--- Begin Message ---
UNDERNEWS
THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
Washington's most unofficial source
0ct 1, 2001
Editor: Sam Smith
1312 18th St. NW #502, Washington DC 20036
202-835-0770 Fax: 835-0779
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WORD
There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. - Kurt Vonnegut,
survivor of the Allied fire-bombing of Dresden
ACCESSORY BEFORE THE FACT
Among those who escaped injury in the recent disasters was an American
establishment responsible for the costliest military defeat against a
foreign adversary ever to occur on home soil.
CNN didn't tell you that, but aside from the internecine Civil War, the
largest number of American deaths in battle on our mainland prior to the
recent assaults occurred during the Revolutionary War - about 4,500. Actual
battle deaths - not all on the mainland or even in our colonies - during the
War of 1912 were 2,300; the Mexican War, 1,700; the Spanish American War,
400; and at Pearl Harbor 2,400. In September, over 6,000 Americans were lost
when the biggest and best funded military in world history was defeated by a
handful of guerillas armed mainly with knives.
In normal circumstances there would be talk of courts martial (as there was
in the case of Pearl Harbor) and impeachment (as there was during the
Vietnam War). Instead we have been conned into waving the flag on behalf of
an establishment that has shamefully failed the country through a
combination of arrogance, greed, stupidity, unpreparedness, carelessness,
and corruption.
Consider, for example, the fact that we are now getting lessons on
patriotism from politicians and journalists who spent the past decade
tossing American sovereignty down the drain in the name of "free trade."
Consider that our military, alienating the restless in scores of country,
turned out to be a cause of our troubles rather than of their elimination.
Consider an intelligence establishment that help train the guerillas who
have now turned on us. Consider the politicians who undermined our safety to
please the oil and defense industries or who endangered our lives in order
to support Israel and gain the campaign rewards that followed. Consider a
foreign policy intelligentsia that could not tell the difference between
realpolitik and realstupid.
This is not cause for unity, flag-waving and loyalty to the latest political
puppet of a decadent elite that has led us into such a crisis. It is cause
for shock and anger, for citizen inquiries and investigations into the
questions the think tanks, Congress and the media refuse to ask, and for a
Solidarity-type movement in which Americans who love their land, the freedom
they once possessed, and the decency to which they aspire come together not
just to bring peace in a war-mad moment but to cause a transformation in how
power is exercised.
I was asked the other day what I would do if I were president. I declined
the hypothesis because, I said, the only way that would happen would be if
the Green Party had come to power, which would mean that America would have
already have been acting in a far different manner than it is today and thus
the attacks would have been far less like even to have occurred. I might
have added that it was a little late to be seeking the advice of those who
have repeatedly sought a different course and who, in return, have been
scorned, kept off the ballot, not invited to debates, and blacked out of the
media.
Further, the American establishment, despite its shameful and disastrous
failure, refuses even now to listen to other than itself. Check this out by
counting how many minutes on mainstream TV or inches in your paper are
devoted to non-military, non-violent solutions to our problem.
Of course, the establishment would have you believe that the guerillas
sprung from the global forest like the Big Bad Wolf going after Little Red
Riding Hood. It relies heavily on the American faith that bad things have
only two sources: accident or someone else's evil. The idea, such as was
imbedded for centuries in maritime law, that a collision often involves
divided fault, is alien to us save in a few instances such as when an abused
spouse shoots her husband. Yet we must now face our proportional
responsibility not only in the name of honesty but in the name of survival.
Nations can not well endure on such a diet of denial as ours.
The question of what one should do at this moment is clouded by another
truth: there may actually be no adequate defense against that which we fear.
To believe that we will be safe if we only ban, search, and spy on enough
things, and jail enough people on enough specious grounds, is a path towards
madness. Like the individual suffering from agoraphobia, we will become
prisoners in our own rooms.
The possibility of no available defense is frightening until one realizes
that we live happily with it every day in other contexts. For example, no
husband and wife adequately protects themselves from being murdered by each
other or by their children. Yet, most do not sleep in bulletproof vests nor
pat the kids down each time they walk in the house. That's because we have
found other ways of assuring the safety in these relationships based on
means beyond those used by the military and police. Similarly, despite the
often heated nature of labor negotiations, I have never heard of a mediator
going into the conference room fully armed.
To define the possible solutions to this crisis as only those of war and
security is to admit defeat, for it is on this level that we are most
vulnerable. Yet these appear to be virtually the sole tools our
establishment understands. Thus not only has it brought unprecedented shame
and danger to this land, it proposes with unbridled hubris to compound its
errors by more of the same.
The rest of us, whether out of moral sense or pragmatic grasp, must no
longer enable such madness but tell those who have failed and betrayed us
that they may not, must not, damage further our lives, our fortunes, and
our sacred honor. SAM SMITH
THE WAR AGAINST WHATEVER
*** INDEPENDENT, LONDON: Emergency legislation giving police the power to
indefinitely detain asylum-seekers suspected of terrorist links, and to
deport them automatically without the right of appeal, was announced by Tony
Blair . . . The new legislation is expected to be rushed through Parliament
within the next few weeks. He said a new law on identity cards was still
being considered. Mr. Blair said the package covered "basic things that we
need to be able to do to protect the security of our own citizens." . . .
Roger Bingham, a spokesman for Liberty, said last night: "Nobody persecuted
in their own country should be locked up here without good reason." . . .
Stephen Jakobi, the founder and director of Fair Trials Abroad, said:
"Thousands of Britons are going to disappear for long periods of time,
because it is easier to issue a warrant than to bother to make sure you have
decent evidence and to transmit that to police. The civil liberties
implications of that are appalling." Another civil liberties group, State
Watch, warned against giving terrorists a "second victory" by dispensing
with the very freedoms that characterize open societies.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=96948
*** Paul Peachey, independent, London: Campaigns waged by terrorist
organizations are being partly financed through protection rackets that
extort money from respected large corporations across the world, it was
claimed. Oil companies in South America and Middle Eastern airlines are
among those paying to prevent their businesses being damaged, according to
the magazine Forbes Global. It claimed timber companies in South-east Asia
have also made protection payments and until recently, a Jewish-owned bank
was paying off the Lebanese Islamist group Hizbollah. An executive in the
financial division of a state-owned oil company in southern Europe claimed
that donating money to Islamic groups was a cost of doing business in the
Middle East. He said: "I have been more and more worried about these
transactions over the last seven or eight years, because friends in our
government's secret service have told me that a number of these
intermediaries have direct links to terrorist organizations."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=96943
*** David Rose, observer, London: Security chiefs on both sides of the
Atlantic repeatedly turned down the chance to acquire a vast intelligence
database on Osama bin Laden and more than 200 leading members of his
al-Qaeda terrorist network in the years leading up to the 11 September
attacks, an Observer investigation has revealed. They were offered thick
files, with photographs and detailed biographies of many of his principal
cadres, and vital information about al-Qaeda's financial interests in many
parts of the globe. On two separate occasions, they were given an
opportunity to extradite or interview key bin Laden operatives who had been
arrested in Africa because they appeared to be planning terrorist
atrocities. None of the offers, made regularly from the start of 1995, was
taken up. One senior CIA source admitted last night: 'This represents the
worst single intelligence failure in this whole terrible business. It is the
key to the whole thing right now. It is reasonable to say that had we had
this data we may have had a better chance of preventing the attacks.' He
said the blame for the failure lay in the 'irrational hatred' the Clinton
administration felt for the source of the proffered intelligence - Sudan,
where bin Laden and his leading followers were based from 1992-96. He added
that after a slow thaw in relations which began last year, it was only now
that the Sudanese information was being properly examined for the first time.
http://www.observer.co.uk/Distribution/Redirect_Artifact/0,4678,0-560624,00.
html
*** SUNDAY MIRROR, LONDON: Poppy fields which supply the Taliban's
multi-billion-pound drugs trade are to be a key target of military strikes
in Afghanistan. The decision has been taken by Tony Blair and President
George Bush to stop Osama bin Laden using drugs profits to wage war against
the West . . . Specially-adapted US planes will be used to spray and destroy
the poppies, from which opium is produced and processed into heroin. The US
is currently funding the development of a fungus that attacks the roots of
opium plants
http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/shtml/NEWS/P6S2.shtml
*** ROBERT FISK, INDEPENDENT, LONDON: Fearful, chilling, grotesque � but
also very, very odd. If the handwritten, five-page document which the FBI
says it found in the baggage of Mohamed Atta, the suicide bomber from Egypt,
is genuine, then the men who murdered more than 7,000 innocent people
believed in a very exclusive version of Islam � or were surprisingly
unfamiliar with their religion. "The time of Fun and waste is gone," Atta,
or one of his associates, is reported to have written in the note. "Be
optimistic ... Check all your items � your bag, your clothes, your knives,
your will, your IDs, your passport ... In the morning, try to pray the
morning prayer with an open heart." Part theological, part mission
statement, the document � extracts from which were published in The
Washington Post yesterday � raises more questions than it answers. Under the
heading of "Last Night" � presumably the night of 10 September � the writer
tells his fellow hijackers to "remind yourself that in this night you will
face many challenges. But you have to face them and understand it 100 per
cent ... Obey God, his messenger, and don't fight among yourself [sic] where
[sic] you become weak ... Everybody hates death, fears death ..." The
document begins with the words: "In the name of God, the most merciful, the
most compassionate ... In the name of God, of myself, and of my family." The
problem is that no Muslim � however ill-taught � would include his family in
such a prayer. Indeed, he would mention the Prophet Mohamed immediately
after he mentioned God in the first line. Lebanese and Palestinian suicide
bombers have never been known to refer to "the time of fun and waste" �
because a true Muslim would not have "wasted" his time and would regard
pleasure as a reward of the after-life. And what Muslim would urge his
fellow believers to recite the morning prayer � and then go on to quote from
it? A devout Muslim would not need to be reminded of his duty to say the
first of the five prayers of the day � and would certainly not need to be
reminded of the text. It is as if a Christian, urging his followers to
recite the Lord's Prayer, felt it necessary to read the whole prayer in case
they didn't remember it. American scholars have already raised questions
about the use of "100 per cent" � hardly a theological term to be found in a
religious exhortation � and the use of the word "optimistic" with reference
to the Prophet is a decidedly modern word. However, the full and original
Arabic text has not been released by the FBI. The translation, as it stands,
suggests an almost Christian view of what the hijackers might have felt �
asking to be forgiven their sins, explaining that fear of death is natural,
that "a believer is always plagued with problems".
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=96697
*** Linda greenhouse, NY TIMES: describing herself as "still tearful" after
viewing the World Trade Center site, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor told a law
school audience in Manhattan yesterday that as part of the country's
response to terrorism, "we're likely to experience more restrictions on our
personal freedom than has ever been the case in our country." Lawyers have a
special duty to work to maintain the rule of law in the face of terrorism,
Justice O'Connor said, adding in a quotation from Margaret Thatcher, the
former British prime minister: "Where law ends, tyranny begins." . . . Her
brief remarks emphasized the need to proceed with care in the aftermath of a
national trauma that she said "will cause us to re-examine some of our laws
pertaining to criminal surveillance, wiretapping, immigration and so on."
Lawyers would play an important role in striking the right balance, she
said, adding, "Lawyers and academics will help define how to maintain a fair
and a just society with a strong rule of law at a time when many are more
concerned with safety and a measure of vengeance."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/29/national/29SCOT.html
*** Joseph Curl, WASHINGTON TIMES: Afghanistan's ruling Taliban faction
claimed it had hidden terrorist Osama bin Laden for his own protection and
offered to negotiate with the United States, a proposal the Bush
administration immediately rejected. . . . The Bush administration said
there would be no deal under any circumstances. "The announcement does not
change anything," said White House spokesman Ken Lisaius. He said the
president laid out U.S. demands in his Sept. 20 speech to a joint session of
Congress, calling for the Taliban to turn over bin Laden and all of his
associates, shut down terrorist training camps and open Afghanistan to U.S.
inspectors. "The president was extremely clear in his address to the
American people and the Congress that the demands that he outlined were not
open to negotiation nor were they open to debate," the Bush spokesman said.
White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said the Taliban government has been
told exactly what to do.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011001-825901.htm
BUT YOU'RE NOT CLEARED TO KNOW IT
Independent, London: Tony Blair has seen "absolutely powerful and
incontrovertible evidence" linking Osama bin Laden to the US terrorist
attacks, he said today. He warned that the international community must
destroy Osama bin Laden's suspected terrorist network in "whatever way we
can." "I think that we can certainly eradicate the bin Laden network, and we
should do that," Blair told the BBC Breakfast with Frost program. When asked
whether he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive," Blair said: "I think in the end
the important thing is that we get him and stop him, and that is something
that we'll pursue in whatever way we can." He did not give any further
details.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=96868
LAND OF THE FREE
*** Andrea Billups, WASHINGTON TIMES: Officials at one prominent campus
liberty group say they have received numerous complaints from professors
both from hawks who support war and doves who oppose it who have come under
attack by campus administrators and others for their analysis of the current
crisis. From a New Mexico history professor who has been accused of
"treason" for making snide, off-the-cuff remarks about the Pentagon bombing,
to a California community college professor who has been placed on
indefinite leave after four Muslim students complained about his provocative
lecture, schools are reacting with increasing passion to squelch opinion as
patriotic fervor swells. "If ever there was a time to notice the
inconceivable double standard when it comes to protection of free speech and
association, it is now," said Thor L. Halvorssen, executive director of the
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. "We are under the tyranny of
the touchy-feely," he said. "These administrators are terrified of being
insensitive to certain views or certain minorities. Ironically, we are all a
minority of one at the end of the day."
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011001-6307880.htm
*** ASSOCIATED PRESS: An attorney for three college students held as
material witnesses in the investigation of the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks
says authorities will not tell him where his clients are. Randall Hamud, a
San Diego attorney, represents Osama Awadallah, Modhar Abdullah and Yazeem
Al-Alsami. The three men were arrested last weekend -- one at a mosque,
another in a parking lot at gunpoint -- and are being held as material
witnesses in the investigation . . . Federal authorities have declined to
discuss the case.
*** Howard Kurtz, WASHINGTON post: In Grants Pass, Ore., the Daily Courier
has axed columnist Dan Guthrie, who criticized President Bush for not
immediately returning to Washington after the Sept. 11 attacks. The airline
passengers who struggled with hijackers before crashing in Pennsylvania "are
the heroes," Guthrie wrote. "Against their courage the picture of Bush
hiding in a Nebraska hole becomes an embarrassment." Editor Dennis Roler
apologized to readers, saying criticism of the president "needs to be
responsible and appropriate." And in Galveston County, Tex., the Texas City
Sun apologized for a column by City Editor Tom Gutting -- who was let go --
titled "Bush has failed to lead U.S." Wrote the publisher, Les Daughtry: "I
further apologize to all our country's leaders and especially President
George W. Bush for the Texas City Sun's ill-advised decision to publish such
a mean-spirited and inappropriate opinion piece." . . . The Voice of
America's news director has fired off a blistering memo about the State
Department's spiking of an interview with the head of Afghanistan's Taliban.
Andre DeNesnera told his staff -- more than 100 of whom have signed a
protest petition - that there has been "a systematic attack on the Voice of
America. . . . The State Department's decision is a totally unacceptable
assault on our editorial independence, a frontal attack on our credibility.
. . . It takes a long time to build up credibility -- and an instant to lose
it. This certainly was a dark, dark day for those of us who have -- for
years -- fought to uphold journalistic ethics, balance, accuracy and
fairness." State Department spokesman Richard Boucher had said officials
"didn't think it was appropriate for the Voice of America to be broadcasting
the voice of the Taliban into Afghanistan." The VOA ignored the directive by
airing the comments by Mullah Mohammed Omar.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50156-2001Sep30.html
*** AUGUST GRIBBIN, WASHINGTON TIMES: Proposed legislation that would
temporarily bar visas from being granted to foreigners for study in the
United States is "a prudent step," but doesn't go far enough, says one
critic of U.S. immigration policies. The proposal was made late last week by
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat. She said she was pushing for a
six-month moratorium on granting foreign-student visas, but current
international students would not be affected. Mrs. Feinstein told the
Associated Press: "The foreign student visa program is one of the most
unregulated and exploited visa categories. This [proposal] may be
controversial, but there has to be recognition that this is an unprecedented
time in our country, and our national security depends on our system
functioning to ensure that terrorists do not take advantage of the
vulnerabilities in the student visa program."
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011001-67215555.htm
*** Joyce Howard Price, WASHINGTON TIMES: Attorney General John Ashcroft
says that new terrorist attacks on the United States are likely, and that
Congress needs to pass legislation that keeps illegal aliens with ties to
terrorists in jail. "We've arrested and detained almost 500 people [since
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks], and we do that for people who are out of
[immigration] status they've violated the law. We need the ability to keep
them in jail and not have them bonded out," Mr. Ashcroft said in an
interview yesterday on CNN's "Late Edition." He made the same argument in an
appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," saying that illegal aliens "who have
links to those who are part of a terrorist network pose an increased risk."
"We've got to find a way to keep them in jail we don't want them on the
streets," Mr. Ashcroft said. But members of Congress on both sides of the
aisle say they object to Mr. Ashcroft's proposal for what Sen. Joseph R.
Biden Jr., Delaware Democrat, describes as the "indefinite detention of an
alien here illegally," and lawmakers are working to find an alternative.
Modernizing anti-terrorism laws is "very important, but there is a problem
detaining people without charges and for indefinite lengths of time," said
Rep. Henry J. Hyde, Illinois Republican and chairman of the House
International Relations Committee, yesterday on NBC's "Meet the Press."
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011001-72077576.htm
RECOVERED HISTORY
*** Scott Shane & Tom Bowman, Baltimore Sun, April 24, 2001: U.S. military
leaders proposed in 1962 a secret plan to commit terrorist acts against
Americans and blame Cuba to create a pretext for invasion and the ouster of
Communist leader Fidel Castro, according to a new book about the National
Security Agency. "We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the
Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington," said one
document reportedly prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "We could blow up
a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," the document says. "Casualty
lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of indignation." The
plan is laid out in documents signed by the five Joint Chiefs but never
carried out, according to writer James Bamford in "Body of Secrets." . . .
A previously secret document obtained by Bamford offers further suggestions
for mayhem to be blamed on Cuba. "We could sink a boatload of Cubans en
route to Florida (real or simulated). ... We could foster attempts on lives
of Cubans in the United States, even to the extent of wounding in instances
to be widely publicized," the document says. Another idea was to shoot down
a CIA plane designed to replicate a passenger flight and announce that Cuban
forces shot it down.
*** MARTIN LUTHER KING, Aprl 4, 1967: The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of
a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this
sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy and
laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. They will be concerned
about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and
Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will
be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without
end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and
policy . . . I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the
world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.
FURTHERMORE
13 Questions for Bush about America's Anti-terrorism Crusade
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11600
LOOSE CHANGE
LOUIS UCHITELLE, NY TIMES: In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,
sales are falling in nearly every sector of the economy - from autos and
home building to high technology and department stores - as gloom spreads
beyond the airline and travel industries. As a result, executives in one
industry after another are postponing whatever spending they can until the
uncertainty lifts and they have a clearer idea of how consumers are reacting
to the crisis . . . The damage is considerable. An economy that was
struggling before Sept. 11 has sunk rapidly in the nearly three weeks since
the terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon . .
. [There] is also the concern of Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research
Center, who found in a poll of 1,000 people that 70 percent said they were
depressed, 50 percent said they could not focus on their jobs and 33 percent
said they were having trouble sleeping.
http://nytimes.com/2001/09/30/business/yourmoney/30ECON.html
THE MEDIACRACY
CNN has joined Reuters in discouraging the use of the agitprop term
"terrorist" and is telling its reporters to use the phrase "alleged
hijackers" to describe those who are accused of attacking the World Trade
Center. Said an official, "CNN cannot convict anybody; nothing has been
judged by a court of law."
THE LIST
Top activist campuses
[As rated by Mother Jones magazine]
1. Yale University
2. Pitzer College (Claremont, California)
3. Pennsylvania State University
4. Harvard University
5. Howard University
6. University of Michigan
7. Florida A&M University
8. Oberlin College
9. University of California at Los Angeles
10. University of Wisconsin
http://www.motherjones.com/magazine/SO01/top10.html
THE LIST
Things that movies teach us
[From Sojourners Magazine]
1. Large, loft-style apartments in New York City are well within the price
range of most people, whether they are employed or not.
2. At least one of a pair of identical twins is born evil.
3. Should you decide to defuse a bomb, don't worry which wire to cut. You
will always choose the right one.
4. Most laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communications
system of any invading alien society.
5. It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving
martial arts: Your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by
dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their
predecessors.
6. If you are blonde and gorgeous, it is possible to become a world expert
on nuclear fission at the age of 22.
7. Honest and hard-working policemen are traditionally gunned down three
days before their retirement.
8. All grocery shopping bags contain at least one stick of French bread.
9. Once applied, lipstick will never rub off - even while scuba diving.
10. Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German or Russian officer, it
will not be necessary to speak the language. A German or Russian accent will
do.
http://www.Sojo.net
FEEDBACK
MARK: Read about your Amtrak ride. ACELA stands for "Amtrak Customers Expect
Late Arrivals."
JUST POLITICS
NY POST: Mark Green accused Fernando Ferrer of narrowly viewing the World
Trade Center horror through "the lens of The Bronx," while the Rev. Al
Sharpton slammed Mayor Giuliani for hogging too much credit for uniting the
city, saying "Bozo" could have done as much. Two days after Green and
Republican Michael Bloomberg accepted, and Ferrer rejected, Giuliani's pitch
for a three-month term-extension, Sharpton - a major Ferrer booster -
sharply criticized Giuliani for trying to stretch his term. "We elected you
mayor, not Messiah," Sharpton said at his Harlem headquarters during a rally
attended by Ferrer. "You didn't bring us together, our pain brought us
together and our decency brought us together," Sharpton said. He added, "We
would have come together if Bozo was the mayor." A spokesman for Ferrer, who
has praised Giuliani's handling of the crisis, said later, "Although
[Ferrer] would have chosen different words, he agrees that our city's unity"
comes from New Yorkers' shared grief.
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/5332.htm
NEW YORK CITY now has a Green candidate for mayor, Julia Willebrand, who
told a mayoral forum on latino issues, "They are handing over one billion
dollars tax giveaway to the NY Stock Exchange while permitting 25,000
primarily mothers and children to remain homeless each night, at the same
time the quality of air is dangerously affecting New Yorkers' health, and
the schools are failing the City's children."
http://www.juliaformayor.org/
RECENT RESEARCH
[From the Annals of Improbable Research]
"Visualization of Acoustic Radiation from a Vibrating Bowling Ball," S.F.
Wu, N, Rayess, and X. Zhao, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,
vol. 109, no: 6, 2001, pp. 2771-9.
"Voice Source Characteristics in Six Premier Country Singers," J. Sundberg,
T.F., R.E. Stone, and J. Iwarsson, Journal of Voice, vol. 13, no. 2, June
1999, pp. 168-84
"Dating in Exposed and Surface Contexts," Charlotte Beck (editor),
University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1994.
"The Levelling of Paint Films," S.K. Wilson, IMA Journal of Applied
Mathematics, vol. 50, 1993, pp. 149-66. Abstract: "Using a brush to apply
paint to a flat surface almost inevitably means that the bristles of the
brush leave behind an uneven paint surface. As the paint dries out, these
non-uniformities tend to flatten out to leave a protective and aesthetically
pleasing even coating; however, experiments have shown that some
solvent-based high-gloss alkyd paints can exhibit more unusual behavior as
they dry. In these experiments the initial rate of leveling was faster than
that expected simply due to constant surface tension effects, and, much more
unexpectedly, over a timescale of a few minutes the peaks of the original
disturbance became troughs and vice versa. In this paper the author presents
a mathematical model for the drying of a layer..."
http://www.improbable.com/news/news-top.html
HEALTH
AMERICAN MEDICAL NEWS: Even though there are no employers signed up and no
insurance plan to help carry it out, about 3,700 doctors in the Portland,
Ore., area are throwing their stethoscopes in the ring with a health plan
model that would allow them to set their own rates and have greater control
over medical decision-making. Along with the doctors, 24 hospitals and 14
health systems in the Portland area have signed up with Minnesota-based
Patient Choice Health Care, the company said. Patient Choice has operated
its model, called Choice Plus, in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area for four
years . . . In a nutshell, the plan has "health care systems" or networks of
doctors and hospitals who work as a unit in submitting bids to Patient
Choice. The networks are organized in tiers according to their fees and what
type of care they provide, such as whether patients need referrals or if
they have open access to specialists. Employers pay a fixed rate for the
lowest-level tier, and employees who want a higher-level network pay the
additional cost themselves. Patient Choice lists the fees of the different
systems so consumers can see what they're choosing . . . Signing up doctors
and hospitals has been the easy part. No employers had agreed to contracts
yet, and an insurance company to underwrite the plan was still being sought.
Without an insurance underwriter, Patient Choice-affiliated doctors could
negotiate only with self-insured employers.
http://www.ama-assn.org/sci-pubs/amnews/pick_01/bisa1008.htm
YOUTH
"One morning in November, during a student geography bee, I listened as
teen-agers from privileged families identified Jamaica as an island in the
Pacific and the mountain range separating India from China as the Indus
Mountains then to their teachers defend that ignorance by arguing 'We don't
waste time on simple memorization. We'd rather spend it on higher orders of
thinking.' "One moment, I was awestruck at the plight of varsity football
players breaking up fights among sophomores rather than cheering them on, as
they had in my day. Five minutes later, I was horrified to read students'
papers and realize that even the best hadn't mastered basic grammar,
punctuation or spelling or to hear scores of students blithely inform me,
perhaps even boast to me, that they had never read a complete book." Elinor
Burkett, "Another Planet: A Year in the Life of a Suburban High School"
FIELD NOTES
In Every Other Country: Comparing Health Care Systems and Results is a look
at how 17 other countries compare to ours, in results and in the
effectiveness with which they spend their health care budget. You can read
it on line, or get the text file to print out.
http://michuhcan.tripod.com/every_other0.htm
PROFESSIONAL LIBRARIANS AVAILABLE AT ALL HOURS 24/7 Professional librarians
online with them to help them find what they are looking for. As the name
suggests, the librarians will be available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. The
creation of a consortium of public libraries in southern California.
http://www.247ref.org
THE FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT ON TRENDS IN SCHOOLHOUSE COMMERCIALISM
http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/Reports/ceru/ceru-0109-101/ceru-0109-101.htm
TODAY IN HISTORY
1964 -- Police attempt to arrest University of California-Berkeley math grad
student Jack Weinberg for passing out literature for the Congress Of Racial
Equality in Sproul Plaza - inadvertently starting the Free Speech Movement.
A police car is surrounded by demonstrating students for 32 hours. Says
Weinberg:
"Don't trust anyone over thirty."
1949 The Pacifica Foundation starts its first radio station, KPFA in Berkeley.
1942 Little Golden Books publishes its first children's book: The Poky
Little Puppy.
1919 The White Sox intentionally throw the World Series in what becomes
known as the Black Sox scandal.
1910 Twenty-one are killed when the Los Angeles Times building is dynamited
while embroiled in labor strife.
1890 -- US Congress passes the McKinley Tariff Act, taxing opium at $10 a
pound if manufactured for smoking.
1742 "Bloody Election Day" in Philadelphia. The Proprietary Party hires 30
burly sailors with large clubs or truncheons to keep the rival Quakers from
controlling the staircase leading to a ballot box. But the Quakers, aided by
German allies, rally and drive the sailors off.
DAILY BLEED http://www.eskimo.com/~recall/bleed/calmast.htm
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