was still big news and on everyone’s mind. The three women remained seated.
They said another police officer, Ralph Montanez, then chimed in: “No, sergeant, not just hos, but nappy-headed hos.”
The women remained silent, and seated.
Sergeant Mateo is reported to have said, “Jackson and Gomez, why aren’t you standing?”
Another police officer said to the sergeant, “They are offended and they are protesting that you called them hos.”
This is just one example of the myriad ways in which racist and sexist comments like Mr. Imus’s help to poison the atmosphere all around us. Another example occurred two days prior to this incident when a narcotics sergeant in Queens is alleged to have “jokingly” said to a black female officer, “Don’t give me no lip or I’ll have to call you a nappy-headed ho.”
One of the toughest points to get across in this society is that racism and sexism are always contemptible, and are never harmless. The targets of racist and sexist comments should not just swallow the insults. They should react as if they’d been slapped in the face.
The three women in the 70th Precinct case have decided to fight back. Their initial complaint to Sergeant Mateo, immediately after the roll call, was brushed aside, they said. They then complained to the precinct’s integrity control officer and hired a lawyer, Bonita Zelman.
This morning they will file a complaint in federal court, asserting that the degrading comments at the roll call amounted to illegal discrimination against them based on their gender and ethnic background. This is not a small matter. It’s fair to wonder, for example, how eager a supervisor might be to recommend a major promotion for an employee he refers to as a “ho.”
“We have tremendous concern about the effect of language like this on women police officers,” said Ms. Zelman, “particularly women of color trying to make their way in the largely white male bureaucracy of a police department.”
Also concerned about the effect of language like this is the police commissioner, Ray Kelly. Discussing the 70th Precinct case, he told me yesterday that he found the comments “despicable.” He declined to go into much detail because the matter is being investigated by the department’s Equal Employment Opportunity division.
But the department let it be known that Sergeant Mateo had been transferred out of the 70th Precinct and would no longer be serving in a supervisory position. Both he and Officer Montanez could be subject to disciplinary charges.
Commissioner Kelly said he found the entire matter “very, very disturbing” because the city had worked hard over the past few years to make the Police Department a place where women and minorities “could feel at home.”
The Queens narcotics sergeant is also likely to face disciplinary action by the department, which has been infected, like other organizations around the country, with what Ms. Zelman calls the “Imus virus.”
No racism or sexism in this country !!
- Uke Man
April 23, 2007
Words as Weapons
By BOB HERBERT
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
Just days after Don Imus was taken off the air for a slur hurled at members of the Rutgers women’s basketball team, a police sergeant conducting a roll call at a precinct in Brooklyn is reported to have called the three female officers in the room “hos” as he gave them an order to stand up.
The women, two of whom are black and one a Latina, refused to stand.
Another officer, unable to resist the great “fun” of mocking his female colleagues, is reported to have called out, “No, sergeant, not just hos, but nappy-headed hos.”
The women said they were stunned almost to the point of disbelief by the comments. They were the only women in the gathering of 17 police officers in the room, including the supervising sergeant. There was a sickening quality to the moment. The women said they felt violated, hurt and humiliated.
The incident occurred on April 15, a Sunday, at the 70th Precinct, which gained national notoriety in 1997 as the precinct in which Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant, was sodomized by police officers with a broken broomstick.
The three women, Tronnette Jackson, 36, Karen Nelson, 31, and Maria Gomez, 29, said they were attending a routine roll call session when Sgt. Carlos Mateo, referring to them, said, “Stand up, hos.”
The Imus controversy, in which Mr. Imus had referred to the Rutgers players as “nappy-headed hos,” was still big news and on everyone’s mind. The three women remained seated.
They said another police officer, Ralph Montanez, then chimed in: “No, sergeant, not just hos, but nappy-headed hos.”
The women remained silent, and seated.
Sergeant Mateo is reported to have said, “Jackson and Gomez, why aren’t you standing?”
Another police officer said to the sergeant, “They are offended and they are protesting that you called them hos.”
This is just one example of the myriad ways in which racist and sexist comments like Mr. Imus’s help to poison the atmosphere all around us. Another example occurred two days prior to this incident when a narcotics sergeant in Queens is alleged to have “jokingly” said to a black female officer, “Don’t give me no lip or I’ll have to call you a nappy-headed ho.”
One of the toughest points to get across in this society is that racism and sexism are always contemptible, and are never harmless. The targets of racist and sexist comments should not just swallow the insults. They should react as if they’d been slapped in the face.
The three women in the 70th Precinct case have decided to fight back. Their initial complaint to Sergeant Mateo, immediately after the roll call, was brushed aside, they said. They then complained to the precinct’s integrity control officer and hired a lawyer, Bonita Zelman.
This morning they will file a complaint in federal court, asserting that the degrading comments at the roll call amounted to illegal discrimination against them based on their gender and ethnic background. This is not a small matter. It’s fair to wonder, for example, how eager a supervisor might be to recommend a major promotion for an employee he refers to as a “ho.”
“We have tremendous concern about the effect of language like this on women police officers,” said Ms. Zelman, “particularly women of color trying to make their way in the largely white male bureaucracy of a police department.”
Also concerned about the effect of language like this is the police commissioner, Ray Kelly. Discussing the 70th Precinct case, he told me yesterday that he found the comments “despicable.” He declined to go into much detail because the matter is being investigated by the department’s Equal Employment Opportunity division.
But the department let it be known that Sergeant Mateo had been transferred out of the 70th Precinct and would no longer be serving in a supervisory position. Both he and Officer Montanez could be subject to disciplinary charges.
Commissioner Kelly said he found the entire matter “very, very disturbing” because the city had worked hard over the past few years to make the Police Department a place where women and minorities “could feel at home.”
The Queens narcotics sergeant is also likely to face disciplinary action by the department, which has been infected, like other organizations around the country, with what Ms. Zelman calls the “Imus virus.”
Friday, May 04, 2007
Uke Man appears mysteriously at Larry's Sat. Night
Hey Folks,
The Uke Man will be playing Saturday (May 5) at Larry's on High Street (next to Wendy's at the north end of campus). Ten o'clock - opening for my friends The Moops.
Singing my songs beats listening to the crap that passes for news. If listening to me beats whatever else you'd be doing Saturday night, stop by and say, "Hi!!"
- Uke Man
The Uke Man will be playing Saturday (May 5) at Larry's on High Street (next to Wendy's at the north end of campus). Ten o'clock - opening for my friends The Moops.
Singing my songs beats listening to the crap that passes for news. If listening to me beats whatever else you'd be doing Saturday night, stop by and say, "Hi!!"
- Uke Man
Love God, or He'll kill you
"Fundamentalist" - Look up "fundament" (the base of the word)
in your Webster's, and you'll see why they are such asses!!
in your Webster's, and you'll see why they are such asses!!
Under God's Boot???
Hey Folks,
Do we really want - does JESUS want - psychos like these making decisions for all the rest of us?
I think not. And more of us need to start thinking more about stopping this American-Christian version of the Taliban - before they start sending thinkers to Gitmo or burning them as heretics.
- Uke Man
April 13, 2007
For God’s Sake
By PAUL KRUGMAN
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
In 1981, Gary North, a leader of the Christian Reconstructionist movement — the openly theocratic wing of the Christian right — suggested that the movement could achieve power by stealth. “Christians must begin to organize politically within the present party structure,” he wrote, “and they must begin to infiltrate the existing institutional order.”
Today, Regent University, founded by the televangelist Pat Robertson to provide “Christian leadership to change the world,” boasts that it has 150 graduates working in the Bush administration.
Unfortunately for the image of the school, where Mr. Robertson is chancellor and president, the most famous of those graduates is Monica Goodling, a product of the university’s law school. She’s the former top aide to Alberto Gonzales who appears central to the scandal of the fired U.S. attorneys and has declared that she will take the Fifth rather than testify to Congress on the matter.
The infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda — which is very different from simply being people of faith — is one of the most important stories of the last six years. It’s also a story that tends to go underreported, perhaps because journalists are afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists.
But this conspiracy is no theory. The official platform of the Texas Republican Party pledges to “dispel the myth of the separation of church and state.” And the Texas Republicans now running the country are doing their best to fulfill that pledge.
Kay Cole James, who had extensive connections to the religious right and was the dean of Regent’s government school, was the federal government’s chief personnel officer from 2001 to 2005. (Curious fact: she then took a job with Mitchell Wade, the businessman who bribed Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham.) And it’s clear that unqualified people were hired throughout the administration because of their religious connections.
For example, The Boston Globe reports on one Regent law school graduate who was interviewed by the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Asked what Supreme Court decision of the past 20 years he most disagreed with, he named the decision to strike down a Texas anti-sodomy law. When he was hired, it was his only job offer.
Or consider George Deutsch, the presidential appointee at NASA who told a Web site designer to add the word “theory” after every mention of the Big Bang, to leave open the possibility of “intelligent design by a creator.” He turned out not to have, as he claimed, a degree from Texas A&M.
One measure of just how many Bushies were appointed to promote a religious agenda is how often a Christian right connection surfaces when we learn about a Bush administration scandal.
There’s Ms. Goodling, of course. But did you know that Rachel Paulose, the U.S. attorney in Minnesota — three of whose deputies recently stepped down, reportedly in protest over her management style — is, according to a local news report, in the habit of quoting Bible verses in the office?
Or there’s the case of Claude Allen, the presidential aide and former deputy secretary of health and human services, who stepped down after being investigated for petty theft. Most press reports, though they mentioned Mr. Allen’s faith, failed to convey the fact that he built his career as a man of the hard-line Christian right.
And there’s another thing most reporting fails to convey: the sheer extremism of these people.
You see, Regent isn’t a religious university the way Loyola or Yeshiva are religious universities. It’s run by someone whose first reaction to 9/11 was to brand it God’s punishment for America’s sins.
Two days after the terrorist attacks, Mr. Robertson held a conversation with Jerry Falwell on Mr. Robertson’s TV show “The 700 Club.” Mr. Falwell laid blame for the attack at the feet of “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians,” not to mention the A.C.L.U. and People for the American Way. “Well, I totally concur,” said Mr. Robertson.
The Bush administration’s implosion clearly represents a setback for the Christian right’s strategy of infiltration. But it would be wildly premature to declare the danger over. This is a movement that has shown great resilience over the years. It will surely find new champions.
Next week Rudy Giuliani will be speaking at Regent’s Executive Leadership Series.
Do we really want - does JESUS want - psychos like these making decisions for all the rest of us?
I think not. And more of us need to start thinking more about stopping this American-Christian version of the Taliban - before they start sending thinkers to Gitmo or burning them as heretics.
- Uke Man
April 13, 2007
For God’s Sake
By PAUL KRUGMAN
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
In 1981, Gary North, a leader of the Christian Reconstructionist movement — the openly theocratic wing of the Christian right — suggested that the movement could achieve power by stealth. “Christians must begin to organize politically within the present party structure,” he wrote, “and they must begin to infiltrate the existing institutional order.”
Today, Regent University, founded by the televangelist Pat Robertson to provide “Christian leadership to change the world,” boasts that it has 150 graduates working in the Bush administration.
Unfortunately for the image of the school, where Mr. Robertson is chancellor and president, the most famous of those graduates is Monica Goodling, a product of the university’s law school. She’s the former top aide to Alberto Gonzales who appears central to the scandal of the fired U.S. attorneys and has declared that she will take the Fifth rather than testify to Congress on the matter.
The infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda — which is very different from simply being people of faith — is one of the most important stories of the last six years. It’s also a story that tends to go underreported, perhaps because journalists are afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists.
But this conspiracy is no theory. The official platform of the Texas Republican Party pledges to “dispel the myth of the separation of church and state.” And the Texas Republicans now running the country are doing their best to fulfill that pledge.
Kay Cole James, who had extensive connections to the religious right and was the dean of Regent’s government school, was the federal government’s chief personnel officer from 2001 to 2005. (Curious fact: she then took a job with Mitchell Wade, the businessman who bribed Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham.) And it’s clear that unqualified people were hired throughout the administration because of their religious connections.
For example, The Boston Globe reports on one Regent law school graduate who was interviewed by the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Asked what Supreme Court decision of the past 20 years he most disagreed with, he named the decision to strike down a Texas anti-sodomy law. When he was hired, it was his only job offer.
Or consider George Deutsch, the presidential appointee at NASA who told a Web site designer to add the word “theory” after every mention of the Big Bang, to leave open the possibility of “intelligent design by a creator.” He turned out not to have, as he claimed, a degree from Texas A&M.
One measure of just how many Bushies were appointed to promote a religious agenda is how often a Christian right connection surfaces when we learn about a Bush administration scandal.
There’s Ms. Goodling, of course. But did you know that Rachel Paulose, the U.S. attorney in Minnesota — three of whose deputies recently stepped down, reportedly in protest over her management style — is, according to a local news report, in the habit of quoting Bible verses in the office?
Or there’s the case of Claude Allen, the presidential aide and former deputy secretary of health and human services, who stepped down after being investigated for petty theft. Most press reports, though they mentioned Mr. Allen’s faith, failed to convey the fact that he built his career as a man of the hard-line Christian right.
And there’s another thing most reporting fails to convey: the sheer extremism of these people.
You see, Regent isn’t a religious university the way Loyola or Yeshiva are religious universities. It’s run by someone whose first reaction to 9/11 was to brand it God’s punishment for America’s sins.
Two days after the terrorist attacks, Mr. Robertson held a conversation with Jerry Falwell on Mr. Robertson’s TV show “The 700 Club.” Mr. Falwell laid blame for the attack at the feet of “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians,” not to mention the A.C.L.U. and People for the American Way. “Well, I totally concur,” said Mr. Robertson.
The Bush administration’s implosion clearly represents a setback for the Christian right’s strategy of infiltration. But it would be wildly premature to declare the danger over. This is a movement that has shown great resilience over the years. It will surely find new champions.
Next week Rudy Giuliani will be speaking at Regent’s Executive Leadership Series.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Hey Folks -
I'm back from New York and totally zonked. It was a great trip for my eternally young spirit, but my rest-home era body will need some recovery time - plus all sorts of things need to be caught up with around Flatland, Ohio. So, please bear with me as I get up to speed over the next week.
One awful bit of news that hit me upon my return was that the venerable nightclub Little Brother's would be closing this summer - nothing gold can stay.
That shook me. I'll have more to say in time, but for now here's an interview with Dan Dougan, owner of the club, singer/song-writer, and my friend:
http://columbusalive.com/vplayer.php?sec=AliveUnedited&clip=Alive/
- Uke Man
I'm back from New York and totally zonked. It was a great trip for my eternally young spirit, but my rest-home era body will need some recovery time - plus all sorts of things need to be caught up with around Flatland, Ohio. So, please bear with me as I get up to speed over the next week.
One awful bit of news that hit me upon my return was that the venerable nightclub Little Brother's would be closing this summer - nothing gold can stay.
That shook me. I'll have more to say in time, but for now here's an interview with Dan Dougan, owner of the club, singer/song-writer, and my friend:
http://columbusalive.com/vplayer.php?sec=AliveUnedited&clip=Alive/
- Uke Man
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Hi from NYC - TV Show tonight
Hey Folks -
The trip is winding down; I come home tomorrow.
The two shows in which I participated were WONDERFUL !!! I've got the TV Show tonight at 9:00.
Tune in via computer (scroll down to an earlier posting for directions).
To quote (I think) Rosa Parks: "My feet are tired, but my soul is at rest."
- Uke Man
The trip is winding down; I come home tomorrow.
The two shows in which I participated were WONDERFUL !!! I've got the TV Show tonight at 9:00.
Tune in via computer (scroll down to an earlier posting for directions).
To quote (I think) Rosa Parks: "My feet are tired, but my soul is at rest."
- Uke Man
About Me
- Name: Tom Harker
- Location: Circleville, Ohio, United States
Music and Politics, Politics and Music!!! * * * Everything is political. We’re admonished, “Never discuss religion or politics.” Follow that advice, and we’ll have to quit talking altogether. * * * Well, the Uke Man speaks! * * * Keep track here of my musical shenanigans, my political ruminations, and - from time to time - some other interesting eruptions.
Previous Posts
- Goodbye, Cookie !!!
- Garrison Keillor on "Turd Blossom"
- Which of these upstanding leaders is sending young...
- Imperialism's Wicked Web
- The Philanthropist
- Why I hate America
- He's a Sweetie
- That face, at once contemptuous and greedy and sel...
- Home Wreckers
- The Housing Financial Crisis
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