Sherry Chandler

One in every 100 U.S. citizen is in prison, we have turned our schools into prison-like institutions, and now teachers want to bring guns to the classroom. I really must weep for my country: Texas school district to let teachers carry guns

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Texas school district will let teachers bring guns to class this fall, the district’s superintendent said on Friday, in what experts said appeared to be a first in the United States.

The board of the small rural Harrold Independent School District unanimously approved the plan and parents have not objected, said the district’s superintendent, David Thweatt.

School experts backed Thweatt’s claim that Harrold, a system of about 110 students 150 miles northwest of Fort Worth, may be the first to let teachers bring guns to the classroom.

Thweatt said it is a matter of safety.

“We have a lock-down situation, we have cameras, but the question we had to answer is, ‘What if somebody gets in? What are we going to do?” he said. “It’s just common sense.”

Teachers who wish to bring guns will have to be certified to carry a concealed handgun in Texas and get crisis training and permission from school officials, he said.

Link from Jeralyn.

Have at me, gun supporters. This really is over the line. Are we really this frightened of one another?

As a corollary, read 25 Ways to Life the Drug War Curse

http://view.break.com/536276 - Watch more free videos

Though I don’t think the kid ever get her/his toy.

Via with h/t to Donna Rhae Marder.

You might also enjoy LOL Bush, the President at the Olympics. I think this explains why the man wanted to be president; he really did want to be cheerleader-in-chief. More on this at the Bag.

It takes a lot of nerve for George W. Bush to go to Beijing with Henry Kissinger and scold China about its human rights record. He coulda stood home. Little wonder China told him to mind his own business.*

But, on a more positive note, the story of our flag bearer Lopez Lomong is one that we should all celebrate, not just because our country played a very positive role in his life but for what he has managed to survive and accomplish. You can listen to his story on Morning Edition or read a fuller bio at his website.

Lopez speaks from experience about what it is like to be separated from home and family. At age 6, he was abducted from a Sudanese church by a militia faction that wanted to turn young boys into child soldiers. He eventually escaped the militia camp through a hole in a fence with three older boys who carried them on their backs as they walked for three days until they reached Kenya, where police arrested them and sent them to a refugee camp. He spent 10 years in the camp, living on one meal a day.

Those of you who have been reading me here for a while know that one of my great griefs is the use of children as warriors. So I urge you to take time to learn a bit more about Lomong and also to explore the Team Darfur website.

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*I’m agreed with Avedon on this one:

It’s not just about whether a bunch of Democrats will be cranky if the criminals don’t go to jail, it’s about throwing away what was probably the most vital resource our nation had for over 200 years - our position in the eyes of the world. Without the rule of law, the only thing we have is bombs.

You can sign Dennis Kucinich’s petition for impeachment here. Likewise, Wexler.

From Joel Brouwer’s review, in the Washington Post, of Brenda Wineapple’s White Heat. The Friendship of Emily Dickinson And Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Knopf):

Before reading White Heat, I thought of Higginson — if I thought of him at all — as the eminently ordinary man to whom Emily Dickinson wrote those beautiful letters. But Wineapple sensibly suggests that America’s foremost literary genius must have had some reason to seek this particular person’s approval. For one thing, as Wineapple quickly makes clear, Higginson was far from ordinary. The product of a venerable New England family, he received a predictably excellent education and made a predictably good marriage, but his adamant moral conscience made a predictable life impossible.

After Higginson led an attempt to free a captured slave held in Boston’s Court House, Thoreau praised him as “the only Harvard Phi Beta Kappa, Unitarian minister, and master of seven languages who has led a storming party against a federal bastion with a battering ram in his hands,” a distinction I imagine Higginson holds to this day. He ran guns to antislavery settlers in Kansas, helped John Brown plot his attack on Harper’s Ferry and commanded the Civil War’s first regiment of freed slaves. He threw himself with comparable vigor into the struggle for women’s rights, making plans to write an “Intellectual History of Women” and serving as president of the American Woman Suffrage Association. How could I not have known any of this?

I ask myself the same question. I always thought Higginson a little bit the villain in the drama that was Dickinson’s life.

Thanks to R. S. Gwynn for the link.

And while we’re on the subject of Miss Dickinson and feminist thought, the online Boston Review has an article I recommend by Maureen N. McLane. Entitled This Ecstatic Nation, Learning from Emily Dickinson after 9/11, the article puts forth the proposition that Dickinson was “a homegrown poet of terror.” McLane uses Dickinson as a focus to bring together cultural threads discussed by Susan Howe in My Emily Dickinson, Susan Faludi in The Terror Dream, and even Susan Sontag in her much maligned New Yorker commentary on September 24, 2001. (Three Susans. Just noticed.)

Agriprocessors, Inc. of Postville, Iowa is back in the news, or perhaps still in the news. According to this morning’s NYTimes:

POSTVILLE, Iowa — About 1,000 people, including Hispanic immigrants, Catholic clergy members, rabbis and activists, marched through the center of this farm town on Sunday and held a rally at the entrance to a kosher meatpacking plant that was raided in May by immigration authorities.

The march was called to protest working conditions in the plant, owned by Agriprocessors Inc., and to call for Congressional legislation to give legal status to illegal immigrants. The four rabbis, from Minnesota and Wisconsin, attended the march to publicize proposals to revise kosher food certification to include standards of corporate ethics and treatment of workers.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid of Agriprocessors on May 12 resulted in the criminal prosecution of nearly 400 illegal workers, many of whom were Mayan villagers from Guatemala who could neither speak nor read English (many apparently didn’t even speak Spanish very well) and so were incapable of the “aggravated identity theft” and “Social Security Fraud” with which they were charged.

A translator on the case, Erik Camayd-Freixas, has been speaking outagainst government actions in this raid, which included an inflated charge, a rigged plea bargain, and a rushed-up legal process to avoid habeas corpus. All of this legal slight-of-hand was designed, not to deport these illegal workers, but to imprison them. (Like we need more non-violent offenders in our prisons.)

Rosalie O’Leary brought my attention to an Alternet posting of Professor Camayd-Freixas’ essay describing the raid and its aftermath. I recommend that you read all of it for a look at the human face of many of these illegal immigrants. The NYTimes article also has a link to a PDF copy of this essay. Here is part of what the professor writes:

Then began the saddest procession I have ever witnessed, which the public would never see, because cameras were not allowed past the perimeter of the compound (only a few journalists came to court the following days, notepads in hand). Driven single-file in groups of 10, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles, chains dragging as they shuffled through, the slaughterhouse workers were brought in for arraignment. They sat and listened through headsets to the interpreted initial appearance, before marching out again to be bused to different county jails, only to make room for the next row of 10.

They appeared to be uniformly no more than five feet tall, mostly illiterate Guatemalan peasants with Mayan last names (Tajtaj, Xicay, Sajché, Sologüí). Some were in tears; others had faces of worry, fear, and embarrassment. They all spoke Spanish, a few rather laboriously. It dawned on me that, aside from their nationality, which was imposed on their people in the 19th century, they too were Native Americans, in shackles.

I want you to read all of this essay to learn just what a cheesy operation this was. But on this post I want to draw your attention to two passages that deal with the politics of this situation.

First (my emphasis):

The lawsuit [AFL-CIO vs. Chertof] also charges that DHS overstepped its authority and assumed the role of Congress in an attempt to turn the Social Security Administration into an immigration law enforcement agency. Significantly, in referring to the Final Rule, the Annual Report states that ICE “enacted” a strategy to target employers, thereby implying ICE’s lawmaking authority. The effort was part of ICE’s “Document and Benefit Fraud Task Forces,” an initiative targeting employees, not employers, and implying that illegal workers may use false Social Security numbers to access benefits that belong to legal residents.

This false contention serves to obscure an opposite and long-ignored statistics: the value of Social Security and Medicare contributions by illegal workers. People often wonder where those funds go, but have no idea how much they amount to. Well, they go into the Social Security Administration’s “Earnings Suspense File,” which tracks payroll tax deductions from payers with mismatched Social Security numbers.

By October 2006, the Earnings Suspense File had accumulated $586 billion, up from just $8 billion in 1991. The money itself, which currently surpasses $600 billion, is credited to, and comingled with, the general Social Security Administration’s Trust Fund. Social Security Administration actuaries now calculate that illegal workers are currently subsidizing the retirement of legal residents at a rate of $8.9 billion per year, for which the illegal (no-match) workers will never receive benefits.
Again, the big numbers are not on the employers’ side. The best way to stack the numbers is to go after the high concentrations of illegal workers: food processing plants, factory sweatshops, construction sites, janitorial services–the easy pickings.

And then this:

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we had to create a massive force ready to “prevent, prepare for and respond to a wide range of catastrophic incidents, including terrorist attacks, natural disasters, pandemics and other such significant events that require large-scale government and law enforcement response.”

The problem is that disasters, criminality, and terrorism do not provide enough daily business to maintain the readiness and muscle tone of this expensive force. For example, “In FY07 (fiscal year 2007), ICE human trafficking investigations resulted in 164 arrests and 91 convictions.” Terrorism-related arrests were not any more substantial. The real numbers are in immigration: “In FY07, ICE removed 276,912 illegal aliens.”

ICE is under enormous pressure to turn out statistical figures that might justify a fair utilization of its capabilities, resources, and ballooning budget. For example, the ICE Fiscal Year 2007 Annual Report boasts 102,777 cases “eliminated” from the fugitive alien population in fiscal year 2007, “quadrupling” the previous year’s number, only to admit a page later that 73,284 were “resolved” by simply “taking those cases off the books” after determining that they “no longer met the definition of an ICE fugitive.”

De facto, the rationale is: we have the excess capability; we are already paying for it; ergo, use it we must.

Our domestic “War on Terror[ism]” is beginning to look a lot like our “War on Drugs.”

A correspondent has pointed me toward this article by Karen McDonald in the Peoria Journal-Star: Why Choose Peoria?

PEORIA — Why will the president of the United States come to Peoria to raise money for a 26-year-old, first-time congressional candidate?

Some political gurus say he’s looking for positive press to build his legacy. Others say he simply has nothing better to do - with Aaron Schock’s apparent lead in the race, George Bush can’t do much harm to his campaign.

“My speculation is there’s not much else he can do around the country right now in terms of campaigns.

“His poll numbers are very low. Nobody wants to be seen with him,” said Christopher Mooney, professor of political studies at the Institute for Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois-Springfield.

“(Schock) has got a comfortable lead, he’s got a lot of money, he’s got the smell of inevitability about him. If it was a close race, I don’t think you’d be seeing George Bush coming out here.”

Bush will appear today at Weaver Angus Farms for a $500-per-plate fundraiser for Schock, who is running for the 18th Congressional District seat against Democrat Colleen Callahan and Green Party candidate Sheldon Schafer.

If I hadn’t sworn off schadenfreude, I might take some satisfaction in the contrast between Barack Obama’s Berlin speech before a “vast throng” (according to David Brooks) and George W. Bush’s fundraiser in Peoria.

Though, mind you, it is still going to take more than a tone poem to secure my vote.

Anyhoo, my correspondent tells me Colleen Callahan is holding a $15 a plate catfish dinner in the Kickapoo VFW Hall at the same time that Bush is doing is $500/plate appearance. I know who I’d rather have a jug of joy juice with. (Come on. It’s the VFW Hall. No “with whoms” allowed. And if you’re old enough to know what Kickapoo Joy Juice is, then you’re old enough to know better.)

Here is a snippet of op-ed from Steve Bell, a British cartoonist who offended me mightily with his lampoons of Hillary Clnton a few weeks back. He is writing in The Guardian:

So should we tread warily, lest we are misunderstood? Of course we should. Cartoonists are some of the most painstaking, careful, shy and sensitive people on earth, yet we do play with fire, toying with other people’s (and of course our own) most deeply held beliefs and most cherished illusions. Is it possible to go too far? Of course it is? Should we go too far? Of course we should. That’s what makes our job so interesting. There’s no better feeling than, having taken a risk in a drawing, seeing the thing in print and knowing it works. The converse is also true, which is why I work in a bunker on the south coast.

When I first saw a tiny thumbnail of the offending Barry Blitt New Yorker cover I thought, for a fleeting moment, that I could understand why Obama supporters would be so pissed off. After all, here was a drawing depicting the worst possible caricature of their man: a smug Muslim and his gun-toting black-power wife who would burn the flag in the Oval Office beneath a portrait of Osama bin Laden. But then, surely that’s the point? If you take it that literally you literally turn yourself into an idiot (though not quite a psycho). I didn’t think it looked a particularly good drawing, but I couldn’t judge from a thumbnail.

Now, having seen the full image (along with unimaginable numbers of idiots and psycho-paths worldwide), I can say that I rather warm to it. I look at it, and it works, for me anyway.

I particularly like the expression on Michelle’s face. Cartoons don’t work as shopping lists of points to be made with labels tacked on to clarify things for the culturally deprived. Too much cartooning operates on that level, especially in the US. Cartoons need to be disturbing, and they should also dare to ask questions. People in the US aren’t generally fools (even though the fools have been over-represented of late, particularly in the current administration), though some may be a little over-literal, and these are not always the psychos. Not so long ago I drew a cartoon of Obama as rifle-range target, and received a torrent (OK, a very heavy trickle) of emails, mostly from concerned liberal supporters asking me if I really wanted him dead.

I am probably going to get myself into trouble for saying this but, while I wasn’t particularly amused by the New Yorker cover (I am not the best audience for satire as my satiric husband will tell you), I am not ready to join a letter-writing campaign to protest it. Liberals seem to deal in “stern letters” of protest and see where that has gotten us.

Instead, I invite you to view this David Horsey cartoon. And this from Kentucky’s own Joel Pett.

The Curious George parody of Obama is racist; this New Yorker cover is not. (Thanks to BoGardiner for reminding me.)

See also The Poor Man.

From the BBC News:

A videotape of a detainee being questioned at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay has been released for the first time.

It shows 16-year-old Omar Khadr being asked by Canadian officials in 2003 about events leading up to his capture by US forces, Canadian media have said.

The Canadian citizen is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a US soldier in Afghanistan in 2002.

He is seen in a distressed state and complaining about the medical care.

The footage was made public by Mr Khadr’s lawyers following a Supreme Court ruling in May that the Canadian authorities had to hand over key evidence against him to allow a full defence of the charges he is facing.

Mr Khadr, the only Westerner still held at the jail, was 15 when he was captured by US forces during a gun battle at a suspected al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan.

During the 10-minute video of his questioning in Guantanamo a year later, he can be seen crying, his face buried in his hands, and pulling at his hair. He can be heard repeatedly chanting: “Help me.”

You can view the video at the link.

Link from Jeralyn at TalkLeft.

Scanning the comments there gives some indication of what a controversial issue this is. For myself, I think the boy was a child when he was taken prisoner and should never have been kept for six years at Guantanamo Bay as though he were a major terrorist, without even the rights of the Geneva conventions. I don’t think we should have held any prisoners in that way but it’s particularly egregious in this boy’s case. I’m not so naïve as to think that 15-year-old boys can’t be dangerous. But we do not treat children that way.

For three decades or so now, I’ve been very concerned about the way children have been turned into warriors of hate for various guerrilla or resistance or rebel or terrorist groups. They are children and very maleable. To turn them into killers is possibly the worst crime I can think of. I am appalled that our government has exacerbated the crime against this child.

As for whether the events recorded on this tape amount to torture, that is not even a conversation we should be forced to engage in.

of the Great Flydini!

Hattip to Charlie Hughes.

It’s Saturday night. I have a glass of merlot. Time to unwind!

Or maybe there’s some hope after all, according to Paul Krugman:

But the vote was bigger than the theatrics. It was the first major health care victory that Democrats have won in a long time. And it was enormously encouraging for advocates of universal health care.

Ostensibly, Wednesday’s vote was about restoring cuts in Medicare payments to doctors. What it was really about, however, was the fight against creeping privatization. Democrats finally took a stand — and, thanks to Senator Kennedy, seem to have prevailed.

The story really begins in 2003, when the Bush administration rammed the Medicare Modernization Act through Congress, literally in the dead of night. That bill established large de facto subsidies for Medicare Advantage plans — plans in which Medicare funds are funneled through private insurance companies, rather than directly paying for care.

Since then, enrollment in these plans has been growing rapidly. This has had a destructive effect on Medicare’s finances: the fastest-growing type of Medicare Advantage plan, private fee-for-service, costs taxpayers 17 percent more per beneficiary than Medicare without the middleman. It also threatens to undermine Medicare’s universality, turning it into a system in which insurance companies cherry-pick healthier and more affluent older Americans, leaving the sicker and poorer behind.

…

In previous years, payments to doctors were maintained through bipartisan fudging: politicians from both parties got together to waive the rules. In effect, Congress kept Medicare functioning by expanding the federal budget deficit.

This year, the Democratic leadership decided, instead, to link the “doctor fix” to the fight against privatization and offered a bill that maintains doctors’ payments while reining in those expensive private fee-for-service plans.

…

Here’s how it will play out, if all goes well: early next year, President Obama will send his health care plan to Congress. The plan will face vociferous opposition from the insurance industry — but the Medicare vote suggests that this time, unlike in 1993, Democrats will hold together.

Unless Democrats win even bigger than expected, however, they won’t have the 60 Senate votes needed to override a filibuster. What the Medicare fight shows is that the Democrats could nonetheless prevail by taking their case to the public, daring their opponents to stand in the way of health care security — so that in the end they get some Republicans to switch sides, and get the legislation through.

A lot can still go wrong with this vision. But the odds of achieving universal health care, soon, look a lot higher than they did just a couple of weeks ago.