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<p>Local school councils have had a troubled childhood. Adored at birth 13 years ago, they quickly fell into neglect as the school system struggled for financial stability and common purpose. Then a stern stepfather, former schools chief Paul Vallas, clipped their wings by imposing more centralized control.</p>
<p>Now councils have entered their teens, and many in Chicago’s broad-based school reform community believe it’s time for them to grow up.</p>
<p>“It’s a pivotal time for the system … to embrace LSCs and work with them and for LSCs to embrace the system,” says Paul Goren, vice president of The Spencer Foundation. “Or, it’s time to rethink the model.”</p>
<p>Deborah Lynch, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, says this year the union is encouraging teachers to run for council seats but that it is rethinking its stance on councils, with an eye to boosting teacher leadership in schools. A CTU poll of 5,000 teachers last fall found that nearly half of those surveyed were dissatisfied with their schools’ councils.</p>
<p>“Teachers feel powerless,” Lynch says. “They have very little say” about instruction through their LSCs.</p>
<p>Goren and Lynch are among more than 50 local leaders CATALYST interviewed to find out what it would take for LSCs to grow into full-fledged partners in school improvement. Their consensus: Still uncertain in using their powers and groping for answers, LSCs need more support and strong leadership to make the transition.</p>
<p>Indeed, none of those interviewed call for an end to LSCs, although a few would render them advisory, taking away powers to hire principals, spend discretionary budgets and approve school improvement plans.</p>
<p>Even the least effective LSCs do a better job of connecting parents and community residents to their schools than the old central administration model did, says Harvard University researcher Archon Fung.</p>
<p>“LSCs in lower-income neighborhoods often have a harder time functioning, but they’re much more important in those neighborhoods,” he says.</p>
<p>Most leaders Catalyst contacted say LSCs need better training, candidate recruitment support and dynamic leadership from the Board of Education. (See story page 7.)</p>
<p>“The only way we can achieve the goals we want to achieve is by having strong local school councils,” says schools chief Arne Duncan.</p>
<p>In recent years, the board has increased the size of its LSC-related staff and budget, but it could use more manpower and money, says James Deanes, director of School and Community Relations.</p>
<p>In fact, the 2002 budget earmarks $4.1 million for a staff of 23 to cover training, election and mediation needs for some 5,500 council members at 600 schools. Deanes says his department is spread thin, and only a dozen staffers are available to work directly with LSCs.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, those who serve on councils are frustrated by overwhelming responsibilities, low visibility and lack of recognition.</p>
<p>“We have power, but we don’t know how to use it,” says Asunción Torres, a parent rep at Farragut High School. Torres says politics have been a stumbling block, and too many parents on her council blindly follow the principal and teachers. She probably will not run again this spring. “I’m very discouraged.”</p>
<p>Councils also have suffered from bad press and repeated clashes with former CEO Vallas, says Anthony Bryk of the Consortium on Chicago School Research. “The only time you hear about [LSCs] is when there’s a scandal,” he explains. “But day in and day out, there are thousands of people volunteering innumerable hours helping their schools, and hardly anyone acknowledges [them].”</p>
<p>Overriding councils</p>
<p>Riding a wave of accountability, Vallas unilaterally intervened at troubled schools, often removing and installing principals and instituting measures that, in effect, limited council choices in curriculum and principal selection and retention.</p>
<p>In 1999, Vallas pushed state lawmakers to give central office veto power over council decisions to retain principals. Council advocates lobbied hard and averted the measure, but principals did win the right to appeal if they felt unfairly fired.</p>
<p>Vallas also engaged in a running war of words with organized advocates of LSCs. Together, the Vallas policies and rhetoric cast a cloud over LSCs.</p>
<p>“Paul really felt that much of the blame for poor performance lay at the local level,” says Martin “Mike” Koldyke, founder of the Golden Apple Foundation. “And yet, when he had an opportunity to intervene, he did it terribly.”</p>
<p>Since he was appointed last summer, Duncan has taken steps toward mending LSC-board relations. LSCs advocates applaud him for opening the lines of communication and meeting with them one-on-one. Duncan was the featured speaker at an event sponsored by Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE), a council advocacy group that Vallas disparaged.</p>
<p>Duncan says intervening in council decisions should be used only as a last resort. “We’re committed to doing everything we can to patch things up, to stabilize things,” he says. “If we have to step in, we’ll do that.”</p>
<p>Some high-ranking CPS officials still consider LSCs an inconvenience, says state Rep. Mary Lou Cowlishaw, (R-Naperville), who helped shape LSC training legislation in 1995. “There’s resistance out there, [but] it’s not easy to define,” she notes. “It tends to work in quiet and somewhat devious ways, but to not recognize that it’s there is a failure to be realistic.”</p>
<p>“There is a natural tension between LSCs and CPS that needs to exist,” says PURE Executive Director Julie Woestehoff. Even as relations between the two sides warm, the board should maintain a hands-off approach, she adds. “We have different agendas, so CPS help should be limited,” she explains. “CPS should only provide information, and not have a direct hand in local school business.”</p>
<p>Jumpstarting councils</p>
<p>Looking ahead, some say a heavy dose of board commitment, money and support is the only way that LSCs can grow into full partnership with their schools.</p>
<p>While paying lip service to more support for LSCs, the board, so far, is unable to articulate a clear plan for doing so. Duncan suggests subdividing the six regions as one way for the board to help more councils.</p>
<p>School Board President Michael Scott concedes teacher contract negotiations and capital improvements are higher priorities. “Once we get these [LSC] elections out of the way … then I think we’ll begin to take leadership.”</p>
<p>Don Moore of Designs for Change says the new CPS leaders are making a mistake by not acting immediately to remedy long-standing LSC problems. Some LSCs still complain that central office staffers are interfering in their work, he notes. “[Duncan and Scott] been in there for 6 months, and they haven’t taken control and changed this behavior,” he says.</p>
<p>Secondly, the board should make high-quality training a top priority, especially for LSCs in low-income areas, he adds.</p>
<p>Says Michael Klonsky of the Small Schools Workshop: “People in low-income communities are capable of being good organizers and leaders, [but] the schools need so much more work and leadership.”</p>
<p>In February, The Community Trust awarded a $200,000 grant to an LSC advocacy group that plans to create an advanced training and support center for councils. “It’s great. It’s needed to happen for a while,” says Andrew Wade, executive director of the Chicago School Leadership Cooperative.</p>
<p>Overall, LSCs suffer from a leadership vacuum of their own, a void that was exacerbated in 1999 when the Chicago Association of Local School Councils (CALSC) imploded after months of infighting.</p>
<p>LSCs need a citywide association or a central governing body to represent them, says Phyllis Martin of the Financial Research and Advisory Committee (FRAC). “It’s so dispersed,” she says. “[CPS’ new leaders] don’t know who to talk to or where to go.”</p>
<p>Nancy Jones of the Chicago Successful Schools Project says LSCs could also use a formal network to tap the expertise of veteran LSC members.</p>
<p>Working in isolation led Jeanne Marie Schultz, a council member at Edgebrook Elementary, to help to form a coalition of 13 Northwest Side elementary schools four years ago. The Coalition for Excellence is an informal group that exchanges information, advice and support. It has been easier to get the attention of legislators and CPS officials on state funding and overcrowding when they speak as a group instead of as individual councils, she adds.</p>
<p>“It’s been very helpful to talk with the other schools to see the other problems they’re facing,” Schultz says. “It’s been a tremendous resource for all of our schools.”</p>
<p>Catalyst staff contributed to this report. Comments may be emailed to [email protected].</p>
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local school councils troubled childhood adored birth 13 years ago quickly fell neglect school system struggled financial stability common purpose stern stepfather former schools chief paul vallas clipped wings imposing centralized control councils entered teens many chicagos broadbased school reform community believe time grow pivotal time system embrace lscs work lscs embrace system says paul goren vice president spencer foundation time rethink model deborah lynch president chicago teachers union says year union encouraging teachers run council seats rethinking stance councils eye boosting teacher leadership schools ctu poll 5000 teachers last fall found nearly half surveyed dissatisfied schools councils teachers feel powerless lynch says little say instruction lscs goren lynch among 50 local leaders catalyst interviewed find would take lscs grow fullfledged partners school improvement consensus still uncertain using powers groping answers lscs need support strong leadership make transition indeed none interviewed call end lscs although would render advisory taking away powers hire principals spend discretionary budgets approve school improvement plans even least effective lscs better job connecting parents community residents schools old central administration model says harvard university researcher archon fung lscs lowerincome neighborhoods often harder time functioning theyre much important neighborhoods says leaders catalyst contacted say lscs need better training candidate recruitment support dynamic leadership board education see story page 7 way achieve goals want achieve strong local school councils says schools chief arne duncan recent years board increased size lscrelated staff budget could use manpower money says james deanes director school community relations fact 2002 budget earmarks 41 million staff 23 cover training election mediation needs 5500 council members 600 schools deanes says department spread thin dozen staffers available work directly lscs meanwhile serve councils frustrated overwhelming responsibilities low visibility lack recognition power dont know use says asunción torres parent rep farragut high school torres says politics stumbling block many parents council blindly follow principal teachers probably run spring im discouraged councils also suffered bad press repeated clashes former ceo vallas says anthony bryk consortium chicago school research time hear lscs theres scandal explains day day thousands people volunteering innumerable hours helping schools hardly anyone acknowledges overriding councils riding wave accountability vallas unilaterally intervened troubled schools often removing installing principals instituting measures effect limited council choices curriculum principal selection retention 1999 vallas pushed state lawmakers give central office veto power council decisions retain principals council advocates lobbied hard averted measure principals win right appeal felt unfairly fired vallas also engaged running war words organized advocates lscs together vallas policies rhetoric cast cloud lscs paul really felt much blame poor performance lay local level says martin mike koldyke founder golden apple foundation yet opportunity intervene terribly since appointed last summer duncan taken steps toward mending lscboard relations lscs advocates applaud opening lines communication meeting oneonone duncan featured speaker event sponsored parents united responsible education pure council advocacy group vallas disparaged duncan says intervening council decisions used last resort committed everything patch things stabilize things says step well highranking cps officials still consider lscs inconvenience says state rep mary lou cowlishaw rnaperville helped shape lsc training legislation 1995 theres resistance easy define notes tends work quiet somewhat devious ways recognize failure realistic natural tension lscs cps needs exist says pure executive director julie woestehoff even relations two sides warm board maintain handsoff approach adds different agendas cps help limited explains cps provide information direct hand local school business jumpstarting councils looking ahead say heavy dose board commitment money support way lscs grow full partnership schools paying lip service support lscs board far unable articulate clear plan duncan suggests subdividing six regions one way board help councils school board president michael scott concedes teacher contract negotiations capital improvements higher priorities get lsc elections way think well begin take leadership moore designs change says new cps leaders making mistake acting immediately remedy longstanding lsc problems lscs still complain central office staffers interfering work notes duncan scott 6 months havent taken control changed behavior says secondly board make highquality training top priority especially lscs lowincome areas adds says michael klonsky small schools workshop people lowincome communities capable good organizers leaders schools need much work leadership february community trust awarded 200000 grant lsc advocacy group plans create advanced training support center councils great needed happen says andrew wade executive director chicago school leadership cooperative overall lscs suffer leadership vacuum void exacerbated 1999 chicago association local school councils calsc imploded months infighting lscs need citywide association central governing body represent says phyllis martin financial research advisory committee frac dispersed says cps new leaders dont know talk go nancy jones chicago successful schools project says lscs could also use formal network tap expertise veteran lsc members working isolation led jeanne marie schultz council member edgebrook elementary help form coalition 13 northwest side elementary schools four years ago coalition excellence informal group exchanges information advice support easier get attention legislators cps officials state funding overcrowding speak group instead individual councils adds helpful talk schools see problems theyre facing schultz says tremendous resource schools catalyst staff contributed report comments may emailed editorialcatalystchicagoorg
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<p>For the first time, Chicago principals will be evaluated in part by their students’ test scores, attendance rates and other statistical measures.</p>
<p>Under the school system’s new Principal Performance Evaluation form, approved by the Reform Board in July, principals will be rated in five areas, receiving “grades” of exceeding, meeting or not meeting expectations.</p>
<p>To get an “exceeds” rating in instructional leadership, at least 50 percent of students in the school must score at or above national norms in reading and math on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (elementary schools) or the Tests of Achievement and Proficiency (high schools); at least 50 percent must meet or exceed state standards on the state IGAP tests. To obtain a “meets,” at least 15 percent of students must score at or above national norms, and test scores must be on the rise.</p>
<p>“By definition, magnet schools and gifted programs will have an advantage,” observes Larry Chase, principal of Disney Magnet School, which traditionally posts above-average test scores. “If there is to be no handicapping of percentages, the schools with higher socioeconomic levels are going to have a huge advantage over other schools.”</p>
<p>Dave Peterson, who represented the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association on the committee that drafted the new form, adds, “The schools that were removed from probation this year have performed admirably, but they will not attain an ‘exceeds’ rating because their numbers are still low. This was of great concern to the committee.”</p>
<p>Peterson says that the central administration insisted on the test-score floors of 50 percent for exceeding expectations and 15 percent for meeting expectations.</p>
<p>Nobel School Principal Mirna Ortiz, a member of the committee, says the committee sought to balance the test-score measures by including such non-quantitative measures as the safety and cleanliness of the school building and professional development of administrators and teachers.</p>
<p>The new form is to be used by regional education officers and local school councils (LSCs). A negative rating from a regional education officer could block an LSC’s decision to renew its principal’s contract. With principal pay pegged to faculty size, the evaluations have no bearing on salaries.</p>
<p>No trend</p>
<p>Tying staff evaluations to student test scores is not new, but neither is it a trend. June Million of the National Association of Elementary School Principals says the idea “comes and goes. It often appears when a school district has a new board or a new superintendent that is under the gun to improve schools.”</p>
<p>She says that previous attempts have not been successful. She offers the example of Fairfax County, Va., which tied teachers’ merit pay to student test scores. “It was too complicated, created too much dissension among teachers, and the plan was abandoned after several years.”</p>
<p>Ortiz says that she is comfortable being evaluated under the document she helped create. “There has to be measurable criteria. We are in the business of education. That is our job. There is no excuse for not showing improvement.”</p>
<p>Chase doesn’t believe the test standards will deter principals from applying at schools with a history of low scores. “If I want a job in the Chicago public school system I am going to apply with the confidence that in a few years I can bring this school up to the national norms. If an applicant does not have that attitude, they should not be a principal.”</p>
<p>Tom Gray, chair of the Local School Council Advisory Board, welcomes the addition of hard data, saying they provide clear standards for judging school improvement. “I think that the percentages are a key part of the new evaluation criteria,” he says.</p>
<p>Don Moore, executive director of the reform group Designs for Change, finds the standards for ratings in other areas lacking. “The standards for rating a principal—exceeds, meets, does not meet—are expressed so vaguely that they lend themselves to arbitrary evaluation. They invite favoritism and retribution,” he maintains.</p>
<p>Moore is also dismayed that the new form gives equal weight to issues critical to the School Improvement Plan for Advancing Academic Achievement (SIPAAA) and to compliance with what he calls “fairly minor administrative roles,” such as the cleanliness of the school building and grounds, and whether principals attend regional meetings.</p>
<p>“We would expect to see criteria on student achievement rated higher than those of attending meetings,” he says. “The low quality of the documents calls into question the decision to allow the central school administration to have this power.”</p>
<p>Recent amendments to the 1988 Chicago School Reform Act gave the system’s chief executive officer veto power over principal retention.</p>
<p>The evaluation process also requires principals to keep a file, called a portfolio, of all activities undertaken to improve their schools. In the area of evaluation of teacher performance, for example, principals will have to collect sample lesson plans, calendars of evaluation conferences and samples of teachers’ written communication with parents. In the area of school improvement plan implementation, principals will have to produce copies of their monthly reports to their LSCs. For budget development, documents include lists of budget meetings and attendance rosters.</p>
<p>Assistant principals next</p>
<p>The document is under review by the board’s law department, after which it will be sent to local school councils, principals and regional education officers. Then a new committee will be named to develop evaluation criteria for assistant principals.</p>
<p>Although no one connected with the principal evaluation process could provide a complete list of committee members, Eva Nickolovich, committee chair and Region 1 education officer, says a variety of groups were invited to participate. “Each region was invited to send a principal; the Chicago Principals and Administrations Association was asked to select a principal and to send an association representative. Carole Perlman, the director of student assessment was there, as was Dr. Charlene Vega, because of her knowledge of special education. We wanted to make sure that all groups were represented.”</p>
<p>The committee also included Jackie Baker, Office of Schools and Regions; Rudy Serna, Office of School and Community Relations; and representatives from the board’s law department, the Local School Council Advisory Board and the PTA. The criteria selection process was overseen by Lynn St. James, former chief education officer, who retired earlier this year.</p>
<p>Also:</p>
<p>Evaluation criteria for principals</p>
<p>Instructional Leadership</p>
<p>Development, implementation and monitoring of the instructional program</p>
<p>Evaluation of teacher performance</p>
<p>ITBS and TAP reading and math scores</p>
<p>IGAP test scores</p>
<p>School climate indicators</p>
<p>Dropout rate (high schools)</p>
<p>Student attendance</p>
<p>Graduation rate (high schools)</p>
<p>Retention rate</p>
<p>Physical plant</p>
<p>Safety and security</p>
<p>Professional growth and development</p>
<p>Professional growth and development of staff</p>
<p>Professional growth and development of administrators</p>
<p>School Leadership</p>
<p>Maintenance of professional environment</p>
<p>Compliance with Board rules, polices and procedures; existing laws; and labor agreements</p>
<p>Implementation of School Improvement Plan for Advancing Academic Achievement</p>
<p>School internal accounts</p>
<p>Teacher, parent and community involvement</p>
<p>Development of school budget</p>
<p>Communication of school curriculum and student achievement</p>
<p>Interpersonal relations with parents and community</p>
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first time chicago principals evaluated part students test scores attendance rates statistical measures school systems new principal performance evaluation form approved reform board july principals rated five areas receiving grades exceeding meeting meeting expectations get exceeds rating instructional leadership least 50 percent students school must score national norms reading math iowa tests basic skills elementary schools tests achievement proficiency high schools least 50 percent must meet exceed state standards state igap tests obtain meets least 15 percent students must score national norms test scores must rise definition magnet schools gifted programs advantage observes larry chase principal disney magnet school traditionally posts aboveaverage test scores handicapping percentages schools higher socioeconomic levels going huge advantage schools dave peterson represented chicago principals administrators association committee drafted new form adds schools removed probation year performed admirably attain exceeds rating numbers still low great concern committee peterson says central administration insisted testscore floors 50 percent exceeding expectations 15 percent meeting expectations nobel school principal mirna ortiz member committee says committee sought balance testscore measures including nonquantitative measures safety cleanliness school building professional development administrators teachers new form used regional education officers local school councils lscs negative rating regional education officer could block lscs decision renew principals contract principal pay pegged faculty size evaluations bearing salaries trend tying staff evaluations student test scores new neither trend june million national association elementary school principals says idea comes goes often appears school district new board new superintendent gun improve schools says previous attempts successful offers example fairfax county va tied teachers merit pay student test scores complicated created much dissension among teachers plan abandoned several years ortiz says comfortable evaluated document helped create measurable criteria business education job excuse showing improvement chase doesnt believe test standards deter principals applying schools history low scores want job chicago public school system going apply confidence years bring school national norms applicant attitude principal tom gray chair local school council advisory board welcomes addition hard data saying provide clear standards judging school improvement think percentages key part new evaluation criteria says moore executive director reform group designs change finds standards ratings areas lacking standards rating principalexceeds meets meetare expressed vaguely lend arbitrary evaluation invite favoritism retribution maintains moore also dismayed new form gives equal weight issues critical school improvement plan advancing academic achievement sipaaa compliance calls fairly minor administrative roles cleanliness school building grounds whether principals attend regional meetings would expect see criteria student achievement rated higher attending meetings says low quality documents calls question decision allow central school administration power recent amendments 1988 chicago school reform act gave systems chief executive officer veto power principal retention evaluation process also requires principals keep file called portfolio activities undertaken improve schools area evaluation teacher performance example principals collect sample lesson plans calendars evaluation conferences samples teachers written communication parents area school improvement plan implementation principals produce copies monthly reports lscs budget development documents include lists budget meetings attendance rosters assistant principals next document review boards law department sent local school councils principals regional education officers new committee named develop evaluation criteria assistant principals although one connected principal evaluation process could provide complete list committee members eva nickolovich committee chair region 1 education officer says variety groups invited participate region invited send principal chicago principals administrations association asked select principal send association representative carole perlman director student assessment dr charlene vega knowledge special education wanted make sure groups represented committee also included jackie baker office schools regions rudy serna office school community relations representatives boards law department local school council advisory board pta criteria selection process overseen lynn st james former chief education officer retired earlier year also evaluation criteria principals instructional leadership development implementation monitoring instructional program evaluation teacher performance itbs tap reading math scores igap test scores school climate indicators dropout rate high schools student attendance graduation rate high schools retention rate physical plant safety security professional growth development professional growth development staff professional growth development administrators school leadership maintenance professional environment compliance board rules polices procedures existing laws labor agreements implementation school improvement plan advancing academic achievement school internal accounts teacher parent community involvement development school budget communication school curriculum student achievement interpersonal relations parents community
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<p>A quarter-century after 10.8 million gallons of crude oil gushed from the Exxon Valdez and scarred Alaska's Prince William Sound, oil spill responders fear that another disaster looms in more remote Alaskan waters where ship traffic is on the rise, due in part to the North American energy boom.</p>
<p>The largest concern centers on the Arctic, where oil exploration and development is progressing in fits and starts, and Unimak Pass in the Aleutian Islands, a choke point on a major shipping route between North America and Asia. Both regions are expected to see increased traffic as summer sea ice disappears and producers of North American crude oil and coal look to export fossil fuels to Asia.</p>
<p>"You can't separate the two areas out, you have to look at both of them," said Leslie Peters, a project manager for the <a href="http://www.aleutianriskassessment.com/" type="external">Aleutian Islands Risk Assessment</a>. The assessment is a $3 million study of the potential oil spill threat to the region, funded by a settlement reached with the owners of a cargo ship that grounded near the Aleutian community of Unalaska in 2004 and spilled 350,000 gallons of fuel oil.</p>
<p>Other worrisome spots include Washington state's Puget Sound, the coast of Maine, and anywhere in the continental U.S. intersected by the web of pipelines and railways that transport crude oil from shale plays in the U.S. and tar sands in Canada, according to Gary Shigenaka, a marine biologist with the <a href="http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/about/emergency-response-division.html" type="external">National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's emergency response division</a> in Seattle.</p>
<p>"It is not as though we aren't worried about tanker and barge spills anymore. It's just that now we have these other direct and indirect concerns related to pipeline spills and railcar accidents," he told NBC News. In addition, the North American oil boom may lead to "increased traffic through places like Unimak Pass that don't have a history or infrastructure to support a spill response in a very good way."</p>
<p>Safer sailing since Valdez</p>
<p>The incidence of major oil spills has been reduced by a factor of 10 since the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground on March 24, 1989, according to Simon Bennett, a spokesman for the <a href="http://www.ics-shipping.org/key-issues/safety-and-environment/tanker-safety" type="external">International Chamber of Shipping</a>, an industry trade group based in London. He says that's due to spill prevention measures that the international shipping industry put in place after the environmental catastrophe.</p>
<p>"The reasons for the improvements are a combination of better technical [ship] design but also stronger enforcement of the international regulations applying to ships," he told NBC News.</p>
<p>Among the measures put in place is a congressionally mandated requirement that by 2015 all tankers in U.S. waters should have what's known as a double hull. On these ships, the oil is carried in a watertight inner hull. If a breach occurs on the outer hull, the inner hull will prevent the oil from leaking. The international shipping community adopted the standard, Bennett said.</p>
<p>Proof that double hulls work came in March 2009 when the Norwegian tanker <a href="http://incidentnews.noaa.gov/incident/7989" type="external">SKS Satilla struck submerged hurricane debris</a> in the Gulf of Mexico. The collision put a gash in the vessel's outer hull, but all 41 million gallons of crude remained on board until it was safely transferred, according to NOAA's spill response team.</p>
<p>Other factors that have made oil tankers safer include improved communications technologies — think GPS and cellphones, for example — better navigational charts and enhanced weather forecasting, said <a href="https://www.whoi.edu/hpb/Site.do?id=621" type="external">Christopher Reddy</a>, a marine chemist and oil spill expert at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.</p>
<p>What worries him is a false sense of security that when an oil spill happens, the response will be swift and effective, as it largely was during the <a href="" type="internal">2010 Deepwater Horizon incident</a> in the Gulf of Mexico. That response was swift, he noted, because the populated gulf is loaded with infrastructure to transport and mobilize the people and equipment required to recover, clean up and study the spill impact.</p>
<p>In the Arctic, he noted, "that is just not the case."</p>
<p>Rescue tugs few and far between</p>
<p>Going forward, the industry could learn from the system put in place in Prince William Sound after Exxon Valdez, according to <a href="http://www.oasis-earth.com/" type="external">Richard Steiner</a>, an environmental sustainability consultant in Anchorage who studies the impacts of oil spills around the world. That system includes drug and alcohol screening of crew members, tug escorts of laden ships, and continuous vessel tracking.</p>
<p>In the Arctic and Aleutian Islands, tug escorts are largely non-existent, and rescue tugs are few and far between.</p>
<p>"If a tanker loses power in a gale and starts drifting toward shore, there is very little chance you are going to be able to get a powerful enough tug out there to actually hook up a tow and haul it offshore so it doesn't ground," he explained to NBC News.</p>
<p>Such infrastructure could be made available through the <a href="http://www.uscg.mil/npfc/About_NPFC/osltf.asp" type="external">Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund</a>, Steiner said. That fund was set up under the Oil Spill Prevention Act of 1990, the same law that mandated the phase in of double hulls on tankers. The problem, Steiner explained, is that the language of the law limits access to the $3.3 billion fund for prevention technology unless Congress makes special appropriations.</p>
<p>"Oil spill cleanup is a myth."</p>
<p>As it stands now, the funds are largely set aside for oil spill response, he said. But by the time a major spill happens, it may be too late, he said.</p>
<p>"We know that once these things happen, we can't clean them up. Oil spill cleanup is a myth," he said, pointing to recent research reporting that <a href="http://news.agu.org/press-release/still-fresh-remnants-of-exxon-valdez-oil-protected-by-boulders/" type="external">pockets of oil from the Exxon Valdez still linger on beaches</a> today. Steiner noted that several marine resources impacted by the spill, including herring and a transient pod of killer whales, have yet to recover.</p>
<p>A slow response to an oil spill in the Arctic is Shigenaka's greatest concern. The region is even more remote than Prince William Sound and lacks infrastructure to support a necessary army of spill responders. As a result, impacts to marine life could be profound. And that could in turn devastate the native communities that rely on marine mammals to sustain their culture.</p>
<p>"The Exxon Valdez gave hints about social disruption to communities that have close ties to the affected marine environment," he explained. "In the Arctic, they aren't just close ties, they are culturally and socially integrated into the fabric of the human communities that have been there for thousands of years."</p>
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quartercentury 108 million gallons crude oil gushed exxon valdez scarred alaskas prince william sound oil spill responders fear another disaster looms remote alaskan waters ship traffic rise due part north american energy boom largest concern centers arctic oil exploration development progressing fits starts unimak pass aleutian islands choke point major shipping route north america asia regions expected see increased traffic summer sea ice disappears producers north american crude oil coal look export fossil fuels asia cant separate two areas look said leslie peters project manager aleutian islands risk assessment assessment 3 million study potential oil spill threat region funded settlement reached owners cargo ship grounded near aleutian community unalaska 2004 spilled 350000 gallons fuel oil worrisome spots include washington states puget sound coast maine anywhere continental us intersected web pipelines railways transport crude oil shale plays us tar sands canada according gary shigenaka marine biologist national oceanic atmospheric administrations emergency response division seattle though arent worried tanker barge spills anymore direct indirect concerns related pipeline spills railcar accidents told nbc news addition north american oil boom may lead increased traffic places like unimak pass dont history infrastructure support spill response good way safer sailing since valdez incidence major oil spills reduced factor 10 since exxon valdez oil tanker ran aground march 24 1989 according simon bennett spokesman international chamber shipping industry trade group based london says thats due spill prevention measures international shipping industry put place environmental catastrophe reasons improvements combination better technical ship design also stronger enforcement international regulations applying ships told nbc news among measures put place congressionally mandated requirement 2015 tankers us waters whats known double hull ships oil carried watertight inner hull breach occurs outer hull inner hull prevent oil leaking international shipping community adopted standard bennett said proof double hulls work came march 2009 norwegian tanker sks satilla struck submerged hurricane debris gulf mexico collision put gash vessels outer hull 41 million gallons crude remained board safely transferred according noaas spill response team factors made oil tankers safer include improved communications technologies think gps cellphones example better navigational charts enhanced weather forecasting said christopher reddy marine chemist oil spill expert woods hole oceanographic institution massachusetts worries false sense security oil spill happens response swift effective largely 2010 deepwater horizon incident gulf mexico response swift noted populated gulf loaded infrastructure transport mobilize people equipment required recover clean study spill impact arctic noted case rescue tugs far going forward industry could learn system put place prince william sound exxon valdez according richard steiner environmental sustainability consultant anchorage studies impacts oil spills around world system includes drug alcohol screening crew members tug escorts laden ships continuous vessel tracking arctic aleutian islands tug escorts largely nonexistent rescue tugs far tanker loses power gale starts drifting toward shore little chance going able get powerful enough tug actually hook tow haul offshore doesnt ground explained nbc news infrastructure could made available oil spill liability trust fund steiner said fund set oil spill prevention act 1990 law mandated phase double hulls tankers problem steiner explained language law limits access 33 billion fund prevention technology unless congress makes special appropriations oil spill cleanup myth stands funds largely set aside oil spill response said time major spill happens may late said know things happen cant clean oil spill cleanup myth said pointing recent research reporting pockets oil exxon valdez still linger beaches today steiner noted several marine resources impacted spill including herring transient pod killer whales yet recover slow response oil spill arctic shigenakas greatest concern region even remote prince william sound lacks infrastructure support necessary army spill responders result impacts marine life could profound could turn devastate native communities rely marine mammals sustain culture exxon valdez gave hints social disruption communities close ties affected marine environment explained arctic arent close ties culturally socially integrated fabric human communities thousands years
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<p>In the first minutes of 2013, 10-year-old Aaliyah Boyer stepped into the backyard of her relatives’ home in Elkton, Maryland. Boyer had missed watching the New Year’s Eve ball drop on television, and so she went out with her cousins to watch the neighborhood fireworks. Soon after she stepped outside, Boyer collapsed. Her parents, who thought she had fainted, attempted CPR. Paramedics rushed her to hospital, where it was discovered that a bullet had struck the back of her head. She died two days later. Despite mounting a <a href="http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Pa-Girl-Struck-by-Bullet-Fired-During-NYE-Celebration-Cops-185489552.html" type="external">door-to-door</a> search of nearby residences and even confiscating several guns for ballistic inspection, authorities still have no idea who fired the round that killed her.</p>
<p>On December 31, Americans, as they do every year, will ring in the New Year with more than just Champagne and fireworks; some&#160;will also fire&#160;their guns into the air. While the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission <a href="http://www.cpsc.gov/" type="external">tracks injuries and fatalities</a> resulting from fireworks (eight deaths and 11,400 injuries in 2013), there is no national-level data collection by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or other agencies on casualties from celebratory gunfire. Nonetheless, information drawn from private sector “gunfire location systems” such as&#160; <a href="http://www.shotspotter.com/" type="external">ShotSpotter</a>, which uses audio-visual sensors and other techniques to locate and record gunfire, paints a provocative picture.</p>
<p>In the 48 communities where ShotSpotter’s equipment is deployed, <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/shotspotter-offers-strategies-prevent-hazardous-130000031.html" type="external">the company reports</a>,&#160;“Statistics show that there are strong seasonal gunfire periods, where approximately 15 percent of all annual&#160;gunfire incidents take place on the holidays around New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, and the Fourth of July.”&#160;In the fourth quarter of 2014, according to ShotSpotter, “there were 16,597 incidents in ShotSpotter coverage areas, and of those, 3,556 (or 21.4 percent) took place during the New Year’s Eve period.”&#160;The overwhelming majority of those rounds will land harmlessly or lodge in roofs or other property. But in areas with high population density, some will inevitably hit human beings.&#160;And so, each year before the holiday season, police, city officials, and activists from <a href="http://www.policeone.com/patrol-issues/articles/3165071-Calif-cops-canvass-streets-to-curb-celebratory-gunfire/" type="external">California</a> to <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/07/01/warnings-about-celebratory-gunfire.html" type="external">Ohio</a> to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/31/us/guns-and-new-year-s-eve-a-lethal-mix.html" type="external">Texas</a> to <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article26019973.html" type="external">Florida</a>&#160;are compelled to call on their communities to refrain from spraying bullets skyward.</p>
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<p>The impoverishment of data notwithstanding, it’s safe to stipulate at this point that the odds of any single person’s being hit by a celebratory round are extremely low. Even <a href="http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/publish/news/newsroom/6483" type="external">contentious research</a> on stray shootings in general acknowledges that celebratory gunfire (wounds from “falling bullets”) represents less than 5 percent of all firearm-related injuries.</p>
<p>The incidents that fall into that sliver are the product of some lethal science.&#160;While rounds fired at a perfect vertical (which is actually difficult to execute even under controlled conditions) will lose their spin and tumble down, the physics governing ballistic trajectories means that rounds fired at angles of 20 to 45 percent in particular <a href="http://forensicoutreach.com/the-falling-bullet-myths-legends-and-terminal-velocity/" type="external">can retain lethal force at considerable distance</a>. This is borne out by hospital admissions data from studies in <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7996596" type="external">Los Angeles</a>, <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5350a2.htm" type="external">San Juan</a>, and <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4443299/" type="external">Pakistan</a>, all of which indicate that falling bullets, when they do connect with bodies, are most likely to hit heads, shoulders, and feet, and can easily do extensive damage. Data also suggests that falling bullets <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7996596" type="external">are several times more likely to be fatal</a> than other gunshot wounds, and that <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5350a2.htm" type="external">women and children specifically</a> are much more likely to be injured by celebratory gunfire than by other kinds.</p>
<p>As some of those same studies indicate,&#160;celebratory gunfire is by no means a uniquely American phenomenon. People fire guns into the air to celebrate holidays and other events from the <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2011-12-31/philippines-new-years-eve/52299614/1" type="external">Philippines</a> to the <a href="http://www.independent.mk/articles/8047/Macedonia+Six+Guests+Injured+in+Gunfire+at+Weddings" type="external">Balkans</a> to the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Jordanian-king-announces-war-against-celebratory-gunfire" type="external">Middle East</a>. In June, <a href="http://www.francetvinfo.fr/faits-divers/jeune-fille-tuee-en-marge-d-un-mariage-a-marly-nord-le-tireur-presume-mis-en-examen_953047.html" type="external">a 19-year-old woman</a> was accidentally shot in the head and killed during wedding celebrations in France. U.S. forces have blamed celebratory gunfire for mistaken bombings of wedding parties in <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/news/pentagon-discounts-bomb-as-cause-of-afghan-deaths-1.428485" type="external">Afghanistan</a>.</p>
<p>But if the odds of being hit by celebratory gunfire are indeed low, so too are the odds of ever <a href="http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2015/01/what_goes_up_must_come_down_ho.html" type="external">being caught</a> for engaging in it in the U.S. Cases where authorities can precisely pinpoint the location of the gun — let alone identify the shooter — are <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/police-victims-know-frustration-of-fighting-celebratory-gunfire/1209488" type="external">incredibly rare</a>. The legal consequences&#160;for those who do get caught are mixed, with charges ranging from the misdemeanor to felony level and fines ranging widely.</p>
<p>And why do people do this in the first place? On one level, the answer is the obvious one: It’s recklessness, frequently abetted by drunkenness.</p>
<p>People may actually not realize that the bullets they launch into the air will inevitably land somewhere, with potentially disastrous results. But on another level, there are basic economics at work.</p>
<p>Many municipalities ban outright the sale of another New Year’s staple: fireworks. That means residents have to be able to afford to travel outside city limits or even cross state lines in order to buy them. Meanwhile, ammunition can be plentiful, already at hand, and, in many cases, simply cheaper.</p>
<p>Just after midnight on the morning of January 1, 2010, <a href="http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/falling-bullet-kills-4-year-old-boy-in-dekalb/nFDwr/" type="external">four-year-old Marquel Peters</a> was sitting next to his mother in a church in Decatur, Georgia, playing on a portable Nintendo, when a bullet sliced through the building’s roof and struck him in the head. He died shortly afterwards. Ballistics experts <a href="http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/boy-most-likely-shot-by-a-rifle-fired-into-the-air/nQbPh/" type="external">speculate</a> that the round — likely shot from an AK-47 — could have been fired anywhere from a half-mile to three miles away; the shooter remains unknown. At the time, a Decatur resident would have had to <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Decatur,+GA/Phantom+Fireworks+of+Lanett,+2315+Broad+Ave,+Lanett,+AL+36863/@33.3114827,-85.3315076,9z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x88f5073c14fe20e9:0x3152e0dc7cd17800!2m2!1d-84.2963123!2d33.7748275!1m5!1m1!1s0x888ca4805b350bd9:0x1851023c187d9020!2m2!1d-85.187452!2d32.849632" type="external">drive an hour and a half</a>&#160;into neighboring Alabama in order to buy fireworks. As of July 2015, new legislation means that fireworks can now <a href="http://patch.com/georgia/decatur/where-buy-fireworks-dekalb-county" type="external">be sold legally</a> in the surrounding county.</p>
<p>There is a licensed fireworks merchant, a Kroger, <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/dir/4498+Chamblee+Dunwoody+Rd,+Dunwoody,+GA+30338/Church+of+God+of+Prophecy,+3333+Covington+Dr,+Decatur,+GA+30032/@33.8376944,-84.3910016,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x88f50979db0c12f1:0x8ed0443165304397!2m2!1d-84.3156521!2d33.9226261!1m5!1m1!1s0x88f5a9f2329724dd:0xc70df2082b7b948c!2m2!1d-84.253512!2d33.760758" type="external">20&#160;minutes away</a> from the church where Peters was shot, and a store that sells ammunition <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/dir/4498+Chamblee+Dunwoody+Rd,+Dunwoody,+GA+30338/Church+of+God+of+Prophecy,+3333+Covington+Dr,+Decatur,+GA+30032/@33.8376944,-84.3910016,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x88f50979db0c12f1:0x8ed0443165304397!2m2!1d-84.3156521!2d33.9226261!1m5!1m1!1s0x88f5a9f2329724dd:0xc70df2082b7b948c!2m2!1d-84.253512!2d33.760758" type="external">10&#160;minutes from it</a>. At the former, a “variety pack” box of fireworks will cost $40 to $50. At the latter, AK-47 ammunition will run $30 for a box of 20 rounds.</p>
<p>[Photo: Flickr user&#160; <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/immokoss/5312630352/in/photolist-96sBV3-59L9bb-9Z3C1E-9Z3E4A-9YZJsB-9YZHWz-9Z3C3w-5zPeYh-5zPfoG-5zJYiF-5zJXwv-5zJXf2-5zJWRa-5zPeSd-5zPf6s-5zPeuG-8RUC88-5ZiWMw-9aVhC2-9aVgsD-7nYvua-9aYpVU-9aVhU4-xiNED-8g5qss-5YvuGN-6P2w34-6P2vPR-9bWBj8-6CE2YA-8par2S-71bwm-dhDvfg-6GGWsR-9pneR2-9pBRHp-e9JDND-7s4oGT-7dtcqv-93wYo-ajP6rN-ccjXeo-bUXGNx-bUXGzr-hN4GVn-5N649-3vrWG-yAJt4-ofZ3nr-nYuNwr" type="external">!Koss</a>]</p>
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first minutes 2013 10yearold aaliyah boyer stepped backyard relatives home elkton maryland boyer missed watching new years eve ball drop television went cousins watch neighborhood fireworks soon stepped outside boyer collapsed parents thought fainted attempted cpr paramedics rushed hospital discovered bullet struck back head died two days later despite mounting doortodoor search nearby residences even confiscating several guns ballistic inspection authorities still idea fired round killed december 31 americans every year ring new year champagne fireworks some160will also fire160their guns air us consumer products safety commission tracks injuries fatalities resulting fireworks eight deaths 11400 injuries 2013 nationallevel data collection centers disease control prevention agencies casualties celebratory gunfire nonetheless information drawn private sector gunfire location systems as160 shotspotter uses audiovisual sensors techniques locate record gunfire paints provocative picture 48 communities shotspotters equipment deployed company reports160statistics show strong seasonal gunfire periods approximately 15 percent annual160gunfire incidents take place holidays around new years eve new years day fourth july160in fourth quarter 2014 according shotspotter 16597 incidents shotspotter coverage areas 3556 214 percent took place new years eve period160the overwhelming majority rounds land harmlessly lodge roofs property areas high population density inevitably hit human beings160and year holiday season police city officials activists california ohio texas florida160are compelled call communities refrain spraying bullets skyward subscribe receive traces newsletters important gun news analysis impoverishment data notwithstanding safe stipulate point odds single persons hit celebratory round extremely low even contentious research stray shootings general acknowledges celebratory gunfire wounds falling bullets represents less 5 percent firearmrelated injuries incidents fall sliver product lethal science160while rounds fired perfect vertical actually difficult execute even controlled conditions lose spin tumble physics governing ballistic trajectories means rounds fired angles 20 45 percent particular retain lethal force considerable distance borne hospital admissions data studies los angeles san juan pakistan indicate falling bullets connect bodies likely hit heads shoulders feet easily extensive damage data also suggests falling bullets several times likely fatal gunshot wounds women children specifically much likely injured celebratory gunfire kinds studies indicate160celebratory gunfire means uniquely american phenomenon people fire guns air celebrate holidays events philippines balkans middle east june 19yearold woman accidentally shot head killed wedding celebrations france us forces blamed celebratory gunfire mistaken bombings wedding parties afghanistan odds hit celebratory gunfire indeed low odds ever caught engaging us cases authorities precisely pinpoint location gun let alone identify shooter incredibly rare legal consequences160for get caught mixed charges ranging misdemeanor felony level fines ranging widely people first place one level answer obvious one recklessness frequently abetted drunkenness people may actually realize bullets launch air inevitably land somewhere potentially disastrous results another level basic economics work many municipalities ban outright sale another new years staple fireworks means residents able afford travel outside city limits even cross state lines order buy meanwhile ammunition plentiful already hand many cases simply cheaper midnight morning january 1 2010 fouryearold marquel peters sitting next mother church decatur georgia playing portable nintendo bullet sliced buildings roof struck head died shortly afterwards ballistics experts speculate round likely shot ak47 could fired anywhere halfmile three miles away shooter remains unknown time decatur resident would drive hour half160into neighboring alabama order buy fireworks july 2015 new legislation means fireworks sold legally surrounding county licensed fireworks merchant kroger 20160minutes away church peters shot store sells ammunition 10160minutes former variety pack box fireworks cost 40 50 latter ak47 ammunition run 30 box 20 rounds photo flickr user160 koss
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<p>Trudy Appleby is still 11 years old to those who knew her, even though she would now be in her 30s. That’s because this Sunday, Trudy will have been missing for 20 years.</p>
<p>“There isn’t really a day she isn’t thought of in our minds,” Amber Holderfield, a close childhood friend of Trudy’s, told Dateline. “She’d be in her 30s now. There is so much she didn’t get to do.”</p>
<p>What happened to Trudy continues to tear at the hearts of Amber and her mother Kelly Carlson. And they’ve made a vow to never give up searching for answers, no matter how few clues there are out there.</p>
<p>An ordinary summer day</p>
<p>It was a hot August in Moline, Illinois in 1996. Trudy was just two weeks shy of her 12th birthday. The spirited, quick-witted brunette was in a good mood the afternoon of August 20; she was going to be free after being grounded for a few weeks. As she was nearly every summer afternoon – before she was grounded, that is - Trudy was at the Carlson house.</p>
<p>“She was a staple in this house. She called me her mom #2,” remembers Kelly. The Carlson house was roughly a block from Trudy’s father home, where the young girl lived with him and an older half-brother. Her mother also lived nearby, but her parents were separated.</p>
<p>It was a safe, quiet area. Trudy, Amber and other neighborhood kids would roam the blocks surrounding their homes. It was a different time than it is now.</p>
<p>The girls spent August 20 rollerblading in front of the Carlson’s home, then ate some hotdogs and mac and cheese. It was around 8:00 p.m. when Amber, 13 at the time, walked Trudy home to her driveway. It was nearly impossible to see Trudy’s home from the road as the family’s driveway wound between two other houses and crossed a small ravine before arriving at the house.</p>
<p>“We made plans to hang out again the next day and that was it. Nothing unusual or strange,” Amber told Dateline. “It was summer vacation, and I slept through my alarm the next day. When I finally got up, I rang and rang over to her house. But no one answered.”</p>
<p>When Trudy’s father returned home from work for lunch on August 21, a normal routine for him, Trudy wasn’t there. That was not too alarming, though, since Trudy spent the majority of her time out and about with friends. It was before the age of cell phones.</p>
<p>When she still wasn’t there that evening, he began to worry.</p>
<p>“He called over here and asked if Trudy was here or had been here,” Kelly said. “I told him no, that we hadn’t seen her.”</p>
<p>Amber told Dateline that immediately after her mother hung up the phone with Trudy’s father, she knew something was very wrong. “I was like, ‘Someone took her,’” said Amber.</p>
<p>The police were called, but authorities weren’t certain something sinister had occurred. Perhaps Trudy was off with a different friend or simply ran away.</p>
<p>She’d be back soon, Kelly remembers an officer telling her. “It was frustrating that it took a few days for them to get it. We don’t know what would have happened if they had jumped on it right then,” Kelly said.</p>
<p>Shortly after Trudy vanished, Amber told detectives her friend had recently been saying she was talking to an older boy. At the time, she thought Trudy was making up the story to make a neighborhood boy who had a crush on her jealous. “I wish I would have asked more questions about it when she said it. That still affects me greatly to this day.”</p>
<p>A neighbor told police she believed she saw Trudy getting into a boxy, grey vehicle the morning she disappeared with a man in his early 20s with brown, curly hair. Authorities believe that was the last known sighting of her.</p>
<p>An on-going investigation</p>
<p>Trudy’s case fills nearly six file cabinets at the Moline Police Department. Interviews, witness statements and detective notes, organized in various fashions have been gone through multiple times, but no one has been able to put the puzzle of Trudy’s fate together.</p>
<p>“It’s probably one of the biggest well-known cases in the Quad Cities, especially in cold cases,” Detective Michael Griffin, of the Moline Police Department, told Dateline. “We get tips weekly about Trudy. Some of them are far-fetched, of course, but they come in.”</p>
<p>Griffin has been the lead investigator on Trudy’s case since March of 2015. He was handed the case after receiving training in cold cases -- specifically missing person cold cases. Those are the kinds of cases that are hard to shake when off duty, he said.</p>
<p>“You feel as year by year passes, hope dims a little. We’ve never found her, so technically it’s still a missing person’s case,” said Griffin. “You feel for her family because having kids of my own, I know the panic when you lose track of them in the grocery store. Imagine how much that panic compounds over 20 years.”</p>
<p>There are a number of primary suspects, but none has cooperated with authorities. Several people have been questioned over the years.</p>
<p>It’s unclear what physical evidence, if any, has been recovered.</p>
<p>A never-ending promise</p>
<p>When Trudy first vanished, neighbor Kelly Carlson made Trudy’s mother a promise. It’s one she intends to keep until she reaches the grave.</p>
<p>“She was worried people would forget about Trudy,” Kelly said. “But we won’t let that happen. Never. I keep my promises.”</p>
<p>Tragically, Trudy’s mother was hit and killed by a drunk driver in 2014. She died without knowing the fate of her only child. Trudy’s grandmother also passed away that year. “I believe they got their answers as soon as they passed over, and that they are with Trudy now. That’s a small comfort.”</p>
<p>Trudy would be turning 32 in a few weeks. Kelly and Amber believe she would have become a teacher, a nurse, or a veterinarian because she loved animals so much.</p>
<p>As Amber grew up, she would stop by the mailbox at the start of Trudy’s driveway before school, in the hope that Trudy would somehow be there waiting to go to school. Of course, she never was. Trudy’s father still lives it that house. Amber now has children of her own. They all know who Trudy is.</p>
<p>“I have one of the original fliers laminated and hanging in my house,” said Amber. “My kids know why I’m so strict with them.” Amber has also taken a course to become certified to help with official searches for the missing. It’s all because of Trudy.</p>
<p>There is a vigil this Sunday in Moline for Trudy. Kelly and Amber will be there, as they are every year. They hope this year will be the last time they have to gather like this.</p>
<p>“Someone out there knows exactly what happened. Get off your high horse and give Trudy’s family closure. Little girls just don’t go ‘poof,’” said Kelly.</p>
<p>If you have any information about Trudy Appleby’s case, you are urged to contact the Moline Police Department at (309) 524-2147.</p>
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trudy appleby still 11 years old knew even though would 30s thats sunday trudy missing 20 years isnt really day isnt thought minds amber holderfield close childhood friend trudys told dateline shed 30s much didnt get happened trudy continues tear hearts amber mother kelly carlson theyve made vow never give searching answers matter clues ordinary summer day hot august moline illinois 1996 trudy two weeks shy 12th birthday spirited quickwitted brunette good mood afternoon august 20 going free grounded weeks nearly every summer afternoon grounded trudy carlson house staple house called mom 2 remembers kelly carlson house roughly block trudys father home young girl lived older halfbrother mother also lived nearby parents separated safe quiet area trudy amber neighborhood kids would roam blocks surrounding homes different time girls spent august 20 rollerblading front carlsons home ate hotdogs mac cheese around 800 pm amber 13 time walked trudy home driveway nearly impossible see trudys home road familys driveway wound two houses crossed small ravine arriving house made plans hang next day nothing unusual strange amber told dateline summer vacation slept alarm next day finally got rang rang house one answered trudys father returned home work lunch august 21 normal routine trudy wasnt alarming though since trudy spent majority time friends age cell phones still wasnt evening began worry called asked trudy kelly said told hadnt seen amber told dateline immediately mother hung phone trudys father knew something wrong like someone took said amber police called authorities werent certain something sinister occurred perhaps trudy different friend simply ran away shed back soon kelly remembers officer telling frustrating took days get dont know would happened jumped right kelly said shortly trudy vanished amber told detectives friend recently saying talking older boy time thought trudy making story make neighborhood boy crush jealous wish would asked questions said still affects greatly day neighbor told police believed saw trudy getting boxy grey vehicle morning disappeared man early 20s brown curly hair authorities believe last known sighting ongoing investigation trudys case fills nearly six file cabinets moline police department interviews witness statements detective notes organized various fashions gone multiple times one able put puzzle trudys fate together probably one biggest wellknown cases quad cities especially cold cases detective michael griffin moline police department told dateline get tips weekly trudy farfetched course come griffin lead investigator trudys case since march 2015 handed case receiving training cold cases specifically missing person cold cases kinds cases hard shake duty said feel year year passes hope dims little weve never found technically still missing persons case said griffin feel family kids know panic lose track grocery store imagine much panic compounds 20 years number primary suspects none cooperated authorities several people questioned years unclear physical evidence recovered neverending promise trudy first vanished neighbor kelly carlson made trudys mother promise one intends keep reaches grave worried people would forget trudy kelly said wont let happen never keep promises tragically trudys mother hit killed drunk driver 2014 died without knowing fate child trudys grandmother also passed away year believe got answers soon passed trudy thats small comfort trudy would turning 32 weeks kelly amber believe would become teacher nurse veterinarian loved animals much amber grew would stop mailbox start trudys driveway school hope trudy would somehow waiting go school course never trudys father still lives house amber children know trudy one original fliers laminated hanging house said amber kids know im strict amber also taken course become certified help official searches missing trudy vigil sunday moline trudy kelly amber every year hope year last time gather like someone knows exactly happened get high horse give trudys family closure little girls dont go poof said kelly information trudy applebys case urged contact moline police department 309 5242147
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<p>During a long and emotional meeting Wednesday night, Chicago International Charter School board members wrestled with a tough question: Should they close a campus that has performed poorly on most academic metrics, but whose few remaining students believe in its mission of “game-like learning.”</p>
<p>They earnestly debated that option, along with three alternatives, in front of about 200 students, parents and teachers who filled the library of ChicagoQuest, which serves middle and high school grades&#160;in the Near North Side.</p>
<p>“We have not delivered what we hoped,” board member David Chizewer said at the start of the hours-long discussion. “We haven’t done the job we wanted to do, and that’s our fault.”</p>
<p>In the end, CICS board members narrowly voted to keep ChicagoQuest open. But they also decided to eliminate its middle school grades and shift the school’s focus away from project-based, digital learning and become more of a traditional “college prep” high school.</p>
<p>Students, teachers and parents left the meeting feeling conflicted. They were relieved the school wouldn’t close immediately, but were unsure what to think of the upcoming shift in school model.</p>
<p>“It just feels like we’re stuck in limbo,” one teacher said. “We don’t know what the changes are. We don’t know if we’ll be open past next year. We don’t know what that means for the teachers or the students or the way our school will be run day by day.”</p>
<p>Already there have been changes. Earlier this fall, the private management company that oversees ChicagoQuest introduced its new CEO, Garland Thomas-McDavid, who previously worked as the founding principal of a Noble Network of Charter Schools campus.</p>
<p>One of Thomas-McDavid’s &#160;first moves at ChicagoQuest was to hire two deans responsible for culture and discipline. Teachers say there is now more structure in place to follow a college readiness curriculum, and an emphasis on ACT preparation, which some students had been asking for.</p>
<p>School leaders say they’ll try to retain some elements of the previous model and to be transparent about the transition.&#160;Thomas-McDavid assures&#160;the campus won’t turn into a replica of Noble, but says that there will be more attention paid to&#160;school culture and academic rigor.</p>
<p>“We will be shifting toward proven and best practices,” she said in an&#160;interview. “Good teaching is good teaching, and we need to use the methods and tools that work.”</p>
<p>But some parents are worried about the future. Allen Turner, parent of a ChicagoQuest junior, said he doesn’t want the school to become a “Noble-like” school, which he describes as “putting children in boxes, following orders, passing their tests, getting their scores.”</p>
<p>“As a parent and educator, that process turns me off,” said Turner, who has worked in the video game design industry and currently teaches at DePaul University. “My child is not that kind of learner.”</p>
<p>Dozens of students including junior Naomi Harvey-Turner turned up for the CICS board meeting to protest its possible closure. Students worried about transferring to a new school for their senior year.</p>
<p>Innovation and accountability</p>
<p>Wednesday’s decision raises questions about the viability of small and “innovative” charter schools that don’t perform well under the district’s accountability policy. CICS board members even wondered aloud whether they should create their own way of measuring the positive student outcomes ChicagoQuest is delivering but aren’t tracked in the CPS rating system.</p>
<p>Brian Harris, president of the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff, which represents unionized staff at ChicagoQuest, said traditional schools like Noble are surviving while those that aren’t like that “seem to be going away.”</p>
<p>Last month the Chicago Public Schools Board of Education voted to <a href="http://catalyst-chicago.org/2015/11/four-charter-schools-contest-proposed-closure/" type="external">close three charter schools</a>, and next month it’s expected to vote to close a CICS campus in the Altgeld Gardens neighborhood.</p>
<p>Earlier this fall, the CPS Board <a href="http://catalyst-chicago.org/2015/10/cps-recommends-approval-of-noble-kipp-proposals/" type="external">placed ChicagoQuest and nine other charter schools on an academic watch list</a>and threatened to close the schools following the 2016-17 school year if they do not improve significantly.</p>
<p>Andrew Broy, executive director of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, says the challenges at ChicagoQuest have little to do with the district’s accountability policy, which relies on metrics such as test scores, attendance and graduation rates.</p>
<p>“No matter the model type, each type is working to the same outcomes,” Broy said in an e-mailed statement. “The question isn’t about the model, rather the leadership’s ability to successfully implement the model.”</p>
<p>Troubles executing the model</p>
<p>During Wednesday’s meeting, CICS leaders and staff admitted that it’s been a challenge&#160;to implement the school’s original vision, where learning is like a game and students are problem-solvers.</p>
<p>Administrators and staff blamed lack of consistent leadership at the campus, high teacher turnover and limited support for new staffers who are not familiar with the model.</p>
<p>ChicagoQuest, which was modeled on a school in New York City called Quest to Learn, came to Chicago in 2011 with the help of a $1 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation to support digital learning initiatives.</p>
<p>“Our goal in supporting the creation of ChicagoQuest was to give students the opportunity to learn both traditional and 21st century skills and to prepare them for success in college and future careers,” MacArthur spokesperson Sean Harder said in a statement.</p>
<p>The games-based approach to pedagogy grew out of research and design experiments that have been shown to have a positive impact on students’ engagement and academic outcomes, he said.</p>
<p>“We still believe in this approach and the teachers and leaders of ChicagoQuest,” he added. “It is important, however, to always put the students first, and it’s clear that these students would benefit from a more traditional approach to teaching at this time.”</p>
<p>Arana Shapiro, who was on the design team that created the Quest to Learn school in New York and previously helped run that school, said in a statement that the biggest challenge in implementing a game-like learning model “is in this idea that innovation is separate from academics or accountability. Game-like learning is not something that needs to be balanced with strong academics – game-like learning works in service of strong academics.”</p>
<p>Shapiro, who is now director of programs, schools, and partnerships for the organization Institute of Play, says there needs to be ongoing professional development for teachers and school leadership that supports the model as a way to drive academic achievement.</p>
<p>ChicagoQuest has struggled through several leadership changes since it opened in 2011, and those have had a spill-over effect. &#160;Shapiro says there’s been a core community of teachers, parents and students that “has kept the game-like learning model floating in a sea of changes at the school and the city at large, and [despite] limited resources, support, or systems to sustain it.”</p>
<p>Shaky finances</p>
<p>After Wednesday’s vote, CICS board members asked the students, parents and teachers in the room to help lead the changes at ChicagoQuest. In particular, they asked for help with recruitment.</p>
<p>“Yes, the parents who like it, love it, but there’s not enough people to make the system economically viable,” said board member Gerald Jenkins.</p>
<p>Enrollment has been declining at the campus, and only about 30 percent of its 8th-graders choose to continue into the high school, CICS officials said. In total, the school had just 225 students this fall, compared to 295 a year earlier. Under the new, high school -only model, the campus would need about 245 students to break even, CICS officials say.</p>
<p>Board chairwoman Laura Thonn said that CICS can’t keep “kicking the can down the street” if fewer students show up next year. And if the academic performance doesn’t improve, then CPS could decide to shut the school down next year anyway.</p>
<p>Harris, of the teachers union, says that CICS leadership should take more ownership for the problems at the campus, which is managed by a private company called ChicagoQuest Schools.</p>
<p>Nia Jones, a junior at the school, agreed. Visibly upset as she walked out of the meeting, she said in an interview that CICS administrators should do more to ensure ChicagoQuest’s success, and not just put it on the people in the building.</p>
<p>“Yeah, we said we’d help, but you have to do work as well,” she said.</p>
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long emotional meeting wednesday night chicago international charter school board members wrestled tough question close campus performed poorly academic metrics whose remaining students believe mission gamelike learning earnestly debated option along three alternatives front 200 students parents teachers filled library chicagoquest serves middle high school grades160in near north side delivered hoped board member david chizewer said start hourslong discussion havent done job wanted thats fault end cics board members narrowly voted keep chicagoquest open also decided eliminate middle school grades shift schools focus away projectbased digital learning become traditional college prep high school students teachers parents left meeting feeling conflicted relieved school wouldnt close immediately unsure think upcoming shift school model feels like stuck limbo one teacher said dont know changes dont know well open past next year dont know means teachers students way school run day day already changes earlier fall private management company oversees chicagoquest introduced new ceo garland thomasmcdavid previously worked founding principal noble network charter schools campus one thomasmcdavids 160first moves chicagoquest hire two deans responsible culture discipline teachers say structure place follow college readiness curriculum emphasis act preparation students asking school leaders say theyll try retain elements previous model transparent transition160thomasmcdavid assures160the campus wont turn replica noble says attention paid to160school culture academic rigor shifting toward proven best practices said an160interview good teaching good teaching need use methods tools work parents worried future allen turner parent chicagoquest junior said doesnt want school become noblelike school describes putting children boxes following orders passing tests getting scores parent educator process turns said turner worked video game design industry currently teaches depaul university child kind learner dozens students including junior naomi harveyturner turned cics board meeting protest possible closure students worried transferring new school senior year innovation accountability wednesdays decision raises questions viability small innovative charter schools dont perform well districts accountability policy cics board members even wondered aloud whether create way measuring positive student outcomes chicagoquest delivering arent tracked cps rating system brian harris president chicago alliance charter teachers staff represents unionized staff chicagoquest said traditional schools like noble surviving arent like seem going away last month chicago public schools board education voted close three charter schools next month expected vote close cics campus altgeld gardens neighborhood earlier fall cps board placed chicagoquest nine charter schools academic watch listand threatened close schools following 201617 school year improve significantly andrew broy executive director illinois network charter schools says challenges chicagoquest little districts accountability policy relies metrics test scores attendance graduation rates matter model type type working outcomes broy said emailed statement question isnt model rather leaderships ability successfully implement model troubles executing model wednesdays meeting cics leaders staff admitted challenge160to implement schools original vision learning like game students problemsolvers administrators staff blamed lack consistent leadership campus high teacher turnover limited support new staffers familiar model chicagoquest modeled school new york city called quest learn came chicago 2011 help 1 million grant macarthur foundation support digital learning initiatives goal supporting creation chicagoquest give students opportunity learn traditional 21st century skills prepare success college future careers macarthur spokesperson sean harder said statement gamesbased approach pedagogy grew research design experiments shown positive impact students engagement academic outcomes said still believe approach teachers leaders chicagoquest added important however always put students first clear students would benefit traditional approach teaching time arana shapiro design team created quest learn school new york previously helped run school said statement biggest challenge implementing gamelike learning model idea innovation separate academics accountability gamelike learning something needs balanced strong academics gamelike learning works service strong academics shapiro director programs schools partnerships organization institute play says needs ongoing professional development teachers school leadership supports model way drive academic achievement chicagoquest struggled several leadership changes since opened 2011 spillover effect 160shapiro says theres core community teachers parents students kept gamelike learning model floating sea changes school city large despite limited resources support systems sustain shaky finances wednesdays vote cics board members asked students parents teachers room help lead changes chicagoquest particular asked help recruitment yes parents like love theres enough people make system economically viable said board member gerald jenkins enrollment declining campus 30 percent 8thgraders choose continue high school cics officials said total school 225 students fall compared 295 year earlier new high school model campus would need 245 students break even cics officials say board chairwoman laura thonn said cics cant keep kicking street fewer students show next year academic performance doesnt improve cps could decide shut school next year anyway harris teachers union says cics leadership take ownership problems campus managed private company called chicagoquest schools nia jones junior school agreed visibly upset walked meeting said interview cics administrators ensure chicagoquests success put people building yeah said wed help work well said
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<p>BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Julie-Ann Corr, 25, was inspired to take up politics last year when a controversy erupted over flying the Union Jack atop Belfast City Hall. But she encountered an unexpected dilemma: her sexual preference meant there wasn’t room for her in Northern Ireland’s ruling Democratic Unionist Party, which has twice blocked marriage equality bills in parliament.</p>
<p>“We’re both loyalists,” said Corr, a lesbian with a girlfriend she wanted to marry. “But we had no political representation. The only people we could look to for support were the LGBT groups or Sinn Fein.”</p>
<p>Fifteen years after the Troubles — the 30 years of violence between mostly Catholic supporters of a united Ireland and mostly Protestant advocates of Northern Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom — LGBT rights have become a surprising casualty of a conflict that left Northern Ireland with a government vehemently opposed to change and a society where fixation on the unionist-nationalist divide has left little room for other aspects of identity to gain recognition.</p>
<p>In every other corner of the British Isles LGBT rights are on the march, but Northern Ireland has distinguished itself from its neighbors by digging in against change.</p>
<p>Last month, Scotland’s national parliament overwhelmingly approved, in principle, a same-sex marriage bill. Also in November, the government of the Republic of Ireland approved a marriage referendum for 2015. In England and Wales marriage equality is law, and same-sex couples will be able to marry next year. In Northern Ireland, zilch.</p>
<p>And marriage isn’t the only LGBT issue on which the country departs from its neighbors. This year, Northern Ireland’s government went to court to defend a ban on adoption for gay couples and a lifetime ban on blood donations from men who have had sex with other men. UK courts have struck down both measures, and a judge called the blood ban “irrational” because Northern Ireland accepts blood from the rest of the UK, where no such ban exists.</p>
<p>In October, a DUP legislator told schoolchildren that homosexuality is an “ <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-24744874" type="external">abomination</a>,” though he says press reports took his comments out of context. The party — which maintains ties with a fundamentalist Presbyterian sect founded by its late leader Ian Paisley — and its leaders have a long history of railing against homosexuality.</p>
<p>While court reversals of the government’s adoption and blood donor policies have garnered headlines, other stories continue to fly below the radar.</p>
<p>For Orlaith Hendron, 29, the government policies that hit home hardest are those concerning fertility treatments — which require that a couple try to conceive for two years without success before seeking publicly funded treatment. That means Hendron and her partner are out of luck.</p>
<p>“As a lesbian couple we could try for 10 million years and we’ll never be able to get pregnant,” Hendron said, adding that if she applies for treatment “they’ll just look at me and say, ‘well you haven’t tried.”</p>
<p>She said she has considered relocating temporarily to another part of the UK where she could receive public treatment, but that the financial burden and personal disruption would be prohibitive.</p>
<p>Hendron, who runs support groups for lesbian women in Belfast, said in desperation, some have turned to private fertility treatments, which can cost $10,000 for a single round with no guarantee of success.</p>
<p>“They are remortgaging their houses. They’re selling their cars,” Hendron said.</p>
<p>She said homophobia remains an issue in Northern Ireland at large.</p>
<p>The DUP — which sponsored a “Save Ulster from Sodomy” campaign in the ’70s — has long made opposition to LGBT rights a priority, and Hendron said that the passions inflamed by sectarian conflict have given politicians here an unusual level of moral authority among their followers. Meanwhile, equality campaigns receive less energy, because people remain consumed by the unionist-nationalist divide, making it difficult for other social issues to attract attention.</p>
<p>Still, the social positions of the DUP represent the views of only a small, albeit influential, minority.</p>
<p>Protestant Northern Ireland is “a traditionally liberal society… that’s given leadership to a deeply socially conservative political party,” said Mick Fealty, founding editor of the Northern Irish political blog <a href="http://sluggerotoole.com" type="external">Slugger O’Toole</a>.</p>
<p>“The middle ground has evacuated politics,” he said. “It’s one of the consequences of conflict.”</p>
<p>The DUP’s unyielding opposition to same-sex marriage, for one, is not indicative of public opinion. One <a href="http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2013/06/06/poll-57-of-people-in-northern-ireland-now-support-equal-marriage/" type="external">recent poll</a> found 57 percent support for marriage and <a href="http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/gay-marriage-northern-irish-opinion-poll-shows-wide-generation-gap-29589425.html" type="external">another</a> found that while same-sex marriage opponents outnumbered supporters 30 percent to 27 percent, a plurality of respondents had no opinion. The DUP press office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.</p>
<p>Corr, the unionist who was drawn to politics over nationalist opposition to flying the Union Jack in public, ultimately joined the much smaller but equally loyalist Progressive Unionist Party.</p>
<p>Following an impassioned and personal speech from Corr at its conference last month, the party voted to make marriage equality a part of its platform. In a country where the youngest voters have expressed more liberal social views than their elders, that platform could be potent.</p>
<p>For now, the DUP’s staunch unionism is what matters in electoral politics, and its positions on gay and lesbian issues have not yet become an electoral liability. But as the society surrounding it changes, it is unlikely that the self-proclaimed protectors of tradition in Northern Ireland can hold out forever.</p>
<p>In a largely deadlocked system, Fealty said, LGBT issues are one area in which sentiment has been shifting. “I think from a political point of view this is going to become a problem for the DUP.” &#160;</p>
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belfast northern ireland julieann corr 25 inspired take politics last year controversy erupted flying union jack atop belfast city hall encountered unexpected dilemma sexual preference meant wasnt room northern irelands ruling democratic unionist party twice blocked marriage equality bills parliament loyalists said corr lesbian girlfriend wanted marry political representation people could look support lgbt groups sinn fein fifteen years troubles 30 years violence mostly catholic supporters united ireland mostly protestant advocates northern ireland remaining part united kingdom lgbt rights become surprising casualty conflict left northern ireland government vehemently opposed change society fixation unionistnationalist divide left little room aspects identity gain recognition every corner british isles lgbt rights march northern ireland distinguished neighbors digging change last month scotlands national parliament overwhelmingly approved principle samesex marriage bill also november government republic ireland approved marriage referendum 2015 england wales marriage equality law samesex couples able marry next year northern ireland zilch marriage isnt lgbt issue country departs neighbors year northern irelands government went court defend ban adoption gay couples lifetime ban blood donations men sex men uk courts struck measures judge called blood ban irrational northern ireland accepts blood rest uk ban exists october dup legislator told schoolchildren homosexuality abomination though says press reports took comments context party maintains ties fundamentalist presbyterian sect founded late leader ian paisley leaders long history railing homosexuality court reversals governments adoption blood donor policies garnered headlines stories continue fly radar orlaith hendron 29 government policies hit home hardest concerning fertility treatments require couple try conceive two years without success seeking publicly funded treatment means hendron partner luck lesbian couple could try 10 million years well never able get pregnant hendron said adding applies treatment theyll look say well havent tried said considered relocating temporarily another part uk could receive public treatment financial burden personal disruption would prohibitive hendron runs support groups lesbian women belfast said desperation turned private fertility treatments cost 10000 single round guarantee success remortgaging houses theyre selling cars hendron said said homophobia remains issue northern ireland large dup sponsored save ulster sodomy campaign 70s long made opposition lgbt rights priority hendron said passions inflamed sectarian conflict given politicians unusual level moral authority among followers meanwhile equality campaigns receive less energy people remain consumed unionistnationalist divide making difficult social issues attract attention still social positions dup represent views small albeit influential minority protestant northern ireland traditionally liberal society thats given leadership deeply socially conservative political party said mick fealty founding editor northern irish political blog slugger otoole middle ground evacuated politics said one consequences conflict dups unyielding opposition samesex marriage one indicative public opinion one recent poll found 57 percent support marriage another found samesex marriage opponents outnumbered supporters 30 percent 27 percent plurality respondents opinion dup press office respond multiple requests comment corr unionist drawn politics nationalist opposition flying union jack public ultimately joined much smaller equally loyalist progressive unionist party following impassioned personal speech corr conference last month party voted make marriage equality part platform country youngest voters expressed liberal social views elders platform could potent dups staunch unionism matters electoral politics positions gay lesbian issues yet become electoral liability society surrounding changes unlikely selfproclaimed protectors tradition northern ireland hold forever largely deadlocked system fealty said lgbt issues one area sentiment shifting think political point view going become problem dup 160
| 548 |
<p>Jan. 15, 2010</p>
<p>By JOHN SEILER</p>
<p>Challenging times demand innovative answers to problems. This is such a time for the California state budget, which has been chronically out of whack for a decade. The governor’s <a href="" type="internal">January budget proposal</a> doesn’t make matters any better.</p>
<p>Almost all solutions to the problem look exclusively at the demand side of the equation: the <a href="http://reason.org/news/show/californias-spending-addiction" type="external">immense increases in spending</a> by the state government.</p>
<p>But there’s another side: the supply side – the way taxes are brought in by the state.</p>
<p>That’s why it’s time to bring back an idea economist Arthur Laffer first proposed in the early 1980s: a flat income tax for California. Laffer heads Laffer Associates, an investment firm in Nashville, Tenn. <a href="#_edn1" type="external">[i]</a></p>
<p>“A flat tax would stop all these companies from moving from California,” he told me, by simplifying and lightening the tax load on both businesses and persons. It also would end the boom-bust volatility of tax receipts, which in boom times leads to wild spending that, in bust times, must be paid for with higher taxes that punish income producers. The days are long gone when California’s balmy climate was enough to prevent companies from leaving for Nevada, Texas and other states with better tax rates.</p>
<p>The hemorrhaging of jobs from California in recent years is real, especially in the lucrative high-tech sector. As Jan Norman <a href="http://jan.freedomblogging.com/2009/08/17/high-tech-manufacturing-leaving-california/20043/" type="external">reported</a> in The Orange County Register:</p>
<p>“It’s well known that California has been bleeding manufacturing jobs for decades, but less known is that the state is losing its high-salary, high-tech edge to other states, says Gino DiCaro of the <a href="http://www.cmta.net/" type="external">California Manufacturing &amp; Technology Association</a>.</p>
<p>“A new <a href="http://www.cmta.net/pdfs/manufacturing_still_matters.pdf" type="external">Milken Institute study</a> of California’s manufacturing in general, makes the point. In 1990, almost 1 in 4 high-tech manufacturing jobs — 752,600 — were in the Golden State. By 2007, it was less than 1 in 5 — 485,900.</p>
<p>“It’s probably lower now. Between 2007 and 2008, California lost another 39,000 jobs in all manufacturing categories.”</p>
<p>Laffer’s proposal is simple. It would be enacted through a constitutional amendment passed by a majority of voters. The details:</p>
<p>1. Get rid of all other state and local taxes: property taxes, sales taxes and gas taxes.&#160; The only exception would be “sin” taxes, such as those on cigarettes, because those are designed to change behavior.</p>
<p>2. Institute two taxes:</p>
<p>A flat income tax of between about 6.4 percent and 6.9 percent. The only deductions would be for a mortgage or rent in the place of principal residence, and for charitable contributions.</p>
<p>A tax on business net sales calculated this way: total sales less purchases from other companies. Its rate would be the same as for income: between about 6.4 percent and 6.9 percent. The tax is the same as a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_added_tax" type="external">value-added tax</a> (VAT). But Laffer told me that there’s this big difference: In Europe and other places, a VAT is imposed on top of other taxes, so it’s a mess. In California, it would be the only state business tax of any kind.</p>
<p>A key point is that the flat tax would be placed on all income, including that of low-income persons. Even if you made only $5,000 of income, you would pay the income tax. So if the rate is, say, 6.4 percent, you would pay $320.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t that be unfair to the poor? No, because they would not be paying state sales, property and gas taxes. And the mortgage and rent deduction would sharply reduce the amount paid.</p>
<p>A key element of the flat-tax proposal is that it is “revenue neutral” – it would bring in the same amount of income as the current, convoluted system. For fiscal 2010-11, that’s likely to be about $90 billion. So nothing would be “lost.” Although budget cuts are advisable for other reasons, they would not be required should a flat tax be adopted.</p>
<p>The flat tax, if adopted, would be phased in over several years. The first year, the tax rate would be set slightly higher than expected, so a deficit would not result – say, at 7 percent of income. If excess revenue actually is collected, that money would be saved (as discussed below).</p>
<p>The second year, the tax rate would be adjusted to reflect what happened in the first year. For example, suppose the first year’s 7.0 percent rate was too high, and 6.4 percent would have been adequate to produce a revenue-neutral tax stream. The rate would not be cut all the way down to 6.4 percent, just to be safe, but to an intermediate number, such as 6.7 percent.</p>
<p>In the third year, it might turn out that that the 6.7 percent rate was still too high.&#160; The tax rate would be adjusted again to, say, 6.6 percent.</p>
<p>This seesaw process would produce the proper revenue-neutral rate in just a couple of years. After that time, the rate would become part of the law could not be changed except by a two-thirds vote of the people. The excess revenues during the adjustment period would not be used on new spending, but would be used as a rainy day fund, or to reduce state debt.</p>
<p>One of the major benefits of a flat tax is that it would eliminate the immense volatility of California tax receipts. A good example was when Gray Davis was elected governor in 1998, at the height of the dot-com stock-market boom. His first two budgets, for fiscal years 1999-2000 and 2000-2001, saw revenues increase by 15 percent each year. And Davis and the Democrats who controlled the Legislature spent almost every FDR dime of it.</p>
<p>“For fiscal year 2000-01,” Laffer pointed out, “25 percent of tax receipts were from exercised tax options or capital gains.” Then the dot-com bubble burst, and almost all those tax receipts from those two areas evaporated. Davis faced a budget crisis that contributed to his 2003 recall.</p>
<p>Laffer said we shouldn’t blame the politicians for the problem. “You can’t train a pig to not be a pig,” he said. Instead, a structural change – the flat tax – would take most of the volatility out of the system. Taxes depending on high profits – such as capital gains – would be replaced with a flat tax on incomes, which are generally stable even in down times.</p>
<p>Other methods <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/walters/story/2033313.html" type="external">have been suggested</a> for getting rid of the tax volatility, such as instituting a “split roll” on property taxes, eliminating Proposition 13’s limits on increasing property taxes on commercial property – while keeping the limits on taxes on homes. Critics of such plans say that such a change would be a back door to getting rid of Prop. 13 entirely.</p>
<p>A flat tax would maintain Prop. 13 in full force. The property tax would be eliminated, taking care of that problem. But Prop. 13’s mandate that two-thirds of voters must approve tax increases would remain in place. So if, for instance, a group wanted to increase the tax rate to pay for a new program, it would have to get the approval of two-thirds of state voters.</p>
<p>One potential problem of a flat tax would be that it further would reduce local control by counties, cities and school districts. But the state already has such excessive control through the existing tax system. Almost all local tax money comes through the state tax system.</p>
<p>Under a flat tax, local governments could, as now, use the two-thirds rule of Prop. 13 to raise taxes to pay for, say, new school construction or a city park.</p>
<p>One other reform talked about would be making California’s income tax a percentage of the federal tax, <a href="http://retirementliving.com/RLtaxes.html" type="external">as is done in 35 of 41 states</a> with income taxes. Only six states, including California, have their own complicated state income tax system that legislators can use to reward or punish special interests. A real reform would be to junk that system in favor simply calculating California’s income tax as a percentage of income as reported on the federal tax forms.</p>
<p>Could such a system be blended with a flat tax? So that, for example, whatever is paid to the IRS, an additional 20 percent would be sent to the state government. If you paid 25 percent of your income to the feds, one fifth of that, or an additional 5 percentage points, would go to the state.</p>
<p>That’s a possibility, Laffer replied. But the problem is the great progressivity of the federal tax code, with rates currently going from 0 percent to 35 percent. It wouldn’t be a real flat tax. And the volatility mentioned above would remain.</p>
<p />
<p>Some of us don’t consider cigars and bourbon to be “sins.” But in tax parlance that’s what they are, making them eligible for “sin taxes,” such as the Rob Reiner’s 50-cent-per-pack <a href="http://www.spinwatch.org/latest-news-mainmenu-10/157-us-politics/895-millions-in-prop-10-money-spent-on-pr" type="external">tax on tobacco</a> to fund government-controlled children’s programs.</p>
<p>Under Laffer’s flat-tax proposal, such taxes would remain because they are intended to alter behavior; they would be collected outside the flat-tax system.</p>
<p>Gas taxes would be eliminated, with road funding coming from the flat tax. A problem I raised was that, currently, the more you drive, the more you pay – through gas taxes. Laffer conceded that this would be a problem, but gas taxes might be maintained if they were be considered “sin taxes.” (If that did happen, and gas taxes were retained, the flat tax rate would be cut accordingly.)</p>
<p>Alternatively, more highways could be turned into toll roads.</p>
<p />
<p>No reform proposal is perfect, as some of the discussion above shows. That’s especially true for taxation, where the government literally has the power of force to take your income and property.</p>
<p>Even under a flat tax, the rate could be raised, or the specifics altered, by a two-thirds vote of the people. And a constitutional amendment – severely changing the flat tax or eliminating it – could be passed by just majority vote.</p>
<p>But Laffer believes that, if a flat tax were instituted, it would be such a smashing success that no one would want to change it. It would ignite growth that would produce new businesses and jobs that California, again, would be an economic golden state. The increased production would bring in ample revenues to fund state programs.</p>
<p>At a minimum, the time is right to begin discussing the flat tax.&#160; Beside Laffer’s idea, others flat-tax proposals should be brought forth and debate promoted.</p>
<p>John Seiler, an editorial writer for The Orange County Register for 19 years, is an independent writer. His email: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p />
<p>He was a longtime resident of California (his Ph.D. in economics is from Stanford in 1971, after which he became a professor at USC). But he moved his firm from La Jolla in 2006 to avoid California’s harsh tax climate. He still keeps close tabs on the state’s economy.</p>
| false | 3 |
jan 15 2010 john seiler challenging times demand innovative answers problems time california state budget chronically whack decade governors january budget proposal doesnt make matters better almost solutions problem look exclusively demand side equation immense increases spending state government theres another side supply side way taxes brought state thats time bring back idea economist arthur laffer first proposed early 1980s flat income tax california laffer heads laffer associates investment firm nashville tenn flat tax would stop companies moving california told simplifying lightening tax load businesses persons also would end boombust volatility tax receipts boom times leads wild spending bust times must paid higher taxes punish income producers days long gone californias balmy climate enough prevent companies leaving nevada texas states better tax rates hemorrhaging jobs california recent years real especially lucrative hightech sector jan norman reported orange county register well known california bleeding manufacturing jobs decades less known state losing highsalary hightech edge states says gino dicaro california manufacturing amp technology association new milken institute study californias manufacturing general makes point 1990 almost 1 4 hightech manufacturing jobs 752600 golden state 2007 less 1 5 485900 probably lower 2007 2008 california lost another 39000 jobs manufacturing categories laffers proposal simple would enacted constitutional amendment passed majority voters details 1 get rid state local taxes property taxes sales taxes gas taxes160 exception would sin taxes cigarettes designed change behavior 2 institute two taxes flat income tax 64 percent 69 percent deductions would mortgage rent place principal residence charitable contributions tax business net sales calculated way total sales less purchases companies rate would income 64 percent 69 percent tax valueadded tax vat laffer told theres big difference europe places vat imposed top taxes mess california would state business tax kind key point flat tax would placed income including lowincome persons even made 5000 income would pay income tax rate say 64 percent would pay 320 wouldnt unfair poor would paying state sales property gas taxes mortgage rent deduction would sharply reduce amount paid key element flattax proposal revenue neutral would bring amount income current convoluted system fiscal 201011 thats likely 90 billion nothing would lost although budget cuts advisable reasons would required flat tax adopted flat tax adopted would phased several years first year tax rate would set slightly higher expected deficit would result say 7 percent income excess revenue actually collected money would saved discussed second year tax rate would adjusted reflect happened first year example suppose first years 70 percent rate high 64 percent would adequate produce revenueneutral tax stream rate would cut way 64 percent safe intermediate number 67 percent third year might turn 67 percent rate still high160 tax rate would adjusted say 66 percent seesaw process would produce proper revenueneutral rate couple years time rate would become part law could changed except twothirds vote people excess revenues adjustment period would used new spending would used rainy day fund reduce state debt one major benefits flat tax would eliminate immense volatility california tax receipts good example gray davis elected governor 1998 height dotcom stockmarket boom first two budgets fiscal years 19992000 20002001 saw revenues increase 15 percent year davis democrats controlled legislature spent almost every fdr dime fiscal year 200001 laffer pointed 25 percent tax receipts exercised tax options capital gains dotcom bubble burst almost tax receipts two areas evaporated davis faced budget crisis contributed 2003 recall laffer said shouldnt blame politicians problem cant train pig pig said instead structural change flat tax would take volatility system taxes depending high profits capital gains would replaced flat tax incomes generally stable even times methods suggested getting rid tax volatility instituting split roll property taxes eliminating proposition 13s limits increasing property taxes commercial property keeping limits taxes homes critics plans say change would back door getting rid prop 13 entirely flat tax would maintain prop 13 full force property tax would eliminated taking care problem prop 13s mandate twothirds voters must approve tax increases would remain place instance group wanted increase tax rate pay new program would get approval twothirds state voters one potential problem flat tax would would reduce local control counties cities school districts state already excessive control existing tax system almost local tax money comes state tax system flat tax local governments could use twothirds rule prop 13 raise taxes pay say new school construction city park one reform talked would making californias income tax percentage federal tax done 35 41 states income taxes six states including california complicated state income tax system legislators use reward punish special interests real reform would junk system favor simply calculating californias income tax percentage income reported federal tax forms could system blended flat tax example whatever paid irs additional 20 percent would sent state government paid 25 percent income feds one fifth additional 5 percentage points would go state thats possibility laffer replied problem great progressivity federal tax code rates currently going 0 percent 35 percent wouldnt real flat tax volatility mentioned would remain us dont consider cigars bourbon sins tax parlance thats making eligible sin taxes rob reiners 50centperpack tax tobacco fund governmentcontrolled childrens programs laffers flattax proposal taxes would remain intended alter behavior would collected outside flattax system gas taxes would eliminated road funding coming flat tax problem raised currently drive pay gas taxes laffer conceded would problem gas taxes might maintained considered sin taxes happen gas taxes retained flat tax rate would cut accordingly alternatively highways could turned toll roads reform proposal perfect discussion shows thats especially true taxation government literally power force take income property even flat tax rate could raised specifics altered twothirds vote people constitutional amendment severely changing flat tax eliminating could passed majority vote laffer believes flat tax instituted would smashing success one would want change would ignite growth would produce new businesses jobs california would economic golden state increased production would bring ample revenues fund state programs minimum time right begin discussing flat tax160 beside laffers idea others flattax proposals brought forth debate promoted john seiler editorial writer orange county register 19 years independent writer email writejohnseilergmailcom longtime resident california phd economics stanford 1971 became professor usc moved firm la jolla 2006 avoid californias harsh tax climate still keeps close tabs states economy
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<p>Sylvia Puente</p>
<p>A number of prominent Latinos in Chicago are criticizing Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s decision to make an already disproportionately white school board even more ethnically lopsided by removing one of his only two Hispanic appointees.</p>
<p>“We are disappointed that in a school district that is 46 percent Latino — Latinos being the largest cohort of students now, having exceeded African Americans in the district a number of years ago — that there was not a Latino named to the school board,” says Sylvia Puente, executive director of the non-partisan Latino Policy Forum. “It feels like it’s a missed opportunity.”</p>
<p>There are now four white board members — up from three — while&#160;less than 10 percent of children in Chicago Public Schools are white. The remaining two board members are black, compared with nearly 40 percent of students.</p>
<p>In a statement, a spokeswoman for Emanuel said his administration “has always been reflective of the citizens we serve, and he will continue to ensure that Latinos are represented in leadership and Board positions.”</p>
<p>The statement goes on to name&#160;board member and Interim CEO Jesse Ruiz as well as&#160;the mayor’s top education advisor, Arnaldo Rivera. Ruiz, an attorney and Mexican-American who formerly chaired the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), is currently not a voting school board member in his <a href="http://catalyst-chicago.org/2015/04/byrd-bennett-out-ruiz-in-as-fallout-from-federal-probe-continues/" type="external">capacity as interim CEO.</a></p>
<p>Insiders tell&#160;Catalyst that at least one Latino turned down an invitation to sit on the board.</p>
<p>It’s unclear whether politics has anything to do with the reduction in Latino representation on the board. The shuffle comes&#160;two months after all but one of the city’s Hispanic-majority wards went&#160;for Emanuel’s&#160;opponent, the Mexican-born Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, a Cook County commissioner, in the mayoral elections.</p>
<p>U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez — by far Emanuel’s biggest campaign supporter from Chicago’s&#160;Hispanic&#160;community — says&#160;he sees&#160;no&#160;problem with the ethnic makeup of the board, given the influence&#160;of Ruiz and Rivera on the&#160;daily workings of the district.</p>
<p>“I’d&#160;rather have somebody be in charge of the School Board&#160;every day than to try to reach some symbolic positioning of Latinos,” says Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat.</p>
<p>But Miguel&#160;del Valle, a former state senator who ran against Emanuel in 2011 and backed Garcia in this year’s race, says the ethnic disparity on the school board just doesn’t make sense.</p>
<p>“If you can’t find one person in the City of Chicago, given all the Latinos we have out there in different arenas, with the skills and talents and the background to be able to serve responsibly and meet the fiduciary obligations, I have to say that they didn’t try hard enough,” he says.</p>
<p>Census data from the 2013 American Community Survey show that Latinos make up just under 30 percent of city residents.</p>
<p>Del Valle, who formerly chaired&#160;the Illinois P-20 Council, says he understands that it might be challenging to find someone willing to join the board “under the current circumstances.” CPS faces a $1.1 billion budget deficit next fiscal year and is in the middle of contract negotiations with a teachers union that went on strike last time around.</p>
<p>“Let’s face it: it’s a tough situation to walk into. But you look and you look and you look,” he says.</p>
<p>Reflecting ‘needs and aspirations’</p>
<p>Earlier this week Emanuel <a href="http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/mayor/press_room/press_releases/2015/june/mayor-emanuel-announces-board-of-education-appointments.html" type="external">announced he was replacing four board members</a> whose terms expire at the end of the month, including Carlos Azcoitia, a former educator and Cuban immigrant.&#160;He’d been <a href="http://cps.edu/News/Press_releases/Pages/11_19_2012_PR2.aspx" type="external">named to the board in 2012 t</a>o fill a vacancy left when another Latino board member, Rodrigo Sierra, was named&#160;to the Chicago Housing Authority. (Sierra joined the CHA to&#160;replace&#160;a vacancy left there by yet another Hispanic.)</p>
<p>Azcoitia said he was told by Board President David Vitale that he would be replaced just days before the mayor made the announcement. He says he would have stayed on had he been asked – and if he’d been allowed to meet with the mayor first. He wasn’t asked to stay.</p>
<p>Reached on Thursday, Azcoitia expressed concern about the changes on the board.</p>
<p>“I know that sometimes with the right leader you can transcend these issues, but it’s important to recognize diversity and quality,” he says. “Latino students and their families should see their needs and aspirations reflected on the board by people who have had similar experiences.”</p>
<p>Josie Yanguas, director of the Illinois Resource Center, knows&#160;that just because somebody is Latino doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll have the knowledge base to weigh in on one of the issues she’s most concerned about: serving English-language learners. District data show that one in six children in CPS are considered to have limited English proficiency.</p>
<p>“Obviously a huge share are Spanish-speaking, but in Chicago there’s a significant Arabic population, significant Polish population.&#160;Those voices aren’t necessarily getting represented either,” says Yanguas, whose organization&#160;is dedicated to helping&#160;schools across the state serve linguistically and culturally diverse students.</p>
<p>But the lack of adequate ethnic or&#160;linguistic representation isn’t&#160;a problem that’s unique to the CPS school board, she adds. “Look at the composition in Central Office, the composition of administrators, of principals and teachers in the system,” Yanguas&#160;says. “In a state where you have over 800 school districts, you have five superintendents who are Latino.”</p>
<p>And on the state school board, it’s more of the same, she adds. Just one of the nine appointed&#160;members is Latino (although there is one current vacancy).</p>
<p>Leading on Latino issues</p>
<p><a href="http://catalyst-chicago.org/2015/06/whos-in-whos-out-on-board-of-ed/" type="external">Some critics have said</a> it doesn’t matter much who Emanuel appoints – or whether they’re Latino, black or white — when CPS board members say little at public meetings and rarely vote against proposals supported by the administration.</p>
<p>Azcoitia says he knows some people believe there’s pressure on board members to vote in favor of everything that’s presented by the administration. But he says he’s been comfortable voting “no” on issues he thought&#160;might&#160;negatively impact students in Latino neighborhoods, pointing to two of his own votes against CPS proposals to close Von Humboldt Elementary and turning Ames Middle School into a military school in 2013. (Both proposals passed anyway.)</p>
<p>“Even though you’re appointed by the mayor, you have to represent as an educator what’s best for the students and the schools,” he said. “It doesn’t mean because you’re appointed you have to agree or you have to vote affirmatively all the time.”</p>
<p>Del Valle says he’s been disappointed with the lack of strong Latino leadership on education issues. But he says&#160;part of the fault lies in the lack of&#160;a large-scale movement of Latino parents and community-based activists in Chicago advocating on specific issues such&#160;as bilingual education or bringing on more Hispanic teachers into schools. Currently, 18.6 percent of CPS teachers are Hispanic, according to <a href="http://www.cps.edu/About_CPS/At-a-glance/Pages/Stats_and_facts.aspx" type="external">district data.</a></p>
<p>“That then means that the climate for folks to exert themselves within the system and to provide leadership doesn’t get created,” Del Valle says. “We used to have a lot more advocacy, when we had less political representation. The more political representation we had, the less advocacy we’ve had.”</p>
<p>Jaime Dominguez, a professor of political science and Latino Studies at Northwestern University, says the fact is that many Latino organizations in Chicago — including those concerned with&#160;education — are more&#160;focused on delivering services instead of political&#160;organizing.</p>
<p>“Because they’re nonprofits, they can’t endorse candidates or get too involved,” says Dominguez, who&#160;helped run a&#160;bilingual survey earlier this year before the mayoral election. “That somewhat neutralizes the Latino voices.”</p>
<p>But he says the&#160;“excitement in the Latino community” over&#160;this year’s&#160;mayoral election and subsequent runoff — which he attributes to&#160;the presence of&#160;a Latino candidate&#160;—&#160;might serve as a wake-up call to political leaders. He thinks&#160;Emanuel’s decision to pick no new Latinos for the school board was an oversight. “I think he undervalued the significance of Latinos,” Dominguez said.</p>
<p>He went on to add: “This needs &#160;to be talked about.&#160;And it’s perfect timing for it, coming off the election.&#160;Latinos do need to have a larger voice over education, over&#160;curriculum, over teacher hiring. And why wouldn’t they? To suggest otherwise is, to me, to say their voice doesn’t&#160;count or they’re not&#160;capable.”</p>
| false | 3 |
sylvia puente number prominent latinos chicago criticizing mayor rahm emanuels decision make already disproportionately white school board even ethnically lopsided removing one two hispanic appointees disappointed school district 46 percent latino latinos largest cohort students exceeded african americans district number years ago latino named school board says sylvia puente executive director nonpartisan latino policy forum feels like missed opportunity four white board members three while160less 10 percent children chicago public schools white remaining two board members black compared nearly 40 percent students statement spokeswoman emanuel said administration always reflective citizens serve continue ensure latinos represented leadership board positions statement goes name160board member interim ceo jesse ruiz well as160the mayors top education advisor arnaldo rivera ruiz attorney mexicanamerican formerly chaired illinois state board education isbe currently voting school board member capacity interim ceo insiders tell160catalyst least one latino turned invitation sit board unclear whether politics anything reduction latino representation board shuffle comes160two months one citys hispanicmajority wards went160for emanuels160opponent mexicanborn jesus chuy garcia cook county commissioner mayoral elections us rep luis gutierrez far emanuels biggest campaign supporter chicagos160hispanic160community says160he sees160no160problem ethnic makeup board given influence160of ruiz rivera the160daily workings district id160rather somebody charge school board160every day try reach symbolic positioning latinos says gutierrez illinois democrat miguel160del valle former state senator ran emanuel 2011 backed garcia years race says ethnic disparity school board doesnt make sense cant find one person city chicago given latinos different arenas skills talents background able serve responsibly meet fiduciary obligations say didnt try hard enough says census data 2013 american community survey show latinos make 30 percent city residents del valle formerly chaired160the illinois p20 council says understands might challenging find someone willing join board current circumstances cps faces 11 billion budget deficit next fiscal year middle contract negotiations teachers union went strike last time around lets face tough situation walk look look look says reflecting needs aspirations earlier week emanuel announced replacing four board members whose terms expire end month including carlos azcoitia former educator cuban immigrant160hed named board 2012 fill vacancy left another latino board member rodrigo sierra named160to chicago housing authority sierra joined cha to160replace160a vacancy left yet another hispanic azcoitia said told board president david vitale would replaced days mayor made announcement says would stayed asked hed allowed meet mayor first wasnt asked stay reached thursday azcoitia expressed concern changes board know sometimes right leader transcend issues important recognize diversity quality says latino students families see needs aspirations reflected board people similar experiences josie yanguas director illinois resource center knows160that somebody latino doesnt necessarily mean theyll knowledge base weigh one issues shes concerned serving englishlanguage learners district data show one six children cps considered limited english proficiency obviously huge share spanishspeaking chicago theres significant arabic population significant polish population160those voices arent necessarily getting represented either says yanguas whose organization160is dedicated helping160schools across state serve linguistically culturally diverse students lack adequate ethnic or160linguistic representation isnt160a problem thats unique cps school board adds look composition central office composition administrators principals teachers system yanguas160says state 800 school districts five superintendents latino state school board adds one nine appointed160members latino although one current vacancy leading latino issues critics said doesnt matter much emanuel appoints whether theyre latino black white cps board members say little public meetings rarely vote proposals supported administration azcoitia says knows people believe theres pressure board members vote favor everything thats presented administration says hes comfortable voting issues thought160might160negatively impact students latino neighborhoods pointing two votes cps proposals close von humboldt elementary turning ames middle school military school 2013 proposals passed anyway even though youre appointed mayor represent educator whats best students schools said doesnt mean youre appointed agree vote affirmatively time del valle says hes disappointed lack strong latino leadership education issues says160part fault lies lack of160a largescale movement latino parents communitybased activists chicago advocating specific issues such160as bilingual education bringing hispanic teachers schools currently 186 percent cps teachers hispanic according district data means climate folks exert within system provide leadership doesnt get created del valle says used lot advocacy less political representation political representation less advocacy weve jaime dominguez professor political science latino studies northwestern university says fact many latino organizations chicago including concerned with160education more160focused delivering services instead political160organizing theyre nonprofits cant endorse candidates get involved says dominguez who160helped run a160bilingual survey earlier year mayoral election somewhat neutralizes latino voices says the160excitement latino community over160this years160mayoral election subsequent runoff attributes to160the presence of160a latino candidate160160might serve wakeup call political leaders thinks160emanuels decision pick new latinos school board oversight think undervalued significance latinos dominguez said went add needs 160to talked about160and perfect timing coming election160latinos need larger voice education over160curriculum teacher hiring wouldnt suggest otherwise say voice doesnt160count theyre not160capable
| 778 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" />May 23, 2013</p>
<p>By Laer Pearce</p>
<p>It’s been almost a quarter century — 23 years, seven months and five days, to be exact – since the 1989 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Loma_Prieta_earthquake" type="external">Loma Prieta earthquake</a> knocked out a section of the eastern span of the Oakland Bay Bridge, causing one of the earthquake’s 57 fatalities.</p>
<p>Despite the huge chunk of time that’s passed, California is still bungling along without a safe replacement bridge in place.</p>
<p>Yes, the new span is supposed to be ready to open this Labor Day, Sept. 5. But whether it’s ready, and whether it’s safe, remain to be seen. &#160;And the cost? The first bid came in at $1.4 billion, and we’re at $6.3 billion today — with some potentially very expensive fix-it work ahead.</p>
<p>Here’s a brief summary and timeline of the slowly unfolding human disaster that followed the natural disaster:</p>
<p>* After the quake, Republican Gov. Pete Wilson proposed a concrete viaduct as a replacement, which could be built cheaply ($1 billion, he thought) and safely.</p>
<p>* That idea was promptly shot down by haughty Bay Area leaders, who refused to accept something as pedestrian as a viaduct. (A viaduct is mundane — just several short spans tied together, getting from one side to the other without any showiness.)</p>
<p>* For the next 10 years, Bay Area politicians fought over an appropriate design, while the patched-together Bay Bridge remained vulnerable to the next big quake.&#160;</p>
<p>* It was decided the western portion of the eastern span (leaving Yerba Buena Island towards Oakland) would be a “signature structure” and the rest would be … a viaduct.&#160; A design contest <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_span_replacement_of_the_San_Francisco%E2%80%93Oakland_Bay_Bridge" type="external">was held</a>, judged by the Engineering and Design Advisory Panel (EDAP) of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. You might be shocked to learn that many of the design finalists were proposals submitted by the very firms that employed EDAP members, and the ultimate winner was an EDAP member’s entry. “This posed a serious conflict of interest,” said <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_span_replacement_of_the_San_Francisco%E2%80%93Oakland_Bay_Bridge" type="external">one analysis</a>. Indeed, especially since the selected design was more expensive than the alternatives.</p>
<p>* The mayor of Oakland at the time, Jerry Brown, protested mightily because the signature structure was as far away from Oakland as it possibly could be. He said the design “speaks of mediocrity, not greatness.”&#160;</p>
<p>* Gov. Gray Davis put an end to the squabbling and moved the selected design forward, signature span, viaduct and all.</p>
<p>* When a single submitted construction bid was opened in September 2004, state officials were surprised to see it was $1.4 billion, about twice what the number-crunchers at Caltrans thought it would be.</p>
<p>* Gray was gone and Arnold was in, and in December 2004 Gov. Schwarzenegger canceled the contract, saying it was too expensive. Instead, he wanted an all-viaduct design. Ghosts of Pete Wilson!</p>
<p>* Signature span hawks fought back in a battle of conflicting cost estimates until, in November 2005, a “compromise” was reached that returned the signature span. It’s not clear to me what the countering half of this compromise was, but the cost of the delay is clear enough: as much as $400 million. That’s a small price to pay for great bridge architecture, right?</p>
<p>* Construction got under way, and a few months later, in April 2005, welds on the bridge were called into question.</p>
<p>* On October 27, 2009, a crossbar and two tension rods collapsed, dumping 2.5 tons of debris onto the upper deck roadway during the evening commute. One car and a delivery truck were struck, but no one was killed. The bridge was closed to traffic in both directions for six days.</p>
<p>* In November 2009, a cracked <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyebar" type="external">eyebar</a>was discovered that would have closed the bridge had it not been under a temporary construction closure already.</p>
<p>* As detailed in my book “ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&amp;field-keywords=crazifornia" type="external">Crazifornia</a>,” in November 2011 Caltrans got caught covering up that one of its staffers had fabricated the results of tests on the integrity of Bay Bridge concrete pours, including pours of the structure supporting the massively heavy signature span tower. A report on what this means to the bridge’s integrity is due out in Spring 2013 — any day now.</p>
<p>* In March 2013, three big bolts (3 to 19 feet in length) that connect portions of the bridge deck to concrete columns failed load tests. Subsequently, 30 of the bridge’s 96 bolts failed the test. Some of these bolts cannot be removed because the bridge has been built around them.</p>
<p>* Also in March, 32 galvanized steel rods snapped when being tightened. There are 1,900 such rods on the new bridge. The Sacramento Bee <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Supplier-urged-use-of-banned-Bay-Bridge-rods-4536752.php" type="external">reported</a> Caltrans justified use of galvanized steel rods based on their successful use on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, but provided this quote from a corrosion expert: “Low stress on [the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge] means nothing for the Bay Bridge, where the stress is so beyond the other application.”</p>
<p>* And just this last Saturday, the <a href="http://sacbee.com/2013/05/18/5431567/report-steel-tendons-left-exposed.html#storylink=misearch" type="external">Sacramento Bee reported</a>that incompetent construction and bureaucratic ineptitude have led to rust forming on <a href="http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/pt/pt01.cfm" type="external">steel tendons</a> that are critical to the bridge’s safe operation. First, Caltrans did a duct tape fix (Really, with actual duct tape!), then they attempted to minimize this problem. Metallurgists expert in how steel performs under corrosive conditions have declared the rust to be a very big deal, however.</p>
<p>So, what did we get for our quarter century of waiting and 450 percent cost overrun? A bridge with a design that satisfies no one, that may not have met the basic requirement that it be safe, and that certainly will have much higher ongoing maintenance and repair costs than it should have.</p>
<p>Welcome to Crazifornia. And thank you, Caltrans.</p>
<p>Laer Pearce, a 30-year veteran of California public affairs, is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&amp;field-keywords=crazifornia" type="external">Crazifornia: Tales from the Tarnished State</a>.</p>
| false | 3 |
may 23 2013 laer pearce almost quarter century 23 years seven months five days exact since 1989 loma prieta earthquake knocked section eastern span oakland bay bridge causing one earthquakes 57 fatalities despite huge chunk time thats passed california still bungling along without safe replacement bridge place yes new span supposed ready open labor day sept 5 whether ready whether safe remain seen 160and cost first bid came 14 billion 63 billion today potentially expensive fixit work ahead heres brief summary timeline slowly unfolding human disaster followed natural disaster quake republican gov pete wilson proposed concrete viaduct replacement could built cheaply 1 billion thought safely idea promptly shot haughty bay area leaders refused accept something pedestrian viaduct viaduct mundane several short spans tied together getting one side without showiness next 10 years bay area politicians fought appropriate design patchedtogether bay bridge remained vulnerable next big quake160 decided western portion eastern span leaving yerba buena island towards oakland would signature structure rest would viaduct160 design contest held judged engineering design advisory panel edap metropolitan transportation commission might shocked learn many design finalists proposals submitted firms employed edap members ultimate winner edap members entry posed serious conflict interest said one analysis indeed especially since selected design expensive alternatives mayor oakland time jerry brown protested mightily signature structure far away oakland possibly could said design speaks mediocrity greatness160 gov gray davis put end squabbling moved selected design forward signature span viaduct single submitted construction bid opened september 2004 state officials surprised see 14 billion twice numbercrunchers caltrans thought would gray gone arnold december 2004 gov schwarzenegger canceled contract saying expensive instead wanted allviaduct design ghosts pete wilson signature span hawks fought back battle conflicting cost estimates november 2005 compromise reached returned signature span clear countering half compromise cost delay clear enough much 400 million thats small price pay great bridge architecture right construction got way months later april 2005 welds bridge called question october 27 2009 crossbar two tension rods collapsed dumping 25 tons debris onto upper deck roadway evening commute one car delivery truck struck one killed bridge closed traffic directions six days november 2009 cracked eyebarwas discovered would closed bridge temporary construction closure already detailed book crazifornia november 2011 caltrans got caught covering one staffers fabricated results tests integrity bay bridge concrete pours including pours structure supporting massively heavy signature span tower report means bridges integrity due spring 2013 day march 2013 three big bolts 3 19 feet length connect portions bridge deck concrete columns failed load tests subsequently 30 bridges 96 bolts failed test bolts removed bridge built around also march 32 galvanized steel rods snapped tightened 1900 rods new bridge sacramento bee reported caltrans justified use galvanized steel rods based successful use richmondsan rafael bridge provided quote corrosion expert low stress richmondsan rafael bridge means nothing bay bridge stress beyond application last saturday sacramento bee reportedthat incompetent construction bureaucratic ineptitude led rust forming steel tendons critical bridges safe operation first caltrans duct tape fix really actual duct tape attempted minimize problem metallurgists expert steel performs corrosive conditions declared rust big deal however get quarter century waiting 450 percent cost overrun bridge design satisfies one may met basic requirement safe certainly much higher ongoing maintenance repair costs welcome crazifornia thank caltrans laer pearce 30year veteran california public affairs author crazifornia tales tarnished state
| 553 |
<p>GLOBALPOST LIVE BLOG: CRISIS IN GAZA</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/26/14 11:16 PM ET</p>
<p>Israel extends humanitarian ceasefire another 24 hours</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/thomson-reuters/140726/twelve-hour-gaza-humanitarian-truce-takes-hold" type="external">Reuters</a> reports:</p>
<p>GAZA/JERUSALEM — Israel extended a humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip for another 24 hours, but Hamas, which dominates the coastal enclave, said it would only accept the truce if Israeli troops left the territory.</p>
<p>Israeli ministers had signaled that a comprehensive deal to end the 20-day conflict with Hamas and its allies, in which at least 1,050 Gazans — mostly civilians — have been killed, and 42 soldiers and three civilians in Israel have died, was remote.</p>
<p>"At the request of the United Nations, the cabinet has approved a humanitarian hiatus until tomorrow at 2400 (midnight local time, 1700 EST Sunday)," the official, who was not named, said in a statement after the cabinet session held in Tel Aviv had ended. "The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) will act against any breach of the ceasefire."</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/26/14 3:16 PM ET</p>
<p>Hamas rejects extended ceasefire proposal, fires rockets</p>
<p><a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/no-truce-12-hour-lull-gaza-fighting-begins" type="external">AP</a> reports:</p>
<p>JERUSALEM — The Israeli military says three rockets have been fired from Gaza at Israel despite a proposed extension of a humanitarian truce in the Gaza war.</p>
<p>Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the group rejected Israel's proposal to extend an original 12-hour lull by four hours, until midnight (2100 GMT) Saturday.</p>
<p>The military says the three rockets were fired more than an hour after the period for the initial lull had ended.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the military warned residents of areas where there had been heavy fighting against returning there.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/26/14 3:11 PM ET</p>
<p>The number of displaced Palestinians keeps growing</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/26/14 3:03 PM ET</p>
<p>Pro-Palestine rally turns violent in Paris</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>A man reacts as police use tear gas on the Republique square in Paris, July 26, 2014.</p>
<p>French police&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/xinhua-news-agency/140726/40-arrested-paris-pro-palestinian-demonstration-turns-violen" type="external">arrested some 40 people</a>&#160;when a pro-Palestine demonstration in Paris turned violent on Saturday.&#160;Masked men in the Parisian square, La Place de La Republique, launched projectiles at riot police, who responded by firing tear gas.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/26/14 2:34 PM ET</p>
<p>Reports of attacks on Israel despite ceasefire</p>
<p>More rocket attacks now on Israeli border communities near central <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Gaza?src=hash" type="external">#Gaza</a>. Ceasefire looking increasingly unilateral.</p>
<p>— Daniel Nisman (@DannyNis) <a href="https://twitter.com/DannyNis/statuses/493099148652974081" type="external">July 26, 2014</a></p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/26/14 1:03 PM ET</p>
<p>UN calls for the ceasefire to last a full 24 hours</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/26/14 12:50 PM ET</p>
<p>Israel extends ceasefire until midnight Saturday</p>
<p>From USA Today:</p>
<p>Israel <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/07/26/israel-gaza-palestinian-cease-fire/13202349/" type="external">extended a humanitarian ceasefire</a> by four hours to midnight Saturday as the Palestinian death toll in the conflict rose to more than 1,000.</p>
<p>At least 100 bodies were recovered Saturday, Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said as Palestinians used a temporary ceasefire, set to expire at midnight, to move medical supplies and tend to the dead and injured in the Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>As the pause in hostilities began Saturday morning, Gazans poured onto the streets Saturday to find food supplies, look for missing family members or return to homes they left for shelters.</p>
<p>The nearly three weeks of fighting has left swaths of rubble, destroyed roads and damaged power infrastructure in residential neighborhoods across the strip.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/26/14 11:06 AM ET</p>
<p>Pulling bodies from rubble</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Palestinians walk across the rubble of destroyed buildings and homes in the Shejaiya residential district of Gaza City on July 26, 2014.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Rescue workers remove the body of a man, after digging him up from under the rubble of his home following an Israeli air strike on Beit Hanun, in the northern of Gaza strip, on July 26, 2014.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Palestinian recover the body of a man killed when his home was hit the previous night by Israeli fire in the northern district of Beit Hanun in the Gaza Strip during an humanitarian truce, on July 26, 2014.</p>
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<p>A Palestinian woman reacts at seeing destroyed homes in the northern district of Beit Hanun in the Gaza Strip during an humanitarian truce on July 26, 2014.</p>
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<p>Rescue workers remove the body of a member of al-Najar family, after digging it up from under the rubble of a home following an Israeli air strike on Khan Yunis in the southern of Gaza strip , on July 26, 2014.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Rescue workers carry the body of a member of al-Najar family, after removing it from under the rubble of their home following an Israeli air strike on Khan Yunis in the southern of Gaza strip , on July 26, 2014.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/26/14 10:25 AM ET</p>
<p>Foreign diplomats push for longer term truce</p>
<p>US Secretary of State John Kerry met with counterparts from Europe and the Middle East in Paris, who <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140726/top-diplomats-call-extension-12-hour-gaza-truce-french-fm" type="external">urged that the ceasefire be extended</a>.</p>
<p>"We all call on parties to extend the humanitarian ceasefire," France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters after meeting Kerry and counterparts from Britain, Germany, Italy, Qatar and Turkey, as well as an EU representative.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/26/14 10:07 AM ET</p>
<p>Palestinian death toll near 1,000</p>
<p>More than halfway into a 12-hour ceasefire that began early Saturday, medics said 85 bodies had been retrieved from buildings ground into rubble across the Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>On the ground in Gaza, ambulances sped along roads to neighborhoods that have been too dangerous to enter for days.</p>
<p>At least <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140726/dozens-bodies-found-gaza-during-12-hour-truce" type="external">985 Palestinians have been killed</a> in the coastal enclave since the conflict began on July 8.</p>
<p>On the Israeli side, 37 soldiers have been killed, along with two Israeli civilians and Thai foreign worker.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/26/14 9:30 AM ET</p>
<p>Humanitarian ceasefire takes effect</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140726/gaza-12-hour-humanitarian-truce-enters-force-0" type="external">12-hour ceasefire entered</a> into force between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip at 0500 GMT on Saturday, the 19th day of a conflict that has killed hundreds.</p>
<p>Israel and the Islamist movement said they would observe the temporary ceasefire, after US Secretary of State John Kerry was unable to reach a lasting truce during talks Friday in Cairo.</p>
<p>In the hours leading up to the pause, however, the violence continued, with Israeli air strikes killing 23 people, among them four children and a paramedic, Gaza medical services said.</p>
<p>The conflict, which began on July 8 when Israel launched an operation to stamp out rocket fire from Gaza and destroy Hamas tunnels, has cost the lives of 888 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and 39 Israelis, all but two of them soldiers.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/25/14 4:00 PM ET</p>
<p>Signing off</p>
<p>Some photos of the war from the past 24 hours.</p>
<p>We will continue coverage tomorrow.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Palestinian mourners pray over the bodies of ten victims killed after a UN school in Beit Hanun was hit by an Israeli tank shell, during their funeral in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza strip, on July 25, 2014.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>A Palestinian family walks past the debris from a building in the center of Gaza City hit by an earlier Israeli airstrike, on July 25, 2014.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Palestinian protesters block Route 60, the main Jewish settler road in the West Bank on July 25, 2014, in the Beit Omar village, north the West Bank city of Hebron.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Israeli armed policemen stand guard behind Palestinian Muslims performing the traditional Friday prayers near the Old City in East Jerusalem on July 25, 2014.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Pro-Palestinian demonstrators march through central London on July 25, 2014 in London, England.</p>
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<p>Israeli soldiers return from combat in the Gaza Strip to an army deployment base along the border between Israel and the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory on July 25, 2014.</p>
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<p>A picture taken from the southern Israeli border with the Gaza Strip shows the trail of a missile launched by Israel's Iron Dome defense system, designed to intercept and destroy incoming short-range rockets and artillery shells, on July 25, 2014.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>The mother of slain 36-year-old Israeli reservist Sergeant First Class Yair Ashkenazi, who was killed early morning in the northern Palestinian Gaza Strip, mourns during his funeral on July 25, 2014 at the military cemetery in the southern Israeli city of Rehovot.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/25/14 2:22 PM ET</p>
<p>'The security cabinet has unanimously rejected the ceasefire proposal of Kerry,' Israeli public television reports</p>
<p>Agence France-Presse — Israel on Friday rejected a Gaza ceasefire proposal presented by US Secretary of State John Kerry, Israeli public television said.</p>
<p>"The security cabinet has unanimously rejected the ceasefire proposal of Kerry, as it stands," Channel 1 said, adding ministers would keep discussing it.</p>
<p>Kerry met UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Egypt's foreign minister on Friday as pressure mounted for a ceasefire to end an 18-day conflict that has killed more than 800 Palestinians and 37 people on the Israeli side, 34 of them soldiers.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Smoke billows from a building hit by an Israeli air strike in Gaza City on July 25, 2014.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/25/14 2:02 PM ET</p>
<p>Close to 900 people have been killed in less than 3 weeks</p>
<p>Here's the updated death toll of the war, via The Washington Post:</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/25/14 1:51 PM ET</p>
<p>Kerry's ceasefire plan has reportedly been rejected</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/25/14 12:57 PM ET</p>
<p>Hezbollah chief makes rare public appearance for Gaza</p>
<p>Agence France-Presse — Lebanese Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah made a rare public appearance on Friday to show solidarity with Gaza on the annual Iran-led Jerusalem Day commemoration, an AFP correspondent reported.</p>
<p>It was only the fifth public appearance by the head of the Shia militant group, who has topped Israel's wanted list since even before their deadly conflict in 2006.</p>
<p>Nasrallah appeared on stage from behind a curtain to wild applause from the thousands in the crowd at the indoor venue in a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital.</p>
<p>Jerusalem Day, celebrated every year on the last Friday in the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, was this year dedicated to "solidarity with the people and the resistance in Gaza."&#160;</p>
<p>As the Palestinian death toll in 18 days of the Israeli onslaught on Gaza topped 800, Nasrallah announced: "Palestine is still the main cause" in the Muslim world. Hezbollah is currently fighting rebels in Syria alongside forces loyal to President Bashir al-Assad.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/25/14 12:18 PM ET</p>
<p>Has Kerry's push for ceasefire come too late?</p>
<p>GlobalPost senior correspondent Noga Tarnopolsky reports from Jerusalem:</p>
<p>On a day of some of the worst violence in the current flare-up of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Secretary of State John Kerry proposed a temporary ceasefire that could halt fighting this weekend.</p>
<p>But even if the Israeli government and Hamas, the Islamist faction that rules Gaza, accept his plan, it remains unclear whether a break in combat will be enough to quell the protests that have broken out in Jerusalem and in the West Bank in the past 24 hours.</p>
<p>Palestinian sourcesclaimed that both Israeli military and settler fire killed five protestors on Friday. The diplomatic moves come on the heels of one of the bloodiest and most controversial incidents of the conflict, in which a UN-run school that was operating as a shelter for displaced Gazans was shelled on Thursday, killing an estimated 17 people.</p>
<p>The spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which runs the school, accused Israel of the shelling, while Israeli army representatives, emphasizing that the incident is under investigation, have suggested the school could have instead been hit by Hamas’s rockets.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/140725/has-kerrys-push-ceasefire-come-too-late" type="external">Read the full piece here.</a></p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/25/14 11:36 AM ET</p>
<p>Missing IDF soldier 'killed in action'</p>
<p>Israel said today that the Israel Defense Forces soldier who was reported missing was killed in action.</p>
<p>From Haaretz:</p>
<p>The IDF determined on Friday that Givati Brigade soldier Staff Sergeant Oron Shaul died in battle, and defined him as "a soldier killed in action whose burial site is unknown."</p>
<p>A special committee led by the Chief Rabbi of the IDF, Brigadier General Rafi Peretz, notified the soldier's family of their decision. In a statement, the IDF said that "prior to the decision, all the religious, medical and further relevant issues were taken into consideration."</p>
<p><a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.607236" type="external">Full piece here.</a></p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/25/14 10:49 AM ET</p>
<p>WHO is seeking a humanitarian corridor in Gaza to evacuate the wounded</p>
<p>Reuters — The World Health Organization (WHO) called on Friday for a humanitarian corridor to be set up in Gaza to allow aid workers to evacuate the wounded and bring in life-saving medicines.</p>
<p>WHO officials have discussed the proposal with both Israeli and Egyptian officials, but there has been no response yet, WHO spokesman Paul Garwood said.</p>
<p>More details here:</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Rescue workers help a wounded child after removing him from under the rubble of his home following an Israeli air strike on Rafah in the southern of Gaza strip, on July 25, 2014.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/25/14 10:42 AM ET</p>
<p>4 Palestinians killed in the West Bank, security sources say</p>
<p>Agence France-Presse — Four Palestinians were killed in the West Bank on Friday in two separate incidents involving both Israeli troops and Israeli settlers, Palestinian security sources told AFP.</p>
<p>In the first incident, 46-year-old Hashem Abu Marieh and 30-year-old Sultan Yusef were killed in the Palestinian village of Beit Ummar near the flashpoint southern city of Hebron by Israeli soldiers, Palestinian security sources said.</p>
<p>In the second incident, a group of settlers opened fire on protesting Palestinians after they threw stones at their car near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian security sources said.</p>
<p>The settler fire killed an 18-year-old Palestinian named as Khaled Oudeh. Shortly afterwards, Israeli troops arrived at the scene and clashed with the Palestinians, firing live bullets and tear gas.</p>
<p>The Israeli army fire killed a second Palestinian, 22-year-old Tayyib Oudeh, the security sources said, adding that three other Palestinians were injured by live fire.</p>
<p>An Israeli army spokeswoman had no comment on the incident in Beit Ummar, but said there had been "confrontations" between Israeli troops and Palestinians near Nablus "in which settlers were involved," without giving further details.</p>
<p>Israeli army radio reported that a female settler has opened fire in in the incident near Nablus, killing Khaled Oudeh.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/25/14 9:30 AM ET</p>
<p>Some updates re: Kerry's truce proposal</p>
<p>The New York Times reports:</p>
<p>Secretary of State John Kerry has proposed a two-stage plan to halt the fighting in the Gaza Strip that would first impose a weeklong truce starting Sunday, an official involved in the negotiations said on Friday.</p>
<p>As soon as the truce took effect, Palestinian and Israeli officials would begin negotiations on the principal economic, political and security concerns about Gaza, with other nations attending.&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/25/world/middleeast/kerry-proposes-weeklong-halt-to-fighting-in-gaza-strip.html?smid=tw-share" type="external">Read the full piece here.</a></p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/25/14 8:30 AM ET</p>
<p>The death toll has passed 800</p>
<p>Reuters — US Secretary of State John Kerry pressed regional leaders to nail down a Gaza ceasefire on Friday as the civilian death toll soared, and further violence loomed between Israelis and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.</p>
<p>With Israel and Hamas-led Islamist fighters setting seemingly irreconcilable terms for a truce that mediators hope will begin by a Muslim festival next week, Kerry worked the phones from Egypt, while aides made clear his patience was waning.</p>
<p>The urgency was spurred on Thursday by the killing of 15 people as they sheltered at a UN-run school in the northern Gaza Strip, which local officials blamed on Israeli shelling. Israel said its forces had come under attack from Palestinian guerrillas in the area of the school and that they had shot back.</p>
<p>It accused Hamas of preventing any evacuation. Gaza officials said Israeli strikes killed 27 people on Friday, including the head of media operations for Hamas allyIslamic Jihad and his son.</p>
<p>They put the number of Palestinian deaths in 18 days of conflict at 819, most of them civilians.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>A Palestinian man kisses the head of a one-year-old baby Noha Mesleh, who died of wounds sustained after a UN school in Beit Hanun was hit by an Israeli tank shell, as he carries her during her funeral in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, on July 25, 2014.</p>
<p>In the occupied West Bank, where US-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas governs in uneasy coordination with Israel, 10,000 demonstrators marched in solidarity with Gaza overnight — a scale recalling mass revolts of the past.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Palestinians stand behind burning tires during clashes with Israeli security forces following traditional Friday prayers near the Old City in East Jerusalem on July 25, 2014.</p>
<p>Protesters surged against an Israeli army checkpoint, throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails, and Palestinian medics said one was shot dead and 200 wounded when troops opened fire.</p>
<p>On Friday, Israeli paramilitary police went on high alert for flare-ups at Jerusalem's most important mosque during prayers for the final stretch of the Ramadan Muslim holy month.</p>
<p>Yitzhak Aharonovitch, Israel's police minister and a member of the security cabinet, said he was shuttling between consultations on how to contain the rising hostilities.</p>
<p>"We have had a very difficult night," he told Israel's Army Radio. "I hope we can get through today all right."</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/24/14 4:45 PM ET</p>
<p>Signing off</p>
<p>This live blog is now closed. We will continue coverage tomorrow.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/24/14 4:16 PM ET</p>
<p>Interview with Hamas leader</p>
<p>Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal spoke to the BBC about the militant group's demands for a ceasefire.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28472311" type="external">Watch the interview here.</a></p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/24/14 3:30 PM ET</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a change in leadership in Israel</p>
<p>Legislator Reuven Rivlin was sworn in as Israel's new president today.</p>
<p>More details via The Associated Press:</p>
<p>"Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres ended his term as president of Israel on Thursday — a man who symbolizes hopes for peace capping a seven-decade public career amid the brutal reality of war. Peres handed the ceremonial but high-profile presidency over to Reuven Rivlin, a legislator from the hawkish Likud Party. ...</p>
<p>"We are not fighting against the Palestinian people, and we are not at war with Islam," he said. "We are fighting against terrorism."</p>
<p><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/israel-swears-president-amid-gaza-war-24697247" type="external">Read the full piece here.</a></p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/24/14 1:53 PM ET</p>
<p>UN staff killed in Gaza school attack earlier today</p>
<p>Agence France-Presse — An attack on a UN-run school in Gaza on Thursday has claimed lives among the UN staff, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said.</p>
<p>"Many have been killed — including women and children, as well as UN staff," Ban said in a statement. Gaza's emergency services said 15 people were killed and more than 200 injured when an Israeli shell slammed into the school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).</p>
<p>Ban said he was "appalled" by the news and "strongly condemned" the attack on the school in Beit Hanun, in the northern Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/24/14 12:10 PM ET</p>
<p>Israel wasn't too happy about those suspended flights</p>
<p>GlobalPost senior correspondent Noga Tarnopolsky reports:</p>
<p>The US Federal Aviation Administration's suspension of all US carriers arrivals and departures from Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport lasted only 36 hours, but hit Israelis like a punch to the gut.</p>
<p>Transport Ministry Director General Uzi Itzhaki called it an "unfortunate, miserable decision" and said he hoped it would be reversed quickly.</p>
<p>On Wednesday night, when the FAA renewed its directive for a further 24 hours, only 27 out of the hundred carriers that normally serve the bustling airport were active, and the transportation reporter for Israel's Channel 2 news referred to the impasse perhaps hyperbolically as "a national crisis, with tens of thousands of Israelis stuck abroad.”</p>
<p>By Thursday morning, having "carefully reviewed both significant new information and measures the Government of Israel is taking to mitigate potential risks to civil aviation," the FAA announced the ban had been lifted.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/140723/israel-really-not-happy-about-those-suspended-flights" type="external">Read the full piece here.</a></p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/24/14 11:22 AM ET</p>
<p>European aviation regulator 'to lift the recommendation to avoid flying to the Tel Aviv airport'</p>
<p>Reuters — Europe's aviation regulator on Thursday will cancel its warning that recommends airlines do not fly to Israel, after the Federal Aviation Authority cleared US carriers to resume flights.</p>
<p>"We are about to lift the recommendation to avoid flying to the Tel Aviv airport," said Dominique Fouda, a spokesman for the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).</p>
<p>The FAA earlier in the day said it would allow US carriers Delta, United and American unit US Airways to resume flights to Israel's commercial capital.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 2/24/14 10:20 AM ET</p>
<p>The number of people killed in shelling of UN school has increased</p>
<p>From the BBC:</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>A pool of blood is seen in the courtyard of a UN School in the northern Beit Hanun district of the Gaza Strip on July 24, 2014, after it was hit by an Israeli tank shell.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>A trail of blood is seen in the courtyard of a UN School in the northern Beit Hanun district of the Gaza Strip on July 24, 2014, after it was hit by an Israeli tank shell.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 2/21/14 9:30 AM ET</p>
<p>Israeli shell hits UN school, kills at least 9 people&#160;</p>
<p>Agence France-Presse — At least nine people were killed, including a baby, when an Israeli tank shell slammed into a UN-run school in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, an AFP correspondent said.</p>
<p>Separately, a UN official confirmed "multiple dead and injured" at the school in Beit Hanun, which was being used as a shelter by hundreds of Palestinians fleeing a major Israeli operation in the area.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 2/24/14 9:15 AM ET</p>
<p>Pakistan calls for 'humanitarian pause' in Gaza</p>
<p>Agence France-Presse — Pakistan on Thursday called for an immediate end to the blockade of Gaza to allow humanitarian relief to reach Palestinians as the death toll in the besieged territory rose to more than 740.</p>
<p>The appeal came a day after Pakistan voted along with other UN Human Rights Council members to launch a probe into Israel's offensive in the territory, with rights chief Navi Pillay saying the Jewish state's military actions could amount to war crimes.</p>
<p>The 47-member council backed a Palestinian-drafted resolution by 29 votes, with Arab and fellow Muslim countries joined by China and Russia, plus Latin American and African nations.&#160;</p>
<p>"The blockade of Gaza must be ended in order to allow access of any humanitarian assistance," Pakistan's most senior foreign office bureaucrat Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry told a press briefing.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 2/23/14 4:40 PM ET</p>
<p>Signing off</p>
<p>This live blog is now closed. We will continue coverage tomorrow.&#160;</p>
<p>UPDATE: 2/23/14 4:30 PM ET</p>
<p>This is what the war in Gaza looks like from space</p>
<p>GlobalPost's Timothy McGrath writes:</p>
<p>This photo is beautiful, evocative, even entrancing, but as soon as you learn what it shows, it'll haunt you. Yep, that's what Gaza looks like from space.&#160;</p>
<p>Some astronauts describe experiencing something called the "overview effect" while looking down at Earth from space.</p>
<p>They see Earth, hanging in darkness like a marble, vulnerable but for a thin, glowing atmosphere. And they realize something that people on Earth have trouble seeing — that we are all in this together, living on this tiny little marble surrounded by a perhaps infinite universe.</p>
<p>Looking down from space, there are no national borders, no conflicts. It sounds cheesy, but according to the astronauts who've experienced it, it was a profound shift in consciousness.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/israel-and-palestine/140723/what-the-war-gaza-looks-space-iss" type="external">Read the full piece here.&#160;</a></p>
<p>UPDATE: 2/23/14 4:17 PM ET</p>
<p>'Hospitals and water supplies are under massive strain,' in Gaza, Oxfam says</p>
<p>Agence France-Presse — Thousands of Palestinians have fled their homes but have nowhere safe to shelter from Israeli airstrikes, charity Oxfam said on Wednesday, warning supplies of water and food are dangerously low.</p>
<p>Over 120,000 people are displaced but are prevented from escaping violence because borders with Israel and Egypt are shut, Oxfam said.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Displaced Palestinians sleep on the ground on July 23, 2014 at a UN school in the refugee camp of Jabalia where families fleeing heavy fighting in the besieged Palestinian territory have taken refuge.</p>
<p>"The terrible toll on civilians is shocking. Hospitals and water supplies are under massive strain and the needs are increasing by the day.&#160;People are fleeing terrified," said Nishant Pandey, Oxfam's head in Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Maha al-Sheikh Khalil, a seven year-old Palestinian girl, is treated at Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital, on July 23, 2014 following an Israeli attack on the Shujaiya neighborhood of the battered city.</p>
<p>Normally such crises would cause people to flee the area, but this was impossible as the blockade prevented people escaping the violence, Pandey said.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 2/23/14 3:02 PM ET</p>
<p>No clear signs of a ceasefire yet&#160;</p>
<p>Reuters — Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said he was ready to accept a humanitarian truce in Gaza where the Islamist group is fighting an Israeli military offensive, but would not agree to a full ceasefire until the terms had been negotiated.</p>
<p>"Everyone wanted us to accept a ceasefire and then negotiate for our rights, we reject this and we reject it again today," he said at a news conference in Qatar.</p>
<p>But he said Hamas "will not close the door" to a humanitarian truce if Israel ended its siege of Gaza.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Chief of the Islamist Hamas movement, Khaled Meshaal holds a press conference in the Qatari capital Doha on July 23, 2014.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>UPDATE: 2/23/14 2:50 PM ET</p>
<p>#JewsAndArabsRefuseToBeEnemies</p>
<p>GlobalPost's Emily Lodish writes:</p>
<p>A hastag alone isn't going to change the world, but it could be the start of something. That's what Abraham Gutman is hoping, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28439551" type="external">he told BBC</a>.</p>
<p>Gutman co-created the hastag #JewsAndArabsRefuseToBeEnemies, which has been making the rounds on Twitter and Facebook.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/israel-and-palestine/140723/jewsandarabsrefusetobeenemies-hastag-gaza-violence-peace" type="external">View some of the photos that were shared on Twitter here.</a></p>
<p>UPDATE: 2/23/14 12:50 PM ET</p>
<p>UN rights council launches probe into Israel's Gaza offensive</p>
<p>Agence France-Presse — The UN Human Rights Council on Wednesday launched a probe into Israel's Gaza offensive, backing efforts by the Palestinians to hold the Jewish state up to international scrutiny. The 47-member council backed a Palestinian-drafted resolution by 29 votes, with Arab and fellow Muslim countries joined by China, Russia and Latin American and African nations. The United States was the sole member to vote against, while European countries abstained.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 2/23/14 11:00 AM ET</p>
<p>Funeral for Israel's 'lone soldier'</p>
<p>GlobalPost senior correspondent Noga Tarnopolsky reports:</p>
<p>Max Steinberg&#160;barely spoke enough Hebrew to crack a joke, but he found his calling in a place where Hebrew was an absolute necessity and joking was always welcome — in the Israeli army's vaunted Golani brigade.&#160;</p>
<p>The 24-year-old American, who was killed in battle in Gaza on Sunday, was buried at Israel's national military cemetery at Mount Herzl on Wednesday.</p>
<p>His parents, Stuart and Evie, <a href="" type="external">flew to Israel for the first time in their lives</a> for the ceremony.</p>
<p>His father recounted how after volunteering for the Israel Defense Forces, Steinberg was turned down by the elite unit time and again for his lack of language skills. Eventually, he made it. At the time of his death, he served as a sharpshooter.</p>
<p>A foreign volunteer, he had not yet acquired Israeli citizenship.</p>
<p>"He was always the one cracking a joke when we had tough days, even though he could barely speak Hebrew,"&#160;one of Steinberg's platoon-mates, Koyachew Adya, said at the funeral.</p>
<p>"He was just a good, strong guy, a friend to everybody — the laughing one."</p>
<p>About 30,000 people attended Steinberg's funeral. The service of "lone soldiers," volunteers from abroad who are under no obligation to fight for Israel, is lionized in the state.</p>
<p>Most of the attendees had never met Steinberg.</p>
<p>Zehava Kahlon, a resident of Israel's south, was taking a day off from the daily rain of rockets with a friend and two young children. "We came to Mount Herzl so the kids could see the museum," she said. "But once we realized which funeral it was we had to take part."</p>
<p>Arieh Copelan, a twenty-one-year-old native of the tiny Nevadan town of West Windover, stood at the funeral with his girlfriend, Mari Mirdfin, 20, of Baltimore. They too are part of the small, tightly-bound coterie of American IDF volunteers.</p>
<p>"So many cookie-cutter stories," Copelan said. "I was also in a combat unit until a month ago. I never met Max but we had many mutual friends, we served in the same bases. It's just very personal."</p>
<p>UPDATE: 2/23/14 10:32 AM ET</p>
<p>A brief respite</p>
<p>Agence France-Presse reports:</p>
<p>Fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas militants was briefly suspended in several flashpoint areas of Gaza on Wednesday to allow convoys of ambulances to retrieve the wounded, an ICRC spokeswoman said.</p>
<p>"A convoy of seven ambulances and two Red Cross cars went inside Shejaiya to evacuate the wounded," ICRC spokeswoman Cecilia Goin told AFP, saying the move had been coordinated with both Israel and Hamas.</p>
<p>More details on the temporary humanitarian ceasefire from the BBC's chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet:</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>A Palestinian child sits on a hospital bed after receiving medical care at Gaza City's al-Shifa hospital following an Israeli military strike near his family home on July 23, 2014.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 2/23/14 10:15 AM ET</p>
<p>Lufthansa halts flights to Tel Aviv</p>
<p>Lufthansa is halting flights to Tel Aviv for one more day, Agence France-Presse reports. Yesterday, the US Federal Aviation Administration announced that it is suspending flights to and from the Israeli city for up to 24 hours.</p>
<p>More from Agence France-Presse:&#160;</p>
<p>German aviation group Lufthansa said Wednesday it was suspending services to Tel Aviv for another day over security concerns amid the escalating Gaza conflict, after halting flights for 36 hours.</p>
<p>The German company, which also operates Germanwings, Austrian Airlines, Swiss and Brussels Airlines, said it was "evaluating the security situation in close consultation with the responsible authorities."</p>
<p>It said it had cancelled a total of 20 scheduled flights to Tel Aviv on Thursday from Frankfurt, Munich, Cologne, Zurich, Vienna and Brussels.</p>
<p>"At the moment there is no reliable new information that would justify a resumption of flight service," it said in a statement.&#160;</p>
<p>UPDATE: 2/23/14 9:00 AM ET</p>
<p>Israel's Gaza offensive could 'amount to war crimes,' UN rights chief warns</p>
<p>Agence France-Presse — Israel's military actions in the Gaza Strip could amount to war crimes, UN rights chief Navi Pillay said Wednesday while also condemning indiscriminate rocket attacks by Palestinian militants Hamas.</p>
<p>"There seems to be a strong possibility that international law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes," Pillay told an emergency session on Israel's Gaza offensive at the UN Human Rights Council, citing attacks that have killed Palestinian civilians, including children.&#160;</p>
<p>She said Israelis also had a right to live without constant fear of rocket attacks. "Once again, the principles of distinction and precaution are clearly not being observed during such indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas by Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups," she said.</p>
<p>The council — which is the United Nations' top human rights forum — was poised to call for an international inquiry into Israel's offensive in the Palestinian territories.&#160;</p>
<p>Gaza's emergency services said that at least 21 people were killed Wednesday, hiking the Palestinian death toll to 652, while the army announced another two soldiers had been killed in fighting a day earlier, raising the number of Israeli dead to 31, including 29 soldiers.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>United Rights High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay speaks with Assistant Secretary-General and deputy emergency relief coordinator Kyung-wha Kang during an emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council on the Gaza crisis at the United Nations Offices in Geneva on July 23, 2014.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/22/14 1:00 PM ET</p>
<p>Signing off</p>
<p>This live blog is now closed. We will continue coverage tomorrow.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/22/14 12:47 PM ET</p>
<p>FAA halts flights to and from Tel Aviv&#160;</p>
<p>Here's the US Federal Aviation Administration's notice:</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/22/14 12:32 PM ET</p>
<p>Palestinians propose Gaza truce</p>
<p>Reuters reports:</p>
<p>The Palestinian leadership proposed to Egypt a plan for a Gaza ceasefire to be followed by five days of negotiations to stop fighting between Palestinians and Israel, Palestinian official Azzam al-Ahmed told reporters in Cairo on Tuesday.</p>
<p>"The Palestinian leadership offered a new suggestion in the framework of the Egyptian initiative for a ceasefire followed immediately by negotiations lasting five days," Fatah official al-Ahmed said.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/22/14 11:47 AM ET</p>
<p>'Precise shots' fired at Al Jazeera's bureau in Gaza</p>
<p>Al Jazeera has more details on the incident:</p>
<p>"Two very precise shots were fired straight into our building," Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, reporting from the bureau in Gaza said.</p>
<p>"We are high up in the building so we had a very strong vantage point over the area. But we have evacuated."</p>
<p>The bureau is situated in a residential area of Gaza City.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/07/gunshots-fired-at-al-jazeera-bureau-gaza-2014722829152765.html" type="external">Read the full piece here.</a></p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/22/14 11:11 AM ET</p>
<p>Flights to Israel cancelled</p>
<p>The Associated Press reports:</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/22/14 10:05 AM ET</p>
<p>Israeli prime minister holds joint press conference with UN chief</p>
<p>Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a news conference with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Here's what they said:</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/22/14 9:44 AM ET</p>
<p>Kerry is in Egypt to broker truce efforts</p>
<p>US Secretary of State John Kerry met with leaders in Egypt, including President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, to discuss ceasefire proposals, Agence France-Presse reported.</p>
<p>"We are hopeful that this visit will result in a ceasefire that provides the necessary security for the Palestinian people and that we can commence to address the medium and long-term issues related to Gaza," Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri was quoted as saying by the news agency.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/22/14 9:30 AM ET</p>
<p>An Israeli soldier is missing</p>
<p>Reuters —&#160;An Israeli soldier is missing in the Gaza Strip and presumed dead, local media quoted the military as saying on Tuesday, two days after the Islamist Hamas group announced they had captured a soldier during clashes.</p>
<p>Israel's Channel 10 News said the military believed the man was killed along with six other troops in an attack on an armored vehicle on Sunday. However, the army has only identified six bodies.</p>
<p>Hamas on Sunday announced it had captured an Israeli soldier, but did not say whether he was dead or alive.</p>
<p>Abu Ubaida, the spokesman of the Hamas's armed wing, said the soldier was seized in heavy fighting on the Gaza border on Sunday. He displayed a photo ID and army serial number of the man, but showed no image of him in their hands.</p>
<p>An Israeli military statement on Tuesday said the army had completed the identification of six of the soldiers killed and that "efforts to identify the seventh soldier are ongoing and have yet to be determined."</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/22/14 8:30 AM ET</p>
<p>'No safe place for civilians' in Gaza, UN says</p>
<p>Reuters — Palestinian civilians in densely-populated Gaza have no place to hide from Israel's military offensive and children are paying the heaviest price, the United Nations said on Tuesday.</p>
<p>"There is literally no safe place for civilians," Jens Laerke, spokesman of the UN Office for Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA), told a news briefing in Geneva.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Palestinian children inspect a destroyed mosque following an overnight Israeli military strike, on July 22, 2014, in Rafah the southern Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>More than 500 people have been killed in the coastal enclave which has an estimated 4,500 people per square kilometer, Laerke said. The priority for aid agencies was protecting civilians and evacuating and treating the wounded.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/21/14 5:00 PM ET</p>
<p>Signing off</p>
<p>This live blog is now closed. We will continue coverage tomorrow.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/21/14 4:43 PM ET</p>
<p>'The violence must stop, it must stop now,' UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says</p>
<p>Agence France Presse — World efforts to end two weeks of deadly violence in and around Gaza stepped up on Monday as the UN chief and top US diplomat arrived in Cairo to press for an immediate truce.</p>
<p>UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon demanded the violence "must stop now" as the death toll in the 14-day conflict hit 572 Palestinians and 27 Israelis, with US Secretary of State John Kerry arriving to lend his weight to truce efforts.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon speaks during a press conference in Cairo on July 21, 2014.</p>
<p>Egypt, which had brokered past conflicts between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers, had put forward a ceasefire accepted by Israel and spurned by the Palestinian militants, who demand an end to the blockade of the enclave. In a press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, Ban said urged "all parties to stop violence unconditionally and return to dialogue."</p>
<p>The "violence must stop, it must stop now," Ban said at a news conference.</p>
<p>Ban urged Israel to "exercise maximum restraint" saying: "Too many innocent people are dying."</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/21/14 3:46 PM ET</p>
<p>UAE pledges $40 million in aid&#160;for Gaza reconstruction</p>
<p>Agence France-Presse — The United Arab Emirates is offering at least $40 million in aid for the reconstruction of Gaza homes hit by Israel's military offensive against rocket-firing militants.</p>
<p>The aid is part of an agreement between Abu Dhabi and the Emirati Red Crescent and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, according to the Red Crescent.</p>
<p>The initiative was aimed at reconstructing "damaged homes and rehabilitating hospitals, education and services" hit by Israeli military strikes in the Gaza Strip, the organization's president, Sheikh Hamdan Ben Zayed Al-Nahyan, was quoted as saying in a statement.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>A Palestinian woman stands in front of a three-storey house belonging to the Abu Jamaa family that was destroyed the day before following heavy Israeli bombardment, in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on July 21, 2014.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/21/14 3:31 PM ET</p>
<p>Number of Israeli soldiers killed in fighting rises</p>
<p>The total Israeli death toll has now gone up to 27.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/21/14 2:52 PM ET</p>
<p>This is how many Palestinians have been displaced from their homes</p>
<p>From Circa:</p>
<p>UN says Palestinians seeking protection in UN shelters has exceeded 100,000 <a href="http://t.co/TCempPVtJK" type="external">http://t.co/TCempPVtJK</a></p>
<p>— Circa (@Circa) <a href="https://twitter.com/Circa/statuses/491289478539923456" type="external">July 21, 2014</a></p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/21/14 2:12 PM ET</p>
<p>Turkey declares 3 days of mourning in 'show of solidarity with the Palestinian people'</p>
<p>Agence France-Presse — Turkey on Monday declared three days of national mourning for the Palestinian victims of Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip, denouncing the assault as a "massacre."</p>
<p>"We condemn Israel's massacre of the Palestinian people," Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told reporters in Ankara in televised comments after a cabinet meeting as the Palestinian death toll topped 500. "In a show of solidarity with the Palestinian people, three days of mourning have been declared starting from tomorrow (Tuesday)."</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Palestinian relatives of a patient killed in an Israeli army shelling on the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, react as they gather in the damaged building on July 21, 2014.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought in the last days to portray himself as the leading global defender of the Palestinian cause, slamming Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip as a "genocide" of the Palestinians.</p>
<p>Also, protests against Israel's Gaza offensive took place in Tokyo, Japan:</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>And in Copenhagen, Denmark:</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>In France, violence broke out over the weekend in the suburb of Sarcelles during demonstrations against Israel's operations in Gaza.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28402882" type="external">The BBC reports:</a></p>
<p>Roger Cukierman, head of the umbrella group Crif that represents French Jewish organizations, said Jews were not just afraid, they were anguished.</p>
<p>"What's happened in the past few days is terrible. They're shouting 'Death to the Jews' and attacking synagogues. It's completely out of control," he said.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28402882" type="external">Read the full piece here.&#160;</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>French riot police officers face rioters in Sarcelles, a suburb north of Paris, on July 20, 2014, after clashes following a demonstration denouncing Israel's military campaign in Gaza and showing support to the Palestinian people.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>A policewoman takes part in an investigation in Sarcelles, a northern Paris suburb, on July 21, 2014, in front of a chemist in a shopping center of Les Flanades neighborhood, which was burnt down on July 20 after a rally against Israel's Gaza offensive descended into violence pitting an angry pro-Palestinian crowd against local Jewish businesses.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/21/14 12:13 PM ET</p>
<p>The fallen Israeli soldiers</p>
<p>Agence France-Presse reported that 18 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the conflict till date. That toll includes two American-born Israeli soldiers. <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-28407807" type="external">From BBC News:</a></p>
<p>"We can confirm the deaths of US citizens Max Steinberg and Sean Carmeli in Gaza," state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Sunday, declining to provide further details.</p>
<p>The overall death toll crossed 500 today, with at least 509 Gazans and 20 Israelis killed, Agence France-Presse reported.</p>
<p>AFP/Getty photographer Gali Tibbon took these photos at the funeral in Jerusalem for 20-year-old Israeli Staff Sergeant Moshe Melako of the Golani Brigade who was killed yesterday.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/21/14 12:05 PM ET</p>
<p>Israeli shelling on Gaza hospital kills 5 people</p>
<p>Agence France-Presse — Israel shelled a hospital in the central Gaza Strip on Monday, killing five people and wounding at least 70, medics said.</p>
<p>Emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said the 70 injured included at least 20 hospital staff, among them doctors.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>A Palestinian employee inspects damages at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, after the building was shelled by the Israeli army on July 21, 2014.</p>
<p>He said the third floor of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah had been hit, with an interior ministry official saying it was hit by Israeli tank fire.</p>
<p>Palestinian television showed footage of wounded people, including medical staff, being treated after the bombing.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/21/14 11:33 AM ET</p>
<p>Kerry to push for 'immediate' Gaza ceasefire, Obama says</p>
<p>Agence France-Presse — US Secretary of State John Kerry is to push for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza when he arrives later Monday in Cairo, President Barack Obama said.</p>
<p>"Israel has already done significant damage to Hamas's terrorist infrastructure in Gaza," Obama said in a statement at the White House, adding he had sent his top diplomat to the region to "push for an immediate cessation of hostilities."</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>US President Barack Obama speaks to the press outside the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on July 21, 2014.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/21/14 11:11 AM ET</p>
<p>Hamas leader Ismail Haniya says Gaza is unbreakable, Al Jazeera reports</p>
<p><a href="http://live.aljazeera.com/Event/Gaza_Blog" type="external">View the rest of Haniya's remarks on Al Jazeera's live blog.</a></p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/21/14 10:35 AM ET</p>
<p>What will the conflict lead to?</p>
<p>Yesterday was the deadliest day in the Israel-Gaza war since fighting started two weeks ago, and as of now, the end is nowhere in sight. The Economist reports on the potential implications of the bloody, ongoing battles:</p>
<p>Despite being besieged and the rising death toll, Hamas and fellow Islamists show no sign of changing course. They continue to launch over 100 rockets at Israel every day, targeting towns and cities from south to north. ... The longer the fighting continues, the more unrest is likely to flare violently among Palestinians in the West Bank. Demonstrations are getting bigger. Israeli forces opened fire on crowds in Hebron, the largest West Bank city, on July 20th. And the more damage Israel causes to infrastructure in Gaza, the more it sows the seeds of future strife.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/pomegranate/2014/07/israel-gaza-1?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/bloodshedcontinues" type="external">Read the full piece here.</a></p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/21/14 10:30 AM ET</p>
<p>Search effort for Gaza survivors&#160;</p>
<p>This raw video from the Associated Press shows rescue workers rummaging through rubble to find survivors following an Israeli attack on Gaza on Monday.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/21/14 9:30 AM ET</p>
<p>UN rights forum to hold an emergency session on Gaza</p>
<p>Reuters — The United Nations Human Rights Council said it would hold an emergency session on Israel's two-week-old offensive in Gaza on Wednesday at the request of Egypt, Pakistan and the Palestinians.</p>
<p>Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has previously said Israeli strikes on Gaza may break international laws banning the targeting of civilians. Israel, which accuses the UN Human Rights Council of bias, boycotted the Geneva forum for 20 months, resuming cooperation in October.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Palestinian Civil Defense workers search for survivors amidst the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli air strike, in Gaza City, on July 21, 2014.</p>
<p>The request was signed by envoys from Egypt on behalf of a diplomatic grouping of Arab countries, Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the Palestinian observer mission to the United Nations.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/21/14 8:55 AM ET</p>
<p>The death toll passes 500&#160;</p>
<p>Agence France-Presse — According to figures released by emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra, some 15 people were killed in several strikes across Gaza on Monday and 45 bodies were pulled from the rubble in areas hit by heavy fighting a day earlier.</p>
<p>Separately, the Israeli army said it had killed "more than 10 militants" who had infiltrated southern Israel through two cross-border tunnels. Militants killed inside Israel are not included in Qudra's Gaza toll.</p>
<p>Among those killed on Monday was a family of nine who died in an Israeli strike on a house in the southern city of Rafah, he said. Seven of the victims were children. Four more people were killed in various strikes to the south and east of Gaza City, while another died in the northern town of Beit Hanun.</p>
<p>There was also one other casualty in Rafah, he said. Of the 45 bodies recovered on Monday, 11 were from Shejaiya, hiking the death toll from a blistering Sunday attack to 72 dead, he said.</p>
<p>Qudra has said 80 percent of the victims in Shejaiya were women, children and elderly people, with around 400 people wounded. Another 23 of the bodies were pulled from a three-storey house belonging to the Abu Jamaa family in the southern city of Khan Yunis which was hit on Sunday, raising the overall death toll from a single strike to 28, Qudra said.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>A Palestinian woman mourns during the funeral for those killed in a three-storey house belonging to the Abu Jamaa family the day before following heavy Israeli bombardment in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on July 21, 2014.</p>
<p>In a separate development, the Israeli army said it had killed "more than 10" militants early Monday who had infiltrated southern Israel through two cross-border tunnels. So far, Palestinian figures show 509 Gazans have been killed and more than 3,150 wounded since the start of the Israeli campaign to stamp out cross-border rocket fire on July 8.</p>
<p>On the Israeli side, 20 people have died, including two civilians killed by rocket fire and 18 soldiers who were killed since the start of a ground operation late on July 17.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Family members of Major Tsafrir Bar-Or mourn and cry during his funeral on July 21, 2014 in Holon, Israel.</p>
<p>Army figures say 53 soldiers were injured on Sunday alone, five of them severely and 13 moderately, while military radio put the overall injury toll at more than 90 soldiers since the ground assault began.</p>
<p>Since the Israeli military started Operation Protective Edge on July 8 in a bid to stamp out rocket fire, Palestinian militants have fired 1,465 mortars and rockets that hit Israel, with the Iron Dome air defence system intercepting another 387, the army said.</p>
<p>Approximately 40 stuck Israel on Monday, one of them in the greater Tel Aviv area, while another 11 were shot down, the army said.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 7/21/14 8:50 AM ET</p>
<p>Earlier developments</p>
<p>Check out <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/israel-and-palestine/140716/israel-gaza-conflict-continues-intensi" type="external">earlier developments on our live blog</a> from last week.</p>
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globalpost live blog crisis gaza update 72614 1116 pm et israel extends humanitarian ceasefire another 24 hours reuters reports gazajerusalem israel extended humanitarian ceasefire gaza strip another 24 hours hamas dominates coastal enclave said would accept truce israeli troops left territory israeli ministers signaled comprehensive deal end 20day conflict hamas allies least 1050 gazans mostly civilians killed 42 soldiers three civilians israel died remote request united nations cabinet approved humanitarian hiatus tomorrow 2400 midnight local time 1700 est sunday official named said statement cabinet session held tel aviv ended idf israel defence forces act breach ceasefire update 72614 316 pm et hamas rejects extended ceasefire proposal fires rockets ap reports jerusalem israeli military says three rockets fired gaza israel despite proposed extension humanitarian truce gaza war hamas spokesman sami abu zuhri said group rejected israels proposal extend original 12hour lull four hours midnight 2100 gmt saturday military says three rockets fired hour period initial lull ended meanwhile military warned residents areas heavy fighting returning update 72614 311 pm et number displaced palestinians keeps growing update 72614 303 pm et propalestine rally turns violent paris 160 man reacts police use tear gas republique square paris july 26 2014 french police160 arrested 40 people160when propalestine demonstration paris turned violent saturday160masked men parisian square la place de la republique launched projectiles riot police responded firing tear gas update 72614 234 pm et reports attacks israel despite ceasefire rocket attacks israeli border communities near central gaza ceasefire looking increasingly unilateral daniel nisman dannynis july 26 2014 update 72614 103 pm et un calls ceasefire last full 24 hours update 72614 1250 pm et israel extends ceasefire midnight saturday usa today israel extended humanitarian ceasefire four hours midnight saturday palestinian death toll conflict rose 1000 least 100 bodies recovered saturday gaza health official ashraf alkidra said palestinians used temporary ceasefire set expire midnight move medical supplies tend dead injured gaza strip pause hostilities began saturday morning gazans poured onto streets saturday find food supplies look missing family members return homes left shelters nearly three weeks fighting left swaths rubble destroyed roads damaged power infrastructure residential neighborhoods across strip update 72614 1106 et pulling bodies rubble 160 palestinians walk across rubble destroyed buildings homes shejaiya residential district gaza city july 26 2014 160 rescue workers remove body man digging rubble home following israeli air strike beit hanun northern gaza strip july 26 2014 160 palestinian recover body man killed home hit previous night israeli fire northern district beit hanun gaza strip humanitarian truce july 26 2014 160 palestinian woman reacts seeing destroyed homes northern district beit hanun gaza strip humanitarian truce july 26 2014 160 rescue workers remove body member alnajar family digging rubble home following israeli air strike khan yunis southern gaza strip july 26 2014 160 rescue workers carry body member alnajar family removing rubble home following israeli air strike khan yunis southern gaza strip july 26 2014 update 72614 1025 et foreign diplomats push longer term truce us secretary state john kerry met counterparts europe middle east paris urged ceasefire extended call parties extend humanitarian ceasefire frances foreign minister laurent fabius told reporters meeting kerry counterparts britain germany italy qatar turkey well eu representative update 72614 1007 et palestinian death toll near 1000 halfway 12hour ceasefire began early saturday medics said 85 bodies retrieved buildings ground rubble across gaza strip ground gaza ambulances sped along roads neighborhoods dangerous enter days least 985 palestinians killed coastal enclave since conflict began july 8 israeli side 37 soldiers killed along two israeli civilians thai foreign worker update 72614 930 et humanitarian ceasefire takes effect 12hour ceasefire entered force israel hamas gaza strip 0500 gmt saturday 19th day conflict killed hundreds israel islamist movement said would observe temporary ceasefire us secretary state john kerry unable reach lasting truce talks friday cairo hours leading pause however violence continued israeli air strikes killing 23 people among four children paramedic gaza medical services said conflict began july 8 israel launched operation stamp rocket fire gaza destroy hamas tunnels cost lives 888 palestinians civilians 39 israelis two soldiers update 72514 400 pm et signing photos war past 24 hours continue coverage tomorrow 160 palestinian mourners pray bodies ten victims killed un school beit hanun hit israeli tank shell funeral beit lahia northern gaza strip july 25 2014 160 palestinian family walks past debris building center gaza city hit earlier israeli airstrike july 25 2014 160 palestinian protesters block route 60 main jewish settler road west bank july 25 2014 beit omar village north west bank city hebron 160 israeli armed policemen stand guard behind palestinian muslims performing traditional friday prayers near old city east jerusalem july 25 2014 160 propalestinian demonstrators march central london july 25 2014 london england 160 israeli soldiers return combat gaza strip army deployment base along border israel hamascontrolled palestinian territory july 25 2014 160 picture taken southern israeli border gaza strip shows trail missile launched israels iron dome defense system designed intercept destroy incoming shortrange rockets artillery shells july 25 2014 160 mother slain 36yearold israeli reservist sergeant first class yair ashkenazi killed early morning northern palestinian gaza strip mourns funeral july 25 2014 military cemetery southern israeli city rehovot update 72514 222 pm et security cabinet unanimously rejected ceasefire proposal kerry israeli public television reports agence francepresse israel friday rejected gaza ceasefire proposal presented us secretary state john kerry israeli public television said security cabinet unanimously rejected ceasefire proposal kerry stands channel 1 said adding ministers would keep discussing kerry met un chief ban kimoon egypts foreign minister friday pressure mounted ceasefire end 18day conflict killed 800 palestinians 37 people israeli side 34 soldiers 160 smoke billows building hit israeli air strike gaza city july 25 2014 update 72514 202 pm et close 900 people killed less 3 weeks heres updated death toll war via washington post update 72514 151 pm et kerrys ceasefire plan reportedly rejected update 72514 1257 pm et hezbollah chief makes rare public appearance gaza agence francepresse lebanese hezbollah chief hassan nasrallah made rare public appearance friday show solidarity gaza annual iranled jerusalem day commemoration afp correspondent reported fifth public appearance head shia militant group topped israels wanted list since even deadly conflict 2006 nasrallah appeared stage behind curtain wild applause thousands crowd indoor venue southern suburb lebanese capital jerusalem day celebrated every year last friday muslim fasting month ramadan year dedicated solidarity people resistance gaza160 palestinian death toll 18 days israeli onslaught gaza topped 800 nasrallah announced palestine still main cause muslim world hezbollah currently fighting rebels syria alongside forces loyal president bashir alassad update 72514 1218 pm et kerrys push ceasefire come late globalpost senior correspondent noga tarnopolsky reports jerusalem day worst violence current flareup israelipalestinian conflict secretary state john kerry proposed temporary ceasefire could halt fighting weekend even israeli government hamas islamist faction rules gaza accept plan remains unclear whether break combat enough quell protests broken jerusalem west bank past 24 hours palestinian sourcesclaimed israeli military settler fire killed five protestors friday diplomatic moves come heels one bloodiest controversial incidents conflict unrun school operating shelter displaced gazans shelled thursday killing estimated 17 people spokesman united nations relief works agency runs school accused israel shelling israeli army representatives emphasizing incident investigation suggested school could instead hit hamass rockets read full piece update 72514 1136 et missing idf soldier killed action israel said today israel defense forces soldier reported missing killed action haaretz idf determined friday givati brigade soldier staff sergeant oron shaul died battle defined soldier killed action whose burial site unknown special committee led chief rabbi idf brigadier general rafi peretz notified soldiers family decision statement idf said prior decision religious medical relevant issues taken consideration full piece update 72514 1049 et seeking humanitarian corridor gaza evacuate wounded reuters world health organization called friday humanitarian corridor set gaza allow aid workers evacuate wounded bring lifesaving medicines officials discussed proposal israeli egyptian officials response yet spokesman paul garwood said details 160 rescue workers help wounded child removing rubble home following israeli air strike rafah southern gaza strip july 25 2014 update 72514 1042 et 4 palestinians killed west bank security sources say agence francepresse four palestinians killed west bank friday two separate incidents involving israeli troops israeli settlers palestinian security sources told afp first incident 46yearold hashem abu marieh 30yearold sultan yusef killed palestinian village beit ummar near flashpoint southern city hebron israeli soldiers palestinian security sources said second incident group settlers opened fire protesting palestinians threw stones car near northern west bank city nablus palestinian security sources said settler fire killed 18yearold palestinian named khaled oudeh shortly afterwards israeli troops arrived scene clashed palestinians firing live bullets tear gas israeli army fire killed second palestinian 22yearold tayyib oudeh security sources said adding three palestinians injured live fire israeli army spokeswoman comment incident beit ummar said confrontations israeli troops palestinians near nablus settlers involved without giving details israeli army radio reported female settler opened fire incident near nablus killing khaled oudeh update 72514 930 et updates kerrys truce proposal new york times reports secretary state john kerry proposed twostage plan halt fighting gaza strip would first impose weeklong truce starting sunday official involved negotiations said friday soon truce took effect palestinian israeli officials would begin negotiations principal economic political security concerns gaza nations attending160 read full piece update 72514 830 et death toll passed 800 reuters us secretary state john kerry pressed regional leaders nail gaza ceasefire friday civilian death toll soared violence loomed israelis palestinians occupied west bank jerusalem israel hamasled islamist fighters setting seemingly irreconcilable terms truce mediators hope begin muslim festival next week kerry worked phones egypt aides made clear patience waning urgency spurred thursday killing 15 people sheltered unrun school northern gaza strip local officials blamed israeli shelling israel said forces come attack palestinian guerrillas area school shot back accused hamas preventing evacuation gaza officials said israeli strikes killed 27 people friday including head media operations hamas allyislamic jihad son put number palestinian deaths 18 days conflict 819 civilians 160 palestinian man kisses head oneyearold baby noha mesleh died wounds sustained un school beit hanun hit israeli tank shell carries funeral beit lahia northern gaza strip july 25 2014 occupied west bank usbacked palestinian president mahmoud abbas governs uneasy coordination israel 10000 demonstrators marched solidarity gaza overnight scale recalling mass revolts past 160 palestinians stand behind burning tires clashes israeli security forces following traditional friday prayers near old city east jerusalem july 25 2014 protesters surged israeli army checkpoint throwing rocks molotov cocktails palestinian medics said one shot dead 200 wounded troops opened fire friday israeli paramilitary police went high alert flareups jerusalems important mosque prayers final stretch ramadan muslim holy month yitzhak aharonovitch israels police minister member security cabinet said shuttling consultations contain rising hostilities difficult night told israels army radio hope get today right update 72414 445 pm et signing live blog closed continue coverage tomorrow update 72414 416 pm et interview hamas leader hamas leader khaled meshaal spoke bbc militant groups demands ceasefire watch interview update 72414 330 pm et meanwhile change leadership israel legislator reuven rivlin sworn israels new president today details via associated press nobel peace prize laureate shimon peres ended term president israel thursday man symbolizes hopes peace capping sevendecade public career amid brutal reality war peres handed ceremonial highprofile presidency reuven rivlin legislator hawkish likud party fighting palestinian people war islam said fighting terrorism read full piece update 72414 153 pm et un staff killed gaza school attack earlier today agence francepresse attack unrun school gaza thursday claimed lives among un staff secretary general ban kimoon said many killed including women children well un staff ban said statement gazas emergency services said 15 people killed 200 injured israeli shell slammed school run un agency palestinian refugees unrwa ban said appalled news strongly condemned attack school beit hanun northern gaza strip update 72414 1210 pm et israel wasnt happy suspended flights globalpost senior correspondent noga tarnopolsky reports us federal aviation administrations suspension us carriers arrivals departures tel avivs ben gurion airport lasted 36 hours hit israelis like punch gut transport ministry director general uzi itzhaki called unfortunate miserable decision said hoped would reversed quickly wednesday night faa renewed directive 24 hours 27 hundred carriers normally serve bustling airport active transportation reporter israels channel 2 news referred impasse perhaps hyperbolically national crisis tens thousands israelis stuck abroad thursday morning carefully reviewed significant new information measures government israel taking mitigate potential risks civil aviation faa announced ban lifted read full piece update 72414 1122 et european aviation regulator lift recommendation avoid flying tel aviv airport reuters europes aviation regulator thursday cancel warning recommends airlines fly israel federal aviation authority cleared us carriers resume flights lift recommendation avoid flying tel aviv airport said dominique fouda spokesman european aviation safety agency easa faa earlier day said would allow us carriers delta united american unit us airways resume flights israels commercial capital update 22414 1020 et number people killed shelling un school increased bbc 160 pool blood seen courtyard un school northern beit hanun district gaza strip july 24 2014 hit israeli tank shell 160 trail blood seen courtyard un school northern beit hanun district gaza strip july 24 2014 hit israeli tank shell update 22114 930 et israeli shell hits un school kills least 9 people160 agence francepresse least nine people killed including baby israeli tank shell slammed unrun school northern gaza strip thursday afp correspondent said separately un official confirmed multiple dead injured school beit hanun used shelter hundreds palestinians fleeing major israeli operation area update 22414 915 et pakistan calls humanitarian pause gaza agence francepresse pakistan thursday called immediate end blockade gaza allow humanitarian relief reach palestinians death toll besieged territory rose 740 appeal came day pakistan voted along un human rights council members launch probe israels offensive territory rights chief navi pillay saying jewish states military actions could amount war crimes 47member council backed palestiniandrafted resolution 29 votes arab fellow muslim countries joined china russia plus latin american african nations160 blockade gaza must ended order allow access humanitarian assistance pakistans senior foreign office bureaucrat aizaz ahmad chaudhry told press briefing update 22314 440 pm et signing live blog closed continue coverage tomorrow160 update 22314 430 pm et war gaza looks like space globalposts timothy mcgrath writes photo beautiful evocative even entrancing soon learn shows itll haunt yep thats gaza looks like space160 astronauts describe experiencing something called overview effect looking earth space see earth hanging darkness like marble vulnerable thin glowing atmosphere realize something people earth trouble seeing together living tiny little marble surrounded perhaps infinite universe looking space national borders conflicts sounds cheesy according astronauts whove experienced profound shift consciousness read full piece here160 update 22314 417 pm et hospitals water supplies massive strain gaza oxfam says agence francepresse thousands palestinians fled homes nowhere safe shelter israeli airstrikes charity oxfam said wednesday warning supplies water food dangerously low 120000 people displaced prevented escaping violence borders israel egypt shut oxfam said 160 displaced palestinians sleep ground july 23 2014 un school refugee camp jabalia families fleeing heavy fighting besieged palestinian territory taken refuge terrible toll civilians shocking hospitals water supplies massive strain needs increasing day160people fleeing terrified said nishant pandey oxfams head occupied palestinian territory israel 160 maha alsheikh khalil seven yearold palestinian girl treated gaza citys alshifa hospital july 23 2014 following israeli attack shujaiya neighborhood battered city normally crises would cause people flee area impossible blockade prevented people escaping violence pandey said update 22314 302 pm et clear signs ceasefire yet160 reuters hamas leader khaled meshaal said ready accept humanitarian truce gaza islamist group fighting israeli military offensive would agree full ceasefire terms negotiated everyone wanted us accept ceasefire negotiate rights reject reject today said news conference qatar said hamas close door humanitarian truce israel ended siege gaza 160 chief islamist hamas movement khaled meshaal holds press conference qatari capital doha july 23 2014 160 update 22314 250 pm et jewsandarabsrefusetobeenemies globalposts emily lodish writes hastag alone isnt going change world could start something thats abraham gutman hoping told bbc gutman cocreated hastag jewsandarabsrefusetobeenemies making rounds twitter facebook view photos shared twitter update 22314 1250 pm et un rights council launches probe israels gaza offensive agence francepresse un human rights council wednesday launched probe israels gaza offensive backing efforts palestinians hold jewish state international scrutiny 47member council backed palestiniandrafted resolution 29 votes arab fellow muslim countries joined china russia latin american african nations united states sole member vote european countries abstained update 22314 1100 et funeral israels lone soldier globalpost senior correspondent noga tarnopolsky reports max steinberg160barely spoke enough hebrew crack joke found calling place hebrew absolute necessity joking always welcome israeli armys vaunted golani brigade160 24yearold american killed battle gaza sunday buried israels national military cemetery mount herzl wednesday parents stuart evie flew israel first time lives ceremony father recounted volunteering israel defense forces steinberg turned elite unit time lack language skills eventually made time death served sharpshooter foreign volunteer yet acquired israeli citizenship always one cracking joke tough days even though could barely speak hebrew160one steinbergs platoonmates koyachew adya said funeral good strong guy friend everybody laughing one 30000 people attended steinbergs funeral service lone soldiers volunteers abroad obligation fight israel lionized state attendees never met steinberg zehava kahlon resident israels south taking day daily rain rockets friend two young children came mount herzl kids could see museum said realized funeral take part arieh copelan twentyoneyearold native tiny nevadan town west windover stood funeral girlfriend mari mirdfin 20 baltimore part small tightlybound coterie american idf volunteers many cookiecutter stories copelan said also combat unit month ago never met max many mutual friends served bases personal update 22314 1032 et brief respite agence francepresse reports fighting israeli troops hamas militants briefly suspended several flashpoint areas gaza wednesday allow convoys ambulances retrieve wounded icrc spokeswoman said convoy seven ambulances two red cross cars went inside shejaiya evacuate wounded icrc spokeswoman cecilia goin told afp saying move coordinated israel hamas details temporary humanitarian ceasefire bbcs chief international correspondent lyse doucet 160 palestinian child sits hospital bed receiving medical care gaza citys alshifa hospital following israeli military strike near family home july 23 2014 update 22314 1015 et lufthansa halts flights tel aviv lufthansa halting flights tel aviv one day agence francepresse reports yesterday us federal aviation administration announced suspending flights israeli city 24 hours agence francepresse160 german aviation group lufthansa said wednesday suspending services tel aviv another day security concerns amid escalating gaza conflict halting flights 36 hours german company also operates germanwings austrian airlines swiss brussels airlines said evaluating security situation close consultation responsible authorities said cancelled total 20 scheduled flights tel aviv thursday frankfurt munich cologne zurich vienna brussels moment reliable new information would justify resumption flight service said statement160 update 22314 900 et israels gaza offensive could amount war crimes un rights chief warns agence francepresse israels military actions gaza strip could amount war crimes un rights chief navi pillay said wednesday also condemning indiscriminate rocket attacks palestinian militants hamas seems strong possibility international law violated manner could amount war crimes pillay told emergency session israels gaza offensive un human rights council citing attacks killed palestinian civilians including children160 said israelis also right live without constant fear rocket attacks principles distinction precaution clearly observed indiscriminate attacks civilian areas hamas armed palestinian groups said council united nations top human rights forum poised call international inquiry israels offensive palestinian territories160 gazas emergency services said least 21 people killed wednesday hiking palestinian death toll 652 army announced another two soldiers killed fighting day earlier raising number israeli dead 31 including 29 soldiers 160 united rights high commissioner human rights navi pillay speaks assistant secretarygeneral deputy emergency relief coordinator kyungwha kang emergency session un human rights council gaza crisis united nations offices geneva july 23 2014 update 72214 100 pm et signing live blog closed continue coverage tomorrow update 72214 1247 pm et faa halts flights tel aviv160 heres us federal aviation administrations notice update 72214 1232 pm et palestinians propose gaza truce reuters reports palestinian leadership proposed egypt plan gaza ceasefire followed five days negotiations stop fighting palestinians israel palestinian official azzam alahmed told reporters cairo tuesday palestinian leadership offered new suggestion framework egyptian initiative ceasefire followed immediately negotiations lasting five days fatah official alahmed said update 72214 1147 et precise shots fired al jazeeras bureau gaza al jazeera details incident two precise shots fired straight building al jazeeras stefanie dekker reporting bureau gaza said high building strong vantage point area evacuated bureau situated residential area gaza city read full piece update 72214 1111 et flights israel cancelled associated press reports update 72214 1005 et israeli prime minister holds joint press conference un chief israels prime minister benjamin netanyahu held news conference un secretary general ban kimoon heres said update 72214 944 et kerry egypt broker truce efforts us secretary state john kerry met leaders egypt including president abdel fattah alsisi discuss ceasefire proposals agence francepresse reported hopeful visit result ceasefire provides necessary security palestinian people commence address medium longterm issues related gaza egyptian foreign minister sameh shoukri quoted saying news agency update 72214 930 et israeli soldier missing reuters 160an israeli soldier missing gaza strip presumed dead local media quoted military saying tuesday two days islamist hamas group announced captured soldier clashes israels channel 10 news said military believed man killed along six troops attack armored vehicle sunday however army identified six bodies hamas sunday announced captured israeli soldier say whether dead alive abu ubaida spokesman hamass armed wing said soldier seized heavy fighting gaza border sunday displayed photo id army serial number man showed image hands israeli military statement tuesday said army completed identification six soldiers killed efforts identify seventh soldier ongoing yet determined update 72214 830 et safe place civilians gaza un says reuters palestinian civilians denselypopulated gaza place hide israels military offensive children paying heaviest price united nations said tuesday literally safe place civilians jens laerke spokesman un office humanitarian assistance ocha told news briefing geneva 160 palestinian children inspect destroyed mosque following overnight israeli military strike july 22 2014 rafah southern gaza strip 500 people killed coastal enclave estimated 4500 people per square kilometer laerke said priority aid agencies protecting civilians evacuating treating wounded update 72114 500 pm et signing live blog closed continue coverage tomorrow update 72114 443 pm et violence must stop must stop un secretary general ban kimoon says agence france presse world efforts end two weeks deadly violence around gaza stepped monday un chief top us diplomat arrived cairo press immediate truce un secretary general ban kimoon demanded violence must stop death toll 14day conflict hit 572 palestinians 27 israelis us secretary state john kerry arriving lend weight truce efforts 160 un secretary general ban kimoon speaks press conference cairo july 21 2014 egypt brokered past conflicts israel gazas hamas rulers put forward ceasefire accepted israel spurned palestinian militants demand end blockade enclave press conference egyptian foreign minister sameh shoukry ban said urged parties stop violence unconditionally return dialogue violence must stop must stop ban said news conference ban urged israel exercise maximum restraint saying many innocent people dying update 72114 346 pm et uae pledges 40 million aid160for gaza reconstruction agence francepresse united arab emirates offering least 40 million aid reconstruction gaza homes hit israels military offensive rocketfiring militants aid part agreement abu dhabi emirati red crescent un agency palestinian refugees according red crescent initiative aimed reconstructing damaged homes rehabilitating hospitals education services hit israeli military strikes gaza strip organizations president sheikh hamdan ben zayed alnahyan quoted saying statement 160 palestinian woman stands front threestorey house belonging abu jamaa family destroyed day following heavy israeli bombardment khan yunis southern gaza strip july 21 2014 update 72114 331 pm et number israeli soldiers killed fighting rises total israeli death toll gone 27 update 72114 252 pm et many palestinians displaced homes circa un says palestinians seeking protection un shelters exceeded 100000 httptcotcemppvtjk circa circa july 21 2014 update 72114 212 pm et turkey declares 3 days mourning show solidarity palestinian people agence francepresse turkey monday declared three days national mourning palestinian victims israels military operation gaza strip denouncing assault massacre condemn israels massacre palestinian people deputy prime minister bulent arinc told reporters ankara televised comments cabinet meeting palestinian death toll topped 500 show solidarity palestinian people three days mourning declared starting tomorrow tuesday 160 palestinian relatives patient killed israeli army shelling alaqsa martyrs hospital deir albalah central gaza strip react gather damaged building july 21 2014 prime minister recep tayyip erdogan sought last days portray leading global defender palestinian cause slamming israels actions gaza strip genocide palestinians also protests israels gaza offensive took place tokyo japan 160 160 copenhagen denmark 160 france violence broke weekend suburb sarcelles demonstrations israels operations gaza bbc reports roger cukierman head umbrella group crif represents french jewish organizations said jews afraid anguished whats happened past days terrible theyre shouting death jews attacking synagogues completely control said read full piece here160 160 french riot police officers face rioters sarcelles suburb north paris july 20 2014 clashes following demonstration denouncing israels military campaign gaza showing support palestinian people 160 policewoman takes part investigation sarcelles northern paris suburb july 21 2014 front chemist shopping center les flanades neighborhood burnt july 20 rally israels gaza offensive descended violence pitting angry propalestinian crowd local jewish businesses update 72114 1213 pm et fallen israeli soldiers agence francepresse reported 18 israeli soldiers killed conflict till date toll includes two americanborn israeli soldiers bbc news confirm deaths us citizens max steinberg sean carmeli gaza state department spokeswoman jen psaki said sunday declining provide details overall death toll crossed 500 today least 509 gazans 20 israelis killed agence francepresse reported afpgetty photographer gali tibbon took photos funeral jerusalem 20yearold israeli staff sergeant moshe melako golani brigade killed yesterday 160 160 update 72114 1205 pm et israeli shelling gaza hospital kills 5 people agence francepresse israel shelled hospital central gaza strip monday killing five people wounding least 70 medics said emergency services spokesman ashraf alqudra said 70 injured included least 20 hospital staff among doctors 160 160 palestinian employee inspects damages alaqsa martyrs hospital deir albalah central gaza strip building shelled israeli army july 21 2014 said third floor alaqsa martyrs hospital deir albalah hit interior ministry official saying hit israeli tank fire palestinian television showed footage wounded people including medical staff treated bombing update 72114 1133 et kerry push immediate gaza ceasefire obama says agence francepresse us secretary state john kerry push immediate ceasefire gaza arrives later monday cairo president barack obama said israel already done significant damage hamass terrorist infrastructure gaza obama said statement white house adding sent top diplomat region push immediate cessation hostilities 160 us president barack obama speaks press outside oval office white house washington dc july 21 2014 update 72114 1111 et hamas leader ismail haniya says gaza unbreakable al jazeera reports view rest haniyas remarks al jazeeras live blog update 72114 1035 et conflict lead yesterday deadliest day israelgaza war since fighting started two weeks ago end nowhere sight economist reports potential implications bloody ongoing battles despite besieged rising death toll hamas fellow islamists show sign changing course continue launch 100 rockets israel every day targeting towns cities south north longer fighting continues unrest likely flare violently among palestinians west bank demonstrations getting bigger israeli forces opened fire crowds hebron largest west bank city july 20th damage israel causes infrastructure gaza sows seeds future strife read full piece update 72114 1030 et search effort gaza survivors160 raw video associated press shows rescue workers rummaging rubble find survivors following israeli attack gaza monday update 72114 930 et un rights forum hold emergency session gaza reuters united nations human rights council said would hold emergency session israels twoweekold offensive gaza wednesday request egypt pakistan palestinians navi pillay un high commissioner human rights previously said israeli strikes gaza may break international laws banning targeting civilians israel accuses un human rights council bias boycotted geneva forum 20 months resuming cooperation october 160 palestinian civil defense workers search survivors amidst rubble building destroyed israeli air strike gaza city july 21 2014 request signed envoys egypt behalf diplomatic grouping arab countries pakistan behalf organization islamic cooperation palestinian observer mission united nations update 72114 855 et death toll passes 500160 agence francepresse according figures released emergency services spokesman ashraf alqudra 15 people killed several strikes across gaza monday 45 bodies pulled rubble areas hit heavy fighting day earlier separately israeli army said killed 10 militants infiltrated southern israel two crossborder tunnels militants killed inside israel included qudras gaza toll among killed monday family nine died israeli strike house southern city rafah said seven victims children four people killed various strikes south east gaza city another died northern town beit hanun also one casualty rafah said 45 bodies recovered monday 11 shejaiya hiking death toll blistering sunday attack 72 dead said qudra said 80 percent victims shejaiya women children elderly people around 400 people wounded another 23 bodies pulled threestorey house belonging abu jamaa family southern city khan yunis hit sunday raising overall death toll single strike 28 qudra said 160 palestinian woman mourns funeral killed threestorey house belonging abu jamaa family day following heavy israeli bombardment khan yunis southern gaza strip july 21 2014 separate development israeli army said killed 10 militants early monday infiltrated southern israel two crossborder tunnels far palestinian figures show 509 gazans killed 3150 wounded since start israeli campaign stamp crossborder rocket fire july 8 israeli side 20 people died including two civilians killed rocket fire 18 soldiers killed since start ground operation late july 17 160 family members major tsafrir baror mourn cry funeral july 21 2014 holon israel army figures say 53 soldiers injured sunday alone five severely 13 moderately military radio put overall injury toll 90 soldiers since ground assault began since israeli military started operation protective edge july 8 bid stamp rocket fire palestinian militants fired 1465 mortars rockets hit israel iron dome air defence system intercepting another 387 army said approximately 40 stuck israel monday one greater tel aviv area another 11 shot army said update 72114 850 et earlier developments check earlier developments live blog last week color bordercolorbbbbbb borderstylesolid borderwidth1px backgroundcolorf8f8f8 floatcenter marginleft 5px marginright 15px marginbottom 30px lineheight14px displayblock padding 15px
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<p>For the last nine months, I have had the great pleasure of serving the Kilmarnock Baptist Church as their interim pastor. They have recently called Matt Tennant who will begin Oct. 18. Matt and his wife have two young sons.</p>
<p>For the past several weeks, I have been preaching a series of sermons on how to care for their new pastor. Last Sunday the topic was caring for your pastor’s wife. For that, I asked my wife, Connie, to draw from her 25 years of experience and speak to them. Because her comments were so well received, and because so many pastors’ wives are hurting, I decided to make them the subject of this week’s editorial. Here is what she said — Editor.</p>
<p>Like their pastor husbands, no two pastors’ wives are identical. Despite this, some needs are nearly universal. Were I once again a minister’s wife with young children and relatively little experience in a full-time pastoral setting here are some things that I would want a congregation to consider.</p>
<p />
<p>First, I would like the church to realize that I am my husband’s most ardent supporter and that if I am not mindful of this, I may also slip into the role of being his self-appointed defender. I would like to realize that he doesn’t need me to fix the challenges he faces. It would help me if you realize that my concern always is that he be the best pastor he can be.</p>
<p>I want him to succeed and to be well-loved, and I want only to help him minister effectively. However, I also have a family who needs him. Because of this, I would need you to help us by insisting that he take his day off and that he set aside at least one night each week for our family. Further, you can free him to attend school and athletic activities even when they occasionally conflict with church activities. It is important to me that our children remember that their father was there for these important events in their lives.</p>
<p>I would also ask you to respect our privacy. In no other profession is the husband’s success so dependent upon his family’s behaviors. When we face family issues, I want you to love us, pray for us, and offer to help us. But I don’t want you to assume that you need to know details. Sometimes we just need your love and support.</p>
<p>We will all function better if you give me and our family the space to be normal. The same thing is true for our children. I already know that they aren’t perfect and that my husband and I are not perfect parents. If there is a significant issue, I would want you to meet with us privately and redemptively. Otherwise, I would ask that you not feel called to identify all our children’s weaknesses to me or others in the congregation.</p>
<p>If you don’t know already, you will soon learn that my husband has a fw faults as well. Similarly, when my husband disappoints you — as he inevitably will because he is human — I would hope that you will speak with him directly rather than attempt to register your disappointment through me or anyone else. I have noticed that you take all your compliments straight to him, but you are often more comfortable pointing out his flaws to me in hopes that I will relay them to him. Please don’t put me in that position.</p>
<p>Before you speak critically of my husband, our family, or our church, I would ask you to think about your concern. Sometimes, if you think about your criticism, pray about it, write it in a private journal, tell it to your pillow and to God, you may decide that it doesn’t warrant any further action on your part.</p>
<p>At other times, when you come to the conclusion that your concern is justified and that my husband needs to hear it, please go to him directly and privately. Please be mindful that others will always overhear things you say in passing and that the damage done to my children should they hear you belittle their father may be immeasurable. When you decide that you need to speak to him or us, please do so kindly and with agape love.</p>
<p>When we arrive, I will bring with me the grace gifts that God has given me. Therefore, I will need the freedom to develop those gifts in ministries that support and uplift the church. A problem may arise if you believe that I have certain gifts because I am married to your pastor, or that I use them in the same way as a previous pastor’s wife. Sometimes those expectations can be harmful to all of us. Your allowing me to participate in church ministries according to my giftedness will enable all of us to thrive.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you project your attitudes about what the “perfect” pastor’s wife should do and be onto me, we will all suffer. You will be disappointed in me, and I will think I can’t succeed.&#160; If, however, we mutually respect and affirm each other, the work will benefit and we become more mature Christians.</p>
<p>When you have information that my husband needs to know, I would like for you to just leave a message for him to call you. I will covenant to relay messages and follow-up to make sure he has returned calls. However, I have children to tend and a home to manage, and I don’t need the pressure of remembering specific details of conversations and I don’t want to get it wrong.</p>
<p>I would want the church to reach out to us in simple ways. For instance, it would help me if you offer to care for our children when both of us need to be away for church-related events or responsibilities. During a cycle of crises when several people are facing critical situations and my husband is being pulled in every direction, your showing up with a home-cooked meal or a batch of fresh cookies would mean more than you can possibly know.</p>
<p>My deepest hope is that all of us can foster an inclusive environment that mirrors God’s redemptive love as we develop the kind of faith community that draws a lost and dying world into the fold. To that end, I would challenge us to remember Paul’s admonition in Eph. 4:32, “Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another just as God in Christ has forgiven you.” And Peter’s words in 1 Peter 4:8 “Above all, love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins.</p>
<p><a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">Jim White</a> is editor of the Religious Herald.</p>
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last nine months great pleasure serving kilmarnock baptist church interim pastor recently called matt tennant begin oct 18 matt wife two young sons past several weeks preaching series sermons care new pastor last sunday topic caring pastors wife asked wife connie draw 25 years experience speak comments well received many pastors wives hurting decided make subject weeks editorial said editor like pastor husbands two pastors wives identical despite needs nearly universal ministers wife young children relatively little experience fulltime pastoral setting things would want congregation consider first would like church realize husbands ardent supporter mindful may also slip role selfappointed defender would like realize doesnt need fix challenges faces would help realize concern always best pastor want succeed wellloved want help minister effectively however also family needs would need help us insisting take day set aside least one night week family free attend school athletic activities even occasionally conflict church activities important children remember father important events lives would also ask respect privacy profession husbands success dependent upon familys behaviors face family issues want love us pray us offer help us dont want assume need know details sometimes need love support function better give family space normal thing true children already know arent perfect husband perfect parents significant issue would want meet us privately redemptively otherwise would ask feel called identify childrens weaknesses others congregation dont know already soon learn husband fw faults well similarly husband disappoints inevitably human would hope speak directly rather attempt register disappointment anyone else noticed take compliments straight often comfortable pointing flaws hopes relay please dont put position speak critically husband family church would ask think concern sometimes think criticism pray write private journal tell pillow god may decide doesnt warrant action part times come conclusion concern justified husband needs hear please go directly privately please mindful others always overhear things say passing damage done children hear belittle father may immeasurable decide need speak us please kindly agape love arrive bring grace gifts god given therefore need freedom develop gifts ministries support uplift church problem may arise believe certain gifts married pastor use way previous pastors wife sometimes expectations harmful us allowing participate church ministries according giftedness enable us thrive hand project attitudes perfect pastors wife onto suffer disappointed think cant succeed160 however mutually respect affirm work benefit become mature christians information husband needs know would like leave message call covenant relay messages followup make sure returned calls however children tend home manage dont need pressure remembering specific details conversations dont want get wrong would want church reach us simple ways instance would help offer care children us need away churchrelated events responsibilities cycle crises several people facing critical situations husband pulled every direction showing homecooked meal batch fresh cookies would mean possibly know deepest hope us foster inclusive environment mirrors gods redemptive love develop kind faith community draws lost dying world fold end would challenge us remember pauls admonition eph 432 kind one another tender hearted forgiving one another god christ forgiven peters words 1 peter 48 love deeply love covers multitude sins jim white editor religious herald
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<p>Russia on Monday warned it would track US-led coalition aircraft in Syria as potential "targets" and halted an incident-prevention hotline with Washington after US forces downed a Syrian jet.</p>
<p>The United States moved quickly to contain an escalation, with a top general saying Washington would work to relaunch the "deconfliction" hotline with Russia that was established in 2015.</p>
<p>The downing of the jet and Russia's response came as the US-led coalition and allied fighters battle to oust the Islamic State jihadist group from its Syrian bastion Raqqa.</p>
<p>Analysts say neither Washington nor President Bashar al-Assad's regime appear to be seeking further confrontation, although the risks remain high in Syria's increasingly crowded battlefields and airspace.</p>
<p>Russia's foreign ministry accused Washington of failing to use the hotline before downing the plane near Raqqa, and called for a "careful investigation by the US command" into the incident.</p>
<p>"Any flying objects, including planes and drones of the international coalition, discovered west of the Euphrates River will be tracked as aerial targets by Russia's air defences on and above ground," it warned.</p>
<p>"We will work diplomatically and militarily in the coming hours to re-establish deconfliction," said US General Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, referring to the hotline.</p>
<p>Dunford noted that the hotline, which has been vital in protecting both US and Russian forces operating in Syria, remained in use "over the last few hours".</p>
<p>The Syrian jet was shot down on Sunday evening after regime forces engaged the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Arab and Kurdish fighters battling IS, near Raqqa.</p>
<p>An American F/A-18E Super Hornet shot down the Syrian SU-22 as it "dropped bombs near SDF fighters" south of the town of Tabqa, the coalition said in a statement.&#160;</p>
<p>Russia's defence minister said the pilot ejected "above IS-controlled territories" and that his fate is unknown.</p>
<p>Earlier Sunday, Syrian troops attacked the SDF near Tabqa, wounding several and chasing them out of town, the coalition said.</p>
<p>It said the warplane was shot down in line with the "rules of engagement".</p>
<p>But Damascus and regime ally Moscow condemned the "aggression".</p>
<p>The Syrian army said the plane was hit while "conducting a mission against the terrorist Islamic State group" and warned of "the grave consequences of this flagrant aggression".</p>
<p>Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said it was a "continuation of America's line to disregard the norms of international law".&#160;</p>
<p>"What is this if not an act of aggression?"</p>
<p>It was the latest skirmish between the coalition and regime forces in the increasingly tense and crowded space in Syria's north and east.</p>
<p>The coalition backs SDF forces in their months-long bid to capture Raqqa, an operation in which the regime has not been involved.</p>
<p>The SDF entered Raqqa for the first time earlier this month and now holds four neighbourhoods in the east and west of the city.</p>
<p>Syria's army has instead turned its focus further east, to the largely IS-held oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor, where regime forces are besieged in part of the provincial capital.</p>
<p>It is advancing towards the region on three fronts, south of Raqqa, through the Badia desert region in central Syria, and along the eastern border.</p>
<p>But the advances have created conflict with the coalition, particularly along Syria's border, where the US and its allies are training an anti-IS force at the Al-Tanaf garrison.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, the coalition fired on pro-regime ground forces who approached the garrison and shot down a pro-regime armed drone.</p>
<p>Russia halted the hotline only once before, after an April 7 US cruise missile strike on a Syrian regime airbase in retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians.</p>
<p>Sam Heller, a Syria expert at The Century Foundation think-tank, said the regime was provoking confrontations, but neither side appeared to want a major escalation.</p>
<p>"I think that it was just that the regime engaged in a provocation and then a lower-rung US commander responded in self-defence," he said of Sunday's incident.</p>
<p>"The regime got too close and it got burned."</p>
<p>But provocations by Syria's government and its allies were a potentially risky strategy, he said.</p>
<p>"It doesn't look like anyone currently intends to deliberately escalate further, but when you've got these little skirmishes ... the risk is that you can end up in an escalation by accident."</p>
<p>On Monday morning, the area where the regime and SDF fighters clashed was quiet and the US-backed alliance was continuing to battle IS inside Raqqa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.</p>
<p>Government forces meanwhile seized the town of Rusafa, south of Raqqa, a key stop on its path to Deir Ezzor and located near provincial oil and gas fields, it added.</p>
<p>Syria's war began in March 2011 with anti-government protests, but has since spiralled into a complex and bloody conflict that has killed more than 320,000 people.</p>
<p>Syria's rebels are now on the back foot after regime advances with support from allies Russia and Iran.</p>
<p>On Sunday, Tehran for the first time fired missiles from its territory against IS positions in Deir Ezzor.</p>
<p>It said the missiles were "in retaliation" for June 7 attacks in Tehran on the parliament complex and shrine of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that killed 17 people and was claimed by IS.</p>
<p>On the diplomatic front, a fresh round of Syria peace talks in Kazakhstan's capital Astana has been scheduled for July 4-5, the Kazakh foreign ministry said.</p>
| false | 3 |
russia monday warned would track usled coalition aircraft syria potential targets halted incidentprevention hotline washington us forces downed syrian jet united states moved quickly contain escalation top general saying washington would work relaunch deconfliction hotline russia established 2015 downing jet russias response came usled coalition allied fighters battle oust islamic state jihadist group syrian bastion raqqa analysts say neither washington president bashar alassads regime appear seeking confrontation although risks remain high syrias increasingly crowded battlefields airspace russias foreign ministry accused washington failing use hotline downing plane near raqqa called careful investigation us command incident flying objects including planes drones international coalition discovered west euphrates river tracked aerial targets russias air defences ground warned work diplomatically militarily coming hours reestablish deconfliction said us general joe dunford chairman joint chiefs staff referring hotline dunford noted hotline vital protecting us russian forces operating syria remained use last hours syrian jet shot sunday evening regime forces engaged usbacked syrian democratic forces sdf alliance arab kurdish fighters battling near raqqa american fa18e super hornet shot syrian su22 dropped bombs near sdf fighters south town tabqa coalition said statement160 russias defence minister said pilot ejected iscontrolled territories fate unknown earlier sunday syrian troops attacked sdf near tabqa wounding several chasing town coalition said said warplane shot line rules engagement damascus regime ally moscow condemned aggression syrian army said plane hit conducting mission terrorist islamic state group warned grave consequences flagrant aggression russias deputy foreign minister sergei ryabkov said continuation americas line disregard norms international law160 act aggression latest skirmish coalition regime forces increasingly tense crowded space syrias north east coalition backs sdf forces monthslong bid capture raqqa operation regime involved sdf entered raqqa first time earlier month holds four neighbourhoods east west city syrias army instead turned focus east largely isheld oilrich province deir ezzor regime forces besieged part provincial capital advancing towards region three fronts south raqqa badia desert region central syria along eastern border advances created conflict coalition particularly along syrias border us allies training antiis force altanaf garrison earlier month coalition fired proregime ground forces approached garrison shot proregime armed drone russia halted hotline april 7 us cruise missile strike syrian regime airbase retaliation suspected chemical weapons attack killed dozens civilians sam heller syria expert century foundation thinktank said regime provoking confrontations neither side appeared want major escalation think regime engaged provocation lowerrung us commander responded selfdefence said sundays incident regime got close got burned provocations syrias government allies potentially risky strategy said doesnt look like anyone currently intends deliberately escalate youve got little skirmishes risk end escalation accident monday morning area regime sdf fighters clashed quiet usbacked alliance continuing battle inside raqqa syrian observatory human rights monitor said government forces meanwhile seized town rusafa south raqqa key stop path deir ezzor located near provincial oil gas fields added syrias war began march 2011 antigovernment protests since spiralled complex bloody conflict killed 320000 people syrias rebels back foot regime advances support allies russia iran sunday tehran first time fired missiles territory positions deir ezzor said missiles retaliation june 7 attacks tehran parliament complex shrine revolutionary leader ayatollah ruhollah khomeini killed 17 people claimed diplomatic front fresh round syria peace talks kazakhstans capital astana scheduled july 45 kazakh foreign ministry said
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<p>Before Dick Gregory’s big break performing at Hugh Hefner’s Chicago Playboy Club, there was Herman Roberts and his Roberts Show Club.</p>
<p>Gregory got his comedy start in Chicago at that club, 6622 S. Parkway. Call it forgetfulness or even erasure. But Gregory had been nurtured and embraced by fellow strivers in pockets of black tenacity before he was invited to ply his comedic wit and social critiques one January night in 1961 at Hefner’s club.</p>
<p>It was a big deal when Hefner came to Roberts’ club to see Gregory. So when Gregory got the call to fill in for a white comedian, Roberts, too, was excited because “this was the first big breakthrough for blacks performing,” wryly noting, “the same thing almost put me out of business.”</p>
<p>Desegregating the local nightclub scene was one for the culture, while setting Gregory up for bigger and better things: What was supposed to be a well-paying, one-night gig famously turned into two weeks, and led to a profile in Time magazine and a “Tonight Show” appearance with host Jack Paar. Gregory had ushered in the concept of “ <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544886664/social-satirist-dick-gregory-was-the-first-to-have-a-crossover-market-of-black-a%5C" type="external">crossover</a>,” black entertainers performing for white audiences. And his success also portended the beginning of the end of the black nightclub scene, as desegregation allowed blacks to spend time and money outside of their communities.</p>
<p />
<p>When Richard Claxton “Dick” Gregory died last month in a Washington, D.C., hospital at age 84, obituaries for the St. Louis native tended to skip straight to his being “discovered” while rendering nuanced race-based social commentary before white audiences tickled by his refreshing approach.</p>
<p>But before that, he worked for Roberts, now 93, for $25 a night.</p>
<p>In true Great Migration fashion, Gregory found community, purpose and roots in Chicago that fed his career and his conscience. Even after he and his family moved, he often returned to support social justice causes and political movements, including <a href="/looking-back-at-washingtons-victory-all-blacks-most-latinos-17-whites/" type="external">Harold Washington’s successful 1983 bid</a> to become the city’s first black mayor. Of course, Chicago was a haven for socially conscious black performers, like jazz singer Oscar Brown Jr. and gospel great Mahalia Jackson, who put up the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in her Chatham home, according to historian Timuel D. Black.</p>
<p>Wherever he was, Gregory often prioritized fighting for civil rights: He marched in Selma, Alabama, with King, protested the Vietnam War, and years later engaged in hunger strikes for a number of causes, including Middle East peace, the Equal Rights Amendment and ending police brutality.</p>
<p>So much of today’s public conversation about social justice finds antecedents in Gregory’s work and stances. Gregory lost income by taking a stand, just as free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick is paying the price for taking a knee during the national anthem to protest racial oppression. Where Gregory had faith in his method, Chicago’s Chance the Rapper has exercised his agency to chart a different path in the music industry, and he’s winning. Chance, too, is deeply rooted here, having donated more than $2 million to the financially troubled Chicago Public Schools, the same system Gregory protested to provide a better education for black students over 50 years ago. And where it took the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter to spark a new generation of activists, black life always mattered more than anything to Gregory, even money.</p>
<p>“That was the edge in his comedy; he made racism seem kind of stupid,” says John H. Bracey Jr., chairman of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, who was a graduate student and activist at Northwestern University when he met Gregory.</p>
<p>Living with wife Lillian and his growing family in Hyde Park, Gregory was naturally drawn to local politics and lent his “vigor” and point of view to local causes, such as education reform, Black says. Gregory ran for mayor in 1967 against Richard J. Daley, says Black, who recalls Gregory working with him and the Chicago Committee, a diverse group of Chicagoans — black, Latino and white — eventually linking up with A. Philip Randolph’s <a href="http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/theme/472" type="external">Negro American Labor Council.</a></p>
<p>Alabama Department of Archives and History</p>
<p>A young woman holds a poster reading, “Be quick! Vote for Dick Gregory, Mayor of Chicago,” during a commemoration of the Selma to Montgomery March at George Washington Carver Park in Selma, Alabama on April 9, 1966.</p>
<p>“Dick Gregory was all over the country with comedy acts as well as his performances dedicated to bring about equality and change,” Black says.</p>
<p>Gregory once used his star power to outwit local Mississippi politicians who had stopped distributing food surpluses to poor blacks in the 1960s. Gregory <a href="https://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/2017/08/21/america-remembers-dick-gregory/" type="external">chartered</a> a plane to bring in tons of food, and participated in Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) sit-ins and <a href="https://dickgregory.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=406&amp;Itemid=791" type="external">voter registration</a>drives.</p>
<p>Gregory, in fact, put up a $25,000 <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=MsEDAAAAMBAJ&amp;pg=PA19&amp;lpg=PA19&amp;dq=dick+gregory+reward+schwerner+chaney+goodman&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=tSzXjkGdeo&amp;sig=mG-Uwcxwp4wTlwOBJemKFiYK-cs&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjzus6bioDWAhXHyoMKHaFZBLcQ6AEILjAB%23v=onepage&amp;q=dick%20gregory%20reward%20schwerner%20chaney%20goodman&amp;f=false" type="external">reward</a> for an arrest and conviction in the 1964 murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in Neshoba County, Mississippi, Bracey says.</p>
<p>“He put it in a bank account until someone met the requirements, and we had a couple of fundraisers for the families of the people who got killed,” says Bracey of the case, which wasn’t solved until 2005 when Edgar Ray Killen was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/us/41-years-later-exklansman-gets-60-years-in-civil-rights-deaths.html?mcubz=0" type="external">convicted</a> of manslaughter for his role in the deaths.</p>
<p>Black, 98, recalls working with Gregory during the <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1357.html" type="external">Willis Wagon</a>years in the early ’60s. At that time, critics of Schools Superintendent Benjamin Willis protested the overcrowding and segregation of black children, who were crammed into poorly constructed mobile units at schools and on vacant lots, exposing the children to the elements.</p>
<p>West Side activist Brenetta Howell Barrett recalls substandard bathroom facilities in the units that “couldn’t accommodate usage” or “may not have been functioning.” Black parents, activists and groups like The Woodlawn Organization agitated for black children to attend roomier white schools, but the powers that were refused to redraw boundaries to accomplish this.</p>
<p>“He was a very active person,” Black says of Gregory. “During his profession in California, he would come back to Chicago regularly to give leadership to the school boycotts of the 1960s. He came and marched over to the mayor’s house. He would march them over there and protest, then come back to the South Side and make an assessment of how it went.”</p>
<p>The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/black-satirist-inspired-other-comics-with-expert-timing-bold-humor-and-political-comedy/2017/08/19/f9360e40-854f-11e7-902a-2a9f2d808496_story.html?utm_term=.adc3c9e6a0c4" type="external">recounts</a>the 1965 march from City Hall to Daley’s home where Gregory and “several dozen peaceful protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct.”</p>
<p>Barrett, 85, remembers Gregory joining demonstrations against the Willis Wagons and subsequent school boycotts in <a href="http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2013/10/22/1963-chicago-public-school-boycott" type="external">1963</a>and <a href="http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1964/02/26/page/1/article/125-000-in-school-boycott" type="external">1964</a> as she worked with a coalition seeking adequate funding for black schools, parity in hiring and retaining black teachers and administrative personnel, and “basic things like up-to-date books.” Gregory was known for being an accessible celebrity, speaking at rallies, community gatherings and fundraisers when there was no money to give him.</p>
<p>He “had no compunction” about coming, she says. “Once, he came to a theater on Madison that looked like a stadium full of people. He spent as much time as he would have spent on stage as a feature act, and that was tremendously appreciated.”</p>
<p>Evanston’s Bennett Johnson II, a civil rights activist since his <a href="https://dailynorthwestern.com/2016/02/18/city/civil-rights-activist-bennett-johnson-reflects-on-life-of-service/" type="external">youth</a>, remembers working with Gregory when he was attending Roosevelt University.</p>
<p>“I can’t recall the year, but we were trying to find a candidate for mayor and went to see Dick Gregory near Lake Park,” Johnson says. “We were talking to him, and his kids came into the room. He cursed. He called them m———ers and things like that. We were startled by it, of course, but he said, ‘I’m trying to get them used to the language.’ ”</p>
<p>Johnson’s recollection tracks with the oft-told story of how Gregory had his wife call him the N-word so he, too, could get used to it, according to Chicago Tribune columnist <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/page/ct-perspec-page-dick-gregory-civil-rights-0823-story.html" type="external">Clarence Page</a>.</p>
<p>“I felt like he was authentic,” says Chicago-based <a href="/looking-back-at-selma/" type="external">Diane Nash</a>, a founding member of SNCC and an organizer of the 1961 Freedom Rides to desegregate interstate travel. “If he believed something, that’s what he did. He did come to Mississippi and demonstrate with us in the early ’60s, and he was obviously very insightful.”</p>
<p />
<p>George O’Hare, 90, remembers his good friend as “not just a showperson but a human being that really cared about things in the world.”</p>
<p>In the ’60s, O’Hare was a young sales executive with Sears Roebuck and Co. who liked using his expense account to visit local nightclubs. After seeing Gregory perform several nights in a row, Gregory struck up a conversation, and O’Hare ended up giving him a ride home in his used gray, two-door Ford Coupe with no back seat.</p>
<p>“I started driving him home every night,” O’Hare said. “In those days if you were white, you’d be in the passenger seat. I was driving the car, and he was in the passenger seat. People would slow down and look at us.”</p>
<p>O’Hare reveals that tapping the zeitgeist was actually the secret to Gregory’s sauce: “He was comedy from when he woke up till he went to bed at night. He would buy all the newspapers and magazines and go home and read them, and create jokes about the articles. So when he went into white nightclubs, it related to the white people.”</p>
<p>Gregory is inadvertently responsible for desegregating the record aisles at Sears, O’Hare said. When Memphis-based Stax Records sought to sell records featuring black singers there, O’Hare says he hesitated even though he knew whites loved the likes of King Oliver and Cab Calloway. Back then, good artists would sell no matter what color they were, but as soon as a picture of a black person appeared on an album, “all of a sudden they said don’t bring them in our stores,” O’Hare explains.</p>
<p>He brought the idea up to his friend Gregory, who pushed back: “What do you mean, ‘should you?’ ”</p>
<p>“The music business changed because Dick Gregory told me to put black artists in Sears on the end caps on the aisle so you could see they’re black,” says O’Hare, noting that record sales in his 34-store Chicago region went from $3 million to $38 million in a single year.</p>
<p>Though Gregory wasn’t an elected leader of the various local causes he supported, “People followed Dick because of the character he was,” Black says.</p>
<p>The manner in which Gregory would leverage serious issues in the service of comedy and vice versa was uplifting, Black says: “He was not the chosen leader, but he was a leader because he was inspirational.”</p>
<p>A celebration of Dick Gregory’s life will be open to the public on Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017, at City of Praise Family Ministries in Landover, Md. For details, visit: <a href="http://www.dickgregorytribute.com/" type="external">www.dickgregorytribute.com</a>&#160;</p>
| false | 3 |
dick gregorys big break performing hugh hefners chicago playboy club herman roberts roberts show club gregory got comedy start chicago club 6622 parkway call forgetfulness even erasure gregory nurtured embraced fellow strivers pockets black tenacity invited ply comedic wit social critiques one january night 1961 hefners club big deal hefner came roberts club see gregory gregory got call fill white comedian roberts excited first big breakthrough blacks performing wryly noting thing almost put business desegregating local nightclub scene one culture setting gregory bigger better things supposed wellpaying onenight gig famously turned two weeks led profile time magazine tonight show appearance host jack paar gregory ushered concept crossover black entertainers performing white audiences success also portended beginning end black nightclub scene desegregation allowed blacks spend time money outside communities richard claxton dick gregory died last month washington dc hospital age 84 obituaries st louis native tended skip straight discovered rendering nuanced racebased social commentary white audiences tickled refreshing approach worked roberts 93 25 night true great migration fashion gregory found community purpose roots chicago fed career conscience even family moved often returned support social justice causes political movements including harold washingtons successful 1983 bid become citys first black mayor course chicago socially conscious black performers like jazz singer oscar brown jr gospel great mahalia jackson put rev martin luther king jr chatham home according historian timuel black wherever gregory often prioritized fighting civil rights marched selma alabama king protested vietnam war years later engaged hunger strikes number causes including middle east peace equal rights amendment ending police brutality much todays public conversation social justice finds antecedents gregorys work stances gregory lost income taking stand free agent quarterback colin kaepernick paying price taking knee national anthem protest racial oppression gregory faith method chicagos chance rapper exercised agency chart different path music industry hes winning chance deeply rooted donated 2 million financially troubled chicago public schools system gregory protested provide better education black students 50 years ago took hashtag blacklivesmatter spark new generation activists black life always mattered anything gregory even money edge comedy made racism seem kind stupid says john h bracey jr chairman afroamerican studies university massachusetts amherst graduate student activist northwestern university met gregory living wife lillian growing family hyde park gregory naturally drawn local politics lent vigor point view local causes education reform black says gregory ran mayor 1967 richard j daley says black recalls gregory working chicago committee diverse group chicagoans black latino white eventually linking philip randolphs negro american labor council alabama department archives history young woman holds poster reading quick vote dick gregory mayor chicago commemoration selma montgomery march george washington carver park selma alabama april 9 1966 dick gregory country comedy acts well performances dedicated bring equality change black says gregory used star power outwit local mississippi politicians stopped distributing food surpluses poor blacks 1960s gregory chartered plane bring tons food participated student nonviolent coordinating committee sncc sitins voter registrationdrives gregory fact put 25000 reward arrest conviction 1964 murders civil rights workers james chaney andrew goodman michael schwerner neshoba county mississippi bracey says put bank account someone met requirements couple fundraisers families people got killed says bracey case wasnt solved 2005 edgar ray killen convicted manslaughter role deaths black 98 recalls working gregory willis wagonyears early 60s time critics schools superintendent benjamin willis protested overcrowding segregation black children crammed poorly constructed mobile units schools vacant lots exposing children elements west side activist brenetta howell barrett recalls substandard bathroom facilities units couldnt accommodate usage may functioning black parents activists groups like woodlawn organization agitated black children attend roomier white schools powers refused redraw boundaries accomplish active person black says gregory profession california would come back chicago regularly give leadership school boycotts 1960s came marched mayors house would march protest come back south side make assessment went washington post recountsthe 1965 march city hall daleys home gregory several dozen peaceful protesters arrested disorderly conduct barrett 85 remembers gregory joining demonstrations willis wagons subsequent school boycotts 1963and 1964 worked coalition seeking adequate funding black schools parity hiring retaining black teachers administrative personnel basic things like uptodate books gregory known accessible celebrity speaking rallies community gatherings fundraisers money give compunction coming says came theater madison looked like stadium full people spent much time would spent stage feature act tremendously appreciated evanstons bennett johnson ii civil rights activist since youth remembers working gregory attending roosevelt university cant recall year trying find candidate mayor went see dick gregory near lake park johnson says talking kids came room cursed called mers things like startled course said im trying get used language johnsons recollection tracks ofttold story gregory wife call nword could get used according chicago tribune columnist clarence page felt like authentic says chicagobased diane nash founding member sncc organizer 1961 freedom rides desegregate interstate travel believed something thats come mississippi demonstrate us early 60s obviously insightful george ohare 90 remembers good friend showperson human really cared things world 60s ohare young sales executive sears roebuck co liked using expense account visit local nightclubs seeing gregory perform several nights row gregory struck conversation ohare ended giving ride home used gray twodoor ford coupe back seat started driving home every night ohare said days white youd passenger seat driving car passenger seat people would slow look us ohare reveals tapping zeitgeist actually secret gregorys sauce comedy woke till went bed night would buy newspapers magazines go home read create jokes articles went white nightclubs related white people gregory inadvertently responsible desegregating record aisles sears ohare said memphisbased stax records sought sell records featuring black singers ohare says hesitated even though knew whites loved likes king oliver cab calloway back good artists would sell matter color soon picture black person appeared album sudden said dont bring stores ohare explains brought idea friend gregory pushed back mean music business changed dick gregory told put black artists sears end caps aisle could see theyre black says ohare noting record sales 34store chicago region went 3 million 38 million single year though gregory wasnt elected leader various local causes supported people followed dick character black says manner gregory would leverage serious issues service comedy vice versa uplifting black says chosen leader leader inspirational celebration dick gregorys life open public saturday sept 16 2017 city praise family ministries landover md details visit wwwdickgregorytributecom160
| 1,045 |
<p>JUBA, South Sudan - At the stroke of midnight, South Sudan became the world's newest nation and the celebrations began.</p>
<p>For days people in the new capital city have been preparing for the country's independence from Sudan.&#160;</p>
<p>Teams of women are swept sidewalks and scrubbed roads in the blistering heat, armed police and soldiers manned junctions and main roads, the airport was shut to all but arriving heads of state and other dignitaries as the countdown clock in the middle of a city roundabout edged to zero.</p>
<p>People here are eager to show-off their new country to the world and, as banners across the city proclaim, to celebrate their "Freedom at Last."</p>
<p>Dance troupes have been practicing their choreographed moves for days, radio stations repeat the new national anthem and practice marches have given soldiers and veterans the chance to perfect their parades.</p>
<p>Today is full of pomp and ceremony with 30 African heads of state expected to attend - including Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe - as well as a U.S. delegation headed by Washington's ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice.</p>
<p>Government ministries have been established as have regional governments in the 10 states of the South, a transitional constitution has been passed and will be signed by the new President Salva Kiir. The outline of a functioning state can be discerned.</p>
<p>But the face that Juba shows to the world today is not one that many of the country's estimated 9 million people would recognize. The Republic of South Sudan is perhaps the world's least developed nation.</p>
<p>"South Sudan is the most underdeveloped place on the face of the planet because of decades of marginalization," said Lise Grand, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the South. "The worst social indicators in the world are here."</p>
<p>Infrastructure, health care, education, access to food and water are all rudimentary. Where development has progressed, sometimes fitfully, elsewhere in Africa since the end of colonialism, in southern Sudan war has defined the last half-century.</p>
<p>The last 22-year-long round of civil war killed upwards of 2 million people before a U.S.-backed peace deal was signed in 2005. There has been progress over the last six years but it has been slowed by incompetence, a lack of capacity, corruption and, most importantly, the constant threat of renewed war with Khartoum.</p>
<p>As a result South Sudan has everything to do.</p>
<p>"The political, security and development challenges here would tax even the most developed country so for South Sudan to face all of that and all at once is very difficult," said one senior Western diplomat who did not want to be named.</p>
<p>In South Sudan's favor is not just the last six years of largely running its own affairs but also a wealth of natural resources including oil, minerals, timber and agriculture.</p>
<p>"The state is being born with tremendous physical endowments. It has the resources, what it needs is good governance," said John Prendergast, a seasoned Sudan observer and head of the Enough Project advocacy group.</p>
<p>The new government has few good role models in the region. In Khartoum to the north, Bashir has been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), as have senior government ministers in Kenya to the south. A host of regional leaders including Uganda's Yoweri Museveni, Ethiopia's Meles Zenawi, Eritrea's Isaias Afwerke and Rwanda's Paul Kagame are proof that rebel leaders tend to make poor democrats.</p>
<p>Like these others the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) has shown a willingness to co-opt opponents into the organization but little tolerance for dissenting views. However Sudan's Episcopal archbishop and influential religious leader Daniel Deng said the former rebels should not be judged too harshly.</p>
<p>"These people have been freedom fighters for a long time, they know only fighting, to resolve things with bullets, so when overnight they become a government, you don't expect them to perform a miracle," he said.</p>
<p>"It will take time and for the last six years they have managed to rule and should be congratulated for that."</p>
<p>The new state's greatest existential threat remains its northern neighbor - the Sudan run by President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum is a hostile and aggressive long-standing enemy. Discussions will drag on beyond independence over how the two countries will share oil revenues, international debt and where the border between them lies. The differences between the two countries could well turn violent.</p>
<p>In May Bashir ended a negotiating table stalemate over whether the disputed border region of Abyei would go to the north or the south by invading the territory. Since early June he has also ordered attacks on the Nuba people of South Kordofan, northerners who fought alongside the southern rebels during the civil war.</p>
<p>"As long as the Nuba Mountains are being bombed and the people of Abyei are displaced the celebratory mood is dampened," conceded Prendergast.</p>
<p>Archbishop Deng agreed that Saturday's joy will be tinged with regret for what is happening in South Kordofan. "What our brothers are going through [in the Nuba Mountains] is an ethnic cleansing and if the world does not come in quickly it will result in genocide," he warned.</p>
<p>Khartoum is also widely suspected of backing militias in the South. Evidence is hard to find but as a Western diplomat put it: "Some of these guys have come in from the North, they must be getting arms from somewhere and it's not from the South."</p>
<p>The doomsday scenario, as Prendergast described it, is "a possible next round of substantial proxy war" with the South backing rebels in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile state and the North supporting anti-SPLM militias headed by former generals like Peter Gadet and George Athor in the South.</p>
<p>But this need not happen. In Kiir the South has a leader who is skilled, not just at warfare but at negotiation, in its population South Sudan has a people desperate for peace and eager to enjoy their freedom, and in its resources the new country has the potential to kickstart the much-needed growth and development.</p>
<p>"Independence is freedom," said Stephen Olympia, a young primary school teacher directing the dance moves of hundreds of children next to a basketball court in Juba. "It is important because it gives us the right to speak, the right to dance, the right to pray and the right to our own resources."</p>
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juba south sudan stroke midnight south sudan became worlds newest nation celebrations began days people new capital city preparing countrys independence sudan160 teams women swept sidewalks scrubbed roads blistering heat armed police soldiers manned junctions main roads airport shut arriving heads state dignitaries countdown clock middle city roundabout edged zero people eager showoff new country world banners across city proclaim celebrate freedom last dance troupes practicing choreographed moves days radio stations repeat new national anthem practice marches given soldiers veterans chance perfect parades today full pomp ceremony 30 african heads state expected attend including sudans president omar albashir zimbabwes robert mugabe well us delegation headed washingtons ambassador united nations susan rice government ministries established regional governments 10 states south transitional constitution passed signed new president salva kiir outline functioning state discerned face juba shows world today one many countrys estimated 9 million people would recognize republic south sudan perhaps worlds least developed nation south sudan underdeveloped place face planet decades marginalization said lise grand un humanitarian coordinator south worst social indicators world infrastructure health care education access food water rudimentary development progressed sometimes fitfully elsewhere africa since end colonialism southern sudan war defined last halfcentury last 22yearlong round civil war killed upwards 2 million people usbacked peace deal signed 2005 progress last six years slowed incompetence lack capacity corruption importantly constant threat renewed war khartoum result south sudan everything political security development challenges would tax even developed country south sudan face difficult said one senior western diplomat want named south sudans favor last six years largely running affairs also wealth natural resources including oil minerals timber agriculture state born tremendous physical endowments resources needs good governance said john prendergast seasoned sudan observer head enough project advocacy group new government good role models region khartoum north bashir indicted international criminal court icc senior government ministers kenya south host regional leaders including ugandas yoweri museveni ethiopias meles zenawi eritreas isaias afwerke rwandas paul kagame proof rebel leaders tend make poor democrats like others sudan peoples liberation movement splm shown willingness coopt opponents organization little tolerance dissenting views however sudans episcopal archbishop influential religious leader daniel deng said former rebels judged harshly people freedom fighters long time know fighting resolve things bullets overnight become government dont expect perform miracle said take time last six years managed rule congratulated new states greatest existential threat remains northern neighbor sudan run president omar albashir khartoum hostile aggressive longstanding enemy discussions drag beyond independence two countries share oil revenues international debt border lies differences two countries could well turn violent may bashir ended negotiating table stalemate whether disputed border region abyei would go north south invading territory since early june also ordered attacks nuba people south kordofan northerners fought alongside southern rebels civil war long nuba mountains bombed people abyei displaced celebratory mood dampened conceded prendergast archbishop deng agreed saturdays joy tinged regret happening south kordofan brothers going nuba mountains ethnic cleansing world come quickly result genocide warned khartoum also widely suspected backing militias south evidence hard find western diplomat put guys come north must getting arms somewhere south doomsday scenario prendergast described possible next round substantial proxy war south backing rebels darfur nuba mountains blue nile state north supporting antisplm militias headed former generals like peter gadet george athor south need happen kiir south leader skilled warfare negotiation population south sudan people desperate peace eager enjoy freedom resources new country potential kickstart muchneeded growth development independence freedom said stephen olympia young primary school teacher directing dance moves hundreds children next basketball court juba important gives us right speak right dance right pray right resources
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<p>GOT NEWS? Send information for this page to HeraldBeat editor Barbara Francis at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>. Even better — add the Herald to your church’s newsletter email list, send us a link to your online newsletter or mail your newsletter to 2828 Emerywood Parkway, Richmond, VA 23294.</p>
<p>ON THE MOVE</p>
<p>Robert Kerk, to Indian River Baptist Church, Chesapeake, Va., as pastor.</p>
<p>Doug Frazier, to Calvary Baptist Church, Winchester, Va., as pastor.</p>
<p />
<p>Darrell Naff, to Green Valley Baptist Church, Lebanon, Va., as pastor.</p>
<p>John Corson, to Windsor (Va.) Baptist Church, as bi-vocational pastor.</p>
<p>Michael D. George, to Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, Colonial Heights, Va., as executive pastor.</p>
<p>Roger Thomas, resigning as pastor of First Baptist Church, Albemarle, N.C., to become executive director of the Stanly Community Christian Ministry in Albemarle.</p>
<p>Grant McIntosh, to Virginia Hills Baptist Church, Alexandria, Va., as associate pastor.</p>
<p>Michael D. Gregory, to Millfield Baptist Church, Ivor, Va., as interim pastor.</p>
<p>Terry Morrison, to Whitehead’s Grove Baptist Church, Smithfield, Va., as interim pastor.</p>
<p>Andrew Holland, to First Baptist Church, North Wilkesboro, N.C., as part-time youth director.</p>
<p>Seung Won Cho, to Calvary Baptist Church, Roanoke, Va., as minister of music, effective in June.</p>
<p>Walker Brown, resigning as minister of youth at First Baptist Church, Weaverville, N.C.</p>
<p>Joe Emmert, to First Baptist Church, Bristol, Va., as minister to children, youth and young adults.</p>
<p>Jason Kline, to Maplewood Baptist Church, Yadkinville, N.C., as children’s minister.</p>
<p>John Thompson, to Bethlehem Baptist Church, Midlothian Turnpike, Richmond, Va., as youth minister.</p>
<p>Wes Dayoff, to Swift Creek Community Church, Midlothian, Va., as music team leader.</p>
<p>Michael Skillman, to Rivermont Avenue Baptist Church, Lynchburg, Va., as youth minister. Marion B. Boyer, to John Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Baltimore, as chaplain.</p>
<p>Adele Henderson, to HopeTree Family Services, Salem, Va., as chaplain.</p>
<p>ORDINATIONS</p>
<p>John R. Callaway, ordained to the ministry by First Baptist Church, Elkin, N.C., on April 15.</p>
<p>Caleb Foust, ordained to the ministry by Glen Allen (Va.) Baptist Church on April 15.</p>
<p>Michael Khol, ordained to the ministry by Carlisle Avenue Baptist Church, Richmond, Va., on April 22.</p>
<p>Randy Krantz, recently ordained to the ministry by Thaxton (Va.) Baptist Church.</p>
<p>Walter Satchell, associate pastor of administration at First Baptist Church, Newport News, Va., was ordained to the ministry by the church on March 18.</p>
<p>DEATHS</p>
<p>Retired Virginia Baptist minister Zane Grey Ross died April 12 at the age of 91. He served for nearly 20 years as pastor of Cool Spring Baptist Church in Mechanicsville, Va., and was honored as pastor emeritus there in 2006. He served as pastor of visitation at Hatcher Memorial Baptist Church, Richmond, Va., for nearly 20 years. He was active in denominational missions, serving in several capacities at the association and state level. He is survived by his wife, Eva; sons Blake and David Ross; four grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren. A memorial service was held April 15 at Hatcher Memorial Baptist Church.</p>
<p>Robert “Bob” M. Hamner, pastor emeritus of Grandin Court Baptist Church, Roanoke, Va., died April 8 at the age of 84. He served pastorates in Texas before being called to Grandin Court Baptist Church, where he served from 1961 until his retirement in 1992. He served several interim pastorates before becoming pastoral associate at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Roanoke. He is survived by his wife, Donna Meriweather Hamner; two daughters, Anne Elizabeth H. Rosales and Carole Jeanette H. Schmidt; and three grandchildren. A memorial service was held April 16 at St. John’s Episcopal Church.</p>
<p>10 YEARS</p>
<p>Anita D. Thompson, celebrating 10 years as associate pastor of First Baptist Church, Ahoskie, N.C.</p>
<p>15 YEARS</p>
<p>Mark McIntyre, celebrating 15 years as pastor of University Baptist Church, College Park, Md.</p>
<p>SUN., MAY 6</p>
<p>Hillcrest Baptist Church, Danville, Va.; homecoming with Francis Martin as guest speaker.</p>
<p>Tabor City (N.C.) Baptist Church; homecoming at 10:30 a.m.; Carl Harris, guest speaker; dinner on the grounds.</p>
<p>SUN.-WED., MAY 6-9</p>
<p>Fairlawn (Va.) Baptist Church; “The Great Revival Reunion” with evangelists, Roger Roller and Dale and Gilda Riddle.</p>
<p>SUN.-FRI., MAY 6-11</p>
<p>Rings Chapel Baptist Church, Castlewood, Va., revival with Jeff Kinder as evangelist.</p>
<p>THURS.-SUN., MAY 10-13</p>
<p>Cambria Baptist Church, Christiansburg, Va.; revival with Dale &amp; Gilda Riddle.</p>
<p>SAT., MAY 12</p>
<p>HopeTree Family Service’s 20th annual Walk for Hope at Salem, Va., campus at 8 a.m.</p>
<p>SUN.-WED., MAY 13-15</p>
<p>Clifton Forge (Va.) Baptist Church, revival with Lanny Horton as guest speaker.</p>
<p>SUN., MAY 20</p>
<p>Chatham Heights Baptist Church, Martinsville, Va.; 68th anniversary; homecoming with guest speaker, Robert Bailey.</p>
<p>Claybrook Baptist Church, Weems, Va.; 100th anniversary homecoming celebration at 11 a.m.; Phil Bailey, guest speaker. Lunch will be provided.</p>
<p>Friendship Baptist Church, Chesterfield, Va., will honor Walter Pendleton for 50 years in music ministry at 11 a.m. with lunch to follow.</p>
<p>Greenbrier Baptist Church, Arlington, Va., will celebrate its 60th anniversary at 11 a.m. Pam Chisholm is pastor.</p>
<p>SUN.-WED., MAY 20-23</p>
<p>Beaverdam Baptist Church, Vinton, Va., revival with Burney Enzor as evangelist.</p>
<p>Greenfield Baptist Church, Lebanon, Va., revival with Heath Kahlbau as evangelist.</p>
<p>SUN., MAY 27</p>
<p>First Baptist Church, Shelby, N.C.; 165th anniversary with dinner on the grounds; concert by The Envoys.</p>
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got news send information page heraldbeat editor barbara francis bfrancisreligiousheraldorg even better add herald churchs newsletter email list send us link online newsletter mail newsletter 2828 emerywood parkway richmond va 23294 move robert kerk indian river baptist church chesapeake va pastor doug frazier calvary baptist church winchester va pastor darrell naff green valley baptist church lebanon va pastor john corson windsor va baptist church bivocational pastor michael george mount pleasant baptist church colonial heights va executive pastor roger thomas resigning pastor first baptist church albemarle nc become executive director stanly community christian ministry albemarle grant mcintosh virginia hills baptist church alexandria va associate pastor michael gregory millfield baptist church ivor va interim pastor terry morrison whiteheads grove baptist church smithfield va interim pastor andrew holland first baptist church north wilkesboro nc parttime youth director seung cho calvary baptist church roanoke va minister music effective june walker brown resigning minister youth first baptist church weaverville nc joe emmert first baptist church bristol va minister children youth young adults jason kline maplewood baptist church yadkinville nc childrens minister john thompson bethlehem baptist church midlothian turnpike richmond va youth minister wes dayoff swift creek community church midlothian va music team leader michael skillman rivermont avenue baptist church lynchburg va youth minister marion b boyer john hopkins bayview medical center baltimore chaplain adele henderson hopetree family services salem va chaplain ordinations john r callaway ordained ministry first baptist church elkin nc april 15 caleb foust ordained ministry glen allen va baptist church april 15 michael khol ordained ministry carlisle avenue baptist church richmond va april 22 randy krantz recently ordained ministry thaxton va baptist church walter satchell associate pastor administration first baptist church newport news va ordained ministry church march 18 deaths retired virginia baptist minister zane grey ross died april 12 age 91 served nearly 20 years pastor cool spring baptist church mechanicsville va honored pastor emeritus 2006 served pastor visitation hatcher memorial baptist church richmond va nearly 20 years active denominational missions serving several capacities association state level survived wife eva sons blake david ross four grandchildren seven greatgrandchildren memorial service held april 15 hatcher memorial baptist church robert bob hamner pastor emeritus grandin court baptist church roanoke va died april 8 age 84 served pastorates texas called grandin court baptist church served 1961 retirement 1992 served several interim pastorates becoming pastoral associate st johns episcopal church roanoke survived wife donna meriweather hamner two daughters anne elizabeth h rosales carole jeanette h schmidt three grandchildren memorial service held april 16 st johns episcopal church 10 years anita thompson celebrating 10 years associate pastor first baptist church ahoskie nc 15 years mark mcintyre celebrating 15 years pastor university baptist church college park md sun may 6 hillcrest baptist church danville va homecoming francis martin guest speaker tabor city nc baptist church homecoming 1030 carl harris guest speaker dinner grounds sunwed may 69 fairlawn va baptist church great revival reunion evangelists roger roller dale gilda riddle sunfri may 611 rings chapel baptist church castlewood va revival jeff kinder evangelist thurssun may 1013 cambria baptist church christiansburg va revival dale amp gilda riddle sat may 12 hopetree family services 20th annual walk hope salem va campus 8 sunwed may 1315 clifton forge va baptist church revival lanny horton guest speaker sun may 20 chatham heights baptist church martinsville va 68th anniversary homecoming guest speaker robert bailey claybrook baptist church weems va 100th anniversary homecoming celebration 11 phil bailey guest speaker lunch provided friendship baptist church chesterfield va honor walter pendleton 50 years music ministry 11 lunch follow greenbrier baptist church arlington va celebrate 60th anniversary 11 pam chisholm pastor sunwed may 2023 beaverdam baptist church vinton va revival burney enzor evangelist greenfield baptist church lebanon va revival heath kahlbau evangelist sun may 27 first baptist church shelby nc 165th anniversary dinner grounds concert envoys
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<p>Teachers at four charter schools run by ASPIRA, a national organization focused on Latino youth development, turned in union cards this week—the second Chicago charter to launch a union drive. For at least one ASPIRA teacher, the move has little to do with paychecks and more to do with boosting transparency about school operations. Teachers at four charter schools run by ASPIRA, a national organization focused on Latino youth development, turned in union cards this week—the second Chicago charter to launch a union drive.</p>
<p>For at least one ASPIRA teacher, the move has little to do with paychecks and more to do with boosting transparency about school operations. That includes posting teacher pay scales to explaining the criteria used in staff evaluations.</p>
<p>“It’s not really about money,” says Nicholas Aquino, a history teacher at ASPIRA Early College High School. “A lot of it is about decision-making and the quality of our teaching, having the time to analyze data and collaborate with other teachers to improve our teaching.”</p>
<p>Aquino says he “connects really strongly to the school’s mission” and felt “emotional” when ASPIRA hired him in 2007, the year Early College opened. His mother and godmother were “aspirantes”—community activists involved with ASPIRA long before the organization joined the charter movement.</p>
<p>“But it was disappointing that the school was not living up to that mission,” he says.</p>
<p>Aquino says teachers are frustrated by overwhelming demands and want management to better explain core strategies like the teacher evaluation system. He says the resulting teacher turnover continues to zap the schools’ ability to forge deep connections with parents and the community.</p>
<p>Teachers can lose points during their formal performance reviews for confusing reasons. As an example, Aquino says his scores were once knocked down simply because his lesson plan didn’t include a quiz.</p>
<p>Moreover, deadlines have piled up on teachers, with little warning from administrators. Last semester, Aquino says teachers were grappling with data reports on student assessments when administrators suddenly demanded teachers also produce portfolios on student literacy gains.</p>
<p>“Deadlines build up and it’s very exhausting,” he says.</p>
<p>The schools do have a mechanism for addressing such concerns. A “strategic planning team” of teachers and administrators meets several times each year. But Aquino says the group has enacted little change.</p>
<p>Two scandals that gripped ASPIRA last year may also be a factor in the push to unionize. Reports of illegal student strip searches and an investigation into grade-tampering rocked the charter in 2009. One teacher, Meg Sullivan, claimed she was fired for blowing the whistle and filed suit.</p>
<p>Aquino says teacher turnover is so high that most of the teachers involved are now gone. The union push is largely unrelated. But he did say that unionization may well have happened earlier if teachers did not feel so “uneasy” about challenging school leadership.</p>
<p>ASPIRA CEO Jose Rodriguez and Board Chair Sonia Sanchez did not return Catalyst calls.</p>
<p>Next steps</p>
<p>The union bid is now in the hands of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board. Organizers with the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff (Chicago ACTS), the union that ASPIRA teachers hope to join, say approximately two-thirds of the 100 teachers who work for ASPIRA turned in union cards last week.</p>
<p>The IELRB checks the cards to ensure a majority of teachers support unionization and has 90 days to certify the results.</p>
<p>Last year, teachers at three Chicago International Charter Schools run by the education management group Civitas established a union—but not without a lengthy court battle. (Teachers at the Chicago Talent Development High School, a contract school with union backing, are also organizing outside of the Chicago Teachers Union contract.)</p>
<p>When Civitas teachers turned in union cards last year, the organization’s management team spent months challenging the jurisdiction of the IELRB. Administrators successfully moved the case to the National Labor Relations Board, arguing that their employees work for a private firm and not a public entity. The NLRB ultimately agreed and set up a secret ballot vote to gauge employee interest in forming a union.</p>
<p>Advocates say the vote ensures a fair measure of employee interest, but union supporters say the sometimes lengthy period leading up to the vote gives employers time to harass organizers and undermine the union push.</p>
<p>That legal route may be cut off for ASPIRA management. Gov. Pat Quinn signed charter school legislation in 2009 that, among other major changes, clarified sole jurisdiction for the IELRB in charter union bids.</p>
<p>Aquino says ASPIRA board officials, including Sanchez, expressed interest and at least tacit support for unionization at a meeting on Monday night.</p>
<p>Hugo Hernandez, an organizer with the American Federation of Teachers who works with Chicago ACTS, says the Civitas and ASPIRA situations are clearly different. Civitas teachers did not technically work for the charter holder, Chicago International Charter Schools, making it unclear if they were public or private employees under the law. But ASPIRA of Illinois holds both the charter for all four schools and manages employees, too.</p>
<p>According to Hernandez, more charter teachers may soon declare their intention to unionize. For fear of jeopardizing teachers’ jobs, he declined to name any schools where his organizing is making headway.</p>
<p>“There are countless numbers of teachers across the Chicago area that we are having conversations with,” he says.</p>
<p>Should ASPIRA teachers win bargaining rights, they will officially join Chicago ACTS and form a local council alongside Civitas teachers. The union would be affiliated with the Illinois Federation of Teachers and its parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers.</p>
<p>&#160; Gail Purkey, a spokesman with the IFT, says ASPIRA teachers would form their own bargaining team and—as did Civitas teachers—potentially turn to the IFT and AFT for technical support.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p />
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teachers four charter schools run aspira national organization focused latino youth development turned union cards weekthe second chicago charter launch union drive least one aspira teacher move little paychecks boosting transparency school operations teachers four charter schools run aspira national organization focused latino youth development turned union cards weekthe second chicago charter launch union drive least one aspira teacher move little paychecks boosting transparency school operations includes posting teacher pay scales explaining criteria used staff evaluations really money says nicholas aquino history teacher aspira early college high school lot decisionmaking quality teaching time analyze data collaborate teachers improve teaching aquino says connects really strongly schools mission felt emotional aspira hired 2007 year early college opened mother godmother aspirantescommunity activists involved aspira long organization joined charter movement disappointing school living mission says aquino says teachers frustrated overwhelming demands want management better explain core strategies like teacher evaluation system says resulting teacher turnover continues zap schools ability forge deep connections parents community teachers lose points formal performance reviews confusing reasons example aquino says scores knocked simply lesson plan didnt include quiz moreover deadlines piled teachers little warning administrators last semester aquino says teachers grappling data reports student assessments administrators suddenly demanded teachers also produce portfolios student literacy gains deadlines build exhausting says schools mechanism addressing concerns strategic planning team teachers administrators meets several times year aquino says group enacted little change two scandals gripped aspira last year may also factor push unionize reports illegal student strip searches investigation gradetampering rocked charter 2009 one teacher meg sullivan claimed fired blowing whistle filed suit aquino says teacher turnover high teachers involved gone union push largely unrelated say unionization may well happened earlier teachers feel uneasy challenging school leadership aspira ceo jose rodriguez board chair sonia sanchez return catalyst calls next steps union bid hands illinois educational labor relations board organizers chicago alliance charter teachers staff chicago acts union aspira teachers hope join say approximately twothirds 100 teachers work aspira turned union cards last week ielrb checks cards ensure majority teachers support unionization 90 days certify results last year teachers three chicago international charter schools run education management group civitas established unionbut without lengthy court battle teachers chicago talent development high school contract school union backing also organizing outside chicago teachers union contract civitas teachers turned union cards last year organizations management team spent months challenging jurisdiction ielrb administrators successfully moved case national labor relations board arguing employees work private firm public entity nlrb ultimately agreed set secret ballot vote gauge employee interest forming union advocates say vote ensures fair measure employee interest union supporters say sometimes lengthy period leading vote gives employers time harass organizers undermine union push legal route may cut aspira management gov pat quinn signed charter school legislation 2009 among major changes clarified sole jurisdiction ielrb charter union bids aquino says aspira board officials including sanchez expressed interest least tacit support unionization meeting monday night hugo hernandez organizer american federation teachers works chicago acts says civitas aspira situations clearly different civitas teachers technically work charter holder chicago international charter schools making unclear public private employees law aspira illinois holds charter four schools manages employees according hernandez charter teachers may soon declare intention unionize fear jeopardizing teachers jobs declined name schools organizing making headway countless numbers teachers across chicago area conversations says aspira teachers win bargaining rights officially join chicago acts form local council alongside civitas teachers union would affiliated illinois federation teachers parent organization american federation teachers 160 gail purkey spokesman ift says aspira teachers would form bargaining team andas civitas teacherspotentially turn ift aft technical support 160
| 597 |
<p>SEOUL, South Korea — The scene on the Seoul subway these days resembles any other modern underground network: throngs of high school students and commuter droids, hunched over, aloof to their surroundings, unable to stop playing with their handheld thingies.</p>
<p>Only here in South Korea — home of Samsung and some of the world’s zippiest internet access (both mobile and hardwired) — people take their digital habits to an extreme.</p>
<p>So much so that the government is worried.&#160;</p>
<p>Two recent studies plot a rise in the number of South Korean teens at risk for smartphone addiction — a condition that some psychologists formally call nomophobia (for "no mobile phone phobia"): the fear of being without one’s phone.</p>
<p>One in four South Korean high school students is prone to addiction, more than double the 11 percent estimated last year, claims a March 2014 National Information Society Agency study, which surveyed 15,600 smartphone users aged 10 to 54.</p>
<p>The study also found that 9 percent of adults are at risk of smartphone dependency. Smartphone users at risk of addiction spent about five and a half hours a day buzzed up on their gadgets, according to the national government study. The average South Korean smartphone owner spends over four hours a day bonding with her device.</p>
<p>On April 8, the Seoul city government followed up with its own study, claiming that 16 percent of teenagers in the capital are at “ <a href="http://koreabizwire.com/greater-chances-of-cyber-bullying-among-smartphone-dependent-teenagers/7284" type="external">potential risk</a>” for smartphone addiction, while 4 percent fall in a “high-risk” group. Municipal authorities surveyed close to 5,000 students, ranging from the fourth grade to high school sophomores.</p>
<p>About 70 percent of South Koreans now use smartphones, significantly more than the 58 percent of Americans (as of January 2014) and 55 percent of Canadians (2013).</p>
<p>There’s a good reason for this. The government has aggressively embraced the web as part of its uber-successful development strategy. South Korea was the first to roll out the searing LTE-A network last summer. And that’s nothing: it already plans to unveil a 5G network by 2017 that’ll let you download an <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2545831/South-Korea-launch-5G-service-fast-users-download-entire-film-just-ONE-SECOND.html" type="external">entire film in, yes, one second</a>.</p>
<p>There’s evidence that excessive smartphone use is harming the nation and its youth.</p>
<p>A 2013 study of nearly 200 adolescents in Korea showed that those who used their gadgets frequently couldn’t concentrate and even felt aggression, far more than those who didn’t use their phones as much. Obsessive smartphone checking, especially before bed, can also lead to insomnia, according to one study at the University of Michigan.</p>
<p>Hyuk-joo Yoon, 20, is preparing for two years of mandatory military service, hoping to land a prestigious placement. But he says since he feels glued to his smartphone, he’s had trouble getting out and exercising. “It['s] like being unable to concentrate and get things done, and I even had trouble getting through my long days of work in high school,” he said. “Kids need to study, and they can’t if all of them carry smartphones around their schools.”</p>
<p>Experts say the pressures of student life fuel the smartphone buzz — along with more long-standing but similar addictions to computer games, television, and the internet, explains Namkee Park, a communications professor at Yonsei University in Seoul. “Peer pressure and social influences are prevalent in Korean society,” Park said.</p>
<p>South Korean society is notoriously high-pressure. It’s the developed <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/south-korea/140313/why-koreans-are-killing-themselves-droves" type="external">world’s suicide capital</a>, and its workers suffer under some of the <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/south-korea/140403/the-developed-world-s-least-helpful-husbands" type="external">longest commute times</a>. Students here can feel the strains of academic success, enrolling in “cram schools,” or after-school academies where they overload into the night, preparing for rigorous university entrance exams that sometimes make or break their careers.</p>
<p>There’s an intense level of peer pressure to have the newest gadgets. “Students not using a smartphone could be isolated from their social circles” and carry the psychological burden of being an outcast, Park said. On top of that, “The daily life of teenagers is quite tight, both with their school schedules and the time needed to commute,” he added.</p>
<p>Park said that smartphones, with their easily downloadable games and apps just a tap away, don't give students the snippets of time to relax from the daily grind. In addition to concentration problems, he pointed out that students can easily watch violent and sexually charged videos.</p>
<p>What to do?</p>
<p>South Korean bureaucrats are taking on the role of nannies for the nation’s tech-addicted youth. The government is already enforcing a midnight curfew for computer gamers under 16 years old, preventing them from tapping away at their keyboards on League of Legends and Sudden Attack, two the nation’s most popular gaming pastimes, through the night.</p>
<p>Now, authorities say they could expand the nighttime shutdown to smartphone gamers, and distribute apps that would censor potentially harmful content. The government also plans to dispatch addiction experts for classroom discussions.</p>
<p>While Park agrees that children shouldn’t be allowed to download violent programs, he says too much government intervention is short-sighted. “People should be allowed to use their telephones any time, at any place,” he said, adding that it’s the responsibility of parents to keep their children in line.</p>
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seoul south korea scene seoul subway days resembles modern underground network throngs high school students commuter droids hunched aloof surroundings unable stop playing handheld thingies south korea home samsung worlds zippiest internet access mobile hardwired people take digital habits extreme much government worried160 two recent studies plot rise number south korean teens risk smartphone addiction condition psychologists formally call nomophobia mobile phone phobia fear without ones phone one four south korean high school students prone addiction double 11 percent estimated last year claims march 2014 national information society agency study surveyed 15600 smartphone users aged 10 54 study also found 9 percent adults risk smartphone dependency smartphone users risk addiction spent five half hours day buzzed gadgets according national government study average south korean smartphone owner spends four hours day bonding device april 8 seoul city government followed study claiming 16 percent teenagers capital potential risk smartphone addiction 4 percent fall highrisk group municipal authorities surveyed close 5000 students ranging fourth grade high school sophomores 70 percent south koreans use smartphones significantly 58 percent americans january 2014 55 percent canadians 2013 theres good reason government aggressively embraced web part ubersuccessful development strategy south korea first roll searing ltea network last summer thats nothing already plans unveil 5g network 2017 thatll let download entire film yes one second theres evidence excessive smartphone use harming nation youth 2013 study nearly 200 adolescents korea showed used gadgets frequently couldnt concentrate even felt aggression far didnt use phones much obsessive smartphone checking especially bed also lead insomnia according one study university michigan hyukjoo yoon 20 preparing two years mandatory military service hoping land prestigious placement says since feels glued smartphone hes trouble getting exercising like unable concentrate get things done even trouble getting long days work high school said kids need study cant carry smartphones around schools experts say pressures student life fuel smartphone buzz along longstanding similar addictions computer games television internet explains namkee park communications professor yonsei university seoul peer pressure social influences prevalent korean society park said south korean society notoriously highpressure developed worlds suicide capital workers suffer longest commute times students feel strains academic success enrolling cram schools afterschool academies overload night preparing rigorous university entrance exams sometimes make break careers theres intense level peer pressure newest gadgets students using smartphone could isolated social circles carry psychological burden outcast park said top daily life teenagers quite tight school schedules time needed commute added park said smartphones easily downloadable games apps tap away dont give students snippets time relax daily grind addition concentration problems pointed students easily watch violent sexually charged videos south korean bureaucrats taking role nannies nations techaddicted youth government already enforcing midnight curfew computer gamers 16 years old preventing tapping away keyboards league legends sudden attack two nations popular gaming pastimes night authorities say could expand nighttime shutdown smartphone gamers distribute apps would censor potentially harmful content government also plans dispatch addiction experts classroom discussions park agrees children shouldnt allowed download violent programs says much government intervention shortsighted people allowed use telephones time place said adding responsibility parents keep children line
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<p>Kamasi Washington’s ‘The Epic’ is one of the best albums of the year — nothing short of a modern jazz/funk masterpiece. (Image courtesy Brainfeeder)</p>
<p>It’s been another great year for new music in 2015. That may not be reflected in the Top 40, which is arguably in its sorriest state since the survey began in the mid ‘50s, but it’s true nonetheless. There are plenty of great artists making top-notch music, many of whom are operating under the radar of mass consciousness. Here are my picks for the 10 Best Albums of 2015</p>
<p>10. Public Service Broadcasting — ‘The Race For Space’</p>
<p>“The Race for Space” is a novel concept — British duo Public Service Broadcasting sets the U.S. and Soviet space race to a trippy, electronic-rock soundtrack, with all the vocal samples consisting of dialog recording during the actual historical events. The album covers the triumphs and disasters — the kinetic “Go!”, for instance, is the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, and the harrowing “Fire in the Cockpit” is a chilling account of the Apollo 1 disaster of 1967. One need not be enamored by the history of the space race to enjoy this album. “The Race for Space” is meticulously crafted, expansive and ultimately fascinating headphones music that offers new surprises on every listen.</p>
<p>9. Brandi Carlile — ‘The Firewatcher’s Daughter’</p>
<p>Together with collaborators Tim &amp; Phil Hanseroth, Brandi Carlile has created an album of terrific songwriting and musicianship that touches on multiple genres — rock, country and folk are blended seamlessly. The magnificent opener “Wherever Is Your Heart,” the gorgeous ballad “Wilder (We’re Chained),” the haunting “The Stranger At My Door,” and a sublime cover of the Avett Brothers’ “Murder in the City” are all standouts. “The Firewatcher’s Daughter” hasn’t caught on with a large audience, which is a shame — it’s an album that richly deserves to be heard.</p>
<p>8. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds — ‘Chasing Yesterday’</p>
<p>“Chasing Yesterday” is easily the finest post-Oasis album by either of the ever-feuding Gallagher brothers. Noel Gallagher — always the premier songwriter in the group — has never been better, as he delivers one killer track after another. That old swagger is still there, as is his innate sense of melody and songcraft. High points include the opener “Riverman,” “In the Heat of the Moment,” and the epic finale “Ballad of the Mighty I.” Gallagher has never sounded better as a vocalist and his production work is spot-on. With “Chasing Yesterday,” Noel Gallagher has thrown down the gauntlet and proven that he is a major artistic force outside of his former supergroup. We’ll see if brother Liam is ever able to do the same.</p>
<p>7. Algiers — ‘Algiers’</p>
<p>The debut album by Atlanta, Ga.-based Algiers is a sonic marvel that blends rock, post-punk and soul with a palpable sense of darkness, dread and foreboding. The trio is led by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Franklin James Fisher, who is an absolute powerhouse on tracks like “Blood,” “Irony. Utility. Pretext” and “Black Eunuch.” The album is hard to fit into one confining label. It’s psychedelic soul that runs headlong into Echo &amp; the Bunnymen and Joy Division with a trip through gospel-country along the way. “Algiers” is as exciting and innovative a debut album as you’ll ever hear, and it’s going to be fascinating to see how this massively talented young trio develops on future projects.</p>
<p>6. Father John Misty — ‘I Love You, Honeybear’</p>
<p>“I Love You, Honeybear” is the second album released by former Fleet Foxes member Josh Tillman under the name Father John Misty. It’s a sublime collection of brilliantly conceived folk-rock with a lush and rich production. The tracks are built upon acoustic guitar and piano, then enhanced with gleaming string and brass arrangements burnished with richly arranged harmony vocals. Tillman creates a massive wall of sound in which he envelops his incisive pieces inspired by various aspects of his personal life. The sardonic “Bored in the USA” is an example of Tillman’s prowess as a lyricist. He captures the essence of many American lives with a few acerbic lines delivered over a derisive laugh-track: “They gave me useless education, and a subprime loan on a craftsman home. Keep my prescriptions filled, and now I can’t get off but I can kind of deal.” Tillman is an ace songwriter with a keen sense of melody and a resoundingly powerful voice; it’s a beguiling combination.</p>
<p>5. Laura Marling — ‘Short Movie’</p>
<p>British singer-songwriter Laura Marling was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize for her last album, 2013’s “Once I Was an Eagle,” but her latest release is even stronger. Marling has tended to stay within the realm of folk, but on “Short Movie” she expands her sound with fuller arrangements and a more alternative/rock vibe on some songs. She’s a songwriter of incredible wit and dexterity, as is evident by stellar tracks like the quirky “Gurdjieff’s Daughter,” “Warrior” and “Howl.” Marling’s voice is crisp and clear, a bit of a mix between Suzanne Vega and Joni Mitchell but with added richness. Worth checking out is the “Director’s Cut” of “Short Movie” which includes several excellent bonus tracks.</p>
<p>4. Kendrick Lamar — ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’</p>
<p>Kendrick Lamar’s third album “To Pimp a Butterfly” is an an invigorating and challenging listening experience packed with thrills and surprises. Lamar collaborates with some of the best creative minds in the business, including Flying Lotus, Pharrell Williams, Sounwave and Thundercat. The complex vocals are inventive, the grooves are razor-sharp and the songs are loaded with memorable hooks. “To Pimp a Butterfly” is heavily rhythmic throughout, with elements of funk, R&amp;B, rock and jazz all percolating to create an intoxicating brew. Standouts include the energetic first single “i,” the ultra smooth and funky “How Much A Dollar Cost” and the album’s emotional centerpiece, the provocative “The Blacker the Berry” on which Lamar spits out the lyrics with a manic intensity over the &#160;tight rhythm. There’s much for the listener to digest on “To Pimp a Butterfly” — exciting and innovative, it’s an example of hip-hop at its very best.</p>
<p>3. Sufjan Stevens — ‘Carrie &amp; Lowell’</p>
<p>“Carrie &amp; Lowell” is an intimate collection of heartbreaking pieces inspired by the recent death of Stevens’ mother Carrie. Stevens’ whispery vocals float nebulously over a spectral acoustic guitar and piano accompaniment. “Death with Dignity” sets a gently somber mood, waxing and waning between nostalgia and anguish. A deeply felt sense of loss permeates every song. “Should Have Known Better” and “Fourth of July,” with its grim repeated refrain “We’re all going to die,” are particularly powerful. The album feels raw, like a fresh personal wound, but with the protective distance of someone who can only express his emotions through a wall of detachment to protect himself from completely falling apart. “Carrie &amp; Lowell” is spellbinding — a touching tribute, an aching reflection on abandonment and forgiveness and a haunting farewell.</p>
<p>2. Steven Wilson — ‘Hand. Cannot. Erase.’</p>
<p>Progressive rocker Steven Wilson, best known for his work in Porcupine Tree, released his breathtaking double album “Hand. Cannot. Erase” early in 2015 to raves. The album is a song cycle that explores human frailty, isolation and loneliness, and how we approach life in the face of these struggles. It was inspired by the story of a young woman who died in her apartment in a major city and was not discovered by friends or family for over three years. The music is immaculately performed by the virtuoso Wilson and his uber-talented collaborators and makes use of sudden shifts in dynamics for dramatic impact. Long, beautiful instrumental passages give way to sudden bursts of molten hard-rock played with machine-like precision. It’s an album of heart and beauty, but also of unspeakable sadness. Particularly notable is the heartrending “Routine,” one of the finest and most powerful pieces of music to emerge in 2015.</p>
<p>1.&#160; Kamasi Washington — ‘The Epic’</p>
<p>Never has an album been more aptly named. Saxophonist extraordinaire Kamasi Washington wasn’t satisfied with the notion of easing into his recording career. His debut album is three discs and not a moment is wasted. Washington’s brand of kinetic jazz is a must for fans of the genre, but even if you’re not into jazz it’s hard not to be blown away by the razor-sharp musicianship on “The Epic.” Washington and his band — especially drummer Ronald Bruner, Jr. — are on fire throughout the set. The vast scope of the album, the audaciousness of the musicians and Washington’s electrifying talent make “The Epic” the single most vital must-hear album of 2015. It’s nothing short of a revelation — a modern masterpiece of jazz/funk.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Algiers</a> <a href="" type="internal">Brandi Carlile</a> <a href="" type="internal">Carrie &amp; Lowell</a> <a href="" type="internal">Chasing Yesterday</a> <a href="" type="internal">Father John Misty</a> <a href="" type="internal">Hand Cannot Erase</a> <a href="" type="internal">I Love You Honeybear</a> <a href="" type="internal">Kamasi Washington</a> <a href="" type="internal">Kendrick Lamar</a> <a href="" type="internal">Laura Marling</a> <a href="" type="internal">Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds</a> <a href="" type="internal">Public Service Broadcasting</a> <a href="" type="internal">Short Movie</a> <a href="" type="internal">Steven Wilson</a> <a href="" type="internal">Sufjan Stevens</a> <a href="" type="internal">The Epic</a> <a href="" type="internal">The Firewatcher's Daughter</a> <a href="" type="internal">The Race For Space</a> <a href="" type="internal">To Pimp a Butterfly</a></p>
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kamasi washingtons epic one best albums year nothing short modern jazzfunk masterpiece image courtesy brainfeeder another great year new music 2015 may reflected top 40 arguably sorriest state since survey began mid 50s true nonetheless plenty great artists making topnotch music many operating radar mass consciousness picks 10 best albums 2015 10 public service broadcasting race space race space novel concept british duo public service broadcasting sets us soviet space race trippy electronicrock soundtrack vocal samples consisting dialog recording actual historical events album covers triumphs disasters kinetic go instance 1969 apollo 11 moon landing harrowing fire cockpit chilling account apollo 1 disaster 1967 one need enamored history space race enjoy album race space meticulously crafted expansive ultimately fascinating headphones music offers new surprises every listen 9 brandi carlile firewatchers daughter together collaborators tim amp phil hanseroth brandi carlile created album terrific songwriting musicianship touches multiple genres rock country folk blended seamlessly magnificent opener wherever heart gorgeous ballad wilder chained haunting stranger door sublime cover avett brothers murder city standouts firewatchers daughter hasnt caught large audience shame album richly deserves heard 8 noel gallaghers high flying birds chasing yesterday chasing yesterday easily finest postoasis album either everfeuding gallagher brothers noel gallagher always premier songwriter group never better delivers one killer track another old swagger still innate sense melody songcraft high points include opener riverman heat moment epic finale ballad mighty gallagher never sounded better vocalist production work spoton chasing yesterday noel gallagher thrown gauntlet proven major artistic force outside former supergroup well see brother liam ever able 7 algiers algiers debut album atlanta gabased algiers sonic marvel blends rock postpunk soul palpable sense darkness dread foreboding trio led vocalist multiinstrumentalist franklin james fisher absolute powerhouse tracks like blood irony utility pretext black eunuch album hard fit one confining label psychedelic soul runs headlong echo amp bunnymen joy division trip gospelcountry along way algiers exciting innovative debut album youll ever hear going fascinating see massively talented young trio develops future projects 6 father john misty love honeybear love honeybear second album released former fleet foxes member josh tillman name father john misty sublime collection brilliantly conceived folkrock lush rich production tracks built upon acoustic guitar piano enhanced gleaming string brass arrangements burnished richly arranged harmony vocals tillman creates massive wall sound envelops incisive pieces inspired various aspects personal life sardonic bored usa example tillmans prowess lyricist captures essence many american lives acerbic lines delivered derisive laughtrack gave useless education subprime loan craftsman home keep prescriptions filled cant get kind deal tillman ace songwriter keen sense melody resoundingly powerful voice beguiling combination 5 laura marling short movie british singersongwriter laura marling nominated prestigious mercury music prize last album 2013s eagle latest release even stronger marling tended stay within realm folk short movie expands sound fuller arrangements alternativerock vibe songs shes songwriter incredible wit dexterity evident stellar tracks like quirky gurdjieffs daughter warrior howl marlings voice crisp clear bit mix suzanne vega joni mitchell added richness worth checking directors cut short movie includes several excellent bonus tracks 4 kendrick lamar pimp butterfly kendrick lamars third album pimp butterfly invigorating challenging listening experience packed thrills surprises lamar collaborates best creative minds business including flying lotus pharrell williams sounwave thundercat complex vocals inventive grooves razorsharp songs loaded memorable hooks pimp butterfly heavily rhythmic throughout elements funk rampb rock jazz percolating create intoxicating brew standouts include energetic first single ultra smooth funky much dollar cost albums emotional centerpiece provocative blacker berry lamar spits lyrics manic intensity 160tight rhythm theres much listener digest pimp butterfly exciting innovative example hiphop best 3 sufjan stevens carrie amp lowell carrie amp lowell intimate collection heartbreaking pieces inspired recent death stevens mother carrie stevens whispery vocals float nebulously spectral acoustic guitar piano accompaniment death dignity sets gently somber mood waxing waning nostalgia anguish deeply felt sense loss permeates every song known better fourth july grim repeated refrain going die particularly powerful album feels raw like fresh personal wound protective distance someone express emotions wall detachment protect completely falling apart carrie amp lowell spellbinding touching tribute aching reflection abandonment forgiveness haunting farewell 2 steven wilson hand erase progressive rocker steven wilson best known work porcupine tree released breathtaking double album hand erase early 2015 raves album song cycle explores human frailty isolation loneliness approach life face struggles inspired story young woman died apartment major city discovered friends family three years music immaculately performed virtuoso wilson ubertalented collaborators makes use sudden shifts dynamics dramatic impact long beautiful instrumental passages give way sudden bursts molten hardrock played machinelike precision album heart beauty also unspeakable sadness particularly notable heartrending routine one finest powerful pieces music emerge 2015 1160 kamasi washington epic never album aptly named saxophonist extraordinaire kamasi washington wasnt satisfied notion easing recording career debut album three discs moment wasted washingtons brand kinetic jazz must fans genre even youre jazz hard blown away razorsharp musicianship epic washington band especially drummer ronald bruner jr fire throughout set vast scope album audaciousness musicians washingtons electrifying talent make epic single vital musthear album 2015 nothing short revelation modern masterpiece jazzfunk algiers brandi carlile carrie amp lowell chasing yesterday father john misty hand erase love honeybear kamasi washington kendrick lamar laura marling noel gallaghers high flying birds public service broadcasting short movie steven wilson sufjan stevens epic firewatchers daughter race space pimp butterfly
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<p>The NFL regular season wrapped up on Sunday with division opponents squaring off against each other, as home-field advantage, first-round byes, division titles – and the final AFC and NFC playoff spots – hung in the balance. And in dramatic fashion (is there any other kind in the NFL?), several teams made emphatic statements in winning, while others disappointed their fanbases by losing. Perhaps most notably, the Carolina Panthers became the final remaining NFC playoff team, winning the much maligned NFC South division in a winner-take-all showdown against the Atlanta Falcons, 34-3. In the AFC, the Baltimore Ravens earned the final conference playoff spot by defeating the Cleveland Browns, 20-10.</p>
<p>But with so many key games and different playoff implications at stake on Sunday, it is important to identify key winners and losers from yesterday’s gridiron action. Please note that the following evaluations are based upon several factors, including&#160; a team’s roster (talent), and what the team was fighting to win (playoff spot, division title, etc.). And on a day with so much drama unfolding, it is fitting that there are several teams that emerged as “winners,” while others were “losers.”</p>
<p>Winners</p>
<p>Seattle Seahawks:&#160;Over the last month+, the defending Super Bowl champions have regained their swagger, and have announced to the rest of the NFL that they are most definitely back. In addition, the road to this year’s Super Bowl might well run through the city of coffee and grunge, as the Seahawks locked up a the NFC West division, a first-round bye, and homefield advantage throughout the playoffs – for the second consecutive year – by defeating the St. Louis Rams, 20-6, in Seattle.</p>
<p>The ‘Hawks overcame a sluggish, inconsistent first half of the season to win their final six games, finishing 12-4. And just like last year’s Super Bowl-winning squad, Seattle is riding dynamic quarterback Russell Wilson’s play-making, overpowering running back Marshawn Lynch’s legs, and its intimidating defense to wins. The Seahawks are poised to become the first repeat Super Bowl champions since the 2003-2004 New England Patriots.</p>
<p>Green Bay Packers:&#160;Although the Pack failed to clinch the no. 1 seed in the NFC, Aaron Rodgers and co. bested division rival the Detroit Lions at home, 30-20, to grab the NFC North title from the Lions. By winning, Green Bay becomes the no. 2 seed in the NFC, securing a first-round bye. This might prove to be especially important since Rodgers, the Packers quarterback some expect to win his second MVP award, temporarily left the game with an injury. (He returned to action and, in typical Rodgers form, engineered two touchdown drives in the second half).</p>
<p>The Packers won their fourth straight NFC North crown, leaving the Lions at 11-5 and as the no. 5 seed in the NFC. The Packers have beaten the Lions every year at Green Bay’s Lambeau Field since 1991, the longest active home winning streak against an opponent in the league. Detroit will now travel to take on the Dallas Cowboys next weekend in the NFC Wild Card round.</p>
<p>Dallas Cowboys:&#160;The team did not earn one of the two first-round byes that was available, but Dallas did everything it could in a 44-17 drubbing over fellow NFC East team the Washington Redskins. The Cowboys looked unstoppable on offense, as quarterback Tony Romo, running back DeMarco Murray, and wide receiver Dez Bryant capped off record-setting years by embarrassing the porous ‘Skins defense. For first time in franchise history, Dallas scored 40 or more points in four consecutive games. In its convincing victory against Washington, the team is entering the playoffs as one of the hottest teams in the league, and is hitting its stride when previous Cowboys teams have failed. The Cowboys had lost three win-or-go-home games to end the regular season the past three years, failing to make the playoffs those years. Yet head coach Jason Garrett and his team look as dangerous as any NFC team to go on a deep run into the playoffs.</p>
<p>Carolina Panthers:&#160;The Panthers appeared completely dead not too long ago, it seems, as the team had fallen to a 3-8-1 record, one that almost assuredly would end seasons. Yet because the Panthers play in the awful NFC South, its playoff hopes remained alive. And the team won four games in a row to win the weak division, including dominant road victories against division foes the Saints and the Falcons. Quarterback Cam Newton and head coach Ron Rivera enter the playoffs with a 7-8-1 record, but the team will host a playoff game next weekend against the 11-5 Arizona Cardinals.</p>
<p>Baltimore Ravens:&#160;The Ravens won the AFC’s sixth and final playoff spot by beating the offensively-challenged Cleveland Browns, 20-10, at home. The Browns were playing former practice squad quarterback Connor Shaw as starter due to injuries to quarterbacks Brian Hoyer and Johnny Manziel. Even though the Ravens trailed 10-3, its seasoned team – which made the playoffs for the sixth time in seven years – managed to score 17 fourth quarter points en route to the victory. The Ravens earned the spot not only by beating Cleveland, but also due to help from the San Diego Chargers, who lost to the Kansas City Chiefs, 19-7.</p>
<p>Losers</p>
<p>Atlanta Falcons:&#160;The Falcons boast some of the most talented players in the league, particularly on offense, with quarterback Matt Ryan, and wide receivers Julio Jones and Roddy White. Yet the team got shelled by the Panthers, 34-3, at home no less. It needed a win to clinch the shoddy NFC South title, yet it surrendered six sacks and two interception returns for touchdowns. Head coach Mike Smith survived a disastrous 2013 season of 4-12 largely because his team suffered numerous injuries last year, including ones to Pro Bowl receivers Jones and White. He also had helped put the Falcons back on the NFL map, so to speak, following the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal, and the failed Bobby Petrino-as-head coach experiment. But with two consecutive losing seasons, Smith might well have coached his final game on the Falcons sideline.</p>
<p>San Diego Chargers:&#160;The Chargers were in the best position of any of the remaining AFC playoff hopefuls: they, unlike the Ravens, Houston Texans, or their opponent (the Kansas City Chiefs), were the only team that could clinch the no. 6 seed by simply winning. Yet the Chargers completely whiffed, losing 19-7 at Kansas City. Losing to Kansas City at Arrowhead Stadium is no embarrassment, as Arrowhead is notoriously one of the most difficult road stadiums in which to play. Yet quarterback Philip Rivers threw two interceptions as San Diego lost to Kansas City and its backup quarterback, Chase Daniel. It controlled its own destiny, had everything to play for, but failed miserably.</p>
<p />
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nfl regular season wrapped sunday division opponents squaring homefield advantage firstround byes division titles final afc nfc playoff spots hung balance dramatic fashion kind nfl several teams made emphatic statements winning others disappointed fanbases losing perhaps notably carolina panthers became final remaining nfc playoff team winning much maligned nfc south division winnertakeall showdown atlanta falcons 343 afc baltimore ravens earned final conference playoff spot defeating cleveland browns 2010 many key games different playoff implications stake sunday important identify key winners losers yesterdays gridiron action please note following evaluations based upon several factors including160 teams roster talent team fighting win playoff spot division title etc day much drama unfolding fitting several teams emerged winners others losers winners seattle seahawks160over last month defending super bowl champions regained swagger announced rest nfl definitely back addition road years super bowl might well run city coffee grunge seahawks locked nfc west division firstround bye homefield advantage throughout playoffs second consecutive year defeating st louis rams 206 seattle hawks overcame sluggish inconsistent first half season win final six games finishing 124 like last years super bowlwinning squad seattle riding dynamic quarterback russell wilsons playmaking overpowering running back marshawn lynchs legs intimidating defense wins seahawks poised become first repeat super bowl champions since 20032004 new england patriots green bay packers160although pack failed clinch 1 seed nfc aaron rodgers co bested division rival detroit lions home 3020 grab nfc north title lions winning green bay becomes 2 seed nfc securing firstround bye might prove especially important since rodgers packers quarterback expect win second mvp award temporarily left game injury returned action typical rodgers form engineered two touchdown drives second half packers fourth straight nfc north crown leaving lions 115 5 seed nfc packers beaten lions every year green bays lambeau field since 1991 longest active home winning streak opponent league detroit travel take dallas cowboys next weekend nfc wild card round dallas cowboys160the team earn one two firstround byes available dallas everything could 4417 drubbing fellow nfc east team washington redskins cowboys looked unstoppable offense quarterback tony romo running back demarco murray wide receiver dez bryant capped recordsetting years embarrassing porous skins defense first time franchise history dallas scored 40 points four consecutive games convincing victory washington team entering playoffs one hottest teams league hitting stride previous cowboys teams failed cowboys lost three winorgohome games end regular season past three years failing make playoffs years yet head coach jason garrett team look dangerous nfc team go deep run playoffs carolina panthers160the panthers appeared completely dead long ago seems team fallen 381 record one almost assuredly would end seasons yet panthers play awful nfc south playoff hopes remained alive team four games row win weak division including dominant road victories division foes saints falcons quarterback cam newton head coach ron rivera enter playoffs 781 record team host playoff game next weekend 115 arizona cardinals baltimore ravens160the ravens afcs sixth final playoff spot beating offensivelychallenged cleveland browns 2010 home browns playing former practice squad quarterback connor shaw starter due injuries quarterbacks brian hoyer johnny manziel even though ravens trailed 103 seasoned team made playoffs sixth time seven years managed score 17 fourth quarter points en route victory ravens earned spot beating cleveland also due help san diego chargers lost kansas city chiefs 197 losers atlanta falcons160the falcons boast talented players league particularly offense quarterback matt ryan wide receivers julio jones roddy white yet team got shelled panthers 343 home less needed win clinch shoddy nfc south title yet surrendered six sacks two interception returns touchdowns head coach mike smith survived disastrous 2013 season 412 largely team suffered numerous injuries last year including ones pro bowl receivers jones white also helped put falcons back nfl map speak following michael vick dogfighting scandal failed bobby petrinoashead coach experiment two consecutive losing seasons smith might well coached final game falcons sideline san diego chargers160the chargers best position remaining afc playoff hopefuls unlike ravens houston texans opponent kansas city chiefs team could clinch 6 seed simply winning yet chargers completely whiffed losing 197 kansas city losing kansas city arrowhead stadium embarrassment arrowhead notoriously one difficult road stadiums play yet quarterback philip rivers threw two interceptions san diego lost kansas city backup quarterback chase daniel controlled destiny everything play failed miserably
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<p>By Ken Camp and Daniel Wallace</p>
<p>Contemporary Americans who cite isolated quotes by the nation’s founders to buttress arguments in favor of a Christian nation or a secular society without religious influences misinterpret history and do injustice to those who framed the U.S. Constitution, says law professor and author Michael Meyerson.</p>
<p>“The cherry-pickers have forced people into camps” and created a false division the founders never intended, said Meyerson, author of Endowed by Our Creator: The Birth of Religious Freedom in America.</p>
<p>Meyerson, professor of law at the University of Baltimore, delivered the Walter B. and Kay W. Shurden Lectures on Religious Liberty and Separation of Church and State at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, April 1-2. The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty sponsors the annual lecture series.</p>
<p>While some early American patriots, such as Patrick Henry, advocated state support for religion, the key founders — George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison — held a sophisticated view that saw the value of religious commitment by citizens but the danger of sectarian division that would emerge from a wedding of church and state, he noted.</p>
<p>The founders sought to strike equilibrium on the issue and compromised to produce a solution that avoided partisanship.</p>
<p>“They understood the complexity of this issue better than we do,” Meyerson said. “They understood the solution had to be nuanced and had to be complicated — not beyond understanding, but not a simple ‘never or always.’ And that’s what they worked on — that compromise.”</p>
<p>Unbelievably evil, unbelievably good</p>
<p>Founders of the nation agreed on a respectful vision that religion is scarred with unbelievable evil, yet also graced with equally unbelievable good, he noted. Their goal was to formulate a standard on the issue of church and state relations that united the nation, rather than creating a mandate that brought division.</p>
<p>“They wanted to separate church and state but not necessarily God and state,” he said. “They were most afraid of sectarianism, but they never intended to eliminate all discussion of God and religion from the public sphere.”</p>
<p>Furthermore, deeply religious Americans — such as Virginia Baptist preacher John Leland — voiced strongest support for separation of church and state as the best way to protect liberty of conscience, Meyerson said.</p>
<p>Leland possessed an “extraordinarily inclusive” vision of religious liberty for all people, including those with whom he disagreed, and an aversion to receiving any benefits from government to advance his own religious views, he said.</p>
<p>During a controversy in Virginia over a bill to levy a general assessment to support teachers of religion, two key petitions circulated to rally opposition to the tax. About 1,500 people signed Madison’s “Memorial and Remonstrance.” A Baptist-generated petition Leland spearheaded drew about 5,000 signatures, Meyerson noted.</p>
<p>Most important campaign promise ever</p>
<p>When Madison ran for the first Congress, Leland strongly supported his candidacy, but not until he secured from Madison what Meyerson called “the most important campaign promise ever — and not just because it was kept.”</p>
<p>Madison pledged to introduce a constitutional amendment to protect liberty of conscience — the First Amendment, which says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”</p>
<p>Later, after he moved from Virginia to Cheshire, Mass., Leland delivered the celebrated “Cheshire Mammoth Cheese” as a gift to President Thomas Jefferson, celebrating the victory of the advocate of church-state separation. Stamped across the top of the 1,200-lb. block of cheese was the slogan: “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”</p>
<p>Leland — and other religious leaders who shared his perspective — “didn’t want the combination of church and state, but they didn’t mind the combination of church and politics,” Meyerson observed.</p>
<p>Neither Baptists like Leland nor the founding framers of the Constitution wanted the government involved in either advancing or inhibiting religion, he insisted.</p>
<p>“They knew their religion and their religious freedom depended on full liberty of conscience and the government not rooting for, not helping, not manipulating and not controlling the religion of individuals,” he said.</p>
<p>Meyerson noted the fathers of the Constitution concurred with Thomas Jefferson’s stance that “no man should be propelled to frequent or support religious worship, suffer on the account of religious opinions, and your religious opinions should not diminish, enlarge or affect your civil rights.”</p>
<p>Early religious diversity</p>
<p>At the time the Constitution was drafted, Congregationalists made up 71 percent of the population in Massachusetts, but outside Massachusetts, religious diversity was the standard in the nation, Meyerson said. Congregationalists were only 20 percent of the total population, and there were many powerful mid-sized religious groups, he said. Additionally, 3 percent adhered to Judaism.</p>
<p>The multiplicity of religious groups forced the founders to view religion through a different lens, Meyerson noted.</p>
<p>“The United States was so religiously diverse that if you wanted to unite the nation, you had to view religion and government very differently,” he said.</p>
<p>With the national imperative of how to unite a nation on the basis of government and religion in mind, the founders worked diligently to avoid in their writing language specific to any one religion.</p>
<p>“To Jefferson, a word like ‘God’ could be ambiguous or have multiple meanings,” he said. “He understood that language had multiple meanings and that was not only fine, but it was preferable.”</p>
<p>Hobby Lobby</p>
<p>In a question-and-answer session, Meyerson addressed the Hobby Lobby case the U.S. Supreme Court is considering. The evangelical Christian owners of the crafts store chain insist the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act violates their religious liberty because it compels them to provide some birth-control methods for their employees they believe cause abortions.</p>
<p>Meyerson drew a distinction between the rights of individuals and the rights of corporations.</p>
<p>“A corporation protects you from liabilities. It is separate from you,” he said. “I think Hobby Lobby is separate from its owners.”</p>
<p>In response to a question about laws that many citizens support or oppose because of their religious convictions — specifically regarding abortion and same-sex marriage — Meyerson acknowledged many laws are religiously motivated.</p>
<p>“Religion can be a motivation for both the left and the right,” he said. “Religious motivations for laws are common and universal. The question is whether there is something other than religious doctrine behind the law.”</p>
<p>When asked why religiously affiliated universities enjoy many of the same legal protections as churches when they do not explicitly preach the gospel or administer the sacraments, Meyerson insisted he did not want government placed in the position of defining what is religious.</p>
<p>“I don’t want the government to say, ‘That’s not religious enough,’” he said. “There are many things the government does well and many things it doesn’t. The government doesn’t do religious distinctions well.”</p>
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ken camp daniel wallace contemporary americans cite isolated quotes nations founders buttress arguments favor christian nation secular society without religious influences misinterpret history injustice framed us constitution says law professor author michael meyerson cherrypickers forced people camps created false division founders never intended said meyerson author endowed creator birth religious freedom america meyerson professor law university baltimore delivered walter b kay w shurden lectures religious liberty separation church state baylor university waco texas april 12 baptist joint committee religious liberty sponsors annual lecture series early american patriots patrick henry advocated state support religion key founders george washington benjamin franklin thomas jefferson james madison held sophisticated view saw value religious commitment citizens danger sectarian division would emerge wedding church state noted founders sought strike equilibrium issue compromised produce solution avoided partisanship understood complexity issue better meyerson said understood solution nuanced complicated beyond understanding simple never always thats worked compromise unbelievably evil unbelievably good founders nation agreed respectful vision religion scarred unbelievable evil yet also graced equally unbelievable good noted goal formulate standard issue church state relations united nation rather creating mandate brought division wanted separate church state necessarily god state said afraid sectarianism never intended eliminate discussion god religion public sphere furthermore deeply religious americans virginia baptist preacher john leland voiced strongest support separation church state best way protect liberty conscience meyerson said leland possessed extraordinarily inclusive vision religious liberty people including disagreed aversion receiving benefits government advance religious views said controversy virginia bill levy general assessment support teachers religion two key petitions circulated rally opposition tax 1500 people signed madisons memorial remonstrance baptistgenerated petition leland spearheaded drew 5000 signatures meyerson noted important campaign promise ever madison ran first congress leland strongly supported candidacy secured madison meyerson called important campaign promise ever kept madison pledged introduce constitutional amendment protect liberty conscience first amendment says congress shall make law respecting establishment religion prohibiting free exercise thereof later moved virginia cheshire mass leland delivered celebrated cheshire mammoth cheese gift president thomas jefferson celebrating victory advocate churchstate separation stamped across top 1200lb block cheese slogan rebellion tyrants obedience god leland religious leaders shared perspective didnt want combination church state didnt mind combination church politics meyerson observed neither baptists like leland founding framers constitution wanted government involved either advancing inhibiting religion insisted knew religion religious freedom depended full liberty conscience government rooting helping manipulating controlling religion individuals said meyerson noted fathers constitution concurred thomas jeffersons stance man propelled frequent support religious worship suffer account religious opinions religious opinions diminish enlarge affect civil rights early religious diversity time constitution drafted congregationalists made 71 percent population massachusetts outside massachusetts religious diversity standard nation meyerson said congregationalists 20 percent total population many powerful midsized religious groups said additionally 3 percent adhered judaism multiplicity religious groups forced founders view religion different lens meyerson noted united states religiously diverse wanted unite nation view religion government differently said national imperative unite nation basis government religion mind founders worked diligently avoid writing language specific one religion jefferson word like god could ambiguous multiple meanings said understood language multiple meanings fine preferable hobby lobby questionandanswer session meyerson addressed hobby lobby case us supreme court considering evangelical christian owners crafts store chain insist contraceptive mandate affordable care act violates religious liberty compels provide birthcontrol methods employees believe cause abortions meyerson drew distinction rights individuals rights corporations corporation protects liabilities separate said think hobby lobby separate owners response question laws many citizens support oppose religious convictions specifically regarding abortion samesex marriage meyerson acknowledged many laws religiously motivated religion motivation left right said religious motivations laws common universal question whether something religious doctrine behind law asked religiously affiliated universities enjoy many legal protections churches explicitly preach gospel administer sacraments meyerson insisted want government placed position defining religious dont want government say thats religious enough said many things government well many things doesnt government doesnt religious distinctions well
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<p>RICHMOND, Va. – Throughout the weeks of speculation about Hillary Clinton's choice of a running mate, Tim Kaine's presence at the top of the shortlist was steady, consistent and a perhaps little bit boring -- all words used to describe the Virginia senator himself.</p>
<p>Kaine has frequently been depicted as Clinton's “safe” or even “expected" choice. But Clinton's selection of Kaine for the job demonstrates that she ultimately viewed him to be the right fit for what's expected to be a very unconventional election against the often explosive and unpredictable Donald Trump.</p>
<p>A Traditional Pick in an Untraditional Year</p>
<p>Kaine boasts decades of experience, serving on the Richmond City Council, as mayor of Richmond, as lieutenant governor, governor, DNC chairman, and now U.S. senator.</p>
<p>His challenge throughout the consideration process, though, was to prove he had the <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/tim-kaine-hillary-clinton-attack-223296" type="external">true bite</a> to move into the <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/05/tim-kaine-vp-pick-democrats" type="external">offensive role</a> a VP candidate traditionally takes on, especially in a cycle when Trump’s outbursts often consume the oxygen around the race.</p>
<p>“I am boring,” Kaine flatly admitted on Meet The Press in late June, playfully adding, “but, ‘boring’ is the fastest growing demographic in this country.”</p>
<p>“He’s always smiling and happy,” said L. Preston Bryant Jr., who served as Secretary of Natural Resources during Kaine’s administration as governor and praises Kaine’s character. “I may have seen his Irish temper twice, and both times it lasted about five seconds.”</p>
<p>While Kaine’s softer demeanor may lack the same “gruffness” of a Sherrod Brown, the Ohio senator whose name was also in Clinton's VP mix, people who have been around Kaine maintain that he can still be very tough if he needs to be. One Democrat who knows Kaine claims “he knows how to rip his opponents’ face off with a smile so it doesn’t feel gross.” Another former colleague notes that “he’s a genuinely nice guy but he’s not a pushover,” pointing to an <a href="http://articles.dailypress.com/2005-09-14/news/0509140163_1_abortion-question-mr-kilgore-mother-s-life" type="external">intense debate</a> with Republican Jerry Kilgore in the 2005 Virginia governor's race.</p>
<p>Kaine’s supporters say he can be especially effective on the stump because he speaks very often without notes or prepared text and frequently writes his own remarks, a contrast to other onetime potential VP picks like Massachusetts Sen. Warren, who has used a teleprompter during most of her major recent speeches.</p>
<p>Those who have known Kaine describe him as at peace with himself, and someone who has managed to try to lead a normal life within the bounds of public office.</p>
<p>Heidi Abbott, a Richmond attorney and longtime supporter, met Kaine about 25 years ago as he was one in a group of people who met informally on her porch to discuss issues important to their community. “I have watched him tackle complex issues at the local, state and now federal levels with integrity, brilliance and an ability to communicate these complexities to the public in a way that makes sense,” she said.</p>
<p>“I've never seen anything like it," Abbott continued. "What is a little surreal in a very good way is that he is the exact same person he was 25 years ago sitting on our porch."</p>
<p>Another Time Around the Speculation Carousel</p>
<p>It's not the first time for Kaine on the roller-coaster of "veepstakes" before.</p>
<p>Kaine was one of the finalists when President Barack Obama was selecting a running mate eight years ago, and the two men had a lot in common: they were both civil rights lawyers, they both went to Harvard Law School, both married women who went to Princeton and then Harvard, and their mothers both have ties to El Dorado, Kansas, a small city in the south-central section of the state.</p>
<p>But Kaine’s supporters note much has changed since then. In 2008, Obama was vetting his VP prospects during the period when Russia invaded Georgia and a premium on foreign policy credentials became more valuable, while Kaine was Governor of Virginia at the time, and Joe Biden was chair of the Foreign Relations Committee.</p>
<p>But since his election to the Senate, Kaine has served on the Foreign Relations Committee and the Armed Services Committee. Plus, supporters add that his tenure as DNC chairman from 2009 to 2011 linked him up with a wide network of donors across the country. Also, allies note that in 2012, an unprecedented <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/Senate/2012/1107/Virginia-Senate-how-Tim-Kaine-survived-a-record-barrage-of-attack-ads" type="external">sum of money</a> was spent on Kaine’s Senate race against Republican George Allen, so he has already withstood a massive barrage of negative ads in the middle of close elections with high stakes.</p>
<p>Tom Morris, who served in Kaine’s cabinet as secretary of education, says Kaine wouldn’t be one to make mistakes on the trail as he’s been though enough campaigns and never lost an election. “He’s not going to be upstaging the presidential nominee or getting off message,” he added. “He knows how to stay on message… and would be a good partisan spokesman for Democrats.”</p>
<p>“He’s been lieutenant governor so he knows how to be second fiddle,” said Bryant. “He knows how to be a team player… I think he would be a perfect running mate.”</p>
<p>The Richmond Record</p>
<p>Dan Palazzolo, a political science professor at the University of Richmond, notes that there isn’t anything spectacularly extraordinary that stands out as the significant accomplishment from Kaine’s time as governor, as he had trouble passing major packages with a Republican legislature, and he was serving during the lead-up and the height of the financial crisis.</p>
<p>“You’re not talking about any signature initiative," Palazzolo said. "I think he did a job, I think most people would give him very high marks for dealing with the Virginia Tech shooting. He had a very stable mind in that incident.” That said, Republicans likely won't be able to dig up any very serious scandals with him, he said. "There are no skeletons in his closet. I don’t know if you know about some of these politicians in Virginia. Some have a seedy past. None of that is going to happen with Tim Kaine."</p>
<p>“He was a terrific boss to work for,” said Bryant, Kaine’s secretary of natural resources, who was a Republican at the time, but now calls himself more of a “fierce" Independent. “He would appoint people, give them directions, and let them do their work. He would check in periodically, have weekly reports, but he did not micromanage.”</p>
<p>While serving as governor and lieutenant governor, Kaine disclosed accepting more than $160,000 in gifts from 2001 to 2009, the subject of a recent piece from <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/tim-kaine-virginia-veep-mcdonnell-clinton-224888" type="external">Politico</a>. The gifts were all legal under Virginia’s more lax gift laws, and there are no suggestions of any trade or official favors, but they became a <a href="https://www.gop.com/tim-kaine-clintons-top-vp-pick-accepted-over-160000-in-gifts/" type="external">point of fodder</a> for the RNC as vice presidential speculation about Kaine intensified. Kaine’s staff maintains he exercised great transparency, telling NBC News in a statement, “During his eight years as Lieutenant Governor and Governor, Senator Kaine went beyond the requirements of Virginia law, even publicly disclosing gifts of value beneath the reporting threshold. He’s confident that he met both the letter and the spirit of Virginia’s ethical standards.”</p>
<p>Diversity Matters?</p>
<p>While Kaine admits he can be “boring,” some Democrats also yearned for a running mate who could bring racial diversity to the ticket.</p>
<p>Supporters will cite the fact that Kaine speaks fluent Spanish after his time doing missionary work in Honduras, and the fact that he was the first to deliver a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/us/politics/tim-kaines-immigration-speech-in-spanish-is-a-first-for-the-senate.html" type="external">full speech in Spanish</a> on the U.S. Senate floor.</p>
<p>Those who worked with Kaine during his years in Richmond, like his fellow city council member and eventual vice mayor, Rudy McCollum, and many other Kaine supporters, stress the time when they say he was able to create bridges with the African American community in the city, in an area that was (and still can be) a southern town plagued with racial strife. In the 1990s, the city council decided among themselves who was mayor.</p>
<p>McCollum says he supported Kaine for mayor because he was “exactly what the city needed… they need to have somebody who could be able to not just cross aisles -- we are non-partisan, but cross communities... Tim was somebody who definitely was able to bridge the community, bring different people together, and being a capital of the confederacy, with a lot of people wanting to maintain themselves and stay set in their ways."</p>
<p>A Deep Faith</p>
<p>People in Kaine’s orbit constantly refer to his deep faith as one of the most prominent parts of the senator’s life, and an aspect of himself that can connect with large swaths of the American population. He attends a mostly black Catholic church in a poor neighborhood in Richmond, the same church he has attended for years.</p>
<p>Faith has also seeped into his political life. He was <a href="http://www.roanoke.com/news/local/sen-tim-kaine-moved-to-tears-by-pope-s-speech/article_e4281829-0d36-5d5f-a3aa-694b695ce421.html" type="external">moved to tears</a> when Pope Francis spoke to Congress last year, and he has not been afraid to do interviews with televangelists and engage in long conversations about the bible. During his 2005 race for governor, the first ads his campaign ran were positive bio spots on Virginia Christian radio, where Kaine talked about his time as a missionary and how his faith shaped his values.</p>
<p>At the time, he was one of the more progressive people who had ever run for the office in the state, but former aides believe there were a lot of voters who supported him as they couldn’t equate a person of strong faith with being liberal.</p>
<p>Kaine is pro-choice and his Senate record has a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood, but he says he is <a href="" type="internal">personally opposed</a> to abortion and supported maintaining restrictions in Virginia, which could be a <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/284379-abortion-is-weakness-for-clinton-vp-favorite" type="external">potential weakness</a> for his appeal with the party's liberal wing.</p>
<p>The Virginia Map</p>
<p>Many Democrats in Virginia credit Kaine with starting the Democratic wave and building the roadmap to what has been a number of state-wide victories for the party in recent years. In his state-wide elections, Kaine focused heavily on suburban areas that have grown exponentially in recent years. National Democrats took notice, and President Obama used Kaine’s model, as did other state Democrats, and now Virginia has two Democratic senators and a Democratic governor.</p>
<p>NBC News classifies Virginia this year as a “toss up” state on the electoral map, but even people around Kaine’s world are split on how much of an impact his presence on the ticket would have on how the state votes this year.</p>
<p>Some influential Virginia Democrats think he would absolutely help Clinton, since there are people who are proud someone from their area could be working in the White House again, while others aren’t so sure how much of a factor the person on the second row of the ticket will ever have on the minds of voters.</p>
<p>However, Virginia is exactly what Kaine talks about when his work with the Clinton campaign and vetting for VP comes up. “I'm just doing my work here in the Senate and in Virginia,” Kaine told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell last month on MSNBC when asked if he was being vetted. “My highest and best use is really in Virginia, because I do think that will be a critical state this November. And I'm going to do everything I can to help Hillary win.”</p>
<p>NBC News' Kelly O'Donnell and Monica Alba contributed to this report.</p>
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richmond va throughout weeks speculation hillary clintons choice running mate tim kaines presence top shortlist steady consistent perhaps little bit boring words used describe virginia senator kaine frequently depicted clintons safe even expected choice clintons selection kaine job demonstrates ultimately viewed right fit whats expected unconventional election often explosive unpredictable donald trump traditional pick untraditional year kaine boasts decades experience serving richmond city council mayor richmond lieutenant governor governor dnc chairman us senator challenge throughout consideration process though prove true bite move offensive role vp candidate traditionally takes especially cycle trumps outbursts often consume oxygen around race boring kaine flatly admitted meet press late june playfully adding boring fastest growing demographic country hes always smiling happy said l preston bryant jr served secretary natural resources kaines administration governor praises kaines character may seen irish temper twice times lasted five seconds kaines softer demeanor may lack gruffness sherrod brown ohio senator whose name also clintons vp mix people around kaine maintain still tough needs one democrat knows kaine claims knows rip opponents face smile doesnt feel gross another former colleague notes hes genuinely nice guy hes pushover pointing intense debate republican jerry kilgore 2005 virginia governors race kaines supporters say especially effective stump speaks often without notes prepared text frequently writes remarks contrast onetime potential vp picks like massachusetts sen warren used teleprompter major recent speeches known kaine describe peace someone managed try lead normal life within bounds public office heidi abbott richmond attorney longtime supporter met kaine 25 years ago one group people met informally porch discuss issues important community watched tackle complex issues local state federal levels integrity brilliance ability communicate complexities public way makes sense said ive never seen anything like abbott continued little surreal good way exact person 25 years ago sitting porch another time around speculation carousel first time kaine rollercoaster veepstakes kaine one finalists president barack obama selecting running mate eight years ago two men lot common civil rights lawyers went harvard law school married women went princeton harvard mothers ties el dorado kansas small city southcentral section state kaines supporters note much changed since 2008 obama vetting vp prospects period russia invaded georgia premium foreign policy credentials became valuable kaine governor virginia time joe biden chair foreign relations committee since election senate kaine served foreign relations committee armed services committee plus supporters add tenure dnc chairman 2009 2011 linked wide network donors across country also allies note 2012 unprecedented sum money spent kaines senate race republican george allen already withstood massive barrage negative ads middle close elections high stakes tom morris served kaines cabinet secretary education says kaine wouldnt one make mistakes trail hes though enough campaigns never lost election hes going upstaging presidential nominee getting message added knows stay message would good partisan spokesman democrats hes lieutenant governor knows second fiddle said bryant knows team player think would perfect running mate richmond record dan palazzolo political science professor university richmond notes isnt anything spectacularly extraordinary stands significant accomplishment kaines time governor trouble passing major packages republican legislature serving leadup height financial crisis youre talking signature initiative palazzolo said think job think people would give high marks dealing virginia tech shooting stable mind incident said republicans likely wont able dig serious scandals said skeletons closet dont know know politicians virginia seedy past none going happen tim kaine terrific boss work said bryant kaines secretary natural resources republican time calls fierce independent would appoint people give directions let work would check periodically weekly reports micromanage serving governor lieutenant governor kaine disclosed accepting 160000 gifts 2001 2009 subject recent piece politico gifts legal virginias lax gift laws suggestions trade official favors became point fodder rnc vice presidential speculation kaine intensified kaines staff maintains exercised great transparency telling nbc news statement eight years lieutenant governor governor senator kaine went beyond requirements virginia law even publicly disclosing gifts value beneath reporting threshold hes confident met letter spirit virginias ethical standards diversity matters kaine admits boring democrats also yearned running mate could bring racial diversity ticket supporters cite fact kaine speaks fluent spanish time missionary work honduras fact first deliver full speech spanish us senate floor worked kaine years richmond like fellow city council member eventual vice mayor rudy mccollum many kaine supporters stress time say able create bridges african american community city area still southern town plagued racial strife 1990s city council decided among mayor mccollum says supported kaine mayor exactly city needed need somebody could able cross aisles nonpartisan cross communities tim somebody definitely able bridge community bring different people together capital confederacy lot people wanting maintain stay set ways deep faith people kaines orbit constantly refer deep faith one prominent parts senators life aspect connect large swaths american population attends mostly black catholic church poor neighborhood richmond church attended years faith also seeped political life moved tears pope francis spoke congress last year afraid interviews televangelists engage long conversations bible 2005 race governor first ads campaign ran positive bio spots virginia christian radio kaine talked time missionary faith shaped values time one progressive people ever run office state former aides believe lot voters supported couldnt equate person strong faith liberal kaine prochoice senate record 100 rating planned parenthood says personally opposed abortion supported maintaining restrictions virginia could potential weakness appeal partys liberal wing virginia map many democrats virginia credit kaine starting democratic wave building roadmap number statewide victories party recent years statewide elections kaine focused heavily suburban areas grown exponentially recent years national democrats took notice president obama used kaines model state democrats virginia two democratic senators democratic governor nbc news classifies virginia year toss state electoral map even people around kaines world split much impact presence ticket would state votes year influential virginia democrats think would absolutely help clinton since people proud someone area could working white house others arent sure much factor person second row ticket ever minds voters however virginia exactly kaine talks work clinton campaign vetting vp comes im work senate virginia kaine told nbcs andrea mitchell last month msnbc asked vetted highest best use really virginia think critical state november im going everything help hillary win nbc news kelly odonnell monica alba contributed report
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<p>To help local school councils (LSC) assess the adequacy of instructional leadership at their schools, Catalyst sought advice from a university professor, classroom teacher, school reform group and central administration. These sources suggested several key questions.</p>
<p>Are your test scores rising at the same rate as the citywide average?</p>
<p>In Chicago, scores on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills have been rising for a decade. “If I were on an LSC, I would want to know, Are our scores going up as quickly as the citywide average?” says Fred Hess of Northwestern University. “If they are, then we have an average school in the city. If they’re going up more quickly, then we’re an above-average school.”</p>
<p>To make a fair judgment, also consider whether your school population is changing. An influx of low-income students can deflate test scores. Likewise, if more middle-income children enroll, scores may rise without any effort on the school’s part.</p>
<p>Is your academic program well rounded?</p>
<p>Schools are under tremendous pressure to raise scores on standardized math and reading tests. To spend more time on those subjects, some elementary schools are cutting back on science and social studies, says Barbara Radner of DePaul University. According to teachers in her workshops at DePaul, some elementary schools have stopped teaching those subjects altogether.</p>
<p>Skipping science and social studies in elementary school spells trouble for students later on, as Radner has observed in many high school classrooms. “They don’t know how to read a [science or social studies] textbook, and they don’t have the working vocabulary, like ‘molecule,’ ‘chemical.'” As a result, “they fail.”</p>
<p>Radner says that books are the best clue to whether science and social studies are being taught. Ask to see examples of textbooks or trade books teachers use for those subjects, she advises. Also check the school library for nonfiction. If the books are 30 years old, she says, that’s not a good sign.</p>
<p>An even simpler strategy, she notes, is simply to ask kids, “What did you learn in science this week? What did you learn in social studies this week?”</p>
<p>How often does your principal visit classrooms?</p>
<p>Nothing contributes more to test score gains than principals getting into classrooms, according to Philip Hansen, the school system’s chief accountability officer. “That’s always the key in schools that go off probation [and in] schools that see improvement.”</p>
<p>At one high school on probation, a math teacher reports that administrators rarely observe classes. Meanwhile, she sees some teachers handing out worksheets for days on end without teaching any new material. The principal is unlikely to change that, she says. “How can you change things that you don’t know about?”</p>
<p>High school principals can’t cover the whole school on their own and need help from department chairs and assistant principals, Hansen acknowledges. Still, “many of us feel very strongly that principals should spend a good part of each day on visits. They should do announced visits, unannounced visits, quick visits and long visits.”</p>
<p>Long visits “should be an entire period so that you can observe how a teacher begins a lesson and how the teacher ends the lesson,” Hansen says.</p>
<p>On quick visits, “you can check to see if the lesson corresponds to the lesson plan book, you can look at … bulletin boards. Most importantly, these quick visits show the students that you are around and interested in what is going on. It also keeps teachers on their toes.”</p>
<p>Principals also need to meet with teachers after visits, he says. “Teachers need to know what the principal liked, didn’t liked, what strategies they should be following and what help they should get. The follow-up after the visit is just as important as the visit itself.”</p>
<p>Do your teachers have time to plan together?</p>
<p>Teachers who plan lessons together are more likely to conduct challenging ones, according to a study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research. At schools where teachers worked as teams, researchers found, students often were taught math above their grade level. At schools where teachers worked alone, instruction lagged behind. For example, at these schools, 8th-grade math teachers typically taught 5th-grade math.</p>
<p>To keep teachers moving forward through the curriculum, Radner recommends weekly grade-level meetings. Principals can arrange these by scheduling all the children in one grade for gym, art or another “special” at the same time. That leaves the regular classroom teachers free to work together.</p>
<p>In addition, teachers in the same grade “cycle” (primary, intermediate or upper) should meet every five weeks to talk about the curriculum, she says, “so that each grade level is getting kids ready for the next.” Otherwise, “You may have two grades teaching the same thing.”</p>
<p>At one North Side elementary school, a young teacher says she rarely gets time to meet with her colleagues and desperately needs ideas for teaching math and reading. “I feel like I’m in the dark trying to figure things out myself,” she says. “I spent three months on fractions, and my kids still didn’t really get it.”</p>
<p>Does your school help teachers improve?</p>
<p>If many of the students at your school struggle with a certain skill, the only solution is to improve teaching, says Sarah Spurlark of the University of Chicago’s Center for School Improvement. LSCs must invest money in staff development, she says. “It’s an investment that will pay off in your children.”</p>
<p>Some schools don’t offer any classes or workshops for teachers, leaving them to pursue learning on their own time. But what teachers learn on their own may not match the school’s improvement plan. For instance, if your grade school wants to improve in reading, and teachers take computer courses, you may not reach your goal.</p>
<p>Principals also need to attend any staff development offered to teachers, Spurlark says. If they don’t know what the new teaching methods are, they can’t tell if teachers are using them. Principals may also be critical of approaches that they don’t understand.</p>
<p>To put what they learn in workshops to use, teachers need help in the classroom, Spurlark says. Otherwise, “They go back and they teach exactly the same way they taught before the staff development.”</p>
<p>That help can come from an experienced teacher or an outside consultant who models the new approaches and gives advice.</p>
<p>Without that help, “By the time you go back to the reality of your room, you may forget some of the facts, some of the reasons behind it, even how exactly to get it [to work],” says an award- winning teacher. “And if you don’t know how to integrate it into what you already do, it’s like, ‘Dang, do I have to change everything I do to fit in this [new] approach?'”</p>
<p>Raelynne Toperoff, executive director of the Teachers Task Force, says a teacher questionnaire can be useful in assessing instructional leadership at a school. However, she cautions that it must be done with great sensitivity. “You certainly want to avoid strategies that put the principal on the firing line,” she explains. “That’s the softer side of being an LSC member. It’s a role that a lot of people may not be accustomed to.”</p>
<p>All surveying should be done above board and in collaboration with the principal, she says. “Having LSC members talk to individual teachers either after hours or on the phone or anything surreptitious is going to cause more problems than it solves.”</p>
<p>Toperoff recommends that councils begin by identifying what they think are the characteristics of a good instructional leader. Then they should write questions that deal with these characteristics but that steer clear of personalities. For example: Would you say the climate of the school promotes good work relations? Not: Does your principal promote good work relations? Or: What is the process for selecting new programs? Not: Does the principal give teachers a voice in selecting new programs?</p>
<p>Both the School Board’s Law Department and a majority of LSC members must approve a survey before it is distributed. “We want to make sure that it’s fair to the principal,” says the Law Department’s John Weinberger. “That it’s not, Do you want to keep the current lousy incompetent principal, or do you want a fresh start with a good principal?'”</p>
<p>Diplomacy is needed in handling the results, too, Toperoff continues, saying councils should strive to put principals in “a problem-solving mode,” not on the defensive.</p>
<p>Say 60 percent of teachers respond that the school climate does not promote good work relations, she says. “A good, savvy LSC might say to the principal, ‘We would like you to form a leadership team to explore this. Get a teacher, get a parent and have a couple of meetings as to how you might address this, and come back and let us know.'”</p>
<p>“That’s putting the leadership role where it belongs,” she says, with the principal.</p>
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help local school councils lsc assess adequacy instructional leadership schools catalyst sought advice university professor classroom teacher school reform group central administration sources suggested several key questions test scores rising rate citywide average chicago scores iowa tests basic skills rising decade lsc would want know scores going quickly citywide average says fred hess northwestern university average school city theyre going quickly aboveaverage school make fair judgment also consider whether school population changing influx lowincome students deflate test scores likewise middleincome children enroll scores may rise without effort schools part academic program well rounded schools tremendous pressure raise scores standardized math reading tests spend time subjects elementary schools cutting back science social studies says barbara radner depaul university according teachers workshops depaul elementary schools stopped teaching subjects altogether skipping science social studies elementary school spells trouble students later radner observed many high school classrooms dont know read science social studies textbook dont working vocabulary like molecule chemical result fail radner says books best clue whether science social studies taught ask see examples textbooks trade books teachers use subjects advises also check school library nonfiction books 30 years old says thats good sign even simpler strategy notes simply ask kids learn science week learn social studies week often principal visit classrooms nothing contributes test score gains principals getting classrooms according philip hansen school systems chief accountability officer thats always key schools go probation schools see improvement one high school probation math teacher reports administrators rarely observe classes meanwhile sees teachers handing worksheets days end without teaching new material principal unlikely change says change things dont know high school principals cant cover whole school need help department chairs assistant principals hansen acknowledges still many us feel strongly principals spend good part day visits announced visits unannounced visits quick visits long visits long visits entire period observe teacher begins lesson teacher ends lesson hansen says quick visits check see lesson corresponds lesson plan book look bulletin boards importantly quick visits show students around interested going also keeps teachers toes principals also need meet teachers visits says teachers need know principal liked didnt liked strategies following help get followup visit important visit teachers time plan together teachers plan lessons together likely conduct challenging ones according study consortium chicago school research schools teachers worked teams researchers found students often taught math grade level schools teachers worked alone instruction lagged behind example schools 8thgrade math teachers typically taught 5thgrade math keep teachers moving forward curriculum radner recommends weekly gradelevel meetings principals arrange scheduling children one grade gym art another special time leaves regular classroom teachers free work together addition teachers grade cycle primary intermediate upper meet every five weeks talk curriculum says grade level getting kids ready next otherwise may two grades teaching thing one north side elementary school young teacher says rarely gets time meet colleagues desperately needs ideas teaching math reading feel like im dark trying figure things says spent three months fractions kids still didnt really get school help teachers improve many students school struggle certain skill solution improve teaching says sarah spurlark university chicagos center school improvement lscs must invest money staff development says investment pay children schools dont offer classes workshops teachers leaving pursue learning time teachers learn may match schools improvement plan instance grade school wants improve reading teachers take computer courses may reach goal principals also need attend staff development offered teachers spurlark says dont know new teaching methods cant tell teachers using principals may also critical approaches dont understand put learn workshops use teachers need help classroom spurlark says otherwise go back teach exactly way taught staff development help come experienced teacher outside consultant models new approaches gives advice without help time go back reality room may forget facts reasons behind even exactly get work says award winning teacher dont know integrate already like dang change everything fit new approach raelynne toperoff executive director teachers task force says teacher questionnaire useful assessing instructional leadership school however cautions must done great sensitivity certainly want avoid strategies put principal firing line explains thats softer side lsc member role lot people may accustomed surveying done board collaboration principal says lsc members talk individual teachers either hours phone anything surreptitious going cause problems solves toperoff recommends councils begin identifying think characteristics good instructional leader write questions deal characteristics steer clear personalities example would say climate school promotes good work relations principal promote good work relations process selecting new programs principal give teachers voice selecting new programs school boards law department majority lsc members must approve survey distributed want make sure fair principal says law departments john weinberger want keep current lousy incompetent principal want fresh start good principal diplomacy needed handling results toperoff continues saying councils strive put principals problemsolving mode defensive say 60 percent teachers respond school climate promote good work relations says good savvy lsc might say principal would like form leadership team explore get teacher get parent couple meetings might address come back let us know thats putting leadership role belongs says principal
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<p>One year after a caliphate was declared spanning Syria and Iraq, there is little to celebrate — unless you're ISIS.</p>
<p>Despite a massive international campaign to defeat the the brutal militants, ISIS has not only managed to hold onto the territory but has expanded its reach beyond those borders over the last 12 months.</p>
<p>"It's been a great year for ISIS," according to Matthew Henman, head of IHS Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center. "This would be close to a best-case scenario for them."</p>
<p>Majeed Al-Hamadani, a 43-year-old high-school teacher in Baghdad, agreed. "Nothing was changed during the past year," he told NBC News. "ISIS lost some territories but they were able to take over other areas. The Iraqi soldiers do not have the will to fight."</p>
<p>The group burst onto the international stage when fighters bearing the black flag of ISIS seized control of Mosul, Iraq, in early June 2014. The Sunni militants had been mostly fighting in Syria before then, but the fall of Iraq's second city signaled the militants had bigger plans.</p>
<p>Days later ISIS overran Saddam Hussein's birthplace of Tikrit, another major prize in what became a lightning advance through northern Iraq.</p>
<p>June 29 marked another turning point: ISIS formally declared the establishment of a caliphate and their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the caliph. In addition to consolidating territory, the group also wanted to consolidate their brand: Islamist terror.</p>
<p>The Iraqi military proved ineffective against ISIS: many of its soldiers simply dropped their weapons and fled in face of the militants. It wasn't until August that the U.S. decided to intervene with airstrikes — spurred by fears ISIS would massacre minority Yazidis — and formed an anti-ISIS coalition.</p>
<p>The total cost of U.S. military operations in Iraq and Syria — airstrikes, training and more — since then has reached nearly $3 billion, at an average daily cost of $9.1 million.</p>
<p>But even amid the stepped up counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts, data shows ISIS attacks have continued largely unabated — helped by the fact that more people than ever are perpetrating violence in the group's name.</p>
<p>ISIS has been "remarkably successful" over the past year and is "certainly stronger now than it was a year ago," Henman said.</p>
<p>"When Mosul fell last year people were surprised, but I think people would have been more surprised if you'd said that a year later the group would still hold Mosul but would also hold Ramadi, as much territory as it is and be expanding further around the world," he added. "ISIS is super-coordinated."</p>
<p>The IHS Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center has recorded 3,095 attacks and 6,546 non-militant fatalities caused by ISIS since the announcement of the caliphate at the end of June 2014.</p>
<p>A further breakdown of figures shows that the number of attacks has held relatively steady month to month. ISIS mounted 210 attacks in July and 300 in August of 2014, according to data from JTIC. Both months saw more than 500 non-militant fatalities attributed to ISIS. Every month since has seen more than 220 attacks — often far more — with April and May of 2015 seeing 285 and 290 attacks respectively.</p>
<p>Many thought that ISIS would be forced to change operational patterns — like using large convoys to attack — in the face of airstrikes, but that hasn't come to pass.</p>
<p>While they've changed their approach somewhat, ISIS has still been able to mass enough fighters to overrun towns and bases, according to Henman.</p>
<p>Ramadi and "countless other" towns and military bases have been overrun by "large gatherings of militants that you would think would've been prime targets for airstrike," Henman said.</p>
<p>"That speaks a lot to the lack of coordination of Iraqi forces on the ground and coalition forces … There's a big disconnect there," he added.</p>
<p>The more moderate rebel groups like the Free Syrian Army which initially sprung up to defeat Syrian President Bashar Assad have found themselves facing off against ISIS. Now, hundreds of groups operate under the FSA banner — including the 3,000-fighter strong Swar Army.</p>
<p>It spokesman Ahmed Hisso told NBC News that while "you cannot deny the strength of ISIS," his fighters had achieved "important victories" against ISIS in recent months with the help of Kurdish fighters and the American coalition.</p>
<p>"With the help of the U.S. coalition I believe that we will achieve great results in the coming period against ISIS," he said.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">'We Expect More' From U.S., Iran-Backed Anti-ISIS Leader Says</a></p>
<p>However, Bassam Mustafa — whose Fastakim Union also fights for the FSA — said internal divisions have hindered any success on the ground.</p>
<p>"You can't compare us with ISIS. ISIS fights under one flag while we are divided," he said. "The FSA groups are not organized till now, which is a very big problem, while ISIS is very [well] organized."</p>
<p>He said his fighters need money, ammunition and weapons — a call echoed by other groups on the ground, including the Kurds.</p>
<p>"ISIS has all of that — including the oil sources they took over in Syria and Iraq," Mustafa said. "It was a difficult year for us and we didn't achieve real successes against ISIS. The next years would be worse for us if the situation doesn't change and we get real and effective support from the Western countries, particularly from the United States. Our revolution is in danger."</p>
<p>In Iraq, the military and the U.S. have traded blame — with Baghdad asking for more weapons and coordination to high-level American officials questioning Iraqis' will to fight.</p>
<p>Local Sunni militias and Iran-linked Shiite militias are also involved in the effort, not to mention <a href="" type="internal">Kurdish forces heavily engaged in the battle</a>.</p>
<p>"In Iraq alone you have a relatively substantial array of actors who are fighting ISIS but the thing that is hobbling that effort — preventing it from having full effectiveness — is that there are political factors at play that divide these actors," Henman said. "The counterinsurgency is becoming bedeviled by these political issues."</p>
<p>Plus, military action has had little impact on ISIS' own message which has been resonating globally. One year into the caliphate, ISIS continues to draw thousands of willing recruits to Iraq and Syria all while inspiring pledges of allegiance from jihadis around the world.</p>
<p>"It's not necessarily that the coalition campaigns in Iraq and Syria aren't having any impact, but they're not doing anything to stop the spread of the group around the world, to stop the appeal of the group, to stop new groups joining all the time," Henman said.</p>
<p>When ISIS declared a caliphate, the group was in control of a large swath of territory straddling Iraq and Syria. Now, there are ISIS affiliates in Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria and Pakistan. <a href="" type="internal">Fighters in Afghanistan</a> have <a href="" type="internal">splintered away from the Taliban</a> to wage war under the ISIS banner, while new "provinces" of the caliphate have cropped up in the Caucasus.</p>
<p>Even Nigeria's Boko Haram terror organization wants in on the caliphate — the group has pledged allegiance to ISIS and many analysts think it's only a matter of time before ISIS formally pronounces a West Africa province.</p>
<p>While the amount of territory ISIS controls in areas outside of Syria and Iraq is relatively small, in this case size might not matter so much.</p>
<p>"It still allows them to present themselves as having that victorious momentum," Henman explained. "That momentum hasn’t been challenged or worn down. In all their propaganda, they can say. 'look, we're continuing to expand.'"</p>
<p>Their arm of terror also has known no geographical bounds: the U.S., Britain and Japan have all reeled from the brutal beheadings of their hostage citizens by the militants and like many other nations have disrupted ISIS-inspired plots while trying to prevent returning jihadis from waging attacks on their soil.</p>
<p>That's not to say that ISIS has been completely victorious this year. There have been some notable defeats, such as the high-profile loss of Kobani. However, in recent days <a href="" type="internal">fighting there has resumed and it appears ISIS might be making a play to retake the city</a>.</p>
<p>While <a href="" type="internal">ISIS was pushed out of Tikrit</a>, the militants put up enough of a fight to show Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led coalition just how difficult a foe they would face in retaking other key cities such as Mosul.</p>
<p>Bashar al-Sa'di's brother was killed died three weeks ago fighting against ISIS in Tikrit.</p>
<p>"I am sad because I lost him, still I am happy because he died while defending Iraq and Iraqis," the 39-year-old told NBC News from Diyala province.</p>
<p>He described Iraqi forces' defeat in Mosul and Ramadi as a "tactical withdrawal" and expressed hope that the two cities would be wrested from ISIS control.</p>
<p>"We have the will to defeat ISIS, and we will do so," he told NBC News.</p>
<p>Not everyone agrees. Omar Faisal, 40, fled his home in Fallujah after ISIS took Mosul out of fear the militants would overrun his city as well.</p>
<p>"The news we heard about Iraqi forces leaving the city without fighting, dropping their weapons and uniforms to wear civilian clothes — I felt that this army cannot protect me and my family, so I decided to leave," he explained.</p>
<p>He too said that "nothing is changed in the past year," which leaves him pessimistic for the future.</p>
<p>"Still ISIS militants are strong and they were able to take over Ramadi… I do not think that the Iraqi government will be able this year to defeat ISIS."</p>
<p>Henman, however, noted that while "the caliphate is strong, it's still very much in a state of flux."</p>
<p>"Things could still fall apart," he said. But "it'd be a fancy to think that in a year's time the group could be completely rolled back and gone. The group can lose territory, it can be rolled back, the wings can be clipped to a certain extent… but the ideology they've created… That isn't going to go away.</p>
<p>"They've now started something that is going to continue to be attractive that can't be killed in a conventional sense."</p>
<p />
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one year caliphate declared spanning syria iraq little celebrate unless youre isis despite massive international campaign defeat brutal militants isis managed hold onto territory expanded reach beyond borders last 12 months great year isis according matthew henman head ihs janes terrorism insurgency center would close bestcase scenario majeed alhamadani 43yearold highschool teacher baghdad agreed nothing changed past year told nbc news isis lost territories able take areas iraqi soldiers fight group burst onto international stage fighters bearing black flag isis seized control mosul iraq early june 2014 sunni militants mostly fighting syria fall iraqs second city signaled militants bigger plans days later isis overran saddam husseins birthplace tikrit another major prize became lightning advance northern iraq june 29 marked another turning point isis formally declared establishment caliphate leader abu bakr albaghdadi caliph addition consolidating territory group also wanted consolidate brand islamist terror iraqi military proved ineffective isis many soldiers simply dropped weapons fled face militants wasnt august us decided intervene airstrikes spurred fears isis would massacre minority yazidis formed antiisis coalition total cost us military operations iraq syria airstrikes training since reached nearly 3 billion average daily cost 91 million even amid stepped counterterrorism counterinsurgency efforts data shows isis attacks continued largely unabated helped fact people ever perpetrating violence groups name isis remarkably successful past year certainly stronger year ago henman said mosul fell last year people surprised think people would surprised youd said year later group would still hold mosul would also hold ramadi much territory expanding around world added isis supercoordinated ihs janes terrorism insurgency center recorded 3095 attacks 6546 nonmilitant fatalities caused isis since announcement caliphate end june 2014 breakdown figures shows number attacks held relatively steady month month isis mounted 210 attacks july 300 august 2014 according data jtic months saw 500 nonmilitant fatalities attributed isis every month since seen 220 attacks often far april may 2015 seeing 285 290 attacks respectively many thought isis would forced change operational patterns like using large convoys attack face airstrikes hasnt come pass theyve changed approach somewhat isis still able mass enough fighters overrun towns bases according henman ramadi countless towns military bases overrun large gatherings militants would think wouldve prime targets airstrike henman said speaks lot lack coordination iraqi forces ground coalition forces theres big disconnect added moderate rebel groups like free syrian army initially sprung defeat syrian president bashar assad found facing isis hundreds groups operate fsa banner including 3000fighter strong swar army spokesman ahmed hisso told nbc news deny strength isis fighters achieved important victories isis recent months help kurdish fighters american coalition help us coalition believe achieve great results coming period isis said related expect us iranbacked antiisis leader says however bassam mustafa whose fastakim union also fights fsa said internal divisions hindered success ground cant compare us isis isis fights one flag divided said fsa groups organized till big problem isis well organized said fighters need money ammunition weapons call echoed groups ground including kurds isis including oil sources took syria iraq mustafa said difficult year us didnt achieve real successes isis next years would worse us situation doesnt change get real effective support western countries particularly united states revolution danger iraq military us traded blame baghdad asking weapons coordination highlevel american officials questioning iraqis fight local sunni militias iranlinked shiite militias also involved effort mention kurdish forces heavily engaged battle iraq alone relatively substantial array actors fighting isis thing hobbling effort preventing full effectiveness political factors play divide actors henman said counterinsurgency becoming bedeviled political issues plus military action little impact isis message resonating globally one year caliphate isis continues draw thousands willing recruits iraq syria inspiring pledges allegiance jihadis around world necessarily coalition campaigns iraq syria arent impact theyre anything stop spread group around world stop appeal group stop new groups joining time henman said isis declared caliphate group control large swath territory straddling iraq syria isis affiliates egypt libya saudi arabia yemen algeria pakistan fighters afghanistan splintered away taliban wage war isis banner new provinces caliphate cropped caucasus even nigerias boko haram terror organization wants caliphate group pledged allegiance isis many analysts think matter time isis formally pronounces west africa province amount territory isis controls areas outside syria iraq relatively small case size might matter much still allows present victorious momentum henman explained momentum hasnt challenged worn propaganda say look continuing expand arm terror also known geographical bounds us britain japan reeled brutal beheadings hostage citizens militants like many nations disrupted isisinspired plots trying prevent returning jihadis waging attacks soil thats say isis completely victorious year notable defeats highprofile loss kobani however recent days fighting resumed appears isis might making play retake city isis pushed tikrit militants put enough fight show iraqi forces usled coalition difficult foe would face retaking key cities mosul bashar alsadis brother killed died three weeks ago fighting isis tikrit sad lost still happy died defending iraq iraqis 39yearold told nbc news diyala province described iraqi forces defeat mosul ramadi tactical withdrawal expressed hope two cities would wrested isis control defeat isis told nbc news everyone agrees omar faisal 40 fled home fallujah isis took mosul fear militants would overrun city well news heard iraqi forces leaving city without fighting dropping weapons uniforms wear civilian clothes felt army protect family decided leave explained said nothing changed past year leaves pessimistic future still isis militants strong able take ramadi think iraqi government able year defeat isis henman however noted caliphate strong still much state flux things could still fall apart said itd fancy think years time group could completely rolled back gone group lose territory rolled back wings clipped certain extent ideology theyve created isnt going go away theyve started something going continue attractive cant killed conventional sense
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<p>Brian Zahnd, a pastor in St. Joseph, Mo., has a fascinating story. He was once the stereotypical successful church planter, one of those dynamic preachers who started a church that quickly grew to become the large campus that it still is today. But at the height of the growth and vitality, he became convicted that something was missing. His faith and his ministry felt empty and he didn’t know why. He began to read the works of the early church fathers and ancient mystics, and essentially what happened is that he rediscovered Jesus. He realized that what had been missing was the actual teaching and example of Jesus.</p>
<p>So he decided to do an extended sermon series on the Sermon on the Mount. He began to reorganize and re-vision his church to do the things that he felt Jesus would actually be doing (rather than just attending a worship concert once a week and maybe meeting in small groups at home over fatty snacks and lackluster curriculum). He began to challenge his people to rediscover the radical way of Jesus and what this might mean for their own choices and priorities.</p>
<p>That’s when people started to leave. They were challenged in ways they didn’t want to be challenged. They left for safer ground.</p>
<p>Too many pastors can tell you a story of things getting weird when you try to take Jesus seriously. One of my early mentors shared about the day he preached on Jesus’ discussion with the rich young man (Matthew 19:16-23 / Luke 18:18-25). A woman in the congregation, who had always been well off and liked nice things, objected to him talking about giving up money and possessions. When he pointed out that he was just trying to deal honestly with what Jesus said, the woman responded, “I know Jesus said it, but that doesn’t mean you have to say it.”</p>
<p>Christianity and the life of the church have become a lot of different things, but it seems that feathers always get ruffled when you actually start taking seriously the example and teachings of the guy supposedly at the center of it all.</p>
<p>Walter Rauschenbusch wrote, “Whoever uncouples the religious and the social life has not understood Jesus. Whoever sets any bounds for the reconstructive power of the religious life over the social relations and institutions of [humans], to that extent denies the faith of the Master.”</p>
<p>Especially when there’s cultural debate around a particular issue, people get trolled, families split apart, and pastors get fired when you start asking how we can take Jesus seriously. Jesus is fine as a name, but if you create an encounter between Jesus and the personal lives or politics of Christians, you might have trouble.</p>
<p>You can read Jesus’ words declaring blessed the “peacemakers,” “the meek,” and “the merciful” (Matt. 5:3-10), and you might get nods of approval, but if you start talking about actually being merciful towards the desperate or peaceful towards the violent, you might be called foolish.</p>
<p>You can read Jesus’ words about turning the other cheek (Matt. 5:39) and you won’t be chased out, but if you insert this into real life situations where people want revenge, you might be berated as weak, perhaps even unpatriotic, if you don’t go back to “eye for an eye.”</p>
<p>You can quote Jesus’ approach to our material possessions as “treasures on earth where moths and vermin destroy” (Matt. 6:19-20), or tell the story of the rich man being told to sell all he has (Mark 10:17-22). You can get a wink and a smile as you read Jesus saying that it’s “easier for the camel to go through the eye of a needle” (Luke 18:25). But start talking about actual economic equity, and you might be called a communist.</p>
<p>Surrounded by glimmering Christmas lights and angelic choruses, we read the story of a young Jesus’ family having to flee a violent ruler (Matt. 2:13-18). But bring up that this made Jesus’ family refugees and ask how this should inform our approach to the millions in similar situations today, and you might be told to get your politics out of church.</p>
<p>You can read the passage where Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah in the temple (Luke 4:18-19), saying that fulfilled in Him is God’s mission to “proclaim good news to the poor … freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” You’re fine as long as you understand these words in a spiritualized, abstract way (Isaiah didn’t). But beware if you start talking about how to seek actual freedom and redemption for the imprisoned, or if you start trying to define who is actually “oppressed” and how to actually set them free. (And have you ever looked into what “the year of the Lord’s favor” refers to?)</p>
<p>I’m reminded of those great lines from Wilbur Rees:</p>
<p>I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of God to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.</p>
<p>Jonathan Martin recently lamented on Twitter: “A 30-minute sermon won’t teach people to love neighbors their cable news teaches them all week to fear or hate. They’ve already been discipled.” He’s probably right, but that’s not the end of the story. That’s why we need more than preaching. We need it in real life and a real movement. To anyone reading this who seeks to take Jesus seriously: stick with it. People may leave — they left Jesus himself (John 6:66). But we must teach and live Jesus. We need it now more than ever.</p>
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brian zahnd pastor st joseph mo fascinating story stereotypical successful church planter one dynamic preachers started church quickly grew become large campus still today height growth vitality became convicted something missing faith ministry felt empty didnt know began read works early church fathers ancient mystics essentially happened rediscovered jesus realized missing actual teaching example jesus decided extended sermon series sermon mount began reorganize revision church things felt jesus would actually rather attending worship concert week maybe meeting small groups home fatty snacks lackluster curriculum began challenge people rediscover radical way jesus might mean choices priorities thats people started leave challenged ways didnt want challenged left safer ground many pastors tell story things getting weird try take jesus seriously one early mentors shared day preached jesus discussion rich young man matthew 191623 luke 181825 woman congregation always well liked nice things objected talking giving money possessions pointed trying deal honestly jesus said woman responded know jesus said doesnt mean say christianity life church become lot different things seems feathers always get ruffled actually start taking seriously example teachings guy supposedly center walter rauschenbusch wrote whoever uncouples religious social life understood jesus whoever sets bounds reconstructive power religious life social relations institutions humans extent denies faith master especially theres cultural debate around particular issue people get trolled families split apart pastors get fired start asking take jesus seriously jesus fine name create encounter jesus personal lives politics christians might trouble read jesus words declaring blessed peacemakers meek merciful matt 5310 might get nods approval start talking actually merciful towards desperate peaceful towards violent might called foolish read jesus words turning cheek matt 539 wont chased insert real life situations people want revenge might berated weak perhaps even unpatriotic dont go back eye eye quote jesus approach material possessions treasures earth moths vermin destroy matt 61920 tell story rich man told sell mark 101722 get wink smile read jesus saying easier camel go eye needle luke 1825 start talking actual economic equity might called communist surrounded glimmering christmas lights angelic choruses read story young jesus family flee violent ruler matt 21318 bring made jesus family refugees ask inform approach millions similar situations today might told get politics church read passage jesus read prophet isaiah temple luke 41819 saying fulfilled gods mission proclaim good news poor freedom prisoners recovery sight blind set oppressed free proclaim year lords favor youre fine long understand words spiritualized abstract way isaiah didnt beware start talking seek actual freedom redemption imprisoned start trying define actually oppressed actually set free ever looked year lords favor refers im reminded great lines wilbur rees would like buy 3 worth god please enough explode soul disturb sleep enough equal cup warm milk snooze sunshine dont want enough god make love black man pick beets migrant want ecstasy transformation want warmth womb new birth want pound eternal paper sack would like buy 3 worth god please jonathan martin recently lamented twitter 30minute sermon wont teach people love neighbors cable news teaches week fear hate theyve already discipled hes probably right thats end story thats need preaching need real life real movement anyone reading seeks take jesus seriously stick people may leave left jesus john 666 must teach live jesus need ever
| 537 |
<p>SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — The polls have closed in Ukraine’s autonomous Crimean region following a contentious day of voters casting ballots Sunday in a referendum on whether the peninsula should become part of Russia instead.</p>
<p>The voting ended at 8 p.m. local time (2 p.m. ET)</p>
<p>The referendum, backed by Moscow and adamantly opposed by Ukraine’s new government and its western allies, is expected to be easily approved. Crimea has a large ethnic Russian population, and <a href="" type="internal">pro-Russian sentiment is deeply felt in Simferopol</a>, the region's main administrative city.</p>
<p>At a polling station at Simferopol's School No. 35, voters began lining up at 7:30 Sunday morning, officials inside the building said, half an hour before the doors opened to the public.</p>
<p>By mid-morning, 500 people had voted at that station, taking paper ballots into booths covered by an oversize Crimean tricolor flag.</p>
<p>Voters, many of them older pensioners bundled in heavy sweaters and wool overcoats, deposited their ballots in plastic bins, before making their way outside into the damp and cold weather.</p>
<p>The ballots offered only two options alongside a box to check in ink. "Are you for Crimea reuniting with Russia?" the first question asked. The second asked if voters were instead in favor of restoring an older constitution that makes Crimea a semi-independent part of Ukraine.</p>
<p>The signed ballots, visible inside the transparent bins, were seemingly marked overwhelmingly in favor of the first question.</p>
<p>Russian reports claimed exit polling showed 93 percent in favor of the pro-russian proposition, but Mykhail Milashev, the head of the Crimean Electoral Commission, later said the "exit poll bears no direct relation to real commission findings."</p>
<p>When asked how the voting went, Milashev said "there were no police reports made."</p>
<p>A sense of order in Simferopol was ensured by a quiet show of force along main routes, where masked gunmen in military fatigues guarded intersections and stood near armored vehicles.</p>
<p>The gunmen first arrived in this city two weeks ago, after Ukraine's pro-Moscow president was forced out of office during sustained and bloody protests in the nation's capital, Kiev. The gunmen do not officially identify themselves as Russian, though at least some of the vehicles have Russian license plates.</p>
<p>Even as the votes were being cast Sunday, a cool sense of tension continued.</p>
<p>Along one boulevard here, Ukrainian troops stood guard inside the front gate of a military base. Outside the locked gate, the gunmen smoked cigarettes on the sidewalk and pet a small cat perched on the steps of a building.</p>
<p>Ukraine's new prime minister insisted again Sunday that neither Ukraine nor the West will recognize the referendum, which it says is being conducted at gunpoint.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk called the vote a "circus performance," and told a government meeting Sunday that 21,000 Russian troops on site here are "trying to prove the legality" of the outcome.</p>
<p>But, on Saturday, Russia vetoed a U.N. resolution criticizing the referendum, and the United States’ ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power, said <a href="" type="internal">the lone “no” vote showed how isolated</a> Russia had become on the issue.</p>
<p>Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday said Russia will face sanctions if it supports the referendum and has warned of "an even greater response" if Russia sends troops into eastern Ukraine.</p>
<p>But local politicians here in Crimea are speaking optimistically about expanding Russia's reach into other areas of Ukraine.</p>
<p>During an interview with NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel, Crimea's Deputy Prime Minister called Sunday's referendum "the first step."</p>
<p>"It's the first step. I really think so," the deputy prime minister, Rustam Temirgaliev, said. "I think the second step will be eastern Ukraine."</p>
<p>Temirgaliev added that plans were underway to introduce the Russian Ruble in Crimea by early April, and that his government is exploring running a cable eastward to deliver Russian electrical energy to the peninsula.</p>
<p>Facing questions about the legitimacy of the referendum, Crimean election officials invited independent election observers.</p>
<p>But the effort seemed to backfire this weekend, after an event intended to introduce a handful of monitors to reporters Saturday drew criticism for its sharp political tone.</p>
<p>"He's got another thing coming, the leader of the free world," one of the election monitors told reporters of President Obama's support for the new government in Kiev.</p>
<p>Later, during a brief interview with NBC NEWS on Sunday, the monitor, Serge Trifkovic, a Serbian-American foreign affairs commentator, described the results of the referendum as "pre-ordained."</p>
<p>NBC News encountered Trifkovic in a downtown Simferopol square, where he said he was on lunch break from his monitoring duties.</p>
<p>"Let's face it," Trifkovic said. "Such referenda are not meant to be lost."</p>
<p>At several polling stations Sunday, voters spoke in favor of joining Russia.</p>
<p>Up the road from School No. 35, at a second public school specializing in teaching English, a local baker sold pastries in the front entrance.</p>
<p>Down a maze of hallways lined with maps of the solar system and announcements of school activities was a polling station, this one also busy by midday.</p>
<p>"I always dreamt of being a Russian citizen," one voter said in English.</p>
<p>The voter, Tatiana, an English teacher, said she had been told salaries and pensions are higher in Russia.</p>
<p>"I have a lot of friends in Russia, and they live better," she said.</p>
<p />
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simferopol ukraine polls closed ukraines autonomous crimean region following contentious day voters casting ballots sunday referendum whether peninsula become part russia instead voting ended 8 pm local time 2 pm et referendum backed moscow adamantly opposed ukraines new government western allies expected easily approved crimea large ethnic russian population prorussian sentiment deeply felt simferopol regions main administrative city polling station simferopols school 35 voters began lining 730 sunday morning officials inside building said half hour doors opened public midmorning 500 people voted station taking paper ballots booths covered oversize crimean tricolor flag voters many older pensioners bundled heavy sweaters wool overcoats deposited ballots plastic bins making way outside damp cold weather ballots offered two options alongside box check ink crimea reuniting russia first question asked second asked voters instead favor restoring older constitution makes crimea semiindependent part ukraine signed ballots visible inside transparent bins seemingly marked overwhelmingly favor first question russian reports claimed exit polling showed 93 percent favor prorussian proposition mykhail milashev head crimean electoral commission later said exit poll bears direct relation real commission findings asked voting went milashev said police reports made sense order simferopol ensured quiet show force along main routes masked gunmen military fatigues guarded intersections stood near armored vehicles gunmen first arrived city two weeks ago ukraines promoscow president forced office sustained bloody protests nations capital kiev gunmen officially identify russian though least vehicles russian license plates even votes cast sunday cool sense tension continued along one boulevard ukrainian troops stood guard inside front gate military base outside locked gate gunmen smoked cigarettes sidewalk pet small cat perched steps building ukraines new prime minister insisted sunday neither ukraine west recognize referendum says conducted gunpoint prime minister arseniy yatsenyuk called vote circus performance told government meeting sunday 21000 russian troops site trying prove legality outcome saturday russia vetoed un resolution criticizing referendum united states ambassador un samantha power said lone vote showed isolated russia become issue secretary state john kerry friday said russia face sanctions supports referendum warned even greater response russia sends troops eastern ukraine local politicians crimea speaking optimistically expanding russias reach areas ukraine interview nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel crimeas deputy prime minister called sundays referendum first step first step really think deputy prime minister rustam temirgaliev said think second step eastern ukraine temirgaliev added plans underway introduce russian ruble crimea early april government exploring running cable eastward deliver russian electrical energy peninsula facing questions legitimacy referendum crimean election officials invited independent election observers effort seemed backfire weekend event intended introduce handful monitors reporters saturday drew criticism sharp political tone hes got another thing coming leader free world one election monitors told reporters president obamas support new government kiev later brief interview nbc news sunday monitor serge trifkovic serbianamerican foreign affairs commentator described results referendum preordained nbc news encountered trifkovic downtown simferopol square said lunch break monitoring duties lets face trifkovic said referenda meant lost several polling stations sunday voters spoke favor joining russia road school 35 second public school specializing teaching english local baker sold pastries front entrance maze hallways lined maps solar system announcements school activities polling station one also busy midday always dreamt russian citizen one voter said english voter tatiana english teacher said told salaries pensions higher russia lot friends russia live better said
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<p>MOVING IN/ON Charles Payne, a leading scholar in research on urban school reform and social inequality, has been named the Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration. He will also serve as a member of the university’s Committee on Education. Payne most recently was a professor of history and African-American studies at Duke University and was previously on the faculty at Northwestern University. … Jerry Gliege, retired principal of Sawyer Elementary, will be an adviser and help hire the new principal and faculty at Harvard Elementary, which will be run by the Academy of Urban School Leadership (AUSL). AUSL took over Sherman Elementary this year under the district’s “turnaround” strategy, which allows students to remain at a school while a new staff takes over. … Tom Layman, head of the Chicago Metropolitan Association for the Education of Young Children, is now vice president of program development at Illinois Action for Children. He will oversee existing early learning programs and develop new ones. … Glenn W. “Max” McGee, chairman of the Golden Apple Foundation board and former state superintendent of education, has been named president of the Illinois Math and Science Academy in Aurora. He replaces Stephanie Pace Marshall, who has led the Academy since its opening in 1986.</p>
<p>AT CLARK STREET Donald R. Pittman, chief officer in the Office of High School Programs, is retiring. David Gilligan, former principal of Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences, will serve as his interim replacement. … John Maiorca, chief financial officer, is retiring this month. A replacement has not been named. … Pat Baccellieri, principal of South Loop Elementary, has been named deputy of instructional design and assessment. He will work on the CPS Math and Science Initiative.</p>
<p>AT CITY HALL Ald. Latasha Thomas (18th Ward) is the new chair of the City Council Committee on Education and Child Development, replacing Ald. Patrick J. O’ Connor (40th Ward), who now chairs the Committee on Traffic Control and Safety. O’Connor will remain a member of the education committee.</p>
<p>OVERCROWDING BILL State Sen. Martin Sandoval and other legislators, including State Sen. Tony Munoz and state representatives Dan Burke and Susana Mendoza, held a public hearing at Sawyer Elementary to announce their support for Senate Bill 1845, which would provide resources and funding for expansion in severely overcrowded schools, particularly those on the Southwest Side. If passed, the bill would allow eligible schools to apply to the state’s Capital Development Board for grants for new construction projects. According to Sandoval, one-third of all CPS elementary schools operating over capacity are located on the Southwest Side in predominantly Latino neighborhoods.</p>
<p>STUDENTS ON DROPOUTS Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE), a coalition of community groups, was awarded $1.5 million from the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation to engage students in research and advocacy work to improve graduation, dropout and college enrollment rates for CPS students. Student leaders from 12 high schools (Roosevelt, Mather, Kelly, Curie Metro, Kelvyn Park, North-Grand, Dyett, Kenwood Academy, Senn, Sullivan, Hubbard, and Perspectives Charter at Calumet) will participate in a six-month research project that will include interviewing administrators, teachers, and peers at their schools. Local universities will help translate findings into recommendations for improving high school reform.</p>
<p>PRINCIPAL CONTRACTS New contracts have been awarded to Carlos G. Azcoitia, Greeley (Azcoitia is the son of Carlos Azcoitia, retiring principal of Spry Community School); Patricia Bowman, Palmer; Pamela Brandt, Goudy; Bernadette Butler, Ray; Zipporah Hightower, Kellogg; Jose Luis Illanes, Madero Middle; Catherine Jernigan, Jensen; Daniel Lucas, Peterson; Edwin Rivera, Monroe; Willie White III, Jordan. … The following principals have had their contracts renewed: Yvette Curington, Goldblatt; Tyrone Dowdell, W. Green; Carolyn Draper, Cullen; Gerald Dugan, Marsh; Ana Martinez-Estka, Avondale; Donald Fraynd, Jones College Prep; Miryam Assaf-Keller, Lloyd; M. Graciela Shelley, Darwin; Zelma Woodson, Jenner.</p>
<p>PRINCIPAL RETIREES The following principals are retiring: Betty Allen-Green, Herzl; Bruce M. Allman, Chappell; Shirley A. Antwi-Barfi, Jensen/Miller Scholastic; Carlos M. Azcoitia, Spry and Community Links; Carolyn T. Baldwin, Guggenheim; Delores L. Bedar, Williams; Myron M. Berger, Near North; James E. Breashears, Robeson; Jacqueline J. Buford-Gage, Farren Fine Arts; John A. Butterfield, Mather; Victoria Cadavid, Pickard; Frank Candioto, Foreman; Rosemary Childers, Brunson; Ruby L. Coatas, Hurley; Celia H. Coleman, Banneker; Maureen Connolly, Kellogg; Joan Dameron Crisler, Dixon; Phyllis Crombie-Brown, Brown; David Dalton, Grimes/Fleming; Flora E. Dangerfield, Gary; Gloria Jean Davis, Bethune; Voyia Davis, Parker Community Academy &amp; CPC; Lucille Denmark, Reed; Loretta Dent, Overton; Stephanie E. Dunn, Burke; Linda B. Echols, Madison; Elizabeth Elizondo, Evergreen Academy Middle; David Espinoza, Sandoval; Lilliana Evers, Funston; Cydney Fields, Ray; Cynthia Fitzpatrick, Von Schiller; Elizabeth A. Gearon, Greene; Gerard A. Gliege, Sawyer; Salvador Gonzalez, Chopin; Carol Habel, Belding; Deborah P. Hammond-Watts, Suder Montessori Magnet; Maurice Harvey, Jordan Community; Beverly Hides Moriello, Goethe; Vivian Diane Hudson-Davis, Mason; Diane Lillard Jackson, Englewood; Joyce E. Jager, Eberhart; Betty Johnson-Rojas, Haugan; Janice C. Keeley, Canty; Patricia Kent, Penn; Susan L. Kurland, Nettelhorst; Rudy Joan Bratman Lubov, Gale Community; Jerlyn Williams Maloy, May Community; Kathleen Mayer, Carson; Nancy J. Mayer, Vaughn Occupational High; James P. Menconi, Monroe; Robert C. Miller, Bogan Computer Tech High; Gary M. Moriello, Gladstone; Carolyn Griffin Palmer, Spencer; James Patrick, School of Leadership; James C. Pawelski, Falconer; Rosa Haydee Ramirez, Madero; Reynes Reyes, Goudy; Juana Rivera-Vidal, Washington High; Jack William Rocklin, Cleveland; Sylvia A. Rodriguez, Davis; Paula K. Rossino, Peirce School of International Studies; Maureen Savas, Nightingale; Donald Schmitt, Ryerson; Anthony Scott, Austin Community; Melver L. Scott, Crane Tech; Rita A. Stasi, Corkery; Louisea Storey, Ruggles; Marlene Szymanski, Manierre and Ferguson CPC; Brenda E. Thomas, Fairfield; Larry J. Thomas, Coles; Miguel Angel Velazquez, Whitney; Alice B. Vila, Barry; Anita M. Ward, Burnside; Corene S. Washington, Kipling; Sherry A. West Paul, Stagg; Barbara A. Williams, Williams; Mary L. Zeltmann, Jackson.</p>
<p>INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION Walter Payton College Prep has become the only high school in the nation to win a $25,000 Goldman Sachs Foundation Prize for Excellence in International Education. The award is given to schools that engage students with curricula that have an international focus. Payton students take four years of a foreign language, participate in study abroad and use technology to connect with students in other countries.</p>
<p>TEACHER AWARDS Connie Moran, director of financial education at Ariel Community Academy, has been named a Teacher of the Year by the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship. Ariel’s program teaches children about finances by giving each entering 1st-grade class a $20,000 fund to invest over the course of their elementary schooling (See Catalyst, October 2006). … Michaelene Kelly, an art teacher at Barnard Elementary won the 2007 MetLife Foundation Ambassador In Education Award, which recognizes educators who connect their schools to the community through collaborative projects.</p>
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moving inon charles payne leading scholar research urban school reform social inequality named frank p hixon distinguished service professor university chicagos school social service administration also serve member universitys committee education payne recently professor history africanamerican studies duke university previously faculty northwestern university jerry gliege retired principal sawyer elementary adviser help hire new principal faculty harvard elementary run academy urban school leadership ausl ausl took sherman elementary year districts turnaround strategy allows students remain school new staff takes tom layman head chicago metropolitan association education young children vice president program development illinois action children oversee existing early learning programs develop new ones glenn w max mcgee chairman golden apple foundation board former state superintendent education named president illinois math science academy aurora replaces stephanie pace marshall led academy since opening 1986 clark street donald r pittman chief officer office high school programs retiring david gilligan former principal chicago high school agricultural sciences serve interim replacement john maiorca chief financial officer retiring month replacement named pat baccellieri principal south loop elementary named deputy instructional design assessment work cps math science initiative city hall ald latasha thomas 18th ward new chair city council committee education child development replacing ald patrick j connor 40th ward chairs committee traffic control safety oconnor remain member education committee overcrowding bill state sen martin sandoval legislators including state sen tony munoz state representatives dan burke susana mendoza held public hearing sawyer elementary announce support senate bill 1845 would provide resources funding expansion severely overcrowded schools particularly southwest side passed bill would allow eligible schools apply states capital development board grants new construction projects according sandoval onethird cps elementary schools operating capacity located southwest side predominantly latino neighborhoods students dropouts voices youth chicago education voyce coalition community groups awarded 15 million bill amp melinda gates foundation engage students research advocacy work improve graduation dropout college enrollment rates cps students student leaders 12 high schools roosevelt mather kelly curie metro kelvyn park northgrand dyett kenwood academy senn sullivan hubbard perspectives charter calumet participate sixmonth research project include interviewing administrators teachers peers schools local universities help translate findings recommendations improving high school reform principal contracts new contracts awarded carlos g azcoitia greeley azcoitia son carlos azcoitia retiring principal spry community school patricia bowman palmer pamela brandt goudy bernadette butler ray zipporah hightower kellogg jose luis illanes madero middle catherine jernigan jensen daniel lucas peterson edwin rivera monroe willie white iii jordan following principals contracts renewed yvette curington goldblatt tyrone dowdell w green carolyn draper cullen gerald dugan marsh ana martinezestka avondale donald fraynd jones college prep miryam assafkeller lloyd graciela shelley darwin zelma woodson jenner principal retirees following principals retiring betty allengreen herzl bruce allman chappell shirley antwibarfi jensenmiller scholastic carlos azcoitia spry community links carolyn baldwin guggenheim delores l bedar williams myron berger near north james e breashears robeson jacqueline j bufordgage farren fine arts john butterfield mather victoria cadavid pickard frank candioto foreman rosemary childers brunson ruby l coatas hurley celia h coleman banneker maureen connolly kellogg joan dameron crisler dixon phyllis crombiebrown brown david dalton grimesfleming flora e dangerfield gary gloria jean davis bethune voyia davis parker community academy amp cpc lucille denmark reed loretta dent overton stephanie e dunn burke linda b echols madison elizabeth elizondo evergreen academy middle david espinoza sandoval lilliana evers funston cydney fields ray cynthia fitzpatrick von schiller elizabeth gearon greene gerard gliege sawyer salvador gonzalez chopin carol habel belding deborah p hammondwatts suder montessori magnet maurice harvey jordan community beverly hides moriello goethe vivian diane hudsondavis mason diane lillard jackson englewood joyce e jager eberhart betty johnsonrojas haugan janice c keeley canty patricia kent penn susan l kurland nettelhorst rudy joan bratman lubov gale community jerlyn williams maloy may community kathleen mayer carson nancy j mayer vaughn occupational high james p menconi monroe robert c miller bogan computer tech high gary moriello gladstone carolyn griffin palmer spencer james patrick school leadership james c pawelski falconer rosa haydee ramirez madero reynes reyes goudy juana riveravidal washington high jack william rocklin cleveland sylvia rodriguez davis paula k rossino peirce school international studies maureen savas nightingale donald schmitt ryerson anthony scott austin community melver l scott crane tech rita stasi corkery louisea storey ruggles marlene szymanski manierre ferguson cpc brenda e thomas fairfield larry j thomas coles miguel angel velazquez whitney alice b vila barry anita ward burnside corene washington kipling sherry west paul stagg barbara williams williams mary l zeltmann jackson international education walter payton college prep become high school nation win 25000 goldman sachs foundation prize excellence international education award given schools engage students curricula international focus payton students take four years foreign language participate study abroad use technology connect students countries teacher awards connie moran director financial education ariel community academy named teacher year national foundation teaching entrepreneurship ariels program teaches children finances giving entering 1stgrade class 20000 fund invest course elementary schooling see catalyst october 2006 michaelene kelly art teacher barnard elementary 2007 metlife foundation ambassador education award recognizes educators connect schools community collaborative projects
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<p>LONG AN PROVINCE, Vietnam — My Hanh, 20 miles west of Ho Chi Minh City, is a prosperous town of brick and concrete farmhouses interspersed with huge Japanese-owned electronics factories.</p>
<p>When Cai Van Minh, 56, was growing up during the Vietnam War, My Hanh was a tiny village surrounded by an unbroken expanse of rice paddies and thatched-roof bamboo huts. In March 1963, the South Vietnamese government ordered Minh and his family to leave My Hanh, relocating them into a brand-new “strategic hamlet” half a mile away called Tram Lac.</p>
<p>The Saigon government was building the hamlets as part of an all-out push to defeat the increasingly aggressive communist Viet Cong insurgency, which already effectively governed much of the territory of South Vietnam.</p>
<p>The “strategic hamlets” campaign was one of the first major U.S.-backed counterinsurgency efforts in the Vietnam War, which lasted from 1960 to 1975 and killed at least 3 million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans. ( <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/vietnam/090326/lessons-vietnam" type="external">Click here</a> to read the first part of this series: Lessons of Vietnam.)</p>
<p>The same year that Minh’s family was relocated, a 22-year-old American foreign service officer was posted to a province in Vietnam's Mekong Delta, where he found himself running the province's "strategic hamlets" program.</p>
<p>It was the officer's first experience with insurgent warfare in a career that would involve many. The officer was Richard Holbrooke, who is now U.S. President Barack Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, charged with the diplomatic side of American efforts to defeat the Taliban insurgency. And while the details differ, many of the problems the U.S. faces today in Afghanistan are the same as those Holbrooke faced at the beginning of his career in Vietnam.</p>
<p />
<p>The idea of the strategic hamlet was first put forward by the British officer Robert Thompson and the visionary CIA officer William Colby. It was modeled on a program that helped the British defeat a communist insurgency in Malaya in the early 1950s.</p>
<p>The aim of the program was to separate the Viet Cong from the population they depended on. Chinese communist ruler Mao Zedong had said a guerrilla army moves among the people like a fish in water. Now South Vietnam’s authoritarian anti-communist president, Ngo Dinh Diem, vowed he would “drain the pond to catch the fish.”</p>
<p>Minh remembers the anger of peasants taken away from their ancestral lands — home of the graves of their ancestors&#160;— and dumped in shoddy concrete houses surrounded by barbed-wire fences, forced to present identification cards to soldiers at the hamlet gate. He recalls the terror of random shelling by South Vietnamese artillery every night, which was an ineffectual attempt to harass Viet Cong troops. The shelling only added to the population’s antagonism. Although the strategic hamlets were supposed to protect the peasants from the Viet Cong, they were actually driving even more of them to support the communists.</p>
<p>“At that point, the number of people in the strategic hamlet who supported the Viet Cong was about two-thirds,” Minh says.</p>
<p>For Minh, the shift in allegiance was permanent. After South Vietnam fell to the North in 1975, Minh pursued a career in the communist town administration. He retired last year as vice chairman of My Hanh's People's Committee.</p>
<p>The fact that the strategic hamlets program failed does not mean it was poor counterinsurgency theory.</p>
<p>According to military historian Nguyen Huu Nguyen, a colonel in the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) who fought in the South from 1965 to 1975, the strategic hamlets program was a good idea. In fact, the goal it sought to achieve was crucial: “population control,” as it is called in the new 2007 U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Field Manual, co-authored by Gen. David Petraeus. It is the same goal that Petraeus pursued in Baghdad by walling off ethnically homogenous neighborhoods and instituting curfews and checkpoints.</p>
<p>But in Vietnam, it didn’t work. Corrupt government administrators stole funds meant for construction and social programs. To generate positive statistics, the government expanded the program too fast&#160;— when Holbrooke arrived in the Mekong Delta, he found many of the hamlets in his province existed only on paper. The government lacked troops to defend them.</p>
<p>In mid-1963, the Viet Cong launched a campaign to overwhelm the hamlets. They assassinated village government officials, including administrators and teachers, and encouraged villagers to tear down the fences. The campaign gathered steam when president Diem was killed by his own generals in a coup in November. By early 1964, most of the strategic hamlets had been destroyed, their populations returning to their former villages or streaming into the cities as refugees.</p>
<p>“In Vietnam the U.S. built strategic hamlets and still lost,” Nguyen said. “In Afghanistan, where they cannot even build strategic hamlets, there is no way for the U.S. to win.”</p>
<p>One reason the strategic hamlets program failed is that it was too inflexible an application of a technique from Malaya.</p>
<p>Many analysts have criticized the U.S. for misapplying old solutions, fighting in Vietnam as if it were Korea, Malaya or the Philippines rather than adapting to local realities. The new counterinsurgency manual tries to avoid such mistakes. Planners in Afghanistan will not simply replicate techniques from Vietnam or Iraq. They will recognize that the goals, actors, resources and constraints in Afghanistan are different. And they will employ an “iterative” process, testing out new techniques, discarding failures and adopting successes.</p>
<p>But counterinsurgency strategy in Vietnam was iterative too. The strategic hamlets program was an early example of a long series of increasingly sophisticated attempts to pacify South Vietnam’s countryside between 1954 and 1975.</p>
<p>Popular mythology holds that the U.S. never attempted to address the social roots of Vietnam’s civil war. But in fact, numerous American analysts devoted immense resources to studying and addressing the sociopolitical side of the war.</p>
<p>Col. John Paul Vann and then-National Security Adviser Robert Komer saw that social change was a prerequisite for political success, and created the “Revolutionary Development Cadres”&#160;— teams of South Vietnamese social workers who were paired with USAID workers to bring social and economic improvements to the countryside. This evolved into the CORDS program, which has influenced the <a href="http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/sr152.html" type="external">Provincial Reconstruction Teams</a> that <a href="http://smallwarsjournal.com/mag/docs-temp/104-westerman.pdf" type="external">operate today in Afghanistan</a>.</p>
<p>CIA officer William Colby recognized that security required local defense forces, and he backed the “Combined Action Platoons,” which paired a squad of U.S. Marines with local soldiers living in a single village.</p>
<p>The RAND Corporation’s social science researchers realized that pacification required a metric for assessing success, and devised the “Hamlet Evaluation Surveys,” which tried to produce reliable data that could generate a measurement of how much of the countryside was really under government control.</p>
<p>The CIA, meanwhile, understood that a sophisticated social and political view of the conflict required an attempt to dismantle the Viet Cong’s shadow government, and set up the “Phoenix” program to gather intelligence and promote defections, arrests and assassinations of Viet Cong officials. Experts at USAID, RAND, the State Department and elsewhere saw the need for land reform to draw impoverished poor peasants away from the communists, and finally convinced the Vietnamese government to adopt a law that redistributed land from wealthy landowners to poor farmers. And this is just a partial list of efforts to combat the war's social underpinnings.</p>
<p>The U.S. war in Vietnam, particularly from 1966 on, was never purely military in nature.</p>
<p>Indeed, American civilian aid efforts in South Vietnam dwarf the American efforts in Afghanistan today. In 1967, USAID’s budget in Vietnam was $550 million — $3.5 billion in today’s dollars, compared with a U.S. aid budget in Afghanistan of $1 billion a year. Meanwhile, the Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan are almost entirely military, with just 50 civilian staff.</p>
<p>The U.S. has announced it will send up to 300 more State Department civilians to Afghanistan. But that number pales in comparison to the more than 2,000 civilian personnel USAID had in South Vietnam in 1967. And South Vietnam was smaller, both in physical size and population, than Afghanistan.</p>
<p>The U.S. new strategy review for Afghanistan, scheduled to be unveiled <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/notebook/worldview/090326/obamas-new-intiative-afghanistan" type="external">March 27</a>, reportedly focuses on integrating the sociopolitical and military elements of counterinsurgency. But in introducing the Afghanistan strategy to NATO officials earlier this week, Holbrooke said that simply spending a lot of money on aid does not guarantee results.</p>
<p>Holbrooke called the U.S. program to eradicate opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan&#160;— which has thus far cost $800 million — “the most wasteful and ineffective program I have seen in 40 years."</p>
<p>The last time Holbrooke saw such a wasteful and ineffective program, then, was in the late 1960s, when he was one of America's senior pacification officials for Vietnam.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/vietnam/090326/lessons-vietnam" type="external">Part one: Lessons of Vietnam</a></p>
<p>Related GlobalPost dispatches:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/afghanistan/090323/exclusive-former-taliban-see-opening-talks" type="external">Exclusive: Former Taliban see opening for talks</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/worldview/090202/coin-toss-afghanistan" type="external">A coin toss in Afghanistan</a></p>
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long province vietnam hanh 20 miles west ho chi minh city prosperous town brick concrete farmhouses interspersed huge japaneseowned electronics factories cai van minh 56 growing vietnam war hanh tiny village surrounded unbroken expanse rice paddies thatchedroof bamboo huts march 1963 south vietnamese government ordered minh family leave hanh relocating brandnew strategic hamlet half mile away called tram lac saigon government building hamlets part allout push defeat increasingly aggressive communist viet cong insurgency already effectively governed much territory south vietnam strategic hamlets campaign one first major usbacked counterinsurgency efforts vietnam war lasted 1960 1975 killed least 3 million vietnamese 58000 americans click read first part series lessons vietnam year minhs family relocated 22yearold american foreign service officer posted province vietnams mekong delta found running provinces strategic hamlets program officers first experience insurgent warfare career would involve many officer richard holbrooke us president barack obamas special envoy afghanistan pakistan charged diplomatic side american efforts defeat taliban insurgency details differ many problems us faces today afghanistan holbrooke faced beginning career vietnam idea strategic hamlet first put forward british officer robert thompson visionary cia officer william colby modeled program helped british defeat communist insurgency malaya early 1950s aim program separate viet cong population depended chinese communist ruler mao zedong said guerrilla army moves among people like fish water south vietnams authoritarian anticommunist president ngo dinh diem vowed would drain pond catch fish minh remembers anger peasants taken away ancestral lands home graves ancestors160 dumped shoddy concrete houses surrounded barbedwire fences forced present identification cards soldiers hamlet gate recalls terror random shelling south vietnamese artillery every night ineffectual attempt harass viet cong troops shelling added populations antagonism although strategic hamlets supposed protect peasants viet cong actually driving even support communists point number people strategic hamlet supported viet cong twothirds minh says minh shift allegiance permanent south vietnam fell north 1975 minh pursued career communist town administration retired last year vice chairman hanhs peoples committee fact strategic hamlets program failed mean poor counterinsurgency theory according military historian nguyen huu nguyen colonel north vietnamese army nva fought south 1965 1975 strategic hamlets program good idea fact goal sought achieve crucial population control called new 2007 us army counterinsurgency field manual coauthored gen david petraeus goal petraeus pursued baghdad walling ethnically homogenous neighborhoods instituting curfews checkpoints vietnam didnt work corrupt government administrators stole funds meant construction social programs generate positive statistics government expanded program fast160 holbrooke arrived mekong delta found many hamlets province existed paper government lacked troops defend mid1963 viet cong launched campaign overwhelm hamlets assassinated village government officials including administrators teachers encouraged villagers tear fences campaign gathered steam president diem killed generals coup november early 1964 strategic hamlets destroyed populations returning former villages streaming cities refugees vietnam us built strategic hamlets still lost nguyen said afghanistan even build strategic hamlets way us win one reason strategic hamlets program failed inflexible application technique malaya many analysts criticized us misapplying old solutions fighting vietnam korea malaya philippines rather adapting local realities new counterinsurgency manual tries avoid mistakes planners afghanistan simply replicate techniques vietnam iraq recognize goals actors resources constraints afghanistan different employ iterative process testing new techniques discarding failures adopting successes counterinsurgency strategy vietnam iterative strategic hamlets program early example long series increasingly sophisticated attempts pacify south vietnams countryside 1954 1975 popular mythology holds us never attempted address social roots vietnams civil war fact numerous american analysts devoted immense resources studying addressing sociopolitical side war col john paul vann thennational security adviser robert komer saw social change prerequisite political success created revolutionary development cadres160 teams south vietnamese social workers paired usaid workers bring social economic improvements countryside evolved cords program influenced provincial reconstruction teams operate today afghanistan cia officer william colby recognized security required local defense forces backed combined action platoons paired squad us marines local soldiers living single village rand corporations social science researchers realized pacification required metric assessing success devised hamlet evaluation surveys tried produce reliable data could generate measurement much countryside really government control cia meanwhile understood sophisticated social political view conflict required attempt dismantle viet congs shadow government set phoenix program gather intelligence promote defections arrests assassinations viet cong officials experts usaid rand state department elsewhere saw need land reform draw impoverished poor peasants away communists finally convinced vietnamese government adopt law redistributed land wealthy landowners poor farmers partial list efforts combat wars social underpinnings us war vietnam particularly 1966 never purely military nature indeed american civilian aid efforts south vietnam dwarf american efforts afghanistan today 1967 usaids budget vietnam 550 million 35 billion todays dollars compared us aid budget afghanistan 1 billion year meanwhile provincial reconstruction teams afghanistan almost entirely military 50 civilian staff us announced send 300 state department civilians afghanistan number pales comparison 2000 civilian personnel usaid south vietnam 1967 south vietnam smaller physical size population afghanistan us new strategy review afghanistan scheduled unveiled march 27 reportedly focuses integrating sociopolitical military elements counterinsurgency introducing afghanistan strategy nato officials earlier week holbrooke said simply spending lot money aid guarantee results holbrooke called us program eradicate opium poppy cultivation afghanistan160 thus far cost 800 million wasteful ineffective program seen 40 years last time holbrooke saw wasteful ineffective program late 1960s one americas senior pacification officials vietnam part one lessons vietnam related globalpost dispatches exclusive former taliban see opening talks coin toss afghanistan
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<p>CAIRO, Egypt — The city of Rafah, which has been a part of Egypt since the pharaonic period, is to be removed from the map; its residents relocated to the imaginatively named, yet-to-be-built city of New Rafah.</p>
<p>Rafah is located in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt’s northeast, straddling the border with the Gaza Strip. It is home to thousands of families, all of whom will be forcibly relocated under plans to create a “buffer zone” on the border.</p>
<p>Egyptian authorities hope the no-go zone will disrupt smuggling and militant operations in the troubled Sinai — but the scale and lack of prior notice, adequate compensation or provision of alternate housing for displaced families has prompted <a href="http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/egypt-end-wave-home-demolitions-forced-evictions-sinai-amid-media-blackout-2014-11-27" type="external">concern from rights groups</a>.</p>
<p>The plan was put into action in late October. At first, the buffer zone stretched 500 meters from the border. With little warning, police notified residents that they would clear the area, and said they would forcibly seize the property of those who refused to comply.</p>
<p>Though journalists are forbidden in Egypt’s troubled easternmost governorate, images trickled out of families bearing bundles of clothes and belongings looking on powerless as army bulldozers destroyed their homes.</p>
<p>Then, in January, the zone was extended a further 1,640 feet — with demolitions still ongoing.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Abdel Fatah Harhoor, the governor of North Sinai, announced plans to create a 3-mile buffer zone along the Gaza border that would include “the entire town of Rafah.”</p>
<p>The drastic measures are aimed at preventing the smuggling of weapons and other contraband, as well as the movement of persons, to and from the blockaded Gaza strip.</p>
<p>A crackdown on jihadi and extremist activity in Sinai has intensified since mid-2013, what was once a low level conflict has bloomed into a fully-fledged insurgency. Hundreds of security forces have been killed in the last 18 months. The largest attack in October of 2014 left more than 30 dead.</p>
<p>Just this Thursday, 27 Egyptian soldiers were killed in a series of attacks targeting military facilities in North Sinai and Suez.</p>
<p>The State of Sinai, formerly Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in November, took responsibility for the Sinai-based attacks on their Twitter account.</p>
<p>A changing Egypt</p>
<p>There was a time when such a large buffer zone and the thousands it left homeless might have been met with more widespread resistance from Egyptian society.</p>
<p>Despite officially blockading the border with Gaza since 2006, Egyptian security forces turned a blind eye to tunnels for a long time, recognizing that they provided a crucial supply of civilian goods. Tunnels were allowed to proliferate.</p>
<p>In early 2013 though, something shifted and the Muslim Brotherhood government under Mohamed Morsi began to flood the tunnels and discuss the prospect of a buffer zone. At the time, Essam el-Haddad, former national security advisor to ousted Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi, now in prison, told Reuters, "We don't want to see these tunnels used for illegal ways of smuggling either people or weapons that can really harm Egyptian security."</p>
<p>But although the idea of a buffer zone is not new, the repercussions of displacing such a large number of people could be severe.</p>
<p>When the army first moved to crack down on insurgents in the Sinai Peninsula in mid-2013, many among the population welcomed their intervention. But residents said they felt the campaign became increasingly indiscriminate.</p>
<p>With civilians shot at checkpoints, frequent raids on homes and a punishing curfew in some areas, the state soon lost the support of the locals and the buffer zone has the potential to alienate them still further.</p>
<p>Rafah’s population already lives under martial law and contend on a daily basis with a 4 p.m. curfew in some places, checkpoints, raids on homes and random arrests.</p>
<p>And while the demolitions have begun, the locations of the new city has not even been decided upon and construction has yet to begin. Therefore the question of where the displaced residents of the old Rafah might live, as well as how they are to provide for themselves and their families, remain unaddressed.</p>
<p>Longer tunnels&#160;</p>
<p>Leaving thousands of residents without homes could have the opposite of the plan's intended effect.</p>
<p>“The longer it takes them to pay out compensations and to find places to live and to renew livelihoods of those who are being displaced, the more susceptible the 10,000 people who are being displaced are to jihadi recruitment,” says Zack Gold, a fellow at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies.</p>
<p>From the time it was established, the Sinai-based terrorist group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis has been successful at tailoring its recruitment messaging to exploit the political and economic frustrations of the local population and their disillusionment with the Egyptian government.</p>
<p>The group pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in November. This month images circulated on social media of members of the new IS affiliate the “State of Sinai” distributing aid to displaced Rafah residents.</p>
<p>Regardless of the credibility of these videos, the fact that the group is seeking to show itself emulating the state-like structure of IS by providing compensation to the displaced is a worrying sign.</p>
<p>Because in recent months the tunnels have been so tightly controlled, the buffer zone will likely not have the massive impact on Gaza it might once have had.</p>
<p>In the absence of a sustainable long-term solution for citizens of Gaza — a solution that would not involve Egypt alone — the need for tunnels will persist. And in the meantime, analysts say, they will likely only grow longer.&#160;</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/iraq/150128/what-moviegoers-baghdad-think-american-sniper" type="external">Here's what moviegoers in Baghdad think of 'American Sniper'</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/egypt/150121/shocking-images-american-citizen-detained-egypt-promp" type="external">Shocking images of American citizen detained in Egypt prompt concern for his health</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/japan/150202/islamic-state-beheadings-japan-hawks" type="external">The Islamic State beheadings are firing up Japan’s hawks</a></p>
| false | 3 |
cairo egypt city rafah part egypt since pharaonic period removed map residents relocated imaginatively named yettobebuilt city new rafah rafah located sinai peninsula egypts northeast straddling border gaza strip home thousands families forcibly relocated plans create buffer zone border egyptian authorities hope nogo zone disrupt smuggling militant operations troubled sinai scale lack prior notice adequate compensation provision alternate housing displaced families prompted concern rights groups plan put action late october first buffer zone stretched 500 meters border little warning police notified residents would clear area said would forcibly seize property refused comply though journalists forbidden egypts troubled easternmost governorate images trickled families bearing bundles clothes belongings looking powerless army bulldozers destroyed homes january zone extended 1640 feet demolitions still ongoing meanwhile abdel fatah harhoor governor north sinai announced plans create 3mile buffer zone along gaza border would include entire town rafah drastic measures aimed preventing smuggling weapons contraband well movement persons blockaded gaza strip crackdown jihadi extremist activity sinai intensified since mid2013 low level conflict bloomed fullyfledged insurgency hundreds security forces killed last 18 months largest attack october 2014 left 30 dead thursday 27 egyptian soldiers killed series attacks targeting military facilities north sinai suez state sinai formerly ansar beit almaqdis pledged allegiance islamic state november took responsibility sinaibased attacks twitter account changing egypt time large buffer zone thousands left homeless might met widespread resistance egyptian society despite officially blockading border gaza since 2006 egyptian security forces turned blind eye tunnels long time recognizing provided crucial supply civilian goods tunnels allowed proliferate early 2013 though something shifted muslim brotherhood government mohamed morsi began flood tunnels discuss prospect buffer zone time essam elhaddad former national security advisor ousted muslim brotherhood president mohamed morsi prison told reuters dont want see tunnels used illegal ways smuggling either people weapons really harm egyptian security although idea buffer zone new repercussions displacing large number people could severe army first moved crack insurgents sinai peninsula mid2013 many among population welcomed intervention residents said felt campaign became increasingly indiscriminate civilians shot checkpoints frequent raids homes punishing curfew areas state soon lost support locals buffer zone potential alienate still rafahs population already lives martial law contend daily basis 4 pm curfew places checkpoints raids homes random arrests demolitions begun locations new city even decided upon construction yet begin therefore question displaced residents old rafah might live well provide families remain unaddressed longer tunnels160 leaving thousands residents without homes could opposite plans intended effect longer takes pay compensations find places live renew livelihoods displaced susceptible 10000 people displaced jihadi recruitment says zack gold fellow tel avivbased institute national security studies time established sinaibased terrorist group ansar beit almaqdis successful tailoring recruitment messaging exploit political economic frustrations local population disillusionment egyptian government group pledged allegiance islamic state november month images circulated social media members new affiliate state sinai distributing aid displaced rafah residents regardless credibility videos fact group seeking show emulating statelike structure providing compensation displaced worrying sign recent months tunnels tightly controlled buffer zone likely massive impact gaza might absence sustainable longterm solution citizens gaza solution would involve egypt alone need tunnels persist meantime analysts say likely grow longer160 globalpost heres moviegoers baghdad think american sniper shocking images american citizen detained egypt prompt concern health islamic state beheadings firing japans hawks
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<p>In justifying new cuts to special education, the head of the CPS Office of Diverse Learner Supports and Services, Markay Winston, told the Board of Education that there are nearly 3,000 fewer students with special needs at district-run schools this year, compared to the end of school last year.</p>
<p>That would be a significant drop of more than 6 percent – and represent about half of the entire enrollment decline at district-run schools since last year. When asked about the drop by a board member, Winston could not say for certain whether students have “transitioned out” of special education or left the district altogether.</p>
<p>“We believe most of them are simply not here anymore,” she said during <a href="" type="internal">Tuesday’s board meeting</a>.</p>
<p>But Winston ignored one critical fact. According to <a href="" type="internal">CPS’s own reports</a>, district staff typically identify, during the course of a year, about 3,000 new students who need special services. That means the number of so-called “diverse learners” typically rises by about 3,000 by the end of the school year.</p>
<p>“They trot out numbers like this to give the sense that the district is losing students, and having a decline in the need for services … when their own reports shows that special education enrollment jumps up about 6 percent on average during the school year,” says Pavlyn Jankov, a researcher at the Chicago Teachers Union. “It’s completely part of their framing to justify cuts, but this is just a blatant lie.”</p>
<p>CPS officials said they wanted to clear up “misconceptions” about cuts to special education during Tuesday’s board meeting. But the opposite happened as parents, teachers and others repeatedly questioned the cash-strapped district’s ability to meet legal requirements for its most vulnerable students and railed against a new round of cuts unexpectedly announced last week.</p>
<p>Citing enrollment declines, CPS officials announced on Friday that a total of 69 special education teacher and aide positions would be cut from district-run schools. (The reducations&#160;were part of <a href="http://catalyst-chicago.org/2015/09/neighborhood-high-schools-hit-hard-by-more-enrollment-losses-funding-cuts/" type="external">broader cuts at district-run schools</a>that did not meet 10th-day enrollment projections.) Officials released school-by-school enrollments but did not break out diverse learners or explain how special education cuts were identified, except to say students’ individualized education plans (IEPs)&#160;were somehow taken&#160;into account.</p>
<p>Cuts to special education after the school year begins are unprecedented, says Rod Estvan of the advocacy group Access Living.</p>
<p>“This has never really happened before. Special education cuts&#160;have come during the budgetary process,” says Estvan, adding that the need for special education teachers grows throughout the year as students are properly identified.</p>
<p>Later, when asked about services for students who are identified as needing special services after the start of&#160;the school year,&#160;a CPS spokeswoman said the district “cannot provide budgets to schools based on students who might later have IEPs. We will make any needed adjustments as they arise over the course of the year, and we will continue our normal practice of enrolling students in the program as needed.”</p>
<p>Principals said they were blindsided by Friday’s cuts, as <a href="http://www.wbez.org/news/principals-blindsided-more-cuts-special-needs-113096" type="external">WBEZ has reported.&#160;</a></p>
<p>In a panic, many school officials and parents reached out over the weekend to Winston’s office, other administrators and elected officials. On Sunday Winston <a href="" type="internal">wrote a letter to principals</a>, giving them the option to appeal the cuts by Tuesday if they believed “that additional support is required.” She also suggested they dip into other school funds to meet special education needs.</p>
<p>But as the chorus of complaints grew louder on Monday, the <a href="http://cps.edu/News/Press_releases/Pages/PR3_09_29_2015.aspx" type="external">district backtracked on the short timeline and extended the appeals deadline</a> until early November. Now, district officials say no layoffs will take place until after that appeals process is over — and that CPS officials will visit every school to review special education needs and positions.</p>
<p>Possible lawsuits</p>
<p>Friday’s announcement came as schools were still reeling from $42 million in special education cuts announced earlier this summer.</p>
<p>Cielo Muñoz, a special education teacher at Penn Elementary, described how the school security guard is now pitching in to change diapers. “Students are not getting the services they need,” she said after the board meeting.</p>
<p>CPS officials have assured they will continue to provide students with legally mandated services.</p>
<p>They have said an internal <a href="http://catalyst-chicago.org/2015/07/1400-positions-to-be-cut-special-ed-vacancies-wont-be-filled/" type="external">18-month review</a>of services shows that the district has been going above and beyond state requirements for special education services for years. Despite repeated records requests, they have never produced any report from that review.</p>
<p>Ald. Scott Waguespack of the 32nd Ward warned the Board on Tuesday to prepare for possible lawsuits for not meeting students’ IEP requirements. In response, CEO Forrest Claypool called special education “sacrosanct” and asked the North Side alderman to personally bring forward any cases of students whose IEPs aren’t being met.</p>
<p>“Unlike other areas of education, where you can make arguments about whether this is enough or not enough, this is objective because each child has an IEP that the law requires be met, as well as best practices,” Claypool said. “If there’s any instance in which a parent or someone at a school goes back and reviews and says ‘I’m not getting the resources in my plan,’ we want to know that. And we’re going to address that, and we will fix it.”</p>
<p>But many activists and parents worry about students’ IEPs will get reduced throughout the school year, meaning fewer services will become legally required. In particular, they worry that parents who aren’t politically connected or have little knowledge of how the process works will unwittingly agree to IEP modifications.</p>
<p>“That’s going to happen,” says Matthew Johnson, a parent of a student with special needs at Dewey Academy, who often helps other parents understand the IEP process.</p>
<p>Friday’s announcement of “budgetary adjustments” at district-run schools indicates Dewey, on the South Side, will lose a special education teacher.</p>
<p>“It was hell with what we had before, and now it’s only going to get worse,” he says.</p>
<p>Johnson says that students with special needs in 6th through 8th grades are taught in the same classroom – which can be problematic because of the range of their disabilities. “Some have learning disabilities, some have behavioral disabilities,” he says.</p>
<p>Chaos at schools</p>
<p>On Tuesday the CTU released a report detailing how the loss of special education teachers and paraprofessionals at schools has made it “impossible to meet critical accommodations for students.” <a href="http://www.ctunet.com/blog/text/CTUSpedWhitePaper-4.pdf" type="external">The union is calling for an audit</a>of special education services.</p>
<p>Not all schools lost special education positions, according to the CPS data released on Friday. (The data do not include charter schools or specialty schools, and district officials say that information won’t come out until after Oct. 5, when the 20th-day count takes place.)</p>
<p>Philip Cantor is a science teacher and LSC member at North-Grand High School, which is part of <a href="http://www.wbez.org/news/cps-budget-cuts-hit-special-education-students-112512" type="external">All Means All, a&#160;pilot program at CPS</a>that uses the student-based budgeting model for special education. Other schools’ special education positions are based on enrollment and IEP needs but paid for by the district, not out of school budgets.</p>
<p>The dollars that CPS gave the school under&#160;All Means All weren’t&#160;enough to pay for North-Grand’s 13 special education positions, so&#160;administrators had to cut four of them,&#160;Cantor said. One of the teachers who lost her job was trained to teach physics to special education students; now another teacher has to get trained in that specialty.</p>
<p>Tenth-day enrollment was above projections, and now the school can afford to hire more special education positions, Cantor told the board. But it won’t happen at the snap of a finger, he says. It’ll take time to recruit and hire a teacher and reschedule students.</p>
<p>“They’ve created chaos, rearranging kids, hiring people,” he says. “We’re getting some positions back but the damage has been done… Our administration is scrambling now.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
| false | 3 |
justifying new cuts special education head cps office diverse learner supports services markay winston told board education nearly 3000 fewer students special needs districtrun schools year compared end school last year would significant drop 6 percent represent half entire enrollment decline districtrun schools since last year asked drop board member winston could say certain whether students transitioned special education left district altogether believe simply anymore said tuesdays board meeting winston ignored one critical fact according cpss reports district staff typically identify course year 3000 new students need special services means number socalled diverse learners typically rises 3000 end school year trot numbers like give sense district losing students decline need services reports shows special education enrollment jumps 6 percent average school year says pavlyn jankov researcher chicago teachers union completely part framing justify cuts blatant lie cps officials said wanted clear misconceptions cuts special education tuesdays board meeting opposite happened parents teachers others repeatedly questioned cashstrapped districts ability meet legal requirements vulnerable students railed new round cuts unexpectedly announced last week citing enrollment declines cps officials announced friday total 69 special education teacher aide positions would cut districtrun schools reducations160were part broader cuts districtrun schoolsthat meet 10thday enrollment projections officials released schoolbyschool enrollments break diverse learners explain special education cuts identified except say students individualized education plans ieps160were somehow taken160into account cuts special education school year begins unprecedented says rod estvan advocacy group access living never really happened special education cuts160have come budgetary process says estvan adding need special education teachers grows throughout year students properly identified later asked services students identified needing special services start of160the school year160a cps spokeswoman said district provide budgets schools based students might later ieps make needed adjustments arise course year continue normal practice enrolling students program needed principals said blindsided fridays cuts wbez reported160 panic many school officials parents reached weekend winstons office administrators elected officials sunday winston wrote letter principals giving option appeal cuts tuesday believed additional support required also suggested dip school funds meet special education needs chorus complaints grew louder monday district backtracked short timeline extended appeals deadline early november district officials say layoffs take place appeals process cps officials visit every school review special education needs positions possible lawsuits fridays announcement came schools still reeling 42 million special education cuts announced earlier summer cielo muñoz special education teacher penn elementary described school security guard pitching change diapers students getting services need said board meeting cps officials assured continue provide students legally mandated services said internal 18month reviewof services shows district going beyond state requirements special education services years despite repeated records requests never produced report review ald scott waguespack 32nd ward warned board tuesday prepare possible lawsuits meeting students iep requirements response ceo forrest claypool called special education sacrosanct asked north side alderman personally bring forward cases students whose ieps arent met unlike areas education make arguments whether enough enough objective child iep law requires met well best practices claypool said theres instance parent someone school goes back reviews says im getting resources plan want know going address fix many activists parents worry students ieps get reduced throughout school year meaning fewer services become legally required particular worry parents arent politically connected little knowledge process works unwittingly agree iep modifications thats going happen says matthew johnson parent student special needs dewey academy often helps parents understand iep process fridays announcement budgetary adjustments districtrun schools indicates dewey south side lose special education teacher hell going get worse says johnson says students special needs 6th 8th grades taught classroom problematic range disabilities learning disabilities behavioral disabilities says chaos schools tuesday ctu released report detailing loss special education teachers paraprofessionals schools made impossible meet critical accommodations students union calling auditof special education services schools lost special education positions according cps data released friday data include charter schools specialty schools district officials say information wont come oct 5 20thday count takes place philip cantor science teacher lsc member northgrand high school part means a160pilot program cpsthat uses studentbased budgeting model special education schools special education positions based enrollment iep needs paid district school budgets dollars cps gave school under160all means werent160enough pay northgrands 13 special education positions so160administrators cut four them160cantor said one teachers lost job trained teach physics special education students another teacher get trained specialty tenthday enrollment projections school afford hire special education positions cantor told board wont happen snap finger says itll take time recruit hire teacher reschedule students theyve created chaos rearranging kids hiring people says getting positions back damage done administration scrambling 160
| 755 |
<p>Editor’s Note: This is the first in a CalWatchDog.com Special Series of 12 in-depth articles on municipal bankruptcy.</p>
<p>MARCH 6, 2012</p>
<p>BY CHRIS REED</p>
<p>Overwhelmed by enormous unfunded liabilities for retired employees’ pensions and health care, local governments throughout California are increasingly contemplating what once seemed unthinkable: declaring Chapter 9 bankruptcy to hold off creditors, to buy breathing time to reorganize and to attempt to reduce costs by any legal means necessary.</p>
<p>This fiscal crisis is outwardly downplayed or dismissed by the state’s public employee unions, who insist that claims of strained finances at all levels of California government are either exaggerated by alarmists unfamiliar with the ebb and flow of pension investment portfolios or the fabrications of anti-government ideologues.</p>
<p>But that these same unions know the crisis is real is manifest in their successful push to get the Legislature to pass Assembly Bill <a href="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=ab_506&amp;sess=CUR&amp;house=B&amp;author=wieckowski" type="external">506</a>, by Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont. Gov. Jerry Brown signed it into law on October 9, 2011. It ends local governments’ ability to unilaterally declare bankruptcy. Instead, it requires that they first go through a mediation process or hold a public hearing at which they would declare a state of emergency and certify that they will be unable to meet their obligations within 60 days.</p>
<p>This obstacle may make some local officials think twice. But in an era in which San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed&#160;— a liberal Democrat&#160;— openly speculates about his city being forced to switch to a volunteer fire department, crushing financial pressures are certain to prompt many governments to consider Chapter 9. In so doing, many will look to the most famous municipal bankruptcy in U.S.history: Orange County’s Dec. 6, 1994, declaration that it could no longer pay its bills.</p>
<p>Does Orange County’s Chapter 9 adventure raise any red flags for local governments considering bankruptcy?</p>
<p>Not a one.</p>
<p>But is the county’s highly positive experience truly instructive for local governments in general?</p>
<p>That’s another matter entirely, because Orange County’s story is an unusual one.</p>
<p>The bankruptcy was triggered after failed speculative gambles by county Treasurer Robert L. Citron resulted in a $1.64 billion loss in county investment pools. The immediate reaction was one of shock and dismay, with grave warnings of profound long-term damage to Orange County’s quality of life.</p>
<p>Transportation officials feared crucial highway projects would have to be postponed or cancelled, yielding gridlock in fast-growing south Orange County. A portfolio manager at Scudder Funds said what&#160;“the future residents face [is the] cannibalization of every county service.” The executive director of the Associated General Contractors of Southern California said the bankruptcy’s impact was “like a nine on the Richter scale.”</p>
<p>Instead, a mix of new and old county leaders, working with former state Treasurer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_W._Hayes" type="external">Tom Hayes</a> and a <a href="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=ab_506&amp;sess=CUR&amp;house=B&amp;author=wieckowski" type="external">Salomon Brothers</a> team, stabilized the county’s fiscal picture in fairly short order. They persuaded creditors to hold off a year, froze salaries, put off infrastructure projects, pared services (particularly social services) and reduced the county work force from 18,000 to 15,000, primarily through attrition and dropping vacant positions, not layoffs.</p>
<p>Critics of these moves said county leaders had consistently insulated the middle class and rich from the effects of the bankruptcy, showing a cruel indifference to how cuts in social services hurt the poor. But perhaps because progressives had been making this same argument long before the bankruptcy, it barely resonated beyond the pages of the alternative <a href="http://www.ocweekly.com/" type="external">OC Weekly</a> newspaper.&#160;</p>
<p>“There wasn’t any kind of serious disruption over the long term for the residents of the county,” Mark Baldassare, author of “ <a href="http://www.ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=310" type="external">When Government Fails: The Orange County Bankruptcy</a>,” said in a recent interview. “It was shocking, it was surprising, it was something that caused a lot of frustration, but for the average county resident, it didn’t matter that much.”</p>
<p>County leaders made one misstep: asking county voters to raises the sales tax by a half-cent for 10 years to bring in $1.35 billion. Portentously described in a Los Angeles Times headline as a “Referendum on O.C.’s future,” <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1995-04-28/news/mn-59992_1_sales-tax-increase" type="external">Measure R</a> was rejected on June 27, 1995 in a landslide&#160;— 61 percent to 39 percent&#160;— by voters incensed that county leaders expected them to pay for a mess they didn’t create. This led to stark warnings from Wall Street credit-rating firms and familiar media complaints that voters wanted services but didn’t want to pay for them.</p>
<p>Soon, however, voters were vindicated, as the county and local agencies that had invested heavily in the county’s investment pools&#160;— the biggest creditors&#160;— worked out a complex deal. Under the deal, transit and other funds were diverted on an emergency basis and promises were made to give to pool members initial proceeds of lawsuits against Merrill Lynch and other county investment advisers.</p>
<p>On May 15, 1996, a bankruptcy judge gave the go-ahead to the county’s recovery plan. On June 5, 1996, the county was able to sell $880 million in long-term bonds to cover its short-term debts. This allowed county officials to emerge from bankruptcy on June 12, 1996, prompting a jubilant celebration on the steps of a Santa&#160;&#160;Ana courthouse. On Feb. 27, 1997&#160;— just 814 days after the bankruptcy declaration triggered an avalanche of sky-is-falling warnings from the media, politicians and Wall Street —&#160;Fitch Investors Services gave its highest rating, AAA, to Orange County’s investment pools. And on Feb. 24, 2000&#160;— after unexpectedly successful litigation yielded $865 million from the Wall Street firms that worked with Citron on his speculative gambles&#160;— the 200 agencies that had invested with Citron were made nearly whole, given checks or wire transfers that brought their recovery on their investments to from 94 percent to 97 percent.&#160;</p>
<p>In March 2011, at an American Enterprise Institute forum on municipal debt, Pat Shea, an attorney representing 175 of the cities, water, school and sewer districts with investments, reflected on the outcome: “Five years afterwards everyone, at least on my side&#160;— within government, within the family of government&#160;— every one of them would say this worked out as well as it possibly could for every member of government.”</p>
<p>The long-term cost to Orange County taxpayers of repaying the $880 million in bonds, of course, has been vast. But even on that front, the news has not been all bad. In June 2005, Orange County’s supervisors OK’d a plan under which the bankruptcy debt would be repaid by 2016, 10 years ahead of schedule.</p>
<p>Yet in reviewing Orange County’s history to determine what lessons it offers, those lessons may not be quite the tidy package that the county’s rebound would suggest.</p>
<p>The circumstances of how the county lost its way are nearly without precedent in U.S. history, having relatively little in common with the retirement benefits crises now bedeviling so many local governments. Citron for years managed to generate above-average returns in the county’s investment pools, with a key strategy to gamble on derivatives that would yield high returns if interest rates remained low. Even as Orange County became, by one report, Merrill Lynch’s biggest customer and its heavily leveraged investment holdings topped $20 billion, Citron continued to operate with little or no scrutiny.</p>
<p>A 1985 Orange County Grand Jury report warning of the risks posed by such an informal investment arrangement was ignored. In spring 1994, warnings by Newport Beach CPA <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Moorlach" type="external">John M.W. Moorlach</a> that Citron and the county risked disaster if interest rates continued to rise were largely disregarded by the media and dismissed by county supervisors and bureaucrats. With Moorlach a candidate to replace Citron as treasurer, the assumption was that his warnings were driven politically. Moorlach’s simple explanation&#160;— that Citron’s above-average returns were driven by unusually risky investment strategies&#160;— went largely unexplored in the media, who were as shocked as county residents by the December 1994 bankruptcy.</p>
<p>Soon after, with Citron forced out of office, Moorlach appointed to replace him, and&#160;new sobriety driving decision-making, the county began to turn the corner&#160;— but with immense help from a source unlikely to help current local governments on bankruptcy’s brink. That source: a sharply rebounding Orange County economy.</p>
<p>Venture capital investments tripled in the first quarter of 1995 compared to 1994, and a huge building boom quickly gathered steam. Entrepreneurial high-tech firms, especially in software, aerospace and telecommunications, helped the county move out of the shadow of Silicon Valley and sharply grow international trade. By December 1997, the county unemployment rate was down to 2.7 percent. That year, Orange County had $2.6 billion in annual exports to Japan, South Korea ,China and Taiwan alone. Tax revenue grew steadily, helping push up the county’s total budget from $3.45 billion in 1995-96 to $4.01 billion in 2000-01.</p>
<p>In a 2004 symposium on the 10th anniversary of the Orange County bankruptcy, Moorlach acknowledged the central role of the economic recovery in minimizing the county’s pain.</p>
<p>“Only a county like Orange County could have come back from such a dramatic loss,” he said. “We’re just a dynamic economic powerhouse. Some other counties&#160;— I don’t know if they would have fared as well.”</p>
<p>This sharp boom helped the county to escape bankruptcy with relatively modest downsizing of government. Similar bonanzas seem unlikely to come to the rescue of many ofCalifornia’s struggling government agencies.</p>
<p>“Orange County was very unique,” said Baldassare, now president and CEO of the <a href="http://www.ppic.org/main/home.asp" type="external">Public Policy Institute of California</a>. “It doesn’t really have much to do” with the present straits facing other local governments in the state.</p>
<p>This doesn’t mean Chapter 9 is a bad choice for local governments overwhelmed by red ink&#160;— just that their path back to stability isn’t likely to be as clean and straightforward as Orange County’s.</p>
<p>But there is a powerful lesson to be learned in how Orange County’s leaders behaved after the county emerged from bankruptcy. That lesson: Even after as wrenching an event as a bankruptcy declaration, leaders can’t be counted on to be fiscally responsible. The bankruptcy fiasco was still a very fresh memory when Orange County supervisors and top bureaucrats put the county back on the path toward severe financial problems of a more conventional sort.</p>
<p>The bankruptcy did trigger the changes and cutbacks discussed above. But by July 1999, when I began a two-year stint covering the county government for The Orange County Register, county leaders increasingly showed the same old casual attitudes about spending and oversight&#160;— accompanied, incongruously enough, by a vast sense of accomplishment and enormous self-regard.</p>
<p>County Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier, hired in 1995, was a huge improvement over the feckless executives of the pre-bankruptcy era. But the accolades coming her way&#160;— including her November 1998 selection as one <a href="http://www.governing.com/poy/janice-mittermeier.html" type="external">of Governing Magazine’s Public Officials of the Year</a>&#160;— as well as to county supervisors for the county’s rapid rebound produced an insufferable climate at the Hall of Administration. There was a self-congratulatory subtext to interviews, events and board hearings that was impossible to miss. And it continued even as supervisors made decision after decision that treated taxpayer funds cavalierly.</p>
<p>In 1998, the Performance Incentive Program (PIP) was initiated for county workers, billed as an easy, smart way to incentivize superior performance. But an Orange County Grand Jury report in 2003 detailed how PIP amounted to disguised bonus program in which at least 95 percent of employees were being given annual 2 percent raises.</p>
<p>In June 2000, county supervisors voted unanimously to give themselves a 6 percent raise for a third straight year. They also gave nine senior county administrators a 14 percent raise.</p>
<p>But the most devastating decisions involved pensions.</p>
<p>In December 2001, supervisors Jim Silva, Todd Spitzer, Tom Wilson, Cynthia Coad and Chuck Smith&#160;— all Republicans who claimed to be fiscal conservatives&#160;— approved a 50 percent retroactive increase in the pension formulas for 2,000 sheriff’s deputies, allowing them to earn up to 90 percent of final pay in retirement.</p>
<p>“It’s a mind-blower,” Moorlach said in a recent telephone interview. “Not one of those supervisors called me up [in his role as a member of the county retirement board and as county treasurer] to ask if it was a good idea.”</p>
<p>The pension boost was passed so quickly and with so little fanfare that it didn’t even make the pages of The Orange County Register or The Los Angeles Times. The Nexis news archive shows no contemporaneous media coverage of any kind.</p>
<p>A subsequent pension proposal&#160;— to provide a 62 percent retroactive increase in the pension formulas for more than 14,000 county workers&#160;— drew far more advance attention. But it was nonetheless enacted in August 2004 on a 3-2 board vote, with the support of self-styled Republican fiscal conservatives Silva, Wilson and Bill Campbell. Their fig leaf: a requirement that affected county employees had to pay more toward pension costs when funding lagged.</p>
<p>Even with that concession, however, the unfunded liability for the Orange County Employees Retirement System soared from $85 million in 1999 to $3.7 billion on Dec. 31, 2009, the most recent figures available on the OCERS website. In the process, the pension system went from being 98 percent funded to 69 percent funded.</p>
<p>Moorlach, who left the county treasurer job in 2006 to replace the Assembly-bound Silva on the county board, expresses amazement at how quickly Orange County’s rebound went sour.</p>
<p>Supervisors didn’t “seem to treat money like it’s real. It’s all funny money, and it will keep coming” was their attitude, he told me.</p>
<p>Moorlach believes the county is now well-managed, with appropriate safeguards and smart long-term planning. But he described how difficult it was for county leaders to replace $48 million in vehicle license fees taken by the state government in June 2011. And he noted that, in the next fiscal year, additional pension costs alone will be $53 million.</p>
<p>As in 1994, he said, “We are dependent on what the investment markets will do.” That year, when Citron’s offbeat investments tanked, bankruptcy became inevitable. “Now, we have to place all our bets on the stock market [portion of the county’s investment portfolio] doing 12 percent a year”&#160;— for the indefinite future.</p>
<p>Moorlach’s conclusion: By themselves, board members Silva and Wilson “caused more financial havoc” than the county boards which failed to oversee Citron.</p>
<p>And so in short order, Orange County went from being a nationally recognized model of smart governance to just another California government in which elected officials and top bureaucrats blithely showered taxpayer funds on public employees.</p>
<p>Chriss Street is an Orange County investment banker who succeeded Moorlach as county treasurer from 2006-2010 and who also voiced alarms about Citron’s strategy before it went haywire. Street has a particularly astringent view of the relevance of Orange County’s second self-created fiscal debacle.</p>
<p>Even in a county buffeted by a recent bankruptcy, “Governments and politicians by their nature will try to find a way to spend every dollar possible and push the liability for that spending into the future, either through borrowing or creative accounting,” Street said in a phone interview.</p>
<p>Far from acting prudently with taxpayer funds, Street said, government officials instead work overtime to enable their spending schemes by crafting narratives that depend on “false impressions of spendable cash flow.”</p>
<p>In other words, they lie now and let the public pay later.</p>
<p>Orange County’s experience in the 1990s does show a Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy filing can help local governments when it comes to the “pay later” part of this disastrous public policy one-two punch. But the blithe way the county government created a fresh fiasco illustrates a larger truth about the need for citizens to show perpetual and eternal vigilance in monitoring their leaders.</p>
<p>“One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them,” Thomas Sowell once observed. In less than 20 years, Orange County’s citizens learned this painful lesson twice.</p>
<p>Reed is an editorial writer for The San Diego Union-Tribune, former KOGO talk-show host and editor of <a href="http://www.calwhine.com/" type="external">Calwhine.com</a>.</p>
<p>———————–</p>
<p>CalWatchDog.com’s Special Series on Municipal Bankruptcy:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Broke Municipalities Look to Bankruptcy Option</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Bankruptcy Didn’t Make the Sky Fall In Orange County</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Local Governments Face Bankruptcy Quandary</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Bond Holders Seek Governmental Transparency</a></p>
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editors note first calwatchdogcom special series 12 indepth articles municipal bankruptcy march 6 2012 chris reed overwhelmed enormous unfunded liabilities retired employees pensions health care local governments throughout california increasingly contemplating seemed unthinkable declaring chapter 9 bankruptcy hold creditors buy breathing time reorganize attempt reduce costs legal means necessary fiscal crisis outwardly downplayed dismissed states public employee unions insist claims strained finances levels california government either exaggerated alarmists unfamiliar ebb flow pension investment portfolios fabrications antigovernment ideologues unions know crisis real manifest successful push get legislature pass assembly bill 506 assemblyman bob wieckowski dfremont gov jerry brown signed law october 9 2011 ends local governments ability unilaterally declare bankruptcy instead requires first go mediation process hold public hearing would declare state emergency certify unable meet obligations within 60 days obstacle may make local officials think twice era san jose mayor chuck reed160 liberal democrat160 openly speculates city forced switch volunteer fire department crushing financial pressures certain prompt many governments consider chapter 9 many look famous municipal bankruptcy ushistory orange countys dec 6 1994 declaration could longer pay bills orange countys chapter 9 adventure raise red flags local governments considering bankruptcy one countys highly positive experience truly instructive local governments general thats another matter entirely orange countys story unusual one bankruptcy triggered failed speculative gambles county treasurer robert l citron resulted 164 billion loss county investment pools immediate reaction one shock dismay grave warnings profound longterm damage orange countys quality life transportation officials feared crucial highway projects would postponed cancelled yielding gridlock fastgrowing south orange county portfolio manager scudder funds said what160the future residents face cannibalization every county service executive director associated general contractors southern california said bankruptcys impact like nine richter scale instead mix new old county leaders working former state treasurer tom hayes salomon brothers team stabilized countys fiscal picture fairly short order persuaded creditors hold year froze salaries put infrastructure projects pared services particularly social services reduced county work force 18000 15000 primarily attrition dropping vacant positions layoffs critics moves said county leaders consistently insulated middle class rich effects bankruptcy showing cruel indifference cuts social services hurt poor perhaps progressives making argument long bankruptcy barely resonated beyond pages alternative oc weekly newspaper160 wasnt kind serious disruption long term residents county mark baldassare author government fails orange county bankruptcy said recent interview shocking surprising something caused lot frustration average county resident didnt matter much county leaders made one misstep asking county voters raises sales tax halfcent 10 years bring 135 billion portentously described los angeles times headline referendum ocs future measure r rejected june 27 1995 landslide160 61 percent 39 percent160 voters incensed county leaders expected pay mess didnt create led stark warnings wall street creditrating firms familiar media complaints voters wanted services didnt want pay soon however voters vindicated county local agencies invested heavily countys investment pools160 biggest creditors160 worked complex deal deal transit funds diverted emergency basis promises made give pool members initial proceeds lawsuits merrill lynch county investment advisers may 15 1996 bankruptcy judge gave goahead countys recovery plan june 5 1996 county able sell 880 million longterm bonds cover shortterm debts allowed county officials emerge bankruptcy june 12 1996 prompting jubilant celebration steps santa160160ana courthouse feb 27 1997160 814 days bankruptcy declaration triggered avalanche skyisfalling warnings media politicians wall street 160fitch investors services gave highest rating aaa orange countys investment pools feb 24 2000160 unexpectedly successful litigation yielded 865 million wall street firms worked citron speculative gambles160 200 agencies invested citron made nearly whole given checks wire transfers brought recovery investments 94 percent 97 percent160 march 2011 american enterprise institute forum municipal debt pat shea attorney representing 175 cities water school sewer districts investments reflected outcome five years afterwards everyone least side160 within government within family government160 every one would say worked well possibly could every member government longterm cost orange county taxpayers repaying 880 million bonds course vast even front news bad june 2005 orange countys supervisors okd plan bankruptcy debt would repaid 2016 10 years ahead schedule yet reviewing orange countys history determine lessons offers lessons may quite tidy package countys rebound would suggest circumstances county lost way nearly without precedent us history relatively little common retirement benefits crises bedeviling many local governments citron years managed generate aboveaverage returns countys investment pools key strategy gamble derivatives would yield high returns interest rates remained low even orange county became one report merrill lynchs biggest customer heavily leveraged investment holdings topped 20 billion citron continued operate little scrutiny 1985 orange county grand jury report warning risks posed informal investment arrangement ignored spring 1994 warnings newport beach cpa john mw moorlach citron county risked disaster interest rates continued rise largely disregarded media dismissed county supervisors bureaucrats moorlach candidate replace citron treasurer assumption warnings driven politically moorlachs simple explanation160 citrons aboveaverage returns driven unusually risky investment strategies160 went largely unexplored media shocked county residents december 1994 bankruptcy soon citron forced office moorlach appointed replace and160new sobriety driving decisionmaking county began turn corner160 immense help source unlikely help current local governments bankruptcys brink source sharply rebounding orange county economy venture capital investments tripled first quarter 1995 compared 1994 huge building boom quickly gathered steam entrepreneurial hightech firms especially software aerospace telecommunications helped county move shadow silicon valley sharply grow international trade december 1997 county unemployment rate 27 percent year orange county 26 billion annual exports japan south korea china taiwan alone tax revenue grew steadily helping push countys total budget 345 billion 199596 401 billion 200001 2004 symposium 10th anniversary orange county bankruptcy moorlach acknowledged central role economic recovery minimizing countys pain county like orange county could come back dramatic loss said dynamic economic powerhouse counties160 dont know would fared well sharp boom helped county escape bankruptcy relatively modest downsizing government similar bonanzas seem unlikely come rescue many ofcalifornias struggling government agencies orange county unique said baldassare president ceo public policy institute california doesnt really much present straits facing local governments state doesnt mean chapter 9 bad choice local governments overwhelmed red ink160 path back stability isnt likely clean straightforward orange countys powerful lesson learned orange countys leaders behaved county emerged bankruptcy lesson even wrenching event bankruptcy declaration leaders cant counted fiscally responsible bankruptcy fiasco still fresh memory orange county supervisors top bureaucrats put county back path toward severe financial problems conventional sort bankruptcy trigger changes cutbacks discussed july 1999 began twoyear stint covering county government orange county register county leaders increasingly showed old casual attitudes spending oversight160 accompanied incongruously enough vast sense accomplishment enormous selfregard county executive officer jan mittermeier hired 1995 huge improvement feckless executives prebankruptcy era accolades coming way160 including november 1998 selection one governing magazines public officials year160 well county supervisors countys rapid rebound produced insufferable climate hall administration selfcongratulatory subtext interviews events board hearings impossible miss continued even supervisors made decision decision treated taxpayer funds cavalierly 1998 performance incentive program pip initiated county workers billed easy smart way incentivize superior performance orange county grand jury report 2003 detailed pip amounted disguised bonus program least 95 percent employees given annual 2 percent raises june 2000 county supervisors voted unanimously give 6 percent raise third straight year also gave nine senior county administrators 14 percent raise devastating decisions involved pensions december 2001 supervisors jim silva todd spitzer tom wilson cynthia coad chuck smith160 republicans claimed fiscal conservatives160 approved 50 percent retroactive increase pension formulas 2000 sheriffs deputies allowing earn 90 percent final pay retirement mindblower moorlach said recent telephone interview one supervisors called role member county retirement board county treasurer ask good idea pension boost passed quickly little fanfare didnt even make pages orange county register los angeles times nexis news archive shows contemporaneous media coverage kind subsequent pension proposal160 provide 62 percent retroactive increase pension formulas 14000 county workers160 drew far advance attention nonetheless enacted august 2004 32 board vote support selfstyled republican fiscal conservatives silva wilson bill campbell fig leaf requirement affected county employees pay toward pension costs funding lagged even concession however unfunded liability orange county employees retirement system soared 85 million 1999 37 billion dec 31 2009 recent figures available ocers website process pension system went 98 percent funded 69 percent funded moorlach left county treasurer job 2006 replace assemblybound silva county board expresses amazement quickly orange countys rebound went sour supervisors didnt seem treat money like real funny money keep coming attitude told moorlach believes county wellmanaged appropriate safeguards smart longterm planning described difficult county leaders replace 48 million vehicle license fees taken state government june 2011 noted next fiscal year additional pension costs alone 53 million 1994 said dependent investment markets year citrons offbeat investments tanked bankruptcy became inevitable place bets stock market portion countys investment portfolio 12 percent year160 indefinite future moorlachs conclusion board members silva wilson caused financial havoc county boards failed oversee citron short order orange county went nationally recognized model smart governance another california government elected officials top bureaucrats blithely showered taxpayer funds public employees chriss street orange county investment banker succeeded moorlach county treasurer 20062010 also voiced alarms citrons strategy went haywire street particularly astringent view relevance orange countys second selfcreated fiscal debacle even county buffeted recent bankruptcy governments politicians nature try find way spend every dollar possible push liability spending future either borrowing creative accounting street said phone interview far acting prudently taxpayer funds street said government officials instead work overtime enable spending schemes crafting narratives depend false impressions spendable cash flow words lie let public pay later orange countys experience 1990s show chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy filing help local governments comes pay later part disastrous public policy onetwo punch blithe way county government created fresh fiasco illustrates larger truth need citizens show perpetual eternal vigilance monitoring leaders one common failings among honorable people failure appreciate thoroughly dishonorable people dangerous trust thomas sowell observed less 20 years orange countys citizens learned painful lesson twice reed editorial writer san diego uniontribune former kogo talkshow host editor calwhinecom calwatchdogcoms special series municipal bankruptcy broke municipalities look bankruptcy option bankruptcy didnt make sky fall orange county local governments face bankruptcy quandary bond holders seek governmental transparency 160 160
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<p>NEW DELHI, India - Facing nearly 2 million new tuberculosis cases every year - more and&#160;more of them drug-resistant - India has a bigger stake in finding a&#160;better treatment for TB than any other country.</p>
<p>Yet until&#160;recently, obstacles hindered Indian scientists' efforts to conduct&#160;advanced research.</p>
<p>The reason? India's university professors are bogged down with&#160;teaching, and few have the laboratory facilities needed to do cutting&#160;edge work. And every year, more of the best minds are lured&#160;away by the pharmaceutical industry - which has little interest in TB, from which there is little money to be made.</p>
<p>But a pioneering effort to discover new drugs using the "open source" model prevalent in the software industry could change that.</p>
<p>India's Open Source Drug Discovery network (OSDD), begun by the government's Council for Scientific and Industrial&#160;Reseach in 2008, is making waves four years later. By leveraging more&#160;manpower, pooling laboratory resources and tapping resources from a&#160;government committed to boosting Indian research, they are hoping to produce a groundbreaking TB drug.</p>
<p>"When the economies of the developing countries are doing well, is it&#160;not time to address some of these neglected diseases?" said OSDD director T.&#160;Balganesh, former CEO of pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca India.</p>
<p>"It's very clear: If&#160;you don't do anything, don't expect the Pfizers and AstraZenecas of&#160;the world to solve the problem."</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/india/120626/coca-cola-invest-5bn-india-2020" type="external">Coca-Cola to invest $5B in India by 2020</a></p>
<p>The OSDD hasn't had to spend much money so far. In its first four years, the&#160;open source network has drawn only around $3 million of about $10&#160;million in funding allotted by the Indian government, as early&#160;projects involved mainly time from researchers. But&#160;spending is ramping up.</p>
<p>"The more expensive activities are just picking up now," Balganesh&#160;said. "For the next five years, we are in the ballpark of about&#160;700-800 crores [US$130-$145 million], and I believe a big chunk of that&#160;will be involved in the clinical trials that we are organizing."</p>
<p>On March 24, 2012, World TB Day, OSDD announced it will conduct&#160;Phase II-b clinical trials for a new TB drug in India in conjunction&#160;with the Global Alliance on TB - signalling that the race is on.</p>
<p>"We desperately need new TB drugs and therefore any initiative in this&#160;area is welcome," said Dr. Madhukar Pai, a professor at McGill&#160;University's Department of Epidemiology &amp; Biostatistics who has worked&#160;extensively on India's TB problem.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/india/free-drugs-india" type="external">Free drugs? India mulls a new assault on Big Pharma</a></p>
<p>"In particular, it is great to see the Indian government investing in&#160;this effort. After all, TB continues to be a huge public health&#160;problem in India, and the emergence of severe forms of drug resistance increases the urgency for new TB drug development."</p>
<p>So far, the OSDD network has roped in around 6,000 scientists, 80&#160;percent of them Indian, from some 130 countries. Along with the Global&#160;Alliance on TB, it's formed partnerships with around 40 Indian&#160;universities and multinationals like AstraZeneca, Hewlett-Packard,&#160;Infosys and Sun Microsystems. And in addition to the TB treatment it's&#160;testing with the Global Alliance, the network also has two more&#160;anti-TB molecules in advanced stages of research, and has nascent programs in the works for malaria and Leishmaniasis - a potentially&#160;fatal disease transmitted by certain species of sand fly.</p>
<p>While Balganesh cautions that drug discovery is a long haul, some&#160;spinoff benefits of the program are starting to materialize. To&#160;distinguish OSDD from the plethora of granting agencies that offer&#160;scientists funding, the network aims to offer its researchers&#160;capabilities that aren't readily available in the Indian university&#160;system.</p>
<p>"We're not just giving money away," said Balganesh. "If you're working&#160;on an anti-microbacterial project, all these capabilities will now&#160;become available to you free of cost. This will then entice people in&#160;the universities, who don't have these capabilities, to get involved.&#160;Even small colleges, people who have good ideas."</p>
<p>For example, OSDD is tapping chemists at laboratories across the&#160;country to develop a library of compounds with novel structures that&#160;will be freely available for researchers working on any disease - a&#160;plan that has already attracted interest from Balganesh's former&#160;colleagues in big pharma. It has also set up a central&#160;laboratory for anti-microbacterial testing - which is not available at&#160;university labs because it requires special containment facilities.</p>
<p>In another effort, Balganesh is working on hiring a contract research&#160;organization that will allow biologists to outsource their chemistry&#160;work. And OSDD has already done complete gene sequences for 100&#160;strains of clinical and drug-resistant TB, and has contracted a small&#160;college to clone specific genes on demand from network researchers. That means that its students master cloning and sequencing, and OSDD&#160;researchers can get clones overnight.</p>
<p>The idea is to leverage the strengths of the open source model - the&#160;human resources available in the academic world - to overcome the public system's chronic shortage of funds.</p>
<p>"The ability to take risks with projects is limited in the pharma&#160;world. Time's a constraint, money is a constraint, resources are a&#160;constraint," said Balganesh. "[Here] the risks are not lower, but&#160;because of the creative challenge you can take high-risk projects. The&#160;scientists are willing to invest their time because it's appealing,&#160;and if you crack it, it's a publication."</p>
<p>In other words, where companies like Pfizer and AstraZeneca have&#160;billions of dollars to spend, they're very jealous of that money,&#160;because so few drugs ever make it to market, and they devote precious&#160;little to diseases that won't pay even if they can be cured. The&#160;biggest advantage that OSDD has is scientists that are, essentially,&#160;willing to work for free.</p>
<p>"What I have seen is that the real bottom line is the emotional&#160;involvement," said Balganesh. "This is a difficult disease. There are&#160;many scientific challenges. And solving it can really benefit the&#160;patient. That translates to emotional involvement, and that translates&#160;into people investing time."</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/india/120615/internet-hindus-hindu-nationalists-right-wing-politics" type="external">India: Meet the Internet Hindus</a></p>
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new delhi india facing nearly 2 million new tuberculosis cases every year and160more drugresistant india bigger stake finding a160better treatment tb country yet until160recently obstacles hindered indian scientists efforts conduct160advanced research reason indias university professors bogged with160teaching laboratory facilities needed cutting160edge work every year best minds lured160away pharmaceutical industry little interest tb little money made pioneering effort discover new drugs using open source model prevalent software industry could change indias open source drug discovery network osdd begun governments council scientific industrial160reseach 2008 making waves four years later leveraging more160manpower pooling laboratory resources tapping resources a160government committed boosting indian research hoping produce groundbreaking tb drug economies developing countries well it160not time address neglected diseases said osdd director t160balganesh former ceo pharmaceutical company astrazeneca india clear if160you dont anything dont expect pfizers astrazenecas of160the world solve problem globalpost160 cocacola invest 5b india 2020 osdd hasnt spend much money far first four years the160open source network drawn around 3 million 10160million funding allotted indian government early160projects involved mainly time researchers but160spending ramping expensive activities picking balganesh160said next five years ballpark about160700800 crores us130145 million believe big chunk that160will involved clinical trials organizing march 24 2012 world tb day osdd announced conduct160phase iib clinical trials new tb drug india conjunction160with global alliance tb signalling race desperately need new tb drugs therefore initiative this160area welcome said dr madhukar pai professor mcgill160universitys department epidemiology amp biostatistics worked160extensively indias tb problem globalpost160 free drugs india mulls new assault big pharma particular great see indian government investing in160this effort tb continues huge public health160problem india emergence severe forms drug resistance increases urgency new tb drug development far osdd network roped around 6000 scientists 80160percent indian 130 countries along global160alliance tb formed partnerships around 40 indian160universities multinationals like astrazeneca hewlettpackard160infosys sun microsystems addition tb treatment its160testing global alliance network also two more160antitb molecules advanced stages research nascent programs works malaria leishmaniasis potentially160fatal disease transmitted certain species sand fly balganesh cautions drug discovery long haul some160spinoff benefits program starting materialize to160distinguish osdd plethora granting agencies offer160scientists funding network aims offer researchers160capabilities arent readily available indian university160system giving money away said balganesh youre working160on antimicrobacterial project capabilities now160become available free cost entice people in160the universities dont capabilities get involved160even small colleges people good ideas example osdd tapping chemists laboratories across the160country develop library compounds novel structures that160will freely available researchers working disease a160plan already attracted interest balganeshs former160colleagues big pharma also set central160laboratory antimicrobacterial testing available at160university labs requires special containment facilities another effort balganesh working hiring contract research160organization allow biologists outsource chemistry160work osdd already done complete gene sequences 100160strains clinical drugresistant tb contracted small160college clone specific genes demand network researchers means students master cloning sequencing osdd160researchers get clones overnight idea leverage strengths open source model the160human resources available academic world overcome public systems chronic shortage funds ability take risks projects limited pharma160world times constraint money constraint resources a160constraint said balganesh risks lower but160because creative challenge take highrisk projects the160scientists willing invest time appealing160and crack publication words companies like pfizer astrazeneca have160billions dollars spend theyre jealous money160because drugs ever make market devote precious160little diseases wont pay even cured the160biggest advantage osdd scientists essentially160willing work free seen real bottom line emotional160involvement said balganesh difficult disease are160many scientific challenges solving really benefit the160patient translates emotional involvement translates160into people investing time globalpost india meet internet hindus
| 552 |
<p>Just outside of Cologne in western Germany, about 40 miles from where UN climate delegates are meeting this week, the 12,000-year-old Hambach Forest is a vast, leafy cathedral of beech and oak. Except for the rustle of dead leaves underfoot and the occasional burst of birdsong, it's pretty quiet. But it turns out it's a great place to get an earful about Germany's vaunted climate leadership.</p>
<p>“Germany is not the greenest country in the world,” says a climate activist who refers to&#160;himself&#160;as Tom.</p>
<p>Germany has long pushed stronger global action to fight climate change. But Tom — who uses a pseudonym over fears of being targeted by police — says the reality is quite different. “It's one of the biggest CO2 producers in the world,” he says. “What we have here basically is the best country in greenwashing.”</p>
<p>Tom is one of dozens of climate activists who’ve been camping year-round in ramshackle treehouses here for five years, “occupying” the <a href="https://hambachforest.org/" type="external">Hambach Forest</a>, blocking roads&#160;and clashing with loggers and police in an effort to protect the forest from being cleared.</p>
<p>The threat comes from an ever-expanding coal mine just next door, owned by the energy company RWE. It’s already one of the largest of its kind, and there are plans for it to get even bigger. The impending expansion would <a href="http://www.rwe.com/web/cms/de/1375416/umsiedlung/meine-umsiedlung/morschenich/" type="external">swallow&#160;the forest and a nearby town</a>&#160;to get at a seam of lignite, or brown coal, underneath.</p>
<p>Tom says it’s not just about saving the trees. It’s about saving the planet.</p>
<p>Related:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">At this year's climate summit, some Americans declare, 'We're still in' the Paris Agreement</a></p>
<p>“I am not demanding this, the f***ing&#160;planet is demanding this,” he says. “It is necessary. If we if we want to stop or reverse climate change, we have to stop the brown coal&#160;as soon as possible.”</p>
<p />
<p>The climate camp in Germany's Hambach Forest, adjacent the Hambach coal mine. Tree-sitting activists have been camped out in the forest 25 miles east of Cologne for five years, trying to thwart plans by power company RWE to clear-cut the forest to get at the lignite, or brown coal, underneath it.</p>
<p>Marcus Teply</p>
<p>It may come as a surprise to people outside of the country that <a href="https://euracoal.eu/info/country-profiles/germany/" type="external">Germany still burns a lot of coal</a> — more than anyone else in Europe. <a href="https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts" type="external">Forty percent</a> of its electricity still comes from coal-fired power plants, <a href="https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electricity_in_the_united_stateshttps://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts" type="external">a bigger share than in the United States</a>, and most of that is brown coal —&#160;one of the dirtiest fossil fuels. <a href="http://www.mining-technology.com/features/feature-the-worlds-biggest-coal-reserves-by-country/" type="external">Germany mines more brown coal</a> than any country on Earth, and its coal-fired power plants are <a href="https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/coal-fired-power-plants-remain" type="external">one of Europe's biggest sources of CO2 emissions</a>.</p>
<p>It’s a somewhat awkward reality for a country that’s widely seen elsewhere as a leader on climate policy, says researcher <a href="https://wupperinst.org/en/c/wi/c/s/cd/1097/" type="external">Timon Wehnert</a> of the state-funded climate think tank Wuppertal Institute.</p>
<p>“We Germans claim we are going to be the climate champions,” Wehnert says, “and on the other hand we have the largest share of brown coal in our electricity mix,” he says.</p>
<p>To be fair, Wehnert says, Germany is transforming its energy sector. It already gets a third of its electricity from renewables, and it's shooting for 80 percent by 2050. But for now, the country is way behind on its goal of cutting carbon pollution 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. If Germany is serious about achieving its climate targets, Wehnert says, “we need to phase out coal.”</p>
<p>But even in climate-conscious Germany, that's been a tall order. Coal has been a source of domestic fuel, jobs and pride for decades. Although the country has nearly completed a market-driven phaseout of mining for hard coal, or anthracite, thousands of people still work digging up soft, brown coal in places like the Hambach mine.</p>
<p>Germany’s continuing dependence on brown coal is also an unexpected consequence of the country’s surge in renewables. All that new wind and solar power has pushed prices on Germany's wholesale electricity market down and made power from imported natural gas — a cleaner-burning fossil fuel — relatively more expensive than domestic coal.</p>
<p>“The market is not driving out coal, but the risk is [that]&#160;the market is driving out gas,” Wehnert says.</p>
<p>The pit at the Hambach mine is so big — <a href="http://www.rwe.com/web/cms/en/60012/rwe-power-ag/fuels/hambach/" type="external">33 square miles</a> — that standing at one end, the huge machines digging in the middle look like insects buzzing in the middle of a giant, dirty sandbox. On the horizon, smoke pours from coal-fired power plants.</p>
<p>“I am not demanding this, the f***ing&#160;planet is demanding this,” Tom says. “It is necessary. If we if we want to stop or reverse climate change, we have to stop the brown coal, as soon as possible.”</p>
<p>It’s quite a sight, and there's <a href="http://www.eventforum-terranova.de/" type="external">an overlook</a> for people who come to see it, with a playground and a cafe. Several older women drinking coffee there one day recently didn't want to give their names but had plenty to say.</p>
<p>“We need to use less of it,” says one. “It's dirty.”</p>
<p>The others immediately disagree.</p>
<p>“We still need it!” say two.</p>
<p>“What's the alternative?” asks another.</p>
<p>It’s a debate that’s happening all over Germany, says <a href="http://climateanalytics.org/about-us/team/bill-hare.html" type="external">Bill Hare</a>, founder of the Berlin-based research group Climate Analytics.</p>
<p>“Public opinion has pretty much changed,” Hare says. “If you think about discussing a coal phaseout around the year 2000 in Germany, it was almost a taboo subject,” he says.</p>
<p>No longer. Coal still has its partisans, but a majority of Germans say it's got to go. And now Chancellor Angela Merkel's government says it agrees, sort of.</p>
<p />
<p>The climate camp in Germany's Hambach Forest.</p>
<p>Marcus Teply</p>
<p>Ahead of September’s elections, Merkel's governing CDU/CSU coalition for the first time promised a coal phaseout — but without setting a date. Now, they're trying to form a new government with environmentalist Greens and the pro-business FDP, and coal policy is <a href="http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/verhandlungen-in-berlin-kohleausstieg-ist-das-tabuwort-der-jamaika-debatte/20537908.htm" type="external">a big sticking point</a> in the talks. The Greens want to start closing coal-fired power plants now, and finish by 2030, but the other parties are shying away from deadlines.</p>
<p>Hare says it’s a delicate moment to be hosting the COP 23 climate conference, but that the global spotlight could be a good thing.</p>
<p>“We Germans claim we are going to be the climate champions,” Wehnert says, “and on the other hand we have the largest share of brown coal in our electricity mix,” he says.</p>
<p>“The international community is creating pressure on the negotiations,” he says. “I'm hoping that the COP does actually move this forward.”</p>
<p>All of which provides just the tiniest bit of encouragement to Tom, the Hambach forest tree-sitter.</p>
<p>“In this system, for sure&#160;... you could call it progress,” he says.</p>
<p>“We know that technically there's not a big switch that you turn off and then everything is gone. We know that everything is a process,” Tom says. “But we see that … we are running out of time.”</p>
<p>The climate may be running out of time, but the Hambach forest definitely is. Later this month, the mining company will come for the next round of clear-cutting, and the tree-sitters will have to decide whether to stay and fight, or find a new platform for their protest against Germany’s appetite for coal.</p>
<p />
<p>A banner around an oak tree in the ancient Hambach Forest reads “stop coal.”</p>
<p>Marcus Teply&#160;</p>
| false | 3 |
outside cologne western germany 40 miles un climate delegates meeting week 12000yearold hambach forest vast leafy cathedral beech oak except rustle dead leaves underfoot occasional burst birdsong pretty quiet turns great place get earful germanys vaunted climate leadership germany greenest country world says climate activist refers to160himself160as tom germany long pushed stronger global action fight climate change tom uses pseudonym fears targeted police says reality quite different one biggest co2 producers world says basically best country greenwashing tom one dozens climate activists whove camping yearround ramshackle treehouses five years occupying hambach forest blocking roads160and clashing loggers police effort protect forest cleared threat comes everexpanding coal mine next door owned energy company rwe already one largest kind plans get even bigger impending expansion would swallow160the forest nearby town160to get seam lignite brown coal underneath tom says saving trees saving planet related160 years climate summit americans declare still paris agreement demanding fing160planet demanding says necessary want stop reverse climate change stop brown coal160as soon possible climate camp germanys hambach forest adjacent hambach coal mine treesitting activists camped forest 25 miles east cologne five years trying thwart plans power company rwe clearcut forest get lignite brown coal underneath marcus teply may come surprise people outside country germany still burns lot coal anyone else europe forty percent electricity still comes coalfired power plants bigger share united states brown coal 160one dirtiest fossil fuels germany mines brown coal country earth coalfired power plants one europes biggest sources co2 emissions somewhat awkward reality country thats widely seen elsewhere leader climate policy says researcher timon wehnert statefunded climate think tank wuppertal institute germans claim going climate champions wehnert says hand largest share brown coal electricity mix says fair wehnert says germany transforming energy sector already gets third electricity renewables shooting 80 percent 2050 country way behind goal cutting carbon pollution 40 percent 1990 levels 2020 germany serious achieving climate targets wehnert says need phase coal even climateconscious germany thats tall order coal source domestic fuel jobs pride decades although country nearly completed marketdriven phaseout mining hard coal anthracite thousands people still work digging soft brown coal places like hambach mine germanys continuing dependence brown coal also unexpected consequence countrys surge renewables new wind solar power pushed prices germanys wholesale electricity market made power imported natural gas cleanerburning fossil fuel relatively expensive domestic coal market driving coal risk that160the market driving gas wehnert says pit hambach mine big 33 square miles standing one end huge machines digging middle look like insects buzzing middle giant dirty sandbox horizon smoke pours coalfired power plants demanding fing160planet demanding tom says necessary want stop reverse climate change stop brown coal soon possible quite sight theres overlook people come see playground cafe several older women drinking coffee one day recently didnt want give names plenty say need use less says one dirty others immediately disagree still need say two whats alternative asks another debate thats happening germany says bill hare founder berlinbased research group climate analytics public opinion pretty much changed hare says think discussing coal phaseout around year 2000 germany almost taboo subject says longer coal still partisans majority germans say got go chancellor angela merkels government says agrees sort climate camp germanys hambach forest marcus teply ahead septembers elections merkels governing cducsu coalition first time promised coal phaseout without setting date theyre trying form new government environmentalist greens probusiness fdp coal policy big sticking point talks greens want start closing coalfired power plants finish 2030 parties shying away deadlines hare says delicate moment hosting cop 23 climate conference global spotlight could good thing germans claim going climate champions wehnert says hand largest share brown coal electricity mix says international community creating pressure negotiations says im hoping cop actually move forward provides tiniest bit encouragement tom hambach forest treesitter system sure160 could call progress says know technically theres big switch turn everything gone know everything process tom says see running time climate may running time hambach forest definitely later month mining company come next round clearcutting treesitters decide whether stay fight find new platform protest germanys appetite coal banner around oak tree ancient hambach forest reads stop coal marcus teply160
| 688 |
<p>President Clinton’s health care reform bill went down to defeat in 1993, due in large part to the opposition of the Religious Right, and the political fallout helped usher in a Republican takeover of Congress and nearly crippled the rest of his presidency.</p>
<p>But the religion-and-politics landscape is quite different today. Although many conservative religious groups continue to oppose a major overhaul of the health care system, centrist and liberal religious groups have large coalitions in favor of the kind of comprehensive reform President Obama is proposing.</p>
<p>“Right now, I think it’s fair to say that there is a real sense of effervescence and energy among progressives, who are forming coalitions with centrist groups, and some sense of disarray among the Christian Right,” said Robby Jones, president of the Washington-based Public Religion Research group. “In 1993, the Christian Coalition was really flexing its muscle; today, it’s a struggling organization, and Focus on the Family is laying people off.”</p>
<p />
<p>One coalition of centrist and progressive religious groups, Faith in Public Life, co-hosted an unprecedented Aug. 19 Internet-based conference call with Obama, religious leaders, reporters and more than 100,000 other participants to boost a religious case for broad-based reform.</p>
<p>“I believe that nobody in America should be denied basic health care because he or she lacks health insurance, and no one in America should be pushed to the edge of financial ruin because an insurance company denies them coverage or drops their coverage or charges fees they can’t afford for care that they desperately need,” Obama said during the call.</p>
<p>The difference between the participation of religious moderates and liberals in the debates over the Clinton plan and the Obama proposal has to do with both the different religion-and-politics climate as well as the difference in the facts on the ground in 2009 versus 1993, many experts agree.</p>
<p>“There’s a sense of urgency across the board, because things are even worse than they were in 1993” when it comes to uninsured and underinsured Americans, said Jennifer Butler, executive director of Faith in Public Life. Many religious leaders, including some conservative evangelical pastors, with whom her group works are seeing firsthand the effects of the health care crisis on families, she said.</p>
<p>“They’re just overwhelmed with the human need around them, in their congregations,” she said. “Some of them are active in these collaborative (local health care) clinics that have been set up, and there’s just this overwhelming sense of urgency or need, that the system is broken.”</p>
<p>But if the system is broken, it’s clear many Religious Right groups don’t trust President Obama or Congressional Democratic leaders to fix it.</p>
<p>“President Obama continued to mislead the American people by casually dismissing the concerns of millions of Americans who have deep moral objections to their tax dollars paying for abortions,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Washington-based Family Research Council, responding to Obama’s Sept. 9 address to a joint session of Congress.</p>
<p>Abortion is a major sticking point on the bill for many conservative religious leaders. Groups like the Family Research Council claim the health care proposals being considered do not currently contain adequate safeguards to ensure government funds will neither directly pay for abortions nor subsidize private insurance plans that include abortion coverage. Obama and his supporters, meanwhile, have insisted the reform they support does not include abortion.</p>
<p>Some Christian conservatives also have raised suspicions about other sanctity-of-life issues, including assertions that parts of Obama’s plan could, eventually lead to “rationing” of health care services that would involve government agents making decisions about whether vulnerable patients receive lifesaving treatments.</p>
<p>“Conservative groups of any variety will be — and are — skeptical of any expansion of government’s scope of influence and responsibility,” said Laura Olson, a political science professor at Clemson University in South Carolina and an expert in religion and politics. “For conservative religious groups, this general fear seems to be giving rise to more specific fears about how life issues — abortion, euthanasia, etc. — will be handled under a reformed health care system.”</p>
<p>But, Olson added, conservative Christian groups are disheartened and weakened by slipping support and the back-to-back drubbings conservative candidates took in the 2006 and 2008 elections — and they might see an issue in health care reform to re-ignite their base and re-assert their authority.</p>
<p>“Life issues are, of course, the natural province of conservative religious groups, so their current emphasis on these issues should come as no surprise from a substantive perspective,” she said. “At the same time, I think Religious Right activists notice that the health care debate represents a window through which they might reassert their overall relevance in American politics. So for conservative religious groups, it makes sense both substantively and strategically to be hammering on questions regarding life issues.”</p>
<p>Anecdotally, at least, the health care debate has already re-energized supporters of conservative religious groups. Democratic congressional leaders “have done more to energize Christian conservatives than any conservative leader could have done with this health care package,” Richard Land, president of the Southern Convention’s Ethics &amp; Religious Liberty Commission, told the Washington Post. “I, who never believed that we were dead, did not believe that it (the Religious Right’s revival) would happen this quickly.”</p>
<p>But Christian leaders supportive of comprehensive health care reform also assert sanctity-of-life arguments.</p>
<p>“Progressive religious voices are speaking up to claim that this is a moral and religious failing, and that the sanctity and dignity of life is also threatened by an inability to receive basic health care in a country with this many resources and wealth,” said Jones of Public Religion Research.</p>
<p>&#160;The main religious dividing line seems to be between those — particularly traditional evangelical right-wing groups — who are highly skeptical of any overarching government initiatives and those who are open to reform as long as it respects differences over abortion and other sanctity-of-life issues.</p>
<p>“One of the most enduring fault lines that distinguishes progressive and conservative groups is a theological ethic that is oriented more toward individual morality or more toward social justice,” Jones said. “These theological differences also predispose each group to have a different view of the proper role of government, and these differences are clearly alive in the health care debate.”</p>
<p>Evangelical association with the Republican Party also is a key factor, he added. “There are new voices, however, calling upon evangelicals to think more theologically on these issues and let the partisan chips fall where they may.”</p>
<p>• In 2007, 45 million non-elderly people in the United States lacked health insurance the entire year.</p>
<p>• About 83 percent of the uninsured population in the United States live in families headed by workers, and 63 percent of the uninsured workers have an employer who does not offer coverage. Source: Employees Benefit Research Institute <a href="http://www.ebri.org/pdf/briefspdf/EBRI_IB_09a-2008.pdf" type="external">www.ebri.org/pdf/briefspdf/EBRI_IB_09a-2008.pdf</a></p>
<p>• About $2.2 trillion was spent on health care in the United States in 2007 — more than 16 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. Health care costs more than tripled from 1990 to 2007. Source: <a href="http://www.healthaffairs.org/" type="external">www.healthaffairs.org</a></p>
<p>• There were about 8.1 million uninsured children in the United States in 2007. Source: U.S. Census Bureau <a href="http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthins/historic/hihistt5.xls" type="external">www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthins/historic/hihistt5.xls</a></p>
| false | 3 |
president clintons health care reform bill went defeat 1993 due large part opposition religious right political fallout helped usher republican takeover congress nearly crippled rest presidency religionandpolitics landscape quite different today although many conservative religious groups continue oppose major overhaul health care system centrist liberal religious groups large coalitions favor kind comprehensive reform president obama proposing right think fair say real sense effervescence energy among progressives forming coalitions centrist groups sense disarray among christian right said robby jones president washingtonbased public religion research group 1993 christian coalition really flexing muscle today struggling organization focus family laying people one coalition centrist progressive religious groups faith public life cohosted unprecedented aug 19 internetbased conference call obama religious leaders reporters 100000 participants boost religious case broadbased reform believe nobody america denied basic health care lacks health insurance one america pushed edge financial ruin insurance company denies coverage drops coverage charges fees cant afford care desperately need obama said call difference participation religious moderates liberals debates clinton plan obama proposal different religionandpolitics climate well difference facts ground 2009 versus 1993 many experts agree theres sense urgency across board things even worse 1993 comes uninsured underinsured americans said jennifer butler executive director faith public life many religious leaders including conservative evangelical pastors group works seeing firsthand effects health care crisis families said theyre overwhelmed human need around congregations said active collaborative local health care clinics set theres overwhelming sense urgency need system broken system broken clear many religious right groups dont trust president obama congressional democratic leaders fix president obama continued mislead american people casually dismissing concerns millions americans deep moral objections tax dollars paying abortions said tony perkins president washingtonbased family research council responding obamas sept 9 address joint session congress abortion major sticking point bill many conservative religious leaders groups like family research council claim health care proposals considered currently contain adequate safeguards ensure government funds neither directly pay abortions subsidize private insurance plans include abortion coverage obama supporters meanwhile insisted reform support include abortion christian conservatives also raised suspicions sanctityoflife issues including assertions parts obamas plan could eventually lead rationing health care services would involve government agents making decisions whether vulnerable patients receive lifesaving treatments conservative groups variety skeptical expansion governments scope influence responsibility said laura olson political science professor clemson university south carolina expert religion politics conservative religious groups general fear seems giving rise specific fears life issues abortion euthanasia etc handled reformed health care system olson added conservative christian groups disheartened weakened slipping support backtoback drubbings conservative candidates took 2006 2008 elections might see issue health care reform reignite base reassert authority life issues course natural province conservative religious groups current emphasis issues come surprise substantive perspective said time think religious right activists notice health care debate represents window might reassert overall relevance american politics conservative religious groups makes sense substantively strategically hammering questions regarding life issues anecdotally least health care debate already reenergized supporters conservative religious groups democratic congressional leaders done energize christian conservatives conservative leader could done health care package richard land president southern conventions ethics amp religious liberty commission told washington post never believed dead believe religious rights revival would happen quickly christian leaders supportive comprehensive health care reform also assert sanctityoflife arguments progressive religious voices speaking claim moral religious failing sanctity dignity life also threatened inability receive basic health care country many resources wealth said jones public religion research 160the main religious dividing line seems particularly traditional evangelical rightwing groups highly skeptical overarching government initiatives open reform long respects differences abortion sanctityoflife issues one enduring fault lines distinguishes progressive conservative groups theological ethic oriented toward individual morality toward social justice jones said theological differences also predispose group different view proper role government differences clearly alive health care debate evangelical association republican party also key factor added new voices however calling upon evangelicals think theologically issues let partisan chips fall may 2007 45 million nonelderly people united states lacked health insurance entire year 83 percent uninsured population united states live families headed workers 63 percent uninsured workers employer offer coverage source employees benefit research institute wwwebriorgpdfbriefspdfebri_ib_09a2008pdf 22 trillion spent health care united states 2007 16 percent gross domestic product health care costs tripled 1990 2007 source wwwhealthaffairsorg 81 million uninsured children united states 2007 source us census bureau wwwcensusgovhheswwwhlthinshistorichihistt5xls
| 712 |
<p>KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai was under intense pressure Monday at home and abroad to accept a run off as a U.N.-backed body released findings that documented widespread fraud in the first round of Afghanistan's presidential elections.</p>
<p>The findings contain data that, once added to the existing figures, will almost certainly show that Karzai failed to gain enough valid votes for an outright win, which under Afghan law would necessitate a runoff.</p>
<p>The Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) released its first official findings Monday on the fraud alleged to have taken place during the poll. But while the various statements issued by the U.N.-backed commission make it clear that the fraud was widespread and significant, they did not offer any concrete numbers or percentages, much less a hint as to how the present stalemate will ultimately be resolved.&#160;</p>
<p>However, Democracy International, an election support organization that ran an observer mission to Afghanistan for the August elections, was not so reticent.</p>
<p>Within an hour of the ECC’s statement, it issued a numbers-crunching memorandum predicting that Karzai’s results would now total just over 48 percent. Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, his main rival, would receive slightly above 31 percent. The law is clear: According to the Afghan Constitution, if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote a runoff must be held between the top two vote-getters.&#160;</p>
<p>Over the past several days, the international community — including several high-profile U.S. delegations — has been conducting a frantic round of talks with Karzai and his team, trying to broker a deal, apply pressure and otherwise avoid a looming crisis.&#160;</p>
<p>U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a telephone call. U.S. Senator John F. Kerry came to Kabul in person, as did French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. Former U.S. Ambassador to Kabul Zalmay Khalilzad also arrived to offer his services.&#160;</p>
<p>The ECC’s findings have now been officially communicated to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), which will have the final responsibility for issuing certified results.&#160;</p>
<p>“The Electoral Law clearly defines our authority: ECC decisions are final and binding, and the IEC may not certify the election results until they fulfill the conditions of our decisions,” said Scott Worden, one of five ECC commissioners.&#160;</p>
<p>But according to numerous inside sources, both the IEC and Karzai are resisting the ECC’s findings and the subsequent runoff vote.&#160;</p>
<p>Asked what would happen if the IEC simply refused to accept the decision, one election official just shrugged.&#160;</p>
<p>“It’s a good question,” said the official. “But it’s anybody’s guess.”</p>
<p>Hundreds of ballot boxes were examined in a random sampling selected from a total of 3,498 “suspicious” polling stations. In all, 358 polling stations were included in the sample, out of which 210 were found to have clear and convincing evidence of fraud.&#160;</p>
<p>It did not take a specialist to identify some of the irregularities, which ranged from hundreds of ballots marked with identical symbols in red felt-tipped pens, to others where none of the 600 ballots at the station had ever been folded, making it impossible for them to fit through the slot in the ballot box.&#160;</p>
<p>According to Democracy International, over 1.2 million votes were invalidated, the overwhelming majority of them — more than 950,000 — for Karzai. These votes were subtracted from the overall tally of 5.6 million votes, giving a total turnout of just over 4.3 million, or approximately 30 percent of the estimated voter pool.&#160;</p>
<p />
<p>“Now all eyes are on the IEC,” said one election observer, speaking privately.&#160;</p>
<p>According to sources close to the IEC, the complaints commission communicated its decision to the IEC unofficially as early as last Thursday. The IEC promptly announced, again unofficially, that it would not accept any findings that would necessitate a second round of voting.&#160;</p>
<p>But by Monday evening no decision had been made.&#160;</p>
<p>“The IEC will need at least 24 hours to factor in all the parts and determine the new results accordingly,” said Nellika Little, spokesperson for the ECC.&#160;</p>
<p>But it could take a great deal longer that that if Karzai cannot be cajoled or bullied into accepting the decision of the electoral bodies. At that point, the president and the international community will be on a collision course.&#160;</p>
<p>President Barack Obama is now pondering a troop increase; both Kerry and the president’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, have advised putting off a decision until a legitimate government is in place in Kabul.&#160;</p>
<p>But it will be very difficult to determine legitimacy if Karzai continues to defy the law.</p>
<p>The Afghan president has been trying for the past two years to shake his image as a puppet of the United States. His present intransigence has been accompanied by dark mutterings about “foreign meddling” in Afghan affairs.&#160;</p>
<p>Last week one of the ECC commissioners, Maulawi Mustafa Barakzai, abruptly quit his post, alleging that the rest of the commission was not impartial and was engaging in back-room deals. In some interviews Barakzai, who was appointed to the ECC by Afghanistan’s Supreme Court and is a specialist in Sharia Law, hinted that the ECC was “un-Islamic.”&#160;</p>
<p>Karzai refused to accept Barakzai’s resignation, which mystified many observers.&#160;</p>
<p>“Karzai did not appoint him, and it is not up to Karzai to accept his resignation,” said one international election expert. “Of course, we have not been too scrupulous about adhering to the law so far.”&#160;</p>
<p>Several possible scenarios for resolving the present impasse have been discussed, mostly in the media and in behind-the-scenes negotiations, usually with the aid of one or several high-ranking foreign diplomats.&#160;</p>
<p />
<p>A runoff, while almost certain to be necessary, may be logistically impossible. Afghanistan’s harsh winter is about to set in, and a large portion of the northern part of the country — Abdullah’s power base — would be disenfranchised by the weather. The south, where Karzai is strong, would be equally disenfranchised by mounting insecurity and the growing anger of those voters who risked their lived to cast their ballots in August.&#160;</p>
<p>Some have advocated holding a Grand Council, or Loya Jirga, to determine the winner of the elections. This has some procedural difficulties, but could give a patina of legitimacy to the final results while avoiding a prolonged power vacuum.&#160;</p>
<p>Still others are advocating an interim government to take care of business until a runoff can be held in the spring.&#160;</p>
<p>Most likely, say those close to the process, is some sort of power-sharing arrangement between Karzai and Abdullah.&#160;</p>
<p>But however the matter is ultimately resolved, the damage to Karzai’s reputation among the international community is likely to be severe, and lasting.&#160;</p>
<p>“Karzai is committing political suicide,” said Ahmad Sayeedi, a political analyst who was close to both campaigns. “We are totally dependent on the international community; this is not the time to defy them.”&#160;</p>
| false | 3 |
kabul afghanistan president hamid karzai intense pressure monday home abroad accept run unbacked body released findings documented widespread fraud first round afghanistans presidential elections findings contain data added existing figures almost certainly show karzai failed gain enough valid votes outright win afghan law would necessitate runoff afghan electoral complaints commission ecc released first official findings monday fraud alleged taken place poll various statements issued unbacked commission make clear fraud widespread significant offer concrete numbers percentages much less hint present stalemate ultimately resolved160 however democracy international election support organization ran observer mission afghanistan august elections reticent within hour eccs statement issued numberscrunching memorandum predicting karzais results would total 48 percent dr abdullah abdullah main rival would receive slightly 31 percent law clear according afghan constitution candidate receives 50 percent vote runoff must held top two votegetters160 past several days international community including several highprofile us delegations conducting frantic round talks karzai team trying broker deal apply pressure otherwise avoid looming crisis160 us secretary state hillary clinton made telephone call us senator john f kerry came kabul person french foreign minister bernard kouchner former us ambassador kabul zalmay khalilzad also arrived offer services160 eccs findings officially communicated independent electoral commission iec final responsibility issuing certified results160 electoral law clearly defines authority ecc decisions final binding iec may certify election results fulfill conditions decisions said scott worden one five ecc commissioners160 according numerous inside sources iec karzai resisting eccs findings subsequent runoff vote160 asked would happen iec simply refused accept decision one election official shrugged160 good question said official anybodys guess hundreds ballot boxes examined random sampling selected total 3498 suspicious polling stations 358 polling stations included sample 210 found clear convincing evidence fraud160 take specialist identify irregularities ranged hundreds ballots marked identical symbols red felttipped pens others none 600 ballots station ever folded making impossible fit slot ballot box160 according democracy international 12 million votes invalidated overwhelming majority 950000 karzai votes subtracted overall tally 56 million votes giving total turnout 43 million approximately 30 percent estimated voter pool160 eyes iec said one election observer speaking privately160 according sources close iec complaints commission communicated decision iec unofficially early last thursday iec promptly announced unofficially would accept findings would necessitate second round voting160 monday evening decision made160 iec need least 24 hours factor parts determine new results accordingly said nellika little spokesperson ecc160 could take great deal longer karzai cajoled bullied accepting decision electoral bodies point president international community collision course160 president barack obama pondering troop increase kerry presidents chief staff rahm emanuel advised putting decision legitimate government place kabul160 difficult determine legitimacy karzai continues defy law afghan president trying past two years shake image puppet united states present intransigence accompanied dark mutterings foreign meddling afghan affairs160 last week one ecc commissioners maulawi mustafa barakzai abruptly quit post alleging rest commission impartial engaging backroom deals interviews barakzai appointed ecc afghanistans supreme court specialist sharia law hinted ecc unislamic160 karzai refused accept barakzais resignation mystified many observers160 karzai appoint karzai accept resignation said one international election expert course scrupulous adhering law far160 several possible scenarios resolving present impasse discussed mostly media behindthescenes negotiations usually aid one several highranking foreign diplomats160 runoff almost certain necessary may logistically impossible afghanistans harsh winter set large portion northern part country abdullahs power base would disenfranchised weather south karzai strong would equally disenfranchised mounting insecurity growing anger voters risked lived cast ballots august160 advocated holding grand council loya jirga determine winner elections procedural difficulties could give patina legitimacy final results avoiding prolonged power vacuum160 still others advocating interim government take care business runoff held spring160 likely say close process sort powersharing arrangement karzai abdullah160 however matter ultimately resolved damage karzais reputation among international community likely severe lasting160 karzai committing political suicide said ahmad sayeedi political analyst close campaigns totally dependent international community time defy them160
| 635 |
<p>Editor's note: This article was first published on April 15, 2015.</p>
<p>It's already election season in the United States, and that means it's time to start&#160;hearing from&#160;people who believe they're uniquely qualified to run America's wars, drones, nuclear deals, trade partnerships, and everything else.</p>
<p>There are already a handful of front-runners. And when it comes to foreign policy, unfortunately for us all, they've each said things that are —&#160;to put it gently — &#160;a little&#160;out of touch with reality.&#160;</p>
<p>Hopefully they'll brush up on world affairs before really hitting the campaign trail. Until then, here are a few of the clueless things that they've said about the rest of the world.</p>
<p>1. Hillary Clinton, former Democratic Senator from New York and Secretary of State</p>
<p>While she was in the Senate, Clinton&#160;voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution in 2002.</p>
<p>She&#160;now says she was “ <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/06/05/hillary-clinton-on-iraq-vote-i-still-got-it-wrong-plain-and-simple/" type="external">wrong</a>,” but she defended the vote during the 2008 primary elections, and it's&#160;dogged her despite an effective stint as secretary of state.</p>
<p>2. Ted Cruz, Republican Senator from Texas</p>
<p>You’re probably used to Ted Cruz saying <a href="http://gizmodo.com/8-dumb-quotes-about-science-from-new-nasa-overseer-ted-1678965577" type="external">patently inane things</a> about science and the environment. That’s probably enough to make him unfit to be a world leader.</p>
<p>But even if he believed in climate change, there’d still be his bizarre plan for <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/10/opinion/ted-cruz-how-us-can-stop-isis/" type="external">stopping the Islamic State</a> at the Mexican border, which he explained in a CNN opinion piece.</p>
<p>“First and foremost, Washington should resolve to make border security a top priority finally, rather than an afterthought, of this plan in light of concerns about potential ISIS activities on our southern border, cited in a Texas Department of Public Safety bulletin reported by Fox News. As long as our border isn't secure, the government is making it far too easy for terrorists to infiltrate our nation.”</p>
<p>He also slammed Obama’s approach to fighting the Islamic State by <a href="http://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&amp;id=1737" type="external">comparing it</a> to his other favorite punching bag: Obamacare. Speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox News, he said:</p>
<p>“Look, it's not our job to be social workers in Iraq and put them all on expanded Medicaid. It is our job to kill terrorists who have declared war on America and who have demonstrated the intention and capability to murder innocent Americans.”</p>
<p>And it’s not just Obama’s foreign policy. He’s got his own version of historical foreign policy before the arrival of his hero, Ronald Reagan.</p>
<p>And this line from <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/10/11/2770311/craziest-ted-cruz-said-today/" type="external">his speech</a> at the Values Voter Summit in 2013 in which he explained Cold War policy under President Jimmy Carter:</p>
<p>“Our foreign policy is détente, which I’m pretty sure is French for surrender.”</p>
<p>Détente means “relaxation,” by the way.</p>
<p>3. Scott Walker, Republican Governor of Wisconsin</p>
<p>Walker’s got a long way to go to convince Republican primary voters that he’s ready to be commander in chief.</p>
<p>The Wisconsin governor&#160;built his national profile by targeting organized labor — you know, like public school teachers. So, naturally, at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)&#160;he compared standing up to angry public servants to battling the Islamic State.</p>
<p>Naturally.</p>
<p>"If I can take on a 100,000 protesters,” <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-03-01/will-scott-walker-s-comparison-of-isis-and-union-protesters-matter-" type="external">he said</a> in response to a question about IS. “I can do the same across the world."&#160;</p>
<p>Just two days later, he once again claimed that union busting was good preparation for foreign policy. During a speech to the Club for Growth, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/02/28/scott-walker-calls-reagans-bust-of-air-traffic-controller-strike-most-significant-foreign-policy-decision/" type="external">he called</a> Ronald Reagan’s decision to fire 11,000 air traffic controllers during a strike in 1981 "the most significant foreign policy decision of my lifetime" because it “sent a message not only across America, it sent a message around the world… we weren’t to be messed with.”</p>
<p>Again, maybe these are just gaffes. But it’s harder to explain his <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2015/02/02/scott-walker-presidential-bid-self-destructs-on-abcs-this-week/" type="external">total bungling</a> of questions about how he’d handle IS during his interview with Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week” in early February.</p>
<p>4. Rand Paul, Republican Senator from Kentucky</p>
<p>Paul’s known for being so anti-interventionist in his foreign policy beliefs that some of his critics say he’s more liberal than Obama when it comes to security and defense.</p>
<p>That doesn't mean he's totally focused on domestic politics. For example, he's got very strong feelings about&#160;how the Obama administration has understood and dealt with&#160;groups like the&#160;Islamic State, Boko&#160;Haram, Al Shabaab, and other&#160;jihadi groups.&#160;</p>
<p>Rand Paul is willing to say what he believes nobody else will acknowledge. These groups are united in a "worldwide war against Christianity."</p>
<p><a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/10/11/sen_rand_paul_speaks_about_worldwide_war_on_christianity_at_2013_values_voter_summit.html" type="external">This is what he said</a> at the Values Voter Summit in 2013.</p>
<p>"Today I want to tell you about a war the mainstream media is ignoring.&#160;From Boston to Zanzibar, there is a worldwide war on Christianity. You won't hear much about it on the evening news because the answer is not convenient and does not fit the narrative we have been told&#160;about radical Islam.&#160;The President tries to gloss over who is attacking and killing Christians. The media describes the killings as 'sectarian.'&#160;But the truth is, there is a worldwide war on Christians by a fanatical element of Islam."</p>
<p>It's true that jihadis have targeted Christians, but not all jihadis are the same, and some, like the Islamic State, have&#160;targeted just about everyone who doesn't adhere to their extreme strain of Sunni Islam. So, "war on Christianty" doesn't suggest the kind of nuanced understanding of terrorism and religion that you'd want from a commander in chief.</p>
<p>Foreign policy isn't just defense and security, either. How well does Paul get along with others on the world stage?</p>
<p>Let’s see what he says about the United Nations.</p>
<p>"I dislike paying for something that two-bit Third World countries with no freedom attack us and complain about the United States," Paul <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/01/14/rand_paul_says_hed_be_happy_to_dissolve_the_un_125260.html" type="external">said</a> during a gun rights event in New Hampshire in January 2015. "There’s a lot of reasons why I don’t like the U.N., and I think I’d be happy to dissolve it."</p>
<p>Oh.</p>
<p>5. Marco Rubio, Republican Senator from Florida</p>
<p>Rubio has been casting himself as the anti-Rand Paul. He’s all about a bulked-up US military that intervenes smartly and firmly&#160;around the world on behalf of American interests, and he’s developed lots of carefully crafted rhetoric to make that sound like a good idea.</p>
<p>And yet, he seems totally unable to understand&#160;two of the most critical foreign policy issues facing the United States&#160;— the battle against the Islamic States&#160;and nuclear negotiations with Iran.&#160;</p>
<p>It started in the lead up to the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference. Speaking to Sean Hannity, Rubio explained his theory about why President Obama hadn’t wiped IS off the map.</p>
<p>“If we wanted to defeat them militarily, we could do it. [Obama] doesn’t want to upset Iran,” he <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/02/27/3627902/marco-rubio-tries-criticize-obama-isis-commits-epic-fail/" type="external">told Hannity</a>. “In [Obama’s] mind, this deal with Iran is going to be the Obamacare of the second term, and he doesn’t want them sending military to the region because they think the region belongs to them.”</p>
<p>That doesn’t make much sense. Iran, like most of its neighbors, doesn’t want to encourage any sort of US military presence in the Middle East, but the Shia-majority country also doesn’t want Syria and Iraq overrun by the Sunni extremists of IS. Sharing a common enemy doesn’t make Iran and the US allies, but there&#160;on the same team for this one.</p>
<p>If you thought Rubio’s theory was just a gaffe, guess again — he <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/03/11/for-marco-rubio-and-2016-republicans-it-all-comes-back-to-iran/" type="external">doubled down</a> on it in March when Secretary of State John Kerry was at a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about Obama’s Request for Authorization of Force against IS.</p>
<p>"I believe that much of our strategy with regards to ISIS is being driven by a desire not to upset Iran so that they don't walk away from the negotiating table on the deal that you're working on," Rubio told Kerry. "Tell me why I'm wrong."</p>
<p>"Because the facts completely contradict that," Kerry said. "But I'm not at liberty to discuss all of them here for a lot of different reasons."</p>
<p>"They want us to destroy ISIS; they want to destroy ISIS. ISIS is a threat to them; it's a threat to the region. And I think you're misreading it if you don't think that there's a mutual interest ... between every country in the region."</p>
<p>We'll see if he sticks to this line once the Republican primary heats up.&#160;</p>
<p>6. Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida</p>
<p>Jeb Bush seems like a grown-up. That is, until&#160;he does something like tweet the following gem&#160;in&#160; <a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/27/fact-check-obama-is-not-planning-to-close-the-u-s-embassy-to-the-vatican/" type="external">response to a claim</a> by the National Republican Senatorial Committee that President Obama was closing the US Embassy to the Vatican —&#160;a move it called "the latest anti-religion pursuit of this Administration, a slap in the face to Catholic-Americans around the country that weakens America’s position as a global leader."</p>
<p>The State Department explained, as you can probably guess, that wasn't&#160;happening. It was&#160;moving the embassy to a&#160;compound that already housed both the Embassy to Italy and the US Mission to the United Nations. That spot was cheaper, safer, and actually closer to Vatican City than the previous location.&#160;</p>
<p>Details, details…</p>
<p>And how's&#160;Jeb dealing with having a last name that'll be&#160;associated forever with nightmarish wars, secrecy and torture, and&#160;disastrous foreign policy?</p>
<p>“I don’t think there’s any Bush baggage at all,” <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/jeb-bush-not-baggage-article-1.1284333" type="external">he said</a> on Fox News. “I love my brother, I’m proud of his accomplishments.”</p>
<p>You’ve got to give him credit for refusing to throw his brother under the bus. But seriously, come on, Jeb.</p>
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editors note article first published april 15 2015 already election season united states means time start160hearing from160people believe theyre uniquely qualified run americas wars drones nuclear deals trade partnerships everything else already handful frontrunners comes foreign policy unfortunately us theyve said things 160to put gently 160a little160out touch reality160 hopefully theyll brush world affairs really hitting campaign trail clueless things theyve said rest world 1 hillary clinton former democratic senator new york secretary state senate clinton160voted authorization use military force iraq resolution 2002 she160now says wrong defended vote 2008 primary elections its160dogged despite effective stint secretary state 2 ted cruz republican senator texas youre probably used ted cruz saying patently inane things science environment thats probably enough make unfit world leader even believed climate change thered still bizarre plan stopping islamic state mexican border explained cnn opinion piece first foremost washington resolve make border security top priority finally rather afterthought plan light concerns potential isis activities southern border cited texas department public safety bulletin reported fox news long border isnt secure government making far easy terrorists infiltrate nation also slammed obamas approach fighting islamic state comparing favorite punching bag obamacare speaking sean hannity fox news said look job social workers iraq put expanded medicaid job kill terrorists declared war america demonstrated intention capability murder innocent americans obamas foreign policy hes got version historical foreign policy arrival hero ronald reagan line speech values voter summit 2013 explained cold war policy president jimmy carter foreign policy détente im pretty sure french surrender détente means relaxation way 3 scott walker republican governor wisconsin walkers got long way go convince republican primary voters hes ready commander chief wisconsin governor160built national profile targeting organized labor know like public school teachers naturally years conservative political action conference cpac160he compared standing angry public servants battling islamic state naturally take 100000 protesters said response question across world160 two days later claimed union busting good preparation foreign policy speech club growth called ronald reagans decision fire 11000 air traffic controllers strike 1981 significant foreign policy decision lifetime sent message across america sent message around world werent messed maybe gaffes harder explain total bungling questions hed handle interview martha raddatz abcs week early february 4 rand paul republican senator kentucky pauls known antiinterventionist foreign policy beliefs critics say hes liberal obama comes security defense doesnt mean hes totally focused domestic politics example hes got strong feelings about160how obama administration understood dealt with160groups like the160islamic state boko160haram al shabaab other160jihadi groups160 rand paul willing say believes nobody else acknowledge groups united worldwide war christianity said values voter summit 2013 today want tell war mainstream media ignoring160from boston zanzibar worldwide war christianity wont hear much evening news answer convenient fit narrative told160about radical islam160the president tries gloss attacking killing christians media describes killings sectarian160but truth worldwide war christians fanatical element islam true jihadis targeted christians jihadis like islamic state have160targeted everyone doesnt adhere extreme strain sunni islam war christianty doesnt suggest kind nuanced understanding terrorism religion youd want commander chief foreign policy isnt defense security either well paul get along others world stage lets see says united nations dislike paying something twobit third world countries freedom attack us complain united states paul said gun rights event new hampshire january 2015 theres lot reasons dont like un think id happy dissolve oh 5 marco rubio republican senator florida rubio casting antirand paul hes bulkedup us military intervenes smartly firmly160around world behalf american interests hes developed lots carefully crafted rhetoric make sound like good idea yet seems totally unable understand160two critical foreign policy issues facing united states160 battle islamic states160and nuclear negotiations iran160 started lead 2015 conservative political action conference speaking sean hannity rubio explained theory president obama hadnt wiped map wanted defeat militarily could obama doesnt want upset iran told hannity obamas mind deal iran going obamacare second term doesnt want sending military region think region belongs doesnt make much sense iran like neighbors doesnt want encourage sort us military presence middle east shiamajority country also doesnt want syria iraq overrun sunni extremists sharing common enemy doesnt make iran us allies there160on team one thought rubios theory gaffe guess doubled march secretary state john kerry hearing senate foreign relations committee obamas request authorization force believe much strategy regards isis driven desire upset iran dont walk away negotiating table deal youre working rubio told kerry tell im wrong facts completely contradict kerry said im liberty discuss lot different reasons want us destroy isis want destroy isis isis threat threat region think youre misreading dont think theres mutual interest every country region well see sticks line republican primary heats up160 6 jeb bush former governor florida jeb bush seems like grownup until160he something like tweet following gem160in160 response claim national republican senatorial committee president obama closing us embassy vatican 160a move called latest antireligion pursuit administration slap face catholicamericans around country weakens americas position global leader state department explained probably guess wasnt160happening was160moving embassy a160compound already housed embassy italy us mission united nations spot cheaper safer actually closer vatican city previous location160 details details hows160jeb dealing last name thatll be160associated forever nightmarish wars secrecy torture and160disastrous foreign policy dont think theres bush baggage said fox news love brother im proud accomplishments youve got give credit refusing throw brother bus seriously come jeb
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<p><a type="external" href="" /> <a href="#time" type="external">Timeline</a> | <a href="#else" type="external">Elsewhere</a></p>
<p>| <a href="#short" type="external">In Short</a></p>
<p><a href="#askcat" type="external">Ask Catalyst</a> | <a href="#capital" type="external">Capital Dispatch</a></p>
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<p>TIMELINE <a type="external" href="" /></p>
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<p>Aug. 9: Jones expands</p>
<p>After years of litigation, the Board of Education agrees to pay $13 million for the Pacific Garden Mission homeless shelter next door to Jones College Prep High School. The shelter will be razed to make way for the high school’s $20 million expansion project, expected to break ground in 2008. Jones Principal Don Fraynd says that the high price of the Pacific Garden property may have cut into the project’s budget. Pacific Garden’s new facility will be built at Canal and 14th streets.</p>
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<p>Aug. 10 Tutoring study</p>
<p>Children who received tutoring offered by CPS under the No Child Left Behind Act made academic gains comparable to children who were tutored by other large, private companies, according to a district report. Children in the CPS program gained 1.08 grade levels, compared to a citywide gain of 1.09. The district is appealing a decision by the federal government to bar CPS from providing tutoring because of the system’s failure to meet NCLB standards. CPS served about 30,000 students.</p>
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<p>Aug. 19: Iowas gone</p>
<p>At a meeting of administrators, CEO Arne Duncan announces that the district is scrapping the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. CPS will rely on the ISAT to determine whether schools are placed on probation and whether students in grades 3, 6 and 8 will be promoted. Instead of the ITBS, CPS will administer a shorter reading assessment called Stanford Learning First in October, January and May. CPS says the Stanford is intended solely as a diagnostic tool to help improve instruction.</p>
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<p>ELSEWHERE <a type="external" href="" /></p>
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<p>Boston: Charter unions?</p>
<p>For the first time, about 50 teachers from a dozen charter schools across Massachusetts have joined the state’s main teachers union, according to the Aug. 10 Boston Globe. The new teachers will be associate members with only limited benefits, but union officials say the move will begin paving the way for giving charter teachers a voice on matters such as work hours and pay. Charter proponents say the union is trying to damage the charter school concept. Teachers, however, cannot bargain until 60 percent of teachers at a school agree to join the union.</p>
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<p>Pennsylvania: More math</p>
<p>A new $5.3 million initiative is intended to spur school districts to require high school students to take four years of math, according to the Aug. 5 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Only about a third of districts now require four years of math. Under the initiative, 63 school districts and three additional schools will share grants of $50,000 to $168,000 to improve their math curricula. Chicago Public Schools requires three years of high school math.</p>
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<p>Florida: Intensive reading</p>
<p>More than 600,000 middle and high school students will have to spend a quarter of the school day in intensive reading classes this fall, after failing the reading section of the state’s achievement tests, according to the Aug. 4 Orlando Sentinel. Students will have to stay in the classes until they raise their scores. Schools are dropping elective courses to make time for the reading classes, and hundreds of teachers are taking courses to become qualified to teach reading. Science, math and social studies teachers will also be required to show that they are incorporating more reading into their curricula. Last year, only 44 percent of 8th-graders and 32 percent of 10th-graders passed the reading test.</p>
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<p>IN SHORT <a type="external" href="" /></p>
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<p>“You need to start out by electing a moderate Republican as governor.”</p>
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<p>Mike Lawrence, one-time press secretary to former Gov. Jim Edgar, at an Aug. 5 Metropolitan Planning Council forum on school funding, on how to win GOP support for funding reform. Lawrence is director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University.</p>
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<p>ASK CATALYST <a type="external" href="" /></p>
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<p>CPS is assessing schools a technology fee for computer connections in the coming school year. Is that legal?</p>
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<p>Nancy Kosobud, LSC community representative, Agassiz Elementary</p>
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<p>Possibly not, according to federal and state officials contacted by Catalyst.</p>
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<p>CPS is now charging schools $2 per month for each computer connected to the district’s network, to pay for virus protection and other network services formerly covered by the district. Schools can use one of four funding sources for that fee, according to the district’s Office of Technology: state or federal poverty funds, money from the general education fund that covers school supplies, or money raised by the school.</p>
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<p>But using poverty funds to replace district funding may violate the law, federal and state officials say. That money is supposed to ‘supplement’ education for low-income students, not ‘supplant’ local funding. “In the absence of federal funds, they would be providing virus protection. That would seem to be supplanting,” says Chad Colby, a spokesperson for the U.S. Dept. of Education in Washington, D.C. He adds that the feds plan to investigate the matter. State poverty funds could cover any increase in network service expenses this year, but could not replace prior funding, says Richard Loman in the Accountability Division of the Illinois State Board of Education.</p>
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<p>E-mail your question to <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external" /></p>
<p>or send it to Ask Catalyst, 332 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 500, Chicago,</p>
<p>IL 60604.</p>
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<p>SPRINGFIELD—Chicago Public Schools is partnering with the state on a new $2.1 million federal program designed to add 250 bilingual teachers over the next five years. Recent college graduates who are fluent in English, have a bachelor’s degree and can pass a proficiency test in one of 14 languages (Arabic, Cantonese, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Lao, Mandarin, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Urdu and Vietnamese) can apply. Participants will work as bilingual teachers in CPS for three years, while studying to earn their teaching credentials and a master’s degree in education from Northern Illinois University. The coursework is expected to take about two and a half years, says Robin Lisboa, division administrator for English-language learning at the Illinois State Board of Education. Courses will be held in Chicago. —Pat Guinane</p>
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timeline elsewhere short ask catalyst capital dispatch timeline aug 9 jones expands years litigation board education agrees pay 13 million pacific garden mission homeless shelter next door jones college prep high school shelter razed make way high schools 20 million expansion project expected break ground 2008 jones principal fraynd says high price pacific garden property may cut projects budget pacific gardens new facility built canal 14th streets aug 10 tutoring study children received tutoring offered cps child left behind act made academic gains comparable children tutored large private companies according district report children cps program gained 108 grade levels compared citywide gain 109 district appealing decision federal government bar cps providing tutoring systems failure meet nclb standards cps served 30000 students aug 19 iowas gone meeting administrators ceo arne duncan announces district scrapping iowa test basic skills cps rely isat determine whether schools placed probation whether students grades 3 6 8 promoted instead itbs cps administer shorter reading assessment called stanford learning first october january may cps says stanford intended solely diagnostic tool help improve instruction back top elsewhere boston charter unions first time 50 teachers dozen charter schools across massachusetts joined states main teachers union according aug 10 boston globe new teachers associate members limited benefits union officials say move begin paving way giving charter teachers voice matters work hours pay charter proponents say union trying damage charter school concept teachers however bargain 60 percent teachers school agree join union pennsylvania math new 53 million initiative intended spur school districts require high school students take four years math according aug 5 pittsburgh postgazette third districts require four years math initiative 63 school districts three additional schools share grants 50000 168000 improve math curricula chicago public schools requires three years high school math florida intensive reading 600000 middle high school students spend quarter school day intensive reading classes fall failing reading section states achievement tests according aug 4 orlando sentinel students stay classes raise scores schools dropping elective courses make time reading classes hundreds teachers taking courses become qualified teach reading science math social studies teachers also required show incorporating reading curricula last year 44 percent 8thgraders 32 percent 10thgraders passed reading test back top short need start electing moderate republican governor mike lawrence onetime press secretary former gov jim edgar aug 5 metropolitan planning council forum school funding win gop support funding reform lawrence director paul simon public policy institute southern illinois university back top ask catalyst cps assessing schools technology fee computer connections coming school year legal nancy kosobud lsc community representative agassiz elementary possibly according federal state officials contacted catalyst cps charging schools 2 per month computer connected districts network pay virus protection network services formerly covered district schools use one four funding sources fee according districts office technology state federal poverty funds money general education fund covers school supplies money raised school using poverty funds replace district funding may violate law federal state officials say money supposed supplement education lowincome students supplant local funding absence federal funds would providing virus protection would seem supplanting says chad colby spokesperson us dept education washington dc adds feds plan investigate matter state poverty funds could cover increase network service expenses year could replace prior funding says richard loman accountability division illinois state board education email question send ask catalyst 332 michigan ave suite 500 chicago il 60604 back top capital dispatch springfieldchicago public schools partnering state new 21 million federal program designed add 250 bilingual teachers next five years recent college graduates fluent english bachelors degree pass proficiency test one 14 languages arabic cantonese greek gujarati hindi japanese korean lao mandarin polish russian spanish urdu vietnamese apply participants work bilingual teachers cps three years studying earn teaching credentials masters degree education northern illinois university coursework expected take two half years says robin lisboa division administrator englishlanguage learning illinois state board education courses held chicago pat guinane back top
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<p>When does the New Year begin? For Christians observing the church calendar, the new year began Dec. 2, with the start of the Advent season.</p>
<p>The liturgical year is an “or-derly way to look at the full scope of Christian themes in a year-long fashion,” said John Baker, pastor of First Baptist Church in Columbia, Mo.</p>
<p>The year begins with Advent, which starts the fourth Sunday before Christmas. Advent is a time of preparation or anticipation of the birth of Christ.</p>
<p>“If you're going to have a party, you don't just decide that day,” said Greg Lundberg, associate pastor of music and worship at Kirkwood Baptist Church in Kirkwood, Mo. “You put a lot of energy into the event. You prepare food, activities, decorations and gifts or favors for the guests. You want to make it special. That's what's so special about Advent. It's a time set aside to prepare.”</p>
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<p>“We try not to get to the birth too soon,” Baker said. “It is hard, but it builds the anticipation.”</p>
<p>First Baptist in Columbia accomplishes this, in part, with careful selection of Christmas hymns and carols. During the weeks of Advent, the songs focus more on the coming of Christ.</p>
<p>First Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., celebrates in a similar way.</p>
<p>“Advent begins in darkness, with the flame of hope sputtering on its charred wick,” Pastor Jim Somerville wrote in the church newsletter.</p>
<p>“We sing out hymns in minor keys. We drape the church in purple. But as the other candles are lit in the weeks that follow—peace and joy and love—the sense of expectancy is heightened, and when the Christ candle is lit on Christmas Eve, the mood shifts suddenly and dramatically.</p>
<p>“The house lights come up. Deep purple is replaced by dazzling white and gold. The minor key modulates into the major, and suddenly it is nothing but joy to the world, for the Lord is come!”</p>
<p>The 12 days of Christmas begin Dec. 25 and are followed by Epiphany, the revelation of Jesus to humanity, specifically in the visit of the Magi.</p>
<p>After Epiphany is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent, a 40-day time of preparation for the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, culminating in Holy Week and, finally, Easter Sunday.</p>
<p>“Easter is the high holy day of the Christian year,” Baker said. “It far supercedes Christmas in importance.”</p>
<p>Christmas would be meaningless if not for Easter, he explains. Had Christ not risen from the dead, his birth would not be as important.</p>
<p>After Easter comes Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit and birthday of the church.</p>
<p>The remainder of the year is made up of what is called ordinary time, which lasts until the next Advent. Ordinary does not mean the time is common or plain, but refers to “ordinal” or numbered.</p>
<p>The season of ordinary time does have some special emphasis days, such as Trinity Sunday and All Saints Day.</p>
<p>Another part of the liturgical year is the use of the lectionary, a three-year cycle through most passages of the Bible. Baker likes the lectionary because it helps ensure the entire Bible is covered. “We tend to get caught in the things we like most,” he said. “The lectionary helps make sure I don't preach my own canon.”</p>
<p>Somerville said the lectionary makes sure there is a lot of Scripture in each service. Each week has an Old Testament passage, a Psalm, a gospel reading and an epistle. “We try to read all four passages out loud each week,” he said. “If a person has been at the church for three years, they have heard most of the Bible.”</p>
<p>“Baptists are known as ‘people of the Book,'” he said. “Yet we can attend a service and hear one half of one verse. With the lectionary, the people hear four complete passages from Scripture.”</p>
<p>Why follow the church year? For Robin Sandbothe of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Shawnee, Kan., incorporating the church year in worship is profoundly meaningful.</p>
<p>“I did not grow up observing [the church year]—other than Christmas and Easter,” she said. “I was first exposed to its fullness in seminary. The connection it provides to both the Church around the world and the Church historically has an almost mystical significance for me—no ‘almost' about it, really. I'm drawn to the contemplative nature of the seasons' observances.”</p>
<p>Somerville began implementing the church calendar into worship during an earlier pastorate. He had been following the Southern Baptist Convention's denominational calendar. When he saw Palm Sunday labeled as “start a church commitment Sunday,” he felt it was wrong.</p>
<p>“Not that there is anything wrong with starting a church,” he emphasized. “It just shouldn't be the theme of Palm Sunday.”</p>
<p>He began looking to the church calendar and was glad First Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., had been following the calendar for “years and years.”</p>
<p>Somerville admitted keeping the symbols and traditions fresh can be a struggle, but he added that is a struggle regardless whether the church year is being followed.</p>
<p>“People know what I'm going to say on Easter,” he said. “‘Christ is risen.' Finding new ways to say that is hard. But then, it's hard to have a bad Easter.”</p>
<p>Somerville said the church year can be special and meaningful because of the layers upon layers of meaning that are applied each year.</p>
<p>Ultimately, it comes down to how you plan worship, he said.</p>
<p>“Do you plan sermons based on a denominational emphasis, the life in your community at that point or how the Spirit moves on Saturday night? The church year is at least as legitimate as those methods, and perhaps more intentional than some. I'd find it hard to go back to another method.”</p>
<p>Lundberg agrees.</p>
<p>“We follow calendars, whether we like it or not,” he said. “Most follow a Hallmark calendar. We celebrate a lot of things that we should. We should remember the important things—the incarnation of Jesus as God in this world, the resurrection.”</p>
| false | 3 |
new year begin christians observing church calendar new year began dec 2 start advent season liturgical year orderly way look full scope christian themes yearlong fashion said john baker pastor first baptist church columbia mo year begins advent starts fourth sunday christmas advent time preparation anticipation birth christ youre going party dont decide day said greg lundberg associate pastor music worship kirkwood baptist church kirkwood mo put lot energy event prepare food activities decorations gifts favors guests want make special thats whats special advent time set aside prepare try get birth soon baker said hard builds anticipation first baptist columbia accomplishes part careful selection christmas hymns carols weeks advent songs focus coming christ first baptist church washington dc celebrates similar way advent begins darkness flame hope sputtering charred wick pastor jim somerville wrote church newsletter sing hymns minor keys drape church purple candles lit weeks followpeace joy lovethe sense expectancy heightened christ candle lit christmas eve mood shifts suddenly dramatically house lights come deep purple replaced dazzling white gold minor key modulates major suddenly nothing joy world lord come 12 days christmas begin dec 25 followed epiphany revelation jesus humanity specifically visit magi epiphany ash wednesday marks beginning lent 40day time preparation crucifixion resurrection christ culminating holy week finally easter sunday easter high holy day christian year baker said far supercedes christmas importance christmas would meaningless easter explains christ risen dead birth would important easter comes pentecost coming holy spirit birthday church remainder year made called ordinary time lasts next advent ordinary mean time common plain refers ordinal numbered season ordinary time special emphasis days trinity sunday saints day another part liturgical year use lectionary threeyear cycle passages bible baker likes lectionary helps ensure entire bible covered tend get caught things like said lectionary helps make sure dont preach canon somerville said lectionary makes sure lot scripture service week old testament passage psalm gospel reading epistle try read four passages loud week said person church three years heard bible baptists known people book said yet attend service hear one half one verse lectionary people hear four complete passages scripture follow church year robin sandbothe central baptist theological seminary shawnee kan incorporating church year worship profoundly meaningful grow observing church yearother christmas easter said first exposed fullness seminary connection provides church around world church historically almost mystical significance meno almost really im drawn contemplative nature seasons observances somerville began implementing church calendar worship earlier pastorate following southern baptist conventions denominational calendar saw palm sunday labeled start church commitment sunday felt wrong anything wrong starting church emphasized shouldnt theme palm sunday began looking church calendar glad first baptist church washington dc following calendar years years somerville admitted keeping symbols traditions fresh struggle added struggle regardless whether church year followed people know im going say easter said christ risen finding new ways say hard hard bad easter somerville said church year special meaningful layers upon layers meaning applied year ultimately comes plan worship said plan sermons based denominational emphasis life community point spirit moves saturday night church year least legitimate methods perhaps intentional id find hard go back another method lundberg agrees follow calendars whether like said follow hallmark calendar celebrate lot things remember important thingsthe incarnation jesus god world resurrection
| 538 |
<p>The African-American pastor who initiated this summer’s Southern Baptist Convention resolution denouncing the alt-right urged other members of President Trump’s evangelical advisory board to follow the lead of a New York City pastor who stepped down in protest of the president’s remarks about the Aug. 12 white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Va.</p>
<p>“It’s making the church look bad that they are propping up a man who is giving cover to blatant racism,” Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, said of the president’s evangelical supporters at a Sunday night <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CornerstoneTX/videos/vb.106022909426305/1749896438372269/?type=2&amp;theater" type="external">conference</a> on race and the alt-right at his church.</p>
<p>A.R. Bernard, senior pastor of the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, resigned Aug. 18 as one of the president’s spiritual advisers after violence surrounding a Unite the Right rally protesting planned removal of a Confederate monument left three dead and dozens injured, <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/347179-member-of-trumps-evangelical-advisory-board-resigns-over-conflict-in" type="external">citing</a> “a deepening conflict in values” with the administration.</p>
<p>Trump’s immediate response that “many sides” were responsible for the tragedy — seemingly equating the alt-right and neo-Nazi groups behind the rally and clergy and others in Charlottesville to counter the message — prompted a mass exodus from and eventual disbanding of Trump’s economic advisory and manufacturing councils.</p>
<p>Dwight McKissic</p>
<p>During a panel discussion at the Aug. 20 conference planned by him and two other Southern Baptist pastors in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, McKissic said he believes the president’s evangelical advisory group — which includes two past presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention and former Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission head Richard Land — should do the same.</p>
<p>“To me you are giving an endorsement of racism if Trump cannot … call the alt-right specifically by name and say they are racist and wrong,” McKissic said. “I think it speaks poorly of evangelicals that they’re letting Trump by with that. That’s my opinion.”</p>
<p>The 24 remaining members of the evangelical council have been roundly criticized for not taking a stronger stand against Trump’s remarks about Charlottesville.</p>
<p>Some members of the evangelical panel, such as Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. and Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas, defended Trump against his critics.</p>
<p>Falwell, son of Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/evangelical-leader-praises-trumps-bold-truthful-statement-about-charlottesville/article/2631732" type="external">praised</a> Trump’s “bold [and] truthful statement” about Charlottesville.</p>
<p>“If we’re going to denounce some racism, we ought to denounce all racism, and I believe that was the point the president was making,” Jeffress, one of the first evangelical leaders to embrace Trump’s presidential campaign, <a href="http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/politics/2017/august/watch-faith-nation-live-trump-evangelical-adviser-robert-jeffress-and-charlottesville" type="external">told</a> CBN.</p>
<p>Others, like former SBC presidents Ronnie Floyd and Jack Graham, denounced white supremacy without getting into the controversy about Trump.</p>
<p>“White supremacy and its movements are evil to the core and are to be condemned,” Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, tweeted Aug. 12. “There is no place for this in America.”</p>
<p>Floyd, <a href="http://www.ronniefloyd.com/ndp/" type="external">announced</a> earlier this week as next president of the National Day of Prayer, <a href="https://twitter.com/ronniefloyd/status/896482705441005568" type="external">described</a> white nationalism and white supremacy as “anathema to the teachings of Christ.”</p>
<p>Land, now president of Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, N.C., <a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/under-fire-after-pastor-ar-bernards-exit-evangelical-advisory-board-explains-work-trump-196569/" type="external">said</a> he was dissatisfied with Trump’s response to Charlottesville&#160;but believes the president’s statement about “many sides” was “misconstrued and misunderstood.”</p>
<p>Richard Land</p>
<p>Land released a statement Aug. 24 saying he’s received many emails urging him to distance himself from Trump, but he is staying on the evangelical advisory council.</p>
<p>“A leader presented with the challenges that President Trump is facing needs counsel and prayer from Bible-believing servants now more than ever,” Land said. “Now is not the time to quit or retreat, but just the opposite — to lean in closer.”</p>
<p>McKissic said the Southern Baptist Convention “wouldn’t look very good right now” if messengers had not adopted a revised version of his resolution condemning the alt-right that was originally not reported out of committee. He credited SBC President Steve Gaines, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn., and a guest at Sunday night’s program, for helping to get it through.</p>
<p>“Although Russell Moore, myself and others have gotten a lot of credit, without the leadership and determination of Dr. Steve Gaines, the resolution that was passed that made it clear where the Southern Baptist Convention stands on the alt-right, not knowing what was going to happen in Charlottesville, but had we not passed that resolution we wouldn’t look very good right now,” McKissic said.</p>
<p>Moore, Land’s successor as president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s top spokesman for public policy and religious liberty concerns, was harshly critical of Trump and his evangelical enablers during the campaign, drawing rebuke from the candidate himself, threats to withhold funds for the denomination and <a href="" type="internal">speculation</a> that he might lose his job.</p>
<p>In his contribution to National Review’s “conservatives against Trump” issue in February 2016, Moore <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/430412/conservatives-against-trump" type="external">said</a> the only way the thrice-married billionaire and reality television star who made millions off a casino industry could win the 2016 election was a “celebrity-focused mobocracy … in which sound moral judgments are displaced by a narcissistic pursuit of power combined with promises of ‘winning’ for the masses.”</p>
<p>“Social and religious conservatives have always seen this tendency as decadent and deviant,” Moore continued. “For them to view it any other way now would be for them to lose their soul.”</p>
<p>Moore eventually <a href="" type="internal">apologized</a> “for using words, particularly in social media, that were at times overly broad or unnecessarily harsh.”</p>
<p>Russell Moore</p>
<p>Moore wrote a Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/08/14/russell-moore-white-supremacy-angers-jesus-but-does-it-anger-his-church/?utm_term=.a2e430d0b44d" type="external">commentary</a> Aug. 14 headlined “White supremacy angers Jesus, but does it anger his church?” The column labeled white supremacy “terrorism” and “devil-worship that often pretends that it is speaking for God.”</p>
<p>White evangelicals overwhelmingly voted for Trump last November and remain one of the most loyal parts of his base. At Sunday night’s racially mixed audience at McKissic’s church, there was a feeling that Southern Baptist leaders are being more cautious in their criticism of Trump than they were of Barack Obama.</p>
<p>“Why has the majority of white evangelicals in a sense muted the call of and for moral leadership and in many ways tend to editorialize, explain away and justify President Trump’s un-American and dare I say anti-Christian positions?” one questioner asked during a panel discussion near the end of the three-hour church service.</p>
<p>The unidentified man said some of those same people “took every opportunity known to man” to call out President Obama for being unbiblical on issues like same-sex marriage and abortion.</p>
<p>“You could not get that chorus to be quiet, but on these issues there’s a deafening silence,” he said.</p>
| false | 3 |
africanamerican pastor initiated summers southern baptist convention resolution denouncing altright urged members president trumps evangelical advisory board follow lead new york city pastor stepped protest presidents remarks aug 12 white supremacist march charlottesville va making church look bad propping man giving cover blatant racism dwight mckissic pastor cornerstone baptist church arlington texas said presidents evangelical supporters sunday night conference race altright church ar bernard senior pastor christian cultural center brooklyn resigned aug 18 one presidents spiritual advisers violence surrounding unite right rally protesting planned removal confederate monument left three dead dozens injured citing deepening conflict values administration trumps immediate response many sides responsible tragedy seemingly equating altright neonazi groups behind rally clergy others charlottesville counter message prompted mass exodus eventual disbanding trumps economic advisory manufacturing councils dwight mckissic panel discussion aug 20 conference planned two southern baptist pastors dallasfort worth area mckissic said believes presidents evangelical advisory group includes two past presidents southern baptist convention former ethics religious liberty commission head richard land giving endorsement racism trump call altright specifically name say racist wrong mckissic said think speaks poorly evangelicals theyre letting trump thats opinion 24 remaining members evangelical council roundly criticized taking stronger stand trumps remarks charlottesville members evangelical panel liberty university president jerry falwell jr pastor robert jeffress first baptist church dallas defended trump critics falwell son moral majority founder jerry falwell praised trumps bold truthful statement charlottesville going denounce racism ought denounce racism believe point president making jeffress one first evangelical leaders embrace trumps presidential campaign told cbn others like former sbc presidents ronnie floyd jack graham denounced white supremacy without getting controversy trump white supremacy movements evil core condemned graham pastor prestonwood baptist church plano texas tweeted aug 12 place america floyd announced earlier week next president national day prayer described white nationalism white supremacy anathema teachings christ land president southern evangelical seminary charlotte nc said dissatisfied trumps response charlottesville160but believes presidents statement many sides misconstrued misunderstood richard land land released statement aug 24 saying hes received many emails urging distance trump staying evangelical advisory council leader presented challenges president trump facing needs counsel prayer biblebelieving servants ever land said time quit retreat opposite lean closer mckissic said southern baptist convention wouldnt look good right messengers adopted revised version resolution condemning altright originally reported committee credited sbc president steve gaines pastor bellevue baptist church cordova tenn guest sunday nights program helping get although russell moore others gotten lot credit without leadership determination dr steve gaines resolution passed made clear southern baptist convention stands altright knowing going happen charlottesville passed resolution wouldnt look good right mckissic said moore lands successor president southern baptist conventions top spokesman public policy religious liberty concerns harshly critical trump evangelical enablers campaign drawing rebuke candidate threats withhold funds denomination speculation might lose job contribution national reviews conservatives trump issue february 2016 moore said way thricemarried billionaire reality television star made millions casino industry could win 2016 election celebrityfocused mobocracy sound moral judgments displaced narcissistic pursuit power combined promises winning masses social religious conservatives always seen tendency decadent deviant moore continued view way would lose soul moore eventually apologized using words particularly social media times overly broad unnecessarily harsh russell moore moore wrote washington post commentary aug 14 headlined white supremacy angers jesus anger church column labeled white supremacy terrorism devilworship often pretends speaking god white evangelicals overwhelmingly voted trump last november remain one loyal parts base sunday nights racially mixed audience mckissics church feeling southern baptist leaders cautious criticism trump barack obama majority white evangelicals sense muted call moral leadership many ways tend editorialize explain away justify president trumps unamerican dare say antichristian positions one questioner asked panel discussion near end threehour church service unidentified man said people took every opportunity known man call president obama unbiblical issues like samesex marriage abortion could get chorus quiet issues theres deafening silence said
| 639 |
<p>Within an hour after CTU’s House of Delegates refused to vote to suspend the week-long teachers’ strike, Mayor Rahm Emanuel issued a statement saying he has told city lawyers to ask a judge to force teachers to go back to work.</p>
<p>Last week, Emanuel had called the strike one of “choice” and hinted that he believed the union could not call a strike over teacher evaluation and recall rights—the two major sticking points in negotiations.&#160;</p>
<p>A provision added to the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act last year says Chicago teachers can strike only over pay and benefits.&#160;</p>
<p>Emanuel also cited health and safety concerns for children as a factor in asking for an injunction.</p>
<p>“While the union works through its remaining issues, there is no reason why the children of Chicago should not be back in the classroom,” Emanuel said.</p>
<p>CTU spokeswoman Stephanie Gadlin responded: “They said the Montgomery bus boycott was illegal, too.”</p>
<p>CTU leaders have said they believe teacher evaluation and recall are linked to pay and are thus fair game for a strike. The&#160; union also sought to insulate itself <a href="http://catalyst-chicago.org/2012/09/record-injunction-stop-strike/" type="external">against a court injunction</a> by filing an unfair labor practice complaint, just days before the strike.&#160;</p>
<p>The basis of that complaint was the union’s charge that CPS started illegally implementing provisions that had not been negotiated in the contract, such as failing to pay teachers step increases and implementing a new teacher evaluation system.&#160;</p>
<p>Filing an injunction is a risky move for Emanuel. If he loses in court, he would further anger teachers and make them more suspicious of the deal.&#160; If he wins, forcing teachers to end their strike could anger members of other unions.</p>
<p>The emergency injunction will likely be filed Monday and could be heard immediately.</p>
<p>Vetting the deal</p>
<p>At the same time, teacher delegates will be meeting with their colleagues to gauge their opinion on the deal hashed out by the school district and union last week. The House of Delegates will come back together Tuesday afternoon where they will either vote to suspend the strike or reject the deal.</p>
<p>CTU President Karen Lewis had suggested the delegates would vote to end the strike on Sunday evening. But instead of the usual chants and cheers emanating from the union hall, a booming “no” could be heard several times.</p>
<p>Lewis emerged to say that delegates wanted to wait until Tuesday to vet the deal with members. Team Englewood Delegate David Stiber said the decision was made by having those in favor of waiting stand up and, while it wasn’t everyone, a clear majority rose.&#160;</p>
<p>Stiber said he will talk to his colleagues and then survey them to see how they feel about the deal.</p>
<p>Lewis, who has come out of delegate meetings in the past strident or jovial, seemed subdued on Sunday night. At one point, she called the deal a “bad” one, but later she defended it, saying “it was the deal we could get.”</p>
<p>She noted that the district has financial problems and that curtailed the ability to push for certain things. The union had demanded more social workers, lower class sizes and air conditioners in every school, but the deal leaves these things out.</p>
<p>“They are not happy,” she said of the delegates. She said they aren’t satisfied with the agreements on teacher evaluation and recall and they wonder if they can win more concessions.</p>
<p>The “elephant in the room,” as Lewis has said, is the realization that CPS officials may well close 80 to 100 schools over the next few year—a move that could result in layoffs of thousands of teachers.</p>
<p>The deal hammered out provides some extra protections for teachers. Yet Lewis said her members are skeptical.</p>
<p>“There is no trust, by our members, of the board,” she said. “So you have a population who are frightened that they will never be able to work again.”</p>
<p>Further complicating the situation, both CPS and CTU have offered up their versions of the detail, which are not exactly the same.</p>
<p>Compensation and length of contract</p>
<p>CTU and CPS agree that the deal provides a 3 percent raise for teachers in the first year and 2 percent for the second and third year. The contract would be for three years, with an option for a fourth year by agreement, with a 3 percent raise.</p>
<p>CPS will keep paying step and lane increases for education and seniority. But the step structure will change to give greater value to those with 14 thru 16 years of experience. This will also save the district money.</p>
<p>CPS says paying for these raises will cost the district $74 million per year, considerably less than for the salary increases in the last two contracts.</p>
<p>CPS also dropped its attempt to increase contributions for health care. However, CTU agreed to have its members participate in the city’s wellness program. If someone opts out, he or she will have to pay $600 per year.</p>
<p>Recall</p>
<p>The union’s big win in this area is getting CPS to agree that half of its new hires will be displaced teachers. “This is the first time in history that CPS guaranteed jobs for displaced teachers,” says CTU lawyer Robert Bloch.</p>
<p>CPS emphasizes that principals will maintain the ability to hire whomever they want to teach in their school. “Principals will not be restrained by this goal,” according to a CPS fact-sheet.</p>
<p>So how will this work? Bloch says that on a given date of each year, there will be a determination of how many displaced teachers there were and how many were hired. If it is less than half, then CPS will make up the difference by taking the most senior teachers and putting them to work as long-term substitutes. Bloch points out that CPS will have a financial incentive to put these teachers to work.</p>
<p>Another win for the union is that teachers of closed schools will get to follow their students to the receiving school, if there vacant position.</p>
<p>However, CPS also would claim victory in this area, should the deal be approved. Layoffs would be based on performance first, then on status, with probationary teachers laid off before tenured. Also, teachers only get five months in the displaced teacher pool, not the 10 months they previously had.</p>
<p>Teacher Evaluation</p>
<p>The union’s fight on tying teacher evaluation to student performance was complicated by the fact that state law requires it. CPS had wanted to give more weight to performance than the state requires, but CTU held the line and got the district to agree to the minimum: 25 percent of the evaluation tied to test scores in year 1 and 30 percent in year 2 and 3.</p>
<p>A joint committee made up equally of district and CTU representatives will decide if the weight will increase in future years. It is unclear what will happen if the committee is split. The joint committee also will decide whether student surveys will be part of the evaluation in year 3 of the contract and beyond.</p>
<p>CPS touted the fact that teachers with unsatisfactory—the lowest rating—could be fired quickly. CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll says they will have 90 days to work with a mentor and move into the proficient category—two rungs up the ladder. If they do not they will be let go.</p>
<p>“We are not talking about a year or two,” she said. “We are talking about something much more immediate.”</p>
<p>But Bloch pointed out that they only have to move up to proficient based on teacher practice measures, not on student growth in test scores.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>For more details, see the <a href="http://www.ctunet.com/blog/text/Summary-Term-Sheet-1.pdf" type="external">information distributed to union delegates</a> and the <a href="http://www.docstoc.com/docs/130124418/CPS-fact-sheet-on-offer-to-teachers" type="external">CPS fact sheet</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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within hour ctus house delegates refused vote suspend weeklong teachers strike mayor rahm emanuel issued statement saying told city lawyers ask judge force teachers go back work last week emanuel called strike one choice hinted believed union could call strike teacher evaluation recall rightsthe two major sticking points negotiations160 provision added illinois educational labor relations act last year says chicago teachers strike pay benefits160 emanuel also cited health safety concerns children factor asking injunction union works remaining issues reason children chicago back classroom emanuel said ctu spokeswoman stephanie gadlin responded said montgomery bus boycott illegal ctu leaders said believe teacher evaluation recall linked pay thus fair game strike the160 union also sought insulate court injunction filing unfair labor practice complaint days strike160 basis complaint unions charge cps started illegally implementing provisions negotiated contract failing pay teachers step increases implementing new teacher evaluation system160 filing injunction risky move emanuel loses court would anger teachers make suspicious deal160 wins forcing teachers end strike could anger members unions emergency injunction likely filed monday could heard immediately vetting deal time teacher delegates meeting colleagues gauge opinion deal hashed school district union last week house delegates come back together tuesday afternoon either vote suspend strike reject deal ctu president karen lewis suggested delegates would vote end strike sunday evening instead usual chants cheers emanating union hall booming could heard several times lewis emerged say delegates wanted wait tuesday vet deal members team englewood delegate david stiber said decision made favor waiting stand wasnt everyone clear majority rose160 stiber said talk colleagues survey see feel deal lewis come delegate meetings past strident jovial seemed subdued sunday night one point called deal bad one later defended saying deal could get noted district financial problems curtailed ability push certain things union demanded social workers lower class sizes air conditioners every school deal leaves things happy said delegates said arent satisfied agreements teacher evaluation recall wonder win concessions elephant room lewis said realization cps officials may well close 80 100 schools next yeara move could result layoffs thousands teachers deal hammered provides extra protections teachers yet lewis said members skeptical trust members board said population frightened never able work complicating situation cps ctu offered versions detail exactly compensation length contract ctu cps agree deal provides 3 percent raise teachers first year 2 percent second third year contract would three years option fourth year agreement 3 percent raise cps keep paying step lane increases education seniority step structure change give greater value 14 thru 16 years experience also save district money cps says paying raises cost district 74 million per year considerably less salary increases last two contracts cps also dropped attempt increase contributions health care however ctu agreed members participate citys wellness program someone opts pay 600 per year recall unions big win area getting cps agree half new hires displaced teachers first time history cps guaranteed jobs displaced teachers says ctu lawyer robert bloch cps emphasizes principals maintain ability hire whomever want teach school principals restrained goal according cps factsheet work bloch says given date year determination many displaced teachers many hired less half cps make difference taking senior teachers putting work longterm substitutes bloch points cps financial incentive put teachers work another win union teachers closed schools get follow students receiving school vacant position however cps also would claim victory area deal approved layoffs would based performance first status probationary teachers laid tenured also teachers get five months displaced teacher pool 10 months previously teacher evaluation unions fight tying teacher evaluation student performance complicated fact state law requires cps wanted give weight performance state requires ctu held line got district agree minimum 25 percent evaluation tied test scores year 1 30 percent year 2 3 joint committee made equally district ctu representatives decide weight increase future years unclear happen committee split joint committee also decide whether student surveys part evaluation year 3 contract beyond cps touted fact teachers unsatisfactorythe lowest ratingcould fired quickly cps spokeswoman becky carroll says 90 days work mentor move proficient categorytwo rungs ladder let go talking year two said talking something much immediate bloch pointed move proficient based teacher practice measures student growth test scores 160 details see information distributed union delegates cps fact sheet 160 160 160 160 160
| 707 |
<p>May 31, 2012</p>
<p>By Wayne Lusvardi</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />Speaker John A. Perez’s push of <a href="http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/05/california-assembly-passes-controversial-cap-and-trade-auction-bill.html#storylink=cpy" type="external">Assembly Bill 1532</a> through the State Assembly on Tuesday, May 29, signals a shift from regulation of air pollution to an outright civil war on business and industry in California.</p>
<p>AB 1532 is not content with just using pollution taxes collected under California’s Cap and Trade emissions trading program to <a href="" type="internal">lower water, power, and natural gas bills for ratepayers</a>, due to the looming higher price of green power. Rather, AB 1532 will directly use Cap and Trade taxes to parasitically transfer jobs taken from the private sector, to political pork jobs in the public sector.&#160; It could also end up circumventing the limitation of new taxes of Propositions 13 and 26.&#160; The passage of AB 1532 is a provocative act that crosses the line between regulation and outright plunder of the private sector for public sector make work green jobs programs.</p>
<p>AB 1532 passed the State Assembly by a 47 to 26 vote. The record of who voted for or against AB 1532 was not available online as of the writing of this article.</p>
<p>Cap and Trade is a set of regulations under California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 — AB 32 — to reduce air pollution by requiring industries and public utilities to buy pollution permits, also called pollution credits or allowances.</p>
<p>In reality, Cap and Trade is a program to socialize water, power, and natural gas rates to shift the coming burden of the high cost of green power onto the middle class.&#160; Thus, the enormous taxes collected under the Cap and Trade program were to be rebated to utility ratepayers to <a href="" type="internal">socialize the “rate shock” of green power</a>.&#160; But AB 1532 takes this one step further by using Cap and Trade taxes to fund local governments and create parasitical green jobs programs.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_1501-1550/ab_1532_bill_20120501_amended_asm_v97.html" type="external">AB 1532</a> will not backfill jobs lost in those industries directly affected by California’s Cap and Trade pollution permit trading law.&#160; Instead, it will create another self-perpetuating bureaucracy of political patronage and jobs programs under the guise of “clean tech” industries and air pollution reduction programs.</p>
<p>AB 1532 will divert “investment towards the most disadvantaged communities in the state.” It will also fund “small businesses, schools, affordable housing associations, water agencies, local governments, and other community institutions (including public universities) to benefit from statewide efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”</p>
<p>In other words, AB 1532 is just another tax to fund government and public schools, and redistribute jobs in return for political patronage.&#160; It is an end run around Prop 13 and Prop 26, both of which require a two-thirds vote for any tax, fee, levy, or tax allocation.</p>
<p>Once established, it will incentivize government gaming of the Cap and Trade system to inflate the price of pollution credits. According to energy consultant <a href="" type="internal">Robert Lucas</a> of the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance, government gaming of the Cap and Trade system will likely double the annual amount of taxes collected under Cap and Trade regulations. Cap and Trade taxes would be expected to rise from $6.25 to $12.5 billion per year — or from $50 to $100 billion over the next 8 years.</p>
<p>Even if government does not game the system to its taxing advantage, the program is supposed to reduce the number of pollution permits each year as air pollution is improved.&#160; The fewer the permits, the higher the price for the pollution permits, and the greater the pollution taxes collected. By design, there will be about <a href="http://globalclimate.epri.com/doc/EPRI_Offsets_W10_Background%20Paper_CA%20Offsets_040711_Final2.pdf" type="external">15 percent fewer pollution permits</a> available to trade by the year 2020. Thus, pollution permit prices will likely rise without any gaming of the system. What is made to look like the workings of the so-called pollution credit market will actually be a structured way to inflate the price of pollution permits.</p>
<p>Reduce production or ration public utilities?</p>
<p>If, however, there are no credits to buy because there is no more pollution that can be realistically reduced, then industries and utilities may offset their pollution by planting trees or burying carbon in the ground. More of a false economy will be created and expanded.</p>
<p>But this will do little to reduce air pollution as long as population policies under <a href="http://www.cp-dr.com/node/2140" type="external">AB 375</a> — the anti-urban sprawl bill — continue to divert growth to urban air basins that trap pollution.&#160; The solution to pollution is dilution, not concentration.</p>
<p>Or if all else fails, industries and utilities can simply reduce production or call for rationing of water, power, and natural gas. Clean air at any cost.</p>
<p>The next step with AB 1532 will be its review in the state senate. Under Senate President pro-tem Darrell Steinberg, this is likely to result in passage and forwarding to Gov. Brown for signature.&#160; The legislature and governor are likely to pass AB 1532 before political redistricting may change the composition of the legislature.</p>
<p>AB 1532 has fired the first symbolic shots in a civil war of what is permitted under the Global Warming Solutions Act — AB 32.&#160; Several <a href="" type="internal">nonprofit liberal think tanks</a> have rendered quasi-legal opinions that California’s Cap and Trade taxes cannot be used beyond providing utility ratepayers with rebates.&#160; But Assembly Speaker John Perez has signaled he is going to push the legal limits of what can be funded with Cap and Trade taxes.</p>
<p>In the ancient Roman Empire, Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River with his army, thus signaling civil war with the Roman Senate.&#160; At Fort Sumter, the South fired the first shots in the Civil War between the North and South states. California State Assembly Speaker John Perez has crossed the point of no return with AB 1532, signaling a war on California’s business, industry and the middle class.</p>
<p>Gen. Colin Powell once cited what is called the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottery_Barn_rule" type="external">“Pottery Barn Rule”</a> about starting an unpopular war: “if you break it — you buy it.”&#160; And Assembly Speaker John Perez and the Democratic Party are about to buy themselves a civil war chock full of unforeseeable consequences.</p>
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may 31 2012 wayne lusvardi speaker john perezs push assembly bill 1532 state assembly tuesday may 29 signals shift regulation air pollution outright civil war business industry california ab 1532 content using pollution taxes collected californias cap trade emissions trading program lower water power natural gas bills ratepayers due looming higher price green power rather ab 1532 directly use cap trade taxes parasitically transfer jobs taken private sector political pork jobs public sector160 could also end circumventing limitation new taxes propositions 13 26160 passage ab 1532 provocative act crosses line regulation outright plunder private sector public sector make work green jobs programs ab 1532 passed state assembly 47 26 vote record voted ab 1532 available online writing article cap trade set regulations californias global warming solutions act 2006 ab 32 reduce air pollution requiring industries public utilities buy pollution permits also called pollution credits allowances reality cap trade program socialize water power natural gas rates shift coming burden high cost green power onto middle class160 thus enormous taxes collected cap trade program rebated utility ratepayers socialize rate shock green power160 ab 1532 takes one step using cap trade taxes fund local governments create parasitical green jobs programs ab 1532 backfill jobs lost industries directly affected californias cap trade pollution permit trading law160 instead create another selfperpetuating bureaucracy political patronage jobs programs guise clean tech industries air pollution reduction programs ab 1532 divert investment towards disadvantaged communities state also fund small businesses schools affordable housing associations water agencies local governments community institutions including public universities benefit statewide efforts reduce greenhouse gas emissions words ab 1532 another tax fund government public schools redistribute jobs return political patronage160 end run around prop 13 prop 26 require twothirds vote tax fee levy tax allocation established incentivize government gaming cap trade system inflate price pollution credits according energy consultant robert lucas california council environmental economic balance government gaming cap trade system likely double annual amount taxes collected cap trade regulations cap trade taxes would expected rise 625 125 billion per year 50 100 billion next 8 years even government game system taxing advantage program supposed reduce number pollution permits year air pollution improved160 fewer permits higher price pollution permits greater pollution taxes collected design 15 percent fewer pollution permits available trade year 2020 thus pollution permit prices likely rise without gaming system made look like workings socalled pollution credit market actually structured way inflate price pollution permits reduce production ration public utilities however credits buy pollution realistically reduced industries utilities may offset pollution planting trees burying carbon ground false economy created expanded little reduce air pollution long population policies ab 375 antiurban sprawl bill continue divert growth urban air basins trap pollution160 solution pollution dilution concentration else fails industries utilities simply reduce production call rationing water power natural gas clean air cost next step ab 1532 review state senate senate president protem darrell steinberg likely result passage forwarding gov brown signature160 legislature governor likely pass ab 1532 political redistricting may change composition legislature ab 1532 fired first symbolic shots civil war permitted global warming solutions act ab 32160 several nonprofit liberal think tanks rendered quasilegal opinions californias cap trade taxes used beyond providing utility ratepayers rebates160 assembly speaker john perez signaled going push legal limits funded cap trade taxes ancient roman empire julius caesar crossed rubicon river army thus signaling civil war roman senate160 fort sumter south fired first shots civil war north south states california state assembly speaker john perez crossed point return ab 1532 signaling war californias business industry middle class gen colin powell cited called pottery barn rule starting unpopular war break buy it160 assembly speaker john perez democratic party buy civil war chock full unforeseeable consequences
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<p>Feb. 10, 2010</p>
<p>To show the results of union dominance of the education system, John Stossel of Fox News’ “Stossel” show recently held up a convoluted chart that details, in small print, the amazing lengths to which New York school administrators must go to fire an incompetent teacher. It’s a long and detailed chart filled with boxes connected by arrows.</p>
<p>Just when one’s eyes peruse the end of it, Stossel reveals that this is only the beginning, as he lets loose several more pages that had been hidden, accordion-style, behind the first page of the termination chart, which has now unfolded toward the floor.</p>
<p>The joke, which actually is much sadder than it is funny, is on us as we realize that there’s no way that even the worst teacher can get sacked, and that it’s basically impossible to reform the public school system as it is currently structured. Yet local, state and federal officials go on proposing reforms that will surely turn the nation’s bureaucratic, government-controlled public school systems into models of efficiency and high-performance learning.</p>
<p>Many of the proposed ideas have a point, but trying to reform these unruly systems is like trying to improve a crumbling old crooked building resting on a cracked foundation by installing new dual-pane windows and nicer carpeting. No one, quite frankly, wants to strike at the root of the problem, which is the existence of a monopoly school system run by the government, financed by tax dollars and dominated by union employees who don’t have to please any customers.</p>
<p>California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, which has a deservedly fine reputation for analyzing budgetary matters, in recent days released a new report, “Education Mandates: Overhauling a Broken System,” that jumps into the fray. It identifies a real problem —- the proliferation of state mandates that require districts “to perform hundreds of activities even though many of these requirements do not benefit students or educators.” The report pins the compliance cost on school districts at more than $400 million annually.</p>
<p>Furthermore, because of a voter-approved initiative (1979’s Proposition 4), the state is supposed to reimburse local school districts for the mandates it imposes on them, which means California owes more than $3.6 billion —- and the state tends to defer these payments to the future, rather than paying up in a timely manner.</p>
<p>“In short,” the report explained, “districts are required to perform hundreds of activities —- many of dubious merit —- without regular pay, resulting in billions of dollars in state debt.” Of course, many of these mandates were imposed by the Legislature to improve the oftentimes poor quality of public education across the state and try to assure that all districts were teaching some standardized curricula to students.</p>
<p>The LAO report points to a chart that reminds one of the long, pointless chart Stossel revealed. This “Mandate Determination Process” reveals a convoluted process by which local districts can seek reimbursement from the state. Given that school districts seem to care mainly about their budgets, it’s no surprise that this mandate-reimbursement issue is going to become increasingly contentious in these tough budget times.</p>
<p>Ironically, on the same day the LAO released its report, the leading Democratic contender for the attorney general’s race, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, advocated some costly new education mandates during a Senate Public Safety Committee hearing on school truancy. Harris has been particularly aggressive in using law enforcement in her city to battle truants, implementing a controversial program that prosecutes the parents of truants and subjects them to jail time and fines. She also proposed a statewide database to track truants —- a system that would tie state funding to the adoption of such a tracking system.</p>
<p>Truancy issues typically are local issues, which prompted a reply from Republican attorney general candidate Tom Harman, a senator from Huntington Beach: “What I wonder is how creating another statewide bureaucracy to monitor it will keep kids in school. I don’t think the state is in any position to create yet another new program —- especially regarding an issue traditionally handled by locals.”</p>
<p>Yet Harris’ testimony shows how difficult it is to reform the mandate process.</p>
<p>Surely, state officials will continue to turn local issues into state ones.</p>
<p>None of this will actually improve the functioning of the school systems. At best, the Harris approach will coerce more people into sending their kids to ill-performing schools, which epitomize the “customer service” approach common in government: Offer poor products and inefficient services and then force people to buy them.</p>
<p>Harris’ campaign, by the way, boasts her endorsement by former State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin, best known for trying to use her state power to shut down home schools, under the belief that home-schooling is a form of truancy. Let’s hope a Harris victory doesn’t signal a return to these dark days of California education policy. Home-school advocates already are fearful that Harris’ approach could endanger home-schooled kids.</p>
<p>The LAO offers this solution to the mandate issue: “We recommend comprehensively reforming K-14 mandates. If a mandate serves a purpose fundamental to the education system, such as protecting student health or providing essential assessment and oversight data, it should be funded. If not, the mandate should be eliminated.”</p>
<p>Who do we thank for that groundbreaking suggestion?</p>
<p>The state already spends more than 40 percent of its budget on education. There are stacks of mandates and volumes of legislative reforms that have passed in recent years. The system still stinks. The only solution is competition. Happy customers are a better sign of success than long flow charts and endless calls for new legislation and reform.</p>
<p>–Steven Greenhut</p>
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feb 10 2010 show results union dominance education system john stossel fox news stossel show recently held convoluted chart details small print amazing lengths new york school administrators must go fire incompetent teacher long detailed chart filled boxes connected arrows ones eyes peruse end stossel reveals beginning lets loose several pages hidden accordionstyle behind first page termination chart unfolded toward floor joke actually much sadder funny us realize theres way even worst teacher get sacked basically impossible reform public school system currently structured yet local state federal officials go proposing reforms surely turn nations bureaucratic governmentcontrolled public school systems models efficiency highperformance learning many proposed ideas point trying reform unruly systems like trying improve crumbling old crooked building resting cracked foundation installing new dualpane windows nicer carpeting one quite frankly wants strike root problem existence monopoly school system run government financed tax dollars dominated union employees dont please customers californias legislative analysts office deservedly fine reputation analyzing budgetary matters recent days released new report education mandates overhauling broken system jumps fray identifies real problem proliferation state mandates require districts perform hundreds activities even though many requirements benefit students educators report pins compliance cost school districts 400 million annually furthermore voterapproved initiative 1979s proposition 4 state supposed reimburse local school districts mandates imposes means california owes 36 billion state tends defer payments future rather paying timely manner short report explained districts required perform hundreds activities many dubious merit without regular pay resulting billions dollars state debt course many mandates imposed legislature improve oftentimes poor quality public education across state try assure districts teaching standardized curricula students lao report points chart reminds one long pointless chart stossel revealed mandate determination process reveals convoluted process local districts seek reimbursement state given school districts seem care mainly budgets surprise mandatereimbursement issue going become increasingly contentious tough budget times ironically day lao released report leading democratic contender attorney generals race san francisco district attorney kamala harris advocated costly new education mandates senate public safety committee hearing school truancy harris particularly aggressive using law enforcement city battle truants implementing controversial program prosecutes parents truants subjects jail time fines also proposed statewide database track truants system would tie state funding adoption tracking system truancy issues typically local issues prompted reply republican attorney general candidate tom harman senator huntington beach wonder creating another statewide bureaucracy monitor keep kids school dont think state position create yet another new program especially regarding issue traditionally handled locals yet harris testimony shows difficult reform mandate process surely state officials continue turn local issues state ones none actually improve functioning school systems best harris approach coerce people sending kids illperforming schools epitomize customer service approach common government offer poor products inefficient services force people buy harris campaign way boasts endorsement former state superintendent public instruction delaine eastin best known trying use state power shut home schools belief homeschooling form truancy lets hope harris victory doesnt signal return dark days california education policy homeschool advocates already fearful harris approach could endanger homeschooled kids lao offers solution mandate issue recommend comprehensively reforming k14 mandates mandate serves purpose fundamental education system protecting student health providing essential assessment oversight data funded mandate eliminated thank groundbreaking suggestion state already spends 40 percent budget education stacks mandates volumes legislative reforms passed recent years system still stinks solution competition happy customers better sign success long flow charts endless calls new legislation reform steven greenhut
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<p>CURWOOD: Now, as Lang Banks noted, Scotland is rich in sources of renewable power, and it will soon install the worlds largest tidal power array in the far north, in the Pentland Firth near the Orkney Islands. The project will ultimately anchor 300 or more turbines on the seabed, creating jobs and helping Scotland reach its renewable energy goals. Calum Davidson is the Director of Energy and Low Carbon at the Highlands and Islands Enterprise, a Scottish government agency, and we called him up at his office in Inverness. Welcome to Living on Earth. DAVIDSON: Thanks for having me. CURWOOD: So what's the goal of this project to have tidal energy capture? DAVIDSON: Well, Scotland's been a leader in the wave and tidal energy for about 15 years, even a bit more with some of the work at universities and pretty much most of the world's main manufacturers have been here in Scotland testing and developing their device. So we're moving to the next stage, which is to build out the world's first commercial-scale tidal offshore power station, and the focus here is very much on creating a new clean no-carbon source of electricity that we can develop both for Scotland, but also help the rest of the world. CURWOOD: So commercial scale is starting. How soon are you going to be able to generate electricity to sell to the grid from tidal power? A schematic for tidal current power capture with underwater turbines (Photo: Atlantis Resources Limited) DAVIDSON: Yeah, well, a lot of the prototype devices have already been doing that at the test center because it is being grid connected and they've been testing and making money and some machines have been running three or four years. What we're planning to do now is just build out, starting in the next few months actually, putting in four 1.5 megawatt turbines, and that's the first phase of a 400 MW underwater power station to be built out over the next 10 years. CURWOOD: So talk to me about the timetable. You have all the money for this by now, I gather? DAVIDSON: Yes, last week the private company, which is Atlantis Resources - they're originally from Singapore now based in Scotland - they put together a 50 million pound sterling which is about $80 million, for this very first phase which will be built out during 2014 and 2015. And then there's going to be what we call a fallow year in 2016 where there's going to be a lot environmental monitoring going on to make sure there's no adverse impact on the environment. By the end of this decade in 2020, 60 turbines will have been built. CURWOOD: And ultimately you expect... A diagram of the tidal current turbines to be installed in Scotlands Inner Sound (Photo: MeyGen.com) DAVIDSON: Well, 400 megawatts. Maybe 500 megawatts. That's half a gigawatt. That's pretty much the same size as a major thermal power station, and that will be - you know - 300 turbines. CURWOOD: So what are the environmental risks of commercial-scale tidal power? DAVIDSON: Well, of course, for something like this, a brand new technology, there's been a huge amount of work gone into the environmental impacts and really the financial closure last week was on the back of three or four years of environmental studies. But, of course, nobody has done this before to any great extent, putting a number of turbines there, so the 2016 will be very much focused on monitoring the impact on things like marine models and the seabed and diving birds, for example, and on fisheries. But expectation is because the tidal currents are so strong in that part of Scotland, and the waters there can be moving in four to five meters per second, which is really quite enormous, the seabed actually doesn't have a huge amount going on to it, it's pretty much bare rock. And actually, the blades, they don't turn very quickly, they're going slowly, sort of womp, womp, womp as opposed to, for example, an onshore wind turbine. And some major studies have shown that the effects are quite minimal and quite acceptable. CURWOOD: Now, how much carbon does this save going into the atmosphere? A map of the Pentland Firth in northern Scotland, where the worlds largest tidal array will be installed (Photo: MeyGen.com) DAVIDSON: Yeah, I mean, the carbon savings are very dramatic. If we're looking at this very first, very modest six megawatts, it's going to save 14,000 tons of CO2 a year compared to coal and once the big power station has been built, it's going to save a million tons of carbon a year. CURWOOD: So at the end of the day, what kind of employment does this project create? DAVIDSON: Yeah, well, Scotland currently has had very ambitious and very large renewable energy marketplace. We have a significant amount of hydro, lots and lots of onshore wind. And interestingly, in Scotland, there's currenty about 11,000 people employed directly in the renewables industry. That's actually more people employed than in the scotch whisky industry. We expect this project to create about 50 direct jobs over the next couple of years, maybe another 70 in the supply chain, and as it builds out over the next decade, we're looking at several hundred jobs being supported by this clean, no-carbon underwater power station. Deployment of tidal current turbines (Photo: Atlantis Resources Limited) CURWOOD: I imagine this costs a fair amount of money. At what point, does this become profitable to do? DAVIDSON: Yeah, we're talking about very early stage technology here, and that's not cheap, but the expectation is as the supply chain grows, and as we standardize and know how to put these things in order, the cost of developing tidal power will fall significantly. And the objective is to get to the same level that offshore wind is at the moment in the next few years. CURWOOD: Now, one concern about renewable energy is that it doesn't operate all the time. How does this tidal power source fit into that concern? DAVIDSON: Well the great thing about tidal power is that it's completely predictable and completely reliable. You get tidal power kicking in at different stages of the day so you build that in with a different energy mix, tie that back in with onshore wind, offshore wind, and hydropower. So it's a really good source of regular, clean, no-carbon electricity. Calum Davidson is the Director of Energy and Low Carbon for Scotlands Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), a governmental agency. (Photo: Courtesy of HIE) CURWOOD: How much of the day does it generate power? DAVIDSON: Somewhere like the Pentland Firth is actually generating for pretty much 20 hours out ot a day. You know, it's a 13 hour cycle, there's only about one hour of the day when the tides, shall we say, doesn't move. When the tide is moving fastest it's in the middle of those cycles and that's when you get the most power and tailing off at either end of the tide. So the expectation is some of these things will be working at maybe 30, 40 percent efficiency? CURWOOD: How do you feel about this going forward now? DAVIDSON: Well, I'm really excited. There's not many people who get the chance to work at the start of new industry, and personally, I come from the part of Scotland where this is being build out, so it's kind of very very satisfying to know that the very small part of the world where you come from is right at the heart of creating a whole new global industry based upon low-carbon, no-carbon underwater tidal power. CURWOOD: I suppose you could say you're part of a "sea change". DAVIDSON: Absolutely. Yes. CURWOOD: Calum Davidson is the Director of Energy and Low Carbon at the Highlands and Islands Enterprise, that's the Scottish government agency. Calum, thanks for taking the time today. DAVIDSON: Thank you very much for asking me on. Delighted.</p>
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curwood lang banks noted scotland rich sources renewable power soon install worlds largest tidal power array far north pentland firth near orkney islands project ultimately anchor 300 turbines seabed creating jobs helping scotland reach renewable energy goals calum davidson director energy low carbon highlands islands enterprise scottish government agency called office inverness welcome living earth davidson thanks curwood whats goal project tidal energy capture davidson well scotlands leader wave tidal energy 15 years even bit work universities pretty much worlds main manufacturers scotland testing developing device moving next stage build worlds first commercialscale tidal offshore power station focus much creating new clean nocarbon source electricity develop scotland also help rest world curwood commercial scale starting soon going able generate electricity sell grid tidal power schematic tidal current power capture underwater turbines photo atlantis resources limited davidson yeah well lot prototype devices already test center grid connected theyve testing making money machines running three four years planning build starting next months actually putting four 15 megawatt turbines thats first phase 400 mw underwater power station built next 10 years curwood talk timetable money gather davidson yes last week private company atlantis resources theyre originally singapore based scotland put together 50 million pound sterling 80 million first phase built 2014 2015 theres going call fallow year 2016 theres going lot environmental monitoring going make sure theres adverse impact environment end decade 2020 60 turbines built curwood ultimately expect diagram tidal current turbines installed scotlands inner sound photo meygencom davidson well 400 megawatts maybe 500 megawatts thats half gigawatt thats pretty much size major thermal power station know 300 turbines curwood environmental risks commercialscale tidal power davidson well course something like brand new technology theres huge amount work gone environmental impacts really financial closure last week back three four years environmental studies course nobody done great extent putting number turbines 2016 much focused monitoring impact things like marine models seabed diving birds example fisheries expectation tidal currents strong part scotland waters moving four five meters per second really quite enormous seabed actually doesnt huge amount going pretty much bare rock actually blades dont turn quickly theyre going slowly sort womp womp womp opposed example onshore wind turbine major studies shown effects quite minimal quite acceptable curwood much carbon save going atmosphere map pentland firth northern scotland worlds largest tidal array installed photo meygencom davidson yeah mean carbon savings dramatic looking first modest six megawatts going save 14000 tons co2 year compared coal big power station built going save million tons carbon year curwood end day kind employment project create davidson yeah well scotland currently ambitious large renewable energy marketplace significant amount hydro lots lots onshore wind interestingly scotland theres currenty 11000 people employed directly renewables industry thats actually people employed scotch whisky industry expect project create 50 direct jobs next couple years maybe another 70 supply chain builds next decade looking several hundred jobs supported clean nocarbon underwater power station deployment tidal current turbines photo atlantis resources limited curwood imagine costs fair amount money point become profitable davidson yeah talking early stage technology thats cheap expectation supply chain grows standardize know put things order cost developing tidal power fall significantly objective get level offshore wind moment next years curwood one concern renewable energy doesnt operate time tidal power source fit concern davidson well great thing tidal power completely predictable completely reliable get tidal power kicking different stages day build different energy mix tie back onshore wind offshore wind hydropower really good source regular clean nocarbon electricity calum davidson director energy low carbon scotlands highlands islands enterprise hie governmental agency photo courtesy hie curwood much day generate power davidson somewhere like pentland firth actually generating pretty much 20 hours ot day know 13 hour cycle theres one hour day tides shall say doesnt move tide moving fastest middle cycles thats get power tailing either end tide expectation things working maybe 30 40 percent efficiency curwood feel going forward davidson well im really excited theres many people get chance work start new industry personally come part scotland build kind satisfying know small part world come right heart creating whole new global industry based upon lowcarbon nocarbon underwater tidal power curwood suppose could say youre part sea change davidson absolutely yes curwood calum davidson director energy low carbon highlands islands enterprise thats scottish government agency calum thanks taking time today davidson thank much asking delighted
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<p>BOSTON - US President Barack Obama completed a stunningly successful eight-day trip to the Asia-Pacific region last week, confounding China and strengthening America's commitment to more half the world's population.</p>
<p>Although it upends conventional wisdom, Obama's foreign-policy saavy may prove to be his most convincing argument for re-election - all the more so as Republican presidential contenders bounce from isolationism to overt aggression to appalling ignorance on international issues.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/111113/republican-presidential-candidates-elections-2012-GOP-foreign-policy" type="external">Republican presidential candidates adrift in stormy foreign policy seas</a></p>
<p>With a weak economy, high unemployment and a dysfunctional Congress dimming the prospects of transformative success on the homefront, Obama seems to have decided to focus on America's long list of vital national security and economic interests around the world. The Asia trip was the boldest of his presidency.</p>
<p>Starting in Hawaii, where he hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum on free trade, the president flew on to Australia where he announced that the United States would base 2,500 Marines in the city of Darwin on Australia's north coast. This highly symbolic upgrading of the historically close ties between America and Australia was a clear signal to China that the US military retains a major commitment to the region.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/111111/us-marines-barack-obama-australia-troops-vietnam" type="external">Australians divided over more US troops Down Under</a></p>
<p>Obama moved on to the Indonesian island of Bali for the annual meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the surprise announcement of a historic re-opening in ties to Burma (officially called Myanmar). Hillary Clinton will become the first US secretary of state to visit Burma since before the onset of the Vietnam War.&#160;</p>
<p>Simultaneously, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's revered opposition leader, announced that she would rejoin the country's political system. The confluence of these developments further telegraphed America's more assertive approach in Asia as well as the administration's new determination to compete hard with China for influence in the region.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/111118/china-us-troop-build-up-australia" type="external">China bristles at US troop build up in Australia</a></p>
<p>Also in Bali, Obama became the first US president to attend the 18-nation East Asia Summit where a main issue was China's expansionist claims to the rich oil and gas deposits in the South China Sea.</p>
<p>Obama forcefully aligned America with the position held by nearly every other country in East Asia: that the South China Sea was not China's exclusive territory.</p>
<p>"As a resident Pacific power," Obama said, America has "a powerful stake in maritime security in general, and in the resolution of the South China Sea issue specifically."</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/india/111118/east-asian-summit-obamas-asia-reboot-puts-india-pivo" type="external">Obama's Asia reboot puts India in pivotal, but risky position</a></p>
<p>Clinton signaled Obama's new policy toward the Asia Pacific region in a November article she wrote for Foreign Policy entitled <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/americas_pacific_century" type="external">"America's Pacific Century."</a> Making reference to America's post World War II commitment to the rebuilding of Europe and to forging a strong Atlantic Alliance she wrote, "The time has come for the United States to make similar investments as a Pacific power - Harnessing Asia's growth and dynamism is central to American economic and strategic interests."</p>
<p>Underscoring that theme, Obama was present at the signing in Indonesia of a $22 billion contract by Lion Air, that nation's largest private airline, with Boeing for 230 aircrafts.</p>
<p>Indonesia is the world's fourth-most populous nation, with 234 million people, after No. 1 China with 1.34 billion, India with 1.12 billion and the US at No. 3 with 310 million. Overall, Asia-Pacific nations hold more than 4 billion people or some 56 percent of the estimated 6.98 billion people on this planet. No wonder Obama and Clinton have decided that a major part of America's future resides west of California, Alaska and Hawaii.</p>
<p>One of the smartest decisions of Obama's presidency was to ask Clinton to be his secretary of state. She has been stalwart and superb in this vital role - confident, tireless and loyal to a fault.</p>
<p>This administration has a solid list of foreign policy accomplishments:</p>
<p>Of course, there have been failures as well, notably in Israel and Palestine, where peace remains as elusive as it has been the past 50 years.</p>
<p>Political commentators in this country frequently underestimate the importance that foreign policy plays in every presidential administration. No matter what a candidate may say or believe before entering office, history has proven that global concerns will eventually dominate.</p>
<p>Ironically, the 2012 election may prove to be the exact reverse of 1992 when Bill Clinton's key strategist James Carville coined the famous phrase, "It's the economy, stupid." On the strength of public concern about the domestic economy, Clinton went on to defeat President George H.W. Bush, who initially seemed unbeatable in no small part because of his foreign-policy expertise and his success in the First Gulf War.</p>
<p>Americans realize that this country faces continuing, significant challenges abroad. The rising economic and military power of China may be the dominant issue of the next generation. And, of course, there is Iran and the threat it will develop and even use a nuclear weapon. Momentous decisions about Iran could be required even before Election Day 2012.</p>
<p>The state of the US economy is of profound importance to every American citizen, but no matter what happens with the economy we will still live in a dangerous and complex world. The decision about who is the wiser and safer choice to lead America in this perilous world may rise up to trump all else next November - and right now Obama is well-positioned to argue that he is the right choice.</p>
<p>Philip Balboni is chief executive officer and co-founder of GlobalPost.</p>
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boston us president barack obama completed stunningly successful eightday trip asiapacific region last week confounding china strengthening americas commitment half worlds population although upends conventional wisdom obamas foreignpolicy saavy may prove convincing argument reelection republican presidential contenders bounce isolationism overt aggression appalling ignorance international issues globalpost republican presidential candidates adrift stormy foreign policy seas weak economy high unemployment dysfunctional congress dimming prospects transformative success homefront obama seems decided focus americas long list vital national security economic interests around world asia trip boldest presidency starting hawaii hosted asiapacific economic cooperation forum free trade president flew australia announced united states would base 2500 marines city darwin australias north coast highly symbolic upgrading historically close ties america australia clear signal china us military retains major commitment region globalpost australians divided us troops obama moved indonesian island bali annual meeting association southeast asian nations surprise announcement historic reopening ties burma officially called myanmar hillary clinton become first us secretary state visit burma since onset vietnam war160 simultaneously nobel laureate aung san suu kyi burmas revered opposition leader announced would rejoin countrys political system confluence developments telegraphed americas assertive approach asia well administrations new determination compete hard china influence region globalpost china bristles us troop build australia also bali obama became first us president attend 18nation east asia summit main issue chinas expansionist claims rich oil gas deposits south china sea obama forcefully aligned america position held nearly every country east asia south china sea chinas exclusive territory resident pacific power obama said america powerful stake maritime security general resolution south china sea issue specifically globalpost obamas asia reboot puts india pivotal risky position clinton signaled obamas new policy toward asia pacific region november article wrote foreign policy entitled americas pacific century making reference americas post world war ii commitment rebuilding europe forging strong atlantic alliance wrote time come united states make similar investments pacific power harnessing asias growth dynamism central american economic strategic interests underscoring theme obama present signing indonesia 22 billion contract lion air nations largest private airline boeing 230 aircrafts indonesia worlds fourthmost populous nation 234 million people 1 china 134 billion india 112 billion us 3 310 million overall asiapacific nations hold 4 billion people 56 percent estimated 698 billion people planet wonder obama clinton decided major part americas future resides west california alaska hawaii one smartest decisions obamas presidency ask clinton secretary state stalwart superb vital role confident tireless loyal fault administration solid list foreign policy accomplishments course failures well notably israel palestine peace remains elusive past 50 years political commentators country frequently underestimate importance foreign policy plays every presidential administration matter candidate may say believe entering office history proven global concerns eventually dominate ironically 2012 election may prove exact reverse 1992 bill clintons key strategist james carville coined famous phrase economy stupid strength public concern domestic economy clinton went defeat president george hw bush initially seemed unbeatable small part foreignpolicy expertise success first gulf war americans realize country faces continuing significant challenges abroad rising economic military power china may dominant issue next generation course iran threat develop even use nuclear weapon momentous decisions iran could required even election day 2012 state us economy profound importance every american citizen matter happens economy still live dangerous complex world decision wiser safer choice lead america perilous world may rise trump else next november right obama wellpositioned argue right choice philip balboni chief executive officer cofounder globalpost
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<p>TIMELINE <a type="external" href="" /></p>
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<p>Sept. 5: First Day</p>
<p>Almost 385,000 CPS students attend the first day of school, a record 93 percent attendance rate, up from 92 percent last year. The district says that first-day attendance has risen 17 percentage points since 2000, boosting state aid. Officials also announce another round of attendance incentives. The year also begins with 14 new schools under Renaissance 2010; new English, math and science curricula at 15 high schools; and 107 new principals, the largest number of newcomers ever.</p>
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<p>Sept. 6: Preschools</p>
<p>Using $17 million in new funding from the state, CPS will provide preschool slots for 2,500 additional children this year, including 700 3- and 4-year-olds in public schools and 1,800 youngsters in community-based preschools. Many of the new slots will be created in predominantly Latino schools. Some schools will add a third shift of classes to accommodate more students. The grant, from the new Preschool for All initiative, will also be used to improve community-based infant and toddler programs.</p>
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<p>Sept. 12: Kindergarten</p>
<p>Illinois unveils a list of 172 skills that kindergarteners should learn to do. The state has had similar lists of specific goals for grades l through 12, but nothing for kindergarten until now. The list covers language arts, math, science, social science, physical development and health, fine arts, foreign language and social/emotional development. One example: in language arts, children should be able to read simple, common words; in math, they should be able to estimate numbers of objects in a group.</p>
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<p>Los Angeles: Mayoral takeover</p>
<p>A new state law gives Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa substantial control over the Los Angeles Unified School District, according to the Sept. 19 Los Angeles Times. Villaraigosa will be a member of a council comprised of local mayors (L.A. includes a number of municipalities) that will oversee the district’s budget and hire and fire the superintendent. He will also have direct control of three high schools and their feeder schools. The School Board plans to challenge the law.</p>
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<p>Maryland: Incentive Pay</p>
<p>Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich Jr. plans to institute a teacher incentive pay program if he is reelected in November, reports the Sept. 5 Baltimore Sun. Officials say the program would be modeled after one adopted in Minnesota, which is voluntary and lets school districts design their own pay scales. The Maryland State Teachers Association opposes the plan. Ehrlich faces Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley, a Democrat who opposes incentive pay and says he supports giving all teachers competitive salaries and benefits.</p>
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<p>Tennessee: Creating more grads</p>
<p>To increase Tennessee’s high school graduation rate, Gov. Phil Bredesen has proposed a plan that includes free tuition at community colleges for graduates who score at least 19 on the ACT test, reports the Sept. 13 Memphis Commercial Appeal. The plan also includes assigning a truancy officer to each high school and developing individualized learning plans for every incoming freshman.</p>
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<p>“The only reason I have only one [class] not at the maximum is because seven kids haven’t shown up.”</p>
<p>Social studies teacher Victor Harbison to Catalyst staff on overcrowding at Gage Park High, where Interim Principal Martin McGreal was fired for refusing a board directive to enroll additional students. Five of Harbison’s missing students have since shown up, putting all of his classes over class size limits.</p>
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<p>I’m a physical education teacher at two CPS schools with limited equipment and money. My students need exposure to a variety of activities to keep them fit. Are there grants that might help?</p>
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<p>Anonymous teacher</p>
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<p>Yes. You can apply for a grant of up to $6,000 from the Illinois Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. Recipients have used the money to buy a variety of indoor and outdoor equipment, says David Thomas, a professor in the School of Kinesiology &amp; Recreation at Illinois State University in Normal, who helps select the grant winners. Most applicants get some money, though Thomas says “it may not be all they want.” The only catch: You must join the association, at a cost of $45. (See <a href="http://www.iahperd.org" type="external">www.iahperd.org</a>) In addition, any teacher can solicit small donations for special projects at <a href="http://www.donorschoose.org" type="external">www.donorschoose.org</a> or research grant opportunities at the Donors Forum of Chicago ( <a href="http://www.donorsforum.org" type="external">www.donorsforum.org</a>). The district received funding from the U.S. Department of Education through the physical education program grant initiative during the last two fiscal years, but was turned down this year, says Alyson Cooke, CPS director of external resources. According to the Dept. of Education website, funding for the program was cut.</p>
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<p>Midwestern states have become less dependent on local property taxes to pay for public education, but still rely more heavily on them than other regions, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In 2003, 35% of the revenue for elementary and secondary schools in the Midwest came from local property taxes, down from 45% in 1990. Only Northeastern states are more dependent on the property tax; in 2003, 45% of K-12 revenue in that region came from property taxes.</p>
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timeline elsewhere short ask catalyst math class timeline sept 5 first day almost 385000 cps students attend first day school record 93 percent attendance rate 92 percent last year district says firstday attendance risen 17 percentage points since 2000 boosting state aid officials also announce another round attendance incentives year also begins 14 new schools renaissance 2010 new english math science curricula 15 high schools 107 new principals largest number newcomers ever sept 6 preschools using 17 million new funding state cps provide preschool slots 2500 additional children year including 700 3 4yearolds public schools 1800 youngsters communitybased preschools many new slots created predominantly latino schools schools add third shift classes accommodate students grant new preschool initiative also used improve communitybased infant toddler programs sept 12 kindergarten illinois unveils list 172 skills kindergarteners learn state similar lists specific goals grades l 12 nothing kindergarten list covers language arts math science social science physical development health fine arts foreign language socialemotional development one example language arts children able read simple common words math able estimate numbers objects group back top elsewhere los angeles mayoral takeover new state law gives mayor antonio villaraigosa substantial control los angeles unified school district according sept 19 los angeles times villaraigosa member council comprised local mayors la includes number municipalities oversee districts budget hire fire superintendent also direct control three high schools feeder schools school board plans challenge law maryland incentive pay republican gov robert ehrlich jr plans institute teacher incentive pay program reelected november reports sept 5 baltimore sun officials say program would modeled one adopted minnesota voluntary lets school districts design pay scales maryland state teachers association opposes plan ehrlich faces baltimore mayor martin omalley democrat opposes incentive pay says supports giving teachers competitive salaries benefits tennessee creating grads increase tennessees high school graduation rate gov phil bredesen proposed plan includes free tuition community colleges graduates score least 19 act test reports sept 13 memphis commercial appeal plan also includes assigning truancy officer high school developing individualized learning plans every incoming freshman back top short reason one class maximum seven kids havent shown social studies teacher victor harbison catalyst staff overcrowding gage park high interim principal martin mcgreal fired refusing board directive enroll additional students five harbisons missing students since shown putting classes class size limits back top ask catalyst im physical education teacher two cps schools limited equipment money students need exposure variety activities keep fit grants might help anonymous teacher yes apply grant 6000 illinois association health physical education recreation dance recipients used money buy variety indoor outdoor equipment says david thomas professor school kinesiology amp recreation illinois state university normal helps select grant winners applicants get money though thomas says may want catch must join association cost 45 see wwwiahperdorg addition teacher solicit small donations special projects wwwdonorschooseorg research grant opportunities donors forum chicago wwwdonorsforumorg district received funding us department education physical education program grant initiative last two fiscal years turned year says alyson cooke cps director external resources according dept education website funding program cut email question askcatcatalystchicagoorg send ask catalyst 332 michigan ave suite 500 chicago il 60604 back top math class midwestern states become less dependent local property taxes pay public education still rely heavily regions according national center education statistics 2003 35 revenue elementary secondary schools midwest came local property taxes 45 1990 northeastern states dependent property tax 2003 45 k12 revenue region came property taxes back top
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<p>In fall 2010, Illinois became the first state in the nation to require bilingual education for English language learners in preschool. Preschools with at least 20 English learners who speak the same language would now have to do the bulk of teaching in those children’s native language.</p>
<p>Since then, <a href="http://catalyst-chicago.org/2010/11/bilingual-preschool-has-growing-pains/" type="external">preschools have struggled to create native-language programs.&#160;</a></p>
<p>Now, preschools that receive state funding are bracing for another challenge: new state rules that will require staff who teach English learners to have bilingual certification. The rule doesn’t kick in until next year, in July 2014, but schools and districts are already looking for ways to recruit staff given the perennial shortage of bilingual educators.</p>
<p>The state currently has 1,525 teachers who have both a bilingual or English as a Second Language endorsement as well as a preschool teaching certificate. On paper, that is enough teachers to meet the need, says Illinois State Board of Education spokeswoman Mary Fergus.</p>
<p>But some of these teachers are not in the active teaching force at all, while others may be teaching in the early grades (an early childhood endorsement covers up to 3rd grade). Others are not teaching in areas where they may be most needed.</p>
<p>“The distribution of [English learners] is not always in line with where the teachers are,” Fergus notes. &#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://latinoedbeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/njlc-brief-092412_pages.pdf" type="external">A 2012 study</a> by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley’s Institute of Human Development documents the geographic mismatch: In Illinois ZIP codes where at least 20 percent of the population is Latino, the study found just one preschool teacher certified to teach bilingual or ESL classes for every 50 preschool-aged English learners.</p>
<p>Relying on recruiting, creativity</p>
<p>Martin Torres, senior policy analyst at the Latino Policy Forum, points out that some districts are ready to meet the challenge, but others are not. “There is a dearth of those [bilingual] professionals entering the pipeline,” he says.</p>
<p>Torres praised the state’s move to provide scholarships for teachers to earn the needed endorsements with federal Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge funds, as well as a CPS program to provide training for a cohort of 100 teachers. Plus, some districts are using state bilingual education money for teacher scholarships, Torres adds.</p>
<p>Chicago Public Schools says it won’t know how many teachers might be needed until the fall. A spokeswoman says the district “aggressively campaigned” last fall to get more teachers to start certification programs and over 100 teachers enrolled at City Colleges, National-Louis University and the University of Illinois at Chicago.</p>
<p>“Based on the trend of schools in need, we feel the cohort program will meet the required needs,” according to the spokeswoman. &#160;Teachers who finish the coursework should be certified by spring 2014, just before the deadline.</p>
<p>CPS says it will also begin training principals in July on the bilingual pre-K requirements and monitor school to ensure compliance.</p>
<p>At Bateman Elementary, Principal Pat Baccellieri is searching for teachers and hopes to recruit future hires from Loyola University, which will soon require all of its graduates to be endorsed in bilingual or English as a Second Language education. In the coming year, Bateman will have Loyola student teachers “working side by side” with Bateman teachers, Baccellieri says.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the school relies on creativity to ensure students get native-language instruction.</p>
<p>Classes include a mix of English-speakers and Spanish-speakers, but students change classes for part of the day so that Spanish-speakers can get bilingual instruction even if their teacher doesn’t speak Spanish.</p>
<p>For the future, the school is considering a dual-language model in which all students would learn in both Spanish and English.</p>
<p>“I just think it’s a better way to go,” Baccellieri says. “It’s actually supporting the development of both languages.” &#160;Typical bilingual programs aim to boost content knowledge in a student’s home language but ultimately transition them to learning solely in English.</p>
<p>But Baccellieri notes challenges that loom down the line, given cuts in state aid.</p>
<p>“With increasing need, increasing demand and increasing policies, support is reduced, and it doesn’t make sense,” he says.</p>
<p>At Casa Central, Deputy Director of Children and Youth Services Amanda McMillen says the school works hard at “making sure we have Spanish-speaking staff within the classroom.”</p>
<p>Books, too, are in both English and Spanish. But much of the instruction is still in English, with support to Spanish-speaking students as needed.</p>
<p>McMillen says one new staff member has the required certification and two more are working toward it. She hopes that all four of Casa Central’s preschool classes will eventually have certified staff. She’s also interested in a dual language program but notes that “there hasn’t been too much direct guidance [from CPS] at this point.”</p>
<p>Creating a pipeline</p>
<p>One goal of bilingual education in the early grades is to make sure young children are exposed to rich, high-level language so they become literate in their native language.</p>
<p>The state requires bilingual teachers to pass a test on the foreign language they will be teaching in. But some observers worry that the standard isn’t high enough and that newly certified preschool teachers – many of whom aren’t native Spanish-speakers – won’t be able to teach children with enough fluency and high-level vocabulary to promote children’s growing literacy.</p>
<p>Sandra Warner, principal of the Early Learning Center in West Chicago District 33, explains the dilemma. “We’ve either found native speakers who don’t have the early childhood certification, or we’ve found teachers who have a Type 04 [early childhood certificate] who speak some Spanish but aren’t native speakers,” Warner says.</p>
<p>To work around this problem, the district has created its own pipeline of former teacher assistants–native Spanish-speakers who have earned their early childhood certificate. “We set up a road map for them,” Warner says.</p>
<p>Elgin District U-46, which runs a dual-language program that is 80 percent Spanish in preschool and kindergarten, has found bilingual teachers partly by recruiting them from Spain. But that’s a short-term solution, since the teachers’ visas are temporary. Three teachers will leave at the end of the current school year.</p>
<p>In the long run, Elgin U-46 is working with area universities – top staff members have quarterly meetings with representatives from Northern Illinois University, Eastern Illinois University, Illinois State University and Judson University – to drive home its needs.</p>
<p>“The biggest key has been for us to communicate with our university partners that we need bilingual preschool teachers that have their ELL [endorsement],” says Julie Kallenbach, Director of Early Learner Initiatives for the district.</p>
<p>Sharon Giless, director of English Language Learners at Waukegan Public School District 60, says her district has provided tutoring to help several existing teachers pass the state Spanish skills test. Once they pass the test, they can teach bilingual classes temporarily while they take courses for an endorsement.</p>
<p>Before the district began bilingual preschool classes, Giless notes, students learned a little English but received much of their instruction from Spanish-speaking aides. But even with bilingual classes and more English instruction, children’s language test scores at the end of preschool showed that they needed a kindergarten class almost entirely in Spanish.&#160;</p>
<p>“The idea of bilingual support from the teacher assistant is good, but the delivery of instruction really comes from the teachers,” Giless says. “There is something lost in translation. Having preschool in English &#160;doesn’t make them English speakers.”</p>
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fall 2010 illinois became first state nation require bilingual education english language learners preschool preschools least 20 english learners speak language would bulk teaching childrens native language since preschools struggled create nativelanguage programs160 preschools receive state funding bracing another challenge new state rules require staff teach english learners bilingual certification rule doesnt kick next year july 2014 schools districts already looking ways recruit staff given perennial shortage bilingual educators state currently 1525 teachers bilingual english second language endorsement well preschool teaching certificate paper enough teachers meet need says illinois state board education spokeswoman mary fergus teachers active teaching force others may teaching early grades early childhood endorsement covers 3rd grade others teaching areas may needed distribution english learners always line teachers fergus notes 160 2012 study researchers university california berkeleys institute human development documents geographic mismatch illinois zip codes least 20 percent population latino study found one preschool teacher certified teach bilingual esl classes every 50 preschoolaged english learners relying recruiting creativity martin torres senior policy analyst latino policy forum points districts ready meet challenge others dearth bilingual professionals entering pipeline says torres praised states move provide scholarships teachers earn needed endorsements federal race top early learning challenge funds well cps program provide training cohort 100 teachers plus districts using state bilingual education money teacher scholarships torres adds chicago public schools says wont know many teachers might needed fall spokeswoman says district aggressively campaigned last fall get teachers start certification programs 100 teachers enrolled city colleges nationallouis university university illinois chicago based trend schools need feel cohort program meet required needs according spokeswoman 160teachers finish coursework certified spring 2014 deadline cps says also begin training principals july bilingual prek requirements monitor school ensure compliance bateman elementary principal pat baccellieri searching teachers hopes recruit future hires loyola university soon require graduates endorsed bilingual english second language education coming year bateman loyola student teachers working side side bateman teachers baccellieri says meantime school relies creativity ensure students get nativelanguage instruction classes include mix englishspeakers spanishspeakers students change classes part day spanishspeakers get bilingual instruction even teacher doesnt speak spanish future school considering duallanguage model students would learn spanish english think better way go baccellieri says actually supporting development languages 160typical bilingual programs aim boost content knowledge students home language ultimately transition learning solely english baccellieri notes challenges loom line given cuts state aid increasing need increasing demand increasing policies support reduced doesnt make sense says casa central deputy director children youth services amanda mcmillen says school works hard making sure spanishspeaking staff within classroom books english spanish much instruction still english support spanishspeaking students needed mcmillen says one new staff member required certification two working toward hopes four casa centrals preschool classes eventually certified staff shes also interested dual language program notes hasnt much direct guidance cps point creating pipeline one goal bilingual education early grades make sure young children exposed rich highlevel language become literate native language state requires bilingual teachers pass test foreign language teaching observers worry standard isnt high enough newly certified preschool teachers many arent native spanishspeakers wont able teach children enough fluency highlevel vocabulary promote childrens growing literacy sandra warner principal early learning center west chicago district 33 explains dilemma weve either found native speakers dont early childhood certification weve found teachers type 04 early childhood certificate speak spanish arent native speakers warner says work around problem district created pipeline former teacher assistantsnative spanishspeakers earned early childhood certificate set road map warner says elgin district u46 runs duallanguage program 80 percent spanish preschool kindergarten found bilingual teachers partly recruiting spain thats shortterm solution since teachers visas temporary three teachers leave end current school year long run elgin u46 working area universities top staff members quarterly meetings representatives northern illinois university eastern illinois university illinois state university judson university drive home needs biggest key us communicate university partners need bilingual preschool teachers ell endorsement says julie kallenbach director early learner initiatives district sharon giless director english language learners waukegan public school district 60 says district provided tutoring help several existing teachers pass state spanish skills test pass test teach bilingual classes temporarily take courses endorsement district began bilingual preschool classes giless notes students learned little english received much instruction spanishspeaking aides even bilingual classes english instruction childrens language test scores end preschool showed needed kindergarten class almost entirely spanish160 idea bilingual support teacher assistant good delivery instruction really comes teachers giless says something lost translation preschool english 160doesnt make english speakers
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<p>MAR. 5, 2012</p>
<p>While the Legislature has cavalierly passed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AB_32" type="external">global warming laws</a>and companion legislation, they’ve done so without a clue about how the California Air Resources Board would actually achieve carbon emission reductions. It truly is a “if you build it, they will come” tipping point for California.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>Last week I attended a hearing held by the Legislature about how the state’s <a href="http://www.lao.ca.gov/analysis/2012/resources/cap-and-trade-auction-revenues-021612.aspx" type="external">cap-and-trade auction revenues</a> would be created, and expenditures allocated.</p>
<p>Instead of providing affirmative plans to accomplish this feat, and answers to legislators’ questions, it became abundantly clear that no one in the state has a handle on the implementation of <a href="http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California's_AB_32,_the_%22Global_Warming_Solutions_Act_of_2006%22" type="external">AB 32</a>, the Global Warming Solution Act of 2006, or the potential repercussions from the vast law.</p>
<p>But even more concerning is the CARB-induced cap on greenhouse gas emissions levels, significantly lower than 2008 emission levels in California.</p>
<p>It is evident that CARB’s strict cap on emissions will enforce limits on greenhouse gas emissions that will not allow the precarious California economy to recover to even pre-recession levels. Meeting these emission standards will be impossible, and the cost to business will be too great.</p>
<p>Additionally, CARB has established the cap at a level that will create a scarcity of electricity, by reducing the supply of electricity to the state.</p>
<p>This carbon offset buying and selling comes with no rules, little regulatory oversight, no enforcement or proof of environmental claims, no way of measuring the carbon savings and no guarantees that planting forests or building windmills will ever be finished, or ever work.</p>
<p>Under the cap-and-trade program, CARB will establish a cap on greenhouse emissions on businesses in California. Then it will allocate tradable allowances to certain utilities and industries.</p>
<p>The first phase of the program, beginning in January 2013, will apply to 350 electric utilities, importers of electricity and heavy industrial users of energy. This will effect nearly 600 facilities, such as electric generating stations, refineries, cement kilns and other manufacturing facilities.</p>
<p>Instead of selling carbon credits, the program will begin with CARB giving away free carbon allowances to a select group — “to the State’s large industrial emitters as well as the State’s electric utilities in order to reduce the economic impact of the cap-and-trade program,” a background paper explained.</p>
<p>But a Los Angeles Times editorial last week advised CARB not to do the carbon give-away, and to “just do it” by picking an arbitrary price on carbon, then charge for it.</p>
<p>That’s the level of sophistication we are dealing with in this life-or-death global warming game. Death is sure to come to manufacturing and big industries.</p>
<p>The editorial writer admitted that trading carbon emissions “hasn’t worked out as well as the plan’s most ambitious cheerleaders hoped,” and said that in British Columbia, cap and trade so far is a “non-starter.”</p>
<p>While the climate-change alarmists continue to play the hysteria harp, there are more and more real scientists proving that this is just a well-orchestrated scheme to extort money from business.</p>
<p>“Carbon offsets are nothing more than the environmental equivalent of financial derivatives: complex, unregulated, unchecked and&#160;— in many cases&#160;— not worth their price,” the <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2010/0420/Buying-carbon-offsets-may-ease-eco-guilt-but-not-global-warming/(page)/2" type="external">Christian Science Monitor</a>wrote, in a joint investigation with the <a href="http://necir-bu.org/wp/" type="external">New England Center for Investigative Reporting</a>.</p>
<p>Known as hedge derivatives, California’s cap and trade program sounds as if the state is getting into a derivative market, where investors get involved in betting, trading and profiting on the value of carbon credit shares.</p>
<p>The total farce of the scheme is that businesses get conned into buying “green credits,” and then naively claim they’ve offset their own carbon emissions.</p>
<p>Yeah right. If I am a polluter, I know that I am polluting. Purchasing guilt credits isn’t going to change that. But there are many other ways businesses can legitimately clean up their output, and California has proven that for decades. So why is this charade needed?</p>
<p>Assemblywoman Diane Harkey, R-Dana Point, expressed her concerns at the hearing about how the overall program will work, and whether the program will actually result in lower greenhouse gas emissions. She suggested that it may just be a scheme to allow vast sums of money to change hands, with investors eventually getting rich off of market speculation, and no improvement in the reduction of emissions.</p>
<p>Harkey is right. But who in California is listening? Certainly not <a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/board/bio/marynichols.htm" type="external">CARB Director Mary Nichols</a>, who appears to answer to no authority in the state, and makes a regular practice of skipping legislative hearings in which she might get filleted and grilled. Apparently, Nichols is the law in California, as CARB is writing the rules as they go.</p>
<p>The investigation into the carbon-trading scheme&#160;found that individuals and businesses participating in the $700 million global carbon offset market, “are often buying vague promises instead of the reductions in greenhouse gases they expect.”</p>
<p>“They are buying into projects that are never completed, or paying for ones that would have been done anyhow,” the investigation found. “Their purchases are feeding middlemen and promoters seeking profits from green schemes that range from selling protection for existing trees to the promise of planting new ones that never thrive. In some cases, the offsets have consequences that their purchasers never foresaw, such as erecting windmills that force poor people off their farms.”</p>
<p>What more evidence needs to be presented before California legislators prevent this train wreck, and stop participating in this scheme?</p>
<p>As with most schemes, the hitch is in the amount of guilt the con artist can make the dupe feel. Buying carbon offsets may ease eco-guilt, but it will do absolutely nothing to end global warming.</p>
<p>Katy Grimes</p>
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mar 5 2012 legislature cavalierly passed global warming lawsand companion legislation theyve done without clue california air resources board would actually achieve carbon emission reductions truly build come tipping point california last week attended hearing held legislature states capandtrade auction revenues would created expenditures allocated instead providing affirmative plans accomplish feat answers legislators questions became abundantly clear one state handle implementation ab 32 global warming solution act 2006 potential repercussions vast law even concerning carbinduced cap greenhouse gas emissions levels significantly lower 2008 emission levels california evident carbs strict cap emissions enforce limits greenhouse gas emissions allow precarious california economy recover even prerecession levels meeting emission standards impossible cost business great additionally carb established cap level create scarcity electricity reducing supply electricity state carbon offset buying selling comes rules little regulatory oversight enforcement proof environmental claims way measuring carbon savings guarantees planting forests building windmills ever finished ever work capandtrade program carb establish cap greenhouse emissions businesses california allocate tradable allowances certain utilities industries first phase program beginning january 2013 apply 350 electric utilities importers electricity heavy industrial users energy effect nearly 600 facilities electric generating stations refineries cement kilns manufacturing facilities instead selling carbon credits program begin carb giving away free carbon allowances select group states large industrial emitters well states electric utilities order reduce economic impact capandtrade program background paper explained los angeles times editorial last week advised carb carbon giveaway picking arbitrary price carbon charge thats level sophistication dealing lifeordeath global warming game death sure come manufacturing big industries editorial writer admitted trading carbon emissions hasnt worked well plans ambitious cheerleaders hoped said british columbia cap trade far nonstarter climatechange alarmists continue play hysteria harp real scientists proving wellorchestrated scheme extort money business carbon offsets nothing environmental equivalent financial derivatives complex unregulated unchecked and160 many cases160 worth price christian science monitorwrote joint investigation new england center investigative reporting known hedge derivatives californias cap trade program sounds state getting derivative market investors get involved betting trading profiting value carbon credit shares total farce scheme businesses get conned buying green credits naively claim theyve offset carbon emissions yeah right polluter know polluting purchasing guilt credits isnt going change many ways businesses legitimately clean output california proven decades charade needed assemblywoman diane harkey rdana point expressed concerns hearing overall program work whether program actually result lower greenhouse gas emissions suggested may scheme allow vast sums money change hands investors eventually getting rich market speculation improvement reduction emissions harkey right california listening certainly carb director mary nichols appears answer authority state makes regular practice skipping legislative hearings might get filleted grilled apparently nichols law california carb writing rules go investigation carbontrading scheme160found individuals businesses participating 700 million global carbon offset market often buying vague promises instead reductions greenhouse gases expect buying projects never completed paying ones would done anyhow investigation found purchases feeding middlemen promoters seeking profits green schemes range selling protection existing trees promise planting new ones never thrive cases offsets consequences purchasers never foresaw erecting windmills force poor people farms evidence needs presented california legislators prevent train wreck stop participating scheme schemes hitch amount guilt con artist make dupe feel buying carbon offsets may ease ecoguilt absolutely nothing end global warming katy grimes
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<p>When Pope Benedict XVI startled one billion members of the global Catholic church and made news all over the world with his resignation in Rome on Monday morning, he did so in Latin, saying that he was planning to step down due to a deterioration in “strength of mind...to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.”</p>
<p>That he made the stunning announcement in the ancient language of the Roman Catholic Church seems somehow perfectly fitting for a papacy steeped in — some Vatican observers might even say trapped by — tradition and a yearning to return the Church to a time of obedience that existed before the Second Vatican Council 50 years ago.</p>
<p>Coming two days before Ash Wednesday, the Vatican announcement that Benedict would <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/italy/130211/pope-benedict-xvi-resign-february-28" type="external">conclude his papacy Feb. 28</a>, with the conclave to elect a new pontiff in mid-March, suggests a majestic passing of power on global television just before the Easter liturgy of Christian rebirth.</p>
<p>In other words, how the 85-year-old pope announced his resignation, the only pontiff to do so in some 600 years, and the choreographed timing of the transition he has imposed says everything about who he is as a leader of the church.</p>
<p>Benedict will be remembered as the pope of ironies, a moral fundamentalist and chief theologian under his predecessor Pope John Paul II. His prosecutorial bent left him ill-suited as pastor of a global church at a time when the church is in crisis in North America and Western Europe and yet growing in Africa and Latin America.</p>
<p>The persona every pope seeks is that of peacemaker, the moral statesman on the international stage and a champion of peace. But most historians and Vatican watchers would agree that this pope has hardly been a peacemaker. His papacy has been particularly divisive, pitting a more conservative cabal inside the Vatican against more liberal forces trying to push the Church to rethink celibacy, to consider ordaining women and to reflect more deeply on the internal corruption that prompted a priest sex abuse crisis to lead to a financial crisis in the church.</p>
<p>Although several of his encyclicals gave eloquent voice to the values of a moral statesman and champion of peace, the image of a peacemaker eluded Benedict, largely because of the clergy abuse crisis inherited from John Paul II.</p>
<p>Although he engineered a major reform in 2001 as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, persuading John Paul to consolidate the power in his Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) to defrock the worst clergy offenders, as pope he recoiled from holding complicit cardinals and bishops accountable even when they violated the trust of the church.</p>
<p>“When the danger is great one must not run away,” the pope said in “Light of the World,” a 2010 book based on a series of interviews with Peter Seewald. The author asked the pope if Europe’s spreading abuse crisis made him think of resigning.</p>
<p>“Precisely at a time like this one must stand fast and endure the difficult situation,” he continued. “One can resign at a peaceful moment or when one simply cannot go on.”</p>
<p>The peaceful moment apparently never came, though his statement this morning let people know he was tired and perhaps can’t go on with the demands of leading a global church in the digital age.</p>
<p>His papacy was marred, early on, by the attempt to bring the schismatic Society of Pius X movement, which believes in restoring the language of the Catholic Mass to Latin, back into the fold. This dramatic move came after John Paul excommunicated the reactionary leaders. Benedict’s gesture backfired when a Pius X bishop called the Holocaust a hoax on Swedish television.</p>
<p>Harsh media coverage in 2010 of the abuse crisis that rocked Ireland and Western Europe exposed failures of the Vatican’s ancient system of tribunals to handle cases of a criminal nature when cardinals and bishop function with de facto immunity.&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;</p>
<p>Amid those unresolved issues, the pope approved an investigation of American nuns, prodded by Cardinal Bernard Law, who had resigned in 2002 as the disgraced archbishop of Boston following a sex abuse crisis that engulfed the city and the country. Media coverage praising nuns, and criticizing the Vatican, had barely abated when Paolo Gabriele, Benedict’s personal butler, was arrested for leaking internal documents to the journalist <a href="http://www.vatileaks.com/_blog/Vati_Leaks/post/The_leaked_Vatican_documents/" type="external">Gianluigi Nuzzi</a> for an explosive book, Sua Santità (His Holiness).</p>
<p>The ensuing media coverage portrayed Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Secretary of State, as a polarizing figure within the Roman Curia, and a target of Vatican officials who used the butler in trying to drive the resignation of Bertone. Benedict stood by Bertone as the larger story emerged of a culture of Curial cardinals, who by tradition show absolute loyalty to the pope, as balkanized in turf wars.</p>
<p>Losing the loyalty of his own butler, with whom he had lunch in his living quarters several times a month, was perhaps the harshest blow for Benedict. In the last two years he had shown uncommon detachment from the daily grind of governance, retreating after lunch to work on scholarly writings in the afternoons. Meanwhile, lower-level Vatican staff and would-be successors jockeyed for power.</p>
<p>Gabriele’s trial last November was marked by the judge’s resistance to allowing certain documents and witnesses into testimony, while pushing a swift decision that sent Gabriele to a Vatican City cell. Two months later Benedict pardoned him.</p>
<p>As Cardinal Ratzinger he spent nearly a quarter-century as prefect of CDF. Among notable priests who suffered the loss of their licenses to teach theology after closed proceedings were <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/culture-lifestyle/world-religion/121217/hans-kueng-the-modern-inquisition" type="external">Hans Küng</a>, a former colleague of Ratzinger’s at Germany’s University of Tübingen for his critique of papal infallibility, and Charles Curran of Catholic University of America for criticizing the 1968 encyclical banning birth control devices.</p>
<p>Ratzinger became famous for an unflinching, prosecutorial approach to theology, which made him a bête noir among many progressives within the Catholic Church. Küng famously called him the Grand Inquisitor, after the dark cardinal who persecutes heretics in The Brothers Karamazov.&#160;The deep division between Benedict’s conservative loyalists against the progressive was a topic for a GlobalPost Special Report titled “ <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/special-reports/new-inquisition-vatican-claim-heresy-against-american-nuns-LCWR" type="external">A New Inquisition</a>” and this global clash will provide a backdrop to the upcoming process of electing a new pope.</p>
<p>As as pope, it seemed Benedict needed his own inquisitor to help bring structural reform by punishing cardinals and bishops, like Law, with much to answer for in presiding over an abuse crisis that has rocked the church to its core. In the end, Benedict could not bring himself to reform the fraternal culture of the Curia that had given him supreme power. In the unkindest of ironies, the scandal he worked so hard as a cardinal to reverse had its own inexorable drive which wore down his energy. By failing to foster a government of laws, he hands his successor the same problem John Paul handed him.</p>
<p>Jason Berry writes on religion for GlobalPost Special Reports and for GlobalPost’s new religion blog, “Belief.” He is the author of “ <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/books/ct-books-0817-review-render,0,1427214.story" type="external">Render unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church”</a> (Crown), which won the Investigative Reporters and Editors 2011 Book Award. &#160;</p>
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pope benedict xvi startled one billion members global catholic church made news world resignation rome monday morning latin saying planning step due deterioration strength mindto adequately fulfill ministry entrusted made stunning announcement ancient language roman catholic church seems somehow perfectly fitting papacy steeped vatican observers might even say trapped tradition yearning return church time obedience existed second vatican council 50 years ago coming two days ash wednesday vatican announcement benedict would conclude papacy feb 28 conclave elect new pontiff midmarch suggests majestic passing power global television easter liturgy christian rebirth words 85yearold pope announced resignation pontiff 600 years choreographed timing transition imposed says everything leader church benedict remembered pope ironies moral fundamentalist chief theologian predecessor pope john paul ii prosecutorial bent left illsuited pastor global church time church crisis north america western europe yet growing africa latin america persona every pope seeks peacemaker moral statesman international stage champion peace historians vatican watchers would agree pope hardly peacemaker papacy particularly divisive pitting conservative cabal inside vatican liberal forces trying push church rethink celibacy consider ordaining women reflect deeply internal corruption prompted priest sex abuse crisis lead financial crisis church although several encyclicals gave eloquent voice values moral statesman champion peace image peacemaker eluded benedict largely clergy abuse crisis inherited john paul ii although engineered major reform 2001 cardinal joseph ratzinger persuading john paul consolidate power congregation doctrine faith cdf defrock worst clergy offenders pope recoiled holding complicit cardinals bishops accountable even violated trust church danger great one must run away pope said light world 2010 book based series interviews peter seewald author asked pope europes spreading abuse crisis made think resigning precisely time like one must stand fast endure difficult situation continued one resign peaceful moment one simply go peaceful moment apparently never came though statement morning let people know tired perhaps cant go demands leading global church digital age papacy marred early attempt bring schismatic society pius x movement believes restoring language catholic mass latin back fold dramatic move came john paul excommunicated reactionary leaders benedicts gesture backfired pius x bishop called holocaust hoax swedish television harsh media coverage 2010 abuse crisis rocked ireland western europe exposed failures vaticans ancient system tribunals handle cases criminal nature cardinals bishop function de facto immunity160160160160160160160160 amid unresolved issues pope approved investigation american nuns prodded cardinal bernard law resigned 2002 disgraced archbishop boston following sex abuse crisis engulfed city country media coverage praising nuns criticizing vatican barely abated paolo gabriele benedicts personal butler arrested leaking internal documents journalist gianluigi nuzzi explosive book sua santità holiness ensuing media coverage portrayed cardinal tarcisio bertone secretary state polarizing figure within roman curia target vatican officials used butler trying drive resignation bertone benedict stood bertone larger story emerged culture curial cardinals tradition show absolute loyalty pope balkanized turf wars losing loyalty butler lunch living quarters several times month perhaps harshest blow benedict last two years shown uncommon detachment daily grind governance retreating lunch work scholarly writings afternoons meanwhile lowerlevel vatican staff wouldbe successors jockeyed power gabrieles trial last november marked judges resistance allowing certain documents witnesses testimony pushing swift decision sent gabriele vatican city cell two months later benedict pardoned cardinal ratzinger spent nearly quartercentury prefect cdf among notable priests suffered loss licenses teach theology closed proceedings hans küng former colleague ratzingers germanys university tübingen critique papal infallibility charles curran catholic university america criticizing 1968 encyclical banning birth control devices ratzinger became famous unflinching prosecutorial approach theology made bête noir among many progressives within catholic church küng famously called grand inquisitor dark cardinal persecutes heretics brothers karamazov160the deep division benedicts conservative loyalists progressive topic globalpost special report titled new inquisition global clash provide backdrop upcoming process electing new pope pope seemed benedict needed inquisitor help bring structural reform punishing cardinals bishops like law much answer presiding abuse crisis rocked church core end benedict could bring reform fraternal culture curia given supreme power unkindest ironies scandal worked hard cardinal reverse inexorable drive wore energy failing foster government laws hands successor problem john paul handed jason berry writes religion globalpost special reports globalposts new religion blog belief author render unto rome secret life money catholic church crown investigative reporters editors 2011 book award 160
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<p>OCT. 19, 2010</p>
<p>By KATY GRIMES</p>
<p>While in California on Friday, &#160;former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean made a speaking&#160;appearance, but didn’t do any campaigning for Democratic candidates.</p>
<p>It appears that every news outlet in the state is reporting that former Alaska governor and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, traveled up and down the state last week making special appearances, but did not make any campaign appearances with U.S. senate candidate Carly Fiorina, or gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, because they are distancing themselves from her.</p>
<p>At an event Friday in Sacramento that featured Palin and Dean, Palin spoke openly and supportively about Fiorina and gave her a rousing endorsement. Palin even made another reference in her speech to the next California Governor as “she.”</p>
<p>Dean however, did not mention U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer or gubernatorial candidate and former California Gov. Jerry Brown once during his speech, despite the tight races both candidates are in.</p>
<p>After Barrack Obama was elected in 2008, he replaced Dean at the DNC with a close ally, Tim Kaine. Yet, there is still talk of a Dean presidential run in 2016.</p>
<p>Kevin Eckery, a Republican political consultant said that he wasn’t surprised Dean didn’t do any campaigning while in California for Democratic candidates. “Dean represents the status quo and the party institution,” said Eckery.</p>
<p>And Eckery said, “Most candidates are concerned because Dean has been front and center on the health care issue.”</p>
<p>Despite speaking like a moderate to the Chamber of Commerce sponsored event, Dean recently wrote about Republican opposition to national health care in The Huffington Post: “Once again in their zeal to obstruct, the Republicans have struck out, and America will be stronger because of their failure.”</p>
<p>But according to Eckery, “Dean’s been on a 12-step campaign since the last election.”</p>
<p>Dean is often remembered for the famous campaign scream during his run for President: “Not only are we going to New Hampshire … we’re going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and we’re going to California and Texas and New York. And we’re going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan. And then we’re going to Washington, D.C. to take back the White House. Yeeeaah!”</p>
<p>However, at Friday’s Sacramento event, in a self-deprecating moment, Dean subtly mocked the campaign incident as he started his speech. After greeting the California audience, Dean said, “and we’re going to South Caroline and Oklahoma… but that didn’t work out so well.” Only a small group in the large audience reacted, and those who realized what he was referring to, laughed.</p>
<p>Democratic political consultant Steve Maviglio had a different perspective on Dean’s brief California visit with no campaigning. “He’s not at the DNC anymore, and seems to be on the private lecture circuit,” Maviglio wrote in an email, explaining why Dean did not stay in the state and campaign.</p>
<p>After Palin resigned as Alaska Governor, she immediately embarked on a speaking and appearance circuit. This election cycle, Palin has offered her endorsements to many Republicans – more than two-dozen at last count.</p>
<p>And while Palin is not actively campaigning with Fiorina or Whitman, most political consultants say it’s because there are not enough Republican base voters in the state to carry either candidate to a victory in California. Independent voters have been the primary target during the campaigns recently.</p>
<p>However, this past weekend former President Clinton was in the state stumping for Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom, but Howard Dean was absent.</p>
<p>Palin attended a Republican fund-raiser in Anaheim along with RNC Chairman Michael Steele, demonstrating that she’s not persona non grata in the state.</p>
<p>The Brown and Boxer campaigns didn’t have much to offer in the way of an explanation when asked why Dean did not do any campaigning for them. At Boxer’s campaign office, one campaign employee said she was “not entirely sure,”&#160; if Dean had campaigned, or why he had not.</p>
<p>She then told me to call the the press office, but the phone number she gave&#160;was&#160;incorrect.</p>
<p>Brown’s press spokesman did not return calls or emails by publishing time.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Howard Dean hasn’t tempered his comments, despite being critical of the lack of civility during this election. “If you look at the ads, the average ad is about 20 percent fact and 80 percent fiction. They are outrageous,” he&#160;said during his speech.</p>
<p>But last week, Dean send out an email from his political action committee that blasted the candidates Palin has endorsed as “extreme.” He singled out Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, and Joe Miller in Alaska, both with strong Tea Party movement backing.&#160;“I have been in politics for a long time now, and I have never seen more extreme candidates than the ones being pushed today by Sarah Palin,” Dean said.</p>
<p>On Friday&#160;however, Dean said O’Donnell, Miller and other “outliers” in the conservative movement distorted the message.</p>
<p>In a story last week in The Sacramento Bee promoting the political big whigs campaigning in the state, the Bee reported, “Palin will share a stage today with another former governor, 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, when the two speak at the Sacramento Metro Chamber’s <a href="http://www.sacramento.wliinc3.com/perspectives/index.htm" type="external">annual Perspectives event</a> at the Sacramento Convention Center.”</p>
<p>The story reported, “Palin, meanwhile, is headlining a Republican National Committee ‘victory rally’ in Anaheim on Saturday.” There was no mention of where Dean would be heading after his appearance, or why he wasn’t sticking around to campaign.</p>
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oct 19 2010 katy grimes california friday 160former democratic national committee chairman howard dean made speaking160appearance didnt campaigning democratic candidates appears every news outlet state reporting former alaska governor former vice presidential candidate sarah palin traveled state last week making special appearances make campaign appearances us senate candidate carly fiorina gubernatorial candidate meg whitman distancing event friday sacramento featured palin dean palin spoke openly supportively fiorina gave rousing endorsement palin even made another reference speech next california governor dean however mention us sen barbara boxer gubernatorial candidate former california gov jerry brown speech despite tight races candidates barrack obama elected 2008 replaced dean dnc close ally tim kaine yet still talk dean presidential run 2016 kevin eckery republican political consultant said wasnt surprised dean didnt campaigning california democratic candidates dean represents status quo party institution said eckery eckery said candidates concerned dean front center health care issue despite speaking like moderate chamber commerce sponsored event dean recently wrote republican opposition national health care huffington post zeal obstruct republicans struck america stronger failure according eckery deans 12step campaign since last election dean often remembered famous campaign scream run president going new hampshire going south carolina oklahoma arizona north dakota new mexico going california texas new york going south dakota oregon washington michigan going washington dc take back white house yeeeaah however fridays sacramento event selfdeprecating moment dean subtly mocked campaign incident started speech greeting california audience dean said going south caroline oklahoma didnt work well small group large audience reacted realized referring laughed democratic political consultant steve maviglio different perspective deans brief california visit campaigning hes dnc anymore seems private lecture circuit maviglio wrote email explaining dean stay state campaign palin resigned alaska governor immediately embarked speaking appearance circuit election cycle palin offered endorsements many republicans twodozen last count palin actively campaigning fiorina whitman political consultants say enough republican base voters state carry either candidate victory california independent voters primary target campaigns recently however past weekend former president clinton state stumping jerry brown gavin newsom howard dean absent palin attended republican fundraiser anaheim along rnc chairman michael steele demonstrating shes persona non grata state brown boxer campaigns didnt much offer way explanation asked dean campaigning boxers campaign office one campaign employee said entirely sure160 dean campaigned told call press office phone number gave160was160incorrect browns press spokesman return calls emails publishing time meanwhile howard dean hasnt tempered comments despite critical lack civility election look ads average ad 20 percent fact 80 percent fiction outrageous he160said speech last week dean send email political action committee blasted candidates palin endorsed extreme singled christine odonnell delaware joe miller alaska strong tea party movement backing160i politics long time never seen extreme candidates ones pushed today sarah palin dean said friday160however dean said odonnell miller outliers conservative movement distorted message story last week sacramento bee promoting political big whigs campaigning state bee reported palin share stage today another former governor 2004 democratic presidential candidate howard dean two speak sacramento metro chambers annual perspectives event sacramento convention center story reported palin meanwhile headlining republican national committee victory rally anaheim saturday mention dean would heading appearance wasnt sticking around campaign
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<p>There’s a room at the University of São Paulo with between 10,000 and 15,000 mosquitoes in it. If you’re very quiet, you can hear them buzzing.</p>
<p>This is where mosquito researcher Margareth Capurro is trying to figure out the best strategy to reduce the type of mosquito, Aedes aegypyti, that carries Zika and other dangerous viruses. The bugs live in plastic containers and screen cages behind a double-doored vestibule, doors built to trap them if they escape from their containers.</p>
<p>The Brazilian government says somewhere between 400,000 and 1.5 million people in the last year may have been infected with Zika, carried by mosquitoes like these. The goal in Capurro’s lab is to find ways to make the mosquitoes combat the virus rather than help spread it, by genetically modifying them or finding a target for a niche insecticide.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Capurro has been a mosquito researcher for nearly 30 years. Recently, she’s worked on genetically modified sterile male mosquitoes. But in December, she shifted some of her focus. She joined the “Zika network,” a collaboration of about 40 labs studying all different aspects of the virus, from its connection to microcephaly to its transmission.</p>
<p>She’s overseeing the mosquito research&#160;and receiving specimens from collaborators around Brazil to study their genetic differences. &#160;&#160;&#160;</p>
<p>“If we have mosquitoes that are susceptible ... and mosquitoes that are totally immune — the idea is to compare the genome between them to see which is the difference,” she says. “Because if we have this information we can have targets for insecticides, or modifications to block the transmission of the disease.”</p>
<p>Using that information, one possible mosquito control intervention would be breeding and releasing millions more of these immune mosquitoes. The theory is that the Zika-immune mosquitoes could crowd out the Zika-carrying mosquitoes in the wild. Capurro did a successful pilot test of a similar “swap” with sterile male mosquitoes in a small suburb in northern Brazil.</p>
<p />
<p>(Animation credit: Barbara Benas)</p>
<p>However, it’s unclear if this method of population replacement can be scaled up. Critics question its efficacy and sustainability as a solution for an insect that breeds as rapidly as the Aedes aegypti mosquito.</p>
<p>Capurro is also experimenting with what she calls a “suicidal” mosquito that would self-destruct if it were infected. Again, there are very real concerns about the unintended consequences of releasing genetically modified mosquitoes into the wild. Those concerns would have to be addressed by regulators before even early-stage field testing could start. That is, if it works.</p>
<p>“If (it) works,” Capurro reiterates. “This is the problem. This is science, you know — you never know.”</p>
<p>All of Capurro’s research is in its earliest stages, so it would be years before any of it could make it out of the laboratory and actually help people, primarily the pregnant women living in fear of the virus and its possible link to serious birth defects.</p>
<p>Still, she thinks it’s important to do a lot of basic science research to try to control the Aedes aegypti mosquito in the long-term. It carries not only Zika, but also dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. &#160;&#160;</p>
<p>“I always say that about mosquitoes, or about dengue, or about the disease. We need to think as a general,” she says. “It’s a war. We need to send everything that we have, not only soldiers.”</p>
<p>Mosquito collection’s foot soldiers</p>
<p>After leaving Capurro’s lab, I wanted to get to the source of the problem, where mosquitoes are actually infecting people and being gathered up for research. &#160;</p>
<p>So I traveled northwest from São Paulo for about three hours to meet up with Adriano Mondini, a professor at Universidade Estadual Paulista, in the city of Araraquara.</p>
<p>We met outside the house of a patient who tested positive for dengue, where Mondini and his team were collecting mosquitoes to test them for the virus.</p>
<p>Mondini’s student, Paulo Lopes, walked around the house with a lightweight metal vacuum tube, trying to suck up mosquitoes where they like to lurk. &#160;&#160;&#160;</p>
<p>Mondini will also test the mosquitoes Lopes collects for Zika, as he’s been doing with new samples since January.</p>
<p>Because the national infection rate figures for Zika are such rough estimates, researchers here are trying to get a better local count, while at the same time handing over mosquitoes and Zika virus samples for lab work. &#160;&#160;</p>
<p>“If we find it here, it means that we have a mosquito population that can transmit Zika virus. And it’s good because Dr. Capurro is going to work with that, I’m going to work with that,” Mondini says.</p>
<p>In fact, as of last week, there were two confirmed cases of Zika in Araraquara.</p>
<p>In an example of how health workers are often at the front lines of emerging health&#160;threats, one of those infected was Mondini’s graduate student, Arianne Gusmao. Gusmao diagnosed herself when she was showing another student how to draw blood, and drew some of her own to test.</p>
<p>Older threats still loom</p>
<p>Zika may be a mysterious and scary virus. But the old mosquito-borne threat, dengue, is much more deadly. It killed nearly 900 people in Brazil alone last year.</p>
<p>I asked Mondini which virus worried him more.</p>
<p>“We had like 35 years of dengue transmission in Brazil, and millions and millions of cases, and deaths are going higher each year, &#160;so I think I have answered your question, haven’t I?” he says.</p>
<p>Still, he thinks there could be some good that comes out of the Zika scare. New money for mosquito research is coming down from the state government of São Paulo. That could help the fight against dengue and chikungunya, as well as Zika. &#160;&#160;</p>
<p>Back in her office in São Paulo, Margareth Capurro told me she was starting to plan for retirement when Zika came to Brazil. That idea has been shelved. &#160;</p>
<p>“It’s a kind of time that if I can contribute with mosquito control. I am very happy, you know, that’s it,” she says.</p>
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theres room university são paulo 10000 15000 mosquitoes youre quiet hear buzzing mosquito researcher margareth capurro trying figure best strategy reduce type mosquito aedes aegypyti carries zika dangerous viruses bugs live plastic containers screen cages behind doubledoored vestibule doors built trap escape containers brazilian government says somewhere 400000 15 million people last year may infected zika carried mosquitoes like goal capurros lab find ways make mosquitoes combat virus rather help spread genetically modifying finding target niche insecticide capurro mosquito researcher nearly 30 years recently shes worked genetically modified sterile male mosquitoes december shifted focus joined zika network collaboration 40 labs studying different aspects virus connection microcephaly transmission shes overseeing mosquito research160and receiving specimens collaborators around brazil study genetic differences 160160160 mosquitoes susceptible mosquitoes totally immune idea compare genome see difference says information targets insecticides modifications block transmission disease using information one possible mosquito control intervention would breeding releasing millions immune mosquitoes theory zikaimmune mosquitoes could crowd zikacarrying mosquitoes wild capurro successful pilot test similar swap sterile male mosquitoes small suburb northern brazil animation credit barbara benas however unclear method population replacement scaled critics question efficacy sustainability solution insect breeds rapidly aedes aegypti mosquito capurro also experimenting calls suicidal mosquito would selfdestruct infected real concerns unintended consequences releasing genetically modified mosquitoes wild concerns would addressed regulators even earlystage field testing could start works works capurro reiterates problem science know never know capurros research earliest stages would years could make laboratory actually help people primarily pregnant women living fear virus possible link serious birth defects still thinks important lot basic science research try control aedes aegypti mosquito longterm carries zika also dengue chikungunya yellow fever 160160 always say mosquitoes dengue disease need think general says war need send everything soldiers mosquito collections foot soldiers leaving capurros lab wanted get source problem mosquitoes actually infecting people gathered research 160 traveled northwest são paulo three hours meet adriano mondini professor universidade estadual paulista city araraquara met outside house patient tested positive dengue mondini team collecting mosquitoes test virus mondinis student paulo lopes walked around house lightweight metal vacuum tube trying suck mosquitoes like lurk 160160160 mondini also test mosquitoes lopes collects zika hes new samples since january national infection rate figures zika rough estimates researchers trying get better local count time handing mosquitoes zika virus samples lab work 160160 find means mosquito population transmit zika virus good dr capurro going work im going work mondini says fact last week two confirmed cases zika araraquara example health workers often front lines emerging health160threats one infected mondinis graduate student arianne gusmao gusmao diagnosed showing another student draw blood drew test older threats still loom zika may mysterious scary virus old mosquitoborne threat dengue much deadly killed nearly 900 people brazil alone last year asked mondini virus worried like 35 years dengue transmission brazil millions millions cases deaths going higher year 160so think answered question havent says still thinks could good comes zika scare new money mosquito research coming state government são paulo could help fight dengue chikungunya well zika 160160 back office são paulo margareth capurro told starting plan retirement zika came brazil idea shelved 160 kind time contribute mosquito control happy know thats says
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<p>BERLIN — An army of artists has assembled along the Berlin Wall on recent summer mornings, shielded by straw hats and baseball caps. Paintbrushes in one hand, laminated photographs of their old work in the other, they are repainting murals from almost 20 years ago. Thanks to the artists, the canvas is still standing.</p>
<p>"It was just in time," said Iranian-born Kani Alavi. "If the city hadn't finally agreed to do something, the wall would have just fallen over."</p>
<p>Alavi was an unlikely advocate to save the Berlin Wall. But along with 118 of his fellow artists who swooped in to paint the concrete barrier as Germany re-unified in 1990, he has petitioned the city of Berlin for more than a decade to rebuild and preserve what remains of its most hated monument.</p>
<p>Reunification didn't come cheap, and the city of Berlin is a whopping 60 billion euros ($83.6 billion) in debt. But this year it scraped together 2.5 million euros ($3.5 million) from lottery sales as well as federal and EU funds to fix up one of the city's top tourist attractions ahead of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall this November.</p>
<p>According to the artists, the money came not a moment too soon.</p>
<p>German communists built what they called the "anti-fascist protection barrier" in 1961, sealing off East Berlin from West Berlin.</p>
<p>"They just threw it up in a few days," said Andy Weiss, an earringed German artist busy repainting elephants onto the wall. "It was pretty shoddy East German construction."</p>
<p>Not much remains of the wall, and what is still standing was left in bad shape. In the euphoria of 1989, "wall woodpeckers" hacked away at the barrier with chisels. Tractors lifted out chunks of the wall that ended up in bank lobbies, private mansions and sculpture gardens across the world.</p>
<p>In 1990, Alavi, Weiss and the other artists painted what is now the largest remaining section of the wall, known as the East Side Gallery. The 1,300 meters (1,500 yards) of concrete are adorned with images of peace signs, doves and Dmitri Vrubel's famous "fraternal kiss": Soviet president Leonid Brezhnev planting a Communist smooch on the lips of his East German counterpart, Erich Honecker. "God, help me survive this deadly love" reads Russian script over the mural.</p>
<p>Over the years taggers and souvenir seekers chipped away at the surface of the East Side Gallery while weather gnawed at the interior. Steel support rods rusted, holes appeared. Vrubel had used cheap paint, which started to peel. A crack opened and ran down the length of Brezhnev's face.</p>
<p>The city of Berlin declared the East Side Gallery an historic monument in 1992, but despite artists' pleas provided no money for its maintenance.</p>
<p>"Sometimes I got the idea that Berlin politicians were just sleeping or on mental vacation," Alavi said.</p>
<p>"They were hoping the wall would fall down so they could just sweep it under the carpet," was Weiss' more cynical take.</p>
<p>The city government was aware that rebuilding or refurbishing the wall in any way is a touchy subject among Berliners. The idea drew less than 30 percent approval ratings in polls by local newspapers.</p>
<p>A few years ago, the city shut down a different, privately funded project to rebuild part of the wall near Checkpoint Charlie, for fear of creating a "Wall Disneyland."</p>
<p>In 2007, Alavi's East Side Artists' Initiative made a last ditch plea to the Berlin Senate, arguing that a crucial piece of history would be lost if the wall were allowed to crumble.</p>
<p>Finally, Alavi said, the city pulled together the money. The first job was to rebuild and reinforce the wall, filling in cracks and holes with concrete. Once the whole thing was whitewashed this spring, artists flew into Berlin to repaint their murals.</p>
<p>The murals are supposed to be exact copies of what was painted in 1990, but many artists introduced one change: scrawling their email addresses and gallery Web sites along the bottom of their murals. In Berlin, capitalism really has come to stay.</p>
<p>In fact, some artists were put off by low fees, asking the city to quintuple the 3,000 euros ($4,200) on offer. The city said no.</p>
<p>Moscow-based Vrubel at first refused to repaint the fraternal kiss ("I have no problem with restoration, but I cannot simply paint a new picture like making a sandwich!" he objected.) In the end he joined the 86 artists lining up along the wall each morning and the embracing communist politicians are re-emerging under his brush.</p>
<p>Alavi said the re-done images will be covered with an anti-graffiti coating. Rainer Eppelman, an opposition leader in East Germany and the head of a historical memory foundation, wants to take protecting the site one better. He is applying for UNESCO world heritage status for the East Side Gallery, a site he described as "not only a part of German history, but also an especially important testament to European and worldwide culture."</p>
<p>Besides preserving history, Weiss said, repainting the wall this summer has been fun.</p>
<p>The artists recall how thrilling it had been in 1990 even to be allowed to go near the barrier, let alone touch or paint it.</p>
<p>Before the collapse of East Germany, the wall was topped with barbed wire, guarded by 116 watch towers and surrounded by empty land known as the death strip. Border guards had killed an estimated 238 people as they tried to escape over, under or through holes in the wall.</p>
<p>"The first time we painted the wall it was exciting, it was the end of an era," Weiss said. "We are recreating a little bit of the party atmosphere of that time."</p>
<p>More on the collapse of communist Eastern Europe:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/poland/090603/poland-communism-collapse" type="external">Poland's anniversary of democracy</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/germany/090514/pedaling-the-iron-curtain" type="external">Pedaling the Iron Curtain</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/worldview/090619/mass-protests-methods" type="external">How to run a protest without Twitter</a></p>
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berlin army artists assembled along berlin wall recent summer mornings shielded straw hats baseball caps paintbrushes one hand laminated photographs old work repainting murals almost 20 years ago thanks artists canvas still standing time said iranianborn kani alavi city hadnt finally agreed something wall would fallen alavi unlikely advocate save berlin wall along 118 fellow artists swooped paint concrete barrier germany reunified 1990 petitioned city berlin decade rebuild preserve remains hated monument reunification didnt come cheap city berlin whopping 60 billion euros 836 billion debt year scraped together 25 million euros 35 million lottery sales well federal eu funds fix one citys top tourist attractions ahead 20th anniversary fall wall november according artists money came moment soon german communists built called antifascist protection barrier 1961 sealing east berlin west berlin threw days said andy weiss earringed german artist busy repainting elephants onto wall pretty shoddy east german construction much remains wall still standing left bad shape euphoria 1989 wall woodpeckers hacked away barrier chisels tractors lifted chunks wall ended bank lobbies private mansions sculpture gardens across world 1990 alavi weiss artists painted largest remaining section wall known east side gallery 1300 meters 1500 yards concrete adorned images peace signs doves dmitri vrubels famous fraternal kiss soviet president leonid brezhnev planting communist smooch lips east german counterpart erich honecker god help survive deadly love reads russian script mural years taggers souvenir seekers chipped away surface east side gallery weather gnawed interior steel support rods rusted holes appeared vrubel used cheap paint started peel crack opened ran length brezhnevs face city berlin declared east side gallery historic monument 1992 despite artists pleas provided money maintenance sometimes got idea berlin politicians sleeping mental vacation alavi said hoping wall would fall could sweep carpet weiss cynical take city government aware rebuilding refurbishing wall way touchy subject among berliners idea drew less 30 percent approval ratings polls local newspapers years ago city shut different privately funded project rebuild part wall near checkpoint charlie fear creating wall disneyland 2007 alavis east side artists initiative made last ditch plea berlin senate arguing crucial piece history would lost wall allowed crumble finally alavi said city pulled together money first job rebuild reinforce wall filling cracks holes concrete whole thing whitewashed spring artists flew berlin repaint murals murals supposed exact copies painted 1990 many artists introduced one change scrawling email addresses gallery web sites along bottom murals berlin capitalism really come stay fact artists put low fees asking city quintuple 3000 euros 4200 offer city said moscowbased vrubel first refused repaint fraternal kiss problem restoration simply paint new picture like making sandwich objected end joined 86 artists lining along wall morning embracing communist politicians reemerging brush alavi said redone images covered antigraffiti coating rainer eppelman opposition leader east germany head historical memory foundation wants take protecting site one better applying unesco world heritage status east side gallery site described part german history also especially important testament european worldwide culture besides preserving history weiss said repainting wall summer fun artists recall thrilling 1990 even allowed go near barrier let alone touch paint collapse east germany wall topped barbed wire guarded 116 watch towers surrounded empty land known death strip border guards killed estimated 238 people tried escape holes wall first time painted wall exciting end era weiss said recreating little bit party atmosphere time collapse communist eastern europe polands anniversary democracy pedaling iron curtain run protest without twitter
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<p>At a Chicago Public Schools teacher fair this summer, Lori Cunningham joined hundreds of principals and school representatives from across the city who were looking to recruit the best and the brightest to their schools.</p>
<p>Cunningham, a recruiter hired in January to work exclusively for 26 schools in one of the city’s toughest West Side neighborhoods, wants the best and the brightest, too. But she’s looking for other qualities as well.</p>
<p>“Are you interested in teaching high-risk students? Do you think all children can be educated? What do you know about North Lawndale?” she asks candidates.</p>
<p>Cunningham’s job—the only one of its kind in the district—was the novel idea of one administrator who oversees North Lawndale, where schools battle to hire and retain high-quality new teachers. “We can get teachers, but we don’t keep them,” says Area 8 Instructional Officer Rollie Jones, Cunningham’s boss.</p>
<p>Cunningham, a former human resources manager for an information technology firm, prescreens candidates to find those who have a strong desire to teach at-risk students and who are not afraid to work in a high-poverty, sometimes-dangerous neighborhood.</p>
<p>Cunningham’s duties also include helping new teachers resolve issues such as finding a place to live, overseeing a mentoring and co-teaching program for new North Lawndale teachers and supervising a newly created teacher retention task force that gives principals a forum to talk about retention and how to improve it.</p>
<p>“Right now, it is only made up of 11 principals, but what they learn and what they find effective will be trickled down to the whole area,” says Cunningham.</p>
<p>And, Cunningham conducts exit interviews with teachers who do leave, using a protocol CPS is planning to adopt system-wide this year.</p>
<p>“To retain teachers, there just can’t be one thing you do. A series of things is needed,” says Robin Steans, a trustee of the Steans Family Foundation. The foundation and the Chicago Community Trust pay Cunningham’s salary.</p>
<p>Knowing ‘culture of schools’</p>
<p>Principals say Cunningham provides personalized help.</p>
<p>“People at central office are good, but here is someone who can give us immediate assistance, who knows the culture of the schools. She looks for people who fit,” says Webster Elementary Principal Edith Allen-Colman.</p>
<p>Howland Elementary Principal Rae Smith agrees. “No one calls [from central office] to say, ‘Rae, I found a good fit for your school.’ They fax me a bunch of resumes. But Lori knows what we need. It makes a big difference.”</p>
<p>Cunningham helped Smith find a teacher of Mandarin Chinese. “That is a tough position to fill,” says Smith. “Between the two of us, I was able to grab resumes and we’ve narrowed it down to one candidate.”</p>
<p>Principal Shelton Flowers of King Elementary says Cunningham helped him fill a job for a physical education teacher in a couple of weeks, despite a system-wide shortage of teachers in that area. The new teacher, Dustin Covarrubias, told Cunningham he felt very strongly about wanting to teach low-income children.</p>
<p>Says Cunningham, “Dustin really wanted to work for Chicago Public Schools and not the suburbs. And he asked me not to send his resume to schools that are considered ‘easy.’ He was very sincere and enthusiastic, and said he wanted to work in a school where people needed him.”</p>
<p>Asking key questions</p>
<p>Cunningham relies on screening out lackluster candidates as much as finding good ones.</p>
<p>She asks teachers if they are familiar with the West Side, have any experience working with children who are academically at-risk and why they want to work in North Lawndale.</p>
<p>“They may say, ‘I really want to make a difference.’ But I want to hear a plan and if they recognize the difficulties,” Cunningham says. “A lot of people have grandiose ideas of saving the world, but no concrete idea as to how hard it may be.”</p>
<p>By asking teachers where they see themselves in five years, Cunningham gauges if they are likely to stay in the classroom or use the experience as a steppingstone to an administrative position. Other questions ferret out the extent of teachers’ instructional skills; for instance, by asking a prospective 3rd-grade teacher how she would prepare her students for the ISAT.</p>
<p>“I don’t want teachers who don’t plan on staying, or who think this is a last-ditch effort to find a job…or who say they aren’t sure they can work with our kids, or don’t think all kids can be taught,” Cunningham says.</p>
<p>Asking such questions is vital to finding the right teachers for high-poverty areas, says one educator.</p>
<p>“It is critical to find teachers who choose to work with the children in North Lawndale and have a clue of how to do it,” says Victoria Chou, dean of the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “It is important that teachers in that area have high expectations for their students and know how to work with the kids, their families and the community.”</p>
<p>Cunningham’s job doesn’t stop with hiring. New teachers say the extra support she continues to give makes them feel more comfortable about taking a job in an unfamiliar community.</p>
<p>Covarrubias, who is from South Elgin, was new to Chicago and needed help finding a place to live. “I’d never had to find a place to live before and I didn’t know what to do. She’s like talking to a friend.”</p>
<p>“It makes the job easier, because the job is hard enough,” says Kevin Pearce, a new 5th-grade teacher at Bethune. “I think teachers leave because they don’t feel that kind of support.”</p>
<p>Teresa Dobson, a self-described “farm girl” from Springfield and also a newcomer at Bethune, was eager to take the job but had lingering concerns about working in North Lawndale. Family members told her she was crazy to teach in an inner-city school and warned her about getting “beaten up” on her first day.</p>
<p>Cunningham “was real with me,” says Dobson. “She admitted the school was not in the best area, but told me to use common sense, just like you are supposed to anywhere you go. She advised me to be aware of my surroundings, to use the people around me like security and not be afraid to ask for assistance. Knowing I have her, my mentor and my principal makes me feel comfortable and want to stay.”</p>
<p>Why do they leave?</p>
<p>To give schools a clearer picture of why teachers leave, Cunningham has been conducting exit interviews since March. She asks departing teachers whether they are leaving Area 8 for another CPS school or leaving CPS altogether; if they would consider returning to CPS; and if they felt successful at their job and supported by their principals and mentors.</p>
<p>So far, 25 teachers have participated and 20 of them cited lack of classroom management skills, a typical problem for new teachers, as the reason for their departure, Cunningham reports.</p>
<p>“We now have hard data to back up what we’ve always known,” says Jones.</p>
<p>CPS plans to modify Cunningham’s exit interview and use it with new teachers—those with five years’ experience or less—who leave the district starting this year.</p>
<p>“Before you work on retention, you have to figure out why people are leaving. And we recognize the power this information has to inform the district on how schools are doing,” says Veenay Singla, a master’s degree candidate from the University of Chicago and a consultant for the department of planning and development.</p>
<p>In the meantime, Steans says it is still too early to gauge whether Cunningham’s hiring will have the intended impact. “It will take a few years,” she points out. “Still, I am hopeful [retention] will get better.”</p>
<p>To contact Debra Williams, call (312) 673-3873 or send an e-mail to [email protected].</p>
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chicago public schools teacher fair summer lori cunningham joined hundreds principals school representatives across city looking recruit best brightest schools cunningham recruiter hired january work exclusively 26 schools one citys toughest west side neighborhoods wants best brightest shes looking qualities well interested teaching highrisk students think children educated know north lawndale asks candidates cunninghams jobthe one kind districtwas novel idea one administrator oversees north lawndale schools battle hire retain highquality new teachers get teachers dont keep says area 8 instructional officer rollie jones cunninghams boss cunningham former human resources manager information technology firm prescreens candidates find strong desire teach atrisk students afraid work highpoverty sometimesdangerous neighborhood cunninghams duties also include helping new teachers resolve issues finding place live overseeing mentoring coteaching program new north lawndale teachers supervising newly created teacher retention task force gives principals forum talk retention improve right made 11 principals learn find effective trickled whole area says cunningham cunningham conducts exit interviews teachers leave using protocol cps planning adopt systemwide year retain teachers cant one thing series things needed says robin steans trustee steans family foundation foundation chicago community trust pay cunninghams salary knowing culture schools principals say cunningham provides personalized help people central office good someone give us immediate assistance knows culture schools looks people fit says webster elementary principal edith allencolman howland elementary principal rae smith agrees one calls central office say rae found good fit school fax bunch resumes lori knows need makes big difference cunningham helped smith find teacher mandarin chinese tough position fill says smith two us able grab resumes weve narrowed one candidate principal shelton flowers king elementary says cunningham helped fill job physical education teacher couple weeks despite systemwide shortage teachers area new teacher dustin covarrubias told cunningham felt strongly wanting teach lowincome children says cunningham dustin really wanted work chicago public schools suburbs asked send resume schools considered easy sincere enthusiastic said wanted work school people needed asking key questions cunningham relies screening lackluster candidates much finding good ones asks teachers familiar west side experience working children academically atrisk want work north lawndale may say really want make difference want hear plan recognize difficulties cunningham says lot people grandiose ideas saving world concrete idea hard may asking teachers see five years cunningham gauges likely stay classroom use experience steppingstone administrative position questions ferret extent teachers instructional skills instance asking prospective 3rdgrade teacher would prepare students isat dont want teachers dont plan staying think lastditch effort find jobor say arent sure work kids dont think kids taught cunningham says asking questions vital finding right teachers highpoverty areas says one educator critical find teachers choose work children north lawndale clue says victoria chou dean college education university illinois chicago important teachers area high expectations students know work kids families community cunninghams job doesnt stop hiring new teachers say extra support continues give makes feel comfortable taking job unfamiliar community covarrubias south elgin new chicago needed help finding place live id never find place live didnt know shes like talking friend makes job easier job hard enough says kevin pearce new 5thgrade teacher bethune think teachers leave dont feel kind support teresa dobson selfdescribed farm girl springfield also newcomer bethune eager take job lingering concerns working north lawndale family members told crazy teach innercity school warned getting beaten first day cunningham real says dobson admitted school best area told use common sense like supposed anywhere go advised aware surroundings use people around like security afraid ask assistance knowing mentor principal makes feel comfortable want stay leave give schools clearer picture teachers leave cunningham conducting exit interviews since march asks departing teachers whether leaving area 8 another cps school leaving cps altogether would consider returning cps felt successful job supported principals mentors far 25 teachers participated 20 cited lack classroom management skills typical problem new teachers reason departure cunningham reports hard data back weve always known says jones cps plans modify cunninghams exit interview use new teachersthose five years experience lesswho leave district starting year work retention figure people leaving recognize power information inform district schools says veenay singla masters degree candidate university chicago consultant department planning development meantime steans says still early gauge whether cunninghams hiring intended impact take years points still hopeful retention get better contact debra williams call 312 6733873 send email williamscatalystchicagoorg
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<p>RICHMOND, Va. — As Hurricane Irene continued its destructive track north Aug. 28, Baptist relief agencies in the Mid-Atlantic began deploying volunteers in the region, which was left with rising water and little electricity in the wake of the storm.</p>
<p>At sites along the Virginia and North Carolina coasts, recovery teams readied themselves to offer hot meals, remove downed trees and clean up flooded homes and businesses.</p>
<p>Though Irene proved to be far less damaging than originally predicted, at least 24 deaths were attributed to the storm and it cut electricity to more than 1 million customers in Virginia and North Carolina, and several hundred thousand in Maryland and the District of Columbia. Storm surges and heavy rainfall caused extensive flooding along the coast and beside rivers.</p>
<p />
<p>Virginia Baptists’ disaster relief ministry sent a feeding unit Aug. 29 to hard hit King and Queen County, Va., near the Chesapeake Bay, which the American Red Cross will use to distribute about 7,000 meals daily over the next week. A shower unit was deployed to Richmond County, just across the Rappahannock River, for the army of repair crews attempting to restore power to residents there.</p>
<p>Another feeding unit was set up late Aug. 28 on the parking lot of the Virginia Baptist Resource Center in Richmond, Va., which began preparing meals for distribution in several counties south of the city still without electricity.</p>
<p>“Some of our people are out making assessments right now, but thankfully the situation isn’t as bad as we thought even as late as Saturday afternoon [as the storm hit the region] it would be,” said Dean Miller, who coordinates disaster relief for the Virginia Baptist Mission Board.</p>
<p>“There’s a lot of power outage. A lot of downed trees. And there’s some concern about the Blackwater River flooding near Franklin [Va.]. That may crest late Monday or Tuesday, and if so we’ll probably be in that area as well.”</p>
<p>North Carolina Baptist Men deployed recovery units Aug. 28 at four locations on or near the North Carolina coast — Greenville, Manteo, New Bern and Williamston — and likely will set up feeding units in all but Greenville, where the recovery unit will be stationed at The Memorial Baptist Church.</p>
<p>“Those four locations are pretty centrally located,” said Richard Brunson, director of North Carolina Baptist Men. “We can house volunteers there and they can be at the worst hit areas within 30 to 40 minutes.”</p>
<p>Brunson said there was considerable flooding in communities along the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds, and extensive tree downings.</p>
<p>In New Bern, where First Baptist Church is hosting the disaster relief operation, there is widespread flooding within five miles of the church, said Steve Winn, a church member who is working closely with North Carolina Baptist Men.</p>
<p>“All the way from Morehead [City, N.C.] to the Virginia border there’s flooding,” Winn said. “We’ll be helping with that and also working to get trees off the roofs before any additional rains come through.”</p>
<p>Like many congregations across the region, First Baptist in New Bern cancelled worship services Sunday morning. From North Carolina to Maryland, lack of electricity and streets blocked by downed trees and power lines prompted churches to close for the day. Others — encouraged by the blue skies and mild weather on the morning after the storm — worshipped in sanctuaries with open windows and doors.</p>
<p>Zoar Baptist Church in Deltaville, Va. — whose sanctuary was destroyed by a tornado last April — cancelled Sunday services, which are being held on the beach while the church is rebuilt. The hurricane caused no significant damage to the church’s renovation project, said Juanita Glascock, Zoar’s administrative assistant.</p>
<p>In Washington, D.C., which was lashed by Irene, the District of Columbia Baptist Convention was assessing damage to its affiliated churches to determine of a response was needed from outside partners, said executive director Ricky Creech.</p>
<p>Creech, who was elected to the position last March, said he is in the “middle stages” of designing the convention’s first disaster response units.</p>
<p>“The [Aug. 23] earthquake and Irene have given leverage to this new venture,” he said.</p>
<p>While neither the Virginia nor North Carolina affiliates of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship are first responders, both were urging volunteers to work closely with Baptist relief agencies in their states.</p>
<p>Rob Fox, CBFVA field coordinator, said he was in contact with the national CBF as it assessed the situation in the Mid-Atlantic.</p>
<p>CBFNC’s executive coordinator, Larry Hovis, said his staff had “tried calling all pastors of churches located on or near the coast to assess damage and assure them of prayers and support.”</p>
<p>“We haven’t discovered significant damage or need yet but will continue to reach out to the churches,” he said.</p>
<p>In an Aug. 29 e-mail communication, CBFNC said, “We continue to value our partnership with North Carolina Baptist Men and encourage partner churches to participate in relief and recovery efforts through them.”</p>
<p>Robert Dilday ( <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>) is managing editor of the Religious Herald.</p>
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richmond va hurricane irene continued destructive track north aug 28 baptist relief agencies midatlantic began deploying volunteers region left rising water little electricity wake storm sites along virginia north carolina coasts recovery teams readied offer hot meals remove downed trees clean flooded homes businesses though irene proved far less damaging originally predicted least 24 deaths attributed storm cut electricity 1 million customers virginia north carolina several hundred thousand maryland district columbia storm surges heavy rainfall caused extensive flooding along coast beside rivers virginia baptists disaster relief ministry sent feeding unit aug 29 hard hit king queen county va near chesapeake bay american red cross use distribute 7000 meals daily next week shower unit deployed richmond county across rappahannock river army repair crews attempting restore power residents another feeding unit set late aug 28 parking lot virginia baptist resource center richmond va began preparing meals distribution several counties south city still without electricity people making assessments right thankfully situation isnt bad thought even late saturday afternoon storm hit region would said dean miller coordinates disaster relief virginia baptist mission board theres lot power outage lot downed trees theres concern blackwater river flooding near franklin va may crest late monday tuesday well probably area well north carolina baptist men deployed recovery units aug 28 four locations near north carolina coast greenville manteo new bern williamston likely set feeding units greenville recovery unit stationed memorial baptist church four locations pretty centrally located said richard brunson director north carolina baptist men house volunteers worst hit areas within 30 40 minutes brunson said considerable flooding communities along albemarle pamlico sounds extensive tree downings new bern first baptist church hosting disaster relief operation widespread flooding within five miles church said steve winn church member working closely north carolina baptist men way morehead city nc virginia border theres flooding winn said well helping also working get trees roofs additional rains come like many congregations across region first baptist new bern cancelled worship services sunday morning north carolina maryland lack electricity streets blocked downed trees power lines prompted churches close day others encouraged blue skies mild weather morning storm worshipped sanctuaries open windows doors zoar baptist church deltaville va whose sanctuary destroyed tornado last april cancelled sunday services held beach church rebuilt hurricane caused significant damage churchs renovation project said juanita glascock zoars administrative assistant washington dc lashed irene district columbia baptist convention assessing damage affiliated churches determine response needed outside partners said executive director ricky creech creech elected position last march said middle stages designing conventions first disaster response units aug 23 earthquake irene given leverage new venture said neither virginia north carolina affiliates cooperative baptist fellowship first responders urging volunteers work closely baptist relief agencies states rob fox cbfva field coordinator said contact national cbf assessed situation midatlantic cbfncs executive coordinator larry hovis said staff tried calling pastors churches located near coast assess damage assure prayers support havent discovered significant damage need yet continue reach churches said aug 29 email communication cbfnc said continue value partnership north carolina baptist men encourage partner churches participate relief recovery efforts robert dilday rdildayreligiousheraldorg managing editor religious herald
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<p>(ABP) — Pastor Tony Lankford had a relaxing-but-productive day planned for himself on Monday. His plan was to prepare the message he would preach the following Sunday on Daniel in the lion’s den.</p>
<p>“I was going to go to the coffee shop and actually write the sermon,” he said from his office at Park Avenue Baptist Church in Atlanta. “But as of this morning, I have yet to work on the sermon.”</p>
<p>That’s because a usually quiet Veteran’s Day instead was spent handling an “administrative trifecta” — one plumber demanding payment for previous work, finding another plumber to fix a leaking toilet, and hiring an electrician to replace fuses in the building’s 80-year-old fuse box.</p>
<p />
<p>Bill Whitaker, right, is the executive pastor at Bon Air Baptist Church in Richmond. Whitaker said he was called into a career in church administration (Photo by Bon Air Baptist Church)</p>
<p />
<p>Welcome to the business side of ministry, which Lankford and a growing number of seminaries say has become more challenging than ever in the modern church.</p>
<p>“I’d like to say that all my time was spent helping the poor and finding new ways to proclaim the gospel,” Lankford said. “But the honest truth is, I spend far more time than I expected … on church administration — getting the bills paid, the lawn mowed, the volunteers trained and the plumber called.”</p>
<p>Knowing that many churches today operate with smaller staffs and greater facilities and human resources demands than in the past, seminaries are responding with programs aimed at better equipping future ministers with the administrative, financial and other business-oriented skills they’ll need to succeed.</p>
<p>Those pressures convinced Baylor University regents earlier this month to approve a new dual master of divinity and master of business administration program.</p>
<p>New MDiv/MBA</p>
<p>Linking faculty and resources between Truett Baptist Theological Seminary and the Hankamer School of Business, a university official said, will produce pastors with the know-how required to keep churches and ministries running in the black.</p>
<p>“Churches have always been concerned that their pastors may not know business,” said David Garland, professor of Christian Scriptures and dean of Truett Seminary.</p>
<p>But given smaller budgets, older facilities and demands for more ministries, Garland said the university felt an increasing interest in producing graduates more capable of multitasking.</p>
<p>“And there is a concern there that churches need not only the pastor with the theological training, but with administrative and business expertise,” Garland said. “That was the primary driver.”</p>
<p>Fast-growing trend</p>
<p>Baylor isn’t alone, either among Baptist or the wider world of Christian seminaries.</p>
<p>Mercer University offers an M.Div./MBA and an M.Div./Master of Science in organizational leadership, among other tracks. Gardner-Webb and Campbell universities are among those who do so, as well.</p>
<p>Combining master’s level divinity and business degrees is a relatively recent trend, but also one of the faster-growing, Dan Aleshire, executive director of the Association of Theological Schools, told Inside Higher Ed in August.</p>
<p>A key reason is that American churches have transformed from Sunday-only places to around-the-clock, seven-days-a-week ministry centers that require business savvy to operate, said Jim Singleton Jr., associate professor of pastoral leadership and evangelism at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston.</p>
<p>Debating the issue</p>
<p>Many seminaries are just now having serious conversations about how and where their students should receive the training needed to be effective administrators, he said.</p>
<p>Some schools assume students will pick those skills up during internships. Others assume they’ll be learned during stints as associate pastors. Only a few have the topic built robustly into their curricula.</p>
<p>Delegating issues like budgeting, vision statements and HR duties to capable lay people – while a good idea – still doesn’t get pastors off the hook because they still are ultimately responsible for the outcome, Singleton said.</p>
<p>It’s why some kind of stronger business education, including MBAs, is a good idea for ministers.</p>
<p>“There are a group of folks, and a group of churches, out there who would love to have someone with those skills,” he said.</p>
<p>Called to administration</p>
<p>Of course, it helps if a minister has a positive attitude and sees the administrative side of church as a blessing, and not a chore.</p>
<p>Bill Whitaker considers himself in that category.</p>
<p>The newly-installed executive pastor at Bon Air Baptist Church in Richmond, Whitaker said he felt a calling to the ministry back in his undergraduate business school days.</p>
<p>But it wasn’t an either/or calling, Whitaker said. Rather, he felt pushed into roles as church administrator and business pastor at different congregations before joining Bon Air in October.</p>
<p>There, his job is to oversee the staff, finances, facilities and food-service operations at the multisite church. He will also mentor and coach other ministers and perform project management duties.</p>
<p>“Churches have grown, and they have become more complex,” Whitaker said. “I believe the Lord was calling me here.”</p>
<p>More training needed</p>
<p>But it’s not just pastors who need business acumen, Garland said.</p>
<p>The new joint degree at Baylor is also meant for ministers and lay people who operate nonprofit groups. And then there are those headed into business careers, who see their jobs as callings.</p>
<p>Lankford said he sees the logic behind those programs and added he could have stood more training in administration before becoming a full-time pastor.</p>
<p>“Seminaries may be doing that already and maybe I just missed that day,” he said.</p>
<p>Jeff Brumley ( <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a>)&#160;is assistant editor of Associated Baptist Press.</p>
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abp pastor tony lankford relaxingbutproductive day planned monday plan prepare message would preach following sunday daniel lions den going go coffee shop actually write sermon said office park avenue baptist church atlanta morning yet work sermon thats usually quiet veterans day instead spent handling administrative trifecta one plumber demanding payment previous work finding another plumber fix leaking toilet hiring electrician replace fuses buildings 80yearold fuse box bill whitaker right executive pastor bon air baptist church richmond whitaker said called career church administration photo bon air baptist church welcome business side ministry lankford growing number seminaries say become challenging ever modern church id like say time spent helping poor finding new ways proclaim gospel lankford said honest truth spend far time expected church administration getting bills paid lawn mowed volunteers trained plumber called knowing many churches today operate smaller staffs greater facilities human resources demands past seminaries responding programs aimed better equipping future ministers administrative financial businessoriented skills theyll need succeed pressures convinced baylor university regents earlier month approve new dual master divinity master business administration program new mdivmba linking faculty resources truett baptist theological seminary hankamer school business university official said produce pastors knowhow required keep churches ministries running black churches always concerned pastors may know business said david garland professor christian scriptures dean truett seminary given smaller budgets older facilities demands ministries garland said university felt increasing interest producing graduates capable multitasking concern churches need pastor theological training administrative business expertise garland said primary driver fastgrowing trend baylor isnt alone either among baptist wider world christian seminaries mercer university offers mdivmba mdivmaster science organizational leadership among tracks gardnerwebb campbell universities among well combining masters level divinity business degrees relatively recent trend also one fastergrowing dan aleshire executive director association theological schools told inside higher ed august key reason american churches transformed sundayonly places aroundtheclock sevendaysaweek ministry centers require business savvy operate said jim singleton jr associate professor pastoral leadership evangelism gordonconwell theological seminary boston debating issue many seminaries serious conversations students receive training needed effective administrators said schools assume students pick skills internships others assume theyll learned stints associate pastors topic built robustly curricula delegating issues like budgeting vision statements hr duties capable lay people good idea still doesnt get pastors hook still ultimately responsible outcome singleton said kind stronger business education including mbas good idea ministers group folks group churches would love someone skills said called administration course helps minister positive attitude sees administrative side church blessing chore bill whitaker considers category newlyinstalled executive pastor bon air baptist church richmond whitaker said felt calling ministry back undergraduate business school days wasnt eitheror calling whitaker said rather felt pushed roles church administrator business pastor different congregations joining bon air october job oversee staff finances facilities foodservice operations multisite church also mentor coach ministers perform project management duties churches grown become complex whitaker said believe lord calling training needed pastors need business acumen garland said new joint degree baylor also meant ministers lay people operate nonprofit groups headed business careers see jobs callings lankford said sees logic behind programs added could stood training administration becoming fulltime pastor seminaries may already maybe missed day said jeff brumley jeffbaptistnewscom160is assistant editor associated baptist press
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<p>Heritage Column for July 21, 2005</p>
<p>By Fred Anderson</p>
<p>ROVIGO, Italy – Our three weeks in Italy have left us with many impressions. Our ears are still ringing with the constant traffic noise of Naples, the sounds of Italians rapidly uttering completely unintelligible phrases, the peals of church bells on the hour, the motor scooters with their fierce whines, the trains rapidly pulling away from the station. Our eyes are full of scenes of great palm trees, sidewalk cafes and ancient ruins. Our stomachs are full of pizza and pasta. Our hearts contain the lives of those with whom we interacted. Yet what we know about Italy and even the Italian Baptists could fill a thimble.</p>
<p>We did find a warm and responsive people who welcomed the Americanos and suffered our lack of Italian. New friends find other ways to communicate. We found small and struggling congregations which were an interesting mix of native Italians and “come heres” (as they say in the Northern Neck) from many other nationalities. We found people astonished to learn that the Baptist General Association of Virginia is comprised of some 1,400 churches with about 600,000 members. In a land where Baptists are few in number, gathered into small churches and scattered across the country, they were amazed to know that Baptists elsewhere are so numerous.</p>
<p>We found a people hungry to learn more about their own heritage. When I spoke near Naples and in Florence on George Boardman Taylor and the early connection between Virginia Baptists and Italy, I noticed several persons taking copious notes. Franco Scaramuccia is a former president of the Italian Baptist Union and the unofficial historian of his people and he shared: “We Baptists in Italy have no memories of our past time. It seems we are ashamed of our past or are afraid to be proud of our memories; but I think it is not to be proud but to be thankful to the Lord for what he has done through those persons [who went before us]. Before me [and a few others] no one was studying our history.” In 1998 he wrote “the first book by an Italian Baptist pastor speaking about our Baptist heritage.”</p>
<p>There are several ideas emerging from the visit to Italy including the hope of hosting Franco's visit to Virginia where he can study in the archives of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the International Mission Board, SBC, and learn more about the early roots of Italian Baptist history. We would like to arrange opportunities for him to speak before Virginia Baptists. The Heritage Center could publish a book on the Virginia-Italy relationship and print the volume in English and Italian. The Center's magazine for children, Heritage Seekers, may feature the Italian Baptist story and we could find writers among the Italians. And there are other ideas.</p>
<p>When I explained the missions partnership in Florence, I emphasized that a partnership implies two equal parties engaged in some mutual enterprise. Members of the small congregation seemed puzzled as to what they possibly could contribute to such a large and seemingly prosperous denominational entity in faraway Virginia. I think there are several things which we could learn from each other.</p>
<p>I believe that small churches in Virginia (and there are more of them than there are large churches) can learn from the spirit of the small Italian churches which are large in spirit and effectiveness. I visited the Rovigo church and discovered that they operate their own radio station yet they only have about 100 members. Lidia Giorgi has been pastor of the church for 15 years. She is the wife of Carmine Bianchi, secretary of evangelism department for the Union, and their church is an interesting mix of Italians and Nigerians. They offer language translation for the worship services.</p>
<p>I believe that our ministers and laypersons can be inspired by the spirit of servanthood found among the Italian pastors where the average monthly salary is about 500 to 600 Euros or about $700 or $800 which is paid by the Union. The pastors are quick to tell you that they are in a different economic circumstance than most Italians. The Union also rotates the pastors who can serve about 5 or 10 or no more than 15 years in one church. Certainly such practices are not for Virginia Baptists yet we can benefit from sensing the devotion and dedication of the Italian Baptist ministers. Italian Baptists could teach Virginia Baptists how to do more with fewer resources.</p>
<p>Virginia Baptists could teach Italians about stewardship (a subject which we are in danger of ignoring) and church growth. One Italian kept asking, “How do you grow such large churches?” Virginia Baptists could help Italian Baptist youth who visit this summer to enlarge their vision of the Baptist community. Imagine their shock over Eagle Eyrie as well as Baptist schools and colleges. Already Virginia Baptists have provided a scholarship for a promising theology student who will come from Genoa to BTSR.</p>
<p>Virginia Baptists could learn more from the Italians about diversity and reaching out to ethnic groups. Italian Baptists have an easy acceptance of women in places of leadership; and while Virginia Baptists are among the more accepting of women, we still have few women in ministerial positions. Italian Baptists also have an ecumenical and cooperative work with other evangelical groups including the Waldensians and Methodists with whom they share a newspaper. Virginia Baptists could do more cooperative work with other faith groups.</p>
<p>Virginia Baptists long have valued the principle of separation of church and state yet the trends in our society have made in-roads into the thinking of our people on the subject. We could learn to re-appreciate the principle from the Italian Baptist perspective where they are a definite minority in a majority culture. It has been a long time, beyond anyone's memory, when Virginia Baptists were a despised and persecuted minority. But we once were. In Italy there is an elaborate palace-like Catholic church on every corner; and when I told Franco that in Virginia there is an evangelical church on every corner, he replied with a single word: “Hallelujah!”</p>
<p>Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies.</p>
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heritage column july 21 2005 fred anderson rovigo italy three weeks italy left us many impressions ears still ringing constant traffic noise naples sounds italians rapidly uttering completely unintelligible phrases peals church bells hour motor scooters fierce whines trains rapidly pulling away station eyes full scenes great palm trees sidewalk cafes ancient ruins stomachs full pizza pasta hearts contain lives interacted yet know italy even italian baptists could fill thimble find warm responsive people welcomed americanos suffered lack italian new friends find ways communicate found small struggling congregations interesting mix native italians come heres say northern neck many nationalities found people astonished learn baptist general association virginia comprised 1400 churches 600000 members land baptists number gathered small churches scattered across country amazed know baptists elsewhere numerous found people hungry learn heritage spoke near naples florence george boardman taylor early connection virginia baptists italy noticed several persons taking copious notes franco scaramuccia former president italian baptist union unofficial historian people shared baptists italy memories past time seems ashamed past afraid proud memories think proud thankful lord done persons went us others one studying history 1998 wrote first book italian baptist pastor speaking baptist heritage several ideas emerging visit italy including hope hosting francos visit virginia study archives virginia baptist historical society international mission board sbc learn early roots italian baptist history would like arrange opportunities speak virginia baptists heritage center could publish book virginiaitaly relationship print volume english italian centers magazine children heritage seekers may feature italian baptist story could find writers among italians ideas explained missions partnership florence emphasized partnership implies two equal parties engaged mutual enterprise members small congregation seemed puzzled possibly could contribute large seemingly prosperous denominational entity faraway virginia think several things could learn believe small churches virginia large churches learn spirit small italian churches large spirit effectiveness visited rovigo church discovered operate radio station yet 100 members lidia giorgi pastor church 15 years wife carmine bianchi secretary evangelism department union church interesting mix italians nigerians offer language translation worship services believe ministers laypersons inspired spirit servanthood found among italian pastors average monthly salary 500 600 euros 700 800 paid union pastors quick tell different economic circumstance italians union also rotates pastors serve 5 10 15 years one church certainly practices virginia baptists yet benefit sensing devotion dedication italian baptist ministers italian baptists could teach virginia baptists fewer resources virginia baptists could teach italians stewardship subject danger ignoring church growth one italian kept asking grow large churches virginia baptists could help italian baptist youth visit summer enlarge vision baptist community imagine shock eagle eyrie well baptist schools colleges already virginia baptists provided scholarship promising theology student come genoa btsr virginia baptists could learn italians diversity reaching ethnic groups italian baptists easy acceptance women places leadership virginia baptists among accepting women still women ministerial positions italian baptists also ecumenical cooperative work evangelical groups including waldensians methodists share newspaper virginia baptists could cooperative work faith groups virginia baptists long valued principle separation church state yet trends society made inroads thinking people subject could learn reappreciate principle italian baptist perspective definite minority majority culture long time beyond anyones memory virginia baptists despised persecuted minority italy elaborate palacelike catholic church every corner told franco virginia evangelical church every corner replied single word hallelujah fred anderson executive director virginia baptist historical society center baptist heritage studies
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<p>The globalized economy has created a world in which you can watch an Indian cricket match on TV in a Budapest bar and where you can send your mother-in-law in Iowa flowers picked fresh in Colombia. But some aspects of globalization aren’t so nice. Documentary film maker Tim Samuels has been investigating the globalization of pornography.</p>
<p>The results of his reporting will be seen on BBC TV in the series "Hardcore Profits." Samuels says porn producers may not realize what affect their films are having in places as far away as Western Africa.</p>
<p>"In Ghana you see the most extraordinary impact of the mainstream western pornography which is predominantly made in Los Angeles and is predominantly condom free. That pornography somehow makes its way to even the most remote and obscure parts of Ghana in Africa.</p>
<p>"There are villages which don’t even have electricity; where people live in mud huts; where generators get wheeled into the village and mud huts get turned into impromptu pornographic cinemas. And those films from Los Angeles get shown and the impact is chilling.</p>
<p>"The films, as I said, don’t have condoms. People copy what they see and they say to me they’ve contracted HIV as a direct result of copying the films they’ve seen.</p>
<p>"There are also outbreaks of sexual violence after the films are shown where the young men are so excited by what they’ve seen that women in the village, I’m told, have been raped straight after the films have been shown. So an extraordinary consequence of globalization from an industry in Los Angeles having an impact in Africa.</p>
<p>"Beyond Ghana we try to procure some other evidence and spoke to health professionals in other developing countries. In Tanzania a similar case came up where the videos were also shown in remote areas and women were assaulted there after. In India cases where kids have dropped out of school because they became addicted to this mainstream and hardcore pornography, again coming from America.</p>
<p>"Even Papua, New Guinea there were doctors who said that they’ve had to deal with cases of young men putting ball bearings down their penises to try and keep up with the impressive nature of the porn stars they’ve been watching in films. So it’s anecdotal but there is a sense that these films, which are so much more easily available now through the internet and through pirated DVDs, are having an impact in the countries where you really don’t want them to."</p>
<p>In the US, there is an established history of anti-porn activism.&#160; In rural Ghana, this is not the case.</p>
<p>Samuels continues, "The places we were filming at, as I said, some of them didn’t have electricity let alone lobbying groups to worry about pornography. Any health care which is being doled out there is primary health care and you know feminism hasn’t really quite kicked in in a big way in rural Ghana. But the powers that be over there are worried about this.</p>
<p>"Some of the people I met said the only sex education they’ve ever had is from watching these films. So you know it might be old news for us that the sex ed messages might go back to the ‘80s in Britain and America. But it’s not old news in the areas of the world where that message is most critical.</p>
<p>"When you have young men in their 20s saying to me, 'Well no one ever told me anything. I had no sex education as a kid. And the only education I got was from these videos from Los Angeles without condoms. That’s what I saw. That’s what I copied. That’s how I got HIV.'"</p>
<p>Not all of the pornographic films watched in West Africa are made in the United States.&#160;</p>
<p>"There is a porn industry which comes out of Nigeria and when you walk around the streets of Accra, capital in Ghana, you can buy the African porn and you can also buy the bootlegged American porn, the pirated copies. Interestingly enough for some reason the American porn is slightly cheaper which again is another reason why it’s more prevalent. So there is and the African porn also has a much higher use of condoms than the American porn," says Samuels.</p>
<p>Professor Sakyi Awuku Amoa, the head of the National AIDS Commission in Ghana, argues that the American pornography industry, mainly based in Los Angeles, should take responsibilities it’s helping to create.</p>
<p>Amoa says, "Africans, because of colonization and because of Westernization, have more or less their minds tuned to believe that anything coming from the West is the best. Anything that is done by the West is the standard. And therefore they look at these pornographic films and they think, if this can be done why can’t we try it here?"</p>
<p>Some say Los Angeles and the porn industry should be doing something in terms of this problem in Ghana, that there is a responsibility that lies there.</p>
<p>"Given the amounts of money that is made in the industry and the amounts of money through pornography it really could be an idea for them to say look there is this extraordinary consequence as a result of the business that we’re running. And just to say look you know you guys maybe there’s something you could do. Maybe you could set up a fund to promote sex education in some of these countries."</p>
<p>Samuels suggests that the industry create films that encourages behavior that will help prevent the spread of AIDS.&#160; "You know if the porn’s going to end up in these countries at least make sure it’s porn which promotes safe sex."</p>
<p>He took the opportunity to speak with somone in the porn industry in Los Angeles and presented them with some of his findings from Ghana.</p>
<p>"There was a company who we spoke to who do quite seriously hardcore stuff. They were getting fan mail every week from Ghana. They were getting two to three letters a week from obscure places in Ghana from people saying we love your films or can we star in your films. And the guy that runs the company is a very decent bloke. He’d actually spent some time in Ghana himself as a young guy.</p>
<p>"I gave him a call when I was in Ghana and he was very concerned by it. I think maybe there needs to be an industry-level response just to say you know maybe step up to the plate. Take some responsibility for the products which you’re making and you’re making very healthy profits from and do something to try and offset some of the really quite shocking consequences which could be in store."</p>
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globalized economy created world watch indian cricket match tv budapest bar send motherinlaw iowa flowers picked fresh colombia aspects globalization arent nice documentary film maker tim samuels investigating globalization pornography results reporting seen bbc tv series hardcore profits samuels says porn producers may realize affect films places far away western africa ghana see extraordinary impact mainstream western pornography predominantly made los angeles predominantly condom free pornography somehow makes way even remote obscure parts ghana africa villages dont even electricity people live mud huts generators get wheeled village mud huts get turned impromptu pornographic cinemas films los angeles get shown impact chilling films said dont condoms people copy see say theyve contracted hiv direct result copying films theyve seen also outbreaks sexual violence films shown young men excited theyve seen women village im told raped straight films shown extraordinary consequence globalization industry los angeles impact africa beyond ghana try procure evidence spoke health professionals developing countries tanzania similar case came videos also shown remote areas women assaulted india cases kids dropped school became addicted mainstream hardcore pornography coming america even papua new guinea doctors said theyve deal cases young men putting ball bearings penises try keep impressive nature porn stars theyve watching films anecdotal sense films much easily available internet pirated dvds impact countries really dont want us established history antiporn activism160 rural ghana case samuels continues places filming said didnt electricity let alone lobbying groups worry pornography health care doled primary health care know feminism hasnt really quite kicked big way rural ghana powers worried people met said sex education theyve ever watching films know might old news us sex ed messages might go back 80s britain america old news areas world message critical young men 20s saying well one ever told anything sex education kid education got videos los angeles without condoms thats saw thats copied thats got hiv pornographic films watched west africa made united states160 porn industry comes nigeria walk around streets accra capital ghana buy african porn also buy bootlegged american porn pirated copies interestingly enough reason american porn slightly cheaper another reason prevalent african porn also much higher use condoms american porn says samuels professor sakyi awuku amoa head national aids commission ghana argues american pornography industry mainly based los angeles take responsibilities helping create amoa says africans colonization westernization less minds tuned believe anything coming west best anything done west standard therefore look pornographic films think done cant try say los angeles porn industry something terms problem ghana responsibility lies given amounts money made industry amounts money pornography really could idea say look extraordinary consequence result business running say look know guys maybe theres something could maybe could set fund promote sex education countries samuels suggests industry create films encourages behavior help prevent spread aids160 know porns going end countries least make sure porn promotes safe sex took opportunity speak somone porn industry los angeles presented findings ghana company spoke quite seriously hardcore stuff getting fan mail every week ghana getting two three letters week obscure places ghana people saying love films star films guy runs company decent bloke hed actually spent time ghana young guy gave call ghana concerned think maybe needs industrylevel response say know maybe step plate take responsibility products youre making youre making healthy profits something try offset really quite shocking consequences could store pris world onehour weekday radio news magazine offering mix news features interviews music around globe world coproduction bbc world service pri wgbh boston world
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<p>By Bob Allen</p>
<p>Francis McBeth, an internationally acclaimed composer and conductor and longtime professor of music at Ouachita Baptist University,&#160; <a href="ministry/people/item/7052-francis-mcbeth-world-renowned-composer-dies-at-78" type="external">died</a>&#160;Friday, Jan. 6, at age 78.</p>
<p>Longtime Baptist journalist&#160; <a href="ministry/people/item/7073-jim-newton-baptist-journalist-dies-at-75" type="external">Jim Newton</a>, 75, died Jan. 16 in Clinton, Miss., after a battle with leukemia. He was assistant director of the Baptist Press in Nashville, Tenn., from 1965 to 1973. After that he worked eight years as editor of&#160;World Mission Journal, published by the SBC Brotherhood Commission in Memphis, Tenn. In 1980 he joined the staff of the Home Mission Board in Atlanta, retiring in 1992 as public relations director to accept a communications position with the U.S. based-office of World Vision International in California. After retiring to Clinton, Miss., Newton worked with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Mississippi.</p>
<p>Harold Branch, 92, the first African-American officer of the Baptist General Convention of Texas,&#160; <a href="ministry/people/item/7088-african-american-texas-baptist-pioneer-dies" type="external">died</a> Jan. 20 in Corpus Christi, Texas, a community he had served in various capacities since 1956.</p>
<p>Lloyd Householder, 82, a veteran Southern Baptist denominational worker and communicator,&#160; <a href="ministry/people/item/7137-veteran-baptist-communicator-lloyd-householder-dies" type="external">died</a>&#160;Jan. 30. Householder worked 32 years for the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board, now called LifeWay Christian Resources, before retiring in 1992 as assistant vice president for the office of communications. After retirement he served as first coordinator of the Tennessee Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in 1994-1995.</p>
<p>Melissa Cheliras, 33, Baptist campus minister at the University of Richmond, <a href="ministry/people/item/7173-campus-minister-melissa-cheliras-dies-following-battle-with-cancer" type="external">died</a> Feb. 10, following a four-month battle with esophageal cancer.</p>
<p>Helen Fling, 97, a longtime leader in Woman’s Missionary Union,&#160; <a href="ministry/people/item/7230-long-time-wmu-leader-helen-fling-dies" type="external">died</a>&#160;March 1. The wife of Pastor Robert Fling, she was president of the women’s auxiliary to the Southern Baptist Convention from 1963 until 1969.</p>
<p>Lee Porter, 83, a retired editor at LifeWay Christian Resources who served 25 years as SBC recording secretary, an annually elected post responsible for casting, collecting and tabulating ballots during business sessions of the convention annual meeting,&#160; <a href="ministry/people/item/7426-lee-porter-longtime-sbc-officer-dies" type="external">died</a>&#160;May 17.</p>
<p>Julian Pentecost, longtime editor of the&#160;Religious Herald&#160;and a founding director of Associated Baptist Press,&#160; <a href="ministry/people/item/7490-former-va-editor-julian-pentecost-dies" type="external">died</a>&#160;May 31 at 87.</p>
<p>John Roberts, 85, the longest-serving editor in the history of&#160;The Baptist Courier,&#160; <a href="ministry/people/item/7719-longtime-sc-editor-john-roberts-dies" type="external">died</a>&#160;Aug. 15. He joined the Courier staff in 1965 as associate editor and business manager. The following year he became editor, a job he kept until his retirement in 1996. He held leadership positions which included serving on the board of directors of Associated Baptist Press.</p>
<p>Jeff Trussell, 45, and Courteney Kaliszewski, 16, members of Cedar Grove Baptist Church in Maryville, Tenn.,&#160; <a href="ministry/congregations/item/7817-church-van-crash-kills-two" type="external">died</a>&#160;Sept. 16 in a church van accident while returning from a weekend retreat. Tyler Schaeffer, 21, of Sevierville, Tenn., was&#160; <a href="ministry/congregations/item/7952-suv-driver-charged-in-church-van-crash" type="external">charged</a>&#160;with vehicular homicide and drug possession in the crash that also injured 12.</p>
<p>Henry V. Langford, a white Baptist preacher whose support for racial equality caused him to be blackballed by churches in the 1950s,&#160; <a href="ministry/people/item/7887-racial-equality-pioneer-henry-langford-dies" type="external">died</a>&#160;Oct. 7 at age 93. Langford served as pastor of small churches in Virginia before he used a weekly column he wrote for the local newspaper to voice support for the 1954&#160;Brown v. Board of Education&#160;Supreme Court&#160; <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/brown.html" type="external">ruling</a>&#160;that declared the “separate but equal” doctrine used to support school segregation unconstitutional. Langford was eventually forced to resign as minister at Shockoe Baptist Church in Chatham, Va., and could not find another congregation that would call him as pastor. He found a new calling in the Alcohol and Drug Education Council of Virginia Churches, where he served eight years as associate director and 13 as executive director, speaking to hundreds of school, church and community groups across Virginia about the signs and dangers of substance abuse during the 1960s and 1970s. Langford finally&#160; <a href="http://www.religiousherald.org/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;id=1529&amp;Itemid=112" type="external">received</a>&#160;long-overdue recognition in 2007 when the Virginia General Assembly passed a joint&#160; <a href="http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?071+ful+HJ670ER+pdf" type="external">resolution</a>&#160;honoring “his commitment to justice and equality for all citizens.”</p>
<p>John Dunaway, 79, a longtime Kentucky pastor who helped name the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, <a href="ministry/people/item/7903-longtime-pastor-john-dunaway-dies" type="external">died</a> Oct. 18 at his home in Huntsville, Ala., following a long illness. The Constitution offered at the inaugural CBF gathering <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&amp;dat=19910511&amp;id=m7sdAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=Ir0EAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=6316,1054402" type="external">proposed</a> the group of disenfranchised Southern Baptists call itself the “United Baptist Coalition.” Dunaway, at the time pastor of First Baptist Church in Corbin, Ky., pointed out that an existing United Baptist group espoused “extreme Calvinist views” and “the identification with the United Baptists would be in conflict with who we are and what we are.” Ed Vick, a layman from Raleigh, N.C., said Baptists, in the truest sense of the word, are not united but rather cooperative. And so the group instead named itself the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship — today an 1,800-church organization with headquarters in Atlanta.</p>
<p>Salem Boulos Sweilem, who attended the Gaza Baptist Church in Gaza City, <a href="ministry/people/item/8001-baptist-dies-during-gaza-war" type="external">died</a> Nov. 19 of an apparent heart attack triggered by stress during a nearby bombing that shook his home. More than 160 Palestinians were killed during eight days leading up to a ceasefire announced Nov. 21. Palestinian sources said half were civilians, and about 30 were children. More than 1,200 people were wounded.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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bob allen francis mcbeth internationally acclaimed composer conductor longtime professor music ouachita baptist university160 died160friday jan 6 age 78 longtime baptist journalist160 jim newton 75 died jan 16 clinton miss battle leukemia assistant director baptist press nashville tenn 1965 1973 worked eight years editor of160world mission journal published sbc brotherhood commission memphis tenn 1980 joined staff home mission board atlanta retiring 1992 public relations director accept communications position us basedoffice world vision international california retiring clinton miss newton worked cooperative baptist fellowship mississippi harold branch 92 first africanamerican officer baptist general convention texas160 died jan 20 corpus christi texas community served various capacities since 1956 lloyd householder 82 veteran southern baptist denominational worker communicator160 died160jan 30 householder worked 32 years southern baptist sunday school board called lifeway christian resources retiring 1992 assistant vice president office communications retirement served first coordinator tennessee cooperative baptist fellowship 19941995 melissa cheliras 33 baptist campus minister university richmond died feb 10 following fourmonth battle esophageal cancer helen fling 97 longtime leader womans missionary union160 died160march 1 wife pastor robert fling president womens auxiliary southern baptist convention 1963 1969 lee porter 83 retired editor lifeway christian resources served 25 years sbc recording secretary annually elected post responsible casting collecting tabulating ballots business sessions convention annual meeting160 died160may 17 julian pentecost longtime editor the160religious herald160and founding director associated baptist press160 died160may 31 87 john roberts 85 longestserving editor history of160the baptist courier160 died160aug 15 joined courier staff 1965 associate editor business manager following year became editor job kept retirement 1996 held leadership positions included serving board directors associated baptist press jeff trussell 45 courteney kaliszewski 16 members cedar grove baptist church maryville tenn160 died160sept 16 church van accident returning weekend retreat tyler schaeffer 21 sevierville tenn was160 charged160with vehicular homicide drug possession crash also injured 12 henry v langford white baptist preacher whose support racial equality caused blackballed churches 1950s160 died160oct 7 age 93 langford served pastor small churches virginia used weekly column wrote local newspaper voice support 1954160brown v board education160supreme court160 ruling160that declared separate equal doctrine used support school segregation unconstitutional langford eventually forced resign minister shockoe baptist church chatham va could find another congregation would call pastor found new calling alcohol drug education council virginia churches served eight years associate director 13 executive director speaking hundreds school church community groups across virginia signs dangers substance abuse 1960s 1970s langford finally160 received160longoverdue recognition 2007 virginia general assembly passed joint160 resolution160honoring commitment justice equality citizens john dunaway 79 longtime kentucky pastor helped name cooperative baptist fellowship died oct 18 home huntsville ala following long illness constitution offered inaugural cbf gathering proposed group disenfranchised southern baptists call united baptist coalition dunaway time pastor first baptist church corbin ky pointed existing united baptist group espoused extreme calvinist views identification united baptists would conflict ed vick layman raleigh nc said baptists truest sense word united rather cooperative group instead named cooperative baptist fellowship today 1800church organization headquarters atlanta salem boulos sweilem attended gaza baptist church gaza city died nov 19 apparent heart attack triggered stress nearby bombing shook home 160 palestinians killed eight days leading ceasefire announced nov 21 palestinian sources said half civilians 30 children 1200 people wounded 160
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<p>By Bob Allen</p>
<p>A former Southern Baptist Convention president is under fire for a recent sermon that Jewish leaders say could be used to fuel anti-Semitism.</p>
<p>The Anti-Defamation League in Houston <a href="http://houston.adl.org/2014/11/14/adl-statement-on-dr-ed-youngs-fearing-god-sermon-11-14-14/" type="external">said</a> Nov. 14 that Jewish leaders are “in a dialogue” with Second Baptist Church Pastor <a href="http://www.winningwalk.org/about" type="external">Ed Young</a> about a <a href="http://www.lightsource.com/ministry/winning-walk-tv/video-player/know-fear-427267.html" type="external">sermon</a> he preached in September about what is required for a person to get into heaven.</p>
<p>In a televised sermon, Young, SBC president from 1992 until 1994, described a debate in Romans Chapter 3 as a courtroom setting where God is the judge, Paul is the prosecutor and the defense attorney is Satan.</p>
<p>“And Paul looks at the Jews, and it’s almost like he’s saying, ‘I know how you Jews operate,’” Young said. “How did Paul know how the Jews thought? My goodness! Saul, the Pharisee, Jew, became Paul the apostle, the Christian. He knew how they operated. He knew they did everything externally OK.</p>
<p>“The Jew would say, ‘Look, I’m not under the wrath of God. I’m a Jew, by heritage from Abraham. I’ve got a contract. I’m in the covenant: Genesis chapter number 12. Look at all the promises God made to me and all my descendants forever: property, land, people, blessing, protection. Man, I don’t need to be under this. I’m not under the wrath of God.’</p>
<p>“And Paul says, ‘You are, because externally, you look like a very, very, very, very religious, God-fearing person.’ But Paul says, ‘I know inside, you are dirty and corrupt and manipulative, and you are trying to work out your own salvation even in Judaism.’”</p>
<p>Young went on to explain Paul’s statement in verse 2, that Jews have an advantage over Gentiles because they “were entrusted with the oracles of God.”</p>
<p>“You see, the problem with the Jews, ladies and gentlemen —&#160;well let me put it this way: Let’s just say the whole world was dark…. No one can see, and every person on earth has been given a little penlight, just a little penlight, enough to see where you can take the next step and no more. Every person in the world has been given a little penlight. So they go through life with just a little penlight of light in a world that was absolutely dark.</p>
<p>“But the Jews have been given a floodlight, and that floodlight would illuminate the world. It would be so bright that the world would know how to move into the next world where there is total light.</p>
<p>“But the Jews took that floodlight —&#160;the oracles of God, the Torah, the Word of God —&#160;and they shined it down almost just for them. They became exclusive and better than others and holier than thou and had the insight upon God instead of turning out and sharing the light with all the world.”</p>
<p>Leaders of Houston’s Jewish community wrote Young Oct. 2 saying they had been receiving calls from concerned congregations about “several references to the Jews which, taken together, could easily be misunderstood to suggest that Jewish people are evil and dangerous.”</p>
<p>The leaders said they are confident that Young did not intend to defame Jewish people, but someone hearing the “Fearing God” sermon could easily come away with the view “that Jews are in league with Satan,” that they are “dirty, corrupt and manipulative” and are “exclusive, self-righteous and greedy.”</p>
<p>“These are precisely the images that have been at the root of much of the hatred of Jews throughout history, and that are increasingly being used to foment hatred and violence today, even here in the United States,” the Jewish leaders said in the letter. “We know, all too well, that rhetoric in a sermon, whether written 2,000 years ago, or today, can be misunderstood or misused, inadvertently or maliciously, to fuel the flames of prejudice and hatred.”</p>
<p>The Jewish Herald-Voice published the letter Oct. 23 and contacted Young. According to the newspaper Young <a href="http://jhvonline.com/jewish-leaders-concerned-televised-sermon-could-fuel-antisemitism-p18105-96.htm" type="external">said</a> he was simply quoting the Apostle Paul.</p>
<p>“I join you in your lack of comfort,” Young is quoted as saying. “You don’t have a better friend than Ed Young.… I’m a friend of Israel.”</p>
<p>In September Jewish leaders met four hours with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/A-concerned-US-is-monitoring-the-rise-of-anti-Semitism-worldwide-374380" type="external">discuss</a> concerns about anti-Semitism in Europe. On Nov. 13 the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/world/europe/samantha-power-warning-on-europe-anti-semitism.html?_r=0" type="external">warned</a> that a growing number of anti-Semitic acts “are not only a threat to the Jewish community, they are a threat to the larger project of European liberalism and pluralism.”</p>
<p>Young, 78, isn’t the first Southern Baptist Convention leader criticized for remarks deemed offensive by Jews. In 1980 SBC President Bailey Smith made headlines by commenting at a National Affairs Briefing for fundamentalist Christians that “God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew.”</p>
<p>Smith later responded that he didn’t mean to sound anti-Semitic. “I am pro-Jew,” he declared in <a href="http://www.jta.org/1980/09/19/archive/baptist-leader-claims-god-does-not-hear-the-prayer-of-a-jew#ixzz3JLJIvf51" type="external">comments</a> to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I believe they are God’s special people. I believe they are still loved in the heart of God and that the Jews are some of the greatest blessings humanity has ever had, but without Jesus Christ they are lost. No prayer gets through that is not prayed through Jesus.”</p>
<p>In 1996 the SBC passed a resolution <a href="http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/655" type="external">pledging</a> to “direct our energies and resources toward the proclamation of the Gospel to the Jews,” a move <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1996-06-15/local/me-15213_1_southern-baptist" type="external">denounced</a> by Jewish leaders as a “spiritual declaration of war.”</p>
<p>In 1999 Jewish leaders <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/sept99/baptists09.htm" type="external">criticized</a> the SBC International Mission Board for releasing a prayer guide coinciding with Jewish holidays with tips on how to evangelize Jews during the 10 holy days when they are most sensitized to spiritual matters.</p>
<p>In 2003 the ADL <a href="http://www.ethicsdaily.com/jewish-group-condemns-mohlers-comments-cms-2726" type="external">criticized</a> a Southern Baptist seminary president for <a href="http://www.ethicsdaily.com/sbc-leader-compares-judaism-to-deadly-tumor-cms-2707" type="external">comments</a> at a meeting of the Southern Baptist Messianic Fellowship comparing someone not trying to evangelize Jewish people because it might offend them to a doctor not telling a patient that he suffered from a “deadly tumor” needing to be removed.</p>
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bob allen former southern baptist convention president fire recent sermon jewish leaders say could used fuel antisemitism antidefamation league houston said nov 14 jewish leaders dialogue second baptist church pastor ed young sermon preached september required person get heaven televised sermon young sbc president 1992 1994 described debate romans chapter 3 courtroom setting god judge paul prosecutor defense attorney satan paul looks jews almost like hes saying know jews operate young said paul know jews thought goodness saul pharisee jew became paul apostle christian knew operated knew everything externally ok jew would say look im wrath god im jew heritage abraham ive got contract im covenant genesis chapter number 12 look promises god made descendants forever property land people blessing protection man dont need im wrath god paul says externally look like religious godfearing person paul says know inside dirty corrupt manipulative trying work salvation even judaism young went explain pauls statement verse 2 jews advantage gentiles entrusted oracles god see problem jews ladies gentlemen 160well let put way lets say whole world dark one see every person earth given little penlight little penlight enough see take next step every person world given little penlight go life little penlight light world absolutely dark jews given floodlight floodlight would illuminate world would bright world would know move next world total light jews took floodlight 160the oracles god torah word god 160and shined almost became exclusive better others holier thou insight upon god instead turning sharing light world leaders houstons jewish community wrote young oct 2 saying receiving calls concerned congregations several references jews taken together could easily misunderstood suggest jewish people evil dangerous leaders said confident young intend defame jewish people someone hearing fearing god sermon could easily come away view jews league satan dirty corrupt manipulative exclusive selfrighteous greedy precisely images root much hatred jews throughout history increasingly used foment hatred violence today even united states jewish leaders said letter know well rhetoric sermon whether written 2000 years ago today misunderstood misused inadvertently maliciously fuel flames prejudice hatred jewish heraldvoice published letter oct 23 contacted young according newspaper young said simply quoting apostle paul join lack comfort young quoted saying dont better friend ed young im friend israel september jewish leaders met four hours us secretary state john kerry discuss concerns antisemitism europe nov 13 us ambassador united nations warned growing number antisemitic acts threat jewish community threat larger project european liberalism pluralism young 78 isnt first southern baptist convention leader criticized remarks deemed offensive jews 1980 sbc president bailey smith made headlines commenting national affairs briefing fundamentalist christians god almighty hear prayer jew smith later responded didnt mean sound antisemitic projew declared comments jewish telegraphic agency believe gods special people believe still loved heart god jews greatest blessings humanity ever without jesus christ lost prayer gets prayed jesus 1996 sbc passed resolution pledging direct energies resources toward proclamation gospel jews move denounced jewish leaders spiritual declaration war 1999 jewish leaders criticized sbc international mission board releasing prayer guide coinciding jewish holidays tips evangelize jews 10 holy days sensitized spiritual matters 2003 adl criticized southern baptist seminary president comments meeting southern baptist messianic fellowship comparing someone trying evangelize jewish people might offend doctor telling patient suffered deadly tumor needing removed
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<p>By Aaron Weaver</p>
<p>April 27, 1994.</p>
<p>That’s the date that South Africa held its first democratic election, forming a multi-racial coalition government and officially doing away with the country’s brutal, five-decade long system of racial segregation and oppression. Nelson Mandela was president and apartheid had been brought to an end. However, the “Rainbow Nation” had a new challenge to confront — one that, 20 years later, it has not adequately addressed: HIV/AIDS.</p>
<p>But 20 years later there continue to be those who see what can and must be done.</p>
<p>Sofi’s story</p>
<p>Among them was an English woman named Sofi and her husband, Robert.</p>
<p>As the AIDS epidemic worsened in the late 1990s, they traveled to South African villages along the foothills of the Drakensburg Mountains, bringing food to AIDS patients who were dying in their homes. They did so at a time when there were no medicines, no antiretroviral regimens available. Sofi and Robert received no payment as they fed and bathed the suffering, helping them to be as comfortable as possible in their final days.</p>
<p>Robert later became sick and passed away, but Sofi stayed, and continued the work. She went door to door throughout the rural Winterton area, assisting those in need with health support and information about finances and government services.</p>
<p>In 2009, Sofi started a permanent community center called Isibani, which means “bring the light” in Zulu. The center offers many much-needed services, including home-based health care, HIV testing and counseling, food and clothing distribution, child and youth projects, adult literacy classes and emergency assistance. Three years later, Sofi launched Isiphephelo (“refuge” in Zulu) which provides a safe and temporary home to vulnerable, neglected and abandoned children.</p>
<p>Over the years, Sofi has seen a lot of death and knows the many faces of despair. She finds herself frustrated often, weary of a broken system that tends to fail the children it is supposed to protect and keep safe.</p>
<p>“The culture is just in such a meltdown,” said Sofi, noting the growing use of drugs among the region’s teens.</p>
<p>Yet, she continues to be present, serving those with HIV/AIDS and showing a big smile when she’s around the children of Isiphephelo.</p>
<p>‘Pilgrim posture’</p>
<p>But she does not serve alone.</p>
<p>For a week in July, the South Africa Ministry Network, a consortium of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship congregations launched in 2009 to work with and support CBF field personnel in South Africa, led a group of 70-plus Baptists on a weeklong mission experience, with participants divided between mission sites in Johannesburg and Winterton.</p>
<p>The network journeyed to the Rainbow Nation with a ‘pilgrim posture,’ said organizer Stephen Cook, senior pastor of Second Baptist Church in Memphis, Tenn, embracing the call of South African theologian Trevor Hudson to make “pilgrimages of pain and hope.”</p>
<p>“The essence of these pilgrimages of pain and hope is that we are not tourists who set out to see the sights of the places we visit,” Cook shared. “Instead, we are pilgrims and we assume a ‘pilgrim posture’ as we approach these experiences.”</p>
<p>Nor do they assume they come with all the answers.</p>
<p />
<p>“The pilgrim is one who is ready to be present, who is ready to listen and who is ready to notice where, how and with whom God is working,” Cook said.</p>
<p>At the Em’seni Camp (“place of grace” in Zulu) outside of Winterton, the network hosted a retreat for Sofi and the children and staff of Isiphephelo. While some played with the kids, others spent time with the staff, leading the group of smiling and singing women in team-building activities, Bible study and providing space for reflection and relaxation.</p>
<p>“I was blown away by these women,” said Thomas Quisenberry, pastor of First Baptist Church in Chattanooga, Tenn., a network member. “I found them to be carrying heavy loads — carrying for the kids of Isiphephelo as well as families of their own.”</p>
<p>Network participants also worked alongside the staff of the Thembalethu Care Organization, a Christian ministry responding to the effects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the extreme poverty in the region.</p>
<p>Younger generations living in the area, where nearly 80 percent of residents are unemployed, faces intractable challenges, said Betsy Meyer, a field personnel from Seattle’s University Presbyterian Church.</p>
<p>“Even if [youth] go and finish high school, or go to university, there are just so few options for them,” she said. “So, it’s really a struggle. That’s the most significant challenge youth around here face — there’s this kind of hopelessness because they don’t really have options.</p>
<p>‘God is at work’</p>
<p>The impact the HIV/AIDS epidemic has had on the region cannot be understated, said Sara Williams, who alongside her husband, Mark, served as CBF field personnel in Winterton from 2010-2014.</p>
<p />
<p>“The HIV/AIDS epidemic and extreme poverty have wreaked havoc on society at large,” said Williams, who accompanied the network on the July mission experience.</p>
<p>“Due to AIDS, you have an adult generation of people that have been lost,” she added. “So, you have the children as the head of households and raising children — children who have not been taught the wisdom of their elders, who have not been taught how to participate and contribute to the community, how to be a family and know right from wrong.”</p>
<p>Despite the grim realities, Williams and the network’s leaders see God’s presence in the Winterton area.</p>
<p>“God is at work through the hands and hearts of these local Christians who are doing the work that no one else wants to do,” she said. “They are holding the hands of outcasts and modern-day ‘lepers.’”</p>
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aaron weaver april 27 1994 thats date south africa held first democratic election forming multiracial coalition government officially away countrys brutal fivedecade long system racial segregation oppression nelson mandela president apartheid brought end however rainbow nation new challenge confront one 20 years later adequately addressed hivaids 20 years later continue see must done sofis story among english woman named sofi husband robert aids epidemic worsened late 1990s traveled south african villages along foothills drakensburg mountains bringing food aids patients dying homes time medicines antiretroviral regimens available sofi robert received payment fed bathed suffering helping comfortable possible final days robert later became sick passed away sofi stayed continued work went door door throughout rural winterton area assisting need health support information finances government services 2009 sofi started permanent community center called isibani means bring light zulu center offers many muchneeded services including homebased health care hiv testing counseling food clothing distribution child youth projects adult literacy classes emergency assistance three years later sofi launched isiphephelo refuge zulu provides safe temporary home vulnerable neglected abandoned children years sofi seen lot death knows many faces despair finds frustrated often weary broken system tends fail children supposed protect keep safe culture meltdown said sofi noting growing use drugs among regions teens yet continues present serving hivaids showing big smile shes around children isiphephelo pilgrim posture serve alone week july south africa ministry network consortium cooperative baptist fellowship congregations launched 2009 work support cbf field personnel south africa led group 70plus baptists weeklong mission experience participants divided mission sites johannesburg winterton network journeyed rainbow nation pilgrim posture said organizer stephen cook senior pastor second baptist church memphis tenn embracing call south african theologian trevor hudson make pilgrimages pain hope essence pilgrimages pain hope tourists set see sights places visit cook shared instead pilgrims assume pilgrim posture approach experiences assume come answers pilgrim one ready present ready listen ready notice god working cook said emseni camp place grace zulu outside winterton network hosted retreat sofi children staff isiphephelo played kids others spent time staff leading group smiling singing women teambuilding activities bible study providing space reflection relaxation blown away women said thomas quisenberry pastor first baptist church chattanooga tenn network member found carrying heavy loads carrying kids isiphephelo well families network participants also worked alongside staff thembalethu care organization christian ministry responding effects hivaids epidemic extreme poverty region younger generations living area nearly 80 percent residents unemployed faces intractable challenges said betsy meyer field personnel seattles university presbyterian church even youth go finish high school go university options said really struggle thats significant challenge youth around face theres kind hopelessness dont really options god work impact hivaids epidemic region understated said sara williams alongside husband mark served cbf field personnel winterton 20102014 hivaids epidemic extreme poverty wreaked havoc society large said williams accompanied network july mission experience due aids adult generation people lost added children head households raising children children taught wisdom elders taught participate contribute community family know right wrong despite grim realities williams networks leaders see gods presence winterton area god work hands hearts local christians work one else wants said holding hands outcasts modernday lepers
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<p>By Bob Allen</p>
<p>The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments April 28 about whether the 14th Amendment requires a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and, if not, whether states that forbid gay marriage must recognize lawful same-sex marriages performed out of state.</p>
<p>Supreme Court justices appeared divided during 90 minutes of arguments in <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/obergefell-v-hodges/?wpmp_switcher=desktop" type="external">Obergefell v. Hodges</a>, a case challenging Ohio’s ban on same-sex marriage consolidated with three other cases challenging similar bans in Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. Justice Anthony Kennedy, expected to cast the pivotal vote, asked hard questions on both sides.</p>
<p>“This case isn’t about how to define marriage,” said John Bursch, special assistant attorney general for the state of Michigan. “It’s about who gets to decide that question. Is it the people acting through the democratic process, or is it the federal courts?”</p>
<p>Boston attorney Mary Bonauto, arguing on behalf of same-sex couples seeking the right to wed, countered that “in terms of the question of who decides, it’s not about the court versus the states.”</p>
<p>“It’s about the individual making the choice to marry and with whom to marry, not the government,” she said.</p>
<p>Donald Verrilli, solicitor general for the U.S. Department of Justice, argued that “in a world in which gay and lesbian couples live openly as our neighbors, they raise their children side by side with the rest of us, they contribute fully as members of the community, that it is simply untenable to suggest that they can be denied the right of equal participation in an institution of marriage, or that they can be required to wait until the majority decides that it is ready to treat gay and lesbian people as equals.”</p>
<p>“Gay and lesbian people are equal,” Verrilli said. “They deserve equal protection of the laws, and they deserve it now.”</p>
<p>Washington, D.C., lawyer Douglas Hallward-Driemeier spoke on behalf of clients who are already married, arguing “a state should not be allowed to effectively dissolve that marriage without a sufficiently important justification to do so.”</p>
<p>“These petitioners have built their lives around their marriages, including bringing children into their families, just as opposite-sex couples have done,” said Hallward-Driemeier. “But the non-recognition laws undermine the stability of these families, though the states purport to support just such stability.”</p>
<p>Joseph Whalen, associate solicitor general in Nashville, Tenn., argued the 14th Amendment “does not require states with traditional marriage laws to recognize marriages from other states between two persons of the same sex.”</p>
<p>Parties in the case include Maurice “Bojangles” Blanchard, an ordained Baptist minister who volunteers with an LGBT-outreach program at Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., and local gay-rights activist opposing laws in Kentucky limiting marriage to a union between a man and a woman.</p>
<p>Blanchard tweeted from the Supreme Court building that while the questioning was tough, he remains optimistic that a ruling expected to be handed down in June will come down on the side of marriage equality.</p>
<p>Bursch said nobody questions that the couples in the case who are raising children “are bonded to their kids and have their best interest at heart,” but the larger issue in redefining who can get married is the long-range impact on the institution of marriage.</p>
<p>“Imagine a world today where we had no marriage at all,” he said. “Men and women would still be getting together and creating children, but they wouldn’t be attached to each other in any social institution.”</p>
<p>“Now, the marriage view on the other side here is that marriage is all about love and commitment,” Bursch said. “As a society, we can agree that that’s important, but the state doesn’t have any interest in that.”</p>
<p>Bursch said the state’s interest in marriage is not to foster love and emotion but about “binding children to their biological moms and dads.”</p>
<p>“If you’re changing the meaning of marriage from one where it’s based on that biological bond to one where it’s based on emotional commitment, then adults could think, rightly, that this relationship is more about adults and not about the kids,” he said.</p>
<p>Hallward-Driemeier said Kentucky’s assertion that its interest in permitting only opposite-sex couples to marry is only to increase the birthrate makes no sense when applied to same-sex couples who are already wed.</p>
<p>“Kentucky would have the court believe that it is a sufficiently important interest to have that couple disregard their existing marriage vows and obligations to each other to marry someone else in Kentucky in order to procreate biologically even though the couple may already have children together,” he said. “That, I would dare say, is not a rational justification, much less a sufficiently important one.”</p>
<p>Conservative justices questioned the wisdom of changing the understanding of marriage between a male and female that has been the norm for 1,000 years.</p>
<p>Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the legal definition of marriage was already changed from “a relationship of a dominant male to a subordinate female,” when the Supreme Court <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8893586470062046962&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=6&amp;as_vis=1&amp;oi=scholarr" type="external">struck down</a> Louisiana’s “head and master” law in 1981.</p>
<p>Associate Justice Stephen Breyer wondered if the real reason states ban gay marriage is because certain religious groups do think it’s a sin.</p>
<p>“I believe they sincerely think it,” Breyer said. “There’s no question about their sincerity, but is a purely religious reason on the part of some people sufficient?”</p>
<p>Previous stories:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Supreme Court brief argues for gay Baptist minister’s right to wed</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Baptist minister’s case for gay marriage going to Supreme Court</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Latest gay marriage ruling, which involved Baptist plaintiff, could hasten Supreme Court decision</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Court considers gay marriage arguments affecting four states</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Gay Baptist minister sues for right to wed</a></p>
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bob allen us supreme court heard oral arguments april 28 whether 14th amendment requires state license marriage two people sex whether states forbid gay marriage must recognize lawful samesex marriages performed state supreme court justices appeared divided 90 minutes arguments obergefell v hodges case challenging ohios ban samesex marriage consolidated three cases challenging similar bans kentucky michigan tennessee justice anthony kennedy expected cast pivotal vote asked hard questions sides case isnt define marriage said john bursch special assistant attorney general state michigan gets decide question people acting democratic process federal courts boston attorney mary bonauto arguing behalf samesex couples seeking right wed countered terms question decides court versus states individual making choice marry marry government said donald verrilli solicitor general us department justice argued world gay lesbian couples live openly neighbors raise children side side rest us contribute fully members community simply untenable suggest denied right equal participation institution marriage required wait majority decides ready treat gay lesbian people equals gay lesbian people equal verrilli said deserve equal protection laws deserve washington dc lawyer douglas hallwarddriemeier spoke behalf clients already married arguing state allowed effectively dissolve marriage without sufficiently important justification petitioners built lives around marriages including bringing children families oppositesex couples done said hallwarddriemeier nonrecognition laws undermine stability families though states purport support stability joseph whalen associate solicitor general nashville tenn argued 14th amendment require states traditional marriage laws recognize marriages states two persons sex parties case include maurice bojangles blanchard ordained baptist minister volunteers lgbtoutreach program highland baptist church louisville ky local gayrights activist opposing laws kentucky limiting marriage union man woman blanchard tweeted supreme court building questioning tough remains optimistic ruling expected handed june come side marriage equality bursch said nobody questions couples case raising children bonded kids best interest heart larger issue redefining get married longrange impact institution marriage imagine world today marriage said men women would still getting together creating children wouldnt attached social institution marriage view side marriage love commitment bursch said society agree thats important state doesnt interest bursch said states interest marriage foster love emotion binding children biological moms dads youre changing meaning marriage one based biological bond one based emotional commitment adults could think rightly relationship adults kids said hallwarddriemeier said kentuckys assertion interest permitting oppositesex couples marry increase birthrate makes sense applied samesex couples already wed kentucky would court believe sufficiently important interest couple disregard existing marriage vows obligations marry someone else kentucky order procreate biologically even though couple may already children together said would dare say rational justification much less sufficiently important one conservative justices questioned wisdom changing understanding marriage male female norm 1000 years associate justice ruth bader ginsburg said legal definition marriage already changed relationship dominant male subordinate female supreme court struck louisianas head master law 1981 associate justice stephen breyer wondered real reason states ban gay marriage certain religious groups think sin believe sincerely think breyer said theres question sincerity purely religious reason part people sufficient previous stories supreme court brief argues gay baptist ministers right wed baptist ministers case gay marriage going supreme court latest gay marriage ruling involved baptist plaintiff could hasten supreme court decision court considers gay marriage arguments affecting four states gay baptist minister sues right wed
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<p>AMMAN, Jordan (ABP) — Baptist leaders and other dignitaries&#160; — including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair — took part&#160; in a ceremony March 20 dedicating a new evangelical Christian baptism center at the Jordanian spot traditionally regarded as the site of Jesus’ baptism.</p>
<p>The afternoon celebration at the Baptism Center at Bethany beyond Jordan included more than 120 baptisms by immersion in the Jordan River. They&#160; were conducted by pastors from the Jordan Baptist Convention.</p>
<p />
<p>Eron Henry, associate director of communications for the Baptist World Alliance, said in a travel blog it is the first time Baptists in Jordan have received such prominent coverage in Jordan’s&#160; major media outlets.</p>
<p>One of several new churches being built along the Jordan River at about the location Christian pilgrims have long believed Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, the center is intended to cater to Christian traditions that practice believer's baptism by immersion.</p>
<p>BWA General Secretary Neville Callam, in the day’s major address, called the center “a&#160; place where people from all parts of the world may assemble for a journey&#160; and an experience.” He expressed hope that “the waters of the&#160; Jordan extinguish the crippling fires of hopelessness that burn in the hearts of those who have no knowledge of God.”</p>
<p>BWA president David Coffey read greetings from former United States presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, both Baptists, and presented a gift on behalf of the BWA to Jordan’s Prince Ghazi bin Mohammed.</p>
<p>A plaque to be placed on the building upon its completion was unveiled at the ceremony. The plaque reads, “The Commission of the Site of the Baptism of Jesus Christ welcomes here visiting pilgrims from the member&#160; churches of the Baptist World Alliance.”</p>
<p>Also participating in the event were Imad Maayah, a Baptist and former member of the Jordanian Parliament; Toma Magda and Tony Peck, president&#160; and general secretary of the European Baptist Federation; and Nabeeh&#160; Abbassi, former president of the Jordan Baptist Convention and chief&#160; organizer of the dedication and opening.</p>
<p>An estimated 1,700 persons attended the dedication and opening ceremony.</p>
<p>Blair, now a special envoy to the Middle East on behalf of the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia, said it “took courage and&#160; leadership” for Jordan to allow the baptism site in a part of the world often torn by sectarian strife. He said the new center “is not a place of archaeology — it is a place that now, as in John’s time, is a place of renewal.”</p>
<p>Jordan is about 92 percent Muslim, but relations between Muslims and a Christian minority, estimated at 6 percent, are generally good. While Islam is the state&#160; religion and proselytization of Muslims and conversions from Islam are prohibited, the Jordanian Constitution promises religious freedom as long&#160; as rites do not violate public order or morality, and recognizes several&#160; Christian denominations.</p>
<p>Founded in 1957, the Jordan Baptist Convention consists of 20 churches with combined membership of about 2,000. It operates two schools.</p>
<p>The offer of a designated plot of land for a baptism center came from Jordan’s King Abdullah II during a meeting he held with Coffey&#160; in September 2007. In 2008, Coffey visited the site and met with Prince Ghazi, who chairs an independent trustee board that runs the site as a national park. The board facilitated the construction.</p>
<p>“In our Baptist faith and order, the baptism of Jesus is of central importance to our understanding of the baptism of Christians,”&#160; Coffey wrote in a 2008 letter affirming the&#160; authenticity of the baptism site. “We believe baptism rests on the command of the risen Lord and is integrated with his command to preach&#160; the good news to the world; and this command is given authority by his&#160; own example at the beginning of his messianic ministry.”</p>
<p>Prince Ghazi said the royal family’s commitment to the baptism center demonstrates that “all Jordanians are equal. All are welcome in Jordan and in this place. We look forward to the baptismal center serving as a meeting place where people can learn to know each other.”</p>
<p>Bethany beyond Jordan — not to be confused with the village near Jerusalem the Bible says was home to Lazarus, Mary and Martha — was on a&#160; pilgrimage route between Jerusalem and Bethlehem to the west and Mount&#160; Nebo to the east. It is regarded as one of Christianity’s three holiest&#160; sites, along with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity.</p>
<p>It was a military border zone until the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan and today is regarded one of the most important recent discoveries in biblical&#160; archaeology. Excavations didn’t begin until 1996, and so far more than 20&#160; churches, caves and baptismal pools dating from Roman and Byzantine times&#160; have been uncovered.</p>
<p>Churches of various Christian denominations — including Anglican, Catholic, Coptic and Russian Orthodox — have been constructed or are in the&#160; process of being built nearby.</p>
<p>Bethany beyond Jordan is also sacred to Jews and Muslims. In addition to&#160; Jesus’ baptism, it’s said to be the spot where Joshua first led the Israelites into the Promised Land and where the prophet Elijah was taken&#160; to heaven in a chariot of fire.</p>
<p>While in Jordan, the BWA delegation met with Islamic journalists and scholars to discuss the BWA response to “A Common Word Between Us and You,” a letter written by 138 Muslim scholars and leaders to Christians in&#160; October 2007.</p>
<p>Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press. Bob Terry, editor of the Alabama Baptist, contributed to this article.</p>
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amman jordan abp baptist leaders dignitaries160 including former british prime minister tony blair took part160 ceremony march 20 dedicating new evangelical christian baptism center jordanian spot traditionally regarded site jesus baptism afternoon celebration baptism center bethany beyond jordan included 120 baptisms immersion jordan river they160 conducted pastors jordan baptist convention eron henry associate director communications baptist world alliance said travel blog first time baptists jordan received prominent coverage jordans160 major media outlets one several new churches built along jordan river location christian pilgrims long believed jesus baptized john baptist center intended cater christian traditions practice believers baptism immersion bwa general secretary neville callam days major address called center a160 place people parts world may assemble journey160 experience expressed hope waters the160 jordan extinguish crippling fires hopelessness burn hearts knowledge god bwa president david coffey read greetings former united states presidents jimmy carter bill clinton baptists presented gift behalf bwa jordans prince ghazi bin mohammed plaque placed building upon completion unveiled ceremony plaque reads commission site baptism jesus christ welcomes visiting pilgrims member160 churches baptist world alliance also participating event imad maayah baptist former member jordanian parliament toma magda tony peck president160 general secretary european baptist federation nabeeh160 abbassi former president jordan baptist convention chief160 organizer dedication opening estimated 1700 persons attended dedication opening ceremony blair special envoy middle east behalf united nations european union united states russia said took courage and160 leadership jordan allow baptism site part world often torn sectarian strife said new center place archaeology place johns time place renewal jordan 92 percent muslim relations muslims christian minority estimated 6 percent generally good islam state160 religion proselytization muslims conversions islam prohibited jordanian constitution promises religious freedom long160 rites violate public order morality recognizes several160 christian denominations founded 1957 jordan baptist convention consists 20 churches combined membership 2000 operates two schools offer designated plot land baptism center came jordans king abdullah ii meeting held coffey160 september 2007 2008 coffey visited site met prince ghazi chairs independent trustee board runs site national park board facilitated construction baptist faith order baptism jesus central importance understanding baptism christians160 coffey wrote 2008 letter affirming the160 authenticity baptism site believe baptism rests command risen lord integrated command preach160 good news world command given authority his160 example beginning messianic ministry prince ghazi said royal familys commitment baptism center demonstrates jordanians equal welcome jordan place look forward baptismal center serving meeting place people learn know bethany beyond jordan confused village near jerusalem bible says home lazarus mary martha a160 pilgrimage route jerusalem bethlehem west mount160 nebo east regarded one christianitys three holiest160 sites along church holy sepulchre jerusalem bethlehems church nativity military border zone 1994 peace treaty israel jordan today regarded one important recent discoveries biblical160 archaeology excavations didnt begin 1996 far 20160 churches caves baptismal pools dating roman byzantine times160 uncovered churches various christian denominations including anglican catholic coptic russian orthodox constructed the160 process built nearby bethany beyond jordan also sacred jews muslims addition to160 jesus baptism said spot joshua first led israelites promised land prophet elijah taken160 heaven chariot fire jordan bwa delegation met islamic journalists scholars discuss bwa response common word us letter written 138 muslim scholars leaders christians in160 october 2007 bob allen senior writer associated baptist press bob terry editor alabama baptist contributed article
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<p>This week’s edition is not hard to write. Yet I am finding it difficult to determine what to include and what to leave out.</p>
<p>I’ll start with the bad news. Then it’s all uphill. The Ransomed Heart Team I was trying to bring in country was declined by DIRMOBFOR and the DCACC, for those who know what those offices are. For those that don’t, I can just say that they are Colonel and General Officer positions. Apparently, there is a policy about who can come into theater and who cannot because of the limited airlift necessary to support such persons. This was not seen as mission essential. Now I have taken myself out of the loop entirely on the project as the Ransomed Heart Team investigates other possibilities for the ministry.</p>
<p>I am not worried about this set back, however. Ransomed Heart has been so very gracious and has sent me many materials including a DVD study set and books free of charge. I am going to start a DVD study of Wild at Heart in two weeks. I hope to get a group of 10-12 guys who want to go through the Wild at Heart Field Manual and work our way through the Band of Brothers DVD set. I really owe my life to this ministry, as the way they have presented the gospel has really rescued me from the spiritual battlefield of life, enabled me to get my heart back, find my place in the spiritual battle, and taught me how to fight our enemy Satan. If you want more info on their ministry go to <a href="http://www.ransomedheart.com/" type="external">www.ransomedheart.com</a>.</p>
<p>I am happy to say that this base is one of the nicest bases I have ever deployed into. Many of you ask what do I need, and there is very little I personally need. We have Pizza Hut, Burger King, and there are plenty of MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation) programs including a pool, theater (where Star Wars was shown this week), and of course the nonstop visits by Polynesian dancers, Hollywood actors, and bands. We are thankful that such people give up their time and come here just to let us know that they support the work being done here. I just wish I had more time to take advantage of such opportunities. It seems that most of the people who take advantage of these places are the troops to which this is an R&amp;R stop before they go forward back into the urban sprawls where combat action is a regular occurrence.</p>
<p>Not that we don’t have our share. We are the only combat wing in all of Iraq. And the insurgents remind us regularly that this is not a place to come for Spring Break or summer vacation. Although, I have heard there are vacation packages for sale into combat zones. They are called extreme vacations. That’s right, people will pay to come here. Yet another definition of looney.</p>
<p><a href="http://1648o73kablq2rveyn64glm1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/chuck5.png" type="external" />This past week I got my first opportunity to go outside the wire to a small village just outside the base. We took a whole convoy of gun trucks and one 5 ton truck loaded with toys, shoes, school supplies, and other necessities of life. The experience was unforgettable as all humanitarian missions are. The village sheik was out of town, but I got to meet his brother, who asked me what I did. I guess he noticed I was the only one not carrying a weapon, and I was telling everyone what they needed to be doing. I called a translator over after my own unsuccessful attempt to communicate. I asked the translator to tell the man what I do for the Air Force. The translator looked at me for a second, himself trying to figure out what I do. This is common as most people wonder what we do besides preach for an hour on Sunday. I told him what to say, and he would laugh at me because what I was telling him the Sheik’s brother would not understand. He wouldn’t understand because the Iraqi people have never had a point of reference for someone serving in the military in order to protect their Constitutional freedom to worship however they wished. In fact freedom of religion is something he had never heard of nor considered. In the end it came down to me being a Christian religion teacher for the military members and an adviser to the commander on religious matters, no matter what the faith belief. How blessed we are to have such freedoms that we do. I pray that one day that man will come to fully understand what it means to practice whatever faith he wants without fear of retribution or intimidation.</p>
<p>I also have been very blessed spiritually in my own life. One of my goals for placing myself in this environment was that God would meet me here in the toughest of situations. Meet me he has. This week God revealed his love in ways that have been very personal and deep. I have continued the assault on our spiritual enemy this week just as he has brought the fight to me in so many ways. But this week that enemy has lost ground in my life. I have always heard that there is a place in my heart that only God can fill, and this week I learned that there is a place in God’s heart that only I can fill. He desires intimacy with me that much, because without it, he has an empty place in his own heart. Romance between a person and his God is vital. G.K. Chesterton has said that romance is deeper than even reality. Song of Songs 2:14 says, “Show me your face, let me hear your voice; For your voice is sweet and your face is lovely.” To think I would say for the first time in my life that the voice and face referred to could be mine in the heart of God.</p>
<p>Our worship service yesterday was so difficult. Everything went wrong as we were setting up. I looked at the Praise Team and said that the enemy really doesn’t want us to have this service today. Come to find out that the service went off really great. We had one person accept Christ, and we are now planning a baptismal service. AWESOME!!! None of this would be possible without you, however. A forward combat unit is never successful without the support they receive from their units in the rear who send supplies and air coverage when needed. You are our rear support. Thank you for being there, we need you, and cannot achieve success without you.</p>
<p>Let me give you an opportunity now. I am the chaplain for the fighter guys and the guntruckers (convoy personnel). If you would like a flag flown on a mission and certified as such, I can also get my gun truckers to carry the flag with them and certify that flag as having been on a combat convoy and send it back to you. You will get your flag back along with a certificate that tells you where it went and a little information about the mission. Just send your flag to me and tell me what you want done with it. The sooner the better, because there are many requests, and they can only take so many per sortie.</p>
<p>ABPnews will publish one entry a week from the journal then-Capt. Charles Seligman kept while deployed to Iraq as an Air Force chaplain in 2005. Now a major, Seligman currently serves as the deputy wing chaplain for the 59th Medical Wing at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. He is endorsed by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">You can read more of his story published September 11, 2013</a>. You can also&#160; <a href="" type="internal">read older journal entries from Maj. Seligman</a>.&#160;</p>
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weeks edition hard write yet finding difficult determine include leave ill start bad news uphill ransomed heart team trying bring country declined dirmobfor dcacc know offices dont say colonel general officer positions apparently policy come theater limited airlift necessary support persons seen mission essential taken loop entirely project ransomed heart team investigates possibilities ministry worried set back however ransomed heart gracious sent many materials including dvd study set books free charge going start dvd study wild heart two weeks hope get group 1012 guys want go wild heart field manual work way band brothers dvd set really owe life ministry way presented gospel really rescued spiritual battlefield life enabled get heart back find place spiritual battle taught fight enemy satan want info ministry go wwwransomedheartcom happy say base one nicest bases ever deployed many ask need little personally need pizza hut burger king plenty mwr morale welfare recreation programs including pool theater star wars shown week course nonstop visits polynesian dancers hollywood actors bands thankful people give time come let us know support work done wish time take advantage opportunities seems people take advantage places troops rampr stop go forward back urban sprawls combat action regular occurrence dont share combat wing iraq insurgents remind us regularly place come spring break summer vacation although heard vacation packages sale combat zones called extreme vacations thats right people pay come yet another definition looney past week got first opportunity go outside wire small village outside base took whole convoy gun trucks one 5 ton truck loaded toys shoes school supplies necessities life experience unforgettable humanitarian missions village sheik town got meet brother asked guess noticed one carrying weapon telling everyone needed called translator unsuccessful attempt communicate asked translator tell man air force translator looked second trying figure common people wonder besides preach hour sunday told say would laugh telling sheiks brother would understand wouldnt understand iraqi people never point reference someone serving military order protect constitutional freedom worship however wished fact freedom religion something never heard considered end came christian religion teacher military members adviser commander religious matters matter faith belief blessed freedoms pray one day man come fully understand means practice whatever faith wants without fear retribution intimidation also blessed spiritually life one goals placing environment god would meet toughest situations meet week god revealed love ways personal deep continued assault spiritual enemy week brought fight many ways week enemy lost ground life always heard place heart god fill week learned place gods heart fill desires intimacy much without empty place heart romance person god vital gk chesterton said romance deeper even reality song songs 214 says show face let hear voice voice sweet face lovely think would say first time life voice face referred could mine heart god worship service yesterday difficult everything went wrong setting looked praise team said enemy really doesnt want us service today come find service went really great one person accept christ planning baptismal service awesome none would possible without however forward combat unit never successful without support receive units rear send supplies air coverage needed rear support thank need achieve success without let give opportunity chaplain fighter guys guntruckers convoy personnel would like flag flown mission certified also get gun truckers carry flag certify flag combat convoy send back get flag back along certificate tells went little information mission send flag tell want done sooner better many requests take many per sortie abpnews publish one entry week journal thencapt charles seligman kept deployed iraq air force chaplain 2005 major seligman currently serves deputy wing chaplain 59th medical wing lackland air force base texas endorsed cooperative baptist fellowship read story published september 11 2013 also160 read older journal entries maj seligman160
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<p>At Joplin Elementary in Auburn-Gresham, teacher Carol Newton’s 1st-graders hold 1-page charts covered with rows of letters for the morning’s first phonics lesson.</p>
<p>“Touch the first sound,” says Newton, her own chart in hand. Then she gives the signal for the children to answer, saying “Get ready.” In unison, the class hums, making the sound of the first letter, ‘m.’ “Next sound,” Newton continues. “Get ready.”</p>
<p>Quickly, the class works its way flawlessly through the page of letters and letter combinations like “er” and “sh.”</p>
<p>That done, Newton calls out, “Group 2,” and half the class scrambles to take seats in two rows of chairs arranged in a half-circle at the back of the room. This group will have another phonics lesson, while the rest of the class settles down at their desks to write in their journals.</p>
<p>Newton takes her seat in front of the half-circle and begins by asking several simple questions aimed at reinforcing basic number awareness. “What lesson did we do last time?” she asks. “Thirty-two,” the children answer. “Which one will we do today?” “Thirty-three.” “What’s the first digit in thirty-three?” “Three.” “What’s the second?” “Three.”</p>
<p>Newton sets a timer. “Remember, you get 20 bonus points if you beat the timer and say all the sounds right the first time. Let’s count to 20 by fives.” The children respond quickly.</p>
<p>Next, Newton props open a large, spiral-bound book with pages of letters, letter combinations and simple words that are large enough for the children to read from their seats. “Get ready to say the sounds when I touch them,” she says. With the familiar “get ready,” she points in turn to “g,” “d,” “t” and other letters. The children first respond in unison and then individually, in turns.</p>
<p>Flipping to the next page, Newton continues the lesson, this time with simple words. “Mad,” “not,” “nut,” the children call out.</p>
<p>Shaking her head in mock dismay, Newton says, “I don’t know … I’m gonna have to give you 20 bonus points because you read them all right the first time.”</p>
<p>“Yes!” one youngster whispers emphatically, pumping his small fist into the air.</p>
<p>Similar scenes are taking place in other Joplin classrooms. In Sherri Elligan’s 3rd-grade class, half the students are participating in a phonics lesson with more complex words; the other half work on their own, either writing in journals or working on math problems.</p>
<p>And in Kerry Trudelle’s 5th-grade class, children are engaged in “round-robin” reading of a story about a fishing trip. Working from a script, Trudelle interrupts to ask questions that are designed to build reading comprehension; for instance, “How did they build the fire to cook the fish?”</p>
<p>Intensive phonics, scripts and highly structured lessons are all central to Direct Instruction, a form of teaching Joplin adopted a year ago. DI relies heavily on drills and worksheets to reinforce learning, and teachers are taught to follow verbatim the scripts that come with the curriculum. Lessons are scripted to make communication with students as clear as possible.</p>
<p>Teachers also learn to immediately correct mistakes, such as a mispronounced word, and to praise children frequently. Those techniques are key, says Joplin Principal James Murray. Without correction, “children commit a mistake to memory and keep doing it,” he says. “And teachers must give constant praise [and] continuous positive reinforcement.”</p>
<p>Newton and other teachers appear to be buying in to the idea. “It’s made me a much better teacher,” says Newton. “I was skeptical at first. I thought, ‘You’re telling me every word to say.’ But I think of learning as a chain composed of a lot of pieces, and DI has given me pieces in the chain I didn’t have before.”</p>
<p>Murray brought DI to Joplin after visiting Wesley Elementary in Houston. A low-income, inner-city school, Wesley was featured in a segment of the ABC-TV newsmagazine “20/20” because of the academic success it had attained by using DI. Says Murray, “The children came from the same type of background as my kids. Basically, I said to myself, ‘This is something I want to do. I want to see my kids do as well as they are.'”</p>
<p>For initial training, he and several teachers went to the University of Oregon. Other teachers have received training through Malcolm X College and outside consultants. Those few who are not yet using DI will undergo training and practice the techniques in an extended-day DI math program this year. Eventually, all teachers will use DI for math as well as reading instruction.</p>
<p>Arranging the world</p>
<p>“If I need to teach you to read, there are certain things I have to do as a teacher to arrange the world in certain ways so that you’ll be able to read,” says Joe Layng, a DI proponent and director of academic support services at Malcolm X College. Layng’s office runs a DI program that aims to get ill-prepared public school graduates ready for college-level work.</p>
<p>With DI, “arranging the world” means breaking a subject down into sequential parts and then teaching each of those parts explicitly. In reading, that means teaching children to decode words, find main ideas and details, make inferences based on those ideas and details, and so on.</p>
<p>Whole language advocates, in contrast, take an exploratory approach that immerses children in reading, writing and speaking activities. Letter sounds are taught in the context of these activities rather than as separate lessons. And teachers act as coaches who help children discover for themselves an understanding of how literacy works.</p>
<p>“The problem with [that] approach is they figure if they expose the children to a certain world, somehow they’ll learn to comprehend,” says Layng. “DI teaches them to comprehend.”</p>
<p>Opponents criticize DI’s rote approach, “but that’s how they teach,” Layng counters. “You have to memorize every word. They don’t teach them a strategy of sounds and blends and rules that can be applied and allow you to read thousands of words.”</p>
<p>Murray sees other advantages. Teachers may call on any child at any time during the lesson—so children must stay “on task.” “No one wants to be the one who messes up,” he says. Classroom behavior has improved because children are more attentive, and lower-achieving children are making significant progress.</p>
<p>But Joplin isn’t relying solely on DI. Daily journal writing and book reports provide what Murray terms a “complementary” approach; as a result, the vast majority of children either meet or exceed the state writing goals.</p>
<p>Journals must include personal entries as well as essays on assigned topics, and Murray himself looks at each child’s journal every week. One 3rd-grader’s journal shows distinct signs of progress: entries have become progressively longer, the spelling has improved and the youngster has begun to use separate paragraphs to introduce new ideas.</p>
<p>As for book reports, intermediate and upper-grade students must read and report on three books each month; primary students must report on two.</p>
<p>Still, DI provides the basic structure. “There is a script, and you do have to follow it,” Murray says. “But once you’re through with a lesson, you go on to other things, and children have learned the skills to comprehend what you’re doing.”</p>
<p>For more information, call Joplin Principal James Murray at (312) 535-3425 or Joe Layng at Malcolm X College, (312) 850-7139.</p>
<p>Alex Poinsett contributed to this article.</p>
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joplin elementary auburngresham teacher carol newtons 1stgraders hold 1page charts covered rows letters mornings first phonics lesson touch first sound says newton chart hand gives signal children answer saying get ready unison class hums making sound first letter next sound newton continues get ready quickly class works way flawlessly page letters letter combinations like er sh done newton calls group 2 half class scrambles take seats two rows chairs arranged halfcircle back room group another phonics lesson rest class settles desks write journals newton takes seat front halfcircle begins asking several simple questions aimed reinforcing basic number awareness lesson last time asks thirtytwo children answer one today thirtythree whats first digit thirtythree three whats second three newton sets timer remember get 20 bonus points beat timer say sounds right first time lets count 20 fives children respond quickly next newton props open large spiralbound book pages letters letter combinations simple words large enough children read seats get ready say sounds touch says familiar get ready points turn g letters children first respond unison individually turns flipping next page newton continues lesson time simple words mad nut children call shaking head mock dismay newton says dont know im gon na give 20 bonus points read right first time yes one youngster whispers emphatically pumping small fist air similar scenes taking place joplin classrooms sherri elligans 3rdgrade class half students participating phonics lesson complex words half work either writing journals working math problems kerry trudelles 5thgrade class children engaged roundrobin reading story fishing trip working script trudelle interrupts ask questions designed build reading comprehension instance build fire cook fish intensive phonics scripts highly structured lessons central direct instruction form teaching joplin adopted year ago di relies heavily drills worksheets reinforce learning teachers taught follow verbatim scripts come curriculum lessons scripted make communication students clear possible teachers also learn immediately correct mistakes mispronounced word praise children frequently techniques key says joplin principal james murray without correction children commit mistake memory keep says teachers must give constant praise continuous positive reinforcement newton teachers appear buying idea made much better teacher says newton skeptical first thought youre telling every word say think learning chain composed lot pieces di given pieces chain didnt murray brought di joplin visiting wesley elementary houston lowincome innercity school wesley featured segment abctv newsmagazine 2020 academic success attained using di says murray children came type background kids basically said something want want see kids well initial training several teachers went university oregon teachers received training malcolm x college outside consultants yet using di undergo training practice techniques extendedday di math program year eventually teachers use di math well reading instruction arranging world need teach read certain things teacher arrange world certain ways youll able read says joe layng di proponent director academic support services malcolm x college layngs office runs di program aims get illprepared public school graduates ready collegelevel work di arranging world means breaking subject sequential parts teaching parts explicitly reading means teaching children decode words find main ideas details make inferences based ideas details whole language advocates contrast take exploratory approach immerses children reading writing speaking activities letter sounds taught context activities rather separate lessons teachers act coaches help children discover understanding literacy works problem approach figure expose children certain world somehow theyll learn comprehend says layng di teaches comprehend opponents criticize dis rote approach thats teach layng counters memorize every word dont teach strategy sounds blends rules applied allow read thousands words murray sees advantages teachers may call child time lessonso children must stay task one wants one messes says classroom behavior improved children attentive lowerachieving children making significant progress joplin isnt relying solely di daily journal writing book reports provide murray terms complementary approach result vast majority children either meet exceed state writing goals journals must include personal entries well essays assigned topics murray looks childs journal every week one 3rdgraders journal shows distinct signs progress entries become progressively longer spelling improved youngster begun use separate paragraphs introduce new ideas book reports intermediate uppergrade students must read report three books month primary students must report two still di provides basic structure script follow murray says youre lesson go things children learned skills comprehend youre information call joplin principal james murray 312 5353425 joe layng malcolm x college 312 8507139 alex poinsett contributed article
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<p />
<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) — Two past presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention paid tribute to a third — Franklin Paschall, longtime pastor of First Baptist Church in Nashville, Tenn. — at Paschall's funeral April 14.</p>
<p>Paschall, 86, died April 10 at his home. He was pastor of the influential Nashville congregation from 1956 until his retirement in 1983. He served as SBC president from 1966 to 1968.</p>
<p>Ed Young, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Houston who served as SBC president in 1993-94, called Paschall his "hero" and "father in the ministry." Young said he first met Paschall after his first year in seminary, when Paschall preached a revival at the church where Young was working as youth director and the young minister was assigned to drive the visiting evangelist around. Young said Paschall was the first person to teach him how to lead a person one-on-one to receive Christ.</p>
<p>"We're celebrating his graduation, and we think he graduated head of his class," Young said from the pulpit of First Baptist Church. He said Paschall "left behind a legacy for everyone privileged to touch his life."</p>
<p>Jim Henry, former pastor of First Baptist Church in Orlando, Fla., and SBC president in 1995-96, was baptized at First Baptist Church in Nashville. He said that, as a young preacher, he&#160;looked up to Paschall.</p>
<p>Henry called Paschall "one of our great leaders and pastors." He described him as "a preaching machine" who brought "intellect, heart and preparation" into the pulpit.</p>
<p>Lloyd Elder, former president of the SBC's Sunday School Board (now called LifeWay Christian Resources) knew Paschall both as his pastor and someone who lived just around the corner from his home. After leaving the post, Elder taught for a decade at Belmont University in a chair in biblical studies and preaching established in Paschall's name. "He was quite a friend and neighbor," Elder said.</p>
<p>Paschall was president of the Southern Baptist Convention during the late 1960s, when America was facing social upheaval with Vietnam, race riots and assassinations.</p>
<p>In his second term as president the SBC adopted <a href="http://baptiststudiesonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/a-statement-concerning-the-crisis-in-our-nation-_1968_.pdf" type="external">A Statement Concerning the Crisis in our Nation</a> that confessed shortcomings by Southern Baptists in advocating racial justice and pledging to work toward reconciliation. Baptist editors called it the denomination's strongest statement ever on race. More than one-fourth of messengers opposed the statement drafted by denominational leaders.</p>
<p>Paschall's tenure as SBC president also saw developing tension between advocates of social ministry and those that supported a stricter focus on evangelism. Many of the tensions in that debate broke out, a decade later, into a full-blown controversy over social issues, the nature of the Bible and other topics that divided the nation's largest non-Catholic faith group into the 1990s.</p>
<p>Paschall's term was sandwiched between twin controversies over The Message of Genesis — a 1961 book by SBC seminary professor Ralph Elliott that proposed a non-literal reading of the first 11 chapters of Genesis — and the 1969 publication of the Broadman Bible Commentary, which included a volume on Genesis written by British scholar Henton Davies that was later withdrawn and assigned to a new author.</p>
<p>Paschall's successor as SBC president was W.A. Criswell, who later came to be regarded the spiritual father of a coalition&#160;of&#160;self-described biblical inerrantists&#160;that gained control of the denomination and purged moderates from SBC leadership in the 1980s and 90s.</p>
<p>Other controversies during Paschall's presidency days included Baptist involvement in the ecumenical movement, federal aid to Baptist institutions and the need for improved evangelism and discipleship training.</p>
<p>A resolution honoring Paschall's presidency said he had "spoken responsibly, fairly, firmly, and in love" in leading Southern Baptists.</p>
<p>Paschall was born May 12, 1922, in Calloway County, Kentucky. He was converted and baptized into Oak Grove Baptist Church in Henry County, Tennessee, in 1936 and ordained a minister in April 1941.</p>
<p>He served on executive committees of both the Kentucky Baptist Convention and the Tennessee Baptist Convention. He was also a trustee of Belmont College (now Belmont University) in Nashville.&#160;He was a member of the SBC Executive Committee from 1964 to 1970 and was on the search committee that recommended Harold Bennett's election as the committee's president and treasurer in 1979.</p>
<p>Paschall graduated from Union University in 1944. In 2002 he donated more than 4,500 books he collected during three decades of ministry to Union's R.C. Ryan Center for Biblical Studies.</p>
<p>He received both bachelor's and doctor's degrees from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and an honorary doctorate from Union University in 1956.</p>
<p>Paschall was a frequent speaker at evangelistic conferences, the Tennessee Baptist Convention, the SBC Pastors Conference and the Southern Baptist Convention.</p>
<p>Paschall was preceded in death by his wife of 50 years, Olga, who died in 1994. The Paschalls had two daughters, Palma Lynn Paschall Freeman of Dallas&#160;and Sandra Kay Paschall of Nashville,&#160;who survive.</p>
<p>Expressions of sympathy may take the form of contributions to H. Franklin Paschall Chair of Biblical Studies and Preaching at <a href="http://belmont.edu/" type="external">Belmont University</a>.&#160;</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Bob Allen</a> is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
| false | 3 |
nashville tenn abp two past presidents southern baptist convention paid tribute third franklin paschall longtime pastor first baptist church nashville tenn paschalls funeral april 14 paschall 86 died april 10 home pastor influential nashville congregation 1956 retirement 1983 served sbc president 1966 1968 ed young pastor second baptist church houston served sbc president 199394 called paschall hero father ministry young said first met paschall first year seminary paschall preached revival church young working youth director young minister assigned drive visiting evangelist around young said paschall first person teach lead person oneonone receive christ celebrating graduation think graduated head class young said pulpit first baptist church said paschall left behind legacy everyone privileged touch life jim henry former pastor first baptist church orlando fla sbc president 199596 baptized first baptist church nashville said young preacher he160looked paschall henry called paschall one great leaders pastors described preaching machine brought intellect heart preparation pulpit lloyd elder former president sbcs sunday school board called lifeway christian resources knew paschall pastor someone lived around corner home leaving post elder taught decade belmont university chair biblical studies preaching established paschalls name quite friend neighbor elder said paschall president southern baptist convention late 1960s america facing social upheaval vietnam race riots assassinations second term president sbc adopted statement concerning crisis nation confessed shortcomings southern baptists advocating racial justice pledging work toward reconciliation baptist editors called denominations strongest statement ever race onefourth messengers opposed statement drafted denominational leaders paschalls tenure sbc president also saw developing tension advocates social ministry supported stricter focus evangelism many tensions debate broke decade later fullblown controversy social issues nature bible topics divided nations largest noncatholic faith group 1990s paschalls term sandwiched twin controversies message genesis 1961 book sbc seminary professor ralph elliott proposed nonliteral reading first 11 chapters genesis 1969 publication broadman bible commentary included volume genesis written british scholar henton davies later withdrawn assigned new author paschalls successor sbc president wa criswell later came regarded spiritual father coalition160of160selfdescribed biblical inerrantists160that gained control denomination purged moderates sbc leadership 1980s 90s controversies paschalls presidency days included baptist involvement ecumenical movement federal aid baptist institutions need improved evangelism discipleship training resolution honoring paschalls presidency said spoken responsibly fairly firmly love leading southern baptists paschall born may 12 1922 calloway county kentucky converted baptized oak grove baptist church henry county tennessee 1936 ordained minister april 1941 served executive committees kentucky baptist convention tennessee baptist convention also trustee belmont college belmont university nashville160he member sbc executive committee 1964 1970 search committee recommended harold bennetts election committees president treasurer 1979 paschall graduated union university 1944 2002 donated 4500 books collected three decades ministry unions rc ryan center biblical studies received bachelors doctors degrees southern baptist theological seminary honorary doctorate union university 1956 paschall frequent speaker evangelistic conferences tennessee baptist convention sbc pastors conference southern baptist convention paschall preceded death wife 50 years olga died 1994 paschalls two daughters palma lynn paschall freeman dallas160and sandra kay paschall nashville160who survive expressions sympathy may take form contributions h franklin paschall chair biblical studies preaching belmont university160 bob allen senior writer associated baptist press 160
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<p>BRUSSELS, Belgium — On <a href="http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/international-womens-day" type="external">International Women's Day</a> and with the US abuzz with the prospect that Hillary Clinton might, possibly, get elected as the first female president, it's worth remembering that women have already made that political leap on this side of the Atlantic.</p>
<p>Since Britain's Margaret Thatcher became the first woman elected to run a European Union country in 1979, 17 of the 28 EU countries have had female presidents or prime ministers.</p>
<p>The United States sits in 72nd place in the international rankings for women in parliament, tied with Panama. Just 19.4 percent of seats in Congress are occupied by women. In contrast, 35 percent of lawmakers in the European Parliament are female.</p>
<p>In Sweden, Finland and Spain, women make up more than 40 percent of local lawmakers.</p>
<p>The European picture is not all rosy. Eight EU nations rank lower than the US for female representation. Bottom of the heap is Hungary, with just 10 percent. Greece's victorious Syriza party shocked left-wing supporters across Europe by including no women in the cabinet it formed in January.</p>
<p>The EU's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini had just two female companions at a meeting of European foreign ministers that opened Friday in Latvia, and male leaders currently outnumber women 23-to-5 at EU summits.</p>
<p>Of course, the most powerful of them all is a woman — German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Here are five other women you may not have heard of, but who are playing crucial political roles at a troubled time for Europe:</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Dalia Grybauskaite</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>When it comes to standing up to Vladimir Putin, few of Europe's male leaders can match the “cojones” of Lithuania's president.</p>
<p>A karate black-belt who speaks five languages, 59-year-old Grybauskaite is one of Europe's strongest critics of the Russian leader's muscling in on Ukraine.</p>
<p>Last year she denounced Putin's Russia as a "terrorist state" and compared him to Hitler and Stalin. Those are brave words for a country of just 3 million that shares a border with Russia and does most of its trade with its giant neighbor.</p>
<p>Yet Grybauskaite's tough stance goes down well with the Lithuanians — she was re-elected last year with 58 percent of the vote. Backing up the defiant language, Grybauskaite has in recent weeks overseen the installation of a giant floating gas terminal to reduce energy dependence on Russian imports, and she's just announced the reintroduction of the draft to bulk up the armed forces.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Cecilia Malmstrom</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>If the US and European economies get a $100 billion annual boost starting next year, Malmstrom may be the person to thank.</p>
<p>As EU trade commissioner, this Swedish former psychiatric nurse is leading the bloc's negotiating team in talks with the United States on a massive trade and investment deal which supporters hope will generate billions on both sides of the Atlantic.</p>
<p>The task, however, is daunting. Malmstrom has not only to strike a deal acceptable to negotiators and Congress in the US, but also to keep all 28 EU nations on board. There are many who doubt the benefits and are battling to protect key sectors against US competition.</p>
<p>As if French concerns that American exporters could flood markets with counterfeit camembert and hormone-bulked beef were not enough, Germany has emerged as a major obstacle.</p>
<p>A vocal lobby there worries that investment safeguard clauses would allow US corporations to run roughshod over European laws and safety standards.</p>
<p>Malmstrom is battling to win them over. Last week she flew to Berlin to address a skeptical center-left audience, promising the deal would make "government more efficient, and European values more protected not less so."</p>
<p>At 46, Malmstrom has a track record of dealmaking with European governments. The one-time liberal lawmaker previously spent almost five years coordinating the EU's response to immigration, terrorism and crime as the bloc's home affairs commissioner.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Ursula von der Leyen</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Defense remains the male-dominated bastion in politics. The US has never had a female defense secretary. Among America's NATO allies in Europe, however, Germany's von der Leyen is one of five female defense ministers.</p>
<p>She's managed to build a stellar political career while bringing up seven children, making her name in national politics as social affairs minister. In that role she overcame opposition from conservatives in her own center-right party to improve childcare and extend parental leave.</p>
<p>Merkel appointed her as Germany's first female defense minister at the end of 2013, handing her an unenviable challenge.</p>
<p>After years of underinvestment Germany's armed forces have become something of a joke. Attempts to dispatch units to train Kurdish fighters and help defeat Ebola had to be curtailed last year when transport planes broke down en route; reports emerged last month that elite Panzer Grenadiers turned up at NATO exercises with black-painted broom handles because they didn't have enough machine guns.</p>
<p>At a time of revived military tensions in Europe, von der Leyen has to beef up the Bundeswehr (Germany's army) without upsetting the country's deep-seated post-war pacifism. If she succeeds, the 56-year-old will reinforce her position as a favorite to succeed Merkel as chancellor.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Nicola Sturgeon</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>If you thought Scottish nationalism was buried with defeat in last September's referendum on independence, think again.</p>
<p>Sturgeon took over as Scotland's first minister and head of the Scottish Nationalist Party in the wake of that loss. Now the party is more popular than ever. In Britain's parliamentary elections in May, polls are showing the SNP could win 56 of Scotland's 59 seats in the House of Commons.</p>
<p>Elsewhere in the United Kingdom, the main Conservative and Labor parties are running neck-and-neck. That means Sturgeon's Scots could hold the balance of power.</p>
<p>Conservative commentators in London are fretting about a "nightmare" scenario where the SNP joins a coalition to put Labor in charge, pushing a left-wing economic agenda and insisting on more powers being devolved to the Scottish authorities in Edinburgh.</p>
<p>Sturgeon wants to go even further. She's hoping for a second referendum and, at 44, makes no secret of her ambition to lead Scotland into independence.&#160;&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Soraya Saenz de Santamaria</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Even close supporters will admit that Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is not the world's most electrifying political speaker.</p>
<p>So for many Spaniards, the face of the conservative government is vice-premier and cabinet spokeswoman Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, or SSdeS, as the 43-year-old former hotshot lawyer is widely known.</p>
<p>An impassioned, mile-a-minute speaker, SSdeS regularly scores as the most popular minister in an unpopular government.</p>
<p>With elections looming in December, she's expected to play a prominent role in selling Spain's gradual economic recovery after years of austerity as proof the Rajoy government is on the right track.</p>
<p>That won't be easy. With unemployment still at over 20 percent and leading conservatives discredited by a spate of corruption cases, the government is under attack from a youthful new leader of the opposition Socialists, the surging far-left We Can (Podemos) party, nationalists in Catalonia and the Basque Country and, most recently, a new center-right group called Citizens that's poaching votes from the right.</p>
<p>If it looks like Rajoy is not up to the task — particularly if the graft allegations get too close to him — there's talk in Madrid that the untainted and media-savvy Saenz de Santamaria could be called on to replace him in leading a conservative fightback.&#160;&#160;</p>
| false | 3 |
brussels belgium international womens day us abuzz prospect hillary clinton might possibly get elected first female president worth remembering women already made political leap side atlantic since britains margaret thatcher became first woman elected run european union country 1979 17 28 eu countries female presidents prime ministers united states sits 72nd place international rankings women parliament tied panama 194 percent seats congress occupied women contrast 35 percent lawmakers european parliament female sweden finland spain women make 40 percent local lawmakers european picture rosy eight eu nations rank lower us female representation bottom heap hungary 10 percent greeces victorious syriza party shocked leftwing supporters across europe including women cabinet formed january eus foreign policy chief federica mogherini two female companions meeting european foreign ministers opened friday latvia male leaders currently outnumber women 23to5 eu summits course powerful woman german chancellor angela merkel five women may heard playing crucial political roles troubled time europe 160 dalia grybauskaite 160 comes standing vladimir putin europes male leaders match cojones lithuanias president karate blackbelt speaks five languages 59yearold grybauskaite one europes strongest critics russian leaders muscling ukraine last year denounced putins russia terrorist state compared hitler stalin brave words country 3 million shares border russia trade giant neighbor yet grybauskaites tough stance goes well lithuanians reelected last year 58 percent vote backing defiant language grybauskaite recent weeks overseen installation giant floating gas terminal reduce energy dependence russian imports shes announced reintroduction draft bulk armed forces 160 cecilia malmstrom 160 us european economies get 100 billion annual boost starting next year malmstrom may person thank eu trade commissioner swedish former psychiatric nurse leading blocs negotiating team talks united states massive trade investment deal supporters hope generate billions sides atlantic task however daunting malmstrom strike deal acceptable negotiators congress us also keep 28 eu nations board many doubt benefits battling protect key sectors us competition french concerns american exporters could flood markets counterfeit camembert hormonebulked beef enough germany emerged major obstacle vocal lobby worries investment safeguard clauses would allow us corporations run roughshod european laws safety standards malmstrom battling win last week flew berlin address skeptical centerleft audience promising deal would make government efficient european values protected less 46 malmstrom track record dealmaking european governments onetime liberal lawmaker previously spent almost five years coordinating eus response immigration terrorism crime blocs home affairs commissioner 160 ursula von der leyen 160 defense remains maledominated bastion politics us never female defense secretary among americas nato allies europe however germanys von der leyen one five female defense ministers shes managed build stellar political career bringing seven children making name national politics social affairs minister role overcame opposition conservatives centerright party improve childcare extend parental leave merkel appointed germanys first female defense minister end 2013 handing unenviable challenge years underinvestment germanys armed forces become something joke attempts dispatch units train kurdish fighters help defeat ebola curtailed last year transport planes broke en route reports emerged last month elite panzer grenadiers turned nato exercises blackpainted broom handles didnt enough machine guns time revived military tensions europe von der leyen beef bundeswehr germanys army without upsetting countrys deepseated postwar pacifism succeeds 56yearold reinforce position favorite succeed merkel chancellor 160 nicola sturgeon 160 thought scottish nationalism buried defeat last septembers referendum independence think sturgeon took scotlands first minister head scottish nationalist party wake loss party popular ever britains parliamentary elections may polls showing snp could win 56 scotlands 59 seats house commons elsewhere united kingdom main conservative labor parties running neckandneck means sturgeons scots could hold balance power conservative commentators london fretting nightmare scenario snp joins coalition put labor charge pushing leftwing economic agenda insisting powers devolved scottish authorities edinburgh sturgeon wants go even shes hoping second referendum 44 makes secret ambition lead scotland independence160160 160 soraya saenz de santamaria 160 even close supporters admit spanish prime minister mariano rajoy worlds electrifying political speaker many spaniards face conservative government vicepremier cabinet spokeswoman soraya saenz de santamaria ssdes 43yearold former hotshot lawyer widely known impassioned mileaminute speaker ssdes regularly scores popular minister unpopular government elections looming december shes expected play prominent role selling spains gradual economic recovery years austerity proof rajoy government right track wont easy unemployment still 20 percent leading conservatives discredited spate corruption cases government attack youthful new leader opposition socialists surging farleft podemos party nationalists catalonia basque country recently new centerright group called citizens thats poaching votes right looks like rajoy task particularly graft allegations get close theres talk madrid untainted mediasavvy saenz de santamaria could called replace leading conservative fightback160160
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<p>RICHMOND (ABP) — By all accounts there are few people like Bruce Heilman.</p>
<p>Friends and family say he’s a hard-charging 86-year-old, working still as chancellor of the <a href="http://www.richmond.edu/" type="external">University of Richmond</a>, a passionate husband, father and grandfather, active in Baptist life and serving as the spokesman for a national veterans organization.</p>
<p>Plus he continues to astonish old and young alike by riding around Richmond and the United States on his beloved Harley-Davidson.</p>
<p />
<p>Heilman and one of his children, Terry Heilman Sylvester, pose in front of his Harley-Davidson (ABP photo provided by Bruce Heilman).</p>
<p />
<p>Where friends and family differ is in explaining how this Depression-era high school dropout and Marine combat veteran does all this and more, and with an enthusiasm that’s contagious and inspiring.</p>
<p>“I think he enjoys making an impact and making a difference,” said Terry Heilman Sylvester, one of Heilman’s six children.</p>
<p>Randy Ashcraft, pastor in residence at the <a href="http://www.vbmb.org/default.cfm" type="external">Virginia Baptist Mission Board</a>, said it’s Heilman’s energy.</p>
<p>“He has a vision that carries life beyond what’s right in front of you,” Ashcraft said. “I had a mid-50s pastor say ‘he is my new hero.’”</p>
<p>Another says it’s simply Heilman’s manner.</p>
<p>“It’s his personality,” said Westleigh Roberts, vice president of programs for <a href="http://tggf.us/" type="external">The Greatest Generations Foundation</a>, the organization Heilman serves as national spokesman. “He’s extremely eloquent, very outspoken at what he does.”</p>
<p>Heilman offers no easy, simple explanation. Rather, his life is the sum total of experiences that began on a rural Kentucky farm during the Great Depression and meandered through World War II and subsequent decades raising a family, getting an education and helping thousands of others obtain educations.</p>
<p>“I learned a lot of discipline and I learned the truth,” he said. “My father would starve to pay a bill.”</p>
<p>Faith was central to that discipline. His father was a farmer and licensed minister who invited preachers to dinner most Sunday nights. They were very conservative theologically and Heilman recalled the measure of a good Christian was in abstinence from certain behaviors.</p>
<p>“You didn’t smoke but you raised tobacco, and you didn’t drink but we sent all our corn to Virginia” to be used in manufacturing alcohol, Heilman said.</p>
<p>But it was in the military where Heilman said his faith began to develop—and it started right away.</p>
<p />
<p>On the troop train taking him to California for Marine Corps basic training, Heilman was disturbed by fellow recruits playing craps and cursing.</p>
<p>“I was almost sorry I was leaving home,” he said.</p>
<p>But he wasn’t sorry for the strength his faith gave him to witness some of the most brutal killing of the war in places like Iwo Jima and Okinawa.</p>
<p>“They say there are no atheists in foxholes, well there were some,” he said. “But if the wounded weren’t calling on their mothers, they were calling on their faith.”</p>
<p>Heilman often called on his faith, too. It helped him get through an assignment, shortly after the war ended, as the radio operator for commanders touring a defeated Japan.</p>
<p>“I was at Hiroshima and Nagasaki walking through those ashes,” he said. “No one mentioned radioactivity and we just kicked it around like dust.”</p>
<p>Meeting Americans of different races and religions pushed Heilman toward a moderate Baptist faith. So did having a Marine friend who was very aggressive in sharing his faith.</p>
<p>“I learned there is a fine line between where you can live your life and where you insist others live it just like you do.”</p>
<p>Heilman served another two years after the war and used his GI Bill money to attend Campbellsville Universiy, the only school he found that let him attend without a high school diploma.</p>
<p>Soon he discovered a knack for academics and interest in providing education to others, and so began years of master’s and doctoral studies and teaching and then a career in higher education administration.</p>
<p>He worked at a number of schools in different positions, including president of <a href="http://www.meredith.edu/" type="external">Meredith College</a> in Raleigh, N.C., before taking the presidency of the University of Richmond in 1966.</p>
<p>By then he had acquired a reputation as a premier fundraiser.</p>
<p>By the time he retired as president in 1986, Heilman had boosted the university’s endowment by $200 million—moving it from $8 million when he arrived toward the $1.8 billion it is today.</p>
<p>“I concentrated on fundraising because the university was almost out of business” when he arrived.</p>
<p>But his daughter said it was more than that. He raised six kids and had a hand in helping with 11 grandchildren—all while going to school and then holding down demanding jobs.</p>
<p>“He was someone who flunked out of high school, but he had a constant drive to better himself,” she said.</p>
<p>The values and discipline, self-improvement and humility were passed right along to his children, Sylvester said.</p>
<p>“He kind of raised us like Marines,” she said. “We were taught to serve the poor, and that every single person in this world is an equal.”</p>
<p>But he also modeled how to have fun while serving others, she said.</p>
<p>That got a boost when Betty bought her husband a new Harley Road King for his 71st birthday to make up for the decades he went without riding to concentrate on his career and family. He immediately hopped on and rode it to San Diego.</p>
<p>He has since traded that one in and said he plans to get a new bike again when he turns 91.</p>
<p>“I can’t think of anything better than putting that Harley on cruise control at 70 mph and the wind in my face,” he said.</p>
<p>It was through his riding that Heilman discovered another calling in life: connecting with World War II veterans during his cross-country rides.</p>
<p>That’s how he got on the radar of The Greatest Generations Foundation, Roberts said. The organization sends veterans on trips to visit the battlefields where they fought decades before. Heilman had been on such a trip to Iwo Jima and Okinawa in 2010.</p>
<p>Roberts said the group started hearing from veterans who said Heilman would make a great spokesman, especially given his long-distance motorcycle riding and outgoing personality. His 9,000-mile ride on behalf of the organization this summer generated a lot of publicity and new contacts for the organization, Roberts said.</p>
<p>“Whether you’ve known him for five minutes or five years, you feel like you’re a great friend of his,” Roberts said.</p>
<p>Heilman’s also been helping spread the gospel through his riding, and changing stereotypes about motorcyclists.</p>
<p>Ashcroft, a rider himself, is the organizer of the annual <a href="http://www.thunderinthehills.com/index.htm" type="external">Thunder in the Hills</a> Christian motorcycle rallies. Heilman was one of two guest speakers at the 2011 event and so impressed riders they want him back as honorary chairman for life.</p>
<p>“We asked him to speak and he hit a home run,” Ashcroft said.</p>
<p>Plus his reputation as a rider is unquestioned. On July 16, the day he turned 86, Heilman completed his 9,000 trek that took him through 34 states in 25 days.</p>
<p>“He created an energy and enthusiasm because of his all-out commitment to his life’s work,” he said. “He is what we need to be about in our lives.”</p>
<p>Heilman said he plans to keep on going as a promoter of the University of Richmond, veterans, his faith and church (First Baptist in Richmond) and his motorcycle quests.</p>
<p>“I think of Helen Keller who said that life is either a grand adventure or it’s nothing,” Heilman said. “We all need to be doing something that adds to that adventure.”</p>
<p>Jeff Brumley is assistant editor of Associated Baptist Press. © 2012 Associated Baptist Press, Inc. Used by permission.</p>
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richmond abp accounts people like bruce heilman friends family say hes hardcharging 86yearold working still chancellor university richmond passionate husband father grandfather active baptist life serving spokesman national veterans organization plus continues astonish old young alike riding around richmond united states beloved harleydavidson heilman one children terry heilman sylvester pose front harleydavidson abp photo provided bruce heilman friends family differ explaining depressionera high school dropout marine combat veteran enthusiasm thats contagious inspiring think enjoys making impact making difference said terry heilman sylvester one heilmans six children randy ashcraft pastor residence virginia baptist mission board said heilmans energy vision carries life beyond whats right front ashcraft said mid50s pastor say new hero another says simply heilmans manner personality said westleigh roberts vice president programs greatest generations foundation organization heilman serves national spokesman hes extremely eloquent outspoken heilman offers easy simple explanation rather life sum total experiences began rural kentucky farm great depression meandered world war ii subsequent decades raising family getting education helping thousands others obtain educations learned lot discipline learned truth said father would starve pay bill faith central discipline father farmer licensed minister invited preachers dinner sunday nights conservative theologically heilman recalled measure good christian abstinence certain behaviors didnt smoke raised tobacco didnt drink sent corn virginia used manufacturing alcohol heilman said military heilman said faith began developand started right away troop train taking california marine corps basic training heilman disturbed fellow recruits playing craps cursing almost sorry leaving home said wasnt sorry strength faith gave witness brutal killing war places like iwo jima okinawa say atheists foxholes well said wounded werent calling mothers calling faith heilman often called faith helped get assignment shortly war ended radio operator commanders touring defeated japan hiroshima nagasaki walking ashes said one mentioned radioactivity kicked around like dust meeting americans different races religions pushed heilman toward moderate baptist faith marine friend aggressive sharing faith learned fine line live life insist others live like heilman served another two years war used gi bill money attend campbellsville universiy school found let attend without high school diploma soon discovered knack academics interest providing education others began years masters doctoral studies teaching career higher education administration worked number schools different positions including president meredith college raleigh nc taking presidency university richmond 1966 acquired reputation premier fundraiser time retired president 1986 heilman boosted universitys endowment 200 millionmoving 8 million arrived toward 18 billion today concentrated fundraising university almost business arrived daughter said raised six kids hand helping 11 grandchildrenall going school holding demanding jobs someone flunked high school constant drive better said values discipline selfimprovement humility passed right along children sylvester said kind raised us like marines said taught serve poor every single person world equal also modeled fun serving others said got boost betty bought husband new harley road king 71st birthday make decades went without riding concentrate career family immediately hopped rode san diego since traded one said plans get new bike turns 91 cant think anything better putting harley cruise control 70 mph wind face said riding heilman discovered another calling life connecting world war ii veterans crosscountry rides thats got radar greatest generations foundation roberts said organization sends veterans trips visit battlefields fought decades heilman trip iwo jima okinawa 2010 roberts said group started hearing veterans said heilman would make great spokesman especially given longdistance motorcycle riding outgoing personality 9000mile ride behalf organization summer generated lot publicity new contacts organization roberts said whether youve known five minutes five years feel like youre great friend roberts said heilmans also helping spread gospel riding changing stereotypes motorcyclists ashcroft rider organizer annual thunder hills christian motorcycle rallies heilman one two guest speakers 2011 event impressed riders want back honorary chairman life asked speak hit home run ashcroft said plus reputation rider unquestioned july 16 day turned 86 heilman completed 9000 trek took 34 states 25 days created energy enthusiasm allout commitment lifes work said need lives heilman said plans keep going promoter university richmond veterans faith church first baptist richmond motorcycle quests think helen keller said life either grand adventure nothing heilman said need something adds adventure jeff brumley assistant editor associated baptist press 2012 associated baptist press inc used permission
| 694 |
<p><a href="http://www.guns.com/2015/10/01/univ-of-texas-forum-on-campus-carry-leans-anti-gun/" type="external">On Thursday</a>, around the time a mass shooting was unfolding at a small community college in Oregon, Lisa Moore, an English professor at the University of Texas, was leading a protest against guns on campus. She’s one of the founders of Gun Free UT, a group that sprang up in response to a controversial campus-carry bill <a href="" type="internal">that narrowly passed in the state legislature in May</a>. The measure permits the concealed carry of guns in dorms, classrooms, and buildings at state universities and community colleges, while leaving individual schools some latitude to keep parts of their properties firearm-free. The bill, which was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbot <a href="http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2015/06/13/gov-abbott-signs-open-carry-campus-carry-laws-at-shooting-range/" type="external">at a shooting range</a>, makes Texas the eighth state to allow firearms on campus. (In another 23 states, colleges and universities set rules for themselves, but aren’t compelled to allow campus carry.)</p>
<p>Shortly afterward, Gun Free UT — which consists of faculty, students, staff, parents, and alumni — put together a petition on change.org, with the hope of sparking a mass movement against the law. So far, <a href="https://www.change.org/p/no-guns-in-our-classrooms-gun-free-ut?recruiter=7572902&amp;utm_source=share_petition&amp;utm_medium=copylink" type="external">nearly 2,500 people have signed the petition</a>, and the group has acquired almost 1,000 Facebook followers. About 200 UT faculty members have pledged to refuse guns in their classrooms. UT chancellor&#160; <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/06/05/412177034/guns-on-texas-campuses-wont-make-them-safer-university-chancellor-says" type="external">William McCraven, a former Navy Seal,</a>&#160;had earlier&#160; <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/06/05/412177034/guns-on-texas-campuses-wont-make-them-safer-university-chancellor-says" type="external">spoken out against the measure</a>, saying,&#160;“I want to make sure that we make our campuses as safe as possible. And the addition of concealed weapons on campus just [doesn’t] seem like a good idea to me.”</p>
<p>Hundreds of people showed up at Thursday’s Gun Free UT rally to voice their opposition to the law, which won’t take effect until August 1, 2016. If nothing else, Moore and the others in Gun Free UT hope to influence how their university system applies the new statute and keep weapons out of classrooms, dorms, and offices. In Moore’s view, how Texas college leaders sort out those details could lead to a grave shift in how students learn and teachers educate.</p>
<p>No, but I’ve had some experiences that made me very grateful students weren’t allowed to carry guns on campus. I teach gay and lesbian studies. When I first got here in the early ’90s, I had an office on the ground floor of the English building, and I had a lot of posters up advocating for gay rights. One day, someone broke into the office, burned my gay rights posters, and then wrote “depravity kills” all over the windows. It was scary enough for me to know someone was willing to commit a serious act of vandalism. Were it the case that someone could have brought a gun into my office, during office hours, I think I wouldn’t have been able to do my job.</p>
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<p>More recently, during the semester after the Virginia Tech shootings in 2008, I was teaching an LGBT literature class. Sometimes the class riles up students, and I had a student that semester who believed, among other things, that gay people were going to hell. After a while, I guess as a kind of protest, he started coming to class and lying on the floor. He also started posting things online about not doing the reading and said that he would stop other students from doing the reading. I got nervous and went to my supervisor, and it turned out this student had problems with mental illness and had, in the past, been taken out of other classes. Subsequently, he was removed from my class, and I wound up teaching the rest of the semester in an undisclosed location, with an armed guard stationed nearby.</p>
<p>The classroom is a safe space, and we need security there. We need to be able to provide an atmosphere in which young people can become uncomfortable with certain ideas, and we don’t want someone who will, when they’re uncomfortable, be able to shoot off a firearm. These students are at an age when they’re still not fully in control of their impulses, and they’re away from home for the first time. They’re very vulnerable.</p>
<p>Now what can I do to make the students feel safe? The legislature wrote into the law that if someone tries to prevent someone from a carrying a gun into the class, <a href="http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=84R&amp;Bill=SB273" type="external">they could be fined $1,500 dollars a day</a>. So I can’t put up a sign. I mean, I’m allowed to ask students not to bring cell phones into my class. How could that principle not apply to guns?</p>
<p>I don’t know. I’ve heard faculty say, ‘I’ll just give everyone A’s from now on. I’m not going to risk pissing someone off if they’re going to be armed.’ Others have said they’ll only lecture — they won’t allow classroom discussion because they don’t want things to get heated. Basically, we have to look at ruling out anything — any subject matter — that might seem provocative. It’s very strange. Shutting down dissent and free speech is the opposite of what should happen on a college campus. Personally, I don’t think I would confront a student who was disruptive if he was armed. I’d rather say, ‘Class is dismissed.’</p>
<p>It scares me to think about it. I am accustomed to equipping my students with the skills to negotiate difficult issues. Another class I teach is early British literature — a lot of writing from 14th and 15th centuries, a lot of which is about religious controversies. Naturally, this brings up religious controversies in the present. I try to endow my students with the ability to talk openly about religious differences; it’s an important skill for an educated citizenry. In the past, I’ve had students flip desks and leave the room. Which is fine, because something can be learned from that. But that’s different than a student pulling a gun — no one learns anything in that situation. And maybe the student who flips the desk might refrain from doing it if he thinks his classmate is armed. In that sort of environment, I’m going to be much less willing to go into deep and controversial issues, which is a huge loss, since, later on in life, they’ll have to grapple with deep and controversial issues. I try to teach them how to have an honest conversation with someone whose views they find repugnant. In order to learn those skills, you have to feel safe. In my women’s studies classes we talk about feminism, abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, and birth control. As you know, these aren’t exactly light topics.</p>
<p>I don’t know of any. And I’m in touch, via social media, with hundreds and hundreds of professors. Everyone is against it. Even people who are in favor of the right to carry are against the legislation. It’s not even something the people of Texas want. I can’t tell you how many parents we’ve heard from. They say they wouldn’t have sent their children to UT if they’d known about the law.</p>
<p>I’ve brought it up in all of my classes, and the students are scared, almost universally. One student said, ‘I’m gay, and I already feel like a target.’ He’d been sheltered growing up, and thinking about being in class with someone who is armed and might hate LGBT people really scares him and makes him wonder if he made a mistake coming to UT.</p>
<p>No, and I don’t think that would be very helpful, or practical. It’s not as if there are a ton of academic job openings, which forces us to face the law. But more importantly, I love my job. And unlike the gun lobby and arms industry, who together created this legislation, I have my students’ best interests at heart.</p>
<p>[Photo: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/elmiracollege/3983670183/in/photolist-752mmF-nzfe54-dZM6ar-816wLh-bBbpTB-rKi8G-864GmA-7v4ENF-tqwcm-ni3GbW-6QbNC2-63rXR9-v39Gc-ni3Ge3-5xceGh-8ovzVn-pyzREL-8oyL6f-rKp7K-6PUBHc-9976EK-3mgsdz-8ovA7c-iEv1m-7Pm5dw-4YpwHL-9NuKFS-9N1ei6-73jyy6-aajw5z-9Dz3kM-6QbUyr-EHQ5y-bjtbU4-bjtcaX-bjtd46-9aUaD-anQovi-bjtbZT-bDP2h-57YbBe-5n64zD-gRHf1-furDbu-6c1tx-ah5uS-7FLNZ5-CguLa-4p5WAH-cWDb77" type="external">Flickr</a>]</p>
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thursday around time mass shooting unfolding small community college oregon lisa moore english professor university texas leading protest guns campus shes one founders gun free ut group sprang response controversial campuscarry bill narrowly passed state legislature may measure permits concealed carry guns dorms classrooms buildings state universities community colleges leaving individual schools latitude keep parts properties firearmfree bill signed law gov greg abbot shooting range makes texas eighth state allow firearms campus another 23 states colleges universities set rules arent compelled allow campus carry shortly afterward gun free ut consists faculty students staff parents alumni put together petition changeorg hope sparking mass movement law far nearly 2500 people signed petition group acquired almost 1000 facebook followers 200 ut faculty members pledged refuse guns classrooms ut chancellor160 william mccraven former navy seal160had earlier160 spoken measure saying160i want make sure make campuses safe possible addition concealed weapons campus doesnt seem like good idea hundreds people showed thursdays gun free ut rally voice opposition law wont take effect august 1 2016 nothing else moore others gun free ut hope influence university system applies new statute keep weapons classrooms dorms offices moores view texas college leaders sort details could lead grave shift students learn teachers educate ive experiences made grateful students werent allowed carry guns campus teach gay lesbian studies first got early 90s office ground floor english building lot posters advocating gay rights one day someone broke office burned gay rights posters wrote depravity kills windows scary enough know someone willing commit serious act vandalism case someone could brought gun office office hours think wouldnt able job subscribe receive traces newsletters important gun news analysis recently semester virginia tech shootings 2008 teaching lgbt literature class sometimes class riles students student semester believed among things gay people going hell guess kind protest started coming class lying floor also started posting things online reading said would stop students reading got nervous went supervisor turned student problems mental illness past taken classes subsequently removed class wound teaching rest semester undisclosed location armed guard stationed nearby classroom safe space need security need able provide atmosphere young people become uncomfortable certain ideas dont want someone theyre uncomfortable able shoot firearm students age theyre still fully control impulses theyre away home first time theyre vulnerable make students feel safe legislature wrote law someone tries prevent someone carrying gun class could fined 1500 dollars day cant put sign mean im allowed ask students bring cell phones class could principle apply guns dont know ive heard faculty say ill give everyone im going risk pissing someone theyre going armed others said theyll lecture wont allow classroom discussion dont want things get heated basically look ruling anything subject matter might seem provocative strange shutting dissent free speech opposite happen college campus personally dont think would confront student disruptive armed id rather say class dismissed scares think accustomed equipping students skills negotiate difficult issues another class teach early british literature lot writing 14th 15th centuries lot religious controversies naturally brings religious controversies present try endow students ability talk openly religious differences important skill educated citizenry past ive students flip desks leave room fine something learned thats different student pulling gun one learns anything situation maybe student flips desk might refrain thinks classmate armed sort environment im going much less willing go deep controversial issues huge loss since later life theyll grapple deep controversial issues try teach honest conversation someone whose views find repugnant order learn skills feel safe womens studies classes talk feminism abortion homosexuality transgenderism birth control know arent exactly light topics dont know im touch via social media hundreds hundreds professors everyone even people favor right carry legislation even something people texas want cant tell many parents weve heard say wouldnt sent children ut theyd known law ive brought classes students scared almost universally one student said im gay already feel like target hed sheltered growing thinking class someone armed might hate lgbt people really scares makes wonder made mistake coming ut dont think would helpful practical ton academic job openings forces us face law importantly love job unlike gun lobby arms industry together created legislation students best interests heart photo flickr
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<p>I was asked by a friend at breakfast the morning after the New Baptist Covenant Celebration what three things stood out as having made the greatest impact. I thought back over the three-day meeting, and what follows are the three things I mentioned to him, and one other I simply must share with you since its poignancy overpowers me.</p>
<p>First, I hope I will always remember standing at the window of the upper-level press room surveying a panorama of 15,000 empty chairs. Before the first session began, I reflected on the initial pie-in-the-sky attendance projections of 20,000 and of the more recent realistic revisions of 10,000. But looking at all those empty chairs I had my doubts. I felt better when former President Carter confessed to having some of the same thoughts during his opening remarks!</p>
<p>Later that evening, as I again positioned myself at that window, I was so moved at what I saw that I had to blink back my tears. But it wasn't so much the number of people that moved me, even though two-thirds of the chairs were occupied at that point. Rather, it was the kind of people seated there.</p>
<p>White Baptists and Black Baptists and Brown Baptists sat mingled together not as contenders on opposite sides of the aisle, but as fervent celebrants of something new. May I dare to be really honest? Too much diversity causes me to want to retreat to the security of sameness. I admit it. Homogeneity is my comfort zone. People who are just like me think I am normal. I take a measure of comfort in that.</p>
<p>But for the sake of theological correctness, I'm willing to push outside my own comfort. As I stood there allowing my eyes to drink in the human sea before me, I cannot tell you how happy it made me. Here was religious life the way it ought to be — and the way it's ultimately going to be according to Rev. 7:9.</p>
<p>Baptists from North and South; from inner cities and sprawling farms; from hallowed halls of academia and wretched halls of tenements; from board rooms and mail rooms; from tall steeples and storefronts — together occupied those chairs.</p>
<p>They represented a cross-section of American — no, North American life. Seventy-somethings in wheelchairs sat near twenty-somethings in sneakers. Some wore worsted wool suits while two chairs away others were not out of place wearing sweatshirts and jeans. Just so you will know, we were all sizes, too.</p>
<p>But, suddenly, as I studied the crowd, I realized that we were only superficially diverse. At the core of our beings, every Baptist there was the same — created in God's image, ruined by our sin, rescued by the Lord's love, redeemed by Christ's blood, restored by God's grace, and reconciled to one another by the Spirit's fruit.</p>
<p>Regardless of the different appearances of individual Baptists who attended, this was not diversity. This was university! The words of Onward Christian Soldiers came to my mind. “We are not divided. All one body, we.” I was suddenly awed that the truth of those words was personified before my very eyes. And I gave thanks to God.</p>
<p>The second thing that impacted me was the memory of Jimmy Carter's choosing to become vulnerable before the assembly by describing his hopes for the convocation. He described his conversion at age 11 and his nearly 65 years teaching the Bible. Receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 must have slipped his mind, for he never referred to it. As he spoke of what was most meaningful to him, he began to describe his hopes for Baptists, and he clearly became emotional. Pausing momentarily in mid-sentence to collect his emotions, he declared “this celebration of the New Baptist Covenant … is the most momentous event in my religious life.”</p>
<p>I know that Carter has come under fire for things he has said and written. His criticism of President Bush was, in my opinion, unfortunate, ill advised and not in keeping with Carter's general spirit of generosity. I was one who wondered if his own outspokenness would sabotage the new covenant celebration before it ever got off the ground. My regret is that some, to their own misfortune, were probably so put off by his remarks that they elected not to attend.</p>
<p>His writings, too, have come under fire. He called the practices of the Israeli government toward its non-citizen inhabitants “apartheid.”</p>
<p>Recently in Jerusalem, I sat with Bob Terry, editor of The Alabama Baptist, Jim Smith who edits the Florida Baptist Witness, and two Baptist representatives from the U.S. who now work with Palestinians. Terry asked them about the ways different levels of society are treated there.</p>
<p>They proceeded to describe rights withheld or delayed to certain groups. I remarked that it sounded like apartheid. One responded passionately, “That's exactly what it is!” and the other affirmed “Jimmy Carter was right when he said that in his book.”</p>
<p>Obviously, those very close to the situation believe Carter's comments were on target. Still, they were controversial. Because of this, I wondered whether he might say something that could inflame passions against the covenant during his press conference or in his address the opening night.</p>
<p>I need not have been concerned. Speaking as he did with clarity and precision, he outlined his hopes that Baptists could come together in absolute harmony. He did not minimize our conflicts but focused on our commonality. He held out hope that those elements would give rise to a new spirit of cooperation.</p>
<p>In a press conference prior to the event, Carter spoke of his regard for Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and revealed that he had written to both Page and to Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC, outlining the purposes of the Celebration.</p>
<p>Carter revealed his own vulnerability as he spoke, and I began to realize how much of himself he had invested in this event. During the course of the Celebration, I also realized how indebted we all were to him. Whatever success was and will yet be achieved through this event is due in large measure to his desperate dream that Baptists can set aside differences long enough to come together to do the work of Christ on earth. May his dream become ours and may Baptists realize the dream in our time.</p>
<p>The third great moment of personal impact came during Bill Clinton's address. To establish a context for my remarks, I must share that mine was not a vote Clinton received during his Presidential campaigns. Also, like others, I was fully aware that his speaking at the Celebration while his wife is seeking the presidential nomination certainly provided opportunity for political misstep. Like others, I wondered if he could meet the challenge.</p>
<p>Former President Bill Clinton not met the challenge, but he spoke theological truth with awesome earnestness and humility. He spoke of sin and redemption and reconciliation.</p>
<p>He reminded us that those who disagree with us are as convinced of their correctness as we are and suggested that we should esteem and respect them them and their ideas. With the exegetical exactness of a homiletics professor, he quoted 1 Cor. 13:12 as the reason we need humility, “For now we see through a glass, darkly. But then we shall see face to face. Now we know in part, but then we shall know fully, even as we are fully known.”</p>
<p>He urged the assembly to avoid becoming critical or judgmental because even the most knowledgeable among us knows only a part of the whole. This, he said, should be enough to create humility in us all. According to Clinton, we cannot ignore the truth that since we all see through a glass darkly, we all can be wrong.</p>
<p>One other moment touched me deeply. Pastor Hanna Masaad of the Gaza Baptist Church spoke of his church's suffering, of their hardships, their persecutions, and of the martyrdom of one of their members, Rami Ayaad. (For more on this, see last week's Religious Herald online).</p>
<p>He described the church as being caught between two fires. One is the Israeli government that withholds services and denies or delays administrate processes. In fact, he thanked Carter for intervening with the Israeli government to make it possible for Masaad to accept the invitation to speak at the Celebration. The other fire is the mistreatment and threats they receive from the Moslem majority in Gaza as demonstrated by the murder of Rami Ayaad.</p>
<p>Hearing Masaad's testimony, one could assume that Masaad or the church have become bitter. But bitter they are not. “Is the disciple greater than his Rabbi? Is the servant greater than his master?” Masaad asked, quoting Jesus. Masaad simply asked for his fellow Baptists to pray that that his church might stand strong and be faithful.</p>
<p>As a family of Baptists, we can choose to bicker or we can choose to “lay aside the weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us, and run with endurance the race that lies before us” (Heb. 12:1, NIV). Is dreaming for an absence of strife among Baptists idealistic? How can we ever set aside our differences and focus on the mutual ministries lying before us? What could cause us to divert our gazes from what we judge to be our brother Baptist's flaws? Ah! As if the writer of Hebrews anticipates the question, he provides the answer in the next verse.</p>
<p>“Keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross and despised the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of God's throne.” I feel like humbly celebrating, Will you join me?</p>
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asked friend breakfast morning new baptist covenant celebration three things stood made greatest impact thought back threeday meeting follows three things mentioned one simply must share since poignancy overpowers first hope always remember standing window upperlevel press room surveying panorama 15000 empty chairs first session began reflected initial pieinthesky attendance projections 20000 recent realistic revisions 10000 looking empty chairs doubts felt better former president carter confessed thoughts opening remarks later evening positioned window moved saw blink back tears wasnt much number people moved even though twothirds chairs occupied point rather kind people seated white baptists black baptists brown baptists sat mingled together contenders opposite sides aisle fervent celebrants something new may dare really honest much diversity causes want retreat security sameness admit homogeneity comfort zone people like think normal take measure comfort sake theological correctness im willing push outside comfort stood allowing eyes drink human sea tell happy made religious life way ought way ultimately going according rev 79 baptists north south inner cities sprawling farms hallowed halls academia wretched halls tenements board rooms mail rooms tall steeples storefronts together occupied chairs represented crosssection american north american life seventysomethings wheelchairs sat near twentysomethings sneakers wore worsted wool suits two chairs away others place wearing sweatshirts jeans know sizes suddenly studied crowd realized superficially diverse core beings every baptist created gods image ruined sin rescued lords love redeemed christs blood restored gods grace reconciled one another spirits fruit regardless different appearances individual baptists attended diversity university words onward christian soldiers came mind divided one body suddenly awed truth words personified eyes gave thanks god second thing impacted memory jimmy carters choosing become vulnerable assembly describing hopes convocation described conversion age 11 nearly 65 years teaching bible receiving nobel peace prize 2002 must slipped mind never referred spoke meaningful began describe hopes baptists clearly became emotional pausing momentarily midsentence collect emotions declared celebration new baptist covenant momentous event religious life know carter come fire things said written criticism president bush opinion unfortunate ill advised keeping carters general spirit generosity one wondered outspokenness would sabotage new covenant celebration ever got ground regret misfortune probably put remarks elected attend writings come fire called practices israeli government toward noncitizen inhabitants apartheid recently jerusalem sat bob terry editor alabama baptist jim smith edits florida baptist witness two baptist representatives us work palestinians terry asked ways different levels society treated proceeded describe rights withheld delayed certain groups remarked sounded like apartheid one responded passionately thats exactly affirmed jimmy carter right said book obviously close situation believe carters comments target still controversial wondered whether might say something could inflame passions covenant press conference address opening night need concerned speaking clarity precision outlined hopes baptists could come together absolute harmony minimize conflicts focused commonality held hope elements would give rise new spirit cooperation press conference prior event carter spoke regard frank page president southern baptist convention revealed written page richard land president ethics religious liberty commission sbc outlining purposes celebration carter revealed vulnerability spoke began realize much invested event course celebration also realized indebted whatever success yet achieved event due large measure desperate dream baptists set aside differences long enough come together work christ earth may dream become may baptists realize dream time third great moment personal impact came bill clintons address establish context remarks must share mine vote clinton received presidential campaigns also like others fully aware speaking celebration wife seeking presidential nomination certainly provided opportunity political misstep like others wondered could meet challenge former president bill clinton met challenge spoke theological truth awesome earnestness humility spoke sin redemption reconciliation reminded us disagree us convinced correctness suggested esteem respect ideas exegetical exactness homiletics professor quoted 1 cor 1312 reason need humility see glass darkly shall see face face know part shall know fully even fully known urged assembly avoid becoming critical judgmental even knowledgeable among us knows part whole said enough create humility us according clinton ignore truth since see glass darkly wrong one moment touched deeply pastor hanna masaad gaza baptist church spoke churchs suffering hardships persecutions martyrdom one members rami ayaad see last weeks religious herald online described church caught two fires one israeli government withholds services denies delays administrate processes fact thanked carter intervening israeli government make possible masaad accept invitation speak celebration fire mistreatment threats receive moslem majority gaza demonstrated murder rami ayaad hearing masaads testimony one could assume masaad church become bitter bitter disciple greater rabbi servant greater master masaad asked quoting jesus masaad simply asked fellow baptists pray church might stand strong faithful family baptists choose bicker choose lay aside weight sin easily ensnares us run endurance race lies us heb 121 niv dreaming absence strife among baptists idealistic ever set aside differences focus mutual ministries lying us could cause us divert gazes judge brother baptists flaws ah writer hebrews anticipates question provides answer next verse keeping eyes jesus source perfecter faith joy lay endured cross despised shame sat right hand gods throne feel like humbly celebrating join
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<p>More teachers evaluated under the district’s new rating system scored in the top two categories as “proficient” or “excellent” in the classroom, with elementary school teachers scoring higher than their counterparts in high schools.</p>
<p>The scores from evaluations conducted last year are from the second cycle of the REACH (Recognizing Educators Advancing Chicago) Students system, which takes student test scores into account as well as classroom observations.</p>
<p>Non-tenured teachers, who had already been rated once using REACH, scored better than the small subset of tenured teachers who were being evaluated for the first time.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.catalyst-chicago.orgnew-teacher-evaluations-get-positive-reviews" type="external">In the first cycle</a>, only non-tenured teachers were rated with REACH; in last year’s second cycle, about 10 percent of tenured teachers were included.</p>
<p>This school year, in the third cycle, all tenured teachers will be evaluated and student performance on tests will account for 30 percent of ratings. (In the first two years, tests accounted for 25 percent of ratings.)</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">According to CPS data</a> from the second cycle:</p>
<p>– 65 percent of the 7,031 evaluated teachers were rated proficient or excellent. In comparison, just 58 percent received these high ratings a year earlier.</p>
<p>– About 59 percent of tenured teachers were rated excellent or proficient, compared to 68 percent of non-tenured teachers.</p>
<p>– More than 8 percent of tenured high school teachers were rated unsatisfactory – the lowest category – compared to about 5 percent of elementary school teachers.</p>
<p>District officials said the improved performance of non-tenured teachers could be because they have had “additional experience with the evaluation […] Also, previous evaluations enabled principals and assistant principals to improve feedback and develop targeted support for teachers.”</p>
<p>Jennie Jiang, a research analyst at the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research who has studied the new system, cautioned against comparing the ratings of non-tenured versus tenured teachers, because the pool of tenured teachers who were evaluated using REACH included only those who’d been rated poorly under the previous system or who hadn’t received any rating a year earlier.</p>
<p>“These are the teachers who were already struggling in the previous system or, for whatever reason, they had no rating,” she said. “We’re not really getting a sense of what ratings for tenured teachers would look like.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, CPS officials said they are still looking into why ratings for elementary and high school teachers were different. Jiang said the issue merits further analysis, but offered some possible explanations. She said the observation rubric – known as the CPS Framework for Teaching – was orginally piloted more in elementary schools than in high schools, meaning that elementary school principals and teachers are more familiar with it.</p>
<p>In addition, in interviews with teachers, Jiang and her colleagues have found that more high school teachers complained that their principals were unfamiliar with their specific subject area – which could have negatively impacted the observations.</p>
<p>“Teachers don’t feel that their principals understand their specialization, which we heard more at high schools than elementary schools,” she said.</p>
<p>Jiang further added that “it’s easier in elementary schools to really observe that a student is engaged. Kids tend to get excited, and there are visual cues of engagement,” Jiang said. “High school students are different. They could be listening, but maybe they’re not showing it as much.”</p>
<p><a href="http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/publications/teacher-evaluation-practice-implementing-chicagos-reach-students" type="external">In a report released last year</a>, Jiang and her colleagues at the Consortium found that most teachers and administrators thought REACH provides helpful feedback. But researchers pointed to several important challenges, including an increased workload for principals and anxiety among teachers about using test scores as part of evaluations.</p>
<p>The consortium plans to release a follow-up to the report in two weeks.</p>
<p>Questions about delay</p>
<p>CPS released ratings to individual teachers on Oct. 30, more than a month after teachers got the data last year. In the weeks prior to receiving the ratings, many teachers had expressed anxiety over not knowing how they performed. Though teachers got immediate feedback from the observations, they did not know how students’ test scores affected their cumulative ratings.</p>
<p>The frustration mounted after principal observations for this year’s evaluations began in late September.</p>
<p>“No one has been clear on when we’re getting them,” one teacher said during a study group on the CPS Framework for Teaching last month organized by the Chicago Teachers Union Quest Center.</p>
<p>(In collaboration with CPS, the Quest Center <a href="http://www.ctunet.com/rights-at-work/text/Framework-Study-Group-Flyer-Fall-2014.pdf" type="external">offers teachers regular study groups</a> on different parts of the Framework, which is the rubric principals use to grade teacher performance.)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ctunet.com/rights-at-work/teacher-evaluation/october-2014-tips" type="external">In a statement</a>on the Chicago Teachers Union web site, officials called the delay “entirely unprofessional and unacceptable.”</p>
<p>“Educators started to receive new observations in their classrooms without full information from the previous year,” according to the statement. “Educators have a right to accurate, thorough and timely feedback at the end of a given school year so that over the summer, they can either begin or seek out new professional learning opportunities and state the process of adjusting their plans for the following school year based on complete feedback.”</p>
<p>CPS officials said it took longer to release the data this year because of the higher number of teachers being evaluated.</p>
<p>“Adding these teachers&#160;increased the amount of time necessary to review and incorporate the data into composite scores,” a district spokesperson said in a statement.</p>
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teachers evaluated districts new rating system scored top two categories proficient excellent classroom elementary school teachers scoring higher counterparts high schools scores evaluations conducted last year second cycle reach recognizing educators advancing chicago students system takes student test scores account well classroom observations nontenured teachers already rated using reach scored better small subset tenured teachers evaluated first time first cycle nontenured teachers rated reach last years second cycle 10 percent tenured teachers included school year third cycle tenured teachers evaluated student performance tests account 30 percent ratings first two years tests accounted 25 percent ratings according cps data second cycle 65 percent 7031 evaluated teachers rated proficient excellent comparison 58 percent received high ratings year earlier 59 percent tenured teachers rated excellent proficient compared 68 percent nontenured teachers 8 percent tenured high school teachers rated unsatisfactory lowest category compared 5 percent elementary school teachers district officials said improved performance nontenured teachers could additional experience evaluation also previous evaluations enabled principals assistant principals improve feedback develop targeted support teachers jennie jiang research analyst university chicago consortium school research studied new system cautioned comparing ratings nontenured versus tenured teachers pool tenured teachers evaluated using reach included whod rated poorly previous system hadnt received rating year earlier teachers already struggling previous system whatever reason rating said really getting sense ratings tenured teachers would look like meanwhile cps officials said still looking ratings elementary high school teachers different jiang said issue merits analysis offered possible explanations said observation rubric known cps framework teaching orginally piloted elementary schools high schools meaning elementary school principals teachers familiar addition interviews teachers jiang colleagues found high school teachers complained principals unfamiliar specific subject area could negatively impacted observations teachers dont feel principals understand specialization heard high schools elementary schools said jiang added easier elementary schools really observe student engaged kids tend get excited visual cues engagement jiang said high school students different could listening maybe theyre showing much report released last year jiang colleagues consortium found teachers administrators thought reach provides helpful feedback researchers pointed several important challenges including increased workload principals anxiety among teachers using test scores part evaluations consortium plans release followup report two weeks questions delay cps released ratings individual teachers oct 30 month teachers got data last year weeks prior receiving ratings many teachers expressed anxiety knowing performed though teachers got immediate feedback observations know students test scores affected cumulative ratings frustration mounted principal observations years evaluations began late september one clear getting one teacher said study group cps framework teaching last month organized chicago teachers union quest center collaboration cps quest center offers teachers regular study groups different parts framework rubric principals use grade teacher performance statementon chicago teachers union web site officials called delay entirely unprofessional unacceptable educators started receive new observations classrooms without full information previous year according statement educators right accurate thorough timely feedback end given school year summer either begin seek new professional learning opportunities state process adjusting plans following school year based complete feedback cps officials said took longer release data year higher number teachers evaluated adding teachers160increased amount time necessary review incorporate data composite scores district spokesperson said statement
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<p>TOKYO, Japan - Japanese authorities have allowed reporters to visit the Fukushima Daiichi power plant for the first time since it was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, sparking the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.</p>
<p>The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), and the government arranged the tour in an attempt to demonstrate that, eight months on from the disaster, the plant has been largely stabilized.</p>
<p>"We are doing all we can to bring this crisis to an end," Tepco spokesman Yoshimi Hitosugi told an Associated Press reporter at the site. "We believe it is important to be transparent.?</p>
<p>Three of the plant's six reactors suffered meltdown in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, which knocked out vital backup power supplies used to cool fuel rods. The resulting radiation leaks forced the evacuation of 80,000 people living inside a 12-mile radius of the facility.</p>
<p>Residents closest to the plant have been told it could be decades before their neighborhoods are safe enough to live in.</p>
<p>The authorities also face the task of removing more than 3 million tons of topsoil from contaminated farmland in Fukushima prefecture - enough to fill 20 football stadiums. The operation could end up costing 1.5 trillion yen.</p>
<p>Of the 36 reporters, photographers and camera crews permitted to visit the plant, only four represented foreign media organization, including just one print reporter.</p>
<p>Wearing protective suits and masks, they saw firsthand the devastation the tsunami left in its wake: vehicles that had been carried along by the wave, piles of rubble and large pools of water.</p>
<p>The site is littered with cranes used to lift debris and build shrouds for the damaged reactors, according to pool reports. Tanks are being used to hold thousands of tons of contaminated water, which is also being purified in a cleaning facility housed in a group of white tents.</p>
<p>Outside can be seen the flags of the United States, France and Japan, which made the technology for the decontamination system.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/japan/111101/japanese-lawmaker-drinks-radioactive-water" type="external">Japanese lawmaker drinks Fukushima water</a></p>
<p>The bases of the Nos. 1-4 reactors buildings are still filled with crumpled vehicles, twisted steel fencing and dented water tanks.</p>
<p>Goshi Hosono, the government minister overseeing the nuclear crisis, addressed some of the 3,300 workers who continue to work in shifts to bring the reactors under control, remove radioactive debris and prepare the plant for decommissioning.</p>
<p>Tepco has stated that it expects to bring the three damaged reactors to a safe state, known as cold shutdown, by the end of this year. "Until then, we will ensure we go on step by step without letting our guard down," Hosono said.</p>
<p>He praised employees for improving the situation at the plant. "Every time I come back, I feel conditions have improved," he reportedly told one worker. "This is due to your hard work. In March and April, you overcame a very difficult predicament."</p>
<p>The plant's manager, Masao Yoshida, said the situation had improved significantly, but warned against complacency.</p>
<p>From the data at the plant that I have seen, there is no doubt that the reactors have been stabilized,? said Yoshida. "But not extremely stabilized, so it is still dangerous to work here."</p>
<p>He said that cold shutdown was possible because despite falling through the reactors' pressure vessels, the melted fuel was still inside the containment vessels, where it is being cooled.</p>
<p>Yoshida recalled the horror of the early days of the crisis, saying he feared that some of his fellow workers would die in the disaster. The bodies of two men, presumed to have drowned, were found in early April.</p>
<p>The utility has conceded that it could take 30 years to safely remove melted fuel from the reactors and decommission the facility.</p>
<p>Late last month, a panel set up by Japan's nuclear energy commission called on Tepco to begin moving the fuel rods within 10 years. The damage to Fukushima's reactors is more difficult to repair than that sustained at Three Mile Island, where worker began removing fuel six years after an accident in 1979.</p>
<p>On Friday, reporters were shown around J-Village, a former sports training complex that has been turned into a base for the thousands of workers involved in the operation.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/japan/111101/japanese-lawmaker-drinks-radioactive-water" type="external">Radiation reports overshadow progress at plant</a></p>
<p>The village's 12 soccer fields have been turned into helipads, areas for emergency vehicles and heavy equipment, and decontamination centers. It is also being used to store 480,000 sets of contaminated protective gear that cannot be used again, Kyodo reported.</p>
<p>All workers coming off their daily shift must undergo radiation checks at the complex, located about just outside the exclusion zone.</p>
<p>Two tents on the site house 12 full-body radiation counters that identify if workers have suffered internal exposure. The devices can check 200 people a day, according to officials, who added that none had tested positive. The site is staffed by 400 people, including a doctor and two nurses.</p>
<p>Tepco officials said conditions for workers had improved since the early days of the crisis, when they had to sleep on the floor and eat canned food. Now, all of the workers sleep in prefabricated housing, eat in cafeterias and work fewer hours. The firm said it had also vastly improved decontamination and screening facilities.</p>
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tokyo japan japanese authorities allowed reporters visit fukushima daiichi power plant first time since crippled march 11 earthquake tsunami sparking worlds worst nuclear disaster since chernobyl plants operator tokyo electric power tepco government arranged tour attempt demonstrate eight months disaster plant largely stabilized bring crisis end tepco spokesman yoshimi hitosugi told associated press reporter site believe important transparent three plants six reactors suffered meltdown immediate aftermath disaster knocked vital backup power supplies used cool fuel rods resulting radiation leaks forced evacuation 80000 people living inside 12mile radius facility residents closest plant told could decades neighborhoods safe enough live authorities also face task removing 3 million tons topsoil contaminated farmland fukushima prefecture enough fill 20 football stadiums operation could end costing 15 trillion yen 36 reporters photographers camera crews permitted visit plant four represented foreign media organization including one print reporter wearing protective suits masks saw firsthand devastation tsunami left wake vehicles carried along wave piles rubble large pools water site littered cranes used lift debris build shrouds damaged reactors according pool reports tanks used hold thousands tons contaminated water also purified cleaning facility housed group white tents outside seen flags united states france japan made technology decontamination system globalpost japanese lawmaker drinks fukushima water bases nos 14 reactors buildings still filled crumpled vehicles twisted steel fencing dented water tanks goshi hosono government minister overseeing nuclear crisis addressed 3300 workers continue work shifts bring reactors control remove radioactive debris prepare plant decommissioning tepco stated expects bring three damaged reactors safe state known cold shutdown end year ensure go step step without letting guard hosono said praised employees improving situation plant every time come back feel conditions improved reportedly told one worker due hard work march april overcame difficult predicament plants manager masao yoshida said situation improved significantly warned complacency data plant seen doubt reactors stabilized said yoshida extremely stabilized still dangerous work said cold shutdown possible despite falling reactors pressure vessels melted fuel still inside containment vessels cooled yoshida recalled horror early days crisis saying feared fellow workers would die disaster bodies two men presumed drowned found early april utility conceded could take 30 years safely remove melted fuel reactors decommission facility late last month panel set japans nuclear energy commission called tepco begin moving fuel rods within 10 years damage fukushimas reactors difficult repair sustained three mile island worker began removing fuel six years accident 1979 friday reporters shown around jvillage former sports training complex turned base thousands workers involved operation globalpost radiation reports overshadow progress plant villages 12 soccer fields turned helipads areas emergency vehicles heavy equipment decontamination centers also used store 480000 sets contaminated protective gear used kyodo reported workers coming daily shift must undergo radiation checks complex located outside exclusion zone two tents site house 12 fullbody radiation counters identify workers suffered internal exposure devices check 200 people day according officials added none tested positive site staffed 400 people including doctor two nurses tepco officials said conditions workers improved since early days crisis sleep floor eat canned food workers sleep prefabricated housing eat cafeterias work fewer hours firm said also vastly improved decontamination screening facilities
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<p>In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act, mandating 12 weeks of unpaid leave for employees who need to care for loved ones or bond with a newborn baby. Now&#160;the Obama administration wants to expand on Clinton's policies</p>
<p>During Tuesday's&#160;State of the Union address, President Barack Obama announced&#160;his plan to expand&#160;paid leave for workers, starting with the federal government. Even with three months available to them, few Americans can take that much leave without pay. And&#160;as Baby Boomers age, more and more Americans will need to provide care for elderly family members.</p>
<p>“The president is calling for Congress to pass legislation that would allow millions of working Americans to earn up to seven days of paid sick leave per year,” says&#160;Betsey Stevenson, a member of the president's Council of Economic Advisors and a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan.&#160;“The idea that workers should be able to earn paid sick leave is one that Americans around the country support.”</p>
<p>In November, Massachusetts became the third state in the nation —&#160;after&#160;Connecticut and California —&#160;to guarantee paid sick days for workers. Nearly 60 percent of the state's&#160;voters approved the sick leave ballot initiative, and Obama highlighted that support in his speech.</p>
<p>“[Obama] is also proposing $2 billion in new funds to encourage states to develop paid family and medical leave programs,"&#160;Stevenson says.</p>
<p>At the same time, Obama is using his authority over the federal workforce to extend more benefits&#160;</p>
<p>[Obama] modernized the federal workplace by signing a presidential memorandum last week,” says Stevenson. “It directs agencies to advance up to six weeks of paid sick leave for parents with a new child. He’s also calling on Congress to pass legislation to give federal employees an additional six weeks of paid parental leave.”</p>
<p>As it stands right now, federal employees do not have the right to take paid paternity or maternity leave. The US is&#160; <a href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_242615.pdf" type="external">only one of two nations</a>, alongside Papua New Guinea, that&#160;doesn’t have some form of legally protected, partially paid time off for working women who’ve just had a baby.</p>
<p>"What the research shows clearly is that adopting these types of family-friendly policies are good for parents, are good for workers&#160;and it's good for the economy," Stevenson says.</p>
<p>Businesses that adopt paid leave policies often see positive results:&#160; <a href="http://cep.lse.ac.uk/management/worklifebalance_research.pdf" type="external">A study</a>&#160;of more than 700 firms by the Centre&#160;for Economic Performance, a London-based think tank,&#160;found that companies with work-life balance policies had higher productivity.&#160; <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/updated_workplace_flex_report_final_0.pdf" type="external">Other research</a>&#160;suggests that it can even boost corporate profits.</p>
<p>“When California implemented paid family leave a decade ago, lots of employers expressed concern that allowing for paid family leave would hurt their bottom line,”&#160;Stevenson says. “But six years into the program, in 2010, 90 percent of employers reported that the law did not negatively affect their productivity, profitability, morale or turnover."</p>
<p>But others argue that paid leave policies have hidden costs. Kay Hymowitz, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank,&#160;and author of " <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Manning-Up-Rise-Women-Turned/dp/0465028365" type="external">Manning Up: How the Rise of Women has Turned Men into Boys</a>," agrees that leave is important for families. But she's skeptical of the models many economists hold dear.</p>
<p>“I agree with a lot of what [Stevenson] said,” Hymowit says. “But I think what people need to understand is you don’t want to bring any magical thinking into this. It's&#160;not like it’s going to solve the gender gap or have an enormous impact on inequality.”</p>
<p>Hymowitz says it’s important&#160;how&#160;the United States implements paid sick and family leave programs.</p>
<p>In Sweden, new parents are entitled to 480 days of leave;&#160;for 390 of those days, they receive 80 percent of their paycheck. As Hymowitz&#160;argues, while the Swedish plan might sound like a dream come true for American parents, those benefits have hidden costs <a href="http://ideas.time.com/2013/09/04/do-women-really-want-equality/" type="external">when new parents return to work</a> — especially, she says, for mothers.</p>
<p>A very long period of paid family or sick leave like the kind offered in Sweden can increase the gender pay gap because it means that women will be out of the workforce for a year or sometimes longer. Such a long leave of absence cuts down on the amount of employment experience a woman can bring to the table when comparing a male job candidate.</p>
<p>“What’s happened there, and it’s something that no one anticipated, is that it’s added to the gender wage gap,” she says. “That may be a trade-off some people are willing to make, but it’s not going to be to everyone’s taste. That’s one possible downside if you don’t do it right.”</p>
<p>Hymowitz also argues that extended time off&#160;might be taken into account by hiring managers and others when considering job applicants.&#160;</p>
<p>“If one [applicant] is a young woman —&#160;let’s say 30&#160;years&#160;old and newly married —&#160;and the other is a guy in his 40s, you could see how [the employer] might hesitate if he’s going to be thinking about the future of his firm,” Hymowitz says.</p>
<p>She does concede&#160;that there's no&#160;statistical basis for such a prejudice, saying that it would be “extremely difficult” to study the negative effect.&#160;“However, it is inevitable that if you give too many kinds of advantages or benefits to one particular group you are going to disincentivize employers from hiring them,” she adds.</p>
<p>On the whole, Hymowitz says that paid parental and sick leave should not be handled by the federal government, but should be rolled out on a state-by-state basis.</p>
<p>“We have seen, as Betsey Stevenson said, some fairly successful experiments,” Hymowitz says. “They’ve been fairly modest by international standards, but they seem to be working well enough.”</p>
<p>This story is based on <a href="http://www.thetakeaway.org/story/president-obama-pushes-paid-family-leave/" type="external">an interview</a> from PRI's <a href="http://www.thetakeaway.org/" type="external">The Takeaway</a>, a public radio program that invites you to be part of the American conversation.</p>
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1993 president bill clinton signed family medical leave act mandating 12 weeks unpaid leave employees need care loved ones bond newborn baby now160the obama administration wants expand clintons policies tuesdays160state union address president barack obama announced160his plan expand160paid leave workers starting federal government even three months available americans take much leave without pay and160as baby boomers age americans need provide care elderly family members president calling congress pass legislation would allow millions working americans earn seven days paid sick leave per year says160betsey stevenson member presidents council economic advisors professor public policy economics university michigan160the idea workers able earn paid sick leave one americans around country support november massachusetts became third state nation 160after160connecticut california 160to guarantee paid sick days workers nearly 60 percent states160voters approved sick leave ballot initiative obama highlighted support speech obama also proposing 2 billion new funds encourage states develop paid family medical leave programs160stevenson says time obama using authority federal workforce extend benefits160 obama modernized federal workplace signing presidential memorandum last week says stevenson directs agencies advance six weeks paid sick leave parents new child hes also calling congress pass legislation give federal employees additional six weeks paid parental leave stands right federal employees right take paid paternity maternity leave us is160 one two nations alongside papua new guinea that160doesnt form legally protected partially paid time working women whove baby research shows clearly adopting types familyfriendly policies good parents good workers160and good economy stevenson says businesses adopt paid leave policies often see positive results160 study160of 700 firms centre160for economic performance londonbased think tank160found companies worklife balance policies higher productivity160 research160suggests even boost corporate profits california implemented paid family leave decade ago lots employers expressed concern allowing paid family leave would hurt bottom line160stevenson says six years program 2010 90 percent employers reported law negatively affect productivity profitability morale turnover others argue paid leave policies hidden costs kay hymowitz fellow manhattan institute conservative think tank160and author manning rise women turned men boys agrees leave important families shes skeptical models many economists hold dear agree lot stevenson said hymowit says think people need understand dont want bring magical thinking its160not like going solve gender gap enormous impact inequality hymowitz says important160how160the united states implements paid sick family leave programs sweden new parents entitled 480 days leave160for 390 days receive 80 percent paycheck hymowitz160argues swedish plan might sound like dream come true american parents benefits hidden costs new parents return work especially says mothers long period paid family sick leave like kind offered sweden increase gender pay gap means women workforce year sometimes longer long leave absence cuts amount employment experience woman bring table comparing male job candidate whats happened something one anticipated added gender wage gap says may tradeoff people willing make going everyones taste thats one possible downside dont right hymowitz also argues extended time off160might taken account hiring managers others considering job applicants160 one applicant young woman 160lets say 30160years160old newly married 160and guy 40s could see employer might hesitate hes going thinking future firm hymowitz says concede160that theres no160statistical basis prejudice saying would extremely difficult study negative effect160however inevitable give many kinds advantages benefits one particular group going disincentivize employers hiring adds whole hymowitz says paid parental sick leave handled federal government rolled statebystate basis seen betsey stevenson said fairly successful experiments hymowitz says theyve fairly modest international standards seem working well enough story based interview pris takeaway public radio program invites part american conversation
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<p>The Maine legislature is currently considering two pieces of legislation that have been designed to harm over half of our state’s population. One, <a href="http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/bills_127th/billtexts/HP089001.asp" type="external">LD 1312</a>, intervenes in the relationship between women and their doctors. The other, <a href="http://legislature.maine.gov/legis/bills/getPDF.asp?paper=SP0031&amp;item=1&amp;snum=127" type="external">LD 83</a>, adds additional burdens on minors (or children, to speak plainly) who are the victims of sexual abuse.</p>
<p>I began to write a column about the economic cost of such targeted attacks on the autonomy of Maine’s women and children. After all, women are just over half of all Mainers, but they make up <a href="http://widgetsanddigits.bangordailynews.com/2015/05/21/economy/report-women-make-up-70-percent-of-maines-minimum-wage-workers/" type="external">70% of those living on minimum wage</a> incomes, and 14% of Maine women live in poverty. Real representation of Maine women would mean more economic growth and stability for the state as a whole. But the more research I did, the more dumbfounded I became.</p>
<p>These bills aren’t just economically short-sighted; they are assaults on the rights, and the lives, of Maine citizens. How did legislation like this ever make it to Augusta?</p>
<p>Let’s begin by looking at the bills themselves. LD 1312 is a TRAP, or Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, bill. Similar pieces of legislation have passed in other state legislatures; they purport to serve women’s safety by imposing crippling costs on any health clinic that provides access to abortion procedures, under the guise of making the health clinics rise to higher standards requires of some medical providers, like hospitals, to better protect women. The rationale these bills offer is absurd; since the spread of penicillin use, abortion has become a very safe medical procedure, at least 14 times more safe than child-birth which, coincidentally, most often occurs in hospitals.</p>
<p>The “problem” these legislators are looking to solve doesn’t actually exist.In other states — notably Texas — TRAP bills have made affordable women’s health care both <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/16/2/gpr160207.html" type="external">rare and remote</a>. The Maine House voted it down this week, but it’s still alive and awaiting consideration by the state Senate.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, LD 83 — “An Act to Strengthen the Consent Laws for Abortions Performed on Minors and Incapacitated Persons — is still being considered in committee. This bill requires a minor to obtain the written consent of a parent in order to have an abortion. Despite the fact that the bill states that parents “shall consider only the pregnant woman’s best interests,” it doesn’t explain how that will be enforced, and it in no way considers the possibility — which is a basic assumption in much of American politics — that the person involved in the legislation will be the best enforcer of her own best interests.</p>
<p>LD 83, to be fair, does consider the possibility that a minor seeking an abortion may well be the victim of sexual abuse. But the protections it offers victims of abuse in such cases are totally inadequate. Section 4 of the bill requires that the minor obtain the written testimony of an older sibling, or step-parent, or grandparent. Section 9 offers the alternative of a court order that results from a petition the minor can submit to a court.</p>
<p>“These restrictions on abortion are the result of a ‘one size fits all’ legislative agenda, a national campaign to weaken the basic rights of women and minors to access legal and safe reproductive health care.”</p>
<p>Please consider that for a moment. If a teenager is raped in the home, and becomes pregnant, this law will require that they obtain the written testimony of a relative. Sexual predators are generally abusive; do the bill’s sponsors assume that people closely related to someone who will rape a child in their family are not also terrorized? I can’t imagine they think that is the case; but they still insist that children who have been raped by a family member must now assume this new legal burden. Or, if they cannot do so, that they can petition a court.</p>
<p>What teenager, without the support of their parents or grandparents, has the skills or the income to engage the American legal system in order to charge a parent with a horrible crime?</p>
<p>Who could consider the situation of children in these circumstances and decide that they want to make their lives harder? Who could decide to take the trouble — and, believe me, passing legislation is an enormous amount of trouble — to add to the burdens of people who have already been preyed upon?</p>
<p>These restrictions on abortion are the result of a “one size fits all” legislative agenda, a national campaign to weaken the basic rights of women and minors to access legal and safe reproductive health care. The TRAP bill is part of a <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/abortion-foes-latest-backdoor-ban" type="external">well-funded attack</a> on us by well-funded ideological interest groups. The parental notification bill also represents a national ideological campaign that would create victims out of Maine teens.</p>
<p>But there is hope in this “David and Goliath” situation. Tip O’Neill, Former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, and just one of the many national leaders to arise from New England, once remarked that “all politics are local.” O’Neill was criticized in his own party for being overly-obliging to the Reagan Administration, but he never forgot that legislation — at the state AND the national level — has to be supported by politicians who rely on local voters, and local customs and beliefs, for their power.</p>
<p>National interest groups can spend lot of money in local races, and we’ve seen a lot more of that in the last ten years; they can send out model bills, and campaign platforms, and campaign ads. But they still need to win over local constituencies to get what they want, and I don’t think the people of Maine are going to allow the fantasies of distant anti-choice lobbyists to undermine the rights and the safety of our friends and neighbors, of all of us, and of our children.</p>
<p>If you agree, and you want to speak to your state senator about the fate of these bills, give them a call at 1-877-240-0271.</p>
<p>Photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/biodork/5646733615/" type="external">Flickr/Brianne</a></p>
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maine legislature currently considering two pieces legislation designed harm half states population one ld 1312 intervenes relationship women doctors ld 83 adds additional burdens minors children speak plainly victims sexual abuse began write column economic cost targeted attacks autonomy maines women children women half mainers make 70 living minimum wage incomes 14 maine women live poverty real representation maine women would mean economic growth stability state whole research dumbfounded became bills arent economically shortsighted assaults rights lives maine citizens legislation like ever make augusta lets begin looking bills ld 1312 trap targeted regulation abortion providers bill similar pieces legislation passed state legislatures purport serve womens safety imposing crippling costs health clinic provides access abortion procedures guise making health clinics rise higher standards requires medical providers like hospitals better protect women rationale bills offer absurd since spread penicillin use abortion become safe medical procedure least 14 times safe childbirth coincidentally often occurs hospitals problem legislators looking solve doesnt actually existin states notably texas trap bills made affordable womens health care rare remote maine house voted week still alive awaiting consideration state senate meanwhile ld 83 act strengthen consent laws abortions performed minors incapacitated persons still considered committee bill requires minor obtain written consent parent order abortion despite fact bill states parents shall consider pregnant womans best interests doesnt explain enforced way considers possibility basic assumption much american politics person involved legislation best enforcer best interests ld 83 fair consider possibility minor seeking abortion may well victim sexual abuse protections offers victims abuse cases totally inadequate section 4 bill requires minor obtain written testimony older sibling stepparent grandparent section 9 offers alternative court order results petition minor submit court restrictions abortion result one size fits legislative agenda national campaign weaken basic rights women minors access legal safe reproductive health care please consider moment teenager raped home becomes pregnant law require obtain written testimony relative sexual predators generally abusive bills sponsors assume people closely related someone rape child family also terrorized cant imagine think case still insist children raped family member must assume new legal burden petition court teenager without support parents grandparents skills income engage american legal system order charge parent horrible crime could consider situation children circumstances decide want make lives harder could decide take trouble believe passing legislation enormous amount trouble add burdens people already preyed upon restrictions abortion result one size fits legislative agenda national campaign weaken basic rights women minors access legal safe reproductive health care trap bill part wellfunded attack us wellfunded ideological interest groups parental notification bill also represents national ideological campaign would create victims maine teens hope david goliath situation tip oneill former speaker us house representatives one many national leaders arise new england remarked politics local oneill criticized party overlyobliging reagan administration never forgot legislation state national level supported politicians rely local voters local customs beliefs power national interest groups spend lot money local races weve seen lot last ten years send model bills campaign platforms campaign ads still need win local constituencies get want dont think people maine going allow fantasies distant antichoice lobbyists undermine rights safety friends neighbors us children agree want speak state senator fate bills give call 18772400271 photo credit flickrbrianne
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<p><a href="" type="internal" />Dec. 5, 2012</p>
<p>By Katy Grimes</p>
<p>In the wee hours of the night, at the end of the last legislative session, language was added into a bill to push forward reforms to California’s 40-year old environmental policy, the <a href="http://ceres.ca.gov/ceqa/" type="external">California Environmental Quality Act.</a></p>
<p>The reforms were sponsored by the <a href="http://lacountystrategicplan.com/2012/08/23/press-statement-from-ceqa-working-group/" type="external">CEQA Working Group</a>, a business-labor-government coalition. &#160;Intended to reduce frivolous environmental litigation and duplicative government oversight, the reforms ended up being part of a smoggy deal.</p>
<p>Before anyone could stop them, the Democratic leadership swooped in on the bill and changed it.</p>
<p>Because of California’s stringent environmental laws and project-killing local planning requirements, nearly all public and private projects in the state are legally challenged under CEQA, even when a project meets all other environmental standards of state law.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/Bills/SB_317/20112012/" type="external">SB 317</a>, co-authored by Sen. Michael Rubio, D-Shafter, a gut-and-amend bill, would not have actually changed CEQA, but instead would have introduced a companion law to dictate how CEQA is enforced. The new legislation would have restricted certain types of lawsuits, and would have exempted some projects from CEQA review, as long as those projects conformed with local planning and zoning codes.</p>
<p>It was essentially a tort reform bill just for CEQA, specifically addressing the act’s legal abuse.</p>
<p>CEQA is often called “the tort lawyer full employment act.” Most efforts for CEQA reform stem from the volume of frivolous lawsuits by opponents not always motivated by environmental protection. Most often, political and personal issues motivate the zealots who file CEQA lawsuits. They are willing to dramatically complicate and even halt development projects of all kinds, just because they can.</p>
<p>What started 40 years ago as a reasonable idea has transformed into one of the more putative forms of business regulation in the state.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://ceres.ca.gov/ceqa/" type="external">California Environmental Quality Act</a>, enacted in 1970, requires that state and local agencies analyze the potential to harm the environmental of any development project, and identify measures to reduce that harm.</p>
<p>There are now <a href="http://ceres.ca.gov/ceqa/guidelines/" type="external">17 areas of environmental concern and 84 criteria</a> in CEQA, including water, air quality, animal life, plant life, hazardous materials and even traffic.</p>
<p>Since CEQA’s 1970 passage, the Legislature has enacted more than 120 additional environmental laws. Most of California’s environmental laws are far more stringent than mandated by federal law, which SB 317 sought to address.</p>
<p>SB 317 claimed that federal laws are better at ensuring environmental compliance than CEQA. “Environmental laws and regulations identify compliance obligations that apply uniformly to similarly situated projects and activities … and thereby provide greater clarity than the project-by-project ad hoc review process that was created for CEQA in 1970,” the bill states.</p>
<p>SB 317 criticized CEQA duplicating environmental impact studies.</p>
<p>Even some in the Democratic Party want to see CEQA reforms, and acknowledge privately what a disaster it has been. But Capitol insiders say the political reality is that nothing is going to change because of a couple of powerful Capitol staff members who really control CEQA.</p>
<p>Often called the <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/29/local/la-me-lipper29-2009nov29" type="external">“41st senator,”</a> &#160;Kernan “Kip” Lipper, Senate President Darrell Steinberg’s executive staff director, is the godfather of California’s environmental bills.</p>
<p>Lipper is officially classified as an “environmental consultant” to the state Senate.&#160; Any environmental bill that has come out of the Legislature in the last decade has only done so because Lipper allowed it, or because he made it happen. “Lawmakers used to jokingly ask whether a bill had been ‘Lipperized’ — and they still say that, only no longer in jest,” Capitol Weekly reported in 2010. When a bill becomes “Lipperized,” it is altered into a far different bill than the original. Or the bill will die in a committee upon Lipper’s orders.</p>
<p>“’He has more influence than some senators,” said state Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Thousand Oaks, “but that’s not necessarily a compliment,” the Los Angeles Times reported in 2009.&#160;” ‘You can’t fault Kip for being good at what he does,” Strickland said, “but I personally believe the voters would rather that the power lies with the people they elected.’”</p>
<p>On Sept. 13, SB 317 appeared to have been “Lipperized,” as it was sent to a dark corner of the Senate closet. Simultaneously, Steinberg appointed Rubio as Chairman of the <a href="http://senv.senate.ca.gov/" type="external">Senate Environmental Quality Committee.</a></p>
<p>The EQ committee “has jurisdiction over environmental quality, air quality, water quality, integrated waste management, toxics and hazardous waste,” a Senate press release said. “In upcoming weeks and prior to the beginning of the next legislative session, Senator Rubio will host several introductory roundtable meetings and hearings throughout California to learn from environmental groups, businesses and residents what environmental issues are of concern in their area.”</p>
<p>Oddly, the press release also said, “Senator Rubio also looks forward to working closely with all stakeholders to strengthen the core purpose of the California Environmental Quality Act to protect the environment, while eliminating abuses that inhibit economic growth in the state.” Could that have been a warning?</p>
<p>Many in the state say that CEQA reform is not possible given the existing unelected circumstances of legislative control. In the coming months, Californians will see if lawmakers’ talk of CEQA reform is more spin, or if California’s most stringent environmental law will be loosened to allow some economic recovery in the state.</p>
| false | 3 |
dec 5 2012 katy grimes wee hours night end last legislative session language added bill push forward reforms californias 40year old environmental policy california environmental quality act reforms sponsored ceqa working group businesslaborgovernment coalition 160intended reduce frivolous environmental litigation duplicative government oversight reforms ended part smoggy deal anyone could stop democratic leadership swooped bill changed californias stringent environmental laws projectkilling local planning requirements nearly public private projects state legally challenged ceqa even project meets environmental standards state law sb 317 coauthored sen michael rubio dshafter gutandamend bill would actually changed ceqa instead would introduced companion law dictate ceqa enforced new legislation would restricted certain types lawsuits would exempted projects ceqa review long projects conformed local planning zoning codes essentially tort reform bill ceqa specifically addressing acts legal abuse ceqa often called tort lawyer full employment act efforts ceqa reform stem volume frivolous lawsuits opponents always motivated environmental protection often political personal issues motivate zealots file ceqa lawsuits willing dramatically complicate even halt development projects kinds started 40 years ago reasonable idea transformed one putative forms business regulation state california environmental quality act enacted 1970 requires state local agencies analyze potential harm environmental development project identify measures reduce harm 17 areas environmental concern 84 criteria ceqa including water air quality animal life plant life hazardous materials even traffic since ceqas 1970 passage legislature enacted 120 additional environmental laws californias environmental laws far stringent mandated federal law sb 317 sought address sb 317 claimed federal laws better ensuring environmental compliance ceqa environmental laws regulations identify compliance obligations apply uniformly similarly situated projects activities thereby provide greater clarity projectbyproject ad hoc review process created ceqa 1970 bill states sb 317 criticized ceqa duplicating environmental impact studies even democratic party want see ceqa reforms acknowledge privately disaster capitol insiders say political reality nothing going change couple powerful capitol staff members really control ceqa often called 41st senator 160kernan kip lipper senate president darrell steinbergs executive staff director godfather californias environmental bills lipper officially classified environmental consultant state senate160 environmental bill come legislature last decade done lipper allowed made happen lawmakers used jokingly ask whether bill lipperized still say longer jest capitol weekly reported 2010 bill becomes lipperized altered far different bill original bill die committee upon lippers orders influence senators said state sen tony strickland rthousand oaks thats necessarily compliment los angeles times reported 2009160 cant fault kip good strickland said personally believe voters would rather power lies people elected sept 13 sb 317 appeared lipperized sent dark corner senate closet simultaneously steinberg appointed rubio chairman senate environmental quality committee eq committee jurisdiction environmental quality air quality water quality integrated waste management toxics hazardous waste senate press release said upcoming weeks prior beginning next legislative session senator rubio host several introductory roundtable meetings hearings throughout california learn environmental groups businesses residents environmental issues concern area oddly press release also said senator rubio also looks forward working closely stakeholders strengthen core purpose california environmental quality act protect environment eliminating abuses inhibit economic growth state could warning many state say ceqa reform possible given existing unelected circumstances legislative control coming months californians see lawmakers talk ceqa reform spin californias stringent environmental law loosened allow economic recovery state
| 531 |
<p>HON HEO PENINSULA, Vietnam — When Sylvio Lamarche first arrived at this stretch of white beach between jungle-covered mountains in the mid-1990s, it was empty. His guidebook told him it existed, but it took three days of riding his motorbike down footpaths through dense scrub just to find the place.</p>
<p>“There was nobody there, I mean nobody, nobody,” Lamarche said. “It was paradise.”</p>
<p>For the past nine years Lamarche, a Canadian, and his Vietnamese wife, Loan, have run a laid-back beach resort here called Jungle Beach. The bungalows are bamboo huts with thatched roofs, slatted beds and hammocks. Guests eat communal meals at long shared tables. It is one of the last spots on Vietnam’s coast that recalls the days when travelers in Southeast Asia were long-haired backpackers with empty agendas.</p>
<p>But as Vietnam’s economy grew at a furious pace from 2000 to 2008, the country Lamarche had come to know changed. Nha Trang, 15 miles to the south, has gone from a sleepy working-class beach town to a burgeoning tourist mecca, with skyscraper hotels and hundred-million-dollar golf resorts springing up one after the other.</p>
<p>Just north of Jungle Beach, the village of Ninh Phuoc has swelled with new houses. Two miles up the coast, a huge shipyard opened in 2005, a joint venture between South Korea’s Hyundai and Vietnam’s state-owned shipbuilder Vinashin. In 2008, a Japanese hotel chain opened a small five-star resort right next to Lamarche’s, with tile-roofed bungalows and a swimming pool, and the government is driving a paved road out along the Hon Heo peninsula, which will bring more development.</p>
<p>For the people of the Hon Heo peninsula, whose annual incomes are well under $1,000, all this development is welcome.</p>
<p>But that's not true for the monkeys.</p>
<p>In 2005, a guest snapped a picture of some primates clambering on the rock faces of the 1,500-foot mountain behind Jungle Beach. Lamarche sent the photo to Tilo Nadler, the German primate biologist who directs the Frankfurt Zoological Society’s Primate Conservation Program in Vietnam. Nadler identified them as rare Black-shanked Douc langurs.</p>
<p>Three years later, Nadler has turned Jungle Beach into a research station. A Vietnamese primate biologist is in full-time residence, and Nadler himself comes periodically from his headquarters in northern Vietnam to check on the langurs.</p>
<p>“There are only a few spots in Vietnam where this species occurs,” said Nadler, working on his laptop at a table in Jungle Beach’s dining area. The Black-shanked Doucs are mainly found in Cambodia and Laos, but even there the population may number only in the thousands. Unlike other Black-shanked Doucs, some of those at Jungle Beach have white marks on their forearms and red fur on their hind legs, and DNA tests on stool samples show they are unique.</p>
<p>Lamarche has trained his staff to watch for the monkeys from a telescope in Jungle Beach’s parking lot. Surveys are taken every morning and evening. So far they have identified over 100 animals, and Lamarche hopes that several times that number are living deeper in the mountains.</p>
<p>But the monkeys may soon be threatened. The provincial government plans to keep the 200 square-mile interior of the Hon Heo peninsula undeveloped. However, it has big plans for the southern shoreline of Van Phong Bay, where Jungle Beach sits.</p>
<p>Those plans include a $4.5 billion oil refinery in Ninh Phuoc, a little ways up the beach. Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung approved the refinery Jan. 9, and it is scheduled for completion in 2013.</p>
<p>“I can say there are some quite big projects in our area,” said Nguyen Trong Hoa, chairman of the Van Phong Economic Zone Management Board. The board’s headquarters are in Nha Trang city, far from the beaches it supervises. On the first floor is a scale model of the northern part of the bay sprouting condominium towers and a shipping complex.</p>
<p>Hoa said Prime Minister Dung had also approved construction of a $4 billion, 2.6-gigawatt thermal power plant by the Japanese company Sumitomo. “This means we can develop towards the south of Van Phong Bay, to turn it into a big industrial park with oil refining, thermal power, petrochemicals, and so forth,” Hoa said. The bay’s deep waters, Hoa said, had attracted American and Russian investors to the construction of an international shipping port.</p>
<p>The board’s plans also call for the bay to attract tourism, and Hoa referred to it as “one of the most beautiful bays in Vietnam.” He said the goal was “to develop industry and tourism in a harmonious and sustainable manner,” and that the government had plans to protect the monkeys.</p>
<p>Environmentalism is becoming a more familiar concept in Vietnam, but it still lacks a powerful constituency. Last March the national government vetoed a South Korean company's plan for a steel mill in Van Phong Bay, partly on environmental grounds, but partly because it would have interfered with the planned port. And Vietnamese and Chinese tourists prefer big resorts to bare-bones bungalows like Jungle Beach.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Vietnamese hunters shoot monkeys on the Hon Heo Peninsula to sell their carcasses for use in traditional medicine. Loggers cut lumber and make charcoal from trees. New roads will make it easier for them to access the forests. That leaves few interests standing in the way of further development.</p>
<p>“So far, I am the guardian of this mountain face,” said Lamarche.</p>
<p>It is a difficult role for foreigners to play — even if, like Lamarche and Nadler, they are married to Vietnamese women and have families here. Their sort of foreigners promises investments of tens of thousands of dollars for research and ecotourism. Foreigners like Japan’s Sumitomo and South Korea’s Hyundai promise billions.</p>
<p>“I’m raising my daughter here, my daughter is Vietnamese, so I think that qualifies for me to talk,” said Lamarche. “It would be a real shame if one day, my daughter gets asked by her grandchildren, ‘In this book I see these monkeys. Were there lots of them up there?’ ‘Yes, when I was a kid there were a lot, but we killed them all.’ What kind of heritage is that going to be for our children?”</p>
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hon heo peninsula vietnam sylvio lamarche first arrived stretch white beach junglecovered mountains mid1990s empty guidebook told existed took three days riding motorbike footpaths dense scrub find place nobody mean nobody nobody lamarche said paradise past nine years lamarche canadian vietnamese wife loan run laidback beach resort called jungle beach bungalows bamboo huts thatched roofs slatted beds hammocks guests eat communal meals long shared tables one last spots vietnams coast recalls days travelers southeast asia longhaired backpackers empty agendas vietnams economy grew furious pace 2000 2008 country lamarche come know changed nha trang 15 miles south gone sleepy workingclass beach town burgeoning tourist mecca skyscraper hotels hundredmilliondollar golf resorts springing one north jungle beach village ninh phuoc swelled new houses two miles coast huge shipyard opened 2005 joint venture south koreas hyundai vietnams stateowned shipbuilder vinashin 2008 japanese hotel chain opened small fivestar resort right next lamarches tileroofed bungalows swimming pool government driving paved road along hon heo peninsula bring development people hon heo peninsula whose annual incomes well 1000 development welcome thats true monkeys 2005 guest snapped picture primates clambering rock faces 1500foot mountain behind jungle beach lamarche sent photo tilo nadler german primate biologist directs frankfurt zoological societys primate conservation program vietnam nadler identified rare blackshanked douc langurs three years later nadler turned jungle beach research station vietnamese primate biologist fulltime residence nadler comes periodically headquarters northern vietnam check langurs spots vietnam species occurs said nadler working laptop table jungle beachs dining area blackshanked doucs mainly found cambodia laos even population may number thousands unlike blackshanked doucs jungle beach white marks forearms red fur hind legs dna tests stool samples show unique lamarche trained staff watch monkeys telescope jungle beachs parking lot surveys taken every morning evening far identified 100 animals lamarche hopes several times number living deeper mountains monkeys may soon threatened provincial government plans keep 200 squaremile interior hon heo peninsula undeveloped however big plans southern shoreline van phong bay jungle beach sits plans include 45 billion oil refinery ninh phuoc little ways beach prime minister nguyen tan dung approved refinery jan 9 scheduled completion 2013 say quite big projects area said nguyen trong hoa chairman van phong economic zone management board boards headquarters nha trang city far beaches supervises first floor scale model northern part bay sprouting condominium towers shipping complex hoa said prime minister dung also approved construction 4 billion 26gigawatt thermal power plant japanese company sumitomo means develop towards south van phong bay turn big industrial park oil refining thermal power petrochemicals forth hoa said bays deep waters hoa said attracted american russian investors construction international shipping port boards plans also call bay attract tourism hoa referred one beautiful bays vietnam said goal develop industry tourism harmonious sustainable manner government plans protect monkeys environmentalism becoming familiar concept vietnam still lacks powerful constituency last march national government vetoed south korean companys plan steel mill van phong bay partly environmental grounds partly would interfered planned port vietnamese chinese tourists prefer big resorts barebones bungalows like jungle beach meanwhile vietnamese hunters shoot monkeys hon heo peninsula sell carcasses use traditional medicine loggers cut lumber make charcoal trees new roads make easier access forests leaves interests standing way development far guardian mountain face said lamarche difficult role foreigners play even like lamarche nadler married vietnamese women families sort foreigners promises investments tens thousands dollars research ecotourism foreigners like japans sumitomo south koreas hyundai promise billions im raising daughter daughter vietnamese think qualifies talk said lamarche would real shame one day daughter gets asked grandchildren book see monkeys lots yes kid lot killed kind heritage going children
| 599 |
<p>The West African country of Mali is going through turmoil. A military coup toppled the government in March, and a rebel movement has divided the country.</p>
<p>Much of that unrest began when tens of thousands of Malians flooded home from Libya last year. They'd gone there for a better living, but Libya's uprising put an end to that. Now many of them are struggling back at home.</p>
<p>Crowding around a small TV set in the capital Bamako, a group of kids and adults burst out when their soccer team scores. More than 40 people live here in this series of small rooms built around a cluttered courtyard. Off to the side is a massive refrigerator, the only valuable thing Damba Koné managed to get out of Libya last spring.</p>
<p>For 11 years, Damba was a butcher in the village of Gatrun in southern Libya. He said there were only four butchers in town, all of them from Mali.</p>
<p>In early April 2011, as the Libyan conflict escalated, Damba sent his wife and four children to Tunisia and then on to Mali. Damba stayed behind to organize things.</p>
<p>Then one night, Damba said, seven armed men broke into his house and assaulted him. They forced him to give them the $15,000 he had hidden under his roof – his life saving.</p>
<p>Damba fled, getting a lift from a pickup truck into Niger a few days later. When he finally arrived back in Bamako, Damba said he had nothing left but his seven-foot-long industrial fridge.</p>
<p>"Everyone here in Mali knew I'd been in Libya for years. They all thought 'he must be coming back with loads of money.' So when I came back, relatives and neighbors all expected something from me," Damba said. "I had to explain that I lost everything in one night and that I've got nothing at all."</p>
<p>One year later, Damba said he's still empty-handed. He hasn't found a job; too many butchers here already, he explains. He can't even afford to buy meat for his own children.</p>
<p>Officials say about 12,000 Malian migrant workers fled Libya last year, but the numbers are likely much higher, according to Oumar Sidibé, who works with a migrants' advocacy group in Bamako. He said the migrants came from all over Mali. "Every region, every ethnic group sent some of their own to Libya for the promise of higher paying jobs," he said.</p>
<p>Haruna Traoré worked for Western families in Tripoli. For 10 years, he cleaned, cooked, babysat, and tended gardens. He pulls out a certificate from one employer praising his "honesty and cheerfulness."</p>
<p>Haruna's last employer was an American-Ecuadorian couple who worked in Libya's oil industry. They paid him $700 a month and put his family up in a guest house. Haruna regularly sent money home, sometimes up to $300, about five times the average monthly wage in Mali.</p>
<p>Now back in Bamako, Haruna said he lives off the very relatives he used to assist. His grandmother is feeding his family, and he can't give her any money.</p>
<p>"They let my family stay with them. We stay one year." Haruna said he's ashamed. "Somebody can help you for once, twice, maybe three times, but forever? I never imagined I would be in this situation."</p>
<p>Like many other migrants returning from Libya, Haruna said he's angry at the government for doing nothing to help. But he's even more furious at Mali's authorities for giving a warmer welcome to a small, select group of returnees.</p>
<p>General Mohamed Ali is a Tuareg from Timbuktu who moved to Libya in the 1960s. (Tuaregs are a nomadic group from northern Africa.) He introduces himself as a "true general."</p>
<p>Four decades of service in Muammar Gaddafi's army earned Ali the highest military rank and a Libyan passport. Ali said he took part in Gaddafi's African wars in Chad, Sudan, Angola, each time receiving a seven-figure bonus for his military skills. His last stand was for the Colonel himself. Ali said he fought for Gaddafi during the key battles in last year's Libyan uprising. When the regime finally collapsed in the fall, Ali and his Tuareg battalion returned to Mali.</p>
<p>He said Malian authorities sent four government ministers to greet him and his men. The greeting included cash. Ali won't say how much, but he pointed out that returning Tuareg groups received even more than his group did.</p>
<p>"The people of Kidal who brought weapons received more, because they were heavily armed," Ali said. "It's why they got more money than we did."</p>
<p>Some of the estimated 2,000 Tuaregs who returned to Mali after Gaddafi's fall brought back light and heavy artillery.</p>
<p>Authorities feared the returning Tuaregs would revive a long-simmering rebellion in the North. Local media reported that the Malian government lavished tens of thousands of dollars on them.</p>
<p>"Everybody knew about it," said Amadou Waigalo, who works on migrants' affairs at the government Ministry of Malians abroad. "The Malian workers who were in Libyan for economic reasons protested because they got nothing and they thought that was unfair. But the financial help the Tuaregs received was political. The government was trying to appease them."</p>
<p>That didn't work out.</p>
<p>Tuaregs attacked a military base in North Mali in mid-January. By early April, they had taken control of the North's main towns and declared the independent State of Awazad. General Ali, who's part of the Azawad Liberation Movement, said it's long overdue.</p>
<p>"Don't we have the right to independence?" he said, adding that his people have been fighting for freedom for decades.</p>
<p>General Ali left Mali during the first major Tuareg rebellion that broke out shortly after the country gained independence in 1960. Over the following decades, thousands of Malian Tuaregs found refuge, and a warm welcome, in Libya, with Gaddafi portraying himself as a champion of the Tuaregs' cause.</p>
<p>But then Gaddafi fell, and the Tuaregs came home.</p>
<p>Now the Tuaregs and other Malians say the turmoil at home is a direct result of the regime change in Libya. Some call it collateral damage; others blame NATO for failing to anticipate how disruptive the collapse of a 42-year old regime would be for the Sahel region.</p>
<p>Oumar Sidibé, the advocate for Malian migrants, said many African voices, including the African Union, raised concerns about NATO's intervention in Libya, but the international community didn't listen. "They wanted Gaddafi out whatever it took, even if his fall brought chaos to the whole region."</p>
<p>Now Mali is split in two with no diplomatic or military solution in sight. A military coup ousted the government in Bamako in March, and the newly appointed interim president is struggling to transfer power back to civilian rule.</p>
<p>Haruna Traore, the Malian migrant who returned home with nothing, said he fled the conflict in Libya last year only to find his own country sliding towards war.</p>
<p>"Where I will go again?" he asked. "I don't know where I'll run to hide myself and my family.</p>
| false | 3 |
west african country mali going turmoil military coup toppled government march rebel movement divided country much unrest began tens thousands malians flooded home libya last year theyd gone better living libyas uprising put end many struggling back home crowding around small tv set capital bamako group kids adults burst soccer team scores 40 people live series small rooms built around cluttered courtyard side massive refrigerator valuable thing damba koné managed get libya last spring 11 years damba butcher village gatrun southern libya said four butchers town mali early april 2011 libyan conflict escalated damba sent wife four children tunisia mali damba stayed behind organize things one night damba said seven armed men broke house assaulted forced give 15000 hidden roof life saving damba fled getting lift pickup truck niger days later finally arrived back bamako damba said nothing left sevenfootlong industrial fridge everyone mali knew id libya years thought must coming back loads money came back relatives neighbors expected something damba said explain lost everything one night ive got nothing one year later damba said hes still emptyhanded hasnt found job many butchers already explains cant even afford buy meat children officials say 12000 malian migrant workers fled libya last year numbers likely much higher according oumar sidibé works migrants advocacy group bamako said migrants came mali every region every ethnic group sent libya promise higher paying jobs said haruna traoré worked western families tripoli 10 years cleaned cooked babysat tended gardens pulls certificate one employer praising honesty cheerfulness harunas last employer americanecuadorian couple worked libyas oil industry paid 700 month put family guest house haruna regularly sent money home sometimes 300 five times average monthly wage mali back bamako haruna said lives relatives used assist grandmother feeding family cant give money let family stay stay one year haruna said hes ashamed somebody help twice maybe three times forever never imagined would situation like many migrants returning libya haruna said hes angry government nothing help hes even furious malis authorities giving warmer welcome small select group returnees general mohamed ali tuareg timbuktu moved libya 1960s tuaregs nomadic group northern africa introduces true general four decades service muammar gaddafis army earned ali highest military rank libyan passport ali said took part gaddafis african wars chad sudan angola time receiving sevenfigure bonus military skills last stand colonel ali said fought gaddafi key battles last years libyan uprising regime finally collapsed fall ali tuareg battalion returned mali said malian authorities sent four government ministers greet men greeting included cash ali wont say much pointed returning tuareg groups received even group people kidal brought weapons received heavily armed ali said got money estimated 2000 tuaregs returned mali gaddafis fall brought back light heavy artillery authorities feared returning tuaregs would revive longsimmering rebellion north local media reported malian government lavished tens thousands dollars everybody knew said amadou waigalo works migrants affairs government ministry malians abroad malian workers libyan economic reasons protested got nothing thought unfair financial help tuaregs received political government trying appease didnt work tuaregs attacked military base north mali midjanuary early april taken control norths main towns declared independent state awazad general ali whos part azawad liberation movement said long overdue dont right independence said adding people fighting freedom decades general ali left mali first major tuareg rebellion broke shortly country gained independence 1960 following decades thousands malian tuaregs found refuge warm welcome libya gaddafi portraying champion tuaregs cause gaddafi fell tuaregs came home tuaregs malians say turmoil home direct result regime change libya call collateral damage others blame nato failing anticipate disruptive collapse 42year old regime would sahel region oumar sidibé advocate malian migrants said many african voices including african union raised concerns natos intervention libya international community didnt listen wanted gaddafi whatever took even fall brought chaos whole region mali split two diplomatic military solution sight military coup ousted government bamako march newly appointed interim president struggling transfer power back civilian rule haruna traore malian migrant returned home nothing said fled conflict libya last year find country sliding towards war go asked dont know ill run hide family
| 677 |
<p>CEO Jean-Claude Brizard has said that charter schools will not escape tough scrutiny of their performance–including the threat of closure–and that School Board members would consider taking action against one or two charters at the December board meeting.</p>
<p />
<p>Such action is complicated, though, since charter schools have five-year contracts with CPS that are not easily revoked.&#160;Officials are still working on the details, and CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll says that information about the proposed actions will be available soon.</p>
<p>But on the board’s agenda already are proposals to add 12 more charters, most of them new campuses of existing large charter networks: Noble Street, UNO and LEARN</p>
<p>The move is likely to cause backlash from charter critics, including the Chicago Teachers Union, which is already planning more action, including a candlelight vigil, against school closings.</p>
<p>Charter performance has been in the spotlight recently since the release by the Illinois State Board of Education of the first-ever <a href="http://catalyst-chicago.org/2011/11/charter-school-campuses-get-state-report-cards/" type="external">campus-level charter school report cards</a>–the same report cards that have been issued for years for traditional schools and that include student test score data. CPS has long published campus-level test score data, but the information was not widely distributed in a parent-friendly format.</p>
<p>Expansion plans</p>
<p>Under the district’s plan, Noble Street, which already operates 10 high schools, will open four campuses over the next two years. The United Neighborhood Organization will expand its 11-school network by three. LEARN, a network of five schools that received $1 million from Oprah Winfrey’s Angel Network in 2010, also will add three campuses. Catalyst, which has two small schools already, will open one more. (The Catalyst charter is not affiliated with Catalyst Chicago.)</p>
<p>The sole newcomer is Christopher House, a long-time social service agency that plans to open a kindergarten-through-high school charter in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood. Plans include a family resource center with classes for parents and family support services.</p>
<p>In recent years, the district has focused on giving existing charter school networks additional campuses, rather than opening the gates for small, new charter school operators.&#160;</p>
<p>“These are top-notch, high performing campuses,” says Jennifer Cline, director of communication for New Schools for Chicago, which works in partnership with CPS on authorizing charter schools.&#160;</p>
<p>Yet, she adds, “we do have concerns about charter schools growing too fast. We look very, very carefully at these school plans.”</p>
<p>The nuances of student performance</p>
<p>Noble Street is the one of the only charter school operators that has been successful with high schools. If the additional four campuses are approved, Noble Street could have more than 10,000 students by 2013, or 10 percent of all high school students in CPS.&#160;</p>
<p>Students at the Noble Street schools score above the city average on the ACT college entrance exam, and Noble Street schools are among the only non-selective high schools where students post average ACT scores above 20, the minimum needed to get into a less-selective college.</p>
<p>However, because Noble Street requires an essay as part of the application–though the school says it is not used to choose students–some critics argue that the charter is, essentially, selective. Noble Street also has a strict discipline policy, including fines for infractions, that ends up <a href="http://catalyst-chicago.org/2010/11/one-in-10-charter-school-students-transfers-out/" type="external">pushing some students out</a>.</p>
<p>UNO and Catalyst also have some nuance to their performance. One of Catalyst’s two campuses performs above average, but the other campus scores below average and has a Performance Level 3 rating with the district–a rating that would make it eligible for closure as a traditional school.&#160;</p>
<p>At UNO, the Paz campus also has a Performance Level 3 rating.</p>
<p>Carroll says most of UNO’s and Catalyst’s schools “outperform the district” and the operators “have the ability to provide better options in high-need communities for students, starting immediately.”</p>
<p>UNO’s CEO Juan Rangel says that Paz’s performance plummeted under one school leader and that he pulled that leader when he realized the problems. He also notes that the school had to move and stopped its busing program, which led to some change in the student population.</p>
<p>Now, with a new director and an extended school year and day, Rangel says Paz will improve. “We feel as if we have turned a corner,” he says. &#160;</p>
<p>Not easy to revoke a charter</p>
<p>Yet Rangel adds that he does believe CPS should pull the plug on a school if it is too low-performing for too long.</p>
<p>Closing a charter school that is still under contract is not easy. &#160;Typically, charters have five-year contracts. If the contract is due for renewal, then the Board of Education can vote not to renew it.</p>
<p>Otherwise, the school district must provide a clear reason for revoking the charter and work with the charter school on addressing those deficiencies, Carroll says. Only if those deficiencies aren’t addressed can the district move to revoke.</p>
<p>Only once since CPS began approving charter schools has the district revoked a charter and in that case, it was after the director was arrested for embezzlement. In the past three years, a few charter schools have closed on their own after their boards of directors decided they were either financially unable to continue, not doing well enough academically or both.</p>
<p>Cline says the fact that few charter schools have had to be shut down is testament to the fact that the district has a tough authorizing process.</p>
<p>Brizard has not specifically said he is going to begin the process of revoking the two charters, which have not yet been identified. He might just put pressure on their operators to make changes.&#160;</p>
<p>Recently, Brizard announced that Chicago International Charter School’s Basil campus was being “turned around” and would undergo a management change to try and improve. Chicago International hires outside management companies to run their schools. &#160;</p>
<p>But Basil will continue to be managed by Victory Education Partners, which recently was <a href="http://catalyst-chicago.org/2011/09/washington-park-charter-school-gets-turnaround/" type="external">given another CICS school</a>.&#160;</p>
<p>Kate Floyd, director of communications for Chicago International, says that Victory has a good track record the charter’s schools. The Basil campus got a new director this year and teachers will have to reapply for their jobs at the end of this year.</p>
<p>Though Chicago International was already planning to make changes before CPS leaders forced the issue, Floyd says the organization appreciates the help the district has provided.</p>
<p>Cline notes that she isn’t surprised many charter schools make changes on their own. “One of the things we see being different with charter schools is that they tend to self-correct before they need to be shut down,” she says. &#160;</p>
<p>Under the district’s expansion plan, the number of CPS students attending charter schools would increase from 11 percent now to 13 percent in 2013.</p>
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ceo jeanclaude brizard said charter schools escape tough scrutiny performanceincluding threat closureand school board members would consider taking action one two charters december board meeting action complicated though since charter schools fiveyear contracts cps easily revoked160officials still working details cps spokeswoman becky carroll says information proposed actions available soon boards agenda already proposals add 12 charters new campuses existing large charter networks noble street uno learn move likely cause backlash charter critics including chicago teachers union already planning action including candlelight vigil school closings charter performance spotlight recently since release illinois state board education firstever campuslevel charter school report cardsthe report cards issued years traditional schools include student test score data cps long published campuslevel test score data information widely distributed parentfriendly format expansion plans districts plan noble street already operates 10 high schools open four campuses next two years united neighborhood organization expand 11school network three learn network five schools received 1 million oprah winfreys angel network 2010 also add three campuses catalyst two small schools already open one catalyst charter affiliated catalyst chicago sole newcomer christopher house longtime social service agency plans open kindergartenthroughhigh school charter chicago lawn neighborhood plans include family resource center classes parents family support services recent years district focused giving existing charter school networks additional campuses rather opening gates small new charter school operators160 topnotch high performing campuses says jennifer cline director communication new schools chicago works partnership cps authorizing charter schools160 yet adds concerns charter schools growing fast look carefully school plans nuances student performance noble street one charter school operators successful high schools additional four campuses approved noble street could 10000 students 2013 10 percent high school students cps160 students noble street schools score city average act college entrance exam noble street schools among nonselective high schools students post average act scores 20 minimum needed get lessselective college however noble street requires essay part applicationthough school says used choose studentssome critics argue charter essentially selective noble street also strict discipline policy including fines infractions ends pushing students uno catalyst also nuance performance one catalysts two campuses performs average campus scores average performance level 3 rating districta rating would make eligible closure traditional school160 uno paz campus also performance level 3 rating carroll says unos catalysts schools outperform district operators ability provide better options highneed communities students starting immediately unos ceo juan rangel says pazs performance plummeted one school leader pulled leader realized problems also notes school move stopped busing program led change student population new director extended school year day rangel says paz improve feel turned corner says 160 easy revoke charter yet rangel adds believe cps pull plug school lowperforming long closing charter school still contract easy 160typically charters fiveyear contracts contract due renewal board education vote renew otherwise school district must provide clear reason revoking charter work charter school addressing deficiencies carroll says deficiencies arent addressed district move revoke since cps began approving charter schools district revoked charter case director arrested embezzlement past three years charter schools closed boards directors decided either financially unable continue well enough academically cline says fact charter schools shut testament fact district tough authorizing process brizard specifically said going begin process revoking two charters yet identified might put pressure operators make changes160 recently brizard announced chicago international charter schools basil campus turned around would undergo management change try improve chicago international hires outside management companies run schools 160 basil continue managed victory education partners recently given another cics school160 kate floyd director communications chicago international says victory good track record charters schools basil campus got new director year teachers reapply jobs end year though chicago international already planning make changes cps leaders forced issue floyd says organization appreciates help district provided cline notes isnt surprised many charter schools make changes one things see different charter schools tend selfcorrect need shut says 160 districts expansion plan number cps students attending charter schools would increase 11 percent 13 percent 2013
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<p>“Magic” mushrooms.&#160; Acid.&#160; LSD.&#160; To many people, these words are emblems of the 1960s, an era of personal liberation — and excess.&#160; Members of famous rock groups like the Grateful Dead extolled the virtues of “psychedelics” and often <a href="http://liveforlivemusic.com/news/grateful-deads-phil-lesh-acid-and-music-was-the-tool-id-been-looking-for/" type="external">performed</a> under their influence.&#160; But there was a dark side, too.&#160; Some users lapsed into psychosis; others died from overdoses or committed suicide and even murder.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, an aura of taboo – and stigma — has remained.</p>
<p>But in a shocking reversal, a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/lsd-as-psychadelic-therapy/8452814" type="external">small but dedicated cadre</a>of establishment scientists and doctors has begun pushing for expanded federal research into the potential medicinal value of <a href="http://www.livescience.com/48704-odd-facts-about-magic-mushrooms.html" type="external">psilocybin</a>, the active psychotropic chemical ingredient in “magic” mushrooms – and its derivative, LSD.</p>
<p>The pro-LSD movement parallels the much larger campaign to have marijuana and cannabis removed from the federal government’s list of <a href="http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v14/n8/abs/nrn3530.html" type="external">“Schedule 1”</a> drugs – substances deemed to be “without medicinal value,” and considered too dangerous to be used safely – and legally – by the general public.</p>
<p>But thus far, only one state – New Mexico in 2005 – has <a href="https://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/apmush06-15-05.htm" type="external">bucked</a> the federal government’s ban on LSD,&#160; declaring possession and use of the drug legal.</p>
<p>The campaign to legalize psilocybin, at least for medicinal purposes, is in response to a <a href="https://www.sociedelic.com/can-psychedelic-trips-cure-ptsd-and-other-maladies-2/" type="external">growing body of scientific research</a> that has found remarkable healing and mood altering effects from controlled doses of the drug with patients suffering from cancer, depression and PTSD, among other ailments.</p>
<p>In one <a href="http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/12/psilocybin-research-looks-very-exciting.html" type="external">study</a> at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, a group of 51 late-stage cancer patients suffering from depression were given two doses of psilocybin, one heavy, the other light, and asked to engage in visualization exercises. In <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/health/hallucinogenic-mushrooms-psilocybin-cancer-anxiety-depression.html?_r=0" type="external">another study</a> at NYU a group of 29 patients received psilocybin and niacin, a placebo, to see how it affected their depression and anxiety level.&#160; In this case the participants also received psychotherapy.</p>
<p>In both studies participants didn’t just see their psychological conditions eased; they experienced a dramatic enhancement of their mood and attitude toward their disease and overall life circumstances. Even more striking, researchers found that these changes persisted for weeks.&#160; In fact, at the six-month follow up stage many patients were sill reporting significant elevated mood responses – in effect, a semi-permanent change in their outlook that normally cautious researchers described as “astonishing.”</p>
<p>Other studies have suggested that psilocybin can <a href="https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_industryhealthiermedica166.htm" type="external">stimulate brain cell growth</a>, improve memory, reduce the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-k-comstock/psychedelic-science_b_547070.html" type="external">effects of PTSD</a> and even enhance a person’s vision.</p>
<p>Ayelet Waldman, who began taking small amounts of LSD daily after her prescription medication for anxiety and depression failed to work, has extolled the virtues of the drug in her just-released <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/sc-a-really-good-day-ayelet-waldman-books-0125-20170123-story.html" type="external">book</a>, entitled A Really Good Day:&#160; How Micro-Dosing made a Mega Difference, in My Mood, My Marriage and My Life.&#160; She calls LSD a “wonder drug.”</p>
<p>There’s a reason that LSD is still considered dangerous, of course.&#160; Because it can be.&#160; Every so often, a news story is published about someone who took too much of the drug, with horrific consequences.&#160; Last May, for example, a New York banker ate a handful of mushrooms and leaped from his 26th floor apartment balcony to his death.</p>
<p>Police investigating the <a href="http://nypost.com/2016/05/23/man-jumps-to-his-death-after-taking-magic-mushrooms/" type="external">incident</a> said the man thought that he could fly, a common hallucination associated with excess LSD use.</p>
<p>But scientific supporters of LSD aren’t necessarily calling for legalized recreational use – only a lifting of current restrictions on federal research that could speed the development of new psilocybin-based prescription drugs to treat a range of ailments.</p>
<p>In fact, as early as 2004 – during the administration of George W. Bush — the federal government did quietly loosen those restrictions to allow for a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3917651/" type="external">clinical trial</a>of the effects of MDMA – a popular club or recreational drug known as “Molly” or “Ecstasy” — on PTSD.&#160;&#160; Two dozen young subjects were given MDMA in controlled amounts, with promising results.</p>
<p>But the process of converting results like those into more scientifically credible research is agonizing slow.&#160; It wasn’t until last November that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/us/ptsd-mdma-ecstasy.html?_r=0" type="external">approved large-scale phase 3 clinical trials</a> of MDMA as a possible treatment of PTSD in individuals who do not respond to traditional prescription drugs or psychotherapy.&#160; It could take another decade before a safe commercial version of the drug is available for medicinal use under the strict control of a prescribing physician.</p>
<p>Some scientists sympathetic to the pro-LSD cause agree that more research is needed before the drug could be made legal, even as a “controlled” substance.&#160; While the positive effects seem incontrovertible, we still need to know more about how and why the drug works, they say, and to better understand the possible side effects – including recurring hallucinations (“flashbacks”) and even psychosis – that <a href="http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-08/fyi-can-acid-trip-really-give-you-flashbacks" type="external">past research</a> suggests can afflict some users long after their last “trip.”</p>
<p>Critics say these are just stalling tactics from a medical establishment still suffering from the effects of LSD’s stigma.&#160; Many Americans, they say, resent a government that allows major corporations to poison them with cancer-causing food and other “legal” products over which they have little control, while “criminalizing” them for consuming substances that occur naturally in the wild.</p>
<p>Presently, there are an <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3917651/" type="external">estimated 32 million consumers</a> of various psychedelics in the United States today.&#160; That’s roughly 14% of the adult population, no small number.&#160; You can even purchase <a href="http://www.midwestgrowkits.com/?gclid=CMuLr4HH5NMCFZC1wAodIWgPZQ" type="external">“Magic Mushroom Grow Kits”</a> online.&#160;&#160; Clearly, the federal ban on LSD isn’t working. And if its most ardent supporters are right, it may well be keeping scientists from using the drug to help millions more.</p>
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magic mushrooms160 acid160 lsd160 many people words emblems 1960s era personal liberation excess160 members famous rock groups like grateful dead extolled virtues psychedelics often performed influence160 dark side too160 users lapsed psychosis others died overdoses committed suicide even murder surprisingly aura taboo stigma remained shocking reversal small dedicated cadreof establishment scientists doctors begun pushing expanded federal research potential medicinal value psilocybin active psychotropic chemical ingredient magic mushrooms derivative lsd prolsd movement parallels much larger campaign marijuana cannabis removed federal governments list schedule 1 drugs substances deemed without medicinal value considered dangerous used safely legally general public thus far one state new mexico 2005 bucked federal governments ban lsd160 declaring possession use drug legal campaign legalize psilocybin least medicinal purposes response growing body scientific research found remarkable healing mood altering effects controlled doses drug patients suffering cancer depression ptsd among ailments one study johns hopkins university school medicine group 51 latestage cancer patients suffering depression given two doses psilocybin one heavy light asked engage visualization exercises another study nyu group 29 patients received psilocybin niacin placebo see affected depression anxiety level160 case participants also received psychotherapy studies participants didnt see psychological conditions eased experienced dramatic enhancement mood attitude toward disease overall life circumstances even striking researchers found changes persisted weeks160 fact sixmonth follow stage many patients sill reporting significant elevated mood responses effect semipermanent change outlook normally cautious researchers described astonishing studies suggested psilocybin stimulate brain cell growth improve memory reduce effects ptsd even enhance persons vision ayelet waldman began taking small amounts lsd daily prescription medication anxiety depression failed work extolled virtues drug justreleased book entitled really good day160 microdosing made mega difference mood marriage life160 calls lsd wonder drug theres reason lsd still considered dangerous course160 be160 every often news story published someone took much drug horrific consequences160 last may example new york banker ate handful mushrooms leaped 26th floor apartment balcony death police investigating incident said man thought could fly common hallucination associated excess lsd use scientific supporters lsd arent necessarily calling legalized recreational use lifting current restrictions federal research could speed development new psilocybinbased prescription drugs treat range ailments fact early 2004 administration george w bush federal government quietly loosen restrictions allow clinical trialof effects mdma popular club recreational drug known molly ecstasy ptsd160160 two dozen young subjects given mdma controlled amounts promising results process converting results like scientifically credible research agonizing slow160 wasnt last november united states food drug administration fda approved largescale phase 3 clinical trials mdma possible treatment ptsd individuals respond traditional prescription drugs psychotherapy160 could take another decade safe commercial version drug available medicinal use strict control prescribing physician scientists sympathetic prolsd cause agree research needed drug could made legal even controlled substance160 positive effects seem incontrovertible still need know drug works say better understand possible side effects including recurring hallucinations flashbacks even psychosis past research suggests afflict users long last trip critics say stalling tactics medical establishment still suffering effects lsds stigma160 many americans say resent government allows major corporations poison cancercausing food legal products little control criminalizing consuming substances occur naturally wild presently estimated 32 million consumers various psychedelics united states today160 thats roughly 14 adult population small number160 even purchase magic mushroom grow kits online160160 clearly federal ban lsd isnt working ardent supporters right may well keeping scientists using drug help millions 160 160 160 160
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<p>CURWOOD: From the Jennifer and Ted Stanley Studios in Boston and PRI, this is Living on Earth. Im Steve Curwood. President George W. Bush created a huge marine sanctuary in the Pacific Ocean, and now President Barack Obama says he wants to make it the biggest marine reserve in the world. For the President, protecting the ocean is a personal as well as an environmental imperative. OBAMA: You know, growing up in Hawaii, I learned early to appreciate the beauty and power of the ocean. Of course we also know how fragile our blue planet can be. Rising levels of carbon dioxide are causing our oceans to acidify. Pollution endangers marine life. Overfishing threatens whole species, as well as the people who depend on them for food and their livelihoods. CURWOOD: President Obama made the announcement as Secretary of State John Kerry convened diplomats, experts and advocates from around the world to work on ocean conservation by addressing marine protected areas, illegal fishing, false-labeling and ocean acidification. Jackie Savitz is the Vice President of U.S. Oceans for the non-profit, Oceana, and joins us now. Welcome to Living on Earth, Jackie. SAVITZ: Thanks, Steve. Glad to be here. Protecting marine territory is a proven way to conserve fish populations. (Photo: bigstockphoto) CURWOOD: So, President Obama says he wants to create a new marine reserve. What exactly is he talking about and how big would it be? SAVITZ: Well, its actually a very exciting proposal. He's proposed to expand the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument from about its current size of about 87,000 square miles to nearly 780,000 square miles. It would make the Pacific Remote Islands Monument nine times the size it is today. CURWOOD: How hard is it going to be for President Obama to make this enormous marine reserve happen? Who might be opposed to something like this, and what could they do to try and stop it? SAVITZ: Well, we hope it won't be too hard. What he's supposed to do is to use the summer as a public comment period where he'll be able to take input from all of the stakeholders that might be interested, and that would include fishermen, both recreational and commercial fishermen, tourism interests, as well as environmental organizations like Oceana. Typically, what you see is, commercial fishermen are often opponents to this, and so theyll have to take a look and see whether they feel it is a big imposition on them or not, but we have to keep in mind that these protected areas actually have benefits to fisheries. A lot of fish have larvae that are planktonic, which means that they kind of drift with the tides and the currents, and even sometimes the winds. And so what that means is that larvae that are spawned by fish in a marine protected area can actually end up growing up and living most of their lives far away from that area, and so thats something that could benefit fishermen in the future. While relatively small in size, the Dry Tortugas marine area in the Florida Keys has improved fish stocks throughout the region. (Photo: big stock photo) CURWOOD: How effective is it to protect large tracks of ocean in terms of conserving marine species? SAVITZ: Well, its been shown to be very effective. What they find is that you see an increase in both the number of animals that are in the area and also the diversitythe different types of species that are presentand diversity, of course, leads to a more stable community. A community that can be more resilient to impacts, like the impacts of climate change, for example, but the thing that people don't realize is that the protected areas can actually have impacts much further from the protected area than you might expect. And a really good example of that is, there was a study done in an area called the Dry Tortugas, which is just west of Key West in Florida, which is a marine protected area. And what they found there was that the entire region benefited, so not just the area west of Key West, but also all throughout the Florida Keys and even around to the east of the Keys on the way up to Miami. CURWOOD: Now, there are a number of marine protected reserves around the world, some of them people say are really just lines on a map and not particularly well enforced; others do better with protecting the species there that they promise to protect. How does the United States enforce a protected area like this way off in the middle of the Pacific? As much of a third of all fish sold in the United States is labeled as something other then what it is (photo: Oceana) SAVITZ: Thats a very good question, and a very good point. Once an areas designated for protection the next challenge becomes enforcement. Its a big challenge, and people are starting to use things like satellite technology, radar, local knowledgeall kinds of new tools tied to technology. And I actually think in the next couple of years were going to see major advances in fisheries enforcement. CURWOOD: Now, Secretary of State John Kerry invited a number of other countries to talk about conservation. What were the most important voices outside the United States that you heard at the Secretarys gathering? SAVITZ: You know, Secretary Kerry really did something unprecedented with this conference. At the very beginning, he opened the conference by saying, I don't just want to talk. I want to actually get things done. It led to a very long list of commitments that were made by the U.S. government, by President Obama and also by foreign governments that were here at the conference. A number of countries stood up, especially some of the island nations like Kiribati and the Bahamas, the Cook Islands, Palau, and they talked about the importance of protecting their fisheries, and many of them designated extremely large areas of their exclusive economic zones, in some cases their entire exclusive economic zones as marine protected areas, some of them with very strong restrictions on industrial fishing. And I think when you add them all up, you start to see a really important trend in protecting areas that can lead to great increases in the long run and fishery abundance in our ability to feed people protein from the ocean. These are definitely salmon, but where did they come from? (Photo: Oceana) CURWOOD: Now, President Obama has also announced that he wants a new federal program aimed at stopping illegal fishing and also seafood fraud. What would such a program like that do? SAVITZ: Well this is a really important issue. As you know, what you're purchasing when it comes to fish may not actually be what you're getting, and we know this because Oceana did a study where we looked at 1,300 samples of fish, and only about two thirds of them were what they were marketed to be. And so the President announced that he'll set up a task force to curb illegal fishing and seafood fraud. And thats something that Oceana is very happy to hear, and something that we've been very concerned about for some time. CURWOOD: How big a deal is seafood fraud, do you think? Jackie Savitz (photo: Oceana) SAVITZ: Well, it depends on how you look at it. From a consumer standpoint, a third of what you order may not actually be what you're getting. That could have health implications, for example, if you're a woman of childbearing age and you try to order a low-mercury fish like grouper, but youre served a high-mercury fish like tilefish, then it affects your health and potentially youre baby's health. Similarly if you're a consumer thats trying to order sustainable seafood and they serve you something thats not sustainable, then it's taken away your ability to use your consumer power to promote sustainable fishing. The other big concern is that illegal fishing is responsible for as much as a third of the fish that are actually coming in, and thats a big problem. Dr. Kimberly Warner, Senior Scientist at Oceana examines a piece of fish (photo: Oceana) CURWOOD: Defined for us what's an illegal fish? SAVITZ: Well, if someone is fishing in an area where there's no fishing allowed, like in a marine protected area, or if they're using gear that is not allowed, such as driftnets which are very harmful to marine life and have been banned in a lot of areas, or they could be fishing without a permit, or they can be taking more than their limit. So there's a whole variety of different ways that fish can be caught illegally, and anytime that happens it undermines the management measures that have been put in place on purpose to make sure we take just enough fish so that the populations can continue to produce fish for the future. Now if we set up a traceability system so that all fish that comes into United States can be traced from boat to plate, we can make it so that theres QR code, which is one of those codes that you see you can scan with your phone, and you can scan it, and you should be able to find out everything about that fishwhat it is, where it was caught, when it was caught, what gear was used to catch it, and how it travelled from the boat through the supply chain to your plate. And you can see some of these QR codes at stores like Whole Foods where they actually sell some of these fish that are being voluntarily labeled with all this information, and that shows us it can be done. And it can be done throughout the entire fish market. CURWOOD: Jackie Savitz is Vice President for U.S. Oceans for Oceana. Thanks so much for taking the time, Jackie. SAVITZ: Thank you, Steve. It's my pleasure.</p>
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curwood jennifer ted stanley studios boston pri living earth im steve curwood president george w bush created huge marine sanctuary pacific ocean president barack obama says wants make biggest marine reserve world president protecting ocean personal well environmental imperative obama know growing hawaii learned early appreciate beauty power ocean course also know fragile blue planet rising levels carbon dioxide causing oceans acidify pollution endangers marine life overfishing threatens whole species well people depend food livelihoods curwood president obama made announcement secretary state john kerry convened diplomats experts advocates around world work ocean conservation addressing marine protected areas illegal fishing falselabeling ocean acidification jackie savitz vice president us oceans nonprofit oceana joins us welcome living earth jackie savitz thanks steve glad protecting marine territory proven way conserve fish populations photo bigstockphoto curwood president obama says wants create new marine reserve exactly talking big would savitz well actually exciting proposal hes proposed expand pacific remote islands marine national monument current size 87000 square miles nearly 780000 square miles would make pacific remote islands monument nine times size today curwood hard going president obama make enormous marine reserve happen might opposed something like could try stop savitz well hope wont hard hes supposed use summer public comment period hell able take input stakeholders might interested would include fishermen recreational commercial fishermen tourism interests well environmental organizations like oceana typically see commercial fishermen often opponents theyll take look see whether feel big imposition keep mind protected areas actually benefits fisheries lot fish larvae planktonic means kind drift tides currents even sometimes winds means larvae spawned fish marine protected area actually end growing living lives far away area thats something could benefit fishermen future relatively small size dry tortugas marine area florida keys improved fish stocks throughout region photo big stock photo curwood effective protect large tracks ocean terms conserving marine species savitz well shown effective find see increase number animals area also diversitythe different types species presentand diversity course leads stable community community resilient impacts like impacts climate change example thing people dont realize protected areas actually impacts much protected area might expect really good example study done area called dry tortugas west key west florida marine protected area found entire region benefited area west key west also throughout florida keys even around east keys way miami curwood number marine protected reserves around world people say really lines map particularly well enforced others better protecting species promise protect united states enforce protected area like way middle pacific much third fish sold united states labeled something photo oceana savitz thats good question good point areas designated protection next challenge becomes enforcement big challenge people starting use things like satellite technology radar local knowledgeall kinds new tools tied technology actually think next couple years going see major advances fisheries enforcement curwood secretary state john kerry invited number countries talk conservation important voices outside united states heard secretarys gathering savitz know secretary kerry really something unprecedented conference beginning opened conference saying dont want talk want actually get things done led long list commitments made us government president obama also foreign governments conference number countries stood especially island nations like kiribati bahamas cook islands palau talked importance protecting fisheries many designated extremely large areas exclusive economic zones cases entire exclusive economic zones marine protected areas strong restrictions industrial fishing think add start see really important trend protecting areas lead great increases long run fishery abundance ability feed people protein ocean definitely salmon come photo oceana curwood president obama also announced wants new federal program aimed stopping illegal fishing also seafood fraud would program like savitz well really important issue know youre purchasing comes fish may actually youre getting know oceana study looked 1300 samples fish two thirds marketed president announced hell set task force curb illegal fishing seafood fraud thats something oceana happy hear something weve concerned time curwood big deal seafood fraud think jackie savitz photo oceana savitz well depends look consumer standpoint third order may actually youre getting could health implications example youre woman childbearing age try order lowmercury fish like grouper youre served highmercury fish like tilefish affects health potentially youre babys health similarly youre consumer thats trying order sustainable seafood serve something thats sustainable taken away ability use consumer power promote sustainable fishing big concern illegal fishing responsible much third fish actually coming thats big problem dr kimberly warner senior scientist oceana examines piece fish photo oceana curwood defined us whats illegal fish savitz well someone fishing area theres fishing allowed like marine protected area theyre using gear allowed driftnets harmful marine life banned lot areas could fishing without permit taking limit theres whole variety different ways fish caught illegally anytime happens undermines management measures put place purpose make sure take enough fish populations continue produce fish future set traceability system fish comes united states traced boat plate make theres qr code one codes see scan phone scan able find everything fishwhat caught caught gear used catch travelled boat supply chain plate see qr codes stores like whole foods actually sell fish voluntarily labeled information shows us done done throughout entire fish market curwood jackie savitz vice president us oceans oceana thanks much taking time jackie savitz thank steve pleasure
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<p>In April, Nepal was struck by a massive earthquake followed by a devastating series of aftershocks. We all saw the news coverage: millions of people displaced, ancient temples reduced to rubble, avalanches, landslides.</p>
<p>Aid poured into Nepal, more than $4 billion of it. But that news coverage proved to be a double-edged sword. All those images of destruction left the impression the entire country had been leveled, and led to a different kind of aftershock: the collapse of the tourist industry, which accounts for and estimated&#160; <a href="http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/printedition/news/2015-03-31/nepal-tourism-generated-487k-direct-jobs-in-2014.html" type="external">4 percent&#160;of Nepal’s GDP</a>.</p>
<p>Three months ago, I was invited on a trip to Nepal, sponsored by the Nepalese government, a private tourism industry group, and <a href="http://samarth-nepal.com/" type="external">Samarth</a>, an NGO funded by the British government. The goal was to show tourists that despite the earthquake and political protests, which erupted after the passage of a new constitution, Nepal was “open for business.”</p>
<p>I’d never paid much attention to government travel advisories, but I decided to check what the <a href="http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/alertswarnings.html" type="external">State Department</a> had to say. In October, it issued a “warning” for Nepal. Also on the warning list — Iraq and Somalia.</p>
<p>“We want you to know the risks of traveling to these places and to strongly consider not going to them at all,” the State Department site said. Yikes. I began to wonder whether this trip was really such a great idea.</p>
<p>At the airport in Abu Dhabi, I wasn’t exactly reassured to learn I’d been bumped from my flight because the plane was carrying extra fuel to Kathmandu. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/12/03/the-indian-blockade-of-nepal-has-led-to-a-dangerous-humanitarian-crisis/" type="external">protests</a> at Nepal’s border with India, related to the new constitution,&#160;had led to a severe shortage.</p>
<p>But once I finally got to Kathmandu, life seemed remarkably normal. The earthquake damage was largely cleared away and fenced off. There were, of course, lots of empty spaces where centuries-old temples once stood. And in historic Patan Durban Square, the sound of reconstruction was everywhere.</p>
<p />
<p>Earthquake-damaged buildings in the historic city of Bhaktapur. Nepalese officials want tourists to know the city is ready for visitors.&#160;</p>
<p>Alina Simone</p>
<p>But I was also surprised to find plenty of temples left standing. Like everyone else, I’d seen the footage of post-earthquake Kathmandu and assumed most of Nepal’s heritage sites were gone.</p>
<p>That’s exactly the impression tourism officials in Nepal were trying to change.</p>
<p>“It is not Nepal that has been affected; it is only 14 districts that have been hit hard,” said Sunil Sharma, of the Nepal Tourism Board. Nepal's 61 other districts suffered minimal or no damage.&#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160;&#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160;</p>
<p>Samarth, the NGO that helped sponsor my trip, also commissioned an independent assessment of two of Nepal’s most popular trekking routes, Everest and Annapurna. They were pronounced safe, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33636890" type="external">with some important caveats</a>. The thing is, trekkers are key to reviving Nepal’s tourism industry, but travel warnings boost the cost of travel insurance. And backpackers need that insurance if they’re trekking in remote areas, like our next stop, the town of Jomsom on the Annapurna circuit.</p>
<p>The landscape is spectacular at the foot of the Himalayas —&#160;our trekking route threaded over wild mountain streams to Dhumba, a sacred Buddhist lake.</p>
<p>It’s far from the epicenter of the earthquake and the political struggles at the Indian border, but still, you won’t see many tourists here. Tripple Gurung, who owns a hotel called “Om’s Home,” told me bookings are down 50 percent. He’s not the only one here who depends on tourism.</p>
<p>“I’m running a hotel, but there are people who grow vegetables. They come here in the morning, so we buy the vegetables for our guests.”</p>
<p>The story was the same in Nepal’s second largest city, Pokhara: minimal earthquake damage, major tourism declines. And long lines of cars and mopeds were queuing up for rationed gas.</p>
<p>It’s easy for a tourists&#160;to insulate themselves from the day-to-day realities of life here from within a coach bus. But ethical quandaries are just a question away, as I learned from Krishna Poudel, a naturalist at our next stop, the Barahi Jungle Lodge in the Chitwan Valley.</p>
<p>When I asked how the hotel was managing during the fuel crisis, he told me that in preparation for my group’s arrival, hotel staff made a 10-hour round trip to the Indian border to buy gas on the black market — at four&#160;to five&#160;times the normal price.</p>
<p>On the one hand, Nepal really needs tourist dollars. On the other hand, the fuel crisis was hitting hospitals, schools and Internet servers —&#160;it felt terrible to be using up their scarce resources so that we could, you know, look at some rhinos.</p>
<p>I had to ask Krishna: Was it really worth it?</p>
<p>“For the hospitality business, we have to do it,” he said.</p>
<p>By the end of my trip, I was left with deeply mixed feelings. As a tourist, there are undeniable pleasures to be had trekking in Nepal’s mountains, parasailing its skies, and touring its temples. But the political crisis, and the growing fuel shortage, is a real problem for travelers. Two weeks after we left, all domestic flights in Nepal were grounded. &#160;Of course, it’s much more than an inconvenience for the people of Nepal — it’s verging on a humanitarian crisis.&#160;</p>
<p>So one can only hope&#160;the crisis is resolved quickly. No matter how much Nepal insists it’s open for business, politics are still blocking the gate.</p>
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april nepal struck massive earthquake followed devastating series aftershocks saw news coverage millions people displaced ancient temples reduced rubble avalanches landslides aid poured nepal 4 billion news coverage proved doubleedged sword images destruction left impression entire country leveled led different kind aftershock collapse tourist industry accounts estimated160 4 percent160of nepals gdp three months ago invited trip nepal sponsored nepalese government private tourism industry group samarth ngo funded british government goal show tourists despite earthquake political protests erupted passage new constitution nepal open business id never paid much attention government travel advisories decided check state department say october issued warning nepal also warning list iraq somalia want know risks traveling places strongly consider going state department site said yikes began wonder whether trip really great idea airport abu dhabi wasnt exactly reassured learn id bumped flight plane carrying extra fuel kathmandu protests nepals border india related new constitution160had led severe shortage finally got kathmandu life seemed remarkably normal earthquake damage largely cleared away fenced course lots empty spaces centuriesold temples stood historic patan durban square sound reconstruction everywhere earthquakedamaged buildings historic city bhaktapur nepalese officials want tourists know city ready visitors160 alina simone also surprised find plenty temples left standing like everyone else id seen footage postearthquake kathmandu assumed nepals heritage sites gone thats exactly impression tourism officials nepal trying change nepal affected 14 districts hit hard said sunil sharma nepal tourism board nepals 61 districts suffered minimal damage160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 samarth ngo helped sponsor trip also commissioned independent assessment two nepals popular trekking routes everest annapurna pronounced safe important caveats thing trekkers key reviving nepals tourism industry travel warnings boost cost travel insurance backpackers need insurance theyre trekking remote areas like next stop town jomsom annapurna circuit landscape spectacular foot himalayas 160our trekking route threaded wild mountain streams dhumba sacred buddhist lake far epicenter earthquake political struggles indian border still wont see many tourists tripple gurung owns hotel called oms home told bookings 50 percent hes one depends tourism im running hotel people grow vegetables come morning buy vegetables guests story nepals second largest city pokhara minimal earthquake damage major tourism declines long lines cars mopeds queuing rationed gas easy tourists160to insulate daytoday realities life within coach bus ethical quandaries question away learned krishna poudel naturalist next stop barahi jungle lodge chitwan valley asked hotel managing fuel crisis told preparation groups arrival hotel staff made 10hour round trip indian border buy gas black market four160to five160times normal price one hand nepal really needs tourist dollars hand fuel crisis hitting hospitals schools internet servers 160it felt terrible using scarce resources could know look rhinos ask krishna really worth hospitality business said end trip left deeply mixed feelings tourist undeniable pleasures trekking nepals mountains parasailing skies touring temples political crisis growing fuel shortage real problem travelers two weeks left domestic flights nepal grounded 160of course much inconvenience people nepal verging humanitarian crisis160 one hope160the crisis resolved quickly matter much nepal insists open business politics still blocking gate
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<p>Pat Conroy</p>
<p>Hubbard</p>
<p>“Talk about taking high school kids and making them men instantly.” Pat Conroy says that’s what happened last school year when students in his cabinetmaking class at Hubbard High School delivered bunk beds they had made to a homeless shelter on the South Side.</p>
<p>As the students assembled the beds at St. Elizabeth Catholic Worker Shelter, 8025 S. Honore, some 20 mothers and kids showered them with repeated “thank yous.”</p>
<p>Beaming all the while, Conroy’s students “realized they had done something really valuable,” he says, “and that’s important because these kids don’t always have high opinions of themselves.”</p>
<p>The children at St. Elizabeth had been sleeping on old, steel bunk beds that were wearing out. “The kids take out all their excess energy on the beds, and a couple had actually fallen apart,” says Gert Brixius, St. Elizabeth’s executive director. As a result, for a couple months last year, the shelter could serve only 20 adults and children even though it has room for 35.</p>
<p>Brixius says she mentioned the predicament in a conversation with Bob Keeley, the community reinvestment officer at Marquette Bank. Keeley, in turn, suggested she contact woodworking instructors at neighborhood high schools to see if any would take on the job as a class project. He gave Brixius three names.</p>
<p>Contacting all three, Brixius got the most enthusiastic response from Conroy, who came out to see what she had in mind. “He was so excited about the project,” she says.</p>
<p>Working two hours a day for three weeks, a dozen students, all 17 or 18 years old, built six beds so big and substantial that “two adult men could not move them,” says Conroy.</p>
<p>The students cut and milled boards of Douglas fir and drilled holes for nuts and bolts. “There are easier and quicker ways to build them,” the teacher concedes. But he says he wanted the beds to be “assembled like cabinets” because that’s what the students were studying.</p>
<p>The project pre-dated the board’s service learning requirement, but it bore the required characteristics. For example, the task was integrated into the curriculum and allowed students to share in the development of the idea.</p>
<p>Conroy launched the project by presenting a rough sketch to his students and asking, “Can we improve on that?” He says he always asks students for input because “their ideas are as good as mine.” The kids suggested adding a step to help children reach the upper bunk and using a sheet of ¾-inch plywood instead of slats for the base. The plywood, he says, made the beds virtually indestructible. “The kids could jump on them until they’re my age, and they couldn’t break them,” the teacher laughs.</p>
<p>The bunks were not the first class project done for a good cause. Conroy’s students also have made high chairs, cribs and cradles and repaired porches for families in need. Although the students can keep what they make, “most of the things go to people who can’t afford them,” he says. Conroy says students sometimes balk at giving their work away for free or a minimal price, but he reminds them, “You have this training; you will make more money than you will ever need. … You owe certain things to the community.”</p>
<p>Conroy notes that at least 40 of his students, including one girl, are working as apprentice carpenters. “There is a dire need for skilled workers,” he says.</p>
<p>Conroy, 53, sees teaching as a way to “give back” for the benefits he has enjoyed. A baseball scholarship, supplemented by wages from part-time work as an apprentice carpenter, paid for his education degree at Northern Illinois University. After teaching for a short time at Northern, he concentrated on the trade, working full time as a union carpenter on the Southwest Side.</p>
<p>When he returned to teaching, he first taught physical education in a suburban elementary school. Then his brother, a Chicago Public Schools employee, told him about an opening at an alternative high school for at-risk students. The job appealed to Conroy; for the next 14 years, he taught carpentry at the Industrial Skills Center in the basement of the old Washburne Trade School. When that school closed, Conroy transferred to Hubbard, which he describes as “a wonderful school.”</p>
<p>Conroy has been teaching various levels of carpentry and cabinetmaking at Hubbard for four years, focusing as much on civic responsibility as how to handle a saw. “I tell my students you are learning your skills from me for free, so you owe it to the community to give back,” he says.</p>
<p>This year’s cabinetmaking class soon will start building picnic tables for St. Elizabeth’s backyard. Conroy will make certain that his students do enough of the construction outside of class time to meet the new service learning requirement. Last spring, the kids spent “way beyond 30 hours” building the bunk beds, even working a few Saturdays. “We get busy, and we lose track of time,” he says.</p>
<p>And Conroy expects eventually they’ll make more bunk beds, too.</p>
<p>—Kimberly Fornek</p>
<p />
<p>Joseph Jablonski</p>
<p>Hancock</p>
<p>Last fall, James Iles, the principal of Hancock High School, invited his staff to hear a presentation by Chicago Do Something, the local arm of one of the nation’s largest youth leadership and community service organizations. The group had just opened a Chicago office and was anxious to work with Chicago public schools.</p>
<p>English teacher Joseph Jablonski, who has combined community work with school work since he began teaching three years ago, was ready to oblige.</p>
<p>“When my kids are involved in service learning, they do better in school,” he says. “They are more vocal in class, are much more apt to complete their homework and really try harder at school.”</p>
<p>In November, Jablonski began meeting weekly on Saturdays with 16 freshmen and sophomores and a Do Something representative. The group worked on activities to boost trust, confidence and team work.</p>
<p>For sophomore Gina Sandoval, those activities paved the way to a new assertiveness, better grades and a job at the Southwest Youth Collaborative, a local organization promoting student leadership. “I really speak out now,” she says. “I got more stuff to say because I know more.”</p>
<p>Laughing, she adds, “I’ve even done a rally at City Hall.”</p>
<p>One quarter last year, Gina had to stay after school for an hour each day to bring up her grades. “But not this year,” she says. “This year, I’m pretty focused.”</p>
<p>Gina credits Jablonski for some of her progress. “He really made us think about things. He was not just concerned that we got the right answer, but wanted to know why it was the right answer. He also makes us feel like we can change things.”</p>
<p>By March, Hancock’s Chicago Do Something group had begun brainstorming potential community service projects, including gang prevention, drug awareness and helping the homeless.</p>
<p>It would be up to Jablonski to weave the project into his curriculum. But he’s had practice at that.</p>
<p>In his first teaching job, at Bogan High School in Ashburn, he got students to volunteer in soup kitchens, local churches and hospitals. Then he offered extra credit if they would write a report and talk to the class about their experiences. Community service, he says, is a way to make issues of morality and humanity, which are staples in English classes, relevant and concrete.</p>
<p>When Bogan’s enrollment dropped in 1997, Jablonski found that as “last man in,” he would be the “first man out.” Principal Linda Pierzchalski tried to talk him into staying on as disciplinarian, but he did not want to leave the classroom.</p>
<p>Around the same time, Hancock, which was converted from an elementary school to help relieve overcrowding at Gage Park High, was looking for new teachers. “I needed an English teacher,” says Iles “I called around and heard he was a good teacher. Hiring him was one of my better decisions. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d say he’s a 10.”</p>
<p>Jablonski quickly found that Hancock’s special circumstances made community service a stiffer challenge. Most students lived too far away to remain in the community after class, and few had driver’s licenses, he says. Improvising, he had students plan community service projects, such as designing a school for other students.</p>
<p>Initially, the students thought like teenagers, including a catered cafeteria, lounges and big screen TVs in every classroom. But as they talked about how a school could help improve its community, the wish list changed to libraries, books, computers and family services.</p>
<p>“Kids are just tired of being looked down on,” says Jablonski. “There’s not a lot of positive stuff portrayed about them out there. But they do want to help others and do good things; sometimes they just don’t know how, and that’s where adults come in. Then, when kids pick up the ball, they run with it.”</p>
<p>Jablonski himself is running with a ball that came to him relatively recently. Initially, he set out to become an electrical engineer, but that “didn’t pan out.” His love of reading prompted him to try teaching. But it was not until he stood in front of a class as a student teacher that he knew he had made the right decision.</p>
<p>“There’s nothing like seeing that glimmer in the eyes of a student,” he says.</p>
<p>—Debra Williams</p>
<p />
<p>Wayne Schimpff</p>
<p>Von Steuben</p>
<p>When Wayne Schimpff taught horticulture at Bogan High School in the mid-1980s, he agreed to take the kids who were having a hard time learning, those with learning disabilities, discipline problems or D’s and F’s.</p>
<p>“I understood these kids,” says Schimpff, now a teacher at Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center. “When I was young, I was a joker myself.” He also suffered from mild dyslexia.</p>
<p>Schimpff says he knew he had to make learning come alive for these students, so he centered his teaching around hands-on projects. Coming from a former Eagle Scout and Peace Corps volunteer, the projects had a public-service bent.</p>
<p>For instance, students cultivated plants and used them for landscaping at the school, even converting a barren courtyard into a patio with waterfalls and ponds. Students also participated in neighborhood clean-ups sponsored by the Mayor’s Office. Back in the classroom, they had to research natural history and reflect on what they had done.</p>
<p>“A lot of my kids had not had positive experiences in their lives,” Schimpff recalls. “I thought one way to do that was to help them make a difference in their communities.”</p>
<p>In 1986, Schimpff co-founded Caretakers of the Environment International, a group that links high schools engaged in environmental projects and conducts annual conferences on global ecological issues. Every year since, he has taken some of his students to conferences in such places as Russia, Holland and Ireland. This year, he is planning a trip to Costa Rica.</p>
<p>“A new world opens to them,” says Schimpff, 58. “When students go outside their community and travel abroad, it gives them a sense that they are important. It helps them see that they can help others.”</p>
<p>Elizabeth Conklin, a Von Steuben senior who went to a conference in Ireland last year, attests to that. “I’d never traveled outside of Chicago before,” she says. “I got the chance to meet people with the same interest that I have from all over the world. I learned about erosion and corrosion. We did water testing, and the whole time, we were asked ‘What would you do to make things better?’ I felt people really listened to what I had to say and that my voice counted.”</p>
<p>Shortly after helping launch Caretakers, Schimpff fashioned his lessons and projects into a curriculum called “People, Plants and Kindness,” which eventually became a part of President Clinton’s Learn and Serve America Program promoting service learning.</p>
<p>Through the curriculum, students learn about plants and how they affect the environment, how to create better indoor settings using plants and how to do outdoor landscaping around the school. Finally, they participate in projects like “River Rescue Day,” which involves cleaning up sections of the Chicago River between Kimball and Pulaski.</p>
<p>Afterwards, students join another 700 to 800 of their peers from public and private schools from around the city to celebrate and share experiences at a festival. Later, at school, students write their reflections about the whole event.</p>
<p>“After the curriculum became a part of the Learn and Serve Program, it was nice to know that what I had been doing had a name, service learning,” says Schimpff. “I never had anyone to talk to professionally about what I was doing. I was always the teacher with the loose screws.”</p>
<p>No other Chicago public school is using Schimpff’s curriculum, but he is working with central administrators to incorporate his program into the board’s service learning curriculum.</p>
<p>“His classes are definitely not the norm,” says senior Matt Knipp, who took Schimpff’s biology class as a freshman and is now in his horticulture class. “Instead of reading about DNA strands, we construct them. And when he teaches, he also preaches about giving back to the community, not just taking from it.”</p>
| false | 3 |
pat conroy hubbard talk taking high school kids making men instantly pat conroy says thats happened last school year students cabinetmaking class hubbard high school delivered bunk beds made homeless shelter south side students assembled beds st elizabeth catholic worker shelter 8025 honore 20 mothers kids showered repeated thank yous beaming conroys students realized done something really valuable says thats important kids dont always high opinions children st elizabeth sleeping old steel bunk beds wearing kids take excess energy beds couple actually fallen apart says gert brixius st elizabeths executive director result couple months last year shelter could serve 20 adults children even though room 35 brixius says mentioned predicament conversation bob keeley community reinvestment officer marquette bank keeley turn suggested contact woodworking instructors neighborhood high schools see would take job class project gave brixius three names contacting three brixius got enthusiastic response conroy came see mind excited project says working two hours day three weeks dozen students 17 18 years old built six beds big substantial two adult men could move says conroy students cut milled boards douglas fir drilled holes nuts bolts easier quicker ways build teacher concedes says wanted beds assembled like cabinets thats students studying project predated boards service learning requirement bore required characteristics example task integrated curriculum allowed students share development idea conroy launched project presenting rough sketch students asking improve says always asks students input ideas good mine kids suggested adding step help children reach upper bunk using sheet ¾inch plywood instead slats base plywood says made beds virtually indestructible kids could jump theyre age couldnt break teacher laughs bunks first class project done good cause conroys students also made high chairs cribs cradles repaired porches families need although students keep make things go people cant afford says conroy says students sometimes balk giving work away free minimal price reminds training make money ever need owe certain things community conroy notes least 40 students including one girl working apprentice carpenters dire need skilled workers says conroy 53 sees teaching way give back benefits enjoyed baseball scholarship supplemented wages parttime work apprentice carpenter paid education degree northern illinois university teaching short time northern concentrated trade working full time union carpenter southwest side returned teaching first taught physical education suburban elementary school brother chicago public schools employee told opening alternative high school atrisk students job appealed conroy next 14 years taught carpentry industrial skills center basement old washburne trade school school closed conroy transferred hubbard describes wonderful school conroy teaching various levels carpentry cabinetmaking hubbard four years focusing much civic responsibility handle saw tell students learning skills free owe community give back says years cabinetmaking class soon start building picnic tables st elizabeths backyard conroy make certain students enough construction outside class time meet new service learning requirement last spring kids spent way beyond 30 hours building bunk beds even working saturdays get busy lose track time says conroy expects eventually theyll make bunk beds kimberly fornek joseph jablonski hancock last fall james iles principal hancock high school invited staff hear presentation chicago something local arm one nations largest youth leadership community service organizations group opened chicago office anxious work chicago public schools english teacher joseph jablonski combined community work school work since began teaching three years ago ready oblige kids involved service learning better school says vocal class much apt complete homework really try harder school november jablonski began meeting weekly saturdays 16 freshmen sophomores something representative group worked activities boost trust confidence team work sophomore gina sandoval activities paved way new assertiveness better grades job southwest youth collaborative local organization promoting student leadership really speak says got stuff say know laughing adds ive even done rally city hall one quarter last year gina stay school hour day bring grades year says year im pretty focused gina credits jablonski progress really made us think things concerned got right answer wanted know right answer also makes us feel like change things march hancocks chicago something group begun brainstorming potential community service projects including gang prevention drug awareness helping homeless would jablonski weave project curriculum hes practice first teaching job bogan high school ashburn got students volunteer soup kitchens local churches hospitals offered extra credit would write report talk class experiences community service says way make issues morality humanity staples english classes relevant concrete bogans enrollment dropped 1997 jablonski found last man would first man principal linda pierzchalski tried talk staying disciplinarian want leave classroom around time hancock converted elementary school help relieve overcrowding gage park high looking new teachers needed english teacher says iles called around heard good teacher hiring one better decisions scale 1 10 id say hes 10 jablonski quickly found hancocks special circumstances made community service stiffer challenge students lived far away remain community class drivers licenses says improvising students plan community service projects designing school students initially students thought like teenagers including catered cafeteria lounges big screen tvs every classroom talked school could help improve community wish list changed libraries books computers family services kids tired looked says jablonski theres lot positive stuff portrayed want help others good things sometimes dont know thats adults come kids pick ball run jablonski running ball came relatively recently initially set become electrical engineer didnt pan love reading prompted try teaching stood front class student teacher knew made right decision theres nothing like seeing glimmer eyes student says debra williams wayne schimpff von steuben wayne schimpff taught horticulture bogan high school mid1980s agreed take kids hard time learning learning disabilities discipline problems ds fs understood kids says schimpff teacher von steuben metropolitan science center young joker also suffered mild dyslexia schimpff says knew make learning come alive students centered teaching around handson projects coming former eagle scout peace corps volunteer projects publicservice bent instance students cultivated plants used landscaping school even converting barren courtyard patio waterfalls ponds students also participated neighborhood cleanups sponsored mayors office back classroom research natural history reflect done lot kids positive experiences lives schimpff recalls thought one way help make difference communities 1986 schimpff cofounded caretakers environment international group links high schools engaged environmental projects conducts annual conferences global ecological issues every year since taken students conferences places russia holland ireland year planning trip costa rica new world opens says schimpff 58 students go outside community travel abroad gives sense important helps see help others elizabeth conklin von steuben senior went conference ireland last year attests id never traveled outside chicago says got chance meet people interest world learned erosion corrosion water testing whole time asked would make things better felt people really listened say voice counted shortly helping launch caretakers schimpff fashioned lessons projects curriculum called people plants kindness eventually became part president clintons learn serve america program promoting service learning curriculum students learn plants affect environment create better indoor settings using plants outdoor landscaping around school finally participate projects like river rescue day involves cleaning sections chicago river kimball pulaski afterwards students join another 700 800 peers public private schools around city celebrate share experiences festival later school students write reflections whole event curriculum became part learn serve program nice know name service learning says schimpff never anyone talk professionally always teacher loose screws chicago public school using schimpffs curriculum working central administrators incorporate program boards service learning curriculum classes definitely norm says senior matt knipp took schimpffs biology class freshman horticulture class instead reading dna strands construct teaches also preaches giving back community taking
| 1,235 |
<p>SANTIAGO&#160;—&#160;During the dark days of Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship, attorney Roberto Garreton stumbled across something unusual:&#160;huge gaps&#160;— marked "SECRET"&#160;—&#160;in the lists of Chilean laws.</p>
<p>Those classified&#160;laws&#160;—&#160;Garreton eventually tallied more than 100, most of which were related to the defense ministry&#160;— remain in effect in Chile to this day, long after the end of Pinochet's rule in 1990. The original copies sit stored in a vault in the port city of&#160;Valparaiso, while some Chilean lawmakers struggle to get them declassified.&#160;</p>
<p>The laws created a bizarre situation in Chile: How should Chileans obey laws they know nothing about?&#160;</p>
<p>“There was a law on the military draft, for example, that said that the crimes mentioned in one of its provisions carried a certain penalty. The law was public, but the provision detailing the crime you could be punished for was secret!” said Garreton, a prominent human rights lawyer&#160;who began making a list of all the secret laws in 1985. &#160;</p>
<p>The military junta that governed Chile from 1973 to 1990 didn't much care about this surreal situation. Under Pinochet's rule, Congress was closed, the Supreme Court was eating out of the junta's hands and the federal comptroller was out of the loop. Four junta members presiding over "legislative committees" were the only people in the country deciding what laws were needed, how they should be written, and whether the Chilean public should know about them.&#160;At a time when anyone could be arrested, tortured, executed or made to disappear without reason, transparency wasn't exactly a guiding principle.</p>
<p>With the end of military rule, members of the recently reopened Congress were handed some of the original copies of all the secret laws (the location of all of the laws is unclear). A year later, the Senate recommended that some be declassified and the rest stored in a vault. But in the end, none of the secret laws were made public, and senators are forbidden from disclosing their contents.</p>
<p>“They arrived in 1990, and have been in a safebox ever since. Senators can seek permission to look at them, but in the presence of the general secretariat of the Senate, and only for reading and taking notes," said&#160;Pilar Silva, a senior officer at the secretariat. "They can’t make copies, and they are barred from revealing their contents."</p>
<p>There have, of course, been leaks over the years.</p>
<p>According to those reports, most of the secret laws relate to&#160;military personnel, salaries, hierarchy and structure, military justice, troop movements and weapons purchases. Also secret were parts of the decree that created the Chilean secret police, called DINA, and its successor, CNI, as well as laws governing money funneled to the military without any oversight.</p>
<p>Another set of secret laws refers to large sums of money the finance ministry was forced to include in the nation’s budget for the armed forces. Others grant millions of dollars in secret deposits for the military, and authorize the treasury to allocate $50 million to cover the cost of weapons purchases and another $100 million for unspecified purposes.</p>
<p>Still others establish tax exemptions beneficial to the military. One&#160;authorizes the president (then Pinochet) to funnel huge loans from the central bank to the military. Another two authorize loans (apparently from Austrian sources) for nearly $1.9 billion.&#160;The subsequent use of these funds, was, naturally, secret.</p>
<p>And then there is this gem: “The provision of funds … must be carried out secretly; they will be held in secret accounts, their accounting will be secret, and their investment … will be determined by secret supreme decrees … These funds will not be included in the general accounting of the Nation.”</p>
<p>The total number of secret laws and decrees enacted during Pinochet's 17-year dictatorship remains unknown. Some were published in a restricted gazette, to which only a handful of regime officials had access. The printing of that document was supervised by a military officer, who made sure that all traces of the document were destroyed afterwards.&#160;</p>
<p>In addition, there are 69 secret laws that were issued in Chile before Pinochet came to power&#160;—&#160;from 1900 to 1973&#160;— and two more from the late 1990s, when civilian governments were in power. No one knows for sure the content of the two most recent secret laws.&#160;</p>
<p>For the most part, the secret laws are now obsolete, according to lawmakers who have read them.&#160;</p>
<p>Which raises the question:&#160;If they're obsolete, then why, almost 20 years after the end of Pinochet's rule, is there still resistance to declassifying the laws?</p>
<p>“No one has ever really addressed this situation," Silva said. "It’s not easy to break away from this past. This is something that was just left pending, and the laws put away in a safebox and forgotten."</p>
<p>In August 2003, legislators introduced a bill that would declassify the secret decrees and laws enacted between Sept. 11, 1973 and March 10, 1990. A year later, it was approved by the lower house and passed on to the Senate. But it’s been stuck in a Senate commission ever since.</p>
<p>Even if the bill passes, there would be some exceptions. Among them are Pinochet-era changes to the country's copper law, <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/chile/090307/chile-reconsiders-military-spending-provision" type="external">which gives&#160;10 percent of all copper export revenues to the armed forces for weapons purchases</a>. Strangely, the bill calls for declassifying these exceptions by July 7, 2014. The reason is anyone's guess.</p>
<p>“Something tells me all these old laws will remain secret. Not everyone wants to reveal how the military spent all these fiscal funds. And who knows what other unexpected secrets they may unravel,” Garreton said.&#160;</p>
<p>More GlobalPost dispatches from Chile:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/chile/090310/defending-the-dictator" type="external">History gets a rewrite at the Pinochet Museum</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/environment/090302/fish-different-color" type="external">The salmon industry's push into Chilean Patagonia</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/video/commerce/090222/the-recession-wine-bad-economy-good-news-chiles-low-cost-grapes" type="external">Is a bad economy good news for Chile's low-cost grapes?</a></p>
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santiago160160during dark days augusto pinochets military dictatorship attorney roberto garreton stumbled across something unusual160huge gaps160 marked secret160160in lists chilean laws classified160laws160160garreton eventually tallied 100 related defense ministry160 remain effect chile day long end pinochets rule 1990 original copies sit stored vault port city of160valparaiso chilean lawmakers struggle get declassified160 laws created bizarre situation chile chileans obey laws know nothing about160 law military draft example said crimes mentioned one provisions carried certain penalty law public provision detailing crime could punished secret said garreton prominent human rights lawyer160who began making list secret laws 1985 160 military junta governed chile 1973 1990 didnt much care surreal situation pinochets rule congress closed supreme court eating juntas hands federal comptroller loop four junta members presiding legislative committees people country deciding laws needed written whether chilean public know them160at time anyone could arrested tortured executed made disappear without reason transparency wasnt exactly guiding principle end military rule members recently reopened congress handed original copies secret laws location laws unclear year later senate recommended declassified rest stored vault end none secret laws made public senators forbidden disclosing contents arrived 1990 safebox ever since senators seek permission look presence general secretariat senate reading taking notes said160pilar silva senior officer secretariat cant make copies barred revealing contents course leaks years according reports secret laws relate to160military personnel salaries hierarchy structure military justice troop movements weapons purchases also secret parts decree created chilean secret police called dina successor cni well laws governing money funneled military without oversight another set secret laws refers large sums money finance ministry forced include nations budget armed forces others grant millions dollars secret deposits military authorize treasury allocate 50 million cover cost weapons purchases another 100 million unspecified purposes still others establish tax exemptions beneficial military one160authorizes president pinochet funnel huge loans central bank military another two authorize loans apparently austrian sources nearly 19 billion160the subsequent use funds naturally secret gem provision funds must carried secretly held secret accounts accounting secret investment determined secret supreme decrees funds included general accounting nation total number secret laws decrees enacted pinochets 17year dictatorship remains unknown published restricted gazette handful regime officials access printing document supervised military officer made sure traces document destroyed afterwards160 addition 69 secret laws issued chile pinochet came power160160from 1900 1973160 two late 1990s civilian governments power one knows sure content two recent secret laws160 part secret laws obsolete according lawmakers read them160 raises question160if theyre obsolete almost 20 years end pinochets rule still resistance declassifying laws one ever really addressed situation silva said easy break away past something left pending laws put away safebox forgotten august 2003 legislators introduced bill would declassify secret decrees laws enacted sept 11 1973 march 10 1990 year later approved lower house passed senate stuck senate commission ever since even bill passes would exceptions among pinochetera changes countrys copper law gives16010 percent copper export revenues armed forces weapons purchases strangely bill calls declassifying exceptions july 7 2014 reason anyones guess something tells old laws remain secret everyone wants reveal military spent fiscal funds knows unexpected secrets may unravel garreton said160 globalpost dispatches chile history gets rewrite pinochet museum salmon industrys push chilean patagonia bad economy good news chiles lowcost grapes
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<p>LONDON, U.K. — Once again, an attempted attack on the U.S. via commercial airliner. Once again there is a British connection. Why does this synergy exist?</p>
<p>Let's start with the obvious: language. If what is still the world's only superpower, America, was a Francophone nation then perhaps France's radical Muslims would be more involved. Same thought applies to Germany or for that matter the Netherlands. You could even add Malaysia and Indonesia and their many different languages to this hypothetical list. If America's native tongue was anyone of these then it is entirely probable that I would be writing about these other countries.</p>
<p>The point is this: The entire Muslim world is in the midst of a civil war. No Muslim under the age of 40 is immune from the struggle going on inside the Umma, the Muslim community.</p>
<p>The radical side in this conflict, practitioners of the Wahabbi/Salafi interpretation of the religion, can be found everywhere from the west coast of Africa to the Philippines. The leader of this side is the network of affiliated ultra-radicals called Al Qaeda. For them, attacks on America are an important recruiting tool. "We are the only ones who take the fight to the infidels on their home territory," is the pitch. They can add that it is American support that allows the Zionist entity to survive. (They never say Israel by name because to do so would convey a degree of legitimacy to the country.)</p>
<p>There is doubtless Al Qaeda recruitment going on in France, Germany and everywhere else there are Muslims in the world.</p>
<p>Now, let's try to understand the British connection. The British Empire is long gone but its social and cultural influence remains a key factor in the life of the nations that emerged from it. This is particularly true in Africa and South Asia where the English language binds nations together. Via the British Commonwealth, ties of immigration, family connections and education to the old "mother country" are very strong.</p>
<p>In earlier attempted attacks on America using planes, the terrorists were drawn from Britain's immigrants from Pakistan. There is a steady stream of back and forth visits from Britain to Pakistan as families reunite, matches are made between brides and grooms from the new country and home villages. Unruly youths are sent back to gain old country values and those who are alienated in Britain seek their true identity through deeper study of Islam in Pakistani madrassas. The encounter with radicalism is possible everywhere along the line. There was also, don't forget, Richard C. Reid, better known as the shoe bomber, who was born a British citizen and made frequent trips to Pakistan.</p>
<p>The case of Abdulmutallab is different in specifics. But the broad point is similar: Nigeria was once part of the British Empire and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab moved easily back and forth from its culture to his own. The failed bomber comes from a well-to-do Anglophile family who sent him to the British International School in Togo, a kind of Eton for the children of West Africa's upper classes. From there he moved on to University College London, one of Britain's and the world's elite institutions of higher education.</p>
<p>The fact that Abdulmutallab was a child of privilege attending a top university however did not mean he was immune to the internal struggle going on inside his religious community. In London there was plenty of opportunity to be pushed and pulled by all sides. British universities are not as apolitical as their American counterparts. All kinds of radical groups find a hearing in them. And Muslim students are as susceptible to the immature romanticism of revolution as other students who commit acts of violence in support of animal rights and/or Greenpeace-style direct action against oil companies.</p>
<p>The appeal of radical Islam at British universities was underscored by a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/27/islam.highereducation" type="external">2008 poll</a> by the respected opinion research firm YouGov which showed that a third of Muslim students felt killing in the name of religion could be justified, a similar number supported the creation of the Caliphate, a unitary state for all the Muslim lands. This is one of the key political goals of the Wahabbi/Salafi radicals fighting the Islamic civil war.</p>
<p>Already devout, when he arrived in the U.K. Abdulmutallab would have been drawn into discussions on these subjects. His arrival at University College in 2005 coincided with an intense period of scrutiny of the Muslim community. The London bombings had occurred in July of that year. Police surveillance was up, many young Muslims were angered at the intrusive gaze of the outside world on their lives. The would-be terrorist might have attended any number of mosques where radical preachers or their disciples "teach" the Wahabbi/Salifist brand of Islam followed by Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda leadership. He would have heard them exploit the feelings of resentment that many young British Muslims already felt.</p>
<p>Early reports place Abdulmutallab at the East London Mosque in Whitechapel. Last summer, I took part in a forum 50 yards down the road from the mosque organized by <a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=info&amp;ref=ts&amp;gid=91162457380" type="external">Dialogue with Islam</a>, a grassroots organization that brings together leaders from within the British Muslim Community and prominent people from outside to discuss topics of mutual concern. I first hooked up with the founder of the group while <a href="http://www.insideout.org/documentaries/britishjihad/" type="external">reporting on Britain's radical Muslims</a> in 2004.</p>
<p>At the meeting, held just after evening prayers at the East London Mosque, it was amazing to me to see how hardened attitudes had become among those who attended. The topic that evening was whether Afghanistan represented another front in the West's continuing crusade against the Muslims. Within that tight-knit group it was impossible to frame a discussion of Afghanistan within geo-politics as it is viewed from Downing Street, the White House or for that matter Hamid Karzai's presidential palace. The men, bearded, primed with anger, only saw the Afghanistan conflict in terms of religious warfare.</p>
<p>That is what I observed in the public space, what happens in discussions in small groups in the back rooms of mosques and how it might affect a young man trying to find a clear understanding of himself and his identity as a Muslim can only be guessed at.</p>
<p>But something clearly did happen between discussions with college friends and those he made at the mosque because Adbulmutallab ended up <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/middle-east/091220/somalia-yemen-refugees" type="external">traveling to Yemen</a>— yes, a former British colony — to "study" Arabic in 2008. With the American and Pakistani military smothering Al Qaeda activity in the Af-Pak border country, Yemen, the bin Laden family's ancestral homeland, has become a center of Al Qaeda training. It was here that the young man took the final steps to becoming a soldier on the Wahabbi/Salafi side of the war within Islam.</p>
<p>Given the many countries woven together by modern Islam's civil war and the historical connections created by British colonialism, Abdulmutallab is not likely to be the last wannabe Jihadist to pass through London.</p>
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london uk attempted attack us via commercial airliner british connection synergy exist lets start obvious language still worlds superpower america francophone nation perhaps frances radical muslims would involved thought applies germany matter netherlands could even add malaysia indonesia many different languages hypothetical list americas native tongue anyone entirely probable would writing countries point entire muslim world midst civil war muslim age 40 immune struggle going inside umma muslim community radical side conflict practitioners wahabbisalafi interpretation religion found everywhere west coast africa philippines leader side network affiliated ultraradicals called al qaeda attacks america important recruiting tool ones take fight infidels home territory pitch add american support allows zionist entity survive never say israel name would convey degree legitimacy country doubtless al qaeda recruitment going france germany everywhere else muslims world lets try understand british connection british empire long gone social cultural influence remains key factor life nations emerged particularly true africa south asia english language binds nations together via british commonwealth ties immigration family connections education old mother country strong earlier attempted attacks america using planes terrorists drawn britains immigrants pakistan steady stream back forth visits britain pakistan families reunite matches made brides grooms new country home villages unruly youths sent back gain old country values alienated britain seek true identity deeper study islam pakistani madrassas encounter radicalism possible everywhere along line also dont forget richard c reid better known shoe bomber born british citizen made frequent trips pakistan case abdulmutallab different specifics broad point similar nigeria part british empire umar farouk abdulmutallab moved easily back forth culture failed bomber comes welltodo anglophile family sent british international school togo kind eton children west africas upper classes moved university college london one britains worlds elite institutions higher education fact abdulmutallab child privilege attending top university however mean immune internal struggle going inside religious community london plenty opportunity pushed pulled sides british universities apolitical american counterparts kinds radical groups find hearing muslim students susceptible immature romanticism revolution students commit acts violence support animal rights andor greenpeacestyle direct action oil companies appeal radical islam british universities underscored 2008 poll respected opinion research firm yougov showed third muslim students felt killing name religion could justified similar number supported creation caliphate unitary state muslim lands one key political goals wahabbisalafi radicals fighting islamic civil war already devout arrived uk abdulmutallab would drawn discussions subjects arrival university college 2005 coincided intense period scrutiny muslim community london bombings occurred july year police surveillance many young muslims angered intrusive gaze outside world lives wouldbe terrorist might attended number mosques radical preachers disciples teach wahabbisalifist brand islam followed osama bin laden al qaeda leadership would heard exploit feelings resentment many young british muslims already felt early reports place abdulmutallab east london mosque whitechapel last summer took part forum 50 yards road mosque organized dialogue islam grassroots organization brings together leaders within british muslim community prominent people outside discuss topics mutual concern first hooked founder group reporting britains radical muslims 2004 meeting held evening prayers east london mosque amazing see hardened attitudes become among attended topic evening whether afghanistan represented another front wests continuing crusade muslims within tightknit group impossible frame discussion afghanistan within geopolitics viewed downing street white house matter hamid karzais presidential palace men bearded primed anger saw afghanistan conflict terms religious warfare observed public space happens discussions small groups back rooms mosques might affect young man trying find clear understanding identity muslim guessed something clearly happen discussions college friends made mosque adbulmutallab ended traveling yemen yes former british colony study arabic 2008 american pakistani military smothering al qaeda activity afpak border country yemen bin laden familys ancestral homeland become center al qaeda training young man took final steps becoming soldier wahabbisalafi side war within islam given many countries woven together modern islams civil war historical connections created british colonialism abdulmutallab likely last wannabe jihadist pass london
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<p>Editor’s Note:&#160;On Monday, April 10, 2017, a court hearing is scheduled for two men who claim they were framed for murder by now-retired Chicago police Detective Reynaldo Guevara. Roberto Almodovar and William Negron were among dozens of Latino men who allege that they were falsely convicted in a string of homicides in Humboldt Park years ago. Six of the men Guevara helped imprison have had their convictions overturned. At least 29 men who say he framed them remain in prison. Recently, <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/melissasegura/detective-guevaras-witnesses" type="external">Buzzfeed News published a deep dive</a> on Almodovar’s case and officials’ failure to act on accusations from at least 51 people who claimed that Guevara had framed them for murder. In light of events, we are republishing our 2000 investigation about the cases and an accompanying <a href="/ten-cases-many-questions/" type="external">analysis of homicides linked to Guevara</a>.</p>
<p>Mist rises from the banks of the Mississippi River and rolls up to the 122-year-old Menard Correctional Center in downstate Illinois. The damp climbs over the brick walls and barbed wire, seeps through the immaculate black-and-white checkered corridors and invades a cramped interview room with a leaky air conditioner.</p>
<p>Outside the room, an anxious guard occasionally looks through the glass in the door. One of Menard’s 2,559 inmates talks about his case, and his voice rises in anger at what he believes is a story of mistaken identification and a failed legal system.</p>
<p>Angel Rodriguez, 36, wears thin, denim work clothes. He is edgy and uncomfortable. He is serving 60 years for the Nov. 24, 1996, shooting death of Ibrahim Zayed, the 34-year-old owner of Karlov Foods, one of many bread-and-beer stores on residential street corners in Humboldt Park.</p>
<p>Four months after the murder, Chicago Police Department detectives, acting on an anonymous tip in the Zayed case, arrested Rodriguez on an expired traffic warrant. Seventeen-year-old Andrew Bolton, who worked at Karlov Foods and was the sole witness to the shooting, identified Rodriguez in a police lineup.</p>
<p>Based largely on Bolton’s testimony, a jury found Rodriguez guilty of first-degree murder on March 10, 1998.</p>
<p>Rodriguez is no boy scout. He has four prior convictions for theft and drug offenses. But he swears he is innocent of Zayed’s murder. Court records show three years passed between his previous brushes with the law and his arrest.</p>
<p>“I had three kids and a wife. I had my own apartment,” he said. “I had a job that I was working at for three, four years. And you think I’m going to kill somebody? For what? I don’t even know this dude.”</p>
<p>Claims of innocence are nothing new from prisoners, but Rodriguez and his family have reason to hope they may be reunited soon. On March 31, the Illinois Appellate Court reversed his conviction, ruling that Bolton’s testimony alone did not warrant a guilty verdict.</p>
<p>On May 2, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office petitioned the Supreme Court of Illinois to review the case, and the court is expected to rule in September. John T. Moran, Rodriguez’ attorney, said he expects the appellate court ruling to stand and his client to go free.</p>
<p>The Chicago Reporter published an investigation of questionable homicide convictions involving Chicago detective Reynaldo Guevara in 2000.</p>
<p>Rodriguez’ murder conviction is one of 15 in Humboldt Park in the past 16 years that prompted a group of Latino families to form Comité Exigimos Justicia (We Demand Justice Committee). The families charge that their husbands, sons and brothers were falsely accused by Chicago Police Department detectives assigned to Area 5, which covers five police districts on the Northwest and West sides.</p>
<p>Among Area 5 investigators, the families single out Detective Reynaldo Guevara, a 24-year veteran of the Chicago force. In addition to the Rodriguez case, The Chicago Reporter examined nine homicides involving Guevara.</p>
<p>Guevara did not return numerous telephone calls or answer written questions. Retired Chicago Police Sgt. Paul Carroll, who once was Guevara’s supervisor, said, “I’ve known Ray since he was a tactical officer 20 years ago. He’s one of the best and most aggressive officers out there.”</p>
<p>Individually, the Humboldt Park cases seem anything but extraordinary, similar to many of the 126 gang-related murders recorded in Chicago in 1999. But as a group, the cases reveal a pattern of scant evidence and questionable police practices.</p>
<p>Nine of 10 cases relied heavily on eyewitness testimony, the Reporter found. The murder investigations produced little or no scientific evidence, such as fingerprints or DNA, linking the defendants to the crimes. And none of the men confessed.</p>
<p>In seven cases, witnesses were either using drugs or alcohol, rival gang members, jailhouse informants or co-defendants. In one case, a witness recanted his testimony, and in another a witness changed his story twice.</p>
<p>One-third of murder convictions in Cook County are reversed or sent back for a new trial by the First District of the Illinois Appellate Court, according to the <a href="" type="internal">Reporter’s analysis of 154 decisions from September 1996 to June of this year</a>.</p>
<p>“It’s human nature for the juries to believe witnesses who say, ‘That’s who I saw. That’s definitely who I saw,'” said Cook County Public Defender Rita Frye.</p>
<p>Witnesses want to believe their own identifications, she said. “Witnesses aren’t always sure and they feel like they need to be sure.”</p>
<p>“Nobody wants to charge the wrong guy,” added Carroll, who ran the police department’s detective training from 1988 to 1998. He is now a law enforcement consultant who has worked for the U.S. Department of Justice. “It looks terrible. We have to live with these cases, you know.”</p>
<p>Unlike the recent spate of wrongful murder convictions that compelled Gov. George Ryan to impose a moratorium on executions, the Humboldt Park cases have not produced conclusive new evidence or confessions. But the families say the evidence against their loved ones failed to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.</p>
<p>“I used to have faith in the justice system, just like everybody else,” said Rodriguez’ sister, Ruth Peña, one of Comité’s founders. “Now I know justice is something you have to fight for. ”</p>
<p>Like Rodriguez, the other convicted men have histories of gang affiliation and long police records for crimes such as drug possession, disorderly conduct and battery. Court records show most men had one to four convictions for either misdemeanors or felonies before the murder charges. Neither Thomas Sierra nor Mario Flores, who is currently on Death Row, had a prior adult record (see “ <a href="/ten-cases-many-questions/" type="external">10 Cases, Many Questions</a>“).</p>
<p>Rodriguez believes the system never gave him a chance. “Somebody tells a lie, and then nobody’s going to believe me if I am a criminal,” he said.</p>
<p>“They think the only people that tell the truth in the world are the police officers. The cops ain’t stupid,” he said. “They get guys they know they can hook up.”</p>
<p>Eyewitness ldentification</p>
<p>Psychologists and law enforcement experts say most misidentifications are not the work of sinister police but the results of faulty procedures and clouded memory.</p>
<p>“When a mistaken witness becomes more confident, the account becomes better, the lighting better,” said Boston criminal defense attorney James Doyle. “And the trail back to the original memory is blocked.”</p>
<p>A recent study of 62 wrongful convictions in the United States attributed 52 in part to mistaken identification, according to “Actual Innocence,” by New York Daily News columnist Jim Dwyer and attorneys Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. The book, published in February, details Death Row cases overturned in the 1990s by DNA evidence. In 10 cases, police inappropriately influenced witnesses viewing lineups and arrays of photographs, the authors found.</p>
<p>To prevent police from leading or pressuring witnesses, “the person administering the lineup or photo spread should not be the detective in the case,” said Gary Wells, an Iowa State University psychology professor who has studied eyewitness identification for 25 years.</p>
<p>“The detective can reinforce a false identification. Witnesses can develop a false certainty about the identification based on the coaching of detectives,” he said.</p>
<p>Chicago Police Department detectives currently conduct their own photo arrays and lineups, said Detective Anne Chambers, who trains new detectives at the Chicago Police Academy. In the 10 Humboldt Park homicides examined by the Reporter, witnesses identified suspects in photo arrays or police lineups.</p>
<p>Chicago police recruits receive one hour of instruction in the laws and practices governing photo arrays and lineups. Officers are taught to use photos of similar quality and choose suspects with similar physical characteristics, said Andrea Hyfantis, supervisor of the law unit at the police academy. “We don’t teach them to [lead witnesses],” she said.</p>
<p>But Thomas Sierra’s 1997 murder trial raised questions about those procedures.</p>
<p>Sierra, 24, was convicted of first-degree murder and aggravated discharge of a firearm in the May 23, 1995, gang-related shooting of Noel Andujar. He is serving a 45-year sentence in Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet.</p>
<p>Andujar, Jose Melendez and Alberto Rodriguez were driving in Logan Square when a black car with tinted windows pulled up beside them. A passenger flashed Spanish Cobra gang signs, pulled a white hood over his head and fired 10 shots. Melendez signed a statement identifying Sierra but at trial said the statement and his identification were prompted by Guevara.</p>
<p />
<p>When questioned by Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Patricia Sudendorf, Melendez testified he did not pick Sierra out of a photo array until prompted by Guevara.</p>
<p>“Did you point out anybody in those photos?” Sudendorf asked, according to court transcripts. “I pointed out the one he [Guevara] told me to point out,” Melendez answered. Guevara “had reason to believe this was the guy,” Melendez said. At the trial, Guevara denied that he influenced Melendez.</p>
<p>Guevara held Sierra’s photo in his hand and left the others on the table, Melendez testified. A member of the Latin Kings street gang, Melendez testified he was charged with murder at the time of the trial and was convicted in April 1993 of aggravated battery and armed robbery.</p>
<p>Investigators should not say anything that could influence a witness’ selection, according to new Justice Department guidelines, “Eyewitness Evidence: A Gulde for Law Enforcement.” The guidelines, released in October, urge police to instruct witnesses that clearing innocent suspects is as important as identifying guilty ones, and that the person who committed the crime may not be in the lineup. Police should tell witnesses the investigation will continue even if they do not make an identification.</p>
<p>Wells, one of 34 contributors to the guidelines, said investigators may not realize they are influencing witnesses. But, he added, “We can’t be letting the detectives make the picks or assist the witnesses.”</p>
<p>Doyle, another contributor, said many police working on the guidelines predicted detectives would balk at the suggestion that they should not administer photo arrays and lineups in their own investigations. Police would feel it was “an attack on their integrity,” he said.</p>
<p>But one police contributor, retired Chicago Sgt. Carroll, said he believes the guidelines will help curb complaints of misconduct and reduce wrongful convictions.</p>
<p>Detectives not working the cases should arrange lineups, and witnesses should view photos one after another, instead of in a group. These procedures “could eliminate some of those travesties,” he said.</p>
<p>The new guidelines will be introduced to a new class of Chicago detectives as soon as the Justice Department publishes a training manual, said police spokesman Patrick Camden.</p>
<p>Seven Seconds</p>
<p>Angel Rodriguez was born in Puerto Rico and came to Humboldt Park in 1973 at the age of 10. He joined the Spanish Cobras street gang and dropped out of Holy Trinity High School in 11th grade. In July 1991, Rodriguez was sentenced to two years probation on two counts of delivering a controlled substance. He also served two days in Cook County Jail for drug possession.</p>
<p>But Rodriguez said he qult using drugs in 1993, the year he became a born-again Christian and had a son with his girlfriend, Angelica Rivera. From 1994 until his arrest in March 1 997, he worked as a cook at Market Fisheries, 7127 S. State St. The couple had two more boys, in 1996 and 1997.</p>
<p>Rodriguez said on the afternoon of Nov. 24, 1996, he went to Omni Foods, 2550 N. Clybourn Ave., to shop for his mother’s Thanksgiving dinner. According to court documents, about three miles away a man walked into Karlov Foods, 4101 W Potomac Ave., shouted “Hey” and fired three or four shots at Zayed, who was sitting behind the counter. The shooter then ran out of the store.</p>
<p>Andrew Bolton, who had worked at the store for six months, was seated between Zayed and the door. When the shooting began, Bolton told police he raised his hands in front of his face. The shooting lasted about seven seconds, according to court records. Bolton locked the door, dialed 911 and comforted Zayed, who lay bleeding, until police and paramedics arrived.</p>
<p>Bolton described the shooter as a male, white or Hispanic, 25 to 30 years old, 6- feet tall with a slim build, brown eyes, black hair and a mustache. He was wearing a red-and-white knit cap pulled low on his forehead. Rodriguez is 5 feet 10 inches tall, with similar features.</p>
<p>Bolton told police he saw the shooter a week after the murder at Pete &amp; Jack Food &amp; Uquor, 4158 W Division St., trying to sell a snowblower to employee Steve Salamy. Bolton said he didn’t report the incident because he was afraid the offender had recognized him.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Click here to enlarge.</a></p>
<p>Four months after the shooting, Area 5 Detective Ernest Halvorsen received an anonymous tip about the murder that led him to Rodriguez. Bolton identified Rodriguez in a photo array and a lineup. He did not return telephone calls or respond to written requests for an interview.</p>
<p>Rodriguez was convicted and sentenced to 60 years, based largely on Bolton’s testimony. But the appellate court did not believe that testimony was enough to convict Rodriguez when “there [was] no other corroborative evidence linking the defendant to the crime.”</p>
<p>In reversing the conviction, the justices wrote that Salamy had testified Rodriguez was not the person who tried to sell him the snowblower. And Rodriguez’ employer used payroll records to prove he was at work that day.</p>
<p>The county’s appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court charged the appellate court had erred by “usurping the function of the jury and, instead, chose to retry this case in a light most favorable to defendant.”</p>
<p>State Witnesses</p>
<p>Some witnesses are as sure today as ever that they identified the right person in a crime.</p>
<p>“There was no doubt. It was them,” said Wilda Vargas, whose testimony helped convict Armando Serrano and two others of the Feb. 5, 1993, murder of her husband, Rodrigo Vargas, in Humboldt Park. “They robbed me of my husband and left me alone with two sons,” said a tearful Vargas, who is training to be a real estate agent.</p>
<p>Francisco Vicente, a jailhouse informant, told prosecutors that the day of the murder, he was with all three defendants as he was coming down from a heroin high. He said one mentioned arguing with a man at a gas station, and said he planned to rob him.</p>
<p>Although she did not witness the shooting, Wilda Vargas told Guevara she remembered three young men in a cream-colored car arguing with her husband at a gas station. She identified them in a series of photo arrays and police lineups. At Serrano’s trial, however, she could not identify him.</p>
<p>One witness to the 1994 murder of Humboldt Park 18-year-olds Jorge Rodriguez and Amy Merkes made contradictory statements about what he saw during the shooting. On Sept. 1, 1994, Merkes and Rodriguez were hanging out with Kennelly Saez, 19, and Jacqueline Grande, 20, outside Saez’ apartment building at 3918 W. Cortland St.</p>
<p>According to court records, Saez said a blue car pulled up to the group at about 1 a.m., and a passenger shouted, “What’s up folks?”—a gang greeting. “Who’s that?” Saez asked. When he saw a gun in the back window, Saez dived behind a parked car. The shots wounded Grande; Merkes and Rodriguez were killed.</p>
<p>At the time, Guevera also was investigating the murder two days earlier of Carlos Olon, a member of the Insane Dragons street gang. Rodriguez and Saez were members of a rival gang, the Disciples. Guevara showed three photos of Insane Dragon members to Grande, who identified Roberto Almodovar Jr. and picked him out of a lineup, according to court records.</p>
<p>Before the trial, Grande told Almodovar’s attorney, Melinda Power, she was sure of the identification, and added that police showed her photos when she was still in the hospital and told her, “Here are the guys who did it.” Grande did not respond to written requests for an interview.</p>
<p>Saez identified Almodovar in a police lineup. But in a March 1995 affidavit, Saez told Power he was high on marijuana the night of the shooting and could not identify the shooters. He said he identified Almodovar because he wanted someone to pay for the death of his friends.</p>
<p>Saez again changed his mind during Almodovar’s trial and testified that his gang had ordered him to make the false statement to Power.</p>
<p>Almodovar said he was home arguing with his girlfriend, after working 10 hours at the Farley Candy Factory and attending GED classes at Wright College until 10 p.m. But he failed to mention the fight during his initial interview with police.</p>
<p>Almodovar was convicted in a bench trial Nov. 30, 1995, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.</p>
<p>In his appeal, Almodovar claimed Guevara influenced the witness identifications. At trial, Saez and Guevara both testified they had not reviewed photos. But at a post-conviction hearing Aug. 6, 1998, Saez said Guevara had shown him pictures of gang members before the lineup and told him two would appear in the lineup.</p>
<p>The appellate court upheld the conviction, ruling Guevara had not unduly influenced the witnesses. Other trial court errors, such as allowing the link to the Olon murder, were “harmless,” the court found.</p>
<p>Almodovar’s aunts were financing his case but say they cannot afford an appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court. He is currently waiting for his case to be reviewed by the State Appellate Defender’s Office, which provides court-appointed legal assistance for appeals. The average wait is two years, according to the office.</p>
<p>“We learn to have a lot of patience. We just have to hope that finally the truth will come out,” said Iris Mojica, one of the aunts. “It’s really frustrating. Nobody wants to really listen to what you have to say.”</p>
<p>Family Meetings</p>
<p>Every two weeks, about 20 people—parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and a few political activists—gather in a church or living room for a meeting of Comité Exigimos Justicia. Speaking a mix of Spanish and English, families acquaint each other with the details of their cases.</p>
<p>The group started with three families and continues to grow and add new cases. Ruth Peña, Rodriguez’ sister, gets a few letters a month from men claiming their convictions were based on faulty evidence. The Comité does not accept every case but requests a trial transcript and police reports to see if physical evidence connects the men to the murders.</p>
<p>Comité members hope the Special Prosecutions Bureau of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office will take up their cause. In 1999, the unit investigated 252 cases against public officials and filed misconduct charges in 78.</p>
<p>At an April 25 community meeting with Alderman Ray Suarez (31 st), the group asked State’s Attorney Richard A. Devine to review their cases. Devine said he would meet with them but has not set a date.</p>
<p>“If anyone has information relevant to these cases, we have an open door policy,” said Bob Benjamin, communications officer for the state’s attorney.</p>
<p>And while Benjamin could not comment specifically on the Humboldt Park cases, he said Devine stands by his right to appeal decisions, such as the ruling in the Angel Rodriguez case. “If we disagree with that decision, it is not only our right but our obligation to appeal. No court is infallible and we’re not infallible.”</p>
<p>Two families have filed complaints with the Chicago Police Department’s Office of Professional Standards, which investigates claims of police brutality and defers other police misconduct complaints to the department’s Office of Internal Affairs. Perra said OPS has yet to respond to her complaint. And OPS told Mojica, Almodovar’s aunt, that their investigation was “inconclusive,” she said.</p>
<p>Doyle, the Boston attorney and co-author of “Eyewitness Testimony: Civil and Criminal,” said it is incorrect to assume it takes misconduct for a wrongful conviction. “It really just takes human memory handled carelessly,” he said. “There would be misidentifications even if there were no sinister plan.”</p>
<p>Contributing: Sarah Karp, Ingrid Arnoux, Mick Dumke, Laureen E. Fagan, Michelle Hores, Derrick G.&#160;Geyer, Deidre Glover, Dorothy L. Hernandez,Theresa M. Keith, Nicole Longhini, Rebecca Orbach, Margaretta Swigert-Gachero helped research this article.</p>
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editors note160on monday april 10 2017 court hearing scheduled two men claim framed murder nowretired chicago police detective reynaldo guevara roberto almodovar william negron among dozens latino men allege falsely convicted string homicides humboldt park years ago six men guevara helped imprison convictions overturned least 29 men say framed remain prison recently buzzfeed news published deep dive almodovars case officials failure act accusations least 51 people claimed guevara framed murder light events republishing 2000 investigation cases accompanying analysis homicides linked guevara mist rises banks mississippi river rolls 122yearold menard correctional center downstate illinois damp climbs brick walls barbed wire seeps immaculate blackandwhite checkered corridors invades cramped interview room leaky air conditioner outside room anxious guard occasionally looks glass door one menards 2559 inmates talks case voice rises anger believes story mistaken identification failed legal system angel rodriguez 36 wears thin denim work clothes edgy uncomfortable serving 60 years nov 24 1996 shooting death ibrahim zayed 34yearold owner karlov foods one many breadandbeer stores residential street corners humboldt park four months murder chicago police department detectives acting anonymous tip zayed case arrested rodriguez expired traffic warrant seventeenyearold andrew bolton worked karlov foods sole witness shooting identified rodriguez police lineup based largely boltons testimony jury found rodriguez guilty firstdegree murder march 10 1998 rodriguez boy scout four prior convictions theft drug offenses swears innocent zayeds murder court records show three years passed previous brushes law arrest three kids wife apartment said job working three four years think im going kill somebody dont even know dude claims innocence nothing new prisoners rodriguez family reason hope may reunited soon march 31 illinois appellate court reversed conviction ruling boltons testimony alone warrant guilty verdict may 2 cook county states attorneys office petitioned supreme court illinois review case court expected rule september john moran rodriguez attorney said expects appellate court ruling stand client go free chicago reporter published investigation questionable homicide convictions involving chicago detective reynaldo guevara 2000 rodriguez murder conviction one 15 humboldt park past 16 years prompted group latino families form comité exigimos justicia demand justice committee families charge husbands sons brothers falsely accused chicago police department detectives assigned area 5 covers five police districts northwest west sides among area 5 investigators families single detective reynaldo guevara 24year veteran chicago force addition rodriguez case chicago reporter examined nine homicides involving guevara guevara return numerous telephone calls answer written questions retired chicago police sgt paul carroll guevaras supervisor said ive known ray since tactical officer 20 years ago hes one best aggressive officers individually humboldt park cases seem anything extraordinary similar many 126 gangrelated murders recorded chicago 1999 group cases reveal pattern scant evidence questionable police practices nine 10 cases relied heavily eyewitness testimony reporter found murder investigations produced little scientific evidence fingerprints dna linking defendants crimes none men confessed seven cases witnesses either using drugs alcohol rival gang members jailhouse informants codefendants one case witness recanted testimony another witness changed story twice onethird murder convictions cook county reversed sent back new trial first district illinois appellate court according reporters analysis 154 decisions september 1996 june year human nature juries believe witnesses say thats saw thats definitely saw said cook county public defender rita frye witnesses want believe identifications said witnesses arent always sure feel like need sure nobody wants charge wrong guy added carroll ran police departments detective training 1988 1998 law enforcement consultant worked us department justice looks terrible live cases know unlike recent spate wrongful murder convictions compelled gov george ryan impose moratorium executions humboldt park cases produced conclusive new evidence confessions families say evidence loved ones failed establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt used faith justice system like everybody else said rodriguez sister ruth peña one comités founders know justice something fight like rodriguez convicted men histories gang affiliation long police records crimes drug possession disorderly conduct battery court records show men one four convictions either misdemeanors felonies murder charges neither thomas sierra mario flores currently death row prior adult record see 10 cases many questions rodriguez believes system never gave chance somebody tells lie nobodys going believe criminal said think people tell truth world police officers cops aint stupid said get guys know hook eyewitness ldentification psychologists law enforcement experts say misidentifications work sinister police results faulty procedures clouded memory mistaken witness becomes confident account becomes better lighting better said boston criminal defense attorney james doyle trail back original memory blocked recent study 62 wrongful convictions united states attributed 52 part mistaken identification according actual innocence new york daily news columnist jim dwyer attorneys barry scheck peter neufeld book published february details death row cases overturned 1990s dna evidence 10 cases police inappropriately influenced witnesses viewing lineups arrays photographs authors found prevent police leading pressuring witnesses person administering lineup photo spread detective case said gary wells iowa state university psychology professor studied eyewitness identification 25 years detective reinforce false identification witnesses develop false certainty identification based coaching detectives said chicago police department detectives currently conduct photo arrays lineups said detective anne chambers trains new detectives chicago police academy 10 humboldt park homicides examined reporter witnesses identified suspects photo arrays police lineups chicago police recruits receive one hour instruction laws practices governing photo arrays lineups officers taught use photos similar quality choose suspects similar physical characteristics said andrea hyfantis supervisor law unit police academy dont teach lead witnesses said thomas sierras 1997 murder trial raised questions procedures sierra 24 convicted firstdegree murder aggravated discharge firearm may 23 1995 gangrelated shooting noel andujar serving 45year sentence stateville correctional center joliet andujar jose melendez alberto rodriguez driving logan square black car tinted windows pulled beside passenger flashed spanish cobra gang signs pulled white hood head fired 10 shots melendez signed statement identifying sierra trial said statement identification prompted guevara questioned assistant cook county states attorney patricia sudendorf melendez testified pick sierra photo array prompted guevara point anybody photos sudendorf asked according court transcripts pointed one guevara told point melendez answered guevara reason believe guy melendez said trial guevara denied influenced melendez guevara held sierras photo hand left others table melendez testified member latin kings street gang melendez testified charged murder time trial convicted april 1993 aggravated battery armed robbery investigators say anything could influence witness selection according new justice department guidelines eyewitness evidence gulde law enforcement guidelines released october urge police instruct witnesses clearing innocent suspects important identifying guilty ones person committed crime may lineup police tell witnesses investigation continue even make identification wells one 34 contributors guidelines said investigators may realize influencing witnesses added cant letting detectives make picks assist witnesses doyle another contributor said many police working guidelines predicted detectives would balk suggestion administer photo arrays lineups investigations police would feel attack integrity said one police contributor retired chicago sgt carroll said believes guidelines help curb complaints misconduct reduce wrongful convictions detectives working cases arrange lineups witnesses view photos one another instead group procedures could eliminate travesties said new guidelines introduced new class chicago detectives soon justice department publishes training manual said police spokesman patrick camden seven seconds angel rodriguez born puerto rico came humboldt park 1973 age 10 joined spanish cobras street gang dropped holy trinity high school 11th grade july 1991 rodriguez sentenced two years probation two counts delivering controlled substance also served two days cook county jail drug possession rodriguez said qult using drugs 1993 year became bornagain christian son girlfriend angelica rivera 1994 arrest march 1 997 worked cook market fisheries 7127 state st couple two boys 1996 1997 rodriguez said afternoon nov 24 1996 went omni foods 2550 n clybourn ave shop mothers thanksgiving dinner according court documents three miles away man walked karlov foods 4101 w potomac ave shouted hey fired three four shots zayed sitting behind counter shooter ran store andrew bolton worked store six months seated zayed door shooting began bolton told police raised hands front face shooting lasted seven seconds according court records bolton locked door dialed 911 comforted zayed lay bleeding police paramedics arrived bolton described shooter male white hispanic 25 30 years old 6 feet tall slim build brown eyes black hair mustache wearing redandwhite knit cap pulled low forehead rodriguez 5 feet 10 inches tall similar features bolton told police saw shooter week murder pete amp jack food amp uquor 4158 w division st trying sell snowblower employee steve salamy bolton said didnt report incident afraid offender recognized click enlarge four months shooting area 5 detective ernest halvorsen received anonymous tip murder led rodriguez bolton identified rodriguez photo array lineup return telephone calls respond written requests interview rodriguez convicted sentenced 60 years based largely boltons testimony appellate court believe testimony enough convict rodriguez corroborative evidence linking defendant crime reversing conviction justices wrote salamy testified rodriguez person tried sell snowblower rodriguez employer used payroll records prove work day countys appeal illinois supreme court charged appellate court erred usurping function jury instead chose retry case light favorable defendant state witnesses witnesses sure today ever identified right person crime doubt said wilda vargas whose testimony helped convict armando serrano two others feb 5 1993 murder husband rodrigo vargas humboldt park robbed husband left alone two sons said tearful vargas training real estate agent francisco vicente jailhouse informant told prosecutors day murder three defendants coming heroin high said one mentioned arguing man gas station said planned rob although witness shooting wilda vargas told guevara remembered three young men creamcolored car arguing husband gas station identified series photo arrays police lineups serranos trial however could identify one witness 1994 murder humboldt park 18yearolds jorge rodriguez amy merkes made contradictory statements saw shooting sept 1 1994 merkes rodriguez hanging kennelly saez 19 jacqueline grande 20 outside saez apartment building 3918 w cortland st according court records saez said blue car pulled group 1 passenger shouted whats folksa gang greeting whos saez asked saw gun back window saez dived behind parked car shots wounded grande merkes rodriguez killed time guevera also investigating murder two days earlier carlos olon member insane dragons street gang rodriguez saez members rival gang disciples guevara showed three photos insane dragon members grande identified roberto almodovar jr picked lineup according court records trial grande told almodovars attorney melinda power sure identification added police showed photos still hospital told guys grande respond written requests interview saez identified almodovar police lineup march 1995 affidavit saez told power high marijuana night shooting could identify shooters said identified almodovar wanted someone pay death friends saez changed mind almodovars trial testified gang ordered make false statement power almodovar said home arguing girlfriend working 10 hours farley candy factory attending ged classes wright college 10 pm failed mention fight initial interview police almodovar convicted bench trial nov 30 1995 sentenced life prison without possibility parole appeal almodovar claimed guevara influenced witness identifications trial saez guevara testified reviewed photos postconviction hearing aug 6 1998 saez said guevara shown pictures gang members lineup told two would appear lineup appellate court upheld conviction ruling guevara unduly influenced witnesses trial court errors allowing link olon murder harmless court found almodovars aunts financing case say afford appeal illinois supreme court currently waiting case reviewed state appellate defenders office provides courtappointed legal assistance appeals average wait two years according office learn lot patience hope finally truth come said iris mojica one aunts really frustrating nobody wants really listen say family meetings every two weeks 20 peopleparents brothers sisters aunts uncles political activistsgather church living room meeting comité exigimos justicia speaking mix spanish english families acquaint details cases group started three families continues grow add new cases ruth peña rodriguez sister gets letters month men claiming convictions based faulty evidence comité accept every case requests trial transcript police reports see physical evidence connects men murders comité members hope special prosecutions bureau cook county states attorneys office take cause 1999 unit investigated 252 cases public officials filed misconduct charges 78 april 25 community meeting alderman ray suarez 31 st group asked states attorney richard devine review cases devine said would meet set date anyone information relevant cases open door policy said bob benjamin communications officer states attorney benjamin could comment specifically humboldt park cases said devine stands right appeal decisions ruling angel rodriguez case disagree decision right obligation appeal court infallible infallible two families filed complaints chicago police departments office professional standards investigates claims police brutality defers police misconduct complaints departments office internal affairs perra said ops yet respond complaint ops told mojica almodovars aunt investigation inconclusive said doyle boston attorney coauthor eyewitness testimony civil criminal said incorrect assume takes misconduct wrongful conviction really takes human memory handled carelessly said would misidentifications even sinister plan contributing sarah karp ingrid arnoux mick dumke laureen e fagan michelle hores derrick g160geyer deidre glover dorothy l hernandeztheresa keith nicole longhini rebecca orbach margaretta swigertgachero helped research article
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<p>Fresh on the job, CEO Arne Duncan sees his first weeks as a chance to cut through school politics. He is already putting a new stamp on Chicago’s public schools. He shut down the central Office of Intervention and reallocated its budget to struggling schools. Teachers will be required to teach two hours of reading daily. His top management team includes well-regarded education researchers and advocates. And he plans to use test score gains, not just absolute scores, to measure student achievement. In an Aug. 21 interview with Editor Veronica Anderson and Publisher Linda Lenz, Duncan shares details of his vision for improving schools and leveling the academic playing field.</p>
<p>Q:You’ve talked about the importance of leadership. What’s your strategy for getting first-rate principals in every school?</p>
<p>A: We have a very strong group of principals, but we also have a group that’s aging. A high percentage of principals are going to be leaving over the next five to 10 years. So we have an opportunity to develop a new crop of leaders to take us to the next level.</p>
<p>There’s a series of things we need to do. We’ve never had an internal capacity to recognize and develop talent. And if you look at a corporate model, they’re constantly developing from within: finding their best and brightest, helping to nurture them, training them to ascend to increasingly responsible leadership positions.</p>
<p>We have 26,000 teachers. There’s a tremendous range of skills, and some will teach throughout their careers—that’s their passion. But [some] teachers would make outstanding principals. We need to be nurturing them, we need to be training them, we need to be creating an environment where they can gain the skills and be supported to ascend to that position of leadership.</p>
<p>Q: Do you support local school councils choosing principals?</p>
<p>A: Absolutely. It’s very important.</p>
<p>Q: What do you do to help LSCs get better?</p>
<p>A: We have to continue to train [them]. We have to establish a framework in which good choices can be made, [to] articulate issues that we think are critically important. We can help the LSCs frame questions to drive our system to the next level and help student achievement.</p>
<p>Q: Can the LSCs expect more from central office?</p>
<p>A: We’re absolutely committed to providing [more support] whether it’s training or a clear framework of issues that are important. A big challenge of mine—and a great opportunity—is to cut through all the political crap.</p>
<p>Q: In our interviews, we found a strong consensus around the need for more professional development for teachers and principals. How do you find time for that?</p>
<p>A: I don’t think we need more professional development; we need better professional development. And we spend a ton of money on professional development every year. The local school councils spend a ton of development on professional development every year. The foundation and non-profit community spend a ton of money on professional development. So I’m not interested in doing more, I’m interested in getting a better bang for our buck. Making sure that professional development is long-term, strategic.</p>
<p>Q: Do you have an idea of how you tackle that?</p>
<p>A: The first thing we’ve got to do is gather facts. You ask anyone how much we spend on professional development, I don’t think there’s anyone who can give you a straight answer today. Secondly, we never had any sense of accountability. How do we measure the benefits of this myriad of professional development opportunities? I think we start to put in place criteria that will help us evaluate these programs.</p>
<p>There are things that are very high in importance to me. We have a great shortage of guidance counselors, of social workers, of special ed teachers. What incentives can we provide to have teachers go back and gain those certifications to help us meet that need? I’m very interested in teachers becoming absolute experts in their content area.</p>
<p>Q: Talk a bit about your new reading program and how you’re going to choose the reading specialists. What do you expect them to do?</p>
<p>A: Let me talk about the big picture, then I’ll come back to that specifically. We have to help our children enter the main stream of society. We have to help them be productive citizens. To me there’s nothing more important we can do than have them be able to read well, write well, think critically [and] be able to express their ideas, both on paper and verbally. We’re looking at a lot of different things. One is simply time on task. If someone wants to be a great violin player, you got to practice the violin. If someone wants to be a great scientist, you got to spend time in the lab. We want our students to be great leaders and writers. We’re going to mandate this minimum two hours a day spent on reading and writing.</p>
<p>None of these ideas are new. There are pockets of excellence throughout the city on this. What we’re trying to do is replicate and build upon those successes. What Barbara Eason-Watkins has done at McCosh, what Joan Crisler has done in Dixon.</p>
<p>The second thing is, we’ve never had a common literacy framework for the system. We have too high of a mobility rate in Chicago, and that’s something we need to address. But when a child leaves a school and [goes] to another school and they’re doing something totally different, that makes the transition much more difficult. The student falls further behind. So creating a common literacy framework—both between schools and between grades—puts us in a ballgame where our children can be more successful.</p>
<p>Q: Does that mean some schools might have to drop programs?</p>
<p>A: No. It’s not saying this program is correct or that program is correct. It’s saying we need to be focusing on a minimum of two hours of reading a day, preferably in the morning.</p>
<p>The other piece is … we need to get books into our classrooms. We’re going to spend a lot of money creating literature-rich environments at the kindergarten through 3rd-grade level.</p>
<p>Q: Textbooks?</p>
<p>A: No, literature. We want to create school-based libraries [and] classroom-based libraries. We’re going to pay for teachers to get the professional development they need to learn how to use these books in a classroom setting. If you have, let’s say, four 2nd-grade classrooms in a building, those four teachers should be working together, each picking different books and then rotating those books.</p>
<p>Q: Do teachers know what to do with the 2-hour time block for reading?</p>
<p>A: We’re going to do intensive staff development. [Chief Education Officer] Barbara [Eason-Watkins] and I met with every single principal over the last three days and started to lay this out. Principals are going to go back and lay this out with teachers.</p>
<p>Q: Is this CASA money? [In February, former CEO Paul Vallas announced the Comprehensive Approach to Student Achievement (CASA), a remediation program aimed at 200 low-scoring schools. It was put on hold when Vallas resigned.]</p>
<p>A: This is combining lots of pools of money. There were a lot of programs that were somewhat duplicative and overlapping. This is not new money. I wish I had new money.</p>
<p>And then the final piece is the literacy specialist. It’s so funny to me that we fund PE teachers, we fund art teachers, we fund music teachers, we fund drama teachers, we fund biology teachers. We have never funded a reading specialist position.</p>
<p>Q: Well, you did like, 12, 15 years ago.</p>
<p>A: Not in recent history.</p>
<p>Q: What’s going to be different this time?</p>
<p>A: We’re going to have a very high bar. We’re going to look for people with masters in reading. We’re going to look for people with reading endorsements. We’ve been talking to Golden Apple teachers who are specialists in reading.</p>
<p>We’re going to fill these positions over time, make sure this isn’t a patronage job. It can’t be somebody’s best friend. The regular teacher is paid for a 40-week work year; these teachers are going to be paid for a 44-week work year. So they’re going to be paid more. We’re going to look broadly throughout Chicago and the Midwest, and we’re going to advertise nationally. We want to build a very strong group of people who are experts.</p>
<p>Q: Does the reading specialist design the program, or does the reading specialist do what the principal says?</p>
<p>A: It’s a partnership. They work for the principal, but their job is to help to shape and create and implement the [reading] program. A principal has a myriad of responsibilities. We want someone who full-time is living and breathing and eating this.</p>
<p>Q: How much is that going to cost? We’re talking about one specialist per school.</p>
<p>A: We’re going to pilot in about 125 schools. We’re going to build this over time; get the kinks out. We’re not going to try to scale up too quickly. What you get then is CPS mediocrity, CPS crap.</p>
<p>Q: Let’s switch to high schools. Previous administrations have tried a number of things to improve high schools. Do you have any new ideas?</p>
<p>A: No. Just joking. We’ve got lots of ideas. The first thing that we announced [was the] construction of three new high schools. For the last five or six years, we’ve focused predominantly on elementary schools. I’m looking to shift the emphasis towards high schools.</p>
<p>It’s unacceptable that you have children on the South and West sides of the city that have been going to school in buildings that are simply not conducive to creating a proper educational environment. We’ve had high schools that have been either overcrowded or dilapidated or run down. We need to create an environment in which students feel we care about them.</p>
<p>Q: Is there something you have to give up doing in order to build these new schools?</p>
<p>A: No. It’s part of our capital plan. We have about $525 million for this year, so I’ve really stretched the capital budget to include this stuff. Our capital budget, after this year, shrinks dramatically without new funds. For us to complete this and to get every school in a place where we want it to be, education leaders, political leaders, the civic community, the corporate community have to come together and help us go to Springfield, go to Washington, to create new revenue sources.</p>
<p>Let me talk about three different ways in which I want to be much more creative and push the envelope. The first thing is having a diversity of strong educational programs. I often talk about the military academies—which I would have lasted one day at as a child. But for the right kid, that military academy is a wonderful program. We also need strong math and science academies. We need strong fine and performing arts. We need diversity of curricular foci to help our children develop their unique skills and their unique interests. I want to create a wide range of high-quality options and let the marketplace play.</p>
<p>Q: Isn’t this what sort of happens now? Schools have different programs, and there’s a whole lot of moving outside of local attendance areas.</p>
<p>A: We can take it to a different level. At Carver military academy, we have a waiting list of a couple of hundred kids every year. There’s a supply-demand issue. We need to replicate our successes. We have programs that aren’t strong. We need to shut them down.</p>
<p>Q: Do you anticipate creating schools that have a focus, or are you going to have schools that have a variety of programs within them?</p>
<p>A: Let me come back to that. Are we listening to what our students and parents are asking for? That’s one thing. Secondly, we want to look at this, three-, four- and five-year track. We have this one-size-fits-all mentality, this four-year model. There are some students that can do three years and they’re on to college. They’re mature, they’re academically advanced, they’re socially ready for that transition. The four-year model is going to be great for some. Other students, it’s going to be a five-year model.</p>
<p>Our over-arching goal is to prepare our students for some form of higher education. It might be a university, it might be a junior college, it might be trade or vocational training.</p>
<p>The time [when] our students could graduate from high school, go work at the steel mills is an ancient memory from a bygone era.</p>
<p>The third piece is looking to restructure the high school day. I look at the college model. The reality is that many of our students may have to work during the day. They might have to baby-sit for their mom. They might have a child of their own.</p>
<p>Our teenagers are dealing with a range of issues [and] our 9 to 2:30 schedule has hindered them. There are many students that I worked with before I came to the Board of Education who were really trying to do the right thing. They were trying to stay in school, and they were constrained by us. I want to take away those constraints.</p>
<p>The final piece I’m really interested in is small schools. I helped to start a small school [Ariel Community Academy] before I came to the board. Create an environment where there’s a real sense of belonging, where teachers are working together, where students are looking out for one another.</p>
<p>Q: But [small schools] has been hard to do in many schools. They’ve tried it, and it’s flopped.</p>
<p>A: I disagree.</p>
<p>Q: Well, what do you do?</p>
<p>A: It is hard to do, no question. You need teachers to buy into this. There’re examples on the West Side where the Multiplex is, there’re examples on the South Side, examples in New York. They’ve been wildly successful.</p>
<p>Q: But Chicago’s had a huge push on this.</p>
<p>A: What’s been the huge push?</p>
<p>Q: The Small Schools Network has been here. There has been some interest from central office.</p>
<p>A: Some. This is going to be a different level of interest. We have a significant grant outstanding with the Gates Foundation. I’m very optimistic on that coming in. It will give us tremendous resources. But I’m committed to doing this whether or not Gates comes to town. I brought in Jeanne Nowaczewski, who’s been at the forefront of the small schools movement.</p>
<p>It’s going to take some time, but I’m very hopeful that we can do this well. I’m not looking to break up every high school tomorrow.</p>
<p>Q: What about the 40 percent of kids who don’t get out of high school?</p>
<p>A: It’s unacceptable. And some of the things we’re talking about will address it. Changing the length of days, changing [the number of years it takes to graduate], creating smaller learning environments.</p>
<p>Q: What kid wants to go into high school thinking, it’s going to take me five years?</p>
<p>A: On the East Coast, there are elite prep schools that [offer] a post-grad year. It’s a fifth year of high school that prepares students for the elite [universities]. Why can’t we do that in Chicago?</p>
<p>Q: This is changing people’s mind set mainly.</p>
<p>A: Whatever it takes, absolutely. It’s a real opportunity to ensure more success at the college level. And, you know, we always focus on the remedial students. Maybe it’s a chance for a student to take a couple of AP classes that they weren’t ready for. Maybe it’s a chance to bump up their ACT or SAT score. Maybe it’s a chance to be part of our College Bridge or College Excel program where we pay for them to take college classes and get credit. I think we’re a little narrow-minded in our focus, and I want to expand the options. This cuts through issues of class. It cuts through issues of race.</p>
<p>Q: Speaking of going to the next level, what about the college prep schools? A couple of college prep schools on the South Side—Lindblom and King—have not gotten nearly the amount of attention and resources that Northside and Payton have gotten.</p>
<p>A: This is an important piece, but I see it in a much larger context. We need to focus on underserved areas of the city—the South and West sides.</p>
<p>Q: What about intervention? The School Board passed a revised policy at the August meeting. What’s new? What’s staying the same?</p>
<p>A: The first thing we did was eliminate the [central] intervention bureaucracy. When you set up a separate office, it’s supposed to be better, but it’s always inferior. We’re going to fully fund the four subject area specialists. Previously schools had to pay for these positions out of their discretionary money. We realize that to help struggling neighborhood schools is an extraordinarily difficult task. So we lengthened the [intervention] process from two to three years. If a school is doing a phenomenal job, they can complete the process in two years.</p>
<p>Q: How do you decide whether to take a school off of intervention?</p>
<p>A: There’s a whole range of things we can look at. Test scores, attendance, graduation rates.</p>
<p>Q: How does the new policy affect teachers? Can the board still fire them?</p>
<p>A: That all stays the same. We’re looking for ways to recruit more talent [to intervention schools]. If teachers come in that are highly credentialed, we’re going to ask them to do additional work. But we’re going to pay them more. We’re also looking to create incentives to reward schools that do an outstanding job—the principal, teachers, and the rest of the staff.</p>
<p>Q: What will you use besides test scores to hold elementary schools accountable?</p>
<p>A: A big thing that I want to look at is incremental change. How much are schools accelerating student achievement? Let’s say the average student in a school is only gaining 0.6 of a year. I don’t care what the absolute numbers are, those kids are actually falling behind. This levels the playing field. This creates a clear objective way to measure student achievement.</p>
<p>Q: So can we expect a change in the probation policy?</p>
<p>A: We’re not going to walk away from the [old] criteria, but we have to look at it in a more holistic manner. This is an important piece of the puzzle that’s been missing.</p>
<p>Q: You’re starting a research department. What do you want it to do?</p>
<p>A: We’re doing two things: One, we’re creating a strategic planning unit that is going to shape the course of our future, a year out, three years out, five years out. Help us to set priorities, then hold our feet to the fire to make sure that we’re accomplishing those things.</p>
<p>I’m thrilled that we brought in [University of Chicago researcher] Melissa Roderick. I have tremendous respect for her. She’s going to build a smart team. McKinsey &amp; Company is going to come in on a pro bono basis and help us get up and running.</p>
<p>[Second], we need to understand what’s working, what’s not and why. And we need to be self-critical, to learn from past successes and past failures.</p>
<p>Q: Do you anticipate having to cut the budget to do what you want to do?</p>
<p>A: We came into a set budget. Everything we do, we have to find resources internally. We want to evaluate everything. When things aren’t working well, [we will] reallocate those resources. We have to make sure every single dollar we are spending is making a difference in our students’ lives.</p>
<p>Q: The business community would like to see teachers paid on the basis of skill or gains in student achievement. Is that a good idea?</p>
<p>A: Merit pay per se is not the top priority on my agenda. We are interested in what we’re doing with the reading specialists. It’s not merit pay, but we’re going to pay teachers more to do additional work.</p>
<p>Q: How do you want to be judged?</p>
<p>A: I know what young people—from humble beginnings—can do when given true opportunities to succeed. I’ve seen them do extraordinarily well. I’m never going to accept failure or walk away from kids because of where they come from. So I want to be judged on, can we provide those concrete educational opportunities? Can we provide the long-term support? Can we provide the long-term guidance that will help our children fulfill the tremendous potential I know they have? I see vast untapped potential and it’s our job as the school system—our job as a community of adults around Chicago—to help our children fulfill that potential.</p>
<p>Q: What about test scores?</p>
<p>A: Test scores are a part of it. We’re trying to get our children ready for higher education. They’re going to have to be able to do well on test scores.</p>
<p>Q: Would you say your biggest challenge is raising test scores?</p>
<p>A: No. I think the biggest challenge is broader. I have the highest expectations for our students, for our teachers, for our principals and for [central office]. And no one is going to be tougher on me than me. I know what these kids can do. Doing well on tests is critically important to help them fulfill their dreams. Is it the only thing? No. Is it important? Absolutely. I’m not going to back away from that</p>
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fresh job ceo arne duncan sees first weeks chance cut school politics already putting new stamp chicagos public schools shut central office intervention reallocated budget struggling schools teachers required teach two hours reading daily top management team includes wellregarded education researchers advocates plans use test score gains absolute scores measure student achievement aug 21 interview editor veronica anderson publisher linda lenz duncan shares details vision improving schools leveling academic playing field qyouve talked importance leadership whats strategy getting firstrate principals every school strong group principals also group thats aging high percentage principals going leaving next five 10 years opportunity develop new crop leaders take us next level theres series things need weve never internal capacity recognize develop talent look corporate model theyre constantly developing within finding best brightest helping nurture training ascend increasingly responsible leadership positions 26000 teachers theres tremendous range skills teach throughout careersthats passion teachers would make outstanding principals need nurturing need training need creating environment gain skills supported ascend position leadership q support local school councils choosing principals absolutely important q help lscs get better continue train establish framework good choices made articulate issues think critically important help lscs frame questions drive system next level help student achievement q lscs expect central office absolutely committed providing support whether training clear framework issues important big challenge mineand great opportunityis cut political crap q interviews found strong consensus around need professional development teachers principals find time dont think need professional development need better professional development spend ton money professional development every year local school councils spend ton development professional development every year foundation nonprofit community spend ton money professional development im interested im interested getting better bang buck making sure professional development longterm strategic q idea tackle first thing weve got gather facts ask anyone much spend professional development dont think theres anyone give straight answer today secondly never sense accountability measure benefits myriad professional development opportunities think start put place criteria help us evaluate programs things high importance great shortage guidance counselors social workers special ed teachers incentives provide teachers go back gain certifications help us meet need im interested teachers becoming absolute experts content area q talk bit new reading program youre going choose reading specialists expect let talk big picture ill come back specifically help children enter main stream society help productive citizens theres nothing important able read well write well think critically able express ideas paper verbally looking lot different things one simply time task someone wants great violin player got practice violin someone wants great scientist got spend time lab want students great leaders writers going mandate minimum two hours day spent reading writing none ideas new pockets excellence throughout city trying replicate build upon successes barbara easonwatkins done mccosh joan crisler done dixon second thing weve never common literacy framework system high mobility rate chicago thats something need address child leaves school goes another school theyre something totally different makes transition much difficult student falls behind creating common literacy frameworkboth schools gradesputs us ballgame children successful q mean schools might drop programs saying program correct program correct saying need focusing minimum two hours reading day preferably morning piece need get books classrooms going spend lot money creating literaturerich environments kindergarten 3rdgrade level q textbooks literature want create schoolbased libraries classroombased libraries going pay teachers get professional development need learn use books classroom setting lets say four 2ndgrade classrooms building four teachers working together picking different books rotating books q teachers know 2hour time block reading going intensive staff development chief education officer barbara easonwatkins met every single principal last three days started lay principals going go back lay teachers q casa money february former ceo paul vallas announced comprehensive approach student achievement casa remediation program aimed 200 lowscoring schools put hold vallas resigned combining lots pools money lot programs somewhat duplicative overlapping new money wish new money final piece literacy specialist funny fund pe teachers fund art teachers fund music teachers fund drama teachers fund biology teachers never funded reading specialist position q well like 12 15 years ago recent history q whats going different time going high bar going look people masters reading going look people reading endorsements weve talking golden apple teachers specialists reading going fill positions time make sure isnt patronage job cant somebodys best friend regular teacher paid 40week work year teachers going paid 44week work year theyre going paid going look broadly throughout chicago midwest going advertise nationally want build strong group people experts q reading specialist design program reading specialist principal says partnership work principal job help shape create implement reading program principal myriad responsibilities want someone fulltime living breathing eating q much going cost talking one specialist per school going pilot 125 schools going build time get kinks going try scale quickly get cps mediocrity cps crap q lets switch high schools previous administrations tried number things improve high schools new ideas joking weve got lots ideas first thing announced construction three new high schools last five six years weve focused predominantly elementary schools im looking shift emphasis towards high schools unacceptable children south west sides city going school buildings simply conducive creating proper educational environment weve high schools either overcrowded dilapidated run need create environment students feel care q something give order build new schools part capital plan 525 million year ive really stretched capital budget include stuff capital budget year shrinks dramatically without new funds us complete get every school place want education leaders political leaders civic community corporate community come together help us go springfield go washington create new revenue sources let talk three different ways want much creative push envelope first thing diversity strong educational programs often talk military academieswhich would lasted one day child right kid military academy wonderful program also need strong math science academies need strong fine performing arts need diversity curricular foci help children develop unique skills unique interests want create wide range highquality options let marketplace play q isnt sort happens schools different programs theres whole lot moving outside local attendance areas take different level carver military academy waiting list couple hundred kids every year theres supplydemand issue need replicate successes programs arent strong need shut q anticipate creating schools focus going schools variety programs within let come back listening students parents asking thats one thing secondly want look three four fiveyear track onesizefitsall mentality fouryear model students three years theyre college theyre mature theyre academically advanced theyre socially ready transition fouryear model going great students going fiveyear model overarching goal prepare students form higher education might university might junior college might trade vocational training time students could graduate high school go work steel mills ancient memory bygone era third piece looking restructure high school day look college model reality many students may work day might babysit mom might child teenagers dealing range issues 9 230 schedule hindered many students worked came board education really trying right thing trying stay school constrained us want take away constraints final piece im really interested small schools helped start small school ariel community academy came board create environment theres real sense belonging teachers working together students looking one another q small schools hard many schools theyve tried flopped disagree q well hard question need teachers buy therere examples west side multiplex therere examples south side examples new york theyve wildly successful q chicagos huge push whats huge push q small schools network interest central office going different level interest significant grant outstanding gates foundation im optimistic coming give us tremendous resources im committed whether gates comes town brought jeanne nowaczewski whos forefront small schools movement going take time im hopeful well im looking break every high school tomorrow q 40 percent kids dont get high school unacceptable things talking address changing length days changing number years takes graduate creating smaller learning environments q kid wants go high school thinking going take five years east coast elite prep schools offer postgrad year fifth year high school prepares students elite universities cant chicago q changing peoples mind set mainly whatever takes absolutely real opportunity ensure success college level know always focus remedial students maybe chance student take couple ap classes werent ready maybe chance bump act sat score maybe chance part college bridge college excel program pay take college classes get credit think little narrowminded focus want expand options cuts issues class cuts issues race q speaking going next level college prep schools couple college prep schools south sidelindblom kinghave gotten nearly amount attention resources northside payton gotten important piece see much larger context need focus underserved areas citythe south west sides q intervention school board passed revised policy august meeting whats new whats staying first thing eliminate central intervention bureaucracy set separate office supposed better always inferior going fully fund four subject area specialists previously schools pay positions discretionary money realize help struggling neighborhood schools extraordinarily difficult task lengthened intervention process two three years school phenomenal job complete process two years q decide whether take school intervention theres whole range things look test scores attendance graduation rates q new policy affect teachers board still fire stays looking ways recruit talent intervention schools teachers come highly credentialed going ask additional work going pay also looking create incentives reward schools outstanding jobthe principal teachers rest staff q use besides test scores hold elementary schools accountable big thing want look incremental change much schools accelerating student achievement lets say average student school gaining 06 year dont care absolute numbers kids actually falling behind levels playing field creates clear objective way measure student achievement q expect change probation policy going walk away old criteria look holistic manner important piece puzzle thats missing q youre starting research department want two things one creating strategic planning unit going shape course future year three years five years help us set priorities hold feet fire make sure accomplishing things im thrilled brought university chicago researcher melissa roderick tremendous respect shes going build smart team mckinsey amp company going come pro bono basis help us get running second need understand whats working whats need selfcritical learn past successes past failures q anticipate cut budget want came set budget everything find resources internally want evaluate everything things arent working well reallocate resources make sure every single dollar spending making difference students lives q business community would like see teachers paid basis skill gains student achievement good idea merit pay per se top priority agenda interested reading specialists merit pay going pay teachers additional work q want judged know young peoplefrom humble beginningscan given true opportunities succeed ive seen extraordinarily well im never going accept failure walk away kids come want judged provide concrete educational opportunities provide longterm support provide longterm guidance help children fulfill tremendous potential know see vast untapped potential job school systemour job community adults around chicagoto help children fulfill potential q test scores test scores part trying get children ready higher education theyre going able well test scores q would say biggest challenge raising test scores think biggest challenge broader highest expectations students teachers principals central office one going tougher know kids well tests critically important help fulfill dreams thing important absolutely im going back away
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<p>By Jeff Brumley</p>
<p>Leaders of faith-based disaster-recovery agencies say there’s nothing like calamity to invigorate a Christian’s faith. Pastors of churches where disasters strike have noticed a difference in people, too.</p>
<p>“Whether it’s man-made or something from nature, I think it gives people an opportunity to see faith in action,” said Will Baker, pastor of <a href="http://www.drummondtownbaptist.org/" type="external">Drummondtown Baptist Church</a>, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship congregation whose community on the Eastern Shore of Virginia was pounded by super-storm Sandy.</p>
<p />
<p>Churches as far away as Alabama offered volunteers, supplies and other donations while local and state Baptists also aided victims, Baker said.</p>
<p>‘Overwhelming response’</p>
<p>Baptist disaster-relief experts say natural and man-made catastrophes create obvious opportunities for Great Commission ministry hard to match back home. When properly harnessed by faith-based and government disaster-response agencies, that surge of spiritual adrenaline can provide immediate and long-term benefits for victims. But it can also become a burden if organizers and authorities are overcome by well-meaning but unneeded volunteers.</p>
<p>That’s what happened in West, Texas, in the hours following the April 17 fertilizer factory explosion that killed 14.</p>
<p>“It’s been pretty overwhelming,” said Terry Henderson, state disaster-relief director for Texas Baptist Men. Authorities told him they were “trying to handle 3,700 volunteers that just showed up, unorganized – that’s a big demand on a small city.”</p>
<p>Those volunteers came from nearby localities and from churches across Texas and even out of state, Henderson said.</p>
<p />
<p>“People come and they want to build homes, but they don’t need to do it now,” he said.</p>
<p>Another challenge for the city and its residents has been “an overwhelming amount of stuff and junk,” Henderson said.</p>
<p>As soon as news of the explosion spread, people were driving to West with cars and trucks full of used clothing and furniture. But that wasn’t needed, he said.</p>
<p>“It looks like a landfill – it looks like everybody emptied their houses out in this field,” he said. “They have overwhelmed the community with stuff, and it will have to be taken to the dump because it’s been sitting outside.”</p>
<p>Ministers in and around Newtown, Conn.,&#160; <a href="ministry/organizations/item/8446-cbf-supports-newtown-area-clergy#.UYMu6rUsnng" type="external">reported a similar situation</a> following the Sandy Hook massacre. One CBF pastor there called it being “crushed with goodwill, but crushed nonetheless.”</p>
<p>Henderson said he recommends those chomping to get into action wait until faith-based and government agencies issue calls for specific needs and skill sets. And give gift cards instead of material, he added.</p>
<p>“Everybody has good intent, but I tell people: don’t waste your gas right now.”</p>
<p>‘Something extremely powerful’</p>
<p>It’s partly a sense of calling that drives the helpful sort toward disaster zones, said Harry Rowland, facilitator of the North American Baptist Fellowship’s <a href="http://www.nabf.info/" type="external">disaster-response network</a>. “There is something extremely powerful about it,” he said.</p>
<p />
<p>That’s especially true for those who have experienced such ministry before and experienced the gratitude of homeowners for debris and muck removal. “You can make an immediate difference and … you are an answered prayer to some of these people in these situations,” Rowland said.</p>
<p>Plus there’s something to be said for the sense of adventure that a disaster-response road trip brings, he added. “And we do have to depend on that” as disaster-response managers, Rowland said.</p>
<p>Disaster-response ministry is the way some, including many who had negative church experiences growing up, became Christians, Rowland added. “When there was a disaster, somebody said ‘come,’ and they went … and they felt good and they said if this is what it means to be a Christian, then I can do this.”</p>
<p>Tommy Deal, national disaster-response coordinator for CBF, calls it “compassion adrenaline” that sometimes drives volunteers to arrive at disaster zones without invitations or instructions.</p>
<p />
<p>But for others it is the only way they know to express their Christianity, Deal said.</p>
<p>“They’re not evangelists and they’re not the ones who will give the four spiritual laws,” he said. “But they live out their faith and … disaster relief gives another area for people to be missional.”</p>
<p>‘People lock arms’</p>
<p>Whatever you call it, it results in a renewed faith in the basic good of humanity, said Susan Sparks, pastor of Madison Avenue Baptist Church in New York City.</p>
<p>Sparks <a href="opinion/commentaries/item/8431-running-toward-the-blast#.UYMyErUsnng" type="external">wrote a column recently</a> expressing her admiration for those in Boston who ran toward the marathon bombings, instead of away. She told ABPnews later that she believes it’s because disaster naturally teases out innate human goodness.</p>
<p />
<p>“There is something about the reality of a crisis that makes us see through all the layers of things life has put over humanity,” Sparks said. “All of a sudden we see the commonalities and not the differences.”</p>
<p>Sparks said she’s seen it over and over – during and after Sandy, the Boston bombings and 9-11. “People lock arms and become just human beings – not Hindu, Christian or Buddhist, and not black or white, male or female.”</p>
<p>Seeing the need</p>
<p>People also tend to open their eyes during and after disasters and see life in new ways, Baker said.</p>
<p>Even in everyday ministry “it’s so easy to become calloused and have your heart hardened a little bit by the same tragedies day in and day out,” he said. “Then, all of a sudden, a disaster comes along and just rips those callouses away.”</p>
<p>The resulting softening of the heart, Baker said, occurs to those who travel to disaster sites, and to those living in them. “A calamity can be a powerful opportunity to have the scales fall off your eyes and see the needs of your community that have always been there,” he said.</p>
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jeff brumley leaders faithbased disasterrecovery agencies say theres nothing like calamity invigorate christians faith pastors churches disasters strike noticed difference people whether manmade something nature think gives people opportunity see faith action said baker pastor drummondtown baptist church cooperative baptist fellowship congregation whose community eastern shore virginia pounded superstorm sandy churches far away alabama offered volunteers supplies donations local state baptists also aided victims baker said overwhelming response baptist disasterrelief experts say natural manmade catastrophes create obvious opportunities great commission ministry hard match back home properly harnessed faithbased government disasterresponse agencies surge spiritual adrenaline provide immediate longterm benefits victims also become burden organizers authorities overcome wellmeaning unneeded volunteers thats happened west texas hours following april 17 fertilizer factory explosion killed 14 pretty overwhelming said terry henderson state disasterrelief director texas baptist men authorities told trying handle 3700 volunteers showed unorganized thats big demand small city volunteers came nearby localities churches across texas even state henderson said people come want build homes dont need said another challenge city residents overwhelming amount stuff junk henderson said soon news explosion spread people driving west cars trucks full used clothing furniture wasnt needed said looks like landfill looks like everybody emptied houses field said overwhelmed community stuff taken dump sitting outside ministers around newtown conn160 reported similar situation following sandy hook massacre one cbf pastor called crushed goodwill crushed nonetheless henderson said recommends chomping get action wait faithbased government agencies issue calls specific needs skill sets give gift cards instead material added everybody good intent tell people dont waste gas right something extremely powerful partly sense calling drives helpful sort toward disaster zones said harry rowland facilitator north american baptist fellowships disasterresponse network something extremely powerful said thats especially true experienced ministry experienced gratitude homeowners debris muck removal make immediate difference answered prayer people situations rowland said plus theres something said sense adventure disasterresponse road trip brings added depend disasterresponse managers rowland said disasterresponse ministry way including many negative church experiences growing became christians rowland added disaster somebody said come went felt good said means christian tommy deal national disasterresponse coordinator cbf calls compassion adrenaline sometimes drives volunteers arrive disaster zones without invitations instructions others way know express christianity deal said theyre evangelists theyre ones give four spiritual laws said live faith disaster relief gives another area people missional people lock arms whatever call results renewed faith basic good humanity said susan sparks pastor madison avenue baptist church new york city sparks wrote column recently expressing admiration boston ran toward marathon bombings instead away told abpnews later believes disaster naturally teases innate human goodness something reality crisis makes us see layers things life put humanity sparks said sudden see commonalities differences sparks said shes seen sandy boston bombings 911 people lock arms become human beings hindu christian buddhist black white male female seeing need people also tend open eyes disasters see life new ways baker said even everyday ministry easy become calloused heart hardened little bit tragedies day day said sudden disaster comes along rips callouses away resulting softening heart baker said occurs travel disaster sites living calamity powerful opportunity scales fall eyes see needs community always said
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<p>The cornerstone of Illinois’ educational strength lies in providing all children a strong, early start in school and in life. How Illinois develops, educates and supports its young children bears directly on the future of the state. Several national measures suggest Illinois ranks as a leading state in providing children, particularly children in need, a strong foundation.</p>
<p>Yet when <a href="http://www.advanceillinois.org/" type="external">Advance Illinois</a> recently released its <a href="http://www.advanceillinois.org/the-report-pages-320.php" type="external">2012 report card</a> on Illinois public education, early education received for the second time an Incomplete.&#160; This was informed by national rankings, enrollment patterns and data when available on dozens of key metrics. Significant information gaps persist in early education, however, that, as a state, we must address if we are to target resources and services to the students most in need of early support.</p>
<p>Providing a strong, early start to young children is one of the state’s most powerful opportunities to close the achievement gap before it begins, and we collectively must build upon our early work in this area.</p>
<p>First, however, I would offer some context for the grade and direction for how Illinois might fill the information gaps that continue in early education.</p>
<p>New information on kindergarten readiness</p>
<p>Illinois improved access to early education during the past decade and today enrolls 20 percent of 3-year-olds and 29 percent of 4-year-olds in state-funded preschool programs, making Illinois a leading state in this effort. The rate of growth slowed recently, however, as the economy worsened and state funding declined. Unfortunately, fewer children may be served in the coming year due to a $25 million cut to the state’s early childhood block grant this year.</p>
<p>National research suggests that before they even begin kindergarten, 4-year-olds who live in poverty are nearly 14 months behind their classmates. But in Illinois, when students arrive in kindergarten – the front door of the K-12 education system – the state knows little about where they stand cognitively, emotionally and socially. This critical information would help educators target resources and supports that students need early in their academic lives. As importantly, information about students’ kindergarten readiness encourages families to engage sooner and in smarter ways.</p>
<p>The good news is this fall, Illinois piloted a developmentally-appropriate kindergarten readiness measure that is expected to roll out statewide in 2015-16. This is not a paper and pencil test. And this is not about high-stakes exams. This is about giving teachers tools, training and a common language to observe and describe student development and identify what we need to do – as educators, as parents, as adults – to meet them where they are.</p>
<p>The lack of clarity about student readiness is not the only information gap that constrains Illinois’ early education efforts.</p>
<p>As a state, we know little about the quality of children’s early education experiences, the demographic and economic backgrounds of students served in state-funded programs and whether students eligible for bilingual early education instruction, in fact, receive the services that state law now requires. Such information would help identify gaps and target resources at a time when Illinois has finite amounts of them.</p>
<p>Because of this critical information gap, Advance Illinois assigned the state an incomplete for early education, as it did two years ago in The State We’re In: 2010. &#160;(Illinois’ K-12 and postsecondary education systems received a C- and C+ respectively.)</p>
<p>Notably, Illinois held its ground as student poverty increased.&#160; The next step is to ensure that more students achieve at high level.&#160; Illinois faces a real challenge in determining how best to develop and support its youngest children, particularly those born in poverty.</p>
<p>Whether supported by research or our own observations, we know the early years provide the best window to eliminate the achievement gap before it takes root. This is vital if the state is to improve academic outcomes and opportunities for all students.</p>
<p>Reading by 4th grade essential</p>
<p>The hard truth is Illinois is not getting the majority of students where they need to go, and this fact has not changed in the past decade. When Advance Illinois looked at key milestones in a student’s academic life, we found that one-third of students succeed. For the rest, the education system simply isn’t working.</p>
<p>This is particularly striking in 4th grade. One-third of Illinois 4th-graders read proficiently, according to the National Assessment of Education Progress, and decades of research suggests this is one of the most powerful predictors of future success. Students who do not transition from learning to read in the early grades to reading to learn by this point often fall further behind and are at greater risk of dropping out.</p>
<p>The trend continues throughout the state’s education system. For every 100 Illinois students who begin high school, for instance, less than one-third will go on to earn a two- or four-year degree.</p>
<p>As a state, we cannot wait until high school to intervene. The good news is we’re not.</p>
<p>For the first time in a long time, Illinois has a broad reform plan that aims to strengthen the education system from the early years through college graduation day. This requires building upon initiatives that enroll more children in early education programs, creating a developmentally-appropriate method to gauge student development early in their schooling, providing school report cards that help families understand how schools and districts serve students and how to engage in their child’s education as well as raise expectations for students and educators alike.</p>
<p>Lasting improvement takes time and the impact on student achievement does not happen overnight. Funding cuts made in recent years exacerbate what already is challenging work. But Illinois is on its way and can succeed.</p>
<p>As a state, we all have work to do.</p>
<p>Robin M. Steans is executive director of Advance Illinois.</p>
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cornerstone illinois educational strength lies providing children strong early start school life illinois develops educates supports young children bears directly future state several national measures suggest illinois ranks leading state providing children particularly children need strong foundation yet advance illinois recently released 2012 report card illinois public education early education received second time incomplete160 informed national rankings enrollment patterns data available dozens key metrics significant information gaps persist early education however state must address target resources services students need early support providing strong early start young children one states powerful opportunities close achievement gap begins collectively must build upon early work area first however would offer context grade direction illinois might fill information gaps continue early education new information kindergarten readiness illinois improved access early education past decade today enrolls 20 percent 3yearolds 29 percent 4yearolds statefunded preschool programs making illinois leading state effort rate growth slowed recently however economy worsened state funding declined unfortunately fewer children may served coming year due 25 million cut states early childhood block grant year national research suggests even begin kindergarten 4yearolds live poverty nearly 14 months behind classmates illinois students arrive kindergarten front door k12 education system state knows little stand cognitively emotionally socially critical information would help educators target resources supports students need early academic lives importantly information students kindergarten readiness encourages families engage sooner smarter ways good news fall illinois piloted developmentallyappropriate kindergarten readiness measure expected roll statewide 201516 paper pencil test highstakes exams giving teachers tools training common language observe describe student development identify need educators parents adults meet lack clarity student readiness information gap constrains illinois early education efforts state know little quality childrens early education experiences demographic economic backgrounds students served statefunded programs whether students eligible bilingual early education instruction fact receive services state law requires information would help identify gaps target resources time illinois finite amounts critical information gap advance illinois assigned state incomplete early education two years ago state 2010 160illinois k12 postsecondary education systems received c c respectively notably illinois held ground student poverty increased160 next step ensure students achieve high level160 illinois faces real challenge determining best develop support youngest children particularly born poverty whether supported research observations know early years provide best window eliminate achievement gap takes root vital state improve academic outcomes opportunities students reading 4th grade essential hard truth illinois getting majority students need go fact changed past decade advance illinois looked key milestones students academic life found onethird students succeed rest education system simply isnt working particularly striking 4th grade onethird illinois 4thgraders read proficiently according national assessment education progress decades research suggests one powerful predictors future success students transition learning read early grades reading learn point often fall behind greater risk dropping trend continues throughout states education system every 100 illinois students begin high school instance less onethird go earn two fouryear degree state wait high school intervene good news first time long time illinois broad reform plan aims strengthen education system early years college graduation day requires building upon initiatives enroll children early education programs creating developmentallyappropriate method gauge student development early schooling providing school report cards help families understand schools districts serve students engage childs education well raise expectations students educators alike lasting improvement takes time impact student achievement happen overnight funding cuts made recent years exacerbate already challenging work illinois way succeed state work robin steans executive director advance illinois
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<p>In 2012, attorney Nikki D. Pope asked her longtime friend Courtney B. Lance to co-write and edit a collection of stories from people who have survived wrongful conviction. Lance met men and women who, in some cases, spent half their life in prison. Their ordeal may have ended with freedom, but they could never regain lost time with family and friends. Lance knew their stories needed to be told and heard. The result is “Pruno, Ramen and a Side of Hope: Stories of Surviving Wrongful Conviction.”</p>
<p>In an excerpt from a chapter entitled “Death Row Be Gone,” Sabrina Butler recalls her time on death row. Butler was on death row in Mississippi for nearly three years for the murder of her son before medical evidence proved that he died from illness.</p>
<p>My son Walter, barely three months away from his first birthday, died on April 11, 1989. I was arrested the very next day and charged with capital murder for his death. I was eighteen years old when I was sentenced on March 14, 1990, to die by lethal injection on July 2, 1990. Yes, I was young and naive and immature, but I didn’t murder my son.</p>
<p>The state of Mississippi provided me with two defense attorneys. I spoke with one of my attorneys briefly. He mumbled something negative to me and left. That was the last I would hear from him until I met my complete defense team two days before my trial.</p>
<p>There was no preparation at all and that left me feeling intensely insecure about my trial. Although in hindsight, I’m not sure the preparation would have made a difference. One of my attorneys was drunk throughout the whole trial. I guess he thought the peppermints he constantly popped into his mouth would camouflage the alcohol I smelled on his breath.</p>
<p>Throughout the trial my lawyers kept telling me, “We don’t want you to take the stand. We got this thing nipped in the bud.” They had it nipped in the bud all right. The jury came back and said “We find you guilty and we sentence you to death.”</p>
<p>Resigned to my fate, I was anxious to leave the county jail and be on my way to Rankin County Correctional Facility. I had no idea what to expect and it was the scariest ride of my life. In my terror, I had completely given up. Why should I care any longer, after the way my attorneys performed, after the way everything played out in court? All my chances were gone and they were going to kill me anyway. …</p>
<p>By the time I got to maximum security check, I couldn’t even talk. I was out of breath because I was overcome with fear. Already it was hell, and I had just gotten there. I had never been to prison before and I didn’t know what to expect. When I got to the next security area, there was a lady there and she asked, “What’s wrong with you, girl? You okay?” I couldn’t even speak to answer her. She walked me down this long hall. In Rankin County they didn’t really have a place for death row inmates. We were housed with other inmates who had committed similar crimes, but they weren’t on death row. There was a piece of tape on the floor; a red piece of tape with the words, “You can’t go beyond this point,” and they put me in a cell behind the red tape.</p>
<p>It was a six-by-nine cell, no bigger than a bathroom. I sat in this cell for twenty-three hours of the day. I was allowed a one-hour yard call which I had to spend by myself. That was very hard and so lonely for me because I had no one during this whole tragedy that knew what I was going through. There was no one who talked with me or told me what to expect or what was actually going on, what I was supposed to do, or give me any legal advice. I cried for two weeks straight. I would sit on the floor in a corner of that tiny cell, rocking and crying. I didn’t eat. I hardly talked. I just cried and cried.</p>
<p>There was one other girl on death row with me. Her name was Susan Balfour. She had been sentenced in the same county that I’m from and had been in Rankin for some time. She was housed in the cell right next to mine. She took to me and kind of talked to me and helped me.</p>
<p>When my death day came, I was beside myself. I paced the floor. I was thinking that they were coming at any time to take my life. That’s truly what I thought. Every time I heard footsteps or the sound of keys I just knew that I would soon be dead. I was notice­ably restless and Susan tried to calm me by speaking to me through the walls. Our toilets were connected through the wall and there was a vent under the toilet. It allowed us to talk as if we were in the same room. She kept telling me they couldn’t do anything to me. If they hadn’t exhausted all the state remedies, then they really couldn’t kill me. She helped me a lot with her words. Nobody had ever told me that the state had to exhaust all remedies before they could actually carry out the sentence of death until Susan did. The day passed and I was still alive. I still believed somewhere deep down inside that they could come and get me, but sometime later I realized that Susan was right and for now I was safe.</p>
<p>Susan helped me a lot that first day, but I continued to cry, every day. Some days later a guard came down because I guess I wasn’t making any progress; there was no relief. The guard opened my door. She walked in and she told me that if I kept on doing what … I was doing, not eating and sitting in the corner and crying as I was, they would send me for a psych evaluation. If a doctor came down I would have to take medication. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want them to medicate me, or put me on something. So it was at this point that I started trying to figure out what I could do to not go crazy.</p>
<p>Still distressed and upset, I didn’t want them giving me whatever drugs they give you.</p>
<p>When the guard finally got tired of talking to me, she closed my door and left. Since I had a pencil and paper, I decided to write about my surroundings. I had one little window where I could look out on the yard and see the other inmates walking around and stuff. I would just write. I would try to see what I could learn from whatever I saw, whatever I heard; and I would try to analyze it and see what I would do in their situation. I would watch for a while, then I would write more. This was partly how I managed the whole two years and nine months on death row.</p>
<p>Susan was a great help to me during my incarceration. She was much older than me and on death row, too. She knew a lot more about prison than I did. We were the only two on death row in Rankin. We’d spend a lot of time sitting on the floor by our toilets, talking through our vents. Sometimes I would be able to see her shadow in her cell. I wondered if she could see mine. There really was no human contact for death row inmates. We were considered too dangerous to interact with the regular population or one another, but sitting there on the floor talking with Susan was the next best thing. We would talk and talk. She told me about her life and I told her about mine. …</p>
<p>Eventually we were able to see each other when they finally allowed us to take our one-hour yard time together. The administrator required us to sign all these papers to ensure that we wouldn’t hurt one another. Once the paperwork was done we could do yard call.</p>
<p>It was the only time we had any actual contact with each other to talk, or with anyone else, other than prison guards. It was worth every minute, though. Having to live twenty-three hours a day without contact in those tiny prison cells was miserable.</p>
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2012 attorney nikki pope asked longtime friend courtney b lance cowrite edit collection stories people survived wrongful conviction lance met men women cases spent half life prison ordeal may ended freedom could never regain lost time family friends lance knew stories needed told heard result pruno ramen side hope stories surviving wrongful conviction excerpt chapter entitled death row gone sabrina butler recalls time death row butler death row mississippi nearly three years murder son medical evidence proved died illness son walter barely three months away first birthday died april 11 1989 arrested next day charged capital murder death eighteen years old sentenced march 14 1990 die lethal injection july 2 1990 yes young naive immature didnt murder son state mississippi provided two defense attorneys spoke one attorneys briefly mumbled something negative left last would hear met complete defense team two days trial preparation left feeling intensely insecure trial although hindsight im sure preparation would made difference one attorneys drunk throughout whole trial guess thought peppermints constantly popped mouth would camouflage alcohol smelled breath throughout trial lawyers kept telling dont want take stand got thing nipped bud nipped bud right jury came back said find guilty sentence death resigned fate anxious leave county jail way rankin county correctional facility idea expect scariest ride life terror completely given care longer way attorneys performed way everything played court chances gone going kill anyway time got maximum security check couldnt even talk breath overcome fear already hell gotten never prison didnt know expect got next security area lady asked whats wrong girl okay couldnt even speak answer walked long hall rankin county didnt really place death row inmates housed inmates committed similar crimes werent death row piece tape floor red piece tape words cant go beyond point put cell behind red tape sixbynine cell bigger bathroom sat cell twentythree hours day allowed onehour yard call spend hard lonely one whole tragedy knew going one talked told expect actually going supposed give legal advice cried two weeks straight would sit floor corner tiny cell rocking crying didnt eat hardly talked cried cried one girl death row name susan balfour sentenced county im rankin time housed cell right next mine took kind talked helped death day came beside paced floor thinking coming time take life thats truly thought every time heard footsteps sound keys knew would soon dead noticeably restless susan tried calm speaking walls toilets connected wall vent toilet allowed us talk room kept telling couldnt anything hadnt exhausted state remedies really couldnt kill helped lot words nobody ever told state exhaust remedies could actually carry sentence death susan day passed still alive still believed somewhere deep inside could come get sometime later realized susan right safe susan helped lot first day continued cry every day days later guard came guess wasnt making progress relief guard opened door walked told kept eating sitting corner crying would send psych evaluation doctor came would take medication didnt want didnt want medicate put something point started trying figure could go crazy still distressed upset didnt want giving whatever drugs give guard finally got tired talking closed door left since pencil paper decided write surroundings one little window could look yard see inmates walking around stuff would write would try see could learn whatever saw whatever heard would try analyze see would situation would watch would write partly managed whole two years nine months death row susan great help incarceration much older death row knew lot prison two death row rankin wed spend lot time sitting floor toilets talking vents sometimes would able see shadow cell wondered could see mine really human contact death row inmates considered dangerous interact regular population one another sitting floor talking susan next best thing would talk talk told life told mine eventually able see finally allowed us take onehour yard time together administrator required us sign papers ensure wouldnt hurt one another paperwork done could yard call time actual contact talk anyone else prison guards worth every minute though live twentythree hours day without contact tiny prison cells miserable
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<p>DETROIT, Mich. -- On a cold December day in East Detroit, a dozen kids form a human assembly line stretching across the parking lot of the&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Downtown Boxing Gym</a>.</p>
<p>With strong arms, the kids grab and push boxes of food from the delivery truck.</p>
<p>"The kids don't go without a meal," Coach Khali Sweeney told NBC News. "Forgotten Harvest, the local food bank, they'll bring food here for 'em, so we have food for the kids to eat healthy.”</p>
<p><a href="http://datadrivendetroit.org/web_ftp/Project_Docs/DETKidsDrft_FINAL.pdf" type="external">According to a 2010 report</a>, more than half of the city's households with children under 18 receive food assistance from the state.&#160;</p>
<p>But that food is just one of the reasons the kids depend on this gym, which is the only building left standing on its city block.</p>
<p><a href="http://downtownyouthboxing.org/" type="external">To learn more about the Downtown Boxing Gym, please click here to visit their website.&#160;</a></p>
<p>It is surrounded by a handful of vacant lots and remnants of abandoned buildings, where the kids sometimes run laps at night.</p>
<p>"It's not, like, really safe for us to go out there and train," 19-year-old boxer Anthony Flagg Jr. said.&#160; "But we do it anyway. They say boxing, you're risking your life."</p>
<p>For these kids, there are risks both in and out of the ring.</p>
<p>Across train tracks, less than a mile away from the gym, there's a scene of a different kind: a new Whole Foods grocery-- a sign of new life for the struggling city.</p>
<p>"I appreciate and applaud all the efforts goin' into [...] buildin' the city," Sweeney said. "But the residents themselves, they're not gonna see that for a long time, and they're still suffering. So places like this is a good place for kids to go. "</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">We first profiled the Downtown Boxing Gym back in March of 2013</a>. The gym, a grassroots effort to keep kids off the streets,&#160;had no heat, and was beyond capacity. Since the story aired, the gym has received an outpouring of support from their community and from viewers across the nation.</p>
<p>"A lot of doors opened up for us," Sweeney said. "There was a lot of people working behind the scenes, but a lot more people reached out to us."</p>
<p>Sweeney, who still goes to pick up students for practice, now uses donated Zipcars to get around the city. Rides are not limited to and from the gym; the students’ parents can call for help as necessary.</p>
<p>“They are my family, all of 'em,” Sweeney said. “I wouldn't drive across the planet, you know, if they wasn't.”</p>
<p>Good grades and graduation are the priority at the Downtown Boxing Gym in Detroit, Mich.</p>
<p>Inside of the gym, a new ring stands, complete with a life-sized wall decal of Sweeney and the boxers. A few feet away from the ring, the tutoring area boasts new furniture, fresh paint, and updated computers.</p>
<p>Teach for America Detroit started a partnership with the gym, assigning seven teachers to work alongside the gym’s pre-existing tutors to help strengthen the gym's academic program.</p>
<p>"Seeing kids using boxing to give them more confidence and focus on their self-esteem, I think education can be used the same way," Teach For America Detroit community coordinator Lauren Coleman said. "Our goal is to provide students with at least an hour a day [of] tutoring and prep, and also ... college and career readiness."</p>
<p>Another major change is on the horizon: The gym has raised more than $175,000 in donations toward a new facility that Sweeney hopes will be able to accommodate some of the gym's more than 150 kids that remain on the waiting list.</p>
<p>"That's one of the things we can't afford to do, just keep kids waitin' around," Sweeney said. "If they're just sitting around, I mean, nobody's helping them at that point, you know?"</p>
<p>Today, that help also comes in the form of mentoring and improved self-esteem.</p>
<p>"I think I'm turning into a role model,” Flagg said. “It makes me feel good on the inside, that kids be askin' me for help with their homework and for advice. I never thought I'd be givin’ anybody advice.”</p>
<p>“You know, boxing is a male-dominated thing,” said boxer Christal Berry, 15. “I think it gives me a lot of power, because I feel really good, I feel strong.”</p>
<p>Parent club leader Sheba McKinney, whose daughter and son visit DBG every weekday, said the gym gives her peace of mind.</p>
<p>"It gives [the kids] an outlet of something to do, so they're not just out in the streets," she said. "This gives them something to work hard for."</p>
<p>Sweeney and the kids have also found appreciation and recognition within their community. The Detroit Pistons recently invited every kid and volunteer to a basketball game, after which they received a monetary donation from the Meijer store for winter coats.</p>
<p>Despite the positive changes over the past year for the gym, Sweeney says there’s much more to be done—and a much larger need to fill.</p>
<p>“Right now, the kids need it more than ever,” Sweeney said. “Detroit is still a rough place, you know. With all the progress that we're makin’, we can't forget the fact that a lot of people are still suffering.”</p>
<p>Jessica Hauser, the gym’s executive director, believes the gym’s growth and progress thus far is proving to be a good lesson for the boxers.</p>
<p>“It's okay to struggle,” she said. “It’s okay as long as you're working towards your dream and that you can make it happen ... And I think that's what the [new gym] will show them.&#160; That hard work does pay off."</p>
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detroit mich cold december day east detroit dozen kids form human assembly line stretching across parking lot the160 downtown boxing gym strong arms kids grab push boxes food delivery truck kids dont go without meal coach khali sweeney told nbc news forgotten harvest local food bank theyll bring food em food kids eat healthy according 2010 report half citys households children 18 receive food assistance state160 food one reasons kids depend gym building left standing city block learn downtown boxing gym please click visit website160 surrounded handful vacant lots remnants abandoned buildings kids sometimes run laps night like really safe us go train 19yearold boxer anthony flagg jr said160 anyway say boxing youre risking life kids risks ring across train tracks less mile away gym theres scene different kind new whole foods grocery sign new life struggling city appreciate applaud efforts goin buildin city sweeney said residents theyre gon na see long time theyre still suffering places like good place kids go first profiled downtown boxing gym back march 2013 gym grassroots effort keep kids streets160had heat beyond capacity since story aired gym received outpouring support community viewers across nation lot doors opened us sweeney said lot people working behind scenes lot people reached us sweeney still goes pick students practice uses donated zipcars get around city rides limited gym students parents call help necessary family em sweeney said wouldnt drive across planet know wasnt good grades graduation priority downtown boxing gym detroit mich inside gym new ring stands complete lifesized wall decal sweeney boxers feet away ring tutoring area boasts new furniture fresh paint updated computers teach america detroit started partnership gym assigning seven teachers work alongside gyms preexisting tutors help strengthen gyms academic program seeing kids using boxing give confidence focus selfesteem think education used way teach america detroit community coordinator lauren coleman said goal provide students least hour day tutoring prep also college career readiness another major change horizon gym raised 175000 donations toward new facility sweeney hopes able accommodate gyms 150 kids remain waiting list thats one things cant afford keep kids waitin around sweeney said theyre sitting around mean nobodys helping point know today help also comes form mentoring improved selfesteem think im turning role model flagg said makes feel good inside kids askin help homework advice never thought id givin anybody advice know boxing maledominated thing said boxer christal berry 15 think gives lot power feel really good feel strong parent club leader sheba mckinney whose daughter son visit dbg every weekday said gym gives peace mind gives kids outlet something theyre streets said gives something work hard sweeney kids also found appreciation recognition within community detroit pistons recently invited every kid volunteer basketball game received monetary donation meijer store winter coats despite positive changes past year gym sweeney says theres much doneand much larger need fill right kids need ever sweeney said detroit still rough place know progress makin cant forget fact lot people still suffering jessica hauser gyms executive director believes gyms growth progress thus far proving good lesson boxers okay struggle said okay long youre working towards dream make happen think thats new gym show them160 hard work pay
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<p>In the last issue of the Herald, Denton Lotz reflected on the challenges facing Baptists in 2007. This concludes the article.</p>
<p>5. Ecclesiology</p>
<p>Several years ago I asked Baptist historians to present some thoughts on the “ecclesial function of the Baptist World Alliance.” Because of our history and ecclesiology, there was not much the historians could say except, “Baptist ecclesiology is basically local autonomy.” I believe the question of the nature of the church is really one of the great challenges confronting Baptists in the 21st century.</p>
<p>In the 19th century, the idea of “local autonomy” was sufficient to keep Baptists together when combined with the understanding of “voluntary associations.” However, is our Baptist ecclesiology sufficient to meet the challenges of the 21st century?</p>
<p>Urbanization, technology, education and travel have changed the way we view the world and one another. As a result, many Baptists have conflict over how the local church should be governed. Since Baptists have always affirmed the democratic principle, our church government has tended to be a church of the people. But today democracy is changing, and not always for the good.</p>
<p>Multi-nationals and pressure groups have more to say than the people. Likewise in the church there are multi-national pressure groups that, using democratic means, take over local churches and even denominations, all in the name of defending God. Churches are split, believers disenfranchised, and the nature of the church's mission is changed.</p>
<p>On the local level conflict often takes place over whether the church should have deacons or elders or over the authority of the pastor. The sad reaction is that many Baptists are leaving our churches for others.</p>
<p>How is the local church related to the association, the nation and the world? How do we do missions? How do we support the aid and development tasks which are an ever-increasing challenge? How shall we work together in ministering to those infected with HIV/AIDS? How does the local church relate to the BWA? What is the call of Christ to unity in John 17, and what does this mean in our relations with other Christians? Who speaks for the church on doctrinal and moral issues? What type of discipline can the local church and national convention/union exercise? How do we remove leaders from office who are immoral and maintain leadership positions only for financial benefits or to hold on to power?</p>
<p>6. Preaching, worship and liturgical practices</p>
<p>In reaction to sometimes dead worship expressed in meaningless liturgies, Baptists in the 18th and 19th centuries replaced such liturgies with “free” worship. Prayers, hymns and biblical preaching became the new liturgy. Congregational participation in worship through hymns, testimonies and prayers gave opportunity for spontaneity.</p>
<p>With urbanization, a more liturgical tradition became evident in Baptist churches worldwide. Every generation, however, experienced the need for “renewal of worship.” Revivals brought new hymns and new forms of worship. But probably at no time in Baptist life has there been more conflict over the form of worship than today.</p>
<p>The sad consequence of these so-called “worship wars” has been their effect on young pastors and preaching. Gone are the days of great oratory. Today we are told preaching needs to be conversational and relational. Traveling all over the world I have had opportunity to observe preaching on every continent. I have concluded that wherever there is biblical preaching with intellect and passion, people respond positively.</p>
<p>On the other hand, many young preachers do not have any idea of communicating the gospel in the cultural setting in which God has placed them. But probably the greatest negative effect on preaching has been the spiritual state of the young minister. Buffeted by secularism and conflict within the church, many have lost their spiritual moorings and their passion for preaching.</p>
<p>Young pastors need to be encouraged to develop their spiritual life. We must encourage that type of preaching which has a passion to bring men and women into the presence of Christ.</p>
<p>7. The Emerging Church, Christian tradition and doctrine</p>
<p>In reaction to empty churches where the youth have disappeared, a new movement called “the Emerging Church” has appeared. Its goals are wonderful—basically to bring the younger generation of 20- and 30-year-olds back into the church. Leaders of this movement maintain that the church needs to be more inclusive and less exclusive. The church needs to emphasize love and compassion and less doctrine.</p>
<p>We are moving out of the Enlightenment into a new period called postmodernism. Enlightenment thinking was rational. It produced the scientific revolution. The technology of our day is a result of Enlightenment thinking. Today Enlightenment thinking has fallen on bad times and postmodernism seems to be the philosophy of the day—for secular universities, that is!</p>
<p>Postmodernism has no absolutes. The same young student who can protest the killing of seals can at the same time defend the killing of a baby in a Stone Age tribe if that is part of the tribe's culture. The question becomes how to win people with this type of thinking for Christ? Emerging Church leaders believe that the answer lies in a whole new understanding of the church and doctrine.</p>
<p>The positive aspect of this Emerging Church movement is that it confronts postmodern men and women and is concerned about bringing them into the kingdom. The questions surrounding this movement are very profound, including questions concerning doctrine and tradition and the authority of the early Church Fathers, as well as others such as: What about Scriptural passages that seem to limit today's culture? How do we reach the alienated and secular society? What is the meaning of worship for today?</p>
<p>Baptists have always said that we are non-creedal, but we also have affirmed statements of faith. Basic Christian doctrines such as the trinity, divinity of Christ, the resurrection, the Kingdom of God, the Second Coming, etc., cannot be swept under the rug. The truly New Testament missional Church will confront today's culture with the same word as the Apostle Paul, “Woe is me if I preach not the gospel!” But then who defines that gospel? I am not an expert on the Emerging Church but I do believe we need to confront the questions posed by the Emerging Church. We need to be involved in its critique of postmodernism and learn all we can from Emerging Church leaders as to how better to proclaim the gospel. We must beware that it does not lead us down the path that the social gospel did in the 1920s, where compassion replaced faith and doctrine and eventually a new reformation had to come to renew the church.</p>
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last issue herald denton lotz reflected challenges facing baptists 2007 concludes article 5 ecclesiology several years ago asked baptist historians present thoughts ecclesial function baptist world alliance history ecclesiology much historians could say except baptist ecclesiology basically local autonomy believe question nature church really one great challenges confronting baptists 21st century 19th century idea local autonomy sufficient keep baptists together combined understanding voluntary associations however baptist ecclesiology sufficient meet challenges 21st century urbanization technology education travel changed way view world one another result many baptists conflict local church governed since baptists always affirmed democratic principle church government tended church people today democracy changing always good multinationals pressure groups say people likewise church multinational pressure groups using democratic means take local churches even denominations name defending god churches split believers disenfranchised nature churchs mission changed local level conflict often takes place whether church deacons elders authority pastor sad reaction many baptists leaving churches others local church related association nation world missions support aid development tasks everincreasing challenge shall work together ministering infected hivaids local church relate bwa call christ unity john 17 mean relations christians speaks church doctrinal moral issues type discipline local church national conventionunion exercise remove leaders office immoral maintain leadership positions financial benefits hold power 6 preaching worship liturgical practices reaction sometimes dead worship expressed meaningless liturgies baptists 18th 19th centuries replaced liturgies free worship prayers hymns biblical preaching became new liturgy congregational participation worship hymns testimonies prayers gave opportunity spontaneity urbanization liturgical tradition became evident baptist churches worldwide every generation however experienced need renewal worship revivals brought new hymns new forms worship probably time baptist life conflict form worship today sad consequence socalled worship wars effect young pastors preaching gone days great oratory today told preaching needs conversational relational traveling world opportunity observe preaching every continent concluded wherever biblical preaching intellect passion people respond positively hand many young preachers idea communicating gospel cultural setting god placed probably greatest negative effect preaching spiritual state young minister buffeted secularism conflict within church many lost spiritual moorings passion preaching young pastors need encouraged develop spiritual life must encourage type preaching passion bring men women presence christ 7 emerging church christian tradition doctrine reaction empty churches youth disappeared new movement called emerging church appeared goals wonderfulbasically bring younger generation 20 30yearolds back church leaders movement maintain church needs inclusive less exclusive church needs emphasize love compassion less doctrine moving enlightenment new period called postmodernism enlightenment thinking rational produced scientific revolution technology day result enlightenment thinking today enlightenment thinking fallen bad times postmodernism seems philosophy dayfor secular universities postmodernism absolutes young student protest killing seals time defend killing baby stone age tribe part tribes culture question becomes win people type thinking christ emerging church leaders believe answer lies whole new understanding church doctrine positive aspect emerging church movement confronts postmodern men women concerned bringing kingdom questions surrounding movement profound including questions concerning doctrine tradition authority early church fathers well others scriptural passages seem limit todays culture reach alienated secular society meaning worship today baptists always said noncreedal also affirmed statements faith basic christian doctrines trinity divinity christ resurrection kingdom god second coming etc swept rug truly new testament missional church confront todays culture word apostle paul woe preach gospel defines gospel expert emerging church believe need confront questions posed emerging church need involved critique postmodernism learn emerging church leaders better proclaim gospel must beware lead us path social gospel 1920s compassion replaced faith doctrine eventually new reformation come renew church
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<p>Dec. 4, 1969, began with bloodshed and death. Police raided the apartment where Fred Hampton, a local leader of the Black Panther Party, was staying. When the dust settled, Hampton and another Panther were dead, and about 100 shots had been fired—all but one by the police.</p>
<p>The bullet-riddled apartment wasn’t the kind of place you’d normally find a white, middle-aged woman from the suburbs, but the Black Panthers invited local activists to see the carnage, and Mary D. Powers answered the call.</p>
<p>“It was so shocking—the bloody seats and the bullet holes in the doors,” Powers said. “Within a month there was a meeting called at DePaul University.”</p>
<p>The meeting had long-lasting results. Powers and her fellow activists breathed life into a fledgling police watchdog group called Citizens Alert, which is now celebrating 45 years of pressing for greater transparency and accountability in the Chicago Police Department.</p>
<p>Throughout its years of service, Citizens Alert has worked tirelessly to make police officers more responsible for their actions and Chicago residents safer. Since the very beginning, one of the major hurdles to clear has been reforming the Chicago Police Board.</p>
<p>The board is a nine-member civilian body that decides disciplinary cases involving allegations of police misconduct. Thanks to a recent amendment to the Chicago Municipal Code, fought for by Citizens Alert and other grassroots activists, the board is now required to post online for public perusal all decisions it makes, including the details of how each member voted. Meetings are open to the public, and private citizens have the opportunity to speak before the board and air their questions and grievances. This level of openness, though, wouldn’t have existed without Citizens Alert.</p>
<p>When Powers and her fellow activists first started attending police board meetings in the early ’70s, they were held in a small room at police headquarters. The board members, stunned to see the public actually interested in attending, had no room for the 10 people who showed up. The activists ended up sitting on the floor and crowding the wall at the back of the room.</p>
<p>“They were in shock,” Powers said. “It was like an invading army or something.”</p>
<p>The board meetings are no longer held inside the police headquarters, and all proceedings are transparent in a way that would never have been possible before the grassroots initiative. But Citizens Alert quickly realized that the board was not the only problem in Chicago’s labyrinthine system for dealing with police misconduct.</p>
<p>The police board was there to decide on the disciplinary actions to be taken when officers abused their power, but actual complaints from private citizens were made to the Office of Professional Standards. The office was a civilian organization, but its members were employees of the police department, and the public often feared they were more likely to ignore their complaints than to address them.</p>
<p>“It protected the police. By and large the result was to cover the police,” Powers said. “People didn’t even bother going to them.”</p>
<p>Dissatisfaction with the police’s handling of misconduct came to a head five years ago, due in large part to a few notable cases. The public watched in horror as Anthony Abbate, an off-duty officer, was caught on videotape savagely beating a female bartender. At the same time, accusations of excessive force and false arrest mounted against the Special Operations Section, an elite police unit tasked with curbing violence. The public was fed up. In 2007, Citizens Alert and other similar groups succeeded in ousting the Office of Professional Standards and replacing it with the Independent Police Review Authority, according to Locke Bowman, the legal director of the Roderick MacArthur Justice Center, a nonprofit firm at the Northwestern University School of Law that specializes in criminal justice.</p>
<p>“When [the review authority] was created, it was the result of community activism,” Bowman said. “There were a series of horrific events, and that furnished an opportunity. Folks in the community seized that opportunity.”</p>
<p>The review authority deals with accusations of excessive force, domestic violence, verbal abuse and coercion by the police, as well as all cases in which an officer fires a gun, Taser or stun gun at an individual. It also investigates any cases of death or serious injury of people in police custody. All other cases are carted off to the Internal Affairs Division. It has the authority to conduct its own investigations by questioning witnesses, checking forensic evidence and gathering facts.</p>
<p>Citizens Alert currently meets with the review authority quarterly, but the agency’s results have led some activists to think it’s no better than the office it replaced. One major reason for discontent is the agency’s insistence on a sworn affidavit from the complainant, lack of which resulted in the dismissal of more than 28 percent of the cases closed in 2011.</p>
<p>For the past few years, though, Citizens Alert has been focused on making more systemic changes. Their success in amending the municipal code in 2011 whet their appetite for more of the same, and their next target is police interrogations. As of 2005, Illinois law demands all interrogations in homicide cases be recorded. The state law can be satisfied with audio recording, but Citizens Alert is fighting to require every interrogation to be videotaped.</p>
<p>“You can do all sorts of threatening things while your voice is being recorded electronically,” Powers said. “It’s not perfect.”</p>
<p>Powers would be the first to tell you that, despite Citizens Alert’s efforts, little about the current system is perfect. But that’s where transparency comes in. The more open city procedure is, the more concerned citizens like Powers are able to see the flaws and express outrage at the way tax dollars are being spent.</p>
<p>“We have such a responsibility,” Powers said. “Not only to the victims, but also to the police who need guidance.”</p>
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dec 4 1969 began bloodshed death police raided apartment fred hampton local leader black panther party staying dust settled hampton another panther dead 100 shots firedall one police bulletriddled apartment wasnt kind place youd normally find white middleaged woman suburbs black panthers invited local activists see carnage mary powers answered call shockingthe bloody seats bullet holes doors powers said within month meeting called depaul university meeting longlasting results powers fellow activists breathed life fledgling police watchdog group called citizens alert celebrating 45 years pressing greater transparency accountability chicago police department throughout years service citizens alert worked tirelessly make police officers responsible actions chicago residents safer since beginning one major hurdles clear reforming chicago police board board ninemember civilian body decides disciplinary cases involving allegations police misconduct thanks recent amendment chicago municipal code fought citizens alert grassroots activists board required post online public perusal decisions makes including details member voted meetings open public private citizens opportunity speak board air questions grievances level openness though wouldnt existed without citizens alert powers fellow activists first started attending police board meetings early 70s held small room police headquarters board members stunned see public actually interested attending room 10 people showed activists ended sitting floor crowding wall back room shock powers said like invading army something board meetings longer held inside police headquarters proceedings transparent way would never possible grassroots initiative citizens alert quickly realized board problem chicagos labyrinthine system dealing police misconduct police board decide disciplinary actions taken officers abused power actual complaints private citizens made office professional standards office civilian organization members employees police department public often feared likely ignore complaints address protected police large result cover police powers said people didnt even bother going dissatisfaction polices handling misconduct came head five years ago due large part notable cases public watched horror anthony abbate offduty officer caught videotape savagely beating female bartender time accusations excessive force false arrest mounted special operations section elite police unit tasked curbing violence public fed 2007 citizens alert similar groups succeeded ousting office professional standards replacing independent police review authority according locke bowman legal director roderick macarthur justice center nonprofit firm northwestern university school law specializes criminal justice review authority created result community activism bowman said series horrific events furnished opportunity folks community seized opportunity review authority deals accusations excessive force domestic violence verbal abuse coercion police well cases officer fires gun taser stun gun individual also investigates cases death serious injury people police custody cases carted internal affairs division authority conduct investigations questioning witnesses checking forensic evidence gathering facts citizens alert currently meets review authority quarterly agencys results led activists think better office replaced one major reason discontent agencys insistence sworn affidavit complainant lack resulted dismissal 28 percent cases closed 2011 past years though citizens alert focused making systemic changes success amending municipal code 2011 whet appetite next target police interrogations 2005 illinois law demands interrogations homicide cases recorded state law satisfied audio recording citizens alert fighting require every interrogation videotaped sorts threatening things voice recorded electronically powers said perfect powers would first tell despite citizens alerts efforts little current system perfect thats transparency comes open city procedure concerned citizens like powers able see flaws express outrage way tax dollars spent responsibility powers said victims also police need guidance
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<p>By Bill Leonard</p>
<p>“This is an institution of Chivalry, Humanity, Mercy, and Patriotism: embodying in its genius and principles all that is chivalric in conduct, noble in sentiment, generous in manhood, and patriotic in purpose.”</p>
<p>With those words Thomas Dixon (1864-1946), Baptist preacher, lawyer, legislator and novelist, described the Order of the Invisible Empire in his novel The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905). Dixon, an 1883 graduate of Wake Forest College and pastor of Baptist churches in North Carolina, Massachusetts and New York, wrote The Clansman as part of a racist trilogy that included The Leopard’s Spots (1902) and The Traitor (1907). All three novels promoted white supremacy and rejected ideas of “Negro equality,” especially giving freed slaves “the vote.”</p>
<p>In his introduction to The Clansman (1970 edition), historian Thomas D. Clark wrote that Dixon “recited every scurrilous thing that had been said about the [Negro] race. In one passage after another he portrayed the Negro as a sensuous brute whose very physical feature was the mark of the jungle and the untamed animal.” Dixon himself characterized Gus, a former slave on whom the Klan visited its anger, with this description: “His thick lips were drawn upward in an ugly leer and his sinister bead-eyes gleamed like a gorilla’s.” Inexcusable words then and now.</p>
<p>Clark, the dean of Kentucky historians, concluded his introduction by asserting that “the sentiments expressed by Dixon were the universal ones of the white supremacists, and were to be voiced in hundreds of different forms within the first half of the twentieth century.”</p>
<p>Sadly, KKK white supremacy endures. I remembered Thomas Dixon, Baptist preacher and KKK sympathizer, on Palm Sunday and Passover Eve 2014, when 73-year-old KKK leader and white supremacist Frazier Glenn Cross was arrested for allegedly shooting three people to death at a Jewish community center and a Jewish retirement complex in Overton Park, Kan. Dr. William Corporon, 69, and his grandson Reat Underwood, 14, both Protestants, were shot at the Jewish community center. Teresa Lamanno, 53-year-old Roman Catholic, was killed after visiting her mother at the retirement complex.</p>
<p>In 21st century America, multiculturalism and religious pluralism means that any of us can be targeted by crazed extremists because of our faith, our ethnicity or a mistaken religio-cultural identity. We are all vulnerable. Frazier, long known for his hatred of Jews and African Americans, founded the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina in 1980, stockpiling weapons and facilitating paramilitary training to, as he said, “emulate Hitler’s methods of attracting members and supporters.” His alleged action suggests that over a century after publication of The Clansman, the “Order” it romanticized continues to endanger lives in our country’s violent present.</p>
<p>Nor are the Kansas Holy Week events anomalous. Simply Google the phrase “Jewish community center shooting” and see what appears. In 1999, a white supremacist fired 70 shots into a Las Angeles Jewish community center, wounding five people with an Uzi-type submachine gun. In July 2006, a “Muslim American” shot six women, killing one at a Seattle Jewish Federation. In August 2012, Wade Page, an “American white supremacist” shot and killed six people at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wis. Some think that he may have mistaken the Sikhs for Muslims. In December 2007, Matthew Murray, 24, a mission volunteer, shot four people at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., killing two. We are all vulnerable.</p>
<p>Yet the same Palm Sunday/Passover weekend as the murders, folks in Winston-Salem, N.C., experienced a small but powerful alternate vision of religion and community when the Afro-Semitic Experience brought their jazz ensemble to town. The group, founded by a Jewish bassist and an African-American pianist at a 1998 Martin Luther King memorial service, plays jazz, pure and eclectic, performed that weekend at Baptist, Methodist, Moravian and Jewish worship spaces.</p>
<p>At the Friday Lenten service of First Baptist Church, Highland, the town’s oldest African-American congregation, the audience included church members, office workers, homeless persons and Wake Forest Divinity School faculty and students. After Communion, Pastor Darryl Aaron invited local Rabbi Mark Strauss-Cohn to offer the benediction. The rabbi began by reminding us that his benediction (in Hebrew) might well have been heard by Jesus as he departed the Temple two millennia ago. Turns out Jesus was Jewish! Who’d have guessed?</p>
<p>The Jim Crow culture that Thomas Dixon helped foster was ultimately dismantled with the help of another Baptist preacher, Martin Luther King Jr. (And a myriad of blacks, whites, Jews and Gentiles). In Stride Toward Freedom King detailed events from the Montgomery bus boycott, that black resistance movement that ended transportation segregation in the Confederacy’s first capital. King also articulated an alternative response to the romance-racism of Thomas Dixon and the terrorist-racism of Frazier Cross.</p>
<p>King wrote: “To meet hate with retaliatory hate would do nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love; we must meet physical force with soul force.”</p>
<p>Sounds a lot like Easter, doesn’t it?</p>
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bill leonard institution chivalry humanity mercy patriotism embodying genius principles chivalric conduct noble sentiment generous manhood patriotic purpose words thomas dixon 18641946 baptist preacher lawyer legislator novelist described order invisible empire novel clansman historical romance ku klux klan 1905 dixon 1883 graduate wake forest college pastor baptist churches north carolina massachusetts new york wrote clansman part racist trilogy included leopards spots 1902 traitor 1907 three novels promoted white supremacy rejected ideas negro equality especially giving freed slaves vote introduction clansman 1970 edition historian thomas clark wrote dixon recited every scurrilous thing said negro race one passage another portrayed negro sensuous brute whose physical feature mark jungle untamed animal dixon characterized gus former slave klan visited anger description thick lips drawn upward ugly leer sinister beadeyes gleamed like gorillas inexcusable words clark dean kentucky historians concluded introduction asserting sentiments expressed dixon universal ones white supremacists voiced hundreds different forms within first half twentieth century sadly kkk white supremacy endures remembered thomas dixon baptist preacher kkk sympathizer palm sunday passover eve 2014 73yearold kkk leader white supremacist frazier glenn cross arrested allegedly shooting three people death jewish community center jewish retirement complex overton park kan dr william corporon 69 grandson reat underwood 14 protestants shot jewish community center teresa lamanno 53yearold roman catholic killed visiting mother retirement complex 21st century america multiculturalism religious pluralism means us targeted crazed extremists faith ethnicity mistaken religiocultural identity vulnerable frazier long known hatred jews african americans founded carolina knights ku klux klan north carolina 1980 stockpiling weapons facilitating paramilitary training said emulate hitlers methods attracting members supporters alleged action suggests century publication clansman order romanticized continues endanger lives countrys violent present kansas holy week events anomalous simply google phrase jewish community center shooting see appears 1999 white supremacist fired 70 shots las angeles jewish community center wounding five people uzitype submachine gun july 2006 muslim american shot six women killing one seattle jewish federation august 2012 wade page american white supremacist shot killed six people sikh temple oak creek wis think may mistaken sikhs muslims december 2007 matthew murray 24 mission volunteer shot four people new life church colorado springs colo killing two vulnerable yet palm sundaypassover weekend murders folks winstonsalem nc experienced small powerful alternate vision religion community afrosemitic experience brought jazz ensemble town group founded jewish bassist africanamerican pianist 1998 martin luther king memorial service plays jazz pure eclectic performed weekend baptist methodist moravian jewish worship spaces friday lenten service first baptist church highland towns oldest africanamerican congregation audience included church members office workers homeless persons wake forest divinity school faculty students communion pastor darryl aaron invited local rabbi mark strausscohn offer benediction rabbi began reminding us benediction hebrew might well heard jesus departed temple two millennia ago turns jesus jewish whod guessed jim crow culture thomas dixon helped foster ultimately dismantled help another baptist preacher martin luther king jr myriad blacks whites jews gentiles stride toward freedom king detailed events montgomery bus boycott black resistance movement ended transportation segregation confederacys first capital king also articulated alternative response romanceracism thomas dixon terroristracism frazier cross king wrote meet hate retaliatory hate would nothing intensify existence evil universe hate begets hate violence begets violence toughness begets greater toughness must meet forces hate power love must meet physical force soul force sounds lot like easter doesnt
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<p>&#160;</p>
<p>California labor law soon could become even more problematic for&#160;business.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/asm/ab_2401-2450/ab_2416_bill_20140626_amended_sen_v95.htm" type="external">Assembly Bill 2416</a>&#160;is by&#160; <a href="http://asmdc.org/members/a29/" type="external">Assemblyman Mark Stone</a>, D-Monterey Bay. It would allow employees with unpaid-wage claims to file liens on the property of business owners.&#160;Stone said it would thwart “wage theft” by employers and&#160;recover hundreds of millions of dollars for abused employees.</p>
<p>Business groups warn the bill would&#160;create a “dangerous and unfair precedent in the wage and hour arena.”</p>
<p>AB2416 already passed the Assembly, 43-27. It’s scheduled for consideration by the <a href="http://sapro.senate.ca.gov/" type="external">Senate Appropriations Committee</a> on Thursday.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.calchamber.com/pages/default.aspx" type="external">California Chamber of Commerce</a> argued in an Aug. 8 <a href="http://www.calchamber.com/Headlines/Pages/08082014-calchamber-urges-opposition-to-job-killer-allowing-unproven-wage-liens.aspx?sp_rid=MzA4NjQxMTQzMTMS1&amp;sp_mid=46671075&amp;spMailingID=46671075&amp;spUserID=MzA4NjQxMTQzMTMS1&amp;spJobID=501051867&amp;spReportId=NTAxMDUxOD" type="external">press release</a>&#160;the bill “would allow employees to harass employers by filing prejudgment unproven wage liens on their property.”</p>
<p>The bill does provide penalties for frivolous, malicious liens, according to the committee’s <a href="http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml" type="external">legislative analysis</a>. An employee acting “in bad faith” by refusing to release a lien could receive a $1,000 fine and have to pay the employer’s attorney fees and court costs.</p>
<p>Employers can ask the <a href="http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/" type="external">California Labor Commissioner</a> to remove the lien if the employee doesn’t respond in 30 days to the employer’s request to release it. In response to critics, the bill was amended to exempt an employer’s principal residence from a lien.</p>
<p>But the Chamber&#160;warned:</p>
<p>“AB2416 would cripple California businesses by allowing any employee, governmental agency, or anyone ‘authorized by the employee to act on the employee’s behalf’ to record liens on an employer’s real property or property where an employee ‘performed work’ for an alleged, yet unproven, wage claim.</p>
<p>“At the time of recording the lien, the employee would have no burden to provide any actual evidence that the employer violated any wage and hour law. There is no question that improper liens will be recorded on the employer’s or third party’s property.”</p>
<p>The Chamber is also concerned that AB2416:</p>
<p>​The Chamber argues there are already sufficient protections in place for workers, including the ability to file an unpaid wage claim with the labor commissioner and to appeal that decision in civil court.</p>
<p>Senate Judiciary Committee Chairwoman <a href="http://sd19.senate.ca.gov/" type="external">Hannah-Beth Jackson</a>, D-Santa Barbara, speaking at the committee’s June 17 hearing, said something needs to change.</p>
<p>“There is clearly, and I don’t think we have any dispute, we have a serious problem with people who are getting cheated out of their hard-earned money,” she said. “So the question becomes: How do we address that problem in a way that is fair to them?</p>
<p>“A lot of these folks are Spanish-speaking people who are working in minimum wage jobs who are working their tails off and getting stiffed on their wages. There’s $300 million of unpaid hard-earned wages [taken] from people.”</p>
<p>Chamber policy advocate <a href="http://www.calchamber.com/bios/pages/jenniferbarrera.aspx" type="external">Jennifer Barrera</a> responded that the solution is to expand the powers and increase the budget for the&#160; <a href="http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/" type="external">Labor Commissioner’s Office</a> in the Department of Industrial Relations.</p>
<p>“We agree there is a problem and would like to remedy it as much as anyone else,” she said. “Wage theft impacts good actors in the employment community who are trying to do it right and comply with the law.</p>
<p>“What we have proposed and have been trying to do, through either legislation or support for the recent wage-theft campaign that the labor commissioner has launched, is to support the labor commissioner in increasing the labor commissioner’s authority to deal with this issue.”</p>
<p>The commissioner should review a&#160;claim to determine whether it has merit before a lien is filed, she said. He also should determine the amount of the claim rather than leaving that to the employee.</p>
<p>“We believe increasing the labor commissioner’s authority is the way we should be going, not necessarily giving this authority to every employee,” said Barrera.</p>
<p>But the increase in funding needed to provide that authority would be astronomical, according to Matthew Sirolly, an attorney at the <a href="http://wagejustice.org/" type="external">Wage Justice Center</a> who said he’s litigated dozens of lien cases.</p>
<p>“The reality is that as it stands, hearings take a year or two for the labor commissioner to have their resources to actually hold a hearing,” he said.</p>
<p>“So if we were to follow statutory timelines requiring these things to happen in a couple months, let alone some sort of expedited pre-decision to determine whether a lien is valid, it seems the inquiry and resources would have to be on the magnitude of 100-fold. We’re not talking of something that’s realistic.”</p>
<p>The business community is prepared to increase the fees it pays to the labor commissioner’s office if it results in increased power for that office, said Barrera.</p>
<p>“What I’m suggesting is, maybe not this year but next year if this were in place, there would have to be an adjustment of the employer assessments in order to account for the resources necessary to enforce the proposal that I’ve set forth to have the labor commissioner do this as part of the process that already exists for hearings before the labor commissioner’s office,” she said.</p>
<p>Stone joined Sirolly in dismissing that possibility.</p>
<p>“We do require statements made under penalty of perjury, so that we can assure that there’s some legitimacy to the claim,” said Stone. “The issue with the labor commissioner is … we would have to significantly increase the amount of money going to the labor commissioner so they can hire the staff and do that job. I’m not sure that’s realistic in this form.</p>
<p>“This is a form that would not cost the state or anybody else additional administrative fees to put into place, because it’s a self-enforcing mechanism.”</p>
<p>There actually will be some costs to the state budget and potentially big impacts on the state court system if the bill passes, according to the legislative analysis. The labor commissioner’s office would incur first-year costs of nearly $9 million, with ongoing annual costs around $8 million. The Secretary of State’s office estimates increased costs of $100,000 annually.</p>
<p>The analysis also warns of “unknown, potentially significant court costs associated with additional proceedings regarding wage claims.”</p>
<p>Stone argued those costs are nothing compared to the costs that unpaid workers are facing.</p>
<p>“Government works best when we provide balance,” he said. “The system is completely out of balance. That’s to the detriment of the lowest paid worker. They have rights but absolutely no remedy. If we … have employees without any remedy, what else are they going to be doing, how else are they going to get their issues met, unless there’s something of value against which to attach the claim?”</p>
<p>The bill’s costs could also take a toll on the statewide real estate industry, warned Craig Page, executive vice president for the <a href="http://clta.org/" type="external">California Land Title Association</a>.</p>
<p>“We think it’s going to have a profound chilling impact on the real state economy of California, both in a residential context and a commercial context,” he said. “I think what will happen is the dragnet of unintended consequences will pull a lot of innocent homeowners into this as well as commercial property owners.”</p>
<p>What is now a fairly straightforward process for a title company to search county records would be complicated by also having to search court records to discover whether a wage lien action is underway and whether the property affected is a principal residence.</p>
<p>“It’s going to take the escrow process that now is a 30-to-45 day process on average and extend it perhaps months if not years as we try to interact with the courts and the labor commissioner to determine how real property transactions will happen,” warned Page.</p>
<p>“We have by definition many wage lien holders who are unsophisticated and not familiar with the recording process who are going to record these. And they are going to be recorded against homeowners in districts throughout California by accident.</p>
<p>“Once the damage is done you have to undo that either through quiet title action, or you’re going to have to go through the courts to get those liens removed. It’s not an easy process to do. Consumers are going to be adversely impacted by this.”</p>
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160 california labor law soon could become even problematic for160business assembly bill 2416160is by160 assemblyman mark stone dmonterey bay would allow employees unpaidwage claims file liens property business owners160stone said would thwart wage theft employers and160recover hundreds millions dollars abused employees business groups warn bill would160create dangerous unfair precedent wage hour arena ab2416 already passed assembly 4327 scheduled consideration senate appropriations committee thursday california chamber commerce argued aug 8 press release160the bill would allow employees harass employers filing prejudgment unproven wage liens property bill provide penalties frivolous malicious liens according committees legislative analysis employee acting bad faith refusing release lien could receive 1000 fine pay employers attorney fees court costs employers ask california labor commissioner remove lien employee doesnt respond 30 days employers request release response critics bill amended exempt employers principal residence lien chamber160warned ab2416 would cripple california businesses allowing employee governmental agency anyone authorized employee act employees behalf record liens employers real property property employee performed work alleged yet unproven wage claim time recording lien employee would burden provide actual evidence employer violated wage hour law question improper liens recorded employers third partys property chamber also concerned ab2416 chamber argues already sufficient protections place workers including ability file unpaid wage claim labor commissioner appeal decision civil court senate judiciary committee chairwoman hannahbeth jackson dsanta barbara speaking committees june 17 hearing said something needs change clearly dont think dispute serious problem people getting cheated hardearned money said question becomes address problem way fair lot folks spanishspeaking people working minimum wage jobs working tails getting stiffed wages theres 300 million unpaid hardearned wages taken people chamber policy advocate jennifer barrera responded solution expand powers increase budget the160 labor commissioners office department industrial relations agree problem would like remedy much anyone else said wage theft impacts good actors employment community trying right comply law proposed trying either legislation support recent wagetheft campaign labor commissioner launched support labor commissioner increasing labor commissioners authority deal issue commissioner review a160claim determine whether merit lien filed said also determine amount claim rather leaving employee believe increasing labor commissioners authority way going necessarily giving authority every employee said barrera increase funding needed provide authority would astronomical according matthew sirolly attorney wage justice center said hes litigated dozens lien cases reality stands hearings take year two labor commissioner resources actually hold hearing said follow statutory timelines requiring things happen couple months let alone sort expedited predecision determine whether lien valid seems inquiry resources would magnitude 100fold talking something thats realistic business community prepared increase fees pays labor commissioners office results increased power office said barrera im suggesting maybe year next year place would adjustment employer assessments order account resources necessary enforce proposal ive set forth labor commissioner part process already exists hearings labor commissioners office said stone joined sirolly dismissing possibility require statements made penalty perjury assure theres legitimacy claim said stone issue labor commissioner would significantly increase amount money going labor commissioner hire staff job im sure thats realistic form form would cost state anybody else additional administrative fees put place selfenforcing mechanism actually costs state budget potentially big impacts state court system bill passes according legislative analysis labor commissioners office would incur firstyear costs nearly 9 million ongoing annual costs around 8 million secretary states office estimates increased costs 100000 annually analysis also warns unknown potentially significant court costs associated additional proceedings regarding wage claims stone argued costs nothing compared costs unpaid workers facing government works best provide balance said system completely balance thats detriment lowest paid worker rights absolutely remedy employees without remedy else going else going get issues met unless theres something value attach claim bills costs could also take toll statewide real estate industry warned craig page executive vice president california land title association think going profound chilling impact real state economy california residential context commercial context said think happen dragnet unintended consequences pull lot innocent homeowners well commercial property owners fairly straightforward process title company search county records would complicated also search court records discover whether wage lien action underway whether property affected principal residence going take escrow process 30to45 day process average extend perhaps months years try interact courts labor commissioner determine real property transactions happen warned page definition many wage lien holders unsophisticated familiar recording process going record going recorded homeowners districts throughout california accident damage done undo either quiet title action youre going go courts get liens removed easy process consumers going adversely impacted
| 736 |
<p>Katy Grimes: What does a city do when the chips are down, the deficit is huge, services are cut and public approval is at a record low? &#160;Why, of course, it’s time to build a sports arena.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>In Sacramento, despite <a href="http://www.sacgrandjury.org/reports/06-07/KingsInterimReport.pdf" type="external">local voters refusing to support public financing</a>to build another sports complex, Mayor Kevin Johnson continues to push another new arena. And, anyone who critiques the plan is called names, and attacked by sports writers.</p>
<p>Sacramento not only cannot afford to build an arena, the taxpayers have already voted down two ballot measures to pay for a new arena. The Sacramento Grand Jury expressed serious concerns in a 2006-07 report,&#160; <a href="http://www.sacgrandjury.org/reports/06-07/KingsInterimReport.pdf" type="external">The Kings and City and County of Sacramento:&#160;Betrayal in the Kingdom?&#160;</a>.</p>
<p>So instead, city officials schemed and came up with a plan to pawn its parking lots, together with the future revenue they generate, in order to get a big enough chunk of change to be able to play in the big leagues.</p>
<p>The last scheme,&#160;would have relocated the state fairgrounds to Arco Arena in Natomas, and &#160;developed the 350-acre Cal Expo site to help finance a&#160; <a href="http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/32406/Arena_plan_moving_forward" type="external">new arena</a>&#160;downtown. It&#160;would have turned ownership and operation of the state fairgrounds and the annual state fair over to a private company, VisionMaker Worldwide.&#160;&#160;VisionMaker would have returned ownership of the facilities to the state after 30 years.</p>
<p>&#160;Think Big Labor</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>However, Sunday, one of Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson’s <a href="http://thinkbigsacramento.com/informed/members" type="external">“Think Big” members</a>publicly&#160;outed the motive behind the arena push today on a local news show — and surprise, surprise… it’s labor. The guy said that “the city and labor are backing the arena deal.”</p>
<p>Why labor? Because the arena would be built by union employees. All city government contracts require <a href="" type="internal">Project Labor Agreements</a>, an arrangement heartily supported by&#160;Bob Balgenorth, of the&#160;State Building &amp; Constructions Council, and “Think Big” <a href="http://thinkbigsacramento.com/informed/members" type="external">board member</a>.</p>
<p>Balgenorth is joined on the “Think Big” board by Senate Pres. pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, City Council Member Rob Fong, and numerous other area Democrats, comfortable with spending other people’s money against their wishes. Republican Sen. Ted Gaines is however, also on the board, and has been offering a great deal of support for the plan.</p>
<p>The best quick explanation of the damage to business caused by Project Labor Agreements comes from <a href="http://thetruthaboutplas.com/get-the-truth/" type="external">The Truth About PLAs:</a> “Anti-competitive government-mandated project labor agreement (PLAs) are special interest kickback schemes that end open, fair and competitive bidding on construction projects.”</p>
<p>Think Big Money</p>
<p>One of the “Think Big” <a href="http://thinkbigsacramento.com/informed/" type="external">goals</a> include “Identify a menu of funding options and finalize a public-private funding plan.” But there is a problem — the public doesn’t want to finance the ‘public’ portion of the plan.</p>
<p>Sacramento’s newspaper, The Sacramento Bee, is also shilling for the plan. Former sports writer Marcos Breton writes several quasi-political columns each week pimping the plan. Instead of just doing his usual hackneyed bootlicking support column for the arena plan Sunday, Breton called opponents to the plan “naysayers,” and supporters of “government-town ethos.”</p>
<p>I’ve done my share of calling out the opposition on a myriad of issues, but Breton’s column is such a thin shill veil. In his view, either Sacramento residents support the arena plan, or they support the government town.</p>
<p>Really? I know that he is not that simple. But Breton is one of the few who stand to benefit from an arena. He’s not just a sports fan — Breton is still a sports writer.</p>
<p>“Pension spiking and public-payroll double dipping are rampant around here,” <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/2012/02/26/4291634/marcos-breton-support-for-arena.html#disqus_thread" type="external">Breton wrote</a>. But he ignores that the arena plan is an ace-in-the-hole for unions. How does Breton think that pensions spiking and double-dipping took place?</p>
<p>Obviously, the Sacramento Bee and a few downtown merchants stand to&#160;benefit. &#160;And the bottom line is that a new arena may satisfy sports fans, but the venue will be one in which many more will not be able to afford to&#160;attend.</p>
<p>As a sports writer, Breton could and should be pushing for a more responsible and reasonable plan. Sacramento has a sports arena that could easily be remodeled and greatly beefed up. There is plenty of parking around the arena, and businesses have sprouted up in the area supporting the venue.</p>
<p>This can and will backfire on the city. The higher&#160;parking fees which will come out of the bad deal to sell the city’s parking garages and metered parking, higher taxes are inevitable in city business districts&#160;businesses, and there will be hefty&#160;surcharges on arena tickets. Fewer people will go to arena events and&#160;downtown to patronize businesses because it will be too expensive.</p>
<p>But that doesn’t bother arena supporters who will be insulated from the masses in the new &#160;luxury boxes.</p>
<p>The small thinkers who insist that the city needs an arena to elevate Sacramento into world-class city status are the real naysayers. They are typical of every Johnny-come-lately who moves to an area and then wants to change the landscape and demographics.</p>
<p>As a life-long resident, I’ve watched Sacramento sprawl, and make really bad decisions for short term gains.</p>
<p>Sacramento is located on two rivers, neither of which has ever been developed. In the downtown, K Street was turned into a pedestrian mall in the 1960’s. It was a failure, but only made worse by the city, which spent more than $250 million over the years, annexing buildings and property along the street, turning it into a giant slum. As the biggest slumlord on K street, and in downtown, the city has made a mess, from which an arena will not performa a rescue.</p>
<p>These are real issues that real leaders would tackle. Sacramento could be a much more interesting city, had past city councils allowed development along the rivers. And the downtown business district might have been a thriving area, had the Sacramento redevelopment agency not robbed the taxpayers of several hundred million dollars over the decades.</p>
<p>Sacramento is still operating with a massive deficit. I’ve been told by city insiders that the city’s deficit is as high as $60 million. So let’s build an arena.</p>
<p>Building a sports arena is nouveau riche, and a short-term gain for a very few. If there really is such a demand for a new sports arena, then there would be numerous wealthy individuals or corporations vying for a chance to be a part of it. But there are no long lines of wealthy suitors waiting in line to build Mayor Johnson and his friends a new arena.</p>
<p>Arenas are nothing more that&#160; <a href="http://www.fieldofschemes.com/" type="external">fields of schemes</a>; apparently I’m not the only one who thinks this.</p>
<p>FEB. 27, 2012</p>
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katy grimes city chips deficit huge services cut public approval record low 160why course time build sports arena sacramento despite local voters refusing support public financingto build another sports complex mayor kevin johnson continues push another new arena anyone critiques plan called names attacked sports writers sacramento afford build arena taxpayers already voted two ballot measures pay new arena sacramento grand jury expressed serious concerns 200607 report160 kings city county sacramento160betrayal kingdom160 instead city officials schemed came plan pawn parking lots together future revenue generate order get big enough chunk change able play big leagues last scheme160would relocated state fairgrounds arco arena natomas 160developed 350acre cal expo site help finance a160 new arena160downtown it160would turned ownership operation state fairgrounds annual state fair private company visionmaker worldwide160160visionmaker would returned ownership facilities state 30 years 160think big labor however sunday one sacramento mayor kevin johnsons think big memberspublicly160outed motive behind arena push today local news show surprise surprise labor guy said city labor backing arena deal labor arena would built union employees city government contracts require project labor agreements arrangement heartily supported by160bob balgenorth the160state building amp constructions council think big board member balgenorth joined think big board senate pres pro tem darrell steinberg assemblyman roger dickinson city council member rob fong numerous area democrats comfortable spending peoples money wishes republican sen ted gaines however also board offering great deal support plan best quick explanation damage business caused project labor agreements comes truth plas anticompetitive governmentmandated project labor agreement plas special interest kickback schemes end open fair competitive bidding construction projects think big money one think big goals include identify menu funding options finalize publicprivate funding plan problem public doesnt want finance public portion plan sacramentos newspaper sacramento bee also shilling plan former sports writer marcos breton writes several quasipolitical columns week pimping plan instead usual hackneyed bootlicking support column arena plan sunday breton called opponents plan naysayers supporters governmenttown ethos ive done share calling opposition myriad issues bretons column thin shill veil view either sacramento residents support arena plan support government town really know simple breton one stand benefit arena hes sports fan breton still sports writer pension spiking publicpayroll double dipping rampant around breton wrote ignores arena plan aceinthehole unions breton think pensions spiking doubledipping took place obviously sacramento bee downtown merchants stand to160benefit 160and bottom line new arena may satisfy sports fans venue one many able afford to160attend sports writer breton could pushing responsible reasonable plan sacramento sports arena could easily remodeled greatly beefed plenty parking around arena businesses sprouted area supporting venue backfire city higher160parking fees come bad deal sell citys parking garages metered parking higher taxes inevitable city business districts160businesses hefty160surcharges arena tickets fewer people go arena events and160downtown patronize businesses expensive doesnt bother arena supporters insulated masses new 160luxury boxes small thinkers insist city needs arena elevate sacramento worldclass city status real naysayers typical every johnnycomelately moves area wants change landscape demographics lifelong resident ive watched sacramento sprawl make really bad decisions short term gains sacramento located two rivers neither ever developed downtown k street turned pedestrian mall 1960s failure made worse city spent 250 million years annexing buildings property along street turning giant slum biggest slumlord k street downtown city made mess arena performa rescue real issues real leaders would tackle sacramento could much interesting city past city councils allowed development along rivers downtown business district might thriving area sacramento redevelopment agency robbed taxpayers several hundred million dollars decades sacramento still operating massive deficit ive told city insiders citys deficit high 60 million lets build arena building sports arena nouveau riche shortterm gain really demand new sports arena would numerous wealthy individuals corporations vying chance part long lines wealthy suitors waiting line build mayor johnson friends new arena arenas nothing that160 fields schemes apparently im one thinks feb 27 2012
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<p>In many Illinois towns and suburbs, the discovery of a child with lead poisoning means a swift response and plenty of help with cleaning up hazards.</p>
<p>In Chicago, though the inspectors usually come quickly, getting government money to clean up is difficult, if not impossible, an investigation by The Chicago Reporter and Chicago Parent has found.</p>
<p>Recent headlines have pointed to lead as a problem in some imported toys and furniture, but the real problem remains lead in paint. Lead was taken out of paint in 1977—yet, in old housing, lead-ridden paint remains underneath new coats.</p>
<p>Sweet to taste, lead is dangerous. It can cause permanent brain damage and, at its worst, even lead to a child’s death.</p>
<p>But fixing lead is expensive. It costs an average of $10,000 to clean one apartment or house, a process that often entails replacing windows and scraping off paint and repainting.</p>
<p>And there are supposed to be funds available to help, especially for people with low incomes. But an examination of the available money and where it is spent shows:</p>
<p>* There is still not enough money. Just in Chicago, it is estimated that 88,000 homes have lead in them. It would cost at least $1 billion to fix. But, each year, the city has a couple of million dollars to spend on cleanup.</p>
<p>* Although Chicago has the highest percentage of lead-poisoned children in the country, it does not get a proportional amount of funding to deal with the problem. This leaves families in poor city neighborhoods waiting for months for help.</p>
<p>* Cumbersome procedures mean the money available for cleanup is often not spent.</p>
<p>While other monies are available for education and screening, Cook County and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development are the two major sources of funding for cleaning up lead hazards in Chicago and the suburbs.</p>
<p>When it comes to cleaning up, Chicago, which has 70 percent of the state’s children who tested positive for higher lead levels, doesn’t get its share. For example, 40 percent of $34 million in HUD money that has been spent helping landlords and homeowners statewide since 2000 went to Chicago property owners. In addition, although Chicago is home to 93 percent of the lead-poisoned children in Cook County, the city gets only 74 percent of the county’s lead money.</p>
<p>Government officials offer many explanations.</p>
<p>Experts and lawmakers say much of the problem has to do with an “ask and ye shall receive” approach to funding, where more aggressive government entities gain a greater share. It is also a result, they say, of politics overshadowing public health realities.</p>
<p>HUD and Cook County officials disagree. “You are making a judgment here that a child in a smaller town is not as important as a child in Chicago,” says Brian Sullivan, a HUD spokesman. “Lead is everywhere, and just because someone lives in a small town doesn’t mean they should not have access to help.”</p>
<p>But, even when dollars are available, Cook County funds are not distributed quickly enough, advocates say.</p>
<p>That means some homes and apartments aren’t being fixed, and more children are being exposed to lead, says Anita Weinberg, director of Loyola University’s ChildLaw Policy Institute, who recently co-chaired a summit to develop a strategic plan for Chicago. “I have a problem with the money just sitting there,” she says.</p>
<p>County officials say their application process is complex, and that they’re taking their time in handing out the funding because they want to make sure it is spent right.</p>
<p>But Larry Suffredin, a Cook County commissioner who represents the far northeast end of Chicago and some north suburbs, says he is so fed up with the county holding onto the money that he may introduce an ordinance to force the issue.</p>
<p>“With the county, everything goes as slow as molasses,” Suffredin says. “This could save a generation of kids, and we just aren’t doing it, and it is driving me crazy.”</p>
<p />
<p>Community activists have complained to Suffredin that not one property owner on the Chicago side of his district has received any county money—or federal money, for that matter—for lead control.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Evanston, an adjoining suburb with much less of a lead problem, has received enough money in the past two years to clean up the homes of qualified property owners—and do prevention work, as well.</p>
<p>In 2003, 1,092 Evanston children were screened for lead and 86 had elevated lead levels. During that time, 13 properties were cleaned up with government money, which is reserved for low-income families.</p>
<p>Evanston “jumped at the chance” to get the county money, says Jay W. Terry, the director of Evanston’s Health and Human Services Department.</p>
<p>“I am never comfortable with Chicago versus. Evanston questions,” he says. “Hopefully, it’s not either-or. Do I wish there were more funds available so that Chicago would have enough to take care of its problem? Yes. But that’s a political question. All I know is that we were given the opportunity to apply and we did.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in the city’s North Side Rogers Park neighborhood, tests found that 153 children had elevated blood levels in 2002, and not one property owner received any financial help from the government to clean up hazards.</p>
<p>Her voice quivering in anger, Monica Dillon, a community health nurse at the Howard Area Community Center in East Rogers Park, says she has seen families in her neighborhood destroyed because a child was exposed to lead.</p>
<p>“The [county] could have used this money to really start eradicating lead here and in other Chicago neighborhoods,” she says. “I think [the Cook County money] is just being mishandled.”</p>
<p>Dillon notes that, while gentrification is taking hold, Rogers Park is home to one of the most diverse populations in the city, with many immigrant families struggling financially.</p>
<p>About a third of Rogers Park’s residents are black, a third white and a third Latino, according to the 2000 Census. The median household income is $32,444, below the citywide median of $38,625.</p>
<p>Dillon says many of these families feel trapped because they don’t have the money to fix the problem—or are renters who can’t persuade their landlords to do the work.</p>
<p>And Loyola’s Weinberg and Anne Evens, director of the Chicago Department of Public Health’s lead program, stress it’s not just the disparity in the county funding that troubles them, it also is the way the county has set up the program.</p>
<p>Both served on the advisory council that helped develop the application procedure and say that, throughout the process, they disagreed with certain stipulations.</p>
<p>For example, they thought that the distribution should be based on need, while officials wanted to see 50 percent given to Cook County suburbs.</p>
<p>Cook County has only recently gotten into the business of fixing lead hazards.</p>
<p>In 1993, the Illinois General Assembly abolished an outdated insurance system—the Torrens system, which set aside money from building sales to pay for possible title problems. About $35 million was left in the now-defunct Torrens Fund. After five years, the county concluded that about $7 million was needed for any future claims, but the rest could be spent.</p>
<p>In 1998, the legislature passed a law allowing Cook County to use the money to clean up lead.</p>
<p>Advocates celebrated the large pot of money. But, instead of devoting the entire $28 million to lead, the Cook County Board decided to put half in the county’s general fund—a move the law allowed but did not advocate.</p>
<p>In the end, the county was left with about $15 million for lead hazard control. It took until 2001 for officials to develop a spending plan. Since it went into effect in 2002, only about a third of the fund has been spent, cleaning up 186 properties.</p>
<p>Stephen A. Martin Jr., director of the Cook County Public Health Department, who used to run the county’s lead program, says the pace helps ensure the money is spent right.</p>
<p>A community organization or a municipality must submit a 40-page application on behalf of property owners in the area in order to get a grant from the Torrens Fund. It must include the affected address, the contractor that will do the work, what needs to be done and the time it will take.</p>
<p>Evanston and Oak Park, Martin says, are the only Cook County suburbs with the resources—knowledge about the work, connections with contractors and inspection staffs—to put together an application. This leaves one qualified nonprofit organization, the Community and Economic Development Association (CEDA) of Cook County, to develop all the information necessary to apply on behalf of residents in all the other suburbs.</p>
<p>“CEDA can only do so many homes,” Martin says.</p>
<p />
<p>In about 45 percent of Chicago’s neighborhoods, more than 100 children a year are found to have high lead levels. The scope of the problem and the limited amount of money the city gets for lead hazard control leaves officials in a difficult position. They must decide whether to target the most-affected areas, or open the program up to any property owner who qualifies.</p>
<p>Over the past four years, Chicago officials have targeted communities on the South and West sides of the city, which is one of the reasons Rogers Park and much of the North Side have been neglected. Realizing that property owners in some communities were being left out, Evens says, the targeted areas are being broadened this year.</p>
<p>But the gap between the need and the problem is still vividly apparent, even in the targeted areas.</p>
<p>Take West Englewood, Englewood, New City and Auburn Gresham, four adjoining neighborhoods on the Southwest Side. During the past decade, the city has demolished many of the abandoned houses in these neighborhoods, leaving vacant lots covered with weeds and wildflowers.</p>
<p>The buildings left standing are a mix of wood-framed and bungalow homes, two- and three-flats and bigger courtyard buildings with multiple units. At a glance, these buildings seem well-kept, with carefully planted flowers and trimmed lawns. But most of the houses are old. The paint is peeling, the siding is loose, the cement stairs are cracked.</p>
<p>On one afternoon, children are everywhere, riding bikes, throwing basketballs against the steps and hanging off nearby jungle gyms.</p>
<p>Because of the crumbling housing, those children are more likely to have lead poisoning.</p>
<p>In 2002, 22 percent of the children screened in those four neighborhoods had elevated lead levels in their blood, compared with rates of 11 percent citywide and 6 percent statewide.</p>
<p>Because of the persistently high rates, the city targeted these neighborhoods. The attention resulted in 227 homes in those areas being cleaned up with government funds since 1999, according to the Chicago Parent-Chicago Reporter analysis. That means about one home has been cleaned up for every 10 times a child was found with lead poisoning.</p>
<p>Josie Chico, one of two social workers for Children’s Home and Aid Society doing lead outreach on the Southwest Side, says while the targeted money has been helpful, it is “just a small step.” The nonprofit agency runs a lead prevention program in six South Side neighborhoods.</p>
<p>Chico says almost all of the landlords and homeowners she has met are within the income guidelines to receive a lead hazard control grant. And the waiting list is often a year long. Chico talks glowingly of one landlord who qualified but wasn’t able to get a grant because the money ran out.</p>
<p>“She went into debt to get some hallway windows fixed,” she says. “It’s just a little thing, but she cared so much that she went into debt. Most don’t.”</p>
<p>Parents are told to keep their homes as clean as possible while waiting and to make sure their children constantly have a stomach full of nutritious food. Because lead latches on to children’s bones, like nutrients such as calcium, experts agree that poisoning is more severe when a child’s diet is poor.</p>
<p>This is an undue burden on families, many of whom are stressed already by parenting and poverty, says Deborah Woodside, a program director for Children’s Home and Aid. “Hearing that your child is lead-poisoned is very upsetting and frightening,” she says. “Then we start telling them all the things they need to do, and they just give up. Good nutritious food is more expensive, and some of these parents do not have the money for it. So what are they supposed to do? They feel like they have no control.”</p>
<p>In many ways, the approach to lead-control funding is similar to that of many other issues: Lawmakers who represent suburban and rural areas don’t want every cent of government funding to go to cities, which, because of their high concentrations of people, are bound to have a higher concentration of problems.</p>
<p>To ensure all HUD funding doesn’t go to urban areas, need is not a top criterion for the federal grants. “The grants are awarded to people with well-developed plans and people who can do the work that they propose to do,” says HUD’s Sullivan.</p>
<p>Evens says she’s advocated to have the funds distributed based more on need, but it is difficult. “I know the Centers for Disease Control tried to take away lead funding for Alaska because there’s basically no lead there, but it wasn’t easy,” she says. “They had to fight to do it.”</p>
<p>And, to the federal government’s credit, Chicago has received more money in the past few years, and one of HUD’s temporary grant programs was awarded based on need.</p>
<p>In Illinois, the agency awards grants directly to the state government, as well as the cities of Chicago, Kankakee and Springfield; and St. Clair and Madison counties. The state uses its HUD grant to target counties without funding.</p>
<p>U.S. Rep. Jerry F. Costello, a downstate Democrat, says he supported HUD grants for St. Clair, which includes East St. Louis, and Madison counties, which lie in his district. Both have low-income areas that otherwise wouldn’t be able to do anything about lead.</p>
<p>Costello is sympathetic to Chicago’s situation. “The bottom line,” he says, “is that lead has not been a priority [for the Bush Administration or Congress]. Frankly, we don’t discuss it. We just pass the funding with the rest of the HUD budget. But it is a serious issue, and we need to get serious about addressing the problem.”</p>
<p>With the federal and county money barely tackling the lead hazards, local officials and advocates have taken it upon themselves to find ways to secure resources for property owners.</p>
<p>The city of Chicago puts none of its own money into lead hazard control, but does pay for lead inspectors and supervisors. Evens says most cities do the same.</p>
<p>Philadelphia, which put $1.5 million into lead hazard control last year, is an exception, she says. But, in Chicago, using city money for lead hazard control “is not a viable option, as the city’s budget has contracted,” Evens says.</p>
<p>After working for about two years, a group of advocates and city officials recently released a strategic plan to eliminate child lead poisoning as a public health problem in Chicago by 2010.</p>
<p>This mission mirrors one set by HUD for the nation. The first and most important part of the plan is to “leverage dollars to make housing safe.”</p>
<p>The plan directs the city to creatively examine all types of federal and state funding.</p>
<p>Rhode Island, for example, received a waiver to charge Medicaid for lead hazard control, according to the report.</p>
<p>But Weinberg, who authored the plan, says she’s most excited about the prospect of finding new money. The plan suggests investigating the New Markets Tax Credit, a federal program intended to increase investment in low-income property, and taxing the sale of paint, as California currently does.</p>
<p>Chicago also filed a lawsuit in September 2002, alleging that paint companies had created a “public nuisance.” But a judge dismissed the case in 2003, calling it an “effort to wrongly shift the responsibility for addressing potential hazards from property owners to a few selected former manufacturers.” The city is appealing the decision.</p>
<p>Rosemary Krimbel, senior counsel for the city law department, who prepared the lead lawsuit, says there is evidence that the paint companies knew early on that lead posed a threat, especially to children. But, as criticism increased, the lead industry organized an aggressive campaign to reassure the public that lead paint was not dangerous.</p>
<p>Bonnie Campbell, a Washington, D.C., attorney who’s representing the paint companies, says the city’s interpretation of the history is “misguided.” She says that the paint companies acted responsibly, sponsoring research about the effects of lead on children and then voluntarily adopting standards that called for its removal from paint in 1955, well before it was mandated by law.</p>
<p>Campbell says cities and states should focus their attention on the proven solutions—getting property owners to clean up deteriorating paint and targeting governmental resources to help them.</p>
<p>“The lawsuits have never helped one child, and they won’t be resolved fast,” she says. “The lawsuits are a distraction.”</p>
<p>But Krimbel says it’s too difficult and costly for property owners to truly get rid of lead. Most can only control its spread, which means the lead is still there and could become a problem in the future.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t make any sense for taxpayers to bear this burden when paint companies knew at the time lead was dangerous and manufactured it anyway,” Krimbel says. “They knew it would hurt people. They knew it would hurt children.”</p>
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many illinois towns suburbs discovery child lead poisoning means swift response plenty help cleaning hazards chicago though inspectors usually come quickly getting government money clean difficult impossible investigation chicago reporter chicago parent found recent headlines pointed lead problem imported toys furniture real problem remains lead paint lead taken paint 1977yet old housing leadridden paint remains underneath new coats sweet taste lead dangerous cause permanent brain damage worst even lead childs death fixing lead expensive costs average 10000 clean one apartment house process often entails replacing windows scraping paint repainting supposed funds available help especially people low incomes examination available money spent shows still enough money chicago estimated 88000 homes lead would cost least 1 billion fix year city couple million dollars spend cleanup although chicago highest percentage leadpoisoned children country get proportional amount funding deal problem leaves families poor city neighborhoods waiting months help cumbersome procedures mean money available cleanup often spent monies available education screening cook county us department housing urban development two major sources funding cleaning lead hazards chicago suburbs comes cleaning chicago 70 percent states children tested positive higher lead levels doesnt get share example 40 percent 34 million hud money spent helping landlords homeowners statewide since 2000 went chicago property owners addition although chicago home 93 percent leadpoisoned children cook county city gets 74 percent countys lead money government officials offer many explanations experts lawmakers say much problem ask ye shall receive approach funding aggressive government entities gain greater share also result say politics overshadowing public health realities hud cook county officials disagree making judgment child smaller town important child chicago says brian sullivan hud spokesman lead everywhere someone lives small town doesnt mean access help even dollars available cook county funds distributed quickly enough advocates say means homes apartments arent fixed children exposed lead says anita weinberg director loyola universitys childlaw policy institute recently cochaired summit develop strategic plan chicago problem money sitting says county officials say application process complex theyre taking time handing funding want make sure spent right larry suffredin cook county commissioner represents far northeast end chicago north suburbs says fed county holding onto money may introduce ordinance force issue county everything goes slow molasses suffredin says could save generation kids arent driving crazy community activists complained suffredin one property owner chicago side district received county moneyor federal money matterfor lead control meanwhile evanston adjoining suburb much less lead problem received enough money past two years clean homes qualified property ownersand prevention work well 2003 1092 evanston children screened lead 86 elevated lead levels time 13 properties cleaned government money reserved lowincome families evanston jumped chance get county money says jay w terry director evanstons health human services department never comfortable chicago versus evanston questions says hopefully eitheror wish funds available chicago would enough take care problem yes thats political question know given opportunity apply meanwhile citys north side rogers park neighborhood tests found 153 children elevated blood levels 2002 one property owner received financial help government clean hazards voice quivering anger monica dillon community health nurse howard area community center east rogers park says seen families neighborhood destroyed child exposed lead county could used money really start eradicating lead chicago neighborhoods says think cook county money mishandled dillon notes gentrification taking hold rogers park home one diverse populations city many immigrant families struggling financially third rogers parks residents black third white third latino according 2000 census median household income 32444 citywide median 38625 dillon says many families feel trapped dont money fix problemor renters cant persuade landlords work loyolas weinberg anne evens director chicago department public healths lead program stress disparity county funding troubles also way county set program served advisory council helped develop application procedure say throughout process disagreed certain stipulations example thought distribution based need officials wanted see 50 percent given cook county suburbs cook county recently gotten business fixing lead hazards 1993 illinois general assembly abolished outdated insurance systemthe torrens system set aside money building sales pay possible title problems 35 million left nowdefunct torrens fund five years county concluded 7 million needed future claims rest could spent 1998 legislature passed law allowing cook county use money clean lead advocates celebrated large pot money instead devoting entire 28 million lead cook county board decided put half countys general funda move law allowed advocate end county left 15 million lead hazard control took 2001 officials develop spending plan since went effect 2002 third fund spent cleaning 186 properties stephen martin jr director cook county public health department used run countys lead program says pace helps ensure money spent right community organization municipality must submit 40page application behalf property owners area order get grant torrens fund must include affected address contractor work needs done time take evanston oak park martin says cook county suburbs resourcesknowledge work connections contractors inspection staffsto put together application leaves one qualified nonprofit organization community economic development association ceda cook county develop information necessary apply behalf residents suburbs ceda many homes martin says 45 percent chicagos neighborhoods 100 children year found high lead levels scope problem limited amount money city gets lead hazard control leaves officials difficult position must decide whether target mostaffected areas open program property owner qualifies past four years chicago officials targeted communities south west sides city one reasons rogers park much north side neglected realizing property owners communities left evens says targeted areas broadened year gap need problem still vividly apparent even targeted areas take west englewood englewood new city auburn gresham four adjoining neighborhoods southwest side past decade city demolished many abandoned houses neighborhoods leaving vacant lots covered weeds wildflowers buildings left standing mix woodframed bungalow homes two threeflats bigger courtyard buildings multiple units glance buildings seem wellkept carefully planted flowers trimmed lawns houses old paint peeling siding loose cement stairs cracked one afternoon children everywhere riding bikes throwing basketballs steps hanging nearby jungle gyms crumbling housing children likely lead poisoning 2002 22 percent children screened four neighborhoods elevated lead levels blood compared rates 11 percent citywide 6 percent statewide persistently high rates city targeted neighborhoods attention resulted 227 homes areas cleaned government funds since 1999 according chicago parentchicago reporter analysis means one home cleaned every 10 times child found lead poisoning josie chico one two social workers childrens home aid society lead outreach southwest side says targeted money helpful small step nonprofit agency runs lead prevention program six south side neighborhoods chico says almost landlords homeowners met within income guidelines receive lead hazard control grant waiting list often year long chico talks glowingly one landlord qualified wasnt able get grant money ran went debt get hallway windows fixed says little thing cared much went debt dont parents told keep homes clean possible waiting make sure children constantly stomach full nutritious food lead latches childrens bones like nutrients calcium experts agree poisoning severe childs diet poor undue burden families many stressed already parenting poverty says deborah woodside program director childrens home aid hearing child leadpoisoned upsetting frightening says start telling things need give good nutritious food expensive parents money supposed feel like control many ways approach leadcontrol funding similar many issues lawmakers represent suburban rural areas dont want every cent government funding go cities high concentrations people bound higher concentration problems ensure hud funding doesnt go urban areas need top criterion federal grants grants awarded people welldeveloped plans people work propose says huds sullivan evens says shes advocated funds distributed based need difficult know centers disease control tried take away lead funding alaska theres basically lead wasnt easy says fight federal governments credit chicago received money past years one huds temporary grant programs awarded based need illinois agency awards grants directly state government well cities chicago kankakee springfield st clair madison counties state uses hud grant target counties without funding us rep jerry f costello downstate democrat says supported hud grants st clair includes east st louis madison counties lie district lowincome areas otherwise wouldnt able anything lead costello sympathetic chicagos situation bottom line says lead priority bush administration congress frankly dont discuss pass funding rest hud budget serious issue need get serious addressing problem federal county money barely tackling lead hazards local officials advocates taken upon find ways secure resources property owners city chicago puts none money lead hazard control pay lead inspectors supervisors evens says cities philadelphia put 15 million lead hazard control last year exception says chicago using city money lead hazard control viable option citys budget contracted evens says working two years group advocates city officials recently released strategic plan eliminate child lead poisoning public health problem chicago 2010 mission mirrors one set hud nation first important part plan leverage dollars make housing safe plan directs city creatively examine types federal state funding rhode island example received waiver charge medicaid lead hazard control according report weinberg authored plan says shes excited prospect finding new money plan suggests investigating new markets tax credit federal program intended increase investment lowincome property taxing sale paint california currently chicago also filed lawsuit september 2002 alleging paint companies created public nuisance judge dismissed case 2003 calling effort wrongly shift responsibility addressing potential hazards property owners selected former manufacturers city appealing decision rosemary krimbel senior counsel city law department prepared lead lawsuit says evidence paint companies knew early lead posed threat especially children criticism increased lead industry organized aggressive campaign reassure public lead paint dangerous bonnie campbell washington dc attorney whos representing paint companies says citys interpretation history misguided says paint companies acted responsibly sponsoring research effects lead children voluntarily adopting standards called removal paint 1955 well mandated law campbell says cities states focus attention proven solutionsgetting property owners clean deteriorating paint targeting governmental resources help lawsuits never helped one child wont resolved fast says lawsuits distraction krimbel says difficult costly property owners truly get rid lead control spread means lead still could become problem future doesnt make sense taxpayers bear burden paint companies knew time lead dangerous manufactured anyway krimbel says knew would hurt people knew would hurt children
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<p>President Trump said Wednesday he is “looking forward” to testifying under oath to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as part of the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election while also mounting a preemptive defense of potential obstruction accusations.</p>
<p>“I would love to do it, and I would like to do it as soon as possible,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I would do it under oath, absolutely.”</p>
<p>The president suggested he could be investigated for obstruction of justice as part of the Russia investigation because he was “fighting back” and reiterated there was “no collusion” between his campaign and Moscow.</p>
<p>“Oh, well, ‘Did he fight back?’ ” Trump said, “You fight back, ‘Oh, it’s obstruction.’ ”</p>
<p>Mueller’s team has told Trump’s lawyers in recent days they want to question the president about the firing of national security adviser Michael Flynn and FBI Director James B. Comey. They have also asked witnesses in recent weeks about whether Trump has tried to oust Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom he has publicly criticized.</p>
<p>President Trump on Jan. 24 suggested that he could be investigated for obstruction of justice for his decision to “fight back” against the Russia probe. (Video: David Nakamura/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)</p>
<p>The president suggested the interview could take place in the next two or three weeks and said he continued to consult with his lawyers. Trump has previously criticized the wide-ranging investigation into his administration, calling it a “hoax” and a “witch hunt,” while alternatively saying he would probably testify or that he may not need to testify.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, Trump also sought to contrast himself with his former Democratic foe, Hillary Clinton, who was questioned by the FBI in July 2016 in connection with the probe into her use of a private email server as secretary of state.</p>
<p>“She didn’t do it under oath, but I would do it under oath,’’ he said.</p>
<p>[ <a href="" type="internal">Trump audio transcript: ‘I’m looking forward to’ speaking with Mueller</a>]</p>
<p>Republicans have repeatedly suggested that the FBI went easy on Clinton in her questioning in part because she was not under oath for that interview. But FBI interviews are typically not conducted under oath, and it is still a crime to lie to an FBI agent. Clinton could have faced criminal charges if investigators had concluded she had lied to them.</p>
<p>The comments came during an impromptu meeting in the West Wing, where reporters were gathered to speak with senior officials for a background briefing about immigration. Trump walked into the meeting unannounced and began talking. The president later told reporters to quote him on the record.</p>
<p>Trump’s remarks took White House officials by surprise and came as his lawyers were negotiating with Mueller’s team on a potential interview. The president’s lawyers have repeatedly encouraged him not to post tweets or make comments about the investigation without their knowledge, saying such comments could damage him.&#160;</p>
<p>The president’s statements suggest that he sees an obstruction-of-justice investigation as an unfair attack on attempts by him or others to mount a defense. It is not a crime for the subject of a criminal probe to assert their innocence or provide additional information to exonerate themselves. However, if a person takes steps to impede or stop such an investigation, that can amount to obstruction of justice.</p>
<p>“Obstruction is trying to avoid the investigation, taking overt acts to avoid the truth or avoid the investigation’s progress,’’ said Barbara Van Gelder, a white-collar defense lawyer. “I think he’s just taking a layperson’s view of obstruction. An off-the-cuff remark, by anyone, even the president, in response to a shouted question really shouldn’t be taken as gospel,” she said.</p>
<p>People who have appeared before Mueller’s team say prosecutors have detailed accounts of events, sometimes to the minute, and have surprised witnesses by showing them emails or documents they were unaware that the team had or that their colleagues had written. One person said Mueller’s team has asked about Trump’s private comments around key events and how he explained decisions.</p>
<p>“They are looking for a pattern,” said this person, who has spoken with Mueller’s team and requested anonymity to speak about a federal investigation.&#160;</p>
<p>Among Trump’s friends, there is a prevailing view that he could damage himself by testifying under oath because he often misrepresents events and that he is listening to lawyers who are not giving him good advice.&#160;</p>
<p>“He should treat Mueller like a plague,” Chris Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax and a Trump confidant, said Wednesday after Trump’s remarks.&#160;“He should assert executive privilege in every opportunity they can.”</p>
<p>Ruddy said Mueller’s investigation isn’t about&#160;“Russian collusion.”</p>
<p>“It’s about anything and everything they can find,” he said.&#160;“This is moving rapidly, extremely fast.”&#160;</p>
<p>Even as the president agreed to testify, he continued to raise questions about the FBI and Mueller’s investigation, saying that <a href="" type="internal">missing text messages between two senior officials</a> involved in the Clinton and Trump investigations raised concerns.</p>
<p>Trump also said he didn’t recall asking acting FBI director Andrew McCabe whom he voted for in an Oval Office discussion earlier this year, as&#160; <a href="" type="internal">The Washington Post reported Tuesday</a>. The conversation left former and current FBI officials concerned because they believed it was inappropriate for the president to ask a civil servant about his political leanings. McCabe replaced Comey as head of the FBI until Christopher A. Wray was confirmed for the job in August.</p>
<p>“I don’t think I did,” he said. “I don’t know what’s the big deal with that. I would ask you who you voted for. . . . I don’t remember asking him that question.”</p>
<p>“I think it’s also a very unimportant question,” he added.</p>
<p>Trump also lambasted McCabe’s wife for taking political donations from a group tied to Hillary Clinton during her bid for a Virginia state Senate seat, The Post reported. Trump reprised those criticisms during Wednesday’s quick session with reporters.</p>
<p>“McCabe got more than $500,000, essentially, from Hillary Clinton,” Trump said. In fact, McCabe’s wife took donations from a political group run by a Clinton ally.</p>
<p>politics</p>
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<p>Orlando Shooting Updates</p>
<p>News and analysis on the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.</p>
<p>post_newsletter348</p>
<p>follow-orlando</p>
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<p>Please provide a valid email address.</p>
<p>Asked if he thought Mueller would treat him fairly, Trump said, “We’re going to find out.’’</p>
<p>The president has been frustrated with news coverage about whether he would testify in front of Mueller and insists that he has done nothing wrong, according to a Trump adviser who requested anonymity to talk about Trump’s deliberations.</p>
<p>This person said Trump is frustrated that the investigation is no longer about Russia but is convinced it would be too dangerous to try to move against Mueller or any other Justice Department officials, at least for now.</p>
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president trump said wednesday looking forward testifying oath special counsel robert mueller iii part probe russian interference 2016 election also mounting preemptive defense potential obstruction accusations would love would like soon possible trump told reporters white house would oath absolutely president suggested could investigated obstruction justice part russia investigation fighting back reiterated collusion campaign moscow oh well fight back trump said fight back oh obstruction muellers team told trumps lawyers recent days want question president firing national security adviser michael flynn fbi director james b comey also asked witnesses recent weeks whether trump tried oust attorney general jeff sessions publicly criticized president trump jan 24 suggested could investigated obstruction justice decision fight back russia probe video david nakamuraphoto jabin botsfordthe washington post president suggested interview could take place next two three weeks said continued consult lawyers trump previously criticized wideranging investigation administration calling hoax witch hunt alternatively saying would probably testify may need testify wednesday trump also sought contrast former democratic foe hillary clinton questioned fbi july 2016 connection probe use private email server secretary state didnt oath would oath said trump audio transcript im looking forward speaking mueller republicans repeatedly suggested fbi went easy clinton questioning part oath interview fbi interviews typically conducted oath still crime lie fbi agent clinton could faced criminal charges investigators concluded lied comments came impromptu meeting west wing reporters gathered speak senior officials background briefing immigration trump walked meeting unannounced began talking president later told reporters quote record trumps remarks took white house officials surprise came lawyers negotiating muellers team potential interview presidents lawyers repeatedly encouraged post tweets make comments investigation without knowledge saying comments could damage him160 presidents statements suggest sees obstructionofjustice investigation unfair attack attempts others mount defense crime subject criminal probe assert innocence provide additional information exonerate however person takes steps impede stop investigation amount obstruction justice obstruction trying avoid investigation taking overt acts avoid truth avoid investigations progress said barbara van gelder whitecollar defense lawyer think hes taking laypersons view obstruction offthecuff remark anyone even president response shouted question really shouldnt taken gospel said people appeared muellers team say prosecutors detailed accounts events sometimes minute surprised witnesses showing emails documents unaware team colleagues written one person said muellers team asked trumps private comments around key events explained decisions looking pattern said person spoken muellers team requested anonymity speak federal investigation160 among trumps friends prevailing view could damage testifying oath often misrepresents events listening lawyers giving good advice160 treat mueller like plague chris ruddy ceo newsmax trump confidant said wednesday trumps remarks160he assert executive privilege every opportunity ruddy said muellers investigation isnt about160russian collusion anything everything find said160this moving rapidly extremely fast160 even president agreed testify continued raise questions fbi muellers investigation saying missing text messages two senior officials involved clinton trump investigations raised concerns trump also said didnt recall asking acting fbi director andrew mccabe voted oval office discussion earlier year as160 washington post reported tuesday conversation left former current fbi officials concerned believed inappropriate president ask civil servant political leanings mccabe replaced comey head fbi christopher wray confirmed job august dont think said dont know whats big deal would ask voted dont remember asking question think also unimportant question added trump also lambasted mccabes wife taking political donations group tied hillary clinton bid virginia state senate seat post reported trump reprised criticisms wednesdays quick session reporters mccabe got 500000 essentially hillary clinton trump said fact mccabes wife took donations political group run clinton ally politics orlando shooting updates news analysis deadliest mass shooting us history post_newsletter348 followorlando true endofarticle false please provide valid email address asked thought mueller would treat fairly trump said going find president frustrated news coverage whether would testify front mueller insists done nothing wrong according trump adviser requested anonymity talk trumps deliberations person said trump frustrated investigation longer russia convinced would dangerous try move mueller justice department officials least
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<p>HONG KONG — China’s censors have a favorite new tactic: If you don’t like what people are saying online, shout louder.</p>
<p>Faced with the unprecedented explosion of information available to citizens over social media — some of it exposing corruption — officials have realized that simply deleting posts is not enough. They need to push positive propaganda as well.</p>
<p>At a closed-door meeting this week, Beijing’s propaganda chiefs rolled out a new plan to have 2 million propaganda workers spread the Party line on microblogs, according to the <a href="http://www.bjnews.com.cn/news/2013/01/18/244856.html" type="external">Beijing News</a>.</p>
<p>The instructions issue orders for all workers to “read Weibo, open a Weibo account, write Weibo posts, and study Weibo.” (Weibo is the Chinese term for Twitter-like social media.)</p>
<p>Beijing propaganda boss Lu Wei told attendees that all government offices should open an account, with the goal of inundating the Chinese internet with positive tweets about anything the Communist Party deems sensitive: inequality, food prices, economic hardship, unemployment, the runaway real-estate market.</p>
<p>“The strategy has always been to make sure that the voices that are approved by the government are the loudest and clearest and easiest to hear — on all platforms,” says Jeremy Goldkorn, a Chinese media expert in Beijing. “That’s Leninist media strategy adapted to the modern age.”</p>
<p>In its ceaseless campaign to control dissent in China, officials have made clear they are no longer content with simply trying to censor and police online writings; they want to guide the debate as well.</p>
<p>In 2008, Party secretary Hu Jintao laid the groundwork for this policy, <a href="http://cmp.hku.hk/2008/06/25/1079/" type="external">stressing</a> the importance of “building new media, creating a new pattern of public opinion guidance” and telling cadres, “We must conscientiously take hold of the building of [propaganda/editorial] teams, enhancing our cohesiveness and fighting strength.”</p>
<p>But the true wake-up moment for Chinese officials came in 2011, when a newly built <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/111228/chinas-bullet-train-crash-blame-design-flaws-sloppy-" type="external">high-speed train crashed in Wenzhou</a>, killing 40 and injuring 191. Within minutes, survivors were on Weibo sharing photos of the disaster. The government tried to enforce a media blackout, but was overwhelmed by the public backlash online.</p>
<p>Since then, Beijing has introduced more measures trying to counter the power of Weibo.</p>
<p>One of their most powerful tools is a mostly invisible, widely reviled group of online vigilantes called the “50 Cent Party.” Paid by the government to masquerade as ordinary internet users, this mass of private citizens writes posts on internet forums to subtly — or not so subtly — manipulate the conversation toward the Party line. (Their name refers to their rumored pay per post: 50 mao, or 8 US cents.)</p>
<p>Estimated to number from 280,000 to perhaps double that, the 50 Centers play an increasingly important role in the media strategies of local officials. Videos and training documents leaked online reveal some of their priorities. In 2011, a group of 50 Centers received this list of instructions on how to steer conversation:&#160;</p>
<p>(1) To the extent possible make America the target of criticism. Play down the existence of Taiwan.</p>
<p>(2) Do not directly confront [the idea of] democracy; rather, frame the argument in terms of “what kind of system can truly implement democracy.”</p>
<p>(3) To the extent possible, choose various examples in Western countries of violence and unreasonable circumstances to explain how democracy is not well-suited to capitalism.</p>
<p>(4) Use America’s and other countries’ interference in international affairs to explain how Western democracy is actually an invasion of other countries and [how the West] is forcibly pushing [on other countries] Western values.</p>
<p>(5) Use the bloody and tear-stained history of a [once] weak people [i.e., China] to stir up pro-Party and patriotic emotions.</p>
<p>But how does it work? Practically speaking, 50 Centers do what Americans think of as “astroturfing”: they write hundreds of posts — often working together — designed to persuade people toward the government’s perspective.</p>
<p>Often the 50 Centers are hit-you-over-the-head obvious; but the most successful ones can be exceptionally crafty. One such commenter explained his skills in a fascinating <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2012/10/china%E2%80%99s-paid-trolls-meet-50-cent-party" type="external">interview</a> with dissident artist Ai Weiwei last October.</p>
<p>A 26-year-old university graduate, the 50 Center explained that for some assignments — such as softening the blow of news about rising food prices — he plays the troll, distracting people’s anger onto himself. In other situations, he assumes multiple personas, debating himself with two usernames to attract attention, then letting the “correct” view win. For his part-time labor, he makes $8 per 100 posts, he said, for a total of $100 a month.</p>
<p>Asked whether 50 Centers play a big role in shaping public opinion in China, he said yes.</p>
<p>“Truthfully speaking, I think the role is quite big,” he told Ai Weiwei. “The majority of netizens in China are actually very stupid. Sometimes, if you don’t guide them, they really will believe in rumors.”</p>
<p>He estimated that 10 to 20 percent of postings on the Chinese web are from the 50 Cent Party.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/japan/130125/japanese-prime-minister-reaches-out-china-means-lett" type="external">Japanese prime minister sends olive branch to China</a></p>
<p>And that’s not counting the people working on behalf of private clients. Called the Internet Water Army — because they “flood” target websites — these companies post fake comments, phony news or damaging rumors on a client’s behalf.</p>
<p>Thanks to its online propaganda strategy, some experts say the government is already succeeding to some extent in drowning out dissent. While exposés of corrupt officials continue to leak every day, the debates around them are now carefully monitored and manipulated.&#160;</p>
<p>“I think the government has now completely caught up with the Weibo age,” says Goldkorn. “They’ve succeeded in dominating Weibo just like they do every other type of media, or at least having enough control so that it doesn’t get out of hand.”</p>
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hong kong chinas censors favorite new tactic dont like people saying online shout louder faced unprecedented explosion information available citizens social media exposing corruption officials realized simply deleting posts enough need push positive propaganda well closeddoor meeting week beijings propaganda chiefs rolled new plan 2 million propaganda workers spread party line microblogs according beijing news instructions issue orders workers read weibo open weibo account write weibo posts study weibo weibo chinese term twitterlike social media beijing propaganda boss lu wei told attendees government offices open account goal inundating chinese internet positive tweets anything communist party deems sensitive inequality food prices economic hardship unemployment runaway realestate market strategy always make sure voices approved government loudest clearest easiest hear platforms says jeremy goldkorn chinese media expert beijing thats leninist media strategy adapted modern age ceaseless campaign control dissent china officials made clear longer content simply trying censor police online writings want guide debate well 2008 party secretary hu jintao laid groundwork policy stressing importance building new media creating new pattern public opinion guidance telling cadres must conscientiously take hold building propagandaeditorial teams enhancing cohesiveness fighting strength true wakeup moment chinese officials came 2011 newly built highspeed train crashed wenzhou killing 40 injuring 191 within minutes survivors weibo sharing photos disaster government tried enforce media blackout overwhelmed public backlash online since beijing introduced measures trying counter power weibo one powerful tools mostly invisible widely reviled group online vigilantes called 50 cent party paid government masquerade ordinary internet users mass private citizens writes posts internet forums subtly subtly manipulate conversation toward party line name refers rumored pay per post 50 mao 8 us cents estimated number 280000 perhaps double 50 centers play increasingly important role media strategies local officials videos training documents leaked online reveal priorities 2011 group 50 centers received list instructions steer conversation160 1 extent possible make america target criticism play existence taiwan 2 directly confront idea democracy rather frame argument terms kind system truly implement democracy 3 extent possible choose various examples western countries violence unreasonable circumstances explain democracy wellsuited capitalism 4 use americas countries interference international affairs explain western democracy actually invasion countries west forcibly pushing countries western values 5 use bloody tearstained history weak people ie china stir proparty patriotic emotions work practically speaking 50 centers americans think astroturfing write hundreds posts often working together designed persuade people toward governments perspective often 50 centers hityouoverthehead obvious successful ones exceptionally crafty one commenter explained skills fascinating interview dissident artist ai weiwei last october 26yearold university graduate 50 center explained assignments softening blow news rising food prices plays troll distracting peoples anger onto situations assumes multiple personas debating two usernames attract attention letting correct view win parttime labor makes 8 per 100 posts said total 100 month asked whether 50 centers play big role shaping public opinion china said yes truthfully speaking think role quite big told ai weiwei majority netizens china actually stupid sometimes dont guide really believe rumors estimated 10 20 percent postings chinese web 50 cent party globalpost japanese prime minister sends olive branch china thats counting people working behalf private clients called internet water army flood target websites companies post fake comments phony news damaging rumors clients behalf thanks online propaganda strategy experts say government already succeeding extent drowning dissent exposés corrupt officials continue leak every day debates around carefully monitored manipulated160 think government completely caught weibo age says goldkorn theyve succeeded dominating weibo like every type media least enough control doesnt get hand
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<p>FEB. 7, 2011</p>
<p>By WAYNE LUSVARDI</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sacbee.com/2011/02/03/3373329/democrats-launch-green-energy.html" type="external">California’s elite legislators and green power industrialists got together on Feb. 3</a> in Sacramento to push for new legislation to expand green power mandates from 20 percent to 33 percent by 2020, just as gasoline prices are spiking to pay for the <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/2011/02/03/3373329/democrats-launch-green-energy-htm" type="external">higher&#160;cost of food&#160;in&#160;Egypt&#160;and the rest of the Middle East</a>.</p>
<p>You would think that&#160;California&#160;would take notice of what is happening not only in Egypt but inTexas&#160;and&#160;New Mexico, both green power states, that suffered&#160;rolling blackouts&#160;and natural gas outages due to the national cold snap. Texas is home to the largest&#160;wind farms&#160;in the world. Apparently, green power hasn’t helped Texas, New Mexico or other states through the cold weather gripping the country.</p>
<p>Those who attended the Sacramento meeting also pushed three other bills for clean energy education, incentives for lenders to lower rates on clean energy related loans, and streamlining regulations for building wind and&#160;geothermal power plants. No mention was made at the meeting where the money would come from for this package of legislation given that the state is broke. Nor was there any disclosure if the proposed incentives for lenders to make green tech loans meant&#160;tax credits&#160;for banks that would reduce the amount of taxes that would otherwise go to plug the&#160;state budget deficit.&#160;In other words, it all sounded good but can California afford all of this?</p>
<p>This new package of legislation was justified on the basis that it would keep the green jobs momentum going.&#160;&#160;No mention was made that California is still leading the nation in jobs losses <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123336500319935517.html" type="external">despite green jobs.</a></p>
<p>Tom Stever is the apparent financial engineer behind this proposed bundle of new legislation and attended the Sacramento meeting. Steyer is the CEO of Farallon Investments that is an external fund manager for the CalPERS pension fund.&#160; Steyer contributed $5 million to the successful effort to defeat Prop. 23 on the November 2010 ballot that would have suspended AB32 – the California Global Warming Solutions Act.</p>
<p>Steyer manages a portfolio of conventional oil and&#160;natural gas energy stocks&#160;for the CalPERS pension fund&#160;that would stand to reap a windfall if cheap imported coal and hydro power from other states can be blockaded and replaced with expensive green power from in-state power plants.</p>
<p>There is a term in economics that explains why hedge fund managers like Steyer want to push for expanding green power.&#160;&#160;It is called “rent seeking” (like parasitism in biology).&#160;&#160;&#160;Think of a Monopoly © board game where if you can buy Boardwalk you can soak high rents out of the other players.</p>
<p>These green-power policies could indirectly plug the unfunded gap in CalPERS pension fund from higher&#160;electricity prices&#160;from California electricity ratepayers. Instead of going directly to the&#160;Public Utilities Commission&#160;(PUC) or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for electricity rate increases, advocates for this idea can rig energy markets so that the energy portfolio for CalPERS will siphon money out of electricity ratepayer’s bank accounts via inflated electricity rates that, in turn, will puff up oil and gas stock prices and refill CalPERS pension fund.</p>
<p>This kind of manipulation of the energy market is similar to what got the stock and&#160;bond markets&#160;to collapse in 2008 after social engineers rigged housing finance markets to siphon monies out of pension and savings accounts and transfer it into mortgages to expand affordable housing to boost family formations and plug the gap in the&#160;Social Security Trust Fund. &#160;This wealth transfer caused a panic in the financial markets in 2008 that resulted in CalPERS losing about 25 percent of its&#160;pension fund portfolio&#160;value.</p>
<p>Artificially raising electricity prices so that expensive green power can compete in the energy market is a risky venture given that oil and gasoline prices are concurrently spiking so that Mid-Eastern countries can pay for wheat and other foodstuffs, which has caused the riots in Egypt, Tunisian and&#160;Yemen.&#160;&#160;In 2010, Egypt was compelled to begin importing oil and gas from neighboring nations due to a decline in production of their own&#160;oil and gas energy resources.&#160;&#160;This resulted in less revenue to subsidize wheat and other necessities thus inciting the riots.</p>
<p>Like Egypt, Californians will soon be caught in a pincers between intentionally inflated green electricity prices and higher gasoline prices to pay for the rising cost of food in the Mid-East.&#160;The confluence of all these forces could result in another “perfect storm” and&#160;energy crisis&#160;for California sometime down the road, but probably after 2012 when California’s Green Power Law kicks in.</p>
<p>This is why the Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment, representing California’s migrant and lower income populations, <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/03/MNOO1HIDT2.DTL&amp;type=newsbayarea" type="external">has sued the&#160;California Air Resources Board</a> to block the roll out of California’s Energy Cap and Trade Program.</p>
<p>The lawsuit is only likely to delay the start up of California’s cap and trade program. But this is a signal that California’s underclass stands to suffer the most from Green Power. &#160;Nonetheless, the Democratic Party is proceeding full speed with Green Power no matter if the timing is not advantageous. The Democratic Party seems more interested in plugging the deficit in the CalPERS pension fund for unions than in helping those at the bottom of the economic ladder or in avoiding raising utility rates on businesses in a recession.</p>
<p>Like Egypt, California is soon likely to have future mass protests, but about electricity rate increases for Green Power instead of food prices. &#160;&#160;California has an Egyptian (i.e., Third World) energy policy.</p>
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feb 7 2011 wayne lusvardi californias elite legislators green power industrialists got together feb 3 sacramento push new legislation expand green power mandates 20 percent 33 percent 2020 gasoline prices spiking pay higher160cost food160in160egypt160and rest middle east would think that160california160would take notice happening egypt intexas160and160new mexico green power states suffered160rolling blackouts160and natural gas outages due national cold snap texas home largest160wind farms160in world apparently green power hasnt helped texas new mexico states cold weather gripping country attended sacramento meeting also pushed three bills clean energy education incentives lenders lower rates clean energy related loans streamlining regulations building wind and160geothermal power plants mention made meeting money would come package legislation given state broke disclosure proposed incentives lenders make green tech loans meant160tax credits160for banks would reduce amount taxes would otherwise go plug the160state budget deficit160in words sounded good california afford new package legislation justified basis would keep green jobs momentum going160160no mention made california still leading nation jobs losses despite green jobs tom stever apparent financial engineer behind proposed bundle new legislation attended sacramento meeting steyer ceo farallon investments external fund manager calpers pension fund160 steyer contributed 5 million successful effort defeat prop 23 november 2010 ballot would suspended ab32 california global warming solutions act steyer manages portfolio conventional oil and160natural gas energy stocks160for calpers pension fund160that would stand reap windfall cheap imported coal hydro power states blockaded replaced expensive green power instate power plants term economics explains hedge fund managers like steyer want push expanding green power160160it called rent seeking like parasitism biology160160160think monopoly board game buy boardwalk soak high rents players greenpower policies could indirectly plug unfunded gap calpers pension fund higher160electricity prices160from california electricity ratepayers instead going directly the160public utilities commission160puc federal energy regulatory commission ferc electricity rate increases advocates idea rig energy markets energy portfolio calpers siphon money electricity ratepayers bank accounts via inflated electricity rates turn puff oil gas stock prices refill calpers pension fund kind manipulation energy market similar got stock and160bond markets160to collapse 2008 social engineers rigged housing finance markets siphon monies pension savings accounts transfer mortgages expand affordable housing boost family formations plug gap the160social security trust fund 160this wealth transfer caused panic financial markets 2008 resulted calpers losing 25 percent its160pension fund portfolio160value artificially raising electricity prices expensive green power compete energy market risky venture given oil gasoline prices concurrently spiking mideastern countries pay wheat foodstuffs caused riots egypt tunisian and160yemen160160in 2010 egypt compelled begin importing oil gas neighboring nations due decline production own160oil gas energy resources160160this resulted less revenue subsidize wheat necessities thus inciting riots like egypt californians soon caught pincers intentionally inflated green electricity prices higher gasoline prices pay rising cost food mideast160the confluence forces could result another perfect storm and160energy crisis160for california sometime road probably 2012 californias green power law kicks center race poverty environment representing californias migrant lower income populations sued the160california air resources board block roll californias energy cap trade program lawsuit likely delay start californias cap trade program signal californias underclass stands suffer green power 160nonetheless democratic party proceeding full speed green power matter timing advantageous democratic party seems interested plugging deficit calpers pension fund unions helping bottom economic ladder avoiding raising utility rates businesses recession like egypt california soon likely future mass protests electricity rate increases green power instead food prices 160160california egyptian ie third world energy policy
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<p>On a day early in the school year, Mays Elementary School kindergarten teacher Arnitra Campbell is having a rough day, wrestling with a roomful of antsy students. One spits on the table, getting a rise out of his classmates. Other children can’t seem to stop talking, even turning their backs on Campbell to socialize with friends.&#160;</p>
<p>“The noise level should be zero,” she says. “What does that mean?”</p>
<p>“Be quiet,” some students say.</p>
<p>“Ms. Campbell doesn’t say ‘Be quiet, no talking,’” she responds. “Rule number 6 says, ‘We will not talk when our teacher is talking.’”</p>
<p>Even more than academics, kindergarten is about learning the right behavior in school. For some teachers, teaching correct behavior means a heavy emphasis on strict discipline.</p>
<p>But the focus in the education world has shifted toward an approach similar to Campbell’s. Instead of admonishment and punishment, the emphasis is increasingly on strategies to prevent students from acting out in the first place. These strategies include teaching social and emotional skills that help children manage their emotions, make good decisions and calm themselves when they are upset.</p>
<p>Illinois is the only state that has comprehensive K-12 social-emotional learning standards, and experts say that it is best if students begin learning these skills early on.</p>
<p>In Chicago, several pilot programs have gotten off the ground. But full-scale implementation of social-emotional learning has been uneven.&#160;</p>
<p>For urban teachers, it can be especially hard to make the transition away from punitive responses to unruly behavior, says Patty Horsch, a program manager at the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, known as CASEL. A Chicago-based national non-profit, the organization promotes the teaching of social and emotional skills in school to boost academic success.</p>
<p>Big-city schools sometimes have “a tendency to be more authoritarian about behavior,” Horsch says. “Teachers are in a very hard place. There’s such pressure to raise test scores and they have little help.”</p>
<p>An example that Horsch explains is counterproductive is a classroom behavior chart. Students have their names placed on cards, moving from green to yellow to red depending on how badly they behave. Horsch says the strategy is too public, embarrassing children rather than teaching them.</p>
<p>“I remember seeing a 3rd-grade teacher who never, at the end of the day, moved two little boys off of red because she knew they’d be [back] there by the beginning of the next day,” she says. “What does that say to a kid?”</p>
<p>Kindergarten is a good place to start learning self-discipline, self-awareness and how to understand others’ perspectives, Horsch says.&#160;</p>
<p>At Belding, kindergarten teacher Leon Schrauben illustrates this notion. He understands that a highly regimented classroom is not always the best environment for active young children.</p>
<p>Teaching his students how to work and function in a group is more important, he says.</p>
<p>“They’re getting the idea that the world around them isn’t designed just for their needs. ‘It’s not necessarily about me, it’s about the group right now,’” Schrauben says.</p>
<p>One day, as other students work on a lesson, one boy makes robot-like sounds and whirls around before landing on his knees on the carpet. He does this two more times, running back and forth between the rug and his seat. Schrauben doesn’t yell at the boy or punish him. Instead, he lets him run off steam and keeps the other students on task by telling them to get to work.</p>
<p>But patience can be a tall order for anyone to maintain, especially an adult surrounded by more than two dozen 5-year-olds.</p>
<p>Campbell occasionally loses her cool, warning one boy that she’ll talk to his mother and telling a girl to close her mouth.</p>
<p>But even though the going is tough, she comes back to the social-emotional strategies she learned as a student teacher and from her peers. These strategies include coaching students who are fighting, instructing them to tell each other what they don’t like about a situation and working with them to understand their feelings.</p>
<p>On this day early in the year, Campbell sits the children down to read a poem about feelings.</p>
<p>She reads the poem out loud to them, then has a student read it.</p>
<p>Then she asks: “How do you think I feel right now?”</p>
<p>“Mad,” the students say. They look concerned.</p>
<p>“Mad and…” she prompts. The students guess “happy.”</p>
<p>“I’m not happy right now,” she says. “This makes me feel like the first day of school. I know we can get through this way better.”</p>
<p>Another practice that aims to teach social-emotional skills is a meeting at the end of each school day. Usually, it is a time for students to share “appreciations,” things others did that made them happy.</p>
<p>Today, Campbell uses the time to bring up the behavior issues again.</p>
<p>“No appreciations, because I need to talk,” she says. “Who can tell me what they think I’m talking about now?”</p>
<p>“Feelings,” a girl says.</p>
<p>“Now listen,” Campbell continues. “The morning, before you went to lunch, was fine. The afternoon, after you came back from recess, was terrible. It embarrasses me when I have to talk or yell at you. Not only was I embarrassed, I was angry.”</p>
<p>Campbell says that talking with students about feelings is a good way to teach them character while expanding their vocabulary. When students came in, she says, they only really used the words “happy” and “sad.” Now, they understand a much broader variety of emotions.</p>
<p>“If I forget to do it, at the end of the day, they will remind me to do appreciations,” she says. “They really took to that… ‘He held the door for me, he shared his crayons with me, he played outside with me, he helped me with my math.’”</p>
<p>A server prepares some food for a customer during a stop at Wilson Avenue and Marine Drive in Uptown. Photo by Jonathan Gibby</p>
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<p>Two case workers prepare to depart in the chaser van, which follows the mobile feeding truck throughout the city. The van is used to shuttle homeless people back to The Salvation Army Harbor ‪Light center if they would like to receive treatment. Photo by Jonathan Gibby</p>
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<p>The Mobile Outreach Unit makes a stop at Wilson Avenue and Marine Drive in Uptown. “Sometimes God uses what started out as wrong or bad and turns it into good, and that’s certainty what we have seen here. We have seen the attention brought to the needs of the homeless,” said Salvation Army Captain Nancy Powers in regards to a recent controversy with 46th Ward Alderman James Cappleman. Photo by Jonathan Gibby</p>
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<p>A server prepares some food for a customer during a stop at Wilson Avenue and Marine Drive in Uptown. Photo by Jonathan Gibby</p>
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<p>Two case workers prepare to depart in the chaser van, which follows the mobile feeding truck throughout the city. The van is used to shuttle homeless people back to The Salvation Army Harbor ‪Light center if they would like to receive treatment. Photo by Jonathan Gibby</p>
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day early school year mays elementary school kindergarten teacher arnitra campbell rough day wrestling roomful antsy students one spits table getting rise classmates children cant seem stop talking even turning backs campbell socialize friends160 noise level zero says mean quiet students say ms campbell doesnt say quiet talking responds rule number 6 says talk teacher talking even academics kindergarten learning right behavior school teachers teaching correct behavior means heavy emphasis strict discipline focus education world shifted toward approach similar campbells instead admonishment punishment emphasis increasingly strategies prevent students acting first place strategies include teaching social emotional skills help children manage emotions make good decisions calm upset illinois state comprehensive k12 socialemotional learning standards experts say best students begin learning skills early chicago several pilot programs gotten ground fullscale implementation socialemotional learning uneven160 urban teachers especially hard make transition away punitive responses unruly behavior says patty horsch program manager collaborative academic social emotional learning known casel chicagobased national nonprofit organization promotes teaching social emotional skills school boost academic success bigcity schools sometimes tendency authoritarian behavior horsch says teachers hard place theres pressure raise test scores little help example horsch explains counterproductive classroom behavior chart students names placed cards moving green yellow red depending badly behave horsch says strategy public embarrassing children rather teaching remember seeing 3rdgrade teacher never end day moved two little boys red knew theyd back beginning next day says say kid kindergarten good place start learning selfdiscipline selfawareness understand others perspectives horsch says160 belding kindergarten teacher leon schrauben illustrates notion understands highly regimented classroom always best environment active young children teaching students work function group important says theyre getting idea world around isnt designed needs necessarily group right schrauben says one day students work lesson one boy makes robotlike sounds whirls around landing knees carpet two times running back forth rug seat schrauben doesnt yell boy punish instead lets run steam keeps students task telling get work patience tall order anyone maintain especially adult surrounded two dozen 5yearolds campbell occasionally loses cool warning one boy shell talk mother telling girl close mouth even though going tough comes back socialemotional strategies learned student teacher peers strategies include coaching students fighting instructing tell dont like situation working understand feelings day early year campbell sits children read poem feelings reads poem loud student read asks think feel right mad students say look concerned mad prompts students guess happy im happy right says makes feel like first day school know get way better another practice aims teach socialemotional skills meeting end school day usually time students share appreciations things others made happy today campbell uses time bring behavior issues appreciations need talk says tell think im talking feelings girl says listen campbell continues morning went lunch fine afternoon came back recess terrible embarrasses talk yell embarrassed angry campbell says talking students feelings good way teach character expanding vocabulary students came says really used words happy sad understand much broader variety emotions forget end day remind appreciations says really took held door shared crayons played outside helped math server prepares food customer stop wilson avenue marine drive uptown photo jonathan gibby permalink two case workers prepare depart chaser van follows mobile feeding truck throughout city van used shuttle homeless people back salvation army harbor light center would like receive treatment photo jonathan gibby permalink mobile outreach unit makes stop wilson avenue marine drive uptown sometimes god uses started wrong bad turns good thats certainty seen seen attention brought needs homeless said salvation army captain nancy powers regards recent controversy 46th ward alderman james cappleman photo jonathan gibby permalink server prepares food customer stop wilson avenue marine drive uptown photo jonathan gibby permalink two case workers prepare depart chaser van follows mobile feeding truck throughout city van used shuttle homeless people back salvation army harbor light center would like receive treatment photo jonathan gibby permalink
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<p>Sevval Kilic is a couple of inches shy of six feet. Her hair, various shades of light brown, rests at the middle of her back, and her eyes, outlined by long lashes, look like perfectly drawn almonds.</p>
<p>She has one of the biggest smiles I’ve ever seen, and it’s infectious. She looks much younger than her 40 years, and she likes to reminisce about the good old days when she made good money.</p>
<p>“In my day,” she reminisces, “I was shopping. I was shopping as hell … my shoes, just my shoes …” she trails off, giggling. That was in the 1990s, when Sevval lived in a neighborhood notorious for its unregistered brothels. She was 19 when she moved in.</p>
<p>Today, the quiet lane in central Istanbul looks much like it did in the 90s. But the sounds that fill the street are completely different.</p>
<p />
<p>Ulker St in Istanbul used to be part of a red-light district. The streetwalkers have long since moved on.&#160;</p>
<p>Dalia Mortada</p>
<p>In Turkey, prostitution is legal with a license&#160;and state-run brothels have an intense registration process. But Sevval and her colleagues were not eligible: The state did not, and still does not, accept transitioning women or gay men. Sevval had not completed her transition to becoming a woman when she signed up for her brothel.</p>
<p>In fact, she arrived with just her boy clothes. One of the more experienced women took her under her wing. “She took care of me like a real mom. She washed me, she fed me, she dressed me, she taught me everything about working, about secrecy,” she says. Secrecy included using a secret slang, or as linguists call it, an argot, called Lubunca.</p>
<p>Lubunca is how Sevval and her colleagues talked to each other about their work in front of clients or the cops. It uses Turkish sentences and grammar, but certain words are replaced. The words Sevval used were related to her work. There are terms for hair and make-up, sex positions and different types of clients. “Let's say there's a rich customer and the girl in the front apartment yells, 'It's a hundred dollar customer!'&#160;That’s bir but baari,&#160;Sevval explains.</p>
<p>Bir is the Turkish word for “one” and “but” means thigh or rump, like a large cut of meat. “Bari” is like saying “at least.”&#160;These are all Turkish words, but the way they’re strung together means you wouldn’t understand unless you knew Lubunca.</p>
<p>Other words in the slang come from different languages. “Some of the core elements of Lubunca come from other minority languages that haven't been spoken very much for quite some time,” Nicholas Kontovas explains. Kontovas is a socio-historical linguist who has studied the origins of Lubunca. He explains that most of the words come from Romani —&#160;the language of ethnic Roma, or gypsies, who live in Turkey.</p>
<p>There are words from Greek, Kurdish and Bulgarian, too. Kontovas explains that people from these communities have, to a greater or lesser extent, been outcasts in Turkish society, so they tend to live in the same city neighborhoods. That’s how Lubunca picked up its foreign feel.</p>
<p>Kontovas says the words from Lubunca are intimately tied to these neighborhoods and to meeting spots within those neighborhoods. The Turkish word for an Ottoman style bathhouse, for example, is hamam. In Lubunca, it’s tato&#160;which comes from the Romani word for warm. “The fact that there's a word for hamam is pretty telling. The queer slang varieties that were used beforehand, at least what is recorded, were predominantly used in hamams,” which is where male sex work took place during the Ottoman empire, Kontovas says.</p>
<p>Of course, Lubunca has evolved. The terms for sex organs and positions get pretty creative —&#160;and are not appropriate for publishing. Terms for flirting are pretty crafty, too. “Badem alikmak, which is also to eye up. Badem, meaning almond, obviously in reference to shape of the eye,” Kontovas describes. “There's another thing&#160;that's great, which is badem sekeri, which is 'almond candy,' which is eye candy,” he adds.</p>
<p />
<p>British comedian Kenneth Williams helped popularize&#160;Polari in the 1960s</p>
<p>Wikimedia Commons</p>
<p>Eventually, after homosexuality was decriminalized in Britain, the argot dropped out of fashion. Kontovas says, “The use of Polari started to decline so much so people had to go and record it and go into archives and look into recordings and ask older members of the community.”</p>
<p>As more people use Lubunca, it’s possible that it, too, could fade away like Polari, but that seems unlikely. Like Polari, Lubunca exists because it needs&#160;to: Not only is gay and trans sex work likely to stay illegal, but Lubunca’s use has grown in recent years. More members of the LGBT community —&#160;especially gay men —&#160;have adopted the argot. Sometimes they use it to show off — to declare they are part of the gay community while still keeping it a secret in public. And being trans or a sex worker can even be looked down upon within the LGBT community.</p>
<p>Turgay Bayindir, for example, came out as gay in college, but he knew nothing about the community. He heard his new friends using Lubunca for fun, but he did not get it. “At first I was uncomfortable, especially because it was associated with trans-women who are sex workers,” Turgay recalls, saying he considered it demeaning. But he got over his bias after he actually learned more about Lubunca and why certain people need to use it.</p>
<p>The word “lubunya”&#160;is how gay men and trans women often describe themselves — and it has crept into Turgay’s vocabulary. He says it might not be such a bad thing if the secret language becomes a little less secret. “I think in general exposure would be good and also it would make the lubunya community less scary to the public when they start learning about it,” he says.</p>
<p>Still, because certain words have become so mainstream, they are no longer used in the sex work community. Sevval, who left sex work to become an activist after her gender reassignment surgery, says she doesn’t recognize a lot of the words anymore. “Girls invented some new words — even I don’t understand them. In 2015, girls speak something else,” she says. “It evolves.”</p>
<p>Perhaps&#160;society will evolve too, so that Lubunca can be used for fun and not just because it is necessary.</p>
<p>The World in Words podcast is on&#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-World-in-Words/113141975417106" type="external">Facebook</a>&#160;and&#160; <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/pris-world-world-in-words/id279833390?mt=2" type="external">iTunes</a>.</p>
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sevval kilic couple inches shy six feet hair various shades light brown rests middle back eyes outlined long lashes look like perfectly drawn almonds one biggest smiles ive ever seen infectious looks much younger 40 years likes reminisce good old days made good money day reminisces shopping shopping hell shoes shoes trails giggling 1990s sevval lived neighborhood notorious unregistered brothels 19 moved today quiet lane central istanbul looks much like 90s sounds fill street completely different ulker st istanbul used part redlight district streetwalkers long since moved on160 dalia mortada turkey prostitution legal license160and staterun brothels intense registration process sevval colleagues eligible state still accept transitioning women gay men sevval completed transition becoming woman signed brothel fact arrived boy clothes one experienced women took wing took care like real mom washed fed dressed taught everything working secrecy says secrecy included using secret slang linguists call argot called lubunca lubunca sevval colleagues talked work front clients cops uses turkish sentences grammar certain words replaced words sevval used related work terms hair makeup sex positions different types clients lets say theres rich customer girl front apartment yells hundred dollar customer160thats bir baari160sevval explains bir turkish word one means thigh rump like large cut meat bari like saying least160these turkish words way theyre strung together means wouldnt understand unless knew lubunca words slang come different languages core elements lubunca come minority languages havent spoken much quite time nicholas kontovas explains kontovas sociohistorical linguist studied origins lubunca explains words come romani 160the language ethnic roma gypsies live turkey words greek kurdish bulgarian kontovas explains people communities greater lesser extent outcasts turkish society tend live city neighborhoods thats lubunca picked foreign feel kontovas says words lubunca intimately tied neighborhoods meeting spots within neighborhoods turkish word ottoman style bathhouse example hamam lubunca tato160which comes romani word warm fact theres word hamam pretty telling queer slang varieties used beforehand least recorded predominantly used hamams male sex work took place ottoman empire kontovas says course lubunca evolved terms sex organs positions get pretty creative 160and appropriate publishing terms flirting pretty crafty badem alikmak also eye badem meaning almond obviously reference shape eye kontovas describes theres another thing160thats great badem sekeri almond candy eye candy adds british comedian kenneth williams helped popularize160polari 1960s wikimedia commons eventually homosexuality decriminalized britain argot dropped fashion kontovas says use polari started decline much people go record go archives look recordings ask older members community people use lubunca possible could fade away like polari seems unlikely like polari lubunca exists needs160to gay trans sex work likely stay illegal lubuncas use grown recent years members lgbt community 160especially gay men 160have adopted argot sometimes use show declare part gay community still keeping secret public trans sex worker even looked upon within lgbt community turgay bayindir example came gay college knew nothing community heard new friends using lubunca fun get first uncomfortable especially associated transwomen sex workers turgay recalls saying considered demeaning got bias actually learned lubunca certain people need use word lubunya160is gay men trans women often describe crept turgays vocabulary says might bad thing secret language becomes little less secret think general exposure would good also would make lubunya community less scary public start learning says still certain words become mainstream longer used sex work community sevval left sex work become activist gender reassignment surgery says doesnt recognize lot words anymore girls invented new words even dont understand 2015 girls speak something else says evolves perhaps160society evolve lubunca used fun necessary world words podcast on160 facebook160and160 itunes
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<p>MUMBAI — Meera Sanyal came looking for a fight.</p>
<p>A parliamentary candidate for the Mumbai South constituency and former bank CEO, Sanyal said she hoped to square off in a debate with her opponent, incumbent Milind Deora from the ruling Indian National Congress. So she dropped her campaign plans and rushed to Mumbai's iconic Express Towers where Deora was scheduled to appear as part of a debate hosted by the Indian Express newspaper.</p>
<p>“He has not accepted a single debate with me this time because every debate we had last time, he got so badly beaten,” she said in March. “But we’ll get him. Don’t worry.”</p>
<p>Articulate and vivacious, 52-year-old Sanyal is running an unusual campaign for India’s 2014 parliamentary elections as a member of the newcomer Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). She lost to Deora as an independent in 2009 and now challenges him again as part of the “Common Man Party.” The AAP promises a grassroots operation that will end corruption in India, though its reach is paltry compared to that of political heavyweights the Congress Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).</p>
<p>The odds of an AAP majority are slim. But in a political scene rife with parties, family dynasties and elitist attitudes, the AAP has emerged as a viable alternative with a huge target on its back.</p>
<p>“The Aam Aadmi Party is a phenomena which is against Indians – ‘Judiciary is bad, the police is bad, politicians are bad, all parties are bad, media is bad,'" said Ashish Shelar, the BJP city’s chief in Mumbai. “The Aam Aadmi Party is trying to kill all the pillars of this country.”</p>
<p>Sanyal’s decision to join AAP might appear to be an unlikely choice. The former banking executive has more than three decades of corporate experience. Sanyal began at British bank Grindlays and eventually joined ABN Amro, which was later acquired by Royal Bank of Scotland.</p>
<p>But Sanyal doesn’t see her successful career and the party’s populist platform as contradictory.</p>
<p>“My reputation in this country and in many parts of the world is a very idealistic banker,” she said.</p>
<p>Sanyal resigned in April 2013 as CEO and chairperson of RBS India to focus on her political career.</p>
<p>Besides ending corruption, Sanyal puts urban development high on her priority list, pointing to metropolises such as New York City and Bogotá as examples on how to build thriving cities. She said mixed-income communities with proper infrastructure and amenities would help add Mumbai to that list.</p>
<p>The self-described “urban child” also took a cross-country tour through 15 states and 120 villages. In rural India, she saw the caste-based social inequalities she once thought were “exaggerated.”</p>
<p>“There, it’s still a reality,” Sanyal said. “We have to bring everyone at least to the same starting block.”</p>
<p>That kind of rhetoric could appeal to Dalits and disadvantaged Indians in Other Backward Castes. But despite a strong showing in New Delhi’s elections in 2013, the fledgling party has yet to gain traction on a national scale.</p>
<p>The AAP formed out of the popular India Against Corruption movement, which fought to pass an anti-corruption measure, the Jan Lokbal Bill. Looking to politicize the crusade, activist Arvind Kejriwal established the AAP in 2012, splitting with colleague <a href="http://www.annahazare.org/" type="external">Anna Hazare</a>, who wanted to remain politically unaligned.</p>
<p>Popular support for the bill propelled Kejriwal’s election as New Delhi’s chief minister in 2013. <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2014/0215/Delhi-chief-Arvind-Kejriwal-resignation-game-changer-for-India-elections" type="external">But he resigned after just 49 days in office when his bill failed to pass</a>.</p>
<p>Sanyal defended Kejriwal’s decision, saying she would have left the party had he not resigned.</p>
<p>“If [the bill] is so core to what you stand for, and it’s completely clear you’re not going to be able to do it, then you step down,” she said. “And you fight again.”</p>
<p>But others smelled weakness. AAP’s critics now doubt the party’s ability to lead and question its decision to back Kejriwal as its candidate for the 2014 prime minister elections.</p>
<p>Sanyal’s opponent, Deora, said he found the AAP a novel idea when the party first broke onto the scene. But Deora lost respect for them when Kejriwal left his post.</p>
<p>“In politics and especially in a country as complex as India, there’s no room for a quitter,” Deora said.</p>
<p>And the AAP, which vows to represent the interests of the “common man,” has yet to prove itself to the people of India on a national scale.</p>
<p>Ajak Sanak, a 21-year-old Dalit studying in a polytechnic training program in Mumbai, plans to give his vote to the Congress Party. He hasn’t completely closed the door on the AAP, but he’s waiting to see real changes in Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital.</p>
<p>“The AAP hasn’t really done anything in Maharashtra, but if they do something, I’ll vote for them,” Sanak said.</p>
<p>Sanyal finally got her verbal showdown with Deora earlier this month, a debate which also included regional party candidates Bala Nandgaonkar of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and Arvind Sawant of Shiv Sena. The four sparred over how to eliminate corruption and improve security in South Mumbai.</p>
<p>Mumbai’s polls will open April 24. &#160;Voting will continue through May 12 with results expected to be announced May 16.</p>
<p>Sanyal admitted in an interview the AAP’s chances of a majority were low, but she saw her party’s role as a “constructive opposition” — a counterweight to how Indian politics have played out in the past.</p>
<p>“It’s really, really important that the Aam Aadmi Party exists,” she said. “Whether we win or not, the fact that we exist is giving people hope, that change is possible in a peaceful and a democratic way.”</p>
<p>This story is presented by <a href="http://thegroundtruthproject.org/" type="external">The GroundTruth Project.</a></p>
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mumbai meera sanyal came looking fight parliamentary candidate mumbai south constituency former bank ceo sanyal said hoped square debate opponent incumbent milind deora ruling indian national congress dropped campaign plans rushed mumbais iconic express towers deora scheduled appear part debate hosted indian express newspaper accepted single debate time every debate last time got badly beaten said march well get dont worry articulate vivacious 52yearold sanyal running unusual campaign indias 2014 parliamentary elections member newcomer aam aadmi party aap lost deora independent 2009 challenges part common man party aap promises grassroots operation end corruption india though reach paltry compared political heavyweights congress party bharatiya janata party bjp odds aap majority slim political scene rife parties family dynasties elitist attitudes aap emerged viable alternative huge target back aam aadmi party phenomena indians judiciary bad police bad politicians bad parties bad media bad said ashish shelar bjp citys chief mumbai aam aadmi party trying kill pillars country sanyals decision join aap might appear unlikely choice former banking executive three decades corporate experience sanyal began british bank grindlays eventually joined abn amro later acquired royal bank scotland sanyal doesnt see successful career partys populist platform contradictory reputation country many parts world idealistic banker said sanyal resigned april 2013 ceo chairperson rbs india focus political career besides ending corruption sanyal puts urban development high priority list pointing metropolises new york city bogotá examples build thriving cities said mixedincome communities proper infrastructure amenities would help add mumbai list selfdescribed urban child also took crosscountry tour 15 states 120 villages rural india saw castebased social inequalities thought exaggerated still reality sanyal said bring everyone least starting block kind rhetoric could appeal dalits disadvantaged indians backward castes despite strong showing new delhis elections 2013 fledgling party yet gain traction national scale aap formed popular india corruption movement fought pass anticorruption measure jan lokbal bill looking politicize crusade activist arvind kejriwal established aap 2012 splitting colleague anna hazare wanted remain politically unaligned popular support bill propelled kejriwals election new delhis chief minister 2013 resigned 49 days office bill failed pass sanyal defended kejriwals decision saying would left party resigned bill core stand completely clear youre going able step said fight others smelled weakness aaps critics doubt partys ability lead question decision back kejriwal candidate 2014 prime minister elections sanyals opponent deora said found aap novel idea party first broke onto scene deora lost respect kejriwal left post politics especially country complex india theres room quitter deora said aap vows represent interests common man yet prove people india national scale ajak sanak 21yearold dalit studying polytechnic training program mumbai plans give vote congress party hasnt completely closed door aap hes waiting see real changes maharashtra mumbai capital aap hasnt really done anything maharashtra something ill vote sanak said sanyal finally got verbal showdown deora earlier month debate also included regional party candidates bala nandgaonkar maharashtra navnirman sena mns arvind sawant shiv sena four sparred eliminate corruption improve security south mumbai mumbais polls open april 24 160voting continue may 12 results expected announced may 16 sanyal admitted interview aaps chances majority low saw partys role constructive opposition counterweight indian politics played past really really important aam aadmi party exists said whether win fact exist giving people hope change possible peaceful democratic way story presented groundtruth project
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