The Khmer Rouge holds a legacy of grievous human rights violations. Evidence of the executed masses were found in February in Phnom Penh. Genocide trials in the joint Cambodia-United Nations tribunal will be able to determine the guilt of the responsible Khmer Rouge leaders by revealing the skulls and bones of their millions of victims.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/16792737.htm

The following articles are relevant perspectives of applied and theoretical international crimes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/health/psychology/06tort.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/opinion/05mon1.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fEditorials

Can natural medicines treat AIDS? There is little, if any evidence to claim that natural alternatives to condoms and anti-retroviral drugs are effective in preventing or treating AIDS. Despite the absence of reductions in AIDS for their populations after applying the the natural alternatives, government leaders in South Africa and Gambia and prophets in Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria claim that dietary concoctions cure AIDS patients. Health officials are strongly opposed to using natural healing methods in order to reduce AIDS because no objective results prove effectiveness from natural formulas.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/20/health/main2495526.shtml

The good news in Africa is that the distribution of anti-malaria pills and mosquito nets have resulted in reducing malaria cases for children with HIV.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/health/01hiv.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/health/01malaria.html

http://www.dailymotion.com/tag/juillet/video/x19hpi_the-simpsons-movie-trailer-3

Pamela Constable makes a clear point about America's decline of diverse and deep international news coverage.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/editorial/16781205.htm

Among the points:
- TV stories report on limited regions of international crises, often because television stations shut down international offices.
- America sends thousands of troops abroad, and the American public remains ignorant to the globe diversity of regional historical backgrounds, culture, and crisis situations
- My favorite: "If newspapers stop covering the world, I fear we will end up with microscopic elite reading Foreign Affairs and a numbed nation watching terrorist bombings flash briefly among a barrage of commentary, crawls and celebrity gossip."

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/24/world/americas/24ottawa.html?hp
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/308/index.html

I long ago gave up on the US and now my only wish is to leave as soon as it can be arranged. But, here are a few issues for people who still care and are willing to persevere through the decadence and frivolity that this country has fallen into.

The first link directs one to a page for last night's Newshour on PBS. If you go to the bottom of the page there is video of a story about how a gap in wealth correlates to a gap in life expectancy (it starts with some stupid and spurious story about how winning the Oscar relates to life expectancy). Of course, the gap in income in the US has widened greatly in the last 30-40 yrs...I don't think I am saying anything controversial. Most Americans still think they have a chance to explode into the top 1%, nearly all of them are wrong, but delusional optimism is part of the American ethos. This segment discusses how the effect of low-income living in limiting one's real choices and social involvement tends to create a high stress lifestyle that shortens lives. The study was repeated in England where there is a (terrible) national health plan, so it is controlled to an extent for the disparities in health care. Even with relatively uniform health care, the gap in income still produces a gap in life expectancy. The opposite case, picked by the show and not me, was Sweden where there is a high standard of living across the board, relatively equal wealth distribution and correspondingly long life-expectancies throughout the population. Just for the record, the Swedes are also among the healthiest people in the world.

The second article is about the recent decision in the Canadian high court, which strikes down indefinite detention of foreign nationals without due process. Following on the heels of the DC Circuit Court denying the latest round of appeals from Guantanamo detainees and a Brooklyn District Court refusing to hear a class action suit for money damages resulting from wrongful detention of now-released Guantanamo detainees. The District Court held that the issue was "nonjusticiable" because it was peculiarly within the purview of the Executive branch...a "political question." Better left to our cowardly and broken democracy I guess to continue not considering. Leaving aside that the federal courts hear cases on procedural due process all the time where the executive branch prosecutes and imprisons people...still a function of the executive, still reviewable...in fact, this is exactly the kind of case we can agree that courts should consider. Damages for constitutional violations flow by statute...I can't remember which...its well-known though. The 5th amendment, and not the 14th, covers violations of "due process" by the federal government, and it says that "no person" shall be deprived of liberty without due process. Americans on balance would construe "person" narrowly so as not to include women, foreigners, minorities...but would include, say, corporations and fetuses...god bless America. Unfortunately though for the bigoted heart of the nation, "persons" includes foreign nationals. In any case, we don't do many "human rights" very well, and the Canadian charter of rights and freedoms is much more contemporary and, arguably, more effective...BUT we do protect procedural legal liberties well in this country. So whats up? Who knows...I am no fan of Canada, the flags on the backpacks and the inferiority complex drives me nuts drive me nuts, but its nice to see a common law country protecting what Burke called "the rights of Englishman."

The last refers to the PBS program NOW, which ran a story on the new vaccine for HPV...an STD, that is a pre-cursor to nearly 70% of all cervical cancer. Some states are starting to consider or put into legislation vaccination schedules with the new drug...of course, this has the Jesus nuts and their cadre up in arms. Nothing scare religious idiots like a sexually active woman. In this case even a hypothetically sexually active woman. The argument is that the new drug will encourage promiscuity in young girls (geez...wish it came out when I was 14!!). Hmm, are we actually willing to enlist venereal disease and cancer in the "culture wars?" What a ridiculous argument...girls, who in this case are too young to really know what HPV is because the same small minds that want to leave them vulnerable to it also oppose teaching them what it is or how to avoid it through contraception, will have the spectre of cervical cancer hanging over them when they consider becoming sexually active (why is "hellfire and damnation" not enough in this case?) A friend suggested to me that it was no big deal because its a "very small but very loud group of people" that are promoting views like this...that may be true, though I have had the great displeasure to live in Texas and I would disagree, but this "very small" group has been loud enough to elect governments, block funding for medical research, now attempt to block funding for vaccinations, force hearings on whether or not we should teach that Noah had Dinosaurs on the ark in history classes...thats either bigger than "very small" or very very loud.

I will stop now because I can go on all day about how much disdain I have for this country and the direction its going...but its like a drop of rain in the sea really...these stories were on PBS, which nobody watches, or in the newspaper and Americans are at least functionally illiterate...but Britney Spears shaved her head, Anna Nicole Smith died and the Oscars...don't forget the Oscars...

Among the transitioning governments in Africa, Somalia continues its internal struggles to facilitate international aid for two main reasons: Somalia has been without a central government since 1991 and pledged peacekeepers and donations and democracy building programs yield little progress. Although Ethiopian forces have attempted to kill insurgent Islamic forces since December 2006, their goals don't extend beyond expelling a radical Islamic government and they are withdrawing their troops from the capital, Mogadishu. Unfortunately the government consists of Islamic clan leaders and an interim president which demonstrated few, if any initiatives to create democratic elections.
Although the government has had success convincing disarmament of some Islamic clans, the African Union peacekeepers and international financial assistance have not arrived to build and maintain human security initiatives.
The United States is involved in the state's affairs through military movements to contain and expel Al-Qaeda radicals and it is currently operating from bases in Ethiopia.

More info:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/world/africa/21somaliaq.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/23/world/africa/23somalia.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

RE: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/16675629.htm

Personal liberties are severely restricted by nanny-state bills. As a Democrat, I agree that safety is a priority worthy of individual sacrifice, such as hands-free cell phone bill proposed by Sen. Joe Simitian D- Palo Alto in 2006. This bill is based on research and statistics that demonstrate correlations between hand-held cell phones and vehicle accidents. Other bills, however, are ridiculous indicators of government intrusions on privacy and self-determination. Calorie content, shock pens possessed by minors, and smoking in cars? Lobby groups and legislators should stop creating bunkum policies that limit natural freedoms of businesses and individuals for no other reason than to displace the choices that guide their personal lives.

Courtney Hibbard

Pacific Grove

Tennessee is considering a bill to require birth certificates for all aborted fetuses.

Where to begin...

THE GOOD:

"The most preposterous bill I've seen," - Rob Briley, Tennessee State Representative

THE REST:

- Security concerns for women who have abortions because their names will be available to public...
- Can we expect woeful names on certificates like Hope, Mercy, and MyMotherIsAMurderer
- Will the certificates also disclose the father's name? Oh wait, many fathers may be unknown, family members, rape criminals, so... let's just target the mothers -
- Certificates send a negative message to young women about results of using emergency services that treat them as murderers.
- Perhaps Tennessee could formulate a comprehensive birth control program to reduce unintended pregnancies instead of stigmatizing the abortion surgery. Birth control access helps couples make healthy reproductive choices. Women who undergo a forced pregnancy should still be able to have an abortion without negative labeling implied under Tennessee's proposal for fetus death certificates.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/15/us/15brfs-DEATHCERTIFI_BRF.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Does a judicial system that guarantees rights protections for defendants define America's courts today? New York Times columnist Bob Herbert has tracked the unfortunate tale of a young black man wrongly accused of killing a white boy from a bus in Destrehan, LA in 1974. Destrehan town members hosted Klu Klux Klan meetings and protested school integration.

Destrehan High School had been deseggregated and angry white mobs paraded outside the school bus of black children. After Timothy Weber was shot and taken to the hospital, Herbert writes that "No weapon was found, and no evidence to indicate that the shot came forminside the bus,"nonetheless led to a trial for Gary. Gary Tyler is 49 years old and cannot imagine life outside of prison because racism won the Louisiana jury in 1974. Prejudice will continue to triumph justice if the case remains closed, and Gary will serve the rest of his life in a state penitentiary.

"A Death In Destrehan," New York Times February 1, 2007.
"They Beat Gary So Bad," New York Times, February 8, 2007.

Tuition bill isn't best use of money

Assemblyman Jim Beall is making a generous effort to educate young Californians (Page 1A, Jan. 31). Surely his prepaid tuition bill attracts parents, or any patron of higher education. Although 2007 investments may grow at the same rate as state inflation, thereby covering costs of the expected rise in tuition, the state bears any outstanding costs of a student's tuition bill.

I think Californians should be cautious about supporting Beall's tuition bill because the state should not be responsible for covering the undetermined education fees for students. The University of California system boasts high standards, and Californians would benefit more from improved facilities than from the vacillating price tag of future tuition bills.

Courtney Hibbard
Pacific Grove

"The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience. The felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, institutions of public policy, avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow men, have had a good deal more to do than the syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be governed. The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics."

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. of course...

"I hardly agree, therefore, with the opinion of that man who tried to curb the authority of his judges by a multitude of laws, thus cutting their meat up for them. He did not understand that there is as much liberty and latitude in the interpretation as in the making of them. And those men who think they can lessen and check our disputes by referring us to the actual words of the Bible are deluding themselves, since our mind finds just as wide a field for controverting other men's meanings as for delivering its own. Could there be less spite and bitterness in comment than in invention?

We can see how mistaken he (Justinian) was. For we have in France more laws than the rest of the world put together, and more than would be necessary for all the worlds of Epicurus. 'As we once suffered from crimes, so now we suffer from laws' (Tacitus); and yet we have left so much for judges to consider and decide, that there has never been such complete and uncontrolled freedom. What have our legislators gained by picking out a hundred thousand particular cases and deeds, and attaching to them a hundred thousand laws? This number bears no relation to the infinite diversity of human actions. The multiplication of our imaginary cases will never equal the variety of actual examples. Add to these a hundred times as many, and yet no future event will ever be found so to tally, so exactly to fit and match with one out of the many thousand selected and recorded, that there will not remain some circumstance or variation which requires separate consideration and judgment. There is little relation between our actions, which are perpetually changing, and fixed, immutable laws. The most desirable laws are those that are the fewest, simplest, and most general; and I even think that it would be better to be without them altogether than to have them in such numbers as we have them at present."

Michel de Montaigne "On Experience," Essays

I found it interesting that Montaigne took an extended essay on "experience" to discuss the relationship between a legislature and a judiciary. The term "experience" is one with a rich and particular philosophical history. Men like Dewey and James were aware that they were speaking from this tradition when they gave "experience" its prominent role in their Pragmatic philosophy. Emerson wrote an extended, and wonderful, essay entitled "Experience" in 1842. Holmes was well-acquainted with the Pragmatists, so I wonder if he meant something more specific in the above mentioned quote. A little hermeneutical exercise I guess. Dewey used "experience" as the basis for a suggested reform of education, and for all the pragmatists it bore a strong relation to "truth." The fact that Holmes places "experience" as the counterpoint to "logic" or the "syllogism" suggests that he was firmly placed in this tradition that was attacking the ideal or syllogistic nature of truth (the Pragmatic conception of "truth" is considered among the most radical in the history of philosophy).

One may struggle for a long time with Emerson's essay "Fate," until until it is suggested to him/her that Emerson was heavily involved in American Hegelianism, and the German word for fate, Schicksal, especially as used by Hegel, conceptually contains a compatible notion of freedom and necessity. Absolute or "immediate" freedom, in the Hegelian sense, has to be mediated dialectically by determinism before it becomes a useful concept. One is not free unless one is "freed up for their destiny" (if you look back to Kant you see the most developed notion of the tension between freedom and determinism, freedom means nothing unless it means obeying a law you give to yourself, etc..).

Experience was a big catch-phrase in post-Kantian German thought. Erlebnis or erleben (experience or to experience) had become cache, extending on the "aesthetic experience" to suggest that life itself was to be considered as merely the lived-experience (the root Leben is "life" of course...er-leben is like "living-through"). I wonder what it would be like to do a thorough and hermeneutical reading of Holmes' The Common Law. It would be interesting to place it in the context of American Pragmatism, and its given place in a dialogue with European, and particularly German, thought (because I think German thought, with a touch of British Empiricism, was the most important source for American Pragmatism, but also because German thought is what I know). I think Holmes was involved in a much richer philosophical consideration of jurisprudence and judgment than that for which he is given credit.

Historically the rise of the "life-experience" (Erlebnis) philosophies grew out of an extension of Kant's 3rd Critique, or the Critique of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft). Kant had inadvertently subjectivized the aesthetic experience. When later Romantic thought extended the idea of the aesthetic to encompass the whole of experience, and removed the transcendental-ideal underpinnings of Kant's work, the relationship between judgment and experience was sewn even tighter. Later, thinkers like Heidegger and Gadamer attacked these radically subjective notions of experience and judgment (Heidegger altogether replaced the "experience" of the individual in his later work with the "event of Being," Ereignis). In this later work the so-called faculties; knowing, thinking, judging and experience are all tied together and de-centered.

We never "know," rather we recognize (to know-erkennen, and to recognize-weidererkennen--"Rather when we say 'to know' [erkennen] we mean "to recognize" [ weidererkennen], that is, to pick something out [herauserkennen] of the stream of images flowing past as being identical). Knowing, being the result of thinking (denken), which is always actually a remembering (andenken), or a thinking backward that projects itself forward so that we can have that moment of identity that happens in recognition (weidererkennen) that we call "knowing" (erkennen ). Aristotle called this moment the epagoge where the universal is formed. The formation of the universal or concept has been problematic to epistemology from day one. What I am suggesting, following Heidegger and Gadamer, is that it is a circular process so it is not amenable to the linear "rational" process that the Tradition has tried to squeeze it into, both formally and substantially (see above Holmes inveighing against axiomatic conceptions of judgment).

What is the basis of the formation of this identity, traditionally it is called "judgment" (Urteilskraft), the process by which the particular is subsumed by the universal, or the universal is built up from a series of particulars (according to Kant, the first is the judgment of logic and the second is the aesthetic judgment...both are problematic). Judgment and understanding ( Verstand or verstehen as either the noun or verb) are traditionally linked, and this is especially drawn out in the work of Heidegger and Gadamer considering the "hermeneutic circle." According to Heidegger, our understanding is fore-structured. This means, for instance, that when we enter a room we do not get hit with a mass of sensations (say a series of odors) that calls up a concept, Cake, that we then apply to the series of odors and say, "we have apprehended a particular cake in this room." (See above, the up and down judgment of aesthetics and then logic). Heidegger suggests that our understanding goes before us, and this fore-structuring is a basic characteristic of our Being as the "being that understands." Gadamer follows this with his rehabilitation of the term "pre-judice" ( Vorurteil--fore-judgment). Our judgments always relate back to a prior judgment that is made in order to apprehend the thing. It is the understanding that goes before us in order to facilitate recognition or knowing in any meaningful sense (the words for under-standing...that which stands under, verstehen or förstå...to stand before..these words hold a clue to this be-fore or grounding nature of the concept of understanding).

As an aside, this is groundless...of course, its the searching for a "ground" that is cast aside in taking up a circular or "experiential" conception of judgment, over a syllogistic one (which is also groundless despite requiring a ground). This is dealt with, but outside the scope of this brief outline. Early on, Heidegger just suggests that our kind of being, Dasein, is itself groundless. Its not a mere postulate, but requires quite a bit of understanding. Briefly though, if you consider these "faculties" to bear a very intimate relationship to language, then you can see that we are never able to get behind or above language in order to find its proper source or ground. We are always in it if we are exercising knowing, understanding and judging in any human sense. This provides us with an irreducible perspective, the corner we stand in to ascertain the other three corners. This is also why the origin of language has always been explained with a series of myths, "In the beginning there was the Word," man is naturally " zoon ekon logon" (forgive my bad romanized Greek) or the animal with language...on the way to language we are truly dealing with an a-poros, or "no way." The point is that the groundlessness is essential to the whole project and not a defect.

Finally, and tying up this long musing on Holmes, judgment and experience. What is it that grounds our fore-understanding or pre-judices that make understanding and judgment possible? It is the much vaunted experience (in later Heidegger it is the "event of being" or Ereignis that sends our delivers a destined "understanding of being"...interesting, but a little too mystical and, as I have argued before, authoritarian). But it is no longer the life-experience of the solipsistic Romantic subject, rather it is the common understanding that comes from being finite and placed historical beings...it is our "destiny" by being in a particular (specifically linguistic) history (interestingly, history, Geschichte, and destiny, Geschick, are easy to play on poetically in German).

So we are back toward the beginning...The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience. It is the dialogue that we are that provides the basis for this experience. I used to be asked whether or not I had problems with the undemocratic undertones of judicial Realism. I always said no, though I could not quite say why. I said that it had a kind of aesthetic or charismatic beauty to it that had a tendency to draw me in. That which is beautiful is per se communicable in the tradition of thought I come from. It is beautiful because a community of people agree from some "sense of community" (sensus communis) that the thing is beautiful. Here we have the aesthetic judgment, which I have always been guilty of Romanticizing. I think I was intuitively on to something then though, I simply did not have the conceptual framework for it.

The role of the judge, the pragmatic and to a lesser extent Realist judge, is not undemocratic because the life of the law has been experience . Our experience is the from-where that we cast forward when knowing, understanding and judging. This common understanding is free and democratic as a matter of semantics because it is the historical sending of a real and situated set of peoples. Finally, to quote Gadamer at length:

"I am trying to call attention here to a common experience. We say, for instance, that understanding and misunderstanding take place between I and thou. But the formation 'I an thou' already betrays an enormous alienation. There is nothing like an 'I and a thou' at all--there is neither the I nor the thou as isolated, substantial realities. I may say 'thou' and I may refer to myself over and against a thou, but a common understanding [ Verständigung] always precedes these situations. We all know that to say 'thou' to someone presupposes a deep common accord [ tiefes Einverständnis]. Something enduring is already present when this word is spoken. When we try to reach agreement on a matter on which we have different opinions, this deeper factor always comes into play, even if we are seldom aware of it."

The experiential approach to jurisprudence pre-empts the breaking up of common experience into ideal analytic units and then applying them to an alienated Object, he who stands before the Law. So, after that lengthy comment, I would like to know if a full theory of jurisprudence might lie in embryonic form in Holmes' writings that can take account of the tradition and development of Western philosophy, which Holmes was embedded in and aware of. Whether or not it might be more "democratic" and in touch with liberty than the 18th century formal notions we deploy these days. Finally, whether or not it might undercut the radical sidetrack of postmodernism (the logical conclusion of Romantic 19th century aestheticizes and subjectivizing of all things).

This article is fascinating because Mr. Ye makes the most precise depiction of the war on terror that I have read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/world/asia/02china.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The Center for Citizenship and Immigration Services will increase applications for citizenship by almost 80%. The reasons for the large increase will cover the costs of revising the immigration database and processing procedures to accommodate digital technology. These fees are not a mere $50, rather about ten times that amount. And the application is only one document required for US citizenship. Establishing residency and registration of an immigrant child or partner are equally high expenses for immigrant salaries.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/washington/01immig.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


"MPI is establishing a center that will provide research, policy design, leadership development, and technical assistance and training on integration issues to government officials and community leaders." One hopes that the new facility will generate strong grassroots efforts for immigrant protections in order to influence a temperate increase in requirements.
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/usimmigration.php

and the new fact sheet: http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/FS15_CitizenshipFees2007.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/arts/31jews.html?em&ex=1170478800&en=f441c119cb1ee51a&ei=5087%0A

A "furor" eh? I can think of some more appropriate words.