Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 05.15.06

[David Shove (shove001]

            P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R     05.15.06

1. Chat with Cam    5.16 9:30am
2. AmInd/chili feed 5.16 11am
3. Med D protest    5.16 1pm
4. Superior hiking  5.16 3pm
5. CokePepsi/CTV    5.16 5pm
6. Sweden over US   5.16 6:30pm
7. Venezuela/Cuba   5.16 7pm
8. Eugene McCarthy  5.16 7pm
9. Social action    5.16 7pm
10. Stadiums suck   5.16 7pm
11. Impeach/sit-in  5.16 7pm
12. Sami/Iraq       5.16 7pm
13. Soldier's fight 5.16 7:30pm
14. Home violence   5.16-17 Alexandria MN

15. Greg Palast    - The spies who shag us
16. Gary Olson     - Commencement 2006
17. George Monbiot - Feeding crime
18. ed             - Stadiums suck (poem)

--------1 of 18--------

From: Cam Gordon <CamGordon333 [at] msn.com>
Subject: Chat with Cam 5.16 9:30am

Cam Gordon, Council Member, Second Ward 612-673-2202 (w) 612-296-0579 (c)

Office hours every Tuesday morning in the Second Ward from 9:30-11am. The
locations will rotate as follows, so that I can meet with residents in
their own neighborhoods:

Third Tuesdays:
Southeast Como neighborhood
SECIA office, 837 15th Ave SE


--------2 of 18--------

From: Chris Spotted Eagle <chris [at] spottedeagle.org>
Subject: AmInd/chili feed 5.16 11am

Tuesday, May 16. 11am-2pm American Indian Community Development
Corporation (AICDC) Annual Chili Feed in the big tent between Anishinabe
Wakiagun and the Minneapolis American Indian Center, 1530 E. Franklin
Avenue, Minneapolis, MN,

Event will include chili & fry bread, a blood pressure screening, karaoke
contest and special music, Free and open to the public, FMI call (612)
813-1610.


--------3 of 18--------

From: "Donald McFarland" <donald834 [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Med D protest 5.16 1pm

Tomorrow, we will tell Mark Kennedy that He Has Failed Seniors!!
Tuesday, May 16 at 1pm
Room 181-State Office Building-MN Capitol in St. Paul

Brief Press Conference Followed by a Visit to Mark Kennedy's Office in
Hugo to Deliver Empty Pill Bottles

Please join the Americans United Coalition at a  press conference in Room
181 on Tuesday, May 16 at 1pm at the State Office Building at the
Capitol.  We will speak with the press and then drive to Kennedy's office
in Hugo to deliver a bag of empty pill bottles.  The pill bottles
represent all the empty prescriptions that our seniors and people with
disabilities will now face as a result of the enrollment deadline.

Please forward this message and encourage staff, friends, clients,
patients and members to participate, as we tell Mark Kennedy that he
has failed Minnesota's senior and disabled citizens. 

Please contact me with questions.
Donald McFarland MN Director - Americans United For Change
donald834 [at] hotmail.com  651.308.8098 Cell  209.755.6933 Fax


--------4 of 18--------

From: GibbsJudy [at] aol.com
Subject: Superior hiking 5.16 3pm

The Superior Hiking Trail Association seeks volunteers. The public is
invited to help build 40 miles of trail through the city of Duluth. No
experience is needed and all ages welcome. Bring a lunch (or dinner!) and
dress for the weather! Contact Judy Gibbs at 218-728-9827 or
gibbsjudy [at] aol.com for more information or registration. For MORE volunteer
opportunities, go to www.SHTA.org and click on the Duluth section and ask
to be put on "the list."

Tuesday, May 16, 3-7+ pm - A Walk through from Oneota Cemetary to Enger
Tower. Bring a bag dinner and we will eat in a scenic spot! This is to
assess where work is yet to happen - no tools needed! Come enjoy the
nearly completed trail and be prepared to walk in some spots where no
boardwalk has yet been constructed! (wear hiking boots!) Meet at Enger
Tower Parking Area and we will shuttle folks.

Wednesday, May 17, 10-3 pm, Meet at the end of Greene Street, off 63rd
Avenue West. We will finish off the short stretch to Cody Street,
installing a few steps and one short 8 foot boardwalk.

Thursday, May 18, 10-3 pm, Meet at the junction of St. Louis River Road
and Skyline Parkway.


--------5 of 18--------

From: Eric Angell <eric-angell [at] riseup.net>
Subject: CokePepsi/CTV 5.16 5pm

Folks w/access to St. Paul Neighborhood Network (SPNN):

Tune in weekly to the public access channel (15) of SPNN for "Our World In
Depth/Our World Today".  The show times are 5 pm and midnight on Tuesday
evenings and 10 am on Wednesday mornings.

"Our World In Depth/Our World Today" features analysis of public affairs
with consideration of and participation from Twin Cities area activists.
The show is local and not corporately influenced.

5/16 and 5/17
"Coke and Pepsi: Hard Questions for Soft Drinks" w/Sanat Mohanty from
India and Gerardo Cahamarca (Merideth Cleary interpreting) from Columbia.
Hosted by Eric Angell.

5/23 and 5/24
(tentative) "Retirement at Risk" w/David Bergstom of Minnesota State
Retirement System and Eric Angell, former Retirement Plan Adminstrator.
Hosted by Karen Redleaf.

ALSO on SPNN at 8:30pm Thursdays: Altera Vista
May 18
"Why the Iraq Occupation Must End"
A talk by Sami Rasouli recorded in Feb at St. Joan of Arc Church.


--------6 of 18--------

From: Patty Guerrero <pattypax [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: Sweden over US 5.16

This Tuesday's Salon will have a guest, Earl Gustafson, who just published
his book, The Swedish Secret:  What the US Can Learn From Sweden.  Earl
has been a friend of mine for many years, and this book is so exciting.
I have been reading it and it is really good.  For instance, he says that
several conservative beliefs or fables are now accepted as absolutes by
many Americans, such as:

Public spending should be reduced to keep government as small as
possible
The American people are overtaxed
Federal deficits don't matter
Free market capitalism is always more efficient that government action
Religious beliefs "given by God" should become law
Reducing taxes on the wealthy benefits everyone

These are things that need examined and refuted, and he gives examples
of how Sweden governs.
[A main difference: Sweden is not governed by Neanderthals worried about
the size of their private parts. -ed]

Pax Salons ( http://justcomm.org/pax-salon )
are held (unless otherwise noted in advance):
Tuesdays, 6:30 to 8:30 pm.
Mad Hatter's Tea House,
943 W 7th, St Paul, MN

Salons are free but donations encouraged for program and treats.
Call 651-227-3228 or 651-227-2511 for information.


--------7 of 18--------

From: Minnesota Cuba Committee <mncuba [at] usfamily.net>
Subject: Venezuela/Cuba 5.16 7pm

Hands Off Venezuela and Cuba!

A discussion on the growing radicalization of Latin America and the
effects of Free Trade on Immigration throughout the continent
Tuesday, May 16 at 7pm
Waite House Community Center (2529 13th Ave. S. in Minneapolis)

What's Oil Got to Do With It?
 * Factories occupied and nationalized under workers' control in Venezuela
 * Thousands of Cuban doctors sent throughout the continent to provide
free healthcare for the poor
 * Oil and gas nationalized in Bolivia
 * Millions displaced from their homes and forced to emigrate by
neo-liberal free trade agreements
 * The US military launches the biggest joint force military exercises in
the Caribbean since the Cuban Missile Crisis
 * How is this all related?

Join us for a panel discussion featuring:

Jorge Martin, International Secretary of the Hands Off Venezuela Campaign
Gary Prevost, Professor of Political Science at St. John's University
Maria Peña, Venezuelan journalist and local immigrant rights activist

Also: Learn more about the Minneapolis-area bus to the May 20th "Hands Off
Venezuela and Cuba" Demonstration in Washington, DC. Join local supporters
of Venezuelan and Cuban Revolutions on a road trip to Washington, DC for
this historic demonstration. We'll be leaving on the morning on Friday,
May 19 and returning the evening of Sunday, May 21. Estimated cost is just
$40 for roundtrip transportation.

Sponsored by the MN-Cuba Committee, Hands Off Venezuela, and the
MN-Venezuela Committee. For more information please email msp [at] ushov.org or
call 651-373-7609

Note: for people who are interested in van transportation to Washington,
D.C. for the national demonstration this Saturday, please meet at 6:30
before the program at Waite House. A final decision on renting a van will
be made then.


---------8 of 18--------

From: Carol Caouette <writer [at] mm.com>
Subject: Eugene McCarthy 5.16 7pm

My husband, Mick Caouette, has put together a short film featuring two
interviews he did with Eugene McCarthy within the last six years.  This is
pure McCarthy, just talking on various topics, a little bit of footage as
he talks, no other talking heads, no interviewer - almost like "live"
McCarthy.

This film is going to be shown at the Minnesota History Center on Tuesday,
May 16, 7pm.

Mick interviewed McCarthy for a bigger project he's producing, a
documentary about Hubert Humphrey that will air on PBS in 2007 - but he
just let the tape roll when he interviewed McCarthy. Very entertaining,
poignant, moving.

Carol Caouette, writer [at] mm.com


--------9 of 18--------

From: Rebecca Janke <peace [at] tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Social action 5.16 7pm

TUESDAY, MAY 16TH - Compassionate Rebel Cafe Convening at Mississippi
Market Co-op, Selby Community Room, 622 Selby Avenue, St. Paul, MN 7-9pm.

TOPIC: Transforming Unexpected Dilemmas into Social Action: Making Your
Story Work for the World. Join us for this interesting, interactive
dialogue as well be the first to hear a story of this genre from the
soon-to-be released book, "The Compassionate Rebel II: Making Your Story
Work for the World." Co-Authors Rebecca Janke and Burt Berlowe of "The
Compassionate Rebel: Energized by Anger, Motivated by Love will be
co-hosting.

Please note the need for an RSVP for The Compassionate Rebel Cafe.  Due to
limited space be sure to RSVP Rebecca Janke at peace [at] umn.edu.


-------10 of 18--------

[The Progressive Calendar will list all the legislators who have voted for
stadiums, concentrating on the Twin Cities area. It will do this often
between now and November. It will call for all of them, regardless of
party, to be voted out. DFLers who vote for this are not the lesser evil;
the pack of them are the greater evil - they know what people want, and
arrogantly vote instead for their billionaire paymasters; they leave the
public with no defenses. A greater evil. Anybody, however bad, would be
better. Out now! -ed]

From: Dave Bicking
Subject: Stadium protest 5.16 7pm

Dear friends and fellow activists,

It's time to get out and protest!  At a meeting of a group of Mpls Greens
last night we decided on a plan to target key state legislators on the
stadium Conference Committee.  These are among the ten people who will
decide most of the substantive issues regarding both the Twins and Vikings
stadiums.  The conference committee will decide, for instance, whether a
referendum will be required.

This week is a critical time - the legislature has only a week to act
before it adjourns.  Public opinion is on our side!  If you haven't yet,
see the StarTribune poll results:
http://www.startribune.com/784/story/430934.html

Below, I have more information on the Conference Committee meetings.  But
first, here is the announcement of the demonstration.  Please come, and
please forward this to anyone else you know who may be interested.

--------
NO STADIUM TAX WITHOUT A REFERENDUM!

We can still stop this plan!

Protest in front of the homes of a few key members of the State
Legislature Conference Committee.  This will be a peaceful, legal
expression of our opposition to their support of a new tax to subsidize
corporate greed.

Tuesday Night, May 16, 7pm - Margaret Anderson Kelliher (DFL) District
60A.  At home address: 620 Morgan Ave. S., Mpls 55405

Kelliher voted FOR the House version of the Twins stadium bill, which
would impose a .15% Hennepin County sales tax without any referendum.
She voted AGAINST an amendment that would have required a referendum.
She is on the Conference Committee that is negotiating critical
differences between the Senate and House bills.  Contact her office at
651-296-0171 or email: rep.margaret.kelliher [at] house.mn

Wednesday Night 7PM TBA (can't spoil the surprise)

Thursday Night 7PM TBA (can't spoil the surprise)

They have listened to the begging of billionaire team owners; we will
gently remind them how much debt they are giving us and future
generations.

Sponsored by Minneapolis Green Uprising and friends.  For more
information, contact 612-276-1213 or dave [at] colorstudy.com

(directions to 620 Morgan Ave. S:  take Penn Ave. exit from I-394, go
north short distance, turn right onto Mt. View Ave.  Turn right onto
Oliver Ave. S, then left onto Morgan Ave. S.)

-------
The Conference Committee will be meeting today (Monday).  I plan to attend
the meeting (it is open to the public).  I would love to have company if
you are free.  They met for the first time last Friday.  I was there for
the first half.  They mostly received information from staff about the
differences in the two bills.

Today's meeting is likely to involve more substantive debate and
negotiation.  I'll report on it, and more about the conference committee
process, as soon as I have time.

The Senate version of the stadium bill has now been posted.  It is at:
http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/bldbill.php?bill=ueh2480.2.ht
ml&session=ls84

Here's the conference committee meeting announcement:

Conference Committee on H.F. 2480
Chairs: Rep. Brad Finstad and Sen. Steve Kelley
9 a.m. Monday, May 15, Room 15 Capitol
Agenda: H.F. 2480-Sports facilities bill.
Morning meeting - Minnesota Vikings proposal.
Afternoon meeting - Metropolitan Council 2030 Transit Plan.

The legislature is in session at 11:00am, so I suspect the morning meeting
will be from 9am to about 10:45 am.  The afternoon session will start
shortly after the full legislature ends for the day.  I have no idea when
that will be.

Dave Bicking 612-276-1213


--------11 of 18--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Impeach/sit-in 5.16 7pm

Tuesday, 5/16, 7pm, final planning session for Sit-In for Impeachment on
5/18 or 19, St. Joan of Arc, Parish Center, Sunflower Rm, 4537 - 3rd Ave
S, Mpls.  gannieca [at] yahoo.com


--------12 of 18--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Sami/Iraq 5.16 7pm

Tuesday, 5/16, 7pm, St Anthony Park Neighbors for Peace host Sami Rasouli:
A Voice of Peace, talking about Iraq from perspective of Iraq-American who
moved back, St. Anthony Park Lutheran Church, 2323 Como Ave, St. Paul.
karenlilley [at] comcast.net


--------13 of 18--------

From: Jennifer <jennifer_nemo [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Soldier's fight 5.16 7:30pm

Tuesday May 16 7:30pm. Author Paul Reickhoff discusses "Chasing Ghosts: A
Soldier's Fight for America from Baghdad to the Beltway." Barnes & Noble
Edina Galleria at 3225 W. 69th St. 952-920-0663


--------14 of 18--------

From: erin [at] mnwomen.org
Subject: Home violence 5.16-17 Alexandria MN

Tuesday, May 16 and Wednesday, May 17: Minnesota Coalition for Battered
Women The Immigrant and Refugee Battered Women's Task Force offers The
2006 Training Institute: Domestic Violence and the Immigrant and Refugee
Community in Alexandria Minnesota. Info: Danielle Kluz 651/646-6177.


---------15 of 18--------

THE SPIES WHO SHAG US
The Times and USA Today have Missed the Bigger Story - Again
by Greg Palast
For Buzzflash
Friday, May 12, 2006

I know you're shocked - SHOCKED! - that George Bush is listening in on
all your phone calls. Without a warrant. That's nothing. And it's not
news.

This is: the snooping into your phone bill is just the snout of the pig of
a strange, lucrative link-up between the Administration's Homeland
Security spy network and private companies operating beyond the reach of
the laws meant to protect us from our government. You can call it the
privatization of the FBI - though it is better described as the creation
of a private KGB.

For the full story, see "Double Cheese With Fear," in Armed Madhouse:
Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf and Other Dispatches from the Front Lines of
the Class War."

The leader in the field of what is called "data mining," is a company,
formed in 1997, called, "ChoicePoint, Inc," which has sucked up over a
billion dollars in national security contracts.

Worried about Dick Cheney listening in Sunday on your call to Mom? That
ain't nothing. You should be more concerned that they are linking this
info to your medical records, your bill purchases and your entire personal
profile including, not incidentally, your voting registration. Five years
ago, I discovered that ChoicePoint had already gathered 16 billion data
files on Americans - and I know they've expanded their ops at an
explosive rate.

They are paid to keep an eye on you - because the FBI can't. For the
government to collect this stuff is against the law unless you're
suspected of a crime. (The law in question is the Constitution.) But
ChoicePoint can collect if for "commercial" purchases - and under the
Bush Administration's suspect reading of the Patriot Act - our domestic
spying apparatchiks can then BUY the info from ChoicePoint.

Who ARE these guys selling George Bush a piece of you?

ChoicePoint's board has more Republicans than a Palm Beach country club.
It was funded, and its board stocked, by such Republican sugar daddies as
billionaires Bernie Marcus and Ken Langone - even after Langone was
charged by the Securities Exchange Commission with abuse of inside
information.

I first ran across these guys in 2000 in Florida when our Guardian/BBC
team discovered the list of 94,000 "felons" that Katherine Harris had
ordered removed from Florida's voter rolls before the election. Virtually
every voter purged was innocent of any crime except, in most cases, Voting
While Black. Who came up with this electoral hit list that gave Bush the
White House? ChoicePoint, Inc.

And worse, they KNEW the racially-tainted list of felons was bogus. And
when we caught them, they lied about it. While they've since apologized to
the NAACP, ChoicePoint's ethnic cleansing of voter rolls has been amply
assuaged by the man the company elected.

And now ChoicePoint and George Bush want your blood. Forget your phone
bill. ChoicePoint, a sickened executive of the company told us in
confidence, "hope[s] to build a database of DNA samples from every person
in the United States ...linked to all the other information held by CP
[ChoicePoint]" from medical to voting records.

And ChoicePoint lied about that too. The company publicly denied they gave
DNA to the Feds - but then told our investigator, pretending to seek
work, that ChoicePoint was "the number one" provider of DNA info to the
FBI.

"And that scares the hell out of me," said the executive (who has since
left the company), because ChoicePoint gets it WRONG so often. We are not
contracting out our Homeland Security to James Bond here. It's more like
Austin Powers, Inc. Besides the 97% error rate in finding Florida
"felons," Illinois State Police fired the company after discovering
ChoicePoint had produced test "results" on rape case evidence ... that
didn't exist. And ChoicePoint just got hit with the largest fine in
Federal Trade Commission history for letting identity thieves purchase
145,000 credit card records.

But it won't stop, despite Republican senators shedding big crocodile
tears about "surveillance" of innocent Americans. That's because FEAR is a
lucrative business - not just for ChoicePoint, but for firms such as
Syntech, Sybase and Lockheed-Martin - each of which has provided
lucrative posts or profits to connected Republicans including former Total
Information Awareness chief John Poindexter (Syntech), Marvin Bush
(Sybase) and Lynn Cheney (Lockheed-Martin).

But how can they get Americans to give up our personal files, our phone
logs, our DNA and our rights? Easy. Fear sells better than sex - and they
want you to be afraid. Back to today's New York Times, page 28: "Wider Use
of DNA Lists is Urged in Fighting Crime." And who is providing the
technology? It comes, says the Times, from the work done on using DNA
fragments to identity victims of the September 11 attack. And who did that
job (for $12 million, no bid)? ChoicePoint, Inc. Which is NOT mentioned by
the Times.

"Genetic surveillance would thus shift from the individual [the alleged
criminal] to the family," says the Times - which will require, of course,
a national DNA database of NON-criminals.

It doesn't end there. Turn to the same newspaper, page 23, with a story
about a weird new law passed by the state of Georgia to fight illegal
immigration. Every single employer and government agency will be required
to match citizen or worker data against national databases to affirm
citizenship. It won't stop illegal border crossing, but hey, someone's
going to make big bucks on selling data. And guess what local boy owns the
data mine? ChoicePoint, Inc., of Alpharetta, Georgia.

The knuckleheads at the Times don't put the three stories together because
the real players aren't in the press releases their reporters re-write.

But that's the Fear Industry for you. You aren't safer from terrorists or
criminals or "felon" voters. But the national wallet is several billion
dollars lighter and the Bill of Rights is a couple amendments shorter.

And that's their program. They get the data mine - and we get the shaft.

Greg Palast is author of Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?,
China Floats Bush Sinks, The Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left
and Other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War, out June 6.
You can order it now.

For more horror and humor from the War on Terror, listen to an excerpt
from Chapter 1 of Armed Madhouse, "Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?


--------16 of 18--------

Commencement 2006
Gary Olson
Znet

Note: Each year, Moravian College's senior class selects a faculty member
to give the Commencement address. The following remarks were offered on
May 13, 2006).

President Rokke, Pam Rokke, honored guests, faculty colleagues, friends,
parents, lovers of the graduates of all sorts, the folks who've cooked,
cleaned and taken care of the graduates and their surroundings for four
years, including preparing today's ceremony, and especially, Moravian's
Class of 2006.

A few of you might recall the last time I spoke at commencement my mother
sent along some unsolicited advice, as mothers will do.  I'll share just
one line again because it's timeless.  She wrote, "Gary, you might remind
the graduates of your own mediocre undergraduate record. If you could make
something of yourself, surely anyone can and that will give them
confidence! Heed my mother's wisdom.

Before proceeding with some brief observations, I want to acknowledge that
the Class of 2006 has been blessed with a college president who's been a
keen and steadfast advocate for unhampered discussion and free inquiry on
this campus. I know that perhaps better than most because my presence on
the faculty requires that he demonstrate that commitment on a regular
basis. Pres. Rokke, as you retire today - and I don't make a practice of
this - I salute you.  Now, let me extend one final opportunity to defend
academic freedom.

As a faculty member I watch our freshly tasseled graduates stride across
the stage each year and invariably ask myself: Have we satisfied our
responsibility to these young people?

It's my sense that colleges like Moravian are among the few remaining U.S.
institutions where human relations aren't mediated through an impoverished
bottom line "marketspeak ethos" where everything, including education, has
been transformed and reduced to a commodity.

We are a fragile sanctuary where students can critically ponder what
should be the ends of society as opposed to college impersonators that
merely train students in means to serve ends prescribed by others.

We aspire to do what Howard Zinn, the magisterial American historian,
describes when he writes that for many people, "There was a moment in our
lives (or a month, or a year) when certain facts appeared before us,
startled us, and then caused us to question beliefs that were strongly
fixed in our consciousness - embedded there by years of family prejudice,
orthodox schooling, imbibing of newspapers, radio and television."

My conceit is that a few of these occasions, these moments of secular
grace, have occurred here - even in a classroom. And that these
epiphanies have elongated into a moral clarity that you will draw upon
later. It's my fervant hope, more than a firm conviction, that you've
internalized three of these revelations:

First, you're critical thinkers, skeptical citizens. As we said in the
60s, even vegetarians know that sacred cows make the best hamburger.
Thanks to your liberal arts education you now possess what the late Neil
Postman described as a "built-in crap detector. " You don't accept an idea
as authoritative merely because it's been around a long time, someone
important uttered it, or because someone feels it strongly. You submit
received opinion to respectful but ruthless analysis. You demand evidence.
Indeed, you know that doing anything less would be a sign of disrespect
for the idea, for the person asserting it and for yourself. (1)

You've read Noam Chomsky and you realize that "...citizens in a democratic
society should undertake a course of intellectual self-defense to protect
themselves from manipulation and control, and to lay the basis for more
meaningful democracy." (2)

For example, today you recognize the need for a doublespeak glossary to
decipher the proliferating thought police euphemisms and oxymorans in
circulation. Just a few of the buzzwords providing cover for abuses of
official power abroad and the erosion of our democratic principles and
civil liberties at home include:

  1) The USA Patriot "Improvement" Act.  Translation: One nation under
surveillance.

  2)  Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Translation: Somehow our oil got under
their sand.

  3) And my favorite environmental catch phrase: Healthy Forests.  My
decoder ring says:  No tree left behind.

While you search for your old copy of George Orwell's prophetic Nineteen
Eighty-Four, you refuse to surrender your intellect to fear-mongering.
Starved for someone to speak "truthiness" to power, you cheer on Steven
Colbert as a satirical and righteous antitode. Of course, all this healthy
skepticism makes you cantankerous, difficult citizens to govern. But
doesn't our democracy desparately need more difficult citizens?

Second, you're cosmopolitan, no longer ethnocentric.  You don't judge
other cultures as wanting because they differ from your own.  You've
acquired this perspective from many sources: From exposure to our
magnificent choir's stirring world music at Vespers to studying
post-colonial literature and religions of India on campus, to gaining an
appreciation for ecology in Peru's upper Amazon with Prof. Bevington and
observing the European Union up close in Brussels with Prof. Lalande.

You celebrate different cultures but you know that a "traditional culture
defense" can't justify crimes against humanity. Of course, Muslims
shouldn't be made scapegoats for terrorism and Islamophobia is
unconscionable bigotry.  But neither should misogyny, honor crimes,
battered wives, and barbarism be rationalized through a patriarchial
rendering of the Koran or any other text.

Likewise, you're aware that our own society is hardly immune to religious
extremism.  It ranges from the fundamentalist Puritanism complicit in the
genocide of indigenous peoples of North America to today's "theocrat
wanabees" in Washington. These guys believe they're reading God's blog
each morning. And guess what? It conveniently corresponds to their dreams
of global domination.

Third, you're more compassionate. You realize that claims to be neutral in
this world usually means siding with the oppressor. As South African
Archbishop Desmond Tutu states it, "If you are in a situation where an
elephant is sitting on the tail of a mouse and you say, 'Oh no, no, no. I
am neutral,' the mouse is not going to appreciate your neutrality." (3)

And when your own government or its proxies trample on human rights,
especially then, your sense of compassionate world citizenship easily
trumps pious recitations of knee-jerk nationalism. Because you don't
suffer from moral amnesia you know that war is terrorism, with a bigger
budget.

You grasp that a cynical Social Darwinist "survival of the fittest"
reading of human nature is routinely invoked to rationalize power and
privilege.

And you're now willing to entertain the proposition that differnt
socioeconomic arrangements can offer an auspicious setting for other human
capacities to flourish, including empathy, compassion, social solidarity,
and dare I suggest...love.  You know, as Erich Fromm asserted, that love
is the only rational answer to the problem of human existence. (4)  And
you want this loving attitude to flourish because you're
internationalists.  You have a special connection to this country but you
embrace your sisters and brothers around the globe because your liberal
arts education has put you in closer touch with these different members of
the same human family.

Well, have I answered my question about meeting our faculty
responsibilities?  To be consistent, I suppose we must await the evidence.
We hope you're more critical, more cosmopolitan, and more compassionate.

Please also understand that committed teachers care about the world, in
part, because they care so deeply about you, you who are about to make
your own way in that world.

I began with a few words from my mother and I conclude with a few verses
from another senior citizen, Bob Dylan:

  May you build a ladder to the stars
  And climb on every rung,
  May you stay forever young.
  May your feet always be swift
  May you have a strong foundation
  When the the winds of changes shift,
  May your heart always be joyful,
  May your song always be sung,
  May you stay forever young.

On behalf of your proud teachers, know that we desire long, safe,
productive, and passionate lives for you. And know that today you have my
deepest gratitude for inviting me to experience my own deeply treasured
moment of grace. Thank you.

(Gary Olson chairs the Political Science Department at Moravian College,
Bethlehem, PA. contact:olson [at] moravian.edu)

1) See Richard Dawkins, A Devil's Chaplain (New York: Houghton-Mifflin,
2003), Chapter 7.

2) Noam Chomsky, Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic
Societies (Boston: 1989), p.1.

3) As quoted in Robert Jensen, "The Myth of the Neutral Professional."
(unpublished paper, n.d.)

4) Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving (New York: Perennial Library Edition,
1974),p.111.


--------17 of 18--------

Feeding Crime
By George Monbiot
ZNet Commentary
May 14, 2006
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-05/09monbiot.cfm

Does television cause crime? The idea that people copy the violence they
watch is debated endlessly by criminologists. But this column concerns an
odder and perhaps more interesting notion: if crime leaps out of the box,
it is not the programmes that are responsible as much as the material in
between. It proposes that violence emerges from those blissful images of
family life, purged of all darkness, that we see in the advertisements.

Let me begin, in constructing this strange argument, with a paper
published in the latest edition of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent
Medicine. It provides empirical support for the contention that children
who watch more television eat more of the foods it advertises. "Each hour
increase in television viewing", it found, "was associated with an
additional 167 kilocalories per day"(1). Most of these extra calories were
contained in junk foods: fizzy drinks, crisps, biscuits, sweets, burgers
and chicken nuggets. Watching television, the paper reported, "is also
inversely associated with intake of fruit and vegetables".

There is no longer any serious debate about what a TV diet does to your
body. A government survey published last month shows that the proportion
of children in English secondary schools who are clinically obese has
almost doubled in ten years. Today, 27% of girls and 24% of boys between
11 and 15 years old suffer from this condition, which means they are far
more likely to contract diabetes and to die before the age of 50(2). But
the more interesting question is what this diet might do to your mind.
There are now scores of studies suggesting that it hurts the brain as much
as it hurts the heart and the pancreas. Among the many proposed
associations is a link between bad food and violent or anti-social
behaviour.

The most spectacular results were those reported in the Journal of
Nutritional and Environmental Medicine in 1997(3). The researchers had
conducted a double-blind, controlled experiment in a jail for chronic
offenders aged between 13 and 17. Many of the boys there were deficient in
certain nutrients. They consumed, on average, only 63% of the iron, 42% of
the magnesium, 39% of the zinc, 39% of the vitamin B12 and 34% of the
folate in the US government's recommended daily allowance. The researchers
treated half the inmates with capsules containing the missing nutrients,
and half with placebos.

They also counselled all the prisoners in the trial about improving their
diets. The number of violent incidents caused by inmates in the control
group (those taking the placebos) fell by 56%, and in the experimental
group by 80%. But among the inmates in the placebo group who refused to
improve their diets, there was no reduction. The researchers also wired
their subjects up to an electroencephalogram (which records brainwave
patterns), and found a major decrease in abnormalities after 13 weeks on
supplements(4).

A similar paper, published in 2002 in the British Journal of Psychiatry,
found that among young adult prisoners given supplements of the vitamins,
minerals and fatty acids in which they were deficient, disciplinary
offences fell by 26% in the experimental group, and not at all in the
control group(5). Researchers in Finland found that all 68 of the violent
offenders they tested during another study suffered from reactive
hypoglycaemia: an abnormal tolerance of glucose caused by an excessive
consumption of sugar, carbohydrates and stimulants such as caffeine(6).

In March this year the lead author of the 2002 report, Bernard Gesch, told
the Ecologist magazine that "having a bad diet is now a better predictor
of future violence than past violent behaviour. ... Likewise, a diagnosis
of psychopathy, generally perceived as being a better predictor than a
criminal past, is still miles behind what you can predict just from
looking at what a person eats."(7)

Why should a link between diet and behaviour be surprising? Quite aside
from the physiological effects of eating too much sugar (apparent to
anyone who has attended a children's party), the brain, whose function
depends on precise biochemical processes, can't work properly with
insufficient raw materials. The most important of these appear to be
unsaturated fatty acids (especially the omega 3 types), zinc, magnesium,
iron, folate and the B vitamins(8), which happen to be those in which the
prisoners in the 1997 study were most deficient.

A report published at the end of last year by the pressure group Sustain
explained what appear to be clear links between deteriorating diets and
the growth of depression, behavioural problems, Alzheimer's and other
forms of mental illness. Sixty per cent of the dry weight of the brain is
fat, which is "unique in the body for being predominantly composed of
highly unsaturated fatty acids"(9). Zinc and magnesium affect both its
metabolism of lipids and its production of neurotransmitters - the
chemicals which permit the nerve cells to communicate with each other.

The more junk you eat, the less room you have for foods which contain the
chemicals the brain needs. This is not to suggest that the food
advertisers are solely responsible for the decline in the nutrients we
consume. As Graham Harvey's new book We Want Real Food shows, industrial
farming, dependent on artificial fertilisers, has greatly reduced the
mineral content of vegetables, while the quality of meat and milk has also
declined(10). Nor do these findings suggest that a poor diet is the sole
cause of crime and anti-social behaviour. But the studies I have read
suggest that any government which claims to take crime seriously should
start hitting the advertisers.

Instead, our government sits back while the television regulator, Ofcom,
canoodles with the food industry. While drawing up its plans to control
junk food adverts, Ofcom held 29 meetings with food producers and
advertisers and just four meetings with health and consumer groups(11).
The results can be seen in the consultation document it has published(12).
It proposes to do nothing about adverts among programmes made for children
over 9 and nothing about the adverts the younger children watch most
often.

Which? reports that the most popular ITV programmes among 2-9 year olds
are Dancing on Ice, Coronation Street and Emmerdale, but Ofcom plans to
regulate only the programmes made specifically for the under-9s. It claims
that tougher rules would cost the industry too much(13). To sustain the
share values of the commercial broadcasters, Ofcom is prepared to
sacrifice the physical and psychological well-being of our children.

At the European level, the collusion is even more obvious. Last week,
Viviane Reding, the European media commissioner, spoke to a group of
broadcasters about her plans to allow product placement in European TV
programmes (this means that the advertisers would be allowed to promote
their wares during, rather just between, the programmes). She complained
that her proposal had been attacked by the European parliament. "You have
to fight if you want to keep it," she told the TV executives. "I would
like to make it very clear that I need your support in this"(14).

I spent much of last week trying to discover whether the Home Office is
taking the research into the links between diet and crime seriously. In
the past, it has insisted that further studies are needed, while failing
to fund them(15). First my request was met with incredulity, then I was
stonewalled. Tough on crime. To hell with the causes of crime.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. Jean L. Wiecha et al, April 2006. When Children Eat What They Watch.
Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, vol 160, pp436-442.

2. John Carvel, 22nd April 2006. Child obesity has doubled in a decade.
The Guardian.

3. Stephen J Schoenthaler et al, 1997. The Effect of Randomized
Vitamin-Mineral Supplementation on Violent and Non-violent Antisocial
Behavior Among Incarcerated Juveniles. Journal of Nutritional and
Environmental Medicine, vol 7 pp343-352.

4. ibid. Also Stephen J Schoenthaler et al, 1991. Controlled Trial of
Vitamin-Mineral Supplementation on Intelligence and Brain Function.
Personal and Individual Difference, vol 12 (4) pp343-350.

5. C. Bernard Gesch et al, 2002. Influence of Supplementary Vitamins,
Minerals and Essential Fatty Acids on the Antisocial Behaviour of Young
Adult Prisoners. The British Journal of Psychiatry 181: pp22-28.

6. Reported by Natural Justice, viewed 1st May 2006. Summary of evidence
linking nutrition and offending behaviour.
http://www.physiol.ox.ac.uk/natural.justice/

7. Quoted by Pat Thomas, March 2006. ASBOs vs Nutrition. The Ecologist.

8. Courtney Van de Weyer, Winter 2005. Changing Diets, Changing Minds:

how food affects mental well being and behaviour. Sustain.
http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/html/content/changing_minds.pdf

9. ibid.

10. Graham Harvey, 2006. We Want Real Food. Constable, London.

11. Felicity Lawrence, 22nd April 2006. Industry lobbying 'derailed junk
food ban'. The Guardian.

12. Ofcom, viewed May 1st 2006. Television advertising of food and drink
products to
children.http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/foodads/summary/

13. Which?, April 2006. Failing Children: Ofcom's Proposals on Food
Advertising to Children.
http://www.which.net/campaigns/food/kidsfood/0604ofcomproposals.pdf

14. Quoted by Namnews, 28th April 2006. EU: Commission Wants Broadcasters
To Back TV Brand Advertising Shake-Up.
http://www.kamcity.com/namnews/asp/newsarticle.asp?newsid=26945

15. Felicity Lawrence, 5th May 2005. Why it's time we faced fats. The
Guardian.


--------18 of 18--------

 Adolescent boys
 hear "Stadiums suck" and run
 there wild with hot hope


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