Global
Dear Editor:
I believe that the 9/11 Commission, while necessary, has missed the forest for the trees; by focusing on the single-event attack, and not on the history of the Western powers’ Middle East and Third World foreign policies.
Pope John Paul II, along with many high-ranking
Catholic leaders, has written extensively on how we
should fight against terrorism, intelligently and
morally, and not simply via repressive and punitive
military operations. I quote the Pope as follows: “It
is essential that the use of force, even when necessary, be accompanied by a courageous and lucid
analysis of the reasons behind terrorist attacks.” One can follow Papal and Holy See views on this, and most vital issues of our day, by reading zenit.org.
Now, more than ever, pigs need to unite and take to the streets in protest against atrocities against all creatures great and small. From innocent dogs used in the sadistic and shameful abuses in Iraq to tiny mice whose backs will be broken by Ohio State University for spinal cord injury experiments – we need to stand up for our rights.
One group who is on our side are the kids putting on the Liberation Now! National Student Animal Rights Conference. It will be October 29-30 at the University of California-Berkeley near San Francisco. According to the announcement, “Liberation Now!” is the animal rights movement’s biggest event dedicated to bringing together students and youth in the struggle for animal rights. If you’d like to attend, the early registration fee is only $10, and free and low-cost food and lodging are available. Contact them at: libnow@defendanimals.org, or go to: www.defendanimals.org/libnow/.
One group who is on our side are the kids putting on the Liberation Now! National Student Animal Rights Conference. It will be October 29-30 at the University of California-Berkeley near San Francisco. According to the announcement, “Liberation Now!” is the animal rights movement’s biggest event dedicated to bringing together students and youth in the struggle for animal rights. If you’d like to attend, the early registration fee is only $10, and free and low-cost food and lodging are available. Contact them at: libnow@defendanimals.org, or go to: www.defendanimals.org/libnow/.
Patti Smith is the high priestess of NY Punk. In a world where Avril Lavigne and Christina Aguilera are considered rebellious, thank god Patti can still come around and remind them they’re not. I would love to see these MTV darlings go on TRL and proclaim that, “Jesus died for someone’s sins, but not mine.” That was the opening line of Smith’s iconic 1974 release, Horses. Thirty years on, Patti is using Trampin’ as a sounding board for an American revolution of a different kind.
From the first guitar riff, you know the album is gonna rock. The opening track “Jubilee,” is a bit of a barnyard stomp with Patti in a two tone chant declaring, “We will never fade away /Doves shall multiply /Yet I see hawks circling the sky.” The band underscores Patti’s fading utopian dreams with a psychedelic jam of tight blues and swirling guitars.
In “My Blakean Year,” Patti pays homage to every Beat poet’s hero William Blake. The minimal guitar scratching and deliberate underproduction is brilliant. Patti fades out with the repeating lines, “Embrace all that you fear /For joy shall conquer all despair /In my Blakean year.”
From the first guitar riff, you know the album is gonna rock. The opening track “Jubilee,” is a bit of a barnyard stomp with Patti in a two tone chant declaring, “We will never fade away /Doves shall multiply /Yet I see hawks circling the sky.” The band underscores Patti’s fading utopian dreams with a psychedelic jam of tight blues and swirling guitars.
In “My Blakean Year,” Patti pays homage to every Beat poet’s hero William Blake. The minimal guitar scratching and deliberate underproduction is brilliant. Patti fades out with the repeating lines, “Embrace all that you fear /For joy shall conquer all despair /In my Blakean year.”
Every fish sample from 70 different lakes and rivers tainted with dangerous toxin
Toxic levels in fish often exceed “safe” limit for women of childbearing age
Every lake, river and stream in Ohio is likely contaminated with dangerous mercury pollution, tainting popular fish species that people commonly catch and eat.
That is the finding of a new report based on recent federal and state Environmental Protection Agency tests of more than 1,000 fish caught in 70 different lakes, rivers and ponds across the state.
The test data is included in Reel Danger, a report authored by the Public Interest Research Group and released in Columbus by Ohio PIRG, the Darby Creek Association and the Ohio Environmental Council.
According to EPA test data:
Toxic levels in fish often exceed “safe” limit for women of childbearing age
Every lake, river and stream in Ohio is likely contaminated with dangerous mercury pollution, tainting popular fish species that people commonly catch and eat.
That is the finding of a new report based on recent federal and state Environmental Protection Agency tests of more than 1,000 fish caught in 70 different lakes, rivers and ponds across the state.
The test data is included in Reel Danger, a report authored by the Public Interest Research Group and released in Columbus by Ohio PIRG, the Darby Creek Association and the Ohio Environmental Council.
According to EPA test data:
Bob Fitrakis is at his best when he writes about George Voinovich at his worst. Catching Voinovich at his worst was not that hard when the former “frugal” Cleveland mayor and future “moderate” U.S. senator held statehouse ethics hostage as Ohio’s governor in the 1990s. So it’s not surprising that The Fitrakis Files: The Brothers Voinovich and the Ohiogate Scandal — the fourth compilation of the Columbus State Community College professor, lawyer, activist, and talk-radio firebrand’s writings — is probably his best.
That’s not to say the first three Fitrakis Files — Spooks, Nukes & Nazis; A Schoolhouse Divided; and Free Byrd & Other Cries of Justice are not exemplary. How could I say otherwise when I co-wrote some of the entries in the Byrd book? But The Brothers Voinovich and the Ohiogate Scandal rises above the others because the Voinovich clan and the brownshirts who did their bidding made such easy targets as they turned statehouse sleaze into an art form.
That’s not to say the first three Fitrakis Files — Spooks, Nukes & Nazis; A Schoolhouse Divided; and Free Byrd & Other Cries of Justice are not exemplary. How could I say otherwise when I co-wrote some of the entries in the Byrd book? But The Brothers Voinovich and the Ohiogate Scandal rises above the others because the Voinovich clan and the brownshirts who did their bidding made such easy targets as they turned statehouse sleaze into an art form.
The following is excerpted from Staughton Lynd’s forthcoming book, LUCASVILLE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF A PRISON UPRISING (Temple University Press).
One of the many ways that Attica lived on in the uprising at Lucasville had to do with race.
Tom Wicker’s memorable book on the Attica rebellion drew on the experience of a prisoner named Roger Champen.
“You’re always going to have a problem” with black-white relations, Champen believed. But in D-yard, “as days went by, food got scarce and the water began to be scarce, [blacks and whites] became more friendly. The issue about race became minimal. . . . Nothing means anything except the issue at hand.” When he made his first D-yard speech, Champ saw that “the whites had backed off and had a little, like, semi-circle off to the left.” He told them that the revolt was not a “racial thing,” that they had “one common enemy, the wall. The wall surrounds us all. So if you don’t like me, don’t like me, don’t like me after, but in the meantime, let’s work together.” That advice had prevailed . . ..
One of the many ways that Attica lived on in the uprising at Lucasville had to do with race.
Tom Wicker’s memorable book on the Attica rebellion drew on the experience of a prisoner named Roger Champen.
“You’re always going to have a problem” with black-white relations, Champen believed. But in D-yard, “as days went by, food got scarce and the water began to be scarce, [blacks and whites] became more friendly. The issue about race became minimal. . . . Nothing means anything except the issue at hand.” When he made his first D-yard speech, Champ saw that “the whites had backed off and had a little, like, semi-circle off to the left.” He told them that the revolt was not a “racial thing,” that they had “one common enemy, the wall. The wall surrounds us all. So if you don’t like me, don’t like me, don’t like me after, but in the meantime, let’s work together.” That advice had prevailed . . ..
Did you ever wonder what happened to Ohio Supreme Court Justice Andy Douglas, the pro-labor Republican, after he retired from the Court in 2002?
Sans his robe, he’s been wearing many new hats, so to speak. The website of the politically well-connected law firm Crabbe, Brown and James lists him as a partner as of 2003. A June 24 article in the Toledo Blade lists him as “former Ohio Supreme Court Justice . . ., executive director of the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association and a close political advisor of Joe Deters,” the Republican State Treasurer in the middle of a criminal investigation.
The Plain Dealer reported, “Former Ohio Supreme Court Justice, Andy Douglas, one of Deters’ closest political advisors, is one of Pavlish’s attorneys.” A private investigator, Thomas Pavlish, was ordered to answer questions about a records request concerning the foreman of a secret grand jury who was investigating allegations involving contract-steering and bribery at Deters’ office.
Sans his robe, he’s been wearing many new hats, so to speak. The website of the politically well-connected law firm Crabbe, Brown and James lists him as a partner as of 2003. A June 24 article in the Toledo Blade lists him as “former Ohio Supreme Court Justice . . ., executive director of the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association and a close political advisor of Joe Deters,” the Republican State Treasurer in the middle of a criminal investigation.
The Plain Dealer reported, “Former Ohio Supreme Court Justice, Andy Douglas, one of Deters’ closest political advisors, is one of Pavlish’s attorneys.” A private investigator, Thomas Pavlish, was ordered to answer questions about a records request concerning the foreman of a secret grand jury who was investigating allegations involving contract-steering and bribery at Deters’ office.
Recently I had the pleasure of attending a family reunion in a small town in the Northwest corner of Arkansas. Being in the Ozarks allows one to appreciate some of America’s natural beauty. We were in the retirement community of Bella Vista, just north of Bentonville. Never heard of it? Bentonville is the world headquarters of Wal-Mart. That’s right, I was in the belly of the beast.
One evening my vegan brother-in-law and my vegetarian wife decided it was time to purchase some food for our rented townhouse. We were told the only place to go would be the community market. We were thinking a community market would be like our very own in Clintonville, Ohio. As we pull in, my wife quickly points out that it is in fact, a “Wal-Mart Community Market.”
After reluctantly entering and shopping, we went to the checkout line. The other two quickly said, “We’ll be outside.” Alone with the cashier, I was saddened and distraught by feeling forced to give money to Wal-Mart -- not unlike the feeling of a progressive voting for John Kerry.
One evening my vegan brother-in-law and my vegetarian wife decided it was time to purchase some food for our rented townhouse. We were told the only place to go would be the community market. We were thinking a community market would be like our very own in Clintonville, Ohio. As we pull in, my wife quickly points out that it is in fact, a “Wal-Mart Community Market.”
After reluctantly entering and shopping, we went to the checkout line. The other two quickly said, “We’ll be outside.” Alone with the cashier, I was saddened and distraught by feeling forced to give money to Wal-Mart -- not unlike the feeling of a progressive voting for John Kerry.
Ashraf Al-Jailani, a 39-year-old
Yemen-born geochemist from Ohio, has been jailed for more than 23 months without charges. His wife, Michele Swenson, spoke at the federal building on July 7 in Columbus, Ohio to expose another victim of the Bush administration’s great terror scare. As Michele tells it, her marriage to Ashraf was dramatically altered on October 23, 2002 when two immigration officers arrested her husband at his job at GoJo Industries in Akron. Simultaneously, six FBI agents raided the couple’s Kent apartment.
The FBI claimed the reason for the raid was that they found Al-Jailani’s business card in the wallet of a suspected Al Qaeda money-launderer. Michele explained that her husband was in the middle of a job search and had given away and mailed out hundreds of business cards. The FBI agent spent six hours confiscating papers, address books and copying computer files. The Cleveland FBI Bureau demanded that the Immigration Service neither deport nor allow bond for Al-Jailani on November 14, 2002.
The FBI claimed the reason for the raid was that they found Al-Jailani’s business card in the wallet of a suspected Al Qaeda money-launderer. Michele explained that her husband was in the middle of a job search and had given away and mailed out hundreds of business cards. The FBI agent spent six hours confiscating papers, address books and copying computer files. The Cleveland FBI Bureau demanded that the Immigration Service neither deport nor allow bond for Al-Jailani on November 14, 2002.
September 4th is the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Political Prisoners. Seven thousand prisoners are held by Israel. 4000 are on a hunger strike Since August 15th. Their health has deteriorated and already a mother of one of the prisoners fasting in solidarity died as a result of this. Human rights organizations are outraged but the US-tax funded Israeli government shrugs its shoulders. Israeli minister of “Justice” said it would be OK with him if they all died and he ordered even more repression at the prisons. Israeli minister of health said he is putting Israeli hospitals off limits to sick and dying Palestinian prisoners. “Moderate physical pressure” (a.k.a., torture) is still used by Israel and is taught to US servicemen to deal with resistance to occupation.