The Kids
Are Not Alright, Why Johnny can't compute - The school reform movement is
badly in need of reform. Right now, our nation's most prominent school reformers are
almost totally ignoring one item that could go a long way toward improving our failing
public schools: increasing the quantity and quality of computer programming instruction...
Coastal Zone
Management Act Dispute - Florida vs. Chevron - I attended the meeting on
September 27 in Pensacola regarding offshore drilling and if ignorance was bliss, that
crowd was the happiest group I've ever seen. My husband is an employee of Murphy
Expro and we live in Ft. Walton Beach. We went to the meeting in support of
Chevron's plans to develop the Destin Dome because we know that it can be developed
safely, with no detrimental effects on the environment or our tourist industry...
Bitter Paradise: The Sellout of East
Timor - Presented by Working TV
- In the weeks before and the days since the August 30th overwhelming vote for
independence by the East Timorese, armed gangs of thugs, armed and controlled by the army,
have rampaged throughout the country, trying to terrorize the population and block
independence. Now there are plans being laid by Indonesia, the US and Australia, for a
massive ethnic cleansing of East Timor, removing hundreds of thousands people from their
homeland "to quell the violence." Bitter Paradise, produced by Elaine Briere
(1997), documents the human rights situation in East Timor and Canada's shameless support
of a predatory military regime. [Click on picture
to see the video]
The future of peacekeeping - In East
Timor force, U.S. sees something to build on - By Michael Moran - UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 21
— The collapse of Indonesian misrule in East Timor caused hundreds of deaths, a
refugee crisis and raised questions about the future of the world’s fourth most
populous nation. But there is a bright side. State-sponsored violence, for once, was met
not with words, but with action. The U.N. Security Council quickly approved intervention.
Indonesia’s neighbors pledged troops immediately. Perhaps most importantly, the
United States acted in proportion to its national interests. It did not send an aircraft
carrier. No reservists have been called up. Could this be a model for sustainable
interventions in the new century? ...
Whose Money? - by Fred Bergmann - "...struggle with the
Republican-controlled Congress over how to spend the federal government's money."
(italics mine) These were the media's words but reflect President Clinton's recent
statements that the government could return surplus tax revenues to taxpayers but we would
not spend it correctly. His latest statement was that the tax cut passed by Congress was
"too big, too bloated, places too great a burden on America's economy..."
Freedom from want? - IF YOU look at the
past 100 years in the 40-50 countries that are now considered rich, what trend do you see?
Bradford De Long, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, describes it in
the title of his forthcoming book on the 20th century as “Slouching towards
Utopia”. Slouching, because despite huge material and scientific progress, people are
grudging about it all. Utopia, not because perfection has been reached or is attainable,
but because the state of wealth and knowledge in 1999 would have more than satisfied the
Utopias envisaged by many previous crystal-gazers and proselytisers. Consider what has
happened...
I
am the foundation of all business, and the font of all prosperity.
WHAT MAKES SOMEONE AN ARTIST?
- by James Michael Starr - I could draw from a very early age. I remember, when I was
about four, drawing a shield on the side of a cardboard box so that I could climb into a
fantasy police cruiser and be Broderick Crawford on the 50's television drama, Highway
Patrol. I also remember many of my first drawings were of revolvers. Apparently I watched
a little too much tv. As I grew up, everyone knew what I'd be. It was obvious. I could
draw very well. But, did that make me an artist?
Did You Know... - by Carl Bergmann, August 14, 1999 - I've
been one of the working class here in Okaloosa County for many years, till I decided to
seek better fortune elsewhere. Years afterwards, I'm back, and I don't like what I
see...
Loitering on the Dark Side - The Columbine
High killers fed on a culture of violence that isn't about to change - By Steven Levy,
Newsweek, May 3, 1999 - Now for the recriminations. Was the Colorado tragedy a
legacy of our technoculture: Doom, "Natural Born Killers," hate-amplifying Web
sites and pipe-bomb plans from the Net? Or simply two teenage killers' ability to collect
enough ordnance to sustain a small army? Gathering the potential culprits seems less an
exercise in fixing liability than tossing random darts at the violence-fixated cultural
landscape. After the massacre, there were calls to cancel two upcoming Denver events: a
Marilyn Manson concert and the NRA's annual convention. Guilt has to be spread pretty
widely to make bedfellows of the androgynous Goth crooner and Charlton Heston...
Internationalist liberals, Isolationism and the
Balkan War, May 99, By Dick Morris - As pressure to intervene mounts from the
international community for ground troops to intervene in Kosovo, American politicians
would do well to remember the depth and breath of isolationism in the United States.
Never defeated at the polls, it simply went out of fashion as a political movement,
abandoned by Democrats in the face of fascism, and by Republicans in the face of
communism...
Coming to Russia's Rescue - BY MORTIMER B.
ZUCKERMAN, Spring 1999 - "A collapse would cause grave security problems for
the West" For 40 years after World War II we were worried about the rising power of
the Soviet Union. Now we have to worry just as much about the collapsing power of Russia.
The source of the anxiety is much the same but paradoxical. In the first period we worried
that Russians might use their weapons of mass destruction. Now we should worry that they
might lose them...
So what are we getting for
this hefty $7 million? - John LeGrand - Guest Columnist August 6 1999 -
Dealing with dollar figures and trying to write about it can sometimes be tedious and
dull. But my friends, you should be interested in what you're getting for $7 million from
your Destin City Council...
A Century of Innovation - By Kevin Maney, USA TODAY
- Lee Kwan Yew, the leader who built modern Singapore, was once asked what he considered
the most important invention of the 20th century. His answer was classic: air
conditioning. Because without air conditioning, Singapore – sitting there next to the
equator – wouldn't be much of a place to do business...
A waspish niggardly slur... - BY JOHN LEO of US
News, May 99 - The nonimpeachment story of the last week of January was the
controversy over the word "niggardly." David Howard, a white mayoral aide in
Washington, D.C., used the word in conversation with a black official, who took offense
because he felt that niggardly, which means miserly or cheap, was a racist term...
The 'Something' undermining our Nation
- by Charlton Heston addressed the topic 'Winning the Cultural War' at the
Harvard Law School Forum, February 16, 1999. Here is the text of that speech: By Charlton
Heston© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com...
I remember my son when he was 5, explaining to his kindergarten class what his
father did for a living. "My Daddy," he said, "pretends to be
people." There have been quite a few of them. Prophets from the Old and New
Testaments, a couple of Christian saints, generals of various nationalities and different
centuries, several kings, three American presidents, a French cardinal and two geniuses,
including Michelangelo. If you want the ceiling re-painted I'll do my best. There
always seem to be a lot of different fellows up here. I'm never sure which one of them
gets to talk. Right now, I guess I'm the guy...
Diana DeGette Wants You Dead - by L. Neil
Smith lneil@ezlink.com - It may come as a
surprise to many to learn that I didn't kill John F. Kennedy in November of 1963. I have
an alibi and witnesses -- well, one witness, anyway. At the time, I was hundreds of
miles away from Dallas' Dealy Plaza, in my last-period junior biology class at
Choctawhatchee High School near Fort Walton Beach in Okaloosa County, Florida. My
witness is my high school girlfriend, with whom I am still more or less in touch via the
internet...
This is not about tourism, July 9 1999 -
"Since when has tourism in this area become solely dependent on whether or not we
have a conference center built? Mr. Darrel Jones (and Mr. Rick Deckert) are implying that
if there is no conference center, tourism dollars will dry up. I feel, at the very
least, he/they are protecting their jobs at the TDC more so, than looking after the
welfare of the county residents..." - by Carl Bergmann
NOAM CHOMSKY: The New World Order (Transcript)
- George Bush proclaimed the emergence of a "New World Order" with the
defeat of communism and the advent of globalization. What kind of order is it and who does
it benefit? MIT professor and dissident Noam Chomsky explains it all...
Something is wrong with this picture!, April 9 1999 -
The "Northwest Florida Daily News" posted an article on their website about a
man caught with child pornography on his computer (Click here to see the
article). I was furious after I read it. Not because of the child porn,
that's a separate issue altogether, but because a computer repairman was snooping around
his clients computer, found some child porn, then he reported the pornography to the
police... - by Carl Bergmann
Three brushes with Balkan history - By
Albert Eisele, May 99 - One of the advantages of being a journalist with a
checkered job history that includes stints in government and business is the opportunity
to occasionally rub shoulders with people and events destined to earn a place in the
history books. Here are three such encounters that have some relevance to events that are
in today’s headlines...
Pat Buchanan: Get Out of Yugoslavia Now -
April 13, 1999 - One argument being used to defend the U.S. intervention in
Yugoslavia is persuasive even to skeptics of the war itself. It goes like this: maybe the
war was a bad idea, but now that we're in it, we've got to fight it all the way to the
end, no matter what the costs...
!NATO STOP THE WAR!, April 9 1999 - As a
nation, we have no right being Yugoslavia's policeman. It is a very dangerous
precedence we are setting getting militarily involved in foreign affairs that don't
directly concern or threaten this nation... - by Carl Bergmann
Congressman Joe
Scarborourgh's opinion of the US involvement in Kosovo - April 15, 1999 -
Like all Americans, I am disturbed by the images of thousands of refugees being forced out
of Kosovo. Slobodan Milosevic must be held responsible for these actions. That said, I
agree with you that it is a mistake for the United States to become involved in the Balkan
civil war in Kosovo...
"It's not about Sex" - letter to the
President - author unknown - If it were about sex,
you would be long gone. Just like a doctor, attorney or teacher who had sex with a
patient, client or student half his age, you would have violated the ethics of your office
and would be long gone. Just like a Sergeant Major of the Army, Gene McKinney, who
though found not guilty, was forced to resign amid accusations of sexual abuse...
The Image of the Pig in Southern Culture -
Stephen C Kenny - Liverpool John Moores University - In the American South, as in
the United States more generally, the pig business and symbolic representations of swine
are both extremely popular and remarkably political. Popularly, one might think of the
'cult of the pigskin,' that is American football (the US national game, which perhaps
enjoys it's most enthusiastic support in the American South), or Mel Blanc's stuttering
vocals in the guise of Tex Avery's animated Porky Pig. Politically, one might recall the
'Bay of Pigs' fiasco in 1961, or, more recently, environmental concerns over the
activities of giant corporate hog farmers...
