City University of New York board overturns attempt to block prize-winning playwright’s award because of his views on Israel The trustees board of the City University of New York (CUNY) brought to an end an embarrassing row over freedom of expression by voting unanimously to award an honorary degree to the award-winning playwright Tony Kushner. A firestorm was ignited last week when a single trustee, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, launched an attack on the Jewish playwright on the grounds that he was not sufficiently pro-Israel. The intervention blocked the award of the degree which would normally have been routine. The chancellor, Matthew Goldstein, addressing the board on Monday night, said he had supported the original recommendation of the award and praised Kushner’s “extraordinary body of work”. He urged the board to overturn last week’s decision and to support the award. Some members of the board spoke, all of them voicing support for Kushner. One of them described the row as a “blemish” on the university’s reputation as an upholder of freedom of expression. After only 20 minutes of discussion, the board voted in favour of the award. The decision last week prompted a letter from Kushner, saying he had always supported the right of Israel to exist and protesting that he had been given no chance to defend himself. The New York Times said the university had shamed itself by shunning one of America’s most important playwrights and called for Wiesenfeld’s dismissal. The board indicated it would use the meeting of the smaller executive committee, to which Wiesenfeld does not belong, to try to make amends. Benno Schmidt, who chairs the committee, said the decision to set aside the award was “a mistake of principle”. In a statement, he said: “Freedom of thought and expression is the bedrock of any university worthy of the name. It is not right for the board to consider politics in connection with the award of honorary degrees except in extreme cases not presented by the facts here.” Kushner is an award-winning playwright who is considered one of the leading voices of his generation. His play about the Aids crisis, Angels in America, won Pulitzer and Tony awards, and his latest work, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures , has recently opened off Broadway. Wiesenfeld has a record of acting to forward what he considers the interests of the state of Israel. A former political fixer for the then governor of New York state, George Pataki, he was instrumental earlier this year in having a temporary lecturer fired from CUNY because of his views on Israel. The teacher was later reinstated. In the wake of his intervention against Kushner, he told the New York Times that he believed the Palestinians had “developed a culture which is unprecedented in human history”. He said: “People who worship death for their children are not human.” In response to the news that the university would grant Kushner an honorary degree after all, Wiesenfeld repeated his claim that the playwright had uttered a “blood libel against the Jewish people” by accusing Israel of having committed ethnic cleansing. Tony Kushner New York United States Israel Theatre International education news Ed Pilkington Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk
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Liberal Democrats insist on rigorous checks as MPs debate Andrew Lansley’s NHS bill The Treasury will only support GP-led consortiums if the new bodies have passed rigorous clinical and financial tests, the chancellor’s deputy said on Monday. In a sign of the Lib Dems’ determination to introduce major changes to the health and social care bill, Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury and No 2 to George Osborne, told the Guardian the reforms would be implemented in a “variable pattern”. Tory MPs were angered over the weekend when Nick Clegg described the bill as a “disruptive revolution” and said it would be wrong to force GPs to join the new consortiums by 2013. The deputy prime minister felt free to speak so strongly after reaching agreement with Cameron over relaxing the 2013 deadline. Alexander expanded on Clegg’s remarks by suggesting there would never be a uniform imposition of the NHS reforms. He told the Guardian: “We need to be sure that we only allow GP consortia to go forward where they show they are capable and have got all the right building blocks in place so some will go faster than others and we will have a more variable pattern. “From a Treasury point of view, consortia only get the permission to go forward when they are capable clinically and financially to go forward. If GP consortia don’t want to go forward, they will hardly develop the capabilities they need. So we are working very hard on timetables and flexibility right now.” But Alexander makes clear that he hopes the NHS reforms are not abandoned. “Reform is necessary to ensure the NHS is able to deal with these rising health pressures and I just don’t believe the Labour top-down model of the NHS is suitable. So we should not abandon reform. “But at the end of the day if we think this is a bad bill then having no bill would be better than that so we have to come up to substantial changes. What we have heard in recent weeks and months is growing voices in the NHS that there are new things we need to look at.” Alexander opened up a new area of controversy by saying he did not want the new pubic services reform white paper to impose a universal blueprint for reform across the pubic sector. Cameron said in February a presumption would be written into legislation that public services will be delivered by the private or voluntary sectors. Alexander’s intervention came as the Tory whips orchestrated an ostentatious show of support for health secretary Andrew Lansley. Nine cabinet ministers sat with him on the frontbench as he took part in a Commons debate called by Labour. No voting member of the cabinet sat on the frontbench last month when Lansley announced the pause in the health and social care bill that would hand about 60% of the NHS budget to new GP-led consortiums. Lansley told MPs that the changes to the health and social care bill, which will be introduced at the end of the government’s “listening exercise”, would be substantive. He indicated that the consortiums would be expanded to include patients, doctors and nurses. Senior Tories made clear there was growing support for Lansley. One ministerial source said: “David Cameron needs to be careful. Andrew is a lot stronger than he thinks. If Andrew tells the prime minister that he is putting his job at his disposal because Downing Street has undermined his credibility that would make David look foolish.” The Labour motion failed by 284 votes to 231. But Lib Dem MPs expressed anger. Andrew George, the MP for St Ives, called for ministers to “take the guts” out of the reforms because opening the health service to greater free market competition “undermines the NHS ethos”. John Pugh, MP for Southport, said: “I have this vision of a bill being drafted during the daytime by a sane, pragmatic Dr Jekyll-like minister, but during the night some … Mr Hyde jumps in with a rightwing ideology, breaks into Richmond House [the Department of Health] and changes many of the sentences.” The findings will alarm the many medical organisations which have voiced alarm that Lansley’s plans would lead to the NHS undergoing privatisation, a fear that has caused severe unease in Downing Street. Leading cancer charities warn that care received by the growing number of people in England developing the disease could suffer as a result of the government’s NHS plans. Cancer networks, groups of specialists who advise GPs where patients can get the best treatment, are due to be phased out in 2012. But Lansley is resisting calls to keep funding them. Ciaran Devane, chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “It’s a deeply worrying prospect that the care of cancer patients could be compromised by this. Cancer patients need to know their care will not suffer.” Health policy Health Danny Alexander Liberal-Conservative coalition Liberal Democrats Conservatives Andrew Lansley NHS Patrick Wintour Nicholas Watt Denis Campbell guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Inside the Beltway there are Very Important People with Very Important Ideas that everyone must listen to and accept as Truth and Fact. Digby calls them Villagers . I call them self-important fools. Yesterday, the Very Important Voices wrote an Editorial in the Most Important Publication — The Washington Post. These Very Important Voices are annoyed at ordinary Americans for refusing to acknowledge that Medicare, as it exists today, just cannot — CANNOT — exist. Democrats have effectively scared seniors as a political tactic for many years. Republicans turned the tables in 2010, using the Medicare scare tactic against Democrats. Now Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has given President Obama and his party a chance to reclaim the low ground, and they haven’t hesitated. You see, according to these Very Important Voices, we are not under any circumstances to speak the truth according to what the Republicans actually do, rather than what they say. We are not supposed to mention that under Paul Ryan’s plan, seniors are thrown to the whims of insurance companies. We are not supposed to mention under any circumstances that even if Medicare were to continue for people age 55 and older, there are a vast number of us between the ages of 45 and 55 who will be well and righteously screwed by this plan, just as we have been well and righteously screwed by insurers for the last 20 years. According to Those Who Know Everything And How It Must Play Out, we’re just giving short shrift to a bold, realistic plan for cost containment. But it’s honest enough to acknowledge that simply preserving Medicare as we know it is not an option. Society is aging and health-care costs are rising so fast that, absent some change, Medicare will gobble up the biggest share of federal spending. Got that? Not. an. option. No way, no how. God forbid that the bulk of our spending should be spent on American citizens instead of wars and weapons. God forbid that we should raise taxes just a teeny, tiny bit on a group who is paying NO taxes right now (large corporations), or that we should raise taxes on people who still end up with umpty-zillion after taxes. No, no. And as Paul Krugman reminds , the quagmire we’re in right now is a top-down problem endorsed and promoted by the very same Very Important and Serious People: T he fact is that what we’re experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. The policies that got us into this mess weren’t responses to public demand. They were, with few exceptions, policies championed by small groups of influential people — in many cases, the same people now lecturing the rest of us on the need to get serious. And by trying to shift the blame to the general populace, elites are ducking some much-needed reflection on their own catastrophic mistakes. Here’s what I don’t understand: It is already proven that insurance companies don’t operate according to free-market principles. So why on earth do these Very Important People assume that they would suddenly begin operating thus when tossed a multi-billion dollar subsidy to insure elderly people with a myriad of health problems? Until someone in the Very Important Realm can answer that question, they’re nothing more than yes-men for an Incredibly Stupid, Cynical Idea.
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Interaction between mother and child seen as significant factor in research based on Millennium Cohort Study Babies who are breastfed are less likely to have behavioural problems by the age of five than those given formula milk, according to new research. The question of whether breastfeeding has a long-term impact on behaviour has been investigated before, but the studies have usually been small-scale and inconsistent in their findings. But a large research project carried out by the universities of Oxford, Essex and York, together with University College London, has come to a more robust conclusion. They used data from the ongoing Millennium Cohort Study, a survey of babies born in the UK during a 12-month period between 2000 and 2001. More than 10,000 mother and baby pairs of white ethnic background took part. They were interviewed when the baby was nine months old and again at two-yearly intervals. The researchers asked parents to fill in questionnaires to assess their children’s potential behavioural difficulties. These included emotional issues such as clinginess and anxiety, hyperactivity such as restlessness, and conduct problems such as lying and stealing. Fewer than a third of the babies born at full-term (29%) and a fifth (21%) of those born prematurely were breastfed for at least four months. But only 4% of the breastfed babies showed a tendency to behavioural problems compared with 16% of those fed formula milk. The difference in the full-term babies was still significant even when other influences were taken into account, such as socioeconomic status and the mother’s education, age and smoking habits. However, the association was not clear among the 512 children who were born prematurely. The researchers, writing in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood , say they are not concerned with ordinary childhood misbehaviour. “Children learn appropriate behaviour from people around them and, during the learning process, all children sometimes behave inappropriately – for example, have temper tantrums or are aggressive,” they write. “Behavioural problems, however, are inappropriate behaviours that occur repeatedly over a period of time, have a negative impact on the child’s development and interfere with the child’s or their family’s everyday life.” They offer two possible explanations for their findings. One is that breast milk contains large amounts of essential fatty acids, which are known to have an important role in the development and function of the brain and central nervous system. But in the past decade, they note, formula manufacturers have been supplementing their products with essential fatty acids and it is likely that the children in the study were given supplemented formula milk. The other possible answer, they write, is that “breastfeeding leads to more interaction between the mother and the child, better learning of acceptable behaviours and fewer behavioural problems”. Peter Kinderman, professor of clinical psychology at Liverpool University, called it “a very good piece of research published in an important journal”. He said he suspected the mother-child bonding that takes place during breastfeeding might be the most important factor. “Positive bonding between parent and child is known to be fantastically helpful for development,” he said, noting that the authors specifically took into account factors such as childcare arrangements because they are so well-established as important influences in development. “This is more evidence of the importance of breastfeeding and mother-baby attachment, not just for physical health but also for the psychological development of the child,” he said. The authors said that more work needed to be done to see if their findings would contrast with other ethnic groups. Breastfeeding Children Parents and parenting Medical research Health & wellbeing Health Sarah Boseley guardian.co.uk
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Press Complaints Commission condemns Daily Telegraph for undercover recording of Cable and other Lib Dem ministers The Daily Telegraph is criticised by the Press Complaints Commission today for secretly recording conversations between Liberal Democrat ministers and having reporters pose as constituents. It upholds a complaint lodged last year by the party’s president, Tim Farron MP, over the paper’s use of subterfuge, ruling that the stories the Telegraph published as a result did not justify the methods it employed. “On this occasion, the commission was not convinced that the public interest was such as to justify proportionately this level of subterfuge,” the PCC says. The undercover reporters taped Vince Cable boasting he had “declared war” on Rupert Murdoch when, as business secretary, he was due to rule on whether News Corporation should be allowed to take full control of BSkyB. The story was leaked to the BBC, which reported it the day before it appeared in the Daily Telegraph on 21 December. Cable came close to being sacked and was stripped of his power to rule on media mergers by David Cameron, who handed them to the culture secretary Jeremy Hunt. The paper also recorded separate conversations with other Lib Dems, including employment minister Ed Davey, who privately said he was opposed to housing and child benefit cuts despite defending coalition savings in October 2010. The PCC, an industry body paid for and run by newspaper and magazine publishers, says clandestine use of recording devices breaches the editors’ code of conduct, which it enforces. This states that papers “must not seek to obtain or publish material acquired by using hidden cameras or clandestine listening devices or hidden devices including tape recorders and cameras”. Subterfuge is also outlawed unless there is a strong public interest. The PCC acknowledges in its ruling: “there was a fine balance to be struck”. But it said it “did not believe that the Telegraph – although acting no doubt with legitimate intent – had sufficient grounds, on a prima facie basis, to justify their decision to send the reporters in”. It added it had consistently advised newspapers not to go on “fishing expeditions” in the hope of finding stories and said it would be issuing futher guidance on the subject. The Daily Telegraph editor, Tony Gallagher, says the paper accepts the ruling but adds in a statement that the PCC adjudication “has alarming implications for the future of investigative journalism”. The paper told the Commission it had received information from numerous anonymous sources, including voters as well as senior political figures, that Liberal Democrat ministers were contradicting their publicly-stated views in private. Its owner Telegraph Media Group told the PCC it had sought to expose this contradiction by sending in reporters and that it had been in the public interest to do so. It denied it had been on a “fishing expedition” because it had acted on tip off from politicians and the public. Gallagher said: “We had a duty to investigate their conduct and…..to be effective the use of subterfuge was necessary. Our revelations led to the demotion of a member of the Cabinet, apologies from a string of junior ministers and condemnation from their party leader.” He added that the decision: “Increases the obstacles facing newspapers wishing to carry out legitimate inquiries based on material which is often by its nature incomplete – and it limits their ability to expose matters of legitimate public interest which those in positions of power would rather shield from public view.” Daily Telegraph Newspapers & magazines Vince Cable Liberal Democrats News Corporation Press freedom James Robinson guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …John Boehner and Paul Ryan double down on destroying Medicare by attacking AARP
May 9, 2011 No Comment
enlarge Credit: CNN USA NEXT smears AARP with anti-Gay ad Remember the above ad? As the American public turns its back on Paul Ryan’s Medicare-killing budget, part of his similarly popular Roadmap to the Poorhouse, the GOP is doubling down by attacking the AARP: Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) political group went on the attack Monday against AARP, calling one of the most powerful lobbies a “left-leaning pressure group.” Ryan’s Prosperity PAC sought to push back on attacks by AARP against the House Budget Committee chairman’s 2012 budget, specifically its proposed changes to Medicare. “Last week, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), a left-leaning pressure group with significant business interests in the insurance industry, launched a national ad campaign that intentionally misleads seniors about the Medicare debate,” wrote Pat Shortridge, a senior adviser to Ryan’s PAC, in an email to supporters. Ryan’s Medicare proposal has been a particular point of criticism by Democrats and groups on the left, which say that the Medicare plan would significantly revamp the entitlement program to the detriment of seniors. Democrats have homed in their attacks against that part of the Ryan budget, which has sparked some degree of heartburn among Republicans. AARP launched ads last week warning against “harmful cuts” to Medicare and Social Security it said Republicans favored. Fox News pushed a phony seniors’ group led by Art Linkletter called USA Next in 2005 when they tried to privatize Social Security, and they too attacked AARP — which failed miserably . Now some people on the right want you to think of gay marriage and Sunni insurgency. The New York Times this morning reported that the lobbyists who brought you the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” have been contracted to promote the agenda of USA Next, a conservative lobbying group. To build support, USA Next is portraying AARP – which opposes the White House’s pseudo-plan for privatizing Social Security – as some kind of liberal extremist group. They even produced a smear ad attacking gay marriage to try and rile up some old folks against AARP. Click here to view this media So now Ryan’s PAC is doing the same thing and attacking AARP. Good luck with that. Second up was John Boehner, who told Wall Streeters that he is indeed for going after Medicare: Speaker John Boehner is more blatant even than most politicians about telegraphing which constituency matters to him most: Wall Street. While his caucus leadership can’t run away from abolishing Medicare fast enough, Boehner is assuring Wall Street that it’s still on the agenda . In a speech to the Economic Club of New York in Midtown Manhattan, the Ohio Republican is set to reiterate to leading financial executives that he believes that reforming Medicare should be part of negotiations in raising the debt ceiling, saying that there needs to be “an honest conversation,” because the program is on an “unsustainable path if changes are not made,” according to sources familiar with the speech. Boehner also is expected to advocate for immediate cuts rather than deficit and debt targets preferred by some Democrats. After his talk, Boehner will take questions from two prominent Wall Street players at the intersection of Washington power: Peter G. Peterson, the private-equity giant who worked for President Richard Nixon, and Observatory Group CEO Jane Hartley, who worked for President Jimmy Carter…. Boehner’s public insistence that reforming Medicare stay a part of debt ceiling negotiations could reaffirm a concern among Wall Street types that Republicans are driving a hard bargain on the limit and will take the negotiations up to the last minute. Boehner said last week Congress must now cut trillions, not billions…. Friday evening, in a sign of unity after a disjointed week, GOP leadership, along with Ryan and Camp, released a statement saying “everything must be on the table except increasing taxes.” Freshmen, who voted en masse for the Ryan budget, largely want entitlement reform dealt with. It’ll keep Pete Peterson and his crowd happy, no matter how disastrous the plan is with actual voters. But more than anything, this is reflecting the very thin ice Boehner is skating. He’s got to try to convince the powers that be that really, his caucus isn’t a bunch of nihilists perfectly willing to blow up the economy over the debt ceiling vote. Lesse: the Speaker of the House is going to use the debt ceiling vote to “reform” Medicare, and Paul Ryan’s PAC is attacking the AARP. Let’s see how that all works out, but attacking AARP failed once and it will fail again. Millions of seniors have been members of AARP and they have tangible proof of how good an organization they are because they’ve used their services and love them. Using the debt to scare seniors is something that’s not tangible or even felt on a material level, so pragmatically speaking, which side would you choose if you’re fifty-five and older?
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On Sunday's 60 Minutes, CBS's Steve Kroft failed to bring up key issues related to the killing of Osama bin Laden during an interview of President Obama, such as the enhanced interrogation of captured al Qaeda leaders which provided the first intelligence that ultimately lead to the Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan. Kroft set the overall tone of his interview, which he conducted on Wednesday , by tossing a softball in his lead question to Obama: ” Mr. President, was this the most satisfying week of your presidency? ” After the chief executive gave his initial answer, the journalist followed up by asking, “Was the decision to launch this attack the most difficult decision that you've made as commander-in-chief? Later, the correspondent waxed ecstatic about the President's full schedule as final preparations were being made for the assault on the al Qaeda leader's compound:
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Detained for over a month by Beijing police, fears are growing for the safety of the Chinese artist. As two exhibitions of his work open in the UK, Adrian Searle reports It is, as I write, 37 days since Ai Weiwei disappeared, arrested by the Chinese police on 3 April in Beijing as he was about to board a scheduled flight for Hong Kong. He has not been seen or heard from since. He has not had access to a lawyer (Ai’s own lawyer disappeared for five days following the artist’s arrest), and despite persistent enquiries his family do not know where he is. Another question. Who is Ai Weiwei? As well as an artist, Ai is an architect, designer, activist, iconoclast, blogger, sometime antiques dealer and expert blackjack player. If the Chinese authorities who have arrested him and engineered his disappearance are right, this creative, complicated man is also a bigamist, involved in tax fraud, the distribution of pornography, and – laughably – a plagiarist. There is no currently no news on Ai’s condition, only rumour, including an unconfirmed and appalling graphic report , by a disaffected Xinhua journalist writing under a pseudonym, that Ai has been tortured, and has begun to confess to his supposed crimes. Meanwhile, his art has been shipped abroad, to London and New York and Switzerland. Two exhibitions of his work open in London this week. Twelve zodiac animal heads will be unveiled in the Somerset House courtyard tomorrow; these are oversized bronze replicas of figures originally sculpted by the Italian Jesuit artist Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766) as a water clock for the gardens of the Yuanmingyuan, Qing dynasty Emperor Qianlong’s summer retreat. In 1860, the palace was ransacked by French and British troops, and the heads were pillaged. Two ended up in the collection of Yves Saint Laurent; the current Chinese government has been trying to retrieve them. What goes around comes around. A second show of Ai’s sculptures and videos opens on Thursday at the Lisson
Continue reading …Detained for over a month by Beijing police, fears are growing for the safety of the Chinese artist. As two exhibitions of his work open in the UK, Adrian Searle reports It is, as I write, 37 days since Ai Weiwei disappeared, arrested by the Chinese police on 3 April in Beijing as he was about to board a scheduled flight for Hong Kong. He has not been seen or heard from since. He has not had access to a lawyer (Ai’s own lawyer disappeared for five days following the artist’s arrest), and despite persistent enquiries his family do not know where he is. Another question. Who is Ai Weiwei? As well as an artist, Ai is an architect, designer, activist, iconoclast, blogger, sometime antiques dealer and expert blackjack player. If the Chinese authorities who have arrested him and engineered his disappearance are right, this creative, complicated man is also a bigamist, involved in tax fraud, the distribution of pornography, and – laughably – a plagiarist. There is no currently no news on Ai’s condition, only rumour, including an unconfirmed and appalling graphic report , by a disaffected Xinhua journalist writing under a pseudonym, that Ai has been tortured, and has begun to confess to his supposed crimes. Meanwhile, his art has been shipped abroad, to London and New York and Switzerland. Two exhibitions of his work open in London this week. Twelve zodiac animal heads will be unveiled in the Somerset House courtyard tomorrow; these are oversized bronze replicas of figures originally sculpted by the Italian Jesuit artist Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766) as a water clock for the gardens of the Yuanmingyuan, Qing dynasty Emperor Qianlong’s summer retreat. In 1860, the palace was ransacked by French and British troops, and the heads were pillaged. Two ended up in the collection of Yves Saint Laurent; the current Chinese government has been trying to retrieve them. What goes around comes around. A second show of Ai’s sculptures and videos opens on Thursday at the Lisson
Continue reading …The woman who set off a storm of worldwide condemnation against the Gadhafi regime has finally escaped (literally) Libya and crossed into Tunisia. Via CNN : Tunis, Tunisia (CNN) — Eman al-Obeidy, who garnered worldwide attention for her vocal rape allegations against the regime of Moammar Gadhafi, says she has fled Libya, fearing for her safety. Al-Obeidy told CNN that she crossed into Tunisia on Thursday with the help of a defecting military officer and his family. She said she had left Tripoli in a military car, wearing a head cover that hid everything except one eye. Al-Obeidy said she entered at the Dahibah border crossing disguised “in the local manner” and was not challenged. She described the trip from Tripoli as “very tiring.”
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