New library a haven for homeless

Reading is a comforting refuge when the streets are cold and shelters are closed

By VANESSA HO, P-I REPORTER

As the sky darkened and the rain blew sideways, Tiberious Shapiro tucked into the Central Library, his favorite place to pass the hours before the homeless shelters opened. He picked up a paperback and escaped into a Harlequin romance.

Around him were dozens of hard-edged, solitary men. There was bushy-bearded Kevin, who slept in a park; the mohawked regular who panhandled for beer money; a young man who slapped his head with a magazine; an old man who strode in with a garbage bag rustling around his shirt.

For them, Seattle's renowned downtown library is more than architectural dazzle and literary splendor. It is a harbor from autumn and winter and an oasis from an increasingly wealthy and unwelcoming downtown.

"I'll sit here and let the day's stress come down," said Shapiro, who is 38, thin, toothless and scraped up.
Tiberious Shapiro
Zoom Andy Rogers / P-I
Tiberious Shapiro takes a look at Reader's Digest in the "Living Room" area of the Seattle Central Library recently. Shapiro says the downtown library is his favorite place to pass the time before homeless shelters open.

Every year, as the weather turns nastier, more people seek refuge inside the celebrated, $165 million, glass-and-metal tourist attraction.

In the old library, patrons who were homeless, addicted and mentally ill had generated loud complaints. There were such common-sense rules as no sleeping, drinking alcohol or bathing in the sinks, but they were inconsistently enforced. Staffers and patrons complained of assaults and drug deals, and of smelly men hogging up chairs to doze.

When the new Central Library opened two years ago, many people wondered if it would simply become a more expensive homeless hangout.

But today, the library is doing more to accommodate both rich and poor. There are more programs for a wider audience, from noontime lectures to children's events to writing workshops for homeless people.

"I feel really proud of our staff and our commitment to making sure the building is user-friendly, safe and diverse," city librarian Deborah Jacobs said.

The building itself is more spacious, with more individual breathing space and fewer creepy isolated areas. And tourists still come daily, to gawk at the soaring ceilings.

"I think this is one of the places in Seattle where people can come and everybody is the same," said security officer Christopher Hogan, as he recently made his rounds through the library's 10 public floors.

The calmer atmosphere is mostly because of Hogan and his team of 10 officers, who roam the book spirals, stairwells and bathrooms with clockwork efficiency.
Hogan and Vanderhoef
Zoom Andy Rogers / P-I
Security officer Christopher Hogan chats with Kevin Vanderhoef, who had nodded off at the library after spending a night on the street. Vanderhoef was reminded of the rules, which includes no sleeping. Vanderhoef says he visits the library frequently, sometimes every day

On a recent day, Hogan gently rousted slumbering men to "get some fresh air." He asked a man about to snack on a cookie to put it away. He told a patron that his bursting, gargantuan bag did not appear regulation-size.

Anyone who reeks gets a polite request to leave and a card telling him or her where to get a free shower.

"That's probably the one that's the most difficult to enforce, because it's really personal," Hogan said.

Since the library opened, officers have barred more than 800 rule breakers, mostly for sleeping or being disruptive. The exclusions last for a few days to one year.

Shapiro, who often plays pinochle online, said he had a spell of nodding off at the library, which got him banned. He had torn his shoulder at a job heaving 50-pound sacks of rice, was on painkillers and couldn't stay awake. But the officers, he said, had been nice about it.

"They go out of their way to give you every possible chance they can."

Hogan said he tries to treat everyone respectfully, no matter what they wear or how badly they smell.

"It goes back to how my mother raised me," he said.

During his rounds, he shook hands with Luther, who sported thick, broken eyeglasses. He awakened Kevin and learned he was tired from sleeping poorly on a park bench the night before.

He checked on a regular in matted dreadlocks, who often percolated with wild thoughts and spent hours filling sheets of paper with tiny numbers.

"Is the satellite working?" Hogan asked without a smirk. Usually friendly, the man didn't answer. Hogan grew concerned.

He considered it his job to know if someone was off his meds, off the wagon or off from a bad night. Then the man muttered something about a business logo in the newspaper being his own logo. Hogan knew he was all right.

"I was looking for him to say something outrageous, and he did," he said. Then Hogan turned to him and spoke like a friend.

"I'll catch up with you in a little bit."

Pelosi’s Library Past

The new Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, was appointed to the Library Commission in San Francisco on June 3, 1975, according to a fascinating message from James Chaffee, a man who has been watching and correcting that Commission for decades. Chaffee is really the first of the famous civic gadflies that have watched and frequently blown whistles at the administration, directors, and Library Commission of the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL). He thinks it might have been Pelosi’s first public office, to which she was appointed by Republican Mayor Joseph Alioto. It was another 12 years before she was elected to Congress. Although her time as Commissioner lasted only until April, 1976 when the entire Commission was replaced by a new mayor, we can hope it left her with a positive view of libraries that might even result in improved federal support in the 101st Congress.

The Marshall Public Library is Getting More Attention Than They Bargained For…

Posted in The Blotter at 10:37 pm by Wayne

Besides the origin of this link — the International Herald Tribune — what’s notable is an interesting tidbit about the recent brouhaha at the Marshall Public Library regarding two “pornographic” graphic novels.

Blankets and Fun Home touched off what library director Amy Crump called the first challenge of library materials in the facility’s 16-year history.

The plot thickens…

*

I was reading about this in the print edition of American Free Press but can't find their story online...

Some fundies want these books removed from the Marshll Public Library...so they protested.

The anti protestors & Library Director, Amy Crump, are citing the The Freedom to Read Statement, which is part of libraries official policy.

The AFP article says that "'Fun Home' depicts a lesbian couple conversing nude in bed while engaging in sex acts"...

The other book, 'Blankets' "shows heterosexual sex and "pillow talk" scenes between a young couple. The girl is shown naked from the waist up."

"One of the books was in the library's teen section."

Eastern WA Library System Sued Over Refusal To Disable Filters

In the first lawsuit filed over a library's refusal to disable Internet filters for adults wishing to access constitutionally-protected speech, three library users and a nonprofit organization advocating Second Amendment rights have sued the North Central Regional Library District (NCRL), based in Wenatchee in Eastern Washington. Several other libraries nationally follow policies similar to those alleged in the lawsuit. In the Washington case, the plaintiffs are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington. The American Library Assocation (ALA) is not a part of the lawsuit "at this point," said Judith Krug, director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom. "I knew that ACLU has been looking for a lawsuit ever since we got the decision" on the Children's Internet Protection Act, which requires filtering as a condition for E-rate discounts. ALA advises libraries that, under the court decision and the government's interpretation of the statute, they should disable the filters upon requests by adults.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Spokane, charges that NCRL configures SmartFilter, Bess edition, to block numerous categories of Internet content, including "Alcohol, Anonymizers, Chat, Criminal Skills, Dating/Social, Drugs, Extreme, Gambling, Game/Cartoon Violence, Gruesome Content, Hacking, Hate Speech, Malicious Sites, Nudity, P2P/File Sharing, Personal Pages, Phishing, Pornography, Profanity, School Cheating Information, Sexual Materials, Spyware, Tobacco, Violence, Visual Search Engine and Weapon." One plaintiff has tried to research youth tobacco usage for academic research, while others have tried to research health topics and firearms. NCRL director Dean Marney told the AP that the library system had changed its filtering software and allows sites to be unblocked. Responding to a question from LJ, he cited a March/April 2005 article from Public Libraries, which stated, "The law gives librarians the option of disabling these filters if an adult patron specifically requests that they be turned off under specific circumstances, but the law does not require that such requests be granted." He added, "The North Central Regional Library is a rural library district with 28 mostly small town branches. We make every attempt to treat the Internet as we would any other area of our collection. The Board of Trustees has adopted an Internet Use Policy that adheres to CIPA, uses common sense, and reflects community expectations." Given that the law, as applied, has never been evaluated in court, that issue will be up to a judge.

Today’s library: Community hub

Bookworms no longer the only patrons

It now takes the average, Internet-capable library patron under one minute to search for an audio book copy of a book on Compact Disc (less than 30 seconds if you’re “Search” savvy), locate which library has it in stock and have it shipped to the nearest branch within the Monroe County Library System for the sum of 50 cents or pick it up at the library for free.

“Computers cracked open the Monroe County Library System,” says Patricia Uttaro, director of the Ogden Farmers’ Library. “In the days of the card catalogue, you could only see what was owned by the library in which you were standing.”

Erected in place of the card catalogue is CARLweb 5.2, the searchable, computerized library database, which consolidates the entire Monroe County Library System (MCLS) collection in a single format. The bulky drawers and index cards are not the only aspect of the library to have become antiquated in the march of technological progress.

Microfilm has been eclipsed by the microprocessor, which reads and stores millions of bytes (bits of information translated into binary code) in a computer chip the size of a fingernail. Journal, newspaper and magazine articles from all over the world now can be accessed within seconds through online databases, available in even the smallest local library.

Still, there is more at stake for the quaint local library than a technological upgrade. In the last decade, and the past few years especially, the library has been revolutionized. DVD and audio book collections have skyrocketed across the board. And patronage, on the rise nearly every year for the past decade, shows no sign of slowing.

“Libraries are different from what they used to be,” says Claire Talbot, Children’s Library Assistant at the Chili Public Library. “They used to be real quiet places. Now they’re like community hub.”

At the Chili branch, for example, you can get a cup of coffee, research your genealogy, take a class on knitting, pick up the latest DVD release, home school your child, ogle the fish aquarium, check your email, stage a puppet show, learn how to do your taxes, play chess, catch a jazz concert (in the summer), surf the Internet, and, if you’re so inclined, read a book.

“Public libraries are no longer quiet, dusty places overseen by a stern librarian whose primary job is to shush people,” says Patricia Uttaro.

Children and teens, especially, have become target demographics for an institution that once suffered from its reputation as formidably un-youthful.

“Out of a population of 9,651, 5.6% are teenagers,” says Sandra Shaw, director of the Holley Community Free Library, of the town of Holley. “Studies show that this age group is the least active in libraries, but need libraries the most.”

Holley has since done its part to correct this disparity with the addition of a young adult reading room to the library facilities, and a program of reading groups specific to teenagers.

Other libraries have already addressed this demographic, and it’s not unusual to see puppet theaters in the children’s space, and manga (Japanese comic books) among the young adult novels and non-fiction books. A few libraries go even further in their efforts to appeal to youth culture.

At the Seymour Library in Brockport, newly built at East Avenue in 1996, the children’s room is designed with explicit reference to the child’s perspective. Angles abound on the ceiling which swoops down, leaving a portion of the room difficult to access by the taller adults, who are forced to kneel, squat or sit. The tables and chairs are in miniature, and the windows are at the sight-level of a child two or three feet tall.

Bigger, better, faster, more
As their collections expand exponentially, many libraries have had to move to a larger facility sometime within the last ten years - echoing construction of the Bausch & Lomb Building in downtown Rochester, which helped share the burden of the Rundel Memorial Library across the street. Ogden Farmers’ Library relocated in 1992; Brockport’s Seymour in 1996; Chili Public in 1998; Hamlin Public in 2000 - and Newman-Riga doubled its square footage in 1989 with the addition of a new wing.

With more available materials, more square footage, and more activities than ever before, libraries have thrown open their doors to welcome the public en masse. Though the written word - whether in a book or magazine, on paper or digitized - remains the main attraction of the library, according to Hamlin Public Library Director Adrienne Lattin, the bookworm is not the only patron anymore. Researchers need to make room for the slew of Internet gamers, school project coordinators, basket weavers and homeschoolers.

“Even though we’re not even 10 years old, we’ve already outgrown our space,” says Chili Library Director Jennifer Ries-Taggart. “It’s unbelievable.”

The Chili Public Library saw over 165,000 people pass through its doors in 2005, with a circulation count of nearly 308,000 items. To put that in context, notes Ries-Taggart, the population of Chili peaked just shy of 28,000 at the time of the 2000 census.

Since the Hamlin Public Library relocated to a large space in 2000, their circulation and patronage increased over 400 percent.

In 2005, the Ogden Farmers’ Library saw a circulation of over 235,000 items - indicative of the 62 percent increase in patronage since 2000 - which goes a long way to debunk the myth that people are no longer reading.

“I hear reports all the time that people aren’t reading anymore,” said Sally Snow, director of the Parma Public Library, “but I don’t think anyone has told the publishing industry that. No one seems to have told our customers either, judging by our growing circulation numbers.”

As town libraries expand to accommodate growth in population and increased demand, patrons still cannot get enough. From Parma to Riga to Brockport the cry is the same: more books and movies; bigger, better and faster computers; and longer hours of operation.

“Surveys have shown that patrons are favorable toward the staff and service,” says Sally Snow, “but they want more new titles in all formats and more hours, especially on weekends.”

The library patron(s) of today
Expect to find fewer and fewer individual readers at the library, according to Patricia Uttaro. She has seen the crowd at Ogden Farmers’ Library transformed from sparse and noiseless to buzzing with activity.

“Entire families drop by to work on the computers, browse for books or movies, or attend one of our many programs; groups of students work together on cooperative projects; genealogy researchers compare notes; or scout troops work on badge requirements,” says Uttaro.

Brockport Middle School student Ashley Gurgel frequents the Brockport Seymour Library in search of a quiet place to study, she says, though admits that she may as often be found thumbing the pages of a novel or surfing the Internet. Her family has yet to tie into the world wide web at home, she says, and the library’s impressive collection of young adult fiction books offers infinite access to stories and plots.

“Public libraries bridge the gap for those who don’t own a home PC,” says Chili’s Ries-Taggart, signaling what may be the major draw for the institution today.

Libraries provide computers and Internet for those without access at home; books for those who cannot afford or choose not to purchase them; audio and video for those with no other means to discover a new film or a style of music they have never heard; and, more and more, a non-retail space for people to gather without prejudice to age, race, creed, class or interests.

Chili resident Rose Zolnierowski and grandson, Kyle Dion, trek in twice a week for up to three hours at a time and set up camp in the plush multicolored comfort of the children’s section at the Chili Public Library. Often they team up for a session of interactive learning at the computer station, or band together with other patrons to perform a puppet show.

When she isn’t spending time with her grandson, Rose and her husband visit the library for a cup of coffee and a quiet evening of reading.

The library is the only public institution that actively appeals to the entire community from toddlers to seniors and during all business hours, according to Adrienne Lattin. It knows how to adapt to its population, and, according to the numbers, it is succeeding.

Note: Statistics on Library patronage and circulation provided by Jeff Baker of the Monroe County Library System.

Next Week: Part two - Adapting the resources of community libraries.

Librarian fired over squirrel trap

By Jason Miller, The News-Dispatch

The story of Cindee Goetz began more than a year ago with a scared squirrel, a trap and a library roof, and ended last month with the 52-year-old librarian's termination after nearly 21 years on the job.

“My life of 21 years is pretty much different now,” Goetz said Friday from her LaPorte home. “For 18 years I've had absolutely wonderful evaluations, but lately I've had a target on my back. And now it's all changed.

“Everything as I've known it for so long is completely different.”

Goetz said she'd been fired from her job as a librarian at the Coolspring branch of the LaPorte County Public Library in early October.

The termination didn't come as a surprise to Goetz, although the timing of it did. An animal activist and rescuer, Goetz gained notoriety locally last year after she removed what she called “inhumane traps” from the Coolspring branch.

The traps had been put out to catch a squirrel that had found its way into the library and was in danger, officials said then, of damaging the building or coming in contact with library patrons.

Goetz was suspended for a week in December 2005 without pay. Library Director Judy Hamilton said at the time the squirrel incident was the tipping point for the suspension.

She said the incident - in which Goetz was said to have gone around the chain of command to remove the traps - was not the first for Goetz. Hamilton said then that Goetz's animal advocacy was interfering with her job.

Hamilton Friday said she cannot comment on Goetz's claims because they are personnel matters.

“I can't give you any information,” she said. “I can't say whether you have correct information or incorrect information.”

Goetz was surprised by the timing of her termination because she said she'd been adhering to restrictions placed on her by library management. She said in the months before her firing she was restricted from conversing with patrons and could not say or do anything that had anything to do with animals inside or directly outside the library.

<>After her termination, she was told she couldn't go to the Coolspring branch for 30 days. If she was spotted at the branch, she said, she'd be arrested.

“It was tough, because the branch is like a family place. I've known a lot of those patrons for a long time and it's hard to just essentially stop speaking to them,” she said. “I could only be suddenly abrupt, which was difficult. But I did it. I've been very good.”
<>
Since her firing, Goetz - who lives on a single income with “a large pet family to take care of” - has struggled to make ends meet. She's working part-time for a friend at a bookstore at Lighthouse Place Mall, but still struggles.

She said she's been denied unemployment benefits.
<>
"I really appreciate that I've got something. I'm so thankful,” she said. “But it's tough. I can't lose my house. I've got to find something to get me through all this.”

Goetz said she's appealing the denial of benefits.

Adieu, mes amis

All That Is

"If you prefer, you can call the supreme psychic gestalt God, but you should not attempt to objectify him. What you call God is the sum of all consciousness, and yet the whole is more than the sum of Its parts."

"It is not one individual, but an energy gestalt. It is a psychic pyramid of interrelated, ever expanding consciousness, that creates simultaneous and instantaneously, universes and individuals that are given duration, psychic comprehension, intelligence and eternal validity. Its energy is so unbelievable that is does indeed form all universes; and because its energy is within and behind all universes, fields and systems, it is indeed aware of each sparrow that falls, for it is each sparrow that falls."

Libraries in the sand reveal Africa's academic past

by Nick Tattersall
Nov 10
TIMBUKTU, Mali

Researchers in Timbuktu are fighting to preserve tens of thousands of ancient texts which they say prove Africa had a written history at least as old as the European Renaissance.

Private and public libraries in the fabled Saharan town in Mali have already collected 150,000 brittle manuscripts, some of them from the 13th century, and local historians believe many more lie buried under the sand.

The texts were stashed under mud homes and in desert caves by proud Malian families whose successive generations feared they would be stolen by Moroccan invaders, European explorers and then French colonialists.

Written in ornate calligraphy, some were used to teach astrology or mathematics, while others tell tales of social and business life in Timbuktu during its "Golden Age," when it was a seat of learning in the 16th century.

"These manuscripts are about all the fields of human knowledge: law, the sciences, medicine," said Galla Dicko, director of the Ahmed Baba Institute, a library housing 25,000 of the texts.

"Here is a political tract," he said, pointing to a script in a glass cabinet, somewhat dog-eared and chewed by termites. "A letter on good governance, a warning to intellectuals not to be corrupted by the power of politicians."

Bookshelves on the wall behind him contain a volume on maths and a guide to Andalusian music as well as love stories and correspondence between traders plying the trans-Saharan caravan routes.

Timbuktu's leading families have only recently started to give up what they see as ancestral heirlooms. They are being persuaded by local officials that the manuscripts should be part of the community's shared culture.

"It is through these writings that we can really know our place in history," said Abdramane Ben Essayouti, Imam of Timbuktu's oldest mosque, Djingarei-ber, built from mud bricks and wood in 1325.

HEAT, DUST AND TERMITES

Experts believe the 150,000 texts collected so far are just a fraction of what lies hidden under centuries of dust behind the ornate wooden doors of Timbuktu's mud-brick homes.

"This is just 10 percent of what we have. We think we have more than a million buried here," said Ali Ould Sidi, a government official responsible for managing the town's World Heritage Sites.

Some academics say the texts will force the West to accept Africa has an intellectual history as old as its own. Others draw comparisons with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

But as the fame of the manuscripts spreads, conservationists fear those that have survived centuries of termites and extreme heat will be sold to tourists at extortionate prices or illegally trafficked out of the country.

South Africa is spearheading "Operation Timbuktu" to protect the texts, funding a new library for the Ahmed Baba Institute, named after a Timbuktu-born contemporary of William Shakespeare.

The United States and Norway are helping with the preservation of the manuscripts, which South African President Thabo Mbeki has said will "restore the self respect, the pride, honor and dignity of the people of Africa."

The people of Timbuktu, whose universities were attended by 25,000 scholars in the 16th century but whose languid pace of life has been left behind by modernity, have similar hopes.

"The nations formed a single line and Timbuktu was at the head. But one day, God did an about-turn and Timbuktu found itself at the back," a local proverb goes.

"Perhaps one day God will do another about-turn so that Timbuktu can retake its rightful place," it adds.

Ok, I'm done with this for now...

11/11- Fin

Why not? Yeah. -Timothy Leary

Peace being sown among olive tree

Jewish volunteers help Palestinians harvest crops

by John Murphy, Sun Foreign Reporter
KAFR QALIL, West Bank

The day is hot and dusty on this West Bank hillside, but 53-year-old Fuad Amer moves with the energy of a man half his age, stripping the fruit from his olive trees in giant handfuls, plucking others from the high branches with a surgeon's care.

His enthusiasm is understandable. This is the first time in four years that Amer has been able to harvest his olives.

Last year, he says, Jewish settlers set fire to his olive grove and destroyed his harvest. Before that, gun-toting settlers forced his family from the grove when they started picking. Israeli authorities, trying to avoid further confrontations, ordered him to stay away, Amer says, and the settlers helped themselves to his olives.

But this season, an Israeli high court decision granting Palestinian farmers protection from settler violence means that Amer will be able to harvest the olives from his 60 trees.

Hundreds of Israeli soldiers and police are patrolling stony hillside groves near Jewish settlements in the West Bank, vowing to keep the peace. Palestinians, usually fearful of Israeli authorities, are welcoming their presence.

"We are happy that the army is here. We feel like we're being protected," said Amer, who has been harvesting his olives within shouting distance of the hilltop settlement of Bracha. So far, he says, there have been no problems.

Since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in 2000, conflict, destruction and fear have hurt the annual harvest. Jewish settlers from hilltop communities in the West Bank have attacked and harassed pickers and cut down olive trees. Several Palestinian farmers have been killed by settlers.

The Israeli army and police have done little to stop the violence, critics say. Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization, reported that 90 percent of cases of settler violence against Palestinians go unsolved. While police closed most cases, citing lack of evidence, in many instances officers failed to conduct an investigation or lost the case files, the study said.

In 2004, after Jewish settlers prevented many Palestinians from picking their olives, several Palestinian villages and two Israeli rights groups - the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Rabbis for Human Rights - filed a court petition to enable farmers to harvest their crop.

In June, Israel's high court ruled unanimously that the army must grant Palestinian farmers access to their olive groves at all times and protect them from settlers.

"Our policy is to allow Palestinians to get every last olive from every last tree, even if that tree is in the middle of a settlement," said Capt. Adam Avidan, a spokesman for the Israeli military's civil administration in the West Bank.

Still, this year has not been without problems. In recent weeks settlers set fire to two olive groves, Palestinian farmers say, and Israeli police arrested 10 settler youths - carrying knives, saws and brass knuckles - suspected of attacking and beating Palestinians harvesting olives, according to an article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Some Palestinian farmers have turned to Israeli groups such as Rabbis for Human Rights for help. The group organizes Jewish volunteers who harvest the olives and serve as intermediaries between Jewish settlers and Palestinian farmers.

In Jit, a Palestinian village in the West Bank, a half-dozen volunteers picked olives alongside a Palestinian farmer just down the hill from the Jewish settlement of Kedumim. When an armed guard from Kedumim arrived and ordered everyone to leave, the volunteers stepped in, refusing to budge. They said the farmer had permission from Israeli authorities to harvest.

The settlement guard fumed.

"I decide where you can go," he said, vowing to return with the Israeli army to remove them.

But the Israeli army confirmed that the farmer and the volunteers were allowed to harvest.

Zakaria Sada, a Palestinian villager from Jit who works with Rabbis for Human Rights, recalls when families would gather in the fields near the settlement to picnic and pick olives. It was a time to relax, he said. But no longer.

"Now you are afraid when you pick the olives. You always have to look behind you to see where the settlers are," he said.

Settlers say it is necessary to keep Palestinian farmers far from their communities for security reasons. Palestinians say that the settlers' true goal is to push them off their land. Keeping the peace between the parties is a complicated task.

In Kfar Qalil's olive groves, it appeared as if a military operation was under way. Police patrolled the road leading to the hilltop settlements. Israeli soldiers arrived to keep an eye on farmers. Volunteers picked olives and gave regular updates by mobile phone to their organizations about any disturbances.

On a recent afternoon though, all was quiet.

Ahmed Kenna, 17, stood at the top of a ladder tugging at branches heavy with olives. It was his first time back in his family's fields in four years. Last year, his family was chased and his grandmother beaten, he said.

Working beside him was Joshua Corber, 24, a yeshiva student and volunteer for Rabbis for Human Rights.

"I think it's very important to show Arabs that there are Jews who sympathize with their cause," Corber said, as he tugged olives from the branches. "It's an important step for coexistence."

For Rabbi Arik Ascherman, executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, scenes of Jews and Arabs working together are the beginning - not only of a more peaceful harvest, but perhaps a greater understanding between two peoples.

"I call it the dialogue of the olive groves," Ascherman said. "There are fancy, high-paid junkets that go abroad to bring Palestinians and Israelis together in dialogue. They're important, but it's a much deeper dialogue when average Israelis and average Palestinians spend a day together, shoulder to shoulder, harvesting the olives."

A Little Switch Up To An Abraham Quote From My Friend Sir Real

l "The third Law, the Art of Allowing, says: I am that which I am, and
I am willing to allow all others to be that which they are. When you
are willing to allow others to be as they are, even in their not
allowing of you, then you will be an Allower, but it is not likely
that you will reach that point until you first come to understand how
it is you get what you get.

"Only when you understand that another cannot be a part of your
experience unless you invite them in through your thoughts (or
through your attention to them), and that circumstances cannot be a
part of your experience unless you invite them to you through your
thought (or through your observation of them), will you be the
Allower that you wanted to be when you came forth into this expression of life.

"An understanding of these three powerful Universal Laws, and a
deliberate application of them, will lead you to the joyous freedom
of being able to create your own life experience exactly as you want
it to be. Once you understand that all people, circumstances, and
events are invited into your experience by you, through your thought,
you will begin to live your life as you intended when you made the
decision to come forth into this physical body. And so, an
understanding of the powerful Law of Attraction, coupled with an
intention to Deliberately Create your own life experience, will
ultimately lead you to the unparalleled freedom that can only come
from a complete understanding and application of the Art of Allowing."

War Crimes Suit Prepared against Rumsfeld

The president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Michael Ratner, is heading to Germany today to file a new case charging outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with war crimes for authorizing torture at Guantanamo Bay. [includes rush transcript] Would Rumsfeld stepping down leave him open to prosecution? In 2004, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a criminal complaint in Germany on behalf of several Iraqi citizens who alleged that a group of U.S. officials committed war crimes in Iraq. Rumsfeld was among the officials named in the complaint. The Iraqis claimed they were victims of electric shock, severe beatings, sleep and food deprivation and sexual abuse.

Germany's laws on torture and war crimes permits the prosecution of suspected war criminals wherever they may be found. Now, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Michael Ratner, is returning to Germany to file a new complaint. Michael Ratner joins us in our firehouse studio.

* Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Ratner joins us in our studio here in New York. Former CIA analyst Mel Goodman and journalist Bob Parry are still in Washington. Michael, why are you headed to Germany in the next few days?

MICHAEL RATNER: Thank you for having me on this issue, Amy. One of the shocking things really so far about the coverage of Rumsfeld’s resignation, there's not a word in any of it about torture. And here, Rumsfeld is one of the architects of the torture program of the United States. I mean, we have those sheets of paper that went to Guantanamo that talk about using dogs and stripping people and hooding people. We have one of our clients, al-Qahtani, who was in Guantanamo. Rumsfeld essentially supervised that entire interrogation, one of the worst interrogations that happened at Guantanamo. He actually authorized a rendition, a fake rendition of al-Qahtani, where flew him -- put a -- blindfolded him, sedated him, put him on an airplane and flew him back to Guantanamo, so he thought he would be in some torture country. So here you have Rumsfeld, one of the architects, not a word about it.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you know that he personally supervised it?

MICHAEL RATNER: There’s actually documents out there, that there’s part of the log that comes out. The log was published of his interrogation. And then there’s a report called the “Schmidt Report,” which was an internal investigation, in which there are statements in there about Rumsfeld being directly involved in the interrogation of al-Qahtani. So this guy has committed -- without any question, this guy has committed war crimes, violations of the Geneva Conventions.

Now, what do we do now? Well, we went to Germany before. Germany dismissed the earlier case on Rumsfeld, partly for political reasons, obviously. Rumsfeld said, “I’m not going back to Germany as long as this case is pending in Germany.” He had to go to the Munich Security Conference. They dismissed the case two days before. What they said when they dismissed it, what they said was, we think the United States is still looking into going up the chain of command, essentially, and looking into what the conduct of our officials are.

In fact, now, two years later, look where we are. One, he has resigned, so any kind of immunity he might have as a vice president [sic] from prosecution is out the window. Secondly, of course, as, you know, a little gift package to these guys, you know, our congress with the President has now given immunity to US officials for war crimes. They basically said you can’t be prosecuted for war crimes. That’s in the Military Commission Act. Now, that immunity, like the immunities in Argentina and Chile during the Dirty Wars, does not apply overseas.

So, now you have Germany sitting there with -- there’s no longer an argument the US can possibly prosecute him, because within the US, he’s out. So you have Germany sitting there with a former Secretary of Defense and basically in an immunity situation in the United States. So the chances in Germany have been raised tremendously, I think, and the stakes for Rumsfeld, not only in Germany, but anywhere that guy travels, he is going to be like the Henry Kissinger of the next period.

JUAN GONZALEZ: But then, what would you have to do? You would have to re-file the case before -- is it before an international court in Germany or in German courts?

MICHAEL RATNER: We’re actually going on Tuesday. We’re re-filing it in German courts under their law, which is universal jurisdiction, which basically says a torturer is essentially an enemy of all humankind and can be brought to justice wherever they’re found. So we are going to Germany to try and get them to begin an investigation of Rumsfeld for really a left-out part of this picture, which is the United States has essentially been on the page of torture now for five years.

AMY GOODMAN: Mel Goodman, as you listen to this, have you ever seen this, an American official concerned about going abroad -- you mentioned, Michael, Henry Kissinger -- but because they could be prosecuted? And how possible do you think this is, as a former State Department and CIA analyst?

MELVIN GOODMAN: Well, I think the record is quite clear. War crimes have been committed. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld combined to sponsor the memos by John Yoo and Jay Bybee and others to sanction torture. CIA officials have committed war crimes. DOD officials have committed war crimes. If you look at the three decisions of the Supreme Court -- Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Rasul v. Bush -- clearly laws have been broken, serious laws have been broken. And now the Congress is trying to rewrite the laws to launder these charges against these people.

But the ultimate question is, will any international body take on these charges, take on these cases, and really operate against high-level American officials? And I guess I have my doubts that this will be done. But I think what Michael Ratner is doing is important to at least establish the record of this pattern of torture and abuse, secret prisons, renditions and extraordinary renditions. I think it’s unconscionable what America has done in the name of the so-called war against terrorism over the last several years. And, of course, the war against terrorism is now the mantra of this administration, and Bob Gates incorporated it a few times in his very brief remarks yesterday, upon receiving this nomination. So this is a very important issue. I’m not optimistic that a court will take it on, but I think it’s very important to get the record out there for all to see what has been done in the name of the United States. This has been unconscionable behavior.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Ratner, the White House recently proposed changing the War Crimes Act of 1996, that would narrow the scope of punishable offenses. The new list would exclude humiliating or degrading treatment of prisoners. Military law experts believe the Bush administration is effectively rewriting parts of the Geneva Convention, but this is US law. Why do they even have to bother, if they’re granting immunity to officials in the new War Commissions Act of 2006?

MICHAEL RATNER: I’m not sure I understood. They clearly did. They already -- the Military Commission Act --

AMY GOODMAN: They already did it, but they’re also trying to change the 1996 War Crimes Act.

MICHAEL RATNER: They did do that.

AMY GOODMAN: By the new Commissions Act.

MICHAEL RATNER: The new Commissions Act actually modifies -- we have a statute that makes violations of the Geneva Conventions war crimes. Because for five years they had been violating that statute in the belief that Geneva Conventions didn’t apply to the war on terror, and as Mel said, now that the Supreme Court says the Geneva Conventions do apply, these guys are sitting there and they’re not sleeping well. They’re not sleeping well, going back, because they’ve been torturing people or violating Geneva for five years. And going foward, as the President said in that September 6 press conference, we want to continue using CIA sites and doing this to people. So they have been forced to modify the War Crimes Act. That doesn’t affect what happens in Germany, other than the fact that it now says to the Germans, “Look at, you guys, first they violated Geneva, and now they're immunizing themselves.”

JUAN GONZALEZ: I’d like to ask Mel Goodman, given this situation, one of the things that is clear is that the military, many of even the highest-ranking military officers were in virtual rebellion against Secretary Rumsfeld, and it’s no accident that the major newspapers, the Military Times and Navy Times, just a few days before the election called for his resignation. Now, you have Bob Gates coming in and, as you say, he will try to clamp down on dissidents within the military. But given the situation in Iraq right now and this whole issue of the military being drawn more and more into war crimes through torture, do you expect that there’s going to be success in the civilian leadership led by Gates regaining control over dissent within the military?

MELVIN GOODMAN: Well, I don’t think Gates will have a big role in this. I think the important role has been played by the military lawyers. I think the real heroes in this has been the Judge Advocates Corps, the military officers who serve as lawyers in the military, who have gotten essentially reinstatement of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and a military that is obedient to the Geneva Conventions. So there’s been great progress by the Pentagon here.

I think what Gates will perform for the Pentagon is just representing the relief that all of these officers feel, that they no longer have to face the arrogance and the ignorance of Donald Rumsfeld on a day-by-day basis. So I think Gates will be in there to smooth things down at the Pentagon, in the same way that George Herbert Walker Bush came to the CIA in the 1970s at a very controversial and tendentious point in the CIA’s history, just to calm everything down for awhile, to stop the leaks, to stop the accusations, and essentially to be more loyal to the Bush administration.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask a quick question to Michael Ratner, as we wrap up. We have a new congress, Democrat congress, Democrat senate. Is there any discussion of accountability? Conyers talked about it before, when he was in the minority. Nancy Pelosi just announced impeachment is off the table. What do you want the Democrats to do?

MICHAEL RATNER: Well, the first thing I would want the Democrats to do, the absolute first thing, is restore the writ of habeas corpus to non-citizens both here in the United States and around the world. I would have them -- 48 of them voted to have it restored -- or not restored, but not taken out before. I would like to see them make an effort to do that. What are the chances of this? I think they're very low. I would love to see Conyers open a full investigation into the Iraq war. I would love to see the Intelligence Committee open a full investigation into torture.

AMY GOODMAN: We’ll have to leave it there. Michael Ratner, Melvin Goodman, Robert Parry, I want to thank you all very much for being with us.

PALIMPSEST: THE BEAUTY AND TRUTH LAB PLAGIARIZES HAKIM BEY

I laughed appreciatively when I first learned that ancient Hawaiian poets used to gather together to compose poems by committee. Someone would suggest a line, and the others would either nix it or refine it. Can you imagine a similar miracle occurring among the raging artistic egos of Western culture? Even for us share-and-share-alike Libertarian Socialists here at the Beauty and Truth Lab, it can sometimes be hard to drop our attachment to being inviolably special.

As a favor to pronoia, however -- as proof of our devotion to the joy of undoing our fixations -- we decided to enlist one of our crazy heroes, Hakim Bey, to commit a collaboration with us. Of course he was too busy to satisfy our request, so we decided simply to take matters into our own hands. We lifted one of his published works, stripped it down, and used it as the skeleton for our own musings. The essay below amounts to an odd kind of plagiarism, then. Very few of our words are repeats of his, but his thought process is the underpinning. Think of it as a palimpsest.

PRONOIAC SORCERY
by Rob Brezsny and the Beauty and Truth Lab under the influence and
inspiration of Hakim Bey

THE UNIVERSE WANTS TO PLAY. Pity the educated cynics who refuse to
enjoy the fun, choosing instead to remain faithful to their numb logical
anguish.

THE UNIVERSE WANTS TO PLAY. Mourn for the humorless devotees who
refuse to join in the raucous unpredictable game so that they might feed
their spiritual greed, pretzeled up motionless on prayer mats with the
torment of grave meditations.

THE UNIVERSE WANTS TO PLAY. Have compassion for the imagination- dead heroes who cling so tightly to the masks they've forged for
themselves that they're dead to the delight of molting.

PRONOIAC SORCERY is the daily cultivation of playfully altered states of
awareness for the purpose of accomplishing practical miracles.

PRONOIAC SORCERY begins with your hunger for ingenious beauty and
ever-fresh truth. It thrives and ripens as you discover that everything you
behold is bursting with conscious intelligence.

PRONOIAC SORCERY is not about reading auras or divining past lives. It's
not the corrupt shamanism of teachers who soar adeptly through astral
realms but treat the people in their daily lives like crap. Goddess forbid
that PRONOIAC SORCERY might be confused with the dry lust for
supernatural power and a godlike ego offered through the occult magic of
Crowley's Golden Dawn. If it's elitist hocus-pocus you want, go for the
real thing -- political power, the accumulation of financial wealth, or
becoming one of the media mind-controllers.

Your perceptions gradually open under the quiet, steady, friendly shock of
PRONOIAC SORCERY. As they do, they kill off your false will and banish
your artificial self.

Real PRONOIAC SORCERY breaks holes in the consensual hallucination
called "reality," allowing you to escape to your lost home. It
metamorphoses the place where you actually live, right here and now --
wild, messy heaven brought kicking and screaming with delight into this
eternally virgin planet Earth. Here amazement is normal; sudden mutations
-- actual transformations of things you've never before been able to
change -- are possible.

As a pronoiac sorcerer, you prove the taboo truth that all of reality is
inherently designed to bring about our liberation. Best of all, you do it not
only for yourself. The enhanced perceptions you enjoy, the altered states
you craft, are not just for your own use in the silence of your selfish
needs. As a pronoiac sorcerer, you yearn to awaken the gift in other
people, to expand the intoxication through benevolent contagion.

PRONOIAC SORCERY: Let it spread. May it multiply. Unleash it and unmask
it -- not just in exotic once-in-a-blue-moon dreams, but in the throb of the
simple dramas you live from day to day.

Everything in the universe is alive with playful intelligence and wants to
improvise with us.

Hakim Bey's original version of "The Universe Wants to Play" can be found
here: http://tinyurl.com/y485hd

Amy Goodman's first Sydicated News Column

Sunday, November 5, 2006
Beyond the nine-second sound bite
By AMY GOODMAN, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

My goal as a journalist is to break the sound barrier. To cut through the static and bring forth voices that are not usually heard. I am not talking about a fringe minority, or the Silent Majority, but a silenced majority, increasingly restless, of people who are looking for alternative sources of information in a complex world.

With this column, I join you in the important ritual of reading the paper, of examining the news, to discern for yourself the state of the world and your place in it. I invite you to join me in going to where the silence is, as we seek out the news and newsmakers who are ignored. This column will include voices so often excluded, people whose views the media mostly ignore, issues they distort and even ridicule.

If we take television as but one example, you would hardly think there are legitimate dissenting viewpoints in this world. What is typically presented to us as news analysis is, for the most part, a small circle of pundits who know so little about so much, attempting to explain the world to us. While they may appear to differ, they are quibbling over how quickly the bombs should be dropped, not asking whether they should be dropped at all.

Unfortunately, as a result, people are increasingly turning away from the news, when news media should be providing a forum for discussion -- a forum that is honest, open, that weighs all the options and includes voices so often excluded, yet deeply affected by U.S. policy around the globe.

It is the job of the media to be the exception to the rulers, to hold those in power accountable for their decisions, to challenge and to ask the hard questions -- in short, to be the public watchdog. We in the media need to find stories of hope. We need to tell those stories that resonate with people, to tell stories of the people who live far from the rarified concerns of that passel of pundits crowding and crowing on the small screen. We need to hear local discussions cast in a global frame.

In this new media environment, what daily local and regional papers can consistently offer their readerships are the authentic voices of people in their communities dealing with a globalized world. We don't have to wait for the alternative media; we are building it right now.

Newspapers have always held a central role for my indie media colleagues in our daily newsgathering. In this column, I hope to go beyond the nine-second sound bite to bring you the whole meal, grass-roots voices in this community as well as in communities around the world.

This column will be a forum for stories from the streets, not the suites. It will engage you on the most important issues of the day, but it will engage you, I hope, with a relevance to everyday life. It will bring out the voices like those in your community, from all over the world, of people who now live in an increasingly globalized community. These unprecedented changes are affecting everyone, everywhere, in related ways. This is the tenor and direction I hope to bring to this column.

I see the media as a huge kitchen table that stretches across this country, one where we all sit around to debate and discuss the most critical issues of the day: war and peace, life and death. Anything less than that is a disservice to a democratic society.

Amy Goodman hosts the radio news program Democracy Now! Distributed by King Features Syndicate.

The Nature of the Psyche

"In dreams you are so 'dumb' that you believe there is a commerce between the living and the dead. You are so 'irrational' as to imagine that you sometimes speak to parents who are dead. You are so 'unrealistic' that it seems to you that you visit old houses, long ago torn down, or that you travel in exotic foreign cities that you have actually never visited.

In dreams you are so 'insane' you do not feel yourself locked in a closet of time and space, but feel instead as if all infinity but waited your beckoning."

Session 758, Page 25

FYI: Transcript: NOMINATION OF ROBERT M. GATES, OF VIRGINIA, TO BE DIRECTOR, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE (Senate - November 05, 1991)

...

Mr. LEAHY. I understand. We entered into a unanimous-consent agreement that I would have been able to speak.

To get back at the subject at hand.

This was a difficult decision. It came after extensive meetings with Mr. Gates, Senator Boren, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee whom I respect greatly and other members of the Intelligence Committee, including some of those who voted against Mr. Gates in the Committee--for whom I have great respect--discussions by my staff with committee staff on the hearings, and a careful review of the lengthy committee report.

The decision was a close call. Mr. Gates who I expect will be confirmed easily, carries a heavy load on his shoulders. There remain concerns about his passivity during the Iran-Contra fiasco, and widespread charges about his willingness to tell those above him what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear. Fairly or not, he bears the legacy of the Casey years, when deceit, misinformation, illegal operations and, to put it charitably, misleading of the oversight committees and Congress were the norm.

Most troubling of all, there is a deeply disturbing pattern of allegations from past and present analysts in the CIA that Mr. Gates, from time to time, committed the cardinal sin against objective intelligence analysis--that he slanted key intelligence judgments to suit the policy proclivities of William Casey and the Reagan White House.

Based on my detailed discussions with Mr. Gates, with Senator Boren, current and former leaders of the intelligence community, and my reading of the record, I cannot find any smoking gun on any of these allegations. None of the evidence unambiguously points to mistakes or activities by Mr. Gates that clearly disqualify him for the post of Director of Central Intelligence.

In reaching this decision to vote for Robert Gates, I gave great weight to several arguments in his favor.

First, there is my own long association with Mr. Gates, first in my capacity as vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and since in my capacity as chairman of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee and member of the Defense Subcommittee especially in dealing with appropriations for intelligence matters. In all these positions, when I have had to deal with Mr. Gates, at times on quite sensitive intelligence or foreign policy matters, I have found him to be forthcoming, cooperative, and candid. Of the many senior intelligence or White House policy officials with whom I have dealt during the Reagan and Bush administrations, Mr. Gates has struck me as one of the few who actually understands and acts on the validity of and need for congressional oversight. I have had briefings from him straight through this year and I found him to be candid in those briefings.

Whether this cooperation reflects genuine conviction that oversight is a vital protection against abuse, or merely a realistic acceptance of the power and authority of Congress is irrelevant. The fact is that in all my dealings with him, so far as I can tell, Mr. Gates has never held back sharing sensitive and highly classified intelligence and other information from me. Leaders of the Intelligence Committee tell my they have had the same experience.

Then, there are Mr. Gates' personal qualifications. He is extraordinarily experienced in intelligence, with over 25 years in the field. The intelligence community, including the CIA, is going to pass through one of the most turbulent periods in its history over the next 3 or 4 years. Profound adjustments to the ending of the cold war will be necessary. The intelligence budget, which has grown for a decade, is now going to shrink and perhaps substantially. Three will be reductions in personnel and resources. There will be major redefinitions of missions and roles. U.S. intelligence will look a lot different 3 or 4 years from now.

A strong, experienced hand is needed to guide U.S. intelligence through this period of restructuring and readjustment. Mr. Gates is highly qualified to provide the leadership the intelligence community needs.

Third, to be blunt, Mr. President, Mr. Gates, with all his flaws and with all the clouds hanging over him, is surely far more qualified for this important position than anyone the White House is likely to put forward if he is not confirmed. One of the most troubling failures of the Bush White House is the recent pattern of mediocre, politically motivated appointments to key positions. I dread to think what kind of `no record, no opinions, no ideas' cipher the White House handlers would find if Mr. Gates is rejected.

It would probably be someone picked more for his or her lack of any controversial views or experience than a person the President believes is best suited to head U.S. intelligence in what is certain to be a very rough period.

Mr. President, I will vote for Mr. Gates. But in doing so, I want to send him a message. The following words are directed to him.

Mr. Gates, insofar as I can do so as one Senator, I will strongly react to any credible information that indicates you or your aides are politicizing intelligence analysis to suit your personal views or the ideological or policy desires of the White House. I will do so through my work on the intelligence budget in the Defense Subcommittee, through discussions with the Intelligence Committee leadership, and, if necessary, by going to the Senate leadership.

Furthermore, if it ever comes to my attention that any of the current or former CIA analysts who came forward to offer information or views about your record or your suitability to be Director of Central Intelligence are being punished, harassed or otherwise penalized, I will go immediately to the Intelligence Committee to ask for decisive action against you. I welcome the strong statement the present chairman of the committee has made in this regard, and having served with Senator Boren on that committee, I know, when Senator Boren makes a statement of that nature, he will carry it out.

And, finally, if it ever comes out that despite your statements to the contrary, you knew of or were involved in the abuses of the Casey era, including the diversion of money to the Contras from the Iran arms for hostages deals, I will urge your removal from office. Knowing me as you do, you would not expect anything else.

Mr. President, let me say in the positive area, Mr. Gates will have a superb opportunity to overcome the doubts and reservations of many during the coming years. I hope I have occasion in the future to commend him for his leadership. On balance, I expect that to be the case.

There is a difficult time ahead for the intelligence community in this country. It is not amateur hour, nor should it be. At the same time, if this country ever needed an intelligence community that could give straightforward, honest, objective analysis devoid of trying to twist it for policy considerations, that time is now. And so, with an act of faith that we will get that from the new Director, I will vote for Robert Gates.

Chomsky discovers roots of terrorism

“The problem lies in the unwillingness to recognize that your own terrorism is terrorism”
-Noam Chomsky

As the U.S. crucial congressional elections draw near, the debate over the U.S. President’s decision to invade Iraq and his so-called “war on terror” gets heated.

The American academic Noam Chomsky who has been the foremost critic of America's imperial adventures for more than three decades here tackles the roots of terrorism and the role of the U.S. and the British governments in fighting or spreading it.

Excalibur (Ex): How important is an understanding of the role of states such as the U.S. and the UK when examining the question of terrorism?

Chomsky (Ch): It depends on whether we want to be honest and truthful or whether we want to just serve state power ( . . . ) We should look at all forms of terrorism.

I have been writing on terrorism for 25 years, ever since the Reagan administration came in 1981 and declared that the leading focus of its foreign policy was going to be a war on terror. A war against state directed terrorism which they called the plague of the modern world because of their barbarism and so on. That was the centre of their foreign policy and ever since I have been writing about terrorism.

But what I write causes extreme anger for the very simple reason that I use the U.S. government's official definition of terrorism from the official U.S. code of laws. If you use that definition, it follows very quickly that the U.S. is the leading terrorist state and a major sponsor of terrorism and since that conclusion is unacceptable, it arouses furious anger. But the problem lies in the unwillingness to recognize that your own terrorism is terrorism. This is not just true of the United States, it's true quite generally. Terrorism is something that they do to us. In both cases, it's terrorism and we have to get over that if we're serious about the question.

Ex: In 1979, Russia invades Afghanistan. The U.S. uses the Ziaul Haq regime in Pakistan to fund the rise of militancy. This gives Zia a green light to fund cross-border terrorism in Kashmir. Now we allegedly have some of those elements setting off bombs in Mumbai. Clearly, these groups are no longer controlled by any government.

Ch: The jihadi movements in their modern form go back before Afghanistan. They were formed primarily in Egypt in the 1970s. Those are the roots of the jihadi movement, the intellectual roots and the activist roots and the terrorism too.

But when the Russians invaded Afghanistan, the Regan administration saw it as an opportunity to pursue their Cold War aims. So they did with the intense cooperation of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and others ( . . . ) so the Reagan administration organized the most radical Islamic extremists it could find anywhere in the world and brought them to Afghanistan to train them, arm them.

Meanwhile, the U.S. supported Ziaul Haq as he was turning Pakistan into a country full of madrassahs and fundamentalists. The Reagan administration even ( . . . ) kept certifying to Congress that Pakistan was not developing nuclear weapons, which of course they were, so that U.S. aid to Pakistan could continue. The end result of these U.S. programs was to seriously harm Pakistan and also to create the international jihadi movement, of which Osama bin Laden is a product. The jihadi movement then spread ( . . . ) they may not like it much but they created it. And now, as you say, it's in Kashmir.

Kashmir, though, is a much more complex story. There are plenty of problems in Kashmir and they go way back, but the major current conflicts come from the 1980s. In 1986, when India blocked the election, it actually stole the election, and that led to an uprising and terrorist violence and atrocities, including atrocities committed by the Indian army.

Ex: The colonial legacy is generally dismissed by the media. What role does this legacy play in the emergence of home-grown terrorists in countries such as the U.S., the UK and Canada as well as to the creation of terrorism as a whole?

Ch: It's not brought up in the West because it's inconvenient to think about your own crimes. Just look at the major conflicts going on around the world today, in Africa, the Middle East, in South Asia, most of them are residues of colonial systems.

Colonial systems imposed and created artificial states that had nothing to do with the needs and concerns and relations of the populations involved.

They were created in the interests of colonial powers and as old fashioned colonialism turned into modern neo-colonialism, a lot of these conflicts erupted into violence and those are a lot of the atrocities happening in the world today.

How can anyone say colonialism isn't relevant? Of course it is and it's even more directly relevant.

Take the London bombing in 2005. Blair tried to pretend that it had nothing to do with Britain's participation in the invasion of Iraq. That's completely ridiculous. The British intelligence and the reports of the people connected in the bombing, they said that the British participation in the invasion and resulting horrors in Iraq inflamed them and they wanted to do something in reaction.

Ex: What keeps you motivated?

Ch: I'll just tell you a brief story. I was in Beirut a couple of months ago giving talks at the American university in the city. After a talk, people come up and they want to talk privately or have books signed.

Here I was giving a talk in a downtown theatre, a large group of people were around and a young woman came up to me, in her mid-'20s, and just said this sentence: "I am Kinda" and practically collapsed. You wouldn't know who Kinda is but that's because we live in societies where the truth is kept hidden. I knew who she was. She had a book of mine open to a page on which I had quoted a letter of hers that she wrote when she was seven years old.

It was right after the U.S. bombing of Libya, her family was then living in Libya, and she wrote a letter which was found by a journalist friend of mine who tried to get it published in the United States but couldn't because no one would publish it. He then gave it to me, I published it. The letter said something like this:

"Dear Mr Reagan, I am seven years old. I want to know why you killed my little sister and my friend and my rag doll. Is it because we are Palestinians? Kinda". That's one of the most moving letters I have ever seen and when she walked up to me and said I am Kinda, and, like I say, actually fell over, not only because of the event but because of what it means.

Here's the United States with no pretext at all, bombing another country, killing and destroying, and nobody wants to know what a little seven-year-old girl wrote about the atrocities. That's the kind of thing that keeps me motivated and ought to keep everybody motivated. And you can multiply that by 10,000.

Chomsky has written and lectured widely on linguistics, philosophy, intellectual history, contemporary issues, international affairs and U.S. foreign policy. His works include: Aspects of the Theory of Syntax; Cartesian Linguistics; Sound Pattern of English (with Morris Halle); Language and Mind; American Power and the New Mandarins; At War with Asia; For Reasons of State; Peace in the Middle East?; Reflections on Language; The Political Economy of Human Rights, Vol. I and II (with E.S. Herman); Rules and Representations; Lectures on Government and Binding; Towards a New Cold War; Radical Priorities; Fateful Triangle; Knowledge of Language; Turning the Tide; Pirates and Emperors; On Power and Ideology; Language and Problems of Knowledge; The Culture of Terrorism; Manufacturing Consent (with E.S. Herman); Necessary Illusions; Deterring Democracy; Year 501; Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War and US Political Culture; Letters from Lexington; World Orders, Old and New; The Minimalist Program; Powers and Prospects; The Common Good; Profit Over People; The New Military Humanism; New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind; Rogue States; A New Generation Draws the Line; 9-11; and Understanding Power.

Israeli bombardment of Beit Hanoun kills at least 18, including 11 from one family

Israel has renewed its assault on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 18 Palestinians on Wednesday morning.

Palestinian medical sources reported that dozens of Palestinian citizens had been killed or injured in an Israeli artillery bombardment of Beit Hanoun in the north of Gaza Strip. A large number of women and children were also injured in the shelling.

The sources said the preliminary number of the citizens killed is 18, but rising. In addition, more than 35 were injured. Many of the dead arrived at the hospital fragmented in pieces.

The bombing targeted the house of two brothers, Sa'ed and Sa'di Al-'Athamneh from Al-Kafarneh district in the town of Beit Hanoun.

Eleven members of the Al-'Athamneh family were killed, including a one-year old girl. The killed are:

Ne'meh Al-'Athamneh
Mohammed Al-'Athamneh
Mahmoud Al-'Athamneh
Mahdi Al-'Athamneh
Sa'ed Al-'Athamneh
Moha,med Al-'Athamneh
Fatmeh Al-'Athamneh
Nihad Al-'Athamneh
Arafat Al-'Athamneh
Dima Al-'Athamneh (1-year-old girl)
Another young girl, Ala' Al-'Athamneh

The medical services are identifying the rest of the dead but it is proving difficult to identify them due to their fragmented bodies and the critical condition in which they arrived at the Kamal 'Udwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya. In Kamal 'Udwan Hospital, there are 12 dead and in Kamal Naser Hospital there are 4 dead. The number of people killed is raising by the minute.

Eyewitnesses said that the Israeli artillery bombed the houses while the residents were sleeping, resulting in the large number of casualties. Palestinians are comparing this massacre to the Qana massacre by the Israeli army in south Lebanon three months ago.

The government spokesman, Ghazi Hamad, appealed to the international community on the Al-Jazeera satellite channel to mobilize and stop Israel carrying out such massacres against unarmed Palestinians.

Reports are also coming in that armed Palestinians are firing at the European Union building in Gaza City.

Chicago anti-war musician burns himself to death in rush hour traffic

Local Musician Martyrs Himself for Peace
07 Nov 2006

Chicago Indymedia has learned that last Friday local music and art afficianado and peace advocate Malachi Ritscher burned himself to death on the side of the Kennedy Expressway near downtown Chicago during the morning rush hour. Near Malachi's remains, police found a camcorder with videotape inside and a homemade sign that read "Thou Shalt Not Kill."

Besides the note and videotape at the scene, Malachi also left a longer letter explaining his actions and his motivations. "What is one more life thrown away in this sad and useless national tragedy?" he wrote. "If one death can atone for anything, in any small way, to say to the world: I apologize for what we have done to you, I am ashamed for the mayhem and turmoil caused by my country."

Malachi was among more than seven hundred peace protesters who were illegally arrested on March 20, 2003, when thousands turned out to protest the beginning of the U.S. war on Iraq. His death, to date has received very little news coverage — and outlets that did report his death treated it as a simple suicide and the cause for slower-than-usual traffic that morning. The contents of the videotape he left have not been made public. Read more here, here and here.

Malachi's websites: savagesound | myspace

Seth Speaks

"There is no time schedule, and yet it is very unusual for an individual to wait for anything over three centuries between lives..."

Session 541, Page 152

Two Smart Books for Kids: A Reading 11/14

Martin Perna and Ricardo Cortés cross the continent to read from their children's books: "BLACKOUT!" and "It's Just a Plant" at Guerilla Cafe, Berkeley on Tues 11/14 at 6pm.

From Brooklyn with Love: Two Smart Books for Kids

A Reading November 14, 2006 at Guerilla Café, Berkeley

WHAT: Martín Perna and Ricardo Cortés will be reading from their children’s books BLACKOUT! and It’s Just a Plant. This event is FREE!

WHEN: 6 PM at Guerilla Café at 1629 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley, CA.

BLACKOUT!, written by Martín Perna (founder of musical group Antibalas and saxophonist for TV on the Radio), is a true tale of the 36 hour blackout that affected the northeast USA in 2003. Illustrated in a coloring book format by Ricardo Cortés, we see how urban communities unite to use their imaginations to cope without electricity and in the process discover the beauty of darkness. For more information on BLACKOUT! visit: http://www.theblackoutbook.com

In addition to illustrating BLACKOUT!, Ricardo Cortés is author and illustrator of It's Just a Plant, a children's story of marijuana. Ricardo will read excerpts from this controversial book, which has been called "a glimpse of what enlightened drug education could be," by Dr. Andrew Weil, and attacked by Bill O'Reilly and the Office of Federal Drug Policy. For more information of It's Just a Plant, check out: http://www.justaplant.com

The readings will begin at Guerilla Café shortly after 6pm, followed by book signing, discussion, and a collaborative coloring project of BLACKOUT! Refreshments will be served.

For more information visit: http://www.guerillacafe.com

Josh Wolf: Independent Media and "Professionalism"

[Editor's Note from Karen Slattery]:
Last month in our Ethics column, we called for a conversation about who counts or should count as a 'journalist' in the digital age. We are printing a response from the subject of that column, Josh Wolf. Wolf is in a California prison for refusing to turn over his video outtakes to a federal grand jury. Normally, The Digital Journalist does not print letters from readers in full. This month we are doing so because this problem is so important to the field. As Josh has no e-mail access in prison, his letter was typed and forwarded to us by his mother, Liz Wolf-Spada. She says that Josh in indeed the author. We hope that you will take a moment to read the letter, consider the issue and share your thoughts with us. We will follow up. The conversation is just beginning.

In your October Ethics column, "We Need to Talk...," you implicitly suggested that I should be protected from having to testify and provide my unpublished material, if and only if, I am a professional journalist. While I certainly understand your argument that a reporter's privilege must be very narrowly applied or the justice system would collapse, I cannot help but feel the criterion you've proposed is inherently flawed.

At best, the suggestion of narrowly defining who qualifies as a protected journalist will result in an elite class of professionals who work for mainstream media outlets, while reporters for the alternative press would be given no choice but to practice their craft without a net. More likely, I anticipate that this approach would establish a state-sanctioned journalist license, and anyone would be subject to having [his or] her license revoked should [he or] she stray from the party line. At worst, independent voices could be subject to prosecution for practicing journalism without a license.

The First Amendment was not written to protect the Hearst Corporation and its thousands of employees, although it certainly should. When the Founding Fathers set out to guarantee a free press they really did seek to protect independent journalists and pamphleteers, such as Thomas Paine and his Common Sense.

The problem with only protecting professionals, while denying these protections to those who do not rely on their reportage to support themselves financially is two-fold. For one, students of journalism must be protected - if they are not, they will be denied the opportunity to engage in serious newsgathering during their education and thus [be] unprepared to enter the field as professionals. Secondly, if independents are denied these protections, then who will report on mainstream journalists who abuse their professional standing?

What about the stories that are ignored or neglected by the mainstream media? Are those issues really not worthy of coverage simply because the established media has deemed them unfit for airtime? If it is important that these stories are covered, then isn't it also important that journalists investigating these stories be protected?

Who should be protected? As Jeff Jarvis mused previously, Tony Soprano shouldn't be able to insulate himself by simply creating a blog, but I do feel that the mommy-blogger who happens to break a story about a dishonest baby food company should not be forced to out her confidential sources. In my opinion, anyone's journalist activities should be protected whether or not he is paid for his work. After all, a journalist is supposedly a public servant and if he or she is working due to his or her own conscience and without financial compensation, how can this possibly invalidate him or her as a public servant?

But would this broad application to the journalist shield lead the justice system to collapse? I doubt it, but there is a more sensible approach to limiting these protections without establishing an exclusive class of protected journalists. By applying a balancing test between the need for law enforcement to obtain this information against the damage that would be inflicted to the rights of a free press, many of these cases can be resolved without the establishment of a state-sanctioned press.

For example, in my case the federal government has asserted that a protester threw a firework in the vicinity of a police car four days after the Fourth of July. The U.S. Attorney has argued that this was an attempt to burn the San Francisco police vehicle and should therefore be a federal investigation, but according to the police report, the car did not burn. Despite the fact that I've stated for the record that I neither filmed nor witnessed the alleged incident and despite the fact that we've offered to screen the complete footage for the judge, I am currently sitting in a federal prison cell for protecting my sources and unpublished material.

If I were to submit to the government demands, then it would no longer be possible for sources to trust me with privileged information; I would be denied the unfettered access that I've been granted as a result of establishing a trusted relationship with Bay Area activists, and I would thus be unable to fully report on civil dissent in the San Francisco region. Forcing me to comply with this subpoena would and has created a chilling effect, which should be balanced against the federal government's need to investigate the alleged crime that may have occurred and which resulted, if it even happened, in no significant damage to the police vehicle that suffered only a broken taillight.

- Josh Wolf