The Second Event

"9/11.2″ Just weeks before the election of 2008, the Liberian registered cruiseship, Fanataseas, set off el Qaeda’s first atomic bomb beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. President Bush and Vice-President Pelosi were immediately rushed to Guantanamo to secure them from possible indigenous terrorists. In the now famous, “Dawn over Havana Meeting” they appeared with President Raul Castro, to announce that Western Hemisphere nations had united behind the staggered colossus of the north to prevent any wide spread violence and bring aid to the stricken regions of New York and New Jersey. Castro’s kind gesture would later lead to the Monrovian alliance and the formation of the Hemispheric Union (see Treaty of Bolivar).

Of course the immediate and intended effect was on the US election. As later revealed in the biography of Caliph Mouassa Ali, this was the intent of Osmar bin Laden,(see founder of el Qaeda, first president of Islamic Republic of Arabia). The American voters immediately turned away from the likely election of Mrs. Clinton (see William Clinton, Martha Stewart, Chief Justice Rodham) and vice Presidential candidate Stephen Jobs (see Apple-Sony) to the more militant Rudolph Giuliani and Thomas Franks(see war crimes trial, Montreal ).

The overwhelming election of November 2008, leading to the “permanent majority” is well described in the 2011 edition of “A Handmaid’s Tale, II” by Margaret Attwood. Senator Atwood, writing from her home in the breakaway province of Free Cascadia, tells how the believers of America and teh Islammic Umaya finally found common cause leading to the restoration of the Caliphate.

History of the Islamic Century, Daoud ibn Saladin, New Mecca Press 2210

Ana Mari Cauci, a long time UW faculty member and activist, is now in the administration. Recently she wrote a response to faculty concerned that the Administration had mad salary decsiohnjs without the involvement of the faculty as required by the Faculty Code. Our School is fortunate in having a Faculty Code that is part of State Law/ The admin. says it tries to compby by a model they call shared governance and Dr. Cauci, now an admin. tries to explain the porcess in re the salary issue.

Her response (below) is well met. Her commitment is one of the best features of the new mood brought by President Emmert and Provost Wise. At the same time, her response illustrates the real complexity and the apparent reality of the inability of the faculty
to participate in the administrative process.

OOOPS ... did I say "apparent?"

The lack of authority of the Faculty in decision making is apparent, not just in this issue but in many other issues. The current administration, unlike some previous administrations, seems sincerely committed to communication and involvement of the faculty. However, the existing system, like the system of the soviets, effectively precludes faculty from real involvement in governance ... not only in regard to salaries but even in regard to such direct academic issues as the function of the branch campuses, graduation requirements, and student discipline.

Brad Holt, in his one year term as President of the Senate, tried hard to reform the system by insisting that the admin actually use faculty councils. From my limited perspective, Brad failed. Critical academic decisions are being made by committees where faculty may not even be present.

One step to the better has, I understand, been made by moving the Secretary of the Faculty's salary form the Provost's budget to the Senate's budget. Kudos for this step!

A lot more could and should be done, taking advantage of the legal precedent set by the Storti case and the apparent good will and sense of the Emmert administration.

1. Faculty Legal Advisor. The Senate should have the financial resources to employ an attorney to advise faculty on their rights. The usual argument has been that that the U can not pay for such a position because of the State constitutional prohibition of attorneys, other than the Attorney General, representing State units. This argument is specious. The Admin has a huge cohort of attorneys working in capacities that range from investigation of faculty misdeeds to IP. If this is allowed for one component of the UW, it must be allowed for all.

2. Faculty Councils. The Code is very clear that these councils must exist as part of governance of any UW activity that is academic. What is missing is an enforcement mechanism. The Senate should have the means to insist that such Councils work.

3. Senate Structure. The existing structure of the Senate, with leadership roating eveey year, guarantees an unequal relationship to the administration. Some way around this should be sought. Since changing the Code is onerous, it would be worth looking at ways the Senate can effect this within the existing structure. I see two ways this could be done. First, the Senate could create and the Admin could agree to fund, an Executive Director of the Senate. This would be a longer term position (like Secretary of the Faculty) and would have the resources to provide continuity. Again this would require that the Admin increase the Senate's budget. Alternatively, the admin itself, amidst the proliferation of Deans, vice Deans. assistant Deans, and similarly title Provosts, Directors etc, could create a position that would be responsible to the Senate.

Returning to my analogy to the soviets, consider the difference between WWLD? (What Would Lenin Do?) and WWJD? (What Would Jefferson Do?). Jefferson's life long insistence on the ideals of democracy, meeting up with the reality of the need to govern, led to the American system. The UW could learn from his example.

On 5/16/07, Ana Mari Cauce wrote:

Dear Colleagues,

I have contributed to this list on and off over the years, but have been
mostly off in ths last couple as I am now one of those "administrators"
and have believed it is inappropriate for this list to become a
mouthpiece for administration. But, I have talked (in person or e-mail)
with a few frequent contributors who have urged me to give my
perspective, and have decided to at least try to address a few areas
touched upon recently.

ON BUDGET AND CONSULATION

There is no question in my mind that we (e.g. admin) could have done a
better job of consulting with the Senate Planning and Budget Committee
on budget allocations, especially in non-salary areas. By the end of
SCPB we were already working on setting a date for a subgroup of SCPB to
meet to begin those conversations. It is set for Friday of this week,
AFTER the Regents meeting -- which should make it clear that continuing
discussion on budget were already planned. The budget going to the
Regents this week is as an information item only, there was NEVER any
plan to vote on it or ratify it until the next meeting on June 17th. It
is not, and was never intended to be, a fait accompli. This is the very
first time the Regents will be seeing it, and I suspect they'd have a
few things to say about anyone thinking its final.

If folks don't feel there was enough consultation now, I can just begin
to imagine how they'd feel if a draft budget didn't go to the Regents
until June 17th when most faculty and students will be away. If the
budget were not made public until then, with a vote on ratification not
happening until the dead of summer in July -- folks would have much more
reason to be upset by process.

Please recall, the budget was only signed by the Governor on May 7th, we
saw it in final form on the 20 something of April, so we only had a few
weeks to turn things around to get something to the Regents before
summer. This leaves a very tight schedule for consultation on exact
figures.

What is clear to me now is that we need to talk about allocations before
we really know what the budget will be. Lesson learned. But, I do want
to say, and I do not think this will be disputed by anyone on SCPB --
there is no question that SCPB members have asked admin that has not
resulted in a direct answer or in further information.

ON FACULTY SALARIES

This year the total proposed increase in faculty salaries is about 6.7%.
(The actual allocation may vary from this depending on the unit
adjustment process and amount). 2 merit/no merit, 2.5 extra
meri/compression/inequities, 2 unit adjustments (1 of this from college
allocations), .2 for promotions. This is the best salary package the
faculty will have seen in over a decade (the best I can recall in my 21
years here, but my memory is imperfect. In 2000 we were almost 13%
behind the HECB-24 (our nominal peers) 75th percentile of faculty
salaries, at this point we are 4.7% behind. By the end of this salary
period we should be between 2 and 3% points behind the HECB 75th
percentile. Our catch-up on faculty salaries is moving faster than our
catch-up on per student funding.


ON SALARY ALLOCATIONS

If you look up the budget given to the Regents, you will see salary
allocation listed as 2% regular merit (which is the minimum mandated by
faculty code) and 2.5% for extra merit/inequities/compressioin. This
allocation was meant to provide the type of "flexible pool" talked about
on this listserve. We got voluminous information from SCPB about
compression and how it varied widely from unit to unit. Since faculty
distributions vary so widely from unit to unit, the only way to make any
real progress is to deal with some of this at the unit level. This can
only be done with a flexible pot as some here have noted. An allocation
of 2.5% as extra merit/compression/inequities does not mean that a unit
can't make the decision that their meritorious faculty will see 3% as
merit. In fact, at a Board of Deans meeting before SCPB and at the SCPB
meeting itself, the Provost made it clear that her expectation is that
unless there is good reason for why this is not the case, all
meritorious faculty should be seeing at least 3% increases. I would not
be surprised if something of this sort weren't in the directives to
Deans about salary allocations.


Another aspect of this budget is the proviso for unit adjustments. We
have heard a great deal on this list not only about compression between
faculty members, but about how some units are much further behind that
others. For the first time since I've been here, we have a plan to
ensure that not only will the faculty, as a whole, reach the HECB 75th
percentile, but that no individual unit will be appreciably behind the
HECB 50th, which we view as a floor. In the past there have been some
allocations to make sure that no unit is more than 20% behind the HECB
50th, but our present goal is to get us to a point where all units are
no different (statistically speaking) from that mark.

Thus, we are trying to deal with two of our salary problems
simultaneously --- getting the full faculty average to the HECB 75th (we
are projected to be within 2 percentage points away, if not closer, by
the end of the biennium) and to get ALL units to the HECB 50th (it
should take a couple of biennium to get there). In addition, by
providing salary allocation in as flexible a way as allowed, we provide
units the best tool possible to deal with internal inequities between
highy meritorious faculty.


We can, and should, continue to debate whether this is the best
allocation strategy. We can, and should, continue to debate and have
conversations about other areas of budget allocations. (For example,
with rising tuition, it is imperative that we do something significant
for our students, and we must do something about our crumbling
infrastructure, and for areas related to compliance and human resources
-- remember the pleas on this list about safety, about human subjects,
about our information technology?) The next few weeks will surely be
busy ones as we begin to move toward a budget ratification. We can, and
will, utilize SCPB better, and earlier, in the process in the future.

But, let's not lose sight of the fact that the overall budget picture,
and the overall salary picture, is one of good news. There is a great
deal of research (psychological and historical --remember Hobsbawm?)
that discontent peaks during times of rising expectations. And, having
lived through the McCormick years, I understand the distrust of admin.
Even under the best of circumstance, some tension there is healthy and
needed. But, as I've told a few colleagues, I fear we are on the brink
of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

The opinions expressed here are mine and only mine. But, thought another
persepctive (albeit from the darkside) might be useful


Ana Mari

The Ultimate Service

Skip Bacevich, son of Boston University professor Andrew J. Bacevich. has died after a bomb burst in Iraq. "Service to country was obviously a family trait," a General who knew him said. "Skip was a great role model for young officers."

The senior Bacevich, is a major critic of the war. he is also a retired Army Colonel with service in 'Nam and Iraq 1.0. The contrast with the typical Bushie is very disturbing. Can there be a just war when our President insists that war is fought without personal sacrifice?

Antisemitism Persists in Europe.

Recent polls show that 39% of Europeans still believe that we dominate world finance.

The Mitzvah

Sad afternoon. It was Mother's Day but Barb and I attended an open house to remember the death of Paul Raymond, a friend we met through our Temple.

Paul's life was memorialized by his wife Ellen Taussig in an hour long story telling. Weirdly, Ellen's oration explained something very important to me. How was Paul a Jew?

Paul, was born a Methodist, practiced as a Presbyterian Elder, and converted to Judaism as part of his life with Ellen. When we met, it seemed to me that Paul lived without religious conviction. I was blind. Paul lived a Jewish life even before becoming one of us. Judaism must have seemed normal to someone who grew up as a rebel in a Kansas farm town where liberalism and learning were equally irrelevant to most people's lives. Like Maya Angelou, from a young age, Paul had a drive to read and learn. His drive that was itself a form of rebellion, a rebellion familiar to every young Jew who has rebelled atg the Talmud by turning to science or law. Paul's rebellion grew to become a need, a need to learn as much as he could about history, a drive to support fairness by marching for civil rights and, later, working for voting rights.

When we first met Paul, his liberalism seemed contradictory. As a teacher in private schools, and founder of the Northwest School, Paul fought a quixotic battle .. the battle for private schools to share their excellence with all kids. Isn't this a contradiction? How can one work in a private school while serving the goals of Dr. King? While wanting all kids to have opportunities to learn, how can one teach in a school dependent on the wealthy? The Northwest School depends on the children of Seattle's wealthy for its very existence.

The NW School may well be a contradiction in a Christian sense. Would Jesus have been successful if he dined with Pilate on fine foods and taught ethics in a Roman School? St. Augustine would not have considered such a life as an act of charity. Look at the candidacy of John Edwards for President. Senator Edwards is truly devoted, I believe, to helping the poor. BUT Attorney Edward's good deeds are hurt by the millions of dollars this poverty lawyer made in class action suits . Would Jesus be Jesus without sacrifice? Listening to Ellen, I began to think more of Mr. Edwards.

In Judaism, a good deed justifies itself. We are taught to do good NOT in praise of the Deity, but because doing good is the law. In Judaism, the law exists just as the Deity exists. The law is real. The Law is the Torah and the Torah teaches good deeds, laws called Mitvot. The mitzvot exist eternally. There is no requirement for Jews to proclaim a belief in the Deity, but Jews must follow the Mitzvot. Judaism is built on the same natural law that Jefferson used as the foundation of the American system of laws. Jews hold the mitzvot to be innately true.

How does this relate to Paul Raymond? Long before meeting Ellen and becoming a jew, Paul Raymond saw his need to teach as a deed justified by itself. Paul was adamant about the need to do good things, adamant for his own life and adamant that his students learn the lessons of mitzvot from the reality of history. Just as Judaism teaches that you should do good deeds simply because they are the right thing to do, Paul taught the same thing. When Paul converted, this proud Scot joined a community whose most central belief was already Paul's practice.

Christians often ask, WWJD? One reason I am NOT a Christian in that I suspect Jesus would give charity with the blessings of his religion. Isn't the essence of Christianity the self sacrifice to appease the Deity's ire for man's sins? Charity should not be adulterated by the Deity.Who do YOU admire more Medecin sans Fronteir (an organization founded by French Jews) or World Vision? Both do good but MSF does this good simply to help others!

Bye Paul, we will miss you at Seder.

Based on a discussion from the HorsesAss.

Beam Me Up

Scotty, the actor who played the grumpy engineer on Startrek, has failed at his last mission.

The actor paid to be blasted into space .. or at least for his ashes to get launched in orbit. Unfortunately and really sadly the rocket failed, went of course, and Scotty;s ashes now adorn a mountain top someplace in New Mexico. Two weeks after the launch, the rocket containing the ashes of Star Trek actor James Doohan has not yet been found.

Awesome Comedy

This is a hilarious video from the Colbert Report. What happens when Stephen Colbert meets Barbarella?

Elections In France

Some folks are seeing a portent of the 2008 election in the defeat of a the French socialist with their single mom female candidate.

This is another illustration of the fantasy world the right lives in. Royal is to Hillary as Bush is to Jefferson. She could never run for President here. On the other hand, by US standards Sarkozy is somewhat to the left of Mao. He is no more a rightist than James Webb or Obama or .. Hillary.

What he DOES represent is a reaction to France;s Muslim issues. The elcetion shows a belief by the French that they are a distinct people, albeit one that others can JOIN if they are willing to become French. If there is a lesson here it is to the irredentist liberals who see nothing anomalous in 12 to 60 million new Chicanos suddenly becoming American with out a profound effect on our shared, if confusing "American" culture.

Probably good news for Israel AND the Palestinians too. A constructive France could do a lot of good!

SAM not SAAM

Well, I was wrong. The new SAM is a big improvement and now deserves to be called an Art Museum. The new space is simple and unobtrusive and meanders. meanders is the important word for me. I like the sense of disorder in a museum much ore than the kind of regimented flow patterns a lot of new spaces have, esp. the National Gallery in DC (by IM Pei).
I can not remember ever seeing such an unobtrusive museum. The space is pretty much neutral, as if one took a large office building and retasked it as a museum. Of course this is also the Washington Mutual Bank building, but few banks would have the high ceilings and grand spaces needed to be a museum. The outside is, with the exception of the old Venturi Museum's entrance, one more glass sided downtown Seattle nondescript office building. Without signs you would not know that this was an Art Museum rather than the home of various corporate entities, a lawyer or two and a food court.
The best part of the museum is that it has a lot of art, a lot. Wandering through is like visiting a wealthy person's home .. lots of flotsam and jetsam and then .. wow! a Rothkow or Motherwell, or Pollack! The highlights for me were the Northwest art .. a lot of Tobey, some Graves (two really bad ones), didn't see any Callahan or Cage. Still, I have already decided that several of the Tobies are "mine." One made me cry!
Another favorite is a Korean piece of modern sculpture by Doh Ho Suh. .. a Korean dress grown huge and made out of dogtags. I remember when this piece was first shown in Seattle .. I loved it then and still do now. Glad to find that we own it now.
The worst is what is left of the original Venturi building. Fortunately there is no much left other than the stupid hammering man statue and Venturi's grand staircase. This stupidity still goes from nowhere to nowhere. Actually, the grandiose stairs now seem utterly irrelevant to the rest of the building... more or less like an odd set of overbuilt back stairs.
There is also still a sense of nouveau richeness to the place. The entry galleries had a a car show rool flavor with ugly cars turned into chandeliers for no obvious reason. And there were a miscellaneous collection of Warhols and Oldeburgs pop art. Passe, so Passe. Same for a lot of the older European and American art. One good sarget, but the rest were embarrassing .. examples of what happens when folks get rich too late to buy up the good stuff.
Aw hell .. so what? Walk around and there is a lot of good stuff t see. The Coastal Art finally has a decent spade, the African Art is .. well I need to g back. My fave? The Jacob Lawrence gallery!
This tribute to Mr. Lawrence works because it IS a tribute to a great Northwest artist rather than a tribute to a donor. Why couldn't the museum do more of this? One of the greatest art shows I ever saw was an exhibit of the Seattle School at the Tacoma Glass Museum. This was during the opening of this museum, itself a paen to Chihuly, and the curator must have wanted to connect the glass art movement to the hyistory of art i9n the Northwest. That history is unique. The settlers who came here encountered a high artistic culture. Art was an omnipresent integral part of the coastal people's culture. Raven the carving was a way of expressing the reality of raven the deity AND the unity of man and nature. It is difficult not to imagine that this spirit did not osmose into the later nature art tradition of the Seattle School.

Sorry, I have not identified the Seattle School with its most prominent artists . Graves, Tobey, Callahan, and Cage. Their joint work celebrated the same unity of nature, art as well as poetry, music as one sees in the traditional paintings of a bentwood box. The paintings at first seem to be pure geometry, but the geometry resolves itself into animal parts .. eyes, joints, feathers, and fins. Then, these same part metamorphose into people. Graves and Tobey .. consciously or not, continue this amazing tradition. Grave,s "Folded Wing" (left) is one examle .. unfortunately it really does not work online. Thats is why we need a museum!

Maybe I am imagining all this, but it would be a wonderful step if the SAM brought its Northwest school works together! If the curators are reading what I write, please look at it this way ... visitors to Seattle come form Paris and Tokyo, London and Boston. Every city has a museum, some greater than others. With all due respect to Warhol, Lichenstein, Oldenburg . pop art can be seen anywhere. It is a generic form, a generic idea. Moreover, much of this work is easily duplicated. I have seen Warhol's Marilyn as an original (I think) and as a print .. which is real? Exposing these generic pieces, including the Hammering Man sculpture at the front entrance of OUR museum, implies that Seattle is no more than a lately rich community.

So, I will retract my terminology. I will accept SAM as the Seattle Art Museum rather than its former name, the Seattle Aren't Art Museum, because there are so many wonderful thngs to see. I hope thoough, SAM will begin to see itself as more of a stimulus to Art itslef, that we will see a lot more creativity and celebration of artists as opposed to collectors.

Iraq Bans Medical Diplomas

Iraq Bans Medical Diplomas To Keep Doctors From Fleeing

The Washington Post | Karin Brulliard | May 5, 2007 07:53 AM

Iraq is hemorrhaging doctors as violence racks the nation. To stem the flow, the Iraqi government has recently taken a cue from Saddam Hussein: Medical schools are once again forbidden to issue diplomas and transcripts to new graduates.

Hussein built a fine medical system in part by withholding doctors' passports and diplomas. Although physicians can work in Iraq with a letter from a medical school verifying their graduation, they say they need certificates and transcripts to work abroad.

This reminds me, I have wanted to post a question: Why, if we are defending Iraq have we seen so few Iraqis coming to the US? Wouldn't it make sens eif we are trying to Americanize the place to have a LOT of Iraqi students coming here on exchange? That certainly has happeend with other countries we have invaded.

I suspect the Bushies are blocking Iraqi immigration or even exchange programs for security reasons.

The Genetics of Food Safety

Safety is a Mirage

The melamine scandal may be real ... a lot of fuss about a generally inert ingredient that admittedly does not belong in the food supply.

Before going to far with this specific adulteration issue, in the spirit of WWJD, we really need to rethink a lot of drivel about food.

Lets start with the mythology that food grown by small farmers using natural fertilizers and no pesticides is safer.

Really? Safer than what?

How much do you know about the content of "organic" foods? What if they are grown in selenium rich soil, is that OK? How about fluoride rich soil? Do you prefer horse shit or chicken shit to chemically defined fertiizers? Is the chicken shit from prion free chickens? Any reader here who likes fresh fish might look up the Minimata scandal on the web.

Ever hear about the problems with organic peanut butter ... likely to be contaminated by aflatoxin a potent carcinogen unless specially stored.

Here are a few Food Facts:

1. In the wild, humans lived for only about 40 years. We pretty much know this from the timing of mesnes and onset of debilitating age . And primitive peoples are not esp healthy, despite an "organic" small farmer environment. Evolution had no reason to select us to find a diet etc. to last any longer.

Remember primitive peoples did not have access to the choices of food we have today. There were no oranges in the caves of France! I also doubt the cro-magnin knew which foods to eat to get vitamin C. There is likely no "natural" human diet.

2. Modern agriculture (modern meaning anything for the last few hundred years) does terrible things .. monoculture of plants and animals, concentration of plants and beasts in small areas, etc. As a result many farm animals have endemic viruses. Shall we stop mass producing chicken?

3. "organic" is largely a myth. AIDS probably arose because humans ate organic monkey meat. Which do you prefer ... cow dung or pure nitrates as a fertilizer?

So what to do?

1, decrease the population to sustainable levels.

IDEA: PEOPLE CREDITS ... I will guarantee not to have any more kids if you pay me enough!

IDEA: Instead of carbon credits, buy sterilizations! The ultimate antiabortion step! Imagine, "This is Jimmy, I paid $3000 to sterilize a woman in the Ibixi Province of Rawanda! I like buying baby credits from Americans for a Lesser Africa!"

2. INCREASE funding for the FDA. Seriously, our ONLY defense is surveillance and food research. The FDA and the Center for Disease Control are at least as important as the Army to our national defense.

IDEA: label foods with a "safe to eat" rating based on how much we KNOW. Of course this would largely mean all the crap in the "health food stores" would be LOW RATED!

3. Play the Japan game. Japan protects its farmers (NOT ITS PUBLIC) by very cautious laws on what can and can not be imported. We could do the same. E.g. any evidence eof use of human feces as fertilizer or cohabitation by humans and domestic animals would rule out importation from places like China.

IDEA: stp importing foods that do not meat US safety standards. This will raise the price of imported food and make $$ for American farmers.

4. Encourage crop and animal species diversity. Are you worried about food? What happens when ALL the world is eating 3 kinds of cloned rice? The PROBABILITY of a bad genetic event is close to a certainty under these conditions. We have a major need for a systematic effort to maintain diversity on the genomes of our food.

Based on essay at HorsesAss

A Proposal for Seattle Center

There is a movement to redo the Seattle Center. I think this is an idea whose time has come. The Center is adrift with no clear direction other than its role as home to several of Seattle theaters and the opera.

My idea? We can build on the presence of those theaters by taking advantage of the City's cultural history. I suggest re-themeing SC as the Seattle World Cultural Center.

Start by moving the Burke! The Museum could make great use of exisiting buildings and would be a great magnet if it were in a grander space. The forlorn statue of Chief Seattle would then be moved to a hilltop in the new Center and the DayBreak Star center would be encouraged to build an urban outpost as well.

This could help clarify the functions of the Burke as well. Why do we have a museum that combines dinosaurs and Pac Rim cultures? Isn't this a racist subtlety assigning mdodern native peoples to extinction?

As part of this transformation, the Burke would become more like the Smithsonian, a collaboration fo museums. The first such would be a museum for NW indigenes ... dedicated to the Salish peoples.

Hopefully the SAM would chip in by putting a Branch in the center for its wonderful African and NW connections. The Wing Luke could move too.

Other ethnic groups would be encouraged to raise funds for a Center presence .. this would be a hell of a lot better place for the AA museum then the seedy old school now under reconstruction. Seattle's (wealthy) Sephardic community, as one example, is discussing building a Sephardi culture center. Why not at the Seattle Center? How about a Buddhist Temple on site? A museum honoring the Scandahoovians is long overdue. We could even invite the Saudis and Chinese to contribute!

The best part is that this approach would take advantage of the wonderful ethnic festivals that we have weekly at the Center House. BUT, why not make thes international ? Work with the visitor's bureau to attract ethnic festivals from around the world! Bumbershoot as well.

Finally, I would build a new Seattle pUblic School campus on site! Seattle badly needs a prestigous center city high school and creating one around world culture, taking advantage of the performing arts centers already there and the new Burke, seems all to natural!.

Obama Meetup

Anyone who wants to see the Obama Meetup? Click on the links!

slideshow OR pictures.

The meeting was a bit of a disappointment. Turn out was modest and few African Americans were there, esp. given the location .. Mt. Zion Baptist Church. . I thought the folks running it were not too good either. To professional, too preachy, nowhere enough OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA! Sam McKinney talked .. this his him in the picture. Do you know Sam? he is the long term pastor art Mt Zion, a true Scion of Seattle, His voice is getting weak now but at one time he made me think he was G-d. sam is getting a bit out-of-date. He ushed the old fashioned ideas of affirmative action.. proud to be a Democrat with one woman, one Hispanic, and one African running. Proud??? OK, but then he went on to say this was threatening to the whites. Sam, Sam ... we are goig t vote for Barack BECAUSE he is one of us, not because he is Black.

I was also surprised they did not have an Obama speech. This guy is a great speaker! Why not have a little bit of the man cheering us all on?

The organizer gave a weak speech on why BO is the man, flubbing th experience bit all together. Then they had a lady who is active in exchange programs with Kenya .. great lady, enthusiasm bubbled out of her. One sour note? She told a story about who folks in Kenya think highly of BO's dad ..the fell who abandoned young Barak in Hawaii .

Best part was meetin some Republicans who had come out of a sense that this time, THEIR candidate was running as a Democrat. Yay!! Yay !!

Barack for President

Contribute to this campaign at my fundraiser.

Actually I am thrilled by Hillary and Edwards and Richardson. Any of these have the skill to lead .. and we need leadership. I could even vote for Hagel or McCain, except for one thing:

leadership

We have not had a person with the charisma needed within the US and, perhaps as important, across, the world, to get people to come together, to sacrifice, and be proud of who they are.

I have a dream, Given the odd mi of divorced, Mormon, lapsed Catholic, skeptics .. etc that comprise the Reublican Presidential panoply, can you imagine the Covert, Obama, speaking in a mega church? It has already happened!

DONATE

WWJD Part 2.

Irony. The Traditional Values coalition has published this poster to justify their position versus gays. These people need a mirror! how can they fail to see that they depict their own God as a bigot when they do this?

Indeed the contradictions in the "Bible" are the source of a lot of hate crime. It is notable that there is only one place in the Bible (that is the Cristian compilation) where tolerance of others beliefs is expressed .. the Torah celebrates the prophecies of a pagan prophet called Balaam.

Jesus and tolerance do not go together very well unless it means tolerance of those who follow him. Take the story of the money changers. This is worthy of an antisemitic screed in the Nazi's Der Sturmer , Of course money was changed in the Temple courtyard. The Temple was the source of authority, for better or worse, esp under the Roman supported Hasmonean Kings. The story is an effective turnaround, the Jews .. they profane the Temple .. yet the Temple itself was misused in that Era by the quisling priests just as much later complicit priests would support fascist regimes.,

I wonder if there is not someplace in the Christian world a seer whow could redeploy the mythology of Jesus in a spirit of tolerance?

Low Expectations of SAAM

Crosscut has a piece extolling the expanded Seattle Art museum. Call me a skeptic. The original SAM, the old Seattle Art museum, was quite wonderful. A jewel case of a building in an amazing location with an idiosyncratic collection of Asian Art. I am not convinced that expanding this place will solve the underlying problem of poor taste.

The downtown SAAM emerged when the uppah crust organized themselves to turn a JC Penney's into what I call "SAAM and the other SAAM." One SAAM, of course, is the Seattle Asian Art Museum, the heiress of the original SAM. Sadly the new SAAM ...stripped the old girl of her wonderful camels .. now replaced by faux dromedaries.

With hard labor, many PONCHO auctions, and subsidies from YLC (your loyal city), the poobahs hired an incompetent architect to build an ugly building cloned from standard plan #25. Venturi's build-a-museum is nothing if not ran inferior imitation of suburban shopping centers. The first time I saww his building, I had to go to South Center t relieve my anxiety.

Other than a trite exterior, Venturi's SAAM has weird shaped galleries, a grand stair case to nowhere (with the real camels), and a cheapo post WWII wind up Japanese toy as its grand symbol.

And what is this SAAM called? of course the Seattle Aren't Art Museum. So, in my head, SAM still exists in Volunteer Park, while SAAM lives downtown.

It is not that there hasn't been any art in downtown SAAM. The African collection is wonderful, if you can find it hidden in back. And there are a few pieces from the era of Seattle's great painters. A glance at Toby and Graves but nothing to rival a show at Foster White or at Tacoma's Glass Museum. . Instead we see restrikes, ......Jasper Johns' 12th version of his flag or some ... other piece that stood the test of time. lasting unpurchased on the wall of some New York gallery. It is not that I am ungrateful to the donors of this stuff, but anyone unprivileged to visit the MFA in Boston, The Art Institute in Chicago, the Whitney, the Guggenheim , or even the LA Musum of Art, must find relief that there is nothing new in Seattle.

Perhaps the most disturbing SAAM exhibit for me has been the Disney-esque presentation of Coastal peoples' art .. gathered on the floor. A kitchen midden of sculptures, lit from below by red lights evocative of a bar on skid row. I cried when I spotted a Mungo Martin Raven trying to free himself from this flotsam and jestsam. OH YEH .. there were two totem poles at the entrance, pushed up against the faux ceiling , groaning with the weight of the building. Someone should tell the curator that this is great art, not ethnic trash.

Then the poobahs built us a sculpture park. Wunnaful, wunnaful. Calder # 32, Stella #12, Northwest artists??? Northwest sculptors ??? Must be too expensive for the poobahs. Hell I like Calder, Gotta get down there some time. me

So now we will see the grander, newer, bigger downtown emporium of art. I will have to go look. I will have to go look.

Given my depression from the past, it has to be better????

WWJD

I had a hard time figuring out this acronym before I caught the idea it was about Jesus. But, my hero is not the itinerent preacher or Dionysian Deity, my hero is Jefferson,

So, here is a new logo. It is copyrighted.

Of Shabat and Baghdad

Even though Barb and I now are usually alone Friday nights, we still try to have a Shabat .. a little chicken, some challah and .. well just the four of us, .. Moshe the dog and Tsono the cat included, watch some TV read books, and then enjoy a shared warm bed. Some parts of getting old are wonderfuil.

But this Friday night we decided instead to go to a talk. The talk was supposed to be by Riyadh Lafta, an Iraqi epidemiologist who published a study in the Lancet, estimating the frequency of deaths as a result of the Bush Blunder. The epidemiology goes on and collateral deaths are a serious issue to most Americans, but the US government somehow manages to not publish meaningful figures. Dr. Lafta was invited to our campus by Amy Hagopian and all seemed well until the US government with the compliance of the British government refused to grant Dr. Lafta a visa or even allow transit through Heathrow so that he could land in BC and speak at Simon Fraser. Amy Hagopian of the UW quickly arranged a speech by Les Roberts, one of the co-authors of the original study.


This Soviet/'South African style repression of free speech really pissed me off so we decided to go to the protest. Seemed like an apt use of Shabat since we always pause during the candles to wish peace to people we know are working for peace. .

Well worth the time. The talk was simulcast from Simon Fraser in BC because the fall back plan had been for him to speak from there with a video link to Kane Hall. Some of the collaborators on the project were at the British Columbia site and joined in the discussion.

Roberts was very impassioned. His anti-Bush war persona was perhaps too strong . Much more important was the case he made for the accuracy of the Lancet article and the frightening story of Bush efforts to repress even this little morsel of truth. Better than Challah .. worth blessing Amy for making this happen.

To be honest the numbers are not all that surprising. The Lancet data showed something like a doubling of the normal death rate, hardly a surprise. In contrast our government claims, with no data in a reviewed journal and no support from any outside agency, that the increase in deaths is only 10%. 10% is absurd! What benefit is there to our country by this sort of stupidity? Goebbels was more successful at propaganda than Msrs. Bush and Rove.

To make matters worse, the "media" ... the same media derided by the Fauxistas and Limbaughs as "left" has in its typical cowardly way insisted on "balance." What is balance? Science is not "balanced" because science requires always taking a critical view. A balanced view is not the same thing as a critical view. In the "mainstream media" balance means finding the rare voice of opposition, even if the voice is a small minority and lacking in expert credentials. In this case, the media got scientists without skills in population science or statistics to offer criticisms.

The worst of it is this derogatory cartoon in my photo, treating the investigators of this peer reviewed study as illiterate peasants. What all this does point out, however, is the deep problem for for debate of any paper. Roberts told us about the lengths the NY Times went to t find an epidemiologist who would criticize the Lancet study. The obfuscatin over global warming is all to familiar. That said, Dr. Robert's arguments ad absurdam that the official estimates of 10% make no sense. How can we hear day by day the Baghdad morgue is full and its cemeteries no longer able to accept burials if this is true? Goebbels understoof the gig lie. So did Stalin. Neither, however, had this well developed anility to use a "democratic" media to distort the truth. It seems to me that the scientific community is cowardly of they do not stand up to this Stalinesque behavior.

During Dr. Roberts talk I felt he hurt his case by adopting the persona of the radical antiwar activist. Certainly this must cost the study some credibility, but he would be less than honest if he did not declare his allegiance.

I was also disappointed by the audience. Lots of (older) familiar faces and very few students. A few hajib clad muslims but no openly Jewish folks,gays, or even the Young Democrats. Equally sad, though to be expected there were no obviously publican folks either. The official UW leadership was notably absent as well. Sad.

It is also too bad the talk was not in the med school. Dr. Roberts is no creature of some leftish peace movement. He is a professor of epidemiology at Hopkins. Given the relevance of his message to our students future patients, esp. to veterans who return with post traumatic stress, but possibly because some of the students will end up serving as medics if we can not find a way out.

Other disappointments: the audience was nealry racially pure. A few Asian faces, maybe 1 or 2 African faces. Apartheid is alive and well in liberal America. My other concern was that some folks objected to my being there as a photographer. I try hard to be unobtrusive. Unfortunately my SLR is not totally silent but I use NO flash. However,l objecting to cameras is wrong .. just as it was wrong of the Publicans to not want me at the Rove affair. Photography is part of free speech. If anything it is sad that the official media, the same folks who go to absurd lengths to find some "balance "to the Lancet paper, were not there.

Click here for more images.

Antisemitic and Anticatholic Bias vs Patients and Chaplains at the National Instututes of Health

By Jacqueline L. Salmon

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 14, 2007; Page A01

The spiritual ministry department of the National Institutes of Health, which serves patients being treated in the nation's premier research hospital, is in disarray and battling a lawsuit and discrimination complaints that allege bias against Jewish and Catholic chaplains.

In February, a federal panel ordered the hospital to reinstate a Catholic priest who was wrongfully fired in 2004. In January, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had found that he was the target of "discriminatory and retaliatory animus." Three other former chaplains have said that they also were wrongfully terminated.

They have accused O. Ray Fitzgerald, a Methodist minister and the former head of the spiritual ministry department, of anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism. They say that NIH retaliated against them when they spoke up and invented reasons for terminating them.

Fitzgerald was demoted from the chief chaplain's post two weeks ago after the EEOC, which cited the "animus," and the Merit Systems Protection Board ordered the rehiring of and back pay for the priest, the Rev. Henry Heffernan.

NIH officials "endorsed intolerance, and they reinforced intolerance with intolerance," said Rabbi Reeve Brenner, who testified last year in support of the priest and was fired as a hospital chaplain in February. He has filed a complaint with the Merit Board, an agency that hears federal personnel disputes, saying that he was removed by NIH as retribution for his testimony.

Another ousted chaplain, Greek Orthodox lay minister Edar Rogler, is suing the Department of Health and Human Services, NIH's parent agency, saying that she also was removed for testifying in support of Heffernan. In her lawsuit, filed last month in U.S. District Court in Maryland, and in her testimony in Heffernan's case, she says NIH officials hatched a plan, "Operation Clean Sweep," to purge staff members who cooperated in the priest's complaint.

Rogler alleges that Fitzgerald made frequent anti-Semitic comments about Brenner. In her lawsuit, she says that Fitzgerald referred to Brenner as "the butthead Jew" and "the crass Jew."

"He would not refer to the rabbi ever by his name," Rogler said in an interview. "It was always 'that Jew, that Jew.' " She was fired from her part-time chaplain's job in 2005 after she said she informed NIH officials that she planned to testify before the EEOC on behalf of Heffernan. The EEOC called her testimony more credible than Fitzgerald's.

NIH spokesman Don Ralbovsky confirmed that the clinical center has replaced Fitzgerald as chief chaplain. Fitzgerald's boss -- Walter Jones, deputy director of diversity management at NIH -- is running the department temporarily, Ralbovsky said. Fitzgerald continues to work as an NIH chaplain.

Ralbovsky would not comment on the allegations. Fitzgerald did not return calls to his office and his home.

But in letters to Rogler and in filings with the EEOC, NIH officials say that they fired Rogler for poor performance and that she didn't come forward with her complaints about Fitzgerald until after she was terminated.

The hospital's chief operating officer, Maureen Gormley, said in a letter to Brenner that he was being terminated for several infractions, including commingling his job as a federal employee with outside activities and being absent without leave for a day.

The former chaplains say that tensions have simmered in the department for years under Fitzgerald. The hospital, a clinical research center, employs about a half-dozen chaplains of various faiths, but in recent years turnover has been unusually high. At least seven have been ousted or have left voluntarily because they were unhappy with Fitzgerald's management style, said several former members of the department.

The Rev. Gary Johnston, who worked there for 18 years before leaving in 2002 to become a Protestant military chaplain, said in an interview that Fitzgerald told him he didn't want rabbis and Catholic priests in the department.

Fitzgerald, the EEOC said, retaliated by suspending Heffernan for five days in early 2004 for coming in on his days off, despite Fitzgerald's order not to. Heffernan held Mass for a priest who fell ill. Fitzgerald also demanded that Heffernan take entry-level training in hospital chaplaincy, despite his 40 years of experience in the field and the fact that other chaplains were not required to do so.

In July 2004, Heffernan was fired. At Heffernan's EEOC hearing last year, Brenner and Rogler testified that they had heard Fitzgerald express anti-Catholic sentiments against the priest. Rogler testified that Fitzgerald told her that Catholic priests are pedophiles.

"They singled out Father Heffernan . . . so they could get him out of there," Brenner said. "That was the most offensive thing -- this 75-year-old man who had more wisdom and integrity in his fingertips than his superiors had in all their lives."

In February, the Merit Board ordered Heffernan reinstated. In a separate ruling, the EEOC ordered NIH to accommodate the priest's desire to see only Catholics, except in emergencies.

The EEOC said that Fitzgerald's testimony was evasive and that statements by Rogler and Brenner at the hearing provided "corroborating testimony" to show that Fitzgerald was biased against Roman Catholics.

"I considered him to be very anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic," Johnston said.

The chaplains tend to the spiritual needs of patients in the two adjacent buildings on the Bethesda campus which make up the hospital -- the 14-story Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center and the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center.

Patients from all over the world are treated as part of clinical studies related to a variety of issues, including weight loss, allergies, substance abuse, heart disease and cancer. The center has about 7,000 inpatient admissions and 100,000 outpatient visits each year.

In testimony and in an interview, Heffernan, who joined the department in 1994, said he protested that the hospital's Catholic patients were being unfairly short-changed because Fitzgerald demanded that Heffernan minister to non-Catholic patients.

He said this left him with not enough time to minister to all of his Catholic patients. Heffernan also was concerned with what he called Fitzgerald's "generic chaplaincy" approach, because non-Catholic chaplains are unable to perform the Catholic sacraments, such as hearing confessions and performing last rites.

Fitzgerald, the EEOC said, retaliated by suspending Heffernan for five days in early 2004 for coming in on his days off, despite Fitzgerald's order not to. Heffernan held Mass for a priest who fell ill. Fitzgerald also demanded that Heffernan take entry-level training in hospital chaplaincy, despite his 40 years of experience in the field and the fact that other chaplains were not required to do so.

In July 2004, Heffernan was fired. At Heffernan's EEOC hearing last year, Brenner and Rogler testified that they had heard Fitzgerald express anti-Catholic sentiments against the priest. Rogler testified that Fitzgerald told her that Catholic priests are pedophiles.

"They singled out Father Heffernan . . . so they could get him out of there," Brenner said. "That was the most offensive thing -- this 75-year-old man who had more wisdom and integrity in his fingertips than his superiors had in all their lives."

In February, the Merit Board ordered Heffernan reinstated. In a separate ruling, the EEOC ordered NIH to accommodate the priest's desire to see only Catholics, except in emergencies.

The EEOC said that Fitzgerald's testimony was evasive and that statements by Rogler and Brenner at the hearing provided "corroborating testimony" to show that Fitzgerald was biased against Roman Catholics.

Rogler said Jones and Gormley fired her after she informed Jones that she would testify on behalf of Heffernan.

In a letter terminating Brenner, Gormley acknowledged that Brenner had an acceptable job performance record during his five years at NIH. But, among other complaints, she accused him of mixing private and clinical work by forming a temple to which he improperly transported Jewish patients for services.

But Brenner, who has appealed his removal to the Merit Board, said that NIH officials never objected to his activities until he testified at Heffernan's hearing.

Heffernan, Rogler and Brenner have won praise from patients.

Howie Appel, whose wife, Marla, has kidney cancer, said that Brenner has visited them twice during Marla's stays and that Brenner performed Friday night religious services in their room.

"He was our only connection to our religion up here," said Appel, who lives with his wife in Lake Mary, Fla. "I admire the guy, and I'm so glad we met him."

Benjamin Rubin, an NIH doctor and a rabbi who occasionally filled in for Brenner, said he was informed that his physician's contract would not be renewed last month.

Rubin said he had complained about the NIH hospital's treatment of observant Jewish patients. Among other problems, he said, an NIH official brushed off his concerns about the lack of worship facilities for Jews on NIH's campus by saying that they could be transported to services off campus. But Orthodox Jews do not drive on the Sabbath because they believe it violates Torah prohibitions against Sabbath work.

Heffernan returned to work in late March and has since been working 12-hour days to catch up. The chaplains' office is struggling, he said.

"It was a sad situation then," he said, "and it's a sad situation now."

Seattle Brews a Bloid

I went tonight to an organizational meeting for a new endeavor, to be called .. perhaps, the Bloid.

Look up n the air it is a Blog,
It is a News Tabloid,
It si a Newspaper,

No ... tis the world's first Bloid! Founded by an impressive crew of local bloggers, under the diumvirate or Geoff Parish and Goldy (nee David) Goldstein.

more to come.