Street children
This is a shot in the dark, but maybe someone reading this might be inspired to act: the street children in Baghdad need homes and families and as far as I can tell no one is helping them. This is a society with incredibly strong family bonds in which people look after there own; ironically, it seems therefore that there is little provision for those without the protection of a family. For a host of reasons (staff fleeing to safety, squaters occupying buildings...) the war emptied many of the orphanages leaving the children wandering the increasingly dangerous streets.

Most of the street children I talk to have horrible scars from the war, or more usually from street violence. At the moment the temperature isn't a problem for rough sleepers, but I don't know how they manage to eat. Most importantly they're lacking love and education. Many seem to cluster around the hotels hoping for gifts from foreigners. As a result the security guards treat them as a nusiance and I've heard reports of them being viciously beaten and bundled into the boot of cars.
�justin's waffle 10.10.03

link Baghdad Burning

Greenstock, Franks, Garner, Bremer
The UK ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, blamed France for threatening to veto the US-UK draft resolution, which would have issued Iraq with an immediate deadline to disarm or face military action.
Sir Jeremy said at the UN in New York today: "The co-sponsors reserve their right to take their own steps to secure the disarmament of Iraq."
�Guardian UK 03.17.03

Dad, you mean for 50 years you�ve been passing for black?
Joseph admits that, strictly speaking, he has. But he�s not sure if he can or wants to do anything about that at this point. For all the lingering effects of institutional racism, he�s been perfectly content being a black man; it�s shaped his worldview and the course of his life in ways that cannot, and probably should not, be altered. Yet Joseph struggles to balance the intellectual dishonesty of saying he�s black with the unimpeachable honesty of a lifelong experience of being black. �What do I do with this information?� he says, sounding more than a little exasperated. �It was like finding out you�re adopted. I don�t want to be disingenuous with myself. But I can�t conceive of living any other way. It�s a question of what�s logical and what�s visceral.�
�
The essay he thought the DNA test experience would prompt became a book that he�s already 150 pages into. He doesn�t seem to know how it�ll end. He�s in a kind of limbo that he doesn�t want and that I frankly wouldn�t wish on anyone; when I wonder aloud about taking the $600 DNA test myself, Joseph flatly advises against it. �You don�t want to know,� he says. �It�s like a genie coming out of a bottle. You can�t put it back in.�
�Erin Aubry Kaplan/L.A. Weekly 10.03-09.03

Manpower, Inc
"We're not accustomed, here in the Museworks, to doling out advice to powers-that-be, but it occurs to us that the economic boodling and the opportunistic rhetoric upgrades of the Bush administration now find themselves in a fortuitous harmonic convergence. It's pretty clear that the only conscionable course of action is for the United States to invade itself. A bold move, to be sure, but one designed to banish those pesky charges of diplomatic hypocrisy--to say nothing of the stubbornly jobless recovery from our latest domestic recession--in one fell swoop. And just think of the contracts! Hell, why not have the contractors now cooling their heels in the Middle East orchestrate the job? We're already paying most of them time and a half."
� holly martins/the antic muse 10.10.03

'I need your help taking this fight forward.'

"Dear Patriot,

For the past seven months, I have been fighting for the right of all Americans to travel freely in our own country. CAPPS II, the Soviet-style internal border control system being pushed by the Department of Homeland Security, will strip us of that right, and make air travel a 'privilege' granted by government.

A lot has been accomplished:

� Delta was shamed out of testing CAPPS II
� Homeland Security was forced to appoint a Chief Privacy Officer
� JetBlue was exposed violating the privacy of millions of passengers
� JetBlue was shamed out of CAPPS II testing
� A pro-CAPPS II 'consumer advocate' was unmasked as a Cendant shill
� Galileo/Cendant have backpedaled on CAPPS II
�
Up to now, I have funded this project out of my own personal savings. America has been good to me and spending money to keep our country free seemed only fair. Unfortunately, I can't do this alone anymore, which is why I am turning to you for help."
�Bill Scannell

NUMBERS 15
15:32 And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day.
15:33 And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation.
15:34 And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him.
15:35 And the LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.
15:36 And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses.
� KJV 10.09.03 AD

Dollar Slips Vs Yen
The dollar slid against the yen on Friday as speculators bought the Japanese currency on a belief that the latest Bank of Japan monetary easing will help bolster recovery of the world's second-biggest economy.
The greenback also took a beating from other major currencies after rallying on Thursday on fairly buoyant U.S. jobs data. Sentiment on the dollar was turning bearish again amid a growing perception that it has to weaken to help finance the ballooning U.S. current account deficit.
"There's a speculative frost out there. Thematically, it is a continuation of the dollar's downtrend," said Alan Ruskin, research director at 4Cast Inc in New York.
�Gertrude Chavez/Reuters 10.10.03

Iran jurist is awarded the Nobel for Peace
Ebadi, the first Iranian to win the prize, was a "sound professional, a courageous person, and has never heeded the threat to her own safety."
She is the third Muslim to win the Peace Prize. Yasser Arafat won the prize in 1994, sharing it with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres of Israel and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was later assassinated. In 1978, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt shared the prize with Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel for jointly negotiating peace between the two countries.
�International Herald Tribune 10.10.03

bugs and bombs
For months, U.S. and coalition forces have scoured Iraq searching for biological weapons and the labs that might have made them; the possibility of these labs� existence led broadcasts around the world.

Meanwhile, in the United States, with very little media attention or public discussion, the Bush administration is quietly pursuing plans to build biowarfare agent facilities of its own. The new labs will handle, modify, and experiment with some of the most harmful agents known to humanity, including live anthrax, plague, Q fever, and botulism.

But what should be even more controversial is where some of these biofacilities are being built: at nuclear weapons design sites�Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
�Marylia Kelley & Jay Coghlan/Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists September/October 2003

Rationale for attribution-free online communities
Corporations and other large organizations often enjoy a desponsibility that arises from diffusion of responsibility, while at the same time being afforded benefits of personhood. The corporate body often enjoys the legal protections that a human body has, but it does not have the same degree of vulnerability that the individual human body does.

Thus there is an imbalance that has arisen, and continues to arise, in which individuals are disadvantaged when interacting with large organizations. The general spirit of this assymetry is perhaps best captured in Franz Kafka's The Trial, but will also likely be familiar, (even if to a lesser extent) to anyone who has attempted to deal with a large bureaucratic organization.
�Steve Mann/First Monday volume 8, number 2

Ω{Whenever I see things like this lately I'm confronted with a black and white choice, like when a child susses the truth through the smokescreen of adult complexity and busts your shit with an honest question.
A voice that says even if it's too late there's a dignity in carrying on.
I don't see a textbook page anymore, a health food store handout, a dry list in the Lifestyles section of the Sunday paper.
I see real people doing something about a predicament most of us are trying desperately to ignore.
Writing, designing, taking the time and trouble.
Doing something about it. }

20 Simple Steps to Reduce Global Warming

"We may not transform reality, but we may transform ourselves. And if we transform ourselves, we might just change the world a bit."

�Gary Snyder

Discovery of Global Warming

My training as a physicist and historian of science has given me some feeling for where scientific claims are reliable and where they are shaky. Of course climate science is full of uncertainties, and nobody claims to know exactly what the climate will do. That very uncertainty is part of what, I am confident, is known beyond doubt � our planet's climate can change, tremendously and unpredictably. Beyond that we can conclude (with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its 2001 report) that it is very likely that significant global warming is coming in our lifetimes. This surely brings a likelihood of harm, widespread and grave. The few who contest these facts are either ignorant, or so committed to their viewpoint that they will seize on any excuse to deny the danger.

Spencer Weart

�
link Future Now
link path thru Caterina.net

ENRON strikes back

This litigation, heading to trial now in Los Angeles, would make the power companies return the $9 billion they filched from California electricity and gas customers.
It takes real cojones to bring such a suit. Who's the plaintiff taking on the bad guys? Cruz Bustamante, Lieutenant Governor and reluctant leading candidate against Schwarzenegger.
Now follow the action. One month after Cruz brings suit, Enron's Lay calls an emergency secret meeting in L.A. of his political buck-buddies, including Arnold. Their plan, to undercut Davis (according to Enron memos) and "solve" the energy crisis -- that is, make the Bustamante legal threat go away.
How can that be done? Follow the trail with me.

While Bustamante's kicking Enron butt in court, the Davis Administration is simultaneously demanding that George Bush's energy regulators order the $9 billion refund. Don't hold your breath: Bush's Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is headed by a guy proposed by � Ken Lay.

"Either Greg Palast is a liar or we've all been hoodwinked."
�
post lifted virtually as-is from random walks 10.09.03

164? 264?
Death is neither a reward nor a punishment. It is true that each of us can do things that will improve our chances of living longer, but that is at base just another form of gambling, like knowing not to hit on 18 in blackjack.

There are many flaws in the health care system, but one of them is not its failure to prevent death. Indeed, it could be argued that the illusion that death is preventable is at the heart of many of the excesses of the health care system.

How much would you pay to live a minute longer? How about a day longer? How about a year longer, only you'd be unconscious the whole time? Is the length of your life the sole measure of its value?
�Jon Carroll/SFGate 10.09.03

<>

Ω{These cars aren't sold in the US evidently, and, to my knowledge, I've never heard of them}
more
{Or, a bit more likely, I saw it but it didn't stick. Delving further sparks recognition, some.
But it's a warning sign that nothing like this is for sale in America. A serious alarm bell.
I came out pretty strongly against the automobile as a bad tool early on, and have stuck to that position for years, "the broken foot of humanity" etc. etc.
But I've always lusted in my heart after well-designed machines, including Kalifornia Kustoms, antique Mack Trucks, the 1948 Studebaker line, Deux Chevaux, old Minis new Minis, the late 80's Lotus �lan.
I like cars. But I like a lot of things the world is the worse for.
It occurred to me once that the reason American automobile design became so shoddy and inept wasn't a flaw in the American character, it was a result of some concerted, heinous, political actions. Social engineering by brute force, born of ignorance and raw greed.
That's right, the 60's.
The clampdown that finished the 60's is still untalked of. I was reminded of that again by the serious coverage given to the Tlatelolco Massacre on Galavisi�n October 2.
It's this disgusting conceit that with all the bloody ferocity visited on youth around the world, a handful of kids in America were killed, a few thousand beaten, and the anti-war movement basically dissipated. My contention has been, and it's a serious one, bearing directly on my personal life, that the US was the seat of the power that ruled the world then, and that what they did in this country, where they were the most threatened, where their homes and families were, was just as brutal but far more subtle. The military snipers on the rooftops of Mexico City that day had been given permission, and instructions, by their masters, their commanders, who had themselves been given permission, on up the chains of command to Washington and the real power behind the puppets in Washington. Imagine vigilantes defending their business interests in some shanty town, then imagine those vigilantes threatened in their homes.
�
Anyway, the reason American automobile design sucks ass so feebly is 'they' beat the shit out of the best minds of an entire generation, literally figuratively and spiritually, and then had to make do with a bunch of junior-varsity wusses.}

Ω{I was watching the 'TV' the other night and I don't know, maybe it was the hour, or the setting, but it hit me like a pie in the face. Johnny Carson. He looks and moves enough like Johnny to be his son. It's that gaping hole in the media landscape, nobody's ever filled it. And the minds and hearts his presence occupied have been hungry all these years. Once you see it it's unmistakable.
And while we're on the subject of empty templates filled by behind-the-scenes cynical manipulators of human destiny:
Imagine Rollo, the All-American Generic Boy, born in the 50's, early 60's. He grows into consumerhood, which unlike sexual maturity begins way before adolescence, in fact it's sliding down the age range until today consumer maturity has its puberty around the terrible twos. But back then it's maybe 7 or 8. Rollo wants stuff, his Dad says "Well son, I'd like to get you that new Schwinn, and a Daisy pellet gun, and that shoulder pad and helmet set, but I'm afraid this year with your sister's braces, and Mom's doctor bills, it's going to have to be one of the three. Because we just don't have as much money as last year."
And Rollo, like most young boys, is processing rapidly. That night in bed he puts it together, money, it's in the bank, except where does it come from? The Treasury's too vague and distant.
Eureka! The Brinks truck!
He wants one for his very own. Oh yes he does.
Viola!
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Hummer.}

At 8 p.m., I rushed into the Century Plaza Hotel, sparkling and loud, to be right there in the huge crowd in the ballroom when they detonated when the victory was called.
I got as far as the bar, where people were shouting because television sets showed the results. The celebration, like the election, was over before it began.
�Breslin/Newsday 10.08.03

Breslin doesn't like Arnold

Countries with Ombudspersons for Children: Specialists appointed to safeguard children's rights

Listen To Children
Myriad Editions online
�
link from the increasingly pertinent and eloquently spartan
Social Design Notes