Pathetic NY Times Coverage of NYC War Protest

Dear Arthur Salzberger,

The NY Times coverage of the NYC war protest yesterday (and lack of advanced notice of it that day) is a journalistic disgrace.

To start with your reporter must have picked up his information from a local TV broadcast. At the least those participating in the event (as well as CNN) reported HUNDREDS of thousands of participants (300,000 estimated by CNN).

Your email report here was not even one of your 30 or so headlined items in that context and your paper report was buried on p. 35 of the Metro section -- not even in the main section of the paper distributed nation-wide. The report below is pathetic -- I am a social philosopher, but was once a journalist and so am aware that journalist deadlines would scarcely have precluded an accurate and serious report on a major concern now of the vast majority of the American people -- a misbegotten war which faulty NY Times reporting helped sponsor in the first instance.

Your reporter features -- as did NYl -- Al Sharpton -- in its comparably sketchy coverage. Good that he was there and mugging as usual for the cameras -- but there were some 299,000 thousand others who are deeply distressed by the horrendous mess that the Bush crew has made and continues to make in the Middle East -- an unjust and thereby criminal war that has violated just about every international standard related to wars and human rights -- torture, killing of innocents, destruction of civilian property, extraordinary rendering (the newest phrase for what would have appealed to a Nazi mentality).

I take it that your reporter cut out for an early lunch, given the poverty of either background or forefront information -- or any report on the main event at Foley Square -- cited in this pathetic article that would have shamed a high school journalist.

Ed Kent

............................

Tens of Thousands in New York March Against Iraq War

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: April 30, 2006

Thousands of people marched through Lower Manhattan yesterday to demand America's withdrawal from Iraq, the latest in a series of antiwar protests held in New York City and around the country during the past several months.

The march came a day after the State Department reported that insurgent attacks on civilians in Iraq surged last year, accounting for nearly half of the people killed in terrorism attacks across the world. It also came near the end of the deadliest month for American forces in Iraq since last November.

"I don't think the message has really changed, but the magnitude of the participation has grown," said Donald Morrill, 50, a college professor who journeyed from Florida to take part in the demonstration.

Several local politicians participated, notably the Rev. Al Sharpton, and some national figures, too, including Cindy Sheehan, whose son died in Iraq and who has become a symbol of the antiwar movement.

Yesterday's protest drew added urgency from the administration's recent saber rattling over Iran, and signs opposing possible United States military action there were almost as common as those urging a withdrawal from Iraq. But as at previous Iraq-related protests, yesterday's demonstration encompassed an array of causes, from immigrants' rights to low-cost housing.

Mark Hallinan, 47, a priest at St. Ignatius Loyola Church on the Upper East Side, led a group of about a dozen people from his parish under the auspices of Pax Christi, a lay Catholic peace organization.

"We've seen the impact in so many ways," Father Hallinan said. "It's taking away money for education, for balancing the budget."

For others marching, the mere fact that the United States remained in Iraq was reason enough to protest, said Laurie Goodstein, a physician from Manhattan. Dr. Goodstein said she was meeting her parents — both in their 80's — at the march's end. "They've been going to protests all their lives," she joked, "but now they're too old to walk all the way."

Yesterday's demonstration began on Broadway, north of Union Square, where thousands of protesters of all ages gathered between 17th and 23rd Streets. About half past noon, they lurched into motion, heading south toward Foley Square near City Hall.

One group carried a daisy chain of hundreds of pictures of United States troops who died in Iraq, strung out over many blocks; others waved signs, slapped drums or simply enjoyed the pleasant weather.

By 2 p.m., the protesters' vanguard had reached Foley Square, but the rear of the column still stretched more than a mile back.

The participating groups — led by United for Peace and Justice, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and the National Organization for Women — set up more than a dozen tents in Foley Square, where T-shirts, pamphlets and petitions were distributed.

"We're here to deliver a message to the rest of the world that there are still Americans who strongly oppose these policies," said Daniel Einbender, 56, a musician and environmental educator from Wurtsboro, N.Y. "Someone asked me if I did it for love. I'm from the 60's, I'm one of those guys. I'm doing it out of habit. But it's a good habit."
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

All the News We Never Get

I know that there is a peace rally in process in Foley Square in NYC -- the end point of a march from Union Square. I know so from several email sources, including my faculty union. I thought I might tune in to see if I might spot a family member in the crowd a bit ago and discovered that there is absolutely no coverage either of the march or the rally -- only the usual sex and violence things on the TV news channels and re-runs on the C-Span channels. This is unhappily also in character with the NY Times which has given no reportage to this major NYC event in process -- perhaps tomorrow. Checking out their search function I found several mentions of anti-war rallies -- dated September and March 2005. Wow, all the news that's fit to print? Shame on you guys! I am sending blind copies of this to a number of you -- spare you public responses to what I am widely posting here. I expected a black out from the TV media, but why are you hiding such things from potential walkers -- it is healthy and our country is in deep trouble because you guys blew it and kept the facts from us when we could have avoided a disastrous war. Yuk!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Coming Out

I am particularly sensitive to the situation of the Israelis because so many of my friends, students, and neighbors have deeply committed loyalties to this refuge for Jews who have been persecuted over the millennia, most recently slaughtered by the Nazis in the Holocaust, driven out of most Arab countries, subject to the always lurking anti-Semitism stemming from the letters of St. Paul directed in context against the competitor religion claiming Yahweh as its g-d, but later utilized by Christians to justify their contempt for Jews at a minimum to murderous pogroms in virtually every setting where Jews had sought refuge in the diaspora. I have nearly always found myself defending Israel in particular and Jews generally against oppression from the time I outed the Yale anti-semitism reflected in its anti-Jewish admissions policies and almost total exclusion of Jewish faculty in my undergraduate days in the mid 1950s.

Having said all this I am deeply bothered by the oppression of the Palestinians by Israelis today which I follow with discomfort in the daily reports of peace workers there -- the various Israeli women's peace groups, the Christian Peacemaker Teams, and others working to alleviate the horrendous conditions to which the Palestinians are being subjected in the name of curbing terrorist attacks.

It is pretty obvious that our recent attack on Iraq was stimulated by an unholy alliance of neocons bent both on controlling the oil emanating from the Middle East and in protecting Israel from the threats of attacks far more dangerous than just suicide bombing. Bush's claim that Hussein was supporting terrorism was nonsense so far as Al Qaeda was concerned. Hussein was offering small bounties sometimes to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. He offered no direct threat to the U.S. and so our invasion and subsequent slaughter of so many Iraqis was done both on behalf of the oil interests -- and our Israeli allies. The most recent threat to nuke Iran follows this same dual standard pattern. Needless to say the Iranians would be mad to direct a nuclear attack at Israel with its reputed 100 at least atomic bombs ready to annihilate Iran should it launch an obvious direct attack thereupon. Shia is a self-punishing version of Islam, but the real threat along those lines from Muslim quarters lies with Pakistan which possesses both the bombs and the means to send them long distances per the most recent reports. Should our guy be displaced therefrom -- and we have put him in embarrassing positions that might stimulate a coup or assassination -- more than India would have to worry about possible supplies of weapons to terrorists as well as direct attacks from that quarter.

Having said enough above, my own bottom line here is that Israel and its supporters had better wake up to the fact that oppression of the Palestinians now carries with it the massive threat of the destruction of Israel by horrible means down the line. It is time that the Israelis stopped counting on a wall to protect them from the inevitable and got to it making peace with their nearest neighbors across the Green Line.

Henceforth I will be sharing information as it comes in from my peace friends on both sides of the Green Line. My sense as one who once trained for the foreign service, has been a journalist as well as a political philosopher, is that we who know the facts had better start spreading the word.

Along these lines I will share my sources of information here, there, and elsewhere. As a starting point I suggest that all read daily the reports coming in from other sources than the New York Times and Washington Post which are not adequate in this department. I keep up with a much wider array including but not limited to:

http://news.google.com/

http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/

dailyemail@bbc.co.uk

Needless to say real peace in the Middle East mandates that it we achieve it ASAP in Israel/Palestine.

I don't think the 'Zionist Lobby' is running U.S. foreign policy, but the U.S. and Israel together have been straying into dangerous territory and we all need to be well-informed as to how very dangerous their joint conduct has become. So far as my Israeli friends are concerned, I am also worried about a right wing turn about in this country as our nut religionists prepare for Israel's destruction so that they can assure themselves a front row seat in heaven. Bush and Co. are not necessarily a guaranteed security blanket! It looks from here that oil is now increasingly front and center in their attention and dumping Israel rather than nuking Iran might just be a 'diplomatic' option this next few years. I am all too familiar with WASP anti-Semitism and Prescott Bush (grand dad) was most friendly with Hitler's Germany.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Oppressors and the Oppressed

One of the insights picked up by Marx from Hegel's dialectical shift from consciousness to self-consciousness in his Das Phenomenologie des Geistes was that people oppressed by masters may eventually cast off their oppression through the fact that they are gaining in self-conciousness through the dual effects of their work with things (imposed by their masters) and the consciousness of their masters (contemptuous ordinarily) directed at them, whereas their masters are losing self-consciousness both by being cut off from physical labor and through lack of attention to the consciousness of those whom they are oppressing. Hegel connected this turn about to the French Revolution - Marx proposed it as the communist overthrow of the capitalists by the dictatorship of the proletariat to be founded on the backs of oppressed workers.

Those who are oppressing people had best take heed. The Germans and Japanese stimulated the rebellions/resistance that hobbled their war efforts and some of our contemporary occupying powers -- ranging from the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan to the Israelis versus the Palestinians -- not to mention a host of other oppressive regimes around the world -- had best take seriously this insight into what happens to oppressors -- the well intentioned as well as the corrupt.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

The Anthem in Spanish Nonsense

Bush Enters Anthem Fight on Language
By JIM RUTENBERG
President Bush signaled that he stands with conservatives
on the Spanish version of the national anthem.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/29/washington/29bush.html?th&emc=th

..................

One of my regrets is that I did not learn a bit of Spanish until I was too old really to be able to command this lucid language -- I audited my way through 3 semesters and the entire grammatical structure so that I could properly pronounce my students' names and follow simple things posted in Spanish, etc. The mother of two of my nieces is also a Puerto Ricana. But I am too shy to speak it.

Personally I have much enjoyed hearing the Spanish rendition of our rather tired and unsingable-in-English version of our national anthem -- a poor choice from the start compared with some of our more feisty patriotic alternatives. In Spanish it comes alive.

But let's get real here. The bulk of our Spanish speaking population -- 12-13% of Americans -- was incorporated by rather brutal aggressive wars and/or territory grabs, e.g. the steal of the South West during the War of 1848: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican-American_War

And our grab of Puerto Rico from the Spanish in 1898 was similarly an aggressive expropriation. If anything Anglo-speakers should be obliged to learn Spanish so that they can properly communicate with their fellow Americans -- and also with the bulk of our south to the border neighbors in Latin America who have also suffered innumerable interferences in their lives since the Monroe Doctrine was introduced! The U.S. has destabilized nearly every government down there at one point or another, assassinated leaders, and as a last resort, sent in the Marines again and again. See John Perkins C.I.A. Confessions:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/09/1526251

We are, thus, not loved there as witnessed by the string of recent elections which have exposed our brutalities. Speaking Spanish, let alone singing it, is now in our best interest if we are to win any friends and influence people there who control things that we desperately need that are being redirected now towards China.

And needless to say in this new world order with its globalized economy we need as many multi-lingual Americans as we can muster. Most educated Europeans command one or more additional languages. Only in America are our kids dumbed down and deprived of the enriched experience of learning about other cultures through first hand command of their languages. Needless to say some of the European countries are themselves multi-lingual (e.g. Switzerland and Belgium) and most Nordics command English as well as their own languages.

So Bush is just another of our national dummies, although he, himself, does speak Spanish. What idiocy wasting our time drawing our attention away from far more important things with this typically ugly little American mass media diversion -- steeped in racism. Cannot these characters -- from Bush down to Fox news -- see the damage they are doing to our nation in the eyes of the rest of the world? Will we next be threatening Hugo (pronounced 'oogo' as Spanish has no 'h' sound) with tactical 'nooculer' weapons?

Personally I greatly appreciate whatever enlivened versions of our dour national anthem. I am told that some of my ancestors arrived at Massachusetts Bay as first decade pilgrims, but speaking as an Anglo (member of America's only third largest minority group), I am also for linguistic experimentation. No reason why we should try to ram English down the throats of all -- particularly if we are not willing to share and expand our own cultural awareness in comparable ways.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Columbia's Expansion Plans -- Genocide Lite?

Let it be noted that there are numerous open spaces outside of Manhattan where Columbia could locate a biotech campus. Not so long ago a prior Columbia board planned a faculty housing complex about an hour's bus ride to the north west. What concerns those who object to Columbia's plan is the phenomenon of the grab from area inhabitants of one of the last places where jobs, homes, special services might be located to the benefit of Harlem residents who will be stiffed by the Columbia plan and whose jobs and living spaces (e.g. the massive Mitchell Llama complex at 3333 B'way) will be put at risk by Columbia -- upscale shops, jobs and presumably housing for well paid staff and faculty only, etc. West Manhattanville with its direct access via public transportation from the east and north should be utilized for mixed community uses -- not the exclusive domain of a university with sufficient resources to locate (as others do) its diverse campuses where they fit in with the public's interests.

Already residents of Harlem are under the gun of real estate development and a comparable grab is apparently being fostered by the Cathedral with its lease of part of its Close to luxury housing which will similarly put gentrification pressures on the residents of the Manhattan Valley. We have watched the effects of such gentrification in Morningside Heights during the decades that we have lived here -- with Columbia's complicity. What used to be a mixed neighborhood has become a millionaires-only-need-apply assembly of co-opted buildings and ever more pricey luxury service outlets. So Columbia is going to go along with the growing American split between the wealthy and those hard pressed to make a living? Where once we had single room occupancy residences (e.g. 112th St.), we now offer the railroad tunnel under Riverside Park as shelter for the homeless. Hear the mournful whistles warning them of approaching trains on still, dark nights. Columbia's scheme is Robert Moses, not Jane Jacobs thinking. Shame, Columbia!

Needless to say current Columbia students have little basis for understanding the harms to people entailed by such brutal exploitation of resources that should rather be used for the wider community's benefit. Where is Rousseau's General Will when we need it here? I sense only the Lockean defenses of absolute private property rights (by the well off) that were used by the European colonizers to justify their expropriation of the lands of the native inhabitants in our Manifest Destiny days of yore. What went around then comes around again here? One might call this pattern genocide lite? Check out the children's asthma, the men's unemployment, and the early death rates in our African American communities.

Ed Kent

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Expansion Troubles Span 15 Decades
Bollinger Faces Many of The Same Issues as Low

By Josh Hirschland
Spectator Staff Writer

April 28, 2006

In light of the controversy surrounding Columbia’s proposed expansion into West Harlem, it is important to remember that the University has faced a long history of struggling to find enough space to meet its lofty academic ambitions.

Including the Lamont-Doherty and medical center campuses, Columbia has averaged a new campus every fifty years.

As University President Lee Bollinger prepares to fund raise­­­—hard—for a campus in Manhattanville, he might consider the struggles and successes of Columbia’s last­­ major move, up to Morningside Heights, headed by former University President Seth Low 115 years ago.

For Low, as for Bollinger, acquisition of space dominated and shaped his presidency. The week before Low’s inauguration, Spectator printed an editorial stating, “It has been asserted, ... that the new administration will give particular attention to the building question. This will surely be encouraging news for our overcrowded departments, and particularly for the Library, which sadly needs a large addition as soon as possible.”

For Bollinger, the dual role of president and real estate agent was unexpected. “I knew that space was a critical issue but I didn’t know it was as critical as I learned,” Bollinger said.

Low’s first act as president was purchasing a $17,500 property near the midtown campus between 47th and 50th Streets where Columbia was located at the time. But it quickly became apparent that, due to increasing costs and decreasing space, continually purchasing add-on land in midtown would make expansion for the next century impossible.

In 1891, Low appointed a committee to quietly investigate expansion options. The committee quickly decided that the best plan would be to move to the current uptown Manhattan location. An uptown site would offer open grassy fields as well as access to all of the amenities of the city.

The Low plans were announced to grand adulation throughout the student body, the New York press, and the alumni, who, when the project was threatened by a bill in the state legislature to keep a road at 119th street, gathered 5,000 petition signatures to save it.

While Bollinger’s plans may not have garnered the same level of reverence as Low’s a century ago, a Spectator poll has found that a plurality of students support the expansion plans. The president has also received vocal and financial support from several alumni and trustees.

However, Low found himself unable to achieve the final step—finding money to fund the project—due to an inactive and ungenerous alumni group. According to architectural historian Andrew Dolkart’s book Morningside Heights, a capital campaign was only able to raise $136,150 from alumni—$100,000 of which came from William Schermerhorn. The trustees finally agreed to purchase the property, but the monetary issue continued to be a problem.

Construction wouldn’t begin for nearly four years after the land was purchased, and even then, happened only after Low shelled out $1 million from his own wallet to pay for the new library.

Bollinger now finds himself four years into his presidency in a similar situation, two steps along his path to a new campus. He has crafted an idea and begun to sell it to alumni. He has even begun translating this enthusiasm into tangible funds, like the $200 million donation by Don Greene to build a mind, brain, and behavior center.

But Bollinger’s mission is far from accomplished. The rezoning necessary for the project has yet to be approved by the city. The cost of the campus will likely be in the neighborhood of $4 billion. One year from now, Bollinger will be in the same place that Low was when his plans nearly fell apart. And he is aware of the struggles he faces.

“Universities live on dreams and it’s not like we have a pool of money just waiting for us to be tapped to do whatever we want to do,” Bollinger said in an interview last week. “You have to figure out what you’re going to do, then you have to go about persuading people that this is a good investment that they have to be a part of, and then you have to get the money.”

So the question remains—can Bollinger raise the cash he needs? If he can’t, one thing is clear. Bollinger, unlike Low, doesn’t have the money to save the project himself.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Our Most Dangerous President

OP-ED COLUMNIST
Stuck With Bush
By BOB HERBERT
The major task of Congress and the voters for the remainder
of the Bush presidency is to curtail the destructive
impulses of this administration.

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/04/27/opinion/27herbert.html?th&emc=th
(Available only to TimesSelect subscribers)

........................

One does not have to read Bob Herbert's column to get the drift here. If one does a quick world survey, what do we discover that Bush and the neocons have brought us?

On 9/11 these guys were asleep at the stick, obsessed with launching a war on Iraq to dominate oil in the Middle East. This scenario they carried out with the result that we are now distrusted as a nation rather than admired on every continent. The sympathy engendered by our loss of innocent lives back in 2001 has been converted to contempt for a national bully. We now face economic sanctions rather than an assured oil supply:

Russia is directing two natural gas lines and one oil line into China.

China is now negotiating a $4 billion oil deal with Nigeria.

Iraq is in disarray. Iranians are threatening oil sanctions and other reactions to any attacks on them. The Saudis -- source of bin Laden and 15 of the 9/11 attackers -- is running scared.

Hugo Chavez, whom Bush tried to force out of office, is supplying oil to needy neighbors -- and low income neighborhoods in the Bronx. Brazil now has a net surplus so that it can export oil.

Europe is all too aware of where its oil bread is buttered -- Russia is more important now to them than supporting American corporate exploitation of this or that neo-colonial outreach.

And at the gas tank hard-pressed Americans are watching their food budgets being consumed by their energy needs for transportation here and there -- I know too many friends and family myself who are at the economic brink, not to be worried by our over stretched national economy as a whole.

Be braced -- there are hard times lying ahead. The dollar is going down and with it decades of assumed American prosperity.

Yes, Bush is the most incompetent and, thus, dangerous president that we have perhaps had in our national history -- with 2 and 1/2 years to go!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Internet for Sale to the Big Ones!!!!

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/24/201526/948

This website warns of the imminent prospect of our runaway Congress selling off the Internet to the highest bidders. Such a grab would cut off many, including students who cannot pay the tab, from access. It opens the door to censorship of the kind that already controls too many of our other information outlets. Now is the time to protest!!!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]

http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Dumbing Down America

[It is pretty obvious that in a time when the U.S. is locked in combat in an increasingly competitive global economy, dumbing down our next generation sabotages the national interest at its heart. Ed Kent]

Education on the Ropes

Governor George Pataki’s recent budget vetoes include hundreds of millions of dollars that would have been appropriated to a variety of statewide education initiatives.

The list of education-related budget vetoes is highlighted by a $119 million cut in the state’s Tuition Assistance Program, or TAP. In addition to funding cuts, the governor’s plan would raise credit-load requirements for receiving assistance, thus putting the financial aid and career of many college students in jeopardy. The vetoes also slash over $400 million from City University of New York – a significant amount of which was directed towards hiring of full time faculty and disability services and equipment – and over $500 million from State Univerity of New York. Intended cuts were slated to establish computer training center programs, create teacher mentor intern programs, expand enrollment, alter and improve various facilities associated with state and city Universities, and fund the Liberty Partnerships Program.

Pataki’s repeated jabs at the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit and its mandates to better fund New York City schools should have served to telegraph his latest haymaker to education.

The following details Pataki’s vetoes in education:
Veto # Agency Purpose Approp Amount
82 CUNY Contract courses and workforce development 1,000,000
83 CUNY Additional operating assistance 49,470,000
84 CUNY Financial assistance to community colleges 99,680,000
85 CUNY Alterations and improvements 264,049,000
86 SED Grants in aid to certain school districts, 81,456,250
public libraries and not-for-profit institutions
87 SED NYS historical association 180,000
88 SED College of St. Rose lab renovations 500,000
89 SED Liberty Partnerships program 1,092,500
109 SUNY Expansion of high need programs 2,000,000
110 SUNY SUNY operating assistance 56,667,000
111 SUNY Contract courses and workforce development 1,000,000
112 SUNY Expansion of high need programs 1,800,000
113 SUNY Alterations and improvements to various facilities 415,826,000
114 SUNY Alterations and improvements to community college facilities 22,561,000
115 Misc. School Tax Star Rebate program 805,000,000
116 CUNY Additional operating assistance 20,260,000
117 CUNY Services and equipment for students with 250,000
136 DOH School based health centers 3,393,000
By Nate Powell | April 24, 2006, 7:00 am
Posted in Uncategorized | trackback | No Comments »

..........................................................

[And this is not just a NY problem -- it runs nation-wide. Ed Kent]



AAUP Press Release: "The Devaluing of Higher Education"


"The Devaluing of Higher Education"

AAUP to Release Annual Report on Faculty Salaries



Washington, D.C. - For the second consecutive year, the increase in
overall average salaries for college and university professors failed to
keep up with the rate of inflation. That is one of the central findings
of "The Devaluing of Higher Education: The Annual Report on the Economic
Status of the Profession, 2005-06."



The AAUP's annual report has been an authoritative source of data on
faculty salaries and compensation for decades. This year's findings call
into question assertions contained in an issue paper on college costs
prepared recently for the U.S. Secretary of Education's Commission on
the Future of Higher Education. The paper, by commission consultant
Robert C. Dickeson, claims that "faculty salaries are especially
expensive," and that "the time-honored practice of tenure is costly."
AAUP data, however, indicate that overall average faculty salaries
remain depressed as a result of a long-term pattern of insufficient
investment in faculty. (See more information on the commission.)



This year's report compares faculty salaries to other higher education
indicators, including presidential salaries and institutional returns on
endowment investment. The concluding section explores an issue of
continuing concern to those committed to maintaining the quality of U.S.
higher education: the low pay rates of part-time faculty, who now make
up nearly half of all college and university teachers. Highlights of
this year's report include the following:



* Overall average salaries for all ranks of full-time faculty
across all types of institutions rose 3.1 percent between 2004-05 and
2005-06. When adjusted for inflation, however, average salaries declined
by 0.3 percent, following a 0.5 percent decrease in 2004-05. The last
time inflation-adjusted salaries declined for two consecutive years was
from 1978-79 to 1980-81.



* Full-time faculty who continued from the previous year at the
same institution did not fare much better. Their 1.1 percent
inflation-adjusted salary increase is the lowest since 1996-97.



* The salary gap between full-time faculty at public colleges and
universities and their counterparts at private (non-church-related)
institutions continued to widen in 2005-06. This disparity seriously
disadvantages public institutions in trying to attract and retain the
most qualified faculty.



* Over time, a significant lag in compensation has developed
between faculty and those with graduate degrees in other professions.
Although most faculty members do not choose a career in academe for the
paycheck, this increasing disparity makes it more difficult to recruit
the best students into academic careers.



* Although both public and private institutions are recovering
from the economic difficulties of the past few years, college and
university presidents are reaping significantly greater rewards from the
recovery than faculty. Between 1995 and 2005, median salaries for
presidents rose 29 percent, while salaries for full-time faculty
increased only 9 percent.



* The increasing costs of benefits, particularly medical
insurance, represent a continuing strain on college and university
budgets.



* The number of faculty employed only part time continues to
increase. This year's report gives an indication of how low the pay for
part-time faculty really is.



The report and major tables are
posted on AAUP's web site. Listings for individual institutions are
available only in the written report. To order the full report, visit
the AAUP's online catalogue.
The cost is $68.00. AAUP members receive a copy as part of their Academe
subscription.



The American Association of University Professors is a nonprofit
charitable and educational organization that promotes academic freedom
by supporting tenure, academic due process, and standards of quality in
higher education. The AAUP has about 45,000 members at colleges and
universities throughout the United States .


--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Divine Temper Tantrums We Do Not Need in the Modern World!

[A Yale classmate sent along the following. We need to realize that some of our cultural attitudes date from extremely primitive sources and should not be permitted to perpetuate some of the evils that are still with us. Too many of the below derive originally from the ancient Babylonian horrors later incorporated into our religious traditions -- they were terrified by their gods who notoriously were portrayed as despising humans and torturing them for entertainment, e.g. the lex talionis ('Eye for and eye, etc.). Divine temper tantrums we do not need in the modern world. Ed Kent]

Laura Schlessinger is a US radio personality who dispenses advice to
people who call in to her Radio show. On her radio show recently, she
said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an
abomination, according to Leviticus 18:22 and cannot be condoned under
any circumstance.



The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura, penned by a US
resident, and then posted on the Internet. It's funny, as well as
appropriate.



-----------------------------------------------------------------------



Dear Dr. Laura:



Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I
have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that
knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the
homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus
18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need
some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's
Laws and how to follow them.





1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and
female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend
of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you
clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?



2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in
Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair
price for her?



3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in
her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is
how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offence.



4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a
pleasing odour for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is, my neighbours.
They claim the odour is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?



5. I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus
35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to
kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?



6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an
abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than
homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees'
of abomination?



7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I
have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses.
Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?



8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the
hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by
Lev 19:27. How should they die?



9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig
makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?



10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two
different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments
made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also
tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to
all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them?
(Lev.24:10-16). Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family
affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev.
20:14)



I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy
considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.
Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and
unchanging.



Your adoring fan.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

What do Bush and Hu Share in Common?

Each is or was the leader of a state that led the world/U.S. record for executions.

Yes, the U.S. is only running fourth behind China in the numbers of executions that it carries out each year -- Iran and Saudi Arabia are still ahead of us.

But at least Bush can boast that as Governor of Texas, he routinely executed more women, juveniles, minorities and the total than any other state in the Union. Remember Karla Faye Tucker? She was the one Bush smirked about executing Karla Faye had had a miserable childhood ridden by a drug addicted mother who introduced her to same. She and a companion while doped up had carried out a brutal murder. But she had been born again in prison -- her first drug free experience -- and was highly regarded there by her fellow inmates on death row before her execution:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karla_Faye_Tucker

Bush also got to execute one of the last of the juveniles which we were still executing then -- happily the Supreme Court outlawed that practice of which we were one of a handful of nations last spring. That kid had been identified by one WHITE lady as the parking lot killer -- across a darkened parking lot. The African American witnesses there who claimed he was not the one were not taken seriously by the jury.

And so it goes. Bush can't win them all. But he can put in jail the lady who protested Hu's China's human rights record of executions -- nearly 2,000 a year for this and that offense to the state. Heard he was really pissed off by her interrupting his party with Hu.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

It's the Futures of the Kids, Stupid!

By JANNY SCOTT
The New York City Housing Authority's proposed rent
increases would affect nearly 47,000 households with
incomes greater than $19,800.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/21/nyregion/21housing.html?th&emc=th

..................

Having lived in public housing for 3 years when our budget fit the model, I am all too aware how a little more in the way of expenses really hurts. We paid the standard flat rent of 30% of income -- $60.00 per month for us -- and could count on that without surprise fees and other insults -- there was a demand that public housing beneficiaries be obliged to put in so many hours of public service work a few years back.

Again, I saw the vast difference in the quality of life -- particularly of children in the projects versus those in tenements (with whom I had worked and of whom in my little group 80% died violently at an early age).

What is wrong here is the attack on the individual versus seeing the gains for society as a whole in providing the basics for people so that particularly kids can get a decent start in life. I saw the contrast first hand, as I had also as a teen worked with poor kids in the East End of London (many partial war orphans) where the British government ensured provision for the basics -- food, housing, medical care, etc. One of my colleagues in philosophy once came from that community in the East End, Bethnal Green.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Speaking Out Candidly About the Israeli Lobby

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
A Lobby, Not a Conspiracy
By TONY JUDT
Americans must not be afraid to debate Israel policy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/19/opinion/19judt.html?th&emc=th

..................

I agree with Tony Judt here that those of us who care about world peace and peace in the Middle East should be speaking out candidly as to how we can best achieve it. At the moment Israelis and Palestinians seem to be caught in a stalemate situation in which neighbors by geography do not trust each other. And the costs in human lives and diminished living conditions are spurring on animosities truly horrible to witness. I would agree that the U.S. must stop pussy footing here and put pressure on both sides to cool it. That will be a tough job to do even-handedly, but the sooner we do, the better for all. I imagine that the Bush administration is too diverted by its ideologues to accomplish this mission. But perhaps we can all start thinking our way towards a better future?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

(Shia?) Iraqi Troops "Tame" Sunni District in Baghdad(?)

Iraqi Troops Move to Tame a Sunni District in Baghdad
By KIRK SEMPLE
Iraqi troops faced sporadic small-arms fire as they pushed
block by block through the mostly Sunni neighborhood of
Adhamiya.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/19/world/middleeast/19iraq.html?th&emc=th

..................

It does not take much imagination to see that things are breaking apart in Iraq. I wonder how much longer we will continue to participate in this on-going (and escalating) disaster?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Easter in Morningside Heights

Most of my family is off to the Easter Service at Riverside Church where my Union Theological Seminary classmate, Jim Forbes, is probably offering a sermon representing the social justice concerns of the Jesus slain as a suspect revolutionary ("zealot") by the brutal Roman governor, Pilate. Were I to be involved with a church, this would probable be the one with its active social outreach programs (or our local Broadway Presbyterian that runs active social programs for the homeless).

http://www.theriversidechurchny.org/worship/

About now the Cathedral of St. John the Divine may be passing the bucket towards selling off its close to the highest real estate bidders to construct high income luxury housing.

http://www.theinsider.com/nyc/attractions/2cathed.htm

Both these structures are fine remembrances of fortunes and concerns streaming out of the past. But only the first has a mission now. The other is unhappily being managed by individuals more concerned about real estate returns than anything resembling caring for the poor and needy. Such is the fate of our modern religions. Some -- the few -- are still working in the vineyards; others are simply benefiting from vineyards planted decades/millennia ago by caring people.

Unhappily even the devil can cite scripture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_700_Club

And at this writing a mixed round table of caring ones and cons are telling their stories on Meet the Press.

And so it goes in America.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Phony Bars to Medical Care

Medicaid Hurdle for Immigrants May Hurt Others
By ROBERT PEAR
Officials fear that a new law will prevent poor people who
are unable to come up with citizenship documents from
receiving Medicaid benefits.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/us/16medicaid.html?th&emc=th

..................

Ours is a reasonably well organized academic family, but more than once over the years with moves and whatnot, we have misplaced and had to write away and pay the charges to replace a lost birth certificate. I would imagine that many a person does not have access to this document created at or near the date of his/her birth.

It is, therefore, intentionally morally obscene for those who can figure this one as a common problem for many, if not most of us, to set this bar to medical care into law.

Needless to say, Americans visiting foreign countries (e.g. both of my daughters studying/doing volunteer service respectively in Italy and Britain) faced no such problem as 'aliens' in receiving not only low cost but free medical care in these typical European countries, as did my wife and me as students at Oxford way back in the late 1950s.

Only in Amerika!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

What Happened to the Carrot?

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040906Y.shtml
The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack, according to Seymour M. Hersh.

..............................

Anyone skilled in international diplomacy knows that threats alone do not deter regimes defending either their pride or their geographical integrity. Put people up against the wall and call them "evil" -- an ugly, dangerous, term emanating from anachronistic religious roots -- and one is looking for trouble.

Iran is a nation of young people by all reports much enamored of modern things as all younger generations are disposed to be unless they are captivated by sick and demented hate ideologies. There are many better ways to appeal to their hopes for their futures other than threatening them with a "nuculer" (sic) hit.

The horrendous speech writer invented phrase -- "axis of evil" -- which Bush is now defending exposes a mind and spirit of a limited and troubled person beginning to recognize his massive failures.

No, Bush, you are not the second coming. And Jesus would have been appalled by your Gee-Whiz-Who-Me? contemptible misleadership of the U.S. You are not only a public embarrassment, but manifestly a dangerous menace as well. Resign! Get lost! Stop before you indeed bring on an apocalypse of WMD.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

And the Head of the Snake?

[Needless to say, if this report on the neck of the snake holds up, impeachment cannot lie far off -- perhaps the earlier the better to avoid more fiascoes? Ed Kent]


New Report: Rumsfeld 'Personally Involved' In Torture Allegations at Gitmo

Friday 14 April 2006

Salon reports new evidence that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was intimately involved in prisoner abuse at the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

According to a Dec. 20, 2005 Army inspector general's report on Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commanding general in charge of Gitmo, Rumsfeld approved an interrogation plan for Mohammed al-Kahtani, the alleged 20th hijacker:

In a sworn statement to the inspector general, [Lt. Gen. Randall] Schmidt described Rumsfeld as "personally involved" in the interrogation and said that the defense secretary was "talking weekly" with Miller.

Rumsfeld developed an interrogation plan that required the Gitmo detainee to "stand naked in front of a female interrogator, was accused of being a homosexual, and was forced to wear women's underwear and to perform 'dog tricks' on a leash." Schmidt said that the open-ended policies Rumsfeld approved, and that the apparent lack of supervision of day-to-day interrogations permitted the wide-scale abuse to take place.

The report contradicts Rumsfeld's earlier statements.

The people down there at Guantanamo Bay, under the President's orders, have been treated humanely and they should be treated humanely…There's no torture going on down there and there hasn't been. [WPHT-AM Philadelphia, 6/21/05]

And let there be no doubt, the treatment of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay is proper, it's humane, it's appropriate, and it is fully consistent with international conventions. No detainee has been harmed, no detainee has been mistreated in any way. [DoD Briefing, 1/22/02]

Only relatively low-ranking military officials have been punished but the abuse of detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere started at the top.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Halliburton Poisons GIs in Iraq

There was a chilling report on npr today to the effect that Halliburton (from which Cheney made his usual pile this year) was knowingly distributing polluted water to GIs in Iraq which has caused them numerous infections -- skin to gut -- which have persisted even after their return to the U.S. This was disclosed by a whistle blower ordered by his boss not to blow the cover when he discovered that polluted water from the Euphrates was not being treated by Halliburton but shipped full of pollutants to GIs who were then sickened by it, one of the officers so poisoned, and another medical officer. Halliburton has denied this report:

http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/hearings/hearing27/carter.pdf

The added horror not mentioned in the program is the comparable health hazards to Iraqis there: http://www.waterwebster.com/IraqWater.htm
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Segregation Persists

Law to Segregate Omaha Schools Divides Nebraska
By SAM DILLON
The law calls for dividing public schools into three
racially distinct districts, one black, one white and one
Hispanic.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/15/us/15omaha.html?th&emc=th

..................

It is sad to see this emblematic reminder that racism still divides the U.S. in terrible ways -- particularly in the north where geography still marks the border lines between ethnic communities.

The lesson here is that there is no simplistic legal solution for deeply embedded prejudices in societies. And the decline in the socially healing forces of social justice embedded in our religious traditions at the time MLK, Jr. voiced his dream does not bode well for the prospects of changing the hearts and minds of many now feeling the economic pressures on the U.S. presented by the global competition for jobs.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

The Raging Bull in the White House

Behind Bush's hard line on Iran
After 9/11, the administration may see the US as the only one prepared
to take action. By Mark Sappenfield
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0414/p01s01-usfp.html?s=hns

......................

Lest we don't take seriously the Bush threat to attack Iran, this article articulates the mentality at work -- including the peculiar argument that Iran has been our enemy since 1979 when the clerical revolt against the Shah occurred. Totally neglected is the prior fact of our having manipulated the Mossadeq government out and put the Shah in place in 1953:

http://www.iranonline.com/NewsRoom/Archive/Mossadeq/

and the Bush administration's stiffing of the outreach efforts of the previous Iranian administration and the obvious admiration for things American by the younger Iranians -- 70% of their population being 30 or younger.

One has the sense now of a raging bull in the White House -- increasingly frustrated by its manifest failures, lashing out at its many tormentors -- at home and abroad. Such is extremely dangerous to say the least.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Obscenity 9/11 Reruns to Win Death Penalty for Moussaoui

Final Struggles on 9/11 Plane Fill Courtroom
By NEIL A. LEWIS
Jurors in the sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui
listened raptly to the cockpit recording of hijackers and
passengers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/13/us/13moussaoui.html?th&emc=th

..................

The Bush administration has obscenely used our NYC area 9/11 disaster since Bush arrived here to mug for the cameras at the site to the present revenge seeking of Federal prosecutors in the Moussaoui sentencing. Obviously this guy is a fanatic bent on martyrdom rather than a life sentence in one of our jails. He was confined by the authorities when 9/11 occurred and, thus, had no opportunity to contribute to it. The Fifth Amendment clearly permits potential offenders to remain silent when arrested and threatened with prosecution.

For the weeks after 9/11 those of us living here cringed each time a plane passed over head. We mourned our lost ones or breathed sighs of relief at those spared (my wife who emerged from the subway for a meeting down there just after the first plane had hit and who was able to walk out without getting dusted with what turns out to be deadly debris). I rode the subways to work past Chambers Street where the stench of what we knew were still burning bodies haunted our lungs and spirits for months thereafter.

I deeply resent the revenge seeking of the Feds. At least if they are going to take that route they could have the decency to find some one with responsibility for that attack, which they seem incapable of doing.

Shame for the American justice system here and generally with its barbaric blood lusts. Let Moussaoui contemplate his wannabe crimes for a lifetime, as has Sirhan, Sirhan who murdered a potential president of the United States in a comparably mad state of mind:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirhan_Sirhan


I cannot comprehend how an allegedly religious nation can so immerse itself in constant brutal killing and revenge seeking -- here and abroad. Remember Abu Ghraib:

http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444

Never again!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

The Decline and Fall of Our Western Religions

I had the good fortune to be studying theology just at the turning point (1956-59) when the great theologians were projecting the best they could of what remained of the Christian tradition, some gains were to be made by John 23 in reforming the Catholic Church, Zionism still was a social philosophy that incorporated the interests of all, Islam had not yet been perverted by the current madness of the Islamist extremists. But one could see that Protestantism had begun its decline into the perilous fundamentalism that has now emerged as a hate religion -- spinning apocalyptic nightmares of a restored and then destroyed Israel and along with it the end of the world around us!

I can speak with some authority about the decline of religion because I studied it at it roots -- then being exposed as mythic expansion on the debris of ancient religions of all colors -- ranging from the nightmarish gods of the Babylonians with their contempt for humans to the Zoroastrian worship of the competing gods of light and darkness which spawned our parallel dual conceptions of a god of wrath eternally waging war with Satan and vice versa -- to the various prejudices enhanced by the Christ hater, St. Paul, who set running two millennia of pogroms, prejudices, and wars against all vulnerable members of human society -- women, Jews, gays, and non Christians of all persuasions.

I studied with Bob Handy at Union Theological Seminary the peculiar history of Anglo-American religion in America -- the Manifest Destiny conception of a New Israel that was exploited to justify genocide for native Americans, the use of a sloppy emotive ('born again') hate religion emerging from the Middle West and South to sanction slavery, hatred of strangers, and, thereafter, our enduring racism and contempt for successive waves of immigrants to our country -- Irish and Italian Catholics to the Latinos and African Americans now serving as our American caste system laborers.

My outrage is set against the reality that I also discovered in the life and Gospel of the original Christian, slaughtered by brutal Roman authority (NOT the Jews -- pace our anti-Semites) as a suspect revolutionary with his pleas on behalf of humanity and particularly the poor and meek ones repressed by Roman society. My grandfather, Charles Foster Kent, was one of those who published among numerous other scholarly works on the Bible, a Life of Jesus, attempting to get to the real man underlying the stories:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Foster_Kent

My own primary teachers along the way (some his students who conveyed a sense to me of the man who had died before my birth) recognized the perversions taking place in American religion, e.g. Reinhold Niebuhr's protest against the Billy Graham simplistic pieties:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/126/23.0.html

to Ernest Nagel's explanation as to why he was an atheist:

http://skeptically.org/againstreligion/id19.html

Both of these men were among the most humane and caring about humanity that I have had the privilege of knowing. They were last in line, perhaps, of men of such stature.

Yes, I am angered by the betrayal of the best features of our world's religions, which can easily be discovered in their sacred writings -- their concerns for peace and social justice that are now at such risk with the little men with little minds and withered spirits running things in far too many centers of power.

May some divinity save us all before it is too late. We live in the era of WMD --lightly proposed as appropriate responses to oil crises -- and an environment that is being rapidly destroyed by human hubris (greed). So ended the 600 years Pax Romana of Roman Empire some 16 hundred years ago in the 5th century.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

The Great Dumbing Down!

Panel Considers Revamping College Aid and Accrediting
By SAM DILLON
One proposal calls for scrapping the current system of
accreditation in favor of a National Accreditation
Foundation created by Congress and the president.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/education/12commission.html?th&emc=th

..................

This report has many troubling aspects -- the take over of academia by corporate Amerika is already well advanced with the patterns of funding that mandate ever more traveling part-time scholars -- overworked and over burdened with heavy teaching loads.

But the one truthful element that leaps out of the page for me is that we are NOT teaching the vast majority of our students how to do critical research and how to write an expressive and well framed critical essay.

When I was an undergrad in the 1950s we routinely did such projects for virtually all our courses apart from the sciences and math areas. Now we find the bulk of our students have not written even a 10 page paper by graduation -- many have done nothing more than a 6 page essay on this or that. Needless to say such means that our students have been taught:

a) to parrot back what they have been laboriously been presented by a teacher in classes -- they do take notes furiously.

b) to express top of the head opinions on this or that -- a la the brief spots on the typical TV news report. Certainly the contents of students' thinking seem to have been shaped by this media and I find that few have read extensively or read for pleasure. And most prefer to have a teacher present a 'web notes' version of an assigned reading rather that do the hard stuff of picking up ideas from reading on their own. Again and again I tell my students that they must read a text at least three times -- first a quick scan to get the from-what-to-what, then a detailed reading to figure what they do not understand, and finally a read through to put it all together and convert it from short to long memory status. I could torment them with quizzes, but to do so would be to further reduce learning to garbage-in-and-garbage-forgotten following a final exam. It is a hard stretch to encourage thinking, but at least my colleagues could give it a try with real research learning which requires more than brief quizzes, a mid term and a final exam never to be seen by the student once it has been handed in.

Our students deserve better in this era when they are going to be struggling hard to obtain and keep jobs in an economy in which CEOs have discovered that massive worker layoffs are a short route to raising the value of their stock options.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Cruel and Unusual Punishment!

Judges Set Hurdles for Lethal Injection
By ADAM LIPTAK
Judges in several states cite new evidence suggesting that
prisoners have endured agonizing executions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/us/12lethal.html?th&emc=th

..................

One of the cruelest features of American penal practice -- despised by virtually all civilized nations around the globe which have now abolished it -- is the imposition (with numerous prejudices) of the death penalty on the one in a hundred murderers unfortunate enough to have drawn the attention of the ratings hungry media. The report today on the 'humane' form of execution which supplements the tortures of the other four practices in the U.S. -- hanging, frying well done, suffocating in a gas chamber, and blowing to bits with a firing squad -- puts the lie to ANY form of 'humane' execution. Somehow Americans have been persuaded that only major physical torture counts with our Constitutional prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment." They ignore the mental horrors of living with such a sentence many long years -- and with some of those so tortured innocent of the crime for which they have been convicted. It is no wonder that a large percentage of those on our death rows are suicidal.

There is nothing like a death penalty crime in America to entertain the public. Now we have extended the game to Iraq and the absurd trial of Hussein, whom we are well on the way to converting to a martyr. And the obscenity of running by a jury the horrors of 9/11 to win death (and martyrdom) for a character who wants his death to be memorialized out there is sick making for all involved. Taking the life of a wanna be failed terrorist is no way going the heal the pain which we all feel about the horrible loss of lives that grim sunny day. I had my moments as a husband with a wife down there somewhere. But revenge killing is not the way to go. Killing is wrong except in self or other defense. And those who sponsor it for other reasons should be condemned as the 'terrorists' they, themselves, have become.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli in The Prince)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

General Zinni Critiques Bush Military Disasters

In his new book, The Battle for Peace:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Zinni

Anthony Charles Zinni, a retired general in the United States Marine Corps and a former Commander in Chief of U.S. Central Command, offers a devastating critique of the disastrous foreign policies of the Bush administration in the Middle East and elsewhere -- its failure to consolidate Afghanistan and make it the model for nearby regimes, its disruption of Iraq and nearby states, and its lack of significant support for Israeli/Palestininian peace. Zinni is currently speaking out (I heard him on Brian Lehrer's WNYC (Podcast available: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/ ) program yesterday) and his own website is currently jammed with apparent hits so that I had to access an alternate above.

The latest Bush fiasco is apparently floating the proposal to nuke Iran, a nation of mainly under 30s who have greatly admired the American life style. To threaten a nuclear attack upon them is not exactly the way to win friends and change regimes!

Listen to or read Zinni for a solid and detailed critique of what we have done wrong and what we have failed to do following 9/11 when we had the full sympathy of the world.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Nuking Muslims?!

Bush Ordered Declassification, Official Says
By DAVID E. SANGER and DAVID JOHNSTON
A senior administration official confirmed that President
Bush made the order in an effort to rebut war critics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/washington/10leak.html?th&emc=th

...................................

The damage is done.

Presumably the latest horrendous U.S. gaff -- that our military has been ordered to prepare a plan to hit Iranian nuclear plants with tactical atomic weapons -- was also authorized by Bush. Needless to say this disclosure terrifies no one in Iran, but outrages Muslims wherever -- and the rest of us who don't feature exterminating Iranians as though they were pesky termites. This totally mad move is in character with Bush's initial gaff to the effect that our war on Iraq was a "crusade" -- stirring up the culture wars with Bush's perverted notion of himself as a warrior for Jesus -- a contradiction in terms for any knowledgeable Christian and a perverse insult to the man of peace who gave his life for his well known ideals.

Bush is not only a war criminal -- he is a stupid one. He makes Adolph Eichman look like some sort of martyred saint in comparison with this peculiar 'Holocaust' with which Bush threatens world sanity and global peace. If one has not done so already, I suggest that any and all sign up for one of the censure/impeachment lists. Tom Harkin's will do. He will report back after the two week Congressional escape from all this madness: http://tomharkin.com/
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

The Right Wing's Perversion of America's Children!

Class-Action Lawsuit to Be Filed Over SAT Scoring Errors
By KAREN W. ARENSON
Three Minnesota law firms have begun a class-action lawsuit
against the College Board and one of its contractors over
scoring errors last October.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/us/09sat.html?th&emc=th

..................

It is good at long last to see this outfit under fire. I have been aware since I was, myself, a beneficiary of this corrupt system for sorting out and rewarding students -- not on the basis of their inherent abilities or promise as students, but rather their good fortune in being able to afford coaching on taking such exams -- was in total violation of the American ideal of equal opportunity.

Furthermore, I learned that those who run these operations cheat with full and admitted knowledge that they actually administer exams on which cheating is not only possible, but routine. When some of my students alerted me to a loophole which allowed such cheating, I checked and found that at least two law school deans were so aware of the cheating that their admissions committees adjusted for it and that the LSAT operation, itself, knew of the cheating, but protested that they could not afford the extra expenses involved in closing well known loop holes.

Needless to say, I.Q. testing is an American obsession spawned by the Animal psychologist, Edward Thorndike, who replaced John Dewey at Columbia Teachers College as the major American authority on education. Since that time American students have been increasingly distracted from real learning by a phony testing system that rewards the rich and punishes the poor -- with gradations and accidental allocations in between.

Shame on those who sponsor such stuff and would ram it down the throats of all American children. Such breeds the ugly racism of the Bell Curve -- darling of our right wingers who have it variously made -- often as prostitutes for Richard Mellon Scaife, inheritor of great wealth who funds the most virulent right wing U.S. propaganda organs.

These people are the real perverts who are most viciously abusing our American kids.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Support Bush Censure Petition

I have just signed Senator Tom Harkin's petition supporting the censure of Bush. He is hoping to collect a number of supporting email names during the two week recess. You may reach his site at:

http://tomharkin.com/

Please forward this message to any and all.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

The Money Changers

I guess that I have had it with the current Republican Party. These people are fueled by hatreds and prejudices and seem to have no compunctions about killing people -- directly in illegal wars to indirect attacks on the medical care of those most desperately in need. The following report from today's NY Times is all too emblematic:

Drug Plan's Side Effect Is Severe
By ALEX BERENSON
With the new Medicare drug program, thousands who take
pills to fight cancer have found themselves with new bills
to pay for their essential medicines.

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F0061FFD39540C7B8DDDAA0894DB494D81

..................

Needless to say ALL the other (civilized) developed countries make sure that their sick get covered by their nation's resources -- out of far more efficient disbursements of general tax revenues through single payer plans. Only in America have the greedy -- doctors and drug companies -- blocked medical care for all. It is time that we locked up our barbarians. None of these are Christians by any stretch of the imagination -- to call themselves such is a sacrilegious slander. Jesus would be appalled -- as he was by the money changers at the door to the Temple in his own day! [John 2:13-22] One smells here the stench of the anti-Christ.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

A Radical Proposal to Resolve the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict?

Israeli Attack in Gaza Strip Kills 4 Militants and a Child
By GREG MYRE
An Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip killed six
people and wounded about a dozen, Palestinian security
officials and medical workers said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/08/world/middleeast/08mideast.html?th&emc=th

..................

U.S. and Europe Halt Aid to Palestinian Government
BY STEVEN R. WEISMAN and CRAIG S. SMITH
However, the U.S. and the European Union said that aid
would flow to Palestinians through the United Nations and
other independent organizations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/08/world/middleeast/08hamas.html?th&emc=th

..................

05 Apr. 06

B'Tselem to the IDF: Make open-fire regulations public

B'Tselem today urged the IDF to publicize immediately the open-fire
regulations given to soldiers in the Occupied Territories. The request
comes after an IDF report that confirms the on-going critique of human
rights organizations that the regulations are unclear to soldiers. Since
the beginning of the intifada, the IDF has refused to publish the
open-fire regulations, which are provided to soldiers orally, and not in
writing. The ambiguity surrounding the regulations enables the military
high command to evade its responsibility for civilian deaths. >From
September 2000, IDF soldiers have killed at least 1,816 Palestinians who
were not participating in the fighting, 593 of whom were minors.

.........................

Lest we forget -- during the Carter years peace was achieved between Israel and Egypt with the sweetener of generous U.S. subsidies each year to both of them -- now having resulted in effect in our subsidizing the IDF and the settlement extensions across the Green Line.

Rather than cutting back funding for the elected (Hamas) government of the Palestinians, here is a ripe opportunity to use comparable subsidies to achieve a truce between these long warring peoples. Continuance of such subsidies would depend on the ending off of tit for tat. Needless to say the Bush administration is most likely too distracted otherwise in defending its messes created here and abroad to launch such an effort. But perhaps those of us in positions to do so should push such a move.

Responses?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Brooklyn College Students Win Major Fellowships

Not to boast excessively, our Brooklyn College philosophy majors have now recently won Rhodes (Lisette Nieves), Beinecke (Nick Pitsirikos), and Truman (Ryan Merola) highly selective advanced studies scholarships/fellowships. Two of these three are now among the 17 advisors to the StudentConcerns list, available to assist students with planning present research projects or future careers in such areas as law, medicine, journalism, community development, youth services, governmental agencies, ngo's, etc. Shall invite Ryan to join this list as an advisor in his own special areas of interest:

http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/bc/spotlite/news/index.php?link=032706

This list can be accessed by a Google check: "StudentConcerns" or directly at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns/

I use this list primarily to inform students in my classes of coming class or other interesting events. But any with such concerns are welcomed to join and contribute. Many former students remain on the list after they have left my classes. I recommend this device to faculty wherever as a useful tool to supplement their own teaching. It is very easy to set up a (free) Yahoo group list: http://groups.yahoo.com/

As interests have warranted, I have set up additional Yahoo lists noted in my signature. Others welcomed there. They are unmoderated and so sometimes wander off topic, but nevertheless include interesting contributors from around the globe. One can check them out and new members are welcome. I only exclude spammers and those who excessively violate netiquette.

--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Coping with On Campus Hate

[I sent the following to a friend who is concerned with hate (particularly anti-Semitism) on national campuses. Ed Kent]

Below I am posting a Columbia Spectator article on a low key effort to combat hate on campus -- you will recall that a Columbia faculty member was a Horowitz target.

When we had a comparable conflict at Brooklyn College several decades back -- we had Meir Kahane attacking from one direction and some outsiders distributing the Protocols from the other extreme -- we, faculty and students, not administrators who were initially suspicious, formed what was called the Multicultural Action Committee (MAC) which actively worked on resolving tensions. Renate Bridenthal (Holocaust refugee as a child and noted historian of same) did an exposé of the Protocols with students for wide distribution. MAC sponsored a number of things, e.g. panels re the conflict in Israel/Palestine attended by both Jewish and Muslim students. Needless to say the students were better at getting it together than some of their more embittered elders.

In this vein I would hope that efforts to resist anti-Semitism will not try to go it alone in dealing with hate.

Best, Ed

.............

Anti-Hate Group Rallies on Low Plaza
SHOCC Holds Afternoon Demonstrations, Meetings With Administrators

By Laura Brunts
Spectator Staff Writer

April 06, 2006

Some students just walked by, while others approached those dressed in black to take fliers and ask questions. Yet regardless of each individual’s response, the ad-hoc coalition Stop Hate on Columbia’s Campus got what they were looking for yesterday: something students would be unable to ignore.

Like the race-related protests two years ago on the Low steps, SHOCC’s demonstration forced anyone walking across campus—Columbia students, administrators, visiting high-schoolers­­—to pay attention to issues they may not have otherwise known about. But unlike the protestors in 2004, these students, though dressed in black, did not sit in silence.

Diverging from their plan to set up phone banks and have students call President Bollinger, SHOCC leaders decided that Tuesday’s circle demonstration was so successful they repeated the concept on a larger scale for Wednesday afternoon’s rally.

Leaders of SHOCC and other supporters formed circles on Low plaza to discuss the demands and individual students’ experiences with marginalization on campus. Anthony Walker, CC ’07 and a member of SHOCC designated to speak to the press, said that there were as many as six or seven circles at points during the day. SHOCC members chose this type of demonstration to enable them to interact more with curious students.

“People feel that protestors in general are screaming slogans and waving signs in their faces. We’re not trying to force anything on anybody,” Christien Tompkins, CC ’08 and a SHOCC member, said. “We were pleasantly surprised by how many people would just come up and join the circles ... and just talk. People really had a good feeling after it was over.”

Throughout the week, while SHOCC members canvassed the dorms and held planning meetings at night, many of the same students were in meetings with administrators during the day.

A group met with Columbia College Dean Austin Quigley, Dean of Student Affairs Chris Colombo, Dean of Academic Affairs Kathryn Yatrakis, and other administrators to discuss changes in the Core Curriculum. Other students met with Colombo, Associate Dean of Student Affairs Kevin Shollenberger, and Assistant Dean of Multicultural Affairs Melissa Aquino about expanding the Intercultural Resource Center and creating more safety on campus.

During the day Wednesday, University Chaplain Jewelnel Davis and Colombo both made appearances on the plaza to support the students.

“They were not participating with us, but the fact that they we­re out there, that they were recognizing what we were doing, and that someone noticed ... we were making our voices heard,” Walker said. He said the group received no response from the central administration during the day.

A written statement issued to Spectator Wednesday night emphasized Columbia’s commitment to the incredible diversity of the University and to condemning acts that are “not acceptable within our community’s standards.”

The statement also discussed the student leadership summit to be held this Thursday and Friday which will “find ways to ensure that our campus is both safe for all of our community’s members and, more importantly, is supportive of them.”

Walker said that the group’s future actions will depend on the administration’s response to yesterday’s demonstration. “We’re committed to continuing action if we don’t see the kind of response we want,” he said.

Owen Hearey contributed to this article.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Rockefeller Drug Laws Critic, Anthony Papa

Anthony Papa spent 12 years of a 15 year sentence in a NY prison (one of the 33 new ones built to house prisoners ensnared by the draconian Rockefeller drug laws) before he was pardoned by Governor Pataki.

My blog comment on a short article by him posted Friday led to a phone call, putting us in touch with our joint concern with the overuse of excessive sentences for non-violent drug crimes. If any wish to be in touch with him for their research papers, I have his phone number and his web site is: http://www.15yearstolife.com/

Anthony's entrapment paralleled almost exactly that of one of my former students, Zachary Berman, who similarly was tricked into delivering a package of drugs to a narcotics agent. Anthony is now an active opponent of the prison industrial complex which largely provides employment as guards in upstate prisons for displaced blue collar workers.

Check it out.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Back into Their Cages -- with Our Disastrous Republicans!

With a few notable exceptions (T.R. and Eisenhower, who both broke with the main lines of their party) Republican presidents have brought on national disasters -- Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Nixon, Reagan, both Bushes -- excessive expenditures and benefits for the super rich combined with corruption in high and low places. The departure of Delay is emblematic of the rot in a party that once had a constructive role to play -- until Lincoln was assassinated!

I well recall as a child in a birthright Republican family the claims that the Democrats were a crime-ridden party -- read supported by the newer immigrant groups and labor organizers. Then I went to college and met some real pols face to face. Prescott Bush, then on to his next wife, was manifestly a dummy, much as is his grandson -- hale fellow well met -- with those earlier Nazi ties. And I had the good fortune to meet some of our main Democratic politicians face to face -- Adlai Stevenson, Abe Ribicoff, Connecticut's first Jewish governor (1955-61) in a state with a considerable history of antiSemitism.

Since that time I have had reservations about some elements of the Democratic Party (starting with the Dixiecrats who sustained racism in the Southern states) and some of the missteps of those thrown into office by national tragedies (e.g. Johnson who stumbled into Vietnam with the naiveté of one not schooled in foreign affairs.). However, with a few exceptions the Democrats have been the party that gave a damn about ALL Americans while the Republicans (with some notable exceptions such as Robert A. Taft, conservative and competitive presidential candidate who lost out to our war hero general, Eisenhower, who nevertheless sponsored the public construction of low income housing) served only their friends and families.

What we are watching currently is the end of another Republican disaster march on our general economy in their private self interest which most likely will result in another crash which may make 1929 look like kids' play in comparison, given the big global players ready to profit from our losses -- China, India, Russia with all those energy reserves to put in play, and nearly all of our South of the border former vassal states in South America, the Caribbean, and Central America -- now in open revolt against American exploitation! Viva Hugo and Evo who are taking it all back with avengeance?

So when is it coming to an end? We shall see what happens in '06 and then in '08. Needless to say the media are mainly run by self-interested corporate interests these days. But as Lincoln noted, "You can fool all of the people [only] some of the time!" We are nearly at wake up time. And may they be recaged gently but firmly until another few generations at least have passed and the successor ones have similarly forgotten how bad things go when Republicans come to power.

Déjà vu for some of us with very long memories.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net