August 22, 2005. Northwest Kansas evening.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Morning Papers - It's Origins
Rooster "Crowing"
"Okeydoke"
History
1305 Scottish nationalist William Wallace is executed in London as a traitor against King Edward I of England. He is tried in Westminster Hall, London, and promptly hanged and quartered.
1821 Following a decade-long rebellion against Spanish colonists, Mexico receives its independence in the Treaty of Córdoba.
1826 Edward A. Jones receives his B.A. degree from Amherst College
John Brown Russwurm is considered to be the first African
American in America to graduate from college. Two years after
entering Bowdoin College, he receives his baccalaureate degree
on September 6, 1826. Edward A. Jones, the lesser known of the
two, graduates just two weeks prior on this date in 1826 from
Amherst College. Both men will receive their Masters Degrees,
John in 1829 and Edward in 1830.
1833 Great Britain frees 700,000 slaves in its colonies.
1892 O.E. Brown, inventor, receives a patent for a horseshoe.
1900 The National Negro Business League is formed in Boston,
Massachusetts. Sponsored by Booker T. Washington, the
organization is established to stimulate the development of
African American businesses.
1902 American cooking authority Fannie Farmer opens her School of Cookery in Boston, Massachusetts. The school is designed to train housewives rather than professional chefs.
1908 Fifty-two nurses, led by Martha M. Franklin, form the National
Association of Colored Graduate Nurses.
1917 A riot occurs in Houston, Texas, when the 24th Infantry seeks
revenge on the city's white police after the brutal beating
of two of the regiment's soldiers. After two hours of
violence, 15 whites, including four policemen, will be killed
and 12 more are injured. Four soldiers will die as a result
of the violence. One hundred and eighteen soldiers will be
charged in connection with the riots and 19 executed, most in
almost total secrecy, in one of the most infamous court-
martials ever involving African Americans.
1919 "Gasoline Alley" cartoon strip premiers in Chicago Tribune
1924 Mars' closest approach to Earth since the 10th century
1927 Niccola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian immigrants and anarchists, are executed for murder in a case that aroused international protests of their innocence.
1939 Foreign ministers Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov of the Soviet Union sign a nonaggression pact between the two countries, opening the door to their partition of Poland.
1966 Lunar Orbiter 1 takes 1st photograph of Earth from Moon
1972, the Republican National Convention, meeting in Miami Beach, Fla., nominated President Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew for a second term.
In 1979, Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defected while the Bolshoi Ballet was on tour in New York.
1989 An African American teenager named Yusef Hawkins is chased and
beaten to death by a mob of 30 white youths from the neighborhood
of Bensonhurst in Brooklyn, New York. The only provocation is that
he is African American in an all-white neighborhood.
1989, in a case that inflamed racial tensions in New York City, Yusuf Hawkins, a 16-year-old black youth, was shot dead after he and his friends were confronted by white youths in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn.
2003 Bobby Bonds joins the ancestors at the age of 57 after succumbing to
lung cancer. He was a former San Francisco Giants outfielder and
father of Giants slugger Barry Bonds.
Missing in Action
August 23
1967 BAKER ELMO C. KENNETT MO 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1967 BRASWELL DONALD R. 08/24/67 ESCAPED
1967 CARRIGAN LARRY E. PHOENIX AZ 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 99
1967 GERNDT GERALD L. OCONTO FALLS WI 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1967 HOLT DEWEY T. 08/24/67 ESCAPED
1967 LANE CHARLES YANKTON SD
1967 MIDNIGHT FRANCIS B. GARY IN
1967 NESS PATRICK L. MINNEAPOLIS MN REMAINS RETURNED 04/10/86
1967 SITTNER RONALD NICHALIS SOUTH EUCLID OH REMAINS RETURNED 12/30/97
1967 SAWHILL ROBERT R. CARNEGIE PA 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1967 SITEK THOMAS W. NIAGARA FALLS NY
1967 TYLER CHARLES R. GLOBE AZ 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1968 BERGEVIN CHARLES L. TORRINGTON CT RADIO CONTACT LOST
1968 FERGUSON WALTER JR. NEW YORK NY 05/70 DIC - ON PRG DIC LIST
1968 SETTERQUIST FRANCIS L. CLOQUET MN
August 22
1967 KERR JOHN C. MIAMI FL
1967 MORGAN BURKE H. MANITOU SPRINGS CO
1968 ACOSTA-ROSARIO HUMBERTO MAYAQUEZ PR
1972 CROCKETT WILLIAM J. COTTAGE CROVE NM
1972 TIGNER LEE M. WASHINGTON DC
August 21
1966 JOHNSON JAMES R. INDIANAPOLIS IN
1967 BUDD LEONARD R. JR. ROWLEY MA 03/05/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1967 BUCKLEY JIMMY L. SAC CITY IA 12/16/75 PRG RETURNED ASHES
1967 EBY ROBERT G.
1967 FLYNN ROBERT J. HOUSTON MN 03/15/73 RELEASED BY CHINA ALIVE AND WELL 98
1967 GUENTHER HARRY GERMANY
1967 HARDMAN WILLIAM M. ST ALBANS WV 03/15/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1967 MORRILL MERWIN L. SAN CARLOS CA POSS DEAD REMAINS RECOVERED 06/03/83
1967 PROFILET LEO T. CAIRO IL 03/15/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1967 POWELL LYNN K. PROVO UT REMAINS RECOVERED 06/03/83
1967 SCOTT DAIN V. GIBSONIA PA
1967 TREMBLEY JAY F. SPOKANE WA
August 20
1966 MILIKIN RICHARD M.III MIAMI FL
1968 LINDBLOOM CHARLES DAVID ATLANTA GA
1968 RISNER RICHARD F. 08/22/68 ESCAPED ALIVE IN 99
1972 MOSSMAN HARRY S. MANHASSET NY
NEW !! POW-MIA Search Engine (Search by Name, DOB, Loss-Date, or Country-State )
August 19
1968 COLLINS THEOTHIS ASBURY PARK NJ
1968 HOFFMAN TERRY ALAN DANVILLE IN REMAINS RETURNED BURIED 1994
1969 BOHLIG JAMES RICHARD CROCKETT CA
1969 FLANIGAN JOHN N. WINTER HAVEN FL REMAINS RETURNED 1989 ID'D 06/26/97
1969 MORRISSEY RICHARD THOMAS UNIONDALE NY CACCF/CRASH/AIRCREW/10 YRS USMC/QUANG TIN VMFA 115 MAG 13 WITH RICHARD BOHLIG REFNO 1483
1969 SMITH ROBERT N. TRUCKSVILLE PA
1972 BEHNFELDT ROGER ERNEST DEFIANCE OH REMAINS RETURNED 09/24/87
1972 SHINGAKI TAMOTSU MAUI HI 03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
August 17
1966 BRAND JOSEPH WILLIAM CHICAGO IL 09/77 REMAINS RETURNED BY SRV
1966 KEMP FREDDIE NEW YORK NY
1966 SINGER DONALD MAURICE PHILADELPHIA PA 09/30/77 REMAINS RETURNED BY SRV
1967 DION LAURENT N. PROVIDENCE RI
1967 HOM CHARLES DAVID HUNTINGTON PARK CA
1968 GARTLEY MARKHAM L. GREENVILLE ME 09/25/72 RELEASED HANOI
1968 HOFFSON ARTHUR T. CAMERON TX 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1968 MAYHEW WILLIAM J. PUGHTOWN WV 07/72REMAINS RECOVERED- 3/14/73 RETURNEE HOMECOMING ALTHOUGH USG RECORDS SHOW REMAINS RETURNED
1968 POWELL WILLIAM E. GATESVILLE TX REMAINS RETURNED 12/04/85
1969 LOEPKE "MALCOLM ""BUCK""" CAPTURED WITH 3 OTHERS NORTH KOREA - HELD 180 DAYS NOT NOTED PMSEA /KOREA WAR/VIETNAM WAR VETERAN
1970 WELLONS PHILLIP ROGERSON RALEIGH NC
1972 PITZEN JOHN R. STACYVILLE IA REMAINS RECOVERED NOVEMBER 1994 ID MARCH 1996
1972 PENDER ORLAND J. WARWICK RI REMAINS RECOVERED NOVEMBER 1994 ID MARCH 1996
1972 RAEBEL DALE V. MILBANK SD 03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
Jailed Journalists
Writers Group Won't Give Judith Miller 'Conscience in Media' Award After All
The New York Times Company
Judith Miller
By E&P Staff
Published: August 03, 2005 11:08 AM ET updated Thursday
NEW YORK The board of The American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) has voted unanimously to not endorse an earlier decision to give a Conscience in Media award to jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller, E&P has learned.
The group's First Amendment committee had narrowly voted to give Miller the prize for her dedication to protecting sources, but the full board has now voted to not accept that decision, based on its opinion that her entire career, and even her current actions in the Plame/CIA leak case, cast doubt on her credentials for this award.
The group's president, Jack El-Hai, posted an explanation on an internal list-serve yesterday, noting the opposition from the rank and file, and also mentioning two other reasons for the unanimous vote:
* “A feeling that Miller's career, taken as a whole, did not make her the best candidate for the award”
* “Divided opinions on the board over whether her recent actions merit the award.”
The American Society of Journalists and Authors is a 50-year-old group of some 1,100 non-fiction independent writers. The earlier vote by its First Amendment committee had already prompted at least one member of that panel to quit her position.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001008093
Want to Cow the Press? Here
The Monitor (Kampala)
OPINION
August 20, 2005
Posted to the web August 19, 2005
Charles Mwanguhya Mpagi
Kampala
On Thursday August 11, the state electronic media regulatory body raided the headquarters of Monitor Publications, which also houses 93.3 Kfm radio and the Daily Monitor newspaper and promptly shut down the radio.
This was the second raid on the Monitor premises in exactly 34 months since the last raid on October 10th 2002 when the newspaper was shut for 10 days.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200508190886.html
CHAD: A fourth journalist is jailed for "inciting hatred"
New York, August 15, 2005—A Chadian journalist was sentenced to one year in prison today for "inciting hatred", the fourth reporter jailed in a month in what local journalists called a growing crackdown on the independent press.
A court in the capital N'Djamena convicted Sy Koumbo Singa Gali, publication director of the privately-owned weekly L'Observateur, after she published an interview with freelance journalist and government critic Garondé Djarma, her lawyer told CPJ.
Djarma was sentenced on July 18 to three years in jail for defamation and "inciting hatred".
Djarma criticized a July constitutional referendum allowing President Idriss Déby to run for a third term next year. In the interview with Sy he accused Arab "janjaweed" members of the Chadian government of conspiring to silence him because of his coverage of the conflict between Arabs and black Africans in the neighboring Darfur province of Sudan.
http://www.cpj.org/news/2005/Chad15aug05na.html
Group in D.C. to Support Jailed Reporter
By George Gedda, Associated Press Writer. August 10, 2005.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Press freedom advocates normally direct their wrath toward countries where harassment or abuse of journalists is the norm. Lately they have come up with a new target: the United States.
On Wednesday, a delegation from the Inter-American Press Association, a Western Hemisphere watchdog group, was making a pilgrimage to Washington to show solidarity with Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who has been jailed since July 6.
An evening meeting with Miller was planned at the Alexandria (Va.) Detention Center, where she was being held for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating the leak of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.
http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y05/ago05/15e8.htm
Jailed journo apologises for remark - state
By Daniel Wallis
Kampala - A jailed Ugandan journalist charged with sedition has apologised for remarks about the death of Sudan's former Vice-President John Garang, Information Minister Nsaba Buturo said on Sunday.
KFM radio reporter Andrew Mwenda had accused authorities of causing Garang's death in a Ugandan presidential helicopter crash on July 30 by putting him on a defective aircraft. Ugandan authorities say the helicopter was in excellent condition.
"Mwenda has written to the chairman of the Broadcasting Council agreeing that he used inappropriate and intemperate language during his talk show," Buturo said.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=136&art_id=qw1124027461877B225
Free speech a casualty as Mexican journalists killed
Stifled: Nuevo Laredo newspapers have stopped investigating drug connections after deaths
By Susana Hayward
Knight Ridder News Service
A newspaper vendor with El Manana daily walks empty streets in Nuevo Laredo, carrying mostly official news about the latest execution-style murders.
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico - A drug war is ripping apart northern Mexico, but you won't find many details about who's behind it in the local newspapers. Journalists - after their colleagues have been killed, kidnapped and threatened with death - have stopped investigating organized crime.
''It's the new trend of drug gangs: Journalists are warned, paid off or killed,'' said Daniel Rosas, the managing editor of the daily El Ma ana, the oldest newspaper in this border city south of Laredo, Texas. ''Drug battles have become bloodier, and gangs have no code of ethics. They don't respect human life; why should they respect reporters?''
http://www.sltrib.com/nationworld/ci_2941830
Cracks in the fortress?
New York Times execs say the paper and its staff stand firmly behind jailed Judy Miller. But off the record, some are telling reporters a different story.
Aug. 17, 2005 When George Freeman, assistant general counsel for the New York Times, makes his way to his office at the Times' Manhattan headquarters, his colleagues usually raise the same topic of conversation: Judy Miller. As one of the attorneys working on Miller's behalf, Freeman says his co-workers are never-ending in their curiosity about the case. "People ask me about it every day, on the elevator, everywhere," Freeman told Salon. "How's Judy? How's she doing? Not a day goes by that I am not asked by someone."
With Miller now incarcerated for 43 days and counting, interviews with nearly a dozen Times staffers reveal widespread concern for Miller's welfare and support for the principle for which she is being jailed. "It is extremely upsetting to see a colleague in jail," says Adam Nagourney, a Washington correspondent. Adds Eric Schmitt, another D.C. colleague, "Everyone remains quite concerned about what happened to her." "I think most people have nothing but sympathy for Judy's situation," noted Craig Whitney, an assistant managing editor and 40-year Times veteran. "And outrage that she has to go to jail for a principle that we all believe in." Indeed, both inside the Times and elsewhere in journalism, the paper is being praised for standing by its reporter as she defends a journalistic tenet most in the industry find sacred.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/08/17/times_miller/index_np.html?x
Big-Name Journalists Spar Over Sources at NYC Gathering
By Jennifer Saba
Published: August 16, 2005 1:55 PM ET
NEW YORK This morning, Court TV gathered a group of columnists, editors, attorneys, and academics to discuss “the rule of the law vs. the rule of journalism” at the popular media haunt Michael's in mid-town New York.
With panelists Norman Pearlstine, Floyd Abrams, Nicholas Lemann, Richard Cohen, Michael Goodwin, Michael Wolff, Paul Holmes, and moderator Catherine Crier, the allotted hour was barely enough time to kick around complicated issues -- like the unfolding of the Plame story and other related concerns about confidentially and anonymous sources.
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001015561
Abducted French journalist freed
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
A French journalist abducted by Palestinian gunmen in Gaza City last week was freed unharmed on Monday.
Palestinian Authority security officials told The Jerusalem Post that Mohammad Ouathi, a soundman for France 3 television, had been kidnapped by members of the Popular Resistance Committees, an alliance of various armed militias.
Earlier this week, the group held a press conference in Gaza City in which its leaders announced that they had nothing to do with the abduction of Ouathi, a Frenchman of Algerian origin. The group even claimed that Israel was behind the kidnapping.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1124677190967
Jailed journalist improves after ending hunger strike
MARGARET NEIGHBOUR
THE dissident Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji has broken a two-month-long hunger strike and his condition, which had been life-threatening, is improving, his wife said yesterday.
The outspoken journalist, who was jailed in 2000 after writing a string of articles linking top officials to political murders, had been refusing food in an effort to gain unconditional release from prison.
"He is now following the diet and medicine prescribed by doctors," his wife, Massoumeh Shafii, said.
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1826792005
Journalists Stop Investigating Organized Crime
Submitted by editor on August 22, 2005 - 1:58pm.
By Susana Hayward
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico - A drug war is ripping apart northern Mexico, but you won't find many details about who's behind it in the local newspapers. Journalists - after their colleagues have been killed, kidnapped, and threatened with death - have stopped investigating organized crime.
"It's the new trend of drug gangs: Journalists are warned, paid off or killed," said Daniel Rosas, the managing editor of the daily El Mañana, the oldest newspaper in this border city south of Laredo, Texas. "Drug battles have become bloodier, and gangs have no code of ethics. They don't respect human life; why should they respect reporters?"
El Mañana, founded in 1932 after the Mexican revolution with a motto to promote freedom of expression, has been self-censoring itself since its editor, Roberto Javier Mora García, was stabbed to death on March 19, 2004.
http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/717
An Open Letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
(Aug. 22, 2005)The Honorable Louise Arbour
The High Commissioner for Human Rights
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Tens of thousands of cyberpolice patrol cybercaf's, wiretap phones, intercept cellular phone conversation, and interfere with text-messaging devices. They use the same high-tech methods to monitor and obstruct the speech and expression on the Internet of independent journalists, writers and rights activists, and to gather evidence surreptitiously to use against these people in court. The Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party, which should not have any role in legislation, nevertheless wields tremendous arbitrary power in operating, controlling, and penalizing the mass media, threatening journalists and those in the media profession, And coercing them into practicing self-censorship. All these practices violate Chinese citizens' rights to information, free speech, and free press.
http://www.peacehall.com/news/gb/english/2005/08/200508221310.shtml
US website names MI6 officers
Richard Norton-Taylor
Monday August 22, 2005
The Guardian
An American website posted what it purported to be the names of 74 members of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, yesterday.
It was not clear last night what action British intelligence officials or lawyers will take to try to get the names taken off the website and prevent further dissemination of them. However, they are likely to conduct a damage limitation exercise and warn those individuals who have been identified. Eighteen of those named on the website have held the rank of ambassador.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1553993,00.html
UN Annan calls for release of Iranian jailed journalist
Tehran, Aug 20, IRNA
Iran-UN-Letter
The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a letter to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called for the release of the Iranian journalist, Akbar Ganji, it was reported here Saturday.
According to the dispatches "Annan's letter has not been made public because it has not yet been received by the Iranian authorities."
In his letter, Annan called for the immediate release on humanitarian grounds of Ganji.
Ganji was sentenced to six years in prison in 2001 after he wrote a series of articles linking senior officials to the murder of political dissidents.
Ganji, was admitted to a Tehran hospital on July 18 for knee surgery.
Masoumeh Shafiei, Ganji's wife, told reporters on Friday "he is cooperating with the doctors after arrangements prepared and negotiations held by the Judiciary officials."
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-234/0508201764135759.htm
A dimming beacon
A Times Editorial
Published August 21, 2005
In the years it has defended the rights of journalists across Latin America, the Inter-American Press Agency has sent delegations to support media workers in such countries as Mexico, Panama, Chile and Venezuela. It seemed unimaginable they might one day send a support team to this country.
Yet an international delegation from the 1,300-member press freedom group recently visited New York Times reporter Judith Miller in an Alexandria, Va., jail, just after meeting with lawmakers in Washington to discuss her case. Their message was disturbing: Miller's plight is resonating abroad, where countries are following America's example to violate press freedoms.
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/08/21/Opinion/A_dimming_beacon.shtml
Imperfect martyr
Many -- including many Salon readers -- refuse to rally behind jailed, controversial New York Times reporter Judy Miller. But anyone who truly supports freedom of speech needs to.
By Andrew O'Hehir
July 13, 2005 "New York Times reporter Judith Miller is sent to jail for contempt of court, but not for writing months of front-page fiction about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," a reader in California recently wrote to Salon. "Al Capone did time in prison for tax evasion, but not for murder. I guess you have to take what you can get."
That letter, which I quote in its entirety, pretty much sums up the response so far from Salon's readers (and much of the lefty blogosphere) to our two recent news stories about Miller, who is now serving a prison sentence for refusing to identify to federal prosecutors the confidential White House source who leaked information about CIA agent Valerie Plame, wife of a former U.S. diplomat highly critical of the Bush administration.
At least on the leftward half of the political spectrum, there is a wide gulf between the way the media is telling the Miller story and the way the public understands it. "I suppose the journalistic breast-beating over Miller going to jail was to be expected," wrote Elizabeth Bass, in a letter we published a few days ago. "No profession loves to trumpet its own importance more. But am I alone in just not giving a shit?"
Bass is by no means alone in her cynicism, nor completely unjustified. We can learn things by gazing into this abyss between the press and the public, but the sense of vertigo is not especially comforting.
Many readers have been less temperate than the author of the Capone letter, not to mention less amusing and less succinct. Salon also received at least two letters suggesting, with apparent seriousness, that Miller deserves not just prison time but the death penalty for her journalistic sins. (Salon published one of those, which I think might have been a failure in judgment.) A more lenient correspondent suggested a life sentence, while many others seemed to share one reader's pithy but less specific sentiment: "I hope she rots." (Most of the letters I am quoting in this article have not been published, and in those cases I am not identifying the authors by name.)
To describe the whole Miller-Plame affair as murky, or profoundly ironic, doesn't even halfway do it justice. As Salon reporter Farhad Manjoo wrote after the June 27 Supreme Court decision that all but ensured Miller would go to jail, the tangled narrative "is like something out of Kafka." One of the things that enraged readers, it seems, is the fact that the first wave of stories about Miller's legal peril (Manjoo's included) judiciously avoided confronting what another of our letter-writers called "the elephant in the middle of the room."
That elephant, of course, was Miller herself, and the notorious role she played during the Bush administration's buildup to the war in Iraq. I myself wrote an article last December suggesting that Miller and her newspaper, having been thoroughly hustled by Ahmed Chalabi (possibly at taxpayer expense), bore more responsibility for the Iraq misadventure than anyone this side of George W. Bush. I'd be lying if I said I'd never felt any childish moments of schadenfreude, or any feeling that karmic justice was being dispensed, as she got closer and closer to prison. Miller is also spectacularly ill-suited for the role of poster child for the use of confidential sources or First Amendment freedoms in general because, as numerous commentators have noted, the source she's now protecting wasn't some selfless, embattled whistle-blower, but rather "a high government operative determined to stab a whistle-blower in the back," as a Salon reader from Washington put it. (At this point, we'd all be shocked if her informant wasn't Karl Rove, or someone right next to him.)
So it was reasonable to expect at least some anti-Miller letters in the wake of Manjoo's and freelance reporter Michael Scherer's Salon stories about the Miller case. Like virtually everyone else in every branch of the media, Manjoo and Scherer reported Miller's impending and then actual imprisonment as a dark day for press freedom. Also like almost everyone else in the media, both stories sought to put the bizarre details of Miller's dilemma in context, while dancing around its most uncomfortable elements: Miller's tarnished record and the presumed involvement of Rove, dark prince of the George W. Bush White House.
But it's safe to say that everyone here was surprised by the consistently enraged tone of the letters -- furious might be a better word -- and by the insistence of many writers that Salon's coverage had fundamentally missed the story. Of the dozens of letters we have received on this issue over the last few weeks, no more than a half-dozen have supported the general tenor of Manjoo and Scherer's reporting, or indeed have seen the Miller case as in any way a matter of fundamental freedoms.
"What a steaming load of treacle and crap," the Washington reader wrote about the latter story, describing it as "laying on the sentimental details with a trowel" in an attempt to evoke reader sympathy for Miller as she was led off to jail. "I've had my objections to Salon articles before but this is unquestionably the worst piece you've ever run on any subject."
I think that criticism is fundamentally unfair, and probably based more on ideology than on the facts of the story. Scherer's piece in particular straightforwardly addressed the ironies of Miller's current role, and her past as a mouthpiece for Chalabi and, in effect, for the Bush administration's WMD disinformation. If the reporter going to prison had been freelancer Greg Palast, who has argued that Bush stole the 2004 election, or former Salon reporter Eric Boehlert, who has written extensively about the mainstream media's weak-kneed response to the White House, those same "sentimental details" might have brought our Washington reader to tears.
But I do think that the tide of powerful reader emotion we've seen at Salon, even though it's impelled by the Manichaean political climate of the moment, stems from a legitimate source. Journalism as a profession -- if, that is, it can even be described as a profession -- is facing a crisis of public confidence, and the wounds are partly self-inflicted. Scherer referred to the recent opinion poll that discovered "as many Americans consider Rush Limbaugh a journalist as Bob Woodward." Manjoo quoted Burton Glass, of the Center for Investigative Reporting, who explained that reporters "who in the past were seen as stewards of the public interest now are seen as the enemy or as part of the problem. If the public doesn't see the connection between protecting anonymous sources ... and their own public interest, I think our democracy is weakened."
On one hand, many members of the public -- especially liberals who ought to be staunch defenders of the Bill of Rights -- seem unable or unwilling to grasp the idea that a matter of fundamental principle might be at stake, even in the murky and seemingly bottomless waters of the Miller-Plame-Rove affair. Compelling a reporter to reveal his or her sources to the police turns that reporter into a police agent, and that's not acceptable, even in unsavory circumstances like these. No reporter can be expected to check out the legality or ethics or motivations of all sources in advance. All sorts of surprising people talk to reporters when they probably shouldn't, for all sorts of personal and political and psychological reasons. If journalists can only receive confidential information from the saintly and the pure of heart, the entire enterprise might as well become "The View."
It's worth suggesting that Judy Miller might be the Skokie case of press-freedom issues. It was back in 1977 when a small band of neo-Nazis from the South Side of Chicago launched a year-long legal battle by applying for a permit to march in Skokie, Ill., a suburban community with a majority Jewish population and a large number of Holocaust survivors. The neo-Nazis were a pack of losers with no coherent political ideology and little message beyond hate speech; their proposal to march in Skokie was pure provocation. But the various ordinances Skokie officials passed to try to stop the march were transparently unconstitutional, and the ACLU took the Nazis' case all the way to the Supreme Court, winning at every stage. Jewish members of the civil liberties group resigned by the thousands -- nationally, the ACLU lost 15 percent of its membership -- and some tension between Jewish organizations and the ACLU lingers to this day.
It should go without saying that for civil-liberties advocates and constitutional scholars, the issue was never whether the Nazis were repugnant (they were) or had anything to say (they didn't). Instead, it was a question of what legal precedent was being set. "If we had lost, a brand new set of First Amendment law would have been created," David Hamlin, then the executive director of the Illinois ACLU, said a few years later. "Any community in the country would have had the legal power to pass laws like Skokie's that would stifle not just Nazis but anyone they didn't like."
There's no need to draw the parallel out further, except to observe that the principle here is not approximately the same, but exactly the same. Even if you believe that Judith Miller is nothing more than "a shill for the Bush administration" (a Florida reader) or "a co-conspirator in a government coverup" (a Missouri reader), she's still entitled to the same constitutional protections as Greg Palast and Amy Goodman. Even, God help us, as Robert Novak, who seems to have peed his drawers and spilled the beans the moment the independent prosecutor rattled his cage. The First Amendment covers all members of the press, without regard to truthfulness, integrity or their perceived similarity to sub-reptilian life forms.
But the public's baleful view of the press is not totally without merit. Media insiders have become so obsessed by their own internal debates and so mesmerized by their own pseudo-professional codes of conduct that they've failed to notice how badly they've lost the public trust. The Times' near-sanctification of Miller upon her imprisonment is a perfect case in point. While the paper's profile of Miller finally, in backhanded fashion, connected her name to reporting on "supposed weapons of mass destruction" -- something that never happened in the Times' wobbly May 2004 apology for its Iraq coverage -- it also seemed like a transparent attempt to rehabilitate her image with the paper's moderate-to-liberal base.
The problem is that the journalistic establishment has no way of dealing with someone like Miller, who screwed up massively, but did so within the rules the profession has set for itself. Unlike the far less significant case of Jayson Blair, who became the subject of an enormous ritual purification exercise, Miller reported what she thought was the truth. She was led astray, one presumes, by some combination of ideological bias and journalistic hubris. The scary part about that -- the part the Times has never even tried to confront -- is that if a skilled veteran reporter like Miller can get so thoroughly hustled out of her shorts by a White House bagman, then exactly who in the media can we trust? One letter writer from New York stated this plainly: "If reporters and editors are wondering why the public has lost much of the respect for the media that they once received, they need to investigate no farther than Judy Miller."
A constant tide of right-wing complaints about the media's alleged liberal bias has also taken its toll on mainstream institutions like the Times, CNN and CBS News, which have tried to triangulate toward some ever-receding middle point in the political discourse. Like so much that the media does, this intellectually empty strategy is based on a misreading of public intelligence; Americans may be increasingly cynical, and not well-informed as a whole, but they're also not dumb. The right will of course continue to discern traces of "cultural elite" snobbery in mainstream media coverage, while the left will feel that the press has abandoned critical thinking and capitulated to mindless nationalism. For once, both sides will be right.
Even Monday's extraordinary White House spectacle, in which the press corps savaged press secretary Scott McClellan over the administration's hypocritical handling of the Rove-Plame affair, was really just another example of pack mentality in action. Sure, it's encouraging to see White House reporters behaving as if they might theoretically possess some stones, no matter the circumstances. But it's easy to play Woodward-and-Bernstein with a colleague in jail and a presidency now perceived as being on the ropes. These are the same guys and gals who spent four years dutifully copying down everything McClellan and Ari Fleischer said and telling us it was true; only the script has changed. Their anger seemed a measure of the tragically misplaced trust they had put in the Bush White House to always tell the truth.
Then there's the fact that a great deal of journalism basically has become "The View." The public may be forgiven for "not giving a shit" if the media establishment wants to wrap itself in the First Amendment with one hand and bleat about our precious freedoms while dispensing stories about shark attacks and Natalee Holloway with the other. It's not necessarily clear that a press engaged in a tabloid-esque race to the bottom, consumed by sensationalist pseudo-stories, nuggets of McNews and flag-waving rhetoric, is a free press in any meaningful sense of the term.
There's no quick-fix solution available for any of this; it's not like we can, or even should, swear off Paris Hilton and Tom Cruise forever, ditch the snazzy color graphics and go back to the mostly imaginary era of so-called serious journalism. Good reporting, solid writing and sound critical thinking are not limited by genre or topic; I suspect that Salon's TV critic, Heather Havrilesky, has more to say about the state of contemporary America than your average dozen earnest lefty bloggers. The problem is not "hard" vs. "soft" news, but canned and conventional infotainment vs. courageous reporting and independent thinking.
Nor do I think that the public wants us to dispense condescending lectures about Tom Paine and the First Amendment mixed into the Sunday funnies, or wants to sit still for public forums where journalists mull the value and risks of anonymous sourcing, or debate exactly how Judy Miller became Ahmed Chalabi's stooge. But I do believe that journalists have to become more self-critical and more willing to listen to outside criticism -- from readers, from the bloggers who zealously pick apart our deadline-frazzled copy, from whomever -- even when it violates the semi-professional norms we have so pretentiously internalized.
Frankly, if we want the public to respect our constitutional rights, we have to defend them by doing our jobs better and by explaining ourselves better. As a reader from California, who felt he had to read between the lines of Salon's Miller coverage for the real story, put it, "Whatever is happening here, I expect more accurate interpretation of all the nuances involved -- about the media, by the media, and for the American public. This is not my job, it's yours. And I expect you to do it."
My interpretation of the Miller case is that like the Skokie affair it's a kind of test. If you can't resist the feeling that Miller is being punished for her sins by a God who moves in mysterious ways, hey, I'm right there with you. Shed no tears for Judy. But this is a classic case of the poisoned chalice -- tastes great now, kills you later. The price we will all pay for this karmic redistribution of justice is not going to be worth it in the long run.
But it's only fair to let readers have the last word. After our second boatload of anti-Miller letters, Mark Hughes Cobb of Alabama responded in disbelief: "Absolutely amazing. Salon letter-writers who disdain freedom of the press. Perhaps a little reading of the Bill of Rights (certainly not a re-reading in any of these cases) would be helpful. The free press belongs to everyone; not just the New York Times, not Time, and not even to Salon and the blogosphere. If an out-of-control special prosecutor decides to come after your comments next, I'll be sure and write in with scathing remarks on your unfitness to wield freedom."
A student journalist from San Francisco, Daniel Jimenez, was more sad than angry, but his questions capture why even those in the media who believe Judith Miller did immeasurable damage to our profession don't think she belongs in jail. "Do we really want to add the United States to the list of nations whose governments use their power to punish political opponents, including perceived enemies in the media?" he asked. "Do we want the penalty for bad reporting, or at the least, falling victim to deceptive sources, to be not a correction or professional censure, but prison?"
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Related stories
A bitter defeat for the press
The Supreme Court's refusal to hear the Cooper-Miller case will do more than hurt two reporters -- it will erode the press's ability to cover sensitive stories.
By Farhad Manjoo
06/28/05
Miller goes to jail
As the New York Times reporter was led away, many in the courtroom feared that the real victim was a free press.
By Michael Scherer
07/07/05
"You're in a bad spot here, Scott"
White House reporters hammer Bush's press secretary over Karl Rove's role in the Valerie Plame scandal.
07/11/05
War? What war?
As the Iraq nightmare deepens, Fox News and its cable competitors wallow in shark attacks and Natalee Holloway. If you don't cover a war, does it exist?
By Gary Kamiya
06/29/05
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/07/13/judy_miller/print.html
The Jerusalem Post
Police pull resisting youths out of Homesh yeshiva
By YAAKOV KATZ AND MARGOT DUDKEVITCH
HOMESH
Police and IDF evacuation forces deployed in the northern Samaria settlement of Homesh entered homes and buildings throughout the settlement and were steadily pulling an estimated 1,200 resisting residents and infiltrators out of the buildings Tuesday.
So far, 264 people were evacuated from 60 buildings. Three protestors in the settlement were arrested and five members of the evacuation forces were lightly wounded.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1124677193064
Homesh family gears up for inevitable
By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH
The night before the evacuation from the northern West Bank settlement of Homesh, Alice Zemin was busy cleaning her house after a week of hosting guests.
Zemin said that she was not concerned for the pending evacuation and felt that she was part of the making of history despite her opposition to the uprooting of settlers from their homes.
Hers was one of a number of families who refused to participate in the ceremony conducted by veteran families in the settlement earlier in the night.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1124677192428
Over 100 arrested in north Samaria
By JPOST.COM STAFF
More than 100 people were detained on Tuesday in the areas surrounding Homesh and Sa-Nur as they were trying to infiltrate the two northern West Bank settlements slated for evacuation.
Daniella Weiss, head of the Kedumin local council, was arrested while leading a large group of protesters from Kedumim to Homesh. Weiss was also arrested earlier this month after she had attempted to infiltrate Gush Katif.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1124763674217
Families pitch tent 'City of Faith'
By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Edit Degorker's family of nine, baby included, slept in the corner of a large communal tent in Netivot the night after they were evicted from the Gaza settlement of Atzmona.
The Degorkers are one of 40 Gaza families who hope that, by eschewing housing alternatives offered by the Disengagement Authority, they will be able to establish their own resettlement project, and that it will ultimately enable 700 Gush Katif families to build new communities in the Negev.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1124677193000
Havana Journal
Cuba watches as Venezuela decides how the oil will flow
By ANTHONY BOADLE Reuters News Service
Cuba's economically strapped government is closely watching Sunday's recall referendum in Venezuela, which could deprive it of vital oil supplies and its staunchest ally in Latin America.
But Cuban officials are confident Venezuelan voters will back their populist President Hugo Chavez, who has forged a strategic alliance with Havana and a close friendship with Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
http://havanajournal.com/business_comments/A2137_0_4_0_M/
Food Giant Sysco in negotiations for Cuba food business
Associated Press
Giant American food distributor Sysco Corp. said Wednesday it's working with Cuban officials to increase sales to the island's tourism industry under an exception to the U.S. trade embargo.
So far, the Houston, Texas-based company has sold only about US$500,000 worth of food to the communist country since late last year, said David Dickson, president of the company's Alabama operation.
http://havanajournal.com/business_comments/A2131_0_4_0_M/
Cuba economy hinges on Hugo Chavez recall vote on August 15
BY RICHARD BRAND rbrand@herald.com
Just as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez' political future is riding on an upcoming recall vote, so is the fate of his closest ally, Cuban President Fidel Castro.
PARTNERS: Hugo ChÍvez, left, and Fidel Castro, shown in 2003, have been united in many of their policies - as well as their anti-American rhetoric. AFP-GETTY IMAGES
The two presidents, united in their anti-American rhetoric and to differing degrees in their leftist policies, have developed a strategically critical relationship since Chávez was elected in 1998.
Petroleum-rich Venezuela provides economically strapped Cuba with tons of oil, and Havana owes Caracas an estimated $800 million. Cuba, in turn, has sent Venezuela thousands of doctors, teachers, sports trainers and a suspected horde of intelligence and political advisors.
http://havanajournal.com/business_comments/A2103_0_4_0_M/
Tax authorities impose further restrictions on self-employed
By Reinaldo Cosano Alén www.cubanet.org
Cuba's tax authority, the National Tributary Office (ONAT), has issued new
regulations for the self-employed which many here say will only tend to put
many of them out of business.
At first glance, the most onerous of the new regulations seems to be a
new requirement that all self-employed hold down a job with the State
and only practice the trade or business for which they are licensed
after working hours.
http://havanajournal.com/business_comments/A2100_0_4_0_M/
Hungering for trade with Cuba
BY LARRY LUXNER Special to the Miami Herald
Despite its relative proximity to Cuba and a common language and culture, Puerto Rico is landing only a tiny fraction of the contracts that the Castro government is awarding to U.S. food companies.
Some Puerto Rican exporters would like to change that.
Salvador Vassallo, president of the Puerto Rico Export Council, which represents about 50 local companies, says his group is trying to arrange a trade mission to visit Havana in October -- though that might prove difficult given tough new U.S. regulations on visits to Cuba enacted June 30 by the Bush administration.
http://havanajournal.com/business_comments/A2337_0_4_0_M/
Vermont Ag secretary Kerr to visit Cuba next week to work on export
www.wrgb.com
Vermont's agriculture secretary is working on a deal to export the state's agricultural products to Cuba.
Secretary Steve Kerr will travel to the island next week to meet with Cuban officials.
The trip follows a trade mission to Havana by Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie in April.
Dubie returned with letters of intent signed by officials in the Cuban government to buy apples, dried milk and cows from Vermont.
Kerr says he hopes to have signed contracts for the exports when he returns.
http://havanajournal.com/business_comments/A2366_0_4_0_M/
More North Dakota trade trips to Cuba in the works
By BLAKE NICHOLSON Associated Press Writer
North Dakota farm groups are planning more trade trips to Cuba, hoping to build on past successes in the communist island nation and get a firmer foothold in the emerging export market.
"Cuba is the Western Hemisphere's largest market for dry peas, and it's the closest market," said Eric Bartsch, administrator of the North Dakota Dry Pea and Lentil Association. "We're trying to capitalize on that."
Congress passed a law four years ago allowing cash sales of U.S. agricultural goods and medicine to Cuba. Since then, farm industry and government officials from North Dakota have made nearly half a dozen trade trips to the country
http://havanajournal.com/business_comments/A2350_0_4_0_M/
continued …
"Okeydoke"
History
1305 Scottish nationalist William Wallace is executed in London as a traitor against King Edward I of England. He is tried in Westminster Hall, London, and promptly hanged and quartered.
1821 Following a decade-long rebellion against Spanish colonists, Mexico receives its independence in the Treaty of Córdoba.
1826 Edward A. Jones receives his B.A. degree from Amherst College
John Brown Russwurm is considered to be the first African
American in America to graduate from college. Two years after
entering Bowdoin College, he receives his baccalaureate degree
on September 6, 1826. Edward A. Jones, the lesser known of the
two, graduates just two weeks prior on this date in 1826 from
Amherst College. Both men will receive their Masters Degrees,
John in 1829 and Edward in 1830.
1833 Great Britain frees 700,000 slaves in its colonies.
1892 O.E. Brown, inventor, receives a patent for a horseshoe.
1900 The National Negro Business League is formed in Boston,
Massachusetts. Sponsored by Booker T. Washington, the
organization is established to stimulate the development of
African American businesses.
1902 American cooking authority Fannie Farmer opens her School of Cookery in Boston, Massachusetts. The school is designed to train housewives rather than professional chefs.
1908 Fifty-two nurses, led by Martha M. Franklin, form the National
Association of Colored Graduate Nurses.
1917 A riot occurs in Houston, Texas, when the 24th Infantry seeks
revenge on the city's white police after the brutal beating
of two of the regiment's soldiers. After two hours of
violence, 15 whites, including four policemen, will be killed
and 12 more are injured. Four soldiers will die as a result
of the violence. One hundred and eighteen soldiers will be
charged in connection with the riots and 19 executed, most in
almost total secrecy, in one of the most infamous court-
martials ever involving African Americans.
1919 "Gasoline Alley" cartoon strip premiers in Chicago Tribune
1924 Mars' closest approach to Earth since the 10th century
1927 Niccola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian immigrants and anarchists, are executed for murder in a case that aroused international protests of their innocence.
1939 Foreign ministers Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov of the Soviet Union sign a nonaggression pact between the two countries, opening the door to their partition of Poland.
1966 Lunar Orbiter 1 takes 1st photograph of Earth from Moon
1972, the Republican National Convention, meeting in Miami Beach, Fla., nominated President Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew for a second term.
In 1979, Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defected while the Bolshoi Ballet was on tour in New York.
1989 An African American teenager named Yusef Hawkins is chased and
beaten to death by a mob of 30 white youths from the neighborhood
of Bensonhurst in Brooklyn, New York. The only provocation is that
he is African American in an all-white neighborhood.
1989, in a case that inflamed racial tensions in New York City, Yusuf Hawkins, a 16-year-old black youth, was shot dead after he and his friends were confronted by white youths in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn.
2003 Bobby Bonds joins the ancestors at the age of 57 after succumbing to
lung cancer. He was a former San Francisco Giants outfielder and
father of Giants slugger Barry Bonds.
Missing in Action
August 23
1967 BAKER ELMO C. KENNETT MO 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1967 BRASWELL DONALD R. 08/24/67 ESCAPED
1967 CARRIGAN LARRY E. PHOENIX AZ 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 99
1967 GERNDT GERALD L. OCONTO FALLS WI 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1967 HOLT DEWEY T. 08/24/67 ESCAPED
1967 LANE CHARLES YANKTON SD
1967 MIDNIGHT FRANCIS B. GARY IN
1967 NESS PATRICK L. MINNEAPOLIS MN REMAINS RETURNED 04/10/86
1967 SITTNER RONALD NICHALIS SOUTH EUCLID OH REMAINS RETURNED 12/30/97
1967 SAWHILL ROBERT R. CARNEGIE PA 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1967 SITEK THOMAS W. NIAGARA FALLS NY
1967 TYLER CHARLES R. GLOBE AZ 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1968 BERGEVIN CHARLES L. TORRINGTON CT RADIO CONTACT LOST
1968 FERGUSON WALTER JR. NEW YORK NY 05/70 DIC - ON PRG DIC LIST
1968 SETTERQUIST FRANCIS L. CLOQUET MN
August 22
1967 KERR JOHN C. MIAMI FL
1967 MORGAN BURKE H. MANITOU SPRINGS CO
1968 ACOSTA-ROSARIO HUMBERTO MAYAQUEZ PR
1972 CROCKETT WILLIAM J. COTTAGE CROVE NM
1972 TIGNER LEE M. WASHINGTON DC
August 21
1966 JOHNSON JAMES R. INDIANAPOLIS IN
1967 BUDD LEONARD R. JR. ROWLEY MA 03/05/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1967 BUCKLEY JIMMY L. SAC CITY IA 12/16/75 PRG RETURNED ASHES
1967 EBY ROBERT G.
1967 FLYNN ROBERT J. HOUSTON MN 03/15/73 RELEASED BY CHINA ALIVE AND WELL 98
1967 GUENTHER HARRY GERMANY
1967 HARDMAN WILLIAM M. ST ALBANS WV 03/15/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1967 MORRILL MERWIN L. SAN CARLOS CA POSS DEAD REMAINS RECOVERED 06/03/83
1967 PROFILET LEO T. CAIRO IL 03/15/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1967 POWELL LYNN K. PROVO UT REMAINS RECOVERED 06/03/83
1967 SCOTT DAIN V. GIBSONIA PA
1967 TREMBLEY JAY F. SPOKANE WA
August 20
1966 MILIKIN RICHARD M.III MIAMI FL
1968 LINDBLOOM CHARLES DAVID ATLANTA GA
1968 RISNER RICHARD F. 08/22/68 ESCAPED ALIVE IN 99
1972 MOSSMAN HARRY S. MANHASSET NY
NEW !! POW-MIA Search Engine (Search by Name, DOB, Loss-Date, or Country-State )
August 19
1968 COLLINS THEOTHIS ASBURY PARK NJ
1968 HOFFMAN TERRY ALAN DANVILLE IN REMAINS RETURNED BURIED 1994
1969 BOHLIG JAMES RICHARD CROCKETT CA
1969 FLANIGAN JOHN N. WINTER HAVEN FL REMAINS RETURNED 1989 ID'D 06/26/97
1969 MORRISSEY RICHARD THOMAS UNIONDALE NY CACCF/CRASH/AIRCREW/10 YRS USMC/QUANG TIN VMFA 115 MAG 13 WITH RICHARD BOHLIG REFNO 1483
1969 SMITH ROBERT N. TRUCKSVILLE PA
1972 BEHNFELDT ROGER ERNEST DEFIANCE OH REMAINS RETURNED 09/24/87
1972 SHINGAKI TAMOTSU MAUI HI 03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
August 17
1966 BRAND JOSEPH WILLIAM CHICAGO IL 09/77 REMAINS RETURNED BY SRV
1966 KEMP FREDDIE NEW YORK NY
1966 SINGER DONALD MAURICE PHILADELPHIA PA 09/30/77 REMAINS RETURNED BY SRV
1967 DION LAURENT N. PROVIDENCE RI
1967 HOM CHARLES DAVID HUNTINGTON PARK CA
1968 GARTLEY MARKHAM L. GREENVILLE ME 09/25/72 RELEASED HANOI
1968 HOFFSON ARTHUR T. CAMERON TX 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1968 MAYHEW WILLIAM J. PUGHTOWN WV 07/72REMAINS RECOVERED- 3/14/73 RETURNEE HOMECOMING ALTHOUGH USG RECORDS SHOW REMAINS RETURNED
1968 POWELL WILLIAM E. GATESVILLE TX REMAINS RETURNED 12/04/85
1969 LOEPKE "MALCOLM ""BUCK""" CAPTURED WITH 3 OTHERS NORTH KOREA - HELD 180 DAYS NOT NOTED PMSEA /KOREA WAR/VIETNAM WAR VETERAN
1970 WELLONS PHILLIP ROGERSON RALEIGH NC
1972 PITZEN JOHN R. STACYVILLE IA REMAINS RECOVERED NOVEMBER 1994 ID MARCH 1996
1972 PENDER ORLAND J. WARWICK RI REMAINS RECOVERED NOVEMBER 1994 ID MARCH 1996
1972 RAEBEL DALE V. MILBANK SD 03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
Jailed Journalists
Writers Group Won't Give Judith Miller 'Conscience in Media' Award After All
The New York Times Company
Judith Miller
By E&P Staff
Published: August 03, 2005 11:08 AM ET updated Thursday
NEW YORK The board of The American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) has voted unanimously to not endorse an earlier decision to give a Conscience in Media award to jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller, E&P has learned.
The group's First Amendment committee had narrowly voted to give Miller the prize for her dedication to protecting sources, but the full board has now voted to not accept that decision, based on its opinion that her entire career, and even her current actions in the Plame/CIA leak case, cast doubt on her credentials for this award.
The group's president, Jack El-Hai, posted an explanation on an internal list-serve yesterday, noting the opposition from the rank and file, and also mentioning two other reasons for the unanimous vote:
* “A feeling that Miller's career, taken as a whole, did not make her the best candidate for the award”
* “Divided opinions on the board over whether her recent actions merit the award.”
The American Society of Journalists and Authors is a 50-year-old group of some 1,100 non-fiction independent writers. The earlier vote by its First Amendment committee had already prompted at least one member of that panel to quit her position.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001008093
Want to Cow the Press? Here
The Monitor (Kampala)
OPINION
August 20, 2005
Posted to the web August 19, 2005
Charles Mwanguhya Mpagi
Kampala
On Thursday August 11, the state electronic media regulatory body raided the headquarters of Monitor Publications, which also houses 93.3 Kfm radio and the Daily Monitor newspaper and promptly shut down the radio.
This was the second raid on the Monitor premises in exactly 34 months since the last raid on October 10th 2002 when the newspaper was shut for 10 days.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200508190886.html
CHAD: A fourth journalist is jailed for "inciting hatred"
New York, August 15, 2005—A Chadian journalist was sentenced to one year in prison today for "inciting hatred", the fourth reporter jailed in a month in what local journalists called a growing crackdown on the independent press.
A court in the capital N'Djamena convicted Sy Koumbo Singa Gali, publication director of the privately-owned weekly L'Observateur, after she published an interview with freelance journalist and government critic Garondé Djarma, her lawyer told CPJ.
Djarma was sentenced on July 18 to three years in jail for defamation and "inciting hatred".
Djarma criticized a July constitutional referendum allowing President Idriss Déby to run for a third term next year. In the interview with Sy he accused Arab "janjaweed" members of the Chadian government of conspiring to silence him because of his coverage of the conflict between Arabs and black Africans in the neighboring Darfur province of Sudan.
http://www.cpj.org/news/2005/Chad15aug05na.html
Group in D.C. to Support Jailed Reporter
By George Gedda, Associated Press Writer. August 10, 2005.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Press freedom advocates normally direct their wrath toward countries where harassment or abuse of journalists is the norm. Lately they have come up with a new target: the United States.
On Wednesday, a delegation from the Inter-American Press Association, a Western Hemisphere watchdog group, was making a pilgrimage to Washington to show solidarity with Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who has been jailed since July 6.
An evening meeting with Miller was planned at the Alexandria (Va.) Detention Center, where she was being held for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating the leak of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.
http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y05/ago05/15e8.htm
Jailed journo apologises for remark - state
By Daniel Wallis
Kampala - A jailed Ugandan journalist charged with sedition has apologised for remarks about the death of Sudan's former Vice-President John Garang, Information Minister Nsaba Buturo said on Sunday.
KFM radio reporter Andrew Mwenda had accused authorities of causing Garang's death in a Ugandan presidential helicopter crash on July 30 by putting him on a defective aircraft. Ugandan authorities say the helicopter was in excellent condition.
"Mwenda has written to the chairman of the Broadcasting Council agreeing that he used inappropriate and intemperate language during his talk show," Buturo said.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=136&art_id=qw1124027461877B225
Free speech a casualty as Mexican journalists killed
Stifled: Nuevo Laredo newspapers have stopped investigating drug connections after deaths
By Susana Hayward
Knight Ridder News Service
A newspaper vendor with El Manana daily walks empty streets in Nuevo Laredo, carrying mostly official news about the latest execution-style murders.
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico - A drug war is ripping apart northern Mexico, but you won't find many details about who's behind it in the local newspapers. Journalists - after their colleagues have been killed, kidnapped and threatened with death - have stopped investigating organized crime.
''It's the new trend of drug gangs: Journalists are warned, paid off or killed,'' said Daniel Rosas, the managing editor of the daily El Ma ana, the oldest newspaper in this border city south of Laredo, Texas. ''Drug battles have become bloodier, and gangs have no code of ethics. They don't respect human life; why should they respect reporters?''
http://www.sltrib.com/nationworld/ci_2941830
Cracks in the fortress?
New York Times execs say the paper and its staff stand firmly behind jailed Judy Miller. But off the record, some are telling reporters a different story.
Aug. 17, 2005 When George Freeman, assistant general counsel for the New York Times, makes his way to his office at the Times' Manhattan headquarters, his colleagues usually raise the same topic of conversation: Judy Miller. As one of the attorneys working on Miller's behalf, Freeman says his co-workers are never-ending in their curiosity about the case. "People ask me about it every day, on the elevator, everywhere," Freeman told Salon. "How's Judy? How's she doing? Not a day goes by that I am not asked by someone."
With Miller now incarcerated for 43 days and counting, interviews with nearly a dozen Times staffers reveal widespread concern for Miller's welfare and support for the principle for which she is being jailed. "It is extremely upsetting to see a colleague in jail," says Adam Nagourney, a Washington correspondent. Adds Eric Schmitt, another D.C. colleague, "Everyone remains quite concerned about what happened to her." "I think most people have nothing but sympathy for Judy's situation," noted Craig Whitney, an assistant managing editor and 40-year Times veteran. "And outrage that she has to go to jail for a principle that we all believe in." Indeed, both inside the Times and elsewhere in journalism, the paper is being praised for standing by its reporter as she defends a journalistic tenet most in the industry find sacred.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/08/17/times_miller/index_np.html?x
Big-Name Journalists Spar Over Sources at NYC Gathering
By Jennifer Saba
Published: August 16, 2005 1:55 PM ET
NEW YORK This morning, Court TV gathered a group of columnists, editors, attorneys, and academics to discuss “the rule of the law vs. the rule of journalism” at the popular media haunt Michael's in mid-town New York.
With panelists Norman Pearlstine, Floyd Abrams, Nicholas Lemann, Richard Cohen, Michael Goodwin, Michael Wolff, Paul Holmes, and moderator Catherine Crier, the allotted hour was barely enough time to kick around complicated issues -- like the unfolding of the Plame story and other related concerns about confidentially and anonymous sources.
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001015561
Abducted French journalist freed
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
A French journalist abducted by Palestinian gunmen in Gaza City last week was freed unharmed on Monday.
Palestinian Authority security officials told The Jerusalem Post that Mohammad Ouathi, a soundman for France 3 television, had been kidnapped by members of the Popular Resistance Committees, an alliance of various armed militias.
Earlier this week, the group held a press conference in Gaza City in which its leaders announced that they had nothing to do with the abduction of Ouathi, a Frenchman of Algerian origin. The group even claimed that Israel was behind the kidnapping.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1124677190967
Jailed journalist improves after ending hunger strike
MARGARET NEIGHBOUR
THE dissident Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji has broken a two-month-long hunger strike and his condition, which had been life-threatening, is improving, his wife said yesterday.
The outspoken journalist, who was jailed in 2000 after writing a string of articles linking top officials to political murders, had been refusing food in an effort to gain unconditional release from prison.
"He is now following the diet and medicine prescribed by doctors," his wife, Massoumeh Shafii, said.
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1826792005
Journalists Stop Investigating Organized Crime
Submitted by editor on August 22, 2005 - 1:58pm.
By Susana Hayward
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico - A drug war is ripping apart northern Mexico, but you won't find many details about who's behind it in the local newspapers. Journalists - after their colleagues have been killed, kidnapped, and threatened with death - have stopped investigating organized crime.
"It's the new trend of drug gangs: Journalists are warned, paid off or killed," said Daniel Rosas, the managing editor of the daily El Mañana, the oldest newspaper in this border city south of Laredo, Texas. "Drug battles have become bloodier, and gangs have no code of ethics. They don't respect human life; why should they respect reporters?"
El Mañana, founded in 1932 after the Mexican revolution with a motto to promote freedom of expression, has been self-censoring itself since its editor, Roberto Javier Mora García, was stabbed to death on March 19, 2004.
http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/717
An Open Letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
(Aug. 22, 2005)The Honorable Louise Arbour
The High Commissioner for Human Rights
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Tens of thousands of cyberpolice patrol cybercaf's, wiretap phones, intercept cellular phone conversation, and interfere with text-messaging devices. They use the same high-tech methods to monitor and obstruct the speech and expression on the Internet of independent journalists, writers and rights activists, and to gather evidence surreptitiously to use against these people in court. The Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party, which should not have any role in legislation, nevertheless wields tremendous arbitrary power in operating, controlling, and penalizing the mass media, threatening journalists and those in the media profession, And coercing them into practicing self-censorship. All these practices violate Chinese citizens' rights to information, free speech, and free press.
http://www.peacehall.com/news/gb/english/2005/08/200508221310.shtml
US website names MI6 officers
Richard Norton-Taylor
Monday August 22, 2005
The Guardian
An American website posted what it purported to be the names of 74 members of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, yesterday.
It was not clear last night what action British intelligence officials or lawyers will take to try to get the names taken off the website and prevent further dissemination of them. However, they are likely to conduct a damage limitation exercise and warn those individuals who have been identified. Eighteen of those named on the website have held the rank of ambassador.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1553993,00.html
UN Annan calls for release of Iranian jailed journalist
Tehran, Aug 20, IRNA
Iran-UN-Letter
The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a letter to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called for the release of the Iranian journalist, Akbar Ganji, it was reported here Saturday.
According to the dispatches "Annan's letter has not been made public because it has not yet been received by the Iranian authorities."
In his letter, Annan called for the immediate release on humanitarian grounds of Ganji.
Ganji was sentenced to six years in prison in 2001 after he wrote a series of articles linking senior officials to the murder of political dissidents.
Ganji, was admitted to a Tehran hospital on July 18 for knee surgery.
Masoumeh Shafiei, Ganji's wife, told reporters on Friday "he is cooperating with the doctors after arrangements prepared and negotiations held by the Judiciary officials."
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-234/0508201764135759.htm
A dimming beacon
A Times Editorial
Published August 21, 2005
In the years it has defended the rights of journalists across Latin America, the Inter-American Press Agency has sent delegations to support media workers in such countries as Mexico, Panama, Chile and Venezuela. It seemed unimaginable they might one day send a support team to this country.
Yet an international delegation from the 1,300-member press freedom group recently visited New York Times reporter Judith Miller in an Alexandria, Va., jail, just after meeting with lawmakers in Washington to discuss her case. Their message was disturbing: Miller's plight is resonating abroad, where countries are following America's example to violate press freedoms.
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/08/21/Opinion/A_dimming_beacon.shtml
Imperfect martyr
Many -- including many Salon readers -- refuse to rally behind jailed, controversial New York Times reporter Judy Miller. But anyone who truly supports freedom of speech needs to.
By Andrew O'Hehir
July 13, 2005 "New York Times reporter Judith Miller is sent to jail for contempt of court, but not for writing months of front-page fiction about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," a reader in California recently wrote to Salon. "Al Capone did time in prison for tax evasion, but not for murder. I guess you have to take what you can get."
That letter, which I quote in its entirety, pretty much sums up the response so far from Salon's readers (and much of the lefty blogosphere) to our two recent news stories about Miller, who is now serving a prison sentence for refusing to identify to federal prosecutors the confidential White House source who leaked information about CIA agent Valerie Plame, wife of a former U.S. diplomat highly critical of the Bush administration.
At least on the leftward half of the political spectrum, there is a wide gulf between the way the media is telling the Miller story and the way the public understands it. "I suppose the journalistic breast-beating over Miller going to jail was to be expected," wrote Elizabeth Bass, in a letter we published a few days ago. "No profession loves to trumpet its own importance more. But am I alone in just not giving a shit?"
Bass is by no means alone in her cynicism, nor completely unjustified. We can learn things by gazing into this abyss between the press and the public, but the sense of vertigo is not especially comforting.
Many readers have been less temperate than the author of the Capone letter, not to mention less amusing and less succinct. Salon also received at least two letters suggesting, with apparent seriousness, that Miller deserves not just prison time but the death penalty for her journalistic sins. (Salon published one of those, which I think might have been a failure in judgment.) A more lenient correspondent suggested a life sentence, while many others seemed to share one reader's pithy but less specific sentiment: "I hope she rots." (Most of the letters I am quoting in this article have not been published, and in those cases I am not identifying the authors by name.)
To describe the whole Miller-Plame affair as murky, or profoundly ironic, doesn't even halfway do it justice. As Salon reporter Farhad Manjoo wrote after the June 27 Supreme Court decision that all but ensured Miller would go to jail, the tangled narrative "is like something out of Kafka." One of the things that enraged readers, it seems, is the fact that the first wave of stories about Miller's legal peril (Manjoo's included) judiciously avoided confronting what another of our letter-writers called "the elephant in the middle of the room."
That elephant, of course, was Miller herself, and the notorious role she played during the Bush administration's buildup to the war in Iraq. I myself wrote an article last December suggesting that Miller and her newspaper, having been thoroughly hustled by Ahmed Chalabi (possibly at taxpayer expense), bore more responsibility for the Iraq misadventure than anyone this side of George W. Bush. I'd be lying if I said I'd never felt any childish moments of schadenfreude, or any feeling that karmic justice was being dispensed, as she got closer and closer to prison. Miller is also spectacularly ill-suited for the role of poster child for the use of confidential sources or First Amendment freedoms in general because, as numerous commentators have noted, the source she's now protecting wasn't some selfless, embattled whistle-blower, but rather "a high government operative determined to stab a whistle-blower in the back," as a Salon reader from Washington put it. (At this point, we'd all be shocked if her informant wasn't Karl Rove, or someone right next to him.)
So it was reasonable to expect at least some anti-Miller letters in the wake of Manjoo's and freelance reporter Michael Scherer's Salon stories about the Miller case. Like virtually everyone else in every branch of the media, Manjoo and Scherer reported Miller's impending and then actual imprisonment as a dark day for press freedom. Also like almost everyone else in the media, both stories sought to put the bizarre details of Miller's dilemma in context, while dancing around its most uncomfortable elements: Miller's tarnished record and the presumed involvement of Rove, dark prince of the George W. Bush White House.
But it's safe to say that everyone here was surprised by the consistently enraged tone of the letters -- furious might be a better word -- and by the insistence of many writers that Salon's coverage had fundamentally missed the story. Of the dozens of letters we have received on this issue over the last few weeks, no more than a half-dozen have supported the general tenor of Manjoo and Scherer's reporting, or indeed have seen the Miller case as in any way a matter of fundamental freedoms.
"What a steaming load of treacle and crap," the Washington reader wrote about the latter story, describing it as "laying on the sentimental details with a trowel" in an attempt to evoke reader sympathy for Miller as she was led off to jail. "I've had my objections to Salon articles before but this is unquestionably the worst piece you've ever run on any subject."
I think that criticism is fundamentally unfair, and probably based more on ideology than on the facts of the story. Scherer's piece in particular straightforwardly addressed the ironies of Miller's current role, and her past as a mouthpiece for Chalabi and, in effect, for the Bush administration's WMD disinformation. If the reporter going to prison had been freelancer Greg Palast, who has argued that Bush stole the 2004 election, or former Salon reporter Eric Boehlert, who has written extensively about the mainstream media's weak-kneed response to the White House, those same "sentimental details" might have brought our Washington reader to tears.
But I do think that the tide of powerful reader emotion we've seen at Salon, even though it's impelled by the Manichaean political climate of the moment, stems from a legitimate source. Journalism as a profession -- if, that is, it can even be described as a profession -- is facing a crisis of public confidence, and the wounds are partly self-inflicted. Scherer referred to the recent opinion poll that discovered "as many Americans consider Rush Limbaugh a journalist as Bob Woodward." Manjoo quoted Burton Glass, of the Center for Investigative Reporting, who explained that reporters "who in the past were seen as stewards of the public interest now are seen as the enemy or as part of the problem. If the public doesn't see the connection between protecting anonymous sources ... and their own public interest, I think our democracy is weakened."
On one hand, many members of the public -- especially liberals who ought to be staunch defenders of the Bill of Rights -- seem unable or unwilling to grasp the idea that a matter of fundamental principle might be at stake, even in the murky and seemingly bottomless waters of the Miller-Plame-Rove affair. Compelling a reporter to reveal his or her sources to the police turns that reporter into a police agent, and that's not acceptable, even in unsavory circumstances like these. No reporter can be expected to check out the legality or ethics or motivations of all sources in advance. All sorts of surprising people talk to reporters when they probably shouldn't, for all sorts of personal and political and psychological reasons. If journalists can only receive confidential information from the saintly and the pure of heart, the entire enterprise might as well become "The View."
It's worth suggesting that Judy Miller might be the Skokie case of press-freedom issues. It was back in 1977 when a small band of neo-Nazis from the South Side of Chicago launched a year-long legal battle by applying for a permit to march in Skokie, Ill., a suburban community with a majority Jewish population and a large number of Holocaust survivors. The neo-Nazis were a pack of losers with no coherent political ideology and little message beyond hate speech; their proposal to march in Skokie was pure provocation. But the various ordinances Skokie officials passed to try to stop the march were transparently unconstitutional, and the ACLU took the Nazis' case all the way to the Supreme Court, winning at every stage. Jewish members of the civil liberties group resigned by the thousands -- nationally, the ACLU lost 15 percent of its membership -- and some tension between Jewish organizations and the ACLU lingers to this day.
It should go without saying that for civil-liberties advocates and constitutional scholars, the issue was never whether the Nazis were repugnant (they were) or had anything to say (they didn't). Instead, it was a question of what legal precedent was being set. "If we had lost, a brand new set of First Amendment law would have been created," David Hamlin, then the executive director of the Illinois ACLU, said a few years later. "Any community in the country would have had the legal power to pass laws like Skokie's that would stifle not just Nazis but anyone they didn't like."
There's no need to draw the parallel out further, except to observe that the principle here is not approximately the same, but exactly the same. Even if you believe that Judith Miller is nothing more than "a shill for the Bush administration" (a Florida reader) or "a co-conspirator in a government coverup" (a Missouri reader), she's still entitled to the same constitutional protections as Greg Palast and Amy Goodman. Even, God help us, as Robert Novak, who seems to have peed his drawers and spilled the beans the moment the independent prosecutor rattled his cage. The First Amendment covers all members of the press, without regard to truthfulness, integrity or their perceived similarity to sub-reptilian life forms.
But the public's baleful view of the press is not totally without merit. Media insiders have become so obsessed by their own internal debates and so mesmerized by their own pseudo-professional codes of conduct that they've failed to notice how badly they've lost the public trust. The Times' near-sanctification of Miller upon her imprisonment is a perfect case in point. While the paper's profile of Miller finally, in backhanded fashion, connected her name to reporting on "supposed weapons of mass destruction" -- something that never happened in the Times' wobbly May 2004 apology for its Iraq coverage -- it also seemed like a transparent attempt to rehabilitate her image with the paper's moderate-to-liberal base.
The problem is that the journalistic establishment has no way of dealing with someone like Miller, who screwed up massively, but did so within the rules the profession has set for itself. Unlike the far less significant case of Jayson Blair, who became the subject of an enormous ritual purification exercise, Miller reported what she thought was the truth. She was led astray, one presumes, by some combination of ideological bias and journalistic hubris. The scary part about that -- the part the Times has never even tried to confront -- is that if a skilled veteran reporter like Miller can get so thoroughly hustled out of her shorts by a White House bagman, then exactly who in the media can we trust? One letter writer from New York stated this plainly: "If reporters and editors are wondering why the public has lost much of the respect for the media that they once received, they need to investigate no farther than Judy Miller."
A constant tide of right-wing complaints about the media's alleged liberal bias has also taken its toll on mainstream institutions like the Times, CNN and CBS News, which have tried to triangulate toward some ever-receding middle point in the political discourse. Like so much that the media does, this intellectually empty strategy is based on a misreading of public intelligence; Americans may be increasingly cynical, and not well-informed as a whole, but they're also not dumb. The right will of course continue to discern traces of "cultural elite" snobbery in mainstream media coverage, while the left will feel that the press has abandoned critical thinking and capitulated to mindless nationalism. For once, both sides will be right.
Even Monday's extraordinary White House spectacle, in which the press corps savaged press secretary Scott McClellan over the administration's hypocritical handling of the Rove-Plame affair, was really just another example of pack mentality in action. Sure, it's encouraging to see White House reporters behaving as if they might theoretically possess some stones, no matter the circumstances. But it's easy to play Woodward-and-Bernstein with a colleague in jail and a presidency now perceived as being on the ropes. These are the same guys and gals who spent four years dutifully copying down everything McClellan and Ari Fleischer said and telling us it was true; only the script has changed. Their anger seemed a measure of the tragically misplaced trust they had put in the Bush White House to always tell the truth.
Then there's the fact that a great deal of journalism basically has become "The View." The public may be forgiven for "not giving a shit" if the media establishment wants to wrap itself in the First Amendment with one hand and bleat about our precious freedoms while dispensing stories about shark attacks and Natalee Holloway with the other. It's not necessarily clear that a press engaged in a tabloid-esque race to the bottom, consumed by sensationalist pseudo-stories, nuggets of McNews and flag-waving rhetoric, is a free press in any meaningful sense of the term.
There's no quick-fix solution available for any of this; it's not like we can, or even should, swear off Paris Hilton and Tom Cruise forever, ditch the snazzy color graphics and go back to the mostly imaginary era of so-called serious journalism. Good reporting, solid writing and sound critical thinking are not limited by genre or topic; I suspect that Salon's TV critic, Heather Havrilesky, has more to say about the state of contemporary America than your average dozen earnest lefty bloggers. The problem is not "hard" vs. "soft" news, but canned and conventional infotainment vs. courageous reporting and independent thinking.
Nor do I think that the public wants us to dispense condescending lectures about Tom Paine and the First Amendment mixed into the Sunday funnies, or wants to sit still for public forums where journalists mull the value and risks of anonymous sourcing, or debate exactly how Judy Miller became Ahmed Chalabi's stooge. But I do believe that journalists have to become more self-critical and more willing to listen to outside criticism -- from readers, from the bloggers who zealously pick apart our deadline-frazzled copy, from whomever -- even when it violates the semi-professional norms we have so pretentiously internalized.
Frankly, if we want the public to respect our constitutional rights, we have to defend them by doing our jobs better and by explaining ourselves better. As a reader from California, who felt he had to read between the lines of Salon's Miller coverage for the real story, put it, "Whatever is happening here, I expect more accurate interpretation of all the nuances involved -- about the media, by the media, and for the American public. This is not my job, it's yours. And I expect you to do it."
My interpretation of the Miller case is that like the Skokie affair it's a kind of test. If you can't resist the feeling that Miller is being punished for her sins by a God who moves in mysterious ways, hey, I'm right there with you. Shed no tears for Judy. But this is a classic case of the poisoned chalice -- tastes great now, kills you later. The price we will all pay for this karmic redistribution of justice is not going to be worth it in the long run.
But it's only fair to let readers have the last word. After our second boatload of anti-Miller letters, Mark Hughes Cobb of Alabama responded in disbelief: "Absolutely amazing. Salon letter-writers who disdain freedom of the press. Perhaps a little reading of the Bill of Rights (certainly not a re-reading in any of these cases) would be helpful. The free press belongs to everyone; not just the New York Times, not Time, and not even to Salon and the blogosphere. If an out-of-control special prosecutor decides to come after your comments next, I'll be sure and write in with scathing remarks on your unfitness to wield freedom."
A student journalist from San Francisco, Daniel Jimenez, was more sad than angry, but his questions capture why even those in the media who believe Judith Miller did immeasurable damage to our profession don't think she belongs in jail. "Do we really want to add the United States to the list of nations whose governments use their power to punish political opponents, including perceived enemies in the media?" he asked. "Do we want the penalty for bad reporting, or at the least, falling victim to deceptive sources, to be not a correction or professional censure, but prison?"
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Related stories
A bitter defeat for the press
The Supreme Court's refusal to hear the Cooper-Miller case will do more than hurt two reporters -- it will erode the press's ability to cover sensitive stories.
By Farhad Manjoo
06/28/05
Miller goes to jail
As the New York Times reporter was led away, many in the courtroom feared that the real victim was a free press.
By Michael Scherer
07/07/05
"You're in a bad spot here, Scott"
White House reporters hammer Bush's press secretary over Karl Rove's role in the Valerie Plame scandal.
07/11/05
War? What war?
As the Iraq nightmare deepens, Fox News and its cable competitors wallow in shark attacks and Natalee Holloway. If you don't cover a war, does it exist?
By Gary Kamiya
06/29/05
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/07/13/judy_miller/print.html
The Jerusalem Post
Police pull resisting youths out of Homesh yeshiva
By YAAKOV KATZ AND MARGOT DUDKEVITCH
HOMESH
Police and IDF evacuation forces deployed in the northern Samaria settlement of Homesh entered homes and buildings throughout the settlement and were steadily pulling an estimated 1,200 resisting residents and infiltrators out of the buildings Tuesday.
So far, 264 people were evacuated from 60 buildings. Three protestors in the settlement were arrested and five members of the evacuation forces were lightly wounded.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1124677193064
Homesh family gears up for inevitable
By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH
The night before the evacuation from the northern West Bank settlement of Homesh, Alice Zemin was busy cleaning her house after a week of hosting guests.
Zemin said that she was not concerned for the pending evacuation and felt that she was part of the making of history despite her opposition to the uprooting of settlers from their homes.
Hers was one of a number of families who refused to participate in the ceremony conducted by veteran families in the settlement earlier in the night.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1124677192428
Over 100 arrested in north Samaria
By JPOST.COM STAFF
More than 100 people were detained on Tuesday in the areas surrounding Homesh and Sa-Nur as they were trying to infiltrate the two northern West Bank settlements slated for evacuation.
Daniella Weiss, head of the Kedumin local council, was arrested while leading a large group of protesters from Kedumim to Homesh. Weiss was also arrested earlier this month after she had attempted to infiltrate Gush Katif.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1124763674217
Families pitch tent 'City of Faith'
By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Edit Degorker's family of nine, baby included, slept in the corner of a large communal tent in Netivot the night after they were evicted from the Gaza settlement of Atzmona.
The Degorkers are one of 40 Gaza families who hope that, by eschewing housing alternatives offered by the Disengagement Authority, they will be able to establish their own resettlement project, and that it will ultimately enable 700 Gush Katif families to build new communities in the Negev.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1124677193000
Havana Journal
Cuba watches as Venezuela decides how the oil will flow
By ANTHONY BOADLE Reuters News Service
Cuba's economically strapped government is closely watching Sunday's recall referendum in Venezuela, which could deprive it of vital oil supplies and its staunchest ally in Latin America.
But Cuban officials are confident Venezuelan voters will back their populist President Hugo Chavez, who has forged a strategic alliance with Havana and a close friendship with Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
http://havanajournal.com/business_comments/A2137_0_4_0_M/
Food Giant Sysco in negotiations for Cuba food business
Associated Press
Giant American food distributor Sysco Corp. said Wednesday it's working with Cuban officials to increase sales to the island's tourism industry under an exception to the U.S. trade embargo.
So far, the Houston, Texas-based company has sold only about US$500,000 worth of food to the communist country since late last year, said David Dickson, president of the company's Alabama operation.
http://havanajournal.com/business_comments/A2131_0_4_0_M/
Cuba economy hinges on Hugo Chavez recall vote on August 15
BY RICHARD BRAND rbrand@herald.com
Just as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez' political future is riding on an upcoming recall vote, so is the fate of his closest ally, Cuban President Fidel Castro.
PARTNERS: Hugo ChÍvez, left, and Fidel Castro, shown in 2003, have been united in many of their policies - as well as their anti-American rhetoric. AFP-GETTY IMAGES
The two presidents, united in their anti-American rhetoric and to differing degrees in their leftist policies, have developed a strategically critical relationship since Chávez was elected in 1998.
Petroleum-rich Venezuela provides economically strapped Cuba with tons of oil, and Havana owes Caracas an estimated $800 million. Cuba, in turn, has sent Venezuela thousands of doctors, teachers, sports trainers and a suspected horde of intelligence and political advisors.
http://havanajournal.com/business_comments/A2103_0_4_0_M/
Tax authorities impose further restrictions on self-employed
By Reinaldo Cosano Alén www.cubanet.org
Cuba's tax authority, the National Tributary Office (ONAT), has issued new
regulations for the self-employed which many here say will only tend to put
many of them out of business.
At first glance, the most onerous of the new regulations seems to be a
new requirement that all self-employed hold down a job with the State
and only practice the trade or business for which they are licensed
after working hours.
http://havanajournal.com/business_comments/A2100_0_4_0_M/
Hungering for trade with Cuba
BY LARRY LUXNER Special to the Miami Herald
Despite its relative proximity to Cuba and a common language and culture, Puerto Rico is landing only a tiny fraction of the contracts that the Castro government is awarding to U.S. food companies.
Some Puerto Rican exporters would like to change that.
Salvador Vassallo, president of the Puerto Rico Export Council, which represents about 50 local companies, says his group is trying to arrange a trade mission to visit Havana in October -- though that might prove difficult given tough new U.S. regulations on visits to Cuba enacted June 30 by the Bush administration.
http://havanajournal.com/business_comments/A2337_0_4_0_M/
Vermont Ag secretary Kerr to visit Cuba next week to work on export
www.wrgb.com
Vermont's agriculture secretary is working on a deal to export the state's agricultural products to Cuba.
Secretary Steve Kerr will travel to the island next week to meet with Cuban officials.
The trip follows a trade mission to Havana by Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie in April.
Dubie returned with letters of intent signed by officials in the Cuban government to buy apples, dried milk and cows from Vermont.
Kerr says he hopes to have signed contracts for the exports when he returns.
http://havanajournal.com/business_comments/A2366_0_4_0_M/
More North Dakota trade trips to Cuba in the works
By BLAKE NICHOLSON Associated Press Writer
North Dakota farm groups are planning more trade trips to Cuba, hoping to build on past successes in the communist island nation and get a firmer foothold in the emerging export market.
"Cuba is the Western Hemisphere's largest market for dry peas, and it's the closest market," said Eric Bartsch, administrator of the North Dakota Dry Pea and Lentil Association. "We're trying to capitalize on that."
Congress passed a law four years ago allowing cash sales of U.S. agricultural goods and medicine to Cuba. Since then, farm industry and government officials from North Dakota have made nearly half a dozen trade trips to the country
http://havanajournal.com/business_comments/A2350_0_4_0_M/
continued …
The Sheehan Peace Candlelight Vigil never proved to be too much of a sacrifice for some. Caption :: A candle burns while Bryan Ortega, 21, left, and Edher Estrada, 19, look on during a candle light vigil showing support for Cindy Sheehan Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2005, in Portland, Ore. Sheehan's son was killed in Iraq last year and she has vowed to remain at Bush's Texas vacation ranch unless he meets with her and other grieving families. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
Morning Papers - continued ...
Michael Moore Today
August 18th, 2005 6:58 pm
Sheehan plans return to antiwar camp
CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- Although their leader had just departed because of a family emergency, antiwar demonstrators here didn't miss a beat, marching closer to President Bush's ranch to deliver handwritten letters.
The protest camp outside Bush's ranch resumed its activities Thursday shortly after Cindy Sheehan -- whose 24-year-old son Casey died 16 months ago in Iraq -- learned that her 74-year-old mother had a stroke in Los Angeles and made preparations to leave.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3763
August 19th, 2005 3:17 am
CINDY SHEEHAN LEAVES, OTHERS STAY ON TO KEEP PRESSURE ON BUSH FOR MEETING
Mother’s Illness Won’t Change the Agenda at Camp Casey; Prayer Vigil Tomorrow Will Take Place at 12 Noon CDT Friday
Meet With Cindy
Statement by Cindy Sheehan:
This afternoon around 4 p.m. Crawford time my sister DeeDee received a call that our mother has had a stroke and is in the emergency room at a hospital in Los Angeles.
As you can imagine, this is a devastating blow for my sister, my brother, my children and me.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3770
The Peaceful Occupation of Crawford (Day 16); Go home and take care of your kids
--a message from Cindy Sheehan
I have received dozens of emails with this heading: Go Home and Take Care of Your Kids. I think of all the name calling and unnecessary and untrue trashing of my character, this one offends me the most. What do the people who send me this message mean?
First of all, it offends me because it is so blatantly sexist. Would anyone think of emailing George Bush when he is out and about (now he is going on a vacation away from his vacation to make speeches in Idaho and Utah defending his killing policies), telling him to go and take care of his kids? Does anyone write to ANY man and tell him to go home and take care of his kids. I have news for all of these people, my children are adults and their dad is home to take care of them if they need any taking care of.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=463
Thousands Protest Bush, Iraq War In Salt Lake City
Associated Press
With the message that people can protest a war while supporting troops and veterans, a handful of speakers -including a Gold Star mom - addressed an anti-war rally in Salt Lake City Monday, the same day President Bush was in town.
Bush spoke to more than 6,000 people at the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, while three blocks away about 2,000 people gathered to protest Bush administration policies and the war in Iraq.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3812
From Crawford, TX to Boise, ID: Gold Star Families Follow Bush to Demand Answers on War in Iraq
Idahoans tell the President: "Mr. Bush, Every Town Has a Cindy and Casey"
Crawford Update
Tuesday Noon Dedication of Iraq War Memorial to Feature Comments from Military Mom and War Widow
Boise, ID, Tuesday, August 23, 12:00 pm: While President Bush is mountain biking 100 miles north of Boise Tuesday, local citizens opposed to the Iraq war and supporting the efforts of Gold Star mother Cindy Sheehan will gather in downtown Boise at 12:00 noon to dedicate a memorial to the Iraq War.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3813
They Are Stardust, And in Texas
At the Crawford Protest Camp, Growing Echoes of Woodstock
By Mike Allen / Washington Post
CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 21 -- Camp Casey, which started with one mom and a grievance, mushroomed over the weekend into a massive settlement with a party tent for 2,000, a shuttle-bus service and an elaborate catering operation that deposited a 26-foot-long refrigerator truck, generators, and restaurant-quality ranges and warming ovens in a field next to President Bush's ranch.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3807
Folk legend Baez joins protesters near Bush ranch
By Tabassum Zakaria / Reuters
CRAWFORD, Texas - Folk singer Joan Baez joined anti-war protesters near U.S. President George W. Bush's ranch on Sunday to meet with military families who want troops pulled out of Iraq.
"You know in the first march I went on against the war in Vietnam there were 10 of us," Baez said as she met with a group of women whose sons died in Iraq or were being deployed there.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3798
Camp Casey Photo Gallery
http://cryptome.org/brp3/bush-ranch3.htm
The Seattle Post Intelligencer
Recycling of electronics encouraged
By ROBERT McCLURE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Hey, you with the old cell phone in the utility drawer!
You with the obsolete computers and TVs gathering dust in the attic!
If you're like a lot of folks, you're wondering: How the heck am I supposed to get rid of this stuff, without it leaching toxic chemicals in a landfill or fouling the Third World?
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/237638_ewaste23.html
Team to run Nov. 8 election
But Logan will be in charge of primary in September
By NEIL MODIE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
A "turnaround team" of outside experts will run the November general election for King County.
In another sense, though, County Executive Ron Sims will run it.
Whatever the case, Dean Logan, Sims' embattled director of records, elections and licensing affairs, won't be in charge of the Nov. 8 election although he's running the September primary.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/237658_election23.html
Monorail leader's 'objective' -- moolah?
By ROBERT L. JAMIESON Jr.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
So, the monorail has a fresh savior -- John Haley, the just-named interim director for the foundering project.
Haley, who starts the job Wednesday, helped keep the Las Vegas monorail on track when it went on the blink. He has given his transportation expertise to other big cities such as Boston, San Francisco and Philly.
The guy gets around.
Beyond his glistening resume, a couple of things caught my eye.
Haley doesn't come cheap for a cash-strapped agency like the Seattle Monorail Project, which recently axed jobs in order to save money.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/237656_robert23.html
Southwest to buy quiet jetliners
Airline says it will use 737-700s at Boeing Field
By JENNIFER LANGSTON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Hoping to head off concerns from neighborhoods under Boeing Field's flight paths, Southwest Airlines has committed to buying enough next-generation Boeing 737 planes to make its flights from the county-owned airport as quiet as possible.
The advanced Boeing 737-700s, which allow pilots to minimize ground noise by climbing quickly, would also enable the airline to fly a new approach over Elliott Bay that has generated few noise complaints from Magnolia and West Seattle residents
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/237635_southwest23.html
International Border: Focus on policy
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD
Focus on the prevention of terrorism has telescoped the government's attention on Canada's "soft border," while our border with Mexico remains a war zone for drug lords and human smugglers.
While the Bush administration finally has admitted that it needs to revise its immigration plan (to which we say: We have an immigration plan? Really?), we hope it'll keep a few things in mind.
First, that adopting a hard-line, anti-immigration policy in this case would be a mistake. Although Democratic Govs. Bill Richardson (N.M.) and Janet Napolitano (Ariz.) hope that building a 377-mile fence at the border would help with what they call an emergency in their states, we wonder how effective those measures would be.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/237557_bordered.html
Law Enforcement: The safer zap
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD
When facing a potentially dangerous situation, police have few options: Shoot, beat, reason or Taser. Those 50,000-volt shockers can disable an armed suspect while keeping the officer as far as 21 feet away.
Anything with that much zap to it can cause harm. According to Amnesty International, 103 Taser-related deaths occurred in the United States and Canada over the past five years.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/237555_tasered.asp
The USA ended it's assassination policies a long time ago. Evidently the Christian Evangelical Right Party has not !!
Televangelist calls for Chavez' death
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
In this picture released by Miraflores Press Office Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, left, listens to President Fidel Castro, as they arrive in Cuba's Sandino province Sunday, Aug. 21, 2005. Chavez is on official visit in Cuba.(AP Photo/HO Miraflores Press)
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested on-air that American operatives assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."
"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said Monday on the Christian Broadcast Network's "The 700 Club."
"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Robertson%20Assassination
High court protects kids of Calif. gays
By DAVID KRAVETS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Emily B., second from left, holds her son, Ry, and daughter, Kaia, both 7 (twins), with her mother Jeanne, right, before speaking at a news conference at the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco, Monday, Aug. 22, 2005. Same-sex couples who raise children are lawful parents and must provide for them if they break up, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday. Emily B., the El Dorado County woman whose former lover, Elisa B., must now pay to support the children, said she might be able to getoff of welfare now. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
SAN FRANCISCO -- In the latest ruling to recognize rights of same-sex couples, the California Supreme Court has said gay and lesbian couples who raise children are lawful parents and must provide for their children if they break up.
The state's custody and child support laws that hold absent fathers accountable also apply to estranged gay and lesbian couples who used reproductive science to conceive, the high court ruled Monday.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Lesbian%20Custody
Conn. challenges No Child Left Behind law
By NOREEN GILLESPIE
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal speaks at a news conference Monday, Aug. 22, 2005, in his office in Hartford, Conn., where he announced that the state of Connecticut filed a federal lawsuit challenging President Bush's No Child Left Behind school reform law, arguing it is illegal because it requires expensive testing and programs it doesn't pay for. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
HARTFORD, Conn. -- Connecticut became the first state to file suit against the federal government over the No Child Left Behind Act, claiming the Bush administration has not provided enough money to pay for new testing and programs.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Hartford against federal Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, asks a judge to declare that state and local funds cannot be used to meet the goals of the law.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=No%20Child%20Lawsuit
Pakistani leader accepts Jewish invitation
By EDITH M. LEDERER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
UNITED NATIONS -- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has accepted an invitation from a leading Jewish organization to speak about his campaign to promote moderate Islam among Muslims around the world, the Council for World Jewry said.
Musharraf since 2003 has been urging Muslims to embrace a strategy of "enlightened moderation" as the best way to counter extremism and terrorism.
Council chairman Jack Rosen said Musharraf's speech next month in New York will be the first time a Muslim leader with international stature publicly calls for moderation in the Muslim world not only at an event for Americans but at an event sponsored by the Jewish community.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=UN%20Musharraf
Bangladeshis flee homes submerged by tides
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh -- Unusually high tides partially submerged two offshore islands Monday in southeastern Bangladesh, forcing nearly 20,000 residents to flee their flooded homes, a relief official said. No one was hurt or missing.
A gradual tidal surge submerged almost two-thirds of Sandwip island under 5 feet, Golam Rabbani of the Bangladesh Red Crescent said by telephone from the nearby port city of Chittagong.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Bangladesh%20High%20Tide
Feinstein to question Roberts on abortion
By BETH FOUHY
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, whose vote on Supreme Court nominee John Roberts could guide other Democrats, said Monday she will scrutinize his views on abortion and congressional authority to set social policy.
She called the impending debate over Roberts' nomination a "big, big deal."
"I don't think in the last couple of decades there has been a Supreme Court appointment that could more tip the balance of the court," Feinstein said in a speech to several hundred Silicon Valley business executives. "That's how mega this vote is."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1153&slug=Roberts%20Feinstein
Husbands a hot topic in N.Y. senate race
By MARC HUMBERT
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Is this a Senate race or country music?
Cheating husbands. An out-of-wedlock child. Prison bars. Strong, independent women standing by their wayward men.
The stuff of late nights, neon-lit jukeboxes and smoky roadhouses? Not quite.
These women are Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jeanine Pirro, both lawyers and both with homes in a tony suburb north of New York City, and they're on a possible political collision course.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apelection_story.asp?category=1134&slug=New%20York%20Senate%20Husbands
Wildfires force evacuations in Portugal
By JOANA MATEUS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
LISBON, Portugal -- Wildfires fanned by high winds burned out of control Monday, destroying more than 10 houses on the outskirts of Portugal's third-largest city and forcing 50 people to leave their homes amid the country's worst drought in years.
The government, no longer able to cope with the more than 25 fires burning through forest and farmland, called on the European Union for help over the weekend.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Portugal%20Fires
Jews, some Muslims praise Pope's warnings
By NICOLE WINFIELD
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI on Monday won praise from Jews and respect from some Muslims for his blunt warnings about the rise of anti-Semitism and terrorism during his first foreign trip as pontiff - issues that are likely to define his papacy.
Commentators applauded Benedict for not hedging his words during his four-day visit to Cologne, Germany for World Youth Day, a tactic that Germany's Handelsblatt daily said may make his job as a peacemaker more difficult but that in the end showed his priorities.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Pope%20Jews%20and%20Muslims
Asians, Americans show perceptual divide
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID
AP SCIENCE WRITER
WASHINGTON -- Asians and North Americans really do see the world differently. Shown a photograph, North American students of European background paid more attention to the object in the foreground of a scene, while students from China spent more time studying the background and taking in the whole scene, according to University of Michigan researchers.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1501&slug=Different%20Views
China reports four have pig-borne disease
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIJING -- Four people have been reported infected by a pig-borne disease in southern China, including one who died of the illness, the government said Monday, a day after an epidemic elsewhere in China was declared under control.
The infections were reported in four different areas in Guangdong province, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing information released by the provincial government.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1500&slug=China%20Pig%20Disease
N.Y. water park illnesses grow to 2,202
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ALBANY, N.Y. -- A New York state assemblyman is launching an inquiry into the state-run water playground that may have spread more than 2,000 cases of gastrointestinal illnesses.
"All visitors to New York State Parks should be confident that they will have a healthy and safe experience," State Assemblyman Joseph Morelle said in a statement.
The number of reported gastrointestinal illnesses possibly spread by the water playground at Seneca Lake Park has grown to 2,202 cases across 24 counties in western and central New York as of Monday.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1500&slug=BRF%20Sprayground%20Illnesses
The Cheney Observer
KARL ROVE WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD
A Satirical Rant
By Peter Fredson
August 21, 2005
I just finished a long compilation of reasons why Bush invaded Iraq, using several hundred files from the past 5 years. There were many reasons alleged, some of them humorous, and others reaching the edge of criminality. The reasons seemed to shift and multiply as the administration gradually realizes things are not going as well as it had hoped. Then a fellow blogger asked me to identify the reason I thought was “really” in the back of the complicated group mind of George Bush and his co-conspirators.
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7763
Letter: Impeach Bush, Cheney
Find similar archived stories..
The Downing Street Memo clearly shows a conspiracy by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to mislead the American people into an unnecessary war with Iraq. These actions are high crimes against the American people, and Bush and Cheney deserve to be impeached.
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Billions of taxpayer dollars that could have been used for things such as education and health care have instead been given to corporations such as Haliburton. More than 1,700 Americans have died in vain.
As long as people like Bush and Cheney become leaders there will always be wars.
David Rivers
Johnson City
http://www.pressconnects.com/today/opinion/stories/op082205s185552.shtml
Weiner: A Cancerous Tumor in the Body Politic
Monday, 22 August 2005, 2:34 pm
Opinion: Bernard Weiner
A Cancerous Tumor in the Body Politic: Time for Surgery
By Bernard Weiner
The Crisis Papers
When White House Counsel John Dean in 1973 told Richard Nixon that there was a "cancer growing on the presidency," it wasn't totally clear if he was referring to the Watergate coverup inside the White House, or to the felonies committed by Nixon's closest aides, or, without coming right out and saying so, to the President himself.
But, clearly, something toxic was eating away at the President's legitimacy, Dean was suggesting, thus putting Nixon in potential legal jeopardy. Something had to be done to protect the presidency, if not the President, from the mortal danger symbolized by that cancer metaphor.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0508/S00141.htm
Political Leaders' Silence on Iraq War Is a Dereliction of Duty
Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a slain soldier who has been camping outside President Bush's Texas ranch, is an impassioned witness but an imperfect messenger. Her leftist foreign policy agenda is as unlikely to draw majority support as the militant unilateralism of the hard-core neoconservatives.
But Sheehan will have done the nation a service if she inspires, or shames, both parties to resume debate over the direction of the Iraq war.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-outlook22aug22,1,4456641.column?coll=la-utilities-politics
Summer of scandal for politicians across America
POSTED: Monday, August 22, 2005 10:56:06 AM
UPDATED: Monday, August 22, 2005 10:56:06 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ohio’s governor is hardly the only politician these days to be hit by scandal.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger are under ethics scrutiny, and two congressmen are under investigation over financial dealings.
Some call it the summer of scandals.
Charles Lewis is the founder of the Center for Public Integrity.
http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_fullstory.asp?id=39624
Neil Clark: Wanted: A strongman to hold Iraq together
August 22, 2005
'LET sleeping dogs lie" is not the favourite maxim of neo-conservatives. Neither is "Better the devil you know". But events of the past 2 1/2 years in Iraq have proved once again the wisdom of these two old sayings, and the corresponding lack of wisdom of those who foolishly ignore them.
Before he was awoken by Shock and Awe, the sleeping dog of Iraq was a stable, contained dictatorship led by an ageing, Sound of Music-loving secularist. Now the Iraqi canine is foaming at the mouth, transformed, in the words of the US National Intelligence Council, into "a magnet for international terrorist activity" - a nightmarish world of car bombs and daily assassinations in which 3000 civilians have lost their lives in the past four months.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16336033%5E7583,00.html
Texas protest guarantees political fallout
Anti-war sentiment rallies around mother, but might be too extreme
By Ronald Brownstein
Los Angeles Times
Originally published August 21, 2005
WASHINGTON - The high-profile vigil near President Bush's Texas ranch by Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq last year, could scramble the politics of the war as much for her allies as for the target of her protest.
The most immediate effect could be to increase the pressure on liberal activist groups and Democrats, who have focused this year mostly on other issues, to challenge Bush more forcefully on the war.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.protest21aug21,1,994879.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines&ctrack=1&cset=true
Imperial claims of the commander-in-chief (by LINCOLN CAPLAN)
THE HISTORY of America’s crises is also a saga about the expansion of presidential power. At the start of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln centralised authority in the White House to mount a Union army and protect Washington, DC, from the Confederates, including by suspending habeas corpus. To address the Great Depression, Franklin D Roosevelt declared a national emergency, relying on a generation-old statute that was arguably inapt because it was intended for wartime and the country was not at war. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and provoked the United States into World War II, Roosevelt further asserted his presidential authority.
In these and other examples, the president relied on his power as commander-in-chief. The Constitution expressly grants Congress the power “to declare war,” as the legislature has done just five times since America’s start. Although the president was named commander-in-chief to ensure civilian control over the military, the founding fathers made it clear that he had what historian Arthur M Schlesinger Jr called “a limited and technical” authority to command America’s forces in battle only after Congress declared war. Lincoln’s take on his role as commander flouted those intentions. “I suppose I have a right to take any measure which may best subdue the enemy,” he wrote. Three-quarters of a century later, Franklin D Roosevelt took a similar stance “to avert a disaster which would interfere with the winning of the war.”
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/commentary/commentaryother.asp?file=augustcommentary592005.xml
Death of estate tax really means we'll pay more taxes
Neil Skene
My View
A majority of Americans support repeal of the estate tax, according to the polls, but I wonder if they understand that the repeal will actually increase the taxes everyone pays on inherited property.
Less than 2 per cent of the American population pays an estate tax now. Anyone with assets of less than $1.5 million (that's $3 million for a couple) can pass on their estates free of tax. The exemption rises to $2 million per person next year and $3.5 million in 2008.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/opinion/12417916.htm
Karl Rove's War Against Cindy Sheehan
Stewart Nusbaumer
August 21, 2005
To slander opponents so their political positions are discredited -- Karl Rove's doctrine has been immensely effective in defeating Bush's challengers; will it now be effective in defeating grieving mother Cindy Sheehan?
By Stewart Nusbaumer
Dirty fighting is in their political blood. It’s their modus operandi. It’s their crème de menthe. By slandering and lying and thrashing they decimate enemies and capture political office -- they win, which means everything to them. Now they are eyeing Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier tragically killed in Iraq, a grieving mother protesting the war from a ditch near George Bush’s ranch. They want to slaughter the mother lamb to destroy her resonating antiwar message. They want to win again.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m14910&l=i&size=1&hd=0
Could it be Bush's Watergate?
Adviser shows his Nixonian roots
By THOMAS PAUKEN
KARL Rove's favorite president is Richard Nixon. What a twist of fate it would be if Rove were driven from power as Nixon was over what both men would consider trivial matters — the leaking of a CIA employee's name to reporters by Rove in 2004, and the Watergate break-in of the Democratic headquarters at the instigation of Nixon campaign officials in 1972.
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Just as it was not the Watergate break-in per se (but the subsequent cover-up) that brought Nixon down, so it may be that what Rove said and did after the fact will prove his undoing.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/3318170
Quantum Drilling acquires Halliburton service line
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Quantum Drilling Motors and Directional Services, an Oklahoma City-based oil and gas services provider, has acquired the shock absorber inventory and design drawings of the Security DBS Drill Bits product service line of Halliburton's Energy Services Group. The transaction is effective immediately.
http://www.mywesttexas.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15073041&BRD=2288&PAG=461&dept_id=474107&rfi=6
Cedar Park Man Convicted
A Cedar Park resident and former employee of a Halliburton subsidiary has pleaded guilty to accepting more than $100,000 in illegal kickbacks. Glenn Allen Powell was subcontracts administrator for KBR Inc., which provides engineering services for the military.
Prosecutors say Powell took payments in exchange for securing a US military construction contract for an Iraqi company . The 40-year-old Powell will be sentenced in November, facing 10 years in prison on each count and more than one million dollars in fines.
http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=3747408&nav=0s3ddZbo
Death of estate tax really means we'll pay more taxes
Neil Skene
My View
A majority of Americans support repeal of the estate tax, according to the polls, but I wonder if they understand that the repeal will actually increase the taxes everyone pays on inherited property.
Less than 2 per cent of the American population pays an estate tax now. Anyone with assets of less than $1.5 million (that's $3 million for a couple) can pass on their estates free of tax. The exemption rises to $2 million per person next year and $3.5 million in 2008.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/opinion/12417916.htm
Report says Olympics to boost growth by £1.9bn
By Cathy Newman, Chief Political Correspondent
Published: August 21 2005 21:58 Last updated: August 21 2005 21:58
Hosting the 2012 Olympic Games may boost Britain's gross domestic product by just £1.9bn over the next 15 years against a projected cost to the taxpayer of £4.9bn, according to confidential figures presented to the government.
Although the government is challenging the figures in the belief that its advisers may have underestimated the benefits from tourism, the early findings are expected to prompt ministers to redouble their efforts to keep a tight rein on costs.
Tessa Jowell, the minister in charge of preparations for the Olympics, is expected to draft in a project manager from the private sector in an attempt to avoid cost overruns. Construction companies such as Bechtel, KBR and Amec would be expected to bid for the contract, which is likely to be advertised in the autumn.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/d7abcfda-1275-11da-8cc3-00000e2511c8.html
Chris Edwards: Going hog wild -- with taxpayer money
07:55 AM CDT on Saturday, August 20, 2005
Federal pork spending has exploded in recent years. The highway bill passed in July was bloated with 6,371 pork projects, or earmarks, inserted by members of Congress. Overall, the number of pork projects has increased tenfold during the past decade.
Many politicians see no problem with that. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay argues that it is better for members to earmark money for their districts than to leave spending to the "bureaucrats." Then there is Democrat Steny Hoyer of Maryland, who, when asked whether Congress would cut pork, said, "I hope not. ... Pork barrel is in the eye of the beholder."
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-edwards_20edi.ART.Dallas.Edition1.230773bb.html
Habitual lies to promote a war against the guiltless are pretty telling...
by Mary MacElveen
I still say that this statement is ludicrous and just plain nuts.
I am of the belief we go after those who not only attack us as a nation, but also personally. I am not of the belief of excusing horrific behavior and actions by terrorists or mere criminals in this country.
If you are guilty of a terrorist attack or any crime is that you do the time and are prepared for the consequences of your actions.
* I am however against going after the wrong people and blaming them as in the case where we invaded Iraq.
While Karl Rove asserted that liberals would offer therapy to those who attacked us, my assertion is that people like Karl Rove, Pres. Bush and those who support the war in Iraq are the ones in need of therapy. Habitual lies to promote a war against the guiltless are pretty telling.
What leads me to say this a quote I read in Newsday by Marcella Minucci whose son Sgt. Joseph Minucci II was killed in Iraq. She stated "Sheehan’s vigil undermines support for the troops" and went on to say "If she wants an explanation from the president, she needs to see a psychiatrist first."
While those are her feelings and she has every right to say that, I do find a problem following statement made by Mrs. Minucci: "She should be very proud to know her son died to help keep our freedom."
Those that still believe that this "Bush War" is founded on keeping our freedom are the very ones in need of therapy ... those that still believe we are bringing freedom and democracy to this country are suffering from a mania that has taken hold of this country.
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7755
Cheney Says Honor Troops By Finishing War
August 20, 2005 10:21 a.m. EST
Joanna Wypior - All Headline News Staff Reporter
(AHN) - Vice President Dick Cheney has suggested that the best way to honor troops that have died in Iraq is to finish the war, and not through protests and candle-light ceremonies.
"Every man and woman who fights and sacrifices in this war is serving a just and noble cause. This nation will always be grateful to them and we will honor their sacrifice by completing our mission," Cheney says.
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/cgi-bin/news/newsbrief.plx?id=2249095398&fa=1
The New Zealand Herald
NZ gives $1 million for Afghanistan elections
23.08.05 1.00pm
A day after New Zealand stages its own election, it will also be helping with another -- in Afghanistan.
Aid Minister Marian Hobbs has announced New Zealand will contribute $1 million to the United Nations to help with running democratic elections in Afghanistan on September 18.
She has met Afghani Foreign Minister Dr Abdullah Abdullah who noted during his visit here that New Zealand had offered significant support to Afghanistan during a difficult time.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10342089
Tax cut policy ignites a row
23.08.05 1.00pm
National's tax cuts have sharply defined the positions of the main parties in the election campaign.
Labour says they are unaffordable and favour the rich, the business community has warmly welcomed them, and except for Act the other parties in Parliament are not enthusiastic.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10342092
Mediation hoped to bring end to hospital strikes
23.08.05 1.00pm
Mental health nurses and district health boards should know by the end of today whether they have seen the last of industrial action for the near future as mediation talks resume.
About 3000 nurses, represented by the Public Service Association, picketed throughout New Zealand yesterday as they pushed for wage increases and terms beyond what has been offered by the boards.
Boards have offered rises averaging about 20 per cent, but the workers object to parts of it, including cuts in penal rates for some.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10342081
Caffeine drinks may contribute to obesity
23.08.05 1.00pm
Energy drinks containing high levels of sugar and caffeine may be contributing to New Zealanders' expanding waistlines, new research suggests.
The project, headed by Auckland University of Technology Professor of Nutrition Elaine Rush, has found an energy drink containing sugar, added caffeine and guarana (which also contains caffeine) causes the body to convert sugar into fat more rapidly than lemonade.
"These results could have huge implications when you think about how much sugar and caffeine people consume these days, and the high rates of inactivity," Prof Rush said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10342079
Australia defends terrorism summit 'guest list'
23.08.05 1.00pm
CANBERRA - Australia's attorney-general Philip Ruddock today defended the composition of delegates at a terrorism summit in Canberra, saying the government wanted speedy advice it could take to the premiers' conference.
Muslim leaders will meet Australian prime minister John Howard today to discuss how to deal with extremists preaching in their communities.
Mr Howard has defended the guest list, which has 14 moderates but no radical leaders, saying he wants to marginalise extremists.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10342091
Swiss downpour brings floods and landslides
23.08.05 11.20am
PERLEN, Switzerland - Torrential rain has lashed Switzerland non-stop for nearly three days, unleashing landslides and floods which have cut off villages in central Switzerland and killed two firefighters.
Flooding stretches from the Bernese Alps in central Switzerland to the city of St Gallen in the northeast, as rivers burst their banks and lakes overflow.
Two fire-fighters were killed in a landslide during the night in Entlebuch in the canton (state) of Lucerne, Swiss television said on Monday, adding the region remained cut off after roads and rail tracks were flooded.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10342069
Man becomes Spain's first married priest
23.08.05 3.20pm
By Elizabeth Nash
MADRID - A former Anglican pastor who is married with children became Spain's first family man to become a Catholic priest at the weekend, despite Catholicism's fervently held dogma of priestly celibacy.
Zimbabwe-born Evans David Gliwitzki, 64, was accompanied by his wife, two grown-up daughters, son-in-law and granddaughter when the Bishop of Tenerife ordained him on Saturday in the Church of Notre-Dame de la Concepcion in the town of La Laguna.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10342101
Million flock to Pope's 'Woodstock'
23.08.05
By Tony Paterson
Pope Benedict XVI ended a visit to his native Germany yesterday with a ringing appeal for a return to basic Christian values as he presided over an open-air Mass attended by hundreds of thousands of jubilant young Catholics from throughout the world.
The event was one of the largest Catholic celebrations Germany has witnessed. The vast crowd of flag-waving pilgrims gathered on the site of the Mass, a former open-cast mine near Cologne, was estimated at between 800,000 and a million.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10342003
Bosnian gay movie wins hearts at Sarajevo film festival
23.08.05
By Daria Sito-Sucic
SARAJEVO - "The worst thing in the Balkans is to be a gay," says Kenan Dizdar, a character in Bosnian war film "Go West" which has sparked angry debate about one of the great taboos of Bosnian society.
Hatred of gays will persist even after Serbs, Muslims and Croats stop fighting, he says: "They will lay down their weapons, but they will continue to hate homosexuals."
Go West was controversial long before it was even made. The film follows two gay men, a Muslim and a Serb, who flee the besieged Bosnian capital at the start of the war and try to preserve their love.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10342012
Swazi virgins end chastity ritual despite AIDS threat
23.08.05
LUDZIDZINI, Swaziland - Thousands of Swazi virgins on Monday took off the traditional tassels they have worn to signify chastity, ending a five-year ritual reintroduced in 2001 to fight the country's Aids crisis.
"I have worn this since 2001. No boy has touched me but for on the lips. This has made me stronger as an individual, and I have honoured Swazi custom," said Penelope Dube, 20, who lives close to the royal village of Ludzidzini, 15km east of Mbabane, the country's capital.
The tradition, known as Umcwasho, has a customary period of five years. It has been observed periodically but had not been practiced for decades before it was reintroduced in 2001 as officials sought to turn the tide on HIV/Aids.
An estimated 40 percent of adults in Swaziland carry the HIV virus, the highest infection rate in the world.
Girls between the ages of 16-24 were instructed to wear the tassels to advertise their chastity.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10342011
Stem cells created from skin without human embryos
23.08.05 1.00pm
By Steve Connor
Scientists have made a major advance in overcoming the principal ethical objection to the medical use of stem cells derived from human embryos. They have generated embryonic stem cells - which might eventually be used to treat chronically ill patients - from a person's skin without creating or destroying human embryos in the process.
Although the breakthrough is still in its early stages, the researchers believe they may one day be able to generate embryonic repair cells for a range of incurable illnesses from Parkinson's and heart disease to diabetes and spinal injuries.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10342072
continued …
August 18th, 2005 6:58 pm
Sheehan plans return to antiwar camp
CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- Although their leader had just departed because of a family emergency, antiwar demonstrators here didn't miss a beat, marching closer to President Bush's ranch to deliver handwritten letters.
The protest camp outside Bush's ranch resumed its activities Thursday shortly after Cindy Sheehan -- whose 24-year-old son Casey died 16 months ago in Iraq -- learned that her 74-year-old mother had a stroke in Los Angeles and made preparations to leave.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3763
August 19th, 2005 3:17 am
CINDY SHEEHAN LEAVES, OTHERS STAY ON TO KEEP PRESSURE ON BUSH FOR MEETING
Mother’s Illness Won’t Change the Agenda at Camp Casey; Prayer Vigil Tomorrow Will Take Place at 12 Noon CDT Friday
Meet With Cindy
Statement by Cindy Sheehan:
This afternoon around 4 p.m. Crawford time my sister DeeDee received a call that our mother has had a stroke and is in the emergency room at a hospital in Los Angeles.
As you can imagine, this is a devastating blow for my sister, my brother, my children and me.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3770
The Peaceful Occupation of Crawford (Day 16); Go home and take care of your kids
--a message from Cindy Sheehan
I have received dozens of emails with this heading: Go Home and Take Care of Your Kids. I think of all the name calling and unnecessary and untrue trashing of my character, this one offends me the most. What do the people who send me this message mean?
First of all, it offends me because it is so blatantly sexist. Would anyone think of emailing George Bush when he is out and about (now he is going on a vacation away from his vacation to make speeches in Idaho and Utah defending his killing policies), telling him to go and take care of his kids? Does anyone write to ANY man and tell him to go home and take care of his kids. I have news for all of these people, my children are adults and their dad is home to take care of them if they need any taking care of.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=463
Thousands Protest Bush, Iraq War In Salt Lake City
Associated Press
With the message that people can protest a war while supporting troops and veterans, a handful of speakers -including a Gold Star mom - addressed an anti-war rally in Salt Lake City Monday, the same day President Bush was in town.
Bush spoke to more than 6,000 people at the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, while three blocks away about 2,000 people gathered to protest Bush administration policies and the war in Iraq.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3812
From Crawford, TX to Boise, ID: Gold Star Families Follow Bush to Demand Answers on War in Iraq
Idahoans tell the President: "Mr. Bush, Every Town Has a Cindy and Casey"
Crawford Update
Tuesday Noon Dedication of Iraq War Memorial to Feature Comments from Military Mom and War Widow
Boise, ID, Tuesday, August 23, 12:00 pm: While President Bush is mountain biking 100 miles north of Boise Tuesday, local citizens opposed to the Iraq war and supporting the efforts of Gold Star mother Cindy Sheehan will gather in downtown Boise at 12:00 noon to dedicate a memorial to the Iraq War.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3813
They Are Stardust, And in Texas
At the Crawford Protest Camp, Growing Echoes of Woodstock
By Mike Allen / Washington Post
CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 21 -- Camp Casey, which started with one mom and a grievance, mushroomed over the weekend into a massive settlement with a party tent for 2,000, a shuttle-bus service and an elaborate catering operation that deposited a 26-foot-long refrigerator truck, generators, and restaurant-quality ranges and warming ovens in a field next to President Bush's ranch.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3807
Folk legend Baez joins protesters near Bush ranch
By Tabassum Zakaria / Reuters
CRAWFORD, Texas - Folk singer Joan Baez joined anti-war protesters near U.S. President George W. Bush's ranch on Sunday to meet with military families who want troops pulled out of Iraq.
"You know in the first march I went on against the war in Vietnam there were 10 of us," Baez said as she met with a group of women whose sons died in Iraq or were being deployed there.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3798
Camp Casey Photo Gallery
http://cryptome.org/brp3/bush-ranch3.htm
The Seattle Post Intelligencer
Recycling of electronics encouraged
By ROBERT McCLURE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Hey, you with the old cell phone in the utility drawer!
You with the obsolete computers and TVs gathering dust in the attic!
If you're like a lot of folks, you're wondering: How the heck am I supposed to get rid of this stuff, without it leaching toxic chemicals in a landfill or fouling the Third World?
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/237638_ewaste23.html
Team to run Nov. 8 election
But Logan will be in charge of primary in September
By NEIL MODIE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
A "turnaround team" of outside experts will run the November general election for King County.
In another sense, though, County Executive Ron Sims will run it.
Whatever the case, Dean Logan, Sims' embattled director of records, elections and licensing affairs, won't be in charge of the Nov. 8 election although he's running the September primary.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/237658_election23.html
Monorail leader's 'objective' -- moolah?
By ROBERT L. JAMIESON Jr.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
So, the monorail has a fresh savior -- John Haley, the just-named interim director for the foundering project.
Haley, who starts the job Wednesday, helped keep the Las Vegas monorail on track when it went on the blink. He has given his transportation expertise to other big cities such as Boston, San Francisco and Philly.
The guy gets around.
Beyond his glistening resume, a couple of things caught my eye.
Haley doesn't come cheap for a cash-strapped agency like the Seattle Monorail Project, which recently axed jobs in order to save money.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/237656_robert23.html
Southwest to buy quiet jetliners
Airline says it will use 737-700s at Boeing Field
By JENNIFER LANGSTON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Hoping to head off concerns from neighborhoods under Boeing Field's flight paths, Southwest Airlines has committed to buying enough next-generation Boeing 737 planes to make its flights from the county-owned airport as quiet as possible.
The advanced Boeing 737-700s, which allow pilots to minimize ground noise by climbing quickly, would also enable the airline to fly a new approach over Elliott Bay that has generated few noise complaints from Magnolia and West Seattle residents
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/237635_southwest23.html
International Border: Focus on policy
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD
Focus on the prevention of terrorism has telescoped the government's attention on Canada's "soft border," while our border with Mexico remains a war zone for drug lords and human smugglers.
While the Bush administration finally has admitted that it needs to revise its immigration plan (to which we say: We have an immigration plan? Really?), we hope it'll keep a few things in mind.
First, that adopting a hard-line, anti-immigration policy in this case would be a mistake. Although Democratic Govs. Bill Richardson (N.M.) and Janet Napolitano (Ariz.) hope that building a 377-mile fence at the border would help with what they call an emergency in their states, we wonder how effective those measures would be.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/237557_bordered.html
Law Enforcement: The safer zap
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD
When facing a potentially dangerous situation, police have few options: Shoot, beat, reason or Taser. Those 50,000-volt shockers can disable an armed suspect while keeping the officer as far as 21 feet away.
Anything with that much zap to it can cause harm. According to Amnesty International, 103 Taser-related deaths occurred in the United States and Canada over the past five years.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/237555_tasered.asp
The USA ended it's assassination policies a long time ago. Evidently the Christian Evangelical Right Party has not !!
Televangelist calls for Chavez' death
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
In this picture released by Miraflores Press Office Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, left, listens to President Fidel Castro, as they arrive in Cuba's Sandino province Sunday, Aug. 21, 2005. Chavez is on official visit in Cuba.(AP Photo/HO Miraflores Press)
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested on-air that American operatives assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."
"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said Monday on the Christian Broadcast Network's "The 700 Club."
"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Robertson%20Assassination
High court protects kids of Calif. gays
By DAVID KRAVETS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Emily B., second from left, holds her son, Ry, and daughter, Kaia, both 7 (twins), with her mother Jeanne, right, before speaking at a news conference at the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco, Monday, Aug. 22, 2005. Same-sex couples who raise children are lawful parents and must provide for them if they break up, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday. Emily B., the El Dorado County woman whose former lover, Elisa B., must now pay to support the children, said she might be able to getoff of welfare now. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
SAN FRANCISCO -- In the latest ruling to recognize rights of same-sex couples, the California Supreme Court has said gay and lesbian couples who raise children are lawful parents and must provide for their children if they break up.
The state's custody and child support laws that hold absent fathers accountable also apply to estranged gay and lesbian couples who used reproductive science to conceive, the high court ruled Monday.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Lesbian%20Custody
Conn. challenges No Child Left Behind law
By NOREEN GILLESPIE
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal speaks at a news conference Monday, Aug. 22, 2005, in his office in Hartford, Conn., where he announced that the state of Connecticut filed a federal lawsuit challenging President Bush's No Child Left Behind school reform law, arguing it is illegal because it requires expensive testing and programs it doesn't pay for. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
HARTFORD, Conn. -- Connecticut became the first state to file suit against the federal government over the No Child Left Behind Act, claiming the Bush administration has not provided enough money to pay for new testing and programs.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Hartford against federal Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, asks a judge to declare that state and local funds cannot be used to meet the goals of the law.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=No%20Child%20Lawsuit
Pakistani leader accepts Jewish invitation
By EDITH M. LEDERER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
UNITED NATIONS -- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has accepted an invitation from a leading Jewish organization to speak about his campaign to promote moderate Islam among Muslims around the world, the Council for World Jewry said.
Musharraf since 2003 has been urging Muslims to embrace a strategy of "enlightened moderation" as the best way to counter extremism and terrorism.
Council chairman Jack Rosen said Musharraf's speech next month in New York will be the first time a Muslim leader with international stature publicly calls for moderation in the Muslim world not only at an event for Americans but at an event sponsored by the Jewish community.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=UN%20Musharraf
Bangladeshis flee homes submerged by tides
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh -- Unusually high tides partially submerged two offshore islands Monday in southeastern Bangladesh, forcing nearly 20,000 residents to flee their flooded homes, a relief official said. No one was hurt or missing.
A gradual tidal surge submerged almost two-thirds of Sandwip island under 5 feet, Golam Rabbani of the Bangladesh Red Crescent said by telephone from the nearby port city of Chittagong.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Bangladesh%20High%20Tide
Feinstein to question Roberts on abortion
By BETH FOUHY
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, whose vote on Supreme Court nominee John Roberts could guide other Democrats, said Monday she will scrutinize his views on abortion and congressional authority to set social policy.
She called the impending debate over Roberts' nomination a "big, big deal."
"I don't think in the last couple of decades there has been a Supreme Court appointment that could more tip the balance of the court," Feinstein said in a speech to several hundred Silicon Valley business executives. "That's how mega this vote is."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1153&slug=Roberts%20Feinstein
Husbands a hot topic in N.Y. senate race
By MARC HUMBERT
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Is this a Senate race or country music?
Cheating husbands. An out-of-wedlock child. Prison bars. Strong, independent women standing by their wayward men.
The stuff of late nights, neon-lit jukeboxes and smoky roadhouses? Not quite.
These women are Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jeanine Pirro, both lawyers and both with homes in a tony suburb north of New York City, and they're on a possible political collision course.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apelection_story.asp?category=1134&slug=New%20York%20Senate%20Husbands
Wildfires force evacuations in Portugal
By JOANA MATEUS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
LISBON, Portugal -- Wildfires fanned by high winds burned out of control Monday, destroying more than 10 houses on the outskirts of Portugal's third-largest city and forcing 50 people to leave their homes amid the country's worst drought in years.
The government, no longer able to cope with the more than 25 fires burning through forest and farmland, called on the European Union for help over the weekend.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Portugal%20Fires
Jews, some Muslims praise Pope's warnings
By NICOLE WINFIELD
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI on Monday won praise from Jews and respect from some Muslims for his blunt warnings about the rise of anti-Semitism and terrorism during his first foreign trip as pontiff - issues that are likely to define his papacy.
Commentators applauded Benedict for not hedging his words during his four-day visit to Cologne, Germany for World Youth Day, a tactic that Germany's Handelsblatt daily said may make his job as a peacemaker more difficult but that in the end showed his priorities.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Pope%20Jews%20and%20Muslims
Asians, Americans show perceptual divide
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID
AP SCIENCE WRITER
WASHINGTON -- Asians and North Americans really do see the world differently. Shown a photograph, North American students of European background paid more attention to the object in the foreground of a scene, while students from China spent more time studying the background and taking in the whole scene, according to University of Michigan researchers.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1501&slug=Different%20Views
China reports four have pig-borne disease
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIJING -- Four people have been reported infected by a pig-borne disease in southern China, including one who died of the illness, the government said Monday, a day after an epidemic elsewhere in China was declared under control.
The infections were reported in four different areas in Guangdong province, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing information released by the provincial government.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1500&slug=China%20Pig%20Disease
N.Y. water park illnesses grow to 2,202
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ALBANY, N.Y. -- A New York state assemblyman is launching an inquiry into the state-run water playground that may have spread more than 2,000 cases of gastrointestinal illnesses.
"All visitors to New York State Parks should be confident that they will have a healthy and safe experience," State Assemblyman Joseph Morelle said in a statement.
The number of reported gastrointestinal illnesses possibly spread by the water playground at Seneca Lake Park has grown to 2,202 cases across 24 counties in western and central New York as of Monday.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1500&slug=BRF%20Sprayground%20Illnesses
The Cheney Observer
KARL ROVE WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD
A Satirical Rant
By Peter Fredson
August 21, 2005
I just finished a long compilation of reasons why Bush invaded Iraq, using several hundred files from the past 5 years. There were many reasons alleged, some of them humorous, and others reaching the edge of criminality. The reasons seemed to shift and multiply as the administration gradually realizes things are not going as well as it had hoped. Then a fellow blogger asked me to identify the reason I thought was “really” in the back of the complicated group mind of George Bush and his co-conspirators.
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7763
Letter: Impeach Bush, Cheney
Find similar archived stories..
The Downing Street Memo clearly shows a conspiracy by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to mislead the American people into an unnecessary war with Iraq. These actions are high crimes against the American people, and Bush and Cheney deserve to be impeached.
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Billions of taxpayer dollars that could have been used for things such as education and health care have instead been given to corporations such as Haliburton. More than 1,700 Americans have died in vain.
As long as people like Bush and Cheney become leaders there will always be wars.
David Rivers
Johnson City
http://www.pressconnects.com/today/opinion/stories/op082205s185552.shtml
Weiner: A Cancerous Tumor in the Body Politic
Monday, 22 August 2005, 2:34 pm
Opinion: Bernard Weiner
A Cancerous Tumor in the Body Politic: Time for Surgery
By Bernard Weiner
The Crisis Papers
When White House Counsel John Dean in 1973 told Richard Nixon that there was a "cancer growing on the presidency," it wasn't totally clear if he was referring to the Watergate coverup inside the White House, or to the felonies committed by Nixon's closest aides, or, without coming right out and saying so, to the President himself.
But, clearly, something toxic was eating away at the President's legitimacy, Dean was suggesting, thus putting Nixon in potential legal jeopardy. Something had to be done to protect the presidency, if not the President, from the mortal danger symbolized by that cancer metaphor.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0508/S00141.htm
Political Leaders' Silence on Iraq War Is a Dereliction of Duty
Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a slain soldier who has been camping outside President Bush's Texas ranch, is an impassioned witness but an imperfect messenger. Her leftist foreign policy agenda is as unlikely to draw majority support as the militant unilateralism of the hard-core neoconservatives.
But Sheehan will have done the nation a service if she inspires, or shames, both parties to resume debate over the direction of the Iraq war.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-outlook22aug22,1,4456641.column?coll=la-utilities-politics
Summer of scandal for politicians across America
POSTED: Monday, August 22, 2005 10:56:06 AM
UPDATED: Monday, August 22, 2005 10:56:06 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ohio’s governor is hardly the only politician these days to be hit by scandal.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger are under ethics scrutiny, and two congressmen are under investigation over financial dealings.
Some call it the summer of scandals.
Charles Lewis is the founder of the Center for Public Integrity.
http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_fullstory.asp?id=39624
Neil Clark: Wanted: A strongman to hold Iraq together
August 22, 2005
'LET sleeping dogs lie" is not the favourite maxim of neo-conservatives. Neither is "Better the devil you know". But events of the past 2 1/2 years in Iraq have proved once again the wisdom of these two old sayings, and the corresponding lack of wisdom of those who foolishly ignore them.
Before he was awoken by Shock and Awe, the sleeping dog of Iraq was a stable, contained dictatorship led by an ageing, Sound of Music-loving secularist. Now the Iraqi canine is foaming at the mouth, transformed, in the words of the US National Intelligence Council, into "a magnet for international terrorist activity" - a nightmarish world of car bombs and daily assassinations in which 3000 civilians have lost their lives in the past four months.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16336033%5E7583,00.html
Texas protest guarantees political fallout
Anti-war sentiment rallies around mother, but might be too extreme
By Ronald Brownstein
Los Angeles Times
Originally published August 21, 2005
WASHINGTON - The high-profile vigil near President Bush's Texas ranch by Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq last year, could scramble the politics of the war as much for her allies as for the target of her protest.
The most immediate effect could be to increase the pressure on liberal activist groups and Democrats, who have focused this year mostly on other issues, to challenge Bush more forcefully on the war.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.protest21aug21,1,994879.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines&ctrack=1&cset=true
Imperial claims of the commander-in-chief (by LINCOLN CAPLAN)
THE HISTORY of America’s crises is also a saga about the expansion of presidential power. At the start of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln centralised authority in the White House to mount a Union army and protect Washington, DC, from the Confederates, including by suspending habeas corpus. To address the Great Depression, Franklin D Roosevelt declared a national emergency, relying on a generation-old statute that was arguably inapt because it was intended for wartime and the country was not at war. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and provoked the United States into World War II, Roosevelt further asserted his presidential authority.
In these and other examples, the president relied on his power as commander-in-chief. The Constitution expressly grants Congress the power “to declare war,” as the legislature has done just five times since America’s start. Although the president was named commander-in-chief to ensure civilian control over the military, the founding fathers made it clear that he had what historian Arthur M Schlesinger Jr called “a limited and technical” authority to command America’s forces in battle only after Congress declared war. Lincoln’s take on his role as commander flouted those intentions. “I suppose I have a right to take any measure which may best subdue the enemy,” he wrote. Three-quarters of a century later, Franklin D Roosevelt took a similar stance “to avert a disaster which would interfere with the winning of the war.”
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/commentary/commentaryother.asp?file=augustcommentary592005.xml
Death of estate tax really means we'll pay more taxes
Neil Skene
My View
A majority of Americans support repeal of the estate tax, according to the polls, but I wonder if they understand that the repeal will actually increase the taxes everyone pays on inherited property.
Less than 2 per cent of the American population pays an estate tax now. Anyone with assets of less than $1.5 million (that's $3 million for a couple) can pass on their estates free of tax. The exemption rises to $2 million per person next year and $3.5 million in 2008.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/opinion/12417916.htm
Karl Rove's War Against Cindy Sheehan
Stewart Nusbaumer
August 21, 2005
To slander opponents so their political positions are discredited -- Karl Rove's doctrine has been immensely effective in defeating Bush's challengers; will it now be effective in defeating grieving mother Cindy Sheehan?
By Stewart Nusbaumer
Dirty fighting is in their political blood. It’s their modus operandi. It’s their crème de menthe. By slandering and lying and thrashing they decimate enemies and capture political office -- they win, which means everything to them. Now they are eyeing Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier tragically killed in Iraq, a grieving mother protesting the war from a ditch near George Bush’s ranch. They want to slaughter the mother lamb to destroy her resonating antiwar message. They want to win again.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m14910&l=i&size=1&hd=0
Could it be Bush's Watergate?
Adviser shows his Nixonian roots
By THOMAS PAUKEN
KARL Rove's favorite president is Richard Nixon. What a twist of fate it would be if Rove were driven from power as Nixon was over what both men would consider trivial matters — the leaking of a CIA employee's name to reporters by Rove in 2004, and the Watergate break-in of the Democratic headquarters at the instigation of Nixon campaign officials in 1972.
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Just as it was not the Watergate break-in per se (but the subsequent cover-up) that brought Nixon down, so it may be that what Rove said and did after the fact will prove his undoing.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/3318170
Quantum Drilling acquires Halliburton service line
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Quantum Drilling Motors and Directional Services, an Oklahoma City-based oil and gas services provider, has acquired the shock absorber inventory and design drawings of the Security DBS Drill Bits product service line of Halliburton's Energy Services Group. The transaction is effective immediately.
http://www.mywesttexas.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15073041&BRD=2288&PAG=461&dept_id=474107&rfi=6
Cedar Park Man Convicted
A Cedar Park resident and former employee of a Halliburton subsidiary has pleaded guilty to accepting more than $100,000 in illegal kickbacks. Glenn Allen Powell was subcontracts administrator for KBR Inc., which provides engineering services for the military.
Prosecutors say Powell took payments in exchange for securing a US military construction contract for an Iraqi company . The 40-year-old Powell will be sentenced in November, facing 10 years in prison on each count and more than one million dollars in fines.
http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=3747408&nav=0s3ddZbo
Death of estate tax really means we'll pay more taxes
Neil Skene
My View
A majority of Americans support repeal of the estate tax, according to the polls, but I wonder if they understand that the repeal will actually increase the taxes everyone pays on inherited property.
Less than 2 per cent of the American population pays an estate tax now. Anyone with assets of less than $1.5 million (that's $3 million for a couple) can pass on their estates free of tax. The exemption rises to $2 million per person next year and $3.5 million in 2008.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/opinion/12417916.htm
Report says Olympics to boost growth by £1.9bn
By Cathy Newman, Chief Political Correspondent
Published: August 21 2005 21:58 Last updated: August 21 2005 21:58
Hosting the 2012 Olympic Games may boost Britain's gross domestic product by just £1.9bn over the next 15 years against a projected cost to the taxpayer of £4.9bn, according to confidential figures presented to the government.
Although the government is challenging the figures in the belief that its advisers may have underestimated the benefits from tourism, the early findings are expected to prompt ministers to redouble their efforts to keep a tight rein on costs.
Tessa Jowell, the minister in charge of preparations for the Olympics, is expected to draft in a project manager from the private sector in an attempt to avoid cost overruns. Construction companies such as Bechtel, KBR and Amec would be expected to bid for the contract, which is likely to be advertised in the autumn.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/d7abcfda-1275-11da-8cc3-00000e2511c8.html
Chris Edwards: Going hog wild -- with taxpayer money
07:55 AM CDT on Saturday, August 20, 2005
Federal pork spending has exploded in recent years. The highway bill passed in July was bloated with 6,371 pork projects, or earmarks, inserted by members of Congress. Overall, the number of pork projects has increased tenfold during the past decade.
Many politicians see no problem with that. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay argues that it is better for members to earmark money for their districts than to leave spending to the "bureaucrats." Then there is Democrat Steny Hoyer of Maryland, who, when asked whether Congress would cut pork, said, "I hope not. ... Pork barrel is in the eye of the beholder."
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-edwards_20edi.ART.Dallas.Edition1.230773bb.html
Habitual lies to promote a war against the guiltless are pretty telling...
by Mary MacElveen
I still say that this statement is ludicrous and just plain nuts.
I am of the belief we go after those who not only attack us as a nation, but also personally. I am not of the belief of excusing horrific behavior and actions by terrorists or mere criminals in this country.
If you are guilty of a terrorist attack or any crime is that you do the time and are prepared for the consequences of your actions.
* I am however against going after the wrong people and blaming them as in the case where we invaded Iraq.
While Karl Rove asserted that liberals would offer therapy to those who attacked us, my assertion is that people like Karl Rove, Pres. Bush and those who support the war in Iraq are the ones in need of therapy. Habitual lies to promote a war against the guiltless are pretty telling.
What leads me to say this a quote I read in Newsday by Marcella Minucci whose son Sgt. Joseph Minucci II was killed in Iraq. She stated "Sheehan’s vigil undermines support for the troops" and went on to say "If she wants an explanation from the president, she needs to see a psychiatrist first."
While those are her feelings and she has every right to say that, I do find a problem following statement made by Mrs. Minucci: "She should be very proud to know her son died to help keep our freedom."
Those that still believe that this "Bush War" is founded on keeping our freedom are the very ones in need of therapy ... those that still believe we are bringing freedom and democracy to this country are suffering from a mania that has taken hold of this country.
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7755
Cheney Says Honor Troops By Finishing War
August 20, 2005 10:21 a.m. EST
Joanna Wypior - All Headline News Staff Reporter
(AHN) - Vice President Dick Cheney has suggested that the best way to honor troops that have died in Iraq is to finish the war, and not through protests and candle-light ceremonies.
"Every man and woman who fights and sacrifices in this war is serving a just and noble cause. This nation will always be grateful to them and we will honor their sacrifice by completing our mission," Cheney says.
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/cgi-bin/news/newsbrief.plx?id=2249095398&fa=1
The New Zealand Herald
NZ gives $1 million for Afghanistan elections
23.08.05 1.00pm
A day after New Zealand stages its own election, it will also be helping with another -- in Afghanistan.
Aid Minister Marian Hobbs has announced New Zealand will contribute $1 million to the United Nations to help with running democratic elections in Afghanistan on September 18.
She has met Afghani Foreign Minister Dr Abdullah Abdullah who noted during his visit here that New Zealand had offered significant support to Afghanistan during a difficult time.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10342089
Tax cut policy ignites a row
23.08.05 1.00pm
National's tax cuts have sharply defined the positions of the main parties in the election campaign.
Labour says they are unaffordable and favour the rich, the business community has warmly welcomed them, and except for Act the other parties in Parliament are not enthusiastic.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10342092
Mediation hoped to bring end to hospital strikes
23.08.05 1.00pm
Mental health nurses and district health boards should know by the end of today whether they have seen the last of industrial action for the near future as mediation talks resume.
About 3000 nurses, represented by the Public Service Association, picketed throughout New Zealand yesterday as they pushed for wage increases and terms beyond what has been offered by the boards.
Boards have offered rises averaging about 20 per cent, but the workers object to parts of it, including cuts in penal rates for some.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10342081
Caffeine drinks may contribute to obesity
23.08.05 1.00pm
Energy drinks containing high levels of sugar and caffeine may be contributing to New Zealanders' expanding waistlines, new research suggests.
The project, headed by Auckland University of Technology Professor of Nutrition Elaine Rush, has found an energy drink containing sugar, added caffeine and guarana (which also contains caffeine) causes the body to convert sugar into fat more rapidly than lemonade.
"These results could have huge implications when you think about how much sugar and caffeine people consume these days, and the high rates of inactivity," Prof Rush said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10342079
Australia defends terrorism summit 'guest list'
23.08.05 1.00pm
CANBERRA - Australia's attorney-general Philip Ruddock today defended the composition of delegates at a terrorism summit in Canberra, saying the government wanted speedy advice it could take to the premiers' conference.
Muslim leaders will meet Australian prime minister John Howard today to discuss how to deal with extremists preaching in their communities.
Mr Howard has defended the guest list, which has 14 moderates but no radical leaders, saying he wants to marginalise extremists.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10342091
Swiss downpour brings floods and landslides
23.08.05 11.20am
PERLEN, Switzerland - Torrential rain has lashed Switzerland non-stop for nearly three days, unleashing landslides and floods which have cut off villages in central Switzerland and killed two firefighters.
Flooding stretches from the Bernese Alps in central Switzerland to the city of St Gallen in the northeast, as rivers burst their banks and lakes overflow.
Two fire-fighters were killed in a landslide during the night in Entlebuch in the canton (state) of Lucerne, Swiss television said on Monday, adding the region remained cut off after roads and rail tracks were flooded.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10342069
Man becomes Spain's first married priest
23.08.05 3.20pm
By Elizabeth Nash
MADRID - A former Anglican pastor who is married with children became Spain's first family man to become a Catholic priest at the weekend, despite Catholicism's fervently held dogma of priestly celibacy.
Zimbabwe-born Evans David Gliwitzki, 64, was accompanied by his wife, two grown-up daughters, son-in-law and granddaughter when the Bishop of Tenerife ordained him on Saturday in the Church of Notre-Dame de la Concepcion in the town of La Laguna.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10342101
Million flock to Pope's 'Woodstock'
23.08.05
By Tony Paterson
Pope Benedict XVI ended a visit to his native Germany yesterday with a ringing appeal for a return to basic Christian values as he presided over an open-air Mass attended by hundreds of thousands of jubilant young Catholics from throughout the world.
The event was one of the largest Catholic celebrations Germany has witnessed. The vast crowd of flag-waving pilgrims gathered on the site of the Mass, a former open-cast mine near Cologne, was estimated at between 800,000 and a million.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10342003
Bosnian gay movie wins hearts at Sarajevo film festival
23.08.05
By Daria Sito-Sucic
SARAJEVO - "The worst thing in the Balkans is to be a gay," says Kenan Dizdar, a character in Bosnian war film "Go West" which has sparked angry debate about one of the great taboos of Bosnian society.
Hatred of gays will persist even after Serbs, Muslims and Croats stop fighting, he says: "They will lay down their weapons, but they will continue to hate homosexuals."
Go West was controversial long before it was even made. The film follows two gay men, a Muslim and a Serb, who flee the besieged Bosnian capital at the start of the war and try to preserve their love.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10342012
Swazi virgins end chastity ritual despite AIDS threat
23.08.05
LUDZIDZINI, Swaziland - Thousands of Swazi virgins on Monday took off the traditional tassels they have worn to signify chastity, ending a five-year ritual reintroduced in 2001 to fight the country's Aids crisis.
"I have worn this since 2001. No boy has touched me but for on the lips. This has made me stronger as an individual, and I have honoured Swazi custom," said Penelope Dube, 20, who lives close to the royal village of Ludzidzini, 15km east of Mbabane, the country's capital.
The tradition, known as Umcwasho, has a customary period of five years. It has been observed periodically but had not been practiced for decades before it was reintroduced in 2001 as officials sought to turn the tide on HIV/Aids.
An estimated 40 percent of adults in Swaziland carry the HIV virus, the highest infection rate in the world.
Girls between the ages of 16-24 were instructed to wear the tassels to advertise their chastity.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10342011
Stem cells created from skin without human embryos
23.08.05 1.00pm
By Steve Connor
Scientists have made a major advance in overcoming the principal ethical objection to the medical use of stem cells derived from human embryos. They have generated embryonic stem cells - which might eventually be used to treat chronically ill patients - from a person's skin without creating or destroying human embryos in the process.
Although the breakthrough is still in its early stages, the researchers believe they may one day be able to generate embryonic repair cells for a range of incurable illnesses from Parkinson's and heart disease to diabetes and spinal injuries.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10342072
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