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(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Electricity shortages in California have raised awareness of energy supply and conservation, and inflated gas prices are raising public concern over crude oil supplies. But some experts say that the real energy supply situation in America is hardly worthy of the title of an energy 'crisis', and that compared to the oil embargoes, supply cutoffs and long fuel lines of the '70s, this summer's perceived supply shortages are minor and short term. \n"(There is) no comparison between what happened in the '70s and what is going on today," said IU business professor Bruce Jaffee. "The concerns raised about energy are similar, but the policy and the causes are different. The '70s issue was perceived supply shortages. Price caps were implemented. Most importantly, there was an Arab oil embargo.Today there are no broad shortages. The Bush administration will not tolerate price controls or supply cutoffs from third parties. Most importantly, there is no embargo by a third party."\nJaffee said that in the '70s the impact of the energy crisis was greater than today's.\n"It slowed the economy," Jaffee said. "This will have no impact on the economy. In this coming December, if you look back at what was written about the crisis in May or June, you will wonder what all the fuss was about."\nSPEA professor J.C. Randolph said the Bush Administration is using circumstances to make an excuse for increased drilling.\n"The '70s crisis was a real circumstance. This (crisis) is manufactured for political purposes," Randolph said.\nBush's energy plan, released on May 17, emphasizes the danger relying on foreign oil poses to national energy security and encourages exploratory drilling in the United States to increase domestic supply. \nBut Jaffee said that there is no danger of becoming reliant on foreign oil. \n"The political and military reality is that the U.S. is the only superpower. In the '90s, we fought the Persian Gulf War and let the rest of the world know that we will not tolerate a cutoff of oil supply or high prices of oil. Importing oil is no more of a problem that importing shoes, clothing and bananas." \nOthers oppose Bush's drilling plan on the grounds that it will quickly drain America's oil supply and endanger future generations of Americans by making them reliant on foreign oil. \n"Bush proposes that the solution (to domestic supply shortages) is to drain America first, and this is the main problem with his energy plan," said Tom Sparrow, Professor of Industrial Engineering and Economics at Purdue University. "If we pump domestic oil without buying foreign oil, we will drain our supply and make future generations reliant on foreign oil."\nSparrow said that independence is the most important issue when discussing national energy security. \n"The Strategic Petroleum Reserve should create a greater reserve of oil and gas in the U.S. and let it sit underground as a threat to other nations," Sparrow said.\nSparrow added that a very similar plan to drain large amounts of domestic crude oil without importing foreign oil, called "Project Independence," was proposed by President Nixon in 1973 in response to crude oil shortages. He said that the plan's main flaw was that oil is non-renewable. \n"Had Project Independence been implemented, and had we stopped importing in 1973, then the U.S. would be without 60 billion barrels of proven technically recoverable oil. Today we could be facing a situation where there is little or no domestic oil in America." \nRandolph added that Bush's history with the oil industry has made Americans suspicious of the Bush administration's motives for drilling in Alaska.\n"The Bush administration made promises to the petroleum industry," Randolph said. "Now they are creating a situation favorable to energy development. Rising gasoline prices are only a product of desire to increase oil company prices. We have an administration that is very pro-oil industry. Historical and recent actions have proved this. A spin has been putting out information to make it look far more serious than it really is.This is a pro-petroleum industry that defends high prices to increase sales."\nElectricity shortages and supply constraints in California have raised awareness of other energy issues. During the past year Midwestern consumers have been hit financially by mergers of power companies and by lack of competition. "We need a lot of suppliers of heat and electricity and we need greater generating capacity," Sparrow said. "Botched regulation in California does not equal a nationwide oil crisis."\nSparrow also said that he was not optimistic about the success of alternative energy sources.\n"Wind (power) has no chance," Sparrow said. "I am pessimistic about photovoltaics, solar power and biomass. Adding more corn-based ethanol to gas would be a positive step (in increasing user efficiency). However, ethanol raises the price of gas"
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Last Monday the Supreme Court passed a ruling giving extra protection to police officers who are sued over the use of excessive force. In a 6-to-3 decision, the court ruled that a lawsuit against a police officer for using excessive force must be dismissed even if the officer's behavior was unreasonable under existing law, as long as a reasonable officer could have made the same mistake under the particular circumstances.\nThe decision overturned a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, that grew out of a brief altercation at the Presidio Army base in 1994. The New York Times reported that during an appearance by Al Gore, an animal-rights activist at the front of the crowd started to unfurl a banner objecting to the possible use of an Army hospital there as a site for animal experiments. The Times reported two military police officers quickly dragged the man away and threw him into a nearby van. The man, Elliot Katz, president of a group called In Defense of Animals, sustained no injuries, but still sued one of the officers, Donald Saucier, for subjecting him to an unreasonable seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment.\nAlthough the Supreme Court found the force Saucier used to be reasonable, Katz said he was thrown into the van head first with enough force to injure him. \n"I did not sustain any injuries, only because I managed to catch myself before my head split open on the metal partition of the van. The officer definitely wanted to see me hurt." \nFortunately for Katz, a news crew on the scene taped the officers throwing him into the van. Without the tape, Katz said, the case would not have gotten to the Ninth Circuit. And what the Supreme Court saw in the taping of the event appeared to be different from what the Court of Appeals saw.\n"This is a Supreme Court whose members apparently have worse eyesight than the juries of the lower courts," Katz said.\n"We are dealing with a Supreme Court that is too old and too conservative to protect the 1st and 4th Amendment rights of American citizens. (In passing this ruling) they are making people afraid to protest and afraid to exercise their 1st Amendment rights. The Supreme Court, in making this ruling, acted like they did with the Gore / Bush election, ignoring the wishes of America's citizens."\nKatz, who has been arrested at least 37 times for nonviolent civil disobedience acts, said never before had the cops gotten violent with him. \nAmnesty International has collected information on more than 90 cases of alleged ill-treatment, or excessive use of force resulting in ill-treatment or death, by New York City police officers dating from the late 1980s to early 1996. The allegations include people being repeatedly struck with fists, batons or other instruments, often after very minor disputes with officers on the street; deaths in police custody; and shootings in apparent violation of the New York Police Department's own very stringent guidelines. The victims include men and women, juveniles and people from a variety of social, racial and ethnic backgrounds. But according to Amnesty International's Web site, the evidence suggests the large majority of the victims of police abuses are racial minorities, particularly African-Americans and people of Latin American or Asian descent. Amnesty International found racial disparities appeared to be especially marked in cases involving deaths in custody or questionable shootings.\nAmnesty International also found that it is rare for NYPD officers to be criminally prosecuted for on-duty excessive force and even rarer for convictions to be obtained. Officers charged with serious crimes in New York City will usually elect to be tried without a jury as the chances of acquittal by a judge in a non-jury trial are thought to be greater in inner city districts. \nJanet Mongillo, public relations representative for the New Haven Police Department, said she thought that the extra protection given to officers is "a good thing." \n"The police are in a catch-22," said Mongillo. "People want to sue the police all the time. This ruling will protect officers in cases where the circumstances of the case are ambiguous and where… the force used was in fact reasonable and necessary." \nKatz disagreed. "This ruling is unfair against the people whose 4th Amendment rights have been violated who want to sue the police. There should be a trial with a jury of one's peers. It isn't fair for the policeman to be able to say 'No, I wasn't using excessive force.' The law becomes very subjective when the police are given too much discretion." \nCaptain Ralph McLian of the District of Colombia Metropolitan Police Force said that policy changes in the training and protocol of the District of Colombia's officers will be implemented within the month. He would not comment on his own opinion of the ruling, saying that talk over such matters was "strictly hush-hush."\n"We have had no lawsuits in recent years over excessive force," deputy chief Randy Williamson of the Bloomington Police Department said. "All the cases brought against us were thrown out because they were invalid. If someone said an officer used excessive force, then we investigate those incidents."\nWilliamson defined acceptable force as "enough force necessary to effect an arrest" and stated the complaints thrown out were cases in which the officer was found to have used force which was acceptable under the circumstances.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
New president-elect of the National Organization for Women Kim Gandy announced last week that she would do everything in her power to put more women's rights supporters in political office and prevent "right-wing political extremists" from receiving federal court appointments. What concerns Gandy are possible vacancies on the Supreme Court that will be filled by justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade.\n28 years after Roe's victory, some pro-choice advocates are concerned about where Bush's administration is going with the national right to abortions. Sarah Weddington, winning attorney for Roe v. Wade, said "You can see things happen in slow motion. A car goes off a cliff and you see its trajectory without the danger being immediate. I worry most about the makeup of the Supreme Court. Their votes on abortion issues are always 3-3-3 or as in the recent Stenberg v. Carhart case (which argued the constitutionality of partial birth abortions), 5-4. Who gets appointed to the Supreme Court is extremely important.\n"Bush's actions, such as cutting off aid to overseas women, are not pro-life; they are simply anti-abortion," said Weddington. She also said that Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy is pro-choice, but that she is worried about who makes appointments to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Committee, she said, will appoint people who are anti-abortion.\nWeddington added, "Frankly, (28 years ago) we had hoped that by now abortion would be a right for all women and that we wouldn't have to talk about it all the time. But we haven't gotten to that point yet."\nWeddington said there is speculation about three seats in the Supreme Court that may soon be open. Chief Justice William Rehnquist might resign because of lower back pain. Sandra Day O'Connor might resign, but she could also be elected Chief Justice. Justice John-Paul Stevens, who is pro-Roe v. Wade, could also resign, leaving David Souter, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Anthony Kennedy, and conservatives Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia.\nWeddington said there are names of potential jurists going around Washington, but nothing is official. She noted that the Bush administration seems to be shutting the American Bar Association out of the process of choosing justices. In past administrations, choices for justices were submitted to the ABA for review. The ABA gave their assessment of the candidates based not on their opinions but on their proven merit as justices.\n"I think that the Bush administration is trying to get the American Bar Association out of the process because the ABA might point out that they are choosing justices that are not qualified," Weddington said.\nDuring the past eight years of former president Bill Clinton's presidency, anti-abortion groups made progress at the state level but had little access to involvment with national policy. Now they are optimistic about the future of the pro-life movement under George Bush.\n"This is definitely a pro-life administration. Bush has stated that he will seek federal court justices who follow a strict interpretation of the constitution. Justice White, of Roe v. Wade, called Roe 'strip mining the constitution to find the right to abortion buried in the 14th amendment.' If you look in the constitution, this country is founded on the principle that everyone has the right to life," said Jones Derrick, Youth Outreach Coordinator of the National Right to Life Committee.\nJ.T. Finn, director of Pro-Life America and publisher of Prolife.com and Lovematters.com, said his organization wants to see abortion outlawed absolutely, even in cases of rape, incest and potential harm to the mother.\n"We realize as pro-lifers that being raped is horrible," said Finn. "But research shows that a woman who has been raped and has an abortion is even more traumatized than a raped woman who chooses to not to abort her baby. The woman will be emotionally and psychologically healthier if she makes the right choice."\nFinn also denied that harm to the mother was just cause for abortion. \n"All the Ob-Gyns that I have talked to said that there are no situations where the baby has to be killed to protect the mother," he said. \nMr. Finn also stated that abortion protects the perpetrators of incest. \n"If a young girl has a baby, everyone knows she's been violated. If she aborts, then whoever abused her can keep on doing it."\nWhile repeatedly vowing in speeches to protect life, both born and unborn, Bush has frozen the Healthy Start Program and cut the Maternal and Child Health Block Grants that provide health care to women before, during and after pregnancy.\n"George Bush seems to care about embryos and fetuses but not about children once they are born," said Weddington. "It costs money to raise children. The same people who feel virtuous for caring about a fetus don't want to spend any money on it when it is born. But it doesn't cost anything to care about a fetus before birth. Some anti-choice people really want nothing to do with the baby. They say the baby is the woman's business and the woman's responsibility, yet they also want to say 'A woman can't have any choice that I don't want her to have.' And I've observed some men who just love yelling at women and feel virtuous for doing it."\nPro-life groups argue that abortionists unjustly target young, unmarried, poor women. Derrick and Finn said there are more than 4,000 pro-life pregnancy crisis centers and that most of them will help a woman with food, clothing, baby toys, and diapers. Many of the clinics provide education and employment services to women and pay for some prenatal expenses such as ultrasounds, they said. Weddington disagreed. \n"There is not nearly as much real financial care and medical care for poor, unmarried pregnant women as there should be," she said.\nDinah Farrington, vice president of Public Policy for Planned Parenthood, responded to questions on the future of reproductive rights if Roe v. Wade is overturned. \n"Indiana law clearly states that abortion is legal," said Farrington. "Prior to 1973, abortion was legal in some states. Planned Parenthood and other organizations helped women who were pregnant and did not want to be by giving them counseling and referring them to those states where abortion was legal. And if Roe v. Wade is ever overturned, Planned Parenthood will continue to do what we did before 1973."\nAnd the overturn of Roe v. Wade, "while unlikely" will not be tolerated, said Farrington. "Women were having abortions long before Roe was the law of the land. There is a majority of people in this country who are pro choice and they will rise up with great anger if Roe is overturned."\nWeddington said the pro-choice movement will have to rely on younger people. \n"The younger generation is increasingly important as voters. Young people who have done clinic defense and have seen what women are up against, have seen the way that women are treated, have become profoundly involved."\n"I wish there could be a virtual reality experience of what our mothers and grandmothers experienced -- what life was like for women without contraceptives and without abortion, Weddington said. "Experiencing that would motivate young women to become seriously involved in the pro-choice movement"
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Buddhism's popularity is growing in the United States. It is a religion that renowned Swiss psychoanalyst and examiner of Eastern thought Carl Jung described as a "point from which our Western attitude of mind could be shaken to its foundations." \nBloomington's Tibetan Buddhist monastery, Tibetan Cultural Center and Zen Center provide several resources for those who wish to learn about Buddhism. \nNext to Cascades Park, in a yellow and red house surrounded by extensive gardens and prayer flags, is the Dagom Gaden Tensung Ling monastery. The DGTL monastery has graced Bloomington since 1996. \nThe monks who founded the DGTL monastery came to Bloomington from India. All had been teachers in India at the Ganden Shartse Monastic University. The university, originally located in Tibet, relocated to South India following the suppression of Tibet by the Chinese in 1959.\nWhile functioning as a traditional Tibetan Buddhist monastery, DGTL also serves as a community resource, offering a wide array of religious, cultural and educational programs. \nGeshe Sopa, residential teacher and founder of the monastery, said they chose Bloomington because of its large Buddhist community. \n"Bloomington has been very warm and welcoming," Sopa said. "We have met with no opposition to our being here.\nJan Yong, a monk and translator at DGTL said many people have expressed interest in joining the monastery.\n"We have people come to us and they say 'I want to be a monk,'" Yong said. "I tell them that there is no great hurry. Buddhism isn't something you rush into."\nWhile DGTL is open to new people, they do not recruit new members.\n"In Buddhism, active recruitment is not encouraged. It has never been encouraged," Sopa said. "And the interest people have in Buddhism is strong all over the United States, not just in the big cities." He said that Buddhism is equally popular in Europe. \nTucked away on a 90-acre site in Bloomington, the Tibetan Cultural Center grew out of an active University and community involvement with Tibetan culture. Thubten Jigme Norbu, a monk and president of the Tibetan Cultural Center is the older brother of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. During his 46 years in exile he has worked devotedly for the Tibetan cause.\nWhile the Tibetan Cultural Center's main mission is to teach Tibetan culture and promote the liberation of Tibet from China, it is also a community center for Buddhist workshops, teachings, seminars, initiations, retreats, and ceremonies relating to Tibetan religious practices.\nIt has been posited by Western thinkers, such as Jung, that Westerners cannot and should not practice Buddhism because of the difference in how the East and the West define the key concept of "the ego" and the difference in how Easterners and Westerners define the world around them.\nLiz Locke, student of renowned teacher Chongyam Trungpa Rinpoche and director of Interdisciplinary Studies at Naropa University, thinks Westerners should pursue Buddhist teachings. \n"They must be willing to change their ideas about ideas. Westerners have learned to love the idea of duality and the categorical boundaries that come with it," Locke said. "Buddhism does not love these things. To be a Buddhist practitioner, one must eventually abandon duality. The misunderstandings facing Westerners practicing Buddhism stem from the Western mind's addiction to dichotomies and its fear of emptiness (sunyata)."\nWesterners will run into the most trouble with a concept essential to Buddhism, "the annihilation of the ego," Locke said. This means disciplining oneself to living free of obsession and of living unattached to happiness or to suffering.\n"To the Western mind, 'annihilation of the ego' precludes the possibility of having an individual ego," Locke said. "And a Western psychologist might perceive such dispassion as mental illness. But a Buddhist might feel that such a diagnosis is the result of the psychologist's 'deluded belief in the existence of the ego.'"\nThere are obvious differences between Westerners and Asians, said Tenzin Jamang, a monk at the Cultural Center.\n"The Buddha said 'Do not go where they believe,'" Jamang said. "Buddhism is good for Westerners. The practice of Buddhism is meant to make people's lives better."\nThe main goal in Buddhism is to create inner peace and to subdue the mind's negative emotions, Sopa said.\n"At the core, all cultures are the same," Sopa said. "(But) people who practice Buddhism are more open-minded and can achieve more inner peace." \nIn his appendix to the philosophical Chinese text "The Secret of the Golden Flower," Jung warned of the dangers that lie in practicing Buddhism without understanding it.\n"The great danger is placing Buddhist ideas, such as 'nirvana' in Western categories such a 'heaven'" Locke said. "There is no 'god' in Buddhism. You do get to go to heaven in the end, because Buddhism is not transcendent in that way. You are not given a prize for annihilating the ego. And the Western ego would love to get a prize for that." Meditation is the greatest tool in Buddhism for annihilating the ego. It is a means for "getting out of one's own way," Locke said. \nJamang said the border between identifying oneself as Buddhist and not Buddhist is taking refuge in the Three Jewels.\n"The Three Jewels are Buddha, which is the principle of awake non-dual mind; dharma, which are the teachings of an awake non-dual mind; and Sangha, which is the community of practitioners who are on the path of the awake non-dual mind," Jamang said.
(11/06/01 4:34am)
On Monday Sandinista candidate Daniel Ortega conceded defeat to Liberal Constitutionalist Party candidate Enrique Bolanos. This ends the possibility of the Sandinista government coming to power in Nicaragua in the next five years. However, some think the election was tampered with by the United States, despite ex-President Jimmy Carter's supervision of the elections.\nLast week U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua, Oliver Garza, again campaigned with the liberal party's candidate, Bolanos, according to a press release from the Nicaragua Network. Both were present on October 16 in the same communities in Matagalpa to give out food assistance. Bolanos at first said that his presence with the US diplomat was by chance. He later admitted that he had been invited by the US Embassy to endorse the Food for Work Program financed by USAID. Bolanos said he was invited to the event because his campaign was nearby. \nU.S. involvement in the Nicaraguan elections has drawn added criticism to the United States's relations with foreign governments. \n\"The United States will lose credibility for this\" said Barbara Seitz de Martinez, Chair of the Bloomington-Posoltega Sister Cities committee. \"It was terribly blatant and terribly inappropriate for the United States to have an ambassador openly interfere with any candidate\'s campaign in a sovereign country.\"\nVirgilio Godoy, former vice-president of Nicaragua and member of the Liberal Independent Party currently aligned with the Conservative Party, compared Ambassador Garza to a \"cowboy of the Wild West\" and said that Garza is \"doing a bad thing by meddling in our internal politics,\" according to the Nicaragua Network.\nSergio Garca Quintero, a Nicaraguan representative in the Central American Parliament, asked that Ambassador Garza be declared \"persona non-grata.\" by the Nicaraguan government according to the Nicaragua Network. De Martinez has been an open critic of the US government for propping up corrupt governments to serve domestic interests. "The U.S. prioritizes stability over human rights," said De Martinez. She also pointed out that current president Aleman's administration was documented as being extremely corrupt. \n"Nothing can yet be said about Balones, who was the Vice President of the Aleman administration,\" said de Martinez. "We are building nations. If the (Balonos) administration does turn out to be corrupt, critics can say that the United States put them there.\" \nBut Professor Jeffrey Gould, Director of the Center for Latin American Studies, said the Nicaraguan electorate was faced with two poor options in this election. \"The Sandinista party is tainted with corruption. It is not as corrupt as the administration that preceded it, but the Sandinistas acted internally in undemocratic ways. And none of that helped their cause in this election.\"\nA third Conservative Party showed promise earlier this year, but it ceased to exist after early July. \n\"The U.S. feared that the anti-Ortega vote would be divided by the conservative party, thus winning Ortega the election\" said Gould. According to Gould, the Conservative Party withdrew after a conference with the U.S. embassy.\nProfessor Jeffrey Hart, chair of the Political Science Department, said the Sandinistas alienated their coalition while in office by reconfiguring their image to make themselves more popular to the electorate. He found it telling that Ortega lost by such a close margin.\nFrom 1979 to 1990 the Ortega administration guaranteed primary education to all Nicaraguan citizens and improved health care. However, Ortega did not have the means to maintain a base of wealth. Critics say this was due in part to a United States embargo during his administration. \nDuring much of the 1980s, Nicaraguan aid to leftist rebels in El Salvador caused the United States to sponsor anti-Sandinista Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua. This eventually caused the downfall of the Sandinista regime and democratic elections to be held in 1990.\nAccording to Gould, the Contra war allowed the hard-line Sandinistas to restrict the press and to disregard non-Sandinista social movements and protests. The embargo combined with support from the Contra made a huge impact on social programs, health care, and land acquisition.\n"The Sandinistas were an eclectic group, within which were Leninist tendencies" said Gould. "War conditions led Sandinistas to behave in certain ways that were already implicit in their program."\nGould also said the US had no business getting as involved with the election as it did. "We did everything short of endorsing Bolanos,\" said Gould. "And we made what could be seen as veiled threats that we would withdraw aid to Nicaragua if the Sandinistas did not change"
(10/23/01 5:37am)
Unnecessary calls to hazardous materials crews are taxing the state's resources. Bloomington Township Fire Chief Faron Livingston said each response to an anthrax scare costs the town between $700 and $1,000. This includes the costs of calling in off-duty workers, paying workers for overtime and the cost of necessary equipment that can be used only once and thrown away.\nThe Bloomington Township Fire Department has responded to 10 calls since Oct. 15, Livingston said. \nPresident George W. Bush's officials and state health officials around the nation have been trying to quell intense public concern about anthrax. \n"Instead of speculating," Tom Ridge, Director of Homeland Security, told The New York Times Thursday morning, "We'd like to focus on the facts." \nRidge emphasized that at the time of the article's publication, only six cases of infection were confirmed while "thousands and thousands of people" have been tested and thousands of environmental samples have been taken. \nIt is easy to make people fear anthrax. But anthrax has never been used in biological warfare. To be an effective weapon, anthrax must be aerosolized into very small particles and inhaled in large quantities, a process that is difficult said George Hegeman, IU professor of microbiology. \n"It would require extensive knowledge of medical biology, industrial biology, and microbiology," Hegeman said. \nTo use anthrax in a dangerous way, a person would first have to obtain a strain of anthrax that is toxigenic. Then that person would have to know what medium the spores grow in and the tricks to getting the spores to grow properly. And this person would have to do all of this without infecting him or herself, Hegeman said. \n"Terrorists would be more likely to look at places like the Super Bowl or Washington D.C. if they wanted to hurt a lot of people," Hegeman said. "The chances of anyone in Bloomington getting sick from anthrax are pretty darn low. Bloomington is not an ideal target for terrorists." \nTo process the anthrax spores into an aerosol would be extremely difficult, said Dr. Roger Innes, professor in IU's biology department. \n"The anthrax has to be in very fine particles, and the spores tend to clump together," he said. "You would need access to the tools and the knowledge to make the spores into fine powder, one that would remain airborne." \nArthur Aronson, professor of microbiology at Purdue University, said spores would have to be mixed with a special emulsifying agent to keep them from clumping. This methodology is something that very few people know about. \n"Not even I know how to do it," Aronson said.\nFinally, a very fine aerosol dispenser would have to be designed to dispense large quantities of breathable anthrax.\n"Something like a hairspray dispenser wouldn't do the job," Aronson said. \nThe most likely place from which a person could obtain anthrax bacterium is from an animal that has died of the disease. Anthrax is still fairly common among farm animals in Europe and Asia. \n"I haven't seen this mentioned in the media at all, but the truth is that it's not at all uncommon for people who live around farms to be exposed to anthrax," Hegeman said. \nExposure to any dose of anthrax, even a tiny non-lethal one, causes the body to produce antibodies. An anthrax test only looks for the presence of these antibodies, and when people test positive, it may not be because of a suspicious letter they opened.\nAronson said that some veterinary labs work with anthrax and that the U.S. Army definitely has it. The Soviet Union has been studying anthrax as well. \nHe also said that prior to five years ago there were no restrictions on the shipping of anthrax. Now control is very tight.\nBut emergency responders and labs must take every report of suspicious packages and powder seriously.
(09/26/01 4:18am)
Discrimination and poverty often contribute to minorities not receiving treatment for mental disorders, according to a report presented by U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher.\nSatcher's 200-page report "Mental Health: Culture, Race and Ethnicity" finds that racial and ethnic minorities collectively experience a greater disability burden from mental illness than do whites. This higher level of burden stems from minorities receiving less care and poorer quality of care, rather than from their illnesses being inherently more severe or prevalent in the community. Minorities also suffer from under-representation in mental health research.\nThe Surgeon General's report determines that the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders greatly depend on verbal communication and trust between patient and clinician.\n"… Mental health care disparities may also stem from minorities' historical and present-day struggles with racism and discrimination, which affect their mental health and contribute to their lower economic, social and political status" said Satcher in the report. \nLower socioeconomic status -- in terms of income, education and occupation -- has also been strongly linked to mental illness.\nFor the school-age minority population, factors such as busing students into "whiter" neighborhoods can create more emotional strain for students.\n"Because of desegregation mandates, students are bused into foreign neighborhoods that do not have the same cultural makeup that they grew up in. This creates a tremendous hardship on anyone" said Basil Woodfork, school psychologist for Indianapolis Public Schools. "This situation is created to fill a state mandated quota."\nAccording to Indianapolis Public Schools, a "disproportionately high" number of African-American males in the IPS system are diagnosed as "emotionally handicapped." \nMany members of minority groups fear, or feel ill at ease with, the mental health system, according to research presented by Satcher. \n"These groups experience it as the product of white, European culture, shaped by research primarily on white, European populations. Minorities seeking care might find only clinicians who represent a white middle-class orientation, with its cultural values and beliefs, as well as its biases, misconceptions and stereotypes of other cultures" the report states.\nCindy Houston, manager of outpatient services at Bloomington's Center for Behavioral Health, has worked in mental health care for 30 years. She acknowledges there have been barriers between herself and her patients. \nAccording to Houston, cross-cultural communication can cause problems in dialogue between health care providers and patients.\nHouston also said that the language used in mental health can be a problem. \n"The concept of there being a 'mental illness' can mean something radically different to a person from a different culture," she said.\nDr. James Jackson, director of the Program for Research on Black Americans at University of Michigan, said "There is a lack of understanding of the way in which African Americans live their lives, particularly where the religiosity of African Americans is concerned. There is a tremendous religiosity in the lives of African Americans and the ways in which they express this religiosity is not understood (by non-African American health care providers.)"\n"The usual mental health care -- or rather lack of care -- for African Americans takes place in the hospital emergency room," Jackson said. \nThe phenomenon of African Americans going to hospital emergency rooms to seek treatment for mental illness and emotional disorders has been addressed in the past by researchers. It is usually attributed to factors such as lack of insurance and low income.\n"African Americans who get their mental health treatment from emergency rooms get to the emergency room through agents of social control like the police," Jackson said. "People don't come to the emergency room voluntarily. And if the system to treat the mental health problems of African Americans does not exist, then these problems will be treated in prison."\n"A lot of people who run into the criminal justice system would be better treated by the mental health system," Jackson said. "And regarding the mental health care provided to prison inmates, there is none."\nJackson also cited drug use as a problem that exacerbates existing mental health problems that African Americans may have while running them into contact with the police instead of the care providers they need.\n"The problem is lack of diagnosis. Poverty is the big issue, more so than discrimination," he said. "The issues are the quality of service available to minorities and the access to services minorities have."\nHouston said she thinks that the situation between minority patients and mental health care providers has improved over the past few years. \n"The fact that cultural differences between races and ethnic groups, language differences and body language differences can be a barrier between the patient and the care provider has been moved to the front burner in the past five years," she said.\nIn Satcher's report, Asian Americans have proven less likely than whites, African Americans and Hispanic Americans to seek care. Few differences were found between Hispanic Americans and whites in overall rates of mental illness. \nIn Native American communities, depression is found to be a significant problem. Suicide also occurs at alarmingly high levels within this community. And where seeking help from mental health care providers is concerned, the historical experiences of Native Americans have imparted a lack of trust of government, said the report. \n"As with African Americans, the historical relationship of forced control, segregation, racism and discrimination has affected their ability to trust a white majority population," said the Surgeon General's report.\nIn order to solve the mental health care issues that minorities struggle with, the issues of lack of access, poverty and lack of community support must be addressed, said the Surgeon General's report.\n"The cumulative weight and interplay of all barriers to care, not any single one alone, is responsible for mental health disparities"
(06/18/01 12:37am)
A column by Tribune Media Service's Cal Thomas has provoked outrage from the Council for American-Islamic Relations. Published by the Jewish World Review, the column suggests that Palestinians should leave Israel. Thomas's statements that "Israel should declare its intention to transfer large numbers of its Palestinian residents to Arab nations…" and that "Eviction is a better avenue to stability" were interpreted by CAIR President Ibrahim Hooper as "quasi-genocidal" and comparable to Germany's Nuremberg Laws.\n"This is so bizarre," said Hooper. "Is he recommending the transfer of his fellow Christians along with Muslim Palestinians? Should we go back to the old Nuremberg Laws? Bizarre implications come from (Cal Thomas's) kind of thinking."\nBinyamin Jolkovsky, editor-in-chief and publisher of the Jewish World Review, said CAIR's reaction to the column borders on hypersensitivity. "For an Arab group to condemn a point of view (on Arabs), after the Arab press regularly calls for the removal from Arab nations of people who do not want to be there...it's ridiculous, nothing short of ridiculous."\nJolkovsky continued, "It is absurd to compare the Nuremberg laws to Cal Thomas\'s column. He expressed a valid viewpoint. He was just saying, pragmatically, 'If you [Palestinians] don't like Israel, then get the hell out.'"\nThis is not the first time that Cal Thomas has offended the sensibilities of CAIR. Hooper said in the past Thomas has questioned the honesty of the prophet Muhammad and called Islam itself "murderous." Thomas's columns have also touched on diaspora, a sensitive issue for American Muslims.\n"Palestinians are singled out for the honor of being the only people to not control their destinies and to not control their human rights," said Hooper. "All the conflict (in the U.S.) is coming from the other side, from Jews and Christians. Muslims bear no ill will against anyone. And here someone is suggesting an entire racial minority be eliminated."\nThe Middle East crisis has provoked strong sentiments about Palestinian terrorists from many pro--Israel groups. New York Post columnist Rod Dreher wrote Oct. 17, "...Unlike the Israelis, the Palestinians are not products of Western civilization, but of one informed by Islamic religion and ethnic Arab customs. Because of that, it's easy for naive Westerners to be scandalized and perplexed by their actions...As the only outpost of the West in that savage and irrational desert, we owe the Israelis our loyalty...The Israelis, whatever their failings, are fighting for us and for our civilization."\nJolkovsky attributed the image problem of Palestinian Muslims in part to lack of positive leadership and accountability in the Palestinian culture. "Palestinians don't stand up, there are no responsible voices. The majority are peace-loving people. But the loudest voices (terrorists) are the ones heard."\nThe validity of leader Yasser Arafat is also a mark against Palestinians for many Israel supporters. \n"Yasser Arafat murdered tons of people before becoming a statesman. Does this say that you can become important by killing a lot of people?" said Jolkovsky.\nJolkovsky also addressed the attitude of Muslims toward Palestinian settlement in Israel. "Obviously, I'm biased because I'm Jewish, but I don't get the CAIR's attitude. The idea of a diaspora is wherever you are, you get on with it. You practice, you marry. Blowing up nightclubs at random is not normal… And if the Palestinians are unhappy in Israel, there are many other places they can go to. It's insane that the Muslims want to isolate themselves within Israel from other groups"