Giuliani, Our Ex-Mayor

We had more or less had it with Giuliani when 9/11 hit. At that point he had done everything wrong. His emergency headquarters had been located in the main target site which had been hit in 1993, so that they were out of action from the get go. Giuliani made much noise about his super role in leading us during the aftermath, but our fire fighters knew better. He had left them without the equipment to learn of the hazards they were facing. Hundreds died and they have come out hard and fast against his presidential candidacy. Giuliani also did the clean up of the pile (Ground Zero) on the cheap and now many thousands are lung damaged and some have died from the lack of protective equipment to keep them from inhaling the poisons stirred up by the clean up process.

Enough of Giuliani's claims that he was our super hero then! Other things that he did was to leave our city budget deeply in the red. He fired Our Police Commissioner, Bratton, considered the best in the country who had completely reformed our force -- because Giuliani could not stand criticism and appreciation for someone that did not grovel. He messed up our schools with misbegotten attempts to transfer monies to the privates rather than focusing on the public schools where underpaid teachers were increasingly becoming fed up and moving out to the prosperous suburbs to teach.

Giuliani in New Hampshire Saturday played the usual Republican tune -- Republicans are for the people (no income taxes there) and the Democrats are for government. Needless to say this slogan is ridiculous. We need some things done by government (police, fire, education for most, infrastructures, etc., etc. -- some others can be done privately. We need last resort protections that are publicly funded (e.g. emergency medicine at the minimum), food and shelter for the disabled, etc., etc. But above all government authority must regulate people and businesses that would steal from us, endanger us, whatever crooked folks can figure that they can get away with such as the sub prime mortgages that are doing in our economy, credit card interest bandits, drug and medical scams that enrich mainly CEOs -- that cost the rest of us. Every other developed nation has single payer medicine -- better service at half the cost or less.

Finally let Giuliani's private life be the province of his family. He came into office with two happy kids and a fine wife. He took up secretly with a ________ and let his wife and children know that he had walked out on them in a press conference! Wow! How low can one sink. And then there are some pretty dubious crooks that Giuliani has backed for high positions, e.g. national security. Some president with the power of appointments!

The truth will out about Giuliani down the line. Too many of us of all political persuasions here in NYC despise the man.
--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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Too Scared to Tack with the Changing Winds?

Having spent most of his life summering at his father's luxury seaside summer home in Kennebunkport, ME, Bush II must have learned, as any sailor does, that one must tack with the changing winds if one does not want to flop one's boat over.

"Stay the course" -- particularly in Iraq -- strikes me as the frightened muttering of a creature that one occasionally witnesses when one's headlights freeze a rabbit or a deer in the middle of the road -- the result is all too often either a sad squish or a resounding crash! Maybe with all his summering in Crawford, Bush has forgotten the elementary rules of the sea when one discovers that one has gotten lost? Back off and start again in right direction.

Please forgive all the mixed metaphors, but as one hears this guy muttering nonsense, as his rats who once whispered encouraging nothings into his ears are jumping ship, one is confronted by more and more empty slogans that do not connect with reality. Gonzalez was driven out by politics? But both Republicans and Democrats had pointed out that the guy was incompetent -- if not a perjurer.

I just walked away from a pointless Bush presentation about all those poor folks who are losing their houses through having bought those lousy mortgages. He seems to have caught on that people are in trouble just as he mentioned the past few days his awareness at last of those hit by Katrina on the Gulf Coast. But what is he proposing that we do to solve either of these latter problems? Nothing much. Just donate an extra $50 billion to staying the course in Iraq while Afghanistan also goes down the tubes and our former allies one by one depart -- with discomforting words only.

Bush is not only making a fool of himself. We Americans are made to look just as stupid by our media which still largely play earnestly to Bush's slogans -- signifying not a bang, but a whimper as he is running, running, running scared? Help!
--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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CNN's Nightly Racist Program

I had (wrongly) imagined that the summer replacement for Lou Dobbs would lay off his blatantly racist assault on Latinos, veiled in the imagery of criminals who sneak into America to rob us with their chicanery (emergency room medicine) and murder us in our sleep. This sleaze is morally criminal in its own right. Even Bush had some sense of the positive role played by new arrivals from south of our border in bringing in our crops and doing other jobs at minimal cost. In fact such immigrants have been exploited by those who know that they cannot complain and they have been used by business to suppress unions and unionized businesses by competing at lower rates for all sorts of efforts ranging from construction to retailing.

I happen to be a port of entry college teacher (retiring tomorrow) who has taught more than a thousand of the most recent arrivals to this country. They are the best with the get up and go to come here. Perhaps my most brilliant student in 40 years of teaching was a Nigerian whom we discovered as a hospital guard who went on from us to dual programs in NYU Medicine AND Columbia public health simultaneously. Google shows a distinguished medical career in process.

Sad it is that the arrivals of previous generations are those who most ardently seem to oppose successors from other regions.

We routinely turn off CNN each night at 6:00 p.m. EDT and watch the BBC followed by Amy Goodman.
--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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New Species Readying to Replace Mankind?

As the mammals replaced the dinosaurs, so the next dominant species may be? Presumably spiders won't need oil to get around.


Got Arachnophobia? Here's Your Worst Nightmare
By GRETEL C. KOVACH
The discovery of a vast web crawling with millions of
spiders spreading across several acres of a North Texas
park is causing a stir.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/31/us/31spider.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)
--
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Bomb Iran? Bluffing or Nuts?

http://worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/asia/lgcolor/ircolor.htm

Those who talk of bombing Iran (the nutty President of France to Cheney) had best take a close look at the map of Iran and surrounding countries (website above) -- particularly the Strait of Hormuz which passes close to Iran and through which ships bringing out oil from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, etc. and taking in military supplies to Iraq must pass. Iran has the wherewithal easily to make this an unpasaage through which nothing could travel!

The United Nations versus U.S. conflict over approaches to Iran's nuclear development program has an eerie similarity to what we were hearing about Iraq's (non-existent) WMD which Bush used to justify his mad war there.

Needless to say Bush and Sarkozy are hopefully blowing in the wind. There are 3 times as many Iranians (about 75 million) as there are Iraqis and we are totally bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan now. Yet another 'war on terror' might just finish off our military as well as bust our already stressed out national budget, let alone destroy respect for the U.S. anywhere in the world.

Let us pray to whatever g-ds that Bush and Israel will lay off and let the UN handle this one per the NY Times report below.

Report on Iran's Nuclear Activity Exposes Split
By ELAINE SCIOLINO and WILLIAM J. BROAD
The I.A.E.A. report has exposed a new divide between the
United Nations inspectors and the United States over how to
contain Iran's atomic program.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/31/world/middleeast/31nuke.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)
--
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Found the Kid a Job

[A friend sent this along. Ed Kent]

This is a direct quote from the just published REAGAN DIARIES. The entry is dated May 17, 1986.

'A moment I've been dreading. George brought his ne're-do-well son
around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida. The one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is alreadyalmost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I'll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they'll hire him as a contributing editor
or something. That looks like easy work.'
--
"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)
--
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Pat Robertson's 700 Club [The Christian Broadcasting Network]

I have many a time flipped past the 700 Club which airs daily on our NYC Channel 14: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_700_Club I decided to watch a bit yesterday -- Roberts is occasionally quoted for some of his more outrageous statements thereupon such as that we should assassinate Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela. I could not stomach the whole show yesterday, but the format is that of a CNN type run through of news items presented by a person sitting next to Robertson who comments on same. For instance, he cheered on the 'new Europe' President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, for suggesting that we (not France presumably) may have to bomb Iran. Another segment ran with an author on Christian martyrs who maintained that Christians worldwide are being subjected to horrendous persecutions (guess by whom).

I gather such religious TV outfits are making it big time with folks out there now that our media are increasingly controlled by fewer and fewer corporate interests. Here is the Club's own website in contrast to the Wiki one above:

http://www.cbn.com/700club/ShowInfo/About/about700club.aspx
--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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Animals

Dog fighting is a cruel sport, but so is bull fighting. And if one is not a vegan, one is implicated in the horrendous treatment of chickens raised by agribusiness -- caged and debeaked so that they cannot peck each other in frustration -- or young calves starved to produce white veal -- or pigs jammed into huge foul pens -- or cows brutally slaughtered by being hung up by one leg with throats then slit to drain blood.

The recent prosecution and hard hit on Michael Vick looks to be the height of American hypocrisy. I grew up around farm animals back when they lived fairly decent lives until they were killed. But now we have made their lives pure hell. Pigs, incidentally, are the most intelligent of the lot. And I once killed a chicken by chopping off its head.
--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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Our Nation's Greatest Terrorist Hazard -- Indian Point Nuclear Plant

[If we really cared about the major terrorist threat to NYC, we would close down the Indian Point nuclear plant, located only 24 miles to the north of the city and run carelessly by a Texas corporation, Entergy:

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

I have seen repeated reports on the highest authority that the place is sloppily run and protected. It was actually unguarded prior to 9/11. A subsequent protest by security people there complained that they were understaffed. And this latest item shows the total lack of security entailed by a guard asleep at the gate -- and why only one guard? Let us hope that this plant, threatening our major national economic and cultural center, will be shut down and not let to generate Texas profits at the risk to our nation as a whole. Ed Kent]

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

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/08/28/2007-08-28_indian_point_nuke_plant_on_snooze_contro.html?ref=nl&nltr_ct=1&nltr_id=IndianPointnukeplantonsnoozecontrol

Indian Point nuke plant on snooze control

Tuesday, August 28th 2007, 4:00 AM

An armed guard at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Westchester County has been caught sleeping on the job, authorities said yesterday.

The unidentified guard was found snoozing Sunday by a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspector at a post where workers are identified by palm prints and X-rayed for explosives.

"The guard started work at 6 a.m. and was found asleep at around 2p.m.," said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan.

The guard was alone on the second of three security rings around the two plants in Buchanan, about 24 miles north of the city, Sheehan said.

The Indian Point reactors are owned and operated by Entergy Nuclear, which has assured the NRC that there were no security breaches during the siesta.

Entergy spokesman Jim Steetsc said the guard was placed on administrative leave pending tests for drugs and alcohol and a review.

Anti-nuclear groups fighting to close the plant blasted Entergy for keeping guards on 12-hour shifts.

Abby Luby With News Wire Services
--
"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)
--
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Iraq Investigation of Theft of $Billions Implicates Key Petrraeus Officer

[I find this one almost unbelievable, but the reports of thefts of military and other equipment by the $ billions have been long on-going, e.g. a 60 Minutes report last year.

Ed Kent]

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

U.S. Widens Fraud Inquiry Into Iraq Military Supplies

Several federal agencies are investigating a widening network
of criminal cases involving the purchase and delivery of
billions of dollars of weapons, supplies and other materiel
to Iraqi and American forces, according to American
officials. The officials said it amounted to the largest ring
of fraud and kickbacks uncovered in the conflict here, the
officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/world/middleeast/28military.html?hp

[Snippet: "But now, American officials said, part of the criminal investigation is focused on Lt. Col. Levonda Joey Selph, who reported directly to General Petraeus and worked closely with him in setting up the logistics operation for what were then the fledgling Iraqi security forces."]
--
"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)
--
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Brits Turn Basra Over to Mahdi Army

[I wonder what the Bush administration plans to do about the Brits turning over Basra, the port of entry through which our supplies must enter Iraq, over to the Mahdi army, the Shiite militia totally hostile to our occupation? Does not look good.

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

Ed Kent]

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

As British leave Basra, militias dig in
An Iraqi official says a deal was struck with the Mahdi Army to ensure a safe departure. By Sam Dagher
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0828/p01s03-wome.html?s=hns
--
"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)
--
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Cancer in Our Troops -- And Any Others Around?

[We also polluted Viet Nam with all sorts of other cancer inducing substances, e.g. agent orange. We sill have not stopped using cluster bombs and land mines that linger on and kill innocent civilians long after the end of a particular war. Ed Kent]

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

Cancer in Iraq Vets Points to Toxic Exposure
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082707J.shtml
The Arizona Daily Star is reporting there are many soldiers returning from Iraq with cancer. Carla McClain writes: "The prime suspect in all this, in the minds of many victims - and some scientists - is what's known as depleted uranium - the radioactive chemical prized by the military for its ability to penetrate armored vehicles. When munitions explode, the substance hits the air as fine dust, easily inhaled."
--
"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)
--
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More Definitions of Fascism

[A friend sends along information about additional lists of fascist characteristics. We should be alert to this phenomenon in its various manifestations, as it lurks as an on-going threat to liberal democracy. Note that the term liberal, itself, is under attack in the U.S. Ed Kent]

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

There are many lists of the characteristics of fascism. One that I have often used as a reference is Umberto Ecco's list from his essay "Eternal Fascism".

The list, minus Ecco's excellent commentary, can be seen, along with other such lists, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism

<<<
* "The Cult of Tradition", combining cultural syncretism with a rejection of modernism (often disguised as a rejection of capitalism).

* "The Cult of Action for Action's Sake", which dictates that action is of value in itself, and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Ecco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.

* "Disagreement is Treason" - fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action.

* "Fear of Difference", which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.

* "Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class", fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.

* "Obsession With a plot" and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often involves an appeal to xenophobia or the identification of an internal security threat. He cites Pat Robertson's book The New World Order as a prominent example of a plot obsession.

* "Pacifism is Trafficking With the Enemy" because "Life is Permanent
Warfare" - there must always be an enemy to fight.

* "Contempt for the Weak" - although a fascist society is elitist, everybody in the society is educated to become a hero.

* "Selective Populism" - the People have a common will, which is not delegated but interpreted by a leader. This may involve doubt being cast upon a democratic institution, because "it no longer represents the Voice of the People".

* "Newspeak" - fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.

>>>>>>
--
"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)
--
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U.S. General vs. Iraqi Dictator?

I am a bit appalled to hear that there is speculation that we might play a Douglas MacArthur with Iraq (he was the U.S. general who ran Japan post WW2) or hunt up an Iraqi dictator (of our choice) to run Iraq (we have sure done that frequently around the world during the past century).

So it goes -- from WMD to stopping terrorism to introducing democracy to running the show our way. I don't think this latest move will work any better than the previous ones. Japan did not have a civil war in process and we don't have enough troops in shape to impose anyone over there for very long. Whee! I think we have seen this situation far too many times since our last clear cut justified war on oppression -- WW2.

Doesn't look like we will have any serious outside help either. We are viewed as being the biggest bully on the block. Yoicks!
--
"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)
--
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Property Games #6 - Losing Low Paid Teachers

There is no function more essential to a society than the that of well qualified teachers. The U.S. is now falling behind its global competitors because we are driving out our teachers -- both with low salaries and disrespect:

Schools Fight for Teachers Because of High Turnover
By SAM DILLON
The retirement of thousands of teachers coupled with the
departure of younger ones is fueling a crisis in teacher
turnover.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/27/education/27teacher.html?th&emc=th

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

My mother was trained as a teacher. With the Depression she was, as so many women then working, laid off -- jobs were needed for men and married women were ordered home. The pattern of low pay for teachers -- mainly women -- is a carry over from the era of gender discrimination in the workforce. And we are now paying the price as older teachers are retiring and younger ones are finding the conditions unacceptable for a lifetime commitment. My students have told me horror stories about their own experiences along these lines. Carrying heavy loan debts from college they are nevertheless expected to live on minimal salaries. Only a prosperous spouse can make that work. And the lack of respect towards teachers is uniquely characteristic of our American anti-intellectualism. I well recall visiting a French pen pal as a teen whose father was a teacher -- and held to be by profession one of the most respected members of the community -- on a par with doctors.

We shall pay the price unless we reform. NYC. is particularly bad at this game and is losing its best teachers to the wealthy suburbs where they have caught on and are offering teachers a living wage.

There is no free lunch, Mr. Bush. We had better raise our taxes to cover such esseentials for the survival of America aa more than a wounded third world nation!
--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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The Fourteen Characteristics of Fascism

I happened to tune in to a conversation between Bobby Kennedy and George Soros the other day and the subject of the 14 characteristics of fascism came up. Some are worried that the Bush administration is, itself, incorporating some of these in its strategies:

http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm

Whatever, this is a phenomenon that has been with us for quite some time and probably precedes the formal version of WW2. It will undoubtedly remain an on-going threat to democracy and we should probably memorize these characteristics and be on guard against them:

http://www.rense.com/general37/char.htm

Fourteen Defining
Characteristics Of Fascism
By Dr. Lawrence Britt
Source Free Inquiry.co
5-28-3


Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread
domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

From Liberty Forum

http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_constitution&Number=642
109&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1&t=-1
--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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The Joel Osteen.com Show

I was flipping the dial yesterday when I happened upon one of the TV evangelical programs on our local Fox News channel (5). Figured I would see what such are about. This one was being broadcast from Houston -- in a huge amphitheater filled with what looked to be middle class white Americans from the long and short views of the audience. Osteen apparently features his cute blond wife, Victoria, as a regular part of the show with occasional close ups of her at his homey mentions. The background scenery in addition to a massive audience is eye catching -- a large rotating skeletal globe map of the earth.

The theme of the day -- a 30 minute sermon in which Osteen parades the stage with his mike -- was a lesson on whom one should associate with and and whom one should avoid. The latter were the unhappy, depressed, unsuccessful, complaining people who, for instance, were bitter about not getting a job promotion. The good ones were those who were happy and successful who one should hang around with as did Henry Ford, Firestone, and a third early 20th century capitalist who built homes near each other. I cringed a bit at Ford who became bitterly anti-Semitic towards the end of his life (Protocols of the Elders of Zion) and received the highest award given to foreigners by the Nazis:

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

Joel Osteen.com looks to be a money maker with a wide variety of ticket and book offers -- some quite high prices for "premier" things:

http://joelosteen.lakewood.cc/site/PageServer?pagename=JOM_homepage

The thing that really got to me -- along with the programmed laughs every three minutes or so -- was the total reversal of the Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth. Osteen's avoidees would seem to be the poor in spirit whom Jesus asked us to support in his sermon on the mount. And Osteen's happy and successful ones which we should seek out are the wealthy who would have trouble passing through the proverbial eye of the needle to get into heaven.

The audience of several thousand seemed to be thoroughly on board and happily amused by his folksy jokes along the way. I wonder how much they make on these shows which apparently travel around the country as well as appearing on local TV stations?
--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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Darfur Today and Tomorrow the World?

I personally had the good fortune to encounter religion mid twentieth century when it had reached a peak in social concerns and good actions. The Israelis were experimenting with a socially responsible reconstitution of Judaism in Israel, some of our great theologians were still alive and practicing in Protestantism (Barth, the Niebuhrs, Tillich as well as a host of reformers such as Martin Luther King, Jr.), various inspiring secular/religious leaders were trying to modernize and liberate their countries in Islam. Gandhi still was an inspiration for all religions, not just Hinduism, Pope John 23 had called the Second Vatican Council to reform and modernize Roman Catholicism. Those were inspiring days as we were recovering from the horrors of WW2.

But then the decline set in. I experienced it personally as one who had thought of theology as a life's work and had preached sermons in two countries with continuing studies in theology as well as philosophy. Each of the traditions mentioned above began to regress towards the worst features of their traditions carried over from past millennia. One need not retrace the history of wars, massacres, genocidal abuses committed back then in the name of religion. But one could not have imagined that these war and hate motifs would be restored in direct or indirect forms.

I watched the despair of my own teachers mount as they tried to stem this tide, but as they died one by one they were not replaced by comparably powerful intellects and personalities -- and the con artists began to thrive. Falwell was an archetype of these who used the new media to garner financial benefits and to trash a great religious tradition with cheap appeals to self-interest. Jesus of Nazareth had died and these types could not care less about carrying out the Gospel mission.

Needless to say this pattern of degeneration has escalated until the point when we see the not too unlikely prospect of culture wars armed with nuclear weapons. The last gasp colonial grab in the Middle East perpetrated by Bush and Blair may have unleashed the whirlwinds.

I direct my concern here to contemporary religious leaders because they are either too often perpetrators, silent, or compromised. These are most dangerous times and it does not take much insight to see that the enemies of mankind, of innocent women and children today, are inspired by corrupt religions -- Darfur today and tomorrow 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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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How Many Kids Did We Kill Today?

[I can't imagine that this is the way to win support in Iraq or to win a war there. Looks to be a never ending killing game in which targets are as often as not civilians. We were doing this in Viet Nam. We would send our bombers towards a target and it was blocked by weather from that mission the pilots were ordered to unload in what were called free fire zones -- areas which we did not control. Needless to say we did not know who was down there then, either. How many millions of Vietnamese did we kill before we quit. For the record we could not invade the north because the Chinese had indicated they would send in their troops as they did in Korea. We could only bomb -- time release things in rice fields, napalm (jellied gasoline) that splatters and keeps burning on anything (or any one) it hits. Ed Kent]

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/674AB227-83CC-453A-B1AD-12F28C843B69.htm

US forces in Baghdad fire fight
Shias took the bodies of victims of the Shula neighbourhood clashes to Najaf for burial [AFP]

US forces have battled Shia fighters in the Iraqi capital while 60 suspected al-Qaeda fighters in Iraq fighters have struck national police facilities in co-ordinated attacks in Samarra.

The developments on Friday came as France said it may provide assistance to Iraqi soldiers and police.

The announcement by Paris comes shortly after a trip by Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, to Baghdad.

Denis Simonneau, a French foreign ministry spokesman, said France would "perhaps see what we can do in terms of assistance".

But he said: "Our intention is not to send French soldiers to Iraq."

A US official said on Friday that Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, had thanked Kouchner for his visit to Iraq.

The unnamed official was reported by the AFP news agency as saying Rice spoke to Kouchner by telephone on Thursday and "thanked him for his visit".

Pre-dawn raid

On the ground in Iraq, violence continued unabated.

In Baghdad, US forces in the primarily Shia neighbourhood of Shula clashed with fighters on Friday.

The skirmish broke out when a pre-dawn US military patrol came under small arms and machine-gun fire from rooftops and called in helicopter support, Lieutenant-Colonel Scott Bleichwehl, a US army spokesman, said.


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Reports differed as to the number of people killed in the fighting.

Dr Mohammed Abbas, from the Al-Noor Hospital in Shula, said the facility had received 13 corpses.

"Those dead were killed by shrapnel and two of them are women," he said, suggesting that some of the dead could be civilians.

"We have also admitted 15 wounded people."

But Nassar al-Rubaie, head of a 30-member bloc in parliament loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia leader of al-Mahdi army militia, said that 21 civilians had been killed, a "large number" wounded and several houses destroyed in the Shula fighting.

Al-Sadr's main office in Baghdad reported 14 civilians killed and 20 others injured.

Hundreds of Iraqi Shias later took the dead to the central holy city of Najaf for burial, loading the coffins, draped in Iraqi flags on taxis and vans.

Al-Qaeda suspect

Earlier in the week, Iraqi troops and US Special Forces raided a home in the Hiyt area and seized an suspected an al-Qaeda fighter suspected to have shot down a US helicopter in 2004, the US command said on Friday.

The forces detained the suspect and a "second person of interest" in the raid on Wednesday, and found an assault rifle as well as numerous identification cards and passports.

In addition to the helicopter attack, the primary suspect, whose name has not been released, is said to be involved in roadside bombings and sniper attacks on US and Iraqi forces in the region, a military statement said.

US forces also reported killing seven fighters and detaining 12 others in operations aimed at disrupting al-Qaeda in central and northern Iraq.

Samarra clash

On Thursday, masked fighters drove into the city of Samarra, 125km north of Baghdad, at dusk in about 20 vehicles, then split into small groups and assaulted four police checkpoints and a headquarters building, according to a police official.

One policeman and two civilians, a woman and an 11-year-old girl, were killed in the fighting and nine people were injured, including a police commando and three children, he said.

Baghdad's Shia neighbourhood of Shula was
the scene of violence on Friday [AFP]
The spokesman said there were no details on fighters' casualties but that police had arrested 14 suspects.

Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Donnelly, a US military spokesman in northern Iraq, said he had no details on the Iraqi incident.

He acknowledged that an American patrol had been in a clash with fighters in the city on Friday.

The US command said one soldier was killed on Friday in an explosion in Salahuddin province, which includes Samarra, and four soldiers were wounded.

It was unclear whether the incident in Samarra was the same one reported by Donnelly.

Two of the fighters were killed and another captured, Donnelly said.

There were no immediate reports of US casualties.

--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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Right Wing Evangelicals Take Over the U.S.

[Given that roughly half the eligible voters in the U.S. do not vote, a right wing Christian takeover is not all that unlikely -- at least something to worry about -- abortion, homosexuality, criminalized again, women rejected from the workplace and a variety of other disastrous moves -- war on Islam wherever, preparation for the apocalypse with nuclear attacks here and there, exclusion of immigrants from schools and medical care. etc. etc. Don't think these characters don't have an agenda -- or perhaps both public and secret ones -- only born agains in the White House or on the Supreme Court? And members of minority groups need not apply. Capital punishment for a new range of crimes. And imagine all those signing statements relating to some of the Constitutional basics -- particularly the First Amendment speech protections and no establishment restrictions!

They said it could not happen there in one of our most civilized nations back in the 20th. century -- but it did! Don't say you have not been warned. Ed Kent]

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

GOD'S HARVARD: THE NEW GROOMING GROUND OF THE EVANGELICAL MOVEMENT
By Hanna Rosin, Harcourt
A small Christian school outside the nation's capital is dispatching the next round of evangelicals to the front lines of science and politics, where they will battle for control of the nation.
http://www.alternet.org/stories/60487/
--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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Why the Palestinians and Israelis Hate Each Other

Needless to say not all Palestinians and Israelis hate each other. But a significant percentage do. This is an understandable phenomenon in war times when the enemy is collectively labeled as such and made eligible in the course of time for the worst sorts of brutality up to and including genocide. I remember all too well the ugly stereotypes of Germans and Japanese I encountered during WW2 as a school child and the mutual unease between Italian American and other kids.

For the website of the Yahoo group, Israel_Palestine (below in my signature) I have provided some 75 relevant websites ranging from:

ADC
Arab American Anti-Discriminaton Committee
http://www.adc.org/

to

ZOA
Fights for Jewish People and Israel
http://www.zoa.org/

One of these particularly does much to explain the mutual hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians through its candid display of killing and wounding statistics which generally show about a 4 to 1 ratio of Palestinians to Israelis with a tragic 9 to 1 for children. I recommend that people check it out -- both to see the horrors in this confrontation and the creep in Israel's progressive occupation of Palestinian lands:

If Americans Knew
Information on I/P Not Covered by U.S. Media
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/index.html
--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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Proprty Games #5: Strip Mining Okayed by Bush!

[Years ago what was called then strip mining was outlawed because it causes heavy pollution in the vicinity where it is carried out and pollutes streams and rivers from which people derive drinking water and water used for irrigation and other necessary purposes. It is a cheap way to get at coal, but there are many other locations from which to extract it in the U.S. and elsewhere. Such disregard of a basic environmental protection is far beyond simply outrageous. It is downright criminal!

Needless to say this is the sort of property game that can be played when corporate interests have taken over the White House -- the safety and health of mere people can be downgraded to enhance the profits of the wealthy corporations. There seems to be no limit beyond which this administration will not stray while it is still in power and free to disregard both laws and regulations that have been effected by caring governments in the past. Ed Kent]

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

Rule to Expand Mountaintop Coal Mining
By JOHN M. BRODER
The Bush administration is set to issue a regulation that
would enshrine a technique that involves blasting off the
tops of mountains and dumping the debris in valleys.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/us/23coal.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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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Satan Rides Again!

An npr interview with Akbar Ahmed in which he described his trip with several students to various locations in the Muslim world, "A Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization"

http://interfaithradio.org/node/176

inspired my own breakdown below in our world religions as I have known them. I was email scolded this morning by one of our religious leaders for whom I have the greatest respect for my piece, "Ancient Roots of Hate Religion" to which I responded:

"As I am sure you know, our religions were THE principal mode of human understanding and expression until the scientific revolution came along to challenge their absolute authority. They contained both the best and worst of human desires and capacities to act. I will probably do one entitled "Mystical/Modern/Militant" which follows along the break down in Akbar Ahmed's latest book, "A Journal into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization." He is working towards the best of things while recognizing the worst. I realize that you have religious commitments that I have abandoned -- seeing too many harms emerging out of the religious scams of today following upon some of the worse horrors of the past (all those burned alive in the Inquisition, followed by the lost generation gassed in WW1 and burned alive in WW2 (Dresden), napalmed in Viet Nam, rocketed in Iraq and Afghanistan (and Gaza)."

Let me then update on each of the mentioned breakdown terms:

MYSTICISM is an ingredient in virtually all of the world's religions -- a belief that one can somehow have a direct encounter with an all mighty being or reality thought to underlie our world of mere appearances. Some of the world's great mystics became primary contributors to the well-being of humanity. I fear, however, that much mysticism today has been reduced to what I would call 'feel good' personal comfort located in imagined dialogues with a super natural being -- what Freud viewed as an immature father figure need. Born again Christians in the U.S. are of this type. Some do good works, but all too many are into religion as a guarantee for their bank balances and good health -- and they may mix their self-sourced divine conversations with a wide range of hate elements -- against women (pro-life), gays, minorities (immigrants), other religions (terrorists), et al.

MODERNISM involves the application of the best religious ethical insights to our fellow human beings (and other life forms) -- whether one is an explicit religious believer or some variety of humanist -- agnostic or deist (believer in a world order but not divinity) or atheist. It is important for Americans particularly to recognize that our founding fathers were not Christians per se (i.e. theists) but self-proclaimed deists (Ben Franklin as archetype) or atheists (e.g. Ethan Allen). The slogan "under God" was added only during the Eisenhower years. Most Americans are totally unaware of this historical reality. I only discovered it in an history of American theology course with Bob Handy at Union Theological Seminary and joint teaching of an honors course with Lillian Schlissel, an expert in American history.

MILITANCY is the major and perhaps now apocalyptic threat today of religion. I could add a chapter here on all the mad wars that have been waged down though the millennia in the name of religions. Kwame Anthony Appiah draws a distinction between what he calls "extrinsic" and "intrinsic" racism. Both entail prejudices against groups. But whereas extrinsic racism can be corrected by appeals to the facts, intrinsic racism is resistant to challenge and deadly because it is connected to beliefs that enhance one's own group identity. By analogy militant religious cannot yield respect to others without admitting that their own beliefs are not absolute or the only way up the mountain. Pope Alexander XVI's recent digs at both Islam and Judaism and claims that his is the only real church are of this character. In another era such views sent troops off to the Holy Lands in crusades and caused the burning alive o many thousands 'unbelievers'.

Militant religion is the true enemy of humanity -- whether it takes the form of terrorist attacks on innocent civilians or occupation of resistant peoples. Bush slipped when he started his own crusades by using that term before he corrected himself. His comments are full of the vocabulary of militant religion which is obliged to justify its murders of others by declaring them to be "evil" ones -- the "axis of evil."

Whether we are explicit religious believers or not, our job is to recall our militants, encourage our mystics not to join their crusades, and to bring modern standards of justice and the rule of law back into our world system. I could scarcely believe my ears when I heard one of our generals in Iraq suggesting that 'democracy was possibly not the way to go there -- most of our allies in that region are not democracies'. Obviously the U.S. has unleashed an horrendous pattern of militancy against enemies real and imagined over there. And one cannot escape the militant religious connections of the Republicans -- its right wing evangelicals who want Israel reestablished and then destroyed to bring Jesus back again?! Needless to say this message is a demonic perversion of the Gospels. Satan rides again!
--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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Ancient Roots of Hate Religion

Eros probably needs no explanation. It is the Greek term for sexual attraction between two individuals that is undoubtedly genetically programed to produce reproduction in many living species. It is a fundamental aspect of our identity.

Agape is another Greek term appropriated by the early Christians to indicate God's self-sacrificing love of mankind and expectation that we should similarly love each other. It calls for care and respect for all mankind -- whether of one's own religion or not. It lies at the heart of any authentic religion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agap%C4%93

However this is not the beginning of the story. If one studies the origins of Western religion in the Hebrew and Greek sources (as I did for three years between studies in philosophy), one discovers the tensions in the ethical systems of the ancient world that have lingered into modern times and which are causing us considerable grief today.

The ancient Hebrews and their surrounding cultures were dealing with the same biological urges that are still with us -- erotic drives. Many of the ancient religions channeled eros into their temples and worship practices -- temple priestesses/prostitutes and such. Needless to say the smaller and vulnerable nation of Hebrews was resistant to a nice young Jewish boy jumping ship and falling for the attractive young goy of his day. So one discovers the anti erotic commandments that emerged in the course of time which condemned what were considered to be deviant sexual practices: prostitution, homosexuality, adultery, etc., etc.

A side feature of the ancient religions that must be mentioned here is that their respective gods were viewed as their military front line, leading their troops into battle -- whether Athena for Athens or Yahweh for Israel. As Israel was a small state caught on the trade routes between two super powers -- Egypt to the west and whatever was the dominant one to the east (Babylonians and others) -- it was likely to lose from time to time. Israel's priestly set could not allow that Yahweh was not all powerful and so the mythology emerged that when Israelis lost in war or were driven into exile, the Jewish god must be punishing his people for moral wrong doing. Thus, morality was linked to doing battle with enemies then characterized as EVIL -- raw hate religion at its most dangerous! And so we have the source of Bush's abominable military slogans and wars against his "axis of evil."

Christiane Amanpour is today beginning a series on CNN -- tonight at 9 p.m. and running for 3 days -- on "God's Warriors," our hate religious of today: Jewish, Christian, Muslim. I don't know how much she will get into the ideological roots of these violent deviants, but shall try to watch the programs, even if the watching is painful under current circumstances:

http://www.austin360.com/tv/content/tv/stories/2007/08/0821tvcolumn.html
--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
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Negative Impacts of Columbia Manhattanville Plan: #1 - Environmental Harms

President Lee Bollinger
Columbia University

Dear President Bollinger,

Columbia has had a long record of disastrous plans designed to bring in revenues through the back door. Most have fortunately been shot down before they got off the ground, e.g. a mall with faculty housing located somewhere towards the Catskills, a better cigarette filter. Its real estate ventures have been costly both to it and those hit by its hired guns.

One assumes that the current biotech move into Manhattanville is more of the same and ironically Columbia may be creating precisely the conditions that will _need_ biotech remediation -- at the cost of the surrounding communities and particularly their children.

Stepping back, exploitation of Harlem in conflict with its interests is not the newest game in town. Robert Moses had contempt for poor communities which he had no compunctions about destroying or depriving -- the wandering highways in Long Island that dodged the rich and bulldozed the poor. A particularly egregious move on his part that is readily apparent is that he covered the train tracks over Riverside Drive only up to 125th St. where the trains emerged and were killing kids as recently as a decade ago. My Columbia M.A. wife, Carolyn Kent, has fought successfully for the improvement of Harlem's West Side parks as CB#9 Parks and Preservation Chair (another $40 million has just been directed there).

The even greater hazard that was imposed on West Harlem and which will be further impacted by increased building south of it is the North River Sewage plant in the 140s. It should have been placed far further down the West Side where conventional horizontal waste settlement areas could have been fitted in. But needless to say Harlem became the victim even though there was not sufficient space to place a sewage plant there. An 'innovative' design of vertical tanks was used. Unhappily they did not work. At best the plant can remove only some of the harmful stuff that is being dumped into the river. When the rains are heavy, only solid waste is kept back and all the poisonous stuff from manufacturing etc. that flows into our sewers goes straight into the Hudson where no one should fish or swim but where too many do. I hate to imagine biotech contributions to these overflows! Initially Harlem was beset by the stench of the sewage plant (and poisons on the winds), until protests led to protective enclosure of the plant which left only its employees at risk. This state of affairs is often denied, but has been confirmed by experts and those who work in the plant many years ago.

Back to Columbia -- if the current plan to excavated seven stories deep into the 17 acres running from Broadway to the viaduct is implemented, hundreds of thousands of trucks will be carrying out junk over a 20 odd year period. Destruction of buildings will also scatter dust and debris that will follow the prevailing winds into central and East Harlem. Need one comment on the asthma impacts on kids alone that this environmental disaster will engender? There will be no wall to protect them from this tainted dust and other pollutants generated by the long-term construction process that will affect an entire generation!

After we moved out of 430 W. 125th St. in General Grant Houses where we had been invited to live when Columbia grad students, we were horrified to learn that the highest carbon monoxide rates in the city were along 125th St. -- a valley with much truck traffic. Imagine the impact of all those trucks and other equipment running engines in and through the area!

And then there is the construction noise factor over 20 odd years. Columbia has one of its own huge faculty housing buildings overlooking this disaster which is bracketed to the north by 3333 Broadway. In place of quiet and socially productive uses that we all are likely to need such as storage spaces and even a gas station, Columbia will be destroying an environmental area ranging many blocks north, south of it, and wherever the wind blows.

I think our children and families of Harlem deserve far better from a major university. Such institutions are notorious for poor planning with their rapid changes of administrations and boards appointed per their ability to provide funding rather than public service credentials.

CB#9 has offered a far more constructive alternative plan to yours. I hope wiser heads connected with Columbia will halt this disaster before it unfolds.

Ed Kent, Ph.D. Columbia, 1965

P.S. I hope some of the pols that you have lined up on your side will also reconsider what they are doing to their constituents!
--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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Iraq -- U.S Meida in La La Land!

[Manifestly from any unbiased point of view the chaos in Iraq is escalating daily. Most of our national news sources seem to be involved in major cover-ups. CNN did do a war survey this past weekend that was totally depressing on all fronts -- Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran. Michael Ware, an Australian reporting for them, both gets to the spots at stake and tells it as it is:

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

Our troops are being worn out and demoralized -- 100 returnees have suicided. We are discredited as a nation as the Bush administration flails out desperately -- classifying the Iranian Revolutionary Army as a terrorist organization -- to what end? To prepare for bombing it? There go our access routes to Iraq and Afghanistan and oil. One can only wonder how much more damage our government can do to us during the next 17 months -- during which we shall undoubtedly be barraged with propaganda that would have made Hitler's, Mussolini's, Franco's and Pinochet's look amateurish in comparison. May they not get away with stealing any more elections.

The npr, the NY Times, and presumably the Washington Post are now trying to penetrate the miasma by such as the below. Ed Kent]

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

OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS
The War as We Saw It
By BUDDHIKA JAYAMAHA, WESLEY D. SMITH, JEREMY ROEBUCK, OMAR MORA, EDWARD SANDMEIER, YANCE T. GRAY and JEREMY A. MURPHY
The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/opinion/19jayamaha.html?th&emc=th

Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.
--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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Who Is Calling the Kettle Black?

Apparently the Bush administration is getting ready to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization.

If one pauses a moment and compares body counts -- those killed by Iranians v. those killed by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan (and American weapons -- cluster bombs, etc. -- in Lebanon), I wonder who is calling the kettle black here? Ed Kent
--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
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http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Property Games #4 - Government Safety Regulations

[Many years ago I spent a summer working in an aircraft plant. The noise level was such that any working there would be partially deafened over the long run and there were dangers (a guy who replaced me one day when I took off to apply for a scholarship was squashed between two racing fork lifts). However, one protection was that none of us was permitted to lift anything more than 30 pounds. Workmen's compensation laws put in place by FDR made companies liable for disabilities caused by unsafe practices, even if a worker had been careless. So frugal companies played it safe and followed the rules laid down by government:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_compensation

One hears in the sad case of the lost six minors in Utah that the company was following government prescribed practices in ripping out the last bits of coal ('retreat' mining which was likely to cause collapses when the pillars of coal holding up the ceilings were pulled out). Mr. Murray, the owner of this and a number of mines in Utah and other states is obviously rationalizing like mad with his claims that an earthquake caused the mine collapse. It is most likely the case here that the federal mine safety authorities had not kept up with the hazards involved in new methods of mining:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/16/us/16mine.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

In far too many areas our governments, federal and local, have been failing us, as recent infrastructure disasters have all too readily displayed -- the destruction of New Orleans with inadequate levies to keep back the waters -- and another hurricane headed in their direction!

The bottom line here is that our lives and properties are at risk when our governments fail us with safety standards and corrections of hazards. Corporations are in business to make profits. And Mr. Murray's rationalizations are all too manifest evidence of what can happen when such things are left to private enterprise -- which is not really private at all, but rather a potential hazard to all women, children and other living things when our governments fail in their regulatory duties.

We need more than prayers to keep us safe and healthy. Ed Kent]

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

Searching for the Miners
For too long, the Republican-controlled Congress allowed
mine operators to put off making needed investments to
ensure their workers' safety.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/16/opinion/16thu2.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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
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http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

PESSIMISTIC VIEWS ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM

[It is a sad business, but with the decline in numbers of tenured faculty and vast increase in part-time teaching, academic freedom on any number of topics is severely restricted. A department chair elected at Brooklyn College recently was forced to forego the job because someone turned up a blog in which he had been critical of religion. Others have been hit because they have offered criticisms of the Israeli occupation. Criticisms of the policies of the Bush administration and right wingers generally can put one at risk of vicious ad hominem attacks which needless to say can carry over into tenure and promotion actions which are generally confidential. Having been on both sides of the fence in the past as an academic, I can only imagine the caution with which vulnerable people may be expressing themselves -- at the very least forced to follow the cheap media game rules of 'on the one hand and on the other hand' in instances where there is only one right 'opinion' -- the one that accords with the facts as we can best know them.

In a a way I am glad that I am out of there and into full time blogging now -- free either of putting myself or more importantly my colleagues at risk through speaking the truth as I best can discover it. But I worry about the future health of the nation if increasing numbers of academics fear exposing lies, injustices, and deceptions wherever they may find them. Ed Kent]

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


PESSIMISTIC VIEWS ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM
Social scientists are more worried now than during McCarthy
era, survey finds. Sociologists consider why and what to do
about it.
http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/08/15/freedom
--
"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 212-665-8535 (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
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Rove Owned a Vote of Thanks -- by Democrats!

[Rove, possibly only exceeded by Cheney, has probably done more harm to the Republicans than any other single individual -- while bent on making them the dominant ones by any means -- more foul than fair. What a record:

-a brutal and self-destructive war in Iraq.
-unsuccessful assault on Social Security.
-U.S. medicine messed up by give aways to drug produces and other for profit intrusions against good health care.
-assault on education at all levels.
-disastrous spending with taxes to cover deficits.
-vast favoritism of super wealthy against 90% of Americans.
-corrupt and incompetent appointments to key government posts.
-deregulation of key services - sub prime mortgaging to environmental protection.
-export of jobs to overseas locations -- India and China.

The list is never ending as a nearly daily scandal reveals yet another major or minor risk to the welfare of Americans. Even the nearly total control of our media by corporate interests has not been enough to fool most of the people who are awakening from a deep drug induced slumber at the hands of Rove and his cronies. May he rest in peace somewhere in Texas where he will undoubtedly begin to prosper as a lobbyist. Ed Kent]

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

Rove Will Resign as Bush Adviser at End of Month
By JIM RUTENBERG and STEVEN LEE MYERS
In an emotional appearance with President Bush, Karl Rove
said he wanted to think about the "next chapter" in his
family's life.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/washington/14rove.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 212-665-8535 (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://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
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http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Padilla v. Bush

[Once upon a time not so very long ago the French bore the reputation for the most brutal prison system of a developed country -- Devil's Island:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil's_Island

It was closed down in 1952.

Unhappily the U.S. now has appropriated the reputation for most brutal treatment of prisoners -- both at home and in the various other locations -- Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and elsewhere rendered. Our system abounds with mind destroying practices -- solitary confinement, brutal treatment of prisoners. Such was the situation in Brooklyn shortly after 9/11 where one of the guards assigned to guard Muslims accused of visa violations battered them along with his fellows and then went on to Abu Ghraib where his widely pictured brutalities eventually led to his prosecution and conviction:

http://www.bloggernews.net/2006/09/thousands-of-immigrants-held-by.html

The report below in the Monitor on the effects of Jose Padilla's incarceration should be writ large in witness of the thousands of others whose minds are being destroyed in our prison system -- where the numbers have now grown to some 2.2+ million:

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2637053120070627

Ed Kent]

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

US terror interrogation went too far, experts say
Reports find that Jose Padilla's solitary confinement led to mental problems By Warren Richey
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0813/p01s03-usju.html?s=hns
--
"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 212-665-8535 (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://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Ending the Ancient Religious Prejudices Against Gays

[If one reads the Gospels, Christians and others will find not one word of disapproval of gays. The gay hater of the New Testament was 'Saint' Paul, the convert who as so many brought his own prejudices to bear on 'enemies' ranging from unconverted Jews to young widows. His most vicious attack, however, was directed at gays near the beginning of his Letter to the Romans -- perhaps anticipating his approach to the major urban center of those days. His excoriation amounted to a death sentence -- which was imposed down through the centuries and reached its climax when the Nazi Christian church and Hitler set out to exterminate both Jews (and lest we forget) gays. Ironically some of the Nazi leaders themselves were gay as was apparently J. Edgar Hoover who sought out gays to punish as subversives and, of course, Joseph McCarthy's young henchmen, Roy Cohen, who was gay and after a vicious career as a right winger died of AIDS.

It is, then, full well time that Christians and others disassociate themselves from this vicious prejudice, as has the major U.S. Lutheran denomination today. The man who claims that only members of his Church are Christians, Alexander XVI, has not made the jump yet, alas. Perhaps his Hitler youth days left the young Ratzinger with this prejudice intact? Ed Kent]

Christian Post
Lutherans ask bishops to keep gay clergy in ministry
Chicago Tribune - 1 hour ago
By Margaret Ramirez | Tribune religion reporter August 12, 2007 In a historic decision that could shift the future of their church's policy on sexuality, the nation's largest Lutheran denomination Saturday urged its bishops to refrain from disciplining ...
'A huge victory' for gay Lutheran clergy Chicago Sun-Times
Lutherans vote not to punish gay ministers Los Angeles Times
Reuters - Camp KC - Kansas City Star - Austin American-Statesman (subscription)
--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) Today

http://www.fair.org/index.php

FAIR at the above website goes after the distortions and misrepresentations in the media. Will send this report along now and again. Today among others they go after an MSNBC "Truth Squad" attack on Democrats: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3159 I think those of us who follow things closely are aware of the major gaffs that are constantly being put forth on the only media most Americans experience, let alone the none too subtle attack dog stuff such as the above. Entering retirement and with limited vision I see more of such stuff than I might otherwise view. Thank the g-ds for npr.
--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
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http://www.bloggernews.net

Distorted Statistics and Graduation Rates

[I would add here that I suspect that much of the anger (hate politics) that we are encountering today in the U.S. is fueled by class resentment -- jealousy that previously subordinated individuals and groups are now 'making it'. I recall the first time that an angry student claimed that he had been a victim of discrimination -- affirmative action. When we probed the details it became clear that he, himself, had not met the minimum score levels for admission to a particular program by his own admission, but that he still believed that others had been given special breaks. He could not admit to himself that said others were better qualified than he without any special admission advantages. Needless to say Bush is an icon of such attitudes. He would not be admitted to Yale today, was not admitted to law school even in his home state, and most likely would not even make Harvard for an MBA now. He is a privileged glad hander totally unqualified for the most dangerous job the world has to offer -- the choice of corporate interests that knew they could depend upon him for special consideration -- and so we have Iraq and the sub prime mortgage disasters unfolding. The following is sent on by one of my CUNY colleagues. It pictures many of my finest students whom I shall be missing in retirement. Ed Kent]

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

From: Manfred Philipp
Reply-To: Manfred Philipp
To: UFS-NEWS@LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU

Dear Colleagues,

Sally Mettler of LaGuardia forwarded the following article by Attewell
and Lavin on Graduation Rates. It is posted here on behalf of Prof.
Mettler and on behalf of Susan O'Mally. It had been distributed on the
LaGuardia campus by Robert Levine.

The full article is too long for this forum. Hence, I am posting only
the first few lines, and provide a web address for the rest of it.
Like other work by David Lavin and his colleagues, it is a highly
important contribution to the current debate about retention and
graduation rates

Manfred Philipp

The complete article is posted at http://ufs.cuny.edu/GradRates.html

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

http://ufs.cuny.edu/GradRates.html
By PAUL ATTEWELL and DAVID E. LAVIN

[Posted with the permission of Professor David Lavin]

Undergraduate enrollments have grown sixfold in the last half-century
and continue to boom; today more than 80 percent of high-school
graduates go to college within approximately eight years of graduation
One might expect those accomplishments to be celebrated, but the
expansion of higher education has been accompanied by ambivalence,
anxiety, and opposition. As enrollments continue to climb, the
intensity of criticism grows ever louder.

We are told that public colleges admit inadequately prepared students,
that graduation rates are scandalously low, that students take too
long to graduate, and that university graduates lack appropriate job
skills. Last fall's report by Secretary of Education Margaret
Spellings' Commission on the Future of Higher Education followed suit
in calling for more institutional accountability for what students
learn and for graduating them faster and at less cost.

Many of the questions policy makers ask are distorted by conceptual
blinders that evaluate today's undergraduate experience against a norm
from an earlier era when students entered college immediately after
high school, attended college full time, lived in dormitories, and
rarely worked for pay because they were financially dependent on their
parents. But such traditional students, whose needs and experiences
still drive public policy, make up less than a quarter of today's
undergraduate population. We need to focus on what higher education
is, not what it once was.

It should come as no surprise that today's undergraduates * often
commuter students who typically juggle family or work obligations, or
both, with college * do not fare well on performance measures designed
for a different kind of student. Today many undergraduates cycle in
and out of college. They stop for a while or drop down to part-time
status to earn enough money to pay for next semester's tuition, or for
rent, or to have a child, or to accept a promising job opportunity.
For such students * remember, they are the large majority of today's
undergraduates * a college education is something that has to be
fitted into the rest of life. College is no longer a phase of youth to
be enjoyed before real life begins.
...............

[For the complete text of this article, please go to
http://ufs.cuny.edu/GradRates.html .
--
"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 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
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http://www.bloggernews.net