Monday, May 07, 2007
Monday, April 30, 2007
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Photo of the Week
Photo of a woman in Engela, Namibia. I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia from 1998 to 2000.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Quote of the Week
You don't want to get mixed up with a guy like me. I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel.
Pee-Wee Herman
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
Pee-Wee Herman
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Photo of the Week
Saloma and Kiki, two boys from Engela, Namibia. I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia from 1998 to 2000.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Proverbs
Out of the Mouths of Babes
A first grade teacher collected well-known proverbs. She gave each child in her class the first half of a proverb, and had them come up with the rest. Their insight may surprise you...
Better to be safe than ....Punch a 5th grader.
Strike while the.....Bug is close.
It's always darkest before....Daylight Savings time.
Never underestimate the power of.....Termites.
You can lead a horse to water but ....how?
Don't bite the hand that ....looks dirty.
No news is....impossible.
A miss is as good as a .....Mr.
You can't teach an old dog new....math.
If you lie down with dogs, you....stink in the morning.
Love all, trust .....me.
The pen is mightier than the....pigs.
An idle mind is....the best way to relax
Where there's smoke there's ....Pollution.
Happy the bride who.....gets all the presents.
A penny saved is....not much
Two's company, three's....the Musketeers.
Don't put off till tomorrow what....you put on to go to bed.
Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and ....you have to blow your nose.
None are so blind as....Helen Keller.
Children should be seen and not....spanked or grounded.
If at first you don't succeed....get new batteries.
You get out of something what you....see pictured on the box
When the blind leadeth the blind....get out of the way.
A first grade teacher collected well-known proverbs. She gave each child in her class the first half of a proverb, and had them come up with the rest. Their insight may surprise you...
Better to be safe than ....Punch a 5th grader.
Strike while the.....Bug is close.
It's always darkest before....Daylight Savings time.
Never underestimate the power of.....Termites.
You can lead a horse to water but ....how?
Don't bite the hand that ....looks dirty.
No news is....impossible.
A miss is as good as a .....Mr.
You can't teach an old dog new....math.
If you lie down with dogs, you....stink in the morning.
Love all, trust .....me.
The pen is mightier than the....pigs.
An idle mind is....the best way to relax
Where there's smoke there's ....Pollution.
Happy the bride who.....gets all the presents.
A penny saved is....not much
Two's company, three's....the Musketeers.
Don't put off till tomorrow what....you put on to go to bed.
Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and ....you have to blow your nose.
None are so blind as....Helen Keller.
Children should be seen and not....spanked or grounded.
If at first you don't succeed....get new batteries.
You get out of something what you....see pictured on the box
When the blind leadeth the blind....get out of the way.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Friday, April 06, 2007
Thursday, April 05, 2007
MLK
The Martin Luther King You Don’t See on TV
by Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon
It’s become a TV ritual: Every year on April 4, as Americans commemorate Martin Luther King’s death, we get perfunctory network news reports about “the slain civil rights leader.”
The remarkable thing about these reviews of King’s life is that several years – his last years – are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.
What TV viewers see is a closed loop of familiar file footage: King battling desegregation in Birmingham (1963); reciting his dream of racial harmony at the rally in Washington (1963); marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama (1965); and finally, lying dead on the motel balcony in Memphis (1968).
An alert viewer might notice that the chronology jumps from 1965 to 1968. Yet King didn’t take a sabbatical near the end of his life. In fact, he was speaking and organizing as diligently as ever.
Almost all of those speeches were filmed or taped. But they’re not shown today on TV.
Why?
It’s because national news media have never come to terms with what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for during his final years.
In the early 1960s, when King focused his challenge on legalized racial discrimination in the South, most major media were his allies. Network TV and national publications graphically showed the police dogs and bullwhips and cattle prods used against Southern blacks who sought the right to vote or to eat at a public lunch counter.
But after passage of civil rights acts in 1964 and 1965, King began challenging the nation’s fundamental priorities. He maintained that civil rights laws were empty without “human rights” – including economic rights. For people too poor to eat at a restaurant or afford a decent home, King said, anti-discrimination laws were hollow.
Noting that a majority of Americans below the poverty line were white, King developed a class perspective. He decried the huge income gaps between rich and poor, and called for “radical changes in the structure of our society” to redistribute wealth and power.
“True compassion,” King declared, “is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
By 1967, King had also become the country’s most prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. In his “Beyond Vietnam” speech delivered at New York’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 – a year to the day before he was murdered – King called the United States “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” (Full text/audio here. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2564.htm)
From Vietnam to South Africa to Latin America, King said, the U.S. was “on the wrong side of a world revolution.” King questioned “our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America,” and asked why the U.S. was suppressing revolutions “of the shirtless and barefoot people” in the Third World, instead of supporting them.
In foreign policy, King also offered an economic critique, complaining about “capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries.”
You haven’t heard the “Beyond Vietnam” speech on network news retrospectives, but national media heard it loud and clear back in 1967 – and loudly denounced it. Time magazine called it “demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.” The Washington Post patronized that “King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.”
In his last months, King was organizing the most militant project of his life: the Poor People’s Campaign. He crisscrossed the country to assemble “a multiracial army of the poor” that would descend on Washington – engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol, if need be – until Congress enacted a poor people’s bill of rights. Reader’s Digest warned of an “insurrection.”
King’s economic bill of rights called for massive government jobs programs to rebuild America’s cities. He saw a crying need to confront a Congress that had demonstrated its “hostility to the poor” – appropriating “military funds with alacrity and generosity,” but providing “poverty funds with miserliness.”
How familiar that sounds today, nearly 40 years after King’s efforts on behalf of the poor people’s mobilization were cut short by an assassin’s bullet.
In 2007, in this nation of immense wealth, the White House and most in Congress continue to accept the perpetuation of poverty. They fund foreign wars with “alacrity and generosity,” while being miserly in dispensing funds for education and healthcare and environmental cleanup.
And those priorities are largely unquestioned by mainstream media. No surprise that they tell us so little about the last years of Martin Luther King’s life.
Jeff Cohen http://jeffcohen.org/ is the author of “Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.” Norman Solomon www.normansolomon.com is the author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death” now out in paperback.
by Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon
It’s become a TV ritual: Every year on April 4, as Americans commemorate Martin Luther King’s death, we get perfunctory network news reports about “the slain civil rights leader.”
The remarkable thing about these reviews of King’s life is that several years – his last years – are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.
What TV viewers see is a closed loop of familiar file footage: King battling desegregation in Birmingham (1963); reciting his dream of racial harmony at the rally in Washington (1963); marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama (1965); and finally, lying dead on the motel balcony in Memphis (1968).
An alert viewer might notice that the chronology jumps from 1965 to 1968. Yet King didn’t take a sabbatical near the end of his life. In fact, he was speaking and organizing as diligently as ever.
Almost all of those speeches were filmed or taped. But they’re not shown today on TV.
Why?
It’s because national news media have never come to terms with what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for during his final years.
In the early 1960s, when King focused his challenge on legalized racial discrimination in the South, most major media were his allies. Network TV and national publications graphically showed the police dogs and bullwhips and cattle prods used against Southern blacks who sought the right to vote or to eat at a public lunch counter.
But after passage of civil rights acts in 1964 and 1965, King began challenging the nation’s fundamental priorities. He maintained that civil rights laws were empty without “human rights” – including economic rights. For people too poor to eat at a restaurant or afford a decent home, King said, anti-discrimination laws were hollow.
Noting that a majority of Americans below the poverty line were white, King developed a class perspective. He decried the huge income gaps between rich and poor, and called for “radical changes in the structure of our society” to redistribute wealth and power.
“True compassion,” King declared, “is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
By 1967, King had also become the country’s most prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. In his “Beyond Vietnam” speech delivered at New York’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 – a year to the day before he was murdered – King called the United States “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” (Full text/audio here. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2564.htm)
From Vietnam to South Africa to Latin America, King said, the U.S. was “on the wrong side of a world revolution.” King questioned “our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America,” and asked why the U.S. was suppressing revolutions “of the shirtless and barefoot people” in the Third World, instead of supporting them.
In foreign policy, King also offered an economic critique, complaining about “capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries.”
You haven’t heard the “Beyond Vietnam” speech on network news retrospectives, but national media heard it loud and clear back in 1967 – and loudly denounced it. Time magazine called it “demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.” The Washington Post patronized that “King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.”
In his last months, King was organizing the most militant project of his life: the Poor People’s Campaign. He crisscrossed the country to assemble “a multiracial army of the poor” that would descend on Washington – engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol, if need be – until Congress enacted a poor people’s bill of rights. Reader’s Digest warned of an “insurrection.”
King’s economic bill of rights called for massive government jobs programs to rebuild America’s cities. He saw a crying need to confront a Congress that had demonstrated its “hostility to the poor” – appropriating “military funds with alacrity and generosity,” but providing “poverty funds with miserliness.”
How familiar that sounds today, nearly 40 years after King’s efforts on behalf of the poor people’s mobilization were cut short by an assassin’s bullet.
In 2007, in this nation of immense wealth, the White House and most in Congress continue to accept the perpetuation of poverty. They fund foreign wars with “alacrity and generosity,” while being miserly in dispensing funds for education and healthcare and environmental cleanup.
And those priorities are largely unquestioned by mainstream media. No surprise that they tell us so little about the last years of Martin Luther King’s life.
Jeff Cohen http://jeffcohen.org/ is the author of “Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.” Norman Solomon www.normansolomon.com is the author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death” now out in paperback.
Photo of the Week
Boy standing outside his house in Tses, Namibia. I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia from 1998 to 2000.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Quote of the Week
"Men, yonder are the Hessians. They were bought for seven pounds and ten pence a man. Are you worth more? Prove it. Tonight, the American flag floats from yonder hill, or Molly Stark sleeps a widow."
General John Stark, August 16, 1777
Before the Battle of Bennington
General John Stark, August 16, 1777
Before the Battle of Bennington
Quote of the Week
“When forced to work within a strict framework the imagination is taxed to its utmost – and will produce its richest ideas. Given total freedom the work is likely to sprawl."
— T.S. Eliot
— T.S. Eliot
Monday, April 02, 2007
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Quote of the Week
If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right.
Anon
Anon
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Photo of the Week
Girl standing by bricks in Engela, Namibia. I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia from 1998 to 2000.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Links of the Week
Snoop's story.
Great blog post about test standards.
Advice to young men.
What state has the highest death rate in Iraq? Vermont.
The toughest teaching assignment? Middle school.
Thoughts on testing.
Great blog post about test standards.
Advice to young men.
What state has the highest death rate in Iraq? Vermont.
The toughest teaching assignment? Middle school.
Thoughts on testing.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Monday, March 12, 2007
Links of the Week
How do today's youth view topics such as abortion and gay marriage? The answers may surprise you.
Bobby Joe Long committed at least nine rape/murders in Tampa, Florida in the mid-90's. During his trial an MRI scan of his brain discovered his amygdala had been severely damaged from a motorcycle accident. It was only after this accident that Long became a criminal. In trial research, monkeys with damaged amygdalas are shown to have significant social and emotional deficits. Which is a long way of asking, how much free will do we really have? Read this article to find out.
"Guest Worker Program" is a polite phrase for modern slavery.
If you are in Mississippi this week don't miss the high school basketball grand slam in Tupelo.
Bobby Joe Long committed at least nine rape/murders in Tampa, Florida in the mid-90's. During his trial an MRI scan of his brain discovered his amygdala had been severely damaged from a motorcycle accident. It was only after this accident that Long became a criminal. In trial research, monkeys with damaged amygdalas are shown to have significant social and emotional deficits. Which is a long way of asking, how much free will do we really have? Read this article to find out.
"Guest Worker Program" is a polite phrase for modern slavery.
If you are in Mississippi this week don't miss the high school basketball grand slam in Tupelo.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Quote of the Week
"If you want to make a difference in the classroom the best investment is a good teacher."
Johnny Franklin, Current Education Advisor to Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour
Johnny Franklin, Current Education Advisor to Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour
Monday, March 05, 2007
Links of the Week
Are today's youth praised too much?
Forbes magazine on the Achievement Gap.
Where is my America?
How to build a prodigy.
Forbes magazine on the Achievement Gap.
Where is my America?
How to build a prodigy.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
George Orwell's Rules for Writing
Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive [voice] where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive [voice] where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Must-Do List
From today's New York Times...
The Must-Do List
The Bush administration’s assault on some of the founding principles of American democracy marches onward despite the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections. The new Democratic majorities in Congress can block the sort of noxious measures that the Republican majority rubber-stamped. But preventing new assaults on civil liberties is not nearly enough.
Five years of presidential overreaching and Congressional collaboration continue to exact a high toll in human lives, America’s global reputation and the architecture of democracy. Brutality toward prisoners, and the denial of their human rights, have been institutionalized; unlawful spying on Americans continues; and the courts are being closed to legal challenges of these practices.
It will require forceful steps by this Congress to undo the damage. A few lawmakers are offering bills intended to do just that, but they are only a start. Taking on this task is a moral imperative that will show the world the United States can be tough on terrorism without sacrificing its humanity and the rule of law.
Today we’re offering a list — which, sadly, is hardly exhaustive — of things that need to be done to reverse the unwise and lawless policies of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Many will require a rewrite of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, an atrocious measure pushed through Congress with the help of three Republican senators, Arlen Specter, Lindsey Graham and John McCain; Senator McCain lent his moral authority to improving one part of the bill and thus obscured its many other problems.
•
Our list starts with three fundamental tasks:
Restore Habeas Corpus
One of the new act’s most indecent provisions denies anyone Mr. Bush labels an “illegal enemy combatant” the ancient right to challenge his imprisonment in court. The arguments for doing this were specious. Habeas corpus is nothing remotely like a get-out-of-jail-free card for terrorists, as supporters would have you believe. It is a way to sort out those justly detained from those unjustly detained. It will not “clog the courts,” as Senator Graham claims. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has a worthy bill that would restore habeas corpus. It is essential to bringing integrity to the detention system and reviving the United States’ credibility.
Stop Illegal Spying
Mr. Bush’s program of intercepting Americans’ international calls and e-mail messages without a warrant has not ceased. The agreement announced recently — under which a secret court supposedly gave its blessing to the program — did nothing to restore judicial process or ensure that Americans’ rights are preserved. Congress needs to pass a measure, like one proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein, to force Mr. Bush to obey the law that requires warrants for electronic surveillance.
Ban Torture, Really
The provisions in the Military Commissions Act that Senator McCain trumpeted as a ban on torture are hardly that. It is still largely up to the president to decide what constitutes torture and abuse for the purpose of prosecuting anyone who breaks the rules. This amounts to rewriting the Geneva Conventions and puts every American soldier at far greater risk if captured. It allows the president to decide in secret what kinds of treatment he will permit at the Central Intelligence Agency’s prisons. The law absolves American intelligence agents and their bosses of any acts of torture and abuse they have already committed.
•
Many of the tasks facing Congress involve the way the United States takes prisoners, and how it treats them. There are two sets of prisons in the war on terror. The military runs one set in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. The other is even more shadowy, run by the C.I.A. at secret places.
Close the C.I.A. Prisons
When the Military Commissions Act passed, Mr. Bush triumphantly announced that he now had the power to keep the secret prisons open. He cast this as a great victory for national security. It was a defeat for America’s image around the world. The prisons should be closed.
Account for ‘Ghost Prisoners’
The United States has to come clean on all of the “ghost prisoners” it has in the secret camps. Holding prisoners without any accounting violates human rights norms. Human Rights Watch says it has identified nearly 40 men and women who have disappeared into secret American-run prisons.
Ban Extraordinary Rendition
This is the odious practice of abducting foreign citizens and secretly flying them to countries where everyone knows they will be tortured. It is already illegal to send a prisoner to a country if there is reason to believe he will be tortured. The administration’s claim that it got “diplomatic assurances” that prisoners would not be abused is laughable.
A bill by Representative Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, would require the executive branch to list countries known to abuse and torture prisoners. No prisoner could be sent to any of them unless the secretary of state certified that the country’s government no longer abused its prisoners or offered a way to verify that a prisoner will not be mistreated. It says “diplomatic assurances” are not sufficient.
•
Congress needs to completely overhaul the military prisons for terrorist suspects, starting with the way prisoners are classified. Shortly after 9/11, Mr. Bush declared all members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban to be “illegal enemy combatants” not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions or American justice. Over time, the designation was applied to anyone the administration chose, including some United States citizens and the entire detainee population of Gitmo.
To address this mess, the government must:
Tighten the Definition of Combatant
“Illegal enemy combatant” is assigned a dangerously broad definition in the Military Commissions Act. It allows Mr. Bush — or for that matter anyone he chooses to designate to do the job — to apply this label to virtually any foreigner anywhere, including those living legally in the United States.
Screen Prisoners Fairly and Effectively
When the administration began taking prisoners in Afghanistan, it did not much bother to screen them. Hundreds of innocent men were sent to Gitmo, where far too many remain to this day. The vast majority will never even be brought before tribunals and still face indefinite detention without charges.
Under legal pressure, Mr. Bush created “combatant status review tribunals,” but they are a mockery of any civilized legal proceeding. They take place thousands of miles from the point of capture, and often years later. Evidence obtained by coercion and torture is permitted. The inmates do not get to challenge this evidence. They usually do not see it.
The Bush administration uses the hoary “fog of war” dodge to justify the failure to screen prisoners, saying it is not practical to do that on the battlefield. That’s nonsense. It did not happen in Afghanistan, and often in Iraq, because Mr. Bush decided just to ship the prisoners off to Gitmo.
•
Prisoners designated as illegal combatants are subject to trial rules out of the Red Queen’s playbook. The administration refuses to allow lawyers access to 14 terrorism suspects transferred in September from C.I.A. prisons to Guantánamo. It says that if they had a lawyer, they might say that they were tortured or abused at the C.I.A. prisons, and anything that happened at those prisons is secret.
At first, Mr. Bush provided no system of trial at the Guantánamo camp. Then he invented his own military tribunals, which were rightly overturned by the Supreme Court. Congress then passed the Military Commissions Act, which did not fix the problem. Some tasks now for Congress:
Ban Tainted Evidence
The Military Commissions Act and the regulations drawn up by the Pentagon to put it into action, are far too permissive on evidence obtained through physical abuse or coercion. This evidence is unreliable. The method of obtaining it is an affront.
Ban Secret Evidence
Under the Pentagon’s new rules for military tribunals, judges are allowed to keep evidence secret from a prisoner’s lawyer if the government persuades the judge it is classified. The information that may be withheld can include interrogation methods, which would make it hard, if not impossible, to prove torture or abuse.
Better Define ‘Classified’ Evidence
The military commission rules define this sort of secret evidence as “any information or material that has been determined by the United States government pursuant to statute, executive order or regulation to require protection against unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national security.” This is too broad, even if a president can be trusted to exercise the power fairly and carefully. Mr. Bush has shown he cannot be trusted to do that.
Respect the Right to Counsel
Soon after 9/11, the Bush administration allowed the government to listen to conversations and intercept mail between some prisoners and their lawyers. This had the effect of suspending their right to effective legal representation. Since then, the administration has been unceasingly hostile to any lawyers who defend detainees. The right to legal counsel does not exist to coddle serial terrorists or snarl legal proceedings. It exists to protect innocent people from illegal imprisonment.
•
Beyond all these huge tasks, Congress should halt the federal government’s race to classify documents to avoid public scrutiny — 15.6 million in 2005, nearly double the 2001 number. It should also reverse the grievous harm this administration has done to the Freedom of Information Act by encouraging agencies to reject requests for documents whenever possible. Congress should curtail F.B.I. spying on nonviolent antiwar groups and revisit parts of the Patriot Act that allow this practice.
The United States should apologize to a Canadian citizen and a German citizen, both innocent, who were kidnapped and tortured by American agents.
Oh yes, and it is time to close the Guantánamo camp. It is a despicable symbol of the abuses committed by this administration (with Congress’s complicity) in the name of fighting terrorism.
The Must-Do List
The Bush administration’s assault on some of the founding principles of American democracy marches onward despite the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections. The new Democratic majorities in Congress can block the sort of noxious measures that the Republican majority rubber-stamped. But preventing new assaults on civil liberties is not nearly enough.
Five years of presidential overreaching and Congressional collaboration continue to exact a high toll in human lives, America’s global reputation and the architecture of democracy. Brutality toward prisoners, and the denial of their human rights, have been institutionalized; unlawful spying on Americans continues; and the courts are being closed to legal challenges of these practices.
It will require forceful steps by this Congress to undo the damage. A few lawmakers are offering bills intended to do just that, but they are only a start. Taking on this task is a moral imperative that will show the world the United States can be tough on terrorism without sacrificing its humanity and the rule of law.
Today we’re offering a list — which, sadly, is hardly exhaustive — of things that need to be done to reverse the unwise and lawless policies of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Many will require a rewrite of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, an atrocious measure pushed through Congress with the help of three Republican senators, Arlen Specter, Lindsey Graham and John McCain; Senator McCain lent his moral authority to improving one part of the bill and thus obscured its many other problems.
•
Our list starts with three fundamental tasks:
Restore Habeas Corpus
One of the new act’s most indecent provisions denies anyone Mr. Bush labels an “illegal enemy combatant” the ancient right to challenge his imprisonment in court. The arguments for doing this were specious. Habeas corpus is nothing remotely like a get-out-of-jail-free card for terrorists, as supporters would have you believe. It is a way to sort out those justly detained from those unjustly detained. It will not “clog the courts,” as Senator Graham claims. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has a worthy bill that would restore habeas corpus. It is essential to bringing integrity to the detention system and reviving the United States’ credibility.
Stop Illegal Spying
Mr. Bush’s program of intercepting Americans’ international calls and e-mail messages without a warrant has not ceased. The agreement announced recently — under which a secret court supposedly gave its blessing to the program — did nothing to restore judicial process or ensure that Americans’ rights are preserved. Congress needs to pass a measure, like one proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein, to force Mr. Bush to obey the law that requires warrants for electronic surveillance.
Ban Torture, Really
The provisions in the Military Commissions Act that Senator McCain trumpeted as a ban on torture are hardly that. It is still largely up to the president to decide what constitutes torture and abuse for the purpose of prosecuting anyone who breaks the rules. This amounts to rewriting the Geneva Conventions and puts every American soldier at far greater risk if captured. It allows the president to decide in secret what kinds of treatment he will permit at the Central Intelligence Agency’s prisons. The law absolves American intelligence agents and their bosses of any acts of torture and abuse they have already committed.
•
Many of the tasks facing Congress involve the way the United States takes prisoners, and how it treats them. There are two sets of prisons in the war on terror. The military runs one set in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. The other is even more shadowy, run by the C.I.A. at secret places.
Close the C.I.A. Prisons
When the Military Commissions Act passed, Mr. Bush triumphantly announced that he now had the power to keep the secret prisons open. He cast this as a great victory for national security. It was a defeat for America’s image around the world. The prisons should be closed.
Account for ‘Ghost Prisoners’
The United States has to come clean on all of the “ghost prisoners” it has in the secret camps. Holding prisoners without any accounting violates human rights norms. Human Rights Watch says it has identified nearly 40 men and women who have disappeared into secret American-run prisons.
Ban Extraordinary Rendition
This is the odious practice of abducting foreign citizens and secretly flying them to countries where everyone knows they will be tortured. It is already illegal to send a prisoner to a country if there is reason to believe he will be tortured. The administration’s claim that it got “diplomatic assurances” that prisoners would not be abused is laughable.
A bill by Representative Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, would require the executive branch to list countries known to abuse and torture prisoners. No prisoner could be sent to any of them unless the secretary of state certified that the country’s government no longer abused its prisoners or offered a way to verify that a prisoner will not be mistreated. It says “diplomatic assurances” are not sufficient.
•
Congress needs to completely overhaul the military prisons for terrorist suspects, starting with the way prisoners are classified. Shortly after 9/11, Mr. Bush declared all members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban to be “illegal enemy combatants” not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions or American justice. Over time, the designation was applied to anyone the administration chose, including some United States citizens and the entire detainee population of Gitmo.
To address this mess, the government must:
Tighten the Definition of Combatant
“Illegal enemy combatant” is assigned a dangerously broad definition in the Military Commissions Act. It allows Mr. Bush — or for that matter anyone he chooses to designate to do the job — to apply this label to virtually any foreigner anywhere, including those living legally in the United States.
Screen Prisoners Fairly and Effectively
When the administration began taking prisoners in Afghanistan, it did not much bother to screen them. Hundreds of innocent men were sent to Gitmo, where far too many remain to this day. The vast majority will never even be brought before tribunals and still face indefinite detention without charges.
Under legal pressure, Mr. Bush created “combatant status review tribunals,” but they are a mockery of any civilized legal proceeding. They take place thousands of miles from the point of capture, and often years later. Evidence obtained by coercion and torture is permitted. The inmates do not get to challenge this evidence. They usually do not see it.
The Bush administration uses the hoary “fog of war” dodge to justify the failure to screen prisoners, saying it is not practical to do that on the battlefield. That’s nonsense. It did not happen in Afghanistan, and often in Iraq, because Mr. Bush decided just to ship the prisoners off to Gitmo.
•
Prisoners designated as illegal combatants are subject to trial rules out of the Red Queen’s playbook. The administration refuses to allow lawyers access to 14 terrorism suspects transferred in September from C.I.A. prisons to Guantánamo. It says that if they had a lawyer, they might say that they were tortured or abused at the C.I.A. prisons, and anything that happened at those prisons is secret.
At first, Mr. Bush provided no system of trial at the Guantánamo camp. Then he invented his own military tribunals, which were rightly overturned by the Supreme Court. Congress then passed the Military Commissions Act, which did not fix the problem. Some tasks now for Congress:
Ban Tainted Evidence
The Military Commissions Act and the regulations drawn up by the Pentagon to put it into action, are far too permissive on evidence obtained through physical abuse or coercion. This evidence is unreliable. The method of obtaining it is an affront.
Ban Secret Evidence
Under the Pentagon’s new rules for military tribunals, judges are allowed to keep evidence secret from a prisoner’s lawyer if the government persuades the judge it is classified. The information that may be withheld can include interrogation methods, which would make it hard, if not impossible, to prove torture or abuse.
Better Define ‘Classified’ Evidence
The military commission rules define this sort of secret evidence as “any information or material that has been determined by the United States government pursuant to statute, executive order or regulation to require protection against unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national security.” This is too broad, even if a president can be trusted to exercise the power fairly and carefully. Mr. Bush has shown he cannot be trusted to do that.
Respect the Right to Counsel
Soon after 9/11, the Bush administration allowed the government to listen to conversations and intercept mail between some prisoners and their lawyers. This had the effect of suspending their right to effective legal representation. Since then, the administration has been unceasingly hostile to any lawyers who defend detainees. The right to legal counsel does not exist to coddle serial terrorists or snarl legal proceedings. It exists to protect innocent people from illegal imprisonment.
•
Beyond all these huge tasks, Congress should halt the federal government’s race to classify documents to avoid public scrutiny — 15.6 million in 2005, nearly double the 2001 number. It should also reverse the grievous harm this administration has done to the Freedom of Information Act by encouraging agencies to reject requests for documents whenever possible. Congress should curtail F.B.I. spying on nonviolent antiwar groups and revisit parts of the Patriot Act that allow this practice.
The United States should apologize to a Canadian citizen and a German citizen, both innocent, who were kidnapped and tortured by American agents.
Oh yes, and it is time to close the Guantánamo camp. It is a despicable symbol of the abuses committed by this administration (with Congress’s complicity) in the name of fighting terrorism.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Friday, March 02, 2007
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Photo of the Week
Walking to school in Engela, Namibia. I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia from 1998 to 2000.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Quote of the Week
"In a truly rational society, the best of us would be teachers, and the rest would have to settle for something less." Lee Iacocca
Monday, February 26, 2007
Links of the Week
Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, says that unions are ruining public education.
Why legalizing drugs is a good idea.
Why is pre-K a good idea? For every dollar spent on pre-k seven dollars are saved down the line...
Jason Whitlock, an African-American sportswriter, writes about the black KKK that showed up at the NBA All-Star Game in Las Vegas. The Wire is his favorite TV show...
Why legalizing drugs is a good idea.
Why is pre-K a good idea? For every dollar spent on pre-k seven dollars are saved down the line...
Jason Whitlock, an African-American sportswriter, writes about the black KKK that showed up at the NBA All-Star Game in Las Vegas. The Wire is his favorite TV show...
Sunday, February 25, 2007
A Year in the Mississippi Teacher Corps Part Three: October
Let's just say that October is a little different than July...
Saturday, February 24, 2007
A Year in the Mississippi Teacher Corps Part Two: July
Here's the next segment of a film we shot in 2003-2004. Unfortunately, the sound is a little out of sync...
Friday, February 23, 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Photo of the Week
Photo of students marching in Engela, Namibia. I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia from 1998 to 2000.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Friday, February 09, 2007
First-Year Advice...
Here is some great advice that Mr. Khaki Pants left on one of the first-year blogs. The first-year was feeling burned out...
"take a break! i recommend a Fri/Mon combo; it makes for 2 four-day weeks with an extra-long weekend in between. very cool. if you're burnt out, you won't be doing anyone any good. give your students a breather, let them miss you, and take the space you need and deserve. i promise you, it's worth it. they're already 3-5 years behind; you missing a few days won't ruin their lives; in fact, it'll make you a more productive teacher when you return.
advice on saving time:
step away from your grading system, and design a quicker one that works for you. (1) DON'T GRADE EVERYTHING (2) use a "done" / "not done" system or a "check-plus," "check," "check-minus" completion grade (3) throw away ungraded papers: if your students won't remember doing it, don't grade it (3) use a student assistant to grade for you -- this is hard to come by as a first-year teacher but an amazing time-saver.
if you hold detention in your room, use your detention students to organize your student portfolios/ conference records. if you trust your students (or want to build trust), ask a few to grade for you. it's amazing how quickly three students can burn through a pile of "done" / "not done" papers.
as an english teacher, i know how frustrating it can be to want to read everything that every student writes. but that's impossible. IMPOSSIBLE. if you teach 120 students (conservative estimate) and want each of them to write 2 pages per week (conservative estimate), you're asking yourself to read and correct 240 pages of handwritten papers every week! on top of lesson plans, phone calls, extra-curriculars, and life? impossible. with practice, you'll get better at scanning papers and grading holistically at-a-glance. (i grade for accuracy when i know my students need a skills-check before a test and if i have time. and even grading that in-depth has gotten quicker with practice.)
as a teacher, i want the burden of work to be on my students: let them do the heavy-lifting -- whether its loads of worksheets or lots of writing or tons of reading, THEY need the practice, not me. my honors students submit homework assignments every day (sometimes multiple assignments); if i read every word, i'd still be grading term 1 assignments (a mistake i made last year). if i never handed them back, my students are smart enough to realize my inadequacy and to cease working.
so, i make certain to grade as quickly as possible, putting check marks on pages as i flip through them looking for glaring omissions, so they'll have motivation to improve -- and "improvement" often just means following directions. a straight-forward, easy-to-grade-from rubric is the way to go. if the handwriting is illegible -20, if it's in pencil -10, if it's late -20, if it's incomplete -x. if it looks like the student followed directions and put in an honest effort, i give it a 100 and scan for a mistake or two to circle. i write "wow!" for encouragement and can finish a class in a few minutes. grading papers the day they're collected feels great. putting them off indefinitely has ruined many of my weeks. students love getting graded assignments back, and nothing encourages them to pay attention for a period like receiving a 100 at the start of class for something they did last class.
an easy way to get documentation of parent contacts is to send home monthly progress reports or tests to be signed. give a daily grade (or extra credit on the test) for signatures. it’s an easy way to log parent contacts for many of your students. then you just need to chase down those who refuse to return a signed paper.
if none of this is helpful, but just more of the same old bs you keep hearing, please give me a call. and, at the very least, take a break."
"take a break! i recommend a Fri/Mon combo; it makes for 2 four-day weeks with an extra-long weekend in between. very cool. if you're burnt out, you won't be doing anyone any good. give your students a breather, let them miss you, and take the space you need and deserve. i promise you, it's worth it. they're already 3-5 years behind; you missing a few days won't ruin their lives; in fact, it'll make you a more productive teacher when you return.
advice on saving time:
step away from your grading system, and design a quicker one that works for you. (1) DON'T GRADE EVERYTHING (2) use a "done" / "not done" system or a "check-plus," "check," "check-minus" completion grade (3) throw away ungraded papers: if your students won't remember doing it, don't grade it (3) use a student assistant to grade for you -- this is hard to come by as a first-year teacher but an amazing time-saver.
if you hold detention in your room, use your detention students to organize your student portfolios/ conference records. if you trust your students (or want to build trust), ask a few to grade for you. it's amazing how quickly three students can burn through a pile of "done" / "not done" papers.
as an english teacher, i know how frustrating it can be to want to read everything that every student writes. but that's impossible. IMPOSSIBLE. if you teach 120 students (conservative estimate) and want each of them to write 2 pages per week (conservative estimate), you're asking yourself to read and correct 240 pages of handwritten papers every week! on top of lesson plans, phone calls, extra-curriculars, and life? impossible. with practice, you'll get better at scanning papers and grading holistically at-a-glance. (i grade for accuracy when i know my students need a skills-check before a test and if i have time. and even grading that in-depth has gotten quicker with practice.)
as a teacher, i want the burden of work to be on my students: let them do the heavy-lifting -- whether its loads of worksheets or lots of writing or tons of reading, THEY need the practice, not me. my honors students submit homework assignments every day (sometimes multiple assignments); if i read every word, i'd still be grading term 1 assignments (a mistake i made last year). if i never handed them back, my students are smart enough to realize my inadequacy and to cease working.
so, i make certain to grade as quickly as possible, putting check marks on pages as i flip through them looking for glaring omissions, so they'll have motivation to improve -- and "improvement" often just means following directions. a straight-forward, easy-to-grade-from rubric is the way to go. if the handwriting is illegible -20, if it's in pencil -10, if it's late -20, if it's incomplete -x. if it looks like the student followed directions and put in an honest effort, i give it a 100 and scan for a mistake or two to circle. i write "wow!" for encouragement and can finish a class in a few minutes. grading papers the day they're collected feels great. putting them off indefinitely has ruined many of my weeks. students love getting graded assignments back, and nothing encourages them to pay attention for a period like receiving a 100 at the start of class for something they did last class.
an easy way to get documentation of parent contacts is to send home monthly progress reports or tests to be signed. give a daily grade (or extra credit on the test) for signatures. it’s an easy way to log parent contacts for many of your students. then you just need to chase down those who refuse to return a signed paper.
if none of this is helpful, but just more of the same old bs you keep hearing, please give me a call. and, at the very least, take a break."
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Photo of the Week
This is Prudencio Candido, a Language Trainer for Peace Corps and one of my friends from Namibia. I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia from January, 1998 to December, 1999.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Photo of the Week
These are some of my students from Engela, who are marching in support of the SWAPO party. I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia from January, 1998 to December, 1999.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Photo of the Week
This is Dennis Shikwambi, my best friend while I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia. In this photo Dennis said he was going to dress like a "black American." I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia from January, 1998 to December, 1999.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Quote of the Week
"Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win."
Bob Knight
Bob Knight
Ramsey Clark
As a follow-up to the Ramsey Clark article here is Clark's op-ed: Why I'm Willing to Defend Hussein.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Links of the Week
Great article on George Bush from the 2000 election titled "The Accidental Candidate."
After retiring from the NBA David Robinson started a school.
I'd never heard of Ramsey Clark before, but he is now one of my heroes. I've never read an article that comes closer to articulating my own personal beliefs about morality and the world. Who is Ramsey Clark? He is a former Attorney General of the United States. He also served as Saddam Hussein's lawyer... Here's the article.
The Socialist Senator.
After retiring from the NBA David Robinson started a school.
I'd never heard of Ramsey Clark before, but he is now one of my heroes. I've never read an article that comes closer to articulating my own personal beliefs about morality and the world. Who is Ramsey Clark? He is a former Attorney General of the United States. He also served as Saddam Hussein's lawyer... Here's the article.
The Socialist Senator.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Friday, January 19, 2007
Teacher Spotlight
First-Year Melissa Smith on the ups and downs of being in the Mississippi Teacher Corps:
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Teacher Spotlight
First-Year Holly Dausen on the ups and downs of being in the Mississippi Teacher Corps:
Teacher Spotlight
First-Year Aaron Madson on the ups and downs of being in the Mississippi Teacher Corps:
Photo of the Week
This is Manassah, one of my favorite students from Namibia. I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia from January, 1998 to December, 1999.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Teacher Spotlight
First-Year Michael Gallagher on the ups and downs of the Mississippi Teacher Corps:
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Quote of the Week
MLK on Violence:
Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love.
Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Links of the Week
A security officer in Greenwood pulled a gun on a student. Photos here.
How to cover Jason Kidd's divorce.
Why a higher minimum wage is a good idea.
Young Democrats in Mississippi oppose an state-wide increase in the minimum wage.
Great story of a school that chose education over athletics.
Life at $7.25 an hour.
Vintage photos of America.
Why marijuana is illegal.
How to cover Jason Kidd's divorce.
Why a higher minimum wage is a good idea.
Young Democrats in Mississippi oppose an state-wide increase in the minimum wage.
Great story of a school that chose education over athletics.
Life at $7.25 an hour.
Vintage photos of America.
Why marijuana is illegal.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Friday, January 12, 2007
The Minimum Wage
Raising the minimum wage has been getting lots of press lately. Here are some articles I found especially interesting:
Life at $7.25 an hour. And at $6.50 an hour.
Why a higher minimum wage is a good idea.
Young Democrats in Mississippi oppose an state-wide increase in the minimum wage.
Life at $7.25 an hour. And at $6.50 an hour.
Why a higher minimum wage is a good idea.
Young Democrats in Mississippi oppose an state-wide increase in the minimum wage.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Photo of the Week
This is Ndapewa, the daughter (yes, this is a girl) of one of the workers at the Andreas Kurkuri Center in Namibia, where we did all of our initial Peace Corps training.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Quote of the Week
I've decided to change the Tuesday post from "List of the Week" to "Quote of the Week." So, inaugural Quote of the Week goes to Mr. Upton Sinclair:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
Monday, January 08, 2007
Links of the Week
A brief (and entertaining) history of American politics.
Great interview with David Simon, creator of The Wire, the highest achievement of film/TV that currently exists.
What is it like being a middle school girl? First Paragraph: Morning brings the invitations. The casual ones. So routine are they that she hardly thinks about them, just waves them away like gnats. Today, for example, a boy came up to her in the hall and asked, "When are you going to let me hit that?" "That means, like, intercourse," the girl explains, with a sort of gum-popping matter-of-factness. She is 13.
High School Principal gets in a fight with one of his students.
Photo of Michael Jordan's house.
Think like a genius.
Best education blogs.
From Father to Son...
Dear son, Charles wrote on the last page of the journal, “I hope this book is somewhat helpful to you. Please forgive me for the poor handwriting and grammar. I tried to finish this book before I was deployed to Iraq. It has to be something special to you. I’ve been writing it in the states, Kuwait and Iraq.
Interview with a former Seventh-Day Adventist on Creationism.
The Barbershop Awards.
Here's an interesting question: Why are America's institutions of higher learning also operating semi-professional sports franchises?
How does Google hire employees?
How do you really know someone? Along the same lines, a teacher in Jackson has been charged with murder.
Great interview with David Simon, creator of The Wire, the highest achievement of film/TV that currently exists.
What is it like being a middle school girl? First Paragraph: Morning brings the invitations. The casual ones. So routine are they that she hardly thinks about them, just waves them away like gnats. Today, for example, a boy came up to her in the hall and asked, "When are you going to let me hit that?" "That means, like, intercourse," the girl explains, with a sort of gum-popping matter-of-factness. She is 13.
High School Principal gets in a fight with one of his students.
Photo of Michael Jordan's house.
Think like a genius.
Best education blogs.
From Father to Son...
Dear son, Charles wrote on the last page of the journal, “I hope this book is somewhat helpful to you. Please forgive me for the poor handwriting and grammar. I tried to finish this book before I was deployed to Iraq. It has to be something special to you. I’ve been writing it in the states, Kuwait and Iraq.
Interview with a former Seventh-Day Adventist on Creationism.
The Barbershop Awards.
Here's an interesting question: Why are America's institutions of higher learning also operating semi-professional sports franchises?
How does Google hire employees?
How do you really know someone? Along the same lines, a teacher in Jackson has been charged with murder.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Friday, January 05, 2007
Quotes from George Orwell
War is a way of shattering to pieces... materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and... too intelligent.
War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.
The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.
Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.
War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.
The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.
Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Photo of the Week
This is a photo of Otiile Hashongo, one of my students during my first year as a Peace Corps Volunteer and secondary school teacher in Namibia.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Monday, January 01, 2007
Links of the Week
Death Penalty by country.
Is teleportation possible?
25% of Americans anticipate the second coming of Jesus in 2007.
Article in the Washington Post. Here's a quote:
Once, they were young men, living in the South, raised by a black community that provided love and sustained attention.
Oprah goes to school.
Can you move out of poverty?
Is teleportation possible?
25% of Americans anticipate the second coming of Jesus in 2007.
Article in the Washington Post. Here's a quote:
Once, they were young men, living in the South, raised by a black community that provided love and sustained attention.
Oprah goes to school.
Can you move out of poverty?
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