UNDERNEWS

UNDERNEWS
AUG 31, 2005
FROM THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
EDITED BY SAM SMITH
Since 1964, Washington's most unofficial source

E-MAIL: mailto:news@prorev.com

1312 18th St. NW #502 Washington DC 20036
202-835-0770 Fax: 835-0779

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WORD
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The people have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to
want and the courage to take. - Emma Goldman

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PAGE ONE MUST
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IRAQ WAR MAY HAVE LOST US NEW ORLEANS

WILL BUNCH, EDITOR & PUBLISHER - New Orleans had long known it was
highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In
fact, the federal government has been working with state and local
officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and
flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995
killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban
Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with
carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building
pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250
million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the
Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New
Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a
trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending
pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at
the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At
least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005
specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of
hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The
Times-Picayune web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it
coming. . . .Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious
questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President
Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was
needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in
New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for
Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that
the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland
security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay.
Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are
doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue
for us.". . .

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313


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THE DISASTER THEY KNEW WAS COMING

PROGRESS REPORT - In 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency
ranked a major hurricane strike on New Orleans as "among the three
likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country," directly
behind a terrorist strike on New York City. . . While it happened,
President Bush decided to ... continue his vacation, stopping by the
Pueblo El Mirage RV and Golf Resort in El Mirage, California, to hawk
his Medicare drug benefit plan. On Sunday, President Bush said, "I want
to thank all the folks at the federal level and the state level and the
local level who have taken this storm seriously."

Two months ago, President Bush took an ax to budget funds that would
have helped New Orleans prepare for such a disaster. The New Orleans
branch of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suffered a "record $71.2
million" reduction in federal funding, a 44.2 percent reduction from its
2001 levels. Reports at the time said that thanks to the cuts, "major
hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local
engineering firms. . . . Also, a study to determine ways to protect the
region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now." (Too bad
Louisiana isn't a swing state. In the aftermath of Hurricane Frances --
and the run-up to the 2004 election -- the Bush administration awarded
$31 million in disaster relief to Florida residents who didn't even
experience hurricane damage.)

The Gulf Coast wetlands form a "natural buffer that helps protect New
Orleans from storms," slowing hurricanes down as they approach from sea.
When he came into office, President Bush pledged to uphold the "no net
loss" wetland policy his father initiated. He didn't keep his word. Bush
rolled back tough wetland policies set by the Clinton administration,
ordering federal agencies "to stop protecting as many as 20 million
acres of wetlands and an untold number of waterways nationwide." Last
year, four environmental groups issued a joint report showing that
administration policies had allowed "developers to drain thousands of
acres of wetlands." The result? New Orleans may be in even greater
danger: "Studies show that if the wetlands keep vanishing over the next
few decades, then you won't need a giant storm to devastate New Orleans
-- a much weaker, more common kind of hurricane could destroy the city
too."

Forward-thinking federal plans with titles like "Issues and Options in
Flood Hazards Management," "Floods: A National Policy Concern," and "A
Framework for Flood Hazards Management" would be particularly valuable
in a time of increasingly intense hurricanes. Unfortunately, the agency
that used to produce them -- the Office of Technology Assessment -- was
gutted by Gingrich conservatives several years ago. As Chris Mooney (who
presciently warned of the need to bulk up hurricane defenses in New
Orleans last May) noted, "If we ever return to science-based
policymaking based on professionalism and expertise, rather than
ideology, an office like OTA would be very useful in studying how best
to save a city like New Orleans -- and how Congress might consider
appropriating money to achieve this end."

National Guard and Reserve soldiers are typically on the front lines
responding to disasters like Katrina -- that is, if they're not fighting
in Iraq. Roughly 35 percent of Louisiana's National Guard is currently
deployed in Iraq, where guardsmen and women make up about four of every
10 soldiers. Additionally, "Dozens of high water vehicles, humvees,
refuelers and generators" used by the Louisiana Guard are also tied up
abroad. "The National Guard needs that equipment back home to support
the homeland security mission," Louisiana National Guard Lt. Colonel
Pete Schneider told reporters earlier this month. "Recruitment is down
dramatically, mostly because prospective recruits are worried about
deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan or another country," the AP reported
recently. "I used to be able to get about eight people a month," said
National Guard 1st Sgt. Derick Young, a New Orleans recruiter. "Now, I'm
lucky if I can get one."

http://www.issues2000.org/default.htm

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TRIAGE

NEW ORLEANS TIMES-PICAYUNE - As Jerry Rayes piloted his boat down St.
Claude Avenue, just past the Industrial Canal, the eerie screams that
could barely be heard from the roadway grew louder as, one by one, faces
of desperate families appeared on rooftops, on balconies and in windows,
some of them waving white flags. . . A woman screamed as Rayes boated
by: "Hey! Damn! Hey!" "You can't save everybody," he said, as he passed
street signs barely visible above the water along with scores of felled
trees and downed power lines. "That's all we heard for hours this
morning."

As he motored toward St. Claude Avenue, which looked like a bayou rather
than a thoroughfare, his boat passed Fats Domino's
pink-and-yellow-trimmed house on Caffin Avenue. About a half a dozen men
screamed from the balcony, flailing their hands for help. He passed them
by.

"What am I going to do? I got to go to the parish," he said. "There's
way too many people out there and to few boats."

http://www.nola.com/hurricane/t-p/katrina.ssf?/hurricane/katrina/stories/083005_a1_wipecomm.html


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POLITICS
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ANTIWAR MOVEMENT CALLED COMMUNIST AT CONSERVTIVE WASHINGTON FORUM

DANA MILBANK AND ALAN COOPERMAN, WASHINGTON POST - Cindy Sheehan:
anti-American communist? That was the accusation coming yesterday from
the Heritage Foundation, which hosted author John J. Tierney Jr. for a
forum titled "The Politics of Peace: What's Behind the Anti-War
Movement?" Cindy Sheehan's protest was called unprecedented -- and more.
Tierney researched the movement for a book and came up with some choice
descriptions. "I have to say it is communist," he told an audience at
the conservative think tank, also describing the groups involved as
"revolutionary socialistic" and "cohorts" of North Korea, Saddam Hussein
and Fidel Castro's Cuba. "We're really dealing with . . . a
comprehensive, exhaustive, socialistic anti-capitalistic political
structure," he said.

Tierney, of the Institute of World Politics, identified five groups:
ANSWER, Not in Our Name, Code Pink, United for Peace and Justice, and
Move On. He said these groups "come from the Workers World Party" and
are an "umbrella" for smaller groups, such as the "Communist Party of
Kansas City" and the "Socialist Revolutionary Movement of the Upper
Mississippi." Of the last two, he said, "I'm just making these up."

Tierney singled out Sheehan, whose son died in Iraq and who camped out
at President Bush's ranch this month to protest the war. "I've never
heard of a woman protesting a war in front of a leader's home in my
life," he said. "I've never heard of anything quite so outrageous."

Heritage's Dana Dillon introduced Tierney by saying that "the discussion
today does not oppose the antiwar movement per se or question the
patriotism or loyalty or common sense of Americans on either side of the
debate." But the blurb promoting the event on Heritage's Web site said
of the movement: "At root, they are anti-American rather than anti-war."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/30/AR2005083001862.html



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HEALTH & SCIENCE
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46 MILLION NOW LACK HEALTH INSURANCE

TODD ZWILLCIH, FOX NEWS - The number of Americans without health
insurance rose by 800,000 last year, reaching a record high of nearly 46
million, the U.S. Census Bureau reported. Officials blamed the increase
in part on the continuing erosion of workplace-sponsored health
insurance. A majority of Americans still get their coverage by sharing
costs with their employer, though a smaller and smaller percentage of
American jobs are now accompanied by medical benefits.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,167856,00.html

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WHY PLACEBOS WORK

ROBERT C. COWEN, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR - When an inert placebo acts
like a drug, is it just a psychological illusion? Or is it a real
biological effect? Research reported last week suggests that it's both.
The mere belief that they had received a pain killer was enough to
release the brain's natural painkilling endorphins in the patients
tested, scientists say. This opens a new line of research into the
placebo puzzle. The effect has been demonstrated often enough to show
that some patients appear to benefit from such belief. But there hasn't
been enough evidence to convince skeptics that anything more than the
so-called power of suggestion is at work. That's changing. "The findings
of this study are counter to the common thought that the placebo effect
is purely psychological due to suggestion and that it does not represent
a real physical change." says University of Michigan neuroscientist
Jon-Kar Zubieta. He is principal author of the study published Aug. 24
in The Journal of Neuroscience. . .

Reporting their work in Science, the research team pointed out that such
circumstantial evidence has given plausibility to "the idea that sensory
experience is shaped by one's attitudes and beliefs." They acknowledge
that, while pain does have "sensory components," it is "a
psychologically constructed experience."

In his book "The Anatomy of Hope," Harvard Medical School physician
Jerome Groopman notes that "a change of mind-set can alter
neurochemistry both in a laboratory setting and in the clinic." He says
he found relief himself from persistent back pain in the hope inspired
by an empathetic fellow physician. He explains that "belief and
expectation - the key elements of hope - can block pain by releasing the
brain's [pain killing] endorphins and enkephlins, mimicking the effects
of morphine."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0831/p14s01-stss.html

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WORDS
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ROGER MORRIS - Ignorant of the issues, cravenly afraid of risking
privilege for principle, hostage to corrupt advisors and a corrupted
calculus of national interest, Democrats not only mistake the public
mood and fail the minimal duty of opposition, but join the folly. From
Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama, Capitol Hill barons to camp-following
bloggers, they stand bravely for more fodder more efficiently fed to the
calamity, huddling earnestly to the right of the most egregious
right-wing aggression in our history. Add to the Iraqi disaster the
defining debacle of our second intellectually and morally derelict
party. . .
http://www.egp360.net/

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FURTHERMORE. . .
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KATIE ZEZIMA, NY TIMES - The State of Vermont has installed a system
that uses plants and organisms to clean wastewater at a rebuilt rest
stop on Interstate 89 here, 10 miles northwest of White River Junction,
and then pumps the treated water back to the toilets for reuse. State
officials said the system, called a living machine, not only advanced
so-called green construction, but also allowed the rest area to stay
open and the country's first Vietnam veterans memorial, erected in 1982,
to remain at the site
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/31/national/31toilet.html

MORE EVIDENCE THAT POWER POINTS CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/29/AR2005082901444.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns


THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FINDING AND LOOTING
http://www.wonkette.com/politics/ap/index.php#finding-versus-looting-123124


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FIELD NOTES
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WEBSITE FOR MEN TEACHERS
http://www.MenTeach.org/