| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
01 Sep 2007 02:57:14 PM |
| Object: |
OT: Look out livers and lungs |
Look out livers and lungs
Anne Karpf
September 1, 2007 9:05 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anne_karpf/2007/09/watch_out_livers_and=
_lungs.html
What is it that makes young people take up smoking and drinking? Peer
group pressure, we often cry unthinkingly in a kind of double blame:
first blame kids for dabbling with cigarettes and alcohol, then blame
them again for getting their mates hooked.
But a new survey commissioned by the NHS Information Centre for Health
and Social Care has shown that most young people's path to smoking and
drinking comes from a different direction - their family. The family
culture has a vital role to play, it turns out, into making us early
smokers and drinkers. Most 11-15-year-olds who drank alcohol in the
previous week said that their parents didn't mind so long as they
didn't over-indulge, while three-quarters of those who've never drunk
alcohol say that their family would disapprove if they did.
Is neoconservatism dead?
Stephen Eric Bronner
August 31, 2007 9:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/stephen_eric_bronner/2007/08/is_neocons=
ervatism_dead.html
Neo-conservatism has served as a badge of unity for those in the Bush
administration advocating an aggressive foreign policy, massive
military spending, disdain for international law and institutions, an
assault on the welfare state, and a return to "traditional values".
So, with the Bush era winding down in a tailspin of plummeting
popularity and high-level resignations, has the neoconservative
movement, too, run its course?
Neoconservatism began with different premises from traditional forms
of conservatism. Because reforms can become part of "our" heritage,
traditional conservatives can adapt to change, even taking credit for
negotiating the connection between past and future. By contrast,
neoconservatism's adherents are unconcerned with what Edmund Burke
called the ties that bind "the dead, the living, and the yet unborn".
On the contrary, they are revolutionaries or, rather, "counter-
revolutionaries" intent upon remaking America and the world.
The real hypocrisy of Idaho's conservatives
Mark Schmitt
August 31, 2007 8:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/mark_schmitt/2007/08/the_real_hypocrisy=
_of_idaho_co.html
The Republican senator from Idaho, Larry Craig, has committed the one
fatal crime in American politics. Not "disorderly conduct," the
misdemeanor to which he pled guilty after apparently soliciting sex in
a men's room, but hypocrisy. To be a conservative Republican, and a
supporter of the family-values and the anti-gay crusade, and to be
revealed to be gay - arrest or no arrest - is career ending.
Hypocrisy, of course, is almost always taken to mean sexual hypocrisy
- an assumed incompatibility between one's private life and public
positions. In this sense, the curse of hypocrisy, and the quest for
its counterpart, the cult of "authenticity" in our politicians, has
served mainly as a tool to break down the boundaries between private
and public.
A new start on Cuba
Ian Williams
August 31, 2007 7:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ian_williams/2007/08/making_sense_of_cu=
ba.html
The news that Fidel Castro is betting on the Clinton-Obama dream
ticket should be taken with a large Mohito. It makes you wonder which
TV station denied to ordinary Cubans that he is relying on for his
news.
Even so, Barack Obama is doing well by doing good with his pledge to
reform the administration's counterproductive Cuba policy. It may
annoy the hysterical anti-Castro faction in Miami, but lots of sane
Americans, including many Cuban immigrants, will support someone who
breaks with the inane and inept foreign policy that has got the US
nowhere in Cuba and led it up the Tigris elsewhere.
A fallible hero
Christopher Bigsby
August 31, 2007 7:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/christopher_bigsby/2007/08/a_fallible_h=
ero.html
In January 1967, Inge Morath gave birth to Arthur Miller's son Daniel
(middle name Eugene, a family name deriving Pushkin's Eugene Onegin),
a Downs Syndrome child. It was wholly unexpected. No tests were
available. She and her husband had a decision to make. They were
advised by their doctor that he would best be cared for in a
specialist institution. It was advice frequently given at the time.
Like anyone else in those circumstances they wanted one thing above
all else - to do the best they could for their child. The problem,
then as now, was to be sure what the best might be. Nor, even with the
passage of time, is it easy to be sure that a decision is the right
one. It was, Miller told me, a situation with no satisfactory
conclusion.
A number of pieces have appeared in the press which suggest that their
decision in some sense invalidated the image of a man who has been
called "the moralist of a generation," who refused to betray his
friends to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, secured the
release of imprisoned writers through his work as President of
International PEN, fiercely opposed the Vietnam war. The logic of
these pieces is that Daniel was like a figure out of Jane Eyre - a
guilty secret. He was, after all, it has been pointed out, not
referred to in his autobiography, Timebends, seemingly left out of the
family narrative.
Chemical imbalance
Dave Hill
August 31, 2007 6:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dave_hill/2007/08/chemical_imbalance.ht=
ml
Newham sprinter Christine Ohuruogu's gold medal win in the 400 metres
at the World Athletics Championships in Osaka on Wednesday was not
greeted with unalloyed acclaim. Instead, there's been a bit of
muttering. Ohuruogu had just returned to the track following a ban for
missing three out-of-competition drug tests. Given this it's not hard
to see why the brilliance of her run after so long a break from the
track might have looked fishy to onlookers. The Today programme's
sports reporter Gary Richardson was at his most insinuating when
interviewing her yesterday morning (8.26). Uhuruogu herself has sadly
acknowledged that her victory will always be tainted in many minds.
In fact everyone seems to accept that Uhuruogu is a scatterbrain
rather than a cheat. But with the Beijing Olympics on the horizon and
London's to follow four years later, I suppose this is a taste of
things to come. So if we're going to have the drugs in sport debate
from now until 2012 how about having it properly? Is an "anti-doping"
strategy really workable? If not, how can it be justified when its
inadequacies must mean that the best cheats won't be caught? More
philosophically, why are performance-enhancing drugs regarded as
cheating in the first place when other performance-enhancing aids
aren't?
Selective discipline
Seumas Milne
August 31, 2007 6:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/seumas_milne/2007/08/it_must_still_be_a=
ugust.html
It must still be August. The media talk is that Britain faces an
"autumn of discontent" from angry public sector workers and rolling
strikes across our public services. And the Tories and CBI have been
loudly accusing Gordon Brown of caving in to union power by massaging
pay offers in health and local government.
Chance would be a fine thing, some might say. The Treasury's 2% limit
on this spring's public sector pay deals - when inflation was running
at over 4% and average earnings at well over 3% - means real wage cuts
for a fifth of the workforce at a time when pay rises at the top end
are running closer to 40%.
The day the music died
Tim Footman
August 31, 2007 5:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tim_footman/2007/08/the_day_the_music_d=
ied.html
I was really looking forward to Monday, September 1, 1997. Xfm, a
radio station devoted to "alternative music" was due to begin its
first day of unrestricted broadcasting in London. One of the key DJs
was to be Gary Crowley who, before jumping ship from GLR, had made
very encouraging noises about a band I was helping to manage. At the
very least, a good dose of snotty-nosed feedback was just what we
needed after the banal platitudes that had marked the media's output
the previous day. Here at least we'd be able to avoid any hint of
maudlin sentimentality. Surely the spiritual heirs of the Sex Pistols
and the Smiths wouldn't be mourning the death of a princess.
At midday, Crowley began his show, solemnly dedicating the first day's
programming to the beloved memory of ...
Multiple choices
Frank Fisher
August 31, 2007 5:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/frank_fisher/2007/08/multiple_choices.h=
tml
Comment is free has been overwhelmed this week by the eternal debate
regarding free will, and the nature of individuality - not that it has
often been explicit. Sue Blackmore's article about Ben Libet's rather
shallow examination of the nature of consciousness tackled the subject
head on - Madeleine Bunting's apologia for gang murder had the absence
of free will as a foundation stone, but didn't appear to realise.
Similarly, the discussion on gang violence that followed, like the
assessments of Diana-mania, danced around the issue of when we are
free to act as individuals, and when (if?) we are not.
You're not going to get an answer to the question of consciousness
here - other than to say that the mind is the weirdest thing we know
of, other than the universe, and they may well turn out to be one and
the same thing. Also, the notion expounded by Libet, that in a
mechanistic, causal universe we can't have free will, has been tackled
many times in the past century - Google or Wiki "quantum mind" for an
overview - and often with the same conclusion: linear causality may be
king up here in the atomic world, it ain't down there at the quantum
level. The brain may be nothing more than a router to that wonderland
below, and we may all of us have very, very tiny minds indeed.
Five get embroiled in a class war
Michael White
August 31, 2007 4:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_white/2007/08/five_get_embroile=
d_in_a_class_war.html
The unmentionable C-word surfaced in the newspapers this week. Yes,
"class" reared its unfashionable head in an unlikely context: to which
social class did Enid Blyton's Famous Five belong? It's not the kind
of talk that decent people tolerate nowadays.
So far as I could tell it started in the Times where a writer
described Julian, *****, Anne, George and that dog as "the most
formidable upper middle class crime fighting squadron assembled".
Leading the way
Tony Juniper
August 31, 2007 4:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tony_juniper/2007/08/leading_the_way.ht=
ml
The Green party is presently engaged in a debate about its internal
leadership structure. Should the party adopt a figurehead approach to
leadership, or should it retain the arrangement whereby it has two
fairly low profile "principal speakers"?
This is a very important question, because while green issues are
rocketing into the mainstream, the political action needed to address
challenges like climate change and resource depletion are nowhere near
adequate. For example, while cuts in carbon dioxide emissions of at
least 80% are needed by 2050, in the UK emissions are going up.
Confessions of a cyberslacker
Paul MacInnes
August 31, 2007 3:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/paul_macinnes/2007/08/confessions_of_a_=
cyberslacker.html
I was sitting in the office the other day, idly clicking through
pictures of LOLpigs ("I is in yur excrement, eatin it 4 brekfastz")
when I came across a report by Salary.com suggesting that six out of
10 Americans use the internet to "cyberslack" at work.
"That's ironic," I thought, while posting pictures of my breakfast on
Facebook, "cos, like, reading an article about cyberslacking is, like,
cyberslacking in itself."
Dodging the ballots
Neil O'Brien
August 31, 2007 3:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/neil_obrien/2007/08/dodging_the_ballots=
..html
The former Europe minister Keith Vaz has joined the growing call for a
referendum. He says: "The British people should have the chance to
vote in a referendum on the treaty."
Day by day, the government seems to get into more and more of a mess
over the new revived EU constitution.
Time to move on
Stephen Bates
August 31, 2007 2:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/stephen_bates/2007/08/time_to_move_on.h=
tml
Few people these days receive memorial services 10 years after their
death. In the Middle Ages men built chantries and paid for priests to
say annual masses for the repose of their souls in the hope of the
forgiveness of their sins and expecting to reduce their time in
purgatory, but we don't tend to do that these days in a Protestant
country.
For Diana though, things were different. As if catching up on an
acknowledged debt, the royal family trooped obediently over to the
Guards Chapel this morning to do homage to the woman who might,
conceivably, have brought the monarchy low and, maybe, to expiate
their sense of guilt. It was the apotheosis of the People's Princess,
that strange, moving, flawed but human creature who still skims across
the nation's memory.
Love and divorce
Open Thread
August 31, 2007 1:45 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/open_thread/2007/08/love_and_marriage.h=
tml
According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, the
number of divorces in England and Wales are steadily declining. It is
tempting to say that today's couples are more infatuated with each
other than ever before, but is that really the case?
Some credit the drop to the more liberalised attitudes of recent
years, such as the trend for couples to live together for a period of
time before getting married or, alternatively, tie the knot later in
life once they've begun to settle down.
Right jabs
Michael Fitzpatrick
August 31, 2007 1:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_fitzpatrick/2007/08/right_jabs.=
html
In our practice in Hackney, at the centre of the current measles
epidemic (150 cases in three months), we have noticed that while our
middle-class patients are more inclined to reject MMR, our more
disadvantaged children are more likely to get measles.
As a consequence of the long-running MMR-autism scare, some parents,
influenced by the promotion of the scare in the media, have refused to
have their children immunised. These parents tend to be from the
professional and chattering classes, with an outlook that combines
scepticism towards mainstream medicine with credulity towards
alternative sources of authority. At the same time, there has always
been a group of children - in families of newly arriving immigrants,
travelling communities or suffering other forms of social exclusion -
who have fallen behind in receiving vaccines.
Paradise lost
Seth Freedman
August 31, 2007 12:15 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/seth_freedman/2007/08/paradise_lost.html
Israel's got a lot going for it - to this ex-pat Englishman, at least.
As I sit staring out of my window at a typically grey and overcast
London sky, I'm already counting down the days till I'm once more
lounging on the golden beaches of Tel Aviv, or kicking back in the sun-
bleached Jerusalem parks. But, for all that life in the Holy Land is
an aesthetically pleasurable experience and one that I'm more than
grateful for, Wednesday night's game at Arsenal brought home to me the
"paradise lost" aspect of the land I now call home.
There was nothing about the evening's entertainment that I haven't
encountered countless times over the years I've been faithfully
trekking to Highbury to watch my team - except that now I see the
whole excursion through the prism of Israeli eyes. And the ability to
see things through the eyes of the "other" is something sorely lacking
in many people who criticise and condemn Israelis for their nervous
traits, many of whom are the same people demanding that Israelis do
just that when judging the Palestinians for their actions.
Invested interests
Evelyn de Rothschild
August 31, 2007 11:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/evelyn_de_rothschild/2007/08/invested_i=
nterests.html
Is the capitalist system too lax? Has it changed in recent years,
making it all too easy for people to participate at all levels?
With so much money available, it is easy to wonder whether the system
can cope. The mortgage market is beset by problems, hitting those who
can ill afford it. Perhaps some of these problems are cyclical; when
you do have the cash-flow following a drop in inflation, you have to
face up to these effects - and this requires discipline.
Matters of opinion
Francis Sedgemore
August 31, 2007 11:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/francis_sedgemore/2007/08/matters_of_op=
inion.html
If journalists have corporate mottos, one of them is surely: "Inquire,
explain and hold to account." Jeremy Paxman clearly understands this
justification by works, as is clear from his Newsnight performances
and the recent James MacTaggart memorial lecture.
Mind the pay gap
Howard Glennerster
August 31, 2007 10:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/howard_glennerster/2007/08/mind_the_pay=
_gap.html
The Guardian reports this week on what has been happening to top
salaries and bonuses in the City of London is only the latest example
of a long term trend in income and wealth distribution. It is just one
example of profound changes in the UK's social structure and its
pattern of rewards.
It poses a real challenge to traditional social democratic ideas about
how to respond to inequality. How does any social democratic
government restrain the explosive widening of the income gap in modern
economies driven by globally set incomes? The last 10 years have been
unusually benign, unprecedented growth and falling unemployment. If we
cannot redistribute more effectively in those circumstances when will
we be able to?
A friend of feudalism
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2160247,00.html
Pakistan has long been ruled by an elite. Benazir Bhutto's return
would perpetuate the old order
William Dalrymple
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
Not far from the ruins of the ancient city of Mohenjo-Daro, lies
Benazir Bhutto's feudal estate of Larkhana. In this backward and arid
region amid the dry salt flats of the Indus plain, Bhutto's family
have long been the most prominent land owners, and the area is witness
to many of the Borgia-like feuds that distinguish the lives of
Pakistan's feudal elite.
The last time I visited the estate, in 1994, a convoy from the house
of Begum Bhutto - Benazir's mother - to her husband's grave had just
been shot at by police, leading to the deaths of three of the family's
retainers. Begum was in no doubt that the police were acting to
support Benazir. Soon afterwards, there was the funeral of Benazir's
brother Murtaza, who had just returned to Pakistan to try to oust his
sister from control of the family's political wing, the Pakistan
People's party. He died, along with six of his supporters, in a hail
of police bullets, yards from his front door. Many pointed the finger
of suspicion at Benazir, and her husband was later charged with
complicity in the murder.
An Enid Blyton prescription for a post-Jack Bauer world
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2160246,00.html
TV nostalgia, in the shape of a middle-aged Famous Five, reflects an
anxiety that the present is another country
Marina Hyde
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
Until now they have been blissfully suspended in a world of picnics
and smugglers' caves, where ginger beer is quantified in the arcane
measurement known as a lashing, and all foreigners are suspicious.
However, we shall soon see the Famous Five in our own, modern world -
a place of male grooming, binge drinking, wars on terror and the
Jeremy Kyle show. Happily, all foreigners remain suspicious - but
otherwise, Toto, we're not in Kirrin any more.
An Enid Blyton prescription for a post-Jack Bauer world
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2160246,00.html
TV nostalgia, in the shape of a middle-aged Famous Five, reflects an
anxiety that the present is another country
Marina Hyde
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
Until now they have been blissfully suspended in a world of picnics
and smugglers' caves, where ginger beer is quantified in the arcane
measurement known as a lashing, and all foreigners are suspicious.
However, we shall soon see the Famous Five in our own, modern world -
a place of male grooming, binge drinking, wars on terror and the
Jeremy Kyle show. Happily, all foreigners remain suspicious - but
otherwise, Toto, we're not in Kirrin any more.
Enemies of the state
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2160248,00.html
The prosecutor in the Politkovskaya inquiry sounds disturbingly like
he's back in the USSR
Roman Shleinov
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
The arrest of 10 people suspected of involvement in the murder of
journalist Anna Politkovskaya was announced in Moscow this week by the
prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika. Those held include officials from the
Russian interior ministry and the Federal Security Service. Chaika
said that those ultimately behind the murder are living outside the
Russian Federation, adding that it was committed with the intention of
destabilising Russia and reimposing the rule of the oligarchs.
Face to faith
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2160267,00.html
The church's preference for commitment over numbers has made it
increasingly irrelevant, says David Self
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
At the end of the second world war, the parish of St George,
Altrincham in Cheshire acquired a new vicar. He inherited a pattern of
Sunday services common in those days. There was early morning
communion for "old maids" who bicycled to church (George Orwell's
phrase before it was John Major's) and, mid-morning, the principal
Sunday service of matins. Once a month, at St George's as in many
other parishes, matins was followed by a truncated holy communion for
those who wished to stay on.
You Review: Big Brother 8 final
James Donaghy
September 1, 2007 9:42 AM
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/tv/2007/09/you_review_big_brother_8_final.html
Live blogged here last night, the Big Brother 8 final started with the
twin threat of Samanda as strong favourites and finished with Essex's
village idiot Brian Belo walking off with the gong and the =A3100,000.
The usually reliable internet polls had the twins with a solid lead
and we all know how difficult it is for a black contestant on reality
TV shows. Yet the crowd at Elstree told a different story with Brian
clearly receiving the loudest cheers as the finalists names were read.
Davina wore a red ballgown with matching shoes - a bold departure from
her trademark black. In the stands, the evicted housemates (minus a
former Guardian columnist and indie-loving Aryan ), sat watching the
show.
Big Brother 8: thanks for the memories
James Donaghy
August 31, 2007 1:57 PM
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/tv/2007/08/big_brother_8_thanks_for_the_m.html
British summertime officially ends tonight with the finale of Big
Brother. Even the wettest July in history, forcing people indoors,
couldn't save the show recording its worst viewing figures since its
inception. It's hung around like a bad smell all summer and has been a
bigger washout than your thrice-cancelled July barbecue extravaganza.
Nonetheless, it has had its moments and a top 10 of them would look a
little something like this:
1=2E Emily's introduction tape
"There's a new music that's taking over our country," said the
outrageously pretty Emily, "and it's called indie." The declaration
caused a panic on the scale of Orson Welles's War of the Worlds
broadcast. Dopey posh boys with guitars were venerated nationwide and
new prime minister Gordon Brown declared, "I, for one, welcome our new
indie overlords." During the indie terror most people missed Emily's
"Isn't it about time you put some intelligent women on the show?"
comment. Probably just as well.
Ang Lee's Lust, Caution could buck the NC-17 trend
Geoffrey Macnab
August 31, 2007 1:19 PM
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/08/ang_lees_lust_caution_could_bu.html
The deceptively mild-mannered Ang Lee is set to provoke a censorship
row with his new feature, Lust, Caution (which received its world
premiere in Venice yesterday). The Mandarin-language espionage
thriller might best be described as a cross between Alfred Hitchcock's
Notorious and Nagisa Oshima's In the Realm Of the Senses. It's clearly
the very graphic sex sequences that have earned the film its NC-17
rating in the US, where it will be released later this autumn.
Generally, when mainstream directors receive NC-17 ratings, they
promptly retreat. The label is regarded as a kiss of death for US
releases, and most cinema chains refuse to show films branded with it.
Lee, however, is reportedly insisting that his film is shown in its
full 156-minute glory.
Death and desolation after the inferno on road from Artemida
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2160170,00.html
People of the Peloponnese lost relatives, homes and livelihoods in
worst disaster for decades to hit their picturesque land
Helena Smith in Athens
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
The flames rolled over the road all at once and when they came, Spyros
Bilionis did instinctively what he did not want to do: he drove
straight into them.
With Pandazis Chronopoulos, the mayor of Zaharo, in the passenger seat
screaming not to stop he pointed his silver jeep at the inferno and
closed his eyes.
'This is our tsunami. Our 9/11'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2160172,00.html
Sofka Zinovieff
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
"This is our tsunami. Our 9/11," said a Greek friend, grasping for
words to express the dimensions of the devastation. The fires that
have reduced vast swaths of Greece to a stinking, charred vision of
hell have shocked the world, but will soon be forgotten by the
disaster-weary media, which will move on to the next subject. For
those of us who live in Greece, the catastrophe is the worst thing to
have hit the country since the ravages of the second world war. Like
the war, the fallout will almost certainly affect our lives for at
least the next generation.
Bling for your supper: hip-hop stars go into battle over the future of
a stuttering genre
http://music.guardian.co.uk/urban/story/0,,2160277,00.html
Kanye West and 50 Cent plan album showdown as rap record sales decline
Paul MacInnes
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
In one corner there is Kanye West, the hipster's favourite rapper who
records with Coldplay's Chris Martin and collaborates with Takahashi
Murakami, the "Japanese Warhol". In the other looms 50 Cent, the
impeccably muscular former crack dealer who recently released a single
called, simply, I Get Money and who has said he'll quit if West
outsells him. On September 11 their latest albums will go head to head
in the record stores, a fight not just between two distended egos but
for the future of rap music itself.
Don't recognise Wu Yi? You should, she's the world's second most
powerful woman
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gender/story/0,,2160218,00.html
=B7 Asian CEOs and politicians rise in magazine's rankings
=B7 Merkel tops list as the Queen rises to No 23
Ed Pilkington in New York
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
The inexorable flow of economic and political strength from the west
to the emerging giants of the east is underlined in a new list of the
world's most powerful women, which awards no fewer than four of the
top six places to women from Asia and the far east.
While the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, takes the number one spot
for the second year running, the real story of the new Forbes list is
the dominance of Asian women.
UK attacks Kenya over role in search for missing =A31bn
http://www.guardian.co.uk/kenya/story/0,,2160185,00.html
=B7 Foreign Office says Nairobi spurned offer of help
=B7 More close allies of Moi suspected of corruption
Xan Rice in Nairobi, Duncan Campbell and Michael White
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
The Foreign Office launched an attack last night on the Kenyan
government over its handling of the corruption investigation into the
Moi regime, reported yesterday by the Guardian. It also emerged
yesterday that many other members of the Kenyan establishment are
suspected of corruption involving a total of more than =A31bn.
In a sharply worded response to the report on the Kroll inquiry into
theft by the Moi regime, the Foreign Office - also speaking for the
Treasury - said it was "very surprised" to read the claim by Alfred
Mutua, the Nairobi government's spokesman, that the British government
had been asked for help - but "so far they have refused".
Swiss party accused of racist campaigning
http://www.guardian.co.uk/farright/story/0,,2160239,00.html
Angelique Chrisafis in Paris and agencies
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
Switzerland's biggest political party has come under fire for racist
and xenophobic campaigning after its posters featured black sheep and
its proposals to deport immigrants were likened by anti-racism
campaigners to Nazi practices.
The nationalist People's party, which controls the lower house of the
Swiss parliament, has run an advertising campaign showing three white
sheep on a Swiss flag kicking out a black sheep with the caption "For
more security".
The party, which controls the justice ministry and is part of
Switzerland's coalition, is proposing a scheme to deport immigrant
families if their children are convicted of a violent crime, drug
offences or benefit fraud. It claims immigrants, which make up 20% of
the population, are four times more likely to commit crimes than Swiss
nationals.
The Forza be with you
http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,,2160351,00.html
A beauty queen, then a TV reporter and steel magnate, now Michela
Brambilla is Silvio Berlusconi's latest ally and the new face of
rightwing Italy. John Hooper meets 'la Rossa'
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
'No," says Michela Vittoria Brambilla's press woman, firmly. The
Guardian wants to send its own photographer. But, she explains,
Brambilla - Silvio Berlusconi's latest protege and founder of his new
party - is never photographed without first submitting herself to the
attentions of a hairdresser and a professional makeup artist.
Lord knows why not. When she appears on the hotel terrace overlooking
the Meditteranean - half an hour late and unmistakeable with her flame-
coloured, shoulder-length hair - she looks as if she has stepped out
of an ad for the sort of Italian car that costs a medium-sized
mortgage. She has on a suit and a pair of silver, high-heeled, sparkly
shoes that exactly match her bag. Like all rich ladies holidaying on
the C=F4te d'Azur, she has a little dog on the end of an expensive-
looking lead that precisely matches its harness.
Senator under pressure to quit after arrest in airport lavatory
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2160183,00.html
David Espo and Matthew Daly in Washington
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
A senior Republican senator is considering resigning after his arrest
on June 11 by an undercover police officer for lewd conduct in a
lavatory at Minneapolis airport. Senator Larry Craig, 62, pleaded
guilty to disorderly conduct on August 1 but has since said that he
had done nothing wrong and insisted he was not gay.
Party officials said yesterday that CL "Butch" Otter, the governor of
the conservative state of Idaho, which Mr Craig represents, appears to
have settled on Jim Risch, the lieutenant governor, as his successor.
Bush defends UK Basra pullout
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2160191,00.html
=B7 Britain alarmed by critics in US administration
=B7 Ministers deny mission in southern Iraq has failed
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
President George Bush yesterday sought to end criticism from the
Pentagon and the state department of the British decision to pull
troops out of Basra.
Mr Bush, who had been informed by the British government about its
alarm over the criticism in recent weeks, said he was "fine" about the
handover to Iraqi forces in Basra. His comments came as the defence
secretary, Des Browne, and the foreign secretary, David Miliband, took
the rare step of publishing a joint article in the Washington Post to
rebut the criticism.
Ch=E1vez flies to Colombia for talks to free hostages held by guerrillas
http://www.guardian.co.uk/colombia/story/0,,2160194,00.html
Sibylla Brodzinksy in Bogot=E1 and Rory Carroll in Caracas
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
Venezuela's president, Hugo Ch=E1vez, made a bold attempt yesterday to
broker a deal between Colombia and leftwing guerrillas to free
hostages languishing in jungle redoubts.
Mr Ch=E1vez flew to Colombia hoping his unique position in the region
could secure a humanitarian breakthrough in his neighbour's
intractable 40-year civil conflict.
He was scheduled to hold talks with President =C1lvaro Uribe before
making an appeal to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -
Marxist rebels known by the Spanish acronym Farc.
The great persuader
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2159867,00.html
Eric Hobsbawm's essays on today's politics are unconventional and
astringent. Hardly surprising for a world-famous historian whose
communism provoked decades of controversy
Paul Laity
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
When the world's best-known historian turns his attention to today's
political problems, it's worth listening. Eric Hobsbawm celebrated his
90th birthday this summer with a book of essays, Globalisation,
Democracy and Terrorism, in which he surveys the world since 9/11,
imparting lessons "the author has learned, not least from living
through and reflecting on much of the past century".
As a scholar who not only has been a formidable presence in the
historical profession since the 1940s, but can say that he "remembers
vividly" the cold winter night Hitler took power in Berlin, Hobsbawm
feels qualified to stand back from the contemporary scene and see it
"in a broader context and in a longer perspective". And his standing
has never been higher, thanks to his two previous books: the
bestselling account of the "short 20th century", The Age of Extremes
(1994), which has been called his masterpiece; and his memoir,
Interesting Times (2002), the writing in which surpasses the already
exacting standards of a renowned stylist. Hobsbawm's range and power
of analysis are unquestioned. He speaks numerous languages, has
travelled everywhere and is equally at home assessing football's
Bosman ruling as he is explaining stock market crashes. Even the
Spectator, a magazine assuredly hostile to his unrepentant communism,
calls him our "greatest living historian".
Short back and asides
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2159894,00.html
In Orhan Pamuk's youth, barber shops were of central importance to
Istanbul society. They had the funniest magazines and the best gossip.
So why was he so reluctant to visit them?
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
In 1826, after the Ottoman army had suffered a string of defeats at
the hands of the west, and the Janissaries who had traditionally
served as its soldiers had resisted attempts to modernise them and
bring them up to European standards, the reformist Sultan Mahmud II
dispatched his new disciplined army to attack the Janissary
headquarters in Istanbul, reducing it to rubble. It was an important
moment, not just in the history of Istanbul, but in the history of the
Ottoman empire, one that all lyc=E9e students in Turkey are taught to
view from a westernising, modernising, nationalist perspective and to
call "The Auspicious Event". What is less well known is that this
auspicious event, which involved clashes with tens of thousands of
Janissaries in the centre of the city and wholesale slaughter in its
streets and shops, changed the face of Istanbul in ways that can be
seen even today.
Upwardly mobile
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2159896,00.html
Climbing trees, and reading about them, is back in fashion. From high
in the canopy, Robert Macfarlane finds a new perspective on our need
to reconnect with nature
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
For three years now, I have been climbing the same tree - a 30-foot
beech in a woodland near my Cambridge home. Beeches make the best
climbing trees: the grippiness of their grey bark, the radiance of
their branches. I have come to know my beech well. I have climbed it
at dawn, dusk and noon, and in all weathers. Climbing the tree has
become a way to get perspective, however slight; to look down on a
landscape that I usually look across.
In truth, beauty
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2159870,00.html
They were scruffy, stroppy and barely out of school, but, as Kevin
Jackson explains, the angry young men of the documentary film movement
made Britain's most significant contribution to cinema history
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
The story of the British documentary film movement is crammed with odd
details: it is a story of herrings and cocoa, fairies and telephones,
Christmas puddings and killer rats. It is also the story of how a
handful of scruffy, brainy, workaholic young malcontents somehow
managed - by intention, accident, improvisation and sheer
inventiveness - to create some new types of film and new ways of film-
making. Though they have never been remotely as famous as, say,
Hitchcock or Chaplin or David Lean, their influence has been
incalculably deep and lasting. For decades, film historians all around
the world have been contending that the movement's members made
Britain's most significant contribution to cinema. This month they are
celebrated in a welcome season at the BFI.
What does soulful mean?
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2159855,00.html
Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God was for decades a
well-loved secret among black women. Zadie Smith recalls her emotional
first reading of the novel, and claims it as a classic for all
audiences
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
When I was 14 I was given Their Eyes Were Watching God by my mother. I
was reluctant to read it. I knew what she meant by giving it to me and
I resented the inference. In the same spirit she had introduced me to
Wide Sargasso Sea and The Bluest Eye, and I had not liked either of
them - better to say, I had not allowed myself to like either of them.
I preferred my own freely chosen, heterogeneous reading list. I
flattered myself I ranged widely in my reading, never choosing books
for genetic or socio-cultural reasons. Spotting Their Eyes Were
Watching God unopened on my bedside table, my mother persisted:
Just like life
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2159857,00.html
Christopher Tayler finds an unexpected humour in JM Coetzee's fact-
woven Diary of a Bad Year
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
Diary of a Bad Year
by JM Coetzee
304pp, Harvill Secker, =A316.99
"I must not underestimate Coetzee," one of the narrators of JM
Coetzee's first novel, Dusklands (1974), reminds himself. "He is a
hearty man, the kind that eats steak daily." This particular Coetzee,
a "genial, ordinary" Vietnam-era American functionary, couldn't be
much further removed from the character readers might imagine
glowering from behind the books. Though hugely admired as a novelist
from fairly early on, Coetzee made his living for many years as an
academic, and is still suspected of being a thin-blooded, professorial
type, sunk too deeply in pained thought for heartiness or even, it's
rumoured, laughter. As a public figure he is determinedly self-
effacing and inscrutable - even, or especially, when addressing things
he's thought to feel strongly about - and, judging only from his
recent storylines, you'd imagine his private life to revolve chiefly
around power-fraught or unreciprocable passions: gloomy lusts for
younger women, a slightly despairing concern for the lives of animals.
As for eating steak daily, he's well known to be an ethical
vegetarian.
Bachelor girls
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2159859,00.html
Virginia Nicholson's Singled Out salutes the intrepid women whose
dreams of marriage were destroyed by war, says Lynn Knight
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the
First World War
by Virginia Nicholson
312pp, Viking, =A320
Nearly three-quarters of a million young British men died in the first
world war. Their loss was also that of a generation of young women who
had expected to marry. Virginia Nicholson's subject is this
generation: the single women of the 1920s and 1930s. Even before the
war, there were more women than men, but Nicholson's focus is the
years when the disparity in their numbers was greater: the 1921 census
revealed that women exceeded men by 1.75 million. Headlines shrieked
of a 2 million "surplus".
Sleep-stealing sickness
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2159860,00.html
Kathryn Hughes is horrified by the history of a rare and nasty disease
revealed in DT Max's The Family That Couldn't Sleep
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
The Family That Couldn't Sleep: Unravelling a Venetian Medical Mystery
by DT Max
336pp, Portobello, =A317.99
Strung out across the plains of northern Adriatic Italy lives one of
the unluckiest families in the world. Until its members reach the age
of 50 or so, all seems well. Nurses nurse, merchants trade, and
playboys continue to worry about the cut of their silk handkerchiefs.
But, once past that witching half century, each member of the family
knows that there's a good chance that a terrifying malaise will
strike.
Passion and perversity
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2159865,00.html
Amit Chaudhuri is fascinated by the Lawrentian echoes in VS Naipaul's
A Writer's People
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
A Writer's People: Ways of Looking and Feeling
by VS Naipaul
194pp, Picador, =A316.99
Reading this book reminded me, unexpectedly, of DH Lawrence, a writer
of whom Naipaul is not overly fond. Yet there are concurrences. No
writer since Lawrence has been so openly governed by what seems like
powerful personal likes and dislikes, grievances, and by what appear
to many as untenable prejudices. The compulsions of dislike are
evident everywhere in Naipaul's new book, but most tragi-comically in
the chapter on Anthony Powell, a man Naipaul liked and whose
generosity he benefited from, but whose writing, he discovered after
Powell's death, was "bad". The chapter is an earnest but knowing
attempt to come to terms with this "badness".
Robert Fisk: Strange goings-on here in Lebanon ...
http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2917317.ece
Published: 01 September 2007
Stories that just don't seem to make it into print.
Did you know that the Hizbollah "Party of God" has installed its own
private communications network in the south of Lebanon, stretching
from the village of Zawter Sharqiya all the way to Beirut? And why, I
wonder, would it be doing that? Well, to safeguard its phones in the
event that the Israelis immobilise the public mobile system in the
next war. Next war? Well, if there's not going to be another war in
Lebanon, why is Hizbollah building new roads north of the Litani
river, new bunkers, new logistics far outside the area of operations
of the Nato-led UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon?
Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah's leader, boasts of new weapons. The
Lebanese suspect that these include anti-aircraft missiles. If this is
true - and many Lebanese who have spent their lives under Israel's
cruel air attacks, assaults which have often been war crimes, hope it
is - then the next war will be anticipated with dark but keen anxiety.
Since the Israeli army is incapable of fighting the Hizbollah on its
own ground - its collapse when faced by Hizbollah guerrillas in
southern Lebanon last year proved this - what happens if their awesome
air power is also neutered?
All countries must stay course in Iraq, Bush tells Brown
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2917350.ece
By Andrew Grice Political Editor
Published: 01 September 2007
The first signs of real divisions between George Bush and Gordon Brown
over Iraq emerged as the President urged Britain to stay the course in
the country.
The American President said: "We need all our coalition partners. I
understand that everybody's got their own internal politics. My only
point is that whether it be Afghanistan or Iraq, we've got more work
to do."
Ebullient Sharif sets up three-way struggle for leadership of Pakistan
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2917332.ece
By Jerome Taylor
Published: 01 September 2007
Nawaz Sharif, declaring that he is determined to remove General Pervez
Musharraf, has brushed aside fears that he faces jail if he returns to
Pakistan. He has also set up a three-way struggle for leadership of
the country that looks likely to reach a conclusion this month.
The former prime minister, who was deposed, briefly jailed and exiled
by General Musharraf in a bloodless coup in 1999, said he was unafraid
of the regime's threats to arrest him on corruption charges if he
returns from exile.
Report reveals scale of corruption in Kenya
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article2917392.ece
By Steve Bloomfield in Nairobi
Published: 01 September 2007
The scale of corruption carried out in Kenya by family and associates
of its former president, Daniel Arap Moi, has been revealed in a
secret report which alleges that more than =A31 billion of government
money was stolen during his 24-year rule.
Mr Moi's regime, which came to an end in 2002, has long been regarded
as one of Africa's most corrupt, but the extent of the graft has never
been exposed in so much detail. The 110-page report by international
risk consultants Kroll details assets still allegedly owned by the Moi
family and their entourage in 28 countries, including hotels and
residences in South Africa and the United States, a 10,000-hectare
ranch in Australia, three hotels in London, a =A34 million house in
Surrey, and a =A32 million penthouse flat in Knightsbridge.
Bush takes belated steps to help mortgage victims
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2917327.ece
By Leonard Doyle
Published: 01 September 2007
For Francisco Santos and his wife, Linda, the American dream came
remarkably quickly. A few years after arriving in Northern Virginia
from his native Honduras, the tiler bought his first home for $95,000.
Before long its value had risen to $230,000 and Spanish-speaking
estate agents started urging him to move up the property ladder. It
couldn't go wrong, they told him. He had a steady job, excellent
credit and was already a US citizen; he should buy a bigger house.
Pakistan: A crucial moment in the history of a troubled nation
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2917331.ece
By Omar Waraich
Published: 01 September 2007
Pakistan is facing its worst political turmoil since President Pervez
Musharraf vaulted to power in a bloodless coup in 1999. The fallout
from the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan has introduced al-Qa'ida
and pro-Taliban elements into the lawless tribal belt along the Afghan
border. A long-simmering nationalist insurgency is fighting the
Pakistan army in the vast and resource-rich province of Baluchistan.
And General Musharraf's own popularity has plunged over recent months
as calls for a restoration of democracy continue to grow.
To add to his discomfort, there is sustained pressure from Washington
to clamp down harder on Islamist militants. Last month, President
George Bush signalled his willingness to strike targets inside
Pakistan, while declining to say that he would seek Islamabad's
consent. "With real actionable intelligence," he said, "we will get
the job done".
FBI spied on King's widow for years
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2917333.ece
By Jen Wainwright
Published: 01 September 2007
Newly released documents show that FBI agents spied on the widow of
Martin Luther King for several years after he was shot dead in 1968.
The documents, which include an intercepted letter written by Coretta
Scott King and various memos sent to FBI headquarters, reveal federal
agents' fears that Ms Scott King would continue the work of her late
husband. That she could try "to tie the anti-Vietnam movement to the
civil rights movement" was of particular concern.
Eldorado or bust: How thousands of hopefuls have flocked to the Amazon
rainforest to make their fortune
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2915435.ece
By Susan Schulman
Published: 01 September 2007
Buried deep in Brazil's Amazon rainforest, in the state of Amazonas,
is what has been dubbed Eldorado do Juma, the site of Brazil's biggest
gold rush in decades. As always with gold rushes, word of mouth has
drawn people in. But here, for the first time in history, the word has
spread on the internet. The mine was started in mid-2006, but it
exploded in size after a schoolteacher-turned-miner posted his
findings - and since December, between 3,000 and 10,000 hopeful people
have joined him.
The jumping-off point for the mine is the small town of Apui in the
southern Amazon. This is ranch land, where men on horseback herd beef
cattle on ranches that can extend over more than 250 square miles. The
gold rush has added considerably to the town's fortunes. Apui is
crowded with gold-buying shops; in fact, all of its shops now seem to
cater for the ubiquitous miners - selling hammocks, spades, gold pans
and other essentials. Few opportunities are missed, and even transport
to the mine is organised. Local drivers run trucks and taxis on the
two-hour, 45-mile journey on the rutted red-dirt road to the edge of
the Rio Juma, at a cost of about 20 reals (=A35). From the edge of the
river, boats line up, taking miners and boatloads of provisions the
final 30 minutes up the river to the mine. The total cost of the
journey from Apui is about 40 reals (=A310); roughly the equivalent of a
day's findings, about 1 gram of gold.
Amnesty's abortion stance splits grassroots support
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2917336.ece
By Cahal Milmo
Published: 01 September 2007
The Bromley and Orpington Amnesty International Group will conduct its
fundraising activities much as normal this autumn. Alongside a
sponsored walk in Kent and a street collection in London, a local
theatre group will lay on a charity premiere of its production of
Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
But beneath the busy exterior of grassroots cam-paigning, there are
rumblings of discontent. The group of about 25 activists in the
suburbs of south-east London is one of a growing number across Britain
which is grappling with resignations and dissent in the aftermath of
Amnesty International's decision last month to change its stance on
abortion.
Drawbridge to Franco's castle raised by dictator's daughter
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2917328.ece
By Graham Keeley
Published: 01 September 2007
More than 30 years after the death of the dictator General Francisco
Franco, his family appear to believe they are still above the law.
The descendants of El Caudillo (The Leader) have refused to allow the
general public to see inside his former summer castle in Galicia,
north-west Spain.
German army fights a new Battle of the Bulge
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2917334.ece
Tony Paterson
Published: 01 September 2007
The German army's reputation as a disciplined and highly professional
fighting force has been undermined by new figures which suggest the
service is being weighed down by flabby, overweight conscripts who are
unfit for duty.
Nearly half of the 223,000 young men and women medically examined this
year before starting their national military service were disqualified
from taking part because they were too fat, a defence ministry survey
showed.
Sun, sea, sand and sleaze: Marbella tries to clean up its act
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2917330.ece
Marbella is trying to revive its image as a glamorous destination for
A-list celebrities. But can it also shake off its reputation as a
European capital of corruption? Graham Keeley tests the water
Published: 01 September 2007
It was supposed to epitomise luxury, prosperity and power. Instead, it
became a symbol of the heady mix of excess and corruption which for
too long was synonymous with Marbella, Spain's glittering city of fun.
The Rolls-Royce Shining Spur was the pride and joy of the self-
proclaimed "God of the Costa del Sol", the late playboy and Marbella
mayor Jes=FAs Gil y Gil.
Dominic Lawson: Amnesty International, the Catholic Church, and some
profound questions of life and death
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/dominic_lawson/article29143=
45.ece
Published: 31 August 2007
A newspaper never knows exactly which stories will galvanise its own
readers into print. Generally, however, moral conflicts excite much
more interest than political ones. Thus The Independent's letters page
has been pullulating with opinions following its coverage of the row
between the Catholic Church and Amnesty International over the
latter's decision to campaign for abortion rights.
Yesterday's edition contained two which repay greater examination. The
first was from Neville White, the chairman of the Bromley and
Orpington Amnesty Group, who wrote: "At least three local groups in
this area have been affected by the decision either through
resignation or by putting under severe strain a relationship they have
with their founding church. Consultation with members has been at best
cursory and without apparent understanding of how divisive the
consequences may be; for a movement founded on 'conscience' this is
extraordinary."
Saturday Stew: Why Barack Obama?
http://politicalrealm.blogspot.com/2007/09/saturday-stew-why-barack-obama.h=
tml
We've been doing something different for the past few weekends in the
stew. John Edwards and Ron Paul backers were given the opportunity to
share why they supported those candidates. This week, we're giving the
microphone to supporters of Illinois Senator Barack Obama.
Barack Obama: Meet, Greet and Vote!
http://www.meridianstar.com/opinion/local_story_244013652.html
By Alex Riess / teen columnist
His attempt to combine a method where value is determined by practical
results with the view that reality is composed of state of mind is
remarkably astonishing. His definition for himself is rooted by
heritage, and his definition for America is its people. "There's not a
liberal America and a conservative America, there is the United States
of America," stated Barack Obama at the 2004 Democratic National
Convention.
The country is going through a flaw famine with Obama, and she often
curiously wanders to the experience issue. However, Clinton, Edwards,
and Obama all roughly share the same amount of experience: all have no
more than a decade of legislative experience and no executive
experience. He has legislative experience in both Illinois and
Washington in health care, energy, education, and foreign policy.
Another reason to consider Obama
http://poljunk.gloriousnoise.com/2007/08/another_reason_to_consider_obama.p=
hp#c035030
On Tuesday, Barack Obama wrote an opinion piece for The Financial
Times about the subprime mortgage mess. He characterizes it as a
crisis that is just beginning - which is true - and one for which
dishonest lenders should be punished. And those who were facing
defaulting on their mortgage should be helped, so that they can keep
their homes and keep paying their mortgage. It's the boldest statement
- and the one most on target - from a presidential candidate on the
topic:
Hillary a disaster for Dems
http://www.flathatnews.com/opinions/1013/hillary-a-disaster-for-dems?commen=
ted=3D1#c000617
31 August 2007 | By Jared Calfee, Guest Columnist | The Flat Hat =BB
opinions
The 2008 Democratic primary has earned focus earlier than any other in
recent memory. Some say it's anyone's game. Others say Hillary Clinton
already has the Democratic nomination locked up based on the poll
numbers. So, who is right?
Ironically, they both are. In today's global age of technology and
info-sharing, no scandal can ever break too late. On the other hand,
the polls show Clinton with a firm enough lead to claim the primary.
The main reason is that once people see the poll numbers, they start
to believe them. Plus, undecided voters will support her because
everyone likes to root for a winner.
Obama leads with corporate crowd
Clinton can play hometown card, too, but it has done little to help
her so far
By Susan Chandler | Tribune staff reporter
September 2, 2007
The typical Midwestern business leader is a rock-ribbed Republican who
favors socially moderate policies but strongly opposes more regulation
and higher taxes. That makes it somewhat of a surprise that Barack
Obama, a Democrat from Chicago's South Side, appears to be winning
their hearts and wallets.
Hundreds of Chicago executives, lawyers and investment bankers have
written checks to Obama, according to a Tribune analysis of campaign
contributions during the first six months of this year. Most aren't
hedging their political bets by giving money to New York Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton, the Democratic Party's front-runner in national polls-
so far anyway.
.
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| User: "Medusa" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Look out livers and lungs |
01 Sep 2007 04:39:47 PM |
|
|
On Sep 1, 9:57 am, maff <maf...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Look out livers and lungs
Anne Karpf
September 1, 2007 9:05 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anne_karpf/2007/09/watch_out_live...
What is it that makes young people take up smoking and drinking? Peer
group pressure, we often cry unthinkingly in a kind of double blame:
first blame kids for dabbling with cigarettes and alcohol, then blame
them again for getting their mates hooked.
What made me drink, smoke, and "experiment" with other drugs when I
was young?
A feeling of immoratality; it wasn't going to happen to me, was it?
Latter, I wised up, quit smoking, and went to "social" drinking, but I
don't get totallyt smashed at parties anymore.
Just hope it wasn't too late for my lungs and liver. . .
Medusa
.
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| User: "LC" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Look out livers and lungs |
01 Sep 2007 06:05:31 PM |
|
|
"Medusa" <Medusa4303@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1188664787.989576.55620@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 1, 9:57 am, maff <maf...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Look out livers and lungs
Anne Karpf
September 1, 2007 9:05 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anne_karpf/2007/09/watch_out_live...
What is it that makes young people take up smoking and drinking? Peer
group pressure, we often cry unthinkingly in a kind of double blame:
first blame kids for dabbling with cigarettes and alcohol, then blame
them again for getting their mates hooked.
What made me drink, smoke, and "experiment" with other drugs when I
was young?
A feeling of immoratality; it wasn't going to happen to me, was it?
Latter, I wised up, quit smoking, and went to "social" drinking, but I
don't get totallyt smashed at parties anymore.
Thankfully, I never took up smoking.
In my entire life, I don't think I've inhaled the equivalent of even one
cigarette. Nasty stuff, tobacco.
As far as drinking, I go for quality over quantity.
When you drink something that actually has taste (think craft brews and
Belgian beers), you don't need to pound 'em like a college kid.
Of course, the fact that many of those brews are fairly high gravity (7% abv
and up)
Just hope it wasn't too late for my lungs and liver. . .
They can recover, assuming you didn't abuse 'em too much...<g>
LC~ Currently chilling down some Bear Republic Racer 5, Bell's Two-Hearted
Ale, and Westmalle Trippel for a BBQ tonight.
*Top 10 reasons why Beer is better than Religion*.
10. No one will kill you for not drinking Beer.
9. Beer doesn't tell you how to have sex.
8. Beer has never caused a major war.
7. They don't force Beer on minors who can't think for themselves.
6. When you have a Beer, you don't knock on people's doors trying to
give it away.
5. Nobody's ever been burned at the stake, hanged, or tortured over
his brand of Beer.
4. You don't have to wait 2000+ years for a second Beer.
3. There are laws saying Beer labels can't lie to you.
2. You can prove you have a Beer.
1. If you've devoted your life to Beer, there are groups to help you
stop.
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Look out livers and lungs |
02 Sep 2007 04:27:18 AM |
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On Sat, 01 Sep 2007 09:39:47 -0700, Medusa <Medusa4303@yahoo.com>
wrote:
On Sep 1, 9:57 am, maff <maf...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Look out livers and lungs
Anne Karpf
September 1, 2007 9:05 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anne_karpf/2007/09/watch_out_live...
What is it that makes young people take up smoking and drinking? Peer
group pressure, we often cry unthinkingly in a kind of double blame:
first blame kids for dabbling with cigarettes and alcohol, then blame
them again for getting their mates hooked.
What made me drink, smoke, and "experiment" with other drugs when I
was young?
A feeling of immoratality; it wasn't going to happen to me, was it?
I was one of the first (two) of my group to smoke, so it definitely
wasn't peer pressure.
Just hope it wasn't too late for my lungs and liver. . .
After having a HUGE skin cancer removed from right under one eye, I
have very little damage left from smoking. (Haven't touched one in
over 11 years now.)
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| User: "V" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Look out livers and lungs |
01 Sep 2007 11:59:57 PM |
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On Sep 1, 12:39?pm, Medusa <Medusa4...@yahoo.com> wrote:
On Sep 1, 9:57 am, maff <maf...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Look out livers and lungs
Anne Karpf
September 1, 2007 9:05 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anne_karpf/2007/09/watch_out_live...
What is it that makes young people take up smoking and drinking? Peer
group pressure, we often cry unthinkingly in a kind of double blame:
first blame kids for dabbling with cigarettes and alcohol, then blame
them again for getting their mates hooked.
What made me drink, smoke, and "experiment" with other drugs when I
was young?
A feeling of immoratality; it wasn't going to happen to me, was it?
Latter, I wised up, quit smoking, and went to "social" drinking, but I
don't get totallyt smashed at parties anymore.
Just hope it wasn't too late for my lungs and liver. . .
Medusa
"The great object is sensation---to feel that we exist. It is the
craving void which drives us to travel to intemperate but keenly felt
pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the
agitation inseparable from their accomplishment." ~ George Gordon,
Lord Byron
I first learned about the topic of sensation addiction through my
Buddhist practice.
My Buddhist practice reminds me to be mindful of the present moment
and not escape from it by abusing the senses.
What is the hallmark of an addict?
One who refuses to accept what is by abusing the senses to escape from
the present moment.
All our addictions have pleasure aspects within them and we get
rewards for participating in them in the form of euphoric experiences.
Euphoric experience can be related to the spiritual as well.
The definition of a religious mystic is one that partakes in an
altered state of conciseness with God / god or the spiritual realm.
Our addictions also give us this altered state of consciousness and
feeling of euphoria.
So, we can say that our drugs are our gods and our addiction is our
religion.
There is a reason to our madness - it is not just pure madness as most
addicts think.
Some persons I run into feel guilty for having senses. They get super
sensitized to anything that affects them. They do not look at the
senses as a gift from a higher power, instead look at them as a
curse.
Coming to peace with our senses and learning to enjoy them - but not
abuse them is the answer. And for those looking for an excuse to
continue addiction, do not look upon this post as an excuse to keep
using your drug of choice. If you missed my previous post "The 7
Benefits Addictions Provide Us" and want a copy write me.
From: How to Want What You Have:
"People who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of sensual pleasure
find that the more pleasure they get, the more they want. Small,
ordinary pleasures soon lose their power to please and must be
replaced with more intense or exotic ones. Heedless sensualists
usually meet a bad end. They learn the hard way that their desires are
relentless and insatiable."
We are spiritual beings residing in a physical body and must balance
this fact. The Buddha recognized this as he gave up being an ascetic
himself in favor of the middle path, a path of moderation which
rejected both sensory indulgence as well as extreme mortification.
If we want peace with this subject it all revolves around whether or
not you are abusing your senses and does not revolve around the fact
that you have senses that nature provided you with.
Try asking if the activity placing unreasonable demands on my time and
energy, will it place me in legal jeopardy or endanger my mental,
physical or spiritual health? You see, there never will be a shortage
of ways that humans can find to abuse the mind or the body by living a
life of extremes.
The important question is how to find a balance between the mind and
the body to be at peace in the present. So, don't feel guilty about
having senses or desires, just work on not abusing them.
Once I started to practice mindfulness of the present moment, this
practice opened up a new area of sense enjoyment by just being
present. Drugs took me away from the present and I was anything but
aware of my real senses. In fact, my senses were dulled from being
drugged up. I liked the artificial sense of euphoria I received from
various drugs, but this euphoria was not sustainable, natural or
healthy. Sustainability and health aspects are both areas I now use to
judge things that affect my senses.
If you look into your own addictive areas, you can see how your drug
of choice affected your senses and how your were not necessarily
addicted to the drug - you were addicted to the sensation the drug
provided. This is where sensation addiction comes in. Without
receiving these sensations our drug loses it luster. Sensation of the
mouth, genitals, brain - addiction all revolves around sensations and
how we respond to them.
"I drink to keep body and soul apart" ~ Oscar Wilde
Take care,
V (Male)
Agnostic Freethinker
Practical Philosopher
AA#2
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