Topic: Miscellaneous -- Pot Luck.
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posted by G.M.Heller at Friday, March 25, 2005
Friday, March 25, 2005
About Me
- Name: G.M.Heller
- Location: Berkshire County, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., United States
Hailed by Berkshire cognoscenti as that "crank on the grassy knoll".
Previous Posts
16 Comments:
Dear Berkshire Bloggers, News Media, Politicians, & the People:
One may ask why I write to the Massachusetts Newspapers, Politicians (who marginalized me), and the People? One of my main answers is that I was victimized by some strong-arm Massachusetts Politicians, especially Andrea F. Nuciforo, Jr. (a.k.a. Luciforo), Carmen C. Massimiano, Jr., and most recently Denis E. Guyer! Luciforo tried to have my father fired from his state job and his son (me) put in jail under false pretenses in the Spring of 1998. Luciforo was going to send me to his Good Old Boy Network buddy Berkshire County Sheriff Carmen C. Massimiano, Jr. Moreover, Luciforo layered so much bullying on me that I could not even go to some of my classes at U Mass Amherst without feeling Luciforo, Stan Rosenberg, and his student interns, retaliations against me for speaking out in dissent against them. Sheriff Massimiano warned me not to write about what they tried to do to me after I moved to New Hampshire -- away from their local control and power brokerings. Most recently, Denis E. Guyer has spread vicious rumors against me all over the Pittsfield area. He has accused me of serious crimes that I responded to in many emails. Denis Guyer told the people of the Pittsfield area that I stalked a Jewish woman from Otis, I belong in a psychiatric institution, and that he is against President Bush's ordering me a hearing in Washington, D.C. for Veterans Disability Benefits, among other hate-filled rumors.
Now, I admittedly have mental illness diagnoses that moved the President of The United States of America, George W. Bush, to order me Veteran Disability Benefits after I protected the sanctity of human life as a Soldier in the U.S. Army. But for the smallness of a few Pittsfield, Massachusetts area politicians, they found ways to even discredit me for my deficiencies and heroism. For Denis Guyer to spread rumors around the Pittsfield area that I should not receive Veterans Benefits because I stalked a Jewish woman from Otis is so wrong on so many levels. Firstly, if I did something wrong, criminal, and the like, Denis Guyer should have handled the issue professionally through the courts. I even volunteered to drive to Massachusetts from New Hampshire to turn myself in if Denis Guyer's vicious rumors against me had merit. Secondly, if Denis Guyer knows I have diagnosed mental illnesses, he should not be trying to play on my vulnerabilities. That is predatory! Thirdly, Denis Guyer has played into Luciforo & Massimiano's hands by diminishing my character at the base character of the terrible machine politicians. Denis Guyer used a half-truth from my past friendship with a Becket woman (who is now married) for his own political gain with no regard for me or my past woman friend. Fourthly, Denis Guyer slandered me, and that is illegal. Moreover, if Denis Guyer tried to provoke me or instigate moblike trouble against me, then Denis Guyer incited violence.
I am too respected in the Pittsfield area for Denis Guyer to have been able to get away with his persecutions against me. But sadly, in other times and areas of my life, bullies like Denis Guyer have been able to overtly get away with bullying me. There were times in schools, college, the Army and workplaces. There were times when I have been so victimized by bullies like Denis Guyer that I have lost passing courses, wages, keeping my job, being able to be promoted, and the like. For some reason, the good element and good people of the Pittsfield area don't allow Luciforo, Massimiano & Guyer to get away with bullying me. For some reason, I have and continue to survive their persecutions and abuses of power.
One of the reasons why I am respected is because I always put human life and safety above my own interests. For me to have moved the President of the U.S.A. to order me a VA hearing means that even the president admires my commitment to human life when I protected human life at the cost of my own mental health and career in the U.S. Army. No matter where I have lived, there were bullies, but there was also me. While I have become a victim of all of these bullies like Denis Guyer out there, there seems to be a respect for me. That must really bother bullies like Denis Guyer! Despite the powerful's sincerest efforts to defeat me, I am not defeated, but respected. Just because I am victim of bullies abusing their power, that does not mean I am a coward. Instead, I am a good man who has proven bullies like Denis Guyer wrong. I have stood tall and protected life and safety even when my own interests were on the line, which is the opposite of what bullies like Denis Guyer, Luciforo & Massimiano have done all of their pathetic lives. My life has meaning, while the bullies lives have only banalities.
Unfortunately, extremism means that some people like me who are mentally ill go to the opposite extreme and become bullies themselves. In the tragic Virginia Tech mass murder massacre by a emotionally disturbed young man, he took extreme measures to right all of the wrongs done to him. This serial killer of 32 innocent lives was the example of a coward and disturbed-like animal. When one goes to extremes, even if he or she was the victim of abuse all of their lives, they have given into their fears. What I mean is that sometime it is better to lose than to win. Sometimes it is the bigger man who walks away from the violence, bullying and abuses of power. In my life, I have had troubles, sadness, anger, pain, heartbreak, and the like, but I have always stayed at my own level of dignity. When Luciforo tried to ruin my dad, jail me, layer bullies against me, I never gave into his level of indecency. When Massimiano let me know he was waiting for my arrival at his house of pain -- county jail -- as a persecuted political prisoner of conscience, made snide remarks when I spoke at local political events, and would wring his hands in power and schadenfreude, I never gave into his level of indency. When Denis E. Guyer spread the most vicious rumors against me all over the Pittsfield area, I never gave into his indency. I always stayed at my own level of decency, and I have always received the respect of the good elements and good people of the Pittsfield area even though I have not lived there for over 3 years now.
In the end, and the reason why I write today, is that unfortunately, bullies like Luciforo, Massimiano & Denis Guyer are to blame for negatively impacting the mentally ill. That does not give an excuse to the extremes victims of bullying and abuses of power go to, such as the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech. What it means is that when one bullies and victimizes another person, then they are pushing that person into a corner with no way out from their fears. It then takes the victim of bullies like Denis Guyer to face their fears, not be a coward to them. But it also takes good people in the Pittsfield area to have had the decency to tell me that Luciforo & Massimiano's persecutions of me included putting me in the county jail under false pretenses, and then telling me after I moved to New Hampshire that Denis Guyer was slandering me by accusing me of serious crimes and inciting hate-filled violence against me. The good elements of society and good people must respect the victims of bullies in order for them to know that persecution is a part of life all of God's children must bears, including our Lord, Jesus Christ. God sides with the persecuted and so must humankind. As a society, we need to have compassion and love for our neighbors, and stand up to fear and those who use it by bullying and abusing their power for their own interests.
Lastly, while Luciforo, Massimiano & Denis Guyer have political power, good jobs, healthcare plans, pensions, and the like, I have the one thing all of these persecutors don't have: RESPECT!
In Truth,
Jonathan A. Melle
News Article:
ABC News
AP: Senior VA Officials Get Big Bonuses
AP IMPACT: With Veterans Care Under Strain, VA Hands Out Hefty Bonuses to Senior Officials
By HOPE YEN
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON
Months after a politically embarrassing $1 billion shortfall that put veterans' health care in peril, Veterans Affairs officials involved in the foul-up got hefty bonuses ranging up to $33,000.
The list of bonuses to senior career officials at the Veterans Affairs Department in 2006, obtained by The Associated Press, documents a generous package of more than $3.8 million in payments by a financially strapped agency straining to help care for thousands of injured veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Among those receiving payments were a deputy assistant secretary and several regional directors who crafted the VA's flawed budget for 2005 based on misleading accounting. They received performance payments up to $33,000 each, a figure equal to about 20 percent of their annual salaries.
Also receiving a top bonus was the deputy undersecretary for benefits, who helps manage a disability claims system that has a backlog of cases and delays averaging 177 days in getting benefits to injured veterans.
The bonuses were awarded even after government investigators had determined the VA repeatedly miscalculated if not deliberately misled taxpayers with questionable methods used to justify Bush administration cuts to health care amid a burgeoning Iraq war.
Annual bonuses to senior VA officials now average more than $16,000 the most lucrative in government.
The VA said the payments are necessary to retain hardworking career officials.
Several watchdog groups questioned the practice. They cited short-staffing and underfunding at VA clinics that have become particularly evident after recent disclosures of shoddy outpatient treatment of injured troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
"Hundreds of thousands of our veterans remain homeless every day and hundreds of thousands more veterans wait six months or more for VA disability claim decisions," said Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense. "The lavish amounts of VA bonus cash would be better spent on a robust plan to cut VA red tape."
Sen. Daniel Akaka, chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, said the payments pointed to an improper "entitlement for the most centrally placed or well-connected staff."
Seeking an explanation from Secretary Jim Nicholson, Akaka also asked the department to outline steps to address disparities in which Washington-based senior officials got higher payments than their counterparts elsewhere.
"Awards should be determined according to performance," said Akaka, D-Hawaii. "I am concerned by this generous pat on the back for those who failed to ensure that their budget requests accurately reflected VA's needs."
A VA spokesman, Matt Burns, said the department was reviewing Akaka's request. Burns contended that many of the senior officials had been with the department for years, with an expertise that could not be replicated immediately if they were to leave for the more profitable private sector.
"Rewarding knowledgeable and professional career public servants is entirely appropriate," he said. "The importance of retaining committed career leaders in any government organization cannot be overstated."
In 2006, the VA officials receiving top bonuses included Rita Reed, the deputy assistant secretary for budget, and William Feeley, a former VA network director who is now deputy undersecretary for health for operations and management.
Also receiving $33,000 was Ronald Aument, the deputy undersecretary for benefits, who helps oversee the strained and backlogged claims system that Nicholson now says is unacceptable.
The bonuses are determined by the heads of the VA's various divisions, based in part on performance evaluations. All requests are submitted to Nicholson for final approval.
In July 2005, the VA stunned Congress by suddenly announcing it faced a $1 billion shortfall after failing to take into account the additional cost of caring for veterans injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The admission, months after the department insisted it was operating within its means and did not need additional money, drew harsh criticism from both parties and some calls for Nicholson's resignation.
The investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accountability Office, determined the VA had used misleading accounting methods and claimed false savings of more than $1.3 billion, apparently because President Bush was not willing, at the time, to ask Congress for more money.
According to the White House Office of Personnel Management, roughly three of every four senior officials at the VA have received some kind of bonus each year. In recent years, the payment amount has steadily increased from being one of the lowest in government $8,120 in 2002 to the most generous $16,713 in 2005.
In contrast, just over half the senior officials at the Energy Department in 2005 received an average bonus of $9,064. Across all government agencies, about two-thirds of employees received bonuses, which averaged $13,814 in 2005, the most recent data available.
Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said the VA bonuses appeared to reflect a trend in government where performance bonuses were increasingly used to reward loyal associates and longtime employees.
Put in place shortly after the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, executive bonuses were designed to increase accountability in government by tying raises more closely to performance. But while bonuses can help retain key employees, damage can be done when payments turn into an automatic handout regardless of performance, Ellis said.
"Simply put, people who nearly shortchanged our veterans shouldn't get a bonus check at the end of the year," he said.
Joe Davis, spokesman for Veterans of Foreign Wars, one of the nation's largest veterans groups, agreed. His organization is awaiting Nicholson's explanation, saying that the budget shortfall was partly to blame for backlogs and other problems today.
"No one joins the government to get rich, and the bonus may be used as a retention tool to keep the best and the brightest, but it must be performance-based in award to be fair and impartial," Davis said. "Anything else could be viewed as favoritism."
Dear George Will and Rinaldo Del Gallo III:
First, Mr. Will. Re: "The World Bank's rationale is bankrupt" (By George F. Will, 5/10): I dissent against George Will's thesis that reducing global poverty is done through economic growth via free markets allocating private investment capital to efficient uses. Instead, I believe the reduction of global poverty should be done through the redistribution of wealth by governments to their communities for equitable uses. To be clear: communities should be mandated to meet the base human rights requirements of their residents. Moreover, George Will's thesis does not address the perils of past and/or future global economic depressions caused by many possible factors, including War, Famine, Natural Disaster, Collapsing Free Markets, and the like. On top of that, George Will does not even touch upon economic equity as a means of ensuring communal human rights.
Only when people(s) have political power through economic equity will they be able to work with their communities to eliminate the artifically set up moral hazards that otherwise places them (the poor and middle class) captive to the perverse incentives that only benefit the special interests who profit off of the poor and inequity. My best example is the state Lotteries. All they are are an inequitable tax on the poor, but are always supported by the politicians who pocket the special interest blood money of those government and business entities that profit off the poor; For example, State Representative a.k.a. Bureaucrat Bosley of North Adams, Massachusetts loves his campaign coffers filled through inequitable public policies!
Second, Rinaldo. The Massachusetts Governor's Council has proven to be a political hack utopia where 8 machine politicians get to earn $25,000 per year off of the state taxpayers for doing almost absolutely nothing. Rinaldo, your theories are right, but you fail to look at the reality of the situation. I dissent!
Sincerely,
Jonathan A. Melle
Dear Rinaldo Del Gallo III, news media, Pols, & the People:
I read a lot of Rinaldo's, et al, letters and essays about shared parenting. I will be 32 years old this coming summer and have not mutually selected a spouse and mutually made the decision to have children yet. I understand the trade-off I am making if I ever do mutually decide to both get married and have children. The trade-off of waiting to get married is, of course, that I am deferring the costs of marriage and having children towards my future years when finances may become even more constrained than they are in my recently past and current years.
The reason why marriage and having children matters is because for the average American citizen, it is the BIGGEST financial decision that one will ever make with another! Yes, getting married and having children is bigger than buying a home, going to college, investing in mutual funds, and so on. That message is lost on Rinaldo and his colleagues at the Berkshire Fatherhood Coalition and elsewhere.
Let us do the math, please. I am the theoretical example. In my 32nd year, I meet the woman of my dreams. Whomever she is, I put aside all of my goals, interests and financial planning to "pop the question" to her. This woman says "yes, I will marry you, Jonathan!" We are so in love and the situation is so romantic that nothing else matters. Then, we get married. The ceremony is subsidized by our families so the $10,000 event is not a financial setback. Then, we go on our honeymoon, and my new wife and I have just spent several thousands of dollars on a trip to paradise for a week. Then, we put a down-payment on a home in a community my new wife and I want to live in and foresee our future children being happy in. We put $50,000 towards our new home and have a 30-year mortgage for $200,000 plus property taxes and home maintenance. When I am 35-years and my wife of 3 years and I decide to have our first baby, we must financially manage a minimum of $200,000 for our first child from the womb to his or her 18th birthday. Then, when I am 38-years and my wife of 6 years and I decide to have our second baby, we must financially manage a minimun of $150,000 for our second child from the womb to his or her 18th birthday. Then, I turn 53 and my first child is in college; and then I turn 56 and my second child is in college. My wife of 21/24 years will have to financially manage about $400,000 to educate our young adult children with skills they will need to have careers and self-sufficient futures in their lives.
Let me add up all of the math of my decision to get married and have children: (a) Marriage ceremony: $10,000, (b) honeymoon: $3,000, (c) downpayment of a new home: $50,000, (d) 30 year mortgage on $200,000 principle: $500,000; (e) basis living expenses $20,000 per year for 30 years: $600,000; (f) children expenses: $350,000; (g) future college expenses: $400,000. The minimal middle class costs of me getting married and having a family in today's world EQUALS around $2 Million over the next 30 years of my life from 32 until 62! Then, my new wife and I get to retire, which will mean we will have to have had saved another $1 Million dollars for the next 30-years. So, if I decide to get married at 32, my wife and I have to earn $3 Million in the next 30 years, or $1 Million every decade for the next 3 decades.
BUT, if my wife and I get divorced when I turn 42 then I am not only financially constrained, but now I am drowning in debt! THAT IS THE REALITY, GUYS!
When you guys got married and then got your divorces, you should have sat down and administered the financial costs of getting married and having children!
In Truth,
Jonathan A. Melle
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Gratitude to shared parenting moms
Sunday, May 13, 2007
To the Editor of THE BEKSHIRE EAGLE:
We at the Berkshire Fatherhood Coalition want to thank all the mothers out there who have decided to make shared parenting a part of their and their children's lives. While courts routinely deny shared parenting in litigated cases, it is now becoming increasingly common for mothers to voluntarily place their child in joint physical custody so as to put the child first.
We understand that there are financial inducements put in place by our legal system for you to do otherwise. You, shared parenting mothers, realize the path to hell is paved with greed. You understand that not every victory that can be had in a family court is a victory for the child. You understand the importance of both the father and a mother in a child's life. You have gone out of your way to make sure that the father is allowed to be at all important occasions in your child's life. You have made efforts to split parenting time, and have made every effort to civilly cooperate for the sake of your child.
You have made every effort to make sure your child maintains a good relationship with the paternal side of the family, including paternal grandparents, and paternal aunt's and uncles. You are a modern woman — you realize that simply because the divorce has ended the marriage, your ex-husband still is the father of your child. You respect men and fathers, and do not celebrate Mother's Day by having men and fathers engage in degrading pledges not to be a violent beast.
You, shared parenting mother, respect yourself as a breadwinner and respect the father as a nurturer. You, shared parenting mother, reject outdated stereotypes of gender roles so much embraced by people that call themselves "feminist," yet know nothing of the meaning of feminism by quickly calling the mother "nurturer" and father "breadwinner." You, voluntarily, provide equal time and access to both parents for your child's benefit.
You understand that the legal system's concept of a "primary" and "secondary" parent is anathema to God. You, shared parenting mother, embrace equality. To you shared parenting mothers, we send you our most ardent love and affection. May God bless you, and may his love shine upon you, this Mother's Day.
MARK DEMMING
Great Barrington May 7, 2007
OLVER E-NEWSLETTER
Veterans E-Update June 2007
Funding Victory for Veterans
I would like to share some important news regarding funding for our nation's veterans. Today, June 15, 2007, the House of Representatives passed the largest single funding increase for the Veterans Administration (VA) in the agency's 77 year history. As you know, the current VA healthcare system is struggling to care for wounded veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan . This dramatic increase helps fulfill our obligation to the men and women who risked their lives on behalf of a grateful nation. We must provide medical care that honors the gravity of their sacrifice. This bill is a momentous achievement for our nation's veterans, and it sets an important precedent to honor their service by fully funding veteran's healthcare in the years to come.
The Military Construction/VA spending bill passed today by the House of Representatives:
Increases the VA budget by $6.7 billion above the Fiscal Year (FY) 2007 level, the largest single increase in the 77 year history of the Veterans Administration
Ensures quality health care for 5.8 million patients, including about 263,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, which the VA will treat in FY 2008.
Reduces the 400,000 claims backlog for veterans waiting for disability and other benefits by adding more than 1,100 new claims processors.
Provides much needed maintenance of VA health care facilities. A recent VA report outlined 1,000 specific problems at VA health facilities around the country, with a backlog of $5 billion in maintenance.
Provides $600 million more than the President's request for mental health, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and makes five polytrauma centers and three Centers of Excellence for Mental Health and fully operational this year to care for those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. An estimated one-third of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are facing mental health challenges, and up to 300,000 troops are expected to return from Iraq suffering from TBI.
Develops and operates a toll-free telephone and web-based hotline for veterans to report on deficiencies in VA medical facilities and care.
I am proud to join numerous veterans organizations in supporting today's spending bill. Providing the small dignity of proper healthcare is incumbent upon such a wealthy and prosperous nation.
Sincerely,
John W. Olver
Member of Congress
2 Tough Questions
Question 1:
If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?
Read the next question before looking at the response for this one.
Question 2:
It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts.
Here are the facts about the three candidates. Who would you vote for?
Candidate A.
Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologist. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.
Candidate B.
He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in
college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.
Candidate C
He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and never cheated on his wife.
Which of these candidates would be our choice?
Decide first... no peeking, then scroll down for the response.
Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Candidate B is Winston Churchill.
Candidate C is Adolph Hitler.
And, by the way, on your answer to the abortion question:
If you said YES, you just killed Beethoven.
Pretty interesting isn't it? Makes a person think before judging someone.
Wait till you see the end of this note! Keep reading..
Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember:
Amateurs...built the ark.
Professionals...built the Titanic
And Finally, can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 500 employees and has the following statistics:
* 29 have been accused of spousal abuse
* 7 have been arrested for fraud
* 19 have been accused of writing bad checks
* 117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
* 3 have done time for assault
* 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
* 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
* 8 have been arrested for shoplifting
* 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
* 84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year...
Can you guess which organization this is?
Give up yet?
It's the 535 members of the United States Congress.
The same group that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.
Gates vows to fix mental health system
By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer
Thu June 21, 2007, 5:12 PM ET
Defense Secretary Robert Gates promised Thursday to speed up changes to the military's much-criticized mental health system, declaring "this is something that we can, must and will get fixed."
A study released last week said more money and people are needed to care for troops suffering depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress symptoms and other mental health problems because of their war experiences. It also said the Pentagon needs to build a culture of support throughout the military to help remove the stigma of asking for and getting psychological help.
Gates told a Pentagon press conference that one proposal to give troops time off from the battle in Iraq might be hard to do. But he said he supports another proposal that would do away with the practice of asking troops about previous mental health treatment when they apply for a security clearance.
"Too many avoid seeking mental health help because of the fear of losing their security clearance," he said.
The Associated Press reported last week that the department is studying a proposal to change a questionnaire required by the Office of Personnel Management, the agency that does the majority of investigations for granting military and civilian government security clearances. It asks if applicants have gotten mental health care in the last seven years and asks them to list the names, addresses and dates they saw a doctor or therapist — a practice that critics say sends a mixed message in that it discourages troops from seeking treatment.
Gates said Thursday he would work "very aggressively" to get the question removed.
The Pentagon has been working for some time to end the stigma of counseling. Studies indicate that soldiers most in need of post-combat health care are the least likely to get it because they fear that others will have less confidence in them, that it will threaten career advancement and that it could result in the loss of their security clearance and possibly removal from their unit.
The yearlong study released last week was required by Congress, which wants a corrective action plan within six months. "I have no intention of waiting that long," said Gates, adding that he'd directed a plan be finished in 60 to 90 days.
A separate mental health report, released last month, recommended that after 90 days of combat, troops should get 30 days off. Some commanders have said it is difficult to spare the troops, and Gates was asked if the recommendation would be followed.
"I think, to be honest, it would be a challenge to manage that" with the number of troops in Iraq, Gates said, adding that it would be studied.
Moving troops off and onto the battlefield may not be the best solution, said Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who appeared at the press conference with Gates.
Normally, the highest casualties in a unit are in the first period of a deployment and in the last period, said Pace. "And a lot of it has to do with mind-set and having total focus. And the numbers of times that you put yourself into and out of a combat situation changes how you're thinking, what you're mentally prepared to do," he said.
On a recent visit to the Army's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, Gates presented six Purple Hearts — decorations for the war wounded — including one to a soldier who was still unconscious and on a respirator, he recalled Thursday.
"It was a starkly moving and emotionally powerful reminder of the sacrifices these young men and women are making on our behalf," Gates said. "It is our moral obligation and duty to ensure that they are properly cared for in mind, body and spirit when they return from the battlefield to the homeland that they have pledged to defend.
"They have done their duty, we must do ours," he said.
Pearl film plays to sold-out theater
By Jessica Bachman, Berkshire Eagle Staff
The North Adams Transcript Online
Friday, June 22, 2007
GREAT BARRINGTON — A somber crowd filled almost every seat in the Triplex Cinema last night to pay their respects to Daniel Pearl, the former Berkshire Eagle, North Adams Transcript and Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and ruthlessly murdered by terrorists in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2002.
Berkshire International Film Festival and the Daniel Pearl Scholarship Committee fought long and hard to stage last night's advanced screening of "A Mighty Heart," the harrowing tale of Pearl's inexhaustible pursuit of journalistic truth at the expense of his life.
"It's a little strange that my friend has become a martyr for the freedom of the press," said Daniel Bellow, one of Pearl's former colleagues at The Berkshire Eagle who was asked by the film festival committee to introduce the film.
"I am here to tell you that everything you heard about Dan Pearl is true. He was a sweet-hearted guy, a terrific reporter. ... Unfailingly kind and generous," he recounted before the screening.
This Hollywood thriller, starring Angelina Jolie and Dan Futterman, is based on Mariane Pearl's memoir of her husband, Danny, detailing how faith in his vocation as an international journalist and unflagging love for his pregnant wife enabled him to meet his death — a gruesome, propagandistic beheading by a militant Pakistani terrorist group — with dignity and heroic fortitude.
Hoosac Valley High School graduate Brian Mastroianni of Adams was honored as the scholarship's 2007 recipient.
"He is an outstanding young man and will become a heck of a journalist if he keeps his role model in mind," said Bellow, also one of the scholarship committee judges.
Living in a place where this journalist began his career, many local residents in the audience felt honored to see the film before its national release today.
"I came to see it because it is an important film and Angelina Jolie has a lot of spiritual clout," said Valerie Locher of Housatonic. "I think truth will be told, and we don't get a lot of truth. ... I feel really privileged to be here."
Memorial
A humble posterboard memorial to Pearl, perched on a small wooden easel toward the back of the Triplex's entryway, added to the screening's special feel. On it were pasted pictures of Pearl and several articles he wrote during his time working in the Berkshires — between 1988 and 1990.
"Danny's presence in the Berkshires resonates with people, and they want to support the scholarship fund in his memory," said John Valente, general manager of the Triplex.
But the audience wasn't only local last night. Lynn Sibley of Pittsburgh had been anticipating the film's release for quite some time. "When I heard that Daniel Pearl worked here it seemed like a perfect place to see it," she said.
When the film ended and an eerie silence dissipated, John Orloff, the film's screenplay writer, was introduced to the audience.
"I would like to say that we flew him in at great expense, but it just fell into our laps," said Valente.
Orloff, who also wrote the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers," recently moved to Columbia County, N.Y., and contacted the film festival to ask how he could help with the screening.
During the question-and-answer session with Orloff, one audience member asked why the film did not show U.S.-Pakistani political relationships of the time in greater depth.
"The film is a little purposefully opaque about it," Orloff replied. "This film is a microcosm. ... We tried to stay specific to exactly what we knew, what Mariane knew and when they knew it."
Although Orloff did not travel to Pakistan, he did spend 10 days with Mariane Pearl in New York before picking up a pen to begin his writing.
Tickets to the screening sold out on Tuesday; the net profits from ticket sales will go toward the Daniel Pearl Scholarship Committee, founded in 2003 by The Berkshire Eagle and North Adams Transcript. Each year, the committee grants one $1,000 scholarship to a Berkshire County high school senior planning to attend college as a journalism or music major. The Triplex donated time and screening space to the film festival.
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Mariane Pearl, widow of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, with actors Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt...
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Dear Berkshire Bloggers:
Like I have said many times before, I will say it again now: I may never be the same again, but at least I saved my soul by protecting the sanctity of human life above all else in the face abuse and illegal orders during my honorable service in the U.S. Army. I may die in the streets as a homeless Veteran or rot behind bars as a mentally-ill prisoner or the like, but at least I sacrificed the quality of my own life on Earth so that innocent people in Germany may go on living their lives without ever knowing who I am or of my plight and fate. In the end, God knows who I truly am, and I will be redeemed for my many acts of love in Heaven. If the VA chooses to recognize my sacrifice and mental health disabilities then I may be protected from the streets or jail cells or the like. If the VA chooses to neglect my sacrifices, I will be martyred for righteousness like our Lord, Jesus Christ, was nearly 2,000 years ago. While I am no Christ, all who have passed through my life live, and I have even saved my now 97-year-old maternal grandmother's life in the late-Winter of 2004 before moving from Western Massachusetts to Southern New Hampshire to live with and amongst my family. In my life, I will always choose LOVE no matter the cost, situation or outcome. I LOVE and believe in God. I am happy that I must suffer for my acts of love by being neglected and/or persecuted by those who chose power for self-interest, money, and authoritative abuse without leaving behind any finger-prints. I choose to suffer in order to be righteous and love. Diagnose me with any mental health condition to fit a methodical design, throw me on the streets of an inner city, put me behind bars without true justice, but I will still choose LOVE! I am a leader, a believer, and a human being with rights and liberties. In the end, I will always be there for my fellow man, woman and child, as I have always been there throughout my entire life. I have endured so much in politics, school/college, work, and life, and yet I always stay at my own level of dignity and love. I saved lives as a Soldier in the U.S. Army because I care, I love, and I am a leader by example.
Human Rights for ALL Peoples! That is my legacy in my own life.
Sincerely,
Jonathan A. Melle
Dear Berkshire Bloggers, News Media, Pols, & the People:
The Pope is demonstrating AUTHORITARIAN power, which means that one institution rules ALL peoples over the will of all other institutions without being accountable to the many "others" who do not consent to the system of power and rule; but this is NOT totalitarianism because it does not expel or end differing faiths, beliefs, allegiances and affiliations.
The Pope is reinforcing the divisions between his own Catholic Church and the rest of us. He is basically saying, "It is ALL or nothing." This is extremism, and Catholics across the World will be asked to give their primary allegiance to their own Church exclusively, while other institutional faiths and allegiances are treated as peripheral.
This new Pope is driving wedges between societal institutions in an AUTHORITARIAN manner at the expense of all but a select group of God's children.
In Dissent,
Jonathan A. Melle
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Pope: Other Christians not true churches
By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press Writer | July 10, 2007
LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy --Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation.
The statement brought swift criticism from Protestant leaders. "It makes us question whether we are indeed praying together for Christian unity," said the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, a fellowship of 75 million Protestants in more than 100 countries.
"It makes us question the seriousness with which the Roman Catholic Church takes its dialogues with the reformed family and other families of the church," the group said in a letter charging that the document took ecumenical dialogue back to the era before the Second Vatican Council.
It was the second time in a week that Benedict has corrected what he says are erroneous interpretations of the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-1965 meetings that modernized the church. On Saturday, Benedict revived the old Latin Mass -- a move cheered by Catholic traditionalists but criticized by more liberal ones as a step backward from Vatican II.
Among the council's key developments were its ecumenical outreach and the development of the New Mass in the vernacular, which essentially replaced the old Latin Mass.
Benedict, who attended Vatican II as a young theologian, has long complained about what he considers its erroneous interpretation by liberals, saying it was not a break from the past but rather a renewal of church tradition.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Benedict headed before becoming pope, said it was issuing the new document Tuesday because some contemporary theological interpretations of Vatican II's ecumenical intent had been "erroneous or ambiguous" and had prompted confusion and doubt.
The new document -- formulated as five questions and answers -- restates key sections of a 2000 text the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, "Dominus Iesus," which riled Protestant and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the "means of salvation."
The commentary repeated church teaching that says the Catholic Church "has the fullness of the means of salvation."
"Christ 'established here on earth' only one church," said the document released as the pope vacations at a villa in Lorenzago di Cadore, in Italy's Dolomite mountains.
The other communities "cannot be called 'churches' in the proper sense" because they do not have apostolic succession -- the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ's original apostles -- and therefore their priestly ordinations are not valid, it said.
The Rev. Sara MacVane, of the Anglican Centre in Rome, said that although the document contains nothing new, "I don't know what motivated it at this time."
"But it's important always to point out that there's the official position and there's the huge amount of friendship and fellowship and worshipping together that goes on at all levels, certainly between Anglicans and Catholics and all the other groups and Catholics," she said.
The document said that Orthodox churches were indeed "churches" because they have apostolic succession and enjoyed "many elements of sanctification and of truth." But it said they do not recognize the primacy of the pope -- a defect, or a "wound" that harmed them, it said.
"This is obviously not compatible with the doctrine of primacy which, according to the Catholic faith, is an 'internal constitutive principle' of the very existence of a particular church," said a commentary from the congregation that accompanied the text.
Despite the harsh tone, the document stressed that Benedict remains committed to ecumenical dialogue.
"However, if such dialogue is to be truly constructive it must involve not just the mutual openness of the participants, but also fidelity to the identity of the Catholic faith," the commentary said.
The top Protestant cleric in Benedict's homeland, Germany, complained the Vatican apparently did not consider that "mutual respect for the church status" was required for any ecumenical progress.
In a statement titled "Lost Chance," Lutheran Bishop Wolfgang Huber argued that "it would also be completely sufficient if it were to be said that the reforming churches are 'not churches in the sense required here' or that they are 'churches of another type' -- but none of these bridges is used" in the Vatican document.
The Vatican statement, signed by the congregation prefect, American Cardinal William Levada, was approved by Benedict on June 29, the feast of Saints Peter and Paul -- a major ecumenical feast day.
There was no indication why the pope felt it necessary to release it now, particularly since his 2000 document summed up the same principles.
Some analysts suggested it could be a question of internal church politics or that the congregation was sending a message to certain theologians it did not want to single out. Or, it could be an indication of Benedict using his office as pope to again stress key doctrinal issues from his time at the congregation.
In fact, the only theologian cited by name in the document for having spawned erroneous interpretations of ecumenism was Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian clergyman who left the priesthood and was a target of then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's crackdown on liberation theology in the 1980s.
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Pope revives old Latin mass, sparks Jewish concern
By Phil Stewart | July 7, 2007
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, in a decree issued on Saturday, authorized wider use of the old Latin mass and told the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics that his nod to Church traditionalists was nothing to be afraid of.
The decree met with mixed reaction from Catholics, ranging from concern among liberal lay groups to a wary welcome from schismatic traditionalists. Two cardinals who had warned about restoring the old rite supported the way the Pope had done it.
One prominent Jewish leader criticized the revival of a prayer for the conversion of Jews, saying the old text was "insensitive ... insulting" and said it could set back the historic reconciliation between Catholics and Jews.
In a letter to bishops, the German-born Pontiff rejected criticism within the Church that his long-awaited move could split Catholics and turn back the clock on reforms introduced in the 1960s, which are opposed by many traditionalists.
The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) replaced Latin with local languages in the liturgy, reached out to other religions and struck out texts that Jews found particularly offensive.
"This fear is unfounded," the Pope wrote. "What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful."
Catholics around the world will have the Pope's blessing to ask local priests to celebrate mass in Latin or get baptized or married according to the old rite. Few are expected to want to return to the very formal rite in a language they do not speak.
The Pope said he wanted reconciliation with traditionalists, some of whom were so angered by the 1960s reforms that they broke with Rome, causing the first schism of modern times.
SCHISMATIC GROUP
Traditionalists thanked Benedict for the decree, but their further reaction differed according to whether they were still loyal to Rome or in the schismatic group led by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and excommunicated in 1988.
"The traditional mass is a true a gem of the Church's heritage, and the Holy Father has taken the most important step toward making it available to many more of the faithful," said Michael Dunnigan, chairman of Una Voce America.
The schismatic Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), based in Switzerland, stressed it had to iron out doctrinal differences with the Vatican before a reconciliation could take place.
The decree made no change in the 1962 missal -- the main prayer book for the old rite -- which includes prayers on Good Friday for the conversion of the Jews and calls them blind to the Christian truth.
"The language is insensitive. The language is insulting," said Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a U.S.-based Jewish civil rights group.
The Second Vatican Council repudiated the idea of collective Jewish guilt for Christ's death and highlighted the Jewish roots of Christianity. Relations improved markedly under Benedict's predecessor, the late Pope John Paul II.
French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard said the Good Friday prayer could be changed if it caused difficulties with Jews. Church sources said it would rarely be prayed because the old rite is an exception and the new rite -- which drops this text -- would be used in most churches around the world on that day.
(Additional reporting by Tom Heneghan in Paris and Sam Cage in Zurich)
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8/24/2007
Re: I am part of our nation's healthcare insurance crisis!
SHARE YOUR HEALTHCARE INSURANCE STORY
I have no healthcare insurance.
The Healthcare Insurance Crisis affects me because when I apply for a low-wage job, it costs the employer more money to provide healthcare insurance coverage than to pay me my wages. I have been unemployed for over 20-weeks now. I have to receive food stamps to eat. I have applied for other related social programs. I have to rely on my parents for financial assistance.
I am a Veteran with a +6-year-old case before the VA's Board of Veterans Appeals in Washington, D.C. As a Soldier in the U.S. Army, I was abused and victimized by my Unit, purposefully victimized by my Staff Sergeant, who deprived me of sleep for a 72-hour period of time, and then he ordered me to drive a 5-ton military truck on wintery German civilian roads without proper certification to operate said vehicle and without the regulatory 6-hours of sleep. I was in field training, not combat duty. I disobeyed the illegal orders to protect human lives and property. I suffered a mental breakdown, and then I was honorably discharged on 7/7/2001. After the Army, Citizens Bank hired me as a Teller in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. I worked there from 9/4/01 - 5/22/02. I had healthcare insurance for 6-months. Since 6/1/02 - today (8/24/07), I have no health insurance.
Because I have a mental health disability, employers know my healthcare insurance cost are going to be higher than the average employee. Employers have told me that it is cheaper to hire about 6 part-timers than 1 full-timer due to the high costs of providing healthcare insurance coverage.
With the VA behaving like an unfair insurance company, employers behaving like unfair banks, and me having a mental health disability, I have 3 strikes against me in life. In short, I have no income because I have no healthcare. I am at risk of becoming homeless, jailed, or possibly dead someday sooner rather than later.
I saved lives and now I am being neglected by society.
I believe healthcare is a matter of HUMAN RIGHTS! Both myself and my fellow uninsured are victims of INEQUITY by "the system" ran by the Corporate Elite, who get richer while the poor get poorer.
In Truth,
Jonathan A. Melle
Dear Boston Globe Editorial Idiots!
The answer to regional/global politics is HUMAN RIGHTS!
The means to resolve global political conflicts is to set up clusters of regional governmental democratic federal entities that administers HUMAN RIGHTS programs to ALL the Peoples of the World.
The United States of America's failure, meaning Presidents George Herbert Walker Bush, William Jefferson Clinton, & George Walker Bush, in global politics is to SKIP "the MIDDLE-MAN". Politically, our nation has been and continues to be bent on the U.S. Government being the World's SUPER-POWER, which has the power and ability to police the World. Economically, our nation, along with several wealthy European nations, confictually views the World as a "Global Economy", which means that the Corporate Elite dictates the economic policies of the World's diverse political economies, which means that America is telling the World's national governments to institute democratic institutions or reforms, while the Corporate Elite has economic control or hegemony over these same institutions.
Think about it, Boston Globe Editorial Idiots! The political and economic reality is that on the one hand, the U.S. Government is militarially controlling the World with a Police State Intelligence/Military apparatus that is spreading the message of democracy, while on the other hand, the Corporate Elite is economically controlling the World with control of international economic institutional policies that put hegemonic constraints on the World's national governments. What a bunch of contradictions!
You publish all of these Editorials and Op-eds on Darfur, Sudan, Africa, Iraq, the Middle East, China, Asia, and elsewhere. You point your fingers at the World's Human Rights abuses. HOWEVER, you, Boston Globe Editorial Idiots!, do NOT look at the design that has caused or associated the World's Human Rights abuses.
The answer is to set up clusters of regional governmental democratic federal entities that administers HUMAN RIGHTS programs to ALL the Peoples of the World. The reason why the U.S. Government and the Corporate Elite does not do this is because the answer may be for the wealthy and elite to take a long look in the mirror. The Heart of Darkness may be those with all of the political and economic power.
In closing, I have long heard that the best judgement of a man's character is not when he is doing well, but when he is facing adversity. I disagree with this maxim. I believe the best judgement of a man is to see how he uses power of other men. In short and lastly, "the system" is by design! Think about it!
Sincerely,
Jonathan A. Melle
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MOKHTAR LAMANI AND HE HANY BESADA
The other victims in Iraq
By Mokhtar Lamani and He Hany Besada | September 8, 2007
ARMENIANS, Chaldo-Assyrian Christians, Faili Kurds, Shabaks, Palestinians, Baha'is, Mandeans, Yazidis, Turkomans, and Jews, together with their Sunni and Sh'iite neighbors, form an intricate fabric that gave rise to today's modern Iraqi state. Ironically, they find themselves on the fringes of the Iraqi society. Tragically, last month's massacre of more than 400 Yazidis - one of Iraq's numerous religious minorities - and the international coverage it received, has placed the spotlight on a forgotten tale in that country's ongoing de facto civil war: the continuous and often-underreported violence, which ethnic minority leaders in the country portray as genocide of devastating consequences, against minority populations. Both Iraqi and US officials have blamed the attack on Al Qaeda-linked Islamic militants.
The brutal attacks against the Yazidis, who are predominantly ethnic Kurds whose religion blends elements of Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism, dating back more than 4,000 years, underscored the fear and the harsh reality that reflect the growing insecurity and anxiety gripping Iraq's minorities. Minorities are especially vulnerable given the lack of militias to protect their communities, a practice often used by the Shi'ite and Sunni populations. Notwithstanding press coverage of the daily atrocities, which have claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Sunnis and Shi'ites and, to a lesser extent, Kurds, the plight of the country's disappearing minorities, who are caught in the cross fire of the ongoing conflict, does not feature high in the international debate on Iraq.
With this tragic state of affairs and an absence of any semblance of normality, peace, and security, allowing both Shi'ites and Sunni extremists to use their discretionary power to bomb churches, massacre and rape women and girls, and engage in the forced conversion of numerous innocent Iraqi minorities every month, hundreds of thousands have fled the country since the overthrow of Saddam's secular Baathist-led government, and many more are attempting to run for their lives.
In what has become the rule rather than the exception, minority groups across the country are often required to either pay a "protection tax" or face banishment from their ancestral lands or conversion to Islam. The consequence of noncompliance with these ultimatums is usually punishment by death. According to relief agencies and religious minority leaders in the country, the smaller minorities are disappearing quickly. The Sabean-Mandean sect, which follows the teachings of John the Baptist, had a population of 25,000 in 2003. It now numbers less than 5,000.
Meanwhile, United Nations estimates show that approximately 50 percent of Iraqi Christians, who numbered 1 to 2 million at the last count in 2003, may have already left the country for neighboring states - Syria in particular and, to a lesser extent, Jordan, while others have managed to slip into Western states to join their extended families who fled with the toppling of Saddam Hussein. They leave behind the ruins of more than 30 churches destroyed by Islamic extremists.
Given the predicament that minorities find themselves in, and the eventual withdrawal of the US-led coalition from Iraq, many have begun contemplating the seemingly discouraging dilemma of figuring out for themselves what it means to be freed from a tyrannical system of dictatorship under Saddam Hussein, only to be left to the mercy of extremists, bent on exterminating all religious and ethnic minorities in the country.
A return to the fundamental understanding of what it means to be an Iraqi, something that involves an innovative approach to fostering a real dialogue among Iraqis, based on common citizenship, offers the best hope of ending the chaos and anarchy that have engulfed Iraqis, including the country's disappearing minorities. With precious time left, neighboring governments and occupying forces ought to muster enough courage, even to the detriment of their short-term foreign policy objectives, to treat Iraq's minorities with special care and consideration.
Mokhtar Lamani, a former Arab League special representative in Iraq, is a senior visiting fellow at the International Development Research Centre and a visiting research fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Canada. He Hany Besada is senior researcher at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.
Dear Berkshire Bloggers, News Media, Politicians, & the People:
The ultimate form of control in a free society are the continual messages sent to the masses by those among us with real power: The Corporate Elite. Noam Chomsky talks about this issue, but more in a structural than a cultural method. My point, as opposed to Chomsky's, is that American culture socializes the masses or "have-nots" into being figurative satellites spreading the indoctrination of the Corporate Elite's social control over society for the Corporate Elite's guaranteed economic gain. Put simply, "the system" or the structure of society is manipulated through the designs of the manufactured culture that empowers those without power to control others without power.
To illustrate my point, take a 1950's nuclear family where only the dad works in a factory and is able to support his wife and children with his Proletariat paycheck. The message to the dad at work is that labor is his only way to financial security, which is a complete lie, of course. For the 30 or so years the dad goes to work for his Corporate Elite masters, the only one getting rich or achieving financial security are the factory owners. The dad then buys into the message and becomes a figurative satellite, spreading the message to his children, who may want to achieve more in their lives than work in a factory like their old man. The dad tells their kids to learn a trade in school so that they will get a good job at the factory. That last sentence is the ultimate form of manipulative control by those who send the messages. Why? The answer is that the "Haves" or "Owners" indoctrinated the dad with so many misleading fallacies that now they do not have to be heard from, seen, and the like.
It is all kind of like the Matrix movie when Keanu Reeves character Neo understands that he spent his life being deceived by all of his 5 senses because he was living in a computer-generated virtual reality. When he realized that the messages being sent to his brain were all to manipulate him into believing in a false reality, his journey began to protect his fellow man and began to fight the system as a parallel to Superman. When fighting the system became useless, he stood for peace with the system for their mutual survival and saved those he spiritually loved, alluding to Christ's role as Savior.
On the Internet tonight, the 400 richest Americans are showcased. The news articles is titled, "The Forbes 400", and it begins by stating that: "One billion dollars is no longer enough. The price of admission to this, the 25th anniversary edition of the Forbes 400, is $1.3 billion, up $300 million from last year. The collective net worth of America’s plutocrats rose $290 billion to $1.54 trillion."
What does that all mean? The cultural message is for the majority have-nots to admire their Corporate Elite Masters' gains in wealth. There is no mention of inequity, of course. Someone like me is supposed to spread this information without explaining its being or subverting the manipulation.
The news article goes onto state: "Wall Street led the charge...Nearly half of the 45 new members made their fortunes in hedge funds and private equity." It goes onto point out how the list correlates with businesses tied to the Bush family: "William Conway, Daniel D'Aniello and David Rubenstein of the Carlyle Group,...Blackstone billionaires Peter Peterson and Hamilton "Tony" James also join the Forbes 400 for the first time,...oilman Harold Hamm, who landed on our ranking after taking his Continental Resources oil and gas operation public in May."
What does that all mean? The cultural message is for the majority of have-nots to not see the Carlyle Group and Blackstone linked to The Bush White House. Another manipulation!
In an ode to the state governments taking a cut of the loot from gambling, the article states: "The Fertitta brothers also recently took their Station Casinos gambling company private with Forbes 400 member Tom Barrack for $9 billion in cash and assumed debt."
The best statement from the news articles is the kicker! It states: "The youngest member of the Forbes 400 this year is 33-year-old John Arnold, a former Enron trader who now runs hedge fund Centaurus Energy and has amassed a $1.5 billion fortune."
Well, I guess I was manipulated because I am the have-not figurative satellite relaying the Corporate Elite's message. I live only to serve my corporate elite masters, but I don't know that I do. I don't see the structure or culture of my society. I am manipulated by the message. NOT!
In Dissent,
Jonathan A. Melle
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The Forbes 400
by Matthew Miller
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
One billion dollars is no longer enough. The price of admission to this, the 25th anniversary edition of the Forbes 400, is $1.3 billion, up $300 million from last year. The collective net worth of America’s plutocrats rose $290 billion to $1.54 trillion.
Wall Street led the charge, despite this summer's market jitters. Nearly half of the 45 new members made their fortunes in hedge funds and private equity. Money manager John Paulson joins the list after pocketing more than $1 billion short-selling subprime credit this summer.
Leveraged buyout titans David Bonderman and James Coulter of Texas Pacific Group make their first appearance on the list, along with William Conway, Daniel D'Aniello and David Rubenstein of the Carlyle Group. Blackstone billionaires Peter Peterson and Hamilton "Tony" James also join the Forbes 400 for the first time.
Other new members of the list include oilman Harold Hamm, who landed on our ranking after taking his Continental Resources oil and gas operation public in May. Brothers Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta scratched and clawed their way onto the list with their Ultimate Fighting Championship pay-per-view fight fest. The Fertitta brothers also recently took their Station Casinos gambling company private with Forbes 400 member Tom Barrack for $9 billion in cash and assumed debt.
Twelve people returned to the list, including computer memory mavens David Sun and John Tu, and John Catsimatidis, who made his fortune buying and holding an oil refinery and New York City real estate through his holding company Red Apple Group.
The youngest member of the Forbes 400 this year is 33-year-old John Arnold, a former Enron trader who now runs hedge fund Centaurus Energy and has amassed a $1.5 billion fortune. The oldest member of the list is potato king John Simplot, who is 98 years old and worth $3.6 billion.
The biggest gainer this year was Kirk Kerkorian, who padded his fortune by $9 billion as shares of his MGM Mirage casino outfit rose 135% over the past year. Kerkorian enters the top 10 along with Google Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who are up $4.4 billion and $4.5 billion, respectively; and brothers Charles and David Koch, who added $5 billion apiece to their fortunes on surging energy and commodities prices. They replace Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and four members of the Walton family.
Seven members of last year's list have died, including media mogul Barbara Cox Anthony; she is replaced by her two children, James Kennedy and Blair Parry-Okeden. Other notable deaths include Wal-Mart scion Helen Walton, real estate mogul Leona Helmsley and Cargill grain heir W. Duncan MacMillan.
Fifty people couldn't keep up. They include online gambling titans Ruth Parasol and J. Russell DeLeon, whose PartyGaming Internet poker company's stock has fallen 75% in the past 12 months. Also dropping off the list is caffeine king Howard Schultz, whose Starbucks stock has languished over the past year, and Campbell Soup heir Dorrance Hill Hamilton, who had appeared on every Forbes 400 list since 1982.
[The Boston} GLOBE [-] EDITORIAL
Ukraine: The struggle continues
October 3, 2007
ON SUNDAY, Ukraine held its third general election since the Orange Revolution of 2004, and the outcome reflected the country's nearly even split between pro-Russian forces and those that lean toward the West. This election will hardly resolve the East-West tension at the core of Ukrainian politics, and it cannot be expected to overcome deeply rooted corruption and stark economic disparities. Nevertheless, the openness of political debate and the politicians' quest for the consent of the governed suggest that Ukraine is not turning back from the Orange Revolution.
Because the West-leaning parties of President Viktor Yushchenko and former prime minister Yulia Timoshenko gained only a slight edge over the pro-Russian party of current Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich and its Communist allies, the reconciled former rivals Yushchenko and Timoshenko may have to form Ukraine's next government by drawing smaller parties into a coalition. A patchwork of this sort can be awkward. It can lack a mandate for radical reforms. But it can teach the democratic virtue of settling differences by means of imperfect compromises.
Election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe attested to Ukraine's election being free and fair. This seal of approval applies not only to the conduct of Sunday's vote, but also to the indispensable conditions for a legitimate exercise in popular sovereignty. These include equal access to national media, the coverage and commentary of a free press, and a modicum of transparency from the parties about their plans and platforms.
Ukraine's advances along the path to an open society stand in striking contrast to the authoritarian petro-state being built in Russia. On Monday, while Ukrainians were tallying the ballots in their close and competitive election, Russian President Vladimir Putin was declaring that he himself would lead the Kremlin's United Russia Party in parliamentary elections scheduled for December. And then he dropped his first overt hint that he may assume the post of prime minister after he leaves the presidency.
This would be a premiership with expanded powers. It is left to the Russian public to guess how long Putin might wait before telling a hand-picked successor to step aside so that the former KGB officer could resume his role as president without violating a constitutional prohibition against three successive terms.
Ukraine may have its own oligarchs who buy political favors; Ukrainian politicians may be subject to petty vendettas, and the country's rust belt may be uncompetitive with Western industries. But Ukrainians, unlike Russians, have a free press and the right to change their rulers at the ballot box. Ukraine is moving toward Europe.
The Surgeon from HELL!
NEWS ARTICLE:
Trail of misery follows doctor
Lack of disclosure, medical mistakes alleged in Mass.
By Scott Allen, Globe Staff | October 28, 2007
ATTLEBORO - Robert A. Whitney dreaded going to the bathroom. For almost four years after his 1997 hernia operation, the simple act of urinating caused bleeding and a fierce burning sensation that often drove him to his knees. The father of three young children became addicted to the narcotics his surgeon at Sturdy Memorial Hospital prescribed to dull the pain, and in the years that followed, he lost 40 pounds, his job, and his marriage.
Finally, a doctor in Boston told Whitney that the surgeon had made a terrible mistake, embedding surgical staples into his bladder. Whitney didn't know it at the time, but he wasn't alone: State regulators have alleged that *****Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez***** provided dangerously substandard care to at least seven other patients from 2000 to 2003, including two who died as a result.
But, by the time Massachusetts officials lodged formal charges against Veizaga-Mendez in January, the Bolivia-trained surgeon had already moved on to a new job at a veterans' hospital in rural Illinois - where he is in deep trouble again. The US Department of Veterans Affairs is investigating Veizaga-Mendez's role in *****the deaths of up to 10 patients over the past two years*****, including a 50-year-old Air Force veteran who died after what was expected to be routine gallbladder surgery on Aug. 9, 2007.
"When I heard about the veterans, I called my wife and said 'He's at it again,' " said Whitney, who has been pain-free since doctors at Brigham and Women's Hospital removed the last staple from his bladder in 2001.
"They survived wars and bombs, and they go in for a simple operation and they die . . . I blame [Veizaga-Mendez] for everything."
Now the two US senators from Illinois want to know how Veizaga-Mendez, 69, could get a job in their state in January 2006 while he was under investigation for negligence in another. Several national databases are supposed to provide information on doctors who have been sued or punished for providing poor care, a setup designed to prevent them from continuing their practice by moving to another state. But Veizaga-Mendez showed how easy it is to beat the system: He simply relocated to an out-of-state hospital before the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine made public the results of an investigation that took more than two years.
Senators Richard J. Durbin and Barack Obama have criticized the Department of Veterans Affairs for not asking more questions about Veizaga-Mendez's background before hiring him. "This is an extremely alarming revelation that calls into question the adequacy of the oversight exercised by the VA as it evaluates and monitors those who provide care to our veterans," they wrote earlier this month to the VA, which has reassigned four administrators at the Marion VA Medical Center, pending results of an independent investigation.
But the case also illustrates an oversight system that sometimes protects doctors' rights at the expense of patients. Like medical regulators in many states, Massachusetts officials are not allowed to talk publicly about ongoing investigations, even to potential employers. As a result, when VA officials called to ask why Veizaga-Mendez had "voluntarily" agreed to suspend his Massachusetts medical license in the summer of 2006, medical board officials acknowledge that they said nothing about the ongoing investigation. In fact, the board listed the suspension as "nondisciplinary" with the tracking databases.
Meanwhile, Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro, where Veizaga-Mendez worked as a general surgeon for nearly 30 years, quietly disciplined Veizaga-Mendez in 2004, but allowed him to continue performing surgeries until he left Sturdy in 2006.
The hospital forwarded numerous allegations of substandard care to the state medical board for investigation, according to state records. But the hospital, saying it's a confidential personnel matter, will not discuss - or even acknowledge - the punishment or the report to the state.
A lawyer for Veizaga-Mendez in Chicago, A. Jay Goldstein, declined to comment, and attempts to reach the doctor through his wife, a cancer specialist at Sturdy Memorial, were unsuccessful. A woman who answered the phone hung up on a reporter.
Veizaga-Mendez's case is not isolated. Nearly 90 percent of the 5,000 doctors who faced disciplinary action in the United States last year had medical licenses in more than one state, according to the Federation of State Medical Boards, giving them the option of moving to another state to practice if they fear losing their license in the first. *****As Veizaga-Mendez's troubles deepened in Illinois in August, he applied for a license in yet another state, North Dakota.*****
Medical regulators have become far better at tracking dangerous doctors since the early 1990s when serial killer Michael Swango poisoned patients and co-workers at several hospitals, repeatedly landing new jobs with forged documents. In recent years, regulators using the federation's national alert service have caught numerous would-be border-jumpers.
But Dr. James N. Thompson, the federation president, acknowledges that the system remains vulnerable to doctors who deliberately deceive regulators. Massachusetts regulators say they would have known about Veizaga-Mendez's problems at least a year earlier if he had disclosed two malpractice lawsuits that had been filed against him, including one by Whitney, when he renewed his medical license in 2003. Instead, Veizaga-Mendez is facing licensing fraud charges four years after the fact.
"That's a tough situation," acknowledged Thompson. He said regulators have to keep investigations secret, but should do more to complete the work quickly and release their findings. "The sooner they can investigate and complete investigative actions, the less likely it is that someone can go to another jurisdiction."
That's not any comfort to Katrina Shank, whose husband, Robert E. Shank III, died from massive internal bleeding on Aug. 10, 2007, at Marion VA hospital one day after Veizaga-Mendez performed a minimally invasive surgery to remove his gallbladder. She has filed a notice of intent to *****sue the VA for $12 million*****, alleging that Veizaga-Mendez botched the operation, then waited too long to reopen her husband's incision to stop the bleeding.
She also alleges that the VA was negligent in letting Veizaga-Mendez perform surgery at all.
Veizaga-Mendez resigned three days later, and by the end of August, the 55-bed hospital had shut down all inpatient surgery amid concerns that the hospital had suffered a much higher-than-expected death rate in cases he was involved with.
Durbin and Obama have said that several of the 10 deaths under investigation involved complex surgeries that were beyond Veizaga-Mendez's skill level as a general surgeon without specialized credentials.
"The guy has no clue as to what his limitations are," Dr. Stanley Heller of Chicago, a lawyer who represents Katrina Shank, said in an interview. Heller said his firm is also investigating a surgery in which Veizaga-Mendez allegedly took out the wrong section of a cancer patient's lung.
Others wondered whether Veizaga-Mendez's skills as a surgeon had declined or his health had declined. In February , he underwent surgery for a detached retina.
Bennett Bergman, a Rhode Island lawyer, said he suspected Veizaga-Mendez was doing work he wasn't qualified for when he represented the family of a 58-year-old man who died of an infection in 2000 after the surgeon performed minimally invasive surgery for acid reflux. Bergman argued in a lawsuit that the surgeon was doing a procedure that he had learned to do during a weekend seminar in Cincinnati and that he lacked the skill to do it correctly. He also argued that the procedure was wholly unnecessary to treat the patient, Geronimo Coronado.
"Mr. Coronado had come in for burping up. Dr. Veizaga-Mendez saw a dangerous procedure that would potentially kill him, and he went forward with it," said Bergman.
Veizaga-Mendez's malpractice insurance company paid the family an undisclosed amount in 2004, but Bergman didn't drop the issue. Months later, when he did not see disclosure of the lawsuit in Veizaga-Mendez's profile at the Board of Registration's website, he mailed the board a copy of the doctor's testimony about Coronado's surgery.
By then, Sturdy Memorial officials had already reported to the state - as required by law - that they had disciplined Veizaga-Mendez for providing substandard care, triggering the medical board to conduct its own inquiry. For more than two years, the board interviewed witnesses and gathered evidence about seven patients who were injured or killed allegedly because of Veizaga-Mendez's quality of care, including a 20-year-old man who suffered a lacerated aorta when the surgeon tried to perform a minimally invasive hernia repair. The investigation also looked at a 72-year-old man who, like Shank in Illinois, died from postsurgical bleeding that Veizaga-Mendez was allegedly slow to treat.
Byron Taylor, the lawyer who represented Whitney, said he believes that Veizaga-Mendez's problems began in the 1990s as he started to perform minimally invasive surgeries, which are done using surgical tools and a miniature video camera called a laparoscope that are inserted through small incisions. Taylor said Veizaga-Mendez successfully repaired Whitney's hernia in 1981 using a standard 6-inch incision that allowed the surgeon to see the injury more easily. But when Whitney came back for hernia repair in 1997, Veizaga-Mendez suggested the laparoscopic surgery that ended so disastrously.
In the lawsuit, Veizaga-Mendez argued that the surgical staples embedded in Whitney's bladder drifted there from the site of the hernia operation, but in March, a Fall River jury ordered the surgeon to pay Whitney and his estranged wife $652,000 for their ordeal.
However, both the jury verdict and the findings of the state investigation released in January came a full year after Veizaga-Mendez had gone to work at the Marion VA hospital. Officials there said that when they hired him, Veizaga-Mendez had no limits on his medical license in Massachusetts and no history of disciplinary action.
Russell Aims, Massachusetts medical board spokesman, said the investigation into Veizaga-Mendez did not take an unusually long time considering that it involved multiple patients - a process that can generate thousands of pages of paperwork. He said the board urges doctors facing lengthy inquiries to consider voluntary license suspensions to protect patients, but acknowledged that doesn't help other states.
As a result, he said, Veizaga-Mendez essentially got more than two years' notice to find a job in another state before Massachusetts made its findings public.
"It may just be bad timing," said Aims.
Scott Allen can be reached at allen@globe.com.
SUSAN STEFAN
Wrong place for mental-health care
By Susan Stefan | November 7, 2007
HOSPITAL emergency departments are among the least appropriate and most expensive places in Massachusetts for patients in psychiatric crisis. Yet these departments are where police, families, group homes, nursing homes, and others routinely take people who are agitated, panicked, or threatening to hurt themselves. Emergency departments are also where people go at the end of the month when their medications run out, when their primary physicians can't see them for two weeks, when they are frightened or desperate and have nowhere to turn after 5 p.m. and their therapist's answering machine tells them to go to the emergency room.
Emergency departments and these patients in crisis are both victims of a healthcare system that increasingly relies on emergency care to cover gaps in basic mental health and social services. Once at the emergency department, psychiatric patients wait twice as long for help as other patients, often in escalating frustration. Their interactions with harried staff, who often have little mental-health training and resent the long-term occupation of emergency beds, can make matters worse. Emergency departments don't have much time to provide reassurance, and often resort to restraint and seclusion - sometimes even handcuffs and pepper spray. Many psychiatric patients recount harrowing and traumatic experiences: As the Globe reported this summer, psychiatric patients sometimes die and have bones broken in emergency departments. They are often stripped of clothing and left for hours.
This has to stop, for all our sakes: the emergency departments, people with psychiatric disabilities, and taxpayers who pick up the tab.
This problem isn't restricted to Massachusetts. Recently, Rhode Island's mental-health advocate sued the state, arguing that involuntary detention in nontherapeutic emergency rooms for days without treatment violated state constitutional and statutory obligations. A few months earlier, advocates in New York filed a far-reaching lawsuit to end emergency department overcrowding and mistreatment at King's County Hospital Center.
In Massachusetts, advocates and patients have sought help from the Legislature. In September, Massachusetts lawmakers heard witnesses tell horror stories of their experiences in emergency departments, sometimes after going there just for medical care. Bills filed by Representatives Ruth Balser and Peter Koutoujian would authorize regulations to protect people with psychiatric disabilities in Massachusetts emergency departments.
This legislation is desperately needed. Currently, there are no state rules limiting or even regulating the use of restraint, seclusion, handcuffs, or forced stripping in emergency departments. The public health and mental health departments, however, opposed the legislation, stating they would instead work with hospitals to voluntarily improve the treatment that people with psychiatric disabilities receive in emergency departments. We hope that these promises will yield concrete improvements; publicly available statistics about restraints of psychiatric patients in emergency departments (as is required of all inpatient psychiatric units) would be a good first step.
Yet while changing emergency department practices toward psychiatric patients is essential, it is equally essential to prevent as many of these emergency department visits as possible.
Yet the state could well take a step in the wrong direction. Proposed regulations by the Department of Mental Health would allow people who need psychiatric evaluations to be sent to emergency departments. A better option would be to increase mental-health services for people with psychiatric disabilities. This could include emergency service workers who provide crisis evaluation in the community; nighttime crisis services; and crisis beds outside emergency departments. Helping patients get to medical appointments, find primary-care doctors, and pay for medication would be more cost-effective and less traumatizing for patients than a visit to an emergency room.
Emergency departments were never meant to be a home for the most difficult clients of exhausted and underfunded social service agencies. People with psychiatric disabilities need a better option. The answers are out there; the question is whether the will to implement them exists.
Susan Stefan is director of the National Emergency Department Project at the Center for Public Representation.
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