Friday, October 10, 2003

Taking stock of Iraq summary from Christian Science Monitor Posted here Friday, October 10, 2003 at 12:50:59 PM     This is the beginning of a summary of Iraq conditions. Since most people are looking for an edge, against Bush or for a story of drama, a blalanced view is hard to get at. the balanced view will, in the long run either support or undercut Bush. So far, thegallp Pollseems to say it is not so bad.there is a storm on the surface but the lack of State sanctioned terror in the depths means that dialy ife for most is actualy better. The surface might be a bunch of porly constructed US responses, but the deeper may indicate that Bush can get away with this one.   The larger picture, how Iraq fist with Iran, Afghanistan and pakistan is a harder story. If the US needs a graeful fliht path to a less powerful future, given the rise of the rest of the world, and we wn a world culture of anti-nuclar weapn use and moving towards democratization and economic fairness, we may have stepped off the path into bully stupiity. Six months to the day after the fall of Baghdad fell, conditions are improving, but it is still dangerous in many areas of the city, and country. The Boston Globe reports that Iraq's national electricity network has surpassed the production levels of the prewar period for the first time. The return of electricity is a significant victory, reports the Associated Press, because electrical shortages had created much anti-American resentiment. continue click on title ********

PBS on Iraq Posted here Friday, October 10, 2003 at 10:03:23 AM     Be sure to watch a PBS special on Iraq. For an overview read http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/truth/etc/synopsis.html and for some details http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/truth/interviews/ ********

Schwarzenegger announced a broadly bipartisan transition team Posted here Friday, October 10, 2003 at 9:54:00 AM     This is a welcome surprize. Compaer it to the Bush strategy of non-inclusion.. Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday tapped Donna Arduin, a veteran state budget director, to carry out his promised audit of California's finances, a task she vowed would be accomplished before the new governor has to present his first budget in January. The appointment of Arduin, Florida's budget director, as his audit leader came as Schwarzenegger announced a broadly bipartisan transition team including a conservative political opponent, veterans of the last Republican gubernatorial administration and Democrats, one of whom is San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, a favorite target of the GOP. ********

Bush and Castro via Wired Posted here Friday, October 10, 2003 at 9:48:07 AM     The US and Cuba. When it is all over and "democracy" wins in Cuba, there will be a  flood of struggles over property and expat business deals. the country will revert to a rich-poor paradigm. It could have been a legitimate experiment from which we could all learn about an alternative view of how to do things. Cuba has been strong on social justice, in property, incomes, medicine and schools, but the pressure from being denied a role in the international economy has limited the value of the experiment. The cost has been increasing lack of political justice. We have two paradigms: a market/media managed society or a central committee paradigm. We can see the costs and benefits of each, which we need to do if we are to move beyond the economic marginalization created by the one and the political repression of the other. Bush to Outline Measures to Isolate Cuba's Castro  Thursday, October 09, 2003 10:08 p.m. ET By Adam Entous WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush will outline new initiatives on Friday aimed at weakening President Fidel Castro's grip on power in Cuba and spurring democratic transition there without using force, administration officials said. Bush's advisers have gone so far as to draft contingency plans for rushing humanitarian aid to Cuba and preventing civil unrest once Castro is gone. Eager to avoid anycomparisons to Iraq, an administration official said Bush was not calling for using force against Castro but instead exerting pressure to "facilitate his collapse peacefully." ********

Numbers:Businessweek on increase in unmarrieds. Posted here Friday, October 10, 2003 at 9:37:11 AM     From Businessweek, to which we can add the rural/urban split, the distribution of age, and the distribution of incomes.Unmarried America. This hints at the increasing dominacne of people who are caught between market and jobs with no other relationships. Say good-bye to the traditional family. Here's how the new demographics will change business and society. Nearly half of all households are now headed by people who aren't married. How the new demographics will change, business, politics, and society also let's add quoting....Contact: Mike Bergman of the U.S. Census Bureau, 301-763-3030 or 301-457-1037 (TDD), pio@census.gov WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Nearly 1-in-5 people, or 47 million U.S. residents age 5 and older, spoke a language other than English at home in 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau said today. That was an increase of 15 million people since 1990. The report, Language Use and English-Speaking Ability: 2000, said 55 percent of the people who spoke a language other than English at home also reported they spoke English "very well." Combined with those who spoke only English at home, 92 percent of the population age 5 and over had no difficulty speaking English. Among those who spoke a language other than English at home were almost 11 million additional Spanish speakers. According to the report, Spanish speakers increased from 17.3 million in 1990 to 28.1 million in 2000, a 62 percent rise. Just over half the Spanish speakers reported speaking English "very well." The report found that more than 9-in-10 people age 5 and older spoke a language other than English at home in Hialeah, Fla., and Laredo, Texas, the highest such proportion among U.S. places of 100,000 population or more. The 10 places with the highest proportions included four in Texas and three in California. (See Table 1.) The West was home to more than one-third (37 percent) of all those who spoke a language other than English at home, the highest proportion of any region. California led the states (39 percent), followed by New Mexico (37 percent) and Texas (31 percent). (See Table 2.) The number of people who spoke a non-English language at home at least doubled in six states between 1990 and 2000, with the largest percentage increase in Nevada (193 percent). Georgia's residents who spoke a non-English language at home increased by 164 percent, followed by North Carolina (151 percent). After English (215.4 million) and Spanish (28.1 million), Chinese (2 million) was the language most commonly spoken at home, eclipsing French, German and Italian over the decade of the 90s. (See Table 3.) Other highlights: Of the 20 non-English languages spoken most widely at home, the largest proportional increase in the 1990s was Russian. Speakers of this language nearly tripled, from 242,000 to 706,000. The second largest increase was among French Creole speakers (including Haitian Creoles), whose numbers more than doubled, from 188,000 to 453,000. ********

Mini essay California results who voted for what? Posted here Friday, October 10, 2003 at 9:01:42 AM     I applaud the statistical anlysis of voting and vote differences that might reveal problems and even manipulations of voting machines. But we must not lose sight of a very major factor in this election. Recall lost in almost all the coastal counties, and Bustamente won in all the bay area counties. It was a rural/ urban split, and our failure to understand this means we do not lead ourselves to a deeper undersanding of what the rural vote has on its mind. My own udersanding is that it does not ike th whole package of urban, large system, ewlfare, tax, corporate, federal power world. What is striking to me is that both the left leaning and right leaning folks agree on the dangers of bigness. The left sees big in terms of military industrial complex, and the right in terms of sate welfare and compulsory education. Both have a common enemy, but project the desire for largeness onto the other. We need to think more deeply about the way in which the urban technical market ysstem is explitative of much of the rural part of the country. Sources for data, the New York Times, an excellent interactive map.   ********

Red Cross criticizes Guantanamo Posted here Friday, October 10, 2003 at 8:48:43 AM     The way in which the US has dealt with detainees, prisoners, suspects, lacks fundamental concern for human dignity. Instead of representing the best of American justice, it has shown an instinct for revenge and sacrificing the individual to the public task of warnings, using the person for state needs. This is what the constitution was meant to prevent. It has taken an aspect of the post 911 situation, where American culture of restraint and human rights could have been showcased, instead we have a wasting of a an opportunity and a tradition.and put the US at greaterrisk in the world. Stumulating the old culture of an eye for an eye and retribution, rather than due process and justice though the judgment of peers, is a major step backwards. I find it humiliating, and I am shocked there has not been more criticism and a movement to prevent this.It may be something we need to take on. UANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba, Oct. 9 — A senior official of the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Thursday that the holding of more than 600 detainees here was unacceptable because they were being held for open-ended terms without proper legal process. ********