Remixing the African image

from the July 10, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0710/p20s01-woaf.html

A landmark exhibit parallels the identity struggles of the continent's people and artistic expressions.

By Stephanie Hanes Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Johannesburg, South Africa

It seems wrong to try to describe Simon Njami. Wrong, at least, to suggest that the superficial details mean anything.

This is a man, after all, who has spent a career fighting the implications behind labels such as "African" – a writer and art curator who has long challenged conclusions based on birthplace or skin tone, nationality or language.

But here, in the Johannesburg Art Gallery, days before the African opening of Mr. Njami's world-renowned contemporary art exhibit "Africa Remix" is one glimpse: Standing in front of a pack of journalists, Njami is poker-faced, with dry humor just this side of haughty. What does he think about this exhibit, which has been in the finest museums of Europe, finally coming to Africa, one reporter asks him.

"Well, I've heard that it was an African exhibit with African artists," Njami answers. "So I think it makes sense to have it in Africa."

For this press preview he wears a dark mock turtleneck and blazer, a charcoal scarf, and black sunglasses – the picture of a Parisian intellectual. He speaks so softly that even one on one a listener must lean in to hear. (Although when he's at a microphone in front of hundreds of museum patrons, or on a discussion panel with his artists, he is extroverted and loud, almost a ham.) He walks quickly from piece to piece, but at each he pauses and looks – briefly, but contemplatively and fully – before giving the vital statistics of the artist.

"Goncalo Mabunda. Mozambican. Lives and works in Mozambique," he says standing next to an Eiffel Tower made of melted weapons. On the nearby wall, a figure – half voluptuous Boucher nude, half Osama bin Laden – rests upon an American flag speckled with Harley Davidson motorcycles. It is called "Great American Nude," by Sudanese artist Hassan Musa.

"You come to Africa and you expect to see people with bones in their nose," Njami says, not quite able to contain a smile. "And we might go to America and expect that everything will be Harley Davidson."

***

Your picture of Njami at this point is probably off. Unless you're already familiar with him, all you have is a brief sketch by a reporter who doesn't know him well. And even this portrait is colored by your own expectations – of artists, of writers, and especially of Africans. Does Njami fit your picture of what Africa "is"?

See if his background helps: Njami was born in Switzerland. His parents had left their native Cameroon because his father had criticized authoritarian leader Ahmadou Ahidjo. Njami's mother, a psychoanalyst, returned to Cameroon each time she was pregnant with one of Njami's four siblings because his father wanted all of his children to be born there. But when it was Njami's turn, he says, "she was too busy."

So, for the rest of his life, when people ask him where he was born, Njami replies with a European country rather than an African one. It doesn't matter that he took regular trips to Cameroon, or that his grandparents spoke to him only in the Bassa language. Njami was not really African. Well, kind of African. But not really.

When Njami was 13, Ahidjo jailed his father, who'd returned to Cameroon to help reform the university system. His mother moved the family to Paris, where Njami started grappling with the question of identity. He remembers friends talking to him about how "Africans were like this, or Africans were like that – pretending I was not African."

But what were Africans "like"? Why did some people deny his African-ness, while others saw in his face nothing but Africa? What did that mean for him, to say that he was African? The questions lingered through his studies at the Sorbonne, and came out in his first novel. Soon, it helped push him toward art.

"I did my first show because of these representation problems," he says. "I was going to museums, to galleries, and I would not see any African name. But with my trips in Africa, I could see good writers, good artists, whatever. But in Paris, it was like they were invisible."

Whenever there was "African art," it was always traditional art – beaded animals and woven baskets. In 1991, Njami cofounded the journal Revue Noire to convince people that contemporary African art existed. It was a sort of traveling gallery – a way of reaching those unable to go to a museum.

Nine years later, he started on a new project: Africa Remix. This would be an exhibit of 85 artists from 25 countries, with wildly contrasting work in all varieties of mediums – paintings, sculpture, photography, video.

Njami "was certainly well established and probably most known for Revue Noire," says Clive Kellner, the director of the Johannesburg Art Gallery. "And he was certainly well known in Francophone circles. Africa Remix has made him more global." The exhibit launched in Düsseldorf, Germany and traveled through London, Paris, Tokyo, and Stockholm.

Across the world, those searching to answer "What is Africa?" could delve into Africa Remix. And then, of course, they would find themselves totally, utterly lost. The vast range of expression would make it impossible.

***

Maybe it is best to let the story of this Johannesburg exhibition speak for itself. That's what Njami says: Art and artists can tell their own stories – and in those stories is truth about what it is to be African. Part of the truth, at least.

Once, Njami wanted to take Africa Remix to northern, central, and southern Africa. He liked the idea of moving the center of African art away from Europe and he wanted African audiences to learn from his show. Then logistics got in the way. Few museums in Africa could support Africa Remix's complicated artwork. (One piece, for instance, turns a room into a pond with stepping stones. When a visitor steps on a stone, a bit of a poem plays over a sound system.)

But Mr. Kellner knew his free-entrance public museum could accommodate it. And last year, when he saw Africa Remix in Paris, he decided to bring it to South Africa. "We would like an exhibition of contemporary African art to take place in Africa," Kellner says. "Also, it was to symbolically make a gesture to Europe to say, 'We are also capable to host these sorts of events.' "

Kellner raised the $500,000 cash and $800,000 in-kind and media donations to fund the exhibit, which will last through September.

***

More than 2,000 people came to the opening last month – the highest attendance in the museum's 97-year history. Gallery regulars mixed with people who had never set foot in a museum before; those from the suburbs stared at artwork alongside township teenagers. The crowd was racially mixed. When Njami heard that traffic outside the museum was causing chaos in downtown Johannesburg, the curator was pleased. "Africa has been written about and talked about extensively," he said to the crowd. "It's important for Africans to have those voices heard. It is important for Africa to stop looking at Europe as if Europe has all the answers."

Artists are the best ones to lead Africa down this path, Njami said.

"Artists are free."

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Airport security lines: detour ahead

from the July 10, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0710/p02s01-usgn.html

Registered traveler programs, which speed preapproved fliers through checkpoints, are set to expand to 20 US airports in '08.

By Alexandra Marks Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

New York

The E-Z Pass of the air could be coming soon to an airport near you.

The registered traveler program, conceived after 9/11 as a way to speed frequent fliers through airports' long and unpredictable security lines, is finally gaining national momentum.

Though it isn't expected to be operational in enough airports to ease those jam-packed security lines for this peak flying season, it should help by next summer, when as many as 20 major airports are expected to have special security lanes for registered travelers.

With planes packed to record capacity and security concerns heightened after the foiled terrorist attacks in Britain, the expansion of the registered traveler (RT) program at least may give passengers something to look forward to as they pad barefoot through metal detectors this summer.

Some analysts say the RT program could spur a series of new conveniences at airports, such as special RT parking lots and waiting rooms. Eventually, RT cards could be used to ease screening logjams at places like sports stadiums and large concerts, they say.

But many see another benefit to RT: It could help struggling airlines improve their bottom lines by cutting the hassle factor enough to entice more people back to the air.

"The most profound aspect of this could be its impact on airlines' revenues, profits, and share prices," says Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition in Radnor, Pa. "That's because the last six passengers generally make a difference between profit and loss on a given flight and, since 9/11, there's been a falloff in business travel that's never rebounded."

Only six airports currently have RT programs that provide a special security lane for people willing to pay a one-time fee of $100, go through a background check, and a biometric iris scan. That number could triple by next summer, with busy airports in cities such as Atlanta, Washington, and Newark, N.J., adding the program.

The goal is to make air travel easier for everyone who hops a flight, not just for the wing-tipped briefcase crowd. The idea is the same as for E-Z Pass: There's less traffic congestion for everyone when passholders can speed through the toll booths.

"Our customers spend between 30 seconds and four minutes going through security – sometimes it's five or six minutes on a very busy Monday morning," says Steve Brill, founder of CLEAR, a private company that operates the first and largest of the RT programs. "For everybody else, it's five minutes to an hour. The issue is predictability."

It's estimated that RT lanes can process three times more people than a garden-variety security line. That's because registered travelers have already undergone a background check and in some places, like Orlando International in Florida, they even get to keep their shoes on during screening. But perhaps more important, say analysts, is that registered travelers are regular fliers like Henry Morgan, a regional manager of Highline Products who departs out of the Orlando airport.

He takes to the skies so often he's already got the change out of his pockets and any liquids out of his carry-on long before he gets to the security line. He was one of the first people to sign up for CLEAR's RT pilot program when it started almost two years ago in Orlando.

"I wish it were all over the country," Mr. Morgan says of the RT program. "I've seen lines an hour an a half long on many occasions. It's horrendous. With CLEAR, I'm through security from start to finish in five minutes. It's the predictability and it's helped me get through by the skin of my teeth on more than one occasion."

The program is a kind of public-private partnership. The federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA) certifies private companies such as CLEAR and sets security standards.
The companies, in turn, contract with airports and airlines to provide their services.

Some security analysts are worried that "sleeper cell" terrorists could become registered travelers and, in that way, exploit the system. TSA, though, notes that registered travelers still go through screening before boarding a plane. Moreover, the background check system for the RT program is the same as the one used to give clearance to airport employees and those who work on the tarmac, Mr. Brill says. CLEAR's system is updated each day with new information, and a person's RT status can be revoked immediately if questions are raised about that individual.

TSA also allows RT companies to experiment with new technology and, if it works, will let them use it.

At New York's John Kennedy International Airport and at the Orlando airport, the shoe-scanners in CLEAR lanes are a case in point. Mr. Brill hopes that TSA will soon give its permission to deploy the shoe-scanner at all CLEAR sites.

"The good news is that they asked us to come up with technology ideas. The other good news is that we came up with technology ideas," says Brill. "But the bad news is that approval is frustratingly slow."

Brill's company is working with other firms to develop a scanner that will allow registered travelers to keep their jackets on and another that could make it possible for travelers to bring their laptops in their cases.

Other companies, such as Unisys, have also begun offering airports registered traveler programs.

Brill and others are working, too, to expand the RT program internationally.

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A hunt for the T. rex of anole lizards

from the July 12, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0712/p18s02-hfes.html

A trip to Puerto Rico in search of a giant shrinking reptile.

By Lawrence Millman

Culebra, Puerto Rico

Not too long ago I picked up an old travel book about Puerto Rico and read of a rare giant lizard, Anolis roosevelti, on the island of Culebra.

"Fame will visit anyone who finds this elusive creature," the author of the book proclaimed. Since Fame had thus far given me a rather wide berth, I hopped a plane to San Juan and then a smaller plane to Culebra.

By the time I arrived on the island, the lizard had shrunk. The book had described it as four feet long, but the local Fish and Wildlife person told me that it was no more than a foot long from snout to vent – hardly competition for a T. rex. Still, A. roosevelti is a T. rex compared with other anoles, which are among the smallest of all lizards.

I also learned that this giant among anoles had not been sighted since 1932. Not officially sighted, that is. But there were anecdotal reports of it being seen in the forested areas on Monte Resaca, Culebra's highest summit (height: 650 feet), as recently as a few years ago.

So I drove to the base of Monte Resaca and started bushwhacking.

Trusting in serendipity, I expected to see the anole in question basking on every boulder as well as ascending every gumbo-limbo tree. I was so intent on my search that I lost all sense of direction and ended up in someone's backyard.

A Culebran tending his garden looked up at me in surprise. My usual ploy when I trespass like this is to advance confidently toward the person, shake his hand, and announce in a punctilious English accent: "Dr. Basil Withers of the British Antarctic Survey. Jolly good to meet you, old chap."

Since this ploy would not work in the subtropics, I said, "Hello, Señor. Seen any big lagartos around here lately?"

"Sí," the man replied. "All the time."

"What's their habitat?" I asked excitedly.

"In my bathroom," he answered. He invited me in, where I saw the lagartos skittering around on the wall. They were geckos, not anoles, and they weren't even all that big.

Serendipity had gotten me nowhere, so I got in touch with Beverly Macintyre, who knew the island's backcountry intimately. She mentioned a particular boulder canyon on Monte Resaca, just the sort of place, she said, where a giant anole might hang out. Then she referred to recent development on Culebra; if it continued at its current breakneck pace, she said, a lot more creatures than A. roosevelti would be either endangered or extinct.

In our search for the lizard, Beverly and I entered not so much the forest primeval as the forest prickly. Ground-hugging cacti jabbed us, mesquite bushes stabbed us, saw-toothed bromeliads slashed at us, and a plant known locally as Fire Man (Tragia volubilis) delivered stings that make the stings of a stinging nettle seem positively genteel.

And to add to it, at one point I was gazing up at what turned out to be a green tree iguana and walked into a barbed wire fence.

We did not see a giant anole. We did not even see one of the small anoles that reputedly were common on the island. But near the end of our trek, we did witness this unusual sight: a man on a horse with reins in one hand and a cellphone in the other.

The next morning, as I took a respite from my search, I began noticing other curious sights. A sign in a shop window in Dewey, the island's only town, said: "Open Some Days, Closed Others." A road sign indicated Termina Carretera (End of Road) when, in fact, the road did not end at all.

And in the afternoon, I was sitting on Flamenco Beach when a person in an old-fashioned diving bell emerged from the sea. At the north end of the beach, there was a tank left over from the days when the US Navy used Culebra for war games; in this setting, it had a very surreal quality.

I began to think that I had fetched up on some sort of Caribbean fantasy island – an ideal habitat for, among other things, an incredible shrinking lizard.

Several days later, I still hadn't found the anole in question. My trip was coming to an end, so I asked Teresa Tallevast, the manager of the Culebra National Wildlife Refuge, if there was any area I might have overlooked. She suggested that I check out the trail that wound down from Monte Resaca to Playa Resaca.

Soon I was hiking on this steep trail. Every once in a while I would stop and peer into the surrounding bush. At one point I thought I saw a finned reptilian tail disappear into a tangle of mesquite, but that could have been my imagination ... or another iguana.

At the bottom, the trail meandered through a labyrinth of white mangroves. I looked up at the trees' gnarled branches and then down at their arching prop roots.

Still no anole.

At last I came out on Playa Resaca, a long, yellow swath of sand where I was the only person in sight. The sun was blisteringly hot, but I didn't go for a swim. Resaca means undertow in Spanish, and if I had gone swimming, I might have washed ashore on the west coast of Africa or, at the very least, in the Virgin Islands.

Suddenly I saw what appeared to be the tread marks of an 18-wheeler in the sand. I was outraged. But then I realized that the tread marks were actually the flipper imprints of a female leatherback turtle who'd plodded ashore the night before to lay her eggs. Weighing a thousand pounds or more, such creatures are the reptilian equivalent of giant rigs; unlike those rigs, however, leatherbacks are an endangered species. I counted myself extremely fortunate to see even the tracks of one.

And so it was that my quest for a rare reptile on Culebra ended in success.

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Should US cities try a London-style camera network?

from the July 11, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0711/p01s04-ussc.html

New York plans to install a permanent, extensive system for lower Manhattan by year's end.

By Alexandra Marks Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

New York

The speed with which London's ubiquitous surveillance cameras helped identify would-be bombers has prompted calls for extensive closed-circuit television networks in the US.
In the first such public effort in the US, New York is planning to begin the installation of a similar, permanent system for lower Manhattan by year's end.

In the struggle against terrorism at home, its backers say CCTV is both a forensic tool and a deterrent to all but the most dedicated suicide bombers. Sophisticated imaging technology allows cameras to alert police to unattended packages, zoom in on objects hundreds of feet away, identify license plates, and "mine" archived footage for specific data.

Opponents contend that this very technology is overly intrusive and open to abuse, raising serious constitutional questions. They also note that surveillance cameras not only are helpless against suicide bombings, but also that perpetrators may use video records to try to glorify their acts.

The British system was developed in the 1970s and '80s with little public discussion, in response to attacks by the Irish Republican Army. By the 1990s, technology improvements made it a key tool in the security cordon around central London known as the "ring of steel."

But the US has a very different constitutional system, some experts say, one that requires vigorous public debate before the government wires cities with a similar network of live, roving electronic eyes.

"We haven't even begun to have that debate over here about what that means in terms of surrendering privacy," says Ronald Marks, senior fellow at the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute. "[Closed-circuit television] is a security measure that is effective in identifying people, but I don't know how effective it ... is at stopping them."

Millions of private cameras already guard building entrances, chemical plants, and malls. Most police departments in big cities, such as New York and Los Angeles, use surveillance cameras in high-crime areas and to identify traffic scofflaws. Most of those recordings have to be downloaded so the images can be analyzed.

A government surveillance center

American cities, however, don't have extensive live networks tied to a central surveillance center like London's. New York's plan is the first to emulate it.

The first 115 cameras are expected to be operating by the end of the year. By 2010, as many as 3,000 cameras could be installed. One-third would be owned by the New York Police Department and the other two-thirds by private security agencies working with businesses. All the images would feed into a surveillance center staffed by both the NYPD and private security agents.

The system will be able to identify license plates and can alert police to unattended packages or vehicles that repeatedly circle the same block. Eventually, it will be tied to a series of movable roadblocks that can be activated, with the push of a button, from the NYPD's surveillance office.

Such systems make the environment "operationally more dangerous" for terrorists, says Brian Jenkins, a terrorism expert at the RAND Corp. "They make it more difficult for attackers, short of those who are willing to commit suicide. That reduces the number of attackers and reduces the number of bombs in the operation."

He cites differences between the 2004 Madrid and 2006 Mumbai (Bombay) train bombings and the 2005 London bombings. Attackers in Madrid and Mumbai, who were not suicide bombers, placed several bombs and killed more than 200 people in each attack. London's four suicide bombers had only the bombs on their backs and killed 52.

"Fifty-two deaths is still tragic, but it's better than 200," says Mr. Jenkins.

Cameras enabled police in London to identify the 2005 bombers quickly. In the attempted attacks in London on June 29, police used the cameras to track and identify the alleged culprits and arrest them.

"That accelerated the investigation, and they were able to reassure the public that the perpetrators of this particular attack aren't still on the run," says Jenkins. "That has the effect of reducing the fear and terror that the attackers hoped to create."

But critics of such extensive surveillance say the deterrent effects are exaggerated.

"It just doesn't work," says Bruce Schneier, a security technology expert based in Minneapolis. "If you own a 7-Eleven and put a camera in your store and a robber robs the liquor store next door, that's money well spent. But if you're the town police, that's money wasted. You haven't reduced crime: You've just moved it around." As for New York's plan to emulate London's "ring of steel," he says, "At best, the terrorists would go bomb Boston instead."

Cost estimates for New York's complete system are $90 million. The first phase, which covers lower Manhattan and includes a surveillance center, will cost $25 million.

New York is "taking a page out of the London playbook, ... enamored with the idea of 'doing no small thing,'" says David Gaier, a public transportation security expert. But "the information overload will mean a lot of wasted time and effort that would be better spent elsewhere," he warns. Resources would be better spent employing more police and bomb-sniffing dogs and improving overall intelligence, say Messrs. Gaier and Schneier.

But advocates of camera surveillance argue that the cameras are a wise investment – a cost-effective equivalent of putting a police officer or London bobby on every corner or at every subway stop that needs one.

An ever-present eye

Concerns about cameras' intrusiveness – and how law-enforcement officers will use the images – remain paramount for civil libertarians and privacy advocates. Cameras today, they note, far surpass a police officer's ability to see the surroundings: They can rotate 360 degrees, zoom in on license plates hundreds of feet away, and see in the dark. They create a video record for police to archive and data-mine for decades. When used aboard helicopters and blimps, they can blanket large swaths of a city with live surveillance. All of this, they say, is open to abuse by government officials.

The New York Civil Liberties Union, in a report on the NYPD's use of video surveillance during the 2004 Republican National Convention, notes that officers aboard a helicopter who used infrared technology to videotape a nighttime demonstration spotted a couple embracing on a rooftop and filmed them. The four-minute footage eventually made it onto the Internet.

Jeffrey Rosner, one of the two in the tape, is quoted in the report as saying, "When you watch the tape, it makes you feel kind of ill. I had no idea they were filming me. Who would ever have an idea like that?"

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Now playing at the EU: soft porn

from the July 11, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0711/p08s01-comv.html

The European Union is falling for sex as a legitimate marketing tool. That sends the wrong message.

Three million and growing: That's the number of Web clicks on a steamy promotional video on the European Union's new link to YouTube. Two hundred and crawling: That's the number of clicks on an EU road-safety video. Sadly, the EU has fallen for the tawdry marketing motto that sex sells.

First, a little background. The EU has a tough time selling itself to skeptical Europeans. In 2005, the French and Dutch rejected a proposed EU constitution, and the continentals are pushing back at the idea of adding more members to this club of 27 countries.

But in the cultural realm, apparently, it's easier to make the case for togetherness, especially when it's spiced with a 44-second sprint through 18 torrid sex scenes taken from European films. The clip is one of five that advertise the EU's support for European cinema.

Moral objections to the vulgar snippet have been especially strong in heavily Roman Catholic Poland. But the official EU response is to decry the criticism as an "outbreak of prudery," and a comment that "the European Union is not the [American] Bible Belt."

What a tired defense – a repeat of the invalid argument that morality is a narrow-minded, oldfashioned matter for the faithful, while graphic, sexual openness is cool and, besides that, a very successful marketing tool.

In buying this view, the EU is actually contributing to the mainstreaming of pornography, a growing and disturbing global phenomenon. Whether it's on the Internet, in magazines, music videos, ads, or fashion, sexed-up imagery is ubiquitous. Soft porn has moved from underwear retailers to nonprofits.

With the EU video clip, it's reached the point of taxpayer funding. That only adds to the offense.
Europeans might maintain that the sexual imagery they use is a more "natural" portrayal, while it's the Americans who are doing damage by combining sex and violence in the media and turning girls into women through sexed-up images of adolescents as adults and adults as adolescents.

Indeed, the American Psychological Association released a study in February on the sexualization of girls that found such imagery can lead to depression, eating disorders, low self-esteem, poor school performance, and can also negatively affect girls' sexual development.

Ask the Dutch, meanwhile, what they now think about "natural" prostitution after nearly 20 years of legalization. International crime groups have moved into Dutch brothels and cross-border trafficking of women and children has increased. Politicians from the left and right now support closing at least some of the brothels.

Prostitution, of course, is not the same as the common practice of many European news magazines to feature topless women – or the same as the offending EU video. But they have this in common: They present people (most often females) as a summation of body parts, as mere objects valued for looks and sexual performance. This buries an individual's humanity, respect, and self-worth.

The EU should realize that not every popular trend should be paraded before the public. Soft-porn imagery is not only morally offensive, but harmful. Sex may sell, sadly, but it comes at a cost, too. Governments should know better.

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How to turn a 401(k) into a socially responsible investment

from the July 09, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0709/p16s01-wmgn.html

Financial Q&A: Readers' money questions answered

By Steve Dinnen

Q: I'm searching for a socially responsible place for a 401(k) that I have with an ex-employer. It's very important that I be able to add to the account automatically with pretax dollars.
R.R., via e-mail

A: Many mutual fund companies offer socially responsible investments. Two that spring to the mind of Kim Anderson, a certified financial planner in Colombia, Md., are Calvert Mutual Funds and Domini Social Investments. Socially responsible investing can focus on a lot of different issues, such as improving the environment, empowering women, or enhancing product safety, says Ms. Anderson. "So look for mutual funds that emphasize the same issues that are important to you."

Moving the 401(k) to a socially responsible fund of your choosing is easy enough: Just contact the new investment company and tell them you want to roll over money from that employer's plan. They'll handle the paperwork and you won't be liable for any taxes.

Contributing pretax dollars to the new account is another matter. These new contributions may not be pretax, depending on your income level and whether you or your spouse are eligible to participate in an employer-sponsored retirement plan. The rollover fund administrator, or your tax adviser, will be able to tell you whether you qualify. Sorry, but those are the rules of the game.

If you qualify, you can arrange for automatic deposits. Ms. Anderson points out that you'll only be able to contribute $4,000 to your IRA in 2007 (or $5,000 if you are over the age of 50) versus $15,500 to a 401(k) (or $20,500 if you are over the age of 50).

Questions about finances? Ask us at:

Work & Money Q&AThe Christian Science Monitor1 Norway StreetBoston, MA 02115

E-mail: Work & Money

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The poor need help, not hidden taxes

from the July 09, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0709/p17s01-wmgn.html

Taxes on cigarettes and liquor hit poor people harder than the rich, but the 'voluntary tax' of state lotteries hits them hardest of all.

By David R. Francis columnist

A government needs revenues. So what does it do? It taxes the poor. That happens too often, says Michael Davis, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) in Dallas. "It's politically expedient."

The poor don't vote in elections to the degree the middle class and the rich do. Nor do they often contribute to political campaign funds. They don't have much money left over for that after paying for housing, food, and clothing.

And the poor squawk less over tax hikes.

One frequent way the poor get hit is additional "sin taxes" – taxes placed on gambling, tobacco, and alcoholic beverages. Because the poor tend to consume more of these items per capita than do those who are better off, poorer people bear a disproportionate share of that tax burden.

State legislators can and do argue that taxing cigarettes and liquor discourages these often-harmful habits. And, they may add, expanding state-sponsored lotteries or other gambling can provide revenues for positive government activities, such as education.

At the federal level, Sen. Gordon Smith (R) of Oregon is proposing legislation to expand spending for the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides insurance for children from poor (and some not-so-poor) families. He'd finance it by boosting the federal excise tax on cigarettes.

Critics say sin taxes are a poor way to boost revenues.

For instance, Senator Smith's proposed hike in federal cigarette taxes – from 39 cents to $1 a pack – would transfer wealth from smokers to non-smokers, says Patrick Fleenor, chief economist of the conservative Tax Foundation. And since the poor are more likely to smoke, the tax would fall most heavily on them.

In general, though, raising the price of cigarettes tends to trim consumption, especially among young people. But, Mr. Fleenor says, the proportion of Americans who smoke has remained at about 20 percent since the 1990s for two basic reasons: (1.) Hard-core smokers find it difficult to give up their addiction; and (2.) Although the tax on cigarettes has increased greatly (state taxes now average about $1 a pack, and the cigarettemakers' legal settlement of 1998 boosted cigarette prices significantly), the average cost of a pack of cigarettes has been eased by a massive rise in smuggling.

The world price for cigarettes is about $1.25 a pack. The US price, with taxes, runs about $4. So, Fleenor says, cigarette bootleggers work the streets of New York like drug dealers. Thieves may rob convenience stores of cigarettes, not bothering with the cash. Smokers buy tax-free cigarettes, hundreds of millions of packs of them, from military bases, Indian reservations, and over the Internet.

Fleenor says a general hike in the federal income tax would be a fairer way to provide revenues for broader health insurance coverage.

Gambling is another area where the poor tend to get soaked. Most of them may not realize that state lotteries are in effect a form of voluntary taxation, says Mr. Davis, lead author of a new 61-page NCPA study on how sin taxes hit the poor hard. The report notes that people in the lowest-earning one-fifth of the population (those making an average of $9,168 a year) spend on average 31.1 percent of their incomes on alcohol, tobacco, utilities, and gasoline – all of which are subject to excise taxes. The highest earners spend just 6 percent of their income on the same items. So these excise taxes are "regressive," weighing down the poor more than the well-to-do.

Those who buy lottery tickets are in effect paying a tax of 40 to 50 percent to the states. Only 50 to 60 percent of the money is paid out in prizes. Casinos pay out 85 to 90 percent of their revenue to gamblers, horse racetracks about 85 percent.

Davis says liberal tax groups in Washington don't seem so bothered by such taxes on the poor. He's disappointed that so many states are promoting their lotteries with videos of happy, smiling gamblers. Given that so many people lose, he observes, ticket-buyers have little reason to cheer.

Another Tax Foundation study, released last week, complains that state lottery agencies promoted Independence Day as a good day on which to gamble. "Star Spangled" games push "regressive, misguided policies."

Alicia Hansen, author of the study, recalls a public opinion survey last year that found 21 percent of respondents said playing the lottery was "the most practical strategy for accumulating several hundred thousand dollars" for retirement. Nonsense, she says. The stock market over 40 years could return, on average, 811 percent more than the same amount of money spent on a lottery, given the odds of winning.

Timothy Kelly, executive director of a 1999 national commission on the impact of gambling, figures that its report may have slowed a bit the spread of gambling in the US. Nonetheless, the gambling industry is "on a roll," he admits. And once a gambling industry, with its ample supply of cash, has established itself in a town, "the local government tends to be subservient."

Further, the spread of gambling has produced about 15.4 million "pathological" gamblers, half of them adults, half adolescents. They, the commission found, tend to engage in "destructive behavior," such as engaging in crime, piling up huge debts, damaging relationships with family and friends, and even – in extreme instances – committing suicide.

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Bush and Congress locked in power dispute

from the July 03, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0703/p02s02-uspo.html

The White House won't release documents on domestic surveillance or allow aides to testify on US attorney firings.

By Gail Russell Chaddock Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Washington

A flurry of subpoenas is pushing Congress and President Bush toward a historic clash over executive powers that could wind up in the courts.

For now, lawmakers are targeting two issues: the dismissal of nine US attorneys and the Bush administration's authorization of warrantless domestic surveillance.

If the president does not comply with these subpoenas Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said he will seek to cite the White House for criminal contempt of Congress. But the outcomes of these disputes also could tip the balance of powers between Congress and the executive branch for a generation.

"It feels like a climactic moment," says Julian Zelizer, a congressional historian at Princeton University. "The Bush administration has been about presidential power since they took office – even before 9/11."

"We've seen a push by Vice President Cheney to reverse everything that happened in the 1970s and fully restore the powers of the presidency. Now, Congress is responding to what he has done," he adds.

At issue is whether lawmakers have a right to question, under oath, two senior White House aides on the attorney firings, which critics say were motivated for improper political reasons or to squelch ongoing corruption investigations.

In a new batch of subpoenas last week, lawmakers are also seeking more information on the legal justification for the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program.

On Thursday, the White House invoked executive privilege in refusing to allow the release of documents requested by the Senate and House Judiciary Committees. If subpoenas for two former aides to testify are not withdrawn by the response date of July 12, Mr. Bush will also cite executive privilege in not permitting them to appear, said a senior administration official in a briefing last week.

"For the president to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice," said White House counsel Fred Fielding, in a letter to the Senate and House Judiciary committees last week.

In March, Bush offered to allow aides to answer questions in a closed meeting with some committee members, without a transcript and not under oath. He also offered to release documents on the firings that involved communications between the White House and Justice Department, but not internal White House communications. The Bush administration says that offer is off the table until the subpoenas are withdrawn.

In response, the chairmen of the Judiciary committees called on the administration to "immediately provide us with the specific basis for your claims regarding each document withheld."

"We had hoped our Committees' subpoenas would be met with compliance and not a Nixonian stonewalling that reveals the White House's disdain for our system of checks and balances," said Senate and House Judiciary Chairmen Leahy (D) of Vermont and John Conyers (D) of Michigan in a Jun. 29 letter.

Since World War II, presidential advisers have testified before congressional committees 74 times, either voluntarily or compelled by subpoena. When Republicans controlled the House, the Government Reform Committee issued at least 27 subpoenas to Clinton administration advisers, they added.

Moreover, Judiciary panel investigations found many inconsistencies in the official explanations of the firings of US attorneys last year. This "heightens our concern about the involvement of White House officials in these firings and in the inaccurate testimony given to our Committees, about them, including possible obstruction of justice and other violations of federal law," they wrote.

Should the standoff continue, Congress's next option is to seek a Senate or House contempt citation and take the matter to a grand jury. Since 1975, Congress has issued only 10 such contempt citations, but typically a compromise is reached before criminal proceedings begin.

Sen. Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary panel, urged Democrats to try to resolve the issue. "We ought to give consideration to bringing in those individuals and find out what we can under the president's terms. It doesn't preclude us from proceeding with the subpoenas at a later time," he said in a news briefing last week.

While Congress is doing a lot of wheel spinning, the Justice Department continues in "total disarray," Senator Specter added. A court battle could go on for two years, so Congress should "take what information we can get now [and] try to see if we can't wind this up," he said.

The stakes are high on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, legal analysts say. "The political branches realize it's in their own best interest to reach some sort of accommodation," says Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond School of Law.

"It would take a couple of years by the time it's all resolved. In some sense the White House wins the war of attrition. But it's also being tried in the court of public opinion, and the White House looks like it's trying to hide something," he adds.

A new round of subpoenas by the Senate Judiciary Committee over the NSA warrantless surveillance program threatens another clash with the White House over executive privilege. Leahy said that Congress was not seeing operational details on the program, but rather its legal justification. Last week, White House spokesman Tony Snow called the subpoenas "an outrageous request."

This issue does not fall out along simple partisan lines. The vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee to authorize subpoenas on the warrantless surveillance program was 10 to 3.

"There are a lot of Republicans who have been very uncomfortable both with the expansion of presidential power and the lack of deference to Congress at all by the Bush administration," says Zelizer.

But critics say the NSA program poses even more significant questions over executive power than the attorney firings. "Domestic wiretapping is a critical issue for congressional oversight to ensure that the authorities granted to the executive [branch] to protect the nation do not trample constitutional rights of our citizens. Were we to allow that, we would have lost dramatically without the terrorists taking another life," says Richard Ben-Veniste, a former 9/11 commissioner.

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Leniency for Libby and the '08 presidential race

from the July 05, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0705/p03s03-uspo.html

Bush's decision to commute the prison sentence of Cheney's former aide could pose a challenge for GOP candidates.

By Linda Feldmann Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Washington

If President Bush's goal in commuting I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence was to make sure the former top White House aide did not have to go through the humiliation of spending time behind bars, then he succeeded.

What the president may not have anticipated was the extent of the furor he has unleashed. Not only are Democrats outraged, as expected, but he also faces the wrath of conservative Republicans who long lobbied for a full pardon, not the part-way measure that leaves Mr. Libby's conviction intact and other pieces of his sentence in place – a $250,000 fine and a two-year probation.

The day after Bush stunned Washington with the July 2 announcement that he was commuting Libby's 30-month prison sentence, following the aide's four-count conviction for perjury and obstruction of justice, the president stated that he did not rule out a pardon in the future. Thus, the commutation does nothing to put the pardon question to rest, and only gives critics more fodder as they accuse the White House of cronyism in helping one of its own.

Even the US district judge in the case, Reggie Walton, is not resting easy. On Tuesday, he filed a court order saying that federal law "does not appear to contemplate a situation in which a defendant may be placed under supervised release without first contemplating a term of incarceration." Judge Walton gave the lawyers in the case until Monday to put forth recommendations for handling the situation.

Still, it is beyond dispute under the US Constitution that the president has the right to issue pardons and commute sentences. But that does not mean the president and his party escape political fallout. For Bush, there's little to lose in public opinion; with job approval rating below 30 percent in major polls, he is already down mostly to core supporters, given that few independents back him and even fewer Democrats.

But for the GOP presidential candidates, the Libby commutation represents one more awkward news point out of the White House that requires a response. So far, the responses have been positive. And even if supporting Bush's move is likely not to hurt candidates in their race for the nomination, it could pose challenges in the general election, when creating distance from Bush will be the name of the game.

"While [the commutation] may not be earth-shattering within the party, it could have an impact in the general next year," says Republican strategist Tony Fabrizio. "Certainly, it is a rallying point for the Democrats, and we don't need to be giving them any more rallying points."

With no hesitation, the top GOP presidential candidates made comments of support for the commutation. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney both called the decision "reasonable." Likely candidate Fred Thompson, who has helped Libby raise funds for his legal defense, said in a statement that, "while for a long time I have urged a pardon for Scooter, I respect the president's decision."

In supporting Bush, these three men are aligning themselves with an action that critics say flies in the face of the president's pledge to "restore honor and dignity to the White House." Libby's felony conviction stemmed from statements he made to a federal grand jury in the course of an investigation into the leaking of the identity of a CIA agent, Valerie Plame. That leak, which neither Libby nor anyone else was charged with, stemmed from a dispute over intelligence reports that suggested Iraq was attempting to obtain materials to build weapons of mass destruction. That dispute fed into the larger debate over Bush's decision to invade Iraq.

And so, ultimately, the revival of the Libby case cycles back to the central issue of the day, the Iraq war. To some Republican strategists, the Libby commutation cannot do any political damage to Bush that has not already been inflicted, and could serve a useful political purpose for Bush. By the time the general election is in full swing next year, Libby will pale as an issue in comparison with Iraq, says one strategist.

"This commutation gives the people who still like the president and want him to do well solace and encouragement that he has done the right thing," says GOP pollster Whit Ayres. "The president has not antagonized anyone who was not already against him."

For one top Democratic candidate, Sen. Hillary Clinton, the Libby commutation does not represent an unalloyed political gift. On the eve of her husband's departure from the presidency, in 2001, he pardoned fugitive financier Marc Rich (whose ex-wife was a Clinton fundraiser), to great public uproar. Republicans are responding to Democratic outrage over the Libby move with two words: "Marc Rich."

But Republicans open themselves up to charges of inconsistency when President Clinton's impeachment enters the mix. Mr. Clinton was impeached for lying to a grand jury, the same charge for which Libby was convicted.

Further, in arguing that Libby's prison sentence was "excessive," the president contradicts the administration's position that sentencing guidelines should be followed. Libby's sentence falls within the sentencing guidelines for his crime. Just two weeks ago, the Supreme Court affirmed a 33-month sentence for a man with similar circumstances. The Justice Department had argued in favor of that sentence.

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Employers feel heat on immigration

from the July 05, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0705/p01s04-uspo.html

Arizona's new law imposes sanctions – the stiffest in the US – for hiring illegal workers.

By Faye Bowers Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Phoenix

Arizona leads the nation in population growth. More illegal immigrants cross its border than any other in the United States. Now, in an apparent backlash to those trends, the state is leading the charge to halt illegal immigration by cracking down on employers.

Its new law effectively sets up a two-strikes penalty. A business employing an illegal immigrant would have its business license suspended temporarily. A second offense would mean a permanent revocation of that license.

The new law "takes the most aggressive action in the country against employers who knowingly or intentionally hire undocumented workers," says Gov. Janet Napolitano (D), who signed the measure into law late Monday. She said she decided to sign the bill because "Congress has failed miserably."

This get-tough attitude with businesses is growing across the US. As of April, 40 other states had introduced 199 bills related to employment of undocumented workers – the top subject of immigration-related legislation in the states, according to a report for the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Although Arizona's new law is apparently the harshest so far, Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Tennessee, and West Virginia are still in the process of enacting legislation to force employers to verify their workers' legal status, cautions Dirk Hegen, an expert on immigration policy at NCSL. Now that federal immigration reform has stalled in Congress, more states are likely to act, he adds.

The bigger challenge, however, may be enforcing such laws, if Arizona is any example.
The ink had barely dried on Governor Napolitano's signature of the new law before employers began scrambling to figure out how to comply with the measure that many have dubbed the "business death penalty."

While Arizona business organizations are nearly unanimous in saying they want to comply with the new law, they argue that it may prove onerous for employers.

"We are going to be engaging in this mass education campaign to let businesses in Arizona know what it contains, what they need to do to be in compliance, and then what the penalties are for not complying," says Ann Seiden, director of communications for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry. But "we feel like [this law] puts this unfair burden on the backs of businesses in this state to solve a national problem."

It is already a federal offense to hire an illegal immigrant. But the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 has rarely been enforced, at least until this past year. And employers were not required to use the federal ID-verification system that sprang from that law. Now, under the Arizona law, companies have to use that system, known as the Basic Pilot Program.
And that requirement puts employers at risk, business experts say.

For example, an illegal immigrant may use a stolen Social Security number on a job application that throws up no red flags initially. But if that illicit number is later discovered in any investigation, the employer could see her business closed down for days while investigators figure out what happened.

Another challenge: the Basic Pilot Program had a 4 percent error rate last year, business groups point out.

"When the future of your license depends on one system, and one system only, you can't really refute much of it," says Steve Chucri, chief executive officer of the Arizona Restaurant and Hospitality Association. "We want to work through this to help them perfect the system. But at the same time, we don't want to lose our ability to conduct business in the state because the system may or may not have rendered accurate information."

Those vagaries make it difficult for businesses. "Because of the mistake of one human-resources person who vetted an illegal employee through a flawed database, a company can lose its license," says Spencer Kamps, vice president of legislative affairs for the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona.

The system will force businesses to spend more money to ensure they're complying with the law and on legal fees if they're charged with infractions, business experts say.

"This law has the potential for some bite to it," says Dawn McLaren, an economist at Arizona State University. "It raises the cost of doing business here" – and in a way that's not easy to determine in advance.

On a violation, an employer may avoid losing her license because she didn't "knowingly" or "intentionally" hire an undocumented worker, but she still will most likely incur legal fees in defending her actions, Ms. McLaren points out.

Napolitano has asked the state legislature to return in a special session this fall to address some of what she called "flaws" of the new measure, including the lack of protection for critical infrastructure. "Hospitals, nursing homes, and power plants could be shut down for days because of a single wrongful employment decision," she said in a statement. And "the revocation provision is overbroad and could cause a business with multiple locations to face shutdown of its entire operation based on an infraction that occurred at only one location."

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Global warming threatens alternative-oil projects

from the July 06, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0706/p03s01-wogi.html

Development of oil-sand, oil-shale, and coal-to-oil projects could be slowed by a new California law.

By Daniel B. Wood Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Los Angeles

Oil-sand, oil-shale, and coal-to-oil projects – alternative fuel sources that could enhance US energy security – have always faced one hurdle. They look good only when oil prices are high. Now, they have another challenge: global warming.

California has enacted new climate-change policies that make energy companies responsible for the carbon emissions not just of their refineries but all phases of oil production, including extraction and transportation. If that notion catches on – at least two Canadian provinces have already signed on to California's plan – then the futures of oil-sand, shale, and coal-to-oil projects may look less attractive.

The reason: Extracting these alternative sources of oil requires so much energy that their "carbon footprint" may outweigh their benefits.

The issue has gained fresh currency because of the new state legislation and predictions that Congress will call for mandatory carbon controls in the next two years.

"As the US and the world move toward more controls on carbon to solve the problem of global warming, it is clear that the development of high-polluting fuels will incur a penalty and the support of and investment in such fuels will be a more and more risky business," says Roland Hwang, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

California's move came in January, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) signed a state executive order creating a new "low carbon fuel standard." The standard gives petroleum refiners 13 years to cut the carbon content of their passenger vehicle fuels by 10 percent. In May, Governor Schwarzenegger signed agreements committing Ontario and British Columbia to adhere to California's standard.

"Schwarzenegger's latest agreements with Canada are groundbreaking in creating consequences for oil producers to address climate change and help the environment," says Drew Kodjak, executive director of the International Council on Clean Transportation, an alliance of air-quality experts and regulators.

The contracts break new ground in at least two significant ways, say Mr. Kodjak and others.
First, the regulations require oil companies to take responsibility not just for the carbon in the emissions from their refineries, but also from the fuels they sell into the marketplace, which are then combusted in cars. Secondly, the policies put a bright spotlight on the carbon emissions that are produced in other phases of oil production that are often overlooked – including extraction and transportation.

"Now the emphasis is on the carbon footprint left from the entire life cycle of a gallon of gas, from extraction to refining to distribution to burning," says Kodjak.

That spells trouble for the booming oil-sand industry in the Canadian province of Alberta, as energy companies warned when Ontario and British Columbia signed on to the California plan. The amount of carbon emissions produced in the steps to refine oil from oil sands would be far higher – 20 to 50 percent higher – than from oil pumped as crude to the earth's surface, Kodjak estimates.

That's because the land above the oil sands must be stripped away and the oil-saturated earth-sand mixture must be heated to extract a substance known as bitumen. The further refining of bitumen, a mixture of organic liquids, produces even more carbon.

The new standards could diminish Canada's growing role in the North American oil market, especially in the short run, analysts say. Canada has an estimated 179 billion barrels of proven reserves, second only to Saudi Arabia's 262 billion barrels. But almost all of those reserves lie in oil sands.

"The new agreement with California doesn't eliminate the promise of Alberta's vast oil-sands reserves but slows it down," says George Haley, director of the Center for International Industry Competitiveness at the University of New Haven in Connecticut. The promise might be preserved if technologies are perfected, such as the underground or undersea storage of carbon dioxide, that would trim emissions in the process. "But that will cost more and take time," he adds.

Some experts counter that Alberta's oil sands – also known as tar sands – have lost none of their promise, because there are few alternatives in the long term.

Proposals to get oil from shale rock or even coal face similar greenhouse-gas hurdles, environmental groups say. According to a just-released report by the NRDC and Western Resources Advocates (WRA) – a group active in the oil-shale issue in the American West – "tar sands, oil shale, and liquid coal all result in higher global-warming pollution emissions" with liquid coal posing "disastrous consequences" because its production creates twice as much global-warming emissions as ordinary gasoline.

"Oil-shale development is all talk and no gain," says Bob Randall, an expert with WRA. "It presents huge risks to both the economic and environmental lifeblood of this state."

Even energy-security groups, which want to reduce US dependence on imported oil from world trouble spots, are skeptical of these high-carbon energy sources.

"There is no time for false starts," says Robbie Diamond of Secure America's Future Energy.

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Quietly, US strategy in Iraq shifting

from the July 09, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0709/p01s03-woiq.html

A report on the 'surge' could help determine momentum.

By Howard LaFranchi Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Washington

With little fanfare, at least so far, the stage is being set for a post-"surge" Iraq strategy that reduces US ambitions for the Iraq project, even while keeping some US forces there for years to come.

No decisions have yet been made, and administration officials insist the current strategy that has pumped an additional 30,000 troops into Iraq still must be given time to work. But the contours of a new approach floating around Washington suggest a drawing down of the 160,000 US forces there beginning as early as the end of this year. The thousands that remain would be refocused on training Iraqi security forces and on a long fight against Al Qaeda.

Just how much momentum the new Iraq-strategy snowball has behind it will start to become clearer this week as Congress is to receive an interim report on the performance of the force buildup and as Democrats try to use another funding vote on Iraq to press for faster change.

The new strategy is still in its formative stages in White House discussions, on Pentagon drawing boards, and on congressional desks. It is a source of division in the White House, although President Bush continues to warn against the dangers of any US withdrawal. But it is reflective of political realities in both the US and Iraq.

Time is running short for achieving political consensus in the US on Iraq policy before the 2008 campaign kicks off in earnest, political leaders and experts say. On the other hand, more time is needed to achieve political consensus in Iraq. That leaves an ironic situation where the political clocks of the two countries are not just running at different speeds, as has been said for months, but in different directions.

"What we're seeing is preparation for the post-'surge' period, particularly as it coincides with a critical political cycle culminating in the 2008 elections," says Nikolas Gvosdev, a foreign-policy expert and editor of The National Interest, a foreign-affairs magazine. "The hallmark will be fewer troops, but it will also signal the moving away from the idea of any grandiose transformation of Iraq. Instead, it becomes, 'We're there to fight Al Qaeda.' "

Signs of the growing consensus for a new approach that includes a major reduction in the US footprint in Iraq are visible on several fronts:

•Several prominent Republican senators have recently turned against the White House and are now calling for a change in Iraq strategy. Last week Sen. Pete Domeneci of New Mexico joined Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected US foreign-policy specialist, who a week earlier used a Senate speech to call for a new strategy reducing the US presence in Iraq. George Voinovich of Ohio followed Senator Lugar, while John Warner of Virginia is known to be pressuring the White House to change course.

•Defense Secretary Robert Gates is pressing for a post-"surge" Iraq strategy that would rest on a foundation of broad political consensus around the idea of impeding Iraq from becoming a haven of Islamic extremism. Such a strategy would also keep thousands of US troops in Iraq for a long-term battle with Al Qaeda.

•White House officials acknowledge that the administration is already looking beyond the current approach. Mr. Bush hinted at the priority he is likely to give the fight against Al Qaeda in a July 4 speech where he said the US has no choice but to "win" the Iraq fight "for our own sake, for the security of our citizens."

Democrats are hoping to use a Senate defense authorization bill to be taken up this week to press for troop withdrawals to begin as early as the fall.

Congress is also to receive by July 15 an interim report on the force buildup, ahead of a full assessment by commanders in Iraq in September. Significantly, it was Senator Warner who insisted on the July 15 review, upon the passage of funding for the Iraq war in May, saying that waiting for September was "too long."

Most observers expect efforts to force quick troop withdrawals to fail, as did Democratic efforts to force a timeline for withdrawals earlier this year. But the Democrats are also armed this time around with fresh evidence that Americans want a new Iraq direction – and that they expect a Democratic Congress to do something about it.

A survey by the Rasmussen Reports polling group, conducted last week, found that 53 percent of Americans fault the Democrats for not doing "enough to change President Bush's policies on Iraq." At the same time, 56 percent said they would like to see most combat troops out of Iraq by early next year.

Many observers expect the efforts before Congress recesses in August to merely "put the writing on the wall" in anticipation of testimony in September from Gen. David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador in Baghdad. The two are to give an assessment of the force buildup, but some analysts expect it will be more like a final report card.
"When Petraeus comes in September, he'll say the tactics of the 'surge' are the right ones and they would work, but there's no consensus behind the time and number of people needed to make it work," says Mr. Gvosdev. "And that will be particularly true in the absence of any real progress from the Iraqi government."

What seems to worry some congressional leaders like Lugar and even some administration officials is that sticking too long to a doomed strategy could create the political conditions for a full and precipitous withdrawal from Iraq – something they believe would be disastrous for US interests in the Middle East.

"Basically what you have are the grown-ups in the administration like Gates saying, 'We have to come up with something for the long term, something that achieves broad-based support, because if we don't, the people who say we have to get out now will prevail, and we don't want that,' " says Lawrence Korb, a former Defense Department official now at the Center for American Progress in Washington.

Forging a consensus around a long-term strategy for the global fight against Islamist terrorism would give Gates – not the closest administration insider – a sense of having contributed a significant accomplishment, some Washington insiders say. But they also suggest he could leave the administration if he concluded the wrong road were being followed for too long.

Lugar said in a television interview earlier this month that as president, Bush would probably be able to stick to the "surge" strategy through the end of his term if he chose to. But he added that he thought Bush would grasp the political realities and begin charting a new course.

Indeed, on the prosaic political level, the pressures of the 2008 election extend beyond the White House race to congressional contests. Analysts note that the terms are up in 2008 for some of the Republicans pressuring Bush, including Senator Domeneci and Warner. "They are beginning to look beyond the president to the horizon after Bush, and they may see that the political cost of sticking with his policy is too high," says Gvosdev.

But beyond the political considerations, the juxtaposition of the "three worst months of the war for American casualties" with the failure of the Iraqi government to move the country toward reconciliation has already spelled the current strategy's failure in the eyes of too many Americans, Mr. Korb says.

The impending interim strategy review and funding votes, Korb says, "are simply the beginning of the end."

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Himalayan summitry: A lesser peak, not a lesser lesson

from the July 03, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0703/p20s01-litr.html

This trekking historian is no 'chicken-hearted fellow.'

By Maurice Isserman Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

Gorak Shep, Nepal

On the morning of June 7, I was just about a hundred vertical feet short of reaching the summit of Kala Patar in Nepal. Colorful Buddhist prayer flags strung along the mountaintop fluttered in a gentle wind against a brilliant, blue sky, perfect climbing weather. Many of my trekking companions had already reached the top. I could see them seated comfortably beneath the flags, as they waved and shouted down encouraging words.

"Come on up, the view's great, only a little more to go." Five minutes effort was all I needed to join them. And after 14 days of strenuous trekking on Nepal's steep mountain trails, leg muscles hardened and middle-age spare tire diminished, I should have been ready to tackle those last hundred feet. But lungs heaving and heart pounding, I had serious doubts about my ability to take even one more step upward.

Not that the 18,192-foot summit of Kala Patar is a particularly lofty goal. Behind me, across the Khumbu glacier and a mere seven miles to the east as the gorak (a Himalayan crow) flies, loomed Mt. Everest, the world's highest mountain at 29,035 feet. Looking over at Everest, I could clearly see the route that in 1953 New Zealand climber Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay followed up the southeast ridge to the summit, as well as the route up the west ridge that Americans Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld took in 1963. That was real mountaineering; all I had to do this day was scramble up a big pile of rocks.

But making it up the last hundred feet of Kala Patar proved one of the hardest physical challenges I've ever faced. I felt as though I was chained to a large invisible boulder, condemned to drag it up the slope behind me. I knew I was fighting altitude, the ultimate adversary in Himalayan mountaineering. On previous climbs in the US, I'd climbed more technically challenging mountains over 14,000 feet. But at 18,000 feet, the air contains half the oxygen found at sea level. If I spent a week camped near the summit of Kala Patar, my body would acclimatize, and I'd be able to breathe easily, like the Sherpas who accompanied us. But it wasn't going to happen in the next five minutes. For a moment, contemplating the pile of rocky debris that lay between me and the summit of Kala Patar, I thought I'd hit my limit.

Then I remembered Charlie Houston, who'd been there before me.

Charles S. Houston – now in his 90s, and living in Burlington – led some of the earliest American expeditions to the Himalayas, including two to K2, the world's second highest mountain, in 1938 and 1953. An internationally recognized medical expert on high altitude acclimatization, he taught at the University of Vermont medical school until his retirement. I traveled from Hamilton College (where I'm a history professor) in upstate New York to meet Charlie at his home in Burlington, a few years ago and interviewed him for "Fallen Giants," a history of Himalayan mountaineering I am writing with Stewart Weaver of the University of Rochester, N.Y.

Among the stories he told that day was an account of an Everest reconnaissance he undertook in 1950. Charlie and his party, including British mountaineer Bill Tilman, were the first non-Nepalese to approach Mt. Everest from the south. (Tibet, which offered the northern approach to Everest taken by British expeditions of the '20s and '30s, was closed to Westerners following the Chinese invasion of 1950). They were the first Westerners to visit the Sherpa "capital" of Namche Bazaar, then a village of 30 homes, today a sprawling community filled with trekking lodges and cyber cafes. And Houston and Tilman were the first to climb Kala Patar, with its stunning views of Everest's southern face. Along the way there, their party stopped in a small Nepalese town called Dankhuta. There they found written in English on a school wall the injunction "Gather courage – don't be a chicken-hearted fellow," sentiments that they adopted on the spot as the whimsical motto for their expedition.

Nearly 57 years later, as I hesitated below the top of Kala Patar, I took those words to heart. "Remember Charlie," I told myself, "and don't be a chicken-hearted fellow." Then, gathering courage, I turned back to the task of dragging that invisible boulder to the summit.

* * *

The history of mountaineering in the Himalayas, the 1,500-mile range stretching from Bhutan in the east to Pakistan in the west, reaches back over a century. Trekkers like myself, who come for a look at the big peaks without any expectation of reaching their summits, are a much more recent innovation. In 1965 Jimmy Roberts, a retired British Army officer, led the first commercial trek up the Khumbu valley, guiding three middle-aged American women through the Sherpa homeland for a glimpse of Everest. He was a pioneer in the development of the "adventure travel" industry. Thanks to improved access by air, and notwithstanding political unrest in Nepal, tens of thousands of trekkers now annually visit the region. Most follow the same route as Houston and Tilman in 1950, north up the Khumbu valley to the base of Everest, with an optional ascent of Kala Patar.

Our trek this May and June, organized and led by veteran Himalayan mountaineer Arlene Blum, followed a slightly different path. Like most trekkers, we flew from Kathmandu to the mountaintop airstrip at Lukla, a dozen miles south of Namche Bazaar. We hiked the trail to Namche in two days, gaining several thousand feet along the way. Then, after a day's rest to acclimatize, we branched westward up the less traveled but spectacular Dudh Khosi valley. Four days later, after gaining about a thousand feet of altitude a day, we reached Gokyo, a village on a high alpine lake directly below the 17,600-foot Gokyo Ri peak. And from the top of Gokyo Ri, which I reached the next day slowly but without difficulty, we gazed out on four of the world's eight highest mountains – Everest, Lhotse (27,939 feet), Makalu (27,765 feet), and Cho Oyu (26,905 feet).

Our trekking party of 16 clients and two leaders, was a varied group, mostly drawn from America's southwest and West Coast; I was the lone New Yorker. The group ranged in age from 17 to 67. We were accompanied by a half dozen Sherpas, who cooked our meals and looked after us, as well as 20 porters who carried our gear (all we carried during the day was a small pack). All of us had some outdoor experience with hiking and backpacking; a few had some technical mountain experience – the kind that involves ropes, carabiners, crampons, and ice-axes.

But none of that was necessary on the route we followed. Allowing for the vagaries of acclimatization to altitude, anyone who has climbed Marcy (the highest peak in the Adirondacks, 5,344 feet) could probably do just fine on this kind of trek.

From Gokyo our trek swung east, crossing the Nzogumpa Glacier and then to the 17,780-foot Cho La pass, which brought us back into the Khumbu valley. The western side of the Cho La, which we ascended, was a steep rocky climb, with a little ice at the top to make it interesting; the descent eastward was on a broad, smooth glacier. We felt like mountaineers as we came down it, but still needed no equipment more sophisticated than our climbing poles and Vibram-soled boots.

Now we were in the Khumbu, and as we closed in on Everest the terrain became ever more barren and forbidding. The lower Khumbu has cultivated fields of barley and potatoes, wildflowers, towering rhododendrons, and juniper. The upper Khumbu has sand and scree and little else. But what's visible along the trail is beside the point – it's the mountains that draw the eye. Everest is the tallest, of course, but the last you see as you trek up the Khumbu, hidden as it is behind lower peaks. To get a good view of Everest, you have to climb higher. Which brings me back to Kala Patar.

I'd come too far not to make it to the top. I took a step, then a breath. Resting on the downhill leg, I took another step up, and another. With each rest-step, I silently pronounced one word of the Tibetan Buddhist mantra "Om Mani Padme Hum," a form of prayer in praise of the "jewel in the lotus," or the compassion of the Buddha. It seemed appropriate, somehow, even for a nonbeliever, and took my mind off the less-inspiring thought of the number of steps remaining to the summit. "Om," rest-step, "Mani," rest-step, "Padme," rest-step, "Hum," rest-step. And then, suddenly, amazingly, there I was just below the top, and congratulatory hands reached down to pull me up the last few steps.

"Thanks guys," I thought, "and thank you Charlie and Buddha." I was not, I decided, a chicken-hearted fellow. All was well with the world. And the view from the summit, as promised, was incomparable.

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Live Earth: A briefing

from the July 05, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0705/p13s01-wogi.html

The latest in a long list of concerts for causes, Live Earth will stage a multimedia assault on the world's attention span July 7, urging action against human-induced climate change.

By Tony Azios Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

What is Live Earth?

Al Gore received nearly 51 million votes in the 2000 presidential election. If all goes as planned July 7, his campaign to curtail global warming will receive 2 billion votes – if watching Live Earth can be considered casting a vote.

Live Earth, the latest in a long list of concerts for causes, will be a multimedia assault on the world's attention span for 24 hours to urge action against human-induced climate change. The event will bring together more than 150 musical acts for nine concerts on all seven continents in what is projected to be the largest global media event ever.

"We want to make it very difficult to avoid our message," says Yusef Robb, Live Earth's global coordinator.

Concerts will take place Saturday in Sydney, Australia; Tokyo; Shanghai, China; Hamburg, Germany; London; Johannesburg, South Africa; Rio de Jan­eiro; New York; and at the British Antarctic Survey Station in Antarctica.

The musical acts, which include Madonna, The Police, Shakira, Smashing Pumpkins, the Beastie Boys, and Kanye West, will be broadcast on television and radio in more than 100 countries, and via the Internet on MSN.com.

The event's organizers say that they are taking extraordinary steps to ensure the concerts are "carbon neutral." They are cutting carbon emissions through steps such as using alternative fuels where possible and encouraging concertgoers to carpool or use public transportation. The rest of the CO2 emissions will be offset through projects such as planting trees to absorb carbon.

Critics argue that hosting an event that releases CO2 is hypocritical. Organizers respond that every venue will keep its environmental impact to a minimum, certain to be the key to the event's credibility.

The projected audience of 2 billion will be encouraged to take the "Live Earth Pledge," which asks everyone to reduce their own CO2 emissions and to demand that their governments sign a rigorous international treaty to cut emissions. Viewers will see public service announcements featuring celebrities such as Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz, as well as more than 60 short films.

In addition to the concerts, more than 6,000 other events will take place, from gatherings in homes to festivals with thousands of people.

While most people are aware of global warming, many aren't doing anything about it, Mr. Robb says. "The entire population has to get engaged at some point...."

The seven-point pledge

The Live Earth audience will be asked to sign this pledge, also available at LiveEarth.org:

I pledge

1. To demand that my country join an international treaty within the next two years that cuts global-warming pollution by 90 percent in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy earth;

2. To take personal action to help solve the climate crises by reducing my own CO2 pollution as much as I can and offsetting the rest to become "carbon neutral";

3. To fight for a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store the CO2;

4. To work for a dramatic increase in the energy efficiency of my home, workplace, school, place of worship, and means of transportation;

5. To fight for laws and policies that expand the use of renewable energy sources and reduce dependence on oil and coal;

6. To plant new trees and to join with others in preserving and protecting forests; and,

7. To buy from businesses and support leaders who share my commitment to solving the climate crises and building a sustainable, just, and prosperous world for the 21st century.

Sites & performers

Sydney – The Australia show kicks off the seven-continent, 24-hour event headlined by entertainers Wolfmother and Jack Johnson.

Tokyo – Following the concert, which features some of the top musical talent in Asia, a special music event will be held at the To-Ji Buddhist temple in Kyoto.

Shanghai – China's event will be held on the steps of the Oriental Pearl Tower. It's topped by the 12 Girls Band, a dozen young women who play compositions on traditional Chinese instruments. The group's members were selected from more than 4,000 applicants.

Hamburg – Two-time Olympic gold medalist figure skater Katarina Witt will speak at Germany's event, while rapper Snoop Dogg and singer Chris Cornell of Audioslave will perform.
London – Madonna, the Beastie Boys, and Duran Duran will be joined by the likes of Spinal Tap, the mock-rock group immortalized in the 1984 film, "This Is Spinal Tap."

Johannesburg – South Africa's concert was originally to be held at Maropeng's Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, 40 minutes from Johannesburg, but was changed to the more accessible Coca-Cola Dome. Supermodel Naomi Campbell will speak.

Rio De Janeiro – More than 1 million people are expected to attend this free concert on the famous Copacabana Beach, where Lenny Kravitz, Pharrell Williams, and Macy Gray will perform along with Brazilian artists.

New York – The US is capping the global event with performances by The Police, Smashing Pumpkins, Roger Waters, and Kanye West. The venue is actually across the Hudson River at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

Antarctica – The indie rock band Nunatak, made up of five scientists stationed in Antarctica, will perform for a live audience of only 17 people, although the performance will be broadcast on TV, radio, and the Internet. (Read more about this concert in the Friday, July 6, Monitor.)

Musicians go green

Dave Matthews Band, which will perform at the New York area event, founded the Bama Works Fund, which has contributed more than $4 million to charities, including environmental ones. The group offsets the CO2 emissions of its tours by supporting tree-planting projects. Proceeds fom the sale of its Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor, One Sweet Whirled, support global warming organizations.

The John Butler Trio, performing in Sydney, has donated profits from its ticket sales to the Wilderness Society. The trio "greened" its 2007 US tour by using biodiesel to run its tour buses, and offset the rest of its CO2 emissions by buying wind-energy credits.

Sting, who will perform with The Police at the New York-area concert, founded the Rainforest Foundation in 1989 to fight rain­forest destruction and the violation of the rights of indigenous peoples in Brazil's Amazon region. The foundation supports projects in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

Melissa Etheridge, who also will perform at the New York area event, won an Oscar for her song "I Need to Wake Up," which accompanied Al Gore's climate change documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." She fuels her road shows with B99 (99 percent biofuel).

'Cause concerts'

The Concert for Bangladesh, 1971: The first large-scale benefit concert, held in New York City, was organized by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar and featured Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, and Billy Preston.

Live Aid, 1985: Concerts in London and Philadelphia raised roughly £150 million ($300 million) for Ethiopian famine relief.

Farm Aid, 1985 - present: Rock and country acts raise money for needy US farm families.
Tibetan Freedom Concerts, 1996-2001: New York hip-hop group the Beastie Boys raised awareness of the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

Live 8, 2005: This event, organized by Bob Geldof, put pressure on the leading industrialized nations (the G-8) to increase aid spending, negotiate fair trade rules, and provide debt relief to African countries.

Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links

Live Earth: A briefing

from the July 05, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0705/p13s01-wogi.html

The latest in a long list of concerts for causes, Live Earth will stage a multimedia assault on the world's attention span July 7, urging action against human-induced climate change.

By Tony Azios Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

What is Live Earth?

Al Gore received nearly 51 million votes in the 2000 presidential election. If all goes as planned July 7, his campaign to curtail global warming will receive 2 billion votes – if watching Live Earth can be considered casting a vote.

Live Earth, the latest in a long list of concerts for causes, will be a multimedia assault on the world's attention span for 24 hours to urge action against human-induced climate change. The event will bring together more than 150 musical acts for nine concerts on all seven continents in what is projected to be the largest global media event ever.

"We want to make it very difficult to avoid our message," says Yusef Robb, Live Earth's global coordinator.

Concerts will take place Saturday in Sydney, Australia; Tokyo; Shanghai, China; Hamburg, Germany; London; Johannesburg, South Africa; Rio de Jan­eiro; New York; and at the British Antarctic Survey Station in Antarctica.

The musical acts, which include Madonna, The Police, Shakira, Smashing Pumpkins, the Beastie Boys, and Kanye West, will be broadcast on television and radio in more than 100 countries, and via the Internet on MSN.com.

The event's organizers say that they are taking extraordinary steps to ensure the concerts are "carbon neutral." They are cutting carbon emissions through steps such as using alternative fuels where possible and encouraging concertgoers to carpool or use public transportation. The rest of the CO2 emissions will be offset through projects such as planting trees to absorb carbon.

Critics argue that hosting an event that releases CO2 is hypocritical. Organizers respond that every venue will keep its environmental impact to a minimum, certain to be the key to the event's credibility.

The projected audience of 2 billion will be encouraged to take the "Live Earth Pledge," which asks everyone to reduce their own CO2 emissions and to demand that their governments sign a rigorous international treaty to cut emissions. Viewers will see public service announcements featuring celebrities such as Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz, as well as more than 60 short films.

In addition to the concerts, more than 6,000 other events will take place, from gatherings in homes to festivals with thousands of people.

While most people are aware of global warming, many aren't doing anything about it, Mr. Robb says. "The entire population has to get engaged at some point...."

The seven-point pledge

The Live Earth audience will be asked to sign this pledge, also available at LiveEarth.org:

I pledge

1. To demand that my country join an international treaty within the next two years that cuts global-warming pollution by 90 percent in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy earth;

2. To take personal action to help solve the climate crises by reducing my own CO2 pollution as much as I can and offsetting the rest to become "carbon neutral";

3. To fight for a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store the CO2;

4. To work for a dramatic increase in the energy efficiency of my home, workplace, school, place of worship, and means of transportation;

5. To fight for laws and policies that expand the use of renewable energy sources and reduce dependence on oil and coal;

6. To plant new trees and to join with others in preserving and protecting forests; and,

7. To buy from businesses and support leaders who share my commitment to solving the climate crises and building a sustainable, just, and prosperous world for the 21st century.

Sites & performers

Sydney – The Australia show kicks off the seven-continent, 24-hour event headlined by entertainers Wolfmother and Jack Johnson.

Tokyo – Following the concert, which features some of the top musical talent in Asia, a special music event will be held at the To-Ji Buddhist temple in Kyoto.

Shanghai – China's event will be held on the steps of the Oriental Pearl Tower. It's topped by the 12 Girls Band, a dozen young women who play compositions on traditional Chinese instruments. The group's members were selected from more than 4,000 applicants.

Hamburg – Two-time Olympic gold medalist figure skater Katarina Witt will speak at Germany's event, while rapper Snoop Dogg and singer Chris Cornell of Audioslave will perform.
London – Madonna, the Beastie Boys, and Duran Duran will be joined by the likes of Spinal Tap, the mock-rock group immortalized in the 1984 film, "This Is Spinal Tap."

Johannesburg – South Africa's concert was originally to be held at Maropeng's Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, 40 minutes from Johannesburg, but was changed to the more accessible Coca-Cola Dome. Supermodel Naomi Campbell will speak.

Rio De Janeiro – More than 1 million people are expected to attend this free concert on the famous Copacabana Beach, where Lenny Kravitz, Pharrell Williams, and Macy Gray will perform along with Brazilian artists.

New York – The US is capping the global event with performances by The Police, Smashing Pumpkins, Roger Waters, and Kanye West. The venue is actually across the Hudson River at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

Antarctica – The indie rock band Nunatak, made up of five scientists stationed in Antarctica, will perform for a live audience of only 17 people, although the performance will be broadcast on TV, radio, and the Internet. (Read more about this concert in the Friday, July 6, Monitor.)

Musicians go green

Dave Matthews Band, which will perform at the New York area event, founded the Bama Works Fund, which has contributed more than $4 million to charities, including environmental ones. The group offsets the CO2 emissions of its tours by supporting tree-planting projects. Proceeds fom the sale of its Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor, One Sweet Whirled, support global warming organizations.

The John Butler Trio, performing in Sydney, has donated profits from its ticket sales to the Wilderness Society. The trio "greened" its 2007 US tour by using biodiesel to run its tour buses, and offset the rest of its CO2 emissions by buying wind-energy credits.

Sting, who will perform with The Police at the New York-area concert, founded the Rainforest Foundation in 1989 to fight rain­forest destruction and the violation of the rights of indigenous peoples in Brazil's Amazon region. The foundation supports projects in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

Melissa Etheridge, who also will perform at the New York area event, won an Oscar for her song "I Need to Wake Up," which accompanied Al Gore's climate change documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." She fuels her road shows with B99 (99 percent biofuel).

'Cause concerts'

The Concert for Bangladesh, 1971: The first large-scale benefit concert, held in New York City, was organized by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar and featured Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, and Billy Preston.

Live Aid, 1985: Concerts in London and Philadelphia raised roughly £150 million ($300 million) for Ethiopian famine relief.

Farm Aid, 1985 - present: Rock and country acts raise money for needy US farm families.
Tibetan Freedom Concerts, 1996-2001: New York hip-hop group the Beastie Boys raised awareness of the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

Live 8, 2005: This event, organized by Bob Geldof, put pressure on the leading industrialized nations (the G-8) to increase aid spending, negotiate fair trade rules, and provide debt relief to African countries.

Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links