Undernews For 22 June, 2010

Undernews For 22 June, 2010

Since 1964, the news while there's still time to do something about it

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The Review will be on the road for two weeks beginning Wednesday. There will be no email edition during this time, but you can keep up with things on our main page - http://prorev.com - or on our Undernews page: http://prorev.com/indexa.htm

Editor Sam will be on Make It Plain with Matsimela Mapfumo (aka Mark Thompson) this Tuesday at 7 pm EST. Sirus Left 146 or XM America Left 167.

MORNING LINE

The Review moving average finds Obama leading his GOP opponents by 8 to 3 points with Huckabee and Paul too close to call.

Mr Benton said his supervisor e-mailed both BP and Transocean about the leaks when they were discovered.

WHY THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS DYING

[Senator] Lincoln was embraced by her colleagues on the Senate floor as a conquering general returning from war. Sen. Bob Menendez (N.J.), in charge of the Senate Democrats' campaign effort, gave her a hug and a kiss and said, "Now we just have to raise money." Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) held up two fists and said of her primary campaign: "Fighting Wall Street with one hand, unions with the other." - Washington Post

CALIFORNIA PROTEST STOPS UNLOADING OF ISRAELI SHIP

ANSWER Coalition - Over 800 labor and community activists blocked the gates of the Oakland docks in the early morning hours, prompting longshore workers to refuse to cross the picket lines where they were scheduled to unload an Israeli ship.

Between 8:30 and 9:00 am, an emergency arbitration was conducted at the Maersk parking lot nearby, with an “instant” arbitrator called to the site to rule on whether the workers could refuse to cross the picketline without disciplinary measure.

At 9:15 a.m, after again reviewing the protests of hundreds at each gate, the arbitrator ruled in favor of the union that it was indeed unsafe for the workers to enter the docks.

To loud cheers of “Long Live Palestine!” Jess Ghannam of Free Palestine Alliance and Richard Becker of the ANSWER Coalition announced the victory. Ghannam said, “This is truly historic, never before has an Israeli ship been blocked in the United States!”

The news that a container ship from the Zim Israeli shipping line was scheduled to arrive in the Bay Area today has sparked a tremendous outpouring of solidarity for Palestine, especially in the aftermath of the Israeli massacre of volunteers bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza on May 31.

This week the San Francisco Labor Council and Alameda Labor Council passed resounding resolutions denouncing Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Both councils sent out public notices of the dock action.

Today’s Oakland action, in the sixth largest port in the United States, is the first of several protests and work stoppages planned around the world, including Norway, Sweden and South Africa. It is sure to inspire others to do the same.

FEDERAL JUDGE TELLS OBAMA: NO, YOU CAN'T SEIZE LAPTOPS WITHOUT A WARRANT

CNET - A federal judge has ruled that border agents cannot seize a traveler's laptop, keep it locked up for months, and examine it for contraband files without a warrant half a year later.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in the Northern District of California rejected the Obama administration's argument that no warrant was necessary to look through the electronic files of an American citizen who was returning home from a trip to South Korea.

"The court concludes that June search required a warrant," White ruled on June 2, referring to a search of Andrew Hanson's computer that took place a year ago. Hanson arrived San Francisco International Airport in January 2009.

The Justice Department invoked a novel argument--which White dubbed "unpersuasive" -- claiming that while Hanson was able to enter the country, his laptop remained in a kind of legal limbo where the Bill of Rights did not apply. (The Fourth Amendment generally requires a warrant for searches.)

"Until merchandise has cleared customs, it may not enter the United States," assistant U.S. attorney Owen Martikan argued. "The laptop never cleared customs and was maintained in government custody until it was searched..."

This is not exactly a new dispute: two years ago, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection announced that it reserves the right to seize for an indefinite period of time any laptops that are taken across the border.

Last year, the department reiterated that claim, saying laptops and electronic gadgetry can still be seized and held indefinitely. There's no requirement that they be returned to their owners after even six months or a year has passed, though supervisory approval is required if they're held for more than 15 days. The complete contents of a hard drive or memory card can be perused at length for evidence of lawbreaking of any kind, even if it's underpaying taxes or not paying parking tickets.

In response, Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, introduced a bill that would require border agents to obtain a warrant or court order to hold such a device for more than 24 hours.

Customs agents say that after Hanson was randomly selected for a secondary baggage examination, he became nervous. That led Customs agent Sheryl Edwards to ask for an examination of Hanson's laptop, a digital camera with memory card, two CD-ROMs, and two DVDs.

That examination, customs agents say, showed one incriminating photograph: an adolescent girl covered with mud, standing on a beach, and not wearing any clothes. Edwards concluded that the image was illegal; Hanson was charged with transportation and possession of child pornography in September 2009. He has pleaded not guilty.

SUPREME COURT FURTHER UNDERMINDS CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, SUPPORTING KAGAN'S VIEW

Wall Street Journal -The Supreme Court upheld a federal law banning "material support" for foreign terrorist organizations, rejecting challenges that the measure was so broad as to impinge on U.S. citizens' First Amendment rights of free speech and association.
More

The vote was 6-3, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the majority, joined by four other conservatives and liberal Justice John Paul Stevens. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer dissented.

Chief Justice Roberts's majority opinion said the application of the law in this instance was consistent with the limitations of the First and Fifth Amendments. However, he cautioned: "All this is not to say that any future applications of the material-support statute to speech or advocacy will survive First Amendment scrutiny."

Prosecutors favor the material-support charge because it is broad enough to cover a range of activities linked to terrorist organizations, from collecting funds to shouldering a rifle. Critics said that by making it a crime to provide "training," "personnel" and "expert advice" to such groups - even for, say, peaceful ends such as disaster relief - the law sweeps too far into the rights of U.S. citizens to speak and associate freely.

The lawsuit was filed in 1998 by people who wanted to offer what they view as benign support to the Kurdistan Workers Party in the Middle East and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, which the U.S. designated as foreign terrorist organizations in 1997.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan represented the government at Supreme Court arguments in February and said it was justifiable to limit support to foreign groups designated as terrorist even if the support was humanitarian.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: WHAT IF HE WAS WRONG BOTH TIMES?

Sam Smith - Well educated Brits have it over their American peers for one important reason: their accents. The use of this accent to intimidate, impress and amuse citizens of their former colony is one of their great cons, repeatedly passing for argument and intellect. It's a hard shtick for Americans to counter, witness Barack Obama's tedious pseudo-thoughtfulness and boring lectures.

Fortunately, my family had an English girl live with us during World War II and she returned later to go to college, staying down the hall from me. Thanks to Ann, I learned to be skeptical of the British educated classes, even though my own father had gone to Oxford and we were visited by a steady stream of his friends and distant English relatives.

By the time I was in my 30s, I was unimpressed enough to disrupt a dinner at the home of a woman who had been on the margins of the Bloomsbury group and who started disparaging Andrew Young, then our ambassador to the U.N.

Young had alienated the elite on both sides of the Atlantic by calling Israel "stubborn and intransigent" and actually meeting with representatives of the PLO. He also took an active role in the some of the disputes on the African continent.

I pointed out that Young was simply trying to resolve some of the problems that the late British empire had left behind for us. But you were not meant to say such things over a polite dinner in England. Shortly thereafter, the hostess got up from the table and turned on the television to relieve the tension.

I felt that was a bit unfair - to be lorded over by the presumptively wise and not be allowed to return fire. But it was at that point, I suppose, that I learned an important bilateral lesson: don't take shit from a Brit.

Thus, I have a somewhat different view of Christopher Hitchens than many journalists and reviewers. After all, even though he is now an American, Hitch still wantonly uses classic British cons to make his points.

For some years, we served together on a board that helped to fund a number of the top whistle blowing organizations in Washington and threw a bit of money to investigative journalists.

I liked him, enjoyed him, and was happy, when he was there, not to be the most bumptious and cynical one in the room. But I also thought of him as one of those well educated beings to whom associations were more important than action and to whom words were to be valued more for their sound than for their utility.

Those writing of Hitchens' transformation from hard left to hard right tend to be so dazzled by his sentences that they miss an important point: Hitchens, like many of the time, had used the 1960s as a crash pad for his soul. Because the people writing about this seldom have experience with, or sympathy for, what happened in the 1960s, they are unable to distinguish between those who played roles and those who played a role.

I recognize the difference because I have done both. A decade older than Hitchens, I was part of a disjointed, dissatisfied, disrespectful subculture far more influenced by the Beats, Miles Davis and Humphrey Bogart than by many of our professors. Some years before Hitchens went to Cuba, Fidel Castro came to Harvard. I recalled later:

The most noteworthy figure to appear at Harvard during my tenure was the newly victorious Fidel Castro, who spoke to 8,000 enthusiastic faculty and students (including one from Brandeis named Abbie Hoffman) at Dillon Field House. Castro was still considered a hero by many Americans for having overthrown the egregious Batista. While those of us who had taken Soc Sci 2 knew that not all revolutions were for the better, there was about this one a romance that took my thoughts far from Harvard Square as a top Castro lieutenant, sitting in front of my little recorder in the Bick, told me of his days with Fidel in the mountains. Castro was booed only once according to my broadcast report later that evening, when he "attempted to defend the execution of Cuban war criminals after the revolution. Castro asked his listeners, 'you want something else?' and proceed to give them a fifteen minute further explanation."

It was a time, unlike the 1960s, when even political romance was to be viewed with a little caution. Besides, uncritical enthusiasm was too close to being uncool.

A decade later Hitchens went to Cuba and described it this way:

"As the Paris revolt faded from its May glory, and as the blooms of the Prague Spring began to feel a pinch, I vanished to Cuba and spent a hot summer in a camp in the province of Pinar del Río, where sixty-eighters of every stripe had forgathered, ostensibly to plant coffee but mostly to drink it (and rum) and to discuss new horizons of revolution."

Hardly a substantial contribution to the cause, especially when you consider what was going on in other places at that time. I don't begrudge him for this. After all, just this evening a friend recalled going to Washington protests in the 1960s largely for the parties and the girls. But that is part of the story that gets lost in the myth. And, in the years to follow, it never would occur to me that the failings of Fidel Castro could be replaced by those of Margaret Thatcher and Dick Cheney.

When the 1960s came into full bloom, I was already in my thirties and thus, according to the theorists, not to be trusted. But, in truth, much older leftists were often doing the real organizing while well-theorized young intellectuals were just doing the strutting. The latter tended to get the press, the latter got the job done.

When Hitchens made his political shift, he stopped coming to our board meetings. I ran into him one day at my de facto conference room, the table in the southwest corner of La Tomate restaurant.

He was a bit sad to be losing his old friends and I was a bit sad to be losing him as one. Afterwards, I sent him an email noting that I was one of six children and thus was used to, even enjoyed, being around those with whom I didn’t agree. At one point, I said, my older brother, director of energy for Puerto Rico, was trying to build an oil port at the same time my youngest sister, an environmentalist, was trying to stop one in Maine.

He wrote a nice note back and that was the last I heard from him.

From our overstocked archives. . .

Sam Smith - News that Christopher Hitchens had discovered his inner imperial self was greeted exuberantly by the Washington Post, which gave him Kissingeresque space to lash out at his former comrades on the left.

As I read Hitchens' piece, two things came to mind. The first was Elmer Davis' comment about those on the hard left who had taken a hard right turn: it never seemed to occur to them that they might be wrong both times. The second thought was of a Sunday long ago when one of my sons was being confirmed in the Episcopal Church so he would not later, as my friend Warren Myers once said, miss the exquisite pleasure of losing one's faith. The bishop did his job perfunctorily and then turned towards the altar. Just a moment, our minister said, "We also have one to be received." The bishop suddenly brightened because those simple words signified true triumph: he was about to grab for his church a former servant of the Pope. It is one thing to get little boys to pretend for a morning that they understand the Apostles' Creed; quite another for a real Catholic to defect. The editor of the Post Outlook section probably felt the same joy.

I, however, was troubled by a matter that lay beyond Christopher's view on Iraq, arguable as that was. Once again "the left" was being defined by the habits, opinions, and proclivities of a tiny minority with whom the author had some familiarity. This tendency, predominant among writers at either end of the New York shuttle, is so misleading that it brings into question the other matters being discussed.

In fact, there are a number of lefts. There is an ideological left centered in New York City, which seems barely aware that the socialist factionalism of the 1930s and 1940s is no longer relevant. If these leftists were baseball announcers, they would spend their time debating the relative virtues of Babe Ruth and Ted Williams rather than describing what was happening on the field. They tend to be tedious, trivial, and anachronistically tendentious. They are also largely irrelevant.

The intellectual left, in its academic variety at least, has also dried up, similarly a victim of too much discussion of archaic matters that leaves little time for today's work. It is probably not accidental that the best idea to revive black politics that some professors could come up with was the reparations issue; it is just so much more comfortable discussing slavery rather than the current mass imprisonment of young black males, housing discrimination or the role of the black soldier in imperial America. There are exceptions such as Howard Zinn and those medical professors working on national health care. But the campus has been corporatized and specialized like everything else and to the extent that there is a living left, it is one that has yet to graduate.

The institutional left, much of it headquartered in Washington, is largely engaged in sterile, ritualistic reiteration of what were once vibrant mechanisms for hope. Then there is then what might be called iconographic left, which uses the power of images, sounds and words. It can be as useful as Rage Against the Machine and as stupid as Barbra Streisand. But it is rarely more than the semiotic quartermaster corps of a larger movement. The most important exception is when the images, sounds, or words serve as a catalyst - a writer offering a new idea, a rock musician catching just the right lyrics, and so forth.

Even at their best, these lefts - ideological, intellectual, institutional, iconographic - represent but a final fraction of what is needed for significant social and political change. The really important left - the idiomatic, colloquial left of people who never read the Nation, let alone have a column in it - is what really makes things happen. And unless you happen to be Betty Friedan or Martin Luther King Jr. saying just the right words at just the right moment, the truth is that the left to which Hitchens alludes simply isn't that important.

I have always been far closer to the idiomatic, colloquial left than to the more elite varieties. In fact, I missed much of the conventional 60s because I was working with SNCC and running a newspaper in a community on the edge of riot, and helping to start a progressive third party that would actually elect people to office. I have never gotten on that well with Hitchens' former pals in the elite left because I never could find the time to straighten out my paradigm.

It turns out it wasn't all that important anyway, because the people who made the difference were not the famous talkers but the little known doers, ordinary people, who in Conrad's phrase, for one brief moment did something out of the ordinary. They were people who had not studied Marx and Hegel and couldn't tell a Trotskyite from a troll. But they knew, in Pogo's words, when to "stand on the piano and demand outrage action."

Hitchens and his ilk will continue to have their little debates, all carefully framed in a manner that excludes most of the people they claim to care about and most of the people who actually produce change. It worked at university and it works now. But it has little to do with either America or the left as it really is.

Sam Smith - Shoving all of life's experiences into theory is an ultimately unsatisfactory business and one of the things that causes such phenomena as wars and bad economics.

While I wasn't as lucky as Ring Lardner Jr, who missed Karl Marx because that segment of his economics course conflicted with the opening of the Red Sox season, I did find Marx boring, perhaps because I had already some experience with real politics, including being a pre-teen gofer in a couple of campaigns that had ended 69 years of Republican rule in Philadelphia. No one in those campaigns had ever mentioned Marx to me, or even Locke, and I quickly concluded that political science courses were perhaps not the best place to learn about politics.

Besides I could never figure out who was meant to run the restaurants in Utopia. People in real politics - even Communists - don't sit around talking about theories like Horowitz, Kelly or Hitchens. They do things, like opposing wars or trying to get someone elected. And one of the first principles of doing things, as opposed to just thinking deeply about them, is to find others who feel the same way. This can lead sometimes in surprising directions.

For example, a historical rather than a ideological assessment of American communism can lead in surprising directions as well. For example, as Eric Foner has noted, about the only predominantly white group in the 1930s that made civil rights a priority was the Communist Party. Marvin Caplan, later director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, quotes an anti-civil rights activist at the time as saying, "Integration is the southern version of communism." The Communist Party, buoyed by people with nowhere else to go, fools, ideological partisans, and FBI infiltrators, survived in no small part because the rest of the political system wasn't doing what it should. There were traitors in their midst, but the record suggests that the subversives within the party probably did less damage to the country than, say, the double agents within the CIA. For the most part, the Communist Party provided a home for idealistic but shelterless activists who in better times would have been somewhere else.

To superimpose the whole Cold War ideological conflict on top of this peculiarly American phenomenon is to miss much of the story, in particular the role played by radical socialist Jews and by blacks struggling for basic rights. Alfred Kazin described it this way: "When I was growing up on the Socialist religion, among the most excited messianic believers since primitive Christianity, it never occurred to me that there might be Jews who did not believe in socialism. Or that a time would come when Communists would so harden this religion that it would produce suicidal fanatics like the Rosenbergs and then equally vehement ex-radicals who, in their hatred of their past, became far right extremists. . . "

During the 1960s, many of the movements for change had Communists in their coalition, in part because of the organizational skills they had developed. When you're planning a march, you don't have much time for ideology. A union organizer in the early part of the last century recalled going to Arkansas and forming a coalition that drew from two remarkably disparate sources: the black church and the KKK. Why? Because these were the two groups in the state that knew how to get things organized.

If you're in the midst of action, and not just writing about it from afar, you learn to cope with the fact that the world doesn't all look like you. And what matters is what you believe, not what everyone with whom you are marching believes. Once you have this core of self-understanding you don't have to run and hide under the table just because Ramsey Clark walks into the room. And you learn, based on experience and not theory, when to work with someone and when to get the hell out.

I have known a few Communists, just as I have known a few libertarians, black nationalists, greens, creationists, single taxers, liberals, and Washington Post op ed columnists. I have found the Commies to be rhetorically redundant and sometimes tedious but on the whole less trouble in an organization than, say, police infiltrators, another subspecies you meet if you're active long enough. I have never heard a single one mention Stalin, perhaps because they know I might argue with them, but more likely because Stalin is about as relevant these days as the Free Soil Party or the Know Nothings, even though some critics wish it otherwise.

OREGON RECLASSIFIES POT AS HAVING MEDICAL USE

KATU - The State of Oregon has re-classified how it views marijuana.

The State Board of Pharmacy voted to recognize pot as a drug that has medical use.

The move came because of a law passed last year that ordered marijuana to be removed from a list of drugs that have "high abuse potential and no acceptable medical use."

Marijuana will now be what is known as a "Schedule II controlled substance." That's a drug that has medical use but still has "high abuse potential."

Oregon becomes the first state in the nation to make marijuana anything less serious than a Schedule I drug.

11 U.S. WARSHIPS PASS THROUGH SUEZ CANAL TO RED SEA

Arutz Sheva, Israel - Egypt allowed at least one Israeli and 11 American warships to pass through the Suez Canal as an Iranian flotilla approaches Gaza. Egypt closed the canal to protect the ships with thousands of soldiers, according to the British-based Arabic language newspaper Al Quds al-Arabi.

One day prior to the report on Saturday, Voice of Israel government radio reported that the Egyptian government denied an Israeli request not to allow the Iranian flotilla to use the Suez Canal to reach Gaza, in violation of the Israeli sea embargo on the Hamas-controlled area.

International agreements require Egypt to keep the Suez open even for warships, but the armada, led by the USS Truman with 5,000 sailors and marines, was the largest in years. Egypt closed the canal to fishing and other boats as the armada moved through the strategic passageway that connects the Red and Mediterranean Seas.

Despite Egypt’s reported refusal to block the canal to Iranian boats, the clearance for the American-Israeli fleet may be a warning to Iran it may face military opposition if the Iranian Red Crescent ship continues on course to Gaza.

FLORIDA CANDIDATE DUMPED FOR BEING ONE PENNY SHORT

The Ledger, FL - Former County Commissioner Neil Combee waited all day Friday to see the state Division of Elections list him as a qualified candidate in the Republican Primary against state Rep. Kelli Stargel for her District 64 House seat.

At 5 p.m., when all qualified candidates had been listed, Combee's name was removed from the candidate list, leaving only Stargel and Democrat Carol Castagnero as candidates qualified for that race.

The qualifying fee to get one's name on the ballot for a House seat is $1,781.82. Combee's check was for $1,781.81, 1 red cent short of the required fee.

The discrepancy was called to The Ledger's attention by the Stargel campaign, but it is not known whether anyone from that campaign called the state elections office.

"Nobody up there bothered to even call me," a frustrated Combee said Friday evening.

"Maybe they are understaffed - that's sarcasm," he said.

Stargel had mailed her papers and check to qualify days ago, noting that it was her practice so as to have time to correct any mistakes. Combee mailed his check Wednesday afternoon.

"I called during the day to ask why my name wasn't listed as qualified and they shot back that they were busy and to watch the Internet," he said. "I had my cell phone on all day and it could have been easily taken care of, but maybe they were happy to run out the time."

Combee said he will appeal his removal Monday.

THE PROBLEM WITH BOYCOTTING BP

Consumerist - You need gas. On the right is a BP. On the left is a supermarket gas station. Which do you choose, and why? If you skip the BP to go to the other, you might actually be putting more cash in BP's stained pockets.

Your corner BP station is mainly just a brand, a licensed franchise owned by a local businessman. The fuel that comes out of the pumps might have been bought from a totally different company. Only right before it gets put on the truck for delivery is the special BP sauce, additives, added.

However, if you opt for another place, like a supermarket gas-station, they could be a wholly-owned BP subsidiary, with BP getting all the cash. According to Facebook group Boycott BP these include Castrol, Arco, Aral, am/pm, Amoco, Wild Bean Cafe and Safeway gas.

This is not to say you shouldn't choose a different gas station if the BP one makes you squeamish. Just bear in mind that doing so is a political act, one that has deals damage to BP's brand in the long-term, rather than having direct financial impact on BP. No, the immediate business loss will be most acutely felt by the local businessman. Then again, if no one is buying BP gas, do you think many new gas station owners are going to be eager to sign up for a BP franchise? Which would mean a loss of future franchise fee income for BP, and that will end up hurting their bottom line. Just not today.

FBI KEPT FILES ON KENNEDY SEX PARTIES

Daily Telegraph, Australia - The FBI was tipped off that the three Kennedy brothers, Marilyn Monroe and members of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack held sex parties in President John F. Kennedy's suite at New York City's The Carlyle hotel.

An FBI report on the alleged orgies at the hotel was prompted by a July 1965 disclosure from a "reliable" mafia informant that the mob wanted to use women supplied by "associates of Frank Sinatra" to embarrass the Kennedys in New York, the New York Post reported.

Women were to "be placed in compromising situations" with Robert and Ted Kennedy and their brother-in-law, actor Peter Lawford, the confidential memo said.

The mob wanted to smear Robert Kennedy because of his war on organized crime as US attorney general from 1961 to 1964, according to the informant. The FBI did not investigate the claims, the bureau said.

The documents were among 2352 pages of FBI files unveiled yesterday on Ted Kennedy, who died last August after a battle with cancer.

The file on the mob plot began with the informant's disclosures to the FBI's Milwaukee office. The FBI added an unsigned statement that said a multimillionaire Manhattan divorcee knew about the orgies.

"It was reported that Mrs Jacqueline Hammond, age 40, has considerable information concerning sex parties," the statement said.

Among those who took part were John, Robert and Ted Kennedy, Monroe, Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr, Lawford and his wife, Patricia Kennedy, the statement added.

It also indicated that Hammond, who was divorced from a US ambassador, was credible.

However, an FBI summary of the documents released yesterday said the bureau did not consider the Milwaukee and Hammond information "solid."

GREAT MOMENTS IN THE LAW

Overlawyered - “Preventing an individual from jumping off of the 86th floor of the Empire State Building is neither extreme nor outrageous,” wrote Judge Jane Solomon in disallowing the emotional-distress claim of Jeb Corliss, a daredevil jumper who had been prevented from jumping off the skyscraper in 2006. Solomon also found that the owners of the building had not defamed Corliss in legal papers when they called his stunt attempt “illegal.” (He was in fact convicted on misdemeanor charges.) The owners are suing Corliss for damages over the incident, which forced an hour-long shutdown of the observation deck.

A Brooklyn school safety officer sued New York City, saying it discriminated against her religious beliefs for her to have to wear a city ID card that she considered possessed and the “sign of the Beast.” A judge ruled in her favor at an earlier stage in the proceedings, but a second judge has now awarded her just $1 damages.

GREEN CANDIDATE PULLING 14% IN ILLINOIS SENATE RACE

Public Policy Polling - The candidates for Senate are Democrat Alexi Giannoulias, Republican Mark Kirk, and Green Party candidate LeAlan Jones. If the election was today, who would you vote for?

Alexi Giannoulias ............................................ 31%
Mark Kirk......................................................... 30%
LeAlan Jones .................................................. 14%
Undecided....................................................... 24%

Also, according to Rasmussen, Green candidate Tom Clement has 9 percent in the South Carolina senatorial race

TOWN REJECTS CORPORATE PERSONHOOD

Waldo Village Soup, ME - In a move that supporters say would protect the town against corporate exploitation, Monroe residents at the annual town meeting June 14 approved a new ordinance that denies the rights of personhood to corporations.

Resident Seth Yentes said the new law was similar to "rights-based ordinances" enacted in Shapleigh and Newfield last year in response to concerns from citizens that water extraction by Nestle, the parent company of Poland Spring, was threatening a natural resource in the community.

Yentes said there was no corporation currently asserting itself in Monroe, "but it's giving us a foundation to jump off of if somebody wanted to come in and extract water from our town," he said. ". .It's really about local control and democracy and I think it's a great idea."

The "Town of Monroe Local Self-Government Ordinance," as the new law is called, goes against state and federal laws that affirm and protect the rights of corporations as though they were people. This conflict was cited in an opinion from the Maine Municipal Association solicited by town officials, which stated that the ordinance overstepped the bounds of local governance.

The legal issues with the ordinance would "create serious doubt as to its validity and enforceability if approved by the voters," the opinion read.

Some in attendance expressed concern that the ordinance would put further restrictions on businesses in an already harsh economic climate.

"There's all kinds of laws against them already," said Bill Nunn. "This doesn't even make sense."

Alan Beecher likened the restrictions to those placed on nonresidents at town meetings - they may speak, but only if residents vote to allow it.

WHAT'S IT LIKE BEING A DOCTOR IN CANADA?

From a commencement address at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine

Sherif Emil, MD, CM - Finally, please, please stay involved in issues of health care policy. If you think we have passed health care reform, and can now rest easy, think again. We have not passed health care reform. We have only passed some health care expansion. It is too early to judge the effects of what just occurred, but it is not too early to be certain that much work still lies ahead. Make your voice heard in the national debate that started in your senior year, and will almost certainly rage on.

It was interesting for me, as an American physician practicing in Canada, to see the recent negative depictions of the Canadian system in TV ads and lay media, depictions that bore absolutely no resemblance to the actual environment in which I practice daily. My reality is very different. I can see any patient and any patient can see me - total freedom of practice. My patients' parents have peace of mind regarding their children's health. If they change jobs or lose their job altogether in a bad economy, their children will still get the same care and see the same physicians.

Micromanagement of daily practice has become a thing of the past for me. There are no contracts, authorizations, denials, appeals, reviews, forms to complete, IPA's, HMO's, or PPO's. Our division's billing overhead is 1%. My relationship with the hospital administration is defined by professional, not financial, standards. I have no allegiance to any corporate or government entity, nor does one ever get in between me and the patient. This environment, which some denigrate as the ever so scary system of "socialized medicine" allows for more patient autonomy and choice than was available to most of my patients in California.

That is not at all to say that I practice in a medical utopia. There is no perfect health care system. The Canadian system has its own set of difficulties, challenges, and shortcomings, and Canadians are also looking to significantly reform their system. But as physicians, we have to enter the debate and we have to enter it objectively, salvaging it from the bias, misrepresentation, and demagoguery that has characterized it. Health care should not be a liberal or conservative issue, for disease, disability, and death do not recognize political affiliations. As a socially conservative Christian myself, my belief that health care is a fundamental human right, and my efforts on behalf of single payer universal health coverage stem from my faith, and not despite it. My faith calls for personal morality, but also for societal morality - how do we treat the sick amongst us, the weak amongst us, the least amongst us?

POLICE BLOTTER

Two men were trying to sell Kirby Co. vacuums at a home and during the demonstration they damaged a $1,300 Sealy latex foam mattress. They were charged with reckless endangerment of property

Investigations regarding why Susan Kohler kept 32 cats - 28 of which were alive and four of which were dead - in a Motel 6 room are ongoing, and many questions remain unanswered.

HOW THE REAGAN REVOLUTION DAMAGED THE AMERICAN ECONOMY

FATTEST FARM SUBSIDY CHECKS GO TO WEALTHIEST ZIP CODES

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