Punish the Onlookers?

RICHMOND, Calif. (CBS/AP) For two hours they watched the alleged gang rape of a 15-year-old girl outside her high school homecoming dance. They pointed. They laughed. They took pictures, say investigators. But no one among the approximately two dozen gawkers called the police.

Now it is looking like they might not face any criminal responsibility, even after four teens, so far, face up to life in prison for the rape. It is a crime in California to fail to report a crime against a child, according to the state's 1999 Sherrice Iverson Child Victim Protection Act. But the bill only applies to victims who are 14 or younger. The victim in the Richmond gang rape case is 15.

Dara Cashman, head of the Contra Costa District Attorney's Office sex crimes unit, said all is not lost and told the Contra Costa Times, a Bay area newspaper, that those who witnessed the alleged rape and did not report it could face aiding and abetting charges, if it can be proven that their actions facilitated or goaded the perpetrator. It is not clear if those charges are being considered in this case. It was not until a former student, who heard two males bragging about the attack, that police received a tip on the case. Officers found the victim semiconscious and naked from the waist down near a picnic table on the Richmond High School campus.

Margarita Vargas, who was watching television Saturday night with others at her home two blocks from the school campus, told a newspaper that she reported the assault as soon as she heard about it. The newspaper did not say whether Vargas was a student at the school. "They think it's cool," Vargas said of those gathered at the alleged rape. "They weren't raised to respect girls." Police Lieutenant Mark Gagan said that a "mob mentality" had taken over the night of the dance and that it only became worse as students spread the news, over time, that "rape was going on." "More people came to see, and some actually participated." When individuals do not offer help in an emergency situation when other people are present, law enforcement term the non-action the "bystander effect" or "Genovese syndrome."

Kitty Genovese was a 24-year-old New Yorker, who, after finishing the late shift at a Queens bar in 1964, was randomly attacked while walking home. A subsequent report in The New York Times laid out the story of 38 witnesses, many portrayed as watching the homicide from front row seats in their high-rise apartments as Genovese cried in vain for her life. "For more than half an hour thirty-eight respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens," The Times article began. ".... Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead."

A recent investigation by ABC News of the old case suggests that very few of the thirty-eight actually witnessed the crime. And a group of neighbors actually helped to finally catch the assailant. There's no word yet if heroes will emerge from this case. Details of the witnesses in the Richmond California gang rape case are still unclear. "I still cannot get my head around the fact that numerous people either watched, walked away or participated in her assault," police Lt. Gagan said. "This just gets worse and worse the more you dig into it." Police hope a $20,000 reward will bring more people forward with information.

Iowa Republicans Wince at Palin Fee

A conservative Iowa group’s effort to lure Sarah Palin to its banquet next month has had an unintended effect: Rather than exciting conservatives about the prospect of a visit from the former Alaska governor, the group’s plan to raise a six-figure sum to bring her to the state has GOP activists recoiling at the thought of paying to land a politician's speaking appearance.

The Iowa Family Policy Center’s effort to cobble together $100,000 for Palin would represent a striking departure from customary practice in the first-in-the-nation state, these Republicans say, noting that a generation of White House hopefuls has paid their own way to boost their party and presidential ambitions.

Were Palin to appear in Iowa on November 21st, it would mark her first trip back to the state since she spoke to a handful of rallies there last fall as the GOP’s vice-presidential nominee. She would offer powerful counter-programming to another major political event that night: The Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner with Vice-President Joe Biden as the headliner.

But representatives from other Iowa-based political advocacy groups said they would never consider shelling out money for what many politicians see as a privilege: the opportunity to speak to a room full of sure-fire caucus-goers who often serve as precinct captains and can be instrumental to a presidential candidate’s success.

“If somebody tells me they want me to pay an appearance fee, it tells me they’re not very serious about running for president,” said Ed Failor, Jr., president of Iowans for Tax Relief and an influential GOP insider. “I found it really, really odd,” Failor said.

He noted that his group had not and never would pay for a politician to speak—pointing out the obvious in-kind contribution any potential presidential hopeful receives by appearing in the state that kicks off the presidential nominating process. “They come and show up here because they want to be relevant in Iowa,” he said. Steve Scheffler, the president of the Iowa Christian Alliance and a longtime GOP activist, said his organization would also never ante up. “We certainly wouldn’t do it, even if we had the money,” Scheffler said, adding that he wanted to keep his group “impartial” in the caucus process and that paying money to one prospective candidate could raise questions about such neutrality.

Tim Albrecht, spokesman for the conservative, Iowa-based American Future Fund, said his group “has a policy not to pay speakers to come to Iowa,” and, like Failor, hinted at what those guests get in return. “We are proud to host conservative leaders from across the country, providing them an audience across the state and nation to share their conservative vision,” Albrecht said.

Like the other Iowa political hands, he could not recall a single instance where a potential candidate had been paid to speak. At the request of the Iowa Family Policy Center, Team Sarah, a national pro-Palin organization not formally connected to the former governor, has begun raising money among its members in an effort to collect the $100,000. Reached on his cell phone, Iowa Family Policy Center president Chuck Hurley said he had been expecting another call from the “202” area code and declined to answer questions, saying alternately that he was signing checks and in a meeting. He passed his phone to Bryan English, a spokesman for the group, who initially said their effort to raise money was only to secure a venue, pay for lighting and promote the event. But then he said he was “not personally aware of a speaker’s fee.” “There may or may not be, I don’t know,” English said. And he added: “Any details of arrangements between our speakers and our organization are between our speakers and our organization.”

But, money or not, it seems unlikely that Palin will appear for the event.

“This is one of more than a thousand requests for the governor's time,” said Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapleton. “This particular invitation arrived late last week. It is under consideration, as so many are, but will be incredibly difficult to attend with her tightly-scheduled book tour underway at that point.” Palin’s book, “Going Rogue,” is to be released on November 17th, followed by a national book tour. There is no indication that the former governor has requested a fee or that her decision whether to attend is being influenced by whether she’ll be paid.

Plainly, though, Hurley’s organization is trying to do all it can to get Palin to the banquet. In addition to working with the Team Sarah group to raise cash, the group issued a statement Tuesday promising an event “on a much larger scale” and touted their communications with the former governor “through both official and informal channels.” Privately, Iowa Republicans are cringing at, not only the idea of pay-to-play, but also what they view as an amateurish effort to sell tickets for the dinner by floating Palin's name.

But English dismissed a question about the group’s tactics to secure a Palin visit. “I don’t think anything about this process has to be part of a political tradition,” English said, observing that their only goal was to have a successful event. Palin, it seems, is breaking the mold again. Longtime Iowa strategists say the attempt to publicly dangle money before her is yet another reminder of Palin’s sui generis status on the political scene. “She is a phenomenon,” said David Kochel, an Iowa GOP consultant, recalling the thousands Palin drew in her appearances in the state for the party ticket last fall. “If she can draw a big enough crowd, it would put a spotlight on the organization,” Kochel added, noting that they could recoup the speaker’s fee if, as is being considered, they drew Palin and had the event at Des Moines’s Wells Fargo Arena. “They want to trade on her star power.”

Gordon Fischer, a former Iowa Democratic Party chairman and Des Moines lawyer, called the gambit “incredibly unusual.” “It shows the incredible star power of Gov. Palin, at least in certain circles,” Fischer said. The effort also underlines how Palin straddles the line between politician and political personality. Failor, the anti-tax advocate, said the only other examples he could recall when a group paid for a political speech were with big-name talk show hosts such as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. But for Iowa political activists accustomed to high-profile politicians of both parties—Clintons, Kennedys and Bushs—descending on their state and spending hours in their homes, schools and churches, the idea of paying for the attention some see as their birthright is anathema. “If it comes to pass, it's not a precedent Iowans will like,” said Ann Trimble-Ray, Chairwoman of the Sac County GOP. “We are spoiled -- and used to being paid attention to.”

What the Political Dorks Say

From Sabato's Crystal Ball

Alan I. Abramowitz

Guest Columnist

Could Democrats be heading toward an electoral disaster comparable to the 1994 midterm election in which they lost 54 House seats and 8 Senate seats, turning control of both chambers over to Republicans for the remainder of Bill Clinton's presidency? Nobody is predicting such a dramatic turnaround in party fortunes just yet. But while a Senate majority appears to be out of reach, some GOP strategists now see a chance for their party to regain control of the House of Representatives in next year's midterm election. And they're not alone. In a recent column, Charlie Cook of The National Journal, one of the nation's well-known and respected political analysts, warned that President Obama's sinking poll numbers along with growing resistance among voters to the President's policies and a painfully slow economic recovery could lead to massive Democratic losses next year. The fact that Democrats are struggling to pass a major overhaul of the nation's health care system just as they were in 1994 is also contributing to the feeling of "deja vu all over again" among many party leaders and supporters.

But while there are some important similarities between the current political situation and the circumstances that preceded the 1994 Republican victory, there are important differences between the makeup of the American electorate now and the makeup of the American electorate then, differences that make a repeat of the 1994 outcome highly unlikely.

The most important difference is that nonwhites make up about twice as large a share of the electorate now. Figure 1 displays the trend in the racial composition of the electorate in presidential and midterm elections between 1992 and 2008 based on data from national exit polls. Two patterns are evident in this graph. First, whites generally make up a larger share of the electorate in midterm elections than in presidential elections--the presence of a presidential race appears to be a more important motivation for voting among African-Americans, Hispanics, and other nonwhites than among whites. This means that the nonwhite share of the electorate in 2010 is likely to be lower than the all-time record of 26 percent that was set in 2008. Second, however, the data show a clear upward trend in the nonwhite share of the electorate in both types of elections. This means that the nonwhite share of the electorate is almost certain to be higher in 2010 than it was in 2006.

Needless to say, the racial transformation of the American electorate has important implications for the prospects of the two major parties. The weakness of the Republican Party among nonwhite voters is a much bigger problem for the GOP today than it was back in 1994. In that year, 86 percent of the voters were white while only 9 percent were African-American and only 5 percent were Hispanic or members of other racial minority groups. But in 2006, the most recent midterm election, only 79 percent of voters were white while 10 percent were African-American and 11 percent were Hispanic or members of other racial minority groups.

Based on the average rate of change in the racial composition of the electorate over the past two decades, by 2010 we can predict that no more than 76 percent of voters will be white while at least 11 percent will be African-American and at least 13 percent will be either Hispanic or members of other racial minority groups.

The Republican Party is even weaker among African-American, Hispanic, and other nonwhite voters today than it was in 1994. In the 2008 House elections, Democratic candidates won 94 percent of the vote among African-Americans, 70 percent of the vote among Hispanics, and 73 percent of the vote among other nonwhites according to national exit poll data. And recent polling data indicates that Republican support among all of these groups remains extremely low.

Based on the 2008 results and the projected racial make-up of the 2010 electorate, Republican candidates would have to win almost 60 percent of the white vote in order to win 50 percent of the overall national popular vote in 2010. That would be even more than the 58 percent of the white vote that Republican candidates received in 1994 and much more than the 54 percent of the white vote that Republican candidates received in the 2008 House elections.

Of course the results of House elections are not directly determined by the national popular vote--they are determined by the results of 435 individual contests of which only a small fraction are actually competitive. Nevertheless, there is a very strong relationship between the national popular vote and the outcomes of House elections. In 1994, when Republicans gained 54 seats to take control of the House, GOP candidates received about 53 percent of the national popular vote; in 2006, when Democrats gained 30 seats to regain control of the House, Democratic candidates also received about 53 percent of the national popular vote. For the 32 elections between 1944 and 2006, the correlation (Pearson's r) between the Republican share of the national popular vote for the House of Representatives and the Republican share of House seats is.93. This means that the Republican share of the national popular vote explains over 86 percent of the variation in the Republican share of House seats during this time period.

In all likelihood, in order to regain control of the House of Representatives in 2010, Republican candidates would need to win at least 50 percent of the national popular vote. Given the likely racial composition of the electorate in 2010, however, that is going to be extremely difficult.

Republicans are likely to make at least modest gains in the House of Representatives next year. That is the norm in midterm elections. Since World War II, the president's party has lost an average of 23 House seats and 2-3 Senate seats in midterm elections. The size of this loss varies considerably, however, based on such factors as the president's popularity and the numbers of House and Senate seats that each party holds going into the election--the more seats a party holds, the more it is likely to lose. Right now, those factors are pointing to a Democratic loss of about 20 seats in the House and 1 or 2 seats in the Senate. But the size of the Democrats' losses will ultimately depend on how voters evaluate the performance of the president and his party next fall.

What we can say with considerable confidence at this early date is that the steady growth of the nonwhite electorate and the continuing weakness of the Republican Party among nonwhite voters make a repeat of the Democrats' 1994 electoral debacle highly unlikely.

E.J. Dionne's Response to Kristol

If I were a conservative, I would probably tout the new Gallup study showing that conservatives now outnumber moderates, as Bill Kristol did in his column on Tuesday. But I’d be wary of making too much of what is a rather small shift in the ideological self-description of Americans. And out of curiosity, I checked around with other pollsters to see what they were finding. The results were mixed.

First, those Gallup numbers: Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36 percent as moderate, and 20 percent as liberal. “This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group,” Gallup reported of its study based on combining16 surveys for a sample of 16,321. The shift from 2008 is hardly startling. Conservatives were up three points from 2008, moderates down one and liberals down two.

On the other hand, the country was ever so slightly less conservative in the most recent third quarter of the year than it was in the second quarter: According to Gallup, the conservatives’ advantage over moderates went from 6 points in the second quarter to 3 points in the recent quarter. It’s not exactly clear which way the trend is running.Of course these are all small shifts, and that’s the point: We are not going through some ideological revolution.

I was curious how Gallup’s findings squared with those of other pollsters, so I asked Jon Cohen of The Post and Scott Keeter of the Pew Research Center to run some of their numbers for me, which they kindly did.In the 2009 Post/ABC News surveys, moderates still lead conservatives. The average for the year: 39 percent moderate, 36 percent conservative, 22 percent liberal. In only one survey did the conservatives “lead” the moderates, by 38 percent to 36 percent.

Conservatives will be happy to know that was in the most recent survey.At Pew, Keeter divided his surveys in half, from January to the end of June and from July to the present. In the January to June surveys (involving 10,630 interviews), the Pew numbers were: 37.9 percent moderate, 36.9 percent conservative and 19.7 percent liberal

In the Pew surveys since July, there was a shift (of 1.6 percent) toward the conservatives. The numbers were: 38.5 percent conservative, 35.5 percent moderate and 20.1 percent liberal.
Keeter described the 1.6 percent shift toward “conservative” as “on the borderline of statistical significance” and the movement as “glacial.”

It’s important to note that there is a debate over what these ideological labels actually mean to voters. And polls that give respondents the chance of calling themselves “progressive” produce a substantially larger number on the left end of the spectrum, since many who won’t pick the “liberal” label do call themselves “progressive.” A study earlier this year by the Center for American Progress found that when progressive and libertarian were offered as additional options, the country was split almost exactly in half between left and right.

The upshot of the recent polls is that conservatives can be pleased that they are very much in business, and they may be doing just a bit better with George W. Bush out of the White House. But shifts this small and inconclusive shouldn’t make the headlines. In particular, when everyone analyzes (and spins) next week’s elections in Virginia, New Jersey and New York’s 23rd congressional district, they should rely on the local exit polls and actual votes and not on these marginal shifts in national polls. I’d also caution against overanalyzing the results from these contests, but such a warning would be useless: of course these races will be overanalyzed, and I’ll probably be guilty doing some of that myself.

Kristol on Conservatism

By William Kristol
Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Bien-pensant conservative elites and establishment-friendly Republican big shots yearn for a more moderate, temperate and sophisticated Republican Party. It's not likely to happen. And probably just as well.

The Gallup poll released Monday shows the public's conservatism at a high-water mark. Some 40 percent of Americans call themselves conservative, compared with 36 percent who self-describe as moderates and 20 percent as liberals.

The conservative number is as high as it's been in the two decades that Gallup has been asking the question.

What's more, fully 72 percent of Republicans say they're conservative. Thirty-five percent of independents do so as well -- and presumably the percentage of conservatives among independents who might be inclined, where the rules permit it, to vote in GOP primaries would be much higher.

The implications of this for the Republican Party over the remaining three years of the Obama presidency are clear: The GOP is going to be pretty unapologetically conservative. There aren't going to be a lot of moderate Republican victories in intra-party skirmishes. And -- with the caveat that the political world can, of course, change quickly -- there will be a conservative Republican presidential nominee in 2012.

That nominee seems unlikely to be a current officeholder. Right now, the four leading candidates for the GOP nomination are private citizens. In a recent Rasmussen poll, the only candidates with double-digit support among Republicans were Mike Huckabee (at 29 percent), Mitt Romney (24 percent), Sarah Palin (18 percent) and Newt Gingrich (14 percent). These four are running way ahead of various senatorial and gubernatorial possibilities. So a party that has over the past two decades nominated a vice president (George H.W. Bush), a senator (Bob Dole), a governor (George W. Bush) and another senator (John McCain), now has as its front-runners four public figures who are, to one degree or another, outsiders.

To an extent this situation is the product of accidental circumstances, and it could change. But when one considers the anti-Washington and anti-political mood in the country, especially among conservatives, it's easier to see it not changing.

Indeed, I suspect that the person most likely to break into this group of front-runners would be a businessman who stands up against President Obama's big-government proposals, a retired general who objects to Obama's foreign policy or a civic activist who rallies the public against some liberal outrage. If a Republican elected official emerges, it will probably be because he or she champions some populist cause, not because that person is a fine representative or senator or governor.

One reason is that many Republicans lack confidence not just in Congress but even in Republican members of Congress. In last week's Post-ABC News poll, a plurality of respondents disapproved of Obama-type health-care reform. In other words, they agree with the Republicans in Congress. But when asked how much confidence they had in congressional Republicans to make the right decisions for the country's future, only 19 percent of respondents expressed much confidence in the GOP -- well behind the confidence levels in congressional Democrats (34 percent) and Obama (49 percent).

Obviously, many Republicans and conservatives -- and lots of moderates and independents -- will be grateful to Mitch McConnell if he can stop ObamaCare, and to Jon Kyl if he can induce the president to embrace a stronger foreign policy. But it's unlikely that the minority party in Congress will be the source of bold new conservative leadership over the next three years. Even if Republicans pick up the House in 2010, the party's big ideas and themes for the 2012 presidential race will probably not emanate from Capitol Hill.

The center of gravity, I suspect, will instead lie with individuals such as Palin and Huckabee and Gingrich, media personalities like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and activists at town halls and tea parties. Some will lament this -- but over the past year, as those voices have dominated, conservatism has done pretty well in the body politic, and Republicans have narrowed the gap with Democrats in test ballots.

And next week, in real balloting, conservative Republicans are likely to win in Virginia, a state Obama carried. Meanwhile, a liberal Republican anointed by the GOP establishment for the special congressional election in Upstate New York will probably run third, behind the conservative Republican running on the Conservative Party line, who may in fact win.

The lesson activists around the country will take from this is that a vigorous, even if somewhat irritated, conservative/populist message seems to be more effective in revitalizing the Republican Party than an attempt to accommodate the wishes of liberal media elites.

So the GOP is likely, for the foreseeable future, to be of a conservative mind and in a populist mood. In American politics, there are worse things to be.

U.S. Envoy Resigns Over Afghanistan Conflict

The high-profile resignation of a U.S. diplomat has put the White House on the defensive over the war in Afghanistan just as Barack Obama is poised to decide whether to send 40,000 new troops to fight the eight-year conflict.

Matthew Hoh, a 36-year-old former Marine and Iraq war veteran, said he was stepping down as the senior U.S. civilian official in Zabul province, northeast of Kandahar, because he had "lost understanding of, and confidence in, the strategic purposes of the United States' presence."

In a four-page letter to his State Department superiors, he said his experience on the ground in Afghanistan had convinced him the United States is waging a futile effort to "secure and bolster a failing state." Moreover, the very presence of U.S. troops is spurring the Taliban insurgency, just as the Soviet occupation of the country drove the mujahedeen into resistance in the 1980s.

"To put simply: I fail to see the value or the worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year-old civil war," Mr. Hoh wrote. "Our forces, devoted and faithful, have been committed to conflict in an indefinite and unplanned manner that has become a cavalier, politically expedient and Pollyannaish misadventure."

Mr. Hoh, who served in military and civilian capacities in Iraq, is thought to be first civilian U.S. official to quit to protest his country's continuing presence in Afghanistan.

In brief remarks to reporters yesterday, he said, "We may be able to stabilize the Afghan government in five to 10 years, but stabilizing the Afghan government will do nothing to defeat al-Qaeda."

His remarks came as U.S. troops endured a second day of violence and bloodshed. Eight U.S. soldiers were killed yesterday in a roadside bomb explosion; another 14 Americans -- including three drug enforcement agents -- died in helicopter crashes on Monday.

In all, 55 U.S. soldiers have died in Afghanistan in October, making it the deadliest month for the United States since the war began. Responding to Mr. Hoh's resignation, Ian Kelly, a State Department spokesman, said he was in Afghanistan on a one-year renewable posting and was not a career diplomat.

"We respect his right to dissent," he said. "Without minimizing the obvious passion and depth of feeling of Mr. Hoh, in terms of his perception of the mission in Afghanistan, I would draw a distinction between his situation and somebody who'd been in the foreign service and had a stake in the foreign service for 20 years or more."

But Mr. Hoh's resignation, submitted on Sept. 10, drew a response from the Obama administration that far outstripped his seniority -- he headed a small team of State Department civilians -- reflecting intense concern within the White House about its impact on the debate over strategy.

In the weeks before the resignation became public, Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, and Richard Holbrooke, Mr. Obama's special envoy to the country, offered Mr. Hoh promotions in a bid to prevent him from quitting.

Deadliest Day in 4 Years: 16 Die in Afghanistan

KABUL -- Three helicopter crashes in Afghanistan on Monday killed 14 Americans, and two others died on the battlefield, making for the deadliest day for the U.S. in the country in four years.

Also Monday, presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah demanded that the country's top election official be removed ahead of his Nov. 7 runoff vote against President Hamid Karzai, further complicating a process encumbered by concerns about logistics, security and fraud. Mr. Karzai rejected the demands.

The deadliest of Monday's crashes occurred in the northwest province of Badghis, following a firefight with insurgents. The crash killed seven U.S. troops and three Drug Enforcement Administration agents, and injured 11 U.S. troops, one U.S. civilian and 14 Afghans. It is unclear if enemy fire was responsible for the crash, a statement from the international forces said.

In a separate incident early Monday morning, two U.S. Marine heliciopters collided, killing four soldiers, military officials said. Two other soldiers died Monday in separate battlefield incidents.
It was the heaviest single-day loss of American life in Afghanistan since June 2005, when insurgents shot down a helicopter, killing 16 U.S. troops.

The deaths came as the Obama adminstration continued its assessment of what to do next in Afghanistan, given the deteriorating security and political situation.

Dr. Abdullah, the runner-up in the fraud-tainted first round of voting in August, said Azizullah Ludin, chairman of the Independent Election Commission, the body that is conducting the polls, should be removed because he has "no credibility."

The IEC has been accused of bias in favor of Mr. Karzai and allowing electoral fraud to take place. Mr. Ludin denied the charges. "Every election has a winner and a loser, and in this case the loser is complaining," said Mr. Ludin.

Mr. Karzai had won the August presidential election, with nearly 55% of the vote, but a United Nations-backed elections watchdog threw out more than one million votes that it said were fraudulent. This pushed Mr. Karzai's total under 50%, which forces a runoff according to Afghan law.

Dr. Abdullah also listed demands including the suspension of government ministers and access for his campaign team to IEC meetings. He said the government must comply with these demands by Oct. 31, although he declined to say what he would do if it didn't.

Two senior aides said the candidate was seriously considering boycotting the second round. That could undermine efforts to stabilize Afghanistan at a time when the government's credibility is weak -- and the likelihood is small that the election will strengthen it.

Mr. Karzai said in a statement he won't fire the election official or make changes to his cabinet ahead of the runoff, Reuters reported.

News From England: Cell Phones Cause Brain Cancer

LONG-term mobile phone users could face a higher risk of developing cancer in later life, according to a decade-long study.

The report, to be published later this year, has reportedly found that heavy mobile use is linked to brain tumours.

The survey of 12,800 people in 13 countries has been overseen by the World Health Organisation.

Preliminary results of the inquiry, which is looking at whether mobile phone exposure is linked to three types of brain tumour and a tumour of the salivary gland, have been sent to a scientific journal.

The findings are expected to put pressure on the British Government – which has insisted that mobile phones are safe – to issue stronger warnings to users.

Who's Law Will Be Enforced?

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Federal prosecutors in California have charged 18 people with operating an extensive marijuana-growing operation by converting Central Valley homes into high-tech pot nurseries.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Casey McEnry says all are from the San Francisco Bay area. Nine were arrested early Thursday on drug and real estate fraud charges. The others remain fugitives.

Federal authorities estimate the operation could bring in nearly $100 million a year.
The charges stem from investigations in 2006-07, when authorities discovered 50 converted homes in Central Valley communities, including Sacramento and Modesto.

The operators punched out walls, installed expensive ventilation and hydration equipment and tapped power lines to grow thousands of plants in the upscale suburban homes.

A Private Property Issue?

The morning The Star reported the closure of the popular Halloween destination, city officials called an emergency meeting with building and fire safety officials as well as the project manager of the haunted house.

The city then gave the manager the OK to rebuild the maze.

A popular haunted house in Simi Valley that attracts thousands of children each Halloween has been shut down because the city deemed it an unsafe structure.

Haunted Halls has been operated by Cindy Fike and her family outside their Sebring Street home for the past eight years. But what makes it popular — a covered wooden maze with steel poles, dark and spooky scenes, and volunteers that startle visitors — is the reason it was given a 72-hour notice Friday to be taken down.

Responding to an anonymous complaint, the city said the 1,200-square-foot “amusement building” didn’t have a permit.

Although it is a “great idea,” said Ted Drager, a building official with the city, the structure was a fire hazard.

Fike’s son, Kyle Killips, 37, is the mastermind behind the haunted house — he started it nine years ago with the help of his father.

The scenes — including a mad-scientist lab, a jail cell with anxious prisoners and an alien getting an autopsy — get better every year, Killips said.

After three weeks of building, the haunted house was almost complete when the city told him to dismantle it.

“It’s a real bummer,” he said. “We were going to throw everything at it this year.”
Since his plans have been thwarted, he hopes to revamp Haunted Halls into something else, but needs to find out what the city will allow.

There will be no maze, and it will only be open Halloween night, to coincide with a block party the neighbors are hoping to have, with the city’s permission.

Since it was on private property — his mother’s home — Killips thought it was a “temporary structure,” and not subject to city rules for buildings. The haunted house was always free and open to the public.

Frances Michielson lives across the street, and said the neighborhood was shocked to hear about it closing.

“It’s one of the haunted houses that everyone travels to,” she said.

Two of her children cried when they found out, she said.

Michielson started a petition to have a block party on Halloween night.

With more than 25 signatures, they hope the application will be approved by the Simi Valley Police Department. Early plans include families coming together for a barbecue and renting a bouncy castle for the children, Michielson said.

The haunted house takes about one month to set up, and typically is open for three nights leading up to Oct. 31.

It’s a way to connect with neighbors, Killips said. His favorite part is when he hears children laughing and having a good time.

“I end up giggling like a little kid, too,” he said.

Killips got the inspiration for the maze 10 years ago when he was taking his 8-year-old daughter trick-or-treating. They walked through a neighbor’s garage that was converted into a haunted house.

The next year, the Killipses had their first haunted house, a much more modest version of what it grew to be. Since its humble beginnings, he estimates about 20,000 people have walked through the maze.

It hit him hard when he got the notice to take it down. “I’m a big tough guy,” he said. “But I was having a rough time with it.”

Then when he heard the neighbors were coming together to put on a block party to try to keep some aspect of the haunted house alive, he almost cried.

Drager said it’s unusual to have such a sophisticated haunted house. He said the city would like to work with Killips so that next year, it would be a permitted structure.

Shutting down a haunted house was unfamiliar to code enforcement officials in other cities.

Sue Taylor, Ventura’s code enforcement supervisor, said officials have conducted inspections of haunted houses built in commercial spaces, she said, but not on residential properties.

Mike Hines, a code compliance officer in Thousand Oaks, hadn’t heard of the city shutting down a haunted house.

Killips said he has spent between $15,000 and $20,000 over the years collecting scary, lifelike figures and has added sensors, lights and pneumatic devices to bring the scenes to life.

But he also posted at least 10 fire extinguishers, used lighted exit signs, and had the expertise of an electrical engineer to construct the walls that protect it from the wind and weather.

His family owns Plastic Depot, a custom acrylic fabrication store in Burbank that has connections to the film and TV industry. That’s how Killips, a manager, acquired a realistic side of beef to hang in the haunted butcher shop display.

He said he has tried to switch it up every year.

In whatever scene he creates, he would like to use two popular figures — a ghoul the neighborhood children named George, and Chucky the skeleton, who pops out of a coffin.

“We’re going to have something good,” he said.

No to Blasphemy Laws?

An interesting Opinion article

By Jonathan Turley

Around the world, free speech is being sacrificed on the altar of religion. Whether defined as hate speech, discrimination or simple blasphemy, governments are declaring unlimited free speech as the enemy of freedom of religion. This growing movement has reached the United Nations, where religiously conservative countries received a boost in their campaign to pass an international blasphemy law. It came from the most unlikely of places: the United States.

While attracting surprisingly little attention, the Obama administration supported the effort of largely Muslim nations in the U.N. Human Rights Council to recognize exceptions to free speech for any "negative racial and religious stereotyping." The exception was made as part of a resolution supporting free speech that passed this month, but it is the exception, not the rule that worries civil libertarians. Though the resolution was passed unanimously, European and developing countries made it clear that they remain at odds on the issue of protecting religions from criticism. It is viewed as a transparent bid to appeal to the "Muslim street" and our Arab allies, with the administration seeking greater coexistence through the curtailment of objectionable speech. Though it has no direct enforcement (and is weaker than earlier versions), it is still viewed as a victory for those who sought to juxtapose and balance the rights of speech and religion.A 'misused' freedom?

In the resolution, the administration aligned itself with Egypt, which has long been criticized for prosecuting artists, activists and journalists for insulting Islam. For example, Egypt recently banned a journal that published respected poet Helmi Salem merely because one of his poems compared God to a villager who feeds ducks and milks cows. The Egyptian ambassador to the U.N., Hisham Badr, wasted no time in heralding the new consensus with the U.S. that "freedom of expression has been sometimes misused" and showing that the "true nature of this right" must yield government limitations.

His U.S. counterpart, Douglas Griffiths, heralded "this joint project with Egypt" and supported the resolution to achieve "tolerance and the dignity of all human beings." While not expressly endorsing blasphemy prosecutions, the administration departed from other Western allies in supporting efforts to balance free speech against the protecting of religious groups.

Thinly disguised blasphemy laws are often defended as necessary to protect the ideals of tolerance and pluralism. They ignore the fact that the laws achieve tolerance through the ultimate act of intolerance: criminalizing the ability of some individuals to denounce sacred or sensitive values. We do not need free speech to protect popular thoughts or popular people. It is designed to protect those who challenge the majority and its institutions. Criticism of religion is the very measure of the guarantee of free speech — the literal sacred institution of society.

Blasphemy prosecutions in the West appear to have increased after the riots by Muslims following the publication of cartoons disrespecting prophet Mohammed in Denmark in 2005. Rioters killed Christians, burned churches and called for the execution of the cartoonists. While Western countries publicly defended free speech, some quietly moved to deter those who'd cause further controversies through unpopular speech.

In Britain, it is a crime to "abuse" or "threaten" a religion under the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006. A 15-year-old boy was charged last year for holding up a sign outside a Scientology building declaring, "Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult. "

In France, famed actress Brigitte Bardot was convicted for saying in 2006 that Muslims were ruining France in a letter to then-Interior Minister (and now President) Nicolas Sarkozy. This year, Ireland joined this self-destructive trend with a blasphemy law that calls for the prosecution of anyone who writes or utters views deemed "grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion; and he or she intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage."

'Blasphemy' incidents
Consider just a few such Western "blasphemy" cases in the past two years:
• In Holland, Dutch prosecutors arrested cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot for insulting Christians and Muslims with cartoons, including one that caricatured a Christian fundamentalist and a Muslim fundamentalist as zombies who want to marry and attend gay rallies.
• In Canada, the Alberta human rights commission punished the Rev. Stephen Boission and the Concerned Christian Coalition for anti-gay speech, not only awarding damages but also censuring future speech that the commission deems inappropriate.
• In Italy, comedian Sabina Guzzanti was put under criminal investigation for joking at a rally that "in 20 years, the pope will be where he ought to be — in hell, tormented by great big poofter (gay) devils, and very active ones."
• In London, an aide to British Foreign Secretary David Miliband was arrested for "inciting religious hatred" at his gym by shouting obscenities about Jews while watching news reports of Israel's bombardment of Gaza.

Also, Dutch politician Geert Wilders was barred from entering Britain as a "threat to public policy, public security or public health" because he made a movie describing the Quran as a "fascist" book and Islam as a violent religion.

• In Poland, Catholic magazine Gosc Niedzielny was fined $11,000 for inciting "contempt, hostility and malice"by comparing the abortion of a woman to the medical experiments at Auschwitz.

The "blasphemy" cases include the prosecution of writers for calling Mohammed a "pedophile" because of his marriage to 6-year-old Aisha (which was consummated when she was 9). A far-right legislator in Austria, a publisher in India and a city councilman in Finland have been prosecuted for repeating this view of the historical record.

In the flipside of the cartoon controversy, Dutch prosecutors this year have brought charges against the Arab European League for a cartoon questioning the Holocaust. What's next?
Private companies and institutions are following suit in what could be seen as responding to the Egyptian-U.S. call for greater "responsibility" in controlling speech. For example, in an act of unprecedented cowardice and self-censorship, Yale University Press published The Cartoons That Shook the World, a book by Jytte Klausen on the original Mohammed cartoons. Yale, however, (over Klausen's objections) cut the actual pictures of the cartoons. It was akin to publishing a book on the Sistine Chapel while barring any images of the paintings.

The public and private curtailment on religious criticism threatens religious and secular speakers alike. However, the fear is that, when speech becomes sacrilegious, only the religious will have true free speech. It is a danger that has become all the more real after the decision of the Obama administration to join in the effort to craft a new faith-based speech standard. It is now up to Congress and the public to be heard before the world leaves free speech with little more than a hope and a prayer.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.

Lobbyist' $100K Haul for Reid

Several of the top lobbyists in Washington helped pad Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s massive campaign warchest last quarter, plunging $100,000 into his 2010 re-election effort.

Linda Daschle, the wife of former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and whose lobbying firm represents Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other major companies, pulled in $21,600 for Reid in the last quarter, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

Lobbyist Tony Podesta, whose brother John was a chief of staff in the Clinton White House, bundled $31,500 in contributions for Reid. Paul DiNino, a former Reid aide who now is a lobbyist representing hospitals and other clients, helped his former boss with another $23,200 in campaign cash. And the lobbying powerhouse DLA Piper – which represents clients ranging from oil companies to the commonwealth of Puerto Rico – delivered another $23,900 to the majority leader.

The money is a fraction of the $8.7 million Reid has accumulated through the last quarter, according to newly released campaign filings. And Reid is hardly alone in using lobbyists to bundle cash, a practice still widely employed by members from both sides of the aisle and Democratic and GOP campaign committees.

But Reid's impressive haul from Washington lobbyists could become a source of criticism back home in Nevada, where his opponents want to paint him as out of touch with the home-state voters. In fact, Reid's first slate of 2010 campaign ads have been framed as re-introducing himelf to Nevada voters, portraying him as a fighter for Silver State interests.

Reid’s disclosure complies with a new ethics law approved last Congress requiring candidates to disclose lobbyists’ who have “bundled” contributions, referring to smaller donations collected by one person and delivered to a candidate. Earlier this year, the Federal Election Commission increased the threshold for candidates to disclose the bundled contributions to $16,000.

So do you think this is "Freedom of Speech"?

High Times: Obama To Issue New Marijuana Policy

Federal drug agents won't pursue pot-smoking patients or their sanctioned suppliers in states that allow medical marijuana, under new legal guidelines to be issued Monday by the Obama administration.

Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law.

The guidelines to be issued by the department do, however, make it clear that agents will go after people whose marijuana distribution goes beyond what is permitted under state law or use medical marijuana as a cover for other crimes, the officials said.

The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.

Fourteen states allow some use of marijuana for medical purposes: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

California is unique among those for the widespread presence of dispensaries - businesses that sell marijuana and even advertise their services. Colorado also has several dispensaries, and Rhode Island and New Mexico are in the process of licensing providers, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, a group that promotes the decriminalization of marijuana use.

Attorney General Eric Holder said in March that he wanted federal law enforcement officials to pursue those who violate both federal and state law, but it has not been clear how that goal would be put into practice.

A three-page memo spelling out the policy is expected to be sent Monday to federal prosecutors in the 14 states, and also to top officials at the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration.
The memo, the officials said, emphasizes that prosecutors have wide discretion in choosing which cases to pursue, and says it is not a good use of federal manpower to prosecute those who are without a doubt in compliance with state law.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the legal guidance before it is issued.

"This is a major step forward," said Bruce Mirken, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project. "This change in policy moves the federal government dramatically toward respecting scientific and practical reality."

At the same time, the officials said, the government will still prosecute those who use medical marijuana as a cover for other illegal activity. The memo particularly warns that some suspects may hide old-fashioned drug dealing or other crimes behind a medical marijuana business.

In particular, the memo urges prosecutors to pursue marijuana cases which involve violence, the illegal use of firearms, selling pot to minors, money laundering or involvement in other crimes.
And while the policy memo describes a change in priorities away from prosecuting medical marijuana cases, it does not rule out the possibility that the federal government could still prosecute someone whose activities are allowed under state law.

The memo, officials said, is designed to give a sense of prosecutorial priorities to U.S. attorneys in the states that allow medical marijuana. It notes that pot sales in the United States are the largest source of money for violent Mexican drug cartels, but adds that federal law enforcement agencies have limited resources.

Medical marijuana advocates have been anxious to see exactly how the administration would implement candidate Barack Obama's repeated promises to change the policy in situations in which state laws allow the use of medical marijuana.

Soon after Obama took office, DEA agents raided four dispensaries in Los Angeles, prompting confusion about the government's plans.

Polls Show Huckabee

Twenty-nine percent (29%) of Republican voters nationwide say former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is their pick to represent the GOP in the 2012 Presidential campaign. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 24% prefer former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney while 18% would cast their vote for former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich gets 14% of the vote while Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty gets 4%. Six percent (6%) of GOP voters prefer some other candidate while 7% remain undecided.

These numbers reflect an improvement for Huckabee since July when the three candidates were virtually even. Huckabee’s gain appears to be Palin’s loss as Romney’s support has barely changed.

The numbers for Huckabee and Romney look even stronger when GOP voters were asked which candidate they would least like to see get the nomination. Pawlenty came on top in that category with 28%. Palin was second at 21% while 20% named Gingrich. Romney and Huckabee were in the single digits with 9% and 8% respectively.

Huckabee and Romney are viewed favorably by 78% of Republican voters, Palin by 75%. Gingrich earns favorably reviews from 69% while Pawlenty is less well known and gets a positive assessment from 45% of Republicans.

Other data from the survey, including head-to-head match-ups with individual candidates, will be released over the weekend.

Republican voters are very confident their nominee could be the next President of the United States. Eighty-one percent (81%) of the GOP faithful say that it’s at least somewhat likely the Republican nominee will defeat Barack Obama in 2012. Fifty percent (50%) say it’s Very Likely.

Romney leads all prospects among voters who attend church once a month or less. Huckabee leads among more frequent churchgoers. Huckabee holds a huge lead among Evangelical Christians with Palin in second and Romney a distant third. Huckabee and Romney are essentially even among other Protestants while Romney has the edge among Catholics.
Romney leads among Republicans earning more than $75,000 a year while Huckabee leads among those who earn less.

EXTRA CREDIT

Extra Credit Opportunity:

Bring a large box of Kleenex to my room with your name and class period written on the side of the box to my room no later than Tuesday afternoon by 4:35 for a free 100!

NFL Backs GOP

By Andy Barr 9/17/09 NFL owners, team officials, players and coaches have overwhelmingly favored Republicans with their political contributions, according to a study released Thursday by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The report, which reviewed contributions dating back to 1989, found that combined contributions from players, owners and officials on 22 of the 32 National Football League teams have given more cash to Republicans than Democrats, and that several teams have given more than 90 percent of their contributions to the GOP.

The San Diego Chargers blew away the rest of the field with $2,455,200 in total money contributed, with most of that coming from team owner Alex Spanos, who has given more than $2 million, almost all of it to Republicans.

No other team' made total contributions of more than $1 million, though 19 others gave at least $100,000.

The Houston Texans contributed the second-highest amount after San Diego, sending $615,256 of its $623,456 total to Republicans. Next came the Arizona Cardinals, who gave 75 percent of $337,096 to Republicans.

The St. Louis Rams were the NFL’s biggest donor to Democrats, contributing $230,050, 98 percent of the team’s total.

The NFL’s own political action committee, Gridiron PAC, has also favored Democrats. According to the study, since its inception last year Gridiron PAC has given roughly two-thirds of its donations to Democrats.

The Rams’ preference for the Democratic Party dates back to the days when the team played in Los Angeles. Prior to moving to St. Louis in 1994, the team gave $47,250 to Democrats.

The NFL team that contributed the fewest dollars to political campaigns? That would be the Green Bay Packers, the only non-profit, community-owned team in professional sports. The Packers have given just $8,750 over the past 20 years, barely edging out the Al Davis-owned Oakland Raiders as the stingiest team. The Raiders have donated $8,800 in total, a figure which includes the team’s time in Los Angeles.

Does anyone else think it's ironic that Rush Limbaugh wanted to be part of the Rams ownership?

They were the largest donor to the Democratic Party!

Uncle Jay Week of Oct. 12

Prisons Purge Books of Faith

Behind the walls of federal prisons nationwide, chaplains have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries.

The chaplains were directed by the Bureau of Prisons to clear the shelves of any books, tapes, CDs and videos that are not on a list of approved resources. In some prisons, the chaplains have recently dismantled libraries that had thousands of texts collected over decades, bought by the prisons, or donated by churches and religious groups.

Some inmates are outraged. Two of them, a Christian and an Orthodox Jew, in a federal prison camp in upstate New York, filed a class-action lawsuit last month claiming the bureau’s actions violate their rights to the free exercise of religion as guaranteed by the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Traci Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons, said the agency was acting in response to a 2004 report by the Office of the Inspector General in the Justice Department. The report recommended steps that prisons should take, in light of the Sept. 11 attacks, to avoid becoming recruiting grounds for militant Islamic and other religious groups. The bureau, an agency of the Justice Department, defended its effort, which it calls the Standardized Chapel Library Project, as a way of barring access to materials that could, in its words, “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize.”

Ms. Billingsley said, “We really wanted consistently available information for all religious groups to assure reliable teachings as determined by reliable subject experts.”

But prison chaplains, and groups that minister to prisoners, say that an administration that put stock in religion-based approaches to social problems has effectively blocked prisoners’ access to religious and spiritual materials — all in the name of preventing terrorism.

“It’s swatting a fly with a sledgehammer,” said Mark Earley, president of Prison Fellowship, a Christian group. “There’s no need to get rid of literally hundreds of thousands of books that are fine simply because you have a problem with an isolated book or piece of literature that presents extremism.”

The Bureau of Prisons said it relied on experts to produce lists of up to 150 book titles and 150 multimedia resources for each of 20 religions or religious categories — everything from Bahaism to Yoruba. The lists will be expanded in October, and there will be occasional updates, Ms. Billingsley said. Prayer books and other worship materials are not affected by this process.

The lists are broad, but reveal eccentricities and omissions. There are nine titles by C. S. Lewis, for example, and none from the theologians Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Barth and Cardinal Avery Dulles, and the influential pastor Robert H. Schuller.

The identities of the bureau’s experts have not been made public, Ms. Billingsley said, but they include chaplains and scholars in seminaries and at the American Academy of Religion. Academy staff members said their organization had met with prison chaplains in the past but was not consulted on this effort, though it is possible that scholars who are academy members were involved.

The bureau has not provided additional money to prisons to buy the books on the lists, so in some prisons, after the shelves were cleared of books not on the lists, few remained.

A chaplain who has worked more than 15 years in the prison system, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is a bureau employee, said: “At some of the penitentiaries, guys have been studying and reading for 20 years, and now they are told that this material doesn’t meet some kind of criteria. It doesn’t make sense to them. They’re asking, ‘Why are our tapes being taken, why our books being taken?’ ”
Of the lists, he said, “Many of the chaplains I’ve spoken to say these are not the things they would have picked.”

The effort is unnecessary, the chaplain said, because chaplains routinely reject any materials that incite violence or disparage, and donated materials already had to be approved by prison officials. Prisoners can buy religious books, he added, but few have much money to spend.

Religious groups that work with prisoners have privately been writing letters about their concerns to bureau officials. Would it not be simpler, they asked the bureau, to produce a list of forbidden titles? But the bureau did that last year, when it instructed the prisons to remove all materials by nine publishers — some Muslim, some Christian.

The plan to standardize the libraries first became public in May when several inmates, including a Muslim convert, at the Federal Prison Camp in Otisville, N.Y., about 75 miles northwest of Manhattan, filed a lawsuit acting as their own lawyers. Later, lawyers at the New York firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison took on the case pro bono. They refiled it on Aug. 21 in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York.

“Otisville had a very extensive library of Jewish religious books, many of them donated,” said David Zwiebel, executive vice president for government and public affairs for Agudath Israel of America, an Orthodox Jewish group. “It was decimated. Three-quarters of the Jewish books were taken off the shelves.”

Mr. Zwiebel asked, “Since when does the government, even with the assistance of chaplains, decide which are the most basic books in terms of religious study and practice?”

The lawsuit raises serious First Amendment concerns, said Douglas Laycock, a professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, but he added that it was not a slam-dunk case.

“Government does have a legitimate interest to screen out things that tend to incite violence in prisons,” Mr. Laycock said. “But once they say, ‘We’re going to pick 150 good books for your religion, and that’s all you get,’ the criteria has become more than just inciting violence. They’re picking out what is accessible religious teaching for prisoners, and the government can’t do that without a compelling justification. Here the justification is, the government is too busy to look at all the books, so they’re going to make their own preferred list to save a little time, a little money.”

The lists have not been made public by the bureau, but were made available to The Times by a critic of the bureau’s project. In some cases, the lists indicate their authors’ preferences. For example, more than 80 of the 120 titles on the list for Judaism are from the same Orthodox publishing house. A Catholic scholar and an evangelical Christian scholar who looked over some of the lists were baffled at the selections.

Timothy Larsen, who holds the Carolyn and Fred McManis Chair of Christian Thought at Wheaton College, an evangelical school, looked over lists for “Other Christian” and “General Spirituality.”

“There are some well-chosen things in here,” Professor Larsen said. “I’m particularly glad that Dietrich Bonhoeffer is there. If I was in prison I would want to read Dietrich Bonhoeffer.” But he continued, “There’s a lot about it that’s weird.” The lists “show a bias toward evangelical popularism and Calvinism,” he said, and lacked materials from early church fathers, liberal theologians and major Protestant denominations.

The Rev. Richard P. McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame (who edited “The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism,” which did make the list), said the Catholic list had some glaring omissions, few spiritual classics and many authors he had never heard of.

“I would be completely sympathetic with Catholic chaplains in federal prisons if they’re complaining that this list is inhibiting,” he said, “because I know they have useful books that are not on this list.”

Establishment Issue?

An old article that I saved for discussion from this week:

HAMPTON BAYS, N.Y. A Long Island elementary school teacher is suing the Hampton Bays school district after she was fired because her administrators allegedly believed she was a witch teaching witchcraft to her students. Her lawyer is calling the case a "21st century re-enactment of the Salem Witchcraft Trials."

Lauren Berrios told CBS 2 that she was terminated after she was told that she "entice[d] children into witchcraft and magic through literature."

Berrios, who was born a Catholic before converting to Judaism, said she was fired in 2001 after being falsely accused of being a witch, which is now the basis of her $2 million lawsuit. Her attorney, John Ray, says she was the victim of a public school district trying to push Christian values."

There's unquestionably in this matter a question of church and state being not separated, but being brought together by born-again Christians in this school," Ray said.A school spokesperson says Berrios' claim lacks merit, but in 2003 the school's principal at the time testified he believed that Berrios practiced witchcraft."

Every school that I go to interview in I have to disclose to them that I was denied tenure for enticing children into witchcraft and magic," Berrios says. Even before she was fired, Berrios says her principal removed books from her classroom, including the popular series "Goosebumps," as well as "Harry Potter." She believes books that didn't mesh with principal's religious values, even including African-American literature, were taken out of her curriculum.

Ray admits that Berrios' appearance didn't help her cause either, especially when she was teaching her students about the Salem witch trials. "Mrs. Berrios has long fingernails, wears dark make-up, wears black," he said.

Berrios' very own modern-day witch trial will likely draw to a close this week. The case will be decided by a federal jury beginning Wednesday.

Peace?

The complaint is that President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize before making any peace. It comes at a time when he is waging war in Afghanistan and is in a showdown with Iran that already has military overtones.

Let’s look, then, at whether the prize will help Obama get results in his diplomatic efforts.
The award is a stamp of approval from the international community or, rather, from one part of it. Still, even the White House was surprised. Worldwide, even friends of the U.S. administration harped on the fact that Obama’s presidency is not yet a year old and has no “tangible results” to show, in the words of Turkish professor Soli Ozel.

The reaction from Iran was telling. Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a close adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said he was “not upset” about the award as long as Obama does “more to bring an end to global injustice.” There was no mention of the Islamic Republic’s contested nuclear program.

Indeed, the prize comes at a time when some people are wondering if U.S. foreign policy is falling apart. Obama’s soaring oratory in Prague and Cairo seems to have found little echo in the seemingly intractable problems in the Middle East, Afghanistan, North Korea and Iran. And the rejection of Chicago as an Olympic site, though both the president and his wife traveled to Copenhagen to plead the Windy City’s case, added insult to injury. Looking at things this way, one has to say that the Nobel Prize is progress — a slap on the back rather than a slap in the face.

That is not much. Teddy Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for leading talks to end the Russo-Japanese war. Woodrow Wilson, the only other sitting U.S. president to win the prize, received it toward the end of his time in office. Wilson had already led the allies in defeating Germany in World War I and then tried to create a new world order with the League of Nations.
Obama, on the other hand, is in the first flush of writing himself into history. Will the Nobel Prize help him? Will it make him a more formidable negotiator? Will it convince his adversaries that the U.S. president now has the world at his back and that they had better watch out?

The short answer is a resounding no. People say the prize was given to Obama before he accomplished anything. The reality is that it was given to Obama for convincing the world that America is no longer a boogeyman. America was hated more widely under President George W. Bush. That has changed, even if conservatives in the United States charge that Obama has been too apologetic, too reluctant to be unabashed about American exceptionalism.

In any case, it’s done. In Prague, in Cairo, in sitting down to talk with the new Iranian government, despite charges of electoral fraud in the Islamic Republic, the United States is on a new course. Now what? The war in Afghanistan is going poorly. North Korea has pulled away from talks. And the Iranians are not about to change their tactics because of the peace prize.

The Iranian crisis is a good example of tentative progress from the Obama phenomenon, but the heavy lifting is still to come. The accomplishment for which Obama got the prize — his policies of engagement and multilateralism — can be credited with helping to lead to an incipient breakthrough. Iran has agreed — in principle — to ship out of the country most of the enriched uranium that raises fears that it seeks nuclear weapons. Some doubt that Iran will follow through with the agreement. Some say this is merely a feint and that Iran will gear up its enrichment production to make up for the uranium it is giving up. But others see Iran yielding a bit in order to parry the pressure it is under, both domestically and internationally.

Iran may be trying for breathing space against sanctions — or worse, from adversaries such as the United States and Israel. If the process stalls, Obama, the peace laureate, will be faced with the choice of either being tough, perhaps very tough, or letting Iran get the bomb. This, more than the prize, will determine his place in history.

Obama’s status as a Nobel laureate will not change the dynamic of the problems the president now faces. The Nobel committee did no more than recognize that there is a new push taking place. That push is Obama’s take on how to do foreign policy. So it is not surprising that the award becomes fodder for politics in the United States.

The bottom line is that the Nobel Prize doesn’t solve anything. That will be Obama’s job, and the work is yet to be done.

Michael Adler is a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

One Semester....

I ached after watching this....
Happy Weekend!

Charlie Wilson's Peace?

Hidden away in the Scranton Times-Tribune "Arts and Living" section Tuesday was a bombshell from former Democratic Representative of Texas Charlie Wilson.

The man whose adopted mission to save Afghanistan from the Soviet incursion in the 1980s spawned the notion of "Afghan freedom fighters," a book and a Hollywood movie (Charlie Wilson's War) now says we need to get the heck out of Dodge.

In an interview with the Pennsylvania paper, Wilson said he advocates a "calculated withdrawal" of American troops from the country, "rather than lose a lot of soldiers and treasure."

On the eight-year anniversary of the beginning of the war in Afghanistan and during the heated debate in Washington over whether President Obama should commit more American troops to the region, Wilson's words are incredibly significant. While many have argued recently that the war is unwinnable because Afghanistan is one of the most indomitable countries on the planet, hearing a passionate defender of the Afghan peoples' right to self-govern say we should pull out is starkly different from typical anti-war sentiment.

Wilson's reasoning is that we cannot beat the people we are fighting in Afghanistan:

"I'd rather take on a chain saw," Mr. Wilson said. "They're the world's best foot soldiers, best warriors. And they're fearless.
"They're fearless, and they've got nothing to lose. And they have a pretty serious hatred for those who try to occupy their country."

The thing is, he should know. After using his seat on the House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense to funnel funding through the CIA to supply Soviet-made weaponry to the mujahideen, who fought alongside Osama bin Laden among others, both the lawmaker and the country rejoiced in withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country in 1989.

But Wilson doesn't let himself or his government off the hook for their collective lack of investment in nation-building at the time. According to the article, Wilson credits the failure to set up Afghanistan with an adequate governing body as the reason for the 9/11 attacks and the past eight years of brutal fighting coalition troops have seen there:

"We (screwed) up the end game," Mr. Wilson said. "It would have been very easy and done for a minuscule amount of money. We should have done the basic things for a backward country that's trying to come out of (a war) and have a reasonable hope of economic success."

The Times-Tribune interview comes ahead of a talk Wilson is scheduled to give Thursday at the Scranton Cultural Center, as part of the Lackawanna County Library System's ongoing lecture series. Wilson, at age 76, has cut back on public appearances in recent years after a heart transplant.

Did Texas Knowingly Execute an Innocent Man?

Several members of a state commission investigating whether Texas executed a man based on a flawed arson investigation had urged Gov. Rick Perry not to replace the commission's chairman as a critical hearing approached.

But Perry did just that last week as part of a shakeup that could postpone the commission's findings in the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, whom Texas put to death in 2004 for killing his three children in a fire.

Critics have charged that Perry, by removing three of the nine members of the Forensic Science Commission days before it was to hear a critical report on the arson investigation in Willingham's case, was trying to delay the panel's inquiry into Willingham's case, perhaps until after he faces a challenge from U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the March 2 Republican primary.

Last week, Perry aides told Austin defense lawyer Sam Bassett that the governor would not reappoint him to the commission. Since his term ended Sept. 1, Bassett was immediately replaced as the body's chairman by John Bradley, Williamson County's tough-on-crime district attorney. Two other commission members also learned they would not get new terms.

But in a Sept. 4 letter, commission member Sarah Kerrigan had urged Perry to keep Bassett at the helm. "Mr. Bassett has provided dedicated leadership to the commission during his two terms, and I recommend his reappointment under the strongest possible terms," Kerrigan wrote.

She did not mention the Willingham case in her letter, but she commended Bassett's leadership as the commission worked through a backlog of cases he inherited as chairman. She said Bassett's reappointment would "ensure a measure of stability to the commission during a time of great scrutiny."

Kerrigan, a forensic science professor at Sam Houston State University who was appointed to the commission by Attorney General Greg Abbott, could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Perry's office has offered little explanation for his decision not to reappoint Bassett.

"There are a number of things taken into consideration when selecting appointees to fill a position, including letters from concerned stakeholders," Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said Tuesday.

Alan Levy, who works in the Tarrant County district attorney's office, said Tuesday that he also had sent a letter urging Perry to retain Bassett as chairman.

Levy, like Bassett, learned recently from the governor's office that he would not be reappointed to the forensic panel.

"I thought the commission was at a critical stage," Levy said. Levy said he sent the letter Sept. 8 after Kerrigan told him Bassett was rumored to be in jeopardy. Perry's office did not respond, he said.

The Forensic Science Commission made international news in August when a fire scientist it hired, Craig Beyler, concluded the arson ruling that was key to Willingham's 1991 conviction was based on bad science, unproven theories and personal bias by arson investigators.

The evidence, Beyler said, did not support an arson finding — raising the prospect that Texas executed an innocent man.

Beyler was to address the commission Friday, but Bradley, the new chairman, canceled the meeting to familiarize himself with the agency's work, he said.

Time magazine reported Tuesday that Aliece Watts, a forensic expert from Fort Worth whom Perry also chose not to reappoint, also encouraged the governor to keep Bassett. And the state's leading association for defense lawyers asked Perry to keep Bassett.

Terms for each of the three commission members that Perry did not reappoint ended Sept. 1. But appointees regularly stay in their posts for months or years after their terms expire.
Asked last week about the timing of the shakeup, Perry said, "If you've got a whole new investigation going forward, it makes a lot more sense to put the new people in now and let them start the full process."

Obama: Exit is not an option

President Barack Obama told congressional leaders summoned to the White House on Tuesday that the options he is considering for Afghanistan do not include either a huge surge or a hasty exit, but instead fall in between, a senior administration official said.

“He said: There’s not a decision to double down in Afghanistan, nor is there a decision to leave,” the official said. “The president made clear that whatever decision he does make will not make everybody around that table happy, but that he is committed to this being a consultative process going forward.”

The official called the meeting “a chance for the president to identify what is an is not on the table.”

“And what is not on the table, in any sense, is leaving Afghanistan or so narrowly defining our mission as to be the equivalent of leaving Afghanistan,” the official continued.

“Similarly, there is no consideration of an option that would entail hundreds of thousands of American troops over a very extended period of time, which would be an all-in campaign that would go far above any beyond the resources that have been discussed.”

Obama told the lawmakers: “No one feels a greater sense of urgency than I do.”

“But the sense of urgency that he feels is to make the right decision, not to just make a decision,” the official added. “Almost everybody prefaced their comments by underscoring how important the decision is. So there was a very broadly constructive, supportive tone from members of both parties.”

The meeting included 31 lawmakers and lasted 1 hour 27 minutes. The group sat around a huge table in the State Dining Room, with Vice President Joe Biden sitting across from the president. At the table from the White House were National Security Adviser James Jones, Deputy National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism.

The president sat in the middle of the table, flanked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), with House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) next to Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) next to Reid.

From there, the lawmakers were paired by committees.

No congressional staff attended.

“He found the discussion very useful and constructive, because it was a chance to have a dialogue and to establish what he hopes will be a very open and consultative process with Congress going forward,” the official said. “He was satisfied that the meeting accomplished what he intended.”

The official said that every lawmaker had a chance to talk, so Obama spent more time listening than talking. Some gave very specific advice.

“The president was not engaging in a debate about specific resource determinations,” the official said. “He made it clear that he’s focused on establishing the strategy that will achieve our goals of defeating al Qaeda and protecting America and our allies from attack. He’s focused on getting that strategy right.”

Obama told the lawmakers that he wanted to have “mechanisms for regular contact between our administration and the Congress, and that he had an open line to those members who wanted to reach out to him with their ideas or concerns,” the official said.

“We did hear a broad spectrum of opinion,” the official added. “Some of it touched on assessment, some of it touched on strategy, some of it touched on resources.”

Protests Mark Eighth Year of War

A small group of protesters gathered outside the White House gates Monday to mark the eighth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, which occurs on Wednesday. The group held up signs calling for the United States to stop torture, bring the troops home and get out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The demonstration came as President Barack Obama grapples with a decision to approve sending as many as 40,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. His own advisers are divided on the issue, with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces in the country, warning that the U.S. and NATO mission there could fail without additional forces.

Other senior U.S. officials, including Vice President Joe Biden and many members of Congress, have questioned the wisdom of surging forces in Afghanistan, with some suggesting that reducing the number of troops and narrowing their focus on capturing or killing Osama bin Laden and training Afghan soldiers and police are more appropriate.

White House officials say that a decision on a troop buildup is just weeks away. On Tuesday, Obama is scheduled to meet at the White House with the Republican and Democratic House and Senate leadership, as well as relevant committee chairpersons and other ranking members, to discuss Afghanistan.

At Monday’s demonstration, timed to coincide with a health care reform event the president was hosting, speakers shouted through a bullhorn, and their chants could be heard as Obama spoke in the Rose Garden. At least 40 of the protesters were arrested, and others blocked the northwest gate of the White House, shutting it down for hours.

Since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, 1,444 coalition troops have been killed, including 869 U.S. soldiers, 219 British troops and 131 Canadian troops, according to iCasualties.org. The period from July through September of this year was by far the deadliest three months since the conflict began, with 223 coalition fatalities, iCasualties reported.

Wow...I can't believe it's been 8 years.