PUB: Persea Books ~ Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor's Choice Award

The Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor's Choice Award is an annual collaboration between Persea Books and The Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Project. It is open to any American poet who has previously published at least one full-length book of poems. The winner receives an advance of $1,000.00, publication of his/her collection by Persea, and the option of an all-expenses-paid residency at the Anderson Center, a renowned artists' colony in Red Wing, Minnesota.

Submission Guidelines:

• Submitted manuscripts should include two title pages: one containing the author's name, the author's contact information, and the title of the collection; and another containing only the title of the collection.
• Submitted manuscripts be at least 40 pages. They should be paginated, with the title of the collection included on each page as a header or footer, and fastened with a clip. Please do not staple or permanently bind submissions.
• Submissions must include a page listing previous book publications. They may also include a page of magazine/journal publication credits. However, they should not include other sorts of acknowledgments or thank-yous. 
• Submissions must be primarily in English to be considered.  New & Selected Poems, Collected Poems, and translations are not eligible.
• For the purposes of this contest, a previously published full-length book of poems is defined as a volume of more than 40 pages, in an edition of 500 or more copies, that has been made readily available through trade distribution (i.e. local and/or on-line booksellers, including Amazon.com).• Entries must be postmarked between January 1st and March 1st, and must be received by March 10th. They should be sent to The Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor's Choice Award, c/o Persea Books, PO Box 1388, Columbia, MO 65201, and should include a check (in U.S. funds) in the amount of $25.00, made payable to the order of The Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Project.  Please do not send submissions to Persea’s New York City office or make checks out to Persea Books.

NB: No one who has been a graduate student or faculty member in the English Department at the University of Missouri (Columbia) since 2008 is eligible for this award.

The winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor's Choice Award is chosen by Persea's poetry editor in consultation with the Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor's Choice Advisory Committee of the Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Project. The winner will be announced on Persea's web site in April. Submitted manuscripts will not be returned.

 

PUB: Contest « 42 Miles Press

Contest

Lester M. Wolfson Poetry Award Guidelines

Judge: David Dodd Lee, Series Editor

The Lester M. Wolfson Poetry Award is being created in an effort to bring fresh and original voices to the poetry reading public. The prize will be offered annually to any poet writing in English, including poets who have never published a full length book as well as poets who have published several. New and Selected collections of poems are also welcome. The winning poet will receive $1,000 and publication of his or her book. The winner will also be invited to give a reading at Indiana University South Bend as part of the release of the book. The final selection will be made by the Series Editor. Current or former students or employees of Indiana University South Bend, as well as friends of the Series Editor, are not eligible for the prize. There is a $25, non-refundable, entry fee, made payable to I.U. South Bend. There is no limit on the number of entries an author may submit. Simultaneous submissions are fine, in fact they are encouraged, just please withdraw your manuscript if it gets taken for publication elsewhere. Please include a SASE with each entry. Please include a self-addressed postage paid postcard if you desire confirmation of manuscript receipt. No manuscripts will be returned. Entries sent by e-mail or fax are not permitted; they will be disqualified. On your cover sheet include name, address, phone number, and e-mail. The manuscript should be paginated and include a table of contents and acknowledgments page. Manuscripts will be accepted starting December 1, 2010, and the ending deadline will be March 1, 2011.

Manuscripts received prior to December 1, or postmarked after March 1, will be recycled and the entry fee returned. The winner will receive 50 copies of his or her book. With questions e-mail Davdlee@iusb.edu.

Mail manuscripts to:

Lester M. Wolfson Poetry Award
Indiana University South Bend
Department of English
1700 Mishawaka Avenue
P. O. Box 7111
South Bend, IN 46634-7111

Manuscripts submitted for the Lester M. Wolfson Poetry Award should exhibit an awareness of the contemporary “voice” in American poetry, an awareness of our moment in time as poets. We are excited to receive poetry that is experimental as well as work of a more formalist bent, as long as it reflects a complexity and sophistication of thought and language. Urgency, yes; melodrama, not so much. Winners will be announced via this website, as well as through the mail. We will also announce the winner in major magazines (Poets & Writers) and blogs, including this one. The winning book, and any others chosen from the pool of entries, will be published in 2012.

 

PUB: Submit | Iron Horse Literary Review

2011 Poetry Chapbook Competition

The winning chapbook will be published in Fall 2011 w/full-color cover art, and the winner receives a $1,000 honorarium.

  • Judge: ERIN BELIEU
    • Entries must be between 32 – 40 numbered pages, excluding title page, table of contents, acknowledgments page. One-inch margins, 12-point font, and only one poem per page.
    • Manuscripts as a whole must be previously unpublished.
    • Translations will not be accepted.
    • Manuscripts must not contain any identifying information. Include a separate cover page with name and contact information, including an email address.
    • Entries must include a $15 reading fee (made out to Iron Horse Literary Review). Fee includes a one year subscription to IHLR.
    • Mail entries to:

    Poetry Chapbook Competition
    Iron Horse Literary Review
    Texas Tech University
    English Department
    Mail Stop 43091
    Lubbock, Texas 79409

    • Entries must be postmarked on or before February 28, 2011.
    • Entries failing to meet formatting instructions will not be considered.

     

    CULTURE: James Baldwin Early Manuscripts and Papers

    James Baldwin, 1955 September 13, by Carl Van Vechten
    See all images

     

    JAMES BALDWIN

    EARLY MANUSCRIPTS AND PAPERS

    Writer James Baldwin (1924-1987) is counted among the most important and influential African American writers of the twentieth century. His novels and essays explore the complexities and consequences of racial strife in the United States. Famous for his astute observations of American culture and his incisive examination of the psychological effects of racism and segregation, Baldwin’s most celebrated works include:  Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953),  Notes of a Native Son (1955), Giovanni's Room (1956),  Another Country (1962), and The Fire Next Time  (1963).

    History of the Collection

    The provenance of the James Baldwin Early Manuscripts and Papers collection is a matter of some intrigue. The donor, Bart Kaplan, acquired the papers through eminent domain, after his company took possession of a storage building in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, sometime in the early 1960s. The space in which they were stored had apparently once belonged to a publishing company which had left behind a suitcase containing these materials from James Baldwin. The relationship between Baldwin and the publishing company, as well as how a small parcel of his earliest literary effects was left with them, is uncertain. According to several sources, the materials in this archive were known to have been created by Baldwin, but were thought discarded or simply forgotten. In her introduction to New Essays on Go Tell It on the Mountain [Cambridge University Press, 1996], Trudier Harris indicates that, following Harper's rejection of a draft section of "In My Father's House" [alternately "Crying Holy"], Baldwin put the manuscript "in a 'duffel bag'" and turned his attention to another project. Other circumstantial evidence - the dating of the first draft of "Crying Holy" to November 1941, while Baldwin was still in high school, and the length of the typescript version (57 pages — a few shy of the 60-page manuscript Richard Wright urged Baldwin to submit to Harper's) — suggests that this recovered cache of material fills in the gap that bibliographers have noted.

    The Collection

    Available online are early drafts of Go Tell It On the Mountain and selected correspondence. The drafts are drawn from the James Baldwin Early Manuscripts and Papers, a larger collection of material documenting a short period of Baldwin's young adult life between 1941-1945, when Baldwin was just beginning his literary career. Currently, only a portion of these papers are available online.

    Cite as: James Baldwin Early Manuscripts and Papers, James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

    Call Number: JWJ MSS 21

    Related Collections

    Living Portraits: Carl Van Vechten's Color Photographs of African Americans

    Permissions

    Permission from the James Baldwin Estate is required to publish James Baldwin materials in any format. To learn more, contact the Curator, Yale Collection of American Literature.

     

    Catalog Record: A record for this item is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog.

     

     

     

    A LUTA CONTINUA: To The Shores Of Tripoli - It's Almost Over - Robert Fisk's Eye-Witness Dispatch > The Independent

    Protesters hold up the old Libyan flag in Tobruk

    Robert Fisk with the first dispatch from Tripoli - a city in the shadow of death

    Gunfire in the suburbs – and hunger and rumour in the capital as thousands race for last tickets out of a city sinking into anarchy

     

    Thursday, 24 February 2011

    Demonstrators pour on to the streets of Tobruk yesterday to protest against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi

     

    Up to 15,000 men, women and children besieged Tripoli's international airport last night, shouting and screaming for seats on the few airliners still prepared to fly to Muammar Gaddafi's rump state, paying Libyan police bribe after bribe to reach the ticket desks in a rain-soaked mob of hungry, desperate families. Many were trampled as Libyan security men savagely beat those who pushed their way to the front.

    Among them were Gaddafi's fellow Arabs, thousands of them Egyptians, some of whom had been living at the airport for two days without food or sanitation. The place stank of faeces and urine and fear. Yet a 45-minute visit into the city for a new airline ticket to another destination is the only chance to see Gaddafi's capital if you are a "dog" of the international press.

    There was little sign of opposition to the Great Leader. Squads of young men with Kalashnikov rifles stood on the side roads next to barricades of upturned chairs and wooden doors. But these were pro-Gaddafi vigilantes – a faint echo of the armed Egyptian "neighbourhood guard" I saw in Cairo a month ago – and had pinned photographs of their leader's infamous Green Book to their checkpoint signs.

    There is little food in Tripoli, and over the city there fell a blanket of drab, sullen rain. It guttered onto an empty Green Square and down the Italianate streets of the old capital of Tripolitania. But there were no tanks, no armoured personnel carriers, no soldiers, not a fighter plane in the air; just a few police and elderly men and women walking the pavements – a numbed populace. Sadly for the West and for the people of the free city of Benghazi, Libya's capital appeared as quiet as any dictator would wish.

    But this is an illusion. Petrol and food prices have trebled; entire towns outside Tripoli have been torn apart by fighting between pro- and anti-Gaddafi forces. In the suburbs of the city, especially in the Noufreen district, militias fought for 24 hours on Sunday with machine guns and pistols, a battle the Gadaffi forces won. In the end, the exodus of expatriates will do far more than street warfare to bring down the regime.

    I was told that at least 30,000 Turks, who make up the bulk of the Libyan construction and engineering industry, have now fled the capital, along with tens of thousands of other foreign workers. On my own aircraft out of Tripoli, an evacuation flight to Europe, there were Polish, German, Japanese and Italian businessmen, all of whom told me they had closed down major companies in the past week. Worse still for Gaddafi, the oil, chemical and uranium fields of Libya lie to the south of "liberated" Benghazi. Gaddafi's hungry capital controls only water resources, so a temporary division of Libya, which may have entered Gaddafi's mind, would not be sustainable. Libyans and expatriates I spoke to yesterday said they thought he was clinically insane, but they expressed more anger at his son, Saif al-Islam. "We thought Saif was the new light, the 'liberal'", a Libyan businessman sad to me. "Now we realise he is crazier and more cruel than his father."

    The panic that has now taken hold in what is left of Gaddafi's Libya was all too evident at the airport. In the crush of people fighting for tickets, one man, witnessed by an evacuated Tokyo car-dealer, was beaten so viciously on the head that "his face fell apart".

    Talking to Libyans in Tripoli and expatriates at the airport, it is clear that neither tanks nor armour were used in the streets of Tripoli. Air attacks targeted Benghazi and other towns, but not the capital. Yet all spoke of a wave of looting and arson by Libyans who believed that with the fall of Benghazi, Gaddafi was finished and the country open to anarchy.

    A fire burns in a street in the Libyan capital Tripoli in the early hours of yesterday morning

     

    The centre of the city was largely closed up. All foreign offices have been shut including overseas airlines, and every bakery I saw was shuttered. Rumours abound that members of Gaddafi's family are trying to flee abroad. Although William Hague's ramblings about Gaddafi's flight to Venezuela have been disproved, I spoke to a number of Libyans who believed that Burkina Faso might be his only viable retreat. Two nights ago, a Libyan private jet approached Beirut airport with a request to land but was refused permission when the crew declined to identify their eight passengers. And last night, a Libyan Arab Airlines flight reported by Al Jazeera to be carrying Gaddafi's daughter, Aisha, was refused permission to land in Malta.

    Gaddafi is blamed by Shia Muslims in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran for the murder of Imam Moussa Sadr, a supposedly charismatic divine who unwisely accepted an invitation to visit Gaddafi in 1978 and, after an apparent argument about money, was never seen again. Nor was a Lebanese journalist accompanying him on the trip.

    While dark humour has never been a strong quality in Libyans, there was one moment at Tripoli airport yesterday which proved it does exist. An incoming passenger from a Libyan Arab Airlines flight at the front of an immigration queue bellowed out: "And long life to our great leader Muammar Gaddafi." Then he burst into laughter – and the immigration officers did the same.

     

    A LUTA CONTINUA: Workers vs. Politicians - Which Side AreYou On?

    “We Are Wisconsin”

    Day 10 is concluding.  Not the demonstrations.

    Check this video that’s just come out via The Isthmus, the alternative newspaper here in Madison.

    It was produced by Finn Ryan and David Nevala.   The music is by Cougar.

    And yes, there is a brotha and a sista telling their stories as union members and public employees.  There are a few black people who live in Wisconsin, and they’re not all from Milwaukee.

    And they all look just like everyone of us.

    We are Wisconsin.  Stand up for Wisconsin.  Forward, Wisconsin.

    __________________________

    ImportantFirst Posted: 02/24/11 05:45 PM Updated: 02/24/11 06:56 

    SCROLL DOWN FOR LIVE UPDATES

    The USA Today/Gallup poll conducted on Monday night asked the following question:

    As you may know, one way the legislature in Wisconsin is seeking to reduce its budget deficit is by passing a bill that would take away some of the collective bargaining rights of most public unions, including the state teachers' union. Would you favor or oppose such a bill in your state?

    Gallup found 33 percent of adults nationwide in favor, 61 percent opposed and 6 percent with no opinion.

    Like many, Washington Post Plum Line blogger Greg Sargent saw the result as evidence of a "bipartisan consensus" surrounding worker bargaining rights, but Politico's Ben Smith countered that such a consensus seems "unlikely" and expressed doubt that "most Americans have strong views, or even much knowledge" about the right of public employees to join unions, "which doesn't exist in federal law." He noted that "polling on this subject has been screwy and heavily subject to the phrasing of the question because most people don't know much or think often about these issues."

    He could have added that pollsters have rarely asked this sort of question. The phrase "collective bargaining" turned up just five times before this week in the Roper Center's iPoll Databank, a collection of more than 500,000 survey questions asked on polls since 1935. Of the five referencing collective bargaining, only two were asked in the last 50 years, and both of those used the phrase as part of more general questions about potential professional sports strikes. None of the other three, all asked in the 1940s and 1950s, asked a simple "favor or oppose" question about unions' bargaining rights.

    Pollsters have studied perceptions of unions in great depth, of course. Just this month, for example, the Pew Research Center asked a series of questions about unions and their impact (which were judged generally positive for their effect on worker salaries, benefits and working conditions, but negative on U.S. global competitiveness). Specific questions about bargaining rights, however, have been rare.

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    Even though the Wisconsin protests have received considerable news coverage, not all Americans are following the story. In fact, the Pew Research Center's weekly News Index surveyfinds only 26 percent of Americans who said that they heard "a lot" about the Wisconsin protests last week, 34 percent who heard "a little" and 40 percent who said they heard "nothing at all."

    So we need to be wary of national survey questions that presume too much knowledge of the ongoing Wisconsin story. Those that analyze polling data should remember that respondents' answers to such questions often involve opinions formed on the spot in reaction to the verbiage presented.

    As such, Republican pollster Adam Geller may have a point when he argues that some respondents may have heard the word "rights" in the Gallup question to mean something broader than just collective bargaining, but without a formal experiment we cannot know for certain. That said, let's not confuse what respondents hear with substance: Current Wisconsin law gives state employees "the right, if the employee desires, to associate with others in organizing and bargaining collectively through representatives of the employee's own choosing, without intimidation or coercion from any source" (emphasis added, Subchapter I, 111.01(3))

    Geller also argues that the Gallup collective bargaining probe crosses a line between a "balanced 'up the middle'" question and the testing of "rhetorical argument." On a topic like collective bargaining, however, that line may be fuzzier than most pollsters want to admit. Many respondents will not know the term without further explanation, and whatever language the pollster uses may influence the respondents to some degree.

    The good news is that over the next few weeks, we can count on five to ten media pollsters to ask questions about union bargaining rights in a variety of different ways, using different language and formats. These probes may not be formal, controlled experiments, but they will give us a good idea of how much wording matters and a generally more nuanced measure of opinion. As a wise friend reminded me a few years ago, we often wrongly assume,

    that there is a "right" or "unbiased" way to ask a question about any given public issue. There is no such thing. Everyone who works within the polling field is well aware that small changes in wording can affect the ways in which respondents answer questions. This approach leads us into tortuous discussions of question wording on which reasonable people can differ...

    The answer is NOT to find a single poll with the "best" wording and point to its results as the final word on the subject. Instead, we should look at ALL of the polls conducted on the issue by various different polling organizations. Each scientifically fielded poll presents us with useful information. By comparing the different responses to multiple polls -- each with different wording -- we end up with a far more nuanced picture of where public opinion stands on a particular issue.

    Polls in Wisconsin will present a different sort of natural experiment, as voters there have no doubt been exposed to far more coverage and discussion of the ongoing controversy. How they react and how they rate their governor, state legislators, the public unions and protesters will help answer how strong opinions really are on labor bargaining rights.

    LIVE BLOG

    OldestNewest
    Today 7:07 PM The Stalemate Secret
    HuffPost's Arthur Delaney reports from the ground in Madison:

    State assembly Democrats won't give any clues as to how long the stalemate will go on. Gov. Walker's budget bill is crawling toward inevitable passage in the legislature's lower chamber sometime within the next several days, but Senate Democrats remain MIA.

    "I have no idea when they're coming back," said Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan.

    Today 6:17 PM Capitol Racket
    HuffPost's Arthur Delaney reports from the ground in Madison:

    Protesters are making an insanely loud racket with drums, trumpets, and vuvuzelas outside the governor's press conference, currently in-progress.

    Delaney is currently trapped on the other side, for the record.

    Today 5:52 PM Sunday Shows Shutting Out Unions?

    HuffPost's Amanda Terkel reports:

    Though thousands of Americans have turned out this week to show solidarity with Wisconsin's public employees and oppose a threat to their collective bargaining rights, union officials say they have not been able to place a labor voice on this Sunday's editions of the weekly public-affairs TV shows. The shows' producers, they complain, are shutting out the workers' perspective.

    A union official told The Huffington Post that when none of the Sunday shows' producers reached out to them to book a labor representative this week, several unions started to pitch the shows with affected workers and local and national leaders who they felt could discuss the protests. The official said the response from the shows was essentially "thanks, but no thanks."

    Full story here.

    Today 5:33 PM Indiana House Adjourns Amid Stalemate

    AP reports:

    With Democrats still in Illinois and neither party showing signs of compromise Thursday, the Republican leader of the Indiana House shut down the chamber and said it would remain closed until at least Monday.

    The House Democrats' leader said he wasn't sure whether they would return then. The two parties remain in a stand-off over the Republican agenda, which Democrats say is an attack on the middle class. Republicans have refused to drop any of their bills, and Democrats say they won't come back until the GOP agrees to sit down and talk about agenda items.

    "Nothing's really changed," said House Minority Leader Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend. He was at a hotel in Urbana, Ill., where most House Democrats have been holed up since they left Tuesday.

    Read the whole thing here.

    Today 4:36 PM Protesting Teachers Docked Pay, Disciplined

    Wisconsin teachers missing work to protest in defense of their collective bargaining rights have been met with consequences, the HuffPost reports:

    Now that Wisconsin schools have reopened after teachers missed work to protest a bill that would limit their bargaining rights, schools are taking disciplinary action.

    Still, standing before a school board deciding their fate, teachers in St. Croix Falls, Wisc. make it clear they don't regret protesting, local CBS station WCCO reported Tuesday.

    Read the whole story here.

    Today 4:17 PM New Ad Invokes Walker Prank Call

    HuffPost's Sam Stein reports:

    The AFL-CIO has released a new television ad contrasting the flattering treatment Gov. Walker gave (a website editor pretending to be) conservative billionaire David Koch, and his refusal to negotiate with labor on his anti-public union legislation. Watch:

    An official with the federation said the group was merging the new spot in with its last buy, which was state-wide on both broadcast and cable television.

    Today 4:11 PM Madison Mayor 'Furious' At Walker

    The Capital Times reports on Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz's response to Governor Scott Walker's comments yesterday, made to whom Walker thought was oil billionaire David Koch and actually turned out to be journalist Ian Murphy:

    "The governor of Wisconsin actually thought about planting people in the crowds who might turn these peaceful protests into something ugly?" declared the usually easy-going mayor.

    "For the governor of our state to suggest that he even considered disrupting these peaceful protests is a serious thing," continued Cieslewicz, who says that the governor needs to explain his talk of deliberately inciting trouble at the Capitol.

    Read the whole thing here.

    Today 4:06 PM Really Bad Reporting

    Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and HuffPo blogger David Cay Johnson penned a piece exploring why so much of the reporting coming out of the Wisconsin union struggle is, simply put, really really bad:

    Economic nonsense is being reported as fact in most of the news reports on the Wisconsin dispute, the product of a breakdown of skepticism among journalists multiplied by their lack of understanding of basic economic principles.

    Gov. Scott Walker says he wants state workers covered by collective bargaining agreements to "contribute more" to their pension and health insurance plans.

    Accepting Gov. Walker' s assertions as fact, and failing to check, created the impression that somehow the workers are getting something extra, a gift from taxpayers. They are not.

    Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin' s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.

    Read the whole thing here.

    Today 3:30 PM Troopers Dispatched To AWOL Senators' Homes

    AP reports: Wisconsin state troopers were dispatched Thursday to the doorsteps of some of the AWOL Democratic senators in hopes of finding at least one who would come back to allow a vote on a measure to curb the power of public-employee unions.

    The stepped-up tactic ordered by the Republican head of the Senate came amid reports that at least a few of the missing senators were returning home at night before rejoining their colleagues in Illinois.

    Meanwhile, the state Assembly appeared close to voting on the union-rights bill after more than two straight days of filibustering.

    Today 2:06 PM The Unions Of Unions

    HuffPost's Arthur Delaney reports from the ground in Madison:

    For the past ten days, tens of thousands of union protesters have swarmed the state capitol building in Madison, Wis. to protest Republican Governor Scott Walker's proposal to yank collective bargaining rights from some public-sector unions.

    But it isn't just students from the University of Wisconsin protesting alongside the nurses, teachers, and trash collectors Walker has directly targeted. Police officers and firefighters have joined the demonstrations even though Walker exempted them from his bill, and private sector workers from near and far have entered the fray as well. They see Walker's proposal not as an attempt to save the state money but as an attack on unions.

    "Union workers support union workers," said Tom O'Grady, a 60-year-old sheet metal worker from Local 565 in Sun Prairie, a Madison suburb. O'Grady told HuffPost the same thing that many other union workers did: If they don't stick up for public union workers today, they'll lose their own bargaining rights as private union workers tomorrow. "Walker screwed up," O'Grady said. "He put magnets in our shoulders."

    Read the whole story here.

    Today 1:43 PM Obama Has No Plans To Visit Wisconsin

    Despite earlier reports that protesters in Madison are yearning for the president to visit and show his support, Obama has no plans to visit Wisconsin.

    HuffPost's Sam Stein reports:

    White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters on Thursday that he was not aware of any plans for a trip to Wisconsin, as the state government there remains paralyzed over an anti-public union measure introduced by Gov. Scott Walker.

    Labor protesters have been clamoring for Obama to visit the Badger State.

    Carney was reminded that, as a candidate, Obama had promised to not only empathize with, but literally participate in, protests against such anti-union measures.

    Read the whole story here.

    Today 12:59 PM Shep Smith's Surprising Take On Wisconsin

    Fox News anchor Shep Smith injected some surprising comments into the debate over Scott Walker's controversial anti-union bill on last night's episode of "Studio B," saying the fight was all about politics and getting rid of unions and not about the state's budget.

    HuffPost's Jack Mirkinson reports:

    It was a take that placed Smith squarely in agreement with people such as Rachel Maddow, who has repeatedly argued essentially the same thing on her show.

    Speaking to a mostly-in-agreement Juan Williams, Smith said the fight was "100 percent politics."

    "There is no budget crisis in Wisconsin," he said, adding that the unions "[have] given concessions." The real point of the fight, Smith said, could be found in the list of the top ten donors to political campaigns. Seven out of the ten donated to Republicans; the other three were unions donating to Democrats.

    Click here to read the rest and watch the segment.

    Today 12:54 PM WATCH: Pawlenty Launches 'Stand With Scott' Video

    Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who has voiced support for Scott Walker since protests over the anti-union bill began, released a video in support of the embattled Wisconsin governor. Take a look:

    Today 12:34 PM Walker Gets Support From Possible GOP Presidential Candidates

    CBS News reports on some significant supporters of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker:

    Former Minnesota governor and possible presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty released a video today that uses dramatic music and quick cuts of protest footage to show support for Walker. At the end of the minute-long video, Pawlenty is shown on a news program saying, "It's really important that America stand with Walker, stand with Wisconsin."

    Pawlenty also launched a petition on his political action committee website to gather public support for Walker.

    Other supporters eyeing 2012 presidential bids include Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, and Mitt Romney. Full story here.

    Today 12:28 PM Senate Leader's Wife Gets Layoff Notice

    The Wisconsin State Journal reports that the wife of Wisconsin senate majority leader would be among those receiving preliminary layoff notices:

    Lisa Fitzgerald is a counselor in the Hustisford school district and is married to Republican Senator Scott Fitzgerald.

    Superintendent Jeremy Biehl says the school board decided Wednesday night to send preliminary layoff slips to all 34 members of the teaching staff, including librarians and counselors. Biehl says the action was taken because of the uncertainty of the state budget bill.

    Full story here.

    Today 10:55 AM Madison Police Chief Troubled By Walker's Comments

    The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that Madison Police Chief Noble Wray said he found Scott Walker's comments about protesters, made during a prank phone call yesterday in which he believed to be speaking with oil billionaire David Koch, to be "very unsettling and troubling."

    According to the Journal Sentinel:

    Wray said he was disturbed that Walker thought about planting troublemakers among peaceful protesters.

    “I would like to hear more of an explanation from Governor Walker as to what exactly was being considered, and to what degree it was discussed by his cabinet members. I find it very unsettling and troubling that anyone would consider creating safety risks for our citizens and law enforcement officers,” the chief said.

    Full story here.

    Today 10:46 AM Casual Thursday?

    HuffPost's Arthur Delaney reports from the ground in Madison:

    Several Wisconsin assembly Republicans are wearing blue jeans today (HuffPost counted at least five on the assembly floor just now). A staffer with the Democratic leadership suggested they might be trying to blend with the carnival atmosphere in the capitol, as blue jeans are highly uncommon during legislative business. "In session, that's unusual," the staffer said. (Most assembly Democrats are wearing bright orange protest t-shirts.)

    Today 10:44 AM Public Access To Elected Officials' Offices Now Restricted

    HuffPost's Amanda Terkel reports:

    Normally, constituents are able to visit their state legislators in Wisconsin's Capitol very freely. The Huffington Post was in an office of a Democratic state senator on Friday, and protesters came and went at their leisure, walking around the office, talking with staff and just generally looking around at where their elected officials work. Staff encouraged them to come back anytime and seemed more than happy to welcome them in.

    But that access is now restricted. According to state Sen. Tim Carpenter (D), new rules went into effect on Tuesday that block open access to Capitol Senate offices to everyone except senators and their staff. "People wishing to visit the office of their elected representative had to request a meeting, wait for the request to be delivered by messenger to the office, and then -- if approved -- wait for a personal escort to the Senator’s office," read Carpenter's press release. "All requests to visit Senator Carpenter’s office have cheerfully granted." Carpenter attributed the new rules to Republican Senate leaders, pointing out that even after 9/11, access was not as restricted.

    “Legislator’s doors should be accessible to every constituent’s opinion, not just those they find common ground with," said Carpenter. "I find it sad that this year, many of my Republican colleagues initially made a big show of leaving the doors of their offices open with signs stating they were 'open for business.’ Now those same doors are closed, the signs are gone, and the public kept out."

    The Huffington Post was not able to reach Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald's office for comment.

    Today 9:50 AM Wisconsin Democrats: There's No Deal

    HuffPost's Arthur Delaney reports from the ground in Madison:

    Wisconsin state assembly Democrats issued a statement Thursday insisting they haven't cut any sort of deal with majority Republicans on Gov. Scott Walker's union-busting bill.

    Here's the statement from minority leader Peter Barca:

    "Democrats did not make a deal this morning. It’s not a deal when the majority shuts down the voice of the people.‬

    “The Republican majority issued an ultimatum and demanded a limit on the number of amendments in the Wisconsin Assembly this morning. Republican leadership said that only one additional amendment per Democratic Assembly member would be allowed. The only other option they presented was to cut off debate entirely. Assembly Democrats will continue to debate and have been working to prioritize remaining amendments so that we can make the best case on behalf of Wisconsin’s working families.‬ “Make no mistake, Assembly Democrats have been pressing both legislative leadership and Governor Walker to come to the table to resolve this impasse. Every attempt at compromise has been refused by Gov. Walker and Assembly Republicans. During the 45 hours of session Republicans rejected every amendment Democrats offered: 57 amendments and counting. “A deal would be if they agreed to remove the many egregious, harmful elements of this bill – and certainly give people their rights back. They have done neither of these things."

    Today 8:49 AM Wisconsin Student Launches “Badger Protest PAC”

    HuffPost's Arthur Delaney reports from the ground in Madison:

    A University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student has launched a local political action committee to capture the passion of protests against Republican Gov. Walker’s effort to take away collecting bargaining rights from public sector unions. Tens of thousands of pro-union protesters have swarmed the state capitol for the past 10 days.

    “By channeling this movement through a PAC, we can make the Republicans truly scared,” said Nick Judge, founder of the Badger Protest PAC. Judge, who is pursuing a PhD in political science and is a member of the Teaching Assistants’ Association, said the PAC would use donations to target Senate Republicans who might be willing to compromise on the Walker bill.

    There’s certainly a money spigot to be tapped: a pizza joint one block from the capitol has received donations from all over the world so far resulting in 30,000 free slices of pizza for union protesters.

    Today 8:40 AM Democratic Assemblyman Discusses Deal With Republicans

    HuffPost's Arthur Delaney reports from Wisconsin:

    Wisconsin state assemblyman Brett Hulsey (D-Madison) told HuffPost Thursday morning that assembly Democrats reached a deal with Republicans to end debate on amendments to Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s budget bill.

    “What we agreed to is they would shut down debate after 35 amendments,” with up to 10 minutes per amendment, Hulsey said, describing a deal reached early this morning. Republicans control the assembly with 57 members to 38 Democrats. “The assembly majority can shut down the debate at any time. They have the votes to do that.”

    The bill’s eventual passage through the assembly, the lower of two chambers in the Wisconsin legislature, has been something of a foregone conclusion. But 14 Senate Democrats fled the state to prevent it from getting through the Senate. Democrats oppose the bill because it would gut unions’ collective bargaining rights.

    Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) said he expected three Republican senators to cave on the collective bargaining piece of the bill. “That’s the way we can see this ending right now,” Larson said, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.

    Today 7:36 AM Unions Out With Ads

    HuffPost's Amanda Terkel reports:

    The AFL-CIO and other labor unions already have a TV ad hitting Gov. Scott Walker (R) for his collective bargaining proposal running statewide in Wisconsin. Now, the AFL-CIO is running ads in newspapers across the state (view here -- PDF link) going after Walker, in addition to "thank you" newspaper ads (view an example here -- PDF) running in the districts of the Democratic state senators who are currently out of state to prevent the budget bill from moving forward.

    The first ad encourages viewers to contact Walker and "ask him to stand with working families." The customized ones for the Democratic senators asks readers to contact the lawmaker and "thank him for standing with working families."

    02/23/2011 10:53 PM Sweeping Up

    The Huffington Post's Arthur Delaney took this photo of protestors sweeping up in the Wisconsin capitol rotunda after a day of much noise and free pizza:

    02/23/2011 6:38 PM Possible GOP Defections In Wisconsin

    Patricia Simms of the Wisconsin State Journal sent out this tweet:

    @ PatSimmsWSJ : #wiunion WI Dem Sen. Chris Larson says WED he expects three Republican senators to soon request that the budget repair bill be withdrawn.
    02/23/2011 5:35 PM Scott Walker's Plan To Control Medicaid Decisions

    HuffPost's Amanda Terkel reports:

    WASHINGTON -- So far, most of the attention on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's (R) budget repair bill has focused on the section that would strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights. Less noticed is a provision in the 144-page piece of legislation that could dramatically change the state's Medicaid program.

    The bill would grant the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) sweeping authority to making changes to the state's Medicaid program -- which covers one in five residents -- with virtually no public scrutiny. According to an analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, Walker's plan would use "emergency" powers to allow DHS to restrict eligibility, raise premiums and change reimbursements -- all moves traditionally controlled by the legislature.

    Read the rest here.

    02/23/2011 5:10 PM Protest Pizza: Local Joint Delivers 30,000 Slices To Protesters Thanks To International Donations

    HuffPost's Arthur Delaney, on the ground in Madison, takes a deeper look at the pizza restaurant we mentioned earlier for fielding a donation from Egypt:

    Ian’s Pizza, a late-night slice shop one block from the state capitol building in Madison, is receiving donations from all over the world to feed hungry protesters.

    “People have bought over 30,000 slices,” manager Staci Fritz told HuffPost. “That’s a lot of pizza.”

    Fritz said Ian’s is sending 20 pies to the capitol every 40 minutes or so. The stuff is everywhere. HuffPost observed middle-aged protesters stooping to a pizza box on the damp concrete outside the capitol and withdrawing tepid slices with mac-and-cheese toppings.

    Fritz said Ian’s has had to limit donations, most of which come via credit card over the phone, to $20 per customer. “It’s like a telethon at 9 a.m.,” she said. Asked if Ian’s supported the protesters in their political battle against Gov. Scott Walker, Fritz said, “We are pro-democracy and pro-pizza.”

    02/23/2011 3:51 PM Energy Provision Draws Questions

    HuffPost's Amanda Terkel reports:

    While the collective bargaining portion of Scott Walker's budget repair bill has received a significant amount of attention, in the past week, people have also started noticing a provision that would allow the state to sell off its energy assets -- including power plants -- in no-bid deals to private interests. Walker said the deal was not meant to benefit Koch Industries -- a major campaign contributor of Walker's that has several companies in the state, including a coal subsidiary, timber plants and a large network of pipelines:

    Absolutely nothing to that. 100 percent wrong. ... As I understand...those same folks have put out a statement saying they have no interest in these power plants. This idea goes all the way back to when I served in the state Assembly. ... For us, we're going to have an open and accountable process so that everyone knows who's interested in that, and what the process is, and we're only going to move forward on this if it's good for the taxpayers and good ultimately for the rate-payers in this state. But it gives us one more tool to balance our budget without having to cut core services.

    WATCH:

    02/23/2011 3:48 PM Walker Addresses Prank
    HuffPost's Arthur Delaney reports from the ground in Madison:

    During a 20 minute press conference in the governor’s office, Scott Walker addressed the prank call he received Tuesday from a man impersonating billionaire oil tycoon David Koch.

    “I take phone calls all the time,” Walker said in response to a reporter’s question about whether Democrats could trust him to negotiate with them in good faith. “The bottom line is, the things I said are things I said publicly all along.”

    Read the full story here.

    02/23/2011 3:07 PM Indiana Official Loses Job Over 'Live Ammunition' Comments

    The Indiana Deputy Attorney General who tweeted in favor of using "live ammunition" on the Wisconsin protesters has since lost his job, TPM reports:

    "We respect individuals' First Amendment right to express their personal views on private online forums, but as public servants we are held by the public to a higher standard, and we should strive for civility," the Attorney General's office said in a statement.

    More here.

    02/23/2011 3:01 PM In Case You Missed It

    HuffPost's Jason Linkins and Sam Stein have all the details surrounding journalist Ian Murphy's complete and utter punkage of Scott Walker.

    Linkins reports on the incident itself, complete with taped audio from the conversation Walker thought he was having with Billionaire David Koch.

    Stein chronicles the reaction of Wisconsin State Senator Chris Larson, who called Walker "gullible" and "cocky," and reveals Murphy's side of the story in an interview with the Buffalo Beast's editor
    .

     

     

    HAITI: Bringing Salvation To Haiti?

    Our Government-Funded Mission

    to Make Haiti Christian:

    Your Tax Dollars, Billy Graham's Son,

    Monsanto and Sarah Palin

    The story that best describes Haiti's last year is not from a slum, nor from a cholera clinic. It's not to be found in the rubble—but in a courtroom in Texas.

    In November, 2010, Lewis Lucke, a former U.S. ambassador to Swaziland and former USAID official in Haiti, filed suit against Haiti Recovery Group Ltd. for some $500,000 in unpaid fees for the tens of millions of dollars in contracts Lucke secured for the group in the days after the earthquake. After leaving his USAID position, Lucke immediately signed a $30,000 a month "consulting" contract with the Haiti Recovery Group, a conglomerate formed by several American contractors with the specific goal of securing U.S. funding. Lucke used the contacts developed while at USAID to score the conglomerate over $20 million in contracts. Then it canned him. Sucker.

    Lucke's take is typical of a Haiti that's become a massively swelled teat on which NGOs profitably suckle. Overall, Haiti has become one of the greatest money laundering operations in history, an island engine turning public funds into private profits.

    What's more, U.S. taxpayer dollars are, against Presidential directive, being funneled from the United States Agency for International Development to Billy Graham's charities for use in Christian proselytizing—all while building Sarah Palin's 2012 campaign army.

    An Army for God
    "At that time, they were not open to the Gospel, and now they are," said "Festival of Hope" director Sherman Barnette, of the difference in Haiti before and after the earthquake. The festival was held on January 9, in Haiti's National Soccer Stadium. It was put on by Franklin Graham in cooperation with his Samaritan's Purse charity and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Franklin—William Franklin Graham III—has been head of the Association for ten years. He is the successor to his father, who is now 92, and who has appeared infrequently in public these last few years.

    A month before the event, Sarah Palin had appeared in Haiti beside Graham, urging followers to help "those less fortunate" by contributing to Samaritan's Purse. "It is still here doing the tough work," Palin said. She was gone less than 48 hours later.

    Exactly what the tough work Palin spoke of depends on who you're talking about. It could be raising millions more dollars that Haitians will never see. Or, in the case of Samaritan's Purse, whose Haiti work is being heavily funded by the taxpayer-funded USAID, it could be to “take back their country from voodoo, despair, and sin," one of the charity's stated goals for the "Festival of Hope." As Graham said of Haiti in his address at the Festival, "…the biggest need is the spiritual need." (Graham and his crew are especially obsessed with the elimination of voodoo, as it comes up again and again in Purse literature. A recent personal update on work in Haiti from Franklin Graham himself reads, "Through our partnership, the three original churches have been able to establish 28 more—including one in a village that was infamous for voodoo….") Video of the heavily promoted fundraising event has been erased from the Samaritan's Purse website as a result of our questions to USAID.

    Somewhere around 10,000 NGOs now operate in Haiti, without any organization. Much of the money that was raised in the nation's name has not been spent. In some cases, it seems this is intentional.

    The Disaster Accountability Project estimates that a year after nearly $11 billion was raised or pledged ("Text HAITI! to donate $10!), only half has been spent. In some cases, not even that. By November, Catholic Relief Charities had reported spending just 32 percent of the $192 million it raised for Haiti.

    Many NGOs say the reason they are reluctant to spend more is that it may be wasted. But as DAP's Ben Smilowitz discovered in his investigation with the Red Cross, the organization is treating the interest generated on the $500+ million "trust fund" it raised (and has not yet spent) for Haiti relief as "unrestricted revenue."

    A report on U.S. contracts for reconstruction found that only $1.60 of every $100 awarded goes to Haitian firms, essentially meaning that the brunt of Haiti funding actually functions as stimulus for economies elsewhere. An audit by USAID’s Inspector General found that 70% of the cash awarded to the two largest U.S. contractors was spent on equipment and materials (bought outside of Haiti), meaning just 8,000 Haitians a day were hired instead of the promised 25,000 a day.

    Where One Corporation Saw Opportunity
    Meanwhile, American corporations see the push to rejuvenate rural Haitian agriculture as a chance to, literally, sow the seeds of future profits. No matter that Haiti is broke, and will be broke for a long time. Monsanto has rigged it so that you, the taxpayer, will be underwriting those profits.

    Monsanto donated tons of corn and vegetable seed to Haitian farmers and has committed to donating hundreds of tons more in the coming months. But these seeds are hybrids, engineered not only so that they cannot naturally reproduce, but to assure Haitian farmers remain in hock to Monsanto in the future. Of this donation, Monsanto had the unbelievable balls to claim “There are no contractual obligations between Haitian farmers and Monsanto since this is a donation." Responding to whether or not the donated seeds will force farmers to need "additional inputs" (i.e., trademarked Monsanto products), the company said "technically, it can be planted without any additional inputs."

    Pressed about why Monsanto didn't just provide open pollinating seed, a spokesperson said, "Open pollinated seeds would be a great option if they produced as much crop as a hybrid seed." That's like saying, nobody should bother driving a Honda Civic because it doesn't perform like a Maserati.

    But here's the best part. Monsanto added that it contacted NGOs in Haiti and that those organizations will "support farmers with recommendations and resources [including] helping farmers decide whether to use additional inputs (including fertilizer and herbicides)." Two of the NGOs Monsanto identified are the WINNER organization and World Vision, both heavily funded by USAID. This means your tax dollars will be used to purchase any "additional inputs" from Monsanto.

    To understand where the Haitians are headed, just look to Malawi, which Monsanto itself points to as a goal for Haiti. In 2005, droughts devastated Malwai. Monsanto donated hybrid seeds. Today Malwai has achieved food security. But It turns out, what Malwai did was recreate the American model by subsidizing farmers to use Monsanto hybrid fertilized seeds. Malawi's farmers have now converted to a one-crop, undiversified, exporting agriculture model that is dependent on its government to subsidize production—by buying from Monsanto. Today Monsanto's market share in Malawi is 50%. No wonder it holds up Malwai when speaking of Haiti.

    (Of course, Haiti needs to be a corn-producing nation now, since its former rice economy was obliterated by Bill Clinton, whose subsidies for U.S. rice farmers destroyed Haiti's rice industry. As an Oxfam report notes, the total of U.S. aid to Haiti is nearly $80 million less than the $434 million annual subsidies for U.S. rice production. That's rice that taxpayer-funded NGOs now buy to help feed starving Haitians, in what is maybe the darkest joke of all time following Clinton's appointment as co-chair of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission.)

    The U.N.
    Even the U.N. is in on the profiteering. The U.N.'s role in Haiti is partially clear: employment. Haiti is essentially a giant jobs program for foreign militaries. The U.N.'s statement on peacekeeper pay states, "Countries volunteering uniformed personnel to peacekeeping operations are reimbursed by the U.N. at a flat rate of a little over US$1,000 per soldier per month. The U.N. also reimburses countries for equipment." In 2010, the ongoing U.N. peacekeeping mission increased its budget to $732 million, two-thirds of which was accounted for by salary and personal costs of the 12,000 troops now stationed there. Less than 5% of the U.N.'s total Haiti budget goes to "national staff."

    That $1,000 per month per troop to the U.N.-serving nations does not stay in Haiti. It goes back to be invested in the economies of the nations themselves. While the U.N. acknowledges that "the greatest burden in the form of troops is borne by a core group of developing countries"—where $1,000 per soldier per month in salary probably represents a profit.

    The United States footed just under one-third of this total in 2010, meaning that Haiti exists as another way for the America to underwrite the expenses our military allies.

    (Our U.N. funding in Haiti is first and foremost a regional defense strategy. One revelation of the Wikileak's barfing up of diplomatic communications is a 2007 cable from the Embassy in Santiago to the Secretary of State, assessing the U.N. mission in Haiti as valuable because " participation in international and regional peacekeeping operations…" "completely excludes Chavez, and isolates Venezuela among the militaries and security forces of the region." The cable adds that to further neutralize Chavez, the U.S. "should explore using the mechanism that the region's contributors to MINUSTAH (Haiti) have established to discuss ways of increasing peacekeeping cooperation on a broader scale.")

    But the profiteering isn't entirely economic, it's also spiritual.

    Salvation in Action

    The minute George W. Bush got into office, the floodgate of taxpayer-funded federal grants to faith-based aid organizations exploded. But the USAID still maintained rules about use of this funding.

    But our research into the hush-hush tag team efforts of the Billy Graham Evangelical Association and Samaritan's Purse found millions of USAID dollars going to Samaritan's Purse aid stations in Haiti. Their mission: a coordinated effort by BGEA chaplains to evangelize to and convert the trapped, weak and suffering.

    "The nurse explained to her God’s plan of salvation through His son, Jesus Christ, and that someday we would all die but God’s gift to us was eternal life through faith in Christ. After much discussion and praying, the lady’s head dropped and she said she wanted to accept Jesus. I am told she left the clinic still looking downward, remorseful for her ways in voodoo but with the real joy that can only come through the Lord."

    That is an entry from Dr. Dick Furman's Haiti "Surgeon's Journal," published by Samaritan's Purse.

    Furman's journal is just one bit of evidence of a vigorous drive in (USAID-funded) Samaritan's Purse clinics' Christian conversion plan.

    In a later passage, Furman basically testifies about how Samaritan's Purse is breaking USAID rules:

    "The volunteer doctor and nurses and pharmacist were excited at their numbers. Today, they had seen 97 patients and led 14 to the Lord… Today, at the clinic with his mom, he looked like a normal 8-year-old boy. One of the nurses asked the mother if she were a believer and she said no. The nurse explained to her God’s plan of salvation through His son, Jesus Christ, and that someday we would all die but God’s gift to us was eternal life through faith in Christ."

    First Samoa, Then Haiti: Proselytizing with Tax Dollars 
    Samaritan's Purse has received at least $500,000 from USAID to distribute non-food relief and recovery non-food items to those in Samoa displaced by the 2009 tsunami, the latest grant coming last year.

    Given the organization's (and its leader's) explicitly stated goals and intentions, is it reasonable to believe the "relief" it was paid to distribute with USAID money did not come with… extras? No, it is not.

    In an annual letter to Samaritan's Purse donors and followers, Franklin Graham wrote "Most recently, we launched a massive relief effort in response to a series of major disasters that struck the Asia-Pacific region— typhoons in the Philippines, earthquakes in Indonesia, and a tsunami in the Samoan islands. Some 100,000 survivors have received emergency food and other aid in the Name of Jesus Christ." They may have received it in the name of Jesus Christ, but you better believe it was paid for by you.

    But the Samoa money is chickenfeed compared to the USAID gravy pipeline that Samaritan's Purse has hooked itself up with in Haiti.

    A December, 2010, USAID memo outlining Financial Year 2011 expenditures for "Humanitarian Assistance to Haiti for Cholera" lists Samaritan's Purse as a grantee to the tune of $2,869,431. That's 15% of the total ($19,143,098) budgeted by the USAID Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance. And that's in addition to $1 million budget for Samaritan's Purse in 2010 for "Economic Recovery and Market Systems, Health, WASH."

    During a November 2008 USAID conference session ("USAID Partnership 101"), Terri Hasdorff, USAID director of community and faith-based initiatives, said in the very first part of her address, "First and foremost, the government can fund compassion, but cannot fund conversion. No witnessing or actually proselytizing." Later at the event, Heather MacLean, USAID senior advisor for faith-based initiatives, reiterated, "Any religious activities, which can take place, but they must take place in a separate time or place from U.S. government funded activities and they must be voluntary on part of the beneficiary. The beneficiary shouldn’t feel any pressure to participate."

    Hasdorff used a perfect "salad verses cake" metaphor to describe USAID's rules:

    "If your organization is like a salad, where you can separate out the lettuce and the tomatoes and the carrots—in other words, you can separate out portions of your program to provide specific services—you have a food program; you have a homeless program; you have a program where you work with orphans or vulnerable children—and you can separate that out in such a way so that there’s not an overtly religious aspect to it—there’s no conversion aspect to it—then that would be an excellent program to target federal funding for.

    If your organization is more like a cake, where the flour and the sugar and the eggs are so grafted together that you can’t separate them out—in other words, you have such an overtly religious component to your program that there’s no way that you feel like you could do your program without having that component to it, then you do not want to go after federal funds."

    Nearly all of Samaritan's Purse's literature describes its mission as cake-like.

    One of the ways that Samaritan's Purse is able to skirt attention for hard core evangelizing with federal funds is by splitting duties. Samaritan's Purse is the aid arm. It applies for USAID loans and providing tents and medical equipment and the like. Meanwhile, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association maintains a "Rapid Response Team" of chaplains that go into Samaritan's Purse aid stations and set upon converting the weak and needy. In this arrangement, Samaritan's Purse cantechnically say it manages no organized proselytizing agency.

    A recent BGEA newsletter itself admits to this arrangement:

    I saw this in action as I spent time with Rapid Response Team chaplains when they visited the Samaritan's Purse cholera clinic in Cité Soleil (one of the poorest areas of Haiti). I first talked with team leaders Phil and Pam Rhodes. The Rhodes have been in Haiti multiple times since last year. Pam shared that she sees the Lord moving in ways here that you rarely see back home. Perhaps because the need is greater here, but she also observed that their prayers here have a greater depth and sense of urgency. Phil noted that, as their ministry has transitioned into meeting with cholera patients, they've seen 'Lazuruses and Lazurites: men and women who are on the verge of death, brought back to life through medical care and fervent prayer.'

    If that's not cake, what the hell is?

    Franklin Graham, Millionaire
    The Festival of Hope fundraising event also featured a video of the BGEA's Phil and Pam Rhodes ministering to needy Haitians in Samaritan Purse cholera clinics. (Remember, USAID has budgeted nearly $3 million for Samaritan's Purse clinics.)


    Above: Screenshot from the a video shown during the Festival of Hope event showing BGEA Chaplain Pam Rhodes ministering to a patient at a Samaritan's Purse clinic. Note USAID logo in the background. Video since deleted from SP site.

    The Samaritan's Purse-BGEA arrangement is so poorly hidden that the unwillingness to address it has to be willful ignorance. The best summary of this relationship comes from BGEA "Internet writer" Jeremy Hunt, who wrote a weeklong blog from Haiti:

    The picture that’s forming of the complementary efforts of the BGEA and Samaritan’s Purse working together is really quite powerful. The two combined contribute different aspects of the calling of Jesus to minister to the widowed and the orphaned in their distress. While SP efforts focus on meeting the physical needs, the RRT chaplains counsel survivors and victims on the spiritual side of things.

    Even with Jesus (or maybe especially so), one need just follow the money for proof. Franklin Graham serves as president and CEO of both organizations. Samaritain's Purse pays Franklin Graham $616,665 a year. Apparently, Jesus approves of Graham's work as, despite an economic implosion, that is an increase from the $416,987 he received in 2008. That also does not count Graham's pay from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which puts the man of God's income well over $1 million a year. He recently received a 21% increase in compensation, even as his charity laid off 10% of its workforce. (It's assumed Jesus will provide for them.)

    Further evidence of how taxpayer money is going to fund proselytizing efforts in direct defiance of the Establishment Clause is this January 2011 Haiti report from BGEA:

    "Two RRT chaplains were ministering at the Samaritan’s Purse Cite Soleil cholera treatment center when one of the Samaritan’s Purse nurses pointed out a woman holding a lethargic baby who had an IV in her tiny arm. The nurse indicated that the baby had been sobbing for nearly two days. As the frustrated woman gently shook the baby, the chaplains introduced themselves and asked if it was her baby. She said her name was Day and that it was her sister's baby. She went on to say that she was watching the baby until her sister returned from an errand. As the baby continued to cry, the chaplains reached out to pray for the baby. Noticing Day's tired and hopeless face, however, they asked her, "Do you have Jesus in your heart?" She replied, "No. I'm waiting for you to tell me." Surprised by her answer, the chaplains told her about the love of Jesus, and how He came to set us free from sin. They shared the Gospel message with Day, and asked if she would like to receive Jesus into her heart. Day answered, "Very much so!" Bowing to lead her in prayer, the chaplain noticed that the baby was now quiet. As Day repeated the prayer, calm came over both of them, and afterward Day laid her sleeping niece on the bed. The chaplains gave Day some spiritual growth literature and urged her to share what God had done for her and the baby with her sister. When the chaplains returned the next day, the baby was awake and smiling. Day's sister was there, and she said that Day shared with her what had happened. She also wanted to hear more about Jesus, and later received Christ as her Lord and Savior."

    That story without a doubt is a violation of November, 2010's Executive Order 13559 regarding federal aid.

    We called Keith Stiles, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's deployment manager for the Rapid Response Team of chaplains, and asked him about the BGEA and Samaritan's Purse. Stiles said that BGEA chaplains work in "close cooperation" with Samaritan's Purse personnel. As he defined it, the chaplains acted as the "spiritual support staff" in (USAID-funded) Samaritan's Purse clinics. Stiles then broke down the data on the nearly 2,000 Haitians that had "come to Christ," including 1,500 "first time salvations" and 154 "re-dedications for Christ."

    Stiles confirmed that many in this count were within Samaritan's Purse clinics.

    "Not an Activity Sanctioned by the U.S. Government"
    USAID is completely aware of Samaritan's Purse's misuse of funds. A 2009 report by the Inspector General identified Samaritan's Purse as having received $3,249,557 in USAID funding in 2006 and 2007 despite "deficiencies in partner notification of the requirements of title 22 Code of Federal Regulations, part 205." The IG report provided recommendations on how USAID should control future grants, recommendations it seems to have ignored. Why would USAID fund Samaritan's Purse in Haiti if it had already been identified as an organization with a proven unconstitutional use of funds? Ken Isaacs probably knows.

    Ken Isaacs is the organization's vice president of programs and government relations. His job is ensuring the USAID taxpayer money spigot stays unclogged for Samaritan's Purse. Isaacs worked for ten years for Samaritan's Purse before becoming the director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) for USAID—before resigning to then again work for Samaritan's Purse. Is it then any surprise that Samaritan's Purse just happens to employ a former top level USAID executive while remaining one of USAID's top grantees despite outright breaking its rules?


    Above: Screenshot from Festival of Hope event featuring former USAID exec, and current Samaritan's Purse executive, Ken Isaacs with BGEA hosts. Video since removed from site.

    We contacted The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to ask specifically about cholera clinics and "cake."

    "USAID takes seriously any allegation of improper use of U.S. taxpayer funding, including allegations of U.S. government funding being used for religious worship, instruction or proselytization. Upon hearing that a USAID-funded partner helping treat cholera patients in Haiti may have crossed the line, USAID immediately looked in to the situation."

    There appears to have been an instance where a chaplain was praying for religious conversion with a Haitian male while in a USAID-funded cholera treatment facility. This was not—and is not—an activity sanctioned by the U.S. Government. USAID partners must comply with Executive Order 13559, which, among other things, requires that organizations that engage in explicitly religious activities perform such activities."

    USAID then noted of one of the Samaritan's Purse videos I had pointed them to showing the breaking of USAID rules: "With respect to the video you sent to us, the NGO partner in question has removed the video for their website and is working to re-educate their staff about regulations pertaining to religious activities."

    See, it's not a problem anymore because the proof of it has been removed. (Indeed, the video archive of the Festival of Hope event was scrubbed from the Samaritan's Purse site within days of my inquiry to USAID, a move that does not at all admit wrongdoing.)

    When I supplied proof that Samaritan's Purse was regularly breaking federal rules well beyond "an instance," the reply I received was "Our statement will have to stand, as is, at this time."

    Does USAID, which itself admits organizational challenges in Haiti are extremely difficult at best, expect anyone to believe that they changed the fundamental operating policy of Samaritan's Purse and the BGEA with one call about one video on a website? Absolutely not. USAID was also not at all interested in speaking with us about Ken Isaacs.

    Christians Only Need Apply
    While Samaritan's Purse might be the most overtly evangelistic organization getting unconstitutionally fat on the taxpayer dime, it's hardly the only such organization that's doing so. World Vision proudly states that it only hire Christians. In an August 25, 2010 letter to Harry Reid, World Vision President Richard Steans wrote:

    We respectfully urge you to oppose any effort to amend the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”), to amend Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, or otherwise to dilute the right of faith-based social service organizations to stay faith-based through their hiring, including when awarded a federal grant… We want to continue to serve the poor and victims of injustice [including] earthquake victims in Haiti… We intend to continue working effectively with government in a constitutionally-sound and proven manner, but only if we can stay faith-based in mission, which means remaining faith-based in those we hire.

    Hear that, Haitians? Better convert if you want part of the $11.5 million USAID gave World Vision for shelter building, rubble clearing and salvaging work in Haiti. Of course, Franklin Graham signed the letter as well. A journalist I spoke with, who is currently in Haiti, told me about a Haitian pastor who directs much of Samaritan's Purse work in Grand Goâve. He just built a new beach house, where he hosts Samaritan's Purse missionaries.

    An ominous look at this horseshit in action comes from another January, 2011 report from BGEA:

    "…two RRT chaplains were assigned a Haitian translator, named Gilbert, to assist them in their ministry. Over the next weeks and months, Gilbert went on many missions with the chaplains since the earthquake in Haiti. He would often talk to the chaplains about his family, and even asked if they could help his father get a job with Samaritan’s Purse. The chaplains explained the hiring process and the need to present the request to God through prayer and trust Him for the results. Gilbert shared that his father was not a believer, and the chaplains prayed with him for his father's Salvation and his employment need over several months. Gilbert shared the Gospel with his Dad at home but he was not interested. Recently, the chaplains had given the morning devotion at the Samaritan's Purse compound. On that day, Gilbert’s father’s heart was stirred and he made his way to the podium to publicly receive Christ. Gilbert and his father asked the chaplains to lead him in prayer as he asked Jesus to forgive his sin and be his Savior."

    Palin Fundraising for Jesus
    The 48 hours that Palin spent in Haiti was actually just about the only foundation-building being done in Haiti. Palin's hearty and seemingly out of nowhere endorsement of Graham's Haiti operation is meant to lock up Graham's support for either herself, or her endorsed candidate, in 2012. Palin's handlers are aware that Graham delivered the faithful to the polls for Bush II, instructing his flock in 2004 to "back God-fearing candidates" and warning that if Bush were not reelected that the media would basically start broadcasting pornography.

    Graham has already communicated that he'll gladly Bo Peep his sheep against Obama. Last year, after expressing doubt that Obama is indeed a Christian, he said of the 2012 election that "churches all across America will sign up women and men to vote, not to tell them how to vote, but to sign them up, register them to vote. Because I believe the church of Jesus Christ can make a huge difference…"

    Actually, no, that isn't the best part. The best part is that your tax dollars are paying for a bunch of unconstitutional evangelized aid, for which Billy Graham's son is publicly taking credit along with a potential 2012 Presidential candidate, whose support to raise private money for his organization will be rewarded by the delivering of votes, should they be needed.

    Naturally, stringent defender of the Constitution Sarah Palin is uninterested in the details of the (USAID-confirmed) unconstitutional behavior of the organization she endorses. And Palin, Graham and supporters should note that not only is this an illegal use of taxpayer money as defined by Communist Jesus-hating secret Muslim Barack Obama. Because George W. Bush's Executive Order 13279, “Equal Protection of the Laws for Faith-Based and Community Organizations," clearly states, "organizations that engage in inherently religious activities, such as worship, religious instruction, and proselytization, must offer those services separately in time or location from any programs or services supported with direct Federal financial assistance…"

    But wait, really, here's the best part: there's nothing anyone can do about it.

    Samaritan's Purse's infrastructure is too entrenched in the USAID grant-giving process and USAID is too interested in being able to point to the results its grants get through the Purse so that everyone can move up the ladder. Those with nothing to eat or emergency medical needs do not have the luxury to complain. When the decision is an evangelical ministry's life-saving support or nothing, even the most ardent of anti-proselytizers would accept the support. The ones who wouldn't are liars. It's like being angry that big box retailers destroyed your downtown businesses and undermined the local social fabric—so then what are you going to do when you need toilet paper? You just keep wiping and try not to think about it too much.

    A Global Operation
    But the danger posed by Samaritan's Purse abusing your tax dollars is more than a constitutional concern, it's one of national security. Samaritan's Purse is heavily involved in Afghanistan and Sudan and Islamic nations, where it is almost certainly pulling the same shenanigans with federal funding that it is in Haiti, proselytizing for Christ in the name of the U.S. government, all the while undermining other (also taxpayer funded) efforts aimed at national stabilization. Ironically, it's in the financial (and spiritual) interest of Samaritan's Purse, and Graham's next huge pay increase, for these problems to never really be solved.

    But again, the main priorities of USAID and its enablers are not constitutionality, the abuse of your tax dollars, or even Haiti. It's to ultimately be in the position, as Lewis Lucke now is, to sue some corporation formed just to take advantage of U.S. grants for unpaid finders fees for funneling them those grants.

    The Wikileaks cables also include a message sent from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just eight days after the earthquake. Clinton wrote:

    I am deeply concerned by instances of inaccurate and unfavorable international media coverage of America's role and intentions in Haiti… I direct you as Chief of Mission to personally contact media organizations at the highest possible level—owners, publishers, or others, as appropriate—to push back and insist on informed and responsible coverage of our actions and intentions…. This is a personal priority for me… I thank you for your personal attention to this very important matter.

    2010 report from International Action Ties carries a title that doesn't mince words: "'WE BECAME GARBAGE TO THEM.'" The report chronicles the "prioritization of profit-making and political interests over the basic needs and physical protection of IDPs." Likewise, the group Refugees International has basically declared an abandonment of duty in Haiti by all involved. They wrote:

    Camp inhabitants are protesting against their living conditions and threats of evictions and objecting to the arbitrarily appointed or completely absent camp managers. Gang leaders or land-owners are intimidating the displaced. Sexual, domestic, and gang violence in and around the camps is rising.

    The report notes an increase in women exchanging sex for food and botched street abortions, probably as a result of rape. But at least, thanks to you, they have Jesus.

    Abe Sauer can be reached at abesauer [at] gmail.com.

    GRAPHICS: It's the Inequality, Stupid > Mother Jones

    Plutocracy Now

    It's the Inequality, Stupid

     

     

    Eleven charts that explain everything that's wrong with America.

    How Rich Are the Superrich?

    A huge share of the nation's economic growth over the past 30 years has gone to the top one-hundredth of one percent, who now make an average of $27 million per household. The average income for the bottom 90 percent of us? $31,244.

    Average Income by Family, distributed by income group.

     

    '); document.write('

    Advertise on MotherJones.com

    The richest controls 2/3 of America's net worth

    Note: The 2007 data (the most current) doesn't reflect the impact of the housing market crash. In 2007, the bottom 60% of Americans had 65% of their net worth tied up in their homes. The top 1%, in contrast, had just 10%. The housing crisis has no doubt further swelled the share of total net worth held by the superrich.

    Winners Take All

    The superrich have grabbed the bulk of the past three decades' gains.

    Aevrage Household income before taxes.

    Out of Balance

    A Harvard business prof and a behavioral economist recently asked more than 5,000 Americans how they thought wealth is distributed in the United States. Most thought that it’s more balanced than it actually is. Asked to choose their ideal distribution of wealth, 92% picked one that was even more equitable.

    Average Income by Family, distributed by income group.

    Capitol Gain

    Why Washington is closer to Wall Street than Main Street.

    median net worth of american families, median net worth for mebers of congress, your odds of being a millionaire, member of congress's odds of being a millionaire
    member max. est. net worth
    Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) $451.1 million
    Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) $435.4 million
    Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) $366.2 million
    Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) $294.9 million
    Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) $285.1 million
    Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) $283.1 million
    Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.) $231.2 million
    Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) $201.5 million
    Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) $136.2 million
    Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) $108.1 million
    combined net worth: $2.8 billion
    10 Richest Members of Congress100% Voted to extend the cuts

    Congressional data from 2009. Family net worth data from 2007. Sources: Center for Responsive Politics; US Census; Edward Wolff, Bard College.

    Who's Winning?

    For a healthy few, it's getting better all the time.

    Gains and Losses in 2007-2009, Average CEO Pay vs. Average Worker Pay


    A millionaire's atx rate, now and then. Share of Federal Tax revenue

    YOUR LOSS,THEIR GAIN

    How much income have you given up for the top 1 percent?

     

    Sources

    Income distribution: Emmanuel Saez (Excel)

    Net worth: Edward Wolff (PDF)

    Household income/income share: Congressional Budget Office

    Real vs. desired distribution of wealth: Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely (PDF)

    Net worth of Americans vs. Congress: Federal Reserve (average); Center for Responsive Politics (Congress)

    Your chances of being a millionaire: Calculation based on data from Wolff (PDF); US Census (household and population data)  

    Member of Congress' chances: Center for Responsive Politics

    Wealthiest members of Congress: Center for Responsive Politics

    Tax cut votes: New York Times (Senate; House)

    Wall street profits, 2007-2009: New York State Comptroller (PDF)

    Unemployment rate, 2007-2009: Bureau of Labor Statistics

    Home equity, 2007-2009: Federal Reserve, Flow of Funds data, 1995-2004 and 2005-2009 (PDFs)

    CEO vs. worker pay: Economic Policy Institute

    Historic tax rates: Calculations based on data from The Tax Foundation

    Federal tax revenue: Joint Committee on Taxation (PDF)

    Read also: Kevin Drum on the decline of Big Labor, the rise of Big Business, and why the Obama era fizzled so soon.

    More Mother Jones charty goodness: How the rich get richer; how the poor get poorer; who owns Congress?

    Dave Gilson is a senior editor at Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. Get Dave Gilson's RSS feed.

     

    VIDEO: “King: Montgomery to Memphis” doc returns after 40 years > Shadow And Act

    “King: Montgomery to Memphis” doc returns after 40 years

    How apropos to follow up on the item below about Paul Greengrass MLK’s film for Universal. The three hour documentary on the life and work of MLK, King: A Filmed Record; Montgomery to Memphis, is truly unique in that the film was only shown once in 1970 in over 600 theaters across the country, and was never shown again theatrically (Though I vaguely seem to remember seeing it once many eons ago on TV as a syndicated special)

    Produced by Ely Landru, with original footage sequences directed by Sidney Lumet, the film was a critical and financial success, raising money for the Martin Luther King Jr. Special Fund making over $3 million dollars. But after its special one time only showing it was barely seen again, until now.

    The film which was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary, and also selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, is now available though Objective Cinema as either video-on-demand or as 2 DVD set.

    To find out more go HERE and check out the extended 40 minute clip from the film below (and a special extra h/t to the truly amazing and brilliant and wonderful and lovely Candace)

    GO HERE TO VIEW 40-MINUTE DOCUMENTARY EXCERPT

     

    VIDEO: Portrait Of Handworth Riot in 1985 - Pogus Caesar (UK) > AFRO-EUROPE

    Wednesday, February 23, 2011

    Pogus Caesar

    Video: Portrait Of Handworth riot in 1985 - Pogus Caesar (UK)


    Black History UK: In 1985 racial tension and community discontentment escalated into the historical Handsworth riots that rocked Birmingham between 9th - 11th September 1985.

    Birmingham film maker and photographer Pogus Caesar knows Handsworth well. He found himself in the centre of the 1985 riots and spent two days capturing a series of startling images. Caesar kept them hidden for 20 years. Why? And how does he see Handsworth now?.

    The stark black and white photographs featured in the film provide a rare, valuable and historical record of the raw emotion, heartbreak and violence that unfolded during those dark and fateful days in September 1985.

    See more information at BBC's Community features

    Thank you Sabine for the information.

     

     

    __________________________

    Behind the lens of Pogus Caesar
    Written by Emma Jeffares
    Burming Spear
    Burning Spear © Pogus Caesar/OOM Gallery
    Faced with the challenge of making art more accessible to the public, Pogus Caesar has set up OOM Gallery, an online multimedia arts website bringing together an amazing career that has seen him travel through five continents and every facet of the arts.
    MUZIK KINDA SWEET

    'Muzik Kinda Sweet'-
    is a unique online exhibition featuring personal portraits of black musicans including Stevie Wonder, Jimmy Cliff and Rita Marley, many more...

    Many of Caesar's images were taken during the 1980's and uniquely capture the spirit of musicans who have influenced generations worldwide.

    OOM Gallery website

    WEBLINKS

    Pogus Caesar - OOM Gallery website

    Digital Handsworth

    Black History at Birmingham libraries

    The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites.

    MORE ABOUT POGUS CAESAR

    Pogus has produced and directed numerous programmes for Central TV, Carlton TV ('Xpress' , 'Respect', 'Drumbeat'), BBC TV ('A-Force') and was the first Chairman of Birmingham International Film & TV Festival.

    In 1993 Pogus set up Windrush Productions Ltd, a film, television and radio production company, and has directed select individuals including Lennox Lewis, Stevie Wonder, Jada Pinkett Smith, Prince, Sir Paul McCartney, Isaac Hayes and the late r&b superstar Aaliyah.

    He is best known for 35mm black and white photography and unique and compelling photo montages, created using traditional methods of cutting, burning and breaking images, using his photographs, resin, sand, dirt, pieces of cloth and other household materials.

    A highlight in his career was presenting one of his pieces to Princess Diana in 1982, a painting called 'A New Approach'. 

    Read more about Pogus Caesar
    IMAGE COPYRIGHT NOTICE

    All images have been supplied courtesy of OOM Gallery

    © Copyright for all images is retained by Pogus Caesar and are protected by copyright laws.

    For more information visit the OOM Gallery website

    www.oomgallery.net

    PRINT THIS PAGE
    View a printable version of this page.
    get in contact

    Pogus Caesar, is in the forefront of Birmingham's media and arts scene. At the core of his enterprise is OOM Gallery, an online showcase of Caesar's extensive photographic, photomontage and film work.

    OOM also hosts regular exhibitions by the artist, covering subjects as diverse as music, architecture and portraiture.

    Celebrating black music legends...

    In honour of Black History Month 2004 the gallery is proud to present 'Muzik Kinda Sweet', a unique exhibition celebrating legends of black music, including Stevie Wonder, Rita Marley and Lee Scratch Perry.

    The photographs are a result of a long and successful career in the media, where Pogus worked with a number of international personalities as a producer and director.

    Sheer determination and hard work ...

    Born in St Kitts, West Indies and raised in Birmingham, Pogus Caesar formed Windrush Productions 10 years ago and has made a range of multicultural programmes for TV, including the award winning series 'Xpress' and 'Respect' for Carlton Television.

    He puts his long career down to a good work ethic and sheer determination, sometimes in the face of tough opposition "I have always believed that life gives you back what you put in. I've faced a lot of challenges throughout my career - some of those have been down to people's perception of me as a black person"- says Pogus.

    "The important thing is to always keep the higher moral ground and never doubt yourself. Self-belief is the most powerful thing in the world. If you surround yourself with good people, who are honest with you, you can't fail."

    More about Pogus...

    Find out more about Pogus Caesar's successful career and the journey he took to get there, at:www.oomgallery.net.

     Pogus Caesar © Claudette Holmes
    © Claudette Holmes
    Stevie Wonder  © Pogus Caesar/

    Stevie Wonder
    © Pogus Caesar/
    OOM Gallery

    Browse through pictures from the 'Muzik Kinda Sweet' exhibition courtesy of OOM Gallery.

    Muzik Kinda Sweet picture gallery

    One Time Ago  © Pogus Caesar/

    One Time Ago
    © Pogus Caesar/
    OOM Gallery

    More pictures from OOM Gallery

    Ruby Turner  © Pogus Caesar/
    Ruby Turner
    © Pogus Caesar/
    OOM Gallery
     
    Lenny Henry © Pogus Caesar/

    Lenny Henry
    © Pogus Caesar/
    OOM Gallery

     

     

     

     

     

     

    >via: http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/your_community/2004/10/pogus_caesar.shtml