Another Angle 23 - July - 2006

ANOTHER ANGLE
News others won't tell you



Is Beirut Burning?
Now it is not a secret anymore: this war has been planned for a long time. The military correspondents proudly reported this week that the army has been exercising for this war in all its details for several years. Only a month ago, there was a large war game to rehearse the entrance of land forces into South Lebanon - at a time when both the politicians and the generals were declaring that "we shall never again get into the Lebanon quagmire. We shall never again introduce land forces there." Now we are in the quagmire, and large land forces are operating in the area.



NATIONAL:



Bush politicizes Civil Rights hiring
Several new hires worked for prominent conservatives, including former Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr, former attorney general Edwin Meese, Mississippi Senator Trent Lott, and Judge Charles Pickering. At the same time, the kinds of cases the Civil Rights Division is bringing have undergone a shift. The division is bringing fewer voting rights and employment cases involving systematic discrimination against African-Americans, and more alleging reverse discrimination against whites and religious discrimination against Christians.



Dems leading in Ohio Sen., Gov. races
Democrat Ted Strickland has surged to a surprising lead of 20 percentage points in the first Dispatch Poll on Ohio’s Nov. 7 race for governor.



Blacks expelled in '61 finally get diplomas
Many went elsewhere to receive diplomas and later went on to college, but the scars from that day have hovered over the town for four decades.



Clinton bid for solidarity backfires on Harlem blacks
Bill Clinton's decision to site his office in the largely black Manhattan neighbourhood of Harlem, as a gesture of solidarity with African-Americans, appears to have backfired. Dozens of angry blacks demonstrated last week outside the building that houses the former president's staff, claiming that his move had led to the gentrification of the area and increased the price of homes beyond their reach.



An African perspective
The African-American Studies Department is returning to State University College at Cortland after an absence of more than 30 years. The department was originally created in 1971 under the name Black Studies but was dissolved four years later.



Inside America's Private Army
Today's after-lunch lesson: How to break a man's arm with your bare hands. The students pay close attention. On a patch of grass under a powder-blue sky, they pair off to practice the moves - like the steps to some merciless dance: Hold here. Pivot there. Trap arm. Bend. And snap.



Howie Klein: John Mellencamp, Charles Barkley and a Former Vice President/Golfer
Barkley made it clear he's not happy with the job Democrats have done in fighting the Republican madness, but he made it clear that that's his team now. "The Democrats have done a horrible job; a really crappy job... Democrats have wasted the last two years going after this guy and two years from another election, we don't have a frontrunner or a plan." Note the "we;" everyone else did. And when questioned Barkley went right to the point. "I was a Republican until they lost their minds."



San Francisco Bay View - National Black Newspaper of the Year
Before Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib were the Black Panthers



Harry Olivieri, Philly Cheesesteak King, Dies
Harry Olivieri, credited with helping invent the Philly cheesesteak sandwich, has died at the age of 90. Olivieri and his older brother, Pat, began making Philadelphia's signature sandwich in 1933. The pair co-founded Pat's King of Steaks, selling the mix of beef and onions that still claims rabid fans. Melissa Block talks with Frank Olivieri, Harry's son, who still runs the family business.




INTERNATIONAL:



ITALIAN COURT DEMANDS CIA EXTRADITIONS
An Italian court has requested the extradition of 26 CIA agents for their alleged role in the abduction of a Egyptian Muslim cleric in 2003, the Repubblica newspaper reported on Friday. The court in Milan, which is leading the investigation, sent an extradition request to the public prosecutor’s office which would then pass it to Justice Minister Clemente Mastella, the daily said. Mastella should then in turn send it to his US counterpart.



Israel to accept EU force in Lebanon
"Israel is ready to see deployment of a force with military capabilities and combat experience made up of troops from European Union countries once its mandate has been fixed," Olmert said during talks with Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the visiting German foreign minister.
Focus turns to US support for Israel's attack on Lebanon
Israel 'presses US on bomb sale'



UN appalled by Beirut devastation




It all started September 11 - not 2001 - but 1922
A chilling documentary of Israeli occupation of Palestine that begins with Balfour's infamous declaration and culminates in a brutal escalation that threatens to plunge the world into darkness.



Somali Islamists and government clash
Government militia seized and set on fire two "technicals" - heavily armed pickup trucks that are Somalia's version of tanks - in fighting in the remote Qoryooley district, an Islamist source said.



Girl's miracle escape from lightning strike
The bolt hit Marina Motygina, 16, from Ekaterinburg in western Russia on the top of her head and seared through her body into the ground.



IRAQ:



Iraqi speaker decries US 'butchery'
"Just get your hands off Iraq and the Iraqi people and Muslim countries, and everything will be all right," the conservative Sunni Islamist said, in a speech opening the conference. "What has been done in Iraq is a kind of butchery of the Iraqi people," he said in a long winded speech that criticized the tactics of the coalition forces as well as US support for Israeli strikes against Lebanon.



BUSH CRIME FAMILY:



Bush family history shows a dark past unseen by most
As Kevin Phillips recounts in "American Dynasty," the Bush family presents a record of war profiteers who use public office to gain wealth and advantage. Along the way, Bush family business cronies receive political access and legitimacy. One of the most venal characters is Prescott Bush, the president's grandfather.



We're Fucked - And you can thank George Bush.
And the rest of our chickenshit, spineless, anything-for-Israel representatives. Do you think the Arab world is going to turn a blind eye to the fact that the US is providing Israel with the material to carry out genocide against the Lebanese? What would the US do if we knew that a country was supplying an enemy of the US that was bombing the crap out of us? Bush's actions and policy have only served to make the US a legitimate target.



ECONOMY:



Apparel manufacturing jobs declining in Mexico
The Mexican economy is growing, as is the total number of workers employed in this country. But the total number of manufacturing jobs has been falling.



OP-ED:



Black Commentator: Israeli Apartheid
If the American people knew the truth about what their tax dollars pay for in Israel and what is left of Palestine, there would be a deep and widespread revulsion, similar to that occasioned by US support for apartheid in South Africa. But there are important differences between that time and this one. Though unspeakably odious, racist South African was only marginally important to US interests. By contrast, the maintenance of Israel's apartheid regime, essentially a white hi-tech and military outpost in the middle of all those brown people sitting atop a large share of the world's proven oil reserves is absolutely central to US foreign policy for the foreseeable future.



The End Is Near, but first, this commercial.
Israel's existence is not at stake and hasn't been so for decades, if it ever was, regardless of the many de rigueur militant statements by Arab leaders over the years. If Israel would learn to deal with its neighbors in a non-expansionist, non-military, humane, and respectful manner, engage in full prisoner exchanges, and sincerely strive for a viable two-state solution, even those who are opposed to the idea of a state based on a particular religion could accept the state of Israel, and the question of its right to exist would scarcely arise in people's minds.



Painting the Passports Brown
In a letter to the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, Chaim Weizmann noted [in 1919] that Lebanon “is a well watered region . . . and the Litani River is valueless to the territory north of the proposed frontiers . . . . It can be used beneficially in the country much further south” This interest in the Litani continued through the 1950s, when both Prime Minister Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan, Israel’s Chief of Staff, advocated Israeli occupation of Lebanon up to the Litani River. The fact that Litani water is very high in quality with a low mineral content only enhances its value — and the perceived threat.


SCIENCE&TECHNOLOGY:



Astronomers glimpse exploded star
RS Ophiuchi is close to destroying itself in a nuclear explosion called a type 1a supernova, scientists report in the journal Nature.



HEALTH&FITNESS:



Agriculture Department to reduce mad cow testing by about 90 ...percent
The current level of 1,000 tests each day represents about 1 percent of the 35 million cattle slaughtered annually in this country. Beginning around late August, the new level will be about 110 tests per day.



FOOD&DRINK:



SUMMER FRUIT SALAD WITH MINT SUGAR
Wonderful! If you don't have mint - buy it. Without it, it's just another bowl of fruit. It's definitely something special with it!



Aunt Daisy's Perfect Lemonade
Chef Gillian Clark says her aunt Daisy wasn't the greatest cook in the world. She overcooked chicken and burned toast; but she made the perfect lemonade.



REVIEWS/INTERVIEWS:



A Caribbean beach fantasy
At the beginning of next month the Royal Court theatre in London, never afraid of controversy, will go nearer the knuckle than ever when it stages Sugar Mummies. Lynda Bellingham, the Oxo Mum who became the wholesome face of family values in TV commercials, plays one of four middle-aged women who visit Jamaica to sample male prostitutes. There is lots and lots of sex.



Like One Long LSD Trip
Turn on, tune in, shoot 'em up. If Timothy Leary and HR Giger spawned a video game, they surely would have come up with something like Prey. That's because PREY is like one long night with various entheogens courtesy of the Mazatecs of Mexico—with a dash of Alien to add some horror-rich paranoia.


HUMOR?:



Sutton Impact: Global Warming? Keep Laffin'!