NYTimes NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Let me offer a modest proposal: If Congress fails to pass comprehensive health reform this year, its members should surrender health insurance in proportion with the American population that is uninsured.
It may be that the lulling effect of having very fine health insurance leaves members of Congress insensitive to the dysfunction of our existing insurance system. So what better way to attune our leaders to the needs of their constituents than to put them in the same position?
About 15 percent of Americans have no health insurance, according to the Census Bureau. Another 8 percent are underinsured, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a health policy research group. So I propose that if health reform fails this year, 15 percent of members of Congress, along with their families, randomly lose all health insurance and another 8 percent receive inadequate coverage.
Congressional critics of President Obama’s efforts to achieve health reform worry that universal coverage will be expensive, while their priority is to curb social spending. So here’s their chance to save government dollars in keeping with their own priorities.
Those same critics sometimes argue that universal coverage needn’t be a top priority because anybody can get coverage at the emergency room. Let them try that with their kids.
Some members also worry that a public option (an effective way to bring competition to the insurance market) would compete unfairly with private companies and amount to a step toward socialism. If they object so passionately to “socialized health,” why don’t they block their 911 service to socialized police and fire services, disconnect themselves from socialized sewers and avoid socialized interstate highways?
I wouldn’t wish the trauma of losing health insurance on anyone, but our politicians’ failure to assure health care for all citizens is such a longstanding and grievous breach of their responsibility that they deserve it. In January 1917, Progressive Magazine wrote: “At present the United States has the unenviable distinction of being the only great industrial nation without universal health insurance." More than 90 years later, we still have that distinction.
Theodore Roosevelt campaigned for national health insurance in 1912. Richard Nixon tried for universal coverage in 1974. Yet, even now, nearly half of Congress is vigorously opposed to such a plan.
Health care has often been debated as a technical or economic issue. That has been a mistake, I believe. At root, universal health care is not an economic or technical question but a moral one.
We accept that life is unfair, that some people will live in cramped apartments and others in sprawling mansions. But our existing insurance system is not simply inequitable but also lethal: a very recent, peer-reviewed article in the American Journal of Public Health finds that nearly 45,000 uninsured people die annually as a consequence of not having insurance. That’s one needless death every 12 minutes.
When nearly 3,000 people were killed on 9/11, we began wars and were willing to devote more than $1 trillion in additional expenses. Yet about the same number of Americans die from our failed insurance system every three weeks.
The obstacle isn’t so much money as priorities. America made it a priority to provide tax breaks, largely to the wealthy, in the Bush years, at a 10-year cost including interest of $2.4 trillion. Allocating less than half that much to assure equal access to health care isn’t deemed an equal priority.
The plan emerging in the Senate is no panacea. America needs to promote exercise and discourage sugary drinks to hold down the rise in obesity, diabetes and medical bills. We need more competition among insurance companies. And conservatives are right to call for tort reform to reduce the costs of malpractice insurance and defensive medicine.
But those steps are not a substitute for guaranteed health coverage for all Americans. And if health reform fails this year, then hopes for universal coverage will recede again. There was a lag of 19 years after the Nixon plan before another serious try, and a 16-year lag after the Clinton effort of 1993. Another 16-year delay would be accompanied by more than 700,000 unnecessary deaths. That’s more Americans than died in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq combined.
The collapse of health reform would be a political and policy failure, but it would also be a profound moral failure. Periodically, there are political questions that are fundamentally moral, including slavery in the 19th century and civil rights battles in the 1950s and ’60s. In the same way, allowing tens of thousands of Americans to die each year because they are uninsured is not simply unwise and unfortunate. It is also wrong — a moral blot on a great nation.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
The Uneducated American
NYTimes PAUL KRUGMAN
If you had to explain America’s economic success with one word, that word would be “education.” In the 19th century, America led the way in universal basic education. Then, as other nations followed suit, the “high school revolution” of the early 20th century took us to a whole new level. And in the years after World War II, America established a commanding position in higher education.
But that was then. The rise of American education was, overwhelmingly, the rise of public education — and for the past 30 years our political scene has been dominated by the view that any and all government spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Education, as one of the largest components of public spending, has inevitably suffered.
Until now, the results of educational neglect have been gradual — a slow-motion erosion of America’s relative position. But things are about to get much worse, as the economic crisis — its effects exacerbated by the penny-wise, pound-foolish behavior that passes for “fiscal responsibility” in Washington — deals a severe blow to education across the board.
About that erosion: there has been a flurry of reporting recently about threats to the dominance of America’s elite universities. What hasn’t been reported to the same extent, at least as far as I’ve seen, is our relative decline in more mundane measures. America, which used to take the lead in educating its young, has been gradually falling behind other advanced countries.
Most people, I suspect, still have in their minds an image of America as the great land of college education, unique in the extent to which higher learning is offered to the population at large. That image used to correspond to reality. But these days young Americans are considerably less likely than young people in many other countries to graduate from college. In fact, we have a college graduation rate that’s slightly below the average across all advanced economies.
Even without the effects of the current crisis, there would be every reason to expect us to fall further in these rankings, if only because we make it so hard for those with limited financial means to stay in school. In America, with its weak social safety net and limited student aid, students are far more likely than their counterparts in, say, France to hold part-time jobs while still attending classes. Not surprisingly, given the financial pressures, young Americans are also less likely to stay in school and more likely to become full-time workers instead.
But the crisis has placed huge additional stress on our creaking educational system.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States economy lost 273,000 jobs last month. Of those lost jobs, 29,000 were in state and local education, bringing the total losses in that category over the past five months to 143,000. That may not sound like much, but education is one of those areas that should, and normally does, keep growing even during a recession. Markets may be troubled, but that’s no reason to stop teaching our children. Yet that’s exactly what we’re doing.
There’s no mystery about what’s going on: education is mainly the responsibility of state and local governments, which are in dire fiscal straits. Adequate federal aid could have made a big difference. But while some aid has been provided, it has made up only a fraction of the shortfall. In part, that’s because back in February centrist senators insisted on stripping much of that aid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a k a the stimulus bill.
As a result, education is on the chopping block. And laid-off teachers are only part of the story. Even more important is the way that we’re shutting off opportunities.
For example, the Chronicle of Higher Education recently reported on the plight of California’s community college students. For generations, talented students from less affluent families have used those colleges as a stepping stone to the state’s public universities. But in the face of the state’s budget crisis those universities have been forced to slam the door on this year’s potential transfer students. One result, almost surely, will be lifetime damage to many students’ prospects — and a large, gratuitous waste of human potential.
So what should be done?
First of all, Congress needs to undo the sins of February, and approve another big round of aid to state governments. We don’t have to call it a stimulus, but it would be a very effective way to create or save thousands of jobs. And it would, at the same time, be an investment in our future.
Beyond that, we need to wake up and realize that one of the keys to our nation’s historic success is now a wasting asset. Education made America great; neglect of education can reverse the process.
If you had to explain America’s economic success with one word, that word would be “education.” In the 19th century, America led the way in universal basic education. Then, as other nations followed suit, the “high school revolution” of the early 20th century took us to a whole new level. And in the years after World War II, America established a commanding position in higher education.
But that was then. The rise of American education was, overwhelmingly, the rise of public education — and for the past 30 years our political scene has been dominated by the view that any and all government spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Education, as one of the largest components of public spending, has inevitably suffered.
Until now, the results of educational neglect have been gradual — a slow-motion erosion of America’s relative position. But things are about to get much worse, as the economic crisis — its effects exacerbated by the penny-wise, pound-foolish behavior that passes for “fiscal responsibility” in Washington — deals a severe blow to education across the board.
About that erosion: there has been a flurry of reporting recently about threats to the dominance of America’s elite universities. What hasn’t been reported to the same extent, at least as far as I’ve seen, is our relative decline in more mundane measures. America, which used to take the lead in educating its young, has been gradually falling behind other advanced countries.
Most people, I suspect, still have in their minds an image of America as the great land of college education, unique in the extent to which higher learning is offered to the population at large. That image used to correspond to reality. But these days young Americans are considerably less likely than young people in many other countries to graduate from college. In fact, we have a college graduation rate that’s slightly below the average across all advanced economies.
Even without the effects of the current crisis, there would be every reason to expect us to fall further in these rankings, if only because we make it so hard for those with limited financial means to stay in school. In America, with its weak social safety net and limited student aid, students are far more likely than their counterparts in, say, France to hold part-time jobs while still attending classes. Not surprisingly, given the financial pressures, young Americans are also less likely to stay in school and more likely to become full-time workers instead.
But the crisis has placed huge additional stress on our creaking educational system.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States economy lost 273,000 jobs last month. Of those lost jobs, 29,000 were in state and local education, bringing the total losses in that category over the past five months to 143,000. That may not sound like much, but education is one of those areas that should, and normally does, keep growing even during a recession. Markets may be troubled, but that’s no reason to stop teaching our children. Yet that’s exactly what we’re doing.
There’s no mystery about what’s going on: education is mainly the responsibility of state and local governments, which are in dire fiscal straits. Adequate federal aid could have made a big difference. But while some aid has been provided, it has made up only a fraction of the shortfall. In part, that’s because back in February centrist senators insisted on stripping much of that aid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a k a the stimulus bill.
As a result, education is on the chopping block. And laid-off teachers are only part of the story. Even more important is the way that we’re shutting off opportunities.
For example, the Chronicle of Higher Education recently reported on the plight of California’s community college students. For generations, talented students from less affluent families have used those colleges as a stepping stone to the state’s public universities. But in the face of the state’s budget crisis those universities have been forced to slam the door on this year’s potential transfer students. One result, almost surely, will be lifetime damage to many students’ prospects — and a large, gratuitous waste of human potential.
So what should be done?
First of all, Congress needs to undo the sins of February, and approve another big round of aid to state governments. We don’t have to call it a stimulus, but it would be a very effective way to create or save thousands of jobs. And it would, at the same time, be an investment in our future.
Beyond that, we need to wake up and realize that one of the keys to our nation’s historic success is now a wasting asset. Education made America great; neglect of education can reverse the process.
First Lady’s Roots
In First Lady’s Roots, a Complex Path From Slavery
NYTimes RACHEL L. SWARNS&JODI KANTOR
WASHINGTON — In 1850, the elderly master of a South Carolina estate took pen in hand and painstakingly divided up his possessions. Among the spinning wheels, scythes, tablecloths and cattle that he bequeathed to his far-flung heirs was a 6-year-old slave girl valued soon afterward at $475.
In his will, she is described simply as the “negro girl Melvinia.” After his death, she was torn away from the people and places she knew and shipped to Georgia. While she was still a teenager, a white man would father her first-born son under circumstances lost in the passage of time.
In the annals of American slavery, this painful story would be utterly unremarkable, save for one reason: This union, consummated some two years before the Civil War, represents the origins of a family line that would extend from rural Georgia, to Birmingham, Ala., to Chicago and, finally, to the White House.
Melvinia Shields, the enslaved and illiterate young girl, and the unknown white man who impregnated her are the great-great-great-grandparents of Michelle Obama, the first lady.
Viewed by many as a powerful symbol of black advancement, Mrs. Obama grew up with only a vague sense of her ancestry, aides and relatives said. During the presidential campaign, the family learned about one paternal great-great-grandfather, a former slave from South Carolina, but the rest of Mrs. Obama’s roots were a mystery.
Now the more complete map of Mrs. Obama’s ancestors — including the slave mother, white father and their biracial son, Dolphus T. Shields — for the first time fully connects the first African-American first lady to the history of slavery, tracing their five-generation journey from bondage to a front-row seat to the presidency.
The findings — uncovered by Megan Smolenyak, a genealogist, and The New York Times — substantiate what Mrs. Obama has called longstanding family rumors about a white forebear.
While President Obama’s biracial background has drawn considerable attention, his wife’s pedigree, which includes American Indian strands, highlights the complicated history of racial intermingling, sometimes born of violence or coercion, that lingers in the bloodlines of many African-Americans. Mrs. Obama and her family declined to comment for this article, aides said, in part because of the personal nature of the subject.
“She is representative of how we have evolved and who we are,” said Edward Ball, a historian who discovered that he had black relatives, the descendants of his white slave-owning ancestors, when he researched his memoir, “Slaves in the Family.”
“We are not separate tribes of Latinos and whites and blacks in America,” Mr. Ball said. “We’ve all mingled, and we have done so for generations.”
The outlines of Mrs. Obama’s family history unfolded from 19th century probate records, yellowing marriage licenses, fading photographs and the recollections of elderly women who remember the family. Ms. Smolenyak, who has traced the ancestry of many prominent figures, began studying the first lady’s roots in earnest after conducting some preliminary research into Mrs. Obama’s ancestry for an article published in The New York Times earlier this year.
Of the dozens of relatives she identified, Ms. Smolenyak said, it was the slave girl who seemed to call out most clearly.
“Out of all Michelle’s roots, it’s Melvinia who is screaming to be found,” she said.
When her owner, David Patterson, died in 1852, Melvinia soon found herself on a 200-acre farm with new masters, Mr. Patterson’s daughter and son-in law, Christianne and Henry Shields. It was a strange and unfamiliar world.
In South Carolina, she had lived on an estate with 21 slaves. In Georgia, she was one of only three slaves on property that is now part of a neat subdivision in Rex, near Atlanta.
Whether Melvinia labored in the house or in the fields, there was no shortage of work: wheat, corn, sweet potatoes and cotton to plant and harvest, and 3 horses, 5 cows, 17 pigs and 20 sheep to care for, according to an 1860 agricultural survey.
It is difficult to say who might have impregnated Melvinia, who gave birth to Dolphus around 1859, when she was perhaps as young as 15. At the time, Henry Shields was in his late 40s and had four sons ages 19 to 24, but other men may have spent time on the farm.
“No one should be surprised anymore to hear about the number of rapes and the amount of sexual exploitation that took place under slavery; it was an everyday experience, “ said Jason A. Gillmer, a law professor at Texas Wesleyan University, who has researched liaisons between slave owners and slaves. “But we do find that some of these relationships can be very complex.”
In 1870, three of Melvinia’s four children, including Dolphus, were listed on the census as mulatto. One was born four years after emancipation, suggesting that the liaison that produced those children endured after slavery. She gave her children the Shields name, which may have hinted at their paternity or simply been the custom of former slaves taking their master’s surnames.
Even after she was freed, Melvinia stayed put, working as a farm laborer on land adjacent to that of Charles Shields, one of Henry’s sons.
But sometime in her 30s or 40s, census records show, Melvinia broke away and managed to reunite with former slaves from her childhood on the Patterson estate: Mariah and Bolus Easley, who settled with Melvinia in Bartow County, near the Alabama border. Dolphus married one of the Easleys’ daughters, Alice, who is Mrs. Obama’s great-great-grandmother.
A community “that had been ripped apart was somehow pulling itself back together,” Ms. Smolenyak said of the group in Bartow County.
Still, Melvinia appears to have lived with the unresolved legacy of her childhood in slavery until the very end. Her 1938 death certificate, signed by a relative, says “don’t know” in the space for the names of her parents, suggesting that Melvinia, then in her 90s, may never have known herself.
Sometime before 1888, Dolphus and Alice Shields continued the migration, heading to Birmingham, a boomtown with a rumbling railroad, an iron and steel industry and factories that attracted former slaves and their children from across the South.
Dolphus Shields was in his 30s and very light skinned — some say he looked like a white man — a church-going carpenter who could read, write and advance in an industrializing town. By 1900, he owned his own home, census records show. By 1911, he had opened his own carpentry and tool sharpening business.
A co-founder of First Ebenezer Baptist Church and Trinity Baptist Church, which later became active in the civil rights movement, he supervised Sunday schools at both churches, which still exist today, and at Regular Missionary Baptist Church.
“He was the dean of the deacons in Birmingham,” said Helen Heath, 88, who attended church with him. “He was a serious man. He was about business.”
He carried his family into the working-class, moving into a segregated neighborhood of striving black homeowners and renters. In his home, there was no smoking, no cursing, no gum chewing, no lipstick or trousers for ladies and absolutely no blues on the radio, which was reserved for hymns, remembered Bobbie Holt, 73, who was raised by Mr. Shields and his fourth wife, Lucy. She said the family went to church “every night of the week, it seemed like.”
He carried peppermints for neighborhood children, Mrs. Holt said, and told funny stories about his escapades as a boy. But his family struggled.
His first wife, Alice Easley Shields, moved around after they split up, working as a seamstress and a maid, and two of their sons stumbled.
Robert Lee Shields, Mrs. Obama’s great-grandfather, married Annie Lawson in 1906 and worked as a laborer and a railroad porter but disappeared from the public record sometime around his 32nd birthday.
Willie Arthur Shields, an inventor who obtained patents for improving dry cleaning operations, ended up working as a maintenance man, Mrs. Holt said.
As for his ancestry, Dolphus Shields didn’t talk about it.
“We got to the place where we didn’t want anybody to know we knew slaves; people didn’t want to talk about that,” said Mrs. Heath, who said she assumed he had white relatives because his skin color and hair texture “told you he had to be near white.”
At a time when blacks despaired at the intransigence and violence of whites who barred them from voting, from most city jobs, from whites-only restaurants and from owning property in white neighborhoods, Dolphus Shields served as a rare link between the deeply divided communities.
His carpentry shop stood in the white section of town, and he mixed easily and often with whites. “They would come to his shop and sit and talk,” Mrs. Holt said.
Dolphus Shields firmly believed race relations would improve. “It’s going to come together one day,” he often said, Mrs. Holt recalled.
By the time he died in 1950 at age 91, change was on the way. On June 9, 1950, the day that his obituary appeared on the front page of The Birmingham World, the black newspaper also ran a banner headline that read, “U.S. Court Bans Segregation in Diners and Higher Education.” The Supreme Court had outlawed separate but equal accommodations on railway cars and in universities in Texas and Oklahoma.
Up North, his grandson, a painter named Purnell Shields, Mrs. Obama’s grandfather, was positioning his family to seize the widening opportunities in Chicago.
But as his descendants moved forward, they lost touch with the past. Today, Dolphus Shields lies in a neglected black cemetery, where patches of grass grow knee-high and many tombstones have toppled.
Mrs. Holt, a retired nursing assistant, said he came to her in a dream last month. She dug up his photograph, never guessing that she would soon learn that Dolphus Shields was a great-great-grandfather of the first lady.
“Oh, my God,” said Mrs. Holt, gasping at the news. “I always looked up to him, but I would never have imagined something like this. Praise God, we’ve come a long way.”
NYTimes RACHEL L. SWARNS&JODI KANTOR
WASHINGTON — In 1850, the elderly master of a South Carolina estate took pen in hand and painstakingly divided up his possessions. Among the spinning wheels, scythes, tablecloths and cattle that he bequeathed to his far-flung heirs was a 6-year-old slave girl valued soon afterward at $475.
In his will, she is described simply as the “negro girl Melvinia.” After his death, she was torn away from the people and places she knew and shipped to Georgia. While she was still a teenager, a white man would father her first-born son under circumstances lost in the passage of time.
In the annals of American slavery, this painful story would be utterly unremarkable, save for one reason: This union, consummated some two years before the Civil War, represents the origins of a family line that would extend from rural Georgia, to Birmingham, Ala., to Chicago and, finally, to the White House.
Melvinia Shields, the enslaved and illiterate young girl, and the unknown white man who impregnated her are the great-great-great-grandparents of Michelle Obama, the first lady.
Viewed by many as a powerful symbol of black advancement, Mrs. Obama grew up with only a vague sense of her ancestry, aides and relatives said. During the presidential campaign, the family learned about one paternal great-great-grandfather, a former slave from South Carolina, but the rest of Mrs. Obama’s roots were a mystery.
Now the more complete map of Mrs. Obama’s ancestors — including the slave mother, white father and their biracial son, Dolphus T. Shields — for the first time fully connects the first African-American first lady to the history of slavery, tracing their five-generation journey from bondage to a front-row seat to the presidency.
The findings — uncovered by Megan Smolenyak, a genealogist, and The New York Times — substantiate what Mrs. Obama has called longstanding family rumors about a white forebear.
While President Obama’s biracial background has drawn considerable attention, his wife’s pedigree, which includes American Indian strands, highlights the complicated history of racial intermingling, sometimes born of violence or coercion, that lingers in the bloodlines of many African-Americans. Mrs. Obama and her family declined to comment for this article, aides said, in part because of the personal nature of the subject.
“She is representative of how we have evolved and who we are,” said Edward Ball, a historian who discovered that he had black relatives, the descendants of his white slave-owning ancestors, when he researched his memoir, “Slaves in the Family.”
“We are not separate tribes of Latinos and whites and blacks in America,” Mr. Ball said. “We’ve all mingled, and we have done so for generations.”
The outlines of Mrs. Obama’s family history unfolded from 19th century probate records, yellowing marriage licenses, fading photographs and the recollections of elderly women who remember the family. Ms. Smolenyak, who has traced the ancestry of many prominent figures, began studying the first lady’s roots in earnest after conducting some preliminary research into Mrs. Obama’s ancestry for an article published in The New York Times earlier this year.
Of the dozens of relatives she identified, Ms. Smolenyak said, it was the slave girl who seemed to call out most clearly.
“Out of all Michelle’s roots, it’s Melvinia who is screaming to be found,” she said.
When her owner, David Patterson, died in 1852, Melvinia soon found herself on a 200-acre farm with new masters, Mr. Patterson’s daughter and son-in law, Christianne and Henry Shields. It was a strange and unfamiliar world.
In South Carolina, she had lived on an estate with 21 slaves. In Georgia, she was one of only three slaves on property that is now part of a neat subdivision in Rex, near Atlanta.
Whether Melvinia labored in the house or in the fields, there was no shortage of work: wheat, corn, sweet potatoes and cotton to plant and harvest, and 3 horses, 5 cows, 17 pigs and 20 sheep to care for, according to an 1860 agricultural survey.
It is difficult to say who might have impregnated Melvinia, who gave birth to Dolphus around 1859, when she was perhaps as young as 15. At the time, Henry Shields was in his late 40s and had four sons ages 19 to 24, but other men may have spent time on the farm.
“No one should be surprised anymore to hear about the number of rapes and the amount of sexual exploitation that took place under slavery; it was an everyday experience, “ said Jason A. Gillmer, a law professor at Texas Wesleyan University, who has researched liaisons between slave owners and slaves. “But we do find that some of these relationships can be very complex.”
In 1870, three of Melvinia’s four children, including Dolphus, were listed on the census as mulatto. One was born four years after emancipation, suggesting that the liaison that produced those children endured after slavery. She gave her children the Shields name, which may have hinted at their paternity or simply been the custom of former slaves taking their master’s surnames.
Even after she was freed, Melvinia stayed put, working as a farm laborer on land adjacent to that of Charles Shields, one of Henry’s sons.
But sometime in her 30s or 40s, census records show, Melvinia broke away and managed to reunite with former slaves from her childhood on the Patterson estate: Mariah and Bolus Easley, who settled with Melvinia in Bartow County, near the Alabama border. Dolphus married one of the Easleys’ daughters, Alice, who is Mrs. Obama’s great-great-grandmother.
A community “that had been ripped apart was somehow pulling itself back together,” Ms. Smolenyak said of the group in Bartow County.
Still, Melvinia appears to have lived with the unresolved legacy of her childhood in slavery until the very end. Her 1938 death certificate, signed by a relative, says “don’t know” in the space for the names of her parents, suggesting that Melvinia, then in her 90s, may never have known herself.
Sometime before 1888, Dolphus and Alice Shields continued the migration, heading to Birmingham, a boomtown with a rumbling railroad, an iron and steel industry and factories that attracted former slaves and their children from across the South.
Dolphus Shields was in his 30s and very light skinned — some say he looked like a white man — a church-going carpenter who could read, write and advance in an industrializing town. By 1900, he owned his own home, census records show. By 1911, he had opened his own carpentry and tool sharpening business.
A co-founder of First Ebenezer Baptist Church and Trinity Baptist Church, which later became active in the civil rights movement, he supervised Sunday schools at both churches, which still exist today, and at Regular Missionary Baptist Church.
“He was the dean of the deacons in Birmingham,” said Helen Heath, 88, who attended church with him. “He was a serious man. He was about business.”
He carried his family into the working-class, moving into a segregated neighborhood of striving black homeowners and renters. In his home, there was no smoking, no cursing, no gum chewing, no lipstick or trousers for ladies and absolutely no blues on the radio, which was reserved for hymns, remembered Bobbie Holt, 73, who was raised by Mr. Shields and his fourth wife, Lucy. She said the family went to church “every night of the week, it seemed like.”
He carried peppermints for neighborhood children, Mrs. Holt said, and told funny stories about his escapades as a boy. But his family struggled.
His first wife, Alice Easley Shields, moved around after they split up, working as a seamstress and a maid, and two of their sons stumbled.
Robert Lee Shields, Mrs. Obama’s great-grandfather, married Annie Lawson in 1906 and worked as a laborer and a railroad porter but disappeared from the public record sometime around his 32nd birthday.
Willie Arthur Shields, an inventor who obtained patents for improving dry cleaning operations, ended up working as a maintenance man, Mrs. Holt said.
As for his ancestry, Dolphus Shields didn’t talk about it.
“We got to the place where we didn’t want anybody to know we knew slaves; people didn’t want to talk about that,” said Mrs. Heath, who said she assumed he had white relatives because his skin color and hair texture “told you he had to be near white.”
At a time when blacks despaired at the intransigence and violence of whites who barred them from voting, from most city jobs, from whites-only restaurants and from owning property in white neighborhoods, Dolphus Shields served as a rare link between the deeply divided communities.
His carpentry shop stood in the white section of town, and he mixed easily and often with whites. “They would come to his shop and sit and talk,” Mrs. Holt said.
Dolphus Shields firmly believed race relations would improve. “It’s going to come together one day,” he often said, Mrs. Holt recalled.
By the time he died in 1950 at age 91, change was on the way. On June 9, 1950, the day that his obituary appeared on the front page of The Birmingham World, the black newspaper also ran a banner headline that read, “U.S. Court Bans Segregation in Diners and Higher Education.” The Supreme Court had outlawed separate but equal accommodations on railway cars and in universities in Texas and Oklahoma.
Up North, his grandson, a painter named Purnell Shields, Mrs. Obama’s grandfather, was positioning his family to seize the widening opportunities in Chicago.
But as his descendants moved forward, they lost touch with the past. Today, Dolphus Shields lies in a neglected black cemetery, where patches of grass grow knee-high and many tombstones have toppled.
Mrs. Holt, a retired nursing assistant, said he came to her in a dream last month. She dug up his photograph, never guessing that she would soon learn that Dolphus Shields was a great-great-grandfather of the first lady.
“Oh, my God,” said Mrs. Holt, gasping at the news. “I always looked up to him, but I would never have imagined something like this. Praise God, we’ve come a long way.”
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Why Women Have Sex By Alyssa Fetini
While figuring out what women want has stumped men for centuries, understanding how they think about sex may have just gotten easier. Cindy Meston and David Buss, psychologists at the University of Texas, interviewed over 1,000 women around the world for their book Why Women Have Sex and managed to come up with 237 reasons, ranging from the predictable — commitment — to the puzzling — curing a headache. Spoiler alert: love may be further down on the list than one might think. TIME spoke to Buss about the myriad mind games, turn-ons and turn-offs involved in female sexuality, and what a guy can do to stand a chance.
You co-authored a famous 2007 study "Why Humans Have Sex." Why focus on women this time around?
We discovered that women's sexual psychology turned out to be far more complex than we envisioned. [It] deserved an entire book-length treatment. (See photos: "The Best of the Bond Girls")
What differences between men and women did you notice?
There are important gender differences in sexuality, but these must be interpreted within the context of a high level of similarity. Both women and men have sex because they are physically attracted to the person, for pure pleasure, because they are in love, or simply because they are horny. But within the overall similarity, I'd say women's sexuality tends to be more linked with love and emotional bonding. Women, more than men, like sex when there's some kind of emotional connection. Men were more likely to have sex simply because the opportunity presented itself. Women tend to be pickier, especially for short-term sexual encounters. And men are more motivated to have sex to boost their status among their peers, although some women in our study also had sex for precisely this reason. (Read more about the chemistry of desire.)
What are the main reasons why women have sex?
The most frequent reasons include: sexual attraction to the person, the desire for physical pleasure, to express affection, to express their love for a person or because they were sexually aroused and wanted release.
Other important reasons are to boost their self-esteem or sexual esteem, to get revenge, to secure "mate insurance" in case a partner dumps them, to relieve pain, to achieve health benefits such as getting rid of a headache — yes, it works — to decrease stress, to lose weight and as a sleep aid. We devote one chapter to "sexual economics," which focuses on all the ways in which women have sex as an exchange for other benefits, such as getting her partner to take out the garbage, securing free dinners or getting expensive gifts. We also devote one chapter to what we call "the dark side" of women's sexuality — when women have sex because they were deceived, coerced or forced into it. (See photos: "Same-Sex Overtures Across Species")
Any particularly surprising findings?
I was surprised by the importance of revenge. A few had sex in order to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease. More commonly, women's revenge sex involved getting back at a cheating partner, or having sex with the partner of a friend who had poached her partner. Actually, the frequency of mate-poaching also surprised me — the frequency with which women try to lure men who are already "taken," either for a short-term sexual liaison or a longer-term relationship. Most women have experienced mate-poaching in one form or another, either as the mate poacher or as the victim.
How does evolution explain some of these complexities?
Sexual attraction often boils down to what Darwin called "female choice." Modern women are the descendants of a long and unbroken line of ancestral mothers who made wise sexual choices. As descendants of these successful women, modern women carry with them the sexual psychology — the ancestral wisdom — that led to the success of their female forebears. So women find cues to health, status and protection to be sexually attractive. These are all qualities that led to better survival and reproductive outcomes.(Read about teen girls and sex.)
On the competition side, evolution by selection is an inherently competitive process. It's a cliché that "the good men are all taken, permanent bachelors or gay." And there's some truth to this. The number of truly desirable and available men is limited. So women are in sexual competition with other women for access to the most desirable men. Modern women are the descendants of ancestral mothers who succeeded in besting other women in these sexual competitions.
What physical features do women tend to find most attractive in men?
Body is important to women. Women are sexually attracted to men with a V-shaped torso, or a high shoulder-to-hip ratio, and men who are taller than average. Interestingly, women do not like muscle-bound men, and men misperceive how muscular women want them to be. The face is also critical. A symmetrical face is a health cue, as are a good head of hair and masculine features such a strong jaw and a deep voice. Women generally don't find feminine-looking or feminine-sounding men to be sexually attractive.
What advice could you give to the men out there not blessed with Michael Phelps' torso and George Clooney's face? What can they do to stay in the game?
Have good hygiene. Sense of smell is critical. A man who smells bad, or who has bad breath — that can be a sexual kill switch for women. Interestingly, women have a keener sense of smell than men, so men are sometimes oblivious to how bad they smell to women. A man's scent conveys critical information to women about a man's health status.
The other thing to note about what women find sexually attractive centers on cues that convey personality, sense of humor, self-confidence and social status. These things can transform an average-looking man into a sexually attractive man in the minds of many women.
You co-authored a famous 2007 study "Why Humans Have Sex." Why focus on women this time around?
We discovered that women's sexual psychology turned out to be far more complex than we envisioned. [It] deserved an entire book-length treatment. (See photos: "The Best of the Bond Girls")
What differences between men and women did you notice?
There are important gender differences in sexuality, but these must be interpreted within the context of a high level of similarity. Both women and men have sex because they are physically attracted to the person, for pure pleasure, because they are in love, or simply because they are horny. But within the overall similarity, I'd say women's sexuality tends to be more linked with love and emotional bonding. Women, more than men, like sex when there's some kind of emotional connection. Men were more likely to have sex simply because the opportunity presented itself. Women tend to be pickier, especially for short-term sexual encounters. And men are more motivated to have sex to boost their status among their peers, although some women in our study also had sex for precisely this reason. (Read more about the chemistry of desire.)
What are the main reasons why women have sex?
The most frequent reasons include: sexual attraction to the person, the desire for physical pleasure, to express affection, to express their love for a person or because they were sexually aroused and wanted release.
Other important reasons are to boost their self-esteem or sexual esteem, to get revenge, to secure "mate insurance" in case a partner dumps them, to relieve pain, to achieve health benefits such as getting rid of a headache — yes, it works — to decrease stress, to lose weight and as a sleep aid. We devote one chapter to "sexual economics," which focuses on all the ways in which women have sex as an exchange for other benefits, such as getting her partner to take out the garbage, securing free dinners or getting expensive gifts. We also devote one chapter to what we call "the dark side" of women's sexuality — when women have sex because they were deceived, coerced or forced into it. (See photos: "Same-Sex Overtures Across Species")
Any particularly surprising findings?
I was surprised by the importance of revenge. A few had sex in order to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease. More commonly, women's revenge sex involved getting back at a cheating partner, or having sex with the partner of a friend who had poached her partner. Actually, the frequency of mate-poaching also surprised me — the frequency with which women try to lure men who are already "taken," either for a short-term sexual liaison or a longer-term relationship. Most women have experienced mate-poaching in one form or another, either as the mate poacher or as the victim.
How does evolution explain some of these complexities?
Sexual attraction often boils down to what Darwin called "female choice." Modern women are the descendants of a long and unbroken line of ancestral mothers who made wise sexual choices. As descendants of these successful women, modern women carry with them the sexual psychology — the ancestral wisdom — that led to the success of their female forebears. So women find cues to health, status and protection to be sexually attractive. These are all qualities that led to better survival and reproductive outcomes.(Read about teen girls and sex.)
On the competition side, evolution by selection is an inherently competitive process. It's a cliché that "the good men are all taken, permanent bachelors or gay." And there's some truth to this. The number of truly desirable and available men is limited. So women are in sexual competition with other women for access to the most desirable men. Modern women are the descendants of ancestral mothers who succeeded in besting other women in these sexual competitions.
What physical features do women tend to find most attractive in men?
Body is important to women. Women are sexually attracted to men with a V-shaped torso, or a high shoulder-to-hip ratio, and men who are taller than average. Interestingly, women do not like muscle-bound men, and men misperceive how muscular women want them to be. The face is also critical. A symmetrical face is a health cue, as are a good head of hair and masculine features such a strong jaw and a deep voice. Women generally don't find feminine-looking or feminine-sounding men to be sexually attractive.
What advice could you give to the men out there not blessed with Michael Phelps' torso and George Clooney's face? What can they do to stay in the game?
Have good hygiene. Sense of smell is critical. A man who smells bad, or who has bad breath — that can be a sexual kill switch for women. Interestingly, women have a keener sense of smell than men, so men are sometimes oblivious to how bad they smell to women. A man's scent conveys critical information to women about a man's health status.
The other thing to note about what women find sexually attractive centers on cues that convey personality, sense of humor, self-confidence and social status. These things can transform an average-looking man into a sexually attractive man in the minds of many women.
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Will the Real President Stand Up?
Washington Post By David S. Broder
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Barack Obama has reached the moment of truth for answering the persistent question about his core beliefs and political priorities. The coming votes in the House and Senate on his signature health-care reform effort will tell us more about the president than anything so far in his White House tenure.
The challenge is not one he invited. All during last year's campaign, Obama skillfully skirted the question of whether he was a moderate, consensus-seeking pragmatist, as his words suggested, or a faithful adherent to the liberal agenda, as his voting record demonstrated.
In stylistic terms, he cultivated the pragmatic image. On issues, he was alternately one or the other -- lining up with the liberals on Iraq and civil liberties, for example, but joining the hard-liners on Afghanistan and the budget.
In the campaign, he took the moderate side of the health-care debate -- disagreeing with Hillary Clinton on the necessity for an individual mandate to buy health insurance and suggesting that he would be satisfied with incremental progress toward covering all the uninsured.
But now, a number of factors have combined to strip him of the camouflage that he once enjoyed when it comes to health-care policy.
His effort to craft a bipartisan package with significant Republican support has failed, as GOP leaders in Congress have chosen to take their chances on handing him a costly defeat rather than opting to claim a share of the credit for success. With Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine apparently the only Republican who might vote for the evolving legislation, Obama will have to find virtually all the votes he needs among his fellow Democrats.
Also, the debates inside the five House and Senate committees that have shared in drafting the bills have dramatized the deep ideological splits on the Democratic side of the aisle. The symbolic issue has been the public option -- the proposal for a Medicare-like insurance plan competing with those offered by private companies.
Four of the five committees have included that proposal; the fifth, the Senate Finance Committee, has explicitly rejected it.
Beyond that much-hyped dispute are multiple disagreements on the cost and financing of the overall reform, with no consensus between the more conservative Democratic Blue Dogs and the more numerous liberals, especially in the House.
The first imperative for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is to find a formula that will produce 218 Democratic votes in the House and 59 of the needed 60 votes in the Senate.
Obama will have to be an active player in that process. But he also will have to negotiate something that will be workable in the real world. As he contemplates a reelection race in 2012, he needs at least three years when his most important domestic initiative has not blown up in his face.
What are his chances of pulling it off? It will not be easy. In the House, Pelosi and a clear majority of the Democratic caucus members want a liberal bill, including the public option. They may have to offer some cosmetic concessions to the Blue Dogs, but they are unlikely to yield on the main points.
In the Senate, on the other hand, while the liberals may prevail on floor amendments to install the public option, they cannot by themselves deliver 60 votes for passage. At this point, the leverage swings to the handful of more conservative, small-state Democratic senators who, with the Republicans, may be able to force substantive changes.
As this plays out -- finally, in a House-Senate conference committee -- the political cost of the Republican decision to be simply a blocking force will become clear. Had the GOP furnished even a few votes in return for seeing some of their concerns addressed, chances are that Obama and the Democratic congressional leaders would not have felt the necessity to keep all the liberals in line. This would have given the president more room to maneuver.
As it is, his main leverage point is the realization among nearly all Democrats that nothing would be as costly to them, in their individual 2010 races, as the failure of this Congress, with its heavy Democratic majorities, to pass a substantive health-reform bill.
That may be enough in the end for Obama to succeed. But the task of getting there will really test him -- and expose his core values.
davidbroder@washpost.com
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Barack Obama has reached the moment of truth for answering the persistent question about his core beliefs and political priorities. The coming votes in the House and Senate on his signature health-care reform effort will tell us more about the president than anything so far in his White House tenure.
The challenge is not one he invited. All during last year's campaign, Obama skillfully skirted the question of whether he was a moderate, consensus-seeking pragmatist, as his words suggested, or a faithful adherent to the liberal agenda, as his voting record demonstrated.
In stylistic terms, he cultivated the pragmatic image. On issues, he was alternately one or the other -- lining up with the liberals on Iraq and civil liberties, for example, but joining the hard-liners on Afghanistan and the budget.
In the campaign, he took the moderate side of the health-care debate -- disagreeing with Hillary Clinton on the necessity for an individual mandate to buy health insurance and suggesting that he would be satisfied with incremental progress toward covering all the uninsured.
But now, a number of factors have combined to strip him of the camouflage that he once enjoyed when it comes to health-care policy.
His effort to craft a bipartisan package with significant Republican support has failed, as GOP leaders in Congress have chosen to take their chances on handing him a costly defeat rather than opting to claim a share of the credit for success. With Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine apparently the only Republican who might vote for the evolving legislation, Obama will have to find virtually all the votes he needs among his fellow Democrats.
Also, the debates inside the five House and Senate committees that have shared in drafting the bills have dramatized the deep ideological splits on the Democratic side of the aisle. The symbolic issue has been the public option -- the proposal for a Medicare-like insurance plan competing with those offered by private companies.
Four of the five committees have included that proposal; the fifth, the Senate Finance Committee, has explicitly rejected it.
Beyond that much-hyped dispute are multiple disagreements on the cost and financing of the overall reform, with no consensus between the more conservative Democratic Blue Dogs and the more numerous liberals, especially in the House.
The first imperative for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is to find a formula that will produce 218 Democratic votes in the House and 59 of the needed 60 votes in the Senate.
Obama will have to be an active player in that process. But he also will have to negotiate something that will be workable in the real world. As he contemplates a reelection race in 2012, he needs at least three years when his most important domestic initiative has not blown up in his face.
What are his chances of pulling it off? It will not be easy. In the House, Pelosi and a clear majority of the Democratic caucus members want a liberal bill, including the public option. They may have to offer some cosmetic concessions to the Blue Dogs, but they are unlikely to yield on the main points.
In the Senate, on the other hand, while the liberals may prevail on floor amendments to install the public option, they cannot by themselves deliver 60 votes for passage. At this point, the leverage swings to the handful of more conservative, small-state Democratic senators who, with the Republicans, may be able to force substantive changes.
As this plays out -- finally, in a House-Senate conference committee -- the political cost of the Republican decision to be simply a blocking force will become clear. Had the GOP furnished even a few votes in return for seeing some of their concerns addressed, chances are that Obama and the Democratic congressional leaders would not have felt the necessity to keep all the liberals in line. This would have given the president more room to maneuver.
As it is, his main leverage point is the realization among nearly all Democrats that nothing would be as costly to them, in their individual 2010 races, as the failure of this Congress, with its heavy Democratic majorities, to pass a substantive health-reform bill.
That may be enough in the end for Obama to succeed. But the task of getting there will really test him -- and expose his core values.
davidbroder@washpost.com
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Supreme Court cases
Major Supreme Court cases for the new term
The Associated Press
Highlights of some high-profile cases that the Supreme Court will take up in its term that begins Monday:
_Guns: The Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms has never been held to apply to state and local laws restricting guns. The court is taking up a challenge to a handgun ban in Chicago to decide whether this right, like many others in the Bill of Rights, acts to restrict state and local laws or only federal statutes. If the court sides with gun rights supporters, lawsuits to overturn all manner of gun control laws are likely.
_Animal cruelty videos: A 1999 federal law bars depictions of acts of animal cruelty, including pit bull fights. A federal appeals court overturned a Virginia man's conviction and struck down the law because it impermissibly restricted his First Amendment rights. The Obama administration says courts should treat this issue the same as child pornography and rule that pictures and videos deserve no constitutional protection.
_Mojave cross: For most of the past 75 years, a cross on public land in a remote part of the Mojave National Preserve has stood as a memorial to World War I soldiers. The court takes up a long-running legal fight over whether the cross, which Congress declared a national memorial, violates First Amendment religious protections despite Congress' decision to transfer the land to private ownership.
_Mutual fund fees: A fight over the fees paid to an investment adviser gives the court a timely chance to weigh in on compensation paid to financial services executives. Individual mutual fund investors claim in a suit that they are paying unreasonably higher fees than institutional investors to the adviser who chooses their funds' stocks. The court could use this case to resolve disagreements among lower courts about whether plaintiffs have to prove merely that the fees are excessive or demonstrate that the adviser misled the mutual funds' directors who approved the fees.
_Lawyer request: The court will use this case to decide how long a suspect's request for a lawyer is valid. Police investigated Michael Shatzer for the sexual abuse of a boy in 2003, but the case was dropped after Shatzer asked for a lawyer. Three years later, the victim was old enough to offer details, and a new police officer interviewed Shatzer, who confessed. The Maryland Court of Appeals threw out Shatzer's confession because he had asked for a lawyer back in 2003. State prosecutors want the Supreme Court to reinstate his confession.
_Life without parole for juveniles: In two cases from Florida, the justices will explore whether the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment bars sentences of life without parole for people who were under 18 when they committed a crime. The defendants were 13 and 17 when they were sentenced and neither was involved in a killing. The court previously banned executing juveniles.
_Child custody: The court will take its first look at how American authorities handle an international treaty on child abduction, aimed at preventing one parent from taking children to other countries without the other's permission. A British father says his 10-year-old son was taken from Chile to Texas without his consent, and wants American courts to send him back. Despite a Chilean court order, the child's American mother says she has exclusive custody and that U.S. courts are powerless under the treaty to do anything. American courts have sided with the mother, but the administration says the child should be sent back.
_Honest services fraud: Newspaper baron Conrad Black and a former Alaska legislator separately are challenging their fraud convictions under an open-ended federal law that has become a favorite of prosecutors in white-collar and public corruption cases. The law says that depriving the public or, in Black's case, shareholders of your honest services is a crime. Justice Antonin Scalia pointed out recently that, taken to its extreme, the law could be used to prosecute any employee who has ever called in sick to attend a ballgame.
_Prosecutorial liability: Two prosecutors who allegedly fabricated evidence in a murder case that led to life sentences for two men want the court to throw out a civil rights suit against them. The sentences, for killing a retired police officer, were set aside after roughly 25 years. The men sued after being released from prison. The prosecutors say they are immune from suits because they were acting within the scope of their job. Federal courts have rejected their arguments, noting alleged misconduct that included a failure to share evidence that pointed to another man as a possible suspect.
_Vioxx suits: Merck & Co. shareholders sued the drugmaker for securities fraud after its former blockbuster painkiller Vioxx was pulled from the market. The suit concerns whether Merck provided adequate information about Vioxx's risks. But at issue before the court is whether the shareholders waited too long to file their suits. The court could use the case to decide what constitutes proper notice to investors under securities laws.
_Sarbanes-Oxley: The court could decide the validity of a part of the Sarbanes-Oxley anti-fraud law, enacted as Congress' response to the wave of corporate scandals that started with energy giant Enron's collapse. The court is considering whether the board established to oversee the accounting industry by the 2002 law violates the constitutionally mandated separation of powers between the branches of government. One irony of the case is that pro-business conservatives who are mounting the legal challenge are arguing that President Barack Obama should have more power to control the makeup of the board, while his administration is defending the law.
_NFL merchandise: A business case for sports fans gives the court the chance to decide whether NFL teams can get together to license the sale of caps and other gear without violating antitrust laws.
The Associated Press
Highlights of some high-profile cases that the Supreme Court will take up in its term that begins Monday:
_Guns: The Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms has never been held to apply to state and local laws restricting guns. The court is taking up a challenge to a handgun ban in Chicago to decide whether this right, like many others in the Bill of Rights, acts to restrict state and local laws or only federal statutes. If the court sides with gun rights supporters, lawsuits to overturn all manner of gun control laws are likely.
_Animal cruelty videos: A 1999 federal law bars depictions of acts of animal cruelty, including pit bull fights. A federal appeals court overturned a Virginia man's conviction and struck down the law because it impermissibly restricted his First Amendment rights. The Obama administration says courts should treat this issue the same as child pornography and rule that pictures and videos deserve no constitutional protection.
_Mojave cross: For most of the past 75 years, a cross on public land in a remote part of the Mojave National Preserve has stood as a memorial to World War I soldiers. The court takes up a long-running legal fight over whether the cross, which Congress declared a national memorial, violates First Amendment religious protections despite Congress' decision to transfer the land to private ownership.
_Mutual fund fees: A fight over the fees paid to an investment adviser gives the court a timely chance to weigh in on compensation paid to financial services executives. Individual mutual fund investors claim in a suit that they are paying unreasonably higher fees than institutional investors to the adviser who chooses their funds' stocks. The court could use this case to resolve disagreements among lower courts about whether plaintiffs have to prove merely that the fees are excessive or demonstrate that the adviser misled the mutual funds' directors who approved the fees.
_Lawyer request: The court will use this case to decide how long a suspect's request for a lawyer is valid. Police investigated Michael Shatzer for the sexual abuse of a boy in 2003, but the case was dropped after Shatzer asked for a lawyer. Three years later, the victim was old enough to offer details, and a new police officer interviewed Shatzer, who confessed. The Maryland Court of Appeals threw out Shatzer's confession because he had asked for a lawyer back in 2003. State prosecutors want the Supreme Court to reinstate his confession.
_Life without parole for juveniles: In two cases from Florida, the justices will explore whether the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment bars sentences of life without parole for people who were under 18 when they committed a crime. The defendants were 13 and 17 when they were sentenced and neither was involved in a killing. The court previously banned executing juveniles.
_Child custody: The court will take its first look at how American authorities handle an international treaty on child abduction, aimed at preventing one parent from taking children to other countries without the other's permission. A British father says his 10-year-old son was taken from Chile to Texas without his consent, and wants American courts to send him back. Despite a Chilean court order, the child's American mother says she has exclusive custody and that U.S. courts are powerless under the treaty to do anything. American courts have sided with the mother, but the administration says the child should be sent back.
_Honest services fraud: Newspaper baron Conrad Black and a former Alaska legislator separately are challenging their fraud convictions under an open-ended federal law that has become a favorite of prosecutors in white-collar and public corruption cases. The law says that depriving the public or, in Black's case, shareholders of your honest services is a crime. Justice Antonin Scalia pointed out recently that, taken to its extreme, the law could be used to prosecute any employee who has ever called in sick to attend a ballgame.
_Prosecutorial liability: Two prosecutors who allegedly fabricated evidence in a murder case that led to life sentences for two men want the court to throw out a civil rights suit against them. The sentences, for killing a retired police officer, were set aside after roughly 25 years. The men sued after being released from prison. The prosecutors say they are immune from suits because they were acting within the scope of their job. Federal courts have rejected their arguments, noting alleged misconduct that included a failure to share evidence that pointed to another man as a possible suspect.
_Vioxx suits: Merck & Co. shareholders sued the drugmaker for securities fraud after its former blockbuster painkiller Vioxx was pulled from the market. The suit concerns whether Merck provided adequate information about Vioxx's risks. But at issue before the court is whether the shareholders waited too long to file their suits. The court could use the case to decide what constitutes proper notice to investors under securities laws.
_Sarbanes-Oxley: The court could decide the validity of a part of the Sarbanes-Oxley anti-fraud law, enacted as Congress' response to the wave of corporate scandals that started with energy giant Enron's collapse. The court is considering whether the board established to oversee the accounting industry by the 2002 law violates the constitutionally mandated separation of powers between the branches of government. One irony of the case is that pro-business conservatives who are mounting the legal challenge are arguing that President Barack Obama should have more power to control the makeup of the board, while his administration is defending the law.
_NFL merchandise: A business case for sports fans gives the court the chance to decide whether NFL teams can get together to license the sale of caps and other gear without violating antitrust laws.
Another week of the right killing America!
Media Matters: Right-wing media lynch mob gay-baits White House, facts be damned
For the better part of a week, conservatives in the media have been on a witch hunt for Kevin Jennings, the director of the Department of Education's Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. Led by Fox News, the right-wing media have claimed that 21 years ago, when Jennings was a 24-year-old teacher at Concord Academy in Massachusetts, he "cover[ed] up statutory rape" by not reporting to authorities a conversation he had with a student who told him about being involved with an "older man."
The attacks on Jennings, the latest Obama administration official in the right's crosshairs, have been disgusting, misleading, baseless, and at times pointedly anti-gay.
WorldNetDaily's Erik Rush called Jennings a "radical homosexual druggie." The conservative Washington Times contended in an editorial that "Jennings has made extremely radical statements promoting homosexuality in schools." Right-wing radio's big kahuna, Rush Limbaugh, and Fox News' Sean Hannity both claimed that Jennings supported promoting homosexuality in the schools, while conservative blogger Michelle Malkin wrote that Jennings was a "controversial homosexual rights' advocate" who founded a "controversial" organization that "aggressively pushes sexually explicit" books.
The controversial organization of which Malkin speaks? GLSEN -- the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network -- which, according to the organization's website, is "the leading national education organization focused on ensuring safe schools for all students. ... GLSEN envisions a world in which every child learns to respect and accept all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression."
In addition to the right's attacks aimed at Jennings' sexual orientation, conservative media outlets sought to paint Jennings as complicit in covering up a crime -- specifically "statutory rape." A Washington Times editorial accused Jennings of "encourag[ing]" a relationship that amounted to "statutory rape." Led by Hannity, Fox News also baselessly claimed that Jennings "cover[ed] up statutory rape" and violated Massachusetts law by not reporting to authorities his 1988 conversation with the student. Limbaugh took things a step further, claiming that Jennings had "encouraged" and "facilitated" a sexual relationship between the student and an adult. Fox News' Bill Hemmer continued the conservative network's attacks on Jennings by claiming that Jennings knew of a "statutory rape" case involving a student but "never reported it." MSNBC's Pat Buchanan went even further, asking if Jennings had "a sense of solidarity with the man, rather than with the kid." Seriously.
The conservative media made it abundantly clear that facts wouldn't get in the way of their latest line of attack on the Obama administration. In a 2004 letter, Jennings' attorney wrote that the student was 16 years old at the time of the incident, which is, and was at the time, the legal age of consent in Massachusetts.
Additionally, Media Matters exclusively confirmed the former student's age was 16 at the time of his conversation with Jennings, posting a redacted copy of his current driver's license, his Facebook message exchange with a FoxNews.com writer in which he said as much, and his statement on the matter.
If you've ever wondered what kind of folks regularly participate in polls sponsored by FoxNews.com, the answer is here. It's two kinds of people: those who are comfortable forming a strong opinion on a subject before the facts are in, and people who get all of their news from Fox News. Ninety-eight percent of respondents to a FoxNews.com poll this week said that Jennings should resign due to his "actions" and "questionable past and experience." I wonder where they could have gotten that idea. (After all, self-righteous indignation is what Sean Hannity does best.)
But don't hold your breath hoping for any consistency from Hannity. After The Washington Times established a completely false equivalency between Jennings and former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) (who, if you'll recall, personally pursued young congressional pages), Media Matters went back and checked the record. It turns out that in 2006, while Dennis Hastert was on his way to being criticized by the House Ethics Committee for his failure to stop Foley's actions, Hannity and his Fox News cohorts were among the then-speaker's staunchest defenders. "The only thing that Hastert knew about was that there was an e-mail," Hannity said at the time. "[I]'s always easy to say what [Hastert] should've done," Brit Hume said, "but when you start thinking about the things he could've done, there's not much there." "I think there's no evidence that Hastert did anything wrong, in my view," said Bill Kristol. "Hastert's position is completely defensible," said Mort Kondracke. "Hastert's you know, being witch hunted down," stated Bill O'Reilly.
When it comes to media conservatives, integrity may be dead, but irony certainly is not.
Lost in these right-wing caricatures of Jennings is the simple fact that education officials and others have spoken highly of the Obama administration official, who has received numerous awards and was an appointee of former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, a Republican.
With this, the latest conservative media witch hunt debunked and put to bed, the timer starts anew. When will the next witch hunt begin? Who's next on the list?
Other major stories this week
A gold medal for Obamalympic-hating media conservatives
It isn't every day that the conservative media -- America's self-appointed protectors of patriotism -- illustrate their true priorities so clearly. But on Friday, they did just that. Here it is, in a nutshell: America lost, and the right-wing noise machine cheered.
The announcement that President Obama planned to fly to Copenhagen to support Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics was immediately denounced by the conservative media. After months of falsely accusing Obama of apologizing for America on the world stage -- even blatantly cropping the president's words to make the point -- you would think that right-wing media figures would have applauded a voyage with the explicit goal of praising the United States. Think again -- not when there are political points to score.
"Chicago is good at ... organized Mafi-- oops, did I say that out loud?" Fox News' Glenn Beck quipped on Thursday. Malkin was even more vitriolic, stating Obama's trip was nothing more than a taxpayer-funded junket designed to secure paybacks for Obama's hometown "cronies."
And that was just the beginning. Hannity claimed that Obama was "more concerned about bringing the Olympics to Chicago than winning the war in Afghanistan." The Washington Examiner's Byron York and The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes attacked Obama's priorities, with Hayes adding, "the optics of it at the very least are terrible." Fox News' Bret Baier brought up the "carbon footprint" of the Air Force One trip, and the Media Research Center's Brent Bozell claimed that Obama's venture was "evidence that [Obama] just cannot stay away from the klieg lights." Fox News' Gretchen Carlson suggested the trip was inappropriate, and both she and her colleague Steve Doocy said that it was against U.S. tradition to "send our president out as a salesman like this." "Have you been to Rio?" asked columnist S.E. Cupp on Fox News, swelling with national pride. "I have. It's awesome."
Even more abysmal was the right's exploitation of a recently released video depicting the brutal murder of a teenage Chicagoan at the hands of gang members. "Is this a city where we want the Olympics taking place?" Hannity asked. "OLYMPIC SPIRIT: VIDEO SHOWS BRUTAL GANG MURDER IN CHICAGO" the Drudge Report blared. "Community organizing has not stopped Chicago's teen violence epidemic," Malkin added.
Then on Friday, the International Olympic Committee eliminated Chicago from the running -- and the rejoicing began.
"Oh, it's so sweet," said Beck live on the radio. "Enjoy this -- savor this moment." "[T]he IOC just says 'no' to Chicago!" cheered Lou Dobbs' webpage, reprinting the latest headline topping Drudge: "The Ego Has Landed." "I don't deny it," said Limbaugh, "I'm happy." Erick Erickson, managing editor of the conservative blog RedState.com, was perhaps the most mature of the conservative revelers, summing up his feelings by writing, "Hahahahaha."
No, it's not every week that we get such a clear indication of just what "patriotism" really means to those in the conservative media -- and it doesn't have anything to do with putting country first.
Drama still besting substance in coverage of health care
This week, the Senate Finance Committee passed Sen. Max Baucus' health care plan, voting down two amendments in the process that would have included a public option in the legislation. That was the week's substantive development affecting health care reform. The rest was the conservative noise machine's usual drone.
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) made headlines by bluntly attacking conservatives for lacking a systematic health insurance reform plan. The following day, he returned to the House floor and called for an end to what he termed a "holocaust" caused by the failings of America's health care system.
While his language was indeed blunt, his passion was understandable. A new study conducted by the Harvard Medical School estimates that 45,000 Americans die every year because of our system's flaws. Despite such realities, RedState's Erickson was incensed not by the death toll but by Grayson's statement. "The holocaust was real with a real meaning," he wrote on Wednesday. "Roping it into the health care debate cheapens what it was all about." We're still waiting for Erickson to denounce the numerous conservative media figures who have linked progressive politicians and health care plans to the Nazis.
Limbaugh was more blunt. "I don't believe anybody in this country is dying because of a lack of health insurance," he said, adding, "If there is a holocaust in this country, it is abortion." He again reminded the nation that the Democratic Party is "obsessed with your death" as well as being the "party of abortion and euthanasia, slavery and not liberty." By the end of the week, more Nazi comparisons hardly came as a surprise.
Far more intriguing was the new light shed on serial health care misinformer Betsy McCaughey. A new Rolling Stone article revealed that her 1994 opposition to Bill Clinton's reform legislation had been greased with money from Big Tobacco. CNN political analyst James Carville put the revelations in proper context, calling it "breathtaking proof" of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that has plagued progressives for decades -- especially when it comes to health care reform.
Yet another example of principled conservative opposition was provided by Fox News' Dick Morris, who is still using his time on the conservative network to fund-raise for an anti-reform group that is also employing him. Fox News has yet to see how this might be a conflict of interest.
It's clear that when it comes to issues like health care, progressives have few honest brokers to deal with on the right. As MSNBC's Chris Matthews asked Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) on Tuesday, "If no Republicans will join, why should [Democrats] compromise with nobody?"
An intriguing question indeed.
Slavery, coups, and kids, oh my!
The problem with becoming obsessed with destroying your opponent is that you tend to lose touch with reality.
There were numerous examples of that outcome this week. The Drudge Report, Andrew Breitbart, and Fox News ran with yet another video showing schoolchildren singing Obama's praises. The children, who were performing in front of the PTA (nobody objected) were also singing dangerous slogans like, "Can we make America better? Yes we can!" Scary stuff!
Immediately, numerous media figures, including Fox News' Monica Crowley, O'Reilly, and Beck, as well as CNN's Dobbs, claimed the video was evidence of "indoctrination." (Never mind the choir of Louisiana schoolchildren that sang to President Bush after Hurricane Katrina.) They should really wait a bit before reacting to these tapes. After all, Beck, Dobbs, and others were burned badly this week after they ran with a false lead from Breitbart, who claimed he had a video showing community organizers praying to Obama. It turns out that they were actually praying to God. Breitbart was forced to update his story, adding that "there is a debate over what is actually being said." Only in your mind, Andrew.
The real brainwashing was being attempted by syndicated conservative columnist George Will, who wrote yet another column claiming that "evidence" of climate change is "elusive." More troubling still was the work of Newsmax.com's John Perry, who penned a column that even Newsmax soon felt compelled to remove. "There is a remote, although gaining, possibility," he wrote, "America's military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the 'Obama problem.' Don't dismiss it as unrealistic." How about it we dismiss it as paranoid and delusional?
It was, however, W. Cleon Skousen who won the week's award for "Most Crazy" -- and he's been dead for years. It turns out that in one of his controversial books, Skousen, whose work still holds a powerful influence over Glenn Beck, presented as "the story of slavery in America" a passage from a book by historian Fred Albert Shannon that attacked abolitionists for delaying emancipation, cast slave owners as "the worst victims of the system," claimed white schoolchildren "were likely to envy the freedom of their colored playmates," and stated that "[s]lavery did not make white labor unrespectable, but merely inefficient," because "the slave had a deliberateness of motion which no amount of supervision could quicken." Why would Skousen think that comments like those told the "story of slavery in America"? It does make you wonder -- especially after reading some of the things that Glenn has written.
When everything becomes just another political football, it makes the serious discussion of serious topics impossible. That's what happened this week with Afghanistan policy, as Fox News tried to spin Gen. Stanley McChrystal's recently leaked memo into a story about how Obama was ignoring his military brass. Not surprisingly, the network largely ignored Gen. Eric Shinseki's February 2003 recommendation that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would be needed to successfully occupy Iraq.
Media Matters president Eric Burns summed things up clearly as a guest on MSNBC's Countdown this week. Fox News, he said, "is no longer a news organization. This is a political organization, and their aim is to destroy a progressive policy agenda."
The American people are paying the price every day.
For the better part of a week, conservatives in the media have been on a witch hunt for Kevin Jennings, the director of the Department of Education's Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. Led by Fox News, the right-wing media have claimed that 21 years ago, when Jennings was a 24-year-old teacher at Concord Academy in Massachusetts, he "cover[ed] up statutory rape" by not reporting to authorities a conversation he had with a student who told him about being involved with an "older man."
The attacks on Jennings, the latest Obama administration official in the right's crosshairs, have been disgusting, misleading, baseless, and at times pointedly anti-gay.
WorldNetDaily's Erik Rush called Jennings a "radical homosexual druggie." The conservative Washington Times contended in an editorial that "Jennings has made extremely radical statements promoting homosexuality in schools." Right-wing radio's big kahuna, Rush Limbaugh, and Fox News' Sean Hannity both claimed that Jennings supported promoting homosexuality in the schools, while conservative blogger Michelle Malkin wrote that Jennings was a "controversial homosexual rights' advocate" who founded a "controversial" organization that "aggressively pushes sexually explicit" books.
The controversial organization of which Malkin speaks? GLSEN -- the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network -- which, according to the organization's website, is "the leading national education organization focused on ensuring safe schools for all students. ... GLSEN envisions a world in which every child learns to respect and accept all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression."
In addition to the right's attacks aimed at Jennings' sexual orientation, conservative media outlets sought to paint Jennings as complicit in covering up a crime -- specifically "statutory rape." A Washington Times editorial accused Jennings of "encourag[ing]" a relationship that amounted to "statutory rape." Led by Hannity, Fox News also baselessly claimed that Jennings "cover[ed] up statutory rape" and violated Massachusetts law by not reporting to authorities his 1988 conversation with the student. Limbaugh took things a step further, claiming that Jennings had "encouraged" and "facilitated" a sexual relationship between the student and an adult. Fox News' Bill Hemmer continued the conservative network's attacks on Jennings by claiming that Jennings knew of a "statutory rape" case involving a student but "never reported it." MSNBC's Pat Buchanan went even further, asking if Jennings had "a sense of solidarity with the man, rather than with the kid." Seriously.
The conservative media made it abundantly clear that facts wouldn't get in the way of their latest line of attack on the Obama administration. In a 2004 letter, Jennings' attorney wrote that the student was 16 years old at the time of the incident, which is, and was at the time, the legal age of consent in Massachusetts.
Additionally, Media Matters exclusively confirmed the former student's age was 16 at the time of his conversation with Jennings, posting a redacted copy of his current driver's license, his Facebook message exchange with a FoxNews.com writer in which he said as much, and his statement on the matter.
If you've ever wondered what kind of folks regularly participate in polls sponsored by FoxNews.com, the answer is here. It's two kinds of people: those who are comfortable forming a strong opinion on a subject before the facts are in, and people who get all of their news from Fox News. Ninety-eight percent of respondents to a FoxNews.com poll this week said that Jennings should resign due to his "actions" and "questionable past and experience." I wonder where they could have gotten that idea. (After all, self-righteous indignation is what Sean Hannity does best.)
But don't hold your breath hoping for any consistency from Hannity. After The Washington Times established a completely false equivalency between Jennings and former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) (who, if you'll recall, personally pursued young congressional pages), Media Matters went back and checked the record. It turns out that in 2006, while Dennis Hastert was on his way to being criticized by the House Ethics Committee for his failure to stop Foley's actions, Hannity and his Fox News cohorts were among the then-speaker's staunchest defenders. "The only thing that Hastert knew about was that there was an e-mail," Hannity said at the time. "[I]'s always easy to say what [Hastert] should've done," Brit Hume said, "but when you start thinking about the things he could've done, there's not much there." "I think there's no evidence that Hastert did anything wrong, in my view," said Bill Kristol. "Hastert's position is completely defensible," said Mort Kondracke. "Hastert's you know, being witch hunted down," stated Bill O'Reilly.
When it comes to media conservatives, integrity may be dead, but irony certainly is not.
Lost in these right-wing caricatures of Jennings is the simple fact that education officials and others have spoken highly of the Obama administration official, who has received numerous awards and was an appointee of former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, a Republican.
With this, the latest conservative media witch hunt debunked and put to bed, the timer starts anew. When will the next witch hunt begin? Who's next on the list?
Other major stories this week
A gold medal for Obamalympic-hating media conservatives
It isn't every day that the conservative media -- America's self-appointed protectors of patriotism -- illustrate their true priorities so clearly. But on Friday, they did just that. Here it is, in a nutshell: America lost, and the right-wing noise machine cheered.
The announcement that President Obama planned to fly to Copenhagen to support Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics was immediately denounced by the conservative media. After months of falsely accusing Obama of apologizing for America on the world stage -- even blatantly cropping the president's words to make the point -- you would think that right-wing media figures would have applauded a voyage with the explicit goal of praising the United States. Think again -- not when there are political points to score.
"Chicago is good at ... organized Mafi-- oops, did I say that out loud?" Fox News' Glenn Beck quipped on Thursday. Malkin was even more vitriolic, stating Obama's trip was nothing more than a taxpayer-funded junket designed to secure paybacks for Obama's hometown "cronies."
And that was just the beginning. Hannity claimed that Obama was "more concerned about bringing the Olympics to Chicago than winning the war in Afghanistan." The Washington Examiner's Byron York and The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes attacked Obama's priorities, with Hayes adding, "the optics of it at the very least are terrible." Fox News' Bret Baier brought up the "carbon footprint" of the Air Force One trip, and the Media Research Center's Brent Bozell claimed that Obama's venture was "evidence that [Obama] just cannot stay away from the klieg lights." Fox News' Gretchen Carlson suggested the trip was inappropriate, and both she and her colleague Steve Doocy said that it was against U.S. tradition to "send our president out as a salesman like this." "Have you been to Rio?" asked columnist S.E. Cupp on Fox News, swelling with national pride. "I have. It's awesome."
Even more abysmal was the right's exploitation of a recently released video depicting the brutal murder of a teenage Chicagoan at the hands of gang members. "Is this a city where we want the Olympics taking place?" Hannity asked. "OLYMPIC SPIRIT: VIDEO SHOWS BRUTAL GANG MURDER IN CHICAGO" the Drudge Report blared. "Community organizing has not stopped Chicago's teen violence epidemic," Malkin added.
Then on Friday, the International Olympic Committee eliminated Chicago from the running -- and the rejoicing began.
"Oh, it's so sweet," said Beck live on the radio. "Enjoy this -- savor this moment." "[T]he IOC just says 'no' to Chicago!" cheered Lou Dobbs' webpage, reprinting the latest headline topping Drudge: "The Ego Has Landed." "I don't deny it," said Limbaugh, "I'm happy." Erick Erickson, managing editor of the conservative blog RedState.com, was perhaps the most mature of the conservative revelers, summing up his feelings by writing, "Hahahahaha."
No, it's not every week that we get such a clear indication of just what "patriotism" really means to those in the conservative media -- and it doesn't have anything to do with putting country first.
Drama still besting substance in coverage of health care
This week, the Senate Finance Committee passed Sen. Max Baucus' health care plan, voting down two amendments in the process that would have included a public option in the legislation. That was the week's substantive development affecting health care reform. The rest was the conservative noise machine's usual drone.
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) made headlines by bluntly attacking conservatives for lacking a systematic health insurance reform plan. The following day, he returned to the House floor and called for an end to what he termed a "holocaust" caused by the failings of America's health care system.
While his language was indeed blunt, his passion was understandable. A new study conducted by the Harvard Medical School estimates that 45,000 Americans die every year because of our system's flaws. Despite such realities, RedState's Erickson was incensed not by the death toll but by Grayson's statement. "The holocaust was real with a real meaning," he wrote on Wednesday. "Roping it into the health care debate cheapens what it was all about." We're still waiting for Erickson to denounce the numerous conservative media figures who have linked progressive politicians and health care plans to the Nazis.
Limbaugh was more blunt. "I don't believe anybody in this country is dying because of a lack of health insurance," he said, adding, "If there is a holocaust in this country, it is abortion." He again reminded the nation that the Democratic Party is "obsessed with your death" as well as being the "party of abortion and euthanasia, slavery and not liberty." By the end of the week, more Nazi comparisons hardly came as a surprise.
Far more intriguing was the new light shed on serial health care misinformer Betsy McCaughey. A new Rolling Stone article revealed that her 1994 opposition to Bill Clinton's reform legislation had been greased with money from Big Tobacco. CNN political analyst James Carville put the revelations in proper context, calling it "breathtaking proof" of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that has plagued progressives for decades -- especially when it comes to health care reform.
Yet another example of principled conservative opposition was provided by Fox News' Dick Morris, who is still using his time on the conservative network to fund-raise for an anti-reform group that is also employing him. Fox News has yet to see how this might be a conflict of interest.
It's clear that when it comes to issues like health care, progressives have few honest brokers to deal with on the right. As MSNBC's Chris Matthews asked Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) on Tuesday, "If no Republicans will join, why should [Democrats] compromise with nobody?"
An intriguing question indeed.
Slavery, coups, and kids, oh my!
The problem with becoming obsessed with destroying your opponent is that you tend to lose touch with reality.
There were numerous examples of that outcome this week. The Drudge Report, Andrew Breitbart, and Fox News ran with yet another video showing schoolchildren singing Obama's praises. The children, who were performing in front of the PTA (nobody objected) were also singing dangerous slogans like, "Can we make America better? Yes we can!" Scary stuff!
Immediately, numerous media figures, including Fox News' Monica Crowley, O'Reilly, and Beck, as well as CNN's Dobbs, claimed the video was evidence of "indoctrination." (Never mind the choir of Louisiana schoolchildren that sang to President Bush after Hurricane Katrina.) They should really wait a bit before reacting to these tapes. After all, Beck, Dobbs, and others were burned badly this week after they ran with a false lead from Breitbart, who claimed he had a video showing community organizers praying to Obama. It turns out that they were actually praying to God. Breitbart was forced to update his story, adding that "there is a debate over what is actually being said." Only in your mind, Andrew.
The real brainwashing was being attempted by syndicated conservative columnist George Will, who wrote yet another column claiming that "evidence" of climate change is "elusive." More troubling still was the work of Newsmax.com's John Perry, who penned a column that even Newsmax soon felt compelled to remove. "There is a remote, although gaining, possibility," he wrote, "America's military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the 'Obama problem.' Don't dismiss it as unrealistic." How about it we dismiss it as paranoid and delusional?
It was, however, W. Cleon Skousen who won the week's award for "Most Crazy" -- and he's been dead for years. It turns out that in one of his controversial books, Skousen, whose work still holds a powerful influence over Glenn Beck, presented as "the story of slavery in America" a passage from a book by historian Fred Albert Shannon that attacked abolitionists for delaying emancipation, cast slave owners as "the worst victims of the system," claimed white schoolchildren "were likely to envy the freedom of their colored playmates," and stated that "[s]lavery did not make white labor unrespectable, but merely inefficient," because "the slave had a deliberateness of motion which no amount of supervision could quicken." Why would Skousen think that comments like those told the "story of slavery in America"? It does make you wonder -- especially after reading some of the things that Glenn has written.
When everything becomes just another political football, it makes the serious discussion of serious topics impossible. That's what happened this week with Afghanistan policy, as Fox News tried to spin Gen. Stanley McChrystal's recently leaked memo into a story about how Obama was ignoring his military brass. Not surprisingly, the network largely ignored Gen. Eric Shinseki's February 2003 recommendation that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would be needed to successfully occupy Iraq.
Media Matters president Eric Burns summed things up clearly as a guest on MSNBC's Countdown this week. Fox News, he said, "is no longer a news organization. This is a political organization, and their aim is to destroy a progressive policy agenda."
The American people are paying the price every day.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Two thrilling stories? OR NOT! Maybe?
Brain scans reveal what you've seen
Story Highlights
Researchers are trying to extract the images people see in their brains
Using fMRI machines, researchers try to guess what's in someone's head
Scientist: Tech could be used "to build a functional brain-reading device"
Such brain communication likely will not be available for decades
By Brandon Keim
(WIRED) -- Scientists are one step closer to knowing what you've seen by reading your mind.
Having modeled how images are represented in the brain, the researchers translated recorded patterns of neural activity into pictures of what test subjects had seen.
Though practical applications are decades away, the research could someday lead to dream-readers and thought-controlled computers.
"It's what you would actually use if you were going to build a functional brain-reading device," said Jack Gallant, a University of California, Berkeley neuroscientist.
The research, led by Gallant and Berkeley postdoctoral researcher Thomas Naselaris, builds on earlier work in which they used neural patterns to identify pictures from within a limited set of options.
The current approach, described this week in Neuron, uses a more complete view of the brain's visual centers. Its results are closer to reconstruction than identification, which Gallant likened to "the magician's card trick where you pick a card from a deck, and he guesses which card you picked. The magician knows all the cards you could have seen."
In the latest study, "the card could be a photograph of anything in the universe. The magician has to figure it out without ever seeing it," said Gallant.
To construct their model, the researchers used an fMRI machine, which measures blood flow through the brain, to track neural activity in three people as they looked at pictures of everyday settings and objects.
As in the earlier study, they looked at parts of the brain linked to the shape of objects. Unlike before, they looked at regions whose activity correlates with general classifications, such as "buildings" or "small groups of people."
Once the model was calibrated, the test subjects looked at another set of pictures. After interpreting the resulting neural patterns, the researchers' program plucked corresponding pictures from a database of 6 million images.
Frank Tong, a Vanderbilt University neuroscientist who studies how thoughts are manifested in the brain, said the Neuron study wasn't quite a pure, draw-from-scratch reconstruction. But it was impressive nonetheless, especially for the detail it gathered from measurements that are still extremely coarse.
The researchers' fMRI readings bundled the output of millions of neurons into single output blocks. "At the finer level, there is a ton of information. We just don't have a way to tap into that without opening the skull and accessing it directly," said Tong.
Gallant hopes to develop methods of interpreting other types of brain activity measurement, such as optical laser scans or EEG readings.
He mentioned medical communication devices as a possible application, and computer programs for which visual thinking makes sense -- CAD-CAM or Photoshop, straight from the brain.
Such applications are decades away, but "you could use algorithms like this to decode other things than vision," said Gallant. "In theory, you could analyze internal speech. You could have someone talk to themselves, and have it come out in a machine
Microsoft researcher converts his brain into 'e-memory'
Story Highlights
Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell argues we will soon have searchable memories
Bell details his ideas in a new co-authored book called "Total Recall"
Bell has been recording almost every detail of his life digitally for a decade
By John D. Sutter
CNN
(CNN) -- For the past decade, Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell has been moving the data from his brain onto computers -- where he knows it will be safe.
Sure, you could say all of us do this to some extent. We save digital pictures from family events and keep tons of e-mail.
But Bell, who is 75 years old, takes the idea of digital memory to a sci-fi-esque extreme. He carries around video equipment, cameras and audio recorders to capture his conversations, commutes, trips and experiences. Microsoft is working on a SenseCam that would hang around a person's neck and automatically capture every detail of life in photo form. Bell has given that a whirl. He also saves everything -- from restaurant receipts (he takes pictures of them) to correspondence, bills and medical records. He makes PDF files out of every Web page he views.
In sum, this mountain of data -- more than 350 gigabytes worth, not including the streaming audio and video -- is a replica of Bell's biological memory. It's actually better, he says, because, if you back up your data in enough places, this digitized "e-memory" never forgets. It's like having a multimedia transcript of your life.
By about 2020, he says, our entire life histories will be online and searchable. Location-aware smartphones and inexpensive digital memory storage in the "cloud" of the Internet make the transition possible and inevitable. No one will have to fret about storing the details of their lives in their heads anymore. We'll have computers for that. And this revolution will "change what it means to be human," he writes.
Bell, who, along with fellow researcher Jim Gemmell, is the author of a new book called "Total Recall," talked with CNN about the advantages and drawbacks of recording one's life in painstaking digital detail. The following is an edited transcript.
CNN: What have you learned about yourself through this process?
That's been a really hard question to answer. ... The main driver of the recall turns out to be a [computer] screensaver or something where I go looking for [a digital memory] and I find something else. I guess it's the rich set of connections and people that I've been involved with.
CNN: What do you use to record your memories?
In a way, most of what happens during the day is sort of routine -- what you've done before. So I carry the SenseCam only when I think there's an episode or a sequence or a certain set of events that I want to capture and have automatically photographed. But I tend to always carry a camera with me. I live next to a fire station and I've got lots of photos of the hook and ladder coming out of the house. And I like food so I tend to photograph wonderfully presented food all the time. To me those are very pleasant memories.
CNN: If we rely on computers instead of our brains, will humans become mentally sluggish?
That's certainly one of the concerns. I tend to counter that theory. To me, I feel a lot freer. In a way I feel like I still remember all that stuff, but I generally remember that [the computer is] remembering something for me so I can find it.
People have no memory of phone numbers now because of the cell phone -- their address book is in a cell phone. So I don't think they're getting any worse or any less facile about that. What an e-memory does, to me, is gives me a really wonderful free feeling.
CNN: If we all record audio of our lives, do you think conversations will become stilted and fake?
I think there will be a lot of court cases and lawyering around all of that. I'm personally less hung up about that. Certainly, people my age and Baby Boomers are. But the current X-Generation, [they think] this is pretty natural.
CNN: Are you on Facebook and Twitter?
Yeah, I'm on Facebook and Twitter and occasionally I will tweet something. Somehow my problem is that I don't think I have anything interesting to tweet about.
CNN: Should all of our memories and observations be public?
Absolutely not. Our own memories are our own private thing, and how much you choose to have on Facebook or blogs, that's your thing.
CNN: What does your family think about your effort to record everything?
Gradually, everybody is getting this idea. ... Think of it: You are a librarian for your life. Somebody has to be the family librarian.
CNN: Are you worried about losing your memory?
... Forgetting is not a feature, it's a flaw. I don't think forgetting is an important feature of human memory. I think it's important to be able to remember things accurately.
CNN: Are there any memories you deleted?
No. When we were scanning stuff I had written a memo about a company, an unpleasant company -- probably the only company I was ever ashamed to be a part of. ...
I put a note on that file that said, "Don't ever scan or copy this!" My assistant who was doing the scanning ran across this and said, "What do you want me to do with this?" And I said, "Well, gee. This is my life." I said, "It's OK, just go ahead." So it's all there.
CNN: Do you think it's possible for people to turn away from new technologies? Or are advances like "Total Recall" inevitable?
I think it's inevitable because so much content is being created. Virtually everything is coming in digitally -- everything from your photos to your videos to your music. ... I will love that day when the world is just bits. It's the ultimate in green, by the way.
Story Highlights
Researchers are trying to extract the images people see in their brains
Using fMRI machines, researchers try to guess what's in someone's head
Scientist: Tech could be used "to build a functional brain-reading device"
Such brain communication likely will not be available for decades
By Brandon Keim
(WIRED) -- Scientists are one step closer to knowing what you've seen by reading your mind.
Having modeled how images are represented in the brain, the researchers translated recorded patterns of neural activity into pictures of what test subjects had seen.
Though practical applications are decades away, the research could someday lead to dream-readers and thought-controlled computers.
"It's what you would actually use if you were going to build a functional brain-reading device," said Jack Gallant, a University of California, Berkeley neuroscientist.
The research, led by Gallant and Berkeley postdoctoral researcher Thomas Naselaris, builds on earlier work in which they used neural patterns to identify pictures from within a limited set of options.
The current approach, described this week in Neuron, uses a more complete view of the brain's visual centers. Its results are closer to reconstruction than identification, which Gallant likened to "the magician's card trick where you pick a card from a deck, and he guesses which card you picked. The magician knows all the cards you could have seen."
In the latest study, "the card could be a photograph of anything in the universe. The magician has to figure it out without ever seeing it," said Gallant.
To construct their model, the researchers used an fMRI machine, which measures blood flow through the brain, to track neural activity in three people as they looked at pictures of everyday settings and objects.
As in the earlier study, they looked at parts of the brain linked to the shape of objects. Unlike before, they looked at regions whose activity correlates with general classifications, such as "buildings" or "small groups of people."
Once the model was calibrated, the test subjects looked at another set of pictures. After interpreting the resulting neural patterns, the researchers' program plucked corresponding pictures from a database of 6 million images.
Frank Tong, a Vanderbilt University neuroscientist who studies how thoughts are manifested in the brain, said the Neuron study wasn't quite a pure, draw-from-scratch reconstruction. But it was impressive nonetheless, especially for the detail it gathered from measurements that are still extremely coarse.
The researchers' fMRI readings bundled the output of millions of neurons into single output blocks. "At the finer level, there is a ton of information. We just don't have a way to tap into that without opening the skull and accessing it directly," said Tong.
Gallant hopes to develop methods of interpreting other types of brain activity measurement, such as optical laser scans or EEG readings.
He mentioned medical communication devices as a possible application, and computer programs for which visual thinking makes sense -- CAD-CAM or Photoshop, straight from the brain.
Such applications are decades away, but "you could use algorithms like this to decode other things than vision," said Gallant. "In theory, you could analyze internal speech. You could have someone talk to themselves, and have it come out in a machine
Microsoft researcher converts his brain into 'e-memory'
Story Highlights
Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell argues we will soon have searchable memories
Bell details his ideas in a new co-authored book called "Total Recall"
Bell has been recording almost every detail of his life digitally for a decade
By John D. Sutter
CNN
(CNN) -- For the past decade, Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell has been moving the data from his brain onto computers -- where he knows it will be safe.
Sure, you could say all of us do this to some extent. We save digital pictures from family events and keep tons of e-mail.
But Bell, who is 75 years old, takes the idea of digital memory to a sci-fi-esque extreme. He carries around video equipment, cameras and audio recorders to capture his conversations, commutes, trips and experiences. Microsoft is working on a SenseCam that would hang around a person's neck and automatically capture every detail of life in photo form. Bell has given that a whirl. He also saves everything -- from restaurant receipts (he takes pictures of them) to correspondence, bills and medical records. He makes PDF files out of every Web page he views.
In sum, this mountain of data -- more than 350 gigabytes worth, not including the streaming audio and video -- is a replica of Bell's biological memory. It's actually better, he says, because, if you back up your data in enough places, this digitized "e-memory" never forgets. It's like having a multimedia transcript of your life.
By about 2020, he says, our entire life histories will be online and searchable. Location-aware smartphones and inexpensive digital memory storage in the "cloud" of the Internet make the transition possible and inevitable. No one will have to fret about storing the details of their lives in their heads anymore. We'll have computers for that. And this revolution will "change what it means to be human," he writes.
Bell, who, along with fellow researcher Jim Gemmell, is the author of a new book called "Total Recall," talked with CNN about the advantages and drawbacks of recording one's life in painstaking digital detail. The following is an edited transcript.
CNN: What have you learned about yourself through this process?
That's been a really hard question to answer. ... The main driver of the recall turns out to be a [computer] screensaver or something where I go looking for [a digital memory] and I find something else. I guess it's the rich set of connections and people that I've been involved with.
CNN: What do you use to record your memories?
In a way, most of what happens during the day is sort of routine -- what you've done before. So I carry the SenseCam only when I think there's an episode or a sequence or a certain set of events that I want to capture and have automatically photographed. But I tend to always carry a camera with me. I live next to a fire station and I've got lots of photos of the hook and ladder coming out of the house. And I like food so I tend to photograph wonderfully presented food all the time. To me those are very pleasant memories.
CNN: If we rely on computers instead of our brains, will humans become mentally sluggish?
That's certainly one of the concerns. I tend to counter that theory. To me, I feel a lot freer. In a way I feel like I still remember all that stuff, but I generally remember that [the computer is] remembering something for me so I can find it.
People have no memory of phone numbers now because of the cell phone -- their address book is in a cell phone. So I don't think they're getting any worse or any less facile about that. What an e-memory does, to me, is gives me a really wonderful free feeling.
CNN: If we all record audio of our lives, do you think conversations will become stilted and fake?
I think there will be a lot of court cases and lawyering around all of that. I'm personally less hung up about that. Certainly, people my age and Baby Boomers are. But the current X-Generation, [they think] this is pretty natural.
CNN: Are you on Facebook and Twitter?
Yeah, I'm on Facebook and Twitter and occasionally I will tweet something. Somehow my problem is that I don't think I have anything interesting to tweet about.
CNN: Should all of our memories and observations be public?
Absolutely not. Our own memories are our own private thing, and how much you choose to have on Facebook or blogs, that's your thing.
CNN: What does your family think about your effort to record everything?
Gradually, everybody is getting this idea. ... Think of it: You are a librarian for your life. Somebody has to be the family librarian.
CNN: Are you worried about losing your memory?
... Forgetting is not a feature, it's a flaw. I don't think forgetting is an important feature of human memory. I think it's important to be able to remember things accurately.
CNN: Are there any memories you deleted?
No. When we were scanning stuff I had written a memo about a company, an unpleasant company -- probably the only company I was ever ashamed to be a part of. ...
I put a note on that file that said, "Don't ever scan or copy this!" My assistant who was doing the scanning ran across this and said, "What do you want me to do with this?" And I said, "Well, gee. This is my life." I said, "It's OK, just go ahead." So it's all there.
CNN: Do you think it's possible for people to turn away from new technologies? Or are advances like "Total Recall" inevitable?
I think it's inevitable because so much content is being created. Virtually everything is coming in digitally -- everything from your photos to your videos to your music. ... I will love that day when the world is just bits. It's the ultimate in green, by the way.
'world's worst lovers' Germans!
German men are 'world's worst lovers' with English men in second place
German men have been voted the world's worst lovers, narrowly beating English men to the unwanted title.
A poll of 15,000 women found that Germans are considered "too smelly".
English lovers came second because they are so lazy, while men from Sweden were branded "too quick to finish" and came third.
Related Articles
Younger men dating older women makes perfect sense
Women from Newcastle voted sexiest in Britain
Spanish men topped the table as the best lovers, followed by Brazilians and Italians.
The poll, carried out by global research site www.OnePoll.com, asked women from 20 countries to rate nations on their ability in bed and give reasons for their answers.
Germans were deemed to have bad body odour, Englishmen were accused of letting women do all the work, whilst Swedes were a bit too quick to finish.
Men from Holland were "too rough" between the bed covers and Americans were accused of being "too dominating" in the bedroom.
Greek men were said to be a bit too soppy.
Other countries who didn't fare well in the poll were Scotland (too loud), Turkey (too sweaty) and Wales (too selfish).
Russian men crept in at tenth place amid accusations they are too hairy for the average woman.
A spokesperson for www.OnePoll.com added: ''These results are an eye-opener for thousands of men around the world and female travellers might judge potential new lovers by looking at these results.''
WORLD'S WORST LOVERS:
1. Germany (too smelly)
2. England (too lazy)
3. Sweden (too quick)
4. Holland (too dominating)
5. America (too rough)
6. Greece (too lovey-dovey)
7. Wales (too selfish)
8. Scotland (too loud)
9. Turkey (too sweaty)
10. Russia (too hairy)
WORLD'S BEST LOVERS
1. Spain
2. Brazil
3. Italy
4. France
5. Ireland
6. South Africa
7. Australia
8. New Zealand
9. Denmark
10. Canada
German men have been voted the world's worst lovers, narrowly beating English men to the unwanted title.
A poll of 15,000 women found that Germans are considered "too smelly".
English lovers came second because they are so lazy, while men from Sweden were branded "too quick to finish" and came third.
Related Articles
Younger men dating older women makes perfect sense
Women from Newcastle voted sexiest in Britain
Spanish men topped the table as the best lovers, followed by Brazilians and Italians.
The poll, carried out by global research site www.OnePoll.com, asked women from 20 countries to rate nations on their ability in bed and give reasons for their answers.
Germans were deemed to have bad body odour, Englishmen were accused of letting women do all the work, whilst Swedes were a bit too quick to finish.
Men from Holland were "too rough" between the bed covers and Americans were accused of being "too dominating" in the bedroom.
Greek men were said to be a bit too soppy.
Other countries who didn't fare well in the poll were Scotland (too loud), Turkey (too sweaty) and Wales (too selfish).
Russian men crept in at tenth place amid accusations they are too hairy for the average woman.
A spokesperson for www.OnePoll.com added: ''These results are an eye-opener for thousands of men around the world and female travellers might judge potential new lovers by looking at these results.''
WORLD'S WORST LOVERS:
1. Germany (too smelly)
2. England (too lazy)
3. Sweden (too quick)
4. Holland (too dominating)
5. America (too rough)
6. Greece (too lovey-dovey)
7. Wales (too selfish)
8. Scotland (too loud)
9. Turkey (too sweaty)
10. Russia (too hairy)
WORLD'S BEST LOVERS
1. Spain
2. Brazil
3. Italy
4. France
5. Ireland
6. South Africa
7. Australia
8. New Zealand
9. Denmark
10. Canada
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Why Would We Let Them Rig the Game?
Dylan Ratigan MSNBC/Huffington Post
Why is health insurance the only business that has an exemption from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act other than Major League Baseball? If the delivery of taxpayer trillions by our politicians to the banks to support their fraudulently paid bonuses hasn't shown you what our current government's values are, check this link out.
Through the governmental negligence that we as voters allowed, a health care system was created in which a single health care company controls at least 30 percent of the insurance market in 95% of the country, including states like the following:
Maine, where Wellpoint controls 71% of the market.
North Dakota, where Blue Cross controls 90% of the market.
Arkansas, where Blue Cross Blue Shield controls 75% of the market.
Alabama, where Blue Cross Blue Shield controls 83% of the market.
This monopoly, combined with the misaligned incentives that trap people in employer-based health care, is causing the skyrocketing health care costs that are hurtling our nation towards bankruptcy.
I don't know what's worse: that most Republicans seem to be against ending this unfair legal protection for an entrenched industry that is ruining our country with their non-competitive practices, or that most Democrats seem to be threatening this arrangement only as a bargaining chip to push for a meaningless public option that wouldn't be accessible to almost 85% of the population?
Instead of improving our country, through creating and enforcing free and fair markets, our politicians are currently engaging in backroom deals, most of which protect the very companies who profit the most from these disastrous outdated systems -- industries like health insurance and big Pharma.
While we clearly have the ability as a group of 305 million to update the system that is American Health Care and move our country into the 21st century in the process, it's becoming clear that we may not have the leaders to do it.
Instead of seeking answers to the problem of paying for and providing medicine, we are doing the exact opposite. Taxpayers' money is being played with by politicians who are desperately trying to protect the competition-stifling, false security of the monopolistic employer-based health care system and its outdated, over-charging, under-delivering ways. Given the least consideration are those affected the most -- the patients and the doctors who care for them.
This country's founders built an ingenious system of checks and balances for a reason: to ensure that no special interest or group could use government power to commandeer the creative and economic wealth of our nation to their own ends. How much longer must we live in a country where the citizens are subservient to the banks, health insurance companies and any other special interest able to control our government at the expense of our the most basic principles of fairness, our future as a nation and, as a result, our freedom?
Why is health insurance the only business that has an exemption from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act other than Major League Baseball? If the delivery of taxpayer trillions by our politicians to the banks to support their fraudulently paid bonuses hasn't shown you what our current government's values are, check this link out.
Through the governmental negligence that we as voters allowed, a health care system was created in which a single health care company controls at least 30 percent of the insurance market in 95% of the country, including states like the following:
Maine, where Wellpoint controls 71% of the market.
North Dakota, where Blue Cross controls 90% of the market.
Arkansas, where Blue Cross Blue Shield controls 75% of the market.
Alabama, where Blue Cross Blue Shield controls 83% of the market.
This monopoly, combined with the misaligned incentives that trap people in employer-based health care, is causing the skyrocketing health care costs that are hurtling our nation towards bankruptcy.
I don't know what's worse: that most Republicans seem to be against ending this unfair legal protection for an entrenched industry that is ruining our country with their non-competitive practices, or that most Democrats seem to be threatening this arrangement only as a bargaining chip to push for a meaningless public option that wouldn't be accessible to almost 85% of the population?
Instead of improving our country, through creating and enforcing free and fair markets, our politicians are currently engaging in backroom deals, most of which protect the very companies who profit the most from these disastrous outdated systems -- industries like health insurance and big Pharma.
While we clearly have the ability as a group of 305 million to update the system that is American Health Care and move our country into the 21st century in the process, it's becoming clear that we may not have the leaders to do it.
Instead of seeking answers to the problem of paying for and providing medicine, we are doing the exact opposite. Taxpayers' money is being played with by politicians who are desperately trying to protect the competition-stifling, false security of the monopolistic employer-based health care system and its outdated, over-charging, under-delivering ways. Given the least consideration are those affected the most -- the patients and the doctors who care for them.
This country's founders built an ingenious system of checks and balances for a reason: to ensure that no special interest or group could use government power to commandeer the creative and economic wealth of our nation to their own ends. How much longer must we live in a country where the citizens are subservient to the banks, health insurance companies and any other special interest able to control our government at the expense of our the most basic principles of fairness, our future as a nation and, as a result, our freedom?
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