GIFT
A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that I was once the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.
Berkeley, 1971
I know, I sound like a broken record, but this all gets back to the argument I've been making all year about having a philosophy of government and political power that sees a need to use the power of the state to secure and improve the lives of ordinary citizens. If you simply don't believe that it is so, that public policy should be nothing more than artful structuring of choices (and not mandating that X shall be available for all, regardless), then policy as such loses its punch. One is as good as another, and all are mere bargaining chips in the hunt for bipartisan unity.
Obama could be as old as Methuselah, or even John McCain, and all that experience would not do him a bit of good as long as his campaign is . . . not about what he intends to do for the country.
"They have closely studied suspects, looking for mental quirks. They have suggested lines of questioning. They have helped decide when a confrontation is too intense, or when to push harder. More than those in the other healing professions, psychologists have played a central role in the military and C.I.A. interrogation of people suspected of being enemy combatants.
But now the profession, long divided over this role, is considering whether to make any involvement in military interrogations a violation of its code of ethics.
At the American Psychological Association’s annual meeting this week in Boston, prominent members are denouncing such work as unethical by definition, while other key figures — civilian and military — insist that restricting psychologists’ roles would only make interrogations more likely to harm detainees.
Like other professional organizations, the association has little direct authority to restrict members’ ability to practice. But state licensing boards can suspend or revoke a psychologist’s license, and experts note that these boards often take violations of the association’s ethics code into consideration.
The election for the association’s president is widely seen as a referendum on the issue. Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, plan a protest on Saturday afternoon.
And last week, for the first time, lawyers for a detainee at the United States Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, singled out a psychologist as a critical player in documents alleging abusive treatment.
“It’s really a fight for the soul of the profession,” said Brad Olson, a psychologist at Northwestern University, who has circulated a petition among members to place a moratorium on such consulting.
Others strongly disagree. “The vast majority of military psychologists know the ethics code and know exactly what they can and cannot do,” said William J. Strickland, who represents the Society for Military Psychology before the association’s council. “This is a fight about individual psychologists’ behavior, and we should keep it there.”
At the center of the debate are the military’s behavioral science consultation teams, informally known as biscuits, made up of psychologists and others who assist in interrogations. Little is known about these units, including the number of psychologists who take part. Neither the military nor the team members have disclosed many details.
Defenders of that role insist that the teams are crucial in keeping interrogations safe, effective and legal. Critics say their primary purpose is to help break detainees, using methods that might violate international law.
In court documents filed Thursday, lawyers for the Guantánamo detainee Mohammed Jawad asserted that a psychologist’s report helped land Mr. Jawad, a teenager at the time, in a segregation cell, where he became increasingly desperate.
According to the documents, the psychologist, whose name has not been released, completed an assessment of Mr. Jawad after he was seen talking to a poster on his cell wall. [Someone noticed Jawad was having psychotic symptoms] Shortly thereafter, in September 2003, he was isolated from other detainees [a really wrong thing to do with someone you have noticed is having psychotic symptoms] and many of his requests to see an interrogator were ignored. He later attempted suicide [what a surprise] , according to the filing, which asks that the case be dismissed on the ground of abusive treatment.
The Guantánamo court is reviewing the case. Military lawyers have denied that Mr. Jawad suffered any mental health problems from his interrogation [tell it to the Marines]. On Thursday, the psychologist in the case invoked Article 31 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the military’s equivalent of the Fifth Amendment.
“This is what it’s come to,” said Steven Reisner, an assistant clinical professor at the New York University School of Medicine and a leading candidate for the presidency of the psychological association. “We have psychologists taking the Fifth.”
Dr. Reisner has based his candidacy on “a principled stance against our nation’s policy of using psychologists to oversee abusive and coercive interrogations” at Guantánamo and the so-called black sites operated by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The psychological association’s most recent ethics amendments strongly condemn coercive techniques adopted in the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism campaign. But its current guidelines covering practice conclude that “it is consistent with the A.P.A. ethics code for psychologists to serve in consultative roles to interrogation and information-gathering processes for national-security-related purposes,” as long as they do not participate in any of 19 coercive procedures, including waterboarding, the use of hoods and any physical assault."
But the children were all from the Han Chinese majority, which makes up more than 90 per cent of the population and is culturally and politically dominant, according to an official with the cultural troupe from which they were selected.
"I assume they think the kids were very natural looking and nice," Yuan Zhifeng, deputy director of the Galaxy Children's Art Troupe said.
The little girl who starred at the Olympic opening ceremony was [LIP-SYNCHING] and only put on stage because the real singer was not considered attractive enough, the show's musical director has revealed.
Pigtailed Lin Miaoke was selected to appear because of her cute appearance and did not sing a note, Chen Qigang, the general music designer of the ceremony, said in an interview with a state broadcaster aired Tuesday.
Photographs of Lin in a bright red party dress were published in newspapers and websites all over the world and the official China Daily hailed her as a rising star on Tuesday.
But Chen said the girl whose voice was actually heard by the 91,000 capacity crowd at the Olympic stadium during the spectacular ceremony was in fact seven-year-old Yang Peiyi, who has a chubby face and uneven teeth.
"The reason why little Yang was not chosen to appear was because we wanted to project the right image, we were thinking about what was best for the nation," Chen said in an interview that appeared briefly on the news website Sina.com before it was apparently wiped from the Internet in China.
Lin was seen to perform the patriotic song "Ode to the Motherland" as China's national flag was carried into the stadium, a key moment in the three hour ceremony.
"The reason was for the national interest. The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feelings, and expression," said Chen, a renowned contemporary composer and French citizen.
"Lin Miaoke is excellent in those aspects. But in terms of voice, Yang Peiyi is perfect, each member of our team agreed," he said.
He said the final decision to stage the event with Lin lip-synching to another girl's voice was taken after a senior member of China's ruling Communist Party politburo attended a rehearsal.
"He told us there was a problem that we needed to fix it, so we did," he said, without disclosing further details of the order.
In the two months since Barack Obama captured the Democratic nomination, he has hit a ceiling in public opinion polling, proving unable to make significant gains with any segment of the national electorate.Will Obama be getting over himself anytime soon?
While Obama still leads in most matchups with John McCain, the Illinois senator’s apparent stall in the polls is a sobering reminder to Democrats intoxicated with his campaign’s promises to expand the electoral map beyond the boundaries that have constrained other recent party nominees.
That gap between expectations and reality comes as Democrats enjoy the most favorable political winds since at least 1976. At least eight in ten Americans believe the nation is on the wrong track. The Republican president is historically unpopular. From stunning Democratic gains in party registration to the high levels of economic anxiety, Obama should have a healthy lead by almost every measure. Yet, in poll after poll, Obama conspicuously fails to cross the 50 percent threshold.
ABC News Polling Director Gary Langer asked, “If everything is so good for Barack Obama, why isn’t everything so good for Barack Obama?”
HOUSTON, Texas -- The wife of megachurch evangelist Joel Osteen told jurors Friday that she was "dumbfounded" and "shook up" after a flight attendant accused her of assaulting her over a spill on a first-class seat. Victoria Osteen and her husband, Joel Osteen, testified at the trial Friday in Houston, Texas. . .
Continental Airlines flight attendant Sharon Brown claims that Osteen grabbed, elbowed and pushed her before the start of a 2005 flight to Vail, Colorado. Osteen and her husband, who also had been on board and testified earlier Friday, denied that account.
"I love people. I'm guilty of that," Osteen said.
Dressed in an orange pant suit, Osteen was animated while testifying, often moving her hands while she talked. A couple of times during her testimony, she cried.
Joel Osteen called the incident "an unfortunate misunderstanding." He testified that his wife never raised her voice or grabbed the flight attendants, though he said he could not hear his wife's voice from his seat.
"We would never disrespect authority or disrespect" the flight attendant, Joel Osteen said.
The couple are co-pastors of Houston's Lakewood Church, a converted basketball arena that draws about 42,000 people each week. Joel Osteen's weekly television address is broadcast nationally and internationally, and he has written books that have been sold around the globe.
On Thursday, another flight attendant on the plane, Maria Johnson, testified that Victoria Osteen demanded special attention to clean up a half-dollar-sized spill on her armrest.
When Victoria Osteen didn't get her way, Johnson testified, the passenger became verbally and physically abusive to both flight attendants. She said Osteen eventually grabbed Brown by the shoulders, elbowed her in the chest and pushed her out of the way in an attempt to get into the cockpit.
But both Joel and Victoria Osteen, who were called to the witness stand by Brown's attorney, disputed Johnson's testimony.
Victoria Osteen said that when she first told a flight attendant about the spill, she was handed some napkins. She said she responded, " 'It's not my job.' I didn't say it in an ugly tone of voice."
Victoria Osteen denied Johnson's claim that she later grabbed Johnson and pulled her in order to have her see the spill.
Victoria Osteen said she tends to talk with her hands. She said that when she was talking with Brown, she was holding her sunglasses but did not point them at the flight attendant.
Victoria Osteen told jurors that Brown's response was to fling her hands at her and accuse her of pointing and pushing the flight attendant.
"It freaked me out. I asked a simple question," she said.
Brown claims in her lawsuit that after pushing her, Victoria Osteen tried to get into the cockpit. Victoria Osteen denied that, telling jurors she just wanted to get away from the situation.
"I was already freaked out because she was accusing me of stuff I didn't do," she said. "I was dumbfounded."
Victoria Osteen said she told Brown, "If I've done something to offend you, I'm sorry" and then got some napkins and went back and cleaned up the spill.
Reginald McKamie, Brown's attorney, asked Joel Osteen why he said in one of his religious messages that if it wasn't for him, his wife would be in prison.
Osteen said he meant it to be a comical statement about the differences between him and his wife, that he likes routine and considers himself boring while his wife is outgoing and likes to go to new restaurants and new places.
"You don't go to jail because you like different restaurants, do you?" McKamie asked, as the packed courtroom laughed. . .
Some detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba will likely never be released because of the danger they pose, and those tried and acquitted will still be subject to continued detention as enemy combatants, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday.
Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, made the remarks as Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni, awaited a verdict in the first war crimes trial to be held under a special regime created for "war on terror" suspects.
Morrell said Hamdan, a former driver of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, could appeal the verdict in US courts.
"But in the near term, at least, we would consider him an enemy combatant and still a danger and would likely still be detained for some period of time thereafter," he said.
Morrell said there were plans for at least 20 more such trials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba but he said a significant portion of the detainees being held there would neither be tried nor released.
He said efforts were being made to reduce the size of the population through transfers of prisoners to their home countries for incarceration or release.
"But I think, you know, there are still a significant population within Guantanamo who will likely never be released because of the threat they pose to the world, for that matter," he said.
If we rely on ordinary, dualistic mind, we cannot have deep and lasting love either for our equals or for less fortunate beings, because ordinary dualistic mind depends on the uncertainty of temporary circumstances.
If we believe that mind is continuous, our love for others becomes continuous. If we recognize this continuity, we do not trust temporary, tangible circumstances or take them too seriously.
If we believe in the continuity of mind, then love inconspicuously connects us to the ones we love with continuous positive energy, so that even tangible separations between people who love each other do not reduce the intangible power of love. This love is automatically enduring since it is not easily affected by circumstances.
If we can keep from grasping at others with the selfish fear of losing them, or the hope of possessing them through the unawareness of our ordinary, dualistic mind, then the energy of love increases and its quality of giving energy to others opens and expands. The positive habit of continuity is created by not depending on what occurs each moment as if it were the only moment.
By believing in the continuity of mind, we acknowledge the continuity of all circumstances, including our experiences of love, which are not just for one moment or for one life.
A 31-year-old man killed his girlfriend on the Greek island of Santorini on Sunday, beheaded her, then fled in a patrol car, a local official said.
During the ensuing chase, the suspect was shot five times by police and ran over two women doctors who were riding a motorcycle before he was caught, the official said.
The suspect, Athanassios Arvanitis, a cook at a local restaurant, is undergoing surgery at an island hospital, Chrysanthos Roussos, head of the Santorini district, said.
Neighbours said Arvanitis beheaded his girlfriend's dog with a butcher knife following a heated argument. He then killed and beheaded his girlfriend.
The victim, 25-year-old Adamantia Karkali, worked as a teacher at a local village . . .
Initially, Arvanitis roamed the village of Vourvoulos exhibiting the woman's head, neighbours said. Townspeople said they locked themselves in their homes and called the police.
When a policeman tried to handcuff him, the suspect knifed the officer and flung the victim's head into a patrol car. . . . .
For days before Danieal Kelly died in a fetid, airless room - made stifling hot by a midsummer heat wave - the bedridden teenager begged for something to drink until she could muster only one word: water.
Unable to help herself because of her cerebral palsy, she wasted away from malnutrition and maggot-infested bedsores that ate her flesh. She died alone on a putrid mattress in her mother's home, the floor covered in feces. She was 14 but weighed just 19.05 kg.
The nightmare of forced starvation and infection that killed Danieal while she was under the protection of the [Philadelphia, PA] city's human services agency is documented in a 258-page grand jury report released this week that charges nine people - her parents, four social workers and three family friends - in her ghastly death.
The report describes a mother, Andrea Kelly, who was embarrassed by her disabled daughter and didn't want to touch her, take her out in public, change her nappies or make sure she had enough fluids. It portrays Daniel Kelly, the father who once had custody of Danieal, as having no interest in raising her.
And it accuses the city Department of Human Services of being "uncaring and incompetent."
"It was this indifference that helped kill Danieal Kelly," an angry District Attorney Lynne Abraham said. "How is it possible for this to have happened?"
The report should "outrage the entire Philadelphia community" and bring about "earth-shattering, cataclysmic changes" at the Department of Human Services, Abraham said.
Andrea Kelly, 39, the only defendant charged with murder, was ordered held today without bail. The social workers - suspected of falsifying home visits and progress reports in the case - face charges ranging from child endangerment to involuntary manslaughter. The family friends are accused of lying to the grand jury about the girl's condition before her death . . .[and the story actually gets worse . . . .]
A House panel voted Wednesday to cite Karl Rove, formerly President Bush's top aide, for contempt of Congress as its Senate counterpart explored punishment for alleged misdeeds by other administration officials.
But it was not clear that the Democrats controlling a lame-duck Congress will push their case for abuse of power against a lame-duck president beyond televised talk and vague threats just a few weeks shy of final adjournment. As a practical matter, lawmakers have little time and less willingness to follow through on most charges, let alone punishments, before Bush leaves office.
They're finding plenty of time and political purpose, however, for public reviews of what Democrats say is the abuse of power and politicization across the Bush administration. Rove and the Justice Department starred in Wednesday's proceedings.
IN A WAR RIDDLED WITH LIES, PVT. LAVENA JOHNSON "COMMITTED SUICIDE" AND "WAS NOT BRUTALLY RAPED AND MURDERED" We Don't Agree.
by Meg White
"They don't care. They put on a uniform and they say honor and integrity and they have no morals, no honor and no integrity, and I don't even know how to sleep at night.
--Linda Johnson, mother of Pvt. LaVena Johnson
Pvt. LaVena Johnson, 19, was so excited to tell her mother that she was definitely going to be home from Iraq for Christmas, her favorite time of year. The next day, she was dead.
The military's casualty liaison told the Johnson family she committed suicide, found dead in her barracks with a gunshot wound to the head. However, two separate contacts told LaVena's father, Dr. John Johnson, that she was found dead in a contractor's tent. Allegedly, a trail of blood led from the contractor's tent into her tent, suggesting she was dragged there. Her tent was lit on fire, according to the witness who found her body.
A US woman shot herself shortly after faxing a letter to her mortgage company saying that, by the time it foreclosed on her house, she would be dead.
Police said 53-year-old mother Carlene Balderrama used her husband's high-powered rifle to kill herself shortly after faxing the letter at 2.30pm (4.30am AEST) on Wednesday.
Her husband had petitioned unsuccessfully for bankruptcy three times.
The mortgage company phoned police in Taunton, Massachusetts, who found Mrs Balderrama's body an hour later.
The auction was scheduled to start at 5pm and interested buyers arrived at the property while her body was still inside, Taunton police chief Raymond O'Berg said.
I supported Hillary Clinton and am proud and pleased that I did. But she lost. Barack Obama won. It's over.
It is time for all Democrats, supporters of Senator Clinton and all other contenders for the nomination, to stand with him to secure his election and the election of Democrats at all levels of competition.
I must confess a bit of fatigue and irritation with people who continue to carp, complain, and criticize the results of the primary and lay down conditions for their support. The Los Angeles Lakers didn't establish conditions to recognize the Boston Celtics as NBA Champions; Roger Federer did not demand concessions before recognizing that Rafael Nadal defeated him at Wimbledon.
It is time to act in a mature and resourceful fashion. It's time to put the primaries behind us. It's time to support Barack Obama without conditions or demands.
nothing is quite so effective as using Roe v. Wade as This Issue, thusly reframing the argument from "Vote for the Democrat to get what you want" to "Vote for the Democrat to not lose what you've got."
It's a nasty little bit of blackmail, which fails utterly to take into consideration that the veiled threat of losing legal abortion because of one's uncompromising belief in one's own equality and autonomy is so bitterly ironic that it would be laughable if it were not so profoundly sad.
Instead of demonstrations of commitment to protecting Roe as one among many commitments to the basic feminist principle of women's equality, we are meant instead to be motivated by menace and intimidation.
We're supposed to gleefully hop on board with people who ominously warn that failure to do so will evoke tragedy by our own hands -- and, if we succumb, we find that even asking for basic respect, for sexist words and images and behaviors to not be used, is considered too much, an impertinence.
WEBSTER – A child abuse suspect who police say repeatedly threw her 8-year-old stepdaughter down a flight of stairs was arrested yesterday in Florida.
Cara LeBlanc, 29, will face charges of first-degree assault and criminal restraint when she returns to New Hampshire, police said.
WBBH-TV in Fort Myers reports that Cara LeBlanc waived extradition in a court hearing this morning.
Webster police Lt. Phil Mitchell said the girl suffered kidney and liver damage, three broken vertebrae in her neck and three broken ribs as a result of the attack Thursday.
"I've never seen a child-abuse case this severe,'' he said yesterday. [Note from NBFH: I have.]
The girl's body was also covered with black and blue welts from having been repeatedly whipped with a belt over a nine-hour period Thursday, he said. The beating ended when the belt broke, police said.
Police say LeBlanc dragged the girl up the stairs by her hair seven times, then pushed her down each time. Leblanc also tied the child to a door by her hands and feet and force-fed her cereal during the ordeal, police said.
Mitchell said the girl was originally listed in critical condition at Boston Children's Hospital.
"She's getting better and is expected to recover, but it's going to take some time before she's well again,'' he said.
Police interviewed her Monday at the hospital.
The girl's father, Dan LeBlanc, took her to Concord Hospital Saturday, police said. Professionals there called police.
She was later taken to Boston for treatment of liver and kidney problems.
Two other children who were in the home during the assault -- a 7-year-old boy who police say is LeBlanc's biological child and a 5-year-old girl -- were not harmed. Mitchell said the state Division for Children, Youth and Families received a court order Monday to take custody of the children.
This is not the first abuse allegation investigated at the LeBlanc home, Mitchell said. Two years ago, police filed a complaint with state officials, but an investigation concluded it was unfounded.
More recently, a complaint was filed with the DCF by a former high school boyfriend of Leblanc's, Bill, who asked that his last name not be used.
He said LeBlanc is the mother of his 11-year-old daughter, who has lived with him for the past several years but still visits LeBlanc.
In March, he said, his daughter told him the 5-year-old was punished by being made to run up and down the stairs of LeBlanc's home for 20 minutes without stopping. The girl was also locked in her room from time to time, Bill said.
"I reported it to the state, but they said it was unfounded,'' he said.
"What is Christian Domestic Discipline?
A domestic discipline marriage is one in which one partner in the marriage is given authority over the other and has the means to back the authority, usually by spanking.
A Christian Domestic Discipline marriage is one that is set up according to Biblical standards; that is, the husband is the authority in the household. The wife is submissive to her husband as is fit in the Lord and her husband loves her as himself. He has the ultimate authority in his household, but it is tempered with the knowledge that he must answer to God for his actions and decisions. . . .
CDD is so much more than just spanking. It is the husband loving the wife enough to guide and teach her, and the wife loving the husband enough to follow his leadership. A Christian marriage embodies true romance and a Christian man a true hero.
Though this seems unusual in today's United States, this kind of marriage has been practiced throughout history and is still practiced in many parts of the world today."
Corner time: An alternative form of punishment where a wife is required to stand facing a corner, often with her bottom on display, before, during, or after a spanking.
Diaper Position: Spanking position where wife lies on her back with her legs raised upwards toward her head.
