Other Sources (Scroll down for my current postings.)

• Common Dreams News Center (Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community)
• Cursor.org
• Democracy Now!
• Pacifica Radio
• FAIR,the national media watch group
• MotherJones magazine online
• From the Wilderness Publications (News & Views from the left)
• InformationTimes.com (America's Daily International Newspaper)
• TomPaine.commonsense(mostly commentary)
• T R U T H O U T  (news, politics)
• CounterPunch("the stories that the corporate press never prints")
• Al-Jazeerah in English
• Howard Zinn (commentary)
• What Really Happened ("The history the government hopes you don't learn." A great source for news, updated frequently.)
• INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE ("News you won't find on CNN or Fox.")
• Keystone Report (The real alternative news source for the people of Pennsylvania)
• AlterNet.org
• "BuzzFlash provides headlines, news, and commentary for a geographically-diverse, politically-savvy, pro-democracy, anti-hypocrisy web audience, reaching a million visitors a month and growing."
• Spin of the Day ("Daily reporting on public relations, propaganda and media spin.")

Junemoonspoon 9

Let's pretend baseball still has something to do with my being slow to update this page.--Kayly

Quote-apalooza
• "There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his,"  Helen Keller (1880-1968)
• "If there is no struggle, there is not progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground... Power concedes nothing without a demand." — Frederick Douglass, 19th Century Human Rights activist
• Hope has two beautiful daughters: anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to change them.- Saint Augustine
• The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.--Alfred North Whitehead
• No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.--Alice Walker
• Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.--Anais Nin
• There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.--Anais Nin
• They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.--Andy Warhol
• How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.--Anne Frank
• If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.--Charles Kettering
• Things do not change, we change.--Henry David Thoreau
• Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.--John F. Kennedy
• Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.--Leo Tolstoy
• Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.--Robert F. Kennedy
• If you want to make enemies, try to change something.--Woodrow Wilson

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

News
 
• Clergy Group Calls For Airport Boycott

POSTED: 9:47 a.m. EDT May 29, 2003
HARRISBURG, Pa. -- A clergy group is calling for a boycott of Harrisburg International Airport and of tourism in south-central Pennsylvania because the group is not satisfied with the amount of airport construction work going to minority contractors.
• House Bans an Abortion Method

By ROBIN TONER
WASHINGTON, June 4  The House overwhelmingly approved legislation tonight to outlaw what abortion opponents call partial birth abortion, putting the anti-abortion movement on the brink of a major victory.
• U.S. Hands Out $1 Million a Day in Iraq

Mon May 26, 1:20 PM ET
By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - U.S. dollars are flown to Iraq (news - web sites) by the planeload. An Army clerk pays Baghdad electricians from a footlocker full of cash. Soldiers string barbed wire at the site where Iraqi retirees get their pensions.
• Bill to define marriage tried again in House as 2 states

mull cases
By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
    A bill to change the U.S. Constitution to clarify that marriage is the union of one man and one woman has been reintroduced in Congress recently.
• Warm Gallic welcome surprises, pleases U.S. sailors and Marines

By Scott Schonauer, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Monday, May 26, 2003
DRAGUIGNAN, France When a group of sailors, Marines and airmen from Naval Station Rota, Spain, arrived in southern France last week for a Memorial Day ceremony, most did not expect the greatest of welcomes.
• US sends in extra troops to quell unrest

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
27 May 2003
A further 20,000 US troops are to be deployed in Iraq amid growing concerns that there are insufficient forces to bring law and order to the country after the American-led invasion.
• A Radioactive Recipe for Profit

 Billionaire and Bush backer Harold Simmons hopes to turn his Texas dump into a radioactive storage facility. He may well get his wish.
By Chris Smith
May 22, 2003
• Hydrogen's Dirty Secret

 President Bush promises that fuel-cell cars will be free of pollution. But if he has his way, the cars of tomorrow will run on hydrogen made from fossil fuels.
By Barry C. Lynn
May/June 2003 Issue
• Military waste under fire

$1 trillion missing -- Bush plan targets Pentagon accounting
Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer   Sunday, May 18, 2003
The Department of Defense, already infamous for spending $640 for a toilet seat, once again finds itself under intense scrutiny, only this time because it couldn't account for more than a trillion dollars in financial transactions, not to mention dozens of tanks, missiles and planes.
• U.S. Report Faults Efforts to Track Water Pollution

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
WASHINGTON, May 26  The computer system used by the Environmental Protection Agency to track and control water pollution is obsolete, full of faulty data and does not take into account thousands of significant pollution sources, according to a new government report.
• Trust in the Military Heightens Among Baby Boomers' Children

By ROBIN TONER
The topic in John Sunderdick's leadership class at Mount Hebron High School in Ellicott City, Md., was the military. The first task was word association.
• Seeing Islam as 'Evil' Faith, Evangelicals Seek Converts

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
GROVE CITY, Ohio  On a recent Saturday in a church fellowship hall here, evangelical Christians from several states gathered for an all-day seminar on how to woo Muslims away from Islam.
• Renovation Project Will Close Islamic Galleries at the Met

By HOLLAND COTTER
The Islamic galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which hold one of the most comprehensive displays of Islamic material in the world, will close on Monday for four years for expansion and renovation.
• 2 Councilmen Hope to Block Charter Plan

By MICHAEL COOPER
Two city councilmen plan to introduce a bill this week that would prevent Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg from using his personal fortune on an advertising campaign asking New Yorkers to abolish party labels and party primaries in city elections.
• What Did You Do During the African Holocaust?

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
ASMARA, Eritrea
This charming nation was hailed in the 1990's as one of Africa's brightest hopes, a symbol of an African renaissance. Its economy boomed, and Hillary Clinton dropped by.
• US looks away as new ally tortures Islamists

Uzbekistan's president steps up repression of opponents
Nick Paton Walsh in Namangan
Monday May 26, 2003
The Guardian
Abdulkhalil was arrested in the fields of Uzbekistan's Ferghana valley in August last year. The 28-year-old farmer was sentenced to 16 years in prison for "trying to overthrow the constitutional structures".
• Posted May 22, 2003

Building to Win
by Robert L. Borosage
These are dog days for Democrats. The top-gun President continues to ride high in the polls, despite the chaos in Iraq. The Rolls-Royce reactionaries who control Washington lavish tax breaks and no-bid contracts on those who pay for their party. The Democratic presidential candidates spend energy debating who is "electable" rather than where they want to take the country.
• Faith-Based Charities May Not Be Better, Study Indicates

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 25, 2003
The assumption behind President Bush's faith-based initiative is that religious charities can do a better job, at a lower cost, than secular organizations in providing many social services, from drug treatment to employment training. But an Indiana study suggests it isn't necessarily so.
• Liberals Meeting to Set '04 Strategy

Labor, Rights Groups Focus on Getting Out the Vote to Help Democrats
By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 25, 2003
Major liberal organizations, from labor unions to civil rights groups, have begun to meet privately to develop a coordinated strategy to oppose President Bush's reelection in 2004. Their goal is to buttress the Democratic Party and its nominee by orchestrating voter mobilization and independent media in as many as a dozen battleground states.
• ON ELECTION DAY 2004, HOW WILL YOU KNOW IF YOUR VOTE

IS PROPERLY COUNTED?ANSWER:  YOU WON’T
Rep. Rush Holt Introduces Legislation to Require All Voting Machines To Produce A Voter-Verified Paper Trail
Washington, DC  Rep. Rush Holt today responded to the growing chorus of concern from election reform specialists and computer security experts about the integrity of future elections by introducing reform legislation, The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003. The measure would require all voting machines to produce an actual paper record by 2004 that voters can view to check the accuracy of their votes and that election officials can use to verify votes in the event of a computer malfunction, hacking, or other irregularity.  Experts often refer to this paper record as a voter-verified paper trail.
• Congress Clears Tax Incentive for SUV Purchases

By REUTERS
Filed at 7:08 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress on Friday substantially widened a tax break that has been used by small businesses as an incentive to purchase the largest sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks.
• Fatal Attack After Mistaken Raid Is Ruled a Homicide

By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
The city medical examiner has ruled that a 57-year-old Harlem woman who had a heart attack after the police mistakenly raided her apartment, threw a concussion grenade inside and handcuffed her, died from the stress and fear of the raid, officials said yesterday.
• Democratic Candidate Shows Spiritual Side

By MALIA RULON, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Dennis Kucinich, a champion for down-to-earth issues such as blue-collar jobs and the beleaguered steel industry, is showing his spiritual side as he courts supporters in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
• Irradiated Meat May Soon Be in Schools

Fri May 30, 7:10 AM ET
By EMILY GERSEMA, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Some of the 28 million children in the national school lunch program may find irradiated hamburger on their plates as early as next year.
• Dem. Candidate Backs Medical Marijuana

Thu May 29, 5:44 PM ET
By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich said Thursday that if elected president, he would issue an executive order legalizing the use of medical marijuana "as an act of compassion and expression of humanity."
• Utah Officials Look for Firing Squad

By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
SALT LAKE CITY, May 28 As it does now and again, Utah is looking for a few good marksmen.
• Environmental Groups Gain as Companies Vote on Issues

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
WASHINGTON, May 28 Almost a quarter of the shareholders of the Southern Company, one of the nation's largest utilities, voted at the annual meeting today to require the company to analyze and report on the potential financial risks associated with its emissions of the pollutants that cause global warming.
• Philadelphia Teen Tests Scouts' Policy On Gays

Scout Convention Started Thursday
POSTED: 10:41 p.m. EDT May 29, 2003
UPDATED: 10:44 p.m. EDT May 29, 2003
PHILADELPHIA -- A local Boy Scout council is flying in the face of the national organization when it comes to the issue of homosexuality and one local teen has tested that decision.
• State investigating tons of booze dumped on farm

The Associated Press
MEYERSDALE, Pa. - State environmental officials are considering levying fines and other penalties against whoever dumped more than 145,000 cases of stagnant rum at a western Pennsylvania farm.
• Revealed: the cluster bombs that litter Iraq

Kamal Ahmed, political editor
Sunday June 1, 2003
The Observer
The shocking extent of unexploded cluster bombs dropped by American and British planes, which litter Iraq eight weeks after the conflict, is revealed in detail for the first time today.
• Labor Turns to a Pivotal Organizing Drive

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
AKLAND, Calif.  If the labor movement is to have a future, if it is not to shrink to insignificance, it must unionize workers like Cristina Gomez.
• Florida Repeals 'Scarlet Letter' Adoption Law

By DANA CANEDY
MIAMI, May 30  Gov. Jeb Bush signed a bill today repealing the state's "Scarlet Letter" law that required single women planning to put their infants up for adoption to first publish their sexual histories in a newspaper if they did not know the identity of the father.
• New Jersey Youths Out of Foster Homes End Up in Detention

By RICHARD LEZIN JONES and LESLIE KAUFMAN
Month after month, dozens of teenage foster children in New Jersey remain locked up in the state's array of secure juvenile detention centers often, child welfare officials admit, because there is simply a lack of more appropriate places to put them, and often while officials skirt state laws meant to limit how long children can be held in such places.
• Friday, May 30th, 2003

Exclusive: Democracy Now! Broadcasts a Recording of a Police Sergeant Interrogating a Man Moments After Police Shoot him 5 Times, Paralyzing and Blinding Him.
• Some Back Home Wonder, 'Why Are People Dying?'

By MONICA DAVEY
Somewhere along the way, the military families had stopped bracing so hard for the possibility of terrible news. Baghdad was taken, the statues had toppled, and the war seemed to be winding down. So at home, the relatives of service members said they began to sleep more deeply and to eat again. Some turned off televisions that had run for weeks. A few dared to plan homecoming parties.
• Tax Law Omits Child Credit in Low-Income Brackets

By DAVID FIRESTONE
WASHINGTON, May 28  A last-minute revision by House and Senate leaders in the tax bill that President Bush signed today will prevent millions of minimum-wage families from receiving the increased child credit that is in the measure, say Congressional officials and outside groups.
Follow-up #1:
• The Reverse Robin Hood

By BOB HERBERT
If you wanted a quintessential example of what the Bush administration and its legislative cronies are about, it was right there on the front page of The Times last Thursday:
"Tax Law Omits $400 Child Credit for Millions."
Follow-up #2
• Senate Approves Child Tax Credit in Lower Bracket

By DAVID FIRESTONE
WASHINGTON, June 5 The Senate voted overwhelmingly today to give an increased child tax credit to millions of low-income families who did not receive it in the new tax law, moving rapidly to quell an issue that Democrats had used to portray Republicans as brutish toward the poor.
• Windmills Sow Dissent for Environmentalists

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
THOMAS, W.Va.  Vincent Collins, a lawyer from nearby Morgantown, has been vacationing in this scenic area for 35 years. A few years ago, he bought a 1.2-acre lot near here and planned to build a house on it. But once he saw the windmills, and learned of plans for more, he scrapped that dream.
• BUILDING NATIONS

Issue of 2003-06-09
Posted 2003-06-02
The other day, the Times quoted one of that ever-helpful breed, a “senior administration official,” as expressing surprise at the horrendous condition of Iraq’s “infrastructure,” even before the destruction brought about by the war and its aftermath. “From the outside it looked like Baghdad was a city that works,” the senior official said. “It isn’t.”
• Missing Weapons Of Mass Destruction:

Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense?
By JOHN W. DEAN
Friday, Jun. 06, 2003
President George W. Bush has got a very serious problem. Before asking Congress for a Joint Resolution authorizing the use of American military forces in Iraq, he made a number of unequivocal statements about the reason the United States needed to pursue the most radical actions any nation can undertake - acts of war against another nation.
• Surprise Role for Ex-Senator: Male Breast Cancer Survivor

By LYNETTE CLEMETSON
WARRENTON, Va., June 4 — A loose-fitting shirt hid the scar and concave area that former Senator Edward W. Brooke spoke of as he moved his hand across the space from his right armpit to the center of his chest. In his 83 years, life has held plenty of unexpected turns for Mr. Brooke, the Massachusetts Republican who in 1966 became the first African-American elected to the United States Senate since Reconstruction.
• Bush 'killing women' with pro-life aid

TREVOR GRUNDY
THOUSANDS of African women are being condemned to death because of America’s refusal to give any aid money to health workers giving abortion advice, it was claimed last night.
• House Republicans Rewrite Head Start Provision

By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
WASHINGTON, June 10 — Facing intense criticism as they work to reshape Head Start, House Republicans today rewrote a provision of the bill that had attracted the most opposition from child welfare advocates.
• Unlikely Allies Seek Better Enforcement of Firearms Statutes

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON, June 11 — In an unlikely tandem, gun-control groups and a congressman who has long supported gun rights are pressuring the Justice Department to become more aggressive in prosecuting weapons crimes.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Articles(new ones in red)
• Sick puppies like me will find this funny.
• Not an article, but an interesting website: Blackbox Voting
• Senator Rick Santorum Is A Great Christian Patriot!

A satire
• Fifty-Five Ways for Board Members to Raise $500

The Board of Directors Grassroots Fundraising Journal Reprint Collection by Stephanie Roth and Kim Klein
• Flash animation comparing Hitler & W.

Funny, scary & sad.
• A Historical Look at African Americans in Politics

by Charles Brooks, Political Writer
Part 1
Part 2
• Bush's Resume

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Emails (Forwards/Actions)
• STOP THE FTAA

FAX CONGRESS TO SAY NO TO SECRETIVE FTAA MINI-MINISTERIAL:
http://www.citizen.org/fax/background.cfm?ID=178&source=25
Just when we thought that nothing could be more anti-democratic than the official FTAA process itself, the U.S. Trade Representative Office decides to hold a secretive invitation-only FTAA "mini-ministerial."  Congress has not been notified - even our congressional allies have no idea this is happening!  Under the radar of the press, Congress and the public, the USTR is hosting an invite-only FTAA mini-ministerial at
the exclusive Wye Center in Maryland. This is where President Clinton hosted Yasser Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu in 1998 and where Elian Gonzalez was kept in 1999.  The Wye Center is where the White House goes when it wants absolute secrecy and security - an impregnable meeting complex with water on one side and a one entrance dirt road on the other. Ironically, one agenda item for this mini-ministerial is "discussions on the challenges of engaging the public on the FTAA!"
Of the 34 countries involved in the FTAA, only 15 are invited to participate (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, United States and Uruguay). The press also is locked out of these closed meetings.  And since they are not part of the "official" FTAA process, there is absolutely no accountability
for the USTR to report back to Congress or the public about the proceedings.
The civil society opposition to the FTAA is growing in Latin America, the Caribbean and here at home.  The corporations and the governments that serve them are nervous - the fate of the FTAA hangs in the balance and this mini-ministerial is their chance to corner the key players and bully them into pushing negotiations forward.  Like the
infamous WTO Green Room process- where the powerful countries get together to make backroom deals and then bring agreements that have already been signed, sealed and delivered to developing countries to "approve" - the trick that USTR pulling is the oldest one in the book.
We must force our Congressional representatives do their job by alerting them to this meeting and insisting that they hold USTR accountable for what happens there!
TAKE ACTION!
*CALL your Congressional Representative to alert them to the FTAA mini-ministerial and ask for a written response about what happened at the meeting and their position on the FTAA!   Capitol Switchboard to be connected to your Representative - 202-224-3121
*FAX your Congressional Representative via our website at
http://www.citizen.org/fax/background.cfm?ID=178&source=25
*WRITE a letter to the editor to your local paper
TALKING POINTS FOR CALLS:
*FTAA is NAFTA expansion to 31 more countries. NAFTA has been a disaster for U.S. working families with more than one million jobs lost and public health and safety laws attacked by foreign corporations in closed tribunals.
* "Mini-ministerials" are secretive and anti-democratic -they don't even include all of the FTAA countries! Bad process leads to bad results - a FTAA negotiated in secret will have negative impacts for working families, democracy and the environment.
*Congress should demand NO MORE MINI-MINISTERIALS and decry this lack of transparency on the part of the USTR
*Congress should demand a full briefing from USTR to the Congressional Oversight Group (COG) on trade as well as relevant committees (Ways and Means, Agriculture, etc) as well as hold public hearings on the FTAA.
For more information:  Contact Global Trade Watch at 202-454-5103 or tgerson@citizen.org
Timi Gerson
Organizer/FTAA Coordinator
Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch
215 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, Washington DC, 20003 USA
tgerson@citizen.org & www.tradewatch.org
Ph: + 202-454-5103, Fax: + 202-547 7392
 
 

Photos
 

Iranian asylum-seeker Abas Amini sits  with his eyes, mouth and ears sewn up, at his home in Nottingham in northern England, May 27, 2003. Amani, a political poet and communist activist who fled Iran for Britain two years ago, is on hunger  strike and refusing all medical attention after Britain's Home Office said it would appeal a decision to grant him asylum in the UK.  REUTERS/Darren Staples	A Palestinian girl looks at Israeli army bulldozers flatten the area during army activity to secure the area in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah.  The US warned of possible plots to abduct US citizens in the Gaza Strip.(AFP/Mohammed Abed)
Stephen Myers of Berkeley, Calif., gags his mouth while protesting in front of Clear Channel Communications offices, Thursday, May 29, 2003, in San Francisco.  Protesters in more than a dozen cities urged federal regulators  Thursday to reject changes that would allow large media companies to own television and radio stations and newspapers in the same cities. Protesters say Clear Channel stifles diverse points of view by programming local stations with national shows.  (AP Photo/Ben Margot)	The Aaron's Dream Team pit crew, the first all-female team to compete in a NASCAR touring series, performs a  pit stop at Texas Motor Speedway in  Ft. Worth, Texas, on  Tuesday May 27, 2003.  The team and driver Shawna Robinson are scheduled to compete in three NASCAR Truck Series races. (AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)
Former undisputed world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson denied in a television interview  that he had raped Desiree Washington in 1991 but added he would like to rape her and her mother now (AFP/File/Tannen Maury)	Sultaana Freeman (L) and her husband Abdul-Maalik Freeman speak during a break in Orange County court May 29, 2003 in Orlando, Florida.  Freeman, a Muslim, is battling  for her right to wear a veil  in her Florida driver's license photo. Her license was revoked by state officials who said allowing hidden faces on licenses is a security risk. Freeman believes that taking a photograph of her face would  violate the Quran, the Muslim holy book. Arguments in the suit have concluded and Circuit Judge  Janet Thorpe is expected to rule on the matter next week. REUTERS/Red Huber-POOL








 









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