Month: March 2011

Treason against family; UPDATED

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by Doctor Science A couple of weeks ago I happened to catch a couple of minutes of the Fresh Air interview with Frank Calabrese, Jr., who testified against his own father in Chicago’s Operation Family Secrets mafia trial. What if what I was doing was wrong? How could I live with myself? I loved my … Read more

GOP’s Radical Breakage Continues

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by Gary Farber

Who is "Wisconsin's most dangerous professor"?  He's William Cronon.  Who he?  He's this incredibly threatening man:

[…] In 1991, Cronon completed a book entitled Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, which examines Chicago 's relationship to its rural hinterland during the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1991, it was awarded the Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize for the best literary work of non-fiction published during the preceding year; in 1992, it won the Bancroft Prize for the best work of American history published during the previous year, and was also one of three nominees for the Pulitzer Prize in History; and in 1993, it received the George Perkins Marsh Prize from the American Society for Environmental History and the Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Award from the Forest History Society for the best book of environmental and conservation history published during the preceding two years. 

[…]

In July 1992, Cronon became the Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin ­Madison after having served for more than a decade as a member of the Yale History Department. In 2003, he was also named Vilas [pronounced "Vy-lus"] Research Professor at UW-Madison, the university’s most distinguished chaired professorship.

Cronon has been President of the American Society for Environmental History, and serves as general editor of the Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books Series for the University of Washington Press.  […]  He has served on the Governing Council of The Wilderness Society since 1995, and on the National Board of the Trust for Public Land since 2003. He has been elected President of the American Historical Association for 2011-12.

Born September 11, 1954, in New Haven , Connecticut, Cronon received his B.A. (1976) from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He holds an M.A. (1979), M.Phil. (1980), and Ph.D. (1990) from Yale, and a D.Phil. (1981) from Oxford University. Cronon has been a Rhodes Scholar, Danforth Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow, and MacArthur Fellow; has won prizes for his teaching at both Yale and Wisconsin; in 1999 was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society' and in 2006 was elected a Fellow of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He is obviously a Maoist of the worst Marxist–Leninist sort! 

How do we know?  Because the Republican Party of Wisconsin wants him investigated.

The Republican Party of Wisconsin has made an open records request for the e-mails of a University of Wisconsin professor of history, geography and environmental studies in an apparent response to a blog post the professor wrote about a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Professor William J. Cronon, who is the president-elect of the American Historical Association, said in an interview Friday that the party asked for e-mails starting Jan. 1.

The request was made by Stephan Thompson of the Republican Party of Wisconsin. In his request, Thompson asked for e-mails of Cronon's state e-mail account that "reference any of the following terms: Republican, Scott Walker, recall, collective bargaining, AFSCME, WEAC, rally, union, Alberta Darling, Randy Hopper, Dan Kapanke, Rob Cowles, Scott Fitzgerald, Sheila Harsdorf, Luther Olsen, Glenn Grothman, Mary Lazich, Jeff Fitzgerald, Marty Beil, or Mary Bell."

Most of the names are Republican legislators. Marty Beil is the head of the Wisconsin State Employees Union and Mary Bell is the head of the Wisconsin Education Association Council.

Cronon said the university had not yet complied with the open records request. The e-mails would be subject to the state's open records law because they were written on an university e-mail account.

The university has an e-mail policy that states, "University employees may not use these resources to support the nomination of any person for political office or to influence a vote in any election or referendum.”

Cronon said he did not violate the policy in any way. "I really object in principle to this inquiry," Cronon said of the party's open records request.

Thompson was not available for comment. But in an statement, Mark Jefferson, the party's executive director, said, "Like anyone else who makes an open records request in Wisconsin, the Republican Party of Wisconsin does not have to give a reason for doing so. […]"

What was Cronon's offense?  He wrote an Op-Ed piece for the terrorist-loving New York Times.

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Your comfort food open thread

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by liberal japonicus

Well, my month back in Mississippi is wrapping up and it's been nice to have to opportunity to go out an eat a lot. My high end experience was going to Cochon, by the NOLA convention center for crawfish pie, smothered greens, wood roasted oysters and a brisket sandwich, accompanied by a Lazy Magnolia Southern Pecan (draft!). And while I could have happily driven down there for lunch any number of times, I didn't have to, as my small Mississippi town now has so many dining options that a month of lunches with my dad, (and, when not too busy, my brother joining us from work) hasn't exhausted them all. Po' boys and crawfish, catfish and hush puppies, pulled pork sandwiches and BBQ ribs, gumbo, jambalaya and red beans and rice with real boudin. My town also just voted to allow restaurants to serve alcohol with meals this year, so I was occasionally able to wash it down with one of the aforementioned Lazy Magnolias or something from Abita. Amazing. 

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the laboratories of democracy

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by russell Folks with a federalist bent often refer to the various states as the "laboratories of democracy".  Let policy initiatives begin at a local or state level, where the issues are often more tangible to folks, and where the costs and risks are lower.  As thing get sorted out there, the best of breed … Read more

Economic impacts of the Japanese disaster

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by liberal japonicus I know there are a number of folks here who are, by training, interest, and/or inclination, interested in economic questions, so this interview with William Grimes entitled Japan's Post-Quake Economic Outlook: Recovery and Reconstruction might be of interest. It's short and the main points are As the area affected only accounts for 4% of … Read more

triangle

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by russell Tomorrow, March 25, marks the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. In brief: Triangle Shirtwaist was a garment shop that occupied the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of a building just off Washington Square in NYC’s Greenwich Village. It employed primarily immigrant women in their late teens and early twenties. On … Read more

Their urge to betray – and ours

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WRITTEN BY Thomas Nephew, of Newsrack, NOT BY Gary Farber

Until recently, Peter Benjamin was the chairman of the Washington, D.C. area Metro transit system's Board of Directors. A former mayor of Garrett Park, he brought an avuncular personality and long experience with Metro affairs to the table. While in correspondence with us about the bag search issue I've written about before, he dismissed some of our assertions about the program's drawbacks — for example, he didn't believe it would cause much decline in ridership. But he seemed to take seriously the civil liberties issues involved.

Still, sometimes I think if I had a dollar for every time I've heard or read "I'm a supporter of the ACLU, but…" I could afford the richer, more refined lifestyle I truly deserve.


 

And sure enough, when push came to shove at a February 10 discussion of the bag search issue, Mr. Benjamin delivered what may be the new low standard in that genre. Beginning with the heart-sinking words "I am a long term member of the American Civil Liberties Union. Many of my friends consider me a civil liberties nut," Benjamin was giving the lie to those words within roughly twenty seconds. Even though asserting that the rights we have as citizens are "why we are the great country that we are" and personally believing that "bag checks are a violation of those rights, and …the beginning of a process that moves towards us having fewer and fewer and fewer of those rights," Mr. Benjamin continued:

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Further thoughts on helping in Japan

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by liberal japonicus

In the previous post, I suggested that Felix Salmon's original post (which he followed up here and here) was shallow and poorly thought out. In the comments, Turb suggests that this case has not been made. Also in the comments, commenter LKT notes the givewell blog and the goodintents blog and suggests that they give a more nuanced viewpoint.

I'm going to try and identify why I think the Salmon posts are shallow, but I'm not denying that people should carefully consider the ramifications of either donating to an organization that is pledging to devote those monies to Japan and those that refrain from doing so.

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disaster in Japan and thoughts about helping

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by liberal japonicus

There has been stories about a comparison of donations given to Japan versus Katrina and Haiti, and suggestions that because Japan is considered a rich, and developed country, donations are much lower. From the article:

As of Wednesday, the American Red Cross had raised $47 million for victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. At the same point after the Haiti earthquake, it had raised $92.3 million. World Vision, a Christian humanitarian aid group, said it had raised $3 million for Japan from American donors as of noon Thursday, compared with $15.8 million within the week after the Haiti earthquake.

I don't know if that is the case, it may be possible that because opportunities for donations have been spread out so much, the gap might not be as great as reported. The Miyagi prefectural government has received many checks, but has no way at this time to convert them to yen, and there seem to be a plethora of other opportunities, so I'd like to think that the money totals are similar, just not as easily accounted.

I had hoped to write a post that listed all the major donation possibilities and portals, but a few days of searching convinces me that it is an impossible task. So I thought that I would try to talk a little bit about giving and give some thoughts to help folks find where they want their money to go, along with some thoughts about what your aid is getting, which I place below the fold.

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disasters, radiation and the Japanese polity

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by liberal japonicus

While I said that I was going to open a thread about the nuclear crisis in Japan, I started to try and compile some links and got hopelessly overwhelmed. Reactor design, gamma rays, wind patterns, iodine tablets, cooling ponds, spent fuel rods, MOX, microsieverts versus millisieverts, etc etc. Another problem is that I go to bed, and wake up to face 8 hours of new information from Japan, I just don't think I could do it justice.

Still the alarmist beat goes on. Now CNN is noting that Japan has a 12 mile evacuation but the White House told American citizens should evacuate outside 50 miles and opine how this shows that the Japanese government is keeping information from their citizens. Thinking about the population density, where the f'&%#$k would those Japanese people go? How would they move all those people who may be in hospitals? Where would they be housed? There is gas shortages and rationing, such that my wife thinks I won't be able to get the bus from the international airport at Narita to the domestic hub at Haneda. The US can ask its citizens to move because they are a minority in the population, they are largely young, and they can move somewhere. The population of Fukushima prefecture is about 2 million and I'd estimate that one-third to one half of those live within 50 miles of the nuclear reactor complex. Some of the pictures of people being checked for radiation have the location of Koriyama, 60 miles from the nuclear complex. Given those numbers and the size of the relief effort to the areas struck by the tsunami, how is this supposed to work? Transporters and holodecks? Of course, as we saw in Katrina, In the US, they would tell everyone to evacuate and be shocked that people living below the poverty line had problems getting out of town. But below the fold, I talk about the Japanese group spirit a bit.

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till the landslide brings it down

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by fiddler

Following up on previous posts (here, here, here, here, and here):

HBGary Federal, Team Themis, Hunton & Williams and the US Chamber of Commerce:

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Tell Me How This Ends

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by Eric Martin

There has been an increasing chorus of voices urging the US (acting with its allies in NATO, the UN or in tandem with some ad hoc coalition of the willing) to impose a no-fly zone over Libyan airspace, with lawmakers from both parties, as well as foreign leaders, making appeals to implement some variation of such a policy in recent days.

To some extent, this impulse is understandable given the increasingly violent clashes in Libya, with government forces making gains on rebel positions and showing a willingness to use indiscriminate force in populated areas.  

On the other hand, when pondering the involvement of US forces, first and foremost, elected leaders must consider whether such an intervention is in our national interest, and, if so, what can realistically be accomplished and at what costs.  Along those lines, it is essential to establish what the objective of the intervention would be and what future actions will be necessitated/spurred on by the initial decision to intervene militarily. To paraphrase General Petraeus, "Tell me how this ends."

Despite legitimate concerns for civilian casualties, and the potential for atrocities, thus far Qaddafi has been primarily using air power to combat rebel forces within his nation's borders.  The effect of a no-fly zone, then, would be to prevent Qaddafi from being able to use air power in that fight (as well as to safeguard civilians from airborne assaults). 

Thus, even if justified on humanitarian grounds, the no-fly zone would serve the purpose of tilting the battlefield in favor of rebel forces - though some argue that supporting the rebels should be an explicit goal in itself, with the no-fly zone buttressed (or replaced) by arms and other aid provided directly to rebel forces.  Regardless, these outcomes raise several important questions about who we are supporting, to what ends, and to what extent we will be expected to participate in the process.

1. Do we know what the majority of Libyan rebels want and how they envision the future state of Libya in the post-Qaddafi era?  While there is a tendency to view these uprisings, and their participants, through Western-tinted lenses, those Libyans that are involved in the uprising are not monolithic in their outlook, nor are they uniformly pursuing a revolutionary democratic agenda.

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Aftershocks

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by liberal japonicus

I think that the general outlines of the recent disaster are relatively clear. Ironically, to figure out the history of TiO, which arose from the posts here about Katrina, and I am in awe of how much hilzoy was able to write as the disaster was unfolding. I realize that Katrina was quite different from the earthquake and tsunami, with Katrina unfolding over a longer period of time, as well as the language difference, but still, I start to write something and find myself stuck. However, I'll try to talk about some longer term notions that I think are interesting. I'll put the below the fold

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“Fightin’ for my Rats!”: Teapartiers and the Social Theory of William Tecumseh Sherman

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 Guest Post by HK, not by Gary Farber As the seemingly remote Civil War Sesquicentennial gradually floods into our lives over the next four years, we'll find — just as those of us who were around for the Centennial did — that a surprising number of issues from that period which we thought were settled, … Read more

Self-Evident

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Guest post by Amezuki, not by Gary Farber

You all know me by a different pseudonym, and I'll reintroduce myself properly later.

But in the meantime, a word from our Founders:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

The Declaration of Independence stands, in my mind, as one of the greatest political documents in history.

Like our Constitution, it stands on the shoulders of many other exalted works, and my opinion is not in any way intended to denigrate those works–but what makes it stand out in my mind is not just the role it had in the birth of our nation, but in the simple, unequivocal and straightforward statements of first principles it contains.

Foremost among these is the well-known passage I quoted above. Its evocative power was such that Martin Luther King, one of the most eloquent speakers and users of language our nation has known, had no need to embellish it further when quoting it, save to correctly note that it was a promise our country had yet to fully honor. "All men are created equal."

Think about that for a moment. All men. You will notice a distinct lack of footnotes, equivocation, qualifications or exceptions to the word "all".

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Earthquake in Japan

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by liberal japonicus I'm grateful to fiddler Doctor Science for the open post, but I thought that I would give post just for the earthquake and let the open thread be for everything else and help give everyone some idea of Sendai, which was where the epicenter of the quake was as well as some points … Read more

Snog In The Fog: Science Fiction And Weekend Open Thread

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by Gary Farber

If you happen to be in the environs of the San Francisco Bay Area from March 11th through 13th, I’ll be here:

FOGcon: March 11-13, 2011, at the Holiday Inn Golden Gateway Hotel

Fogcon is this (links mine):

The Friends of Genre Convention (FOGcon) is a literary-themed San Francisco SF/F con in the tradition of Wiscon and Readercon. Each year we’ll focus on a new theme in speculative fiction and invite Honored Guests ranging from writers to scientists to artists. We will build community, exchange ideas, and share our love for the literature of imagination.

Theme for 2011: The City in SF/F

Honored Guests: Pat Murphy and Jeff VanderMeer; Honored Editorial Guest, Ann VanderMeer; Honored Guest (Posthumous) Fritz Leiber

“There is more than one road to the City.”—Ursula K. Le Guin

The theme of this, the first FOGCon is:

Whether a glass-edged utopia or a steampunk hell, the city plays a central role in many works of speculative fiction. It can be an arena for conflicts between cultures, a center of learning or vice, a court of power and corruption. In its gutters and government buildings, the city reveals the values a society claims and those it actually honors. Because the city is open to everyone, it’s a place where new things can happen. No wonder it is such a rich topic for so many writers.

Lots of other kewl people will be there.  There will be programming!

I’m particularly, given the time-change, and our ability as science fiction people to slipstream, looking forward to these bits of programming:

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how do you like living in Omelas?

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by fiddler

Despite eastern Virginia’s steamy summers, the temperature can drop close to or below freezing at night in late fall, winter and spring. Concrete is not a good insulator against the chill in the ground, or in the air. And in a concrete cell in the brig at the Marine base in Quantico, VA, US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is being forced to go without clothing for hours at a time, including sleeping at night and for inspections.

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Your zeitgeist post

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by liberal japonicus

I was one of the authors of the Port Huron Statement – the original Port Huron Statement, not the compromised second draft. And then I, uh – ever hear of the Seattle Seven? That was me… and there were six other guys.

 The Dude, Big Lebowski

In January of 1968, the reform movement known as Prague Spring began, which was initially/fundamentally President Alexander Dubček's program of economic decentralization and relief from censorship. The movement led to the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the USSR and Warsaw Pact allies 8 months later.

In March of 1968, Edson Luís de Lima Souto was killed by Brazilian Military Police during a student protest about the high price of meals at a student restaurant. This incident led to a number of protests in Rio de Janeiro and resulted in the enactment of Ato Institucional Número Cinco (Institutional Order 5), which closed the National Congress for a year, made political gatherings illegal and suspended habeus corpus for crimes that were politically motivated

In March of 1968, students occupied the administration building at the University of Paris in Nanterre. In the previous decade, the student population of the university had tripled, with little extra funding to support the university. The students occupying the admin building, issued a manifesto that called for "Outright rejection of the Capitalist Technocratic University". After the manifesto was distributed, the students left. 2 months later, on May 2nd, the French government closed down the university. Students at the Sorbonne organized a protest the following day and police entered the university. Protesting that hitherto unprecedented police invasion of a French university, the UNÉF (Union Nationale des Étudiants de France) and the union of university teachers marched thru Paris on May 6th. 20,000 protesters were sealed off by police, barricades were erected, and hundreds of students were arrested, with a confrontation between police and students in the Latin Quarter yielding many of the iconic images of that event. High school student unions also organized protests, and on May 7th, a large demonstration took place at the Arc de Triomphe focused on three demands: That all charges against the students be dropped, that police leave Nanterre and the Sorbonne and that both those universities, which had been closed, be reopened. The French government was not too concerned with these protests, there were industrial labor actions the previous year and continuing industrial action at Renault. On May 13th, the participating unions issue a call for a general strike. This is picked up in the press, and the call was published on the front page of L'Humanité. The action was held on May 15th. link and link  

In June of 1968, students at Tokyo University boycotted all classes. This action was led by medical students whose initial grievance was the service they were required to do upon completing their degrees. The boycott led to other actions at university across Japan. While a huge range of sweeping changes were enacted, a sit in at Yasuda Hall, continued until January 1969, when 8,000 riot police evicted the protesters. Protests occurred at approximately one-third of all the universities in Japan, all with various local origins pdf link

In October 1968, a large riot over the banning of a university lecturer active in the Black Power movement, Walter Rodney, occurred in Kingston, Jamaica. link

On Oct 2nd, 1968, October 2, a student demonstration in Mexico City resulted in the police and paramilitary forces killing over 100 people, in what is now known as Tlatelolco massacre link

In October, 1969, the party of Korean president Park Chung-hee forced through a constitutional amendment that permitted him to seek a 3rd term over the objections of the minority party. Park declared a state of national emergency in 1971, martial law in 1972 and Korea was riven by protests and riots for the next 10 years until the assassination of Park by the head of the director of the Korean CIA. 

In addition, there are a number of other incidents and historical points that I think are related, but may occur outside this 1968-69 period. The Cultural Revolution began in China in 1966, and by 1968, the Red Guards were virtually in charge of the country.

In Thailand in October 1973, 400,000 students and residents of Bangkok protested and were suppressed by the military. The student organization that was one of the main organizers, the NSC of Thailand, was formed after a bus fare hike in 1969 led to a protest. (link)

In the Phillipines, January 1970 marked the event known as the First Quarter Storm, where 50,000 demonstrators stormed the Presidential Palace.

I've purposely left out the 1968 events in the US (MLK assassination, Chicago, etc) and in some places in Europe because there is a tendency for USAians to view those events thru the lens of civil rights and Vietnam (I dare say we have a number of people who were at those protests here, and I'm not trying to denigrate or minimize what was done). I don't think that is wrong so much as I think looking at the period of time as a worldwide phenomenon, you get a different picture. More about that picture is below the fold. (if I did the extended entry code correctly.)

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Metro’s random bag searches (II): A flawed policy made worse

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by guest/incoming-front-pager Thomas Nephew, not Gary Farber In my prior post I introduced the DC area Metro system's random bag search program, and provided footage of the transit system's police chief Michael Taborn stating that bag search refusers would "be observed. Be watched," if they were so bold as to assert their Fourth Amendment rights. … Read more

Your lefthanded open thread

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by liberal japonicus I'm righthanded. Severely so. And, as is typical for me, my life has been wrapped up with things that would have been better had I been left handed. For sports, I've broken all my fingers in my left hand, but never my right hand, due to a lack of dexterity in the … Read more

Metro’s random bag searches (I)

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by Guest/incoming-front-pager Thomas Nephew

(I): Taborn's bombshell:

In mid-December, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, or WMATA — better known as "Metro" — and its police force announced a new random bag search policy:

…police will randomly select bags or packages to check for hazardous materials using ionization technology as well as K-9 units trained to detect explosive materials. Carry on items will generally not be opened and physically inspected unless the equipment indicates a need for further inspection.

The randomness of the program is implemented by choosing some secret number N for each site and date, and selecting every Nth person with a bag. As described, the policy allows people approaching a station to decide to refuse the screening — they just can't then bring their bags with them:

Anyone who is randomly selected and refuses to submit their carry-on items for inspection will be prohibited from bringing those items into the station. Customers who encounter a baggage checkpoint at a station entrance may choose not to enter the station if they would prefer not to submit their carry-ons for inspection.

Opponents of the policy (including myself) deemed the policy unconstitutional, ineffective, and misguided — security theater that demands public acceptance of routine, suspicionless, unaudited (and therefore possibly profiling-based) searches for zero security in return.

Thanks in part to a good deal of mobilizing by opponents — including an online petition and an evening of nearly unanimous public opposition — WMATA's "Riders Advisory Council" (RAC), the institutional voice of Metro users, overwhelmingly passed a resolution in early January calling on the Board to halt the program, and require their police department to consider alternatives in consultation with civil liberties advocates.

Be observed… be watched As welcome as the 15-1-1 RAC vote was on January 5th, the real news may have happened earlier in the same meeting.

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Corporate tax reform unicorns

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by Doctor Science Congress is apparently likely to consider corporate tax reform this year. As David Leonhardt of the New York Times reported, Arguably, the United States now has a corporate tax code that’s the worst of all worlds. The official rate is higher than in almost any other country, which forces companies to devote … Read more

Protecting the odious

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by fiddler

The US Supreme Court issued a majority opinion today that the homophobic and hostile Westboro Baptist Church is covered by the First Amendment when its members picket outside funerals; this is based on the grounds that the substance of the protests could be considered commentary on national matters.

“As a nation we have chosen…to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. “That choice requires that we shield Westboro from tort liability for its picketing in this case.”

The Westboro church believes that any misfortune America suffers is divine punishment for the nation’s failure to follow the sect’s doctrine, which condemns gays, Catholics, Jews and others. The tiny church, whose membership largely consists of the founder’s family, pickets military funerals to get attention for its message.

This majority opinion stretches the First Amendment until it squeaks at the edges, to get it to cover hate-mongering and homophobia because those attitudes are associated with a presumed theological critique of national affairs. Eight of the nine justices concurred in the majority opinion, though Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a separate opinion partially modifying his concurrence. Justice Samuel Alito dissented, in a separate opinion that pointed out relevant issues that had not been considered by the court.

Immunizing Westboro from tort action means that the plaintiff, Albert Snyder, cannot sue in civil court for damages related to Westboro’s picketing at the 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder. An earlier Pennsylvania court decision that slapped Westboro with a $10.9 million judgment for the Snyder funeral protest was overturned on appeal before the case arrived at the Supreme Court.

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