I was four years old, and survived physically unscathed, but my mother lost an eye and my aunt was thoroughly crippled. The large family across the street was not so fortunate -- all but one died at breakfast. It was, and still is, the dividing date in my life. During the next two and half years, I lived in seven places, three of them foster homes.
All this made me anything but a headstrong hero about anything. I learned I was not the boss anywhere, and this made me a very good boss later on, as a teacher, as the head of museums, and as the chairman of associations of various sorts. I was careful, and preferred to be understated until I showed my hand, although I know my real nature was to take charge. The Halifax Explosion took my DNA and made me what I became. On December 6 each year, I am very conscious of all this.
Thirty-five years ago President Nixon signed Title IX - a 37-word law that banned sex discrimination in federally funded education. It revolutionised US sports, changed the lives of millions of women and girls, led to the formation of a professional women's baseball league and to the US women's soccer team winning two World Cups.
More importantly, Title IX smashed to smithereens the creaky old idea that sport is somehow inherently masculine. There are 10 times as many women playing high school sports as there were in 1972. Five times as many women now play sport in college.
And beyond the statistics, there's overwhelming anecdotal evidence that Title IX is the best thing ever to happen to US sports. "When I was growing up throwing slow balls in baseball-crazed Southern Illinois," writes Hank Shaw. "I didn't know a single girl in my class who was active in sports. Fast forward to the present: six of my seven nieces love playing sports. That's all the proof I need to cheer on Title IX."
Title IX has achieved "an explosion of female Olympic stars, college and professional women's teams playing to packed stadiums, new magazines aimed at female athletes. But most of all the freedom, strength and joy of a whole generation of young women," wrote Ruth Conniff in the Nation.
In short Title IX is the bee's knees, the cat's pyjamas and the bollocks of the most enormous dog. As good things go it's up there with love, rainbows and orgasms.
Which means, of course, that it's attacked relentlessly by the gibbering jihadists of right-wing fruitcakery. Bush administration employee Jessica Gavora - former speechwriter to Newt Gingrich, John Ashcroft and Roberto Gonzalez - slammed Title IX as "affirmative androgyny" (as if that would be a bad thing). Anne Coulter - right-wing über-troll and self-confessed fan of Joe McCarthy - described Title IX as "the ultimate totalitarian folly", "crazed feminist social engineering" and an "insane feminist dream ... to change nature".
[]
[t]he heart of all the arguments against Title IX [is] the somewhat Victorian notion that sport is strictly for people with penises. Thirty-five years on, the really amazing thing about Title IX is that it's still going strong. Still forcing schools and colleges not to fob female athletes off with second-rate equipment and facilities. Still inspiring girls to do something more than just wave pom-poms on the sidelines. Still changing the world one pony-tailed midfielder at a time.
Happy birthday, Title IX.
PRESIDENT BUSH always had one asset he could fall back on: the self-confidence of a born salesman. Like Harold Hill in “The Music Man,” he knew how to roll out a new product, however deceptive or useless, with conviction and stagecraft. What the world saw on Wednesday night was a defeated Willy Loman who looked as broken as his war. His flop sweat was palpable even if you turned down the sound to deflect despair-inducing phrases like “Prime Minister Maliki has pledged ...” and “Secretary Rice will leave for the region. ...”
George Bush is preparing to make a historic shift in his position on global warming when he makes his State of the Union speech later this month, say senior Downing Street officials.
In every one of his previous State of the Union addresses, Bush has promised to push America towards energy independence:
- 2006: Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology. [1/31/2006]
- 2005: To keep our economy growing, we also need reliable supplies of affordable, environmentally responsible energy. … I urge Congress to pass legislation that makes America more secure and less dependent on foreign energy. [2/2/2005]
- 2004: Consumers and businesses need reliable supplies of energy to make our economy run — so I urge you to pass legislation to modernize our electricity system, promote conservation, and make America less dependent on foreign sources of energy. [1/20/2004]
- 2003: Our third goal is to promote energy independence for our country, while dramatically improving the environment. …Even more, I ask you to take a crucial step and protect our environment in ways that generations before us could not have imagined. [1/28/2003]
- 2002: Good jobs also depend on reliable and affordable energy. This Congress must act to encourage conservation, promote technology, build infrastructure, and it must act to increase energy production at home so America is less dependent on foreign oil. [1/29/2002]
- 2001: We can produce more energy at home while protecting our environment, and we must. We can produce more electricity to meet demand, and we must. We can promote alternative energy sources and conservation, and we must. America must become more energy-independent, and we will. [2/27/2001]
1) Don't play Bobby Convey (or DaMarcus Beasley or Eddie Lewis or ...) as a left back
2) Don't play Landon Donovan as a forward
3) Don't be so secretive
4) Don't be so conservative
5) Don't schedule friendlies away from FIFA dates
Sen. Tim Johnson has been transferred to an in-patient rehabilitation unit for “aggressive” therapy, and has started to say words, according to a statement released by his office.
“Yesterday, Senator Johnson underwent an MRI which showed that his speech centers were spared of injury. This is confirmed by the fact that he is following commands and has started to say words,” said Vivek Deshmukh, the neurosurgeon treating the senator. Johnson, a South Dakota Democrat, was hospitalized in December after a brain hemorrhage.
It is common, the statement said, for there to be a delay in speech while a person heals from bleeding in the brain. Johnson is currently being weaned off his tracheotomy tube. “The fact that Tim is beginning to use words is remarkable as is his strength and determination,” said Johnson’s wife, Barb. “He even maintains his sense of humor when I share emails about his grandsons’ adventures.” –Sarah Lueck
Update: The senator has responded correctly when asked his name, though there is not much sound coming out of his mouth because of the tracheotomy tube, his spokeswoman, Julianne Fisher, told the AP. “It is clear that he understands that people are introducing themselves, he is looking at name badges to try and associate it with the person, he is saying words and responding to commands,'’ she said. “It’s clear the electricity is on and the system is humming.'’
This comes with a huge hat tip to a good Friend of Attytood who was born 40 years ago on this date -- Happy Birthday, dude! -- and as a result is more up to speed on what happened on January 10, 1967, than the rest of us.
The big news story that night? President Lyndon B. Johnson's State of the Union address.
The topic that dominated all others: Vietnam.
I'm going to guide you to some excerpts of that address -- exactly 40 years ago tonight. See how it compares to some of the excerpts from President Bush's speech that were just released minutes ago:
LBJ, Jan. 10, 1967: We have chosen to fight a limited war in Vietnam in an attempt to prevent a larger war--a war almost certain to follow, I believe, if the Communists succeed in overrunning and taking over South Vietnam by aggression and by force. I believe, and I am supported by some authority, that if they are not checked now the world can expect to pay a greater price to check them later.
GWB, Jan. 10, 2007: Tonight in Iraq, the Armed Forces of the United States are engaged in a struggle that will determine the direction of the global war on terror – and our safety here at home. The new strategy I outline tonight will change America's course in Iraq, and help us succeed in the fight against terror.
LBJ, Jan. 10, 1967: I wish I could report to you that the conflict is almost over. This I cannot do. We face more cost, more loss, and more agony. For the end is not yet. I cannot promise you that it will come this year--or come next year. Our adversary still believes, I think, tonight, that he can go on fighting longer than we can, and longer than we and our allies will be prepared to stand up and resist.
GWB, Jan. 10, 2007: Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have.
But I'm not here to talk about the past.
"No one should be surprised that 2006 is the hottest year on record for the U.S.," said Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a public interest group. "When you look at temperatures across the globe, every single year since 1993 has been in the top 20 warmest years on record."
"Realistically, we have to start fighting global warming in the next 10 years if we want to secure a safe environment for our children and grandchildren," she said.
describing climate change as "way, way in the future, with a high degree of uncertainty".
A C-SPAN caller from Mississippi, this morning around 7:57 AM EST, presented his historic memory for national rumination before Mr. Bush's latest political attempt to save his doomed, lie-strewn presidency :
I do not believe that the President has a real good grasp of reality.
I don’t believe that he, uh, values the lives of enlisted men.
I served with him in the early 1970s.
I was in the Louisiana National Guard when he flew in from Texas.
He got drunk on a Fri--on a Saturday night.
He couldn’t fly out on Sunday morning.
And, from his treatment of me and other young people waiting for him to sober up on the Flight Line from 7 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon…It taught me that that man just didn’t respect enlisted people…That’s true.
Mr Johnson's spokeswoman, Julianne Fisher, told news agencies that the senator's condition "had been upgraded from critical to fair".
"The senator continues to make progress," she said, adding: "The next step would be rehabilitation and we hope that would happen within the week."
There is no better example, the study says, than Toyota Motor Corp.'s Prius. The study concludes that a Prius owner over five years will save $13,408 over a similar-size sedan that is not a hybrid.
Households in the top 1 percent of earnings, which had an average income of $1.25 million, saw their effective individual tax rates drop to 19.6 percent in 2004 from 24.2 percent in 2000.
The conflict is one of many that a Times investigation has found between the foundation's investments and its good works. The Gates Foundation reaps vast profits every year from companies whose actions contradict its mission of improving society in the United States and around the world, particularly the lot of people afflicted by poverty and disease.
The Times has found that the Gates Foundation had major investments in:
• Mortgage companies that were accused in lawsuits or by government officials of making it easier for thousands of people to lose their homes.
• A healthcare firm that has agreed to pay more than $1.5 billion to settle lawsuits accusing it of medical lapses and fraud going back a decade.
• Chocolate companies said by the U.S. government to be profiting from the slave labor of children.
Critics fault the Gates Foundation most for failing to use the power of its immense wealth to improve the behavior of the companies in which it invests. At the end of 2005, the foundation's endowment stood at $35 billion. In June 2006, Warren E. Buffett, the world's second-richest man after Bill Gates, pledged to add about $31 billion.
That $66 billion will give the Gates Foundation more than 10% of the assets of all of the charitable foundations in the United States and provide it with unmatched muscle and potential moral authority. Though it does a vast amount of good with its grants, the foundation declines to use its influence in efforts to reform companies whose business practices flout its goals.
I began writing about the Bush administration’s infallibility complex, the president’s Captain Queeg-like inability to own up to mistakes, almost a year before the invasion of Iraq. When you put a man like that in a position of power — the kind of position where he can punish people who tell him what he doesn’t want to hear, and base policy decisions on the advice of people who play to his vanity — it’s a recipe for disaster.
* McCain went from saying he would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade to saying the exact opposite.
* McCain criticized TV preacher Jerry Falwell as “an agent of intolerance” in 2002, but has since decided to cozy up to the man who said Americans “deserved” the 9/11 attacks. (Indeed, McCain has now hired Falwell’s debate coach.)
* McCain used to oppose Bush’s tax cuts for the very wealthy, but he reversed course in February.
[]
And now McCain has gone from insisting that the war in Iraq would be easy to insisting that he’s always said the war in Iraq would be hard. And yet, you’ll still find most of the political establishment arguing that McCain’s strength as a candidate is his credibility.
Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.
The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.
Tourist fighting his way off the train: Look, people. You actually have to let us out of the train before you can get on.
Old guy: This is New York, son. A simple 'Fuck you' will do.
So what's up? Here's what I think is up -- and if I were Bush I would be itching to get on with the game.
Move 1: Announce what the administration knows will be a very unpopular decision to send more troops to Iraq.
Move 2: Let the Democrat-controlled Congress throw a fit and hold hearings the administration knows will stir up additional opposition and shake loose new damning information on the administrations march to war and mismanagement of that war.
Move 3: Just when all the above is hitting the fan, Dick Cheney announces he is retiring from office early due to “health concerns," and because he does not want to be "a distraction" when he is called to testify in purjury trial of his former No. 2. Scooter Libby.
Move 4: The next day Bush announces he will nominate Condoleezza Rice to replace Cheney.
Move 5: At the same time Bush announces he is nominating Negroponte to replace Rice as Secretary of State.
Federal district court judges are paid $165,200 annually; appeals court judges make $175,100; associate justices of the Supreme Court earn $203,000; the chief justice gets $212,100.
Thirty-eight judges have left the federal bench in the past six years and 17 in the past two years.
The issue of pay, says Roberts, "has now reached the level of a constitutional crisis."
WASHINGTON - President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.
The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.
That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.
LONDON (Reuters) - This year is set to be the hottest on record worldwide due to global warming and the El Nino weather phenomenon, Britain's Meteorological Office said on Thursday.
The Met Office said the combination of factors would likely push average temperatures this year above the record set in 1998. 2006 is set to be the sixth warmest on record globally.
"This new information represents another warning that climate change is happening around the world," said Met Office scientist Katie Hopkins.
The world's 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1994 in a temperature record dating back a century and a half, according to the United Nations' weather agency.
MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.
THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.
HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.
AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.
POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.
THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.
• Just days after defeating Shannon O’Brien, Romney made a sanctimonious pledge not to make patronage appointments. "I look for people who get jobs based on what they know, not who they know," he said. Romney went so far as to say that "political connections "will be held against an applicant for a job in his administration: "That will have to be something that’s overcome, that will not be an advantage, that will be a disadvantage."2002 Boston Phoenix editorial.
Governor Mitt Romney, despite his stated opposition to patronage appointments, installed more than 200 Republican activists, current and former state employees, and others to boards and commissions in December, including departing Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey. [] He appointed about 200 people to boards in December and about 100 in November, according to a Globe tally.Boston Globe, January 3, 2007
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAUNTON MA
600 AM EST MON JAN 01 2007
...WARMEST FINISH OF ANY YEAR IN BOSTON...
...WARMEST DECEMBER AND WARMEST NOVEMBER-DECEMBER COMBINATION
RECORDED AT BOSTON/S LOGAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT...
THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE FOR DECEMBER 2006 WAS 41.1 DEGREES IN
BOSTON. THIS BEATS THE PREVIOUS RECORD OF 40.7 DEGREES SET IN 1990.
THE NORMAL DECEMBER MONTHLY AVERAGE TEMPERATURE IS 34.8 DEGREES
WITH A DECEMBER 2006 DEPARTURE OF +6.3 DEGREES.
IN ADDITION...THE COMBINED AVERAGE TEMPERATURE FOR NOVEMBER AND
DECEMBER 2006 WAS APPROXIMATELY 45.1 DEGREES. THIS BEATS THE
PREVIOUS RECORD OF 44.6 DEGREES SET DURING THE COMBINED MONTHS
OF NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER 1990.
THERE WERE 19 CONSECUTIVE DAYS WITH ABOVE NORMAL AVERAGE
TEMPERATURES FROM DECEMBER 10TH THROUGH DECEMBER 28TH AND
24 DAYS ABOVE NORMAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURES IN DECEMBER 2006.
OFFICIAL RECORDS HAVE BEEN KEPT SINCE 1872.
The morning our 20-year-old daughter Lee took sick with her last illness, I was trying to write a letter of sympathy wondering what I could say, asking myself if it would make any difference.
Five days later I knew. It made a difference.
I discovered it was better to reach out than turn away, to say the wrong thing than say nothing.
But in living through Lee's loss and others I also discovered I had something to say to others who suffered the loss of someone they loved.
Pain is better than forgetting.
It is almost eighteen years but Lee is still with us. The pain is not so much lessened as it has become familiar, like the pain that continues in the leg that has been amputated. Her death is part of us.
I steel myself pretty well for the expected moments of pain. Her birthday in March, her deathday in August, Thanksgiving, Christmas, even, these days, listening to an Albinoni oboe concerto knowing it is not her practicing in the next room.
But there is no protection from the blindside hit. Lee waves from a passing car. She appears ahead of me on a street in Sienna, wearing a backpack, I rush to catch up with her but she turns a corner and is gone.
She stands in the shadows, just outside the living room. I hear her counsel when I have a problem and pay attention. At the concert I sit beside her in the center of the orchestra as she invited me to sit beside her during an orchestral rehearsal at the University of Massachusetts and we are again surrounded by music.
It is not all tears. We laugh at the same old jokes - and some new ones. Every submarine sandwich I eat, I share it with Lee. It was her favorite.
When I was dying in a heart attack, Lee stood - in the blue jumper she had made - waiting at the end of a brightly lit tunnel, smiling.
But, I often say in a letter of sympathy, people will want you to get over it, snap out of it, buck up, forget.
Of course we have to get on with life, to find salvation in routine that suddenly seems trivial, to fulfill our responsibilities to the living. But not to forget.
It would be the most terrible sadness if the memory of that person who has died were erased.
It is far better to remember, to mourn, to weep, to rage, than to allow the one who is gone to disappear.
In a way I welcome the pain. I hurt; I remember.
So, I say in my sympathy letter, they should learn to accept the pain, even in a way welcome it, by comparing it to the terror of forgetting.
And as an elder of the tribe who has experienced loss, I write for them to remember in their own way, to mourn in their own way, to do what would be appropriate for the person who has gone, and, more important, to do what needs to be done for the living.
I could sleep on the floor of the waiting room as I slept in battle. Minnie Mae could not sleep. No right, no wrong.
The night Lee died we went to a musical in which her sister was appearing in the chorus. Lee would have wanted that, no matter if others approved.
We - her immediate family - chose cremation because it was what we thought she would have wanted and it was, we discovered what each of us wanted for ourselves. We paid no attention to the relative who said, "I don't know how you could burn her up."
We did what we had to do.
We could not handle a formal funeral, bringing the family from afar, after her quick dying, so we had a private service at the grave side.
I wept - frequently - and Minnie Mae did not. No guilt, no public measuring of pain. I dream of Lee and Minnie Mae does not. That does not mean that one of us mourns more deeply than the other. No guilt. No keeping score.
We love in our own way; we grieve in our own way.
And in this terrible loss we have found strength. When we are tested by other events, we have a measure of our ability to survive.
And we were also reminded that life is fragile.
In my letters reaching out I tell others what Lee's passing taught us: to listen to each other and to ourselves, to live the gift of life with caring and celebration. Today. Right now.
It is said to be the largest break in 25 years, casting an ice floe with an area of 66 sq km (25 square miles).
It occurred in August 2005 but was only recently detected on satellite images.
The chunk of ice bigger than Manhattan could wreak havoc if it moves into oil drilling regions and shipping lanes next summer, scientists warned.
The more than two million senior citizens nationwide who signed up last year for Humana Inc.'s least expensive Medicare prescription drug plan face average premium increases of 60 percent -- and in seven states, increases of 466 percent -- starting tomorrow . The higher prices will affect about 50,000 seniors in Massachusetts, where premiums are going up by 130 percent, from $7.32 to $16.90 a month.
Medicare added the prescription drug benefit in 2006, and in most states dozens of drug plans with varying coverage are available through insurance companies. Healthcare advocates say Humana kept its prices low in 2006 to gain market share. The strategy may prove lucrative, they say, because many seniors spent considerable time researching and selecting their drug insurance and were unlikely to switch plans for 2007, despite increased premiums.
[]
Under Part D, seniors who go without drug coverage will pay higher prices if they eventually decide to buy it. As a result, many seniors who did not need prescription drugs in 2006 signed up with Humana's low-cost plan simply to avoid having to pay more if they needed coverage in the future.
"Some of them took the plan even though they were only taking aspirin," said Nancy Roper , a volunteer for Action for Boston Community Development who counsels low-income seniors on drug plan choices. "Now, this jumps to $16.90 for 2007, and they're calling and asking is it worth it. It's a hardship."
Even Mr. Milk is dead. The grocer we called by the name of his landmark shop in the upscale Mansour district was kidnapped and killed, along with his son, my colleagues said. The owner of a DVD shop where I once purchased a copy of "Napoleon Dynamite" also had been executed.
So many blindfolded, tortured corpses turn up that an Iraqi co-worker recently told me it was "a slow day" when 17 bodies were found. Typically, the figure is 40 or more. When the overflowing morgue at Yarmouk Hospital was bombed last month, one of our drivers wearily muttered, "How many times can they kill us?"
Even the toughest of my Iraqi colleagues hit their breaking points after experiencing the indignity of being forced from their homes, the trauma of a bomb outside a doorstep, the grief for a cousin killed by a mortar, the shame of staying silent while a neighbor's house was torched.
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