Joshua Holland: The Clash of Civilizations Doesn't Exist... Yet

The Clash of Civilizations Doesn't Exist... Yet
By Joshua Holland
AlterNet (September 1, 2006)

The neocons who are pushing a Clash of Civilizations are mirror-images of the terrorists that inspire their hyperbolic fear -- they are just as irrational and just as great a threat to our security.

"Seriousness" has become the word of the day for the Islamophobic set.

According to some of our more serious hawks, anyone who doesn't buy that the liberal democracies of the West are engaged in a death-match with hordes of dusky Muslim fanatics is "unserious" about America's security and can't be trusted.

It's the latest in a series of attempts to forestall any meaningful discussion of the causes of violent Islamist ideologies, much less how the United States should respond to them. It locks us into the global "war on terror."

Unfortunately, all too many otherwise sane people seem to accept the terms.

But it's hard to imagine anything more profoundly unserious than taking a dozen complex conflicts that originated in a dozen countries, stripping them of all historical and political context and lumping them together in an amorphous blob called the "Clash of Civilizations." But that's exactly what we're talking about.

So let's take them at their word for a moment and think seriously about the framework they use to understand a dangerous and confusing world.

Consider this: in the epic struggle between East and West, some of our staunchest allies are the undisputed champs in spreading violent Islamic extremism. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan established fundamentalist, anti-Western madrassas all across the world, funneled gobs of cash to extremist groups, and nurtured and supported them in their infancy. It wasn't just random individuals within those countries; Saudi Arabia made it a foreign policy priority to spread its brand of Wahhabism, mostly to counter the perceived threat of Pan-Arabism and other anti-colonial ideologies. Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI -- sometimes called a "state within a state" -- not only supported the Taliban in Afghanistan but funded, equipped and helped train some of the most notorious terror groups that grew out of that country in the 1990s. Talk all you want about Syria and Iran supporting Hezbollah, these are the great terror-sponsoring states, and they're on the side of the Western democracies.

What's more, the West isn't all that unified in this great existential struggle to save itself from destruction. A recent poll of citizens in the United Kingdom, our most loyal ally and a country that largely believes the Clash of Civilizations meme, found that -- "by a margin of more than five to one -- the public wants Tony Blair to split from President George W. Bush and either go it alone in the 'war on terror', or work more closely with Europe." Just 14 per cent believed "Britain should continue to align itself with America." A Pew Global Attitudes survey in June found that in Spain, supposedly a target of "Islamic Imperialism" and the victim of one of the most spectacular terror attacks ever, "four times as many people oppose the war on terror as support it (76 percent to 19 percent)."

Of course, the hawks' response is that there must be something wrong with the rest of the world. Outside of the United States, they argue, the West is "feminized," spineless and too "politically correct" to take on the Muslim hordes. That's like an ugly, unhygienic man's sincere belief that every woman who rejects his advances must be a lesbian. If there's a consensus among your closest friends that you're wrong about something, you probably are.

To Read the Rest of the Hyperlinked Article

Rage Against the Machine: No Shelter

(New video set to this song)

"No Shelter"
Rage Against the Machine
Posted on AlterNet



The main attraction, distraction
got ya number than numb
Empty ya pockets son,
they got you thinkin that
What ya need is what they sellin
Make you think that buyin is rebellin'
From the theaters to malls on every shore
The thin line between entertainment and war

The frontline is everywhere,
there will be no shelter here

Spielberg the nightmare works so push it far
Amistad was a whip,
the truth feathered and tarred
Memories erased and burned and scarred
Trade in ya history for a VCR

Cinema, simulated life, ill drama
Fourth reich culture, Americana
Chained to the dream they got ya searchin for
The thin line between entertainment and war

There'll be no shelter here!
The thin line is everywhere
There'll be no shelter here!
The thin line is everywhere

Hospitals not profit full
The market bull's got pockets full
To advertise some hip disguise
View the world from American eyes

Tha poor adore keep feeding for more
Tha thin line between entertainment and war
Fix the need, develop the taste
Buy their products or get laid to waste

Coca-Cola is back in the veins of Saigon
And Rambo too, he's got a dope pair of Nikes on
Godzilla pure mother f**kin filler
Get your eyes off the real killer

Cinema, simulated life, ill drama
Fourth reich culture, Americana
Chained to the dream they got you searchin for
Tha thin line between entertainment and war

There'll be no shelter here!
The thin line is everywhere
There'll be no shelter here!
The thin line is everywhere

American eyes, American eyes
View the world from American eyes
Bury the past, rob us blind
And leave nothin behind

American eyes, American eyes
View the world from American eyes
Bury the past, rob us blind
And leave nothin behind

Just stare!
Just stare!
Just stare!
Just stare!

Relive the nightmare!

Lyrics by Zack de la Rocha.

Watch the Video

Merriam Webster Word of the Day: Paradigm

Merriam Webster

paradigm \PAIR-uh-dyme\ noun

*1 : example, pattern; especially: an outstanding example or archetype
2 : a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline

Example sentence:
In operation for over 50 years, the Bergs' restaurant has long been a paradigm of efficient small-business management.

Did you know?
"Paradigm" traces to a Greek verb meaning "to show" and has been used in English to mean "example" or "pattern" since the 15th century. Some debate exists, however, over what kind of example qualifies as a paradigm. Some people say it's a typical example, while others insist it must be an outstanding or perfect example. The scientific community has added to the confusion by using it to mean "a theoretical framework," a sense popularized by American scientist Thomas S. Kuhn in the second edition of his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In that work, Kuhn admitted that he had used "paradigm" in 22 different ways. Some usage commentators now advise avoiding the term entirely on the grounds that it is overused.

Dan Gillis III: An Astute Analysis of Daytime TV

An Astute Analysis of Daytime TV
by Dan Gillis III
Published by LA Alternative
Posted on his website: Underbelly L.A.

Over the last few months of writing for L.A. Alternative, I’ve taken part in some pretty bizarre activities: going to cuddle parties and cyber-clown sex chat sites, stoned dining excursions, and even a colossal colon blow. But nothing compares to the carnage that ensued this last week, as I succumbed to the arduous ardor that can only come with one atrocious thing: Regis Philbin.

It’s true, being newly unemployed has given me the chance to test my endurance against this assault on the senses as I sat through an entire episode of Live with Regis and Kelly, determined to dissect the show with a sharp eye and a pen.

With this precise exactitude, I give you the following three things I extracted from the strange and terrifying subliminal world that underlies daytime television.

1. Don’t you know I’m loco?

Regis can’t control his voice. Nor can he control the content of the odd stuff that jumps out of his mouth. Perhaps it’s something that happens when you get older: you start going gray at your temples, wrinkles appear on your hands and you begin to inexplicably shout at the end of your sentences. Kelly will say how excited she is for a new Disney-affiliated movie to come out, then Regis will yell, “Sacagawea!” or “Kelly’s a slutastrophe!” Well, maybe those were not his exact words, but it was certainly implied. He’ll just look confused as Kelly has to explain what an MP3 is, or carefully explicate power door locks.

2. Girls just wanna have fun.

If you ever accidentally buy a time machine at Costco that had that ability to leap 400,000 years into the future as imagined by Maxim, I’m certain you’d catch a glimpse of the Pleasure Sexxxbot 2000 (being retro will be all the rage 397,994 years from now). This robot would look something like Pris (the pre-tree punky Daryl Hannah) from Blade Runner, or possibly a FrankenFergie (from the Black Eyed Peas, not the Duchess of York). Programmed only for pleasure, these gine-a-zoids would be the solution to the Great Boner Depression of the 400th millennium.

But today, seeing as though there is a war on and we need to conserve our resources, time machines aren’t as easy to find as they were in the ’90s. So for the sake of rationing, we could just take a look at Kelly Ripa (aka Gigglebot) today. With her pumpkin-colored fake ‘n’ bake skin, straw hair, and Michael Jackson nose, Ripa has either been grown in a lab or constructed by a gaggle of Teutonic scientists. She is a glimpse of the Brave New Girl of the future, where agreeable smiles and giggles and a sympathetic arm squeeze are all preprogrammed.

Exhibit A:
Ol’ Reege: I’m incontinent and lonely, HA!
Kelly Belly [rubbing his arm]: Oh Reg, you’re such a silly-billy, let me get my knee-pads and wet naps. You’re sooooo funny.

What kind of message is this sending to the youth of America? Probably nothing, ’cause they’re just doing crystal meth under the bleachers. But as for their single mothers in West Covina, they look up to Ripa and her robo-retorts. It must seem totally believable that Ripa shops at Kmart like she espouses, and she does have the same concerns that we have: picking up her kids from school, making dinner for her servants, or perhaps getting a Brazilian wax in Brazil.

To Read the Rest of the Essay

Keith Olberman on Donald Rumsfield

(Courtesy of Abby Normal)

Keith Olbermann Commentary on Rumsfeld's Speech to Veterans of Foreign Wars in Salt Lake City, Utah
MSNBC broadcast linked at Crooks and Liars

(Excerpt)

That about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused… is simply this:

This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely. And as such, all voices count — not just his. Had he or his President perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience - about Osama Bin Laden’s plans five years ago - about Saddam Hussein’s weapons four years ago - about Hurricane Katrina’s impact one* year ago - we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their omniscience as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego.

But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris. Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire "Fog of Fear" which continues to envelope this nation - he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies, have - inadvertently or intentionally - profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.

And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer’s New Clothes.

In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised?

As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused… the United States of
America?

The confusion we — as its citizens - must now address, is stark and forbidding. But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note - with hope in your heart - that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light… and we can, too.

The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this Administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.

And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country faces a "new type of fascism." As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that — though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.

This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.

Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute… I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.

But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed, "confused" or "immoral."

Thus forgive me for reading Murrow in full:

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty," he said, in 1954.

"We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law."

"We will not walk in fear - one, of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of un-reason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were - for the moment - unpopular."

To read/listen to the entire commentary

George W. Bush a Saint?

(A joke from my conservative friend Marvin)

President George W. Bush was scheduled to visit the Episcopal Church outside Washington as part of his campaign to restore his poll standings.

Bush's campaign manager made a visit to the Bishop, and said to him "We've been getting a lot of bad publicity because of the president's position on stem cell research, the Iraq war, Katrina, and the like. We'd gladly make a contribution to the church of $100,000 if during your sermon you'd say the President is a saint." The Bishop thought it over for a few moments and finally said, "The Church is in
desperate need of funds and I will agree to do it."

Bush showed up for the sermon and the Bishop began:

"I'd like to speak to you all this morning about our President. George Bush is a liar, a cheat, and a low-intelligence weasel. He took the tragedy of September 11 and used it to frighten and manipulate the American people. He lied about weapons of mass destruction and invaded Iraq for oil and money, causing the deaths of tens of thousands and making the United States the most hated country on earth."

"He appointed cronies to positions of power and influence, leading to widespread death and destruction during Hurricane Katrina. He awarded contracts and tax cuts to his rich friends so that we now have more poverty in this country, and a greater gap between rich and poor, than we've had since the Depression. He instituted illegal wiretaps when getting a warrant from a secret court would have been a mere administrative detail, had his henchmen lie to Congress about it, then claimed he is above the law."

"He has headed the most corrupt, bribe-inducing political party since Teapot Dome . The national surplus has turned into a staggering national debt of $7.6 trillion, gas prices are up 85%, and vital research into global warming and stem cells is stopped cold because he's afraid to lose votes from some religious kooks. He is the worst example of a true Christian I've ever known."

"But, compared to Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, George Bush is a saint."

An Old Friend and a New Friend Meet for the First Time

(I have a new tortoise shell cat named Cleo--short for Cleopatra)

SWORG COLLECTIVE: THE GEOSIFT GENERAL THEORY OF DYNAMIC LIFE

(A millennial attempt to bridge the two cultures of science and the humanities, in order to develop a new recursive politics of understanding/meaning)

THE GEOSIFT GENERAL THEORY OF DYNAMIC LIFE

"All cities are geological; you cannot take three steps without
encountering ghosts bearing all the prestige of their legends...
we propose to invent new, changeable decors..."
-- Ivan Ctcheglov, Paris, 1953

THERE ARE SO MANY ASPECTS to the geosift, and geosift is so closely related to other aspects of life, that a number of approaches can be used to study a particular geosift tradition. The intrinsic philosophical impacts of geosift theory can be approached separately, for example. Or, the relation of geosift theory to social conditions and psychological states can be taken as a special arena of investigation. But these specialized approaches are by their very nature limited; they tend to focus on just one aspect of the geosift or on the relationships of geosift theory to other areas of life rather than the nature of the geosift as a distinct tradition.

IF WE SET ASIDE THESE SPECIALIZED approaches and look at the nature of a geosift heritage, there are basically two possible perspectives: studying geosift from the viewpoint of its historical development, and studying it as a unified world view.

"We might be justified in thinking that a future urbanism will also apply itself to no less utilitarian projects that will give the greatest consideration to psychogeographical possibilities."
-- Guy Debord, Paris, 1955

THE HISTORICAL PERPSECTIVE--which analyzes the drift begun decades ago by the surrealist/lettrist/situationionist avante-gardes--has been so discredited by the infrastructures of today's American cities that it needs little explanation here. The historical approach of geosift--psychogeography's contemporary successor--traces the effects of the geo-urban environment upon the individual from its earliest psychogeographic beginnings through its various modulations to its present form: geosift, the siftology of perception.

Studying the geosift as a world view is not so widely understood and thus requires some explanantion.

"Geology is pure testament of the unavoidable approach of both the abyss and the beautiful, of the chaotics and the perfectly ordered. . . First thing we must recall when visualizing in terms of geophysics is that geological paradigm shifts generally occur very slowly or else quite rapidly."
-- Gabriel Thy, Washington D.C., 1998

IN CONTRAST TO THE HISTORICAL perspective that studies geosift as it occurs or develops through time, approaching geosift as a world view means to study it as a unified system apart from its development through time. In other words, historical studies of the geosift analyze how it continues and changes through chronos, whereas the focus on world view examines the nature of a person(s), urban environment, geological layout, and socio-historical texture at any given moment. From this perspective, geosift is studied not in terms of a chronological development out of psychogeography but as a whole concept, as an interrelated system of distinctive beliefs and practices. The world view approach then, like the historical perspective, can be used to study the effects of every city and geological structure upon the geosifter.

"The research that we are thus led to undertake on the arrangement of the elements of the urban setting, in close relation with the sensations they provoke, entails bold hypotheses that must constantly be corrected in the light of experience, by critique and self-critique."
-- Guy Debord, Paris, 1955

IT HAS BECOME OBVIOUS that some equilibrium between the historical and world view perspectives is necessary so as to avoid the psychological pretensions of Debord's psychogeography. One cannot trace historical progression through time unless one has some notion of the totality of the system to be traced.

NOR CAN ONE ANALYZE the unity of a system without some idea of how that unity took shape. The balance between these two approaches becomes apparent from the geologist's studying of lignitic coal.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF a "historical" study of a lignitic coal deposit follows the nascence of carbonificated fragments of vegetation into peat, oxidation of the peat by anaerobic bacteria and fungi, the charcoal reification of the lignitic matter, and incorporation of charcoal residues into the coal bed in the form of fusain, known to *miners* (subterranean geosifters) as mineral charcoal, mother-of-coal, or mothercoal.

A LIGNITIC COAL DEPOSIT can also be studied as a unified form constituting a world in its own. This kind of study results in examination of such features as carbonification, classification, mineral matter composition, microscopy, and petrology and petrography. This helps determine the nature of a coal deposit, as distinguished from tracing its development. Thus there are two different ways of looking at coal, and both are needed for a more complete understanding of it. The same kind of balance is necessary for the successful study of geosift, in which the siftology of perception must be approached from a multi-dimensional perspective.

This is the new pataphysics.
Jarry's Ubu married to geology.
Our cities can be mined and defined,
much like the substrata of the earth.
Sifting through the fallowed voices of our cities,
perceiving the core truths that are the foundations
and disregarding the detrital perceptions
that persistently seek to deceive us.
--Michael Benton, Bowling Green, 1998

AS THE MILLENIUM REACHES its final days, we at the SWORG are presented with a thoroughly new type of city that has formed in the American cityscapes and elsewhere: ultra-modern, hyperreal, endless suburban sprawl, streets spectacularized with computerized machinery that bear little trace of their tellurian origins, urban designs that entirely reject the Old World notions of pedestrian and commercial zones, cities of concrete, glass and steel that leave the pedestrian at the margins of an infinite nowhere. These galaxies of interstates, super-highways, strip malls, housing projects, office parks, and colossal skyscrapers do not beckon to the psychogeographer and are built expressedly for the navigator of a machine.

THEREFORE, AS PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY failed to instruct us in the specific interrelationships between the navigator and the fearsome urbanity of our new cities, and the geological processes below and within them, we have from necessity created a new art of perception, based on scientific procedures that allow us to measure our lives and personae with enviable precision, while giving us hope that the spectacle of urban alienation may yet be transcended and we again become a community in the cities we inhabit.

TODAY IS PROCLAIMED a new era of pathfinding, an age of geo-urbanity, in which all cities are returned to the earth and quantified as extensions of the tectonic plates and seismological processes below them. The era of post-unitary urbanism anticipated by Debord has arrived and the abject ruins of his psychogeography bear testament to a new belief that where art proffers good ideas, science provides even better realities.

IN THE WAKE OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGIZED cities before us then, we at the SWORG have designated a scientific method of urban unification that looks to the future of our cities, to the architectures of the new millenium, to the geological frontiers of tomorrow.

ANNOUNCING THE GEOSIFT and its myriad dimensions...

SWORG Collective 1999

Ira Glasser: Drug Busts = Jim Crow

I Cite has a link to a pdf version of this Nation article that examines a new form of "legalized skin-color subjugation" in the South.

What is This Pup's Relaxation Secret?

(Courtesy of Stephanie)

Katha Pollitt: The Trouble with Bush's 'Islamofascism'

The Trouble with Bush's 'Islamofascism'
By Katha Pollitt
The Nation and Alternet

If you thought the War on Terror was bad, get ready for the international disasters that the "war on Islamic fascism" will produce.

If you control the language, you control the debate. As the Bush Administration's Middle Eastern policy sinks ever deeper into bloody incoherence, the "war on terror" has been getting a quiet linguistic makeover. It's becoming the "war on Islamic fascism." The term has been around for a while -- Nexis takes it back to 1990, when the writer and historian Malise Ruthven used "Islamo-fascism" in the London Independent to describe the authoritarian governments of the Muslim world; after 9/11 it was picked up by neocons and prowar pundits, including Stephen Schwartz in the Spectator and Christopher Hitchens in this magazine, to describe a broad swath of Muslim bad guys from Osama to the mullahs of Iran.

But the term moved into the mainstream this August when Bush referred to the recently thwarted Britain-based suicide attack plot on airplanes as "a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists." Joe Lieberman compares Iraq to "the Spanish Civil War, which was the harbinger of what was to come." The move away from "war on terrorism" arrives not a moment too soon for language fussbudgets who had problems with the idea of making war on a tactic. To say nothing of those who wondered why, if terrorism was the problem, invading Iraq was the solution. (From the President's August 21 press conference: Q: "But what did Iraq have to do with September 11?" A: "Nothing." Now he tells us!)

What's wrong with "Islamo-fascism"? For starters, it's a terrible historical analogy. Italian Fascism, German Nazism and other European fascist movements of the 1920s and '30s were nationalist and secular, closely allied with international capital and aimed at creating powerful, up-to-date, all-encompassing states. Some of the trappings might have been anti-modernist -- Mussolini looked back to ancient Rome, the Nazis were fascinated by Nordic mythology and other Wagnerian folderol -- but the basic thrust was modern, bureaucratic and rational. You wouldn't find a fascist leader consulting the Bible to figure out how to organize the banking system or the penal code or the women's fashion industry. Even its anti-Semitism was "scientific": The problem was the Jews' genetic inferiority and otherness, which countless biologists, anthropologists and medical researchers were called upon to prove -- not that the Jews killed Christ and refused to accept the true faith.

Call me pedantic, but if only to remind us that the worst barbarities of the modern era were committed by the most modern people, I think it is worth preserving "fascism" as a term with specific historical content.

Second, and more important, "Islamo-fascism" conflates a wide variety of disparate states, movements and organizations as if, like the fascists, they all want similar things and are working together to achieve them. Neocons have called Saddam Hussein and the Baathists of Syria Islamo-fascists, but these relatively secular nationalist tyrants have nothing in common with shadowy, stateless, fundamentalist Al Qaeda -- as even Bush now acknowledges -- or with the Taliban, who want to return Afghanistan to the seventh century; and the Taliban aren't much like Iran, which is different from (and somewhat less repressive than) Saudi Arabia -- whoops, our big ally in the Middle East! Who are the "Islamo-fascists" in Saudi Arabia -- the current regime or its religious-fanatical opponents? It was under the actually existing US-supported government that female students were forced back into their burning school rather than be allowed to escape unveiled. Under that government people are lashed and beheaded, women can't vote or drive, non-Muslim worship is forbidden, a religious dress code is enforced by the state through violence and Wahhabism -- the "Islamo-fascist" denomination--is exported around the globe.

"Islamo-fascism" looks like an analytic term, but really it's an emotional one, intended to get us to think less and fear more. It presents the bewildering politics of the Muslim world as a simple matter of Us versus Them, with war to the end the only answer, as with Hitler. If you doubt that every other British Muslim under the age of 30 is ready to blow himself up for Allah, or that shredding the Constitution is the way to protect ourselves from suicide bombers, if you think that Hamas might be less popular if Palestinians were less miserable, you get cast as Neville Chamberlain, while Bush plays FDR. "Islamo-fascism" rescues the neocons from harsh verdicts on the invasion of Iraq ("cakewalk... roses... sweetmeats... Chalabi") by reframing that ongoing debacle as a minor chapter in a much larger story of evil madmen who want to fly the green flag of Islam over the capitals of the West. Suddenly it's just a detail that Saddam wasn't connected with 9/11, had no WMDs, was not poised to attack the United States or Israel -- he hated freedom, and that was enough. It doesn't matter, either, that Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites seem less interested in uniting the umma than in murdering one another. With luck we'll be so scared we won't ask why anyone should listen to another word from people who were spectacularly wrong about the biggest politico-military initiative of the past thirty years, and their balding heads will continue to glow on our TV screens for many nights to come. On to Tehran!

Waves of Change, Rivers of Doubt: Global Water Issues and Solutions

Waves of Change, Rivers of Doubt: Global Water Issues and Solutions
The Public Radio Exchange and the The National Radio Project

A special, hour-long edition where we look at some core water issues affecting people around the world including privatization, access to clean water, desalination technology, bottled water debates, and non-point source pollution.

To Listen to the Show

2006 Fayette County Young Democrats Back-to-School Picnic

(It would be great if a contingent of young radicals could go to this and make their voices heard)

"Serving the Fayette County Democratic leaders of tomorrow… today!"

You are invited to attend the 2006 Fayette County Young Democrats Back-to-School Picnic. There will be food, drinks, games, music, and much more.

The picnic is at Woodland Park in downtown Lexington on Sunday, September 10th and it begins at 2:00 PM. Food will be served promptly at 3:00 PM and the picnic will end when everyone decides they have had enough picnic fun. So please come out and join us for for this exciting event!

There is no cost to attend the picnic, but donations are always appreciated. Please visit our website at Fayette County Young Democrats for more information and we look forward to seeing you there!

Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellowships in Women's Studies

The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation has opened its 2007 competitions for two dissertation fellowships. Your help in getting the word out about these two fellowship competitions--both on any email lists you and your organization may oversee and to any students or faculty you know personally who might be interested--would be much appreciated. Details of the two competitions follow:

The 2007 Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellowships in Women's Studies
Application deadline: Tuesday, October 10, 2006

The Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellowships in Women's Studies support the final year
of dissertation writing for Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences whose work addresses issues of women and gender in interdisciplinary and original ways.

Awards of $3,000 each are applicable to research/travel costs. Applications are available online only. To learn more, and to apply, visit Women's Studies Fellowships


The 2007 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships
Application deadline: Monday, November 6, 2006

The Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships are designed to encourage original and significant study of ethical or religious values in all fields of the humanities and social sciences, and particularly to help Ph.D. candidates in these fields complete their dissertation work in a timely manner. Thirty awards of $19,000 each will be available in the 2007 competition. Applications are available online only. To learn more, and to apply, visit this website .

Any assistance you can provide in circulating this information will be very much appreciated.

Best regards,

Beverly A. Sanford
Director, the Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellowships in Women's Studies
and the Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships

The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation

5 Vaughn Drive, Suite 300 | Princeton, NJ 08540 | website

Church Says Women Shouldn't Teach Sunday School Classes To Men, Cites Bible

(Courtesy of Chosen by Grace)

Church Says Women Shouldn't Teach Sunday School Classes To Men, Cites Bible
FOX News posting of an Associated Press report

WATERTOWN, N.Y. — The minister of a church that dismissed a female Sunday School teacher after adopting what it called a literal interpretation of the Bible says a woman can perform any job — outside of the church.

The First Baptist Church dismissed Mary Lambert on Aug. 9 with a letter explaining that the church had adopted an interpretation that prohibits women from teaching men. She had taught there for 54 years.

The letter quoted the first epistle to Timothy: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent."

The Rev. Timothy LaBouf, who also serves on the Watertown City Council, issued a statement saying his stance against women teaching men in Sunday school would not affect his decisions as a city leader in Watertown, where all five members of the council are men but the city manager who runs the city's day-to-day operations is a woman.

"I believe that a woman can perform any job and fulfill any responsibility that she desires to" outside of the church, LaBouf wrote Saturday.

Mayor Jeffrey Graham, however, was bothered by the reasons given Lambert's dismissal.

"If what's said in that letter reflects the councilman's views, those are disturbing remarks in this day and age," Graham said. "Maybe they wouldn't have been disturbing 500 years ago, but they are now."

Lambert has publicly criticized the decision, but the church did not publicly address the matter until Saturday, a day after its board met.

In a statement, the board said other issues were behind Lambert's dismissal, but it did not say what they were.

Article Link

Earth Rock Benefit Concert (Lexington, August 26th)

(Courtesy of Dave Newton)

WHAT:
Earth Rock Benefit Concert!
Mountaintop Removal Awareness Show

WHEN:
4pm to midnight, Saturday, August 26th

WHERE:
Kentucky Horsepark
4089 Iron Works Parkway
Lexington, KY

COST: $10

DETAILS:
A benefit concert organized by Teen Environmentalists of Kentucky to raise awareness of Mountaintop Removal Mining. The goal is to bring out a crowd of 300 youth
and other members of the community.

There will be Capoiera dancers, artists, street performers, organization tables, speakers and (of course) lots of live music.

Bands will include Goldstein, Ghost Mice, Paul Baribeau, Four, Appalachian Terror Unit, The Zero Element, Leave Blood for the Sharks, and The Generix.

Proceeds from the concert will go to Kentuckians For The Commonwealth (KFTC) and Teen Environmentalists of Kentucky.

Also, many of us will be renting a campsite for that night, to keep the party going after the music stops!

To reserve a campsite, visit this website

We're also still looking for organizations and artists who might want to become involved by setting up a table at the event. Also, we still need more volunteers to help staff the concert. Please contact us.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Danielle Deneys
liberado@rock.com

April I. Edwards
859/253-9467
Just.Wanna.Jump@gmail.com

Dave Newton
859/420-8919
Dave_HN@yahoo.com

SPONSORED BY:
Teen Environmentalists of Kentucky (TEK)

Kentuckians For The Commonwealth (KFTC) is a grassroots citizens organization that believes in the power of citizens, working together, to challenge injustices, right wrongs and improve the a quality of life for all Kentuckians.

We meet locally on the 3rd Thursday of the month at 7pm at the Episcopal Diocese Mission House on the corner of 4th St. and Martin Luther King Blvd. Come join us!

To join our Central KY email listserv, send a blank email to KFTC-CKY subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Also, please visit our new website

Black Diamonds: Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice

My name is Rachelle Green, I am the administrative assistant for the Appalachian Studies Program at the University of Kentucky. Together with Dr. Ron Pen (Director of Appalachian Studies) and Kate Black (UK Faculty), we are trying to promote publicity for a free film screening of the new documentary, Black Diamonds: Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice. Erik Reece, Author of Lost Mountain, will introduce the film and filmmaker. The film explores the social, cultural, political and environmental issues surrounding mountaintop removal. Click on the website for the movie for more info.

Feministe: Not the Right Kind of Dead Girls

(A post on how war is still framed as a "father and son" phenomenon--where are the mentions/coverage of women who lose their lives, or are maimed, in the military? What would be the consequence of representations of young women maimed or killed in the current American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan?)

Not the Right Kind of Dead Girls
by ZuZu
Feministe

You don’t have to be for the war, or even particularly pro-military to recognize that these women are doing a traditionally male job and are doing so under the most dangerous of conditions. It’s simply unacceptable that they should be swept under the rug just because they don’t fit the narrative.

To Read the Entire Hyperlinked Post

Stephanie's Art Pt. 6

Lexington's Battle To Gain Control of Its Local Water Resources

(I removed Dr. Wrobel's contact info to keep him from being targeted by supporters of the water company, if you want to particpate visit the site linked below)

The message below is from Dr. Art Wrobel, who retired from the UK English Department a few years ago. The issue he discusses is of critical importance if you live in Lexington or use Lexington water. You can find out more about the issue here: FLOW

Thank you,
Andy


And now, Dr. Wrobel:


Good Friends, Present and Former Colleagues, and Graduate Students:

I need HELP!

Recently, feeling the need to practice civic responsibility or do community service, I succumbed to the call of FLOW (For Local Ownership of Water) for volunteers to help mobilize voters in Lexington's 7th District in preparation for this November 7th's referendum regarding local ownership of Lexington's water company.

Hence, the occasion of this letter. Now I need volunteers--people who similarly believe that Lexington's water supply should be free from the machinations and control of an international conglomerate (RWE, AG), headquartered in Essen, Germany. RWE invests widely in energy and waste disposal and sets its sights on controlling water resources world wide. It also siphons off from the Bluegrass $5 million annually for the benefit of its investors.

Clearly, this matter is of no small consequence either for RWE or Lexington. Records filed with the Kentucky Public Service Commission show that RWE spent $1.6 million in 2003 alone opposing our Urban County Council's efforts to gain local control of the water company. FLOW anticipates that the water company will spend considerably more on ads in the weeks leading up to November 7th. While FLOW cannot begin to match such resources, it hopes to convince Lexington's voters to vote "Yes" on the Nov. 7th referendum. A "Yes" vote would allow Lexington to investigate the possibility of purchasing Kentucky-American Water Company's assets.

Armed with compelling information, volunteers would help distribute literature that summarizes both the benefits of local ownership of water resources and services and catalogues RWE's well-documented record, both in this country and abroad, of price fixing, allegations of bribing government officials, broken promises, predatory rate increases, mismanagement, and its dismal environmental practices. Volunteers could also help in other ways, most notably in planting yard signs, distributing literature at different venues, manning phone banks before Election Day, or helping to enlist more volunteers.

For those of you are prepared to volunteer, I promise to keep organizational meetings to a minimum, both in numbers and length. We wouldn't hold an organizational and informational meeting until the end of September or the beginning of October.

I would appreciate your giving this appeal your consideration. You might think of helping FLOW as doing a kind of mitzvah, a meritorious act, or, to draw on Buddhist tradition, a gesture that places you on the noble path that leads to good karma. Another text, this one Arabic, reminds us that "God loves the doers of good."

Many thanks

Art Wrobel