A Better Angel

Casey,

Thank you for posting about Marla. She was a Peace dove. Her work will live on through the people who knew her and those who will try to live by her example.

Dear Ira,

Many have looked to him for leadership time and time again - and Senator Ted Kennedy has always led the fight.

Now, my good friend and Massachusetts colleague needs us to join him in a critical undertaking. It will come as no surprise to you that Senator Kennedy is in the forefront of efforts to stop the Republican scheme to change the fundamental Senate rules and create a system in which President Bush's judicial appointments can be approved without a single Democratic vote.

Things could all come to a head in the coming days. The focal point may well be William Myers, a nominee rejected last year who's been nominated again. He could be the test vote on the so-called "nuclear option."

Senator Kennedy and I will both say no to William Myers -- and no to the poisonous abuse of power Republicans are trying to foist on the Senate. Please join us by signing Senator Kennedy's petition.

http://www.tedkennedy.com/page/s/saynotomyers

As you know, the Senate has approved the vast majority of President Bush's judicial nominees -over 95 percent. But, for good cause, we have drawn a line of opposition around nominees like William Myers.

Bush has nominated Myers for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals -- the largest federal court of appeals, and a potential stepping stone to the Supreme Court. For those of us who care deeply about the environment, it is worth noting that the Ninth Circuit has jurisdiction over vast expanses of public land and priceless natural resources. That makes opposing the Myers nomination especially important.

What sense is there in providing a lifetime appointment to an individual who has devoted his career to dismantling the legal protections our courts exist to protect. As a lobbyist for mining interests, he was handpicked by President Bush to regulate that industry. His only experience has been manipulating laws and regulations for corporate gain, against the public interest.

We have to say no to the Myers nomination:

http://www.tedkennedy.com/page/s/saynotomyers

On the merits, there is simply no case for why William Myers should be confirmed.

Fortunately, the Constitution and two hundred years of Senate history give a minority of Senators like Democrats are today the right to say no to irresponsible nominees like Myers.

But Republican leaders won't take the Constitution for an answer. They want to change the basic long-standing Senate rules, silence the minority, and force Myers onto the federal court for life.

I urge you to join me and Senator Kennedy in opposing this senseless nomination. Please - say no to Myers now:

http://www.tedkennedy.com/page/s/saynotomyers

Thank you,

John Kerry

Sorry Suz about changing the subject but this filibuster vote really worries me.

Marla sounds like the woman we would all like to have as a daughter and maybe we should think of establishing some sort of charitable peace fund named in her honor. Hopefully her family will consider such an endeavor in her name.

The Act of Voting Must be Worthy of People's Trust

Voting reforms - or lack of same - are still in the news
http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0418-03.htm

Taleban relaunch radio broadcasts

The Taleban have returned to the airwaves in parts of Afghanistan with relaunch of their broadcasts on a pirate radio station.

The station is called Voice of Shariat, or Islamic Law, and was named after the one the Taleban ran before they were driven from power in 2001.

The station attacks the US-backed Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4459121.stm

After reading this, I am convinced that there is no way we will ever leave Afghanistan or Iraq. Bush wasn't wrong, the mission was accomplished for Bu$hco, big oil and corporate America has a footing in South Asia and the Middle East.

from the Clergy and Laity Network:

Friends:

Last Friday, Senator Frist stated that he will appear in a telecast put together by the Family Research Council that says Democrats are "against
people of faith."

The telecast is a ploy by conservatives to push for Frist's "nuclear" option and remove the traditional Senate filibuster. The telecast flier reads, "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and it is now being used
against people of faith."

In response we have organized Social Justice Sunday. This will be a public gathering of progressive religious and community organizations to speak out against the Family Research Council and its radical Christian Right
colleagues to highjack the judicial selection process for their political/theocratic agenda.

Below you will find a copy of our Social Justice Sunday Invitation. Please forward it to friends, family, members of your faith communities and
community organizations. And please email the invitation to any people you may know in the Louisville and surrounding areas.

If anyone knows of a Social Justice Sunday event that will take place in the Washington D.C. metro area, please let me know and I can post it on the www.buildingbeloved.org website.

Thank for your dedication.

Zev Kanter
Washington Coordinator
Clergy and Laity Network

SOCIAL JUSTICE SUNDAY

April 24, 2005

You are invited to a Public Gathering of

Progressive Religious Communities and Progressive Community Groups:

2:30 PM Sunday Afternoon, April 24
Central Presbyterian Church
318 W. Kentucky St.
(the corner of Kentucky St. and 4th St.)
Louisville, Kentucky
Phone: (502) 587-6935

Progressive Religious Communities, our leaders and our community friends are gathering to witness:

OUR OUTRAGE over the attempt by the Family Research Council and its radical Christian Right colleagues to highjack the judicial selection process for their political/theocratic agenda

OUR DISMAY Senate Majority Leader, Senator Bill Frist, is lending his name and influence to the Family Research Council's claim of universal support from "people of faith" for its strategy, thereby giving false religious credentials to a thinly veiled political agenda

OUR POSITIVE COMMITMENT to defend and strengthen our social context in its commitment to fairness for all people, free of biased religious doctrines and prejudiced attitudes which are inimical to a mature religious understanding of the standards of inclusiveness and justice in American life

AMONG THE SPEAKERS:

. Rev. Dr. Nancy Jo Kemper, Executive Director, Kentucky Council of Churches

. Rev. Dr. Robert Franklin, Professor, Emory University, Atlanta, former President, Interdenominational Theological Center, ordained minister, Church of God in Christ
. Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell. Director, Department of Religion, Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, New York
. Emily Whitehurst, Director of the 100 year old ecumenical council in Austin, Texas
. Rev. Dr. Albert M. Pennybacker, Chair and Executive Officer, Clergy and Laity Network (CLN), former NCCC Associate General Secretary for Public Policy, former Professor, Lexington (KY) Theological Seminary

Please share this invitation with progressive people.

(Note: Casual dress and bring blankets or folding chairs)

For more information please visit Clergy and Laity Network (www.clnnlc.org),
DriveDemocracy (www.drivedemocracy.org) or Building the Beloved Community
(www.buildingbeloved.org).

In other Senate news today, the Senate Democratic Policy Committee held a hearing on mercury pollution in response to the continual denials of Republican-lead committees to hold hearings on the mercury pollution. Here is John Kerry’s statement today from the hearing:

Washington, D.C. - "I want to thank the members of the panel for joining us today to wrestle with an issue that's not just an environmental issue, but which is as real and present a health care crisis as you'll find in numerous communities across our country.

"When fathers across America take their kids fishing but can't risk cooking the catch for dinner because of the risk of mercury contamination, that's a health care issue. When expectant mothers can't trust the tuna fish sandwich they are eating because it might some day lead to seizures in their child, we have a public health problem on our hands. When teachers are seeing increases in learning disabilities around mercury hotspots, we have an education and a public health issue staring us in the face. And what's most troubling is that Washington's not being honest about it.

"In this city, it's almost become standard-fare for honesty to be sacrificed for political expediency. We saw it when the President's budget left out literally trillions in spending. We saw it when a Medicare actuary was forced to fudge the numbers and lie to Congress to keep his job. We saw the falsified numbers in Iraq on everything from the cost of the war to the number of trained Iraqi troops. We saw the fake newscasts produced by the Bush Administration and funded with your tax dollars.

More & Links - http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=750

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1691-2005Apr19.html

Luckily I hadn't eaten yet. I also RSVP'd to hear John Kerry on May 1 (with Governor Gregoire) at Daybreak Star (native American) Center.

Dianne,
 
   I would recomend you not read this within a few hours of having eaten anything!
 
Karl Rove Blasts the Media's Approach to Government

CHESTERTOWN, Md. (April 19) - The media have started applying the horse race style of campaign coverage to daily reporting on government, leading to adversarial reporting that can obscure the truth just to create conflict, President Bush's chief political strategist said Monday.

Getty Images
Rove's involvement in both politics and policy makes his current White House status unusual and gives him remarkably broad authority.

Speaking at a forum at Washington College, Karl Rove said the influx of media outlets and the shrinking shelf life of news in a 24-hour news cycle are to blame.

''We are substituting the shrill and rapid call of the track announcer for calm judgment, fact and substance,'' Rove told the crowd of roughly 600 students and local residents.

Naming specific reporters and news organizations, Rove said the media unfairly created the impression that President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, introduced early in his first term, was stalled in Congress at every step before its passage.

But the legislation was passed by the House and Senate with wide margins and was signed by Bush less than a year after it was introduced, Rove said. He said the media have taken a similar approach to the current debate over Social Security.

''What really gets me is how short the time horizon is for many members of the media of coming to a conclusion of whether something will pass,'' he said.

Another example is the ''obsessive reliance'' on polls to create news and political predictions, he said. He cited the media's early reliance on ultimately misleading exit polls from Election Day 2004 that appeared to show Sen. John Kerry headed for a presidential win.

''It is as if they (reporters) believe that all polls are created equal,'' he said. ''But it ain't so.''

Rove is widely considered to be the driving force behind Bush's 2000 election victory and his win last year over Kerry. Now a deputy chief of staff, Rove is one of the president's closest and most trusted advisers.

Rove countered the general notion among conservatives that mainstream media outlets skew liberal. He said the press corps is ''less liberal than it is oppositional'' and admitted to being a listener of National Public Radio.

Of his boss, Rove said the idea that Bush is not an intellectual is incorrect, citing his Ivy League education and saying ''there's always a book on his night stand.''

''He's one of the most intelligent, curious, intellectually tough people I know, yet the country misunderestimates him continually,'' Rove said, playing on one of Bush's more memorable verbal gaffes.

The more I read about Marla Ruzicka, the more amazed I am at what a truly extraordinary person she was and what incredible work she was doing in Iraq. I'm sorry I didn't know anything about her work before she died.

Here's an article from Common Dreams that she wrote one week before she died. I've included it in its entirety, with sincere respect and in honor to her.

With everything else happening in our country and the world, we cannot forget for a moment that there is a war on...

Aid Worker's Words, Just a Week Before She Was Killed
by Marla Ruzicka

The writer, a 28-year-old humanitarian aid worker from California, was killed Saturday in Baghdad when a suicide bomber aiming for a convoy of contractors pulled alongside her vehicle and detonated his explosives. Her driver also died. She filed this piece from Baghdad a week before her death. The facts cited in it have been reported elsewhere as a matter of public record. However, estimates of the number of civilian deaths in Iraq vary widely. Media reports put the number between 17,000 and 20,000 people.

In my two years in Iraq, the one question I am asked the most is: "How many Iraqi civilians have been killed by American forces?" The American public has a right to know how many Iraqis have lost their lives since the start of the war and as hostilities continue.

In a news conference at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in March 2002, Gen. Tommy Franks said, "We don't do body counts." His words outraged the Arab world and damaged the U.S. claim that its forces go to great lengths to minimize civilian casualties.

During the Iraq war, as U.S. troops pushed toward Baghdad, counting civilian casualties was not a priority for the military. However, since May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared major combat operations over and the U.S. military moved into a phase referred to as "stability operations," most units began to keep track of Iraqi civilians killed at checkpoints or during foot patrols by U.S. soldiers.

Here in Baghdad, a brigadier general commander explained to me that it is standard operating procedure for U.S. troops to file a spot report when they shoot a non-combatant. It is in the military's interest to release these statistics.

Recently, I obtained statistics on civilian casualties from a high-ranking U.S. military official. The numbers were for Baghdad only, for a short period, during a relatively quiet time. Other hot spots, such as the Ramadi and Mosul areas, could prove worse. The statistics showed that 29 civilians were killed by small-arms fire during firefights between U.S. troops and insurgents between Feb. 28 and April 5 - four times the number of Iraqi police killed in the same period. It is not clear whether the bullets that killed these civilians were fired by U.S. troops or insurgents.

A good place to search for Iraqi civilian death counts is the Iraqi Assistance Center in Baghdad and the General Information Centers set up by the U.S. military across Iraq. Iraqis who have been harmed by Americans have the right to file claims for compensation at these locations, and some claims have been paid. But others have been denied, even when the U.S. forces were in the wrong.

The Marines have also been paying compensation in Fallujah and Najaf. These data serve as a good barometer of the civilian costs of battle in both cities.

These statistics demonstrate that the U.S. military can and does track civilian casualties. Troops on the ground keep these records because they recognize they have a responsibility to review each action taken and that it is in their interest to minimize mistakes, especially since winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis is a key component of their strategy. The military should also want to release this information for the purposes of comparison with reports such as the Lancet study published late last year. It suggested that since the U.S.-led invasion there had been 100,000 deaths in Iraq.

A further step should be taken. In my dealings with U.S. military officials here, they have shown regret and remorse for the deaths and injuries of civilians. Systematically recording and publicly releasing civilian casualty numbers would assist in helping the victims who survive to piece their lives back together.

A number is important not only to quantify the cost of war, but as a reminder of those whose dreams will never be realized in a free and democratic Iraq.

Marla Ruzicka was founder of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict. In 2003, she organized surveyors across Iraq to document civilian casualties. Before that, she managed a similar project in Afghanistan that helped to secure assistance from the U.S. government for civilian victims.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0419-34.htm

More about Marla Ruzicka...the last paragraph is particularly poignant...

Published on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 by USA Today
An Advocate for Iraqis Falls. Will U.S. Take Up Her Cause?
Editorial

The tragedy of Marla Ruzicka, 28, goes well beyond the horrific way her young and passionate life ended, in a car bomb Saturday on Baghdad's dangerous airport road, just hours after she left a message on her parents' answering machine in California: "Mom and Dad, I love you. I'm OK."

Like a humanitarian version of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the vivacious blond woman, known to the many Iraqis she helped as an "angel," simply refused to adhere to accepted rules of what Americans and other foreigners could and should do.

She and her shoestring organization, the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, were on a mission: to document how many civilians had been hurt and killed by U.S. forces, to get proper compensation for them and to find other ways to help. She died on her way to visit an injured boy.

Like Mr. Smith in the classic movie, the long-time anti-war activist saw with an innocent's eye the decent thing to do and set out to do it, derided by experts and officials who knew better. In one way, they did. Few take such risks and pay with their lives.

The greater tragedy is that her objective - documenting shattered lives and helping repair them with generosity and compassion - would be good U.S. policy. Yes, the civilian casualty numbers likely would be used against the United States. But, more important, her approach would go a long way toward reducing anti-Americanism.

The U.S. did once envision an ambitious rebuilding effort. But the insurgency forced a retreat. U.S. officials and most other foreigners move in armored vehicles, live behind tight security in the Green Zone and have recoiled from the easy contact of the earliest weeks after the main war ended two years ago. Some civilian victims get compensation, but it is more sporadic than thorough.

Iraqis surely are aware that the U.S. carefully counts American deaths and injuries but does not document Iraqi casualties. Ruzicka fearlessly - and naively - decided not to beat that same retreat. Her relentless lobbying of the media, diplomats, officials and lawmakers had an impact. It helped win congressional approval of millions of dollars of civilian aid, according to the office of Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. Her statistics and detailed documentation helped other organizations compile unofficial records of Iraqi casualties.

In a piece written for USA TODAY before her death, and printed on the opposite page, Ruzicka spilled out her frustration at the lack of public accounting for the casualties. Quite apart from anything else, she wrote, it was needed "as a reminder of those whose dreams will never be realized."

Ruzicka's death spotlights the damage done by callousness in war. Perhaps the attention her extraordinary life is now getting may prompt a change of policy. And fulfill at least one of her own unrealized dreams.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0419-28.htm

From David Corn in The Nation...I've only included snippets, but the whole article is very worthy of the time it takes to read it.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0419-20.htm

One (Especially) Sad Death in Iraq
by David Corn

Marla Ruzicka deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Unlike Paul Wolfowitz or George Tenet, she shouldn't get it for botching the job in Iraq. No, she ought to receive it for trying damn hard to make America live up to its ideals in Iraq and elsewhere. But the medal would have to be awarded posthumously--because on Saturday, Marla, an irrepressible 28-year-old from California, was killed by a bomb when a suicide bomber, who was apparently trying to strike a US convoy on the highway to Baghdad International Airport, pulled up alongside her car pulled and detonated the explosives. Faiz Ali Salaam, her 43-year-old associate and the father of a two-month-old daughter, was also killed.
--snip--
CIVIC was the brainchild of one helluva woman. But the idea, the simple idea--that we care about the innocent people killed in our name--was much larger than one person. Or it should be. Unlike the leaders of the US government, Marla knew that America--for humanitarian and security reasons--had an obligation to help noncombatants injured by US forces. Marla deserved many more years. And the people she helped and tried to help deserved more assistance from this idealistic American.

She will, of course, not be receiving the Medal of Freedom from a president who leads an administration that has said it does not bother to collect data on civilians killed or injured by its military and that has been tremendously slow to compensate the innocent Afghan and Iraqi civilians who have lost loved ones, limbs, homes and businesses due to US military actions. In fact, according to an article in The Washington Post, Marla had "stayed in Baghdad longer than she had planned because she believed she had found the key to establishing that the U.S. military kept records of its civilian victims, despite its official statements otherwise, colleagues said."

In the years I have written this column I don't think I have ever asked a reader to make a donation to an organization. But please consider contributing to CIVIC. You can do so by clicking here - http://www.civicworldwide.org/index.htm

It won't be just for Marla. It will be for the people she lived and died for--and for a principle that all Americans ought to consider seriously: when we fight a war, we are responsible for the triumphs and for the costs.

In Memory of Marla Ruzicka

A truly inspirational young woman.

May you now know peace.

14 Thoughts For The New Pope
Condoms. Female priests. Stop gay bashing. And dammit, do something about Christian rock
By Mark Morford

OK, first things first.

They say you're a hard-line conservative, new pope Joseph Ratzinger (a.k.a. Benedict XVI) of Germany. Very old school and drab, a real lover of repressive, bitter, orthodox doctrine. No fun at parties. Catholic in chains. What glorious times of joy and progress the church is in for, millions now say, dejected sarcasm dripping from their once-hopeful mouths.

See, most spiritually progressive peoples the world over were sort of hoping for a new pope who would recognize this as a historic opportunity, an unprecedented moment for the church to finally get with the times, modernize, shake off the dust and roll some bones and pry open some of those old dungeon doors and bring in some goddamn light.

You know what we wanted? More sex. Love. Good TV. Gender freedom. Better wine. Less sneering doctrine and homophobia and sexism and more fun with condoms and music and spiritual joy. But, instead, we got you. ...

(Full URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2005/04/20/notes042005.DTL&nl=fix)

Inflation Surge Is Biggest in Five Months (from AP)

Wednesday April 20, 9:25 am ET
By Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer
March Inflation Shoots Up 0.6 Percent, Biggest Surge in Five Months, on Energy Costs

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Consumer prices jumped 0.6 percent in March, the biggest inflation surge in five months, as the costs of energy, clothing and airline fares all rose sharply.

The Labor Department said last month's increase in the Consumer Price Index, the most closely watched inflation gauge, followed a 0.4 percent rise in February and left consumer inflation rising at an annual rate of 4.3 percent in the first three months of this year. That was a full percentage point above the 3.3 percent rise in prices for all of 2004.

The new report showed that even outside of food and energy, there were significant price pressures last month. The so-called core rate of inflation rose by a worrisome 0.4 percent in March, the largest jump in 2 1/2 years and double what economists had expected. It reflected higher prices for clothing, hotel rooms, airline tickets and medical care.

The government's new report on inflation showed significantly higher price pressures than had been observed in Tuesday's report on wholesale inflation, which showed a similar overall increase of 0.7 percent, reflecting a sharp jump in energy prices, but only a tiny 0.1 percent increase in prices outside of energy and food.

Economists said the new inflation report was likely to raise worries at the Federal Reserve because of price pressures becoming evident outside of the energy area. The Fed has been raising interest rates at a gradual pace of small quarter-point moves since June of last year.

The higher inflation pressures are coming at a time when a number of reports in recent weeks have shown economic weakness, from a disappointing employment rise in March to lower-than-expected retail sales.

"We are getting slower growth and higher inflation numbers. The Fed is caught," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York. "The Fed would like to keep interest rates low to keep the economy moving but on the other hand they have to fight against inflation."

Wyss predicted that the central bank would raise rates another quarter-point when Fed officials next meet on May 3 and probably continue with quarter-point increases in future months.

Economists and the Federal Reserve track the core inflation figure closely, believing it is a better gauge of underlying inflation pressures since the overall price number can swing widely in response to the volatile energy and food components.

The 0.4 percent rise in the prices outside of food and energy in March followed a 0.3 percent increase in February, which had been the first uptick from four straight months of more moderate 0.2 percent gains in the core inflation rate.

So far this year, the core rate for consumer prices are rising at an annual rate of 3.3 percent in the first three months of the year, the fastest quarterly inflation spurt for core prices since the summer of 2001. For all of last year, core inflation rose by just 2.2 percent.

For March, energy costs shot up 4 percent, the biggest one-month gain since a similar 4 percent rise last October. Gasoline prices climbed 7.9 percent, reflecting the shock motorists have gotten at the pump. There should be a further jump for April given that motorists nationwide are now paying an average of $2.28 per gallon.

Food costs rose by a more moderate 0.2 percent in March, following an even smaller 0.1 percent gain in February. Price declines for pork and fresh fruits helped to moderate price increases for beef, poultry and vegetables.

Outside of energy and food, clothing costs, which had been declining, jumped 0.8 percent in March, the biggest one-month gain in 12 months.

Airline ticket prices rose by 2.7 percent, the largest increase in nearly four years. Airlines have been raising ticket prices to cope with soaring fuel costs.

The costs of hotel and motel rooms shot up 3.9 percent in March, the biggest increase on record.