Why Are Things As They Are?

 We Say Fight Back!

the fabulous full size Rouge Forum Poster–a few are left!   http://www.rougeforum.org/posters.html

Fighting the results of Freire-Fave Lulu, In Brazil, labor protests ramp up as World Cup nears   A month before the start of the World Cup soccer tournament, organized labor groups across Brazil have begun a series of strikes and other protests for higher pay and better working conditions.Associations of police officers, teachers, transportation workers, public employees and security guards have all left their posts or engaged in demonstrations, joining groups of homeless people and political activists also taking to the streets as the June 12 kickoff of the FIFA competition looms.More actions are planned in coming days, adding to the concern that as the eyes of the world focus on the South American nation, it might be paralyzed by widespread protests similar to those in which more than 1 million people participated last summer.   http://touch.latimes.com/#section/1780/article/p2p-80234091/

Turkey mine disaster: unions launch national strike Here’s a summary of the main events so far today:
Turkish unions held a one-day strike to protest against mine safety standards after 282 people were killed in the country’s worst ever mining accident. Protests have been reported in several towns and cities including Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Zonguldak. In Soma itself protesters were chanted: “Soma’s coal with burn the government.”
The funerals have been taking place for some of the victims. Mourners sang laments for their loved ones as more graves were dug.
The eventual death toll could exceed 400 as more bodies emerge from the Soma mine. Turkey’s energy minister Taner Yildiz said rescue teams have recovered eight more victims raising the current death toll to 282. There are thought to be up to 150 miners still underground, and no survivors have been rescued since Wednesday morning.
Police fired water cannon and tear at thousands of protesters in Izmir. A union leader was injured in the crackdown.
Mounting political anger about the tragedy is being fuelled by photographs showing an aide to Recep Tayyip Erdogan kicking a protester as the prime minister received a hostile reception in Soma on Wednesday.  http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/15/turkey-mine-disaster-unions-launch-national-strike-live-updates?CMP=ema_565

Fast-food workers walked off their jobs in dozens of cities on Thursday, demanding a $15-an-hour minimum wage.   Workers joined protest marches in New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Raleigh, N.C, and other major U.S. cities, according to union organizers. They said workers would be joining strikes in 150 cities and several countries.  http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/15/news/economy/fast-food-strike/

Smith Students Ban Imperialist IMF (and more)  A former secretary of state, the head of the International Monetary Fund, a university chancellor. All high-profile speakers on the prestigious college commencement address circuit. And yet each one was shamed – by students and even some faculty – into backing out of coveted invitations this graduation season.Feisty campus dissent is back. And it’s winning.

In the last few weeks alone, campaigns at three schools forced commencement speakers to pass up significant speaker fees rather than face angry campuses. The last-minute cancellations have proved embarrassing to school leaders and have raised concerns about free speech and exposure to opposing views in settings designed to foster free thought.  And while the art of protesting commencement speakers is nothing new, it is on the rise. Greg Lukianoff, the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, tracks data on protests. Since 1987, he said, there have been 148 instances in which students railed against potential commencement speakers. Of the 148 cases, about 100 took place in the past five years and resulted in 39 cancellations.  http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/college-commencement-speakers-backing-out-trend

Free (not so free) Speech on California Campuses–a legal outline  http://cdn.aclusandiego.org/wp-content/uploads/article/2009%2011%2009%20Southwestern%20College.pdf

The Little Red Schoolhouse

Gangster Capitalist University President Released From Prison Former University of Louisville dean, Robert Felner, is set to be released from federal prison on Monday, May 12, 2014. (The original projected date was May 11, 2014)At 63-years-old with one of the most corrupt criminal histories in higher education, one can’t help but wonder what he’ll be up to once out.

He’ll be on three years of supervised release. That probably won’t lend itself to having much high-life fun like he used to have.Not familiar with Robert Felner or the scandals we uncovered? Click here for a slight refresher. Or click on his name on the side to read the hundreds of Felner stories since day one.  http://pageonekentucky.com/2014/05/09/felner-update-release-from-prison-imminent/#more-34183

LA’s John Deasy and Criminal Robert Felner Deasy claims to have earned his PhD at the University of Louisville (UL) in the College of Education. The Dean of the College at the time was one Robert Felner, now serving a jail term of 63 months for a variety of frauds committed against UL — and other universities.

One charge against Feiner was the misappropriation of a $649,000 federal grant. In total, Felner was convicted of stealing $2.3 million in research grants. He was ordered to pay UL $51,000 and the University of Rhode Island $1.3 million. Felner resigned from UL in 2008. He was sentenced on May 17, 2010.John Deasy earned his PhD directly under Felner, in a period of four months, earning nine UL credit hours.
Prior to coming to UL, Deasy had awarded Felner’s research company, the National Center on Public Education and Social Policy, a $375,000 grant from the Santa Monica district where Deasy was head.Before he came to UL, Felner had been dean at the University of Rhode Island’s College of Education from 1996-2003. Deasy studied there in the same period, while Deasy was also a Rhode Island school superintendent.  According to a highly placed source, formerly at UL, Deasy’s dissertation’s title page carries the date, “May, 2003,” while it is signed off, “April 9, 2004.” He entered the program in January, 2004.  http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1896

Capitalist Schools are inherently segregated   But while the Supreme Court’s striking of school segregation changed the social and political dynamics of schooling America’s children, it’s arguable that 60 years later, students in public schools in all corners of the country are more segregated now than they were a generation ago – in some cases, more so than when the court decided Brown.The vast majority of American students still attend schools where most students look like them and come from similar socio-economic backgrounds. The typical black student attends a school where 49% of their classmates are also black, 28% are white, 17% are Latino, and 4% are Asian-American. The statistics for Latino students cuts largely along the same lines. The average Latino student is enrolled at a school where 57% of his or her classmates are also Latino, 25% are white, 11% are black, and 5% are Asian.

About 15% of black students attend what Professor Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, calls “apartheid schools,” in which 99% to 100% of their classmates are non-white.But the most pronounced lack of diversity is found in schools where the typical white student attends. About 73% of their classmates are white, 12% are Latino, 8% are black, and 4% are Asian.  http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/brown-v-board-six-decades-segregation-philadelphia

50 Years since Brown vs Board, Fully Segregated Reality Shows the Power of Capital and Racism combined —New York State’s Extreme  School Segregation  New York’s record on school segregation by race and poverty is dismal now and hasbeen for a very long time. The children who most depend on the public schools for any chance in
life are concentrated in schools struggling with all the dimensions of family and neighborhood
poverty and isolation. In spite of the epic struggle for more equitable funding in New York, there
is a striking relationship between segregated education and unequal school success. Although
many middle class families of all races would like their children to be educated in successful
diverse schools, there are few such opportunities.  A great center of American liberalism, New York seemed to turn away when race issues came close to home. The city, its leaders, its members of Congress, its intellectuals, its religious
leaders, the great philanthropic foundations, were on the front lines of the struggle to desegregate
the South. New York’s Kenneth Clark was one of the intellectual leaders in this struggle that led
to Brown v. Board of Education, but his pleas to do something about New York’s separate
schools were largely ignored. There were very big protests asking for school integration in New
York City. The truth is, however, that most of the country’s effort to end segregated schools
came during the civil rights era of the l960s and early l970s, and were located in the South.  http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/ny-norflet-report-placeholder/Kucsera-New-York-Extreme-Segregation-2014.pdf

MEAP Shriek Part One —MEAP fight spurs bid to shift Michigan testing authority– A state lawmaker wants responsibility for K-12 assessments stripped from the Michigan Department of Education and transferred to the state Treasury Department in the wake of a standoff over selection of a new online test for students.

State Rep. Bob Genetski, R-Saugatuck, introduced a bill late Wednesday calling for the change, saying that he was tired of “the go-around” with the MDE over demands by lawmakers for an alternative to the Smarter Balanced assessment. The department wants lawmakers to approve the online test for the 2014-15 school year.Smarter Balanced was to replace the 40-year-old Michigan Education Assessment Program, or MEAP.It’s obvious the department has favored Smarter Balanced. In the Legislature’s efforts to garner more information and find the best test for students in the long term, it is my belief we have been stonewalled and not fully let in on various aspects of policy,” Genetski said.  From The Detroit News: www.detroitnews.com/article/20140515/SCHOOLS/305150041#ixzz322hFHqGh

MEAP Creep and the Common Corpse (nobody but RFers mentions the social context–empire and capitalism)  This year, Michigan schools started using the Common Core standards, a set of voluntary educational guidelines developed by the National Governors Association. They’ll be fully implemented in the 2014-15 school year. Common Core is an attempt to create consistent standards for K-12 education. Before the core standards, educational goals and the tests that determine whether those goals are being reached were conceived by individual states.  http://www.freep.com/article/20140516/COL43/305160027/common-core-smarter-balanced-meap-standardized-testing-michigan

Another DC Test Cheat  ?  A fifth-grade teacher at a District public school allegedly stole a peek at part of a high-stakes standardized exam in April and used that peek to create an illicit study guide for her students so they’d perform well.The incident at Plummer Elementary in Southeast Washington, disclosed here for the first time, led the school system to place Principal Christopher Gray on leave while an investigation is underway.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-elementary-school-teacher-reportedly-gave-students-illicit-help-on-standardized-test/2014/05/14/d5b66724-dbae-11e3-bda1-9b46b2066796_story.html

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

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Social Fascists vs Democrofascist for Empire in Ukraine When Russia seized Crimea in March, it acquired not just the Crimean landmass but also a maritime zone more than three times its size with the rights to underwater resources potentially worth trillions of dollars.Russia portrayed the takeover as reclamation of its rightful territory, drawing no attention to the oil and gas rush that had recently been heating up in the Black Sea. But the move also extended Russia’s maritime boundaries, quietly giving Russia dominion over vast oil and gas reserves while dealing a crippling blow to Ukraine’s hopes for energy independence.

Russia did so under an international accord that gives nations sovereignty over areas up to 230 miles from their shorelines. It had tried, unsuccessfully, to gain access to energy resources in the same territory in a pact with Ukraine less than two years earlier.“It’s a big deal,” said Carol R. Saivetz, a Eurasian expert in the Security Studies Program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It deprives Ukraine of the possibility of developing these resources and gives them to Russia. It makes Ukraine more vulnerable to Russian pressure.”  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/world/europe/in-taking-crimea-putin-gains-a-sea-of-fuel-reserves.html?hp

The U.S. Military’s New Normal in Africa   A Secret African Mission and an African Mission that’s No Secret  (Nick Turse)  What is Operation New Normal?It’s a question without an answer, a riddle the U.S. military refuses to solve. It’s a secret operation in Africa that no one knows anything about. Except that someone does. His name is Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee Magee. He lives and breathes Operation New Normal. But he doesn’t want to breath paint fumes or talk to me, so you can’t know anything about it.Confused? Stay with me.

Whatever Operation New Normal may be pales in comparison to the real “new normal” for U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). The lower-cased variant is bold and muscular. It’s an expeditionary force on a war footing. To the men involved, it’s a story of growth and expansion, new battlefields, “combat,” and “war.” It’s the culmination of years of construction, ingratiation, and interventions, the fruits of wide-eyed expansion and dismal policy failures, the backing of proxies to fight America’s battles, while increasing U.S. personnel and firepower in and around the continent. It is, to quote an officer with AFRICOM, the blossoming of a “war-fighting combatant command.” And unlike Operation New Normal, it’s finally heading for a media outlet near you.  http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175844/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_how_%22benghazi%22_birthed_the_new_normal_in_africa/#more

blame him

Ignored, mistreated and turned away: Tales from the Phoenix VA  The veterans who use the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health System are angry, sick and scared.They say they call and call, but get no answer.They say they are ignored, disrespected and turned away by employees with no medical training.They say they wait months for an appointment with a primary care doctor, then wait several more months to see a specialist.

More than 200 veterans and family members packed into American Legion Post 41 to share horror stories of delays, misdiagnoses and poor treatment with the national commander of the American Legion and the interim director of the Phoenix VA. Steve Young took over after whistleblowers revealed secret waiting lists used to cover up backlogs and extensive wait times. One of the whistleblowers, Dr. Samuel Foote, said there are at least 13,000 patients without primary care doctors, and even more who can’t get timely specialty appointments or follow-ups.

He said 40 veterans died while waiting for appointments in Phoenix VA clinics, and VA wrongdoings have surfaced in at least 10 states   http://www.stripes.com/news/ignored-mistreated-and-turned-away-tales-from-the-phoenix-va-1.283413

Where Nationalism and Betrayals won out  —China Targeted by Vietnamese in Fiery Riots–BINH DUONG PROVINCE, Vietnam — Dozens of foreign-owned factories near Ho Chi Minh City lay in charred ruins early Thursday after thousands of Vietnamese workers rampaged over China’s latest efforts to control the South China Sea, this time off Vietnam’s coast.The riots marked a rare outpouring of popular outrage over China’s increasingly insistent claims to strategically important, resource-rich seas. But in their rage, the Vietnamese workers appeared to misdirect their anger, attacking businesses from countries that took the risk of investing in their nation.The explosion of violence reflected growing animosity in the region as China works to solidify its claims over vast parts of two seas that other nations have long considered their own  On Wednesday, the conflict played out not only in Vietnam, but also in the Philippines, which said it lodged a formal protest with China over signs that it is reclaiming land at a contested coral reef. But so far, neither the Philippines nor Vietnam has gotten much backing among other Southeast Asian nations, some of which count on China for investment and aid.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/15/world/asia/foreign-factories-in-vietnam-weigh-damage-in-anti-china-riots.html?hp&_r=1

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

The Politics of Income Inequality  he income of a typical American family has barely risen since the 1970s. The share of national income captured by the richest 1 percent of Americans is even higher than it was at the dawn of the 20th century.

The parallel offers valuable insight into one of the most important questions posed by the nation’s lopsided development: Can democracy stop inequality from rising? Despite the gains of the Progressive Era, the answer echoing down the halls of history is not encouraging.Basic models of political economy hold that inequality self-corrects. As income concentrates among a smaller group of voters, majorities will vote for more redistribution.

But that isn’t quite how the world works. For starters, the poor vote less than the rich. And they don’t vote exclusively based on their economic self-interest. Many Americans, rich or poor, mistrust government. They support free-market capitalism and view the distribution of the nation’s economic fruits as roughly fair.

The growing concentration of income can, in fact, make inequality more difficult to correct, as the wealthy bring their wealth to bear on the political process to maintain their privilege.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/business/economy/the-politics-of-income-inequality.html

Southwestern College CA Fave Qatar government admits almost 1,000 fatalities among migrant workers   t hundreds of workers have died, many of them from unexplained sudden illness, over the past two years, at a rate of more than one a day.www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/14/qatar-admits-deaths-in-migrant-workers?CMP=ema_565

Banking Hundreds of Billions in Profits, Government Motors wrist slapped for murder  G.M. will pay a $35 million penalty — the maximum allowed and the largest ever imposed on an automaker — and will be required to make wide-ranging changes to its safety practices that will be supervised by the government, another first for an automaker….“A penalty of $35 million is a parking ticket in comparison the toll this defect has taken on the lives of America’s families,” Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in a statement. A proposal before Congress, pushed by the safety agency, would raise the maximum penalty in future cases to $300 million.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/17/business/us-fines-general-motors-35-million-for-lapses-on-ignition-switch-defect.html?emc=edit_th_20140517&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=2254121&_r=0

Hunter BIDEN joins Ukrainian Gas Firm Hunter Biden, son of US VP Joe Biden, is joining the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, Ukraine’s largest private gas producer. The group has prospects in eastern Ukraine where civil war is threatened following the coup in Kiev.Biden will advise on “transparency, corporate governance and responsibility, international expansion and other priorities” to “contribute to the economy and benefit the people of Ukraine.”Joe Biden’s senior campaign adviser in 2004, financier Devon Archer, a business partner of Hunter Biden’s, also joined the Bursima board claiming it was like ‘Exxon in the old days’.  http://rt.com/business/158660-biden-son-ukraine-company/

What Corporate State (fake free marketer)  Bankster Geitner Really thinks (Sorkin)  When the housing bubble burst in 2008, Geithner was the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Along with Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Henry M. Paulson, the Treasury secretary at the time, Geithner was charged with essentially saving the economy from sliding into the abyss. The so-called troika devised the plan to inject billions of the government’s dollars directly into the banking system, effectively turning taxpayers into shareholders of massive, failing institutions. When he then ascended to Treasury secretary in 2009, Geithner became the public face of an economic-recovery program that, in Paulson’s words, “polled worse than torture.” The far-left labeled him an Ayn Rand capitalist, the far-right a socialist. Sheila Bair, the former head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, called his appointment to Treasury a “punch in the gut.” The Daily Kos, a left-leaning blog, published a story titled, “Why Tim Geithner Should Go to Jail.” At the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2009, even President Obama joked that a goal of his second hundred days would be to house-train his new dog, Bo, “because the last thing Tim Geithner needs is someone else treating him like a fire hydrant.”Through it all, Geithner has maintained that saving the banks was the only way to protect the U.S. economic system   www.nytimes.com/2014/05/11/magazine/what-timothy-geithner-really-thinks.html?_r=0

Bye Bye Net Neutrality and thanks Obamagogue United States President Barack Obama’s commitment to net neutrality is being questioned after the Federal Communications Commission officials appointed on his watch voted Thursday to advance a plan believed by many to be a blow to the open internet  http://rt.com/usa/

The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement

Zappatistas Attacked On May 2, 2014, in the Zapatista territory of La Realidad, Chiapas, Mexico, the group CIOAC-Histórica [with the participation of the Green Ecological Party and the National Action Party (PAN)], planned and executed a paramilitary attack on unarmed Zapatista civilians. An autonomous Zapatista school and clinic was destroyed, 15 people were ambushed and injured and Jose Luis Solis Lopez (Galeano), teacher at the Zapatista Little School, was murdered. The mainstream media is falsely reporting this attack on the Zapatistas as an intra-community confrontation, but in fact this attack is the result of a long-term counterinsurgency strategy promoted by the Mexican government.  http://www.anattackonusall.org/

Price for new prison at Guantanamo rises to $69 million  The proposed price of an exclusive new prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, rose by $20 million in a year because designers added meeting rooms and a medical clinic for 15 former CIA captives, including accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, a military spokesman saidMonday.Last year, the military estimated it would cost $49 million to build a new Camp 7, Guantanamo’s name for its clandestine high-value detainee lockup. Last week, the U.S. House Armed Services Committee earmarked $69 million in its proposed budget for 2015 Defense Departmen spending to build the new prison.Construction is not assured because the full Congress has yet to take up the budget.”The original estimated cost was made pre-site-selection,” said Army Col. Greg Julian, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees the detention center that holds 154 terrorism suspects and a 2,200-member staff.Read more here: www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/05/12/227251/price-for-new-prison-at-guantanamo.html#emlnl=Most_Popular_This_Week#storylink=cpy

India, which has a Bomb, Elects Superstitious fascist The Indian people have spoken and have elected Narendra Modi resoundingly as their man to lead their impoverished but promising nation of some 1.25 billion people. Modi has been described by many as a ruthless murderer, a fascist, a racist and a bigot, espousing a chauvinist agenda that favor one community, i.e., Hindus, over others in this caste-ridden nation of many creeds. His supporters, on the other hand, see him as a Hitler-like avatar that could work miracles, delivering results that would re-position India in the global arena as a power broker.  http://www.asiantribune.com/node/79691

Solidarity for Never

High-Power Tug of War Over (sellout)  Teachers’ Deal   Publicly, the news trickled out in humdrum fashion, in a jargon-filled statement that City Hall officials were quick to play down: The de Blasio administration would make a $725 million “adjustment” to its big-ticket settlement with the New York City teachers’ union.

Behind the scenes, a high-stakes tug of war unfolded between the city’s two most powerful elected officials: Mayor Bill de Blasio, eager to trumpet the first big labor contract of his young administration, and the city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, whose team had discovered basic accounting problems with the deal.In a series of extraordinary weekend meetings that started with an evening summit at Gracie Mansion, Mr. de Blasio and his senior aides pushed back at Mr. Stringer’s critique, even soliciting a memo from an accounting expert in California arguing that their deal was in compliance with standard accounting principles.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/15/nyregion/high-power-tug-of-war-over-teachers-deal.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140515&nlid=2254121&tntemail0=y&_r=0

AFT’s Quisling Weingarten whine about segregation while Sitting on top of the locals in the Most Segregated cities in the USA—and in NYC bargaining a 9 year contract that makes sure things stay that way  Sixty years ago, segregation was largely considered a southern problem. Today, it’s a national problem  When the Supreme Court took up Brown v. Board of Education and ruled unanimously that separate is not equal–and in the years since–the AFT fought for equal access for all of our childen. Today, we’re fighting those who would roll back the progress we’ve made in the years since Brown.  http://action.aft.org/c/44/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=8544

Spy versus Spy

Bill to curb NSA spying looks like change, but isn’t really  The bipartisan bill that aims to put serious curbs on the National Security Agency’s mass collection of Americans’ communications is being hailed by Republicans and Democrats as a big breakthrough.It’s not.“The bottom line: This is largely faux reform and a surveillance salve,” said Thomas Drake, a former NSA senior official turned whistle-blower who’s critical of the agency’s collection programs. “To date, neither the House nor Senate attempts go far enough.”That’s not easy to discern, thanks to an outpouring of raves for the legislation. Democrats, Republicans and traditionally skeptical watchdog groups have put their muscle behind the USA Freedom Act.  The House of Representatives is expected to vote on its version of the bill next week, the first time since news about the surveillance broke last year that major legislation supported by top congressional leaders like this has come to the floor. The Senate might take up its own version as early as this summer.The top Republican and Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee even issued a joint statement praising the bipartisan cooperation, a rarely seen trait around Congress these days.  Read more here: www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/05/15/227551/bill-to-curb-nsa-spying-looks.html#emlnl=Morning_Newsletter#storylink=cpy

United States of Secrets–the Thin Thread story  video.pbs.org/video/2365245528/

Tomgram: Glenn Greenwald, How I Met Edward Snowden   (first Chapter of GG’s book)  On December 1, 2012, I received my first communication from Edward Snowden, although I had no idea at the time that it was from him.

The contact came in the form of an email from someone calling himself Cincinnatus, a reference to Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer who, in the fifth century BC, was appointed dictator of Rome to defend the city against attack. He is most remembered for what he did after vanquishing Rome’s enemies: he immediately and voluntarily gave up political power and returned to farming life. Hailed as a “model of civic virtue,” Cincinnatus has become a symbol of the use of political power in the public interest and the worth of limiting or even relinquishing individual power for the greater good.

The email began: “The security of people’s communications is very important to me,” and its stated purpose was to urge me to begin using PGP encryption so that “Cincinnatus” could communicate things in which, he said, he was certain I would be interested. Invented in 1991, PGP stands for “pretty good privacy.” It has been developed into a sophisticated tool to shield email and other forms of online communications from surveillance and hacking.  http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175843

Book Reveals Wider Net of U.S. Spying on Envoys  in May 2010, when the United Nations Security Council was weighing sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, several members were undecided about how they would vote. The American ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice, asked the National Security Agency for help “so that she could develop a strategy,” a leaked agency document shows.

The N.S.A. swiftly went to work, developing the paperwork to obtain legal approval for spying on diplomats from four Security Council members — Bosnia, Gabon, Nigeria and Uganda — whose embassies and missions were not already under surveillance. The following month, 12 members of the 15-seat Security Council voted to approve new sanctions, with Lebanon abstaining and only Brazil and Turkey voting against.Later that summer, Ms. Rice thanked the agency, saying its intelligence had helped her to know when diplomats from the other permanent representatives — China, England, France and Russia — “were telling the truth … revealed their real position on sanctions … gave us an upper hand in negotiations … and provided information on various countries ‘red lines.’ ”            The two documents laying out that episode, both leaked by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden, are reproduced in a new book by Glenn Greenwald, “No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the N.S.A., and the U.S. Surveillance State.” The book is being published Tuesday.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/13/world/middleeast/book-reveals-wider-net-of-us-spying-on-envoys.html?hp

The Magical Mystery Tour

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

Have a Care! CDC: Syphilis Reaches Highest Level Since 1995, Steady Rise In Gay And Bisexual Men   Health officials say syphilis has reached its highest level since 1995 with the increase all in men.Syphilis remains far less common in the U.S. than many other sexually spread diseases. But there has been a steady rise in gay and bisexual men catching the disease. They account for most of the recent infectious cases.Since 2005, the rate in men has nearly doubled. It is much lower in women and hasn’t changed much.Syphilis is a potentially deadly bacterial disease that surfaces as genital sores. It was far more common until antibiotics became available in the 1940s, slashing the number of annual cases to below 6,000. Last year, there were nearly 17,000 cases.  http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2014/05/09/cdc-syphilis-reaches-highest-level-since-1995-steady-rise-in-gay-and-bisexual-men/

Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber  In the fall of 1958 Theodore Kaczynski, a brilliant but vulnerable boy of sixteen, entered Harvard College. There he encountered a prevailing intellectual atmosphere of anti-technological despair. There, also, he was deceived into subjecting himself to a series of purposely brutalizing psychological experiments — experiments that may have confirmed his still-forming belief in the evil of science. Was the Unabomber born at Harvard? A look inside the files  http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/06/chase.htm