How to Win Arab Hearts and Minds....NOT!

The U.S.-based satellite TV network Al Hurra was created by the State Department in 2004, as part of the Bush Administration's public relations efforts in the Middle East.

But what's this? Al Hurra has been broadcasting the views of leaders of the militant Islamist groups Hamas and Hezbollah!

Toward the end of Wednesday's Congressional hearing on American efforts to win more popular support in the Arab world, New York Democrat Gary L. Ackerman scolded al-Hurra representatives, when one of them tried to defend the station by saying it broadcasts uncut, live versions of President Bush’s speeches.

“You carry President Bush live?” Ackerman asked. Then, incredulously, “Hopefully we find this helpful to the mission?”

There was laughter throughout the committee room, but the exchange highlighted the central quandary surrounding American public diplomacy efforts.

So reports Helene Cooper in the New York Times.

The State Department came up with a plan to promote America's image in the Middle East a few years ago. Besides creating al Hurra, it took Muslim students to the World Cup games in Germany, served as host for Arab journalists at training seminars in Washington, and dispatched Bush's very close aide Karen Hughes, under secretary of state for public diplomacy, to talk to Muslim women around the world.

Cooper writes: "Those efforts do little to counter the rising anger among Arabs over the American role in Iraq and the Bush administration’s refusal to shut down the military prison at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba."

And here we have al Hurra, paid for with American money, broadcasting the views of Hamas and Hezbollah. No wonder Ackerman was steamed. Still, "there was also tacit acknowledgment, even from Republican critics of Al Hurra, that blaming the network might be a little like shooting the messenger."

Here's a link to the full article.

Does Mom REALLY want a card and roses?

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ORIGINALLY POSTED MARCH 19, 2007

And reposted ahead of Mother's Day 2008 in the U.S.

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Sunday, March 18th was Mothering Sunday in the UK, roughly two months before its equivalent in the US: Mother's Day, where it falls on the second Sunday in May. On this occasion, the BBC reports that the woman who invented the celebration spent 40 years of her life fighting the commercialism that sprang up around the day.

Anna Jarvis campaigned for over a decade before President Woodrow Wilson, in 1914, dedicated a day to mothers.

Within a few years, the occasion became commercialized, to Anna's horror.

"Along with her sister Ellsinore, Anna spent the entire family inheritance on trying to undo the damage done to Mother's Day. One of her protests even got her arrested for disturbing the peace. She died in 1948, in poverty and without success.

"In one respect what Ms Jarvis wanted from the day lives on - it has taken on huge significance and is a celebration of motherhood. However, how most people chose to celebrate it would make her turn in her grave."

"Consumers are pressured by advertising and businesses to measure goodwill in terms of presents, says branding expert Jonathan Gabay.

"Mother's Day has become a yearly windfall to business. It's an opportunity to market everything from cut flowers and greetings cards to nostalgic CDs, perfume and beauty products."

The commercialism that accompanies so many holidays in the U.S. truly sickens me. Christmas as it is celebrated today was created by Coca-Cola, Montgomery Ward, Hallmark and other corporations, who saw immense opportunities which I'm sure have far exceeded their early expectations. People have completely caved to advertising and corporate propaganda. How many times have you heard of people going into serious credit card debt over Christmas presents? Did Jesus ever say "be sure to go into debt in My Name"? And yet, here we are. Valentine's and Halloween? Wouldn't be surprised at all to hear Hershey's and other candy companies had a big hand in turning these days into what are now the two biggest sugar high days of the year.

Fortunately, Thanksgiving seems to have escaped most of that commercial frenzy. It's one thing for which I DO give thanks every November.

But back to Mother's Day. I hardly claim to speak for all mothers, but for me a Hallmark card and a dozen roses don't do a thing. Going out to brunch on usually involves a crowded restaurant and waiting, which isn't my cup of tea. As much as chocolate is a lovely gift, it gives me nowhere the pleasure of my children's handmade cards and notes, awkward as they may be. THAT'S a present! I had told the kids to stop buying me stuff, so the handmade cards started coming, along with "Mom's Day Off," and the occasional surprise. One year, my son handed me a little basket of morel mushrooms he'd picked in the woods. He'd heard me say I missed the taste of morels. Three years ago, my daughter gave me a jar with little strips of paper in it, on which she wrote things that she loved about me. She told me to remember to open the jar and read the strips whenever I had a bad day. Really made me tear up.

Hallmark and FTD can't top these.

What do I really want for Mother's Day?

Pretty much what I have with my children every day. Good conversation, honesty, humor and respect. I want what any Mom wants: happy, fulfilled children. I want to look at them and see gentle souls, loving hearts, humor, generosity and good judgement; to know they've been equipped properly to be independent and responsible adults. The best thing my kids could give to me on Mother's Day is to let me know how I'm doing in my efforts to bring them up to be all these things.

Anna Jarvis was right to be horrified at the commercialization of the holiday she championed. Showering Mom with gifts and some pampering one day a year is no compensation for taking her for granted the rest of the year.

More mothers are taking up Anna Jarvis' fight against the commercialization of Mother's Day. The BBC piece quotes Carrie Longton, a founder of Mumsnet (in the UK):

"There is a real movement among mothers at the moment to think about mothers who are less fortunate. We are encouraging people to make a donation to charities that help mothers worldwide rather than buy flowers.

"I will be working on a cake stall on Mother's Day to raise money for HIV mothers in Africa. It costs just £7 to buy the medicine to make sure they don't pass HIV onto their children."

It's this type of action that Ms Jarvis would approve of. Especially as she hated Mother's Day cards, calling them "a poor excuse for the letter you are too lazy to write".

Hear, hear!!

Read the whole BBC article here.

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UPDATE 2: NPR had a piece on the marketing of Mother's Day, then and now. It aired on Friday, May 11. Listen to the Morning Edition piece here.

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Trail to Chinese Food Producers Turns Cold

American inspectors who arrived in China last week to investigate the two companies that exported tainted pet food ingredients found that the suspect facilities had been hastily closed down and cleaned up, federal officials said yesterday.

"There is nothing to be found. They are essentially shut down and not operating," said Walter Batts, deputy director of the Food and Drug Administration's office of international programs.

The Washington Post article by Rick Weiss is here.

More ways industrial chemicals are landing up where they can kill.

In China at least 18 people, most of them in Guangdong Province, died in a month last year after they ingested contaminated medicine.

So reports the New York Times in the May 6 article, From China to Panama, a Trail of Poisoned Medicine .

Walt Bogdanich and Jake Hooker write:

"The kidneys fail first. Then the central nervous system begins to misfire. Paralysis spreads, making breathing difficult, then often impossible without assistance. In the end, most victims die.

"Many of them are children, poisoned at the hands of their unsuspecting parents.

"The syrupy poison, diethylene glycol, is an indispensable part of the modern world, an industrial solvent and prime ingredient in some antifreeze.

"It is also a killer. And the deaths, if not intentional, are often no accident.

"Over the years, the poison has been loaded into all varieties of medicine — cough syrup, fever medication, injectable drugs — a result of counterfeiters who profit by substituting the sweet-tasting solvent for a safe, more expensive syrup, usually glycerin, commonly used in drugs, food, toothpaste and other products.

"Toxic syrup has figured in at least eight mass poisonings around the world in the past two decades. Researchers estimate that thousands have died. In many cases, the precise origin of the poison has never been determined. But records and interviews show that in three of the last four cases it was made in China, a major source of counterfeit drugs."

This is a picture of Ernesto Osorio of Panama. Poison cough syrup from China hospitalized him Panama last year and partly paralyzed his face. The story continues,

"Panama is the most recent victim. Last year, government officials there unwittingly mixed diethylene glycol into 260,000 bottles of cold medicine — with devastating results. Families have reported 365 deaths from the poison, 100 of which have been confirmed so far. With the onset of the rainy season, investigators are racing to exhume as many potential victims as possible before bodies decompose even more.

"Panama’s death toll leads directly to Chinese companies that made and exported the poison as 99.5 percent pure glycerin."

A pediatrician told the reporters the problem is vastly underreported.

"Beyond Panama and China, toxic syrup has caused mass poisonings in Haiti, Bangladesh, Argentina, Nigeria and twice in India."

And here's the most disheartening part of this unnecessary tragedy:

"In China, the government is vowing to clean up its pharmaceutical industry...but when Chinese officials investigated the role of Chinese companies in the Panama deaths, they found that no laws had been broken."

For the rest of the article, click here.

Another Tale of Food Safety Challenges in China

Lots of people are thinking about China's food production practices these days after the melamine and wheat gluten stories made headlines. (See my earlier post on this subject.)

Today's Los Angeles Times has a story on honey production there.

FUFENG, CHINA — For two years, Sun Baoli has been trying to clean up the dirty honey business here. He's been met with nasty stings from bees, but those are nothing compared with the curses and punches from their keepers.

The 52-year-old entrepreneur paid the local government about $5,000 to rent part of a nature preserve teeming with nectar-filled acacia trees. He's been recruiting beekeepers to harvest on the grounds, and all he asks is that they follow a few simple health rules. First, no using antibiotics in their colonies; the drugs can make people sick. Second, no storing honey in metal containers; those can taint the sweet goo with toxic iron and lead.

Some 45 keepers have signed up. But many others are hostile to his efforts, which they see as a threat to their decades-old way of doing business on the cheap and making easy profits.

On Saturday night, as the first acacia flowers were starting to bloom, a gang of 15 local beekeepers ambushed Sun as he got out of his red Isuzu truck, beating him and leaving him with a mild concussion.

"It's going to take some time," he said with obvious understatement.

Honey and thousands of other Chinese food products are showing up more and more on dining tables around the world. Last year, China said it exported $3.8 billion worth of food to the U.S., including vast quantities of apple juice, garlic, sausage casings, canned mushrooms and honey.

In any given month, though, U.S. customs inspectors block dozens of Chinese food shipments, including produce contaminated with banned additives and pesticides as well as seafood tainted with drugs. In the wake of the recall of pet foods that U.S. regulators say contained tainted Chinese ingredients, China's food-safety standards have become dinner table conversation across the United States.

To read the whole article, follow this link to the LA Times article.

Colbert Takes on NPR (coffee mugs, tote bags, macrame-hugging/lutefisk-eating Norwegians, et al)

Morning Edition issued a convoluted correction this week. The show had aired a clip from The Colbert Report, in which Stephen Colbert said something that didn't sit too well with former Undersecretary of Defense, Douglas Feith.

So, just as we've previously asked why some people feel the need to apologize for the actions of others, we now ask:

Why is Steve Insbleep apologizing for something said by a fake news pundit on a comedy show?

I'm not in the mood to chew on that right now, so over to Colbert himself for today's diversion:

Food Safety: So Much More Than E. Coli

This is a picture of scrap melamine, a coal by-product used in the manufacture of plastic. In China, some feed manufacturers have been using it for years to boost the protein content of their products, commanding a higher price, reported the New York Times.

Melamine has a chemical content similar to protein, and cannot be easily distinguished when testing for protein content. However, melamine doesn't provide any nutritional benefits. It's receiving scrutiny in this country because it was recently found in some brands of pet food that sickened, and killed, some animals.

This sort of adulteration, however, is not new, and has a tragic history in China.

Three years ago babies in China’s Anhui province were afflicted by a strange condition. The infants were getting thinner and thinner, while their heads seemed abnormally large in comparison to the rest of their bodies. 170 of them were hospitalized, and 13 died.

The cause? Malnutrition arising from fake baby formula, with protein contents well below the Chinese standard of 12 percent: thirty-one of the products used by the families contained less than 5 per cent of protein. One of them had only 0.37 per cent!(Source: China Daily) Might as well have fed the babies with water.

This is really a major cause of concern. The Washington Post reports China is the world's biggest exporter of fruits and vegetables, and a major exporter of other food products. Some of those products land up in the U.S.

Former FDA officials revealed that last year, inspectors sampled less than 2 percent of 199,000 shipments of Chinese food products.

Among those shipment the FDA did inspect and reject were pesticide-laden pea pods, drug-laced catfish, filthy plums and crawfish contaminated with salmonella.

Other known Chinese food hazards: the cancer-causing industrial dye Sudan Red, used to boost the color and value of eggs. Asthma medication fed to pigs to produce leaner meat. (Associated Press, found on MSNBC.)

As you shudder, let's ask what lies behind these practices?

One source is China’s fractured farming sector, comprised of small landholdings which make regulation difficult.

The AP article goes on to say, "Small farms ship to market with little documentation. Testing of the safety and purity of farm products such as milk is often haphazard, hampered by fuzzy lines of authority among regulators. Only about 6 percent of agricultural products were considered pollution-free in 2005, while safer, better quality food officially stamped as “green” accounts for just 1 percent of the total, according to figures compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Further, China's government "has found that companies have cut corners in virtually every aspect of food production and packaging, including improper use of fertilizer, unsanitary packing and poor refrigeration of dairy products," reports the Washington Post.

"William O'Brien, president of Hami Food of Beijing, which transports food for the McDonald's restaurant chain and other multinational companies in China, said in some of his competitors' operations, 'chilled and frozen products very often come in taxi cabs or in vans -- not under properly controlled conditions. That is something that people should worry about.'

"Not surprisingly, food-related poisonings are a common occurrence."

The U.S is a huge producer of food, so I'm wondering why it needs to import from countries with questionable food production practices in the first place.

I first sat up and took notice of China's food production practices in 2004, when the New York Times did a cover story about the staggering pollution on the Huai River in Henan province. In particular, the monosodium glutamate factory that flushed foul-smelling black liquid into the river - not only did fishermen find a severely reduced catch, many of the fish were deformed in some way. Villagers also noticed their skin burned when they washed with water from the river; the rate of cancer shot up, among peasants too poor to afford a basic subsistence, much less medical care for serious conditions. (Article: Rivers Run Black, and Chinese Die of Cancer)

It made me so angry. This was not long after the fake baby formula scandal broke.

Is China's enormous capitalist boom driving these entrepreneurs to have no moral regard for the consequences of their actions?

Are these entrepreneurs simply emulating what they've seen from some of their Western counterparts?


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From the Post's article Pet Deaths Spur Call for Better FDA Screening:

"Several Chinese suppliers conceded over the weekend that adding melamine to pet food ingredients -- now blamed for the deaths of many animals in the United States and possible contamination of the human food supply -- is but the latest technique for fooling U.S. companies into thinking they are purchasing a high-quality product.

"Before melamine there was urea, Chinese traders said -- another nitrogen-rich chemical that was used to give false high scores on tests of protein content but was abandoned after it made animals ill.

"The task of guarding against contaminants in imports has become far more complicated because an increasing portion of the tens of billions of dollars in Chinese food and agricultural imports involves powders and concentrates for the processed-food industry -- including the wheat gluten and rice protein at the center of the pet food scandal. Animal feed imports alone grew sevenfold from 2001 to 2006, the Commerce Department says.

"Such products pose three problems: Their makeup is not obvious by mere visual inspection; they can be easily and invisibly contaminated or intentionally spiked with chemicals that are not on the FDA's standard battery of tests; and their origins are often vague, because they have been through several stages of processing and trade."

Now an increasing number of legislators, scientists and others are saying it is time to modernize FDA's authority to trace the sources of food imports and punish scofflaws -- legal powers that experts say have barely evolved over the past 70 years.

Mission Accomp....Say What?

That was May 1, 2003.

Here's what happened on that day four years ago, as reported on CNN:

ABOARD USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (CNN) -- President Bush made a landing aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln Thursday, arriving in the co-pilot's seat of a Navy S-3B Viking after making two fly-bys of the carrier.


It was the first time a sitting president has arrived on the deck of an aircraft carrier by plane. The jet made what is known as a "tailhook" landing, with the plane, traveling about 150 mph, hooking onto the last of four steel wires across the flight deck and coming to a complete stop in less than 400 feet.

Moments after the landing, the president, wearing a green flight suit and holding a white helmet, got off the plane, saluted those on the flight deck and shook hands with them. Above him, the tower was adorned with a big sign that read, "Mission Accomplished."

(End quote. the rest of the article breathlessly describes the "picture-perfect landing" and the roar of approving sailors. Read it here.)

As we now know, that sign that generated lots of controversy, and the White House tried to minimize its role in putting it up. From Wikipedia:

"The administration and naval sources stated that the banner was the Navy's idea, White House staff members made the banner, and it was hung by the U.S. Navy personnel. White House spokesman Scott McClellan told CNN "We took care of the production of it. We have people to do those things. But the Navy actually put it up." According to John Dickerson of TIME magazine, the White House later conceded that they actually hung the banner but still insists it had been done at the request of the crewmembers."

It's worth reading the full article for more on how the administration subsequently dealt with the embarrassment of that premature declaration. It went so far as to revise history, at least on the White House website. Around Election Day 2006, observers noted the "Mission Accomplished" banner was cropped out of the official White House website picture of the event.

And here we are, four years later.

Democrats today present Bush with the Iraq spending bill, including a timetable for withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Bush has threatened to veto the bill.

THIS JUST IN from the Washington Post:

BAGHDAD, April 30 -- The deaths of more than 100 American troops in April made it the deadliest month so far this year for U.S. forces in Iraq, underscoring the growing exposure of Americans as thousands of reinforcements arrive for an 11-week-old offensive to tame sectarian violence.

Stay tuned.

Verbal Fisticuffs!

“I’m not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating.”

- Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada), Senate Majority Leader, rebutting comments by Vice President Dick Cheney rebutting Reid's comments on the Iraq War. (Reid said the war is "lost.")


Read more about their exchange, at the New York Times.

Who Needs the Red Carpet? It's the White House Correspondents Association Dinner

"Inconvenient Truth" producer Laurie David and musician Sheryl Crow have been crossing the country in a biodiesel bus to educate college students about global warming. I saw them discussing their mission with Bill Maher on HBO a couple of weeks ago.

In case you missed the big story of Saturday night:

Crow and David were at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner at the Hilton Washington.

The Washington Post's Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts reported the pair "walked over to Table 92 at the Hilton Washington to chat with Karl Rove -- and the resulting exchange was suitably heated.

"'I am floored by what I just experienced with Karl Rove,' David reports. 'I went over to him and said, 'I urge you to take a new look at global warming.' He went zero to 100 with me. . . . I've never had anyone be so rude.'

"Rove's version: 'She came over to insult me and she succeeded.'"

But what tickled me most was the Post's gossip-style piece on the post-dinner events, by Libby Copeland and Dana Milbank. They abandoned their serious reporter roles that night. Milbank wired himself with a microphone, then he and Copeland set out with mischief in mind.

They went to the Vanity Fair at writer Christopher Hitchens' home, where they see "World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, but we do not his see his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, the World Bank worker for whom Wolfowitz gallantly arranged a raise. We offer several women $20 to approach Wolfowitz and ask for a raise, but we find no takers."

That made me howl.

The pair then moved over "to the Capitol File party at the Colombian ambassador's residence, by now quite fuzzyheaded from teeny-weeny drinkie-winkies, and on our way in we catch sight of booted "American Idol" contestant Chris Sligh.

"Hey, Chris! What's it like to be temporarily famous?

"'Hopefully, it's not temporary,' he says politely.

"Oopsie-daisy. Awk-ward."

Catch other after-party glimpses, such as the exchanges between Michelle Kwan and Condoleeza Rice, Isaiah Washington and Greta Van Susteren, and what the gift/swag bags contained, in the Washington Post.

Burned by Stephen Colbert's roast of George W. Bush at the 2006 event, the entertainment this year came from impressionist Rich Little, who from most accounts (including this one) is desperately in need of fresh material.

Why Are Koreans Apologizing For Cho's Actions?

Children attend a candlelight vigil in Seoul for the 32 victims of the Virginia Tech massacre. Many Koreans expressed concern that their country's image has been marred by the rampage by a South Korean-born gunman, despite U.S. Embassy statements to the contrary. Photo Credit: By Lee Jin-man -- Associated Press Photo

The day after the Virginia Tech shootings, it was revealed that the person who shot 32 students and faculty before turning the gun on himself, is South Korean. Then came a flood of apologies from Korean Americans, and Koreans.

Washington State Senator Paull Shin of Edmonds, a Korean-American, apologized to fellow lawmakers and legislative staff members, first at a private prayer meeting, then in Senate chambers, reported the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

An emotional Shin said that the U.S. sacrificed much for Korea, and this incident hurt him deeply.

"Although legislators told him he had no need to apologize, Shin, fighting his emotions, said he felt compelled to do so because of his acceptance in America and his leadership position in the Korean American community."

Shin was just one of many Korean-Americans to apologize for something for which they had absolutely no part.

More from the Seattle P-I:

"At the University of Washington, student leader Jihye Kim also shouldered responsibility.

"Personally, after hearing about the criminal's racial background, I felt as if I am the one who caused the tragedy," said Kim, president of the Korean Student Union. "I couldn't make eye contact with others. I greatly apologize for those who are closely related to the victims."

Remorse is also blanketing Seoul. The Washington Post reports many Koreans have expressed concern that the image of their country has been marred. South Korea's ambassador to Washington, Lee Tae Shik has even gone so far as to say Koreans need to "repent," and fast for 32 days to mourn the 32 people Cho killed.

That's some heavy, heavy guilt.

The question is, why? Why are Koreans and Korean Americans taking it upon themselves to apologize for the actions of one man - who by all accounts, had nothing to do with anyone, Korean or otherwise?

Lim Jie-Hyun, a history professor at Hangyang University in Seoul, has an idea. "I can smell a collective sense of guilt," he says. "There is confusion [in Korea] between individual responsibility and national responsibility," he told TIME magazine.

Writing in the Washington Post, Adrian Hong says,

"Media outlets have printed and broadcast remarks from Koreans ranging from leaders of civic organizations to men on the street; many seemed to home in on a specific sentiment -- that Koreans somehow felt as though they were responsible for the terrible events in Blacksburg."

Hong goes on to say:

"Korean Americans do not need to apologize for what happened Monday. All of us, as fellow Americans, feel tremendous sorrow and grief at the carnage. Our community, as it should, has expressed solidarity with and sent condolences to the victims, and as Americans, Koreans certainly should take part in the healing process.

"But the actions of Cho Seung Hui are no more the fault of Korean Americans than the actions of the Washington area snipers were the fault of African Americans. Just as those crimes were committed by deranged individuals acting on their own initiative, and not because of any ethnic grievance or agenda, these were isolated acts by an individual, not a reflection of a community.

"Further, it is inappropriate for the Korean ambassador to the United States to apologize on behalf of Korean Americans and speak of the need to work toward being accepted as a "worthwhile minority" in this nation. While the Korean ambassador represents the interests of Korean nationals in the United States, and the interests of the Republic of Korea, he does not speak for naturalized Koreans here."

Hong is a director of the Mirae Foundation, which provides mentorship and empowerment of Korean American college students. He goes on to say:

"Korean culture also includes the concept of han, a shared sense of injustice and pain carried through generations; this is, Koreans say, a result of much of the oppression the nation has faced in past centuries by regional powers."

My colleague Sueann Ramella shared her thoughts on han in her blog following a winter vacation to Korea.

More from Adrian Hong:

"The Korean claim to guilt and shame on behalf of Cho Seung Hui is well-intentioned but misguided. We are Americans first. While we share an affinity with Korea and appreciate and respect Korean culture, at the end of the day we are Americans. Our president is in the White House, not in the Blue House. And our response to this crisis should be as Americans, not as Koreans.

"Many Koreans interviewed by the media have also expressed concerns of retaliatory attacks, and some international students voiced fears of losing their status in the United States. Thankfully, it seems that few groups have voiced hate or advocated retribution against Koreans at large for this tragedy. (Some media outlets have even stopped referring to the gunman's ethnicity, mentioning his South Korean citizenship in passing. He is now known simply as "Cho" or "the gunman.")

"Moreover, it is absurd to think that the United States would somehow pursue retaliatory measures on international students from Korea, or any nation, as a result of such an attack. The other 100,000 Korean nationals studying in the United States are largely model citizens and tend to be quite engaged on their campuses and in their communities. Perhaps this fear stems from our collective experience in April 1992, when Koreans became scapegoats for simmering ethnic tensions and, somehow, were seen as responsible for the Rodney King beatings, and nearly 2,000 Korean businesses were the targets of rioting and looting. But I believe America has moved beyond that. Today, no Koreans should be afraid to leave their homes or to attend school.

"I have great faith in the American people. We have come a long way as a nation and understand today that the actions of an individual do not reflect on a community. I believe we have moved beyond the days when we would assign guilt and penance to an entire race based on isolated incidents.

"While the past two days have brought random acts of juvenile hate and immature racial slurs and acts, the vast majority of Americans understand that Korean Americans were victims along with the rest of America -- that we all took part in the tragedy at Virginia Tech, regardless of race or ethnicity.

"So I ask the Koreans of America to please continue expressing your heartfelt condolences. They are helping the healing process. But please do not apologize. The actions of Cho Seung Hui were not your fault. If our heads are hung low, they should be in grief, not in apology and shame. This tragedy is something for all of us to bear, examine and try to prevent as Americans, together."

Here's Hong's full article.

Instant prejudice: Korea and Virginia Tech

Andrew Leonard, writing in Salon:

"Conservative commentator Debbie Schlussel's first reaction to the news that an "Asian" was responsible for the Virginia Tech massacre was to declare that a "Paki" was likely responsible. After being confronted with irrefutable evidence of her nearly criminal idiocy, she amended her analysis: "Even if it does not turn out that the shooter is Muslim, this is a demonstration to Muslim jihadists all over that it is extremely easy to shoot and kill multiple American college students."

"Schlussel's racism, albeit appalling, is also instructional. Individual prejudices inform our comprehension of any new tragedy much faster than facts. For most of the American punditocracy, the Virginia Tech shootings have ignited an instananeous flare-up of the always smoldering gun-control/right-to-keep-and-bear-arms ideological brushfire. But if Schlussel could jump even farther -- to the immediate assumption that the shootings were a manifestation of jihad, imagine what the reaction has been in the Korean neighborhood of the Internet.

"Robert Koehler's excellent Korea-focused blog, The Marmot's Hole offers a way in. There, you can learn that the Korean government is worried what the news will mean for Korea's international reputation, and whether the killings will cast a pall on the almost signed-sealed-and-delivered Korean-U.S. free-trade agreement. In Koehler's comments area and on other English-language Korea-focused blogs, the battle is already raging over the truth-or-raciscm quotient of a stereotype that holds that Korean males are excessively prone to violent jealous rages. One blogger, demonstrating with embarrassing panache exactly why some people should not be given the keys to the Internet, has even declared that the calm efficiency with which Cho Seung-hui murdered so many people "immediately suggested someone with a level of rigorous military training that only South Korean males can generally be expected to have."

"Facts are useful in such situations: CNN is reporting that the 23-year-old Cho came to the United States in 1992. He would have been 8 years old. One wonders exactly how much military training he had received by that point.

"Another fact provided by the Marmot's Hole: According to one report, Korea has more students studying abroad in the U.S. than any other country: 100,000. Debbie Schlussel thinks that the foreign residency of Cho Seung-hui is "yet another reason to stop letting in so many foreign students." But 99.999 percent of those 100,000 Koreans somehow managed not to engage in mass killing sprees. My advice to the Korean blogosphere -- despite all the cultural hypothesizing that is about to swarm the mediasphere -- is to strive to stay calm. Jealous rage knows no borders."

Here's the link.

Former Bush Advisor Examines Impact of Iraq War.

Reviewing the PBS series America at a Crossroads, Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times writes:

Richard N. Perle can sleep at night.

If “The Case for War: In Defense of Freedom” is any guide, this former chairman of the Defense Policy Board who so fiercely lobbied for the invasion of Iraq enjoys the deep, flannelly slumber of infants and the well medicated.

In an hourlong, first-person tour of his thinking, Mr. Perle admits neither mistakes nor regrets. The war is not even his main concern. Instead, Mr. Perle, a leading neo-conservative, uses much of tonight’s segment of the weeklong PBS series “America at a Crossroads” to argue that the United States should foment regime change in Iran, regardless of what Iran and other nations think.
“There’s got to be some advantage to being a superpower,” Mr. Perle tells Patrick J. Buchanan, the conservative columnist who worked with Mr. Perle in the Reagan administration.

Read the full article.

Not enough room? Add on! Singapore knows how.

I got to talking to Operations Manager Scott Weatherly a few days ago about changes in the land of my birth. This is an expansion on part of the ensuing discussion.

The United Nations lists Singapore as the world's fourth most densely populated country, with 6208 people per square kilometer. The United States ranks number 172, with 31 people per square km. Here's the whole list .

Want an even more stark comparison? I live in Latah County, Idaho, with a population in 200 just under 35,000 on 1077 square miles.That's about 13 people on every square kilometer!

Singapore wasn't always that crowded. The country gained independence in 1965, when I was not quite three years old. The population then was about 2 million, land area about 225 square miles (figures drawn from memory, but fairly close!) That's 581 square kilometers, computing to nearly 3500 persons per square kilometer. Today, the population is more than double: FOUR AND A HALF MILLION. When I read recently that the government expects the population to rise to six and a half million, it made me sweat. Once you've lived in the tropics you'll never forget that humidity.

Still, the Singapore government has steadily made plans for the additional people. From 581 sq km (224 sq miles)in 1965, the island nation is now 650 sq km and plans to acquire another 100 sq km in the next 30 years.

How?

Build/reclaim more land!

It gets through 1.5 billion cubic metres (2 billion cubic yards) of dredged silica a year — 333 cubic metres for each man, woman and child. The Government has been forced to draw on its strategic sand reserve, which Singapore hoards as other nations keep stocks of oil and food.

Stop to think about that.

Where's all this dirt coming from?

Richard Lloyd Parry's March 17th article in the Times explains:

Singapore accused of land grab as islands disappear by boatload

With more than 17,000 islands — from the jungly expanses of Borneo and Sumatra to unnamed rocks jutting out of the sea — you may think that Indonesia would not mind if a few of them went missing. But the huge South-East Asian nation has become caught up in a furious dispute with Singapore, its tiny neighbour, which is accused of literally making off with its territory.

Indonesia has banned the export of sand and imposed strict controls on shipments of gravel, after fears that its islands were being loaded on to ships and carried away to Singapore. In its thirst for building materials and landfill to reclaim new territory from the sea, Indonesians allege, Singapore has been stealing the land beneath their feet.

The dispute reached a climax this week after 24 tugs and barges, carrying granite chips, were intercepted by the Indonesian authorities as they sailed home to Singapore. Jakarta announced that future exports would be allowed only if the granite could be certified as environmentally friendly.

Since Indonesia announced its ban on sand in February, the price of a cubic metre of it has increased more than seven times, from S$6.5 (£2.18) to S$50. The Indonesian Navy has mobilised 18 ships to intercept gravel pirates and sand bandits.

“Some of these islands are reduced to islets, and could even disappear below the surface,” Hendropriyono, Indonesia’s former intelligence chief, has said. “This could theoretically lead to a cartographic zero-sum game in which Singapore’s gain could be at Indonesia’s territorial loss.”

Relations between Singapore and its neighbours have been tense since the city state became independent from Malaysia in 1965, and disagreements often arise over natural resources. The Singaporean achievement was to create an affluent, highly educated society in a swampy, jungly, malarial island with a population of 4.5 million people at the tip of the Malaysian peninsula.

Singapore’s reliance on its neighbours gives them powerful leverage over it — in the past Malaysia, with whom relations are particularly prickly, has threatened to cut off water supplies across the Straits of Johor. But the sand sanctions are equally threatening.

After years of stagnation, Singapore is undergoing a construction boom, with an increased demand for sand for the manufacture of concrete. The island also has long-term plans to ease its overcrowding by reclaiming land from the sea.

At independence, Singapore was 581 sq km (224 sq miles); now it is 650 sq km and plans to acquire another 100 sq km in the next 30 years. It gets through 1.5 billion cubic metres (2 billion cubic yards) of dredged silica a year — 333 cubic metres for each man, woman and child. The Government has been forced to draw on its strategic sand reserve, which Singapore hoards as other nations keep stocks of oil and food.

There may be more to Indonesia’s position than a sudden rush of environmental conscientiousness. If Indonesia really does lose islands, it also risks losing the rights to the ocean surrounding them. “The Convention on the Law of the Sea dictates that national territory is traced according to the coastal base line, and if islands near Singapore disappear, then the base line is pulled closer to the mainland,” says Mr Hendropriyono. “As it now stands, Singapore is only 20 kilometres from Nipah island, which has been especially eroded by the loss of sand.”

Many in Singapore also suspect that cutting off the sand pipeline is intended to put pressure on them to sign an extradition treaty that would let Indonesia get its hands on alleged white-collar criminals who have taken sanctuary there.

“From time to time, we must expect countries to pressure us in the hope that we will then give way to their demands,” George Yeo, the Foreign Minister, told the national parliament. “Singaporeans know that if we give in to such pressures, we would only invite more such pressures.”

Here's Parry's full article.

I've got to hand it to Singaporeans, though: with so many people jostling against each other - day in, day out - the country still manages to have one of the lowest crime rates in the world. They are justifiably proud of that. Many people have noted (I among them) that it's a very strict society, with fines leveraged for even mild transgressions such as jaywalking and forgetting to flush public toilets. Let's not even speak of the punishment for drug use or trafficking, or sedition. Perhaps that's the price to pay for peace and harmony in a very tight space.

Court: Wisconsin Woman Was Wrongly Convicted. For What?

Georgia Thompson has been acquitted! This, after serving four months in prison.

Who is Georgia Thompson?

She was a Wisconsin state employee, who put a state travel contract up for bid. She awarded it to a company whose CEO had donated money to the re-election campaign of Democratic governor Jim Doyle.

U-S Attorney Steven Biskupic and US District Judge Rudolph Randa, both Republican appointees, put Georgia Thompson in jail on corruption charges while the case was appealed. Threat to society, maybe?

Meantime, Doyle's opponents spent millions in the 2006 campaign to tie the governor to Ms. Thompson. Still, he won re-election.

Did I mention that the travel company in question did submit the lowest bid?

On April 5th, a federal appeals court acquitted Georgia Thompson. A three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago also ordered that she be immediately released from prison.

Dave Zweifel writes in Wisconsin's Capital Times:

"The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals...chided the U.S. Attorney's Office in Milwaukee for pursuing such a flimsy case, and ordered that [Georgia Thompson] be immediately released from prison, where she had spent the past four months.

"We've all seen the fallout since. Ironically, the tables have now been turned on the U.S. attorney, Steven Biskupic, who -- rightly or wrongly -- has been caught up in the hypercharged Washington scandal centering on George Bush's attorney general, Alberto Gonzales. It seems that each day brings new evidence that U.S. attorneys were pressured by the AG's office into pursuing Democrats and if they didn't, they would be replaced.

"The Washington scandal has legitimized claims by those who point to U.S. attorneys, like Biskupic, who took on Democrats just before last fall's election. Republican Mark Green's campaign for governor against Jim Doyle trumpeted the Thompson case during the entire campaign with attack ad after attack ad insisting that her conviction was proof that Doyle was a crook."

Adam Cohen has more to say on the subject in his opinion piece in the New York Times. He writes:

"While he was investigating, in the fall of 2005, Mr. Biskupic informed the media. Justice Department guidelines say federal prosecutors can publicly discuss investigations before an indictment only under extraordinary circumstances. This case hardly met that test.

"The prosecution proceeded on a schedule that worked out perfectly for the Republican candidate for governor. Mr. Biskupic announced Ms. Thompson’s indictment in January 2006. She went to trial that summer, and was sentenced in late September, weeks before the election. Mr. Biskupic insisted in July, as he vowed to continue the investigation, that “the review is not going to be tied to the political calendar.”

"But the Thompson case was “the No. 1 issue” in the governor’s race, says the Wisconsin Democratic Party chairman, Joe Wineke. In a barrage of commercials, Mr. Doyle’s opponents created an organizational chart that linked Ms. Thompson — misleadingly called a “Doyle aide” — to the governor. Ms. Thompson appeared in an unflattering picture, stamped “guilty,” and in another ad, her name was put on a graphic of jail-cell doors slamming shut.

"Most of the eight dismissed prosecutors came from swing states, and Democrats suspect they may have been purged to make room for prosecutors who would help Republicans win close elections. If so, it might also mean that United States attorneys in all swing states were under unusual pressure.

"Wisconsin may be the closest swing state of all. President Bush lost it in 2004 by about 12,000 votes, and in 2000, by about half that. According to some Wisconsin politicians, Karl Rove said that their state was his highest priority among governor’s races in 2006, because he believed a Republican governor could help the party win Wisconsin in the 2008 presidential election."

Alberto Gonzales is sure to be asked about this when he testifies on Capitol Hill Tuesday (4/17) morning.

Outside the possible political ramifications, I think many of us have Georgia on our minds. This woman was innocent, yet sat in an Illinois prison for four months. Worse, she lost her home. AND her life savings. If it turns out she was a pawn in a nasty political game, we should all fear something like that could happen to any of us.

Wolfowitz "Sorry." His Staff Doesn't Care.

It's out in the open, now.

From the Washington Post:

World Bank insiders confirmed reports that president Wolfowitz "directed personnel officials to give Shaha Riza, his longtime companion, an automatic "outstanding" rating and the highest possible pay raises during an indefinite posting at the State Department, as well as a promotion upon her return to the bank."

Wolfie apologized at a news conference yesterday. "I made a mistake for which I am sorry," he said.

After the presser he tried to talk to about 200 World Bank staffers, but didn't get to say much. Some of the people gathered there began hissing, booing, and chanting "Resign. . . . Resign."

Even as the Bush Administration is publicly showing support for its former Deputy Defense Secretary, one of its officials is privately expressing reservation: "his relationship with the staff is really bad, and I don't know if it's recoverable."

Booing and hissing from his staffers, who have filled the World Bank anonymous message board with messages criticizing Wolfowitz - I'll say the relationship is past repair!!

From the reaction of the WB staff, I'm guessing Wolfowitz wasn't a nice boss to begin with. People typically can handle a fair amount of nastiness from the boss, but it's clear this crowd had not a shred of affection of respect for their president.

Trying to draw the focus away from himself, Wolfie said "the controversy threatens to overshadow the official agenda of the bank's annual spring meeting," which includes "ratification of a global anti-corruption strategy and funding to reduce poverty in Africa."

His nepotism exposed, he thinks it's okay to be preaching against corruption?

Paul Wolfowitz, Love-Smitten Hawk.

Did Bush Administration hawk Paul Wolfowitz push for the invasion of Iraq at the urging of his lover?

That's the buzz in some circles today.

First, the backdrop.

Mention Wolfowitz and most people remember him as one of the architects of the Iraq war. He advocated - strongly - for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein immediately after the September 11th attacks.

The former Deputy Defense Secretary left the Pentagon two years ago to become head of the World Bank. His leadership there is now under question.

Wolfowitz began his WB tenure vowing to crack down on corruption by governments and officials in developing countries where the bank operates.

Now, he's being investigated for corruption over a big pay raise for a woman with whom he's been romantically connected for years - Shaha Riza.

A former World Bank colleague, Shaha Riza is a British Muslim. (Wolfowitz is Jewish, and possibly still married to Clare Selgin - though separated since 2001, it's not clear whether they're formally divorced.)

Six months after Wolfowitz was appointed to the World Bank, Riza was moved to the State Department to avoid conflict of interest. She remained on the WB payroll, however, and received a significant pay raise. The BBC reports the bank's staff association says the pay raises and promotions "were 'grossly out of line' with the Bank's staff rules."

That's the focus of the controversy, but Britain's Daily Mail has some pretty shocking news about Riza's effect on Wolfie.

Was this love interest part of the reason for his thirst for Saddam's blood?

The report says influential staffers at the World Bank claim Riza played a "key role in pushing the 61-year-old Pentagon official into the Iraq War. And the row comes amid claims that Wolfowitz's wife Clare once warned George Bush of the threat to national security any infidelity by her husband could cause.

"A British citizen - at 51, eight years younger than Wolfowitz's wife - Ms Riza grew up in Saudi Arabia and was passionately committed to democratising the Middle East when she allegedly began to date Wolfowitz."

What? Wolfowitz may have pushed for the war in Iraq because he was in love?

Frightening if true.

Here's the whole Daily Mail article.

In March 2005, the Washington Post's Richard Leiby wrote about neighborhood gossip about the Wolfowitz-Riza romance.

If you watched Farenheit 911, you may still have a sickening image of Wolfie spitting on his comb before running it through his hair. Or you may remember his visit to a Turkish mosque in January, when he took of his shoes and revealed holes in both socks.

I suppose if he was the man who could fulfil Riza's hopes, she could, and would, overlook those quirks.

(Still, ewwwwwwwwwwwwww..........)

Plagiarism Incident Exposes Katie Couric.

Katie Couric has a certain earnestness that endeared her to morning TV audiences for years.

She brought that trait to the CBS Evening News, notably with the commentaries in the "Katie's Notebook" segment.

I don't watch her newscast, but Howard Kurtz, writing in the Washington Post, says "recent commentaries have ranged from the Iraq war and the paucity of female columnists to the movie "300" and many girls discarding dating for 'hooking up.'"

So I was really shocked to find this out:

Someone else writes these first-person pieces for Ms. Couric.

This came to light last week, when she did a piece on the joys of getting her first library card. Delivered in the first person, The piece borrowed substantially from a Wall Street Journal column by Jeffrey Zaslow.

"What made the ripoff especially striking," writes Kurtz, "was the personal flavor of a video -- now removed from the CBS Web site -- that began, 'I still remember when I got my first library card, browsing through the stacks for my favorite books.'"

CBS spokesperson Sandy Genelius said Couric was "horrified."

'Pon my soul!

What horrifies me is that Couric, paid millions and millions for her job, is willing to paint her face on a commentary she didn't write herself!

CBS says it's "very common" for the first-person commentaries to be put together by staffers without Couric's being involved in the writing, but that she does participate in topic selection. Really? Then why don't they let the writer speak in their own words, and put it on as an opinion piece, the way NPR airs commentary by Daniel Schorr, Ted Koppel, Judy Muller?

That plagiarism is an absolute no-no is Journalism 101. To show its contrition, CBS fired the producer who wrote the piece; the network issued profuse apologies, which WSJ has accepted. But what about Katie Couric? What's the penalty for her participation? I just cannot fathom is why she would give voice, in the first person, to thoughts she written by someone else. That seemed to be okay with her and CBS; they only seem ashamed about borrowing from the WSJ, without attribution. Had that plagiarism not occurred, might we have known that Katie's not really all about what she says she's about? This is a NEWS program, people!

It's a theft of ideas.

I remember some years ago working with a person I'll call LT, for Loathsome Toad. He often began conversations with "you know what I think?" He would proceed to spout an opinion gleaned from Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair or TV Guide. Worse, on more than one occasion, someone would come to me and say LT shared his idea for something or other...and then regale me with details of a plan I submitted to him, the day before! It's not just the lack of honor that was detestable; it was LT's utter stupidity in thinking the truth could be concealed in a small community.

Many public radio listeners enjoy Scott Simon on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday for his wit and enthusiasm, and also his commentary, delivered in the first person - and we KNOW Scott wrote it himself, in his inimitable style.

Here's the whole Washington Post article on the plagiarism incident.

Bringing Bicycles to Africa.

One of the cleverest overseas aid programs I've ever run across is the Village Bicycle Project, based in my town of Moscow, ID. It collects used bikes and parts, and ships them to parts of Africa where transportation is often limited to walking. In addition, VBP provides tools and trains people in bike repair. From their website:

When the only other choice is walking, bicycles are a tool of development, improving access to farms, market, jobs, schools, and health care.

David Peckham is Director of VBP. He's a familiar face in Moscow, offering bike repair clinics, tune-ups and always happy to discuss Africa or bikes. (When my house was hit by that disastrous flood in 2005, Dave was the first man to dive into the three-foot deep mud and devise a plan for clean-up! What a great guy.)

The project started in Ghana in 1999, when Dave went there to study ways to make bicycles more accessible. He found several ways to make a real difference and the Village Bicycle Project was born.

Learning bicycle repair at a VBP workshop

In addition to collecting donated bikes and parts, VBP accepts cash donations to pay for shipping and bike repair training. The next fundraising event is coming soon: is a celebration in music and film featuring the northwest debut of Ayamye on Sunday, April 15th, 7PM at the Kenworthy in Moscow.

Ayamye is "a dramatic look at how lack of transportation can impact the education, health and livelihood of [a] community. Ayamye is a moving, life-affirming film that proves sustainable solutions to crisis are not always complex."

The event begins with the energetic Sesitshaya Marimba Band, and includes two other short films about Village Bicycle Project.

It's a worthy cause, well worth supporting! If you can't attend, please donate to the Village Bicycle Project. And of course, if you have a bike to share, get in touch with Dave.

Read stories of how the bicycles are helping in the lives of many Africans.

More information ghanabikes.org

Thanks to Dave Peckham for the photos, and for the wonderful work!

Revisiting My Oregon Coast Years.

View of Neahkahnie Mountain from Manzanita beach

What's the best way to shake off the stress of a public radio fund drive?

Relax at the beach.

Well, okay, the way I relax is admittedly not the most conventional, but we'll get to that later.

I spent last weekend on the stretch of the north coast where I first put down roots 20 years ago this year. Driving west from Portland, I took the familiar Sunset Highway, which had just suffered a major rockslide a couple of days earlier. Once past the Beaverton and Hillsboro exits, it was quite an easy ride, past little roadside farms, hamlets such as Hamlet (no, really!) and Elsie, past majestic Saddle Mountain, then south on US 101 past Cannon Beach and Arch Cape up my beloved Neahkahnie Mountain.



This stretch of US 101 offers some of the most dramatic views of the ocean. No matter how many times I drive there, my heart skips a beat when I pull off the highway to take in the view: tiny Manzanita nestled at the foot of the mountain, the vast Pacific, the Nehalem River valley and the foothills of the Coast Range in the distance. This, friends, is what makes me feel, in the most primal way, that I am home.



I'd quite forgotten that this is the time of year whales migrate up the coast. Without binoculars, I missed the show, but other people parked up there with the appropriate equipment were oohing and aahing about the whales, and that was good enough for me.

Heading down the mountain in a light drizzle, I turned off the highway and on to Manzanita's main drag, Laneda Avenue, and was truly shocked at how many new buildings and businesses had sprouted up in the five years or so since my last visit. There were tourists everywhere, despite the drizzle and chilly breeze; the number of people out and about rivaled Fourth of July numbers back in the late '80s!

Yet some things were familiar, such as the library, bank, post office, grocery and deli.

Just a couple of blocks before the beach, I parked and headed for the building that once housed the Blue Sky Cafe where I worked.

That was where I held my first jobs in the food business: as waitress, prep cook, and finally, chef. The owner was Julie Barker and her then husband, Bob.

To cut a long story very short, a few years ago Julie left the business and opened a bakery named Bread and Ocean. Not long after her departure, the Blue Sky folded, and Julie was encouraged to relocate the bakery to the space once occupied by the Blue Sky.



So there I was for a couple of days, hobnobbing with Julie in the same space where we turned out so many breakfasts, lunches, and dinners together years ago. She kindly allowed me to wallow in my idea of culinary heaven, amidst industrial-sized Hobart mixers, the proofing cabinet and convection oven. (I think I have a stainless steel industrial equipment fetish!) As she churned out trays and trays of sweet and savory rolls, loaf after loaf of brioche, sourdough and multigrain breads, rustic baguettes and goodness knows what else, Julie fed me with the choice "baker's privilege" morsels. She generously allowed me to shape some loaves, frost the rolls and whip up a batch of harissa, as we reminisced, laughed, exchanged food news, and listened to public radio in the kitchen.

And that, dahlings, was a great vacation for me.

(Attention Northwest Public Radio staff: with my culinary refresher, please be prepared to be my baked goods guinea pigs for the next few weeks.)

Stay tuned, more kitchen stories coming soon.

To each his own cup of coffee.

Gregory Dicum explores Brazil's cafe culture in the New York Times, by tasting cafezinho, the little cup of coffee beloved by Brazilians.

He writes:

"During a recent visit to Café Gaúcho, I chose to have my cafezinho black; other options include Carioca (“Rio-style” with added water), media (with milk) and pintado (just a few drops of milk). Sugar goes without saying in Brazil. I leaned on the cool stone, listening to the clatter all around me, watching the whiteness of the sugar vanish into the black coffee. After a quick stir with the doll-sized spoon, I raised the cafezinho to my lips.

"It was terrible."

Read why, in this article: In a Coffee-Mad City, the Bitter With the Sweet .

Radio You Can Now SEE.

This American Life with Ira Glass premiered on Showtime last night.



Watch Episode 1 on the web.

Read more about Ira's transition from radio to television, in the following articles:

NPR's All Things Considered

New York Times


And be sure to listen to Terry Gross interviewing Ira, on NPR's Fresh Air.

Happy 50th, Europe! (Now if only everyone would come to the party...

European nations are celebrating 5 decades of cooperation this week. The Treaty of Rome was signed on March 25, 1957, creating the European Economic Community (EEC). That was the first of several cooperative agreements that led to the formation of the European Union in 1993.




More on the continent-wide celebrations at Celebrating Europe.

Amid the celebrations, four European countries are steadfastly choosing to remain outside the EU: Switzerland, Iceland, Norway and Lichtenstein.

Why?

According to the BBC:

"Each of the four West European outsider nations has its special reasons for not participating in this week's party.

"Switzerland is what was left over when the Europeans formed their nation states. Italian, French and German ultra-conservatives escaped to the mountains, joined forces and then created 500 years of peace, the cuckoo clock and the gnomes of Zurich.

"Today the Swiss feel a bit disorientated, because the country's business model - neutrality - is problematic. Totally surrounded by the EU, they "have no-one to be neutral against".

"They organise their relationship towards the EU via a series of bilateral agreements, and there are no signs that this will change in the foreseeable future although the Swiss have voted for joining some European initiatives, such as the Schengen area, where border controls have been lifted.

"But as long as the economy thrives (and it does), the Swiss stay out, knowing that they are a geographically unavoidable reality in Europe.

"Neighbouring Liechtenstein, another non-member, is a monarchy, and even more of a tax haven, while being effectively the 27th canton of Switzerland.

"It is, however, a member of the European Economic Area, a special arrangement for the European Union fringe, allowing free access to the internal market. EEA members have an obligation to implement the bulk of EU law, but without any influence over it.

"The second largest non-EU member of the EEA is Iceland, which has a single reason for not being a EU member - a deep fear of the EU Common Fisheries Policy. That fear is absolutely rational and Iceland's position is not going to change any time soon."

"As for Norway - according to the UN, the best place on Earth to live - its Europhobia is based on history, geography and luck.

"Norway gained independence as late as 1905 (from Sweden) and the word "union" still has a bad political taste.

"Being a vast country - the distance from the capital Oslo to the extreme north is about the same as from Oslo to Rome - it has developed strong local political cultures, and a deep-rooted unease about the idea of central rule.

"It never developed a strong industrial base, unlike big brother Sweden, and shares the fishery culture with Iceland.

"Add oil, discovered in the North Sea in the late 1960s, and the Norwegians got the means, as well as the will, to go it alone.

Read the whole article on the BBC website.

Between the countries that belong to EU, things haven't always been smooth, though. For more on that, read: Fifty Years of Fraternal Rivalry.

The big European birthday bash will continue all this week as the EU celebrates its 50th anniversary. The first incarnation of the EU was the European Economic Community (EEC), which came into being with the signing of the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957.

Among the principles laid out in the Treaty was that of equal pay for men and women. Remember, this was 1957! As a point of comparison, the Equal Rights Amendment, written in 1921 by suffragist Alice Paul, passed Congress in 1972, but was not ratified by the necessary thirty-eight states by the July 1982 deadline. It was ratified by thirty-five states.

One Other Thing I Bet You Didn't Know About Pet Food Processing.

Re: Food Recall Worries Dog and Cat Owners

Were you surprised to hear that Western Family dog food is made by the SAME company that also makes Iams and Eukanuba? Those premium brands cost...what, about 4 times as much as the generic stuff?

I don't know whether Menu Foods uses different ingredients for each brand it manufactures. But I did hear, a long time ago, that different brands and different products are sometimes processed on the same factory line.

About 15 years ago, I worked in Tillamook with a man who told me that he worked in a factory that made canned chili.

The factory made chili on some days...and dog food on other days.

I accept this man was telling the truth. On some levels, this information is revolting. But is really all that bad? Let's consider:

First of all, canned chili is pretty bad stuff. Maybe the fact it can be made on the same line as dog food shouldn't be too surprising.

Next, well-run factories should be scrupulous about cleaning and sanitizing equipment in between uses. (Keyword: should)

Any canning operation has to bring their product to such high temperatures during processing, that contamination is not all that likely.

Is this a case of what you don't know won't hurt you?

I've heard all sorts of mass production stories that would make your stomach turn. But we tend to accept that if a product comes in a shiny can, or a crisp plastic wrapper, the contents must be safe. Think about that practice (or law, in some states) of food handlers wearing latex or vinyl gloves. The New York Times reported recently that handlers sometimes touch money, their faces, cash registers and goodness knows what else, as well as food. They can't FEEL when the gloves are dirty, whereas they would most likely have washed bare hands once they felt a certain degree of "ickiness."

Time for consumers to look past packaging, be truly discerning....and hopefully, prepare food from scratch, with their own hands, as often as they can.

Read Michelle Tsai's article in Slate for more on what's in a can of dog food.

Meantime, the ingredient in the Menu Foods products causing the problem is said to be wheat gluten, though the exact nature of the problem has not been disclosed by the company.

If you want to feed your pet something homemade, here's what I do for my dogs, from time to time: mix brown rice with any of these: eggs, simmered pork or beef liver (cook the brown rice in the liver broth, your dog will be thrilled!), baked chicken or turkey, raw ground beef, cooked lamb offal, canned mackeral or tuna. I also throw in a little bit of finely chopped vegetables or fruit.

The mysterious orange fruit, nespoli.

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvUPDATE THURSDAY 3/20vvvvvvvvvvvvv

My friend Shelley is sure nespoli are loquats! She writes:

"We had a loquat tree in Davis and they looked EXACTLY like your picture. The descriptions match too. I think it’s the same thing. They had great flavor, sort of a cross between an apricot and something else. They don’t keep at all. As soon as you picked them they started to bruise so the kids (neighbors included) would stand under the tree while Kevin picked and distributed. They ate them on the spot, spitting those gargantuan seeds all over the place! They loved them! I wish you could have had more while you were there."

Thanks, Shelley!

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvEXPANDEDvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

(first posted July 14, 2006)

On the drive from Genoa to the Riviera, we noticed many trees heavily laden with small orange fruit. They looked a little like apricots, but the trees were too short, too spreading. Our Liguria guide, Fausta, said they are nespoli.

Back in Genoa, Arianna presented me with a few of these fruits.



The slightly tart fruit is extremely juicy, and as you can tell from the picture, contains three to six large, round brown seeds. They were a real suprise, popping out of the fruit's hollow center, seeming far too large to reside in such a small space.

In an attempt to uncover the fruit's identity, I've read that nespoli are also called medlars. However, pictures show a brown fruit, not an orange one. Some think it's the same as a loquat, which looks like the fruit above, but the description of the taste doesn't quite fit. Still, loquats are called Japanese medlars, so they're probably from the same family. Nespoli - Italian medlars?

I think so. At any rate, medlars have nice cameos in literarure, as a symbol of prostitution, or early dissipation. Hmmmm. Medlars are said to be "rotten before they are ripe." I don't know. With just one encounter, I couldn't learn enough to say if that is true.

UPDATE:

As I was cleaning my bookshelf this week, I found my copy of The Decadent Cookbook, by Medlar Lucan(!) and Durian Gray. These are the pen names of Alex Martin and Jerome Fletcher. If you accept that medlars are rotten before they are ripe; if you regard the smell of the durian as one of the most offensive on the planet; and if you remember that at the root of the word decadent is decay, you'll appreciate the wry wit in these authors' choice of pen names.

It's been several years since I looked at the book. Co-author's name aside, this was also the first time I'd remember actually getting some information about medlars. In the chapter entitled Decay and Corruption:

"...medlars, which resemble grenadillas, are best eaten when they have begun to decompose. To accompany the bowl of medlars was a bowl of 'pire fotute', a precise translation of which need not concern us here. This, my host informed me, was a Sicilian dish made from rotting pears which tasted like chocolate. I took his word for it. Along with the fruit we drank a glass of Sauternes. Needless to say, (my host) waxed lyrical on the subject of 'la pourriture noble' or noble rot."

That perplexed me when I first read it in the late 90s, as there wasn't a real description of the fruit or its flavor. I'm glad I now know - though the medlars I ate were anywhere close to decomposing! Ah well, next trip to Italy...

This is what Shakespeare said about nespoli in As You Lke It:

TOUCHSTONE
Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.

ROSALIND
I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a medlar: then it will be the earliest fruit i' the country; for you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medlar.

Shakespeare refers to the medlar again in Romeo and Juliet, when Mercutio mocks Romeo's unrequited love for Rosaline:

Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.

(BTW, even though R&J is set in Verona, I didn't see any nespoli trees there.)

Another reference is in Chaucer's The Reeve's Tale:

My heart, too, is as mouldy as my hairs,
Unless I fare like medlar, all perverse.
For that fruit's never ripe until it's worse,
And falls among the refuse or in straw.
We ancient men, I fear, obey this law:
Until we're rotten, we cannot be ripe;

Justice: Why So Lukewarm on Patrick Fitzgerald?

There was a lot of buzz about U-S Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald after he got that perjury conviction against Lewis "Scooter" Libby.


However, this wasn't his first big score: in his backyard of Chicago, Fitzgerald took on terrorism funding, the mob and (successfully) prosecuted former Governor George Ryan on corruption charges.

So why, then, has the Justice Department listed Fitzgerald among a group of attorneys who had "not distinguished themselves?"

This was on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005. At the time, Fitzgerald was leading the Plamegate investigation.

From the Washington Post:

"The ranking placed Fitzgerald below "strong U.S. Attorneys . . . who exhibited loyalty" to the administration but above "weak U.S. Attorneys who . . . chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.," according to Justice documents.

"The chart was the first step in an effort to identify U.S. attorneys who should be removed. Two prosecutors who received the same ranking as Fitzgerald were later fired, documents show.

"Fitzgerald's ranking adds another dimension to the prosecutor firings, which began as a White House proposal to remove all 93 U.S. attorneys after the 2004 elections and evolved into the coordinated dismissal of eight last year, a move that has infuriated lawmakers and led to calls for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to resign."

In all the news stories I've read about this revelation, I find a general sense of disbelief. Patrick Fitzgerald is a pit bull!! What would one have to do to be "distinguished?"

Even two years ago, Fitzgerald caught the attention of the Washington Post for his tenacity. Here's their profile of Fitzgerald from 2005.

Note the title of this other Washington Post article: Inquiry as Exacting As Special Counsel Is.

It's becoming harder and harder for the administration to deny the political motivation driving the firings (and ratings)in the U.S attorney scandal.

For more on this story, listen to David Schaper on NPR's Morning Edition today.

A Yacht Equipped Like No Other.

From Corriere della Sera:

"GENOA – The defence market may be sluggish but if navies are not ordering, there is a customer who wants a submarine, albeit a small one. It will be kept on board a very large yacht. Fincantieri is now gearing up to build the vessel at the shipyard in Muggiano, Liguria. This morning, there will be a ceremony to lay the keel of a 134-metre yacht with seven decks and a small submarine capable of reaching depths of up to one hundred metres. The design has two helicopter platforms, a hangar for a private aircraft and a seawater swimming pool that can also be used for mooring small boats. The yacht will require a crew of about sixty and delivery is scheduled for 2010."

The article goes on to describe the brave new frontier in the industry is non-polluting yachts.

"The world’s first such vessel, which next autumn will flaunt a RINA Green Star to show that it can be entirely self-contained, leaving no emissions in the sea, is a fifty-metre long yacht belonging to Luciano Benetton."

Read the whole article here.