The White House tried Monday to douse speculation that it might raise taxes on the middle class in violation of President Obama's campaign promise, just a day after two of his top economic advisers left the door open to such a move to rein in spiraling deficits.
Well, Lloyd Grove was right that the truce between MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Fox News' Bill O'Reilly wouldn't last long. Olbermann slammed O'Reilly tonight in his "World's Worst Persons" segment, giving him the silver medal.
However, the gold was awarded to Fox News head Rupert Murdoch for trying to silence O'Reilly out of the fear that the controversial host would hurt the bottom line of the cable news network's parent company. Olbermann raised his fist and exclaimed, "Solidarity, Brother Bill! Free yourself from your corporate shackles!"
Send us tips! Write us at tv@huffingtonpost.com if you see any newsworthy or notable TV moments. Read more about our media monitoring project here and click here to join the Media Monitors team.
This week marks the birthday of legendary director John Huston. In the eighty outsize years he actually had on this earth, he seems to have lived several lives and lifetimes. Those who remember him best for his occasional acting forays, most memorably as Noah Cross in "Chinatown", should also explore Huston's memorable work behind the camera.
The tall, gangly son of noted actor Walter Huston, John started as a screenwriter, and by his early twenties was already scripting such high-profile Warner Brothers' pictures as William Wyler's "Jezebel" (1938), starring Bette Davis. Then, on the set of Raoul Walsh's scorching "High Sierra" (1941) which he also penned, Huston would encounter Humphrey Bogart, a seasoned Warners supporting player who, with the younger man's help, would soon make a late bid for stardom.
By this point, John had earned a chance in the director's chair, and the feature he'd helm was a re-make of Dashiell Hammett's best-seller, "The Maltese Falcon". After Warners star George Raft foolishly turned down the starring role of private detective Sam Spade, Bogie was tapped with Huston's enthusiastic support. The film became an enormous success, with a cool, assured Bogie playing opposite Mary Astor's Brigid O'Shaughnessy, a shifty femme fatale who needs help finding a jewel-encrusted statue of a falcon. Some other nefarious types want the same item, including "The Fat Man" (Sydney Greenstreet, a distinguished sixty-year old British stage actor in his film debut). Spade is locked in tight since the case also resulted in his partner's murder. "Falcon" stands as the first definitive private eye film, with its assortment of unsavory characters vying for that big score in a treacherous urban landscape.
Henceforth Huston would direct (and sometimes write) most all his movies, achieving a career high with twin 1948 triumphs that once again featured Bogart: "The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre" and "Key Largo".
"Treasure" concerns three down-on-their luck Americans in Mexico (Bogart, Tim Holt and Walter Huston), who pool their meager resources and set off to search for gold. Once they locate it, they must decide how best to protect it, and before long the seeds of distrust take root. A savage human drama with liberal doses of humor, suspense and action, ultimately "Treasure" remains a stark, striking meditation on the nature of greed. Not only did John win a Best Director Oscar for this, but his father, Walter, also took home a statuette for his inspired performance.
In "Largo", as a huge tropical storm develops, WWII vet Frank McCloud (Bogart) visits a hotel in the titular Florida coastal town to pay his respects to Nora (Lauren Bacall), the widow of a deceased war buddy. Run by Nora's father-in-law James (Lionel Barrymore), the place is harboring some sinister urban types-namely, the infamous mobster Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson) who's slipped back into the country and quietly taken control of the establishment. But with sturdy Frank around, a showdown feels inevitable. Based on Maxwell Anderson's play, the tingling "Largo" features taut direction and indelible turns from stolid good guy Bogart and from Robinson, returning to tried-and-true gangster mode as the menacing Rocco. While the supporting cast is equally fine (especially Oscar-winner Claire Trevor as a drunken moll), it's Rocco's sadistic, savage power that occupies center stage.
Two years later, Huston scored again in what remains one of the finest noir films on record: "The Asphalt Jungle". A vivid chronicle of the planning, execution and aftermath of a daring jewel robbery, "Jungle" revolves around the suave Alonzo Emmerich (Louis Calhern), a respectable married businessman who in fact is both extremely crooked and in desperate need of cash. He masterminds a heist, drawing out the more skilled denizens of the city's criminal element. This riveting, tense mood piece is loaded with furtive underworld figures ably played by the likes of Sam Jaffe, James Whitmore and a young Sterling Hayden. And Calhern was never better. Also look for an early Marilyn Monroe appearance as Alonzo's child-like mistress.
Incredibly, Huston's best-known feature still hasn't enjoyed a proper domestic DVD release: "The African Queen" (1951), the story of a dishevelled, alcoholic skipper and female missionary thrown together by circumstance in the wilds of Africa circa World War One. Originally intended as a vehicle for Bette Davis years before, this first-time pairing of Bogart and Katharine Hepburn worked a charm, netting the aging actor his first and only Oscar. By all accounts, the location shoot was as fascinating as the movie itself. For instance, reportedly Hepburn was so peeved by Huston and Bogart's heavy drinking on-set that she restricted herself to water, causing a severe bout of dysentery, much to the delight of the boozers.
"Queen" was swiftly followed by the colorful, atmospheric "Moulin Rouge" (1952). In late nineteenth century Paris, frustrated by a childhood injury that deformed his legs, well-heeled painter Toulouse-Lautrec (Jose Ferrer) immerses himself in the bawdy world of Montmartre's lively show club, "Le Moulin Rouge", quaffing cognac and observing can-can acts while refining his art. One night, he meets Marie, a prostitute trying to ditch a policeman, and the two begin a tumultuous relationship. This engrossing biopic is drenched in vivid hues lifted from the artist's own palette. Shot mostly from the waist up, but acting on his knees, Ferrer is remarkable as Lautrec, whose infirmity cripples his self-esteem but also informs his flagrant art. Zsa Zsa Gabor, as entertainer Jane Avril, is captivating, while Georges Auric's now-classic score gives "Rouge" a melancholy cast. The flamboyant opening sequence ranks as one of Huston's finest set pieces.
By this point, it appeared that most everything John Huston touched would turn to cinematic gold. It may be the writer/director began to believe this himself, and got complacent. Certainly with success he could and did indulge in more real-life adventures; he was in fact a renowned sportsman and hunter.
Regardless, the ensuing twenty years would yield only a few good Huston outings ( notably 1957's war drama "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison"), and far too many releases unworthy of his talent ( "The Barbarian and The Geisha", "The Bible", "Reflections In A Golden Eye", "Sinful Davey", and "The Kremlin Letter", to name a few).
Thankfully, three films from the 1970s saw the director return to his old form: "Fat City" (1972), "The Man Who Would Be King" (1975), and "Wise Blood" (1979), the last just released on DVD by the Criterion Collection.
In "City", Huston presents a spare, bleak portrait of humanity on the skids in the world of small-town boxing. In Stockton, California, Tully (Stacy Keach), a once-promising fighter past his prime, is torn between subsisting as a migrant worker and giving the ring one last shot. As he works through this, he befriends Ernie (Jeff Bridges) a younger fighter who reminds him of his former hopeful self, and Oma (Susan Tyrrell), a sloppy drunk in whom Tully finds a kindred lost soul. Not easy or pleasant to watch, the film's impact sneaks up on you, as Huston's spot-on evocation of this down-and-out world eventually creeps under your skin. The acting bar is set high, with Keach believably tragic in the central role, and Tyrrell stealing the picture (and nabbing an Oscar nod) as the bitter, broken down Oma. Though by Hollywood standards a "small picture", "Fat City" still scores a knock-out.
Next, in "The Man Who Would Be King", adapted from a Rudyard Kipling tale, British sergeants Daniel Dravot (Sean Connery) and Peachy Carnehan (Michael Caine) are tired of soldiering in late nineteenth century Colonial India, and it seems their ungrateful country has tired of them too. They suddenly find themselves without prospects in a far-away land, and resolve to travel to remote Kafiristan in search of fabled treasure. Once there, the two make the natives believe Danny is a god, and at once, all manner of luxuries get bestowed on them. All too easily, it seems, their mission is accomplished, so as long as the populace never learns their king is actually mortal. Huston had wanted to do this project for years (originally with Gable and Bogart), but it's hard to think of better casting for the two rogue adventurers than Connery and Caine, whose real-life friendship helped spark a palpable on-screen chemistry. Here Huston crafts a grand combination of humor and suspense, culminating in a stunning climax.
In the brilliant, offbeat "Wise Blood", an ill-tempered war veteran (Brad Dourif), haunted by memories of his grandfather, a fire-and-brimstone revivalist (Huston), is consumed by his ambivalence for God and those who claim to speak in his name. Street evangelicals of every stripe are legion in his hometown, but he is most offended by the cynical sidewalk salesmanship of a blind prophet (Harry Dean Stanton) So he starts his own sect, claiming Jesus is a fraud, and that mankind doesn't need to be redeemed. Young Dourif anchors this film with a memorable turn playing a man at war with faith. He is helped, of course, by a terrific cast including Stanton and Ned Beatty as an oily con man. Dark, twisted, and perversely funny at times, "Wise Blood", based on a book by Flannery O'Connor, takes square aim at old-style belief but not at the underlying impulse that leads people to long for personal salvation.
Characteristically, John Huston never retired. For his often hilarious "Prizzi's Honor" (1985), with Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner portraying two competing mob assassins who fall in love , he'd become the first and only person to direct both a parent and a child to respective Oscars (daughter Angelica deservedly won for "Prizzi").
Fiercely proud of his Irish heritage, the director died of emphysema shortly after completing his reverential screen adaptation of James Joyce's "The Dead" (1987), another family affair featuring a script by son Tony, and starring Angelica.
It would serve as a fitting swan-song to an amazing life and career.
The son of actor Michael Douglas was arrested in New York for possessing a massive amount of crystal meth with intent to distribute it, law enforcement sources said this evening.
Cameron Douglas, 30, was busted on July 28 at the Gansevoort Hotel by a DEA task force, the sources said.
It's a truism that you can't know China unless you connect with the lifestyles of the people. A year ago, I put my money where my mouth is and bought a quintessentially Shanghai-style lane house in a traditional "lilong" (or "longtong") in the center of the city's old French Concession. For the uninitiated, "lilong" developments, perhaps the most distinctive facet of Shanghai's architectural heritage, are a fusion of Chinese courtyards and Western row houses, tall (three stories) and narrow (usually, four meters) residences, organized in a dense, grid-like pattern with east-west and north-south lanes. Most developments are tucked away from main thoroughfares, providing an intimate calm despite the urban hum just a few steps from one's abode. As Shanghai races towards 21st century modernity, many "lilong" have been demolished but several, particularly the structurally sound, have been maintained, sometimes refurbished. Most residents are not well off. Rents are heavily subsidized by the Community Party; on the open market, downtown real estate rivals Hong Kong prices.
Lilong Charm
Each unit houses three families, usually one per floor, so lilong life is, to say the least, intimate. Typical sights and sounds include: laundry hung everywhere, including (brightly-hued) underwear; staccato click-clacks of nightly mahjong competitions; pajama-clad men and women taking out the trash; hawkers roaming about advertising their wares, usually through a megaphone with chant-like monotony; makeshift appurtenances on from balconies to provide extra space for anything from air conditioners to scraggly plants; the yips and yaps of small dogs, often poodles, socializing with neighborhood pets; the twang of novice violinists; curious neighbors keeping tabs of everyone's comings and goings, bicycles and mopeds, and increasingly cars, in front of every door; occasional, albeit sharply-pitched, altercations, usually about "space infringement."
Yes, lilong life, certainly not for everyone, has charm. But, with an open eye and mind, one can plumb the scene for insights on the fundamental motivations of Chinese people, even the structure of Chinese society. Here are some of my observations.
Conflict Resolution: A Community Affair. First, conflict resolution is a community affair, usually managed by an informal power structure, only loosely aligned to municipal government organs. "Individual rights" rarely trump collective harmony. During renovation, I wanted to enclose my roof garden and turn it into a sunroom. I was visited by a low-level Luwan district representative who informed me that my plans had aroused the displeasure of neighbors who did not want the original structure "changed." To avoid any "unharmonious" discord (i.e., save face), the government agent refused to tell me: a) who had complained, b) what entity, if any, could hear an appeal and c) the specifics of what, precisely, constituted structural alteration. After I had established "friendly neighbor status," the entrance guard told me a few "suspicious" residents had banded together to send a message: as a foreigner, I was entitled to no special privilege and my "Western lifestyle" should not disrupt the unity of the neighborhood.
Trust Facilitation: A Survival Imperative. Second, trust facilitation requires active, skillful investment. Smiles and friendly chitchat are necessary-but-not-sufficient confidence builders. As construction started on my home, with buzz saws piercing the lane's daytime calm, I came bearing gifts: chrysanthemum tea, high-end (Starbucks!) moon cakes, and baijiu (strong alcohol consumed by men). To demonstrate "commitment to comradeship," I visited neighbors during office hours and wore business attire to "signal respect." My next door tenants claimed the noise pollution was dangerous to their health. Compensation negotiations were conducted by intermediaries. I ended up paying $250 to four separate families, the equivalent of one month's salary for the average Shanghainese. To avoid being branded a patsy, however, hopes of a bottomless "trust fund" were squelched. Bottom lines were clear. Three months after I arrived, I was asked to pay for "lost rental income," a demand I politely rejected.
It's no surprise trust is not taken for granted in China. My renovation experience with the construction company was a survival-of-the-fittest draw to the death. Owner and builder were locked in a dog-eat-dog battle of supremacy. Customer satisfaction is not an inherent good. Each party must protect his economic interests because commercial practices have been neither institutionalized nor standardized.
It all starts with the contract. Terms are intentionally vague; "deliverables" are defined but specifics such as materials, component pricing and timing are not delineated. The contractor is incentivized to increase his margins by skimping on quality. The owner must double- and triple-check the value of everything from waterproofing material and ventilation fans to drainage pipes and floor joints. Workers, mostly migrant workers from poor provinces, are poorly supervised so daily visits are required to verify adherence to specs. (Closet measurement was disregarded. Bathroom mosaics looked like Rorschach tests.) It is standard for clients to withhold up to 30% of payment for continued leverage over suppliers during the one-year guarantee period, lest repair requests fall on deaf ears. Threats of legal action elicit smirks due to the reality of ian neffective, often corrupt, judiciary.
Older vs. Younger Generations: A Big Gap. Third, the older generation, buffeted by relentless upheaval over the past fifty years, is fundamentally more "protective" than the new generation. In Shanghai, approximately 20% of citizens are over the age of 60. In my lane, the figure exceeds 50%. (Younger types forsake the intimacy of lane life for the modern conveniences of new apartments, even if located far from the city center.) I have been struck by the conservatism of my elder co-habitants. Unless I greet them directly (in Mandarin), direct eye contact is averted. Their "suspicions" regarding my "intentions" are thinly masked. On the day I moved in, one neighborhood godfather, a husky, loud-voiced 80-year-old, grilled me. Where's my wife? Why don't I live in an expat apartment building? What time do I leave for the office? When am I going to resell my property? (He, happily, has "endorsed" and my good intentions. Now I am called "Old Tang," a friendly variation of my Chinese surname.)
On the other hand, younger people, even of modest means, ask for tours of the house and greet me warmly whenever they see me. They are eager to practice English, exchange political views and invite me to tea. They want to know what DVDs are good and which television commercials our agency is producing. The new generation's broad world view and trenchant curiosity is not limited to the middle class. It penetrates all levels of society.
Joy in the Corners. Fourth, the Chinese, despite limited means and honed self-protection instincts, are happy. Chinese celebrate today. The flipside of an insecurity-based world view is appreciation of minutae. Small-scale twinkles are glorious. The con brio vigor of chess wars, muted by the buzz of gossip, is a cacophonous delight. New Year fireworks elicit howls of laughter. The morning bun hawker derives satisfaction from each sale. Old men take pride in their pet turtles. Every door is surrounded by plants, a sign of emotional investment in one's abode, no matter how modest. Weddings are a joyful community affair. Neighbors unfold lawn chairs to relax, often in pajamas, and watch the world go by.
This foreigner's experience in the Shanghai lanes has been more than satisfying. I am reminded - vividly, on a daily basis - that the Chinese, even those who have not benefited directly from the winds of economic reform, are noble. Their sense of community, not to mention an instinct of finding pleasure in the moment, suggests the masses will march, head held high, towards the future. Despite inevitable setbacks and unpredictable twists and turns, the Chinese will adapt and, finally, thrive.
Human Rights Watch is getting grief because of The Wall Street Journal's distorted reporting and actual untruths about an organization has bent over backwards to be both fair and accurate. It is a very sad thing when a professional journalism venture is unable to measure up to the standards of the group it criticises.
The issue is whether a delicate mission, aimed at achieving human rights advances in Saudi Arabia, was also a fund-raising effort to get money for Human Rights Watch to use in attacking pro-Israel groups.
Had this utterly outlandish charge been printed in a lowly blog somewhere, it would have died a deserved death. But WSJ has cache and so falsity gets a nice boost.
Here is the seminal critical piece that the Journal published on its web site on July 15:
Published on July 20, the author is Noah Pollack who is identified as a graduate student in international relations at Yale.
The heading of the stories bites off quite a chunk for persons who might wish to be seen as fair critics and for a publication which, at least in its news section, is generally beyond reproach.
It does not take much reading of either piece to see that the false charge is simply an I-told-you-so to which is attached a skewering of Human Rights Watch for its objective effort to deal with an intractible conflict.
The conflict between Israel and her neighbors has led to profound irrationality on both sides. Once things go as far as they have gone, we are in which-side-are-you-on? territory. And you are damned if you say I am for both sides and for a fair solution.
Well damn me. And damn Human Rights Watch. But be aware that words matter. And false words on both sides are in some respects as culpable as the actual abuses they help foment.
MELBOURNE, Australia — Police in Australia foiled terrorist plans for commando-style suicide attacks on at least one army base, arresting four men Tuesday with suspected links to a Somali Islamist group, senior officers said.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the plot was a "sober reminder" that Australia is still under threat from extremist groups enraged that the country sent troops to join the U.S.-led military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Some 400 officers from state and national security services took part in 19 pre-dawn raids on properties in Melbourne, Australia's second largest city, and arrested four men, all Australian citizens ranging in age from 22 to 26, police said.
Several others were being questioned Tuesday, police said.
Australian Federal Police Acting Commissioner Tony Negus said the raids followed a seven-month surveillance operation of a group of people allegedly linked to al-Shabaab, an al-Qaida-linked Somali extremist organization that has been fighting to overthrow Somalia's transitional government.
The cell's plans included sending members armed with automatic weapons into military bases in Australia, including Holsworthy Barracks on the outskirts of Sydney, Negus said.
"The men's intention was to actually go into the army barracks and to kill as many soldiers as they could before they themselves were killed," Negus said. "This operation has disrupted an alleged terrorist attack that could have claimed many lives."
The suspects were due to appear in court later Tuesday. Rudd said they would face charges under federal laws of planning or preparing a terrorist act.
"As the Australian government has said consistently, there is an enduring threat from terrorism at home here in Australia as well as overseas," Rudd told reporters in the northern city of Cairns. "This is a sober reminder that the threat of terrorism to Australia continues."
He said he had been advised that "events today do not at this time warrant any change to our national counterterrorism level, which remains at medium" – the same security warning rating that has been in place in Australia since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.
Australia has not suffered a terrorist attack on its home soil since the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. raised security threat levels worldwide. But dozens of Australians have died in terrorist attacks overseas, mostly in Indonesia including the 2002 bombings in Bali that targeted nightclubs frequented by Australians and other foreigners.
Homegrown terrorist plots have also been relatively few. Seven men were imprisoned in the past year for involvement in a nascent plot to attack major sporting events in Australia in what prosecutors said was the country's largest terrorist conspiracy.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Australia introduced tough new counterterrorism laws that grant police and security agencies strong surveillance and detention powers, and stiffen prison sentences for convicted terrorists. Australia does not have the death penalty.
Al-Shabaab, which conducts frequent attacks in Somalia, is seeking to overthrow Somalia's Western-backed government and establish an Islamic state. The group has claimed responsibility for several high-profile bombings and shootings in the Somali capital of Mogadishu targeting Ethiopian troops and Somali government officials. It has also killed journalists and international aid workers.
The U.S. State Department's annual terrorism report in April said al-Shabaab was providing a safe haven to al-Qaida "elements" wanted for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The two groups have long been suspected of working together, but they have not announced a formal alliance. Al-Qaida has operations in north Africa, Yemen and Iraq.
WASHINGTON — House Republicans are trying to rebound in the 2010 election from the hit they took last year's contests by targeting 70 districts held by Democrats.
Those targeted satisfy at least one of these requirements: They won less than 55 percent of the vote last year or they represent a district carried in 2008 by John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee.
The targeted House Democrats by district, according to the National Republican Campaign Committee:
Maybe I'm humoring myself. I feel like some of the bellyaching and cheerleading some of us have undertaken on behalf of Chicago art and artists is making a difference. Maybe it's the economy. Maybe it's pragmatism. For a while now I've been seeing more Chicago art in Chicago galleries. Additionally, there's a firestorm of new galleries popping up all over town. Healthy.
And now, I've just had the joyous pleasure of seeing the passionately and compassionately considered installation of Constellations at the Museum of Contemporary Art. I don't think it had an opening, but it's a significant exhibition one rather harsh (formerly?) critic, and friend of mine, described as a "watershed moment."
In Constellations a splendid number of accomplished Chicago artists have been blended into a powerful show that includes Chicagoans Abercrombie, Sigler, Otero, Klement, Marshall, Kimler, Krane-Bergman, Ledgerwood, and Grabner along with fabulous works by artists from Magritte to Reinhardt. (The artists are listed in the order I encountered them and the order in which the images are reproduced. Did anyone notice that 2/3 of those gifted and deserving artists are women?)
I'm impressed with this exhibit. It's wearing very well. It's a different kind of test than the 'merely' visual / visceral one that takes place when immersed in the show. (You can equate this to movies if you want.) This has to do with the 'meat' of the show - the stuff that sticks.
What we're seeing here is theoretically major. (Theoretical because it could just be an accident. I've not heard or read about any intent.) What sticks is that Chicago art holds its own against art of globally acknowledged stature. And by all means, don't take my word for it. This you should experience yourself.
All right. So this elevates the whole game to a higher plane. (Argh, the thought does occur to me that I'm way out on a limb here and that they didn't even know these artists were from Chicago or they had a hole to fill (twice) and the Chicagoan's' pieces were the right size.) Here were have a museum adding a whole new voice to an international discussion - The Local Voice.
Is this true? Is this the opening salvo in the War to End Cookie-Cutter Museums? At first, when I wrote about the Modern Wing, my gut reaction was that it was good that it had the quotidian art of the common world-class art museum. That way, I knew we belonged. But slowly, that made my stomach turn.
Let's make a leap of faith here. Let's assume that I'm right. The Museum of Contemporary Art, in a world shattering move, has bridged the huge gap between international cookie-cutter sameness and local, informed, 'provincial' but good, homegrown art.
I find this an intelligent move on the part of the MCA, expanding from the awareness that local art 'works' alongside global art to the realization that the dialog is enriched by the addition of The Local Voice to the International Chorus, be it harmoniously or as a counterpoint.
I think this is fabulous. I'm tired of how similar all contemporary and modern American museums are. Add the local voice to each . . . and every museum becomes different.
Those searching for a quick primer on the pay-to-play scandal starring former Governor Rod Blagojevich that continues to cripple the State of Illinois would be wise to pick up Elizabeth Brackett's Pay to Play. The 236-page tome paints a portrait of a corrupt city and state, where Rod Blagojevich began his improbable rise, and whose equally stunning fall is symptomatic of a rotten political culture. Brackett, a local and national television correspondent for PBS, begins building Blagojevich as a sympathetic figure, only to document his Shakespearean slide upon reaching the pinnacle of power in the Land of Lincoln.
The son of immigrant parents, Blagojevich's tendencies were cemented at a young age. Shunning details, he was at best a mediocre student, entering Northwestern through the backdoor and later attending law school at Pepperdine when his LSAT score prohibited entry at a more prestigious institution. Upon graduation, he first flunked the bar, then upon passage, found that he lacked clout in the city that invented the term. This changed instantly when he met 33rd Ward Alderman Dick Mell's daughter Patti at a political event. They were wed two years later, and Blagojevich's political climb began on the back of a chief patronage provider, his father-in-law.
First elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, Blagojevich felt lost as a backbencher in Springfield, and sought a promotion soon thereafter. His run for Congress seized on an opening provided by the imprisoned Dan Rostenkowski, who temporarily lent the seat to the Republican Michael Flanagan before Blagojevich moved it back to the Democratic column with a massive victory in 1996. His tenure in Washington was equally uninspiring, short of his role in freeing three hostages held by former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
Come 2002, he campaigned for governor as a reformer, pledging to clean up the mess left by his since-imprisoned predecessor George Ryan. He narrowly bested former Chicago Public Schools chief Paul Vallas in the primary, then strolled to a general election victory over former Attorney General Jim Ryan, a victim of an unfortunate last name.
Scandal beset Blagojevich from the beginning, as he elevated pinstripe patronage to a sport, trading campaign donations for lofty political appointments and lucrative state contracts. He governed by press conference, preferring to make populist appeals in the realms of health care and public transit over handholding in a legislature dominated by his own Democratic Party during his entire tenure in office.
He was able to stave off corruption charges to secure a second term, all along dreaming of a run for the White House. Blagojevich, who never lived in Springfield, abandoned even his Chicago office after 2006, interacting with aides throughout the day from home on his speakerphone. Embittered by Barack Obama's meteoric rise, Blagojevich resolved to share the spoils of his soon-to-be vacant Senate seat, resulting in his swift removal from office.
While this narrative has appeared in many forms elsewhere, its comprehensive, yet fluid presentation is useful for locals all-to-familiar with its specifics, and especially to those from afar previously unfamiliar with the pol with funny-sounding name, a pompadour and a penchant for Elvis. It presents President Obama as an occasional foil, the Chicago politician who navigated troubled waters and somehow emerged untainted. True, Obama confidants Axelrod, Emanuel, Jarrett, and Emil Jones share intimate ties with either Blagojevich, the Daley Machine, or both, and Tony Rezko was also an equal opportunity patron. Yet Obama's straight and narrow contrasts with Blagojevich's down and dirty, and it is no wonder that one man sits in the White House while the other awaits a federal home of a different variety.
Brackett writes that Blagojevich long admired Richard Nixon. The parallels between these two paranoid men are nothing short of eerie. Their up-from-the-bootstraps backgrounds yielded unimagined political success, yet their demons, namely a delusional desire for power, led to their untimely downfall. Nixon resigned when his impeachment was written on the wall. Blagojevich's impeachment trial began on his fallen hero's birthday. Nixon said his "mother was a saint" as he boarded Marine One on the White House lawn one final time. Blagojevich cited Kipling, then Tennyson, and faded with a pledge to continue his fight.
His trial is slated for next year, and the final chapter is far from written, but Brackett's timely work is worthy of a read by any citizen seeking to end pay-to-play, political corruption, and systemic problems bigger than Blagojevich.
For the last year and half, I've been taking a weekly acting class, a renewal of an old love after twenty-something years away. It's a long story. Anyway, an unanticipated benefit of my return to The Theatre is the pleasure of shlepping all over town to see classmates in shows. Not, I assumed, that the city held many more surprises for a lifelong resident and enthusiast such as myself. Silly, silly me. A couple of months ago, I went to see a friend in Mrs. Warren's Profession. The production was in Long Island City in Queens, a neighborhood I know well, or somehow thought I did. I've been there many times, not to mention my many visits to the Noguchi Museum and Socrates Sculpture Park, which sticklers might say are in Highbridge or even Ravenswood, but are so close to LIC they might as well be there. I once even had a birthday party at the late, lamented barbecue joint Stick to Your Ribs, which operated for years on quiet, semi-residential LIC street with a lovely slice of Manhattan skyline looming at one end. I know how to get there, of course. There are numerous ways, but I usually stay as close to the East River as I can, winding along the Navy Yard and the edges of Williamsburg and Greenpoint before joining McGuiness Boulevard, crossing Newtown Creek from Brooklyn to Queens via the Pulaski Bridge (not to be confused with the Pulaski Skyway, which is in New Jersey and briefly glimpsed in The Sopranos' credits) into Long Island City itself. Then a few jigs and jogs and I'm at the stage door. On this particular evening, I decided to take the unpredictable-except-it's-always- jammed Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. If it were not jammed, it would be much quicker than my customary route, and since it was a dreary, drizzly mid-week night, I thought it might be worth a try. Actually, it was my wife who suggested it. I mention this to make clear that what followed was certainly not my fault, but might possibly have been my wife's. Unsure of just how to get from the BQE to the Pulaski, I visited the theatre group's Website, which directed me to MapQuest or Yahoo, I forget which. I always use those online map guides with a shaker or three of salt, because, as everyone knows, the best route concocted by navigational software is not necessarily the best route. Still, no online guide has ever provided directions that were flat out wrong. Until now. According to my instructions, I was to get off the BQE at the Humboldt Avenue exit, turn left on Humboldt to McGuinness, right on McGuinness and ahead lies the Pulaski Bridge and over it, if not the Promised Land, at least Long Island City. Only it turns out that you can't turn left on Humboldt coming off the BQE, you can only go right, instead of which I went straight on whatever street I was on, then left again, figuring I could finesse my way to McGuinness and all would be well. Suddenly, in front of me loomed the BQE, which I'd just exited, and to my right an entrance ramp which would take me back onto the Expressway and over the Kosciuszko Bridge, not the Pulaski. If I took the Kosciuszko, I'd have to get off at the very first exit, wherever that may be, before the BQE gets all involved with the Long Island Expressway (LIE), which lay not far ahead. Time was growing short. I got on the Kosciuszko. Minutes later, I found myself in a post-Apocalyptic wasteland, empty streets cutting across fleet-sized parking lots on which stood serried ranks of Fedex trucks, city buses, UPS vans. I kept heading toward what I hoped was the river, because once I got there, or even within sight of it, I could figure out my way. Other possibilities might have opened up if I'd had a city map in the car, which I usually do, but not at the moment. On the brighter side, I was well equipped map-wise for getting hopelessly lost in upstate New York or New England. Undaunted, I thought I would manage by following the numbered avenues and the numbered streets, a strategy I had to modify to following one or the other, because following both at the same time is stressful unless, I suppose, you're from Queens. Still, I couldn't find the river or even head in the same direction for more than a few blocks. I'd hit a dead end, or the side of a cemetery (Calvary, I later found out), or the damned BQE again, which I could not figure out a way around. It dawned on me that I did not know where I was or even in which direction I was facing. Stopped at a BP station. Asked two employees and one patron for directions. Zip. The cashier pointed at someone, another employee and told me "Ask him." Not wanting to appear desperate, I lunged at the man in a charming sort of way and asked him if he could please, please, please, in the name of all that is holy, tell me how to get to the Pulaski Bridge. He smiled and patted me on the back and told me to head back along the wide road I'd just turned off and within three or four blocks I would find the Pulaski Bridge, from which I could find my way. He lied, or maybe it was his accent. Three or four blocks down I ran smack dab into the BQE, which we know by now crosses the Newtown Creek via the Kosciuszko Bridge, not the Pulaski. I had less than fifteen minutes to get to the theatre. I didn't like the odds. My vaunted (at least in the privacy of my home) sense of direction was failing me big time. The next period passed like a fever dream. I crossed the Kosciuszko at least twice, possibly four times, but got no closer to the Pulaski, nor any more enlightened on how I do so. I'd missed the curtain by now, just hoped to get there. It was still drizzling and misty. I saw another gas station a few blocks away, pulled up to the side of the front door. It was the same gas station. The drizzle turn to rain as an enormous trailer truck about to turn into the service station stopped courteously to allow me to pull out first. Instead I honked my horn, threw the car into park and ran toward the truck's cab waving my arms. The young man at the wheel gestured and threw the engine into gear. His gesture was hard to decipher, as anyone would assume Ukranian body language to be to a non-Ukranian. I thought he was either telling me to meet him in the service station lot or to drop dead. Turned out to be the former. He gave me directions which I followed as closely as possible, given what I could understand. Back over the Kosciuszko, off at Humboldt, winkle past the Kosciuszko entrance and over to where Humboldt should be. A dubious turn but then a gas station that I know is not the same one as before. McGuinness is, if not within site, within reach. Then I'm over it. A partial right, then a sort of dog-leg left and turn under an elevated subway track which obscures the street sign in shadow, but if I've figured my online directions correctly, if there is any logic or mercy to Queens' street system, if there's any justice in the world, it will be the street I need. And it was. Only I couldn't see any of the addresses. And even when I found the right building, I couldn't find the entrance, because I didn't know that the entrance was through an unmarked loading dock. Then I couldn't find the theatre. I just tried every door in the hall until I opened one and heard Shavian dialogue sparkling in the distance. A man in a ticket booth smiled and whispered to me, "Did you have trouble finding us, Mr. Gingold?" I smiled back, thinly, and was led to my seat at the end of the front row, well away from the bulk of the eleven-strong audience. Also unlike them, I was as well lit as the actors, including my pal, who was in the middle of his big scene when I came in and whose eyes I tried desperately to avoid while settling as quietly as possible into my seat, which I managed just in time for intermission. The following Sunday I journeyed up to Columbia to audition for a student film. Because of weekend schedule changes, the 2 and 3 trains made all local stops to 96th St, lulling me into thinking I didn't need to change to the local at 96th. Wrong. I emerged on at 116th St. and Malcolm X Boulevard; I needed to be at 116th St. and Broadway. Did you know that there are four long blocks and a park (Morningside) before you get anywhere near 116th St. and Broadway? I didn't. And did you know that between the western edge of Morningside Park and the rest of the West side is a staircase so tall that you should really check with your doctor before attempting to scale it? And then you're only at Morningside Drive? Who says the arts aren't broadening?
In the beginning, an Indiana atheist group bought ad space on the sides of 25 CTA buses to promote the message that it was man who created God.
Now, two months later, a South Side church is running ads of its own on the same number of buses but with a competing message: "God is still God whether you believe it or not...just believe."
New Life pastor John Hannahtold the Sun-Times the message was selected from a contest among the church's 7,000 members.
"We wanted to represent our city and the Christian community," Hannah said. "I felt like the atheists, to come in and say there probably isn't a God, that's an attack against our faith. We wanted to be loud just as they were loud."
During an appearance on Face the Nation this past Sunday, Lawrence Summers, economic advisor to President Obama, remarked "Six months ago, when the president took office, we were talking about whether recession would become depression...Today we are talking about when recession is going to end." These comments only make sense if taken in the most literal sense. Summers is right. The administration is certainly speaking about the economy differently than it was six months ago. This statement, unfortunately, reveals more about what the government is saying, rather than what the economy is doing.
Although it may be encouraging for some that the Summers and others are discussing when the recession will end, for most Americans the recession is still unmistakably present. The economy has not yet begun, in any real way, to reverse the damage that the recession has done, and continues to do. Jobs have not come back. The collapse of the housing bubble is still wreaking new havoc. There is still a shortage of cash in the economy making it hard for businesses and individuals to borrow money.
The recession has not, Summers' comments notwithstanding, gone away or begun to turn around, but something has changed. The recession is not new anymore. The sharp downturn in the economy last fall created something of a governmental adrenaline rush as people on both sides of the aisles rushed to assign blame for the downturn and craft strategies for recovery. There was talk of the need for dramatic government action, the potential for widespread political instability around the world due to the recession, even the end of capitalism. Gradually this talk, although not the underlying conditions, slowed down. The major government response to the recession turned out to be the economic stimulus package which President Obama passed in the early days of his presidency. This stimulus package was an impressive legislative success for the new president, but it has not exactly succeeded in jump starting the economy as some, probably unrealistically, thought it might have.
Therefore, as Summers might put it, we are not talking about the recession because there is not really all that much new to say about it. On the human level we all either experience or hear the stories about people losing their jobs, or being unable to find work. These stories have not receded at all in recent months. Similar stories about retirement funds and investment portfolios shrinking and friends who depending on their age, either have to postpone retirement or move back in with their parents have become the normalcy for most Americans.
It is good that the initial shock of the recession has worn off and that, while there may be a long recession, we now may have some grasp of how bad it will get. However, as the newness of the recession wore off, an opportunity was lost. The events of last fall could have, and probably should have, forced us to ask some big picture questions about our economic arrangements-even bigger than how we were going to inject capital into the system and whether or not we should cap Wall Street bonuses. The recession was an opportunity to examine whether, rather than find ways to get consumers spending again, it might make sense to create an economy that did not need to be driven by irrational and environmentally damaging consumer behavior. We might have taken a more serious look at how the financial sector has gotten so far from its original function and question what the real value of our current finance sector is.
The question of what the next American economy would look like was at least as significant as how to get out of the crisis itself. None of these issues were ever sufficiently addressed because the immediacy of the situation was too great. Instead efforts were made to limit the damage and to try to get the country back to its pre-recession economic state. Thus, while there were calls for greater regulation of the financial sector and a few high profile criminals like Bernie Madoff were shamed and imprisoned, it is likely that within a few years the financial system will not look radically different than in its pre-recession incarnation.
The efforts made by the government, while helpful were not able to yank the economy out of recession. The stimulus wasn't big enough; the money could not get spent fast enough; and the recession was too severe. Allowing that urgency to dominate policy making was politically unavoidable, but by failing to think clearly about the economic future, and what a sound recovery might look like, an opportunity to lay the groundwork for, or at least explore the possibility of, a more productive, responsible and less cyclical economy was missed.
LAS VEGAS — A trio of Nevada Supreme Court justices focused Monday on whether O.J. Simpson and a former golfing buddy received a fair trial in a gunpoint hotel room heist and whether the case was so unique that the two men should be freed from prison while their appeals are considered.
"This is post-conviction. That's what concerns me," Justice Michael Cherry declared during rare oral arguments by lawyers about whether the former football star and co-defendant Clarence "C.J." Stewart should be allowed to post bond while their appeals are pending.
Cherry, the chairman of the three-judge panel considering the bond request, didn't say how long he and justices Mark Gibbons and Nancy Saitta might take to decide.
It appeared unlikely a ruling would come before an Aug. 12 deadline for Clark County District Attorney David Roger to file a written answer to Simpson's appeal.
Roger, who prosecuted Simpson and Stewart, argued Monday the men got a fair trial, a Nevada jury had spoken, and the pair should continue to serve their sentences for kidnapping and armed robbery.
It is unusual for the Nevada Supreme Court, the state's only appeals court, to hear oral arguments about bond, and it would be even more unusual for Simpson or Stewart to be released. The last such high-profile appellant to get such a chance in Nevada skipped town after posting $100,000 in 1978.
The justices are weighing whether Simpson or Stewart might flee, whether they pose a danger to the community, and if they have a good chance of winning their appeals.
The question of their possible success was the key point of the hearing, and inquiries from the justices shed light on the issues they're considering.
The justices asked each of the defense attorneys what was different about this case to warrant bail on convictions that carried mandatory prison time with no option of probation.
"I've been waiting for you to use the word severance!" Cherry declared, interrupting Stewart lawyer Brent Bryson when he said his client "should have never been tried with Mr. Simpson."
Bryson asked the court to consider the many times before and during trial when he asked Clark County District Court Judge Jackie Glass to separate Stewart's trial from Simpson's.
"Her response was, 'Severance is dead,'" Bryson said.
"I was waiting for you to come up to the Supreme Court with that," said Cherry, who wrote a benchmark high court opinion several years ago on the issue.
Bryson, his voice rising, recalled Glass' responses as, "'Denied.' 'Sit down.' 'We're going forward,'" and "'You're not going to get a separate trial.'" He told the court he believed he couldn't divert his efforts to defend Stewart during trial to continue to fight Glass' rulings.
"In the history of jurisprudence who else could we possibly imagine would be more prejudicial?" Bryson asked rhetorically about his client being tried with Simpson. "Charlie Manson, maybe? Dahmer? Hitler? Satan? Who else sitting next to someone they have on trial? It was extremely prejudicial."
Simpson, 62, was acquitted on murder charges in the 1994 slaying of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, in Los Angeles. After the sensational criminal trial he was found liable for the deaths in civil court.
Simpson is serving nine to 33 years for kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon in the September 2007 confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers in a Las Vegas casino hotel room. Stewart, 55, is serving 7 1/2 to 27 years.
Neither was in the courtroom in Las Vegas on Monday while their attorneys argued neither had received a fair trial.
Simpson lawyer Yale Galanter insisted that Simpson would abide by any conditions the court set for his release, and that the NFL hall-of-famer, actor and celebrity criminal defendant couldn't possibly disappear.
Galanter also spoke of Simpson's uniqueness in "American jurisprudence."
"He is probably the one individual on the planet who's got no place to go and no place to hide," Galanter said.
Galanter, who told the court he had been making arrangements for Simpson to live in Nevada and seek state residency, said afterward that he was optimistic the court would free Simpson pending his appeal.
"The trial, in all due respect to Judge Glass, was erroneous and just a sham," Galanter said. "If ever there's someone who deserves release it's O.J. Simpson and C.J. Stewart."
GOJRA, Pakistan (AP)- Almas Hameed grabbed his 7-year-old daughter and stumbled out of their smoke-filled home as she pleaded in vain to bring her pet parrots. His wife, father and two other children did not survive.
Outside, hundreds of enraged Muslims called the victims "dogs" as they fired guns and burned house after house in the Christian neighborhood of this eastern Pakistani city. The weekend rampage left eight Christians dead. All but one were relatives of Hameed.
"We always live in fear," said Hameed, 50. "I wonder if I will see a time in this country when I can live like an equal citizen."
The attack, which Pakistani officials said was incited by a radical Islamist group, followed rumors that some Christians had desecrated a Quran -- an act regarded as sacrilege by Muslims. The violence drew condemnation Monday from the prime minister and the pope, a chilling reminder of how religious extremism has left minority religious groups in this country increasingly vulnerable.
On Monday, paramilitary troops patrolled near the dozens of targeted houses, with their blackened walls, charred furniture, and twisted ceiling fans. Six people died in the fires, two by gunshots.
Authorities urged calm and promised that local police would be investigated for their inability to stop the violence, which spiraled even after an initial probe debunked the rumor that a Quran had been defiled.
"It was like hell. Nobody was coming to help us," said Atique Masih, a 23-year-old Christian who was shot in his right leg.
Christian schools across the country closed for three days starting Monday.
"We are closing the schools to show our anger and concern," Bishop Sadiq Daniel told The Associated Press, emphasizing the move was a peaceful tactic. "We want the government to bring all perpetrators of the crime to justice."
In a telegram, Pope Benedict XVI said he was "deeply grieved" to hear of the "senseless attack."
Benedict sent his condolences to families of the victims and called on the Christians "not to be deterred in their efforts to help build a society which, with a profound sense of trust in religious and human values, is marked by mutual respect among all its members."
Christians -- Protestants and Catholics among them -- make up less than 5 percent of Muslim-majority Pakistan's 175 million people, according to the CIA World Factbook. They generally live in peace with their Muslim neighbors.
Extremists, however, have made Christians and other minority religious groups a target. Earlier this summer in the Kasur area, for instance, Muslims set fire to dozens of Christian homes, according to local news accounts.
The anti-minority phenomenon seems to be getting worse as Taliban militancy has gained strength.
In March, the Taliban issued an ultimatum to the leaders of more than 25 Sikh families in a tribal region near the Afghan border: Convert to Islam and join the jihad or pay 5 billion rupees -- roughly $62 million -- for protection.
Gojra, a small city about 220 miles southwest of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, lies in a region dotted with hard-line Islamist schools.
The anti-Christian riots began Thursday and reached their peak Saturday, when Hameed's home was torched.
Officials said the carnage was spearheaded by members of the banned Sunni Muslim extremist group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, which more frequently targets minority Shiite Muslims.
Its offshoot, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, is linked to the Taliban and al-Qaida, and was believed involved in the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and two failed assassination attempts against former President Pervez Musharraf.
Minority Rights Group International, a watchdog organization, ranked Pakistan last year as the world's top country for major increases in threats to minorities from 2007 -- along with Sri Lanka, which was engaged in a civil war. The group lists Pakistan as seventh on the list of 10 most dangerous countries for minorities, after Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar and Congo.
Christians and other minority religious groups in Pakistan are especially vulnerable to discriminatory laws, including an edict against blasphemy that carries the death penalty for derogatory remarks or any other action against Islam, the Quran or the Prophet Muhammad.
Anyone can make an accusation under the law, and it is often used to settle personal scores and rivalries.
In Gojra, Hafiz Mohammad Shahbaz, a prayer leader at a mosque, said police briefly detained a Christian in the Quran defilement case but later set him free. That caused concern among the Muslim community, he said.
Shahbaz alleged that a peaceful rally of Muslims to protest the incident was passing by the Christian neighborhood Saturday when the Christians fired shots at its participants. "That triggered the violence," he said, calling the killing that ensued un-Islamic.
Hameed, however, said mosque prayer leaders on Saturday stirred the pot by calling for every Christian to be killed. Christians repeatedly sought police help but to no avail, he said.
Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti said Monday that the government would rebuild the burned homes and offer financial assistance to victims. Bhatti criticized the police's slow response and promised they would be held accountable. He also said a weeklong celebration of minority rights planned for later this month was canceled.
Many local residents said they were in shock over the violence.
"We really regret these killings. I can assure that no one from this city could ever think of killing non-Muslims," said Mohammad Naseer, a grocer who has lived in Gojra for 47 years and insisted the attackers must have been outsiders.
Hameed said his daughter, Aashi, was being treated for burns in the hospital.
In the courtyard of their gutted home lay two wooden-made bird cages.
The parrots were gone.
___
Dogar reported from Gojra, and Shahzad from Islamabad. Associated Press writer Ashraf Khan also contributed to this report from Karachi.
The world economy cannot sustain any further rise in the oil price, the International Energy Agency's chief economist warned as oil prices rose toward a record high for the year.
Fatih Birol told the Financial Times that prices higher than about $70 could dampen a world economic recovery.
Whether at the beginning of the decade or its end, the loudmouths have the same goal: hiding behind a grotesque version of free speech and free assembly in order to undermine civil discourse and shut down the institutions of democracy.
Here's the hard question: Are they doing anything different from what the left did in the '60s and '70s to stop the Vietnam War?
Back then, more than a few public events were thrown into confusion by agile and vocal protesters, and more than a handful of universities had sand thrown in their gears by occupiers, demonstrators and masters of agitprop.
What's the difference between what happened then, and what's happening now?
The easy answer, which also happens to be true, is that the effort to end American involvement in Vietnam was largely a moral and just deployment of civil disobedience aimed at fighting an immoral and unjust war, while today's right wingers attempting to hijack town halls are largely nutjobs who also believe that Obama is the Kenyan equivalent of the Manchurian Candidate.
But the harder question requires moving one notch upward, thinking at a higher level of abstraction. The same rule ought to apply, whether you agree or disagree with the cause being advanced. From 2001 to 2008, if grass roots Democrats had been as strategically smart, as well organized and well-funded, and as ruthless as Karl Rove's army, what would we have said about efforts to pierce the Bush bubble? "Way to go!" is one phrase that comes to mind.
I'm not talking about what the mainstream media response would have been. As usual, the right would have played the press like a piccolo, and the reporting about muscular liberal activism during the W years would likely have been as naïve and credulous as the way it treated the Swift Boaters. I'm talking instead about the principle involved here -- not how events get deformed and misframed by the media, but how to distinguish protest then from protest now.
Do you have any ideas? Here's my first stab at it: When public debate was shut down by people on my side in the '60s and '70s, I didn't like it then, either.
An 86-year-old woman was placed in custody Sunday afternoon in what Chicago police said was her 61st arrest for shoplifting after she allegedly took several items including anti-wrinkle cream from a North Side Dominick's Finer Foods.
Episcopal churches in California and Minnesota moved toward appointing gay bishops over the weekend, less than a month after the denomination lifted a self-imposed freeze on promoting openly gay clergy into the top ranks of the church.
I always wanted a chance to help plan a perfect school, and now I'm getting my chance. Well, maybe it won't be perfect -- public schools in New York City rarely are. I'm optimistic that this new high school, due to open in Fall 2010, will help fill a pent-up demand for better options on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
City Councilwoman Gale Brewer and Tom Allon, publisher of the West Side Spirit, asked me to be part of a multiracial committee of parents and other concerned citizens who are meeting this summer to brainstorm ideas for a new school to be housed in Brandeis High School, which is closing because of poor performance. The Department of Education has already announced plans to house three new small schools in the building starting this September, including one with a "green" theme and one focused on international studies. The school we are planning would be a fourth.
A number of parents on the committee are yearning for a school like Beacon High School, where the academics are challenging but not overwhelming. Tom, who taught at Stuyvesant High School with Frank McCourt, wants the new school to focus on writing and journalism and to be named after McCourt, the bestselling author of Angela's Ashes, who died this month. I've been pressing for a school with an enrollment of eight hundred to a thousand students. That's small enough to give students a sense of community but large enough to offer art, drama, several foreign languages, Advanced Placement, special education and services for English Language Learners that are often missing at the new small schools that have been created in recent years. (See a new report on mid-size schools. Disclosure: I am one of the authors.) I think we need a school that serves a range of kids -- not just the tippy-top students, and not just those who are struggling.
The Department of Education is interviewing prospective "project directors" for the school this summer. The "project director" will be hired part-time in the fall and, if all goes as planned, will likely be assigned as principal early in 2010. (For further information contact Tom Allon at tallon@manhattanmedia.com.)
The Department of Education hasn't signed off on anything yet, and the new school, if it is approved, won't be announced officially before next February. There are lots of knotty questions to be resolved. How will students be admitted? Will students on the West Side get a preference, or will it be open to students citywide, as Brandeis has been? Can the schools in the building work together in a way that allows them all to be successful? The planning meetings are a promising start.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Even if the world is successful in cutting carbon emissions in the future, California needs to start preparing for rising sea levels, hotter weather and other effects of climate change, a new state report recommends.
It encourages local communities to rethink future development in low-lying coastal areas, reinforce levees that protect flood-prone areas and conserve already strapped water supplies.
"We still have to adapt, no matter what we do, because of the nature of the greenhouse gases," said Tony Brunello, deputy secretary for climate change and energy at the California Natural Resources Agency, who helped prepare the report. "Those gases are still going to be in the atmosphere for the next 100 years."
The draft report to be released Monday by the California Natural Resources Agency provides the state's first comprehensive plan to work with local governments, universities and residents to deal with a changing climate. A final plan is expected to be released in the fall after the public weighs in.
The report was compiled after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger directed agencies in November to devise a state climate strategy. It comes three years after the Republican governor signed California's landmark global warming law requiring the state to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.
Most countries have focused on cutting greenhouse gases in the future, but researchers say those efforts will take decades to have an effect while the planet continues to warm. States have only recently begun to look at what steps they must take to minimize the damage expected from sea level rise, storm surges, droughts and water shortages because of the climate changes.
Over the last century in California, the sea level has risen by 7 inches, average temperatures have increased, spring snowmelt occurs earlier in the year, and there are hotter days and fewer cold nights.
The report warns that rising temperatures over the next few decades will lead to more heat waves, wildfires, droughts and floods.
"We have to deal with those unavoidable impacts," said Suzanne Moser, a research associate at the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California Santa Cruz. "We can't pretend they are not going to happen and we have to prepare for that."
To minimize the potential damage from climate change, the report recommends that cities and counties offer incentives to encourage property owners in high-risk areas to relocate and limit future development in places that might be affected by flooding, coastal erosion and sea level rise. State agencies also should not plan, permit, develop or build any structure that might require protection in the future.
The report suggests the state partner with local governments and private landowners to create large reserves that protect wildlife threatened by warmer weather. Similarly, wetlands and fish corridors should be established to protect salmon and other fragile fish.
The report says farmers should be encouraged to be more efficient when watering their crops, and investments should be made to improve crop resistance to hotter temperatures.
Everyone has heard of you -- the blogger who set out in 2002 to cook every recipe in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," which was turned into a book and then released as a movie. On your blog you assert that you are returning from the red carpet opening in Los Angeles to Queens to reclaim your pre-Julia lack of stature. I have bad news. Obscurity is like virginity: they're irreversible...even in Long Island City, where there are not all that many celebrities to share the limelight with you. Also, I hate to remind you that Long Island City is closer to the Hamptons than the upper East Side.
Trust me, I'm a certified nobody. I was prescient and the good sense not to come up with the Sybil/Mina Project, dedicated to my deceased mother and her incomparable borcht, brisket, schav, sour pickle and blintzes recipes, thereby retaining the rights to perpetuity of my nobodyness. Unlike you, I was prescient and expected that Meryl Streep would be cast as Mina Adelman (a role she could have played with her hands tied behind her back even while rolling dough to outdo her sister-in-law, Clara, in their lifelong knish showdown), assuring me that the blog/book would become a major motion picture.
You can return to Queens, but you'll be bringing amenities from your corner suite at the Four Seasons Hotel. We nobodys stay at the Out of Season Hotel, and our travel arrangements aren't booked by a publishing house or PR firm. We use Priceline. And we don't have Q & A's at Borders. The only question asked of us in a book store is, "Do you have another credit card? This one isn't working."
The reality, Julie, is the ship has sailed. You can't go back to being a nobody...certainly not while the movie is in theaters and you're awaiting the release of your next book, which could be double jeopardy as you have the added risk that Meryl Streep, with an almost unparralled range of talent) will be cast as the butcher you apprenticed for and you'll have yet another huge box office hit to interfere with the normal life you crave.
In the early seventies, when many of my peers were marching against the war and for civil rights, I was collecting recipes in a gingham box and attempting to Master the Art of French Cooking on a second hand, three burner stove not much bigger than the black and white television sets that first brought Julia Child into homes across America.
Julia Child was my Betty Freidan, the wisecracking, groundbreaking grande dame responsible for my culinary awakening. Singlehandedly, Julia raised my kitchen consciousness. Bird's Eye begone. Duncan Hines be damned. The days of the obligatory chop were numbered.
"Keep your knives sharp," Julia concluded in her introduction, "And above all, have a good time." Which in my case might better have read, "Replace that fleur-de-lis with a caduceus. And above all, do no harm," as more than one charred capon could attest.
Like many young women of that era, I assumed cooking was a woman's domain. My mother had done it. Her mother had done it. And so, de facto, I would do it, too. And under Julia's tutelage I did, for two years, until the relationship ended and I headed for New York to finish school and became a working actress. As my career blossomed, however, my kitchen skills atrophied. Auditions took precedence over all domestic duties, that is, until the day I married a non-cooking television producer and by process of elimination became the primary cook again. What once had been a pleasure, though, soon became a chore--until the day a miracle of culinary miracles came to pass: my husband was slated to produce a cooking show with none other than my Julia Child. Yes! My Julia Child. Hallelujah. Praise Bacchus. The guy would be getting on-the-job-training from the Queen Mom of cooking, plus, once he started to hang out with her, I would get to hang out with her too.
I first met Julia at the original Spago on Sunset Boulevard as Barbara Lazaroff hovered around us like a latter day Gloria Swanson. Dazzling in her intergalactic make-up, the woman you can no longer call Mrs. Puck directed the wait-staff Cleopatrically, with the flick of a lacquered fingernail, as her then-husband Wolfgang, in a starched chef's jacket and clogs, treated our party of eight to his trademark pizzas and California salads.
Although we were seated at opposite ends of the table, it was fun to watch Julia watch our contrapuntal hosts in action and dig into their signature dishes with gusto. At the end of the evening she met every sous chef, prep cook, waiter and busboy, posing for pictures and signing cookbooks, menus, and a dozen greasy aprons with good cheer. The essence of Julia's grass roots appeal was marked by her curiosity, generosity, good humor, and a complete lack of pretension. Julia always took her celebrity status with a shaker of salt.
The nineties -- era of cockadoodledoo cookery -- produced a gaggle of newly hatched restaurant chefs who, in an attempt to impress the visiting icon, often went out on a limb with oddly paired ingredients and elaborate presentations. Knowing what Julia thought of their fare made me want to sneak behind the scenes and say, Hey, she'd really prefer roast chicken with garlic mashed potatoes or corned beef hash and a perfectly poached egg. The quickest route to Julia's heart was real food. Which was not to say she didn't swoon, along with the rest of us over Thomas Keller's cuisine, per se. Real food, Ã la Julia Child, could be innovative and unprecedented, as long as it tasted good, was recognizable, and didn't stint on butter or salt.
Keeping it simple was Julia's rule of thumb. Take my initial visit to her house in Cambridge and our first but certainly not last happy hour where she served:
Julia's Reverse Martinis
Fill a glass with ice and dry vermouth. Float a little gin over the top.
(Noilly Prat and Gordons. Lemon peel or olives, optional.)
and
Julia's Hors D'oeuvres
Fill a bowl with Goldfish. (Pepperidge Farm -- original flavor.)
Julia and Paul Child moved into their cavernous clapboard house in Cambridge in 1956, five years prior to the publication of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and set up a kitchen where polished copper pots and pans were suspended on green pegboard according to Paul's original outlines, his carefully traced circles marking spots for every piece of Julia's cookware. And in that very kitchen, to my good fortune, I ate everything from cornflakes to scrambled eggs and Julia's baked bacon to her favorite butterflied chicken, all plated on the Child's red rooster Provencal china and cooked on a six burner Garland whose patina and history were perhaps no less rich than that of the neighboring Fogg Museum.
My favorite post-prandial pastime was to wander from room to room, imagining her home filled with family and friends in years past, its silent pantry still housing the china and stemware flanked by Paul's wine chart -- Champagnes and Rhones, Bordeaux and Burgundies -- all meticulously chronicled in pencil on graph paper and dating back to a vintage 1952 Bonnes Mares de Vogues.
Moving through the dining room, past the multi-leaved mahogany table that seated twenty-six of us for Julia's pot luck birthday one rainy summer, past the foyer into the front room with the baby grand piano, I would often end up in the library with bright modern sofas, a fringed Scandinavian rug, and two of Paul's paintings: one of cats in a garden, the other, over the mantle, of colorful rooftops and the lush French countryside beyond.
By all accounts, a bon vivant with a wicked sense of humor, Paul Child -- Julia's beloved renaissance man -- was a successful career diplomat as well as a distinguished writer, painter, photographer, gardener, and furniture maker. I have a reverence for the life they built together. The art, the rare books, the treasures amassed from years of world travel were awe inspiring, but if I mentioned this, Julia would have none of it. For her, even a hint of sentimentality was taboo. Looking back was not her style.
By the time I met Julia, Paul lived in an assisted living facility, diminished by a series of strokes. When I asked Julia if the Paul in her dreams was sometimes still in his prime, she said matter-of-factly, "Oh, I don't dream, Dearie."
"I think we all dream, Julia," I said.
"Well I don't," she said emphatically. And that was that.
Julia and I were not what you'd call soul sisters when we first met. I tended toward the ephemeral, Julia, the concrete. She called a spade a shovel. I hedged my bets. Ours was a friendship by proxy. At restaurants and in bookstores, on the set of her TV series and in green rooms around the country, at the Beard Awards in New York or cruising around Boston, lost again on another dead end street in search of a Chinese restaurant, I always took the back seat while my ex-husband and Julia chewed the fat. They were of a similar mind and temperament, quite different from my own, which is why their work together fared far better than our marriage did.
Still, over the years I relished being a regular on their team, and over time, Julia and I grew closer. The more we traveled together, the more we laughed. We drank beer and chowed down on ribs at Sonny Bryan's Barbeque in Dallas and chilli rellenos at Superico Tacoria in Santa Barbara, and, along with my daughter had root beer and In and Out Burgers on a picnic table at Henry's Beach near Montecito, surrounded by squawking gulls.
Once, in Chicago, at the end of a workday that began before dawn, I watched Julia greet the umpteenth person to rush up and remind her of the French Chef episode where she dropped the chicken on the kitchen floor. She never said, It wasn't a chicken, it was a potato pancake. She simply smiled and nodded and acted like it was the first time she heard that damn chicken story. No matter a person's station in life, Julia was ever gracious--egalitarian to the bone and always eager to learn. She constantly queried chefs about their techniques in the kitchen and computer wonks about the latest high tech advances. And whether 200 or 2,000 people were lined up at a book signing, she would listen to every memory while inscribing myriad volumes for a following that cut across age, gender and geography. In hotels and airports, people approached her without hesitation, eager to talk about her effect on their early years, often with tears in their eyes. Down-to-earth--on screen and off--Julia's medium was as much about connecting as it was about cooking. The director of photography for Julia's final three television series, the late Dean Gaskill, always said she spoiled him forever:
"I never worked with anyone like her. Julia set the gold standard."
Julia, of course, would demur.
Once, driving home in Boston after dinner at Gordon Ramsey's restaurant, Julia suddenly exclaimed, in a plum-toned burst of delight, "How lucky I am to have been in this business!"
And how lucky I am to have sampled a small portion of it while she was.
Cobb is the author of In Lieu of Flowers: A Conversation for the Living.
As an ex-Brit, I'm well aware of the authorities' love of surveillance and snooping, but even I, a pessimistic cynic, am amazed by the governments latest plan: to install Orwell's telescreens in 20,000 homes.
After Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal made a big show of how independent he was by rejecting President Obama's stimulus package, he's now going around the state presenting oversized checks to constituents and taking credit for the new jobs it's produced. Texas Governor Rick Perry, who went so far as to suggest that Texas secede from the Union (to which most of the country heartily agreed) rather than get federal funds, is now is demanding where the rest of his state's share of the booty is. Speaking of booty, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford begrudgingly takes the money because the state legislature is forcing him to while he wistfully dreams of continuing his hike along the Appalachian Trail.
All but three Republicans voted against the stimulus, yet they all are gladly taking the money. Seeing a trend here? Here's how to shut them up. New rule. If a senator or governor announces that they are going to refuse the stimulus funds, don't give it to their state. Give it to the other states that want jobs. It will only take one senator or governor who is trying to score political points on the poor and the jobless to nix the deal. Then the people of the state will know who exactly is to blame.
Yes, I feel sorry for the people of the red states who will suffer because of the morons they voted into office. Maybe a shock to the system like this will finally make them understand that there's more to elections than gun rights and who loves Jesus more.
My guess is that if this pipe dream of mine ever did come to a vote, the gutless cowards on the right would all vote for the stimulus money just like when forced to, the "birthers" voted unanimously that the President was indeed born in Hawaii.
The same rules would apply to the Healthcare bill, except Governors wouldn't count. If you live in a state where one of your senators votes against Single Payer, your state can keep the status quo. If Montana loses out because Jon Tester votes yes and Max Baucus votes no, guess which senator will lose in the next election cycle. Everybody will know where to point the fingers.
It's time for Obama to call the Republicans' bluff. Enough with the bi-partisan crap. No Republican or DINO is going to vote for reform, no matter how much they water it down. Baucus's Group Of Six is awash in contributions from the Healthcare industry and big pharma. According to Opensecrets.org, the total amount of money contributed to the six from the healthcare field during the period of 2005 to the upcoming 2010 campaign is as follows:
John Enzi: Pharmaceuticals - $216,200 Health Professionals - $144,049 Charles Grassley: Pharmaceuticals - $127,850. Health Professionals - $211,906 Olympia Snowe: Health Professionals - $174,574 Kent Conrad: Health Professionals - $229,033 Jeff Bingamen: Health Professionals - $207,563 Max Baucus: Pharmaceuticals - $506,313 Health Professionals - $497,641
These are the dolts making the rules? Any wonder why Baucus, Grassley and Enzi are doing all they can to kill healthcare reform? Do you think they care about the millions who have no insurance and the others who are about to lose theirs or which room of their vacation homes should they put their new 60 inch HD plasma TV?
Where are the Republican ideas? The only one I've heard so far is a plan to get their knuckle-dragging sheeple to do Dick Armey's to disrupt town hall meetings intended to inform the public. The Wingnuts are way too busy trying to keep the truth from reaching the public. The party of "No" is fast becoming the party of "No Freedom Of Speech." (Ironically, the "citizens" who will try to disrupt the meetings are probably the ones who probably need the benefits the most. Never underestimate the mentality of a tea bagger.)
Enough of this charade. Kudos to the President for trying to govern the inclusive way but it's painfully obvious that the opposition couldn't care less about the welfare of the people or the country. It's time for the Democrats to grow a pair and force a vote. And if your senator votes no, don't come running to the blue states to get healthcare. You were stupid enough to vote for the clowns, you keep them. The joke's on you.
But in my Central California pediatric practice, the figure is much higher. I see about 40% Latino and 35% Anglo patients as well as many Hmong/Cambodian, Laotian, Filipino, East Indian, and Native American children. Child obesity is rampant among every one of these groups, and I shudder to think about the future health calamities these kids are going to be facing if nothing changes. Their physical, mental, and emotional health is at stake.
This isn't just a personal issue that fuels unhappiness, depression, even teen suicides. It's also a serious economic issue, as this week's CDC statistics on the medical costs of treating obesity point out.
But here's what I see day after day in my practice. A mom brings in her 5-year-old son. He weighs 90 pounds, which would be healthy if he were twice that age and almost a foot taller. When I ask about any family history of metabolic disorders, she says, "I think so. A lot of my side of the family are overweight, even though we're not big eaters....I think he has another condition going on that's causing this. Can you test him?"
Then she takes another sip from her super-sized plastic cup of soda. The little boy has one too. But when I ask he eats much junk food, she says no.
I estimate that the number of obese kids coming into my office has mushroomed over the past 15 years. It's only to be expected that a high-school football player might tip the scales at over 200 pounds - but to see a freshman weighing in at 300 is shocking. Not to mention that many of the young teenage girls I see are obese too. They come in seriously depressed and unhappy and ask for referrals to gastric bypass surgeons. Ten years ago, I couldn't find any specialists who dealt with obese teenagers, but these days I get several brochures a week from these doctors informing me of their services.
Sebelius was also quoted as saying that First Lady Michelle Obama is planning to take on child health as an issue. I'd like nothing better than to sit down with her to discuss the following "talking points" (as the politicians say) regarding some of the basic causes and some workable for this national crisis.
* Parents, take responsibility. Almost invariably, when obese kids show up in my office, they're there with a parent who's obese as well. These don't say no to their kids' demands for junk food and they certainly aren't setting a good example with their own junk-food consumption.
These kinds of parents also let their kids choose where and when to eat. I've actually had parents tell me that they go to three different fast-food places every night so all their kids will end up getting what they want. They don't seem to care about the calories as long as the kids are happy and don't demand much attention. Besides, the parents themselves are usually too much in a hurry to get home and sit in front of the TV watching their favorite shows - while they eat some more.
* Stop denying the obvious. The major factor in child obesity is totally obvious: kids today are fat because they eat too much (and move too little). But I see parents every week who insist that I test their kids for possible medical issues that are causing the problem. These parents also deny that they buy much junk food or go out for fast food more than "occasionally," but when I go shopping at the grocery store and run into them, their carts are piled high with junk food.
Parents also tell me, "My kids don't watch any more TV than any other kid." That may be, but with my patients racking up to 6 hours a day of TV watching or in front of the computer, that's still a lot of sedentary living. But they prefer to blame restaurants for serving too much food, not their own lifestyle.
* Are our own fears fueling our children's obesity? Think about it - we've turned into a frightened society. We don't let our kids outside for fear that a deranged stranger may snatch them away - never mind that in most abductions, child murders, or child-abuse cases, the perpetrator is a family member or family friend. Even if we don't live in gang-infested areas, we're scared of drive-by shootings. We fear that our next-door neighbors may harm our children, but we've never made any effort to get to know them ourselves. We're a nation of strangers who are fearful of each other.
So instead of allowing our children explore and sample life in the "outside world," we keep them inside, feed them junk food, and use TV as a babysitter.
Here are just 3 simple solutions that we as parents can try - if we're willing to do a better job of stepping up to our responsibilities.
1. Let's take back our neighborhoods and allow our kids to roam around picking up other kids as they go. I firmly believe that kids can and will protect each other just as well as adults can. It's when they're isolated and alone that they're vulnerable.
2. Support your family's physical health and your social ties with your neighborhood by going out on family walks. For one thing, when it comes to sheer physical exercise, kids respond better when they're given a good example that they can model. "Do as I say" while you sit in front of the TV isn't going to cut it. Also, it's good for them to see us walking around and stopping to chat with our neighbors. Getting out into our neighborhoods will foster a greater sense of community and mutual protection - if you know your neighbors and they know you, they'll look out for your kids just as you'll start looking out for theirs.
3. Turn off the TV (and ignore the kids' protests). Also, try to make TV a shared, whole-family event instead of a taken-for-granted routine where each member of the family is isolated in a one-on-one relationship with their own TV set night after night. Limit TV viewing to a few favorite shows each week. And go out for walks.
It's the beginning of a new month, which means it is time again to take a look at President Obama's poll numbers. The news this month for Obama fans is not particularly good, as Obama has definitely ended his "honeymoon" period (which virtually all first-term presidents go through). The downward trend to his numbers was expected, but the increase in the curve downward is slightly worrisome at this point -- but not yet what I would call a cause for alarm.
After we take a look at Obama's numbers, we'll also compare him to George W. Bush's first term poll numbers, continuing our series of comparing Obama to past presidents. We really should have started with Bush, to keep things in order, but we looked at Clinton's numbers first because the data were easier to format into charts.
But before we get to that, we have a minor announcement to make. Because these charts seem to be multiplying like Viagra-crazed minks, we have finally put them all in one easy-to-reference place: www.obamapollwatch.com. This provides you with an easily-remembered link to see the charts any time you wish. The site is a bit stark at this point, and will be spruced up a bit in the coming weeks, but at least the charts are all there for you to peruse. So bookmark the link, and check back at the beginning of every month to see the updates.
OK, enough shameless self-promotion. Let's get to the charts, beginning with Obama's July approval ratings:
[Click on the graph to see a larger version of it.]
July 2009
July wasn't a particularly good month for Obama. It had its ups and downs, though. The main event all month was healthcare reform, and I have to say Obama has been somewhat ineffective from the bully pulpit. Mostly because of his strategy doing the opposite of what Bill and Hillary Clinton did back in 1994. The Clintons presented Congress with an already-written bill, and it never even made it out of committee. Obama's strategy has been to outline a few goals, and then sit back and let Congress do the heavy lifting -- while mildly cheering them on from the sidelines. What this has meant is that Obama cannot be pinned down on specifics (any specifics), as his perpetual answer to any question about the details is "everything's still on the table," or "we're open to any good ideas."
This is beginning to hurt Obama's standings in the polls. He did get a bit more engaged with the process late in July, when it became obvious to all that Congress was not going to meet Obama's deadline of passing legislation through both houses before the August congressional vacation. He gave a primetime press conference that, on its substance, went well -- but on the scale of emotional involvement, fell a bit flat. Except when he talked about his friend Professor Gates' arrest, which led the White House into their "beer summit" damage control photo-op.
Obama did get some good news during July, as his nominee for the Supreme Court made it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. As usual in these sorts of hearings, the opposition party did everything it could to tarnish the nominee (both Democrats and Republicans play this game, it should be pointed out, because their bases absolutely love it), but Judge Sonia Sotomayor emerged largely unscathed, and will soon become our nation's newest Supreme Court Justice.
But mostly, the month was about healthcare. And Obama's political "war room" seemed to be either asleep for most of the month, or floundering from one idea to another. Obama has not been, to date, exactly inspirational in this debate. This has hurt him with the public, although any number of other factors could also be in play as well -- such as liberals who have finally become disillusioned with Obama because of his presidential actions, which in many cases seem to be just photocopies of Bush's presidential actions. Also, a relentless drumbeat from the media on the state of the economy ("Obama's stimulus has failed! Failed, I tells ya!"), even while the actual numbers seem to be bottoming out, or (as in the case of the stock market) turning back upward again.
All of this has taken a toll. Obama's approval rating had its biggest monthly drop yet, down 3.4 percent to an average of 56.4 percent for the month. His disapproval numbers jumped upwards even more, rising 4.5 percent to an average of 38.1 percent. Both numbers set a record this month, for lowest approval and highest disapproval. The undecided numbers continued to fall, to a new low of 5.5 percent. But that was only down 1.1 percent from last month, meaning that the movement in the polls cannot be explained by undecideds making up their minds, but also showed people changing their minds from approving Obama's job performance to disapproving.
What is more worrisome for Obama fans, though, is that this trend was pretty constant for the entire month. Obama got his highest approval number on the first of the month, and his lowest approval the second-to-last day of the month. This swing was even more pronounced than the monthly average shows, going from 59.5 percent to a low of 53.4 percent -- a drop of more than six points. His disapproval numbers fluctuated a bit more, climbing from a low of 34.0 percent at the beginning of the month to a high of 41.3 percent on the July 24, before settling back down a bit to finish at 39.4 percent.
This could signal a bad August for Obama, unless both these trends flatten out.
Overall Trends
Barack Obama's honeymoon is, without doubt, over. And, as just pointed out, he'd better do something soon to bounce back, or else next month is going to be even more worrisome.
But we do need to put this into a bit of perspective. Bill Clinton, at this point in his term, had a 47.3 percent disapproval rating, with only a 44.0 percent approval rating. Obama is still more than twelve points higher in the approval category at this point, and around nine points lower in the disapproval category. Obama's numbers are also about the same as George W. Bush's at this point in his presidency as well, which we'll examine in detail in a bit. [Note: once again, a shameless plug -- you can see comparison charts at ObamaPollWatch]
But the trend, while heading in the wrong direction, will likely reverse itself -- if (it'd be premature to say "when" at this point) healthcare reform legislation actually passes. It's hard for people reading a column such as this to realize at times, but most of the American public just isn't following the marathon battle in Congress all that closely. They see a headline or two (mostly saying: "Obama Fails At Healthcare Reform!"), but just aren't tracking it all that closely. A headline frenzy of: "Healthcare Reform Passes" after a presidential bill-signing ceremony may give Obama the bounce in the polls he needs at this point.
If, that is, it ever gets to his desk to sign.
Obama v. George W. Bush (first term)
This is actually a good month to compare Bush's first term with Obama's, because it is just about the last month when any sort of valid comparison can be made between the two. It's easy to see why when looking at Bush's chart. You'll note that the scale of this chart had to be expanded from our normal scale (which shows from zero to 80 percent), because Bush's numbers spiked so high after the 9/11 attacks. On a zero-to-100 scale, here is Bush's first term:
[Click on the graph to see a larger version of it.]
The second spike, in early 2003, was when we invaded Iraq. This shows the rally-round-the-president effect that any war has on presidential approval numbers. But while Bush hit astronomical highs (matching those of his father during the Persian Gulf War), they soon dwindled away and you can see how close his approval and disapproval numbers were during the last year of his first term, when he was running for re-election. We'll take a look at Bush's second term (which is much happier for Obama fans to look at, I realize) next month.
But what concerns us here are Bush's numbers before the 9/11 spike. Bush entered office under the cloud of Florida, hanging chads, and the ignominy of the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision. But soon after, he hit fairly decent numbers for his own "honeymoon" period, falling in the 52-57 percent range. This was beginning to show signs of dwindling up until 9/11, when they went through the roof.
Now let's take a look at Obama's numbers versus Bush's, at this point in their respective presidencies:
[Click on the graph to see a larger version of it.]
Obama's approval numbers started higher than Bush to begin with, so they had further to fall, but they both are fairly close at this point (Obama 56.4 percent; Bush 53.9 percent). What is even more noticeable is how closely Obama and Bush's numbers are for disapproval rates. While Obama's is slightly higher than Bush's (Obama 38.1 percent; Bush 34.3 percent), the trend lines for the two are almost identical.
This all proves nothing much, other than that the conventional wisdom in this regard is probably right -- all presidents (to some degree or another) have a "honeymoon" period, and all of them experience an end to this period at some point during their first year in office. That, and the fact that six months in is obviously no indication of how a first-term president will be seen by history.
[Note:This is a new column series, so I'm looking for feedback as to what you like and don't like, both here and at ObamaPollWatch. Let me know your thoughts in the comments, or drop me an email. Thanks.]
The conventional wisdom is that August is the slowest month for news, thus it's tailor-made for the "Birther" movement -- crazies that come hand-delivered to the media in their month of need, like barrel-dwelling fish that shoot themselves. Today, they're waving around a supposed "Kenyan birth certificate" for President Barack Obama without regard to the fact that it would have to have come from an alternate reality where Kenya became Kenya before Kenya was Kenya, and on which Obama is said to have been born in a city that was actually part of Zanzibar at the time of his birth. It's all pretty awesome and fun and now everyone's getting in on the "let's all forge up some birth certificates" craze. It's August 2009, and America is precisely where our founders envisioned we would be.
On Monday, David Shuster and Tamron Hall hosted celebrated "Birther Queen" Orly Taitz, who is a walking Saturday Night Live character, possibly played by Chris Kattan, come to life. The resulting discussion was, as you might imagine, pretty special! Taitz came on, speaking as if in a panic, presaging her answers with complaints about CNN, referring to David Shuster as a "brownshirt," and making oddball claims about how "85% of Americans think Barack Obama was not properly vetted."
Anyway, this is like Shuster and Hall attempting to interview an angry Fraggle.
[WATCH.]
We remind you that the Birther Lunar Cycle of Mania may hit a peak tomorrow, August 4, because it is President Barack Obama's birthday...IF HE WAS "BORN" AT ALL. MWAHAHAHA.
My experience is that God made humans in a very natural way. God touched us, blessed us, and created each of us with a certain kind of genius and gifting. When we are on to our true nature, when we really are in tune and openly expressing our human nature, we thrive in whatever we choose to do. When we are not onto our true nature, we feel awful because we are missing what is in our hearts.
So if you are not happy with what you are doing, it may be a sign that you have a bad attitude. Just correct your attitude. It may not be what you are doing that is causing the disturbance. It may be the way you are approaching what you are doing, and that is a simple fix. Adjust your attitude to focus upon whatever is the greater good, which is your blessing.
Did you know you have the power to have your mind bring you to happy thoughts? That is the primary power in happiness. It is a state of mind. It is the way we look at things. It is how we relate to what we are doing at any given moment. Since our mind is free, we can choose to be happy and share the blessings of our happiness regardless of what we are doing.
You can feel happy simply because you experience happiness in your nature. Real, lasting happiness doesn't come at the detriment of others or through againstness or denial of reality. You can learn to be happy and not in conflict with others or situations, regardless of what is going on. Others may not agree with your happiness. They may think that you are responding inappropriately. Clearly, there is too much pain, suffering, and misery in the world, so there is no need to add to it. If your happiness is misunderstood or judged by others, you can turn it to peace, understanding, and compassion by choosing to be happy regardless.
When we are attached and trapped by demanding against the world in some way, we can assign ourselves to our misery like a ball and chain. We can become imprisoned by our disturbances, frustrations, irritations, and dissatisfactions. The more you can learn how to get along with what you are involved in, the more peace and happiness you can know in whatever you are doing. By opening up to your happiness within, you have a greater opportunity to bless your work in this world with your happiness. When we are happy, we are spontaneous and open to participate. We allow our creativity, that happy energy, to move out into the world and touch others. We bring enjoyment and upliftment to all that we are doing.
The more at peace you are with what you are doing, the happier you are going to be. You are going to be one who serves better and performs better. You are going to be more fun and pleasant to be around. So let the perfection within you be the source of your eternal happiness. The more you allow that perfection to be, the more you are going to find out that you are happy and satisfied in relation to whatever you are doing in the world. *************************************************************************** John Morton is the author of the inspiring books, The Blessings Already Are andYou Are the Blessings. Learn more about John at www.theblessings.org.
For Liz Troubishi, 17, and Nir Katz, 26, of blessed memory, and for the recovery of the 15 young people wounded late Saturday when a gunman invaded a Tel Aviv club for gay teens.
Lord, teach me to stand naked before you And, in so doing, learn the meaning of modesty.
Let me stand naked, which is to say, stripped to my humanity, And mourn these young people shot For having chosen to practice Their own humanity.
Cause me, Lord, to shed this defective armor, Which we call clothing, respectability, convention, The mask which we mistake for loyalty to tribe. The mask which keeps me from seeing the face behind the mask of the tribe we have come to call enemy.
At the close of this dark anniversary, this time when tradition tells us, the worst of calamities were wrought by sinat hinam, hatred unbound, hatred for its own sake -- teach me what I need to know about my true enemy.
Force me to see that what I am so certain that I hate, the clear, familiar targets of my fury, are already inside me.
Help me heal of this contagion, this cruel disease which scars and hardens the soul, which cores and blackens and blinds the heart, this affliction which feeds on self-righteousness and the conviction that God plays favorites, that the person whose behavior and appearance, and ways of speaking and dancing and loving are foreign to me, has less right to a true self than I.
Rock me awake, O Lord who invented the mosaic, the patchwork, the universe. Force me to see the miracle of every life on the threshold Of what we have come to know as Real life.
Let me know that in the beginning, real life is created through ahavat hinam, love unbound, love unfiltered, love unselfish, love shorn of armor and unkindness and judgment and ancient rage.
Lord, whose business it is to give life, shock us, cajole us, manipulate us, bring us to heel, force us in this terrible moment to know the enormity and the necessity of loving kindness.
Lord, whose great gift and whose most murderous creation was the human being, help us find the human in the Other, hated from habit and from afar. Help us up, the mourning, the remnant, those whom tragedy has in cruelty and in loving kindness left alive. Teach us to honor the slain by honoring the living, their own behavior and appearance and speech, the dancing and the loving of those doing nothing more banal and nothing more extraordinary, than living a genuinely real life.
I was in Nantucket over the weekend, and I have to say I was impressed by the large number of private jets parked on the tarmac at the local airport. Dozens of them. It's only anecdotal I know. But, that was evidence enough for me to jump to this conclusion. The rich are still doing okay.
In the other America folks were lining up at their local car dealers to trade in old clunkers. The billion dollars allocated for the program, which was thought to last till November, was gone in less than a week. Some law makers are squeaking that they don't want to put any more money into it. Here's why they should. The gas guzzlers traded in thus far will save millions of barrels of petroleum a year. Revenue strapped municipalities are getting badly needed tax revenues. Inventories are going down which means assembly lines can get busy again. Think of it as a bailout. But this time the beneficiary doesn't have his own jet.
FAIRFAX, Va. — President Barack Obama said Monday a new GI Bill for those who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan is an investment in both a new generation of veterans and the future of America.
The Post-9/11 GI Bill is the most comprehensive education benefit offered to veterans since President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the original GI Bill for World War II veterans in 1944. In the next decade, $78 billion is expected to be paid out under it.
"We do this not just to meet our moral obligation to those who sacrificed greatly on our behalf, on behalf of the country," said Obama, speaking at a celebration rally at George Mason University. "We do it because these men and women must now be prepared to lead our nation in the peaceful pursuit of economic leadership in the 21st century."
The maximum benefit under the law rolled out Saturday will allow every eligible veteran, serviceman and woman, Reservist and National Guard member to attend a public college or university for free for four years. They are also eligible for a monthly housing stipend and up to $1,000 a year for books.
Those who attend a private institution or graduate school can receive financial assistance up to the cost of a public college in the state. About 1,100 schools are offering additional scholarships matched by the VA.
Obama noted that many of the 1.9 million troops who have deployed in support of the recent wars joined the military knowing they'd have to go and fight somewhere. He said military members have endured multiple tours in grueling combat.
"The contributions that servicemen and women can make to our nation do not end when they take off that uniform," Obama said. "We owe a debt to all who served and when we repay that debt to those bravest Americans among us, then we are investing in our future."
Service members who agree to serve four more years in the military can opt to transfer the benefit to their spouse or kids. It's anticipated that nearly a half million veterans or their family members could participate in the first year.
More than 100,000 claims have already been processed, and more than 25,000 service members have applied to use the transfer benefit.
The legislation has been widely praised by veterans groups, but there have been concerns that universities and the VA could be overwhelmed, in part, because of the complexity of the benefit. There have been complaints that veterans attending private schools in states that keep public tuition low face a huge disparity in what they receive.
The legislation was authored by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. He was joined by several other veterans in Congress in getting it passed.
In an effort to defeat universal health care, conservatives are engaging in a campaign of lies that will ultimately cause more families to suffer needlessly at a most painful time. As someone who worked for years with end-of-life care issues, and spent years working in the HIV/AIDS community, I cannot let it pass.
A campaign on conservative talk radio, fueled by President Obama's calls to control exorbitant medical bills, has sparked fear among senior citizens that the health-care bill moving through Congress will lead to end-of-life "rationing" and even "euthanasia."
The controversy stems from a proposal to pay physicians who counsel elderly or terminally ill patients about what medical interventions they would prefer near the end of life and how to prepare instructions such as living wills. Under the plan, Medicare would reimburse doctors for one session every five years to confer with a patient about his or her wishes and how to ensure those preferences are followed. The counseling sessions would be voluntary.
But on right-leaning radio programs, religious e-mail lists and Internet blogs, the proposal has been described as "guiding you in how to die," "an ORDER from the Government to end your life," promoting "death care" and, in the words of antiabortion leader Randall Terry, an attempt to "kill Granny."
Though the counseling provision is a tiny part of a behemoth bill, the skirmish over end-of-life care, like arguments about abortion coverage, has become a distraction and provided an opening for opponents of the president's broader health-care agenda. At a forum sponsored by the seniors group AARP that was intended to pitch comprehensive reform, Obama was asked about the "rumors." He used the question to promote living wills, noting that he and the first lady have them.
Democratic strategists privately acknowledged that they were hesitant to give extra attention to the issue by refuting the inaccuracies, but they worry that it will further agitate already-skeptical seniors.
Where the consequence is needless suffering, I do not share Democratic strategists hesitance to refute inaccuracies.
That anyone would direct your doctor in "guiding you in how to die" is a lie.
That it amounts to "an ORDER from the Government to end your life" is a lie.
The truth is not that Democrats want to "kill Granny," but that Republicans want to ensure that "Granny" suffers needlessly in death, and that her family -- in the midst of their pain -- deal with the confusion of not knowing what kind of care "Granny" does or doesn't want, and what kind of measures she does and doesn't want taken.
Only a party that believes the Terri Schiavo spectacle was a boon to their cause could engage in a campaign to virtually ensure that many, many more such cases will happen -- though most will not play out before news cameras, or serve as a political sideshow for the extreme right. They are risking the same result they got from the Schiavo story -- that even more Americans will be appalled at a crass, politically driven intrusion into a deeply personal matter.
Grandma will die, someday. So will we all. It's perhaps the one indisputable reality every single person on earth has in common. We don't, however, like to think about it. So we don't think about it until it's too late, and our families suffer as a result. Republicans seem to want to make sure that continues to be true.
That's because the measure they're exploiting to defeat health care reform is really intended to facilitate more people getting advance directives. An advance directive is simply a document that serves to state what medical treatments you want or don't want, and what measure you do or do not want taken if you are unable to make medical decisions for yourself. In other words it speaks for you when you cannot speak for yourself.
In addition, a medical power power of attorney allows you to designate someone you trust to make medical decisions for you if you are unable to make them yourself.
The question isn't "How do you want to die?" The question is simply: "What kind of care do you want, and what measures do you want taken if -- at the end of life -- you are unable to speak for yourself?"
It's a decision that, in the absence of an advance directive or a living will, falls to a spouse or the closest family members. In the absence of an advance directive and/or medical power of attorney, families are often torn apart with fighting over their loved-ones wishes and trying to determine what those wishes were, leading to years of courtroom battles, while their loved one lingers.
Health care reform advocates don't want to "Kill Granny." Neither do conservatives. I'll even give them the benefit of the doubt that they don't want your family battling it out over Granny's hospital bed, or in court for years and years, as Granny lies there, no longer able to say what she wants. But that's the ultimate outcome of their dishonest campaign.
I saw it up close and personal when I volunteered in the HIV/AIDS community, while in college. I saw partners who had spent decades together, and spent years caring for one another, kept apart because they were "not family" and had no legal standing that anyone was obligated to recognize. One man knocked on the door of the organization where I worked, and when I answered told me with tears in his eyes that he had just been barred from his partner's bedside by the man's estranged family, and even ejected from the home the two of them had shared. He had no legal standing as a spouse, of course, and the couple had no legal documents that might have given him the right be there.
Legal spouses don't have that problem. The reason that 30 or more courts ruled in Michael Schiavo's favor is because he was the legal spouse. Without that even the legal status of having a medical power of attorney, let alone being legally married, the people whose pain I witnessed were extremely vulnerable. Even couples who have those documents, like Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond, are vulnerable if they travel -- or go anywhere at all -- without them.
My husband and I both have advance directives stating what measures we want and don't want taken, in the event that we are unable to make those decisions ourselves. We each have medical powers of attorney, designating one of us to make make medical decisions for the other, if either of us is unable to make those decisions for ourselves. We have them because our experience has taught us how necessary they are, and the consequences of not having them. We have them because we know how vulnerable we are, and how vulnerable our children are without them.
The truth is that most Americans are vulnerable in this regard. According to a FindLaw.Com survey, 67 percent of Americans don't have a living will. That means more than two-thirds of Americans may have little to no say in the care they receive or the measures that are taken if they are terminally ill and/or incapacitated.
That's perhaps one of the worst aspects of the Republican's dishonest campaign. It has the potential to make people even more vulnerable, not merely by leaving their wishes undocumented, but by using fear to discourage people from even talking about this most personal decision with one of the most appropriate people: their doctor. After all, a personal physician who knows her patient's wishes, can be an effective advocate and help family understand the most compassionate ways to honor their loved one's wishes.
That's why, wherever you stand on health care reform, I urge you to please use this as a "teachable moment." Sit down with your doctor and/or your family now -- while you can still speak to them and they can still hear you -- and talk about what care you want and don't want, and what measures you do or don't want taken, if you are ill or injured and unable to speak for yourself. Talk about who you want to make decisions for you if you are unable to speak for yourself.
Make sure you have an advance directive. (You can download copies of your state's advance directive forms here.) Make sure you have a medical power of attorney. Make sure everyone knows.
At the same time, don't let the right insert politics into a matter that's ultimately between you, your family and your doctor. The measure that members of the conservative fringe are exploiting in the process does nothing more than encourage doctors and patients to have that most-important, most-avoided conversation.
They're lying as a means to a political end, and it will cause more families to suffer needlessly. It's not just inaccurate. It's not just wrong. It's immoral.
On day three of our week-long fathers-and-sons trip from our homes in Maryland to a wrestling camp in Vermont, the boys finally get what they've been demanding for a year: Friendly's ice cream.
"We're going to Friendly's every day!" our wrestling coach's son had promised his teammates on the same trip last summer. It seemed a reasonable pledge, given that the restaurant stood less than a block from the National Guard armory where we bunked. But we never made it down the street that year, a failure that has been brought to my attention intermittently ever since.
This time -- with thunderstorms canceling an afternoon swim in a rock quarry, and with the boys (ages 7 through 16) having exhausted the entertainment value of basketballs, hockey sticks and a crushed soda can skitting around the floor of the armory's gymnasium -- my suggestion that we finally take them to Friendly's is hailed by all as brilliant. Because we are all wearing black National Guard T-shirts bestowed on us by our hosts, the nine dads put the 16 boys in a formation somewhat resembling two parallel lines, and march them somewhat in step to their mountaintop.
It's 4 p.m.; plenty of time to digest a little ice cream before the three-hour wrestling camp than begins at 5:30. That is, unless you order something stupid.
Enter, my son.
To be fair, Alec is not alone. Several boys, apparently having been raised in Oliver Twist households where no one gets a second scoop, open the menus and grow weak-kneed over its seductions. They ditch their plans for cones in favor of candied, whip-creamed and syrupy extravaganzas that shamelessly spread themselves out in explosions of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.
My 12-year-old sets his sights on a four-scoop thing with two candy toppings. Sitting next to him in the booth with two other boys, I fulfill my parental obligation thusly: "You might not want to eat that before wrestling. You might throw up."
This child, the one who has tested into two magnet schools for advanced students, smiles and nods in that way that says, "This is dumb, but I'm gonna do it."
Most of the other boys engage in similar excess, drawing reactions from the dads that are a mix of admiration and wariness, like the way I felt when one of my childhood buddies bent over and farted while he ignited a lighter at his butt.
Off to wrestle we go. Some 100-plus kids cram into a high school gym that, despite this being Vermont and despite several industrial-sized floor fans sucking air out the doors, maintains an air quality that can best described as, "Let's open some damn windows."
Within minutes, the oldest boy on our squad flees for the bathroom. He regurgitates and sits out most of the evening's session. I feel bad for him, but I'm also annoyed that he has wiped the shine off my brilliant suggestion. "Friendly's- - great idea!" a couple of my pal dads say with a laugh.
The other boys are fine, I note. I go jogging.
I return just the halftime break in wrestling to find Alec sitting on the wooden bleachers. His face is a textbook illustration of nonverbal communication. It says, "I just threw up."
How, I wonder, could this happen when he made it through 90 minutes with no trouble? Apparently the key to this achievement occurs during the break, when you buy a slice of pizza and a 16-ounce bottle Powerade. Alec later confesses that he wasn't even hungry; he joined the food line because that's what he always does.
I vow to tell our school district that its magnet school tests are worthless.
Making things worse is that the evening's instructor is teaching a series of moves built around the "tight waist." This involves starting on top of your opponent and squeezing his midsection, not to cause pain but to help you crush down on top of him and/or turn him on his back for a pin. The instructor does not mention that the move is best executed without a gut that is trying to digest ice cream, pizza and two cups of liquid.
The rebellion by Alec's stomach solidifies the theory among my friends that going to Friendly's was idiotic.
But hey -- I warned him. I figure that the lesson he learned is more valuable than me ordering him not to get the big ice cream.
This sophisticated rationale is not shared by his mother when she hears about her son up-chucking in a far-away high school locker room toilet. When I tell Regina the story that night, instead of guffawing about our crazy kid, we have one of those cross-examination conversations:
Me: "Well, he ordered this four-scoop sundae with two candy toppings."
"Where were you when this happened?"
"Sitting next to him."
"And you didn't say anything?"
"I told him he shouldn't order that because he might throw up."
"And you let him order it anyway?"
"Well, yeah."
Several times during my subsequent defense, Regina mutters, "Un-be-lieve-able."
I have landed on a common father/mother divide. Fathers tend to parent with more risk tolerance than mothers do. When we see our kids about to do something they shouldn't, we are more apt to warn them but let them go ahead if they foolishly dismiss our advice, as long as the risk isn't horrible -- like breaking an arm or knocking out the cable during a Sandra Bullock movie. This way they learn to make decisions when they're not living with us, which we hope is next month.
Mothers are more likely to stop their children from doing something stupid or painful. Regina would not have let Alec order the big ice cream.
Just like she won't let any of our three children go out inadequately attired for winter weather. Such attempts ignite a battle over the meaning of "cold" and end with a maternal order to bring a jacket -- which the child grabs with a growl. Me? I let them go shiver.
I was happy to see some friends demonstrate this same dichotomy several years ago. Alec and a few other boys had won the freedom to bike around the neighborhood in groups, and they showed up at the door of their friend Parker asking him to join their convoy.
Parker asked his mom, who went to her husband with her dilemma: "Parker wants to go ride with the boys. What should I do?"
Dave shrugged and said, "Let him go ride?"
She did. Parker lives.
So does Alec. I trust that in the future, he will not gorge himself into puking. If he does, I want to be there so I can say, "Told ya."
Manhattan's notoriously slow crosstown buses �" like the M34, M42 and M50 �" move at such a snail's pace that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority should stop collecting fares on them so that the buses can load riders and take off more quickly, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg proposed on Monday afternoon as part of what his re-election campaign called a bold plan for reforming mass transit.
"Plain and simple: the M.T.A. needs to do more. Much more," the mayor said at a campaign event at West 34th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues. "Our mass transit system is far behind."
Two months ago I decided to embark on a 50 state Arts in Crisis Tour. The purpose of this tour was to talk about the issues facing arts organizations in the current economic environment and to discuss ways to address these challenges. As I planned the tour, I thought I would visit the biggest city in every state. I believed, erroneously, that this would give me exposure to the most arts organizations and managers. Then I received a letter from Jim McIntyre, a board member of the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo, asking me to visit his city. Like other cities in Michigan, Kalamazoo has been hard hit by the recession and many arts organizations there are struggling. Jim had another compelling reason for asking me to visit Kalamazoo; his children had attended my sister's school, Bread and Roses, decades ago and he remained a close friend of my sister Susan.
Kalamazoo is a relatively small city. There are just over 75,000 people who live in the city and approximately 250,000 people who live in the entire county.
And yet my Arts in Crisis session in Kalamazoo drew over 400 people! The ballroom of the Radisson Hotel was filled to capacity. The mayor of the city was there, as was the former mayor who is now a state representative. (A group of community leaders -- business people, a college president, foundation executives and educators -- had a breakfast with me before the session to educate me about the nature of the arts community and its issues.)
The issues raised by the audience were no different than those raised in New York, Cleveland San Diego or Baltimore, all substantially larger cities. The arts managers, board members and artists who came to the session were all facing budget cuts, reduced state funding, a rapidly changing and diminishing corporate community, and low morale.
They asked pertinent, detailed and intelligent questions about ways to maintain their theater companies, ballet companies, symphonies, and education programs. The mayor asked about best practices in arts education. He believes that the arts are a necessary part of the education of every child in his city but was concerned about ways to pay for it.
Board members asked about how boards should change as organizations mature. Artists asked how they could help their organizations cope with the current crisis. And the arts administrators asked how they could reduce budgets without irreparably harming their organizations.
In general, there was great concern that the fabric of the arts in Kalamazoo not be destroyed by the current crisis.
But the overwhelming feeling from every person in the room was that the arts were not dispensable in this environment. The feeling from top to bottom was that the arts are central to the healthy ecology of the city.
It was a truly inspirational meeting. Here, in the middle of America, in a small city, in the state most battered by the recession, was an entire community saying that the arts matter, that the health of their community depended in great measure on the health of their arts programming. They were determined to work together -- the arts community, the business community, the political community and the educational community -- to maintain the vitality of the arts in their city.
Next time any government official in Washington or elsewhere says that the arts are elitist, that they only serve the largest cities, that all arts funding finds its way to the coasts, or that everyday people don't care about the arts, I am going to suggest they visit Kalamazoo, Michigan. I think they will learn a great deal, as I did.
A bookkeeper allegedly embezzled more than $310,000 from her 80-year-old boss -- while the elderly woman was distracted by cancer treatments.
Elenie Felan, 26, was working at the interior-design firm Joan Schindler Inc. on East 59th Street when she illegally cashed 89 checks at Chase bank, forging the signature of Joan Schindler on almost all of them, according to papers filed in Manhattan Civil and Criminal courts.
I have followed the Perricone Prescription on & off since my mother-in-law gave me the book. How do you feed a 6'4" and 220 lbs. man this kind of diet? I know he would feel better so any suggestions on how to slowly change his diet would be appreciated. What other foods or recipes are there, & salmon is not one of his favorites is there an alternative?
Thanks for your help! Nora
I often get asked this very question. Since I have a number of celebrity patients, many people think that the Perricone anti-inflammatory diet is geared toward women -- especially actresses and models. But men often crave foods that they perceive to be more satisfying -- especially a big, juicy steak.
However, while eating a lot of fish and fresh fruit and vegetables is ideal for creating beautiful skin and eliminating body fat, in essence it does much more, making it ideal for men as well. In fact, if your goal is a physique that rivals Matthew McConaughey, Brad Pitt, Usher, Taye Diggs, Christian Bale, David Beckham or Mark Wahlberg, then following the Perricone program is for you. As you will discover, the good news is that you don't have to forgo that steak to keep your diet from being pro-inflammatory and thus, age-accelerating.
Keep on the Grass
Most men that I know enjoy eating red meat. But they are told to steer clear (no pun intended) because of high levels of pro-inflammatory saturated fats. However, there is a healthy alternative to the meat found on most grocery store shelves, and that is 100% grass-fed, pasture-raised beef and lamb. When it comes to lamb, all New Zealand and Australian lamb is grass-fed. When it comes to beef, we have to be a little more creative -- but just about every state in the union has farms that raise beef on grass and hay as opposed to grain. Here in New England, The Stannard family farm in beautiful Benson, Vermont is a great resource and will deliver, for more information visit them at www.vermontnaturalbeef.com. Other sources can be found on www.eatwild.com.
Part of the rise in obesity can be attributed to the changes in the way we raise beef and other animals. Grass-fed beef is up to three times leaner than grain-fed beef, and can have up to 15 fewer calories per ounce than meat from a grain-fed cow. Grass-fed meat also provides more balanced omega-3s and omega-6 fatty acids, which help guard against a variety of ailments.
Like wild salmon, grass-fed beef is an excellent source of high quality omega-3 essential fatty acid, as well as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). CLA is a fatty acid that has number of health benefits. But because of the dietary change from grass to grain, levels of CLA dramatically decreased in meat and dairy products. In addition to the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and insulin-sensitizing actions of CLA, many studies show that CLA helps prevent muscle loss and weakness associated with aging and disease.
Safety Profile
Researchers have also compared key antioxidants in meat from pasture-fed and grain-fed cattle. The grass-fed meat was higher in vitamin C, vitamin E and folic acid. It was also ten times higher in beta-carotene. These health benefits decline significantly after just three months of grain feeding, even if the grain is organic.
In an article published in the magazine Mother Earth News, Jo Robinson, author of Pasture Perfect stated: "
. . . . mad cow disease has never been found in grass-fed beef, which is also far less likely to contain dangerous E. coli bacteria. Grass-fed beef has "no extra hormones and no traces of antibiotics and is both cleaner and more wholesome than ordinary beef by far." Feedlot cattle may eat ...all kinds of products in addition to grain, including chicken manure, chicken feathers, newsprint, cardboard and municipal garbage waste.
I also recommend organic, free range chicken, and organic omega 3 eggs from free-range chickens.
Many people feel that spending a little more on organic foods is not worth it -- but the health benefits are both immediate and long-term.
With the re-introduction of pasture-raised beef and free-range chickens, we can now eat more like our grandparents and earlier generations -- a time when obesity, diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer's and many other diseases were much less prevalent.
In creating the anti-inflammatory diet, I have discovered that the greatest gift I can give my readers and viewers is permission to eat healthy and delicious food.
As as avid weight lifter and runner since the age of 16, keeping body fat down, while maintaining muscle mass has been an important goal. This applies to both men and women, because as we age we gain 10 lbs. of fat and lost 5 lbs. of muscle with each decade.
We can reverse this trend, and it starts with the foods we eat. Every day we need to make sure that our diet includes the following:
• high-quality protein, like that found in fish, shellfish, poultry, grass-fed beef and lamb and tofu; • low-glycemic (will not provoke a glycemic response when consumed in moderation) carbohydrates including colorful fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains such as old-fashioned oatmeal, legumes such as beans and lentils; • healthy fats, such as those found in cold water fish (especially wild Alaskan salmon, halibut, sardines, herring, anchovies, etc.), nuts, seeds, and olive oil • 6 - 8 glasses of pure spring water per day. • Anti-oxidant rich beverages such as green tea
As an active researcher, I welcome your comments and suggestions.
Under orders from then-Chancellor Wayne Watson, the PBS television station at City Colleges of Chicago used its budget to produce free videos of powerful politicians and friends of the chancellor, an internal college e-mail shows.
Aug. 3, 2009 | Is Sarah Palin America's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? The two differ in many key respects, of course, but it is remarkable how similar they are. There are uncanny parallels in their biographies, their domestic politics and the way they present themselves -- even in their rocky relationships with party elders.
YouTube's "News Near You," a recent addition to the YouTube news page, organizes local news sources as a strip of thumbnail images. YouTube has organized hundreds of news sources into news "portals" in 100 U.S. cities, we have learned.
Brian Stelter in Monday's New York Times takes a look at the evolution of YouTube as news environment, including the emergence of "News Near You."
I am flattered to be quoted in his story.
Users log onto computers which let YouTube know their general location and YouTube serves videos from their areas.
Local YouTube news producers, who have registered in the city, are surfaced up as thumbnails. Since I access the Web in New York, I have been following which news providers have been getting home page exposure.
The New York Post seems to have a good bit of YouTube juice and its videos seem to dominate the "News Near You" thumbnails. Although the view numbers are small, it's very interesting to see how new video news producers are connecting with audiences in their communities through YouTube.
When Greenpeace invaded the hallowed grounds of Mount Rushmore, many of the locals started looking for a scapegoat. They found an Indian who, according to their theorizing, was ready made.
Gerard Baker is a tall man of the Mandan-Hidatsa Tribe of North Dakota. His gray braids hang lightly on across his shoulders and he has a ready smile. Last week, as I sat in his office, I watched his mostly white staff buzz around him with obvious affection.
Baker grew up on the Fort Berthold Reservation and spent his youth working on his family ranch, breaking horses, herding cows and listening to the stories of the tribal elders. He got his Native education in those early days hearing the stories of tribal warfare, great hunts, the tricksters so common in Indian legends, and about how his people survived the onslaught of the white settlers.
He never forgot his Native roots and when he began working of the National Park Service and moved from Knife River Indian Villages, Fort Union Trading Post, Theodore Roosevelt National Park's North Unite and then to the Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, he read and learned about the history of the places he was stationed and tried to introduce pieces of the Native culture at every stop.
He finally landed in the job as Superintendent of the Mount Rushmore National Monument, a job that has now immersed him in a controversy not of his making. Perhaps it is because he has introduced Native cultural and traditional stories and people that has, for the first time in the history of the Monument, become a part of the daily activities at Mount Rushmore. Some of the locals find it to be reprehensible and a scourge upon the Monument's original intent.
When Greenpeace did its deed the locals came out of the woodwork looking for a scalp to hang on the wall. Baker's scalp looked pretty inviting to those wanting to see blood.
In my mind, Gerard Baker did things to shake up the status quo. He introduced Indian culture, history and thought to a park that had long been dominated with nothing but the residue of the dominant culture. He soon discovered that the white people here hated the change especially because it seemed to elevate Native culture to an equal level with the white culture. After bearing the brunt of negative comments Baker said, "We're promoting all cultures of America. That's what this place is. This is Mount Rushmore. It's America. Everybody's something different here; we're all different. And just maybe that gets us talking again as human beings, as Americans."
Of the controversy, U. S. Senator Tim Johnson said, "While I am still waiting to see the full report on this incident, Gerard Baker has always been extremely professional in his role as superintendent. His efforts to expand programming at the park by incorporating local history has only enhanced the experience visitors get at Mount Rushmore. As National Park Service examines the steps needed to protect Mt. Rushmore in the future, we should not lose sight of his accomplishments or those of his staff."
Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin said, "Throughout his tenure as superintendent of Mount Rushmore, Gerard Baker has been a strong leader who has demonstrated commitment to the memorial and an innovative to multicultural outreach. Without more details about the investigation of the Greenpeace incident, I think it's premature to judge his responsibility as superintendent and his capacity to continue serving in his current role."
To the credit of Rapid City, many of the prominent citizens have come to the aid of Baker. John Brockelsby, former head of the Rapid City Chamber of Commerce and a highly successful businessman, publicly castigated those seeking the head of Baker reminding them that Baker is well-respected not only by his staff, but by many merchants and citizens of the community.
The controversy started when Baker said that all systems at the park functioned as they were supposed to prior to and during the Greenpeace invasion. He said this immediately after the incident and he did not have knowledge that some of the systems, particularly the cameras, had failed. How was he to know that when it took an investigation to discover this fact? Perhaps he spoke too quickly, but that is the style of Mr. Baker. He is not a man to hesitate or to pull punches.
In my mind, he is doing one of best jobs at Mount Rushmore that has ever been done by any prior superintendent and his efforts to introduce the Native culture to the visitors has never seen such popularity. Tourists come to South Dakota to see Indians and now they can visit the Shrine of Democracy and really see a true, diverse, and Democratic America.
As Gerard Baker continues to say, "That is what America is all about."
(Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is the publisher of Native Sun News. He was the founder and first president of the Native American Journalists Association, the 1985 recipient of the H. L. Mencken Award, and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard with the Class of 1991. Giago was inducted into the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2008. He can be reached at editor@nsweekly.com)
The lawyer arrested by D.C. police last weekend for disorderly conduct after chanting "I hate police" plans to fight the charge in court and is putting the city on notice that he might sue.
"We're going to file a notice of claim and we're also going to tell the city and the fire department that they need to preserve all evidence," said Pepin Tuma, 33, an attorney who does commercial litigation for a D.C. firm.
Tuma met with an investigator from the Office of Police Complaints on Thursday. He said that as the investigator questioned him about what happened, based on a narrative from the arresting officer's perspective, it seemed that the city had a version of events far different from his own. Tuma said video evidence from nearby cameras will "absolutely refute the cop's story."
The department declined to comment, but D.C. police spokeswoman Traci Hughes told the Huffington Post that the department is investigating the incident. "Mr. Tuma wrote a letter to the chief complaining about the arrest," she said, "and whenever the chief receives a complaint from any resident she's obligated to investigate."
Meanwhile, Huffington Post has interviewed a third-party eyewitness, who described a sequence of events that closely tracks Tuma's story.
Tuma had said that after a conversation with friends about the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., he loudly chanted "I hate police" at the sight of five or six cruisers on a traffic stop across the street. The witness, who spoke on condition that his name not be used in a story, said he didn't hear Tuma's anti-police song -- the first thing he heard was the officer's angry reaction.
"My girlfriend and I were watching TV and we heard a loud voice say, 'What did you say? You can't talk to me like that,' repeated over and over again," said the eyewitness. "I got up to see [Tuma] in the middle of the crosswalk and saw a cop following him. Then I saw the cop follow him over and within less than two minutes the cop had him in handcuffs and pressed against the transformer box, and then walked him over to the cruiser."
The eyewitness said that he heard Tuma repeatedly asking the officer why he was being arrested, but that Tuma made no effort to resist the arrest. The witness said Tuma's friends told him about Tuma's sing-song taunt when he went outside after Tuma had been put in the cruiser.
"It crossed my mind that maybe the cops were harassing them because they thought they were drunk," the man said. "But they definitely weren't drunk."
Art Spitzer, legal director of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said it's not a crime to say mean things to a cop.
"In general, you can't be lawfully arrested for saying nasty or offensive things to a police officer," he said. "Police officers are supposed to have the training and the discipline to understand that public criticism is not a crime and the proper thing to do in the face of public criticism is to respond politely and leave if there's not actual crime going on that requires an officer's attention."
Philadelphia, PA -- August 2 - This afternoon, at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, I saw the face of ignorance and hate--and it wasn't pretty.
When Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius and Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) came to the National Constitution Center to answer questions about health care reform, they were greeted by an overflow crowd of approximately 400 people, the majority of whom were supporters with legitimate questions.
Unfortunately, though, a well-organized, belligerent and loud group of right-wingers stood in the aisles and across the back and disrupted the town meeting throughout. They yelled, shouted and jeered, and it was clear that they were not there to participate, but instead to try to disrupt the meeting and make it difficult as possible for anyone else to ask questions. They jeered from the moment the director of the Constitution Center stood to welcome everyone. For a few days leading up to the town meeting, e-mails circulated around Philadelphia warning that the "tea-baggers" were planning to protest the meeting and, although there were fewer of them than there were supporters--they made more noise shouting about "socialism," "abortion," and "assisted suicide."
To show their support, the audience stood and applauded Secretary Sebelius and Senator Specter numerous times. There were people in the crowd wearing purple t-shirts with gold and white lettering that said "Health Care Now We Can't Wait."
Local members of Health Care for America, a non-partisan, nationwide coalition of volunteers were a strong presence at the event. According to Antoinette Kraus, a Pennsylvania Eastern Organizer for the Philadelphia Unemployment Project, one of Health Care for America's member organizations, "Two people a day die in Pennsylvania from illnesses that could have been prevented if they'd had access to affordable health care.
"We advocate for quality health care for all through a public option," she said, "and we encouraged all advocates of health care to come out today and support Sect. Sebelius and Senator Specter." In spite of the chaos, questions were asked and answers given. In response to one question, Specter said, "I believe the single-payer system should be on the table," and was enthusiastically applauded. A retired nurse then prefaced her question by saying, "If single-payer passes, I'll come out of retirement!"
When asked why the Community Choice Act (which would cover patients who can be treated at home) wasn't included in the proposed plan, both Sebelius and Specter explained that they are an effort to put it in the final Senate bill.
When an angry woman approached the microphone and complained that health care reform would lead to "rationed care," Secretary Sebelius said emphatically, "Rationed care is absolutely not something we condone," and explained that today health care is "rationed everyday for people who do not have coverage."
To emotionally charged questions about abortion and assisted suicide, Sebelius calmly answered, "Abortion and assisted suicide are not a part of the legislation."
impassioned and frustrated man asked why--if sixty-three percent of the American people favor health care reform--can't sixty-three percent of the Congress pass the legislation. Specter replied, "We are going about it in a democratic way."
One person described seeing people "falling through the cracks everyday" and asked what can be done about "getting insurance for people with serious illnesses." Sebelius explained that the proposed health care reform would require "no more pre-existing barriers, no more being dropped by insurers when you're seriously ill, and no more losing coverage when you lose your job."
Frances Conwell, Philadelphia, was in the audience and supports health care reform and she explained, "People say they don't want to pay for other people, but I say they're going to pay anyway--they can choose to pay for prevention or for how much it costs us now when people have to go to the emergency room for care." She added, "I have health care, but I can't watch other people suffer just because I have coverage. You have to think outside yourself and think about other people."
Maureen Benzig, retired, who formerly worked at the Medical College of Pennsylvania, said, "I would like to see a single-payer system and I was happy to hear Senator Specter say he like it on the table, but I support a public option if we can't get single payer." Benzig described a family member who is a physician and took a year off in order to support single payer. Her own doctors, at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania also support single payer.
When I asked one of the belligerents why he and his companions wouldn't stop shouting so others could speak and be heard, he shouted that it was his right to yell under "the first amendment." I then asked why he couldn't respect the first amendment rights of others and he answered by glaring at me and walking away.
After the question and answer segment ended, I asked three of the boisterous opponents of health care why they do not support it and one of them pulled a copy of the Constitution from his hand and waving it, said, "Health care is not covered in the Constitution." Their arguments were illogical and based on lack of knowledge and an abundance of fear. I commented to them that they were being had, that they were working against their own best interests and they kept waving the Constitution.
The fury and rancor in the faces of the right wingers at the town meeting made it clear that this was not about health care only. It is about fear and raw anger, already inside them, now directed toward the health care debate. They see defeating health care legislation as their opportunity to re-visit the Presidential election.
Despite rain delays and muddy fields, the show went on at the All Points West Music & Arts Festival in Liberty State Park this past weekend.
Featuring sets by the likes of Jay-Z, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Vampire Weekend, TOOL, Coldplay and MGMT, the three-day festival was a who's-who of both established performers and those on their way up. Check out the photos below (possibly NSFW) for highlights and vote on who you think rocks the hardest, and who you wouldn't see even if someone paid you.
On July 9, Ian Shapira, Staff Writer for the Washington Post wrote a 1,500 word fluff piece about consultant Anne Loehr, who explains GenY to their cohabitants in the workplace. Then Gawker's Hamilton Nolan blogged the story, reprinting some of Anne Loehr quotations from the Post piece.
Ian Shapira was initially happy: apparently even in mainstream media, getting a nod from one of the big blogs is now a coup to be celebrated (how times have changed).
The Outrage
But, his editor wasn't so happy. He responded: "They stole your story. Where's your outrage, man?" Where indeed?
So Shapira changed his tune, and now he is outraged (sort of). He spent about two days investigating and writing that 1,500 word story, only to get ripped off by some blogger.
When You Are Drowning, How Much Is a Glass of Water Worth?
All this points to some big problems in the news business - and the problem isn't bloggers "stealing" stories. The problem is measuring the value of content. (See the cost breakdown & analysis of the controversy at the Neiman Lab).
Pre-web, written content was relatively scarce, and people wanted to read fluff. So newspapers paid writers to write lots of fluff, which filled a demand for a valuable commodity. The fluff was used that to sell newspapers & ads, and subsidize hard news.
But in the world of the web, we are swimming in a sea of written content. Much of it fluff. The overwhelming majority of it produced without a cent getting exchanged - by bloggers. Some of it is produced by professional blog outfits like Gawker, who produce it much cheaper than a newspaper does.
So, when other people are providing for free some of the kinds of content you used to sell, then you can't keep selling it. And the "free" is on both ends: free for readers, and free from producers.
Put another way, can you imagine a Gawker blogger spending a *DAY* writing that post?
A quick investigation shows that the Gawker writer of the article, Hamilton Nolan, writes about 10 articles a day, I expect without an editor spending any time on his copy.
So: how can Washington Post compete against Gawker's 10x content output advantage, and probably 40x cost advantage? Answer: they can't, if they compete in creating the same kinds of content. Question: do you think the Washington Post piece was worth 10 times more to you as a reader than the Gawker piece was? Was it worth 40 times more to you as a reader?
Wikipedia vs. Britannica
See, for instance, Britannica's original response to Wikipedia. Wikipedia offered basic general information, easily, for free, usually with links out to more substantial info. Whether or not Wikipedia is "as good as" Britannica matters not a whit to its millions of readers: it is "good enough" for them, meaning that the sale value of "just providing basic general information" got a lot closer to zero, all of a sudden. I'm not sure how Britannica is doing these days, but if it is to survive, it has to innovate in ways that deliver more value than "just providing basic general information." And its in that added value where the new business opportunities lie (and I don't claim to know the answers for Britannica).
In the same way, newspapers have to come to terms with an info marketplace where the value of fluff is approaching zero, while unique, good reporting has a value greater than zero.
Building a Media Business Around Value
So, again, my question is: why would newspapers pay a staff writer to spend a full day investigating & writing a 1,500 word fluff piece when there are a million fluff pieces all over the web getting published every day? What value are they adding to the info marketplace, and is that value worth the money/time they've spent on it?
One answer might be: why not strike a deal with some of the better fluff-piece content providers on the web (say, BoingBoing, Gawker, etc etc), and just republish those pieces (perhaps with a copyedit for style etc). In that way, newspapers could still provide the horizontal content that keeps people reading the serious stuff & ads; but could probably cut the costs of the junk they publish in half, or more.
They already license lots of content from wire services, maybe its time to start licensing content from bloggers too.
And then they could focus on their strengths:
aggregating eyeballs
selecting a good mix of stories
and most importantly:
investigating & writing about stories that other people won't or can't write about
Federal prosecutors have soured on controversial FBI informer Lewis Kasman, the turncoat "adopted son" of the late John Gotti, as a trial witness in Gotti IV, the pending racketeering case against the Dapper Don's beleaguered son Junior. And a sudden cancellation of a court session in the case last week has Gang Land very suspicious that the feds may soon add separate murder charges to the indictment.
Until now, Kasman, a millionaire Garment Center businessman who sold out the Gottis for $51,000 in cash and $338,000 in FBI expense money from 1997 until 2008, has been viewed by the feds as a crucial witness in Gotti IV. Since his status as a snitch was exposed last year, authorities have told Gang Land and other news organizations that Kasman would put the lie to Junior's claim that he quit the mob in 1999 and would help the feds put the former Junior Don behind bars for life.
But in court papers filed with Manhattan Federal Court Judge P. Kevin Castel, prosecutors say that while they want jurors to hear tape recordings Kasman made while wearing a wire from 2005 to 2007, they have no intentions of calling him to the witness stand.
One tape they intend to play, say prosecutors Elie Honig, Jay Trezevant and Steve Kwok, is a June 6, 2007 discussion Kasman had with Junior's cousin, Peter Gotti Jr. -- the son of the crime family's convicted boss -- about an alleged extortionate loan that "is relevant to the government's case."
The conversation is about a loan that Junior gave his cousin years ago. It shows, write the prosecutors, "that, despite Gotti's claim that he withdrew from the mob following his guilty plea in 1999, Gotti continued in 2003 and beyond to engage in loansharking and maintained close personal contact with Gambino family associates who enforced his orders, with physical violence whenever necessary."
In order to get the tapes into evidence, say the prosecutors, they plan to call "cooperating witnesses who recognize Peter Gotti's and (Kasman's) voices and a monitoring agent who can testify about the authenticity of the recording."
Prosecutors occasionally use this technique to keep lowlife cooperating witnesses away from the eyes and ears of jurors. But unlike many of the turncoats who will finger Gotti for racketeering, drug dealing, and murder, Kasman has no dead bodies on his mob resume. The businessman's taint, however, may even be worse: after all, what would a jury make of an "adopted son" who wore a wire on the widow of his "adopted father"?
Then there's the little problem that Kasman, while secretly working for the FBI, ripped off a mob-connected businessman for $80,000, and then lied about the crime for months. Early this month, a Manhattan attorney accused him of stealing an additional $10,000 in FBI cash that Kasman claimed to have given to the lawyer in a sting operation.
Prosecutors declined to comment about the charge leveled by Manhattan attorney Joseph Bondy, or their decision not to call Kasman as a witness.
Defense lawyers Charles Carnesi and John Meringolo have asked Castel to stop the feds from using Kasman's disembodied voice on a courtroom tape player. The money in question, they say, was a "business loan" Gotti gave his cousin more than fifteen years ago, and has nothing to do with alleged Gambino family affairs.
The Kasman tapes motion is still pending.
Castel was scheduled to hear final oral arguments last week and lay out ground rules for Gotti IV with rulings on numerous outstanding pre-trial issues in the case. But the session was mysteriously put off until August 27, a little more than two weeks before trial is set to begin on September 14.
Gang Land would not be surprised if sometime soon prosecutors were to add a separate, stand-alone murder charge or two to the case in an effort to undermine the withdrawal defense the Gotti team used to stymie the feds in Gotti I, II and III.
The current indictment accuses Gotti of three murders from 1988 to 1991. Two were Queens slayings that were related to the drug dealing business that Gotti allegedly operated with former buddy-turned informer John Alite, and could conceivably be charged as drug-related slayings not connected to mob business that continued until 2003. Stay tuned.
Multimillionaire Chicago trader Blair Hull wanted to be a U.S. senator so badly that he spent more than $24 million of his personal fortune in 2004, but he ended up losing to Barack Obama in the Democratic primary.
And when Obama was elected president last year and gave up his Senate seat, Hull went after it again.
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