Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Scott Horton, The Guantanamo “Suicides”

Posted on by

The introductory paragraphs from Scott Horton’s investigative report in the March 2010 issue of Harper’s Magazine, “The Guantanamo “Suicides”:  A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle“:

When President Barack Obama took office last year, he promised to “restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great.” Toward that end, the president issued an executive order declaring that the extra-constitutional prison camp at Guantánamo Naval Base “shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.” Obama has failed to fulfill his promise. Some prisoners there are being charged with crimes, others released, but the date for closing the camp seems to recede steadily into the future. Furthermore, new evidence now emerging may entangle Obama’s young administration with crimes that occurred during the George W. Bush presidency, evidence that suggests the current administration failed to investigate seriously—and may even have continued—a cover-up of the possible homicides of three prisoners at Guantánamo in 2006.

Continue reading →

Seminar: “Why is it so Hard to Talk about War? Bridging the Civilian-Military Divide”

Posted on by

An upcoming seminar where our Congressman-elect will be one of the speakers, “Why is it so Hard to Talk about War? Bridging the Civilian-Military Divide?”:

Herbert C. Kelman Seminar on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution

Date:

Monday, December 8, 2014, 3:00pm to 4:30pm

See also: Herbert C. Kelman Seminar on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 2014–2015

Location:

CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge Street, Tsai Auditorium

“Why is it so Hard to Talk about War? Bridging the Civilian-Military Divide”

Speakers:

Susan Hackley,Managing Director, Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School.

Seth Moulton,Congressman-elect, Massachusetts’ 6th district.

Contact:

Donna Hicks, dhicks@wcfia.harvard.edu

Honor Labor

Posted on by

Sept. 1, 2014

Yesterday my daughter asked what I’d be doing at work tomorrow (i.e., today).   I told her I didn’t have to go to work because it’s a holiday, Labor Day.  She asked what Labor Day is.  We’ve talked about Memorial Day and Veterans’ Day as holidays which commemorate the sacrifices others made so that we could live better, safer, freer lives.  Labor Day hadn’t come up before.  I told her that it’s a day where we remember people who stood up for those who work for a living, people who insisted that when you do your job that you be paid fairly for the work you do so that you can pay for your food and the home that you live in – that it’s a day where we remember people who insisted that you not have to put yourself in danger when you go to your work – that it’s a day where we remember people who insisted that you not have to work all day every day in order to keep your job – that you be allowed to take weekends off and have a vacation.  My wife got her a book from the library last week, Brave Girl:  Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike of 1909, so maybe at least some of what I said clicked.

I’ll hazard that the vast majority of people reading this post have paid vacation, employer-subsidized health insurance, and go to work in workplaces which are covered by OSHA safety standards.  We’re pretty damn fortunate to have those things.  We should take a moment today to think of the people who helped make things like 40 hour workweeks, paid vacation, and workplace safety standards a reality.  We should also take a moment to think of the people who are committed to seeing that those things are there for everyone who works for a living, not just the upper-middle class.   Finally, we should also take moment to think of those for whom 40 hour workweeks, paid vacation, and workplace safety standards aren’t in the cards.

With that, Shirt by Robert Pinsky: Continue reading →

What’s wrong with this picture?

Posted on by

STLOUIS-ss-slide-M1BQ-superJumbo

I’ll start with easy one:  The police have automatic weapons.  (Or are the just semi?  Can’t tell.   Doesn’t matter anyway.)  In the civilized world riot police carry shields and truncheons.  Sending in a heavily-armed paramilitary force is not how responsible people act to de-escalate a tense situation.

A friend of mine once said, “There are a lot of assholes in the world.  The police are who we hire to be assholes back to them.”   While I don’t disagree with the sentiment in general, the devil is in the details. The militarization of the police is bad news.

In praise of “free play”

Posted on by

“Free play” is a relatively new term to me.  When I was a kid we just called it “play.”

Dr. Ron Turker, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, had an op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times, All Played Out:

Recently, I told a teenage boy, whom I’ll call Lucas, and his parents that he had torn the anterior cruciate ligament (A.C.L.) in his knee. The matching soccer jerseys worn by the entire family were a hint as to how the conversation would go.

“You don’t understand, this is his life!” Mom said.

“We need this fixed — he’s in the Olympic Development Program! He’s elite,” said Dad.

Lucas is 13. The next 40 minutes of what had been a 20-minute appointment were spent trying to reset expectations. Lucas would need a minimum of six months to heal the reconstructed graft. On top of that, his bones were still growing, so the surgical technique would have to be altered to a trickier and less tested procedure. And the harsh reality: Any knee that has had a major injury will never be 100 percent “normal.” His parents were furious and left for the inevitable second opinion.

These visits are exhausting and more common every year. The question is why.

Continue reading →

The value of good sanitation

Posted on by

From the NY Times, Poor Sanitation in India May Afflict Well-Fed Children With Malnutrition:

[A]n emerging body of scientific studies suggest that … many of the 162 million … children under the age of 5 in the world who are malnourished are suffering less a lack of food than poor sanitation.

Like almost everyone else in their village, Vivek and his family have no toilet, and the district where they live has the highest concentration of people who defecate outdoors. As a result, children are exposed to a bacterial brew that often sickens them, leaving them unable to attain a healthy body weight no matter how much food they eat.

“These children’s bodies divert energy and nutrients away from growth and brain development to prioritize infection-fighting survival,” said Jean Humphrey, a professor of human nutrition at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “When this happens during the first two years of life, children become stunted. What’s particularly disturbing is that the lost height and intelligence are permanent.”

Weekly Digest – June 22, 2014

Posted on by

Must Read

Should Read

Continue reading →