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July 2009

Analysis: Obama's rare race foray a positive step (AP)

Perhaps the biggest "teachable moment" from the Henry Louis Gates Jr. saga was for President Barack Obama: If you want to improve race relations, you have to enter the fray.
Even some of Obama's fiercest opponents say that by bringing together the black professor and the white police officer who arrested him, the president had orchestrated an unlikely and unifying moment, a peaceable kingdom in the Rose Garden.
Symbolic? Yes. Made for TV? Certainly. But these things could not obscure the fact that a president who has tried to transcend racial matters was down in the arena, talking about race.
"The cynic in me wants to shoot holes in it, the critic in me wants to pick it apart," said conservative radio host Mike Gallagher. "But I'm sorry, you have two sides, polar opposites in a racially tinged confrontation like this, sitting down with the president of the United States over a beer at the White House?
"This is a great step forward in showing how you can take a confrontation, a conflict, and make a positive out of it."
This also is the kind of direct action Obama had sidestepped as he sought the support of white voters weary of racial dissonance.
In March, Obama was asked whether he agreed with Attorney General Eric Holder's comments that many Americans have been "cowards" because "we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race."
"I'm not somebody who believes that constantly talking about race somehow solves racial tensions," Obama told The New York Times. "I think what solves racial tensions is fixing the economy, putting people to work, making sure that people have health care."
The standoff between Gates and Obama has the potential to exacerbate tensions. Many blacks supported Gates' claim that he was racially profiled by Crowley, while many whites insisted Crowley displayed no bias in investigating a possible break-in at Gates' home.
Gates demanded an apology from Crowley and called him a "rogue policeman." After Obama said police had "acted stupidly" in arresting an angry Gates for disorderly conduct, Crowley said Obama was "way off base wading into a local issue without knowing all the facts."
The atmosphere was much different after Thursday's conversation.
"No tension," Crowley said.
Mostly, racial conflicts fade out without any consultation, let alone resolution. Imagine the widow of Sean Bell meeting with the New York police officers who shot her husband, or the black teens in Jena, La., talking to the white schoolmate they attacked.
That made the White House meeting even more remarkable — "revolutionary and potentially healing, a peace pipe for modern times," wrote the right-leaning columnist Kathleen Parker.
"When future archaeologists excavate our history, they will doubtless marvel at the symbolism of that simple gesture," she wrote.
It probably never would have happened had Obama not criticized Crowley, a mistake that demanded damage control.
Why not?
"His advisers would have said, 'No, it's not about health care!'" said Rev. Jim Wallis, president of the progressive Christian group Sojourners and author of "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It."

It was political theater — but it sent a powerful message, Wallis said.

"It was a parable for what needs to happen off-camera all the time — that kind of conversation," he said. "Obama was saying, 'This now needs to happen.'"

Obama has rarely joined that conversation since his national debut at the 2004 Democratic National Convention speech, when he declared, "There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America — there's the United States of America."

But as the first black president, son of a white mother and black father, many say he in uniquely suited — even obligated — to lead the discussion.

"As a white man, I would say the nation needs a president to be proactive on race," Wallis said. "He has a power to be that, the capacity to be that, the identity and the history."

Gallagher said no one besides Obama could have orchestrated this type of resolution.

"You had to almost have a black president who's capable of saying to Gates, the man who feels aggrieved and insulted, 'I need you at the White House.'"

"Obama said ... 'Let's show the world that we're trying to advance race relations rather than digress,'" he continued. "And you know what? As one of his fiercest critics, he gets an A-plus on this. I'm just blown away."

Much has been made of the symbolism of a black president and how he provides an opportunity for people to talk about race. In some ways, race is always an element of any conversation Obama is involved in.

But "watercooler conversations aren't enough any more," Wallis said. "They don't go deep enough, they are too short and they are very safe. You gotta sit at the table."

That's exactly what Crowley, Gates and Obama did on the White House lawn, along with Vice President Joe Biden, whose presence conveniently balanced out the image.

Earlier, Crowley and Gates talked after they crossed paths while separately touring the White House with their relatives.

They continued their tour as one large group.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE: Jesse Washington covers race and ethnicity for The Associated Press. AP news researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.

Global stomach cancer death rates decline (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) –
Some good news on some cancers: During the last decade, deaths from stomach cancer have declined in most areas of the world, according to a new study.

While such cancers are rare in North America and much of Europe, they tend to be quite common in Japan, Russia, and parts of Latin America, and account for more than 10 percent of cancer deaths worldwide. Its aggressiveness makes it one of the deadlier cancers.

However, in the last 10 years, deaths from stomach cancer declined by about 3 to 4 percent per year in the European Union, Australia, the United States of America, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Ukraine, and the Russian Federation, report Dr. Liliane Chatenoud, at Istituto di Ricerche Farmocologiche "Mario Negri" in Milan, Italy, and colleagues.

Mortality similarly declined by about 2 percent per year in Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia, Chatenoud and colleagues report in the International Journal of Cancer.

The team used World Health Organization death certificate data from 63 countries from 1980 to 2005.

Declines in mortality were also evident in middle-age and young adults, suggesting these downward trends are likely to persist in the future, the researchers note.

The news was not all good: Women aged 30 to 49 years old from France, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America did not see a decline in deaths. The team also notes that data from Asia are sparse, and that data are only available from one African country, making it difficult to generalize the results.

"Despite the encouraging trends on mortality, stomach cancer remains one of the major causes of death world-wide," Chatenoud cautioned Reuters Health by email.

SOURCE: International Journal of Cancer, August 2009

U.S. soldier killed as deadliest Afghan month closes (Reuters)

KABUL (Reuters) –
A U.S. service member was killed as the deadliest month for foreign troops in the Afghanistan war drew to a close, the U.S. military said on Friday, with commanders vowing to continue the fight despite the toll.

The death in southern Afghanistan brought to 40 the number of U.S. troops killed in July, by far the heaviest monthly toll in the 8-year-old war. The worst previous month for U.S. forces was in September 2008, when 26 were killed.

The latest death occurred in a firefight with insurgents in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, the U.S. military said, without giving further details. At least 70 foreign troops have been killed in July.

Britain has suffered its worst battlefield casualties since the 1980s Falklands War, with the 22 troops killed in the month taking its total losses in Afghanistan to 191, 12 more than were killed in the Iraq war.

Casualties spiked after thousands of U.S. and British troops this month launched major operations in southern Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold and the center of Afghanistan's opium production.

"We understood the return of security to these areas would not be achieved without sacrifice," said U.S. Rear Admiral Greg Smith, chief spokesman for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

"For some that has come at a high price," he told Reuters.

"CLEAR, HOLD, BUILD"

The Helmand operations are the first under U.S. President Barack Obama's new regional strategy to defeat the Taliban and its Islamist militant allies and stabilize Afghanistan. They come before crucial presidential elections on August 20.

They are also the first phase of a new "clear, hold and build" strategy introduced after criticism that previous strategies lacked cohesion and direction.

The operations are designed to clear areas of insurgents and then hold them, something that overstretched British-led NATO forces had been unable to do before this month.

"It's too early to assess the true impact of operations in the south. The clearing of insurgents continues and will for many more weeks to come," Smith said.

The United States has around 62,000 troops in Afghanistan, out of a total foreign force of about 101,000. U.S. forces are set to rise to some 68,000 by the end of the year.

The extra troops include 4,000 meant to help train Afghan security forces and will be followed by a "civilian surge" of several hundred meant to help Afghanistan rebuild institutions shattered by decades of war.

General Stanley McChrystal, the new commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has also introduced a new counter-insurgency strategy and issued a new tactical directive, which includes limiting the use of air strikes, aimed at reducing the number of civilian casualties in the war.

Civilian deaths have outraged many Afghans and caused friction between Washington and Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government.

A U.N. report released in Geneva on Friday found that 1,013 civilians had been killed between January and June this year, up from 818 in the same period last year, as the battlefield in Afghanistan increasingly moved into residential areas.

The deaths were largely caused by air strikes, car bombs and suicide attacks, with the Taliban blamed for 59 percent of the fatalities, the United Nations mission in Afghanistan said.

"All parties involved in this conflict should take all measures to protect civilians, and to ensure the independent investigation of all civilian casualties, as well as justice and remedies for the victims," said U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay.

Six civilians were killed or wounded by a roadside bomb in Jawzjan province in Afghanistan's north late on Thursday, the Interior Ministry said.

In southeastern Ghazni province, Afghan and NATO troops killed 11 Taliban insurgents on Thursday, local officials said.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi and Golnar Motevalli; Editing by Dean Yates)

Police at center of Parker-Broderick case arrested (AP)

ST. CLAIRSVILLE, Ohio – Two Ohio police chiefs suspected of snooping for tabloid fodder at the home of a surrogate mother for actors Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick are to be arraigned on undisclosed charges.
A special prosecutor has been looking into whether the eastern Ohio chiefs illegally entered the woman's home in May, when she wasn't there. It was unclear if their arrests relate to that investigation.
The prosecutor could not be reached for comment. His office said information would be released Friday. Martins Ferry Police Chief Barry Carpenter and Bridgeport Police Chief Chad Dojack are to be arraigned Friday in Belmont County.
County jail personnel confirmed that they were booked Wednesday night and released.
There were no residential telephone numbers listed for the two men.

Iraqi police: 24 killed in Baghdad bombings (AP)

BAGHDAD – Multiple bombs have exploded near three Shiite mosques in Baghdad as worshippers were leaving Friday prayers, killing at least 24 and wounding dozens more, Iraqi police officials said.
The bombings shattered a period of relative calm in the Iraqi capital, raising to at least 303 Iraqis killed in what has been one of the least deadly months in Iraq for both Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops since the war began. Only seven American troops have been killed.
The deadliest attack Friday came when a car bomb exploded near a Shiite mosque in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Shaab, killing at least 20 people and wounding 17 others, said two Iraqi police officials. The casualties were confirmed by a medical official.
At about the same time, near simultaneous explosions struck a Shiite mosque near the Diyala bridge, in southern Baghdad, killing four worshippers and wounding 17 others, the two officials said.
An unexploded roadside bomb was also found nearby, they said.
A roadside bomb exploded near a third mosque in the eastern Baghdad, wounding six worshippers.
The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
___
Associated Press Writer Bushra Juhi contributed to this report.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi police say multiple car bombs have exploded near three Shiite mosques in Baghdad, killing 19 people.
Two Iraqi police officials say the first bomb killed ten people in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Shaab. The officials say the bomb struck just as Shiite worshippers were leaving Friday prayers.
The officials say more explosions struck near two other Shiite mosques in northern Baghdad, killing another nine people.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
The bombings come during one what has been one of the least deadly periods in Iraq since the war began in 2003.

Poll: Public dissatisfaction growing with Obama, other Democrats (McClatchy Newspapers)

WASHINGTON — According to a bipartisan poll released Wednesday, President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party may be putting themselves in political jeopardy with their expensive and ambitious agenda, which has yet to show benefits for the country.

"There are warning signs for Democrats heading into 2010," Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said. "Despite trusting and supporting the Democratic agenda, majorities think the administration is spending too much and doing too many things."

Republican pollster Ed Goeas , who conducted the Battleground Poll with Lake for George Washington University , said it showed signs of a shifting landscape that could help Republicans start rebounding from back-to-back election losses in 2006 and 2008, when they lost control of Congress and the White House .

"It's a lot more fun on the way up than it is on the way down, and we're already starting to see signs of that," Goeas said. "The demise of the Republican Party has been overanalyzed and overestimated."

The bipartisan Battleground Poll, which surveyed 1,007 registered likely voters nationwide July 19-23 , has an error margin of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Overall, Obama and the Democrats still have popular support.

The survey found that 53 percent of likely voters approve of the way that Obama is doing his job. It also found that the president and congressional Democrats had an advantage over Republicans on such issues and characteristics as health care, energy independence, honesty and middle class values.

"Obama continues to be very strong as a personal brand. Voters still like him," Lake said at a breakfast with reporters.

Yet he's facing public skepticism about his agenda, and potential problems with the key voting bloc of independents.

A solid majority of 61 percent, for example, said that Obama was spending too much money. A similar majority of 63 percent said he was trying to do too many things at once.

Skepticism was rampant among Republicans but also evident among independents.

Among independents, the poll found Obama's job approval dropping to 42 percent and his disapproval rising to 50 percent. Of that 50 percent who disapprove, the vast majority disapprove strongly, the poll found.

Independents also were much more likely than Democrats to say that Obama is spending too much money — 76 percent of independents said that — and is trying to do too much — 68 percent of independents.

Independents supported having government power divided between the major political parties by 53 percent to 29 percent, rivaling Republicans and potentially signaling dissatisfaction with Democratic control of the White House , the House of Representatives and the Senate .

Looking ahead to 2010 — when the entire 435-member House and one-third of the Senate are up for election — Goeas and Lake said that Republicans as of now had more intensity, a passion that could turn into an edge in getting their voters to turn out.

The poll found 75 percent of Republicans saying that they definitely will vote, a clear edge over the 66 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of independents who say they will.

"Part of what has to be troubling to Democrats is the issue of turnout," Lake said. "Republicans, while generally more divided on issues and perceptions, are more enthusiastic about the election than Democrats and are more likely to vote."

Goeas noted two other challenges for the Democrats: Voting by young people, a big source of votes for Democrats in 2008, usually drops by 5 percentage points in a midterm election, and voting by older voters, historically more Republican, rises by the same amount.

Lake, the Democratic pollster, said that there was plenty of time for the Democrats to turn things around. While only one in three voters said that the $787 billion economic-stimulus plan was working, 58 percent said it was "on track" and that it should be given a year to work.

Lake also said that 57 percent of voters thought that former President George W. Bush had made today's economic woes worse.

"The key is to prepare for a blame election," she said. "It's very important to draw the contrast between what we've tried to do and how the Republicans have tried to hold on to the failed Bush policies."

Goeas said there was an "expiration date" on blaming Bush. "The Bush thing will begin to fade more and more and more," he said. "Especially if Republicans don't try to defend Bush and just move into the future."

ON THE WEB

More on the poll

MORE FROM MCCLATCHY

Lawmakers report health care progress in House, Senate

Distrust of government blunting Obama's pursuit of new programs

Poll: Americans split on health care as Obama's approval sinks

For more McClatchy politics coverage visit Planet Washington

Advocates: Hiring ex-cons leads to economic payoff (AP)

CHICAGO – George Outland had just one requirement when applying for a job: It had to be at a business that didn't check his criminal background, or didn't care.
After Outland served three years in prison for burglary, he could land only short-term work moving furniture or delivering food.
It's difficult for ex-felons to find steady jobs even in good economic times, with unemployment rates sometimes as high as 75 percent one year out of prison. During the worst recession in a quarter century, it can be almost impossible.
"During worse times, employers are unwilling to take chance on anyone who seems at all risky," said Devah Pager, an assistant sociology professor at Princeton University.
Groups trying to change that see hope in a $50 million project tucked into Congress' budget blueprint that aims to prove that spending money on the hardest to employ, including ex-offenders, is as worthwhile as helping the middle class.
Advocates say there are good reasons for employers and communities to help former felons re-enter the work force. With an estimated 650,000 people released from prison each year nationwide, helping them get jobs can reduce the chances that they will be jailed again or need welfare.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald tells businesses in Chicago that hiring ex-felons is one of the best ways to reduce violent crime because it erases the reason behind many offenses. It can also provide an economic boost to some of the nation's poorest neighborhoods.
"Those who did not have income before now do, and they need to spend all of it to meet their basic needs," said Amy Rynell, executive director of the Chicago-based Social IMPACT Research Center.
Though no statistics are available yet tracking the ability of ex-felons to get jobs in the current recession, advocates say it's certainly harder than usual.
So they're stepping up efforts to persuade lawmakers and businesses to support jobs programs for parolees. Among the most successful have been "transitional" plans that find businesses, communities or organizations willing to hire ex-felons, usually for a few months, while they learn basic job skills.
Those types of programs are the ones targeted by the federal project, which would study how well they help the chronically unemployed, including ex-felons.
Outland began working full time this summer for a property management company through a transitional program run by the Chicago nonprofit Heartland Human Care Services. He's paid minimum wage of $8 an hour to answer phones, enter data and learn to help manage accounts. He's making ends meet with just a few dollars left over each month, but at age 50 feels for the first time as if he has a shot at a real career.
"I would love to stay in the real estate field," Outland said after distributing parking passes to tenants at an apartment building. "I love it now; I actually love it ... it makes me feel important."
Outland's boss says many ex-felons are eager to change their lives but need help.
"If they have a history of theft, I'm not necessarily going to put them in a building with keys," said Tifanni Sterdivant, managing director of Corner Office Management. "A lot of them are vocal about not wanting to go back to certain neighborhoods. They want a new life, a new start."
First they must learn "soft skills," like how to dress appropriately, why it's important to call if they're going to miss work and why they need to listen to a boss. Some also have other issues that can get in the way: substance abuse and lack of stable housing and child care.
The Safer Foundation, a Chicago-based nonprofit, finds employers willing to hire ex-felons outright and provides a case manager. Officials there say 13 percent of ex-felons who received support and employment services returned to prison or jail after three years, compared to 52 percent for Illinois ex-offenders overall.
In New York, the Center for Employment Opportunities assembles work crews of five to 10 ex-felons who work under contract to perform maintenance and repair services for state or city agencies.

A study of that program found that the odds of ex-felons getting a job were 40-50 percentage points greater if they were in a transitional program than receiving just resume and interviewing tips, said Dan Bloom, a researcher with the New York-based nonprofit MDRC. And their odds of going back to jail or prison within two years was 6 percentage points less.

"That may not sound enormous, but the cost of incarceration is extremely high," Bloom said. "Nobody wins if you have huge numbers of guys coming out of prison and not working."

Advocates say those in transitional programs aren't getting jobs sought by other laid-off workers. The goal is to give them skills so they eventually can compete for higher-paying jobs.

Juan Cruz, 37, who served 14 years in prison for attempted murder after shooting an undercover police officer during a drug deal, now works for Safer managing a crew of ex-felons doing landscaping work for the city of Chicago. He said the jobs are changing their lives.

"They feel proud to have their chaps on, their helmet, their work crew vest," said Cruz. "People in the neighborhood see that and they respect it so much."

Death penalty possible in museum shooting (AP)

WASHINGTON – A federal grand jury indicted an elderly white supremacist Wednesday on charges that could earn him the death penalty in the fatal shooting of a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
Hate crimes charges have been added to the case against James von Brunn, who has been in a hospital since the shooting last month.
Officials say the 89-year-old shot and killed museum guard Stephen T. Johns on June 10. Von Brunn was shot in the face by other guards but survived.
A seven-count indictment was handed up Wednesday in U.S. District Court, charging von Brunn with first-degree murder, killing in a federal building — both charges already lodged against him — and a new charge of bias-motivated crime. Four of the charges make him eligible for the death penalty. The case has sparked renewed calls for expanded hate crimes legislation.
Authorities say von Brunn walked up to the museum carrying a rifle and shot Johns as the guard was opening the door for him.
Von Brunn had a racist, anti-Semitic Web site and wrote a book titled "Kill the Best Gentiles," alleging a Jewish conspiracy "to destroy the white gene pool." He also claimed the Holocaust was a hoax.
A hearing on von Brunn's case is scheduled for Thursday in U.S. District Court. So far he has not been well enough to appear in court and it was unclear whether he would be in the courtroom this week.

German SPD drops minister who took limo to Spain (Reuters)

BERLIN (Reuters) –
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany's Social Democratic candidate for chancellor, dropped Health Minister Ulla Schmidt from his campaign team Wednesday after she provoked a furore by taking an official car to Spain.

Steinmeier, whose SPD trails the conservatives in opinion polls ahead of the September election, said Schmidt would remain off the campaign team until her use of the car -- which was stolen while she was on holiday in Spain but later recovered -- is cleared by the federal accounting office.

"We agreed that she will only return to the team if these accusations are completely cleared up," Steinmeier told reporters at a meeting of SPD leaders in Potsdam.

The row over Schmidt's use of the official car put both her and Steinmeier in the awkward position of explaining the matter just as their party launched its campaign for the September 27 election.

Schmidt said she was confident the documents she had submitted would prove she did nothing wrong.

"I am sure the inquiry will prove my position," she said.

(Reporting by Brian Rohan; editing by Michael Roddy)

USB Turntable

Connecting the T.90 to our Windows XP machine was an astounding success. The native USB audio drivers were recognized immediately, and no installations were required in order for our machine to recognize the T.90 as both a recording and a playback device. After installing and running Cakewalk Pyro 5 and selecting the "Make CDs from your cassettes and LPs" option from Pyro's menu, we were soon off and digitizing vinyl into WAV, MP3, and WMA files.

The Stanton T.90 turntable is a great tool for aspiring and professional DJs. If you're only looking for a means to digitize your collection of vinyl gems, you'd be much better off purchasing a simpler, consumer-grade USB turntable like the Ion iTTUSB or just purchasing a quality computer audio card and outfitting your existing turntable with a phono-to-line preamp such as the Rolls VP29.

USB Turntable