NATIONAL & WORLD DIGEST October 14, 2007

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/washington/14weapons.html?hp

October 14, 2007

Analysts Find Israel Struck a Nuclear Project Inside Syria
By DAVID E. SANGER and MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 - Israel's air attack on Syria last month was directedagainst a site that Israeli and American intelligence analysts judged was apartly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Koreahas used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, according toAmerican and foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports.

The description of the target addresses one of the central mysteriessurrounding the Sept. 6 attack, and suggests that Israel carried out theraid to demonstrate its determination to snuff out even a nascent nuclearproject in a neighboring state. The Bush administration was divided at thetime about the wisdom of Israel's strike, American officials said, and somesenior policy makers still regard the attack as premature.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14sun1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

October 14, 2007
Editorial

Spies, Lies and FISA

As Democratic lawmakers try to repair a deeply flawed bill on electroniceavesdropping, the White House is pumping out the same fog of fear anddisinformation it used to push the bill through Congress this summer.President Bush has been telling Americans that any change would deny thegovernment critical information, make it easier for terrorists toinfiltrate, expose state secrets, and make it harder "to save Americanlives."

There is no truth to any of those claims. No matter how often Mr. Bush saysotherwise, there is also no disagreement from the Democrats about the needto provide adequate tools to fight terrorists. The debate is over whetherthis should be done constitutionally, or at the whim of the president.

The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, requires a warrantto intercept international communications involving anyone in the UnitedStates. A secret court has granted these warrants quickly nearly every timeit has been asked. After 9/11, the Patriot Act made it even easier toconduct surveillance, especially in hot pursuit of terrorists.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14friedman.html?ref=opinion

October 14, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist

Who Will Succeed Al Gore?
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Seeing Al Gore so deservedly share the Nobel Peace Prize, it is impossiblenot to note the contrast in his leadership and that of George W. Bush.

Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush each faced a crucible moment. For Mr. Gore, it waswinning the popular vote and having the election taken away from him by aRepublican-dominated Supreme Court. For Mr. Bush, it was the shockingterrorist attack on 9/11.

Mr. Gore lost the presidency, but in the dignity and grace with which hegave up his legal fight, he united America. Then, faced with what to do withthe rest of his life, he took up a personal crusade to combat climatechange, even though the odds were stacked against him, his soapbox wassmall, his audiences were measured in hundreds, and his critics were legion.Nevertheless, Mr. Gore stuck with it and over time has played a central rolein building a global consensus for action on this issue.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/education/13harvard.html?pagewanted=print

October 13, 2007

First Woman Takes Reins at Harvard
By SARA RIMER

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 12 - Drew Gilpin Faust, Harvard University's firstfemale president, was inaugurated Friday and offered a spirited defense ofAmerican higher education against demands that it quantify what it isteaching and focus primarily on training a global work force.

"The essence of a university is that it is uniquely accountable to the pastand to the future - not simply or even primarily to the present," said Dr.Faust, 60, a Civil War historian and the former head of the RadcliffeInstitute for Advanced Study at the university.

"A university is not about results in the next quarter," Dr. Faust said. "Itis not even about who a student has become by graduation. It is aboutlearning that molds a lifetime, learning that transmits the heritage ofmillennia; learning that shapes the future."

In clear opposition to pressure from the federal government for universitiesto prove they are accountable by quantifying how well they teach, she calledon higher education institutions themselves "to seize the initiative indefining what we are accountable for."

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The Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/889/v-print/story/270659.html

Posted on Sun, Oct. 14, 2007

Report ranks jobs by rates of depression
By KEVIN FREKING

People who tend to the elderly, change diapers and serve up food and drinkshave the highest rates of depression among U.S. workers.Overall, 7 percent of full-time workers battled depression in the past year,according to a government report available Saturday.

Women were more likely than men to have had a major bout of depression, andyounger workers had higher rates of depression than their older colleagues.

Almost 11 percent of personal care workers - which includes child care andhelping the elderly and severely disabled with their daily needs - reporteddepression lasting two weeks or longer.

During such episodes there is loss of interest and pleasure, and at leastfour other symptoms surface, including problems with sleep, eating, energy,concentration and self-image.

Workers who prepare and serve food - cooks, bartenders, waiters andwaitresses - had the second highest rate of depression among full-timeemployees at 10.3 percent.

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The Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/851/story/269755.html

Posted on Sun, Oct. 14, 2007

You call it a 'prank,' but I call it terror
By LEONARD PITTS JR.

This will be a history of rope.

It strikes me that such a history is desperately needed just now. It seemsthe travesty in Jena, La., has spawned a ghastly trend. Remember how whitestudents at Jena High placed nooses in a tree last year to communicateantipathy toward their African-American classmates? Now it's happening allover.

A noose is left for a black workman at a construction site in the Chicagoarea. In Queens, a woman brandishes a noose to threaten her black neighbors.A noose is left on the door of a black professor at Columbia University. Andthat's just last week. Go back a little further and you have similarincidents at the University of Maryland in College Park, at a policedepartment on Long Island, on a Coast Guard cutter, in a bus maintenancegarage in Pittsburgh.

Mark Potok, the director of the Intelligence Project of the Southern PovertyLaw Center, told USA Today, ``For a dozen incidents to come to the public'sattention is a lot. I don't generally see noose incidents in a typicalmonth. We might hear about a handful in a year.''

The superintendent of schools in Jena famously dismissed the originalincident as a ''prank.'' It was an astonishing response, speaking volumesabout the blithe historical ignorance of people who have found it convenientnot to peer too closely at the atrocities of the past lest they beaccidentally . . . moved.

But watching this trend unfold, it occurs to me that maybe what we need hereis the opposite of ignorance. Maybe what we need is information. Maybe whatwe need is a history of rope.

A history of rope would have to include, in 1904, Luther Holbert and hiswife, who had their fingers chopped off and handed out as souvenirs. Holbertwas beaten so badly one of his eyes came out. It hung by a thread. A largecorkscrew was used to bore into the couple's flesh. It tore out big chunksof them each time it was withdrawn. A rope was used to tie them to the tree.

A history of rope would have to include, in 1917, Rufus Moncrief, who wasbeaten senseless by a mob. They used a saw to cut off his arms and otherwisemutilated him. The mob hanged Moncrief. Then, for good measure, they hangedhis dog. Ropes were used for both.

A history of rope would have to include, in 1918, Mary Turner, burned alivein Valdosta, Ga. A man used a hog-splitting knife to slash her swollenstomach. The baby she had carried nearly to term tumbled out and managed twocries before the man crushed its head beneath his heel. A rope was used totie Turner upside down in a tree.

A history of rope would include thousands of Turners, Moncriefs andHolberts. It would range widely across the geography of this nation and theyears of the last two centuries. A history of rope would travel from Cairo,Ill., in 1909 to Fort Lauderdale in 1935 to Urbana, Ohio, in 1897 toWrightsville, Ga., in 1903, to Leitchfield, Ky., in 1913 to Newbern, Tenn.in 1902. And beyond.

You might say the country has changed since then, and it has. The problemis, it's changing again.

It feels as if in recent years we the people have backward traveled fromeven the pretense of believing our loftiest ideals. It has becomefashionable to decry excessive ''political correctness,'' deride''diversity,'' sneer at the ''protected classes.'' Code words sanding downhatred's rough edge. ''State's rights'' for the new millennium. And now, outcome the nooses. Just a prank, the man says.

Mary Turner would argue otherwise. I find it useful to remember her, usefulto be reminded of things we would rather forget. To remember her is tounderstand that there is no prank here.

A history of rope would drown your conscience in blood.



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Chicago Tribune

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-1014edit1oct14,0,978401.story

A dangerous political stunt

Editorial
October 14, 2007

There is no shortage of pressing issues deserving of congressionalattention, from immigration reform to national intelligence. But last week,some members were fixated on the distant past, examining terrible eventsthat occurred some 90 years ago during the disintegration of the OttomanEmpire.

By a 27-21 vote, the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a nonbindingresolution whose only point was to state its opinion on a matter ofhistory -- which is that the mass killing of Armenians by Turks amounted to"genocide." And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime supporter of theresolution, has promised a floor vote. Do you feel better now?

Most Americans probably don't, because a political stunt like this will notbring back the dead or punish the guilty. All it does is antagonize thepeople and government of Turkey, who have been of crucial help to ourefforts in Iraq and Afghanistan -- at a time when the U.S. is not swampedwith friends in that part of the world. It suggests that Congress isfundamentally unserious.

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MiamiHerald.com

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/v-print/story/271106.html

McCain, Giuliani campaigns blast Romney

Posted on Sun, Oct. 14, 2007
BY JANET HOOK

Republican presidential candidates Saturday intensified a contentious debateabout which of the front-runners best reflects the mainstream of theirparty, as Mitt Romney's rivals lambasted his recent claim to represent the``Republican wing of the Republican party.''

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in an unusually sharp attack, pointed to Romney'srecord of support for liberal causes while he was governor of Massachusetts.

''As we all know, when he ran for office in Massachusetts, being aRepublican wasn't much of a priority,'' McCain said at a speech in NewHampshire. McCain was responding to remarks made by Romney on Fridayportraying himself as the most reliable conservative of the GOPfront-runners.

''Conservatives that have heard me time and again recognize that I do speakfor the Republican wing of the Republican Party,'' Romney said, whilecriticizing former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

FIGHTING FOR BASE

The increasingly personal sniping underscores how none of the GOP candidateshas a lock on the party's conservative wing -- and how many of them arestruggling to do so because their records include significant departuresfrom party orthodoxy.

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Paul-Moor.com

http://www.paul-moor.com/

Former Pres. Jimmy Carter on CNN as to whether Bush's USA uses torture:"I don't think it, I KNOW it!"


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