Prometheus 6

New Orleans Locals Think Katrina's Toll Is Still Rising
Surge in Deaths Blamed On Storm-Related Stress
By Linton Weeks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 19, 2006; A03

NEW ORLEANS -- The official death toll of Hurricane Katrina is more than 1,300. The unofficial toll of the storm may take that a lot higher.

Though not quantifiable in the orthodox fashion, because so many area health agencies are still in disarray, a belief exists among many here that the natural mortality rate of New Orleanians -- whether still in the city or relocated -- has increased dramatically since, and perhaps because of, Katrina.

The daily newspaper has seen a rise in reported deaths. Local funeral homes are burying just as many people as they did last year, though the population has decreased. Families say that their kin who had been in good health are dying, and attribute that to the stress brought on by the hurricane, flooding and relocations.

Robertson Cancels Speech at Convention
Move Comes Amid Fellow Religious Conservatives' Concern Over Recent Remarks
By Sonja Barisic
Associated Press
Sunday, February 19, 2006; A11

NORFOLK, Feb. 18 -- Fellow conservative religious leaders have expressed concern over and open criticism of Pat Robertson's habit of shooting from the lip on his daily religious news-and-talk television program, "The 700 Club."

The Christian Coalition founder and former GOP presidential candidate has said U.S. agents should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for the Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip.

Quote of note:

Roberts justified his committee's cave by saying the White House had committed itself to working with senators to pursue legislation on the matter. Translation: Bush won't accept any curbs on his power whatsoever, but he'd be happy to see a bill legalizing his wiretaps.

Advise and assent
February 19, 2006

THAT THE UNITED STATES Senate has a body called the Intelligence Committee is an irony George Orwell would have truly appreciated. In a world without Doublespeak, the panel, chaired by GOP Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, would be known by a more appropriate name — the Senate Coverup Committee.

Although the committee is officially charged with overseeing the nation's intelligence-gathering operations, its real function in recent years has been to prevent the public from getting hold of any meaningful information about the Bush administration. Hence its never-ending delays of the probe into the bogus weapons intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq. And its squelching, on Thursday, of an expected investigation into the administration's warrantless spying program.

At Woodside High in San Mateo County, college-prep classes awaited a 15-year-old boy with learning disabilities and anxiety.

He would blend in with other college-bound students, but also receive daily help from a special education expert. He would get a laptop computer, extra time for tests -- and an advocate to smooth any ripples with teachers. If an anxiety attack came on, he could step out of class.

But Woodside High wasn't what his parents had in mind.

Instead, they enrolled him in a $30,000-a-year prep school in Maine -- then sent the bill to their local public school district.

There goes another sport..:

Davis won the 1,000-meter race Saturday and, if you don't think he did it alone, then you didn't see how the Dutch fans and skaters embraced him before the Americans did.

You didn't see how Chad Hedrick, the beloved Texas skater knocked out of first place by Chicago's Davis, didn't even bother to congratulate him.

You didn't see Davis point to the stands and exchange a knowing glance with his father during a victory lap that was filled with more relief than euphoria.

"A lot of people have tried to discourage Shani throughout his career," Shuck said. "The support he should have gotten from people, he didn't get. People made assumptions about him. People didn't take him seriously."

The father later smiled.

"This would be vindication for him."

Breakthrough Win Tainted by Bitterness Bill Plaschke
February 19, 2006

TURIN, Italy — One of a handful of black faces in the crowd was screaming for only one on the ice.

"He's gotta smoke it on that last lap!" shouted Reginald Shuck. "He's gotta smoke it!"

Shani Davis rounded the corner in front of his father, head down, giant blue Lycra legs pumping, smoking it, smoking it.

And, then, with one final ice-squeaking stride, he set these Olympics ablaze.

Yellow Black: The First Twenty-One Years of a Poet's Life, a Memoir author: Haki R. Madhubuti asin: 0883782618 binding: Hardcover list price: $22.95 USD amazon price: $15.61 USD availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

I got a heads-up about this interview a couple of days ago...it took a while to find a linkable copy. I think it came up because I mentioned how my mom is as color-concious as Dr. Price Cobb's mom.

An Interview With Haki Madhubuti
BY Jonathan Tilove

Haki R. Madhubuti is a poet and director of the MFA program in creative writing at Chicago State University, the founder and publisher of Third World Press and the co-founder of four schools in Chicago. He is the author of 27 books, most recently "Yellow Black: The First Twenty-One Years of a Poet's Life: A Memoir," about his growing up in Detroit's Blackbottom and Chicago's West Side, and has just published "The Covenant With Black America," a project with broadcaster Tavis Smiley.

Q: On the cover of your book is a photo of your mother, Helen Maxine Graves Lee. The title is "Yellow Black." Why?

Quote of note:

"That's the argument of flexibility and it goes something like this: The Constitution is over 200 years old and societies change. It has to change with society, like a living organism, or it will become brittle and break."

"But you would have to be an idiot to believe that," Scalia said.

Scalia: People who believe the Constitution would break if it didn't change with society are 'idiots'
By Jonathan Ewing
ASSOCIATED PRESS

6:58 a.m. February 14, 2006

PONCE, Puerto Rico – People who believe the Constitution would break if it didn't change with society are “idiots,” U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says.

The God Genome
Review by LEON WIESELTIER

THE question of the place of science in human life is not a scientific question. It is a philosophical question. Scientism, the view that science can explain all human conditions and expressions, mental as well as physical, is a superstition, one of the dominant superstitions of our day; and it is not an insult to science to say so. For a sorry instance of present-day scientism, it would be hard to improve on Daniel C. Dennett's book. "Breaking the Spell" is a work of considerable historical interest, because it is a merry anthology of contemporary superstitions.

Thus begins the savaging of Breaking the Spell : Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Wieseltier is so relentless it's an amusing sight.

I like the two cartoons that accompany the review a lot. Here's my favorite:

Whoa. Serious statement.

By giving this report some visibility, David Broder has just earned the benefit of the doubt as to his honesty. Cutting to the chase:

It involves the treatment in the budget of the Bush tax cuts passed by Congress in 2001 and 2003.

Those rate reductions, when enacted, had expiration dates of 2010, designed to keep their long-term costs within the limits set by the budget resolutions of which they were a part. The president is urging Congress to make those tax cuts permanent, but his proposal is controversial and has not yet passed.

This year, however, the budget the president submitted on Feb. 6 simply assumes that the tax cuts have been made permanent -- and thus includes them in the "baseline" for all future years.

The effect, according to the center's analysis, is that "legislation to make these tax cuts permanent will be scored as having no cost whatsoever."

So as not to further damage Mr. Broder's standing as a conservative, further discussion will reference the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities's report he was kind enough to highlight.

You know the GOP in Ohio is in bad shape when, after decades of Republican race baiting their fortunes depend on a really big  Black guy. Mr. Will's column is as much about the decreptude of the Republican Party in Ohio as an introduction to Ken Blackwell.

In 1998 party elders pressured Blackwell into stepping aside to clear the path to the governorship for Bob Taft -- great-great-grandson of a U.S. attorney general, great-grandson of a president, grandson and son of U.S. senators. Today, Taft's job approval rating has plunged to 18 percent among Republican voters . The rest of the electorate is more hostile. Republicans hold 12 of 18 U.S. House seats and both Senate seats. Unfortunately for Ohio Republicans, they also control both elected branches of the state government, and their record of scandals and un-Republican governance -- substantial tax and spending increases -- have Blackwell, a 6-foot-5, 255-pound former college football player (Xavier University in Cincinnati), running against his party's record.

Also noticed something  can use to make a useful point; Mr. Will says it's a "conservative axiom":

Why Congress Has Not Declared War Since World War II

February 16, 2006: The current war on terror often raises the issue of why war has not officially been declared against the enemy. Most people don't realize that the United States has not declared war since World War II (when a number of countries, not just Japan and Germany, were so named.) And there's a reason for that, one that is rarely discussed.

Seems that after World War II, Congress wrote into law a lot of the wartime measures used during World War II. These included price controls, censorship and greater police powers. This was done with the possibility of nuclear war in mind, where there would be massive damage done to the U.S. in a short period of time. To deal with this,  a lot of these regulations would kick in the minute Congress votes to declare war. No one wants to be the first to suggest repealing these laws and regulations, and no one wants to see them go into action. So whenever anyone in Congress starts talking about declaring war, they are pulled aside by some senior staffers and filled in on the consequences.

But I have a better solution, one that's even more radical but allows you to stay in your American suburb, work within the old-fashioned American free market and avoid religious vows. How about banding together with some other students to hire tutors?

There are thousands of under-employed Ph.D.s in America who could be paid to offer college-level courses in your living room. If 10 students banded together and put up $10,000 each--students who, say, couldn't care less about football, don't need a Women's Center and have no urge to join Delta Delta Delta--they could hire two high-end intellectuals, pay them $50,000 each and get personal instruction.

Higher Learning, a Tutorial
Pop quiz: Is the cost of a college education worth it? (No.) Is there an alternative? (Yes.)

BY MARK OPPENHEIMER
Friday, February 17, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST