by Tyree Harris

When people think of giving back to the community, they think sandwich lines, clean-up service, and financial charity.

Though all of these are great and important, there is no better way to give back to your community than with the very talents you are practicing for [...]]]> Giving back through journalism

by Tyree Harris

When people think of giving back to the community, they think sandwich lines, clean-up service, and financial charity.

Though all of these are great and important, there is no better way to give back to your community than with the very talents you are practicing for your career.

Give back with what you do best.

I spent my first week of summer at the Oregon State University campus being journalistically revived by 24 bright-eyed, teenaged writers. For the past three years, I’ve dedicated June 19th through the 27th to the High School Journalism Institute, a joint effort between the Oregonian and Oregon State to promote newsroom diversity. It is, without question, the most cultural journalistic experience possible in Oregon — students in the program are all from underrepresented backgrounds.

It’s an amazing thing to witness; Lars Larson hated on it — so we must be doing something right out there. In just eight days, these amateur journalists are required to produce a 40-page, professional-grade paper. Each student is required to write a profile about another camper, a news story, a blog post, and several are even required to write columns. The kids work in pairs on the stories and are placed under the wing of a professional as an editor.

Yeah, this definitely ain’t outdoor school — no singing and taking hikes at this camp.

I participated as a writer in 2008, and I loved it so much, that I came back the next two years to RA for it. Though my job description only required me to make sure the kids get from the newsroom to their meals and back to the dorms in which they reside in, I offer my talents as much as I can — editing pieces, working with columns and even writing blogs for the online site.

That paper, and the campers’ motive, mean the world to me. In a nation where one-third of the population is a minority, newsrooms are just 13.26 percent minority. Because the media is only effective and relevant if it adequately represents its community, this is a waving red flag.

In a Hispanic Link News Service article titled, “Non-white Journalists Affected Most by Newspaper Cutbacks,” Rosalba Ruiz points out that though “personnel employed by the daily press declined by about 11 percent, from 46,700 to 41,500; among non whites, it dropped 12.6%, from 6,300 to 5,500, down more than 25 percent from its peak of 7,400 in 2006.”

We are losing our journalistic diversity, and our ability to adequately represent the nation in which we reside in is at risk.

This is an issue I take very seriously; as a minority journalist, I needed to find some way to give hope to the future and inspire more journalists from underrepresented backgrounds to acquire the skills they need to succeed in the newsroom. This camp is my way to do just that. A lot of those kids in that institute continue to pursue careers in journalism, and next year, three students I’ve watched in that newsroom will be incoming freshmen at our school.

Knowing that I was a part of the camp that helped them realize what they wanted to do is very enriching.

It reminds me why I want to be a journalist — even though my odds of getting a job right now are about the same as Steve Nash’s chances of winning a slam dunk contest.

Being there and giving so much of my energy made me realize how college students should think about community service: Our career talents, and objectives, ought to be practiced and shared when we do acts of charity.

If you learned that you are fascinated with something and talented at it, what better way to express that passion than to display that experience with people and give back using it?

Are you a pre-med student? Volunteer at a hospital or work with the Red Cross.

Are you an environmental science major? There are probably a billion things you can do in the Eugene area that can help the environment.

Pre-education? Ask around about ways in which you can help out local school districts.

Don’t be afraid to try something new or start your own cause because great things have to start somewhere.

Both the community and we as students would benefit most from us finding causes that relate to our passions and future. Don’t do things just because they “look good”; do them because they feel good and they are good for your development as a person and a professional.

For me, knowing that I have the honor of spending every summer making a difference in something I take very seriously keeps me energized and motivated to keep making strides in my own career.

You don’t have to give out a million dollars, clean up every street corner, or suck your veins dry of blood to be a charitable person. All you have to do is showcase your love for your career and the community while guiding others on the right path to success.

by Tyree Harris

The following is part two of a three-part series. See part one here.

With faint screams and smoke coming from the forests and villages surrounding, Simon Mudahogora, his sister, and his friend’s family all loaded up into a canoe, which had to be sunk to hide [...]]]> River separates life from death

by Tyree Harris

The following is part two of a three-part series. See part one here.

With faint screams and smoke coming from the forests and villages surrounding, Simon Mudahogora, his sister, and his friend’s family all loaded up into a canoe, which had to be sunk to hide from the Hutu. They were heading to a refugee camp in Burundi, where many other Tutsi fled.

The border between Burundi and Rwanda was marked by a river — a river so dirtied with death that they had to move carcasses out of the canoe’s way to get across the river.

Simon knew he had to stay tough: “There was no crying.”

Crossing into Burundi, however, didn’t mean safety. The group then had to travel through two hours of swamplands, where the Hutu were often hiding and killing fleeing Tutsi. The thick vegetation and knee-high mud trenched and brushed across their fear-riddled bodies.

Simon’s sister was a teary mess; at the tender age of 7, she was fleeing from her family and everything she knew, knowing that it was virtually impossible for things to return to the way they were.

“There was zero hope that (my family) would make it,” Simon said. The group finally arrived at the camp after two hours of silently sloshing through the marshes.

For about six months, Simon and his sister slept in U.N.-provided white tents.

There were no blankets.

There were no pillows.

There was no soccer.

And every meal was identical: corn flour soup — for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

“It was fucking disgusting,” Simon said, nodding his head in disapproval, “Everyone was hungry 24/7.”

During his stay at the camp, not one family member was ever found. They had all been slain.

All 60 of them.

Simon’s tone takes a more somber, careful tone whenever he brings this up. The thought of his family’s murder puts a cold look on his face: “I’m still kinda bitter.”

Recognizing their absence permanently changed Simon’s role in life. His childhood was practically over — before he had even hit puberty.

Simon had an aunt and uncle who left Rwanda in 1975 for school in Sacramento, Calif. Somehow, she learned that he and his sister were alive, and she began to coordinate efforts to get them out of Africa. She connected them with her friend who lived in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, and he allowed them to leave the camp and stay with him and his family for a while.

“His wife didn’t like us,” Simon said. He had to do all the chores in the house, while her children did nothing. But Simon stuck to the lesson his mother taught him while he was attending school in the midsts of a war: “No bitching, no crying; you had to do what you had to do.”

Shortly afterward, the family moved to Rwanda. It was Simon’s first time back home in more than a year.

While in Rwanda, Simon went to the area his family had once called home. The jungle had consumed the long-vacated and burned down houses.

The farmland was no more; decades of blood, sweat and tears that his family put forth to make a living were wiped out in a matter of moments.

“It was depressing” Simon said, “That’s where I grew up. That’s my whole life right there …”

He stops mid sentence and looks down: It still haunts him.

“Everything was gone.”

To this day, he hasn’t gone back to the village.

Simon and his sister moved to his grandmother’s house. Because she was married to a Hutu man, she had received help escaping and survived the genocide.

While Simon was living there, he discovered that one of his cousins in the village actually survived. They saw her picture at a local orphanage.

The little girl had been smart enough at age three, to call every passerby mommy or daddy and make them feel bad enough to carry her along to wherever they were going.

Somehow she ended up in safety, but no one knows how she did it.

It had been three years since the genocide. Simon’s aunt in America was still working out ways to get them to Sacramento, and they found their cousin just in time. Shortly after, his aunt successfully found a family capable of taking in the three young refugees.

Finally, the three of them were escaping the war-tattered lands of Rwanda. They were heading to America — where a whole new series of challenges lay ahead.

by Tyree Harris

The following is part two of a three-part series. See part one here.

With faint screams and smoke coming from the forests and villages surrounding, Simon Mudahogora, his sister, and his friend’s family all loaded up into a canoe, which had to be sunk to hide from the Hutu. They were heading to a refugee camp in Burundi, where many other Tutsi fled.

The border between Burundi and Rwanda was marked by a river — a river so dirtied with death that they had to move carcasses out of the canoe’s way to get across the river.

Simon knew he had to stay tough: “There was no crying.”

Crossing into Burundi, however, didn’t mean safety. The group then had to travel through two hours of swamplands, where the Hutu were often hiding and killing fleeing Tutsi. The thick vegetation and knee-high mud trenched and brushed across their fear-riddled bodies.

Simon’s sister was a teary mess; at the tender age of 7, she was fleeing from her family and everything she knew, knowing that it was virtually impossible for things to return to the way they were.

“There was zero hope that (my family) would make it,” Simon said. The group finally arrived at the camp after two hours of silently sloshing through the marshes.

For about six months, Simon and his sister slept in U.N.-provided white tents.

There were no blankets.

There were no pillows.

There was no soccer.

And every meal was identical: corn flour soup — for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

“It was fucking disgusting,” Simon said, nodding his head in disapproval, “Everyone was hungry 24/7.”

During his stay at the camp, not one family member was ever found. They had all been slain.

All 60 of them.

Simon’s tone takes a more somber, careful tone whenever he brings this up. The thought of his family’s murder puts a cold look on his face: “I’m still kinda bitter.”

Recognizing their absence permanently changed Simon’s role in life. His childhood was practically over — before he had even hit puberty.

Simon had an aunt and uncle who left Rwanda in 1975 for school in Sacramento, Calif. Somehow, she learned that he and his sister were alive, and she began to coordinate efforts to get them out of Africa. She connected them with her friend who lived in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, and he allowed them to leave the camp and stay with him and his family for a while.

“His wife didn’t like us,” Simon said. He had to do all the chores in the house, while her children did nothing. But Simon stuck to the lesson his mother taught him while he was attending school in the midsts of a war: “No bitching, no crying; you had to do what you had to do.”

Shortly afterward, the family moved to Rwanda. It was Simon’s first time back home in more than a year.

While in Rwanda, Simon went to the area his family had once called home. The jungle had consumed the long-vacated and burned down houses.

The farmland was no more; decades of blood, sweat and tears that his family put forth to make a living were wiped out in a matter of moments.

“It was depressing” Simon said, “That’s where I grew up. That’s my whole life right there …”

He stops mid sentence and looks down: It still haunts him.

“Everything was gone.”

To this day, he hasn’t gone back to the village.

Simon and his sister moved to his grandmother’s house. Because she was married to a Hutu man, she had received help escaping and survived the genocide.

While Simon was living there, he discovered that one of his cousins in the village actually survived. They saw her picture at a local orphanage.

The little girl had been smart enough at age three, to call every passerby mommy or daddy and make them feel bad enough to carry her along to wherever they were going.

Somehow she ended up in safety, but no one knows how she did it.

It had been three years since the genocide. Simon’s aunt in America was still working out ways to get them to Sacramento, and they found their cousin just in time. Shortly after, his aunt successfully found a family capable of taking in the three young refugees.

Finally, the three of them were escaping the war-tattered lands of Rwanda. They were heading to America — where a whole new series of challenges lay ahead.

by Tyree Harris

“Everybody got along,” said Simon Mudahogora, describing the Rwandan village he grew up in, “It was a poor and peaceful life.” The 26-year-old economics major’s hometown included about 60 of his family members.

Daily life was as simple as it gets: Simon and the other children [...]]]> Leaving family, genocide behind

by Tyree Harris

“Everybody got along,” said Simon Mudahogora, describing the Rwandan village he grew up in, “It was a poor and peaceful life.” The 26-year-old economics major’s hometown included about 60 of his family members.

Daily life was as simple as it gets: Simon and the other children in his family woke up at 6:30 a.m. and walked a mile to the river to fetch some water for the day. He’d get back, take a cold shower, have his morning tea and bread, and arrive to school at 8:30 ready for class.

For hours, young Simon sat on bench made of dirt, in a room stuffed with 35 students. His family farmed while he was at school.

“That’s the only life I lived. I had no complaints at all,” he said.

In the evening, when the blistering sun cooled down, all the kids got together for a game of soccer — with a slight catch.

“We didn’t even have a ball,” he said. The kids would tie rubber bands around plastic bags and do their best to shape the concoction like a ball. “It was the only sport we could play.”

Though they had far less money and minimal resources, Simon believes that Rwandans prior to the war were happier than Americans are today: “Here, you have to do so much to live a normal life.”

Rwanda was divided primarily into two tribes of people, the Hutu (85 percent of the population) and the Tutsi (15 percent of the population and the group that Simon’s family belonged to). They had a history of war, but at the time, they lived together tranquilly. They were neighbors, they were classmates, and quite often, they were friends.

But that peace Simon described was ruined when the civil war reignited in 1994. Tutsi, who were relocated in Uganda in the first war in 1959, wanted to come back to Rwanda. When the Hutu refused to let them in, the Tutsi in Uganda formed an army and began attempting to penetrate the border.

For Simon’s family, 60 men, women and children in a row of houses, everything began to unravel. Their lives were at stake every waking moment.

Fearing that the Tutsi residing in Rwanda would aid the invaders from Uganda, radio stations in Rwanda began telling Hutu to kill their Tutsi neighbors to prevent this from happening.

Simon’s family had to flee home at night and sleep in the jungles. They didn’t want to be slain in the night like many other Tutsi.

Not a wink of sleep came their way in those thick jungles — they were petrified by the humming of low-hovering military-grade helicopters.

When 6:30 struck, however, life continued regularly: He walked to the river, got water, ate and went to school — even though just the night before, he was silently tucked into an African jungle, wondering if he’d live to see another day.

At school, the Hutu children often told Simon and the three other Tutsi children that they were going to kill them, and that they were going to die soon. When Simon told the teachers, they did nothing about it.

They were Hutu too.

Obviously, during all this, school was the last thing on his mind. His life was threatened 24/7, but his mother never stopped sending him. He remembers being upset, feeling like she didn’t love him, but in retrospect, he understands.

“She was doing what was best for me,” Simon said, “Get over my fear, be a man, you know?”

And boy, did he need that fearlessness.

April 1994 was a rainy month in Rwanda. Not rain like Oregon, but rain like monsoon.

Roadblocks had been set up throughout Rwanda. They were checking IDs and refusing Tutsi access to the roads. Tutsi began fleeing south to the country of Burundi. Simon’s family knew they had to follow suit, but they didn’t know the conditions of the roads, or how difficult the roadblocks were to evade.

They had to send a scout — Simon was elected to do so, but he refused to do it alone, so they agreed to send him with his little sister.

There he was: carrying out a life-or-death stealth operation with his younger sister — before he was even 10 years old.

Sneaking through those farms and fields, avoiding the roads at all costs, he could hear the blood-curdling screams of his people, the infernos blazing their homes and bodies.

Entire families were lined up and impaled by a single stick.

They finally arrived to a friend’s house which was located near the border of Rwanda and Burundi, but his friend informed them that with that the only time to leave was right then and there — there was no chance later. Simon and his sister could either leave with his friend to Burundi right then, or go back home and be stranded for death with his family.

And so, with heavy hearts, he and his sister prepared to leave the country and family they loved so much, thinking that it was unlikely they’d ever see them again — and they were right.

“You don’t want Hannibal Lecter [...]]]> This is one of those movies that I watch whenever it comes on. I think it’s because the story is interesting but more than that it is the acting. I read the book twice but when I watch the movie I see human nature at its best and worse.

“You don’t want Hannibal Lecter inside your head.” But he is there, he is always there. It was important for Jodi Foster’s character to remember that. It was more important than the rules about touching the glass and giving him anything or accepting anything from him. Your pulse races as you watch because you know there are characters out there locked away in prison dungeons because society doesn’t know what else to do with them. For many people their brilliance overwhelms them and allows their minds to slip off the charts and not relate to normal humans. they do as they please because they think they are superior. You see that whenever there is a shot of the great Anthony Hopkins face. It is scary as hell.

But the movie is scary as hell and not because of what you see. It is what you don’t see that makes it a classic. We do not see Dr. Letcher perform his cannibalistic acts. We hear it in his voice, see it in his eyes. Hopkins created a character worth remembering, worth fearing. Jodi foster looks like she is about to wet her pants when he says: “I ate his liver with some fave beans and a nice Chianti.” From that moment on she is his student even though she doesn’t desire to be.

I enjoy the chemistry between Foster and Hopkins. But more than that I enjoy the movie because it works the imagination, something most modern scary movies don’t do. And something that didn’t happen with the sequels to “Silence of the Lambs”. We had to witness horrid acts by Lecter which could have remained unseen as far as I am concerned.  One of these acts takes place in one of my favorite places in Italy. The next time I visit it will not be the same.

I am all for less is more. In songs, in stories, in movies. I do not always need to hear the things you are going to do to your girl when you get her alone. Any idiot who has any sexual education will know what can happen once you, as Teddy Pendegrass said, “Turn off the lights.” I do not need to see the act of murder or sex you know it was done. there are ways talented artists, writers and actors can get the point across.

Maybe that is what I like about this movie- a little class, a lot of suspense.

But enough of this talk. It’s about to come on and I don’t want to miss it. I have over 300 DVD’s and don’t have this one. I must treat myself to it so that one Saturday night when it is pouring rain or frightfully cold I can sit with a bowl of popcorn and/or my favorite Malbec wine and learn something new from the bad doctor. For me that would be better than a movie that starts on a dark and stormy night. It is all in the way the story is told that makes it so much fund to watch.

Even if it scares tha pants off of you.

On July 11, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) announced that it had launched “a national advertising campaign as part of a broader effort to showcase the dedication and personal histories of scientists studying climate change.”

I know quite a few climatologists and meteorologists and the [...]]]> The Union of Concerned Propagandists

By Alan Caruba

On July 11, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) announced that it had launched “a national advertising campaign as part of a broader effort to showcase the dedication and personal histories of scientists studying climate change.”

I know quite a few climatologists and meteorologists and the ones I know have been courageously refuting the global warming fraud for years, even decades. Beyond them, thousands of comparable scientists have signed petitions and statements to the effect that global warming was and is a hoax.

The UCS campaign, however, is “an effort to educate the public about the work scientists undertaken in their efforts to document and understand human-caused global warming.” Excuse me, but there isn’t any human-caused global warming. There isn’t any global warming insofar as the Earth has been cooling for the past decade.

The UCA is part of a broad pushback against the November 2009 revelations that have since become known as “Climategate.” Thousands of leaked emails among a tiny band of rogue scientists, primarily from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) and Penn State University ripped away their curtain of respectability.

Writing about it in the July 12 edition of The Wall Street Journal, Patrick J. Michaels, a professor of environmental sciences of the University of Virginia from 1980-2007, characterized the emails as “suggesting some of the world’s leading climate scientists engaged in professional misconduct, data manipulation and jiggering of both the scientific literature and climatic data to paint what scientist Ken Briffa called ‘a nice, tidy story’ of climate history.”

Michaels, now a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, was being polite when he used the word “suggesting.” The emails between the scientists involved in Climategate were damning evidence that they were engaged in a huge fraud.

That fraud is now been whitewashed by supposedly independent panels reviewing the emails and activities between Penn State’s Prof. Michael Mann, the CRU’s Phil Jones, and Ken Briffa, and others. On May 29, 2008, Jones emailed Prof. Mann under the subject line, “IPCC & FOI” asking him to delete any emails he had had with Briffa regarding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in order to thwart any Freedom of Information inquiries.

The so-called independent panels, mindful of the millions of dollars in climate change research grant funding that both Jones and Mann had brought in for their respective universities, saw no evil, heard no evil, and read no evil.

As a full-fledged partner in the global warming hoax, back in November 2009 when the emails were leaked, Francesca Grifo, a senior scientist and director of the UCS Scientific Integrity Program, was asked by Science Insider what she thought. She declined to be interviewed, but later issued a statement through a spokesperson.

“We expect a high degree of scientific integrity by scientists, whether they be in university labs or federal offices. But what may or may no have happened does not change the science—ice sheets are melting, sea level is rising and the top ten hottest years since 1880 include 2001 through 2008.”

Not so. As reported on July 16 by The Heartland Institute’s James Taylor, “In the Northern Hemisphere, Arctic sea ice is currently 19 percent below the 30-year average. In the South Hemisphere, however, Antarctic sea ice has grown to a record extent, continuing a parent of growth that has been ongoing since NASA launched the NOAA satellite instruments in 1979. The growth in Antarctica is so extensive that the poles as a whole have more total ice than the 30-year average.”

Just what is the Union of Concerned Scientists? According to DiscoverTheNetwork.org, the UCS “is a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization with more than 100,000 members. Seeing its mission as building a ‘cleaner, healthier environment and a safer world”, the UCA takes public stands, purportedly based on scientific research, regarding a variety of political and health-related issues.”

The UCS was founded in 1969 by students and faculty members at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to oppose U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. By 1998, it was assuring the public that American analysts had exaggerated North Korea’s ability to produce nuclear weapons.”

So the UCS is essentially a leftist propagandist organization that is anti-war, anti-nuclear and missile defense, and totally political in its opposition to any Republican administration. Of the signers of a document, “Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policy Making”, decrying the Bush administration, “more than half were financial contributors to the Democratic Party, Democratic candidates, or a variety of leftist causes.”

The UCS continues to cling to the view that “Global warming is one of the most serious challenges facing us today. To protect the health and economic well-being of current and future generations, we must reduce our emissions of heat-trapping gases by using the technology, know-how, and practical solutions already at our disposal.”

There is no global warming. The so-called greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, extremely minor factors, play no role in climate change within an atmosphere composed primarily of water vapor.

I suggest a name change. The UCS should call itself the Union of Concerned Propagandists.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

We have been witnesses to a continuing use of class warfare by those in government, abetted by the media and an assortment of special interest groups and individuals. In this essay we will consider the methods they use to establish the terms relating to redistribution of income.  

Utilizing [...]]]> Redistribution of Income
By Ben Cerruti

We have been witnesses to a continuing use of class warfare by those in government, abetted by the media and an assortment of special interest groups and individuals. In this essay we will consider the methods they use to establish the terms relating to redistribution of income.  

Utilizing effective divisive tactics they initially obfuscate their intentions by using the term “wealth” in place of “income” when proposing material changes in the income tax code. Taxing income derived from accumulated wealth does not alter that wealth. They next establish three main category of classes; rich, middle class and poor. If one were to pay close attention, he or she would find that they rather conveniently alter the dividing lines to suit the subject for which they are advocates.

It should be apparent that attempting to establish classes by simplistic definition is ludicrous. Is a person earning $1,000,000 a year in his twenties as rich as one earning the same amount in his or her sixties? The person in their sixties may have had to spend many years working up from under six figure annual income to reach this income level and the person in their twenties may find that in later years his or her income may fall to sub six figure level. A poor person at a young age may become affluent with time and an affluent person may suffer financial reverses that will throw him or her into what is presently considered the poor class.

There are many other factors, such as age, education, marital status, number of dependents, physical capability, race, national prosperity, war or national emergency, that affects the financial status of any person at any given time during their lifetime.

It should be apparent the because of these factors, which for want of a better name we can call dynamic natural demographics, any fair and effective redistribution of income is impossible. The fact is that the use of class to define favors or penalties those in government may dispense is divisive and counter productive. It pits citizen against citizen and serves to only benefit those in government utilizing these tactics.

It would rationally appear more productive for government if their actions would be directed towards supporting the movement of those at the lower end of the income scale, at any given time, up into higher levels of income. How obvious it should be that this result can be effected by more reliance on the overall growth of our national private sector wealth, wherein there is then more to share for every citizen; this rather than limiting growth by draining excessive wealth from the private sector that is then used in non-productive fashions.

Those in government that control these actions that interfere with the manufacturing of private sector wealth, that benefit all in the private sector, do so in the guise of “fairness”. The disingenuous use of this word is more clearly understood when one understands that in this process a substantial portion of the private sector wealth taken by those in government is dispensed to those respective special interests to which favors are owed. This very fact should also dispel that mistaken feeling by some that Government can create private sector wealth better than the private sector itself.

The obvious sometimes has to be explained. It is rather difficult to understand why people whom one would believe are well educated, especially those in the media, would not understand some of the following truths. People who accumulate excess income, unless they bury it or put it under their mattress, must place it back in circulation. They do this either by putting it in the bank, purchasing assets such as real estate, stocks and bonds, or by investing in assets and personnel for their own business. Just the fact that the excess income is in circulation allows for its use by the rest of the private sector to promote increased business, create jobs and overall increased financial wealth.

If this excess income is confiscated through taxes it is not allowed to work to effect this increased private sector prosperity. Again, to explain the obvious, this counter productive action by those in government is only taken to benefit their own personal position and agenda since, in factual truth, it does not provide the beneficial advantage that it professes to those in the private sector. It is necessary to understand that the government bureaucracy does not produce any revenue, it is supported solely by the taxes it collects. It is by its nature inefficient and self serving since those employed in it benefit personally in income and career longevity by its existence and growth.

I hope there are those who read these words who still have hope and faith that there are among us leaders, new or old, that will arise to condemn the use of class warfare by those in government, and in the political arena, to serve their own rather than the interests of the citizens of this country which they disingenuously portray they do.

For months now, Mortimer B. Zuckerman, the owner and editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report, has been writing increasingly desperate pleas for the Obama administration to do something about the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East and the world, [...]]]> U.S. Looks Weak as Iran Flips Off the World

By Alan Caruba

For months now, Mortimer B. Zuckerman, the owner and editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report, has been writing increasingly desperate pleas for the Obama administration to do something about the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East and the world, Iran.

“When Barack Obama became president, Iran had perhaps several thousand centrifuges enriching uranium. Now it may have thousands more,” wrote Zuckerman in the August edition. “What’s at stake here is too menacing for the world to delude itself that Iran will somehow change course. It won’t.”

It must be very frustrating to be a multi-millionaire media mogul and yet unable to do much about an impending disaster other than warn about it. My sense is that it falls on deaf ears at the White House.

Anyone as dense as Obama should not be allowed to be Commander-in-Chief, but he is and, worse for America and all other nations, he likely has no idea of the dangers involved in reducing the nation’s military capabilities at a time when Iran is closing in on becoming a nuclear threat to the Middle East and beyond.

“So, if Iran succeeds,” warns Zuckerman, “it would be seen as a major defeat and open our government to doubts about its power and resolve to shape events in the Middle East. Friends would respond by distancing themselves from Washington; foes would aggressively challenge U.S. policies.”

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, David Kay, the man who led the U.N. inspections after the Persian Gulf War and later led the CIA’s Iraq Survey Group following the 2003 invasion, dismantled the Obama administration claims that either economic sanctions or a weapons inspection program in Iran will deter the Iranians. “As a former weapons inspector, I have very bad news: A weapons inspection regime in Iran will not work.”

Don’t look to the United Nations to do anything. “Even after Iran’s 20-year-long clandestine program started to be revealed the IAEA inspectors have had a hard time getting United Nations authority to confront the Islamic Republic.”

“The blunt truth,” said Kay, “is that weapons inspections simply cannot prevent a government in charge of a large country from developing nuclear weapons.” It didn’t even stop a small country, North Korea, from doing so.

Does anyone believe that President Obama will support an Israeli attack on Iran to degrade its ability to complete its goal of acquiring nuclear weapons?

Does anyone know the extent to which the President is trying to reduce the U.S. arsenal of nuclear weapons? Or the capability of the U.S. Air Force to respond to a threat to the peace anywhere in the world?

The only time this president has shown any “leadership” was in response to criticism by the former head of the forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McCrystal. Meanwhile, the cost cutting in the Pentagon continues relentlessly.

All this reeks of the weakness shown by Great Britain and European leaders in the face of the obvious aggression by Hitler’s Nazi regime in the 1930s.

A January 31, 2008 article in The Economist, “Has Iran Won?” asked, “Who would have thought that a friendless theocracy with a Holocaust-denying president, which hangs teenagers in public and stones women to death, could run diplomatic circles around America and its European allies.”

The answer is that it’s easy when nations display the same gutless response of earlier generations and the weakness of the present administration.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

by Bob Grant

Farmer Judd worked in the mud to keep his garden pure,

Don’t mix or match, you’ll surely catch, disease he was for sure.

Sam the Slug worked in his mud but with a different mind,

For what he saw – there was no flaw – for Sam the Slug [...]]]> Farmer Judd

by Bob Grant

Farmer Judd worked in the mud to keep his garden pure,

Don’t mix or match, you’ll surely catch, disease he was for sure.

Sam the Slug worked in his mud but with a different mind,

For what he saw – there was no flaw – for Sam the Slug was blind.

For days on end Old Judd would bend to keep his seeds in sync,

He’d cuss, and fuss, when Sam moved on and set his seeds to link.

Corn in the morn – for Judd to scorn – the peas and carrots too,

Combining seeds, and weeds in one, as in his mouth he’d chew.

As time went on, and seeds he spun, Judd hated what he saw,

Until The Fair – and he was there – the countries biggest draw.

He took the credit – you can bet it – and the first to tell,

I am the one – see what I’ve done – my plants that make you well.

by Bob Grant

The Little Site that thought they could,

went online to do some good.

Started out with ups and downs,

got some smiles – got some frowns.

Writers came and writers went,

Some to speak and some to vent.

Limits none on what to post,

Theory was we’d get [...]]]> The Little Site

by Bob Grant

The Little Site that thought they could,

went online to do some good.

Started out with ups and downs,

got some smiles – got some frowns.

Writers came and writers went,

Some to speak and some to vent.

Limits none on what to post,

Theory was we’d get the most.

Doubts are none for what’s been done,

Not for profit – just for fun.

We’re here for one – we’re here for all,

We’re in it for the really long haul.

PR Week publishes monthly editions in addition to its other news services and the July issue is devoted to “The most powerful people in PR.” All industries have their major players, so there is nothing surprising that public relations would also have its heavy hitters, but [...]]]> Public Relations and the World

By Alan Caruba

PR Week publishes monthly editions in addition to its other news services and the July issue is devoted to “The most powerful people in PR.” All industries have their major players, so there is nothing surprising that public relations would also have its heavy hitters, but there are some interesting insights to be gleaned from the list of the twenty-five chosen.

I have plied the magic arts and crafts of public relations since the 1970s when I gave up the notion of ever making a decent living as a journalist. Journalism offers tons of ego satisfaction, but the pay was bad back then and, by comparison with other professions, not much better today.

The major players are, not surprisingly, the ones in charge of projecting and protecting a corporate “image”, otherwise known as perception. Number one on the list is Katie Cotton, the VP of worldwide corporate communications for Apple. She is teamed with Steve Jobs its cofounder and CEO because, together, they are the dynamic due of PR for a company that is testimony to American innovation and enterprise. It’s a very good choice.

Corporate PR folk on the list include Leslie Dach, VP for Wal-Mart; Jon Iwata, VP for IBM; Ed Skyler, Executive VP for Citigroup; Sally Susman, Senior VP for Pfizer; Chris Hassell fpr Procter & Gamble; Gary Sheffer, VP for GE; Bill Margaritis, VP for FedEx; Rachel Whetstone, VP for Google, Julie Hamp, Senior VP for PepsiCo; and Teri Everett, SVP of News Corporation.

One thing should particularly be obvious and which continues throughout the list is the role of women at very high levels, even if men continue to dominate these positions. Of particular interest is the inclusion of Stephanie Cutter among the “most powerful” as an Assistant to the President for Special Projects. That is president as in President of the United States of America. While Robert Gibbs is in the spotlight as Obama’s spokesperson, Cutter played an essential role in his campaign and now in his administration.

Of the top twenty-five named, nine were women. That’s progress.

Among the other “power principals”, there are the expected CEOs of major agencies such as Richard Edelman of Edelman; Harris Diamond, CEO of Shandwick Worldwide; Mark Penn, CEO of Burson-Marsteller, Paul Taaffe, CEO of Hill & Knowlton; and Margery Kraus, CEO of APCO Worldwide. It is worth noting that these public relations firms operate on a global basis.

In a recent public television documentary on George P. Schultz who served in many top posts, including Secretary of State for Ronald Reagan, he noted that while people think cabinet members have a lot of power, their primary power is the ability to persuade people to support their policies. I cite this because the U.S. government employs a small army of “communications” people whose job is to marshal support. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C. probably has more PR agencies per square mile than any other city in the nation.

Persuasion is the cash crop of public relations and perhaps the most interesting new trend is the creation of a whole new breed of PR folk whose expertise is in “social media” which is to say PR focused on using websites like Facebook, My Space, and Twitter to spread the message. There’s a lot of outreach to influential bloggers as well. The emergence of the Internet has been one of the major changes affecting the profession.

Time was if a PR guy or gal “placed” a story with the wire services or a major newspaper such as The New York Times, Washington Post or Los Angeles Times, or a news magazine like Newsweek or Time that was sufficient to affect events. The loss of numerous daily newspapers and the shriveling of others have altered that dynamic. The news magazines are in their death throes.

A major contributor to this is the loss of credibility these news dynamos have brought upon themselves by pushing hoaxes such as global warming or in giving unexamined support to political agendas depending on who was in office. Investigative reporting is virtually a thing of the past as news organizations trim their staffs to the bare minimum.

The recent virtual black-out on news about the New Black Panthers and the failure of the Department of Justice to pursue voter tampering charges is yet another reason fewer and fewer television viewers turn to the network news shows for, well, news.

The rise of conservative talk radio speaks to the fact that a majority of Americans self-identify as politically conservative. The popularity of leading news and opinion websites that serve this audience is testimony to the power of public opinion.

Meanwhile the PR power players, in corporations, trade associations, special interest organizations, and in agencies, are hard at work seeking to influence public opinion.

Ultimately, however, it comes down to the quality of products and services, the actions taken by government, and the state of the economy that determines what the public thinks and does.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Robert W. Walker is a graduate of Chicago’s Wells High School, Northwestern University, and the NU’s Graduate Masters in English Education program.  Rob has taught writing in all its permutations (“All writing is creative writing but not all writing sings,” he says.) from composition and developmental [...]]]> Weighing Up Traditional Publishing & Ebook Publishing

Robert W. Walker is a graduate of Chicago’s Wells High School, Northwestern University, and the NU’s Graduate Masters in English Education program.  Rob has taught writing in all its permutations (“All writing is creative writing but not all writing sings,” he says.) from composition and developmental to a study of the literary masters to creative and advanced creative writing.  His first novel was one only an arrogant youth could have conceived — a sequel to Huckleberry Finn (now published as Daniel & The Wrongway Railway, Royal Fireworks Press, NY), but his first suspense-techno-thriller-sf-mystery came in 1979, after college, a novel that won no awards entitled SUB-ZERO.
 
In any non-traditional publishing as in ebook publication, there is no such thing as “an advance against royalties”.  In Traditional Publishing as we know, now often termed DTB’s by our younger generations, ie. Dead Tree Books the “advance” has always been there. This is a significant difference. For the older generation, my generation, the first phrase that comes to mind for the author is “an advance against royalties” and what this means is the author gets a lump sum “loan payment” to start work on the process of crafting a book or novel. However, in ebook non-traditional publishing wherein everything is lower case, there are NO advances. In fact, in “non-publishing” as some like to call it, there are a lot of “NO’s” to the traditional model.
However, before we get too far afield, an advance against a royalty of a $100, 000 is a thing of beauty on the surface. No doubt about that. A writer can rejoice. However if it is for four books to be written over four years, that’s pretty much slave wages or $25,000 a year, which if one is independently wealthy makes for nice pen money. Not so with most people who are attempting to make a living (no joke) at writing.
To the midlist author who wins this arrangement or spin of the publishing wheel, 25,000 a year does not go far. It’s about minimum wage if that. Whereas in ebook publishing, there are NO advances and no paying back of that 25,000 a year either. On the one hand, your publisher grants you a “loan” to be paid back via your royalties (if royalties even occur); on the other hand, every cent of an advance must be paid back to the publisher via your royalties, and until that hundred thousand is worked off by your royalties (if at all) you see no additional funds from royalties. Should your sales be too low to return that advance to your publisher, you are both left with a bad business loan, and your name or reputation as a writer is mud thereafter.
 
The above is one area where traditional and non-traditional publishing go in very different directions. But there are far more differences for the writer as businessman as well. Below are some of the glaring differences other than no advances.
 
Traditional Publishing — Ebook Publishing

They contract for all rights including ebook — You are in a partnership with Kindle/other
Your royalty rate for paper is 10 percent/12 hardcover — Your royalty rate is 70 percent
Your chance of having returns is 100% & remainders too — So few returns, negligible/no remainders
Your chance of getting a rejection letter 90 to 100% — No rejection letters
Professional, topnotch editorial help at no charge — Editorial help at your expense
Author pockets 10-12% of a $25 book — Author pockets 70% of 2.99/3.99

(* This means an author makes more on each 2.99 ebook than each 25 traditional book)
9 months to 2 yrs. from acceptance final MS til pub date — Author publishes when s/he wishes
Publisher determines everything on cover — Author decides all cover art matters
Publisher writes copy/description of book — Author writes copy/description
Publisher can/often does change title — Author determines title
Publisher determines price of book — Author determines price
Publisher dictates/curtails length of book — Author determines length
Publisher’s royalty statement routinely confusing — Ebook gives clear daily sales report
Publisher’s royalty statement not seen for 6-12 months — Ebook statement daily report
Royalty statement/payment confusing 90% of the time — Payout arrangement clear

 
Allow me to add some other hard-won lessons regarding the above points. Publisher determines design matters such as single or multiple volumes or a series, and in ebook publishing, the author has control over such issues as series, stand-alone, or three volumes in one.
These differences are due in large part to the medium.  The medium is the message. What I can add is that with traditional publishing comes “traditional” notions of prestige, as in “real book publication” grants a writer a certain prestige among readers, critics, and other writers. However, a new attitude is being seen, an attitude among readers and writers that says the text is of tantamount importance, not the way a book is delivered. While this notion and ebook publishing have been around now for approximately thirty to forty years, young people, new generations, are embracing it completely. The idea that a book delivered in sixty seconds on a Kindle reader is as viable a piece of writing as if it is delivered between the covers of a hardbound book—or can be. This is something of a radical shift not in publishing but in readers.
 
Many traditional publishers either do not get this or simply wish to fight for the old standards of ‘proper’ format and delivery of books. In the past and now, many people believe that a book showing up in hardcover is a better book, better vetted, better edited and certainly written better. However, we have all encountered hardbound books riddled with problems from grammar to concept. More and more, readers are learning about the struggle that goes on behind the writing of a novel, the research, the rewrites, the editing, vetting and more rewrites that go into the creation of an ebook by a writer, and while some ebooks display a lack of talent, nowadays more and more display genius “outside the bun” or in this case “outside the covers”. Never judge a book by its cover takes on a whole new meaning, despite the fact ebook cover graphics has spawned a whole  new ‘industry’ as has ebook digital platform and editing services.
Publishing with a major traditional publisher certainly can win one respect and sometimes critical acclaim, neither of which are automatically going to increase sales, but awards and accolades are a wonderful thing. However, the drawbacks can be many for the author, not the least being a far smaller percentage (12 vs. 70).  Notably, traditional publishers, since the state-of-the-art Kindle device has skyrocketed in sales are suddenly insisting contractually that authors turn over their electronic rights to the publisher. Some authors have been savvy to maintain their ebook rights regardless. However, traditional publishers holding your ebook rights—especially the majors—as a rule will set your ebook price far too high to the detriment of ebook sales.
E-readers are savvy and will turn away in droves if an ebook is priced too high. Several of my books are saddled with this problem as the publisher set the price, while ebooks priced by me are selling a thousand books a month nowadays. In short, the e-reading public will seldom to never purchase a e-novel or e-book priced at the same or nearly the same as the paper or hardbound book. Not to mention that an author will always make more money putting his ebook rights to work on his own rather than through a publisher.
Working directly with Amazon.com, the author is basically given—at no charge—the opportunity to become a franchise. Most midlist authors are given no advertising budget, no coop monies, nothing as any ad dollars go for the stars alone. With Amazon/Kindle and other ebook publishers, every ebook an author places on digital platform gains instant distribution (distribution with traditional publishers presents both publisher and author with stripped, returned books, a nightmare in bookkeeping, and a sure path to remainders). Reading a royalty statement from a traditional publisher is always a guessing game; reading the daily ‘ticker’ on each ebook with your name on it is as easy as reading the stock market and about as addictive. Going back to Ebook distribution. Distribution is advertising is distribution in the ebook world. It is entirely virtual and online. With Kindle ads going out on national TV and Kindles being used as props in major motion pictures, the author can only benefit more.
There are no doubt many other comparison points between traditional and non-traditional publishing but you know what?  Non-traditional modes of publication are getting to be part of the mainstream and hardly ‘non’ anymore.  Many authors are going the Indie Author/Publisher route as it makes perfect economical sense to do so. This is especially true for authors with large backlists of otherwise dead books known as out of prints. Already edited and vetted books that have seen returns, remainder days, used bookstore days—all of which pulls money from the pocket of authors. Now such lost titles are working for authors to the tune of thousands going back into the author’s pocket.
 
I hope this little compare/contrast blog has been of help to you personally if not professionally. Hope to see you on facebook, twitter, and elsewhere online –
 
Robert W. Walker
Children of Salem, Killer Instinct, Cutting Edge, and soon at a Kindle near you, Titanic 2012
www.robertwalkerbooks.com – Free first 14 chapters of Titanic 2012 available here

I felt like this back in the days when the Watergate scandal slowly, painfully unraveled, revealing the most appalling stupidity and criminality emanating from the Oval Office. From the night when the burglars were arrested in the Democrat Committee headquarters on June 17, 1972 to the [...]]]> NASA’s Mission to the Muslims

By Alan Caruba

I felt like this back in the days when the Watergate scandal slowly, painfully unraveled, revealing the most appalling stupidity and criminality emanating from the Oval Office. From the night when the burglars were arrested in the Democrat Committee headquarters on June 17, 1972 to the day Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, Americans were forced to witness and endure something unthinkable.

The news that NASA administrator, Charles Bolden, had been dispatched to the Middle East to fulfill what he said was its “foremost” mission, “to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science…and math and engineering” was so appallingly stupid that it defied any legitimate reason for NASA to exist.

The other mission objectives Barack Obama charged Bolden with were to “re-inspire children to want to get into science and math” and to “expand our international relationships.”

You need a bit of history to lend some clarity to this. NASA was the direct result of the Cold War scare when the Russians put Sputnik into orbit over the Earth in October 1957, thereby demonstrating they had missiles powerful enough to launch a nuclear attack on the nation. It galvanized the U.S. government into passing the National Defense Education Act in order to get more young Americans to go into the fields of science and math, and it prompted the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for the purpose of demonstrating American scientists and engineers could create bigger and better missiles.

Muslims had nothing to do with it then and nothing to do with it now.

In February, President Obama proposed that NASA abandon its Constellation program. As the New York Times reported at the time, it would involve abandoning “the rockets and spacecraft that NASA has been working on for the past four years to replace space shuttles.” It would impose a mandate “that any future exploration program will be an international collaboration”, not an American one.

NASA made news again in mid-June when it was announced that Obama’s amended budget request would slash $100 million from its operating funds in order to “spur economic growth and job creation along Florida’s Space Coast and other affected regions.” According to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, this somehow “revitalizes NASA and transitions to new opportunities in the space industry and beyond.” How many NASA engineers and scientists will now transition to jobs at Disneyworld?

Islam has not been “hijacked” by the likes of Osama bin Laden. Islam has always been about the conquest of the world and its greatest “scientific” breakthroughs since the 1980s have been the development of truck bombs and suicide bombers who have attacked targets from Bali to London, Madrid to Manhattan.

Obama’s Cairo speech on June 4, 2009 was filled with the kind of lies that portray Islam as a peaceful religion and one responsible for all manner of scientific breakthroughs from the invention of the magnetic compass to the printing of books.

Neither is true. What is true is that the Chinese had developed the compass and Islam had resisted printing books for a thousand years following its rise after 632AD.

Those under the oppression of Islam did not contribute to or experience the rise of science and the arts as both were rejected as un-Islamic. Many forms of music, for example, were banned in Islam. While the West was producing Galileo, Isaac Newton, Nicolaus Copernicus, Aristotle, Rene Descartes and Albert Einstein, not one single scholar of comparable stature was produced in the Islamic world.

Contrary to Obama’s mission to reach out to Muslims, they “reached out” to the West and, in America on September 11, 2001, destroyed the Twin Towers and attacked the Pentagon, killing some 3,000 victims.

Typical of the arrogance of Islam is the proposal to build a mosque within a block of ground zero in New York City!

Building mosques over sites held sacred to non-Muslims is an long tradition of Islam, from the mosque built over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, to the countless other mosques in converted Christian churches, Buddhist and Hindu temples, as a demonstration of their intention to replace Western and Asian religions.

Permitting the building of the proposed New York mosque would signal submission to Islam.

Perverting and defunding NASA’s mission is evidence of Obama’s commitment to Islam.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Much has happened in the dense and shifting political landscape of the past 18 months—the quick breakdown along partisan lines in Congress; continuing arguments over spending, the economy and immigration; the big Republican wins in Virginia, New [...]]]> The Town Hall Revolt, One Year Later

Democrats didn’t get the message. Will Republicans do better?

Much has happened in the dense and shifting political landscape of the past 18 months—the quick breakdown along partisan lines in Congress; continuing arguments over spending, the economy and immigration; the big Republican wins in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts; the Gulf oil spill; falling poll numbers for the president and his party.

But the biggest political moment, the one that carried the deepest implications, came exactly one year ago, in July and August of 2009, in the town hall rebellion. Looking back, that was a turning point in both parties’ fortunes. That is when the first resistance to Washington’s plans on health care became manifest, and it’s when a more generalized resistance rose and spread.

President Obama and his party in Congress had, during their first months in power, done the one thing they could not afford to do politically, and that was arouse and unite their opposition. The conservative movement and Republican Party had been left fractured and broken by the end of the Bush years. Now, suddenly, they had something to fight against together. Social conservatives hated the social provisions, liberty-minded conservatives the state control, economic conservatives the spending. Health care brought them together. The center, which had gone for Mr. Obama in 2008, joined them.

Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats saw it coming. But it was a seminal moment, and whatever is coming in November, it started there.

It was a largely self-generated uprising, and it was marked, wherever it happened, in San Diego or St. Louis, by certain common elements. The visiting senator or representative, gone home to visit the voters, always seemed shocked at the size of the audience and the depth of his constituents’ anger. There was usually a voter making a videotape in the back of the hall. There were almost always spirited speeches from voters. There was never, or not once that I saw, a strong and informed response from the congressman. In one way it was like the Iranian revolution: Most people got the earliest and fullest reports of what was happening on the Internet, through YouTube. Voters would take shaky videos on their cellphones and post them when they got home. Suddenly, over a matter of weeks, you could type in “town hall” and you’d get hundreds, and finally thousands, of choices.

The politicians, every one of them, seemed taken aback—shaken and unprepared. They tried various strategies—mollify the crowd, or try to explain to them how complex governing is. Sen. Arlen Specter tried that in early August 2009, in an appearance with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Faced with fierce criticism of the health-care bill as it then stood, Mr. Specter explained that see here, it’s a thousand-page bill and sometimes Congress must make judgements “very fast.” The crowd exploded in jeers.

When Rep. Russ Carnahan held a town hall meeting at a community college in Missouri on July 20, he tried patiently to explain that ObamaCare not only would be deficit-neutral, it would save money. They didn’t shout him down, they laughed. When Sen. Claire McCaskill appeared before a town hall meeting in Jefferson County, Mo., on Aug. 11, she responded to the crowd with words that sum up the moment: “I don’t get it. . . . I honestly don’t get it. . . . You don’t trust me?” “No!” the crowd roared.

When Rep. Brian Baird went before his constituents in Clark County, Wash., on Aug. 18, he was met by this speech from a young man in the audience: “I heard you say that you are going to let us keep our health insurance. Well thank you! It’s not your right to decide whether I keep my current plan or not, that’s my decision.” The constituent got cheers.

It was a real pushback, and it was fueled by indignation. The attitude was: “We have terrible worries—unemployment, the cost of government, its demands, our ability to compete and win in the world. You are focused on your thing, but we are focused on these things.”

The videos, still on YouTube, can be pretty stirring. There’s a real “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” feel about them. It was not only Democrats but Republicans too who felt the heat, and were surprised by it.

The president, of course, got his victory on health care. But a funny thing is, normally the press and the public judge a president’s effectiveness in large part by legislative victories—whether he has “the ability to get his program through Congress.” Winning brings winning, which increases popularity. Mr. Obama won on more than health care; he won on the stimulus package and the Detroit bailout. And yet his poll numbers continue to float downward. He is not more loved with victory. To an unusual and maybe unprecedented degree his victories seem like victories for him, and for his party, and for his agenda, but they haven’t settled in as broad triumphs that illustrate power and competence.

In the past an LBJ showed his mastery by taming and controlling Congress. Mr. Obama’s ability to work closely with the Democrats does not seem like evidence of mastery. The biggest single phrase you hear about him now, and it isn’t coming from pundits and being repeated, it is bubbling up from normal people and being seized by pundits, is the idea that he is in over his head, and out of his depth. And this while he keeps winning.

Nor is the left happy with him. In The Nation this week, Eric Alterman writes that most progressives agree “the Obama presidency has been a big disappointment.” No public option on health care, and labor unions, “among his most fervent and dedicated foot soldiers,” see card check as “deader than Jimmy Hoffa.” Is it possible the president “fooled gullible progressives during the election into believing he was a left-liberal partisan when in fact he is much closer to a conservative corporate shill”? Progressives, including two Mr. Alterman knows “who sport Nobel Prizes on their shelves” now feel this way.

Meanwhile some Republicans are feeling triumphalist, but it may be premature. At the moment they are beating up Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele for his comments on Afghanistan. What was wrong with what Mr. Steele said was obvious: Afghanistan was not Mr. Obama’s war of choice but a nine-year-old war the president has so far continued. But Afghanistan, like Iraq, is the meal he was served, not the meal he chose.

Far worse than Mr. Steele’s muddling of the facts is that he spoke in a way that suggested the war could be used as a political tool against the administration. He was approaching a grave matter—war—in a merely partisan and political manner. How cheap and hackish.

The Republicans still need to show that they are worthy of the electoral bounty that is likely to come their way. Are they ready to govern, or only to win? Part of being worthy is showing yourself capable of having serious and truly open debate. What, in the post-9/11 world, should be our overarching foreign policy? What is it we’re trying to accomplish? How should we try to get it done? What is the way out of our economic disaster? What must we do, how must we do it?

It’s hard for those who do politics as a profession not to get lost in the day-to-day, but if they don’t start thinking big and encouraging debate, they’re going to blow it, too. And they’ll find out at a town hall meeting in 2013. Or earlier.

“Important” events happened recently to two women.  The relative attention paid and press coverage about the two tells a lot about where we are as a nation, and it isn’t good.  The two women are Lindsay Lohan and Pam Murphy. All of you know that Lindsay Lohan is a [...]]]> A Tale of Two Women

“Important” events happened recently to two women.  The relative attention paid and press coverage about the two tells a lot about where we are as a nation, and it isn’t good.  The two women are Lindsay Lohan and Pam Murphy.
All of you know that Lindsay Lohan is a spoiled, self-centered, self-destructive twit who was just sentenced to 90 days in jail for multiple instances of contempt of court.  But how many of you know who Pam Murphy was?  Let’s not always see the same hands.
Pam Murphy was the widow of Audie Murphy, the most decorated US soldier from WW II.  Here is how an article in Veterans Today on 10 April, 2010, described her:
“After Audie died, they all became her boys. Every last one of them.
“Any soldier or Marine who walked into the Sepulveda VA hospital and care center in the last 35 years got the VIP treatment from Pam Murphy.
 
“The widow of Audie Murphy – the most decorated soldier in World War II – would walk the hallways with her clipboard in hand making sure her boys got to see a specialist or doctor — STAT. If they didn’t, watch out.
 
“Her boys weren’t Medal of Honor recipients or movie stars like Audie, but that didn’t matter to Pam. They had served their country. That was good enough for her.
 
“She never called a veteran by his first name. It was always ‘Mister.’ Respect came with the job.”
 
“ ‘Nobody could cut through VA red tape faster than Mrs. Murphy,’ said veteran Stephen Sherman, speaking for thousands of veterans she befriended over the years.
 
“ ‘Many times I watched her march a veteran who had been waiting more than an hour right into the doctor’s office. She was even reprimanded a few times, but it didn’t matter to Mrs. Murphy.’
 
“ ‘Only her boys mattered. She was our angel.’ ”
 
For that whole article, go here: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/04/16/pam-murphy-widow-of-actor-audie-murphy-was-veterans-friend-and-advocate/
 
The simple truth is that Pam Murphy did more for her “boys,” and through them for all of America, before lunch on any day of her 90 years, than Lindsay Lohan did for anyone, anytime.  And yet, Lohan’s sniveling before the judge got wall-to-wall press coverage, but the death of a great and dedicated woman passed almost unnoticed.
Consider how much better our press would be, our nation would be, our lives would be, if the life of Pam Murphy had been covered and celebrated like the Lohan court hearing.  And the contrary is true, what if the Lohan hearing had been covered in a few lines back in the papers next to the pet obituaries?
I spend much of my time reading about the Framers, their lives, their philosophies, their times, and their works.  Occasionally people say to me, “Those were unique times.  We couldn’t find a collection of Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, and so on, today.”  To that I answer, yes we can. 
But we can’t find them where the originals were found, in Congress.  Can anyone recite the names of the current leaders of Congress alongside of the leaders of Congress when the Declaration of Independence was passed and signed, without sardonic tears?
Yet, here is proof that America still generates leaders of the vision and caliber of the Framers, and of Pam Murphy.  These are three Americans I’ve had the privilege of knowing and working with over the years.  I’ll match any and all of them up with any of the Framers, beginning with John and Abigail Adams.  See if you agree:
Dr. Thomas Sowell.  The late Dr. Jeane Kirkpatrick.  The late Dr. Milton Friedman.  If any of these names are unfamiliar to you, I won’t attempt to explain such extraordinary people in a sentence or two.  Look them up.  Get into their writings.  See whether you agree that people of the quality of the Framers yet live and work among us.
Then ask why our press is filled with trivialities, and void of the greatness that America actually possesses.  That’s what I thought of this week, when I contemplated the vast gulf between Lindsay Lohan and Pam Murphy, this week.

About the Author: John Armor practiced before the Supreme Court for 33 years. John_Armor@aya,yale.edu His latest book, to appear in September, is on Thomas Paine. www.TheseAreTheTimes.us
 

John Armor, Esq.
Box 243, 421 Kettle Rock Road
Highlands, NC  28741
828.200-0320
John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
www.TheseAreTheTimes.us

by Bob Grant

Why write in rhyme instead of prose,

that’s usually how the question goes.

Some like a beer – some like the wine,

You’re free to choose and that’s just fine.

The same holds true for me I guess,

Perhaps I’m playing solitaire chess.

What rhymes with ouch, [...]]]> Why Write in Rhyme?

by Bob Grant

Why write in rhyme instead of prose,

that’s usually how the question goes.

Some like a beer – some like the wine,

You’re free to choose and that’s just fine.

The same holds true for me I guess,

Perhaps I’m playing solitaire chess.

What rhymes with ouch, or pouch, or tooth -

easier than you think and that’s the truth.

I write for reason – I write for fun -

I write for purpose – I write for none -

write in my house – write in the mall.

I write in rhyme – no reason at all.

Saying that as a black woman conjures up a lot of feelings, jokes and anger. But not for me. Once a young friend chastised me for cutting my hair. She told me everyone was trying to grow some and here I destroying mine. My response was “It’s [...]]]> My hair is not my shining glory.

Saying that as a black woman conjures up a lot of feelings, jokes and anger. But not for me. Once a young friend chastised me for cutting my hair. She told me everyone was trying to grow some and here I destroying mine. My response was “It’s only hair and it will grow back”. It was something she didn’t understand because for ages black women have wanted the hair they claim God didn’t give them. I know why, I understand why but I think now is the time to get over it. It is time for a major hair change in this country.

Historically the black hair thing started out as a racial problem. Blacks were slaves and considered inferior in everything from looks to intelligence. The Emancipation Proclamation may have removed physical shackles but not the mental ones left on both sides. It was hard for whites to see blacks as equal because they did not look like them. It was hard for blacks to get a job or have a good life because they didn’t look white. Looking white was the way to have the ‘good life’ in the United States. And the good life could only come with those who struggled to have good hair or have women and children with good hair.

I grew up a victim of this intolerance. When my mother deemed me old enough I was sent to a hairdresser to get my thick kinky hair ‘straightened’ with a hot comb, an invention credited to Madame C. J. Walker. I hated sitting in the beauty shop waiting for them to get to my hair. Because I was a child they did my hair last, or as least that’s’ what they said. As I grew older I realized it was the thickness of my hair that caused beauticians to scoff and raise the price. I didn’t have that ‘good hair’. I have what I termed ‘miscegented hair’.  Every race of my ancestors appears on my head. When I wanted to get an Afro I had a hard time because my hair was not consistently curly or kinky. I had to have my hair extremely short to accomplish a natural or roll up the often too straight front and hope it was stay curled to mimic the rest of my tight locks.

Hey let’s call it what it was- nappy. Don’t really know where that term comes from but many older black women consider it the other ‘n’ word. We all knew that nappy hair would not get you a job. So black men cut their hair short and black women tried to have flowing tresses like white women or at least have hair in the same condition as white women. It went beyond Madame Walker’s hot comb. It became perms which originally burned the scalp but softened the curl in the hair to make it look white. Then there was the Jeri-Curl phenom. This was a two prong process of straightening the hair and then re-curling it into shining and non-kinky tendrils. When that didn’t work there was always, and still is, hair extensions, the process of adding real of fake hair to one’s own to achieve certain looks and styles. Many believe this is what made the late Farrah Fawcet have such a great mane- it wasn’t all hers. I don’t know about that but I understand that many Hollywood lovelies of all races use extensions to fill out their hair look.

Unfortunately this created a new black hair issue.

Black hair salons and the products used to take care of black hair are thriving businesses. Most black hair salons are owned by people of color. There are still a few black owned hair care product companies, but most of the major hair and cosmetic companies have gotten in on the deal with products for women of color. If you get a chance take a look at the Chris Rock documentary “Good Hair”. While Mr. Rock tells the story of the black hair situation in the black community he offers no solutions or answers. One question he raises is why don’t black people own more of their own businesses?

It used to be that we couldn’t get loans to buy the needed property and goods. It is one of those things held over from the early days of black freedom and the continuing wave of racism in this nation. It wasn’t that people were being turned down because of race. They weren’t allowed to apply because of race. My mother was one of the first accountants to get a Small Business Loan for one of her clients when the laws changed. There was, and still is, a continuance of redlining in neighborhoods and other forms of racism that stops blacks from achieving the goal of being their own master. Master is the term I meant to use. As far back as my parents’ college days the term ‘slave’ was used to talk about jobs, especially those with unequal pay. Places where one works and is made to feel less than an accepted employee are still called ‘plantations’. The people who slave at these plantations are often the same ones who fight for equal rights on the job without any fanfare.

What does this all have to do with black hair? Check this out.

A few weeks back a fairly well off black woman in my community decided she wanted to open up a different kind of hair salon. She wanted it to have a swanky upscale feel using only the best products and the best hair for extensions or what we call weaves. She would also offer massage therapy on site and several types of manicures and pedicures. She had the space, she knew she had the clientele she even had top hair dressers with years of experience in the field. Everything looked like a go until she made contacts with the suppliers of the hair, hair products and nail products. The suppliers are usually Koreans and the Koreans she associated with told her they would not supply any products unless she gave them a cut of her profits.

It wasn’t enough that she was going to have to buy everything she needed from them and their sources but they wanted a share of her profits. Otherwise she would not be able to do anything she wanted.

It makes me wonder about all the hair salons in this city and in this country. Was this an individual case of greed based on a racial need or is it across the board? When I heard about it the first thing that came to mind was protesting, the way we did in the 60s and 70s and got results. But this time the protest would be extremely difficult. It would mean black women giving up all other looks but one- the natural.

It is hard to imagine the number of issues that would be sparked by such a drastic change. We would have to look at ourselves as we are without any nods to a so-called predominate race. Women who had perceived themselves as unattractive because they could not grow long tendrils would have to learn to love what they saw in the mirror: a beautiful woman a mixed heritage with hair that spoke the same.

It would change the face of fashion, which often excludes black models, not for their hair but for their ample figures. If no black woman in this country donned a wig, a weave, used a perm or a straightening comb the distinction and pride of a race would easily be understood. Would there still be the fear instilled in the 60s when Afros meant the wearer was militant? Time would tell but white people have been wearing their hair ‘natural’ ever since they brought slaves to this country. Why can’t the descendants of slaves do the same?

The answer is the melting pot. This country is not ready for the ingredients in the pot to be darkened. They are still trying to lighten it up. And that means lightening up brown people to blend with the mixture. Those out there trying to get jobs in this messed up economy will tell you they are still made to feel that white is right. Embracing the black heritage is one thing. Embracing naturally black hair is another.

I have gone on about this issue fair longer than I should have but it is irksome to me. This thing about black hair runs deeper than sewn in weaves and is thicker than my hair in its natural state. I know several women who have gone natural or have dreds because they feel that is natural. I’m still debating that issue in my mind. But the majority of black women are attached to long hair and dreams of it. It still means a better life, a better job, even a better man. Black people cannot be raised to positions of great power in this nation looking like their black ancestors. President Obama’s hair is cut short, his wife’s is a perm. And remember what happened last summer when their oldest daughter went natural? Several people, most of them white, said it was inappropriate for the child of a head of state.

This is the initial problem: a country not ready for a hair change. And that, people, creates a real black hair problem no matter what way you look at it.

I confess I always look forward to July Fourth because it carries with it memories of my parents who proudly displayed the flag on every holiday and of the full day of celebration by my hometown that began with races in the morning by the [...]]]> God and Governance in the USA

By Alan Caruba

I confess I always look forward to July Fourth because it carries with it memories of my parents who proudly displayed the flag on every holiday and of the full day of celebration by my hometown that began with races in the morning by the various grades of school kids, baking and other contests, a circus and a concert in the afternoon and early evening, concluded with a grand display of fireworks at night.

My parents were both first generation Americans and their parents understood what the American Dream was because they had lived it. They had endured hard times and good, and were fiercely patriotic.

They would have been mystified and angered to hear the talk of the “separation of church and state” to justify thwarting the acknowledgement that God is at the very center of the nation’s creation. The Constitution does not speak of separation. It says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

The Founders were well aware of the torments and injustices of the “old world” in which there were state religions and woe to those who were not members thereof. They were not anti-religion. They were against formal alliances between the state and a particular religion.

Atheists and secularists fail to acknowledge that “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 belief in God and the right to worship Him as one wished literally accounts for the first brave journeys to the land that would become colonies and then an independent nation. The Pilgrims came in search of the freedom to worship as they wished.

When the Declaration of Independence was signed, Samuel Adams wrote, “We have this day restored the Sovereign, to whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and…from the rising to the setting sun, may His Kingdom come.”

When the fifty-six men from the thirteen colonies first gathered in Philadelphia on September 7, 1774 as a sitting Congress, there was a suggestion that the meeting begin with prayer. The motion was initially opposed, not because the delegates did not believe in God, but because they represented various religious backgrounds. There were Episcopalians, Quakers, Anabaptists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists.

Samuel Adams stood to address the assembly. “I am no bigot. I could hear a prayer from a gentleman of piety and virtue.” He suggested that an Episcopalian clergyman, Jacob Duche, fit that description and that he be asked to read prayers to the Congress the following morning. The motion was seconded and passed.

In a book by Toby Mac and Michael Tait, “Under God”, they note that “A paid minister, whose salary has been paid by taxpayers since 1789, opens every session of Congress with prayer.”

On December 4, 1800, just weeks after moving into the newly opened Capitol Building, it became a home to religious services. Senator John Quincy Adams recorded in his diary, “Religious service is usually performed on Sundays at the Treasury office and at the Capitol. I went both forenoon and afternoon to the Treasury.”

Among the many interesting facts and stories they cite is one about the Washington Monument that is topped with an aluminum cap upon which two words are etched, Laus Deo, meaning praise to God and, within the cornerstone, laid on July 4, 1848, rests the Holy Bible, presented by the Bible Society.

Let those who would cast out God, would cast out the religion of the Founding Fathers and tolerance for those seeking freedom under God be rebuked. They are strangers to what it means to say, “I am an American.”

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s greatest contribution to the war in Afghanistan may turn out to be forcing everyone to focus on it. The real news there this week was not Gen. McChrystal’s epic faux pas and dismissal but [...]]]> McChrystal Forces Us to Focus

Now Petraeus owes us a candid assessment of the Afghan effort.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s greatest contribution to the war in Afghanistan may turn out to be forcing everyone to focus on it. The real news there this week was not Gen. McChrystal’s epic faux pas and dismissal but that 12 soldiers were killed on June 7-8, including five Americans by a roadside bomb, making that “the deadliest 24 hour period this year,” as The Economist noted. Insurgency-related violence was up by 87% in the six months prior to March. Agence France-Presse reported Thursday that NATO forces are experiencing their deadliest month ever.

There have been signal moments in this war since its inception, and we are in the middle of one now.

It has gone on almost nine years. It began rightly, legitimately. On 9/11 we had been attacked, essentially, from Afghanistan, harborer of terrorists. We invaded and toppled the Taliban with dispatch, courage and even, for all our woundedness, brio. We all have unforgettable pictures in our minds. One of mine is the grainy footage of a U.S. cavalry charge, with local tribesman, against a Taliban stronghold. It left me cheering. You too, I bet.

But Washington soon took its eye off the ball, turning its focus and fervor to invading Iraq. Over the years, the problems in Afghanistan mounted. In 2009, amid a growing air of crisis, Secretary of Defense Bob Gates sacked the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan—institutional Army, maybe a little old-style. He was replaced by Gen. McChrystal—special forces background, black ops, an agile and resourceful snake eater. “Politicians love the mystique of these guys,” said a general this week. Snake eaters know it, and wind up being even more colorful, reveling in their ethos of bucking the system.

Last August, Gen. McChrystal produced, and someone leaked, a 66-page report warning of “mission failure.” More troops and new strategy were needed. The strategy, counterinsurgency, was adopted. That was a signal moment within a signal moment, for at the same time the president committed 30,000 more troops and set a deadline for departure, July 2011. The mission on the ground was expanded—counterinsurgency, also known as COIN, is nation building, and nation building is time- and troop-intensive—but the timeline for success was truncated.

COIN is a humane strategy not lacking in shrewdness: Don’t treat the people of a sovereign nation as if they just wandered across your battlefield. Instead, befriend them, consult them, build schools, give them an investment in peace. Only America, and God bless it, would try to take the hell out of war. But the new strategy involved lawyering up, requiring troops to receive permission before they hit targets. Some now-famous cases make clear this has endangered soldiers and damaged morale.

The Afghan government, on which COIN’s success hinges, is corrupt and unstable. That is their political context. But are we fully appreciating the political context of the war at home, in America?

The left doesn’t like this war and will only grow more opposed to it. The center sees that it has gone on longer than Vietnam, and “we’ve seen that movie before.” We’re in an economic crisis; can we afford this war? The right is probably going to start to peel off, not Washington policy intellectuals but people on the ground in America. There are many reasons for this. Their sons and nephews have come back from repeat tours full of doubts as to the possibility of victory, “whatever that is,” as we all now say. There is the brute political fact that the war is now President Obama’s. The blindly partisan will be only too happy to let him stew in it.

Republican leaders such as John McCain are stalwart: This war can be won. But there’s a sense when you watch Mr. McCain that he’s very much speaking for Mr. McCain, and McCainism. Republicans respect this attitude: “Never give in.” But people can respect what they choose not to follow. The other day Sen. Lindsey Graham, in ostensibly supportive remarks, said that Gen. David Petraeus, Gen. McChrystal’s replacement, “is our only hope.” If he can’t pull it out, “nobody can.” That’s not all that optimistic a statement.

The U.S. military is overstretched in every way, including emotionally and psychologically. The biggest takeaway from a week at U.S. Army War College in 2008 was the exhaustion of the officers. They are tired from repeat deployments, and their families are stretched to the limit, with children reaching 12 and 13 without a father at home.

The president himself is in a parlous position with regard to support, which means with regard to his ability to persuade, to be believed, to be followed. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll shows more people disapprove of Mr. Obama’s job performance than approve.

When he ran for president, Mr. Obama blasted Iraq but called Afghanistan the “good war.” This was in line with public opinion, and as a young Democratic progressive who hadn’t served in the military, he had to kick away from the old tie-dyed-hippie-lefty-peacenik hangover that dogs the Democratic Party to this day, even as heartless-warlike-bigot-in-plaid-golf-shorts dogs the Republicans. In 2009 he ordered a top-to-bottom review of Afghanistan. In his valuable and deeply reported book “The Promise,” Jonathan Alter offers new information on the review. A reader gets the sense it is meant to be reassuring—they’re doing a lot of thinking over there!—but for me it was not. The president seems to have thought government experts had answers, or rather reliable and comprehensive information that could be weighed and fully understood. But in Washington, agency analysts and experts don’t have answers, really. They have product. They have factoids. They have free-floating data. They have dots in a pointillist picture, but they’re not artists, they’re dot-makers.

More crucially, the president asked policy makers, in Mr. Alter’s words, “If the Taliban took Kabul and controlled Afghanistan, could it link up with Pakistan’s Taliban and threaten command and control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons?” The answer: Quite possibly yes. Mr. Alter: “Early on, the President eliminated withdrawal (from Afghanistan) as an option, in part because of a new classified study on what would happen to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal if the Islamabad government fell to the Taliban.”

That is always the heart-stopper in any conversation about Afghanistan, terrorists and Pakistan’s nukes. But the ins and outs of this question—what we know, for instance, about the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service, and its connections to terrorists—are not fully discussed. Which means a primary argument in the president’s arsenal is denied him.

It is within the context of all this mess that—well, Gen. Petraeus a week and a half ago, in giving Senate testimony on Afghanistan, appeared to faint. And Gen. McChrystal suicide-bombed his career. One of Gen. McChrystal’s aides, in the Rolling Stone interview, said that if Americans “started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular.”

Maybe we should find out. Gen. Petraeus’s confirmation hearings are set for next week. He is a careful man, but this is no time for discretion. What is needed now is a deep, even startling, even brute candor. The country can take it. It’s taken two wars. So can Gen. Petraeus. He can’t be fired because both his predecessors were, and because he’s Petraeus. In that sense he’s fireproof. Which is not what he’ll care about. He cares about doing what he can to make America safer in the world. That means being frank about a war that can be prosecuted only if the American people support it. They have focused. They’re ready to hear.

In “Act of Creation”, a 2003 book by Stephen C. Schlesinger tells the story of how the United Nations was established.. At one point he writes that “The first person of any importance noted was Alger Hiss, the acting secretary general of the United Nations, originally appointed [...]]]> The UN’s New Scams

By Alan Caruba

In “Act of Creation”, a 2003 book by Stephen C. Schlesinger tells the story of how the United Nations was established.. At one point he writes that “The first person of any importance noted was Alger Hiss, the acting secretary general of the United Nations, originally appointed to that post on the recommendation of President Roosevelt and Secretary Stetinius.”

Hiss would later be revealed to be a communist agent of the Soviet Union, one of many in the Roosevelt administration. In 1950 Hiss went to jail for perjury, denying his guilt to the end.

All this and more became known with the publication of the Venona documents, a record of secret communications with Soviet spymasters that had been intercepted by U.S. counterintelligence during World War Two.

I cite this so you will understand that Roosevelt’s pet project, the founding of a new international organization, was largely shaped by communists within his administration. A previous effort, the League of Nations, advocated by President Woodrow Wilson after World War One, failed to deter World War Two.

The UN, through its International Atomic Energy Agency, has provided cover and time for Iran to create nuclear weapons, thus setting in motion a war that defies imagination.

A Global Government

Since its beginning, the United Nations has been all about establishing a global government. The inroads against individual national sovereignty have never ceased, pieced together in a fabric of international treaties that, in the case of the U.S., supercede our Constitution when signed.

Since its creation, it has vastly increased its authority through a whole series of agencies devoted to the environment, health, refugees, the seas, urbanization, and a host of other issues. A treaty about the world’s seas limits military action, mining rights, and other aspects of international law that Americans take for granted. It is waiting on approval in the U.S. Senate.

The U.N.’s Small Arms Treaty would nullify the Constitution’s Second Amendment right of citizens to bear arms while prohibiting firearm and ammunition manufacturers from selling to the public, any transfer of firearm ownership, and require U.S. citizens to deliver any firearm they own to the local government for collection and destruction.

In the last century governments worldwide have been responsible for the murder of an estimated 262 million of their citizens even when some had small arms. Most, however, were defenseless.

Most Americans are by now familiar with the UN’s Environmental Program that has been at the heart of the “global warming” hoax. It was based entirely on falsified computer models whose primary source was the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Great Britain and even U.S. government agencies such as NOAA.

In November 2009, thousands of leaked emails between the CRU and fellow conspirators in the U.S. revealed that they were doing everything in their power to prevent the release of their data bases while also denying the publication of data that debunked their machinations in formerly respected science journals.

Biodiversity, the New Scare

Seeing the collapse of “global warming” as an instrument to destroy industrialization by claiming the Earth was threatened by carbon dioxide emissions (a gas that is essential to the growth of all vegetation on the planet), the environmental conspirators in the UN have come up with a new global scare campaign; the claim that species and forests, et cetera, are disappearing so fast that the case for saving them is “more powerful than climate change.”

Elements of the UN report were made known on its annual International Day for Biodiversity in May. In a Washington Times commentary, E. Calvin Beisner identified this as a “familiar green tactic known as ‘science by press release.’” The thrust of this new global scam is an attack on the global economic system in order to put it under the control of the United Nations.

Get ready to hear from every direction that the rate of species extinction is now anywhere from one thousand to ten thousand times faster than ever before and, like “climate change” it is going to be blamed on human beings and their evil economic system. It will, of course, be based on computer models!

The United States has already fallen prey to the bogus “endangered species” racket, having passed a law in 1973 to protect them. Its true purpose is to stop any development, any agricultural activity, and any access to energy resources.

The Endangered Species Act is the reason the federal government now routinely shuts off irrigation water to farmers, ruining their farms and lives while driving up the cost of the crops they would otherwise be providing.

It is a splendid way for environmentalists to undermine the nation’s economy and security.

The United Nations has proven to be, not merely a huge failure regarding its mission to end war, but an international institution that has long since metastasized into a relentless quest for global government and, with it, the subjugation of humanity.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

by Bob Grant

Which one is first – the left or right,

when shoes go on in morning’s light.

Socks the same before you start,

conclusions formed but just a part.

Pants come next for you to choose,

they have to match your socks and shoes.

Swipe that stick for six or [...]]]> Decisions Made

by Bob Grant

Which one is first – the left or right,

when shoes go on in morning’s light.

Socks the same before you start,

conclusions formed but just a part.

Pants come next for you to choose,

they have to match your socks and shoes.

Swipe that stick for six or eight,

check that clock you can’t be late.

Shirt of white or maybe blue,

down one egg or go for two.

Decisions made like this and more -

you’ve yet to make it out the door.

While standing in line at the bank last week, I overheard a 20-something employee talking to his boomer colleague about a concert he had attended over the weekend. “It was bad-ass!” he exclaimed, loud enough for the entire line of waiting customers [...]]]> IMITATION ISN’T ALWAYS FLATTERING:
Lessons From The Land Of Youth And Cool

While standing in line at the bank last week, I overheard a 20-something employee talking to his boomer colleague about a concert he had attended over the weekend. “It was bad-ass!” he exclaimed, loud enough for the entire line of waiting customers to hear. I couldn’t believe my ears when the decades-older banker replied, “Yeah, my weekend was bad-ass, too!”

In fact, my reaction to this conversation was so negative that I thought about it and talked about it for days. Okay, maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I don’t feel comfortable having my money handled by anyone who—while within earshot of customers—describes his weekend as “bad-ass.” Could it be that I trust only silver-haired prep-school patricians who steer clear of slang to protect my savings? My intellect reasoned that a banker who uses the term “bad-ass” could be just as stalwart in his duties. Could it be that I, a resident of the “Socialist Republic of Berkeley,” might be more conservative than I’d like to admit? As I wrestled with all of this, a simple truth emerged: young or old, I don’t want a “bad-ass” banker!

In early times, when the younger generation entered the workforce, they emulated their elders in speech, dress, and behavior. But the tables have turned and the older generations are now copying the younger ones in a desperate attempt to remain youthful, cool, and cutting edge. All around me I hear Boomers and Gen X’ers imitating the slang and diction of their younger counterparts. A few months ago, I listened to a panel of women professionals who sounded more like Southern California valley girls than experts. The problem was simple: upward inflection. The panelists turned each statement into a question by raising their pitch at the end of every sentence, which made their speech sing-songy—often adding, “Right?” when they finished saying something. The panelists sounded unsure of themselves, as if they were seeking approval, rather than coming across as confident and in command.

Lately I’ve been catching myself sprinkling “ya know” between my sentences, as though I’m asking my listener for agreement or approval (which, by the way, I’m really not). Yuk! And, yes, I’m also guilty of overusing the most unlikable and misused word in the English language. Like, ya know which word I’m, like, talking about, right?

Obviously, Millennials, Gen Y’ers, Gen X’ers, and Boomers all have plenty to offer in the workplace. The younger generations bring tech saviness, energy, curiosity, and enthusiasm. The older generations provide invaluable job skills, long-term client relationships, life experience, and historical perspective. But when it comes to language usage and habits of speech, we would all be better off if the younger folks emulated their older colleagues instead of the other way around. Regardless of your age or the industry in which you are employed, here are some tips for making the workplace a little less “bad-ass” and a bit more dignified the next time you communicate:

KICK THE LIKE HABIT
This habit might seem impossible to shake, but don’t worry! With greater self-awareness and practice you can start sounding like the expert you really are. Many of us have had to work hard to shake off an accent (in my case, a cheese-steak thick Philadelphia accent), so believe me when I tell you that kicking the “like” habit is also doable. I suggest taping yourself describing a conversation (you can do this privately or with a friend), then replay and notice how often you insert “like” into your sentences. Pinpoint where you use misuse the word: Is it when you’re quoting someone? When you’re thinking or needing to pause? Is it a way for you to fill the silence? If it’s the latter, try speaking more slowly and deliberately. Using pauses, deep breaths, and imagining that you are talking to someone who speaks little English can help you slow down and shake the “like” habit. For more ideas on how to, like, stop saying “like,” check out this great wikihow article.

GET RID OF UPWARD INFLECTION
Upward inflection, just like gross misuse of the word “like,” can be detrimental to careers—sufferers may not be taken seriously or may be seen as lacking the necessary confidence to climb the workplace ladder. First, read a few declarative sentences into a tape recorder. Listen to hear if you are saying them as a statement of fact or as a question. If you sound like you are asking a question, then you are upward inflecting at the end of the sentence. To change your speech patterns, say out loud, “I need to convince them of this!” and then immediately repeat the sentence to practice downward intonation. For example, people with an upward inflection habit will take a statement like, “This is a good budget!” and say it as though they were asking a question, “This is a good budget?” Repeat your statement several times until you can say it without the question mark.

BE SENSITIVE WHEN USING SLANG
Adjusting your communication style so that each audience will understand and relate to you is what I call “chameleon communication.” For example, a rampant texter probably doesn’t email his grandmother using the same abbreviations and emoticons used when texting friends. Instead, he uses expressions she will understand. Apply this same logic to the workplace—coworkers and clients from different generations may not know what certain slang words mean or might find them offensive. Listen to yourself carefully. If you use words like “bad-ass” or “awesome” or “dude” at work, make some speech adjustments—like, fast!

USE PROPER SPELLING AND GRAMMAR
The popularity of texting and instant messaging has made us all a little lackadaisical when it comes to writing complete, grammatically-correct sentences. And too many of us have become lazy, relying on spell check to catch mistakes instead of proofing our missives. But your spell checker doesn’t catch common spelling errors like writing “they’re” when you mean “their” or “here” when you mean “hear.” The bottom line is this: If you use abbreviations, emoticons, and misspellings in your workplace communication, you will appear unprofessional. Unless you are using a commonly accepted professional abbreviation, spell the word out. Make certain to proof all your written communication, and for really important documents, proof several times or ask a colleague to look over the copy for spelling and grammar mistakes. For younger folks who are new the workplace, attempting to imitate the writing tone of more experienced colleagues can be helpful in shaping your own communication style.

Peggy Klaus, President of Klaus & Associates

You may have seen Peggy Klaus on Nightline, the Today Show, and 20/20 or read her advice in the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Newsweek, The New York Times, BusinessWeek, and O magazine. You may know her as the “brag lady” or—as one newspaper called her—a “bragologist” because of her popular book, BRAG! The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It (Hachette Books Group, Hardcover 2003, Paperback 2004). Or you may know Klaus for the soft skills savvy she promotes in her second tome, The Hard Truth About Soft Skills: Workplace Lessons Smart People Wish They’d Learned Sooner (Collins, January 2008).

For more than a decade Klaus has provided communication and leadership training programs, keynotes, and executive coaching at leading corporations and organizations worldwide. Her client list reads like a who’s who of Fortune 500 companies, including firms such as JP Morgan Chase, MasterCard, Computer Associates, Chevron Corporation, Deloitte, General Mills, Goldman Sachs, The National Football League, Pacific Gas & Electric Company, American Express, Mattel, Booz Allen Hamilton, Kaiser Permanente, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, among others. She also has served as a lecturer at Harvard University; the University of California, Berkeley; and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. 

With advanced degrees in drama, speech, and theatre from London’s Royal Academy of Music and the Drama Studio, Klaus began her career as an actor and classical singer. She then moved to Hollywood to become a producer, director, and coach who worked with actors, comedians, musicians, and broadcast news talent for productions at Paramount Studios, Warner Brothers, ABC, CBS, and NBC TV, among others.

When she is not coaching, training, lecturing, making television appearances, or giving keynotes in the US, Europe, and Asia, Klaus can be found in Berkeley, California, where she lives with her husband.