Reflections on the VA Tech massacre

We received this correspondence from a Va Tech graduate. It is the text of a presentation given at a vigil a few days after the massacre.

It was quite a while ago when I graduated from Va Tech, but on the day of the massacre I found I could remember so much about it, and so clearly. My girlfriend lived in West AJ, and I took engineering classes at Norris Hall. As the details started coming out, I found myself picturing the scene, imagining which paths the shooter might have taken, which hallways and stairwells he walked down. I wondered how he was able to get all the way across campus. I wondered if any of my former professors were killed. I wondered how former classmates were dealing with it all.

Record of Iraq war lies to air this Wednesday, April 25, on PBS

Bill Moyers has put together an amazing 90-minute video documenting the lies that the Bush administration told to sell the Iraq War to the American public, with a special focus on how the media led the charge. I've watched an advance copy and read a transcript, and the most important thing I can say about it is: Watch PBS from 9 to 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 25. Spending that 90 minutes on this will actually save you time, because you'll never watch television news again – not even on PBS, which comes in for its share of criticism.

Find a house party where you can watch the show and take action:
http://www.freepress.net/content/partysearch

Threat? Comment on FDA "Guidance" for Complimentary and Alternative Modalities (CAM) Products and Regulation

Lou Peters and others from our own community of alterantive health care practitioners, are spreading the word about new FDA guidance that could potentially create a crisis in our freedom to choose our health care services and products. On April 30, 2007 the FDA will close the public comment period on a "Guidance" that will classify every alternative practice as medicine so that only licensed physicians can carry out the procedure AND many vitamins, minerals, herbs, etc., will suddenly become "untested drugs" that will be forbidden. The Natural Solutions Foundation is an advocacy organization that believes a public outcry is necessary to stop the FDA from "guiding" the industry toward regulation of CAM products, thereby limiting our health care choices. If you share this concern, then share this link to the FDA comment form on this Guidance and urge your friends to comment too: http://tinyurl.com/2u7ghc. For more info, see Health Freedom USA.

Oppose SB 177

The Ohio Community Computing Network encourages you to oppose Ohio Senate Bill 117 (see below). This bill would eliminate local franchising for video services. There are many ramifications to the passage of this bill including: elimination of PEG access channels (we provide telecourses and share guest speakers on Educational Access), disincentives to build broadband in rural and low-income areas (effecting our ability to serve these areas), removal of local consumer protection (no service requirements, support of community networks, etc.), removal of local control of rights of way (ATT can put a big ugly switcher station on your tree lawn), loss of local revenue, perhaps a quarter million dollars annually in Columbus (pick the City service you want to see cut)

“Rachel Carson turns in her grave," an open letter to Patricia M. DeMarco, Director, Rachel Carson Homestead Association

Dear Patricia,

We were shocked to learn that your organization today wants to honor the Chemical and Pharmaceutical company Bayer at the "Rachel Carson Reception" in Pittsburgh. Rachel will turn in her grave.

Bayer is the worldmarket leader for pesticides which account for pollution of the soil, the groundwater and the environment all over the world. Bayer sells a whole range of highly toxic organophosphates classified as „extremely hazardous“. Pesticides like Endosulfan, Parathion or Methamidophos are responsible for a large part of poisonings, of which the World Health Organisation annually counts more than 2 million. And Bayer produces large quantities of dangerous chemicals, for example Bisphenol A, an endocrine disruptor used in baby bottles, food cans, dental sealants, etc.

Bayer has a long tradition in trying to "greenwash" their image. The company started dozens of partnerships and sponsorships with medical, environmental or educational organizations and even the United Nations. In particular Bayer chooses cooperations in fields where the company is criticized - like the production of pesticides.

Climate: time is short

April 14th was without doubt a turning point in the movement to prevent catastrophic climate change. Many tens of thousands of people in all 50 states took action on Step It Up day. We demanded that Congress move now to cap and begin reducing the carbon emissions that are dangerously heating up the earth, toward the goal of 80% reductions by 2050.

I actively supported these actions. I was a leader of the N.J. Climate March April 13-16 which supported them. Bill McKibben and the young people from Middlebury College who called for and coordinated this campaign deserve tremendous praise.

Spring 2007

The new journal will be posted shortly! Don't forget to check out the columns and
departments sections for other articles included in the print edition!

The GOP's cyber election hit squad

Did the most powerful Republicans in America have the computer capacity, software skills and electronic infrastructure in place on Election Night 2004 to tamper with the Ohio results to ensure George W. Bush's re-election?

The answer appears to be yes. There is more than ample documentation to show that on Election Night 2004, Ohio's "official" Secretary of State website – which gave the world the presidential election results – was redirected from an Ohio government server to a group of servers that contain scores of Republican web sites, including the secret White House e-mail accounts that have emerged in the scandal surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s firing of eight federal prosecutors.

Recent revelations have documented that the Republican National Committee (RNC) ran a secret White House e-mail system for Karl Rove and dozens of White House staffers. This high-tech system used to count and report the 2004 presidential vote– from server-hosting contracts, to software-writing services, to remote-access capability, to the actual server usage logs themselves – must be added to the growing congressional investigations.

Rethinking American culture

American culture continues to spiral downward to an oblivion and the only way to stop it is through our love and concern. Much has occurred over the past few days and week. The shooting massacre at Virginia Tech jarred us into disbelief and renewed our concerns over domestic violence, gun control and man''s inhumanity to man.

It was just days ago that the nation was embroiled in the Don Imus ''nappy-headed ho'' controversy along with the ''bitch-ho'' culture that rappers and hip hop artists have cultivated over the past 20 plus years.

And it was only a few months ago that the ''F-word'' slur towards the gay community with Isaiah Washington and later with Tim Hardaway was fodder for the evening news. Meanwhile America continues to be engaged in a prolonged war over nothing as it desperately tries to force democracy and Western values onto a people who resent it.

Bowing down to our own violence

Many days after the mass killings at Virginia Tech, grisly stories about the tragedy still dominated front pages and cable television. News of carnage on a vastly larger scale -- the war in Iraq -- ebbs and flows. The overall coverage of lethal violence, at home and far away, reflects the chronic evasions of the American media establishment.

In the world of U.S. mainline journalism, the boilerplate legitimacy of official American violence overseas is a routine assumption.

“The first task of the occupation remains the first task of government: to establish a monopoly on violence,” George Will wrote on April 7, 2004, in the Washington Post. But three years later, his Newsweek column laments: “Vietnam produced an antiwar movement in America; Iraq has produced an antiwar America.”

Current polls and public discourse -- in spite of media inclinations to tamp down authentic anger at the war -- do reflect an “antiwar America” of sorts. So, why is the ghastly war effort continuing unabated? A big factor is the undue respect that’s reserved for American warriors in American society.

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