Thursday, February 11, 2010

“Intriguing: Ayatollah promises 'punch' - CNN” plus 3 more

“Intriguing: Ayatollah promises 'punch' - CNN” plus 3 more

Intriguing: Ayatollah promises 'punch' - CNN

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 06:10 AM PST

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Editor's note: Every weekday, CNN focuses on a handful of people in the news. This is a chance to find out more about what they've done -- good or bad -- what they've said or what they believe, and why we think they're intriguing.

(CNN) -- Nelson Mandela: Two decades before he became the first president of a democratic South Africa, Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 1974. Jailed on charges of treason and sabotage -- but fundamentally for his anti-apartheid activities -- he spent nearly 27 years in various prisons. During that time, his mother and son died, and his wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (now his ex-wife), faced continual arrests and harassment, according to his official biography.

Twenty years ago today, Mandela was released from what was known as Victor Verster Prison, near Cape Town. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and was elected president in April 1994. He will turn 92 in July. Today, although frail, he celebrated his February 11, 1990, prison release with South Africa's parliament and with millions of people all over the world. Mandela once said, "To be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."

CNN: South Africa 20 years after Mandela release

Nelson Mandela Foundation: Biography

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: Iran's Supreme leader said on Monday that his country will deliver a "punch" that will stun the world during the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution today. Khamenei told a meeting of air force personnel, "The Iranian nation, with its unity and God's grace, will punch the arrogance [Western powers] on the 22nd of Bahman [February 11] in a way that will leave them stunned."

Today is the anniversary of the day when revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini toppled the U.S.-backed government of the shah, who fled Iran. This key date in Iran's history comes amid protests by the opposition after last year's disputed presidential election, won by incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The so-called Green Movement has been protesting for social justice, freedom and democracy in demonstrations throughout the country since the June polls -- using slogans that are often identical to those heard during the 1979 Islamic revolution. Many of the recent demonstrations became violent and bloody. Two leading Iranian opposition leaders have called on supporters to protest today, the day of the anniversary.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been Iran's supreme leader for more than 20 years. As a young cleric, his political activism led to many arrests and torture by the shah's secret police -- the same shah who was supported by the United States and Great Britain.

CNN: Iran marks revolution anniversary amid ongoing dissent

Christian Science Monitor: Iran's supreme leader

Nicholas George: The 22-year-old senior at Pomona College in California was detained at an airport last August, handcuffed and then jailed for several hours in a holding cell. George passed through a screening checkpoint at the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, airport with a set of Arabic-English flashcards and a book critical of American foreign policy. Also, George's passport had been stamped in Jordan, where he had studied for a semester, and in Sudan and Egypt, where he'd gone backpacking.

A Transportation Security Administration supervisor arrived and allegedly questioned George aggressively, asking him how he felt about 9/11, whether he knew "who did 9/11," and whether he knew what language Osama bin Laden spoke.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Pennsylvania charge that the TSA officials, the Philadelphia police and the FBI violated George's Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizure and his First Amendment right to free speech.

George told CNN he no longer flies with his flashcards and reading material. He said he's learning Arabic in hopes of one day helping the U.S. government. In September, Dave Davies in the Philadelphia Daily News reported that among the 200 flashcards were words like "terrorist" and "explosion." George told the newspaper last year, "I didn't have a weapon or anything seditious, just words on paper. As an American citizen, I think I'm allowed to learn a foreign language and have flashcards."

Philadelphia Daily News: Student traveler handcuffed

ACLU: George v. TSA - Complaint for damages

CNN: Passenger detained with Arabic flashcards sues

Ken Bourland: On January 12, from his room at the Hotel Montana near Port-au-Prince, Haiti, U.S. Air Force Maj. Ken Bourland sent an e-mail to his wife, Peggy, telling her that he was fine and had just settled in for what was going to be an exciting time taking a disaster preparedness course. It was 4:51 p.m. Less than 10 minutes later, an earthquake leveled much of the Haitian capital, including the Hotel Montana.

Peggy Bourland, at home in Florida, saw the news on TV, popped her laptop open and fired off an e-mail: "Please tell me you're OK." No response. Yesterday, CNN received a copy of a message from Air Force Gen. Douglas M. Fraser to his troops, announcing that Bourland's body was found on Monday in the rubble of the Hotel Montana. He reported that Bourland's remains were transferred to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, and met by his wife, family members and fellow service members.

Gen. Fraser wrote, "Many of you knew Ken through his outstanding work as a Caribbean Desk Officer. All of us who worked with Ken regarded him as the consummate Air Force professional, who could always be counted upon for the toughest assignment, as well as a caring teammate who went out of his way to help others and build cohesion amongst his peers." The Bourlands had two sons and a stepson and their fifth wedding anniversary would have been in March.

CNN: E-mail from Haiti, then minutes later, a nightmare

Jaimee Grubbs: The 23-year-old Los Angeles, California, cocktail waitress, whose post-Thanksgiving voice mail to Tiger Woods helped lead to the unraveling of the golf great's pristine public image, gave an exclusive interview to Los Angeles TV station KTLA.

She did not deny that her relationship with Woods lasted for nearly three years. She explained that after the car crash incident outside of Woods' home, she left him a voice mail out of concern, but didn't "think it through" when she released it to US Weekly magazine.

She said all of the subsequent attention has been tough. "I don't like to show my emotions. I just do it when nobody's around, so my friends all think I'm solid rock, a strong person. But there are times when I get up in the morning, get in the shower, then sit there on the shower floor and cry for 30 minutes."

KTLA: Grubbs sets the record straight

What makes a person intriguing?

There are people who enter the news cycle every day because their actions or decisions are new, important or different. Others are in the news because they are the ones those decisions affect. And there are a number of people who are so famous or controversial that anything they say or do becomes news.

Some of these people do what we expect of them: They run for office, pass legislation, start a business, get hired or fired, commit a crime, make an arrest, get in accidents, hit a home run, overthrow a government, fight wars, sue an opponent, put out fires, prepare for hurricanes and cavort with people other than their spouses. They do make news, but the action is usually more important than who is involved in the story.

But every day, there are a number of people who become fascinating to us -- by virtue of their character, how they reached their decision, how they behaved under pressure or because of the remarkable circumstances surrounding the event they are involved in.

They arouse our curiosity. We hear about them and want to know more. What they have done or said stimulates conversations across the country. At times, there is even a mystery about them. What they have done may be unique, heroic, cowardly or ghastly, but they capture our imaginations. We want to know what makes them tick, why they believe what they do, and why they did what they did. They intrigue us.

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About 1 in 5 students need remedial help in college - Detroit Free Press

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 06:32 AM PST

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"I wasn't really a great student. ... I didn't have my head in the right place. I slacked off."

Now, he said, he has a goal in mind: a degree in physical therapy.

"All my friends went off to college. ... I realized I've got to get motivated."

For some, though, it's more confined to one year. They call it senioritis.

Jason Hamstra, the academic dean at Poole's high school, said he sees it every year among the oldest teens: "They say, 'It's my senior year. I want to take it easy,' rather than, 'It's my senior year. I should be getting ready for college.' "

The school offers math through advanced-placement calculus, and everyone, including Poole, needs to get through at least Algebra II to graduate. And Poole was "definitely not a slacker," Hamstra said.

For her part, Poole's mother, Pamela Poole, said she was also surprised to learn that an assessment test at WSU routed her son through remedial classes. At their Romulus home, Poole would routinely disappear into a quiet computer room -- away from the television and the hubbub of family -- with homework, later bringing home report cards filled with B's for his effort.

"Every once in a while, I'd say, 'Have you done this or have you done that?' " Pamela Poole said of her son's studies. "And most of the time, it was already done. He was good like that."

Working toward a solution

With the state struggling to get traction again in a changed economy, it's more important than ever to get students ready for college before they step foot on campus.

In Detroit, partnerships such as WSU's Pathways program with WCCC -- the program Poole is in -- wrap services around struggling students. In addition to remedial classes, staff and tutors help students get financial aid or make sure they're completing class assignments and studying for exams.

Many remedial students are first-time college-goers, and the idea is to immerse them in school so they have someone to turn to if they run into academic problems.

At Jackson Community College last summer, faculty from local high schools spent three days at conference tables with community college teachers. They exchanged textbooks and syllabi and discussed teaching techniques.

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Myth Alaska - Reason.com

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 05:27 AM PST

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Sarah From Alaska: The Sudden Rise and Brutal Education of a New Conservative Superstar, by Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe, PublicAffairs, 306 pages, $26.95

The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star, by Matthew Continetti, Sentinel, 256 pages, $25.95 

Going Rogue: An American Life, by Sarah Palin, HarperCollins, 413 pages, $28.99

No recent political figure has ignited the fury of the commentariat like former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Shortly after inducing a pulse in the zombified John McCain campaign with a rousing speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention, the little-known politician was dismissed by Salon's Cintra Wilson as a "power-mad, backwater beauty-pageant casualty" whose conservative ideology made the feminist writer "feel as horrified as a ghetto Jew watching the rise of National Socialism."

The editor-in-chief of The New Republic, Martin Peretz, sniffed that the candidate "was pretty like a cosmetics saleswoman at Macy's" and that it was "good to see that the Palin family didn't torture poor Bristol [unmarried, pregnant, and 17 at the time], at least in the open." The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan, a self-identified conservative who calls his Daily Dish "the most popular one-man political blog in the world," persistently suggested that Trig Palin, the governor's then-four-month-old baby with Down Syndrome, was likely not Sarah's biological child; and demanded the full release of her obstetrical records, stopping just short of insisting he be allowed to examine the placenta. If Barack Obama is hounded by a small group of reality-challenged "birthers" who doubt the president was born in Hawaii, Palin has more than matched him with what might be called her "after-birthers."

This is ugly stuff, the sort of warmed-over misogyny you expect from early '70s Hollywood, not semi-serious writers and pundits. But Palin's admirers have issues with modulation and mental balance too. Watching last year's vice presidential debate, National Review's Rich Lowry squealed that Palin's smile "sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America." As happens so often with what passes for political discourse on the right and left, those of us who stand athwart the red-blue dichotomy find ourselves yelling, "Please make it stop!"

Palin herself has added to the sense that something just ain't right. Resigning as governor last July, she delivered a farewell speech charitably described by various analysts as "rambling" and "at times confusing." Despite the fact that she had 18 months left in her first term and had not publicly announced whether she would stand for re-election, Palin averred that she was not prepared to abide "lame-duck status." Nor was she long on metaphorical integrity. "Many just accept that lame-duck status, and they hit the road, draw a paycheck, and kind of milk it," she declared. "We know we can effect positive political change from outside government at this moment in time.…I know when it's time to pass the ball for victory." She closed with a quote from Gen. Douglas MacArthur, saying, "We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction." Citing a military leader who was relieved of his command for insubordination during the Korean War may burnish Palin's proud reputation for "going rogue" (that is, going off script), but it was an odd selection for a speech about a voluntary resignation.

MacArthur is more famous for a different quip: "Old soldiers never die. They just fade away." Two new biographies of Palin—along with the self-proclaimed hockey mom's own memoir, Going Rogue, which set a record for advance orders—are helping to make sure that she won't fade away any time soon. Together, this trio of books offers more information and context about Palin than all but her most ardent detractors and fans could possibly stand. Yet the volumes, alone or together, still don't give a clear picture of either the woman herself or what it is about her that drives her fans and critics alike to the edge of insanity.

More important, the books strongly, if unintentionally, suggest that Palin does not have what it takes to redefine a Republican Party whose future looks about as bright as that of General Motors. Despite her impressive fan base and her ability to turn out huge crowds, Palin's own program for "The Way Forward" (as she names a chapter in Going Rogue) makes plain that she is last year's political model, a vehicle for a backward-looking GOP bent on blending generic social conservatism, small-government encomiums, big government spending, unconvincing outsider outrage, and status quo foreign adventurism. With a Saint Reagan statue firmly glued to the dashboard, of course.

Whatever mojo such rhetorical posturing once had, Americans have heard it all before, most recently during the administration of George W. Bush, who with the able assistance of a Republican majority managed to double overall federal spending in real dollars over the course of eight years. If the Republicans are to regroup and advance in another direction, they will need something other than warmed-over Karl Rove speeches.

As its title implies, The Persecution of Sarah Palin, written by Weekly Standard staffer Matthew Continetti, is flatly sympathetic to its subject, whom he paints as the victim of a conspiracy as vast and punishing as the Alaskan wilderness. "When they weren't mangling facts," Continetti writes, "the press did their best to undermine her accomplishments." The core of Palin's immense appeal to jes' plain folks, he says, is also the core of upper-crust contempt for her: "The American meritocratic elite places a high priority on verbal felicity and the attitudes, practices, and jargon that one picks up during graduate seminars in nonprofit management, government accounting, and the semiotics of Percy Shelley's 'To a Skylark.' " Palin, he notes, "speaks in a different patois." This is more than a little plausible: I can remember college-professor friends of mine confessing that, in addition to Palin's pro-life stance, it was ultimately her flat, grating accent, her University of Idaho B.A., and her flute performance in the 1984 Miss Alaska beauty contest that rendered them "horrified."

But if Continetti helps explain the vitriol of many on the left, he fails to grapple with a more moderate but also widespread sense that Palin was simply not up to the task of serving as vice president. High-profile conservatives such as David Brooks, Peggy Noonan, and Kathleen Parker became Palin critics not because she was populist or pro-life (or a weak-winded flautist), but because she came across as manifestly unqualified for the job. If her résumé (small-town mayor, then short-term governor of a low-population state) was thin upon nomination, her performance in key moments afterward was often cringe-inducing. "Palin's recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate," wrote Parker in 2008. "Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League." Even Continetti acknowledges that Palin flubbed the Couric interview, which was packed with softball questions on subjects such as the newspapers and magazines she read and the Supreme Court cases she considered especially important. Given the compressed public schedule of the campaign, Palin needed to score with every shot she took. More often than not, the high school basketball champ chucked an air ball.

Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe, who covered the Palin campaign for CBS News and Fox News Channel, respectively, have a theory as to why. "Palin is neither an umblemished victim of fiendish, unpatriotic forces nor a preposterous dolt worthy only of a smirk," they write in Sarah From Alaska. She is "outwardly confident but frequently shows signs of profound insecurity" and is "hypersensitive to criticism and naysayers." That confidence and hypersensitivity got in the way of the preparation that might have helped her through what was surely a very rough political gauntlet, a long-shot presidential campaign conducted in the midst of two unpopular wars and an economic panic.

Palin's penchant for shading the truth, even on trivial matters, didn't help. One of the governor's biggest applause lines on the stump was that she had said "thanks, but no thanks" to federal money for the notorious "bridge to nowhere" at Gravina Island. In fact, Palin supported the project until it became controversial and, after it was killed, refused to return the federal funds, using them to construct what Conroy and Walshe call a "road to nowhere" leading to where the bridge would have been. To paraphrase another of her regular lines, that's absolutely politics as usual.

In Going Rogue, co-written with the journalist Lynn Vincent, Palin comes across as personable and likeable. The volume is filled with self-deprecating stories, childhood memories, moments of self-doubt, triumphs over adversity, and appeals to God and elders for advice. "My life truly began [when] I became a mom," she says in a representative passage. "I had no idea how this tiny person, my son, would turn me inside out and upside down with all the all-consuming love that swelled my heart from the second he was born. As clichéd as it sounds, that was the happiest day of my life."

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CANCELED - Naples Press Club: “Happy Hour with Dr. Ralph Engelman” - Naples Daily News

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 06:39 AM PST

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Description

Naples Press Club brings author of "Friendlyvision" to Naples

On Thursday, February 11 at 5pm, the Naples Press Club presents "Happy Hour with Dr. Ralph Engelman," author of "Friendlyvision—Fred Friendly and the Rise and Fall of Television Journalism," published by Columbia University Press. Prof. Engelman is making a special trip from New York for this exclusive Naples Press Club event at the Bellasera Hotel, 221 9th St. South. $10 for NPC members; $12 for nonmembers.

Engelman's book deals with Fred Friendly (1915-1998), the most important personality in news and public affairs programming during the first four decades of American television. Friendly, along with Edward R. Murrow, invented the television documentary format. He was a producer, policy maker and a teacher who had a major impact on the development of CBS and, later, on public television. Engelman's biography is the first comprehensive account of Friendly's life. It provides a crucial perspective on the past and future of American television journalism.

Required advance payment can be made by credit card via the NPC website – www.naplespressclub.org or by a check to Naples Press Club at 2390 Tamiami Trail, N., Suite 210, Naples, FL 34103, along with reservation to rsvp@naplespressclub.org.

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