I wonder why the allegations regarding Eric Massa went before the House Ethics Committee as far back as 9 Feb and his office was informed 48 hrs later and yet he claims in his resignation that he was unaware of the alleged charges and had to find out from the press? We need politicians that are committed to the people’s business and that respect our ability to see inconsistencies in their version of their failings.
Issued Friday by Massa:
“After I decided not to run again I was told, for the first time, that a member of my staff believed I had made statements that made him feel “uncomfortable.” I was told that a report had been filed with the Congressional Ethics Committee. At no point prior to this had any member of the Ethics Committee communicated with me directly – if fact I first read it on the internet.”
The ethics panel issued a brief statement Thursday saying it is “investigating and gathering additional information concerning matters related to allegations involving” Massa.
Huffington Post
“House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Wednesday said he was told the week of Feb. 8 by a staff member in Massa’s office about allegations of misconduct. Hoyer directed Massa to report the allegations to the House Ethics Committee within 48 hours. Hoyer said he got confirmation within 48 hours that the Ethics Committee had received the report and would review the allegations.”
Huffington Post
I am a life-long Democrat but I am also not stupid. The facts indicate that Massa knew he was in serious trouble and sought to minimize it with his initial announcement of not running for re-election. When he realized that wasn’t going to fly, he announced his resignation effective Monday. I don’t mind the lie as much as I mind the fact that Massa seems to think we are all idiots.
The pace is faster than combat deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan
More U.S. military personnel have taken their own lives so far in 2009 than have been killed in either the Afghanistan or Iraq wars this year, according to a Congressional Quarterly compilation of the latest statistics from the armed services.
As of Tuesday, at least 334 members of the military services have committed suicide in 2009, compared with 297 killed in Afghanistan and 144 who died in Iraq, the figures show.
Lawmakers in recent years have been increasingly concerned about the growing problem of military suicides, especially in the Army. They have been holding hearings, passing bills and approving billions of dollars more than requested to improve mental health care for military personnel and veterans.
But even those who have been most intensely focused on the issue said they found the new numbers alarming. So far in 2009, the Army has had 211 of the 334 suicides, while the Navy had 47, the Air Force had 34 and the Marine Corps (active duty only) had 42.
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New York June 16th – Ahead of this year’s World AIDS Day, the United
Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the World AIDS Campaign
and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)
have come together to announce the theme of “Universal Access and
Human Rights”.
The theme has been chosen to address the critical need to protect
human rights and attain access for all to HIV prevention, treatment,
care and support. It also acts as a call to countries to remove laws that
discriminate against people living with HIV, women and marginalized
groups. Countries are also urged to realise the many commitments
they made to protect human rights in the Declaration of Commitment
on HIV/AIDS (2001) and the Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS (2006).
Speaking ahead of the announcement at the United Nations in New
York, Michel Sidibé Executive Director of UNAIDS said,
“Achieving universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support is a human rights imperative. It is essential that the global response to the AIDS epidemic is grounded in human rights and that discrimination and punitive laws against those most affected by HIV are removed.”
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Help with awareness on World Aids Day (December 1st) by downloading and installing this wallpaper.
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“Sometimes a writer tells as a shortcut, to move quickly to the meaty part of the story or scene. Showing is essentially about making scenes vivid. If you try to do it constantly, the parts that are supposed to stand out won’t, and your readers will get exhausted.” James Scott Bell
By R.L. Wheeler
One of the greatest challenges in writing is to create a world that the reader sees, feels, hears, tastes, and smells. The trick is to do this in a way that is unobtrusive and that supports the scene. One writer once described as decorating the reader’s set, what they see. If you use too much decoration, the set becomes the play. If you don’t use enough, the play loses the set.
Where this is important is in providing the reader an opportunity to go someplace they have never been while still keeping the focus on the interaction of the characters. Many writers assume the reader can provide their own setting but stop and think about that. Let’s assume that you are writing about an encounter between two people who meet on a quiet street in the Montparnasse district of Paris. First of all, you need to ask yourself some questions. Has the average reader ever been to Paris, let alone that particular district? The answer should be no and even if they had, can they see the scene in their minds eye the same way you want it seen? What time of day is it? What does the immediate surroundings look like. Are there cars? What kind of cars? What does the type of cars say about the neighborhood? What do the buildings look like? What are their ages? Are they modern structures or historic structures? What clues can you provide architecturally to help the reader see the buildings? Are there people on the street? What do they look like? How are they dressed?
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By Elliot Eisner
Reprinted from National Art Education Association (NAEA)
1. The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships.
Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.
2. The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution
and that questions can have more than one answer.
3. The arts celebrate multiple perspectives.
One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.
4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity.
Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.
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by R. L. Wheeler
In considering education in colonial America, I can’t help but wonder about the significance of its study when the values, morals, and social structures of the time reflect a completely different world than we know today. There seems to be a need to point back in time with an accusatory finger and criticize that period for its repression of minorities, Native Americans and women. My question is to what purpose? What are the expectations of the activist historian?
Part of my confusion on this issue involves my belief that history should be viewed in its proper context and for relevance to the present. What do I mean by that? When history is viewed in context, it is a non-judgmental process. The conditions of the times were exactly so because the evolution of cultural, social, and political values were not as sophisticated as they are today. Those values were shaped by the events of the time and viewing them with 20/20 hindsight begs the temptation to use history as a political tool rather than a review of fact for constructive reflection. The line in our reading, “At the heart of the controversy is the question of whether there is any such thing as objective, disinterested scholarship committed to rational inquiry, or whether there are simply permutations of conscious or unconscious ideology.”(Stubblefield & Keane,1994) directly reflects my concern.
I believe we have an obligation to seek out historical omission and to present historical fact that is free of the influences of set socio-cultural perspectives of past historians. In effect, it is in my thinking, legitimate to filter out the information from the “euro-centric” clutter and obfuscation of previous works. This helps to establish the facts of history in relation to the contextual influences of the times and present an accurate picture of the political, religious and cultural influences of the time. An analysis of those influences can provide clues as to how we view ourselves in the present.
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Summoning Passion for an Unfinished Life
by Charles D. Hayes
In 2029, the last of the baby-boom generation will turn 65. Numbering in the tens of millions, this age group clearly has the demographic muscle to transform society. The movement is barely underway, but the dynamics of aging suggest profound social changes ahead:
- The search for meaning will intensify.
- The psychological effects of death and dying will be reexamined.
- The concept of legacy will be transformed.
- The subject of economic justice will be reexamined.
September University as an idea is a metaphor for intellectual maturity. It represents an ambitious quest on behalf of posterity. September University, the book, is a call to action, a social forecast, and above all a passionate pronouncement that a bright future depends upon the experiential wisdom of aging citizens. The exploration within its pages has the potential to alter worldviews, heighten aspirations, and elicit reflections about each person’s legacy. Readers have the opportunity to explore ways to find meaning in the last few chapters of life.
September University is a state of mind: it has no physical address, no faculty, and no staff. It redefines retirement by replacing the picture of a lifestyle devoted to doing very little with the vision of a renaissance of reflective reasoning for the sake of posterity. It is a declaration that people who have entered the fall and winter of life can make their greatest contribution by reconceptualizing a better world for the generations that follow. This means looking forward to sifting through a half-century or more of experience, sorting those things that are truly important from those that aren’t, and finding ways to pass on that wisdom.
Humankind has moved through the centuries in fits and starts with countless wars, senseless destruction, and often little regard for succeeding generations. Too many of us fall far short in our intellectual efforts to better understand the world, and society as a whole suffers needlessly from our collective ignorance. Such ignorance at best is corrosive to character; at worst it’s cancerous. One of life’s greatest paradoxes is how creatures with the capacity to be so thoughtful can be so thoughtless. The purpose of September University is to reverse these trends.
A recent PBS documentary, Boomer Century 1946-2046, introduced the term “middlescence” to describe those of the age who, as adults, transformed the workplace to make it more fun and now, in later life, are ready to transform retirement to make it more exciting and fulfilling. Coincidentally, they also have the leisure to spend time reflecting on their lives. They’ve come to realize that what matters is not what they’ve accumulated but what they’ve contributed. In the coming years they’ll want to exercise their brains and find new roles for themselves. They’re primed to confront reality and take action for change.
Enrollment in Sept-U comes automatically with age. On a large enough scale, this kind of reflection encouraged could amount to a new enlightenment that matches or surpasses the rigorous intellectual contributions of the eighteenth century. To begin to comprehend the impact of such a movement, consider the implication of millions of citizens suddenly reaching the age where they must face their own mortality. In this moment they perceive simultaneously that time is more valuable than money and that their legacy depends upon being concerned about a future they will not live to see.
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I borrowed this from the Project Red site because it is really cool and should serve as a reminder for you to become involved. The Starbucks Red Card is available in the US.
This flagship press release deserves re-posting to help our readers understand the scope of this project. As you you read this release, consider visiting the Project Red Blog to get the latest news on how this program fights AIDS in Africa.
26 January 2006
1/26/2006
American Express, Converse, Gap and Giorgio Armani announce first RED products
to generate revenue stream for the Global Fund
26 January, 2006 –Today, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Bono and Bobby Shriver announced Product RED, an economic initiative designed to deliver a sustainable flow of private sector money to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. It is the first time that the world’s leading companies have made a commitment to channel a portion of profits from sales of specially–designed products to the Global Fund to support AIDS programmes in Africa with a focus on women and children.
RED presents a new and profitable way of doing business by harnessing the partners’ brand-building expertise while generating a new income stream for the Global Fund. International brands including American Express (founding partner), Converse, Gap and Giorgio Armani are the launch partners. They have designed products that will take on the RED mark and will be available from 1st March 2006.
Bobby Shriver, Chief Executive Officer of Product RED said, “This is a long term initiative designed for sustainability. RED partners expect that they will broaden their own customer base and increase loyalty in a manner that delivers a sustainable revenue stream to both the company and the Global Fund.”
Shriver continued, “It’s incredible to have the marketing brilliance of these companies behind the AIDS emergency.”
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