What's Goin' On?

I am very deeply into prepping my class for the "We the People" State competition. I know they are going to do MRHS proud. My class and I have been getting into the high stress & anxiety mode that seems to happen every year before competition. On top of all of this I'm now worried about snow. But as John Lennon once said, "You know it's gonna be, all right."

I've barely kept up with the news lately, BUT I HAVE A COUPLE OF THINGS TO RECOMMEND TO MY WE THE PEOPLE CLASS! The U.S. is heavily involved in the court martial trial of the guy they are saying is the ring leader of the Abu Ghraib torture ring. The details are sickening and it remains hard for me to believe that this was just a "bunch of bad apples" that went nuts on some prisoners. Juxtaposed with the details of the 2002 torture memo associated with our Attorney General nominee, Alberto Gonzalez, it is kind of hard to think anything else. I just read a great editorial that points out that all of this, including more bad news from Guantanamo Bay makes the future of human rights in the United States look pretty bad. He does a great job of detailing the growth of due process rights from the time of the Magna Carta to the present.

ANOTHER ARTICLE MY WE THE PEOPLE CLASS SHOULD READ is on federalism. A Stanford Law professor wrote a piece called "The New Blue Federalism" and he makes a convincing case that liberals don't talk about the benefits of federalism enough, but that government at the state and local level is a great "labratory for democracy" and social progress. Not all of the answers have to come in the form of federal laws. (Liberals have had most of their big successes there since the New Deal.) Anyway it is a good read.

Sorry I haven't included any conservative writers this time around, but, well, ah, I've been too busy to read material from "Red America". (HEY! Maybe if we keep this "red" symbolism going we can somehow transfer the symbolism of communism to it and paint the Republicans as neo-commies! Just a thought for the partisan left....)

Help Kelly help the Tsunami victims

If anything good can come of this tragedy, it is all of the compassion and generosity that people of the United States and the world have shown to the victims of the tsunami in South Asia. If we keep this up, the world may come to understand that there is a lot of goodness in the people of America. So, here is a message from Kelly Hansen:

Hey guys..
The more I read about the tsunami disaster, the worse it gets. I am so overwhelmed with sorrow and grief for the lives lost. Can you really believe it? As our lives here seem so relatively uneffected, on the other side of the globe HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of HUMAN BEINGS are gone. dead. generations wiped out.

On top of all of this.. orphan children are being kidnapped and sold into prostitution. It's atrocious. I get so sick to my stomach. I don't care how horrible you are, no one should EVER do that. EVER. I can only imagine, being a mother, dying in a natural disaster like that, and having my BABY GIRL taken, beaten, starved, abused, and then commited to a life of prostitution. I'm furious at those bastards.

In an effort to help.. I'm making bracelets..and donations of 5 bucks (suggested) would be great, if you'd like one. i'll have them at school friday or monday.. and at the swim meet friday night. get one.. make a difference. PLEASE.. help me help others.
Thank You
Kelly

"The Audacity of Hope"

Senator Barak Obama - Rising Star of the Democratic Party. Check him out in the latest edition of Newsweek. Go there to read the article or scroll down, find the "Free Video" and click "launch" to hear his great speech to the Democratic Convention in July. It will inspire you!

Republican Rule

The new Congress will be sworn in next week. There is a lot of speculation and anticipation about what the New Year will bring. George Bush won the presidential election with enough popular support to claim that he has a good amount of “political capital” that he intends to spend.

Bush has put Social Security Reform at the top of his agenda. Will Bush get what he wants? The Democrats have a lot of ownership over the issue. After all, it was one of the signature pieces of FDR’s New Deal. They are highly skeptical of the direction Bush wants to take. Bush wants to allow younger voters to start putting some of their FICA payments into private investment accounts. Will his fellow Republicans give him what he wants? Maybe not so easily. Many in Congress see Bush’s second term as a chance to win back some power for the legislative branch that has been watching a tremendous increase in the power of the executive branch in recent years.

The Christian Science Monitor recently said that he will be "walking a high-wire" as he tries to balance the increasingly unpopular military involvement in Iraq with his domestic agenda, but he may succeed.

Also, there are new senators that are ready to mix things up. Several Republicans have moved from the House to the Senate and are ready to push their conservative views. NPR did an interesting story about Republican John Thune, who beat Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle in November's election. It is an interesting look at this new conservative face and what is coming up in this Congressional session.

Meanwhile, Democrats will try to make themselves heard on important issues as well. There will be lots of attention on new Illinois Senator Barack Obama. His speech at the Dem. National Convention gave lots of people hope for the future. I read a good Newsweek article about him last night. Check him out.

Has Bush Embarassed America Again?

Americans have reached deep into their wallets to make private donations to aid the victims of the tsunami disaster in Asia. However the American government offerred very little initially. The initial amount offerred was $7 million dollars. Bush waited three full days to make a public comment. (He was on vacation at his ranch in Texas.) A high ranking U.N. official said that he was tired of wealthy nations being so "stingy" with their help to needy nations.

Many have said this is our opportunity to win back a lot of good will in the world. Opinions of the U.S. Government around the world are quite low these days, and we know have an opportunity to show that America cares about the rest of the world and the well-being of people in need. However, our government's response (unlike individuals who have been donating in record numbers) has been slow at best.

The amount of aid our government pledged was increased to $35 million, but a lot of criticism remained. (See the Chritian Science Monitor for a sampling of opinions.) Ralph Nader wrote a scathing review of our inaction and the New York Times opinion page came down hard on the Bush administration.

On Friday, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that our government was increasing our share to $350 million, but this came after days of public criticism.

So, here is my question. Has Bush embarassed America again? Has his response reinforced the stereotype of us as materialistic, greedy, and uncaring? Or do you think this is much ado about nothing?

Since we are the world's wealthiest and most powerful nation; since we consume 25% of the world's energy resources; since we enjoy cheap consumer goods thanks to cheap labor in other nations; do we have an obligation to help more than other nations?

Governor Gregoire

It's official. At least we think so. Christine Gregoire has been pronounced Governor-Elect of the State of Washington. Republicans are no doubt feeling that their candidate has been robbed. Democrats are jubilant. Any thinking person knows that yes, Dino, this has been a "mess". However, no matter which candidate won, at least half of the state would be seeing this as an illegitimate and unfair election.

It was close, but the laws of the State of Washington have been followed. The only thing left for Mr. Rossi to do is to appeal the results in court or before the legislature. Read up on exactly what happened. I had a good link in a previous posting and today's Seattle Times had a good Q & A article to explain things.

I think that becoming the governor of the State of Washington in 2004 has to be a lousy job. The State has a huge budget deficit, nobody wants new taxes, and most voters are expecting more out of our government. The people of the state are being realistic. At least when Ron Sims ran for the Democratic nomination earlier this year, he talked frankly about the need to overhaul the State's tax system. Neither Rossi nor Gregoire seem to have the nerve to make the voters swallow the bitter medicine that will be needed to face up to our State's needs.

Read up on this and tell me what you think.

South Asia Tsunami Disaster

The news and the images of the disaster victims from Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia, and the other affected nations make our problems seem small by comparison. I spent some time looking at the images and reading stories about this last night with my wife at the New York Times site. There are some good graphics and moving images along with the news stories. It is very sad and it made us want to do what we could to help. As I write this, the number of dead is being reported at 70,000 and still climbing.

Unfortunately the only thing most of us can do now is to contribute money to help. There are a lot of good organizations out there helping these victims. If you or someone you know wants to make a donation, click here to see a list of groups accepting donations.

Governor Gregoire?

Well, I'm not so sure it is over yet, but for now, the official results of the gubernatorial election say that Christine Gregoire defeated Dino Rossi by 130 votes. The Sunday edition of the Seattle Times did a good job of trying to explain how we got to this point and what might happen next.

After considering what has happened, do you think the election is over? Do you think Gregoire is the deserving winner? Was the recount fair or at least as fair as possible? These are important questions...

The Land that Due Process Forgot

Guantanamo Bay has become a national embarassment. Many of us were uncomfortable with the detention of "enemy combatants" from the very beginning. A case is making its way through the justice system that may deal another blow to the Bush Administration's scheme of hiding these people from any accountable justice system.

The Administration's strategy and rationale are simple: hold these 550 prisoners somewhere that none of the rules apply. They claim that the Geneva Conventions don't apply because they are not "prisoners of war". The U.S. judicial branch has no jurisdiction because they are not U.S. citizens being held on U.S. soil. So, the president as commander-in-chief, gets to make the rules about how they are treated.

Every American should be outraged for two reasons: 1) this subverts the very spirit of the rule of law, a cherished principle of our government that we have been trying to encourage the world community to commit to ever since the days of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points; 2) it is a dangerous violation of our system of checks and balances. The presidency was never meant to run wild with due process and make its own rules. Any immediate threat that might justify emergency powers had abated. The Supreme Court was correct in reigning in the President's powers in the cases decided in June regarding U.S. citizens being held (Hamdi v. Rumsfeld). The courts may make similar rulings with regard to foreigners soon.

We as citizens should demand the balance of power between the branches be restored.

Christmas & the First Amendment

The yearly battle over how to celebrate the holidays in public schools has resurfaced again this year against the backdrop of the recent election that highlighted the divide in the United States over moral issues and the place of religion in public life. The Christian Science Monitor published an interesting article today on the subject of how difficult the issue has become for some schools.

Part of the problem of course is that rather than understand the law, many administrators and teachers are quick to ban anything that might be controversial. (I submit that this is often the case with other school issues as well.) This year we saw controversies over the "pagan holiday" of Halloween. The Washington Post also published an article about Christian groups filing lawsuits to have religious themes reintroduced into school celebrations of the winter holiday season.

What do you think? Have schools been appropriate in observing Christmas and abiding by the First Amendment or have they swung too far to one side or another? I used my "Charlie Brown Christmas" t-shirt as a discussion starter in one of my classes last week.

What should I say to my students as they leave for break? Happy Hannukah? Merry Christmas? Happy New Year? Happy Holidays? Wonderful Winter Break? Be of Good Cheer for Whatever Reason You Might Have For Being of Good Cheer?

Rumsfeld-Piercing Questions

Our good friend Donald Rumsfeld is staying around for the second term at the request of President Bush. Is this bad for our troops? Rumsfeld was one of the big proponents of a smaller, lighter, and quicker military which proved to be good for invading a country, but really bad at occupying and subduing one. As soldiers keep dying, the misinformation from the Bush administration keeps coming.

I hope you all heard the exchange at last week's press conference in Kuwait. Rumsfeld was asked point-blank by soldiers about the lack of armor on Humvees with one reservist claiming that they had to go digging through local land-fills to find armor for their vehicles. (Click here to watch the clip.)

Rumsfeld's answer that the Army couldn't produce the vehicles any faster has proven to be quite misleading and suddenly the military is finding a way to produce 100 more armor plated Humvees per month. All politics aside, does anyone in the United States really believe the Bush administration is not lying to us about the war? Should Rumsfeld resign over this? Should Bush fire him? John McCain and former General Schwarzkopf blasted Rumsfeld on national T.V. over the weekend. What do you think about this?

If you want to read a good rant on this issue, check out the guest column in yesterday's Seattle Times by a local teacher and Vietnam veteran Steven Simpson.

More human rights concerns

The government of China just doesn't get it. It really is shocking to me to see how stubbornly this government clings to power by suppressing the free exchange of ideas. Many of you are too young to remember the Tiananmen Square uprising, but the memories of the 1989 protests by students who wanted more democracy in China still haunt me. They were crushed by the Chinese military and hundreds died in pursuit of liberty.

Today we get news, that is so commonplace that it doesn't get many headlines. Three Chinese intellectuals who have been critical of the government in their writings (mostly on the internet) have been jailed. Although it is believed that they were released after the police copied everything on their computer hard drives, it is said that these detentions are indications of a new crack-down in China on those who favor democratic reforms.

They are brave people. Here is how they are described by the Washington Post:

The detained dissidents -- Yu Jie, 31, an essayist who once called on the party
to remove Mao Zedong's embalmed body from public display; Liu Xiaobo, 49, a
well-known writer who has already been jailed three times for criticizing the
party; and Zhang Zuhua, 48, an author and political theorist -- represent the
more daring end of a spectrum of prominent intellectuals who favor greater
political openness in the country and have been under official pressure in
recent weeks.

I found the word's of Yu's wife to be quite defiant in her bravery:

Reached by phone Monday night, Yu's wife, Liu Min, said police told her
that her husband was "suspected of endangering state security." The officers did
not provide details, she said, but one said she should have stopped her husband
"from writing essays on the Internet."
She also said police were preventing her from leaving her home and had ordered her not to tell "outsiders" about her husband's arrest. "They severely threatened me, but I'm not scared. I have to save my husband," she said.

International Human Rights Day!

December 10th is Human Rights Day!

Shame on me for not talking about this in class this week!

Oh well, my mind is getting older and more feeble with each passing day. So, at least here on my blog, let us honor and rededicate ourselves to the cause of human rights. December 10th commemorates the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948.

I encourage everyone to visit Amnesty International's website and write a letter or sign an online petition on behalf of human rights. Also, the more you know about rights, and the more you talk to others about them, the more awareness we create. So read something about rights, or is you are feeling kinda brain-dead, simply visit UNICEF's site that has posted it's top cartoons about the rights of children.

As we recognize this day, human rights issues are very much in the news. For one, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Wangari Maathai today. Her environmental and political actions are inspiring.

At the other end of the spectrum we have Zimbabwe's President Mugabe banning human rights groups from his country, and the continuing crisis in the Darfur region of the Sudan.

Don't let the day go by without doing something!

Some American Heroes

There are a lot of American heroes, but a few that stand pretty tall in my book are Kristen Breitweiser, Beverly Eckert, Mary Fetchet, and Carol Ashley. Their husbands were killed in the 9-11 attacks and have fought tenaciously to get the 9-11 Commission up and running and a reform bill enacted.

Over the last two years, I've seen these women on T.V. and radio a number of times and I've been so impressed by their intelligence and their commitment to turn their grief into action to make the United States a safer and better place. Breitweiser and Eckert were interviewed this morning on NBC, and you can access the video by visiting MSNBC's news video page on the internet. I highly suggest watching it for some insight into the power of citizen action. (From their homepage, select "News Video" from the menu on the left side. From there open up the "News" menu on the video page, and double click on the video clip titled "9/11 kin react to the bill". If you don't have a high speed connection, it might be difficult.) Fetchet and Ashley are featured in a story by the Washington Post.

I've gotten to read several analyses of the bill in the last few hours, and I think it is a good first step, but a lot of important measures that could be taken were stripped out of the bill. As for the new "Director of National Intelligence", I think it is only going to work if Bush appoints someone who will stand up and tell him the truth, not just what he wants to hear. I still fear that "W" only hears what he wants to hear, and that has been his achilles heel.

For more information, NPR has a "primer" on the bill, giving some background. They also have an audio report that addresses some of the civil liberites concerns some folks have with this bill. Check it out. "We the People" is all about this stuff!

Intelligence Bill Finally Passes

It has been a long and winding road for the intelligence bill that finally passed Congress.

It is a very interesting story. The best part, of course, started with ordinary citizens. Of course, these ordinary citizens were the families of the September 11th victims. They demanded that the government do something to investigate attacks and whether the government could have done something to prevent them. President Bush and many in Congress ignored their pleas for a long time and went on the record as being against the creation of the commission.

To make a long story short, these people went to their representatives in Washington, D.C. and made sure that their voices got heard. Now granted, since they were the families of 9/11 victims, they probably got more attention than most of us would get, but they still had to fight hard and learn the system to get the government to move on their requests.

The 9/11 Commission Hearings were fascinating and their report that was made public this summer was a best-seller. Not all of their recommendations have been included in this bill.

My big complaint is that again, the media has done a poor job of covering this story. I've had a busy last week or so, and I haven't had the time to dig deeply into what this bill is all about. In following the news, the way most people do, all I've been able to learn is that there was a lot of in-fighting among Republicans on this bill. There were, if fact enough votes to pass the bill (many Democrats supported it along with most Republicans) but but House Speaker Dennis Hastert wouldn't bring it forward for a vote without the support of two key Republican Committee Chairs.

But that shouldn't be the part of the story that gets most of the coverage. In the short amount of time I had to learn about this bill, most of what the media gave me was the politics of the story, not the facts and information about what the bill will do. Those are my real concerns. Will the intelligence reform bill make the U.S. safer?

In a nutshell, here is what I know:
1. The bill will create a new cabinet level position. This "Director of Intelligence" will be responsible for coordinating all of the 15 government agencies that collect intelligence.
2. The Pentagon opposed parts of the bill because they believed it took away some of their authority to collect and use intelligence data, and might harm military efforts.
3. Two well-meaning Republican members of the House frustrated the President and Republican leaders of the Congress by refusing to compromise on certain provisions before today. (One of them is Rep. Duncan Hunter from CA; he actually has a son serving in the military in Iraq.)

Is this bill a good idea? I don't know and it frustrates me. The original proposal by the 9/11 committee seemed like a wise recommendation, but I can't tell you, at this point, what Congress has done to their recommendations in this bill.

The press needs to do a better job of informing the public on crucial details, and stop focusing on all the political drama.

Only 6 Days Till the Election!

Yes, that's right. In six days the Electors selected to this year's Electoral College will be casting their votes for President and Vice-President.

I still have my Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers on both cars. Do you think it will help to push the Dems over the top?

PS - Yesterday Ohio certified their election results - Bush won by almost 120,000 votes; there are still a few legal challenges pending regarding voting irregularities. The conventional wisdom is that those challenges won't get too far.

Bush picks Jesse "The Body" Ventura as the new Director of Homeland Security! (Well, actually he is the former police commissioner of N.Y., Bernard Kerik, but there is a resemblance, eh?)

Torture at Guantanamo Bay

It is very hard for me to try to be even-handed on this one folks. I was disappointed and sickened by what the International Red Cross has been discovering at our prison for "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo Bay. Again, my country is violating some its most basic principles in order to fight the "war on terror". We are better than this. We don't need to torture people to bring terrorists to justice. In fact, our violations of human rights and international laws create more hatred for the United States.

What is this all about? In case you missed it, some concerned individuals leaked to the press a report that the International Red Cross made to our government about what has been going on with the 550 or so prisoners we are still holding in Guantanmo Bay Cuba. According to the New reports, "the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion 'tantamount to torture' on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba."

While not the worst forms of torture imaginable, the methods used have been classified as such. According to the Times, the Red Cross made these findings in June and that U.S. interrogators "had found a system devised to break the will of the prisoners at Guantánamo, who now number about 550, and make them wholly dependent on their interrogators through 'humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes, use of forced positions.' Investigators said that the methods used were increasingly 'more refined and repressive' than learned about on previous visits."

Some of the tactics were mentioned in the report. "It said that in addition to the exposure to loud and persistent noise and music and to prolonged cold, detainees were subjected to "some beatings."

A final disheartening aspect of the report is that medical professionals seem to have been a part of the ill-treatment:

also asserted that some doctors and other medical workers at Guantánamo were
participating in planning for interrogations, in what the report called "a flagrant violation of medical ethics."
Doctors and medical personnel conveyed information about prisoners' mental health and vulnerabilities to interrogators, the report said, sometimes directly, but usually through a group called the Behavioral Science Consultation Team, or B.S.C.T. The team, known informally as Biscuit, is composed of psychologists and psychological workers who advise the interrogators, the report said.

How can a society based on due process protections allow our government to do these things? Share your thoughts with me.

FBI Reports More Than 7,400 Hate Crimes

How far does this society have left to go to achieve the dream of equality? That is a good subject for debate. Affirmative action remains a hot topic, and the direction of the civil rights movement decades after its major achievements is unclear. However this news item should give us some poise. According to an article by the Associated Press:

Over 7,400 hate crime incidents occurred nationwide last year, more than half of
them motivated by racial prejudice most often against black people, the FBI
reported Monday.
Hate crimes motivated by anti-black racial bias totaled 2,548 in 2003, more than double such crimes against all other racial groups combined. There were 3,150 black victims in these cases, including four who were murdered, according to the annual FBI report.

Some other information included in the article shows that African-Americans are not the only targets:

The report shows that crimes categorized as anti-Islamic remained at the about
same level in 2003 - 149 crimes - as the year before. There had been a spike in
such crimes immediately after the 2001 terror attacks, helping drive the overall
hate crime number much higher that year.
By far the most hate crimes based on religion were directed at Jews, with 927 incidents in 2003, about the same as in 2002. The report also found more than 1,200 hate crimes based on sexual orientation, including 783 against male homosexuals. That included six murders.

You can read this article at the following link:
http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/a/w/1152/11-22-2004/20041122084503_13.html

Especially for Jon Maus

I couldn't help but think of you when I saw this Jon. And just in case anyone is wondering, I don't think Atkins has a prayer of winning this case.

Atkins Diet Company “Pleads First Amendment,” Seeking Protection from Heart Disease Claim in Florida Court

Atkins Asks Court to Find Life-Threatening Diet Advice Protected Under Free Speech Guarantees; Judge May Rule Next Week

West Palm Beach, FL—Rebuffed in its first attempt last month to have a Florida court throw out a landmark personal injury lawsuit challenging the safety of the controversial Atkins Diet, Atkins Nutritionals has submitted a motion arguing that “the ideas and information in a generally circulated self-help book and an associated website are fully protected by the First Amendment even if they cause harm to some readers,” even speech with potentially life-threatening consequences.

Atkins contends that the First Amendment permits it to make false and misleading statements in the course of its business, without incurring liability to its customers. But Dan Kinburn, Gorran’s attorney and senior counsel for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, notes First Amendment free speech guarantees do not apply in cases of false speech. “You can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater, you can’t run false ads in magazines, and you can’t tell people anxious to solve a health problem that it’s safe to follow a dangerous diet,” he says.

http://www.pcrm.org/news/update041119.html