Jodi at I Cite has provided some highlights, with commentary, from this month's Harper Magazine's roundtable on the possibility of an American coup d'etat:
The Creeping Coup d'etat
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Infinite Thought: No Brainer
Posted by Infinite Thought
In Paris, clutching a book or two in a quiet philosophy basement. An Irish woman and her two six or seven-year old boys turn up. The boys are violent, loud, and start pulling books off the shelves. I look over at them with what I imagine is a mixture of horror and pity. She says to them: 'see that girl over there, looking at you. Now she'll never have children.' I don't know if she assumes I'm English or something (I hope not!). Anyway, I say: 'you're right, you know.'
She moves closer to me and touches my arm. 'Oh it's completely worth it. But you won't get a chance to read again until they're grown up.'
Whatever tiny, miniscule thoughts I have about this matter....I think that conversation just about wrapped it up.
Post Link
In Paris, clutching a book or two in a quiet philosophy basement. An Irish woman and her two six or seven-year old boys turn up. The boys are violent, loud, and start pulling books off the shelves. I look over at them with what I imagine is a mixture of horror and pity. She says to them: 'see that girl over there, looking at you. Now she'll never have children.' I don't know if she assumes I'm English or something (I hope not!). Anyway, I say: 'you're right, you know.'
She moves closer to me and touches my arm. 'Oh it's completely worth it. But you won't get a chance to read again until they're grown up.'
Whatever tiny, miniscule thoughts I have about this matter....I think that conversation just about wrapped it up.
Post Link
Conference - Beyond Coal - Building Healthy Communities in Appalachia: April 28-29
Conference - Beyond Coal - Building Healthy Communities in Appalachia
April 28-29
Hindman Settlement School
On Friday and Saturday April 28 and 29 Mountain Justice Summer and the University of Kentucky Committee for Social Theory will be hosting a conference titled Beyond Coal: Building Healthy Communities in Appalachia at the Hindman Settlement School in Hindman, Ky.
The conference will begin on Friday, April 28 at 4:30 PM and will continue until Saturday evening. We invite you to attend as we discuss and think through the state of the Appalachian economy and its development beyond coal.
It is important at this time that we begin to formulate and imagine the Appalachian community without the coal economy. Just as with oil and natural gas, experts now predict a "peak" for coal production in the foreseeable future. This conference seeks to discuss the challenges facing Appalachians as economies based on coal transition in the future. We seek to answer the question: What does Appalachia do after coal?
Dr. Richard Couto of Antioch University will present the keynote address. Dr. Couto is the author of Making Democracy Work Better which examines grassroots organizations in the Appalachian region for their experience in providing social safety nets, fighting environmental assaults, upgrading education and job skills, and improving employment opportunities. He has been involved in community development in Appalachia since 1975 when he became director of the Center for Health Services at Vanderbilt University.
In addition to his teaching and research, he has developed programs to demonstrate the role of higher education in regional development and has traveled to Iraq twice recently to help establish partnerships between US and Iraqi institutions in health care, medical education, elementary and higher education, and the preservation of Iraq's cultural heritage.
Other topics at this conference will include sustainable rural economies, small business development, sustainable forestry, funding programs, organic farming and lean manufacturing. Please join us for an engaging line-up of speakers, work shops and discussions.
The conference cost is very very low!
For more info contact:
Brandon Absher
(859) 523-3231
dbabsh0@uky.edu
Mountain Justice Summer
University of Kentucky Committee for Social Theory
Dave Cooper
Mountaintop Removal Road Show
608 Allen Ct.
Lexington KY 40505
(859) 299-5669
Call for a volunteer presentation in your community!
The current Road Show schedule
April 28-29
Hindman Settlement School
On Friday and Saturday April 28 and 29 Mountain Justice Summer and the University of Kentucky Committee for Social Theory will be hosting a conference titled Beyond Coal: Building Healthy Communities in Appalachia at the Hindman Settlement School in Hindman, Ky.
The conference will begin on Friday, April 28 at 4:30 PM and will continue until Saturday evening. We invite you to attend as we discuss and think through the state of the Appalachian economy and its development beyond coal.
It is important at this time that we begin to formulate and imagine the Appalachian community without the coal economy. Just as with oil and natural gas, experts now predict a "peak" for coal production in the foreseeable future. This conference seeks to discuss the challenges facing Appalachians as economies based on coal transition in the future. We seek to answer the question: What does Appalachia do after coal?
Dr. Richard Couto of Antioch University will present the keynote address. Dr. Couto is the author of Making Democracy Work Better which examines grassroots organizations in the Appalachian region for their experience in providing social safety nets, fighting environmental assaults, upgrading education and job skills, and improving employment opportunities. He has been involved in community development in Appalachia since 1975 when he became director of the Center for Health Services at Vanderbilt University.
In addition to his teaching and research, he has developed programs to demonstrate the role of higher education in regional development and has traveled to Iraq twice recently to help establish partnerships between US and Iraqi institutions in health care, medical education, elementary and higher education, and the preservation of Iraq's cultural heritage.
Other topics at this conference will include sustainable rural economies, small business development, sustainable forestry, funding programs, organic farming and lean manufacturing. Please join us for an engaging line-up of speakers, work shops and discussions.
The conference cost is very very low!
For more info contact:
Brandon Absher
(859) 523-3231
dbabsh0@uky.edu
Mountain Justice Summer
University of Kentucky Committee for Social Theory
Dave Cooper
Mountaintop Removal Road Show
608 Allen Ct.
Lexington KY 40505
(859) 299-5669
Call for a volunteer presentation in your community!
The current Road Show schedule
Democracy Now: Immigration Reform, Big Business, NAFTA and the Impact on the African American Workforce
Immigration Reform, Big Business, NAFTA and the Impact on the African American Workforce
Host: Amy Goodman
Democracy Now
Protests are continuing across the country against proposed changes to the nation's immigration laws. In New York, tens of thousands of people marched from Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan on Saturday in support of immigrant rights. The rally came a week after upwards of million people demonstrated in Los Angeles, and after weeks of historic protests in cities from Chicago to Denver to Phoenix.
On Capitol Hill, the debate over immigration reform is continuing in Congress. On Sunday, Senate majority leader Bill Frist said he wants a full Senate vote on immigration legislation later this week despite sharp divisions over the issue between Democrats and Republicans as well as within his own party.
The Senate Judiciary Committee last week approved a bill that would allow the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in this country a chance to work here legally and eventually become U.S. citizens. President Bush supports a guest worker plan that would not allow undocumented workers to obtain citizenship but would let them stay in the country as legal residents. Meanwhile the House has already approved legislation written by Republican James Sensenbrenner that has been described as the most repressive immigration bill in 70 years. House bill 4437 would, among other things, make every undocumented immigrant a felon and make it a crime for priests, nuns, health care workers and other social workers to offer help to undocumented immigrants.
The issue of immigration dominated the Sunday talk shows this weekend. Sensenbrenner called the legislation "the toughest thing that I've done in 37 years in elective public office." Senator George Allen of Virginia broke ranks with President Bush saying, "I don't think we ought to be passing anything that rewards illegal behavior or amnesty." And South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham cast the debate as "a defining moment for the Republican Party."
For more on the issue of immigration we speak with two guests:
Ron Walters, professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland College Park. His most recent book is titled "Freedom is Not Enough."
David Bacon, a veteran labor journalist who writes for a number of publications, including The Nation, The Progressive and the Pacific News Service. He is also a programmer on Pacifica station KPFA in Berkeley. Bacon is author of the books "The Children of NAFTA" and "Communities Without Borders" which is being published later this year.
Excerpt from the transcript:
AMY GOODMAN: For more on issue of immigration, we are joined now by Ron Walters, Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park. His most recent book is titled Freedom Is Not Enough. He joins us from Washington, D.C. And on the line from California, David Bacon, veteran labor journalist who writes for a number of publications, including The Nation, The Progressive, the Pacific News Service. He is also a programmer at Pacifica station KPFA in Berkeley. David Bacon is author of the book The Children of NAFTA and Communities Without Borders, which is being published later this year. David, let's begin with you. How do you frame this discussion, and your response to what's happening now on Capitol Hill?
DAVID BACON: Well, first, the most important thing, I think, are these outpourings of divisions that are taking place around the country with a million people on the streets in Los Angeles, the demonstrations that just happened in New York. They are happening in places where we don't even think of, the states that don't have large immigrant communities. Charlotte, North Carolina, for instance, or there was even a demonstration confronting Frist in Tennessee, itself. So, this has become something that's taking place, you know, nationally around the country.
In the Congress, though, I don't think that the debate in Congress is really reflecting what's happening out in the streets, because it is posing two alternatives, neither one of which, I think, offer a reasonable improvement in the lives of undocumented people here or any kind of solution to our immigration problems, if, in fact, you see immigration as a problem, which, I think, is the basic issue underlining the whole debate. Sensenbrenner, as you said, proposes a bill that is probably the most regressive immigration bill in the history of our country, you know, that would turn 12 million people into federal felons.
But the Senate bill is really not that much of an improvement either, because what the Senate proposes to do essentially is to establish huge new guest workers programs that we have experienced -- it’s ironic that this is happening around the birthday of Cesar Chavez, because Cesar Chavez was a big opponent of one of the first big guest worker programs in the U.S., the Bracero program. And Cesar said that organizing the United Farm Workers union would not have been possible, so long as that program continued to exist, one of the main reasons he had for opposing it and for ending it.
So, here's the Senate now proposing to establish a program that would be much larger, and not just for agricultural workers, but for workers in many different industries, and say -- and the Senate says that the only way in which somebody who is here without papers can get any kind of legal status is to enroll as somebody in one of these programs. And at the same time, the Senate bill also increases enforcement, as well, by increasing the enforcement of employer sanctions, for instance, which is the law that says that undocumented people are committing a federal crime by working. We’ve had that on the books since 1986. And instead of eliminating that law, the Senate bill proposes to enforce it on steroids, more or less.
To Liste/Read the Rest of the Interviews
Host: Amy Goodman
Democracy Now
Protests are continuing across the country against proposed changes to the nation's immigration laws. In New York, tens of thousands of people marched from Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan on Saturday in support of immigrant rights. The rally came a week after upwards of million people demonstrated in Los Angeles, and after weeks of historic protests in cities from Chicago to Denver to Phoenix.
On Capitol Hill, the debate over immigration reform is continuing in Congress. On Sunday, Senate majority leader Bill Frist said he wants a full Senate vote on immigration legislation later this week despite sharp divisions over the issue between Democrats and Republicans as well as within his own party.
The Senate Judiciary Committee last week approved a bill that would allow the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in this country a chance to work here legally and eventually become U.S. citizens. President Bush supports a guest worker plan that would not allow undocumented workers to obtain citizenship but would let them stay in the country as legal residents. Meanwhile the House has already approved legislation written by Republican James Sensenbrenner that has been described as the most repressive immigration bill in 70 years. House bill 4437 would, among other things, make every undocumented immigrant a felon and make it a crime for priests, nuns, health care workers and other social workers to offer help to undocumented immigrants.
The issue of immigration dominated the Sunday talk shows this weekend. Sensenbrenner called the legislation "the toughest thing that I've done in 37 years in elective public office." Senator George Allen of Virginia broke ranks with President Bush saying, "I don't think we ought to be passing anything that rewards illegal behavior or amnesty." And South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham cast the debate as "a defining moment for the Republican Party."
For more on the issue of immigration we speak with two guests:
Ron Walters, professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland College Park. His most recent book is titled "Freedom is Not Enough."
David Bacon, a veteran labor journalist who writes for a number of publications, including The Nation, The Progressive and the Pacific News Service. He is also a programmer on Pacifica station KPFA in Berkeley. Bacon is author of the books "The Children of NAFTA" and "Communities Without Borders" which is being published later this year.
Excerpt from the transcript:
AMY GOODMAN: For more on issue of immigration, we are joined now by Ron Walters, Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park. His most recent book is titled Freedom Is Not Enough. He joins us from Washington, D.C. And on the line from California, David Bacon, veteran labor journalist who writes for a number of publications, including The Nation, The Progressive, the Pacific News Service. He is also a programmer at Pacifica station KPFA in Berkeley. David Bacon is author of the book The Children of NAFTA and Communities Without Borders, which is being published later this year. David, let's begin with you. How do you frame this discussion, and your response to what's happening now on Capitol Hill?
DAVID BACON: Well, first, the most important thing, I think, are these outpourings of divisions that are taking place around the country with a million people on the streets in Los Angeles, the demonstrations that just happened in New York. They are happening in places where we don't even think of, the states that don't have large immigrant communities. Charlotte, North Carolina, for instance, or there was even a demonstration confronting Frist in Tennessee, itself. So, this has become something that's taking place, you know, nationally around the country.
In the Congress, though, I don't think that the debate in Congress is really reflecting what's happening out in the streets, because it is posing two alternatives, neither one of which, I think, offer a reasonable improvement in the lives of undocumented people here or any kind of solution to our immigration problems, if, in fact, you see immigration as a problem, which, I think, is the basic issue underlining the whole debate. Sensenbrenner, as you said, proposes a bill that is probably the most regressive immigration bill in the history of our country, you know, that would turn 12 million people into federal felons.
But the Senate bill is really not that much of an improvement either, because what the Senate proposes to do essentially is to establish huge new guest workers programs that we have experienced -- it’s ironic that this is happening around the birthday of Cesar Chavez, because Cesar Chavez was a big opponent of one of the first big guest worker programs in the U.S., the Bracero program. And Cesar said that organizing the United Farm Workers union would not have been possible, so long as that program continued to exist, one of the main reasons he had for opposing it and for ending it.
So, here's the Senate now proposing to establish a program that would be much larger, and not just for agricultural workers, but for workers in many different industries, and say -- and the Senate says that the only way in which somebody who is here without papers can get any kind of legal status is to enroll as somebody in one of these programs. And at the same time, the Senate bill also increases enforcement, as well, by increasing the enforcement of employer sanctions, for instance, which is the law that says that undocumented people are committing a federal crime by working. We’ve had that on the books since 1986. And instead of eliminating that law, the Senate bill proposes to enforce it on steroids, more or less.
To Liste/Read the Rest of the Interviews
Democracy Now: Tom DeLay Announces Resignation Amid Controversy
(Good riddance--Thivai)
The Hammer Leaving Congress: DeLay Announces Resignation Amid Controversy
Host: Amy Goodman
Democracy Now
Republican Congressman Tom Delay has announced he is resigning and will give up his House seat within the next few months. The former House Majority Leader has been one of the most powerful - and controversial - Republicans on Capitol Hill. DeLay announced his resignation just days after a former top aide, Tony Rudy, pleaded guilty in connection to a lobbying scandal involving Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Last November, Delay's former press secretary Michael Scanlon also plead guilty to related charges. Delay was up for his re-election but polls showed he would likely lose.
Last year Delay gave up his position as House Majority Leader after being indicted on criminal charges of conspiracy to violate Texas election laws. Federal investigators have also probed Delay's personal dealings with Abramoff. DeLay's wife worked for the lobbying firm Alexander Strategy Group which had close ties to the Republican lobbyist.
To Read/Listen to the report
The Hammer Leaving Congress: DeLay Announces Resignation Amid Controversy
Host: Amy Goodman
Democracy Now
Republican Congressman Tom Delay has announced he is resigning and will give up his House seat within the next few months. The former House Majority Leader has been one of the most powerful - and controversial - Republicans on Capitol Hill. DeLay announced his resignation just days after a former top aide, Tony Rudy, pleaded guilty in connection to a lobbying scandal involving Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Last November, Delay's former press secretary Michael Scanlon also plead guilty to related charges. Delay was up for his re-election but polls showed he would likely lose.
Last year Delay gave up his position as House Majority Leader after being indicted on criminal charges of conspiracy to violate Texas election laws. Federal investigators have also probed Delay's personal dealings with Abramoff. DeLay's wife worked for the lobbying firm Alexander Strategy Group which had close ties to the Republican lobbyist.
To Read/Listen to the report
Kentucky Leaders of General Assembly Decide to Keep Secret Economic Incentives to Corporations
Economic incentives scrutiny cut from budget
by John Stamper
Lexington Herald-Leader
Leaders of the General Assembly killed a proposal yesterday to closely scrutinize economic development incentives the state offers companies.
The proposal to give Legislative Research Commission economists access to incentive details got nixed by Senate negotiators in a compromise version of the state's two-year budget, approved early yesterday by a committee of lawmakers.
The measure, aimed at determining the effectiveness of Kentucky's costly incentive programs, was one of a handful that House and Senate leaders wrestled with through the wee hours of the morning.
The House had included the accountability measure in its version of the budget, but Senate President David Williams balked, citing privacy concerns of corporations.
"That would have killed our ability to attract business," Gov. Ernie Fletcher said yesterday.
Fletcher claims that businesses would shun Kentucky if researchers were allowed access to sensitive financial data, including the amount of tax incentives claimed by individual companies on their tax returns.
But four other states have no problem publicizing the amount of economic development tax breaks received by individual companies. Illinois and North Carolina even post that information on the Net.
"There have been no claims from anybody in those states that anybody got harmed," said Greg LeRoy, executive director of an economic development watchdog group called Good Jobs First.
A series of articles published in the Herald-Leader last year found that $1.8 billion of spending by the Cabinet for Economic Development over 25 years has failed to improve Kentucky's sub-par rankings on key economic indicators.
For example, Kentucky's national rankings on per-capita income, poverty and gross state product (a broad measure of economic output per person) remain unchanged since 1990.
The cabinet now provides incentives worth more than $100 million annually to companies.
The "majority view" among economists is that tax incentives influence the location of a business less than 10 percent of the time, said Timothy J. Bartik, senior economist for the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
In most cases, businesses accept incentives even though they've already decided where to locate based on other factors.
"There are several studies that suggest that business tax cuts, if financed by cutting productive public investments such as spending on infrastructure or spending on education, will in the long run hurt a state's economic development," Bartik told Michigan lawmakers earlier this year.
Past efforts to study the effectiveness of Kentucky's incentive programs were also thwarted.
A study authorized in October 2000 by the LRC's Program Review and Investigations Committee was halted a year later because Gene Strong, the cabinet's longtime secretary, declined to produce sensitive information.
"Quite frankly, they were not anxious to share," Sen. Katie Stine, R-Southgate, said in October 2001.
Strong, whose $225,000 annual salary is among the highest in state government, has denied allegations that his cabinet did not cooperate fully with the LRC.
Although current and past efforts to scrutinize incentive programs have failed, a working group of six lawmakers appointed by Rep. Ruth Ann Palumbo, D-Lexington, and Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond, will continue exploring the issue in coming months, Palumbo said.
"If you don't evaluate your programs, you can't make smart decisions," LeRoy said. "You're just throwing money at an issue without any clue whether you're getting any bang for your buck."
by John Stamper
Lexington Herald-Leader
Leaders of the General Assembly killed a proposal yesterday to closely scrutinize economic development incentives the state offers companies.
The proposal to give Legislative Research Commission economists access to incentive details got nixed by Senate negotiators in a compromise version of the state's two-year budget, approved early yesterday by a committee of lawmakers.
The measure, aimed at determining the effectiveness of Kentucky's costly incentive programs, was one of a handful that House and Senate leaders wrestled with through the wee hours of the morning.
The House had included the accountability measure in its version of the budget, but Senate President David Williams balked, citing privacy concerns of corporations.
"That would have killed our ability to attract business," Gov. Ernie Fletcher said yesterday.
Fletcher claims that businesses would shun Kentucky if researchers were allowed access to sensitive financial data, including the amount of tax incentives claimed by individual companies on their tax returns.
But four other states have no problem publicizing the amount of economic development tax breaks received by individual companies. Illinois and North Carolina even post that information on the Net.
"There have been no claims from anybody in those states that anybody got harmed," said Greg LeRoy, executive director of an economic development watchdog group called Good Jobs First.
A series of articles published in the Herald-Leader last year found that $1.8 billion of spending by the Cabinet for Economic Development over 25 years has failed to improve Kentucky's sub-par rankings on key economic indicators.
For example, Kentucky's national rankings on per-capita income, poverty and gross state product (a broad measure of economic output per person) remain unchanged since 1990.
The cabinet now provides incentives worth more than $100 million annually to companies.
The "majority view" among economists is that tax incentives influence the location of a business less than 10 percent of the time, said Timothy J. Bartik, senior economist for the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
In most cases, businesses accept incentives even though they've already decided where to locate based on other factors.
"There are several studies that suggest that business tax cuts, if financed by cutting productive public investments such as spending on infrastructure or spending on education, will in the long run hurt a state's economic development," Bartik told Michigan lawmakers earlier this year.
Past efforts to study the effectiveness of Kentucky's incentive programs were also thwarted.
A study authorized in October 2000 by the LRC's Program Review and Investigations Committee was halted a year later because Gene Strong, the cabinet's longtime secretary, declined to produce sensitive information.
"Quite frankly, they were not anxious to share," Sen. Katie Stine, R-Southgate, said in October 2001.
Strong, whose $225,000 annual salary is among the highest in state government, has denied allegations that his cabinet did not cooperate fully with the LRC.
Although current and past efforts to scrutinize incentive programs have failed, a working group of six lawmakers appointed by Rep. Ruth Ann Palumbo, D-Lexington, and Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond, will continue exploring the issue in coming months, Palumbo said.
"If you don't evaluate your programs, you can't make smart decisions," LeRoy said. "You're just throwing money at an issue without any clue whether you're getting any bang for your buck."
The Bluegrass Literary Discussion Group: April 28th, The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams Volume I- 1909-1939
The Bluegrass Literary Discussion Group will meet Friday, April 28 at the Leestown Campus in the Manufacturing Building, room 122 at 11:00. Please bring your lunch.
In celebration of national poetry month, the Bluegrass Discussion Group will be reading and discussing:
The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams Volume I- 1909-1939
Please read the section “Spring and All” from the book. This section has 27 poems embedded in prose.
If you would like a guideline and tips on reading and understanding poetry, please [leave a comment here, with your email address, and Michael will put you in contact with Teresa].
The May book discussion will be The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. We will meet on Friday, May 19th at 11:00 at the Leestown Campus
In celebration of national poetry month, the Bluegrass Discussion Group will be reading and discussing:
The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams Volume I- 1909-1939
Please read the section “Spring and All” from the book. This section has 27 poems embedded in prose.
If you would like a guideline and tips on reading and understanding poetry, please [leave a comment here, with your email address, and Michael will put you in contact with Teresa].
The May book discussion will be The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. We will meet on Friday, May 19th at 11:00 at the Leestown Campus
Nine State Bidding War for New Bio-Terror Research Labs
Kentucky among at least nine states bidding on bioterror lab
Louisville Courier-Journal
Kentucky is among at least nine states bidding for a proposed $450 million bioterrorism lab, a 500,000-square-foot facility at which scientists would study potential bioterrorism threats to the U.S. food supply and humans.
Along with Kentucky, which wants to put the center in rural Pulaski County, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and Texas filed proposals with The Department of Homeland Security by Friday's deadline.
Larry Orluskie, spokesman for DHS, said the more proposals may be added in the coming weeks as mail passes through a screening facility and is received. A short list of finalists will be announced in the fall, then environmental assessments will take place next year, Orluskie said.
"I would assume that almost everyone is responding to this," said Art Norris, a former official of the National Center for Toxicological Research, who helped with a proposal to put the new bioterrorism lab next to that facility in Pine Bluff, Ark.
Each of the groups that submitted proposals so far are associated with universities, with many including partnerships with government agencies, research facilities and companies with an interest in life-sciences research.
"Everyone is trying to assemble that kind of expertise," said Keith Nichols, spokesman for North Carolina State University, the lead party in a group trying to get the lab that includes Duke University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Kentucky officials said the competition isn't surprising, given the number of jobs that would be created and the estimated $74,000 average salary for employees at the facility.
"We knew that once the competition started, it would not be small potatoes," said Ewell Balltrip, executive director of The National Institute for Hometown Security, which has its office in Somerset.
Balltrip is the administrative manager for the consortium of Kentucky and Tennessee officials that is trying to bring the lab to Kentucky. It includes the universities of Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisville and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
While Kentucky has the security institute, others are banking on similar connections to lure the lab. Texas A&M University has the National Center for Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense program, which researches issues similar to those that could be studied at the proposed new federal lab.
A Georgia group is pinning part of its bid on Atlanta being home to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which draws in top scientists and operates a lab that has the same high-level security the proposed bioterrorism facility would use.
Homeland Security officials said research capabilities, which include the proximity of the sites to existing medical, veterinary and agricultural research facilities, an able work force, and the local labor pool and site issues such as the available land, and proximity to international airports will be factors in choosing a site for the lab.
In Kentucky, opposition to the lab has been public, with some Pulaski County residents voicing concerns about the potential for leaks from the lab or the area becoming a terrorist target. Opponents collected 2,800 names on a petition against bringing the lab to Kentucky.
Officials with the Kentucky-Tennessee consortium, however, have said the lab would not pose a danger to people, animals or the environment because it would use exacting, high-tech
Opponents of the Kentucky proposal, though, may not have to worry, said Edward Hammond, director of the U.S. office of a watchdog effort called the Sunshine Project, which works to publicize bioweapons issues. Hammond said the Kentucky-Tennessee bid is probably "second-tier."
Balltrip, the Kentucky-Tennessee group "clearly made the case in a very strong way" that it can meet the requirements for the project.
Hammond said he had a sense that choosing the lab site "is gonna be a total pork horse-trading exercise. Maybe the merits won't matter as much as who scratches what back."
U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, a Republican from Somerset, serves as chairman of the House budget subcommittee that oversees funding for Homeland Security.
Rogers said, while he thinks the Kentucky-Tennessee bid is strong, his position will have no influence on where the lab is built. That, Rogers said, will be on the merits of the proposals.
Louisville Courier-Journal
Kentucky is among at least nine states bidding for a proposed $450 million bioterrorism lab, a 500,000-square-foot facility at which scientists would study potential bioterrorism threats to the U.S. food supply and humans.
Along with Kentucky, which wants to put the center in rural Pulaski County, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and Texas filed proposals with The Department of Homeland Security by Friday's deadline.
Larry Orluskie, spokesman for DHS, said the more proposals may be added in the coming weeks as mail passes through a screening facility and is received. A short list of finalists will be announced in the fall, then environmental assessments will take place next year, Orluskie said.
"I would assume that almost everyone is responding to this," said Art Norris, a former official of the National Center for Toxicological Research, who helped with a proposal to put the new bioterrorism lab next to that facility in Pine Bluff, Ark.
Each of the groups that submitted proposals so far are associated with universities, with many including partnerships with government agencies, research facilities and companies with an interest in life-sciences research.
"Everyone is trying to assemble that kind of expertise," said Keith Nichols, spokesman for North Carolina State University, the lead party in a group trying to get the lab that includes Duke University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Kentucky officials said the competition isn't surprising, given the number of jobs that would be created and the estimated $74,000 average salary for employees at the facility.
"We knew that once the competition started, it would not be small potatoes," said Ewell Balltrip, executive director of The National Institute for Hometown Security, which has its office in Somerset.
Balltrip is the administrative manager for the consortium of Kentucky and Tennessee officials that is trying to bring the lab to Kentucky. It includes the universities of Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisville and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
While Kentucky has the security institute, others are banking on similar connections to lure the lab. Texas A&M University has the National Center for Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense program, which researches issues similar to those that could be studied at the proposed new federal lab.
A Georgia group is pinning part of its bid on Atlanta being home to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which draws in top scientists and operates a lab that has the same high-level security the proposed bioterrorism facility would use.
Homeland Security officials said research capabilities, which include the proximity of the sites to existing medical, veterinary and agricultural research facilities, an able work force, and the local labor pool and site issues such as the available land, and proximity to international airports will be factors in choosing a site for the lab.
In Kentucky, opposition to the lab has been public, with some Pulaski County residents voicing concerns about the potential for leaks from the lab or the area becoming a terrorist target. Opponents collected 2,800 names on a petition against bringing the lab to Kentucky.
Officials with the Kentucky-Tennessee consortium, however, have said the lab would not pose a danger to people, animals or the environment because it would use exacting, high-tech
Opponents of the Kentucky proposal, though, may not have to worry, said Edward Hammond, director of the U.S. office of a watchdog effort called the Sunshine Project, which works to publicize bioweapons issues. Hammond said the Kentucky-Tennessee bid is probably "second-tier."
Balltrip, the Kentucky-Tennessee group "clearly made the case in a very strong way" that it can meet the requirements for the project.
Hammond said he had a sense that choosing the lab site "is gonna be a total pork horse-trading exercise. Maybe the merits won't matter as much as who scratches what back."
U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, a Republican from Somerset, serves as chairman of the House budget subcommittee that oversees funding for Homeland Security.
Rogers said, while he thinks the Kentucky-Tennessee bid is strong, his position will have no influence on where the lab is built. That, Rogers said, will be on the merits of the proposals.
Manager of Community Relations for Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America, Helen Carroll: "Education ... is similar to a manufacturing line."
Education reform is an urgent mission
by Dan Hassert
Kentucky Post (Covington)
The Education Excellence Action Team's report - and all school reform initiatives - will fall on deaf ears unless there's an aggressive "sales job" to convince the community that schools are failing to produce sophisticated graduates who can succeed in the high-tech marketplace, team co-Chair Helen Carroll said.
"Part of our challenge is ... to do a marketing campaign about education to get people on board and get things to happen," said Carroll, manager of community relations for Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America.
While education advocates feel the urgency, too many others just don't realize that "we're just not getting them ready," she said.
Realizing the numerous barriers to learning, the action team discussed many "pie-in-the-sky" ideas like having a mentor for every child, she said. But it narrowed the focus and wrote a plan that has a very real impact on every step of a person's schooling, with special emphasis on early childhood programs and more rigorous curriculum, Carroll said.
Education, she said, is similar to a manufacturing line.
"The philosophy of Toyota is you don't add quality at the end, you build it in along the way," Carroll said.
The process of educating and training someone for a career, she said, must work the same way.
by Dan Hassert
Kentucky Post (Covington)
The Education Excellence Action Team's report - and all school reform initiatives - will fall on deaf ears unless there's an aggressive "sales job" to convince the community that schools are failing to produce sophisticated graduates who can succeed in the high-tech marketplace, team co-Chair Helen Carroll said.
"Part of our challenge is ... to do a marketing campaign about education to get people on board and get things to happen," said Carroll, manager of community relations for Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America.
While education advocates feel the urgency, too many others just don't realize that "we're just not getting them ready," she said.
Realizing the numerous barriers to learning, the action team discussed many "pie-in-the-sky" ideas like having a mentor for every child, she said. But it narrowed the focus and wrote a plan that has a very real impact on every step of a person's schooling, with special emphasis on early childhood programs and more rigorous curriculum, Carroll said.
Education, she said, is similar to a manufacturing line.
"The philosophy of Toyota is you don't add quality at the end, you build it in along the way," Carroll said.
The process of educating and training someone for a career, she said, must work the same way.
Sarah Arvio: Lexington, KY, April 17th Reading from Sono
(From Eileen Abel)
Hi all
The poet Sarah Arvio is coming to Lexington soon.
Come meet Sarah and hear her read from her new book Sono (sample below)
Sarah Arvio: Reading and Reception
April 17 at 7:00 p.m.
Commonwealth House
226 East Maxwell Street, Lexington
For her first book Visits from the Seventh, Sarah was awarded the Rome Prize of the American Academy in Rome. Sono was written mostly during her stay there. Both books were publish by Knopf. Sarah is a translator at the UN.
An excerpt from Sono:
Hope
I said this: would you give me back my hope
if I suffered hard enough, if I tried.
That hip-swinging hallelujah of hope,
that hip-hip-hooray we were talking about,
raying outward from the hip or the heart,
holistic, holy—those were all high things—
hyper-radical and hyper-real,
that gospel of helix and radiance.
Hail me, hail me, here I am alive,
falling from the lips of the lioness,
lambent and loved, gamboling like a lamb,
having gambled all my griefs and lost them.
Game of the gods, gamine of the cards,
inhaler of hashish and helium.
Here was the hub of the halo again,
the hub or nub of the halo or heart,
and the trope of turning to say hello;
we always said it “helio-hello.”
Hello to the little girl and lambkin,
garrulous, hilarious, all grown up,
nibbling on nothing and feeling okay,
and sweetly holding hands with the harpist,
turning toward the sun, turning toward the sound
—my warp of the world, my harp of the heart—
sounding like myself, as I always sound,
snappy and stylish and too sonorous,
a little savage and a little sweet.
© 2006, Sarah Arvio
Book jacket from Sono:
From the author of the highly praised Visits from the Seventh, a new collection of bracingly original poems. Composed during a long stay in Rome, these “cantos” look outward in order to look inward, transforming sights and stories into expressionistic explorations of the state of the heart. Playful, probing, philosophical, colorful, often funny, they describe a struggle to come to terms with loss and grief and to find terms for renewal; they ask whether and how life is worth living, taking pleasure in the questions themselves. “It wasn’t the life I would have wanted, had I known what sort of life I did want,” starts the poem entitled “Chagrin.” “I do believe I was never loved,” announces “Obelisk.” Riffing expertly, Sarah Arvio brings wit and exquisite formal discipline to her gorgeous meditations on the life lived. These are high-burning songs of the self, colloquial, sexy, unflinching and unforgettable.
A colossal mess I made of my life,
in the flesh and also in the round;
this was the essence of colosseum,
the museum of my colossal shame
where I mused on the blood sport of it all…
(from "Colosseum")
Sarah Arvio was born in 1954 and grew up in New York City. For Visits from the Seventh (2002), her first book of poems, she won the Rome Prize and a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. Poems in that that volume were awarded The Paris Review's B. F. Conners Prize and Poetry's Frederick Bock Prize. Arvio works as a translator for the United Nations.
Alfred A. Knopf, Publisher, New York
Hi all
The poet Sarah Arvio is coming to Lexington soon.
Come meet Sarah and hear her read from her new book Sono (sample below)
Sarah Arvio: Reading and Reception
April 17 at 7:00 p.m.
Commonwealth House
226 East Maxwell Street, Lexington
For her first book Visits from the Seventh, Sarah was awarded the Rome Prize of the American Academy in Rome. Sono was written mostly during her stay there. Both books were publish by Knopf. Sarah is a translator at the UN.
An excerpt from Sono:
Hope
I said this: would you give me back my hope
if I suffered hard enough, if I tried.
That hip-swinging hallelujah of hope,
that hip-hip-hooray we were talking about,
raying outward from the hip or the heart,
holistic, holy—those were all high things—
hyper-radical and hyper-real,
that gospel of helix and radiance.
Hail me, hail me, here I am alive,
falling from the lips of the lioness,
lambent and loved, gamboling like a lamb,
having gambled all my griefs and lost them.
Game of the gods, gamine of the cards,
inhaler of hashish and helium.
Here was the hub of the halo again,
the hub or nub of the halo or heart,
and the trope of turning to say hello;
we always said it “helio-hello.”
Hello to the little girl and lambkin,
garrulous, hilarious, all grown up,
nibbling on nothing and feeling okay,
and sweetly holding hands with the harpist,
turning toward the sun, turning toward the sound
—my warp of the world, my harp of the heart—
sounding like myself, as I always sound,
snappy and stylish and too sonorous,
a little savage and a little sweet.
© 2006, Sarah Arvio
Book jacket from Sono:
From the author of the highly praised Visits from the Seventh, a new collection of bracingly original poems. Composed during a long stay in Rome, these “cantos” look outward in order to look inward, transforming sights and stories into expressionistic explorations of the state of the heart. Playful, probing, philosophical, colorful, often funny, they describe a struggle to come to terms with loss and grief and to find terms for renewal; they ask whether and how life is worth living, taking pleasure in the questions themselves. “It wasn’t the life I would have wanted, had I known what sort of life I did want,” starts the poem entitled “Chagrin.” “I do believe I was never loved,” announces “Obelisk.” Riffing expertly, Sarah Arvio brings wit and exquisite formal discipline to her gorgeous meditations on the life lived. These are high-burning songs of the self, colloquial, sexy, unflinching and unforgettable.
A colossal mess I made of my life,
in the flesh and also in the round;
this was the essence of colosseum,
the museum of my colossal shame
where I mused on the blood sport of it all…
(from "Colosseum")
Sarah Arvio was born in 1954 and grew up in New York City. For Visits from the Seventh (2002), her first book of poems, she won the Rome Prize and a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. Poems in that that volume were awarded The Paris Review's B. F. Conners Prize and Poetry's Frederick Bock Prize. Arvio works as a translator for the United Nations.
Alfred A. Knopf, Publisher, New York
Saturday, April 01, 2006
C-Theory Live: Michel Foucault's Legacy
CTheory Live: Michel Foucault's Legacy
======================================
Dear CTheory Readers,
We have just posted the online video archive for the CTheory Live symposium on Michel Foucault's Legacy which took place on March 13/14, 2006 at the Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture (Victoria, Canada). Featured speakers include:
• James Tully. "Foucault and the Question of Agency."
• Arthur Kroker. "Before Foucault: Power and Cynical Ideology."
• Warren Magnusson. "Before Foucault: Scepticism, Relativism and
Modernity."
• Rob Walker. "Foucault, Self-Determination, Limits."
The archive of this CTheory Live event as well as archives of past
lectures can be found at:
Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture
Arthur and Marilouise Kroker
Editors, CTheory
======================================
Dear CTheory Readers,
We have just posted the online video archive for the CTheory Live symposium on Michel Foucault's Legacy which took place on March 13/14, 2006 at the Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture (Victoria, Canada). Featured speakers include:
• James Tully. "Foucault and the Question of Agency."
• Arthur Kroker. "Before Foucault: Power and Cynical Ideology."
• Warren Magnusson. "Before Foucault: Scepticism, Relativism and
Modernity."
• Rob Walker. "Foucault, Self-Determination, Limits."
The archive of this CTheory Live event as well as archives of past
lectures can be found at:
Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture
Arthur and Marilouise Kroker
Editors, CTheory
Susan Brenna: Take a Hike
Take a Hike: As gaming devices supplant games of catch, schools counter
nature-deficit disorder with outdoor experiences.
by Susan Brenna
Edutopia
Though his parents once lived in the countryside in Mexico, Juan Martinez grew up in crowded Los Angeles, barely noticing the earth and sky that was masked by the concrete and smog. Six years ago, when Martinez was fifteen, his science teacher proposed he earn extra credit and raise his failing grade by joining the school's ecology club. He found he liked working in the school garden, which led to a trip to the Teton Science Schools, in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park. It changed his life.
"Just to be able to see a fresh stream -- not the LA Aqueduct, but to see an actual stream with fish in it -- to actually see the stars was magic, "Martinez says. "This happened at a moment in my life when I needed something to motivate me." Today, he leads overnight camping trips for nature-deprived LA teens and helps them restore their neighborhood parks, even as he studies to become an environmental lawyer. "I can't live without nature," he says. "I've got to have it in my life."
But nature is exactly what's missing from the lives of many urban and suburban and even rural American children and teens, according to San Diego journalist Richard Louv. In his book /Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder/, Louv presents evidence that American children are losing a vital aspect of healthy development as they spend increasingly less time riding bikes, climbing
trees, fishing, or doing much of anything outdoors.
Louv notes a number of trends that have converged over decades to create the modern indoor-centric family: Residential development patterns have consumed the bits of forest and empty lots where young baby boomers used to meet and play. Ubiquitous airconditioning has made homes into comfort cocoons. As more parents have gone to work, they have enrolled their children in supervised after-school programs, many of them conducted indoors.
"The average child thirty years ago was spending four to five hours a day outdoors, while the child today is spending almost all that time inside -- including nearly six and a half hours a day with electronics," says Kevin Coyle, vice president for education at the National Wildlife Federation. Recently, Mike Lee, director of community programs for the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, based in San Francisco, discovered that children of agricultural workers in nearby Monterey
County had never seen the ocean, located a mile from their homes.
"It's not just that the outdoors is uncool" to kids who prize gaming devices over games of catch, says Martin LeBlanc, national youth director of the Sierra Club. "It's that it doesn't exist for them." And the unknown is scary. When teens from many of Chicago's thirtyone Boys and Girls Clubs took an overnight trip to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore last fall, many feared going on a night hike and encountering critters in the dark. But fear turned to thrills as the teens used touch, smell, and hearing to poke their way along a trail lit only by moonlight, trip leader Angela Zirles recalls.
As families have increasingly stayed inside in recent decades, behavioral scientists have shown that children and teens are less stressed, and physically and emotionally healthier, when they are regularly exposed to nature. Scientists at Cornell University found that children who have more contact with nature -- even a view of something green from their bedrooms -- experience less stress than those with less
contact. At the University of Illinois, scientists found that children as young as five who engaged with plants and nature showed reduced signs of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
To Read the Rest of the Article
nature-deficit disorder with outdoor experiences.
by Susan Brenna
Edutopia
Though his parents once lived in the countryside in Mexico, Juan Martinez grew up in crowded Los Angeles, barely noticing the earth and sky that was masked by the concrete and smog. Six years ago, when Martinez was fifteen, his science teacher proposed he earn extra credit and raise his failing grade by joining the school's ecology club. He found he liked working in the school garden, which led to a trip to the Teton Science Schools, in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park. It changed his life.
"Just to be able to see a fresh stream -- not the LA Aqueduct, but to see an actual stream with fish in it -- to actually see the stars was magic, "Martinez says. "This happened at a moment in my life when I needed something to motivate me." Today, he leads overnight camping trips for nature-deprived LA teens and helps them restore their neighborhood parks, even as he studies to become an environmental lawyer. "I can't live without nature," he says. "I've got to have it in my life."
But nature is exactly what's missing from the lives of many urban and suburban and even rural American children and teens, according to San Diego journalist Richard Louv. In his book /Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder/, Louv presents evidence that American children are losing a vital aspect of healthy development as they spend increasingly less time riding bikes, climbing
trees, fishing, or doing much of anything outdoors.
Louv notes a number of trends that have converged over decades to create the modern indoor-centric family: Residential development patterns have consumed the bits of forest and empty lots where young baby boomers used to meet and play. Ubiquitous airconditioning has made homes into comfort cocoons. As more parents have gone to work, they have enrolled their children in supervised after-school programs, many of them conducted indoors.
"The average child thirty years ago was spending four to five hours a day outdoors, while the child today is spending almost all that time inside -- including nearly six and a half hours a day with electronics," says Kevin Coyle, vice president for education at the National Wildlife Federation. Recently, Mike Lee, director of community programs for the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, based in San Francisco, discovered that children of agricultural workers in nearby Monterey
County had never seen the ocean, located a mile from their homes.
"It's not just that the outdoors is uncool" to kids who prize gaming devices over games of catch, says Martin LeBlanc, national youth director of the Sierra Club. "It's that it doesn't exist for them." And the unknown is scary. When teens from many of Chicago's thirtyone Boys and Girls Clubs took an overnight trip to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore last fall, many feared going on a night hike and encountering critters in the dark. But fear turned to thrills as the teens used touch, smell, and hearing to poke their way along a trail lit only by moonlight, trip leader Angela Zirles recalls.
As families have increasingly stayed inside in recent decades, behavioral scientists have shown that children and teens are less stressed, and physically and emotionally healthier, when they are regularly exposed to nature. Scientists at Cornell University found that children who have more contact with nature -- even a view of something green from their bedrooms -- experience less stress than those with less
contact. At the University of Illinois, scientists found that children as young as five who engaged with plants and nature showed reduced signs of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
To Read the Rest of the Article
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Rare Condors Seen Nesting in Northern California
(Courtesy of my fellow Californian Abby Normal)
Rare condors seen nesting in Northern California: Discovery follows efforts to protect endangered species
BIG SUR, Calif. - For the first time in more than 100 years, California condors were spotted nesting in the northern part of the state, scientists said.
The condor couple was found Monday displaying typical nesting behavior inside a hollowed-out redwood tree in Big Sur, a mountainous coastal region south of Monterey, the Ventana Wildlife Society announced.
"For the past 10 years when this sort of thing came up, it turned out to be just in my dreams," Kelly Sorenson, the group's executive director. "Now it is a reality."
To Read the Rest of the Story
Rare condors seen nesting in Northern California: Discovery follows efforts to protect endangered species
BIG SUR, Calif. - For the first time in more than 100 years, California condors were spotted nesting in the northern part of the state, scientists said.
The condor couple was found Monday displaying typical nesting behavior inside a hollowed-out redwood tree in Big Sur, a mountainous coastal region south of Monterey, the Ventana Wildlife Society announced.
"For the past 10 years when this sort of thing came up, it turned out to be just in my dreams," Kelly Sorenson, the group's executive director. "Now it is a reality."
To Read the Rest of the Story
Bernardine Dohrn: Four Myths of the 60s
I just read Bernardine Dohrn's introduction to the book Letters from Young Activists and she outlines four myths of the 60s (I got this online from an adaptation republished in Monthly Review Zine--thanks):
Excerpt:
It is clear that the Sixties, which was never really The Sixties, is being wielded as a bludgeon against today's young risktakers; a barrier, a legendary era which can never be equaled today. In fact, the Sixties was annually declared "dead" by the pundits of Time magazine and Newsweek beginning in 1963 and throughout the mid-seventies. During the subsequent three and a half decades, there has been a relentless campaign to promote four myths about those radical social upheavals. These legends about the so-called Sixties must be on the table to be scrutinized by today's young activists.
First, the '60s is enshrined as a heroic time of huge demonstrations, militancy and organizing. It was never all that.
Sixties activism was almost always small, isolated, surrounded by hostile, angry crowds. The groundbreaking actions of the students who joined the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the women who stood for an end to patriarchy, and the veterans, draft resisters and deserters who defied the military machine are legendary now because they were right about history and morality. Overwhelmingly, their courage was the quiet kind, the inventive sort, often unrecognized, not showy. Millions took a step away from the path well traveled, left the career track, lived on subsistence pay, learned to talk to strangers about politics, went to the point of production, invented communes, built schools, dug into communities, revived midwifery, seized and exposed the universities, were arrested, broke with family expectations and tradition. Black Panthers, GI organizers, environmentalists, Young Lords, gays and lesbians -- the anarchy, the imagination, the gravity, the invisibility to the media, especially the failures are familiar to today’s young activists. So is the sense of isolation, the inadequacy to the task, the frustration with not being heard, the drowning in the American la la machine. The inability to stop the relentless escalation of war and occupation each and every day for a decade. The enormity of the hold of white supremacy on American life, North and South, inside and out. Divisions among ourselves, worst of all.
At the height of 1968's upheaval, activists at Michigan State felt dismayed that they were not strong and powerful, like those in Ann Arbor. Militants in Ann Arbor measured themselves unfavorably against the struggle at Columbia in New York. And at Columbia or Cornell or Berkeley, organizers were unhappy that they were not meeting the high bar set by the May Day events in France, where workers and students brought the government to the brink. The challenge now, as then, is living as a radical organizer in your own time, your own place. The difficulty then and now is working away during what the great educator and founder of Highlander Myles Horton called Valley Times. It involves simultaneously acting and doubting.
Today’s episodic massive organizing achievements can similarly be followed by eerie calm, business-as-usual, invisibility, the sense of never having been. Global solidarity and inventive militancy among AIDS activists, followed by . . . Labor rights and global justice shutting down the World Trade Organization in Seattle, but. . . . Brilliant unity and tactical zaniness at the '04 Republican National Convention building toward. . . . The devastating deflation of electoral defeats and setbacks to independent organizing. . . . GLBTQ direct action and exuberant breakthroughs followed by counter-reaction and withdrawals, momentarily washed up on the shore. . . . This was true also for all but a few seconds of the roughly fifteen years that constituted The Sixties. The consciousness of today is both ahead of and behind the peaks of the past. That was prelude. Now is where we stand.
Second, and paradoxically in counterpoint to romanticization, there has been a relentless thirty-year campaign to demonize and criminalize the Sixties. Militant resistance is portrayed as criminal, mass rebellion transformed into mob action, courageous choices derided as self-serving, moderately outrageous comments in the heat of the moment seized upon and repeated ad naseum as if they were the whole story or true. Fine leaders are degraded and their contributions dismissed due to personal limitations and all-too-real flaws. This is the organized, contemporary, and legal companion to the illegal, secret Counter-Intelligence Program ("COINTELPRO") of the FBI which used disinformation, harassment, and "dirty tricks" against the predominately white movement while using assassination, infiltration and imprisonment against people of color. This demonization of activists was the pretext for physical assassination and character assassination. It finds us still with scores of political prisoners unjustly incarcerated from that time. The Sixties was, in short, neither that good nor that bad.
Third, the struggle has been commodified, sold back to us as clothing, music, drugs, and film. It is trivialized, sucked of content, leaving only the husks of oldies, tattoos and faded murals. What remains invisible is surviving for decades on $20/week, living communally, doing what had to be done without funding from foundations or the approval of program grants, stepping off the career track, risking exile or courts martial, turning Left off the interstate. These were and still are choices made by both the privileged as well as the modest -- first-generation college students, working-class youth, and immigrants who comprised the movement.
Fourth is the lethal, deceptive telling of Sixties' history as if it were predictable and known, smoothing out the turmoil, the turbulence, the anarchy, and the ethical choices. The pat illusions that "we" all opposed the Vietnam War, "we" all were relieved that civil rights were granted to African Americans, and the "media" helped end the Vietnam war
But history is seized, not given, change wrenched as a result of struggles from below. The women who challenged the mangling of our bodies -- the sisters did not know how it was going to turn out. The youth on the freedom rides, the lunch counters, the voter registration drives, urban insurrections, demonstrations against police brutality, struggles for Puerto Rican independence, Chicano liberation, Native American land, resources and dignity -- no one knew how it would turn out. The young men who resisted the draft, who deserted the military, who fought in Vietnam and returned to join the anti-war movement and threw their medals back at the White House, the veterans who today warn and educate about the dread of real war -- they did not know how it would turn out. Dr. King himself was an angry, developing radical -- a constant work in progress, not an airbrushed saint.
When we think about historical moments, of course, we each read ourselves into it in heroic ways. It's so obvious now. We all imagine that if we had lived during slavery, we would have been a catalyst for emancipation, we know what we would risk. Similarly, in our hearts we believe that had we been alive in Europe at the time of Nazi Germany, we would have been part of the Resistance, we would have hidden refugees, we would surely have stepped up to the historic challenge.
What are today's crises of human rights and how will we be remembered? For what we did and for what we failed to do? How do we narrate and act in this historical moment? Let me begin then with those home truths about the Sixties.
Source Link
Excerpt:
It is clear that the Sixties, which was never really The Sixties, is being wielded as a bludgeon against today's young risktakers; a barrier, a legendary era which can never be equaled today. In fact, the Sixties was annually declared "dead" by the pundits of Time magazine and Newsweek beginning in 1963 and throughout the mid-seventies. During the subsequent three and a half decades, there has been a relentless campaign to promote four myths about those radical social upheavals. These legends about the so-called Sixties must be on the table to be scrutinized by today's young activists.
First, the '60s is enshrined as a heroic time of huge demonstrations, militancy and organizing. It was never all that.
Sixties activism was almost always small, isolated, surrounded by hostile, angry crowds. The groundbreaking actions of the students who joined the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the women who stood for an end to patriarchy, and the veterans, draft resisters and deserters who defied the military machine are legendary now because they were right about history and morality. Overwhelmingly, their courage was the quiet kind, the inventive sort, often unrecognized, not showy. Millions took a step away from the path well traveled, left the career track, lived on subsistence pay, learned to talk to strangers about politics, went to the point of production, invented communes, built schools, dug into communities, revived midwifery, seized and exposed the universities, were arrested, broke with family expectations and tradition. Black Panthers, GI organizers, environmentalists, Young Lords, gays and lesbians -- the anarchy, the imagination, the gravity, the invisibility to the media, especially the failures are familiar to today’s young activists. So is the sense of isolation, the inadequacy to the task, the frustration with not being heard, the drowning in the American la la machine. The inability to stop the relentless escalation of war and occupation each and every day for a decade. The enormity of the hold of white supremacy on American life, North and South, inside and out. Divisions among ourselves, worst of all.
At the height of 1968's upheaval, activists at Michigan State felt dismayed that they were not strong and powerful, like those in Ann Arbor. Militants in Ann Arbor measured themselves unfavorably against the struggle at Columbia in New York. And at Columbia or Cornell or Berkeley, organizers were unhappy that they were not meeting the high bar set by the May Day events in France, where workers and students brought the government to the brink. The challenge now, as then, is living as a radical organizer in your own time, your own place. The difficulty then and now is working away during what the great educator and founder of Highlander Myles Horton called Valley Times. It involves simultaneously acting and doubting.
Today’s episodic massive organizing achievements can similarly be followed by eerie calm, business-as-usual, invisibility, the sense of never having been. Global solidarity and inventive militancy among AIDS activists, followed by . . . Labor rights and global justice shutting down the World Trade Organization in Seattle, but. . . . Brilliant unity and tactical zaniness at the '04 Republican National Convention building toward. . . . The devastating deflation of electoral defeats and setbacks to independent organizing. . . . GLBTQ direct action and exuberant breakthroughs followed by counter-reaction and withdrawals, momentarily washed up on the shore. . . . This was true also for all but a few seconds of the roughly fifteen years that constituted The Sixties. The consciousness of today is both ahead of and behind the peaks of the past. That was prelude. Now is where we stand.
Second, and paradoxically in counterpoint to romanticization, there has been a relentless thirty-year campaign to demonize and criminalize the Sixties. Militant resistance is portrayed as criminal, mass rebellion transformed into mob action, courageous choices derided as self-serving, moderately outrageous comments in the heat of the moment seized upon and repeated ad naseum as if they were the whole story or true. Fine leaders are degraded and their contributions dismissed due to personal limitations and all-too-real flaws. This is the organized, contemporary, and legal companion to the illegal, secret Counter-Intelligence Program ("COINTELPRO") of the FBI which used disinformation, harassment, and "dirty tricks" against the predominately white movement while using assassination, infiltration and imprisonment against people of color. This demonization of activists was the pretext for physical assassination and character assassination. It finds us still with scores of political prisoners unjustly incarcerated from that time. The Sixties was, in short, neither that good nor that bad.
Third, the struggle has been commodified, sold back to us as clothing, music, drugs, and film. It is trivialized, sucked of content, leaving only the husks of oldies, tattoos and faded murals. What remains invisible is surviving for decades on $20/week, living communally, doing what had to be done without funding from foundations or the approval of program grants, stepping off the career track, risking exile or courts martial, turning Left off the interstate. These were and still are choices made by both the privileged as well as the modest -- first-generation college students, working-class youth, and immigrants who comprised the movement.
Fourth is the lethal, deceptive telling of Sixties' history as if it were predictable and known, smoothing out the turmoil, the turbulence, the anarchy, and the ethical choices. The pat illusions that "we" all opposed the Vietnam War, "we" all were relieved that civil rights were granted to African Americans, and the "media" helped end the Vietnam war
But history is seized, not given, change wrenched as a result of struggles from below. The women who challenged the mangling of our bodies -- the sisters did not know how it was going to turn out. The youth on the freedom rides, the lunch counters, the voter registration drives, urban insurrections, demonstrations against police brutality, struggles for Puerto Rican independence, Chicano liberation, Native American land, resources and dignity -- no one knew how it would turn out. The young men who resisted the draft, who deserted the military, who fought in Vietnam and returned to join the anti-war movement and threw their medals back at the White House, the veterans who today warn and educate about the dread of real war -- they did not know how it would turn out. Dr. King himself was an angry, developing radical -- a constant work in progress, not an airbrushed saint.
When we think about historical moments, of course, we each read ourselves into it in heroic ways. It's so obvious now. We all imagine that if we had lived during slavery, we would have been a catalyst for emancipation, we know what we would risk. Similarly, in our hearts we believe that had we been alive in Europe at the time of Nazi Germany, we would have been part of the Resistance, we would have hidden refugees, we would surely have stepped up to the historic challenge.
What are today's crises of human rights and how will we be remembered? For what we did and for what we failed to do? How do we narrate and act in this historical moment? Let me begin then with those home truths about the Sixties.
Source Link
To the Best of Our Knowledge: Between Belief and Unbelief
BETWEEN BELIEF AND UNBELIEF
To The Best of Our Knowledge
from Wisconsin Public Radio
WEB AUDIO EXCLUSIVE
Steve Paulson with E.O. Wilson on Science and Religion
E.O. Wilson is one of the world's most eminent scientists. His theory of sociobiology laid the groundwork for a new branch of science, but also created plenty of enemies. Now, he's taking aim at a new target: religion. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we'll talk with E.O. Wilson about the growing rift between science and religion; why he calls himself a "provisional deist," and what he dislikes about the whole idea of an eternal afterlife in heaven. We'll also get a very different take on religious belief from historian Garry Wills, author of "What Jesus Meant."
SEGMENT 1:
Garry Wills is one of America's leading historians and a devout Catholic. His new book is "What Jesus Meant." Wills tells Jim Fleming that we know very little about the historical Jesus and that it doesn't matter because faith does not depend on historical facts.
SEGMENT 2:
Karen King is a historian at the Harvard Divinity School. Her books include "The Secret Revelation of John" and "What is Gnosticism?" Kind tells Anne Strainchamps that there are many early Christian texts that didn't make it into the Bible and that they give us a much fuller understanding of what it means to be a Christian. Also, the Reduced Shakespeare Company (Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor) perform an even further abridged version of their theatrical show "The Bible: The Complete Word of God" - abridged.
SEGMENT 3:
click on picture to see larger image Renowned biologist E.O. Wilson talks with Steve Paulson about the difficulty of reconciling science and religion. Wilson calls himself a provisional deist but is a vocal critic of Intelligent Design. Wilson's books include "Sociobiology" and "Consilience" and he's just edited a collection of Charles Darwin's books called "From So Simple a Beginning."
To Listen to the Program
To The Best of Our Knowledge
from Wisconsin Public Radio
WEB AUDIO EXCLUSIVE
Steve Paulson with E.O. Wilson on Science and Religion
E.O. Wilson is one of the world's most eminent scientists. His theory of sociobiology laid the groundwork for a new branch of science, but also created plenty of enemies. Now, he's taking aim at a new target: religion. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we'll talk with E.O. Wilson about the growing rift between science and religion; why he calls himself a "provisional deist," and what he dislikes about the whole idea of an eternal afterlife in heaven. We'll also get a very different take on religious belief from historian Garry Wills, author of "What Jesus Meant."
SEGMENT 1:
Garry Wills is one of America's leading historians and a devout Catholic. His new book is "What Jesus Meant." Wills tells Jim Fleming that we know very little about the historical Jesus and that it doesn't matter because faith does not depend on historical facts.
SEGMENT 2:
Karen King is a historian at the Harvard Divinity School. Her books include "The Secret Revelation of John" and "What is Gnosticism?" Kind tells Anne Strainchamps that there are many early Christian texts that didn't make it into the Bible and that they give us a much fuller understanding of what it means to be a Christian. Also, the Reduced Shakespeare Company (Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor) perform an even further abridged version of their theatrical show "The Bible: The Complete Word of God" - abridged.
SEGMENT 3:
click on picture to see larger image Renowned biologist E.O. Wilson talks with Steve Paulson about the difficulty of reconciling science and religion. Wilson calls himself a provisional deist but is a vocal critic of Intelligent Design. Wilson's books include "Sociobiology" and "Consilience" and he's just edited a collection of Charles Darwin's books called "From So Simple a Beginning."
To Listen to the Program
Howard Zinn: Lessons of Iraq War Start with US History
Lessons of Iraq War Start With US History
By Howard Zinn
The Progressive
Tuesday 14 March 2006
On the third anniversary of President Bush's Iraq debacle, it's important to consider why the administration so easily fooled so many people into supporting the war.
I believe there are two reasons, which go deep into our national culture.
One is an absence of historical perspective. The other is an inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism.
If we don't know history, then we are ready meat for carnivorous politicians and the intellectuals and journalists who supply the carving knives. But if we know some history, if we know how many times presidents have lied to us, we will not be fooled again.
President Polk lied to the nation about the reason for going to war with Mexico in 1846. It wasn't that Mexico "shed American blood upon the American soil" but that Polk, and the slave-owning aristocracy, coveted half of Mexico.
President McKinley lied in 1898 about the reason for invading Cuba, saying we wanted to liberate the Cubans from Spanish control, but the truth is that he really wanted Spain out of Cuba so that the island could be open to United Fruit and other American corporations. He also lied about the reasons for our war in the Philippines, claiming we only wanted to "civilize" the Filipinos, while the real reason was to own a valuable piece of real estate in the far Pacific, even if we had to kill hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to accomplish that.
President Wilson lied about the reasons for entering the First World War, saying it was a war to "make the world safe for democracy," when it was really a war to make the world safe for the rising American power.
President Truman lied when he said the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima because it was "a military target."
And everyone lied about Vietnam - President Kennedy about the extent of our involvement, President Johnson about the Gulf of Tonkin and President Nixon about the secret bombing of Cambodia. They all claimed the war was to keep South Vietnam free of communism, but really wanted to keep South Vietnam as an American outpost at the edge of the Asian continent.
President Reagan lied about the invasion of Grenada, claiming falsely that it was a threat to the United States.
The elder Bush lied about the invasion of Panama, leading to the death of thousands of ordinary citizens in that country. And he lied again about the reason for attacking Iraq in 1991 - hardly to defend the integrity of Kuwait, rather to assert U.S. power in the oil-rich Middle East.
There is an even bigger lie: the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior.
If our starting point for evaluating the world around us is the firm belief that this nation is somehow endowed by Providence with unique qualities that make it morally superior to every other nation on Earth, then we are not likely to question the president when he says we are sending our troops here or there, or bombing this or that, in order to spread our values - democracy, liberty, and let's not forget free enterprise - to some God-forsaken (literally) place in the world.
But we must face some facts that disturb the idea of a uniquely virtuous nation.
We must face our long history of ethnic cleansing, in which the U.S. government drove millions of Indians off their land by means of massacres and forced evacuations.
We must face our long history, still not behind us, of slavery, segregation and racism.
And we must face the lingering memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It is not a history of which we can be proud.
Our leaders have taken it for granted, and planted the belief in the minds of many people that we are entitled, because of our moral superiority, to dominate the world. Both the Republican and Democratic Parties have embraced this notion.
But what is the idea of our moral superiority based on?
A more honest estimate of ourselves as a nation would prepare us all for the next barrage of lies that will accompany the next proposal to inflict our power on some other part of the world.
It might also inspire us to create a different history for ourselves, by taking our country away from the liars who govern it, and by rejecting nationalist arrogance, so that we can join people around the world in the common cause of peace and justice.
--------
Howard Zinn, who served as a bombardier in the Air Force in World War II, is the author of "A People's History of the United States" (HarperCollins, 1995). He is also the co-author, with Anthony Arnove, of "Voices of a People's History of the United States" (Seven Stories Press, 2004).
By Howard Zinn
The Progressive
Tuesday 14 March 2006
On the third anniversary of President Bush's Iraq debacle, it's important to consider why the administration so easily fooled so many people into supporting the war.
I believe there are two reasons, which go deep into our national culture.
One is an absence of historical perspective. The other is an inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism.
If we don't know history, then we are ready meat for carnivorous politicians and the intellectuals and journalists who supply the carving knives. But if we know some history, if we know how many times presidents have lied to us, we will not be fooled again.
President Polk lied to the nation about the reason for going to war with Mexico in 1846. It wasn't that Mexico "shed American blood upon the American soil" but that Polk, and the slave-owning aristocracy, coveted half of Mexico.
President McKinley lied in 1898 about the reason for invading Cuba, saying we wanted to liberate the Cubans from Spanish control, but the truth is that he really wanted Spain out of Cuba so that the island could be open to United Fruit and other American corporations. He also lied about the reasons for our war in the Philippines, claiming we only wanted to "civilize" the Filipinos, while the real reason was to own a valuable piece of real estate in the far Pacific, even if we had to kill hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to accomplish that.
President Wilson lied about the reasons for entering the First World War, saying it was a war to "make the world safe for democracy," when it was really a war to make the world safe for the rising American power.
President Truman lied when he said the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima because it was "a military target."
And everyone lied about Vietnam - President Kennedy about the extent of our involvement, President Johnson about the Gulf of Tonkin and President Nixon about the secret bombing of Cambodia. They all claimed the war was to keep South Vietnam free of communism, but really wanted to keep South Vietnam as an American outpost at the edge of the Asian continent.
President Reagan lied about the invasion of Grenada, claiming falsely that it was a threat to the United States.
The elder Bush lied about the invasion of Panama, leading to the death of thousands of ordinary citizens in that country. And he lied again about the reason for attacking Iraq in 1991 - hardly to defend the integrity of Kuwait, rather to assert U.S. power in the oil-rich Middle East.
There is an even bigger lie: the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior.
If our starting point for evaluating the world around us is the firm belief that this nation is somehow endowed by Providence with unique qualities that make it morally superior to every other nation on Earth, then we are not likely to question the president when he says we are sending our troops here or there, or bombing this or that, in order to spread our values - democracy, liberty, and let's not forget free enterprise - to some God-forsaken (literally) place in the world.
But we must face some facts that disturb the idea of a uniquely virtuous nation.
We must face our long history of ethnic cleansing, in which the U.S. government drove millions of Indians off their land by means of massacres and forced evacuations.
We must face our long history, still not behind us, of slavery, segregation and racism.
And we must face the lingering memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It is not a history of which we can be proud.
Our leaders have taken it for granted, and planted the belief in the minds of many people that we are entitled, because of our moral superiority, to dominate the world. Both the Republican and Democratic Parties have embraced this notion.
But what is the idea of our moral superiority based on?
A more honest estimate of ourselves as a nation would prepare us all for the next barrage of lies that will accompany the next proposal to inflict our power on some other part of the world.
It might also inspire us to create a different history for ourselves, by taking our country away from the liars who govern it, and by rejecting nationalist arrogance, so that we can join people around the world in the common cause of peace and justice.
--------
Howard Zinn, who served as a bombardier in the Air Force in World War II, is the author of "A People's History of the United States" (HarperCollins, 1995). He is also the co-author, with Anthony Arnove, of "Voices of a People's History of the United States" (Seven Stories Press, 2004).
To the Best of Our Knowledge: Class Lessons
To The Best of Our Knowledge
SEGMENT 1:
Michael Zweig is an economist at SUNY-Stony Brook. He tells Steve Paulson that a lot of Americans who think they're middle class are actually working class and that Americans need to squarely face up to class issues and what they mean for things like health care. Also, Michelle Kennedy tells Anne Strainchamps how she ended up homeless and how she managed to support herself and her three children. Kennedy is the author of "Without A Net."
SEGMENT 2:
Music historian Michael Streissguth talks with Jim Fleming about Johnny Cash and the remarkable recording he made in 1968 at Folsom prison. And we hear several musical examples. Streissguth is the author of "Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison."
SEGMENT 3:
Tom Wolfe's latest novel is called "I Am Charlotte Simmons." He talks about it with Steve Paulson, and explains why he's so fascinated by the connection between sex and social status. Excerpts from the book are read by Dylan Baker.
Class Lessons
SEGMENT 1:
Michael Zweig is an economist at SUNY-Stony Brook. He tells Steve Paulson that a lot of Americans who think they're middle class are actually working class and that Americans need to squarely face up to class issues and what they mean for things like health care. Also, Michelle Kennedy tells Anne Strainchamps how she ended up homeless and how she managed to support herself and her three children. Kennedy is the author of "Without A Net."
SEGMENT 2:
Music historian Michael Streissguth talks with Jim Fleming about Johnny Cash and the remarkable recording he made in 1968 at Folsom prison. And we hear several musical examples. Streissguth is the author of "Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison."
SEGMENT 3:
Tom Wolfe's latest novel is called "I Am Charlotte Simmons." He talks about it with Steve Paulson, and explains why he's so fascinated by the connection between sex and social status. Excerpts from the book are read by Dylan Baker.
Class Lessons
Carrie Taylor: Horticulture Coordinator
Carrie Taylor, Horticulture Coordinator
Maysville Ledger Independent
As the teacher and coordinator of the Horticulture Program at Maysville Community and Technical College, I am continuously interested in why students choose to study this area of specialization. Generally, one of the common interests that most of these people share is the love of plants and gardening; but choosing horticulture as a career is much different than one who is a hobbyist. Students who enter this program receive training in design, science or botany concepts and business management techniques, which enables them to make money while practicing the art and science of growing and cultivating plants. There is a bond between humans and the land which is attracting and often addicting to those of us who appreciate and respect this.
Within the industry there are numerous areas of specialization and diverse opportunities students may pursue. Some of these include: landscape and floral design, lawn and landscape maintenance, hardscape construction including sidewalks, retaining walls and pond installations and greenhouse and nursery growing. These professions share some common elements, the relationships between the land and humans. People within the horticulture industry utilize natural resources to create aesthetically pleasing and functional gardening products.
Humans have always been interconnected with the land and earth; this is more evident within the agriculture vocation which is closely related to horticulture. Soils, plants and nutrients are some of the most common natural elements that are mined, processed and formed into products for consumers. Since the relationship has always existed between people and nature, it is our responsibility to respect nature and its finite reserves. If business owners and employees respect these relationships, it is more likely that the resources, such as soils, mulches and plants will continue to be harvested and mined with less fear of endangerment to plant and animal species.
Most people who enter the horticulture vocation have an appreciation of their physical surroundings and have the desire to learn how to improve these. By working outside in the physical elements that are often less than ideal, including cold, rain and snow, I believe there is a heightened sense of respect and appreciation of the earth.
Practices that growers and designers use have a great impact on our immediate surroundings and the future of how land will be used. This is one of the many theories that a student in the horticulture program would study.
It is the responsibility of employees within the horticulture industry to become knowledgeable and to increase the knowledge of customers about cultural practices relating to gardening products, services and practices.
If you have an interest in growing and caring for plants, learning about their physiological components and if you have the desire to be creative with designing environmental elements, you may be a candidate for the Horticulture Program!
For more information about the program I can be reached at 606-759-7141 ext. 66232 or send me an e-mail: carriel.taylor@kctcs.edu.
Maysville Ledger Independent
As the teacher and coordinator of the Horticulture Program at Maysville Community and Technical College, I am continuously interested in why students choose to study this area of specialization. Generally, one of the common interests that most of these people share is the love of plants and gardening; but choosing horticulture as a career is much different than one who is a hobbyist. Students who enter this program receive training in design, science or botany concepts and business management techniques, which enables them to make money while practicing the art and science of growing and cultivating plants. There is a bond between humans and the land which is attracting and often addicting to those of us who appreciate and respect this.
Within the industry there are numerous areas of specialization and diverse opportunities students may pursue. Some of these include: landscape and floral design, lawn and landscape maintenance, hardscape construction including sidewalks, retaining walls and pond installations and greenhouse and nursery growing. These professions share some common elements, the relationships between the land and humans. People within the horticulture industry utilize natural resources to create aesthetically pleasing and functional gardening products.
Humans have always been interconnected with the land and earth; this is more evident within the agriculture vocation which is closely related to horticulture. Soils, plants and nutrients are some of the most common natural elements that are mined, processed and formed into products for consumers. Since the relationship has always existed between people and nature, it is our responsibility to respect nature and its finite reserves. If business owners and employees respect these relationships, it is more likely that the resources, such as soils, mulches and plants will continue to be harvested and mined with less fear of endangerment to plant and animal species.
Most people who enter the horticulture vocation have an appreciation of their physical surroundings and have the desire to learn how to improve these. By working outside in the physical elements that are often less than ideal, including cold, rain and snow, I believe there is a heightened sense of respect and appreciation of the earth.
Practices that growers and designers use have a great impact on our immediate surroundings and the future of how land will be used. This is one of the many theories that a student in the horticulture program would study.
It is the responsibility of employees within the horticulture industry to become knowledgeable and to increase the knowledge of customers about cultural practices relating to gardening products, services and practices.
If you have an interest in growing and caring for plants, learning about their physiological components and if you have the desire to be creative with designing environmental elements, you may be a candidate for the Horticulture Program!
For more information about the program I can be reached at 606-759-7141 ext. 66232 or send me an e-mail: carriel.taylor@kctcs.edu.
Lexington, KY: 4th Annual "We Are Women" Conference
Contact: Lynn Madison, Bluegrass Community and Technical College
(859) 246-6647
4th Annual We Are Women Conference
(Lexington, KY) – The Bluegrass Chapter of the American Association of Women in Community Colleges will hold its 4th annual We are Women Conference on Friday, April 7, 2006 at Bluegrass Community and Technical College, Leestown Campus, 164 Opportunity Way, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
This year’s theme, Our Balancing Act, will focus on how to balance your professional and personal life – how to bridge the gap between professional growth, professional development, women’s issues in higher education, personal growth, and issues facing women in society.
The keynote address will be given by Janey Moores, Owner and President of BJM Staffing and Job Guidance of Kentucky. Janey has owned her employment business in the Lexington and Central Kentucky area for nearly 35 years. During that time, she has placed thousands of people in thriving careers. Janey began working in the company she now owns as the receptionist in 1971. Her life has definitely veered off the beaten path as she has grown her business into one of the “Top 500 Woman-Owned Businesses in the U.S.” according to Working Woman magazine. Janey is the recipient of various business awards including the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) Woman Business Owner of the Year Award, National NAWBO Trailblazer Award and U.S. Chamber of Commerce “Blue Chip Enterprise Award.” In addition, Janey is the current Legislative Director for Kentucky Staffing Association (KSA) and is the current Chair of the Professional Women’s Forum Dreambuilder’s Committee.
Registration begins at 9:00 a.m. in Building A. Presentations begin at 10:00 a.m. also in Building A and will include the following topics: Domestic History, Women in History, Tips for Buying a Home, Sewing and Crafting, Sun Protection and Dermascans, Container Gardening, Overcoming Grief, and American Sign Language. Vendor’s booths and exhibitions will open at 9:00 a.m. in the Student Center. Admission is free and the public is invited.
(859) 246-6647
4th Annual We Are Women Conference
(Lexington, KY) – The Bluegrass Chapter of the American Association of Women in Community Colleges will hold its 4th annual We are Women Conference on Friday, April 7, 2006 at Bluegrass Community and Technical College, Leestown Campus, 164 Opportunity Way, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
This year’s theme, Our Balancing Act, will focus on how to balance your professional and personal life – how to bridge the gap between professional growth, professional development, women’s issues in higher education, personal growth, and issues facing women in society.
The keynote address will be given by Janey Moores, Owner and President of BJM Staffing and Job Guidance of Kentucky. Janey has owned her employment business in the Lexington and Central Kentucky area for nearly 35 years. During that time, she has placed thousands of people in thriving careers. Janey began working in the company she now owns as the receptionist in 1971. Her life has definitely veered off the beaten path as she has grown her business into one of the “Top 500 Woman-Owned Businesses in the U.S.” according to Working Woman magazine. Janey is the recipient of various business awards including the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) Woman Business Owner of the Year Award, National NAWBO Trailblazer Award and U.S. Chamber of Commerce “Blue Chip Enterprise Award.” In addition, Janey is the current Legislative Director for Kentucky Staffing Association (KSA) and is the current Chair of the Professional Women’s Forum Dreambuilder’s Committee.
Registration begins at 9:00 a.m. in Building A. Presentations begin at 10:00 a.m. also in Building A and will include the following topics: Domestic History, Women in History, Tips for Buying a Home, Sewing and Crafting, Sun Protection and Dermascans, Container Gardening, Overcoming Grief, and American Sign Language. Vendor’s booths and exhibitions will open at 9:00 a.m. in the Student Center. Admission is free and the public is invited.
Cheryl Rogers: Response to V is For Vendetta
This past weekend I went to see V for Vendetta. It wasn’t something I had planned on seeing immediately, I was planning on waiting for the DVD. My husband really wanted to see it so I went as well. I thought it would be just another comic book inspired Hollywood blockbuster with no real message or agenda. I was wrong. Even though the movie was based on a comic book created about 25 years ago, the movie presented ideas that are relevant not only to affairs in the world today, some would say that the filmmakers were offering their commentary on the policies of Bush Administration and terrorism. However, they also resemble affairs that took place in the 1700’s.
The movie is set in a not too distant future Great Britain where in the name of security a totalitarian style government has evolved in the wake of war, poverty and disease. The Government is similar to the government in Great Britain during the 1700’s. The Chancellor, Sutler, and his regime reminded me of King George and the English Parliament which had become too controlling and too powerful leading up to the American Revolution. In the movie there are government finger-men who are the equivalent of King George’s standing army. It is through these men that we are introduced to an average young woman named Evey. She encounters them while out after curfew one evening, by “coincidence” a masked man, known only as V, comes to her aid and fends off her would be attackers. This accomplishes a couple of things right off the bat. Number one, it introduces the audience to the idea that we will be following Evey throughout the film, we will see things as she sees them we will become aware of things as she does. Secondly, it introduces V as an admirable protagonist; our vigilante hero. Or is he?
Shortly after he rescues her from the finger-men the very eccentric V invites Evey to accompany him to a concert that he is conducting that evening, to which she agrees. As he begins to conduct an invisible orchestra on the roof tops of London, as music begins to play from the government sound system that lines the street the entire neighborhood awakens, V begins the climax of the piece and the church across the street explodes in numerous bomb blasts, fireworks are set off and the music continues to play. It’s at this moment that the film changes and we realize at this point that this is not going to be your average comic book movie.
We follow V as he begins to unravel Sutler’s government as he plans to unite the citizens challenging them to join him on November 5th of the following year as his plan culminates in the violent act of blowing up Parliament, much like the Catholic’s plot to overthrow the English parliament that had failed in the 1700’s. It would appear that V is a valiant freedom fighter. However, it is slowly revealed that V is not only trying to remove an oppressive government, but he is also out for revenge against the people who had held him prisoner and destroyed his life. V had been held captive and almost killed by the government and everyone who played a part in his torture, and imprisonment are now in high government positions. Taking his personal revenge, V murders each of them. Not exactly the acts of a typical hero.
As one of the best comic book movies ever, V for Vendetta definitely delivers everything you would expect from a big budget Hollywood blockbuster; it has great action, a wonderfully unique story, and fully developed, interesting characters. But this movie offers much more than that. The filmmakers also use this movie to offer their commentary on the Bush Administration’s policies and to ignite debate by its audience, debate over issues like, terrorism, violence, domestic spying, and government. When is it acceptable to use violence to overthrow an oppressive government? The biggest issue that the movie deals with is the relationship between governments and their people. The title character, V, is a terrorist or freedom fighter, depending on your point of view, who is striving to unite the people to rise up against an oppressive totalitarian government. He is fighting for the good of the people. Throughout the movie the filmmakers challenge us to reevaluate the way we think about violence, terrorism, revolution, and vengeance. The hero is a freedom fighter using terrorist tactics, but he is not attacking a foreign country and murdering innocent people. He goes against a government that has taken total control of the people forcing them to live their lives in fear. I feel that the heart of this movie can be summed up by one of its own lines, V tells Evey that, “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
The movie is set in a not too distant future Great Britain where in the name of security a totalitarian style government has evolved in the wake of war, poverty and disease. The Government is similar to the government in Great Britain during the 1700’s. The Chancellor, Sutler, and his regime reminded me of King George and the English Parliament which had become too controlling and too powerful leading up to the American Revolution. In the movie there are government finger-men who are the equivalent of King George’s standing army. It is through these men that we are introduced to an average young woman named Evey. She encounters them while out after curfew one evening, by “coincidence” a masked man, known only as V, comes to her aid and fends off her would be attackers. This accomplishes a couple of things right off the bat. Number one, it introduces the audience to the idea that we will be following Evey throughout the film, we will see things as she sees them we will become aware of things as she does. Secondly, it introduces V as an admirable protagonist; our vigilante hero. Or is he?
Shortly after he rescues her from the finger-men the very eccentric V invites Evey to accompany him to a concert that he is conducting that evening, to which she agrees. As he begins to conduct an invisible orchestra on the roof tops of London, as music begins to play from the government sound system that lines the street the entire neighborhood awakens, V begins the climax of the piece and the church across the street explodes in numerous bomb blasts, fireworks are set off and the music continues to play. It’s at this moment that the film changes and we realize at this point that this is not going to be your average comic book movie.
We follow V as he begins to unravel Sutler’s government as he plans to unite the citizens challenging them to join him on November 5th of the following year as his plan culminates in the violent act of blowing up Parliament, much like the Catholic’s plot to overthrow the English parliament that had failed in the 1700’s. It would appear that V is a valiant freedom fighter. However, it is slowly revealed that V is not only trying to remove an oppressive government, but he is also out for revenge against the people who had held him prisoner and destroyed his life. V had been held captive and almost killed by the government and everyone who played a part in his torture, and imprisonment are now in high government positions. Taking his personal revenge, V murders each of them. Not exactly the acts of a typical hero.
As one of the best comic book movies ever, V for Vendetta definitely delivers everything you would expect from a big budget Hollywood blockbuster; it has great action, a wonderfully unique story, and fully developed, interesting characters. But this movie offers much more than that. The filmmakers also use this movie to offer their commentary on the Bush Administration’s policies and to ignite debate by its audience, debate over issues like, terrorism, violence, domestic spying, and government. When is it acceptable to use violence to overthrow an oppressive government? The biggest issue that the movie deals with is the relationship between governments and their people. The title character, V, is a terrorist or freedom fighter, depending on your point of view, who is striving to unite the people to rise up against an oppressive totalitarian government. He is fighting for the good of the people. Throughout the movie the filmmakers challenge us to reevaluate the way we think about violence, terrorism, revolution, and vengeance. The hero is a freedom fighter using terrorist tactics, but he is not attacking a foreign country and murdering innocent people. He goes against a government that has taken total control of the people forcing them to live their lives in fear. I feel that the heart of this movie can be summed up by one of its own lines, V tells Evey that, “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
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