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Saturday, May 19, 2007

Consider Nuremburg, consider the USA

A US Navy lawyer faces six months in prison and dismissal from service for sending a human rights lawyer the names of 550 Guantanamo Bay detainees. Lt Cdr Matthew Diaz, 41, posted a list of the names in an unmarked Valentine's Day card during the final days of his service at Guantanamo Bay in 2005. The US military had originally refused to release the names of the men it was holding at Guantanamo Bay. The names were made public in 2006 after the Associated Press news agency won a court case against the military.
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<>At a court martial, Lt Cdr Diaz was convicted of communicating secrets that could be used to harm the US and of three other charges of passing on information to an unauthorised person. The jury recommended that Lt Cdr Diaz receive full pay and benefits during his time in jail. The sentence and the dismissal order are reportedly subject to further approval and to review by an appeals court.

'Morality'<>"I had observed the stonewalling, the obstacles we continued to place in the way of the attorneys," the paper quoted Lt Cdr Diaz as saying. "I knew my time was limited... I had to do something. The officer said he had been moved to act because prisoners' rights under the Geneva Convention had been violated. "No matter how the conflict was identified, we were to treat them in accordance with Geneva, and it just wasn't being done."

<>The US government says the men held at its military prison in Guantanamo Bay pose a grave threat to the country and have not been tortured. The Dallas Morning News quotes Lt Cdr Diaz questioning both these assertions. The sentencing of Lt Cdr Diaz has been criticised by the Centre for Constitutional Rights, the New York-based human rights body whose lawyer received the Valentine's Day card and the list of suspects. "We believe that Lt Cmdr Diaz's actions were grounded in a strong sense of morality and commitment to the rule of law," a statement on the centre's website said.
Well well. Given the decision by the jury of six military officers, who were of course only following orders, it is clear from the precedents set at Nuremburg and at the IMT in The Hague, that these officers now need also to be considered direct co-conspirators in the perpetration of crimes against humanity and other war crimes. Their decision, to imprison a fellow officer for acts to protect the human rights of prisoners of war who were being inhumanely treated and detained without due process, is added to the crimes of this nation against the peoples of the world. Their names must be added to the expanding list of those who commited these crimes. They too must be held accountable by the peoples of the world. We can no longer stand by and let these vile and evil people continue to destroy the foundations of liberty and human rights.


Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Squeezing parity out of the turnip

From a cross-post at WAAGNFNP a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy...

Warning, this post is acronym filled, and may contain nefarious allusions, probably inappropriate but nevertheless, they exist.

UNITED NATIONS Copyright - A new treaty designed to promote and protect the rights of the world’s 650 million persons with disabilities opens for signature at the United Nations on Friday.

At its core, the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities ensures that persons with disabilities enjoy the same human rights as everyone else, and are able to lead their lives as fully-fledged citizens who can make valuable contributions to society.

Forty years ago, as an upper-division undergraduate student, I was offered one of those scholarship jobs that go to jocks and related others. These were legacy-based inheritances, passed along to the next class of student athletes by graduating seniors, eagerly anticipated by the younger, who have heard-it-through-the-grapevine that this or that is the coolest chance at getting paid to do nothing, or close to it. My offer was not for one of those cushy roles (lifeguarding the women’s gym pool {only male allowed}, or driving the little tractor that picked up golf balls), but rather a heritage role for those of us in a special and unique club (the fish lane). Ours was the strand that provided support staff for the Education and Psychology departments’ on-campus education environments.

Thus I was obliged to interview for the role of motor performance skills instructor at the research facility for children with learning disabilities. Being a talkative sort, and relatively comfortable with public speaking, I was regarded as sufficiently acceptable and given the job. I ended up keeping it well past my graduation, up until the end of my first year in graduate school. My only previous teaching experience had been as an infant swimming instructor, teaching children under the age of two some basic water safety skills (it was the era of massive build out of SoCAL home pools), but lack of such experience was not apparently a critical consideration. No, what seemed to matter most was the capacity to interact and get along with children of the rich and famous (those who could afford to get their kids into the school) who were identified with a range of learning disabilities (and related handicaps, etc.).

Now this is long before there was the IDEA Act, its subsequent amending legislations, ESEA I & II, ADA, etc., etc., et al. We didn’t have IEP’s or 504s or EIS documented meetings or plans. We didn’t have FERPA, or OSED’s TA&D, to be guides or regulatory oversights. What we did have was: an incredibly dedicated core staff, professors and researchers from departments and psychiatric institutes, observers and lecturers, symposia and conference. Thus, we had meetings, lots and lots of meetings. My personal education in special education was gleaned from these meetings and daily discussions about this or that kid’s issues or problems of the day. As someone who was focused on looking forward to teaching in the university, I didn’t have the slightest interest in all this elementary work; it was just a good job, good hours, and a source of daily learning something, like a daily vitamin supplement.

Years later, working in public education environments, serving on SELPA’s, developing transitional, annual, and triennial IEP’s and 504s, meeting with teachers and parents—I was grateful and appreciative of the experience I had had back in the university. I could relate, I could understand, I could sympathize. I could sense the subtleties behind determining whether this or that kid needed or could best be served by mainstreaming, or pullout, or core services; I could advocate for students who needed to leave the regular public setting and spend their high school period in special programs focused on their needs and best interests.

I also started paying attention to the populations who attended the music festivals and concerts that I helped to produce and direct. Several of us passionately argued for all-inclusive environmental supports for the altered-abled, working diligently to insure that people with all manner of disabilities, handicaps, issues, could enjoy and experience our events to the fullest extent possible. Indeed this past weekend, at an Earth Day event, I watched a young woman sign the lyrics being sung by a raging punk band (how she knew what they were singing is beyond me?).

This has all been in a way of introduction to my rant for a more equitable exchange between those who deserve, and are entitled to, the assistance of the greater society in order to participate in parity with all others. With the advent of all of the legislative regulations and policies, more and more of our nation’s population are asking for and receiving an increasing share of revenue-based supports that offer significant participational parity. The future doesn’t look so bright either in terms of the predicted dramatic increase in citizens needing and deserving more care. This comes at a cost, one wisely paid by the taxpayers, to the overall wellbeing of the society as a whole, particularly in 21st century educational environments, but also in the day-to-day lives of everyone.

Under FERPA and ADA, parents and adults are informed of their rights to insist that this or that accommodation or praxis (regardless of the expense) be provided for their student. Such efforts are laudable, but grossly misjudged by the general population, and further mishandled by the bureaucratic institutions that are our public services. But this isn’t what is upsetting me at the moment. NO, what’s got my craw is what is happening on the public transit with all of the people willing to demonstrably exercise these rights. They are exceeding, rudely in some cases, the balance of parity, stating quite openly demands that they be given greater privileges and access than is equal or a fair share.

I serve on the citizens transit advisory board, a large and unwieldy group of active folks, mostly seniors such as myself, who have the time and freedom to serve on these types of councils, commissions, boards, and groups (I serve on no less than four, with less time to myself now than before I retired). We discuss how to better serve the region with more accessible and reliable public mass transit. We discuss numerous alternatives, fee structures, road conditions, driver and passenger needs and complaints, etc. And the biggest bone of contention is participational parity for disabilities; not because of the costs but because there are so many are becoming downright abusive and demanding.

For example, the other night, riding home on my regular route, an old Russian woman was sitting near the front. The bus driver and I usually share a casual conversation about the latest political or social upheaval of the day, sometimes getting other passengers engaged in some interesting social discussions (some of the kids are okay you know, they are paying attention and reading). Well last night this older lady (perhaps ten years my senior if that) starts shrieking “Shut up! Shut up!” pointing to her ears. She speaks little English but made it clear that any conversation on the bus was detrimental to her wellbeing. Flabbergasted, I politely refused to be quiet, but did speak in more hushed tone. Finally she thought she was at her stop, but became confused and needed to re-board and ride another block further. It turns out she had lost the remote control for her hearing aids and was unable to lower the volume. She could have turned them off of course, or turned one off, or manually turned them down, but no, that wasn’t what she wanted.

We are the medical industries’ service center for a vast region of western states here. There are numerous hospitals, training facilities, medical labs, rehabilitation clinics, hospice centers, and so forth. Specific bus routes are dedicated to servicing these facilities as well as those for residents who need them. There are hundreds of residents who require and use electric wheelchairs, powered walkers, and other support utilities and equipment as they move about the city. The transit system has been more than willing to expend resources to develop special transit options for people to use, smaller more maneuverable vans, better ramps and kneeling buses, and other such offerings.

Yet there is not a day that goes by without at least one (and usually several more) altered-abled person demanding that their needs and rights extend to the point that they directly interfere with the rights of all others. Rather than wanting to ride the special vans, people insist that they ride the regular route bus. Since they ride virtually for free or reduced fare, take up two to four seats (severely obese, wheelchairs), use no less than fifteen to twenty minutes of extra time for loading and unloading, demand that the bus stop at their intersection regardless of appropriate stops, and so forth—these rude riders are beginning to attract negative and detrimental attention from the taxpayers and others in the community. They are performing a disservice to themselves and to others like them.

They insist that the drivers punish kids for being loud (and sometimes the kids are loud, and disrespectful, but not always). They demand that drivers move passengers out of seats just in case some other person of need might later require it, claiming that all of these types of seats are only for them (signage clearly states in the best language possible, that a person need only ask to use the seat if necessary and that is the priority). The public has been incredibly supportive and tolerant over the years, and struggles to continue to be so. But the tipping point is coming, particularly stoked by cases of wheelchair operators (and disabled others with walkers, canes, and dogs) who do so while under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol. There is nothing quite so provocative of irritation as a drunk handicapped person. Rude, loud, demanding, insistent—there are cases now where law enforcement must interdict to remove the person from the bus or the main downtown terminus. It is a problem and becoming a worse one, particularly as the regional VA facilities fill up with veterans of three wars, bitter and unhappy, treated poorly by those who serve them. Grumpy and irritable, they lash out verbally (sometimes physically) particularly at other younger handicapped and disabled people seen as competition for services and attention. We are seeing more and more complaints about these interactions from transit users, drivers, public media, and other citizens.

I don’t know the answer; I don’t know how to make this better. If you have some ideas, please post some comments. In the long run, this will be a growing problem across the US, as my generation of baby boomers feel more and more entitled to all of these sorts of services, while disdaining others who need them too. Veterans will need and demand more care; kids suffering from the ravages of environmental toxicities will be angry that they must share these ever limiting resources.

UPDATE: Over at Tom Dispatch, Chip Ward dicusses some of these very same issues from the perspective of the public library, another of our well served civil commons:

Ophelia sits by the fireplace and mumbles softly, smiling and gesturing at no one in particular. She gazes out the large window through the two pairs of glasses she wears, one windshield-sized pair over a smaller set perched precariously on her small nose. Perhaps four lenses help her see the invisible other she is addressing. When her “nobody there” conversation disturbs the reader seated beside her, Ophelia turns, chuckles at the woman’s discomfort, and explains, “Don’t mind me, I’m dead. It’s okay. I’ve been dead for some time now.” She pauses, then adds reassuringly, “It’s not so bad. You get used to it.” Not at all reassured, the woman gathers her belongings and moves quickly away. Ophelia shrugs. Verbal communication is tricky. She prefers telepathy, but that’s hard to do since the rest of us, she informs me, “don’t know the rules.”

Margi is not so mellow. The “fucking Jews” have been at it again she tells a staff member who asks her for the umpteenth time to settle down and stop talking that way. “Communist!” she hisses and storms off, muttering that she will “sue the boss.” Margi is at least 70 and her behavior shows obvious signs of dementia. The staff’s efforts to find out her background are met with angry diatribes and insults. She clutches a book on German grammar and another on submarines that she reads upside down to “make things right.”

http://tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=180836

WACIYEYE

I realize i have been neglecting this blogsphere to a great extent. I have been participating over at WAAGNFNP for the last few months as well as trying to manage some of the summer tour production constructs for Peak Experience. And now that summer is almost here, and the tour about to begin i realize i will have to put this blog on hiatus, until the Fall. I might check back in occassionally to post some tour news or whatnot, but by and large i will be hasta la vista baby. Oh well, have fun in the tubes and stay away from the spybots and NSA tags and invasive NARUS and NARO software mice. Damn pests need some serious extermination.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

WAAGNFNP crosspost:

by spyder
My own take on May the first in 2007.

The following represents the strands of ribbons to become entwined as we dance around the axis mundi in the commons of a forest meadow. Each a line of thinking of the royal screwing that this day represents, so fertile and fecund, so phallic and virile, dancing about the shaft that has been deeply inserted into the mother, into the consecrated Earth. Plunge that puppy right in there, and dance the night away.

The Rites of Spring
Beltaine was a time of fertility and unbridled merrymaking, when young and old would spend the night making love in the Greenwood. In the morning, they would return to the village bearing huge budding boughs of hawthorn (the may-tree) and other spring flowers with which to bedeck themselves, their families, and their houses. They would parade back to their homes, stopping at each house to leave flowers, and enjoy the best of food and drink that the home had to offer. In every village, the maypole—usually a birch or ash pole—was raised, and dancing and feasting began. Festivities were led by the May Queen and her consort, the King who was sometimes Jack-in-the-Green, or the Green Man, the old god of thewildwood . They were carried through the village in a cart naked save the covering of flowers and enthroned in a leafy arbor as the divine couple whose unity symbolized the sacred marriage of earth and sun.


To Celebrate Beltaine Today
Arise at dawn and wash in the morning dew: the woman who washes her face in it will be beautiful; the man who washes his hands will be skilled with knots and nets. If you live near water, make a garland or posy of spring flowers and cast it into stream, lake or river to bless the water spirits. Prepare a May basket by filling it with flowers and goodwill, then give it to one in need of caring, such as an elderly friend. Beltaine is one of the three “spirit-nights” of the year when the faeries can be seen. At dusk, twist a rowan sprig into a ring and look through it, and you may see them dancing about the fairy rings identified by the trail of perfect mushrooms. Make a May bowl —wine or punch in which the flowers of sweetwoodruff or other fragrant blossoms are soaked (yes and even those mushrooms from the fairy rings)—and drink with the one you love.

Acid Commercial

Hands up Charlie and-uh…

Now if you’re tired or a bit run down,
Can’t seem to getcha feet off the ground,
Maybe you oughta try a little bit of L.S.D.

Only if you want to

Shake your head and rattle your brain,
Make you act just a bit insane,
Give you all the psychic energy you need —

Eat flowers and kiss babies
L.S.D.
For you and me!

So let’s get it on with a stiff drink of Kool-Aid in honor of the salt of the Earth, the hard working people.

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you’re going to fall
Tell ‘em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call.
Call Alice
When she was just small.
When the men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you’ve just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is nowhere at all
Go ask Alice
I think she’ll know
When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen says “off with you’re head”
Remember what the dormouse said:
Feed your head. Feed your head. Feed your head.

from a 9th century Irish ballad

May day! Delightful day!
Bright colours play the vale along.
Now wakes at morning’s slender ray
Wild and gay the blackbird’s song.

Loaded bees with puny power
Goodly flower-harvest win;
Cattle roam with muddy flanks;
Busy ants go out and in.

Men grow mighty in the May,
Proud and gay the maidens grow;
Fair is every wooded heights;
Fair and bright the plain below…

Robert Herrick 1591-1674:

So when or you or i are made
A fable, song, or fleeting shade;
All love, all liking, all delight
Aies drown’d with us in endless night.
Then while time serve, and we are but decaying;
Come, my Corinna, come, let’s all go a-Maying.

middle school low-brow May Day chant:

Hooray Hooray, the First of May
Outdoor fucking starts today!!

Yes, the Ruling Class War is on, folks - replete with Democrats who look middle-class economic disaster in the eye and demand more tax cuts for billionaires, Republicans who give company owners the middle finger, and Beltway reporters who toast it all to flutes of champagne provided by runway models. While our country is driven into the ground, it’s party time in Washington. And when the rest of us outside the Beltway look back, our kids will have just one question: What did we do to stop it?

and here is something i read from Haffner’s DENYING HITLER:

~~ Amid all the misery, despair, and poverty there was an atmosphere of light-headed youthfulness, licentiousness, and carnival. Now, for once, the young had money and the old did not. Moreover, its nature had changed. Its value lasted only a few hours. It was spent as never before or since; and not on the things old people spend their money on.
~~Bars and nightclubs opened in large numbers. Young couples whirled about the streets of the amusement quarters.

~~…Everyone was hectically, feverishly searching for love and seizing it without a second thought. Indeed, even love had assumed an inflationary character.

And from Alexandra Richie’s FAUST’S METROPOLIS

of the twenty-two murders committed by the left, seventeen of the perpetrators were severely punished, ten with the death sentence; but of the 354 murders committed by the right between 1918 and 1922, only one was punished. Vigilante groups made up of unemployed ex-officers and criminals continued to occupy the streets, murdering at will, clubbing and beating people accused of ‘unpatriotic’ activities.

Juxapose this with the report that two University of Minnesota professors recently “compiled a database of investigations and/or indictments of candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, and 298 involved Democrats.” Interesting to note that among the GOP cases were those involving Abramoff, Cunningham, DeLay, et al.

And as the dream died, and the first of May became the fourth and fifth of Mays, Country Joe MacDonald crafted this lovely lament:

When dawn comes to touch my purple haze
And evening’s drowsiness to carry me away
I know once again that there is nothing we can save,
So I’ll pack up my things, I’ll be on my way.

Yes, here I go again
Off down the road again
Thinking thoughts of days gone by.
Here I am again
Singing my songs again
Thinking and dreaming
Thoughts of you and I.

Swirls of giant colors swam madly through my head,
I looked around to find you, but I just found it instead.
It might have been a dream for all the things we said
But you promised me —
Darling you promised me —

Yes, and here I go again
Off down the road again
Thinking thoughts of things gone by.
Here I am again
Singing my songs again
Thinking and dreaming
Oh I feel like I could cry.

Father’s gone to fight the war,
He left us here alone.
I shiver in the lonesome night
Beside the telephone
But time brings no word,
I guess he’s not coming home,
It feels like the end,
It feels like the end, my friend.

Here we go again
Off down the road again
Thinking thoughts of things gone by.
Here I am again
Singing my songs again
Thinking and dreaming
Oh I feel like I could
Thinking and dreaming
Oh I feel like I could
Thinking and dreaming
Oh I feel like I could die.
Oh, yeah!

from Robert Hunter’s Corrina sung to the ever-insistent accompaniment of a Huichol peyote rattle and the Iquitos shaman’s drum.

If, who, how and why
don’t mean that much to be
long as it don’t hurt too much
believe we’ll let it be
Outside major darkness
where the circle is complete
there is no fear that lovers born
will ever fail to meet
Corrina / wake it up baby
Corrina / Shake it down easy
Corrina / Shake it on up now
Corrina / Shake it back down
Corrina / Makin’ me crazy
Corrina / C’mon baby
Corrina / Shake it all day
Corrina / Tell me what’d I say
Corrina / Shake it up closer
Corrina / Shake it away
Corrina / Shake it in the shadow
Corrina / Shake it in the shade
Corrina / Shake it on the shakedown
Corrina / Shake it uptown
Corrina / Shake it in the short haul
Corrina / Shake it around
Corrina / Shake it at the window
Corrina / Shake it at the door
Corrina / Shake it on the stairwell
Corrina / Shake it on the floor
Corrina / Shake it in the mornin’
Corrina / Shake it in the dawn
Corrina / Shake it all night babe
Corrina / Shake it on down