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I’ve flown with a bunch of Hollywood stars, especially during the three years that I commuted every other week from Los Angeles to New York to see my ailing mother. I always took the same airline, and usually the same flights (the late ones), so I got to know all the gate agents, flight attendants, and tricks of the trade. Since I always treated everyone with respect and would regularly bring them box of chocolates and JohnnyJet.com T-shirts, I ended up getting the royal treatment. Many times, I would get upgraded for free, not only to business class but to first class, so I’ve sat next to or near practically every star, and I’ve seen it all — including Sandra Bullock waiting for Matthew McConaughey plane side at midnight (before their relationship was public).
However, this past Saturday (September 11, 2010), I experienced something really rare: Ed Begley Jr. was on my flight. In case you don’t know Ed Begley Jr., he’s an Emmy award-winning actor who’s been in hundreds of TV shows and movies, and is arguably one of the greenest people in the world. So a plane is the last place you would expect to run into him. That wasn’t the case on Saturday in Toronto.
I was in Toronto to do a travel segment on the Webnation TV program. To fly home to L.A., I booked a ticket on Virgin America. Since the Toronto International Film Festival was taking place at the time, I wasn’t surprised to see some celebrities especially since they seem to love to fly on Virgin’s state-of-the-art planes (live TV, food/drinks on demand, electrical outlets… and of course super-friendly service).
At the gate area I was pleasantly taken aback to see Captain Jason, who’s been the pilot on a bunch of flights I’ve taken, including one of Virgin America’s special charter flights to Vegas for the launch of their failed Fly Girls TV show.
While I was talking to the Captain Jason and his first officer, Ed Begley Jr. strolled into the gate area and joined the conversation (the three of them had met a few minutes earlier near security).
Captain Jason introduced us, and we talked for a good 15 minutes until it was time to board. The pilots offered Mr. Begley a tour of the cockpit during boarding, and he was thrilled. Sitting in the captain’s chair, he was like a kid — except asking scholarly questions. I learned that at 1,500 feet, the pilots move the levers from MXT to climb, and they don’t touch them again until it’s time to land.
Mr. Begley couldn’t have been any nicer, and this includes the way he welcomed (and thanked) fans for a photo op. He showed me his bus pass (yes, he takes the bus frequently), and he told me that he rarely flies, but sometimes he has to — especially when he only has a short amount of time (I believe he was in Toronto for 24 hours to speak on the environment and to attend a close friend’s party). He also said that the last time he was in Toronto, he drove his hybrid car from L.A. to get there, and he was sorry he didn’t have time to do the same for this trip.
Using Virgin America’s Gogo Inflight Internet service, I posted the photo of Ed Begley Jr. and me on my Twitter and Facebook pages mid-flight, and I received a ton of comments. Most people were in shock that he was flying, and when one person wrote that he was damaging his green reputation, the others jumped to his defense (as rightly they should). One posted, “I have a feeling Ed has already racked up enough carbon offsets to allow him to fly to the moon in a gas-guzzlin’ ’58 Caddy.”
If you read the articles about Ed on his website, you will realize that that statement is basically true. The company he uses to buy his carbon offsets is Terra Pass. According to TerraPass’s calculator, a person’s carbon emissions on a one-way flight from Toronto (YYZ) to LAX is 626 lbs CO2 in coach and 929 lbs CO2 in first class, where the seats take up more space. Since one can only buy offsets in 1,000-lb increments of CO2, it will only cost $5.95 per person one-way regardless of your class of service. NOTE: TerraPass only had Air Canada and American Airlines listed. The carbon footprint of Virgin America should be even lower, as they fly newer planes.
Ed gave me a particularly interesting and helpful tip — in fact, it’s the reason I decided to write this story. He drove his electric car to the airport, and told me that LAX has 10 spaces in Parking Structure One and two spaces in remote Parking Lot C where electric vehicles can park for free (for up to two weeks). FYI: According to this epa.gov PDF flyer, LAX plans to offer 20 additional spaces for electric vehicles in the proposed Parking Structure Six. I had no idea!
When we landed, Ed invited me to photograph him and his car, and on our walk from Terminal 3 we talked about other environmental tips for travelers to offset their carbon footprint, like turning off the lights, A/C, and TV when you’re not in your hotel room, and using only one towel and the same sheets for your entire stay (if it’s less than a week).
The chances of your ever meeting Ed on a plane are slim, as he turns down a lot of gigs that require him to fly. When I handed him my business card, I said, “Ed, you’re not going to want to be friends with me, because my work requires me to bounce around like Santa Claus.” He said, “You have to do what you have to do.” After meeting Ed, I know what I need to do. Do you?

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Nordstrom’s response to BlackandBrownNews.com’s inquiry: In a telephone call to BBN last Friday, a Nordstrom spokesperson said, “Nordstrom sides with BBN and finds the advertisement offensive and racist. Peter Nordstrom, our president, spoke with the designers and expressed his disappointment, but the designers view it as art.” When asked about a more forceful condemnation for the egregious offense the spokesperson said, “The retail partnership is an important one. We value our retail partnership with the designers and hope they will listen to us as a valued partner.”
Read the original story at BlackandBrownNews.com OR on Huffington Post
“Art is anything you can get away with.” Marshall McLuhan, Canadian communications Theorist, Educator, Writer and Social Reformer
For now, it seems, the designers Proenza Schouler and the filmmaker Harmony Korine have escaped any real penalty for creating an advertisement for their fashion line that exploits underage Black girls under the cover of artistic expression. At BBN we believe art should not be censored and people should be free to create, say and do almost anything. But our position has not changed on this: This is not a debate about freedom of art or censorship. This is a matter of accountability.
That the designers and filmmaker chose to debase and exploit the most voiceless, defenseless and unprotected segment of American society for commercial purposes demonstrates cowardice and thoughtful strategy. The thinking: even when a retail partner finds their creation offensive and racist as Nordstrom did, they will pay no penalty. If the designers and filmmaker were bold, daring and unafraid of real controversy and true to the freedom of art, they would have selected a less safe victim to do their bidding. Imagine those same designers and filmmaker creating a fashion advertisement that projected anti-semitic images or spewed homophobic language. Rightfully, that advertisement or “work of art” would probably have been not only shut down, but retailers would unlikely be able to justify the “valued partnership” and sever ties with the designers.
But not for defenseless and seemingly unprotected Black girls.
It is 2010 and the United States has a Black President and First Lady with two daughters who fit the physical image of those young girls in the advertisement. What is more striking is that the First Lady is also a very, very, very good friend to the fashion industry – designers and retailers alike. When she steps out of her door, retailers keep fingers crossed in hopes that her choice of designer for the day is sold in their store.
The only remedy BBN sees as appropriate to mitigate this egregious offense by Proenza Schouler is for retailers who carry their line to sever ties with the designer.
There are moments when big business has to soul search and ask the question of overall value with partners who effectively make unilateral decisions to do as they please without any consideration for how the partnership might be affected. It appears the designers did not give their valued retail partnership that fundamental consideration.
In this great democracy of ours, we can say, write and create almost anything. But what we can’t control is the unintended consequences of our creations. Marshall McLuhan was right, “Art is anything you can get away with.” At BBN we aren’t convinced the last chapter in this latest offense to Black America has been written. Sharon D. Toomer

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The other day on the show, Melissa Harris-Lacewell suggested media “need to be covering the left as much as we cover, with anxiety, the right.”
Anxiety reached a fever pitch Tuesday night with the Tea Party primary victory for Christine O’Donnell, anti-masturbation crusader, in Delaware’s Senate race. The New York Times breathlessly headlines “G.O.P. Insurgents Win in Del. and N.Y.” and goes on for several paragraphs without even mentioning Democratic primaries, let alone noting that there were some insurgent victories there as well.
Perhaps the outcome of the Attorney General’s race came in too late for a headline? Maybe the AG just isn’t a sexy enough position for the hometown newspaper? It’s only the position that launched Eliot Spitzer to the governorship and from which Andrew Cuomo is starting his campaign.
And Eric Schneiderman, who Katrina vanden Heuvel noted has been a leader on progressive issues such as overhauling the draconian Rockefeller drug laws, judicial reform, and transparency, won that primary.
Early in the day, New York bloggers were calling for poll watchers to the Bronx, where they suspected State Senator Pedro Espada of unethical activities. But just a few hours later, Espada conceded to Gustavo Rivera, whose campaign attracted the support of friends of GRITtv like Baratunde Thurston and Elana Levin.
Meanwhile, Carolyn Maloney easily fought off a Wall Street-backed “New York lawyer who emerged as a national voice for the financial industry” according to the Times. They may not be LEFT victories exactly, but they’re closer than the other stuff. And even those stories didn’t make headlines.
Should Democrats spend more time talking about masturbation?
The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders, the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com. Support us by signing up for our podcast, and follow GRITtv or GRITlaura on Twitter.com.

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A decade ago, the U.S. graduated more students from college than any other country in the world. Now we’ve fallen to 12th when it comes to young adults with college degrees, while Canada has taken over the top spot.
It’s more than a matter of pride; America’s falling educational performance threatens our economic future.
President Obama characterizes this slip as “unacceptable.” Speaking to the University of Texas in August, President Obama said, “Beyond a shadow of a doubt, countries that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow.” The President hopes to graduate five million more students by 2020 through his American Graduation Initiative.
So considering that higher education is critical to our economic future, why would we want to slam on the brakes just as the Obama administration wants to step on the gas? Why would some people want to limit Americans’ access to a college education?
A new Department of Education rule known as “Gainful Employment” would do just that, using arbitrary measures of student loan repayment to deny federal financial aid for some 360,000 students at for-profit career colleges, which cater to underserved communities such as women, people of color, veterans and others. Worse yet, the rule effectively would unfairly single out lower-income students who carry more debt, thereby denying them the education and skills they need to get a better job.
The strangest thing about the Gainful Employment rule is that it only applies to the small percentage of students who attend for-profit career colleges, completely ignoring public, not-for-profit private, and community colleges. It would seem that any fair rule should apply to all colleges, regardless of funding.
In their rush to make a case, critics typically rely on anecdotal evidence to paint a grim portrait of for-profit colleges. Stepping back and seeing the big picture shows that these institutions are filling critical gaps in our higher education system.
For-profit colleges are educating underserved students that have been shut out of public and community colleges, either due to circumstances or simply lack of space.
It’s no secret that, as education budgets decline, so do the number of spots available at taxpayer-funded community colleges. Increasingly, for-profit colleges are stepping in to fill the gaps left by state and federal funding cuts, educating qualified students who would otherwise have nowhere else to go.
Statistics show that for-profit colleges educate 13 percent more women and nearly 50 percent more minorities compared with public colleges. For-profit colleges have also welcomed non-traditional students, such as adults who cannot afford to drop their jobs or commute long distances to attend a community college. Career colleges offer unique flexible course schedules and online classes to meet the needs of adult learners – for instance, 30 percent of students at for-profit colleges are single parents, a much higher percentage than other schools.
Moreover, career colleges produce students who are immediately ready to enter the workforce in high-demand fields such as health care and computer/data processing, which are creating an estimated 1.8 million new jobs through 2016. And for-profit colleges boast a graduation rate nearly 20 percent higher than community colleges.
Critics also complain that career colleges make money from federal financial aid. But career colleges are better stewards of that money compared with their public and not-for-profit counterparts. Taxpayers receive a 9% return on each dollar per community college graduate and 18% per career college graduate. The typical career college student costs $7,000 less per year to educate compared with community college students. Moreover, students at the largest for-profit career institutions have loan-repayment rates virtually identical to those of community college students.
President Obama will have to overcome great obstacles if he wants to achieve his goal of graduating five million additional college students by 2020. However, the Department of Education must realize that for-profit colleges are part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Selectively applying the overly-harsh Gainful Employment rule to these institutions will slow progress towards the President’s goals and deny a quality education to hundreds of thousands of students. These students are striving to make a new life for themselves – trying to grab a piece of the American Dream.
America’s economic future is tied to theirs.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

I knew Christine O’Donnell as an ideologue of uptightness — with a fervent position on every issue under the sun. I saw her up close when we debated during one of her several Phil Donahue show appearances in 2002-03 on MSNBC, where I worked as an on-air contributor and Donahue senior producer.
Like Sarah Palin, O’Donnell has that dangerous mix of arrogance and ignorance. Years before there was a Tea Party to put her in orbit, O’Donnell was already adept at blending paranoia about Democrats with blind faith in religious and market fundamentalism.
But even in the dark days of Bushmania eight years ago, I could not have foreseen this foe of masturbation and friend of for-profit healthcare as a serious U.S. senate contender.
During a Donahue discussion on the rumor that Bill Clinton might host a syndicated daytime TV talkshow, O’Donnell’s opposition went beyond her complaint that it’s “so undignified”:
After acknowledging that she “would certainly be a guest” on a Clinton talkshow, O’Donnell repeated her fear about “this classified data that he will have access to and that he will bring to the discussion.” It was so embarrassing that a fellow guest critical of a Clinton show had to chime in: “He’s not going to reveal state secrets on the show!”
In our joint appearance on Donahue in November 2002, a panel debated big and small news, including the Michael Jackson baby-dangling incident. “Perhaps one thing they can do is revoke his passport,” she said, suggesting a Big Government approach.
Ironically, given the state of her race today, she expressed hope that Al Gore would be the 2004 Democratic nominee because he was somehow unelectable in the general election: “So let him be your front man, Democratic Party. And you guys will lose for sure.”
O’Donnell was a Tea Party candidate way before the party started — with a faux-populism quick to defend corporate interests. Years before the battle over Obamacare, she was already steeped in obstruction and fear of change.
When she appeared on Donahue shows, O’Donnell represented The Savior’s Alliance for Lifting the Truth (SALT) — the youth group opposing pre-marital sex and intra-marital masturbation that she was apparently still associated with last year. On one episode, she repeatedly equated nudity with pornography.
On another show, she belittled an obesity suit against McDonald’s as frivolous (“what I want to know is, did the lawyer go to her or did she go to the lawyer?”), but O’Donnell famously and somewhat capriciously sued a rightwing nonprofit ex-employer for $6.9 million for wrongful termination.
In normal times, it would be hard to believe that a religious fundamentalist like Christine O’Donnell could be a triumphant major party nominee for U.S. senate. With the rise of Palin and Beck above their hordes of fearful and energized followers, these are clearly not normal times.
Jeff Cohen is the author of “Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.”

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

uTest, a leader in crowdsourced software testing announced September 13th that they’ve closed a $13 million C round investment, one of the largest investments ever made in a crowdsourcing company.
According to TechCrunch this brings the company’s total funding up to $20 million. The round was led by Scale Venture Partners in Northern California, with uTest’s existing investors, including Longworth and Egan-Managed Capital.
Doron Reuveni, CEO of uTest said:
Companies benefit from uTests’ outsourced and crowd-sourced software testing. After a company specifies its testing requirements, uTest picks a team of testers based on location, OS, browsers and available mobile devices. The teams are picked out of a community of 30,000+ testers from more than 160 countries around the world who are paid by writing test cases or finding a certain number of bugs. uTest, which is based in Southborough, Massachusetts, plans to use the new funding to expand its tester-base, move into service categories, and expand its usability and load testing services.

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Bless the souls lost on 9/11 and those of our soldiers and allies who have sacrificed their lives to defend the free world.
A related catastrophic casualty has also been suffered by us, though it cannot measure in any way to the loss of innocent lives, and the grief their families feel to this day and likely will for their entire lives.
President Bush’s repeated false warnings about security breaches, which were manipulated for his political advantage, each time sidelined our economy. Much deeper though is the psychology of the man himself. He was floundering at the beginning of his tenure so much so that his true self was apparent incompetent and shallow.
However, as a result of 9/11, President Bush found an identity he could hold on to and so constructed a persona as a “war president.” I believe Mr. Bush was asleep at the wheel on September 11. Anybody with his security clearance would have been aware of al Qaeda. President Clinton personally briefed him during the transition. That summer’s NSC memo, “Al Qaeda Determined to Strike,” briefed him.
Let’s not continue to participate in a cover-up still a year and a half since he left office because we don’t want to hurt Mr. Bush’s feelings or the prospects of his supporters. Those who lost their lives and those still risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve better.
George Bush was asleep at the wheel. Rather than admit this, he overreacted with measures to throw us off the scent of an utterly indefensible vulnerability he had placed the country in. He overcompensated for his lacking similarly to how a bully over-compensates for deep insecurities.
Included in this over-compensation was a deliberate broadening of Al Qaida’s impact by emptying our consumer driven economy to rev-up a war economy for his pre-determined invasion of Iraq. Even though the economy showed early signs of bouncing back within weeks of 9/11, instead he kept his foot on the economic brake to hold the nation lurching, then stopping, lurching, then stopping again and again while he staged a personal makeover. He broke our economic engine and it is still in repair in our deep recession now.
We all know Wall Street is controlled by emotions as much if not more than by the underlying economic fundamentals. So too it is the case for our national economy as a whole. To beef up his charade as a “war president,” he had to beef up not only the impact of 9/11, but also the future risks. Thus, for nearly eight years he perpetrated an economic sham more cunning than a Bernie Madoff or an Enron.
I intend no minimization of the devastation the 9/11 attacks caused our country and the world, nor the threats that still remain to us. But even his father can’t cover up the deliberate manipulation to bring down our economy as a mechanism to lift up George Bush’s personal standing.
One lesson in life I have learned is that when you get knocked off your horse, get back in the saddle as soon as you can. The more you linger, the harder it is to finally do the inevitable of getting back on your horse.
It is sensitive though and we must not equate the lives lost and their families’ sufferings, with economic suffering. They are on two entirely different scales and of two entirely different mindsets.
9/11 will remain with us in our hearts. How we respond to it now though is our choosing. To start with, let’s have the courage to expose the national tragedy of George Bush’s malicious attack on our economic well-being. Understanding this is central to understanding our national character, to recovering from the recession, and on which the upcoming elections will largely be based.
With love, respect, and honor to those fallen on 9/11 and its aftermath, many people are hurting badly economically. Relief won’t happen over night, but we need to continue to steady ourselves a little more each day. One day at a time.

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The Humane Society of the United States was called to testify this morning at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the repugnant phenomenon of animal crush videos. Nancy Perry, HSUS vice president for government affairs, presented our case eloquently–you can read her testimony here to better understand what’s at stake. She was joined by Dr. Kevin Volkan, a psychology expert who testified on the sexual nature (PDF) of animal crush videos, and she asked the Committee to enter into the record a powerful letter from the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (PDF) urging prompt Senate action to address the animal crush video problem.
Rarely has an issue united members of Congress across the spectrum like this one. The House already swiftly passed H.R. 5566 by a vote of 416 to 3 to ban interstate and foreign commerce in these abhorrent videos, which typically involve scantily clad women or girls often using stiletto heels to crush and impale animals to death for the titillation of viewers. On the videos, this torment is slow and deliberate, with the animals’ cries featured, along with their excretions of blood, urine, and organs, and the sexually charged patter of the women inflicting the torture.
iStockphoto
Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who plans to introduce a Senate companion bill to H.R. 5566 and who presided at today’s hearing, noted that the hearing provided a model for how to conduct business in the Senate. No opposition was voiced, and a thoughtful discussion ensued. Curbing this despicable industry is something all reasonable people can agree is worthy of prompt congressional action. Sen. Kyl expressed his intention, working with Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Richard Burr, R-N.C., his colleagues in the Judiciary Committee, and primary House sponsor Elton Gallegly, R-Calif., to introduce a Senate bill that will effectively crack down on crush videos and hold up against any future court challenge.
We appreciate their leadership, along with that of Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Ranking Member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and look forward to swift enactment of a new law to stop those who want to profit from this obscene animal cruelty, which Nancy aptly referred to at the hearing as “the stuff nightmares are made of.”
This post originally appeared on Pacelle’s blog, A Humane Nation.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Reality-check yourself with the following questions:
- How many realities are there right now? One, two, none?
- Is there just what is or is there something else there (on top of what is, in addition to what is)?
- In this moment right now, is there one and only reality or does it come with a backpack of potential and fiction?
-There you are, right? Right. Now, what about this ‘potential you’ that you think you can also be right now? Where’s that one?
-Where is your potential right now? Show it to yourself!
-What’s the difference between ‘potential’ and ‘possible’ and ‘hypothetical’ and ‘imaginary’?
-As you look back at the history of facts, do you see any history of potential as well?
-Does reality short-change? Do you?
Check reality before you live it. Certainly, before you judge it (yourself, included).
Enjoy all that is. If “all that is” isn’t enough for you, what would be?

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The US has dismissed suggestions that the Pakistani military could form a viable alternative to the civilian government, widely criticised for its handling of the country's flood crisis.
Special envoy Richard Holbrooke praised civilian politicians and said the US would support only an elected civilian government in Pakistan.
The army has been widely praised for its response to the floods.
Pakistan has a history of coups and only returned to civilian rule in 2007.
But some observers have suggested that the floods, combined with a widespread Islamist insurgency, are making it impossible for civilian politicians to govern.

Generally, the U.S. elite consensus on private military contractors (PMC) is that A) they are a good thing because they enable regular military forces to concentrate on their core mission, i.e., killing people and destroying things without having to worry about the necessary but tedious tasks like logistics, as in the Logistics Civil Augmentation (LOGCAP) program, and B) that the military itself is in love with the idea.
Point B has always been debatable, as anyone who took the time to peruse professional military literature, as in papers from the likes of the Army War College, Army Command and General Staff College, Marine Corps Command Staff College, Naval War College Review, et cetera. Or just search in the Defense Technical Information Service website. But most people rarely take time to do that.
But for the most part people the elites generally subscribe to the notion that despite the occasional infraction or screw-u PMCs are both here to stay and, on the whole, a good thing. While I am not part of the elite I have often agreed with the former part.
That is why it is so surprising to read the current (September/October) issue of Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs, published by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City, is the preeminent U.S. journal on, well, foreign affairs. You just don’t get any more elite that that.
Yet there is an article that takes issue with the orthodoxy. The piece is “Out of Order: Strengthening the Political-Military Relationship” by U.S. Army Col. Matthew Moten, who is the author of a forthcoming book on U.S. political-military relationships.
Here is the relevant excerpt:

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Last week, it was reported that director Oliver Stone dined with a
New York Times columnist at the Four Seasons restaurant; a place where
the top executives on Wall Street (the same guys who caused the
financial crisis exactly two years ago and it’s fair to say the Great
Recession that followed) love to hang out and shoot the shit about
their unsavory business.
Stone, as everyone should know by now, is putting out the long-awaited
sequel to his mega hit movie Wall Street. This one is called Wall
Street: Money Never Sleeps. It is, of course, a fictionalized
account of the financial crisis (if you know anything about Oliver
Stone, you know that even his attempts at non-fiction are pretty
fictionalized), and based on the various interviews Stone has given
(including this one to the Times) he views the movie has one of those
teachable moments. On the two year anniversary of the bankruptcy of
Lehman Brothers and the broader collapse of the financial system that
followed, it is supposed to help us all understand something about the
men who led us into the abyss; namely what drove them in their pursuit
of greed at all costs.
Don’t bet on it.
I haven’t seen the movie yet (I’m supposed to go to the premier next
week) but based on some of Stone’s own commentary, I may just wait for
the DVD. In his interview with the Times, Stone reminds us that, “Wall
Street’s gone crazy. It’s banking on steroids.” (Not exactly news,
Oliver.) He fears that many of the Wall Street titans he’s dining with
that afternoon think that “Stone must be a communist here, a
liberal; a liberal is worse than a communist.” (That’s an interesting
conclusion since as I show in my new book, Bought and Paid For, it was
the Wall Street brass who helped elect Barack Obama, his Liberal fellow
traveler, as president).
And just so we all don’t think that the new Oliver Stone is that same
guy who came up with the most bizarre conspiracy theory to account for
JFK’s assassination (and one of the most bizarre Joe Pesci
performances ever), he reminds the Times columnist that, “It’s silly to
be simplifying and say Wall Street is evil,” even if “Goldman Sachs is
evil, maybe.” (I wonder what he thinks about Al-Queda?)
During the interview, Stone comes back to earth a bit with this little
gem: “Most of the people I know on Wall Street are good people. Like
my father. He really would like to make some money, yeah, but they
would also like to do good for society.”
The only thing worse than a goofy, washed up director trying to
reclaim his greatness with a teachable-moment movie is a columnist
like this one, who rather than portraying Stone in his schizophrenic
best, just sucked it all in without once questioning Stone’s sanity.
The new Wall Street movie might be entertaining, but given
its hype and the bizarre mindset of its director, I’m sticking with the
old one. The fact of the matter is, we don’t really need another
teachable moment about the financial crisis. At least, not one that flows
through the brain cells of Oliver Stone or someone from the New
York Times who can’t get enough of a washed-up director’s illogical
view of the world, and it is my guess that after the initial hype has
passed, most movie goers will think the same.
Two years after the financial crisis, Americans face nearly 10
percent unemployment, mountains of debt, businesses that make money
but won’t hire, and a president who found it part of his job
description to opine about a Mosque near Ground Zero while the economy
is falling apart. Wall Street greed, which seems to be Stone’s
obsession, much like the rest of the media, is, to coin a journalistic
clich, yesterday’s news.
Note to Stone: We know these guys are assholes, and we probably don’t
need to be reminded of it again during a 133 minute film.
What we don’t know is how they became such assholes, and I’m pretty
certain Oliver Stone won’t be shedding much light on that either.
Jimmy Cayne being “out of touch” with reality (Stone’s description)
cannot fully explain why trillions of dollars of stocks, bonds, and
financial instruments derived from stocks and bonds were created and held
by his bank Bear Stearns with little regard that someday they might be
worth nothing.
Yes, some people on Wall Street are “good people” (like we really
need Stone to point that out); but what is it that allows good, well-
educated people to do stupid things? Remember, when Jimmy Cayne was
CEO, the guy running Bear’s bond department which was loading up on
toxic debt was a man named Warren Spector, one of the most
intellectually gifted traders on Wall Street. The guy taking charge at the risk
committee meetings was the legendary trader and risk expert Alan “Ace”
Greenberg.
Cayne may have been a goofy, pot-smoking slouch who would rather
play golf than tend to the firm’s needs, but what about Spector and
Greenberg? What made them think that buying mortgage debt in the
quantity they were buying it at as a massive housing bubble was raging
was such a good thing?
In other words, it can’t be just greed–why would anyone, even the most
greedy Wall Street type, simply bet the ranch if the end result could
be the demise of their gravy train? They wouldn’t of course. That’s
because it wasn’t just greed that motivated the Wall Street bankers to
behave as if they were on “steroids;” no matter how many movies in the
next year (I hear there are nonfictional accounts of the financial
crisis being shot as I write this) tell you so.
In fact, I bet if you can get a straight answer from either Greenberg
or Spector, or any other of the fallen Wall Street titans (like Dick
Fuld, the former head of Lehman Brothers) they would tell you that the
real reason they felt compelled to gamble as they did is because based
on past experience, they were all involved in a no lose operation. Wall
Street would never implode because the government wouldn’t let it
happen.
Lehman Brothers failed in 2008, but it was bailed out in 1994 and
1998 by various government policies that inflated the financial system
with cheap money and turned losses into gains; same with Merrill
Lynch, Citigroup and the rest of the big firms. And that’s what all
these movies and many of the books written about the greed merchants
Stone was dining with at the Four Seasons leave out: That it was next
to impossible for the financial system to accept so much risk as the
norm without the government approving of it all along the way. This
approval went beyond lax regulation that allowed firms like Lehman and
Bear to borrow more than 30 times the amount of capital they had on
hand to make market bets. It’s an approval that comes only from a
partnership between government and Wall Street that dates back
decades.
It may surprise Oliver Stone to learn that most of those guys in the
Four Seasons aren’t quite as right-wing as he thinks. They most probably
share his world view about government and business; namely how
bureaucrats like the former Fed President and current Treasury
Secretary Tim Geithner and his ilk (think Robert Rubin, Hank Paulson, and
Larry Summers to name just three) can make the world a better place by
working with Wall Street–protecting the markets when times get rough
as they have countless times during the past 30 years by bailing out
Wall Street with taxpayer money when it screwed up — including the ultimate screw up in 2008.
Those bailouts gave Jimmy Cayne the confidence he could play golf and
leave the heavy lifting to Spector and Greenberg. Those bailouts gave
Spector and Greenberg the security to know if they bet wrong, the Fed
and the Treasury would come to their rescue by handing out cheap money
or free money to make things better.
Full disclosure: While I was at CNBC I spent a few minutes with one
of the stars of the new Wall Street film, Shia Lebeouf, who looked me up
through an acquaintance and wanted my take on what makes the typical
trader on Wall Street banker or trader tick.
Unlike most of the people he spoke with, I actually covered the
financial crisis on daily basis since its beginning and I reported on
both the implosion and the massive profits that began to be showered
on Wall Street following the bailouts as the government flooded Wall
Street with guarantees and benefits as it had done in the past.
If my memory serves me right, I told him it was the typical Wall
Streeters sense of entitlement that stands out the most in my mind. I
implored him to go to bars and restaurants around New York City where
they all hang out. Not just the places where their bosses dine and are
on their best behavior, but the places where the traders and bankers
who are not as polished take clients and watch them in action.
“Now that the bonuses are flowing they will act as if the whole
financial crisis didn’t happen,” I remember saying. My point being:
For them, losing money, getting bailed by the government, and making
money on the backs of taxpayers is the way the system is supposed to
work because it has always worked that way. Why should this time be
any different?
LeBeouf just listened intently. We spoke for about 15 minutes more
and he thanked me for my time. I’m not sure he understood what I meant
by all that, and I’m pretty certain his boss wouldn’t either.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

‘WIE need you’ in the fight to save women’s lives around the world! So say Arianna Huffington, Sarah Brown and Donna Karan, co-hosts of the first annual Women, Inspiration, Enterprise (WIE) symposium in NYC. Timed to underscore appeals to world leaders, WIE is at once a convention and a celebration, bringing together women at the forefront of politics, philanthropy, media, fashion, and the arts with young women from the US and developing countries who are already making a difference to change the world.
I suppose there are some issues in the world that I’ve always considered to be above my pay grade.
It’s difficult to consider the scale of problems such as poverty and world peace without feeling overwhelmingly small. I suspect many of you have felt the same way.
So we carry on with our own lives, hopefully give a bit of our time and money to the causes we hold dear, and try to make a difference on a smaller scale, all the while hoping or assuming that somewhere, the world’s best and brightest are tackling these seemingly insurmountable problems.
But for me, one day recently, a flip switched.
Ariana Huffington has described a dinner she attended several years ago where Sarah Brown, White Ribbon Alliance Global Patron and wife of former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, spoke about the need to address maternal mortality worldwide. Huffington writes that even at the time, she knew she was witnessing something special. Brown asked each woman there to make a pledge to do something in her own life to empower women globally.
I had a similar experience only instead of at a dinner half a world away in a room full of inspirational women, I was alone in my apartment with my laptop and a web video I had stumbled upon about the social injustice of gender inequality and discrimination worldwide.
But – for Huffington and myself the effect was the same. Sitting there in that room, I knew that I was about to become a part of something special.
The situation is astonishing. About each minute a woman somewhere in the world dies during childbirth. In Angola and Malawi, the lifetime risk of maternal death is one in seven. In west and central Africa, just 58 percent of primary school-age girls are enrolled in school. In Afghanistan, the adult literacy rate of women is 29 percent of that of men.
But for every heart-wrenching statistic, there is a story of a girl who overcame the odds, managed to escape the cycle, and is now helping to break it by empowering and inspiring women across the globe.
Obviously this video hadn’t convinced me that I could singlehandedly change the lives of millions of women worldwide, but it had convinced me that at the very least, I could change the life of one. By investing in a girl’s education, by donating to groups that provide pre- and post-natal care to mothers and infants, and by supporting an organization that makes small loans to women in impoverished countries, I can make a difference.
Beyond that, the experience had convinced me that I needed to do so; that, being a woman who was fortunate enough to grow up in a loving family, receive a good education, and live in a place where I can pursue any opportunity I wish, I owe something to the girls out there who aren’t as fortunate. To quote Sarah Brown, I and other women like me can “add our voices to help other women have theirs heard.”
So how do we add our voices? The White Ribbon Alliance and Half the Sky web sites each have extensive lists of aid groups and organizations, and Charity Navigator shares financial information for more than 5,000 U.S.-based charities.
To be sure, the problem is still bigger than any of us.
But there’s a way to multiply our efforts, to broaden the scope of what we can do. That is to inspire our friends and loved ones to join the cause, to do something in their own lives, in their own way, to fight gender inequality.
If I can change the life of one woman, and inspire another woman to do the same, our impact can be infinite.
All proceeds from WIE will go to support the work of the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood and Urban Zen.
Ticket sales: http://www.startickets.com/event.php?event=1773
More information: http://wienetwork.org/
Bonnie Wise does public policy work at a government affairs and consulting firm in Washington, D.C. and will be attending the WIE symposium in NYC on September 20. Check out the rest of the WIE series here.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Some Jews just don’t follow rules. Rosh Hashanah is a time for self-reflection and deep humility –a time when we are supposed to look at what we did wrong, not what others did wrong — but on the first Day of Judgment, my lunchtime crowd followed another script.
I was sitting with a group of friends at the home of Ariel and Sarah Wiendling, fellow members of Young Israel of Century City, on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, a day so steeped in Divine judgment that tradition says we shouldn’t sleep on that day, lest we get “caught napping.”
Personally, I was on my “aim higher” kick, trying not to let the hoopla of the holidays interfere with the spiritual imperative of looking inward. On top of that, the previous day I had read an article by a rabbi about how this is a good time of the year for Jews to apologize to the world for our collective sins of the past year.
So when my friend Ariel asked me about my trip to Israel, my response gravitated to anything having to do with looking inward and self-criticism. In particular, I spoke about my visit with the father of Gilad Shalit, who has been sitting vigil in a protest tent across from the prime minister’s home in Jerusalem.
What a dramatic example of self-criticism, I said. A terrorist enemy kidnaps an Israeli soldier, refuses to release him in exchange for over 1,000 prisoners, and Jews protest against their own prime minister.
After someone lamented the inability of the IDF to rescue Shalit ( la Entebbe), the conversation took a theological turn — someone making the point that “if God is behind everything,” then maybe there’s a redeeming feature to this tragedy that we are not seeing. Someone else took umbrage at this idea: How dare we look for redeeming features to such a deep personal tragedy? While we have the luxury of debating Gilad Shalit’s situation over a delicious meal, where is he right now? What meal is he having?
Obviously, I hadn’t picked the best example to honor the Jewish instinct for self-criticism. Of all the things Jews have to apologize for to the world, Gilad Shalit is surely not one of them.
But that’s when the conversation got interesting: If it’s wrong to beat ourselves up over Gilad Shalit, and if it’s not enough to say that “God is behind this,” then what?
Then let’s have a marketing meeting.
By the time dessert was served, we had reached a consensus: Jewish groups should organize an international flotilla for Gilad Shalit that should land in Gaza and ask for a Red Cross visit for the Jewish prisoner. The flotilla should consist of one main ship — with the flags of Israel and the Red Cross — and small boats to represent each day that Shalit has been imprisoned.
Everyone at the table loved the idea so much that they said, “I’m in.”
In fact, this is what I’m hearing every time I bring it up: people saying, “I’m in.” And many are adding to the idea: Have Shalit’s father lead the flotilla; do it around Passover and bring him a care package that will include matzahs; seek the support of Jewish organizations from across the spectrum, from J Street to ZOA, each representing a different boat; enlist human rights organizations who are usually Israel’s worst critics; go right to the top, getting the endorsements of President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, and so on.
Someone made the comment that a group tried to do something similar earlier this year, but that it wasn’t a hit because the “flotilla” was just in the New York harbor. Someone else said that because of Israel’s official naval blockade to Gaza, organizers will need to get Israel to make an exception for Shalit’s flotilla, which would be worth it if only for the PR value.
I’m sure anyone who tries to pull this off will encounter a million obstacles, but I’d love to see someone give it a shot — and at least make a lot of noise trying.
The request is so modest and reasonable — a Red Cross visit with a prisoner — that it makes it difficult for anyone to be against it, and it gives supporters of Israel from the left to the right a concrete cause they can all get behind. And by making such a modest request, and staying away from the messy politics of prisoner exchanges, we can turn Gilad Shalit into a household name on the lips of the world’s most influential leaders.
It’s true that this doesn’t fit the Rosh Hashanah themes of humility and personal self-reflection, and it certainly doesn’t follow the rabbi’s message of making a collective Jewish apology to the world.
What it might represent, however, is a collective Jewish apology to Gilad Shalit for not having done more to free him, and maybe a way of including him in our process of becoming better Jews for the coming year.

Follow David Suissa on Twitter:
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Emma has never shown a great interest in painting, unless it meant stepping in paint with her feet and rubbing paint on her body. A few summers ago Emma demanded, “paint” and when I brought out all the supplies; butcher paper, an easel, paintbrushes, she ignored all of it and proceeded to rub paint all over herself. Within minutes my mother’s family room resembled a giant canvas, with me frantically running around with wet sponges trying to keep the mess to a minimum. This was then followed by about an hour of bathing, cleaning Emma’s body, washing her hair and face all of which were covered in paint. (Not to mention the inside of her mouth as she had licked the paintbrush several times before I was able to stop her.) Once Emma was clean, the tub then needed to be scrubbed. It reminded me of The Cat in the Hat when the parent’s leave and the demonic cat shows up to wreck havoc on the otherwise tidy home, much to the children’s horror.
For Emma the entire activity was less about “painting” and more about the sensory pleasure derived from having wet paint on her feet and body. I reasoned that this was a good way for her to express herself and attain fine motor mastery as well as have fun. But after the third morning of painting I had to take all the paint away because Emma became so perseverative — she had to have certain colors on certain parts of her body — making her increasing anxiety palpable. It hardly seemed worth whatever pleasure she obtained from the original pursuit.
Last night we had friend’s over for dinner. Both Jody and Michael are artists and so there was a great deal of conversation about art and studio visits, painting etc. Nic, my son, who has been an avid artist since he was about two, announced he was going to paint something. Whether his sudden inspiration was in part due to our conversation or from the fact that another friend had recently asked to purchase one of his paintings cannot be known. Regardless, out came the paint, paintbrushes, glass of water and paper. Emma wandered over to the easel where he was working and said, “Do art?”
Nic magnanimously agreed to let Emma paint too. We produced fresh paper for the easel and Nic and Emma painted together. After awhile, Nic came back to the dining room table, as Emma continued to paint. Below is a photograph of Emma and Nic’s work. It shows one of Emma’s favorite subjects — birthdays and birthday cake. Nic wrote “Happy Birthday” and made Emma’s name darker than the light blue she had written it in.
Periodically as Emma worked, she would say, “Art!”
Not only was this significant and exciting because Emma was keeping paint on the paper and not on her body, but also because she collaborated with her brother, wrote her own name independently without help or prompting, as well as continued to paint on her own.
This morning Emma asked, “Paint?” We produced the necessary supplies and again, Emma painted, with a brush putting paint to paper.
Art has informed my life. Being a jewelry designer, having found the medium I love and being able to express myself while creating a thing of beauty is as close to perfection as I have experienced. I have, up until now, assumed Emma’s “art” took the form of music and singing. See “The Performance”, “Talent Show”, and to hear Emma singing, listen to the audio clip, “Emma Singing”.
That Emma may find joy in other types of art is something I have often hoped for, but not dared expect.

Follow Ariane Zurcher on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/Arianezurcher

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

When angry mobs disrupted healthcare reform town halls last summer, the first warning shots were fired. Back then Republican Party leadership appeared amused by the ruckus being created, believing they would ride the crest of this discontent to victory. They may not have shared the “birther” angst or “death panel” rage, but they played with these notions-and with a wink and a nod sought to use them to their advantage.
At that time I warned that the economic insecurity on which the GOP leadership was preying, and the anger with which they were toying, could ultimately turn on them and devour them first. And now after a half dozen or so highly charged Republican primary contests, it appears that this is exactly what has happened.
With Palin and the Tea Party acting as the chief cheerleaders and Newt, Beck and Rush-the boys charged with pouring gasoline on the bonfire-the GOP no longer looks like the Party of Lincoln ( in fact it doesn’t even look like the party of Reagan anymore ). No tears should be shed for the grey men in expensive suits who fed the fire and stoked the flames. They got burned and that’s what happens. While some debate whether this is good for Democrats in November, my concern is less with what will happen in the election and more importantly what the success of this movement of malcontents will mean for civil discourse and our democracy.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

It’s not 2008. There’s no presidential race to unite the country’s focus and galvanize sweeping momentum. If you asked a young person how he or she feels heading into the midterm elections, you’d probably still hear the traces of optimism that characterized that historic election. This time, however, the response would also have a trace of cynicism. You’d hear frustration – if sometimes unreasonable -about the pace of change over the last two years. But you’d also hear conviction that 2010 is a new opportunity to prove that young people remain deeply invested and committed to shaping the future they’ll inherit.
Today Rock the Vote released the results of a poll that details where this crucial bloc of voters ages 18 to 29 stands on many important factors, such as young voters attitudes towards Congress and national leaders like President Obama and Sarah Palin, and their interest in the upcoming election. It also looks at their political affiliations and positions on critical issues that will be debated during the 2010 midterm election cycle, such as the war in Afghanistan, marriage rights, energy policy, sexual health education and immigration.
What we found is that young voters are tired of politics as usual, and this sentiment gives them all the more reason to vote on Nov. 2nd. About 77% say they plan to vote, and when they do show up at the polls, they say they want to vote for candidates who stick to substance rather than preaching partisanship. Our data shows that young people care much more about jobs and college affordability than a candidate’s party affiliation. They are waiting for candidates to address their issues, and are becoming increasingly frustrated with those who don’t.
In pursuit of the change they voted for in 2008, we saw that while Millennials remain confident in their ability to make an impact, they are struggling to work past doubts about the political process. An overwhelming majority (83%) still says they believe their generation has the power to change our country, yet 59% say they feel more cynical about politics than they did two years ago.
The shift in young people’s attitudes are reflected in their views on current leaders. President Obama (56%) and the Democratic Party (46%) still receive the highest marks, with the Republican Party (36%) trailing behind. Favorability ratings indicate that President Obama (56%) and the Democratic Party (46%) still receive the highest marks, with the Republican Party (36%) trailing behind. Sarah Palin (28%) and the Tea Party (26%) receive lower favorability ratings. In terms of endorsements that will impact midterm outcomes, President Obama is more of an asset to candidates looking to energize young voters than Sarah Palin and the Tea Party. Half of young people say they are more likely to support a candidate endorsed by President Obama, while only 26% say the same about Sarah Palin (64% less likely) or the Tea Party (54% less likely).
Beyond the candidates are the issues at stake. Young people say they are more likely to back a candidate for U.S. Congress who supports investing in new technology to create jobs, seeks to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and will provide leadership on key social issues like immigration, marriage rights and sexual health education. For more specific statistics from the poll, visit our research page.
In these upcoming midterm elections, the better question is not “Will young people turn out?” but rather “Will candidates pay attention to the issues of young people?”
Observers from both parties interpreted the data to be an opportunity for candidates to connect with young people.
“This data makes clear that there is real value for Republican candidates to target voters under age 30, ” says conservative pollster Brian Nienaber, Vice President of The Tarrance Group. “These voters have an improving image of the Republican Party. In addition, the top concerns of these voters are the same pocketbook issues that are the focus of nearly every Republican candidate in the country. Thoughtful messaging and appropriate targeting could yield a significant level of support with these voters.”
Says progressive pollster John Anzalone, “In past election cycles we’ve heard about soccer moms and NASCAR dads, but in this cycle Democrats would be wise to target young people. Since moderates and independents are leaning Republican going into the November midterms, Democrats should appeal once again to the young people ages 18 to 29, who have not given up on them since the 2008 election. For all the criticisms that they don’t vote, this does show they are willing to engage when we go out and get them. Candidates who neglect young people are taking a major risk, as they will be the swing group for either party in 2010.”
Young people may be more cynical this election cycle, but they are also now even more experienced. If candidates treat them like the sophisticated, energized voting bloc they truly are and address their issues, they will deliver.

Follow Heather Smith on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/@rtvhs

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Elections are always a time for unrest in conflict areas like Afghanistan. It’s an unfortunate fact that violence ramps up as a means to deter voters and disrupt the process. The streets in Kabul are literally blanketed with hundreds of posters. Every roundabout or wall is covered and large billboards are erected haphazardly. The candidates represented in the large-scale photography chaos take enormous risks to run for office. Many are threatened with assassination to dissuade them from running at all. Three are already confirmed dead by the Taliban, and it’s not just candidates that are targets.
Campaign workers also put their lives in danger. Just last week the bodies of five campaign workers were found slain in Kandahar. Candidates, election officials and voters alike will take great risks to exercise their right to run for office and vote, regardless of security concerns.
Despite the tension, I am back in Afghanistan to move several of our development projects forward while I observe the upcoming election.
Driving down the poster-strewn streets from the airport, I soon entered the ‘Ring of Steel’, security checkpoints that surround the city center. There are actually signs up that declare you are entering the ring, a new security ‘improvement’ since my last visit. Ironic, as not once was our car, a beat up Corolla, searched or stopped. I have made my own plans to minimize the increased risk in the election lead up, knowing how dangerous it will be here over the next few days.
What I hadn’t accounted for was the heightened levels of violence and protests that will take place this weekend across the country, all the result of the actions of one ignorant man in Florida. The threat of a 9-11 Koran burning wasn’t just ignorant from the perspective of tolerance, religious freedom, and respect. It wasn’t just tasteless to take the 9-11 focus away from those who lost loved ones and turn it into a sideshow, turning a day of mourning and remembrance into a twisted Islamaphobic protest. It wasn’t just dangerous to fan the fire sparking between Christians and Muslims worldwide.
It was also bigoted, reckless, and nauseating. Our country is great because of the freedoms we have. People of all religions, races and nationalities have traveled from afar to call America home because of these freedoms. This is not something anyone, of any faith, should take lightly. All beliefs deserve respect and are afforded the freedom to practice under our constitution. That’s the beauty of it.
The Florida minister has the freedom to burn the Koran should he wish, as others have the freedom to destroy the Bible or Torah under the same laws. But actions have consequences. Proof in point? Another anti-American riot exploded today in Kabul in protest of his well publicized plan.
Threats degrading Islam, like Koran burning, play into the hands of the Taliban by fueling the mistaken belief that this is a war against Islam instead of a war against terrorists. Fueling this fire puts our troops and international forces further at risk.
It also puts journalists, humanitarian organizations and development aid workers at greater risk. Those like me, who choose to work in Afghanistan to help rebuild, educate and create stability get thrown into the fire as well. I watched the news before flying into Afghanistan, with growing anger about what a bigot with some media attention can do to rock an already unstable boat.
We’ve been here several times before. The communist-hunting of the McCarthy Trials. The Japanese internment camps in California and elsewhere. Why are we so keen to demonize entire nationalities or religions with such broad strokes? It seems to me that each time we do, we weaken our country a little more. Our strength is in our diversity, our weakness lies in our fear and racism.
As a nation built on the principles of religious freedom, equality, and the pursuit of happiness, we should remember that it’s the melting pot that made us a vibrant leader on the world stage. As Afghanistan holds its elections this Saturday, we need to set a better example of tolerance and equality. We should hold fast to those ideals our country was founded upon that we tout as the basis for democracy in other countries.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Reposted from thenation.com
by Dave Zirin and Daniel Bloom
Ubuntu: it’s a treasured Bantu word roughly translated as “unity.” But “unity” doesn’t quite do it justice. Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee defined it as a concept meaning “I am what I am because of who we all are.” During South Africa’s decades-long struggle against apartheid, ubuntu meant unity of purpose among the country’s black majority against a brutally oppressive system. It meant the assertion of humanity in the face of an inhuman system.
The sacred word resurfaced amidst South Africa’s planning for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the most-watched sporting event in the history of the planet. This time, ubuntu was used quite differently in speeches and rallies held by the ruling African National Congress: it still meant unity, but this time it was used to inspire unity of purpose to stage such a mammoth undertaking. It meant, “Let’s show the world that an African country can do it just as well as any nation in the West.” This time, it was ubuntu as pep talk. It was also used as an argument to silence people who dared ask uncomfortable questions. As Saleh, a youth activist in Johannesburg, said, “If someone stood up at a [council meeting] and said, ‘Why are we spending so much on stadiums? Why are we giving the police so many powers?’ we were told that we were violating the spirit of ubuntu.” His friend Peter chimed in, “The World Cup is like a marvelous party, but what happens the next day when we’re hung over and the bill comes due?” We are seeing the ubuntu curdling far sooner than anyone could have predicted; anyone, that is, except the many who watched the multibillion-dollar stadium build upand expansion of police powers not with excitement but trepidation.
The 2010 World Cup was without question a major sporting success for South Africa. The gleaming fields opened on schedule, new airports welcomed scores of visitors and disparate groups of South Africans who usually self-segregate exalted together in public. But the party’s over. The country was recently hit with massive strikes involving 1.3 million public sector workers, including the teachers, civil service workers and health workers. The public sector strike contained a series of particularly shocking moments for South Africans and international observers. This included scenes of striking workers marching through a police line while sounding the World Cup’s iconic vuvuzela, only to be shot by the police officers’ rubber bullets. The strikes and rapid-fire erosion of the World Cup’s ubuntu speak to a serious political crisis facing South Africa’s scandal-plagued President Jacob Zuma and fissures between the ANC government and its base of support. The ANC has benefited greatly from its reputation as the freedom-fighters who led the liberation of South Africa from apartheid. But now, sixteen years later, as South Africa’s Patrick Bond has written, “The new apartheid in South Africa is economic apartheid.” Case in point: in today’s South Africa, 1.9 million people, 15 percent of the total population, live in shacks. And 48 percent of South Africans live on less than 322 rand a month (about $42). This while the top twenty paid directors at companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange make 1,728 times [2] the average income of a South African worker.
For a nation forged in a struggle against injustice, this situation is intolerable. Now the ANC finds itself in direct conflict with the very unions that constitute their spine. The ANC depends on a tripartite alliance between itself, the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which is behind the recent strikes. Zuma also enjoyed the backing of the ANC Youth League in his 2009 election bid, which raises a related problem. South African youth never knew apartheid and they can only evaluate the ANC on the services it has provided since 1994. If you’re a part of the new black middle class, one of the “Black Diamonds,” as they’re known, you probably have a positive view of the party. If you live in the townships or are a young member of COSATU and your existence has been defined by economic apartheid, it’s not enough.
Jacob Zuma has also attempted to ensure his popularity by reminding the populace that he is “100 Percent Zulu Boy.” This is also not enough. A resurrection of ubuntu is on the agenda in South Africa. But it’s an ubuntu that could leave the ANC out in the cold–ubuntu against the ANC–as South Africa’s youth demand economic justice and strive to reclaim their country.
[Dave Zirin is the author of "Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love" (Scribner) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.]

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The main difference between me and Dr. Frank Ryan is that I’m lucky enough not to live near any cliffs.
Ryan, the plastic surgeon behind many celebrity looks, was reportedly tweeting about his dog just before he drove to his death off a Malibu cliff. A person so familiar with the power of technology to change our bodies may have fallen victim to its power to distract our minds.
While Ryan paid the ultimate price for the mixing of social media and driving, he is certainly not alone in that behavior. The act of sending text messages while driving is so prevalent that at least nineteen states have already created laws banning the practice.
And I’m not pointing thumbs here. Have I ever checked email, read incoming tweets or responded to a text message while behind the wheel of a car? Yes. I’m usually at a stoplight or stuck in motionless traffic when I actually use my phone’s virtual keyboard. That factor might make might my behavior slightly less risky, but it doesn’t make it any less stupid.
While I can imagine either sending or receiving a message so pressing that an action would have to be taken at that very moment, I’ve never actually experienced such a scenario. The urgency that drives me to check Twitter or read an email while in the car is entirely a creation of my own mind.
All of this data can wait until later — and much of it can wait until never.
The temptation for drivers to participate in the realtime, social stream will only increase in coming years as Twitter, Facebook and other apps are built into our dashboards. Car manufacturers will attempt to include safeguards into their systems to prevent drivers from actually texting with one hand while they steer with the other. But the inclusion of the realtime web in our cars will be one more powerful suggestion that the information in the stream is so urgent and critical that it can’t wait until you park the car.
And drivers aren’t the only distracted folks on the road. Take a few commute-hour drives down 2nd Street in San Francisco and you’ll see what I mean. They are everywhere: Pedestrian zombies walking across the middle of a four lane road with their attention glued to a handheld. The compulsion to keep up with the stream has become so powerful that we’re gradually abandoning one of the first and most basic rules we all learned as kids. Instead of looking both ways before we cross the street, we look one way; down at our phones.
And what’s the point? Just because the technology is realtime doesn’t mean our behavior always has to be. Forget the obvious issues like walking into an intersection or driving off the road. When it comes to the net, we’re habitually guilty of LUI (Living Under the Influence). We sacrifice real life for realtime. We tweet vacation photos while we’re still on vacation. We share anecdotes about our kids when we’re spending time with them. And yes, we read and publish content from the driver’s seat of our cars.
Let me speak for everyone you have ever met, from a recent acquaintance to your closest relative: We can wait until you get home to see the photos from your vacation. You can share the funny anecdote about your kids after they’ve gone to bed. And nothing you’ve ever tweeted or shared is urgent enough for you do it while driving.
I’m not arguing that pressing the stream’s pause button is an easy thing to do. The internet twitch is a powerful force. But it’s worth taking a hard look at our behavior now because the omnipresence of the realtime web will only increase. We should probably try to figure out how to best manage that reality now because there are plenty of cliffs up ahead.
More from Dave Pell at
Tweetage Wasteland – Confessions of an Internet Superhero

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Okay, here’s the good news, at least from my perspective: my first crime novel, Mirror Image, has just been published by Poisoned Pen Press. It has fine reviews, a promising start on sales, and—thanks to the publisher’s art department—an extremely cool cover.
So much for the good stuff.
But there’s another side to the book’s publication. As some of you may know, after a career as a screenwriter (My Favorite Year; Welcome Back, Kotter, etc.), I became a licensed psychotherapist specializing in creative issues. For over twenty years now I’ve counseled writers through the turmoil of early drafts, the terrors of manuscript submission, the perils of publication. I’ve helped them struggle with writer’s block, procrastination and fear. I’ve consoled them in the face of an agent’s neglect, a publisher’s rejection, an editor’s disrespect and an industry’s indifference.
I mean, let’s face it: I know the drill.
So how has it been for me, now just another author with a product hitting the marketplace? If anyone should be able to handle the expected pragmatic and emotional challenges, it’s me. Right?
Guess again. In the months leading up to my new novel’s release, I have (in no particular order)obsessed about the book’s title; fantasized one minute about getting on the best-seller’s list and then in the next was absolutely convinced that no one would buy it at all; yearned for my agent to be completely devoted to my personal and professional well-being to the exclusion of all else in his life; already mentally answered potential bad reviews with pithy, scathing rejoinders; and felt unloved and unappreciated when a friend even looked like he was anything less than totally thrilled or profoundly moved at the thought of my novel coming out.
Believe me, I could go on, but space doesn’t permit. The point is, despite the knowledge and insight gained from long-time careers as both a writer and a therapist, I found myself wrestling with the same dilemmas as every other author.
Why? Because, like it or not, if you’re a writer, there’s no escaping the writer’s life.
As I’ve learned with the publication of this new novel, when it comes to the feelings, obsessions and just plain worries that accompany any writer’s efforts, there’s no “Get out of jail free” card. Even when, like me, you’ve already published a novel previously, as well as a collection of mystery short stories, and even a nonfiction book about—what else?—how to deal with the up’s and down’s of the writer’s life!
Which means that regardless of career experience, advancing age and sizeable amounts of therapy, there’s no “cure” for the writer’s life. As soon as a writer commits to the writing of a thing, he or she embarks on a journey through both an external world of crises and triumphs, and an internal world of feelings and belief systems.
And this is true for all writers, no matter their level of success, no matter how large and loyal their readership. After many years in the literary trenches, on both sides of the battlefield, I can posit with great assurance two simple facts: first, that all successful writers used to be struggling writers; and, second, that the successful ones still struggle. This is not merely philosophical ruminating on my part. As my recent experience with Mirror Image attests, this is the straight dope. One of those hard truths of the creative life. Bedrock.
On the other hand, I’ve negotiated the psychological rigors of publication about as well as can be expected. As both writer and therapist, I’ve learned—and changed—a lot over the years, and it’s definitely made a difference.
The biggest change? Probably this: In many ways, I’m as neurotic and insecure as I ever was. I just don’t hassle myself about it anymore. And although that might not be a cure, it’s the next best thing.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

It’s difficult to pinpoint a more obvious example of Sarah Palin’s narcissistic political flailing than Christine O’Donnell’s victory over Congressman Mike Castle in the Delaware primary yesterday. Palin’s endorsement of O’Donnell was arguably one of the dumbest and most revealing stumbles of her improbable career — not including her self-satirical word salads, of course.
Not unlike her alleged abuse-of-power as the half-term governor of Alaska, in which she apparently used her gubernatorial office to settle personal scores, the O’Donnell primary victory is, to date, the strongest indicator of how Palin might react from a position of national leadership: critical decisions would be governed by personal whimsy, vendettas, twisted ideology and entitled self-indulgence. (We’ve seen this before, haven’t we?)
Fortunately for the, you know, whole world, it’s highly doubtful that Palin will ever be elected president. But make sure to brace for impact if the stars align and she pulls it off.
Charles Pierce at Esquire spelled out the Delaware GOP nominee perfectly today: “Christine O’Donnell is a sideshow freak.” She’s a madcap professional candidate, running ostensibly for the attention and renown and not so much the victory — calling into serious doubt O’Donnell’s famous opposition to masturbation, by the way.
Yet Sarah Palin anointed her, practically leapfrogging the candidate over Mike Castle, and, more importantly, nullifying the near-term impact of a brutal radio talk show interview in which O’Donnell was caught red-handed in a hilarious slow-moving-train-wreck of a lie.
Christine O’Donnell has no chance of beating the Democratic candidate Chris Coons in the general election, short of some kind of earth-shattering scandal. What was going to be an easy Republican victory, with Mike Castle taking Vice President Biden’s old Senate seat, is now very likely a solid Democratic win. Obviously, Sarah Palin didn’t elevate O’Donnell because she’s a viable candidate.
As near as I can tell, there are two specific reasons why Palin would brazenly and blindly squander one whole Republican vote in the U.S. Senate.
Before we get into it, though, it’s important to note here the broiling GOP problem in Delaware: the conservative tea party gaggle hates Mike Castle because he’s a moderate Republican. In fact, according to Will Bunch, it was a Mike Castle town hall meeting where we saw the first screeching, conspiratorial town hall rant by an angry tea party hoople. Also, professional troll and CNN analyst Erick Erickson once tweeted, “Sorry folks, but if we need Mike Castle for a Senate majority, we do not need a Senate majority.” Fine for Erickson to toss out seats willy-nilly like that, but Sarah Palin should probably be held to a higher standard than an overindulged bomb-hurling blogger who once threatened to pull a “shotgun” on any Census workers who showed up at this front door. Palin is uniquely positioned to be able to win or lose a seat (or many seats) for the Republicans, so she probably should have thought twice before pandering to the far-right fantasy of ending Mike Castle’s congressional career. She played grabass with the Erickson wing of the party instead of considering the real political consequences of her endorsement.
Back to it.
First, it was a major political gaffe. What’s that Ricky Roma line from Glengarry Glenn Ross? “You never open your mouth until you know what the shot is.” Palin might have risen to become the half-term governor of Alaska, but, then again, this O’Donnell thing proves that she doesn’t exactly know what the hell she’s doing. And sometimes outliers happen and unqualified people stumble over the finish line first. Alvin Greene, for instance. But, other than simple stupidity, what else should we call this single-handed gifting of a Senate seat to the Democrats other than, in part, a huge gaffe? I mean, she literally reduced the Republican whip count in the Senate by one whole vote simply by saying, “I endorse fruitbag Christine O’Donnell.” (Palin didn’t use the word “fruitbag.”) One less vote. A gift to the Democrats.
Ask yourself, Republican people, what if you miss a Senate majority by just one seat? Who will you blame — or, rather, who ought to be blamed?
What’s especially remarkable here is that Sarah Palin, instead of uniting the GOP in the wake of 2008, appears to be the catalyst for a major rift developing in the party. By engaging in these impulse purchases — going rogue, if you will — and abusing her status, she’s sabotaging the efforts of the RNC, the NRSC and the NRCC, utterly deleting winnable seats and nullifying national campaign coordination efforts. But also, by pandering to the fringe tea party, she’s spurring a rightward shift that could divide the party, even to the point of another Whig-like extinction.
Secondly, it’s obvious that Palin’s O’Donnell gaffe is another symptom of her manic, almost hyperkinetic obsession with the sound of her own voice and the power of her tween-girlish internet gabbery. She thinks she can do anything, so, well, she does. The Republican Party would do well to gut check Palin’s egomaniacal abuse of this reality-show-celebrity she’s attained. When GOP analysts and operatives like Karl Rove go on television and rip O’Donnell for not possessing “truthfulness and sincerity and character,” they really ought to take a good look at Patient Zero in this epidemic: Sarah Palin and her ever-expanding repertoire of serial lies and unserious meddlings. It’s perhaps indicative of deeper problems infecting the party that, despite mucking up the Delaware seat, it’s highly conceivable that the Republicans will nominate Palin for the presidency in 2012 anyway — the very personality who will soon cost them a vote in Senate.
By the way, I want front row seats for that one. The Republican primaries with Sarah Palin in the mix are going to be a blast to observe, but if she gets the nomination, I can only grin from ear-to-ear imagining the daily disorganized frenetic jumble of spasmodic chaos emanating from the Palin campaign — the unplugged-Ghostbusters-Containment-Unit bursting with indecipherable tweets and a gigantic neon green plasma beam of crazy just rocketing into the stratosphere wherever the Cackle Of Rads Express sets up shop.
For what it’s worth, there’s also a lesson here for the progressive movement when it comes to selecting primary challengers to replace various insufferable Democrats. More than any single position or progressive agenda item, it’s definitely a good idea to see if the primary candidate of choice can actually win in the general election. While it’s painful to deal with some of the usual conservadem suspects, handing the seat to a Republican would be a gigantic step in the wrong direction.
Nevertheless, thank you, Sarah Palin. Thank you for an autumn of entertainment as Christine O’Donnell implodes on the national stage. And especially thank you for the freebee Senate seat. We didn’t think we’d lock that one down, but now it’s definitely smooth sailing. Cheers also.
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

This summer, as the ‘Ground Zero mosque’ and ‘burn-a-Koran’ controversies raged on American news and talk shows, Europe had to deal with its own xenophobia-related problems. The French government decided to dismantle Roma camps and expel 900 Roma individuals, a choice that triggered a series of public protests across Europe and propelled the plight of Roma to the front pages of the European press.
The French authorities claim that the forced repatriation of Roma is “voluntary” because the expelled are being compensated financially at the rate of 300 Euros per adult and 100 Euros per child. This claim is refuted by experts from the U.N., who affirmed that not all individuals had given their “free and full consent” to be expelled, nor had they understood their rights during the expulsion process.
Beyond looking at France’s obligations to the United Nations, independent experts debate if France has violated European Union (E.U.) laws that assert the right of each E.U. citizen to move freely across the territories of its twenty-seven member states. The European Commission, the executive body responsible for enforcing E.U. laws, is currently evaluating if France’s actions are in compliance with the E.U. Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as Directive 2004/38/EC. According to the rules, individuals who no longer fulfill residency requirements can only be expelled if the decision is proportionate and sent to them one month in advance “in writing, fully justified and open to appeal.” Collective expulsions are prohibited–as is ethnic profiling–and each case must be studied separately.
The debate in France also sparked a heated exchange in Brussels during the past couple of weeks as E.U. parliamentarians, journalists, and human rights groups spoke out angrily against the French “crackdown on Roma.”
On September 14, E.U. Justice and Fundamental Rights Commissioner Viviane Reding said she was appalled by the expulsions, calling them “a disgrace” and affirming that “discrimination on the basis or ethnic origin or race has no place in Europe.” The Commision will decide in the next two weeks if it will propse legal proceedings agains tthe French authorities. If the European Court of Justice rules that the expulsions have breached the E.U. law, France would have to pay a hefty fine. Other E.U. diplomats have evoked what Brussels insiders know as the “nuclear option.” That option is outlined under article 7 of the E.U. Treaty and reads that in cases of a “serious and persistent breach” of human rights, an E.U. government can be stripped of its voting rights altogether. This option, though possible, is deemed as the most unlikely of all scenarios.
Despite these heated remarks, political outcry over France’s decision is somewhat hypocritical. In reality, many governments in Europe have dismantled Roma camps or evicted residents of Roma origin, or intend to. Each case has its specificity, although no one can deny a recurring pattern. In many Italian cities, local administrations have pursued policies of eviction; Germany declared its desire to expel 12,000 Roma back to Kosovo; Sweden deported 50 Roma for begging; 700 Roma and Travelers were sent away from Flanders in Belgium. The only difference between these actions and the French expulsions is the amount of public attention each has garnered.
Perhaps that is because French President Sarkozy recently convened a security meeting to discuss “the behavior” of certain members of the Roma community and consistently used language that was inherently biased against Roma. That negatively charged rhetoric was clearly intended to mislead the public into supporting the expulsions that President Sarkozy approved and assuming that this ethnic minority is criminal and threatening to national security. That kind of fearmongering must stop.
Instead of adopting populist platforms and striving on negative perceptions of a minority, politicians must stop using damaging stereotypes and inflammatory remarks to undermine fundamental rights. The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg recently warned that “distorted minds had understood the political messages as an encouragement for action.” The European Parliament echoed this message in a resolution it adopted on September 9. It reminded policy-makers of their responsibilities and urged rejection of “any statements which link minorities and immigration with criminality” that can “create discriminatory stereotypes.”
Human Rights First’s recommendations to governments also urge public officials not only to refrain from using rhetoric that incites violence or promotes acts that curtail the enjoyment of rights by others, but to also take steps to consistently condemn such speech when it occurs.
The perpetuation of the notion of “Gypsy criminality” across many parts of Europe– not least Central Europe–is one of the most telling examples of the widespread anti-Roma sentiments across the continent. The concept stems from the racist stereotyping of Roma as individuals prone to criminality–a view that continues to permeate the media, to slip clumsily in the public debate, or to be discussed more crudely in local pubs. Extremist groups are quick to score populist points by nurturing these prejudices.
Perhaps one of the most disturbing manifestations of xenophobia has played out in Hungary during the past couple of years. At least nine people of Roma origin were murdered between January 2008 and July 2010 amidst a climate where anti-Roma hatred was shoved down Hungarians’ throats by the xenophobic party Jobbik.
This kind of violence cannot be tolerated. If it goes on, more lives could be lost in France or Italy or any other nation where hateful words and policies breed misunderstanding and fear. European governments must redouble their efforts to dispel collective myths of any ethnic group, including Roma. Otherwise, they have nobody but themselves to blame if the extremists in their countries prevail.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Education reform politics are being waged at a fever pitch in the United States. The recent release of the film, Waiting for Superman, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s announcements of Race to the Top multimillion dollar grants last month are just the tip of iceberg.
At the core of the shouting are children — mostly low-income minority children — in cities like Los Angeles, Baltimore, Chicago, Newark and New York. As low as U.S. inner city high school graduation rates might be, they’re stratospheric compared to the reality in South Africa. In that black majority country, two decades after apartheid ended, about 65 percent of young, white South Africans have high school degrees but only 14 percent of black South Africans do.
Exactly 10 years ago, two Harvard Business School graduates, living and working in Johannesburg, began to change that reality.
Teresa Clarke, chairman and CEO of Africa.com, joined forces with Kenyan-born Nyagaka Ongeri, now a managing principal in the global finance & risk solutions division of ABSA Capital (Barclays Capital’s Sub Saharan African Investment Banking arm). Their initial goals were modest — to mentor a few black high school students.
A decade later, they’ve raised more than $10 million, most of it in South Africa, to educate nearly 600 low-income black students in the most elite white private boarding schools. Their program is called SSP, for Student Sponsorship Programme.
The Harvard connections provided access to influential, socially conscious advocates. All five South African banks have been generous SSP supporters: Standard Bank, ABSA, Nedbank, Investec and First Rand. Early support also came from the South African branches of U.S. banks, including JP Morgan, Citibank, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank.
About 95 percent of the students who have started the program, the first critical masses of black students to attend these elite, white schools, complete it. About 90 percent of the students qualify to attend university.
Today, some of the first graduates are playing important roles in the South African economy. Among the star performers from the first class are a manager at South African Breweries and a banker at Investec.
Dexter A. Padayachee was fortunate enough to win one of the hugely prestigious Nelson Mandela Scholarships, established at Amherst College in Western Massachusetts. After a nationwide search throughout South Africa, he and four other SSP alums have been the first and only recipients of this highly sought after grant.
Now a sophomore, Dexter knows how fortunate he is. “SSP serves as a beacon of opportunity for these students who show academic excellence. SSP effectively transports these exceptional learners to schools where they are challenged both in academics and life.”
For all his successes, Dexter’s road has been bumpy. “The transition from the public school system to the private school system is a displacement. This displacement is indeed a frightening experience. However, SSP has made valiant attempts to transform the displacement into a transition. And I think, contextually looking at SSP, it has been successful in reaching the ‘transition’ phase.”
Clarke understood Dexter’s experience as she summed up what she’s learned. “We initially thought of ourselves as providing a micro opportunity, not understanding that private school sector was seeking solutions for their integration needs in the new South Africa. Over the years, we’ve been met with great enthusiasm and success in a number of categories.”
The private schools have needed to find black students who can deliver academically. SSP does that.
The schools need to find funding to finance the black students’ educations and to help them fit in in an affluent environment. SSP does that with scholarships for tuition as well as funding for other expenses, like uniforms, books, school supplies, sports equipment and field trips.
The schools needed a support structure to help the kids survive and thrive. SSP does that by providing a mentor for each student, typically a young professional, often from the financial services sector in South Africa.
The schools needed to engage the parents who face a huge socio-economic gap. SSP has facilitated those needs with a parents support group, orientation, and program staff to encourage, advocate and generally support the students during their full five years of high school.
“I continue to interview and meet prospective students every year,” said co-founder Nyagaka Ongeri. “It remains heart-wrenching and eye-opening, 10 years later, to see how dramatically the public education system in South Africa has failed its students, parents and even its teachers.”
What most impresses both Ongeri and Clarke is the commitment of black parents to their children’s success. Said Ongeri, “Many of the parents overpromise the amount that they can contribute to their children’s tuition. But it’s a sign of the hope that they place on their the children who are the shining hope of their lives.”
Said Clarke, “Over the next 10 years, I hope that we can expand throughout South Africa and raise enough funds for an endowment.” She added, “We didn’t start out to become experts on diversity, but we get calls from public schools, universities, corporations – all of them looking for our advice.”
Ongeri, Clarke and their SSP staff hope to inspire and substantively integrate all of the historically white institutions in South Africa and beyond.
“There’s such a thin line between the haves and have nots in Africa,” they both said. “You just have to look around to have a real appreciation for what hard work can bring you and you have a responsibility to pull others along with you.”
Jacqueline Adams serves on the Board of Trustees of the KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) Charter Schools in New York City and is a member of the 10th Anniversary Committee of the Student Sponsorship Programme.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com