From The Progresssive Review
FROM THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
EDITED BY SAM SMITH
Since 1964, Washington's most unofficial source
E-MAIL: mailto:news@prorev.com
WORD
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others - Groucho Marx
POLITICS
WHAT'S A BRIBE? The collapse of integrity in high places calls for consideration of our language about such matters. Take, for example, the word 'bribe.' Most probably assume that to bribe someone you have to commit a crime. Not so. Dictionary definitions of 'bribe' include both criminal and merely distasteful acts:
Oxford English Dictionary: To take dishonestly. To extort. To influence corruptly by a consideration.
On Line Ethics: Something that is given or offered to a person or organization in a position of trust to induce that agent to behave in a way that is inconsistent with that trust.
Merriam-Webster: A benefit (as money) given, promised, or offered in order to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust (as an official or witness)
Word Net: Payment made to a person in a position of trust to corrupt his judgment.
In fact, for centuries ordinary people have known exactly what a bribe was.
The Oxford English Dictionary found it described in 1528 as meaning to "to influence corruptly, by a consideration." Another 16th century definition describes bribery as "a reward given to pervert the judgment or corrupt the conduct" of someone. In more modern times, the Meat Inspection Act of 1917 prohibits giving "money or other thing of value, with intent to influence" to a government official. Simple and wise.
But that was before the lawyers and the politicians got around to rewriting the meaning of bribery. And so we came to a time during the Clinton administration when the Supreme Court actually ruled that a law prohibiting the giving of gifts to a public official "for or because of an official act" didn't mean anything unless you knew exactly what the official act was. In other words, bribery was only illegal if the bribee was dumb enough to give you a receipt.
The media has gone along with the scam, virtually dropping the word from its vocabulary in favor of phrases like "inappropriate gift," "the appearance of a conflict of interest," or "campaign contribution."
Clearly, by the aforementioned definitions, campaign contributions fall comfortably within the definition of bribes. Unfortunately, however, words like 'bribe' are controlled by courts as well as linguists and teachers and we would be interested in some pro bono advice from lawyer-readers on whether describing a donation to the Bush inauguration as a bribe is considered libelous or not. If so, then we once again find ourselves in the situation where the outer limit of our behavior is defined not by broad standards of decency but by when it becomes criminal.
DC HOTEL WORKERS PRACTICE INAUGURATION PICKETING
UNION CITY - At the Washington Hilton, over 100 hotel workers decked out in red shirts and white picket signs circled the Florida Avenue entrance, keeping up steady chants of "No Contract, No Inauguration!" Regular honks of support from passing trucks and taxicabs added to the din. Workers in the office building across the way showed their support with dozens of hand-made signs in the windows. Meanwhile, at the Capital Hill Holiday Inn, pickers carrying signs in multiple languages chanted "Overworked and underpaid, we refuse to be your maid!"
DRUG BUSTS
U.S. ONLY DEVELOP COUNTRY TO EXCLUDE HEMP FROM AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION
http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6403
NORML - The United States is the only developed nation that fails to cultivate industrial hemp as an economic crop, according to Congressional Resource Service (CRS) report published last week. Hemp is a distinct variety of the plant species cannabis sativa that contains only minute (less than 1%) amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Farmers worldwide grow hemp commercially for fiber, seed, and oil for use in a variety of industrial and consumer products, including food. "In all, more than 30 countries in Europe, Asia, and North America grow hemp," the report states, adding that the European Union instituted a subsidy program in the 1990s for hemp fiber production. "The United States is the only developed nation in which industrial hemp is not an established crop." Federal law makes no distinctions between cannabis and industrial hemp, and makes it illegal to grow hemp without a license from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). According to the CRS, "The DEA has been unwilling to grant licenses for growing small plots of hemp for research purposes," even when such research is authorized by state law, because the agency believes that doing so would "send the wrong message to the American public concerning the government's position on drugs." As an example, the report notes that the DEA "has still not ruled on an application submitted in 1999 by a North Dakota researcher" to grow a trial plot of hemp in compliance with state law. More than a dozen states have enacted laws authorizing the licensed cultivation of hemp for research purposes. "The federal ban on hemp cultivation and production is a direct outgrowth of the government's absurd war on cannabis," NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre said. "This report should help to galvanize support among US farmers, industrialists, and environmentalists for the legalization and regulation of hemp as an agricultural commodity."
For more information, please contact either Allen St. Pierre or Paul Armentano of NORML at (202) 483-5500.
The CRS report, entitled "Hemp as an Agricultural Commodity," is available online at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/RL32725.pdf
RECOVERED HISTORY
SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA
http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/whats_new.htm
A remarkable new PBS series, "Slavery & the Making of America" which begins on February 9. Borrowing heavily from slave narratives and incidents seldom recorded in history books, the series emphasizes the political and economic importance of slavery while giving the viewer a window into the personal pain and courage of the slave. Teachers can find a collection of lesson plans, images, and other materials at a site set up just for them. The program is an eye opener even for those who think they know American history.
A few excerpts from the website:
Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina declared in 1858: "What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her. No, you dare not make war on cotton! No power on earth dares make war upon it. Cotton is King." Hammond's reasoning was hard to fault. Government statistics from 1860 confirmed that the 12 wealthiest counties in the United States were in the South. However, cotton powered the economy of the entire country; the South purchased $30 million of mid-western food and $150 million of northern manufactured goods. Northern shipping and banking were also tied to the cotton economy. The South's "white gold" was not marketed directly to Europe; rather it was sent to New York where factors (who loaned money to planters in advance of the crop), commodities futures traders, and merchants shipped it to northeastern textile mills (which produced $100 million worth of cotton goods) or to Great Britain. Northern banks also provided loans to southern planters to purchase slaves and land. State and local governments also made money by taxing slavery through sales and inheritance taxes. Furthermore, cotton had made the South a player in the world economy. While cotton exports totaled only $5 million (seven percent of total U.S. exports) in 1800, they rose to $30 million in 1830 (41 percent of U.S. exports) and reached $191 million in 1860 (57 percent of total U.S. exports). By 1850, cotton consumption averaged five and a half pounds per person in Great Britain and the United States, in large part because the price of cotton textiles had fallen to roughly one percent of their cost in 1784. Worldwide, southern cotton dominated two-thirds of the market. Southern cotton accounted for 70 percent of the raw material fueling Britain's industrial revolution, and British experts believed that Indian cotton could not replace it in quantity or quality. . . .
It is estimated that as many as 15 million people were transported as slaves, with unknown numbers dying enroute. Most of the enslaved people ended up in South America or the Caribbean, while nearly 500,000 were transported to North America. Almost all of the enslaved Africans worked as plantation laborers or else in mining, and most of those in the Caribbean and Central and South America died from the harshness of the work and the brutality of their living conditions. Only in North America did the slave population reproduce itself, with individuals having a life expectancy equal to that of the white population. In Africa, European traders dealt with African suppliers, seldom capturing the slaves themselves. Importantly, the practice of slavery had been in operation in Africa and in central Europe for centuries prior to the redirection of the trade to the Americas. Muslim slave traders from Arabia and Turkey, for example, had transported enslaved Africans and Europeans into South East Asia and the Iberian Peninsula for centuries. Nothing in the past, however, equaled the Atlantic slave trade in size or in the extent and depth of its impact on the world.
BUSHWHACKS
BUSH REGIME TO GUT COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=124597
AMERICAN PROGRESS REPORT - One of the many controversial proposals in Bush's upcoming 2006 budget will "drastically shrink the Department of Housing and Urban Development's $8 billion community branch." While some of the programs are being slashed outright – economic development projects and rural housing programs – other anti-poverty efforts are bound to be lost in the shuffle when they are transferred over to the Labor and Commerce Departments, where they will be forced to compete for monies in a new arena with a budget that won't make room for them. Though administration officials claim the shift is meant to consolidate duplicates and eliminate the inefficient, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) revealed the truth behind the simply "appalling" proposal: "I'm always willing to look at consolidations, but clearly they're using consolidation as a shield for substantial budget reductions." Ultimately, the proposal could lead to HUD losing "a quarter of its $31 billion budget."
OTHER NEWS
ANIMALS SEEM TO HAVE FORESEEN TSUNAMI
http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/tsunami.cfm
ORGANIC CONSUMERS - According to National Geographic, there have been a significant number of reports documenting animals who seemed to sense the recent Asian tsunami before it hit. For example, Sri Lanka's Yala National Park suffered many human casualties, but park managers said the wildlife suffered almost no casualties. "The elephants, wild boar, deer, monkeys and others had moved inland to avoid the killer waves." In Thailand, seemingly insane elephants broke their chains and fled inland before the waves hit. Authorities in India reported that "the indigenous, stone-age tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar islands escaped the effects of the tsunami because they heeded warning signals from birds and animals." A number of scientists have pointed out that this remarkable behavior should alert us to pay closer attention to a wide range of warnings from the animal kingdom, not only in regards to natural disasters, but also in relation to danger signs of the impact on animal and human health of environmental pollution, such as the recent outbreak of frog mutations, species extinctions, and drops in mammalian fertility.
DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL, & DON'T KNOW ARABIC
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/10629495.htm?1c
KIM CURTIS, AP, SAN FRANCISCO - The number of Arabic linguists discharged from the military for violating its "don't ask, don't tell" policy was nearly three times as high as previously reported, according to records obtained by an advocacy group. Between 1998 and 2004, the military discharged 20 Arabic and six Farsi speakers, according to Department of Defense data obtained by the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military under a Freedom of Information Act request. The military previously confirmed that seven translators who specialized in Arabic had been discharged because they were gay. The updated numbers were first reported by The New Republic magazine. Aaron Belkin, the center's director, said he wants the public to see the real costs of "don't ask, don't tell." "We had a language problem after 9/11 and we still have a language problem," Belkin said Wednesday. The military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy allows gays and lesbians to serve in the military as long as they keep their sexual orientation private and do not engage in homosexual acts. But Belkin and other advocates say such a policy endangers national security at a time U.S. intelligence agencies and the military say they don't have enough Arabic speakers.
GREAT MOMENTS IN CAREER COUNSELING
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/01/14/BAG94APTGB1.DTL
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - Students at a Palo Alto middle school learned more than school officials ever expected when a recent "career day" speaker extolled the merits of stripping and expounded on the financial benefits of a larger bust. The hubbub began Tuesday at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School's third annual career day when a student asked Foster City salesman William Fried to explain why he listed "exotic dancer" and "stripper" on a handout of potential careers. Fried, who spoke to about 45 eighth-grade students during two separate 55-minute sessions, spent about a minute explaining that the profession is viable and potentially lucrative for those blessed with the physique and talent for the job. According to Fried and students who attended the talk, Fried told one group of about 16 students that strippers can earn as much as $250,000 a year and that a larger bust -- whether natural or augmented -- has a direct relationship to a dancer's salary. He told the students, "For every two inches up there, it's another $50, 000," according to Jason Garcia, 14. As word of the remarks spread among students and parents, school officials found themselves forced to answer why a previously successful program had come to address a rather adult topic. While administrators said only two parents had formally complained about the presentation, other parents reached Thursday said the references to stripping did not belong at school.
UNCOOL MUSIC TO SOOTH SAVAGE BREAST IN LONDON TUBE
http://www.guardian.co.uk/transport/Story/0,2763,1389137,00.html
ANDREW CLARK, GUARDIAN - London Underground is to pipe endless recitals of "uncool" music into trouble-prone tube stations in an attempt to encourage disorderly teenagers to go away. Tube bosses intend to use recordings of Pavarotti recitals, Vivaldi and Mozart in a battle against anti-social behaviour at 35 . . . The initiative, announced yesterday by Metronet, LU's maintenance contractor, follows a trial at four east London stations which prompted a 33% drop in abuse against staff. An LU spokeswoman said: "This is aimed at youths, mainly young teenagers who hang about at stations. The science seems to be that the music is unfamiliar to them and also that it's considered uncool. . .
FURTHERMORE. . .
THE PUBLIC COST OF EXTENDING COPYRIGHTS
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/view.html?pg=5?tw=wn_tophead_5
FIELD NOTES
PUBLIC CITIZEN LAUNCHES WORST PILLS SITE
Public Citizen has launched a new Web site that provides consumers with comprehensive information about 538 prescription drugs and warns them of 181 drugs that are unsafe or ineffective. The searchable, online database also provides information about drug pricing, outlines 10 rules for safer drug use, has monthly issues of Public Citizen's Worst Pills, Best Pills newsletter and enables users to sign up for e-alerts about newly discovered drug dangers. People looking for information on the site can search by drug, medical condition or by drug-induced disease. The Web site contains the entire contents of the just-published edition of the book, "Worst Pills, Best Pills," including a new chapter on dietary supplements.
http://worstpills.org
SOMETHING TO DO IN YOUR SPARE TIME
http://www4.sss.gov/localboardmembers/bminquiry.asp
EDITED BY SAM SMITH
Since 1964, Washington's most unofficial source
E-MAIL: mailto:news@prorev.com
WORD
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others - Groucho Marx
POLITICS
WHAT'S A BRIBE? The collapse of integrity in high places calls for consideration of our language about such matters. Take, for example, the word 'bribe.' Most probably assume that to bribe someone you have to commit a crime. Not so. Dictionary definitions of 'bribe' include both criminal and merely distasteful acts:
Oxford English Dictionary: To take dishonestly. To extort. To influence corruptly by a consideration.
On Line Ethics: Something that is given or offered to a person or organization in a position of trust to induce that agent to behave in a way that is inconsistent with that trust.
Merriam-Webster: A benefit (as money) given, promised, or offered in order to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust (as an official or witness)
Word Net: Payment made to a person in a position of trust to corrupt his judgment.
In fact, for centuries ordinary people have known exactly what a bribe was.
The Oxford English Dictionary found it described in 1528 as meaning to "to influence corruptly, by a consideration." Another 16th century definition describes bribery as "a reward given to pervert the judgment or corrupt the conduct" of someone. In more modern times, the Meat Inspection Act of 1917 prohibits giving "money or other thing of value, with intent to influence" to a government official. Simple and wise.
But that was before the lawyers and the politicians got around to rewriting the meaning of bribery. And so we came to a time during the Clinton administration when the Supreme Court actually ruled that a law prohibiting the giving of gifts to a public official "for or because of an official act" didn't mean anything unless you knew exactly what the official act was. In other words, bribery was only illegal if the bribee was dumb enough to give you a receipt.
The media has gone along with the scam, virtually dropping the word from its vocabulary in favor of phrases like "inappropriate gift," "the appearance of a conflict of interest," or "campaign contribution."
Clearly, by the aforementioned definitions, campaign contributions fall comfortably within the definition of bribes. Unfortunately, however, words like 'bribe' are controlled by courts as well as linguists and teachers and we would be interested in some pro bono advice from lawyer-readers on whether describing a donation to the Bush inauguration as a bribe is considered libelous or not. If so, then we once again find ourselves in the situation where the outer limit of our behavior is defined not by broad standards of decency but by when it becomes criminal.
DC HOTEL WORKERS PRACTICE INAUGURATION PICKETING
UNION CITY - At the Washington Hilton, over 100 hotel workers decked out in red shirts and white picket signs circled the Florida Avenue entrance, keeping up steady chants of "No Contract, No Inauguration!" Regular honks of support from passing trucks and taxicabs added to the din. Workers in the office building across the way showed their support with dozens of hand-made signs in the windows. Meanwhile, at the Capital Hill Holiday Inn, pickers carrying signs in multiple languages chanted "Overworked and underpaid, we refuse to be your maid!"
DRUG BUSTS
U.S. ONLY DEVELOP COUNTRY TO EXCLUDE HEMP FROM AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION
http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6403
NORML - The United States is the only developed nation that fails to cultivate industrial hemp as an economic crop, according to Congressional Resource Service (CRS) report published last week. Hemp is a distinct variety of the plant species cannabis sativa that contains only minute (less than 1%) amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Farmers worldwide grow hemp commercially for fiber, seed, and oil for use in a variety of industrial and consumer products, including food. "In all, more than 30 countries in Europe, Asia, and North America grow hemp," the report states, adding that the European Union instituted a subsidy program in the 1990s for hemp fiber production. "The United States is the only developed nation in which industrial hemp is not an established crop." Federal law makes no distinctions between cannabis and industrial hemp, and makes it illegal to grow hemp without a license from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). According to the CRS, "The DEA has been unwilling to grant licenses for growing small plots of hemp for research purposes," even when such research is authorized by state law, because the agency believes that doing so would "send the wrong message to the American public concerning the government's position on drugs." As an example, the report notes that the DEA "has still not ruled on an application submitted in 1999 by a North Dakota researcher" to grow a trial plot of hemp in compliance with state law. More than a dozen states have enacted laws authorizing the licensed cultivation of hemp for research purposes. "The federal ban on hemp cultivation and production is a direct outgrowth of the government's absurd war on cannabis," NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre said. "This report should help to galvanize support among US farmers, industrialists, and environmentalists for the legalization and regulation of hemp as an agricultural commodity."
For more information, please contact either Allen St. Pierre or Paul Armentano of NORML at (202) 483-5500.
The CRS report, entitled "Hemp as an Agricultural Commodity," is available online at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/RL32725.pdf
RECOVERED HISTORY
SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA
http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/whats_new.htm
A remarkable new PBS series, "Slavery & the Making of America" which begins on February 9. Borrowing heavily from slave narratives and incidents seldom recorded in history books, the series emphasizes the political and economic importance of slavery while giving the viewer a window into the personal pain and courage of the slave. Teachers can find a collection of lesson plans, images, and other materials at a site set up just for them. The program is an eye opener even for those who think they know American history.
A few excerpts from the website:
Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina declared in 1858: "What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her. No, you dare not make war on cotton! No power on earth dares make war upon it. Cotton is King." Hammond's reasoning was hard to fault. Government statistics from 1860 confirmed that the 12 wealthiest counties in the United States were in the South. However, cotton powered the economy of the entire country; the South purchased $30 million of mid-western food and $150 million of northern manufactured goods. Northern shipping and banking were also tied to the cotton economy. The South's "white gold" was not marketed directly to Europe; rather it was sent to New York where factors (who loaned money to planters in advance of the crop), commodities futures traders, and merchants shipped it to northeastern textile mills (which produced $100 million worth of cotton goods) or to Great Britain. Northern banks also provided loans to southern planters to purchase slaves and land. State and local governments also made money by taxing slavery through sales and inheritance taxes. Furthermore, cotton had made the South a player in the world economy. While cotton exports totaled only $5 million (seven percent of total U.S. exports) in 1800, they rose to $30 million in 1830 (41 percent of U.S. exports) and reached $191 million in 1860 (57 percent of total U.S. exports). By 1850, cotton consumption averaged five and a half pounds per person in Great Britain and the United States, in large part because the price of cotton textiles had fallen to roughly one percent of their cost in 1784. Worldwide, southern cotton dominated two-thirds of the market. Southern cotton accounted for 70 percent of the raw material fueling Britain's industrial revolution, and British experts believed that Indian cotton could not replace it in quantity or quality. . . .
It is estimated that as many as 15 million people were transported as slaves, with unknown numbers dying enroute. Most of the enslaved people ended up in South America or the Caribbean, while nearly 500,000 were transported to North America. Almost all of the enslaved Africans worked as plantation laborers or else in mining, and most of those in the Caribbean and Central and South America died from the harshness of the work and the brutality of their living conditions. Only in North America did the slave population reproduce itself, with individuals having a life expectancy equal to that of the white population. In Africa, European traders dealt with African suppliers, seldom capturing the slaves themselves. Importantly, the practice of slavery had been in operation in Africa and in central Europe for centuries prior to the redirection of the trade to the Americas. Muslim slave traders from Arabia and Turkey, for example, had transported enslaved Africans and Europeans into South East Asia and the Iberian Peninsula for centuries. Nothing in the past, however, equaled the Atlantic slave trade in size or in the extent and depth of its impact on the world.
BUSHWHACKS
BUSH REGIME TO GUT COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=124597
AMERICAN PROGRESS REPORT - One of the many controversial proposals in Bush's upcoming 2006 budget will "drastically shrink the Department of Housing and Urban Development's $8 billion community branch." While some of the programs are being slashed outright – economic development projects and rural housing programs – other anti-poverty efforts are bound to be lost in the shuffle when they are transferred over to the Labor and Commerce Departments, where they will be forced to compete for monies in a new arena with a budget that won't make room for them. Though administration officials claim the shift is meant to consolidate duplicates and eliminate the inefficient, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) revealed the truth behind the simply "appalling" proposal: "I'm always willing to look at consolidations, but clearly they're using consolidation as a shield for substantial budget reductions." Ultimately, the proposal could lead to HUD losing "a quarter of its $31 billion budget."
OTHER NEWS
ANIMALS SEEM TO HAVE FORESEEN TSUNAMI
http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/tsunami.cfm
ORGANIC CONSUMERS - According to National Geographic, there have been a significant number of reports documenting animals who seemed to sense the recent Asian tsunami before it hit. For example, Sri Lanka's Yala National Park suffered many human casualties, but park managers said the wildlife suffered almost no casualties. "The elephants, wild boar, deer, monkeys and others had moved inland to avoid the killer waves." In Thailand, seemingly insane elephants broke their chains and fled inland before the waves hit. Authorities in India reported that "the indigenous, stone-age tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar islands escaped the effects of the tsunami because they heeded warning signals from birds and animals." A number of scientists have pointed out that this remarkable behavior should alert us to pay closer attention to a wide range of warnings from the animal kingdom, not only in regards to natural disasters, but also in relation to danger signs of the impact on animal and human health of environmental pollution, such as the recent outbreak of frog mutations, species extinctions, and drops in mammalian fertility.
DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL, & DON'T KNOW ARABIC
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/10629495.htm?1c
KIM CURTIS, AP, SAN FRANCISCO - The number of Arabic linguists discharged from the military for violating its "don't ask, don't tell" policy was nearly three times as high as previously reported, according to records obtained by an advocacy group. Between 1998 and 2004, the military discharged 20 Arabic and six Farsi speakers, according to Department of Defense data obtained by the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military under a Freedom of Information Act request. The military previously confirmed that seven translators who specialized in Arabic had been discharged because they were gay. The updated numbers were first reported by The New Republic magazine. Aaron Belkin, the center's director, said he wants the public to see the real costs of "don't ask, don't tell." "We had a language problem after 9/11 and we still have a language problem," Belkin said Wednesday. The military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy allows gays and lesbians to serve in the military as long as they keep their sexual orientation private and do not engage in homosexual acts. But Belkin and other advocates say such a policy endangers national security at a time U.S. intelligence agencies and the military say they don't have enough Arabic speakers.
GREAT MOMENTS IN CAREER COUNSELING
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/01/14/BAG94APTGB1.DTL
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - Students at a Palo Alto middle school learned more than school officials ever expected when a recent "career day" speaker extolled the merits of stripping and expounded on the financial benefits of a larger bust. The hubbub began Tuesday at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School's third annual career day when a student asked Foster City salesman William Fried to explain why he listed "exotic dancer" and "stripper" on a handout of potential careers. Fried, who spoke to about 45 eighth-grade students during two separate 55-minute sessions, spent about a minute explaining that the profession is viable and potentially lucrative for those blessed with the physique and talent for the job. According to Fried and students who attended the talk, Fried told one group of about 16 students that strippers can earn as much as $250,000 a year and that a larger bust -- whether natural or augmented -- has a direct relationship to a dancer's salary. He told the students, "For every two inches up there, it's another $50, 000," according to Jason Garcia, 14. As word of the remarks spread among students and parents, school officials found themselves forced to answer why a previously successful program had come to address a rather adult topic. While administrators said only two parents had formally complained about the presentation, other parents reached Thursday said the references to stripping did not belong at school.
UNCOOL MUSIC TO SOOTH SAVAGE BREAST IN LONDON TUBE
http://www.guardian.co.uk/transport/Story/0,2763,1389137,00.html
ANDREW CLARK, GUARDIAN - London Underground is to pipe endless recitals of "uncool" music into trouble-prone tube stations in an attempt to encourage disorderly teenagers to go away. Tube bosses intend to use recordings of Pavarotti recitals, Vivaldi and Mozart in a battle against anti-social behaviour at 35 . . . The initiative, announced yesterday by Metronet, LU's maintenance contractor, follows a trial at four east London stations which prompted a 33% drop in abuse against staff. An LU spokeswoman said: "This is aimed at youths, mainly young teenagers who hang about at stations. The science seems to be that the music is unfamiliar to them and also that it's considered uncool. . .
FURTHERMORE. . .
THE PUBLIC COST OF EXTENDING COPYRIGHTS
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/view.html?pg=5?tw=wn_tophead_5
FIELD NOTES
PUBLIC CITIZEN LAUNCHES WORST PILLS SITE
Public Citizen has launched a new Web site that provides consumers with comprehensive information about 538 prescription drugs and warns them of 181 drugs that are unsafe or ineffective. The searchable, online database also provides information about drug pricing, outlines 10 rules for safer drug use, has monthly issues of Public Citizen's Worst Pills, Best Pills newsletter and enables users to sign up for e-alerts about newly discovered drug dangers. People looking for information on the site can search by drug, medical condition or by drug-induced disease. The Web site contains the entire contents of the just-published edition of the book, "Worst Pills, Best Pills," including a new chapter on dietary supplements.
http://worstpills.org
SOMETHING TO DO IN YOUR SPARE TIME
http://www4.sss.gov/localboardmembers/bminquiry.asp
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