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Forwarded from Ken's List <Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu>
To: kenslist@groups.queernet.org
http://www.avnonline.com/index.php?Primary_Navigation=Editorial&Action=View_Article&Content_ID=276130
Conservative Groups Urge Bush to Expand Anti-Obscenity Efforts
AVN Online.com
By: Carlos Martinez
WASHINGTON
The Southern Baptist group Ethics & Religious Commission along with a number
of other conservative organizations were urging President Bush this week to
step up anti-obscenity efforts
Richard Land, head of Ethics & Religious Commission, joined with Focus onthe Family Chairman James Dobson, American Family Association ChairmanDonald Wildmon and nearly 80 other politicians and community leaders insending a letter to Bush asking him to expand efforts to prosecute purveyorsand buyers of obscene pornographic material, the Baptist Press reported.
The letter said Bush's help was needed "because pornographers and sexualpredators are increasingly targeting America's most vulnerable citizens: ourchildren." The letter asked Bush to address the issue of obscenity publicly,adding that a meeting with members of the conservative groups would give him the opportunity to do so.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-binladen24sep24,0,5374250.story?coll=la-home-world
Officials Skeptical About Report Bin Laden Is Dead
By Sebastian Rotella and Josh Meyer
Times Staff Writers
September 24, 2006
PARIS - A leaked French intelligence memo reporting that Osama bin Laden had died of illness last month caused a flurry of speculation Saturday, butskeptical French, U.S. and Arab officials said they had no informationconfirming the report.
French President Jacques Chirac told journalists the intelligence report had"by no means been confirmed, not whatsoever." And a French security official cautioned that the memo was based on uncorroborated intelligence from a single source.
"We are not confirming whatever has been said in this report because weconsider it a source among other sources," said the French securityofficial, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Our services, like othersaround the world, don't use just one source for reaching such a conclusion,they need multiple sources. We don't think this is a reliable report at thisstage."
The latest rumblings about the elusive Al Qaeda leader came from an unlikelysource: a small regional newspaper. L'Est Republicain, based in the easterncity of Nancy, published an article Saturday along with a copy of aconfidential Sept. 21 memo from France's foreign intelligence agency, whichis overseen by the Defense Ministry and known by the initials DGSE.
The memo informed the president's office and the defense minister that Saudiintelligence had "become convinced" that Bin Laden was dead, according tothe newspaper.
"The data gathered by the Saudis indicates that the chief of Al Qaeda would have been a victim, while in Pakistan on August 23, 2006, of a very strongattack of typhoid," the intelligence memo said, according to the paper. "Hisgeographic isolation, caused by his permanent fugitive status, made anymedical care impossible. On Sept. 4, the Saudi security services obtainedthe first intelligence about his death."
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/religion/15592542.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
CAMPAIGN 2006
Conservatives try to deploy `values voters'
Christian conservative leaders hope to make sure 'values voters' feelingabandoned by Republicans in Congress don't stay home on Election Day.
By MATT STEARNS
McClatchy News Service
PITTSBURGH - To the daunting challenges facing Republicans in the 2006midterm elections, add another: angry ''values voters'' who feel used andabandoned.
''We put these people in power in 2004,'' said Sue Means, a home-schoolactivist from suburban Pittsburgh. ``I really expected more. I'mdisappointed.''
The failed federal marriage amendment, waffling on stem-cell research, nonew limits on abortion -- Means sees little but broken promises from theRepublican Congress. And she's far from alone among like-minded peoplewidely credited in 2004 with helping ban same-sex marriage in 11 states andbeing key to President Bush's reelection.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/23/AR2006092300224_pf.html
U.S. conservatives frustrated by Republicans
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Religious conservatives voiced frustration on Fridaywith Republican Party leaders and their failure to push key socialinitiatives through the U.S. Congress and said it could hurt voter turnoutin November's elections. At a "Values Voters Summit" sponsored by leadingreligious conservative groups, some activists said President George W. Bushand Republican leaders showed too much pragmatism and too little concern for issues like abortion, immigration and banning gay marriage.
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The New York Times
http://www.local10.com/news/9918592/detail.html
Al-Qaida-Linked Group Posts Graphic Video
POSTED: 3:49 pm EDT September 23, 2006
CAIRO, Egypt -- An al-Qaida-linked group posted a Web video Saturday purporting to show the bodies of two American soldiers being dragged behinda truck, then set on fire in apparent retaliation for the rape-slaying of a young Iraqi woman by U.S. troops from the same unit.
The Mujahedeen Shura Council - an umbrella organization of insurgent groups,including al-Qaida in Iraq - posted another video in June showing thesoldiers' mutilated bodies, and claiming it killed them. It was not clearwhether the video posted Saturday was a continuation of that footage, or why it was released.
It was impossible to identify the bodies, but the footage was believed to be of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Pfc. Thomas Tucker, 25, who went missingafter being attacked by insurgents on June 16 at a checkpoint south ofBaghdad. Their remains were found three days later, and the U.S. militarysaid they had been mutilated.
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Forwarded from Ron Mills
http://www.RonMills.us
http://thinkprogress.org/clinton-interview
Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace Interview With President Bill Clinton,
9/22/06 (Rough Transcript)
WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on fox news Sunday, Igot a lot of email from viewers, and I got to say I was surprised most ofthem wanted me to ask you this question. Why didn't you do more to put BinLaden and al Qaeda out of business when you were President. There's a newbook out which I suspect you've read called the Looming Tower. And it talksabout how the fact that when you pulled troops out of Somalia in 1993, BinLaden said I have seen the frailty and the weakness and the cowardice of UStroops. Then there was the bombing of the embassies in Africa and the attackon the USS Cole.
CLINTON: OK..
WALLACE: .may I just finish the question sir. And after the attack, the booksays, Bin Laden separated his leaders because he expected an attack andthere was no response. I understand that hindsight is 20 20.
CLINTON: No let's talk about.
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/15585337.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
The Miami Herald
Posted on Sun, Sep. 24, 2006
DID YOU KNOW? Almost half of illegal immigrants enter the U.S. legally...
DID YOU KNOW?
. Almost half of illegal immigrants enter the U.S. legally. About 45 percentcome here legally as tourists, students, shoppers and business people, thenoverstay their visas.
. Most unskilled workers will never get a chance to legally come to theUnited States. Their best hope: sponsorship by family members who are U.S.citizens or permanent legal residents. But even that can take 12 years orlonger.
. A century ago, immigrants made up a greater percentage of the U.S.population than today. From 1890 to 1910, the foreign-born accounted for14.7 percent of the population. Today, only 11.1 percent is foreign-born.
Source: McClatchy Newspapers
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/15585320.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
The Miami Herald
Posted on Sun, Sep. 24, 2006
Pope places large questions on our agenda
BY GEORGE WEIGEL
www.eppc.org
In a brilliant lecture at the University of Regensburg earlier this month, Pope Benedict XVI made three crucial points that are now in danger of being lost in the polemics about his supposedly offensive comments about Islam.
. The pope's first point was that all the great questions of life, including social and political questions, are ultimately theological. How we think (or don't think) about God has much to do with how we judge what is good and what is wicked, and with how we think about the appropriate methods for advancing the truth in a world in which there are profound disagreements about the truth of things.
If, for example, we imagine that God is pure will, a remote majesty with whom our only possible relationship is one of unthinking submission, then we have imagined a God who can even command what seems to be irrational -- like the murder of innocents.
Pope Benedict reminds us, however, that mainstream Christian tradition, following its Jewish parent, has a different concept of God. The God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus is a God of reason, compassion and love, a God who comes searching for man in history, appeals to the human mind as well as the human heart and invites human beings into a dialogue of salvation.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/opinion/24sun1.html?pagewanted=print
September 24, 2006
Editorial
Facing Facts on Iraq
While Iraq is a central issue in this year's election campaigns, there is very little clear talk about what to do, beyond vague recommendations for staying the course or long-term timetables for withdrawal. That is because politicians running for election want to deliver good news, and there is nothing about Iraq - including withdrawal scenarios - that is anything but ominous.
In the real Iraq, armed Shiite and Kurdish parties have divided up the eastern two-thirds of the country, leaving Sunni insurgents and American marines to fight over the rest. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and his "national unity cabinet" stretch out their arms to like-thinking allies like Iran and Hezbollah, but barely lift a finger to rein in the sectarian militias and death squads spreading terror across Baghdad and the Shiite south.
The civilian death toll is now running at roughly 100 a day, with many of the victims gruesomely tortured with power tools or acid. Over the summer, more Iraqi civilians died violent deaths each month than the number of Americans lost to terrorism on Sept. 11. Meanwhile, the electricity remains off, oil production depressed, unemployment pervasive and basic services hard to find.
Iraq is today a broken, war-torn country. Outside the relatively stable Kurdish northeast, virtually every family - Sunni or Shiite, rich or poor, powerful or powerless - must cope with fear and physical insecurity on an almost daily basis. The courts, when they function at all, are subject to political interference; street-corner justice is filling the vacuum. Religious courts are asserting their power over family life. Women's rights are in retreat.
Growing violence, not growing democracy, is the dominant feature of Iraqi life. Every Iraqi knows this. Americans need to know it too.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/opinion/24hicks.html?pagewanted=print
September 24, 2006
Battlegrounds
My Return to Balance
By ROBERT HICKS
Franklin, Tenn.
I LEFT home - and my front-row seat for observing Representative Harold Ford's apparently quixotic effort to take the Senate seat being vacated by Bill Frist - two weeks ago to spend six days crossing the Atlantic by boat and a week using Jefferson's notes to retrace his tour of villages, gardens and great houses of southern England. What a difference a couple of weeks can make.
I returned the other day to polls showing Mr. Ford in a statistical tie with his Republican opponent, Bob Corker. While anywhere else this might not seem like a big deal at this point, Tennessee isn't anywhere else.
When I left, most folks I know, both old-time Southern Democrats and my new Republican neighbors in their McMansions, wouldn't have given the young black liberal from a family that seems always ready to stretch the bounds of propriety much of a chance in a statewide race. Particularly not against Mr. Corker, a very agreeable and successful former mayor of Chattanooga who easily K.O.'ed his more conservative Republican opponents in the primary.
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The New York Times
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/opinion/24rich.html
September 24, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Stuff Happens Again in Baghdad
By FRANK RICH
IT'S not just about torture. Even if there had never been an Abu Ghraib, a Guantánamo or an American president determined to rewrite the Geneva Conventions, America would still be losing the war for hearts and minds in the Arab world. Our first major defeat in that war happened at the dawn of the Iraq occupation, before "detainee abuse" entered our language: the "Stuff happens!" moment at the National Museum in Baghdad.
Three and a half years later, have we learned anything? You have to wonder. As the looting of the museum was the first clear warning of disasters soon to come, so the stuff that's happening at the museum today is a grim indicator of where we're headed in Iraq: America is empowering the very Islamic radicals this war was supposed to smite. But even now we seem to be averting our eyes from reality on the ground in Baghdad.
Our blindness back in April 2003 seems ludicrous in retrospect. As the looting flared, an oblivious President Bush told the Iraqi people in a televised address that they were "the heirs of a great civilization that contributes to all humanity." Our actions - or, more accurately, our inaction as the artifacts of that great civilization were carted away - spoke louder than those pretty words. As Fred Ikle, the Reagan administration Pentagon policy chief, puts it in Thomas Ricks's "Fiasco," "America lost most of its prestige and respect in that episode."
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The New York Times
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/opinion/24brooks.html?pagewanted=print
September 24, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Closing of a Nation
By DAVID BROOKS
It's an elementary principle of child psychology: safety leads to exploration. The child who feels securely loved at home will venture out and try new things. The child who is insecure will be more passive and cling to what is known.
What's true of children is true of adults, and in Iraq we now have a case study in human insecurity. The people of Iraq have endured decades of dictatorship, war, insurgency and civil strife, and the psychological costs have been ruinous. Iraq is the most xenophobic, sexist and reactionary society on earth.
Researchers from the invaluable World Values Survey have interviewed over 2,300 adults from all over Iraq. The results have just been published by Ronald Inglehart, Mansoor Moaddel and Mark Tessler in the journal Perspectives on Politics.
Inglehart, Moaddel and Tessler describe a people who, buffeted by violence, have withdrawn into mere survival mode. They are suspicious of outsiders and intolerant toward weak groups, and they cling fiercely to what is familiar and traditional.
The researchers asked the Iraqis if they would mind living next door to foreigners.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/us/24clinton.html?pagewanted=print
September 24, 2006
Clinton Faults Bush Team Efforts to Get bin Laden Before Sept. 11
By REUTERS
WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 (Reuters) - Former President Bill Clinton, angrily defending his efforts to capture Osama bin Laden, accused the Bush administration in an interview to be broadcast Sunday of doing far less to stop Mr. bin Laden before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
In the interview for "Fox News Sunday," Mr. Clinton defended the steps he took after the bombing of the destroyer Cole in 2000 and faulted "right-wingers" for their criticism of his efforts to capture Mr. bin Laden, the Qaeda leader.
"But at least I tried. That's the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now," Mr. Clinton said when asked whether he had failed to anticipate the full threat from Mr. bin Laden. "They had eight months to try; they did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed."
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/23/AR2006092301130.html
Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Hurting U.S. Terror Fight
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 24, 2006; A01
The war in Iraq has become a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.
A 30-page National Intelligence Estimate completed in April cites the "centrality" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the insurgency that has followed, as the leading inspiration for new Islamic extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda. It concludes that, rather than contributing to eventual victory in the global counterterrorism struggle, the situation in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position, according to officials familiar with the classified document.
"It's a very candid assessment," one intelligence official said yesterday of the estimate, the first formal examination of global terrorist trends written by the National Intelligence Council since the March 2003 invasion. "It's stating the obvious."
The NIE, whose contents were first reported by the New York Times, coincides with public statements by senior intelligence officials describing a different kind of conflict than the one outlined by President Bush in a series of recent speeches marking the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/22/AR2006092201303.html
Are We Really So Fearful?
By Ariel Dorfman
Sunday, September 24, 2006; B01
DURHAM, N.C.
It still haunts me, the first time -- it was in Chile, in October of 1973 -- that I met someone who had been tortured. To save my life, I had sought refuge in the Argentine Embassy some weeks after the coup that had toppled the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende, a government for which I had worked. And then, suddenly, one afternoon, there he was. A large-boned man, gaunt and yet strangely flabby, with eyes like a child, eyes that could not stop blinking and a body that could not stop shivering.
That is what stays with me -- that he was cold under the balmy afternoon sun of Santiago de Chile, trembling as though he would never be warm again, as though the electric current was still coursing through him. Still possessed, somehow still inhabited by his captors, still imprisoned in that cell in the National Stadium, his hands disobeying the orders from his brain to quell the shuddering, his body unable to forget what had been done to it just as, nearly 33 years later, I, too, cannot banish that devastated life from my memory.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/22/AR2006092201304_pf.html
Does It Work?
President Bush says harsh interrogation tactics are a key tool in the War on Terror. Two authors consider the painful dilemma posed by his claim:
By Edwidge Danticat
Sunday, September 24, 2006; B01
MIAMI Afew years ago, as I worked on a documentary film about torture survivors in exile from my native Haiti, I met a young woman who under questioning by a military officer was slapped until she became deaf in one ear, was forced to chew and swallow a campaign poster, and was kicked so hard in the stomach by booted feet that she kept slipping in and out of consciousness in a pool of her own urine and blood. Another woman had an arm chopped off and her tongue sliced in two before she was dumped in a mass grave, miles from her home.
When I met these women, some time had passed since their ordeals. But they could still feel the hammering of the blows and hear the menacing voices, threatening to drown them, dismember them and set them on fire. The younger woman, Marie Carmel, remembers thinking about her mother. Manman will surely die if I'm killed, she thought. I have to stay alive for her. Alerte, whose arm and tongue were severed, kept thinking about her children as she climbed out of the corpse-filled pit and crawled to the side of the road where she found help. Both had no idea how much pain they could endure until then. They wanted to live, they remembered, to defy their torturers, to tell their stories.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/22/AR2006092201306_pf.html
A CONVERSATION WITH MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD
Lally Weymouth
Sunday, September 24, 2006; B01
* * *
Do you think it would be in Iran's best interest to move toward a normal relationship with the United States?
We are interested in having talks with everyone. We believe that talks are much better than threats and confrontation. We are currently holding talks with many countries. I have said before that the United States is no exception, but the U.S. administration -- that is, a section of the U.S. administration -- does not create the right circumstances. It destroys chances for constructive talks.
Because a part of the administration wants to overthrow your regime?
It is the behavior I am talking about; the attitude is inappropriate. They believe that they own the entire world so they speak from that position, looking down at us -- even when they meet us. If they change their behavior, it is possible to talk about everything. Some politicians in the United States think that the nuclear issue is a way to put pressure on Iran, but they are wrong. One that has actually produced and used nuclear bombs cannot claim that they now want to stop proliferation.
Why don't you let the IAEA inspectors back in, as the U.N. Security Council demanded last summer?
The Security Council's involvement is, in fact, illegal. We are working under the framework of the IAEA, and the cameras are on our sites. Could you please show me at least one report by the IAEA on the United States' nuclear facilities? Are you really serious when you say that Israel should be wiped off the face of the Earth?
We need to look at the scene in the Middle East -- 60 years of war, 60 years of displacement, 60 years of conflict, not even a day of peace. Look at the war in Lebanon, the war in Gaza -- what are the reasons for these conditions? We need to address and resolve the root problem.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/22/AR2006092201395_pf.html
A Fight To Define Equality
By George F. Will
Sunday, September 24, 2006; B07
DETROIT -- A feisty 29-year-old white woman and a pugnacious 67-year-old black man are performing two services this autumn for Michigan and the nation. Their Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) is promoting colorblind government. And they are provoking remnants of the civil rights movement, which now is just a defender of a racial spoils system, to demonstrate its decadence, even thuggishness.
In November Michiganders will vote on this ballot initiative: "A proposal to amend the state constitution to ban affirmative action programs that give preferential treatment to groups or individuals based on their race, gender, color, ethnicity or national origin for public employment, education or contracting purposes." Almost identical measures were passed by referendums in California in 1996 and Washington state in 1998, in similar conditions to those here: They were opposed by both parties, all so-called civil rights organizations, most newspapers and many business leaders. What is different in Michigan is the involvement of a particularly nasty organization and an egregiously political judge.
At age 19, Jennifer Gratz, denied admission to the University of Michigan, fought the university all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. It endorsed her argument that it was an unconstitutional denial of equal protection of the law for the university to add 20 points to the scores of black, Hispanic and Native American applicants. (The maximum score was 150; a perfect 1600 SAT earned just 12 points.)
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/22/AR2006092201393_pf.html
Ahmadinejad's Gauntlet
The U.S. and Iran Need Each Other Too Much Not to Find Accommodation
By David Ignatius
Sunday, September 24, 2006; B07
NEW YORK -- The most telling moment in a conversation here last week with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came when he was asked if America would attack Iran. He quickly answered "no," with a slight cock of his head as if he regarded the very idea of war between the two countries as preposterous.
Ahmadinejad's confidence was the overriding theme of his visit. He was like a picador, deftly sticking darts into a wounded bull. As he moved from event to event -- TV and print interviews, a chat with the august Council on Foreign Relations, his lecture to the U.N. General Assembly -- he displayed the same flinty composure. It sometimes seemed as if he owned New York, dispensing his radical bromides like a tidy, compact version of Fidel Castro. I sensed the same certainty that was expressed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini back when this confrontation began in the late 1970s: "America cannot do a damn thing."
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/23/AR2006092300910_pf.html
Anger at U.S. Policies More Strident at U.N.
Speeches Show Resentment of Idea of Forced Democracy
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 24, 2006; A23
UNITED NATIONS -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad grabbed headlines last week by blasting U.S. policies from the dais of the U.N. General Assembly. But while their words were harsh, in many ways they merely expressed in bolder terms what a number of other world leaders and foreign diplomats believe.
Anti-Americanism never really left the United Nations, but this year's gathering of world leaders demonstrated an unusually strident disrespect for the United States. The United States is perceived as weakened by a draining war in Iraq, while many of its adversaries feel emboldened with newfound oil wealth.
Resentment of American power has also been exacerbated by the United States' close association with Israel during the recent war in Lebanon and even the administration's campaign for greater democracy throughout the Middle East. A theme running through a number of the speeches delivered here is that democracy cannot be imposed through force.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-falwell24sep24,1,5699684.story?coll=la-news-politics-national&track=crosspromo
Falwell Says Faithful Fear Clinton More Than Devil
The evangelical leader tells a conference that the New York senator will mobilize his base like no one else if she runs for president.
By Peter Wallsten
Times Staff Writer
September 24, 2006
WASHINGTON - Nothing will motivate conservative evangelical Christians to vote Republican in the 2008 presidential election more than a Democratic nominee named Hillary Rodham Clinton - not even a run by the devil himself.
That was the sentiment expressed by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the longtime evangelical icon and founder of the once-powerful Moral Majority, during private remarks Friday to church pastors and activists as part of the Values Voter Summit hosted this weekend by the country's leading Christian conservatives.
A recording of Falwell's comments was obtained by The Times, and his remarks were confirmed by eyewitnesses.
"I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate," Falwell said, according to the recording. "She has $300 million so far. But I hope she's the candidate. Because nothing will energize my [constituency] like Hillary Clinton."
Cheers and laughter filled the room as Falwell continued: "If Lucifer ran, he wouldn't."
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/23/AR2006092301077_pf.html
Both Parties Sensing Tighter House Races
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 24, 2006; A01
After months of unrelenting bad news, President Bush and his Republican allies have begun to change the mood, if not the overall trajectory, of a midterm election campaign that has tilted against them for a year.
A combination of good luck -- in the form of a sharp decline in gasoline prices -- and dogged persistence by the president's political team in trying to redefine the terms of the fall campaign has given a much-needed morale boost to beleaguered Republican candidates. The ebullience many Democrats exhibited throughout the summer has given way to more cautious assessments of how difficult the final six weeks may be.
Republicans remain very much on the defensive, anticipating losses in the Senate and possible loss of control in the House. Surveys show that voters strongly disapprove of the performance of this Congress and continue to express far greater willingness to vote for Democrats over Republicans in House races in November.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/health/psychology/19slay.html?8dpc=&pagewanted=print
September 19, 2006
Essay
A Psychiatrist Is Slain, and a Sad Debate Deepens
By BENEDICT CAREY
In the hour before he was killed, on Sunday, Sept. 3, Dr. Wayne S. Fenton, aprominent schizophrenia specialist, was helping his wife clear the guttersof their suburban Washington house. He was steadying the ladder, asking herto please stop showering debris on his clean shirt; he had just made anappointment to see a patient and wanted to look presentable. She said shewould be happy to go along, to help control the patient.
It was a running joke between them. For in this part of the country, Dr.Fenton was the therapist of last resort, the one who could settle down andget through to the most severely psychotic, resistant patients, seemingly bysheer force of sympathy and good will.An associate director at the National Institute of Mental Health, he metwith patients on weekends, sometimes late at night, at all hours.
"Absolutely the most nonthreatening person you ever, ever met," his wife,Nancy Fenton, said in an interview last week.
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Dear All,
I am a very proud Latvian at the moment as our President has officiallyannounced her candidacy for the post of the UN Secretary General, she wasnominated by all three Baltic countries. I know its going to be tough andshe might not necessarily succeed, but it's a great opportunity to challenge'boy's club' at the top of world's political club number 1 and I am invitingyou to sign a petition in support of female UN Secretary General and send itfurther to your friends.
Thank you!
Juris
http://www.chooseawomanforun.eu/
Madame, Sir,
M. Kofi Annanan's mandate as Secretary General to the United Nations iscoming to an end in December 2006. Candidates are already beginning toemerge.
According to the regional rule, it is time for an Asian candidate to takeover the responsibilities of this task. However, nothing is definite and thedebates are only just beginning.
Women represent more than half of the world population. They are becomingincreasingly involved in international affairs and many form the futures oftheir countries. Why shouldn't one be nominated to the head of the UN?
Choosing a woman as Secretary General of the UN would be a symbol of thisorganization's support for women's rights and would send an importantmessage to the world.
#####
