RED DAWN (AGAIN) IN BEANTOWN
HOW THE MEDIA DEPOLITICIZES POLITICS
FIRE REFUGEES HARRASSED IN CALIFORNIA

My dad was on the phone from Boston. He was watching the Red Sox arrive like conquering heroes at Logan Airport. It was all live. Half the town was there. Trafiic was super snarled. It was if the world stopped as the city goes nuts again. I am so happy that the boys of beantown won the series—imagine what it would be like if the right-wing folks in Coors country were triumphant.

ABC reported: “The city is planning a rolling rally Tuesday from Fenway to City Hall Plaza. The parade will pause in three spots Copley Square, the Boston Common and City Hall Plaza so closer Jonathan Papelbon can dance his wacky Irish jig.

The parade will follow the same route as the one from 2004, except it won’t venture into the Charles River, Mayor Thomas Menino said Monday. Menino said accommodations had to be made for fans to see Papelbon.
“He has to do a dance,” Menino said. “He promised the people he would do a dance.”

Earlier the Globe reported in language that showed again how much more passionate sports writing is than turgid news prose:

After the final out, thousands of Sox fans convened behind the third base dugout and lingered for more than an hour, standing, chanting, and saluting their champions. The first “Yankees suck” chorus broke out 22 minutes after the game ended.

“For us to come through and do what we thought we were capable of doing is unbelievable,” said Lowell. “Our manager didn’t panic, the players didn’t panic, the coaches didn’t panic. We knew if we just kept playing the baseball that we know we can play, we’ll be all right.”

The national pastime (past bedtime, actually) was played three years and one day after the champagne bath that cleansed 86 years of a region’s pain in 2004…. How do New England parents explain to children there was a time when local sports fans endured failure and collapse and actually waited for a rare championship season to unfold?

In October of 2007, the streets of Boston are paved with gold and this week those streets will be packed with the legions of Red Sox Nation, saluting the World Champion Boston Red Sox. Again”

I was there for the Red Sox Nation parade last time. Believe it or not, the Mass Pike was free for the day. I never saw that again.

JEFF STEIN: Another Homeland Boondoggle in the Works

BANKS TO CUSTOMERS: DROP DEAD

HAY SHORTAGE TAKES ITS TOLL ON HORSES

BLACKWATER GUARDS GIVEN IMMUNITY

No wonder they weren’t worried. Legitgov.org reports a story NOT reported by 60 Minutes when Lara Logan gave Blackwater Chief Eric Prince a virtual free ride:

Immunity Deal Hampers Blackwater Criminal Inquiry

Bodyguards Given Immunity In Deadly Shooting 29 Oct 2007 The State Department promised Blackwater USA bodyguards mercenaries immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month’s deadly shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians, The Associated Press has learned. The immunity deal has delayed a criminal inquiry into the Sept. 16 killings and could undermine any effort to prosecute security contractors for their role in the incident war crime that has infuriated the Iraqi government.

RAIN: ISRAEL– Dr. Azmi Bishara: Getting your victims to love you

* A Palestinian thinker and a former member of the Israeli Knesset comments. I am running this in part because I met and was very impressed with Bishara at a media conference.

If you want to understand the magnitude of the Palestinian tragedy and the depths of their dilemma take a look at the recent decree issued by the Israeli Ministry of Education which in essence asks Jewish and Arab schoolchildren to sign the Israeli declaration of independence as part of the celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel.

In a statement distributed to the schools the ministry’s Society and Youth Administration set the following objectives for the jubilee: “To commemorate the passage of 60 years since the establishing of the state of Israel in the Arab and Jewish educational system; to strengthen the sense of belonging to, pride in and love for the 60-year-old state among all who attend educational institutes; to help all Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze and other youth to form a clear vision of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state; to inspire a sense of responsibility and social commitment among the young and to encourage them to become active participants in the affairs of society.”

A quick glance at this text is sufficient to realize that there are no Palestinian Arabs in Israel; they are to be Israelis first, and “Muslims, Christians, Druze and others” second. The Arab student, according to this inspirational educational aim, is to love Israel, be Israeli and feel proud — no more, no less. How commendable such a memorandum would be if distributed (with the appropriate nationality change) to fledgling citizens in Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere. In Israel, though, it would be hard to come up with a more grotesque document.

There is a very persistent mode of colonialism at work here. It was not enough for this colonialist drive to seize a people’s land, kick out the inhabitants, bring others to take their place and destroy the fabric of an entire society, and then justify this on the grounds of a divine promise while, in the same breath and with the same degree of sincerity, regarding itself as a secular national liberation movement. No, it insists that its victim must admire it and recognise not only its existence but its historical legitimacy. It is determined to imprint itself beneath its victims’ skin through the ritual signing of a declaration of independence that simultaneously celebrates their own defeat.,..

INVESTMENT NEWS; MICROFIANNCE IS NOW IN

A ‘very businesslike way’ to reduce world poverty
By Jeff Benjamin

An expanding network for facilitating extremely small loans to the poorest of the world’s poor has spawned a social investment opportunity aimed at financial advisers and their wealthier clients.

While some advisers are unfamiliar with — or leery of — the idea of designating client assets as collateral for so-called microfinance, the non-profit MicroCredit Enterprises LLC is rapidly gaining converts.

“This is something I talk regularly about to my clients, because I view it as an exceptional model,” said Jolie Bales, a San Francisco-based managing director with U.S. Trust Bank of America Private Wealth Management.

The primary appeal to high-end wealth advisers such as Ms. Bales is that the business model leverages “hidden assets” to fuel the loans, which are usually less than $400, by using client assets not as donations, but as collateral that is tapped only in the event of a loan default.

Founded three years ago in Sacramento, Calif., MicroCredit Enterprises, a virtual company run almost entirely by volunteers, has attracted most of its 30 guarantors — each putting up $1 million in collateral — over the past 18 months.