Prometheus 6

Nichelle was good enough to point out this from the NY Daily News

A few employees at Condé Nast's Times Square headquarters - whose fourth-floor cafeteria offers an "International Table" menu highlighting a designated foreign cuisine - were rolling their eyes yesterday.

The International Table offering for Feb. 15?

"African-American," said signs posted around the Frank Gehry-designed lunchroom, touting "Jamaican beef patties, shrimp jambalaya, rice, okra, corn, black-eyed pea stew, deviled eggs and biscuits."

Admittedly, Si Newhouse's publishing empire - led by such slick monthlies as Vanity Fair, Vogue, Glamour and Gourmet, not to mention the weekly New Yorker - isn't famous for emphasizing people of color, either as profile subjects or subscribers.

This month, of the 18 titles listed on the Condé Nast Web site, only GQ features a black person (Oscar nominee Jamie Foxx) on the cover.

But African-Americans as foreigners?

"It's really disgraceful," an offended Condé Nast staffer told me.

I'll let yo got to the page to see what Rev. Al had to say about it...

In return, I'd like to reduce any panic I may have invoked over the F.E.C. (See What the Fuck?). I posted pretty much the same thing at The American Street, and Kevin Hayden shipped me the URL for a brand spanking new page what discusses it a bit. Says they'll be looking at bloggers that formally support candidates and raise money for them. Gets into the "Kos should fess up" permathread that I do not participate in (since I'm a Black partisan rather than a political party partisan, I got no dog in that hunt).

I need to take a break from my various obsessions. Maybe I'll grab a copy of Time Out New York and pick something to do that I've never done before. Maybe a nice restaurant that serves 18-21 year old scotch...it's been over a year since I've had good scotch.

If I'm smart I'll stay away from the bookstores...

Don't know if you'll see any postings here before this evening...I'm NOT taking the laptop. Might do an Internet cafe but I doubt it.

From United for a Fair Economy's State of the Dream 2005 (pdf)

Key Findings

President Bush’s Ownership Society goals may appear at first to be consistent with Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream of economic opportunity for all races, but during the first Bush administration, the United States actually moved farther away from Dr. King’s vision.

1. The employment and income picture has gotten worse for people of color since 2000, eroding the progress made during the 1990s.
• In 2000 the African American unemployment rate reached a historic low of 7.1%. It has been 9.9% or higher since January 2002.
• Latino / Hispanic unemployment rates also dropped from 8.0% in 1988 to 5.7% in 2000, but rose again in the last four years.
• About half of the progress in the median income of people of color from 1996 to 2000 was wiped out in the following three years.
• After slowly increasing from 55% of white income in 1988 to 65% in 2000, Black median income fell again to 62% in 2003. For the first time in 15 years, the average Latino household now has an income that is less than two-thirds that of the average white household.
• Throughout the 1990s, poverty rates fell across the board, declining fastest for African Americans and Latinos. But since 2000, more than one third of that progress in reducing poverty among African-American families has been erased, as 300,000 African-American families fell below the poverty line from 2000 to 2003.

2. Private retirement income and inheritances remain scarce among people of color.
• African Americans have less in private pensions and retirement accounts, and so depend more heavily on Social Security. They would be more affected than whites by any privatization plan that made benefits uncertain.
• Previous generations of race-based discrimination leaves a legacy for people of color, who are far less likely to get inheritances than white Americans.

3. Ownership of homes, stock and businesses remains disproportionately in white hands.
• While homeownership is up for all races, most people of color still rent, while three-quarters of white families own their homes. The Bush administration’s plans to boost homeownership don’t adequately address obstacles facing potential homebuyers of color, including discrimination and affordability
• Business owners of color, who are largely small business owners, received only minor tax breaks from the four Bush tax cuts. Most tax breaks for business and investors have landed with those who are wealthy and white.

Closing the racial wealth divide will require a new “GI Bill for Everyone,” a comprehensive federal investment in low-income families and communities, with an emphasis on people of color. Progressive taxes on wealthy individuals and profitable corporations are needed to fund a real Ownership Society.

I just think that if you're willing to take human life, your ass needs to be on the ground. It should never be easy and safe to kill masses of people. It should never be easy and safe to kill even one.

There was a time that Warrior, Defender, was an honorable profession. All we got is soldiers now.

Anyway...

A New Model Army Soldier Rolls Closer to the Battlefield
By TIM WEINER
Published: February 16, 2005

The American military is working on a new generation of soldiers, far different from the army it has.

"They don't get hungry," said Gordon Johnson of the Joint Forces Command at the Pentagon. "They're not afraid. They don't forget their orders. They don't care if the guy next to them has just been shot. Will they do a better job than humans? Yes."

Maybe it's me, but I've seen a lot of really bizarre conceptual juxtapositions this morning.

That said, I would LOVE to see these presentations. I'd like to see what the Feds are promoting.

US EMBASSY COMMEMORATES AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY MONTH IN UZBEKISTAN

Alumni of US Government-funded education and exchange programmes marked the celebration of African American History Month on 15 February at Hotel Grand-Orzu in Tashkent.

US Ambassador John Purnell hosted the event focused on the contributions of Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play professional baseball in the US major leagues. After watching a documentary about Jackie Robinson's life, Ambassador Purnell and Embassy Political Counsellor Sylvia Curran, an African American, discussed the importance of Jackie Robinson's breaking of the "colour barrier" into the US professional sports.

Throughout the rest of February, the Embassy is planning to host a series of movies that highlight different aspects of the African American experience in the United States.

The US celebrates African American History Month each February in order to recognise the vital contributions that African American have made in the US and throughout the world.

Quote of note:

"Right now people don't want to hear about politics. I don't speak about apartheid; I speak about living with those scars and being reflective about it, and trying to understand it."

Black History Month in the present
By: Joseph Galiwango
February.15.2005

South African bands seldom perform rap shows to sold-out crowds in Toronto, but after packing houses for eight straight nights throughout southern Ontario, the African Way Tour filled the Revival club on the first Friday of February.

The setting for the night, Little Italy, where socialites come to party without the messiness, isn't what you might expect from an African hip-hop extravaganza.

Quote of note:

But in 2005 it takes an act of willful blindness not to see that the Bush plan for Social Security is intended, in essence, to dismantle the most important achievement of the New Deal. The Republicans themselves say so: the push for privatization is following the playbook laid out in a 1983 Cato Journal article titled "A 'Leninist' Strategy," and in a White House memo declaring that "for the first time in six decades, the Social Security battle is one we can win - and in doing so, we can help transform the political and philosophical landscape of the country."

The Fighting Moderates
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Presented without comment.

Since the "What The Fuck?" post probably makes you think I'm paranoid already, I might as well pull the tin foil hat all the way down over my ears and say this suggests a more plausible responsible party than Syria.

The Devil We Know in Lebanon
February 16, 2005

If Syria was involved in any way in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, it was a remarkably stupid move. The car bombing that killed Hariri and at least nine others on Monday has boosted support for Lebanese political groups opposed to Syria's influence over the country and increased international pressure for Syria to withdraw its 16,000 troops from the country. France and the United States, which seldom agree on Middle East policy, have found common ground over Syria, with both sharpening their rhetorical darts aimed at Damascus in the wake of the attack.

Whether Syria actually had anything to do with the killing matters less than the fact that it will be widely blamed for it. In the hundreds of car bombings over the course of a brutal civil war lasting from 1975 to 1990, few of the perpetrators were ever caught. That means we may never know who packed the explosives in Monday's murder. That may suit France and the U.S. just fine, because it keeps the pressure on Syria.

King/Drew Passes Key Inspection
Three days before a deadline to cut off federal funds, the troubled L.A. County hospital avoids the loss of $200 million.
By Charles Ornstein and Jack Leonard
Times Staff Writers

February 16, 2005

Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center passed a crucial inspection Tuesday, eliminating for now the threat that $200 million in federal money would be cut off.

The inspection came three days before the deadline the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had set to pull its funding from the troubled Los Angeles County-owned hospital.

The government reimburses hospitals for services provided to patients under Medicare and California's Medi-Cal program. If King/Drew had lost the money   more than half of its annual budget —  the hospital might have had to close.

The warning came after regulators found that King/Drew staff had relied too heavily on police officers to shoot aggressive mental patients with Taser stun guns instead of first trying less extreme methods to calm them.

The federal government's threat to cut off money was the third in less than a year. The prior incidents involved medication errors and inappropriate use of Tasers. Those threats were similarly lifted after the hospital demonstrated that it had corrected the problems.

Hell with the acronym, I just ran across a story from December on the CBSNews.com site that I had never seen or seen discussed. Self-interest requires posting about it. It's titled Blogs: New Medium, Old Politics, and I'm only quoting the second to last paragraph so no one gets distracted.

Beginning next year, the F.E.C. will institute new rules on the restricted uses of the Internet as it relates to political speech.

Will Fed chief wade into Social Security debate?
Greenspan heads to Hill; investors look for hints on exit strategy
By Martin Wolk

Chief economics correspondent

MSNBC

Updated: 6:40 p.m. ET Feb. 15, 2005

With less than a year left in his term as Federal Reserve chief, is Alan Greenspan thinking about an exit strategy?

Database giant gives access to fake firms
ChoicePoint warns more than 30,000 they may be at risk

EXCLUSIVE

By Bob Sullivan

Technology correspondent

MSNBC

Updated: 6:38 p.m. ET Feb. 14, 2005

Can you guess where I got this quote from?

"In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush. Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush." Again: "Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism of their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy."

In short, what we have alive in the US is an updated and Americanized fascism. Why fascist? Because it is not leftist in the sense of egalitarian or redistributionist. It has no real beef with business. It doesn't sympathize with the downtrodden, labor, or the poor. It is for all the core institutions of bourgeois life in America: family, faith, and flag. But it sees the state as the central organizing principle of society, views public institutions as the most essential means by which all these institutions are protected and advanced, and adores the head of state as a godlike figure who knows better than anyone else what the country and world's needs, and has a special connection to the Creator that permits him to discern the best means to bring it about.

The American right today has managed to be solidly anti-leftist while adopting an ideology   even without knowing it or being entirely conscious of the change   that is also frighteningly anti-liberty.

The answer is below the fold.

Failing Grade
Robert Gordon
Monday 9:52 AM

Just how are today's children going to earn enough money to squirrel away into their private accounts if George Bush decimates the public education system? Robert Gordon looks at Bush's education budget and sees an end to what little education reform the No Child Left Behind Act eked out, as the administration chose to fund the program at only one third its proper level. There's a vision for America: dumb, impoverished and indebted.

Quote of note:

The denial of climate change, while out of tune with the science, is consistent with, even necessary for, the outlook of almost all the world's economists. Modern economics, whether informed by Marx or Keynes or Hayek, is premised on the notion that the planet has an infinite capacity to supply us with wealth and absorb our pollution. The cure to all ills is endless growth. Yet endless growth, in a finite world, is impossible. Pull this rug from under the economic theories, and the whole system of thought collapses.

Mocking our dreams
The reality of climate change is that the engines of progress have merely accelerated our rush to the brink
George Monbiot
Tuesday February 15, 2005
The Guardian

Cynthia Tucker - Universal Press Syndicate

02.14.05 - At least Sonny Perdue, Georgia's governor, practices what he preaches. A conservative Christian and an opponent of abortion, Perdue and his wife have matched word with deed over the years by volunteering as foster parents who take care of abused or abandoned infants.

But there isn't much of that going around. There has long been an odd cognitive dissonance in the anti-abortion movement, a strange disconnect of values. Many family-values-loving conservative Christians are staunchly opposed to programs that would help poor children get health care or day care or decent housing. It is as if they adore the child still inside the womb, but despise him as soon as he comes screaming into the world.

I almost wish I had heard of this blog before. But I've been ignoring hot blonde Libertarians since the arrival of Hot Abercrombie Chick.

If it weren't for you meddling kids

At the end of each episode of Scooby Doo, the villain always says,  and I would have gotten away with it if it weren t for you meddling kids.  That's how I feel about the guys at Catallarchy.net.

Well I may be an unemployed man without a wife or girlfriend still living with my parents despite being over the age of 30, but at least I m not so stupid as to think that a gorgeous young girl would be the author of a popular libertarian blog. She d be too busy having fun. The kind of fun found in this post, except it would be happening every night instead of just being a one time event. You guys are so gullible!

Libertarians tend to be ugly because it s an anti-majority philosophy. People who are attractive have an easy time going through life and derive far too many advantages from the status quo to ever question it. It s only outsiders, who are usually ugly, who join up with fringe movements.

Do you KNOW how often I've been tempted to do something like this?

U.S. Department of Justice
Celebrates
National African American History Month

Thursday, February 17, 2005
11:00 a.m.
Great Hall, Robert F. Kennedy Building

"The Niagara Movement: Black Protest Reborn, 1905-2005"

Key Presenter: Royce Kinniebrew
President and Chief Executive Officer
The Kinniebrew Group
Detroit, Michigan