Xenia releases first in a series of podcasts on One in Three

Today we introduce the first in a compelling series of audio interviews surrounding “When It Hits Home: An Evening Concerning Intimate Partner Violence.”

This interview is a conversation with Lagueria Davis and Gabe Miller, director and producer of One In Three, the film that will be pre-screened in Xenia’s joint event later this week.  To listen, click on the link.  To download this interview for further listening, simply right click on the link and choose “save as.”

Gabe and Lagueria podcast

A Piece of Cuba Right Here in Illinois

Analysis…

Yesterday President Obama announced that a prison in his home state of Illinois will house detainees from the Guantanamo detention center.   Deciding where to send these prisoners is a major step in closing Guantanamo and making good on a campaign pledge of Obama’s to close the prison within the first year of his presidency.  Bringing the prisoners to the states has met both acceptance and fervent resistance.

The Hill | “I support the transfer of inmates to the Thomson Correctional Center, and I have full confidence that the facility will hold these terrorism suspects safely and securely,” Burris said in a statement.

Burris, like other Democrats, cited the plan as an opportunity to create jobs in a state that has 11 percent unemployment. Under the proposal, a limited amount of detainees would be housed at the little-used Thompson Correctional Facility in the northwestern part of the state.

Pro Publica | Unmentioned today was yet another problematic category of detainees: Those who have had their habeas cases granted by U.S. judges, but who remain in custody [7] at Guantanamo. As you can see from our interactive chart [8], which tracks the 40 detainees who have had their habeas cases decided by U.S. courts, 10 detainees currently fall into that category, some of whom were ordered released over 14 months ago.

We asked the White House what it plans to do with those detainees whose habeas cases have been granted but are still waiting to be released. A spokeswoman there declined to comment.

Think Progress | Two months ago, Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) voted on a homeland security bill that contained a provision that authorized the transferring of prisoners out of Guantanamo Bay. Now that he’s running for Senate and trying to court the right-wing base, Kirk is staking a different position. Commenting on Fox News today about the Obama administration’s announcement, Kirk said he would instead opt to keep Gitmo open:

ACLU | “The creation of a ‘Gitmo North’ in Illinois is hardly a meaningful step forward. Shutting down Guantánamo will be nothing more than a symbolic gesture if we continue its lawless policies onshore.

“Alarmingly, all indications are that the administration plans to continue its predecessor’s policy of indefinite detention without charge or trial for some detainees, with only a change of location. Such a policy is completely at odds with our democratic commitment to due process and human rights whether it’s occurring in Cuba or in Illinois. In fact, while the Obama administration inherited the Guantánamo debacle, this current move is its own affirmative adoption of those policies. It is unimaginable that the Obama administration is using the same justification as the Bush administration used to undercut centuries of legal jurisprudence and the principle of innocent until proven guilty and the right to confront one’s accusers.

Illinois Review | Members of various state-wide organizations who oppose the use of Thomson Prison for the housing of Guantanamo Bay detainees are staging a protest rally to run in conjunction with a public hearing conducted by the Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability regarding the sale of the prison to the federal government.

On the Web…

Rethinking Work: The US Military as Labor | Global Comment

A war president accepted the Nobel Peace Prize this week and with that acceptance laid out a defense of war as foreign policy. It is not my point in this piece to argue Barack Obama’s position on war. Instead, I want to take some time to think about the people who fight wars with little ability to nitpick the causes and justifications thereof. Soldiers. Men and women who fight and die in wars around the world.

Specifically, since I’ve been thinking about and writing about work, I want to talk about the military in a way it’s rarely mentioned: as labor. As a job.

The Shame of Unemployment | Change.org

As food stamp use grows, the stigma associated with their use is allegedly falling. As we continue to see widespread unemployment, foreclosures, and reliance on private and public assistance well into 2010, we must stick to the messaging that we are all in this together, that we have nothing to be ashamed of, and that we can only reshape and recapture the “American Dream” by reforming the political and economic causes that got us to this moment. Of course, without action, this is just a lot of empty rhetoric.

Octopus is First Invertibrate to Use Tools, Turning a Coconut Into a Mobile Home | Treehugger

Scientists have found an octopus that is using a coconut shell as it’s own shell. It’s a brilliant mobile home idea. It carries the shell along with it – squatting it’s body inside, with it’s legs hanging over so it can walk along the ocean floor. When it gets to a spot that looks like a nice place to camp, it covers itself with the shell. Check out a video of the octopus in action.

The Story of the Shopping Cart | Sociological Images

So there you have it: labor de-skilling + marketing – stigma of feminine association + Baby Boom + profits based on increased purchasing of ever-cheaper stuff = the modern shopping cart!

Huckabee’s Mercy

Analysis…

Nine years ago, as governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee granted clemency to Maurice Clemmons.  Clemmons had been 17 when he was sentenced to over 100 years of prison.  On Tuesday, Clemmons was shot and killed by police in pursuit of him for allegedly shooting and killing four police officers in Tacoma, Washington.  The recidivism of Clemmons has called into question the clemency process.  Much like Willie Horton before him, Clemmons may have destroyed the political aspirations of Huckabee, considered a front runner for the Republican nomination for president in 2012.  Huckabee has been quoted as saying that he would prefer to stay at his current job as a commentator on Fox News.

Huffington Post |  Despite the torrent of criticism, Huckabee stuck to his guns. “If I had the exact same information in front of me tonight that I had 9 years ago, in a case exactly the same, I would make the exact same decision, because I can’t imagine that anyone would not,” he said.  “If I could have looked into the future, of course I would. But I couldn’t do that. What I don’t understand is, those who could see some of his actions, the judges in Washington who knew that he had raped a child and that he had had now several psychotic episodes, why he was able to get out on bail. That I can’t answer.”

Feministe | Huckabee’s decision to commute Clemmons’ sentence was not what killed those police officers. Governors should be able to check an over-zealous justice system in situations like this one, where a minor was sentenced to a century behind bars for an offense that, as far as I can tell, included no physical harm to other people. It turns out that Clemmons was actually a horrible man, and I’m not trying to downplay his evil actions after prison. But it’s important to keep in mind that this series of events is the exception rather than the rule. And as much as I love to criticize Huckabee, this one isn’t on his shoulders.

Spiritual Politics | The quality of Gov. Mike Huckabee’s mercy was not strained. It dropped like a gentle rain from heaven, upon just about any convicted felon who claimed to have found his way to Jesus. This was well known among the incarcerated class in Arkansas and so, it seems, more than the usual number of felons included Jesus in their commutation pleas.

Crooks and Liars | In another development, Huck PAC has deflected blame from their man and put off the alleged actions of Clemmons and his presence in the community as “…the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington State…” They go on to say that “…It appears that he has continued to have a string of criminal and psychotic behavior but was not kept incarcerated by either state…” implying that Washington state had legal means to keep him incarcerated after he posted bail. He has not had a trial in Washington state, however he had several in Arkansas. They also declare him to be exhibiting ‘psychotic behavior,’ apparently bringing all of their psychiatric experience to bear.

Politico| There is a bottom line here that the criminal justice system is full of error, and that granting clemency will, inevitably, sometimes go awry. The episode, though, is a reminder of why politicians would sometimes much rather keep a possibly innocent person in jail than let a possibly guilty one go free: The political risk is higher.  In any case, the episode is a major blow, in part because Huckabee’s candidacy was already looking unlikely to get off the ground.

News…

Immigrants Help Local Economies| Change.org

While focusing on just fiscal issues such as taxes and budgets in 25 metro cities, the research found that immigrants, regardless of legal status, make up 20 percent of the population and are responsible for 20 percent of economic output in 25 cities combined.  A local breakdown of each metro area showed similar results.

Ten Ways Homophobia and Transphobia Affect Straight People | Queers United

1. Homophobia and transphobia force us to act “macho” if we are a man or “feminine” if we are a woman. This limits our individuality and self-expression.

2. Homophobia and transphobia put pressure on straight people to act aggressively and angrily towards LGBTQI people.

3. Homophobia and transphobia can make it harder to be close friends with someone of the same sex.

Minimum Wage Machine Pays You Pennies for Your Power | TreeHugger

One way to make a little side money is to be a power generator. The Minimum Wage Machine will pay you in real time for the power you generate. The more you crank, the more pennies it spits out.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed and U.S. Justice

News & Analysis …

The BBC reported this weekend that senior U.S. Republican officials are protesting the Obama administration’s move to try 9/11 suspect Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four others in New York. While Democrats approved the move, members of the GOP said that the move puts U.S. residents at risk. No date has been given for the trial. News outlets and bloggers in response examined whether the U.S. would be able to handle the security, and whether the Mohammed and the other suspects can find justice in a U.S. trial.

NPR |  “New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says his city is ready to handle the trial of the men accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks. His comments followed the Obama administration’s announcement Friday that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others would be transferred from the prison at Guantanamo Bay to New York to face prosecution. The city may be prepared to tackle the security and logistics of such a trial, but the emotional challenge may be more difficult. … It would be hard to find a New Yorker who didn’t feel their world change that day.”

ThinkProgress |  “The U.S. justice system apparently isn’t good enough for former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (who believes that the White House has a “Department of Law“). Last night she went on Facebook and posted a message calling the Obama administration’s decision ‘atrocious.’”

Lawyers, Guns & Money |  “Obama and Holder are not trying to reestablish the rule of law, they are engaged in a game of political chicken with their real constituents (the transnational Left) and, because they blinked, they owe a tribute of American lives to their overseas masters. The problem with such paranoid stylings is that 1) Mohammed and his compatriots were tortured and 2) the entire world already knows that. What can these men say against the United States that hasn’t already been published by international news syndicates?”

Center for American Progress |  “I worry, however, that the Obama administration may unintentionally hand Al Qaeda a propaganda tool should it—as Holder strongly suggested—seek the death penalty for these men. It is in the strategic interests of the United States to deny these most heinous Al Qaeda terrorists what they want most: martyrdom. Al Qaeda will exploit an execution by the U.S. government as a significant propaganda victory, no matter how fair and legitimate the trial. Life imprisonment, however, would cause Mohammed and his co-conspirators to be forgotten, like Ramzi Yousef and other terrorists currently wasting away in obscurity in U.S. jails, a far harsher punishment for these terrorists than execution.”

Glenn Greenwald @Salon |  “Obama is certain to be bombarded with all sorts of right-wing idiocy and fear-mongering as a result of his decision to bring 9/11 defendants into the U.S. in order to give them trials.  Doing that is clearly the right thing to do:  trials and due process is how civilized countries treat people who are accused of engaging in terrorism.  Given how Democrats and Republicans will talk about this decision, media coverage will almost certainly fixate on the narrow question of whether (a) 9/11 defendants should be given trials in the U.S.  or (b) we’re all now Endangered because these Omnipotent Monsters are being brought into our communities (in handcuffs, shackles, and maximum-security prisons).”

Best of the Web …

Relationships 2.0: Are you my real friends or are you just virtual?  |  What Tami Said

When I began writing online about the things that are most important to me, I soon found a small group of cyber-friends who inspire me, who write things that seem like they tumbled from my own mind, who share some of my beliefs, opinions and obsessions and challenge others, who crack my shit up on the regular. I found my tribe–folks who speak my language–online. We e-mail, DM each other on Twitter, recommend each other for writing jobs, meet up to run 5Ks, give advice, send notes of encouragement to one another, share family pictures, sometimes even talk on the phone. I have not met most of my virtual friends in person, yet what I derive from these relationships is important to me. In fact, I credit my cyber-relationships with sparking some important personal growth over the last two years.

But Taylor cautions that I shouldn’t mistake the virtual relationships I cherish for real relationships. … Is Taylor correct? For all the in-depth conversations with like-minded folks in forums, for all the Twitter conversations that last too late into the night, for all the personal e-mail exchanges with virtual friends, are we losing the true meaning of “relationship?” Or, is new media redefining what relationships are? My online friendships may be quite different from my in-real-life ones, but I think they are equally as valid.

Once Common, Now Disappearing  |  Kottke.org

From a book called Obsolete, a list of things that were once common but not so much anymore: blind dates, mix tapes, getting lost, porn magazines, looking old, operators, camera film, hitchhiking, body hair, writing letters, basketball players in short shorts, privacy, cash, and, yes, books.

God, the Army and PTSD  |  Boston Review

In a 2004 study of approximately 1,400 Vietnam veterans, almost 90 percent Christian, researchers at Yale found that nearly one-third said the war had shaken their faith in God and that their religion no longer provided comfort for them. The Yale study found that these soldiers were more likely than others to seek mental health treatment through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) when they came home. It was not that these veterans had unusually high confidence in government or especially good information about services at VA hospitals. Instead, they had fallen into a spiritual abyss and were desperate to find a way out. The trauma of war seems to be especially acute for men and women whose faith in a benevolent God is challenged by the carnage they have witnessed.

Of course, not all veterans with mental health concerns are led to VA hospitals by a loss of faith: many simply want to get a night’s sleep without being terrorized by nightmares. Whatever kind of assistance they are seeking, it has been in increasingly short supply. The decline in resources for veterans’ mental health services started in the 1980s, as part of a nationwide effort to move psychiatric patients into outpatient treatment. The number of inpatient psychiatric beds fell from 9,000 in the late ’80s to 3,000 by 2008.

During the Iraq war, however, the great difficulty veterans experienced in getting psychiatric care—greater than before—was not a product of cost-cutting, but of conviction: many Bush administration officials believed that soldiers who supported the war would not face psychological problems, and if they did, they would find comfort in faith. In a resigned tone, one prominent researcher who worked for the VA, and asked that he not be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press, explained that high-ranking officials believed that “Jesus fixes everything.”

A Climate of Action

Analysis …

Saturday was International Day of Climate Action, and thousands of people in more than 180 nations gathered in solidarity to call for international action to curb emissions that effect climate change. The protesters focused on the number 350, which refer to the 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that some scientists say must not be exceeded if the world is to avoid unchecked global warming. Emissions currently stand at 387 ppm. What can people do to meet the challenge to curb climate change? Is it already too late for any action to make a difference?

Did you attend an International Day of Action event? Let us know!

Yes! Magazine |  “We’re already at 390 parts per million, and rising two parts per million per year. That’s why the Arctic is melting, why deserts are spreading, why the Himalayas are melting. And it’s why we need much faster action than most big governments are currently planning. They’re focused on old, out-of-date targets: 450 ppm, say, which would allow a slower and easier transition to a post fossil-fuel society. But the research is clear that it’s suicidal. Earlier this month, for instance, the journal Science reported on a landmark new study, which showed that when carbon levels got that high in the past, sea levels rose 75 to 120 feet.”

TruthDig |  “We can join Bill McKibben on Oct. 24 in nationwide protests over rising carbon emissions. We can cut our consumption of fossil fuels. We can use less water. We can banish plastic bags. We can install compact fluorescent light bulbs. We can compost in our backyard. But unless we dismantle the corporate state, all those actions will be just as ineffective as the Ghost Dance shirts donned by native American warriors to protect themselves from the bullets of white soldiers at Wounded Knee.”

Open Left |  “It’s quite clear that the US remains the biggest impediment to effective action to avoid catastrophic global warming. There are many reasons for this, not least is the failure of progressives to mount an effective counter-campaign against the massive flood conservative disinformation.  If we want to fix the problem of America’s Neanderthal self-destructive politics of global warming, then we need to look at this failure and how to correct it.  One key to this is the blindingly obvious argument that global warming constitutes an overwhelming threat to our national security–which is the main thrust of this diary.”

Grist |  “We need a shared POSITIVE vision of our green future. We need to get away from the language of sacrifice and inconvenience, and towards the language of excitement, opportunity, and potential. I am currently reading “The Great Transition,” a report by the new economics foundation, which presents a powerfully attractive picture of a sustainable world. We need more of the same. At the moment we are still focusing on the problem (climate change) rather than the solution (sustainability). And the majority of people don’t need another problem—they have enough of their own already. The sooner we make this paradigm shift towards the positive, the better.”

The Atlantic |  “Will these protests get teabagger-style coverage? Probably not. A good fight over crowd estimates always helps and so does having a television network devoted to revving up your cause. Meanwhile, it’ll be interesting to see where Congress goes on climate change and how Obama handles the upcoming meeting on climate change in Copenhagen.”

News …

Prosecutors Turn Tables on Student Journalists  |  The New York Times

For more than a decade, classes of students at Northwestern University’s journalism school have been scrutinizing the work of prosecutors and the police. The investigations into old crimes, as part of the Medill Innocence Project, have helped lead to the release of 11 inmates, the project’s director says, and an Illinois governor once cited those wrongful convictions as he announced he was commuting the sentences of everyone on death row.

But as the Medill Innocence Project is raising concerns about another case, that of a man convicted in a murder 31 years ago, a hearing has been scheduled next month in Cook County Circuit Court on an unusual request: Local prosecutors have subpoenaed the grades, grading criteria, class syllabus, expense reports and e-mail messages of the journalism students themselves.

And I’d Like to Thank God Almighty  |  USA Today

Anyone who watches pro and college football or follows the drama of the baseball playoffs can’t help but notice something else that often competes for our attention amid the passes, pitches and home runs: religion.

Players point skyward to the Almighty after reaching the end zone or home plate, star athletes voice thanks and praise to their savior after a big win, and sports heroes use their media spotlight to promote the Christian message. (See University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow and his eye-black, touting Scripture.)These are the outward signs of a faith surge that has made big-time sports one of the most outwardly religious sectors of American culture.

Far less visible, but worth knowing about, are the infrastructure and strategy of the sports-world evangelicalism that powers these pious displays. Athletes’ expressions of Christian faith reflect decades of hard work by evangelical ministries to convert players and “coach” them to use their stature to promote a particular version of conservative Christianity.

Three Tweets for the Web  |  The Wilson Quarterly

The arrival of virtually every new cultural medium has been greeted with the charge that it truncates attention spans and represents the beginning of cultural collapse—the novel (in the 18th century), the comic book, rock ‘n’ roll, television, and now the Web. In fact, there has never been a golden age of all-wise, all-attentive readers. But that’s not to say that nothing has changed. The mass migration of intellectual activity from print to the Web has brought one important development: We have begun paying more attention to information. Overall, that’s a big plus for the new world order.

Supply-Side Economics, R.I.P.  |  Capital Gains and Games

I continue to believe that what the supply-siders did was good for the economy, good for the country and good for the advancement of economic science. The best economists in the country were pretty clueless about our economic problems during the Carter years. It was widely asserted that the money supply had no meaningful effect on inflation, that marginal tax rates had no incentive effects, and that it would take decades or another Great Depression to break the back of inflation.

As all economists now know, these ideas were wrong. All economists today accept the importance of the money supply–perhaps too much; during the recent crisis many asserted that fiscal stimulus was unnecessary because an increase in the money supply was the only thing necessary to restore growth. (How this would have been accomplished when interest rates were close to zero was never explained.) All economists now accept the importance of marginal tax rates to economic decisionmaking, and organizations like the National Bureau of Economic Research publish vast numbers of papers on this topic.

During the George W. Bush years, however, I think SSE became distorted into something that is, frankly, nuts–the ideas that there is no economic problem that cannot be cured with more and bigger tax cuts, that all tax cuts are equally beneficial, and that all tax cuts raise revenue.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent?

Analysis …

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is under national scrutiny over whether he attempted to block an investigation into the quality of forensic science that was key to the conviction of an Oklahoma native convicted in the arson deaths of his three children. Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in Texas in 2004, his conviction primarily resting on the testimony of fire investigators whose findings of arson have been disputed by experts. A former member of a Texas panel that examines the quality of forensic evidence in cases such as Willingham’s recently reported feeling pressure from the Texas governor to back off the case. Willingham’s case is bringing the discussion about the death penalty, and the chance of executing the innocent, into national discussion, and whether the death penalty will be abolished when most Americans, Gallup reports, support it.

Read more about Willingham’s case in the New Yorker. Nightline also dedicated a segment to his case (hat tip to Jack & Jill Politics for the video link):

Ta-Nehisi Coates @The Atlantic |  “The death penalty promotes our sense of order–it offers assurance that those who savagely violate our most cherished morals will be harshly penalized. The question, for me, is what will we tolerate to preserve that assurance? What I hope will come out of this case is a more honest debate about the death penalty. I strongly suspect that Rick Perry–at this point–knows that something went badly wrong in Willingham’s execution, and yet still believes in the death penalty. What I hope will emerge is death penalty advocates honest enough to admit that no system of state-sponsored execution can be infallible, because people are fallible. I want them to come out and say what’s clear–innocent people will be executed. I want them to stop treating us like children, and make the argument.”

Obsidian Wings |  “My own pet theory, then, is that capital punishment has become an ideological issue on which aspiring GOP politicians must show party loyalty to get elected and to ascend the intra-party hierarchy.  If, however, they show the slightest hesitancy on executing the inadequately represented, their future in politics is over. In short, ostentatious support for capital punishment-on-demand is all benefit and no cost for ambitious GOP judges and officials.”

Balloon Juice |  “Americans’ support for the death penalty is not isolated. It is of a piece with Americans’ (negative) attitudes about evolution, just to cite one example (I’m sure I could find others but I find the topic depressing); that is to say, it has more to do with superstitions and conceptions of good and evil than with reason. Probably the most we could ask for right now is to have the people administering the lethal injections dress as pimps so that in the event of another wrongful execution the New York Times and Washington Post treat it as an important story.”

Megan McArdle @The Atlantic |  “Yes, I’m opposed to the death penalty.  But even if you’re not, you can’t possibly think that it’s okay to avoid investigating whether your state’s forensic methods risk putting innocent people in jail, or sending them to their death.  No matter how strongly you favor the death penalty, I’m sure that you agree that its purpose is not to execute people; it’s to execute justice.  A value which Rick Perry seems determined to butcher.”

Lawyers, Guns and Money |  “Essentially, Willingham was convicted based on two things: junk-scientific non-evidence that the fire was arson, and the ludicrously implausible testimony of a mentally ill jailhouse snitch. Amazingly, Jackson concedes that the central forensic junk science was “undeniably flawed” and doesn’t mention the snitch’s testimony at all, but continues to assert that Willingham was guilty. Nina Morrison systematically dismantles the remaining “evidence” Jackson cites.”

News & Analysis …

United Nations: 1 Billiion Going Hungry  |  TruthDig

Global hunger is a “world emergency” now, if it wasn’t before, with the number of hungry people rising to a record 1 billion, according to the United Nations. Given this scary statistic, it’s not looking good for a goal, set in 2000, to reduce the number of people going hungry worldwide by half by 2015.

This is Why We Torture  |  OpenLeft

Neither the MPs at Abu Ghraib nor the guards at Guantanamo Bay started the US down a path of being a nation that tortures all by their lonesome. They didn’t even order it. And why should it be so surprising that there would be little squeamishness about torturing foreigners when our domestic culture has been encouraging in-house torture for a very long time?

The torture of US citizens is common in prisons. This includes dehumanizing solitary confinement and the threat of rape torture. Prisoner advocates have been pointing out for a very long time that prison rape is a casual punchline praised for universally accepted, though never proven, deterrence benefits. US prisoners of war considered solitary confinement among the most terrible tortures and nearly everyone considers rape to be torture, but we allow these things to be done in our country every day.

America’s Optimism Addiction  |  The Daily Beast

Looking on the bright side has become all but mandatory in our culture, Barbara Ehrenreich argues in her new book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.

When I reached Ehrenreich by phone at her Virginia home, I asked her about a paradox raised in Bright-Sided’s introduction. Americans stress positive thinking more than any other culture, and yet by measures of self-reported happiness, we’re not faring so well. We rank low compared to the Danes, the Dutch, even the Malaysians. “If there has been a decline in happiness in America, and we don’t shape up well compared to other countries, including, weirdly, Finland, which I always thought of as very dour,” Ehrenreich said, “it relates to all this work we do to make ourselves be more positive. Positive thinking is imposed on people in a lot of settings. If you’re in the typical corporate workplace, you are exhorted to be positive. You’re told nobody wants to be around a negative person—which could mean somebody who just raises questions now and then, questions like ‘Isn’t our subprime exposure dangerously large here?’ People were fired for that in ’05 and ’07, right up until the end of the housing boom. You just could not say something like that.”

Young Invincibles Weigh in on Health Care  |  RaceWire

The Center for Community Change has launched an effort that inserts yet another voice into the current healthcare debate: young people.

The prevailing perception of 20-somethings is that they are at the peak of their health. But the numbers tell a different story. In 2006, the number of uninsured young adults climbed to 13.7 million people, accounting for approx. one third of the total uninsured population. In fact six preventable deaths a day occurred in 2000 among adults aged 25-34 due to lack of insurance. And since young people of color, particularly Latinos, comprise the fastest growing population in the nation, the ranks of uninsured youth are likely to be mainly black or brown. And in their communities there is less access to standard tests, procedures and drugs.

Sexual Politics, the Law and the Roman Polanski Arrest

Analysis …

Director Roman Polanski, best-known in the U.S. as the Oscar award-winning director of The Pianist and the classic horror film Rosemary’s Baby was arrested last weekend in Switzerland on a U.S. arrest warrant. In 1977, Polanski was charged with having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl; Polanski jumped bail and fled the country the following year after spending several weeks in a U.S. jail. He has lived outside of the U.S. since then.

Bloggers, world leaders and Hollywood moguls have wondered why authorities have chosen to arrest Polanski, who is 76, at this time. Some observers have noted that Polanski’s case highlights the gray areas of U.S. attitudes both about sex and due process.

Michael Wolff @The Huffington Post |  “Prosecutors are the scariest people in a democracy because they can have you arrested and put in jail. They can do this essentially at will, if arresting you suits their purposes. Alternatively, they can not arrest you if that suits their purposes. One reason prosecutors can function at such a level of virtually no accountability is because, while almost all other public servants have terrible press, law enforcement agencies have always used their muscle to maintain good press (there is even a further point about, specifically, the LA prosecutor’s office and its relationship to the prosecutor’s image in television and movies).”

The League of Ordinary Gentlemen |  “I think Polanski is a brilliant filmmaker and a world-class cretin. I’m disgusted by what he did. But I also have great reservations about how we can try him and maintain a full grasp on due process and rights of the accused. The physical evidence is in bad condition;the police who ran his case are mostly dead; the key witnesses are unlikely to cooperate, including the victim; and most importantly, and most concerning, for a democratic society, is that the judge and the prosecuting attorney conspired during the case. That’s a really, really big deal, and contra this piece from Salon, it’s a big deal no matter whether the prosecutors in LA think it’s a big deal or not. That sort of thing absolutely can’t happen in a nation of laws. Can’t.”

Feministe |  “If you believe arresting people and making them stand trial is worth anything, why the objection? Why the international outcry and circulation of petitions and raging French government officials? Because seriously, the message I’m hearing is, if you have enough money and celebrity friends, if you’re talented enough, if you’re charming enough, everyone thinks that you should just be left alone to rape underage girls and how dare anyone call you on it or even suggest that you have to stand trial like anyone else. And the same news media that pruriently reports the horrible details of similar crimes done by non-famous people will back you up on it. This, my friends, is what a rape culture looks like.”

FP Passport |  “Polanski’s case is perhaps not unique in the world of extradition law, but it is provocative. The notion of the Los Angeles DA’s office for 32 years tracking the director’s busy European travel schedule, waiting for an opportunity, whilst he chose to appear at various film festivals via video-conference rather than in person, is fascinating. But beyond the celebrity factor, it’s hard to pin down exactly what seems so incongruous. Is it simply that in a post-9/11 world we’re now accustomed to thinking of “extradition” in connection with national security interests, and clear-and-present danger?”

Anne Applebaum @The Washington Post |  “I am certain there are many who will harrumph that, following this arrest, justice was done at last. But Polanski is 76. To put him on trial or keep him in jail does not serve society in general or his victim in particular. Nor does it prove the doggedness and earnestness of the American legal system. If he weren’t famous, I bet no one would bother with him at all.”

Alas, a Blog |  “Yes, it’s true, if Polanski wasn’t famous, he wouldn’t be in this mess, because he wouldn’t have had access to Jack Nicholson’s house while Jack was out of town. And he wouldn’t have been able to flee to France. And he wouldn’t have been able to live comfortably for 30 years. But hey, the poor guy had to forgo his Oscar! The horror!”

Also in the news … Associated Press publishes internal memo on Polanski arrest instead of the news story.

News …

• The world’s population of carnivores have tripled in the past 30 years (Read more).
• Study shows how video can alter eyewitness memory (Read more).
• FiveThirtyEight takes a look at the study that says Oklahoma high school students are dumb and gets suspicious (Read more).
• Iraq steps up for Iran (Read more).

Criminalization of the Homeless

A few years ago, I worked for the City of Oklahoma City Planning Department around issues of homelessness.  I was asked by my supervisors to review peer cities’ approaches to homelessness.  This was to be used as background information while forming OKC’s own approach during the Mayor’s Homelessness Action Taskforce.   As I started looking at the city codes of peer cities, I pulled back the veneer of sanity that covers our legal code and discovered pure chaos.  (Incidentally, this experience is what made me want to go to law school.)  Why is it that, in Philadelphia, there are areas where it’s illegal to sit on the sidewalk for more than half an hour?  This seems an obvious attempt to criminalize the activities of homeless people and to keep them out of tourist/downtown districts.  Similarly, laws have been enacted that forbid distribution of food in public parks to deter religious organizations from feeding the homeless there.

But, I wasn’t the only one who noticed this problem.  Others were way ahead of me.  The National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty focused on the problem.  The yearly synthesis of this effort is the publishing of a report that ranks cities by their “meannness” to the homeless.  This year, the title of the report is Homes Not Handcuffs.  Who made the coveted first place as meannest to the homeless?  Home, sweet home, Los Angeles, California.  I’ll get back to that in a minute.  In the mean time, here’s what is being said about the report in the blogosphere:

David Shankbone writes on his blog:

When homelessness is raised as an issue in the United States, thoughtful insight is lost.  First and foremost is: what does our society owe the homeless, if anything?  What is the responsibility of a rich society like America’s to help eradicate this problem, and how do we do so?

I rarely see this topic debated with any substance and seriousness.  Instead, the homeless are seen as a problem and annoyance by the people who have to deal with them.

Alexandra de Scheel writes for the Seattle Libertarian Examiner:

As is the case with all prohibition-based laws; these anti-loitering, anti-camping, anti-homeless regulations are proving to be fruitless and unproductive. There has been an increase in homelessness in America in recent years and while this is most likely due to our deteriorating economy, it is clear that the criminalization methods being employed are not reducing these numbers at all. Between 2007 and 2008, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reported that a staggering 41.8% of the homeless population went unsheltered.

The homeless are not the only ones who have been persecuted under these new measures. In perhaps the most despicable arrest in quite some time, a man in Orlando was jailed this year for giving food to the homeless. Which begs the question; has this country really been reduced to locking people up for trying to help their fellow man on their own dime?

And so, the battle lines are drawn, between those who think like Mr. Shankbone and those who think like Ms. Scheel.  And while our society decides whether criminalization or rehabilitation is the correct course of action, it’s the homeless that are stuck in the middle, alternatively being incarcerated and rehabilitated.

As a service provider in greater Los Angeles (meannest city), I am quite frustrated when law enforcement interfere with my clients.  I walked outside my agency a couple weeks ago to find two of my clients detained for such minor offenses as “I know she’s on probation” (she actually wasn’t) and “he didn’t have a light on his bicycle.”  Both clients were searched and generally harassed.  But, if it was me who didn’t have a light on my bicycle, would I have been stopped?  I think not.

Upon writing this blog, I went back and looked at the Philadelphia city code I researched several years ago.  To my pleasant surprise, the following section has been added that says “No person shall discriminate against any other person based on their economic status in the use and enjoyment of public property.”

Maybe the report really is having an effect on the way we understand the criminalization of the homeless.

Birther of a National Conspiracy

Analysis …

The U.S. House on Monday unanimously passed a resolution that commemorates  Hawaii’s 50th anniversary of statehood — and incidentally declares that the nation’s 50th state was really the birthplace of President Obama. Could this be the end of the “birther” movement, a segment of hardline conservatives who claim that Obama was not born in the U.S. and therefore is not elligible to be president? Or is the notion of a “natural-born” president one that’s past its time? And what’s up with those folks anyway?

National Review |  “The attention paid to President Obama’s place of birth is not unprecedented. In fact, it may be the only thing President Obama has in common with Pres. Chester Arthur, whose opponents whispered that he had been born in Canada. A number of unsuccessful presidential candidates—George Romney, Barry Goldwater, and Lowell Weicker among them—actually were born outside of the United States (in Mexico, the Arizona Territory, and Paris, respectively) to American parents and thereby into American citizenship. If the conspiracy theorists have evidence that President Obama went through the naturalization process, let them show it. But there is no such evidence, because this theory is based on unreality, as two minutes’ examining the claims of its proponents reveals. The hallmark of a conspiracy theory is that a lack of evidence for the theory is taken as yet more evidence for the theory. Indeed, the maddening thing about dealing with conspiracy hobbyists of this or any sort is the ever-shifting nature of their argument and their alleged evidence: Never mind the birth certificate, his step-grandmother said he was born in Kenya! (No, she didn’t.)”

(hat tip to Andrew Sullivan)  Heretical Ideas |  “There is no question that the evidence points to the conclusion that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and is therefore a “natural-born citizen.” No question, that is, if you accept the dominant paradigm of metaphysical realism. That is, the idea that things exist independent of the mind and that those things are perceivable and knowable. Moreover, those who insist that Barack Obama is an American citizen also rely on philosophic naturalism–the idea that reality is subject to objective, knowable natural laws that can’t be tampered with. However, if one rejects these two philosophic concepts, it’s quite easy to demonstrate that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and is therefore constitutionally ineligible to be President of the United States.

AlterNet |  “Perhaps it is too obvious to say that the birthers’ insistence on Obama’s illegitimacy is based on racism. Even so, why isn’t this collective racism at the heart of the “debate”? “That’s one of the problems with this so-called post-racial era that we’re in,” says Wise. “White folks in particular — and some folks of color — are very quick to avoid that angle at all costs, lest they be accused of somehow being the ones who are somehow racist in some way or who are thinking in racial terms.”"

The Daily Beast |  “More fundamentally, so what if he was born somewhere else? If he was, he was teleported to Hawaii in nanoseconds. There is no more an American story than Barack Obama. The rationale for Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution, which bars foreigners from becoming president, was to eliminate the possibility of America’s leader from holding dual or treacherous alliances with other countries. The Founding Fathers wrote this clause into the Constitution in 1789 because of scandal in Europe involving Austrians moving to other countries.
So what would be the legitimate concern about Obama? There isn’t one. All the birthers really care about is clinging to a conspiracy that could deny the presidency to someone they simply don’t like and disagree with politically.”

Miller-McCune |  “At any rate, these Obama’s-not-really-American rumors (which rarely seem to suggest what he is if he’s not) have created the impression that actual, physical, official birth certificates are as hard to come by as a good solution to health care. Which, it turns out, they’re not. Read more here. At least, they’re not if you want your own. Birth certificates aren’t considered public records in most states, which means only you, or the right person close to you, has a right to see it. The federal government doesn’t keep any vital records, but every state does, and the CDC will even tell you exactly where to go to request one.”

Also, Politico reports that Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe has backed off his comments that the “birther” proponents have “a point.” And the Huffington Post and FireDogLake went to the Capitol to find out which members of Congress have doubts about Obama’s citizenship (hat tip to Ta-Nehisi Coates!):

News …

• A report by the Sentencing Project has found that the number of life without parole sentences handed down in the U.S. grew 22% between 2003 and 2008 (Read more).
• How the British Army has navigated the acceptance of gay soldiers since it ended its ban nine years ago  (Read more).
• Sen. Inhofe tells the Senate that oil and gas use doesn’t cause pollution (Read more).
• The Economist’s brief history of American Economic Growth, in video (Watch).

Racial Narratives and the Gates Arrest

Henry Louis Gates said he hoped that his arrest at his home a few weeks ago would  be “a teaching event,” a chance for the U.S. to enter into a grown-up dialogue about race and racism as they stand today.

Instead it seems like this discussion has fallen along similar lines as past ones, wherein both race and racism are deemed as individual issues, which are deemed seemingly  less and less relevant as more information about Gates’ arrest comes out. Sgt. Crowley, the arresting officer in the case, has been lauded as a good guy and a Cambridge Police racial diversity trainer. No mention of race was made (without prompting) in the initial 911 call. (The conspiracy theory-leaning World Net Daily, noting that Gates is working on a documentary about U.S. civil rights, has gone so far as to speculate that Gates might have set up the events to get publicity!).

All of which is to say, we’re not actually having a national conversation about race and racism here at all, we’re throwing up defensive facts and statistics in order to keep from having the hard discussion about the reality of race in the U.S. today.

So here’s a start, I’ll just throw it out there: Race — and consequently, racism — are not wholly personal nor wholly individual matters, but are messily tied into our social understandings of the world. It’s about the framework, folks, and we all have one that we’ve inherited from our contexts and surroundings and nurtured through our experiences. And a lot of times that racial framework we don’t even see it and often make the mistake of seeing that frame as the picture, forgetting that we’re all looking at the same picture through different frames.

In the case of the Gates arrest, there are two competing racial narratives at play: The first is that of Gates, an African-American man whose experiences as an African American man in the U.S. have told him that the police are not necessarily on his side. Mansfield Frazier writes at the Daily Beast:

we blacks bring historical baggage to any such confrontation; as a defense mechanism—based on centuries of ill-treatment at the hands of the instruments which have been used to suppress us (the police)—we’re always braced for the worse in any such encounter and therefore may be sensitive to a fault. But, again, we blacks didn’t create this charged, hostile racial environment—we can only react to it.

There’s also the frame of Crowely, a EruoAmerican man whose training and experiences as a police officer have told him how to judge the situations before him to determine whether he is in danger and what force, if any, must be applied. And I’ve read a lot of theories about what might have happened with Crowley during his encounter with Gates: that he lost his cool, that he was retaliating at Gates not because of race but because of class or honor or maybe he was just being an ass. Crowely maintains that he is not a racist and that he won’t apologize, and that’s pretty much all he’s said on the matter.

In any case, I think it’s impossible to do more than speculate about whether race and racism were at play in Gates’ arrest, any more than we can really speculate about class, tribalism or Crowley’s alleged jerkishness (which, for the record, I have no reason to believe, since I don’t know the guy). I think the best we can do is recognize that there are two frameworks competiting with one another that do not contradict one another but are equally valid reflections of reality. The real test of our racial progress is we can engage with both narratives and then ask ourselves the hard questions about where the tension is and what structures are in place to support or deny them, and then ask ourselves how they measure to what we honestly know is right and just.

What I know is this:

• that President Obama was right when he said, “Separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-American and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately“;
• that I have too many friends who have been racially profiled by police or security;
• that this there is too much racial disproportionality between whites and people of color in the U.S. prison system to be accepted without question;
• that the experiences of people outside the mainstream, whether they are people of color or women or the LGBTQI community or children, have often been challenged or outright denied in favor narratives that support an unjust status quo.

I think it’s safe to say, to paraphrase President Obama, that both men acted “stupidly,” but then, both were acting from their experiences, which is our go-to when we’re under stress. Both men made mistakes. And for what it’s worth, I’m not the only one who wonders what the outcome would have been had the racial setup been different. But I’m a pretty firm believer that it’s not just how we’re treated in our successes that will be one of the hallmarks of racial equality. It’ll be how we’re treated in our mistakes. And getting arrested in your own home is a terribly harsh and unjust punishment for such a misstep.

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