Monday, March 28, 2005
Religion: Two goodies from the Sunday NY Times:
(1) Organizing in Ohio: Christian conservative leaders from scores of Ohio's fastest growing churches are mounting a campaign to win control of local government posts and Republican organizations, starting with the 2006 governor's race.
In a manifesto that is being circulated among church leaders and on the Internet, the group, which is called the Ohio Restoration Project, is planning to mobilize 2,000 evangelical, Baptist, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic leaders in a network of so-called Patriot Pastors to register half a million new voters, enlist activists, train candidates and endorse conservative causes in the next year. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/politics/27OHIO.html?
(2) Wal-Martization of Churches: Mega Churches- Case example: Radiant Church, Surprise, Arizona: Krispy Kremes, game boys, Community, less Jesus. Full account in the NY Times Sunday magazine
…Radiant's many Christ-based programs, from financial planning to parenthood and education, until they have eventually incorporated Christian values into every aspect of their lives.
This is the vision of the new megachurch, and it's far more expansive than those of yesterday's megachurches and today's smaller churches. ''The larger church expects a much higher level of commitment,'' says Dave Travis, who runs Leadership Network, a strategic consulting firm for megachurches. ''The larger church expects you to be a more passionate follower of Christ, not just in the church, but in your community, your workplace and your home.''
As an evangelical strategy, it seems to be working. Weekly attendance at most American churches has either plateaued or is declining. But megachurches continue to expand -- and multiply. (According to John Vaughan, who runs the Megachurch Research Center in Bolivar, Mo., there were 10 non-Catholic megachurches in America in 1970. Today there are 282.) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/magazine/327MEGACHURCH.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Believer Pharmacists: Monday’s WaPost tracks the pharmacists who are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control, saying it conflicts with their moral / religious beliefs. Some do, some don’t facilitate transfer to another pharmacy.
Some pharmacists across the country are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control and morning-after pills, saying that dispensing the medications violates their personal moral or religious beliefs.
The trend has opened a new front in the nation's battle over reproductive rights, sparking an intense debate over the competing rights of pharmacists to refuse to participate in something they consider repugnant and a woman's right to get medications her doctor has prescribed. It has also triggered pitched political battles in statehouses across the nation as politicians seek to pass laws either to protect pharmacists from being penalized -- or force them to carry out their duties. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5490-2005Mar27.html
T.V. Finds Religion. “…television industry’s answer to the cash-generating power of biblical stories put through a pop-culture spin cycle.”
Now is the time in Hollywood when broadcast networks decide what shows TV audiences will want to watch in the season starting in September. Judging from several comedy and drama pilots now in progress that are already getting close consideration, America's couches will be turning into pews.
A splashy drama called "Book of Daniel" is in development at NBC, a unit of General Electric Co., while Viacom Inc.'s CBS is building a supernatural thriller around a character described as "a brilliant physicist with strong religious beliefs." News Corp.'s Fox, meanwhile, has "Briar + Graves," which the producers describe as "The X-Files" goes to church. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111197285208490584,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Schiavo: End Game. I promise fewer posts from hereon.
Jeb no longer the hero; (AP)
Bob Schindler also pleaded with Gov. Jeb Bush to intervene by taking temporary custody of their daughter while court challenges are argued.
``With the stroke of his pen, he could stop this,'' Bob Schindler said. ``He's put Terri through a week of hell and my family though a week of hell. I implore him to put a stop to this. He has to stop it. This is judicial homicide.''
Right Divides / Implodes from Schiavo Intervention?
Even Utah papers condemn DeLay:
Tom DeLay says he wants Terri Schiavo to live. And there is no reason to doubt that.
But it is clear that the House majority leader is not above using the suffering of a woman he has never met to promote his own, increasingly shaky, political career. http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_2621401
HOW THE OTHER “HALF“ THINKS:
(1) 'The bizarre passion of the pull-the-tube people'
Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s chief speechwriter wrote some very effective speeches. I think she peaked in the 80’s. Witness:
"Those who are half in love with death [A majority of the American people who believe the federal government should not be interfering here!] will only become more red-fanged and ravenous.
More:
I do not understand the emotionalism of the pull-the-tube people. What is driving their engagement? Is it because they are compassionate, and their hearts bleed at the thought that Mrs. Schiavo suffers? But throughout this case no one has testified that she is in persistent pain, as those with terminal cancer are.
If they care so much about her pain, why are they unconcerned at the suffering caused her by the denial of food and water? And why do those who argue for Mrs. Schiavo's death employ language and imagery that is so violent and aggressive? The chairman of the Democratic National Committee calls Republicans "brain dead." Michael Schiavo, the husband, calls House Majority Leader Tom DeLay "a slithering snake."
Everyone who has written in defense of Mrs. Schiavo's right to live has received e-mail blasts full of attacks that appear to have been dictated by the unstable and typed by the unhinged. On Democratic Underground they crowed about having "kicked the sh-- out of the fascists." On Tuesday James Carville's face was swept with a sneer so convulsive you could see his gums as he damned the Republicans trying to help Mrs. Schiavo. It would have seemed demonic if he weren't a buffoon.
Why are they so committed to this woman's death?
They seem to have fallen half in love with death.
What does Terri Schiavo's life symbolize to them? What does the idea that she might continue to live suggest to them?
Why does this prospect so unnerve them? Again, if you think Terri Schiavo is a precious human gift of God, your passion is explicable. The passion of the pull-the-tube people is not. http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006460
(2) If you went to www.helpterri.com, you got the following:
They're about to starve a disabled woman to death in Florida. Out-of-control judges and greedy lawyers are set to remove the feeding tube from Terri Schindler-Schiavo this week. She's not brain dead, nor in a coma, nor on any life support system; she is simply severely handicapped. She laughs and cries and tries to talk with her parents. And the judges and lawyers want to kill her. WE MUST STOP THEM NOW
And:
It is unthinkable... like some dark scenario in a horror movie... but true. An innocent, disabled woman is now being starved to death. Her food and water were suspended on Friday afternoon.
But we still have time to save Terri, if we work together, and work quickly.
Read this closely, and do whatever is in your power to do. We will leave the outcome in the hands of Almighty God.
Time is running out for Terri Schiavo. She's been starving to death for seven days now. An expert neurologist from the Mayo Clinic has testified that she is NOT in a "persistent vegetative state," but is very aware of what is going on around her. That means that in her present state, she is in a great deal of pain and suffering from starving to death -- she just can't communicate that fact to those around her. Contrary to those that try to paint a picture of a "gentle process," death by dehydration is a cruel, inhumane and often agonizing death. http://www.conservativealerts.com/terri-tj.htm
(3) Brown Shirts: I’m not quick to make the Nazi analogies, but…
I advocate the use of force to rescue Terri Schiavo from being starved to death.
I further advocate the killing of anyone who interferes with such rescue." -- Hal Turner, .
arch Rightie and anti-Semite. http://www.halturnershow.com/
(4) Grover Norquist: leading Right theoretician/activist:
"Advocates of using federal power to keep this woman alive need to seriously study the polling data that's come out on this," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, who has been talking to both social and economic conservatives about the fallout. "I think that a lot of conservative leaders assumed there was broader support for saying that they wanted to have the federal government save this woman's life." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1944-2005Mar25.html
Oh, thought this was about “saving a woman’s life”, not polling data.
Frank Rich on the “religio-hucksterism surrounding the Schiavo case.”
That bullying, stoked by politicians in power, has become omnipresent, leading television stations to practice self-censorship and high school teachers to avoid mentioning "the E word," evolution, in their classrooms, lest they arouse fundamentalist rancor. The president is on record as saying that the jury is still out on evolution, so perhaps it's no surprise that The Los Angeles Times has uncovered a three-year-old "religious rights" unit in the Justice Department that investigated a biology professor at Texas Tech because he refused to write letters of recommendation for students who do not accept evolution as "the central, unifying principle of biology."
And:
But faced with McCarthyism in God's name, most Democratic leaders went into hiding and stayed silent. Prayers are no more likely to revive their spines than poor Terri Schiavo's brain. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/arts/27Rich.html?pagewanted=print&position=
P.R. Corruption: Jeb does it as well
At the same time one of Florida's most visible television reporters brought the news to viewers around the state, he earned hundreds of thousands of dollars on the side from the government agencies he covered.
Mike Vasilinda, a 30-year veteran of the Tallahassee press corps, does public relations work and provides film editing services to more than a dozen state agencies.
His Tallahassee company, Mike Vasilinda Productions Inc., has earned more than $100,000 over the past four years through contracts with Gov. Jeb Bush's office, the Secretary of State, the Department of Education and other government entities that are routinely part of Vasilinda's stories. http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050326/NEWS/503260408/1060
Bush Term II: It’s Been a Very Good Year (for Corporations) MBNA, Wal-Mart, Exxon-Mobil et al have had victories with bankruptcy, class-action lawsuits, oil drilling. Well known; good to see it highlighted
Fortune 500 companies that invested millions of dollars in electing Republicans are emerging as the earliest beneficiaries of a government controlled by President Bush and the largest GOP House and Senate majority in a half century. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3796-2005Mar26.html
Janeane Garofalo of Air America Radio: profile in the NY Times: The fiery actress-activist has made a commitment.
For now, having roused herself from postelectoral trauma - she still interrupts guests to say that although the president was inaugurated, she doubts he actually won - she's signed on for another year at Air America.
"My alternative is what?" she said. "To scream at my TV? Or to come in and discuss all this with other people who are just as shocked, just as disgusted as me?" http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/arts/27span.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Progressive Democrats?
Six weeks of e-mail debate and balloting ended earlier this month with ''A Declaration of Progressive Principles." It is posted at www.principlesproject.com.
The manifesto is more than 500 words long. The online symposium aimed for broad statements of core beliefs that could unite people among the diverse factions of the Democratic Party.
The section on strengthening democracy, for example, declares: ''It is the shared responsibility of a nation to ensure each citizen's freedom, security, and equality. Through government, we honor our responsibility to promote the common good."
However spacious the language, the Principles Project's declarations represent a partial answer to two questions that have percolated in Washington since the November election. One is whether the grass-roots activity and political energy that was mobilized on the Democratic side against President Bush would continue after his reelection victory. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/03/27/progressives_seek_common?mode=PF
Native Americans and Bush Budget: He finally paid his condolences to the Minnesota tribe. Meanwhile…
American Indian housing aid from the federal government has been targeted for a deep cut in the Bush administration's 2006 budget request. Unless Congress acts to restore funding, more than $100 million in assistance, or 15 percent of the total, will be taken away from Americans most in need of housing help.
The major funding cuts - $107 million - come in the housing block grants administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development under NAHASDA (Native American Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act), and the Indian set-aside in the Community Development Block Grant program (the I-CDBG).
Other Native-friendly programs, such as HUD's Rural Housing and Economic Development (RHED) program which generally targets at least a quarter of its $25 million annually for Indian projects, have been zeroed out.
However, in a telling indication of the way budget politics is played in Washington, this is the fourth straight year in which RHED has been zeroed out by the Administration. Congress has restored it three times. http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410518
For those who still speak highly of John McCain:
Bush and McCain suggested that older Americans are standing in the way of change to protect their own retirement incomes - an insulting tactic that could backfire.
Those who have already reached retirement age understand better than anyone that a guaranteed safety net could be as necessary for coming generations as it is now, when nearly two out of three retirees rely largely or solely on Social Security. So they are looking out for their children and grandchildren, an act of responsibility not self-interest.
Shame on McCain for being a part of this effort to divide the generations. Usually noted for candid speech, he even resorted to misinformation when he said in 2042 "we stop paying people Social Security." McCain knows that isn't true.
That is the date (actually it was changed to 2041 the other day) when Social Security reserves are expected to be used up. Even then, with no change in the program, recipients would continue to get about 75 percent of what was promised them. http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/25/news_pf/Opinion/Shame_on_John_McCain.shtml
Global Arms Trafficking: Pakistan: I think I’ve been writing about this for several years, yet it still makes front page headlines…and nothing changes. Pakistan illegally purchases nuclear weapons components from American companies, while the Administration ends a 15 year ban on selling fighter planes to Pakistan. When asked why, they say, ‘oh, we’ll sell even better weapons to India’. Helpful! Condi elaborates that it’s all for the good, as we have to “break out of the notion that … anything that happens that is good for Pakistan is bad for India, and vice versa."
A federal criminal investigation has uncovered evidence that the government of Pakistan made clandestine purchases of U.S. high-technology components for use in its nuclear weapons program in defiance of American law.
Federal authorities also say the highly specialized equipment at one point passed through the hands of Humayun Khan, an Islamabad businessman who they say has ties to Islamic militants.http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-paknuke26mar26,1,5616985,print.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage
What’s Happening, Iraq: Sunni vs Shiite. From The Globe!
For the first time, Sunni Muslim sheiks are publicly exhorting followers to strike with force against ethnic Kurds and Shi'ites, an escalation in rhetoric that could exacerbate the communal violence that already is shaking Iraq's ethnic communities.
''The Americans aren't the problem; we're living under an occupation of Kurds and Shi'ites," Sattar Abdulhalik Adburahman, a Sunni leader from the northern city of Kirkuk, told a gathering of tribal leaders last week, to deafening applause. ''It's time to fight back."
Such calls for violence are being voiced against the backdrop of an alarming rise in tit-for-tat ethnic and sectarian killings.
According to several Iraqi leaders, Shi'ite death squads routinely kill Sunnis suspected of ties to the Ba'ath Party or insurgency. Bands of Sunnis target Shi'ites in retaliation, Sunni political leaders like Adnan Pachachi said, suggesting that significant organizations, rather than small splintered cells of vigilantes, are driving the killing.
Increasingly, terms like ''insurgency" and ''anti-Iraqi forces" favored by American officials here fail to fully describe much of the violence. Iraqi politicians say the worst violence is being carried out by Sunni fighters against Shi'ites and Kurds -- both civilians and those who work for security forces backed by the Iraqi government. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/03/27/fractured_iraq_sees_a_sunni_call_to_arms/
Bush Numbers: CNN/USA Today/Gallup note that he “has dropped sharply, and is now at 45%.” The Pew poll had similar numbers.
"The poll also shows an increasingly negative public mood about the country's direction and more specifically about the economy. Rising oil and gas prices appear to be a major factor in the lower economic ratings." http://gallup.com/poll/content/?ci=15373
-R
(1) Organizing in Ohio: Christian conservative leaders from scores of Ohio's fastest growing churches are mounting a campaign to win control of local government posts and Republican organizations, starting with the 2006 governor's race.
In a manifesto that is being circulated among church leaders and on the Internet, the group, which is called the Ohio Restoration Project, is planning to mobilize 2,000 evangelical, Baptist, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic leaders in a network of so-called Patriot Pastors to register half a million new voters, enlist activists, train candidates and endorse conservative causes in the next year. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/politics/27OHIO.html?
(2) Wal-Martization of Churches: Mega Churches- Case example: Radiant Church, Surprise, Arizona: Krispy Kremes, game boys, Community, less Jesus. Full account in the NY Times Sunday magazine
…Radiant's many Christ-based programs, from financial planning to parenthood and education, until they have eventually incorporated Christian values into every aspect of their lives.
This is the vision of the new megachurch, and it's far more expansive than those of yesterday's megachurches and today's smaller churches. ''The larger church expects a much higher level of commitment,'' says Dave Travis, who runs Leadership Network, a strategic consulting firm for megachurches. ''The larger church expects you to be a more passionate follower of Christ, not just in the church, but in your community, your workplace and your home.''
As an evangelical strategy, it seems to be working. Weekly attendance at most American churches has either plateaued or is declining. But megachurches continue to expand -- and multiply. (According to John Vaughan, who runs the Megachurch Research Center in Bolivar, Mo., there were 10 non-Catholic megachurches in America in 1970. Today there are 282.) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/magazine/327MEGACHURCH.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Believer Pharmacists: Monday’s WaPost tracks the pharmacists who are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control, saying it conflicts with their moral / religious beliefs. Some do, some don’t facilitate transfer to another pharmacy.
Some pharmacists across the country are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control and morning-after pills, saying that dispensing the medications violates their personal moral or religious beliefs.
The trend has opened a new front in the nation's battle over reproductive rights, sparking an intense debate over the competing rights of pharmacists to refuse to participate in something they consider repugnant and a woman's right to get medications her doctor has prescribed. It has also triggered pitched political battles in statehouses across the nation as politicians seek to pass laws either to protect pharmacists from being penalized -- or force them to carry out their duties. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5490-2005Mar27.html
T.V. Finds Religion. “…television industry’s answer to the cash-generating power of biblical stories put through a pop-culture spin cycle.”
Now is the time in Hollywood when broadcast networks decide what shows TV audiences will want to watch in the season starting in September. Judging from several comedy and drama pilots now in progress that are already getting close consideration, America's couches will be turning into pews.
A splashy drama called "Book of Daniel" is in development at NBC, a unit of General Electric Co., while Viacom Inc.'s CBS is building a supernatural thriller around a character described as "a brilliant physicist with strong religious beliefs." News Corp.'s Fox, meanwhile, has "Briar + Graves," which the producers describe as "The X-Files" goes to church. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111197285208490584,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Schiavo: End Game. I promise fewer posts from hereon.
Jeb no longer the hero; (AP)
Bob Schindler also pleaded with Gov. Jeb Bush to intervene by taking temporary custody of their daughter while court challenges are argued.
``With the stroke of his pen, he could stop this,'' Bob Schindler said. ``He's put Terri through a week of hell and my family though a week of hell. I implore him to put a stop to this. He has to stop it. This is judicial homicide.''
Right Divides / Implodes from Schiavo Intervention?
Even Utah papers condemn DeLay:
Tom DeLay says he wants Terri Schiavo to live. And there is no reason to doubt that.
But it is clear that the House majority leader is not above using the suffering of a woman he has never met to promote his own, increasingly shaky, political career. http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_2621401
HOW THE OTHER “HALF“ THINKS:
(1) 'The bizarre passion of the pull-the-tube people'
Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s chief speechwriter wrote some very effective speeches. I think she peaked in the 80’s. Witness:
"Those who are half in love with death [A majority of the American people who believe the federal government should not be interfering here!] will only become more red-fanged and ravenous.
More:
I do not understand the emotionalism of the pull-the-tube people. What is driving their engagement? Is it because they are compassionate, and their hearts bleed at the thought that Mrs. Schiavo suffers? But throughout this case no one has testified that she is in persistent pain, as those with terminal cancer are.
If they care so much about her pain, why are they unconcerned at the suffering caused her by the denial of food and water? And why do those who argue for Mrs. Schiavo's death employ language and imagery that is so violent and aggressive? The chairman of the Democratic National Committee calls Republicans "brain dead." Michael Schiavo, the husband, calls House Majority Leader Tom DeLay "a slithering snake."
Everyone who has written in defense of Mrs. Schiavo's right to live has received e-mail blasts full of attacks that appear to have been dictated by the unstable and typed by the unhinged. On Democratic Underground they crowed about having "kicked the sh-- out of the fascists." On Tuesday James Carville's face was swept with a sneer so convulsive you could see his gums as he damned the Republicans trying to help Mrs. Schiavo. It would have seemed demonic if he weren't a buffoon.
Why are they so committed to this woman's death?
They seem to have fallen half in love with death.
What does Terri Schiavo's life symbolize to them? What does the idea that she might continue to live suggest to them?
Why does this prospect so unnerve them? Again, if you think Terri Schiavo is a precious human gift of God, your passion is explicable. The passion of the pull-the-tube people is not. http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006460
(2) If you went to www.helpterri.com, you got the following:
They're about to starve a disabled woman to death in Florida. Out-of-control judges and greedy lawyers are set to remove the feeding tube from Terri Schindler-Schiavo this week. She's not brain dead, nor in a coma, nor on any life support system; she is simply severely handicapped. She laughs and cries and tries to talk with her parents. And the judges and lawyers want to kill her. WE MUST STOP THEM NOW
And:
It is unthinkable... like some dark scenario in a horror movie... but true. An innocent, disabled woman is now being starved to death. Her food and water were suspended on Friday afternoon.
But we still have time to save Terri, if we work together, and work quickly.
Read this closely, and do whatever is in your power to do. We will leave the outcome in the hands of Almighty God.
Time is running out for Terri Schiavo. She's been starving to death for seven days now. An expert neurologist from the Mayo Clinic has testified that she is NOT in a "persistent vegetative state," but is very aware of what is going on around her. That means that in her present state, she is in a great deal of pain and suffering from starving to death -- she just can't communicate that fact to those around her. Contrary to those that try to paint a picture of a "gentle process," death by dehydration is a cruel, inhumane and often agonizing death. http://www.conservativealerts.com/terri-tj.htm
(3) Brown Shirts: I’m not quick to make the Nazi analogies, but…
I advocate the use of force to rescue Terri Schiavo from being starved to death.
I further advocate the killing of anyone who interferes with such rescue." -- Hal Turner, .
arch Rightie and anti-Semite. http://www.halturnershow.com/
(4) Grover Norquist: leading Right theoretician/activist:
"Advocates of using federal power to keep this woman alive need to seriously study the polling data that's come out on this," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, who has been talking to both social and economic conservatives about the fallout. "I think that a lot of conservative leaders assumed there was broader support for saying that they wanted to have the federal government save this woman's life." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1944-2005Mar25.html
Oh, thought this was about “saving a woman’s life”, not polling data.
Frank Rich on the “religio-hucksterism surrounding the Schiavo case.”
That bullying, stoked by politicians in power, has become omnipresent, leading television stations to practice self-censorship and high school teachers to avoid mentioning "the E word," evolution, in their classrooms, lest they arouse fundamentalist rancor. The president is on record as saying that the jury is still out on evolution, so perhaps it's no surprise that The Los Angeles Times has uncovered a three-year-old "religious rights" unit in the Justice Department that investigated a biology professor at Texas Tech because he refused to write letters of recommendation for students who do not accept evolution as "the central, unifying principle of biology."
And:
But faced with McCarthyism in God's name, most Democratic leaders went into hiding and stayed silent. Prayers are no more likely to revive their spines than poor Terri Schiavo's brain. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/arts/27Rich.html?pagewanted=print&position=
P.R. Corruption: Jeb does it as well
At the same time one of Florida's most visible television reporters brought the news to viewers around the state, he earned hundreds of thousands of dollars on the side from the government agencies he covered.
Mike Vasilinda, a 30-year veteran of the Tallahassee press corps, does public relations work and provides film editing services to more than a dozen state agencies.
His Tallahassee company, Mike Vasilinda Productions Inc., has earned more than $100,000 over the past four years through contracts with Gov. Jeb Bush's office, the Secretary of State, the Department of Education and other government entities that are routinely part of Vasilinda's stories. http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050326/NEWS/503260408/1060
Bush Term II: It’s Been a Very Good Year (for Corporations) MBNA, Wal-Mart, Exxon-Mobil et al have had victories with bankruptcy, class-action lawsuits, oil drilling. Well known; good to see it highlighted
Fortune 500 companies that invested millions of dollars in electing Republicans are emerging as the earliest beneficiaries of a government controlled by President Bush and the largest GOP House and Senate majority in a half century. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3796-2005Mar26.html
Janeane Garofalo of Air America Radio: profile in the NY Times: The fiery actress-activist has made a commitment.
For now, having roused herself from postelectoral trauma - she still interrupts guests to say that although the president was inaugurated, she doubts he actually won - she's signed on for another year at Air America.
"My alternative is what?" she said. "To scream at my TV? Or to come in and discuss all this with other people who are just as shocked, just as disgusted as me?" http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/arts/27span.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Progressive Democrats?
Six weeks of e-mail debate and balloting ended earlier this month with ''A Declaration of Progressive Principles." It is posted at www.principlesproject.com.
The manifesto is more than 500 words long. The online symposium aimed for broad statements of core beliefs that could unite people among the diverse factions of the Democratic Party.
The section on strengthening democracy, for example, declares: ''It is the shared responsibility of a nation to ensure each citizen's freedom, security, and equality. Through government, we honor our responsibility to promote the common good."
However spacious the language, the Principles Project's declarations represent a partial answer to two questions that have percolated in Washington since the November election. One is whether the grass-roots activity and political energy that was mobilized on the Democratic side against President Bush would continue after his reelection victory. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/03/27/progressives_seek_common?mode=PF
Native Americans and Bush Budget: He finally paid his condolences to the Minnesota tribe. Meanwhile…
American Indian housing aid from the federal government has been targeted for a deep cut in the Bush administration's 2006 budget request. Unless Congress acts to restore funding, more than $100 million in assistance, or 15 percent of the total, will be taken away from Americans most in need of housing help.
The major funding cuts - $107 million - come in the housing block grants administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development under NAHASDA (Native American Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act), and the Indian set-aside in the Community Development Block Grant program (the I-CDBG).
Other Native-friendly programs, such as HUD's Rural Housing and Economic Development (RHED) program which generally targets at least a quarter of its $25 million annually for Indian projects, have been zeroed out.
However, in a telling indication of the way budget politics is played in Washington, this is the fourth straight year in which RHED has been zeroed out by the Administration. Congress has restored it three times. http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410518
For those who still speak highly of John McCain:
Bush and McCain suggested that older Americans are standing in the way of change to protect their own retirement incomes - an insulting tactic that could backfire.
Those who have already reached retirement age understand better than anyone that a guaranteed safety net could be as necessary for coming generations as it is now, when nearly two out of three retirees rely largely or solely on Social Security. So they are looking out for their children and grandchildren, an act of responsibility not self-interest.
Shame on McCain for being a part of this effort to divide the generations. Usually noted for candid speech, he even resorted to misinformation when he said in 2042 "we stop paying people Social Security." McCain knows that isn't true.
That is the date (actually it was changed to 2041 the other day) when Social Security reserves are expected to be used up. Even then, with no change in the program, recipients would continue to get about 75 percent of what was promised them. http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/25/news_pf/Opinion/Shame_on_John_McCain.shtml
Global Arms Trafficking: Pakistan: I think I’ve been writing about this for several years, yet it still makes front page headlines…and nothing changes. Pakistan illegally purchases nuclear weapons components from American companies, while the Administration ends a 15 year ban on selling fighter planes to Pakistan. When asked why, they say, ‘oh, we’ll sell even better weapons to India’. Helpful! Condi elaborates that it’s all for the good, as we have to “break out of the notion that … anything that happens that is good for Pakistan is bad for India, and vice versa."
A federal criminal investigation has uncovered evidence that the government of Pakistan made clandestine purchases of U.S. high-technology components for use in its nuclear weapons program in defiance of American law.
Federal authorities also say the highly specialized equipment at one point passed through the hands of Humayun Khan, an Islamabad businessman who they say has ties to Islamic militants.http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-paknuke26mar26,1,5616985,print.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage
What’s Happening, Iraq: Sunni vs Shiite. From The Globe!
For the first time, Sunni Muslim sheiks are publicly exhorting followers to strike with force against ethnic Kurds and Shi'ites, an escalation in rhetoric that could exacerbate the communal violence that already is shaking Iraq's ethnic communities.
''The Americans aren't the problem; we're living under an occupation of Kurds and Shi'ites," Sattar Abdulhalik Adburahman, a Sunni leader from the northern city of Kirkuk, told a gathering of tribal leaders last week, to deafening applause. ''It's time to fight back."
Such calls for violence are being voiced against the backdrop of an alarming rise in tit-for-tat ethnic and sectarian killings.
According to several Iraqi leaders, Shi'ite death squads routinely kill Sunnis suspected of ties to the Ba'ath Party or insurgency. Bands of Sunnis target Shi'ites in retaliation, Sunni political leaders like Adnan Pachachi said, suggesting that significant organizations, rather than small splintered cells of vigilantes, are driving the killing.
Increasingly, terms like ''insurgency" and ''anti-Iraqi forces" favored by American officials here fail to fully describe much of the violence. Iraqi politicians say the worst violence is being carried out by Sunni fighters against Shi'ites and Kurds -- both civilians and those who work for security forces backed by the Iraqi government. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/03/27/fractured_iraq_sees_a_sunni_call_to_arms/
Bush Numbers: CNN/USA Today/Gallup note that he “has dropped sharply, and is now at 45%.” The Pew poll had similar numbers.
"The poll also shows an increasingly negative public mood about the country's direction and more specifically about the economy. Rising oil and gas prices appear to be a major factor in the lower economic ratings." http://gallup.com/poll/content/?ci=15373
-R
