text:
David McCullough on 9/11
This story is excerpted from "First Principles" the Nebraska Governor's Lecture in the Humanities delivered by David McCullough on September 20, 2001
"We live, my dear soul, in an age of trial. What will be the consequence, I know not."John Adams to Abigail Adams, 1774.
They didn't know how it was going to turn out. Nobody ever knew how it was going to turn out. We are taught history in a way in which we are supposed to understand that this followed that, followed this, followed that. You are going to memorize it, get it straight, because it will be on a test on Thursday. And you begin to think after a while that that's the way it was, that this followed that, and everything was preordained, on a track.
. . .The founding fathers, those protagonists of our founding generation, loom large in the history books. They loom large in the pantheon of our American heroes, their faces chiseled everywhere, their monuments everywhere, their faces on our money, on our postage stamps. And there is a tendency sometimes to think of them only as marble icons, or to think of them as gods. They weren't gods. If they had been gods, they would deserve no credit, because gods can do whatever they want.
They were human beings: mortal, full of failings, frailties, contradictions, flaws, vulnerabilities. Let's never forget that the very first lines of our immortal Declaration of Independence begin with "When in the course of human events." Human events. They were quite imperfect, each and every one.
What is so amazing is that despite their imperfections, despite their jealousies of one another, their dislike of one another, in some cases, conflicting or contrasting ambitions, they somehow made it happen. And they made it happen without having a prior experience to go by. They were, to a large degree in our vernacular, "winging it." None of them had ever fought a revolution before. No colonial people had ever broken free from a colonial empire in history ever before. It had never been done. It wasn't just that they hadn't done it. It had never been done.
Nor had they invented, created a country, a nation. Imagine that. They were not producing a Broadway show. They were making a country, a nation. And they had never done that before, either. And all of the learned world, all the wise old heads, all of the intellectuals, philosophers, the cynics of Europe, knew that even if they were to be so fortunate as to win their war, that their country would not last very long. It would split apart because of the divisive nature of the various states: North versus South, East versus West. Too large to hold together, too many conflicting aspirations, ambitions and needs to serve the self.
It was a miracle in that respect, and we are all the beneficiaries. We can never know enough about them, ever. They were just as real as you and I.
One of the shifts you have to make in understanding that time is a shift in scale. It was all so small. We live in a world today with 20 cities of more than 10 million people. We live in a world, as we have been shown in the most dramatic fashion in the past 10 days or more, of instant communication, instant information, instant solutions or the expectation of instant solutions of everyone. And in a world where, too often, spin doctors and focus groups and market surveys dictate what's done rather than principle.
In that day there were 2,500,000 Americans. They were scattered along the Eastern Seaboard only to a depth of about 50 miles. Everything was very small. Boston had a population of about 15,000, New York about 18,000. The largest city in the colonies, Philadelphia, had all of 30,000 people, which, when we checked a map today of Nebraska, means that it was a little smaller than Grand Island. And yet, out of that city, out of that population, came some of the most amazing, learned, protean minds of our entire history, and that same group that gathered there, the best minds in the country, the first and second Continental Congresses, were the best minds in the country.
That same group had the nerve, had the gall, had the backbone, some thought the madness, to defy the British Empire. And when the British Empire landed its military force in New York on Staten Island, the same week as the passage of the Declaration of Independence, they landed 32,000 troops. In other words, a force larger than the entire population of the city of Philadelphia, the largest in the country.
Anyone who signed his name to the Declaration of Independence was putting his head in a noose. He was declaring on paper, with his own signature, that he was a traitor. If caught, he would be hanged. He would be fortunate if he were only hanged, because the law said he could be drawn and quartered. When they pledged their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor, that wasn't just rhetoric. That was the truth, the literal truth.
What were their principles? What did they believe in? I like to talk about Adams' principles, because I admire his principles enormously, and I admire the fact that he lived by them and stood up for them. He didn't just have courage, he had the courage of his convictions. Most dramatically of all, and in many ways most admirably of all, he alone of all the founding fathers, never owned a slave, as a matter or principle.
John Adams believed in a balanced government—executive, legislative and judicial. He believed in a bicameral legislature. He wanted balance in everything. Balance, he was certain, was the surest way for survival of the government. And he wanted independence in order to achieve freedom. We say "free and independent." He would have said "independent and free."
He was a man who had come from the most obscure origins. He is commonly thought of as a rich Boston blueblood. He wasn't rich, he wasn't a Bostonian, and he wasn't a blueblood. He was a Braintree farmer's son who rose to what he became because of the miracle of education, of books, of learning.
He had a scholarship to Harvard. Now it wasn't the Harvard that we all know or imagine. It wasn't present-day Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was in Cambridge, but it had four buildings, a faculty of seven and a student body of about 100. John Adams went off to Harvard, as did most of the students at Harvard, when he was about 15 years old. He was still, by our terms, a high-school boy.
At Harvard, he discovered books and, as he said later, "I read forever; I read forever." He became the most deeply and widely read American of his very bookish time. He never stopped reading, never stopped learning. When they talk about the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence, they aren't talking about the kind of happiness that we hear about so often—not material happiness, not pleasure in the sense of ease—but learning, the enlargement of the mind, the enlargement of the human spirit, the increase of virtue, of human behavior, of kindness, of tolerance, of freedom. Freedom to write, to think, to read as we want.
Adams felt very strongly, as he wrote in several letters, that of all of God's greatest gifts to us, along with the spectacle of the stars at night, along with the miracle of the seasons, along with the best that there is that we see of the world around us, the greatest of the gifts was the human mind, and its capacity to think for itself. In that he believed to his very boots.
I began my work on Adams quite by chance, because in a way I was setting out to do a book about Adams and Jefferson. But very quickly I found that there was something about this short, stout, not very handsome, not very well-known New Englander that had great appeal for me. I loved his authenticity. I loved his crankiness. I loved his unwillingness to court popularity. "Popularity was never my mistress" he said. Truer words were never spoken. I loved his humor, his wonderful humor.
Adams was also a very affectionate man, great-hearted, warm-hearted, devoted to his family, devoted most of all to his wife. We can't understand John Adams without understanding Abigail Adams, her influence in his life, her spirit and his deep, life-long affection and respect for her.
She was one of the most amazing Americans of her time. She was a profound patriot. We must never think of the patriots of the American Revolution as men only. She was a wonderful writer. She was a great reader, an avid reader. She loved to quote poetry in almost everything she wrote. Every letter had a line or two of poetry in it, and nearly always had something wrong. She never got it quite right. But the mistakes were very minor and they show us quite clearly that she wasn't looking it up. She knew these lines. One of her favorite lines, which appears quite often in what she wrote, particularly during the darkest of times, was the line from one of her favorite English poets: "Affliction is a good man's shining time."
We could also say affliction is a good nation's shining time. I have drawn more from the very lines I quoted in a book upon which I spent six and one-half years, I have drawn more I think from the lines written by John and Abigail Adams in the last six or seven days than I did in all that time prior to now. It all is still entirely applicable.
I have often wondered what it would be like to go back into that era. I suppose in many ways that's why I write the books I do, because I want to go back into those other times, and this is my way of doing it. Much about it would probably impress us more even than we can know from the best research, the most careful combing over of quotations and state papers. Much about it would be appalling to us: The smell of some cities. One can hardly imagine the horror of going to an 18th century dentist, for example. But I think we would find in many ways that we understood John Adams, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington. We would understand them immediately because we are their descendants. They speak our language in more ways than one. We are of them and we are their beneficiaries every single day of our lives.
Many of them never had any idea that they were going to be cast as characters in the great historic drama. I love to read aloud a passage from one of John Adams' diaries, the little diaries he kept when he was a very woebegone schoolteacher in a little one-room schoolhouse out in Worcester, Massachusetts, which was then the edge of the frontier. Some seem to think that Worcester is still the edge of the frontier.
He was missing his friends from Harvard. He was missing his family. He thought that the world was passing him by. But he was resolved, he said, in a little notebook about the size of the palm of your hand, he wrote in a hand that is so tiny that I had to use a magnifying glass to read it, "I am resolved to rise with the sun and to study Scriptures on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings, and to study some Latin author the other three mornings. Noons and nights I intend to read English authors. I will rouse up my mind and fix my attention. I will stand collected within myself and think about what I read and what I see."
How admirable, how wonderful, what a young man! He is only 20 years old. But then you read on, and the next morning he slept until 7, and a one-line entry the following week reads, "A very rainy day; dreamed away the whole time." When I read that, I knew I had my subject!
Then he goes on. He gets very full of self-pity. "I have no books, I have no time, no friends, I must, therefore, be contented to live and die an ignorant, obscure fellow."
Twenty years later, he is standing on the floor of Congress in what we call Independence Hall in Philadelphia, making the greatest speech of his career and one of the greatest speeches in American history, to convince the delegates, the Congress, to vote for a Declaration of Independence. The date was July 1st.
If Jefferson was the pen of the Declaration of Independence, Adams was the voice. It was Adams who drove it through the Congress. He had a very great capacity for seeing into the future. It is quite remarkable and happens again and again. He is the one who sees that the Revolutionary War won't be short. Everyone is saying two or three years. He said, "No, no. It will be 10 years. It will be costly, bloody, and we might not win." As it was, it lasted eight years, so he was pretty close.
He was the first American to say in print that the French Revolution was going to lead to a bloodbath, a horror beyond anything anyone had ever imagined, and would give rise to a dictatorship, which is exactly what happened. He and Edmund Burke, on the other side of the Atlantic, were saying much the same thing.
On the 2nd day of July 1776, seeing into the future, Adams wrote a wonderful paragraph in one of his hundreds and hundreds of letters to his adored wife. "The 2nd day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epica in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty."
Let me stop right there. It is very important. The very first thing he is saying is that we should be down on our knees thanking God. Now we believe, and we should believe, in the separation of church and state. But there was no separation between church and statesmen. It is impossible to understand what went on in that time, and to understand the individuals caught up in the events of that time, without understanding the part, the role, the importance of religion in their lives.
Then he goes on about this day, this great anniversary festival. "It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells and bonfires. Illuminations from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more."
Now here's a man in a very small room, the windows closed because they didn't want anybody to be listening at the windows to the actions that went on inside the chamber, the door locked, no minutes being kept because they were so afraid of the Tories and the spies all around in Philadelphia, so we don't know what he said in his speech.
Afterwards, at night, he goes back to a cramped little room in a boarding house, he is writing this letter in a city of about 30,000 people, in a country of about only 2,500,000 people, with only a depth of about 50 miles inland. And he is imagining not just a celebration which is clearly our 4th of July, but a nation reaching from one end of the continent to the other. He is foreseeing far more than just a 4th of July celebration, and it is very important to understand that.
Now the 4th of July that we celebrate is really just the date on the document. It wasn't signed on the 4thof July it was signed on August 8th. And not everybody was there to sign it, because many of the delegates were absent. They signed it when they returned. Some of them didn't return until after the turn of the year in 1777.
So the great portrait that hangs in the rotunda in our Capitol done by John Trumbull of the signing of the Declaration of Independence is a magnificent scene of something that never took place. But it's exactly right in spirit. All 13 colonies, all these delegates, representatives of the people, signing this brave, eloquent, immortal statement of faith…"When in the course of human events…"
Later, when the fate and the fortunes of the United States, the proclaimed United States, turned worse that fall, when Washington had been defeated again and again and again, and his army was down to a few thousand, retreating across New Jersey, the whole crusade for America was at its absolute nadir, its lowest point ever. The Army was a couple of thousand men, ill-equipped, ill-clothed, many of them sick.
They had known nothing but defeat again and again, with the strongest military force imaginable closing down on them from behind, including the hireling Hessian troops, whom they feared most of all. It was then, as I'm sure many of you know, Thomas Paine, who was with the Army said, "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country."
Service to the country; it comes in all forms. It doesn't just mean being elected to political office, or being a member of a cabinet, or serving in one of the departments or one of the military forces. We are all, in our way, I hope we all feel, serving our country in what we do. In how we raise our children, in the way we conduct ourselves as citizens. "Posterity who are to reap the blessings will scarcely be able to conceive the hardships and suffering of their ancestors," Abigail Adams wrote. She is absolutely right. We can scarcely be able to conceive the hardships and sufferings, but they never doubted that it was worth it.
One of my favorite letters of Abigail's is one that she wrote to her young son, John Quincy, who had had a horrendous voyage across the Atlantic with his father when his father first sailed to become a diplomat in France to help, with Franklin, to raise the necessary funds from the French. They had nearly been killed several times, and the boy, needless to say, who was only 10 years old, was terrified, and after they had returned and Adams was asked to go back to France once again, John Quincy said he wasn't interested in going. So his mother wrote him a letter. Keep in mind that this is a young woman. She is just a little past 30. And she's never been to school. She was "home-schooled," as we would say.
"These are the times in which a genius would wish to live," she tells him. Remember, he's a little kid, he's 12 years old. "It is not in the still calm of life or the repose of a pacific station that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues."
How much more applicable could a line from 200 years ago be? "When a mind is raised and animated by scenes that engage the heart then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant waken to life and form the character of the hero and the statesman."
Well you know he had to go on that voyage, and of course he did—to his great benefit. He wound up traveling all the way to St. Petersburg to serve as a translator at the age of 15 for Francis Dana, who spoke no French. He was there, this 15-year-old boy, as the official translator and interpreter at the court of Catherine the Great. He knew all the principal philosophers and intellectuals of Europe, became a friend of Jefferson, a friend of the French philosophers, the Philosophes.
After the war was over, his mother came over to join her husband, his father, and it was time for young John Quincy to come back and get down to business and prepare to enter Harvard. After he had been home in Massachusetts a very short time, his aunt, Abigail's sister, wrote to Abigail to tell her (alas, she regretted having to tell her) that young John Quincy, for all of his attainments and fine qualities, appeared to be a little overly full of himself, and that he was a bit hard to bear, and that his mother should know about that.
So once again, Abigail took up her quill and wrote the following to her brilliant, young son: "If you are conscious to yourself that you possess more knowledge upon some subjects than others of your standing, reflect that you have had greater opportunities of seeing the world and obtaining a knowledge of mankind than any of your contemporaries, that you have never wanted a book but it has been supplied to you, that your whole time has been spent in the company of men of literature and science. How unpardonable would it have been in you to have turned out a blockhead."
Well, blockheads they definitely weren't. They were carrying on in a great tradition from which some of the best histories were written.
Of all the scenes in that eventful long life of patriot Adams, I think one of the most moving is when he, the farmer's son from Braintree, Massachusetts, presents himself before King George III to say that he is there to represent the new, free and independent United States of America.
He came from a culture, a civilization which had been self-governing for quite a long time, with town meetings, with the militia service, with the democracy of the small New England town. He had the best education that the country could offer. He believed fervently, as did Jefferson and so many of them, that we could not be a free country, we could not be a self-governing country if we were ignorant.
We must be educated. Jefferson said it very simply. He said, "Any nation that expects to be ignorant and free, expects what never was and never will be." Adams put it into the constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which he wrote himself at a pine stand-up lawyer's desk of the day.
Adams wrote in the Constitution of Massachusetts that it shall be the duty, the duty of the government to educate everybody…everybody.
Then he went on to specify what he meant by education. He said it doesn't just mean science and literature, it means finance and agriculture and manufacturing and trade and the natural history of our country, and it includes virtue and tolerance and humanity and punctuality and generosity, and, he said, good humor. There will be good humor. It's in the constitution.
This theme of learning is right there at the beginning of our country. It is the backbone, it is the idea that the country can't survive without a learned population. Education is always going to be the gate to freedom for oncoming generations. The country, the way of life, the good life, the social compact, will all improve generation after generation with increased education available for everybody.
So it seems to be that on this evening where we are celebrating the humanities and the importance of the humanities in life, where we're still in a state of stunned disbelief about what happened last week and inner grief and worry, but also uplifted by so much that we've seen, that this old theme of freedom and education has never, ever been more valid and relevant.
We have the strongest military force imaginable, maybe unimaginable. We have the most productive economy in the world, even with the shaky spin that seems to be going on momentarily. We have greater riches. We have greater resources. We have, at the moment, a unity, a spirit, a patriotism unlike we've seen perhaps ever…the oldest among us perhaps have never seen a mood, a resolve in the country such as we have at the moment. And we have seen some of our worries, and our easy snipes at the problems of society, dissolve in front of our eyes.
It has been said for years now that we are a nation without heroes, and that a nation without heroes is a nation in the soup. Look at those heroes, and who were they? Firemen, police, medics, nurses, steel workers. That's real strength. That's the real strength of the country. And those aren't celluloid heroes. That's the real thing. Did you notice how young so many of them are? Did you see the young woman whose husband and other young men on that flight that went down in Pennsylvania? They're our heroes, and they're young. They're of this generation who is supposedly untested, soft, spoiled, without direction. Don't believe it. We should take heart from that.
Our greatest resource is our brainpower, which comes out of our freedom and is attached to, is part and parcel of, our freedom. So we must keep our heads, all of us, and we must use our heads. We must marshal our brainpower as we marshal our National Guard or our police or our security officers. That's our true great American resource. It's never-ending, inexhaustible. It's hard to know how to stop talking about the people of the 18th century and the founding time of America. But we can draw on them. We can see our story as a source of strength. We can remember what those people went through, how much worse off they were than we have any notion of, how difficult how inconvenient, how often painful it was for them, even those on the sidelines. The odds against them.
We can remember what we went through in the Civil War, by far the worst violence ever to come to the home soil. We can remember what we did to get through the Depression. We can remember the way we responded to Pearl Harbor. We can remember the way we have responded again and again. We've seen the death of a president. We've seen young men go off to wars they didn't want to fight. We've seen abuse of people because of the color of their skin, or their religion. We've seen intolerance, murder, ugliness. But we prevail, and there's no country like it in the world. There's no country that carries the beacon for all mankind, as we do. And let us not forget that, just as the president was saying tonight, we are not in this alone. The world is with us, hundreds of thousands, millions of people.
I'd like to close with something that has nothing to do with the events of a specific time or history in the usual sense. I'd like to close with what I think is one of the most beautiful passages ever written by an American statesman or politician.
It shows that the real journey that John Adams had to make was the inward journey which finally became the total journey in the last years of his life, when he suffered the loss of his wife, one son who died of alcoholism in his early 30s, of his beloved daughter who died from the aftereffects of a mastectomy conducted in a day when there was no anesthetic there in the house in Massachusetts. He saw grandchildren die. He had no power anymore, he had no popularity, he had no influence. His strength began to go. He lived on to nearly 91 years old. He had no hair anymore, and no teeth anymore.
But he had his farm, which he loved, and he had his fruit trees, which he loved most of all, and beautiful big hardwoods around his farm. A terrible ice storm hit, and it destroyed his trees. He woke the next morning and looked out of his window and they were all broken and shattered. He sat down and wrote something. I don't think any of the great novelists of the day could have written anything quite so powerful.
As an expression of his inner flame still burning, the love of life, it's so moving to read in his letters and diaries when he says, "I have vowed in the spirit of St. Paul, to rejoice evermore…if I can." And of course it's that "if I can" that helps us to identify with him from the heart.
Here's what he wrote as he looked out at his fruit trees:
"A rain had fallen from some warmer region in the skies when the cold here below was intense to an extreme. Every drop was frozen wherever it fell in the trees, and clung to the limbs and sprigs as if it had been fastened by hooks of steel. The earth was never more universally covered with snow, and the rain had frozen upon a crust on the surface, which shone with the brightness of burnished silver. The icicles on every sprig glowed in al the luster of diamonds. Every tree was a chandelier of cut glass. I have seen the queen of France, with 18 millions of livres of diamonds upon her person, and I declare that all the charms of her face and figure added to all the glitter of her jewels, did not make an impression on me equal to that presented by every shrub. The whole world was glittering with precious stones."
Last week I think made all of us take stock about what matters in life, what matters in our personal lives. But it also has made us take stock of who we are as a people and where we came from. And we came from people who ought to be our inspiration and our guide every day we serve as Americans.
David McCullough has been called a "master of the art" of narrative history. His books have been praised for their exceptional narrative drive, their scholarship and insight into American life and their literary distinction. His bestseller, "John Adams," is a biography of the second U.S. president. McCullough is twice winner of the National Book Award and twice winner of the prestigious Francis Parkman Prize. His books include "The Great Bridge," "The Path Between the Seas," "Mornings on Horseback," and "Truman," for which he received the Pulitzer Prize. He delivered the NEH's Jefferson Lecture in 2003.


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Major Leagues: Greenberg gets his at-bat
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Associated Press
MIAMI — Adam Greenberg's second major league plate appearance went a lot better than the first one, even though he struck out.
Returning to the big leagues seven years after he was beaned, Greenberg fanned on three pitches Tuesday night as a pinch-hitter for the Miami Marlins.
Greenberg signed a one-day contract before the game and batted leading off the sixth inning against New York Mets 20-game winner R.A. Dickey.
After Greenberg received a standing ovation from the modest crowd and his teammates, Dickey threw him three consecutive knuckleballs. Greenberg took the first for a strike, then swung at the next two and missed.
The game was Greenberg's first since his major league debut with the Chicago Cubs in 2005, when he was hit in the back of the head by the first pitch he saw — a 92 mph fastball that derailed his career.
The 31-year-old Greenberg took part in batting practice and then watched the early innings from the bench. After Rob Brantly homered, he received a celebratory chest bump from a grinning Greenberg in the dugout.
By the fifth inning, Greenberg had a bat in his hands as he paced in the dugout. In the sixth, manager Ozzie Guillen sent him up to bat for outfielder Bryan Petersen.
He swung under an 80 mph knuckler for strike three, and the crowd groaned, then renewed its cheers as Greenberg walked back to the bench. He smiled as he received a hug and back slaps from Jose Reyes, high fives from other teammates and a whisper in the ear from Guillen.
When Greenberg slipped his bat into the rack, he was still grinning. Guillen replaced him in the lineup before the next inning.
Greenberg said he was overwhelmed by the positive reception from his new teammates, who pledged to treat him like any other rookie. Catcher John Buck said Greenberg would don a USA Speedo, blue tennis shoes and pink goggles for a pregame performance in the clubhouse.
"I've got to go sing and dance in front of them like a real rookie," Greenberg said. "That, to be honest, is what I'm more nervous about."
The 5-foot-9 Greenberg said he hoped the game marks only the beginning of a career comeback. He didn't play in the minor leagues this year and hasn't been with a major league organization since 2008, but he still harbors hopes of a big league job.
Greenberg recently played for Israel in the qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic.
"Hopefully there is going to be a lot more of this. This is good stuff," Greenberg said at a pregame news conference. "I want to show everyone I can play, although you can never really truly do that in one at-bat, especially if it ends up being against Dickey."
The Greenberg signing was a rare feel-good story for the last-place Marlins, who have endured the most disappointing season in the franchise's 20-year history. They gave Greenberg jersey No. 10, a more prestigious number than the No. 66 he recalled wearing in Cubs spring training.
The outfielder made his big league debut with the Cubs in Miami on July 9, 2005, and was hit by a pitch thrown by Marlins left-hander Valerio De Los Santos. He sustained a concussion that caused vision problems, vertigo and headaches lasting hours at a time, and it was nearly two years before he regained full health.
"I was concerned more with the quality of my lifel," he said. "It was a tough time."
He married, started a health-supplement business and played in the independent Atlantic League. A recent online campaign known as "One At Bat" lobbied for Greenberg to get a second chance in the majors, and the Marlins last week offered.
For seven years, Greenberg was one of only two players to be hit by a pitch in his lone big league appearance and never take the field. The other was Fred van Dusen with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1955.
Van Dusen flew down from his home in Franklin, Tenn., to attend Tuesday's game.
He threw out the first pitch and joined the rest of the crowd applauding Greenberg's comeback.
"Life throws you curveballs," Greenberg said. "Mine threw me a fastball at 92, and it hit me in the back of the head. I got up from it, and my life is great."

subset: commoncrawl


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Skype launches version 4.1... (yawn)... still only Windows... still a fragmented product strategy
June 30, 2009
Per Raul's Skype blog post today, the final 4.1 version fixes a whack-load of bugs as well.
If I were on Windows, I'd definitely head over and download 4.1. The bug fixes alone are probably worth it.
Of course, I'm not on Windows (I'm a Mac user) and so today's announcement is pretty much irrelevant to me. Just as whenever Skype comes out with a new Mac version or beta, it's irrelevant to Windows users. And if by some miracle Skype should actually come out with a new Linux version (no update to their blog in 6 months), that would be irrelevant to both Mac and Windows users.
It's hard to get excited about a new Skype release when regardless of what is new in it, you can generally only use it with people on your platform. Maybe. If they care enough about Skype to download the new version.
Don't get me wrong - I'm a huge Skype fan. It's open for me all the time and I have something like 40+ group chats (IM) open at any time for various projects and teams.
But Skype's continued belief in a fragmented, fractured, siloed platform-specific product strategy is still a path of monumental stupidity, in my opinion. I've ranted about this before. It's still the same.
In contrast, Mozilla comes out with Firefox 3.5 on the same day across all three operating systems. For any given Firefox release, there is tons of attention and interest because everyone can download, try it out, write about it, tweet about it and generally use it. There's a good buzz that can happen.
I know, I know... Firefox is "just a web browser" and Skype is a much more complicated real-time communication tool... etc., etc. And yes, I know that Windows still has the largest market share so it makes sense to focus there to reach the largest % of customers. (Although I'd wonder if that is true of the "influencer"/word-of-mouth/blogging community that seems to have a higher Mac %.) And sure, maybe there is good sense in both those statements. (or not)
Still, as a Skype fan, I'd love for maybe Skype 5.0 to be a release that came out across all platforms and let me share the excitement with Skype users across all the different platforms.
Probably not. But it would be nice.
Meanwhile, if you are a Windows user, you can get 4.1. And if you are a Mac user, you can safely keep ignoring Skype... no update for you, yet.
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Beginning in January, the APS's Committee on the Status of Women in Physics (CSWP) will begin a program to highlight exceptional female physicists. The CSWP Woman Physicist of the Month award will recognize female physicists who have positively impacted other individuals' lives and careers. The committee is calling for the first nominations to get the program underway.
"It is still often true that few women receive APS awards," said Deanna Ratnikova, APS women and education programs administrator. "This is a way to address the situation."
Each CSWP Woman Physicist of the Month will be featured on the Women in Physics website, announced in the Gazette, and recognized at a reception at an APS national meeting. CSWP will also work to identify other outlets through which awardees can be recognized for their efforts and contributions.
The award was the idea of the 2011 chair of the CSWP, Kawtar Hafidi. She found that after she won the Association for Women in Science Chicago's scientist of the month award, it opened up a lot of professional doors and opportunities for her.
"She thought that something similar to that would be very beneficial to women in physics," Ratnikova said.
The Woman Physicist of the Month award is not restricted to just research physicists, but open to students, teachers or any woman doing physics-related work. The organizers intentionally kept the criteria for nominees nonspecific in order to encourage a diverse group of nominees.
To nominate someone, the name, institution/facility/company, and email of both the nominee and nominator should be emailed to Women in Physics (firstname.lastname@example.com). The nominee's CV and a nomination statement up to three paragraphs should also be included in the email as attachments. The nominee does not need to be an APS member.
Nominations for exceptional women physicists are accepted on a rolling basis.
Nominate a Woman Physicist
APS encourages the redistribution of the materials included in this newspaper provided that attribution to the source is noted and the materials are not truncated or changed.
Editor: Alan Chodos


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By by Emily Feliz | January 24, 2013 Send Feedback
ITT Exelis filed a formal protest with FAA over the $331 million datacomm contract awarded to Harris Corp. in September, Avionics Magazine has learned.
The protest, which was filed in November with FAA's Office of Dispute Resolution for Acquisition (ODRA) for review, asks the agency to review "aspects of the evaluation that warrant further review," ITT said in a statement. ITT and Lockheed Martin submitted unsuccessful bids for the contract last year.
"We believe ITT Exelis delivered an exceptional technical solution that offered a wide degree of flexibility and cost savings to the government. As in any solicitation there are many evaluation criteria. In this case we believe some aspects of the evaluation warrant further review, leading us to follow due process and request an ODRA review. The decision to protest was not made lightly. Exelis is committed to providing the best value solution to the FAA customer and are optimistic about our prospects for a positive outcome from this protest," Exelis said in a statement to Avionics Magazine. The company did not provide any further details on the specific aspects that it felt needed further evaluation.
The Data Communications Integrated Services (DCIS) contract, a key part of the NextGen airspace modernization initiative, will replace voice communications with data messages sent between the cockpit and the air traffic control tower with the goal of more efficient pilot-controller communications and more efficient operations. The DCIS contract will provide ground-to-ground and air-to-ground segments of the data communications system, with special attention paid to the interoperability of the data communications services and avionics. It will be rolled out in 2015 in the tower domain and in 2018-2022 for the en route environment. More
FAA could provide no details about the protest process or give any timeline for its resolution.
Harris declined to comment on the contract protest. The Harris team includes Thales, GE Aviation and an undisclosed airline partner.
The ITT Exelis-led team includes Airbus, United Airlines, JetBlue Airways, CSC, Rockwell Collins, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Aerospace Engineering, Airtel ATN, Alvarez Group, AT&T, EMS Aviation, NAV CANADA, Northrop Grumman, NEXA Capital Partners, PwC, Selex Communications, Saab Sensis, Crown Consulting, HyperNet Solutions, Lexem Strategy, Tantus and UPS.


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Anyway, we're getting ready for the
Have at it!
And the new hotness is...
Can't wait to hear the Buckeye faithful's rationalizing their starters still in the game with a 30 point lead in the 3rd quarter. Classy, Jimmy T...classy.
Has nothing been learned from Adrian Peterson's season-ending injury?
The run is over... thanks for three awesome years!
Go Trojans... go to the Las Vegas Bowl!
eporv - In the past, I've subtly suggested that Ohio State isn't classy that way, but I don't even think you can get too upset about playing your guys with a 30-point lead, in the 3rd quarter.
First of all, having watched them come alive late against Michigan, I know Minnesota can score some if you let down your guard and/or switch to the "allow" defense. Errr, "prevent." Second of all, Michigan State (from both ends of the cock) has shown us that 30-point 3rd quarter leads just don't mean enough.
There are a couple things I just want everybody to know right now - first, as a preemptive strike - Michigan only beat Northwestern by 14, but that was the shittiest football weather I've ever experienced, as a lifelong Michigan resident. The win was still solid, it just wasn't a good day to try to score a lot.
Second - I am so, so happy that Big XII and Pac-10 teams are making up for the general shittiness of their conferences by coming out and playing against the [default conference champion] big boys today. Go Texas Tech!!!
As sweet as the comback vitory was last week, I think John L is gone. Especially after this week. 1 bowl game in 4 years doesn't cut it. If he stays, next year will be just like 04, 05, and 06. We need new blood. Or at least someone else to find creative ways to lose.
As right as you are, and as well-deserved as that might be, John L. is probably safe as long as your Spartans make it to a bowl game, which I would call likely, with Minnesota and Penn State remaining (although, MSU can lose to anybody, if they put their minds to it). Sorry.
Officiating had way too much to do with the whole 4th quarter of the Texas-Texas Tech game. Oregon State and TTU together would have made my inertia-loathing predictions look so smart.
As it is, Oregon State still does. I'm really excited to see Louisville do the same thing, this Thursday! I've never realized the joy of Thursday football before, but I'm jazzed.
Ummm, John (annarbor, mi), I realize the Nittany Lions have had their troubles with the Wolverines over the years (sigh), but even you have to admit that they held Henne & Co. fairly close a couple weeks ago, not to mention keeping the game within reach with a third string QB for the majority of the second half. I know y'all won, but a little proper respect, please.
Oh, same result in the L column, but the Lions have been the only team to keep Smith relatively in check this season. Good luck with him next month (as ol' Sammy D would say, and I mean that), but, again, proper props if you will, please.
Whoops, how did I forget Mr. Tiller's first shutout today for the "what have you done for me lately" category, the Boilermakers being a team that averaged 29 points per game so far this year?
As for the Buckeyes leaving their starters in for three quarters, seem to recall a certain team in '94 in a strong majority of their ganes just giving their starters one series of downs in the third quarter before unleashing the backups.
Yeah, we all obviously have our biases, but facts are facts.
eporv -
Sorry, you're right.
First - about your defense, you're right about that OSU game. If it hadn't been for that squirrely QB in the last 10 minutes, people might have checked the CFB scoreboard that week and thought twice; OSU would have been sharing first-place votes with USC up till this week.
Also, I actually missed 3 quarters of the UM-PSU game, due to watching the Tigers sweep the A's, but I did notice our production was down (Manningham might have helped, but the offense had plenty going for it without him).
Second, I was working with an unmentioned recollection of MSU finishing a number of abysmal seasons with surprising, annoying victories over Penn State. That happened a couple times last decade, right? I think? (Honestly not sure about this, but it's an impression that I have.)
Are you saying Penn State only played their starters for 35 minutes in '94? I was 9, I don't remember, but maybe that's why I've always worried about them from '95 to present.
I was just thinking about running up the score as it relates to Michigan Football... I have a hard time thinking of occasions when the first string really comes out. I think we just start running out the clock with the same guys. Anyway, I do think OSU has shown some lack of restraint this year, definitely. But hey, they're uncontested #1 [I guess those two WVa voters contest it, but they're obviously fucking insane], so that seems to be working for them.
As far as OSU leaving their starters in. After so many years of "Tressel Ball" and winning by a TD or less, it's nice to see some points up on the board.
>>Are you saying Penn State only played their starters for 35 minutes in '94?>>
I'm sure I'm off by few minutes, but the only games I remember requiring the starters to play the entire game were against always pesky Michigan and a very persistent Illini squad.
Pardons to hyperbole, but I don't think it would have been inconceivable for Ki-Jana Carter to have gained 3000 yards that season if JoePa would have been about letting his players pad their stats (7.7 per carry that year). Not like he didn't inherit the Heisman jinx anyway (stupid old Bengals turf stadium).
you are overlooking the fact that in the 2nd quarter of the game vs. Minn we had the 2nd string O line in for a series. And we rotated 3 RB's until M.Wells got a stinger.
I've never seen ND's backup QB, or know if they even have one.
Great point with ND/Quinn, another classic case of stat padding.
Backup O-line for one series in the second quarter, though? Oh well, you stay classy, Columbus.


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As compiler of the "Where Country Meets Soul" series, it's with considerable pleasure that I find myself writing about that third volume, titled "Cold Cold Heart", in honour of Hank Williams, the poet laureate of country music. As with previous volumes, the track listing blends songs immediately identifiable as country classics with others many may never have thought of as country. The originals of several of the songs date back to the late 1930s, while others are from the present century. The featured recordings cover five decades, but the compilation flows with a smoothness which belies that time span.
We've tried to include some new artists listeners asked us to feature, and have also returned to some who provided gems on previous volumes. While the recordings are largely drawn from the well of southern soul, there's also music from the East Coast (Solomon Burke, George Benson – whose track is one of the set's highlights), the West Coast (ex-Coaster Cornell Gunter, Little Johnny Taylor and the duo Bo Kirkland & Ruth Davis) and even Detroit (a surprisingly big stronghold for country music in the 1950s and early 60s, and represented by the Temptations and the Supremes). We've also been able to clear some tracks that had been denied for earlier volumes, which is always a nice thing to say.
As someone who loves country and soul in equal measure, it's always my hope that many of you will seek out and enjoy the country originals of these songs, if you don't know them already. Even if you don't, there's plenty for you to enjoy as we take you back once again to the place Where Country Meets Soul.
By Tony Rounce


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When I first learned of the publication of Edward Herman and David Peterson's barely-a-book, The Politics of Genocide, and when I read Gerald Caplan's lengthy review followed by Herman & Peterson's 8,000-word response, I was travelling with no fixed address in West Africa. While necessarily postponing an engagement with the volume until I returned to Canada, I felt justified in preparing (from Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso) a thousand words or so of comments explicitly limited to the assertions made in Herman and Peterson's riposte to Caplan. Having now imbibed a further 6,000 words from the authors, specifically denouncing me and my work, and having read The Politics of Genocide, my concerns about their denialist and fundamentally anti-scholarly enterprise have only deepened.
In a paper to be presented to the conference of the International Association of Genocide Scholars next year, I will examine Herman & Peterson's work alongside that of their fellow Rwandan genocide deniers. I limit my comments here to the authors' published statements on Rwanda, both in their online posts and in The Politics of Genocide. (I trust I have the title of their book right, by the way. Herman & Peterson manage to misstate the name of my own work, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, no fewer than eight times in the footnotes of their latest post.)[1]
In my response to Herman & Peterson's first missive, I accused them of a "selective and mendacious" use of a key source: the research (itself highly problematic) of Christian Davenport and Allan C. Stam. Nowhere in their 8,000-word response to Caplan -- which will be read by many times more people than their book will be -- do Herman & Peterson acknowledge that Davenport & Stam found "the vast majority" of the 1994 mass killing to have been carried out by "the FAR [Rwandan army], the Interahamwe [militia] and their associates" -- that is, the shock troops and death squads of Hutu Power.
Their treatment of this source in The Politics of Genocide is likewise highly misleading. In a single glancing mention in the text (p. 59), they write that Davenport & Stam "are inconsistent on the question of likely perpetrators, with their evidence of likely RPF responsibility contradicted by assertions of primary responsibility on the part of the FAR." Note first that there is no inconsistency in Davenport & Stam's findings, since there is no evidence, in their work or elsewhere, of "likely" (i.e., primary) RPF responsibility for the mass killing. Note too that "primary responsibility on the part of the FAR" is a much more anodyne framing than "the vast majority," Davenport & Stam's actual phrasing. Moreover, Davenport & Stam list the perpetrators not as the FAR alone, but the Interahamwe militia, and (as I read them) diverse allies of both these forces. That is, the perpetrators were drawn from a coalition of distinct, overwhelmingly Hutu actors and agents. Not only does this imply a coordinated and systematic genocide, but it makes a mockery of Herman & Peterson's absurd assertion, in The Politics of Genocide, that "the RPF was the only well-organized killing force within Rwanda in 1994" (p. 58).
For Herman & Peterson to offer any evidence at all for their squalid inversion of reality, however, they need Davenport & Stam. There is almost nothing else in the scholarly literature that can be squeezed into their framework, even in denatured form. So in the process of bending Davenport & Stam to make them fit, they not only jettison their sources' core conclusions and substitute their own; they toss out Davenport & Stam's guiding assumptions as well! In preparing their statistical analysis of patterns of violence, Davenport & Stam divided Rwandan territory into zones that were government-controlled, RPF-controlled, and contested. Herman & Peterson aver that this is "problematic." In fact, they allege, those whom Davenport & Stam deemed guilty of "the vast majority" of the killing were such a bumbling bunch that "it is frankly counterintuitive" to consider them "in control of anything" (p. 133). Really, it's a wonder the poor dears could tie their shoes -- let alone mobilize to massacre at least half a million Tutsis and oppositionist Hutus.
So now, "the vast majority" of the killing that Davenport & Stam specifically attributed to Hutu Power forces is thrown up for grabs. Herman & Peterson can seize upon Davenport & Stam's finding that "when the RPF advanced, large-scale killings escalated. When the RPF stopped, large-scale killings largely decreased" to contend that this shows RPF forces were "the initiators and the main perpetrators of 1994's mass blood-letting." Davenport & Stam's framing in fact fits with a picture of Hutu Power agents lashing out genocidally at Tusis, in spasms that correlate with RPF advances. There is a certain logic to that -- panic and insecurity are frequently spurs to more frenzied killing -- but there is no other evidence for it that I am aware of, and in any case Herman & Peterson's "logic" is entirely different. They point out in their attack on me that in The Politics of Genocide, they do indeed note the incongruence between their arguments and Davenport & Stam's findings. But they word it as follows: "Davenport and Stam fail to draw the most important conclusion from their superb work ..." They don't fail to draw the important conclusion; they draw the exactly opposite important conclusion. Davenport & Stam, apparently, are "superb" and credible authorities when their findings are convenient. When they are inconvenient, they must be ruled out as "problematic" or "fail[ing]," and replaced by rickety fabrications of Herman & Peterson's own, mercifully unique devising.
Does all of this qualify as a "selective and mendacious" use of Davenport & Stam's research -- the allegation I made in my earlier comments on Herman & Peterson's work? You be the judge.
With Davenport & Stam's core schema dismissed, on no evidence whatsoever, Herman & Peterson can substitute "roving patterns of killing" (p. 58). And from this now-nebulous mist emerges their pièce de résistance: "Clearly, the chief responsibility for Rwandan political violence belonged to the RPF, and not to the ousted coalition government, the FAR, or any Hutu-related group." Again, not a shred of evidence is offered to buttress an assertion that is more extreme, in its denialism and revisionism, than any statement I have heard or read, save from accused or convicted Rwandan génocidaires, their supporters, and occasionally their lawyers.
And yet, this is actually one of the more serious analytical strategies pursued in the Rwanda section of The Politics of Genocide. Elsewhere, Herman & Peterson's revisionist claims are so thinly-sourced as to be risible. Typical is the assertion that "a number of observers as well as participants in the events of 1994 claim that the great majority of deaths were Hutu, with some estimates as high as two million" (p. 58, emphasis added). The "number of observers" and "participants" appears to be one -- perhaps. The sole source cited in the footnote (p. 132) is a letter allegedly written by a renegade RPF officer. It was reported to the authors by Christopher Black, who (as Herman & Peterson almost proudly proclaim) happens to be a defense attorney for an accused Hutu génocidaire.
Similarly, the conspiracy theory that "Paul Kagame and the RPF were creatures of U.S. power from their origins in Uganda in the 1980s" (p. 55), used as a Yankee tool to wrest control of D.R. Congo's rich resources, rests mainly on the fact that Kagame "had spent some time at Fort Leavenworth, [Kansas] ... not too far before the 1994 genocide." Here they again cite Allan Stam -- in fact, they bet the farm on this figure, alone or in collaboration with Davenport. Herman & Peterson claim, remarkably, that within one or two hours of the missile strike on the plane of Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana, 50,000 RPF troops moved "into action on two fronts, in a coordinated fashion" (p. 56). The source for this striking assertion? A public lecture by Allan Stam.
One last example: Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the UN Secretary-General at the time of the Rwandan genocide, is quoted as declaring that "The genocide in Rwanda was 100 percent the responsibility of the Americans!" (p. 135). Even if Boutros-Ghali made such a statement, it is impossible to know how to interpret it without an understanding of the relevant context. It might well have reflected the Secretary-General's frustration with America's failure to supply intervention forces to suppress Hutu Power's killing machine. But who knows if the statement is genuine? The source is one of Herman & Peterson's fellow travellers, Robin Philpot, who assures us that Boutros-Ghali "told him [this] on the record."
On the basis of this casual abandonment of scholarship, we are supposed to reject and invert the entirety of the scholarly literature on the 1994 Rwandan genocide; all major human-rights investigations; and the immense wealth of survivor testimony. Herman & Peterson's hubris is awe-inspiring. But it prompts me to ask: just whom do they expect to buy their swill? The authors include passing citations of a small handful of distinguished Rwanda scholars -- Gérard Prunier, René Lemarchand, Linda Melvern, Filip Reyntjens. None of them supports (to say the least!) the denialist interpretation advanced by Herman & Peterson, depicting the RPF/Tutsis as the principal agents of the mass killing in Rwanda in 1994, ordinary Hutus as the primary victims, and "Hutu Power" as an utterly disorganized and victimized entity. Nor do I know of any human-rights report that asserts it, and Herman & Peterson cite none in their supporting notes.
So let us face it. This brand of extreme revisionism and denial of the 1994 Rwandan genocide is shared by only "a tiny number of long-time American and Canadian genocide deniers, who gleefully drink each other's putrid bath water," as Gerald Caplan so aptly phrased it in his review of The Politics of Genocide. Like Herman & Peterson, the deniers cherry-pick a few useful factoids and declamations from serious scholarship on Rwanda (or halfway serious, like Davenport & Stam), while dismissing the vast bulk of the scholarly and human-rights literature as hopelessly corrupted by nefarious (western/imperialist) interests. This has the additional advantage of cutting down on what would otherwise be an onerous reading list, since the literature on Rwanda is now so extensive, detailed, and utterly contrary to Herman & Peterson's formulations.
I confess I wondered, when preparing my first response to Herman & Peterson, whether their depiction of events in Rwanda in 1994 resulted from ignorance and incompetence, rather than actual malice. Their latest post rules this out, I'm afraid. In first criticizing their framing, I drew special attention to a passage to which they had given considerable analytical weight (it appears in very similar form in their book, pp. 56-57):
Would it not have been incredible for Kagame's Tutsi forces to conquer Rwanda in 100 days, and yet the number of minority Tutsi deaths be greater than the number of majority Hutu deaths by a ratio of something like three-to-one? Surely then we would have to count Rwanda 1994 as the only country in history where the victims of genocide triumphed over those who committed genocide against them, and wiped the territory clean of its 'genocidaires' at the same time. If ever a prima facie case existed for doubting the collective wisdom of 'academics, human rights activists, [and] journalists' whose opinions the establishment respects, we find it here, with the alleged Hutu perpetrators routed and fleeing for their lives in neighbouring countries, and the alleged Tutsi victims in complete control.I responded: "By conflating Rwanda's civilian Tutsis with 'Kagame's Tutsi forces' -- Herman and Peterson none-too-subtly adopt Hutu Power's justification for slaughtering Tutsi civilians: that they constituted a 'fifth column,' indistinguishable from the invading RPF." It was, I asserted, "a disgraceful ploy [that] ... by itself ... casts Herman and Peterson's 'analysis' into utter disrepute."
It is frankly nauseating to witness Herman & Peterson retreating not an iota from this calumny against a defenseless civilian population. Indeed, they press the point further: "Jones fails to mention the long historic class division and warfare between Tutsi and Hutu, and the creation of many hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees after the RPF invasion of Rwanda," along with similar irrelevancies and imputations of guilt-by-ethnocultural-affinity, all intended to support a framing that -- yes, Rwandan Tutsis were intimately in cahoots with the murdering RPF. So they really were responsible for their own genocide ... except that, of course, Herman & Peterson deny they ever experienced a genocide. At which point words fail me.
In the Rwanda section of their book, and in their online posts, Herman & Peterson do deploy one piece of real evidence: the 1991 government census in Rwanda. This estimated that Tutsis constituted 8.4 percent of the Rwandan population, or about 600,000 people. Natural increase would have boosted this population by some tens of thousands by 1994. If 70-80 percent of this number perished, then the Tutsi death toll would fall at the lower end of mainstream estimates (that is, it would be around half a million), rather than at the upper end by which Tutsis constituted the large majority of 800,000 total victims (Gérard Prunier) or roughly one million (the Rwandan government; Davenport & Stam, with caveats).
The precise death toll will, of course, be debated forever, and is of secondary importance. What is essential, and unquestionable, is that systematic, organized killing of Tutsis took place on a massive scale in Rwanda between April and July 1994. How centrally organized the genocide was remains a subject of intense and legitimate dispute. There is of course no requirement that killing be centrally organized in order to qualify as genocidal.
For the toll of the 1994 genocide of Tutsis to lie at the upper end of available estimates, Tutsis would have to have been substantially undercounted in the 1991 census. There are very good reasons to believe they were. As Prunier pointed out in his early (1996) classic on the genocide (The Rwanda Crisis, never cited by Herman & Peterson), the total given for Tutsis "can safely be reckoned a low figure, first because the government systematically tried to underestimate the Tutsi population in order to keep its school and employment quotas [for Tutsis] low, and secondly because the Tutsis themselves often tried to pass themselves off as Hutu, going as far as acquiring ID cards mentioning the wrong ethnic grouping to avoid discrimination. So a reasonable and even conservative estimate would make the Tutsi population no less than one-third higher, i.e. about 12%, which would give about 930,000 Tutsi living in Rwanda on 6 April 1994" (pp. 263-64) -- taking into account natural increase between 1991 and 1994. Prunier cites "more accurate estimates of the Tutsi population surviving in late July 1994" in arguing for "a grand total of 130,000 Tutsi survivors," which by his careful reckoning "gives a casualty figure of around 800,000 Tutsis killed in three months, to which an unknown number of opposition Hutu (between 10 and 30,000) must be added" (pp. 264-65).[2]
As an addendum, the likelihood that Tutsis would self-identify as Hutus for census purposes was in fact acknowledged in the final census report itself, issued in April 1994, the very month the genocide erupted. "Given that the declaration of the ethnic group is not a simple matter in Rwanda," the report's authors noted, "one may wonder whether the current proportion of Hutu is not overestimated. Indeed, some members of other ethnic groups report that they are Hutu. This practice has existed since the end of the Tutsi Monarchy (1961)." This passage is quoted in Marijke Verpoorten's article for Population, published in 2005, available in full online, and again uncited by Herman & Peterson.[3]
Note, finally, that even Herman & Peterson apparently regard much higher estimates of the Tutsi population as credible. They write on p. 55 of their book that Rwandan Tutsis constituted "a numerical minority in the country (at most 15 percent overall)" (emphasis added).
What of the issue of RPF atrocities, up to and including genocide against Hutus, both within Rwanda and in next-door D.R. Congo? My own engagement with this subject over the years bears comparison, I think, with that of anyone in genocide studies. And it is far more extensive and detailed than Herman & Peterson's.
In my first published piece on Rwanda ("Gender and Genocide in Rwanda," 2002), I pointed to the RPF's "apparent duplication" of Hutu Power strategies, particularly gender-selective ones, "both during the rebel invasion of Rwanda and in the immediate aftermath of the 1994 holocaust." Just as Herman & Peterson quoted from a US State Department memorandum to the effect that RPF killings after the genocide "served to reduce the population of Hutu males," I suggested back in 2002 that some of the widely-observed gender disparities (an underrepresentation of males) in post-genocide Rwanda might be linked to "a substantial underrepresentation of Hutu men," reflecting "the RPF's apparent duplication of Hutu Power's gendercidal strategies, both during the rebel invasion of Rwanda and in the immediate aftermath of the 1994 holocaust." I noted further that aside from gender-selective massacres, "the atrocities inflicted by the vengeful, predominantly Tutsi forces of the RPF also included a number of indiscriminate slaughters, such as the mid-April attack on a 'mixed group of hundreds of civilians and militia at the hill Kanazi [which] killed all except three persons,' and neighborhood sweeps at Murambi (Byumba prefecture) where the RPF 'killed seventy-eight persons, of whom forty-six were listed as children.'"
This analysis was based mostly on the work of the very human-rights investigator that Herman & Peterson so malign: Alison Des Forges. According to the authors, Des Forges was a tireless "advocate for the standard model of the 'Rwandan genocide'" (p. 129), and so deeply compromised that an investigative commission she co-chaired in Rwanda in March 1993 was "either directly funded by the RPF or infiltrated by it" (pp. 64-65; this according, naturally, to the gossipy Robin Philpot). Yet when Herman & Peterson declaim about the "suppressed Gersony report" (p. 59) at the UN, they at least have the grace to cite as a key source (p. 131) -- Des Forges's 1999 book, Leave None to Tell the Story! This includes some 35 pages on RPF atrocities and abuses during the April-July 1994 period. So a central piece of evidence supposedly undermining the standard model is culled from the author who typifies that model for Herman & Peterson. As this suggests, the scholarly mainstream on Rwanda is, in fact, a great deal more nuanced and balanced than Herman & Peterson fantasize, or themselves aspire to.[4]
In the new edition of my Genocide textbook, printed a few days before I saw Herman & Peterson's critique of the first edition (or at least a version of it they know as Genocide: A Critical Introduction), I detailed further allegations levelled against the RPF for its conduct both before and during the genocide:
Mounting criticism of the RPF-dominated regime's authoritarianism has been accompanied by an increasingly skeptical appraisal, in the scholarly and other commentary on Rwanda over the past few years, of the actions of the RPF during the genocide, when its forces almost certainly massacred tens of thousands of Hutus in revenge for the scenes of carnage that their troops discovered as they advanced against the Hutu Power regime. Roméo Dallaire, commander of the UNAMIR forces in Rwanda, was harsh in his assessment of [the] RPF's performance before and during the genocide, condemning its "inability to see beyond [its] own self-interest" in his widely-read memoir, Shake Hands with the Devil. The RPF was "intransigent" and "relentlessly inflexible about any concessions that might have eased the tension in the country, both before the civil war broke out and later, when they had [government forces] on the run." On April 18, ceasefire negotiations broke down, and the RPF resumed its advance toward Kigali; for Dallaire, "it was absolutely plain that [the RPF] didn't want a ceasefire." Meeting in early May with RPF commander (now Rwandan president) Paul Kagame, he records Kagame's "pragmatic" demeanor, "the complete portrait of the cool warrior," and quotes him as saying: "There will be many sacrifices in this war. If the [Tutsi] refugees have to be killed for the cause, they will be considered as having been part of the sacrifice." According to Dallaire, it was only one of "several points" at which Kagame "talked candidly ... about the price his fellow Tutsis might have to pay for the cause."With reference to Rwanda's domestic politics, I quoted Gérard Prunier's contention that the RPF government was "perceived by the average Hutu peasant as a foreign government" (p. 360). In appraising whether, in its domestic policies, post-genocide Rwanda under the RPF should genuinely be counted as a "success story," I wrote that the issue was "controversial" in light of the Rwandan government's status as "a thinly disguised Tutsi dictatorship" (quoting René Lemarchand). I noted that "no opposition party was allowed to contest" the first two post-genocide elections (or, for that matter, the one just concluded), and cited a judgment by the UK Economist that the Kagame regime "allows less political space and press freedom at home than Robert Mugabe does in Zimbabwe," while "anyone who poses the slightest political threat to the regime is dealt with ruthlessly." I also pointed out that part of Rwanda's spectacular post-genocide growth was ascribable to the "half-acknowledged boost [the economy received] from the looting of eastern Congo's rich resources, following the extension of Rwandan power there in 1996" (pp. 588-89). Further on D.R. Congo, I noted Rwanda's "depredations" against Hutus (p. 589), and wrote in my case study of this internationalized war:
While serious attention to Tutsi/RPF abuses and atrocities was present at the outset in some human-rights commentary (see, e.g., Alison Des Forges's Leave None to Tell the Story) ... and has gradually percolated into the scholarly literature, it has been notably absent in the quest for justice since 1994. ... (pp. 360-61)
... In 1997 Rwanda assisted the overthow of the Mobutu regime by Laurent Désiré Kabila, viewed as a Rwandan proxy and partner in the struggle against Hutu killers. En route to Kinshasa, Kabila's force and the Rwandan army rampaged against Hutu populations in eastern Congo. By one estimate, some 200,000 people died in these little-known, RPF-engineered, and so far unprosecuted massacres. It was, noted historian Gérard Prunier, "the first known instance of postcolonial imperial conquest in Africa by an African country."In similar fashion, I detailed the atrocities of the Tutsi client militia leader, Laurent Nkunda, whose "record of violence in eastern Congo includes destroying entire villages, committing mass rapes, and causing hundreds of thousands of Congolese to flee their homes" (p. 369, quoting Howard French). A footnote explored the Rwandan government's "close ties to the warlord" (p. 376, again quoting French).
It is perfectly legitimate, and important, to highlight these aspects of the Kagame regime, and to explore relatively understudied elements of the Rwandan genocide, its aftermath, and the wars and genocides in D.R. Congo. That inquiry is in fact well advanced, conducted by scholars with deep knowledge and an abiding understanding of Rwanda and the Great Lakes region. The long-overdue United Nations report leaked in August 2010, documenting in detail the Rwandan army's role in genocidal atrocities against Hutus in Congo during the 1996 "clearing of the camps" and after, is clearly a watershed that no scholar or student of the region -- and no analyst of Rwanda and the RPF -- will be able to ignore.
It remains, nonetheless, malicious and profoundly illegitimate to deny the systematic genocidal killing of Tutsis in Rwanda, by diverse institutional agents of "Hutu Power," from April to July 1994. Such brazen denialism is what Herman & Peterson have propounded, online and in The Politics of Genocide. In Herman's case, this besmirches an often honorable career on the progressive left, though the decline was already well advanced -- he has gained notoriety in recent years for efforts to obscure and deny the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia, among other inexplicably reactionary campaigns.[5]
The only humane and politically mature response to such denial, on the left and elsewhere, is to confront it squarely, and reject it unequivocally.
Text is to be considered final.
[1] Notes 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 20, 26. I will not respond here to Herman & Peterson's criticisms of my textbook, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (Routledge, 2006), except to express a hope that the second edition, just published (August 2010), will assuage them somewhat. It includes more material (including three photos) on US genocide in Vietnam, a case-study of genocide in Iraq since 2003, the revised death-toll they mention for the wars of the Yugoslav succession, and many other emendations and additions. Herman & Peterson also cite my edited book Genocide, War Crimes & the West: History & Complicity, though they don't draw conclusions about what this might suggest about my leftist-progressive credentials. I have much more commonly been denounced as anti-American than as an imperialist stooge (see, e.g., "Genocide Scholar 'Silenced' on Academic List For Comments About Bombing of Afghanistan", Counterpunch, October 26, 2001). My work has been warmly praised by Michael Parenti, Richard Falk, Mike Davis, and other leftist luminaries. Intriguingly, around the time that Herman & Peterson's post appeared, so did a review of Genocide, War Crimes & the West (first published in 2004) in The Red Phoenix, blog of the communist American Party of Labor. According to this far-left source, "Adam Jones' book ... is an incredibly revealing anthology containing accounts of atrocities carried out by Western imperial capitalism and those who serve its interests abroad. Articles describing the little-known and little-understood history of imperialist actions from Algeria to Vietnam, Armenia to Yugoslavia, and even the genocide of Native peoples by colonialism in the United States and Canada are reproduced in this essential text. Jones' book serves as an important lesson to its readers about the reality behind the United States and other powers' attempts to 'spread democracy and civilization' at gunpoint, as well as to remind those who advocate 'peaceful resistance' to imperialism of the futility of their position."
[2] I will not seek to evaluate the credibility of the estimate of 300,000 Tutsi survivors offered by the survivors' organization Ibuka, except to note that (1) it is exceptional to my knowledge, and I can think offhand of all manner of reasons for a survivors' estimate or roll to be inflated, as I'm sure Herman & Peterson can; (2) it is typical of Herman & Peterson's method to combine the lowest available estimate of Tutsis living in Rwanda at the time of the 1994 genocide with the highest available estimate of survivors in the aftermath; and (3) if Rwanda is the totalitarian dictatorship that Herman & Peterson allege it is, then surely any such organization must be a craven patsy of the Kagame regime. Why, then, would the authors accept its estimate as gospel -- except that it is too convenient to resist?
[3] Verpoorten pointed out further that in three population counts carried out by the Belgian colonial authority (in 1933, 1952 and 1956), "data show much higher proportions of Tutsi than under the Hutu regime: respectively 15.3%, 17.5% and 16.6%." While "this hardly constitutes evidence for the under-reporting of Tutsi" in the 1990 census, it is suggestive. And Verpoorten's own statistical inquiry in Gikongoro prefecture finds that while Tutsis were counted as 12.8% in the 1990 census, local population data, which she considers more reliable, has the population at 17.5% Tutsi. "... Interestingly, if the scale of under-reporting at the national level was the same as that found in Gikongoro -- i.e., about 40% -- the calculated death toll would be close to 800,000, in the order of magnitude put forward by Gérard Prunier ..." (However, Verpoorten herself supplies "an estimate of 500,900 Tutsi killed in the genocide, a loss of 77.0% of the Tutsi population of Rwanda.")
[4] It is worth noting that Des Forges claims "the number of civilians slain [by the RPF] diminished markedly after late September [1994]" (p. 732). This was the very month that the State Department memo cited by Herman & Peterson was prepared, describing "10,000 or more Hutu civilians [killed] per month" since the outbreak of mass violence in April. The order of magnitude of the killing, as described in the State Department memo, is in keeping with the findings of the Gersony commission and Des Forges ("Gersony himself reportedly estimated that during the months from April to August the RPF had killed between 25,000 and 45,000 persons, between 5,000 and 10,000 persons each month from April through July and 5,000 for the month of August" [Leave None to Tell the Story, p. 728]).
[5] In The Politics of Genocide, Herman & Peterson appear to retreat a grudging half-step from their denialist stance on Srebrenica. They still contemptibly place the "Srebrenica massacre" in scare-quotes, and proclaim that "the case for eight thousand 'men and boys' being executed at Srebrenica is extremely thin ..." "But even if an event such as the Srebrenica massacre occurred exactly as accepted by the Western establishment, we are still faced with the anomaly that the total number of deaths in Bosnia ... pales into relative insignificance ...," etc., etc. (pp. 47-48, emphasis added).


text:
From the Hans Christian Andersen biography "The Life of Hans Christian Andersen. Day By Day", written by DPhil Johan de Mylius:
Attempts during Youth1822: To The "Latin School" in Slagelse
1822: Attempts during Youth
HCA submits to the theatre a "tragedy of the fatherland", titled Røverne i Vissenberg (The Vissenberg Robbers). It is turned down on 16th June with a comment regarding lacking abilities "even as far as skills in the mother-tongue", but with mention of an "unmistakable aptitude for writing". A scene from the tragedy was printed in Liunges periodical, Harpen, on 9th August. This was the first time HCA had his name printed as an author.
But even before he learned of the theatre's opinion of The Vissenberg Robbers, he had written Alfsol, another tragedy in 5 acts (with subject-matter from Nordic Short Stories (Nordiske Noveller) by the 18th century writer and historian, P.F. Suhm). Rural Dean C. Gutfeldt, at the Church of the Royal Dockyards (the Navy) - yet another of the influential men HCA had sought out and gotten to sympathise with his well-being - encouraged HCA to submit Alfsol to the theatre.
April - October
HCA moves, with his landlady Madame Henckel, to Dybensgade 167 (later no. 20). Once more he was given a room with no windows, but was granted
" - unlimited access to the family's living room amongst the many (three) children". (Levnedsbogen (The Biography))
June: (advance publicity in the newspaper "Dagen" on the 12th)
Aided by an actor who puts him in touch with a typesetter at a printers in Copenhagen, HCA has his first book published; Ungdomsforsøg (Attempts during Youth), using the nom de plume Villiam Christian Walter (after Shakespeare, himself and Walter Scott). The book includes an autobiographical prologue, Alfsol, as well as a Walter Scott plagiarism, "Genfærdet ved Palnatokes grav" (The Ghost of Palnatoke's Grave) (a story about the woman "crazy Stine", inspired by Scott's The Heart of the Midlothian). The book did not sell. The printers disposed of the whole edition to a bookseller who attempted to sell it equipped with a new title page in 1827, but to no avail. The greater part of the edition was then destroyed. Only a few copies of the book now exist.
It was during this time that HCA first made contact with the Shakespeare translator, Captain P.F. Wulff, who later became a rear-admiral.
1822: 1822: To The "Latin School" in Slagelse
9 August
A scene from "The Vissenberg Robbers on Funen; a dramatic poem" is printed in the aesthetic periodical Harpen, published by A.P. Liunge.
3 September
Alfsol is deemed unsuitable for the theatre. But the rebuff includes a recommendation that HCA be sent to a "Latin school", the equivalent of a grammar school today, for basic education. This recommendation is repeated at a meeting of the theatre's board of directors on 6th September.
13 September
HCA is called to a board meeting, where the offer is put to him. He accepts gratefully. It is left to Jonas Collin to organise the matter. The money is granted from the trust fund; ad usus publicos, which is situated directly under the king and for which Jonas Collin is secretary. In his application to the trust, Collin states that the purpose of HCA's education is that he "become a useful citizen". This is repeated in the board members' recommendation to the directors, Prime Minister Schimmelmann and Møsting, the minister of finance
"As the said Andersen, who is completely without means, and lives entirely at the mercy of private benefactors, procured via his good-natured character, would become miserable and disappear from civil society, if he thus continued a languishing existence (pursuing a career in the theatre to no avail), and as there is in fact reason to believe that he, scientifically trained, could become a useful citizen, the board of directors (for the theatre) clarified for him the mistaken literary road upon which he had embarked, and promised him that it would, most humbly, recommend that he be granted humble support for the purpose of studying, on the condition that he solely devote his time and diligence to the necessary scholastic sciences".
400 rbdlr "notes" were sought for his annual expenses and education for three years, but the grant was set at 350 rbdlr. for three years. By ordinance on 19th August 1826, the allowance was extended by 2 years as a result of an application from Jonas Collin, and on 15th November 1828, by yet another year. It was decided that HCA be sent to the prestigious "Latin School" in Slagelse (equivalent to a grammar school) where the poets Jens Baggesen and B.S. Ingemann had previously been students. (Regarding Ingemann's impressions of the school, see his memoirs Levnedsbogen (The Autobiography), published posthumously in 1862). The philologist Simon Meisling, who was considered an authority in teaching methods, had recently been made principle at the Latin School. Shortly before his departure, HCA visits Collin at his private home. Collin was to be his guardian and HCA promises to write to him regularly.
26 October
HCA arrives in Slagelse. Because he lacks skills in most subjects, the school places him in the 2nd grade amongst boys aged 11-12. He lodges with Madame Henneberg, widow of the inferior court judge.
This year
In the same year, Ingemann - just married to Lucie Mandix - is employed as lecturer at Sorø Academy, now rebuilt and reopened and which in the following years becomes an significant center for Danish cultural life, especially regarding the development of romanticism (the critic Peder Hjort, the poets Ingemann and Hauch, later also the composer Peter Heise).
Although the period of schooling under Meisling turns out to be catastrophic, the close contact with Sorø and Ingemann are of immeasurable importance for HCA during his years at Slagelse.
Christmas break
Accompanies Meisling to Copenhagen during the Christmas break, where he visits Collin at his home.


text:
With Adobe Flash, it's possible to quickly get a pretty web site up and running; something that many firms do. But if there is no content behind the flashy web page, it's unlikely anyone will return. And that is precisely the mistake far too many firms make with their corporate web sites.
In The Digital Crown: Winning at Content on the Web, author Ahava Leibtag does a fantastic job on showing in great detail how to ensure that your web site has what it takes to get visitors to return to the web site, namely great content.
Make no mistake, creating good content for a large organization is a massive job. But for those organizations that are serious about doing it right, the book provides the extensive details all of the steps required to create content that will bring customers back to your web site.
Leibtag writes in the introduction that the reason so many websites and other digital strategy projects fail is because the people managing them don't focus on what really matters. They begin changing things for the sake of change and to simply update, without first asking why. They also forget to ask what the updates will accomplish. What this does is create a focus on the wrong priorities. Leibtag notes that the obvious priority is content.
So what is this thing called content? The book defines it as all of the information assets of your company that you want to share with the world.
The book is based around 7 rules, which form the foundation of an effective and comprehensive content strategy, namely:
- Start with Your Audience
- Involve Stakeholders Early and Often
- Keep it Iterative
- Create Multidisciplinary Content Teams
- Make Governance Central
- Workflow that Works
- Invest in Professionals and Trust Them
Chapter 1 (freely available here) takes a high-level look at where branding and content meet, and details the need for a strategic content initiative.
An interesting point the book makes in chapter 2 which is pervasive throughout the book is to avoid using the term users. Rather refer to them as customers. Leibtag feels that the term users as part of a content strategy, makes them far too removed and abstract. Dealing with them as customers makes them real people and changes the dynamics of the content project. Of course, this transition has to be authentic. Simply performing a find/replace of user/customer in your documentation is not what the author intended; nor will such an approach work.
The book is heavy on understanding requirements and has hundreds of questions that need to be asked before creating content. The book is well worth it for that content alone.
It also stresses the importance of getting all stakeholders involved in the content creation process. As part of the requirements gathering process, the book details 3 roadmap steps which much be done in order to facilitate an effective strategy.
The book notes that content is much more than web pages. Content includes various formats, platforms and channels. An effective strategy must take all of these into account. The book notes that there are hundreds of possible formats for content. While it is impossible to deal with every possible option; an organization must know what they are in order to ensure they are creating content that is appropriate for their customers.
By the time you hit page 100, it becomes quite clear that content is something that Leibtag is both passionate about and has extensive experience with. An important point she makes is that it is crucial not for focus on design right away in the project, as it eats up way too much time. The key is to focus the majority of your efforts on the content. And that is where all of the questions that the book suggests, must be answered. If you are clueless about your content, your customers will be equally confused and frustrated.
The dilemma that the book notes is that during the requirements gathering process, far too many organizations are imagining a gorgeous web site with all kinds of bells and whistles, beautiful colors and pictures. That in turn moves them to spend (i.e., waste) a tremendous amount of time on design; which leads them to neglect contact creation and migration.
The book details multichannel publishing, which is the ability to publish your content on any device and any channel. This is a significant detail, as customers will be accessing your site from desktops with huge screens and bandwidth to mobile devices with smaller screens and often limited bandwidth. This requires you to adapt and change your content publishing process. This is clearly not a trivial endeavor. But doing it right, which the book shows how to do, will payoff in the long run.
Another mistake firms make is that they often think content can be done by just a few people. The book notes that it is an imperative to create multidisciplinary content teams, since web content will touch every part of the organization, and needs their respective input.
One of the multidisciplinary content teams that must be involved is governance. The book notes that governance standards help you set a consistent customer experience across all channels. By following them, you can avoid replicating content, muddying your main messages and confusing your customers. Governance is also critical in setting internal organizational controls.
Leibtag lays out what needs to be done in extreme detail. She makes it quite clear that there are no quick fixes that can be done to create good content. Creating an effective content marketing strategy and architecture is complex, expensive and challenging. But for most organizations, it is also absolutely necessary for them in order to compete.
The author is the head of a content strategy and content marketing consultancy firm. Like all good consultants, they focus on getting answers to the questions clients often don't even know to ask. With that, the book has myriad questions and requirements that you must answer before you embark on getting your content online.
The book also provides numerous case studies of sites that understand the importance of content and designed their site accordingly. After reading the book, the way you look at web sites will be entirely different. You will likely find the sites you intuitively return to coincidently happened to be those very sites that have done it right and have the content you want.
My only critique of the book is that the author quotes herself and references other articles she wrote far too often. While these articles have valid content, this can come across as somewhat overly promotional. Aside from that, the book is about as good as anything could get on the topic. There are countless books available about making your web site flashy and pretty; but that Miley Cyrus approach of flash and no content is only a short-term solution, and not an effective long-term business solution.
Good content is like running a marathon; a long but achievable journey, with tremendous rewards and benefits. For firms that are serious about content and looking for an authoritative reference on how to build out their content and do it right, The Digital Crown: Winning at Content on the Web is certain to be an invaluable and necessary resource


text:
Mark Begich on Health CareDemocratic Jr Senator | |
"So what's your New Year's resolution?" a woman says on the Alaska version, as "Auld Land Syne" plays softly in the background. "Here's one you can keep. Resolve to keep Sen. Mark Begich honest in 2014."
The ads are hammering Begich and other Democrats who, along with Pres. Obama, said something to the effect of "if you like your plan, you can keep it." As it turns out, insurance plans that lack key benefits will be canceled after this year. In 2009 Begich said, "Alaskans who have health insurance now, and are happy with it, can keep it."
"The purpose of these ads is to highlight the fact Mark Begich and President Obama lied about people being able to keep their insurance and doctors under ObamaCare," the RNC said.
The anti-Begich ad featured an unnamed woman with long reddish hair in a kitchen, tying Begich to the Affordable Care Act. "Sen. Begich didn't listen. How can I ever trust him again? It just isn't fair," the woman said.
The new TV spot also features a woman with long reddish hair, also in a kitchen, but her name appears on screen. She's Megan Collie, of Anchorage. "That ad, attacking Sen. Begich? It turns out she's an actress, from Washington, DC, pretending to be from Alaska. I'm not an actress. I live here and I trust Mark Begich. He's trying to fix the healthcare law," she said in the new TV spot.
The message is the first public appearance of a Super PAC called Put Alaska First, which spent nearly $100,000 on it. While his ad emphasizes its Alaska bona fides, the group acknowledges he's paying for it with out-of-state money.
The targets besides Begich are Reps. Gary Peters (MI) and Bruce Braley (IA), Sens. Mark Warner (VA), Dick Durbin (IL), Kay Hagan (NC), Mary Landrieu (LA), Jeff Merkley (OR), Mark Pryor (AR), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), and Mark Udall (CO). The robocall script reads:
"President Obama and the Democrats said you could keep your healthcare plan under ObamaCare. Now we know [SENATOR] actually VOTED to make it more difficult. Call [SENATOR] at (XXX)-XXX-XXX & ask why [he/she] lied."
The robocalls are a response to Democrats launching the "GOP Shutdown Watch" campaign, highlighting Republican senate candidates who supported the partial federal government shutdown.
A: The recent showdown between Congress and the Bush Administration over Medicare payments to doctors revealed archaic programmatic formulas and outdated approaches that don�t make sense. Instead of relying on frequent band-aid bailouts, Mark will support innovative efforts to protect Medicare for future generations through such concepts as the �medical home� model, in which doctors and patients spend more time together. By paying doctors more up front per Medicare patient, the program can save money over the long term because doctors will be less likely to turn patients away (leaving the expensive emergency room as the only option) or to simply refer patients to pricey specialists.
[Sen. DeMint, R-SC]: The Democrats have Medicare on a course of bankruptcy. Republicans are trying to save Medicare & make sure there are options for seniors in the future. Medicare will not be there 5 or 10 years from now. Doctors will not see Medicare patients at the rate [Congress will] pay.
[Sen. Ayotte, R-NH]: We have 3 choices when it comes to addressing rising health care costs in Medicare. We can do nothing & watch the program go bankrupt in 2024. We can go forward with the President's proposal to ration care through an unelected board of 15 bureaucrats. Or we can show real leadership & strengthen the program to make it solvent for current beneficiaries, and allow future beneficiaries to make choices.
Opponent's Arguments for voting No:
[Sen. Conrad, D-ND]: In the House Republican budget plan, the first thing they do is cut $4 trillion in revenue over the next 10 years. For the wealthiest among us, they give them an additional $1 trillion in tax reductions. To offset these massive new tax cuts, they have decided to shred the social safety net. They have decided to shred Medicare. They have decided to shred program after program so they can give more tax cuts to those who are the wealthiest among us.
[Sen. Merkley, D-TK]: The Republicans chose to end Medicare as we know it. The Republican plan reopens the doughnut hole. That is the hole into which seniors fall when, after they have some assistance with the first drugs they need, they get no assistance until they reach a catastrophic level. It is in that hole that seniors have had their finances devastated. We fixed it. Republicans want to unfix it and throw seniors back into the abyss. Then, instead of guaranteeing Medicare coverage for a fixed set of benefits for every senior--as Medicare does now--the Republican plan gives seniors a coupon and says: Good luck. Go buy your insurance. If the insurance goes up, too bad.
Status: Failed 40-57
Opponent's argument to vote No:Rep. HEATH SHULER (D, NC-11): Putting a dangerous, overworked FDA in charge of tobacco is a threat to public safety. Last year, the FDA commissioner testified that he had serious concerns that this bill could undermine the public health role of the FDA. And the FDA Science Board said the FDA's inability to keep up with scientific advancements means that Americans' lives will be at risk.
Proponent's argument to vote Yes: Rep. HENRY WAXMAN (D, CA-30): The bill before us, the Waxman-Platts bill, has been carefully crafted over more than a decade, in close consultation with the public health community. It's been endorsed by over 1,000 different public health, scientific, medical, faith, and community organizations.
Sen. HARRY REID (D, NV): Yesterday, 3,500 children who had never smoked before tried their first cigarette. For some, it will also be their last cigarette but certainly not all. If you think 3,500 is a scary number, how about 3.5 million. That is a pretty scary number. That is how many American high school kids smoke--3.5 million. Nearly all of them aren't old enough to buy cigarettes. It means we have as many boys and girls smoking as are participating in athletics in high schools. We have as many as are playing football, basketball, track and field, and baseball combined.
Rep. FRANK PALLONE (D, NJ-6): In the last Congress, we passed legislation that enjoyed bipartisan support as well as the support of the American people. Unfortunately, it did not enjoy the support of the President, who vetoed our bill twice, and went on to proclaim that uninsured children can simply go to the emergency room to have their medical needs met. As the Nation moves deeper into a recession and unemployment rates continue to rise, millions of Americans are joining the ranks of the uninsured, many of whom are children. We can't delay. We must enact this legislation now.
Opponent's argument to vote No:Rep. ROY BLUNT (R, MI-7): This bill doesn't require the States to meet any kind of threshold standard that would ensure that States were doing everything they could to find kids who needed insurance before they begin to spend money to find kids who may not have the same need. Under the bill several thousands of American families would be poor enough to qualify for SCHIP and have the government pay for their health care, but they'd be rich enough to still be required to pay the alternative minimum tax. The bill changes welfare participation laws by eliminating the 5-year waiting period for legal immigrants to lawfully reside in the country before they can participate in this program. In the final bill, we assume that 65% of the children receiving the benefit wouldn't get the benefit anymore. It seems to me this bill needs more work, would have benefited from a committee hearing. It doesn't prioritize poor kids to ensure that they get health care first.
Congressional Summary:The purpose of this Act is to increase diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, leading to better care and outcomes for Americans living with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. Congress makes the following findings:
Proponent's argument for bill: (The Alzheimer's Association, alz.org). The "Health Outcomes, Planning, and Education (HOPE) for Alzheimer's Act" (S.709/H.R. 1507) is one of the Alzheimer's Association's top federal priorities for the 113th Congress. The HOPE for Alzheimer's Act would improve diagnosis of Alzheimer's diseas