10 posts tagged “news”
Not to be missed - The Nation's food issue:
Many heavy hitters in progressive food are represented. Great stuff.
What an awesome, inspiring kid. I wonder about my ability to be this responsible and selfless at 28, let alone 19. It is wonderful to hear that he has so much support in this from his teammates and coaches, too. I really hope the NCAA does the right thing and excepts him from the ordinary financial restrictions.
Clemson's McElrathbey raises younger brother
CNN
McElrathbey, 19, has temporary custody of his brother because of his mother's continuing drug problems and his father's gambling addiction. The two brothers have shared experiences in foster homes and now share an apartment by the campus.
They live solely off McElrathbey's scholarship while Clemson's athletic department tries to get a waiver from the NCAA that might let them accept donations without jeopardizing McElrathbey's football eligibility.
McElrathbey sought custody because he was tired of worrying what might happen to Fahmarr living with their mother in Atlanta, Georgia.
"I wasn't going to let him go back to a foster home, back to the system," McElrathbey says.
The transition from football player to caregiver is one McElrathbey has cherished since Fahmarr's arrival in June.
"As a brother, it was still me first. As a parent, it's him first," McElrathbey says. "Before I do anything for me, got to do stuff for him."
The elder McElrathbey sounds like a father discussing the struggles of managing a sixth-grader. It often takes two or three shouts before Fahmarr rises and puts on his clothes. McElrathbey signs off on his brother's homework, meets with guidance counselors and tries to keep more fruit around the house.
It's about time, Senator Roberts.
Senate Panel Releases Iraq Intel Report
A Senate intelligence committee report says there's no evidence Saddam Hussein had a relationship with terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his al-Qaida associates before the Iraq war.
A report by the Senate panel analyzing intelligence-gathering activities leading up to the invasion of Iraq released today is certain to rekindle an election-year debate on the justification of going to war.
The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, said the report will confirm that "the Bush administration's case for war in Iraq was fundamentally misleading."
I was just reading this interview with Gloria Steinem from The New York Times Magazine. I hadn't heard about the radio station discussed in it before, and it seems like a worthwhile concept. But I was also suprised to read the bit about her living alone. As far as I knew, she was still married, and I wondered what happened. Turns out that her husband died in 2003. It is sad to me that they only had those three years of marriage together. I was never someone who was put off by her decision to marry. To the contrary, I appreciate any feminist who can provide another example of how to have a relationship built on equality. My husband and I strive for that in our marriage, but sometimes it is hard when there are so few role models for this kind of relationship. Still, we're making it work.
The New York Times Magazine
You never had children and seem to prefer living by yourself.
That has less to do with isolation than that I was a parent to my mother, who wasn’t able to function as one.
And where was your dad in all this?
He was a kind, loving gypsy. Until I was 10 or 11, half the year, at least, was spent in a house trailer, going to Florida or California and buying or selling antiques along the way. I always had a fantasy of a house with a white picket fence.
I just caught this piece on NPR. Fascinating! It is a shame that segregation and racism has kept black Americans from cultivating an interest in outdoor pursuits. I'd like to think this is changing, but maybe very slowly.
National Parks Should Be A Refuge for All Americans
NPR
News & Notes with Ed Gordon, September 1, 2006 · National Parks are not typically thought of as a big draw for blacks. But the great outdoors are just as refreshing for African-Americans as they are for everybody else.
Robin Washington is the editorial page editor of The Duluth News Tribune in Duluth, Minn.
This documentary seems like it might be really good. The NY Times Magazine interview definitely draws you in, anyway.
Q: Your grandfather, Barry Goldwater, was both adored and vilified during his lifetime as the rightest of the right-wing senators. Yet your new documentary, which will be shown on HBO starting Sept. 18, rehabilitates him as a kind of liberal compared with today’s conservatives.
That was part of the reason I thought a film could be done about him.
He emerges as a complex figure — a half-Jewish cowboy from Phoenix who believed the government should stay out of our hair. He thought gays should be allowed in the military and was also pro-choice.
My mom had an abortion in the mid-50’s, before she had me. She was in college, and she wanted to finish and get a degree and not have a child then. Barry felt it was a woman’s right to make that choice.
On the other hand, what does it say about the current state of American politics if Barry Goldwater is held up as a model of social enlightenment? Many people considered him a bigot because he voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
That was a wart on his career, and he knew it. He was the furthest thing from a bigot there was.
Perhaps.
I spent the evening watching Spike Lee's Katrina documentary When the Levees Broke: A REQUIEM IN FOUR ACTS. It was hard to hear what these people went through, but I just felt a responsibility to them as a fellow American to know what they'd experienced and what they continue to go through today. It makes me so damned angry to know that when the tsunami hit, we (the US) were able to have aid in Bande Ache in two days. And I believe we were right to respond as we did. Yet, when the levees broke after Katrina, it took much longer for the federal government to respond in any meaningful way. I'm convinced this is because FEMA, DHS, and the White House were more worried about who would pick up the tab for this aid than about saving the lives of these Americans in need.
If you do one thing today to remember Katrina, please read this article by Greg Pallast.
HURRICANE EXPERT THREATENED FOR PRE-KATRINA WARNINGS
A Greg Palast special investigation for Democracy Now!
DON'T blame the Lady. Katrina killed no one in this town. In fact, Katrina missed the city completely, going wide to the east.
It wasn't the hurricane that drowned, suffocated, de-hydrated and starved 1,500 people that week. The killing was done by a deadly duo: a failed emergency evacuation plan combined with faulty levees. Behind these twin failures lies a tale of cronyism, profiteering and willful incompetence that takes us right to the steps of the White House.
Here's the story you haven't been told. And the man who revealed it to me, Dr. Ivor van Heerden, is putting his job on the line to tell it.
Van Heerden isn't the typical whistleblower I usually deal with. This is no minor player. He's the Deputy Director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center. He's the top banana in the field -- no one knew more about how to save New Orleans from a hurricane's devastation. And no one was a bigger target of an official and corporate campaign to bury the information.
Um, the plague? WTF?!
13 plague cases reported in 4 states, highest in 12 years
CNN
Thirteen cases of plague including two deaths have been reported in the Western United States this year, the highest number of cases in 12 years, health officials say.
Seven cases were reported in New Mexico, three in Colorado, two in California and one in Texas, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Two New Mexicans died -- a 54-year-old woman who grew ill in May and a 43-year-old woman who became sick in July.
On average, the plague is diagnosed in about seven people a year, CDC officials said Friday. Fourteen cases were reported in 1994.
It's treatable with antibiotics, but health officials stress the importance of prompt diagnosis to reduce the fatality rate.
Plague is transmitted through the bites of infected fleas, but people also can get it by direct contact with infected rodents, wildlife and pets. Most people become ill one to six days after being infected.
I honestly had no idea the plague still existed. Where have I been?! :(
The FCC is officially beyond ridiculous.
Sept. 11 Documentary to Challenge FCC Standards
August 25, 2006 · CBS will push the limits of FCC indecency regulations when it airs a newly revised Sept. 11 documentary next month. Despite increasingly tight FCC guidelines, the program will contain raw language seldom heard on network television.
