Support from an indigenous community from Ecuador for another indigenous tribe in Louisiana that has been affected by the spill

McChrystal's PR man resigns, how Rolling Stone got more access
From NBC's Jim Miklaszewski and Richard Engel
--msnbc.com--

A senior military official tells NBC News that Duncan Boothby, a civilian on Gen. McChrystal's public relations staff who was apparently responsible for setting up the Rolling Stone interview, has resigned. The official adds, however, that it appears Boothby was "asked to resign." In addition, NBC spoke to Michael Hastings, the author of the Rolling Stone profile on McChrystal. He's in Afghanistan on an embed with the U.S. military now, and he's just learning the details about the impact his article is having. Hastings says he stumbled onto unprecedented access with McChrystal. After McChrystal's press advisers accepted a request for the profile, Hastings joined McChrystal and his team in Paris. It was supposed to be a two-day visit, followed up with more time in Afghanistan.

The volcano in Iceland, however, changed those plans. As the ash disrupted air travel, Hastings ended up being "stuck" with McChrystal and his team for 10 days in Paris and Berlin. McChrystal had to get to Berlin by bus. Hastings says McChrystal and his aides were drinking on the road trip "the whole way." "They let loose," he said. "I don't blame them; they have a hard job." Hastings then traveled with McChrystal in Afghanistan for more time. What was supposed to be a two-day visit, turned into a month, in part due to disruptions of the volcano. Hastings says McChrystal was very "candid" with him and knew their conversations were for reporting purposes. "Most of the time I had a tape recorder in his face or a notebook in my hand," he said. Hastings says most of the critical comments, which are now causing a stir, were said in the first 24 hours or so. "It wasn't a case of charming him into anything," Hastings said.

Theory, John Ruskin
--wiki--

Pathetic Fallacy

He invented this term to describe the ascription of human emotions to impersonal natural forces, as in "the wind sighed".

Fors Clavigera

Ruskin gave this name to a series of letters he wrote to workmen during the 1870s. The phrase was intended to designate three great powers which go to fashion human destiny. These were: Force, symbolised by the club (clava) of Hercules; Fortitude, symbolised by the key (clavis) of Ulysses; and Fortune, symbolised by the nail (clavus) of Lycurgus. These three powers (the "fors") together represent human talents and abilities to choose the right moment and then to strike with energy. The concept is derived from Shakespeare's phrase "There is a tide in the affairs of men/ Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune". Ruskin believed that the letters were inspired by the Third Fors: striking out at the right moment.

Modern Atheism

Ruskin applied this label to the unfortunate persistence of the clergy in teaching children what they cannot understand, and in employing young consecrate persons to assert in pulpits what they do not know.

The Want of England

"England needs," says Ruskin, "examples of people who, leaving Heaven to decide whether they are to rise in the world, decide for themselves that they will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek, not greater wealth, but simpler pleasures; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity; making the first of possessions self-possession, and honouring themselves in the harmless pride and calm pursuits of peace."

Illth

Used by and after Ruskin as the reverse of wealth in the sense of ‘well-being’: Ill-being.

ZIMBABWE BLOOD DIAMONDS: THE SENSATIONAL MR ABBEY CHIKANE
By Anonymous

The Kimberly Process (KP) designed to thwart the sale and circulation of diamonds sourced from civilian conflicts with horrific humanitarian consequences is due to meet on 23 June 2010 in Israel [9] to consider putting in place certification for industrial and gem diamond from the Marange-Chiadzwa field in Zimbabwe [5].

Credible research and reports from humanitarian organisations, academics and NGOs indicate wide scale, systematic human rights abuses including random killings, precautionary murder, malicious wounding, torture, forced population removals, mass dispossession and inhumane exploitation by the Zimbabwean military (ZNA), Police (ZRP) and intelligence agencies most notably the Central Intelligence Organization (ZCIO). [2][8][12][16]. All are in reality organs exclusively loyal to the Zimbabwean president and his party in power since independence from Britain in 1980.

The turmoil of Zimbabwean politics complicates the affair where a 'Unity Government' between Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU(pf) and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has divided ministries between the two camps after a controversial election in April 2008. [3][8]Former South African president, Thabo Mbeki, in the thrall of his Zimbabwean counterpart, brokered the Global Political Agreement just before loosing office when own ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), booted him out. He now works on the Darfur crisis, Sudan for an American NGO.

The current Mines Minister, Obert Mpofu is from ZANU (pf) and his deputy a MDC patron going by the sobriquet 'dazzle me'. on account of his willingness to receive consideration for licenses to prospect and process resources such as emerald, gold, tin (stannic ore) and diamond amongst others [10]. Mpofu, of the minority Ndebele tribe is held in some esteem by Mugabe of the majority Shona tribe for being supposedly able to deliver a voting constituency in Matabeleland North in the Ndebele heartland. Mpofu is central to the parallel economy run by Mugabe and ZANU(pf) in funding covert ZCIO operations, the Presidential Guard and the ZANU(pf) party apparatus ahead of national elections next year [14].

Gold holds the disadvantage of its weight to value ratio unlike diamond, which being a form of carbon, is easily moveable when concealed on human beings across international borders - hence it being the preferred mode of moving wealth for operational purposes by exceptional regimes and violent extremists.

While rampant inflation of six million percent in 2008 effectively reduced the local Zimbabwean dollar to a joke [3]; the needs of these repressive arms of the Mugabe state apparatus had to seek operational funding anew from two principle mining resources: gold amalgam and gem diamond [4]. As much as forty percent of the ZCIO budget is believed to be focused on its operations and missions across South Africa where it consistently outclasses its technologically advanced 'sister services' the South African Secret Service (SASS) concerned with foreign operations and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) with domestic operations.

The new MDC finance minister, Tendai Biti, dropped the Zimbabwean dollar in 2009 for the American dollar in order to stem inflation. ZANU(pf) secured to itself the ministries with control of the pivotal levers of state: defence, policing, domestic administration and the intelligence organs. The MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangarai, given the post of Prime Minsiter, under the baleful influence of his 'American, political mother guru' Melinda Ferris, opted for performance ministries such as the economy, finances, and social services. Ferris is a close associate, fund raiser and campaigner of Libby Dole, wife of Republican Bob Dole, who lost her US Senate seat in North Carolina during the Obama electoral surge in 2008. MDC supporters find Ferris to have been a 'huge disaster' and have balked at referring to her, as instructed, as 'Mother Zimbabwe'. Ferris continues to try and have the Obama administration unconditionally lift the limited measures taken by the USA, Britain and Australia against Mugabe and his party seniors (ban on travel and banking) - without success, hardly surprising given the conservative US Republican agenda for Zimbabwe through her and Morgan Tsvangarai.

Before the Marange alluvial depositions in the Odzi river valley were made subject to mass, informal mining, by locals call Gwejas on a formally pegged and utilized claim held by African Consolidated Resources (ACR), a British firm run by Brian Bloch (Israeli- Rhodesian) and Andrew Cranswick ( Southern Rhodesian), Zimbabwe's sole diamond mine that paid royalties and taxes to Harare's coffers was Morewa Mine, owned by Rio Tinto [3][8][16]. Clandestine takings of gem diamond off Morewa between 2006 and 2009 and used by ZANU (pf) Political Bureau, ZCIO, ZRP and some ZNA (Presidential Guard) ended once Rio Tinto started to monitor its work force with X-ray scans, body searches and the erection of electronic barriers and cameras around the sorting rooms and washed ore tables. The ZANU (pf) focus then moved to Marange-Chiadzwa.

The first step was to 'lawfully' dispossess ACR of its claim [1][5]. A series of arrests and oscillating court decisions saw Cranswick detained, diamond seized (part of the KP tranche to now be discussed in Israel) and him forced to leave for Britain. Bloch who better plays an ingratiating role within ZANU(pf) than the headstrong Cranswick, continues to have presence in Harare, though no longer on-site in Marange. The ZNA moved onto Marange with ZCIO and ZRP support with the attendant human rights abuses in 2006 and the construction of an all-weather runway for heavy-lift aircraft disproportionate to mining needs[8][14].

The one impasse beyond ZANU (pf) control was the KP certification process [5][12]. Marange-Chiadzwa diamond could not be moved across formal mechanisms sufficiently fast enough to meet the funding drive of the parallel economy. Industrial stones were stockpiled while some of the gem, and more realiseable, were immediately fed into Islamic circles in Mozambique [4] through Mutare, Chimoio, Beira, the UAE [7], Pakistan (Karachi), southern Lebanon [4] and India (Mumbai). Mugabe and Mpofu felt NGOs, with the Mutare-based Center for Research & Development [12] in particular, were targeting their funding conduits and started targeting them in turn for 'indirect action' and sidelining. The MDC with Morgan Tsvangarai and Melinda Ferris decided to not hold an opinion.

Meanwhile an ANC military veteran (MK) and former exile intelligence officer NAT/DIS(ANC) Abbey Chikane was selected to look into the KP process specifically on the Marange stockpile and future mining [1]. Mpofu bridled at the delays [11] and hinted the Morewa source would be shut down if the KP certification was not extended to Marange. At the beginning of April 2010 Mpofu had to explain why some of the Marange diamond was already finding its way to the middle east in violation of KP [13]. European and American security officials feared Taliban and Al Qaeda funders were now beneficiaries. However, the more obvious increase in covert activity was ZCIO operations across South Africa with the new Marange sales in Dubai [4][7].

A shift in the South African position seemed evident in February this year when the Director General of Foreign Affairs, George Nene, in an internal report urged the KP certification be granted to Marange diamond as a matter of policy. Nene and Chikane are familiar to each other in MK Veterans and confidants. NGOs were convinced that ZANU (pf) had brought off ANC office bearers yet again.

Another MK Veteran, misidentified by Chikane in a later expose within the official Second KP Report on Marange [1], the basis of the upcoming deliberations in Israel, as 'Pule Mmutle' arranged a meeting in late April with Cranswick who wanted an audience with Chikane to explain ACR's legal claims [1]. Mutle, without taking any side on the ACR dispute, was said by persons in the South African Presidency to have had personal concerns over a friend hardly being mindful of his own position and forgetting himself in a delicate matter as a former 'movement cadre'. ZCIO who have a partial audio record of this meeting (standoff microphoning), presumably after tracking Cranswick's movements when in South Africa, were astounded reportedly to hear Chikane declare to Cranswick he was a British MI6 agent based on briefings they had given him in Harare months before. Cranswick is said to have shrugged off the accusation as an absurdity and being 'highly agitated in general throughout'. Chikane compounded ZCIO consternation by revealing more to Cranswick during which a second meeting with Cranswick was arranged before he left for Harare. ZCIO failed to record this meeting and were keen to 'interact' with Chikane when he arrived in the Zimbabwean capital. There Chikane later claimed his briefcase was broken into and the contents appeared in the Harare Herald newspaper, a notorious ZANU (pf) mouthpiece. There Chikane claimed the Cranswick meeting was an ambush[1] among other matters [1][6a][6b].

The gratuitous Mmutle reference appeared in the Herald article and more ominously the name of a CDR director, Farai Muguwu, who had given Chikane a government security document indicating human rights abuses and killings at Marange [15]. This report pulled the carpet from under the central arguement of Chikane's KP Certification recommendation that no humanitarian issues were at risk at Marange and hence certification ought to go ahead. Chikane later admitted in a Voice of America interview [6a][6b] having given the Muguwu document to ZCIO but denies, despite the Muguwu's assertions to the contrary, the identity of the provender. Muguwu has since been arrested, currently in detention presumably under torture. The veracity of the document's contents was acknowledged as 'authentic' by Chikane in the VOA recording [6a][6b].

H'aretz newspaper (Israel) and the South African weekly, Mail & Guardian through writer Jason Moyo, then reran the Herald expose after ZCIO pushed for coverage in order to bolster Chikane's position. This reportedly caused in turn a 'strident low-key blast' by Mmutle to the editor of the Mail & Guardian according to journalists in its Johannesburg offices last Tuesday 15 June with threat of referral to the Press Ombudsman in Pretoria. Mmutle is widely respected across ANC structures as a loyal combatant against apartheid and unluckily for Chikane, his integrity is regarded as unimpeachable by the senior security and political leadership. The same integrity acceptance for Muguwu obtains among the United Nations Organisation staffers, foreign embassies and NGOs in Harare now incensed at his arrest and suffering, and who are set against Chikane's advice to view his actions on Muguwu "in a legal context". To compound it all, Chikane had to endure a tele-conference on Monday 14 June with KP representatives, now alerted, who stated his recommendations on Marange will not necessarily now be accepted without rigorous questioning in Israel on 23 June.

1. Kimberly Process (KP) on Zimbabwean Diamond (2nd report)(14 June 2010) (PDF, 979KB) http://cryptome.org/kimberly/kimberly-001.pdf

2. Africa Canada report: Diamonds & Clubs (released London,14June 2010) (PDF, 1MB) http://cryptome.org/kimberly/kimberly-002.pdf

3. United Nations Development Report on Zimbabwean Diamond (2009) (PDF, 1.1MB) http://cryptome.org/kimberly/kimberly-003.pdf

4. Center for Development & Research(Mutare) report on panning and smuggling diamond Zimbabwe-Mozambique (PDF, 102KB) http://cryptome.org/kimberly/kimberly-004.pdf

5. Zimbabwean Ministry inventories Marange diamond (March 2009) (PDF, 4.4MB) http://cryptome.org/kimberly/kimberly-005.pdf

6a.Text VOA interview Abbey Chikane (Tuesday 8 June 2010) (PDF, 27KB) http://cryptome.org/kimberly/kimberly-006a.pdf

6b.Voice (MP3) VOA interview Abbey Chikane (Tuesday 8 June 2010) (MP3, 807KB) http://cryptome.org/kimberly/kimberly-006b.pdf

7. Marange diamond exporters/importers to Dubai (Zimbabwean Ministry Mines 2010) (XLS, 34KB) http://cryptome.org/kimberly/kimberly-007.pdf

8. Global Witness Report imploring Marange diamond not be KP approved (June 2010) (PDF, 1.4MB) http://cryptome.org/kimberly/kimberly-008.pdf

9. Israeli Ministry warning on Marange diamond (6 May 2010) (PDF, 246KB) http://cryptome.org/kimberly/kimberly-009.pdf

10.Emerald scam to move Marange Diamond - Diamond Intelligence Brief (12 may 2010) (PDF, 740KB) http://cryptome.org/kimberly/kimberly-0010.pdf

11.Zimbabwe Ministry (Obert Mpofu) impatience at KP certification delay (20 April 2010) (PDF, 1.5MB) http://cryptome.org/kimberly/kimberly-0011.pdf

12. Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights on diamond in Chiadzwa (2009) (PDF, 268KB) http://cryptome.org/kimberly/kimberly-0012.pdf

13. Zimbabwean Ministry (Mpofu) damage-limitation on covert Marange supply (28 April 2010) (PDF, 1.1MB) http://cryptome.org/kimberly/kimberly-0013.pdf

14. University Researcher's notes on Marange Diamond for European Union NGOs (5 August 2010) (PDF, 45KB) http://cryptome.org/kimberly/kimberly-0014.pdf

15. Muguwu leaked Zim Joint Operations Command (JOC) report Marange (7 May 2010) (PDF, 643KB) http://cryptome.org/kimberly/kimberly-0015.pdf

16. Heart of the Matter (Partnership Canada Africa) Diamond overview (2010) (PDF, 713KB) http://cryptome.org/kimberly/kimberly-0016.pdf

The President and the Press: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association
President John F. Kennedy
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
New York City, April 27, 1961

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:

I appreciate very much your generous invitation to be here tonight.

You bear heavy responsibilities these days and an article I read some time ago reminded me of how particularly heavily the burdens of present day events bear upon your profession.

You may remember that in 1851 the New York Herald Tribune under the sponsorship and publishing of Horace Greeley, employed as its London correspondent an obscure journalist by the name of Karl Marx.

We are told that foreign correspondent Marx, stone broke, and with a family ill and undernourished, constantly appealed to Greeley and managing editor Charles Dana for an increase in his munificent salary of $5 per installment, a salary which he and Engels ungratefully labeled as the "lousiest petty bourgeois cheating."

But when all his financial appeals were refused, Marx looked around for other means of livelihood and fame, eventually terminating his relationship with the Tribune and devoting his talents full time to the cause that would bequeath the world the seeds of Leninism, Stalinism, revolution and the cold war.

If only this capitalistic New York newspaper had treated him more kindly; if only Marx had remained a foreign correspondent, history might have been different. And I hope all publishers will bear this lesson in mind the next time they receive a poverty-stricken appeal for a small increase in the expense account from an obscure newspaper man.

I have selected as the title of my remarks tonight "The President and the Press." Some may suggest that this would be more naturally worded "The President Versus the Press." But those are not my sentiments tonight.

It is true, however, that when a well-known diplomat from another country demanded recently that our State Department repudiate certain newspaper attacks on his colleague it was unnecessary for us to reply that this Administration was not responsible for the press, for the press had already made it clear that it was not responsible for this Administration.

Nevertheless, my purpose here tonight is not to deliver the usual assault on the so-called one party press. On the contrary, in recent months I have rarely heard any complaints about political bias in the press except from a few Republicans. Nor is it my purpose tonight to discuss or defend the televising of Presidential press conferences. I think it is highly beneficial to have some 20,000,000 Americans regularly sit in on these conferences to observe, if I may say so, the incisive, the intelligent and the courteous qualities displayed by your Washington correspondents.

Nor, finally, are these remarks intended to examine the proper degree of privacy which the press should allow to any President and his family.

If in the last few months your White House reporters and photographers have been attending church services with regularity, that has surely done them no harm.

On the other hand, I realize that your staff and wire service photographers may be complaining that they do not enjoy the same green privileges at the local golf courses that they once did.

It is true that my predecessor did not object as I do to pictures of one's golfing skill in action. But neither on the other hand did he ever bean a Secret Service man.

My topic tonight is a more sober one of concern to publishers as well as editors.

I want to talk about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger. The events of recent weeks may have helped to illuminate that challenge for some; but the dimensions of its threat have loomed large on the horizon for many years. Whatever our hopes may be for the future--for reducing this threat or living with it--there is no escaping either the gravity or the totality of its challenge to our survival and to our security--a challenge that confronts us in unaccustomed ways in every sphere of human activity.

This deadly challenge imposes upon our society two requirements of direct concern both to the press and to the President--two requirements that may seem almost contradictory in tone, but which must be reconciled and fulfilled if we are to meet this national peril. I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.

I

The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.

But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own standards, and to recognize the nature of our country's peril. In time of war, the government and the press have customarily joined in an effort based largely on self-discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In time of "clear and present danger," the courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public's need for national security.

Today no war has been declared--and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops, no missiles have been fired.

If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger," then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent.

It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions--by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.

Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.

Nevertheless, every democracy recognizes the necessary restraints of national security--and the question remains whether those restraints need to be more strictly observed if we are to oppose this kind of attack as well as outright invasion.

For the facts of the matter are that this nation's foes have openly boasted of acquiring through our newspapers information they would otherwise hire agents to acquire through theft, bribery or espionage; that details of this nation's covert preparations to counter the enemy's covert operations have been available to every newspaper reader, friend and foe alike; that the size, the strength, the location and the nature of our forces and weapons, and our plans and strategy for their use, have all been pinpointed in the press and other news media to a degree sufficient to satisfy any foreign power; and that, in at least in one case, the publication of details concerning a secret mechanism whereby satellites were followed required its alteration at the expense of considerable time and money.

The newspapers which printed these stories were loyal, patriotic, responsible and well-meaning. Had we been engaged in open warfare, they undoubtedly would not have published such items. But in the absence of open warfare, they recognized only the tests of journalism and not the tests of national security. And my question tonight is whether additional tests should not now be adopted.

The question is for you alone to answer. No public official should answer it for you. No governmental plan should impose its restraints against your will. But I would be failing in my duty to the nation, in considering all of the responsibilities that we now bear and all of the means at hand to meet those responsibilities, if I did not commend this problem to your attention, and urge its thoughtful consideration.

On many earlier occasions, I have said--and your newspapers have constantly said--that these are times that appeal to every citizen's sense of sacrifice and self-discipline. They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good. I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal.

I have no intention of establishing a new Office of War Information to govern the flow of news. I am not suggesting any new forms of censorship or any new types of security classifications. I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not seek to impose it if I had one. But I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities, to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger, and to heed the duty of self-restraint which that danger imposes upon us all.

Every newspaper now asks itself, with respect to every story: "Is it news?" All I suggest is that you add the question: "Is it in the interest of the national security?" And I hope that every group in America--unions and businessmen and public officials at every level-- will ask the same question of their endeavors, and subject their actions to the same exacting tests.

And should the press of America consider and recommend the voluntary assumption of specific new steps or machinery, I can assure you that we will cooperate whole-heartedly with those recommendations.

Perhaps there will be no recommendations. Perhaps there is no answer to the dilemma faced by a free and open society in a cold and secret war. In times of peace, any discussion of this subject, and any action that results, are both painful and without precedent. But this is a time of peace and peril which knows no precedent in history.

II

It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second obligation--an obligation which I share. And that is our obligation to inform and alert the American people--to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need, and understand them as well--the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program and the choices that we face.

No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.

I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers--I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: "An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.

Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed--and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment--the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution--not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply "give the public what it wants"--but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.

This means greater coverage and analysis of international news--for it is no longer far away and foreign but close at hand and local. It means greater attention to improved understanding of the news as well as improved transmission. And it means, finally, that government at all levels, must meet its obligation to provide you with the fullest possible information outside the narrowest limits of national security--and we intend to do it.

III

It was early in the Seventeenth Century that Francis Bacon remarked on three recent inventions already transforming the world: the compass, gunpowder and the printing press. Now the links between the nations first forged by the compass have made us all citizens of the world, the hopes and threats of one becoming the hopes and threats of us all. In that one world's efforts to live together, the evolution of gunpowder to its ultimate limit has warned mankind of the terrible consequences of failure.

And so it is to the printing press--to the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news--that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.

Disease is an impediment to the body, but not to the will, unless the will itself chooses. Lameness is an impediment to the leg, but not to the will. And add this reflection on the occasion of everything that happens; for you will find it an impediment to something else, but not to yourself. - Epictetus, Encheiridion: The Manual for the Living

Israeli Nuclear Whistle Blower Returned to Solitary Confinement
--Amnesty.org--
18 June 2010

Amnesty International has accused the Israeli authorities of subjecting jailed nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by holding him in solitary confinement.

The 56-year-old, who spent 18 years in prison for revealing details of the country's nuclear arsenal to a UK newspaper in 1986, was sent back to jail for three months on 23 May on charges of contact with a foreign national, and almost immediately placed in solitary confinement. Amnesty International has called for his immediate and unconditional release. "Mordechai Vanunu should not be in prison at all, let alone be held in solitary confinement in a unit intended for violent criminals," said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International's Middle East Programme.

"He suffered immensely when he was held in solitary confinement for 11 years after his imprisonment in 1986 and to return him to such conditions now is nothing less than cruel, inhuman or degrading." Vanunu is held in Ayalon Prison in central Israel. His lawyer revealed to Amnesty International that he has been placed in an isolated cell, ostensibly to protect him from other prisoners. (cont...)

Peru may be a melting-pot nation, but it has deep-set racial prejudices
Page last updated at 16:42 GMT, Sunday, 13 June 2010 17:42 UK
By Dan Collyns
BBC News, Lima


There is a saying in Peru - "el que no tiene de Inga tiene de Mandinga" - which means every Peruvian has either some indigenous or African blood. It is an often-quoted proverb used to explain the country's blend of races. Racial mixing began mixing with the Spanish conquistadors who overran the Inca Empire in the 16th Century, and continued with successive waves of African slaves, indentured Chinese labourers and migrants from Japan and Europe.

The phrase speaks of a melting-pot nation but does not hint at Peru's deep-set prejudices. The country has socio-economic gaps along race lines and its inherent, if subtle, discrimination can mean an indigenous woman may only ever work as a maid; a black man may only ever aspire to be a hotel doorman. This is the kind of everyday racism which dictates the lives of many Peruvians.

Reinforced stereotypes

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to ending this racism is the fact that it is simply seen as a joke. Daniel Valenzuela foresees a day when Peru has a black president. Complain and people will chide you and ask: "Where's your sense of humour?" And, by and large, most Peruvians don't complain; they just go along with it. Racial stereotypes are reinforced on a daily basis in the media. Tabloid newspapers use crude sexual innuendo to describe a black congresswoman in a way they would not dare refer to a white member of parliament.

They compare a black footballer to a gorilla when he loses his temper on the pitch. And on prime-time Saturday night television, the country's most popular comedy programme abounds with racial stereotypes with which the audience are so familiar they scarcely question what they are watching. (cont...)

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them. - Mark Twain

If desires fly by like shadows,
If vows are empty words,
Is it worth it to live in this fog of delusion,
Is it worth it to live if the truth is dead?

Does one need eternity for useless striving,
Does one need eternity for deceptive words?
What is worthy of life lives without doubts,
A higher power knows no bonds.

Knowing one's own higher power,
Why wail on about childish dreams?
Life is just an exploit, and the living truth
Shines like immortality in moldering graves.

If desires fly by like shadows
by Vladimir Solovyov

France: to deprive of citizenship for polygamy?
Tatyana Gonik
--bbcrussian.com--, Paris
Friday, June 11, 2010, 11:13 GMT 15:13 MCK

French Interior Minister Brice Hortofe promises to change the Civil Code of the country and make more flexible the deprivation of French nationality. "I will not allow any cheaters insulted all those who honestly works, pays taxes and social really wants to become a Frenchman," - said Minister of Internal Affairs. The statement was made immediately after the French began an investigation into Lesa Hebbadzhi, famed throughout the country due to the number of wives, children and the amount received Socio benefits.

35-year-old native of Algeria won the French passport 10 years ago, entered into a formal marriage with a resident of Nantes. It appears, however, that in addition to the legal spouse have Hebbadzhi there are three civilian wives who live nearby, and a total of - 13 children. Today the situation has changed somewhat: in June with many children his father was born the 14th child. (cont...)

Iran protests: One-man video channel that is a thorn in Tehran's side
Mehdi Saharkhiz shames regime with mountain of online footage showing its violent suppression of opposition
Matthew Weaver --guardian.co.uk--
Friday 11 June 2010 17.57 BST


Until his father was arrested, Mehdi Saharkhiz had little to do with Iranian politics. But since the arrest in the aftermath of the disputed elections last July, Saharkhiz, a 28-year-old graphic designer living in New Jersey, has poured all his energies into a one-man internet video channel that has captured crucial moments of the country's unrest.

Saharkhiz has become the source for dramatic mobile phone footage of the demonstrations and their violent suppression. As independent mainstream media has effectively been banned from Iran, it is these amateur clips that have perhaps best documented what has been happening in the country – and they have been a major irritant to Tehran. No one has broadcast more of these videos than Saharkhiz. Since last June's election he has uploaded more than 2,600 separate clips to his much-watched YouTube channel, onlymehdi.

Covert footage of protesters being shot, beaten, run over and executed will be significant in what happens next in Iran, he argues. "These things can't be hidden any more. People are now showing these videos to friends who don't have access to the internet. So huge numbers of people are figuring out what really happened." (cont...)

Alexandria the Farthest (Khujand, Tajikstan)
--wiki--

Alexandria Eschate (Greek Ἀλεξάνδρεια Ἐσχάτη, Latin: Alexandria Ultima, English meaning "Alexandria the Farthest") or Alexandria Eskhata was founded by Alexander III of Macedon (commonly referred to as Alexander the Great) in August 329 BCE[1] as his most northerly base in Central Asia.

The city was also located around 400 km (249 mi) west of the Tarim Basin, today's region of Xinjiang in China, where the Yuezhi, an Indo-European people were established. There are indications that Greek expeditions were led as far as Kashgar in Xinjiang. According to the Greek historian Strabo, the Greeks "extended their empire even as far as the Seres and the Phryni" (Strabo XI.II.I), possibly leading to the first known contacts between China and the West around 200 BCE.

The descendants of the Greeks in Ferghana may be the Dayuan (lit. "Great Ionians") identified in the Chinese historical record of the Han Dynasty, starting with the embassies of Zhang Qian around 130 BCE. If so, they were the actors of the first major interaction between an urbanized Indo-European culture and the Chinese civilization, which led to the opening up the Silk Road from the 1st century BCE. (cont...)

Jack Johnson, Gone

Broken Bells- The High Road

Iran executed 16 year old girl in 2008
Thursday, 27 July 2006, 19:01 GMT 20:01 UK
--bbc.co.uk--

A television documentary team has pieced together details surrounding the case of a 16-year-old girl, executed two years ago in Iran.

At the time of Atefah's execution in Neka, journalist Asieh Amini heard rumours the girl was just 16 years old and so began to ask questions. To teach others a lesson, Atefah's execution was held in public "When I met with the family," says Asieh, "they showed me a copy of her birth certificate, and a copy of her death certificate. Both of them show she was born in 1988. This gave me legitimate grounds to investigate the case."

So why was such a young girl executed? And how could she have been accused of adultery when she was not even married? Disturbed by the death of her mother when she was only four or five years old, and her distraught father's subsequent drug addiction, Atefah had a difficult childhood. She was also left to care for her elderly grandparents, but they are said to have shown her no affection.

In a town like Neka, heavily under the control of religious authorities, Atefah - often seen wandering around on her own - was conspicuous. It was just a matter of time before she came to the attention of the "moral police", a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, whose job it is to enforce the Islamic code of behaviour on Iran's streets.

Secret relationship

Being stopped or arrested by the moral police is a fact of life for many Iranian teenagers. Previously arrested for attending a party and being alone in a car with a boy, Atefah received her first sentence for "crimes against chastity" when she was just 13. Although the exact nature of the crime is unknown, she spent a short time in prison and received 100 lashes. (cont...)

TeaParty.org Founder Labels Obama With Racial Terms
Mark Potok on May 28, 2010
--splc.org--

Dale Robertson, the vitriolic founder and president of TeaParty.org, blasted out a mass E-mail today that seemed meant to convince doubters that his movement is, after all, racist at its core. Attacking President Obama for traveling home to Chicago for the Memorial Day weekend — rather than staying in Washington to lay a wreath in Arlington Cemetery as many presidents have done — Robertson falls into a string of contemptuous and racially charged terms.

Obama is going home to spend time with “his homies in the Chicago hood,” writes Robertson, who is white. The taxpayers will be footing the bill for the president to “bump and grind in the hood.” While he’s gone, Vice President Joseph Biden and his wife “will step into Obama’s sneakers” to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Obama, meanwhile, will be “shooting hoops, smoking cigarettes and goofing-off with his homies.”

Robertson, who is a contributor to the right-wing Washington Times’ “Tea Party Report” blog (and is identified there as “the Founder of the modern day Tea Party movement”), has never been a study in sensitivity. He has written that everyone who voted for the national health care reform bill is a “national socialist” — a Nazi, like those who murdered millions in the gas chambers. He says that “illegal aliens” are coming to impose socialism on the United States. But now, Robertson has gone one step further, describing Obama as the kind of person who has “homies” in the “hood,” who wears “sneakers” and “shoots hoops,” and who “bumps and grinds.” We wonder just what type of person Dale Robertson is thinking of.

Turkey's Minorities Oppressed

As we look back at the evolution of Western Philosophy towards Humanism, let us take Pico Della Mirandolla's dissertation Oration on the Dignity of Man as our starting point. Pico begins his case with a observation of man's ability to perform pious acts and acts of pure brute. When a citizens is attempting to find its way through the world of politics and social customs, the task can become rather exhilarating. A proactive approach is necessary, one should prepare themselves for the bright lights that characterize the real world of moral and ethical philosophies. We allow Pico to continue "By confirming the onslaughts of the affections by means of moral science, and by shaking off the mist of reason by means of dialectic, as if washing off the filth of ignorance and vice, let us purge the soul, that the affections may not audaciously run riot, nor an imprudent reason sometime rave. Then, over a soul which has been set in order and purified, let us pour the light of natural philosophy, that lastly we may perfect it with the knowledge of divine things." Affection and reason, tend to become diluted by ignorance and extreme tendencies. If we acknowledge these shortcomings, we are able to acheive a clear mind. This pristine level of consciousness allows you to blend the "light of natural philosophy" with the "knowledge of divine things". This is a hardy undertaking, but the fruit of the idea is found in the process itself. Learning to control your heart, your soul, your mind, for a true understanding of knowledge, wisdom, faith.

Khufiyya movement - a Chinese form of the Arabic "Khafiyya", i.e. "the silent ones" - refers to its adherents' emphasis on silent dhikr (invocation of God's name). The Khufiyya teachings were characterized by stronger participation in the society.

Ma Laichi (Chinese: 马来迟) (1680's-1760'a), also known as Abu 'l-Futūh Ma Laichi, was a Chinese Sufi master, who brought the Khufiyya movement to China and created the Huasi menhuan (Sufi order) - the earliest and most important Naqshbandi (Islamic Spiritual) order in China.

The Black Lips- Short Fuse

Stars - Set Yourself On Fire

South Africa Homeless Ignored in Wake of World Cup

Sammasambuddhas attain buddhahood, then decide to teach others the truth they have discovered.

Paccekabuddhas sometimes called "silent Buddhas" are similar to sammasambuddhas in that they attain nirvana and acquire many of the same powers as a sammasambuddha, but are unable to teach what they have discovered.

Savakabuddhas attain nirvana after hearing the teaching of a sammasambuddha (directly or indirectly). The disciple of a sammasambuddha is called a savaka ("hearer" or "follower") or, once enlightened, an arahant.

Weezer, Only In Dreams (Cowboy Bebop video)

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe: Chechen government had created "a climate of fear"
--bbc.co.uk/russian--
Tuesday, June 1, 2010, 05:17 GMT 09:17 MCK

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is the situation of human rights and the rule of law in the North Caucasus as "the most serious and complex" in the territories before the Council of Europe. The first conclusions of the PACE, contained in the draft resolution, which is scheduled to make in June to the summer session of the Assembly, relating to Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan.

As the authors of the report, which was based on the resolution, the Chechen government support "atmosphere of fear" in the country are continuing disappearance of opposition figures and human rights defenders, and courts ignore the abuse of law enforcement agencies. All this, according to a document, accompanied by the growth and development of the personality cult that is "a shameful phenomenon in democracy."

In Ingushetia, the report drew attention to the "disturbing increase in violence since 2009, while in Dagestan - in the quickening of the attacks, which leads, according to PACE, a tough and lawless actions of the militia. (cont...)