http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2010…

AFP/Getty Images New buildings tower above boats on the Saigon vier in Ho Chi Minh City. The Vietnamese city says its economy grew by 8% last year. Vietnam’s economy lures some who left in the 1970s. By Kathy Chu, USA TODAY, August 18, 2010. HO CHI MINH CITY {who many call again Saigon}, Vietnam — At age 9, Johnny Tri Nguyen fled by fishing boat from this war-torn land of re-education camps and rationed food. He and his family were captured twice — and jailed — before finally escaping and establishing a life for themselves in California. Despite the harrowing experience, he holds little bitterness, just hope, for his homeland. After 17 years in the USA, he returned to Vietnam to make a movie based loosely on his grandfather’s life. “Much has changed, and the whole reason we left in the first place is no longer there,” says Nguyen, a Vietnamese actor and filmmaker known for his role in The Rebel, along with his stunt work in movies such as Spider-Man. “I find it very comfortable to live here now.” When the Vietnam War ended 35 years ago, millions of Vietnamese fled a communist country whose growth had been stymied by war, oppression and uncertainty, seeking a better life for themselves and their children in the USA, Canada and Europe. Today, some of those who left years ago now look at Vietnam as a land of opportunity. At least 500,000 Viet Kieu, as they are known, return every year to this nation of 86 million, some to stay. “Vietnam’s economic reforms and growth as well as the recent economic downturn in America may be part of the reason” why a growing number of Viet Kieu are returning to the country, says Nguyen Manh Hung, a professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. “There is a sentimental reason, too: the feeling of being at home in a familiar culture with a familiar way of life,” he says. REMITTANCES: Vietnamese abroad send money The return here of some Vietnamese-Americans comes as the Communist Party that runs Vietnam continues to loosen state controls on the economy in an attempt to boost the standard of living here. The fall of South Vietnam to the communist North in 1975 left the country bound by a totalitarian regime that stripped many people of their land and businesses. The legacy of the war and the party’s clampdown on free markets was rampant poverty. Change came in the mid-1980s, when Vietnam instituted reforms called doi moi that opened up the economy to foreign investment and introduced some forms of capitalism. Today, Vietnam’s economy is the one of the fastest-growing in Asia. It may eventually claim the mantle of the fastest-growing emerging economy, based on its growth between 2007 and 2050, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the financial advisory firm. ‘The best of both worlds’ Some of those returning are people who risked their lives to leave. Dang Tuyet Mai, who once was married to a former South Vietnamese prime minister, Nguyen Cao Ky, escaped by plane two days before the war ended. After three decades in the USA, Dang ventured back to her homeland to open a noodle shop. “It’s a mixed feeling being here,” admits Dang, whose former husband was a prominent figure in South Vietnam’s fight against communism. “But when you are Vietnamese, you always think of going back to the country where you were born.” During lunch time at her restaurant, Pho Ta, in downtown Ho Chi Minh City, the tables teem with Vietnamese businessmen and women. Steaming bowls of noodles are placed before them along with heaping mounds of fresh vegetables to dunk into the anise-scented broth. In a country where a bowl of pho can be found as easily as a hamburger in the States, Dang says hers stands out because of the homemade noodles, low fat content and a broth simmered over a low flame for 12 hours. “Even the Prime Minister of Vietnam (Nguyen Tan Dung) has eaten at my store,” says Dang, whose beauty first captivated the country in the 1960s when she was an Air Vietnam stewardess. Even today, some customers are drawn to Pho Ta to catch a glimpse of her. Dang is hoping the next celebrity to grace the restaurant will be Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. “I really admire her, and I want to shake her hand,” Dang says. Clinton came to Hanoi in July for a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations but didn’t end up stopping by Ho Chi Minh City. Another local establishment, Pho 2000, gained followers and a new slogan, “Pho for the President,” after then-president Bill Clinton sampled a bowl there 10 years ago. Like many new returnees, Dang hasn’t committed to living full-time in Vietnam but spends a quarter of the year in Southern California with her daughter and granddaughters. Her ability to live in two countries — and to juggle dual cultures — isn’t suitable for the travel weary or the weak of heart. But for Viet Kieus such as Trung Dung, the founder of electronic payments company Mobivi, this freedom is a blessing. “I have the best of both worlds,” says Dung, 43, who spends up to 80% of his time in Vietnam and the rest in California, where his son and sisters live. The main draw of Vietnam, he says, is that it feels like home. But entrepreneurs like him also are captivated by the business opportunities stemming from a third-world country transitioning into one of the region’s most promising economic powerhouses. Dung is betting that as the country booms, its largely cash society will transition to electronic payments, benefiting companies such as Mobivi. “I was very fortunate in witnessing the Internet revolution (in the USA), and it was an incredible time to be in the Silicon Valley,” says Dung, who became a billionaire in his 30s after selling his software company, OnDisplay, to Austin-based Vignette Corp. “The same thing is happening in Vietnam. We’re at the very early phase of creating things that will be here for a long time.” ‘The culture is so rich’ As Viet Kieu flock to Vietnam, the government is encouraging them to start up businesses and buy real estate to power the economy. It’s also stepping up efforts to attract foreign companies. U.S. companies including Intel and General Electric have already established a presence here, and others are exploring the possibility, attracted partly by Vietnam’s highly educated, skilled and young population (a quarter of residents are under 15). Thuy Vo Dang, a visiting scholar at UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center, believes the success of the government’s efforts to woo Viet Kieu will depend partly on its ability “to overcome the tension that still exists between the overseas community and the country.” “It’s one thing to welcome visitors,” she notes, but the government needs to address corruption, which is widespread and entrenched in Vietnam. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index of 2009, based on surveys of international businesspeople, considers Vietnam one of the world’s most corrupt countries, with a ranking of 120 out of 180 countries. Property, construction and government contracts are reportedly riddled with bribery, according to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. The regulatory environment is not transparent and Vietnam’s legal system is not independent and hindered by corruption, it said. Oppression and lack of religious and political freedoms are also causing concern among some of the Viet Kieu. Some people interviewed said they felt constrained about discussing injustices for fear of offending the government and inviting actions against them or their businesses. The U.S. State Department has criticized Vietnam for its jailing of political opponents and especially Catholic priests and bloggers who speak out in favor of the kinds of basic freedoms the Viet Kieu have enjoyed in the West. The Viet Kieu, because they have citizenship elsewhere, generally enjoy more freedoms than Vietnam’s citizens. “The progress made on the economic front has not transferred in any way to human rights,” says Phil Robertson, deputy director for Human Rights Watch‘s Asia division. “There are still significant restrictions on freedom of association and independent trade unions, and the government uses very broad national security legislation to go after dissidents.” As a growing number of Viet Kieu invest in Vietnam, it’s creating jobs and fueling the country’s economy. But the investment may also be seen as “condoning the government’s lack of freedoms for the country,” Vo Dang warns. “Blind investment in the homeland could, in fact, create more problems than it solves.” Yet the lure of their homeland is so powerful that for some Viet Kieu, it trumps memories, beliefs and politics. Nguyen, the actor, remembers his family being so poor after the Vietnam War that he had to make his own toys from clay he dug up from nearby ponds. But what struck Nguyen when he first returned to Vietnam was not the vestiges of war lingering in every city’s memorials to the departed, but the connection he felt to the country and its beautiful scenery. “This culture is so rich in cinematic” promise, he says. On a sweltering July day, amid the ancient rock formations of Ninh Binh province in northern Vietnam, Nguyen’s brother-in-law, filmmaker Jimmy Nghiem Pham, seeks to capitalize on this cinematic promise. Between scenes of a new movie he’s helping produce —Khat Vong Thang Long, a film that commemorates the 1,000-year anniversary of the nation’s capital moving to Hanoi and is being made in cooperation with the government — Pham describes how Vietnam has become a “land of opportunity” for independent filmmakers. “If you don’t have a lot of money, Vietnam is the best place to make a movie,” says Pham, whose budgets have ranged from $15,000 to $1.6 million. A graduate of the film school at Cal State Long Beach, Pham lived in Southern California — home to one of the largest Vietnamese populations in the USA — for more than a decade before returning to Vietnam. He feels strong ties to both countries, but says matter-of-factly that “if my movie career is better, then I will stay here.” For Henry Hoang Nguyen, his ties to Vietnam are becoming more compelling than those to the USA. In the spring of 2001, Hoang Nguyen, 37, landed a New York-based consulting job for McKinsey & Associates that was to begin in the fall. But the start date was delayed by six months because of the economic hangover from the Internet bust. This gave him time to explore opportunities in Vietnam’s emerging telecom sector. Nine years and a few business opportunities later, Hoang Nguyen is now managing general partner of IDG Ventures, a $100 million venture capital fund focused on technology, media and telecom investments in Vietnam. He has married a Vietnamese woman who has no intention of leaving the country. And the former “all-American” kid is proudly rediscovering his extended family and his heritage. Being a generation removed from the war has given him an unvarnished appreciation for Vietnam — free from painful memories still in the minds of previous generations. “I don’t carry any burdens or feelings of negativity,” says Hoang Nguyen, whose parents left Saigon, the name locals still use to refer to Ho Chi Minh City, long before he was old enough to remember life there. “I just feel a real strong attachment and patriotism for Vietnam.” Such feelings are also felt by Viet Kieu David Thai, an entrepreneur who once dreamed about being a basketball player or snowboarder. Thai grew up in Seattle but came back to the country he left as a toddler to study Vietnamese civilization. Business opportunities conspired to keep him here, including the launch of a Starbucks-like chain, Highlands Coffee, and of American icon Hard Rock Cafe in Vietnam. Coming from Seattle, “I missed good coffee,” he says. But the overarching business goal, adds Thai, is “to build a national brand, to make Vietnam known for investment and business.” Yet for every tale of business success in Vietnam, there’s another tale of failure in a market laden with government restrictions. And for those who choose to live and work in this country, there are compromises to be made. Nguyen Qui Duc, who moved to Hanoi and started Tadioto bar and art gallery, doesn’t enjoy the same creative freedoms in Vietnam — a country where state censorship is widespread — that he had as a journalist and as an artist in the United States. Duc, who once hosted a radio show on Asian affairs in the United States, says he has learned to work within the system in Vietnam. “I can’t change the system, but I work with artists to express themselves,” he says. “Freedom of expression is getting better in Vietnam.” Despite the challenges, Nguyen Qui Duc says he’s glad he moved back because it has allowed him to rediscover the simplicity of life. “I’m 50 years old, and I’m riding a motorcycle,” he says. “In the States, I was tired of living a life where I never talked to my neighbors. I prefer life here where you can walk down the street and talk to people.”

For Executive Director David R. Mullen, history here started in 1991 when PDA was formed as a self-supporting state agency whose mission was to create jobs and become an economic engine for New Hampshire’s Seacoast Region that was hit by the Federal Government’s decision to close the large military base that was the center of the local economy – overnight 10,000 jobs were lost.

Now, 18 years later, and despite the slowdown in the National economy, PDA repaid in 2009 the remaining $10.0 million on the original bond to the State of New Hampshire, completed the upgrades to the Portsmouth International airport at Pease, completed the renovation at the nearby Rye Harbor pier, moved its headquarter offices to a new building on International Drive, and even started on a new golf course clubhouse. New airlines are brought to the airport and plans made for the utilization of the remaining 60  acres of undeveloped terrain (out of the starting 300 acres).

The great achievement should be viewed in the turning of a military base that says you cannot come here into a property open to all!

The Portsmouth Air Force Base was formally opened at the hights of the Cold War, June 30, 1965, and The Pease International Tradeport is presented as the most successful military-to-civilian conversion in the US. The military base was formally closed in 1988 in recognition of the reduced threat posed by the former soviet union and the official closing was signaled with the lowering of the flag – October 1991. Eventually the Division of Ports and Harbors, as well as the Skyhaven Airport of Rochester, NH. came under PDA management as well.

The Tradeport is now home to 245 companies and employs about 7,000 workers. In 2008 the assessment was for Pease properties of $404.3 million and the City of Portsmouth got out of here $4.9 million in revenues.

In 2009, real estate company Richard Ellis estimated that while the region had an office vacancy rate of 18.5% – having increased from 16.3% the previous year, at Pease it actually dropped from 18.7% to 11.7%.

Six colleges have facilities at the Business Park, offering education. The Federal Government established here the Department of Sate Passport Center and the National Visa Center.

With a runway of 2 miles, the airport facility can accommodate any planes these days and the Air National guard still keeps here a facility.

We visited the Timberland Shoe company and I saw that also  MBT Shoes are in the process of opening up at Pease. Red Hook Brewery of Seattle established here their East Coast production facility and the list of resident companies includes also high-tech aviation related companies and a company that makes turbines for cogeneration The most interesting company that we visited was Global Relief Technologies, but on them we reserve a separate posting.

What helped all this is clearly the fact that New Hampshire is one of the lowest tax States – thus considering that a military base does not make money at all, the newly created situation is a winner for the State nevertheless – and we hope that the State recognizes the benefits that evolved with the help of the Federal Government the moment it was decided to close that base.

Originally posted August 1, 2010 and updated August 17, 2010.

As we intend to be next week in New Hampshire to visit with some Green efforts there, we are now more attentive to that State and I just found the following:

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The -

1. @sustainabilitnk You will not get away with this dictatorship crap in the US. 11:16 PM Aug 13th via web in reply to sustainabilitnk
2. @sustainabilitnk You people should just leave the USA alone and stop pushing our Senators to BREAK THE LAW. #GET_US_OUT 11:11 PM Aug 13th via web in reply to sustainabilitnk

1. #teaparty UN agitators in US conspire w/NH Senator to break the law and impose dictatorial UNCONSTITUTIONAL FIAT http://is.gd/egRqd 11:41 PM Aug 13th via web

1. @BigJournalism UN crazies attack Breitbart and Beck, claim Sherrod is a saint after coming to US to collude with Shaheen. http://is.gd/ehniu 9:31 AM Aug 14th via web in reply to BigJournalism
2. Shaheen Should Be Ashamed for Cowardly, Misleading Press Release – remembering Shaheen’s lies. http://bit.ly/9yUWdv 12:12 AM Aug 14th via web

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Also, we received e-mailed comments which we included at the end of our Breitbard vs. Sherrod article and just add here also:

A new comment on the post “UPDATED – Andrew Breitbart – the scum of
the earth – a blogger bent on destroying America’s true achievements
in order to promote the worst of the Tea Party. He was able to
bamboozle the weak minded in the best Administration the US has since
Nixon, and now instead of talking of what the EPA should do, Obama
waste’s his time defending Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. The
Democrats would do better using the newly obtained fame of Shirley
Sherrod and run her for high office – for Congress, Senate, or some
high Commission. DO NOT EVEN DREAM OF OFFERING HER A JOB ON HUMAN
RIGHTS – That she already got after the Breitbart treatment.”

Author : Get Us Out
Comment:
It’s pretty funny that Sherrod was fired BEFORE the news came out on FOX too!

What is it with you scare mongerers that you are trying to create a
world government totalitarian dictatorship to enslave people to your
out of touch ideas?

I cannot imagine anyone talking like Sherrod and getting away with it.
Her husband did worse and we’re glad Breitbart exposed them both.

There is no room for racism in this day and age.

—-

Author : Get Us Out
Comment:
WE will NEVER succumb to communist enablers in the fake press (MSNBC,
CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC) nor tolerate absolute RACISTS like Shirley Sherrod
who used her power to deny help to others. She is despicable! Her
words are undeniable.

We are grateful to Breitbart for exposing this institutional racism
which must not stand and we are sad that Beck actually sided with
Sherrod a most despicable woman.

America will NOT be allowed to be bankrupted by the corrupt Obama
administration who seeks to create a plutocracy for his wealthy
handlers, no more than magicians who seek to use the fake climate
issue to rob us of our rights, freedom and MONEY.

This amateurish blog is nothing more than a sick joke!

—-

Author : Get Us Out
Comment:
WE will NEVER succumb to communist enablers in the fake press (MSNBC,
CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC) nor tolerate absolute RACISTS like Shirley Sherrod
who used her power to deny help to others. She is despicable! Her
words are undeniable.

We are grateful to Breitbart for exposing this institutional racism
which must not stand and we are sad that Beck actually sided with
Sherrod a most despicable woman.

America will NOT be allowed to be bankrupted by the corrupt Obama
administration who seeks to create a plutocracy for his wealthy
handlers, no more than magicians who seek to use the fake climate
issue to rob us of our rights, freedom and MONEY.

This amateurish blog is nothing more than a sick joke!

We have not entered this controversy until now because we sensed from the first moment that we really do not know enough about what is behind the effort to build a Muslim Cultural Center near the Holy Ground where Islamic terrorists incinerated more then 3,000 people. It is still in my memory how I watched in real time the event on TV and the ash that settled on me and that I did breeze, when going down to the site. The 9/11 ground is Holy like the ground at Auschwitz is Holy and I have no second thought about this – nor do I think anyone else is entitled to second thoughts about this. Ahmadi-nejad is a non-person just because of this sort of transgressions and I have no doubt about that.

Now, can you take it out on all Muslims and on the whole Islamic world – clearly not!
Do I expect Muslims, like I expect non-Muslims, to understand my feelings – surely yes!

Are Muslims entitled to build a cultural center and a prayer space that is a Mosque – right there? I DO NOT KNOW!
Half of me says clearly YES – they are entitled to do as anyone else does! My other Half says – wait a minute – who are these Muslims that are ready to dish out $200-300 million – clearly, $100 million is not enough – this to build a SECOND Muslim cultural center in Manhattan – in an area of few Muslim residents? There is already one on East 96 Street and 3rd Avenue that was paid by the Oil States (we remember that it was Kuwait that coincidentally is also the root of the Imam involved in the present issue)  and is a lovely institution that serves the Muslim communities in Manhattan and the UN. Do we need a second space for the Libyans and Iranians, the Saudis and the Pakistanis, the nice poor people that immigrated to the US and the government people of States among whom we can point fingers at enemies of the US? Whatever – there will be a mixed bag – we know that. But, had the center been planned for let’s say Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, down in the 8th Avenue area of Brooklyn, somewhere across the river in New Jersey, places with larger Muslim communities, it would have been more in place then plopping down a second center in Manhattan – and raising hell near the Holy Ground of 9/11. Was this insensitive from start – or plainly provocative? This clearly is not the same thing as the black person in Alabama that wanted a hamburger and coke at the regular counter.

OK, so why near Holy Ground? I do not think that the US media was up to what was needed to answer this question. Not even our TV guru – indeed the one person we watch regularly on Sundays – Fareed Zakaria – lived up to this needed investigation. He simply announced that he will return the prize he got from a Jewish organization that lauded him for fighting for equality of people. Obviously, Jews should be the first to fight for equality for all – why do they have difficulty with this 9/11 Mosque?

Even President Obama got trapped here – he clearly made the right statement that Muslims have the right like everyone else to build their places of warship wherever they wish, but really – why insist on creating disharmony while preaching harmony.
After quite a while of sitting on the sidelines, President Obama made his statement and clearly got clobbered by those that just wait around the corner in their effort to harm him, and do not care if it harms the US as well.

Before returning to the point – the reason I write on this today, let me brandish my own credentials as having been alongside Rabbi Marc Schneier – right there in person – physically not just mentally – when he started his direct cooperation with the last two Imams of the Islamic Center on 3rd Avenue and East 96th Street. That was and is the kind of effort that can bring communities together – here in the US – this without having to face difficulties over there in the Middle East. Some in the Jewish community turned away from Rabbi Schneier because of those days, but these efforts have now extended to Europe and a meeting was just held in Vienna. All of these efforts are documented on our website.

Further, I went to the location where the cultural center is supposed to be built and I wrote about a great entertainment event I witnessed there. I clearly was instinctively positive about the whole thing – so here my evidence that I do not come from the wing of bigots. But nevertheless, I think I see it differently when my eyes opened up now.

Please see our review: http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2010/05…

Now, why do I write today?

This because of The Financial Times of this weekend – as it was delivered to subscribers in New York City (not as it is on the internet – please note this comment as well).

The Golden Age of Spain was under Muslim domination in Spain when Jews and Arabs cooperated in preserving Greek culture. Cordoba is indeed the symbol of Jewish, Muslim and Christian co-existence in Spain, and it was ended by the Christians.
Cordoba is the ideal – but in Islamic culture you do not build Mosques to celebrate co-existence.
You build Mosques to celebrate conquests and victories over the infidel.

I did not realize this earlier – it was a picture in The Financial Times that had the courage to remind us of this!

Now, does this throw  shadows over the two main proponents of this 9/11 Mosque?
I would not say so, but I would say that one must ask for transparency of all the funding for this project. Further, granted that the proponents are entitled to build the Mosque in that location, but they have nevertheless to explain the Cordoba harmony that they hope to achieve with moves that are unwelcome – NOT BECAUSE OF RELIGION BUT BECAUSE OF THE ISSUE OF HOLY GROUND AND THE INCINERATION OF OVER 3,000 PEOPLE – INCLUDING MUSLIMS – BY A BAND OF MUSLIMS THAT DID NOT CARE FOR THE CORDOBA IDEALS.

WITH ABOVE IN MIND – AND THE OBAMA REMARKS AS LEAD – WHY NOT SIT DOWN AND FIGURE ANOTHER LOCATION – BE IT RIGHT ACROSS THE WATER FROM THE PREVIOUS TOWERS – IN BROOKLYN OR NEW JERSEY – THIS IN FULL HARMONY WITH ALL OTHER GROUPS INVOLVED EXCEPT THOSE THAT WERE BEHIND THE MISTAKEN CHOICE OF THE PRESENT LOCATION.

To be fair to the Muslims that work in lower Manhattan, actually there are now two Mosques in the area as we learned from Anne Barnard. There is since 1970 the Masjid Manhattan on Warren Street, four blocks from ground zero; also Masjid al-Farah that moved in 1985 from Mercer Street to West Broadway, about 12 blocks from ground zero, and is led by Imam Faisal Abdul al-Rauf who is the man that set his eye on the new site at the vacant Burlington Coat Factory contending the present space has become too small at times like this week’s breaking of the fast at Ramadan.

Also, from Josef Joffe, the Jewish editor of important Die Zeit of Hamburg, and in the US fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, his knowledge of the Al-Quds Mosque of downtown Hamburg, taught him that Mohamed Atta and other terrorists that perpetrated 9/11 saw in that Mosque their spiritual home. That is where Imam Muhamad al-Fazazi used to preach venom and murder throughout the 1990s, opining that “Christians and Jews should have their throats cut,” In 2003 a Spanish court gave him 30 years for planning attacks on Jewish Institutions in Morocco. So, that Mosque was not just a center of prayer and Joffe says that it took so long to close it because given Germany’s Nazi past, Germany was slow to act before full evidence was at hand. The next Imam at that Mosque was an immigrant from Syria – Mamoun Darkanzali whom investigators defined as  “elder statesman of Jihad” – Bin Laden’s man in Germany  -preaching that Allah will kill the infidel while hiding under the German Law.

The US has its example with US-born Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki who was the spiritual leader at the Dar al-Hijra mosque in Virginia, one of the US largest Mosques, and who was lauded in an October 2001 New York Times article as a leader capable of merging East and West not realizing that even the name Hijra being there as a sign of preparation for revenge – because this was the Prophet’s exile from Mecca to Medina, where he plotted that revenge, and the killing of his hosts? Now Awlaki who it turned out was personal mentor to quite a few of the Jihadists that were active in the US, and President Obama has authorized the military to assassinate him in his hiding place in Yemen.

All of the above clearly does not have to reflect on Imam Faisal Abdul al-Rauf who seems to be a decent man, but then, because of decency, it is rather expected he realizes that people are justified if they worry that things not proper might be transacted at a Muslim meeting place at a location with sad history. Decency would then require decorum by avoiding potential conflict. After all Mosques have a history, and were built in the past in places to commemorate that history, rather then lament about it. Years ago we were looking for the first Imam to say that suicide bombers do not go to heaven to sit next to the Prophet – but they go rather to hell. We are still waiting for this sort of short simple statement to the believers.

For further overview – please continue to read  and digest the very unusually frank eye-opener that was handed down to us in the print edition of The Financial Times.
 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/bf1110d8-a5b0-…

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Opponents of the proposed Islamic centre show their placards during a community meeting in Manhattan, May 25 2010

{Once more – above two pictures do not appear in the newsprint version of The Financial Times article that appeared on the shelves in New York City. There it said on a placard: “ISLAM BUILDS MOSQUES AT SITES OF THEIR CONQUESTS AND VICTORIES.”}

On the evening of July 27, a mild sun shone on the elegant and imposing New York City Hall building in Manhattan. Commuters headed underground to subways departing for outer boroughs and bedroom suburbs. In a dance studio adjacent to City Hall, a Korean-American boy practised physics-defying moves with a Mexican-American girl. A short flight of stairs up, a few hundred people had gathered in an auditorium for a public meeting of the Lower Manhattan Community Board. The meeting was supposed to be one of the city’s regular exercises in local representation, where people can raise with board members issues that concern them. Citizens spoke about walking tours, extending bus routes, hospitals … and then a man from the audience shouted: “What about the mosque!” In an instant the auditorium was charged with angry shouts of “No mosque! No mosque at Ground Zero!”

A shrill debate about religious freedom, limits of tolerance and the meaning of 9/11 has been raging for the past two months in the US around the plans of a New York imam, Abdul Faisal Rauf, and a developer, Sharif Gamal, to build a 13-floor Islamic centre with a prayer space, three blocks from Ground Zero.

Supporters say the Cordoba House project will be a venue for reconciliation between Islam and the west, delivering a powerful rebuttal to the al-Qaeda terrorists who attacked the trade towers; opponents call it an offence to the memory of those who died in 2001. New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, a group named 9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, and several interfaith leaders from New York churches and synagogues are among those who want to see the centre built. Lined up against them are the leaders of Tea Party Express, Republicans such as Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, rightwing bloggers and some families of 9/11 victims.

At the public meeting, the crowd continued to chant, “No mosque at Ground Zero!” as a speaker, Helen Friedman, took to the podium and held up a card: “Unmask the Mosque!” She described herself as belonging to a group called Americans for a Safe Israel and, to more cheers and claps, said: “This mosque is a Trojan horse. Remember that too came as a gift. We are letting the enemy inside the gates!” Friedman was followed by New York State Senator Daniel Squadron, who concentrated on other local issues. Then someone asked him what he thought about the Islamic centre. “We are an open, diverse community – and no community shall be prohibited from being in lower Manhattan,” he replied. He was jeered.

Pamela Geller, a rightwing blogger who campaigns against the centre

Pamela Geller, a feisty, 51-year-old rightwing blogger from a group called Stop Islamization of America, spoke next. Geller, who has Tea Party links, is the co-author of a book, Post-American Presidency, which makes a series of unfounded charges against Barack Obama. In her words, the book describes “his socialist internationalism, his ties to America-haters and anti-Semites, his race-baiting, and more. He is betraying Israel; warring against free speech; refusing to take real steps to stop Iran’s nuclear program.”

Geller achieved prominence among American rightwing groups after she posted a video blog from an Israeli beach, in which, wearing a bikini, she denounced Hamas and Hezbollah. She is running a controversial poster campaign on New York City buses that directs Muslims to a website urging them to leave the “falsity of Islam”. The ads pitch these questions directly to Muslims: “Fatwa on your head? Is your community or family threatening you? Leaving Islam?” Geller described 9/11 as an attack on “each one of us” and the Islamic centre as a source of discord. She waved in jubilation after her speech, provoking more cries of “No mosque!”

. . .

Imam Abdul Faisal Rauf addresses the community meeting in Manhattan

Across the room, Sharif Gamal, the developer behind the Islamic centre, stood quietly in a blue suit, typing on his iPhone. “I am not from someplace else. I am American, a New Yorker,” said 38-year-old Gamal, an athletic man with blue eyes and short curly hair, who was born in Brooklyn to an Egyptian-American father and a Polish-American mother. Gamal, who has been in the real estate business for a decade, heads a successful company, Soho Properties, in downtown Manhattan.

A few years after 9/11, Gamal walked into a small mosque in Tribeca for Friday prayers. The imam leading the prayers was Faisal Abdul Rauf, a Columbia University physics graduate, who had moved to New York as a teenager. Rauf had studied religion with his father, a scholar trained in Egypt at al-Azhar University, and had been working in New York with Jewish and Christian religious leaders to promote interfaith relations. He also acted as an adviser to the Muslim community on questions of religion and integration. His small mosque, which had been around for 28 years, was 12 blocks from the towers.

At a time of intense curiosity and scrutiny of Islam and Muslims in the US, Rauf found himself propelled into a world of television studios, think-tank lectures, international conferences, FBI briefings and meetings with American politicians. In the process, he has achieved prominence as a moderate Muslim leader, shaped by and comfortable with both the worlds of Islam and the US. A book deal followed and he published What’s Right with Islam, after which Christian Science Monitor described him as “a bridge builder between Islam and America”, adding that the book could easily be subtitled What’s Right With America. Imam Rauf used the suggested subtitle when the book came out in paperback.

Property developer Sharif Gamal

Gamal was impressed by Rauf’s sermons and became a regular at Friday prayers. When Gamal got married, Rauf conducted the ceremony. In 2004, Rauf set up a small tax-exempt foundation, the Cordoba Initiative (the initiative has no connection to the British-based Cordoba Foundation). Its goal was to achieve “a tipping point in Muslim-west relations within the next decade, bringing back the atmosphere of interfaith tolerance and respect that we have longed for since Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived together in harmony and prosperity eight hundred years ago”. The foundation has organised conferences on Muslim-west relations, and commissioned films with a message, such as one on the life of Abdol Hossein Sardari, an Iranian diplomat in Paris who saved several hundred French Jews from the Holocaust by granting them Iranian passports.

Meanwhile, Gamal’s Soho Properties was in the process of acquiring – for $4.85m – a five-storey building on Park Place, three blocks from the trade towers site. The building had housed a Burlington Coat Factory warehouse until it was abandoned after the landing gear of one of the hijacked aircraft tore through its roof. Initially, Gamal had planned to build a condominium complex at the site, but was convinced by Rauf’s idea for a cultural centre with a prayer space, especially as the Muslim community in New York had been growing for some time.

The plans for the centre were ambitious. At a cost of $100m-$150m, its 13 floors were intended to house a cultural centre, a 500-seat performing arts centre, culinary school, exhibition space, swimming pool, gym, basketball court, restaurant, library and art studios. The top two floors would house a domed space for prayers. “We insist on calling it a prayer space and not a mosque, because you can use a prayer space for activities apart from prayer. You can’t stop anyone who is a Muslim despite his religious ideology from entering the mosque and staying there,” said Imam Rauf’s wife and partner, Daisy Khan, who runs the American Society for Muslim Advancement, from an office housed on the Upper West Side’s famed Riverside Church. “With a prayer space, we can control who gets to use it.”

. . .

Imam Rauf is a soft-spoken man, with a trimmed salt and pepper beard, who prefers well-cut suits to traditional clothing. He modelled Cordoba House on a Jewish-run cultural centre, 92nd Street Y, a much-loved New York space for literary readings and public conversations on cultural and global affairs, where writers such as Ian McEwan, Javier Maries and Salman Rushdie have read from their work. Rauf imagined that Cordoba House would play the same kind of role for American Muslims that institutions such as 92Y played in helping the Jewish community become part of mainstream America.

Frank K. Bamberger, an advocate of the Islamic centre

He was conscious, of course, of the significance of the centre’s location: a building damaged in the attacks, three blocks from the trade tower’s site. “I have been part of this community for 30 years. Members of my congregation died on 9/11. That attack was carried out by extremist terrorists in the name of my faith,” Rauf said. “There is a war going on within Islam between a violent, extremist minority and a moderate majority that condemns terrorism. The centre for me is a way to amplify our condemnation of that atrocity and to amplify the moderate voices that reject terrorism and seek mutual understanding and respect with all faiths.”

Before the idea could morph into reality, it had to survive the bureaucratic process of approvals from New York City authorities and the lower Manhattan community boards. On May 5 this year, Rauf and Gamal took the proposal to the Lower Manhattan Community Board’s financial committee, adding that it would create 150 full-time jobs. The submission included an image of the proposed centre’s façade: a blue and green, glass and steel, modernist tower. The committee voted unanimously in support.

As word spread, a debate started about whether it was appropriate. Within a few weeks, the proposed Cordoba House was being talked about across the US as the “Ground Zero Mosque”. On May 25, the community board planned to have a vote on the project, a vote that doesn’t have any legal power but is seen as crucial to gauge whether the local community supports it or not. A week before the vote, Tea Party leader Mark Williams called the planned centre “a monument to 9/11 Muslim hijackers”. The board meeting was charged with emotion. Some opponents shouted down a Muslim teenager who spoke in favour of the project; a supporter called activists opposing the project “brown shirts”. After four hours of testimonies, the 40-member board voted: 10 abstentions, one no, and 29 yeses. New York mayor Bloomberg and Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer came out in support.

What was conceived as a project to foster inter-faith co-operation and improve relations between the west and the Islamic world now threatens to increase polarisation. The debate has moved far beyond what is legal, into the territory of national politics and questions of morality, legitimacy and meanings of 9/11.

Sarah Palin tweeted, calling all peaceful Muslims to “refudiate” it. The National Republican Trust, a conservative group that runs ad campaigns to support Republican candidates, released a screen advertisement juxtaposing images of the falling twin towers and gun-toting jihadis. The accompanying narration says: “On 11 September, they declared war against us. And to celebrate that murder of 3,000 Americans, they want to build a monstrous 13-storey mosque at Ground Zero. That mosque is a monument to their victory and an invitation for more.”

Marion Dreyfus, who opposes the centre

The former Republican speaker Newt Gingrich said the very name of the proposed project, Cordoba House, was an insult: “It refers to Córdoba, Spain – the capital of Muslim conquerors who symbolised their victory over the Christian Spaniards by transforming a church there into the world’s third-largest mosque complex. Today, some of the Mosque’s backers insist this term is being used to ‘symbolise interfaith co-operation’ when, in fact, every Islamist in the world recognises Córdoba as a symbol of Islamic conquest.” Gamal dropped the name. “We are calling it Park 51 because of the backlash to the name Cordoba House,” he said. “It will be a place open to all New Yorkers and that is a very New York name.”

Republican Rick Lazio, who is running for the New York governor’s seat, has made the funding of the proposed centre a key campaign issue. He sees it as funded by suspect foreign sources, and has called for an inquiry into where the $100m is coming from. Several others are calling for transparency in the money flow. Imam Rauf insists the $100m has yet to be raised and Gamal owns the property. I asked Gamal about the purchase of the building on Park Place for $4.85m. “I bought it with my own money and with the help of some goodwill investors,” he said.

The most poignant part of this controversy is that it has forced the families who lost sons and daughters to relive their tragedies, to speak again about their wounds, and to take sides. The atrocity has become an argument and the families forced to divide into supporters and opponents of the project. At the community board meeting in the dance studio near City Hall late last month, I watched a girl who had lost her brother in the attacks walk around the auditorium, bearing an American flag and a banner reading: “Show respect to 9/11 families.” Her face carried her pain, unlike the rhetoric and fury of the rightwing activists. Joyce Boland, a woman in her sixties with short white hair, rimless glasses, and wearing a white T-shirt, walked slowly to the podium; her face was sombre as she spoke. Vincent Boland, her son, a 25-year-old investment banker from New Jersey, was working on the 97th floor of the first tower on 9/11 when a hijacked aircraft was flown into it. “We got no more than a few inches of skin and a couple of pieces of bone. Ground Zero is the burial place of my son,” Boland said, her voice choking with emotion. “I don’t want to go there and see an overwhelming mosque looking down at me.”

The feelings of parents such as Boland have raised the questions of memory, trauma and moral authority. The Anti-Defamation League, an influential Jewish organisation that declares its mandate to “fight bigotry, prejudice and racism”, has condemned the attacks on the centre. The ADL, headed by Abraham H. Foxman, a Holocaust survivor, has also conceded the legal right of the backers to build, but urged them not to build so near the trade towers site. “In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right,” an ADL statement said.

When I spoke to Foxman, he drew a parallel with an older controversy, when Carmelite nuns turned an empty warehouse outside the perimeter of Auschwitz into a convent. “The Jewish community was offended by that and we insisted it was not the right place,” Foxman said. After eight years of debate, Pope John Paul II asked the nuns to move into a building a mile away. “If you want to reach out and heal the wounds, you don’t do it in an in-your-face way, in somebody’s cemetery. Two blocks from Ground Zero is Ground Zero,” said Foxman.

Several Jewish organisations and intellectuals disagree with Foxman and were surprised by the ADL’s stand. It provoked the economics Nobel laureate, Paul Krugman, to write in his New York Times blog, “It causes some people pain to see Jews operating small businesses in non-Jewish neighborhoods; it causes some people pain to see Jews writing for national publications (as I learn from my mailbox most weeks); it causes some people pain to see Jews on the Supreme Court. So would ADL agree that we should ban Jews from these activities, so as to spare these people pain?”

The coffin of World Trade Center victim Salman Hamdani

Whose pain counts? Whose pain has a greater moral authority? How many blocks from the trade tower site would an Islamic centre be respectful? There are no easy answers to these questions. But these are questions with which Talat Hamdani, a Pakistani-American woman, is grappling. Her son, Salman Hamdani, a paramedic and a cadet with the New York City police department, was headed to work on the morning of September 11 2001. Salman saw the planes hit the towers and rushed to the trade towers site to help people trapped inside. He lost his life in the process. New York City and NYPD honoured him as one of its heroes.

“I lost my son on that day and I support this centre. The opposition comes from a deep-rooted Islamophobia,” said Hamdani. While her son was rushing towards the trade towers, the daughter of her friend Donna Marsh O’Connor, a Syracuse University writing instructor, was on the 97th floor of the second tower. She couldn’t be saved either. After struggling with their grief for a few years, Hamdani and O’Connor joined the 9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. “On that day I lost both my daughter and my country. Ideas of revenge led us to war in Iraq. I can’t get my daughter back, but I am not letting go of my country. To be American is to understand that the laws are made for the greater good. We can’t base public policy on emotions,” O’Connor told me. “Building the Islamic centre near the trade towers will be a loud and clear rebuttal to the extremists who attacked America.”

. . .

The Ground Zero site

On a recent Friday afternoon, I visited the trade towers site. Tourists peered through a boundary into Ground Zero. Business executives stood outside office entrances drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. Hundreds of workers manned cranes, jackhammers and drills under a blazing sun as they continued the decade-long effort to build a memorial to the World Trade Center. Designed by architects Michael Arad and Peter Walker, the memorial will have two massive pools with waterfalls where the towers stood, a plaza with 400 trees; and a museum recording the lives of the victims, whose names will be inscribed on the pool walls.

45 Park Place, Manhattan, the site of the proposed centre

I walked the three blocks to 45 Park Place where the Islamic centre is planned to be built, and which has been serving as a place for Muslim Friday prayers for the past several months. Faint outlines of the old name, Burlington Coat Factory, remain on the building’s façade. The Italian palazzo architecture, which would have signified the grandeur of the Old World in the 1850s, was now a memorial to chipped paint and rusting iron bars. The congregation of IT consultants, investment bankers, businessmen, and street vendors was led by a doctoral candidate from Columbia University, who published his first novel a few years ago. It seemed to be a reflection of the financial success of American Muslims, a predominantly middle-class community that various estimates put at between three and seven million; 59 per cent of whom have at least an undergraduate degree, according to a 2004 poll by Zogby.

On the sidewalk, I met a young man who had stepped out after the prayers. Tony Bennett, a 26-year-old son of a black father and a Latina mother, is a short man with a prizefighter’s body and a monk’s demeanour. He wore the regulation blue jacket of the construction workers in New York. Bennett, who also uses the Muslim name Yasin Mohammad, is from a working-class area in Queens, New York. Bennett works on Ground Zero, mostly manning a jackhammer. On Friday afternoons, he walks over to Park Place to offer his prayers. “America is my country and we all have to learn to live with respect. That is how it shall be,” he said and headed back to Ground Zero. I watched him walk away and it seemed that his quiet, unpublicised choice was a greater example of reconciliation and hope.

. . .

Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks about the NYC Landmarks Commission on August 3

To be able to move to build the Islamic centre by demolishing the old 1850s warehouse at 45 Park Place, Imam Rauf and his team had to wait for a decision from the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, which was deliberating whether the building should be preserved as a historic landmark. A Christian legal rights group, American Center for Law and Justice, had appealed to the commission that the building should be considered a landmark because of the landing gear that fell through its roof.

New York waited for the decision. On the morning of August 3, a few hundred people filled a university auditorium near the trade towers site. Nine members of the Landmarks Commission took turns to speak and unanimously declared that the Italian palazzo building on Park Place did not have a special architectural or aesthetic character and thus did not merit a historic status. Stephan Bryns, the Landmarks Commissioner, argued that being damaged in the 9/11 attacks and being close to Ground Zero didn’t give it historic landmark status, either. To cries of “This is a betrayal!” and “Shame on you!” he said: “One cannot designate hundreds of buildings on that criterion alone.” Supporters cheered.

A very New York moment, high on the symbolism of the city’s freedoms and immigrant nature, followed. Over at the Governor’s island, stood Mayor Bloomberg; behind him the Statue of Liberty, still welcoming the huddled masses, in the backdrop. “Our doors are open to everyone – everyone with a dream and a willingness to work hard and play by the rules,” the Mayor declared. “Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11 and that our Muslim neighbours grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values – and play into our enemies’ hands – if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists – and we should not stand for that.” That is New York.

Basharat Peer is a fellow at Open Society Institute, New York

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Colorado’s Election 2010 – Bike agenda spins cities toward U.N. control, Maes warns.

Dan Maes said Denver’s B-Cycle bike-sharing program was promoted by a group that puts the environment above citizen rights. B-Cycle places a network of about 400 red bikes for rent at stations around Denver. (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)

Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes is warning voters that Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s policies, particularly his efforts to boost bike riding, are “converting Denver into a United Nations community.”

“This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed,” Maes told about 50 supporters who showed up at a campaign rally last week in Centennial.

Maes said in a later interview that he once thought the mayor’s efforts to promote cycling and other environmental initiatives were harmless and well-meaning. Now he realizes “that’s exactly the attitude they want you to have.”

“This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms,” Maes said.

He added: “These aren’t just warm, fuzzy ideas from the mayor. These are very specific strategies that are dictated to us by this United Nations program that mayors have signed on to.”

Maes said in a later interview that he was referring to Denver’s membership in the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, an international association that promotes sustainable development and has attracted the membership of more than 1,200 communities, 600 of which are in the United States.

Denver became a member of the group in 1992, more than a decade before Hickenlooper became mayor. Eric Brown, the mayor’s spokesman, said the city’s contact with ICLEI “is limited.”

George Merritt, a spokesman for the Hickenlooper gubernatorial campaign, said the group’s goal is “to bring cities from all over the world together to share best practices and help create the kinds of communities people want to live and do business in. John Hickenlooper believes collaboration leads to smart decisions.”

Hickenlooper has often touted bicycling as an environmentally friendly and healthy way for people to commute to work and has said he hopes more people will do so.

Last week, Hickenlooper upset some auto dealers on the eve of a fundraiser when he lauded the city’s B-Cycle bike- sharing program at an event and asked: “How do we wean ourselves off automobiles?”

Maes, at the rally July 26, took aim at Denver’s bike-sharing program, which he said was promoted by a group that puts the environment above citizens’ rights.

The B-Cycle program places a network of about 400 red bikes for rent at stations around the city. It is funded by private donors and grants.

Maes said ICLEI is affiliated with the United Nations and is “signing up mayors across the country, and these mayors are signing on to this U.N. agreement to have their cities abide by this dream philosophy.”

The program includes encouraging employers to install showers so more people

will ride bikes to work and also creating parking spaces for fuel-efficient vehicles, he said. Polls show that Maes, a Tea Party favorite, has pulled ahead of former Congressman Scott McInnis, the early frontrunner in the Aug. 10 primary for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Maes acknowledged that some might find his theories “kooky,” but he said there are valid reasons to be worried.

“At first, I thought, ‘Gosh, public transportation, what’s wrong with that, and what’s wrong with people parking their cars and riding their bikes? And what’s wrong with incentives for green cars?’ But if you do your homework and research, you realize ICLEI is part of a greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty,” Maes said.

He said he’s worried for Denver because “Mayor Hickenlooper is one of the greatest fans of this program.”

“Some would argue this document that mayors have signed is contradictory to our own Constitution,” Maes said.

——————–

Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com

View a slideshow of Tibet’s melting glaciers

On Aug. 8, 1975, geoscientist Wallace Smith Broecker published “Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?” in the journal Science, the first time the iconic phrase “global warming” was used in a scientific paper. Broecker — known by all as Wally — was already a prominent scientist by then, having served on Columbia University’s faculty for 16 years. Today, at age 78, Broecker is recognized as one of the fathers of climate science, with more than 450 journal publications and 10 books to his name, ranging from paleoclimatology to chemical oceanography.

The past 35 years have also seen humanity answer Wally’s question in the affirmative, running a radical experiment on the only planet we inhabit. Carbon dioxide levels have risen 40 percent to 392 ppm from preindustrial levels of 280 ppm, and the global mean temperature has risen 0.8 degrees Celsius, on 1.3 trillion tons of carbon dioxide. Humanity has produced 60 percent of that global-warming pollution since Broecker’s paper was published. As a result, the planetary ecosystem has fundamentally changed — weather has become more extreme, seasons have shifted, and global ice and snow are in decline — with more rapid and radical change on its way.

Wally’s seminal Science paper built upon decades of earlier work by scientists who had found natural cycles of planetary warming and cooling in Greenland ice cores (Dansgaard, 1973), developed a mean global temperature from meteorological records (Mitchell, 1963), modeled the greenhouse influence of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere (Manabe and Wetherald, 1967, 1975; Rasool and Schneider, 1971), and measured the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels (Keeling, 1973). Synthesizing the work, Broecker accurately predicted “that the present cooling trend will, within a decade or so, give way to a pronounced warming induced by carbon dioxide.”

“To those who even today claim that global warming is not predictable,” climatologist Stefan Rahmstorf writes at the peerless RealClimate blog, “the anniversary of Broecker’s paper is a reminder that global warming was actually predicted before it became evident in the global temperature records over a decade later.”

In fact, one can even go back to the 1896 work of Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius, in which he predicted that the burning of coal could eventually double atmospheric CO2, leading to a temperature increase of several degrees Celsius, though he believed such a day was far into the future.

For the next 50 years, most scientists considered man-made climate change an unlikely speculation. In the scientific explosion following World War II, however, scientists began using new measurements and the era’s new digital computers to revisit the effect of humanity’s carbon dioxide pollution on the climate, and our modern understanding of the greenhouse effect developed through the work of pioneering scientists like Gilbert Plass, Hans Suess, Roger Revelle, and Bert Bolin (eventually the first chair of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988).

By the end of the 1950s, Frank Capra had made an instructional film on man-made global warming, and Revelle had testified before Congress about the “large-scale geophysical experiment” humanity was conducting with industrial greenhouse gas pollution.

BREAKING NEWS: Friday the 13th – ELLA was born to help avoid effects of rape and other unwanted pregnancies. This is a Good Friday Obama Administration victory to be considered in the November 2010 voting booth as a badge of honor.

Hillary Clinton for Vice President in 2012? Biden ‘Trade Talk’ Murmur Could Swell.
 http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/11/…

TOM DIEMER
Correspondent, Politics Daily, Washington DC.

Washington’s chattering class, never timid about giving advice to the president of the United States, is floating the idea of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton becoming Barack Obama’s running mate in two years.

———————————————————–

{Who does the chattering? Is this from the Clintonites that want to make sure that President Obama is retained in their grip?

Is it to Obama’s Interest? Will this bring back the young people that are going to stay home on 2010 election day disillutioned with Obama for not having effectively reined in the party for which they would not have voted for, if not their belief that Obama will change it? They see the progress that was made, but do not see the change.

They know that Biden is no Cheney, and that he does not face a Bush – but an Obama. Cheney maneuvered Bush, but Biden even had he been ibterested in real power, could not get this out of Obama like Cheney got it from Bush.

So what the Rush? Yes, bringing in a VP that becomes a Presidential candidate this is extremely important. Cheney messed this up for the Republicans, and we are convinced that Biden has no such intentions vs. Obama and the Democrats. This is half of the issue. Will Obama go out and look for a young new face that next generation will embrace? Will he? – Our comment – SustainabiliTank editor}

———————————————————–

Time magazine, in an item Wednesday on its website, said Obama perhaps should consider the proposition — “dump Biden” would be part of it — as he begins planning for his reelection bid in 2012. “Amid two wars, a stubborn unemployment rate, an oil spill . . . might the White House need a little star power to jump-start what could be a tougher reelection than expected?” writes contributor Dan Fastenberg. “As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton has been striking the same tone as Team No Drama Obama, as opposed to the human gaffe machine.” Hmm, would that be Vice President Joe Biden and his big bleeping deal health care law?

The latest round of -  “I-don’t-have-anything-better-to-do-today-speculation” – began earlier this month when former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder wrote in a Politico op-ed piece that Obama should replace Biden with Clinton, in part because she would help win back “middle-class independent voters,” who have drifted away from the president. Working-class voters, says Wilder, have always been “more enamored of Clinton.” The former governor, who is African American, didn’t say it, but “working class” in this context could be code for white voters, a group Hillary ran stronger among than did Obama when they opposed each other – sometimes bitterly — in the 2008 primary campaign. Wilder goes on to make a case against Biden, saying his verbal blunders are not only fodder for late-night comedians but have undermined “what little confidence the public may have in him.”

In a piece for the Washington Post website in June, Sally Quinn wrote that Clinton and Biden, former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, should switch jobs. “Really,” she says. Really? Her argument is that Clinton has done “an incredible job” at State and, even in her late 60s, would be a strong candidate for president in 2016, while Biden, who is older, has no intention of seeking the White House.

In the short-term, Obama and Clinton would be a “near-unbeatable team” in 2012, according to Quinn.

A month earlier Politics Daily’s Eleanor Clift beat everyone to the punch by suggesting the same thing. She wrote that “Obama’s loyalty only goes so far,” and if polls show an Obama-Clinton ticket would run stronger in 2012, he “might well have Biden step aside.” Besides, Clift argued, Biden “would be a natural at the State Department.”

But insofar as a 2016 presidential candidacy is concerned, Hillary Clinton has already said her White House aspirations are history. And does it matter that she can arguably offer more service to the American people as secretary of state than as vice president, a job FDR vice president John Nance Garner described as “not worth a bucket of warm spit.” (Actually, the salty Gardner reportedly used a stronger term than spit). Biden, for his part, has emerged as a valuable foreign policy adviser to Obama, a roving ambassador, vigorous partisan campaigner and all-around good guy. Does he talk too much? Sometimes. But that would be just as true at Foggy Bottom as it is in the vice president’s office.

It’s been more than three decades since a president has thrown his vice president overboard. A change at the top can be seen as a sign of disarray, panic even. Dan Quayle, regarded by his critics as a lightweight, survived in 1992 but the Bush-Quayle ticket lost to Clinton-Gore. The last president to make a change was Republican Gerald Ford, who replaced Vice President Nelson Rockefeller with Sen. Bob Dole in 1976 and went on to lose to a peanut farmer from Georgia named Jimmy Carter.

Barack Obama considered Hillary Clinton for vice president in 2008. Ultimately, he decided she was a better fit at the State Department. Good call.

——————————————————————–

And We Say What We Mean – And We Mean What We Say:

DON QUIXOTE
It is the mission of each true knight…
His duty… nay, his privilege!
To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go;
To right the unrightable wrong.

To love, pure and chaste, from afar,
To try, when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star!

This is my Quest to follow that star,
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far,
To fight for the right
Without question or pause,
To be willing to march into hell
For a heavenly cause!

And I know, if I’ll only be true
To this glorious Quest,
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my rest.

And the world will be better for this,
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,
To reach the unreachable stars!

————————————————————–

AND YOU KNOW WHAT?

THE WORLD IS READY TODAY TO REWARD THIS KNIGHT AS HE IS THE ONE WHO HAS THE VISION.

http://www.culturalsurvival.org/

—-

United States: Urge President Obama to Sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

President Obama needs to hear from  you–today. He needs to know that all Americans believe that the day has come for…

Learn More and Take Action

—-

Papua New Guinea: Protect Marine Life and Defend Indigenous Rights

The government of Papua New Guinea doesn’t want to hear from us. It has authorized a Chinese mining company to dump toxic…

Learn More and Take Action

From Cultural Survival, our executive director Ellen Lutz stepped down at the beginning of August because of a very serious health issues. An article in the upcoming Cultural Survival Quarterly magazine looks back at the extraordinary contributions Ellen made to the organization, but I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know about her stepping down and give you a sense of where the organization is going, building on the foundation she laid.

A search firm is reviewing candidates for a new director, and I am happy to report that we have received more than 140 strong applications from every corner of the globe. Even more encouraging, those applicants include a large proportion of highly qualified Indigenous individuals — a reflection of the growth in the Indigenous movement, and in some regards a testament to the work of Cultural Survival, which has supported that movement for almost 40 years. With such a strong pool of candidates, we are feeling very confident about the future.

The new director will step into an organization that is growing at a time when many others are experiencing a drop in their operations. Over the past year, Cultural Survival has taken on the most ambitious roster of activities in its history: We conducted an on-the-ground human rights investigation in Kenya; coordinated congressional hearings on Indigenous issues in the United States; hosted the Native American language summit at the National Museum of the American Indian and successfully lobbied the Congress to quadruple the budget for endangered Native language programs; introduced a bill to the Guatemalan Congress for a change in its laws that would recognize Indigenous community radio stations; took the government of Panama to the Inter-American Court on Human Rights over a dam that is destroying the homeland of Ngöbe people; submitted reports on Indigenous rights to the United Nations Human Rights Council; merged with the environmental/Indigenous advocacy organization Global Response; sponsored events at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues; hosted a summit on media coverage of Indigenous issues at the Soros Foundation in New York; launched successful advocacy campaigns for Indigenous communities in the Philippines and Indonesia, and another campaign to get the United States to endorse the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; pressed the Obama administration to issue an executive order supporting Native language programs; and met with Avatar director James Cameron to discuss the real-life issues faced by Indigenous Peoples on earth-all while growing our own programs, increasing our membership, tripling our magazine’s circulation, and finishing the year on a strong financial footing during a severe recession.

The new director will of course bring his or her own skills, interests, and perspectives to Cultural Survival, and there’s no way of knowing at this writing what those attributes will be, but they will be added to our existing programs, and the result can only mean even greater prospects for the future. In terms of those existing programs, there is already growth on the horizon.

Our Endangered Native American Languages Program will be launching its website, languagegathering.org, in the next couple of months, which will provide an invaluable platform for tribal programs to share information, techniques, and expertise.

We have already established relations with more than 300 tribal programs across the country, and all of them are submitting material for the site. We hope that the bill we introduced to the Guatemalan Congress recognizing community radio will be voted on shortly after this issue of the Cultural Survival Quarterly goes into the mail, and we believe our extensive lobbying efforts have convinced enough legislators to vote for it to ensure its passage.

The Global Response program, too, is growing, with plans for more on-the-ground investigations and even larger campaigns to stop environmental destruction on Indigenous lands. It goes without saying that Ellen Lutz is personally and professionally missed in the office, but because of her efforts we face the future confidently and optimistically. And with the support of people like you, we will be able to do even more to protect Indigenous environments, languages, and cultures.

Thank you,

Mark Camp,

Director of Operations and Acting Executive Director.

We posted the following as an announcement over three months ago. Since then the announced meeting for South East Europe is history and we are convinced that a similar meeting should be held at the UN. The more you tell about climate change the better it will be for our conscience – it is like the Jewish telling on Passover of the going out of Egypt. It just reminds us of the need to leave also areas of contemporary transgressions and of a “land of promise” that we define to ourselves.

It is this sort of “Yes We Can” and “Can Do”  that is able to prop up our imagination rather then the mush of global hope of “Seal the Deal” – what we need are the EVIE doers of that article rather then new committees or commissions. That is why we re-post it as a stale information that says more.

We are just back from our New Hampshire trip with all kind of ideas for postings and discovered in our stats that the following article still has readers today – so it is the easiest think for us to bring officially attention again to the article as part of our new series propelled by the New Hampshire fact finding trip.

“Teaching Climate Change and the United Nations System” event – May 17&18, 2010 in Belgrade. It is about Sustainable Development in the South East Europe Region. UN Headquarters will be represented by ASG Ambassador Thomas Stelzer. The car shown by Project EVIE is a Chinese E6.”

Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on April 24th, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz ( PJ at SustainabiliTank.com)

–
 http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2010/04…

We found among our REFERRERS a terrific blog and in turn we recommend it to you – our readers:

http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/

Thursday, August 12, 2010

This IS America

The blogger seems to be:

About Me

Gail

New Jersey, United States

The summation of my motivation for starting this blog can be found at my WWF Witness Profile here:  http://www.panda.org/about_our_earth/abo…. Beyond that, I post random thoughts and musings from Wit’s End, a little farm I share with a dog, 2 indoor cats and 2 barn cats, a flying squirrel (Whippersnapper), Sun Conure (Bird), African Grey (Simon), a dozen chickens, a pair of peafowl, sundry koi in the pond, and various wildlife visitors, most notoriously among them, a voracious fox.

View my complete profile

googletracker – It’s Over -

First I got worried about trees. They all looked sickly, or even dead – and that’s what led me, much to my detriment, to learn more about climate change than I had dreamed in my worst nightmares could possibly be happening, in my backyard, in the lifetime of myself and my children…and extreme weather, and peak oil, and collapse of the ocean food chain from acidification, and mass extinction, and everything happening much faster than predicted, and, and…See please and think -

“Technological Progress is Like an Axe in the Hands of a Pathological Criminal”

- So said Albert Einstein.

- – - – - = – - – - – - – - – - -

and quoting

“The Fallacy of Climate Activism” by Adam Sacks

“Telling the Truth

If we climate activists don’t tell the truth as well as we know it—which we have been loathe to do because we ourselves are frightened to speak the words—the public will not respond, notwithstanding all our protestations of urgency.

And contrary to current mainstream climate-activist opinion, contrary to all the pointless “focus groups,” contrary to the endless speculation on “correct framing,” the only way to tell the truth is to tell it. All of it, no matter how terrifying it may be.

It is offensive and condescending for activists to assume that people can’t handle the truth without environmentalists finding a way to make it more palatable. The public is concerned, we vaguely know that something is desperately wrong, and we want to know more so we can try to figure out what to do. The response to An Inconvenient Truth, as tame as that film was in retrospect, should have made it clear that we want to know the truth.

And finally, denial requires a great deal of energy, is emotionally exhausting, fraught with conflict and confusion. Pretending we can save our current way of life derails us and sends us in directions that lead us astray. The sooner we embrace the truth, the sooner we can begin the real work.

Let’s just tell it.”

WHAT: BICYCLES AS TRANSPORT: FROM ALTERNATIVE TO MAINSTREAM.
WHEN: August 12^th, 6:00pm – 8:00pm

WHERE: Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place, (between Bleecker and West Third Streets)

CONTACT: call (212) 683-0023

BACKGROUND: Bicycles represent among the most sustainable forms of personal transportation. Cities such as Amsterdam and Munich have integrated the bicycle as a key component of transportation modes, and have developed infrastructure, regulatory and cultural changes as a part of this shift. How can New York City make this transition from “alternative” to “mainstream?” This panel, with expertise in the fields of urban planning, transportation planning and bicycle advocacy will attempt to answer this question through presentation and discussion.

Speakers:

Jon Orcutt, Director of Policy, NYC Department of Transportation

Caroline Samponaro, Director of Bicycle Advocacy, Transportation Alternatives

Jack Schmidt, Director, Transportation Division, NYC Planning

This is our second report from New Hampshire.

From day two we pick the event at the headquarters of FIRST – that
stands for -  “FOR INSPIRATION and RECOGNITION of SCIENCE and
TECHNOLOGY.”

FIRST was created 20 years ago by Dean Kamen who says he never gets a
paycheck – nobody wanted to hire me – I have a strong incentive to
deliver things. He also explained that when you open the book and
there is no answer – an unintended consequence of the way education
works in the US – you end up not getting the answer- that’s it. True -
you must get an education but you actually need more then what you get
- you must know to question and seek the answer that is not ready for
you for the taking from the book.

We spent some six hours in trying to find out what Kamen has in mind
and we learned what Senator Sheehan is proposing to US Senate.

Their idea is that an addition to the budget appropriation bill will
create a competitive grant program for non-traditional education
initiatives according to lines that were set up by FIRST.

These lines include four different programs tailored specifically to
age groups and class levels of students.

These programs must be fun to the students and involve robotics and
play. A problem is set and the student groups address the problem and
work on finding solutions. They also learn to work within a given
budget and they develop the very important skill of how to compete.

Starting with Junior First Lego League for ages – kindergarten to to
third grade (6-9 years old) – the Jr FLL – then the Full FLL for ages
9-14 years old or 4-8 graders.

The First Tech Challenge is the 9-12 grades or ages 14-18, and the
First Robotics competition FRC is for the 14-18 years old or the 9-12
grades high-schoolers.

We are talking of 200,000 kids worldwide involved in the four FIRST
programs, and they are being helped by 85,000 volunteeres that can be
professional; engineers, teachers, parents, and others that help with
the projects. We talk now of groups in 66 countries – with main
concentration on the US, Canada and the Netherlands. This year Israel
joint strongly and with government help.

Here in Manchester, New Hampshire – we were 7 journalists from China -
Washington and New York based, one from Japan – Washington based and
one from Austria – New York based. I am sure that all of these will
help spread the word.

We watched an actual competition, listened to people working at DEKA
(Dean Kamen) Research and Development Corporation, looked at some of
the products born in their minds and being shaped into creations ready
for commercialization, then we watched students competing with their
devised robots, and even better then everything else, a young kid was
there with his parents who took the tour with us – and this kid knew
to ask incisive questions that made him appear as an ideal participant
in this budding new educational program that Senator Shaheen is trying
to help create via legislation and government funding.

The US must face it – it is behind education in math, engineering,
science and technology and creating high-tech knowledge centers and
grooming the personnel that has developed the gift for innovation
rather then be stunted because of static education, is the imperative
of this hour when lack of scientific curiosity has been blunted by
beliefs in creationism and of dead words in books they refuse to
search for their real inherent intent.

Before closing on this very short second report – let me reiterate
that Senator Shaheen wants to see government involved in funding
government programs, and in the legislative process, and her agreeing
as per our Scoop No.1 when talking about regulation by fiat – like in
the case of EPA taking over from a beaten Senate, these are the
exceptions – not the rule – and the rules when they take over  can
come about only if we agree that there is no other way.

————————————

Holly Ramer of AP was in Manchester, and her report made it in all local papers like the Portsmouth Herald that had it as an article titled: “ROBOTICS CLASS IN YOUR CHILD’S SCHOOL.” Bill would fund programs that promote math, science careers.”

Foster’s Daily Democrat of Dover, N.H. titled it: “SHAHEEN, KAMEN PROMOTE SCIENCE EDUCATION IN N.H.”

This is a short note I am writing at a hotel in Manchester, New Hampshire.

We are here on a fact finding tour that involves green technologies
being promoted in the State of New Hampshire and the tour was
organized by the US Department of State with heavy participation from
China. In the coming days I will have much more on this trip.

Part of the tour included a visit with New Hampshire US Senator Jeanne
Shaheen, who was previously the Governor of New Hampshire. In her
conversation with us, when asked about the chances of getting out an
energy/climate bill from this Senate – prior to the November elections
- the Senator said that she is for a comprehensive bill. But then she
added that if this will not be possible, President Obama will achieve
the goals he, and us all, are seeking by going it alone with the help
of the EPA only.

This goes back to the ruling of the US Supreme Court that stated it is
an obligation for the EPA to act on carbon emissions as per The Clean
Air Act as the CO2 and the induced global warming are a health hazard.
We knew this all the time that President Obama has all the legal power
he needs in order to act without legislation by Congress. Sure, it
would be nice to create new laws, but as long as he is President, he
can act by decree according to the existing laws that he is called
upon to implement.

Senator Shaheen said that this is right, and President Obama intends
to take this rout when it is made clear that the Senate is not ready
to act.

I asked Senator Shaheen if these statements can be used for
attribution and she said yes.

As such, let me predict, if President Obama does give in September, or
even in October, the marching orders to the Environmental Protection
Agency, the EPA, to start issuing the new set of regulations regarding
emissions that include numbers and penalties, this will not just be a
catalyst for the November elections, but in effect something the US
can take to Cancun at the end of November, and pep up those meetings
as well. I hope that the Shaheen news were picked up also by by the
half dozen Chinese Press people that heard, it as I did, and the news
of an upcoming stir in US policy will also lead to additional
reinforcement for the G2 practical leadership on Climate Change.

From Alaska to Argentina in an Electric Sports Car.

Racing Green Endurance hopes to spin the experience into an electric car startup.

http://twitter.com/GreenTechnology

Michael Kanellos: August 3, 2010

 http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/r…

Austin, Tex.–They get pulled over quite a bit.

That’s the word from Alex Schey, the project manager of Racing Green Endurance, a group that is driving an electric sports car called the SRZero 16,000 miles from Alaska to Argentina.

“So far, we’ve been stopped by cops 15 times,” he said. “They just want to take pictures.”

The group — which grew out of work conducted by Schey and others at Imperial College London — designed the car to help make consumers aware that electric cars can be both functional and stylish. In addition to posting their own blog and conducting interviews, the drivers are being followed by a team filming a documentary that may air on BBC News in the future. When they finish in a few weeks, the group will then sit down, study the results and attempt to incubate a startup, possibly around the battery management system or the battery pack designed for the car. We met up with them in Austin at NI Week, a conference sponsored by test and measurement giant National Instruments. (NI supplied hardware for the battery management system; Racing Green Endurance created the software.)

“In the past, everyone had these perceived ideas that electric cars were boring and slow and had funny names,” he said.

The SRZero contains a 54 kilowatt-hour lithium ion phosphate battery, which is more than double the size of the battery of the Nissan Leaf and a single kilowatt-hour larger than the battery in the Tesla Roadster, and can drive 350 miles on a charge. They body of the car is a modified Radical SR8, one of the fastest gas-burning cars in the world.

While it can go farther than the Tesla Roadster on a single charge, the maiden version of the SRZero going to Argentina doesn’t accelerate like it, or even like a regular high-end sports car. It takes six to seven seconds to go from zero to 60 miles per hour. But that’s because the group deliberately left out the gearbox. The motor right now connects directly to the wheels. When the group completes the drive, a fixed-gear gearbox will be added that will allow the car to go from zero to 60 in three seconds.

“This smashes the Tesla in terms of range and it will smash the Tesla in acceleration,” he joked.

After Texas, the group will head to Mexico, Guatemala, the Central American chain, Colombia and other South American nations.

With the help of MetLife Foundation and Ambassador Osmar Chohfi, Consul General of Brazil in New York, Music of the Americas – of The Americas Society in New York – was happy to present “HERMETO PASCOAL E GRUPO” for two events in New York City:

-  at Symphony Space Hall, on Broadway & 95th – on Thursday Aug. 5th,
-  and in Damrosch Park, Friday night Aug. 6th – as part of Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors.

WE WENT TO THE CONCERT TONIGHT – THURSDAY – AND I DECIDED TO WRITE IT UP AS FAST AS I COULD, SO THAT PERHAPS SOME OF OUR READERS CAN STILL USE THE CHANCE AVAILABLE TO THEM TO PARTICIPATE AT THE FRIDAY CONCERT.

Hermeto Pascoale has a big white beard and long hair and does not look one day less then his 74 years. He also has a young pretty and talented wife – Aline Moreno who as we witnessed on stage takes loving care of him. Pascoale is a terrific teacher and without knowing it – I am ready to bet that she was his student and decided to stay. Aline is the main voice musician though she also performs on a ten string guitar and does an unbelievable “Body Percussion” that I never saw before.

Others in the Grupo are: Itibere Zwang, Andre Marques, Vinicius Dorin, Marcio Bahia, and Fabio Pascoal. The instruments range from the conventional to the unbelievable – the teapot, all sorts of pans, small wooden echo chambers etc. But you know – they all play in tune!

Much of the music is made up from Hermeto’s own compositions, but then he was not shy using quite a bit of Jobim that I could recognize, but considering the audience that was probably 80% Brazilian according to the participation in some of the songs, there was in the music much more that they well knew.

The hall was perhaps small to contain all that music, or the amplifiers were a set a bit high – so – and this is a great compliment in New York – I saw only three ladies leave before the end – assuming it was too loud for them.

Hermeto Pascoal played on keyboards, accordion, teapot, bass flute, some other strange flute, a mouth accordion, some wooden cups, an animal’s horn, and half a dozen other things I do not remember now, he also sang and obviously directed the others. His wife, Aline made sure all the time the microphone was just right for him and the needed instruments handy – so he could switch in time without missing a beat – I envy him for having such a wife.

for direct link – please go to - http://hermetopascoal.com.br/

——————–

Now, to the more important part of the event – the special background of this great musician, whose coming to New York was front page news in the “All About Jazz – New York Magazine of August 2010.

 http://www.aaj-ny.com/  —- Click on the picture and go to page 9 for the article that is the source of the bits of information I will be posting here.

On the Cover: HERMETO PASCOAL
Article by Matthew Miller; photo by Jack Vartoogian.

I present here some excerpts.

This past June, Hermeto Pascoal celebrated his 74th year of music making. The date fell on his birthday, but that was no coincidence.

“The first sound I made was when I was born, crying,” the musical sage remarked… “I was born with this natural gift.”

”While most artists can point to events and experiences in childhood that played a part in shaping their subsequent art, Pascoal
points to the moment of his birth in the rural state of Alagoas in northern Brazil as the beginning of his life as a musician.

“I’m self-taught. I have always been a curious person and life has been my teacher.”

Does artistic genius spring from the individual or is some larger force operating through an open conduit? The question is moot of course but looms over any investigation of Pascoal’s music, as it does for any artist whose deeply personal music resonates
universally. Ultimately, Pascoal seems content to obliterate any artificial barrier between the individual and nature:

“I discovered the sensibility of the animals, my relationship with nature, making natural instruments, playing with water…,” he explained, countering the insinuation that his was an isolated childhood.

“There was no electricity, nor radio where I lived until I was 14 years old, [but] I felt completely integrated, not isolated, with people, with nature.”

“His talent is really an amazing ear, [an ability] to connect with sound.” Santos Neto, a member of the first generation in his country to grow up idolizing Pascoal and the music, he and artists like Airto Moreira, Flora Purim and Humberto Clayber were introducing to an increasingly global audience, was an integral member of Hermeto Pascoal e Grupo from 1977-92. For the past 20 years, he has undertaken the monumental task of transcribing and cataloguing Pascoal’s prolific output as a composer.

Santos Neto added a new perspective to Pascoal’s early years. “In the northeastern part of Brazil – maybe because the terrain is so rugged; not lush and tropical, but very dry – it was a hard life, you know; people living from the land. It really – by natural selection – created highly individualistic people. The ability to create something with little is inherent to the people of that region. So if you put that together with Hermeto’s talent and genius, I think you really have the genius of his personality, his musical contributions.”

From this arguably auspicious beginning, Hermeto moved with his family at the age of 14 to Recife, a city with an incredibly rich musical tradition, where he absorbed the rhythms of Maracatú and frevo from the likes of Clovis Pereira, César Guerra-Peixe,
Duda and Sivuca and then on to Rio in the late ‘50s. Asked about his experience in Rio, Pascoal sited the dizzying array of musical talent living in the city at the time. “I moved to Rio because it was well known.

There I played accordion at first with Pernambuco do Pandeiro in Mauá Rádio and, at night, piano with Fafá Lemos in his nightclub. After that, I played piano with the great Maestro Copinha in the Excelsior Hotel.”

Additionally, Hermeto was beginning to make connections with musicians who would figure prominently in his ascent to worldwide recognition. “I met Airto and Humberto Clayber playing at night in jam sessions,” Pascoal remarked. Airto and Clayber – along with Theo de Barros – were already members of the group Trio Novo, but were quick to change the name to Quarteto Novo in order to include the fantastically talented newcomer. And from here it was all upwards!

I will mention just one more stepping stone:  It was Moreira who indirectly launched Pascoal onto the world stage by bringing his friend backstage at a concert to meet his new boss, Miles Davis. “Airto played in Miles’ band,” Pascoal recalled, “and I was there to make the arrangements of my compositions and to record them with Airto and Flora.

Before the concert, Miles saw me and came to me because he felt it should happen and since then, we became musical and spiritual friends.” Hearing Pascoal’s mastery of piano and a wide-range of both conventional and handmade instruments, Miles Davis didn’t hesitate to offer him a place in his band. Pascoal’s subsequent work with Davis, especially the album Live/Evil catapulted him to international acclaim.

In the nearly 40 years since debuting with Davis, Hermeto has toured the world with his own groups, released a truly diverse array of albums – including classics like Slaves Mass in 1977 and Brasil Universo in 1986 – and maintained a prolific output of thousands of compositions.

Generations of musicians across the world have come up listening to and incorporating Pascoal’s unpredictable melodic lines and sumptuous ballads into their own repertoire. For the New York based guitarist/vocalist Richard Boukas, hearing Pascoal’s
music for the first time was a game changer. “It was in the mid ‘70s,” Boukas recalled in an interview last month, “when I was developing my bebop playing, yet at the same time investigating the rich traditions of Brazilian and AfroCuban music.” A fan of the vocal sambas and bossa novas of João Bosco, Emilio Santiago, Ivan Lins, Chico Buarque and Johnny Alf, Boukas was nonetheless floored when he borrowed an LP of Pascoal’s music from a friend. “Once I got a taste of Hermeto’s material, I knew immediately he was a unique genius and creative force.”

Boukas has also passed his love of Pascoal’s music and Brazilian music as a whole, to musicians at the New School since 1995.
“I established the Brazilian Jazz Ensemble at the New School Jazz Program to expose young jazz musicians to Brazil’s wealth of regional grooves and composers,” he  explained, “Hermeto being at the top of that list initially.” Over the years, the group’s repertoire has evolved to cover the different aspects of Brazil’s uniquely rich musical heritage but has never strayed from Pascoal’s open-eared example.

“Hermeto has a natural gift for discovering the potential talent in a young musician,” remarked Santos Neto to journalist Bruce Gilman. “He knows how to make that talent grow and mature.” Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of his otherworldly talent, Pascoal’s mentoring skills have never escaped his dedicated pupils. “It’s not about him, it’s about the music – and there’s a big lesson there for all bandleaders,” Boukas remarked. The egoless aspect of Pascoal’s music was a recurring theme throughout the interviews for the Miller article and seems to lie at the heart of this deeply resonant music. Hermeto has another phrase for it:
música universal or Universal Music. “I live in the present and keep composing, playing with four different groups. I [just] recorded my second CD in duo with [wife] Aline Morena. This Universal Music is played in all (the) world!”

————–
For more information, visit hermetopascoal.com.br. Pascoal is to be viewed and heard at  Damrosch Park Aug. 6th as part of Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors.

————-
All About Jazz – New York Recommended Listening from Hermeto Pascoal:

• Quarteto Novo Group – Quarteto Novo
(EMI-Odeon, 1967)
• Hermeto Pascoal – Hermeto
(Cobblestone-Muse, 1972)
• Hermeto Pascoal – A Música Livre de Hermeto
Paschoal (Free Music by Hermeto Paschoal)
(Verve, 1973)
• Hermeto Pascoal – Slaves Mass
(Warner Bros.-Collectables, 1977)
• Hermeto Pascoal – Cérebro Magnético
(Warner Brasil, 1980)
• Hermeto Pascoal/Aline Morena -
Chimarrão com Rapadura (Gaueste, 2006)

The U.S. Senate by a 63-37 vote on Thursday confirmed Elena Kagan as the nation’s 112th Supreme Court justice and its fourth-ever female member –- but, as predicted, with just a handful of votes from Republican senators.

THE FIVE REPUBLICAN SENATORS THAT VOTED FOR ELENA KAGAN’S CONFIRMATION WERE:

RICHARD LUGAR OF INDIANA,

LINDSEY GRAHAM OG SOUTH CAROLINA,

JUDD GREGG OF NEW HAMPSHIRE,

OLYMPIA SNOWW OF MAINE,

SUSAN COLLINS OF MAINE.

the one Democrat that voted against her was Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

Alex Wong/Getty Images
Elena Kagan, during her Supreme Court nomination hearings in June.

Traveling in Chicago, President Obama said Kagan will make an outstanding justice who understands that her rulings affect people. He invited Kagan to the White House on Friday for a ceremony marking her confirmation.

Obama called the vote “an affirmation of her character and her temperament; her open-mindedness and evenhandedness; her determination to hear all sides of every story and consider all possible arguments.”

That a former U.S. solicitor general and dean of Harvard Law School would attract just five votes from 41 GOP senators underscores just how much the wrangling over federal court vacancies has come to reflect the nation’s growing political divide.

“The nomination process is going to exactly the same place that the general policymaking process is going,” says Mark Tushnet, a Harvard Law School professor and author.

“It’s been the pattern in U.S. history overall,” he says, “and we’re just seeing it in this setting.”

Kagan, 50, nominated by President Obama to replace retiring liberal Justice John Paul Stevens, was confirmed with those Republican votes and all but one of the 57 Democratic senators. Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson said he would break with his party over Kagan because of her lack of judicial experience. The Senate’s two independents, Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, caucus with the Democrats and voted for Kagan’s confirmation.

Last year, Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, then-U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor, was confirmed 68-31, with nine Republican votes.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both U.S. appeals court judges nominated by Republican President George W. Bush, were confirmed by Senate votes of 78-22 and 58-42, respectively.

Twenty-two of 44 Democratic senators voted for Roberts in 2005; just four of the 44 voted for Alito the following year. Obama, then a senator, voted against both. Obama also joined 24 other Democratic senators in an attempt to filibuster Alito’s nomination. Their bid to hold up that nomination failed on a vote of 72-25.

The existing divide on court nominations is expected to deepen after this fall’s midterm election. Republicans appear poised to pick up as many as eight Senate seats.

Looking Forward

Court-watchers are already puzzling out how the potential depletion of the Democrats’ Senate majority, now at 59-41 (counting the two independents), could affect how Obama fills high court vacancies if any emerge during the last two years of his term.

“If Republicans pick up a significant number of seats, there is potential for President Obama to alter his thinking a bit in picking his next nominee,” says GOP strategist Keith Appell, who has been active in judicial appointment battles.

“But there are other variables that have to play out — including whether the next vacancy is to fill the seat of another liberal, a conservative or Justice Anthony Kennedy, who seems to be a swing vote,” Appell says.

“It’s going to be exceedingly difficult to get a liberal judicial activist confirmed on the court,” he says. “And more contentious if the vacancy is for Kennedy’s seat.”

He does not predict, however, a move toward a GOP filibuster of Obama’s high court nominees, even if the Republicans have larger numbers in the Senate.

“There will be louder calls, and the potential for it, but I don’t think it will happen in the end,” he says. “I don’t think Republicans would filibuster, and I don’t think it’s the right course to take for a judicial nomination.”

The Potential For A Bold Move?

Harvard’s Tushnet says GOP pickups in the Senate would certainly affect Obama’s calculations if he has another high court vacancy. So would the president’s public opinion approval ratings at the time. Those could make things interesting.

“It’s not hard to imagine circumstances in which it could make political sense for him to pick an openly gay nominee who could rally the Democratic base,” he says.

Robert Bork. His nomination to the Supreme Court was rejected by the Senate in 1987.

With the general mood of the country moving toward the sentiment that one’s sexual orientation is irrelevant to one’s qualifications, opposition by Republicans could make “independent voters uncomfortable,” Tushnet theorizes.

If different circumstances present themselves, the president could also reach across the aisle and nominate a moderate Republican — much as Republican presidents nominated both Stevens and recently retired Justice David Souter, both of whom became reliably liberal high court jurists.

Picking a Republican could minimize what has become a growing imperative to pick young or youngish nominees to guarantee a judicial legacy.

“If the president reaches across the aisle, he might not care if a nominee serves just five or 10 years, and not 20 or 30,” Tushnet says.

Historic Precedent

The Senate has been deeply divided before on high court nominees. In 1986, William Rehnquist (who was already on the court) was confirmed as chief justice by a 65-33 vote. Some senators raised questions about Rehnquist’s views on racial issues. In 1968, President Johnson was forced to withdraw his bid to elevate Justice Abe Fortas to chief justice after failing to corral enough votes on the Senate floor. The nomination was plagued by concerns over Fortas’ political ties to Johnson.

But the modern wars stem largely from the battle over President Reagan’s 1987 nomination of U.S. Appeals Court Judge Robert Bork, who was rejected by the Senate. Forty-two voted for Bork — including just two Democrats — and 58 voted against him — including six of Reagan’s fellow Republicans. Among the issues: whether he would push to reverse previous courts’ decisions on civil rights. The contentious hearings for future Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991 raised political tensions further.

Maryland State Sen. Jamie Raskin, a professor at American University’s Washington College of Law, says the Supreme Court has historically been a conservative body.

The passage of the voting and civil rights act in the 1960s signified a turn by the court, he says, away from identifying with “privilege and power” and toward the rights of those without influence.

The battle playing out so dramatically now, he says, is over “two fairly well-developed and opposite judicial philosophies – one using the conservative rhetoric of constitutional originalism and strict construction, and the liberal one of the document being an expansive charter of the rights and liberties of the people.”

And both sides see the other as engaging in what now is commonly referred to as “judicial activism,” he says.

“We have a deep divide that runs through the country and the court, and that divide on the court now corresponds directly with the appointing president,” he says.

As to how Republican gains in the Senate will affect Obama’s potential future high court picks?

“It really depends on who those new senators are,” Raskin, a Democrat, says, “and what states they represent, because, once elected, they’re going to be thinking about how to expand their base.”

Recent Supreme Court Confirmation Votes

Since the 1987 rejection of Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court, there have been several very partisan confirmation votes in the Senate. Here’s a look at the numbers:

=================================
 http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010…

1 COMMENT

Just when you thought the lame jokes and not-so-subtle Jew-bashing weren’t enough…

On Thursday’s Daily Show, Jon Stewart highlighted some of the more cringe-worthy moments in Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court hearing — from the interrogations of Jon Kyl and Tom Coburn to the rambling humor(?) of Patrick Leahy.

Worst. Hearing. Ever.

Watch it: