Alan K. Henderson's Weblog

Jeff allegedly opposed racial intermarriage. That’s hardly assimilation. And Jeff allegedly complained that his teachers (white liberals of the Red Lake high school) condemned him for his ideas of racial purity.

Now the story makes more sense to me, as an Indian. Indians are a vanishing race, vanishing through intermarriage. Jeff opposed this, but he had liberal, white, anti-Indian teachers and counselors, who advocated intermarriage, which he saw as genocide.

I'm a Fool for the City. Daniel Dorman, a senior at Bonita Vista High School in California, grew tired of hearing the one-tone lunch bell each school day. So he created a mass movement, gathering 300 signatures and celebrity endorsements for his alternative: to have lunch signaled by playing "Slow Ride" – the 1970s rock anthem recorded by Foghat -- over the school's loudspeakers.

After Dorman threatened a hunger strike over the issue, Principal Ramon Leyba agreed to play "Slow Ride" – but only once, as redesigning the school's bell system was out of the question. Foghat was so impressed by Dorman's achievement they invited him, his friends, and Principal Leyba to one of the band's concerts this summer.

The San Diego Union-Tribune treated the story as a tribute to Dorman's activism, but EIA suspects Principal Leyba's LP collection contains Fool for the City, Stone Blue, and some Savoy Brown classics like Lookin' In and Raw Sienna.

To illustrate, you can call your weekend-training band of gun nuts a "militia" if you want, but don't say the government is denying your rights if it doesn't expand its definition of the militia and give you the corresponding benefits of funding or support such as restricted highway lanes for your pickup truck convoys!

Likewise, call your same-gender mate your "spouse" if you wish, even have a "wedding" in an agreeable church under your First Amendment rights, but don't say the government is denying your rights if it doesn't expand its definition of marriage and so give you the corresponding rights and standing of the legally married.

A 1995 Dittman survey yielded similar results, with 75 percent of Alaskans saying they backed ANWR drilling, and just 19 percent opposed.
In the Inupiat Eskimo villages near ANWR, support is even higher. A January 2000 survey in the village of Kaktovik found that 78 percent of residents back more energy exploration in their own backyard. Only 9 percent were opposed.

In 1995, the Alaska Federation of Natives, which represents 80,000 Eskimos, adopted a resolution supporting ANWR drilling, calling it a "critically important economic opportunity for Alaska natives."

"They do not have running water or a sewer system," he told columnist Deroy Murdock in 2001. "That means they are relegated to Third World conditions where people have to melt ice to bathe and to drink. They use five-gallon containers for sanitation."

The backward sanitation system is a breeding ground for sometimes-fatal cases of hepatitis A - and contributes to high infant mortality rates.

Eskimos actually own 92,000 acres within ANWR's perimeter as a result of a federal grant in the 1980s. But they can't lease exploration rights until Congress opens up the federal part of the refuge.

In other areas of Alaska where the oil companies have been allowed to drill, the standard of living has increased dramatically, the locals say.

But thanks to the success of the environmental lobby in keeping ANWR off limits, the Inupiat Indians have been forced to live in poverty.

A Harvard University student's fledgling dorm-cleaning business faced the threat of a campus boycott on Thursday after the school's daily newspaper slammed it for dividing students along economic lines.

The Harvard Crimson newspaper urged students to shun Dormaid, a business launched by Harvard sophomore Michael Kopko that cleans up for messy students.

"By creating yet another differential between the haves and have-nots on campus, Dormaid threatens our student unity," the Crimson said in an editorial.

"We urge the student body to boycott Dormaid."

"In a free economy it's all about choice, and the Crimson is trying to take choice away from people," the student entrepreneur told Reuters. "I think it's a very uneconomic and narrow view. It's essentially against creating wealth for society."

Pressure cookers and rice steamers, essential tools of the Cuban kitchen, are the new weapons in Fidel Castro's latest battle to reassert control over the nation's economy.

During a 5 1/2-hour speech broadcast on state TV, Castro said 100,000 pressure cookers would be made available each month - an announcement that underscored the communist country's continued retreat toward greater political and economic centralism.

The move "will do away with the rustic kitchen," Castro told the Federation of Cuban Women on Tuesday night, saying the new cookers would use half the energy of the homemade ones they will replace.

The program could wipe out what has become a popular, and in most cases legal, private business that uses molds to make pressure cookers from cheap aluminum. Although imported cookers are sold in stores for about $25 - more than the average Cuban earns in a month - homemade ones cost about $5.50.

At subsidized prices, the government-distributed cookers will cost about the same as the homemade ones. And the government's cookers can be paid for in monthly installments.

I want a Ward Churchill on every campus so nobody forgets who these people are.

A group of unarmed Iranians staged a protest aboard a Lufthansa jet at the Brussels airport Thursday, refusing to leave the plane and calling for the return of the monarchy in Iran, officials said.

The plane landed at Brussels International airport at 3 p.m. (9 a.m. EST) on a flight from Frankfurt, and the protesters stayed behind after most of the 59 passengers got off.

"This is not a hijacking," said police spokeswoman Astrid Kaisen.

"They are sitting on the plane and they don't want to come off," Kaisen said, adding police could not yet confirm the nationalities of the protesters.

The 3 percent snack tax is aimed at sugary soft drinks, candy, potato chips, pretzels, doughnuts, popcorn and other items that, as one version of the legislation put it, is "not generally considered a major component of a well-balanced meal."

When the state sales tax is added, snack food eaters would be paying more than 10 percent of the value of their unhealthy treats to the state government under the proposal.

State Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said the proposal is seen as a way to raise needed money while also addressing the state's obesity problem.

By a 6-2 vote, with one abstention, the House panel approved an increase in the state sales tax rate to 7.25 percent from 6.25 percent. The bill also creates a new payroll tax to replace the loophole-ridden franchise tax, but the new version has a rate of 1.15 percent instead of 1.1 percent, as originally envisioned.

The bill also applies the sales tax for the first time to newspapers, auto repair services, bottled water, billboard advertising and car washes. The tax rate for vehicle and boat sales would rise to 7.35 percent from 6.25 percent. Cigarette taxes would go up by $1 a pack.

"Research shows the presence of women [in government] raises the standards of ethical behavior and lowers corruption," Clinton told the Vital Voices' Women's Global Leadership Summit, in quotes picked up by NYU's student newspaper, the Washington Square News.

Outside of the Internet, grassroots activity related to federal elections and uncoordinated with candidates is clearly permissible, though when the amount spent on the activity exceeds $250 the spender must file reports with the FEC that identify who is doing the spending and where the spending goes. In practice, the FEC has not enforced this threshold very aggressively, which is probably for the best because the threshold is way too low under current law. (There are no limits on the amount that can be spent by individuals, either within or outside the Internet, independent of candidates and political committees.) The $250 disclosure threshold, even if enforced more aggressively, will provide a safe harbor for much Internet-based political activity, where the marginal cost of setting up an e-mail list or web page is negligible. That is-and this is a point ignored by Commissioner Smith-because much Internet speech is so cheap, it falls below the threshold of even the disclosure rules.

If [Justice Anthony] Kennedy represents the mainstream, it is time to change the shape of the river.

When Guavas Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Guavas. Entire industries have sprung up describing the practices and abuses of zero tolerance policies in the nation's public schools. Students have been disciplined for handling dangerous weapons and drugs, such as rubber bands, nail clippers and Midol. But the San Diego Unified School District took the zero tolerance policy into negative numbers last week.

According to a report in the San Diego Union-Tribune, the district vetoed a plan by an environmental group to plant fruit trees on school campuses. Why? "Fruit trees create more of a mess, and fruit does tend to be used as a projectile with students," said district maintenance and operations supervisor Mark Everts. "This is precautionary." The district did allow the group to plant shade trees and "other nonthreatening, non-fruit-bearing trees."

Speaking as someone who often carries a concealed mango for self-defense, it seems clear that California is in desperate need of a fifteen day waiting period to purchase fruit. Sure, berries are innocent enough, but who has a legitimate need for a "large-caliber" fruit, such as the infamous semi-automatic watermelon? And don't forget Napoleon once dispersed a Paris mob with a "whiff of grapeshot." We don't want roving gangs of juvenile delinquents armed with bananas, do we? Join the movement! If this isn't a ticket to Congress for some aspiring California politician, I don't know what is.

According to Loïc Le Meur, Christophe, a French blogger who regularly takes his city's leadership to task on his blog Monputeux was accosted by the police for his blog.

Enraged by Christophe's relentless needling, the mayor apparently sent the Municipal Police to arrest him in the street. His arrest was narrowly averted by the intervention of the National Police.