A Conversation with Adam Campbell: A Taste For Life
by Richard Whittaker , Jan 16, 2013
Conversations.org
It was one of those bright mornings we’re blessed with so often in the Bay Area. No matter that it was mid-December. A week earlier, I’d been ambushed by Pancho Ramos Stierle and Sam Bower and told that I had to interview one of the visitors staying at Casa de Paz, Adam Campbell. Neither Sam nor Pancho twist my arm very often and when they do, I’m immediately intrigued. Both possess inspired vision—Sam is the founding director of greenmuseum.org and Pancho, a founding member of Oakland’s Casa de Paz at Canticle Farm. And both are close friends from among the servicespace.org community.
Now the morning for the interview had arrived. I found Sam and Pancho and Adam all in high spirits. But before sitting down together, I couldn’t resist a quick walk around Canticle Farm, four houses on connecting lots that stretch across a city block in Oakland’s Fruitvale District, and a great example of urban permaculture. Sam wanted to show me the latest house they had acquired. “But we have to go through the chicken coop to get there,” he told me. I take such moments as incomprehensible blessings. There is a front door, but getting to the new house from the adjoining backyards required passage through a chicken coop.
There was offbeat magic afoot, and it was picking up momentum. Bending down to get into the coop and with chickens scattering under our feet, we came to a gate in a backyard fence. And voila, we were in another world where I was startled to see two of the biggest prickly pear cactus plants I’d ever seen. One towered above a dilapidated old wooden garage. “Look at those fruit,” Sam said. We picked a ton of them and gave them away to the neighbors.” Giving away to the neighbors is one of the main activities at Canticle Farm, part of their strong community building practice.
Soon Sam and I were back in Casa de Paz with Pancho and Adam. Pancho handed me a slice of fuyu persimmon from their own trees as water for tea was reaching a boil. The energy in the room, I realize now in thinking about it, had to do with the joy of right action, of sowing the seeds of community and loving kindness. I was standing with three ahimsa warriors and feeling grateful for my good fortune.
After a while we all went upstairs to the big room to set up for the interview. No tables. No problem. We found a drum to set the recorder on. And all of the sudden, the four of us were pounding out a rhythm together. No one had to ask, “Are we having fun yet?” Finally, we got some chairs arranged and sat down, “But first we have to watch this video, hermano,” Pancho said, opening his laptop.…
Richard Whittaker: We just finished watching this beautiful little video about a group of people in Paraguay turning trash into musical instruments. And you said, Adam —
Adam Campbell: It reminds me of the irrepressibility of the human spirit. And that even in the midst of everything unraveling around us, in the end it will be beauty that saves us
RW: That’s a beautiful idea and I hope it’s true. But tell me something about yourself.
AC: Gosh, there are so many ways to tell a story. Okay. I was born in southwest Missouri in the town of Branson. The people there like to call it the country music capital of the world. I think now it has about 8,000 people. And Branson gets almost six million tourists a year. I think it’s the second biggest tour bus destination in the United States. It’s this crazy American anomaly in the hills of the Ozark Mountains next to two lakes. It’s a strange and wonderful place, really. There’s beauty and joy and wonder there. And it’s also kind of a microcosm of what I’ve seen happening all around the world. But it took me traveling around the world before I realized what I had experienced in my own hometown. I’d say that’s of people wanting an authentic cultural experience, and realizing that the modern paradigm doesn’t really provide it. So when they find a grass-rootsy, homegrown place—a group of people who have lived in a place and developed something over a long period of time—people realize its value. Unfortunately, then they often try to commodify it and destroy what was there in the first place.
RW: Right.
AC: So for me, growing up, it was hillbilly culture in the Ozark hills much like what West Virginia represents. I wasn’t a hillbilly growing up, but I grew up surrounded by that. My parents grew up in the city, St. Louis and Kansas City, and they moved down there before all of Branson, with a capital B, happened. We were there before that and I saw this relentless development taking over. My favorite grove of trees was taken down for a Long John Silvers. The tree that I was sitting in for my senior picture, one of my favorite trees, got taken down for a parking lot for a mall.
But it was also a beautiful growing up childhood. I look back on that with nothing but love and I realize that there was also grief and desolation, as a part of that. Going back now is really difficult. All of the sacred places I had there have been destroyed.
RW: So for the record, how old are you, Adam?
AC: I’m 35.
RW: And you said that you had to travel the world before you really understood what was taking place in Branson and going on all over the world. Can you talk just briefly about your travels?
AC: I had a public school education, Branson High School. Then I went to the University of Missouri. I went five years and got two degrees—in math and English. And I really loved my experience.
RW: You covered both ends of the spectrum.
AC: Yes. I was undecided and was taking all the courses I could. I would go through the course catalog and pick the courses that sounded really interesting. I was pushing for the development of the soul and following my wildest dreams and just letting it unfold.
RW: Where do you think your confidence came from that it would be possible to follow your dreams?
AC: I think there are three or four roads that connect, trails maybe—or maybe tributaries. That’s a nice metaphor, isn’t it?
RW: It’s good. Tributaries, very nice.
AC: I began to realize that there was cultural story all around us of what we were supposed to be doing with our lives: you’re supposed to do good in high school so you can get into a good college. Then you do good there so you can get a good job. And you get a good job so you can make a lot of money so you can retire early. And then you can finally do the things you want to do with your life before you die.
I just thought that was ridiculous, besides being insulting to the human spirit. Why not just do what I want to do now, and have that be in service to humanity?
RW: That shows you could think for yourself. Now where did that come from?
AC: I would have to attribute that to my parents. I feel like I was born into having my own spiritual teachers. Early on, at about seven or eight, I remember having this moment in church. We went to the Disciples of Christ Protestant church. We were in the belt buckle of the Bible belt down in southwest Missouri. And I remember having this realization. I felt like, well, I couldn’t send somebody to eternal damnation and punishment just because they didn’t do what I said. So would someone who was infinitely more loving and wise than I am, do that? That didn’t make any sense at all.
This was the first moment of like wait a second. So I brought that to my parents. And they just said that’s a really good question. I remember the feeling that I was allowed to ask this question, and that some questions don’t have easy answers.
RW: That’s beautiful.
AC: And then also, my parents had been on their own path out of a very conservative Christian tradition on both sides. By the time I was nine or ten, my mom had gotten around to reading Autobiography of a Yogi, which was so far from where she had started. There’s this really funny story. She was watching Donohue one day and he had this Eastern guru on the show. Donohue was trying to get him and he was able to deflect every question and give an answer that really made sense. My mom was like: this guy knows something that I don’t know. She had that moment. And the only thing she remembered from the interview, something to hold onto, was “yoga.”
In the mid-70’s in Branson, yoga was satanic. I mean really, it was! So she had this dilemma. Of course, this is a generation before the Internet. But my dad was a professor and so she had access to the college library. This was a very small liberal arts college called School of the Ozarks. So she went into the library and found a book on yoga, but she was embarrassed to actually check out the book. So she got like 12 other random books and stuck it right in the middle. And when she got home she couldn’t touch it for two weeks. She kept on walking by and she’s like—I can’t open it. If I open it, I’m going to hell.
RW: For people in these fundamentalist religions there’s a tremendous amount of fear to opening your mind just for a moment to some other possibility. I mean, that’s a real journey, don’t you think?
AC: For sure. And it’s a two-sided coin. There’s fear on one side and certainty on the other side, and both prevent us from moving into the mystery of the unknown. So either way you’re blocked off from engaging in the realm of life, the actual realm of life where the laws of the universe are immutable in a way, and also unknown to us, but we have access to it and it can flow through us.
RW: Right.
AC: And we don’t know how it works. All I know is that my experience has told me that we’re part of something bigger than us. There’s that power that flows through me when I feel connected to it that gives me strength beyond just my own personal strength.
Pancho Ramos Stierle: And that’s how you describe the gift economy. The first time when I heard you saying that, I was like what? Are you serious? This is what gift economy means to you?
AC: Yes. So the gift gives us access to that. But that’s a major tangent.
RW: We need to talk about the gift economy, for sure. But I really appreciated your story that in Branson yoga was satanic.
AC: Yes. You can imagine in that world the possibility of opening up that book could be a sin that’s unpardonable, that you’re going to drop through the trapdoor to hell which you’ll never escape from. What a metaphysical realm to be vying against!
RW: Absolutely. So you had been bequeathed some tremendous gifts from your parents, as all of us have been.
AC: Right, which I honor very much. So by time I was reaching junior high level I began to ask even more questions. Like the Bhagavad Gita and Dhammapada and the Bible were all right next to each other on the bookshelf. And we were still going to church every week, too.
RW: Yes.
AC: So a friend comes over to visit my mom one day and sees the yoga book on the table. “Oh, you’re interested in yoga?” And she’s like, “Oh, no. I have no idea what that book is.” And he says, “Oh, before you read that, you should talk to Bob Hubbard because there are a lot of dangers in yoga.”
Bob was part of a singing group called The Foggy River Boys, and before that, the Jordanaires, the back-up singers for Elvis Presley, and he was a respected elder in the community. So she nervously calls him up and does the dial, hang-up thing. Because what’s she going to say to him? She doesn’t know.
So finally she dials one day and he picks up, “Hello.” Dead silence. “Hello?” And finally she’s like, “Hi Bob. This is Pat Campbell. You don’t know me but, umm, we have a mutual friend who says you know about yoga.” And she’s mumbling. He says, “What do you want to know?” And then she said it just came out of her: she just said “the Truth.” There was this long pause and he goes, “Then I can help you.”
RW: Wow.
AC: So they started this group called the Friends of God. They would read different kinds of books which, at the time, were kind of edgy and they started diving into the mystics and the metaphysical world. So by the time I was 12, I remember telling my mom, “I want to be a mystic when I grow up. I want to do God’s work.” So I think that atmosphere had a lot of influence on me.
Pancho: To this day.
AC: To this day. And it’s funny, I was on the phone with them and they say, “Adam, how did you get so interested in nonviolence?” I was like, “That’s your guys fault. You’re the people who told me about Martin Luther King and Gandhi and Jesus. They are supposed to be my mentors and heroes and they were not passive, compliant people who were just kind of lying down and letting the state roll over them. They were leading campaigns of radical love. And that leads us into resistance in the empire at some point or another, unfortunately. I don’t have a desire to interfere, I just have a desire to live into the principles that I feel called to live into.
I would love to be in the world where Peter Maurin said it’s easy to be good. But I think it’s actually almost impossible to be good in our culture. That’s another conversation. One of the moments that really got me on the path I’m on came from realizing that we have absolutely no information about, or access to, generally speaking, where the stuff is coming from in our lives to meet our human needs. Where is our food coming from? Where is our shelter coming from? Whose building is it? Where is our water coming from? We actually have no idea. The average person doesn’t have a clue, which is just a reality.
We don’t know where it goes when we’re done with it, which means we’re complicit in supporting all kinds of systems of which we have no knowledge. So I have no idea who is growing my food or how they’re being treated and what they’re being affected by. All of those relationships are severed. So, if I was going to boil down Jesus’ message that was taught in my Protestant church, it was just to be a good person. And that’s what I wanted to do. Then I realized it was actually impossible for me to be a good person in this culture. Because I didn’t know what effect I was having on the people who were supporting my livelihood. I was getting zero feedback on the people who were growing my food for me or building my shelter for me. I actually didn’t know.
If I kick Sam in the shins, I’m going to get really quick feedback on whether that was a good decision or not.
RW: Right.
AC: I can know, and so I can modify. In our culture today we have opacity, zero feedback. So we just move into this way of being, which is fundamentally irresponsible and immoral. We don’t even know it. We’re ignorant of our own immorality and complicity in an irresponsible system, which I think is devastating—because I think people really want to be good.
That fills me with sadness and grief, actually. Only recently I’ve realized that an incredibly important and imperative part of our healing in this culture is grieving the fact that we’ve all been complicit in these systems without our asking for it. You know? Without our knowledge of it, in some way. And we’re in it. There’s not a viable alternative. This goes back to my story earlier of realizing this cultural story, which I wasn’t interested in. So okay, I just won’t live that story.
RW: That story. So what is the cultural story, again?
AC: The cultural story is do good in high school so you can do good in college. So you can get a good job. So you can make money. So you can retire early. So you can do the things you want to do before you die.
RW: Okay. Exactly.
AC: Which is dumb. I want to live out the alternative. So I began to look around. What’s the alternative? And there wasn’t an alternative, at least growing up in Branson, Missouri. If you’re lucky enough to be able to go to college, you go to college. If you’re not, then you don’t. You do whatever else you can do. So I went to college, which I loved. But the whole time I was looking around. I had this different understanding of how I want to be moving in my life, but I had no idea what it would look like.
And I’m having these debates with my friends who think that a degree is a pragmatic direction to get a good job. Right? I wasn’t interested in getting a job—except I did apply for the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile job, which I didn’t get. And then I graduated.
RW: Should we stop and hear more about that?
AC: It’s not really worth the tangent. Well, you get to drive around in this silly thing; you’re autonomous. Kids love you. And you get to have a good time. Joseph Campbell said, “We never lead the life that we expect or imagine.” And sometimes I give great thanks for that. All the times I’ve been on unexpected detours have been incredible gifts.
RW: That’s a beautiful statement.
AC: Yes. So I graduate and I have this intuitive feeling—first, that I don’t actually know what I’m going to be doing with my life. And second, that I’m missing half of my education. I realize I don’t have any experience of what’s happening in the world—or the experience of myself in the world, which are both fundamentally important.
So I decided to go experience the world. I wanted to go to as foreign a place as I could imagine just to see what would happen, to see what would come out of me. So I went to Nepal and Tibet. I figured that would shake me up a little bit. And then I kind of figured it out from there.
RW: Now how long were you there?
AC: I was there for two months and then I went to Thailand and Cambodia for two months. Then I went to South Africa for two months. And then I went to Greece. I was only flying into Greece to go to the Middle East, but I got caught in Greece, and you know, adventures happen. So I was there for two months and then I went to Morocco for a month. And that was a little bit shy of a year. Then I went back and visited friends on the East Coast and eventually made my way, completing the circuit, back home to Missouri.
RW: When I talked to Peter Kingsley, he said that in whatever place you’re in, there’s a way of thinking. It’s just in the air, and that you’re constrained by that place’s way of thinking. Does that make sense to you?
AC: Yes. I feel like that’s undeniable. You can experience that by going from house to house down the street. And that expands to the culture, as well. And it’s true that it constrains your thinking. I mean it gives you a certain set of lenses with which to look at the world. And there is the ability to completely shift that by going to Thailand, for instance, which operates very differently—or South Africa—from what I was used to in Missouri.
And I don’t think constraint is a bad thing. It’s necessary to give us form and to move us into action. I think it was Stravinsky who, when he got composer’s block, he would limit himself to four notes. Then creativity would come out of him. So I think we’re in this actually constant balance between resisting the constraints put on us by our culture and having the deep appreciation and gratitude that there are constraints—because then we don’t have to make infinite choices every day. So I think both are in play all the time.
RW: How did you get here to Canticle Farm?
AC: I’ll take the short answer on that one. I was living at the Possibility Alliance, which is the community in northeast Missouri where I live now. And I came out to a wedding in Oregon.
RW: Maybe you should say a little bit about the Possibility Alliance before we go on.
AC: We’re an intentional community. Every person living there would probably describe it in a subtly different way and I’m not the spokesperson. It’s still forming and a really interesting project.
RW: How many people are involved in it roughly?
Adam: There are six or seven full-time members there. And then this coming year there are going to be seven to eight apprentices. Then we’ve been getting about 1500 visitors a year.
RW: When visitors come, what does that mean—a visit to the Possibility Alliance?
AC: It could just mean swinging by for the day to get our three-hour tour. Or it could be living with us for two weeks as kind of a more official visitor session. Or with some people it might work out that they stay a little bit longer. Some people just stay for a few days.
RW: So when they are there, what do they do?
AC: So they’re attracted, generally speaking, to visit us because we are a 110-acre farm in northeast Missouri. We’re very much inspired by Gandhi and integral nonviolence—and the idea that there is a three-tiered system for integral nonviolence. First, there is personal and spiritual transformation and ridding ourselves of violence and becoming full vessels of love. Then there is the second tier: constructing the world we actually want to see. And then, often, actually doing that leads us, as I said before, straight into the face of the modern paradigm. So often there will be political action and activism based around that, which is the third tier. That’s Gandhi’s view. I don’t want to get too far off tangent. So what we’re doing is an integral nonviolence land-based project. We are living without electricity and without petroleum, as much as possible. So we’re doing kind of a radical bio-regional and local project based around becoming full vessels of love and working for the uplifting of all beings.
RW: Are you off the grid? Do you have solar panels, and things like that?
AC: Well, we have zero electricity. There’s no electricity on any of the 110 acres at all.
RW: Really? Wow.
AC: None. Not even batteries. Well, actually we have bike lights. As we say upfront when people first come to visit, we’re an experiment. We’re trying something that, at least in the United States, hasn’t really been tried in at least the last 100 years. So we’re doing the best we can and every day we’re failing at it—and getting better at it. Anybody who comes is part of that experiment. And we invite their feedback. We don’t have cars so we’re biking around.
RW: When you’re on the street.
AC: Yeah. And we’re completely free of judgment about that. There is no dogma in any of this. We’re just having a great time trying to live out a different way of being that we feel like is a fundamentally better way to live, because it’s more connected. It’s more responsible. It’s more healthy. It’s more vibrant. It’s more participatory, and it’s more fun. And people who come give us the feedback that this is really true.
RW: I’ve never met anybody until today who is living without electricity.
Sam Bower: And no dinosaur juice.
AC: And as little petroleum as possible. Yes.
RW: So when the sun goes down, it gets dark. Then what do you do for light? Candles or?
AC: We make our own candles out of a mix of beeswax that comes from a local bee place, apiary. I just call it the bee place. The industrial food system is so crazy, right?—the way that they fatten animals up on purpose. They’re feeding ruminants corn, which of course, don’t eat corn, at least that much. Then the first thing that supermarkets do when they get the meat is cut the fat off and it gets thrown away!
So we go to the local supermarket to get their trash fat and we render that into lard. Then we can mix it with beeswax.
RW: Well, that’s amazing.
AC: Can I say one more thing about light? [yes] I’ve experienced myself feeling very different. I think this is really interesting. Jerry Mander wrote a book called Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. And one of his points is that the body ingests light. Like we turn sunlight into vitamin D. So the light that hits us affects us in very particular ways. And science has shown this to be true about circadian rhythms and things like this. In the world of the city there is artificial light everywhere, whether that’s from screens or whether that’s from lights that get turned on in the daytime or at nighttime. And between the natural light that I’m around at the Possibility Alliance, just from the sun and from fire, what I’ve experienced is that I feel more like a mammal.
That might sound kind of funny, but an hour-and-a-half after the sun goes down, regardless of what time of year it is, it starts to feel like midnight. And all of us, it’s like wow, we’re starting to get a little tired. In the wintertime, of course, the sun goes down about 4:30 so we’ll stay up with candles for a while, reading or just chatting or maybe playing some games or something. But my body moves into a different rhythm.
I get surprised when it’s no big deal for people to stay up until 12:30 around here with the lights on. I do it too when I come back in the city. And I realize my body is acting in a totally different way than it normally does.
It feels very different to be sitting next to candlelight and writing a letter after dark than it does to be sitting in front of a computer screen after dark. I know that after two hours in front of a computer screen, I feel gross regardless of the content that has been put through the screen into my brain. Just the feeling of it, it’s like I have to go shake it off. I need to get outside. And I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that way. So I just want to say that the feeling, the physiological experience, not just the aesthetic experience, is very different.
RW: I wanted to ask what have you learned from this radical shift in your relationship with light? It’s exactly what you’re talking about.
North Korea to boost nuclear deterrent after U.S. pressure
By Ju-min Park
SEOUL
(Reuters) – North Korea intensified its war of words against the United States on Tuesday, vowing to strengthen its nuclear deterrent after Washington warned Pyongyang of further sanctions if it did not abandon its atomic program.
Last week, world leaders meeting in the United States said North Korea needed to adhere to international norms on nuclear issues and that it would face deeper isolation if it “continues down the path of provocation”.
The North’s foreign ministry spokesman served notice via the official KCNA news agency on Tuesday that it would “bolster its nuclear deterrent as long as the United States was continuing with its hostile policies” and that it planned “countermeasures” following pressure from Washington.
Under new leader Kim Jong-un, Pyongyang tried but failed to launch a long range rocket called Unha in April, breaking an agreement with the United States that would have traded food aid for access to its nuclear facilities, among other things.
Illegally downloading songs off the Internet has become a common trend around the globe, but a student at Boston University was specifically targeted for the practice. Joel Tenenbaum was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America for sharing 30 songs and now has to cough up a total of $675k. He joins us with more on his ongoing case against the RIAA, which the US Supreme Court decided this week not to hear.
In New Jersey, Muslim leaders demanded a formal investigation of the NYPD’s tactics after allegations arose of law enforcement targeting and spying on Muslim businesses and mosques. After a three month review by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s administration, it turns out the NYPD did nothing wrong. So what does this mean for America’s Muslim community? Sahar Aziz, law professor at Texas Wesleyan University, joins us with her take.
House Votes Down NDAA Amendment to End Indefinite Detention
Van Rompuy to draft plan for deeper economic union
Van Rompuy (r) is back to the economic governance drawing board (Photo: consilium.europa.eu)
BRUSSELS – EU leaders have tasked council chief Herman Van Rompuy with drafting a plan on deepening the eurozone’s economic union, potentially via an inter-governmental treaty.
After more than five hours of talks on the need to strengthen growth policies while sticking to the already strengthened deficit rules, EU leaders on Wednesday night (23 May) agreed to come back to these issues at a formal summit on 28 June.
“Our discussion also demonstrated that we need to take the economic and monetary union to a new stage. There was a general consensus that we need to strengthen the economic union to make it commensurate with the monetary union,” Van Rompuy said during a press conference at the end of the meeting.
The former Belgian premier added he would work on a report for the June summit with the heads of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the chairman of eurozone finance ministers.
In recent weeks, European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi has called for a 10-year plan on how to achieve closer fiscal and political union in the eurozone. Economics commissioner Olli Rehn has also indicated he will table ideas in this direction.
Van Rompuy explained his report would not be the definitive plan on deeper economic union, but just an outline of the “main building blocs and the working method to achieve this objective.”
Back in 2010, when he co-ordinated a similar exercise on stronger sanctions for deficit sinners in the eurozone, Van Rompuy hit a wall when it came to German-led demands for an EU treaty change. With the UK vetoing a treaty change last year and the Czech Republic opting out, an inter-governmental treaty on fiscal discipline was signed in March among 25 member states.
The U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) has its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. (Photo: UNEP)
(CNSNews.com) – Ahead of a mammoth United Nations sustainability conferencein Rio de Janeiro next month, the Brazilian government has signaled a new push to get the U.N.’s top environmental body upgraded – a push long opposed by the United States.
Brazil wants to breathe new life into an initiative — vigorously promoted since the 1990s by European leaders — to replace the 40 year-old U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) with a full-fledged “specialized agency,” dubbed the U.N. Environment Organization (UNEO).
Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira told a press briefing last Friday that the issue was a priority for her government, but she acknowledged that “there is no consensus in international organizations on the proposal to create an environment agency” during the summit, known as Rio+20.
“We are working hard looking for the best way to achieve this,” she said.
In what the U.N.’s Division for Sustainable Development says will be the biggest conference ever organized by the U.N., around 50,000 people, including some 135 heads of state and government (or deputies) will take part in the June 20-22 event.
During an earlier briefing, Brazilian Rio+20 organizer Luiz Alberto Figueiredo said his government believed that “UNEP should be strengthened as an environmental pillar, because in its present condition it is incapable of adequately carrying out its task.”
Go to Google and type in “H.R. 4133.” You will discover that, apart from a handful of blogs and alternative news sites, not a single mainstream medium has reported the story of a congressional bill that might well have major impact on the conduct of United States foreign policy. H.R. 4133, the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012, was introduced into the House of Representatives of the 112th Congress on March 5 “to express the sense of Congress regarding the United States-Israel strategic relationship, to direct the president to submit to Congress reports on United States actions to enhance this relationship and to assist in the defense of Israel, and for other purposes.” The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) reportedly helped draft the bill, and its co-sponsors include Republicans Eric Cantor and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Democrats Howard Berman and Steny Hoyer. Hoyer is the Democratic whip in the House of Representatives, where Cantor is majority leader. Ros-Lehtinen heads the Foreign Affairs Committee.
The House bill basically provides Israel with a blank check drawn on the U.S. taxpayer to maintain its “qualitative military edge” over all of its neighbors combined. It requires the White House to prepare an annual report on how that superiority is being maintained. The resolution passed on May 9 by a vote of 411–2 on a “suspension of the rules,” which is intended for non-controversial legislation requiring little debate and a quick vote.
A number of congressmen spoke on the bill, affirming their undying dedication to the cause of Israel. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas was the only one who spoke out against it, describing it as “one-sided and counterproductive foreign policy legislation. This bill’s real intent seems to be more saber-rattling against Iran and Syria.” Paul also observed that “this bill states that it is the policy of the United States to ‘reaffirm the enduring commitment of the United States to the security of the State of Israel as a Jewish state.’ However, according to our Constitution, the policy of the United States government should be to protect the security of the United States, not to guarantee the religious, ethnic, or cultural composition of a foreign country.” Paul voted “no” and was joined by only one other representative, John Dingell of Michigan, who represents a large Muslim constituency.
It is interesting to note what exactly the bill pledges the American people to do on behalf of Israel. It obligates the United States to veto resolutions critical of Israel, to provide such military support “as is necessary,” to pay for the building of an anti-missile system, to provide advanced “defense” equipment (including refueling tankers, which are offensive), to give Israel special munitions (i.e., bunker-busters, which are also offensive), to forward deploy more U.S. military equipment to Israel, to offer the Israeli air force more training and facilities in the U.S., to increase security- and advanced-technology-program cooperation, and to extend loan guarantees and expand intelligence-sharing (including highly sensitive satellite imagery). Actually, there’s even more included, and I may have missed the kitchen sink. But the objective is to provide Israel with the resources to attack Iran, if it chooses to do so, while tying the U.S. and Israel so closely together that whatever Benjamin Netanyahu does, the U.S. “will always be there,” as our president has so aptly put it.
Mr. Speaker: I rise in opposition to H.R. 4133, the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act, which unfortunately is another piece of one-sided and counterproductive foreign policy legislation. This bill’s real intent seems to be more saber-rattling against Iran and Syria, and it undermines U.S. diplomatic efforts by making clear that the U.S. is not an honest broker seeking peace for the Middle East.
The bill calls for the United States to significantly increase our provision of sophisticated weaponry to Israel, and states that it is to be U.S. policy to “help Israel preserve its qualitative military edge” in the region.
While I absolutely believe that Israel — and any other nation — should be free to determine for itself what is necessary for its national security, I do not believe that those decisions should be underwritten by U.S. taxpayers and backed up by the U.S. military.
This bill states that it is the policy of the United States to “reaffirm the enduring commitment of the United States to the security of the State of Israel as a Jewish state.” However, according to our Constitution, the policy of the United States government should be to protect the security of the United States, not to guarantee the religious, ethnic, or cultural composition of a foreign country. In fact, our own Constitution prohibits the establishment of any particular religion in the U.S.
More than 20 years after the reason for NATO’s existence — the Warsaw Pact — has disappeared, this legislation seeks to find a new mission for that anachronistic alliance: the defense of Israel. Calling for “an expanded role for Israel within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), including an enhanced presence at NATO headquarters and exercises,” it reads like a dream for interventionists and the military-industrial complex. As I have said many times, NATO should be disbanded, not expanded.
This bill will not help the United States, it will not help Israel, and it will not help the Middle East. It will implicitly authorize much more U.S. interventionism in the region at a time when we cannot afford the foreign commitments we already have. It more likely will lead to war against Syria, Iran, or both. I urge my colleagues to vote against this bill.
disclaimer: image is for illustration purposes only
The European Parliament this week adopted a report urging Turkey to follow up on its recent work toward securing gender equality and women’s rights.
The report, written by Socialists & Democrats Member of European Parliament Emine Bozkurt, lays out a series of goals for Ankara to accomplish by 2020 in raising the status of women to fully equal members of Turkish society as Brussels and Ankara seek to breathe life into the country’s stalled EU accession bid.
The Dutch lawmaker’s report was accepted unanimously by the legislative body’s Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Commission in March, and Tuesday was approved by the entire EP meeting in a plenary session, with 590 votes in favor, 28 against and 53 abstentions, the Italian news agency ANSAmed reported.
Bozkurt, the EP’s rapporteur on women’s rights in Turkey, said the passage of the report — “A 2020 Perspective for Women in Turkey” — is meant to ensure that the European Commission keeps the issue of women’s right and domestic violence in the forefront of its efforts to promote a “positive agenda” with Ankara.
The report “stresses that there can be no democracy without women and that women should be treated as individuals rather than just as family members or as mothers,” the S&D Party said in a statement. “[It] highlights the importance of placing women’s rights at the core of accession negotiations between Turkey and the EU.”
In the report, Bozkurt calls for “zero tolerance” on violence against women while also praising such positive steps such as a new law on violence against women and the appointment of special prosecutors to handle such cases.
It also notes progress been made in terms of providing education for girls and improving women’s participation in employment and politics.
Opposition by Turkish civil society has been intense and to a large extent has stymied the actual implementation of the reforms, but recent indications have been more encouraging as the government steps up its efforts, Bozkurt said.
“Each of the relevant ministries are busy with bringing projects to life which give effectiveness to the legislation on improving women’s standard of living,” she noted. “More importantly, these ministries are cooperating in the area of gender equality.”
The report cites Turkey’s newly established Ministry of Family and Social Policies — now a fully-fledged ministry with its own budget.
But many problems remain, it noted.
For instance, Turkey’s new law against domestic violence “lacks a mechanism which immediately removes [alleged perpetrators] from the vicinity of the woman who has been subjected to violence” and the report urges “uniform interpretation and application” of the measure by police and prosecutors.
The EP’s adoption of the report comes at a time when the European Commissioner for Enlargement Stefan Fule has sought to ease the acrimony that has arisen in EU-Turkish relations, partly due to disagreements over the status of the divided island of Cyprus.
Last week in Ankara, Fule said restarting formal accession talks should begin by opening “Chapter 23″ of the process, which addresses reforms on fundamental rights, the judiciary and corruption in Turkey.
“On women’s rights, every step needs to be taken to implement the recent law on violence against women, also, to improve the situation on the ground of women in Turkey as regards education, employment and political representation,” he said.
Senate rejects rival bills extending low-interest federal student loans
By Daniel Strauss – 05/24/12 04:26 PM ET
The Senate on Thursday rejected two competing bills that would prevent interest rates on federal student loans from doubling starting in July.
The failure of the two measures — one backed by Democrats and one backed by Republicans — guarantees both parties will continue to battle over how to keep the loan rate low over the coming weeks, right through spring graduations that have helped call attention to the issue.
The Democratic bill failed in a 51-43 vote — attaining a majority, but short of the 60 required for passage. Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) was the only Democrat to vote against the bill. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) voted present.
Just before that vote, the GOP bill, which was offered as a substitute amendment and also needed 60 votes, failed 34-62. Snowe voted present again, and nine Republicans voted against the amendment.
Both sides agree the low interest rates should be extended, but the two parties disagree over how to cover the nearly $6 billion cost.
Democrats would pay for it by closing a business tax break, while Republicans would close a fund in the healthcare law.
The result was expected, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) predicted before the votes that both bills would fail.
“I’m certainly aware of how things work around here. Neither one of these things are going to pass, sorry to say,” Reid said. “These two proposals were not created equal, but I hope a few reasonable Republicans will join with us to not put Americans’ health at risk.”
Republicans said Reid set up the vote to fail to help give Democrats a political talking point over the next few weeks.
Report rips DOJ attorneys in botched Stevens’s case
By Jordy Yager
Two Department of Justice prosecutors have been suspended without pay and a Senate Democrat has scheduled a committee hearing following the release Thursday of a DOJ report that detailed the government’s misconduct in its botched case against the late Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).
The DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) released its 672-page report on the Stevens case to top ranking lawmakers after more than two years of investigating the alleged wrongdoing of the federal prosecutors waging a criminal lawsuit against the veteran senator.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, has scheduled a hearing to review the report.
The DOJ, also on Thursday, announced it was suspending Joseph Bottini and James Goeke without pay. The report found the attorneys “acted in reckless disregard” for their legal obligations by not disclosing exculpatory evidence to Stevens’s defense lawyers. The two attorneys had already been transferred out of the public integrity division of DOJ in response to their involvement in the botched case.
A powerhouse of a senator, Stevens was convicted in 2008 on charges that he accepted improper gifts from an oil executive in the form of renovations to his cabin. About one week later, Stevens lost his bid for reelection. In August 2010, Stevens died in a plane crash in Alaska.
Obama taps George Mason professor to head nuclear agency
By Andrew Restuccia
President Obama nominated George Mason University Professor Allison Macfarlane Thursday to serve as chairwoman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
Macfarlane has been a professor of environmental science at the university since 2006 and served on a federal panel tasked with determining a long-term solution for the country’s nuclear waste.
She has been critical of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, a long-delayed project that the Obama administration abandoned in 2009. Macfarlane wrote a 2006 book titled, Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation’s High-Level Nuclear Waste. The book, according to the GMU website, “explores the unresolved technical issues” with Yucca Mountain.
Current NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko, who has come under fire from his colleagues and Republicans for his leadership style, announced earlier this week that he intends to step down once the Senate confirms his replacement.
Obama nominated Macfarlane as one of five NRC commissioners and said he intended to appoint her as chairwoman of the panel once she is confirmed by the Senate.
The nomination sets up what could be a politically thorny confirmation process. Republicans are certain to take aim at Macfarlane over her stance on Yucca Mountain, a project that they say Obama abandoned for political reasons.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) applauded the nomination Thursday.
“I am confident that like her predecessor, Dr. Allison Macfarlane will make preserving the safety and security of American citizens her top priority as Chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” he said in a statement. “Dr. Macfarlane’s education and experience, in particular her service on the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, make her eminently qualified to lead the NRC for the foreseeable future.”
Reid said he hopes to move Macfarlane’s nomination in tandem with the nomination of Republican Commissioner Kristine Svinicki to a second term on the panel. By tying them together, Republicans are less likely to block Macfarlane’s nomination; they want Svinicki’s nomination to move forward before her term expires June 30.
“I continue to have grave concerns about Kristine Svinicki’s record on the Commission,” said Reid, who has been a vocal critic of Svinicki.
“But I believe the best interests of the public would be served by moving the nominations of Dr. Macfarlane and Ms. Svinicki together before Ms. Svinicki’s term expires at the end of June, to ensure that we have a fully functioning NRC. Republicans claim to share that goal, and I hope they will work with us to make it a reality.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a critic of nuclear power, said in a statement he believes Macfarlane “can be a strong chair for the NRC,” while Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Macfarlane’s “background and experience demonstrate that she has the strong commitment to safety that is so needed in this post-Fukushima era.”
The Senate Armed Services Committee passed its version of the Defense Authorization bill Thursday, setting Pentagon spending in line with President Obama’s desired level and setting up a showdown with the Republican-led House.
The Senate panel passed the $631.4 billion bill unanimously out of committee, committee chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said Thursday. It is about $4 billion below the funding-level set in the legislation that passed the House.
The differences between the two bills will have to be resolved in conference committee, although both bills are above the spending caps set by last year’s Budget Control Act.
The Senate bill reverses several cuts the Pentagon had requested in its plans to cut $487 billion over the next decade, pushing back on reductions in the Air National Guard and proposed increases to TRICARE fees.
Levin said that the committee made about 150 changes from the president’s request.
The panel also took aim at aid to Pakistan, as ranking member John McCain (R-Ariz.) expressed outrage at the sentencing of Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi for his role helping the United States kill Osama bin Laden.
McCain said the bill fenced in funds to aid Pakistan’s military until Islamabad opens its supply routes, is not supporting extremist groups and is not detaining citizens — a reference to Afridi, who was sentenced to 33 years in prison for treason.
“That has frankly outraged all of us,” McCain said. “It is our goal to make sure this doctor is not sentenced to death — which is basically what he got — for helping us apprehend Osama bin Laden.”
Levin and McCain held a joint press conference to announce the details of the bill on Thursday, which was marked up behind closed doors in committee Wednesday and Thursday. The bill now moves to the floor, where Levin said it’s on a list of bills to be considered in June by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
The bill did not directly tackle the $500 billion in automatic cuts through sequestration that the Defense Department potentially faces next year, which both Levin and McCain have said must be reversed. But the bill does instruct the Pentagon to explain the effects of sequestration — something it has yet to do — on the Defense Department to help “understand the huge impact” sequestration would have, Levin said.
During the markup, the committee did not tackle one of the most contentious issues in the Defense authorization bill, indefinite detention.
Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) withdrew his amendment to change the language in last year’s authorization bill, saving it instead for debate before the full Senate on the floor.
Udall and opponents of indefinite detention want to change the law to stop military detention on U.S. soil, while supporters say it’s a necessary tool for the government to stop terrorism.
Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), one of the most vocal detention supporters, said she will also bring amendments to the floor on the issue.
Many of the major changes that the Armed Services panel made involved pushing back against the Pentagon’s proposed cuts.
EU leaders gather for an informal dinner in Brussels, but the main course will undoubtedly be the Eurozone’s crippling debt crisis. There’s a growing belief that the austerity driver heralded by France and Germany has backfired, sending weaker countries into a spiral of decline.
Reports say single currency member nations are preparing back up plans for the consequences of a Greek exit. France’s President Hollande wants the strategy to shift to growth – something Germany’s reluctant to agree with. Both sides have to search for a compromise ahead of what could be a decisive 2nd Greek election in June.
John Laughland, the Director of Studies in the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation, believes the EU tries to control Greece by giving it no other choise but austerity.
http://www.euronews.com/ Thailand evokes images of endless, sandy beaches but there is a lot more to this South East Asian country. In the first edition of our four part series ‘Thai Life’, we take a look at the kingdom’s business spirit. To find out why Thailand is such a popular investment market, euronews headed to its capital, Bangkok.
With a population of around 10 million, it can sometimes feel like all the city’s inhabitants are on the streets at once. Bangkok is at the heart of the Thai economy with 90% of the country’s export trade taking place in the capital. The Asian Kingdom is also becoming an evermore attractive production location for foreign businesses, which are attracted by its stable infrastructure and tax incentives.
Stiebel Eltron, a housing technology manufacturer is one of the 500 German companies to start up operations in Thailand.
It learned early on that doing business ‘Thai style’ requires a great deal of cultural awareness and tact; something the company’s Export Manager, Holger Palla knows all too well:
“In Germany you can raise your voice (literally bang your fist on the table) and speak more openly and direct. Maybe even a little too loud and direct. In Thailand you can’t do that at all. You have to be careful not to embarrass other people — they shouldn’t lose face so you have to show respect and proceed more subtly.”
Yupa Tassri, General Manager at Siebel Eltron takes care of the staff’s needs, bridging any cultural divides:
“In Thai most people respect Buddha, so the Germans will never understand how we respect him.
“My main challenge is to mix and match between Thai and German mindsets, to make sure that they understand each other and work together in harmony.”
Teamwork plays a vital role, ensuring the working day runs smoothly, as Roland Hoehn, Asian Pacific Director at Siebel Eltron explains:
“Thai’s like to work in groups. They want to have Sanuuk once in a while. Sanuuk is probably best translated as fun and is simply a part of the Thai culture. If they aren’t having fun, they leave the company. So harmony and fun are important.”
For foreign companies, the benefits of working in Thailand, seem to outweigh concerns voiced by some businesses over bureaucracy and a lack of qualified labour.
John Svengren, the Executive Director of the European Asean Business Centre believes the key to doing business successfully in Thailand is taking the time to build bonds with colleagues:
“Relationships mean a lot more for one thing. You don’t come to an Asian country and do business on the first day. You need to have relationships, particularly if you’re in joint venture operations with Thai partnerships. It can take years to develop confidence and trust.”
This is not only true for the industrial sector but also for tourism, another important area for foreign investors, especially European.
This year alone, more than 20 million visitors are expected, making up around 6% of the nation’s total economy.
The tourism industry has been trying to attract new target groups and green tourism is becoming increasingly popular. At Karon beach in Phuket, a Swiss run hotel was the first on the island to receive the Green Globe certificate for sustainability.
The hotel’s General Manager at the Mövenpick resort, Hansreudi Frutiger talks to euronews about his accomplishment:
“We began with the Green Globe one year ago. We wanted to explain to our Thai employees what this means to us; that we want to help the world stay as it was and is. We’ve a small garden where we grow tomatoes and cucumbers alongside various Thai herbs and spices which our chefs use in our kitchen’s dishes.”
Thailand is a country of contrast. While it is finding success putting itself on the world business map – tradition and heritage remain an integral part of life.
Turn Out The Lights – The Largest U.S. Cities Are Becoming Cesspools Of Filth, Decay And Wretchedness
Once upon a time, the largest U.S. cities were the envy of the entire world. Sadly, that is no longer the case. Sure, there are areas of New York City, Boston, Washington and Los Angeles that are still absolutely beautiful but for the most part our major cities are rapidly rotting and decaying. Cities such as Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, Memphis, New Orleans, St. Louis and Oakland were all once places where middle class American workers thrived and raised their families. Today, all of those cities are rapidly being transformed into cesspools of filth, decay and wretchedness. Millions of good jobs have left our major cities in recent decades and poverty has absolutely exploded. Basically, you can turn out the lights because the party is over. In fact, some major U.S. cities are literally turning out the lights. In Detroit, about 40 percent of the streetlights are already broken and the city cannot afford to repair them. So Mayor Bing has come up with a plan to cut the number of operating streetlights almost in half and leave vast sections of the city totally in the dark at night. I wonder what that will do to the crime rate in the city. But don’t look down on Detroit too much, because what is happening in Detroit will be happening where you live soon enough.
A recent Bloomberg article described Mayor Bing’s plan to eliminate nearly half of Detroit’s streetlights….
Detroit, whose 139 square miles contain 60 percent fewer residents than in 1950, will try to nudge them into a smaller living space by eliminating almost half its streetlights.
As it is, 40 percent of the 88,000 streetlights are broken and the city, whose finances are to be overseen by an appointed board, can’t afford to fix them. Mayor Dave Bing’s plan would create an authority to borrow $160 million to upgrade and reduce the number of streetlights to 46,000. Maintenance would be contracted out, saving the city $10 million a year.
What this means is that there are going to be a lot of neighborhoods that will have the lights turned off permanently.
“You have to identify those neighborhoods where you want to concentrate your population,” said Chris Brown, Detroit’s chief operating officer. “We’re not going to light distressed areas like we light other areas.”
City officials know that they cannot force people to move from “distressed areas”, so they are going to encourage them to leave by cutting off services.
But turning off the lights is not the only way that Detroit is trying to save money.
Recently, officials in Detroit announced that all police stations in the city will be closed to the public for 16 hours a day.
It is so sad to see what is happening to what was once such a great city.
Back in the old days, Detroit had a teeming middle class population.
Today, 53.6% of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.
Back in the old days, Detroit was a shining example of what America was doing right.
Today, 47 percent of all people living in the city of Detroit are functionally illiterate.
Back in the old days, middle class neighborhoods sprouted like mushrooms all over Detroit.
Today, the median price of a home in Detroit is just $6000.
Needless to say, crime is exploding in Detroit and many families live in constant fear.
Many have taken justice into their own hands. Justifiable homicide in Detroit rose by a staggering 79 percent during 2011.
But Detroit is only one example of a national trend.
For example, a recent article by Jim Quinn entitled “More Than 30 Blocks Of Grey And Decay” described the filth, decay and wretchedness in West Philadelphia. Quinn refers to the drive through this area as “the 30 Blocks of Squalor”….
The Senate Banking Committee is responding to outrage over the news that J.P. Morgan lost some $3 billion in customer money because of a risky trading strategy. The committee is preparing for two hearings with regulators, and Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD), chair of the committee, is hoping that Jamie Dimon will testify in the near future. “Our due diligence has made it clear that the Banking Committee should hear directly from JPMorgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon,” Johnson said in a statement last week.
Luckily for Dimon, the professional staff in charge of managing the banking committee will be quite familiar to him and his team of lobbyists. That’s because the staff director for the Senate Banking Committee is none other than a former J.P. Morgan lobbyist, Dwight Fettig.
In 2009, Fettig was a registered lobbyist for J.P. Morgan. His disclosures show that he was hired to work on “financial services regulatory reform” and the “Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2009″ on behalf of the investment bank. Now, as staff director for the Senate Banking Committee, he will be overseeing the hearings on J.P. Morgan’s risky proprietary trading.
On the House side of Congress, J.P. Morgan may see even less of a risk in upcoming hearings. Chairman Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), who would presumably manage any investigation into the bank, has already offered comments to the press defending the investment bank’s trading decisions.
It asked for them to be suspended ahead of a board meeting later on Friday to reformulate its accounts for 2011 and submit a plan to shore up its finances.
The bank is reported to be due to ask the government for a bailout of more than 15bn euros ($19bn; £12bn).
Bankia, which is Spain’s fourth-largest bank, was part-nationalised two weeks ago because of its problems with bad property debt.
Huawei accuses InterDigital of “abusing” its position and demanding “exploitative” fees to use its patented technology, said to be essential to 3G in mobile devices.
It added that such moves were against the EU rules which require holders to licence their patents fairly.
InterDigital said it was “committed” to those rules.
The apartment block in Vathy Square from which the mother and son plunged to their death.
A 60-year-old man and his 90-year-old mother jumped off the roof of their apartment block in Vathy Square, near central Athens, early on Thursday in a double suicide that appeared to have been prompted by financial woes.
No suicide note was found but a short despair-filled text was uploaded onto a poem-sharing website late on Wednesday by a man called Antonis Perris. “I don’t see any way out. I have property but no cash at all, so what am I going to do about food?” he wrote, adding that his mother had Alzheimer’s while he had a terminal illness. “I don’t have many days left, I am very sick,” he wrote. The note is followed by a string of comments posted afterward by readers wishing him well and then notes of sorrow as of Thursday morning.
Police would not comment on the incident but sources said the man was an unemployed musician.
He and his mother are the latest in a series of Greeks to take their own lives in recent months as the repercussions of the debt crisis push many into despair over their finances.
Iran is hoping to convince world powers its nuclear programme serves a peaceful purpose and isn’t about making bombs. A new round of talks has begun in Baghdad – with further pressure on Tehran to stop higher-grade uranium enrichment which it’s feared could be put to military use. Iran has already tried to ease worsening relations, by tentatively agreeing to new UN inspections of sites which are suspected of involvement in atomic weapons development.
But, Washington says there’ll be no let-up in the heat on Tehran. Fresh sanctions are expected to hit in just over a month, targeting the country’s oil and nuclear sectors, as well as international trade links. Political analyst Chris Bambery says Iran’s nuclear programme has become a matter of national pride for its people – which they’ll not give up.
NEW DELHI: India and the US on Monday discussed ways to further strengthen their already expansive bilateral defense, in the backdrop of their Malabar naval combat exercise being successfully held in the Bay of Bengal earlier this month.
Visiting US chief of naval operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert held talks with Navy chief Admiral Nirmal Verma, IAF chief Air Chief Marshal N A K Browne and Army vice-chief Lt-Gen S K Singh, apart from calling on defense minister A K Antony and national security adviser Shiv Shankar Menon.
Admiral Greenert will also be visiting key naval establishments, including Western Naval Command at Mumbai, the INS Hansa base at Goa, the new Karwar naval base and the training establishment at Kochi, during his five-day visit.
India, however, still remains reluctant to ink bilateral pacts like the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA), Communication Interoperability and Security Memorandum Agreement (CISMOA) and Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-Spatial Cooperation (BECA) that are being pushed by the US for the last several years.
But there have been no full-stops in either the flurry of joint military exercises between the two countries as well as armament deals, with US notching up sales worth over $8 billion to India over the last decade and many more contracts in the pipeline. In just the military aviation sector, the US is going to notch up sales worth well over $11 billion, ranging from over $2.2 billion for 12 C-130J `Super Hercules’ aircraft to $3.1 billion for 12 P-8I Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft.
Taliban Poisons 120 School Girls in Latest Attack Against Education
More than Afghan 120 schoolgirls and three teachers have been poisoned in the second attack in many months blamed on conservative radicals in the country’s north, Afghan police and education officials said on Wednesday (May 23)
Victims of the poisoning were being treated in hospital after the attack on a school in Taliqan inTakhar Province.
One of the poisoned schoolgirls who gave her name as Samera gave details of the ordeal.
“We saw one of the students was unconscious and in bad condition we were told not to drink water but we had already drunk the water and we became unconscious too,” she said.
The attack occurred in Takhar province where police said that radicals opposed to education of women and girls had used an unidentified toxic powder to contaminate the air in classrooms. Scores of students were left unconscious.
“There was a certain smell that our students noticed, unfortunately as a result some of our students were poisoned and the recent report showed that 80 of our students were poisoned,”Abdul Wahab Zafari head of Takhar education departmentAfghanistan’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), says the Taliban appear intent on closing schools ahead of a 2014 withdrawal by foreign combat troops.
Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education said last week that 550 schools in 11 provinces where the Taliban have strong support had been closed down by insurgents.
Last month, 150 schoolgirls were poisoned in Takhar province after they drank contaminated water.
Since 2001 when the Taliban were toppled from power by U.S.-backed Afghan forces, females have returned to schools, especially in the capital Kabul. They were previously banned from work and education.
But there are still periodic attacks against students, teachers and school buildings, usually in the more conservative south and east of the country, from where the Taliban insurgency draws most of its support.
‘US backed off Libya-style regime change in Syria’
The Syrian regime has come under fire from a new UN report claiming both the government and opposition are committing gross human rights violations. It claims Damascus is responsible for the largest share of the violence, while rebels are accused of kidnapping civilians and torturing captured soldiers. Meanwhile, Amnesty International has slammed the UN Security Council as ‘increasingly unfit for purpose’ and too slow to act on Syria. The world body dispatched an observer mission to the country, where it’s estimated around ten thousand people have been killed since March last year.
Author William Engdahl says however that Syria must be left alone to determine its own future.
Winds from Syria unrest blow into Lebanon: Clashes spark fears of another war
Experts say Lebanon has fallen hostage to conflict in neighbouring Syria, following deadly sectarian clashes between pro-, anti-Damascus camps.
Middle East Online
By Rita Daou – BEIRUT
Crime, sectarianism, corruption… Another war?
Fed by the 14-month crisis in neighbouring Syria and rumours of renewed civil unrest, turbulence across Lebanon is stoking fears the situation in the country may take a turn for the worse.
On Wednesday night, a gunbattle broke out in the Caracas district of west Beirut, followed by a clash that lasted several hours and left two dead, according to security officials.
The spark for the clash, during which gunmen used hand grenades against the Lebanese security forces, was a “personal dispute” between at least one of the men and a woman in her early 20s, the officials added.
Though the shootout was an “isolated incident,” a security official at the scene said, “the timing of the incident is very bad, because people in Lebanon are nervous about the overall situation.”
Uncertainty turned news of a crime into a new cause for alarm. That some of those involved in the clash were Syrian nationals sparked rumours on the streets the next morning.
Some wondered where the gunmen got the weapons from, others said their real target was the Lebanese army, and still others raised questions about whether the gunfight had a political backdrop.
The developments have proven right experts who say Lebanon has fallen hostage to the conflict in neighbouring Syria, following deadly sectarian clashes between the country’s pro- and anti-Damascus camps.
Though the violence has on the whole been short-lived and focused on small areas of the country, individual citizens’ lives have already been transformed.
“My husband is travelling and due to return soon,” Mirella Qazzi, 40, said. A mother of four, Qazzi lives in Jounieh, 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the capital Beirut.
“I am very worried that when he flies back, he won’t be able to get home, because the roads might be blocked,” Qazzi added.
She said was angry because she felt the spectre of war looming, “even if no Lebanese wants war, regardless of our sectarian differences.”
Though relatively contained, the speed with which the waves of violence have unfolded from specific security incidents has left many feeling shaken.
On May 12, Shadi al-Mawlawi, a young Islamist from the northern port city of Tripoli was arrested on charges of belonging to a terrorist organisation. The arrest was followed by clashes that left 10 people dead.
Then on May 20, troops shot dead two Sunni clerics when their convoy failed to stop at a checkpoint in the north, prompting a round of fighting in Beirut that left two dead.
Residents protested the clerics’ killing by setting fire to tyres and cutting off several roads in northern Lebanon.
Youths also cut off roads when a group of Shiite Lebanese pilgrims were kidnapped in Syria this week.
(Reuters) – Russia tested a new long-range missile on Wednesday that should improve its ability to penetrate missile defense systems, the military said, in Moscow’s latest warning to Washington over deployment of a missile shield in Europe.
The Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) was successfully launched from the Plesetsk facility in northwestern Russia and its dummy warhead landed on target on the Kamchatka peninsula on the Pacific coast, the Defense Ministry said.
The new missile is expected to improve Russia’s offensive arsenal, “including by increasing the capability to overcome missile defense systems that are being created”, the ministry said in a statement.
Russia opposes a missile shield the United States and NATO are deploying in Europe, saying it will be able to intercept Russian warheads by about 2018, weakening Moscow’s nuclear arsenal and upsetting the post-Cold War balance of power.
The United States says the system is intended to counter a potential threat from Iran and poses no risk to Russia, but the Kremlin has rejected those assurances and stepped up criticism of the system, to be deployed in four phases by about 2020.
Last autumn, then-President Dmitry Medvedev outlined steps Russia was taking to neutralize the perceived threat, including upgrades to Russia’s offensive nuclear arsenal.
Russia and the United States are still in talks to agree cooperation on missile defense, but Moscow has warned of further measures if no such deal is reached and Washington refuses to provide binding guarantees its system will not threaten Russia.
At a conference in Moscow this month, senior General Nikolai Makarov said Russia could carry out pre-emptive strikes on future NATO missile defense installations to protect its security.
The European system is to include interceptor missile installations in Poland and Romania and a radar in Turkey as well as interceptors and radars on ships based in the Mediterranean Sea.
Russia usually names its weapons, but the Defense Ministry made no mention of a name for the new missile. It said it could be fired from a mobile launcher.
Missile defense has troubled ties between Russia and the United States since the Cold War.
The dispute over the current project has developed despite President Barack Obama’s decision in 2009 to scrap the previous administration’s plans for longer-range interceptors, which helped improve relations after a period of growing tension.
Western officials say improvements to Russia’s ICBM arsenal undermine Moscow’s argument that the system will present a threat and suggest the Kremlin wants to use the issue as a bargaining chip in broader talks on nuclear arms cuts.
During his 2000-2008 Kremlin term, President Vladimir Putin repeatedly said Russia would improve its offensive nuclear capability in response to U.S. missile defense plans.
In 2007, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, now Putin’s chief of staff, was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying Russia already had weapons that could overcome any current or future missile defense system.
(Writing by Steve Gutterman; editing by Andrew Roche)
Hundreds of Israelis took to the streets in south Tel Aviv on Thursday to protest against the mass migration from Sudan as a result of the strife in the African nation.
Some Israelis now want the government to tighten the rules on immigration, and to even send the migrants back home.
Tensions have been building for months as migrants are blamed for an increase in burglary and crime.
The protesters shouted “Sudanese go home” – a reference to the thousands of Sudanese who have travelled through Egypt to Israel. Many were smuggled into the country via the Sinai Peninsula.
Israeli politicians are now responding to this fear and anger, with the interior minister trying to push a mass-expulsion order through the courts.
Al Jazeera’s Sue Turton reports from Tel Aviv.
The Questionable Past of the Man Who Decides Who U.S. Drones Will Kill
By Conor Friedersdorf
White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan, who is taking on new authority over strikes, once backed “enhanced-interrogation techniques.”
Reuters
As I figure it, there are two death panels in the United States. One is within the C.I.A., where high-ranking intelligence professionals decide, via some opaque protocol, who they want to kill with armed drones. I used to assume that they put all the names on a list. But it was subsequently reported that sometimes the C.I.A. kills people whose identities it doesn’t even know.
Then there’s the other death panel. It determines whose death will be sought by drones that the Department of Defense controls. These human targets used to be determined in a meeting that involved the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, various unnamed national security officials, and Obama Administration counterterrorism adviser John Brennan. They’d talk things over and debate names.
Now the protocol is changing for both programs.
“White House counterterror chief John Brennan has seized the lead in choosing which terrorists will be targeted for drone attacks or raids, establishing a new procedure for both military and CIA targets,” Kimberly Dozier of the Associated Press reports. “The effort concentrates power over the use of lethal U.S. force outside war zones within one small team at the White House … Under the new plan, Brennan’s staff compiles the potential target list and runs the names past agencies such as the State Department at a weekly White House meeting.”
So who is the man with this extraordinarily powerful influence over who lives and dies in the due-process-free world of international assassinations? An experienced intelligence officer with 25 years experience, fluent Arabic skills … and a more controversial recent history in government.
Thousands of soldiers have come home with symptoms and illnesses they suspect are linked to open-air “burn pits.” Now, a new study has confirmed that particulate matter from the pits causes lung damage and immune system impairment. Photo: U.S. Air Force
Since returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan, an untold number of soldiers have come down with puzzling health problems. Chronic bronchitis. Neurological defects. Even cancer. Many of them are pointing the finger at a single culprit: The open-air “burn pits” that incinerated trash — from human waste to computer parts — on military bases overseas.
Pentagon officials have consistently reassured personnel that there was no “specific evidence” connecting the two. But now, only days after Danger Room uncovered a memo suggesting that Army officials knew how dangerous the pits were, an animal study is offering up new scientific evidence that links burn pits to depleted immune systems.
“The dust doesn’t only appear to cause lung inflammation,” says Dr. Anthony Szema, an assistant professor at Stony Brook School of Medicine who specializes in pulmonology and allergies, and the researcher who led this latest study. “It also destroys the body’s own T-cells.” Those cells are at the core of the body’s immune system, “like a bulletproof vest against illnesses,” Szema tells Danger Room. When they’re depleted, an individual is much more prone to myriad conditions.
For scientists, trying to establish a definitive connection between those diffuse health problems and the pits has been exceedingly difficult to do. Most notably because the Department of Defense, as a report issued by the Institutes of Medicine noted last year, didn’t collect adequate evidence — like what the pits burned and which soldiers were exposed — for researchers to draw any meaningful conclusions about the impact of the open-air incinerators. Szema’s study is only on 15 mice, so it’s by no means definitive. But it is an important first step.
Regardless, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Pentagon officials were aware of the risk posed by the pits. Another memo (.pdf), written by Lt. Col. Darrin Curtis in 2006 and obtained by Danger Room, warned of “an acute health hazard” to personnel stationed at Iraq’s Balad air base. “It is amazing,” he noted, “that the burn pit has been able to operate … without significant engineering controls being put in place.”
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes 'FAIR USE' of any such copyrighted material.]
Michigan growers say disaster unfolding as erratic spring weather zaps cherries, other fruits
JOHN FLESHER Associated Press
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — A disaster is unfolding in Michigan orchards as erratic spring weather causes some of the biggest losses in decades of cherries, apples and other fruits, growers said Thursday.
A rare extended period of summerlike temperatures in March caused trees to blossom early, only to be zapped by an unrelenting series of April frosts and freezes. The one-two punch killed many buds, while recent cold snaps and rainstorms have discouraged honeybees from pollinating those that survived.
Farmers and agricultural extension agents said the tart cherry crop is all but wiped out in most places, while sweet cherries, apples, pears and other fruits are heavily damaged. Juice grapes are another casualty. Many growers probably won’t bother harvesting their meager yields, focusing instead on keeping trees healthy for next year, said Ken Nye, commodity specialist for the Michigan Farm Bureau.
“This is the worst that Michigan has experienced in the past 50 years at least,” Nye said. “I don’t know how far you’d have to go back to find something similar.”
Michigan produces three-fourths of the nation’s tart cherries, used primarily in pies and other food products, and 20 percent of its sweet cherries, a popular table fruit. It ranks third nationally in apple production, behind Washington and New York.
The state is no stranger to spring cold snaps, and experts say orchards remain vulnerable throughout May. The tart cherry crop was a near-total loss a decade ago. What sets this year apart is not just the severity of the damage but the variety of fruits affected.
“We’ve had freezes before, but you’d always have something come through OK,” said David Rabe, who grows apples, tart cherries, peaches and asparagus in Oceana County. “This year, just about everything’s devastated. Asparagus might be the only crop we can harvest.”
A judge in New York has ruled that Internet searches and downloads and other activities done on your personal computer do not mean you are the person behind them. This ruling could cause a problem when it comes to CISPA. In this case, an individual allegedly downloaded an adult film illegally and the judge’s ruling has made many Internet freedom advocates happy. Mitch Stoltz, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, joins us with more.
Android Malware Used to Mask Online Fraud, Says Expert
Android malware being automatically distributed from hacked websites looks like it’s being used to mask online purchases, and could be part of a fraud gang’s new push into mobile, researchers said today.
“The malware essentially turns your Android phone into a tunnel that can bounce network traffic off your phone,” said Kevin Mahaffrey, co-founder and CTO of Lookout Security, a San Francisco-based firm that focuses on Android.
Lookout first published information about the new malware, dubbed “NotCompatible,” on Wednesday. Further analysis, however, has revealed the most likely reason why cyber criminals are spreading the malware.
“There are a couple of ways they can profit from this,” said Mahaffrey in an interview. “One is general online fraud, the other is targeted attacks against enterprises. We haven’t seen any evidence [of the latter], and have confirmed that it is engaged in online purchasing activity.”
Once installed, NotCompatible turns an infected Android device into a proxy, through which hackers can then direct data packets, in essence disguising the real source of that traffic by using the compromised devices as middlemen.
FBI Wants Backdoors in Facebook, Twitter, Skype & Instant Messaging
Eddie Sage | 05 May 2012
CNET learns the FBI is quietly pushing its plan to force surveillance backdoors on social networks, VoIP, and Web e-mail providers, and that the bureau is asking Internet companies not to oppose a law making those back doors mandatory.
The FBI have drafted a proposed law which would extend the abilities of the 1994 CALEA act which established their ability to tap phones across the USA. This law would work with communications companies across the states to establish a threshold for number of users which, once met, would require said communications company to activate surveillance-friendly functions on their network for use by the FBI.
Currently the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act covers telecommunications providers and allows the FBI to tap your phone if they have good cause. That’s all you need to know – it’s a law, it exists, and it’s very real. This most current legislation asks that the government add communications providers beyond what they’ve got covered now – chatting on your computer in any way at all may soon be covered, for example.
The FBI is getting impatient and wants a backdoor to Facebook, Skype, Google Hangouts and other services now to catch evildoers.
Make these easy liquid fertilizers — then sit back and watch your seedlings and plants thrive!
By Barbara Pleasant
Homemade liquid fertilizers made from free, natural ingredients — such as grass clippings, seaweed, chicken manure and human urine — can give your plants the quick boost of nutrients they need to grow stronger and be more productive.
ILLUSTRATION: ELAYNE SEARS
Many organic gardeners keep a bottle of liquid fish fertilizer on hand to feed young seedlings, plants growing in containers and any garden crop that needs a nutrient boost. But liquid, fish-based fertilizers are often pricey, plus we’re supporting an unsustainable fishing industry by buying them. So, what’s a good alternative?
MOTHER EARTH NEWS commissioned Will Brinton — who holds a doctorate in Environmental Science and is president of Woods End Laboratories in Mt. Vernon, Maine — to develop some water-based, homemade fertilizer recipes using free, natural ingredients, such as grass clippings, seaweed, chicken manure and human urine. His results are summarized on our chart of Homemade Fertilizer Tea Recipes.
Why and When to Use Liquids
Liquid fertilizers are faster-acting than seed meals and other solid organic products, so liquids are your best choice for several purposes. As soon as seedlings have used up the nutrients provided by the sprouted seeds, they benefit from small amounts of fertilizer. This is especially true if you’re using a soil-less seed starting mix (such as a peat-based mix), which helps prevent damping-off but provides a scant supply of nutrients. Seedlings don’t need much in the way of nutrients, but if they noticeably darken in color after you feed them with a liquid fertilizer, that’s evidence they had a need that has been satisfied. Liquid fertilizers are also essential to success with container-grown plants, which depend entirely on their growers for moisture and nutrients. Container-grown plants do best with frequent light feedings of liquid fertilizers, which are immediately distributed throughout the constricted growing area of the containers.
Out in the garden, liquid fertilizers can be invaluable if you’re growing cold-tolerant crops that start growing when soil temperatures are low for example, overwintered spinach or strawberries coaxed into early growth beneath row covers. Nitrogen held in the soil is difficult for plants to take up until soil temperatures rise above 50 degrees Fahrenheit or so, meaning plants can experience a slow start because of a temporary nutrient deficit in late winter and early spring. The more you push the spring season by using cloches and row covers to grow early crops of lettuce, broccoli or cabbage in cold soil, the more it will be worth your time to use liquid fertilizers to provide a boost until the soil warms up.
Make these easy liquid fertilizers — then sit back and watch your seedlings and plants thrive!
By Barbara Pleasant
Add the amount of dry ingredients shown in the chart below to a 5-gallon bucket, then add water to fill, and steep for three days. Strain or decant the tea and dilute as shown below. To make fertilizer tea from urine, simply dilute the urine in 20 parts water, and it’s ready to use. Water plants with these solutions no more than once every two weeks.
With so many chicken breeds (plus hybrids and crossbred chickens), you’re sure to find the kind of chickens that are just right for your needs.
PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO/KEVIN EAVES
Chickens are the perfect starter livestock for your homestead — whether you have a small backyard in an urban area or 20 acres in the boondocks. Chickens provide eggs, meat and fertilizer, plus they’re small and easy to manage. Several chicken breed charts are available online and in books, but their information is often based on old data. So, to get current information on the best chicken breeds, we developed a survey of our readers who have lots of experience with various breeds. (Many thanks to more than 1,000 readers who participated in the survey.) The summaries below include only results from people who have more than three years’ experience raising chickens. And we only included breeds or hybrids if at least three people responded to questions about them.
Our survey didn’t ask which chicken breeds are prettiest. That’s important, too, but it’s subjective. If you’d like to see what each breed looks like, check out Feathersite.comor get a copy of Storey’s Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breedsby Carol Ekarius. It’s an excellent book with outstanding photos.
Pick Your Chicks
Before you decide which chicken breeds to raise, you’ll want to decide which attributes are most important to you: egg production, meat production, temperament or other qualities. If you try a breed for a year or two and decide it isn’t quite what you were looking for, try another — or try two or three breeds each year to find out which one best suits your needs.
After you’ve selected a breed, use our Hatchery Finder to find mail-order sources near you, or our Directory of Hatcheries and Poultry Breeders to find a chicken hatchery or poultry breeders. Then, ask a few questions before you place your order. Breeders and hatcheries select for different traits. For example, some breeders may select Orpingtons for egg production; others, to meet a certain “type” described in a standard for shows. All birds of a certain breed won’t have identical characteristics. Some people who took our survey said Javas lay dark brown eggs; others said Javas lay tinted eggs. That doesn’t necessarily mean someone is wrong — certain flocks may have been bred to produce darker eggs than others.
MK Occupy Minnesota: Drugs & the DRE Program at Peavey Plaza
Published on May 2, 2012 by HongPong
Video documentation by local activists and independent media shows that police officers and county deputies from across Minnesota have been picking up young people near Peavey Plaza for a training program to recognize drug-impaired drivers. Multiple participants say officers gave them illicit drugs and provided other incentives to take the drugs. The Occupy movement, present at Peavey Plaza since April 7th, appears to be targeted as impaired people are dropped off at the Plaza, and others say they’ve been rewarded for offering to snitch on the movement.
~ Got a couple coins? Support our media expenses at http://roguemedia.org
Local independent media activists and members of Communities United Against Police Brutality began investigating police conduct around the Plaza after witnessing police dropping off impaired people at the plaza and hearing rumors that they were offering people drugs. We videotaped police conduct and interviewed participants, learning some very disturbing information about the DRE program.
Officers stated on record the DRE program, run by the Minnesota State Patrol, has no Institutional Review Board or independent oversight. They agreed no ambulances or EMTs were on site at the Richfield MnDOT facility near the airport where most subjects were taken. Multiple times, participants left Peavey Plaza sober, returned intoxicated, and said they’d been given free drugs by law enforcement. We documented on more than one occasion, someone being told they were sober by one officer, and then picked up by a different officer, and returning intoxicated.
Given the dangers of impaired driving, there is value in training law enforcement officers to distinguish between the effects of various drugs and several common medical conditions. However, we have captured video footage of instances in which DRE trainees recruited subjects who are not already impaired, and those participants say they were given drugs by the officers.
Although program documents indicate that participants must sign a waiver, https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/msp/forms-reports/Documents/SFSTSponsorResponsib… there was no indication from any of the participants interviewed that a waiver was offered or obtained. Further, video footage seems to validate the recollections of participants that no medical personnel or ambulance were on site during the observation and testing in Richfield. A DRE officer told one of our investigators that no Institutional Review Board assessment of the program has been made, a requirement of all experiments involving human subjects. Since it’s unethical to encourage people to take drugs–whether by giving them drugs directly or enticing them with food, cigarettes, or other rewards (which participants say they were given)–it is unlikely such a program would pass IRB review as it endangers the test subjects.
According to the WCCO article from May 2011, officer trainees in the past have worked with various non-profit organizations to recruit drug users. It would appear now that they are no longer relying solely on this tactic, instead recruiting users directly and, participants say, providing them with drugs. After the sessions, these individuals are then dropped off in public areas without supportive care, creating a public safety hazard. In an example at Peavey Plaza caught on film, an individual who said he’s been smoking courtesy of the police for an hour, crossed a line of Minneapolis police barricades, climbed to the top of a large sign and sat 15 feet above the sidewalk swinging his arms and legs in front of a police camera.
Our investigation points to particular efforts to target and recruit youth. Further, law enforcement officers have been taped recruiting people from the Peavey Plaza area of Nicollet Mall and have dropped off a number of impaired individuals at Peavey Plaza. In some instances, Minneapolis police squad cars were present while DRE trainees recruited people at Peavey Plaza. After receiving drugs, some subjects were asked to snitch on the Occupy movement or asked about various people and activities of Occupy, they said. Given efforts by the Minneapolis city council to pass an ordinance designed to restrict access to Peavey Plaza by the Occupy movement, the conduct of DRE trainees points to the possibility that they are working hand-in-glove with Minneapolis police to discredit and disrupt the Occupy movement.
“I think most people would be very surprised to have our tax dollars used to get people high,” states Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality. “These activities call into question the methods and motives of this DRE training.”
Occupy clashes mark May Day in Seattle, Oakland
License photo
NEW YORK, May 1 (UPI) — May Day protests in Seattle’s retail area turned violent Tuesday when an estimated 50 demonstrators broke windows and clashed with police, authorities said.
The demonstrators, wearing black and wielding poles, dispersed when police in riot gear confronted them, The Seattle Times reported.
Mayor Mike McGinn said at a news conference those demonstrators got rid of their black clothing and rejoined the crowd. He said he had issued an order banning items at the demonstrations that would be used as weapons, the newspaper said.Some Occupy protesters in Oakland came under tear gas attack Tuesday by police who arrested nine demonstrators, authorities said.
The Oakland rally was one of many that took place across the United States.
The nine taken into custody on suspicion of interfering with officers, failing to disperse and related counts were among more than 400 people who showed up at Oakland’s Frank Ogawa Plaza near City Hall, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Police said they used “small amounts of gas” three times against “small groups of people who were committing violent acts,” the newspaper said. Police said yellow paint was thrown at one officer, who was hit by a metal paint can and kicked in the ribs, the newspaper reported.
A television news van and a police van were vandalized, and there were other minor acts of vandalism and graffiti, authorities said.
Mostly, though, the rally was peaceful, the Times said. Among the protesters was Shaina Burnette, 31, who brought her 2-year-old son in a stroller decked with signs that read “Dear Corporate State, Can you please spare some clean air, water and food for my generation? Maybe a couple schools? Animal species? Trees? PLEASE…”
In Chicago, dozens of demonstrators blocked the entrance to a downtown Bank of America branch, police said.
More than two dozen city police officers were at the scene of the sit-in but no arrests had been made, WBBM-TV, Chicago, reported. About 15 of the protesters were ejected from the branch when they tried to go inside to open accounts, the TV station said.
Karrsen Brannon-Young participates in the Seattle-area Occupy movement almost full-time. He is photographed on Beacon Hill in front of graffiti (left by another person) that reflects the movement’s intended inclusiveness.
THERE’S A SMALL sign in the living-room window of Barbara Strindberg and Linnea Skoglund’s home in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood that tells everyone driving or walking by, “We are the 99 Percent.”
It’s a show of support for the Occupy movement that started with protests on Wall Street last year and branched out to cities across the country, including Seattle.
Strindberg and Skoglund, both 60, are the picture of working-class Seattle. Strindberg worked at an electrical-sign company as a graphic designer up until last year.
Skoglund is a retired drawbridge operator who worked for years on the span connecting the Roanoke neighborhood to the University District.
From the outside, they appear to live a comfortable life.
But once you walk through Strindberg and Skoglund’s front door and probe the reasons they’ve joined the Occupy movement in spirit, the full complexity of that “99 percent” idea comes into high relief.
Skoglund, who boasts of being one of the first female longshoremen in Seattle, has multiple sclerosis, and she increasingly requires help performing some tasks and moving around the house she and her partner purchased in 1984, shortly after they began their relationship.
Strindberg left her job a year ago, not to retire and rest easy but to care for Skoglund full time.
The couple lives primarily on Skoglund’s pension, Strindberg’s IRA and regular savings. Skoglund has a generous insurance plan, but it doesn’t cover some equipment she needs. They may have to pay for a wheelchair to go with a special lift they’ve spent their own money to install in the house — an expense that could total thousands of dollars they really can’t afford to spend.
“We were living quite nicely with both of us working,” Strindberg says. Now she’s worried about how long the savings will last, considering the monthly mortgage and insurance premiums of about $400 each per month. “I’m not sure how much longer we can do it.”
Skoglund says her mother, a Swedish immigrant who came through Ellis Island in the 1920s, taught her that “to be self-sustaining is best.”
Lately, though, it’s hard for her and her partner to live by that principle.
Given the kitchen-table concerns of Americans like them, Strindberg and Skoglund say they can’t believe politicians speak of cutting social programs and tax breaks for the middle class while preserving perks for the wealthy and well-connected.
It’s not just that regular folks and the powerful aren’t playing on an even field — it appears to this couple, at least, that those at the top are playing an entirely different game that enriches only themselves.
“More people are fed up than are not fed up” with the nation’s politicians in particular, Strindberg says. “They’re not governing — they’re arguing and fighting.”
Harvard law professor and ethicist Lawrence Lessig put it another way in a recent television appearance: “The most interesting political divide in America right now is between the inside and the outside. The inside is from Mars and the outside is from Earth.”
In his book “One Way Forward: The Outsider’s Guide to Fixing the Republic” he says “movements today are movements without leaders. They are movements of ideas mixed with passion.” This observation perfectly captures the Occupy campaign.
Organizers of the Occupy movement, many of whom are disillusioned with electoral politics, are not like their equally frustrated counterparts in the Tea Party, which had a significant impact in some 2010 congressional races. In fact, Occupy is not set up to morph into an actual party with clear leaders and a platform.
Its members are less interested in running candidates than in amplifying the public’s murmuring unease about the state of politics and the economy.
Signs of the “passion” Lessig talks about are visible everywhere: from the placard someone recently hung above Interstate 5 on Capitol Hill proclaiming “Corporations are not People,” to the cutout of a closed fist hung on a fence along Yesler Way in the Central District that beckons drivers to “Rise,” to the letter board on an industrial building across the street from yacht marinas on Lake Union that screams, “Wake up America . . . Everyone benefits when everyone benefits,” to the more personal message in Strindberg and Skoglund’s living-room window.
Who is the 99 percent? Consider these two answers:
Kitty!!The general rule for pulling off a bandage is to rip it right off in one instant. But what if it the adhesive melted all over the place or it was applied it to an extremely hairy leg? Ouchies always seem to ensue.
Penn State food researchers Lingyan Kong and Greg Ziegler want to get past the whole sticky ordeal of plastic-based bandages and make ones out of starch. A starch-based bandage could simply melt over time into nutritious glucose that’s absorbed though your skin.
Of course, this is not your basic supermarket potato starch or cornstarch. The scientists are developing their bandages from tiny, finely spun strings of a starch polymer made of amylose and amylopectin.
The starch polymer is first dissolved in a water-and-solvent solution–if the starch was broken down using water alone, it would have turned into a gel. The solution also helps the starch retains its repeating molecular structure.
From there, an electrospinning device spins the solution until it forms long, thread-like strands. The fibers can be woven into a number of things including bandages, paper, toilet paper, napkins, and other biodegradable materials.
Since starch is made up of organic compounds, it is readily biodegradable. The scientists say that starch polymers could be an abundant and eco-friendly replacement for products that typically use cellulose or petroleum-based polymers.
************************************************************************************************************ [In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes 'FAIR USE' of any such copyrighted material.]
Android malware being automatically distributed from hacked websites looks like it’s being used to mask online purchases, and could be part of a fraud gang’s new push into mobile, researchers said today.
Kitty!!The general rule for pulling off a bandage is to 
