For immediate release:November 30, 2005
Contact:Micah Walker Parkin 504-258-1247 or
Casey Demoss Roberts: 504-982-0468

The Party to Save New Orleans

November 30, 2005, New Orleans - Here in Louisiana, and especially in New Orleans, we’re known for partying. We party for all kinds of reasons. This Saturday, Dec. 3rd, we’re going to party for one of the most important reasons of all: to save our city and region. After two disastrous hurricanes this year, and amid concerns about increasing global warming and its effect on hurricane size and intensity and sea levels, we’re partying to send a message.

The New Orleans Group of the Sierra Club and the Alliance for Affordable Energy are organizing one of over 60 events taking place worldwide on Dec. 3rd, an “International Day of Action" to bring the world's attention to international global warming discussions taking place in Montreal, Canada, and show support for the U.S. to do its part to reduce global warming pollution.

For the first time ever, the Kyoto Protocol ongoing discussions are taking place in North America. From Nov. 28-Dec.9 world leaders are gathering in Montreal (11th Conference of the Parties) to discuss implementation plans for the Kyoto Protocol in order to meet the first phase of a 5% greenhouse gas reduction between 2008-2012 and to set goals beyond.

So far there has been a lack of constructive participation by the United States, with the Bush Administration refusing to sign onto the Kyoto Protocol citing economic concerns. Nevertheless, the Protocol went into effect last year when Russia signed on.

However, many fear that without the United States on board, possibilities for future agreements to reduce global warming pollution could collapse. Other countries may begin to waiver in their commitment to the agreement if the largest contributor to global warming (25%) refuses to participate.

“We are committed to action in addressing our nation’s global warming pollution and encourage our city, state and national leaders to take a stand,” said Micah Walker Parkin, Program Director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy.

The Alliance and Sierra Club promote energy efficiency, renewable energy technologies, alternative fuel and transportation choices, and smart growth to reduce U.S. dependence on the fossil fuels contributing to global warming and to save people money.

These groups and several others are sending letters encouraging Governor Blanco, Mayors Ray Nagin of New Orleans and Kip Holden of Baton Rouge, and Senators Mary Landrieu and David Vitter to attend the Montreal conference and to be leaders in the effort to stop global warming, given Louisiana’s extreme vulnerabilities. They have been invited by the Canadian Government and organizers of events that will take place along side the conference for these leaders.

The "Save New Orleans, Stop Global Warming!" party is being sponsored by several French Quarter bar owners and the Abita Brewery. Participating bars for the “quarter crawl” include Razzoo’s, The Old Absinthe House, Bourbon Orleans Snooks, and The Original Johnny White’s. Crawlers will meet at 5pm at Razzoo’s and will complete their journey at Bourbon Orleans Snooks for a performance by New Orleans’ own “Country Fried”.

“If we save New Orleans, we’ll also help save our coast, wetlands, wildlife, communities, and one-third of Louisiana’s economic base – that’s a goal worth celebrating!” said Casey Demoss Roberts, Chair of the New Orleans Group of the Sierra Club.

"The folks at the Institute for Southern Studies and its blog, Facing South, provide indispensible, highly respected reporting and resources for community-building from a Southern perspective that you can't find anywhere else. ISS and Facing South dispel the myth that serious, growing progressive activism isn't occurring south of the Mason-Dixon line."

-- Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend and Pandagon

"The Institute for Southern Studies is home of the excellent Facing South blog and the new Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch project. This organization is doing great work in the gulf states.

They're also looking to raise $20,000 to cover their investigative expenses for their reconstruction watch. Strong progressive voices in the South are not especially common. The ISS is one. Honestly, check them out."

-- Matt Singer of Left in the West posting on Sirotablog


"The Institute for Southern Studies is raising money for its Investigative Fund. The fund supports investigative journalism and alternative media, including the new Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch.

Donations are tax-deductible and a generous benefactor has promised to match donations up to a total of $7500. Support muckracking today."

-- Lindsay Beyerstein aka Majikthise

The students were among a small group who became, or wanted to become, involved with a nationwide blitz of walkouts and demonstrations on Nov. 2 aimed at getting people "to take responsibility to stop the whole disastrous course led by the Bush administration." The sponsors, The World Can't Wait movement, cite a litany of grievances ranging from the war in Iraq and torture to abortion and environmental policies. Rallies took place in cities and campuses across the nation; in many, students supplied the bulk of the protest power.

This is the kind of open-air venting of viewpoints on national issues that has been going on since the patriots rallied in the colonies' churches and squares. The freedoms implicit in it - of speech and assembly - are the foundation of the American way.

But at Hampton University, these freedoms are abridged. Students may pass out literature only if it has been approved by the administration. Demonstrations and protests must be registered and approved. The requirement that they be peaceful and nonviolent makes sense, but not that they be "unobtrusive": Democracy is not an unobtrusive undertaking.

Students may be disciplined for violating the code of conduct that forbids attempts to "accost, cajole or proselytize" others.

Tell Hampton University:

(1) Drop all charges and cancel all hearings against the student activists
(2) Change your restrictive policy on student protests and demonstrations

Be sure to call and/or send a letter to the following decision maker(s):

Dr. Bennie McMorris
Vice President for Student Affairs
757-727-5264
bennie.mcmorris@hamptonu.edu

Woodson Hopewell
Dean of Men
woodson.hopewell@hamptonu.edu
757-727-5303

Jewel Long
Dean of Women
jewel.long@hamptonu.edu
757-727-5486

Diebold Election Systems is worried it could be charged with a felony if officials determine the company failed to make all of its code -- some of which is owned by third-party software firms, including Microsoft Corp. -- available for examination by election officials in case of a voting mishap.

[..]

The dispute centers on the state's requirement that suppliers place in escrow "all software that is relevant to functionality, setup, configuration, and operation of the voting system," as well as a list of programmers responsible for creating the software.

That's not possible for Diebold's machines, which use Microsoft Windows, Hanna said. The company does not have the right to provide Microsoft's code, he said, adding it would be impossible to provide the names of every programmer who worked on Windows.

Administrators at Oak Ridge High School went into teachers' classrooms, desks and mailboxes to retrieve all 1,800 copies of the newspaper Tuesday, said teacher Wanda Grooms, who advises the staff, and Brittany Thomas, the student editor.

The Oak Leaf's birth control article listed success rates for different methods and said contraceptives were available from doctors and the local health department. Superintendent Tom Bailey said the article needed to be edited so it would be acceptable for the entire school.

The edition also contained a photo of an unidentified student's tattoo, and the student had not told her parents about the tattoo, said Superintendent Tom Bailey.

Monday night, several students attended the school board's regularly scheduled meeting to voice their unhappiness with the administration's decision. Many had tape over their mouths with the word "Censor" written on them.

[..]

Oak Ridge senior Krystal Meyers was the writer of the article on contraceptives.

"I just wanted to let people know what kinds of birth control that are out there and what you can use," she said.

After removing all copies of the paper before it was circulated, Ervin scheduled a conference with Krystal and her father.

"I walked out of second period today to go to my meeting and I was clapped all the way out of the classroom," Krystal said.

That wasn't the only show of support students have made.

Some students gathered Sunday to make T-shirts to wear to school the next day.

[..]

Samantha Senn's shirt said "If not now, when?" She said she wanted to say, "If we don't take a stand now against this, then when are we going to?"

James Sullivan's shirt read, "Censorship got me pregnant."

Are the qualities that have long been ascribed to the South really true anymore? Are Southerners really more hospitable than other Americans? Does family really count for more down South? Are depth of faith, loyalty to home, reverence for history and sense of place identifiably "Southern" traits?

Blacks have a complicated love affair with the South. Their ancestors were enslaved in the region for generations, then Jim Crow laws pushed them to the back of the bus. From inner-city slums to old plantation counties, being black too often still means a second-class existence.

Yet surveys show blacks who live in the South are more likely than any other racial or ethnic group — even whites — to identify themselves as Southerners. It's a label millions claim with pride and affection, yet uneasiness.

A complex brew of poverty and racial strife has inspired writers as diverse as William Faulkner, Richard Wright, Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, Pat Conroy and John Grisham. But those same social pathologies have burdened the South with a stubbornly enduring legacy of illiteracy.

"As you're driving down the street and people are jogging or walking, they all wave. And I don't even know these people, for crying out loud," [Wisconsin transplant] Andrea Lemke said. "I'm always addressed as 'ma'am' or 'Mrs. Lemke.' It drove me crazy when I was dealing with contractors. They never called me by my first name, even though I'd given them permission to do so."

[..]

Social courtesies, even if only surface-deep, played a key role in the racially tumultuous century between the Civil War and the Civil Rights Act. Rules of racial etiquette allowed whites to prolong their crumbling social order. For blacks, being impolite to whites could mean death.

With a single bullet tucked in his shirt pocket, Deputy Barney Fife invariably finds a way to bumble things and confirms the outsiders' bias about small-town yokels.

But by the end of the episode, Sheriff Andy Taylor has outfoxed everyone, and good old-fashioned country wisdom has once again trumped big-city sophistication.

It's a classic story line of country comedy, one of the most recognizable exports of the South, a region that arguably is lampooned — and lampoons itself like no other. From Minnie Pearl's "How-Dee!" to Gomer Pyle's "Gaaawlee!" to Larry the Cable Guy's "Git 'r' Done," the simple humor of the backwoods is an art form that has endured through changing times and even transcended its Southern roots.

[..]

But beneath the stereotypical surface, early country comedy may have played a role in maintaining the delicate social fabric of the South. University of Georgia history professor James C. Cobb said the redneck comedian created the illusion of white equality across classes.

Moore has gained a rock-star following on the Christian right—a Moses to lead the chosen from a godless society. The judge has a stunning memory for long literary passages and judicial opinions, and he chants them in the singsongy, down-home style of Southern demagogues from Theo Bilbo to George Wallace—“God” is “Gawud,” with an upward lilt. When he proclaimed that “God is still sovereign, no matter what federal judges say,” the crowd tittered and applauded. When he intoned that “there is no right to sodomy in the Constitution,” they cheered. When he roared that unless judges “acknowledge God,” they “should be impeached,” the righteous noise shook the rafters.

It could have been nothing more than a half-hour rebel yell—except that Moore is more than the latest prophet of the religious right. He stands a good chance of being the next governor of Alabama; he’s also arguably the single most significant politician to owe his ascendancy to Christian Reconstruction—an obscure but increasingly potent theology whose top exponents hold that Christian crusaders must conquer and convert the world, by the sword if necessary, before Jesus will return.

TIP OF THE ICEBERG? A 2004 audit found contracting in disarray under Michael Brown's FEMA

*** Over a year ago, the Department of Homeland Security itself knew that FEMA's contracting office was in total disarray and staff qualifications were a major concern. In fact, as Reilly reports, "record-keeping was so slipshod that auditors were 'unable to assess the qualifications of the workforce.'"

*** As early as 2001, FEMA was neglecting small business contractors, instead turning to big corporate heavyweights (many closely connected to the Bush Administration). Reilly: "The procurement office failed to meet its fiscal 2001 small business goals and then didn't bother with submitting a required written explanation and corrective action plan to the Small Business Administration."

*** These problems exacerbated long-standing concerns about lack of open bidding: "Once a year, FEMA was supposed to review their contracting operations with an eye to promoting full and open competition; no such review had been done since 1992."

Former FEMA director Michael D. Brown works for Michael D. Brown LLC, a change-your-address-book information notice said last week. Brown is going into the consulting business with offices here and in Boulder, Colo., the announcement said.

The office here is at 101 Constitution Ave. NW. Hmmm. That's the fancy new building that is also home to the tony Charlie Palmer restaurant. It says he's in Suite 525 East.

Sounds familiar. Oh, it's in the offices of the Allbaugh Co., run by former FEMA director and top Bush aide in Texas Joe M. Allbaugh , a college chum of Brown's who brought him to Washington. Same phone number, too.

It just got a little tougher for landlords to evict tenants in Orleans and Jefferson parishes, from which thousands of people remain displaced because of Hurricane Katrina.

All pending evictions are on hold until landlords send eviction notices to their tenants, according to a settlement struck Tuesday in federal court that ends a lawsuit brought by unions, activists and individual renters. Eviction hearings cannot take place until 45 days after those mailings are postmarked.

"No longer can landlords just rely on tacking notices on doors while the tenants don't know they're getting evicted," said Judith Browne, a lead attorney for the plaintiffs. "It's going to provide fair rules so that people can come and defend themselves and, ultimately, protect their property."

In an added twist, the Federal Emergency Management Agency agreed to supply court clerks, constables and justices of the peace with addresses of evacuees -- a first in litigation since Katrina, Browne said.

"FEMA will have to supply the addresses to the evictions courts in Orleans and Jefferson," Browne said. "They know where they are."

WASHINGTON - President Bush recommended a wide variety of experts for the Tennessee Valley Authority's expanding board - from a banking executive in Nashville to the general counsel of the Republican National Committee.

If approved by the Senate, the five nominees and two current members will create a new quorum for an eventual nine-member board that sets wholesale power rates and makes other decisions affecting local utilities, flood control and economic development in Tennessee and parts of six adjoining states.

KNOXVILLE -- Five people, most with ties to the Republican Party, were nominated Friday by President Bush to fill new seats on an expanded board of directors overseeing the Tennessee Valley Authority, the country's largest public utility.

None has utility experience, but all have either worked for Republican administrations or been donors to GOP campaigns, including the president's.

Like a noxious smell to which nobody wants to draw attention, there was a curiously unremarked subtext to the third-quarter earnings release from Wal-Mart Stores last week.

Most news reports quoted its executives sounding upbeat about the coming Christmas season. But none saw fit to mention that investors haven't made a dime from this company's shares over the last five years.

Researchers said random purchases at 60 Wal-Mart stores in California found that the wrong price came up 8.3 percent of the time. At 78 stores in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, check-out scanners rang up the wrong price 6.4 percent of the time. In both states, some prices rang up higher and some were lower.

The National Institute for Standards and Technology says that for every 100 items scanned, no more than two should have the wrong price. The NIST's last industrywide study, in 1998, found the rate at 3.35 per 100.

Protesters want Johnston County officials to investigate a company it claims has housed planes used by the CIA to covertly shuttle terrorism suspects to countries where they're possibly tortured.

Some of the protesters posted signs pointing to the airport, located about 30 miles southeast of Raleigh, that read, "This Way To CIA Torture Flights." Others, wearing orange jumpsuits with hoods over their heads, re-enacted scenes from American-run prison camps such as Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

[Organizer Patrick] O'Neill and other protesters slipped past a barbed-wire fence and draped the company's sign with a cloth that read: "CIA TORTURE TAXI."

Company officials have denied the charges, which were reported earlier this year by CBS' "60 Minutes" and the New York Times.

A Cordova [TN] company is at the center of a diplomatic row over whether its planes have been used to secretly transport terrorism suspects for interrogation by foreign security services in a practice called extraordinary rendition.

Stevens Express Leasing, which Federal Aviation Administration records show owns four airplanes, was identified by the Spanish newspaper Diario de Mallorca as the owner of planes associated with CIA operations regularly landing on the island of Majorca, Spain.

A Central Intelligence Agency spokeswoman said last week that she could not address questions concerning Stevens. "All we've been saying all day is 'no comment,'" she said [...]

Several countries have objected to the American practice of sending suspects to countries that permit torture, and human rights groups and the European Union are investigating reports that the U.S. operates detention facilities overseas where anonymous suspects are held beyond the reach of lawyers.

Rep. Harold Ford Jr., D-Tenn., was surprised to hear that the company he has been reading about had an office about a mile outside his district. He also said he hopes the U.S. is not involved in torture.

"There should be a common set of rules that we follow and, if we're knowingly shipping people to be tortured somewhere, it's not a good thing. It's not who we are."

The Justice Department is deciding whether to pursue an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing over how a division of the Halliburton Co. was awarded a contract in Iraq.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., released a letter Friday from Defense Department Assistant Inspector General John R. Crane that said the department's Defense Criminal Investigative Services is investigating the allegations and "has shared its findings with the Department of Justice."

The letter also said the Justice Department is in the process of considering whether to pursue the matter.

Newspapers, magazines and TV screens have been filled with images of Ron Artest went rampaging into the stands of an NBA megaplex in Detroit, swinging at fans. USA Today calls it the "player-fan brawl that shocked the nation." It was, one fan tells the newspaper, "like the 9/11 of the NBA." The Chicago Sun-Times calls it a sign of an "escalating crisis of violence in sports."

It's as if nothing like this has ever happened before. As if, suddenly, the once-glorious game is being trampled upon by a frightening wave of pretenders and barbarians.

In the mythology of American sports, there was a simpler time, a Golden Era, when ballplayers were humble and worked hard and played for the love of the game. Sports were unpolluted by greed, egos, cheating or violence.

The flip side of this is the idea that today's athletes are different: arrogant, spoiled, lazy, overpaid, brutish.

It's a conviction built on historical amnesia -- and on a nostalgia-tinged brand of unconscious racism, one that yearns for the "good-old-days" when the "Boys of Summer" and set-shot-shooting "Hoosiers" just happened to be almost lily white.

It's an outlook that ignores these well-documented facts: Sports have always been violent. And they've always been populated by considerable numbers of players and fans who can't behave themselves.

But today's media pack doesn't have time for context or history. Few journalists have stepped back from the hype and asked: Are these bad behaviors new? Were things really so gentle and innocent, once upon a time?

Are athletes more arrogant today than they were in the 1950s, when the Boston Red Sox's icily masterful hitter, Ted Williams, spit at his hometown fans and gave them the finger? (Off-duty Boston cops were said to give boys apples to throw at Williams.)

Are players more out-of-control today than they were in 1957, when the New York Yankees engaged in three bench-clearing brawls in a single week? (That same season, after a Dodgers-Reds brawl, one of the gladiators told the press his plans for his main antagonist: "I'll get him. I'll whip his hide and his wife won't know him when I get through.")

Are today's drug-imbibing players bigger users of intoxicants than the old-style boozers who once populated American sports? (Babe Ruth was once so "drunk out of his mind" at spring training that he ran into a palm tree in the outfield and knocked himself senseless.)

Are fans more unruly today than they were in Cleveland in 1974, when the Indians and Rangers had to unite and use their bats as weapons to fend off a crazed, knife-wielding Ten Cent Beer Night crowd? (Rangers manager Billy Martin said it was "the closest I ever saw to someone getting killed in baseball.")

None of this is meant to defend Ron Artest or any other athletes -- or fans -- who get out of the control. They're in the wrong. Violence and bad sportsmanship should be dealt with swifty, firmly and fairly.

But let's not whitewash our history and act as if any of this is new.

Go read books such as Richard Sheinin's "Field of Screams: The Dark Underside of America's National Pastime." You'll find that every era has had its share of brawls, greed, selfish superstars and crazy fans.

In the old days, nearly every NBA game was punctuated by a fight -- just as in hockey, the owners thought fighting was a good draw for fans. Bench-clearing and grandstand-clearing brawls have been recorded throughout the years in the sports at all levels.

And players going into the stands after fans? Yeah, that happened, too, back in the day.

Babe Ruth was in a batting slump in 1922 when he got thrown out at second trying to stretch a single into a double, then got thrown out of the game for tossing dirt in the umpire's face. A heckler called The Babe "a big bum," and Ruth went into the stands after him. The heckler scurried out of reach. Ruth got back up on the dugout and screamed: "Anyone who wants to fight, come down on the field! Ah, you're all alike, you're all yellow!"

Ruth failed to catch his heckler that muggy spring day. But a decade before, Ty Cobb, the man who'd preceded Ruth as the national pastime's greatest star, had more luck.

Cobb vaulted the guardrail protecting the grandstand, stalked up 12 rows and began punching and kicking a heckler, tearing holes with his spikes and opening gashes around the man's ears and face.

Other spectators pleaded with Cobb, yelling that the man - who'd lost eight fingers in an industrial accident - had no hands.

"I don't care if he has no feet," Cobb replied.

Michael Hudson is a staff writer at The Roanoke (Va.) Times and investigative editor at Southern Exposure magazine.

"You probably think country/bluegrass musicians who live in the South are all foaming-at-the-mouth wingers, right? Nope, you're not even close. Check out Steve Earle. He's profane, passionate, funny, and very political."

Steve Earle is the musicians' idol - a hero to Emmylou Harris - who has said of his life "If I'd known I was going to live this long I'd have taken better care of myself." He was taking heroin at 13 and by the age of 40 was mired in a seemingly permanent "vacation in the ghetto." In and out of jail for a variety of offenses, Earle seemed determined to make good on his boast that when the end of the world came (and it seemed pretty close at times) only he, Keith Richards and the cockroaches would be left standing. Not yet 50, he has been married six times, twice to the same woman, and amazingly forgiven by almost all of the ex-wives.

And I have some great news to help sweeten the deal: a very generous friend of the Institute has agreed to match all contributions in the next week, dollar for dollar, up to $7,500.

I'm not a math person, but I know this means your contribution will be doubled.

And if we can reach $7,500 in donations by Thanksgiving, we'll have raised $15,000 to support our growing team of award-winning reporters and tenacious bloggers in search of the truth -- bringing us very close to our $20,000 goal.

But the list of charges does little justice to the astonishing brazenness of the accusations described in the complaint, including a wire transfer of a $140,000 bribe, arranged by Mr. Bloom, to buy real estate for Mr. Stein in North Carolina. The affidavit also says that $65,762.63 was spent to buy cars for Mr. Stein and his wife (he bought a Chevrolet; she a Toyota), $44,471 for home improvements and $48,073 for jewelry, out of $258,000 sent directly to the Bragg Mutual Federal Credit Union into accounts controlled by the Steins. [...]

Much of this money was intended for Iraqi construction projects like building a new police academy in the ancient city of Babylon and rehabilitating the library in Karbala, the southern city that is among the holiest sites for Shiite Muslims.

"The reconstruction of Iraq is, and must be, built on a foundation of integrity and honest business dealings," said Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher in a statement.

And I have some great news to help sweeten the deal: a very generous friend of the Institute has agreed to match all contributions in the next week, dollar for dollar, up to $7,500.

I'm not a math person, but I know this means your contribution will be doubled.

And if we can reach $7,500 in donations by Thanksgiving, we'll have raised $15,000 to support our growing team of award-winning reporters and tenacious bloggers in search of the truth -- bringing us very close to our $20,000 goal.

Institute for Southern Studies
Attn: Investigative Fund
P.O. Box 531
Durham, NC 27702

The 224-209 vote against the $142.5 billion spending bill disrupted plans by Republican leaders to finish up work on this year's spending bills and cast doubt on whether they would have the votes to pass a major budget-cutting bill also on the day's agenda.

Democrats, unanimous in opposing the legislation, said it included the first cut in education funding in a decade and slashed spending for several health care programs. "It betrays our nation's values and its future," said House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland. "It is neither compassionate, conservative nor wise."

Legislation aimed at strengthening traditional corporate pensions and shoring up the deficit-ridden pension insurance agency was easily approved by the U.S. Senate on Wednesday with a generous exemption for struggling airlines.

Senators gave distressed airlines up to 20 years to repair their underfunded p