mjh's blog

With Friends Like These…

ABC News: Abdullah: U.S. Occupation ‘Illegitimate’

King Abdullah denounced the American military presence in Iraq on Wednesday as an “illegitimate foreign occupation” and called on the West to end its financial embargo against the Palestinians.

The Saudi monarch’s speech was a strongly worded lecture to Arab leaders that their divisions had helped fuel turmoil across the Middle East, and he urged them to show unity. But in opening the Arab summit, Abdullah also nodded to hardliners by criticizing the U.S. presence in Iraq.

“In beloved Iraq, blood is flowing between brothers, in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and abhorrent sectarianism threatens a civil war,” said the king, whose country is a U.S. ally that quietly aided the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2989843

IRAQ — WHITE HOUSE SHOCKED BY ABDULLAH’S CONDEMNATION OF IRAQ OCCUPATION:

On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah denounced the “American military presence in Iraq as an “illegitimate foreign occupation” and called on the West to end its financial embargo against the Palestinians.” Yesterday, the Bush administration responded with shock to Abdullah’s declaration. “We were a little surprised to see those remarks,” said Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns. White House spokesman Dana Perino went so far as to claim, “It is not accurate to say that the United States is occupying Iraq.” Abdullah’s remarks were just the latest instance of the Saudi’s public distancing from the Bush administration. Earlier this week, the Washington Post’s Jim Hoagland reported that the Saudi government rejected an offer to attend a White House state dinner with President Bush. Prince Bandar, “the Saudi national security adviser, flew to Washington last week to explain to Bush that April 17 posed a scheduling problem. ‘It is not convenient’ was the way it was put, says one official.” “I think he was concerned that he was seen too much as Bush’s friend,” said Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The Saudis have expressed repeated concerns over Bush’s Iraq policy. The day after last year’s Thanksgiving, Vice President Cheney was “summoned” to Saudi Arabia to “read him the riot act.” The Saudis expressed their concerns that the United States might take the Shiite side in Iraq’s civil war, disregarding the safety of the Sunni Arab community.

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/progressreport/2007/03/email_evasion.html
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Related: mjh’s blog — Quick Indictment of Treason
http://www.edgewiseblog.com/mjh/nada/dump-duhbya/quick-indictment-of-treason/

http://mjhinton.net/slides/duhbya/

Campus Wages

In keeping with the earlier entries about the cost of sports — especially, outrageous salaries — you may want to see what NOW reports on low-salary workers at Vanderbilt. mjh

A Living Wage . NOW | PBS [mjh: in New Mexico on KNME-5, 8pm Friday, 3/30]

This week, NOW examines the fight for a “living wage”—the pay needed to cover an actual week’s worth of living—on the Nashville, Tennessee campus of Vanderbilt University. The chancellor there earns $1.2 million a year, the endowment is $3 billion, but some of the school’s lowest-paid workers—groundskeepers, custodians, and dining service workers—earn less than $8.00 an hour.

Is the university really sensitive to their basic needs? NOW Senior Correspondent Maria Hinojosa reports that with the help of student activists and public figures like actor Danny Glover, the workers recently won a wage increase.

“We have our home here. And I’m fighting—we’re both fighting to hold on to it,” says Vanderbilt custodian Dewayne Arbogast. “And the only way we can do that is to make sure Vanderbilt continues to pay us adequately.”

NOW travels to Nashville to talk with workers, university staff, and activists about the striking gap not just between Vanderbilt’s budget allocations, but between disparate people who share a common loyalty to campus and school.

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/313/index.html

Suffering Fools

ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor

War Protest Greatly Exaggerated

THE ANTI-WAR demonstration turned out roughly one-fourth of one percent of the local population, and yet it somehow merited a huge photo in the Sunday paper. This was not a spontaneous demonstration, but a fully coordinated nationwide effort, linking to other poorly-attended protests— as the AP put it “thousands” protested. Thousands? You get bigger turn-outs at a yard sale. The American people don’t want to abandon our troops, or face the bloodbath that would result if we pulled out in a chaotic, Vietnam-style retreat.

BURKE NELSON
Albuquerque

Before the war-without-end, countless people took to the streets across the nation and around the world. Here in Albuquerque, they were attacked and gassed and threatened with worse by Darren White, campaign coordinator for Duhbya. Opponents of the war were shouted down by red-faced patriots bent on any act of revenge for 9/11, no matter how irrelevant or ill-conceived.

Years later, the red-faced patriots are still questioning the loyalty of Americans who opposed the war from the beginning and those who have just finally had enough of the pointless war that has created far more trouble than it solved.

Imagine that parallel universe, where sense prevailed, and we never invaded Iraq. Imagine peace. mjh

From Three Years Ago —
03/20/2003: War Protests in New Mexico

About 600 demonstrators protested the war near the campus of the University of New Mexico at 6pm, Thursday, 3/20/03 (the first day of Spring). Eventually, riot police used tear gas and “chemical agents” to “calm” the crowd. There was very interesting TV footage of children under 10 fleeing to nearby restaurants, eyes streaming tears. One bystander was hit between the eyes by a tear gas canister and taken to the hospital. 17 protesters were arrested, some for throwing the tear gas canisters back at the cops. Police advise those planning other protest not let “bad apples” make problems; “we will not tolerate them taking over the streets.”

Have you noticed how cops now all look like soldiers? The uniforms and, especially, the machine guns?

Peaceful protesters are camped outside the gates to Kirtland Air Force Base. It’s raining & 47 degrees at 11pm.

In Santa Fe, protesters surrounded the Roundhouse, the State Capitol building. Some 60 high schoolers walked out of school to join protests and were suspended for 2 days for “open defiance and willful disobedience.” No one was arrested. mjh

Remember what Sally Meyer said after the ‘riot’? What Mayor Marty did? Or what one-among-many of our fellow citizens wrote about protesters? Read on:

Continue reading Suffering Fools…

The ERA

New Drive Afoot to Pass Equal Rights Amendment By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post Staff Writer

Federal and state lawmakers have launched a new drive to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, reviving a feminist goal that faltered a quarter-century ago when the measure did not gain the approval of three-quarters of the state legislatures.

The amendment, which came three states short of enactment in 1982, has been introduced in five state legislatures since January. Yesterday, House and Senate Democrats reintroduced the measure under a new name — the Women’s Equality Amendment — and vowed to bring it to a vote in both chambers by the end of the session. …

The amendment consists of 52 words and has one key line: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” That sentence would subject legal claims of gender discrimination to the same strict scrutiny given by courts to allegations of racial discrimination.

Although more states are considering ratifying the ERA now than at any other time in the past 25 years, activists still face serious hurdles. Every statewide officeholder in Arkansas endorsed the amendment this year, but the bill stalled in committee last week after Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly came to Little Rock to testify against the measure. [mjh: Schlafly is proof the good die young.]

In the 1970s, Schlafly and others argued that the ERA would lead to women being drafted by the military and to public unisex bathrooms. Today, she warns lawmakers that its passage would compel courts to approve same-sex marriages and deny Social Security benefits for housewives and widows. …

The ERA, originally introduced in Congress in 1923, gained popularity in the mid-1960s. In March 1972, it cleared the first of two hurdles: passing both chambers of Congress by the required two-thirds vote.

Thirty state legislatures ratified it the next year. Congress extended by three years its seven-year deadline for ratification, but the decade passed without approval by the required 38 states. ERA backers have since introduced the resolution in every Congress, but only now do they believe they have a realistic chance of success.

Legal scholars debate whether the 35 state votes to ratify the amendment are still valid.

In 1997, three professors argued in the William and Mary Journal of Women and the Law that the ERA remained viable because in 1992 the Madison Amendment — which affects congressional pay raises — became the 27th constitutional amendment 203 years after it first won congressional approval. Under that precedent, advocates say, the ERA should become part of the Constitution once three-quarters of the states ratify it, no matter how long that takes. …
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The Amendment In Question

The text of the Equal Rights Amendment, as proposed in 1972 by the 92nd Congress, and as published in Volume 86 of U.S. Statutes at Large (Pages 1523-1524), reads as follows:

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

I’ve supported the ERA from the beginning. People like Schlafly and Anita Bryant should be enough to discredit the opposition.

As an aside and a plate-of-shrimp, my longtime companion, MR, ‘discovered’ the 27th Amendment a couple of months ago — she who carries a well-thumbed copy of the Constitution with her much of the time (alá Senator Sam Irvin). MR was quizzing a young friend in preparation for a high school test on the Constitution and threw in what she thought would be a trick question: What’s the 27th Amendment? To which she received the unexpected but correct answer. I don’t know how we missed the passage of an amendment to the Constitution. We were probably busy celebrating the periodic downfall of the Republican Party. (Their success is always their undoing — note to Democrats.) mjh

Even a Million Dollar Coach Needs Help

The snowball is rolling (or is it a snow-job?). You can’t expect a Million Dollar Coach to do everything himself and you can’t expect his assistants to work cheap. Ain’t it thrilling to see the commitment the University is willing to make for greatness — of some kind.

Recall that Jamie Koch said there will be no raises for faculty until the Legislature pays for them, but we’ll find the money somehow for all the solid gold coaches we want. mjh

ABQjournal: NCAA Basketball: Alford’s Top Aide, Who Will Make $250,000, Is Learning His Away Around By Mark Smith, Journal Staff Writer

Craig Neal, the top assistant to recently hired University of New Mexico men’s basketball coach Steve Alford, held his first workout with the Lobos on Tuesday.

UNM athletic director Paul Krebs said Neal’s base salary is $150,000 per year with a total compensation of $250,000.

Asked where the added revenue is coming from, Krebs said the details of Neal’s contract are still being finalized and should be released within a week or so.

Former coach Ritchie McKay’s three-man coaching staff— combined— made around $268,000 a year. [mjh: so one guy will get the same money as three. And there will be more than one guy.]

Reactions on Campus

UNM could get 225 tuitions, or 1 coach, by Caleb Fort, Daily Lobo

One head basketball coach costs UNM as much as 10 full professors.

“I think it seems ridiculous,” student Trisstin Maroney said. “Think of what else you could spend the money for his salary on – pretty much anything else.”

Steve Alford’s $975,000 salary could also pay for 17 assistant professors or tuition and fees for 225 students.

Coach’s big salary doesn’t add up to a better record – Opinion
Editor,

Basketball does not interest me, but a $975,000 salary does. That amounts to $37.50 per student per year, which is an increase of $18.27 over former head coach Ritchie McKay. These funds could have been used for a tuition break or a raise for faculty. After seeing Steve Alford’s salary and paying the recent tuition increase, I wondered why this was necessary.

After examining the records of the two coaches – a painful process for someone who isn’t a sports fan – I found that McKay won 54 percent of the time at UNM. Alford’s career record has him winning 63 percent of the time. If these records are applied to next season, statistically speaking, Alford will win three games that McKay would have lost. Given the difference in pay between the two coaches, those three wins will cost $158,333 each.

When you consider that McKay is still being paid $200,000 per year by UNM for terminating his contract early, the figure jumps to $225,000 per extra win for the next three years. Is a quarter of $1 million really worth it for winning a basketball game?

Clayton Meredith
UNM student

Athletics unfairly wastes students’ tuition money – Opinion
Editor,

I find it deplorable the way UNM has been squandering students’ hard-earned tuition money. The first shock was learning that Ritchie McKay was being paid $500,000 a year by UNM. Next came the $600,000 it took to fire McKay, so we could get a new coach instead of letting McKay’s contract run its course. Finally, as if that wasn’t bad enough, UNM announced that it is going to pay the new head coach, Steve Alford, $975,000.

It seems strange that a so-called academic institution would pay its basketball coach 10 times as much as a full professor. It wasn’t even a month ago that the Legislature passed a bill to ensure that students currently receiving the Lottery Scholarship will be exempt from future tuition increases.

Perhaps before suffering yet another tuition hike, it is time for a complete public audit of the athletics programs at UNM. Maybe then the students can decide whether or not they are willing to pay the price for a winning sports team. We could determine once and for all if college athletics are the big moneymaker they claim to be, or just an increasingly deep pit for all of our tuition money.

Andrew Collord
UNM student

Foxes Guarding the Henhouse

Some groups claim Interior plans to gut Endangered Species Act By H. Josef Hebert, The Associated Press

The Interior Department is considering a broad revamping of how it protects animals and plants in danger of extinction, including changes that critics contend will reduce the number of species that will be saved. …

Some of the proposals would make obscure changes in how the law is implemented while others would be more direct, said [Jan Hasselman, an attorney in Seattle with Earthjustice], who has analyzed the documents. Together they would “fundamentally gut the intent” of the law protecting species in danger of extinction.
advertising

One proposed change would narrow when species can be considered in danger of extinction. Currently that is widely interpreted as in some time — as the statute directs — “in the foreseeable future.” The draft papers suggest a more specific timetable of 20 years for some species and a specific number of generations for others, Hasselman said.

“This would severely limit listing of new endangered species,” he said.

Also being considered is giving more power to states in creating species recovery plans and in determining what plants and animals get protection, including the ability of governors to block attempts to reintroduce species in their states.

If governors had such power, gray wolves would not have re-emerged in Idaho or Montana, nor would the grizzly have been reintroduced to Idaho, [Kieran Suckling of the Center for Biological Diversity] said in a telephone interview. …

The department also hopes to narrow the geographic range over which a species must be protected. Protection would be limited to a plant or animal’s current habitat and not the geographic region it has historically occupied.

Another proposal would allow logging, development and other projects even if they threaten a species, as long as they do not “hasten” its extinction. Environmentalists said currently no projects are allowed if they have any impact on a listed species. …

“We hope Interior will back off on this,” [Daniel Patterson of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility] said. “It’s a radical weakening of the Endangered Species Act.”
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Endangered Species Program, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—Fisheries (also known as the National Marine Fisheries Service) are the two agencies charged with the administration and implementation of the Endangered Species Act. The goal of the Endangered Species Act is the recovery of listed species to levels where protection under the Act is no longer necessary.

http://www.fws.gov/endangered/recovery/

Intolerable Rhetoric

Intolerable Darfur

Western leaders are again saying the slaughter is unacceptable. Will they again do nothing?

EUROPEAN UNION leaders spoke out strongly on Darfur at a summit in Berlin on Sunday. “The situation,” said British Prime Minister Tony Blair, “is intolerable. . . . The actions of the Sudanese government are completely unacceptable.” “The suffering is unbearable,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “I want to state frankly that we have to consider stronger sanctions.”

It took less than 24 hours for the backing down to start. “You have to make sure that you do not raise expectations that cannot be met,” an E.U. spokesman in Brussels told the Associated Press. Officials cited the usual obstacles: the resistance of U.N. Security Council member China to sanctions; the unwillingness of Arab and other Islamic governments to support steps against the regime of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir; the difficulty of military operations in an area the size of France.

Those are the excuses that Western governments — including the Bush administration, which labeled the killing in Darfur “genocide” in 2004 — have used for several years to explain the lack of effective action. Meanwhile, the slaughter goes on: According to the United Nations the death toll in Darfur exceeds 200,000, while more than 2 million have been driven from their homes — including 86,000 this year.

China’s inexcusable defense of the regime continues, as does that of Arab governments that portray themselves as partners of the West. On Saturday, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak flatly rejected a request by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon that he do more to pressure Mr. Bashir. “The issue is not pressure,” said Mr. Mubarak’s foreign minister.

In fact, more pressure is exactly what is needed. In addition to overseeing a renewed rampage by government-backed militias in Darfur, Mr. Bashir has reneged on an agreement to allow U.N. peacekeepers to join a tiny African Union force in the province. That position won’t change unless either the regime’s supply of arms or its oil-fueled economic boom is threatened.

Britain is said to be preparing a new Security Council resolution. But if the European Union leaders mean what they say, they don’t need to wait for the Security Council. E.U. sanctions against Sudan are relatively light; they could be extended to cover trade and investment. Mr. Blair spoke of imposing a no-fly zone to impede air attacks in Darfur. That’s an operation that would necessarily be carried out by Western powers, which could undertake it without U.N. sanction, as they did in Kosovo. If the situation in Darfur is “intolerable” and “unbearable” — and it is — Western governments should stop delaying the remedies that lie in their hands.

The Countdown

Regardless of what Congress does and regardless of what the pro-war crowd says, there is already a countdown until all troops are removed from Iraq. Our national nightmare ends the day the next president takes office and the angry idiot is gone.mjh

A Finger in the Eye

Billboards are a finger in the eye. An erect middle finger. A billboard is a selfish and cowardly statement. It says anonymously, “my profit is more important than the environment.” It places personal gain ahead of community values. Every billboard in the world should be pulled down by angry mobs.

Isn’t this picture beautiful? Doesn’t it make you proud to live in New Mexico? The mighty Tijeras Arroyo is already doomed by Mesa del Sold. In the meantime, enjoy the view. As you drive this stretch with its dozen billboards, notice most are for Clear Channel, the owners of most billboards. Buy stock and demand they get out of this business.

Farther south, Isleta shows what Indians really think of Mother Earth, with their dozens of billboards north of Los Lunas. No stoic native with a tear in his eyes at the sight of all the garbage — those are dollar signs.

Where’s your shame? mjh

‘Billboard King’ Reid Looks to Leave Mark on Senate War Funding Measure By Elizabeth Williamson, Washington Post Staff Writer

In a (quite) large sign that protecting U.S. troops isn’t the only thing on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s mind these days, the Nevada Democrat inserted an item into the Senate’s Iraq war funding bill — safeguarding billboards.

Senate debate began yesterday on the bill, which provides $122 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; sets a goal of March 31, 2008, for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq; and — if Reid has his way — allows thousands of billboards destroyed by bad weather to be rebuilt.

For the senator, who has referred to himself as the King of Billboards, “it’s a constituent issue, but it’s a value that he believes in,” said Reid spokesman Jon Summers.

The battle over billboards began in 1965, when the Highway Beautification Act set a policy that “nonconforming” billboards — defined by states but usually meaning those packed closely together, or in scenic areas — would be allowed to die of natural causes. As storms and other acts of God destroyed them, their owners would not be permitted to replace them. Recent hurricanes have fueled a fight between the powerful Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), which wants to roll back the federal law, and opponents led by Washington-based Scenic America, which decry billboards as “visual pollution.”

On March 15, Reid wrote Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-W.Va) asking for a provision that “clarifies” the rules governing rebuilding of “outdoor structures” after natural disasters.

“This is a matter of personal importance to me,” the majority leader wrote, a comment that “goes back to the values,” Summers said. Meaning that out west, “there’s a big sense of independence, and your property is your property,” Summers said. [mjh: "so fuck you if you like scenery."]

About 40 billboard companies operate in Nevada. Over the past two years, Reid’s Searchlight Leadership Fund has received $6,000 in contributions from the OAAA’s political action committee.

The OAAA represents a booming industry that earned $7 billion nationwide in revenue last year, but it emphasizes the role of billboards in advertising local businesses. Association spokesman Ken Klein said Reid’s amendment aims to reverse “a pattern of overreaching” by the federal government, which threatened to withhold highway funds to Florida when companies rebuilt nonconforming billboards hit by hurricanes in 2004. Reid’s bill would have prevented such actions.

Kevin Fry, president of Scenic America, said: “The bill carves out an exception to local land-use rules for a single industry that is not available to any other. . . . One might reasonably ask why legislation affecting the South and Southeast was introduced by a senator from Nevada.”

Reid’s request went to the Appropriations subcommittee on transportation, which pared it back to apply to 13 mostly hurricane-prone states, instead of all 50. The law would come up for renewal in 24 months.

Scenic America is fighting the amendment, which “sets a destructive precedent that will certainly be revisited anytime natural disasters take their toll on nonconforming billboards,” Fry said. “The two-year time frame is a joke.”

The OAAA sees the measure as a “positive step,” Klein said. “Senator Reid is a longtime supporter of mobility, tourism and property rights. We appreciate those principles.” [mjh: and he hates beauty]

PS: I don’t expect Republicans to oppose Reid’s support for the right of every landowner to stick his finger in your eye as you drive through beautiful countryside. I’m reminded of the end of Animal Farm, where there was no longer a difference between the new masters and old — they were all pigs.

Innocent Until Proven on the List

Ordinary Customers Flagged as Terrorists By Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post Staff Writer

Private businesses such as rental and mortgage companies and car dealers are checking the names of customers against a list of suspected terrorists and drug traffickers made publicly available by the Treasury Department, sometimes denying services to ordinary people whose names are similar to those on the list.

The Office of Foreign Asset Control’s list of “specially designated nationals” has long been used by banks and other financial institutions to block financial transactions of drug dealers and other criminals. But an executive order issued by President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has expanded the list and its consequences in unforeseen ways. Businesses have used it to screen applicants for home and car loans, apartments and even exercise equipment, according to interviews and a report by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area to be issued today.

“The way in which the list is being used goes far beyond contexts in which it has a link to national security,” said Shirin Sinnar, the report’s author. “The government is effectively conscripting private businesses into the war on terrorism but doing so without making sure that businesses don’t trample on individual rights.”

Not Quite Right

I think there is a serious flaw in this piece of art (Uproar hits Fla. Confederate flag show – Yahoo! News). The formal gallows invokes a false image — who did the Confederates hang in such a way or by whom were they so executed? No, the proper way to hang a Confederate flag is from a tree limb. Perhaps it should be stretched over the bloody face of a dead man. There should be a crowd at his feet, half of whom are enraged and the other half of whom look like they are at the county fair. mjh

Strange Fruit

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter cry.

http://www.boscarol.com/nina/html/where/strangefruit.html

Billie Holiday sings Strange Fruit

The Rising TIDE

Terror Database Has Quadrupled In Four Years, By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Staff Writer

Each day, thousands of pieces of intelligence information from around the world — field reports, captured documents, news from foreign allies and sometimes idle gossip — arrive in a computer-filled office in McLean, where analysts feed them into the nation’s central list of terrorists and terrorism suspects.

Called TIDE, for Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, the list is a storehouse for data about individuals that the intelligence community believes might harm the United States. It is the wellspring for watch lists distributed to airlines, law enforcement, border posts and U.S. consulates, created to close one of the key intelligence gaps revealed after Sept. 11, 2001: the failure of federal agencies to share what they knew about al-Qaeda operatives.

But in addressing one problem, TIDE has spawned others. Ballooning from fewer than 100,000 files in 2003 to about 435,000, the growing database threatens to overwhelm the people who manage it. …

TIDE has also created concerns about secrecy, errors and privacy. The list marks the first time foreigners and U.S. citizens are combined in an intelligence database. The bar for inclusion is low, and once someone is on the list, it is virtually impossible to get off it. At any stage, the process can lead to “horror stories” of mixed-up names and unconfirmed information, Travers acknowledged.

The watch lists fed by TIDE, used to monitor everyone entering the country or having even a casual encounter with federal, state and local law enforcement, have a higher bar. But they have become a source of irritation — and potentially more serious consequences — for many U.S. citizens and visitors.

In 2004 and 2005, misidentifications accounted for about half of the tens of thousands of times a traveler’s name triggered a watch-list hit, the Government Accountability Office reported in September. …

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said last year that his wife had been delayed repeatedly while airlines queried whether Catherine Stevens was the watch-listed Cat Stevens. The listing referred to the Britain-based pop singer who converted to Islam and changed his name to Yusuf Islam. The reason Islam is not allowed to fly to the United States is secret. [mjh: As long as Ted Stevens is suffering, I'm OK with this.] …

TIDE is a vacuum cleaner for both proven and unproven information, and its managers disclaim responsibility for how other agencies use the data. …

Every night at 10, TIDE dumps an unclassified version of that day’s harvest — names, dates of birth, countries of origin and passport information — into a database belonging to the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center. TIDE’s most sensitive information is not included. The FBI adds data about U.S. suspects with no international ties for a combined daily total of 1,000 to 1,500 new names.

The Million Dollar Coach

I truly could NOT care less about sports. I have zero interest in professional, academic or amateur sports. No interest at all in sports. None the less, I believe physical activity is vital. By all means, get out and be active, including participating in sports. I play volleyball every week with my friends.

My revulsion is in sports as a religion and business. My disgust is over sports for money and the corporate welfare that benefits sports. It sickens me that people get rich through sports — especially people who are not athletes themselves. It saddens me that fanatics know everything about sports trivia and less about the condition of the world. Our society squanders huge amounts of money, time, attention, focus and brain-power on corporate sports (in which I include anything involving pay).

Am I suggesting that a gifted athlete who works very hard to improve himself or herself deserves no money for that effort. Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. Do it because you love it. Do it because it makes you healthier, stronger, more attractive. You want to get rich in the process?

Oh, but how can anyone become the world’s greatest [insert sporting position of your choice] without compensation. Well, frankly, I don’t care, but I suspect love and devotion will take you pretty far. You want a dump truck full of money, too?

My bile has risen because UNM just hired a coach for nearly ONE MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR. A coach, someone who “loves the game.” Countless people believe one coach can easily be worth so much money. People who won’t make one million dollars in their lifetimes still believe one person is so much more valuable than they are themselves. That’s some self-esteem.

The Million-Dollar-Coach will make $400,000 more than the new President of the University. You might think that says enough about the priorities of our state educational institution — the coach of a handful of athletes is worth almost twice what the leader of the entire university makes. But don’t ignore that there is very limited money for everyone else at the university. The University is a community of students, teachers and other staff (and our families). Everyone in this community is important. We all need some support, some give and take, a share of the pie. In comes a big pig and there’s less for the rest of us. Simple, isn’t it? I have to go vomit now.
mjh

PS- I’ve been “temporary part-time faculty” at UNM for almost 20 years (without common benefits). The pay for all my colleagues at the Division of Continuing Education was drastically cut some years ago; we’ve never quite come back. Even if none of this were true, I’d still hate sports more than religion.

Daily Lobo – Alford to rake in $975,000 a year by Steven Fernandez

[Steve] Alford, officially introduced as the new UNM men’s basketball head coach on Friday, will be making an annual salary of $975,000 – nearly twice the amount of former head coach Ritchie McKay, who was fired Feb. 22. …

David Schmidly, UNM’s next president, said Alford is a great hire for the basketball team.

Schmidly will make more than $500K, by Caleb Fort

The Board of Regents approved the five-year contract for Schmidly, UNM’s next president, on Friday.

Annually, Schmidly will get a $380,000 salary, $120,000 deferred compensation, a $42,000 car allowance and a $45,000 housing allowance. [mjh: $587,000-a-year, about 60% of the coach's salary.]

Louis Caldera, UNM’s former president, had a salary of $293,000.

Bill to increase pay for part-time faculty by Bryan Gibel

The best-paid instructors in the sciences make about $8,000 per course on Main Campus, while instructors at UNM’s Valencia County branch earn less than $2,000, Niame said. … [mjh: I make about $400 for a workshop; I made about $4000 in 2006.]

Niame said there are about 1,200 faculty members who teach part-time in the UNM system, but they aren’t specifically included in the budget.

“We do not exist in UNM’s budget, and we’re not considered when the Board of Regents looks at the budget,” she said. “We’re not considered true employees. We work semester-to-semester, which means we get no benefits, and we have no job security. We’re nonentities in a lot of ways.” …

Jamie Koch, president of the Board of Regents, said the University will not increase wages for part-timers out of its own budget.

“We’re not increasing salaries for part-time faculty,” he said.

My Generation

You can tell it is fundraising time on PBS, if for no other reason than all the concert shows. These concerts frequently feature rockstars of the 50’s and 60’s. It is so depressing to me to see these old stars singing their old hits. More so, seeing the gray audience singing and swaying along. Yes, I’m every bit as gray and, no, I don’t expect this generation or our idols to go gently into that good night. By all means, fellow Boomers, let’s shake the world at least one last time before we go. Let’s make the 10’s as memorable as the 60’s (unlike the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s).

But my fellow silverbacks and graybeards aren’t rocking the world on these shows. They’re sitting in plush seats in concert halls that don’t look anything like a rock venue. If there is tie-dye in the crowd, it must be on their Depends, cuz these folks could be at the opera, but for the singing along. A Frisbee or a joint would draw such a frowning.

I understand, we’ve arrived and we’ve got the money to do what we want (except stay young forever). I also get the message from PBS that they want us to be comfortable and happy, to be at home at PBS, and to cough up for our front-row seats.

Still, I don’t understand the fundraising strategy of screwing up the expected programing to show nothing but music. Is the message: “here’s a treat for you because you won’t pay for our regular stuff?” If I won’t pay for Jim Lehrer, I surely won’t pay for the reunited surviving members of the Shondells. (Appearing next week at some Indian casino.)

Oh, but Jim Lehrer is secure and onscreen. Ironically, I can’t tell you which evening shows are replaced by these nostalgic moneymakers, now that they’ve stopped preempting the news shows on Friday nights. I can tell you that on Saturday, my favorite cooking shows get bumped (ah, finally, he gets to the point). Now, I appreciate that Julia Child is the godmother of all cooking (though I watched Graham What’s-his-name, the Galloping Gourmet, in my preteens). There is some brief delight in seeing the old black and white footage of Julia cracking wise while cracking two eggs at once (”don’t worry, any bits of shell will sink to the bottom”), cooking 10 second omelets on an electric stovetop (can you believe that!), her scarf hiding her Adam’s apple. But how many hours of that can one take? Moreover, how can anyone take more than a few minutes of “one skillet recipes” with that man and woman I can’t stand (”You’re so smart, it never occurred to me to add fresh garlic instead of garlic salt.”). Puhleese. How are those two moneymakers? Why do they replace America’s Test Kitchen or Everyday Foods?

While I’m on a rant ‘n’ roll, let me add my objection to all the commercials on non-commercial television. The previously understated corporate sponsorship is on it’s way to being an infomercial. Is that really what we want from public television?

I’d pay to have 28 minutes of my favorite shows instead of 24. I’d pay to see my shows when I expect them. I’d even pay to see a concert filmed in the late 60’s without comments. I’d pay to see The Great American Dream Machine again — that was Public Television.

Cue the MP3 of The Who’s “My Generation.” “I hope I die before I get old (talkin’ ’bout my generation).” mjh

PS- Some think there won’t be a PBS in another 40 years (or TV, we might hope), but it may hang on with inheritance from lonely Boomers. Imagine the fundraisers in 2050, the oldsters with their rorschach tattoos and horribly stretched piercings nodding to the venerable Eminem and SnoopDogg, Jr. “Next up, the surviving members of Gorrilaz and NiN sing a tribute to the late, great Beyoncé, ‘Dat Old Bitch Da Bomb!’ . That’s tonight’s bonus download with a donation of 500 Reagans. Peace out, Dawg!”