UNDERNEWS
Sam Smith
July 21, 1999
The Progressive Review
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WORD
If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what
is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this
remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the
people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence there must be no
arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything. -- Confucius
BIBLE QUOTATIONS YOU WON'T HEAR ON CBN
He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall
not enter into the congregation of the Lord. -- Submitted by DC Dave
CULTURE WARS
JFK Jr. Coverage
A Portrait of America survey finds that most Americans think the media
overdid their coverage of the JFK Jr. story. The national telephone survey
found that 67% said that the television networks should have continued with
regular programming and simply provided news updates. Only 23% thought that
the decision to cancel regular network shows was appropriate. Americans over
65 were most likely to say it was appropriate to cancel regular programming.
Still, 57% of America's senior citizens thought that regular programming
should have continued. Americans under 30 were most likely to say that there
was no need to cancel programming. 72% of our nation's youngest adults share
this view.
KIDS AND THE WEB
DECLAN MCCULLAGH, WIRED: New federal legislation will force start-up Web
sites devoted to children to charge for access or go out of business,
entrepreneurs said Tuesday at a Federal Trade Commission hearing. "A small
Web site cannot survive," said Steven Bryan, CEO of children's portal site
zeeks.com .... He said the liberal groups that champion government
regulation have seriously underestimated the cost of mailing letters to
parents asking for permission to give children accounts on sites -- which is
one proposal the FTC is considering.
"It's a multimillion dollar proposition to do this," Bryan said. "The only
people who can do this are Disney and Nickelodeon." A 1998 children's
privacy law requires the FTC to regulate the data collection practices of
Web businesses with content aimed at children.
WIRED http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/20851.html
FROM THE UN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT
-- One fifth of the world's people living in countries with the highest
incomes produce 86 percent of world gross domestic product, 82 percent of
world exports and 68 percent of foreign direct investment and control 74
percent of the world's telephone lines. The bottom fifth, in the poorest
countries, produce about 1 percent in each category.
-- The 200 richest people in the world more than doubled their net worth to
$1 trillion between 1994 and 1998.
-- Rich industrialized countries hold 97 percent of all patents worldwide.
-- The income gap between the richest fifth of the world's people and the
poorest fifth increased from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 74 to 1 in 1997.
-- Tanzania's debt service payments are nine times what it spends on primary
health care and four times what it spends on primary education.
-- Women occupy more than 30 percent of parliamentary seats in only five
countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands.
-- English is used in almost 80 percent of all Web sites although fewer than
one in 10 people world-wide speak the language. The number of computers with
a direct connection to the Internet rose from under 100,000 in 1988 to over
36 million in 1998.
-- Only 33 countries achieved a sustained annual growth rate of at least 3
percent per capita between 1980-96. During that period during, per capita
growth declined in 59 countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa and the former
Communist nations in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
-- Organized crime syndicates are estimated to gross $1.5 trillion a year.
The value of the illegal drug trade was estimated at $400 billion in 1995,
about 8 percent of world trade, more than the shares of iron and steel and
motor vehicles, and roughly equivalent to textiles and gas and oil.
-- The cost of a three-minute phone call from New York to London fell from
$245 in 1930 (in 1990 dollars) to 35 cents in 1998.
-- The percentage share of the market by the top 10 corporations in each
sector in 1998 was telecommunications, 86 per cent; pesticides, 85 per cent;
computers, almost 70 per cent; veterinary medicine, 60 per cent;
pharmaceuticals, 35 per cent; commercial seed, 32 per cent.
-- Between 1975 and 1997, life expectancy in developing countries increased
from 53 to 62 years, and the adult literacy rate rose from 48 to 76 per
cent. Under-five mortality fell from 149 per 1,000 live births to 85.
-- Adult literacy among Brahmins, a group at the top of the Hindu social
system in Nepal, is 58 per cent and life expectancy is 61 years; the figures
for the country's Muslims are 22 per cent and 49 years.
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT http://www.undp.org/hdro/99.htm
ECO NOTES
REUTERS: Six senior employees of an Alaskan oil pipeline company have
warned that a far worse ecological disaster than the Exxon Valdez
catastrophe 10 years ago could occur at any time, the Guardian reported on
Monday. The newspaper said the whistleblowers from the Alyeska company
running the 800-mile trans-Alaska pipeline had written to BP Amoco and three
U.S. Congressmen saying there was an imminent threat to human life and the
environment .... The whistleblowers feared a possible rupture of the aging
pipeline or an explosion at the Valdez oil tanker terminal, the newspaper
said. "It's not a matter of if it is going to happen, it's when it is going
to happen," it quoted one of them as saying
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE: Increasing water shortages may lead to global
hunger, civil unrest and even war, according to Sandra Postel, director of
the Global Water Policy Project and author of a new book, "Pillar of Sand:
Can the Irrigation Miracle Last." With population growing rapidly in many of
the world's most water short regions, water problems are bound to worsen.
The number of people living in water stressed countries is projected to
climb from 470 million to 3 billion by 2025, Postel notes .... Sri Lanka
based International Water Management Institute [has] released a study
predicting that a third of the world's population will experience severe
water shortages within the next 25 years .... The United Nations Environment
Program announced that the number of people without access to safe drinking
water will jump from 1.4 billion to 2.3 billion in 2025 unless governments
take faster action to address water shortages .... The UN estimates the
price of bringing safe water to those who need it would be $23 billion to
$25 billion per year over eight to 10 years. Current world investment in
clean water supplies is only $8 billion. The $15 to $17 billion shortfall is
about the same amount spent every year on pet food in the U.S. and Europe.
ENS http://www.ens.com
THE PACIFICA CRISIS
The censorship of Pacifica is increasing. A staff member of the network's
New York reports that Democracy Now Producer Amy Goodman has been told that
she must call Garland Ganter and Mark Schubb with the line-up for the next
day's Democracy Now. Goodman asked for the order in writing but was refused.
Ganter is manager of Pacifica's Houston station and is said to be
responsible for the arrest of KPFA Producer Dennis Bernstein after armed
guards attempted to remove him from the KPFA studios. Schubb is the manager
of KPFK in Los Angeles where segments of Democracy Now and other programs
have already been censored. One longtime phone volunteer was recently told
he could no longer work at the station after he joined a picket line in
front of KPFK to protest actions by Pacifica management.
HILLARY WATCH
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: Hillary Rodham Clinton told a top White House aide that
she endorsed efforts to discredit Kathleen Willey after Willey accused the
President of making an unwanted pass at her, according to court documents
.... The revelation was found in responses White House spinmeister Sidney
Blumenthal gave in a lawsuit filed by conservative lawyer Larry Klayman of
Judicial Watch.
CLINTON SCANDALS
WORLDNET DAILY: A senior Internal Revenue Service supervisor told Treasury
Department investigators that she would like to audit the tax returns of
Western Journalism Center Executive Director Joseph Farah in an effort to
prove he was personally benefiting from the tax-exempt charity he founded,
according to a 1997 report obtained by the center through the Freedom of
Information Act .... A heavily redacted 1997 Treasury Department report
titled, "Questionable Exempt Organization Examination Activity," was
released July 6 to Farah's news organization [WorldNet Daily] following
three years of FOIA filings and appeals for such information. Contradicting
IRS officials and their Justice Department lawyers in two suits pending
against the agency by the center and its legal counsel, the Treasury report
states unequivocally and repeatedly that the audit began with a letter
forwarded from the White House to the IRS.
WORLDNET DAILY: http://www.worldnetdaily.com
Y2K
HUGH McMANNERS, LONDON SUNDAY TIMES: THE SAS and other special services are
to deal with outbreaks of civil disorder and the collapse of utilities under
secret plans being drawn up by the armed forces to cope with the millennium
bug. The plans, code-named Operation Surety, will see the special forces and
other armed troops deployed to protect not only key government sites but
also civilian installations .... The extent of the military's role has been
disclosed as the armed services prepare for the critical date of September
9, or 9/9/99, when the scale of the computer chaos could become apparent.
Half the combat troops are to be withdrawn from Kosovo by the end of August,
a total of up to 2,000 soldiers.
.... Planners fear that computer failures could leave installations
vulnerable to criminal or terrorist attack. Armed troops, some with light
tanks and heavy weapons, will be deployed to guard likely targets such as
airports. In the worst scenario, some form of martial law might be necessary
in localized areas. Eight leading financial institutions have asked for
protection.
EDUCATION
Although you would never guess it from the media and the administration,
nothing in the Constitution gives the federal government power to run public
education -- traditionally and wisely been in the hands of local school
boards. So badly is this misunderstood that the AP ran a recent headline
over a story on a congressional funding action that read, "House Votes To
Gut Teacher Plan."
What the House had actually done, and quite sensibly, was to reject the
Clinton administration telling local school districts how education money
should be spent i.e. to hire 100,000 new teachers, a pet project of the
president. The measure that passed turned the funds into block grants that
devolved decision on their use to the state and local level. 24 Democrats
joined the GOP in passing the legislation.
FIELD NOTES
STUDY CIRCLES are small-group, democratic, peer-led discussions. More than
120 cities, towns, and neighborhoods are organizing large-scale study circle
programs. The Study Circle Resource Center can help you get one going.
http://www.studycircles.org/pages/hap.html
A CITIZEN'S GUIDE TO THE WTO - Everything You Need to Know to Fight for Fair
Trade" Available from The Apex Press 914-271-6500 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
THIRD WAVE Scholarship program for young women who are full-time or
part-time students age 30 and under who are enrolled in, or have been
accepted to, an accredited university, college or community college
(undergraduate or graduate). The primary criterion for funding is financial
need. Students should also be involved in the social justice movement,
working on issues such as racism, homophobia, sexism, or other institutional
injustices. The creation of visual art (including film and video) and
literature is considered a form of activism. The amount of each scholarship
is decided after careful review of the student's financial aid report.
212-338-1898 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED].
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