Salon Weekly
~ In 4 Color-Coded Sections:
- Table Notes
- Events & Opportunities
- Articles, Letters (“opinions expressed are not necessarily mine”...ellen)
- Books, Reviews, Films, Magazines
- Tri-State Treasures: mysteriously absent this week.
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................................................... Section One: Table Notes ............................................................................ (Note: these notes were taken at the table and have NOT been approved or corrected by the speakers. Reader beware of inevitable misunderstandings and misrepresentations. E.B.)
At the table Wednesday 8/6/08
Anthony Lonrenzo , Mark Schlachter , Rosemary Schlachter , Judy Cirillo, Alan Jozwiak, Dwane Shaw, Mr. G., Derek Lester, Josh True , Bill Limbacher, Carolyn Aufderhaar, Shawn Charton, Ellen Bierhorst, Linda Gruber. Jonathan Rosenberg, Dorothy Rettay, , Brooke Audreyal, Ginger Lee Frank
Shawn read preamble.
Two special topics tonight: Rosemary will present on “Galvanic Spa II” skin rejuvenation gadget. And Anthony will present on the restoration of Proportional Representaton voting in Cincinnati.
Jonathan tomorrow 9 pm people all over world lighting candles for Free Tibet. See web sit, “Light protest”. At home or in public. Will be a group at Fountain Square.
Bill Friend is starting his business (power washing service):
ROSEMARY
Luigi Galvano invented electrical current in 1790’s. Galvanic current used in posh spas in Europe... Sophia Loren.
Judy will be model.
You can zap hair follicales for more hair, or skin cells to produce more collegen, elastin; it’s great for acne. Reducing cellulite, acne.
Before and after photos of Rosemary.
Last summer and last April. After lots of Galvanic skin treatment. Younger looking.
Incidentally, you can measure your anti oxydent score to feel better. I’ll come back to present on that. All part of NuSkin Enterprises.
(Judy puts neg. charged gel on R side of her face.)
Then set the Galvanic Spa on “negative” and “five minutes”.
Put it on Judy’s face. Judy then moves the gadget all around her face.
You can use it 3 x / week.
The electricity tones the muscles, stimulates the cells.
Do you feel anything, Judy? (No, I don’t.) some people don’t, others do.
(lifetime?) You should do it forever.
Cost: the kit with the gel, the gadget, the several heads ~ $265 + tax, s&h.
Dorothy it tightens, firms. Really works well. Efficin.
Rosemary anything you put on your face will absorb 70 times better with the Galvanic Spa II. University scientific studies.
Dorothy NuSkin is very scientific...backs up all the claims with scientific studies. PeerReviewed journals. E.g. Dr. Lester Packer, the father of anti oxidents, is on the board of NuSkin.
I am using it on my hair; it does stimulate new growth.
Judy negative side effects?
Rosemary no, none.
Then Judy puts positively charged jell; then the positive charge f rom the Galvanic Spa drives in the gel... The impurities are driven out.
Brooke does it have proplyne glycol? Brooke Dr. Hulda Clark has writen a book on how terrible that is.
Rosemary: no, another type of glycol.
Shawn I hear on radio a treatment for cancer... Inject micro metal... It is absorbed by cancer cells... You zap with radio waves, it kills the cancer.
Anthony studies in the 70’s in Spain using canabis to cure cancer in rats. Also sea weed, esca – another herbal. Most indigenous cultures have cures for cancer.
Rosemary your skin continues to tighten for 24 hours. Now we’ll rinse off the gel.
Cost of gel is about $70/month. But much cheaper than if you went to have it done at a spa.
One of my customers was so enthusiastic she became a distributor and is getting a check of $4,000 after 3 months.
People spend a huge amount of $ on face produce; might as well get one that really works.
(Ellen: you can google “galvanic spa II” online.)
Rosemary: 513 922 5047 website: http://www.rosemarySnseDreams.com email: 25thhour@fuse.net
ANTHONY LORENZO
Working for Fair Vote organization. We are non partisan.
The “9 X” system. If 50% of the voters vote for the same 9 candidates, they get all 9 elected. The other 50% do not have any representation at all.
Also, imagine that you vote for 3 that you like best, 3 that are so so, and 3 that are not so hot, then you are helping the not so hot 3 to defeat the ones you really like in the current 9X system. Your best strategy in that system is to then “bullet vote,” or only vote for the 3 that perfectly match your values. However, this favors those who know that strategy, and the system of PR we are promoting eliminates that strategic element that favors the political machines and elite to the detriment of the poorer, less educated, working class voters.
Also, In the PR system, which was here from 1925 thru 1956. The African amer. Community was only 16% of pop, but were able to elect 2 counselmen, elected Ted Berry mayor.
In 1956 it was repealed. Then the Af. Amer. Community got no representation on council for the next 6 years.
If you are part of say a 10% voting block, you could win one seat as opposed to the majority winning everything.
The trouble with district reps: the in power people can draw the district lines. ... Winner take all systems tend to produce a two party dichotomy, and you have a system where the party in power draws lines to maximize the number of seats they will gain, or can redistrict out someone they don’t like who represents the people well, as in the case of Cynthia McKinney in Georgia.
We also support a popular vote policy to elect presidents rather than the electoral college.
PR is used in 100 small communities across US. Only one, Cambridge MA, uses the form we were in favor of. Since 1950’s.
Who is against PR? The racists here worked to repeal. Also those afraid of communism. Business interests who didn’t want working class people to be represented.
In communities with PR you have more minorities, women ... Also 10 to 15% increase in voter turn out.
How does it work? You pick 9 choices, in rank order.
Also, the candidates in 9X system have to sell out to business interests and raise a minimum of $150,000 to compete in the 9X system, citywide.
You need to be First Choice of 10% +1 vote to be elected in PR.
For instance, “Green” people who are spread over the city in different districts, if they are 10% + 1 vote you can still get representation.
Bill I associate PR with Italian government ... Their government is very unstable. Not good.
Anthony that system produces accountablity. We should have people in power who represent our values. Unlike a parliamentary system like most European nations use, Cincinnati elects our mayor independently and the council wouldn’t have to form a coalition to change mayors... The people directly elect the mayor, so this proposal is very different than what they do in Europe. They do use different PR systems to elect their national legislatures (parliaments).
http://fairvote.org
.Alan used in Cambridge MA. Have Greens gotten onto council?
Anthony: I don’t know. Will research that. ... Duverger’s Law: 1950’s, originated by Maurice Duverger; single member, or district systems, where one peroson is elected and only the majority wins, aka winner-take-all systems, lead to a two party system. Only PR in research has a proven track record of fixing that problem. PR is the only system that always leads to more options, multi party system.
... In TX there were many hispanics who sued for representation under the Voting Rights Act, and won a PR type system. Over 100 jurisdictions now use PR to elect their city councils or county commissions. In those systems, feminine and minority ethnic groups do well in achieving more equitable representation.
Mr. G there is a theorem in math that states “there is no voting system that is impossible to beat”.
Anthony Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem never took the non-ranked systems seriously because they present a lot of inherent flaws, so it only applies to systems where you rank candidates in order of preference. Ultimately what he said was that no system was perfect. However, that applies only to systems that elect only one person at a time, not necessarily to PR systems where multiple people are elected in an election, which is the difference of PR systems: they elect multiple representatives.
PR is called “Single Transferable Voting”.
Mr. G. Grid lock is when you can’t get anything done in government because you can’t get enough cooperation among different factions or parties.
Mark I think grid lock is only in the past 50 years.
Mr. G. Americans seem to like a pres. Of one party, congress majority of the other party.
Anthony PR just effects who gets into council, not how they behave after they are there.
Mr. G. I think PR is good. You will have more diversity on council. My intuition is that it could contribute to gridlock.
Anthony African Americans, women, for instance are way under-represented. Most European countries have PR: Germany, Scottland, France, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Israel use PR systems.
We have gathered 5740 signatures. Goal: 12,000. We need 6150 valid signatures. Only 56% validity rate on the red light petition, so that ‘s why we need 12,000. We are on schedule. We have a very good chance of passing in Nov.
Deadline for petitions: Aug 20. My cell for those who can volunteer to help is: 513 410 9213.
My background. In my city in Fla., Sarasota, we had second run off elections to determine majority winners for city council. You get lower turn out, drastically. Instant run off voting is a similar system to this voting style of PR, though it only elects one person at a time. But if you are not in the majority you still don’t get representation.... We won 78% for a similar system of voting, called Instant Runoff Voting. We also petitioned through the SAFE group to require independent audits of votes, voter-verified paper ballots, and a full recount if a discrepancy was found in the audit countywide. The SAFE measure passed with 55% support of the people on the same day our touch screen, paperless voting machines lost 18,000 votes and a Neocon Republican won by less than 700 votes.
(Does PR require a lot of explaining for people) Yes. PR is difficult to explain. And hard to connect it to issues that people care about like climate change, universal health care, education, and better paying jobs with great benefits. It takes more than 30 sec. to get the point across. But I find that when I spend those 2-3 minutes fully educating a voter, they do support this issue. What I would say is something like, “This system increases representaion of minorities and women, increases voter turn out by 10-15% in research, and allows third and minor political parties as well as independent candidates to compete more fairly for representation.”
Ginger pushes us close to accurate representation.
Brooke this petition is merely to get it on the ballot.
... One of the debates. Dennis K. had not been called on. Tim Russert finally asked Dennis about flying saucers. Well, recently a reporter asked Obama, “if there were an alein race discovered and they landed and said, “ would you tell Americans about it. Obama answere after a monment, “well, it depends upon whether they were democrats or republicans.”
Anthony all the candidates for pres. Support “instant run off” voting for things like president. Voters rank preferences... http://cirv.org explains this. I am in favor of this. When 3 or more are running like for pres., and no one gets a majoriety, then you eliminate the candidate with the fewest number of votes, and their ballots go to the second choice, etc. that system eliminates the “spoiler “ effect, e.g. Nader in the Gore/Bush election.
~ End of Table Notes~
- Hugs to everyone,
Ellen
Section Two: Events & Opportunities
DIANE FISHBEIN SAYS: “Help them at Obama H.Q.!”
on 7/31/08 4:46 PM, Diane Fishbein at fishdiane@fuse.net wrote:
hey ellen, I'm in sympathy with many issues but decided to go to head quarters in Northside and do some calling each day. They need our help with registration, etc. anyone at the table who has an hour it's just across the bridge. thanks diane fish
- That jumpin’ salonista Judy Cirillo sends us this: Free Salsa dancing lessons every Thurs nite at Fountain Square!
Hi Ellen,
... for those who like to dance(or watch) they really should be at Fountain Square Thursdays at 7:00.
From AmericaVotes:
We are building our election efforts and really need your help to spread the word about upcoming volunteer opportunities to reach voters during this crucial year. Join us at our office on one or more of the following dates listed below. To RSVP please click one of the links below:
Phone Banking
(calls to local activists and inviting them to join us in our efforts)
Thurs. Aug. 7, 5:30-8pm <mailto:gtyus@americavotes.org;mwilson@americavotes.org?subject=Yes%21%208/07/08PB>
Sun. Aug. 10, 5-8pm <mailto:gtyus@americavotes.org;mwilson@americavotes.org?subject=Yes%21%208/10/08%20PB> Mon. Aug. 11, 5:30-8pm <mailto:gtyus@americavotes.org;mwilson@americavotes.org?subject=Yes%21%208/11/08%20PB>
Thurs. Aug. 14, 5:30-8pm <mailto:gtyus@americavotes.org;mwilson@americavotes.org?subject=Yes%21%208/14/08%20PB>
Mon. Aug. 18, 5:30-8pm <mailto:gtyus@americavotes.org;mwilson@americavotes.org?subject=Yes%21%208/18/08%20PB> Thurs. Aug. 21, 5:30-8pm <mailto:gtyus@americavotes.org;mwilson@americavotes.org?subject=Yes%21%208/21/08%20PB>
Thurs. Aug. 28, 5:30-8pm <mailto:gtyus@americavotes.org;mwilson@americavotes.org?subject=Yes%21%208/28/08%20PB>
Day Of Action
(face to face contact with registered voters)
August 23, 2008 10:00am until 2:00pm <mailto:gtyus@americavotes.org;mwilson@americavotes.org?subject=Yes%21%208/23/08%20DoA>
For more information or to RSVP, CLICK HERE <mailto:mwilson@americavotes.org?subject=I%20want%20to%20volunteer%20with%20America%20Votes%21> !
If these opportunities don’t work for you, let us know when you can join us!
Contact:
Randy mwilson@americavotes.org <mailto:mwilson@americavotes.org> (513) 481-7108
Gina gtyus@americavotes.org <mailto:gtyus@americavotes.org> (513) 481-7110
There is a lot of work to be done this year and we can't do it without your help!
Sincerely,
The America Votes Cincinnati Team
www.americavotes.org <http://www.americavotes.org/oh>
From IJPC
As rhetoric against Iran continues to intensify in the US and Israel, find extensive resources in the bottom half of the email to help educate yourself on Iran and the possibilities for a diplomatic solution. Over two-thirds of Americans want diplomacy, not war with Iran. Can you make a phone call this week to your Congressperson, write a letter to the editor, or take some visible action to help prevent war with Iran?
TAKE ACTION TO HELP PREVENT WAR WITH IRAN:
1)CALL YOUR CONGRESSPERSON Capitol Hill switchboard at 202-224-3121
Pressure on Congress is critical right now as it considers H.Con.Res. 362. 102 House Democrats and 117 Republicans have cosponsored a resolution against Iran that demands President Bush "initiate an international effort" to impose a land, sea, and air blockade on Iran to prevent it from importing gasoline and to inspect all cargo entering or leaving Iran. Imposing such a blockade without UN authority could be widely construed as an act of war.
2) LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Write letters to the editor of your local papers and to call into local radio talk shows. Here's a sample letter to the editor: http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=3916 Of course, people should feel free to modify this as needed.
3) BE VISIBLE: You can organize a visible presence in a busy location in your town: a vigil, an afternoon of leafleting or tabling, a human billboard, etc. Be sure to pick a time and location that has a lot of pedestrian or vehicle traffic! To find out what might be happening in your area, click here.
****************************
RESOURCES:
CAMPAIGN FOR A NEW AMERICAN POLICY ON IRAN (CNAPI)
http://www.newiranpolicy.org/
US-IRAN CRISIS: A PRIMER
Phyllis Bennis and the Institute for Policy Studies have produced a booklet called Understanding the US-Iran Crisis: A Primer.
This book addresses the new and renewed interest in Iran, answers basic questions, and proposes some ideas to prevent another looming disaster of a U.S. military attack against Iran. To find out how you can order the booklet, call IPS and 202-234-9382, or send an email to info@ips-dc.org
WORDS, NOT WAR WITH IRAN
A Study and Action Guide for People of Faith
http://www.faithfulsecurity.org/pdf/wnw_toolkit.pdf
NONVIOLENCE AND DIALOGUE WITH IRAN
by Dave Robinson of Pax Christi
http://www.paxchristiusa.org/Peaceweavings-Iran.pdf
IRAN DAILY OPINION SERVICE
Another important Iran resource is the Iran Daily Opinion Service, a blog by Michael Veiluva, author of the forthcoming book, Burdens of Proof: Iran, the U.S. and Nuclear Weapons. The blog address is: http://sputnik99.wordpress.com/
PBS’s NOW: TALKING TO IRAN program
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/312/index.html
DESTROYING SECURITY: THE FOLLY OF BOMBING IRAN
by Fourth Freedom Forum
http://www.destroyingsecurity.org/
Everyone needs a psychologist sometime in their life.
Ellen Bierhorst Ph.D. is a good one. In practice over 30 years. 513 221 1289
- Get a fresh perspective. Sort out tangles in interpersonal relationships. Clear away the messes of the past. Become empowered to launch your new life. Heal trauma, change, loss. Escape from the bondage of addictive behavior(alcohol, drugs, food, tobacco, gambling, etc.)
- Central location (Clifton Ave. at Lafayette)
- Beautiful setting (The historic Lloyd House)
- Many health insurance plans will pay a percentage. (Standard fee $125/hour. Some pro bono work available.)
- Compassion and good humor.
- Rapid results.
YOGA at Lloyd House. Wednesdays 9:15 – 10:30 am. Open, free practice group led by Nina Tolley.
FREE MEDITATION & YOGA AT BURNET WOODS
This year we are bringing you something special at Burnet Woods: WORLD PEACE YOGA!
10:30 am -11:00 am: Seated Meditation»
11:15 am - 12:15 pm: World Peace Yoga»
Gratitude in Motion
Articles
Contents:
- Alexander Technique
- Sierra Club endorses Obama
- PROBLEMS with Beef
ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE
http://marjoriebarstow.com
SIERRA CLUB ENDORSES OBAMA.
Dear Ellen,
As you learned a couple of weeks ago, the Sierra Club has officially endorsed Senator Barack Obama for President. We want to take this opportunity to tell you why.
Simply put, it's because we believe Obama shares our concerns, values and vision for a clean energy future. He agrees with us that it's not time for half steps; that what America needs is bold, transformational action that will break the chokehold Big Oil has on our economy and Washington politics, provide short-term relief for American families and long-term solutions for our energy and economy problems.
Highlights of Obama's Energy strategy include:
Providing Relief for families struggling to pay their energy bills. His plan is to provide families with a $1,000 tax credit and stimulus checks paid for by taxing the oil companies’ record profits.
Investing $150 billion over the next ten years in alternative sources of energy -- wind and solar power, and advanced biofuels, in the commercialization of plug-in hybrid cars, and development a new digital electricity grid. This investment will create up to 5,000,000 good-paying jobs that cannot be outsourced and will create the billions in new economic activity that will America back on the path to prosperity.
Requiring 25% of U.S. electricity to come from renewable sources by 2025 and increases energy efficiency in the U.S. 50% by 2030
Attacking global warming. Obama has presented a bold and comprehensive plan for addressing global warming which includes a "cap and auction" system that would cut our carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
Rejecting drilling as the answer to our energy woes. Obama knows that drilling off of our beaches and destroying our last special places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in order to pad Big Oil’s bottom line won’t do anything to lower gas prices today, tomorrow, or even a decade from now
To learn more about Senator Obama's Energy Plan, go to http://www.barackobama.com/issues/energy/
Thanks for everything you do to protect the planet,
Carl Pope
Executive Director
Sierra Club
PROBLEMS WITH BEEF... MORE PROBLEMS
Thought this might be of interest to the “Weekly Readers”
David Rosenberg
<http://www.nytimes.com> NEW YORK TIMES - Opinion <http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html>
modifyNavigationDisplay(); Op-Ed Contributor
Stop the Madness By MICHAEL HANSEN
Published: June 20, 2008
THE Korean beef market, once the third-largest importer of American beef, has shut its doors to the United States. Why? Because Koreans are worried about eating meat tainted with mad cow disease, which can be fatal to humans. Recent attempts by Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, to reopen the market have brought tens of thousands of demonstrators to the streets in protest.
Readers' Comments
Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
· Read All Comments (73) » <http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/06/20/opinion/20hansen.html>
if (acm.rc) acm.rc.write(); American beef producers could easily allay those fears by subjecting every cow at slaughter to the so-called rapid test, which costs about $20 per carcass and screens for this brain-wasting disease in a few hours rather than days. But the United States Department of Agriculture won’t allow that.
In 2004, Creekstone Farms in Arkansas City, Kan., wanted to test the cattle it slaughters to comply with the wishes of its Korean and Japanese customers. But the department ruled that the rapid test could only be used as part of its own mad cow surveillance program, which randomly checks about 1 in 1,000 dead and slaughtered cattle in the United States every year. The sale of the kits to private companies is prohibited under an obscure 1913 law that allows the department to prohibit veterinary products that it considers “worthless.”
Creekstone sued the government in 2006, arguing in court that the Agriculture Department could not deem worthless a test that it used in its own surveillance program. The court agreed, but the department appealed. A decision is expected soon.
It is hard to understand why the Agriculture Department wants to stand in the way. Yes, the test has limitations: it can miss a case of mad cow disease, also called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, in the very early stages of incubation. But it can catch the disease in later stages, before animals show symptoms. Between 2001 and 2006, the European Union used the test to turn up 1,117 cases of mad cow disease in seemingly healthy cattle approved for slaughter.
Ideally, the Agriculture Department would follow the rules set up in Europe and Japan that require every cow over a certain age to be tested before being slaughtered. At the very least the department should not prevent private companies from testing.
Companies that use the rapid test should also be allowed to label their meat as having been “tested for mad cow” for American consumers who would like this extra level of protection. A Consumers Union national survey done in January 2004 found that 71 percent of adults who eat beef would pay more to support testing, and of those, 95 percent were willing to spend 10 cents more per pound for tested meat.
In the Creekstone case, the Agriculture Department argued that the tests should be prohibited because if one company started using them, consumer demand would drive all companies to use them, and that would add to the price of beef. But would that be such a bad thing? Isn’t this how the laws of supply and demand are supposed to work?
Most Americans, like Koreans, understand that testing for mad cow could save lives — and they’d like to have that option.
Michael Hansen is a senior scientist at Consumers Union.
Books,Movies, Reviews It’s up to you folks to send me blurbs. I know you are reading. What? Is it good? Ellen
.....................
McMAFIA A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld.
By Misha Glenny. Illustrated. 375 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $27.95.
May 25, 2008
Gangsters Without Borders
By PETER ROBB
Around the time the Soviet Union ceased to exist, I was waiting in the entry queue at Fiumicino Airport in Rome when I noticed a party of several dozen young Russian girls being fast-tracked past a freshly opened control window. By young I mean perhaps 15, and by Russian girls I mean beautiful adolescents with pale gold hair, perfect skin and the figures of child ballerinas. These wide-eyed coltish kids weren’t dancers
or on a school trip. They were hustled along by a stocky middle-aged man with a short mustache and a stash of passports in his hairy hand. It was an unforgettable image of lambs to the slaughter — or, more precisely, of children to the brothel. You sometimes glimpse them, older now, dispersed around the world, and how they were engulfed by the criminal universe is one of the things Misha Glenny describes in “McMafia,” his dizzy tour of the forms of global crime born in the late ’80s, when finance capital shook off restraints and the Soviet Union collapsed. After a telling little prologue from 1994 involving a doorstep killing in leafy English suburbia, Glenny — a former BBC reporter who has written on the Balkans — begins his tour in territory he knows well. His reporting from the ruins of the Soviet world and its periphery is engrossingly dense with remembered anecdotal detail. In Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia, Glenny knows dealers on the streets and bosses in the government. He also knows what happens when his
new Audi is stolen in Zagreb. Glenny’s criminal geography centers on the post-Soviet countries, whose influence he sees spreading outward to “countries as far away from one another as India, Colombia and Japan.” He signposts but doesn’t travel a “new Silk Route, a multilane criminal highway” linking the old Soviet periphery with central and eastern Asia. None of this is quite as new as he implies. The distant countries have long and busy criminal histories of their own, and their own international trading links. Heroin was traveling across Asia into Europe in a big way from the time of the Vietnam War, and cocaine was moving north through the Americas and across the Atlantic not long after. Cosa Nostra in Italy and the United States, the Colombian cartels and the Asian crime long after. Cosa Nostra in Italy and the United States, the Colombian cartels and the Asian crime syndicates were all operating internationally long before the world went global. So was the arms trade. The patterns and the influences were as variable as in the aboveground economy. Glenny is good on some connections of the gangsters without borders, like the Russia-Israel link. His account of how Israel was colonized by Russian organized crime is memorable, and his fleeting image of the unutterable squalor of Tel Aviv’s brothels, staffed by captive girls from the former Soviet Union and frequented by obese American teenage tourists, is unforgettable. He is grippingly ambivalent about Dubai, the Middle East’s newly created Switzerland, and how it is energized by Indian organized crime and the subcontinent’s Hindu-Muslim violence. After its sections on Eastern Europe and the Soviet fringe of Asia, this is the book’s best part. In Dubai, the former coastal village with a dying pearl fishing industry, we see everyone — “Arabs, Iranians, Baluchis, East Africans, Pakistanis and west coast Indians” — converge. In his “journey through the global criminal underworld,” Glenny flits from place to place, mostly avoiding Western Europe and North America. Each stopover has a fresh cast of players and a new criminal specialty. The fragmentation obscures some terrible global patterns, like the huge return of slavery as the trafficking of people. Glenny looks at prostitution rackets out of Eastern Europe, indentured labor in the Gulf states and migration rackets out of China — where he sees “the future of organized crime” — but hardly suggests how far people themselves have become merchandise, as indentured laborers, domestic slaves, child thieves, child soldiers, child prostitutes, babies for sale and children for adoption, pharmaceutical guinea pigs or organ suppliers. All move around the world with the collusion of customs, immigration, police, social services, charities and aid agencies. Traveling through the global underworld and — with the splendid exception of Dubai — flying high over points where the licit and illicit economies meet, Glenny tends to forget that one man’s crime is another man’s legitimate business opportunity. The otherness of the criminal world is, of course, a premise of true crime books, offering readers both thrills and reassurance, but today’s crime is tomorrow’s history. A birth pang, perhaps, of democracy. The criminality in the oil and gas industries gets space in “McMafia,” but in the countries of the former Soviet Union rather than Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria or Angola. And like the rest of history, true crime is written by the winners. “McMafia” runs on the insight that money is a lot easier to move around than it used to be, but doesn’t consider how the first world’s financial systems are linked with the proceeds of the third world’s business horrors — the car bombs, the decapitations, the endless targeted killings, the flayings alive — it describes. “As consumers, we are all involved,” Glenny frets at the end, calling for “greater regulation in the financial markets” and “strong, well-equipped law enforcement agencies.” But “McMafia” ignores a dense network of complicity in the institutions of the West. Neither, after some vague talk at the a dense network of complicity in the institutions of the West. Neither, after some vague talk at the outset of “global reach as criminal corporations aspire to penetrate markets the world over,” does it identify a global crime corporation, or explain how its activities might be “mirroring the global goals of legal entities such as McDonald’s.” Glenny coins the term “McMafia” to describe the franchising system of Chechen organized crime, which makes sense, but the notion has nothing to do with the larger story. This is less about a new globalized criminality than the old one of interplay between criminal and political interests. Colombia, Afghanistan and the “war on drugs” might be good places to start telling it. A model for all this remains the Sicilian Mafia, which is ignored here. Mafia is about control on the ground. It maintains order locally, and its reward is a free hand in business. Mafia is government and crime intertwined, and so, below the surface, are most of the instances Glenny describes. A dozen or more years ago, the mayor of Palermo, Leoluca Orlando, drew my attention to two things about organized crime in Italy. One was Cosa Nostra’s bulwark role in keeping the Italian Communist Party out of power during the cold war decades. When the Soviet world imploded Cosa Nostra no longer mattered quite so much and began, like the politicians it had kept in office for half a century, to feel the rule of law. That, Orlando continued, was when Cosa Nostra globalized its business in a way that made its earlier drug dealings with Asia and South America book rather timid. Now it involved heavy arms, enriched plutonium and toxic waste. Orlando flew to Moscow and was horrified at the faces he recognized in business class. “McMafia” has great anecdotes but lacks structure and is fatally weakened by global overstretch. There’s no big picture here, no corporate brand, no franchise. In global crime, the structures, the methods, the personnel, the channels, the merchandise, the alliances change even faster than they do in the world of legal business. There are patterns of complicity, however, and closer to home than Glenny’s nightmare settings.
Peter Robb is the author of the investigative travelogues “Midnight in Sicily” and “A Death in
Brazil,” and “M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio.”
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
From Suellyn.
Film: Body of War produced by Phil Donohue
An important film about the Iraq war. Opened in Dayton with P.D. in attendance. I heard it was at the Esquire after it left. Below is a plot summary by one of the directors. My friend, whose son survived a tour in Iraq with Lima company highly recommends it. Look for it on DVD if you haunt the video stores and let us know when it's available.
Body of War is a documentary following Tomas Young, an Iraq War veteran paralyzed from a bullet to the spine, on a physical and emotional journey as he adapts to his new body and begins to question the decision to go to war in Iraq. From soldier to anti-war activist, the film takes an unflinching view of the physical and emotional aftermath of war through the eyes of an American hero. The film unfolds on two parallel tracks. On the one hand, we see Tomas evolving into a powerful voice against the war as he struggles to deal with the complexities of a paralyzed body. And on the other hand, we see the historic debate unfolding in the Congress about going to war in Iraq. Written by Ellen Spiro
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The Lloyd House Salon (usually about 12 people) Meets on WEDNESDAYS at 5:45, EVERY Wednesday, 52 WEEKS/YEAR come hell or high water, as my mother used to say.
We of the Lloyd House Salon gather in a spirit of respect, sympathy and compassion for one another in order to exchange ideas for our mutual pleasure and enlightenment.
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Our Salon blog is a promising interactive site: http:lloydhouse.blogspot.com
Also, we have an Interactive Yahoo Salon group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LloydHouseSalon
For Pot Luck procedures including food suggestions, mission and history visit
http://home.fuse.net/ellenbierhorst/Potluck.html . You are invited also to visit the Lloyd House website: http://www.lloydhouse.com
> To unsubscribe from the Lloyd House Potluck Salon list, send a REPLY message
to me and in the SUBJECT line type in "unsub potluck #". In the place of #
> type in the numeral that follows the subject line of my Weekly email. It
> will be 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7or 8. This tells me which sub-list your name is on so I can
> delete it. Thanks! ellen bierhorst
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