Undernews For 6 November 2009

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November 6, 2009

WORD
It was 1931 that we last reported on television, and our readers must be wondering how things are shaping up. Not any too good. Engineers are working like beavers, but it appears that our homes are in no immediate danger. The cost of sending and receiving even the sappiest image is terrific; twenty-five miles is still considered a good hop; and a facial expression, however rapt, is often damaged en route. We went last week to a demonstration of television on the sixty-second floor of the R.C.A. Building, where some rather startling images were ending up after being tossed around the midtown district. We sat in a darkened room squarely in front of a receiving set and, as we understand the matter, the persons and objects which we saw were down on the third floor of the same building, where they were first photographed televisually by an iconoscope, thence sent by direct wire to the Empire State Building, and then came back on a megacycle to the sixty-second floor of R.C.A. The magical unlikelihood of this occasion was not lessened any by the fact that a stranger wearing a telephone around his neck was crawling about on all fours in the darkness at our feet. This didn't make television seem any too practical for the living room of one's own home, although of course homes are changing. -- EB White, New Yorker, 1936

11/06/2009 | Comments

FLOTSAM & JETSAM: INDIVIDUAL & INSTITUTIONAL MADNESS
Sam Smith

The recent murders at Ft. Hood recall Pascal's observation that "Men never do evil so cheerfully and so completely as when they do so from religious conviction."

Of course, the assumption in this country at the moment is that only Muslims are evil, which ignores Christians doing evil to Muslims in Afghanistan or Jews threatening to nuke Iran in the name of civilization.

In the end, it doesn't make much difference whether your husband or son is killed by a Muslim major in Ft. Hood, an American drone in Pakistan, or a Israeli soldier in Gaza. In each case the dead are victims of violent religious and cultural hubris.

The media, though, was quick to smell the bait. Even before Fox News had corroborated the suspect's name, Shepard Smith asked Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, "The names tells us a lot, does it not, senator?"

Replied Hutchison, "It does. It does, Shepard."

And the White House, joint chiefs and national security advisors treated it all as another wartime crisis rather than a solitary case of madness.

Which is logical, perhaps, because it is getting harder and harder to separate individual and mass insanity.

We assume there are people who are crazy and those who are rational but when your government reacts to those that brought down the World Trade Towers with an eight year futile war in Iraq that has killed, by the most conservative estimates, over 40 times as many innocent people, that line disappears.

Or consider that the war, along with that in Afghanistan, was the creation of politicians blithely willing to cause that many deaths to win reelection and supported by generals and admirals who thought it was a good idea and who then ordered Major Hasan and tens of thousands of others to engage in battle as an absolutely indisputable act of responsibility.

Or think about one little symbol of all this. Pull up a photo of the Joint Chiefs, those responsible for conducting wars like Iraq and Afghanistan and sending people to fight in them. Notice their chests bedizened by ribbons.

Now ask yourself: in what other field of human endeavor could one wear ribbons indicating areas of service, major campaigns, training, unit achievement, and personal accomplishment without people regarding you as completely mad?

And in what other job can you wantonly kill so many people and be treated as a normal human being?

None of this excuses Major Hasan but it puts his acts in perspective: a uncontrolled act of madness in a deliberately insane system.

We don't think about such things much, because most of us don't have to. The business of war has been outsourced to the weakest parts of our economy, to victims of our pathological economic system among others.

This is one reason there are so many suicides amongst soldiers. War is no longer a one time misery; troops are being recycled through it because there are too few to take their place.

One of the reasons, although we don't talk about it, is that an increasing number of people see war as a crazy idea of which they want no part. For the better off, that's a choice, but for others madness is simply the best job they can find.

The good news is that while perhaps a third or more of history's major wars (in terms of fatalities) have occurred in the 20th century, since WWII the death rates have gone down. We seem to be tiring of war but don't yet know it.

Which is good, all morality aside, since the only war America has won since the 1940s has been the invasion of Grenada and no government has surrendered to us since Japan.

There is a parallel madness to be found in other aspects of our uberculture - our approach to the environment, economy and education for example. This can lead one to an alternative subculture, depression or violent acts. The more we tend to the first course, the more haven we offer to those who might otherwise slip into the latter.

It's not easy to do but it helps to bear in mind when something like the recent killings occur that it is only a small outward and visible sign of a massive inner and invisible madness that can drive us crazy as well.

11/06/2009 | Comments

GREAT MOMENTS IN HEALTH CARE
News 10, Sacramento - The parents of a Sacramento State student beaten to death by a dorm mate last month said they were stunned to receive a $30,000 bill from the UC Davis Medical Center as well as a letter asking their murdered son not to return because of payment issues.

Gerald and Elizabeth Hawkins said last weekend -- ten days after their son Scott was killed -- they got a bill to their Santa Clara home for $29,186.50 from the UC Davis Medical Center.

In addition to documenting the 5 minutes of emergency room work done, the envelope also included a letter to "the patient," saying Scott Hawkins was considered indigent and shouldn't come back for further treatment. . .

UC Davis spokeswoman Carole Gan apologized for the letter, calling the incident an accident of automation.

11/06/2009 | Comments

GOLDMAN SACHS EVEN RIPS OFF SWINE FLU VACCINE
Citizens for Ethics in Washington - The CDC is distributing the much sought-after vaccine to Wall Street firms despite reports of vast shortages. In fact, just yesterday CDC Director Thomas Frieden informed Congress that only 32.3 million doses are available, far less than the 159 million needed to cover those at the highest risk. Given the scarce supply, the CDC has recommended the vaccine be directed only to those at highest risk: pregnant women, infants and children and those up to 24 years, those who care for infants, health and emergency services personnel, and adults with compromised immune systems or other chronic health problems. Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said today, "Although CREW has been unable to uncover the demographic makeup of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and JP Morgan Chase, it seems safe to assume the vast majority of their employees are not pregnant women, infants and children, young adults up to 24 years old, and healthcare workers."

11/06/2009 | Comments

TEN YEARS AGO: CLINTON, SUMMERS, SCHUMER BLOW IT
''I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past," said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota

NY Times November 5, 1999 - Congress approved landmark legislation today that opens the door for a new era on Wall Street in which commercial banks, securities houses and insurers will find it easier and cheaper to enter one another's businesses.

The measure, considered by many the most important banking legislation in 66 years, was approved in the Senate by a vote of 90 to 8 and in the House tonight by 362 to 57. The bill will now be sent to the president, who is expected to sign it, aides said. It would become one of the most significant achievements this year by the White House and the Republicans leading the 106th Congress.

''Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century,'' Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers said. ''This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy.''

The decision to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 provoked dire warnings from a handful of dissenters that the deregulation of Wall Street would someday wreak havoc on the nation's financial system. The original idea behind Glass-Steagall was that separation between bankers and brokers would reduce the potential conflicts of interest that were thought to have contributed to the speculative stock frenzy before the Depression. . .

Administration officials and many Republicans and Democrats said the measure would save consumers billions of dollars and was necessary to keep up with trends in both domestic and international banking. Some institutions, like Citigroup, already have banking, insurance and securities arms but could have been forced to divest their insurance underwriting under existing law. Many foreign banks already enjoy the ability to enter the securities and insurance industries. . .

But consumer groups and civil rights advocates criticized the legislation for being a sop to the nation's biggest financial institutions. They say that it fails to protect the privacy interests of consumers and community lending standards for the disadvantaged and that it will create more problems than it solves.

The opponents of the measure gloomily predicted that by unshackling banks and enabling them to move more freely into new kinds of financial activities, the new law could lead to an economic crisis down the road when the marketplace is no longer growing briskly.

''I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010,'' said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota. ''I wasn't around during the 1930's or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was here in the early 1980's when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness.''

Senator Paul Wellstone, Democrat of Minnesota, said that Congress had ''seemed determined to unlearn the lessons from our past mistakes.''

''Scores of banks failed in the Great Depression as a result of unsound banking practices, and their failure only deepened the crisis,'' Mr. Wellstone said. ''Glass-Steagall was intended to protect our financial system by insulating commercial banking from other forms of risk. It was one of several stabilizers designed to keep a similar tragedy from recurring. Now Congress is about to repeal that economic stabilizer without putting any comparable safeguard in its place.''. . .

''The concerns that we will have a meltdown like 1929 are dramatically overblown,'' said Senator Bob Kerrey, Democrat of Nebraska. . .

''If we don't pass this bill, we could find London or Frankfurt or years down the road Shanghai becoming the financial capital of the world,'' said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. ''There are many reasons for this bill, but first and foremost is to ensure that U.S. financial firms remain competitive.''. . .

The White House has estimated the legislation could save consumers as much as $18 billion a year as new financial conglomerates gain economies of scale and cut costs.

11/06/2009 | Comments

THE END OF LIBRARIES?
Inside Higher Ed - What started as a debate over whether brick-and-mortar libraries would survive much further into the 21st century turned into an existential discussion on the definition of libraries, as a gathering of technologists pondered the evolution of one of higher education's oldest institutions.

"Let's face it: the library, as a place, is dead,"� said Suzanne E. Thorin, dean of libraries at Syracuse University. "Kaput. Finito. And we need to move on to a new concept of what the academic library is."�

Thorin prefaced her comments by saying that for the purposes of the debate she would be taking an extreme position on the fate of libraries. But her argument tapped into theories about the obsolescence of libraries - traditionally defined - that have grown along with the emergence of Web-based reference tools, e-books, digitized and born-digital content, and other technologies that some see as changing essential library functions.

"The scientists have mostly gone online with their library needs,"� Thorin said. "Cutting-edge scholars in the humanities are building new disciplines and online environments are, in effect, libraries themselves; they are diffuse, collaborative, non-hierarchical, always changing."�

Certain major research universities, she noted, have even begun moving their books to off-campus storage facilities due to space issues and a diminishing need for on-site hard copies. Libraries everywhere are eliminating pricey subscriptions to printed academic journals, often opting for less expensive digital versions.

11/06/2009 | Comments

GALLERY

THE REMARKABLE ICEBERG PHOTOS OF DAVID BURDENY

David Burdeny/Young Gallery

11/06/2009 | Comments

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE HITS 10.2%, HIGHEST SINCE 1983

Unemployment rate hits 10.2%, highest since 1983 - 11/09

By the fall of 2008, most American workers were bringing home roughly the same weekly wages they had earned in 1983, after accounting for inflation. -NYT

The employed worked fewer hours in May 2009 - an average of just 33.1 hours a week - than at any time since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began counting in 1964

The percentage of people in the labor force not working but looking for work in August 2009 rose to 9.7 percent, its highest level in 26 years. The teenage unemployment rate, however, is at 25.5 percent, its highest level since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began keeping track of such data in 1948. - New York Times

Real unemployment highest since depression 7/09
MORE INDICATORS
11/06/2009 | Comments

CIA PATHOLOGY UPDATE
Daniel Tencer, Raw Story - The CIA relied on intelligence based on torture in prisons in Uzbekistan, a place where widespread torture practices include raping suspects with broken bottles and boiling them alive, says a former British ambassador to the central Asian country.

Craig Murray, the rector of the University of Dundee in Scotland and until 2004 the UK's ambassador to Uzbekistan, said the CIA not only relied on confessions gleaned through extreme torture, it sent terror war suspects to Uzbekistan as part of its extraordinary rendition program.

"I'm talking of people being raped with broken bottles," he said at a lecture late last month that was re-broadcast by the Real News Network. "I'm talking of people having their children tortured in front of them until they sign a confession. I'm talking of people being boiled alive. And the intelligence from these torture sessions was being received by the CIA, and was being passed on."

Human rights groups have long been raising the alarm about the legal system in Uzbekistan. In 2007, Human Rights Watch declared that torture is "endemic" to the country's justice system.

Murray said he only realized after his stint as ambassador that the CIA was sending people to be tortured in Uzbekistan, country he describes as a "totalitarian" state that has never moved on from its communist era, when it was a part of the Soviet Union.

Suspects in Uzbekistan's gulags "were being told to confess to membership in Al Qaeda. They were told to confess they'd been in training camps in Afghanistan. They were told to confess they had met Osama bin Laden in person. And the CIA intelligence constantly echoed these themes."

"I was absolutely stunned -- it changed my whole world view in an instant -- to be told that London knew [the intelligence] coming from torture, that it was not illegal because our legal advisers had decided that under the United Nations convention against torture, it is not illegal to obtain or use intelligence gained from torture as long as we didn't do the torture ourselves," Murray said.

Murray asserts that the primary motivation for US and British military involvement in central Asia has to do with large natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. As evidence, he points to the plans to build a natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan that would allow Western oil companies to avoid Russia and Iran when transporting natural gas out of the region.

Ny Times - F.B.I. agents who arrived at a secret C.I.A. jail overseas in September 2002 found prisoners "manacled to the ceiling and subjected to blaring music around the clock," and a C.I.A. official wrote a list of questions for interrogators including "How close is each technique to the 'rack and screw,' " according to hundreds of pages of partly declassified documents released by the Justice Department. . .

The notes reveal that the Justice Department considered prosecuting a C.I.A. interrogator for a previously reported incident in which a detainee was threatened with a gun and a power drill, but it says department officials declined to prosecute the case.

The documents were released in the latest response to several Freedom of Information Act lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Judicial Watch, a Washington advocacy group.

Time - Twenty-two CIA agents who were convicted by a Milan court on Wednesday of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric are unlikely to spend any time in prison. The verdict, announced by Milan judge Oscar Magi, is only the first step in the labyrnthine Italian legal system, and the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has shown no desire to pursue the case. . .

Magi convicted 23 Americans, one of whom is an Air Force officer, for the February 2003 kidnapping of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, under the CIA's controversial "extraordinary rendition" program. Three other Americans were acquitted because they have diplomatic immunity. Two Italian secret agents were also convicted. Five other Italians were acquitted, including the head of the country's military intelligence, who resigned when the kidnapping became public. Of the 23 Americans convicted, 22 were sentenced to five years in jail; Robert Seldon Lady, the agency's former station chief in Milan, was given eight years. All of the Americans, however, were tried in absentia. . .

11/05/2009 | Comments

GAY MARRIAGE
Bangor Daily News - Maine sent mixed messages about extending voting rights to women, before finally doing so. After the Legislature strongly endorsed women's suffrage in 1917, a people's veto took back those voting rights. Two years later, however, Maine voters changed course and voted to ratify the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which extended the right to vote to women.

NPR - "If you are someone running for office and want to be re-elected, you're not going to feel better today about supporting same-sex marriage," says Richard Socarides, a former adviser on gay rights in the Clinton administration. "I mean, those are the facts."

Socarides says advocates may have to shift from a state-by-state strategy to a push in the federal courts. Two major lawsuits are now pending: One case in California argues that state bans on gay marriage violate the federal Constitution; another case challenges the federal Defense of Marriage Act. . .

Maine Politics - John Aravosis at America Blog has noted that Organizing for America, the successor to the Obama campaign and now a part of the DNC, sent an email to its Maine list asking them to phone bank for Governor Corzine's re-election in New Jersey but failing to mention the election in Maine. The DNC has apparently denied that such an email was sent to Mainers, but I can confirm that I received it and have never been on their list as anything but a resident of Maine.

Washington Blade - David Mixner, a gay Democratic activist, said national LGBT groups must rethink their strategy on how to achieve marriage rights for same-sex couples in the country. "I think that we have to completely evaluate where we're going, what our strategy is and what kind of leaders we need in this kind of movement," Mixner said. "We cannot continue as we have been continuing for the last two decades and hope that maybe in five or 10 years we'll finally get across the 50 percent mark.". . . ."Do we continue spending $50 [million] or $100 million every two years on these initiatives, or is there a way to think out of the box and approach this differently?" he said. "One thing is clear = proceeding as [we] have been proceeding is totally unacceptable, and the national organizations have to hear that loud and clear.". . .

11/05/2009 | Comments

ROBERT KUTTNER ON THE HEALTH CARE BILLS
Robert Kuttner American Prospect - On the minus side, the plan leaves most people dependent on employers for health coverage and reinforces the political and economic power of the private insurance industry. It subsidizes insurers with more than half a trillion public dollars over 10 years, mainly using tax credits. And it gets most of that money by requiring savings in Medicare and other federal health programs of about $400 billion and by taxing so-called Cadillac insurance policies -- many of which are actually Chevrolets that cost a bundle because of the present system's inefficiency and tendency to penalize older and sicker policyholders.

Largely missed in the debate is the fact that the plan doesn't address the problem of unraveling coverage for people who are insured -- some 86 percent of the population. According to a Commonwealth Fund study, there were 25 million underinsured Americans in 2007, meaning that high deductibles and co-pays and uncovered treatments or services left them nominally insured but often unable to get the care they needed. That's a 60 percent increase since 2003, and nothing in the bill prevents this crisis from worsening.

In short, the plan has reasonably good safeguards for the new subsidized policies for the currently uninsured, but it leaves intact the problems afflicting the rest of the system. The government won't use its power to negotiate wholesale drug prices; insurers are free to keep increasing premiums, deductibles, and co- pays at will. The bill does help the uninsured, but the basic flaws remain in the existing system for the rest of us. . .

By working with rather than against the insurers, the administration denied itself not just a worthy target but the kind of cost savings achievable from more systemic reform. The best strategy was an expansion of Medicare to the working-age population. . .

In 2008, The Lewin Group calculated that such a program would cost about $49 billion in the first year but produce a net savings of a trillion dollars over a decade because of its efficiencies and bargaining power. The campaigns of Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Obama all embraced versions of Hacker's idea.

But this plan was anathema to Obama's partner, the insurance industry, and the "public option" was quickly reduced to a token. Even in the House bill, the plan would cover only 11 million or 12 million people, not 130 million, and would have no significant effect on costs, according to Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf. In Sen. Max Baucus' version of the bill, the public option is further reduced to a system of "co-ops." CBO says these "are unlikely to establish a significant market presence in many areas of the country or to noticeably affect federal subsidy payments."

It takes a huge leap of faith to believe that this measure is a good incremental strategy to achieve secure health care for Americans and a more just and efficient allocation of health resources. The long-term struggle for health reform doesn't end with this bill. In the next round, Harry and Louise should accurately be identified as the problem, not the partners.

11/05/2009 | Comments

WALL STREET BONUES SET TO INCREASE BY ABOUT 40 PERCENT
Reuters - Wall Street cash bonuses are set to increase by about 40 percent this year, the Wall Street Journal said citing a report by compensation consulting firm Johnson Associates. . Johnson Associates projects that the biggest increases in year-end cash bonuses and equity awards will go to employees in rebounding businesses such as fixed income and equities, the paper said. However, those working at hedge funds, private-equity firms and prime-brokerage operations would see a decline in their incentive pay to the tune of 15 percent to 30 percent because of lower return on investments, the paper said citing the report.

11/05/2009 | Comments

WHY NO HEALTH CARE BILL IS BETTER THAN A BAD ONE
John Geyman MD, Physicians for a National Health Plan - The new House bill for health care reform will not fundamentally reform U. S. health care. If you would believe the hype that accompanied its release, you might think that it would be as important as Medicare and Social Security. The New York Times concluded that "This bill will take a long stride toward universal coverage while remaining fiscally responsible." Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman added: "The political environment is as favorable for reform as it's likely to get. The legislation on the table isn't perfect, but it's as good as anyone could reasonably have expected."

After all of the political compromises along the way that have led to the introduction of the new bill, on the positive side we can say that it will introduce some reforms to the health insurance market, expand coverage by about 36 million to health insurance by several means (especially through government subsidies to individuals and small employers and expansion of Medicaid), and help to address some other major system problems, such as the growing shortage of primary care providers.

But the negative side far outweighs the positive:

- There are no effective cost containment mechanisms built into the bill, either for the costs of health insurance or for health care itself. As it whines about loosening of the individual mandate that will likely limit some of its big increase in the insurance market, the health insurance industry is already warning that sharp premium increases will result. The most the bill will do is to require disclosure and review of premium increases, without any regulatory teeth. Although the bill would set up a Health Benefits Advisory Committee to recommend a minimal essential benefits package (with four tiers), insurance industry lobbyists will argue for the most minimal levels of coverage, and we can anticipate an exponential growth in underinsurance. Moreover, there are no price controls to be applied anywhere in the system, except perhaps in authorizing the government to negotiate drug prices with manufacturers. But that provision will almost certainly not clear the Senate, where we can expect even less concern for affordability and prices.

- Although the public option has been the target of intense controversy, it will play a negligible role in health care reform. The CBO has concluded that it would cover no more than 6 million Americans, just two percent of the population, in 2013, and will cost more than private programs, mostly due to adverse selection in attracting sicker individuals and its inability to set reimbursement rates for physicians and hospitals as is done by Medicare. Moreover, middle-income families may be required to spend 15 to 18 percent of their income on insurance premiums and co-payments.

- HR 3962 will not result in making health care more affordable, despite allocating some $605 billion over ten years for subsidies to low- and middle- income Americans to buy insurance on exchanges. We can count on continued increases in the cost of health insurance as far as the eye can see, together with less actuarial value of coverage.

- Buried in the fine print of this monster bill are many provisions that will benefit corporate stakeholders in the medical industrial complex on the backs of patients and their families. . .

In sum, this $1.055 trillion plan over ten years will not fix the major problems of cost and affordable access to health care in our deteriorating system, will add new layers of bureaucracy and complexity to the present system, is not fiscally responsible, and is not sustainable.

Rather than accept an unworkable bill that is politically expedient, we would be better off to make a major course change. The best first option would be to call for a floor vote, as originally promised by the House Speaker Pelosi, for the amendment proposed by Anthony Weiner (D-NY) to substitute a single-payer proposal. If that fails, shelving this bill would be the best option, but if that is not possible, lawmakers should be pressed to retain the amendment proposed by Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) to allow states to experiment with single-payer plans, as a number of states would like to do (eg. California, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, New Mexico, New York and Pennsylvania). That amendment has already been passed by a rare bipartisan vote of 27-19 in the House Education and Labor Committee.

Whether a health care bill survives the end game in both chambers of Congress in this session is still up in the air. If a bill is finally enacted into law, however, it will be ineffective in remedying the big problems of cost and access to health care. We should be gearing up for an intense effort in 2010 to push for real health care reform-Medicare for All.

11/05/2009 | Comments

TASER TORTURE UPDATE
From Don't Tase Me Bro'

Minneapolis: Man tasered with his hands on the hood of a car, clearly NOT "resisting arrest".

Alaska: 81 year old Episcopal priest tasered.

Man tasered for "resisting arrest" by washing his hands.

Thanks to Jonathan Turley

FURTHERMORE. . .
Honolulu Star Bulletin - A judge has ruled that the state is liable for monetary damages for failing to put native Hawaiians on the land to which they were entitled under the Hawaiian Home Lands Trust. . . The decision came in a class action lawsuit filed in 1999 on behalf of about 2,700 native Hawaiians who claimed they were not promptly awarded homesteads between 1959 and 1988. . . "Some of our clients waited more than 30 years or longer for a homestead award and some still are waiting," said attorney Tom Grande.

According to Fair Vote, the most highly partisan states in terms of presidential elections (the deepest red and the darkest blue) have been more likely to elect governors of the minority party, not the majority party. For example, five of the ten most Democratic states in the 2008 presidential elections today have Republican governors even though they voted comfortably for Democratic candidates for president in 2000, 2004 and 2008. Among these 10 strongly Democratic states in presidential races, only Delaware has had a Democratic governor throughout the decade, while two of these states (Rhode Island and Connecticut) have only elected Republican governors since the mid-1990s. Similarly, the 13 most heavily Republican states in the 2008 presidential election were all won by Republican presidential candidates in 2000-2008, but currently have seven Democratic governors.

Consumer Reports - The chemical Bisphenol A, which has been used for years in clear plastic bottles and food-can liners, has been restricted in Canada and some U.S. states and municipalities because of potential health effects. The Food and Drug Administration will soon decide what it considers a safe level of exposure to Bisphenol A which some studies have linked to reproductive abnormalities and a heightened risk of breast and prostate cancers, diabetes, and heart disease. Now Consumer Reports' latest tests of canned foods, including soups, juice, tuna, and green beans, have found that almost all of the 19 name-brand foods we tested contain some BPA. The canned organic foods we tested did not always have lower BPA levels than nonorganic brands of similar foods analyzed. We even found the chemical in some products in cans that were labeled "BPA-free."

With the recent election, Saint Paul joins Minneapolis and more than a half a dozen other jurisdictions around the United States and democracies around the world, including Ireland and Australia in using instant runoff voting. IRV, also known as Ranked Choice Voting, is a system by which voters rank candidates in order of preference, ensuring majority winners in single-winner races where there are more than two candidates on the ballot. Under IRV, voters cast their vote for their favorite candidate knowing that if no candidate gathers a majority of votes in the first round of counting their votes can count toward their second choice. Votes cast for the less popular candidates are not "wasted", but rather redistributed to more popular candidates, based on the voters' second choices, until one candidate emerges with a majority of votes.

Pam Hartwell-Herrero was elected to the 5 member Fairfax [CA] Town Council, making Fairfax the only Green majority town council in the United States. In Minnesota, incumbent Minneapolis City Council Cam Gordon was re-elected. Dan Robinson maintained his seat on the Takoma Park, MD council and Christine Nagle won her election to the College Park, MD council. In New Caanan, CT, three Greens ran for Constable and all were elected. Elsewhere in new England, Kevin Donoghue and David Marshall won re-election to the Portland ME City Council. Chuck Turner was re-elected to the Boston City Council. In New York, in a partisan race, Mary Jo Long was re-elected to the Afton Town Council and Jennifer Dotson was re-elected to the Ithaca Common Council. Lynne Serpe put the Green Party on the map in New York City, winning nearly 25% in her race for New York City Council.

Reihan Salam, Daily Beast - Muslims remain a fairly small minority in the United States, with estimates ranging up to 7 million adherents at the high end. This number has increased dramatically since the immigration reforms of the mid-1960s, which led to a sharp increase in the number of Asian and Middle Eastern Muslims entering the country. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 45 percent of Americans know a Muslim. Of those who have a high level of familiarity with Islam, 57 percent view Muslims favorably while 25 percent view them unfavorably. For those with a low level of familiarity, 21 percent have a favorable view, 35 percent have an unfavorable view, and 44 percent, a significant plurality, have no opinion. The Pew survey also found that 58 percent of Americans believe that Muslims face a high level of discrimination, while 64 percent believe the same is true for gays and lesbians. These numbers suggest that a large majority of Americans are open-minded about Muslims. And though there are pockets of distrust, far more Americans worry that Muslims face discrimination than hold negative views of Muslims.

Fair Vote - Instant runoff voting may face a binding repeal vote next year in Aspen after what for now is a narrow loss by six votes in an advisory referendum -- more votes are still to be counted. The result was tied to several factors. The city's highly competitive IRV election in May brought more voters to the polls than ever before, but the novel "two-seat IRV" system for council was very close and frustrated some backers of losing candidates. In addition, a losing mayoral candidate who had raised the most money in Aspen city history prefers a traditional runoff and has worked hard against IRV. While The Aspen Times supported IRV's retention, its editorial appeared after many people had voted in an all-mail election. Still, IRV will only be repealed if defeated in a separate vote in the future. Ranked voting also suffered a loss in Lowell MA, where a campaign had placed the choice voting form of proportional voting on the ballot by petition. A completely unknown idea to most city voters just a few weeks ago, choice voting earned 43% of the vote despite opposition from the local media.

FUEL EFFICIENCY 2010 CARS
11/06/2009 | Comments

ALTERNATIVE AMERICA
ARTICLES
Robert Lawless on anthropology's sorry history of helping empire

The generational recession
ARTS & CULTURE
The end of libraries?

How to write like an academic. We tried it and came up with this: " The reification of post-capitalist hegemony opens a space for the historicization of the gendered body."
TELEVISION
The Good Solider: Friday, November 6, 9:00 PM (EST) on PBS. Bill Moyers Journal broadcasts a documentary about the impact on soldiers of learning to kill - or be killed. Follows four veterans - one from World War II, two from Vietnam and the fourth from Iraq - as they reveal how the experiences of battle changed their lives.
FILM
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers"

11/06/2009 | Comments
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