Archive for August 2005
Gay Marriage
This came up in a different thread, and I have to rant.
The question was posed that Gay Marriage should wait “until people are (more) ready for it’.” When did we decide as a nation that civil rights should wait before they are granted to all people? Voting rights were not granted because men were “ready” to grant them to blacks or to women. They were granted because people either saw the moral issue of equal rights or felt the pressure of denying equal rights to all.
As long as we hold some rights beyond the scope of all people, then we as a nation hold that equal rights are a joke.
The fall out of this mind set affects many lives, in FLA gays were lost the right to foster child and to adopt, so many (thousands) of child were removed from long term care to be returned to sub-standard care. Given the harm done to the children’s lives one ask to wonder why it was done?
Oh yes- I forgot- gays are dangerous to children, they might “turn” one gay- I’ve lived with straight people for most of my life, parents, roommates, and such, and yet I’ve yet to be turned straight- I wonder how it’s supposed to work?
IS it because gays abuse children? No that would be a pedophile, and sorry to offend the Christians, but if you trust your child with a priest you’re a damn fool to worry about anyone else. Of course study upon study shows the greatest threat to children comes from straight, white, males, but lets not let the facts get in our way.
Nor to return to marriage should we allow the 1,500 + rights to allow to get in the way when we discuss “civil unions.” Beyond the fact that civil unions are state-by-state, so if you wish to move you’re likely to lose what rights are offered (doesn’t that sound strange? rights offered?) The ability to visit your partner in a hospital is a RIGHT of MARRIAGE. Being able to keep your home when the deed in is your partner’s name is a RIGHT of MARRIAGE.
IF your church is against marrying anyone…fine don’t. However your personal feelings or you’re churches reasons are not legal grounds to keep a citizen from full protection and full rights under the law in America.
The longer we as a nation waits to grant all people equal protection, the longer we fail to meet the promise set out in the preamble of the declaration of independence, the closer to a joke we do become.
US behind on tobacco law — it’s all about the money
Very interesting. How much does the government care about you and me? Big money is at stake:
PUBLIC HEALTH — BLOWING SMOKE: As the rest of the world deals with cigarette smoking as a public health crisis, the United States sits on the sidelines. Yesterday, China — the largest grower and the biggest consumer of tobacco in the world — ratified the international tobacco control treaty, leaving the United States as the only major tobacco-producing country not to ratify it. The treaty commits nations to “require large, graphic health warnings on cigarette packs; implement measures to protect non-smokers from secondhand smoke; increase the price of tobacco products; and regulate the content of tobacco products.” William V. Corr, the executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said ratification would “send a strong message to the rest of the world that we will not support these efforts and instead put protection of public health ahead of tobacco industry interests.”
Hundreds dead in Baghdad stampede
This is very sad…
Hundreds dead in Baghdad stampede
More than 600 people have been killed in a stampede of Shia pilgrims in northern Baghdad, Iraqi officials say.
The incident happened on a bridge over the Tigris River as about one million Shias marched to a shrine for an annual religious festival.
U.S. Muslims feel sidelined in terrorism fight
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050830/wl_ … muslims_dc
U.S. Muslims feel sidelined in terrorism fight
Fourth Consecutive Increase In Proverty Rate in US
This is just plain unacceptable. From my AOL news this morning:
Poverty Rate Rises to 12.7 Percent
Changes Marks Fourth Consecutive Increase
By JENNIFER C. KERR, AP
WASHINGTON (Aug. 30) — The nation’s poverty rate rose to 12.7 percent of the population last year, the fourth consecutive annual increase, the Census Bureau said Tuesday.
The percentage of people without health insurance did not change.
Overall, there were 37 million people living in poverty, up 1.1 million people from 2003.
Asians were the only ethnic group to show a decline in poverty _ from 11.8 percent in 2003 to 9.8 percent last year. The poverty rate among the elderly declined as well, from 10.2 percent in 2003 to 9.8 percent last year.
The last decline in overall poverty was in 2000, when 31.1 million people lived under the threshold _ 11.3 percent of the population.
The number of people without health insurance grew from 45 million to 45.8 million. At the same time, the number of people with health insurance coverage grew by 2 million last year.
Charles Nelson, an assistant division chief at the Census Bureau, said the percentage of uninsured remained steady because of an “increase in government coverage, notably Medicaid and the state children’s health insurance program, that offset a decline in employment-based coverage.”
The median household income, meanwhile, stood at $44,389, unchanged from 2003. Among racial and ethnic groups blacks had the lowest median income and Asians the highest. Median income refers to the point at which half of households earn more and half earn less.
Regionally, income declined only in the Midwest, down 2.8 percent to $44,657. The South was the poorest region and the Northeast and the West had the highest median incomes.
The increase in poverty came despite strong economic growth, which helped create 2.2 million jobs last year.
“I guess what happened last year was kind of similar to what happened in the early 1990s where you had a recession that was officially over and then you had several years after that of rising poverty,” Nelson said. “… These numbers do reflect changes between 2003 and 2004. They don’t reflect any improvements in the economy in 2005.”
Sheldon Danziger, co-director of the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan, said the poverty number is still much better than the 80s and early 90s.
“The good news is that poverty is a lot lower than it was in 1993, but we went through a hell of an economic boom,” Danziger said. “Nobody is predicting we’re going to go through another economic boom like that.”
The poverty threshold differs by the size and makeup of a household. For instance, a family of four with two children was considered living in poverty if income was $19,157 or less. For a family of two with no children, it was $12,649. For a person 65 and over living alone, it was 9,060.
The estimates on poverty, uninsured and income are based on supplements to the bureau’s Current Population Survey, and are conducted over three months, beginning in February, at about 100,000 households nationwide.
The only city with a million or more residents that exhibited a significant change in poverty level last year was New York City, which saw the rate increase from 19 percent to 20.3 percent.
from drudgereport:
Mayor: 80% of New Orleans under water. Both airports under water. 2 block wide levee break pouring water in, water still rising. Some parts under 20 feet of water. I-10 causeway utterly destroyed…
Katrina lightened up on the way in, but it still tore apart the area… 80 deaths so far and conditions at the shelters are very bad.
Cindy Sheehan finally met with the president
CRAWFORD, Texas - Cindy Sheehan hasn’t achieved a meeting with the president during her three-week war protest, but she met a man who plays one on TV. oops 
The cost of War
An eye opener!
The unseen war
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/ … /iraq.html
some people might find this tasteless, but this is what our arrogant terrorist government is doing to other countries.
Helicopter Parents
Has anyone here heard of this phenomenon - “helicopter parents.” As a university instructor I have, but this is the first news article I’ve seen about it. I’ve talked with instructors who have had to deal first hand with parents’ pressure, usually involving the student being caught cheating, etc. Personally I think this type of parental hovering is damaging as these young adults are not being allowed to grow up and take responsibility for themselves and their actions.
From my AOL news this morning (sorry links only work if you’re on AOL)
Colleges Try to Deal With Hovering Parents
By JUSTIN POPE, AP
HAMILTON, N.Y. (Aug. 28) - They’re called “helicopter parents,” for their habit of hovering - hyper-involved - over their children’s lives. Here at Colgate University, as elsewhere, they have become increasingly bold in recent years, telephoning administrators to complain about their children’s housing assignments, roommates and grades.
Recently, one parent demanded to know what Colgate planned to do about the sub-par plumbing her daughter encountered on a study-abroad trip to China.
“That’s just part of how this generation has been raised,” said Mark Thompson, head of Colgate’s counseling services. “You add a $40,000 price tag for a school like Colgate, and you have high expectations for what you get.”
For years, officials here responded to such calls by biting their lips and making an effort to keep parents happy.
But at freshman orientation here last week, parents heard a different message: Colgate is making educating students a higher priority than customer service. The liberal arts college of 2,750 students has concluded helicopter parenting has gotten out of hand, undermining the out-of-the-classroom lessons on problem-solving, seeking help and compromise that should be part of a college education.
Those lessons can’t be learned if the response to every difficulty is a call to mom and dad for help.
“We noticed what everybody else noticed. We have a generation of parents that are heavily involved in their students lives and it causes all sorts of problems,” said Dean of the College Adam Weinberg. College, he said, should be “a time when you go from living in someone else’s house to becoming a functioning, autonomous person.”
Colgate says it has ample resources to help students. But when parents call, unless there’s a safety risk, they’re usually told to encourage their children to seek out those resources themselves.
As for the China inquiry, Weinberg said, “we tried to explain in the 21st century, the ability to plop down in a foreign country and hit the ground running is a fundamental skill.”
Heightened parental involvement is one of the biggest changes on college campuses in the last decade, experts say. One major reason is the tight bond between Baby Boomer parents and their children.
“This is a group of parents who have been more involved in their children’s development since in utero on than any generation in American history,” said Helen E. Johnson, author of “Don’t Tell Me What To Do, Just Send Money,” a guide for college parents. “I think colleges have been far too responsive in inappropriate ways to this very savvy group of consumers.”
Another factor is cell phones. The era of the 10-minute weekly check-in from the pay phone in the hall has given way to nearly constant contact. Rob Sobelman, a Colgate sophomore, says when students walk out of a test, many dial home immediately to report how it went. One friend checks in with her mother every night before going to sleep, he said.
“Even 10 years ago, parents couldn’t even get hold of their children,” said Colgate President Rebecca Chopp. “If you reached them once a week it was a miracle.” Now she says she’s hearing from older alumni who are “worried their grandchildren won’t learn accountability and responsibility.”
Many schools have noticed the trend, but they’ve been reluctant to alienate parents. Some have tried to accommodate the change, opening parental liaison offices, for instance.
But some schools, while glad to see parents care, are expressing concern over the downside. During freshman orientation this year at Northeastern University in Boston, administrators urged parents not to call their children but to let them call home when they want to talk. At Washington University in St. Louis, upperclassmen perform skits about healthy transitioning for parents. The University of Vermont hires students as “parent bouncers” to delicately keep parents from interfering in, for instance, meetings with advisers.
At Colgate, parents used to receive a sheet listing administrators’ phone numbers. This year, they got a statement about Colgate’s philosophy of self-reliance - a message that was hammered home repeatedly in talks by administrators. Next year, the school may assign parents summer reading on the transition to college.
The approach will continue throughout the year, part of a larger emphasis at Colgate on “teachable moments” outside the classroom. A memo sent to departments ranging from residential life to counseling to public safety reminds employees: “We will not solve problems for students because it robs students of an opportunity to learn.”
Mike Herling, a 1979 graduate with sons in the sophomore and freshman classes, said he welcomes the approach.
“It’s the intercession on a regular basis they’re trying to discourage, and I think it’s important they do,” he said. “Kids are much more self-confident and develop better decision-making skills if they’re given the opportunity to make decisions for themselves.”
But Colgate acknowledges not all parents will be happy, and that there have already been unpleasant calls.
“We get quoted the price tag frequently,” said Dean of Student Affairs Jim Terhune. “But what you’re paying for is an education, not a room at the Sheraton, and sometimes that education is uncomfortable.”
Says Thompson, the counseling director and the parent of a college student himself: “I don’t want them to be happy today. I want them to be happy a decade from now.”
War Made Easy
War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death is the title of a book by Norman Solomon. He chronicles the last 40 years of our militarism and the agenda building involved in maintaining war efforts. I’m listening to him speak right now on CSPAN2-Book TV. It’s very interesting.
Solomon speaks harshly of the media and their role in wartime agenda building and he levels his criticisms at both Republican and Democratic presidents. Solomon lists 17 points around which the lies are spun. This points are the title for his chapters:
1. America Is a Fair and Noble Superpower.
2. Our Leaders Will Do Everything They Can to Avoid War.
3. Our Leaders Would Never Tell Us Outright Lies.
4. This Guy Is a Modern-Day Hitler.
5. This Is about Human Rights.
6. This Is Not at All about Oil or Corporate Profits.
7. They Are the Aggressors, Not Us.
8. If This War Is Wrong, Congress Will Stop It.
9. If This War Is Wrong, the Media Will Tell Us.
10. Media Coverage Brings War into Our Living Rooms.
11. Opposing the War Means Siding with the Enemy.
12. This Is a Necessary Battle in the War on Terrorism.
13. What the U.S. Government Needs Most Is Better PR.
14. The Pentagon Fights Wars as Humanely as Possible.
15. Our Soldiers Are Heroes, Theirs Are Inhuman.
16. America Needs the Resolve to Kick the “Vietnam Syndrome”.
17. Withdrawal Would Cripple U.S. Credibility.
Here is the website where you all can read more about the book. If you navigate around the site you can find links to online chapters in the book. I haven’t read the book yet, but I plan to do so right away.
Fox News Goes Too Far
Has anyone else seen this? I saw the couple in question being interviewed - their address given out erroneously by Fox News as the residence of a terrorist. I found this article in an on-line San Diego newspaper.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/stat … house.html
OC couple dealing with backlash after TV report about their home
ASSOCIATED PRESS
5:09 a.m. August 25, 2005
LA HABRA – An Orange County couple whose home was wrongly identified on a national cable broadcast as the place where a leader of a radical Islamic group lived have dealt with the repercussions.
Since Fox News reported who lived at the home in La Habra during an Aug. 7 show, Randy and Ronnell Vorick have had people shout profanities at them, take photos of their house and had someone spray-paint the word “terrist” on their property.
“I’m scared to go to work and leave my kids home. I call them every 30 minutes to make sure they’re OK,” Randy Vorick said.
John Loftus, a former federal prosecutor, gave out the address on the TV show, saying it was the home of Iyad Hilal, who allegedly was the U.S. leader of a group with ties to those responsible for the July 7 bombings in London.
Hilal, whom Loftus identified by name during the broadcast, moved out of the house about three years ago.
Satellite photos of the house and directions to the residence were posted online. Someone even removed the street sign where the Voricks live to provide some protection.
Police, who have regularly patrolled their house since the day after the broadcast, now have a squad car across the street.
Police Capt. John Rees said the department was “giving special attention to the family to make sure they’re safe,” but declined to elaborate.
The couple want a public apology and correction.
“John Loftus has been reprimanded for his careless error, and we sincerely apologize to the family,” said Fox spokeswoman Irena Brigante.
Loftus also apologized and told the Los Angeles Times last week that “mistakes happen.”
“I’m terribly sorry about that. I had no idea. That was the best information we had at the time,” he said.
The FBI has launched an inquiry into the activities of Hilal, a grocery store owner who is allegedly the U.S. leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has been banned in parts of Europe and the Middle East.
Hilal, 56, is apparently not suspected of any terrorist acts, but FBI terrorism investigators want to know more about his and the group’s activities.
Stretching the Definition of "Terrorism"
Poll: 90 percent support right to protest war
Poll: 90 percent support right to protest war
Survey also gauges public on Bush’s handling of Iraq policy
Updated: 9:17 a.m. ET Aug. 26, 2005
WASHINGTON - An overwhelming number of people say critics of the Iraq war should be free to voice their objections — a rare example of widespread agreement about a conflict that has divided the nation along partisan lines.
Nearly three weeks after a grieving California mother named Cindy Sheehan started her anti-war protest near President Bush’s Texas ranch, nine of 10 people surveyed in an AP-Ipsos poll say it’s OK for war opponents to publicly share their concerns about the conflict.
“Part of the Constitution is the First Amendment,” said Mike Malone, a salesman from Odessa, Fla. “We have the right to disagree with the government.”
America is a joke??
Wheres terrorist bush, the other Christan freaks and republican pundits who are calling the American Muslim community to speak out against terrorism??
How is it that Pat Robertson can issue death threats against foreign leaders and still be on the public airwaves? This is after a long track record of similar behavior such as praying for the deaths of Supreme Court justices on television & calling on God to replace them with people of Pat’s own political persuasion.
Why did Janet Jackson’s pasties invoke record fines and a political spectacle by the Justice Sunday types but not a word about Pat’s behavior?
We should all write to the FCC and demand that the 700 Club be pulled from the public airwaves and fined . The networks that carry the 700 Club should all have to pay steep fines just like CBS was nailed for Jackson’s pasties which was a far less serious offense and rather harmless.
The fact that Pat Robertson is a prominent political figure who ran for president as a republican makes what he did all the more dangerous for the USA. Why hasn’t his denomination defrocked him? Why hasn’t Bush immediately condemned these comments in the strongest possible terms & issued a statement that Pat Robinson’s views do not represent the United States? Why hasn’t Bush publicly apologized for any offense that the 700 Club’s broadcast may have caused to Venezuela & directed his FCC chief to take appropriate measures immediately?
Why hasn’t Pat Robinson been arrested for inciting terrorism?
We now have Pat bin-Robertson of the far right issuing Fatwas. CBN should have its tax-free status revoked due to its political affiliations and terrorist classification
I’m sure all of us know full well what would happen if a Muslim community leader in a foreign country were to get on TV in their country and suggest that assassinating bush would solve a whole lot of problems. What would happen folks? That’s right–that person would be labeled a terrorist. So why is it so difficult for our government to step up about Robertson?
How convenient that Robertson isn’t subject to ANY regulation when he’s broadcasting his hate speech on a cable network he owns. What a total jag off. If the law can’t stop him from inciting violence, well I expect the president to step up and condemn comments like this before it encourages violent acts.
Guess what? Chavez was DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED. Robertson’s so pissed off that the guy is a legitimately elected leader that his best solution is to have the guy killed. Unbelievable