Why not let the punishment fit the crime.

Schools kicking too many out of class
Iowa districts should find alternatives to out-of-school suspensions

The number of students suspended from Des Moines schools rose slightly in the 2010-11 school year. Administrators gave 4,172 students either in-school or out-of-school suspensions.

However, it’s apparently common for students to be suspended more than once during the year, because the district reports 12,793 “suspension events” last year.

Yes, when one is not interested, particularly, in attending school, one can find all sorts of ingenious ways to get kicked out.

Minority students were suspended at a disproportionately higher rate. Des Moines school board member Dick Murphy said the district “has searched the nation for effective remedies” related to minority suspensions but “has found very little.” He said the board is in the midst of looking into the issue of suspensions, including a breakdown of incidents by grade level.

JUST STOP SUSPENDING MINORITIES, IDIOT!

“Research often shows that most suspensions occur at the sixth-grade level and the least at the fifth-grade level,” said Murphy. “We may have to look at better preparing students for the middle school experience in order to decrease the sixth- grade suspensions. But, first we need the data.”

Alternatively, you may have to look at educating middle school teachers to stop suspending minority students as a matter of course.

He said the district was also going to explore what time of day suspensions occur to institute preventative measures, like more staff in certain areas of a school.

Other districts in this state should be examining this issue as well.

Iowa schools suspended, expelled or somehow removed about 47,000 students from school in about 70,000 separate incidents in the 2009-10 school year. Districts can suspend students for as long as 10 days. According to the Iowa Department of Education, the top two reasons for in-school suspensions: attendance policy violations and disruptive behavior. For out-of-school suspensions: disruptive behavior and fighting without injury.

More than 900 suspensions were doled out for tobacco-related offenses.

Barrington Consolidated High School, in the 70's, had a designated smoking area outside the school. Kids smoke, so be it. Why kick 'em out for it? Because, it's gasp, against the LAW? Well, I'm gonna bet there are plenty of high school ATHLETES who get caught smoking who DON'T get kicked out, because it would "hurt the team." (They are too talented to get the boot.)

As Iowa considers education reform, leaders must better understand why thousands of students are being dismissed from thousands of days of classes. What alternative consequences are there for wrongdoing? Have suspensions become so commonplace that students don’t even care about them anymore?

How about considering this: What if the wrong-doing is being perpetrated by TEACHERS not prepared to cope with "uppity (black)" or "fiesty (white)" students, and have their own agendas and their own prejudices - yes, trust me, TEACHERS can be at least as prejudiced as anybody else in society - and, at least in some cases, with solid, although limited, real life's experiences with miscreants and malcontents (or, studnents who actually are smarter by far than the teacher - yes, this DOES happen, and NO, teachers frequently don't like it)

Schools should especially rethink “out of school” suspensions. It’s hard to imagine that sending a kid home for days accomplishes anything. It may do more harm than good for some students. Kids are left to sleep in and lounge around the house, which is hardly a “punishment.” They also miss class time and fall behind in their school work.

May do more harm than good? Gimme a break. IT DOES more harm than good. How in the world will a kid make up 10 days of classes missed. He can't. They are not coming back.

Out-of-school suspensions can result in kids being banned from extracurricular activities. Having to drop out of a school play or lose your place in a concert can be devastating. Some students may be so embarrassed they never want to rejoin. That doesn’t “teach them a lesson.”

An assistant principal who left my high school the same year I graduated could afford to go back into teaching. One of his students, Gary Sinise, had some authority issues, and was coming up with very low grades. The teacher cut him a deal - audition for the play, get the part, attend all the rehearsals, and do the performances and I will give you a grade you don't deserve - a higher grade than the one you've earned. And thus, it came to pass that Gary Sinise agreed to the deal, held up his end, and, will, you can catch him on CSI New York, or in Forest Gump, etc, etc, etc

In-school suspensions make more sense. Students have to get up in the morning and go to school. They sit in a room and can study. Teachers are able to give them tests so they don’t fall behind. The students aren’t home playing video games.

BINGO! Great suggestion. KUDOS!

Jon Thompson, superintendent of the Aplington-Parkersburg district, said, “The principals within our district do not believe in out-of-school suspensions and rarely have issued this type of consequence.”

More school administrators should come around to that way of thinking.

Demand it of them, or hold them accountable and fire them if they don't. That ought, pretty much, to do the trick.

Everyone understands kids do incredibly stupid and sometimes dangerous things. Schools have limited options for punishment. But is depriving students of education really punishment? Does it make them value learning more? Do they want to return to school and do a better job?

Probably not.

What everyone does not, apparently, understand, is that ADULTS do incredibly stupid and sometimes dangerous things - but frequently go without getting caught. when they don't get caught, society has no option for punishement, and, likely, the adult will do it again. It's simply a double standard. As little respect as this country has for women, it has even less respect for its children. Witness this report, just in.

America's finest reporter says this about the Cain scandal

Basu: Cain should 'fess up to what happened
Judgment, character, respect traits needed in a president

Rarely do I disagree with Rehka Basu, America's finest journalist, who masquerades as an opinion writer twice weekly for the Des Moines Register, a treasure of a newspaper, that puts to shame all of the large and well known dailies in the country - i.e., NY Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Miamia Herald, LA Times, Chicago Trib, etc, etc, I agree with judgment, but, we don't really need men of character or respect holging the office of POTUS ... after all, we're talking about POLITICS, and, like sausage, we really don't want to see or know about what goes into making it. So, it's worth it to me to sacrifice character and respect for judgment, because from good judgment a modicum of self-policing: you have to be prepared for people uncovering what you've done, the lies you've told them and, since the truth ALWAYS comes out (at least some fractured version of it) and if you remember the media feeding frenzy against Bill Clinton, and also Richard Nixon - although their crimes can't legitimately be mentioned in the same sentence together -- the one ordered the plumbers to bug the democratic party's campaign offices, paid off guys in the know to not tell, felt that "it's not illegal if the president does it," while the other guy just lied about having sex with a woman who admittedly came on very strongly to him. Not even REMOTELY the same issues were involved. What do we want? Saints for President? Saints know better than to take the job - there is too much compromise of character, fundamental beliefs, etc, etc, to make it worth one's while; AND, in the U.S. as the power structures are currently configured, the President is not really all that powerful; he is merely a face on a system of exploitation that ultimately will eat it's own.

I must allow here, however, that Rehka might not have written the headline to her piece.

On Oct. 22, Herman Cain told the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition forum of his top guiding principle in life: “Do the right thing.”

“One of the things you will always be able to count on from Herman Cain is to do what is right,” the Republican presidential hopeful told conservative Christian voters.

Herman Cain will do what's right for Herman Cain, of this we can be assured.

Since news has surfaced of past sexual harassment accusations against Cain, resulting in five-figure payouts to two women, the former restaurant industry executive has done just about nothing right.

He's trying to save his political career, who knows, even his marriage - if his wife were to divorce him over this - it will cost a GINORMOUS chucnk of change.

He’s given contradictory responses, alternately denying anything happened, saying he was unaware of any settlement, or claiming to be only “vaguely familiar.” He has said he would have to see the specifics, but when given the name of an accuser, said he had thousands of people working for him.

On one day, he told different TV interviewers that if the National Restaurant Association had made a settlement because of him, he wasn’t aware of it; that he was aware of an agreement, but not a settlement; and, that in his opinion, there was no incident of sexual harassment, but maybe there was in the eye of “the person who thinks I crossed the line.”

Twelve years ago may be a long time, as he has asserted, for remembering certain things: Where you spent your birthday, maybe, or what car repairs you had done. But you would have to be either indifferent or lying to forget that two women on your staff were paid off to go away because of sexually inappropriate things they accused you of saying or doing to them.

This is not necessarily true. The staff may have acted independently, in an attempt to maintain the fiction that they "knew nothing of it," just covering to keep the boss from looking bad, and probably knowing, this was NOT the first time and second time he had displayed such boorish behavior.

Cain has since lashed out, first at unnamed factions he claimed were trying to destroy him, who oppose “a candidate trying to put specific bold ideas on the table.” He’s hinted at racism. Now, he’s blaming Rick Perry’s campaign because a former Cain strategist to whom Cain told of one sexual harassment payout in 2003 now works for the Perry campaign. So after claiming not to have thought of these events in 12 years, it turns out he discussed them in 2003 with a Senate campaign adviser.

Oops on you, Cain.

Even before these allegations surfaced, when Cain named Clarence Thomas as one of the leaders he admires most, it seemed an odd choice in light of Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment against the Supreme Court justice. Thomas, at the time, called it a high-tech lynching of “uppity blacks.”

Hardly seems an odd choice at all. Thomas suffered and endured, and became a Supreme Court Justice. HE GOT AWAY WITH IT, although it was personally uncomfortable to him. HE GOT AWAY WITH IT, of course, this would be very attractive at some unconscious level to Cain.

What Thomas REALLY meant was "by uppity black BITCHES," but, a sense of decorum prevented him from making such an honest statement.

Now, Cain seems to be borrowing a page from Thomas’ book in his own responses.

But of course; Thomas is his hero, his role model.

So far, neither the sexual harassment allegations nor Cain’s responses seem to concern Iowa Republicans much.

Which pretty much says it all for Iowa Republicans - IOKIARDI - It's Okay If A Republican Does It. Which, by the way, has a corrollary amongst Democrats: IOKIADDI.

“Iowa yawns at Cain allegations,” Politico reported on Wednesday, echoing similar findings by The Des Moines Register.

Well, never let it be said that this country had much respect for or placed much value on its women, or the contributions they have made to its growth and development. However, we, as a nation, have even LESS respect or compassion for our children.

Politico quoted Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad saying, “Just because somebody makes an accusation — anybody that’s in a high-profile position has the potential to have people make these kinds of accusations …”

Yeah, right. Slander, libel, character assassination - there are LAWS on the books to punish severely those who go bearing false witness.

But they were more than just accusations. There were payouts, and these were before Cain was running for president.

Note here the greatness of Rehka Basu, reporter. She does NOT let us forget these fairly damning facts.

The state coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, Gregg Cummings, said it wasn’t a big issue because “the urgency of making sure that we get a conservative candidate to win the primaries is of greater concern to most of the tea party folks right now.”

Good Lord in Heaven. I consider my party alignment to be Tea Party, at least for what it did in my part of the world in bringing to light voting irregularities that exist in the state of Illinois, AND IN PARTICULAR for saying, flat out, "ILLEGAL ALIENS DO NOT VOTE; THEY DON'T DO ANYTHING TO DRAW ATTENTION TO THEMSELVES." Which is more truth on that particular issue than any of the major dailies can seem to find time to report.

I called Steve Scheffler, president of the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition (formerly the Iowa Christian Alliance) to see if he, too, would give Cain a pass. He said that most Iowans want to give Cain the benefit of the doubt but that the issue won’t be laid to rest until Cain speaks candidly about what did or didn’t happen. If the allegations are unfounded, he said, that shouldn’t hurt him. I agree.

Innocent 'til proven guilty? In a court of what? Public opinion?

Where I disagree is that Scheffler draws no distinction between sexual harassment and adultery in egregiousness.

The only aspect of human sexuality that the so-called "Christian Right" cares about is the enforcement of women to bear full responsibility for the sexual encounters, EVEN IF THEY HAVE BEEN RAPED, and bring all the little fetuses to birth. At which point in time, the so-called "Christian Right" can rail about how people of certain politicallyi ncorrect to name minorities can be chastised for popping out babies to get U.S. Federal Government money for not having to work. There is a stench of hypocrisy so rank and fetid that it turns my stomach.

“I would see sexual harassment or somebody breaking their marriage vows as both equally wrong,” he said. “As a Bible-believing Christian, I don’t believe the Bible says there is a greater or lesser sin.”

Weasel words. In other words, Adolph Hitler for his extermination of 6,000,000 Jews and 600,000 gypsies and Bill Clinton for accepting Monica Lewinsky's advances are equally sinful. The rank hypocrisy of the so-called Christian right DISGUSTS ME TO THE CORE OF MY BEING.

Scheffler likened Cain to Newt Gingrich, whom he said Iowans are willing to forgive for his adulterous past because he had met with pastors, admitted to making mistakes and taken responsibility.

So, then, had Adolph Hitler merely met with pastors, admitted to making mistakes, and taken responsibility, he too would be an acceptable candidate for the office of POTUS, if only he had been born an American citizen?

But sexual harassment is illegal and has victims.

Watch and read very carefully at what Rehka does from here on out. You are going to get CONTEXT, no moral equivalence. You are going to get FACTS that are RELEVANT to this story; VERY RELEVANT. This is the reporter's art and craft, their gift to us. They don't give us their opinions, they give us the FACTS, just the facts!

Last year, nearly 12,000 sexual harassment complaints were filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, of which half were deemed to have reasonable cause. Eleven percent resulted in settlements.

It’s possible that Cain’s behavior in both cases was relatively inoffensive and the restaurant association just wanted to make the accusers go away. It’s also possible that Cain repeatedly engaged in egregious conduct.

We can't know the answer to this. But, both are possible. We probably never will know the answer (unless the Limo driver comes forward to affirm the allegators allegations). THIS is what fair and balanced is about.

The issue here isn’t cheap tricks by political opponents or accusers dredging up old news, or gotcha journalism or conservative black men. It’s about the judgment, character, common sense, respect and lawfulness necessary to be president. Even Cain’s most ardent supporters should demand he come clean about what happened.

I disagree. Assuming, as I do, that he did everything he was accused of, unless he was so drunk that he blacked out and didn't know and cannot remember what he was doing -- yes, we want presidents of THAT kind -- his best course of action is to RESIGN NOW from the race, issue some pro forma statement decrying the ugliness of politics and the scandalous nature of people seeking fame and fortune (thereby leaving doubt in some minds), and maintain that he was railroaded all the long. That way, PERHAPS, he and his family can tell their story, as victims, and, maybe even, for a few tiny moments a day, to believe it.

Thoughts on the serial woman groper, Republican Presidential Candidate Cain

This story has been getting a lot of ink in the Chicago Tribune, once a great newspaper, now just a cost-cutting excuse to sell advetising space to idiots, like those in our household, who are willing to pay the Trib to have their ads delivered on our driveway every morning about 4:30 am.

There are allegations, made by women, who are identified by name, that Cain groped them in automobiles. Cain's wife is disgusted by the allegations. Both women named are registered Republicans. The one who has not gotten an out-of-court settlement can't seem to go anywhere without the papers reporting the number of bankruptcies she has filed, as if the number of bankruptcies she has filed has ANYTHING in the world to do with whether or not this serial groper groped her. This women is engaged to a man in whose home she is living, with her 13-year old child, who was apparently born out of wedlock. Her husband is very supportive of her for telling this fairly sordid, but too 'oft repeated story, of how an attractive woman, having lost her job, gets inspired by an inspirational speaker who happens to be the owner of a very large and successful company, as well as an executive with the National Restuarant Association.

At an NRA dinner, she was so impressed with him, that she took the time to talk with him, and tell her story, in the hopes that he might be able to help her get a job. While in the car, he forced himself on her, acting like the typical male pig, for whom the thinking goes like this:

Hot chick digs me.
Hot chick wants something from me.
Hot chick hopes I can get her a job.
Sure, hot chick, I can get you a job.
But, hey hot chick, you know you WANT me.
Because I'm a REAL MAN.
So, here, because you want me,
Let me put my hand up your dress
to fondle your genitals,
and let me put my other hand
on your head, to better guide it
while you give me some head.
Quid pro quo, hey baby!

Interesting scenario, and as I said, one that plays out often enough. Although, hopefully, neither of them was driving, which leads me to conclude that SOMEWHERE out there is a limo driver who knows enough about the facts of this story to confirm or deny one way or the other, BUT, since Cain undoubtedly paid for the limo, unless the guy says, "Yeah he groped her and tried to make her suck his dick," his story will be tainted by the guy who's got the big green.

Let's logic this out. The woman has an attorney. Her fiance has a good job, that pays decent bucks, and can afford the nice house he is living in, where she stays, now a stay-at-home mom, which is probably a great deal for her (don't we all wish every mom who wanted to be a stay-at-home mom could be; it would go a long ways towards bringing back some balance into the lives of children, many of whom only see their parents at supper time, and even then, not for too long at all). The attorney ought to be competent, and ought to have adivsed this woman that she will be subject to much media scrutinty, that her child will learn of this, that her family, friends, relatives, will learn of this; that she will be dragged through the mud by a very powerful, wealthy, and likely vindictive man whose political career is about to explode in his face. It will be very painful, very stressful, a very trying time.

And yet, knowing this going in, she goes ahead, tells her story, and allows herself to be identified.

All the while, the newspaper and the TV news keep harping about her bankruptcies, some of which are recent.

About those bankruptcies. I'd really like to know the names of the banks and/or savings and loans that gave her the damn loans in the first place (with her history of defaulting and declaring bankruptcy). THIS to me is the REAL STORY, the subtext. What in the world induced her loan officers to give her the bank's money?

Well, we can fairly well logic this out too. She is an attractive woman, dresses nicely, speaks well. Face it, she's hot. She has also undoubtedly learned how to use her female charms to flatter men, to make them feel as if she appreciates them, likes them, perhaps for more than merely their place in her life as a loan officer; perhaps, if they do this thing for this hot chick, she will put out for them later on.

Guys, we THINK like this, and we take eye-to-eye contact, and a woman being comfortable in our presence as a SIGN, a SIGNAL, "She likes me; she thinks I'm hot; she WANTS ME!"

Face it, guys, we cam be PIGS in this arena.

Nobody teaches the class on "How to deal with a hot chick that gets your dick-to-twitchin' while she tries to advance her career or her life-style but she doesn't want your advances, just what you can do to help her 101."

Vivacious, attractive, even flirty women grab out attention. Hell, vivacious, attractive women grab our attention. HELL, WOMEN grab our attention. Even Jimmy Carter had "lust in his heart." (I do not find credible the alleged words of Jesus of Nazareth, "even if you have lust in your heart, you have been unfaithful to your wife," UNLESS, he was just making an observation - hey dawg, you see that fine female stuff and you would risk everything in a heart beat for somethin' that ain't gonna be real, and ain't gonna last more than a couple of minutes, GROW UP, Y'ALL."

So, should we the people hold it against Cain that he's a serial groper? AND, if you think about it for any length of time at all, he might NOT EVEN REMEMBER IT, because, this was the National Restuarant Association's dinner, and, be assured, the drinks were flowing to over-flowing, and the guy WAS NOT SOBER, and may in fact not even remember (putting the most charitable construction on all that he does, here). Which just makes him a drunken serial groper.

So, does this disqualify him from potentially beind POTUS?

Hell, we've had nothing but war criminals in the Office of the President of the United States since Kennedy, and it doesn't seem to bother us at all.

Personally, I'd rather have a drunken serial groper who would STOP ALL THE WARS. At least he just leaves psychic wounds. This would be a splendid improvement in the human condition around the world.

DO NOT LET CAIN'S SERIAL GROPING PREVENT YOU FROM VOTING FOR HIM IF YOU LIKE THE REST OF HIS POLITICS!

Tom Sucher – my friend; my duplicate bridge partner; my mentor

This is a tribute to the finest man I've ever known, Tom Sucher.

I first met Tom while playing duplicate bridge. His team, Bill's Buddys, consisted of a group of six "old-timers" who first learned the game "back in the day," in the 1950's. They were a sharp group, and played twice a week amongst themselves (there were 8 of them), for money, $2.00 for a win, plus 10 cents for each IMP over 20 in an 8 board match. They were very experienced money bridge players, although the stakes were nominal; pride was on the line.

Tom's long-time partner was Richard Mugalian, long-time state representative, from Palatine, IL, a wonderful, quiet, soft-spoken man, a throw back, a public servant in the tradition of Franklin Deleano Roosevelt, and Dwight David Eisenhower. Richard's views on social issues and mine dovetailed.

Richard died, quite unexpectedly, of a heart attack, and Tom was devastated. In the Winter of 1991, or perhaps it was 1992, Tom approached me with an offer for us to form a partnership whose goal was to play together in the 1996 Summer Nationals in Albequergue, NM, where he second oldest son, Scott Sucher, the world's most renknown gem forger lived (and still does), and again in the 1998 Summer Nationals in Chicago.

This we did, and have many wonderful stories to tell (more to follow).

Tom is the guy you call at 3 am to come 40 miles to pick you up, and take you home. Tom is the guy to call when your guts are bleeding, and there is no one to talk with. Tom is an original, as kindly and giving and generous a human being as has ever walked the planet.

I love him, and that is about all you need to know.

Be well, my dear readers, and may you always have a Tom Sucher in your life.

Friend, Partner, Mentor:
All these and more, you have been to me,
and hopefully I have been to you.

To know you is to understand
that at the core of your being
to be “your friend”
encompasses a life-long compact,
a commitment and a loyalty
quite rarer now
than in supposedly simpler times past
When a man's word and his good name
counted for everything.

These things I have come to know,
because of your teachings,
You have lived them, by your steadfast examples;
by your consistency, and by your constancy.

Your highest compliment, you have said,
was given to you in a moment that would have
hurt and broken many not so given
to understand, that to “lose” a job
for having “too much imagination to be an
insurance executive” was neither a set back nor a defeat,
but an Affirmation of the things which you
most Value and cherish.

The simpl things: Family, Friends, Food, Laughter,
Music, Song, Beauty, Faith, Hope and Charity.
And the greatest of these,
the tie that binds,
the leitmotif which weaves its way
through the fabric of our beings;

The greatest of these, my Friend,
my Partner,
my Mentor,

The greatest of these, is Love,
Your Gift to us all.


'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicit is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be ahsam'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

Such a simple, and yet, simultaneously, elegant solution

NOVEMBER 09, 2011
0
The Bankers' Game
Don’t Tax the Banks, Break Them Up
by ROB URIE
A number of “tax the banks” measures are being pushed by liberal pundits to pay to maintain social spending or to pay for future bank bailouts. These efforts ignore that taxpayers are still subsidizing the banks and that the banks continue to engage in socially destructive practices. In current circumstances adding taxes only gives a patina of legitimacy to the taxpayer-subsidized revenues that the systemically dangerous banks garner.

One suggestion making the rounds is that in order to offset the cuts in social spending soon to be recommended by Barack Obama’s “super-committee,” that banks pay a transaction tax on their financial transactions. This suggestion accepts the false premise that the bipartisan effort to cut social spending is driven by a shortage of government money to pay for these programs. Between the government’s ability to create money as needed, continued heavy spending on unnecessary wars and corporate subsidies and the deep pool of taxable resources held by top income earners, there is no fiscal emergency that warrants cuts in social spending. There is just the lack of political will to put the money into social spending.

A tax to pay for future bank bailouts suggests that the costs of the regular economic crises caused by the banks are limited to the amount of bailout money required to restore the banks to a position to create the next crisis. The true global costs are in the lost economic production, wealth destruction and the mass unemployment that these crises produce. Were the banks to be taxed on these true costs they would cease to exist immediately. Additionally, because of the too-big-to-fail doctrine any tax on the banks would simply refund a portion of the subsidy that taxpayers are currently providing them. The more transparent route than a tax would be to end the too-big-to-fail subsidy.

The way to deal with unneeded cuts in social spending is to address them directly for what they are. If Democrats and Republicans want to join hands to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid then the temporary gloss of a bank tax is a temporary gloss and will more likely facilitate these cuts by giving culpable politicians cover. And if the costs of bank bailouts are only a small portion of the costs of the economic crises that the banks create then either render them incapable of creating economic crises or charge them the full costs to clean them up. Being party to the banker fiction that restoring the banks is all that matters only serves to restore the bankers.

Rob Urie is an artist and political economist in New York.

We, the disenchanted, the disenfranchised; our numbers are legion

NOVEMBER 09, 2011
1
Countering Corporate Power
Coalition of the Disenchanted
by JEFF GOODWIN
The global capitalist crisis prompted protests and rebellions in different countries, poor and rich. In the US, budget cuts and attacks on the collective bargaining rights of state employees led to action earlier this year notably in Wisconsin, where hundreds of thousands took to the streets and occupied the state capital building.

But Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is possibly a more radical social movement. Started in early September with the occupation of a small park in Manhattan’s financial district, it has spread to hundreds of cities and towns across the US. Unlike the Wisconsin protests, OWS is not a response to a particular bill, budget or specific government threat: instead, it expresses a broad indictment of corporate power, economic and political.

The “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City” drawn up by OWS activists sums up their perspective:

“We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies. As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit overpeople, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments.”

Though the movement has targeted the banks and financial institutions we associate with Wall Street, it views corporate power more generally as the source of the problems of the 99% of the population the movement claims to represent. In a country where capitalism has only been weakly and intermittently challenged, this is clearly not US politics as usual.

OWS activists in New York are not exactly Marxists. They tend to decry “corporate greed” rather than capitalism as such. In this respect, OWS resembles the indignados (the indignant) who are protesting in Madrid, Athens, London and elsewhere. The tactic of permanently occupying public space was clearly influenced by the occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo this January. This is not simply a movement against unemployment, austerity, home foreclosures, union busting, environmental degradation, student debt or the corrupting power of money in politics: OWS activists embrace all these causes and link them to overweening corporate power.

Can the movement already have notched up a victory in just two months? In OWS has sparked conversations and debates across the US about matters that have hardly entered mainstream public discourse in recent years. It has also spawned a growing number of demonstrations and political initiatives by providing a focal point around which groups with a wide range of specific grievancesunions, community groups, students, anti-war groups, environmental activistshave gravitated, piggy-backing on the growing media and public interest in the movement. We can now speak of a loose OWS coalition that encompasses these groups.

The key question, still unanswered, is how the movement will transform the anger and excitement it has helped to generate into real leverage against its adversaries. Most of the core OWS activists are students or unemployed (or irregularly employed) youth who do not play a strategic role or have any other direct influence within the powerful banks and corporations they eloquently criticise. What muscle the movement is able to muster is more likely to come from organised groups with at least some leverage in important institutions which have begun to coalesce around OWS community organisations, student groups and especially trade unions. But the crisis has put these groups and unions (which were already weakened) on the defensive. What’s more, union officials in the US (with a few exceptions), do not share the anti-corporate worldview or militant tactics of OWS activists.

Another threat to OWS comes from liberal Democratic politicians who would love to divert and channel its energy into their own electoral campaigns in 2012. As Robert Reich, labour secretary under Bill Clinton, recently pointed out, it is exceedingly unlikely that OWS will push the Democratic Party to embrace anything like anti-corporate politics. The Democrats are far too dependent on corporate money, media and connections to move more than a centimetre or two in this direction. Yet some Democratic politicians will no doubt try to present themselves to the public as anti-corporate populists, to draw on OWS energy and enthusiasm as even President Obama sometimes did in 2008, despite his close ties to Wall Street.

Will this strategy work? Clearly not with the core OWS activists, whose disdain for liberal Democrats like Obama and New York senator Charles Schumer, another Wall Street favourite, is palpable. However, some of the groups and unions that are part of the broader OWS coalition will certainly plunge into Democratic Party campaigns next year, along with some students and others who have not fully bought into the critique of corporate power, and the Democratic Party. Many of today’s enthusiasts may peel off as we head into next election season.

Jeff Goodwin is professor of sociology at New York University and author of No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945-1991,Cambridge University Press, 2001

This article first appeared in the October edition excellent monthly Le Monde Diplomatique, whose English language edition can be found at mondediplo.com The full text appears by agreement with Le Monde Diplomatique and CounterPunch features two or three articles from LMD every month.

All rights reserved © Le Monde diplomatique. 


Oh Do Let Us Begin to Prosecut White Collar Crime - Especially Involuntary Manslaughter

NOVEMBER 09, 2011
1
On Russia, Wall Street and Prosecuting Corporate Crime
Talking With Matt Taibbi
by RUSSELL MOKHIBER
As a kid, Matt Taibbi’s favorite writer was Nikolai Gogol.

So, straight out of college, Taibbi headed to Russia, where he spent ten years playing baseball in the Russian baseball leagues, playing basketball in Mongolia, and writing about corporate crime.

Of course, in Russia, corporate crime was more underworld.

Like the mob, right?

“It is kind of hard to define what the mob is in Russia,” Taibbi told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last week. “The mob in Russia encompasses the federal government as well.”

“When Russia had its financial collapse in 1998, the Russians got an enormous quantity of bailout monies from the IMF and the World Bank – something like $18 billion or $19 billion.”

“The Yeltsin administration was taking a lot of that cash and they were using an offshore account in the Jersey Islands to buy their own government T-bills. They were essentially insider trading their own state debt with the bailout money.”

“These are complicated organized crime transactions.”

“But not totally dissimilar to the kinds of bailouts here in the States where you saw a lot of these companies getting bailouts, but they were also doing things like buying or shorting their own stock because they had insider knowledge about who was getting a bailout and when.”

“It was similar to the stuff that went on here.”

After his stint in Russia, Taibbi came back to the States to cover the corporate crime scene here for Rolling Stone magazine.

He’s author of a new book – Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids and the Long Con That is Breaking America.

“This book is useful for somebody who is a beginner with how Wall Street works. You want to understand about what went wrong before 2008,” Taibbi said.

“I walk people through what happened with mortgages, what the fed’s role was in creating the mortgage bubble, the commodities bubble. What happened in the commodities markets, why gas prices rose in the summer of 2008.”

“Instead of making it wonky and full of economic verbiage, I wrote it like a true crime story. I wrote it for the complete neophyte so that you would come away understanding many of the new fraud schemes on Wall Street, where there was an explosion of new financial instruments that were misused, often criminally, by people on the street.”

“Griftopia translates as a thieve’s paradise. It’s a paradise for grifters. That’s the thesis of the book – modern Wall Street is set up in such a way that it’s basically a no lose proposition for dishonest financial companies. They have virtually no regulation, they have created this vast taxonomy for extremely complicated fraud and theft schemes. And then they have this additional benefit of having a built in insurance system where if everything goes wrong, if they make bad investment decisions, or if they gamble the wrong way, they have either the Fed or the taxpayer bailing them out.”

“It is designed to show people that this is like a casino where the house always wins. And that’s why it’s a thieves paradise.”

When Taibbi claims that the federal government could have prosecuted the mortgage based securities fraud, he relies on a trio of former government insiders – former SEC chief accountant Lynn Turner, former SEC whistleblower Gary Aguirre, and University of Missouri Kansas City Law Professor William Black.

“Also, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is definitely sniffing around Goldman and the other too big to fail companies,” Taibbi said. “There are Attorneys General who are bailing out of the foreclosure settlement from California to Minnesota.”

Are there going to be prosecutions on the securitization front?

“They have to first stop the foreclosure settlement,” Taibbi says. “Those two things go hand in hand.”

“It would relieve these companies from widespread civil liability at the very least. And there is talk that it is also going to encompass criminal liability, which would wipe out all of those potential prosecutions.”

“If they do that deal, the Schneiderman-type investigations will be stillborn.”

If there is a deal, there will be some kind of criminal settlement that would preclude any further prosecution?

“Yes,” Taibbi says. “That’s the expectation. How broad that settlement is going to be and what it will preclude nobody really knows yet.”

“Everyone assumes that there is going to be a waiver of civil liability. But whether it will also encompasses criminal liability, nobody knows. But there is some concern that it would.”

“After these various Occupied Wall Street protests, many members of Congress became interested in the issue. There are some people in the Progressive Caucus in the House who are trying to get the Attorneys Generals together, to try to get more people than Schneiderman and Kamala Harris in California to drop out of the settlement talks or make more demands.”

“The protests are having an effect in that sense. At least some of the elected officials are hearing what the people are saying. And they don’t want to be perceived as having not done something to stop another handout to the banks. That is my impression.”

Did you find any evidence that there are people at the Justice Department who wanted to prosecute but then there was a political call not to prosecute?

“There is definitely talk and gossip that there was an effort, a collaboration between the Justice Department and maybe the Treasury Department in the early days of the Obama administration,” Taibbi says. “There was a lot of fear about going after the big banks at a time when the markets were unsteady. And maybe some prosecutions were avoided out of some concern that it might cripple the economy. There is a lot of sentiment out there that something like that occurred.”

“Whether or not you are ever going to prove that is something else entirely.”

“There was a fraud case in Ohio last year where some single black mother lied about where she was living so that her kids could get into a better school,” Taibbi says. “And the judge said that if she didn’t do actual jail time it would demean the seriousness of the offense.”

“And then here we have market alternating gigantic frauds. And nobody has to suffer any personal consequences.”

“There was one case involving Citi where a couple of guys had to pay $80,000 or $90,000. And that’s the extent of the personal damage that any of these guys have suffered. And until you reverse that, there is not going to be any incentive to behave better.”

[For the complete transcript of the Interview with Matt Taibbi, see 25 Corporate Crime Reporter 43, November 7, 2011, print edition only.]

Russell Mokhiber edits the Corporate Crime Reporter.

Nukes R Us

NOVEMBER 09, 2011

The Curiosity Mission
Nukes in Space
by KARL GROSSMAN

NASA intends in coming weeks to launch a rover to be deployed on Mars fueled with 10.6 pounds of plutonium. Opponents of the launch in Florida, concerned about an accident releasing deadly plutonium, such as the explosion of the rocket that’s to loft the rover, have created a Facebook page warning people not to visit Disney theme parks in Orlando during the November 25-to-December 15 launch window. “Don’t Do Disney brought to you by NASA,” the Facebook page is titled. Other actions are planned.

Indeed, NASA’s Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Mars Science Laboratory Mission says a launch accident discharging plutonium has a 1-in-420 chance of happening and could “release material into the regional area defined…to be within…62 miles of the launch pad,” That’s an area including Orlando.

The EIS says “overall” on the mission, the likelihood of plutonium being released is just 1-in-220. This could affect a major portion of Earth in an accident which vaporizes and disperses plutonium from the rover, called Curiosity, as the Atlas 5 rocket carrying it up gains altitude.

The EIS says an accident releasing plutonium in the troposphere, the atmosphere five to nine miles high, is “assumed to potentially affect persons living within a latitude band from approximately 23-degrees north to 30-degrees north.” That’s a swath through the Caribbean, across North Africa and the Middle East, then parts of India and China, Hawaii and other Pacific islands, Mexico, and south Texas.

If there’s an accident resulting in plutonium fallout which occurs above that and before the rocket breaks through Earth’s gravitational field, people could be affected “anywhere between 28-degrees north and 28-degrees south latitude,” says the EIS. That’s a band around the mid-section of the Earth which includes much of South America, Africa and Australia.

The EIS says the cost of decontamination of areas affected by the plutonium would be $267 million for each square mile of farmland, $478 million for each square mile of forests and $1.5 billion for each square mile of “mixed-use urban areas.”

The mission itself has a cost of $2.5 billion.

“NASA is planning a mission that could endanger not only its future but the state of Florida and beyond,” declares John Stewart of Pax Christi Tampa Bay, a leader in Florida in challenging the launch. “The absurd—and maddening—aspect of this risk is that it is unnecessary,” says Stewart, a teacher. “The locomotion for NASA’s Sojourner Mars rover, launched in 1996, and the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers, both launched in 2003, was solar powered, with the latter two rovers performing well beyond what their engineers expected. Curiosity’s locomotion could also be solar-powered. NASA admits this in its EIS, but decided to put us all at risk because plutonium-powered batteries last longer and they want to have the ‘flexibility to select the most scientifically interesting location on the surface’ of Mars.”

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, which has been opposing NASA’s nuclear missions for two decades, says “NASA sadly appears committed to maintaining its dangerous alliance with the nuclear industry. Both entities view space as a new market for the deadly plutonium fuel. The taxpayers are being asked once again to pay for nuclear missions that could endanger the lives of all the people on the planet. Have we not learned anything from Chernobyl and Fukushima? We don’t need to be launching nukes into space. It’s not a gamble we can afford to take.”

Since the 1950s, NASA has used nuclear power in space—and there have been accidents. Of the 26 U.S. space missions listed in the EIS that have used plutonium, three underwent accidents, the EIS admits. The worst occurred in 1964 and involved, it notes, the SNAP-9A plutonium system aboard a satellite that failed to achieve orbit and dropped to earth, disintegrating as it fell. The 2.1 pounds of plutonium fuel dispersed widely over the Earth.

The late Dr. John Gofman, professor of medical physics at the University of California at Berkeley, long linked this accident to an increase in global lung cancer. With the SNAP-9A accident, NASA switched to solar energy on satellites. Now all satellites and the International Space Station are solar powered.

But NASA insisted on using plutonium as a power source on space probes—claiming that solar energy cannot be utilized beyond the orbit of Mars. But this August it reversed itself with the launch of the solar-powered Juno space probe to Jupiter.

In its description of the Juno mission, NASA states that even when the probe gets to Jupiter, “nearly 500 million miles from the Sun,” its panels will be providing electricity.

The choice of solar power by NASA on Juno was less than voluntary, however. The Associated Press has described Scott Bolton, the principal investigator for the Juno mission for the Southwest Research Institute, a NASA contractor, as maintaining “the choice of solar was a practical one…No plutonium-powered generators were available to him and his San Antonio-based team nearly a decade ago so they opted for solar panels rather than develop a new nuclear source.”

The plutonium-fueled Curiosity mission could herald an expanded NASA space nuclear power program—not just for space probes but involving nuclear-propelled rockets.

During the 1950s and 60s, NASA, working with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, built such rockets under a program called NERVA (for Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) and then Projects Pluto, Rover and Poodle. Billions in 1950s-1960s dollars were spent and ground-testing done, but no nuclear rocket ever got off the ground. There were concerns about a nuclear rocket blowing up on launch and crashing back to Earth.

Charles Bolden, a former astronaut and U.S. Marine Corps major general, President Obama’s appointee to head NASA, is a big booster of nuclear-propulsion for rockets. He has been pushing a design developed by a fellow ex-astronaut, Franklin Chang-Diaz, who has founded the Ad Astra Rocket Company.

With NASA turning over many space activities to private industry with the end of its shuttle program, another major private company involved is SpaceX. The website of the journal Nature reported last year that SpaceX wants the U.S. government to “return to developing nuclear-powered rockets pursued during the 1960s”—and specifically NERVA. “We have to do nuclear,” stated Tom Markusic, director of the company’s rocket development facility.

Meanwhile, not only have great advances been made in using solar energy as a power source in space—as demonstrated by the Juno space probe mission—but also in propelling spacecraft and quickly in the vacuum of space. Last year, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launched what it termed a “space yacht” called Ikaros which gets propulsion from the pressure on its large sails of ionizing particles emitted by the Sun. The sails also feature “thin-film solar cells to generate electricity and creating,” said Yuichi Tsuda of the agency, “a hybrid technology of electricity and pressure.”

The Curiosity rover and the Atlas V rocket on which it is to ride were positioned for launch last week at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. A Florida Today website account—as has been typical in coverage by the mainstream media of NASA’s nuclear program—in reporting this omitted the words plutonium and nuclear and made no reference to the danger s acknowledged in the EIS of the nuclear aspect of the mission.

Plutonium has long been described as the most lethal radioactive substance. And the plutonium isotope used in the space nuclear program, and on the Curiosity rover, is far more radioactive than the type of plutonium used as fuel in nuclear weapons or built up as a waste product in nuclear power plants.

It is Plutonium-238 as distinct from Plutonium-239. Plutonium-238 has a far shorter half-life–87.8 years compared to Plutonium-239 with a half-life of 24,500 years. An isotope’s half-life is the period in which half of its radioactivity is expended.

Dr. Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear physicist and president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, explains that Plutonium-238 “is about 270 times more radioactive than Plutonium-239 per unit of weight.” Thus in radioactivity, the 10.6 pounds of Plutonium-238 that is to be used on Curiosity is the equivalent of 2,862 pounds of Plutonium-239. The atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki used 15 pounds of Plutonium-239.

The far shorter half-life of Plutonium-238 compared to Plutonium-239 results in it being extremely hot. This heat is translated in a radioisotope thermoelectric generator into electricity.

The pathway of greatest health concern for plutonium is breathing in a particle. A millionth of a gram of plutonium can be a fatal dose. The EIS for the Mars Science Laboratory Mission speaks of particles that would be “transported to and remain in the trachea, bronchi, or deep lung regions.” The particles “would continuously irradiate lung tissue.”

It also describes “secondary social costs associated with the decontamination and mitigation activities” including: “Temporary or longer term relocation of residents; temporary or longer term loss of employment; destruction or quarantine of agricultural products including citrus crops; land use restrictions which could affect real estate values, tourism and recreational activities; restriction or bans on commercial fishing; and public health effects and medical care.”

Pax Christi is asking people to call, email or write NASA and, says Stewart, state “that until they can launch spacecraft without nuclear materials aboard, they should not launch at all.” Also, it is calling for people to contact the White House “and tell President Obama that Curiosity should stay safely on the ground until it can be launched without threatening us and future generations.”

A petition to the White House—“Cancel the Launch of the Mars Rover Curiosity by NASA Which is Powered by Dangerous Plutonium-238”—has also been put up on the Internet for people to sign. It is at: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/cancel-launch-mars-rover-curiosity-nasa-which-powered-dangerous-plutonium-238/8HzzWHk9

Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College of New York, is the author of the book, The Wrong Stuff: The Space’s Program’s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet (Common Courage Press) and wrote and presented the TV program Nukes In Space: The Nuclearization and Weaponization of the Heavens (www.envirovideo.com).

One in three – same as the proportion of ciggy smokes ciggies kills

NOVEMBER 09, 2011

One-in-Three Americans Are At Risk From Nuclear Power
The Nuclear Contagion
by WALTER BRASCH

For a few hours on the afternoon of Nov. 1, the people of southern California were scared by initial reports of an alert at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. An “alert” is the second of four warning levels.

Workers first detected an ammonia leak in a water purification system about 3 p.m. Ammonia, when mixed into air, is toxic. The 30 gallons of ammonia were caught in a holding tank and posed no health risk, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRC).

During the 1970s and 1980s, at the peak of the nuclear reactor construction, organized groups of protestors mounted dozens of anti-nuke campaigns. They were called Chicken Littles, the establishment media generally ignored their concerns, and the nuclear industry trotted out numerous scientists and engineers from their payrolls to declare nuclear energy to be safe, clean, and inexpensive energy that could reduce America’s dependence upon foreign oil.

Workers at nuclear plants are highly trained, probably far more than workers in any other industry; operating systems are closely regulated and monitored. However, problems caused by human negligence, manufacturing defects, and natural disasters have plagued the nuclear power industry for its six decades.

It isn’t alerts like what happened at San Onofre that are the problem; it’s the level 3 (site area emergencies) and level 4 (general site emergencies) disasters. There have been 99 major disasters, 56 of them in the U.S., since 1952, according to a study conducted by Benjamin K. Sovacool Director of the Energy Justice Program at Institute for Energy and Environment One-third of all Americans live within 50 miles of a nuclear plant.

At Windscale in northwest England, fire destroyed the core, releasing significant amounts of Iodine-131. At Rocky Flats near Denver, radioactive plutonium and tritium leaked into the environment several times over a two decade period. At Church Rock, New Mexico, more than 90 million gallons of radioactive waste poured into the Rio Puerco, directly affecting the Navajo nation.

In the grounds of central and northeastern Pennsylvania, in addition to the release of radioactive Cesium-137 and Iodine-121, an excessive level of Strontium-90 was released during the Three Mile Island (TMI) meltdown in 1979, the same year as the Church Rock disaster. To keep waste tanks from overflowing with radioactive waste, the plant’s operator dumped several thousand gallons of radioactive waste into the Susquehanna River. An independent study by Dr. Steven Wing of the University of North Carolina revealed the incidence of lung cancer and leukemia downwind of the TMI meltdown within six years of the meltdown was two to ten times that of the rest of the region.

At the Chernobyl meltdown in April 1986, about 50 workers and firefighters died lingering and horrible deaths from radiation poisoning. Because of wind patterns, about 27,000 persons in the northern hemisphere are expected to die of cancer, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. An area of about 18 miles is uninhabitable. The nuclear reactor core is now protected by a crumbling sarcophagus; a replacement is not complete. Even then, the new shield is expected to crumble within a century. The current director at Chernobyl says it could be 20,000 years until the area again becomes habitable.

In March, an earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale and the ensuing 50-foot high tsunami wave led to a meltdown of three of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors. Japan’s nuclear regulatory agency reported that 31 radioactive isotopes were released. In contrast, 16 radioactive isotopes were released from the A-bomb that hit Hiroshima Aug. 6, 1945. The agency also reported that radioactive cesium released was almost 170 times the amount of the A-bomb, and that the release of radioactive Iodine-131 and Strontium-90 was about two to three times the level of the A-bomb. The release into the air, water, and ground included about 60,000 tons of contaminated water. The half lives of Sr-90 and Cs-137 are about 30 years each. Full effects may not be known for at least two generations. Twenty-three nuclear reactors in the U.S. have the same design—and same design flaws—as the Daiichi reactor.

About five months after the Daiichi disaster, the North Anna plant in northeastern Virginia declared an alert, following a 5.8 magnitude earthquake that was felt throughout the mid-Atlantic and lower New England states. The earthquake caused building cracks and spent fuel cells in canisters to shift. The North Anna plant was designed to withstand an earthquake of only 5.9–6.2 on the Richter scale. More than 1.9 million persons live within a 50-mile radius of North Anna, according to 2010 census data.

Although nuclear plant security is designed to protect against significant and extended forms of terrorism, the NRC believes as many as one-fourth of the 104 U.S. nuclear plants may need upgrades to withstand earthquakes and other natural disasters, according to an Associated Press investigation. About 20 percent of the world’s 442 nuclear plants are built in earthquake zones, according to data compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The NRC has determined that the leading U.S. plants in the Eastern Coast in danger of being compromised by an earthquake are in the extended metropolitan areas of Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Chattanooga. Tenn. The highest risk, however, may be California’s San Onofre and Diablo Canyon plants, both built near major fault lines. Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo, was even built by workers who misinterpreted the blueprints.

Every nuclear spill affects not just those in the immediate evacuation zone but people throughout the world, as prevailing winds can carry air-borne radiation thousands of miles from the source, and the world’s water systems can put radioactive materials into the drinking supply and agriculture systems of most nations. At every nuclear disaster, the governments eventually declare the immediate area safe. But, animals take far longer than humans to return to the area. If they could figure out that radioactivity released into the water, air, and ground are health hazards, certainly humans could also figure it out.

Following the disaster at Daiichi, Germany announced it was closing its 17 nuclear power plants and would expand development of solar, wind, and geothermal energy sources. About the same time, Siemens abandoned financing and building nuclear power plants, leaving only American-based Westinghouse and General Electric, which own or have constructed about four-fifths of the world’s nuclear plants, and the French-based Areva.

The life of the first nuclear plants was about 30–40 years; the newer plants have a 40–60 year life. After that time, they become so radioactive that the risk of radiation poison outweighs the benefits of continuing the operation. So, the operators seal the plant and abandon it, carefully explaining to the public the myriad safety procedures in place and the federal regulations. The cooling and decommissioning takes 50–100 years until the plant is safe enough for individuals to walk through it without protection. More critical, there still is no safe technology of how to handle spent control rods.

The United States has no plans to abandon nuclear energy. The Obama administration has proposed financial assistance to build the first nuclear plant in three decades, and a $36 billion loan guarantee for the nuclear industry. However, the Congressional Budget Office believes there can be as much as 50 percent default. Each plant already receives $1–1.3 billion in tax rebates and subsidies. However, in the past three years, plans to build nuclear generators have been abandoned in nine states, mostly because of what the major financiers believe to be a less than desired return on investment and higher than expected construction and maintenance costs.

A Department of Energy analysis revealed the budget for 75 of the first plants was about $45 billion, but cost overruns ran that to $145 billion. The last nuclear power plant completed was the Watts Bar plant in eastern Tennessee. Construction began in 1973 and was completed in 1996. Part of the federal Tennessee Valley Authority, the Watts Bar plant cost about $8 billion to produce 1,170 mw of energy from its only reactor. Work on a second reactor was suspended in 1988 because of a lack of need for additional electricity. However, construction was resumed in 2007, with completion expected in 2013. Cost to complete the reactor, which was about 80 percent complete when work was suspended, is estimated to cost an additional $2.5 billion.

The cost to build new power plants is well over $10 billion each, with a proposed cost of about $14 billion to expand the Vogtle plant near Augusta, Ga. The first two units had cost about $9 billion.

Added to the cost of every plant is decommissioning costs, averaging about $300 million to over $1 billion, depending upon the amount of energy the plant is designed to produce. The nuclear industry proudly points to studies that show the cost to produce energy from nuclear reactors is still less expensive than the costs from coal, gas, and oil. The industry also rightly points out that nukes produce about one-fifth all energy, with no emissions, such as those from the fossil fuels.

For more than six decades, this nation essentially sold its soul for what it thought was cheap energy that may not be so cheap, and clean energy that is not so clean.

It is necessary to ask the critical question. Even if there were no human, design, and manufacturing errors; even if there could be assurance there would be no accidental leaks and spills of radioactivity; even if there became a way to safely and efficiently dispose of long-term radioactive waste; even if all of this was possible, can the nation, struggling in a recession while giving subsidies to the nuclear industry, afford to build more nuclear generating plants at the expense of solar, wind, and geothermal energy?

Walter Brasch’s latest book is Before the First Snow, a fact-based novel that looks at the nuclear industry during its critical building boom in the 1970s and 1980s.

David Haugh first wrote of the Penn State rape young boys scandal that was permitted to go on for years.

Sandusky story a black eye for Penn State, Paterno

Statement suggests legendary coach might have been as out of touch as many suspected

Fer Christs' sake, he's old, he's a crip, he's stayed a damn sight longer on the job than he probably ought to have; ya' THINK an 85-year old might be just a tad out of touch?

David Haugh's In the Wake of the News

5:49 AM CST, November 7, 2011

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"I wish I were dead.'' — Jerry Sandusky in May 1998.

This statement is a crock of shit. If he really wished he were dead, then he ought to have gone out, bought a hand gun, loaded it, put the barrel in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. Easy fucking job. What he really meant to say (and, yes, I know it is impolite to impute motive) was this: "I wish I hadn't got caught. I wish things could go back to being the way before I was caught, so I can keep on buggering little boys, because, that is what the universe compels me to do. Sick fuck. Go to jail - short eyes are accorded very special treatment there.

Two detectives from local police agencies overheard former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky admit to the mother of an 11-year-old boy that Sandusky gave her son a naked bear hug while taking a shower in a campus locker room.

What the fuck is an 11-year-old boy doing taking a shower in a campus locker room? Who's minding the store? Who was supposed to be watching out for the 11-year old boy?

"I was wrong," Sandusky said, according to a Pennsylvania grand jury document released Saturday. "I wish I could get forgiveness. I wish I were dead."

That cry for help came 13 years ago. Nobody heard it.

That was no fuckin' cry for help. That was the words of a master manipulator, one who spent a lifetime honing his skills at seducing young boys into being naked with him. Those are the desperate words of a man desperate to ESCAPE PUNISHMENT for illegal conduct. You wish you were dead? Hell, ass hole, we ALL wish you had died then and there; would have saved the state room and board for the last 13 years; would have saved other 11-year old boys from the trauma of you violating their bodies; violating their trust; you disgusting piece of shit. Jail the child-fucker!

For reasons that remain inexplicable, no charges were filed after that investigation and nothing changed, so Sandusky was free to allegedly prey on more innocent boys.

Inexplicable my ass. His "I wish I were dead" schtick worked, and he fooled enough of the people that one time, AND, having gotten out of it once, there was certainly no motivation for him to change his young-boy-raping ways; after all, the lesson learned was: "If I sound contrite enough, and verbally wish death upon myself, people will forgive me, so that I may continue in my boy-raping ways. WHOOPEE! PARTAY DOWN!

Do you see what we do to our children? Kobe Bryant had to pay a higher price, and not, ostensibly, he's not assuming everything in a skirt wants his big dick in one of their orifices. Ben Rothlesberger, the serial rapist of 19-year old women, who doesn't quite get the meaning of "N. O." was banned for six games. No fuckin' charges filed? What? File charges and impugn the name of Penn State University? Tarnish the legacy of Joe Paterno? Hell no. We just won't file charges, and, surely, it will all go away.

Dumb fux from Pennsylvania - no, wait, academia. Ostrich folks, heads in the sand, their brains have moved upwards towards their ass. This is NOT a pretty sight.

For reasons Joe Paterno will have to live with forever, Sandusky kept his job and JoePa kept wearing his trademark, thick-rimmed glasses that apparently allowed him to see only what he wanted.

The Bears travel to Philadelphia for a pivotal game against the Eagles on Monday, but in Pennsylvania the most important football-related story unfolds in State College. Penn State didn't play a game Saturday, yet an opponent that Paterno likely cannot beat reared its ugly head: the law.

Umm .. David, do you mean to tell us that Joey P broke the law? I've read the article and this is, assuredly, NOT the case.

Sandusky, 67, was released on $100,000 bail after being arraigned on 40 criminal counts related to charges he sexually abused eight boys. Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and university administrator Gary Schultz face counts of perjury and failure to report child abuse. Significant by his absence in the indictment is Paterno, the most powerful man on campus who might have stopped the accused serial pedophile on his staff by working more aggressively with police.

Weasel words. "might have stopped the accused serial pedophile on hi8s staff:" the only way he might have stopped him is if he had cut the guy's dick off. And he SHOULD have. After all, Sandowski's crime was not his raping of young boys, our society cares not one wit about it, unless looks to explode and bring unwanted attention down on the University, the Atheltic Dept, the Coach, not necessarily in that order.

Neither Paterno nor anybody else in authority did. As a result, Happy Valley has become Creepy Valley.

Oh, we can pretty much make book on this: That Happy Valley was Creepy Valley long before this scandal ever hit the light of day.

Paterno's head-in-the-sand approach permitted Sandusky to take along a teenager identified as Victim 4 on bowl trips the two football seasons following the '98 investigation, including to San Antonio for the 1999 Alamo Bowl in plain view of university personnel. It was in a hotel room there, according to the attorney general's disturbing 23-page "finding of fact," that Sandusky threatened to send the boy home if he didn't succumb to his sexual advances. Sick.

Wonder if Sandusky passed off the kid as his "nephew." Wonder if he raped any of his relatives kids? Or neighborhood kids?

Undeterred, Sandusky continued the pattern after retiring when, in 2000, a janitor reported to a superior seeing the coach alone in the showers of the football facility with a young boy — Victim 8. No charges resulted and Sandusky still enjoyed his all-access privileges on campus.

Nope. Not even wanting to kill himself dettered him from buggering up again (and again, and again, and again ....)

In a town fueled by college football, nobody dared disgrace an acolyte of Paterno, especially a man who opened a home for troubled boys in 1977 under the ruse he wanted to help them.

What sloppy writing. "A town ruled by college football" my ass. college football is a thing, not a person; and a thing can't rule; only human beings ever rule, and some of them MUCH more badly than others of them. Far more accurate writing would have said, "In a town where college football is treated like a religion."

Excuse me while I puke.

This is my favorite sport's column paragraph of all time. YES, it IS disgusting; it IS sickening.

All the prior knowledge of Sandusky's predatory tendencies only makes a March 2002 incident, the one with facts damning enough to end the Paterno Era, the hardest to fathom. Around 9:30 on a Friday night, a Penn State graduate assistant walked into the football locker room where he observed a boy he guessed was 10 being sexually assulted by Sandusky.

And what does the P.S. grad ass do next?

The shocked grad assistant quickly left,

QUICKLY LEFT? A helpless human being, a child was being raped, and you fucking left? What kind of balls do you have you worhtless whinin' titty bitch? Go pull the raper's sad sorry ass OF the young boy, jerk off; Talk about failure to act appropriately under pressure!

called his dad and went to Paterno's house the next morning.

But, whatever you do, don't go over to chach's house at night - you'll wake up the senile over-rated jerk

Paterno waited 24 hours to meet with Curley.

Obviously taking Sandusky at his word, that he would shoot himself.

The grand jury narrative doesn't mention Paterno urgently calling law enforcement or trying to learn who the boy was so he could inform his parents. It describes Paterno, then 75, following protocol.

Okoay. So we might judge the protocol to be wrong. But here, Paterno is ritually cleansed - he did what was required of him. Probably, because the Law was called in, the head of the athletic dept was mostly trying to find

Not until a week and a half later was the graduate assistant summoned to retell the horrific tale to Curley and Schultz.

They kept waiting for Sandusky to kill himself, like he promised.

Paterno dodged legal jeopardy by reporting the allegation to his superior.

Dodged legal jeopardy? Not really. He went through the chain of command. Joe probably knows what happens to whistle blowers - ask Ron Ridenauer.

Ethically, Paterno stained a Hall of Fame career by not getting police involved after hearing a friend and ex-colleague with a history of allegations accused of raping a boy no older than one of JoePa's grandsons.

I'd say the grad student who should have yelled, "HEY Boy Raper - STOP THAT and then gone and pulled the peaderist off the kid has, to my mind more or an ethical lapse than Joe. ... That said, however, Paterno keeps the grand-kidde-raper on staff for ... what? How long?

Paterno issued a statement Sunday that expressed appropriate sympathy and suggested he might have been as out of touch as many suspected.

Okay, Dave, guess we have to take your word about the appropriate level of sympathy that can be expressed by words (talk is very cheap, here in the U.S.A.) but I really DO wish Sandusky had dusted his own sorry ass back in '98, like he kinda promised.

"If true, the nature and amount of charges made are very shocking to me and all Penn Staters," the statement read.

IF TRUE? you're fucking kidding me; okay, I get it; pro-forma; innocent until proven guilty and all that -- what about the kid he raped?

College football recruiters routinely ask parents to trust coaches with their children. I don't care if Sandusky is barred from campus, how can a Penn State coach have the gall to assure anything as long as Paterno remains in charge? Was university President Graham Spanier wearing Paterno's blinders when pledging "unconditional support" for Curley and Schultz?

A smart prez would, assuming holding onto his job is more important thatn consciende, morality, etc, etc, etc,

Sorry, Dr. Spanier, such heinous behavior and neglect calls for resignations, not indignation. Late Sunday, after Pennsylvania state senator Jeffrey Piccola called for the PSU board of trustees to investigate deeper, Curley and Schultz stepped down following an emergency meeting of the board.

Got the feeling Penn State's football program is down this season.

The NCAA, if it really legislates institutional control, could justify investigating a member institution where poor judgment offended common sensibilities more than any Miami rogue booster or Ohio State player with his hand out.

And Big Ten officials should demand the timely eradication of scandal from a once-proud program, Paterno's legacy be damned.

dhaugh@tribune.com

Twitter @DavidHaugh

Copyright © 2011, Chicago Tribune

Thinking about the Gifts of Michael Jordan

When he was younger and (perhaps) only dimly
if at all aware of the transient nature
of his athletic gifts, Michael Jordan routinely
performed improvisational acts of acrobatic genius.

Now, at the zenith of his physical maturity
with the accumulation of myriad miracles
as part and parcel of his psychic/physical being,
his statements – his legacy – his gifts to us -
he has measured moments when
he seems to make time stand still
and use space as a three-dimensional
step ladder twisting and turning his body
to supernatural affect; defying gravity
and all the known laws of physics.

He has done this all before,
He has done this all the long.
He can no longer even amaze himself.

And we, having watched all this blessed while,
in disbelief and awe, as the divine and human kind
intersect in this temporal time-space-and place,

We have come to take much too much for granted,
and only the taped highlights will allow our progeny
to see the Miracles of Michael which miss entirely
the entire point of being Michael Jordan!
And that is this: to show what one human being
can WILL himself to do, to defy gravity,
to over come the odds after failing
even to make his high school basketball team.
THAT is the true MIRACLE OF MICHAEL -
that he perservered, and after many losses,
and many losing campaigns, trooped on valiantly,
ultimately to TRIUMPH, again, and again, and again,
and again, and again, and again -
and NOT FOR HIS SAKE ALONE,
but – and these were always the keys
always the critical things -
he did it for the team; for those newbies,
veterans though they may have been,
who had yet to win a ring, and for THAT thing,
did Michael exhort his colleagues in greatness
the incomprable Pippen, the Genius Rodman,
The yoemen – Grant and Cartwright,
The undefensible one – Kuckok
The three-points specialists –
Kerr, Paxon, Brown, Hodges, Buechler
The one from down under – Longley
The one who sacrificed his
offense the better to play defense – Harper
the cutest NBA All Star ever – Armstrong
the best announcer of them all – King,
the brilliant late season pick up
whose father was a Motown singer – Bison Dele,
The defensive specialist / three-point shooter Brown,
those whose names all (save we few) have forgotten -
Blanton, Courtney, English, McCray,
Hansen, Hopson, Randall, Sparrow, Nevitt,
Haley, Simpkins, Caffey, Steigna,
Nealey, Tucker, Walker, Levingston,
Booth, Burrell, Klein, LaRue, Vaughn
the Williams' – Scott and Corey,
the hydra heads – Perdue, Wennington,
Edwards, Salley, Parrish
And the glove-fitting coaches – Jackson/Bach -
The two of these – Jordan/ Jackson so attuned,
so in synch to the ultimate objective
to be World Champions, nothing less,
and to do so year in and year out,
With all the distractions, with all the pain
of preparation required, all the focus,
almost 100 games per year, and all the training
required, especially in the off season,
for it is the work one does in the off season
that determines the progress that player will make
as a professional NBA player,
but also as a trusted team mate,
who will thoroughly know, understand, and
most importantly, ACCEPT the role that
the TEAM requires of him,
Yes, THAT was the greatness of MJ
Not that when he soared he flew,
But that in order to win, it was sometimes
necessary that he soar; in order to inspire,
to DEMAND 100% of his team mates
(nothing less was acceptable; nothing more required)
One had to be selfless, one had to know one's limitations,
and in Michael's case – the sky was the limit,
there were no limitations, but, in order to accomplish that – to play basketball on THAT über-surreal plane
of athletic performance, delimited by physics,
as it is presently understood,
that DEMANDED that Michael play as a Deity
like a Diety of a very ancient time,
When the gods walked the earth,

It was simply that, of Michael
That his will to win on the basketball court
Was so strong, so intense, so focused,
That it required him to unleash the inner deity
Which resodes in each and every one of us.

And if Michael Jordan could unleash his inner deity,
As have others who have come before him,
And as have others who will came after,

Then, why can't we all?
What holds us back?
Is it our will that holds us back?
Or is it that we have not imagined
What we could accomplish
If we were to let go of orthodoxy,
Let go of the limitations we are told that bind us

What could we do, if only we were to
be like Mike?
(And if Jesus Christ Incarnate were to return to earth
(Again, in this time-space-and place intersect,
(Would you be entirely surprised to see Him
(Leading by example His life as a professional
(basket ball player? Or perhaps a singer
(in a Rock & Roll Band calling itself
(Blessed Union of Souls, and singing
(“I believe that will find the answer
(I believe that Love will find the way.”)

Simple request to NAMI

I regret to inform you that my mother, Anne Ganzer, died on 31, July, 2011. Please remove her from your mailing list, and also from any financial solicitation lists. Please DO NOT SOLICIT my father for money for your worthy organization. The expenses of the funeral and celebration service and brunch, the loss of her social security income (my father is a retired state of Illinois teacher, and they did not pay into social security, and as a result get nothing out of it for their teachers' salaries).

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

====================================

Anne did get a lot from her affiliation with NAMI - although so much of what you have to offer is predicated on the unfounded hypothesis that there exists a classification of diseases known as "mental illnesses." Nonetheless, there powerful dynamics and bonds can be developed when people who have shared experiences come together specifically to speak of those experiences, engage honestly in dialogue, and to let their true emotions out, to share one another's common burden, thereby making the load far more easy to carry.

That said, it mist be noted that a reading of the DSM IV will lead the reader to the most obvious and basic of all conclusions: that (almost all) of those conditions classified as "mental illness" have no etiology - there is no way to predict the path the alleged "disease" will follow from one individual to the next, nor even to make generalizations accurate enough to have predictive utility, save for this:

A "mentally ill-labeled" human being {MILHB} will ALWAYS seek to go off their medications, and once they stop, they will almost invariably eventually (and rather sooner than later) return to a depressed state (although up the initial cessation of the meds, the MILHB will do some things which appear, most assuredly based on more recent and depressed (even severely depressed) behaviors to be quite out of character {OOCB}.

But the OOCB, the unbounded joy, optimism, enthusiasm, etc, etc, etc, can be perfectly and logically explained and understand by this analysis:

After an extended duration of depressed feelings, where the depression is palatable, when the human body's own healing mechanisms {HBOHM} begin to reach a point where they can quell the depression and reverse it, ridding itself of the things (thoughts, ideations, dreams) forming the root cause(s) of the depression (invariably different degrees of loss, which may be psychic or more tangible, depending on the individual. There are a wide varieties of responses to loss - ranging from rage to grief, to denial, to acceptance, with a couple of others tossed in between.

Furthermore, it is quite unlikely, given that since most of the mental health "experts" {MHE} who have known the have known the MILHB only in a depressed state (only here is one normally willing to voluntarily surrender his will to taking anti-depressants; a person experiencing a so called "manic episode" {ASCME} only when depressed, as any of you can attest), will never voluntarily surrender the joy and celebration of that moment in time when the depression has been eradicated while the body's attempt at achieving homeostasis through electro-magnetic-bio-chemical changes, has overshot the mark, that the MHE has sufficient knowledge of the "normal" range of emotions and behaviors of the so-called (and entirely mis-labeled) "mentally ill" client.

And too, especially in the case of the parents of a child who has left "the nest," gone out on their own, established themselves in their career, the social circles, their spiritual circles, their various communities, have a CLUE about what that child has become to the other people with whom he (the universal "he" intended to include all human being - male, female, trans-gendered) have the foggiest or faintest clue about what the child has become; about how that child has blossomed; about what that child has morphed into. And parents being flawed to the extent that they are not perfect, and most of them falling short by omission (things not done for) rather than commission (things done to), are typically NOT ready to even want to know what their child has become (unless the adult child is typically getting many accolades; an accoladed child's honors somehow or another rub off on its parents).

One trained in the scientific method would logically draw these following conclusion, which could then be tested experimentally:

(1) Major depressive episodes are hellish for every one involved.
(2) Medications for MILHB mask symptoms; they do not get to root causes.
(3) Until root causes are fully understood, dealt with, explored, and options
for coping with the root causes are emplaced, the MILHB will exhibit
"classic" symptoms of bipolar illness, either being "too sad" or "too
glad," in the eyes of those legally empowered to make such judgments.
(4) The human body is a miraculous creation, and at all times attempts to keep
itself in a state of balance (homeostasis). When body functions become
severely compromised, what is required of the body to reverse the effects
invariably will "over shoot" the mark, and the results will be a "relapse"
into the previous state.
(5) The most effective therapy to lead a MILHB out of the wilderness of one
extreme or the other is a combination of medication, talk therapy, diet,
exercise, choosing to be around mentally healthy people.
(6) If "mental illnesses" really were medically based, then one could be cured
of their mental illness. Such is NOT the case of the MILHB, for that
person can NEVER RECOVER FROM THE INITIAL MISDIAGNOSIS.
(7) The diagnostic tools for classifying any of the so-called mental illnesses
come from a laundry list of about 20 behaviors. For a specific
"illness," between nine and twelve laundry list behoviors are selected,
and a MILHB who exhibits three or more of these is deemed "to have it!"
(8) Enough is known about the history of DSM-series and the classification of
mental illness to further support that "mental illnesses" are not
illnesses at all, but merely a labels used to classify a MILHB and
prescribe a treatment program (typically by injecting potentially lethal
drugs to counteract the MILHB's bio-rhythms). Because a canon of
literature exists, it is virtually impossible to sue a mental health
professional for malpractice in the event a MILHB's proscribed medication
management program cause serious damage, even including loss of life.
(9) Further evidence that the DSM-series defines not a family of illnesses,
but serves only to assist the reader of said series to label a MILHB is
suggested by what were formerly included as "mental illnesses," e.g:

Excessive masturbation
Homosexuality
Chain smoking

and by recalling that in the earlier days of classification, the hall mark
distinction between a so-called "manic depressive" and a "schizophrenic"
was social-economic class: the upper classes were labeled "manic
depressive" and had available rather nice rehabilitation hospitals, while
the "schizophrenics' " lot was rather far more bleak.

And thus we arrive at where we are today, with four cohorts permanently vested with propagating the belief that there exists such a thing as a group of illness which are called "mental illnesses:"

The pharmaceutical companies who spend a fortune advertising anti-
depressants on TV so that the patients can tell the doctor what they need
to prescribe!

The psychiatric community at large, including the teaching colleges and
universities.

The legal profession which uses "not guilty by reason of insanity"
verdicts to let perfectly guilty well off white people get out of paying
for their crime s and having to be left to live amongst the "savages
- frequently of darker hue" in the lower 99.

Since "mental illness" is not a classification of disease, but rather a describer of behaviors, the American Psychiatric Association, The American Medical Association, and all the teaching hospitals which have programs dedicated to behvior modification, have been committing medical malpractice for the duration; they have kidnapped human beings (involuntary commitments), poisoned human beings (injection of potehtially lethal drugs against the patient's will), and slandered and libeled human beings because, while one might be cured of cancer, one can never be cured of the various mental illness labels.

What NAMI provides is talk therapy, for the family and loved ones of the MILHB, and possibly for the MILHB too (if they are willing attend meetings, which, I suspect, usually they are not). You share your experiences in a non-judgmental environment where everybody has experienced pretty much the same thing. That is comforting, and reassuring, and by voicing one's feelings, one releases them from the grave in which they were buried alive; one has an opportunity to be healed and made well again.

However, for as long as programs of treatment focus only on the symptoms, and not at getting to understanding the root cause of the loss which triggered the depression, the roller coaster ride is but one word, or one triggering event away from taking off again.

Your organization is worthy. It can BE better and DO better.

Thank you for your attention to these matters,

Sincerely,

MARK RAYMOND GANZER, who has had the following labels placed on me at various times:

Bi-polar
Manic-depressive, axis II, hypomanic state
Schizophrenic
Paranoid schizophrenic
Alcoholic
Manipulative Personality Disorder
Fractitious syndrome (also called Ganser's syndrome; how ironic)
Borderline personality disorder
Obsessive compulsive disorder

In other words, one real sick mother fucker.

What a crock of fucking bull shit; one from which I refuse any more to eat. You can be cured of the label by moving to where you are given a fresh start, a chance to prove (or disprove) your worthiness and value to community; where your past matters not, only your present, only your future. You must bury your past and treat as dead all those who love you, but believe you to be sick, all the while refusing to investigate their own pathologies.

Peace and blessings upon you, your family, your loved ones, your home, your organization, and your community,

Mark Raymond Ganzer