Michael Steinberg Essay Prize Submission Guidelines

About the Award 

Fourth Genre will seek the best creative nonfiction essay/memoir for its sixth annual Michael Steinberg Essay Prize. Authors of previously unpublished manuscripts are encouraged to enter. 

 

The winning author receives $1,000, and the winning entry will be published in an upcoming issue of Fourth Genre. Runner-up entry will be considered for publication. 

 SUBMISSIONS THAT DO NOT COMPLY WITH THESE GUIDELINES WILL BE RECYCLED UNREAD. PLEASE READ ALL OF THE FOLLOWING CAREFULLY PRIOR TO SUBMISSION.

 

COMPLETE ENTRY FEE CHECKS FULLY AND CORRECTLY; INCLUDE WITH SUBMISSIONS.

 

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES 

• Reading period: January 5–February 28. Submissions must be postmarked on or before February 28.
• Reading fee: $15 (U.S.) per entry
  • Make checks payable to “Michigan State University Press”
  • Multiple submissions accepted; include $15 entry fee for each individual submission 
• Include in cover letter (one page limit): name, address, phone number, email address, title of piece, and approximate word count
• No names should appear anywhere on the manuscript
• Word limit - 6,000 (Longer submissions will not be read)
• Winners will be announced on our website at http://www.msupress.msu.edu/journals/fg; all manuscripts recycled

 

ELIGIBILITY

• Current Michigan State University students, faculty, and staff are not eligible to enter the Michael Steinberg Essay Prize contest.
• Electronic submissions will not be considered

 

REPLIES

• For manuscript receipt confirmation, include a self-addressed stamped postcard
• Contest status queries will not be accepted
• Winner and runner-up (if applicable) announced at the end of April

Send submissions to:

Fourth Genre Editors’ Prize

201 Morrill Hall

Department of English

Michigan State University

 

East Lansing, MI 48824-1036

 

CutBank Contests, 2010-2011

With all CutBank contests, please submit using the link below. Thank you!

Submit to Cutbank Literary Journal

Montana Prize in Fiction, Montana Prize in Creative Nonfiction, Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry

open December  1 - February 28

Description

CutBank is pleased to announce the 2011 Montana Prize in Fiction,; Montana Prize in Creative Nonfiction, and the Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry. 

Submissions are accepted December 1, 2010 through February 28, 2011. Winners receive $500 and publication in CutBank 75. All submissions will be considered for publication in CutBank. The contests' $17 entry fee includes a one-year, two-issue subscription to CutBank, beginning with the prize issue, CutBank 75.

 

Please send only your best work.  With all three of these awards, we are seeking to highlight work that showcases an authentic voice, a boldness of form, and a rejection of functional fixedness.

Guidelines

Submissions are accepted December 1 through February 28. Submissions are accepted through our online submission manager only. The $17 contest entry fee includes a one-year subscription to CutBank and covers the reading of a single submission in a single genre. Prose writers, please send only a single work of no greater than 40 pages. Poets may submit up to five poems. We cannot consider submissions that exceed these guidelines. Please submit only once per genre - writers are permitted to submit in multiple genres.

Please include a short cover letter that mentions your address, phone number, and email address, as well as the title of your work. Please include the author's name on the manuscript—names will be removed from the pool of submissions that goes before our contest judges. Current subscribers may submit for the same $17 fee—subscriptions will be extended by one year. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please withdraw your submission via Submishmash immediately should it be accepted elsewhere. We are unable to offer refunds.

Entrants will be notified of their submission status no later than May 15, 2011. One winner in each genre, as chosen by our guest judges, will receive a $500 award and publication in CutBank 75, our summer 2011 issue. Winners will be required to complete a W-9 form to receive payment. All manuscripts are considered for publication in CutBank. All rights to selected manuscripts revert to the author upon publication. The author grants their permission to have their work electronically archived as part of CutBank 75 in EBSCO International's subscription-based research database. Current University of Montana students and faculty and former CutBank staff are not eligible for the awards.

Judges

Montana Prize in Fiction Judge - Eileen Myles 

Eileen Myles' THE INFERNO/A POET'S NOVEL came out in October 2010, and THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ICELAND (MIT Press, 2009) is a talkative prose collection in which she describes her travels and explores art criticism. She's published more than 20 volumes of fiction, poetry, articles, plays and libretti including HELL (an opera with composer Michael Webster, 2004), SKIES (2001), ON MY WAY (2001), COOL FOR YOU (a novel, 2000), SCHOOL OF FISH (1997), MAXFIELD PARRISH (1995), NOT ME (1991) and CHELSEA GIRLS (stories, 1994). With Liz Kotz, she edited THE NEW FUCK YOU/ADVENTURES IN LESBIAN READING (Semiotext(e), 1995). Eileen conducted in 1992 an openly female write-in campaign for President of the United States. In the 80s, she was Artistic Director of St. Mark's Poetry Project. In '94 and again in 2007, Eileen toured with Sister Spit. She is a Professor Emeritus of writing at UCSD. In 2007, she received The Andy Warhol/Creative Capital art writing fellowship. 

Montana Prize in Creative Nonfiction Judge - Thalia Field

Thalia Field's recent book of interrelated story-essays, BIRD LOVERS, BACKYARD, joins her earlier POINT AND LINE, and INCARNATE:STORY MATERIAL from New Directions Press. She also recently released, A PRANK OF GEORGES (with Abigail Lang) from Essay Press, and has written a "performance-novel" ULULU (CLOWN SHRAPNEL), published by Coffee House. Thalia's work has appeared in Tin House, Conjunctions, Ploughshares, Chicago Review, Seneca Review, Angelaki, and other journals. She is included in The Next American Essay, edited by John D'Agata, and considers the essay to be essentially a mode or register at home and in the lineage of any genre. Thalia teaches in the Literary Arts Program at Brown University.

Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry Judge - D. A. Powell

D. A. Powell's most recent collections, COCKTAILS (2004) and CHRONIC (2009), were both chosen as finalists for the Publishing Triangle and National Book Critics Circle Awards. In 2010, Powell received the California Book Award, the Kingsley Tufts Prize in Poetry and the Northern California Book Award. A former Briggs-Copeland Lecturer in Poetry at Harvard University, Powell has taught at Columbia University, University of Iowa and New England College. He is currently the McGee Visiting Writer at Davidson College in North Carolina.

Submit to Cutbank Literary Journal

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Call for Papers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Call for Papers:

The Black Chauncey Bailey Project

an anthology of essays on the assassination of Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey

Edited by Marvin X, published by Black Bird Press, Bay Area Black Authors and the Post Newspaper Group. Deadline, September, 2011.

We welcome papers, essays, memoirs, opinion, critical reviews, investigative reports, scholarly writings on Chauncey Bailey, who was assassinated in broad daylight on his way to work at 7:30 in the morning.

We invite authors to approach the topic from any angle that transcends the Jim Crow Media's version that he was killed by the Black Muslim Bakery Brothers solely because he was investigating the financial records and sexual behavior of bakery founder, Dr. Yusef Bey.

We welcome investigative writings that also focus on the role of the Oakland Police Department, City Hall under then Mayor Jerry Brown and Mayor Ron Dellums, and possibly other local, state and national politicians.

Papers can address the life and times of Chauncey and his work, especially at the Oakland Tribune, California Voice, Soulbeat Television and as Editor of the Oakland Post.

Another approach can be the unique fact that he is one of the few journalists killed in American history, especially compared with journalists in other countries such as Mexico, Columbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, China and many African nations.

The killing of Chauncey Bailey can be approached historically as it cannot be separated from the killing of black men in the Bay Area and America in general. Why does such killing continue under the color of law? The Black Panther Party began partially in reaction to the police killing of Denzil Dowell in Richmond, California. Because the OPD is yet to be charged in the assassination, doesn't absolve them of conspiracy in the matter. Their officers may yet be indicted, most certainly in the court of people's justice.

Length should be one thousand to two thousand words, but there can be exceptions. The proceeds from this anthology will go to a trust fund for Chauncey's son and Bay Area Authors. Writers will be compensated for their submission.

 

We invite you to submit your manuscript as a MS Word attachment to jmarvinx@yahoo.com.

Best Regards,

Marvin X, Editor

 

1 photo. 1 million words #libya #yemen #bahrain #egypt #iran #feb17 #jan25

Report: Accused Killer Raymond Davis Was CIA Spy in Pakistan

Feb 21, 2011 – 12:18 PM

 

Lauren Frayer Contributor

It started out suspiciously: An all-American-looking man in a plaid shirt and jeans pulled a Glock pistol on two motorcyclists last month in Pakistan, police said, shooting them dead in the street in broad daylight.

Initial reports had Raymond Davis firing his gun in self-defense during a robbery attempt. But then police searched his car and found multiple guns, cell phones, infrared lights and survival gear.

Meanwhile, a U.S. diplomatic car racing to the scene crashed and killed another Pakistani man en route. Then the widow of one of the men committed suicide.

 

Hamza Ahmed, AP

Pakistani security officials escort Raymond Allen Davis, center, to a local court in Lahore on Jan. 28.

The plot had thickened.

Now it turns out that Davis, who has been at the center of a diplomatic row between the U.S. and Pakistan, was a CIA agent, according to a government official quoted today in The New York Times.

That could complicate Washington's efforts to get him freed. The U.S. consulate in Lahore, where the shootings took place on a busy thoroughfare on Jan. 27, has been insisting that Davis was a civilian employee with diplomatic immunity. Even President Barack Obama entered the fray, referring to Davis in a speech last week as "our diplomat in Pakistan."

Diplomats are entitled to immunity from local prosecution under the Vienna Conventions. But Davis was driving around Pakistan in a car with local license plates, without informing local authorities -- something that is required out of concern for diplomats' safety. His suspicious circumstances have raised questions about whether the U.S. lied about his real job in Pakistan. American officials have refused to comment about whether Davis is a spy.

The 36-year-old is a former Special Forces soldier who left the U.S. military in 2003. Since then he claims to have been working for a security firm called Hyperion LLC, under a contract with the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan. But the BBC reported that Hyperion exists only as a website, and its offices in Florida have been vacant for several years -- raising questions about whether it could be a front for the CIA.

"It's beyond a shadow of a doubt," an unnamed senior Pakistani intelligence official told The Guardian about Davis' suspected CIA link.

Pakistani police said that after reviewing details of the Lahore shootings, they're certain Davis didn't fire out of self-defense. Prosecutors have charged Davis with murder and allege that he fired 10 shots, even getting out of his car to shoot one of the men twice in the back as he fled. The man's body was found 30 feet from his motorcycle.

"It went way beyond what we define as self-defense. It was not commensurate with the threat," a senior police official told The Guardian.

Now Raymond Davis has become a household name in Pakistan, reviled as a symbol of allegedly dangerous U.S. meddling in the country, and of the double-standard diplomatic immunity allows for foreign emissaries who violate local laws. His name has been sprawled across banners in crowds of angry Pakistanis taking to the streets to protest his alleged murders, demanding justice for the victims. An effigy of Davis was burned in Karachi.

Last week, a Pakistani judge delayed a hearing on Davis' case for another three weeks, after Pakistan's foreign ministry asked for more time to figure out whether he has diplomatic immunity. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a major backer of the $3 billion the U.S. gives Pakistan each year in aid, also flew to Islamabad last week to argue that Davis be freed.

The question of whether that will happen hinges on Davis' specific diplomatic status. Those who want to see Davis tried for murder have seized on a discrepancy in diplomatic notes sent from the U.S. Embassy to Pakistan's Foreign Ministry.

According to The Washington Post, the first note, dated Jan. 27, described Davis as "an employee of U.S. Consulate General Lahore and holder of a diplomatic passport." But a second note, on Feb. 3, described him as a member of the "administrative and technical staff" of the U.S. Embassy. That different phrasing could indicate different levels of diplomatic immunity.

Davis is not the first diplomat accused of committing murder while on a foreign posting. In 1982, the son of the Brazilian ambassador to the U.S. shot and wounded a bouncer at a Washington nightclub and escaped prosecution because of diplomatic immunity. But in 1997, Georgian officials waived diplomatic immunity for the No. 2 official at the Georgian Embassy in Washington, after the man killed a teenage girl in a drunken-driving incident. He was prosecuted and convicted of manslaughter.

__________________________

Raymond Davis, held in Pakistan on double murder charges for a shooting in Lahore last month, is employed by the CIA as a contractor. Photograph: Reuters

US officials have provided fresh details about Raymond Davis, the CIAagent at the centre of a diplomatic stand-off in Pakistan, including confirmation that he had worked for the private security contractor Xe, formerly known as Blackwater. They also disclosed for the first time that he had been providing security for a CIA team tracking militants.

Davis was attached to the CIA's Global Response Staff, whose duties include protecting case officers when they meet with sources. He was familiarising himself with a sensitive area of Lahore on the day he shot dead two Pakistanis.

The New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press and other media outlets reported for the first time that Davis is a CIA employee. They said they had been aware of his status but kept it under wraps at the request of US officials who said they feared for his safety if involvement with the spy agency was to come out. The officials claimed that he is at risk in the prison in Lahore. The officials released them from their obligation after the Guardian on Sunday reported that Davis was a CIA agent.

Davis shot dead two Pakistanis in Lahore last month who he says had been trying to rob him. A third Pakistani man was killed by a car driven by Americans apparently on their way to rescue Davis.

Confirmation that he worked for Xe could prove even more problematic than working for the CIA, given the extent of hatred towards Blackwater, whose staff have gained a reputation in Pakistan as trigger-happy. For Pakistanis the word "Blackwater" has become a byword for covert American operations targeting the country's nuclear capability. Newspaper reports have been filled with lurid reports of lawless operatives roaming the country.

US officials have reiterated their concern about Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail where Davis is being held, saying he had been moved to a separate section of the prison, that the guards' guns had been taken away from for fear they might kill him, and that detainees had been previously killed by guards. They are also concerned about protesters storming the prison or that he might be poisoned, and that dogs were being used to taste or smell the food for poison.

 

However, the authorities in Pakistan stressed the stringent measures they have put in place to protect Davis in Kot Lakhpat following angry public rallies in which his effigy was burned and threats from extremist clerics.

PJ Crowley, the US state department spokesman, said: "Obviously, we are concerned about his safety. We have had multiple conversations with the government of Pakistan regarding his current surroundings. They have told us that he is in the safest possible location in Lahore. And clearly, we hold the government of Pakistan fully responsible for his safety."

Surveillance cameras are trained on his cell in an isolation wing, and a ring of paramilitary troops are posted outside. About 25 jihadi prisoners have been transferred to other facilities.

The revelations about Davis will complicate further the impasse between the US and Pakistan. Washington says he has diplomatic immunity and should be released but the Pakistan government is in a bind, facing the danger of a public backlash if it complies.

Until Sunday, the US had said Davis was a diplomat, doing technical and administrative work at the embassy. It says that because he has diplomatic immunity, he should be released immediately.

The Pakistani prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, told parliament on Monday he would safeguard the country's "sovereignty and dignity" as it sought to resolve the diplomatic impasse with the US. "We are firmly resolved to adopt a course that accords with the dictates of justice and the rule of law. My government will not compromise on Pakistan's sovereignty and dignity," said Gilani.

The Obama administration is exerting fierce pressure on Pakistan to release Davis. But President Asif Ali Zardari's government, faced with a wave of public outrage, has prevaricated on the issue, and says it cannot decide on immunity issue until 14 March. For many Pakistanis the case has come to represent their difficult relationship with the US, in which multibillion dollar aid packages are mingled with covert activities targeting Islamist extremists.

Davis is currently on Pakistan's "exit control list", meaning he cannot leave the country without permission. But the two men who came to his rescue in a jeep that knocked over and killed a motorcyclist are believed to have already fled the country. Davis claimed to be acting in self-defence, firing on a pair of suspected robbers. But eyebrows were raised when it emerged that he shot the men 10 times, one as he fled the scene.

Pakistani prosecutors say Davis used excessive force and have charged him with two counts of murder and one of illegal possession of a Glock 9mm pistol. There have also been claims that the dead men were working for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, with orders to follow Davis.

The military spy agency cooperates with the CIA in its tribal belt drone programme, but resents US intelligence collection elsewhere in the country.In spite of the lurid conspiracy tales in Pakistan about Blackwater, US officials say that in reality Blackwater has had two major contracts in Pakistan - loading missiles onto CIA drones at the secret Shamsi airbase in Balochistan, and supervising the construction of a police training facility in Peshawar. The Davis furore has not, however, stopped the controversial drone strike programme. News emerged of a fresh attack on a militant target in South Waziristan, the first in nearly one month. Pakistani intelligence officials told AP that foreigners were among the dead including three people from Turkmenistan and two Arabs.

 

Rocky relations

The CIA and Pakistan's ISI have long had a rocky relationship. It started in the 1980s jihad, when the ISI funnelled billions of dollars in CIA-funded weapons to anti-Soviet rebels in Afghanistan.

But the two fell out in 2001 over CIA accusations that the ISI was playing a "double game" – attacking some Islamist militants while secretly supporting others.

In August 2008 the CIA deputy chief, Stephen Kappes, flew to Islamabad with evidence suggesting the ISI plotted the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul that killed 54 people. The ISI, in turn, complained that the US came with unrealistic expectations and an aggressive attitude.

Yet at the same time the agencies co-operated closely, mostly on the CIA drone campaign against al-Qaida militants along the Afghan border.

In 2009 the ISI praised the CIA for killing the Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. But recently things soured again. Last December the CIA station chief was forced to quit Pakistan after being publicly identified (US officials blamed an ISI leak); while Pakistani spies were angered that their chief, General Shuja Pasha, was named in a US lawsuit brought in a New York court by victims of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Declan Walsh

>via: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/21/raymond-davis-pakistan-cia-blackw...

 

__________________________

 

FEBRUARY 21, 2011

U.S. Media Knew Raymond Davis is CIA, ex-Blackwater

Now we know that Washington is more concerned with Blackwater than international law and Pakistanis. At the request of U.S. officials - safety measure or cover-up? We're betting on the latter:

US officials have provided fresh details about Raymond Davis, the CIA agent at the center of a diplomatic stand-off in Pakistan, including confirmation that he had worked for the private security contractor Xe, formerly known as Blackwater. They also disclosed for the first time that he had been providing security for a CIA team tracking militants.

Davis was attached to the CIA's Global Response Staff, whose duties include protecting case officers when they meet with sources. He was familiarizing himself with a sensitive area of Lahore on the day he shot dead two Pakistanis.

The New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press and other media outlets reported for the first time that Davis is a CIA employee. They said they had been aware of his status but kept it under wraps at the request of US officials who said they feared for his safety if involvement with the spy agency was to come out. The officials claimed that he is at risk in the prison in Lahore. The officials released them from their obligation after the Guardian on Sunday reported that Davis was a CIA agent.

Davis shot dead two Pakistanis in Lahore last month who he says had been trying to rob him. A third Pakistani man was killed by a car driven by Americans apparently on their way to rescue Davis.

Confirmation that he worked for Xe could prove even more problematic than working for the CIA, given the extent of hatred towards Blackwater, whose staff have gained a reputation in Pakistan as trigger-happy. For Pakistanis the word "Blackwater" has become a byword for covert American operations targeting the country's nuclear capability. Newspaper reports have been filled with lurid reports of lawless operatives roaming the country.

US officials have reiterated their concern about Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail where Davis is being held, saying he had been moved to a separate section of the prison, that the guards' guns had been taken away from for fear they might kill him, and that detainees had been previously killed by guards. They are also concerned about protesters storming the prison or that he might be poisoned, and that dogs were being used to taste or smell the food for poison...

Other U.S. officials continue to deny Davis’s role in the CIA: "Davis is a protective officer, someone who provides security to U.S. officials in Pakistan. Rumors to the contrary are simply wrong."

 

POSTED BY JAMES GUNDUN AT 6:15 PM

 

>via: http://hadalzone.blogspot.com/2011/02/us-media-knew-raymond-davis-is-spy.html

__________________________

CIA May 'Shut Up' Davis By Killing Him: Lahore jailers

Jaul authorities fear 'Davis' may be killed by American to shut him up. Image via Wikipedia

Pakistan has never arrested an American mercenary before, so there is a learning curve. Islamabad has increased the security around the USnational “Raymond Davis”. Fearing that the high-profile prisoner may be killed the Pakistani Police, Intelligence, Civilian and Military authorities have taken a few extraordinary security measures to protect Davis. They have also planned to keep Davis at some distance from the U.S. officials visiting him. The ajil authorities decided to disallow physical contact between Davis and U.S. officials, who visit him. “Davis’ visitors would now be allowed to interact with him from across a glass wall, as it happens in the West and the United States. There is  apprehensions about a possible attempt on “Davis” life. Some suspect that the Americans could take “Davis” out because he knows too much. The Russian Agencies have him identified as part of the CIA Task Force with deep links to the terrorists.

According to news reports emanating from Pakistan the new security measures include limiting physical contact between Davis and the U.S. officials and diplomats. According to officials  a directive has been issued to strictly check the food provided to the American killer. Outside food will not be allowed to be given to the CIA mercenary. According to a new report “A food committee has been constituted, which would ensure that he is not provided poisoned food in the jail.” According to the pres reports “Even chocolates, brought by the U.S. officials, would not be provided to Davis.” Surveillance cameras had also been installed zeroing in on Davis in the Kot Lakhpat Jail.

“Davis”, despite being a lowly technical assistant, has the kind of importance that U.S. President Barack Obama had to ask for his early release and an influential Senator John Kerry rushed to Pakistan to try to take him back to the U.S.. It snot often that Pakistan arrests a diplomat, especially one carrying a customized Block Pistol which uses an illegal bore.

Police in Lahore arrested “Raymond Davis” after he shot dead two Pakistanis on Jan. 27. He shot the kids in the back (shooting them through the front windshield of his vehicle) and then got out of his vehicle walked over the injured cyclists and then pumped five bullets into each young man. Davis claimed that he killed them in self defense because they were trying to rob him. Davis was in his colossal bullet-proof SUV, they were on puny 70 cc motorbikes. How could they rob him?

The U.S. government demanded the urgent release of  Davis with conflicting statements about his status. The case is still in the Lahore High Court which has placed Davis’ name in the exit control list. The court has directed the Pakistani government to decide within 15 days that whether Davis is a diplomat or not. The Court has also directed the Police to find the other murderer.

The key document governing diplomatic immunity is the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, specifically articles 29, 31, 37, and 39. :

Article 29: A diplomatic agent “shall not be liable to any form of arrest or detention.”

It is obvious that Mr. “Davis” was not a diplomat. Pakistan Law requires the diplomat be identified as such and that his name be submitted to the Pakistani Foreign Office which has the option of approving the diplomatic immunity or not. Mr. Davis’s name was not on the list of US diplomats on the day of the accident. The US Embassy tried to submit his name the next day

According to Brig (Retd) Shaukat Qadir “On January 25th 2011, just two days before Davis shot and killed the two young Pakistanis, the US Embassy submitted a list of its diplomatic and non-diplomatic staff in Pakistan to the Pakistani Foreign Office (FO), as all foreign nations are required to do annually. The list included 48 names. Raymond Davis was not on the list. The day after Davis shot and killed the two Pakistanis, the US Embassy suddenly submitted a “revised” list to the Foreign Office which added Davis’ name!

When Pakistani police took Davis into custody on January 27th, he had on his person an ordinary American passport with a valid ordinary Pakistan visa, issued by the Pakistan Embassy in Washington. On January 28th, a member of the US Consulate wanted the Pakistani police to exchange that passport in Davis’ possession with another one. The fresh passport being offered was a diplomatic passport with a valid diplomatic visa dated sometime in 2009. This visa was stamped in Islamabad by the FO!”

It gets ridiculously funnier. The prosecutor representing the Punjab government has presented two letters from the US Embassy as evidence before the Lahore High Court, forwarded to the Punjab government through the FO. The first letter, dated January 27, reads: “Davis is an employee of the US Consulate General Lahore and holder of a diplomatic passport.” The second, dated February 3rd, states that Davis is a member of the “administrative and technical staff of the US Embassy Islamabad!” Just how gullible do the Americans take Pakistanis to be!

The Washington Post admits that “The U.S. embassy complicated matters by first sending a diplomatic note to the Pakistani Foreign Ministry on Jan. 27 describing Davis as “an employee of U.S. Consulate General Lahore and holder of a diplomatic passport.” A second note, on Feb. 3, described him as “a member of the administrative and technical staff of the U.S. embassy.”The difference in the phrasing of Davis’s employment confirms that if his status had been accpeted “Davis” would have been  covered by 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, and thus has a lesser form of immunity. Foreign Minsiter Mahmood Quresh clearly stated that “Davis” did not have blanket and universal immunity that the the US has claimed”

“But consular staff also enjoy immunity from the jurisdiction of the receiving state with respect to their consular functions.” Mr. “Davis” was not perfoming any Consular functions in Mozung Chungi.

Article 31:”A diplomatic agent shall enjoy immunity from the criminal jurisdiction of the receiving State,” with certain exceptions involving property and commercial activity.

Article 37: “Members of the administrative and technical staff of the mission, together with members of their families” will have the same privileges and immunities in articles 29 and 31 as long as they are not nationals or permanent residents of the country. The one exception is that they are not immune from civil suits for acts performed outside the course of their official duties.

Article 39: “Every person entitled to privileges and immunities shall enjoy them from the moment he enters the territory of the receiving State on proceeding to take up his post or, if already in its territory, from the moment when his appointment is notified to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs or such other ministry as may be agreed.”

The Notification is missing in the case of Mr. “Davis”.

Article 43 of that Convention states that “consular officers and consular employees shall not be amenable to the jurisdiction of the judicial or administrative authorities of the receiving State in respect of acts performed in the exercise of consular functions.” There are exceptions for some civil disputes, such as “damage arising from an accident in the receiving State caused by a vehicle, vessel or aircraft.”

–the key words are in respect of acts PERFORMED IN THE EXERCISE OF HIS CONSULAR FUNCTIONS.” Mr. “Davis” while he was shooting two kids in the back (through the front windshield of his SUV) with an illegal Block pitol was obviously not performing his Consular functions. In fact there are no identifiable Consular Functions which Mr. “Davis” performed at any time. He was visitng places whic are no go areas and taking pictures of places which photography is prohibited.

Even the Washington Post admitted that “President Obama, however, may have pushed the envelope when he referred to Davis as “our diplomat.” Davis may have had diplomatic cover, but not many diplomats carry a Glock pistol — and then use it with lethal results. The circumstances of his employment — and the incident in Lahore — remain too murky to make a definitive judgment on the president’s statement at this point”

>via: http://www.islamabadglobe.com/?p=31649

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 21st, 2011

 

 

Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s regime looks like it’s on the brink. Gaddafi fled the capital as his security forces retreated to a few buildings, senior officials defected, and protesters celebrated control of the second-largest city, Benghazi. Security forces still loyal to the Libyan leader were holed up in the state television headquarters and the presidential palace as other buildings burned unchecked.

more, plus a bunch of links, here.

Nations condemn Libyan crackdown

Strong reactions and high-profile resignations follow reports of massive use of force against civilian protesters. Last Modified: 22 Feb 2011 23:42 GMT Email Article Print Article Share Article Send Feedback

International condemnation is growing in response to reports that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is using tanks, helicopters and fighter jets to quell the most serious challenge to his 42-year rule. Nearly 300 people are reported to have been killed in violence in the capital, Tripoli, and across the country as demonstrations entered their second week . Joining a lengthening list of high-level desertions, Abdul-Fatah Younis, the interior minister and an army general, announced his renunciation of his post and support for the "February 17 revolution". In a video aired by Al Jazeera on Tuesday, he was seen sitting on a his desk and reading a statement that urged the Libyan army to "join the people and respond to their legitimate demands". Just hours earlier, Gaddafi vowed to fight on and die a "martyr" in a 75-minute-long speech broadcast on the north African nation's state TV. "I am not a president to step down ... This is my country. Muammar is not a president to leave his post," he said. "I have not yet ordered the use of force, not yet ordered one bullet to be fired ... when I do, everything will burn." He called on supporters to take to the streets to attack protesters. "Leave your homes and attack them in their lairs ... Starting tomorrow the cordons will be lifted, go out and fight them." LIVE BLOG Just minutes after his speech, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Cairo reported that Amr Moussa, the Arab League chief, had decided to discontinue the participation of the Libya delegation in the meetings of the council and all its institutions. With concern mounting over the crisis in Libya, the Security Council in New York held an emergency meeting late on Tuesday and issued a press statement strongly condeming the violence against civilians. "The members of the Security Council expressed grave concern at the situation in Libya. They condemned the violence and use of force against civilians, deplored the repression against peaceful demonstrators, and expressed deep regret at the deaths of hundreds of civilians." Al Jazeera's Scott Heidler, reporting from the UN in New York, said that the international community is demanding something stronger from the Security Council. "They would like to see a resolution that calls for action but that is going to take a lot longer to process. The Security Council wanted to issue this press statement first and then see if they could do more to prevent bloodshed in Libya." Navi Pillay, the UN human rights chief, has called for the "immediate cessation of grave human rights violations committed by Libyan authorities". Citing reports of the use of machine guns, snipers and combat jets against civilian protesters, she also called for an independent, international investigation into the killings that have wracked the country for days. "The callousness with which Libyan authorities and their hired guns are reportedly shooting live rounds of ammunition at peaceful protesters is unconscionable," she said. Mona Rishmawi, a legal adviser to the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, told Al Jazeera they were extremely concerned by allegations of the use of "hired guns" against civillian protesters in Libya. She said intergovernmental bodies must show a united front and send a clear message that what is going on in Libya must stop right now. Latin American allies The bloody upheaval in Libya is creating an uncomfortable challenge for Gaddafi's leftist Latin American allies, with some keeping their distance and others rushing to his defence. Peru suspended diplomatic ties with Libya on Tuesday, becoming the first nation to take such a measure, however; Fidel Castro, the former Cuban president, said that the unrest may be a pretext for a NATO invasion of Libya. Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan president, also offered support for Gaddafi, saying he had telephoned to express solidarity. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, on the other hand, has stayed mute. Bolivia came closest to criticising the government in Tripoli, issuing a statement expressing concern over "the regrettable loss of many lives" and urging both sides to find a peaceful solution. 'Civilians bombed' Ali al-Essawi, who resigned as Libyan ambassador to India, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that fighter jets had been used by the government to bomb civilians. He said live fire was being used against protesters, and that foreigners had been hired to fight on behalf of the government. He called the violence "a massacre", and urged the UN to block Libyan airspace in order to "protect the people". Earlier, Ibrahim Dabbashi, Libya's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, accused Gaddafi of launching a"genocide against the Libyan people". The Libyan ambassador to India Ali al-Essawi tells Al Jazeera why he resigned from his post Meanwhile, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, urged Libya's neighbours not to turn back those fleeing the violence, as hundreds of refugees streamed into Egypt on tractors and lorries, describing a wave of killing and banditry unleashed by the revolt. Libyan guards have withdrawn from their side of the border and Egypt's new military rulers - who took power following the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak - said the main crossing would be kept open round the clock to allow the sick and wounded to enter. Libya's state broadcaster quoted Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of Muammar Gaddafi and widely seen as his political heir, as saying that armed forces had "bombarded arms depots situated far from populated areas". He denied that air raids had taken place in Tripoli and Benghazi. The government says that it is battling "dens of terrorists". State television on Tuesday dismissed allegations that security forces were killing protesters as "lies and rumours". Benghazi, Libya's second city, which had been the focal point of violence in recent days, has now been taken over by anti-government protesters, after military units renounced their posts and joined the demonstrators. According to the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights, protesters are also in control of Sirte, Tobruk in the east, as well as Misurata, Khoms, Tarhounah, Zenten, Zawiya and Zouara. Washington and Europe have demanded an end to the violence and Guido Westerwelle, Germany's foreign minister, said: "A ruling family, threatening its people with civil war, has reached the end of the line."

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

Gadhafi's influence on Africa

Published Monday, Feb. 21, 2011 11:51PM EST

Last updated Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2011 5:59PM EST

CLICK ON MAP TO ENLARGE GRAPHIC

Libya’s leader bought political influence across the continent, paying for peacekeeping missions, infrastructure and humanitarian aid

CRISIS IN LIBYA

Gadhafi’s dying dream for African unity

GEOFFREY YORK

JOHANNESBURG— From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Feb. 21, 2011 11:51PM EST

Last updated Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2011 5:59PM EST

 

When he pronounced himself the “king of kings” on the African continent, Moammar Gadhafi was widely seen as a buffoon and a megalomaniac.

But behind the absurd titles, behind the crown and sceptre that were awarded to him by his hand-picked collection of African tribal monarchs, Col. Gadhafi had a profound impact on Africa. And for better or worse, he will leave a vacuum behind him on the African landscape if he is toppled from power in Libya.

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INFOGRAPHIC

Gadhafi's influence on Africa

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Hundreds dead in Libya security crackdown

Col. Gadhafi was the last major global leader who promoted the dream of pan-African unity. He had his own self-interested reasons for this quixotic campaign, of course, since his own ambition was to become the powerful ruler of a new United States of Africa. But his disappearance from the political stage would remove the last remaining enthusiast for a European-style political union in Africa.

“Without Gadhafi, the pan-African movement is dead,” said Laura Seay, a political scientist at Morehouse College in Atlanta who specializes in African politics.

“He was the only prominent voice driving that movement. He was keeping those ideas alive. There’s nobody else with the financial resources available.”

Under his grandiose ambitions, the United States of Africa would have its own common army, its own passport, and its own currency (to be named, he said solemnly, “the Afro”).

There was little chance that this scheme could succeed in a badly divided continent, and there was little practical support for his ideas at the African Union, even when he served as the AU chairman from 2009 to 2010. But by tirelessly marketing this idea, he kept alive the dream that Africa could overcome its differences and find some form of unity. After him, the dreams will be smaller.

Col. Gadhafi, one of the wealthiest leaders on the continent, did not hesitate to use Libya’s vast oil money to buy political influence across Africa. This money, in turn, helps to pay for peacekeeping missions, humanitarian aid, infrastructure projects, political organizations, and support for fragile states.

In his drive to transform the African Union into a single government under his personal dominance, he became one of the AU’s biggest benefactors. Libya provided 15 per cent of the AU’s membership dues. It also paid for the dues of many smaller and poorer countries. If his 42 years of authoritarian rule are ending, the AU will struggle to keep its financing intact.

“It would change the African Union’s dynamics completely,” Prof. Seay said. “The AU would become less effective. He’s been such a key player in the AU. What will it mean for peacekeeping in Somalia and Darfur? Those peacekeeping missions are already hanging by a thread – they’re already so under-equipped and under-staffed.”

The AU peacekeeping force in Somalia, with its 8,000 troops battling against the Islamic radicals who threaten to seize control of the war-torn country, could be weakened if the AU loses the money that Col. Gadhafi provided. A similar peacekeeping mission in Darfur, whose 20,000 troops are supported by the AU and the United Nations, could be similarly jeopardized if the AU loses its Libyan money.

Beyond the peacekeeping missions, a host of smaller African countries have become dependent on Col. Gadhafi as a source of aid money, infrastructure projects and military support. Fragile states such as Chad and the Central African Republic have needed Libya’s support when they were threatened with coups. Poorer countries such as Liberia, Mali and Niger have relied on Libya for financial support and investment. Libya has won praise for providing humanitarian aid to the Darfuri refugees in Chad, and for helping to forge a ceasefire between Chad and Sudan.

Most of his donations and loans, certainly, were intended to advance his personal ambitions. Earlier in his career, Col. Gadhafi had campaigned for pan-Arab unity, seeing himself as a “man of history.” But when Libya was isolated on the global stage as a result of the sanctions imposed on it for its support of international terrorism in the 1980s and 1990s, he became furious that the Arab nations seemed indifferent to him. He turned, instead, to Africa, where his support seemed greater.

“After moving on from his dream of pan-Arab leadership, Gadhafi funnelled billions of dollars into cultivating relationships in sub-Saharan Africa that would facilitate his leadership of the African Union,” the U.S. embassy in Tripoli reported in 2009 in a confidential cable obtained by WikiLeaks.

Col. Gadhafi opted to use “dinar diplomacy” – a reference to the Libyan currency – to create a “new and larger sphere of influence,” the embassy said in the cable.

It described how the Libyan dictator had ordered his personal designers to incorporate African maps and images into his vast collection of clothing, including a large green Africa-shaped brooch, a camouflage-style tunic with Africa-shaped patterns, and a jersey emblazoned with portraits of famous African leaders.

Most Libyans still saw themselves as Arabs, but Col. Gadhafi worked ceaselessly to portray his country as African, the cable said. “A domestic propaganda campaign designed to represent Libya as an African state was also undertaken: billboards and larger-than-life murals depict Gadhafi emerging, messiah-like, from a glowing green Libya into an embracing African continent.”

Despite the long-standing conflicts between Washington and Tripoli, the U.S. diplomats actually saw Col. Gadhafi as a constructive and useful player on some African issues. “When approached with appropriate deference, Libya can be an effective actor – leveraging support and connections on the continent to secure our foreign-policy interests, as it has done (to an extent) in Chad, Sudan and Somalia,” the embassy cable said.

If the Libyan strongman now disappears ignominiously from the stage, one of the biggest winners will be China. Until now, Libya was one of the few countries that could challenge Beijing’s mounting influence in Africa. Libya was one of the few powers with enough money and ambition to offer an alternative to China as a source of investment and financing for African nations.

If the long-ruling dictator is finally toppled, Libya’s ambitions are likely to become much smaller and more modest. In the aftermath, China could emerge as an even stronger power on the African continent.

>via: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/africa-mideast/gadhafis-dying-dream...

 

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In eastern Libya, citizens buoyant and cautious as they await Gadhafi's move CNN's Ben Wedeman is reporting from eastern Libya, part of which no longer appeared to be in Moammar Gadhafi's control. February 21st, 2011 11:49 PM ET Share Comments (68 comments) Permalink Editor's note: CNN's Ben Wedeman reports from eastern Libya after crossing into that country from Egypt. He is the first Western television correspondent to enter and report from Libya during the current crisis. "Your passports please," said the young man in civilian clothing toting an AK-47 at the Libyan border. "For what?" responded our driver, Saleh, a burly, bearded man who had picked us up just moments before. "There is no government. What is the point?" He pulled away with a dismissive laugh. On the Libyan side, there were no officials, no passport control, no customs. I've seen this before. In Afghanistan after the route of the Taliban, in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Government authority suddenly evaporates. It's exhilarating on one level; its whiff of chaos disconcerting on another. The scene on the Libyan side of the border was jarring. Men - and teenage boys - with clubs, pistols and machine guns were trying to establish a modicum of order. Hundreds of Egyptian workers were trying to get out, their meager possessions - bags, blankets, odds and ends - piled high on top of minibuses. Egyptian border officials told us that 15,000 people had crossed from Libya on Monday alone. "Welcome to free Libya," said one of the armed young men now controlling the border. "Free Libya" was surprisingly normal, once we got out of the border area. We stopped for petrol - there were no lines - and saw some stores were open. The electricity was working. The cell phone system is still functioning, though you can't call abroad. The internet, however, has been down for days. On the other hand, we did see regular groups of more armed young men in civilian clothing, stopping cars, checking IDs, asking questions. All were surprised, but happy, to see the first television news crew to cross into Libya since the uprising began February 15. They were polite, if a tad giddy. Having thrown off the yoke of Moammar Gadhafi's 42-year rule (longer than most Libyans have been alive), it's understandable. As we made our way westward from the border, driver Saleh gave me a running commentary on all the sins of the Gadhafi family and its cronies: "You see all the potholes in this lousy road? This should be a four-lane highway. Gadhafi spent hardly a dinar on this part of the country." "You see that rest house? Gadhafi's son built it, and overcharged the government." "You see that house? It was stolen from its owner and given to one of Gadhafi's sons." "You see those flashes? That's an ammunition dump an army officer loyal to Gadhafi set on fire before fleeing to Tripoli." Saleh was also full of useful advice, I think. "If you get stopped by forces loyal to Gadhafi, tell them you're a German doctor. Don't say you're a journalist. And say your colleagues are doctors, too." When we finally reached our destination - which I can't disclose - we drove up to a nondescript villa and were greeted by a dozen men who could barely contain their excitement. After endless handshakes, embraces and greetings, a man in his 50s wearing a dark overcoat and red sweater pushed through the crowd. "You must show the world what has happened here. We will show you everything, everything!" I'll call him Ahmed, and he described himself as one of the leaders of "the resistance." He had studied briefly in the United States, but his academic career was cut short when he was imprisoned for three years for leading student protests against Gadhafi in the 1970s. He accompanied us to our accommodations, asking us about American football, baseball, the American university where he studied. I was able to get a few questions in sideways. He told me the army in the east had joined the anti-Gadhafi movement, that there were still pro-Gadhafi elements operating in the east (and therefore we needed to be very careful). He and many others in eastern Libya are well aware their struggle against Gadhafi's regime is going to be tough, and bloodier still. They may be buoyed by their success so far, but they're under no illusion that Gadhafi isn't willing to use everything in his arsenal - aircraft, mercenaries, whatever it takes - to stay in power. At the border, a man asked me, "Did you see he used helicopters and war planes against protesters in Tripoli today? This is genocide."

>via: http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/21/in-eastern-libya-citizens-bouyant-and-ca...

February 22, 2011

Christopher Guess in Wisconsin: “We Love This Type Of Crowd”

University of Wisconsin student demonstrators camped inside the State Capitol Building. They are watching YouTube videos of the protests from earlier in the day. None of them knew each other before the protest began.

Photographer Christopher Guess is a native of Wisconsin and graduate of its university. After Governor Scott Walker introduced the new budget bill that would strip all collective bargaining rights from the state’s employee union, and increase their pension and health care fees, confrontation erupted and Christopher flew home from New York to document what may become a turning point defining the partisan divide in our country.

Early morning: A barefoot protester walks across the Rotunda hall; Capitol police guard one of the closed entrances as people wake up.

The police thus far have been correct and proper, with conflicting hints as to how they are deployed. In surrounding buildings there are police snipers, and Christopher noted that in order to enter the Capitol building, you have to walk around a phalanx of officers standing there as if to block the way. Except that they’re not actually blocking; they’re just standing there to be intimidating — if you are going to be intimidated — or not. The level of tension is low; perhaps less than what might be expected.

The unionized police are sympathetic to the protest because they too would lose their collective bargaining rights; if not immediately if they aren’t impacted by this specific law, then eventually as the precedent gets set. One policeman was reading an anarchist book that was given to him; another said to Christopher, “We love this type of crowd.”

Over the last four days, tens of thousands of people have rallied to demonstrate in Madison. Hundreds are sleeping in the sit-in inside the Capitol building. The legislative impasse seems no closer to a solution. I can’t remember a similar situation in recent memory when so many citizens occupied a public building as an act of political protest. What’s left of the Left has long bemoaned the lack of enough activism and defiance compared to Republican right-wing outrageousness. Could a new passion finally be slouching across Wisconsin, waiting to be born?

–Alan Chin

PHOTOGRAPHS by CHRISTOPHER GUESS

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What Gov. Walker Won’t Tell You

Posted on Feb 21, 2011

By Stanley Kutler

There is a kernel of truth in Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s claim of a “budget shortfall” of $137 million. But Walker, a Republican, failed to tell the state that less than two weeks into his term as governor, he, with his swollen Republican majorities in the Wisconsin Legislature, pushed through $117 million in tax breaks for business allies of the GOP. There is your crisis.

The state Legislature’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau—Wisconsin’s equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office and a refuge for professional expertise and nonpartisanship—warned Walker and the Legislature that the measure would create a budget gap. There is your shortfall—and not one resulting from established public employee benefits. Before the tax giveaways, the fiscal agency predicted a surplus for the state.

Now the governor has offered a proposal simple and clear in its intent, and patently dishonest. Walker wants state workers to contribute to their pension fund and is calling for an increase in their payments for medical insurance. Make no mistake: The governor’s “budget repair bill” has little to do with a budget shortfall and everything to do with breaking unions, starting with public employees and then perhaps moving on to others as well.

During his run for governor, Walker had substantial financial support from the Koch brothers, billionaire industrialists who have funded various anti-Obama, anti-science, and anti-national government movements. In short, they are opposed to anyone and anything that might diminish their exorbitant profits. And for the Kochs, destroying labor unions is in the top tier of their to-get-rid-of list.

Walker’s own hostility to labor unions is a touchstone of his prior political experience. He is out to realize his every long-held political fantasy, with the help of such allies as the National Association of Manufacturers; Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce; and the Chamber of Commerce. Ever since the 1930s, when national law recognized the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively, that gain has been under assault from right-wing ideologues and much of the business community.

The governor and his allies like to frame their goal as one that would destroy the special privileges of public employees—as if a Cadillac class of public workers exists in the state. In truth, many public employees secured increased benefits in the 1970s, a time which saw the notion of a “budget crunch” come into play, and the state bargained its way out of salary increases (incidentally, during a time of rising inflation) in exchange for increased employee benefits.

The “February Thaw” brought out an estimated 50,000 or more public employees, teachers, ordinary citizens and students to demonstrate against Walker’s budget repair bill. Montesquieu, the 18th century French political philosopher, wrote about the impact of environment on human and societal behavior. Cold, icy climates, he said, generally dampened human passions, thus lessening chances of “public disorder.” Walker should have offered his legislation during the first three weeks of January, when temperatures hovered just above zero.

Confronting the protests, Walker has framed the issue in stark, simple terms. It is, he said, a battle between “protesters” and “taxpayers.” That followed the obligatory remarks about outside agitators—shades of Mississippi governors in the 1960s. Indeed, the media obliged him by making the increasingly marginalized Jesse Jackson the centerpiece of the protests, thus seeming to confirm Walker’s contention about outside agitators.

After three days of protests, the largest union offered to concede the pension and health insurance payments in exchange for continued recognition of the right to negotiate wage and working conditions. The governor bluntly replied that the time for negotiations had passed, but the truth is that at no time did he offer any negotiation on these matters. If your ideological baggage has no room for workers’ rights, then you will rule by dictate and fiat. Walker’s baggage overflows with hostility for workers.

Walker insists that the budget shortfall requires that state workers, like everyone else in society, must carry their fair share of the burden. But the governor is causing pain to no one else to remedy the situation. Michigan’s Republican Gov. Rick Snyder offered a $45 billion cost-cutting budget, but he said he would take only $1 in salary as part of the “shared sacrifice.” Meanwhile, Snyder, unlike Walker, has begun negotiations with public employees unions to increase workers’ shares of pension and health care costs.

Wisconsin state revenues are down as statewide unemployment largely reflects the national picture. Furthermore, there is justifiable despair among the unemployed that their jobs may never return. And if they are over 50, there is only a small chance that they ever will have any job comparable to those they held prior to 2007. Little do they understand that companies continue to enjoy swollen revenues, income that inflates the profit side of their ledgers as they reap benefits from “restructuring”—today’s fashionable euphemism for dropping jobs and employees. The business community now sits on the sidelines, hoarding capital, and workers have little work.

The governor claims he has traveled around the state talking to factory workers and others who say they support him because they must spend 25 to 50 percent of their income on health insurance. Well, if that is the case, and such folks are his supporters, perhaps it is time for Walker to rise to their defense and rein in the gouging health insurers.

Budgets are a mysterious maze. Legislators—let alone a citizenry dependent on a largely incompetent, ill-informed media—rarely know the intricacies of a budget and how it may cause a seismic change in public policy. (For examples of the Republicans’ tactics illustrating their belief that democracy is fine for Egypt but another matter for this country, see this.)

Walker himself precipitated the “budget crisis,” necessitating a “repair bill” that gave him and his allies what they really wanted. The governor pursues an agenda backed by the tea party’s financial angels. Public employees and other workers down the line will pay the freight for such folly. The governor lies.

State tells Bobb to implement ‘draconian’ plan

to close half of Detroit schools,

raise class sizes

Feb2011 

Published: Monday, February 21, 2011, 10:22 AM Updated: Monday, February 21, 2011, 10:23 AM
By Darrell Dawsey

Robert Bobb has been given the go-ahead to implement a plan that even he says will essentially destroy the Detroit Public School system.

Under the plan to balance the district’s books, DPS would close half of its schools, consolidate its operations and grow it class sizes in its high schools to 60 students.

Even Bobb, who’s called the plan “draconian,” concedes it won’t work.

Feb. 21, Detroit News: In the letter, Flanagan said the Michigan Department of Education gave preliminary approval to Bobb’s plan to bring the 74,000-student district out of its financial emergency. As a condition of approval, Flanagan said Bobb cannot declare the district in bankruptcy during the remainder of his contract.

Bobb, appointed emergency financial manager in March 2009, filed his deficit elimination plan with the state in January, saying it would wipe out the district’s $327 million deficit by 2014. On Feb. 9, he told state lawmakers the plan is the only way DPS “can cut its way out” of its legacy deficit.

At the same time, Bobb said he doesn’t believe the proposal is viable because it would drive more students away, exacerbating the district’s financial emergency. But on Friday, Bobb confirmed he is working to implement the plan that will shrink the district to 72 schools for a projected 58,570 students in 2014.
Few parents, if any, will abide a plan that crams 60 children into a classroom. Almost every educator in America will tell you that even 30 students in a classroom is too many. You think children in DPS aren’t learning now? Under Bobb’s plan, they wouldn’t even have a chance.

To be sure, this plan won’t fly. It simply can’t. Parents will leave the district instead. So why is Bobb moving ahead with it? Well, surely it could be construed as one last plaintive cry for an 11th-hour infusion of cash. But more likely, it’s about dismantling the Detroit Public Schools. This isn’t about eliminating a deficit. This is about eliminating public education in the city of Detroit as we know it.

This is tantamount to replacing the current DPS with a smoldering crater.

Certainly, there’s no defending the performance of the current district, which has abysmally failed far too many of our children. And surely, there’s nothing wrong with bringing more charters like the Nataki Talibah Schoolhouse into the mix. But I’m not sure if giving up on the district is the answer either.

Charter schools flourish largely because they are smaller alternatives, with fewer students in each class and more manageable overall student populations. Services can be more evenly spread among the kids. What happens when those schools start bulging from the influx of new students? What proof is there that they have the capacity to cope with the scale and severity of the issues that DPS students struggle with?

And what about academics? Yes, DPS is home to some terribly ineffective schools. But over the years, we have also heard horror stories about poorly run charter schools that have failed to meet academic standards.

If you want to strengthen the charter system, that’s fine. But all of Detroit’s children deserve a quality education, and they won’t all get it at charter schools.

As a result, DPS deserves a more serious approach to its problems than this.

Nina Simone

FEBRUARY 21ST, 2011

“Jazz is not just music, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of being, a way of thinking…the new inventive phrases we make up to describe things—all that to me is jazz just as much as the music we play.”

Eunice Kathleen Waymon aka Nina Simone was born on this day in 1933.

 

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Malcolm X Was Killed Today… “Malcolm X: Make It Plain” Screening Tonight At Brecht Forum NYC

By Tambay, on February 21st, 2011

A birth and a death… yesterday in history, Sidney Poitier was born; Today in history… February 21st, 1965, Malcolm Little/Malcolm X/El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz was killed in New York City. He was just 39 years old.

Of course, I’m sure we all know of Spike Lee’s 1992 epic film based on the life of the man – a film that will rest among the nation’s treasures in the world’s largest archive of film, TV and sound recordings as one of 25 films to be very recently inducted for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

However, if you live in New York City, tonight at 7PM, the Brecht Forum on 122 West 27th Street, will be screening Orlando Bagwell’s 2 1/2 hour 1994 documentary Malcolm X: Make It Plain, narrated by Alfre Woodard. The film paints a comprehensive portrait of Malcolm X – hustler, visionary, husband and father, dynamic orator and, after spending time in prison, Minister Malcolm, the fiery, eloquent spokesman for the Nation of Islam; and finally as El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, internationally recognized leader and advocate for oppressed peoples – loved and despised, revered and feared… until he was assassinated at 39.

The entire 2 1/2 film is on YouTube, so you can watch it all there if you’re not in NYC, or can’t make the screening, and are interested in it. Here are the first 10 minutes: