Battered Justice for Battered Women

By Joan Meier

Saturday, March 19, 2005; Page A25

It is common for the public and the courts to criticize women who are victims of domestic abuse for staying in an abusive relationship and tolerating it. But what happens when women do try to end the abuse? Jessica Gonzales's story provides one horrifying answer.

Echidne of The Snakes: The Life And Times of the Female Blogger

The Life And Times of the Female Blogger

Digby at Hullaballoo: Family Schamily (Schiavo case)

Family Schamily

Ok, everybody. It's time to flood the news outlets with the talking points that Linda Douglas reported last night. The senate is holding a prime time Saturday sideshow to vote on this Schiavo issue and the networks should be FORCED to report that the Republicans are pulling this garbage for political reasons.

Digby at Hullabaloo: Blogcontroversy

Blogcontroversy

I was busy yesterday and didn't weigh in on Matt Stoller and Sean Paul Kelley's open letter to bloggers regarding the Brookings panel. Since the letter was inspired by a post of mine and furthered by an e-mail from a reader of mine, I feel that I should weigh in.

Juan Cole Blog, Informed Comment

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Two Car Bombings of US Troops
Iraqi Politics Still Unsettled

Pentagon power play

Turf wars and bad analysis are just two likely products of the disastrous new intelligence reform.

By John Prados
March/April 2005 pp. 21-23 (vol. 61, no. 2) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

en. William Odom, former head of the codebreaking National Security Agency, responded to the passage of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 by speculating that the alliance of families of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks may one day feel swindled at the paltry results of their Herculean efforts to push the Bush administration to reform the U.S. intelligence community.

The Ugly American Bank (Paul Krugman column)

You can say this about Paul Wolfowitz's qualifications to lead the World Bank: He has been closely associated with America's largest foreign aid and economic development project since the Marshall Plan.

On Eugene Volokh, Crime and Punishment

March 18, 2005

This One's For You, Rilkefan (Special Volokh Edition)

by hilzoy

Last night, Eugene Volokh wrote the following about the slow and public throttling of an Iranian serial murderer:

"I particularly like the involvement of the victims' relatives in the killing of the monster; I think that if he'd killed one of my relatives, I would have wanted to play a role in killing him. Also, though for many instances I would prefer less painful forms of execution, I am especially pleased that the killing — and, yes, I am happy to call it a killing, a perfectly proper term for a perfectly proper act — was a slow throttling, and was preceded by a flogging. The one thing that troubles me (besides the fact that the murderer could only be killed once) is that the accomplice was sentenced to only 15 years in prison, but perhaps there's a good explanation.

Afghanistan: 'One huge US jail'

Afghanistan is the hub of a global network of detention centres, the frontline in America's 'war on terror', where arrest can be random and allegations of torture commonplace. Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark investigate on the ground and talk to former prisoners.

Wolfowitz's Plot to Destroy OPEC And Why it was always Ridiculous

Friday, March 18, 2005

Wolfowitz's Plot to Destroy OPEC
And Why it was always Ridiculous

Joe Conason presents some excellent reasons why Paul Wolfowitz should not head the World Bank. But there may be others.

The BBC Newsnight reports the titanic struggle between the Neoconservatives and Big Oil over Iraqi petroleum. If this story is true, it is some of the best reporting to come out of the Iraq scandal for months, and Greg Palast and his colleagues have scooped the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Bush I circa 1987 on Privatization: "...a nutty idea..."

GEORGE H.W. BUSH DISAVOWS PRIVATIZATION:
... back in 1987.

Crack TNR editorial assistant Ben Adler recently fished this H.W. Bush quote out of the TNR archives (from the November 23, 1987 issue):

I think it's a nutty idea to fool around with the Social Security system and run the risk of [hurting] the people who've been saving all their lives.... It may be a new idea, but it's a dumb one.

Digby at Hullabaloo: Intuitive Barbarity

Intuitive Barbarity

The blogosphere is gobsmacked by Eugene Volokh’s startling admission that he approves of this Iranian style justice:

Orcinus: Bo to the Rescue

Good gawd, if the Terry Schiavo drama -- and especially the atrocious role played in it by Jeb Bush -- weren't enough of a three-ring circus already, it's now drawn the participation of the extremist right. We're escalating from travesty to potential tragedy.

Namely, my old friend Bo Gritz, has leapt into the fray with a chorus of approval from World Net Daily and The Free Republic:

Former Green Beret Commander Bo Gritz is trying to conduct a citizen's arrest of Terri Schiavo's husband and the judge who ordered the brain-damaged Florida woman's feeding tube removed so she can be legally starved.

The 66-year-old retired Army Lt. Colonel with his wife, Judy, arrived in Florida from their home in Nevada yesterday with the intent of arresting anyone involved in removing the life-sustaining tube.

How to prepare a planet for global warming

How to prepare a planet for global warming
Convinced the phenomenon is inevitable, some scientists now focus on coping with it.

By Peter N. Spotts | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Scientists have long warned that some level of global warming is a done deal - due in large part to heat-trapping greenhouse gases humans already have pumped skyward.

Now, however, researchers are fleshing out how much future warming and sea-level rise the world has triggered. The implicit message: "We can't stop this, so how do we live with it?" says Thomas Wigley, a climate researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo.

Mapping The Oil Motive

Mapping The Oil Motive
Michael T. Klare
March 18, 2005

The Bush administration has publicly advanced a number of reasons for going to war in Iraq, from WMDs to the Iraqi people's need for liberation. Michael Klare reviews the evidence that securing America's source of oil was a decisive factor in the White House's decision to invade—and looks at whether the administration succeeded.

Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Petroleum Dependency (Metropolitan Books)

Juan Cole: The Democracy Lie

The Democracy Lie
Juan Cole
March 18, 2005

President Bush and his supporters are taking credit for spreading freedom across the Middle East. Middle East expert Cole disputes the domino theory in the region and labels Iraq—at best—a failed state. Where changes are genuinely occurring they have nothing to do with the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Juan Cole is a professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. He runs a blog on Middle Eastern affairs called Informed Comment. This article first appeared on Salon.com.

Tomgram: Dilip Hiro on Playing the Democracy Card

Tomgram: Dilip Hiro on Playing the Democracy Card

Have we really almost rolled around -- yet again -- to the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, this time amid much Bush administration and neocon self-congratulation, as well as media congratulations (grudging or otherwise) for an Iraqi-election-inspired spread of democracy in the Middle East? And what will we be congratulating ourselves on next year, when the usefulness of "democracy" passes, oil prices continue to rise, and the war in Iraq grinds on?

US cancels Agent Orange study in Vietnam

US cancels Agent Orange study in Vietnam

19:00 16 March 2005
Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition
Jonathan Walter

Is Agent Orange responsible for deformities in the children and grandchildren of people exposed to it during the Vietnam war? Vietnam claims the herbicide, used by the US to reduce forest cover, is to blame. But the US has never accepted this. The chances of the issue ever being resolved receded last month when the US cancelled a multimillion-dollar research project.

Rep. Sanders Sponsors Bill To Prevent Government Censorship of Cable T.V. and Internet

Rep. Sanders Sponsors Bill To Prevent Government Censorship of Cable T.V. and Internet Content

Legislation Will Protect Consumers' Right to View Popular Television Programs and Websites

BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

WASHINGTON - Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced the introduction of legislation to prevent the government from censoring the content on popular cable T.V. shows and Internet websites. Sanders' proposal is in response to recently approved House legislation increasing Federal Communication Commission (FCC) "indecency" fines for broadcast television and radio. The Senate is considering companion legislation and some in the Senate have proposed imposing these same "indecency" regulations on programming provided over cable, satellite, and the Internet. If this proposal were adopted, Americans would be unable to view popular shows like The Sopranos and The Daily Show or would only be able to watch them late at night.

Harry Reid's Letter Re: Internet

Harry Reid warns Republicans: hands off the internet, let freedom of speech thrive.

Bush Is No Gibbering Halfwit, He's Worse ... He's A Moral Imbecile

Bush Is No Gibbering Halfwit, He's Worse ... He's A Moral Imbecile

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Mark Crispin Miller

I've long argued that Bush is not an imbecile -- that he boasts a certain species of political intelligence which we overlook at our own peril. (Also, I agree with others who have argued that he's suffering from some kind of physical or mental deterioration, and has got much worse over the last few years. To which we'd have to add that his ostensibly unbounded power has had its utterly predictable effect on him.) The notion that he's just a gibbering halfwit is a rather pleasurable one to many who detest him. I've always argued, and still think, that the situation is in fact much worse than that.

March 18, 2005 Cursor

Media Patrol

Three Democratic senators voted with Republicans to give President Bush a 51-49 victory on ANWR, a vote seen as "the opening wedge in a broader campaign." "I'm trying to smile again," rejoiced Alaska's Senator Ted Stevens, wearing an Incredible Hulk tie. Joel Connelly salutes those about to get drilled.

Soldiers' families to hold anti-war rally at Ft. Bragg

Soldiers' families to hold anti-war rally at Ft. Bragg

By Charisse Jones, USA TODAY

Military families and veterans are helping organize a major anti-war rally outside Fort Bragg in North Carolina that could draw several thousand people Saturday, the second anniversary of the Iraq war.

Democratic Leader Harry Reid's Letter to Bill Frist

There comes a time to draw a line in the sand.

The so called "ANWR Vote"

There's been a lot of discussion on the recent 51-49 vote in the Senate to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). It's not as straight forward as it first looks.

As many are aware, the language in Amendment 168 to Senate Con. Res. 18 (2006 budget resolution) was deceptively simply, reading in its entirety thus, “Strike Section 201(a)(4)”.

Striking this section from the budget resolution would have served to eliminate the ability of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (chaired by drilling advocate Pete Domenici; http://energy.senate.gov/index.cfm) to submit legislation under the guise of fulfilling it’s budgetary obligations that would be immune from substantive amendments and requiring only a simple majority vote (such power granted under section 304 of the resolution).

In this context, the vote against the amendment does not necessarily open up drilling in ANWR, it just reduces the barriers. Final legislation from the committee must be produced by June 6, but will likely come much sooner. And it is still possible to stop it in the Senate.

But there is a more important issue at stake. The Energy Committee has limited revenue management abilities, chiefly arising from oil, gas, minerals and some public lands. As you may surmise, the danger in all of this extends far beyond ANWR. The current budget resolution gives the Energy Committee an almost unfettered right to vote out legislation affecting any other energy related resource, such as off shore drilling or the sale of public lands. This precedent could allow future legislation of this nature to be passed by a one vote majority.

In effect, this is the filibuster issue, widely reported as affecting the judiciary only, applied to legislative action. It is truly the camel’s nose under the tent.

For the full story, read the debate on the floor of the Senate, especially amendment sponsor Maria Cantwell’s (D-WA) speech. She effectively addresses the primary issue. (The response by Pete Domenici borders on ludicrous, addressing gas prices instead of the fundamental issue of senate procedures.) The Congressional Record pages that address the debate have been uploaded to the files section of this site (

My personal belief is that this should be reframed in a manner that tracks the current work that MoveOn.org is doing on the judicial filibuster. Republicans are intent on eliminating super majority procedures as a way of maximizing their agenda now that they hold the executive and legislative branches.

Why Can’t We Go to Jerusalem on a Donkey?

(Submitted by Lucy)

Here is an article, just released, by Greg Moses. Notice that you can access it also on his "peacefile" website. You are going to enjoy this! It has a punch because it tells the truth. Share it with others. Greg is writing on the trip and the nonviolent witness in response to my request/invitation to do this writing.

Spanking Uncle Alan (Greenspan)

AN EXTRACT FROM DIGBY:

Spanking Uncle Alan

In 1983, Greenspan, a Republican, chaired a bipartisan commission that recommended a package of tax increases and benefit reductions to shore up Social Security's finances. Congress followed the panel's recommendations.

Today, he said, the debate is far more partisan. Earlier this month Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada called Greenspan a "political hack." Tuesday, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., pounced on him harshly as well. She said his support of tax cuts in 2001 "helped blow the lid off" a government budget surplus and led to last year's record $412 billion deficit.

Greenspan countered that he warned in 2001 that tax reductions could lead to deficits and that a trigger was needed to force automatic spending cuts if deficits appeared. Congress didn't do that.

"It turns out we were all wrong," Greenspan said.

Clinton interrupted him.

"Just for the record," she said, "we were not all wrong, but many people were wrong."

Damned straight. Greenspan got up before the country and said that it was dangerous to run a surplus and we simply had to cut taxes. Now he is feverish on the subject of getting the savings rate up. Perhaps I'm wrong here, but from an economic standpoint I thought it didn't matter a whole lot if the government saves the money or the private sector saves the money, the economy benefits more or less the same.

Randians like Uncle Alan, however, don't really see these things in terms of the health of the overall economy so much as the imperatives of a moral system that must be followed regardless of the consequences. They believe capitalism is a religion in which it is always wrong for the government to tax the heroic John Galts of the world, as a matter of virtue, not economics. Therefore, their dogma requires that the idea of surplus is positively wicked if the Galt strata are being taxed even a penny.

This strange erratic behavior we see in Uncle Alan these days is to be expected of people who follow the teachings of speedy, chainsmoking Russian romance novelists. They tend to serve their goddess as needs be. One could call them hacks. I prefer cultist.

digby 3:33 PM Comments (32) Trackbacks (2)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_03_13_digbysblog_archive.html
#111093138646309829

The Making of Falwell

Dad Dearest

Via A Tiny Revolution, a look at the Rockwellian childhood of Jerry Falwell, from his autobiography:

There were times that Dad’s pranks bordered on cruelty. One of his oil-company workers, a one-legged man he nicknamed “Crip” Smith, complained about everything. Dad and Crip’s co-workers got tired of the old man’s bellyaching and decided to take revenge. One morning Crip called in sick and Dad volunteered to send by lunch to his grateful but suspicious employee. Dad and his chums caught Crip’s old black tomcat, killed it, skinned it, and cooked it in the kitchen of one of Dad’s little restaurants. They called it squirrel meat and delivered it to Crip on a linen-covered tray. When Crip returned to work the next morning, Dad and his co-conspirators asked him how he liked his meal. They knew he would complain even about a free home-cooked lunch, and when Crip called it “the toughest squirrel meat” he had ever eaten, they were glad to tell him why.

Yes, I can see how sensitive souls might find that sort of thing to be very nearly cruel. A free Poor Man t-shirt to the clever boy or girl who can explain how this instance of Daddy forcing a man to eat his own pussy explains the psycho-sexual hoo-hah behind these immortal remarks:

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians…the A.C.L.U., People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say, “You helped this [9/11] happen.”

Published in:

* Uncategorized

on March 15, 2005 at 2:29 pm

DDT and Environmentalists

GOOD DEFENSE OF ENVIRONMENTALISTS WHO SUPPOSEDLY CAUSED MALARIA DEATHS BY BANNING DDT:

http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/science/DDT

The Real Choices Women Make

The Real Choices Women Make

http://www.alternet.org/rights/21494/

War On Terror 'Vanishes From Agenda'

War On Terror 'Vanishes From Agenda'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/4034833.stm

Army Ignored Broker on Arms Deal

Army Ignored Broker on Arms Deal

The Los Angeles Times investigates an Iraq contract supervised by a U.S. general, and finds over $24 million missing, and a U.S. contractor dead -- eight days after he sent an e-mail warning of "serious legal issues that will land us all in jail."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-contract15mar15,0,739718,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

The $600 Billion Man by Paul Krugman

The $600 Billion Man

by PAUL KRUGMAN

At issue in the Social Security debate is what kind of society America should be.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/15/opinion/15krugman.html

Liberal Bloggers Reaching Out to Major Media

Liberal Bloggers Reaching Out to Major Media


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/14/technology/14blog.html?ex=1111554000&en=718bd07c6463bcbd&ei=5070

KBR spent millions getting $82,100 worth of LPG into Iraq

KBR spent millions getting $82,100 worth of LPG into Iraq

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3085603

March 15, 2005 Daily Howler

Tomgram: Chalmers Johnson, Coming to Terms with China

http://tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=2259

Seldom do you find a piece that tries to put East Asia together, laying out for us, in particular, the explosive nature of the U.S./Japan/China triangular relationship, which in various combinations has in the past plunged us into bloody war .

...Chalmers Johnson does just that and in monumental fashion. It's rare for us to take time out of busy lives to consider how exactly the dots might be connected, how the world actually works. I urge all of you to consider doing so in the case of Johnson's long essay. It will repay your time many times over.--Tom Englhart

Right Wing Assault on Mainline Churches

AN EXTRACT FROM DAILY KOS...EXTREMELY IMPORTANT

Names and Money Trail of Right Wing Termites in Mainline Christian Denominations
by tikkun
Sun Mar 13th, 2005 at 19:19:26 PST

Author Leon Howell, a well respected religious journalist, has written a book for the United Methodists that all serious members of the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Episcopal churches would do well to read several times from cover to cover. Those who are serious about connecting the dots between right wing power brokers and their mechinations also need to read the book.

The BOOK!
United Methodism@RISK, A Wake Up Call

In the book, Howell outlines

1. who is party to this ugly adventure
2. how the Institute on Religion and Democracy, IRD has organized them to win major victories on key theological and sexuality issues at recent Methodist Church conventions
3. how they intend to to take over the governing structures of the Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches as well.

Diaries :: tikkun's diary ::

His descriptions of how the political right-wing, operating in the guise of a gaggle of so-called "renewal groups," through the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), has acquired the money and political will to target three mainline American churches: The United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church USA and the Episcopal Church. The IRD was created and is sustained by money from right-wing corporate foundations and has spent some $4.4 million in 20 years attacking mainline churches. Two key architects of this group are conservative Roman Catholics: Father Richard John Neuhaus and Michael Novak. The IRD's ultra-conservative social-policy goals include:

-increasing military spending and foreign interventions,
-opposing environmental protection efforts
-eliminating social welfare programs.

In a document called "Reforming America's Churches Project 2001-2004 (executive summary)," the IRD states that its aim is to change the "permanent governing structure" of mainline churches "so they can help renew the wider culture of our nation." In other words, its goal is not a spiritual quest at all, but a political takeover from the extreme right whose efforts are financed directly and indirectly by the likes of Richard Mellon Scaife and the Olin Foundation, among others.

Mr. Howell indicates that many of the same forces that have overwhelmed the Southern Baptist denomination are seeking to undermine the core values of tolerance, civility, and advocacy for the weak and vulnerable that are central to the heritage and witness of mainline Protestantism. Similar to the strategy employed against the Southern Baptists, the political right seeks to gain top leadership positions in the church by spreading misleading information and incendiary allegations against organizations and individuals. These groups employ the propaganda method of "wedge issues" like abortion and homosexuality to cause confusion, dissension and division. Mr. Howell persuasively demonstrates that the IRD and other self-proclaimed "renewal groups" are uninterested in genuine dialogue, desiring only to impose their belief systems on the target churches.
--Andrew Weaver, M.Th., Ph.D.
--Stephen Swecker, Editor: Zion's Herald, one of the nation's oldest religious publications (1823)

The secular money trail for this attack includes names that, no doubt, are familiar to most of the readers of this diary:

James Mellon Scaife
John M. Olin Foundation
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
Smith Richardson Foundation (Vicks)
Castle Rock (Adolph Coors)
Fieldstead Foundation (Ahmanson)

Names of influential people involved in the right wing attack on mainline denominations:

#Diana Nippers - Episcopal Church, IRD president, Good News-Editor
#C Welton Gaddy - Southern Baptist
#James V. Heidinger II - Good News-founder
#J. Howard Pew - Presbyterian Lay Committee, Sun Oil, Pew Memorial Trusts
#Charles Keysor - Good News founder, Asbury College-faculty
#Scott Field - Good News legislative director
#Michael Bauman - Hillsdale College-prof. of theology
#George Wiegel - Ethics and Public Policy Center -senior fellow
#Mark Tooley - Former CIA employee, IRD-director and editor of UM action newsletter,
#Thomas Oden - Drew University, prof. of theology and ethics
#Roberta Green Ahmanson - IRD board, American Anglicans funder
#David Stanely - UM Action, Chairman, United Methodist Confessing mov. Founder and CEO of Pearl Mutual Funds National Taxpayers Union-chair
#Helen Rhea Stumbo - IRD-first vice chairman, Good News-former president
#Mary Ellen Bork - IRD board, wife of Robet Bork
#Fred Barnes - Weekly Standard-founder/senior ed., Beltway Boys (Fox) co-host
#Terry Schlossberg - Presbyterians Pro-Life-chairman
#Robert George - Princton University:legal theorist/James Madison Program,
Ethics and Policy Studies board, First Things-editorial panel
#John Boone - IRD board member, Presybterian Lay Committee-director
#Penn Kemble - USIA associate dir. under Clinton, Neo-conservative
#David Jessup - AFL-CIO, Neo-conservative addition, IRD Board of Dir.
#George Weigle - Ethics and Public Policy Center, senior fellow
#Edmond Robb - United Methodist evangelist, IRD president, Good News Activist
Confessing Movement-executive dir.
#Michael Novak - Catholic layman, IRD Board of Dir., American Enterprise Institute
#Richard John Neuhouse- Roman Catholic priest
Institute for Religion and Public LIfe in NYC-Head
IRD Board of Dir.

Since, like all other influential institutions, the mainline Christian denominations are suffering through a right wing onslaught, we need the up front support of our secular and interfaith brothers and sisters during these embattled times. We can either carry our share of the responsability to return America to its vision of justice and fairness alone and weakened, or, with the support of the greater community, we can proceed with enhanced strength and confidence.

Daily Howler, March 14, 2005

http://www.dailyhowler.com/

History for Dummies

History for Dummies
The troubling popularity of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History.

Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2114713/

Judging Our Slave-Owning Ancestors

EXTRACT FROM BLOGS "Is This Legal" AND "The Real Eve". SOME OF MY OWN ANCESTORS WERE SLAVEOWNERS--Dictynna

HERE IS A LINK TO THE ARTICLE REFERENCED IN THIS POST--Dictynna www.isthatlegal.org/ancestors.pdf


March 08, 2005

Judging Our Own Ancestors

In the new essay I've been shamelessly flogging here the last few days--now available for download on SSRN--I ask how we should judge the wrongdoing of our ancestors.

It turns out this is an especially personal question for my friend Dabney. Her post is a must-read; I quote it here at length and add just a couple of comments.

Dabney writes:

Monday, March 07, 2005

Pocahontas or Robert E. Lee?

My friend Eric Muller has written a great paper about judging our ancestors. In it he defines an appropriate way to hold those in the past responsible for their sins. I think his analysis is a just and sensible one.

But there is another question I have. How does one view one’s ancestors—if they have sinned but have also accomplished good? And what is an appropriate way to incorporate those ancestors into one’s modern life?

For example, in Eric’s paper he talks about Landon Carter, a slaveholder in Colonial Virginia. Landon was the son of King Carter, one of the Colonies’ wealthiest and powerful men. Landon, in 1774, was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses—he had power, wealth and intelligence. At the time of his death, he owned more than 400 slaves. Eric writes that we can and should hold Landon culpable for not speaking out against slavery, for never using his power and influence to change his culture. I agree. I can judge him and find him severely wanting.

But, what about the good that Landon and his father King Carter did? They worked to create government, supported the building of schools, and helped form America. They made some very real, lasting contributions to the past. Do we acknowledge that side of them too?

It is at this point, I must confess, I am a descendant of Landon and King. My eldest is named Carter and I have in my house a small portrait of King Carter. In fact, I am descended from all sorts of slaveholders and Southern aristocrats.

I know this because my family has always been proud of their ancestry. My grandmother, Pocahontas Edmunds (she was the 8th great grand-daughter of the real Pocahontas), was a historian who wrote books about famous Southern people. She signed her grandchildren up for all sorts of ancestry based societies—Descendents of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, the Robert E. Lee Society, etc…. I have been raised to pass on the good traditions of my family. My nephews are named things like Harrison, Carrington, Coles and St. George Tucker. I kept my name when I got married because a) why wouldn’t I and b) I like being a Grinnan.

Should I feel good about being descended (crazy word!) from Pocahontas, but not from Robert E. Lee? But Lee wasn’t all bad—he was, perhaps, a better man to his men than Grant. How do I make sense of this? And what about the things I have—books, furniture, silver—all passed down from generation to generation to me? Are these things wrong for me to love because the money that bought them at some point probably came from wealthy white men who might have owned slaves or who probably never saw blacks as equals?

What does one do? Are the sinners of our past—my past—to be seen only as sinners? Should I renounce that part of my past and push to have my grandchildren named names that carry no Colonial history? Should I sell my silver and give the money to the scholarship fund for African Americans? Should I be ashamed?

I think I’m—more or less—a reasonable person. I would describe my politics as sensible, liberal and well informed. I think I’m making choices in my own life that will hold up to some, if not total, scrutiny from the generations to come. Can I be a good woman in this life while still honoring parts of my past that were flawed, often profoundly? If racism is a family heirloom does that mean all my heirlooms—physical and cultural—should be cast aside in this 21st century? Did I misname my eldest? If I disavow all of my past is that revisionist in some other untruthful way? I just don’t know.

posted by Dabney @ 8:46 PM.

Here's what I say about this in my essay:
"To say that an act from an earlier time should not be entirely excused is not, of course, to say that it should be entirely condemned. Here, too, the criminal law provides a useful model. At a criminal sentencing hearing, the sentencer's mission is to develop as full a picture as possible of the offender and the offense, in order to craft a punishment that takes into account not just the offense but the larger circumstances in which it occurred, some of which may be extenuating. Even where the criminal law does not exculpate an accused on the basis of evidence of his cultural practices, the law often allows such evidence in mitigation at sentencing. Much the same should also be true of our consideration of the wrongdoing of prior generations. Although evidence of "what the world was like back then" will rarely absolve a person of all responsibility for what he chose to do and for the harm he chose to inflict, such evidence should assist us in drawing a more complete and balanced picture of past generations as full, complex human beings who were more than just the sum of certain of their actions.
"We might prefer not to see our ancestors in this light. It is certainly less challenging—to our image of ourselves and to our narrative about our country—to see them as justified actors whose blemishes we can cover up with the cosmetic of context. But this is risky. In justifying the acts of our ancestors, we not only dishonor the memory of those they oppressed. We also create the circumstances for renewed oppression of the powerless of today and tomorrow."
So I say to Dabney: celebrate King Carter--for his complex and richly human legacy. The danger is not in embracing our misbehaving ancestors. It is in embracing our ancestors as if they did not misbehave.

Eric Muller

Acid rain likely stunts US forests

Public release date: 11-Mar-2005

Contact: Greg Lawrence
glawrenc@usgs.gov
518-285-5664
United States Geological Survey
Acid rain likely stunts US forests
A recent international scientific study on Russian soils raises concerns that acid rain may have serious implications for forest growth in the U.S., particularly in eastern areas such as the Adirondack and Catskill regions of New York according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

"We've known that acid rain acidifies surface waters, but this is the first time we've been able to compare and track tree growth in forests that include soil changes due to acid rain," said USGS scientist Greg Lawrence, who headed the study.

The team included scientists from Russia, the State University of New York at Albany, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, and the U.S. Forest Service.

Lawrence said that despite several decades of research, up until now acid rain effects on forests have not been well known, largely because it's not been known how acid rain affects soil.

"Russians invented the study of soil science and through their help, a large step forward has been taken in measuring acid rain effects on soils and trees," he said. "By providing the only preserved soil in the world collected before the acid rain era, the Russians helped our international team track tree growth for the first time with changes in soil from acid rain."

This study, conducted near St. Petersburg, Russia, showed that, in about 50 years, acid rain had severely degraded a previously fertile soil to the point at which spruce trees could no longer maintain healthy growth rates. Poor growth rates such as these generally precede high mortality rates in the near future. The declining tree health has occurred despite a warmer and wetter climate in this region that would be expected to improve growth.

These results have direct relevance to the United States, where large areas of eastern forests, such as the Adirondack and Catskill regions of New York, have soils that are likely to be more sensitive to acid rain than those studied in Russia. Lawrence said that these findings also broaden the question of recovery from acid rain beyond that of just surface waters.

Details of the study have been posted in the March web version of Environmental, Science and Technology journal.

###

The USGS serves the nation by providing reliable scientific information to: describe and understand the Earth; minimize loss of life and property from natural disasters; manage water, biological, energy, and mineral resources; and enhance and protect our quality of life.
***USGS***

Money: So Where Did It Go?

The FBI is trying to trace what happened to $2.5 million in payments to a conservative Washington think tank that were routed to accounts controlled by two lobbyists with close ties to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, NEWSWEEK has learned.

Information for ThePLAN

HERE IS A COLLECTION OF RECENT NEWS...I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT.--Dictynna



Welcome to Doomsday (By Bill Moyers)

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17852?email
There are times when what we journalists see and intend to write about dispassionately sends a shiver down the spine, shaking us from our neutrality. This has been happening to me frequently of late as one story after another drives home the fact that the delusional is no longer marginal but has come in from the fringe to influence the seats of power.

Mr. Bush's Stealthy Tax Increase (WP Editorial)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/opinion/13sun1.html?ex=1111381200&en=86678bdf8ff802b7&ei=5070
President Bush is presiding over a big middle-class tax hike.

Casino Bid Prompted High-Stakes Lobbying (by Susan Schmidt)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30274-2005Mar12.html?referrer=emailarticle

Elections Run by Same Guys Who Sell Toothpaste (by Noam Chomsky )http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0311-21.htm

Arab American Publisher Says Bush Told Him in May 2000 He Planned to "Take Out" Iraq
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/11/1449253
Osama Siblani, publisher of "The Arab American" newspaper, says George W Bush told him in May 2000 - before he was nominated as the Republican presidential candidate - that he is going to "take out" Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

May we call them fascists NOW? (by Blog: The Flypaper Theory)
http://thepeskyfly.blogspot.com/2005/03/may-we-call-them-fascists-now.html

Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged Television News (By David Barstow and Robin Stein )
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/13covert.html
Government-made news segments have been broadcast on local television stations without acknowledgement of their origin.

They talk about freedom and values, but they really don't believe in representative government.
http://citypages.com/databank/26/1266/article13039.asp
A decade ago, Dave Durenberger retired from the U.S. Senate as the highest-ranking member of Minnesota’s Republican Party. Now he barelyrecognizes the new school GOP that’s taken its place.

Steffen E-Mails Imply Closer Link to Ehrlich ( By Matthew Mosk)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28139-2005Mar11.html?referrer=emailarticle

Chemical Soup and Federal Loopholes
http://www.alternet.org/story/21468
Toxic cosmetics ingredients were recently banned in the European Union. Here in the U.S., the $35 billion cosmetics industry is fighting a similar ban tooth and nail.

Dean slams Bush on town-hall meetings

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said yesterday that President Bush’s policy of excluding non-Republicans from town-hall meetings on Social Security reform was “not an American thing to do.”

Yay Howard . . .

Now, how about suggesting a response, like holding our own meetings, and inviting every bloody Republican in sight to attend so they can see what an open and honest society really looks like?!

If you think that criticizing Republicans will get them to change, you are dreaming in color. Let's focus on changing those minds that can still be influenced, and let's do it by example, eh?