get yours from: northern sun-products for progressives since 1979

Wal Mart heir John Walton died yesterday in the crash of his homebuilt experimental aircraft. Walton was one of Sam Walton’s three sons and served on the Wal Mart board. Forbes magazine in its March issued said that Walton was the 11th most wealthy person in world with a net worth of $18.2 billion.

According to Melissa Nelson, a writer for the Associated Press:

Walton, of Jackson, Wyo., crashed shortly after takeoff Monday from Jackson Hole Airport in Grand Teton National Park, the company said. The cause of the crash was not known and will be investigated, officials said. Walton was 58.

My Soundtrack: Ode To L.A. by The Ravonettes on WOXY.

Representative Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.) is not happy with an agreement between the Department of Labor and Wal Mart.

The pact, part of a larger settlement reached between the DOL and the Bentonville Behemoth after the company was found guilty of child-labor law violations in January, grants Wal Mart a 15-day advance notice before the DOL begins any future investigations. Said DeLauro:

Granting a two-week advance notice is essentially daring repeated child labor law violators like Wal-Mart to conceal any further violations. It is evident from the additional child labor violations recently found at Wal-Mart stores in Connecticut that this company refuses to comply with labor laws designed to protect our children.

To counter the agreement, DeLauro offered an amendment to the FY 2006 Labor HHS Appropriations bill that prohibits DOL from using federal funds to enforce it. DeLauro said:

If a state government can get tough on a child labor violator – particularly one that happens to be our nation”s largest private employer – there is no reason the Federal government should not be able to as well. Congress needs to send Wal-Mart a message – that companies who violate child labor laws will not be tolerated.

Hmmm… Low prices… Low wages… Low ages?

Please Sir, may I have some more?

My Soundtrack: I’m Your Pet Rock by Reverend Horton Heat on WOXY.

In the United States we cling tenaciously to the artificial concept of adolescence. The idea that a 12- or 13-year-old is somehow capable of adult thinking and behavior is abhorrent to us. But in the rest of the world, that is not the case. Take, for example, Laura King’s The Fresh New Face of Israeli Defiance in this morning’s Los Angeles Times. King writes:

In recent months, Israeli teenagers and preteens have become the shock troops of a nationwide campaign of protests against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip this summer, Israel’s first such ceding of settlements in war-seized territory the Palestinians want for their future state.

Hundreds of youngsters have been arrested for offenses such as blocking highways, daubing antigovernment graffiti on walls and scuffling with police and soldiers. They usually spend no more than a night or two behind bars, if that, but some have been incarcerated for weeks at a time.

The emergence of these young rebels with a right-wing cause has set off fierce debate among Israelis, encompassing questions of parental responsibility, freedom of expression, the proper use of judicial authority and the potential for what has so far been rowdy civil disobedience to boil over into real violence.

Setting aside the politics of these adolescents, I think it is important to remember that only a little more than 50 years ago, the teens of that Israeli generation carried rifles, fought and died in their War For Independence. In our own nation, it was not that long ago that teens and preteens went to war and died as drummer boys and powder monkeys.

I would rather have a world where no one feared violence; where everyone could live a good life. But we’re not there yet. In the interim, I would rather see my students engaged in peaceful acts of civil disobedience in support of a cause they believe in, than wearing their thumbs out on an X-box controller.

My Soundtrack: Wrong by Everything But The Girl on WOXY.

In My Backpack… Women’s Reality by Anne Wilson Schaef; In My Car… The Devil’s Code by John Sanford; On My Nightstand… Life Of Pi by Yann Martel; On My Computer… Keats by Christopher Howell; On My Screen… Touching Evil, Season 3: Fiery Death (***) directed and written by Sian Evans.

My Soundtrack: Back by Alpha on WOXY.

get yours from: northern sun-products for progressives since 1979

Ed Morrison, brother to Hunter Morrison and brother-in-law to his wife, Mayor Jane Campbell has been given the boot as executive director for Case Western Reserve University”s Center for Regional Economic Issues. While the official line is that Morrison resigned, he told George Nemeth at Brewed Fresh Daily that he:

…got fired for doing open source economic development…

As usual, George is all over the story and links to all the important sources for more details.

My Soundtrack: Boys Go Home by Oxford Collapse on WOXY.

John Ettorre at Working With Words pointed me to this survey by the folks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The survey is a pretty broad one of who bloggers, what we do, how we do it and whom we do it with. It took me about 15 minutes to complete the survey. MIT lets you see the overall survey results, as well as allowing you alter your own data up until the survey closes. I encourage you to add your own data by clicking on the icon below.

My Soundtrack: Pastimes & Lifestyles by Dogs Die In Hot Cars on WOXY.

Back on Thursday, 16 June, the Ohio Department of Transportation held what it billed as it’s first and last public meeting to seek comment on the Quigley Road Connector joining I-71 North and West 14th Street to the Cuyahoga Valley and the land to be privately developed at Steelyard Commons.

I had some problems viewing the Power Point presentation on line because my viewer was corrupted, but once it working I was struck by something.

I don’t recall seeing the above slide as part of the public presentation.

I could be wrong. The memory is the second thing to go. And if anyone who was there does remember seeing this slide, let me know and I’ll make the correction here. But if I’m right, why would this slide be omitted?

How about because of the traffic question. The slide presentation has two sets of traffic figures in it. The first set is for traffic on West 14th in 2006.

If the Quigley Road Connector is not built, ODOT says there will be an average of 18,060 vehicles a day on West 14th street. If the connector is built, that traffic projection drops 59 percent to an average of 11,880 vehicles per day.

For Clarke Avenue the drop is even more dramatic. If the connector is not built, ODOT projects that the average daily traffic there will be 19,680 vehicles. If the connector is built, that drops 70 percent to an average of 5,630 vehicles per day.

Missing from the figures, of course, is what is the traffic today? How much of that traffic is an increase resulting from Steelyard Commons?

I’ve emailed Lora Hummer, Public Information Officer for ODOT to ask her for the 2005 (or whatever baseline was used) figures for W 14th and Clarke. Since she responded so quickly to my first question, I’m hopeful for a similar response to this one.

There is also an interesting assumption in the above figures. Where are those 20,230 average daily vehicles being diverted from West 14th and Clarke Avenue going to go? Well to the Quigley Road Connector of course.

According to ODOT’s 2003 figures (see map below) the stretch of I-71 that would be serviced by Quigley Road carried an average of 75,110 vehicles per day in 2003. That mean that the connector will be expected to carry the equivalent of approximately 27 percent of the traffic on I-71 near Tremont. That’s a lot of cars.

For comparison, take a look, above, at Chester (Route 322) and Euclid (Route 20) avenues. In 2003, ODOT put average daily traffic on those roads at 31,890 and 11,420 respectively.

The first question I asked at the public meeting was whether or not the Quigley Road Connector — which I see as a good thing for Tremont Resident because it diverts heavy truck traffic to and from the valley off of their streets — was in any way connected with the development of Steelyard Commons. I was assured by the main speaker (I’m afraid I don’t recall his name, that memory thing again) that one had nothing to do with the other.

I thought that was a good answer that evening. Now I’m not so sure. I’ll let you know when I hear back from Ms. Hummer.

My Soundtrack: Your Little Hoodrat Friend by The Hold Steady on WOXY.

… unless we think it’s to our advantage. OK. Let me see if I have this right. The official policy of the United States is that it does not negotiate with terrorists — well there was that whole thing with Oliver North and the Iranians, but that is so last century — and I seem to recall something about how the insurgents in Iraq are terrorists. So, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says that we are holding face-to-face meetings with some leaders of the Iraqi insurgency he means in some parallel, bizaro universe, right?

Uhm. Well. No.

As I see there are at least three possibilities.

A. The Bush administration is not as stupid as it looks and it’s engaged in a matter of Realpolitik.

B. The Bush administration was just kidding about that whole not negotiating with terrorists thing.

C. The Bush administration realizes that it is getting its butt kicked and it better do something to hold onto the Congress in 2006 and maybe the White House in 2008.

But what is definitely not going on here is not staying the course. No flip-flopping here. Nope. None at all. You’re seeing things in the wrong perspective. You have to understand…

Can you say Paris Talks?

My Soundtrack: Mean Streets by Country Falls on WOXY.

In My Backpack… Women’s Reality by Anne Wilson Schaef; In My Car… The Devil’s Code by John Sanford; On My Nightstand… Life Of Pi by Yann Martel; On My Computer… A Caterpillar on the Desk by Robert Bly; On My Screen… Touching Evil, Season 3: Fiery Death (***) directed and written by Sian Evans.

My Soundtrack: Son Of A Gun by Nirvana on WOXY.

get yours from: northern sun-products for progressives since 1979

The Sunday Times continues its reporting on the documents now associated with the Downing Street Memo first published on 1 May. The editors of the paper call the level of interest in the documents extraordinary. They have compiled a web page to serve as a central source for all The Times‘ stories related to the memo.

Despite a weak attempt by wrong-wing hacks to discredit the memos, their authenticity has never been disputed by those who should know: the people involved. In The Leaked Iraq Documents, Michael Smith, the reporter who first told the story, writes:

The recent circulation on the internet of the text of five other similar memos, which were leaked to me last September, has raised some interesting issues, largely because I destroyed the original copies I was given to protect my source.

A number of supporters of President Bush have even suggested that this somehow “proved” that the documents were not genuine.

Firstly, all of the documents have been authenticated not just by me, but by the Washington Post, the LA Times and the Associated Press.

Secondly, the various documents included quotes from a dozen senior officials, including Blair, Straw and Hoon, none of whom have come forward to dismiss them as fakes.

Thirdly it is a matter of record that a police Special Branch leak investigation took place into how I came to get hold of the documents, something that would not have occurred were they forgeries.

In the editorial Weasel Words On Iraq, The Times quotes President Franklin D. Roosevelt from his 23 March 1942 address to the nation:

Your government has unmistakable confidence in your ability to hear the worst, without flinching or losing heart. You must, in turn, have complete confidence that your government is keeping nothing from you except information that will help the enemy in his attempt to destroy us.

We no longer have to ask, “What did the president know and when did he know it?”

The memos make it all very clear.

The American People were lied to and those lies have led directly to the death of more than 1,700 precious members of our armed forces.

We impeached a president for lieing. And no one died for his lie.

My Soundtrack: Conversations by Posies on WOXY.

I finally got a chance to meet John Ettorre not once but twice, on consecutive evenings this month. Last Thursday John blogged about a minor epiphany concerning buying locally. He was at Borders when he realized he could order the same book from Susanne at Mac’s Backs and keep more of his money working in his community.

It’s something I do all the time and it’s important to know where your money goes and who it supports. Across America there are whole communities dedicated to this concept. I had a chance back in March to see one in operation in Louisville, Kentucky: Keep Louisville Weird.

I got an email today telling me about Independents Week. Sure enough, Louisville was on the list, along with 23 other communities. None of which, however, are in Ohio.

While Cleveland isn’t an official member of the event, there’s no reason all of us can’t, as the organization suggests:

…take the Indie Challenge — use Independents Week to explore your community’s independently-owned businesses see how much of your purchasing for that week you can do with them. You’ll keep your money circulating in your community three times as long or more than spending it at chains where it leaves immediately for somewhere else. Every dollar you spend at a locally-owned business helps your community in many ways.

Instead of Wal Mart, how about Mac’s Backs and The West Side Market and Geraci’s Pizza and Phoenix Coffee and, and, and…

Who’s your favorite independent?

Shop there, tell your friends, make your dollars count.

My Soundtrack: Anjalee by Lucero on WOXY.

In My Backpack… Women’s Reality by Anne Wilson Schaef; In My Car… The Devil’s Code by John Sanford; On My Nightstand… Life Of Pi by Yann Martel; On My Computer… For a Father by Elise Partridge; On My Screen… Batman Begins (***) directed by Christopher Nolan, written by David S. Goyer.

My Soundtrack: Waiting For The Sirens’ Call by New Order on WOXY.

According to John Dicker’s The United States Of Wal Mart, one in every 115 workers in the United States is employed by Wal Mart. 1 in #$%^&*^ 115!

Can you get your head around that? I can’t.

Buzzflash says Picker’s book is an:

…irreverent, hard-hitting examination of the world’s largest-and most reviled-corporation, which reveals that while Wal-Mart’s dominance may be providing consumers with cheap goods and plentiful jobs, it may also be breeding a culture of discontent.

It employs one of every 115 American workers. If it were a nation-state, it would be one of the world’s top twenty economies. With yearly sales of nearly $260 billion and an average wage of $8 an hour, Wal-Mart represents an unprecedented-and perhaps unstoppable-force in capitalism. And there have been few corporations that have evoked the same levels of reverence and ire.

The United States of Wal-Mart is a hard-hitting examination of how Sam Walton’s empire has infiltrated not just the geography of America but also its consciousness. Peeling away layers of propaganda and politics, investigative journalist John Dicker reveals an American (and, increasingly, a global) story that has no clear-cut villains or heroes-one that could be the confused, complicated story of America itself.

Pitched battles between economic progress and quality of life, between the preservation of regional identity and national homogeneity, and between low prices and the dignity of the American worker are beginning to coalesce into an all-out war to define our modern era.

And, Dicker argues, Wal-Mart is winning. Revealing that the company’s business practices have been shaping American culture, including the nation’s social, political, and industrial policy, The United States of Wal-Mart provides fresh insight into a controversy that isn’t going away.

Dicker’s book is going to the top of my summer reading list. How about yours?

My Soundtrack: Let’s Get High by Benjamin Diamond on WOXY.

get yours from: northern sun-products for progressives since 1979

Have you ever wondered what goes through the head of anyone who gets the phone call? You know, the one that goes: “Good morning, this is 60 Minutes calling. We’d like to interview you for a piece we’re doing. What would be a good time for us to stop by to talk with you?” Now, I would think that any sane person would immediately ask themself:

“Is there anything questionable in my past that could make me look really bad on national television?” But that doesn’t happen and the 60 Minutes crew continues to nail stupid people to the wall.

I’d like to ask Edward Klein, the author of The Truth About Hillary, what was he thinking when he agreed to be interviewed by Al Franken? Did he not know Franken’s bias? Did he think that Franken’s listeners might buy his book? Is Klein brain dead?

Yesterday Franken, and Joe Conason, skewered Klein on a couple of big lies — the long debunked Clinton haircut story and Patrick Moynihan’s inability to say Hillary Clinton’s name — and generally raked him over the coals. Media Matters has the full transcript posted.

But here’s the thing. The target audience for Klein book does not generally listen to Al Franken, they’re listening to Rush. And Franken’s audience is not generally going to buy a book that even a conservative like John Podhoretz says:

…is one of the most sordid volumes I’ve ever waded through. Thirty pages into it, I wanted to take a shower. Sixty pages into it, I wanted to be decontaminated. And 200 pages into it, I wanted someone to drive stakes through my eyes so I wouldn’t have to suffer through another word.

So, did Klein buy into the whole “I don’t care what you say as long as you spell my name right” thing? Maybe. But I don’t think so. Or is that Klein doesn’t care either way and that all he’s thinking about are the dollars rolling in from Conservatives who will read anything that reinforces their world view?

My Soundtrack: Cars Are Weird by Human Television on WOXY.

In My Backpack… Women’s Reality by Anne Wilson Schaef; In My Car… The Devil’s Code by John Sanford; On My Nightstand… Life Of Pi by Yann Martel; On My Computer… Pasta by Kate Scott; On My Screen… Queer As Folk: No. 409 (*) directed by Kevin Inch, written by Shawn Postoff.

My Soundtrack: Hot Sluts Say I Love You by Robbers On High Stree on WOXY.

King Louis XIV of France expanded his father’s hunting lodge to create one of the historic examples of aristocratic excess. When the revolution came, King Louis the XVI was so isolated in his 1,800-acre luxury resort with its, 700 rooms, 2,000 windows, 1,250 fireplaces and 67 staircases that he had no idea what the peasants were upset about.

Fast forward some 225 years or so to another isolated retreat: Baghdad’s Green Zone. The size of the Green Zone is difficult to pin down but one estimate puts it at eight square kilometers or about 1,977 acres; slightly more than the Sun King’s estate. And that’s not where the comparison ends.

According to the blogger at Baghdad Burning this week, the Green Zone continues to be a sore point for Iraqi citizens.

The price of building materials has gone up unbelievably, in spite of the fact that major reconstruction has not yet begun. I assumed it was because so much of the concrete and other building materials was going to reinforce the restricted areas.

A friend who recently got involved working with an Iraqi subcontractor who takes projects inside of the Green Zone explained that it was more than that. The Green Zone, he told us, is a city in itself. He came back awed, and more than a little bit upset.

He talked of designs and plans being made for everything from the future US Embassy and the housing complex that will surround it, to restaurants, shops, fitness centers, gasoline stations, constant electricity and water- a virtual country inside of a country with its own rules, regulations and government.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Republic of the Green Zone, also known as the Green Republic.

I seem to remember something very similar taking place in a little city called Saigon.

My Soundtrack: Bottle Rocket by The Go Team on WOXY.