Tuesday, October 31, 2006

U.S.A. for Sale!

[While Bush has been in office the U.S. deficit has jumped from $20 trillion to $43 trillion. Needless to say this is a far walk out on very thin ice. As a knowledgeable Canadian friend points out, it is just a matter of time before the Japanese, Chinese, and others who own us cash in their chips. Ed Kent]


Dodging Taxes Is a New Wrinkle in the Stock Options Game
By ERIC DASH
Some executives may have backdated their stock options to
avoid paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in income
taxes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/30/business/30option.html?th&emc=th

--
"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/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/

Enemies of the People at Columbia University?

[Given the massive degeneration of the business ethics of our U.S. corporate leadership and the innumerable instances of their scamming of the public, one must suspect those bent on further corporate deregulation that now only minimally protects us from corporate domination and exploitation of people and politics -- here and abroad. Sad, then, it is to discover that some of the 'deregulators' per the following article have been recently centrally placed in the Columbia administrative structure.

President Lee Bollinger, what kind of university are you creating? One would rather hope that one centered in NYC would be the moral voice challenging such despoliation of the public interest. Are these the types whom you hope will raise the monies to snatch West Manhattanville for Columbia's own economic profit programs in biotechnology? Is Columbia to tip once more from being a community of scholars to a shady business operation?

I hear that the low income minority people living in 3333 Broadway at 135th St. (where anticipatory gentrification in response to Columbia's buy outs is running full force) are now being evicted at the rate of 10 to 12 families a month -- and being replaced by prosperous Caucasians, including Columbia students.

There are many decent people at Columbia who know the rules and perils of the property game. One spoke out in this article. More ought to than simply student protest groups and Spectator articles. However, the hazard to free speech in the private university is that their administrations control faculty salaries and housing, as is very much the case here at Columbia. Such implied threats are a heavy curb on free speech and the academic conscience.

So three cheers for Harvey J. Goldschmid: “It would be a shocking turning back to say only the commission can bring fraud cases,” said Harvey J. Goldschmid, a former S.E.C. commissioner and law professor at Columbia University. “Private enforcement is a necessary supplement to the work that the S.E.C. does. It is also a safety valve against the potential capture of the agency by industry.”

Ed Kent, Columbia Ph.D.]

NY Times, 10/29/06
Businesses Seek Protection on Legal Front By STEPHEN LABATON Two industry groups with close ties to Bush administration officials are hoping to swing the regulatory pendulum in corporate America's favor. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/business/29corporate.html?th&emc=th

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Roman Catholic Church Sabotaged by Its Own Sick Sex Dogmas

Bishops Draft Rules on Ministering to Gays
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Gay Catholic leaders who had read the draft predicted that
it would only further alienate gays and their families from
the church.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/us/29bishops.html?th&emc=th


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

It is sad to see the Roman Catholic Church ever more deeply entangled in its own deeply perverse sexual hang-ups. Celibacy was not the way for it to have gone -- it inevitably induces deviant sex (or worse pedophilia) wherever it is practiced. British (Anglican) academics not permitted to marry until relatively recent times also pounced on arriving undergraduates. Prisoners practice gay sex. We humans are irreducibly erotic animals and our natures ought be steered, not caged.

For the record I despise sexual exploitation -- prostitution, marital rape, seduction of the naive, promiscuity -- practiced by gays or heterosexuals. But as one trained in theology as well as philosophy I became well aware that the Roman Catholic perversities were not the heritage of Jesus of Nazareth to Christians. The hater, Saint Paul, who accused the Jews of killing Jesus and other slurs that induced two millennia of pogroms, denigrated women to their disadvantage in the Catholic Church to the present, and recommended that the only good gay was a dead one (in his Letter to the Romans) set running sick gender and ethnic attitudes that still pervade the pronouncements of this institution trapped in its own accidentally adopted dogmas. Abortion only became an issue along with contraception -- neither having any warrant in Scriptures or the source documents of Christianity -- the Gospels and Hebrew Bible -- by the accident of the First Vatican Council (1868) which produced right wing stuff such as denial of abortion, papal infallibility, etc. after the progressives had either died off in the unhealthy environment of Rome or left for home to get back to their duties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Vatican_Council

What are particularly disturbing are the killings of innocents ranging from alleged witches (100,000 women burned to death in the Inquisition) to the spread of AIDS with the opposition to contraception, the deaths of starving children whose parents can neither escape producing them in Catholic countries nor find means to care for them. Thousands of women desperately seeking abortions are butchered in Catholic dominated countries each year. The latest atrocity in one of them is that abortions -- even to save the life of the mother -- will probably be outlawed (women to be jailed from 6 to 30 years) in a current referendum supported by the Church in Nicaragua.

Needless to say decent Catholics are appalled by the sick declarations on such issues by the authoritarian Catholic hierarchy -- modeled on the worst features of the rule of the brutal and perverse Roman Emperors. This church was captured by the conversion of Constantine, not the other way around. Sadly I have watched too many of my peers and friends among the Catholic clergy -- nuns and priests -- leave their beloved institution because they could no longer stomach its abuses. In my field of philosophy of law the leading Catholic lights had their publications suppressed as were those of reform Catholic theologians, often expelled from their positions in Catholic colleges and universities for their criticisms of its hierarchy of men wearing dresses.

What a sad ending to an in some ways fine tradition -- not with a bang but with the whimpering of abused women and children!
--
"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/PrivacyRights
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

BARRICADES TO LEARNING

[I post the following not so much as a critique of the situation in Israel as a precautionary concern for us here in the U.S. I all too well recall the exclusion of various groups within the United States -- the quotas limiting Jewish students and near total exclusion of Jewish faculty at Yale when I was an undergrad there in the mid-1950s -- against which I editorialized. I found the same anti-Semitism at Vassar College when I started teaching there in the mid-1960s.

Again I found that the City University of NY (CUNY) was excluding both minority students (African American and Latino) and blue collar ethnics (Irish, Italian, etc.) when I was living in Harlem as a graduate student at Columbia (I could get students by then into Yale who were excluded from CCNY!). There I worked for J. Raymond Jones (the "Harlem Fox" and powerful Democratic leader) to open up CUNY where I returned to do the bulk of my teaching variously at Hunter, CCNY and Brooklyn College.

I wonder now whether 'Homeland Security' will start the exclusion process all over again? We have had a touch of exclusion at CUNY of the groups mentioned above as previously restricted and one hears of bars to students and faculty from overseas who are crudely labeled as 'security risks' -- highly respected scholars who are denied entrance to the country to attend general academic conferences. And watch the Minute Men

http://www.minutemanproject.com/

and FIRE

http://www.thefire.org/

contingents at work to exclude respectively Latinos and Muslims.

The U.S. has an ugly history of attacks on selected disfavored groups. We only placed our Japanese Americans in concentration camps during WW2 (with expropriation of their properties). But one third of those nearly 3,000 lynched during the early 20th century were new immigrants and Jews, not African Americans.

Sadly, the exclusionary processes and violations of due process rights initiated in South Africa (preventive detention) and then emulated in Israel, have most recently been practiced by the Bush administration with its Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and domestic anti-Muslim gulag practices.

They said it could not happen here, but ...? Ed Kent]

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

PALESTINIAN WOMAN FIGHTING AGAINST BARRICADE TO LEARNING
By Joel Greenberg, Chicago Tribune, October 27, 2006

ANATA, West Bank -- With her retiring manner, Sawsan Salameh seems an unlikely person to challenge the Israeli security authorities.

But after she was refused entry to Israel to pursue a doctorate at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Salameh, 29, went to court in a case that has focused attention on a ban that bars new Palestinian students from Israeli universities.

Salameh was accepted this year with a full scholarship for doctoral studies in theoretical chemistry at the Hebrew University, whose science campus is a 20-minute drive from her home in the village of Anata. But because she lives in the West Bank, she cannot enter Israel without a permit, like most Palestinians.

Her repeated applications for entry were turned down as part of the ban on newly enrolled Palestinian students, which Israeli officials say has been imposed for security reasons.

"I was surprised and angry," Salameh said. "I thought my dream had ended and that there was nothing I could do."

A request directed to the authorities by Salameh's adviser, professor Raphael Levine of the Hebrew University, also failed to produce results. An acquaintance put her in touch with an Israeli human-rights group, Gisha, which works to ease army restrictions on Palestinians' freedom of movement.

Gisha joined Salameh in petitioning Israel's Supreme Court to overturn the entry ban, and the court recommended last week that the state negotiate with her lawyers to allow her entry on a limited basis to pursue her studies. But the state has yet to respond, and on Wednesday it asked for a two-week extension.

The Gisha lawyers argued for a repeal of the sweeping ban on entry by new Palestinian students and a return to the practice of examining permit applications on an individual basis.

Gisha asserted that by denying Salameh entry, when there are no doctoral programs at Palestinian universities in the West Bank, Israel is violating its obligation under international law to allow normal civilian life in areas it occupies.

"Israel should not be preventing Palestinian students from studying just because they are Palestinians," said Sari Bashi, director of Gisha and one of the lawyers representing Salameh.

Israeli state representatives argued to the court that responsibility for education in the West Bank lies with the Palestinian Authority, not Israel.

Lt. Adam Avidan, the spokesman for the Civil Administration, the Israeli military government in the West Bank, said that students are not being targeted by the ban but that they are part of an age group that has been designated as a potential security risk. Profiling of possible attackers
has led to a general ban on entry by unmarried Palestinians ages 16 to 35.


Security situation

"The decision was taken because of the deterioration of the security situation in recent years," Avidan said, referring to Palestinian suicide bombings and other deadly attacks during the uprising that broke out in 2000. Some of the suicide bombers have been women.

But the state has not claimed in court that Salameh is a security risk, and one of the justices, Elyakim Rubinstein, suggested that because the potential number of Palestinian doctoral candidates seeking to study in Israel is limited, exceptions could be made. The judge expressed concern that the sweeping ban could hurt chances for Israeli-Palestinian cooperation.

Bashi said that three other Palestinian students seeking to study in Israel have approached Gisha and that the ban is having a chilling effect on potential applicants and institutions.

Currently there are 14 Palestinians studying in Israeli universities and they will continue to receive entry permits, Avidan said. Before the outbreak of the uprising, significantly higher numbers of Palestinians studied in Israel.

Levine, Salameh's adviser, said that the new ban was targeting precisely the Palestinians with whom Israel should be seeking contact.

"I would call it counterproductive," he said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles, where he is teaching at UCLA. "We should be doing the opposite, looking for whoever we can to build a bridge to. It's also not in the spirit of what a university is, or the tradition of the Jewish people, that puts such a high value on learning."

Top officials of six Israeli universities have written to Defense Minister Amir Peretz, asking him to cancel the student entry ban and to examine each case individually. Similar appeals have been made by the ministers of education and science.


Helping girls, women

Salameh is a science teacher and an elected member of the local council in Anata, where she is establishing a center to provide study help for girls and vocational training for women. She says her hope is that after earning a doctorate she could teach at a Palestinian or even Israeli
university, a significant step at a time when there are few female professors at Palestinian academic institutions.

Allowing Palestinian students to study in Israel could help counter the negative effects of the conflict between the two sides, Salameh said.

"Academic communication could increase understanding and help the political situation," she said. "We only see Israeli soldiers, not ordinary people and academics, and this would be good for both of us, Palestinians and Israelis. It would be a chance to see the Israelis' brighter side."
--
"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/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Reading Assignments for Voters

[It occurred to me that some might be interested in some of the following assignments to my students this next week which in many ways are a reflection of the coming election positions.

The Republicans combine the Manifest Destiny and libertarian impulses mentioned below -- racism towards Latinos and greedy grasping of private wealth a la Nozick, who had started as an SDS radical as a student at Columbia, versus the Democratic concern for the well-being particularly of the worst off reflected in Rawls' notion of justice as fairness.

I could give you a run down of where the radical right wing evangelicals came from -- origins in mid-nineteenth century middle American anti-intellectual religion combined then as today with money-making scams -- come into town and give a hell fire sermon directed to the local banker who hands over a generous offering to save his soul -- and then off to the next town to repeat the collection process.

Our major drug companies (e.g. Upjohn) got started with elixirs (laced with cocaine) being sold off the back of wagons to ladies so that they would buy a number of bottles next spring's visit.
Ed Kent]

Subject: Course Assignments for Week of 10/29 Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2006 08:28:29 -0400 From: Ed Kent

To: Student Concerns

Philosophy of Law (43) will combine American Legal Realism -- a handout on reasons for rule uncertainty given out last week -- and H.L.A. Hart's Concept of Law. Hart was the major British (and perhaps) 20th century legal theorist:

http://www.law.ox.ac.uk/jurisprudence/hart.shtml http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._A._Hart http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/hart.html

Ethics and Society (6) will continue our exploration of the American class system being apparently reconstructed with the radical revision currently of educational and job options for many Americans. Here are a few historical websites:

Manifest Destiny: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny

and two 20th century American philosophers' conceptions of social justice:

John Rawls' justice as fairness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rawls

Robert Nozick - Locke's (libertarian) conception of rights of property revived: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Nozick

Hopefully you have got a good start on your research project. The semester is now racing to a close.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

VOTE Nov. 7! Your future may depend on it!
--
"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://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/ http://www.bloggernews.net

[cpthebron] Hebron Reflection: Strangers in my home]

[There are many things that I scan or that cross my screen that would be grounds for condemnation both of the Israelis and the Palestinians -- the killings, maimings, and constant manifestations of hatred and disrespect on both sides. I don't pass most of these along. Perhaps the personal observations such as this one from a caring outsider are more pertinent, if attended to by those who are supporters of the hatred on one side or the other over there. Needless to say, the horrors being generated in Iraq and Afghanistan by the U.S. are more to be condemned -- how many new dead and maimed today -- and the brutal impact on all those children? Ed Kent]


Subject: [cpthebron] Hebron Reflection: Strangers in my home
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2006 05:51:01 -0400
From: cpt hebron
Reply-To:
To: Yahoo

Reflection: Strangers in my home

by Jan Benvie

October 2006



Until last week no one had ever entered my home without my permission. I have always had the right to say no when someone came to my door. On Friday 13th October that all changed, when a group of Israeli soldiers entered the home I share with other CPTers, here in the Old City of Hebron.



The soldiers knocked and waited until someone answered the door. We were reluctant to let them in. They listened to what we had to say, but then they pushed their way in. We do not allow people to bring weapons into our home and asked them to leave their guns at the door, but they refused. Ultimately we had no choice.



They did not move furniture or search in cupboards. Their visit was short. They were polite and civil, but that didn't make me feel any less powerless.



After they left I could not relax. Much later, when I went to my bed I could not sleep. I felt that my private space had been violated because unwelcome strangers had been in my bedroom.



The next day I witnessed a group of Israeli soldiers entering a Palestinian home. They did not knock, but forced their way in, locking the door behind them. The family had no choice, entrapped in their home with armed soldiers.



The soldiers were rude, they made obscene comments about Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) that caused distress to the Muslim family. The family asked them to leave. They refused. The soldiers shouted. They moved furniture and emptied cupboards and drawers onto the floor. They pulled covers from the bed. After 2 ½ hours they left, leaving behind them weeping women, bruised men and a ransacked home.



When I came home I could not relax. That night I could not sleep. I kept thinking of the Palestinian family. I remembered how I had felt the night before. How could the family ever feel safe in their home again? How could they sleep in their bed? Did they wash and clean, as well as tidy, in an effort to expunge all traces of the evening's violation?



And, to my shame, as I lay in bed trying to sleep, I also felt glad it hadn't been me.


__________________

Christian Peacemaker Teams is an ecumenical initiative to support violence reduction efforts around the world. To learn more about CPT's peacemaking work, please visit our website at: http://www.cpt.org Photos of our projects may be viewed at: http://www.cpt.org/gallery
--
"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/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Medical Views of 9/11's Dust Show Big Gaps???

[Kojo Davis, a student this semester in my Philosophy of Law course who worked on the clean-up after 9/11 at the World Trade Center site and who has suffered lung damage along with some 20,000 other workers and volunteers there, is currently working both with the CUNY administration to devise programs to assist such injured in establishing new lives as CUNY students and also working with Paul Moses, Pulitzer Prize winning Brooklyn College faculty member, on a book on his and his fellow workers' experiences which include both health damage and also denial of payments of wages earned at the work site by corporations paid for their work by public agencies which did not pass along these payments to the workers. Despite the suggestion here of the Times article to the effect that the connections between the exposure to toxic materials at the site and health injury is still to be proved with certainty, 70% of some 12,000 workers and volunteers screened thus far by Mount Sinai hospital in NYC manifest both lung and voice box damage. Ed Kent]


Medical Views of 9/11's Dust Show Big Gaps
By ANTHONY DePALMA
The debate about the relationship between toxic particles
and disease will be a central issue in a flood of Sept.
11-related lawsuits.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/24/nyregion/24toxic.html?th&emc=th


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

Medical Views of 9/11's Dust Show Big Gaps

By ANTHONY DePALMA
Published: October 24, 2006

In 2004, Kenneth R. Feinberg, special master of the federal Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund, awarded $2.6 million to the family of a downtown office worker who died from a rare lung disease five months after fleeing from the dust cloud released when the twin towers fell. That decision made the worker, Felicia Dunn-Jones, a 42-year-old lawyer, the first official fatality of the dust, and one of only two deaths to be formally linked to the toxic air at ground zero.

The New York City medical examiner’s office, however, has refused to put her on its official list of 9/11 victims, saying that by its standards there was insufficient medical evidence to link her death to the dust.

Mrs. Dunn-Jones’s case shows how difficult it can be to prove a causal connection with any scientific certainty — and how even government agencies can disagree. With thousands of people now seeking compensation and treatment for dust exposure, the debate about the relationship between the toxic particles and disease will be a central issue in the flood of Sept. 11-related lawsuits. Health experts are starting to document the connections, but any firm conclusion is still years away.

Most of the suits involve workers who spent weeks and months on the pile at ground zero and say the city and other agencies failed to protect them from the toxic dust. Others involve residents who say they were made sick by dust that settled in their homes. Mrs. Dunn-Jones was among those downtown office workers caught in the initial fallout.

The question that arises in all these cases is straightforward: Can a link between the dust and disease be proved with scientific certainty? The answer is anything but simple.

“Certainty is a word we always dance around,” said Joseph Graziano, associate dean for research at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. For him, searching for the cause of disease is like developing film. “At first you see a faint image of what the real picture is,” Dr. Graziano said, “and then, over time, you see it with much more clarity. In these relatively early times, the image is still faint.”

It can take decades to approach any degree of certainty. For instance, only after years of observation did doctors agree that there was a strong link between asbestos and diseases like asbestosis and mesothelioma.

In legal cases, “a reasonable degree of medical certainty” is considered the gold standard in making a causal connection. Last week, a federal judge cleared the way for thousands of workers’ lawsuits to go to trial. When the cases are heard, any proof that does not meet that legal standard is likely to be challenged.

But outside the courtroom, scientists say, even a less rigorous link could be sufficient to warrant expanding the range of illnesses covered by treatment programs, and to serve as the basis for issuing cautions to people in high-risk groups. When the health effects are too new or the evidence is too vague for a strong link, lesser indicators like the concurrence of different studies have to be relied on.

For example, nearly every ground zero study shows that workers and residents exposed to the dust in the hours after the collapse have suffered the worst health problems. The consistency in that data has helped doctors monitor and treat people since Sept. 11.

And it may also help explain why Mrs. Dunn-Jones, a dynamic civil rights lawyer with the United States Department of Education, became so sick so quickly. As she was swallowed by a whirling dust plume filled with asbestos, benzene, dioxin and other hazards when the first tower fell, all she could do was cover her nose and mouth as she fled from her office one block north of the World Trade Center.

It was night by the time she got home to Staten Island. “She was in a state of shock,” her husband, Joseph Jones, recalled. Her clothes were still dusty, but he didn’t pay much attention. “I was just so happy to see her,” he said.

For the next few months, life returned to normal, until Mrs. Dunn-Jones developed a cough. In January 2002, the cough grew worse. On Feb. 10, she suddenly stopped breathing and died.

Mr. Jones, 54, an assistant manager at a Brooklyn pharmacy, was stunned. Then, when he received the official death certificate months later, he was shocked to see an unfamiliar word — sarcoidosis.

“Even though I was in the medical field, I had never heard of it,” he said.

After reading several medical reports on sarcoidosis — including one by Dr. David J. Prezant, deputy chief medical officer of the New York Fire Department — Mr. Jones and his lawyer, Richard H. Bennett, wondered if Mrs. Dunn-Jones’s mysterious death could be linked to 9/11 dust because sarcoidosis, which produces microscopic lumps called granulomas, on vital organs, is often associated with exposure to environmental hazards.

They took the case to Mr. Feinberg and the victim compensation fund, which gave $7 billion to the families of those killed or injured on 9/11.

Mr. Feinberg initially expressed doubts about the claim and demanded to see definitive medical evidence linking Mrs. Dunn-Jones’s sarcoidosis to the dust.

Dr. Prezant, who declined to be interviewed for this article, was one of two experts who testified at a hearing conducted by Mr. Feinberg. In the first four years after 9/11, he found 20 cases of sarcoidosis in the Fire Department, a rate of 80 per 100,000 in the first year (with treatment, all are now stable), compared with a national rate of fewer than 6 per 100,000, according to the American Thoracic Society.

The other expert was Dr. Alan M. Fein, a clinical professor of medicine at the New York University School of Medicine. He, too, was skeptical at first, but he said he changed his mind after reviewing Mrs. Dunn-Jones’s medical record, including the autopsy report. “I’m comfortable saying her death was caused by exposure to the dust,” Dr. Fein said in an interview.

In March 2004, Mr. Feinberg agreed, making Mrs. Dunn-Jones’s death the only dust-related fatality recognized by the fund. Only one other death has been formally linked to the dust: In April, a New Jersey coroner determined that James Zadroga, 34, a New York City police detective, had died of a disease similar to sarcoidosis, also caused by his exposure to ground zero dust.

Mr. Jones welcomed the settlement from the victim compensation fund, and believes that his wife was a 9/11 victim as surely as if she had died in the towers. He sent Mr. Feinberg’s decision to the city’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Charles S. Hirsch, and asked that his wife be put on the official list so that her name could be read on Sept. 11. Dr. Hirsch refused, a spokeswoman said, because the available evidence did not prove the connection “with a reasonable degree of medical certainty”— the highest medical standard generally used in legal cases.

Mr. Feinberg’s decision had been based on a different standard: a preponderance of medical evidence.

That was proof enough for the Staten Island Memorial Commission, which has engraved Mrs. Dunn-Jones’s name on the bone-white memorial on the island’s north shore.

Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, who has fought to get medical care for 9/11 victims, said the contradictory conclusions about Mrs. Dunn-Jones’s death underscored the importance of deciding who has the final say on causal links. “They should be medical decisions, not political ones,” she said, suggesting that city officials may have a conflict of interest in making such determinations since the city is a defendant in the ground zero workers’ lawsuits.

She has introduced a bill to reopen the federal compensation fund to people whose illnesses became known after the original eligibility period ended in 2003.

In the effort to collect definitive data, Dr. John Howard, the federal government’s 9/11 health coordinator, recently circulated a draft set of autopsy protocols that directs pathologists to use a standard of proof that establishes both biological plausibility and unequivocal evidence of a causal connection to the dust. But doctors and elected officials have said those standards are so restrictive that almost no death could be linked to the dust for years to come. A spokesman for Dr. Howard said the guidelines were being refined.

In another effort, the Mount Sinai Medical Center, which has screened thousands of ground zero workers, has begun a long-term study of the incidence of diseases to identify any rates that exceed national averages.

“Right now we’re in the process of confirming every case of interstitial lung disease, every cancer, every sarcoidosis that has been reported to us by responders in their visits,” said Dr. Jeanne M. Stellman, director of the public health program at Columbia University, is leading the data collection project.

“We are actively trying to determine whether Detective Zadroga and Mrs. Dunn-Jones are alone,” she said. “And we are trying to find a way to do this that is scientifically correct while also being responsive to the needs and fears of the communities involved.”
--
"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

Thursday, October 19, 2006

American Pedophilia

[Since Nabokov published his best seller, Lolita, Lolitahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita it has been ever more apparent that pedophilia is deeply embedded in the American psyche -- help! Ed Kent]


Young, Cold and for Sale

By BOB HERBERT
Published: October 19, 2006
NY Times Op-Ed

Atlanta

The girl approached me on a desolate stretch of Metropolitan Parkway, about halfway between the airport and the clustered lights of the downtown skyline. The night was unusually cold and she was shivering a little. She told me she was 15, but she didn’t look more than 12.

It was bad enough that the child was outside at all at midnight. The fact that she was turning tricks was heartbreaking. I explained that I was a reporter for The New York Times and asked if she would wait while I went to get someone to help her. She looked surprised. “I don’t need any help,” she said.

I had already spent a night traveling with undercover vice cops, and they had pointed out the different neighborhoods in which under-age prostitutes, some as young as 10, roamed the streets.

“The girls are exploited in every sense of the word,” said Lt. Keith Meadows, who heads Atlanta’s vice unit. “The men are all over them — the pimps, the johns. The girls get beaten. That’s common. They’re introduced to drugs. And the pimps take all the money. It’s sad.

“I would say that in most cases, the girls never knew their fathers. A lot of them were abused at home and they end up in the clutches of these pimps, putting their trust in someone they shouldn’t have.”

Atlanta, for a variety of reasons, has become a hub of child prostitution and other forms of commercial sexual exploitation of children. The overall market for sex with kids is booming in many parts of the U.S. In Atlanta — a thriving hotel and convention center with a sophisticated airport and ground transportation network — pimps and other lowlifes have tapped into that market bigtime.

“These guys are even going into rural Georgia and getting these girls and bringing them into Atlanta,” said Alesia Adams, a longtime advocate who has worked with the courts and social service agencies to assist young girls who are lured into the sex trade.

Kaffie McCullough, the project director of a federally sponsored intervention program, said Atlanta’s juvenile prostitution problem “is a lot bigger than anybody would really like to know.” The sex trade in Atlanta is “a huge, huge, huge industry,” she said, and the involvement of kids under 17, which is the age of consent in Georgia, is a substantial part of it.

Stephanie Davis, the policy adviser on women’s issues for Mayor Shirley Franklin, agreed. “Sex tourism is coming south,” she told me. “There is advertising that I’ve seen on the Internet and other places that actually targets the New York market, urging men to come to Atlanta for the day and fly back home that night.”

The risks for pimps and other exploiters of children are low, and the payoff is often enormous. Demand is increasing for younger and younger prostitutes, in part because of the cultural emphasis on the sexual appeal of very young women and girls, and in part because of the widely held belief among johns that there is less risk of contracting a disease from younger prostitutes.

For the girls, life on the street can be hellish. A study released last fall by the Atlanta Women’s Agenda, an initiative of the mayor’s office, noted that the girls are always highly vulnerable to rape, assault, robbery and murder, not to mention arrest and incarceration. Added to that are the psychological risks, which are profound.

The girl who approached me on Metropolitan Parkway had walked alone across an empty, rundown parking lot. The usual practice, I had been told, was for johns in cars to pick up the girls and then drive behind an abandoned commercial building, of which there were plenty in the area.

The girl said she had a “boyfriend,” which is the word the girls use for their pimps. When I asked if her boyfriend knew what she was doing, she said, “He told me to do it.”

She lifted her chin and proudly showed me a cheap necklace she was wearing. “He gave me this,” she said. “He loves me.”

I tried to think of a way to bring the girl to the attention of some social service agency, or even the police. But taking her into my rented car, even if she had been willing to go with me, was out of the question. I looked around, hoping to spot a passing patrol car.

The girl’s bangs fluttered as the wind picked up. She looked cold. “I gotta go,” she said.
--
"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

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

More British Bigotry -- the 'Veil!!

[The British are amongst the most ethnocentric of European nations. They are often benign in expressing and acting on such -- Mill merely noted that some peoples were not quite ready to act in a civilized way and, thus, needed to be supervised (as he did in his job capacity running the East India Company that in turn ran India). The recent uproar over veils which Blair has joined strikes me as being of this character. I was in a waiting room the other day when a woman fully veiled (with only eyes showing) arrived with her baby stroller for an appointment here in NYC and no one batted an eye. Our separation of church and state was a wise move back then. Let's hope we can stick to it. Ed Kent]

Blair Criticizes Full Islamic Veils as 'Mark of Separation'
By ALAN COWELL
The British prime minister joined the increasingly
corrosive debate over the use of the Islamic veil.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/18/world/europe/18britain.html?th&emc=th
--
"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

Saturday, October 14, 2006

The Bush (Neo-Con) Fiascoes?

This morning I distributed an all too persuasive article pointing out in effect that we have blown it in Iraq:

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

http://www.vanityfair.com/features/general/061004fege01

Rules of Engagement
On November 19, 2005, in Haditha, during Kilo Company's third tour of duty in Iraq, a land mine planted by insurgents exploded beneath a Humvee, killing a 20-year-old Marine. What happened next—the slaughter of 24 Iraqi men, women, and children—was not entirely an aberration. These actions were rooted in the very conduct of the war. As the men of Kilo Company face investigation, the author exposes the political, military, and human realities that now make such carnage routine
By WILLIAM LANGEWIESCHE

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

Presumably the Iraqis -- probably now divided into their 3 disparate communities -- Kurd, Sunni, and Shiite -- will be left to determine their own destinies -- where they should have been in the first place according to the only age old formula that works for human communities. It looks as though the Brits will be out of there before much longer and with them probably U.S. troops as well.

And the news that the Canadians are not worried about a North Korean nuke heading towards Toronto (which I read somewhere sleepily scanning the headlines here and there) is probably reassuring for us and others as well. Even such an horrendous regime is wise enough not to risk massive retaliation simply to express itself as a world force by sending missiles errantly here or there.

Iran now looks to have gotten a similar free pass, given the disarray demonstrated now by the coalition of the (for less) willing assembled by Bush to launch his mindless attack on Iraq. Probably we shall see some sort of standoff in the area between the Israeli military and the rest of the Muslim wannabe suicide club members.

Perhaps some sane ones down the line will even manage to redirect attention to restoring Afghanistan -- the weapons testing turf of the Soviets as well as us for too many decades -- to some hope of a future less mindless than that of a Taliban fix? And there remains Dafur to recapture from the renegade Sudanese regime that is practicing the most blatant racism being currently manifested globally?

Another few weeks to go to the U.S. election and then some determination as to whether the boy chasing Republicans will be tossed out of office and and a chastened Bush administration left to wither whither?

Perhaps sanity will return to the U.S. as the Fox News ratings begin to slip beneath the waves? Or should one say into the quagmire they and others of their ilk have created? Where will Rummy go? Will Cheney do his party a favor by managing a terminal heart attack, allowing his replacement by a conveniently situated ex-prisoner of the North Vietnamese?

Whatever. Things seem to be changing and any change most likely will be for the better -- am I too much the optimist? For the sake of the next generation I hope not.
--
"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

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

CU Presses Minutemen Investigation

[Certainly, even the worst -- short of inciting to riots or other crimes -- should be permitted to express their views -- particularly on a university campus. The Minutemen, by all reports, look to be an offensive and potentially dangerous vigilante operation, targeting manifestly Latinos: http://www.minutemanproject.com/ One can, thus, understand the outrage felt by the latter and any of the others of us offended by such gross racist bigotry. I would hope this fact would be observed by Columbia as a mitigating factor in any disciplinary considerations. Needless to say Columbia should have anticipated disruption in this instance and made provisions to moderate it. Ed Kent, Columbia Ph.D. and neighborhood resident who watched in horror first hand the bust of '68 in which innocent students and faculty were brutally beaten by outer boro cops called in to evict students occupying buildings who had already departed peacefully through underground passageways.]

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

CU Presses Minutemen Investigation
Disciplinary Procedures for Protesters Still Undecided
By Laura Brunts
Issue date: 10/11/06 Section: News Columbia Spectator

Almost a week after students and other audience members rushed the stage during a speech by Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, administrators have still not reached a decision on what disciplinary measures will be used to deal with those involved.

Student Affairs staff members have been in contact with specific groups since last week, but administrators have not yet approached individual students involved in the melee on stage.

"It's simply too early to make any judgment about whether there are disciplinary actions that should be taken, but ... there are very long-standing procedures that we follow in these cases. This is not something we take lightly," University President Lee Bollinger said at a Monday press conference announcing Columbia's Nobel Prize winner, Edmund Phelps.

"My own view is that taking a stage, seizing a stage, when there's a speech, is inappropriate and does constitute a disruption. Whether or not that happened here, what the explanation is of those who may have done that, is a matter for particular adjudication within the process," he added.

What process the administration will use, however, remains unclear. In most cases, student discipline is left to the discretion of the deans of the individual schools, a procedure called Dean's Discipline.

The Rules of University Conduct, however, outline special rules for demonstrations, rallies, and picketing "to protect the rights of free expression," according to the Facts About Columbia Essential To Students handbook. A student charged with a serious violation of the rules has a choice between Dean's Discipline and a more formal procedure. Punishments under this process range from a "disciplinary warning" to expulsion.

"The University cannot determine, until the investigation is complete, which disciplinary procedure will be used," University spokesman Robert Hornsby said on Tuesday.

As for how Columbia will deal with individuals from outside the University, Bollinger said Monday that "there are other ways that that can be dealt with, particularly through criminal processes, and we'll just have to see how this unfolds."

Stephen Rittenberg, senior vice provost for academic administration, is in charge of Columbia's investigation, which Hornsby said may include administrators outside of Public Safety. Although Hornsby could not say what specific means will be used, there is a wealth of information already in the public domain, including photographs and video footage from a variety of media outlets.

So far, the protesters who rushed the stage have not been singled out by the administration. David Judd, SEAS '08 and president of the International Socialist Organization, said he has communicated with Jason Anthony, the student activities coordinator for student affairs.

"The people on stage-as such-have had no administrative contact, even at the advisor level, that I know of," Judd said in an e-mail. "It's weird, I think, that they're conducting an investigation about a very public event and yet haven't informed anybody in particular that they are being investigated. ... We're happy to leave the next move to the administration for now, although of course we're very curious."

General Studies Dean of Students Mary McGee sent out an e-mail Tuesday evening to the School of General Studies, inviting students to meet with her if they were involved in the protest. She said she and GS Assistant Dean Dominic Stellini "would like to discuss ... our understanding of how the University is proceeding in response to this event."

Chris Colombo, dean of student affairs for Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science, who was present at the meeting with Bollinger, also met with the Chicano Caucus Tuesday morning and plans to talk to the Columbia University College Republicans. The two groups asked to meet with him directly.

Bollinger, McGee, Columbia College Dean Austin Quigley, and other high-level Columbia administrators also met with leaders from the undergraduate student councils, the University Senate, and various governing boards Tuesday afternoon in Lerner C555.

The group discussed the protest in the context of the new student affairs-led Community Principles Initiative. Much of the conversation was focused on how to allow controversial speakers to come to campus while maintaining an open dialogue, according to CC Student Council president Seth Flaxman, CC '07.

"One thing that's clear ... is that the event, taken in totality, was unsuccessful," he said. "No one wants to have a repeat of that-no one."

John Davisson and Tom Faure 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 cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Olmert wooing hard-line fascists to Israeli government?

[Khalid Amayreh Is an American trained journalist who lives with his young family in the West Bank. He writes for British and Arab publications and serves as one of the advisors to the StudentConcerns list. Avigdor Lieberman is reported to have the highest current poll support of any Israeli politician: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avigdor_Lieberman
Ed Kent]

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/am/publish/article_20190.shtml

Analysis
Olmert wooing hard-line fascists to government
By Khalid Amayreh
Oct 11, 2006, 00:25


Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been holding talks with the extremist right-wing Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman
an apparent effort to get him to join the government, substantially weakened by the recent war with Hizbullah.

Lieberman, a former cabinet minister and ally of former Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, is the head of the Yisrael Beitenu ( Israel is our home) party, considered one of the most openly fascist political parties in Israel.

Israeli press sources have revealed that Olmert held talks with Lieberman on Friday, 6 October with the main topics centering on Lieberman’s demands for a substantial transformation of the Israeli political system.

The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported that both Olmert and Lieberman agreed to back a bill to make changes in the Israeli political system when it will be submitted to the Knesset for a preliminary reading.

During the meeting, which reportedly was arranged at Olmert’s request, both viewed favorably the prospect of Lieberman’s party joining the government.

In recent weeks, it was widely rumored that Olmert might ask Lieberman to assume the portfolio of defense in case the Labor Party, headed by the current Defense Minister Amir Peretz, decided to quit the government.

Ha’aretz, quoting sources close to Kadima party (Olmert’s party) described Lieberman as an “attractive coalition partner” who is interested in joining the government.

Lieberman has been calling for the adoption of a “presidential system” that would very much look like America’s form of government. Lieberman also reportedly advocates a “constitution” that would sanction and institutionalize the official Israeli state policy of discrimination against non-Jews.

The possible inclusion of Lieberman’s party to the government indicates that Olmert is determined to keep up the present slow-motion genocide against the Palestinians as well as creating more “facts” in the West Bank by building more and more Jewish-only settlements in the territories occupied in 1967.

Israel has been barring Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and to a lesser extent in the West Bank from accessing food and work, resulting in the severest humanitarian crisis since 1967.

It also underscores Olmert’s half-declared intention to abandon the so-called “convergence plan,” the centerpiece of his election campaign.

The plan, which Olmert said following the recent war in Lebanon it was no longer a national priority, stipulated the removal of some small colonies in the West Bank in return for the consolidation and annexation into Israel of the largest settlement blocs.

Lieberman has a long record of adopting fascist, even Nazi-like, attitudes and positions vis-à-vis the Palestinians and other Arab and Muslim nations in the region.

While minister in the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon in 2002, he proposed carpet bombing for Palestinian streets, malls, banks and other public facilities in order to force as many people as possible to flee their homeland.

He also advocated the bombing of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt and Tehran. In recent weeks, he urged Israel to bomb Iran with nuclear weapons if necessary.

His party’s platform calls for the expulsion and disenfranchising of Palestinians, both from Israel and the occupied territories of 1967.

Lieberman’s views, which would readily qualify him as a neo-Nazi in any European country (Austria ’s Jorge Haidar’s views seem so innocuous when compared to Lieberman’s), are none the less representative of the general ideological trends among the Israeli Jewish populace.

Last week, Amir Peretz admitted in a radio interview that the Israeli Jewish public was moving steadily toward right-wing chauvinism.

Olmert, substantially weakened by the recent war, is coming under mounting public pressure to form an official commission of inquiry to look into Israeli failures in the war with Hizbullah.

Olmert has been resisting demands to this effect, opting for superficial probes with no authority to sack officials.

It is likely that Olmert is feeling increasingly politically insecure in the absence of a clear political program and following the mediocre outcome of war with Hizbullah.

If so, the not-so unlikely inclusion of Lieberman’s party, the third largest in Israel, into the government would consolidate a safe parliamentary majority in the government’s favor.

However, the presence of Lieberman in the government would most certainly take it even farther to the right with the possibility of transforming it into the most extremist right-wing government in Israel’s history.

Indeed, if Lieberman should become Defense Minister as he has been demanding, especially in the aftermath of the war with Hizbullah, wholesale massacres of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank wouldn’t be a far-fetched possibility.

In this case, Shaul Mofaz and Amir Pertez, both of whom can be considered war criminals for their direct involvement in the murder of thousands of innocent Lebanese and Palestinians as well as the utter destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza and Lebanon, would look like scout boys in comparison to what Lieberman is capable of doing.

Lieberman could also embark on a real military adventure against Iran with or without American consent.

© Copyright palestine-info.co.uk
--
"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/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Our Next Generation of Walking Wounded

[During our exploration of rights for those with disabilities this past week in several of my classes, I mentioned that some 300,000 Viet Nam vets had been given "undesirable" discharges which meant that they were cut off from veterans benefits -- medical or other. Most of these had been drafted as teens into the horrors of the Viet Nam war where drugs were readily available and their addictions had been the main cause for their discharges - I had been asked to argue the case for amnesty for those who had not committed serious or violent crimes before the ACLU board which supported this relief. Congress did not concur and many of these addicted individuals became our next generation of jail inhabitants, died, or now occasionally still constitute our aging homeless ones. Ed Kent]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/washington/11veterans.html?th&emc=th


Data Suggests Vast Costs Loom in Disability Claims

By SCOTT SHANE
Published: October 11, 2006

Nearly one in five soldiers leaving the military after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan has been at least partly disabled as a result of service, according to documents of the Department of Veterans Affairs obtained by a Washington research group.

The number of veterans granted disability compensation, more than 100,000 to date, suggests that taxpayers have only begun to pay the long-term financial cost of the two conflicts. About 567,000 of the 1.5 million American troops who have served so far have been discharged.

“The trend is ominous,” said Paul Sullivan, director of programs for Veterans for America, an advocacy group, and a former V.A. analyst.

Mr. Sullivan said that if the current proportions held up over time, 400,000 returning service members could eventually apply for disability benefits when they retired.

About 2.6 million veterans were receiving disability compensation as of 2005, according to testimony to Congress by the V.A. The largest group of recipients is from the Vietnam era. Of the 1.1 million who served in the Middle East during the Persian Gulf war in 1991, 291,740 have been granted disability compensation.

The documents on the current conflicts provide no details on the type of disabilities claimed by veterans. Most were found to be 30 percent disabled or less, and one in 10 recipients was found to be 100 percent disabled. Payments run from a few hundred dollars to more than $1,000 a month depending on the severity of the disability.

A separate V.A. health care report shows that the most common treatments sought by recently discharged troops are for musculoskeletal disorders like back pain, followed by mental disorders, notably post traumatic stress disorder. About 30,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have sought treatment for post traumatic stress, which afflicts soldiers who have been under fire or in prolonged danger of attack.

A V.A. spokesman, Terry Jemison, said “service-related” disabilities could include an amputation as the result of a bomb injury or a case of diabetes or heart disease that was first diagnosed or found to get worse while in uniform. Mr. Jemison said officials had no cost projections for disability payments to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

The documents were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

The documents show that 37 percent of active duty veterans have filed for disability compensation, compared with 20 percent of those who served with National Guard or Reserve units. Also, 18 percent of claims filed by Guard and Reserve soldiers are denied, compared with 8 percent of those filed by active duty troops.

The report offered no explanation for the differences, but veterans’ advocates said efforts to explain V.A. procedures might be better for those leaving active duty than those offered to reservists.

“The Guard and reservists may be falling through the cracks at a higher rate,” said Joseph A. Violante, national legislative director for Disabled American Veterans. “The V.A. needs to study why there’s a difference.”

Mr. Violante, a Vietnam veteran, said young soldiers returning from war often shrugged off their injuries and did not necessarily seek compensation right away. “But as they get older,” he said, “and their injuries cause them more problems, then they’re more likely to file.”

In recent years, disability compensation programs have seen a number of changes that are likely to increase the filing of claims by veterans.

Congress told the V.A. last year to advertise the availability of compensation to veterans in states where payments had been disproportionately low, a program that the agency has predicted will attract nearly 100,000 new applicants.
--
"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

Monday, October 09, 2006

Roaches Arise! Your Time Is Coming!

N. Korea Reports 1st Nuclear Arms Test
By DAVID E. SANGER
North Korea became the eighth country in history, and
arguably the most unstable and most dangerous, to join the
club of nuclear weapons states.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/world/asia/09korea.html?th&emc=th

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Bush's immediate "crusade" response to 9/11 was presumably spontaneous, but one hears that the misbegotten "axis of evil" line (Iraq, Iran, and North Korea) was simply inserted into a Bush speech by his then speech writer. Such trivia have in the past determined the course of history -- a marriage, an insult, whatever. Now it looks as though this Bush administration gem may have launched a new wave of nuclear confrontation points -- the Middle East (if not Iran, then Pakistan when Musharraf is expelled?), Japan vs North Korea? Which way, I wonder, do the prevailing winds blow and will such an eruption exterminate most of us living in the Northern hemisphere? I recall an acquaintance back in the early years of the Cold War having been called in to calculate the spread of radiation from a single bomb landed on Washington State -- with prevailing winds it would have swept southeastward over 1/3 of the nation -- within range of North Korea?

Well done, Mr. Bush. One nuclear standoff having been untangled, it looks as if you have launched a brand new round with only a bit more than one term in office as president. Unfortunately you have made us Americans most distrusted so that we cannot expect to play much in the way of peace-making now after the messes you have created.

Is this the way the world (of humans) will end. I think I heard from one of my former colleagues that the typical species has a life expectancy of about 2 million years and maybe we are now aproaching our limit? I would not call it Armageddon, but it may allow a new species to become dominant on earth -- perhaps of an insect origin! Roaches arise! Your time is coming?
--
"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

New York Gets F for College Affordability

[Each semester a number of students are bounced from my classes because of delays in processing their financial applications for assistance. I try to reinclude them in my classes, although the result is a heavy burden of overtallies in most. I explain to my students that expenses for any and all -- wars, our new library, whatever -- are being front loaded onto their futures by current political and corporate interest groups. The article below is from today's Columbia Spectator. Our privates are really laying things on students who must often spend decades paying off college loans and are too often deterred from public service careers by these burdens. Only in America. Interestingly a number of students well qualified for the Ivies are entering our CUNY (City University of NY) honors programs now where we fund many of their basic expenses. Recent students of mine have included a Rhodes Scholar, Beinecke, Truman Fellow -- none of which to my knowledge has been awarded to Columbia students of late. Other countries see their students as investments in their national futures. Ed Kent]

New York Gets F for College Affordability
Nonprofit Group Releases National Report
By Anastasia Gornick
Issue date: 10/9/06 Section: News

As Columbia attempts to address the needs of some of its low-income college students, a nonprofit group released a report last month giving New York State an F for affordability.

Measuring Up released its biennial report card on higher education in an effort to provide the public and policymakers with information to improve post-secondary education, according to its Web site.

New York wasn't the only state to receive an F: 43 other states failed Measuring Up's assessment process.

The State University of New York, which has 64 campuses and runs the largest number of post-secondary public institutions in the state, discredited the numbers.

Officials said the data underestimates New York's Tuition Assistance Program, a grant that is given by the state to low-income New York State residents in order to help pay for a degree.

"For that lowest income quintile, 100 percent would be covered [by TAP] aside from the federal aid," said Dave Henahan, director of media relations for SUNY Systems Administration.

Measuring Up's report gave no state higher then a C- for affordability. The grades are determined by figuring the percentage of family income that is required to pay for college after federal and state aid and comparing those numbers to other schools in the state. Despite the cost, Measuring Up reported that enrollment in higher education programs in New York has increased steadily for people between the ages of 18 and 24.

But for some of the people who are struggling to pay for college, it doesn't matter whether or not New York should have passed or failed-students are more concerned with making college affordable.

Ellen Elmore is a 24-year-old junior at Hunter College. She is struggling to finish college while working full time, and her family income falls into what Measuring Up classifies as lower-middle-class-below $30,000.

Students in this income bracket face a large financial burden, requiring 36 percent of their total family income in order to attend a public four-year university, according to the report. It falls out of the range that would be covered by TAP.

Elmore was also ineligible for institutional aid, so she turned to personal loans.

"Private loans aren't something anyone wants to do," she said. She estimated that her final debt will be around $25,000.

"What you get out of it is what you put into it," she said. "And for people like me who work full time, you can't be at school 24/7." She reapplied in February for TAP and is still waiting to hear back, weeks after classes started and tuition was due.

Justin Colvin, GS '08, 24, described his family as below the poverty line. Colvin did receive TAP last year.

"$4,000 is pretty good, as I've only lived in New a year," he said. Colvin also receives aid through the General Studies scholarship program.

For many students, college tuition is a financial burden that will be carried long past graduation day. Measuring Up reports that the average debt for college students in 2005 was more than $3,901.

Colvin and Elmore will accrue debts higher than that after they graduate, but Colvin stressed that he made sure to work with the system to yield results. He said he made phone calls to all the aid agencies to guarantee that he received the maximum amount of aid.

"It worked out for me, but it doesn't work out for everyone," he said.
--
"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/StudentConcerns
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Arming Our Future Enemies -- Again!?

It is pretty obvious that we are now reaping the consequences of having supported the al Qaeda and the Taliban resistance to Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Throw in the fact that 16 of the 19 9/11 attackers came from authoritarian regimes supported by us (15 Saudis and 1 Egyptian) and it becomes pretty clear that our subversive operations sowed the seeds that have produced our current insurgent whirlwinds.

Look at what we are now doing over there and think to the future:

IRAQ -- of which we boast having trained a military force of 300,000 and growing looks to be falling into three parts. To the north the Kurds want independence so that they can establish Kurdistan. This project is not exactly endorsed by the Turks who earlier declined to let us send our troops into Iraq via Turkey. As the Kurds gain, we lose the support of one of our few remaining Islamic allies. Needless to say the Sunnis in central Iraq love us not, as we have driven them out of power, probably left them bereft of economic support (oil), and subject to full scale retaliation from the dominant Shia who in turn are naturally allying themselves with their fellow Shias in Iran.

AFGHANISTAN is obviously a lost cause, with the Taliban making their comeback.

PAKISTAN: The Taliban derive mainly from the Pashtuns, the only one of the five tribal groups (different in each case for Afghanistan and Pakistan), shared with Pakistan. Noting that tribal link, let us not forget that Musharraf, whom we have routinely undermined by in his face support of Indian nuclear efforts, threats of dire consequences for his lack of fealty to us, has allowed Pakistan's major nuclear honcho to share his sophistication in building atomic bombs with North Korea, Libya, Iran, and whoever else has been willing to pay the tab. General Musharraf -- who only gained dictatorial power with a military coup -- is but a bullet or bomb away from death. When he departs the scene one way or another, we should not be surprised to find him replaced by Islamists who love us not.

The bottom line here is that we have made a disastrous mess over there with our various ventures into regime change. Regimes certainly are changing, but not towards the type of (corporate free enterprise) democracy predicted by Bush/Rumsfeld! We have blown it and set the stage for the next round of wars ('nuculer' or whatever) to be faced by our younger generation -- they should have voted when they had the chance. And hopefully if they do now, we can elect representatives who will negotiate with Iran, North Korea, and whomever else it takes to bring the peace that all the world deserves -- before the fundies, Christian and/or Muslim, manage to stage their much vaunted suicidal Armageddon!
--
"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://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Saturday, October 07, 2006

American Obsessions?

With my vision fading somewhat I do more of my reading on computer and watch more than my usual fare of cable TV coverage of things American. I note the difference in focus of our news reportage from that of others, say the BBC or wherever things are actually occurring that impact on people generally.

What one notices in the American versions of 'important things that all must know' are weird sex and violence obsessions such as the latest shooting in a middle class school, deviant abuse or disappearance of a child or young teen, particularly egregious violent crimes -- directed against the middle class (lesser victims may get a paragraph mention, if that, compared to the blaring headlines relating harms to the better off). Mind you, I tend to read only the more reputable newspapers on line. I hate to imagine the foci of local ones out there which I have occasionally seen while traveling or which one sees cited in an internet news round up such as those done by Google.

What comes through is something significant about the American character. I was tempted to do a piece entitled, "Is Bush a Sociopath?", but was dissuaded by my students. Bush had caught my attention the year that he had presided over half the nation's executions as the governor of Texas (37 of 74) and had been reported to have smirked and mocked the request of Karla Faye Tucker, first woman executed in Texas, that she be allowed to continue her healing 'ministry' on her Texas death row for women -- she as a child had been raised by an addicted mother and only freed from her own addiction by imprisonment and a religious conversion that seemed to witnesses entirely genuine:

http://www.geocities.com/rainforest/canopy/2525/karlamain.html


However, my students pointed out that one cannot do psychiatric diagnosis from a distance. Bush may simply not be able to connect the dots between his own actions and the death and suffering they have been inflicting on thousands over there as well here of the families of those killed, wounded, and traumatized? I am still chilled by his capacity to joke and smile happily at the most searching questions directed to him on such matters and what strikes me as an entirely false tonality of his 'Jesus sermons' on 'staying the course' and not 'cutting and running' and such as well as domestic matters that relate to the suffering and deaths of so many Americans on the home front deprived of medical care or decent minimum wages to support a family.

Back to the obsessions -- manifestly Americans have some serious hang-ups collectively, if we are to judge by what ups the TV ratings. We are fascinated by violence and perverted sex -- about every other entertainment program portrays murders and the pursuit of murderers. The upshot is that there is actually a candidate out there recommending that teachers be armed. Great -- 3 of our 19,000 public schools have had recent shooting incidents -- probably stimulated in part by the attraction of becoming a someone -- even a dead someone -- per the media frenzy that will follow the action -- to go down in the history books as having done something at least rather than live out a sad and lonely life. John Carr is at least now a SOMEBODY for the rest of his miserable life. But can one imagine thousands of teachers running around packing guns to subdue unruly students? One of my teachers would throw a book at our heads if our attention strayed -- but that was in a British public school many decades ago.

And let's not neglect the latest implosion of the Republicans over their Congressional Senate Scout master -- yes, I meant Boy Scout Master. When I was serving on an advisory committee for the ACLU some decades back the Boy Scouts came to our attention as a 'religious' organization playing fast and loose on a number of fronts. No, we did not blow their cover - probably the same impulse as the Catholic bishops with their boy and girl molesting priests -- reluctant to smear the decent majority just to expose the renegades. But . . . ?

Americans seem these days to be running short on compassion and long on the desire to gaze, punish, and kill. We have slipped a long way away from a community of people working to help each other following the Great Depression and the threat of WW2. Brutally obscene things on the screen encourage too many apparently not to distinguish real killing facts from brutal hate fantasies. How many Xs, Ys, and Zs did we kill today over there? Our leaders seem to be quite proud of their 'insurgent' body counts while shy about showing us the coffins of our returning heroes -- something out of whack there.

Perhaps others can sort it out better than I have tried to do with this early morning blast? I am appalled as a once proud American by what I am seeing and hearing.
--
"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

DNA sets him free at last

[Our American mythology used to be that we always caught the guilty man (woman) and that only the guilty were punished. Now such occasional things as DNA evidence (not often available) or confessions of the real perp have made us aware that too many innocents are imprisoned (or even executed). Lawyers routinely recommend that innocent persons take a lesser plea to reduce their prison sentences. See Anthony Papas on this:

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/359/15tolife.shtml

or contact the Innocence Project: http://www.innocenceproject.org/

which works to free as many innocents as possible. We now have too many proven incidents of punishment of the wrong one(s) not to pause and reconsider how we prosecute and punish those (possibly wrongly) accused of crimes. See the Death Penalty Information Center:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/


At least we have stopped (as of last year) executing juveniles:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=205&scid=27


An horrendous picture in Langston Hughes' History of the NAACP shows a terrified young kid huddled an electric chair waiting to be fried well done.

The following is the tale of but one of the many who has lost the best years of his life through the mistakes of our criminal justice system.

Ed Kent]

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



DNA sets him free at last

Jailed 21 years after wrongful rape conviction

BY AUSTIN FENNER, NANCIE L. KATZ and PATRICE O'SHAUGHNESSY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

A Brooklyn man imprisoned nearly half his life for raping a cop's wife won his freedom yesterday, finally getting the DNA evidence to prove his long-asserted innocence.

Although Scott Fappiano, now 44, lost the best years of his life, he never lost his hope, his sense of humor or his mother's support - and he displayed all three yesterday.

"I'm just happy it's over," said Fappiano, his smiling face covered with red lipstick kisses from the many relatives who hugged him after he emerged from a Brooklyn courtroom a free man, without the shackles he had worn on the way in.

"Scotty, we made it!" shouted Fappiano's tiny, white-haired mother, Rose, when Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Hall ordered his release with the Brooklyn district attorney's consent.

Fappiano was convicted based on flawed witness identification, and his innocence had been almost impossible to prove because of lost evidence, said Innocence Project lawyer Nina Morrison.

But the Innocence Project located two vials of DNA material, including the rapist's semen, that had been buried in a private lab's storage facility. New DNA testing by the city medical examiner confirmed Thursday that Fappiano was not the rapist.

"A wealth of other evidence that could have been tested years earlier" was never located in the NYPD's storage facility, the Innocence Project said.

The case dated to Dec. 1, 1983, when an intruder broke into the Brooklyn home of a cop as he and his wife were sleeping. The assailant bound the husband with a telephone cord and repeatedly raped the wife.

Fappiano was collared six days later. His first trial in 1984 ended in a hung jury, 11 to 1 for acquittal, because the husband could not identify Fappiano in a lineup the day of his arrest.

Blood-typing tests also had failed to link him with cigarettes and stained clothing at the crime scene, and the victim described her attacker as being 5 inches taller than Fappiano, who had prior arrests for rape but was never convicted.

But in a retrial a year later, he was convicted and sentenced to a term of 20 to 50 years. He went into prison a disco-haired, athletic, Kingsborough Community College student from Bensonhurst and spent 21 years in tough facilities, including Attica.

"Going to prison as a rapist wasn't easy; going to prison for rape when there's a police officer involved makes it even harder," Fappiano said.

His 66-year-old mother said the wrongful conviction "took all his youth from him."

"They came into my home and kidnapped my son; they put him away, tortured him," she said.

The court proceeding that set Fappiano free lasted just a few minutes. It took four more hours of processing, during which his mom, brother and a dozen relatives waited. His cousin Barbara DeCicco held a shopping bag with homemade rice balls.

"Hallelujah!" yelled a family member when the powerfully built Fappiano, still sporting a thick mane of dark hair and clad in prison gray sweats, emerged.

"Where's my clothes? I want a cigarette," he said.

Asked if he was angry, he shot back with a grin, "I'm not angry at anybody right now . . . I'm in shock. . . . At one point I lost hope of being exonerated, but never lost hope that one day I would come home."

Yet he didn't want to be freed on a technicality.

"I wanted to come home because I didn't do it," he said. "I wanted to prove I didn't do it." Looking forward, he said he wanted to master cell phones and computers. "I'm not stupid; I'll learn quick," he added.

Later, he and about 25 loved ones went to Ponte Vecchio's restaurant in Bay Ridge, where he celebrated with baked ziti and a bottle of Brunello wine.

The NYPD released a statement saying Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly already is overhauling the department's evidence tracking system and "committed to taking whatever steps are necessary to find evidence in cases where the courts are considering claims of wrongful conviction."

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, who was not in office at the time of Fappiano's prosecution, said: "It's a profound tragedy that the victims of this terrible crime have been forced to relive that horrible night 23 years ago. It is also a tragedy that Mr. Fappiano spent this time in prison."

The Innocence Project has cleared 183 defendants nationwide. In New York City, it has six open cases and 17 closed cases where NYPD evidence cannot be found.

With Jego R. Armstrong

Originally published on October 7, 2006
--
"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