http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/671339
I think I’ve figured it out. There’s something in public health called the “prevention paradox”: measures of disease prevention that offer great benefits to populations at large (such as fluoridation of water sources, wearing seatbelts, lifestyle changes, smallpox vaccinations, etc) offer little benefit or personal incentive to individuals.

But research shows that health education geared toward individuals (counseling on reducing salt intake for hypertension, exercise for diabetes, etc) are less effective when geared only toward individuals and/or used in a short-term approach. People are motivated to act for immediate gain and substantial personal benefits, but “the medical motivation for health education is inherently weak. Their health next year is not likely to be much better if they accept our advice or if they reject it. Much more powerful as motivators for health education are the social rewards of enhanced self-esteem and social approval.” (Geoffrey Rose, Sick Individuals and Sick Populations.)

Physicians also prefer individualized health education because with population interventions (such as anti-smoking campaigns), their success rates are low and results take a long time to achieve.

The US is such an individual-centric society that people have no cultural reason to care about population health as a whole. Most Americans do not see that universal access to healthcare means that problems are detected and treated early (which is less costly), and that sometimes preventive medicine can encourage life-saving behavior change. That the person going into the ER for stomach pain because s/he does not have health insurance is costing the taxpayer literally thousands more dollars than s/he would if s/he’d gone to a primary care physician.

Nor do they understand the concept of herd immunity- if a large proportion of a population is immune to or vaccinated against a particular disease, the likelihood that one individual will get that disease is far less.

The focus on the individual and the apathy toward the well-being of communities and populations is by no means restricted to health alone. The same can be said about the current financial crisis. Individuals who borrowed more than they could pay back, and their unscrupulous lenders have created a global downward spiral of hundreds of economies, with the bottom billion hit the hardest.

I find it ironic and deeply saddening that 30 million more people have been pushed into starvation thus far due to the financial crisis while bankers are taking hefty bonuses and governments are bailing out businesses that were failing even before the crash (GM, Chrysler, etc…)

]]> Mon, 18 May 2009 16:09:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/671339 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/583311

Sir,

I find it inaccurate to call President Obama's decision to end the Global Gag Rule, an "order... ending the prohibition on sending aid to international organisations that provide abortion." (Brief Encounter, January 31st). Obama's decision does not change the fact that US tax-payers' dollars cannot be used to provide abortions overseas. The
legislation, first enacted by Ronald Reagan, rejected by Clinton and reinstated by Bush, prohibited US family planning assistance to organizations that use non-US funds to perform abortions (even in countries where it is legal), provide counseling and referrals for abortion, and lobby to liberalize abortion laws.

None of these restrictions would be permitted within the United States, where abortion is legal. Yet US ideologues had no qualms about denying poor women the right to decide when and if to carry out a pregnancy. Each year there are 19 million unsafe abortions, most of which could be prevented if poor women had access to voluntary family
planning including contraception, sex education, and the ability to prevent unwanted pregnancies. In addition, women with fewer births are able to invest more in their children's nutrition and education-- resulting in healthier, more productive contributors to society.

Many of the organizations that lost their funding were unable to provide other life-saving services such as maternal and infant healthcare, poverty reduction, and HIV prevention. For example, the United Nations Population Fund lost its US contribution of $244 million over seven years, based on a spurious claim of collusion with the Chinese government in coerced sterilizations. This contributed to 74,000 deaths from unsafe abortion globally each year, even though Bush's own hand-picked State Department team visited China and found no evidence that UNFPA participated in such programs; and, indeed, that its programs were "a force for good." Obama's move to restore reproductive freedoms to women will surely reduce global demand for abortion and improve overall population health.



(PS- the picture of all the old white dudes is from bush's second day in office, when he signed the global gag rule back into its miserable existence.)
]]> Tue, 03 Feb 2009 22:37:00 EST http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/583311 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/541831 http://sawnet.org/books/reviews.php?Aids+Sutra)



Today there are approximately 3 million Indians living with HIV and AIDS, a number that masks the human faces behind a disease that has been reviled and misunderstood as the worst plague in human history. A disease often considered to afflict only those regarded as the dredges of society, AIDS has the potential both to expose the dark underbelly of society, and also to inspire triumphs of human compassion and perseverance.
AIDS Sutra, funded by the Gates Foundation, is a compilation of 16 vibrant essays about Indians living with HIV by some of South Asia’s most gifted authors, including Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, and Kiran Desai. Several of the essays are narrated directly from the authors’ home communities; others are the fruition of their travels to the vastly different regions of India.

Siddharth Deb’s poignant account, “The Lost Generation of Manipur,” brings him to a remote corner of India bereft of employment opportunities and constantly on edge due to communal violence. Uncontrolled injecting drug use in the region puts young people of working age especially at risk for HIV infection.

Salman Rushdie’s piece on the politics and culture of the hijra (intersexed and/or transgender) community is a concise account of a population that defies society´s common [mis]perceptions around gender and HIV risk. Rushdie interviews a transgender AIDS activist named Laxmi, who lives in a constant duality of gender- going as a man by day and living with her parents, and transforming into a woman at night and on the weekends. Her advocacy on behalf of this distinct community in India has helped to distinguish hijras as a third gender- with different needs and challenges than men who have sex with men.

Other stories included in the book examine the lives of truck drivers, sex workers, and devadasis, women traditionally given to god, and nowadays women who choose or are forced into sex work as a means of income generation. In Sunil Gangopadhyay’s essay, “Return to Sonagacchi,” the author returns home to Kolkata to compose a compelling account of the lives of sex workers in Sonagachhi, narrating both the deprivation they face and also their power as an organized movement fighting for their rights as sex workers to safety, health services, education for their children, freedom from police persecution, and dignity.

Bill and Melinda Gates give the anthology’s introduction, and its insightful forward is written by the Nobel Prize-winning economist and author of Development as Freedom, Amartya Sen. Sen revolutionized the traditional economic paradigm by asserting that development is not simply about increasing per capita income, but rather “a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy.” His examination of the economic effects of AIDS in India is nuanced in its consideration of both the beneficial impact of Indian pharmaceuticals in producing affordable antiretroviral drugs for much of the world, and the irony that income disparity in India prevents the majority of Indians living with HIV from accessing treatment, quality medical facilities, shelter, employment opportunities, and community support.

Sen argues that stigma is the primary fuel of the epidemic in India, where widespread ignorance pervades about how HIV is—and is not—transmitted. Among young Indians just reaching working age, knowledge how HIV is spread is dismally low at 25% of the population according to UNAIDS (20% comprehensive knowledge among women and 36% among men). Because many Indians still believe that HIV can be transmitted through touch, sharing food, or through aerosol transmission, Indians living with HIV face discrimination in schools and workplaces, ostracization, rejection from their families, and in many cases, violence and even death.

India’s uncomfortable and often times paradoxical relationship with sex and sexuality is often at the root of ignorance and discrimination against HIV, with 87% of new infections in India occurring through unprotected sexual intercourse each year according to India’s National AIDS Control Organization. Despite an ancient culture rich in celebration of natural human sexuality, imperial-era taboos surrounding sex continue to create a stifling conservatism that limits access to scientific information about sexually transmitted infections, reproductive health, and the rights of women and sexual minorities.

In Amit Chaudhuri’s essay, “Healing,” he remarks that “The troubling ambiguity of sex through history— the fact that it bestows life and pleasure, and also, in a way that can’t be entirely explained by morality, confuses and shames— have converged in a new way upon this disease.” His interviews with Alka Desphpande, an AIDS researcher and physician in India’s first AIDS ward, reveal the challenges faced even by the medical community in becoming educated about HIV. Large numbers of Indian health care workers still believe that HIV is transmitted by touch, and widespread denial of treatment and discrimination against people living with HIV is common.

The first essay “Mister X Versus Hospital Y” by Nikita Lalwani tells the story of a Dr. Tokugha who is infected with HIV and becomes an important activist when his results are disclosed to his family (and bride-to-be’s family) before he himself is made aware of his status, just days before the wedding. His lawsuit against the hospital’s breach of his privacy sparked controversial debate and the release of his name in newspapers all across India. The court ruled against him, “decreeing that the hospital’s release of the information to the minister without his consent had ‘saved the life’ of Toku’s proposed fiancée. The essay forces us to consider the complexities behind forced disclosure of one’s HIV status. Not only was Dr. “Toku”’s right to self-disclose taken away from him, the judge tacked on a devastating addition to the ruling, that suspended the right of HIV positive people to marry. The laudable human rights organization, The Lawyers’ Collective, fought for years to restore this basic human right to people living with HIV, succeeding in 2002. Since then, Dr. Toku has become a prominent physician in the field, and goes above and beyond by arranging matches between people living with HIV.

Discrimination and national legislation intersect most brutally in India with the penal code provision 377 that makes homosexuality a criminal offense. Drafted in 1860 during British Rule, the anachronistic law fines and imprisons Indians caught in the act of sodomy and even oral sex for between ten years and a lifetime in jail. The law has served to drive homosexuality “underground” where men having unprotected sex with men cannot be reached for HIV awareness raising, sexual health services, STI screening, or recourse for police persecution and demanding of bribes.

One story included in the collection was strikingly disappointing— to the point of giving offense. Shobhaa De’s “When AIDS Came Home” reveals the author’s ignorant, discriminatory and classist lack of understanding of HIV and AIDS. Her account of how her driver becomes infected with HIV and gradually dies from AIDS is peppered with comments about her “repulsion” that he had spent so much time with her children, speculations about his involvement with sex workers and his sexuality, and self-congratulatory accolades when she provided occasional money for a doctor or medicine.

De’s piece examines her misconceptions about AIDS and vaguely suggests that she has seen the error in her was (perhaps simply because it would not be politically correct to admit otherwise), but still fails to include what lessons she has learned. Indeed, to conclude her story Shobhaa marvels that “Although they are such an intimate part of our lives, how little we really know about the people who work for us… it took Shankar’s death to see him as a human.” She concludes by lying to her children and telling them that the driver was infected through a blood transfusion because the reality that many men purchase sex is too shocking to bear.

By far the most thought-provoking inclusion in the anthology, Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi’s “Hello, Darling,” diverges from the book’s overall focus on more “marginalized” populations of sex workers, drug users and truckers, to recount the life experiences with HIV of an upper-class homosexual film director whose pseudonym is given as “Murad.” Openly flamboyant, driven to success, and yet still slow to “come out” about his homosexuality, and later, HIV status, Murad escapes the confines of Bombay and moves to New York City. He is unable to move in the local film circuit and returns to Bombay years later, where he eventually succumbs to AIDS.

Shanghvi’s piece is particularly well-researched and deeply-felt; his account considers early chronicles of the impact of AIDS on art and artists in Edmund White’s “Esthetics and Loss,” and the strange phenomenon of how AIDS “got noticed,” as explained in Urvashi Vaid’s “Virtual Equality,” in which she observes “how the passing of an entire generation from AIDS helped give rise to the modern idea of homosexuality: thousands of men had to die, in fact, to have to be seen as alive in the first place.” Shanghvi’s inclusion was particularly important and contrasted sharply with De’s story. “Hello, Darling” should serve as a wake-up call to elites believing in their infallibility, since the risk behaviors that propel the spread of HIV in India are by no means limited to lower socioeconomic echelons of society.

Overall, the anthology is an important, moving, and transformative read. Each story is relatively brief and gives a taste of the authors’ diverse and prolific literary talents. Some tales, such as De’s, are clearly geared toward upper class Indians who are beginning to understand the complexities of the AIDS epidemic in India. Still others delve into economic, political and human rights aspects of the disease. Till now, literature and artistic works on AIDS in India have been limited and relatively unknown. AIDS Sutra gives voice to communities and individuals that have been destroyed, silenced, affected and transformed by AIDS in a jarring and yet deeply meaningful manner.
]]> Fri, 28 Nov 2008 14:42:00 EST http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/541831 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/336241

I have mixed feelings about MoveOn.org, but I really admire their new campaign "Iraq/Recession". They have a nice new email action that allows you to easily and automatically write an op-ed to your local newspaper (they send it, you write it) making the tie between the American recession and the Iraq spending. (A tie that is obvious, but few people actually realize!)


Some interesting facts:

"As of today, we've spent over $495 billion in Iraq.1 With the economy in the tank, think about what that money could do here at home: Cover millions of kids who don't have insurance, or help folks who're losing their jobs and homes.

Instead, it's supporting a failed occupation in Iraq.

More and more Americans are making the connection between the billions we've spent over there and the crumbling economy here at home. In fact, a new AP poll shows that most Americans think ending the war is the best way to help the economy.2 But pundits still talk about the war and the economy as two unrelated things.

* The recession is going to force states to cut back their budgets. Most likely, the cuts are going to affect the services that working families need and depend on.3
* Meanwhile, the war is costing Americans more than $338 million a day. 4 That money could be spent to help out the folks who're hurting most now. For less than what we're spending on the war, we could pay for affordable housing for hundreds of thousands of families, health care for children, or scholarships to help folks pay for education. 5
* Gas prices are close to double what they were before the war began. The cost of oil is still hovering around $100 barrel. 6
* We're borrowing $343 million every day to finance the war in Iraq. 7 Our skyrocketing debt will be a bigger and bigger drag on the economy—slowing recovery and burdening future generations.


Write an Op-Ed

If thousands of us write, we can get the media to stop ignoring the connection between the war and the recession. The opinion pages are the most widely read pages in the newspaper, so we can also make sure voters—who are growing increasingly concerned about the economy—know that any candidate who wants to stay in Iraq has no plan for the economy."

]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:01:00 EST http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/336241 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/266963 Brothers. Today's popular games are all about gruesome murder and
violence.

I had the lovely experience of playing Halo, a video game which,
thankfully, I am terrible at, which involves killing people with guns,
lasers, nail-spewing killing machines, and other highly effective and
incredibly scary weapons. When you kill someone, your entire
controller shakes and vibrates much like, I imagine, a real machine
gun would do.

I can understand why this game is so popular with soldiers in Iraq and
Afghanistan. It must help them to dehumanize their colonial subjects,
and normalize the experience of killing. I can also see why it's
popular with American teens, who are inundated with graphic violence
through movies, television, and news networks. Ultimately it will lead
them to sign up, to "die for their country" and maybe kill off a few
Muslims here and there to boot.

To the point-

It seems the Church thinks this is a wonderful way to attract young
people to the church, and, in their words, to promote "fellowship."

Whatever happened to "Thou Shalt Not Kill"? Is non-violence pass??


New York Times
NATIONAL | October 7, 2007


Thou Shalt Not Kill, Except in a Popular Video Game at Church
By MATT RICHTEL
Ministers and pastors desperate to reach young congregants are
using an unusual recruiting tool: the violent video game Halo.]]> Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:20:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/266963 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/262859 Great news- New York has finally acknowledged that abstinence-only sex education may not be the best idea in a state with rising HIV infection rates, teen pregnancy, and STIs.

Why are the Catholics still saying that giving young people condoms will increase "promiscuity" when numerous studies show that comprehensive sex education actually causes young people to delay first intercourse and to use condoms when they do have sex? (1)



New York Times: New York Just Says No to Abstinence Funding

NEW YORK REGION | September 21, 2007

By JENNIFER MEDINA
The decision puts New York in line with at least 10 other states
that have decided to forgo the federal money in recent years.


Excerpt:

"Dr. Daines's announcement came the same day that the New York Civil
Liberties Union, which opposes abstinence-only education, released a
report detailing the number of such programs in the state. The report
stated that roughly half of the groups teaching abstinence in the
state were religious groups and that the state had done almost nothing
to monitor them."

(NYCLU Report: http://www.nyclu.org/files/financing_ignorance_092007.pdf)
NYCLU Article: http://www.nyclu.org/node/1395




Calling Bush's teen education program on sex a failure, New York state
will forgo $3.7 million in federal aid

By CATHLEEN F. CROWLEY, Staff writer

First published: Friday, September 21, 2007

Excerpt:

"The Bush administration's abstinence-only program is an example of a
failed national health-care policy directive, based on ideology rather
than on sound scientific-based evidence," Health Commissioner Richard
Daines said Thursday.

..


The New York Catholic Conference, which represents New York's bishops,
called the administration's decision unfortunate.

"Most people would agree that teenagers are too young to be having
sex, therefore the consistent message to them ought to be that this is
a behavior that is undesirable and you should refrain from it," said
Dennis Poust, spokesman for the conference. "The idea of so-called
comprehensive sex education sounds OK at first blush, but what the
children are being taught is instruction in condom usage which leads
to promotion of sexual activity."

Nearly half of all New York teenagers have sex before graduating high
school, according to the 2005 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey from
the U.S. Census. In Albany County, 427 girls between 15 and 19 became
pregnant in 2004 and 199 had abortions, according to state health
department statistics."


Citation:
(1) UNAIDS, 1997. "Impact of HIV and Sexual Health Education on the Sexual Behaviour of Young People: A Review."

"Only three out of 53 studies that evaluated specific interventions found increases in sexual behaviour associated with sexual health education. Twenty-two reported that HIV and/or sexual health education either delayed the onset of sexual activity, reduced the number of partners, or reduced unplanned pregnancy and STD rates."
]]> Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:30:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/262859 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/238075
Steiger, with absolutely no qualifications in global health whatsoever, pulled the report because it did not laud the United States for its action against global health crises such as AIDS, TB and Malaria.

What is there to laud? The United States, the wealthiest country in the world, ranks last in the amount of money it spends on global health from among industrialized nations as a percentage of its GNP/ wealth. (Citation: USAID)

Congratulations to Carmona for speaking out about how his freedom of speech has been curtailed.



Bush Aide Blocked Report
Global Health Draft In 2006 Rejected for Not Being Political

By Christopher Lee and Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 29, 2007; Page A01

A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments, according to current and former public health officials.

The report described the link between poverty and poor health, urged the U.S. government to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign policy, and called on corporations to help improve health conditions in the countries where they operate. A copy of the report was obtained by The Washington Post.

Three people directly involved in its preparation said its publication was blocked by William R. Steiger, a specialist in education and a scholar of Latin American history whose family has long ties to President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Since 2001, Steiger has run the Office of Global Health Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services.]]> Mon, 30 Jul 2007 16:10:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/238075 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/226669
What is the lesson learned? Even if you're a diplomat and you question the Bush Adminstration's lies (by writing an op-ed that Iraq did not buy enriched Uranium from Niger), you and your family will be punished by the government. (They leaked the name of his wife, Valerie Wilson, for being an undercover CIA agent).

Bush is not pardoning Scooter, he's pardoning himself. With 18 months left in office, he can do whatever he wants pretty much, with no repercussion whatsoever.

Jesus now we've got the likes of Scooter Libby and Paris Hilton roaming free on the streets of America. Talk about dictatorships!


WASHINGTON | July 3, 2007
]]> Tue, 03 Jul 2007 12:55:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/226669 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/223567
I thought after we put Japanese people in concentration camps in America in the 40s and 50s, we'd said goodbye to Nazi-style death camps? I guess not.



New Scrutiny as Immigrants Die in Custody
New York Times
By NINA BERNSTEIN
Published: June 26, 2007


[Excerpts:]

Sandra M. Kenley was returning home from her native Barbados in 2005 when she was swept into the United States’ fastest-growing form of incarceration, immigration detention.

...
Seven weeks later, Ms. Kenley died in a rural Virginia jail, where she had complained of not receiving medicine for high blood pressure. She was one of 62 immigrants to die in administrative custody since 2004, according to a new tally by Immigration and Customs Enforcement that counted many more deaths than the 20 previously known.
...
In the case of Ms. Kenley, a legal permanent resident of the United States for more than 30 years, detention interrupted her medical care for high blood pressure, a fibroid tumor and uterine bleeding. An autopsy attributed her death to an enlarged heart from chronic hypertensive disease. But a report by emergency medical services said that she had fallen from a top bunk, and that a cellmate had pounded on the door for 20 minutes before guards responded.
........

The inspector general in the Department of Homeland Security recently announced a “special review” of two deaths, including that of a Korean woman at a privately run detention center in Albuquerque. Fellow detainees told a lawyer that the woman, Young Sook Kim, had pleaded for medical care for weeks, but received scant attention until her eyes yellowed and she stopped eating.

Ms. Kim died of pancreatic cancer in federal custody on Sept. 11, 2005, a day after she was taken to a hospital.

“We spend $98 million annually to provide medical care for people in our custody,” Ms. Zuieback said. “Anybody who violates our national immigration law is going to get the same treatment by I.C.E. regardless of their medical condition.” (Jamie Zuieback, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security)]]> Tue, 26 Jun 2007 15:36:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/223567 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/216433
Stephen Benjamin wrote an excellent Op-Ed in the NYtimes today. The military read through his instant messages and kicked them out for being gay. The other 68 heterosexual men's instant messages contained conversations about their sexual misconduct, mysoginistic comments, profanities, etc. They were not kicked out.

I bet some of them were the same types as the Abu Ghraib torturers whose sexual misconduct was a grotesque aberration. But Bush and his cronies defend torture. How on earth can the Bible be against homosexuality but pro Torture?

When will this country get its priorities straight?

Don’t Ask, Don’t Translate
By STEPHEN BENJAMIN
Published: June 8, 2007

"In response to difficult recruiting prospects, the Army has already taken a number of steps, lengthening soldiers’ deployments to 15 months from 12, enlisting felons and extending the age limit to 42. Why then won’t Congress pass a bill like the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell”? The bipartisan bill, by some analysts’ estimates, could add more than 41,000 soldiers — all gay, of course."
]]> Fri, 08 Jun 2007 15:07:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/216433 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/212339
Reflecting the current widespread trend of the government/media to create and flame public fears about non-whites and immigrants, the audience for his program has grown 72 percent since 2003.

Lou Dobbs and his peons stated multiple times that there had been 7,000 cases of leprosy in this country over the previous 3 years, compared to 900 cases over the past 40 years.

Interestingly, according to the NYTimes,
"When Lesley Stahl of “60 Minutes” sat down to interview Mr. Dobbs on camera, she mentioned the report and told him that there didn’t seem to be much evidence for it.

'Well, I can tell you this,' he replied. 'If we reported it, it’s a fact.'"

HOWEVER- official leprosy statistics show about 7,000 diagnosed cases — but that’s over the last 30 years, not the last three.

Sadly any white racist can spin lies as truth and before you know it, half of America accepts it as truth. We can only pray that Lou Dobbs soon goes the way of Jerry Falwell..........


Source:
Truth, Fiction and Lou Dobbs, NEW YORK TIMES

By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: May 30, 2007
]]> Wed, 30 May 2007 18:32:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/212339 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/197285
Bush's appointee to US Global AIDS Coordinator Randall Tobias resigns after being caught on a list of clients of a famous high-end brothel/ escort service.

Tobias is the main man responsible for trying to get all aid orgs seeking US funds or partnering with orgs that receive US funds, to sign a pledge opposing commercial sex work (cuz that's going to do a hell of a lot!).

Who put the H in hypocrisy.............. the United States of America!


Written by one of my heroes............


Tobias Latest Evidence of Bush Hypocrisy
RH Reality Check
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2007/04/30/bush-official-randall-tobias-resigns
Jodi Jacobson , CHANGE on
April 30, 2007 - 12:00pm


Excerpts:

....
In the far-rights' anti-science, always fiction world, you should never have sex, unless you
are a married heterosexual willing to do so only at risk of getting pregnant. Others—sexually active unmarrieds, gay, lesbian and transgender persons, and anyone else outside the "norm"—are subject to reprogramming. So since the Bush Administration wants a video cam in every bedroom and uterus (and I have no idea whether Tobias was taping his masseuses but that is another story), it is fair to ask if these guys are practicing what they preach. Apparently not.

...

Abstinence is big in U.S. global AIDS policy, which one colleague dubbed the
"Americans for Stopping Sex in Africa League." Billions of dollars have been
spent in a fruitless effort at home and abroad to spread a hyper-moralistic
and ideological message to everyone and sundry. Programs teaching people
sexual negotiation and safer sex methods have become as scarce as rubbers in
Uganda. Even sex workers in Asia and Africa are being told to abstain.
(Don't ask me.....it's in the program guides.)


.......... He has repeatedly testified before Congress supporting these policies, regularly using faulty data to support his claims. Under the "ABC" policy as developed under Tobias' watch, some 11 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have been subject to abstinence-only-until marriage programs, receiving no information, training, or methods to
practice safer sex, despite the fact that unprotected sex is responsible for 80 percent of new infections in that region. Condoms have been re-stigmatized and in some programs paid for by your tax dollars teens actually are told they will go to hell for having sex.

...
In a saner world, the U.S. government would not be known for its fundamentalist
"tighty-whities-in-a-twist" approach to sex.

But we don't live in that world. In our world, people with wealth, money,
and power get away with "special massages," they make unrealistic rules for
other people and set their own for themselves. And those at greatest risk of
life-threatening infections and engaged in a fundamental daily life struggle
to survive are punished in the interest of moralism. Give me some real
science fiction any day.
]]> Fri, 04 May 2007 18:49:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/197285 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/197081 http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2070680,00.html


Another outrageous example of racial discrimination and profiling. Maybe US officials should recall the past century of imperialism, subjugation, emasculation, and robbery of natural resources in predominately Muslim countries if it's still wondering "why they hate us"





US 'wants British Pakistanis to have entry visas'


Matt Weaver
Wednesday May 2, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

The American government wants to impose travel restrictions on British citizens of Pakistani origin because of concerns about terrorism, according to a report today.
---



]]> Fri, 04 May 2007 14:50:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/197081 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/190949
Abbott is working hard to ensure that people living with AIDS in Thailand are charged as much as possible for the drug, and that Thailand cannot produce affordable generic versions, even though Thailand has the legal right to do so according to international law.

In an incredibly child-like and coercive response, Abbott has pulled 7 new lifesaving drugs from the Thai market's registration process..

--

Comment: The eight deadly lies of Big Pharma
Brook K Baker
*************

[Mods note: below is a comment by Brook Baker and responds to some of the statements of pharmaceutical companies.

Please send us more responses. Thanks]
**************************************


As Thailand issues more compulsory licences for AIDS and heart medicines that are compliant with the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and Thailand's laws, the multinational drug industry and its allies are unleashing an ever more strident public disinformation campaign.

Lie No-1: Mellisa Brotz, a spokeswoman for Abbott Industries: "We do not view [the compulsory licence on Kaletra] legal or in the best interest of patients."

Truth: Thailand's compulsory licence on Kaletra is lawful in every respect: (1) it is a fully TRIPS-compliant Article 31(b) licence issued on valid public health grounds and for government, non-commercial use, which requires no advance negotiation with the patent holder; (2) it is fully complaint with Section 51 of the Thai Patent Act, which directly authorises government, non-commercial use licenses without prior negotiation; and (3) it sets a royalty at .5 per cent of the sale price, which royalty is appealable by the affected patent holder. Although drug companies complain the loudest that Thailand has failed to engage in prior negotiation, in fact, the record shows that Thailand has engaged in many fruitless negotiations with the drug industry for the past two years.

Lie No-2: Roger Bates, American Enterprise Institute: "It is generally understood that compulsory licences should be confined to 'public health crises, including those relating to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other epidemics,' which represent a 'national emergency or other circumstances of extreme urgency'."

Truth: This assertion is the most widely circulated and most repeated misrepresentation that Big Pharma has propagated. The Doha Declaration of 2001 is exquisitely clear that, "each member has the right to grant compulsory licences and the freedom to determine the grounds upon which such licences are granted". Although there are special rules for emergencies that permit expedited procedures for granting a licence, the right to issue compulsory licences is not limited to public-health emergencies.

Teera Chakajnarodom, president of Thailand's Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers' Association, takes the alleged emergency rule and raises it one degree higher: "The law allows such actions with pharmaceutical products only in cases of extreme national emergencies, or during wartime."

Lie No-3: Teera again: "After the company does 10 years of research, and then suddenly the Thai government would like to impose the compulsory licence, taking away their property, their assets."

Truth: Patents are not "property" in the traditional sense - they are government-granted rights that are intended to balance the interests of innovators and the public at large, and which are granted by governments with many express and implied conditions, including the right to issue compulsory licences. Governments around the world, including the US, have issued thousands of compulsory licences since the late nineteenth century, including on pharmaceutical products. Moreover, Thailand had its compulsory licence law on the books when all three companies, Merck, Abbott, and Sanofi-Aventis, filed their patent claims in Thailand.

Lie No-4: Khun Teera again: "Everything is negotiable."

Truth: For monopoly-based drug companies, everything isn't negotiable. Abbott has flatly refused for nearly six months to lower its mid-tier price for Kaletra. Moreover, even when negotiating deeper discount prices, drug companies frequently extract promises that countries will refrain from seeking other cheaper sources of supply. In this context, drug companies are mainly interested in preventing generic competition.

Paradoxically, in pursuing the generic-freeze-out option, drug companies will occasionally give concessions to bigger middle-income countries that "make the market" even though they would not do so for smaller and poorer countries like Guatemala.

Lie No-5: Harvey Bale, director-general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations: "Compulsory licensing can be a route to commercial abuse."

Truth: Monopolies and excessive pricing are not commercial abuse, but competition and lower prices are - go figure. For the hugely rich, RD drug industry (more than 90 per cent of the global pharmaceutical market) to complain about commercial abuse by generic producers (less than 10 per cent of the global pharmaceutical market) is deeply ironic.

A particular form of this complaint has been asserted by Pharma apologists Roger Bates and Ronald Cass. These two industry-sponsored pundits complain that licenses might eventually be granted to Thailand's own publicly owned, profit-making pharmaceutical company, the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO). They assert that this will be a form of cheating because production by the GPO will create a commercial advantage to domestic producers, who might thereafter become regional suppliers to other countries.

Nothing in TRIPS prohibits granting licences to profit-making entities. Since Big Pharma has disinvested in developing countries' pharmaceutical capacity post-TRIPS, it makes sense for countries to increase their own capacity to meet domestic and regional needs for essential medicines.

Lie No-6: Harvey Bale: "Compulsory licensing can ... put patients at risk." Merck, Abbott, and Sanofi-Aventis also warn that overriding patents risks jeopardising quality.

In terms of product quality, Bale roll outs out another old chestnut - "generics are inferior". He neglects to mention that multiple generic versions of efavirenz manufactured in India have already received pre-qualification at the WHO. Although it is true that the Thai Government Pharmaceutical Organisation has not yet received WHO-pre-qualification on its first-line ARVs, it is building a good manufacturing practices manufacturing plant after which it will surely meet global standards.

Lie No-7: All of the sources from Big Pharma previously quoted have said that compulsory licences will reduce incentives for innovation.

Truth: All of Asia (except Japan) and all of Africa comprise only 5.1 per cent of the global pharmaceutical market, according to Information Management Group.

Even though low- and middle-income markets are growing faster than developed country markets, drug companies continue to make the vast bulk of their profits from sales in the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan, which collectively buy nearly 89 per cent of drugs by dollar volume. Drug companies always argue that compulsory licences interfere with their RD incentives, but they never admit that developing countries' compulsory licences never affect their monopoly profits in rich country markets. How can South and Southeast Asia's infinitesimal share of the global market really affect RD incentive?

Lie No-8: Abbott: "[Because] Thailand has chosen to break patents on a number of medicines, ignoring the patent system ... we've [lawfully] elected not to introduce new medicines."

Truth: As discussed above, Thailand has not ignored the patent system - it has used one of its important lawful flexibilities for licensing access to patented products and processes.

Moreover, instead of Thailand breaking the law, it is Abbott that has engaged in an unprecedented and probably illegal withdrawal from the Thai market, taking seven important medicines, including a heat-stable form of Kaletra, out of the drug registration process.

To withhold life-saving medicines from the market in retaliation for lawful use of lawful flexibilities is not only unjustifiable, it is abusive and unconscionable.


- Brook K Baker is a professor in The Programme on Human Rights and the Global Economy at Northeastern University's School of Law
(Published on 21 April 2007 in The Nation, Thailand)

Online at: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/04/21/opinion/opinion_30032324.php


---------
Stay Connected - Speak your world!

A posting from SEA-AIDS (sea-aids@eforums.healthdev.org)
]]> Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:14:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/190949 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/185931



Please check out MoveOn.org's counter ad. They need to raise $100,000 to run the ad next week. I just donated $25, and I am broke as a joke.


It infuriates me to hear these ignorant imperialist GOP hawks talk about democratizing the Middle East and about bringing "FREEDOM" to the Muslim peoples. When things don't go their way, instead of coming to the logical conclusion that American Imperialism is not wanted or needed in the region, they say "Well, that's just because democracy is incompatible with Islam!"

Do they forget that Britan and France brutally colonized the region for the greater part of a century? Do they forget that the colonial powers defeated attempts at constitutional governments and participatory democracies in the region in order to maintain control and revenue collection?

What about their colonization of Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Qater, Kuwait, Bahrain, Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Libya, etc etc etc?

What about Britain and France testing out their new weaponry, Aerial Bombardment, on civilian populations in Iraq, Morocco, Syria and Libya? It's not as if this fact were hidden. In face the colonizers, the Royal Air Force (RAF) wrote a handbook on aerial bombardment:

Notes on the Method of Employment of the Air Arm in Iraq

"within 45 minutes a full-sized village... can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed and injured by four or five planes which offer them no real target and no opportunity for glory or avarice."

America was looked upon, due to its historical beggining as an anti-colonial nation that gained its independence from British domination, as a benevolent state in the region.

But once oil was discovered and once the battle for control over the region flowered toward the end of the Cold war, America became the new oppressor.

I QUOTE:

"Oh ye Egyptians, they may say to you that I have not made an expedition hither for any other object than that of abolishing your religion... but tell the slanderers that I have not come to you except for the purpose of restoring your rights from the hands of the oppressors."
-Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexandria, Egypt, July 2, 1798


"Our armies to not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators... It is the hope and desire of the British people and the nations in alliance with them that the Arab race may rise once more to greatness and renown among the peoples of the earth." - General F.S. Maude, Commander of British Forces, Baghdad, March 19, 1917

"Unlike many armies in the world, you came not to conquer, not to occupy, but to liberate, and the Iraqi people know this."
- Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, Baghdad, April 29, 2003


In 1951, following two years of massive student strikes against British control of Iran’s natural resources, , Iran’s Parliament voted to nationalize the AIOC, returning control of its oil reserves to native control. Up till then, since 1901, Britain controlled 84% of the industry’s revenue. The new Prime Minister, Mossadeq, won unanimous support for this controversial move, and was re-elected into second term, despite a world-wide boycott that Britain, its allies, and colonies, imposed on Iranian oil. Fearing the loss of one of the most fertile countries to feed into the then-nascent demand for fossil fuels, the United States CIA and British M16 financed and supported a military coup that dissolved Parliament and established a totalitarian dictatorship of Shah Pahlavi. The Shah gave America 40% control of Iran’s oil industry and gave the rest to British Petroleum (BP). So much for bringing democracy to the Middle East.

( Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East , Rashid Khalidi, 2004)]]> Fri, 20 Apr 2007 11:58:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/185931 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/183713
Our illustrious President's reaction-

--That sucks, but remember, me and the NRA firmly support Americans' right to bear arms! Don't try this at home, kids!--


AP: President Bush Described as 'Horrified' by Shootings at Virginia Tech

Reported by The Associated Press
April 16, 2007

President Bush was described as shocked and saddened by the mass
shooting at Virginia Tech, the deadliest campus violence ever in this
country. White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino says the
president was "horrified and his immediate reaction was one of deep
concern for the families of the victims, the victims themselves, the
students, the professors and all the people of Virginia who have dealt
with this shocking incident."

Perino said "The president believes that there is a right for people
to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed."

Perino said federal assistance is available if Virginia authorities
ask for help.

In the House, which returned today from a two-week recess, Speaker
Nancy Pelosi interrupted proceedings to lead a moment of silence in
remembrance.



]]> Mon, 16 Apr 2007 21:13:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/183713 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/181427 Darfur Collides With Olympics, and China Yields

New York Times
By HELENE COOPER
Published: April 13, 2007

"WASHINGTON, April 12 — For the past two years, China has protected the Sudanese government as the United States and Britain have pushed for United Nations Security Council sanctions against Sudan for the violence in Darfur....

Ms. Farrow, a good-will ambassador for the United Nations Children’s Fund, has played a crucial role, starting a campaign last month to label the Games in Beijing the “Genocide Olympics” and calling on corporate sponsors and even Mr. Spielberg, who is an artistic adviser to China for the Games, to publicly exhort China to do something about Darfur. In a March 28 op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal, she warned Mr. Spielberg that he could “go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games,” a reference to a German filmmaker who made Nazi propaganda films.

Four days later, Mr. Spielberg sent a letter to President Hu Jintao of China, condemning the killings in Darfur and asking the Chinese government to use its influence in the region “to bring an end to the human suffering there,” according to Mr. Spielberg’s spokesman, Marvin Levy.

China soon dispatched Mr. Zhai to Darfur, a turnaround that served as a classic study of how a pressure campaign, aimed to strike Beijing in a vulnerable spot at a vulnerable time, could accomplish what years of diplomacy could not."


SWEET. Props to Mia Farrow for taking an incredibly controversial but crucial stand. Ahhh the infallibility of celebrity! She can get away with what a head of state never could.

I think people ought to boycott the China Olympics anyway, given that they blocked any type of meaningful action in Sudan, costing hundreds of thousands of lives.

Quite IRONIC I must say that there is "a gigantic clock in Tiananmen Square counting down the minutes to the Games, and Olympic souvenir stores sprouting all over with the “One World, One Dream” Beijing Olympics motto."

< a href-"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989"> Tiananmen Square is the site of one of the worst massacres of peaceful protesters in recent history if one can say such a thing.......

One World One Dream? Ummmm where does Sudan factor into that dream?]]> Fri, 13 Apr 2007 17:49:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/181427 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/180727

What great news!!!!!!!!!!!

When will NYC follow suit? When will NYC resume recycling anyway!
The Basics; Taking Aim at All Those Plastic Bags

April 1, 2007
The Basics; Taking Aim at All Those Plastic Bags
By CHRIS CONWAY

Paper or plastic?

San Francisco last week offered an answer to the question. Paper is fine. But plastic isn't -- unless it's biodegradable.

By a 10-1 Board of Supervisors' vote, San Francisco became the first major American city to ban the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags by supermarkets, drug stores and other large retailers.

The paper-or-plastic question has long been a vexing one. Paper bags, of course, are biodegradable and recyclable, and are made from trees, a renewable resource. But the production of paper bags generates significantly more air and water pollution; manufacturing and recycling them requires more energy than their plastic cousins do, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Paper bags also take up comparatively more space in landfills, where they are slow to degrade, like most everything in a landfill. A study for the American Forest and Paper Association estimated that about seven billion paper bags were used in the United States in 2003.

On the other hand, plastic bags made of polyethylene, which dominate the market, are non-biodegradable and are made from crude oil and natural gas, both nonrenewable resources. They can be recycled, but are mostly discarded.

The E.P.A. estimated that only 5.2 percent of the plastic bags and sacks in the municipal waste stream in 2005 were recycled, compared with 21 percent of paper bags and sacks. And there are also horror stories about animals swallowing them and starving to death.

Plastic bags have virtually taken over the grocery market since they were first put at check-out stands in 1977. Ninety percent of all grocery bags are now plastic, according to the Progressive Bag Alliance, an industry group of plastic bag manufacturers. Estimates of the number of plastic bags used around the world each year vary wildly -- from 100 billion to as many as one trillion.

Whatever the number, it's a lot. And that has made for a lot of plastic bag litter -- which, the E.P.A. says, can take 1,000 years to decompose.

One reason for the abundance of plastic bags is economic. A standard plastic grocery bag costs about a penny to produce, according to the plastics industry, compared with 4 cents to 5 cents for a paper bag. Compostable plastic bags would cost from 8 cents to a dime, the industry says, although supporters of the San Francisco action say the cost would drop as more local governments require them.

Several states have addressed the issue in other ways. California now requires large supermarkets to set up a system for customers to recycle plastic bags. Rhode Island has teamed up with grocers to collect plastic bags for recycling.

Because of a tax, Ireland has cut the use of plastic bags by 90 percent, according to the Irish government. Taking matters further, several countries, among them Bangladesh and Bhutan, have banned them.

Ikea, the Swedish home furnishings and accessories chain, has just begun charging customers 5 cents per plastic bag in the United States, which it donates to American Forests, a conservation group. On average, its United States stores have gone through about 70 million a year. In Britain, Ikea says, it has seen a 95 percent drop in plastic bag use since it began charging for them there last spring.

Yet another alternative is to sell consumers reusable bags.

''The paper versus plastics question takes us off the issue, which is consumption,'' says Vincent Cobb, who offers reusable bags and containers on the Internet. He admits to using plastic bags, which he calls a ''fantastic product,'' but not as many as in the past.

''Getting into the habit of bringing your own shopping bag,'' he says, ''can slash this problem across the board.'' CHRIS CONWAY ]]> Thu, 12 Apr 2007 14:23:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/180727 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/180057
Symphony of Bullets from Hometown Baghdad .




Yesterday my friend Noor from Baghdad visited our office. I met her in 2004 in Sydney, Australia at the Oxfam International Youth Parliament, a workshop for young activists on project plans they have designed to uplift their community.

Noor's project was on access to clean water in Baghdad. But because of the war, it's an impossible project to implement. Clean water is now a rare luxury (this in a city that was once the capital of the Muslim World. Following along the lines of the clichéness of this post, check out the incredibly history of Baghdad and think about what it's been reduced to now).

I remember the first day we were asked to dress up in our culture's clothing for a welcoming ceremony at the Sydney Town Hall. We were waiting to leave for the event in a big grassy field, checking out everyone's costumes. We were with our "delegations."

I wore a Salwar Kameez to reflect my culture. What is an "American costume" anyway...? Perhaps I should have worn camouflage and carried a rocket launcher.

The US delegation saw Noor and we all had the same inclination to apologize to her. I felt cliché about it, but I told her that I was very sorry for what my country was doing to Iraq, and that most educated people are not in favor of this war.

She was incredibly sweet and magnanimous. She even took this photo with us. I cannot imagine keeping that type of composure if someone approached me like that if their country had obliterated mine in the way we have destroyed and are destroying Iraq.

When we arrived at the town hall, each delegation was asked to go up to the stage and put their flag on a tree that we'd later plant, in front of the media, mayor, etc. I know, kind of cheesy.

Palestine's delegation went up and we cheered louder than for any other country.

But when the US delegation went up, people booed. It really broke my heart. Here we were, all there because we were activists with a project we were working on to improve inequalities in our communities. Clearly anyone who made the effort to fundraise and go to this event would not be of the same ilk as the ignorant Americans who want to blow up any brown person/ country in sight.

I think that by the end of the workshop people who met me knew that I am not that type of American. I hope so.

When Noor came yesterday, I was so happy to see her alive and well, and in the US. She is visiting with her mother who is here for medical treatment. I wonder if she'll go back and what will happen to her now.]]> Wed, 11 Apr 2007 14:39:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/180057 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/176649 latest episode of of HOMETOWN BAGHDAD

I guess in most of the US Americans are thinking, after McCain's proclaiming that Baghdad is safe and sunny, that we've done a fantastic job and everything is just peachy over there. OO how quaint, he's haggling over a $5 carpet.

Hometown Baghdad shows what it's really like, from people living it everyday.

]]> Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:01:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/176649 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/172425
http://buylesscrap.org

SHOPPING IS NOT A SOLUTION.

Buy (Less). Give More.

Join us in rejecting the ti(red) notion that shopping is a reasonable response to human suffering.

We invite you to donate directly to the RED campaign's beneficiary The Global Fund and to these other charitable causes... without consuming.

--
My personal thoughts... it's great that GAP is getting these issues out on the table, but the campaign barely even mentions AIDS, TB or Malaria. I wonder if most people buying the products even know that is the purpose of the campaign, and it's just not some marketing campaign! In the US alone almost 1mn people are living with HIV and less than half know they are infected. Imagine if GAP had used the opportunity to encourage testing?

With the Amex RED card, only 1% of transactions is donated. Not sure how much of GAP RED products are donated or the Motorola Red phone, but I doubt it's very much. What is the point of the whole campaign if they don't mention the need/ cause and not much money is generated?

I absolutely despise non-profits, campaigns and "charities" that are just about PR and the hype. Such crap....

CNN mentions campaign:



Joya]]> Mon, 26 Mar 2007 12:38:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/172425 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/167147 Hometown Baghdad. It's on http://www.salon.com

Hometown Baghdad is a new initiative of an organization that GYCA
partners with and shares an office with, Chat the Planet.

Please send out widely if you think it's cool and be sure to link to
the webisodes (link to http://www.hometownbaghdad.com) if you have a
blog! Would love to hear your thoughts.

Below is an excerpt of the press release.


Watch the Websisodes

Enjoy!

Joya


-----


Press Contacts:
Michael DiBenedetto
Chat the Planet
212-375-2620 ext. 203
mike@hometownbaghdad.com

"HOMETOWN BAGHDAD" TO DEBUT ON SALON.COM, FOLLOWED BY A LAUNCH ACROSS
MULTIPLE DISTRIBUTION OUTLETS

CHAT THE PLANET'S INNOVATIVE DOCUMENTARY WEB SERIES OFFERS AN INTIMATE
LOOK AT ORDINARY IRAQIS AND THE STRUGGLES THEY FACE

New York, NY (March 16, 2007)—CHAT THE PLANET announced today that its
documentary web series HOMETOWN BAGHDAD will premier on SALON.COM on
Monday, March 19th, the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the war
in Iraq. The series will then launch across multiple digital platforms
in the following days, including mtvU, MTV's 24-hour college network.
This groundbreaking series, shot entirely by Iraqis who want to share
their stories with America and the West, offers viewers an
unprecedented and extraordinary look into the homes and lives of
regular Iraqis. The everyday life of the Iraqi citizen has been the
great untold story of the Iraq war. That is about to change.

"Hometown Baghdad", which is comprised of approximately 35 "webisodes"
that range from one to three minutes long, tells the stories of three
young Iraqis who are struggling to survive in the most dangerous city
in the world. Saif is a 23-year-old recent college grad with dreams of
becoming a dentist. Adel is an aspiring rock musician whose hopes of
forming a band are continually dashed by the violence and tragedy
surrounding him. And Ausama is a 20-year-old med student whose family
is repeatedly threatened and endangered by both American and insurgent
forces.

The people profiled in 'Hometown Baghdad' are not the usual figures
that dominate the media's coverage of the Iraq war: the politicians,
the troops, the insurgents or the religious fanatics. They are young,
smart ambitious Iraqis struggling with everyday concerns in the middle
of a deadly war.


full press release

Watch the Websisodes]]> Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:15:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/167147 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/166661
Have we made anything better in Iraq? I can't name one thing except the removal of Saddam Hussein, who will surely be replaced by an even more brutal dictator once the endless and bloody civil war comes to a close.

For now, it seems that all we are doing is prolonging and obfuscating the realities of the conflict on the ground to avoid admitting that we've LOST THIS WAR. To me it seems quite clear but I realize that this truth will finally be acknowledged once we bring the troops back home. There is no other reason for them to be there now.

Everyday when the numbers of deaths are tallied on the news and Americans flip the channel to a more entertaining reality tv show, what is really going on? What's going on is that everyday people with no ties to Saddam, terrorism, or politics are being raped, tortured and murdered, for one reason alone- so that Bush and his cronies will not have to admit defeat.


Check this out:


Iraq Diaries
The Rape of Sabrine...
Riverbend, Baghdad Burning, 21 February 2007
http://electroniciraq.net/news/2917.shtml

excerpts:


"They abducted Sabrine from her house in an area in southern Baghdad called Hai Al Amil. No, it wasn't a gang; it was Iraqi peace keeping or security forces (the ones trained by Americans - you know them). She was brutally gang-raped and is now telling the story. Half her face is covered for security reasons or reasons of privacy. I translated what she said below.

SABRINE: "I told him, 'I don't have anything. I did not do anything.' He said, 'You don't have anything?' One of them threw me on the ground and my head hit the tiles. He did what he did - I mean he raped me. The second one came and raped me. The third one also raped me.

...
Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts: It's worse. It's over. You lost. You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets. You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power and hailed them as Iraq's first democratic government. You lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment. You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than 3,000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least, made it worthwhile.

...
No Iraqi woman under the circumstances - under any circumstances - would publicly, falsely claim she was raped. There are just too many risks. There is the risk of being shunned socially. There is the risk of beginning an endless chain of retaliations and revenge killings between tribes. There is the shame of coming out publicly and talking about a subject so taboo, she and her husband are not only risking their reputations by telling this story, they are risking their lives."


Related Stories:



]]> Thu, 15 Mar 2007 12:33:00 EDT http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/166661 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/163805
source: tennessee right winger propaganda think tank

"Al Gore’s Personal Energy Use Is His Own “Inconvenient Truth”
Gore’s home uses more than 20 times the national average

Last night, Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.

Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES)."


You can tell by the website that it's a right wing republican think tank. When a think tank is for less taxes for big business and corporations, against charter school programs, and espouses "personal responsibility" (aka do away with social welfare programs), it's pretty obvious what political agenda they are proselytizing. Plus, they're in Tennessee, notoriously red and anti Gore state. The silly smear campaign was also posted on the Drudge Report! The most conservative neo-con mouthpiece ever.

People's energy bills are not public documents are they? How did this think tank obtain Al Gore's energy bills?

Rebuttals......

Mr. Gore buys carbon offsets and runs his home off of entirely green power. So, technically, he is probably entirely carbon neutral, because for every bit of CO2 he puts into the air, a forest is built with his money to sequester that CO2.
source

Gore's family has taken numerous steps to reduce the carbon footprint of their private residence, including signing up for 100 percent green power through Green Power Switch, installing solar panels, and using compact fluorescent bulbs and other energy saving technology.

source

And then just do some simple math- if you have a 20 room house, clearly you're going to be using more electricity than the average american. The average american is on minimum wage probably living in a one bedroom apartment and not driving a car.

Should he move to a smaller house? Probably. Is that realistic to expect of our politicians? Hardly!


And you know what's really sick? I looked up the case to find out the truth about what's going on and came across this Fox News link:
(fair and balanced my ^%!)

"Former Texas Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes — who said during the 2004 campaign that he helped a young George W. Bush enter the Air National Guard to avoid the Vietnam draft — is back in the news.

Barnes' name appears on a list of about two dozen celebrities who allegedly did business with Hollywood madam Jody "Babydol" Gibson. The Los Angeles Times reports Barnes has no explanation why his cell phone number is in Gibson's files, and told them, "I have never met or talked to this broad in my entire life." His office later released a revised version of the statement, substituting the word "woman" for "broad."

—FOX News Channel's Martin Hill contributed to this report."


Anyone who challenges Republican policies is immediately attacked for something totally irrelevant. Sorry to be a blue snob, but all I can think is that Republicans know that they are in power because most Americans are ignorant idiots with an attention span of 3 seconds. So any time they are challenged, they bring up sex, drugs, and stealing money to distract the public. Unfortunately the 30 second news bit has done its damage by the time there's an opportunity for rebuttal. No one wants to hear the rebuttal anyway, because invariably its nuanced.

That's the problem with Republicans anyway! It's black and white. The masses think that Dems equivocate or "flip flop" because most are just too ignorant to digest complexity and would rather be inhaling GMO at Wendys or guzzling beer in front of the game than reading a newspaper.


great rebuttal

"Who are these people? Well , a quick check of Alexa reveals their web site gets no traffic. Are they legitimate? Well, again, they claim to be non-partisan but only link to far-right and conservative groups so regardless of what their status is with the IRS, this is a conservative, strongly-leaning Republican organization.
...
Tennessee Center's President Drew Johnson comes straight out of the right's network, coming from Exxon-funded American Enterprise Institute and the right-wing-funded National Taxpayers Foundation.

...
As of Feb. 16, the Tennessee tax dept. considers them "not a legitimate organization" because of their misrepresenting themselves involving questions about the group's opposition to a state crackdown on drug dealers." ]]> Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:49:00 EST http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/163805 18.975 72.825833318.97572.8258333 http://jbanerjee.tigblog.org/post/163177
Watch Fox News make fools of themselves as the Republican propaganda machine:


(He's Black! His middle name is Hussein! He was raised a Muslim! He attended a terrorist training camp in Indonesia! We're getting all of our information from Hillary Clinton!)

Watch CNN totally debunk the smear campaign by Fox News:


The school is public, has female and male students of various religions, and teaches from a national curriculum.

Proof of Fox Propaganda:

According to an October 2003 PIPA study, viewers of Fox News were the most likely to believe that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that the world was favorable of the US' war in Iraq. (see page 13: Variations in Misperceptions According to Source of News)

"Fox News watchers were most likely to hold misperceptions—and were more than twice as likely than the next nearest network to hold all three misperceptions. In the audience for NPR/PBS, however, there was an overwhelming majority who did not have any of the three misperceptions, and hardly any had all three." Fox News viewers had a misperception rate of 45% compared to NPR viewers' rate of 11%.

The media is the fourth arm of government and MUST continue to play its crucial role as a watchdog of government excesses. Bush's recent attacks on NPR funding are further proof of the polarization of media for partisan ends. Democrats must take a stand at the propagandizing of our fellow citizens. The time has come for our party to have a backbone and to stop equivocating!!!!!

More information/ Sign a Petition:

Can you sign this petition asking the Democratic Party of Nevada to drop Fox as its partner for the presidential primary debate?

The full text of the petition is: "Fox is a mouthpiece for the Republican Party, not a legitimate news channel. The Democratic Party of Nevada should drop Fox as its partner for the presidential primary debate."
Clicking here will add your name to the petition:
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